Ventus tapped his foot absent-mindedly as the final bell for homeroom rang. Roxas had told him that they were too cool for homeroom as they had pulled into the parking lot this morning, but Sora wanted to go earlier because of Riku, one of the 'star-players' of the Blitzball team and also Sora's boyfriend. So, a firm believer in romance, Ventus scolded his brother, "If Sora wants to hang out with his boyfriend, who are we to stop him?!", and walked into his homeroom. For some reason, he'd been put in the L-M homeroom, but he didn't mind – at least that meant there were at least new faces to meet and essentially: annoy.

As he went to pick up his battered copy of Sailor Moon (shut up, it's totally cool) that was half-buried in the clutter of his messenger bag, his phone vibrated in his pocket. He propped the book on the table, and unlocked T-Mobile HTC to check.

1 New Message from Roxas

He raised an eyebrow in amusement. This would be interesting.

we could be getting coffee right now. real coffee. I can't believe I let you force me into getting this cheap recycled shit, asshole.

Ventus laughed and shoved his phone into his pocket. After his father bought him and his brother a coffee shop for their seventeenth birthday, he, Roxas, and Sora (their brother from another mother) had spent their whole summer behind the bar, learning the tricks of the trade, buying used books from graduated seniors, and caffeinating the music scene that had slowly started to grow in Market Street. Plus, a lot of the incoming freshmen to Sunset High seemed to find their dumpy little coffee shop charming – selling and buying their books and some old CDs and mixtapes as well.

Ventus would see Roxas and Sora two periods from now, so he opening his book as he waited for Mr. Glocal to call his name. Unsurprisingly, he was first.

"Anakin, Ventus."

"Present, sir."

Then, he started to read.

Meanwhile…

Three seats to the left and four rows backwards, Vanitas Masaru was hatching a plan. His eyes were alternating between boring into the back of Ventus Anakin's head and scanning the screen of his phone, because he could type and look up at the same time, thank you very much. Axel had gotten into video production and was in the library filming, which meant he sat behind the computers and ran the text under the morning news – which also meant he could text during homeroom as well.

Ventus seemed nonplussed that he was in a random homeroom, but Vanitas was ecstatic that his hacking skills had gone undetected by the school. Vanitas was determined to get Ventus to fall in love with him. Ventus, with his flannel and cut off cords in the beginning of September in Twilight Town. Ventus, with his gray beanie sticking out of his messenger bag. Ventus, with his big blue eyes. Ventus, who was more focused on hanging out with Roxas and Vanitas's cousin then noticing Vanitas, who'd been in love with him since he had sat behind Ventus in AP Calc AB sophomore year.

But this year, he and Axel had a plan. Vanitas had hacked the school's scheduling system weeks ago and switched around their schedules so that Axel and Roxas had all of their classes together, as did Vanitas and Ventus. He knew that the school wouldn't allow seniors to switch out into other classes, as they'd made a point with the year before them that the schedule you get is the schedule you get.

"Masaru, Vanitas."

"Here."

Mr. Glocal cleared his throat and Vanitas straightened. "So, here you all are." Vanitas hated lecturers, but he'd liked Mr. Glocal after he took his creative writing class last year. So Vanitas looked up from his staring and focused on Mr. Glocal. "I'm just telling you, don't screw this year up. You only have one year left. Make new friends. Try something new. Fall in love. Here are your schedules." Glocal began to call out names, and Vanitas leaned back. He already had his schedule, and he was not going to screw it up this time.

Ventus, however, was confused about his schedule. He wasn't upset, per se, about his classes, he was just confused about the order he had them in. He and Roxas had figured out a way to get all of the classes they wanted - and one or two that one hadn't wanted, but had conceded to take to be with each other.

He pulled his phone out and took a picture of his schedule and took it to Roxas with the message, WTF?! Then he scanned over the schedule again.

A days – AP World History, AP Macroeconomics, Resource Lab, AP Statistics.

B days – AP Computer Science AB, Speech and Debate III, AP Comparative Politics, AP English IV.

He officially had no classes with Roxas, though he was pleased that he had managed to get into AP Comparative, a class that Roxas (and Sora, surprisingly) had vehemently put his foot down about. Roxas didn't like Mr. Snyder, but Ventus found his surreal imagining of politics refreshing. Roxas said he wanted to major in history, not ideas. Sometimes Ventus wondered why they were friends.

Then his phone buzzed and he unlocked his phone to check the message.

1 Message from Roxas

He pressed 'READ'.

i know :( i got into bio tho :D

At least Ventus wouldn't have to sit through that class, he conceded, and he was sure that at least they'd have lunch together.

what lunch do you have?

first both days, since bio's third. you?

second – i have Lloyd for resource lab and Snyder for comp poli.

:/ this sucks.

i know.

mhm. well g2g love you.

Ventus snorted.

love you too. -3

Then the bell rang to go to first, and Ventus picked up his bag, not noticing Vanitas watching him slowly, and headed toward Mr. Anderson's room, his shadow following him. As he reached the joint of 600 and 700 halls, he waited to see if Roxas would hustle up from Mrs. Sander's room to walk him to class, even though he knew that AP European was pretty much on the other side of the school and AP World was in 612. Suddenly, he saw a flurry of color running, and Ventus moved out of the way in time to see Axel Serafino fly at Vanitas Masaru. "Vani, why are my classes SO far away from yours?"

"Go away Ax." Masaru scoffed, but Ventus didn't hear any bark in his voice that Vanitas normally had. He watched as Vanitas disentangled himself from Axel, adjusting his shirt, which seemed to be a vintage Foster the People shirt, if Ventus wasn't mistaken.

He'd never noticed Vanitas, but maybe he wasn't that bad. Ventus watched for a second more, kicked his Vans against a locker, and headed towards 612. This year was going to suck.


Vanitas watched Ventus walk towards his class, and Vanitas sighed. Axel went to pinch his cheek, but Vanitas batted his hand away in time. "Axel, you're going to be late to class."

"You just want to stalk some more. It's okay Vanitas, I know you've had this planned."

"Shut up, Axel." The sides of Vanitas's lips curled up though, and as Axel walked on, he smacked Vanitas on the ass. He would pay for that later, Vanitas thought, as he headed towards World History. Right now, he had to follow Ventus to class and bring up all of the blonde's favorite singers.

Yeah, Vanitas had done his research. It wasn't stalking; it was giving himself a fair advantage. And that was how he justified it. Because this time, he was not going to stumble over his words, talk in code, or generally embarrass himself. He had spent all summer following Ventus on Tumblr and pretty much every social networking site the blonde owned, and now, he was going to have him.

This year was going to be totally awesome.


First Period: Vanitas –

As Vanitas stood at the door to Mr. Anderson's AP World History class, he took a deep breath. History, in his opinion, was easy, but he also knew that Anderson actually cared about more than data retention, and that this may be the hardest class of his year. Also, his seating in this class would be crucial. Ventus, who had meandered in, sat right next to Anderson's podium, which was on the far right of the room. There were students scattered around the room, but no more than ten people were in the room excluding the teacher, so Vanitas slid into the row to the left of Ventus and one seat back, leaving the seat to Ventus's left empty.

He had done this first to give Ventus a chance to get used to him. Secondly, so that it didn't look like he was overeager to be near Ventus, but they had known each other since third grade, so being close would be fine. Third, it left room for a third person to interact with the two of them, actively giving them a chance to know each other peripherally.

Then a familiar jacket slid into the seat in front of him, and Vanitas sighed thankfully.

"Good morning, Liu." He teased, his voice barely reaching her. He pointed to her hat, "Hats aren't allowed in the building."

She turned to face him. "Good morning, Masaru. Assholes aren't allowed into the building, but it seems like they've let you in. Again." Then she snickered. Classic Xion – funny, but in a way that Vanitas could identify with, not guess at.

Then Anderson cleared his throat, and she turned around. "Liu, Xion?"

Second Period: Axel –

Axel's approach, however, was much more obvious. As he slid into Mrs. Parker's trailer, the bell rang, and he mentally cursed himself. His plan was to get there on time, make small talk with, and impress him with his European knowledge. Vanitas had gotten him the study guide as a gag and Ventus had actually spent time reading it in between rounds of Little Big Planet (shut up, its fun) with Vanitas.

However, Vanitas had distracted him by actually bothering to take off his hoodie for the first period of the day to expose Axel's dad's tee-shirt that had been found in the Serafino's attic this summer, and Axel was just excited that Vanitas was making an effort. It was adorable and fucking endearing.

Then a hand on his back made him shoot about ten feet into the trailer, and a laugh came from behind him.

"Sorry dude, I didn't mean to make you die of fear." The voice commented, and Axel mentally fistpumped as he recognized it as Roxas'.

"No worries dude. Just thought I was the latest."

"It's no problem, Axel." Though he said Axel's name, the end of the sentence was raised as if he was asking a question, and Axel nodded vehemently. "Mrs. Sanders held me up or I would have been on time."

Axel nodded again, "Yeah, she tends to do that. 'Oh wait, my little pumpkins, come back! Here is what I was trying to give to you in the first place.'"

Roxas laughed at that, and Axel grinned. He had spent the better part of Tech Theatre practicing Mrs. Sanders' voice rather than actually learning how to do sound. Vanitas had taught him how to work the mikes five minutes before the big production of Wicked last year, but everything had worked out just fine.

Roxas' voice snapped Axel back to attention. "I have her next. Advanced Theatre."

Axel pulled out his best surprised face, "Me too!"

A voice rang out, "You two should sit down before Parker gets here."

"Yeah, we should." Axel scanned the room. "Wait, who's Parker?"

Roxas whistled. "You've never had Parker before?" Axel shook his head. "Sit next to me; she's a bit … much." Axel shrugged, but on the inside he knew he'd be texting Vanitas. Keywords – sweet victory.

Third Period: Ventus –

Ventus slid into Gonzales' room as the bell rang. As the school's eccentric, Ventus had secretly hoped for a lair comparable to Professor Trelawney's from Harry Potter in Ms. – yes it's Miss, darlings – Gonzales' room. Trelawney was his favorite; her craziness was just hilarious to Ventus. But instead he just found piles of pillows, couches, and armchairs. Ventus spotted a plaid one across the room that looked ripe for the taking, and as he headed over there, he heard a shriek from the gypsy teacher.

"Vanitas, oh dear! Can you fix my computer?" Ventus turned to the sound as he reaches the couch, and a laptop with a sign that said in loopy script, 'please remind Vanitas to go to lunch, couch buddy.' Ventus laughed and sat next to the laptop. It was the third class he'd had with Vanitas Masaru, and it surprised him how visible he was this year. Over the years, Ventus had seen various shades of Vanitas, always as the smartass, but never the clever, funny boy he had seen over the past three hours.

Maybe, if he was being honest, it was because he'd never paid Vanitas much attention. Now, watching him pull on his black hoodie, pull the sleeves up, and focus hard on the dinosaur of a desktop on her desk. It was cute, Vanitas' face all screwed up in concentration, his eyes slanted as he grabbed at something with the mouse.

Ventus looked down at Vanitas' laptop, removing the little note from the top. Whoever had wrote the note obviously knew Vanitas, as they had left a package of what looked like gummy worms underneath the sign. Ventus knew he had the rest of the couch, as a rotating table sat on Vanitas' side of the couch, which Ventus assumed was to be used for typing, but he was curious as to what Vanitas had on his computer. Ventus had a smiley face sticker and a tiny picture of Ventus, Roxas, and Sora at the age of 10.

As he revealed the top of Vanitas' thin, gray Mac to himself, he had to bite his bottom lip to stop himself from laughing out loud. Vanitas' laptop had a bright pink Hello Kitty skull sticker taking up the bottom left corner. As he flipped the laptop around so he could see the sticker in its full glory, he realized the kitty had a neon green star as a garnish and a text box screaming in all caps, loopy script "I WIN, VANI". The top of his laptop had an M sticker on it, with a loopy signature of what Ventus recognized as Marina Diamandis. Marina and the Diamonds, good taste. Ventus was a fan of Marina even if he hadn't liked Electra Heart as much as he'd liked Family Jewels. Vanitas was the last person Ventus would peg as a Marina fan, but he smiled at the new finding.

A beep alerted him that Vanitas was done doing whatever he was doing to Ms. Gonzales' computer, and Ventus slid over to the end of the couch, away from Vanitas' space. His phone buzzed, and after he had propped himself up in the corner, he slid open his phone.

1 Message from Roxas

so remind me again; we're still a trio?

Ventus laughed and replied dunno. i think i'm making a new friend.

As his phone buzzed again, he heard a voice right next to his ear, and he hadn't noticed Vanitas hovered about three inches from his face. "You don't have to hide your phone. Nikki won't care." As Ventus raised an eyebrow, Vanitas pointed his head at Ms. Gonzales. "Nikki. She's pretty cool, even if sometimes she lives in the Stone Age."

"Oh. Okay." Vanitas slid back to his side of the couch, and Ventus went back to his book. Maybe this year wouldn't be so bad after all.


A.N. My first multi-chapter fic. ; _ ; Hopefully this goes well! ^^ I hope you enjoyed it! And if you didn't, well, please tell me what I can do to make this better. ^^;

Next chapter will be posted on next week Sunday. Please review? (: Well, you don't HAVE to, but it'd be nice.

Bye!