Welcome to Chapter Two! I hope you enjoy it. *EDITED 2/17/10 for spelling/grammatical errors.

This is Axel's POV.

A note to an anonymous reviewer:

First of all, thank you. Your criticism is quite insightful (and thanks for the heads up for the typo!). I do realize the typical Roxas-gets-raped/molested-boohoohoo thing is quite common among the masses of Akuroku fiction out there. However, it is not just Roxas that has the awkward past, and you will see this as the plot is played out. I'm not trying to ''cover up'' or give reasoning to all the imperfections in my story, just trying to clear things up, I suppose. Hopefully the second chapter will give some insight on their snarky attitudes in chapter one.

Oh, and I do realize that Roxas is not the pathetic little uke that many fictions make him, and I have no intention on making him a pathetic little uke, as it would be unrealistic for the story. Obviously, as with in real life, a relationship with one person always bottoming is unrealistic and unhealthy. Calling Roxas an uke would be calling a bulldog a poodle, yet bulldogs do get their soft moments, same with poodles with the tough. So you're correct, I'm using 'Akuroku' generically. Finally, the comment about my author's note with the abuse thing-- I love happy endings, don't get me wrong, but I've been through some similar experiences and it irks and offends me when the victim is like "Omg don't -flinch- touch me please don't touch me -sob sob-" and then the next day is all "C'mere, baby! -eats face of the person who'd been touching them the day before-", you know? Not that Roxas wont get his happy ending :)

Thanks so much for the critique, you've made my day (seriously, when do people get in depth critiques anymore? That really meant alot.:) ) and helped me think about things just a little deeper. Thanks again, and I hope that you will continue to enjoy my story. ~Rayne

Disclaimer: I obviously don't own Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy, and if you have any notion that I would, you need to get your head checked. It is claimed by Square Enix and the masterminds that invented the two wonderful series.

Rated 'M' for sexual activity in later chapters, and for language, violence, and abuse.

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"Yeaaaah, yeahhh..." Books under one arm, I walked toward room 207, and had a few seconds 'til the bell rang, but, I dunno, I don't really keep track of time. I had my eyes focused on Demyx, (''Axel, try not to call Mr. Xemnas 'Mansex' too much and get a referral on your first day back, kay?") and a second later, I'd walked right into something very.... light. Looking down, I noticed a blond kid had fallen right on his ass and his books had tumbled everywhere. DAMN, he was short...his head seemed to go to my knees...Naw, maybe to my lower thighs. Nothing was that tiny.

Well, hey kid, if you don't notice a six foot, three inch tall kid with flaming red hair, it's not my problem you fell over.

As I dusted off the front of my onyx hoody, I heard the kid swear and look up. Hey, don't give me that glare. I'm not in a good mood either... what's that? Playgirl? Wow, brush up on the insults. I retorted to his insults before stalking to class, two can play that game. But hey, at least I apologized! The kid flew to the back of my mind as I was enveloped in the insanity of pre-bell homeroom.

Homeroom with ole Strifey passed in a flash. Same with first period, second, and third.... now to fourth period. Who knew a game of hangman on the desk could be so interesting? Well... not exactly child-friendly hangman that was. You had to blame Marluxia on that one, the pervert.

I mean, I'm just a darling, honestly. Really! At least my conscience believes me.

At this moment I was having a wonderful dream about a can of Full Throttle, my teacher Vexen (also known as Mr. Stikuparse to my friends), his excessively oily hair that was probably the reason why we had an oil shortage here, and then a match... but that was illegal, and jail was a no-no.... damn. It's certiantly nice to dream, though. I really am a good kid, I can just be a bit playful at times.

"Mister Aposta(1), it would be wonderful if you could grace the class with your awareness and pay attention to today's lesson, if you please." the man snapped, before turning on a heel and continuing to write some equation on the board. Science... Chemistry. I love chem, really. Always had a fascination with exploding things and flame in general.... the resident firebug, or so Demyx dubbed me.

Today really just wasn't turning out to be one of my days. Sure, I've been all smiles today with Marly and the others, and sure, I was pretending to have great fun spelling out some obscene, perverted word in an idiotic game on a desk, but no. I'm not. I'm having a shit day and trying to convince myself that today is grand is not working. I woke up with a crick in my neck, got bitched at by my drunken mother for a good fifteen minutes before I managed to smoothly sneak out and get to my car, and oh, did I mention that a cute little squirrel decided to clear a tree's load of snow onto my carefully styled spikes? Nope. But it'd be okay, after a while. Just keep that smile.... just keep that face on... just like they tell you to do at Destined, Ax. Pose, and turn, and repeat.

Anyhoo.... five more minutes and I'm out of here... then lu- BRIIIIIIING. Loud and repetitive, the annoying scream of the fire alarm above the classroom door shocked me out of my reverie.

"Fire alarm everyone, please evacuate in an orderly fashion!" Professor Vexen sounded nervous, which meant it obviously wasn't planned if he was freaking out.

A fire alarm... great. At least they wouldn't try to pin it on me this time!

I stomped down the stairs and into the snow with my class, hightailing it out of the hallway and into the white expanse of snow to the area we were designated to go to. My class made it to the fence and a patch of blond attracted my peripheral vision. Hey, its mister PMS, whaddya know? Well, I can feel like shit and whine mentally like a bitch but there's really no reason to throw it on everyone. Well... that's unless you're Professor Xemnas or a hyperactive Demyx, which is a given. Hell, people are just fun to fuck around with sometimes...heh.

Blondie glanced at me before looking away awkwardly. Hm, maybe the kid was afraid of tall kids like me? Or maybe the runt was just bitchy... only way to find out. "Hey, sorry for bumpin' into ya like that. And don't worry, Playgirl is safely hidden," I smirked with a saucy wink.

He looked up at me without that scowl, but he wasn't looking very friendly nonetheless, and either ignored or was oblivious to the meaning behind that last comment. "It's no problem... I really should look where I'm going or something." He offered back quietly, adjusting the blue scarf around his neck gently.

I nodded, feeling compelled to adjust the green scarf around my neck myself. "I'm Axel Firaga... and if you're thinking the axle on a wheel you'll make me cry. A-x-e-l, got it memorized?" I tipped his head to the side with one of my infectious grins and the kid nodded slowly. "Roxas... just Roxas." He responded, offering a tiny smile as a response. It wiped off his face a few seconds after and we waited in silence until the ringing stopped.... I knew it would be a false alarm, there's nobody stupid enough to set a fire on the first day back to school. Hell, no one was stupid enough to try to burn down the place in general. It didn't matter if Xemnas was the teacher for only one team of students, every single member of the student body knew to be wary of him.

We both trudged back to our classrooms separately, and my day turned out to be amazingly boring, although an incident with Xiggy and that freshman was pretty amusing... poor kid.

Gym with eccentric Ms. Rikku and 6th period came and went and Final Bell rang. Sighing with relief, I grabbed my books and was out one of the first out the door, our art teacher Yuna smiling at us softly, telling us to have a wonderful evening.

We have A block and B block scedules for electives, and that meant that tommorrow I had Graphic Design on the computers with Mr. Cheshire. Did I mention that that guy was a bit... odd? Well, not that most of the teachers here weren't nutters in some sense, after all, this was Myriad Worlds Preparatory; one of the best schools in the country or something like that. Therefore is was obvious the best teachers wouldn't all be careless or no-nonsense drill-sergeant-esque. Xemnas, though, was another matter. He was strict and harsh even to the extent of being cruel, and I think he's missing one too many screws. He had one of the highest IQ's in the country, though (which made math that much more painful to endure) and was teaching children, so he had to be doing something right.

Attempting to shake the subzero freeze from my legs, I strolled over to my full sized locker and cheekily grinned at a huffy freshman I walked past who was a few inches shorter then me. He was struggling with a bottom locker, as freshmen and sophomores got half-sized lockers.

What can I say? It comes with the territory...

I slipped on my deliciously warm insulated floor-length leather jacket and stripped out of the warm hoodie. It wasn't a trench coat or or a cloak, more a combination of the two, but it wasn't very useful for wear inside a classroom. It was form fitting and showed off my tapered waist, which I was pretty proud of. It got me a job as a model at Destined, one of the biggest modeling industries here, and you should be proud of what you have anyways, right? I got to model all the hot fashions from the more... unique lines of clothing, and I love it. Hell to the fucking yeah.

Zipping up the jacket, I slung my backpack over a bony shoulder and slammed my locker shut, another flash of blond darting past me before slowing. "Er, hi," Blondie--Roxas greeted after I gazed at him for a moment.

"Yo, blondie." I grinned, following him towards the bus port. He scowled slightly before rolling his eyes at the nickname. "I'm not some cartoon character," The blond quipped lightly, yet a small, grateful smile formed on his face. You were blond...short...blond...Blondie was a perfect pet name for him!

A flash of red and brown hurtled out of nowhere and flung itself on aforementioned blond. "Roxy!" It exclaimed in an excited voice, hugging the other. "Sora, gerroff me," Roxas grumbled. "And dooooooooon't call me Roxy!" The brunet seemed to finish Roxas' sentence with a grin. Looks like Roxas had a thing against nicknames.

I raised an eye brow and watched the exchange. "This is my twin brother, Sora," Roxas explained to me with a small flush on his face as he tried to fix his hair and clothes in halfhearted annoyance.

"Pleasure's mine, Sora," I smirked, Roxas' "ruffled-peacock" expression making me chuckle more.

Both boys had sky blue eyes, similar facial structure, height, and even hair, save for Sora's more spiked brown and Roxas' less so blond. The almost idiotic grin on Sora's face compared to the 'i'm-pissed-yet-amused-but-just-appearing-pissed' look on blondie's....on a first look you'd think they weren't related, and then once they'd told you they were twins, fraternal, but after listening to them talk and looking them over properly, I could just tell they were identical. They were so different yet the same.

"What grade are you in? Are you one of Roxas' friends? Ive never met you before, how'd ya meet 'im? Oh, and is your hair naturally that red?! What's you--"

Roxas nudged his brother. "Stop eating so much damn candy at lunch, So," he muttered, amused all the same. Sora gave a tiny pout but didn't seem hurt, hand patting a pocket on his pants with a smirk on his face.

"I'm in twelfth and I just met blondie here but I'm sure we'll be soul mates," I said cheekily and got another round of eye-rolling from the blond, who flushed again, "I have to dye my hair on occasion for my job but this is as close as it gets to my natural hair color, and my name is Axel, A-x-e-l, got it memorized? Oh, and you might want to get going, your bus is gonna leave without you," I directed the hyper brunet's attention to his transportation as he began to open his mouth again, and he immediately started tugging on Roxas' arm. Roxas flashed me a quick look of thanks for the not-so-subtle subject change and he curiously looked me over once more before chasing after his twin onto a bus.

Turning myself, I walked toward the senior car parking zone, and converged upon my ride.

My car, a very old crimson BMW Beamer (a.k.a. convertible), had cost 3500 munny and was my baby, with no AC and the occasional clutch jam included. She was reliable though, and was better then getting sweaty and spit in my hair on a torturous bus ride home. m3500 was fucking cheap for a car as good as that--most used ones ran around 8,000 munny and a new car was an easy m20,000 down the drain.

Gas wasn't cheap this month, about 10 munny a gallon, give or take a few. Hell, it's never cheap, and it ends up to a total of a bit more then 200 munny every two weeks, which was pretty pricey, considering that since I want water and electricity in my house and a cell phone with coverage and food for me, my paycheck was drained about 80% at the start of each month. I got paid pretty well too at Destined, about 500 munny twice a month, plus an average of 2000 munny for every moderate-to-major photo shoot, any money I could get, hey, I ain't complainin'!

So, seeing as paying for gas is like pulling my nails off one by one slowly, I usually drive for certain things only, save for special occasions, like not wanting to get my ass frozen. Got that memorized, Axie? Special.

Work at Destined was uneventful. Vincent Valentine-- the heartbreaker model that looks like a fucking vampire, and I swear to God he is one-- and I got our measurements taken, and Marlene, the cutie intern who has a penchant for all things floral and reminds me of Marluxia so much (save for the perversion and manipulative tendencies) it was fucking creepy, made a small sound of displeasure in the back of her throat as she traced over a lump on my stomach. I looked down and noticed a slowly fading, rather small fist-sized bruise on my abdomen.

"Don't worry about that, Marlene, its just a bruise, I probably tripped or something, you know how us tall people are," I gave her one of my most winning smiles and she sighed, giving in with a soft, concerned one of her own. "Take care of yourself, Axel," She said gently and patted my elbow. She nodded and replaced her measuring tape and pad on her desk, smiling at her brother Denzel as he called her name, ready to pick her up from her job here. The poor man was getting over some rare illness that had plagued the town where he and Marlene used to live when they were children. A doctor had created the vaccine that eradicated it, but many of his friends and fellow residents had died. Thing was called Geostigma or something, and it sounded like it had hurt like a bitch.

"All done, you're the same size as usual, Axel." She told me, and I slipped on my shirt; it was slowly growing quite cold in here.

Giving her a one-armed hug as I grabbed my things, I made my escape and drove home.

My dear mother was home, and she was shitfaced as usual. She's an alchoholic, binging on the stuff 24/7. Want to know just how bad of an alcoholic she is? She swore that she'd be sober on my birthday, and I've been waiting for ten years now. She gets so drunk she spills bottles of beer all over herself because she thinks the bottom of the bottle was the opening, and she often neglects to take showers for days at a time, living in foul-smelling clothes soaked in beer and vomit before she grows coherent enough to clean herself off.

Shaking my head, I tried to walk past the living room as quietly as possible and made something for both of us in the kitchen. The small, putrid smelling woman stumbled in, a bottle of Corona dangling loosely in her hand. I handed her a cup--plastic, mind you... I've learned my lesson on that one-- of milk, and she swallowed a bit before hurtling the thing across the kitchen and into the sink. Hn, looks like the man upstairs was on my side on this one, she didn't throw it at me this time. Milk splattered the wall, window, and curtains as the cup ricocheted slightly and slammed into the sink.

"The mil' ees shour, you lahzy lille boy!" She slurred, yelling hoarsely and sounding like a dying cat as her mouth and mind failed to form actual words. The milk is fine, maybe try not drinking two or three dozen beers a day and you'll have taste buds like regular people I thought bitterly, tensing my stomach as she slapped me across it, aim good for one so inebriated.

Damn, I'm lucky that I'm so tall. 6'3 versus 5'3, the woman was on par with Roxas' height.

Roxas....

Mom stumbled back into her cave, also known as the den, and I quickly dashed upstairs, a ham sandwich in one hand and a coke in in the other.

For someone I've never noticed before, he's pretty fascinating, I pondered, looks like he has a bit of a spicy personality too... I like that.

Chuckling to myself, I crawled onto my bed and laid on my stomach, sprawled out eagle-style before reaching into my bag for my homework.

Better now then later...

And for the first time, my dreams became plagued with a short kid with striking blue eyes and blond hair. A blond holding a weapon, fighting this gigantic behemoth of a man-like monster and I felt such longing and sadness towards him. Just like something out of one of my video games...

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(1)Aposta= part of the word Apostate, derived from Greek origin. "One who has abandoned one's religious faith, a political party, one's principles, or a cause." Needless to say, it fits him perfectly. I also liked a definition which goes on to say that they abandon whatever, "For a friend or another matter."

So, what did you think about chapter two? I hope you liked it. I suppose that this will be switching POVs with every chapter (or every one and a while), mainly Axel and Roxas alternating; I'll note if its someone else but you should be able to tell that its either the blond or the redhead.

Please review, and favor if you like it. I crave reviews... :3