The bell rings, loud and long, so it echoes throughout the campus. I turn and look at my lover, Riku, and see him with his usual look of distraction, as if something is preoccupying him. I feel that sense of guilt, as if I should be as far away from him as I possibly can be. I can feel my face turning red. What exactly is it about me that he won't love anymore? I sigh and stand up. Brushing off my shirt from the crumbs of my sandwich, I start to walk away from my ever so confusing lover. Suddenly, he realizes what I'm doing and stands up quickly, asking, "Where are you going?"

I pause for a moment. Turning, I say, "Art. That's our next class, isn't it?"

Riku's face is a mixture of fear, anger, and confusion. "Sora, what has been with you lately? You've been like this for a while now."

My temper flared. "Oh, so now I'M the one that's acting weird? We never talk like we used to anymore, Riku. You never look at me like you used to. We had a connection that isn't there now. Why in the world would you expect me to act like I used to if we don't do any of the things we used to do?"

Riku looked at him, as if he was looking for something that he knew wasn't going to be there. The sadness in his eyes was magnified to something I had never seen before. My mood immediately changed. Did I do something to hurt him? What did I do?

He didn't say anything, which made my face flush a little. It then led me to say, "Well, we really should get to art. We don't want to be late again."

With that, Riku and I walked next to each other up to the art building. Art always has been one of my favorite classes. Whenever I'm stressed or feeling like crap, I just go down to the art room and let myself in. The teacher was really cool, and he never minded when I did so. Our professor's name was Zexion, and he was that one hip teacher every school has. He dresses only in the latest fashions, has only the latest technology, and was up with what was cool and what wasn't. I always liked talking to him because he knew what I was going through. Zexion was our only bisexual teacher, so I could go to him with guy problems. He would help me get through them just like any of my other friends, except he wasn't weirded out by the fact they were about guys.

We entered the art building and climbed the stairs to our advanced art class, which was on the second floor. The silence between Riku and I was killing me. I couldn't just leave it at that; I had to say something.

"Riku, you've got to understand how I felt back there. You know that what I said is true. But I still love you. Riku, I've loved you since the day I met you. Just because it's slightly different now, doesn't mean I don't. I love you with all my heart; you know that, right?"

Riku just looked at me coldly and kept on climbing. Trust me, I felt awful for what I did. I didn't want him feeling this way. What was I supposed to do to keep him happy? We arrived at the art room door, which was kind of stuck back in a corner of the second floor hallway. I opened the door and walked in. On my right, there was storage that had been creatively painted by the other students with sinks underneath them. On the left was an elongation of the room with long tables and a few scattered chairs. Not very many people were in our class because it was so advanced, so we got a lot of alone time with our art.

I sat down towards the window as I usually do, allowing myself to daze while I think about topics to draw or paint; you know, the usual art student at a snobby boarding school. Riku sat down somewhere with his other friends. He kept his stony look the entire hour and a half we were in there. I heard someone else talking behind me, and I perked my ears up to listen. I saw Demyx sitting behind me with Roxas, talking very animatedly to him, out of the corner of my eye. Despite my best efforts, I couldn't help but tuning in to their conversation.

"Just watch him move, Roxas. He's so graceful." There was a pause for a moment, then I heard Demyx chuckle to himself. A bit quieter, he continued, "I know where else he could be graceful, and it includes me."

"Demyx!" Roxas said, giggling and hitting him on the arm. Demyx adjusted his tie and fluffed his hair when he saw Zexion walking towards him. "Watch and learn," Demyx said slyly when Zexion walked up to him.

"How far have you gotten on your work, Demyx?"

"Hey Zexion, I'm starting my own wrestling team. Wanna join?" Demyx wiggled his eyebrows. When Zexion gave him a look of destruction, Demyx continued, "I can help you practice if you want."

"Demyx, get back to work." Zexion started to walk away, then leaned down and whispered in Demyx's ear, "You know, when I practice, I practice hard."

Demyx's face proceeded to turn fire-engine red and a drop of blood dripped from his nostril. Roxas laughed at him so hard, tears dripped from his eyes and he almost rolled off his chair. I looked over and chuckled in spite of everything that had happened earlier. I continued to work on our latest project, which was supposed to express our feelings about something that had made us sad or prevented our happiness, anyways. Mine had a splash of bunches of different colors, most of the colors being dark or semi-dark. It wasn't really anything in particular, just a big jumbled mess, basically the way I felt.

Demyx and Roxas started talking again, after Roxas had composed himself a little bit. They kept talking and laughing and working on their projects (or at least Roxas did). I moved over to sit with them, because I didn't have anyone else to talk to. As I walked over, I saw Riku. His project sort of resembled mine, just a jumbled up mixture of colors. They kind of seemed to resemble the colors I had on me, like my clothes and my hair. I went up to him and said, "You know, it looks really good."

Riku looked up at me, with that sad look back in his eyes, but with an undertone of the anger he showed earlier. I just looked at him sadly and kept walking over the Demyx and Roxas.

I got over to them and sat down. Roxas shot me a confused look that said, "Why aren't you sitting with Riku?" I shot him a look back that said, "Don't worry about it." I kept putting paint onto my canvas and didn't say anything.

Roxas pulled up his sleeves and got to work, but he must've remembered something, because his eyes got big, as he tried to pull them back down before anyone could see them. It must've not worked, because Demyx's eyes got rather large as he asked Roxas, "Hey, what was that?"

"What was what?" Roxas asked nervously.

"There was something on your arm, I know there was. What was it?"

"You… you must've seen some dirt or something, b-because there's nothing on my arm," Roxas stuttered, losing a bit of his cool.

"Then you won't mind showing me your arm?" Demyx questioned, a look of concern on his face.

"I…I…" Roxas stuttered, the color draining from his face.

Just then, another student in the class Axel walked over to Roxas. Everyone knew that Roxas and Axel were a couple; they'd been together for a while. You just didn't interfere with that. He seemed like a good enough person, but I wouldn't want to be around him on a regular basis. He kind of scared me, to be frank.

"Hey Roxas, what's up?"Axel said, sounding enthusiastic with an undertone of something that I couldn't quite pick out at the time. Axel walked over to Roxas, peering over his shoulder suspiciously. It looked as if he were looking for something on his art project. "So what did you make for your emotional project, Roxas?" Axel asked.

"Oh, well—" Roxas started as Axel took the project out of his hands and examined it. Axel's face grew exceedingly angrier as he kept looking at the project.

"What exactly is this?" Axel half screamed at Roxas. It made the entire art class go quiet and look over at what was going on. "Why did you draw this?"

"Axel," Roxas said in a quiet voice. "Please, not here." I got this large feeling of dread and anger in my stomach. I knew that I was dreading this because Axel was going to get angry, and that was never good, but why did I feel angry all of a sudden? …Protective, almost? I wasn't sure.

"Roxas, this is an unacceptable way to express yourself. Why did we even enroll in this art class in the first place?"

"Axel, you can't tell me that I'm expressing myself incorrectly. That's not possible. You know that as well as I do."

Axel's eyes burned with the flames he knew he could release at any moment. "Roxas, you can't tell me what I can and can't believe!" he screamed at Roxas.

Roxas stood up from his chair, tears running down his face and ran from the room. For some reason, I stood up and ran after him. I'm not sure why; my instinct just took over. I wasn't sure about what I was doing. All I knew was that I was going to help, no matter what.