.o.O.o.

I own nothing! Please don't sue me!

For additional warnings, disclaimers, and summary, see the first chapter!

.x.x.x.

Hate is a strong word,
but I really, really, really don't like you.
Now that it's over
I don't even know what I liked about you.
Brought you around,
and you just brought me down.
Hate is a strong word,
but I really, really, really don't like you

"Hate (I Really Don't Like You)" – Plain White T's

.o.O.o.

Fool Me Twice…

Not-So-Friendly Competition

.o.O.o.

-o-

Roxas was pretty sure he had never been in a more awkward situation. Actually, that was probably a lie, but at the moment it sure felt like it was true. It was one of those moments wherein he felt like it would be perfectly acceptable if he simply burst into a billion infinitesimal pieces and blew away in the wind. Or just simply fell down dead. Yeah, falling down dead would still be preferable to this.

He was trying to look anywhere but at Axel, but it was so hard to do when the redhead was standing right there, looking so confused and shocked. And it became even harder to ignore him when he started trying to talk to Roxas.

"Roxas. Wow. So… what are you doing here?"

The blonde gaped for a moment, trying to form words. "I… what are you doing here?"

"I work here." Axel informed him with an amused, crooked smile. "And I asked you first!"

"I'm here on vacation with Sora and Riku. And my friend Hayner. We… Riku has a cabin. But since when do you work here?"

Axel raised a fine red eyebrow in amusement. "Since about a week ago? Larx has a cabin up here too, but like the bitch she is, she's making us pay rent so I had to sign up to do odd jobs around here."

"Us…?"

"Me and Dem and Marly. Zexion couldn't make it, says he had some school stuff to do, even over vacation. I swear, with all the studying that guy does, I think he must get off on it or something."

So Roxas had recognized those two guys earlier! They were Axel's friends! How could he have forgotten? Perhaps he had blocked out the mental trauma that no doubt occurred the last time he had been around them, and in correlation that had also erased his memories of them as well. Yeah, that had to be it.

They lapsed into awkward silence then, neither having anything more to say. In truth, Roxas hadn't seen Axel since about a month after summer vacation had ended. Last summer Sora had thrown a surprise camping trip wherein he and Axel had become… well, Roxas wasn't sure what exactly they had become, but it fizzled out shortly after they had gotten home and settled back into their normal lives. Roxas… Roxas really didn't want to think about it.

"AXEL!"

Roxas whipped around, seeing Sora skipping on over, looking ecstatic. "What a surprise! What are you doing here?"

"I'm working here over vacation." Axel supplied. "I hear you're staying with Riku at his cabin?"

"Uh huh!" Sora replied, nodding. His eyes went wide when he realized where he was, and he seemed to remember the reason he had come over in the first place. "Oh! Axel! I wanted to get some cocoa! Can I have extra marshmallows because you work here?"

"Sure, Sora." Axel replied with a chuckle. He turned to grab a pot of boiling water, pouring it into a mug then mixing in some chocolate powder and milk. "So how long are you guys here for?" he asked as he stirred.

"About a week!" Sora supplied, hopping up onto the barstool. "Riku's cabin is soooo nice, Axel, you should come by and see it! There's a TV and a deck and a big fireplace and…"

Roxas stopped listening, watching Axel as he fixed Sora his drink. The redhead looked the same as the last time Roxas had seen him a few months ago, but he seemed a little more subdued, especially since he was on the job; stirring a little spoon around in a mug with a navy blue apron tied around his waist. It was weird to see him being… almostnormal.

"Extra marshmallows!" Sora reminded him, as Axel set the cup down on the counter. The request was complied to, as a full handful of fluffy little white puffs was dumped into the mug.

"More, please!" Sora politely requested, and Axel hesitated before scooping out another handful. Sora still looked unsatisfied, although he didn't say anything.

"…you still want more?" Axel surmised.

"You want some cocoa with your marshmallows?" Roxas mumbled, rolling his eyes. Axel gave him a sidelong glance, and looked like he would have enjoyed snickering at the joke as well, but for whatever reason he didn't.

"Yes, thank you!" Sora eagerly replied as he accepted Axel's offer, holding out his mug. Axel laughed before handing over the bag.

"Here kid, knock yourself out."

"Shmellos!" Sora happily exclaimed, taking the bag and scampering back to Riku and Hayner.

"What a character." Axel commented, watching Sora plop himself down on Riku's lap, proudly showing off his bag of sugary treats.

"Yeah…" Roxas agreed, feeling awkward. And yet he still couldn't bring himself to leave.

Silence reined for a few minutes, neither of them having anything to say, until Axel broke it, clearing his throat. "So… Roxas. How have you, uh, been? I haven't heard from you in a while. You, er, stopped calling."

"Yeeeeaaah…" Roxas replied in a drawn out breath. "Sorry about that. I, uh… I've been pretty busy with school."

Which wasn't true in the least. Liar! His brain chastised. Roxas was an alright student, but truth be told… most days he could be found lazing around on the couch or in his room, rather than working on his studies. You're a liiiiiiiiiiar! his brain screamed, and he mentally swatted his annoying conscience away.

"Oh. Right." Axel replied. "Well uh, while you're here I'll probably be seeing you around…?" Oh crap, he sounded hopeful.

"Uh, yeah." Roxas replied, edging away. "But, uh… yeah. For now I've gotta, er… go. Back to the cabin. So, uh… bye."

Skittering away, Roxas quickly made his way back to his friends, hissing out a quiet "We need to leave. Now." Thankfully it was late enough that no one fought him on the matter, and after a rather cold trek through the snow they were back at the cabin. Sora quickly tugged Riku away, (a little too quickly, in Roxas's opinion) leaving Roxas and Hayner to their own bedding situation. Which was not extremely elaborate or elegant. Basically the two boys stripped down to their boxers and crashed into the bed, hurriedly pulling the covers up and grunting vague acknowledgements of "goodnight" to eachother before falling asleep.

Except Roxas had a bit of trouble with that last part. Getting to sleep and all that.

Tossing and turning, he couldn't stop thinking about how Axel had come out of nowhere, Axel was here, Axel still remembered him, Axel, Axel,Axel.

Axel was someone… someone that Roxas had tried very hard to leave in his past. During the infamous summer camping trip, Axel and he… they'd… okay, so maybe they'd had a bit of a thing, but as soon as they returned to their normal lives… it was all too overwhelming. Out in the middle of the woods was one thing, but keeping things going in the direction they were headed someplace where all of their friends and family could find out? No. Nuh-uh. No way, José.

So Roxas had cut Axel out of his life. Avoiding him at school and out in town, the blonde had done everything he could to prevent from having to keep up contact with the strange redhead. Discontinuing phonecalls had been the part that made him feel the guiltiest. Whenever his phone would ring with Axel's name flashing on the screen, he felt a sharp stab of guilt rip through his chest for not picking up. But over time the calls came less and less, as Axel seemed to get the hint.

Roxas had done everything right to get rid of his connection with Axel, and in theory he could probably even manage to avoid him for this whole trip as well. It was a big resort, right? Despite the awkward encounter that had taken place earlier, Roxas never had to see Axel again, if he played his cards right.

So… why did that thought not make him happy?

.o.x.O.x.o.

"WAKE UP,WAAAAKE UP! IT'S A GREAT BIG BEAUTIFUL DAY!"

Oh God.

Roxas rolled over in bed, hardly daring to look at the bedside clock, which would no doubt be cheerily displaying ungodly hours on it's shining little face. Blinking his eyes open, Roxas found that – what a surprise! – it was only a little past six o'clock. Which was actually pretty good, considering the circumstances of who he was on a trip with. It seemed as though Sora had shown some mercy and had actually let them sleep in a little.

"Wh'ta'fck'sgoin'on?" Hayner murmled. Not a murmur, not a mumble, but a murmle. Those horribly indecipherable attempts at speaking when one is barely yet awake, when everything comes out slurred and confused. That is the type of speech that Hayner used, and looking to his side, Roxas found that his friend didn't look much better, could a murmle be a physical appearance.

"Sora's a crazy person in the mornings." Roxas informed his friend, quickly waking up. He'd learned that although Sora yelling could be annoying, Sora doing a flying leap launch of himself on top of you while you were trying to fall back asleep despite the noise was indefinitely worse. Dragging himself out of his room, Roxas sluggishly made his way to the top of the stairs, where his simply stood for a moment, taking in the scene before him.

The downstairs area of the cabin was very open and the upstairs was all shuffled over to one side of the house, allowing Roxas to have a full view of the living room, kitchen, and dining room area. Light was steaming in through the large windows that took up two entire sections of wall in the living room, and as a result everything was very bright. A little too bright a little too early, but when Roxas's eyes had adjusted he could see that outside of the windows was a landscape of smooth white snow, and towering, peaked, evergreen trees.

Roxas tried very hard to hate being awake so early in the morning, but darnit if the gorgeous view through the large picture windows wasn't making it extremely difficult.

"Roxas!"

The blonde glanced down, seeing Sora beaming up at him from in the kitchen. "Morning." He grunted, descending the stairs.

"Roxas!" Sora greeted again, bounding over to the bottom of the stairs to meet Roxas and give him a great big hug. "You're awake!"

"Mmmrr." Roxas grumbled. "I wonder why."

"Riku's making breakfast!" Sora informed the blonde, completely disregarding the bitter tone that had been directed at him. "We're going to have pancakes!"

Oooh. Pancakes. Pancakes sounded like a great flippin' idea right about then. Fluffy, golden, flat little cakes covered in syrup… Roxas's stomache gave an appreciative growl at the thought.

Subdued by the promise of food, Roxas sat himself down at the table, watching Riku leisurely flipping the golden brown flatcakes of fluffy goodness with an ardor normally exhibited by a wolf waiting for its turn at a kill. It might have been too early to be up and starting a day, but it wasnever too early for food.

"Where's Hayner?" Sora asked, and Roxas blinked himself out of his food concentration to answer.

"What? Oh, I dunno, probably still trying to sleep."

"WHAT!?" Sora looked scandalized. "Well we can't have that! HAAAAAAYNEEEER!"

Roxas watched as Sora raced up the stairs, taking them two at a time in order to get to Hayner as fast as he could, so eager was he to get the day started. Roxas could have tried to stop him, and gone himself to give Hayner a much less jarring wakeup, but Roxas figured that sooner or later the other blonde was going to have to deal with getting a super special Sora wakeup flop.

"Poor guy." Riku commented, although he didn't sound too bad. "He'll never know what hit him."

Sure enough, after a minute or so (after the muffled yells and cursing had died down) a very disgruntled looking Hayner was being dragged down the stairs, looking quite worse for the wear. Nonetheless, the group of boys settled around the table and dug into their breakfast while Sora outlined the day's plans.

"Okay, so we're meeting a ski instructor at eight, and he's gonna show us where to go and what to do in case of emergencies and all that. Then we get to spend the whole day playing around on the slopes, doesn't that sound fun?"

Everyone vaguely nodded in response, more interested in pancakes than Sora's babbling.

Breakfast was a quick and messy affair, and soon enough they were getting bundled up in winter gear borrowed from Riku, and heading out the door. After a quick stop to the rental store to get their snow sport gear, the four boys jumped aboard the ski lift, which took them up to the top of the mountain. Sora kept swinging his legs, which in turn swung the ski lift bench, which in turn nearly gave Roxas numerous heart attacks.

The area at the top of the slopes was filled with scattered groups of vacationers, and a little distance off was a smallish building; some sort of information centre. Apparently that was where they were to meet their ski instructor, because Sora headed right over, cantering along as cheerily as he could. It ended up being a mismatched sort of trollop, though, due to the large snowboard he was holding, and the loose, clumpy snow that impeded quick movement.

A bell rang overhead as they entered through the double doors, and a cheery assistant was quick to help set them up with a ski instructor. As directed, they went back outside to wait to meet up with whoever was to be sent to them, but it didn't take long for a disaster to occur.

"Well holy shit, Chicken Wuss? How the hell did you get all the way out here?"

Pure, unadulterated panic swept through Roxas and he froze in place at the sound of that voice. At his side, however, Hayner was quick to face their new arrival, bristling in anger.

"Seifer!" the blonde hissed. "What the hell, man! Get out of here! Isn't it enough that you have to harass us at school, do you have to follow us all the way into the mountains to inflict us with your stupidity too?"

Seifer sneered. "Witty as ever, Hay-Hay." Hayner fumed at the condescending use of such a degradingly cutsie nickname. Seifer was pleased with this reaction, and huffed scathingly before turning his attention elsewhere.

"Roxie? Is that you? Followed your hotheaded little boyfriend up the mountain?"

Roxas very slowly, very carefully, turned around, keeping on constant guard. After a rather awkward run-in with Seifer that had occurred a while back (wherein the older blonde had essentially – out of nowhere, mind you – attempted to play some tonsil hockey with poor, defenseless Roxas) he had been rather leery of Seifer's intentions. Before it had been irritation and slight fear that made his encounters with the bully intimidating, now there was the constant worry that his carefully guarded purity was going to be compromised in horrible ways.

"Ah." Seifer declared with a smirk, upon getting a full view of Roxas after he had turned around fully. "So it is my favourite little –"

"Knock it off, Seifer."

Eyes narrowing, Seifer's attention focused on Riku, who had been the one to cut him off. The silver haired teen was possibly one of the only people Seifer didn't mess with, simply because Riku was not only popular and admired around their school, but because he was also one of the only people willing and able to take Seifer in a fight. The blonde bully had found that out the hard way after picking on Sora just a little too much one day after school, and although fisticuffs had not actually been exchanged, the intention was clear. Strangely enough, despite his own personal history of being at the receiving end of Seifer's malice, Sora didn't have much of a problem with Seifer, other than thinking he was a bit of a jerk.

Riku, though, still held out an unspoken grudge against Seifer, and upon realizing that the silver haired male was there, the blonde's mood instantly turned from snarky and taunting to contemptuous and on-guard.

"So the whole gang's here." He sneered, casting a sidelong glance at Sora, who was wearing a disgruntled pout. "Well isn't that just great."

"You know what would be really great?" Hayner asked, glaring. "If you would piss the hell off. Right off the mountain even."

Seifer rolled his eyes. "Well you know, as much as I'd love to acquiesce your little request, I don't think I'm allowed to throw myself off mountains while on the job."

"What job? Who in their right mind would hire you?" Hayner spat. Seifer threw him a haughty grin before doing a careful once over of Roxas.

'Oh ew. Eeeeeeeew! Ew ew EW! So much no!' Roxas's brain screamed.

"Oh I dunno, how about the fucking ski resort, maybe?" Seifer scoffed, ruffling himself up importantly. "And I'm actually on the job right now, my little chickens, so if you'll just scurry off, this is where I'm supposed to be meeting some newbies who wanna hit the slopes. Shoo."

"God, shut up Seifer, we don't have to go anywhere!" Hayner retorted.

"Yeah, we're supposed to meet someone here too!" Sora put in, the first time he had spoken up since Seifer had arrived. "Someone named Mr… uh… oh boy."

"What, Mr. who? Who are we supposed to be meeting?" Hayner questioned, grabbing at the paper. A hardened glare solidified itself into his features as he read the name, and Roxas's stomache twisted uncomfortably as two and two started to come together.

'Please don't let Seifer be our instructor, please don't let Seifer be our instructor…' Roxas mentally chanted.

But the gods of irony smiled upon Roxas, and yea was he blessed with Seifer as their appointed instructor. The blonde bully nearly busted a gut with all the pleasure he took at the situation.

"Soooooo my little chickens, what shall I do first, with my newly appointed power?"

"Oh I'lltell you what you can do!" Hayner spat.

"You know what?" Seifer began, smiling at Hayner in a devious way. "I'm getting a little tired of your mouth. Why don't we give your yapper a rest and settle this on the slopes, shall we?"

A glint of challenge shone dangerously in Hayner's brown eyes, borne of his competitive edge. Urgh, he was practically getting off to this, Roxas observed.

"Oh, you are SO on!" the darker-blonde responded, rising to the challenge. "First one to the bottom of the mountain with all of their appendages intact?"

"Agreed." Seifer sneered, accepting the terms. He turned to look at Riku, and Sora. "You little chickies gonna be alright all on your lonesome?"

"We'll be fine." Riku assured him, rolling his eyes.

"Alright then." Seifer grinned, looking dangerous. He threw a parting glance to Roxas, winking, before clipping himself onto his board and throwing himself down the slope, Hayner shouting and cursing indignantly at the older male's head start as he hurried to clip in and follow after him.

"Well then." Riku stated, as soon as the two ready-for-action blondes were out of sight. "I know the best slopes to start on, why don't we head over to them? I think we can get by without an instructor. It hasn't been that long since I was here last."

"Okay!" Sora chirruped, adjusting his grip on the heavy snow sporting gear in his arms.

Roxas thought the situation over. On the one hand, he didn't doubt that Riku knew what he was doing, even though a proper instructor would have been preferable. On the other hand… Roxas was pretty sure that Sora was going to suck out all of the instruction and guidance that Riku could possibly have to offer, leaving the blonde high and dry. Figuratively speaking, of course. Literally speaking, he would most likely be down and wet due to the fact that he had never tried winter sports before, and was operating under the assumption that until he got the hang of it, a lot of his time would be spent face-down in the slushy snow. And something told him Riku would be too busy handling the Sora situation to give him a hand up, or any sort of pointers to keep him from going down in the first place.

"Uh… you guys go ahead." He told them. "I think I'm going to ask for another instructor."

Without waiting for a response, Roxas huffily trudged back to the little building, where he was quick to request another instructor. Told that an instructor would meet him right out back, Roxas nodded heading out through the front doors and around the building. When he got there, though, he was met with a most unexpected (although by now he should have figured something like this would happen) surprise.

"Oh you have got to be kidding me."

Jerking to attention, the individual who had been leaning against the wall turned to see who had spoken. "Roxas?"

"Hey Axel." The blonde grumbled, unable to believe his luck.

"Hey." Axel returned, looking pleased but a little confused. "What are you doing here? They sent me out back to meet with some kid who wanted an instructor and –"

"Yeah, that'd be me." Roxas grudgingly admitted.

"Really?" Axel grinned, and Roxas was none too thrilled with the amount of glee the redhead was exuding.

"Yeah. Really."

"Aw, come on, Roxie!" Axel began, seeming to have gotten over the initial awkwardness pretty fast. "It's not that bad! At least you didn't get Larxene!"

Axel pointed, and Roxas turned in the indicated direction, seeing a testy blonde girl snapping the ski pole of a young child in half. The child began wailing piteously, and in that moment, yes, Roxas was very glad he got Axel rather than Larxene.

"So what did you want help with?" the redhead eagerly asked, grabbing his gear. Roxas noticed that the Axel had skis rather than a snowboard, and had trouble picturing the spastic male doing anything that required as much race and coordination as skiing.

"Uh… I've never been to the snow before."

"Ah." Axel responded. "Uh, okay then, we'll start with the basics."

As Axel proceeded to instruct him on the proper way to put on his gear, Roxas was blown away by how… how normal Axel was being. Sure, the redhead was still rather annoyingly quirky, but he wasn't going out of his way to annoy Roxas like he had in his past. It made Roxas a little annoyed, almost. He nearly wanted to smack Axel around and ask him who he was, and what he had done with the obnoxious redhead from over the summer.

"…and so that's basically it." Axel was finishing up. "You ready to go?"

For a moment Roxas didn't answer, looking Axel over to figure out what had changed. When no answer made itself clear he zipped his jacket up further, preparing for the onslaught of cold that snowboarding down a mountain would certainly bring forth.

"Yeah, I'm ready."

Shoving his skis on, Axel grabbed his poles from where they had been leaning against the wall. "Try to keep up."

"What!?" Roxas cried out, aghast. Axel hadn't even given him any proper instruction on how he was supposed to handle his board! But Roxas was a quick learner. He was fairly good at skateboarding, so snowboarding shouldn't be too different, right? Pushing off, he found that he could easily glide along top of the snow…

… until he hit the tiniest little bump.

"ARGH!"

Spluttering as his face hit the cold, wet snow, Roxas feebly tried to push himself back up, awkwardly working around the fact that he couldn't use his legs properly, seeing as they were attached to a great big, clunky board.

And then he heard laughter.

"Axel you bastard!" he growled. "You didn't tell me how I was supposed to use this stupid thing!"

"Aw, but Roxie! Figuring it out's half the fun!"

Grunting and struggling, Roxas managed to get back to his feet. "It's not fun when I'm munching snow." He grumbled. Axel laughed, moving to his side.

Grabbing Roxas under his arms, he moved the blonde around until he had him positioned in the correct manner. "This is how you need to stand on the board." He instructed. "Keep your balance, and keep your knees bent so that you have some maneuverability."

Roxas's heart sped up at the close contact. He hadn't had anyone so close to him, touching him, since… well, since the last time he had been around Axel. Nervous butterflies surfaced in his stomache at Axel's weight and warmth pressed against his back, and he did his best to quell them.

"By the way, Roxie." Axel commented. "I notice you've gained control of that girly squeal of yours."

"AXEL!"

This time when Axel took off, Roxas was able to follow him for more than a few feet. He still wasn't able to go very fast, or control his maneuverability very well, but at least he was able to keep up. Then again, he did have the sneaking suspicion that Axel was going easy on him.

For a few hours Roxas learned the basics of how to snowboard under the not-so-helpful guidance of Axel. Despite the slightly awkward air between them, borne of a long, unexplained absence from seeing eachother, they had a relatively good time. Axel could still be as annoying as hell, but… apparently Roxas had forgotten that once that particular trait was gotten past, the redhead was actually bearable to be around, and Roxas grudgingly admitted that he liked being around him, for whatever reason.

In fact, Roxas ended up spending the majority of the day with Axel.

"Aren't your friends going to miss you?" Axel asked at one point.

"They're fine." Roxas had quickly retorted, before proceeding to take off down the hill, intent on practicing his control of his board.

By the end of the day, Roxas was very sore from all of the falling down he had been doing, combined with the exertion of muscles he didn't normally use. Parting ways with Axel, he made his way back to Riku's cabin as soon as it started getting dark. To his surprise, everyone else was already home as well, eating dinner and looking tired from a long day on the slopes, but still in high spirits.

"Roxas!" Sora greeted, for once too tired to get up and give him a proper Sora huggle greeting. "Did you have a good time snowboarding?"

"Yeah." Roxas noncommittally responded as he sat down at the table, grabbing a plate and digging in. "It was pretty cool." He then turned his attention to the other blonde at the table. "How was dealing with Seifer?"

"That dickwad." Hayner remarked, but he was grinning. "I was a little out of practice, but I still gave him a good run for his money. I'm gonna meet up with him again tomorrow morning for a rematch, and this time I'm gonna kick his ass!"

"You're meeting up with him again?" Riku asked, raising a perfect silver eyebrow.

"Of your own free will?" Roxas added.

"Hell yeah." Hayner replied, still with that stupid grin on his face, but his brows were drawn together in a way that suggested his grin was of the malicious sort. "He might be a complete jerk, but he's fucking good competition. Gets a real adrenalin rush going, you know?"

"You totally get off to competing with Seifer, is what it sounds like." Riku observed. Hayner made a face while denying the accusation, and Roxas internally cringed.

"I'm heading to bed." He announced. "Have fun talking about getting off to Seifer, you freaks."

Squabble broke out at his parting words, and Roxas could hear the clamor the whole time he was heading upstairs, up until he got into his and Hayner's shared room and closed the door behind him. Quickly shucking off his clothes, he climbed into bed and let out a deep sigh.

It had been a long day.

And it had been spent entirely with Axel of all people.

And Roxas… he'd had a really good time.

Crap.

It was happening all over again, wasn't it?

-o-

.x.x. .o.O.o. .x.x.

WHOO! Chapter two! And first things first, let me just say a great big AHFJHDFHDKHDFS THANK YOU FOR THE FEEDBACK! Crap and a half, man! Twenty-something reviews for just the first chapter? I love you guys SOOOOO much! Your support and comments mean the world to me, really!

That said, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Some of the drama and plot points for this story have been introduced, and I got to play around with all the characters some more! I'm really having a great time writing this, and here's to hoping you guys are having a good time reading it!