-Chapter 1-

-laugh-

"It was funny!" the boy laughed, the girl smiled her pretty little smile, the red-head laughed hysterically. Teachers would quote them as 'the best friends' in the group, of course there was the other three, complete with their own red-head too, but they never seemed as close as these three.

"Yeah, did you see her face? That was the funniest!" cried out the red-head in a sudden burst of confidence, their teachers would also quote that this certain boy's 'confidence came in bursts, but never in a consistent pattern'.

"And when she tripped over the sandbox!" then there was the girl, 'always bubbly and cheerful, always one to stand out from the crowd'. The only one left was the blonde boy, he was just the spare, nothing described him, he just stood with the other two. The teachers had a feeling that when they were older and boys would interest the girl, she'd be after the tall, red-headed one. Not the average, blondie.

"Heh heh! I hope she does something stoopid again soon!" the said boy laughed, they had just seen 'the funniest thing in their life … ever!'

"You're dumb! You don't say 'stOOpid', you say 'stYOUpid'!" the girl corrected him indignantly. It got rather annoying for the five-year old when she was constantly correcting her two friends.

"Sorry Nam…" he bowed his head in shame, Naminé hugged him to show Roxas that he was forgiven. Axel looked left out so she hugged him too. She giggled, she liked having two people to hug. She tried to remember when she was a little tiny baby and whether she had people to hug then, but she couldn't remember of course, so she just pretended that Roxas and Axel had always been there to hug and be friends with.

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"…And then she tripped over it and we all laughed, well only me and Axel and Roxas did because we were the only ones there but it was still really funny and we laughed because it was and she showed this funny face and we laughed even more and then Axel tried to pretend to be her and he showed the same face and me and Roxas laughed some more and then I almost WEED!" Yuna pulled a face and Naminé laughed some more, she'd obviously done a lot of laughing that day and it hadn't done much good to her health.

"Naminé … You've down here for three hours, dear. Please can you get back upstairs and back into bed, I'm sure your day was very funny, but you might have a funnier day tomorrow, so I'm sure you don't want to miss it, go on, up you get…" the woman tried to get through to her daughter in a defeated voice, it didn't seem to be working. She had been trying to watch the news. There'd been some sort of … Heart … things … she hadn't really been listening; she'd been listening to the enchanting sound of her happy daughter. The warbling way she explained it, Yuna could get lost in it, it was like ecstasy, it took her back to the time when Tidus was still at home, when he didn't have 'work' to get to. She knew why he was really gone, he didn't need her anymore. This made her need for Naminé even stronger, "C'mon, I'll take you up,"

"Heh heh!" Naminé giggled, "Mummy?"

"Mmmm…" Yuna had drifted off again, one syllable could set her off, it was like a disease, and she couldn't help it. And she couldn't cry in front of her daughter either, that would just scare the poor girl, maybe she best left that for when she was curled up in her huge double bed, with no one to curl up next to.

"What's that?" Naminé pointed at the T.V. set with an odd expression on her face, there flickering on the screen was some sort of black thing, but Yuna was too slow to catch it.

"Oh, I'm sure it was nothing, come on sugar, let's get you to bed."

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The little boy lay in his bed, his pyjamas still lying on the floor from the morning, his mother didn't care, so why should he? Well, he should, he knew that, it's just his mother didn't really care about him. They were two separate beings, neither one really knew the other. There wasn't really much to know about Roxas though, he was just a chubby little five-year old, still growing out of his baby-fat and blonde hair not really growing … at all really. Just a few short spikes. It wasn't fair, he was jealous of Sora's, it stuck up in thick locks, it just wasn't right.

Roxas could hear shouting from somewhere down below. That was life. His mum just wasn't used to the 'motherly' business. Cloud was telling … screaming at her that she didn't understand and that everyone had one and that he didn't care if she didn't like Aerith, because he did. Roxas turned over, he wasn't meant to know all this stuff at the tender age of five, but he did.

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"Come on Axie," his bubbly mother shoved him up the stairs as he whined, he didn't want to go to bed, he wanted to carry on playing with the matches on the kitchen counter, but he couldn't tell her that or she'd freak out.

"OK…" he slouched up the stairs, his bottom lip firmly placed above his upper one. His mother laughed.

"Aw! Come on Axie! Get up those stairs and do it with good grace! You make me laugh…" she carried on laughing as she entered the living room to the awaiting husband of hers, "You know, he's really cute when you actually listen to him for once in a while. C'mon, give it a try…" the red-headed man whipped his head round and glared at her. Axel gulped, as soon as Rikku had her back turned, he had run down to see if he could grab the fire creating tools. But he'd decided to wait and listen to Reno and Rikku.

"I don't want to 'get to know' him … he's not mine, he's yours," the man turned his head back to the TV, he stared blankly into the screen. Rikku looked upset, she looked up at him sadly, he just didn't get it. Axel was his. But so was someone else, but that didn't mean Rikku had two children. Axel pattered into the kitchen and found the 'tools' he was looking for. Then he quickly pattered upstairs.

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"Come on! Let's go and see if the parks empty as well," the girl skipped ahead of the two boys, as they shifted about wondering whether to follow her or not. Riku had warned them when they had ran past that they weren't allowed out and the police would get them and kill them. This was shortly followed by maniacal laughter coming from inside his room, Sora and Kairi had obviously joined him for this great little day in.

"Er … Nam, maybe we should go home instead…" Axel began, feeling even more timid and afraid than usual.

"You don't really believe Riku do you?" she laughed her tinkly little laugh and Roxas joined in, although his laugh wasn't as tinkly. Axel smiled, his eyes getting smaller as his cheeks creased up around them.

"No, c'mon then…" the three ran off in the direction of the park. They got to the gates and Naminé smiled.

"See, what did I tell you – nothing, nothing, nothing, no police getting us or anything!" the excitable girl told him jumpily, she held the two by the hand and forced them into the green and yellow paradise.

She had her head bowed down, eyes clenched in the strain of pulling the frightened boys into their, usually favourite place to be. They however had large eyes, frightened and bulging. Black dots started to appear up out of nowhere. It was like they had known that the three were going to come here. They seemed to pop up like shadows, black silhouettes, sucking the usual brightness out of the place, the beams of sun whispering against their light-absorbent skin. Naminé had noticed the boys weren't moving at all now. She spun round, accidentally letting go of their unwilling hands. Out of nowhere, it seemed to come from her own shadow, a black being tried to swallow her up. She could see it looming over her, seconds before a red flash pinned her to the floor before returning his attention to the other blonde.

"Axel! Help … Axel!" Roxas could hardly breathe, the dark creature had almost swallowed him up before the black thing began to squirm, Axel was kicking it. Although that was a bad idea, the thing had turned on Axel now, it was gathering up all it's strength into killing the little fly who'd started to annoy it.

"Naminé! Axel! Roxas! Here NOW!" a woman stood at the gates, she looked hot and flustered, two other women were close behind, panting with all this exercise, they were not used to.

"Axie! C'mere, come on!" Rikku held her arms out to her darling son, Paine pointed to the ground next to her and Yuna held her daughter, who'd had the sense to run to them straight away. Eventually Roxas pushed himself through the ever-growing crowd of darkness. Axel however was still mad with the black thing that had tried to eat his friend. He was kicking and kicking, black circling round him, he didn't notice; until Rikku grabbed him by the waist and forced him back through.

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"Why did you freak us all out yesterday?" the three sat on their carefully positioned chairs, they would never be able to escape now, "Why did you go?" Yuna didn't seem angry, neither did Rikku, but Paine was. She may have been a bad mother, and didn't seem to care about her sons, but she did. Speaking of which, Cloud was sitting at the window, he was drifting off. He was five years older than the blondes, four years older than the red head.

"Mummy…" Roxas burbled, he didn't understand why she was so cross, they'd no idea of what the really bad thing they'd done was. They just knew that something attacked them and almost killed them. Paine may have been angry but she still had a soft spot for the three.

"Oh, I'm sorry, it's just … you really gave us a shock…" Paine told them, looking lovingly into each child's eye. They all looked shocked, that wasn't the normal Paine, each kid's mouth hung open in disbelief. Yuna and Rikku stifled an almost laugh, and went over to their little darlings, checking for a millionth time that they were ok. Roxas looked confused and jealous. Why did Naminé and Axel get so much love, but Paine gave him the bare minimum. He got up from his chair. Oooops… he though, waiting for the blazing sirens to be set off, the room turn to dark and spotlights swirl around, centring the boy. But they didn't, so he calmly walked over to Cloud. It was a good thing they lived near Aerith; the older boy would have gone mad.

"HI AERITH!" shouted Roxas, trying to grab her attention, this time the sirens did go off, in Paine's head.

"ROXAS! SHUT UP! THEY WILL HEAR YOU!" she screamed at him, he cowered into the corner and shut up. Cloud softly smiled at him, he'd been trying to grab the girl's attention for hours, without getting very far, now Roxas had done it for him.

He motioned to the computer, mouthing, 'COMPUTER – GO ON COMPUTER!' over and over again, before she realised what the hell he was on about. She nodded and ran up to her room, Cloud to the corner of the room.

"Mum, are we really staying here for a long time?" Axel asked his mother happily, Rikku nodded, she didn't look as happy, she looked scared. It wasn't that she didn't like Yuna or Paine, it's just she left Reno at home, he'd be all alone, wishing he had someone with him, and there was someone he could just simply call up and he'd be there in a flash. He'd be with his daughter there, and her mother.

"So Axie, what do ya wanna do?" Rikku asked him, "Do you wanna play with Roxas and Naminé, while me, Yuna and Paine talk about … adult things. Would that be OK?" Axel nodded and moped off to join Naminé who was trying to make Roxas feel better.

"Come on Rox, let's go to your room and play a game…" Roxas still looked a bit miffed, he got up slowly and walked with them up the stairs and into his room.

"What do you want to play then?" Roxas asked the two standing meekly by the doorway, he tried to act happy but they could tell by the way he gulped back the tears, he wasn't. Naminé walked over to him and hugged him lightly.

"It's not your fault," she whispered, "I think we should play Bounce!" the other two immediately perked up, Bounce was their all-time favourite game … ever. They had made it up themselves. But they could only play it outside usually, they hoped that their stressed mothers would understand that as they weren't allowed to go outside, they should be allowed to play it. So they spent the rest of the afternoon hopping after each other, avoiding the random toys strewn across the floor and the obvious difficulty that Roxas' room was far too small. They then settled down, had a warm drink and dropped off to sleep in their mattress-like beds.

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A/N: Awwww … cute, five-year olds! Anyway, I know I said at the beginning that Axel hated Naminé or something like that, well, you'll see why later. Next chapter is with SEVEN-YEAR OLDS! Please review and … well, enjoy really. .

P.S. I know that Cloud and Aerith are only ten and are going out (or 'going steady' or whatever it is Americans call it!) but that's to try and tell people that just because they're young doesn't mean they're young in the brain. I read a book the other day and they were acting as though 12 year-olds are 7-year olds (which we are NOT) and that all 7 year-olds act like 5 year-olds (which some do, but not most)