A/N: Chapitre deux! Le deuxième chapitre. Yeah. I updated fairly quickly if I do say so myself =)

Thank you for all the kind words and reviews! I truly do appreciate them all!

I hope you enjoy the chapter~!

The next morning, Roxas awoke with soreness all throughout his body, but mostly in his back and neck. His night of sleep hadn't been very comfortable and he realized he'd been sleeping in an awkward position on top of his arm when he woke up. Nightmares also kept him up, which was rather rare. He only had nightmares when majorly stressed, so he supposed it made sense, even if he hated it with a passion.

The light filtering in from the window of his and Sora's new room was orangey-yellow. It told Roxas that it was early in the morning; probably around 7 or 8AM. Roxas groaned as he saw that not even Sora was up yet. Sora was a total morning person, unlike Roxas. Only on rare occasions did Roxas wake up before his twin, and he grumbled to himself tiredly as he usually did when it happened.

Unfortunately for Roxas, he knew he wouldn't be able to fall back asleep. That didn't stop him from trying, however. Only an hour's worth of attempts was enough to convince him he wouldn't be sleeping anymore that morning. He debated whether or not he should awake Sora, but decided against it, not wanting to bother his twin.

Roxas heaved himself up off his mattress and stretched out. A particularly loud pop from his back made him feel much, much better. He exited the room and headed downstairs so that he could walk around the neighborhood a bit.

It was a little chilly outside, and it made Roxas shiver, being rather inexperienced with the cold after having lived in such a warm, tropical climate all his life. He clutched his arms in an attempt to warm himself up and he wished that he knew where his sweater was. He wasn't about to look for it at this time in the morning with everything still packed away in boxes.

Briefly, he made a note of their house number and street name so that he would be able to find his way back. He wasn't so sure he'd be able to relocate his house if he went walking all throughout the neighborhood, but he had his phone, and that was enough for him.

The houses in their neighborhood all looked very similarly, he noted. They were probably owned by the same company or person. It wasn't a gated community, more like a collection of homes that were rented out. That being said, getting lost posed a real threat, considering how nearly identical all the houses looked, never mind the fact that Roxas had never been here before.

Roxas didn't really care. He just kept trudging along. As he walked, he took out his phone and saw that he had been receiving texts mostly from yesterday from various friends of Destiny Islands. No feelings of longing or sadness ran through Roxas, and he began to feel a little bad that he didn't miss most of them even though he hadn't wanted to leave. Most of his "friends" had been Sora's friends. They liked Roxas, sure, but he'd seen them wish he was more like his twin multiple times.

He ran into a collection of texts from his own little group, though. They were his real friends; Hayner, Pence, and Olette. They had always honestly liked him for him and he couldn't even begin to count how many good memories he had with them. They were the only people he had ever cared about in all of Destiny Islands.

Hayner was his best friend. He was like the self-proclaimed leader of the group and often got them to pull pranks and do things that more often than not led them to getting in trouble. He was the only person who knew Roxas swung the other way, and Roxas was the only one that knew he swung the other way as well. Pence was the goofy, fun-loving member of their group, always making stupid jokes that they couldn't help but laugh at.

Olette was the momma-bear of the group. She always nagged at Hayner for getting them into trouble all the time. Roxas knew that she secretly liked doing all the less than reputable things Hayner got them into. She knew that someone had to be the voice of reason, though, so she provided her own. On many occasions, she'd gotten them out of trouble. She had also kept them from doing anything too terrible, which was probably a good thing. They would have burned down several houses (on accident, of course) if she hadn't been there.

Pence had always had a crush on Olette, but Olette had always had a crush on Hayner. Truthfully, Roxas found it to be a little irritating, especially when it reared its ugly head and messed with the equilibrium of their group. Roxas had always tried to turn Olette onto Pence, but there wasn't really much he could do aside from telling her that Hayner wasn't into her. She was definitely a stubborn girl.

Roxas felt himself smiling as he replied to their worried texts, though he doubted any of them were awake. His cell phone told him that it was 7:45AM, and it was a Sunday morning. None of them would be up for at least another hour at the earliest.

After walking around the neighborhood, and even down the streets outside of the neighborhood, Roxas decided to head back home. His parents might've been awake by that time and wondering where he was. If they were really worried, though, they would have texted him by now, so he took his time walking back.

It took Roxas about a half an hour to locate his house again because he'd taken multiple wrong turns. When he opened the door to the hovel, as his father had called it the previous night, he heard Sora freaking out upstairs. With a sigh, he headed up to their room. When he opened the door, his twin turned to him from ripping apart Roxas' bed.

"Roxy!" Sora cried. He stood up and lunged at his brother, tackling him into the hallway.

Roxas let out a surprised yelp as his twin came down on top of him. "Sora, what are you doing?" he demanded as the brunet began rubbing their cheeks together and tightening his grip on him.

"Oh, Roxas, I woke up and you weren't there and I got so worried! I thought someone had taken you or you were dead somewhere! Oh my god! Never do that again, okay?! I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you," he began to chant between pecks to Roxas' cheek.

In reply, Roxas grumbled and shoved his brother off of him, and he nearly fell down the stairs that happened to be right there. With a huff, Roxas stood up and brushed himself off before heading back into their room to fix his bed.

Sora whined from the stairs, "Roxy, be nice to me! I was only worried about you!"

"Shut the fuck up out there!" came Cloud's voice from behind his and Tifa's locked door.

"Sorry, daddy!" Sora called back. He joined his brother in their room. "So, Roxy, where did you go?" he asked as he flopped down onto his own bed.

"I just walked around a bit. I woke up pretty early, and I didn't really know what else to do," he replied. He lay down on his side and faced Sora, his head propped up on his elbow. "The area's nice, I guess."

Sora hummed in response. He looked down at the hardwood flooring beneath them and then his eyes traveled back up to meet Roxas'. "Rox, do you think," he paused for a moment, "do you think that I'll be able to make friends? What if the people here don't like me?" His forehead said, 'I'm actually more worried about you.'

Roxas shrugged a bit. "We'll be fine, Sora, it's not like the people here are a completely different species. I guess we'll just have to carve out a new lifestyle for ourselves. Besides, who can resist your cute face?" He grinned.

"Oh, you!" Sora giggled. "Your face is pretty cute too, you know. You'll make friends super easy, I just know it!" 'I'm just trying to convince myself that you'll be okay.'

Roxas looked down at Sora's torso, not wanting to see how pathetic his brother thought he was. They talked for a while longer, discussing what the school could be like. While they had stayed away from the house-hunting process, they had no say in being part of signing up for classes that they would attend at Radiant Garden Union High School. It was only the second week in September, and they were supposed to start school not tomorrow, but the following week so that they could get everything unpacked and settled.

The school year had already started, however. It had started the last week of August, so they had missed a bit. Cloud and Tifa hoped that they would be able to catch up, but Roxas wasn't worried about it and Sora simply didn't care. Roxas had always been academically inclined, much more so than Sora. On the flipside, Sora was much more athletically inclined, and had joined the swim and water polo teams at their old high school. Sora was more worried about being able to join the swim team since it was already so late in the year.

The school had assured him that he would still be able to join if the coach allowed him to. He was supposed to have a tryout tomorrow at 3PM at RGUHS, and he wouldn't stop talking about it. Roxas just listened to him silently, knowing it was futile to try to interrupt him when he went on a tangent.

Eventually, Cloud came into their room at around 10AM and they all went to McDonald's for a quick breakfast. When they got home, the movers were there unloading their truck. A lot of their furniture had to be sold, which the movers had taken care of the previous day. They had significantly less furniture now, but they also had significantly less space, so it seemed to even out.

They all carried box after box into the house, placing them into the rooms they were intended to go. Tifa got out of doing any heavy lifting by saying she would unpack all their kitchen supplies. A little later, Sora got out of doing the manual labor by going to the grocery store with his mother.

Roxas didn't mind helping his father and the movers, though. He was sort of a push over when it came to his family, and they all knew it. So, when Cloud said he had to take a break on their recently unloaded couch, Roxas kept working without protest. He really wanted to focus on his and Sora's room, but he knew he would have to wait until all the boxes were out of the moving truck.

Finally, the last box was removed from the truck, and the movers drove away. Just when Roxas thought he would have a break, his father ended his own break and told Roxas that he had to help him unload their own cars now. Too tired to even roll his eyes, Roxas obeyed. Tifa and Sora eventually came back and set about stocking the kitchen with their newly purchased victuals.

Sometime during the frenzy of unpacking and moving furniture, Roxas must have passed out because when he opened his eyes, he was lying in his bed when he had previously been helping Sora put together their dining table and chairs. His muscles wailed as he stretched and got out of bed to head downstairs.

Upon descending the stairs, he began to smell something delicious, and he briefly wondered what time it was. His mouth was watering by the time he reached the kitchen. His family was all eating at the dining table without him. He grumbled in frustration to himself. He didn't think it was very nice that they would have their first meal in their new home without him, especially after making him do half of the moving alone.

"Rox, your plate's in the oven," Tifa told him from her place at the table.

The table was probably the nicest thing in the room, which was a little sad, but Roxas was sure that once they dug through all the boxes and began filling the home with their furniture, it would at least balance out between the ugliness of the house and the niceness of their furniture. He fished his plate out of the oven and joined his family.

The meal was nice and it was good to see his family looking happy again after such a stressful time. In such a new area, it was hard to see the flaws, and no problems had come up so far, which let everyone feel a great wave of relief wash over them. The planning was much more stressful than the act of moving itself, especially when they just buckled down and worked.

That being said, the conversation at the table was light-hearted and enjoyable. Even Cloud had pulled the stick out of his ass to join in on the merriment. He had finally realized that there were a lot more job opportunities in this big city than in their small town in Destiny Islands.

Sora was blabbering away, as always, about his tryout tomorrow, and it made their parents remember about getting them to school. Tifa told Roxas and Sora that they should go to the school together and straighten out their schedules and everything while Sora went to his tryout.

Roxas had been silent all meal, so, in an attempt to get him to talk, they asked him what he thought about going to school here. His response was minimal, and all their foreheads expressed worry over how well he would adjust to this new life. It made him feel a little indignant, but he could understand their worries. He wasn't exactly sociable and he didn't have a friendly aura about him like Sora did.

Honestly, Roxas' plan was just to blend into the background and follow Sora around until something happened. That was what he'd done when they'd first gone to elementary school, and then when they'd moved on to middle school. It worked fairly well for him then, because it led to him meeting Hayner, Pence, and Olette in fifth grade.

After dinner, Cloud and Tifa went to assemble their bed frame, as did Roxas and Sora. However, they were assembling their new bunk beds. It was a little scary because neither of them was very tall, and they weren't sure they'd even assembled the bottom bunk correctly. It was wooden, though, so it wasn't going to stab them if it disassembled. It would just crush them. No big deal.

They finally got it put together before it got too late. Both of them were wiped out by that point, so they decided to turn in. Sora had been ranting about getting the top bunk, and he was even prepared to fight Roxas for it. Roxas, being the pushover he was (and having an exceptionally soft spot for his twin) allowed him to take the top bunk without any fight whatsoever. Personally, he was fine with the bottom bunk. He sort of had a record of rolling out of bed during his sleep. It must be very unpleasant to roll out of bed and fall at least four feet into a hardwood floor.

Maybe it was because they now had other things in their room, but Roxas fell asleep a lot easier. The problem was when he woke up some hours later. He heard a loud crash and Sora screaming simultaneously. He woke with a start, but banged his head on the top bunk, which had fallen down due to their failure to assemble the damn thing correctly. Luckily for Roxas, there was enough space for him to fit between the top bunk stacked on the bottom bunk.

Nevertheless, Roxas started freaking out. Not only was he locked away in darkness, but he couldn't breathe very well and the sounds of Sora freaking out on top of him really disturbed him. Soon Roxas was hyperventilating and trying not to pass out. Normally he wasn't claustrophobic, but this was a special occasion, and he started wailing pathetically.

"Roxas, Sora, are you okay!?" Tifa shouted as she burst into the room, Cloud right behind her.

"I killed Roxas!" Sora screeched somewhere above Roxas.

"Roxas, are you alright?! Can you hear me?" Cloud's voice asked, muffled by everything on top of him.

Roxas was in no position to respond with words. "Ah…! Uh!" he very intelligibly cried.

Within seconds, Sora, Cloud, and Tifa lifted the top bunk up, revealing a very flustered Roxas as he flailed around on the mattress like a fish out of water.

Cloud dropped his side of the bunk, making Tifa and Sora carry the extra weight, and went to Roxas immediately. While Sora was Tifa's favorite, Roxas was Cloud's favorite. They looked very much alike and had similar dispositions. Neither of them was very affectionate, but Roxas knew that his father's love for him was very much there.

"Roxas, calm down," Cloud commanded in a voice that lacked its usual gruffness. He grabbed his son's arms and forced him to lock eyes with him.

When Roxas realized he wasn't any longer in the darkness, and his father's blue eyes were on his, he finally calmed down and realized that he was alive and well. He put a hand to his chest and grasped his shirt as his breathing gradually slowed. "I think… I'm okay," he said between pants. "Sorry to wake you guys up," he mumbled, averting his gaze from his father.

A large hand was on Roxas' head, fingers running through his blond spikes comfortingly. He looked up at his father, surprised. 'I don't know what I would do if I lost you.'

After that climactic event, they decided to leave the bunks separated until the next day so that everyone could go back to sleep.

The next morning, the family was bustling about fixing up their individual rooms first. They all pitched in to fix the bunk bed and set it up properly. As it turned out, they had been drilling the screws in all the wrong places, barely anchoring the thing together. Now it was so solid that if someone knocked it down, both bunks would remain attached even after it hit the floor.

As the time to head over to the school approached, Sora began panicking, trying desperately to locate his swimming gear from Destiny Islands High School. Finally, he and Roxas found the box it was in and Sora packed it all into a shoe bag that was DIHS school colors.

Sora drove them to the school, and Roxas' first impression was that it was fucking huge. Two of DIHS could easily fit inside of it. If the main office hadn't been directly in the front of the school, they never would've found it. The school colors were purple and white and the mascot was the Rangers. The Radiant Garden Rangers. Sora started gushing about how he wanted to be a Ranger so badly now.

The school day hadn't ended yet when they pulled up, and there weren't many people around, save for a student here or there. Roxas was a bit glad for that because then he didn't have to deal with anyone yet.

They finally found a parking space in what looked to be the student parking area (almost all of the vehicles looked old and very used). Sadly, it was quite a walk to the school's main office. They eventually got there, though, and found that the office was buzzing with people, both faculty and students.

"Excuse me?" Sora called to one of the administrators.

Roxas thought it was peculiar that they were all women, but he wouldn't say anything about it.

"Yes, boys, how can I help you?" asked the woman, who had long blond hair and hazel eyes. She seemed nice enough, and was probably in her mid forties.

"We're going to be new students coming in next week and we just wanted to make sure our schedules were all figured out. We also need student IDs," Sora explained the situation in further detail than that, but Roxas was too busy looking around the office to listen.

Radiant Garden Union High School was a very nice place. Every piece of furniture in the office looked to be carefully selected. Roxas couldn't help but think that the school district must be rich if they could afford such luxury. It made him the least bit excited to attend school here because it meant that their academics were probably well-funded and well-supplied. He liked the idea of using computers that were actually made within the decade.

When Roxas shifted his attention back to the matter at hand, he realized that Sora was now completely chumming it up with the administrator. He had on his most charming smile and he constantly made the woman laugh. If Roxas hadn't known better, he would think that his twin was flirting with her. Sora treated everyone that way, though, without even realizing it or meaning to. He'd broken many hearts because of it, and it always made him feel bad. He didn't like to think that he led people on, it was just how he acted.

"Well, alright, boys," she paused a moment as she wrote something down on a slip of paper and handed it to Sora, "this is the tech room number. Go there and tell them you need pictures taken for your IDs. I'm sure Mr. Valdez will be happy to assist you. I'll see you around, Mr. Strife!"

Sora called a friendly goodbye, and Roxas didn't even wave to her. She was talking to Sora, anyway. As they tried to locate the tech room, they realized that they had no idea where they were going, but they had to get there quickly so that Sora could make it to tryouts. They asked around and eventually found where they were supposed to be.

The pictures were pretty much the same as any other pictures, only instead of a green screen behind them there was a giant sheet of green construction paper. The interesting part, though (to Roxas), was how up to date all the computers and cameras there were. They were fairly new and very nice for a school to have. If only this was the kind of school that gave out laptops for the year…

There were five minutes to 3, and Sora had to race around to find the gym if he wanted to be there on time. Roxas decided he would much rather head back to the car and relax, which he did, leaving Sora to his fate. He didn't really like watching his brother swim anyway. He went to the tournaments to support his twin, but he failed to see the importance of watching him when he was simply practicing.

When Roxas got back to the car, he busied himself with texting Hayner, who seemed to be constantly texting him. He was the only one of the three who would text during class, and Roxas was glad for it because he wouldn't have anyone else aside from his family to talk to for the next week. He could meet his neighbors, he supposed, but then he realized that he didn't want to.

About two hours later, Sora finally returned, his hair still dripping, which was weird because his swim cap usually kept his hair fairly dry. He had on his change of clothes, and his bag was also dripping, probably because of his Speedo and cap.

Roxas watched his twin as he got into the driver's seat and threw his bag in the backseat. "Roxas, their pool is effing huge! You know, Destiny Islands High didn't even have a pool and here we are at Radiant Garden Union High School and they have an Olympic-sized pool! And it's indoors! It's freaking boss!" Sora gushed. He hated cussing, hence the use of words such as 'effing' and 'freaking.'

The entire ride home, Sora could not stop babbling about how amazing the pool was. Roxas had started spacing out. How rich was the school? To have an Olympic-sized pool indoors was pretty ritzy. He wondered if the school really was a public school. He decided that later on, he would have to look into the school's funds. It could be that they did really well on tests, so they earned the money that way. Or they could have some sort of benefactor. Or maybe there were rich students whose parents donated buckets of money to the school.

When they got home, it was around 7:30 and they found Cloud and Tifa in a very suggestive position on the couch. They simply ignored their parents and went straight up to their room, faces red the whole way there.

They set about cleaning their room up and unpacking their boxes of clothes and posters and such until they were called down for dinner. When they unpacked the first of the wall decorations they decided that they would split up the wall space between the two of them. Sora got from the middle of their dresser to the corner and then the entire side wall with the window and Roxas got the other side. The wall with their beds against it would be neutral grounds for things they both liked.

Finding the space for clothes was also difficult, especially because neither of them could reach high enough to use the shelf that was above the clothing rack in the closet. They had two dressers, and they decided the larger of the two would go to Sora while Roxas would invade the smaller dresser and the closet. It seemed to be okay for now, and Roxas' accommodating nature certainly made the process run very smoothly.

When they were finally called down for dinner, Tifa asked Sora about how tryouts went and if he and Roxas liked the school. Of course, Sora was the one to answer her first. He explained about how wonderful the school's pool was and talked about it for at least ten minutes before Cloud stopped him and asked if he'd actually made the swim team.

"Of course I made the swim team! I got to meet them all, too, and they were all really, really nice! The coach liked me and he said I was a good swimmer and asked where I moved from and then he said I must be so good at swimming from the ocean and all, and I totally agree with him! He said that I could join the team, but I have to go to practices everyday now from 2 to 4. They had a late practice today, though, because of an assembly or something," Sora said with his mouth full.

"Are there any cute swimmers that you met?" Tifa asked with rapt interest. She often liked to ask Sora about girls and tease him about not having a girlfriend yet. Too bad for her he probably never would have one.

"Mhmm," Sora hummed in reply. 'There was this really, really hot guy named Riku…'

That caught Roxas' attention, and he decided to tease his twin. "Sounds like you already have your eye on someone, please share with us, brother," he spoke up with a grin on his face. Knowing Sora, he wouldn't have even noticed the girls enough to describe them.

That definitely threw him for a loop. "Oh, um," he paused for a few long seconds. "I don't really want to talk about it," he mumbled, glancing down at his plate. "Oh! But there was this jerk there! Oh my gosh, he was horrible! You guys may not know this about me, but I pretty much like everyone I meet (everyone rolled their eyes at this) and even when they're not nice to me, I still like them a lot. But this guy! I pretty much hate him! Hate!" he hissed.

"Oh yeah?" Cloud asked.

"Yeah! His hair was red, bright red. Not like orange, red! Anyway, he was there because his friend, who is actually very pleasant, is on the team. He was really, really rude and he pushed me into the pool when I wasn't looking and he took my Speedo after practice was done and hid it! Oh, but before that he kept insulting me and calling me short and stupid and he said I was too little to be there. And he said that he was a vampire and he started touching me and he licked my neck! I couldn't believe that guy! I decided I hate him!"

Roxas couldn't help but laugh. The guy sounded pretty harmless. They were just like middle school pranks. Everyone else at the table seemed to think the same thing. Cloud's forehead even said, 'How did Sora become such a wimp?' It was in good humor, though, Roxas could tell by the smirk on his father's face.

"Well, you better stay away from him, then, Sora. He might suck your blood!" Tifa chuckled. She also had a grin on her face. Everyone knew that Sora tended to over-exaggerate.

'I really do hate that guy,' Sora's forehead read. "You better stay away from him, too, okay, Roxy? I don't want you to associate with those kinds of people!"

Roxas just cracked a grin and nodded.

A/N: J'espère que vous avez aimé ce chapitre~ !

First mention of Axel =D The real question is: is he really a jerk or is Sora over-exaggerating? Will Roxas and Axel hit it off once they meet or will Roxas' protectiveness over his brother get in the way? Will Cloud ever get a job? The world may never know. But you probably will eventually as I continue to update.

Leave a review telling me if you loved it or if you hated it and why~! Au revoir~!