Author's Note: Thanks for the reviews! Reviews=love. I'm happy to know you guys liked my first attempt at a fanfic! ^ ^ I'll respond to your reviews to try to show that I listen to (read?) and take into account what you say. It may or may not alter what I put, but if it doesn't, I'll explain why. Also, as is probably obvious, I love compliments! After all, who doesn't? 3 (Though, admittedly, on my art I don't believe them… )

Because it was brought up multiple times, I consider the characters OOC for a couple reasons. One of the largest ones being (because I wrote the AN before I was very far into writing the story) that Sora cusses, which I consider so VERY far from his personality. There are a couple of other things, but…yeah. I'm a bit anal about what I consider IC, so…*sweatdrop*

Sorry this chapter took so long, I am too easily distracted.

As a last comment…Roxas x Sora ftw, and thanks for reading my AN.

Disclaimer: I do not consider myself as in any way an owner of the Kingdom Hearts series or concept. If I did own it, I would be rich. And not writing fanfic. xD

Warning: M for all the expected stuffs: Yaoi, language, etc. If you have issues with it, simply don't read. If there are additional warnings for a chapter, I'll put 'em here. Other than that, this'll probably be a copy-paste situation.

Reviews are loved! And I'll always try to respond to any clearly written review to let you know I've taken what you've said into account, and altered my ideas accordingly, or to explain why I continue doing something in a certain way, providing reasoning to the best of my ability.

Don't Play With My Feelings

Chapter Two

Roxas groaned as he comprehended what he'd just written: the only thing so far on the whiteboard was the day's schedule, hastily scrawled in the top right in a bright red dry-erase marker. "Quiz: 1:05-1:55. "Lecture 2:00-3:10." The words glared at him ominously: "Quiz." It was as if the board mocked him, and, though he knew it to be entirely illogical, he felt resentment toward the board, bright white at the edges and stained across the majority of its surface to varying degrees by poorly erased notes over the years, as if it had some sort of vendetta against him. It was, after all, easier to blame the board than his own forgetfulness on academic subjects.

Namine grinned at him and he threw her a look of utter loathing. "Sure you don't study," he muttered darkly at her under his breath, "but that doesn't mean I don't have to. Remind me once in a while?" She gave him a look of confident superiority, goading and mocking him for her own entertainment. "Damn it," Roxas groaned, and his head sunk back to his arms in exasperation. A double period of Chemistry, and a quiz he hadn't studied for. And the quiz was scheduled for an hour, meaning it was one of those "Quizzes" that was truly a full-blown test in a poorly built disguise. Could this possibly get any worse?

He heard a chuckle in front of him and whipped his head up to see Sora watching him with sparkling laughter in his deep blue eyes. 'Correction,' Roxas thought to himself, exasperated, 'It already has. Note to self: remember never to ask. If you do, it always will.' He avoided turning the venomous glare he reserved for his sister in her especially self-righteous moments on Sora. He hardly survived the typical High School caste system as it was, and turning the leader of the school against him would hardly do him any good. Some people thought Private schools were different, that they somehow altered the dynamics of relations between haughty teenagers. Those people were extremely mistaken.

Sora's expression changed to one of slight hurt at Roxas' lack of a returning grin, realizing the blonde was truly and utterly peeved at the entire situation. "Sorry," the brunette mouthed, but Roxas did not see, his gaze locked on the teacher with mounting horror. "You will need your scientific calculators. As always, graphing calculators are not allowed on tests or quizzes. When you receive your quiz, you may begin."

Namine had already set her binder and sketchbook to the side of the table, stacked neatly with her messenger bag that served as her backpack leaning on them. Her desk now only held a calculator, mechanical pencil and a spare eraser, the eraser on the mechanical pencil having long since been used to the point of no longer existing. Roxas moved his notebook hastily, ramming it carelessly into his bag, and extracted his own calculator. Just as he finished arranging his own test-taking materials, the teacher reached their desk and handed him the packet and a separate sheet to bubble in: as was often true of the quizzes in the Chemistry course, it was entirely multiple choice.

As the teacher locked eyes with Roxas when handing him his quiz, a grin pulled at the edges of his lips. 'Damn it,' Roxas thought, despairing, 'Even Ansem's mocking me!' Ansem was the name the Chemistry teacher often went by: he was an eccentric old man that gave no other name, though claimed he would also answer to "Ansem the Wise." Ansem never wore the typical suit and tie, or dress shirt and tie at least, that was the agreed upon uniform for the male teachers at the school, and it was a common and verified belief that he even wore his labcoat on weekends on the rare occasions he might be sighted away from his home or the school. If Ansem was mocking him, there was no hope.

He looked down at the quiz now before him with mounting stress and despair. What if he failed it and Namine got 100%? How would he explain it? What if, worse than merely failing, he managed to answer every single question wrong? It was a near statistical impossibility, yet he knew better than to put it past himself. Even Schools of the Arts required decent grades: an F in Chemistry would get him nowhere.

Roxas barely managed to resist the urge to surreptitiously peek at his sisters paper: his own did not yet even have the name filled out (something he quickly remedied upon realizing) but she was likely at least a third of the way through, judging by her periodic scribbling and her occasional rapid (and surprisingly aggressive) jamming of the keys on her calculator. He paused a moment, realizing that he had not even read the first question, and that this panic and paranoia were getting him nowhere. He chewed on the tip of the eraser; his brow furrowed as he took deep breaths and read the first question with no small amount of apprehension.

1.) Which is the polyatomic ion Carbonate?

a) CO32-

b) CO3-

c) CO2-

d) C2O3

.

Roxas groaned and glared at the problem for a moment. Of all things, it just had to be polyatomic ions. Sure, they'd been working on memorizing and applying them in class for the last week, but they were obnoxiously similar to each other and required obnoxious amounts of memorization, and were therefore the bane of anyone that had not studied. Which meant, of course, Roxas.

He sighed, knowing that regardless of how long he stared at the question, it would not change, then bubbled in "a" seemingly at random. More often than not, when he went with his gut instinct, he was right: one of the main reasons he was receiving a B (well, a B-, not that he'd tell anyone) in this class. 'Who needs to know the difference between Nitrate and Nitrite?' he groaned inwardly, lamenting the mandatory and useless class that Chemistry was to him.

--- --- --- --- ---

The allotted hour was up only shortly after Roxas trudged to Ansem's desk to set his own test on the piles that held the tests of the majority of the other students in the class, his sister's and Sora's included: he'd been one of the later ones to finish. That did not, of course, innately mean he would get one of the lowest grades. It did, however, show that he spent most of his time attempting to recall the trivial information that the entire quiz was composed of.

He collapsed back in his chair with obvious relief: the quiz was now turned in and there would be no way to alter it. Namine smirked at him, and in a joking tone said, "So, did you do well Roxy?" Roxas stuck his tongue out at her: she knew well enough how he'd done, and she also knew that he loathed the nickname. She, in return, giggled and brought her sketch book back onto the table. After a quick glance around the room to decide upon a subject, she eyed Riku, who sat across the table from Sora and, unlike Sora, seemed perfectly content to completely ignore the less-than-popular twins. With a smirk, she withdrew a few colors of colored pencils from her pencil case and began to set his likeness on the paper.

Roxas sighed: he remembered a time when she'd drawn stick figures in crayon saying that they were "memories," while everyone knew that they were merely pictures of dreams she'd had. Then, her art had been innocent and, if not skilled, cute. Now, she was far more skilled: when she drew an object, it felt as if it were actually there, and her drawing of humans could only be described as uncanny. But at the same time, she used her strange insight into people through her art to unnerve them: she knew that when she observed people she was in the process of drawing it made them uncomfortable, and she used that to her own advantage. It was not truly Riku's fault that the school loathed them, but it annoyed her that he'd so readily ignore them, so she did her best to "observe" him and to discretely bother him.

"Now that all the tests are in," Ansem said after a moment, glancing around the room and seeing that all quizzes were now on his desk, "We'll be moving on to our lecture." He stood from his desk and moved to the white board, then began to write a basic outline of the day's subjects. Everyone quickly extracted their notebooks and began to furiously copy what he wrote word for word: Ansem's tests were notoriously difficult, and concentrate on obnoxious levels of detail. Namine glanced at the board a moment, as if deciding whether or not to put away her sketchbook, and decided against it, continuing to draw, deciding taking the notes was not worth interrupting her drawing.

Sora did his best to keep his gaze off the blonde throughout the class. He tried to fool himself into thinking he was not thrilled they'd almost been late, forcing him to sit with the blonde and his twin sister. Otherwise, he'd be harassed for even talking to him. Roxas…despite watching him and despite that he was known by the entire school for what he was, his name was as infrequent on people's lips as Sora's was frequent, which is to say the name "Roxas" was unknown to all but a few close friends and his teachers. But, as the end of the class neared, his notebook only had a few phrases written down that, out of context, made little sense.

"And finally…" Ansem sighed as he noted the time, "We'll be deciding lab partners for the next few months in the same method as last time. Your lab partner is the person you are sitting next to. If this is the same person you were paired with last time, then choose the person sitting to your other side. If, for whatever reason, you are unable to find a partner, come to the front of the room and you'll be paired with any others in a similar predicament."

There was no small amount of groaning: most people were more than happy with the lab partners they'd had since early October. Sora was not one of those that groaned: he'd been partnered with Kairi and, while he would never wish to lose her as a friend, she proved a distractingly talkative lab partner. The only other person he was sitting next to was…Roxas. In its own way, this was just as bad: proving to himself he wasn't gay would be difficult if he would be exposed to the blonde so often and his heart fluttered every time.

He couldn't help feeling happy at the strange coincidence. 'It's because he seems like he'd be a great friend,' he tried to convince himself, partially succeeding. The main way he'd become so popular was his sheer joy at making new friends, his generally likable demeanor, his luck at finding particularly well-placed and powerful friends…and, though he did not think this himself, his good looks. The brunette was, after all, the epitome of adorable. His rounded, child-like face was often split into a wide smile. His brilliant blue eyes were framed by impossibly long lashes that made each blink seem somehow seductive. The eyes themselves almost always shone with laughter and happiness, holding a blatant sense of innocence. His impossibly messy rich brown hair simply topped it off. His smile and innocence drew people in, and his laughter and personality kept them there.

After the class separated, only a few people moved to the front. Kairi had paired with Riku. Namine, who had, of course, paired with Roxas the previous round, was left alone since Riku, who sat to her other side, had already been paired. At the front, she was stuck with a hyperactive blonde by the name of Demyx, and Sora could tell even without knowing her well that she did not look favorably on the pairing. A few others were paired due to being parts of odd-numbered groups, yet none seemed so unhappy as Namine was.

"These will be your lab partners for a while," Ansem said when they were paired off. "Your homework for tonight is posted online and due Monday." As he was speaking, the bell rang and the entire class visibly relaxed: school was over for the day. "Have a nice weekend, and come prepared for lab," he added conclusively, his voice raised to be heard over the bell at the outbreak of relieved murmuring. Despite his efforts, he was drowned out: you can hardly expect a class of teenagers excitably jamming their notebooks into their bags and chattering happily about the upcoming weekend to remain quiet enough to allow a single voice to be heard.

Sora grinned good-naturedly at Roxas. "Guess we're lab partners?" He ventured, hoping for a conversation topic as he packed his own belongings. The only response was a curt "Yup," and he noticed it seemed as if the blonde was avoiding meeting his eye. "No Comment?" Sora lightheartedly added, supplying his view of Roxas' portion of the conversation. The blonde slung his backpack on to his shoulder and flicked his head up to look into Sora's eyes with obvious exasperation.

"Look…" he began in a tone that showed that it was unlikely to be happy and giddy words that followed, "I've got no idea why you've suddenly taken an interest in me. I'm fine with dynamics remaining as they are: I have my group, you have the school. Keep it that way and everyone's happy. If you're pitying me, I'd recommend you stop. Immediately. If you truly want to be friends…well….why me, and why now?" From Roxas' curt tone, it was obvious his temper was short. Sora knew all he'd said was true, yet it still seemed a bit too aggravated. "Sorry if I've hurt your feelings, but I really have to go. Rehearsal starts immediately after school, and we've got auditions Tuesday so everyone will be trying their best to work on the part they want.'

Sora nodded in acceptance before registering what was said. "Rehearsal? Another play?"he asked in what he hoped was a politely interested tone. He'd forgotten for a moment that Roxas was in Drama, and that the Theater Club actually did plays. It was hardly his fault: the most advertising the club ever did was to tape a few forlorn fliers on to a couple of posts in areas it was unlikely they'd be torn down. They'd given up trying long ago: why bother if no one will go anyway? If it were not for the fact that they were the butt of numerous jokes, it would not be strange to think that most would even forget their school had a drama department.

"Always," Roxas responded, his tone immediately different. His eyes lit up and a grin split his features at the opportunity to talk about his efforts in Theater. "This one has a strange concept, I'll admit. It's by a playwright no one's ever heard of, and I found it when skimming through old scripts. It caught my eye, though, and I couldn't get it out of my mind. So I decided we should do it. " He spoke quickly, excitedly. He spoke as if there were not enough hours in a day to speak of, or to generally do anything involving, theater. His hands refused to remain still as he spoke, gesturing wildly in ways that proved to emphasize what he said rather than distracting and detracting from it. His sheer happiness was contagious, and prompted Sora to mirror his jovial grin.

"It's called Kingdom Hearts," he clarified before Sora could ask. "The main character's name is Sora, and there are characters named Riku and Kairi as well. The plotline involves some interesting theories, and strangely enough quite a few Disney characters. I'd say more but…on the offhand chance someone other than our families come, I'd rather not ruin it for them." Roxas hardly took a breath throughout the small description, and despite that he was more than happy to talk about theater, his frequent glances at the clock showed he was pressed for time.

With an inward sigh, Sora glanced at the clock as well. It read 3:15: they'd been there for five minutes. "You have to go to your rehearsal now, though, right" He said, releasing Roxas from their conversation. The blonde nodded quickly, his eyes still locked on the clock. "Mind if I join you?" Sora's question was innocent, as if he did not realize how startling this was. In his mind, he was only watching a rehearsal of someone he hoped to be friends with.

"S-sure!" Roxas exclaimed, glancing around the room. Riku and Kairi were some ways distant, talking to each other and occasionally eying Sora. Most students had already left, Namine included: why linger in a classroom at the end of school on a Friday? Sora smiled widely and followed Roxas toward the small stage in the Drama room that served as the location the Theater Club practiced (the actual play was always put on in the auditorium).

The room was not small, but not large either: the small stage took up half the room's square footage, and was raised about two feet over the normal floor. On a corkboard on the wall, various papers were hung using thumbtacks: posters of previous plays, timetables, a flyer for when the "open auditions" would be held, and a large piece of paper, blank but for a row of character names. Most of the club was already in the room, relaxing on whatever surfaces they could find to sit beneath mass quantities of props that had accumulated throughout the years.

They looked up as Roxas walked in and began to talk, to ask why he had been late. Their words, however, were silenced immediately as they saw the brunette behind him. Namine was the only one that did not appear surprised: she was perched on the edge of the stage with her sketchbook in her lap, working on costume designs to give to Olette's mother who had generously volunteered to make the costumes. She glanced up as she heard Roxas enter, but immediately returned to her work, completely ignoring Sora's presence.

Sora could tell they brought their surprise under control with some difficulty, and tried his best to lighten the mood. "So…" he began, "How exactly does this work? Have you had the auditions yet, or….what?" The eyes of the room remained on him, and a brunette shook her head to dispel any doubts, and to answer his question. She stood and indicated the flyer on the corkboard behind him, which stated in large bold lettering that "Open Auditions will be held Tuesday, December 8." He smiled his thanks at her.

"Alright," Roxas began, an authoritative tone in his voice. "Everyone decided today's roles yet?" He glanced at the board, and noted that they had not. "Come on, guys, just because I'm not here yet doesn't mean you can slack off. C'mon, as always before auditions, first to the role gets it." He stepped to the side, letting the wave of people rushing to sign up for the role they most desired. Sora watched with no small amount of amusement, and moved back to Roxas' side.

"Are you planning on joining us, or do you just want to watch…" Roxas ventured after a moment. Sora started. "I…I can join you? I've no experience in theater, I'd just drag you down…" he mumbled shyly, and he glanced up to see Roxas' grin. "Oh, come on," the blonde retorted jovially, at home and relaxed now they were in the Drama room, "Right now's just for fun, anyway. No one really practices their roles until after the auditions because sometimes you don't end up with the character you thought you'd have. So lack of experience is nothing big, really." Sora nodded in thanks, happily saying "That sounds like it'd be a lot of fun!"

Roxas nodded and pushed toward the board to write his own name and Sora's on the paper. By the time he reached it, everyone else had pulled away, having already determined who they would practice as for the day. Sora looked for his name and, with some apprehension, noted it at the top beside the character by the same name. He recalled from his earlier conversation with Roxas that "Sora" was the lead role. He glanced over at Roxas, who in return nodded and sat next to his sister on the stage. After a moment's pause, Sora realized Roxas' name was nowhere on the list.

"Alright," Roxas called out, and everyone's gaze turned to him. "Sora's joining us today, and I thought his playing around with our "Sora" made the most sense. So I'll be sitting out today." He handed Sora a few pages from the script. "We'll be starting from the top," he called out, his voice raised.

Everyone flipped the front few pages of their script to the first scene.

"Let's see…" Roxas began, deciding how best to explain the setting to Sora. "We start at a peaceful world known as "Destiny Islands." Because of our small number of people that comprise our cast, most of the roles here will be with people who are at least double cast. So…" he glanced at the paper, referencing it, "Hayner is Riku, Namine is Kairi, Olette is Selphie, and Pence is Wakka. You're Sora, of course."

Sora nodded and did his best to read his lines with the emotion he thought would suit them. He'd never acted before, and it was obvious: he failed to enunciate, and even the amount of emotion he attempted to put into the lines failed, for the most part, to come through: instead it sounded rather like a person reading a textbook passage aloud in the middle of class. He could tell Roxas barely suppressed his urge to wince, and he faltered and trailed off.

"Sorry!" he exclaimed, his face red with embarrassment, "I…I've never acted before! You shouldn't have given me such a large role and-" He was cut off by a motion from Roxas. "It's fine, Sora, just…don't make it sound like you're reading it. Make it sound as if you're living in the situation. Here…" He sat next to Sora, pushing close enough to him to read his few pages of script. Sora's face turned redder, but it would hardly be noticeable to anyone that was not watching closely.

"See this line?" he asked, and he reached out his hand to indicate the one he was mentioning. His hand brushed Sora's, and the brunette flinched away, drawing a strange look from Roxas. "S-sorry," he stammered, and did his best to concentrate on what the blonde was telling him…not the way his voice rolled from his soft, plump lips like music, or the way stray strands of his hair fell gently in front of his eyes, just begging Sora to reach up and push them away, or…

'I'm not gay, damn it!' was the only response he could make to his own thoughts, to his own rapidly-beating heart. Somewhere deep within himself, he heard a small voice say, "Sure," in a sarcastic tone, then add in the most nonchalant way possible, "Have you ever heard of bi?"

Whew! Another chapter done! No, there won't be hot dream-sex in every chapter. Sorry?

This one's a bit shorter…T_T …oh well.

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