A/N: Xion may seem a bit out of character in this. This chapter is also rather heavy-part of why Xion may seem a bit out of character in this. Her personality in this story will be very stern and intellectual, at times, but clever and perhaps even silly at others.

Just a heads up.

"Hey everyone, this is Xion, my girlfriend."

Except I wasn't her girlfriend; I was never her girlfriend nor anyone else's girlfriend, because I didn't qualify for such a title, such a position, such as to be someone's girlfriend.

"Nice to meet you, Xion," a blond boy with spiky hair said, grinning.

"I was wondering when we'd get to see your face," another boy, this one with long spiky red hair, said as he pinched one of my cheeks.

"Hey, back off my chick, Axel. You've got your own."

"I'm not a girl," the blond said to Larxene, frowning.

Larxene rolled her eyes as she draped her arms around my shoulders, her chin resting on my head. I envied her height. "Whatever, kid," she said. "Xion, the girl in denial is Roxas, and his ginger boyfriend is Axel."

"I'm not ginger! I'm a redhead!"

"Same thing," she said, shoving herself off me. "What've you guys been up to?"

"Luxord scored some vodka and rum," Axel said, stretching. "We waited to see if you were gonna show before we got too shit-faced to move."

"How considerate," Larxene said, holding a hand over her heart. "I'm touched."

Axel raised an eyebrow. "We didn't do it for you," he said. "We wanted to meet your new victim."

"Oh shush. She's not a victim. Right, babe?"

I'm not a she. "Right."

"Whoa, it speaks!"

I was doing it again; sitting and watching rather than experiencing. I scanned every inch of the poster-covered walls, every follicle of hair on the blonde head in my lap. I had determined the face shape of all the other occupants of the dark room- Axel was square, Roxas was a 'perfect' oval, Larxene was heart, as was Luxord, and Marluxia's face was most likely diamond shaped, though since his hair obscured much of his face from view, it was debatable...

"You don't talk much," Roxas said. The blond boy was the only person other than me who hadn't resolved to get wasted on a Wednesday night.

"No, I don't," I said in response.

"Why not?"

"I don't like my voice."

"Why not? Your voice is pretty."

"It's not right."

"Oh...I can relate to that, I guess."

"You can?"

"Ha, yeah-don't tell anyone, okay?" I nodded. "I'm, ah, transsexual. Female to male, really."

"You are?" I scanned his face over again. He was pretty-he looked maybe fifteen, but I definitely didn't see anything that struck me as female.

"I've been on T for four years now," he said, grinning. "I'm post-op, too."

I blinked. "How old are you?"

"Twenty-two."

I blinked and sputtered. "There's no way! You are not twenty-two."

"Hah, you got me. I'm only twenty."

"Are you shitting me?"

"Nope. I get this a lot, actually-have all my life."

"Yeah, no shit- you look like you're fifteen."

"I still get kids menus at restaurants," he said, grinning. He tucked a strand of blond hair behind his ear. He had pretty hair. I liked blonds. "Have you, er...told Larxene?"

"Told her what?"

"Uh-about your, you know... gender."

"I'm...I'm not-"

"Oh, geez, this is awkward, stupid Roxas, going and assuming things-"

"No, no, I mean... I am a boy, I just... I don't want to tell her."

"She wouldn't really care," Roxas said, shrugging. "She'll do anything that can touch her."

I smiled and ran my fingers through my unconscious girlfriend's hair. "I know. I just don't think I'll stick around long enough for it to matter."

Roxas frowned at that. "Why not?"

I shrugged. "What I have with her...is only temporary. We're graduating this year-she's going off to a college in another state, and I'm staying here."

"There's always long distance."

"Yeah, right-because Larxene would be able to handle that," I said, rolling my eyes. "I'm already over it."

"Over her?"

I shrugged. "I don't think I was ever really into her. She was just kinda there, you know?"

Roxas nodded. "Yeah-I get it. I've had a few relationships like that," he said, stretching. "I dated a lot of really pretty girls before I met Ax and realized I was totally gay for him."

I grinned. "You two are cute together-even if he looks like a pedophile."

"I'm older than him," Roxas said, smirking. "By about 7 months."

"You're full of surprises," I said, shaking my head. "I don't think I've met someone who's blown my mind as many times in the span of an hour as you have."

"Well, you know-life's a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get."

"I hate chocolate."

"You're not normal."

Roxas was right. I wasn't normal. I was a seventeen year old boy stuck in the body of a seventeen year old female. I was quiet and dull, too hesitant to be who I wanted to be. I envied Larxene and her rambunctious, rowdy ways. I could never be as vulgar and free-spirited as her.

I was private and distant, too afraid to let people see what was inside; too afraid to face it myself. No one could come in, I just wouldn't let them.

I wasn't surprised when Larxene OD'd, to be honest. I'd always been told that those who lived fast died fast-and Larxene was just another example of that.

I was...shaken, though, all the same-my girlfriend of three months and friend of two years was dead. Of course I was shaken up-and of course I mourned her. I just... felt kind of hollow for a while. It wasn't particularly depressing, I guess, but I did fall into depression.

They say that for some people, it only takes one thing to push them off the edge and into the depths of the ocean-and I guess that Larxene's death was that one thing for me, because I found myself swept away in no time, unable to tell up from down and days from nights.

They put me in therapy after they found me collapsed on my bedroom floor bleeding to death from the large gashes on my breast. The nerve and tissue damage was severe enough that I got what I wanted-they removed a large portion of the breast tissue so that the wound would be under less stress from the weight of what was once a 30DDD. I was now flat-chested, which is how it was supposed to be.

It was a stupid thing to do.

Roxas came to visit me while I was in the hospital, occasionally dragging Axel along with him. They didn't care that I was in a mental ward, nor that they had only known me for a little over two months as anything other than 'Larxene's pet.' It was nice to be treated as a human being for once, not just that weird kid who never speaks and stares at the wall all day.

Even if that was essentially who I was.

"This is our last session," my therapist, a man named Vexen who honestly gave me the heebie-jeebies, said. "Are you going to tell me why you did it?"

I drummed my fingers on the arm rest and shrugged. "It was bothering me. I didn't want to deal with them-they didn't belong there anyways."

"What do you mean, 'they didn't belong there anyways'?"

"We've been over this-I'm a boy, not a girl."

"So, just because you feel you are a boy, you feel the need to go to drastic measures in order to make your body less-dare I say-flawed?"

"...well, I guess you can put it that way if you want."

"So you realize that you exhibit symptoms of Bodily Dysmorphic Disorder, which can be treated with cognitive therapy?"

"It's passed my mind a few times, but... is it really the same thing? I know how I feel my body should be, but it isn't actually that way-and I want to make my body mine."

"So you feel that your body is not your own?"

"I feel that my body doesn't match how I feel it should. It's my body, but it's not done changing yet. I'm still growing, if you will."

"I see," he said, nodding. "I'm going to give you the name of a colleague of mine who specializes in cases like your own," Vexen scribbled some indiscernible script onto a paper and handed it to me.

"Yexior Fodniza?"

"Zexion Rodrigo."

"Oh. That makes more sense, I guess," I said, blinking as I shoved the paper into the pocket of my black tennis shorts. "Thanks."

I spent one more night in the mental ward,-the one for kids, because I was only seventeen,-before going home with my mother, who was never really not supportive, but all the same never really showed much support. My brother Vanitas made fun of me as soon as I stepped into the threshold of our more-than-humble abode, calling me a dyke and subsequently earning a blow to the face from my fist.

This was a normal occurrence between us.

I got along with Zexion well. He was similar to me in that we spent the first three minutes of our 63-minute session simply taking the other in. His hair was slate blue with highlights of lavender and low-lights of deep navy, chopped most likely with a razor to create an intricate mesh of spikes in what would be an otherwise bland hairstyle. Only one eye was exposed, and it was a deep azure, surrounded by eyelashes of many different colours (making his natural hair colour unknown) and skin that despite being pale held a slight yellow tinge to it. He had an oval face shape, with a feminine chin that led to small yet strong shoulders covered in a black shirt with a blue tie, a black suit jacket resting on the back of his chair. He wasn't much taller than me, but his hands and feet were rather large. Judging from the size of his ring finger in correlation with his index, I guessed that the small silver band on said ring finger was from a husband, not a wife.

Analyzing people was always something I'd been good at.

"You received less prenatal testosterone than the average male," I stated simply, breaking our silence.

"How observant of you," he said, smiling slightly. "I suspect that your analysis runs much deeper than that, however I must commend you for your ability to break the ice."

"Thank you."

"So, Xion-may I call you that?- Doctor Vexen has faxed me your records; he says that you suffer from what we in the psychology world used to call Gender Identity Disorder. Do you condone this statement?"

"I suppose."

"Sorry-I'm asking if you feel that you are, in fact, male, not female."

"I know," I said, propping my ankle up on my knee. "I suppose you could call it whatever you'd like, as you can also do with me-I don't really have a say in what terms you use."

"Have you been looking into any other names?"

"Not really."

"Are you content with your current name?"

"Not really."

"It helps if you answer more precisely."

"You aren't asking questions that require me to go into detail."

"Touche," he said, smiling slightly. "It is, however, completely acceptable and even encouraged that you launch into a full-winded explanation of your answers and feelings on the matter."

"Okay. Ask more complicated questions, then."

"If you were to change your name, what would you change it to?"

I frowned. "Xino," I said, shrugging. "Half the time it's what I write anyways."

"Funny, that-misspelling one's own name."

"I'm dyslexic. It happens."

"Do you feel that your learning disability hinders your relationships with people?"

"No, I think it just makes me bad at reading and writing."

Zexion chuckled slightly at that. "How did you fare in school? Did you do well, or did you struggle? What about friendships, or relationships?"

"I dunno-I slept a lot, maintained over a 3.2, and never did my homework," I said, shrugging. "I had a couple friends, and a few relationships—nothing too serious-though after Larxene died I haven't really had any interest in relationships."

"Do you want to talk about her?"

"Not really."

"Okay. Do you stay in touch with any of your old friends from school?"

"Hm, not really. We were never particularly close; the people I consider my friends now are a lot closer."

"Tell me about them."

"Well...they were Larxene's friends. At first they didn't really think of me as anything more than another of her conquests, because to be honest that's really all I was," I said, shaking my head. "But while Rox's boyfriend and Larxene were baked or wasted or otherwise inebriated and lost to the world, we would talk. He's pretty cool- I look up to him."

"Would you say that you envy him?"

"Yeah-a little. He's post-op and been on Testosterone for a while, so I kind of look at him as a role-model, I guess."

"And you said you're closer to these friends than your ones from school?"

"Yeah-they're the ones who were right beside me when we lost her, and Rox is the one who came and visited me when I was in the hospital and the psych ward."

"I see," he said, nodding. He glanced at the clock briefly. "Do you trust them?"

I paused. "Yeah... I guess I do-more than the people I went to school with."

Zexion nodded. "Do you feel that they support you?"

"Yeah-of course. They're my best friends, and Roxas went through all this already-we have something in common and he can sympathize with what I'm going through."

"What do you do in your spare time?"

"That was subtle." I looked at my shoes. "I stare at walls, or I draw-sometimes write, but nothing I care much for."

It went like that for fifteen more minutes, and then time was up. "Is he nice?"

Zexion blinked. "Is who nice?"

"Your husband."

"How did you-"

"Your fingers."

Zexion stared at me briefly, fingers twitching. "He's very nice."

I smiled. "I'm glad for you," I said. "I'll see you next week."

"Yes-I'll see you then as well. Take care."

"You too."