Of My Heart

Warnings:AU, slight OOC, shounen-ai (turned Yaoi later).

Author Notes:Hello everyone. This is the first chapter of my Kingdom Hearts fanfiction. It is Axel and Roxas oriented. But because I like things to move slow, this chapter is more of Roxas' background story. Please enjoy, and don't be afraid to review.

It was never in my nature to be friendly. I had my moments, I'm sure everyone does. But for some reason it was difficult for me to be very, genuinely nice. I could almost spit that word out with disgust back then. As far as I was concerned, people I wasn't familiar with didn't even deserve the effort it took to be polite. I guess it doesn't take a genius to know I was an outcast. School was like a sick form of suicide, what with my attitude. Hardly a week went by when I wasn't scolded for some form of disobedience. And that was just in grade school. None of the children liked me, even though I rarely said anything and I was certainly not a hideous looking kid. Maybe it was a general vibe I exuded. I was avoided like the plague, growing up with little to no friends. The occasional comrades that I did have were more scared of me and my mood swings than anything else. That was hardly a fitting life for someone of my age at the time, but I didn't really have a choice. I was bitter, even though my past wasn't something to cringe at. I didn't have a long, dramatic story of childhood agony. Nothing should have been wrong with me. But there was something wrong with me. There was a dark cloud looming over my head, casting storms in my brain, making my heart rage and burn with the fires of anger. Fury that was unfounded stuck itself inside of me; I had no grounds for the level of wrath stored in my belly. No reason. Everyday things that should not have bothered me scratched away at my nerves, building up pressure until I exploded.

My outbursts happened once in a blue moon, but when they did you can pretty much guarantee there was a ruckus caused. I must have switched schools a thousand times because of this. No establishment wanted a student like me anywhere near the poor innocents in the young grades. I grew up moving around a lot because there are only so many schools in one district. Not that I cared. It was something I barely noticed, if you want to know the truth. They were just all faceless, nameless parasites living in a world they were slowly destroying. I couldn't name one set time where I became so angry; it was as natural to me as breathing. As an after effect, I didn't care about anyone else but myself. Looking out for number one was my top priority one-hundred percent of the time.

My mother, bless her soul, tried everything in the book to get me to calm down. I wouldn't be able to name any of my psychiatrists, but I can say that there were a lot. They'd always try to manipulate stories out of me; trying to convince me that I must have been molested as toddler or other crazy stories. It always boiled down to my not receiving enough love from some important figure in my life. I say it was all bullshit. I'd had everything from priests to Satanists trying to determine what celestial being was using my young body as a vessel. But there was no "celestial-being". There was no deeper meaning. I was just an irate, disturbed child. And I was satisfied.

Needless to say I entered high school the same way. I stumbled my way through 9th grade blindly, a deep seated terror that took a home right next to the hostility in my heart. It was probably the first time in my life that I'd cared that I was alone. Around me, I took notice of the groups of happy people, chatting away at lunch hour, scattered in the halls between classes. And where was I to fit in the giant bee-hive of activity that was secondary education? I was always by myself; it didn't matter how much I wanted to join them. The silence was something I had become familiar with. It was like I had a warm security blanket that kept me safe, yet shrouded me in darkness. It protected me and I was too scared to discard it. That year I lost a lot of my resentment, a lot of the livid emotions. I became consumed by the silence of my own sadness. People say the two strongest emotions are love and hate. I'd have to disagree. Until you have felt true sadness, how could you possibly put a mark on any of the emotions? My sadness had overcome any anger left in my system. I suppose you could say that hate stemmed from my unhappiness. Hate for myself. I abhorred the fact that I'd let myself be excluded from what seemed like society as a whole. The only person who would smile at the sight of me was my mother, but it began to feel like she did it out of obligation. I'd long since distanced myself from her. Did I feel guilty? Maybe; I was probably too upset to notice.

It was early February during my 9th grade year that I was expelled for the first time in my high school career. I'd been expelled before in grade school, but it takes so much more than swearing at a teacher to get the boot with the older grades. I can't even remember exactly what I did, but I know it was bad. Sure I'd replaced my rage with something a bit less violent, but deep down inside it boiled at a temperature much higher than before. Whatever I did, it got me expelled without a second thought. I endured the gruelling processes of punishment; the teachers screaming in my face, the lecture I received from mom and the days spent in my room just staring at the ceiling. I was unaffected. Everyone around me wasn't.

I remember distinctly a Sunday night, during my period between schools where I realized just how serious my actions had become. I was lying under the covers in my bed, looking at the grooves in the wood of my bedside table, listening in the dark to my mother in the kitchen. She was busily making dinner and talking on the phone to principals of new schools for me. Through the thin walls I heard her get rejected, time after time. I didn't want to force her to move again, but when word had gotten out about my latest outburst, schools everywhere in the district didn't want anything to do with me. It was like we were exiled in our own country; in our own city! It was all my fault. I went to the dinner table that night with massive amounts of grief piled on my soul. I don't know if it was guilt, because I didn't know what it felt like at the time. Just the two of us, sitting silently and picking through the food. I wasn't even remotely hungry, but she had prepared me a meal, so I would eat it. It was an almost tragic atmosphere between us. She jabbed her fork unenthusiastically into the spiced chicken in pieces on her plate, refusing to look up from it in mock concentration.

"I found a school that may take you." She said; her voice dry. My mother loved me unconditionally, but sometimes she could be as cold as I was. I was more of a responsibility than a son, now. "But you might need to take the bus."

"What school?"

"Preston Academy for the Behaviourally Challenged" I tore my gaze away from my lap and stared straight at her, watching as she avoided my eyes. She'd always tell me that there was nothing wrong with me, and that she would never send me to a school for problem kids. Something had changed in my mother. Maybe that had been the last straw.

"Preston's? I've never heard about it-"

"Let's just say it's not a place you'd like to brag about attending." She interrupted me with ferocity in her voice I hadn't heard before. She was defending herself against me; she thought I was going to get mad. I wasn't angry. I was confused. What had changed in my mother?

"Well, where is it?"

"Its downtown some. Right downtown. Downtown."

"Downtown!?" I couldn't help but be shocked by that. Even with my problems I hadn't been sent to any school in that area. Downtown is usually looked at as being the most commercial, with lots of little shops and businesses, hustling and bustling productively about. But in this city, that was the place you didn't want to be. Street gangs dominated the area, preventing all but a few shops to flourish in the surrounding neighbourhood. Poor people rented run-down apartments, graffiti on every building. The police were always on patrol somewhere nearby. And if you had a dangerous child, you would send them to Preston Academy. As hard on the inside as I was at the time, I had grown up in a very forgiving part of society. They wouldn't treat me too roughly; they were scared of me. They were soft.

I knew Preston Academy was going to be different. The kids attending would have grown up with a life of hardship. They would have reason for their problems, while mine were groundless. I wouldn't stand a chance. They wouldn't take my mouthing off with a cringe.

Preston Academy for the Behaviourally Challenged was nothing at all like the description they boasted about on their website. The school was a tall, 3 floor building made of dark brick and metal, looming over the small parking lot and pathetic front garden. Tall wire fences surrounded the perimeter, the tops pointing inward so one could not climb over it. The grass was a patchwork of green, yellow and brown, the melting snow piles of February damaging the already ailing lawn. There were bars on the Plexiglas windows, the purpose of which I didn't want to know, though I could guess. The front doors were huge and made of thick dark wood, carved with intricate patterns. However, it was taken away from by the words "Fuck Uppressive Socierty" scrolled inartistically and incorrectly in lime green spray paint. Marks along the brick showed that the doors weren't the only places on the building that had been tagged by the unintelligent anarchist. Except for me, the schoolyard was deserted, adding to the overall uneasiness I felt upon arriving. My mother had actually found it in her heart to drive me on my first day, instead of forcing me to take the bus. I was told that I could ask about schedules and bus passes with my guidance councillor after I had been checked in at the main and attendance offices.

She pulled up to the front of the school, nearly hitting the base of the bent flagpole and handed me my backpack. "Have a good day at school." She said rather unenthusiastically, pressing the button on her left hand side to unlock my door. "Be good and study hard!" With that, she waved and shut the door behind me, speeding off with a vigilance that left me somewhat hurt. Those big chestnut doors loomed over me like a giant, with the rest of the building even further up. I craned my neck to see, intimidated by an inanimate object for the first time. You would have been too. I walked up the cracked stone steps one by one, hearing the sandpaper like sound of my sneakers against the broken pavement. Perhaps it was all in my mind, but there were no birds chirping that I could hear; no wind. No sound of the kindness of nature as one would expect. Not on this property.

I clasped the metal door handles and pulled hard, the weight of it felt like I was trying to pull a suction cup off of a flat window. They creaked and moaned menacingly at me, warning me not to enter the halls of this dreadful school. But it was too late, and some part of me understood that if I deserved to be anywhere after the way I had acted, it was here.

The halls were dark and dim, even with the fluorescent lights burning high up in the cathedral-like ceilings. The floor was tiled, black and white diamond patterns with a small jade-coloured edging line near the walls. I tapped my foot down. Marble. It could have been a rather attractive looking feature to this otherwise dank entryway, but the scuff marks, trash, dirt, dust and slush ruined any chance it had. Wads of gum had turned black and flat from the countless times it must have been walked on. To my right there was another large door with a sign displaying the numbers '01' and the words 'Main Office'. My first stop. I didn't want to venture any father inward, though. The smell of the place could keep even the rats out. But I prevailed and wandered inside, hearing my footsteps now echo through the cavernous hallway that was Preston Academy.

I walked into the main office with low expectations, imagining nothing more than a few desks but no bodies. I guess that's why I was so surprised to see that it was actually a place almost buzzing with activity. There was a long counter which separated me from the rest of the office and a line of chairs up against the wall behind me. There were four or 5 desks behind the counter, each with a lady sitting behind it, typing away. Behind them, there was a wall with a giant sliding window and a door, the words Principal in chipped gold paint donning both. I walked up to the counter, unsure of what exactly to do. I'd done this before many times, but never without my mother at my side. She'd just abandoned me today, perhaps thinking that I was too old to need her help. Or maybe it was just her wanting to be rid of me.

My voice sounded almost meek as I spoke above the sound of the secretaries typing.

"Um, hey…"

No reaction. I shifted my weight awkwardly from one foot to the other, staring in every corner of the room until I regained my composure. While the room was busy with sound, it couldn't hide the fact that, upon closer inspection, it was just as run down as the hallway outside and the front yard. The lights above us murmured with the low levels of electricity running through them. The desks and the counter were dented and painted a cheap pastel blue, the computers on which they were typing were old and needed a dusting. The window and wall to the principal's office was also painted blue and displayed rather suspicious looking holes the size of quarters.

"Um, YO! Excuse me!" I spoke up again, trying to gain some precedence over the disturbingly unison tapping of the keys. The woman at the desk closest to the counter let her eyes drift only for a moment to me before returning to the screen of her computer.

"You're Rockwell Mason?" she asked, her voice loud and guttural to match her rather butch and unkempt physique. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes as she used my full name. It was embarrassing the first time I transferred, but now it was just getting old.

"Uh, yeah. But everyone just calls me Roxas."

She snorted in laughter. "That's not a real name. It's not YOUR real name. You'll go by Rockwell."

It took everything I could to swallow the words I was about to spew up. Whatever, she was just some lonely secretary. "Is there anything I need to do now?"
"Your record tells me you should know what to do by now, what with all the schools you've been to." Her eyes finally tore away from the screen and stared at me fixedly over the rims of her glasses. "Although, you're probably one of the scrawniest boys attending this school to date. I don't see what kinda trouble you could have gotten into that got you to transfer," she squinted at a sheet of paper on her desk, "13 times."

The other secretaries joined in a small chuckle along with her as she analyzed me. Sure I wasn't much, but I didn't need to be buff to do damage. I hated it when people underestimated me.

The secretary continued, "From here, you visit attendance. Then the guidance office. She'll take you to your classes." She threw something in my direction and it made a smacking noise as it hit the counter in front of me.

"That's the Preston Academy Student Notebook. Inside is a map of the grounds, the school rules and regulations and a page you fill out with your personal information. You know, in case we need to identify your fragile, mangled body after you get your ass kicked by some of the bigger guys here."

"Are you sure it's entirely professional for a secretary to be speaking to an impressionable student that way? Why don't you save it for your divorce court appeal?" I snapped right back at her. It only made her laugh indignantly.

"I don't need to. I get plenty of practise dealing with you shit-head kids every day. My stamina has risen so I can beat down any slime-ball lawyer alive or dead."

I snatched the student notebook from the counter and turned towards the door, defeated in my own attempt at insult. This school was definitely going to be different from the other ones. At any normal school, the secretary would have looked like someone slapped her in the face with the way I spoke with disrespect. I should have known that little to no respect for authority was practised here.

"When you're in attendance, Rockwell, be sure to talk to the Vice Principal. The real one could care less about this whole ordeal, but the VP would throw a fit if you don't announce your presence."

I didn't reply. It wasn't even worth it anymore. I shoved open the door with my shoulder, leaving a room full of cackling secretaries in my wake. What a warm welcome.

After my visit to the attendance office, I strolled through the halls, my new Student Notebook open to the map. The attendance office was right across the hall from the main one; why they didn't put the Guidance office there as well was beyond me. I wanted to find it as soon as possible, refusing to get caught up in the change of classes. I studied the map intently, glancing up every so often to make sure I was in the correct wing of the school. Preston Academy was the biggest school I'd ever attended, with confusing hallways and décor it was impossible to tell one section from the other. All I had to lead me was the room number. Guidance was room 200, so naturally I assumed it was on the second floor. I climbed a large spiral staircase to the upper floors, uneasy about my direction, taking the steps two at a time, my messenger backpack flapping at my side with each stride I took. If I had any inkling of the second floors being brighter, was I ever wrong. They were perhaps darker than the main floor, air stale and tinged with the scent of sweat. A dungeon. It appeared that any windows I'd seen from the outside only resided inside the classroom. Even a deaf man could have heard the shuffling of my feet in the deserted hallway. I stole a gaze back down to my map, comparing what I saw to the number on the door nearest me. 302. I did a double take. Was I on the third floor? I couldn't have been. The diagram had told me that in taking that particular staircase I would be directed straight to second floor. Did I miss a turn somewhere? I was frustrated to say the least, once again cursing the idiot who decided it would be funny to hide the guidance office away amongst this maze.

I don't know how I didn't hear it, or what in the world could have occupied my mind so much that I failed to notice the footsteps up behind me. But when I felt a tap on my shoulder, I jumped at least 5 feet into the air with a pathetic yelp.

Whirling around to face my "attacker", I stopped short.

"Hey there."

AUTHOR NOTES: Please read and review. Even if you didn't enjoy it. I love to hear from you.

next chapter will be up sooner rather than later.