Roxas growled to himself, contemplating Saix's words. I doubt he knows about my feelings for Namine... Roxas shook his head and walked on, making his way to Prof. Zexion's maths class. He stopped when he saw Zexion... in the classroom... with Namine... alone. Roxas fought off the urge to make some possessive comment and walked forward with an equally forced grin, "What's going on?"

"Hi Roxas!" Namine turned and smiled at Roxas, "Professor Zexion was telling me about this teacher at his college who threw things at students if they weren't working hard enough." Namine giggled, "The only reason no one reported him was because they were afraid of what he would do."

"And he was a good teacher," Zexion commented. "He's the one who introduced me to my girlfriend." Roxas relaxed noticeably, and Zexion rose an eyebrow but said nothing. Namine smiled at Roxas again and walked to the front of the classroom while Roxas went to the back. Zexion followed Roxas and looked into his eyes piercingly, "Be careful with your actions. Not everyone is as dense as your friends." Roxas glared at Zexion, and turned quickly to his bag as an excuse to look away from the teacher. Is it just me, or do all the teachers today seem to know about my perverted obsession with my twin sister? Roxas chanced a glance up, and breathed a sigh of relief when Zexion returned to the blackboard to begin class.

Roxas's concentration flickered back and forth between the Calculus lesson and Zexion's words. Am I really so obvious? Or does he just see things? Roxas sighed and examined his teacher. Prof. Zexion always had an air of enigma about him, and you could just feel his blue eyes penetrate your very being. Perhaps that was the real reason why no one passed notes or cheated in his classes. No one smarter than Angel was anyways. Roxas sighed in irritation when he saw the paper football land on his desk, the pink ink making the sender's identity obvious. Roxas turned to Angel, shaking his head gravely before trashing the note without even reading it.

After the class ended, Roxas hung back to speak with Zexion, cursing silently when Angel hung back as well. "Hey Roxy," Angel smiled and leaned towards him, "Why didn't you read it?"

"First off, I'd get in trouble," Roxas crossed his arms and decided to stop this girl's obsession with him before it got too far. "And second: I don't want to read it." Roxas narrowed his blue eyes at Angel, begging she'd get the message. She didn't.

"You're so mysterious Roxy!" Angel giggled and ran off, leaving an annoyed Roxas behind.

"How cold," Zexion walked up to Roxas slowly. "She isn't a disease, she's still a human. Like Namine." Roxas turned sharply and Zexion continued, "Relax, your secret is safe with me. I have no desire to cause trouble where there needn't be any." Zexion turned away from Roxas to pull out a book, "I value you both as students, and I consider Namine a friend as well. She's a sensible girl, and she doesn't do anything ridiculous like stare at my behind when I'm not looking." Roxas was about to say something before Zexion interrupted, "Yes, I know most of my female students do such."

"Why?" Roxas crossed his arms, not caring that the late bell rang. "Why the hell does this matter to you at all?"

"Like I said, I consider Namine a friend. She is far more mature than most girls her age, and more than fit enough to befriend an adult on an equal level." Zexion also ignored the bell, "My professor I told you about always taught me to live life by my own morals, even if they do not coincide with society's morals." Zexion rose a hand to his face, "I am not affected by any sort of relationship you two would share, unless you made her suffer somehow. As her brother, I doubt you would do such."

"Of course," Roxas uncrossed his arms and looked at Zexion seriously, "Why do you suppose she talks so freely with me?" Roxas bit his lip in a slight irritation and continued, "If she knew the depth of my feelings for her, she would hate me. But more than that, she would hate herself for leading me on. Her logic is not defined by her mind, it would be affected purely by guilt."

"In other words," Zexion narrowed his eyes, "You love her too much to love her, correct?" Zexion looked at Roxas who nodded in confirmation. "An unrequited love is not uncommon, and more often than not such a conclusion is uncommon." Zexion closed his eyes, "And most every time such a conclusion is reached, it is without the other party ever knowing of their feelings."

"I'm sure most of those circumstances aren't like this." Roxas sighed, "If by some miracle she did return my feelings, it would be doomed. It's illegal, immoral, and just plain sick."

"And that," Zexion pointed out, "Is why morals cannot be defined by others."

...........................

Roxas leaned against a brick wall. He had two choices: go to Prof. Lexaeus's history class, or stay where he was and risk a detention. Roxas thought about it for a second before sitting down and closing his eyes. "Morning Roxy!" Roxas rose an eyebrow in annoyance to see Axel grinning in front of him. Axel held out a cigarette, "Want a smoke?"

Roxas wordlessly took the cigarette from Axel and letting him light it for him. Roxas inhaled deeply before blowing out a smoke ring. The two sat side-by-side as they smoked in silence. Roxas sighed and dug the butt of the cigarette into the ground, "Namine always tells me to quit. It seems sad to be addicted at 15."

Axel shrugged, "I was addicted younger than that," Axel thought for a second, "I stole a pack from Reno when I was... 10 I think." Roxas shook his head sadly. Axel had always been a bit of a pyromaniac, but somehow thinking of him smoking at 10 was just sad. Roxas would have only been 8 then, and Axel would have been living alone with the exception of his older brother.

The bell rang and the two stood up and walked off to lunch, meeting Professor Xigbar as he cheerfully dragged a Vexen behind him, "Come on Vexen! You shouldn't just go off and sulk during lunch, you know how much Mansex wants us to get along!" Xigbar saw Roxas and Axel staring at him and waved, his only visible eye either winking or blinking... it was really hard to tell with an eye-patch. "S'up dudes?"

"Yo!" Axe waved, "Why does Xemnas want you two to get along?"

Xigbar laughed, "Not us, we get along perfectly. Don't we Vexen?" Vexen grumbled something and Xigbar continued, "No, it's the others he wants us to get along with. Something about unity or some crap like that." Xigbar shrugged before dragging Vexen behind him again.

"...What does Xigbar even teach?" Roxas shook his head at their teacher's antics.

Axel thought for a second, "I think he's our local technophobic computer manager." Axel laughed, "He sucks at his job. Do you know how easy it is to bypass the school's block and get porn? Too easy."

"Coming from the school genius, that doesn't mean much," Roxas sighed. "Any plans for lunch?"

Axel nodded, "I'm going to round up the others and Marlys's gonna drive us to the pizza joint."

Roxas chuckled, "Is Marluxia aware of these plans?"

Axel laughed, and waved to Marluxia who was walking side by side with Larxene, "He will in a sec." Roxas hung back as Axel ran towards the two and said something, which resulted in him getting hit in the head by Marluxia, Axel complaining to Larxene about Marluxia hitting him, and Larxene saying something to Axel which made him mope. He crossed his arms and pouted until Marluxia finally sighed and told him what he wanted to hear. Roxas sighed, it was so obvious what was going on that it wasn't even funny.

"Hi Roxas," Roxas turned quickly to see Namine smile at him. "I'm going to go home for lunch, okay?" Roxas nodded, and she continued. "I think I might stay home too, I don't feel that well."

Roxas widened his eyes and was about to make an offer to take her home, but he felt himself get pulled into a headlock by Axel, "Come on you little scab! Let's go and get some pizza!" Roxas struggled against Axel, and Namine just watched with a giggle. Roxas turned red and struggled harder. Axel laughed and left with Roxas in tow, his free arm raised as he waved goodbye to the blonde girl, "See you later Namine!" Namine giggled and waved back, and Roxas glared at Axel. Knowingly or not, Axel just made his best friend look like an idiot in front of the girl he liked.

Axel pulled Roxas to Marluxia's bright red car and threw him in. Already in the car were Demyx and Larxene, with Marluxia calling someone on the phone. Marluxia's car was a mini-van since he had a large family and often had to give rides. Demyx took the seat in the far back and Larxene was n the passenger's seat in the front. Roxas took one of the two individual seats in the middle row and Axel took the other. Marluxia said something into the phone before hanging up and getting in, "Uzuki's gonna be working right now, still wanna go?" Uzuki was Marluxia's little sister, but she was more responsible than her brother was and worked at the pizza parlor during her free periods and lunch, which happened to be grouped together.

When the 5 reached the joint, they saw Uzuki in her usual green turtleneck flowy shirt with black short-shorts and tall white boots. She had pink hair and purple eyes like Marluxia, but her hair was shorter than his and she was much stiffer, "Great, the fag actually showed up." Uzuki sighed and led them to their table.

They ordered a huge-as-hell pepperoni pizza and a pitcher of cola to drink. While Uzuki was off getting them their pitcher, Axel spoke seriously, "Listen, something's been bugging me lately. We're like, the most popular kids in school right?"

Marluxia tilted his head and spoke elegantly, "Allow me to see." He leaned his arm over his seat and yelled to the kitchen, "Uzuki! Kariya! We're the popular group, right?"

Kariya was Uzuki's close golden-haired male friend, who had a tendency to wear red sunglasses and keep a lollipop in his mouth everywhere he went, which included the kitchen since he was the cook, "You're pretty high up there, yes." Kariya shrugged and continued cooking. Why Marluxia asked him about the popularity was a mystery, since Kariya was both a drop-out and 19, thus making him not a student. However, he did have an ear for gossip, which Uzuki may have shared with him during slow days.

"Why the hell are you asking me?" Uzuki snapped and laid their pitcher of bubbling cola on their table, "I don't know anything about that stuff. Nor do I care to." Uzuki crossed her arms, "Why do you care to?"

"It's like this," Axel leaned forward and looked at his friends, "We're all supposed to be setting an example for our fellow students to follow, and we are failing them."

Larxene rose an eyebrow, "Are you saying we're supposed to turn into nerds or something?"

Axel blinked, "What? How do you figure that?" Axel shook his head, "No, I'm saying that it's a problem that we're all single and have been for a while."

"Not this again," Roxas groaned. "I don't want to date anyone." Of course, Roxas couldn't just say, "Oh, there is a girl I like. Do you think you could hook me up with my innocent twin sister?"

Marluxia leaned back, "Axel, you know full well that there aren't many options for me in this school."

"You got a point there," Uzuki leaned forward on their table, finding them as a useful way to kill the boredom slow days brought about. "How many other fags are in this school?" Perhaps it should be mentioned now that Uzuki is not a homophobe, simply a little sister. And, as a little sister, she has the eternal job of taunting her brother, even though she had absolutely no problem with him being gay.

"Let's see here..." Demyx looked up as he mentally counted, "There's Yazoo. You know, one of the triplets." There weren't very many triplets in the school, so the three sons of the infamous librarian, Sephiroth, were practically a legend. "It wouldn't surprise me if Kadaj and Loz were too, they're all such mama's boys."

"Yazoo?" Marluxia wrinkled his nose in disgust, "He's way too girly for me."

"As compared too..?" Axel rose an eyebrow at the feminine Marluxia, who simply shrugged. In response. "Besides, he's obsessed with Reno. He pretty much went to work in Midgar just to escape him."

Demyx laughed, "Well, let's see... Saix is probably gay for Xemnas."

"Old news," Marluxia sighed. Xemnas was the principal of the school, and Saix may have well been his personal secretary rather than an English teacher from the way he followed him. "Besides, I'm already chasing him, telling me that is useless." Marluxia widened his eyes and suddenly leaned forward, "How about Zexion?"

"He has a girlfriend," Roxas tossed a straw wrapper at Marluxia's head, "Better luck next time."

Marluxia frowned and leaned back, "I only like older men. I'm not gonna date anyone here."

Axel sighed, "Fine fine." He turned to Larxene, "How about you Larx? Got any guy that interests you?"

Demyx smirked, "Yeah Larxene? Is there a man in this big wide world who meets to your standards?" He chuckled knowingly, before ducking to avoid the toothpick Larxene threw at his head.

"N-no one really..." Larxene turned a little red and crossed her arms.

"Hmm..." Axel was silent for a second before speaking. "As the only girl, it's most important for you to have a boyfriend."

"Bite me," Larxene growled, sipping her soda.

Roxas laughed, "And not any boyfriend, he has to be as popular as she is, which is pretty much our group."

Marluxia smiled evilly at Larxene, "She likes them hot, smart, and a little mysterious."

Axel's eyes widened, "Really Larxene?" Said teen turned red and nodded and Axel stood up, "KARIYA! WANNA GO OUT WITH LARXENE?"

"WHAT!" Both Uzuki and Larxene shrieked as they stood up.

Kariya ignored the loud shriek from the two women, "No thanks. High School girls are a bore." He pulled out his lollipop, "You can't even touch them."

Axel laughed, "Aww, come on! Forbidden love stories are so hot!" Uzuki growled at Axel before stomping off to yell at Kariya.

"That was evil," Roxas sighed as he sipped his soda, "You know Uzuki has a thing for Kariya."

Axel grinned, "Well, he's a little dense, so maybe that outburst will let him know how she feels." He also sipped his soda and Roxas sighed, Are you in any position to say that?

"What about you Dem?" Marluxia leaned forward and rested his chin in his palm, "Got any special ladies on your mind?"

Demyx shrugged, "No one in particular. Besides, I have a playboy reputation. Can't let a girlfriend ruin that."

Uzuki came out, a pizza on a tray as she glared at Axel, still furious about his comment, "Here's your pizza." She gave a forced grin that obviously hid evil intentions, "Come again soon." She threw the bill in Axel's face and stomped off.

"..." Larxene sighed, "She wins an award for that."

"For what?" Marluxia took a bite out of his pizza and tipped his head at the female.

Larxene chuckled, "For being the first woman to hate Axel before sleeping with him." Everyone laughed at Axel's expense as he pulled out his money and counted pennies to see if he had enough for lunch.

.............

Roxas walked into the house, his bag slung over one shoulder. He looked back and forth for his sister, going to the kitchen when he heard the sink running. "Are you feeling better?" Roxas smiled at Namine, who didn't turn from the sink, but nodded.

"Yes. All I needed was to lay down." She turned to Roxas, a plate and towel in hand, "I thought I'd get the dishes done before Mom and Dad come home."

Roxas laughed, "What? Milk the 'sick' thing for what it's worth." He took the towel and plate from Namine, "You wash, I'll dry."

Namine smiled gratefully at Roxas, who could feel his heart skip a beat. "So, did anything interesting happen at school?" She took a sauce pan out and started washing it.

Roxas shrugged as his put the plate away, "Axel and the others keep trying to get me to date, and Angel's trying to convince me she's a suitable candidate." Roxas rolled his eyes.

"You should go for it," Roxas froze when Namine said that. She didn't notice Roxas's behavior and continued, "I mean, you never go out with anyone. Me either for that matter. We should both try and go out with someone."

What? Namine? Not you... anyone but you... Roxas pounded at his head, but the thoughts wouldn't leave. He could tolerate Angel hitting on him and Axel dropping some jokes here and there, but if the girl he had feelings for was telling him to get a girlfriend... he could feel a pain explode in his chest. "No... I don't think so."

"Why?" Namine scrubbed at a stubborn stain in the pan, but froze a moment later. She could feel a strong pair of arms wrapped around her shoulders, and a head leaning on her shoulder. She could see Roxas's blonde hair out of the corner of her eye. "R-Roxas?" Namine was a bright red as she stared at her brother.

"I'm sorry Namine..." Roxas kept his eyes closed, knowing that there must be an expression of shock on his twin's face... or maybe even disgust. He didn't want to see that. "I just... can't."

Namine could feel her heart pounding against her ribs, and she couldn't loosen her muscles at all. "W-whats wrong Roxas?"

"Too much," Roxas's shoulders drooped as he spoke. Now, Roxas didn't open his eyes to keep the tears in them. He knew what he was about to do would separate him from his love forever, but he couldn't keep her in the dark if she would keep doing things like this. "I love you Namine. As a woman, not a sister."

Namine kept her muscles tight as Roxas released her and went up to his room before slamming the door. She could feel her knees collapse beneath her, and she stared out into space, What just happened?