!PLEASE READ! This chapter contains mentions of sexual assault. It is not graphic, fetishized, or used for gratification, but I don't want to make anyone upset or uncomfortable if they want to avoid this topic. Reading fan fiction should be an enjoyable experience, and I don't want to ruin it for anybody.

A/N: Hi friends. There's a lengthier author's note at the end of the chapter. Feel free to read it, feel free to not. Take care.

chapter eleven;
green-eyed monsters

There was a steady beeping by my ear. A sign of life.

Had I been reborn anew? Or did heaven smell like hand sanitizer?

I slowly opened my eyes, my head throbbing, a faint nausea bubbling in the pit of my stomach. Around me was a blurry white room. I blinked profusely trying to bring everything into focus. I was in a hospital by the looks of it, no heaven for me.

A large nurse waddled around the room, a fresh bag of saline in her dimpled hand, as she hummed a soft tune to herself. She walked around to the side of the bed and fiddled with my IV drip, paying no mind to the groggy mass next to her. I cleared my throat and she startled, nearly dropping the bag but was luckily able to grab it by the plastic tubing.

"Oh, honey," she said in a southern drawl. I wondered how a southerner wound up all the way up here. "How long have you been awake?"

"Not long," I told her, my voice hoarse. "Am I dying?" I was only half-joking.

She laughed and patted my shoulder. "Nah, you just took a spill and conked your noggin. Nothing serious, just a concussion and a bump. You were out all night, but it seemed more like you were in desperate need of a good night's rest more than anything. How're you feeling?"

I rubbed the back of my head, feeling the knot the nurse mentioned. I tried to piece together what happened to me, but all I could remember was Roxas coming into my room being accusatory, and then him standing before me without any clothes. There were gaps, and I didn't know how either of those things led to me hitting my head or winding up in the hospital.

"Any amnesia?" She asked. I was going to accuse her of reading my mind, but then I remembered she was a nurse, and that it's her job to know what happens when you 'conk your noggin'.

"A little, yeah," I admitted. "I don't remember falling."

"Your brother said you fell getting out of the shower. He heard you holler and came in to help you."

More pieces came back to me. Wet Roxas, his dark blond hair falling over his eyes. We showered together.

"Oh."

"Mhmm, it's a good thing he heard you." She swapped out the saline bags and grabbed at my arm to make sure my IV was still secure. "We just need to do an MRI and make sure everything is still in order. You do know who you are, right?"

"I'm Axel," I said. "Axel Novak."

"Good," she smiled warmly. "Are ya hungry? You've only had your drip for the past twelve hours. I can go grab you some breakfast."

"I hate hospital food," I told her. "It always tastes like a shoe."

She pondered for a moment. "The girls at the nursing station brought in some donuts. I can nab a couple for you if you'd like, hun."

"A woman after my own heart."

I was biting into a Boston cream donut when Anastasia came into my room, her heels click-clacking on the tile. She was apparently in no hurry to get to the hospital, as she took her time to get dolled up. "Axel," she exhaled, sounding relieved. "How're you feeling?"

"I've been better." I shoved the rest of the donut into my mouth and licked the excess chocolate from my fingers.

"The doctor told me your MRI came back fine. But they still want to hold you until tomorrow, just in case."

"Yeah, Mable told me."

"Mable?"

With sticky fingertips, I pointed to the dry-erase board on the wall that held my information, including the nurse responsible for me. "She brought me donuts and coffee. I think I'm in love with her. She's got an ass like a Georgia peach."

"I could've brought you food, Axel. You didn't have to bother the nurse."

I shrugged. "I didn't think we were at the point in our relationship where I can call you up and ask for a McMuffin."

"Well, I am your mother, and it's a mother's job to make sure her kid is fed. I've failed at that before, but I won't ever again. You're very thin and I have a strange maternal need to fatten you up."

"I've always been underweight," I told her, since she couldn't have known for sure. "I eat junk all the time but I'm still a bony fuck. High metabolism, I guess."

"Well, you didn't get that from me," she laughed. "I gain weight very easily."

It felt strange to have such a lighthearted conversation, but I liked it. She pulled up one of the chairs to the side of the hospital bed and sat, setting her expensive leather purse on the floor.

"Roxas was the one who called the ambulance, you know. He heard you yell and bang against something so he ran into your room. You slipped getting out of the shower and hit your head on the tub."

"Yeah, I heard. He sure is some hero, huh?"

"He was worried about you, Axel. You should've seen his face. He looked like he had just seen a ghost."

I remembered more. I remembered being angry. I remembered telling Roxas to get out. Did he try to kill me by pushing me out of the shower?

"Maybe it was because he had to see me naked," I played along.

"I doubt he looked," she said, as if her insistence was supposed to be a comfort.

"You mean not everyone wants to see my mass of red pubes? Thanks for those, by the way."

With a smile, she reached out for the hair on my head, which was messy and ratted from me being laid on my back while it was still wet. "You do have my hair color. Not my curls though. If you don't like the red, why do you dye it even more red?"

"I don't dislike it. I just like this shade of red. And now it's like, part of my identity or something."

"Your roots are coming in," she noted.

"Yeah, I have to touch it up when I get back to the house."

We sat in a silence that wasn't exactly uncomfortable. She continued to stroke my hair, inspecting the gradient of orange to fire-engine red, from root to tip.

"Did you really just come here to visit me?" I finally asked her.

"Of course. They told me you were awake so I came to make sure you were alright."

"That was nice of you."

She sighed sadly. "Axel… I want to talk to you. Since it's just the two of us here, I figured this is as best a time as ever. If you're down to talk, that is."

"What is it you want to talk about?" I dully asked, half-expecting another lecture or maybe an eviction notice.

With a deep breath, she said, "I want to tell you about the man that fathered you."

My heartbeat hitched and the heart monitor gave it away. This was a moment I had been waiting for all my life. To finally learn about my father. "Okay," I said, trying to retain my composure. For so long, I had felt like a huge piece of the puzzle was missing, and now here it was about to be pushed into place after being hidden between couch cushions for so long.

"Before I begin, I want to warn you that you'd be better off not knowing about him. But I know it isn't fair to keep you in the dark about where you came from. After everything that has happened, you deserve to know."

"I figured he was a deadbeat," I told her. "I'm not expecting he's someone worthwhile."

She grimaced, but it was otherwise hard to read her expression. "I was a good Catholic girl," she began. "Like I told you before, my parents were very strict. I wasn't as devout as my parents, being a typical fifteen year old, but I was still well-behaved. It was a small town, and my family was well-known. I had six brothers, and three sisters, most of whom had jobs within the church. Basically, I knew better."

Anastasia didn't seem very religious anymore, but I remembered praying with her as a little kid.

"Anyway, there was a guy at school. He was a senior while I was only a sophomore, and I was as smitten as a teenaged girl could be. I would doodle our initials covered in hearts and fantasize about having a cute yellow house in a cul-de-sac together. He was a football player, as cliché as it sounds, and he had these stunningly green eyes. The kind of eyes that you could never forget."

I already knew I had his eyes. Without thinking, I reached up and touched beneath them.

"Strangely, he liked me, too. He would take me to the movies, and to this burger joint with the best strawberry milkshakes, and he'd let me wear his letterman jacket," she continued. "As I'm sure you can imagine, I wasn't very popular. But there I was, dating one of the most popular guys in school. I don't know how high school hierarchy works in this day and age, but back then, it was a big deal. My parents, of course, forbade me from seeing someone who wasn't from the church, so I would lie and say I was at the library or with friends whenever he would take me out. For the longest time, I thought what happened was punishment for my sins."

I immediately thought of Aurora, the girl I lost my virginity to, with her cable-knit sweaters, hair ribbons, and the gold cross she wore around her neck.

"One day, we were under the bleachers of the football field. His team had just won a game against the rival school. He was so happy, and I was happy for him. Basking in his glory, he tried to convince me to sleep with him, you know, in celebration. We had been seeing each other for a few weeks, and, to him, that was long enough. But despite my sins, I still wanted to do right by God and my parents, so I turned him down. He threatened to break up with me, and whereas I knew I would be heartbroken, I accepted it." Her eyes watered and I got an awful sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. "I was a good Catholic girl right to my core. And that made me an easy target, I guess. When he couldn't get what he wanted through manipulation, he got it through force."

"You mean, he…"

"Yes." She pulled a handkerchief from her purse and dabbed at her eyes, careful not to smudge her makeup. "It's all he ever wanted. The virginity of the loser religious girl. Weeks of pretending to like me, only to get fed-up when my morals withstood his charm. When he was finished, he laughed at me. Told me his friends owed him twenty bucks. There was a pool going to see how long it would take." I expected her to break down right there, but she steadied herself and exhaled slowly. "I went home and prayed and sobbed. I couldn't tell my parents, I couldn't tell my friends, I couldn't tell anyone. I felt like if I pretended it didn't happen, God would forgive me. But then—"

"You were pregnant."

She nodded. "Yes. I was pregnant. Word had already gotten out that I had lost my virginity, and, of course, the rumors painted it as consensual. So, I told my parents, I told them I was forced and that it wasn't my fault. But they called me a disgrace, a whore."

"Fuck," I uttered, my eyes wide, still processing all the information.

"They wanted me gone," she said, "So, I left. I never spoke to him after what he did to me, and my parents couldn't let the word get out that I was pregnant, so he didn't know. Chances are he still doesn't know."

"Why didn't you just get an abortion?" I knitted my brows.

"I couldn't even entertain that idea. I believed life began at conception. And I told myself I'd love you, despite everything."

I asked her, my voice quiet, "And did you?" But I already knew the answer.

"I tried. But you have his eyes. And every time I would look in them, I would see him. It drove me crazy. There were nights where I would stand over your small body, praying that God would take you away from me while you peacefully slept."

For the first time, I sympathized with Anastasia, my mother. Even more so, I admired her. I admired her attempt to single-handedly raise her rapist's baby. And I also felt like the epitome of personified garbage. I was nothing more than a physical reminder of the worst moment of her life, and yet here she was, trying to love me and make up for the years I spent orphaned, and I fought against her every step of the way. I forced myself back into her life, I made her relive the nightmares she wanted nothing more than to escape from, I intentionally tried to make her life hell, when her only mistake was trying to love me and failing.

Before I knew it, I was crying. "Don't be upset," she crooned, putting her hand against my cheek to catch the falling tears. "It's not your fault, Axel. You didn't deserve any of this. I should've been stronger for you, but I was weak. I'm stronger now, Axel. Let be there for you now."

Suddenly, my sadness ebbed into anger. "What's his name?" I asked her.

"Axel… Leave it be. You don't need to know him. You don't need to find him or seek revenge. He's not worth the effort or the anger. It was twenty-five years ago."

"I want to know his name."

She considered it for a second before shaking her head. "I can't, Axel. He's not important, his name doesn't belong in either of our minds."

"I have his last name, don't I?" Anastasia's hesitation answered my question. Part of me assumed I had my father's last name, but I was also operating under the assumption that he ditched us because he didn't want the responsibility and not that he was just a disgusting piece of shit rapist. "Why didn't you just give me your last name? Or, fuck, just make one up?"

"I was fifteen, Axel... I didn't give it thought. I just knew that babies get their father's surname. I didn't fully understand what had happened to me. I knew I didn't want it, that I was forced, but I didn't understand what it meant. When I gave birth to you and the judgmental nurse placed you into my arms and asked for your name, sneering at the fact I was still a child myself, I named you the first thing that popped into my head. Axel. Axel Novak."

"I don't want his name."

She pursed her lips and slumped forward. "I'm sorry."

"What's his first name?"

"Richard," she uttered.

"Dick Novak," I scoffed. "How fucking fitting."

"Promise me you won't try to find him, Axel," she pleaded. "I've never sought him out, and I don't intend to. He can die with the guilt of what he's done and answer to whatever higher power exists. I've made my peace."

"Do you think he's seen your book?" I asked her. Her memoir contained nothing about being raped, the same way it lacked any mention of me. Maybe she felt that if she didn't write it, she could pretend it never happened. My stomach churned.

"I doubt I made as big of an impact on him that he's made on me. It wouldn't surprise me if he doesn't even remember my name or my face."

"Does Mr. Henley know about all this?"

"Yes. He was my psychiatrist before we started dating, so he knew everything about me beforehand. And he still loved me despite it all." She smiled at the thought of her husband. "Maybe it's a strange thought, but, in the end, I'm happy with the way everything turned out. A lot of fuck-ups and hardships in my life led me to where I am now—to success. If I had stayed in Ohio and lived my life how my parents wanted, I would've been in a loveless marriage with children who I'd treat the same way my parents treated their children. Instead I'm in love, and I have three beautiful children, even if I screwed one up, he still turned out wonderful. You're nothing like Richard. That was my biggest fear, that somehow his evil was hereditary. But no, you're different. You're Axel. And I love you."

'You're nothing like Richard' echoed in my mind. I thought of every person I slept with, every chauvinistic thought I've had, all the people I'd convinced to have sex to me, everyone I'd used so I could get off. She said it with conviction, but she couldn't possibly know. I wasn't a rapist in the traditional sense, but what if I was still a monster? What if I had fucked someone who didn't really want it, or who had regretted it? What if he and I weren't so different?

My mind went back to Aurora. Sweet Aurora. How many parallels were there between her and Anastasia?

"Axel?" She broke me out of my reverie. I was in a cold sweat. "Are you alright?"

"Am I a monster?" I asked her.

"No," she said. "You're my son."

"Axel!" Kairi squealed as she skipped through the doorway and made her way over the hospital bed so she could throw herself over the edge and wrap her arms around my torso. "You're alive!" She scrunched up her nose, recoiling slightly. "And you smell like hospital."

"Weird, I figured sitting in here for two days would leave me smelling like a Yankee candle."

She laughed heartily as another person shuffled into the room. I was expecting it was the nurse with my discharge papers, but it was Roxas instead.

"Hey," he greeted uncertainly, putting his hands into the pockets of his uniform pants. He lingered by the door. "Um, Kairi and I are your chaperones home. I hope you don't mind. It was supposed to be just me, but—"

"But Roxas doesn't deserve to have all the fun," she beamed.

"I'm just happy to get out of here."

"We've missed you at home. These past couple days have been so lame," Kairi said. "And Roxas hasn't really left his room, I think he missed you too."

Roxas shot her a glare. "Why don't you go get Axel's papers from the nurses since you wanted to tag along so bad," he deadpanned.

"Fine, fine." She slid off the bed and made her way to the door, stopping only to stick her tongue out at Roxas before stomping out.

Once her footsteps faded down the hall, Roxas made his way closer to bed but still kept his disposition pretty distant. "Are you okay?" He asked with genuine concern, which didn't suit him very well. "How's your head?"

"So, how long did you leave me on the floor before getting help?" It only took a few hours after waking up the previous day for my memories from our shower argument to come back to me, so I was very aware of the situation.

"Not long…"

"Just long enough for you to casually slip out, dry off, and get dressed? Did you style your hair and press your pants, too? Did you have time to make yourself a snack?"

"You're forgetting a few minutes of panic and trying to come up with a plan that wouldn't incriminate either of us."

"Are you not even going to apologize?"

"Axel, you slipped. It wasn't my fault. You were being a jerk, but I didn't intentionally try to fracture your skull. I have nothing to apologize for." He crossed his arms over his chest. "If anything, you should apologize to me."

I scoffed, disbelieving of his audacity. "You're really something else, Roxas. Do you even listen to yourself when you talk?"

He opened his mouth to answer, but before he could sass back, Kairi returned with the nurse from yesterday in tow. They were oblivious to our spat, smiling and laughing about something unrelated. "Are you ready to go home, Axel?" The nurse asked me. And I was more than ready. Hospitals sucked.

After my papers were signed and I was given an information packet about concussions, we were in Roxas's car, beginning the fifteen minute drive back to the house. I had nothing so say, so I let Kairi do all the talking. She told me about the time she broke her arm when she was eight after falling off of the diving board they apparently used to have in the pool but removed shorty after. Roxas grumbled about missing that diving board.

"He went through a phase where he wanted to be an Olympic diver," she explained.

From the corner of my eye, I glared at Roxas. And I couldn't help but imagine him in an American flag printed speedo doing acrobatics off of a diving board.

When we pulled up the house, I wasn't expecting to do much except lounge and take it easy as per the doctor's orders. But as we approached the front door, an excitement emanated off of Kairi. Inside, I was suddenly bombarded with the sight of a bunch of balloons and a banner hanging above the entryway that said 'Get well soon!' in large red letters. Anastasia and Mr. Henley came in from the kitchen, the former holding a plate with a small cake that had what looked like a poorly drawn figure with a bandage on his head in frosting.

"Welcome home," Anastasia greeted. "I hope you don't mind vanilla. I did the baking, but Kairi did the decorating."

"Hey, I helped," Mr. Henley piped up. "I licked the spoon."

"Do you like it?" Kairi asked me, nudging at my side while peering at the cake she was so proud of.

It was a strange gesture. Was this something people normally did? Make a cake for someone who nearly broke their head?

"I love it," I told them. "Thanks." Anastasia smiled at me. A genuine smile that revealed her perfect implanted teeth. It seemed like our talk the previous day had relieved her of a lot of torment, but it had the opposite effect on me. I was a rape baby, and now I felt like that title was branded on my forehead. "I'm going to go shower and change and then I'll come down for cake. Don't worry, I won't slip this time."

"We'll be down here when you're ready," Mr. Henley said, giving me a pat on the shoulder.

Up in my room, I began to peel out of the clothes that I'm assuming someone randomly grabbed when I was taken to the hospital, and thus were mismatched. I wanted to wash away the sterility of the hospital and change into an outfit that didn't make me look like I was dressed by a colorblind toddler. In the bathroom, everything was cleaned and there was no evidence that anything had happened in there, aside from a new rug in front of the tub to prevent a reoccurrence. I rubbed the back of my head and thought about the argument that took place, where I had accused Roxas of being affectionate only because he was afraid I'd be more interested in his best friend.

I sighed heavily.

After my completely normal shower, I dressed and laid on my bed which had been made in my absence by assumedly Ivana. My linens smelled freshly washed and they smelled so good that I wanted to stay with my face buried in them until my life started making sense again. Part of me missed being a stain on society, a no-good bitter miscreant, a punk, a kid who could blame all his issues on his shitty childhood. Even surrounded by luxuries now, I couldn't deny life was easier then. It was simple. I never had to question myself. These past few months felt like a lifetime and I was exhausted.

I rolled onto my side towards my bed table where my cell phone had been sitting untouched since the eventful shower preceding my hospitalization. I grabbed it and was greeted by a screen covered in notifications, mostly texts from Riku since I had texted him every night since I got my phone and my lack of response had probably worried him. As much as he tried to hide it, I knew he cared about me. After going through his messages, I saw I had a text from a different contact. From Sora.

hey i heard you fell on your head. are you ok?

The message was from a day ago. I typed a short response and went back to sniffing my bedding. Not too long after, my phone chirped.

im sorry about what happened. i was just trying to help.

With furrowed brows, I kept rereading the message, trying to decipher the meaning. I texted back a question mark. Was I forgetting something crucial from that night? I waited for a response, and waited, and waited. There was nothing. I was about to text another question mark, maybe two or three to express urgency, but then there was a knock on the door.

"Yes?" I called out, not paying too much attention.

"It's me. Do you want to eat your cake up here?"

With a sigh, I tossed my phone to the side and got up so I could open my bedroom door where Anastasia was standing just outside of it. "No, I'm coming down. Sorry to keep you guys waiting."

She reached up and tucked a piece of my hair behind my ear, smiling softly. "It's no problem at all."

It was back to the daily grind shortly after. Back to community service and Roxas and I avoiding each other. I never heard back from Sora, so I never got an explanation for his cryptic message, but I just let it go. My hours were almost up, and I had to figure out what I wanted to do, so I had to try my best to push everything else out of my mind and focus just on that instead. But despite my efforts, sometimes my thoughts were invaded by the man who made up half of my DNA, and how I had been wearing his name for twenty-five years. It made me grit my teeth until they hurt.

"Do you need a suit?" Anastasia asked me over breakfast one morning. I hadn't been paying attention to the conversation preceding, opting to instead focus on making fork trails in the maple syrup that pooled on my plate.

I lifted my head up. "A suit? For what? Did someone die?"

"Graduation!" Kairi cheered, a bite of waffle pushed into her cheek. She swallowed and took a big drink of orange juice. "Roxas is graduating in less than a month. And then he'll be off to Pennsylvania."

"Pennsylvania?" I asked, suddenly engrossed. "What's in Pennsylvania?"

"UPenn is what's in Pennsylvania," Roxas said, his voice monotone. "It's where I'm going to college."

"It's an Ivy League school," Kairi added, clearly more excited about it than he was. "And when Roxas is gone, I get his room. It has a bigger closet than mine."

"Oh," I said, because I wasn't really sure what else to say when we were back to denying our feelings. "Um, congrats?"

"It's old news," he said quickly. "I found out a while ago."

Mr. Henley reached over and put a hand on his shoulder. "And we're all still extremely proud of you, Rox."

"So, do you need a suit, Axel?" Anastasia asked again.

"Yeah," I said, an inexplicable emptiness in my chest, "I suppose I do."

Ivana didn't come in until later in the morning, so I cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher in her stead since I didn't have to be to the park for another thirty minutes. Everyone else was grateful that I volunteered, but I just wanted something to keep me busy until it was time to go. I was alone in the kitchen until Roxas came back in. I quirked an eyebrow at his presence, but he didn't pay any mind to me. He was too busy looking around and pushing aside clutter.

"Looking for something?"

"Car keys," he deadpanned. "Thought I left them on the counter."

I turned off the sink and wiped my wet hands on the back of my jeans. "Need a fresh set of eyes?"

"Sure, I guess."

I joined him in his search, scanning the countertops. We were at it for only about a couple minutes before he groaned.

"Did you find them?"

"Yeah, they were in my pocket."

"Nice."

"Yeah… It's too early. Thanks anyway." He was about to take his leave before I tugged on his arm. "What?"

"I didn't know you were moving away soon."

"I know the concept of university is foreign to you, but that's what you do. And I didn't tell you because I figured you didn't care. Why would you care? You probably get to live here until you're forty, which is like, what, a couple years from now? You can probably even fight Kairi for my room."

"I know what university is, you fucking turd. I just… I don't know. Wasn't getting into an Ivy League school your big dream or whatever? What you were working so hard for? You could've told me. I would've been happy for you. I am happy for you."

His shoulders slacked and his icy exterior seemed to have thawed a little bit. Did I detect the faintest hint of a smile? "Anyway," he said, "I should get going. I don't necessarily have to go to class anymore, but Kairi does. I don't want her to be late."

"Want to give me a ride, then? You can drop Kairi off and then take me to my community service. I don't want to pretend I don't like you anymore. I miss your pretension and pissy attitude."

"Did it not work out with Sora?"

"I never wanted Sora," I mumbled. "And I'm sorry for what I said in the shower. I disregarded your feelings because of my own insecurities."

"And I'm sorry for…" He trailed off. "I'm sorry for..."

"Are you serious?"

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry for my past behaviors and for inadvertently contributing to the events that led up to you nearly spilling your brains all over the bathroom floor. And I'm sorry for not telling you about UPenn. There. Now can you go back to being annoying yet oddly charming and comforting. And now you can forget those words ever left my mouth."

"Do I get a ride from you if I do?"

There was a knock on the window. I tensed up, subconsciously holding my breath as if that would make me invisible. When there was another knock, I sputtered, failing to suppress a giggle. The third knock, I knew I needed a new plan, so I burrowed into the crook of Roxas's neck. "He's onto us," I whispered. "We have to hide."

Roxas playfully shoved me away. "No, he just wants you, not me. If I give him you he'll leave me alone."

We were in the back seat of his Bentley, I was on all-fours hovering above him, appreciating how surprisingly roomy the back of his car was. After dropping Kairi off at school and taking me to the park, there was a weird lapse, and next thing I know we're making out and getting handsy like a couple of tweens at a drive-in. We ended up in the back seat, the car still running, and now the park manager was knocking on the window because we'd been idling there for about fifteen minutes. Luckily, the windows were heavily tinted, so we were concealed, but the manager probably recognized the car as one of the ones that occasionally dropped me off or picked me up, and now I was running late.

"You'd throw me to the wolves like that? That's harsh, even for you, Roxas."

"Shouldn't you be going anyway? He looks a little mad."

Outside the car, the park manager looked especially moody, which meant my work was going to be especially cruel, like unclogging toilets or scraping old bird shit off the payphones. "I think if I just lay low and don't let him see me he'll eventually go away."

"There's only so low you can lay with me underneath you."

"Is that a challenge?" I lowered most my weight onto him. "I think you just wanted me to get closer to you. If only there weren't all these clothes in the way…"

"You're unbelievable, Axel," he said, his amusement evident in his voice. There was another knock, harder this time. "I would appreciate if he would not break my window open to look for you."

"Ugh, this guy is killing my boner."

"Yeah, just go before you get in trouble."

I looked down at Roxas, at his wrinkled shirt and disheveled hair, at his pink cheeks and nose freckles. He was beautiful. He was so beautiful, and yet, he liked me, of all people. Would he still like me if he knew how I came into existence? He and Kairi were naïve about my conception and probably figured the same that I had all these years; that I was just a product of some deadbeat who was afraid of responsibility, or maybe the spawn of john during her prostitution stint.

Roxas furrowed his eyebrows. "Hey, are you alright? You're just staring off into space."

"M'fine," I said, no hint of emotion in my voice. I maneuvered off of him, which was unsurprisingly more difficult than getting into that position in the first place. We both knocked into each other and bumped limbs trying to sit up, and once we did, we just kind of sat and looked at each other expectantly.

"It will be suspicious if we both get out of the backseat at the same time," Roxas suddenly said, breaking eye contact and clearing his throat. "So, I will just climb back over the seat."

"Why do you like me, Roxas?"

"I feel like I've answered that question several times already."

"And I'll keep asking until understand it."

"Then I guess you'll be asking awhile, since I don't completely understand it either."

A/N Part 2: Electric Boogaloo: I'm going to be honest with you guys, I don't have the same Akuroku feels I once did and writing this story is a chore. But I have every intention of finishing it.

My life is hectic and I have other hobbies that take priority. I used to take pride in my writing, but now I don't have the time or motivation I once did. I've been writing fan fiction since I was ten years old. I'm twenty-one now, which, yes, is still fairly young, but I've been at this for about eleven years. I've been through many fandoms and pen names and accounts, each time trying to rebrand myself and improve without the weight of works that I am embarassed of on my shoulders. Kingdom Hearts is a fandom I've been apart of the longest but as the years go on, my passion for it dwindles more and more, and I realize I've been writing Kingdom Hearts fan fiction for so long that I do it out of comfort more so than anything else.

I will keep writing. Updates will probably still be slow. And hopefully I can re-ignite the spark I once had for this fandom.