Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts and related characters belong to Tetsuya Nomura and in no means belong to me. Written in 1st Person, contains hints of RokuNami, RokuShi, and VenNami.

~ xWhitexWindx

Broken Chains

Naminé.

How could someone just… let her go like they did?

I wish I had seen it coming - I mean, Roxas was my brother. I used to be able to read him like a book, but lately, ever since we graduated from junior high, things were getting distant between us. Things were changing - in ways that were happening so fast, I doubt I had any means to stop them anyway.

Roxas started hanging around Lea - oh, pardon me, he goes by Axel now - again. Lea - Axel, I mean - left Twilight Town back when he graduated high school. He said something about going to the city to stay with his brother Reno for a while.

When he came back, he was different. Still goofy, somewhat sarcastic and with a love of fire, but now he seemed a little…warped. Not in the good way either. Guess city life changed him or something. It wasn't just out and about the town that he caused a ruckus either - he did it at the college too.

Terra had a few classes with him, at the college in Radiant Garden - the next town over. He would come into town every other weekend to spend time with Aqua and me, to tell us all about the crazy stunts Axel and his other friends would pull.

Our parents both worked out-of-town a lot, leaving the house to ourselves. Normally, there wasn't a problem with leaving two teenage boys home alone for long periods of time, because we were responsible. Mom trusted us to not have girls over (Aqua was the only exception to that rule since she had been like a big sister to me since I was in primary school), and we never threw parties. Occasionally we would go out to see a midnight showing at the movie cinema, or we hung out at the local skate park.

We were good kids.

Thing was, I don't think we're kids anymore.

Since we entered our first year of high school, things started to change. Roxas used to make high marks in all of his classes, now he's barely managing a medium average that could plummet at any second. He used to spend a lot of his free time studying with Naminé, who had been his steady girlfriend since our first year of junior high.

First Axel came back, and then Xion did too.

Xion used to live across the street, with her older brother Vanitas and their guardian, a man named Xehanort. She said he was their great-uncle on their father's side, but their parents had passed away a long time ago. Xion had trouble fitting in at school from the first day she was enrolled. I remember Roxas and I were playing tetherball with Sora and Kairi, our other childhood friends who were in the other fifth grade class, while Xion awkwardly sat by herself on the swing-set. Her brother, who was only a year older than us, was purposely ignoring her while he picked on Riku.

Of course, Vanitas had made friends with some of the bullies, due to his sarcastic and mean personality. One of them was a girl named Larxene. She started to call out to Xion, asking her if she was stupid and that's why she wouldn't talk.

Xion would simply stare straight ahead, not even fazed. She didn't even react when Larxene shoved her off the swing, angered by the fact she couldn't get a rise out of her. She went to kick her, but Roxas had reacted before I could even move.

He snatched her wrist and told her to leave her alone, that if she was so desperate for attention then he could call the principal over. Larxene left in a huff while Vanitas simply stood there, looking at his little sister dully as if she wasn't even really there. Xion finally reacted for the first time that day.

She told him thank you.

Shortly after, they became friends. They spent a lot of time together, time that Roxas used to spend with Naminé and me. So our lunch table that usually had Sora, Kairi, Naminé, Roxas, and me soon dwindled down to two. Sora and Kairi started eating at the popular kids' table with Riku.

Naminé and I were left in the wake of their maturing.

For some reason, Naminé and I always had trouble adjusting to change. What other saw was childish, we simply saw as fun and simple. We liked simplistic things, such as playing outside while other kids would rather stay cooped up indoors playing video games. As they grew older, started going on trips to the mall and beach, asking their parents for raises in their allowances but whined about having to do chores to even earn their allowance, Naminé and I simply grew up at our own pace.

So by middle school, we were known to be a couple of wimps. We were bullied a lot, but we never really let it get us down. We promised to always have one another's backs. I admired Naminé - she was strong in a silent way, sticking up for herself whenever she really needed to, but she was more adamant about defending me. It worked both ways - too many times I took a slamming into the lockers or took a punch from Vanitas.

Riku stood up for us though - soon Vanitas lost interest in bullying us and then took up more reckless acts, such as tormenting the town and throwing wild parties.

I always had a thing for Naminé. Maybe because she was my closest friend, next to Terra and Aqua. Those two though… they acted more like parents or even my big brother and sister at times. Aqua was almost three years older than I was. Terra was four years older.

My parents were absent a lot, so I guess I understood where they were coming across from. Sometimes though, it was hard to talk to them due to the age difference. Aqua was in her first year of high school when I graduated from primary school. Terra was in his junior year by then.

Naminé kept me from submitting to my loneliness. We worked on class projects together, we sometimes studying together, with Roxas. Except while I was sitting there, sometimes losing myself to the way the sunlight hit her hair or that shy smile she would have, I never really noticed that those smiles were only for Roxas.

They started dating our second year of junior high. I played it off like it didn't hurt, but it did. Naminé was my first crush - I was just too much of a coward to tell her. By junior high, Vanitas and Xion had moved away. They used to email and Skype, but shortly after summer, she just disappeared.

Naminé and Roxas started hanging out a lot. They went on a couple of double dates with Sora and Kairi. Then, at Christmas time, Roxas asked Naminé to go steady with him. For two years, I watched my twin and my crush hugging, holding hands, kissing and all I could do was smile and ignore it.

Roxas was happy.

Naminé was happy.

That's all that mattered in the end.

Axel came back that autumn. Halloween was around the corner, so of course the two of them hit it off immediately and started making plans for an epic bash. Terra had come back the same weekend, to visit his parents along check up on Aqua and me. He told us the stories of Axel and his friends - how he ended up getting kicked out of Radiant Garden.

Xion moved back too. She opened up to both Axel and Roxas, the three of them almost as inseparable as Riku, Sora, and Kairi. Then, Roxas' test scores were coming down. He stopped studying with Naminé and me. She would come over unexpectedly, since he hardly replied to her texts anymore, just to hope he would spend time with her.

He always had plans with Axel and Xion.

Last week, I held her as she finally broke down and started crying, blaming herself for the way he was acting. It took me two hours to calm her down enough to settle in and watch a movie with me. She was so exhausted from crying, she ended up falling asleep with her head in my lap. I couldn't bring Mom or Dad in on this - he would never forgive me. He was my twin and I valued whatever relationship we had still.

However, when he broke up with Naminé and didn't give any real reasoning, I couldn't keep defending him anymore. Because he let go of the most important person who had been in our life since pre-school. He had tainted a pristine heart that I cherished my entire life.

All the chained promises between us began to break the moment she came back into his life.

If only I knew how to hold those links together before they had started to break.

A/N: The first part! Just so we're clear, this was written in Ven's perspective. I hope it recapped a lot and explained some things. The next part focuses on the present day situation. Reviews would be appreciated; I'd like to see what you guys think of this!

~xWhitexWindx

Musical Inspiration: Ventus - BBS OST, Missing You ~ Naminé - Piano Collections Kingdom Hearts, Tears of Light - BBS OST.