[Inspired by Scchitzo's Fifty Ways I love you]

[Thank you for the inspiration.]

Roxas' POV

I was eight when I first met him. He was nine and even back then he was pretty rebellious. Nothing like he is now, but still, not your average Joe. He was always pushing limits. And since his parents work so many hours I don't think they realized how much he was pushing the limits. And if they did, they probably didn't do anything because they felt guilty for not being there for him.

Our meeting was pretty normal for kids our age, parents. My mom and Axel's dad apparently were friends' way back when and so they thought it'd be a good idea to have my twin brother, Sora, and I meet Axel as a play 'date'. They also figured that since we'd be so close in age and be going to school together it'd be good for me and my brother to have a friend to look up to. Axel was pretty weird to me, and I guess he still is. I can remember I was wearing jeans, a black under armor shirt and a white t-shirt over it. I wore my favorite black tennis shoes that day that gave me about an inch of extra height. Sora was in annoying pair of red shorts with blue around the collar, bottom of the shirt, and arm cuffs with sandals on his feet.

Axel was wearing a pair of long slightly green khaki pants, tennis shoes and a black t-shirt. He always had this punk rocker type outfit on, from when we were kids to now. When Sora and I walked into the room he sized us both up and I assume decided we weren't worth acknowledging us. But he was really smooth with our parents. He walked over to him and shook my parents hands which surprised them that a nine year old had such manners. I'll admit now that I was impressed, but back then I just glared at him. I remember thinking, "He's such a show-off! I bet he's a tattle-tail too!"

So while my parents talked Sora and I sat on the floor and thumb war'd until Axel walked into the living room, gave us a look then rolled his eyes. He had something in his hands and I noticed but right before I could ask he left the room and went outside.

"C'mon, Sora, let's see what he's doing." I said as I tried to drag Sora with me, but he said he didn't want to and that Axel was scary. Well, I wasn't afraid so I fallowed Axel outside and hid from view while I watched him set something up. It looked like fireworks. But he's only nine! He wouldn't be playing with fireworks… Or so I'd thought at the time. As we grew older I learned Axel was a major pyromaniac. I ran over to him right as he was putting fire to the wick which surprised him and he lit the firecrackers on accident and neither of us noticed until too late. We had started to fight, I wanted to see and he wanted me to go away.

The fireworks went off and Axel still crouched on the ground right next to them, and I was standing right in front of him. He managed to get up right as they went off. I got five burns on my calf and would've gotten more if Axel hadn't jerked me away. I was too scared to move but he was so… brave.

I didn't find out until much later that he'd gotten several burns on his arms and legs, which made me feel guilty because if I hadn't been so nosey it wouldn't have happened. But I'm glad I did because up to my 14th birthday we were best friends. But I'm fifteen now and things just feel so… tense between us. School starts on Tuesday, in two days, and I worked extra hard last year to get into the higher grade classes so I could have a class with him; but he skipped so much school last year, I'm not sure what'll happen this year. And we haven't talked all summer, I'm not even sure if he still wants to be friends.