The next day was better...and worse.

It was better because it wasn't raining yet, though the clouds were dense and opaque. It was easier because I knew what to expect of my day. Tidus came to sit by me in English, and walked me to my next class. This caused Pence to glare at him the whole time. People didn't look at me quite as much as yesterday. I sat with a big group at lunch which included Tidus, Pence and Selphie. I began to feel like I was treading water instead of drowning in it.

It was worse because I was tired, I still couldn't sleep with the wind echoing around the house. It was worse because the teacher called on me in Trig when my hand wasn't raised and I didn't have the right answer to his question. It was miserable because I had to play Volleyball, and the one time that I didn't duck out of the way of the ball, I hit one of my teammates in the head with it. And it worse because Roxas Strife wasn't in school.

All morning I was dreading lunch, fearing that bizzare glares. Part of me wanted to confront him and demand to know what his problem was. While I was lying sleepless in bed, I even imagined what I would say. But I knew myself too well to think that I would actually go through with it. I made the Cowardly Lion look like the Terminator.

But when I walked into the cafeteria with Selphie, I saw that his four siblings of sorts were sitting together at the same table but he was nowhere to be seen.

Tidus intercepted us at the door and steered us to his table. Selphie seemed elated by this attention and her friends quickly joined us. But as I tried to listen to their easy chatter, I was terribly uncomfortable waiting for the moment that he would arrive. I hoped that he would simply ignore me when he came and prove my suspicions false.

I walked into Biology with more confidence when he hadn't showed up by the end of lunch. Tidus walked me to class, I held my breath when we walked through the door but Roxas Strife was nowhere to be seen. I exhaled in relief and walked to my seat. Tidus followed suit and went to sit by a girl in the back of the room.

I was relieved that I had the desk to myself, that Roxas was absent. I told myself that repeatedly. But I couldn't get rid of the nagging suspicion that I was the reason he wasn't here. It was ridiculous but I couldn't stop worrying.

When the final bell rang, I walked swiftly to my truck. I dug through my bag to make sure that I had everything that I needed.

Last night I'd discovered that Vanitas couldn't cook much besides fried eggs and bacon. So I requested that I be assigned kitchen duty. He didn't mind, and I was going shopping for food since I discovered that he had none in the house.

As I backed out of my parking spot, I caught sight of the Strifes and Lockharts. They were getting into the silver Volvo. Of course, they had both looks and money. But it didn't seem that it had bought them any acceptance here.

They looked up as my noisy truck passed them, just like everyone else had. I kept my eyes straight forward and was relieved when I was off school grounds.

I fell back into shopping easily. I had done most of it since I was old enough. The store was big enough that I couldn't hear the rain on the roof so I could easily forget that I was in Twilight Town.

When I got home, I unloaded all the groceries stuffing them in wherever I could find an open spot. I hoped Vantias wouldn't mind. I wrapped potatoes in foil and stuck them in the oven. I covered a steak in marinade and put it the Fridge.

I decided to read Wuthering Heights-the novel we were studying in English- again for the fun of it. Thats what I was doing when Vanitas came home. I'd lost track of time and hurried into the kitchen to take the potatoes out and put the steak in.

"Namine?" Vanitas called out when he heard me on the stairs.

"Welcome home Dad."

"Thanks." He hung up his gun belt and jacket while I was bustled around the kitchen finishing up dinner.

"What's for dinner?" He asked curiously.

"Steak and Potatoes."

He seemed to feel awkward standing in the kitchen doing nothing so he went into the living room to watch TV. This made us both more comfortable. I called him in when dinner was ready. He sniffed appreciatively when he walked into the room.

We ate in silence for a few minutes. It wasn't uncomfortable, neither of us was bothered by the quiet. This was one of the reasons that we were suited to live together.

"So how was school? Have you made any friends?"

"Well I have a few classes with a girl named Selphie. I sit with her and her friends at lunch. There's also this boy named Tidus who seems really friendly."

"That's good."

"Do you know the Strife family?" I asked hesitantly.

"Dr. Strife's family? Sure, Dr. Strife is a great man."

"They...the kids...are a little different. They don't seem to fit in at school."

Vanitas suprised me by looking angry at this point. He was scowling deeply.

"People in this town," He muttered darkly. "Dr. Strife is a brillant surgeon who could probably work in any hospital in the world, make ten times the money that he does." His voice got louder. "We're lucky to have him, lucky that his wife wanted to live in a small town. He's an asset to the community."

"They seemed nice enough to me. I just noticed that they kept to themselves. They're all very attractive." I stammered.

"You should see the doctor," He laughed. "It's a good thing that he's happily married. A lot of nurses have trouble concentrating when he's around."

After dinner and dishes, I trudged upstairs to do my Math homework. I hated Math with a passion. Especially Trig, it was so complicated.

The rest of the week was uneventful. I got used to the routine of my classes. By Friday I was able to reconigize if not name almost all the students at school.

Roxas Strife didn't come back to school. I waited anxiously until the rest of the family entered the cafeteria without him. Then I could relax and join in on the lunchtime chatter.

My first weekend in Twilight Town passed without incident. The rain was soft over the weekend so I was able to catch up on sleep.

People greeted me in the parking lot on Monday. I didn't know all their names but I waved back and smiled at everyone. It was colder this morning but thankfully not raining.

All in all, i was feeling a lot more comfortable than I had thought I would. More comfortable than I ever expected to actually.

When Tidus and I walked out of English, the air was full of swirling bits of white. I could hear people shouting excitedly to each other. I was not one of them.

"It's snowing!" Tidus shouted. I nearly groaned.

"Ew." I muttered

"Don't you like snow?"

"No."

Tidus laughed, and then a big ball of wet snow smacked him in the back of the head. We both turned to see where it had come from. I had my money on Pence who was walking away from us in the wrong direction for his next class. Tidus seemed to have the same thought and began scooping together his own snowball.

"I'll see you at lunch okay?" I retreated inside after I saw him nod.

I walked alertly with Selphie to the cafeteria after Japanese. I kept a binder in my hands, ready to use if necessary as a shield. Selphie thought it was hilarious but something stopped her from throwing one at me.

Tidus caught up with us as we walked in the door. Selphie and him started talking animatedly about the snow as we got in line for lunch. I glanced toward the table in the corner out of habit and froze. There were 5 people sitting there.

"I'm just gonna get a soda today." I stated stepping out of line. They nodded but watched me with concern.

When we sat down, I permitted myself one look over at the Strife table to see if he was glaring at me, but none of them were even looking in my direction.

They were laughing, Roxas, Riku and Axel had their hair saturated with snow. Kairi and Xion were leaning away as Axel shook his dripping hair towards them. They were enjoying the snow like everyone else.

"Namine, what are you staring at?" Selphie asked, her eyes following my gaze.

"Nothing." I dropped my eyes back down to the table.

"Roxas Strife is staring at you." She giggled in my ear.

"He doesn't look angry does he?"

"No." She gave me a confused look

"Stop looking!" I hissed. She snickered but turned to talk to Tidus.

For the rest of the lunch hour I every carefully kept my gaze on my own table. I decided to honor the agreement I made with myself. Since Roxas didn't look angry, I would go to Biology.

Once inside the classroom, I saw that my table was still empty. This relieved me. The teacher was walking around the room to distribute microscopes and a box of slides to each table.

I heard very clearly when the chair next to mine was pulled back. I pointedly ignored it and kept my eyes on the table.

"Hello." said a quiet musicial voice.

I looked up, stunned that he was talking to me. He was sitting as far away from as the table would allow but his chair was angled towards me.

"My name is Roxas Strife," He continued. "I didn't get a chance to properly introduce myself last week. You must be Namine Hikari."

"H-How do you know my name?" I stammered.

" I think everyone knows your name. The whole town was waiting for you to arrive." He laughed.

"Oh.." I groaned and blushed.

Thankfully class started then so I was saved from further emabarassment. The teacher explained the lab. We had to separate the slides of onion root tip cells into the four stages of mitosis. We had the entire class period to do so, no books were allowed though.

"Ladies first." Roxas said, I looked up to see him smiling a crooked smile so beautiful that I could only stare at him.

"Or I could start..." He trailed off, the smile vanishing.

"No," I flushed red. "I'll go ahead."

I had already done this lab at my old school so I knew what I was looking for. I picked a slide and examined it briefly on the microscope.

"Prophase." I said confidently.

He nodded and picked up the next slide. Our hands went for it at the same time and when our skin touched I noticed two things. His hand was ice-cold like he had been holding his hands in a snowdrift before class. The second was the electric current that passed through him to me. This caused me to pull away quickly.

He put the slide under the microscope and clicked it a few times. "Anaphase." He declared smiling again.

"Slide three?" I held out my hand without looking at him.

He handed it to me, it seemed like he was being extra careful not to touch my skin again.

"Interphase." I declared reaplacing it in the box.

The next two slides went the same way. We took turns and were finished before anyone else was close. I noticed that Tidus and his partner even had their book open under the table.

I was bored now that I had nothing else to do. I tried my hardest not to stare at Roxas. I wasn't very sucessful though. I glanced up and he was staring at me. I identified a subtle difference in his face.

"Did you get contacts?" I blurted without thinking.

"No." He looked puzzled by my sudden question.

"Oh," I mumbled. "I thought there was something different about your eyes."

He shrugged and looked out the window.

I was sure that there was something different about his eyes. I remembered the dark blue shade that they were before. But now they were almost the same shade as mine. A bright blue, like the sky.

The teacher came to our table then, to see why we weren't working. I showed him the completed lab and he stared at it intently to check the answers.

"Roxas, don't you think Namine should've had a turn with the microscope?"

"She did, in fact she identified three out of the five. "

He stared at me skeptically for a minute and then turned to check on other group's papers. I began to doodle in my notebook after he left.

"It's too bad about the snow huh?" Roxas asked.

"Not really." I answered honestly.

"You don't like the cold." It wasn't a question.

"Or the wet." I added.

"Twilight Town must be a hard place for you to live then."

"You have no idea." I muttered darkly.

"Why did you come here then?"

"It's...complicated."

"I think I can keep up."

"My mother got remarried."

"When did that happen?" He sounded sympathetic.

"September."

"You don't like him?"

"No, He's okay, young but good."

"Okay, now I'm confused."

"He travels alot for work. My mom stayed with me at first but she missed him. It made her unhappy."

"So she sent you here so she could travel with him." Roxas guessed.

"No, I sent myself. I wanted her to be happy so I came to spend some quality time with Vanitas."

"But now you're unhappy." He pointed out

"And?"

"That just doesnt seem fair to me is all." he shrugged.

"Hasn't anyone told you that life isn't fair?"

"I believe I have heard that somewhere before."

"Well that's the story." I insisted, wondering why he was looking at me so intensly.

His gaze changed and became appraising. "You put on a good show," He said slowly. "But I'd be willing to bet that you're suffering more than people see."

I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at him like a five year old. I settled for a grimace and turned back to my notebook.

"Are you annoyed with me?" He sounded amused.

"Not exactly, I'm more annoyed with myself. My face is so easy to read. My mom calls me her open book." I frowned

"I find you very difficult to read." I could tell that he meant it.

"You must be a good reader then."

"Usually."

The bell rang then, cutting off any further conversation. Roxas rushed out of class just as quickly and gracefully as he had last Monday. I stared after him also like last Monday. Tidus came up to my table.

"Strife seemed friendlier today." He stated

"Yeah, I wonder what was with him last week."

"Who knows?" We walked to the gym together.

Tidus was on my team for Volleyball today. He played next to me and covered both of our spots with ease. This left me free to muse about what happened in Biology.

The rain was just a mist when I walked out to my truck. I was still happier when I was in the dry cab. I turned it on and let the heater run. I unzipped my jacket and pulled my hair out to let it dry.

I looked around to make sure it was clear. Thats when I saw the still, white figure of Roxas Strife. He was leaning against the front of his Volvo, which was three cars down from mine. He was also staring intently in my direction. I could swear he was laughing, about what I have no clue.