Author's Note: Oh my gosh, I am soooo sorry! It's been almost a month since I last updated! Yeah, school work has been really bad this term. It sucks but I can't really do anything about , I've actually finished this story. I would like to warn you that only one chapter (and an epilogue) after this is to come. Just thought I would tell you. So, enjoy this chapter. And again, I am really sorry for the delayed update!

-o-x-Chapter 23-x-o-

"Isn't she lov-er-leee? Isn't she bee-u-ti-fooolll?"

"Shut up, Jess." Roxas instructed, cutting across her - ahem - singing.

She grinned cheekily, "Aww, I can't help it. You all look so handsome!" she declared, pinching Demyx on the cheek. She laughed as he squeaked and batted her hand away. "Very manly, Demy."

Both Roxas and Sora snorted into their laps. He coughed and grinned at her, shaking his head, only a little embarrassed.

"How can you laugh, Sora?" Demyx asked, smirking. "Your voice only broke last year and it was so damn high before…"

"Yeah, well," the brunette shifted uncomfortable on his stool, his cheeks tinged a light shade of magenta, "it had not, so- urg, shut up." He scowled as Jess and Demyx howled with laughter.

Roxas grinned to himself and shook his head in amusement. Although he was laughing on the outside, his stomach was churning with worry. He had absolutely no idea how he should act around Axel now. It wasn't as if they were going out (yet) - they were both still 'with' other people, unless Seifer had moved on to someone else in the last few hours - but they did have a very heated making out session at the mall on Saturday.

Why did Rikku, Yuffie and Naminé have to have left now? If only they could have stayed another week or so, then they could have told him what he should do. Why does everything happen at really annoying and inconvenient moments? If his life was a movie they would still be here now, giving him moral support and telling him what to do. Or possibly shoving him out of the door so he wasn't late it see his "Axey-baby". Who ever was writing the script for his life, well, he had a few complaints for them.

Demyx raised his eyebrows slightly and tilted his head to one side quizzically. Roxas nodded to say that he was fine. After Demyx's 'rant' about Zexion yesterday, Demyx had questioned Roxas closely about Axel. Apparently he had seem the, um, session in the mall on Saturday and was intrigued to know what exactly was going on. Roxas practically spilled his guts out and then, infuriatingly, received nothing in return. Demyx supposedly knew Axel's side of the story and how he felt about everything that had happened and what the red-head was planning to do but he refused to tell Roxas a single thing. He had said it was his duty as a friend not to reveal anything Axel had told him. Bloody relatives.

"Oi, Roxas! Snap outta it, you'll be late for school." Jess told him, clicking her somehow annoyingly loud fingers at him.

He jumped, and then grinned sheepishly.

"What were you scowling at, eh?" she asked, marching over to the sink and pulling on a pair of marigold gloves.

'Because you took my friends to the train station, you evil bitch, and your son is EVIL. He thought to himself, trying not to laugh or growl at her.

"I was just thinking about the English essay I have in for today. I think I did it wrong." Damn, he was getting good at lying. Rikku must be rubbing off on him…

"Yeah, surreee you were…" she grinned and winked at him. "Go get 'im, tiger."

Roxas blushed but grinned cheerfully.

He grabbed his bag from the floor, waved to her and rushed out of the door after Demyx and Sora.

Jess shook her head and sighed in amusement and longing. Sometimes she wished she was back in High School. Actually, that was a lie, she just wished she was that young again. She remembered in her Junior year-

Brrrring. Brrrring.

She jumped as the phone rang, snapping her out of her reminisce. She plucked the washing-up gloves off her hands, scrambled over to the phone and scooped it up.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Jess. It's Cloud."

"Oh, hey! You back from the business trip then?" she asked, settling back down at the breakfast bar and began buttering a slice of toast.

"Yeah, I just got back and I thought I should probably ring you."

"Uh huh. Well you've missed a lo- the boys have missed you." She smirked evilly to herself as she refrained from telling him any of their news.

"I've missed them too."

"Good. Oh, how's Tifa?" Jess asked as she took a large bite out of her thickly buttered toast. She would regret putting that much butter on later, but it was hard to control the amount of butter you scooped out of the tub when you were on the phone.

"She's great. We were wondering if we could visit sometime? I mean, before we come for Christmas."

"I think that would be a good idea," she giggled slightly, trying to stifle it with her hand.

"Why are you laughing? Has something happened- oh my god, Demyx bed caught fire again, didn't it? I knew we should have made him share a room with Sora-"

"No, nothing like that. Besides, that was an accident!"

"Hmm… Whatever."

"Yeah."

"Are you gonna tell me what's happened?"

"Um…" Jess contemplated this for a few seconds, "No." she took another bite of her toast. "You'll just have to find out when you get here."

"Damn."

-x-X-x-

"Roxas? I thought you had German now."

Roxas looked up from his shoes into the warm brown eye of Olette. "Hey, Olette. I do."

"You're not skiving, are you?" she asked a hint of disapproval edging her voice, folding her arms across her chest.

"No… I got sent out." He admitted.

"Oh… why?" she looked rather shocked and perplexed.

"My cell phone rang."

"Ouch. She must be in a worse mood than usual today." Olette sympathised.

"Hmm."

"What's up with you today? You seem a little… deflated." She stated, her eyebrows contracting slightly with concern.

"… I'm fine." He insisted. He sighed when Olette rose her eyebrows doubtfully. "Alright, Axel's not here and I though he might-"

"Are you out?" she offered.

"No… I just though he would be here… I need to talk to him." Roxas sighed and leaned back against the row of lockers behind him.

"Okay… well, he's probably just ill or something." She reassured him.

"Maybe, but I don't think he wants to see me. You see, when I got off with him at the mall on Saturday he-"

"You what?" Olette stared at him in shock.

Oops. Perhaps he had failed to mention that to her before. "Um, didn't I tell you… that?" he asked, wincing weakly.

"No, you didn't. I bet Seifer wasn't happy about that." She laughed lightly.

"I don't know, he wasn't there. We kinda ran away from him." Roxas grinned, brushing away a strand of hair from his eyes.

"Sounds like you had fun…" she laughed.

"Yeah, but then he just went. He said he had to go take care of something or something."

"Oh… so you think he's avoiding you now?"

Roxas snorted; that was pretty obvious, wasn't it?

-x-X-x-

Roxas slouched dejectedly down the corridor. He wasn't angry or upset or- well, he didn't quite know how he felt. He just knew that he felt, full stop. He was confused. Why wasn't Axel here? Was he avoiding him or was Roxas just being really paranoid? Roxas couldn't understand why Axel would want to avoid him… If he didn't like him then surely he wouldn't have kissed him, right?

He sighed and shook his head. There was no point in wondering and attempting to guess anything. He knew he'd only get it wrong. Damn it. He desperately needed to call Rikku.

Speaking of calling people, who was this stupid twat who kept trying to call him? They had called twice while he was in his German lesson, once while he was banished from the room and twice during break. Whoever it was, they must have given up. Zexion had suggested that it might be Rikku or someone like that but he already had the numbers stored in his phone. There was someone he thought it could possibly be but he didn't want to get his hopes up.

Roxas looked up as he turned into the corridor that contained his locker. He half groaned when the lone figure of Seifer snapped into his line of sight, though he tried very hard to hide it.

This was perhaps the very last person he felt like talking to right now. Just his flipping luck.

He forced a grin on to his face and waved at him. Seifer nodded back. Roxas wondered if Rikku, Yuffie and Naminé would scream at him on the phone later is he broke up with Seifer now. Probably, was the answer he came up with. He just didn't want to be with Seifer anymore - not that he ever had - and he felt really bad for using him in the he had, and still was. Besides, he felt that if he left a gap between dumping Seifer, in a nice way of course, and getting together with Axel, if it ever happened, there might be a chance he could stay friends with Seifer. Roxas thought that he would actually be a pretty nice guy and potentially a good friend if he didn't spend all his time trying to get into his pants. Okay, that sounded weird.

Anyway, wasn't there a saying that things happen when you give up?

'Okay Roxas,' he thought, 'just act normal. Go up to him and kiss him then bring it up… somehow. Oh god, I am going to die. Farewell cruel world!'

Now he was being over dramatic. Honestly, what would his mother say?

'Aah! Stupid brain… Don't think about her now.'

"Hey Seifer." Roxas said warmly, planting a chaste on the older blonde's lips.

"Hey," he replied, smiling quickly, "you alright?"

"Yep," Roxas said, punching in the dial for his locker, "just dandy. You?"

"Yeah, not bad." Seifer ducked his head and rubbed the nape of his neck awkwardly.

Roxas raised an eyebrow. "You sure? You look kinda tense."

Seifer smirked and leaned down, inducing a game of tonsil hockey, wrapping his arms around Roxas' waist. A group of idiotic freshmen girls walked past, one wolf whistled and they all broke out into a fit of giggles. Roxas mentally smacked his forehead and resisted the urge to send an obscene hand gesture their way.

Seifer pulled away and leant back against the locker next to Roxas, rubbing his forehead and grimacing. "Listen, Roxas…"

"Hmm?" Roxas looked up at him quizzically. He would have to get on with finishing it with Seifer, he promised to meet the others in a bit.

"I'm really sorry about this because I know how much you like me and all." Seifer started. This was all news to Roxas but he refrained form saying anything. "I just don't think this is working."

…What did he just say? He doesn't think it's working? Doesn't think what's working? The queuing system in the canteen? Yeah, it was pretty retarded that the prefects could just push in front of you in the jet line but, jeez, get over it. "You don't think what's working?"

Seifer gulped. "Us?"

"Us?" Roxas' eyebrows shot up in surprise, he had not expected this, he hey! It was good, one less thing of him to do. All he had to do was act like he was distraught and he would be fine. "But I-"

"I know, I'm sorry. You see, this was just supposed to be a, you know, a good no strings attached shag and then you said you wanted to get to know me better first and I thought you were just playing hard to get and that you'd be worth it when I got you, but I don't think I was right-"

"Are you saying I'm not worth it?" Roxas almost cried out, ignoring the random passer by who told him 'not to get his panties in a twist'. To be honest, he couldn't really care less whether Seifer wanted to fuck him or not but, well, a man has got to have some pride. I mean Seifer would shag practically anyone.

"Hell no! I'm sure you are cause, well, look at you!" You're slam the brakes on to get a better look fuckable, but… there's someone I like better. I've, err, liked him for a while."

Holy orange elephants! Was he really having this conversation with Seifer? Okay, this was one thing he never expected to talk to him about. "…Who?"

"I-err…" He coughed and smiled a silly half-smirk/half-grin. "Hayner."

Woah. Rewind and freeze. Seifer likes Hayner? What the hell… They can barely look at each other without getting into a fight. Talk about a love/hate relationship.

"Don't look at me like that!" Seifer groaned.

"Oh, sorry." Roxas took the mixture of surprised and freaked out expression off his face. "It's just, well, you're not exactly nice to him, are you?"

"I know. And I've known him since we were fucking babies."

Ew, Seifer in a diaper. That was a really weird image.

"Do- do you know if he likes me?" The older boy asked, almost timidly. He wasn't acting, well, like Seifer. He was acting like an almost normal human being, whatever one of those was.

"I don't know." He answered truthfully. "Sorry."

"S'alright. I guess I probably shouldn't be asking you since we just broke up and all…" He trailed off, cracking his gum awkwardly. "Anyways, I'll see you around, yeah? We can still be fri-"

"Sure. You don't need to say that. Sounds cheesy." Roxas muttered.

Seifer grinned and winked at him before being hailed over by a group of passing seniors.

Roxas shook his head and turned to shut his locker, making his way towards the bench under the tree they had gotten into the habit of sitting at. He still couldn't believe Seifer liked Hayner. He had no idea if Hayner like him. Hell, he didn't know if Hayner even like guys in that way at all.

Pence, Olette, Kairi, Tidus and Selphie waved him over to their table when they saw him.

"Hey Roxas!" Selphie squealed, making Tidus budge up to the end of the bench to make room for Roxas to sit down.

"Hey."

"You alright, man?" Tidus asked, replacing his arm around Selphie.

"Yeah, has anyone seen Hayner?"

"He went just before you got here." Pence told him. "Why?"

Roxas snorted. "You could say I have good news for him."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah, me and Seifer broke up."

"Yes!" Pence and Tidus exclaimed in delight, they laughed and high-fived.

"Don't get too excited," Roxas warned, grinning. "He likes Hayner."

Pence and Hayner exchanged identical looks of horror, Selphie squealed, Olette gasped and Kairi even turned her attention away from Sora and Riku who were sitting on the grass a little way off and stared at him. Their table was silent except for Selphie's persistent giggles, until-

"Five bucks, Kairi."

The red-head snapped her attention to Olette. "What?"

"You own me five bucks. We had a bet, remember?" she replied simply.

Kairi mutter something about it slipping her mind but handed the money over albeit grudgingly. Tidus and Pence were staring at the two girls, open-mouthed.

"What?" Olette asked innocently.

"I-you- you bet on…" Tidus spluttered.

"Oh come on, it was it obvious they were secretly wanting to fuck the other's brains out."

Roxas snorted as Pence's head connected loudly with the table.

Author's Note: Oooh, that was a little longer than usual, wasn't it? Excellent. How was it? It's probably not the best I could have done it but, meh. I was at a concert last night and I am really tired (I haven't slept since Thursday). So, yeah, I will leave to enjoy a nice warm shower and then sleep. Finally.

Read, review, party, enjoy life…

Love, nirii xx