Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts (II), Sora, Kairi, Riku, etc.

Author's Note: WOWEE!!! Well, you people have been asking for Axel, so I gave him to you in this lovely coughsuckycough chapter!

Warning #1: People who I originally named as teachers are now students/SCARF members.

Warning #2: Axiri ahead!

Quick Author Babble: WOWEE!!! Two whole warnings!

Chapter 22: Love at First Sight

"Are you okay?" Sora asked tentatively, looking down at Kairi, who was sitting cross-legged in the snow.

"I'm fine," Kairi responded.

The quiet that filled the night air was far more than awkward. The apology had been nice while it lasted, but now there was nothing but embarrassment. Both teens' faces were flushed with embarrassment and just the pure cold of the winter air, especially poor Kairi, who was only wearing a sweater over her pajamas—not a very good thing to wear outside in January.

It was these times that Kairi most needed Yuffie. Yuffie always broke the silence—the word 'awkward' wasn't in her dictionary. Sometimes Kairi thought it was unfortunate that the word 'silent' wasn't in her dictionary either, but right now she really didn't care.

"Do you want to go back inside?" Sora asked. "Are you cold?"

"No."

When would he stop? All this niceness was, in a way, giving Kairi a headache—of course, that might've just been the music that was still ringing in her ears. Collapsing into the snow, she looked up at the stars twinkling above.

"They're beautiful, winter nights, aren't they?" Kairi asked breathlessly.

"Yeah…"

Once again, the very silence Kairi had been loathing returned. Kairi sighed. Out of all the times Sora chose not to shut up, why did he have to do it now?

"I've got to get home," Sora said.

He said it quickly, as if he couldn't stand being there one more second.

"Okay, bye."

Kairi gave the smallest wave before Sora disappeared into the misty, early morning. She closed her eyes and fell into the snow, cold flakes sinking into her clothes.

"Are you trying to get pneumonia?"

This voice was not Sora's—it was more snotty and ignorant, but very familiar. Kairi opened her eyes and sat up. The boy was tall and silver-haired, aquamarine eyes rather thin and practically screaming "I don't mind breaking the rules." There was this sort of amused smile on his face, but it was barely noticeable. Anyone else could've mistaken it for a twitch, but Kairi knew him too well. Even after three years, he hadn't changed a bit.

"Riku?" she said, almost disbelieving. "What are you doing here?"

"Taking a walk," he replied.

"You're taking a walk at two in the morning?" Kairi remarked.

"Don't judge me!"

Kairi giggled.

"Okay, okay," she said.

It remained like that for a couple of more minutes—Kairi gazing aimlessly up at the stars, Riku dawdling awkwardly around the yard. Finally he turned to her.

"Be careful when you're around him," Riku said.

"What?" Kairi replied, the statement catching her off guard.

"Never mind," Riku said. "I've got to go home. Bye, Kairi."

"Riku, wait!" Kairi cried, shooting up off the ground.

As soon as she'd straightened up, Riku had completely disappeared into the mist. Kairi frowned. How did he always manage to do that?

And who was he?

"""

Kairi brushed her hair absentmindedly. Her violet eyes had a blank look about them. She hadn't talked to Riku normally like that for months, and suddenly one day he showed up. What was with that silver-haired boy?

"Kairi, Yuffie's here!" Mrs. Ire called up the stairs.

"Coming!" yelled Kairi, now brushing her hair in a frenzy.

She took out her bracelets and slid three on, tried to tie up her hair, gave up, ran into her room, put on the first shirt she saw, took a random pair of jeans, found one shoe, and started looking around for its match.

"Kairi!" shouted Mrs. Ire again.

"Coming!" called Kairi, exasperated.

Finally managing to find the matching shoe, she tugged both of them on, too excited to tie up the shoelaces, and almost fell down the staircase as she raced down them.

"Kairi, tie your shoes," Mrs. Ire ordered. "You're going to fall flat on your face."

Grumbling, Kairi tied up the troublesome, pink laces and looked at the black-haired girl who was watching her with both amusement and impatience.

"Okay, I'm ready to go!" Kairi said, bouncing up.

"Finally!" cried Yuffie. "I didn't think you'd ever finish!"

"Alright, alright, let's just go," Kairi said dryly. "Bye, Mom!"

"Bye, Kairi! Have a nice time!"

Kairi shut the door behind her and she and Yuffie walked down the icy sidewalk.

"So what's the plan?" Kairi asked.

Mrs. Ire thought Yuffie and Kairi were going to the mall, a very ordinary thing for teenage girls to do. However, little did she know this was no ordinary trip to the mall. It was another SCARF scheme. Yuffie had been designing it all week…or so she said.

Yuffie took out a notepad. On it was what looked like a diagram of the mall. On it were very detailed plans.

"First we look for SCARF members," Yuffie said. "They can be either potential or already members. Then we hit the book store to look for some titles on popularity. Then we go get some gear from whatever shops we need to visit."

"Gear?" repeated Kairi, bewildered.

"Yeah, gear," Yuffie replied. "You know, like spies wear? It's just in case we need to do some deeper investigation."

Kairi tried to imagine herself as a spy, sneaking around in a professional-looking black suit, many gadgets in hand. She couldn't.

"Then, after that, we look around for Riku, Naminé, Tidus, or Selphie," Yuffie continued. "One of them is bound to be there…especially Selphie. She's rather shopping prone."

Kairi nodded.

"And then we hit the movie theater and see The Godfather," Yuffie finished, putting away the notepad.

"And what's that for?" Kairi asked.

"To take a break, of course!" chirped Yuffie. "We'd have worked hard! Besides, I'm aching for a thriller! I love Christmas time, but honestly, it's so boring…there's no opportunities for trouble."

Kairi giggled.

"Whatever you say," she said.

"""

Yuffie and Kairi entered the mall, looking about for any familiar face—it was time to reassemble SCARF. They hadn't had much time with all the problems the group had been having, but Kairi wanted to finish it now, the day before the end of Christmas break.

Yuffie's eyes suddenly lit up as her gaze met with a boy with long, dark, hair, slate grey eyes, and a serious stature. He was practically covered head to toe with black leather.

"Hey, Leon!" she shouted, waving and jumping like a crazy person. "Leon, over here!"

Kairi didn't know if Leon was an official member, however Yuffie seemed to think so, judging by the way she was basically squealing as Leon turned and walked over to them.

"Er…hi, Leon," Kairi said. "We're looking around for SCARF members…Apparently Yuffie has a mission in mind."

Leon turned to look at Yuffie questioningly.

"Well, not yet, but I certainly will soon enough!" Yuffie said proudly. "This time we'll get Riku, I promise!"

Kairi's face went a little pale at the words "we'll get Riku." She really didn't want the silver-haired boy to get hurt, no matter how much of a jerk he acted. But Kairi couldn't let anyone know that—she wasn't really sure about the whole thing herself.

"A-Are you in?" she stuttered, looking up at Leon.

"Yeah, sure, why not?" replied Leon.

"Ooh…Squally, you're too nice!" Yuffie squealed so high that it nearly broke Kairi's eardrums.

"Squally?" Kairi repeated, looking up at Leon with a mixture of amusement and surprise.

"Yuffie!" hissed Leon, turning a very bright shade of red. "You promised!"

His teeth were gritted. Yuffie grinned apologetically, turning a bit pink herself.

"Sorry, Squ…Leon, I kind of forgot myself for a minute there," she laughed nervously, and then turned to Kairi. "Leon's name isn't actually Leon. It's Squall…Squall Leonhart. Leon was embarrassed of his name, so he changed it to Leon a few years ago. He told me and made me promise not to tell. He doesn't want to go through the whole 'Squally' experience with the mean boys again, particularly with Riku around…"

"Yuffie!" shouted Leon again, apparently ashamed that he'd been embarrassed about anything, particularly when it came to being called 'Squally' by other boys in his grade.

"Oh, don't worry, Leon, Kairi won't tell!" Yuffie said. "Will you, Kairi?"

"Of course I wouldn't!" Kairi said, shaking her head violently, hand over her mouth to keep her from laughing at the mere thought of someone calling Leon 'Squally.' "My lips are sealed."

Leon, though still quite upset with Yuffie, followed them around the mall as they looked around for SCARF members.

"Hello, would you like to join our SCARF team?" Yuffie said, approaching a tall girl with long, dark brown hair and silver eyes. "It's to start getting more say in what we can do for our school…"

Though Yuffie was super hyper and almost always completely oblivious to what was going on around her, Kairi had to admit she was great at convincing people. She'd already got Zexion, Wakka, and Cloud Strife. Leon watched, impressed, as Yuffie skipped back with a grin on her face.

"We have a new member!" she announced happily. "Tifa Lockhart! Write her down on the notepad, Kairi, we don't have much time!"

And she continued to skip on, Kairi and Leon following her uncertainly.

"Hey, look, there's Roxas and Sora!" Yuffie said after awhile. "OI!!! ROXAS!!! SORA!!! OVER HERE!!!"

Judging by that yell, she had attracted more attention than just Sora's and Roxas's. However, they turned to look at her. Sora's cerulean eyes fell upon Kairi almost instantly, and the thought of yesterday made Kairi blush and turn away.

"Guess what, guess what, guess what?" Yuffie said quickly as Sora and Roxas walked over to them. "Look at all these SCARF members we found! Look at 'em! We'll have so many members; it'll be like an army!"

"That's great, Yuffie," Sora remarked, smiling.

"Yeah, soon Riku'll be crushed like a bug!" Roxas said, smiling satisfyingly as he pounded his fist into his palm.

A look of horror came over Sora and Kairi. Kairi didn't want Riku to be squashed like a bug, no matter how terrible he was!

"Hey now, guys, we just want to talk to him and make sure he listens…" Sora began.

"Well, that's enough members for today," Yuffie said, cutting him off. "Let's go to the book…oof!"

Yuffie took a step back and glared at the person who had just walked into her.

"Hey, watch where you're going, you clumsy oaf!" she snapped.

"Oh, sorry about that…"

Kairi looked up to see a boy with spiky, red hair, electrical green eyes, and a threatening look about him. He genuinely did look sorry, but Yuffie was a bit too out of control for apologies. She kept shouting at him until Leon pulled her back and covered her mouth with his hand.

"Sorry about that," he said, looking at the boy.

"No, it's okay," the boy replied. "I bumped into her, after all. The name's Axel. Got it memorized?"

There was a long pause.

"Leon," Leon replied, shaking his hand and looking down at the squirming, black-haired girl in his arms who had turned red from anger. "This is Yuffie."

"She your girlfriend?" asked Axel.

Yuffie stopped squirming and turned bright pink.

"What?!" shouted Leon. "NO!!!"

Kairi quickly stepped in front of them and smiled at Axel.

"Hi, I'm Kairi, and there's this thing we're doing called SCARF," she explained. "It's to get more say into the student body, so we're hoping…you would like to join?"

Oh, dear—Kairi wasn't very good at this. However, Axel smiled at her and nodded.

"Sure," he said. "Put me down."

Kairi grinned a bit too happily as she scribbled down Axel's name messily down on the page. She'd done it! Maybe she was better at speaking than she thought she was.

"I'll see you at school tomorrow," said Axel before walking off.

He was mysterious and totally social. It was like he'd planned to be there, to bump into Yuffie, to join SCARF. And somehow, Kairi melted at the very thought of a tall, mysterious boy. She could practically feel Sora's frown, but plainly ignored it as she felt her heart beat a mile a minute.

Yuffie suddenly grabbed her wrist and pulled her through the mall.

"Come on!" Yuffie hissed. "Book store! Now!"

"""

Kairi pretended to look through books on popularity, but really her mind was on the spiky, red-haired boy she had talked to earlier. Never had she developed a crush so quickly. It was like…

"Love at first sight," she sighed.

Kairi was on Cloud Number Nine, and she wasn't coming down anytime soon—not with Axel in her head. His electric green eyes…his dreamy, red hair…his strong, mischievous voice…

"Kairi!" yelled Sora for what must've been the fortieth time.

Kairi snapped out of her daze and realized she was clutching the book she was supposed to be reading to her chest in a daydreaming gesture. Though she was embarrassed that Sora had seen her like that, she'd still rather be daydreaming about Axel.

"What?" she snapped, irritated.

"Did you find any books, dare I ask?" Sora asked.

Kairi bit her lip and looked at him.

"Well…er…this one…"

Kairi fumbled around with the book she was holding and accidentally dropped it. Sora caught it before it hit the ground and handed it to the woman at the counter.

"Okay, what's with you?" he asked, his face stonier than Kairi had ever seen it.

"Well…um…nothing's with me!" she finally cried. "What makes you think there is?"

"Okay, okay, I was just asking," Sora said, and he took the books now in the plastic bag and waited for Yuffie, Leon, and Roxas to leave the book store.

"Let's skip the gear shopping for today," Yuffie said. "We'll think of a plan tomorrow at school. Let's just go watch the movie."

"Okay!" Roxas chirped, sounding relieved.

"""

Kairi's eyes were glued on the screen though she wasn't even thinking about it. As the movie started playing, Yuffie squealed excitedly.

"I believe in America. America has made my fortune. And I raised my daughter in the American fashion. I gave her freedom, but…I taught her never to dishonor her family. She found a boyfriend; not an Italian. She went to the movies with him; she stayed out late."

Kairi sighed dreamily. She could imagine her and Axel like that—boyfriend and girlfriend, going to movies, staying out late.

"I didn't protest. Two months ago, he took her for a drive, with another boyfriend. They made her drink whiskey. And they tried to take advantage of her. She resisted. She kept her honor. So they beat her, like an animal."

Kairi frowned as her dream of her and Axel shattered.

"When I went to the hospital, her nose was a'broken. Her jaw was a'shattered, held together by wire. She couldn't even weep because of the pain. But I wept. Why did I weep? She was the light of my life…beautiful girl. Now she will never be beautiful again."

Though Kairi couldn't see it, Sora dug his fingernails into the arm of his chair.

"""

As gunshots rang out through the movie theater, Kairi, frightened by the extremely loud noises, grabbed the nearest person to her and buried her face in the person's shoulder to stop from seeing the bloody body now lying on screen. She'd never been fond of these kinds of things. Oh, how'd Yuffie gotten her to come to this?

"Kairi…" Sora's voice said softly. "It's okay. It's just a movie…"

"It's still got blood in it!" Kairi protested.

"Fake blood!" replied Sora.

"Same thing!" hissed Kairi.

Sora sighed, but stayed still after that.

"""

"Surprise…For he's a jolly good fellow, for he's a jolly good fellow…that nobody can deny…that nobody can deny!"

As the movie ended, Sora jostled Kairi, who was still hiding in his shoulder.

"C'mon, Kairi, the movie's over."

Kairi sat up and rubbed her eyes. And as she looked up at Sora, he changed into…

Axel.

MOOnlite-dUSk: Thanks! The song was Long December by the Counting Crows.

KeiraLoveKH: Thanks! Glad you liked it! Yup, if Seymour doesn't marry her first, or if I can get past Evrae… Still stuck on that darn blasted dragon thing…Grr…) Thanks for reviewing!

Valor999: Thanks! Sorry, this did take kind of a long time! Thanks!

Angelofsweetness: Thanks! I'm glad you liked how Sora apologized. It's Long December by the Counting Crows. Thanks and happy approaching super early Christmas!

KiaraFay: That was one of your favorites? I didn't like it much. I still like Chapter 2, personally. (Living way back in the past over here.) Thanks and here's your update!

Muffin: Yeah, I didn't have much to write. Sorry about that. Oh, okay. I like HOLLYW O O D so far, by the way! Well, actually, now it has a new name…Thanks, and I promise to call you Muffin from now on!

Rikuluver: Thanks! Glad you liked it! Here's your update!

Zestychicken2: I know, Riku…helps. It's a bit odd, since I started him with this jerky character, but now I'm starting to define him more. You did? Thanks! I'm glad you aren't bored with my characters! I like that song, mostly because the Counting Crows usually do fast songs, and when they do this slow song it's really rare and nice. I needed to throw in the idiot line somewhere…It must be done. Thanks, I'm glad your nerves are at ease. I know…Lance Bass is on 101 Dalmatians, and it's just like "WHAT is a VILLAIN doing, acting for 101 Dalmatians?" It's pretty stupid that they chose Lance Bass to play (dun, dun, DUN) Sephiroth. Anyway, thanks for reviewing!

Rahi-1: Yup, unfortunately. Thanks, I like it being cheerful too. Thanks for reviewing!

SupernaturalFeak101: Thanks. Gotta love the classics! Yeah, it's a bit cliché, I suppose, but it sort of clicks somehow. No, I didn't write them. Thanks for reviewing!

Sorafanluver: Yes, it's unfortunate when you hit someone. NEW YORK?? Lucky! I want to go to New York sometime! Thanks for reviewing!

Spam Hearts Twilight: Okay, you're a Riku fan then. They're…having fun with their families. Thanks for reviewing!

E Muja SN and TN: Okay, thanks, and here's your update!

LookingForMeaning: Thanks! He's just upset, I suppose. I really don't know what made me write him so emotionally. You're welcome! I got the same reaction from another person when I put The Garden of Love. Thanks for reviewing!

BLUE DOG: Thanks!

Bexmar: It was really depressing. Kingdom Hearts is a very depressing story. If it weren't for Donald and Goofy, I don't think people would quite like it as much. (Personally I bought Kingdom Hearts II because on the ad it had Disney on it.) Perfect sorceress #1 Disney fanatic! Yeah, sorry about that. Yeah, it has, but I have, and I've also updated What If. Thanks and here's your update!

Isler: Thanks, and I'm glad you liked this chapter. Thanks for reviewing and everything!

Kay, Riku is going to be in here a lot more now, as I am getting quite bored with everyone else, even Mrs. Ire (gasps). Think of him as that unknown voice in people's heads…or better yet, a wise man or a sage.

Thanks, everybody! Let's try to get over 300 reviews this time!

Read and review!