Author note: what's this?! yeah i know. im starting another story without finishing Two Roads Diverge. but what can you do!

there will be some mild yaoi. which means boyxboy. dont like dont read. that easy. also. the main pair is AkuRoku but there may be some SoRiku or Zemyx. maybe others. there will b some violence so the rating may go up depending on what you think.

hopefully i will be able to update this regularly and be able to work with TRD. now without further ado.. please enjoy


Freak, they called him. Abnormality. Liar. You're doing it just to get attention you punk, they said to him. They jeered at him, completely ignoring the damage they were causing to his already fragile psyche.

It's not normal, they'd say, to wear a jacket, a scarf and warm jeans on a day where the weather was seventy-five degrees. It wasn't normal to take a trip to the middle of the desert to just sit or run around in the one hundred and fifteen degree heat because he said it felt good, normal even. It wasn't normal to be huddled around your fireplace with a cup of hot coffee on a warm summer evening because he was freezing in the sixty-degree weather.

But he had to live with it. He'd had to live with it all his life.

This was daily life for Axel Feuer. He had always been this way; his body running several degrees warmer than an average human being. It had caused him nothing but pain. For years he had struggled with his abnormality and the other students around him had not helped. In fact, their daily dose of spite had only made him bitter against the world, bitter against those who were supposed to love him, bitter against those who dared to think he was anything other than an eighteen-year-old boy in his senior year of high school.

And at present, that's where he was; slouched over, staring at the ground and hurrying through the lunchroom to his usual table far in the corner. He plopped down with a small thump, and dumped his black messenger bag on the table in front of him, pulling out the bright green apple that served as his lunch for that day.

As the fiery redhead replaced his bag on the floor, he saw the only group of people he didn't completely resent quickly making their way towards him.

His friends.

Or rather, friends due to circumstance.

They were all like him. Jeered at, excluded, mocked, all because they were slightly different than most of the students at the school.

There was Xemnas, the silver haired leader. His jewel like, golden eyes were always looking out for his friends, trying to lessen any blow coming their way. As always, he was dressed in black, wearing sunglasses even in the dimmed light of the cafeteria. His eyes were cat like, giving him amazing vision in the dark, but he was extremely light sensitive, preferring to stay in the dark as much as possible. Though no matter how much he wanted to look out for his friends, he was impaired with his great dislike, even fear of crowds, preferring to be on his own or with one or two of his friends.

Next was Zexion. The shortest and undoubtedly the smartest in the school, though no one else would admit it. Most of the school feared the small man. He was a master of mystery, a genius of illusion seeing as his father had been a world famous magician and before his death due to accident, he had taught Zexion many things and the young boy had excelled.

But that wasn't what the students feared the most about the slate haired man; they feared his voice. When he read things aloud from books, magazines, anything, strange things would happen that students couldn't explain. Things would change in ways that had people thinking they were dreaming.

Walking beside the young man was Vexen, scientist extraordinaire. The tall blonde was a wiz at anything science and was never far from a scientific essay he was fighting to prove or disprove, or from a usually non-school regulated experiment. He also had a problem similar to Axels. His body ran several degrees lower than most other students. He was considered the freak of the north, the man who would walk around in the winter snow with a tank top on and feel just fine. He was called a liar, just someone who was looking to impress others.

Finally, trailing somewhat behind the others, was Saïx, glaring at anyone and anything. He was the most feared of them all. He was considered the dangerous one, well, the most dangerous. He had a split personality. Usually, he was just an average eighteen year old, maybe a little more loyal to his friends than most but still pretty average, but there were certain times when he switched to a violent, destructive being. His changes occurred around once a month at varying points in the month. No one was certain what triggered the change but the small triage had learned to live with it.

They were all vastly different but through their differences they found something in common that drew them together and lessened their pain of rejection.

As the groups sat down, Axel looked up from his apple and allowed a small smile to flit across his face.

"Hey guys. What's up?" The others took their usual seats around the table: Zexion to Axel's left with Vexen to left, and Xemnas and Saïx sitting side by side across from the redhead.

"Someone tried to trip Zex in the hallway and Xemnas almost launched himself at the idiot," Saïx said, running a hand tiredly through his blue hair. "He would have gotten another suspension if I hadn't held him back."

"The guy was asking for it!" Xemnas exploded, pounding his fist down on the table, jarring Zexion who had been lying with his head down. He looked up and glared at Xemnas through his hair, which was, as usual, swept in front of his eye.

"Sorry, Zex, but he shouldn't have tried it! I am so sick of people thinking we are sub-human or something just because we are… slightly different," he said, suppressing a shudder.

Saïx patted his closest friends shoulder reassuringly before diving into his sandwich.

"You know," Vexen said through his chilled yogurt, "If you guys would just let me use them for one experiment, I bet they would leave us alone."

"Sure," Zexion said, swiveling his head to look at his friend, "then what are you gonna do when you end up in jail because you caused them permanent damage?"

"I am always in complete control of my experiments, thank you very much Mr. Iliuzija. Nothing goes wrong with them unless I want it to. I don't have the second highest GPA in this Godforsaken school for no reason."

"That's what we are worried about, Vexen," Axel said, scrounging around for the last few bits of edible fruit on his apple. "You don't like them, they don't like us, they say something and you 'accidentally' pour the wrong chemical and they go poof." He made a wild arm gesture that caused the others to finally loosen up and laugh along with their friend.

Vexen glared and grumbled something crude before returning to his lunch. The others ate in silence as well before Xemnas broke the silence.

"Did you hear about the new students we are supposed to be getting tomorrow?"

This earned the attention of all the boys sitting at the table. Their small school in Twilight Town never got new students.

Twilight Town was just one of those places you never left nor did you ever go there. When you were born there, you never left. You had your children there, and they had their children there and so on through the generations. You went to the elementary school, the middle school, the high school then eventually graduated from the local college; all of your schooling complete without ever stepping out of the city limits

Of course, sometimes you had the odd ones, or the smart ones, who left, or the lost ones who arrived but mostly you grew old and died with the people you were born with. You married the girl down the street then moved over one neighborhood to start your family.

So of course, when a new family came, especially when a new family with new kids came, everyone knew and everyone was excited.

"Yeah, and it's a pretty big family too," Xemnas said, leaning in. "Oddest part? No parents."

"What?" Zexion's face abandoned its emotionless façade in favor of looking shocked. In all of Twilight Town, he, Axel and Vexen were the only ones without real parents. Well, not entirely true. They were the only ones in the high school. They had heard rumors that some of the kids in the cities college shared their fate but it was never proven.

"Yeah. Apparently, there are four kids. Ones a junior but in all advanced classes, two are twins and in our grade and they live with their older brother who will be going to the college."

"How do you know this?" Saïx questioned, looking at the silver haired teen. "Shouldn't only the office know about this?"

Xemnas threw his friend a tired look. "And who happens to be an office aid for this term?"

"Well when you put it that way," Axel smirked he chucked his apple into the trash bin a few feet from their table. "Why do you figure they're coming here?"

"Yeah, it's not like people come here everyday," Zexion added.

"Well how should I know! I'm an office aid, not a fly on the conference room wall. But I did hear something." Xemnas said, leaning in so only those at the table could hear him.

"I heard that all four of them had been having 'problems' at their old school," he said, raising an eyebrow at the word 'problems' like it was the magic word.

"So?" Saïx said, reclining in his chair. "Maybe they were bullies, or they have learning deficiencies."

"Yeah, Xem. Just because someone has problems doesn't automatically make the… like us," Vexen put in.

"That's not it," Xemnas insisted. "The way they said it, it was like they were worried about their wellbeing, and the wellbeing of those around them."

"And that makes them like us how?" Axel asked, raising one ridiculously short red eyebrow.

"Well, look around you, Axel. Not only do the kids at this school hate us and make fun of us, but they're scared of us. Even he teachers don't know what to do with us."

"But what did we ever do to deserve this?" Vexen asked, desperately. "Yeah, me and Axel have these weird body temperature issues and you guys have your weird quirks but I honestly don't understand why people shy away from us like we'll kill them."

Xemnas put a hand on his friend's arm and looked at him calmly.

"None of us understand, Vexen, and I doubt we ever will. But we have to be prepared for these guys, if they are like us, we have to be able to help them. We didn't ask for this and I doubt they did either."

The five all shared a look and silence fell over the table as the friends finished their lunches, each lost in their own thoughts.

The bell rang signaling the end of lunch and the five parted ways, each hurrying to their own classes, ready for two more hours of torture before they were allowed to leave their prison to the questionable safety of their own homes.

Wonderful, isn't it?

----------------

As usual, Axel was bombarded the moment he walked through the door.

"Welcome home, Axel. How was school?"

"Hi, Aunt Sylvie. Same old, same old."

His Aunt nodded in his general direction as Axel walked through the kitchen and family room to the stairs that led to his basement room, the only room in the house that you could have the heater running all year without it affecting the rest of the house.

"Oh, Axel?" Aunt Sylvie called, as he opened his door.

"Yes?"

"Was Kairi with you when you got on the bus?"

Ah, Kairi. Axel's perfect, completely normal cousin. After an accident at his home stole his parents from him, Axel came to live with his Aunt and cousin. Wasn't that just a joyride?

"Yeah, she was on the bus but she got off at Selphie's house. Something about a project. She said she'd call you at four if she was staying later."

"Oh, alright. Thank you sweetie."

Axel nodded even though he knew his aunt couldn't see. Though even if she could see, he doubted she would look at him. And it wasn't like he blamed her, he thought as he relaxed onto his bed, still fully dressed in his jacket, after turning up the thermostat. After all, it was his fault that she had to care for her misfit nephew all the while dealing with her messy divorce, it was his fault she had to deal with the trouble he got into at school.

Axel closed his eyes and raked a hand through his hair as the warm air from the heater washed over him at ninety degrees, feeling more comfortable than he had all day.

He felt tears prick at his closed eyelids and felt his throat close up. He opened his bright green eyes and let a single tear fall over his tattooed cheeks.

It was his fault, all of it. He could understand if she wanted nothing to do with him.

After all.

Axel had killed her sister, brother-in-law and newborn baby niece.

so yeah! the first chap. what do you think? id love to know so please review and tell me your thoughts. id love your help.

mizzmoris out!