Authoress' Notes:

Realizing that NaNoWriMo is now less than a month away, I decided earlier to go back to Dr. Wicked's Write or Die page. (In case you don't know, it's a great way to force yourself to keep writing, for either a set amount of time or until a word count goal.) I set myself the goal of 2,000 words, and, having no idea what to write, I began.

This started out as solely Hayner/Seifer, but, well... things got a little complicated. After some heavy editing, it now makes at least a bit of sense. It takes place in one of those "Everyone goes to high school in Twilight Town, including the non-TT characters" worlds, because really, what better excuse could you have for unlikely couples?

I'm a little tired today (I stayed up until 3 to finish an essay), so there may be some typos or errors. If you see any, think you could tell me so I can fix it?

DISCLAIMER: If I owned it, the gay would be way more obvious (though really, is that even possible in Kingdom Hearts?).

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Friendship

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"I wonder where Seifer is."

Hayner Carroway, 16 years old, blinked, as startled as his friends at what had just come out of his mouth.

"What?" Roxas asked incredulously. "Are you worried about... about Seifer?" He narrowed his bright blue eyes, expression suggesting that, if true, this would be betrayal to the highest degree.

Hayner shook his head. "No, I didn't mean... I dunno," he muttered. "It's just... he hasn't been at school for the past three days. I just thought it was weird, that's all."

Pence, the short, chubby nerd of the group, rolled his eyes at the expression on Roxas' face, and Olette, the best student and only girl, was heard to mutter something that sounded suspiciously like, "Ah, maturity."

Hayner really wasn't sure why he'd even bothered to ask. After all, he didn't particularly care that Seifer was gone. In fact, the past three days had been some of the most peaceful in living memory, without the constant fights springing up between Hayner and the older blonde. Hayner supposed that that was it, though. He didn't like it when life was peaceful. Peace was really boring.

"Still," Pence said thoughtfully, as though he was continuing a conversation that hadn't been broken for nearly a full minute with Roxas' glares and mutters about betrayal, "it is kind of weird. I mean, Rai and Fuu are still here. Usually, when Seifer skips, they all skip." Roxas looked torn between agreeing and continuing to fume.

Hayner nodded. "You're right. I wonder why they would still be here, with Seifer gone?"

Roxas, at last unable to resist joining the conversation any longer, shrugged. "Maybe they had a fight?"

Hayner shook his head. He'd noticed that Roxas was no longer glaring at him, and he fully intended to call his best friend on giving in, but later. "Those three? They're been friends for years. Even if they did fight, they'd have gotten over it by now."

Olette drew their attention by standing. "Boys. Seriously, guys, there's only one way to figure this out." With that, she set off across the cafeteria, towards the table which, with only Rai and Fuu sitting at it today, seemed strangely empty.

The three boys drew together, watching apprehensively. Though Olette got along with Seifer and his gang better than the other three (partially because Seifer and Rai would never punch a girl, and Fuu didn't really care about her), there was always a chance of some kind of fight breaking out. They were just like that- whenever Seifer's friends and Hayner's friends got near each other, sparks flew.

Olette bent down to talk to Fuu for a moment, but apparently Rai was more willing to answer than the quiet, silver-haired girl. Gesticulating wildly, he spoke at great length. The watching boys amused themselves by whispering to each other, "Ya know? Ya know?" and giggling themselves silly over each other's imitations.

After a minute or two, Olette thanked Rai, nodded politely to Fuu, and headed back over to her friends.

"Well?" asked Hayner, now extremely curious. Pence and Roxas, also seemingly very curious, leaned in towards the brunette.

Olette shrugged again. "Apparently he's been sick. He's making up a quiz now."

"...oh."

The boys were disappointed. It seemed so anti-climactic, compared to what they had been expecting. Hayner noticed a glint in Olette's eye, and, suspiciously, poked her in the arm.

"Come on, Olette. What is it? I know that evil look."

Barely able to contain her glee, Olette grinned broadly. "I told Rai that you'd asked, and once he'd told me that Seifer was sick, 'ya know?', I told him to send your regards."

Pence and Roxas looked at Olette oddly, but Hayner had caught it. "Wait... my regards?"

Olette giggled, and a grin slowly began to spread itself across Pence's face. Roxas looked worried, since it was looking like a Hayner hissy fit might be in the works, and those usually ended with sullen silences and most of whatever Roxas was eating at the time either on the floor or in his hair. He was closest to Hayner, it was true, but sometimes he wondered if that was a blessing or a curse.

"You... you... what?" Hayner spluttered. "What could you possibly accomplish by doing that, other than getting my ass kicked?"

Olette shook her head. "No, he won't kick your ass. But he might start being nicer to you." Doubtful.

Hayner, thrown, mouthed, wordless, for a few seconds. "Nicer? But... I... why?"

Olette exchanged significant looks with Pence, shook her head pityingly, and went back to eating her carrot sticks.

Hayner was about to continue interrogating her, but a distraction arrived in the form of a thin, curvy red-headed boy sliding into the seat between Roxas and Hayner. The newcomer turned to smile at Hayner, who felt like he should be nice and smiled back. The boy's green eyes widened slightly, and he seemed thrown off for a moment. A second later, though, he was turning to Roxas, grinning once again.

"Hey Roxas, listen. If I stopped breathing right now, would you give me mouth-to-mouth?" He made a show of holding his breath. Roxas, blushing furiously, tried very hard to look as though he wasn't paying attention to the boy, but it was painfully obvious that he had no idea what to say.

Axel Sinclair was a senior, 18 years old, and had been hitting on Roxas constantly for the past two and a half years. He was a very unique person, from his wildly spiked, violently red hair to the tear-shaped tattoos on his cheeks, and his hair pretty much advertised one fact to the world: flamboyant.

When Axel had first popped up, in their freshman year, to casually ask Roxas how he felt about 69ing with him, Roxas had been confused. He was, after all, only a 9th grader, and wasn't entirely clear on what this "69" business meant. A friend of theirs, Riku, who was a year older, had taken pity on him, taking aside for a moment to explain some of the more delicate details of life. Roxas had returned, blushing nearly the color of Axel's hair, to stammer (so badly that he could barely be understood) that no, he was fine. He'd then snatched up his book bag and run, leaving Axel to call after him that those pants made his ass look great.

Hayner was pretty sure he'd never seen Roxas wear those pants again.

Over time, though, Roxas had gotten used to Axel, and now he only acted a bit embarrassed, as opposed to absolutely mortified, when Axel propositioned him. To be fair, Axel's tone had changed too. He'd gone from horny and perverted to flirty and amused. It seemed like it had become a game to him. Hayner had to hand it to the annoying red head, he'd come up with some pretty creative pick-up lines and schemes over time. Hayner thought his favorite might have been the time Axel had crashed Roxas' birthday party (courtesy of his friend Riku, who thought the entire situation was absolutely hilarious) and given Roxas a birthday lap dance. By the end of it, Roxas had been shaking, bright red, from embarrassment, and Riku had laughed so hard he had choked on a piece of pepperoni from his pizza and had ended up being patted on the back rather forcefully by a chuckling Pence, still laughing his ass off. That had been two years ago, but the memory still brought tears of laughter to Hayner's eyes.

Yes, even though he was annoying, intrusive, rude and utterly shameless, Hayner considered Axel a friend. He would never ADMIT this, of course, but he did kind of like the guy. He'd thought of the red head as merely a fairly tolerable acquaintance at first, but recently Axel had been a bit nicer to him. He'd stopped slipping in jokes about Hayner and Roxas getting it on, and the other day he'd even held a door for a surprised Hayner.

The bell rang, signaling the end of lunch, and they all stood. Olette and Pence were off to physics, Roxas to English, Axel to math, and Hayner?

Lucky, lucky Hayner was off to Latin.

The friends split up at the door of the cafeteria, each heading towards their class, and Hayner began the trek down the hall towards the stairs to the hall to the stairs to his class. Yeah, it was a long trip.

Hayner had just topped the first staircase and started past the lockers towards the next staircase when it happened. The only sign he had that something was wrong was a tiny ripping sound, and the next thing he knew, Hayner's book bag had burst at the seams. He'd had the book bag since 7th grade, so really it was a miracle it hadn't burst before now, but still. This kind of sucked. Hayner was now standing in the middle of the hall, books and papers piled around his feet, wondering how this could possibly get any worse.

"Geez, lamer, you can't even use your book bag competently?"

Groaning at the sound of Seifer's amused voice, Hayner turned to see Seifer holding his DS. "You dropped this, chicken wuss."

Hayner held out his hand, feeling bad about this already. Seifer held it up over his head, out of Hayner's reach. He was only a bit taller, but his extra height was just enough.

"Seifer, give it to me!" Hayner growled, feeling annoyed and embarrassed. His books were everywhere, he had two minutes to get to the other side of the school, and Seifer decided to fuck with him now?

Seifer grinned as Hayner made a fruitless snatch. "No way, lamer." Hayner made another few grabs, trying to push Seifer off-balance, but the beanie-wearing douche bag didn't budge.

"Seifer," a voice behind Hayner growled. He turned to see Axel standing there, looking pissed.

"What is it, spikey?" Seifer threw back. "I'm not bothering you."

Axel held out his hand. "Give."

Seifer snorted. "Why the hell should I do that?"

"Because," Axel retorted, still looking pissed off, "I said so."

The boys lapsed into a staring contest, glaring at each other. Eventually, Hayner opened his mouth to protest, to say that he didn't need Axel to protect him anyways, but Seifer spoke first.

"...fine. Have it, pyro." Dropping the DS into Axel's outstretched hand, Seifer turned to leave, shooting a very odd expression back at Hayner. Hayner wasn't sure what it meant, but he had a nagging feeling that Seifer looking at him with that expression meant something important.

"Here you go, shorty." Axel drew Hayner's attention as he handed the blonde his DS. "Need some help getting your shit to your next class?"

"Aren't you going to be late?" Hayner asked. Well, they were probably both going to be late by now, but he didn't see why Axel needed to get in trouble for him.

"I don't mind. Come on." Axel bent and began gathering a stack of books and papers into his arms, leaving Hayner to collect the other half. Luckily, only the largest compartment of his book bag had ripped, so Hayner was still able to stuff his pencils, pens, calculator and other random things into the smaller compartment. Still, as they set out towards his class, both boys had considerable trouble keeping their loads from toppling over.

"So, where are you headed, anyways?" Axel asked.

"Mrs. Johnson's," Hayner replied. Axel groaned.

"Late for Latin and all the way across the school? That sucks, man."

Hayner nodded, feeling a little awkward. He wasn't used to talking to Axel when Roxas wasn't around. Usually, they only spoke when Hayner was congratulating Axel on making Roxas blush particularly hard, or when Axel was loudly asking him leading questions about Roxas' private life. Still, Hayner felt like he should say something.

"Hey, um... thanks for... you know," he mumbled. Whenever Hayner felt awkward, he started mumbling and stammering, getting a bit red. Sure enough, he felt the blush spread across his face as Axel's silence ticked on for a few more seconds.

"You're welcome," Axel replied, a little awkward himself. "I mean, I know you could have taken him on, but I thought it'd probably be best to just end it right then and not get the two of you in trouble, you know?" Hayner glanced up at Axel's face, and saw that he looked a little apologetic about acting like Hayner couldn't handle Seifer on his own.

He smiled reassuringly, turning his eyes back to his pile, which was wobbling rebelliously. He tilted his arms to steady his load. "Hey, don't worry. I didn't get punched in the face, and I got my DS back. You popping up back there was pretty much the best thing that could've happened to me."

Hayner thought he heard Axel's breathing shift slightly, but when Axel didn't say anything, he decided he must have imagined it. As the two teens climbed the stairs towards the 500 wing, where Hayner's class was located, Hayner wondered how angry Mrs. Johnson would be. Considering that Seifer actually sat next to him in Latin, he suspected that Latin wasn't going to be a very fun class.

As the boys reached the door to the 500 wing, Hayner tried to shift his load of books slightly, reaching out with his now free hand to open the door... but apparently his grip on his books wasn't quite as firm as he'd thought. With a crash, the entire pile fell to the floor.

"...well shit," he muttered, blushing as he realized how stupid he looked just then. Axel burst out laughing.

"Man, your luck is just horrible today," he chuckled. Doing the same thing Hayner had just done, minus the whole dropping shit and looking like an idiot part, he opened the door and propped it open with his stack of books, then turned back to help Hayner, who was scrambling to collect his things.

Hayner was still pretty red, embarrassed by just how stupid that had looked, but Axel grinned at him. "Hey, I'm a klutz too, man. Don't worry, I won't spread it around. Got it memorized?" Hayner nodded, smiling a bit. Axel's catchphrase was really weird, but it was familiar by now, and Hayner liked it.

Hayner and Axel both reached out to pick up Ecce Romani III at the same time, and their hands met, Axel's on top of Hayner's. Hayner felt Axel's hand twitch sharply at the contact, and the redhead quickly drew his hand back. At Hayner's questioning look, he quickly stood, holding his half of the pile. Hayner wasn't sure if the red tint to Axel's face was just from his hair, or something else. Well, it wouldn't make sense then, would it? Why would Axel be blushing? It was probably just his hair, Hayner decided.

Axel gave Hayner the other half of his pile, then turned and picked up his own pile, leaning against the door to hold it open for Hayner. There was a door right in front of them, but it was a Spanish room. They walked to the door immediately to the right of this one and paused.

"You got it all?" Axel asked solicitously, carefully adding his pile to Hayner's. Hayner nodded, and the redhead opened the door for him.

"Hayner, why are you late? And who is this?" Mrs. Johnson asked sharply. Hayner softly explained to her about his book bag, and though she gave him a stern look, she told him to go to his seat. Dropping his pile onto the empty desk to his right, Hayner turned back to the door in time to see Axel pulling it closed. With a wink, the redhead was gone.

Hayner sat down, doing his best to avoid Seifer's gaze. Seifer still wore that funny expression, though now he looked a little angrier, and Hayner wasn't sure what to make of it. Still, he'd decided something today.

Axel was definitely his friend.

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See what I mean? By the way, I'm neither hating on, nor ruling out, AkuRoku or Hayner/Seifer in this one. Axel just popped up to bug Hayner, and next thing I know... I mean how can I resist Axel?

I may or may not write more on this couple. I know there are a lot of unanswered questions still, but hey, that's part of what makes fanfic awesome. Still, they have a certain appeal for me.

Oh, and Carroway is my last name for Hayner. My friend and I literally sat there for an hour last year struggling to find a good last name for him, so now I've made it part of Anneka-canon. I got Axel's last name from a fic that gave Reno the last name Sinclair. I believe it was EvanNJames' "Stake Out" (well worth a read, by the way), but I could be wrong.

Please review!