Hello there. So I've been writing this for a while, shifting it around, cleaning it up, then completely changing it all over again. I was iffy about putting it up on here because of how long it took me to write and I know you lot like your quick updates. But I promise you, if you give me time you will not be let down.

Now originally I wrote this on a whim, then I really started to put effort into it, and eventually the whole story started connecting to me and my life. It's not really a story that strings together to create a structured plot, it's a story that goes in all kinds of directions, but that is why I love writing it so much and I really, really hope you understand it.

I do like nice reviews and I do accept critique (to an extent).

Ps. Pleeeeaaase don't be put off by how long the first chapter is and how it drags on. This is just the intro chapter, I promise you.

xxxx

Nothing interesting ever happens in this town. My town. Our town.

It's a place of simple luxuries and normal goings on. We work, we play, we live and we sleep. Isn't that what any normal person would expect? Sure we'd dream of other things like being rich and famous, living out there in Hollywood. But this wasn't Hollywood, not even close. This was South England, the United Kingdom of our dear Queen Elizabeth the second. America seemed like a nice idea, but I thought I'd stay here where my life had begun and will probably end.

What I'm about to tell you is not a fairy-tale, not a game, not a fantasy. It is the story of my life, my days on earth and the bits in-between. The life God didn't obsess over because he'd messed up far too early in the game.

The reason I'm telling you, is because I owe it to someone. I want this huge memory to be written down in permanent ink, laminated, framed, and then passed down to another so they can see exactly what it was like and imagine it all… then they can remember what it was like for me to live my life with that person, because the memory deserves to be shared forever. The person I mentioned is worthy to be remembered and never forgotten. No matter who may read this story, they will never forget, and I want every generation to read and remember, always at least one sole remembering every single detail… about the person that my whole life and being is dedicated to.

I'm going to tell you the truth and the truth alone.

xxx

The only point in my life that ever excited me and held a firm grip of existence had quickly rounded off to the next point.

Student life.

It's pretty easy isn't it? Your life in a nutshell would consist of spending your days being paid to learn, making and losing new friends, lounging around studying, going to wild parties and getting wasted, not giving a damn about anyone without getting judged by it, having sex as many times as you want because you're not married or chained the metal ball of 'serious relationship', you could dress how you want, eat what you want, do what you want.

But surely all those things we had were there to make up for something. To compensate for a huge weight on our backs. Maybe because of all the damn hormones we got and stress we built up out of nothing. The endless amount of coursework that sent our brains into overdrive that really only took us an hour to complete. The boyfriends and the girlfriends and the things in-between. It's hardly controllable, it's just what happens, and it happens to us all. We would also think too much about our physical needs. Pleasure; sex. Escape; drugs. Superiority; violence. Power; vandalism. Acceptance; gangs. We do it because our heads get screwed up easily during these tender years. Our emotions are fragile. One powerful word and our mind could go from Tots TV to Playboy Magazine.

As for me, if you really should know, my head wasn't screwed. My head was perfect as far as I was aware.

Perhaps I was clueless? Sometimes we don't realise things about ourselves until it's proven dramatically. Like when you're a child; you don't realise that running in front of a car is dangerous until you witness your very first golden puppy get flattened by the wheels of a ten ton truck. If those realisations don't hit you hard in the face, then, well, you're screwed.

You could spend your entire life not knowing something about yourself. Even when you're lying on your death bed you could still be blissfully unaware of something that could have changed your whole world.

Let me tell you a little about myself, or what I know for the moment.

My name is Roxas, and I am an eighteen year old student. I live a practically comfortable life. I have a girlfriend, an apartment, a best friend, and an education. Nothing out of the ordinary.

But still, we all have our own little ups and downs of the past.

- My Prologue-

We'll start with the basics.

I won't start with this Act 1, Scene 1 crap. Because you really don't want the gory details of how I was conceived and what it felt like to be born. As if I could or would tell you those things anyway, idiot.

I'll start at around Act 2, scene 4, if you want. But hell, I don't even know what act or what scene it was, I don't work in fucking theatre. If you want something like that then go ahead and read a Shakespeare script.

So anyway, I can't tell you much of my parents, because really I never knew them. They abandoned me at the tender age of three and left me home alone without a scrap of food, or even a stool for me reach the tap for water.

I guess you didn't see that one coming.

I can't remember much of those three little years. In fact, I only remember one snippet of a memory that even looks like a blur right now. What it was, was something along the lines of my mother's smile. It was a smile on the outside, a smile she probably hoped looked like a smile, but with my tiny little baby eyes I could see right through her. The smile was full of something like regret, a smile that wasn't supposed to be a smile but a dying look of total and utter unhappiness. I remember the smile making me feel miserable and eventually it made me cry, and after that, I couldn't possibly tell you.

So when they left, I remember for five days I screamed and cried for my parents to come home. Yeah I screamed, and I cried, but what help did that do? I wonder even now why the neighbours hadn't heard me. I guess the shits didn't really care. So I screamed until my grandparents showed up and found me curled up the corner of the living room with my favourite Whinny The Pooh blanket.

What happened to my parents I still and probably never will know.

I suppose that's not very ordinary, but it never upset me afterwards, it's never really got to me that my parents never wanted or loved me. I suppose it's easy not to care when you never really knew them in the first place. And that smile, that awful, un-motherly smile always reassured me that it was okay not to care. So I won't bore you with the angst or the misery I went through back then. It means nothing now, I mean, all we ever did at that age is fucking cry about shit anyway.

My grandparents looked after me, raised me, and I grew to love them like the parents I never had. Until I was nine years old.

I was in my forth year of school when a woman dressed in a dulled out suit walked through the door of our colourful painting room. When sad eyes travelled toward my own from her direction, even at that age I could tell something was wrong, just by that one look. I was told my grandparents had both had a heart attack. At the same fucking time. What were the odds of that? Later I would be told my granddad had the heart attack because he saw my grandma have the heart attack. I didn't blame them though, it wasn't their fault. They were old. These things just happen.

You can tell I'm skipping through my young age fast, can't you? Well, you try thinking back to your toddler days and see if you can remember graphics details of each day. It's not as if my entire childhood was full of drama and unfortunate events… quite the opposite.

I stayed in school and eventually was put into foster care. I don't remember being scared, don't remember worrying about whether I'll be chucked in with Michael Jackson and his play park of wonders. I don't even think I cared that much. I just wanted somewhere to eat and sleep, which was a very mature thing to think about at that age if you ask me.

I walked into the house with my social worker, and that's where I instantly met Axel. And by instantly, I do mean instantly. He'd waited for the door to open, and when it did, he fired all sorts of words at me that I found hard to put together because of how shockingly surprised I was at the colour of his hair.

He was the only son of my new foster parents, and was only a year older than me. He was a nutcase, a totally polar opposite of myself. I didn't know how to act around him at first, had no idea what to say or do. In a way he was intimidating, but after a while of simply listening to him talk I found it easier to ease up. He wasn't nasty, wasn't a brute bully, wasn't even a spoilt brat. He was a nutcase. Before I knew it, he was my favourite person ever. He had his ups and downs, like being a pyromaniac at the age of ten… yeah. He was bizarre, but I ended up loving it.

As I got to know him better, he made sure I didn't turn into a complete social outcast because of what had happened to me in the past, he made sure I was happy all the time and told me everything about life and what the future would hold for us both.

I listened to him, listened to his wild stories and his boasting, listened to every word. It made me laugh, and it made me realise that being a kid was a lot easier to understand when you learnt from a master. I didn't know a lot about living before, probably because I was living with my grandparents who were on the brink of death.

Axel told me fascinating stories of his life, and I always wondered why I hadn't done those things as well. Why hadn't I snuck out of the house at night to go sneak in the school and steal as many toys as I could? Why hadn't I thrown a water balloon at anyone's head? Why hadn't I ever played Blind Man's Bluff? I felt like such a fool around him. He was such a rebel child back then, always getting into trouble and never ending the shit he got himself into. I just sat back and watched with my angel wings stuck securely on my back, and damn, they needed a fine good clipping.

He took me out to play football and tennis and all sorts of other sports I'd never played before. I always did wonder and sometimes still do if he ever did those things out of pure pity. I imagined through Axel's eyes I was some poor sap who'd never before lived his life, and Axel must have felt an enormous sense of responsibility in not letting that happen anymore. Was that the case? Who knows.

He showed me his 'skills' with fire, and to be honest, even that fascinated me, that a child his age was completely obsessed with such a wild element. He'd told me he loved how it could viciously get rid of anything it didn't like, and so easily. Weak paper, dull wood, dead grass. He wanted to be just like fire, destroy the things he didn't like in either one quick swoop or in one slowly torturing movement. He wanted to rid his enemies, obliterate those who dared interfere with his happiness, and it was nothing like the kid-fantasies I'd ever heard of.

A night we'd sit on the sand of the quiet beach that was just round the corner of our house. We'd watch the fire shine in our young and innocent eyes. Sometime's I felt inferior around it, because Axel's eyes would dive deeper into the fire then mine ever could.

He'd say, "A fire could destroy anything it wanted to. Whether it took time or not. No one would fight fire."

I'd say, "but even a wild fire would die away eventually."

Axel, he wasn't a stable kid. Wasn't one of God's perfect little children. As far as a stable young rebellious pyromaniac could be, I didn't know, but I knew there was an important fragment in his mind that wasn't quite all there. He even in some points of his life had to be on medication for his slight obsession. I never judged him for it though, not for a second. When I would watch him from across the flickering flames, I knew that imperfection was what I loved most about him. He wasn't like everyone else. That fire represented him well, he was a creation that could never be predicted or tamed correctly.

The colour of his hair always reminded me of those fiery nights.

You would think I'd be pretty shy and iffy around doing those kinds of things because of how inexperienced I was with, well, life. But I was an outgoing person, always have been, and that made things a lot easier when it came to meeting new people.

He introduced me to his friends at school, and to my surprise, they let me hang out with them, they accepted me. There was Zexion, Riku, Sora, Demyx, Kairi, Namine, Hayner and Ollete. Even though I always worried about it, Axel always assured me they were in no way out of my league and would never tease or pick on me.

He always made sure I was happy.

When I was twelve I realised my life was perfect. I had great friends, I was a hard worker at school and always got the grades I wanted, I had a friend who was always there for me who knew how to have fun, and I finally had a family again.

By the time I was fifteen I began to grow really attracted to Namine. And stop, I know what you're thinking. Typical teenage boy. Well, fuck you. Could you blame me? She was gorgeous. Soft blonde hair, dazzling blue eyes and a perfect body; what any kid that age would dream of dating.

When I first met her along with the gang, I was a nervous wreck, but as time went by and she grew fond of my outgoing nature and my apparent cute baby blues. We grew completely comfortable with each other. I spent the most time with her out of the gang, apart from Axel of course.

Axel would always ask me why I spent so much time with her, and I would laugh and say that she was a really nice girl. He would scrunch his nose up like he did and just say "must be a weird blond thing."

One night when myself and Namine were studying at her house, she leant in and kissed me, telling me she couldn't stop thinking about me. I blushed hard, I was so nervous inside you wouldn't believe, but my heart was skipping beats almost every second she stared at me with those big blue sapphires, and I knew that it was right. I kissed her back and told her the same. That night I lost my virginity, and she had lost hers. It's strange now, saying that I'd had my first kiss and lost my virginity and had a virgin on the same night with the same person. People would tell me it was the start of a perfect love story. I would tell them to piss right off.

It was perfect at the time though because of how naïve and young we both were. So a couple weeks later, we agreed to go steady.

When Axel found out, I was surprised at his reaction. He didn't smile, didn't congratulate me, didn't high five me. He just looked at the floor. We sat crossed legged across from each other on the living room rug and I looked at him, edging my head forward a little to try and see his face. I asked him if he was alright, then after a few seconds he lifted his head and gave me a surprisingly huge grin, a grin that didn't make sense at all. He said to me; 'If it's what makes you happy, Roxas.'

I was happy that Axel had accepted my relationship with Namine, and I promised him I wouldn't abandon him. Having a best friend like Axel was almost like having a boyfriend without all the intimate sexy stuff. So I had to share out my time with Namine and Axel. It felt kind of weird. It felt like I had two girlfriends.

I'd spend my nights playing PlaySation with Axel. He would always win the racing games, and I would always win the boring patience games. When I look back on that now, it kind of made sense why. We'd even have midnight snacks and make those makeshift tents between our two beds using our bed sheets. The torch light would be in the middle, and we would be either side of it, smiling childishly at each other as the light shone up our soft little faces. Whenever I paid enough attention, I would notice this little glint in his eye when the light hit them in just the right place. What it was I never understood, and I would never question it again.

A couple of months later, one day he suddenly didn't look right. He was silent and looked nervous every time he looked at me. He wasn't ill, hadn't caught the flu, as far as I was aware anyway. I wasn't sure whether I should ask him about it. Maybe his mum had told him off about something and now he was just in pure shame. Yeah. Shame is what it looked like. I decided I'd better go talk to him privately instead of at the dinner table in front of his parents, so I grabbed his hand and dragged him upstairs into our bedroom. I sat him down on his bed and ordered him to tell me what was wrong. He simply bit his lip and looked me in the eye.

"I kissed Demyx," was all he said.

Now, I wasn't entirely prepared to hear something like that, not prepared at all, so all I could do was stupidly say; "What?"

"Roxas… I, I don't know." He stuttered and edged around his awkward words. He grabbed his flame red hair in frustration and crouched his head as I sat slowly on my bed opposite, never taking my concentration off of him. "Just recently I've not been able to think of anything but him, he's… he's gorgeous. The kind of gorgeous that should only appear on girls, like Namine. I don't know why, why I'm like this, I just want him so bad." He was almost crying, choking on his words as if he was angry with himself. Every word he said was just dripping with shame.

I didn't know what I was feeling. I was honestly lost for words. Should I have felt like it was wrong? Or like it was just plain Axel? Axel was never into fitting in with the crowd anyway.

I'll tell you what I felt back then, oh I'll tell you. It felt weird that Axel's attention was on someone else but me. If he had openly admitted those kind of feelings because it was about me, fine, who gave a rat's arse? But someone else? DEMYX?! The non-stop-talking-sitar-playing-lame-joking Demyx?!

Him talking that way about someone else… I felt… jealous? Why was I jealous? I thought Axel was going to spend all his time with Demyx, he'd forget about little Roxy, he'd make sure Demyx was nothing but happy.

I tried not to sound bitter, but damn I failed, "did he kiss you back?"

"…Yeah."

I felt crushed. Like my source of my happiness was being hidden and stolen away by that evil rat, Demyx.

After that, all I could do was accept Axel's new orientation, and I tried to reassure him that he wasn't a freak of nature. It was just… life. I tried to accept Demyx as well, but that one needed a little time.

I tried so hard to be happy with Namine after that, but the thought of Axel with Demyx annoyed me. Every time she'd kiss me I'd think 'I wonder if it feels like this for him?' or 'I wonder if Axel likes playing with Demyx's hair like I do Namine's?'

To my disgust, Axel spent more and more time with Demyx. Going to his shows, staying over his house, eating with him at lunch. I felt so lonely in the tent when he wasn't there. Eating slowly at a packet of smoky bacon crisps with nothing but silence and darkness to accompany me. He would say he was sorry, but he wasn't sorry. I knew he wasn't sorry, knew he wasn't sorry about spending an incredible night with the man of his dreams, Demyx.

Every time I thought of or said that awful name, I spat it.

I spent more time with Namine because of the spare time I had. Of course he didn't forget about me though. Oh no. Axel would always surprise me by buying us pizza and renting out a movie, telling me he'd cancelled his date with Demyx for me. It actually made my heart flutter, as pansy and lame as that might sound.

A few months after that, Axel told me he was now going steady with Demyx. It was hard, but I had to accept it. I wanted Axel to be happy as well, and right then, Demyx was doing a fine job at it.

Funnily enough, the scene of when he told me was the exact scene when I told him about Namine. We were on the living room rug, sat crossed legged across from each other, and I'd look at the floor, he'd ask me if I was okay, and I would just say 'whatever makes you happy, Axel.'

I don't want you to think I'm lying clichés into this story just to make it sound better for you. I'm actually not. That did happen, and trust me, to yours and my dismay, there will be a lot more.

I remember nearly every 'first-timer' I had with Axel. From the first time I made a mud pie… to the first time I stole his mum's makeup, jewellery, and her favourite dress and put it all on so that Axel could pretend he had a girlfriend for the school dance.

Demyx refused to go with him. I never understood why I had to dress up like a girl, but it had something to do with Demyx not letting him go with another guy. So, Axel being typical Axel, wormed his way into a ridiculous solution involving me changing my name to Roxanne and our rather awkward first kiss.

It was the night of the dance and I was sat there in our room in this pink puffy dress, pouting annoyingly on his bed while he tightened up his black tie.

"Oh Christ Roxas, smile would you? Anyone would recognise that moody pout from a mile away."

"If you wanted to go so bad, why didn't you just go on your own?" I sighed. "Namine's going to kill me if she finds me out."

"Namine's not going though."

"Only because I told her I'm not. I feel like such an asshole Axel."

Axel sat down next to me as I starred straight ahead, pissed off to the bone. I didn't want to go to the dance in the first place. Namine showing me off to all her friends wasn't exactly my idea of fun. But when Axel offered me a solution of being able to go and have fun at the same time without Namine, I had to wonder what the hell he was talking about. He said he'd repay me by doing all my chores, all my homework and any work I had to do at all for a whole year. I didn't exactly trust him on that, but man, he was so desperate.

"Listen, Roxas. You know other people have tried pulling off this stunt before. And in the end, because other people got so damn suspicious, they'd either pull the she-male's wigs right off… or lift their skirts up for all to see the truth," he'd said rather dramatically with a small shake of the head.

"Meaning….?"

"Meaning," he sighed a little, eyes wondering off the side nervously, "we need to make this realistic."

"Uh huh…?" My eyes quizzed him. I didn't get where he was going with it.

"Fuck, Roxas, we need to like, I dunno, kiss… or something."

"Kiss?"

"Yeah."

"Why?!"

"Because it's what couples do!"

"But we're not a couple."

"Jeez I know that Einstein, but we are for tonight… just, uh, I dunno…" he looked at my face, my totally blank face, and sighed heavily, "Oh forget it Roxas!"

Before he could wave his arms around, get up in a huff then leave the room in an embarrassed frenzy, I decided I'd give him a break for once. Normally, very normally, I'd laugh at that kind of thing if it were anybody else. But seeing him desperately trying to hide his embarrassment by acting all tough once again, yanking his tie up straight so he seemed busy, frowning and muttering some words about me putting a flower in my hair or something, I kind of felt a little pathetic for him. I didn't laugh in his face though, I didn't ignore him either.

I did the only thing that came to my head. I pushed his shoulder back so he faced me, and before he could yell at me asking what the fuck I was doing, I slowly but forcefully pressed my lips onto his, taking control and not being timid or embarrassed for both our sakes. I circled my arms around his neck, letting him know I wasn't taking the piss out of him. He was a little stunned at first, even though it was his fucking idea in the first place. I closed my eyes, pushing my lips a little encouragingly harder to his and fingering the tuffs of red hair on the back of his neck. He still didn't respond, and it was beginning to fuck me off, thinking it was a bad idea or that he might've been joking or something. In a little panic of the thought, I pulled myself off of him, sitting back into my slouched over position next to him, turning my head a little away from him.

"Like that?" I asked quietly, awaiting the hysterics coming from that stupid red-headed-practical-joking Axel.

But instead, he simply said with a smug smile, "Yeah, that'll do."

Kissing a male red-headed pyromaniac at the age of fifteen wasn't exactly in my line of vision when I was huddled in the corner all alone in my old living room, waiting for my parents to come home. No, not at fucking all. Life twists and turns in all crazy and unpredictable ways.

A year later on my sixteenth birthday, Axel had given me a small gift wrapped box as we sat crossed legged on my bed. He was grinning so much it scared me to open it, but he kept ushering me on, promising me this wasn't one of his pranks. Fair enough it was my sweet sixteenth, but he'd never been so excited on any of my other birthdays. I wearily unravelled the small red ribbon and took the small lid off, looking into the box. Inside, laid two silver keys. I looked at Axel, his grin now even bigger.

"Keys?" I asked.

Then in a flash Axel whipped out a large piece of paper from behind his back and gave it to me. I took it, reading the contents. My eyes became huge at the picture of a big house and the big bold letters saying 'SOLD. FLAT 2B."

"Axel!" I cried, happiness overwhelming me. He'd bought us a flat. Bought us the next big step to growing up and looking after ourselves.

"It's right near the college, so let's hope we'll get accepted."

I flung myself at him, holding him in a tight embrace, completely overjoyed. I could tell you that not even I saw that hug coming, it was an instant reaction. He was a little stunned at my outburst. Perhaps he didn't think I'd be that happy about it, thinking that I might have thought we were too young for it. But when my weedy little arms hugged around his neck, he laughed and awkwardly held me back.

As soon as I felt those skinny little twigs wrap around my waist, for some reason, I felt relieved. "Thank you, so much Axel."

"Hey, stop getting so fucking soft," he said. I half laughed, not quite wanting to laugh but thought it would ease the awkwardness. I did that instead of letting go, because, well, I didn't want to let go. Then after a small while, and we still hadn't let go of each other, I heard a little throaty defeated noise come from him. "It's my pleasure," he said into my shoulder. I felt his arms tighten just a little, probably so little he hoped I didn't notice.

And of course, we did get accepted into the college. Our lives were turning out to be even more perfect. We were living the student dream once we were settled into our apartment. I would put up the curtains. Axel would vacuum the rug.

I went round Namine's the night before I moved in, telling her the news that I'd be moving a bit farther away. She was happy for me, giving me a warm smile telling me everything was fine. She leaned forward, kissed my lips softly and I smiled, happy she was okay with it. That night, I know she wanted to keep me there for the night, so she could show me what I'd be missing. But I was too excited to stay over. I wanted to go… home. Yeah. I wanted to call it home now. I felt like such a bastard by just up and leaving while she tried to fumble with my shirt and kiss me into temptation. She sighed, but forced a smile. And I'd tell her I'd see her soon.

That night, I did go home. I went home and I found Axel sat alarmingly close to the open fire in our living room, staring at it and throwing ripped up bits of cartridge paper into the flames. I walked in slowly, placing my shiny silver key on the side.

"Stop wasting that paper."

He jumped a little in shock, his concentration scattering and almost falling face first into the fire, and to that I jumped a little in fright at that sudden image of Axel burning in my mind. With both our hearts pumping a little bit harder, Axel turned around and looked at me.

"You trying to kill me?!"

"Sorry, er, why aren't you with Demyx?"

He looked up at me, then looked away again. "I was too excited."

I scoffed. What a pair of morons we were. Both ditching our partners because we wanted to just be home alone with our fuzzy pillows and our central heating. I looked around. "We could build the meanest tent ever."

He scooted his bum to the middle of the floor, dragging the heat from the fire with him in his almost burning t-shirt. He lied down, placing his hands underneath his head. "Is that why you came back, to build a tent?"

I grinned a little at the hint of a little flesh peeping from the end of white t-shirt and the rim of his black jeans. He noticed, and just blinked.

I laid down with him in a different angle, resting my head on his chest and stuck my legs out to the side. I didn't know why. I felt like that home held no restrictions on me; I could do whatever the hell I wanted. My dignity could be left on the outside porch to freeze for all I cared.

"We should get a job, you know. My parents can't pay for this forever," Axel had dearly noted.

"I know that."

"So? I know how much you procrastinate. You're too easy going, Roxas."

"Thanks Mum."

"Hey, fuck you, I'm just talking reality."

"So where are you gonna work?"

He stopped talking for a minute, while he thought to himself. Either thinking about where exactly he'd work, or thinking about what he'd say next to either change the conversation or just make me accept it and shut up.

"I'll probably work with Demyx." Okay so he decided to shut me up and piss me off.

"Great," I calmly retorted.

Maybe it was just me, but I pictured us doing that all night and probably every night. Just lying on the floor saying meaningless things. Okay so Axel tried to make the whole job thing mean something, but it was just idle banter to me right then, because half the time I never took him seriously anyway. As if he'd ever get a job.

"Hey Axel? Can I ask you something… about Demyx?"

"Sure. I'm not giving you tips on sex though, perfection cannot be taught dear little Rox-"

"I wonna know how you accepted it. You know, how you accepted such a, err, responsibility…"

What the hell did I just say?

"A responsibility?" He asked, almost laughing. That one sarcastic notion pissed me off greatly. I was trying to talk to him, and all he could do was laugh in my face.

"Oh forget it," I sighed and got off of him, leaning up straight. You could tell I had a fine ability of saying things straight, couldn't you? Yeah.

Axel started laughing that stupid laugh, that taunting humiliating laugh. "Roxas are you telling me you're gay?!"

"I'm not gay!"

He started laughing again and placed a hand to his face, wiping the tears from his moronic eyes probably.

"Axel, I'm not telling you I'm gay, I'm just asking you how you dealt with it. What's so fucking funny about that?"

"How I dealt with it? Roxas, it's not as if I developed brain cancer. Come on, you're acting pretty fucking stupid tonight. Maybe you should go back to Namine and get your daily does of loving, then come back to me in the morning for a check up."

He sounded bitter. And that little speech was very desperate, even for Axel, as if some fragment in that skinny body of his was hurt by what I said.

"Axel, I…"

"Hey Roxas, it's like you said all those years ago, it's natural, right?"

"Do you want me to shut up about it?"

He didn't say anything, and because my back was to him, I didn't know what he was doing. "No," he said quietly, "why'd you wonna talk about it anyway?"

I looked at the floor, biting my lip a little. "You remember that time, when you told me you'd kissed Demyx?"

"Who have you kissed?"

"No, Axel," I breathed, "Remember how ashamed you were?"

"…yeah, I guess."

I leant backwards and down again, resting my head on his flat stomach. "How did you get over it?"

I could hear the smile in his voice, a calm little content smile. "Because you accepted it."

"Me?"

"Think about it Roxas, you were the first person I told. There was a reason for that."

"Because you trusted me the most?"

"You were the only person I cared about having a problem with it. I didn't want to lose my best buddy over it."

"So you don't trust me?"

"Fuck, Roxas. There I go saying maybe the second nicest thing I've ever said to you and there you go getting all paranoid about what I said not one minute ago."

"Sorry," I half laughed. Half laughed because it was funny, but I didn't want to make fun of him.

"Course I trust you."

"Hey Axel?"

"What?"

"What's the first thing?"

"What?"

"What's the first nicest thing you've ever said to me?"

"What, you don't know?"

"Enlighten me."

"If you don't know I'm not telling you. I've already said enough mushy things tonight."

"Fine."

Then, silence. I couldn't tell you if we fell asleep like that, because honestly, I couldn't remember what happened.

As time moved on and our teenage years were still blooming, our daily turn of events became a seemingly endless routine. College, work, homework, sleep, parties. To some it was probably a blissful living, but it wasn't for me or Axel. Our lives began to not feel so special anymore, as if God's gift was nothing but a tattered teddy bear lying at the bottom of the toy box.

Being general teenagers we barely appreciated what we had. Axel would never clean, and neither would I. We'd order takeout almost every night. We'd have sex with our partners like it was nothing. We'd laze around, getting on with our well educated college courses as if it were slavery. We'd drink a lot. We'd swear a lot. Me and Axel would even fight a lot. We never meant anything by it; it was just something we had to do once in a while for some sort of adrenaline or excitement. Axel couldn't be bothered to get a job, said his course was a lot harder than mine. As if. We'd get enough money from college to pay our bills, but we still needed food. So I got a job in a music store.

Life was only okay from then on…