Perhaps odd characterization, but I don't see it as necessarily off the mark.

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Rating: T

034. Blind

Hayner was far from blind. Olette was incredibly bright, Pence took pictures of everything and noticed physical things no one else did, and Roxas somehow managed to be the gentlest guy with massive anger issues ever. But what no one really realized was that Hayner read people like a book, it didn't take him but five minutes to figure out what made the vast majority of his classmates tick. Because he understood people so well, it was easy to deceive them. Act like an idiot with a bad attitude and everyone wrote you off as harmless on an intellectual level. No one was wary of him, so they let him see more of their true selves than they should have. Seifer was particularly bad at this, he let his mask slip almost constantly in front of his rival.

The brown-eyed teen was pretty sure the bully with ice-colored eyes never actually thought he was stupid, just didn't consider him particularly clever or devious. If Hayner was a more sinister brand of person he would have sorely regretted making that mistake by now, but the younger never planned on using what he'd seen against his pissy companion. Despite all their fights and animosity, he didn't want to hurt Seifer in any real way. As far as he was concerned, the other had taken enough emotional hits over the course of his life to pretty much cover it. As it stood he just knew exactly how far to take verbal fights so they would escalate into something physical, and stopped just there. They punched their aggression out and went back to the status quo, it was a decent system.

Before long, he noticed the older boy acting differently toward him, less violent. He was still physical of course, but their fights involved a lot more of pinning him to vertical objects or straddling him on the ground. Not bad strategies in and of themselves, but out of character for him. He was the sort of fighter to move in for strikes, possibly staying within range, but never restraining the opponent to win. Quite simply he didn't have the physical size for it with most opponents, and even Hayner could have escaped if he actually cared enough to. There was another obvious reason for the close quarters, one he didn't think was so far-fetched when he observed Seifer's reaction to him when he thought the younger teen wasn't looking. He would sometimes smile, or just simply watch the other with interest. It was subtle, but he had a feeling he knew what it meant regardless.

"I'm not blind, you know," he commented offhandly, Seifer's arms on either side of his head and the senior in his personal space.

"What do you mean, lamer?"

"You know damn well what I mean, quit it. Mind games were never your strong suit, that's more my gig and I think we're both aware of that."

"I had noticed, yeah. So, judging by the tone of your voice, you won't mind if I do this," he returned before leaning down the four or so inches to kiss him, as his body language had clearly shown he'd wanted to from the beginning of their confrontation.

"So, how long have you known?" The bully asked when he pulled away, pale eyes curious.

"A long time, and let's leave it at that. I've just been waiting for you to see it."

The older male just smirked and leaned back down.