Our Manga
Chapter One: The Novelist
I always had an exceptional talent for writing.
When I was ten, I entered a writing contest underage during summer vacation out of sheer boredom. While I was writing, I felt more alive than I ever did when I did anything else. That was all that mattered. When the results came in, I found out that I had come in first place. Oddly enough, it didn't feel nearly as exciting as when I was actually writing.
When my parents found out about it, they were angry at first. Then, when they saw the potential I had, they began to encourage my skills, and they did everything they could to help them grow. It was only a year later, after I had released my first web novel, that I realized why they were being so helpful.
"Why did you release your novel online for free?! You could've made so much money!" my father yelled at me.
"I don't want money," I replied simply.
"Nonsense!" my mother shouted. "Why wouldn't you want money?! We're in dire straits as it is! You must understand that, and you must want to help us with earnings from your books, right?!"
I couldn't understand what they meant by that at the time, but my "older brother", Sora, apparently did.
Just then, my brother walked into the room.
"You were just using his skills so that you could get the cash he made, weren't you?" he shouted. "It would be his money anyway!"
"No, you two are minors, so anything you have technically belongs to us," our father said in a businessman-like tone.
"That's low!" Sora argued back. "You're terrible people! You were just using my brother!"
"He's not even your brother!" my mother shouted. "He was adopted at birth, remember? His parents didn't even want him!"
"Is this… true, brother?" I asked Sora, tears building up in my eyes.
Sora only looked down, his expression grim.
I turned around so that they wouldn't see my tears. Then, I realized that the front door was right in front of me. I quickly opened it and ran outside into the night. I heard my "family" calling after me, but I didn't stop.
"They don't even care about me!" I shouted as I ran. "No one does!"
Then, I heard footsteps running towards me. By the sound of them, I knew it had to be—
"Leave me alone, Sora!"
"Roxas, wait!"
"You knew the whole time, and you kept it from me! All of you knew! You didn't even care enough to tell me the truth!"
"But that's exactly why we didn't tell you! We didn't want to see you get like this!"
"You're lying!"
Then, I saw a light coming towards me, and then I heard a honking sound. I felt a hand grip my arm, pulling me back just in time to avoid getting hit by a car.
"Sora… you saved me…" I whispered.
"Of course!" he said, smiling. "That's what siblings are for! Now, let's go back home!"
I reluctantly agreed, which is something I've come to regret my whole life.
When we arrived home half an hour later, I saw a horrific sight.
Blood painted the parts of the walls a dark crimson. Looking to the floor, I found two people lying there limply, their bodies barely recognizable to me. But when I did recognize them…
"Mom…? Dad…?"
Blood oozed from the cuts that covered their bodies. Their eyes were still open, looking dull and lifeless.
Sora ran to the house phone, seeing as we didn't have cellphones, and called the police. When they supposedly picked up, he began talking in a hysterical tone.
The police arrived soon after, and then we were left to gather our things and go. We became orphans for a month, living on the streets, but then…
"Roxas, look over there!" Sora shouted, pointing a finger at a sign to my left.
I looked at the sign, reading it over.
Talent Garden
Where your talents will flourish
Accepting children between ages ten and eighteen
Notice: must have special talent to enter program
"That's our meal ticket!" Sora exclaimed. "We can use your talent for writing to get in!"
"If it gets me food…" I said emotionlessly, my stomach growling furiously at the thought of a nice, filling meal.
When we tried to enter, my brother telling the front desk about my talent, they laughed at us.
"A ratty boy like him having talent in story writing?" the desk lady said, giving us a laugh.
"Give him a computer and he'll show you!"
"Pfft! As if I'd let a street rat like him touch a computer!"
"What's all this racket?" an elderly voice said, the source walking towards us.
"H-headmaster!" the desk lady squeaked. "These filthy kids were claiming that they had a talent for writing. They asked for a computer to prove it, and I refused."
"I say let him. I've been looking for something to read until XIII produces his next novel," the old man known as the Headmaster said.
He read my web novel…? I thought, my eyes wide.
After an hour of typing, I had successfully produced the first chapter of the sequel to my first web novel.
"I might be a little rusty, seeing as I haven't written anything I over a month," I told the Headmaster before handing him a printed-out version of my chapter.
He began to read it, laughing heartily every once in a while. Once he finished, he said, "You must be him! You must be XIII!"
"Y-yeah…"
The desk lady, who had been witching me and my brother as if we were rats, then exclaimed, "What?!"
"His writing style matches perfectly with that of the famous child writer, XIII! On top of that, he uses the same characters and storyline from his first web novel!"
"So does that mean that we're in?" Sora asked the Headmaster.
"Well, normally, I would only let your brother in, but now that I've heard of your situation, I think I'll make an exception."
"Yes!" Sora shouted.
The next day, when we officially became part of the household, was a day I'll never forget.
We walked into the mansion that would be our new home, and my eyes widened at the sheer extravagance of the inside.
The first thing I noticed was a giant fountain I the middle of the insanely large room. Water spewed out of the statue in the center, raining back down into the fountain pool in a giant circle.
The next thing I noticed was that there was a room in in the back which appeared to have a giant pool in it. I saw what appeared to be a blue-haired girl about my age swimming in the water, and two boys in chairs by the water.
Why does one of them look like a younger me? I wondered as I stared at said boy.
"Now, your room is this way," the person escorting us said. "By the way, my name's Axel, and I just started working here full-time as the supervisor. What're your names?"
"My name's Sora," my brother said. He nudged my shoulder, trying to get me to react, but I didn't.
It was as if I couldn't talk. The thought of talking to someone other than my brother or the Headmaster, who had proven himself trustworthy, scared me deeply.
"Sorry if he comes across as rude, but he doesn't talk much," Sora apologized. "He hasn't been himself since the incident."
"What incident?" Axel asked us.
"I don't want to talk about it," I said, and Sora quickly agreed.
"Wow, must have been messed up, huh?" Axel assumed. "Well, if you want to talk about it, I'm all ears!"
"Why do you care?" I said out of nowhere, startling Axel and Sora.
Axel quickly regained his composure and said, "Because you two are interesting."
There was something about his words that put me at ease. He didn't try to sugar-coat his words like I expected, and that intrigued me.
"You're different," I told him, holding out my hand. "My name… is Roxas."
He took my hand and shook it. "Man, you really are interesting," he said. "I have a feeling we'll be good friends. How about it?"
"Friends…" I whispered. "Yeah."
Once we had put our stuff in our room, we found ourselves walking with Axel to a room with a giant, round table. Ten chairs were lined up around it, with seven of them already filled with people. They were staring at us with curious expressions, which made me extremely nervous.
My stomach churned, and I knew I wouldn't be able to hold down any food if they kept staring at me.
"Well, guys, these are our newest residents! Meet Sora," Axel said loudly, pointing to my brother, then to me. "And Roxas."
I put an emotionless façade up like I had been doing constantly the past month in an attempt to calm my nerves, and it worked… to some extent.
"Hey, I'm Aqua!" a blue-haired girl, whom I recognized as the swimmer from earlier, told me. She then put her arms around the two boys I remembered seeing in the pool chairs. "And these two knuckleheads are my friends, Terra and Ventus."
"Hey!" the mini-me shouted.
"I'm Riku," the silver-haired boy said from the seat beside Terra.
Then, on the other side of the table, a red-haired girl said, "I'm Kairi, and these are my sisters, Namine and Xion." She pointed at the two girls, one with long, blonde hair, and one with short, black hair, sitting on either side of her.
They both waved at us, and I found myself looking towards the ground on instinct.
"Well, now that introductions are out of the way, what say we get everyone seated?" Axel said.
There were three chairs in a row on one side of the table, so I chose to sit in the middle in hopes of avoiding any social interaction. Sora sat on my right, next to Riku, and Axel sat on my left; they had fallen for my plan and effectively shielded me from any attempts at conversation from these people I barely knew.
Dinner was filled with conversation. Thankfully, I wasn't dragged into it as a participant or a subject—
"So, what are your talents?"
I spoke too soon.
Images of the gruesome night a month before came flooding into my brain, and I started shaking lightly, eyes widened in horror at the very thought of what had happened.
Such an innocent question, and yet it brought up so many tainted memories. Riku had no idea how much pain his one question brought up from within me.
"Hey bro, are you okay?" Sora asked me.
"Yeah, what's wrong, man?" Riku queried, also having noticed my sudden change in emotional state.
"I-I'm fine…"
"Yeah, the stuttering and trailing off is really convincing us," Riku said sarcastically.
"Stop it, Riku," Sora warned.
"Why? Is he incapable of answering a simple question?"
"That's enough, guys!" Axel shouted. "These boys have been through a lot. I don't know the specifics, but it involved their talents. I'd prefer that you not ask them about things like that."
Everyone quieted down, and the rest of supper was spent in silence. As soon as it ended, I stood up abruptly, heading in the direction of my room.
"Hey, Roxas!" Riku shouted from across the room.
"What is it?"
"I'm sorry about earlier."
"… It's all right."
With that, I left for my room.
Of course, only having been through the maze of hallways once, it didn't take long before I got lost. I cursed my luck as I waited, hoping that someone would come by.
A few minutes passed, and I was beginning to give up hope when—
"Hey," a feminine voice said from behind me.
I turned around, coming face-to-face with the blonde-haired sister of Kairi.
"You're Namine… right?"
"Yup!" she said. "You're lost, right?"
"Yeah."
"Want me to help you get to your room?" she offered.
"Sure, but… how do you know where it is?"
"I was told that two boys were going to move in to the room next to mine," Namine explained.
"I see."
She led me through the maze of hallways, and I began to wonder how anyone could find their way through such a large place.
"How can you navigate through all these hallways without getting lost?" I asked Namine.
"I have a photographic memory."
"Oh."
The conversation died at that, and we resumed our trek through the hallways. Finally, after what seemed like hours, I found my way to my room.
"Thanks," I told her, opening the door.
"No problem! If you ever get lost again—"
"I won't," I interjected. "Get lost, that is. I don't plan to go outside this room much, since I'm going to be working from in here."
"Working on what?"
"I have no reason to tell you," I said rudely, hoping that she would leave me alone in response.
"Well, all right…" Namine said dejectedly, making me regret being so rude. "Well, if you ever want to talk about anything, I'll be willing to listen!"
I knew what she was implying; she wanted to know more about what I had 'been through'. So of course, I said, "I'm all right for now."
"Okay then!" Namine said, a cheery expression on her face. "Well, mission accomplished! I'm going to go back and meet up with my friends, so I'll see you later!"
That phrase, "mission accomplished", was what broke any trust I had in her. It proved to me that she didn't really care.
"So you were just doing what someone told you to…" I said, causing her to turn around.
"What?"
"You heard me…" I said darkly. "You said, 'mission accomplished', which means you must have been doing it because someone told you to. You didn't really care if I got lost. If I had to guess, I'd say that Axel told you to, and you only obeyed him because he has authority over us."
I looked down, my unkempt hair covering my eyes. I waited for her to counter, to say something to defend herself, but…
She never did.
"Leave me alone…" I whispered. "Don't ever talk to me again."
With that, I walked into my room shutting the door behind me. I didn't slam it, since I knew it wasn't really my room. I just closed it gently.
Once I heard the sound of her footsteps getting softer and softer, and then disappear entirely, I slid down, my back against the door, and tears started to flow from my eyes.
"Nobody really cares about me… but that's all right. I just won't get involved with anyone. Then… they won't be able to hurt me."
A/N:
Well, that was a bit depressing, wasn't it?
Don't worry, it'll get a bit lighter later on. Still, hurt/comfort is part of the genre settings, isn't it?
Well, I was hoping for this chapter to be longer, but it just turned out this way, you know? Anyway, I'm going to shoot for three thousand word chapters from now on!
Also, I'm almost finished with the next chapter of Names! I'm actually not very far in some of my other Kingdom Hearts projects, but they are being worked on, so don't worry!
So, I'm putting up a poll on my profile for who will end up with Roxas in the end. (Because I like both pairings, which makes it hard to choose.) Will it be Namine or Xion? You guys get to decide! When the story nears its completion, I'll take down the poll, and whoever has the most votes wins!
Well, I guess that's about it! It's time for the disclaimer!
I don't own the Kingdom Hearts franchise or any of the things/people I borrow from it!
Until we meet again!