Namine's POV

We all ended up getting dragged into the principal's office. They needed us to explain our side of the story, which wouldn't have been that hard if we wouldn't have to have waited. The principal wasn't even there, he was due to work late and since they didn't want to send any of us back to class for fear of another fight, they put us all in the detention room. All of us except Tidus that is, he was sent to the nurse to get cleaned up. The room was unlike any classroom I had ever seen. There were simple six tables, each of them sitting two people, and they were in two simple rows. There were no windows, only white walls, bright lights, and a camera that kept us monitored from the office because all of the teachers were teaching their classes.

"You're a lunatic, you know that?" Kairi was the first to talk to them, or at least to Roxas. I'll admit it now; I was scared to death of the guy. If you have seen the look in his eyes when he got into that fight you would too. The guy would've killed Tidus if he had been given the whole opportunity. I know he would have. These words though, didn't seem to bother Roxas. His face was once again back to a placid sort of look. He had his head rested on his hands down on the table. Axel piped in for him though.

"You can just shut up and sit back," Axel told her as he leaned back in his chair and balanced the weight against the white wall that was behind him.

"She's right, he is. He would've killed Tidus if he had gotten the chance," Riku said. He had been there the entire time apparently but I just hadn't noticed.

"Well I didn't see you stepping in," Axel replied.

"What are you saying?" Riku asked as he stood in a defensive way, saying he was ready to fight no matter what.

"I'm saying you know your friend was asking for a fight and that's what he got. Well…if you can even say that he even really put up one," Axel said simply, making no move to get up or anything.

"He didn't do anything, Roxas clearly started it!" Selphie, piped in.

"No, I think they're right, Tidus shouldn't have said anything about his mom." Now see, this is why I don't like saying much in these kinds of situations. As soon as I said this, the room went dead quiet. Everyone was staring at me. Well, everyone except Roxas.

"You can't tell me you actually think what that punk did was justified," Kairi said, staring at me in disbelief.

"No…I think it could've been handled better, but in all fairness Tidus did start it," I replied.

"Are you feeling alright Namine? You can't be to be sticking up for them," Selphie said, actually touching my forehead to see if I had a fever. I got an annoyed look on my face and pulled back from her.

"You can't tell me you don't think, not the least little bit, that Tidus wasn't asking for it," I told her. They all looked at me somewhat funny, but it was more of the silence that got me.

"Your telling me, that you think Tidus, a kid who the only time he has gotten in trouble was hitting the teacher with a paper football on accident one day, would be guilty against Roxas, a kid who's been through every disciplinary institution in this town and its borders?" Kairi said, the disbelief still printed all over her face.

"You know what, I think that's actually what I'm saying," I told her with a slight laugh. I doubt you would know this, but this is about the biggest thing I've ever decided to go up against my friends on. I didn't know why I was choosing to now, but I mean it didn't seem right. Tidus had been asking for it, and it seemed that all my friends seemed to be missing that little part.

"I take it that was your opinion on this." I looked over to find the principal had stepped in the doorway and I supposed he had been listening long enough to get the last few comments. I looked at him confused for a second and then started to think. If I said I was, then I was going to get a good bit of heat from my friends, but Roxas would cleared of something he actually didn't do. On the other hand, if I went with my friends I would be telling a lie and helping Tidus, and that would be the wrong thing to do. The problem was, which one was I going to choose.

"Yeah…I mean yes sir. That's my opinion. Tidus shouldn't have said that Roxas's mom didn't care about him, if he hadn't of said it I think Roxas would have just sat down with his friends and left us alone," I told him. All my friends looked at my in disbelief.

"Wait a second, Roxas started the whole thing, he told us that we needed to shut up," Kairi objected, looking up at the principal.'

"Yeah, about things we shouldn't be talking about, and he was right. We shouldn't have been talking about their criminal records," I replied and Kairi glared back at me. That took me back a bit. It was a glare that I had seen her give other girls and some guys, but she had never given it to me. It was a glare of pure hate, or at least close to it.

"I believe this is your lucky day, Mr. Iku. You see, from what Tidus had told me it seemed to me an expulsion was in order. I did understand that I hadn't gotten the full story yet. I guess this wasn't on all grounds your fault. However, you will have a three day suspension, and it will be added to your record," the principal said. "Thank you for your honesty Namine. Both because it saved me some time and honesty is hard to come by here."

"Uh…anytime," I said, not really sure how to respond to him.

"Now Roxas, come with me to call your Aunt," he said as he motioned also.

"Yeah, what fun," Roxas said sarcastically as he stood up with his backpack and headed toward the door though as he walked past me his seemed to look over and give a small smile. It could've been me imagining things too, because the smile was gone as quickly as it had come.

"The rest of you back to class," the principal ended, and with it, probably the only little bit enjoyment left in that day.

-x-x-x-

No one in our group talked to me for the rest of that day. Well, Kairi did, but it was only "How could you let a creep like that get away with that?" I couldn't believe I had stood up for him either. I couldn't believe I had said a word about any of it, I just had felt like I had to and I did. By lunch time I was pretty much regretting it, and wishing to switch schools. I thought it was about to get much worse when I got a visit from Axel, Demyx, and this boy I didn't know. I had been eating on my own in this weird corner of the cafeteria. My friends were a couple of tables away; they had refused to let me eat with them. They were glaring at me from time to time. It was during one of their glares that they walked up.

"What'd you want?" I mumbled, pretty sure that they were only there to make to day worse.

"Look…we kind of talked it over and stuff, and…well. Sorry, about this morning and stuff," Demyx said as he rubbed the back of his head.

"Yeah…and…Roxas told us to tell you thanks," Axel added. I could tell they obviously didn't do something like this too much.

"Thanks for what?" I asked, sort of confused.

"For telling the whole story, if you hadn't of then he would've been expelled and you've got no idea how his Aunt would've reacted to that. If we would've said anything he wouldn't have believed us, so it took someone like you," Demyx said.

"I only did what seemed right," I said, mostly thinking out loud.

"Yeah, well, you were the only one of your friends willing to do that," Axel said as he looked over his shoulders at the group of friends who turned around quickly when he did.

"Plus we wanted to ask you if you wanted to come and hang out with us. This school is a really tough place, especially if you walk around it alone," the boy I didn't know told me.

"Uh…," I glanced past Axel to my old friends, and I suddenly felt mad, furious even. I had done the right thing and they had hated me for it. So I could hate them for doing the wrong thing, right? I gave a sigh. "Sure, it's not like I've got many other friends anyway."

"Come on then, we don't like eating in the cafeteria. We find ourselves out of more trouble if we don't," Demyx said happily. I followed the three boys, throwing away the rest of my lunch because I knew I wasn't going to eat it anyway. We walked out of the cafeteria and then out a side door. We walked across the back parking lot which was filled with other teens skating and goofing off. They finally stopped at the stone wall that had stretched from the front courtyard and surrounded the parking lot except for a small spot where kids could drive in.

"People, this is Namine, Namine this is people," Demyx introduced, or tried to at least as the three boys hopped up on the wall beside two more people, a girl and the navy headed boy who had been in our first class.

"Yeah, Demy isn't very good at introducing people," the navy headed boy said. "I'm Zexion, that's Larxene, then you know Axel and Demyx, and I don't know if you know Sora or not." He pointed to each of the people as he said their names.

"So you're the girl who helped my brother?" the girl who I now knew was Larxene, said after taking a small drink of water.

"Uh…I guess so," I told her, my shy side starting to kick in.

"Guess nothing! She totally helped him! She was like 'Tidus started it!' and Diz was totally cool about it! He didn't even give her a questioning look or one of those 'You're just helping your friend' kind of look either!" Demyx said really fast.

"Thanks then, you got no idea how much trouble he would've been in," Larxene said before taking another drink.

"Yeah, he would've got sent back to the reform school or somethin',' Sora said nodding.

"They made him go last year, after Axel, Demyx, and he got into a fireworks stash," Zexion said.

"Either way, we owe you one. You want to come and hang out with us after school?" Larxene asked.

"Larxene needs another girl to hang out with, she's turning into too much of a tomboy," Demyx joked as he leaned back a bit on the wall. Larxene simply nudged him hard with his foot and he fell off the wall backwards.

"Uh…you do remember there was a thorn bush there, don't you?" Zexion asked and Larxene gave a sweet smile.

"Yeah, I do," she answered before looking back to me. "So, what'd you say?"

"Sure, where do you guys hang out at?" I asked, not sure if it'd be a good idea or not. At this point I didn't have much else to do, so why not?

"You know that old junk yard outside of town?" Axel asked and I shook my head.

"Well, how about you walk home with us, we only drop our books off at home and then head down there, we can show you where it is," Larxene said and I nodded.

"Sure, sounds like something cool to do," I said, actually some what excited to try something other then hanging out in the Smoothie Shack with Kairi and Selphie and them.

"Hey, Roxas will be there too. If Mom didn't ground him," Sora said happily as he tried to help Demyx out of the thorn bush.

"Ouch," Axel said in reference to Demyx arm which he had obviously landed on. It had thorns stuck in it and was already bleeding.

"Sora, Sora, pull them out!" Demyx panicked and I found myself surprised. I didn't think they would be the type to freak out over thorns.

"No way, I'm not," Sora said as he scooted away.

"Stop being a baby Demy just pull them out," Axel said.

"No, I can't! You do it!" Demyx told him.

"Come here," I told him and he looked at me. I walked over quietly and he stuck out his arm and closed his eyes. He squeaked a little every time I pulled out one of the thorns but other then that, he was fine.

"How is it I've seen you get in a dozen fights and you not even flinch when you got hit but you fall in a thorn bush and you can't even pull out the thorns?" Axel asked as he at some weird Cheez-it minis.

"'Cause then someone else is hurting me, and I don't see the pain coming," Demyx said as he used the bottom half of his white t-shirt.

"Won't your mom freak out if she sees that?" I asked as I sat up on the wall beside Larxene. Demyx just laughed a little.

"My mom won't notice. She's gone for a week on a business trip, I'll have it clean by the time she gets home," Demyx told me as he finished.

"Well she may not notice but the teachers will, and they'll wonder. You might want to where your hoodie the rest of the day," Axel told him and Demyx nodded, pulling on a black Rock Band hoodie. I wondered what he did if his mom was gone…and I wasn't sure it was a great idea to ask. On the off hand…what's the worst that could happen?

"So if your mom's gone, do you stay with your dad?" I asked curiously, hoping not to get the reaction out of Demyx that Tidus had gotten out of Roxas. I was happy when I didn't.

"Nope, dad's on a business trip too," Demyx said as he stole one of Axel's grips that he had been throwing in the air and catching in his mouth.

"Yeah, he always ends up bumming around our house," Sora said with a laugh. Right about that time, the end lunch bell rang.

"Hey Namine, what's your next class?" Larxene asked and I took out a small sheet from my pocket.

"Uh…Physics," I answered after looking over the sheet.

"The art of falling," Demyx yelled before jumping off the wall.

"Come on, fall boy and I have that class next too, room two hundred and four, right?" Larxene said and I nodded. As we were walking back in I noticed something about High School I hadn't really noticed before. How in one day, over one weird guy, all your friends can become enemies and all your enemies can become friends. You know what…you think I would be used that that by now.

-x-x-x-

A/N: "OMG!!! DID SHE GET TWO CHAPTERS DONE IN ONE DAY!" Oh yes, yes I did. This is a new-ish record for me! I have to go though so…BEAT UP THE REVIEW BUTTON!!!