The Art of Love
MASiGLA

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Author's Notes:
Yay! I'm personally really glad about the positive feedback I've gotten so far for this fanfic. I'd like to thank all the reviewers! I heart you all.

Hey, did you guys know that Tidus and Selphie are actually one year younger than Kairi and Sora? I initially freaked when I found out about that, and thought maybe I should change this so that they're freshmen… but oh well. I'll just make it so that they're just a couple months younger, but still able to be sophomores.. you know, like… the youngest people in the batch. Ahahaha!

This chapter jumps forward a couple of weeks. The previous chapter was only a prologue about how they met Roxas and so forth.

Disclaimer:
Kingdom Hearts © Square-Enix & Disney

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&& o1. An Unexplainable Passion

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For the past couple of weeks that she was a sophomore, Naminé had not the time to do any art. She and the others were swamped with homework, tests, quizzes, projects and the like. On top of the homework, her parents have had a lot of people coming over at night for dinner, and she had to be present at all times so they could brag about her talent. Heine was often exempted from having to be present because they knew how he'd behave if he had to miss a date of his.

Naminé often felt that all her parent's hopeful expectations were set upon her shoulders, since Heine obviously was not capable of doing so. It brought upon a lot of pressure on the girl—and she didn't like having to live up to people's expectations.

"Naminé…" said Naminé's mother, Adeline, as she entered Naminé's bedroom. "It's time to wake up, dear." Naminé could feel her mother sit down on her bed. She turned to her side, then back. Upon opening her eyes, the white color that conquered the majority of her room slightly blinded her eyes and woke her up immediately.

"Morning, mom." Naminé smiled as she sat up. She was entirely grateful that her mom still had time for her and Heine like this, to be able to wake them up and spend time with them. Her mother stayed home a lot to work on paintings or sculptures, but also went out sometime to talk to other artists. Sadly, she couldn't say the same for her father, who was way too busy.

"Be downstairs in ten minutes, okay?" Adeline gave Naminé a brief hug and left the room, closing the door on her way out. Naminé watched as her mother exited. She, herself, was a carbon copy of her mother when it came to appearance. They both had those icy blue eyes, and that long, flowing, golden hair, and the pale skin. Her mother was from New Twilight—and Naminé recalled her numerous visits there with her family, and how she eventually had to learn French, because it was a French-speaking country. She also eventually had to learn English as well. She wished she could be excused from learning a language in school since she already knew three, but they required her to, and thus she took Spanish.

Throwing her legs gracefully to the side of her bed, she stood up and stretched, then walked groggily over to her walk-in closet and pulled on her school uniform. Then she walked over to her vanity table, also donned in white, sat down, and brushed her hair. Naminé was the kind to wear her hair down most of the time, except when she was sculpting something—which she didn't do much of, anyways. She also wasn't the type to wear makeup to school everyday. She knew Kairi was like this as well, though she also knew that Kairi did wear some mascara now and then.

Grabbing her icy blue backpack, which, coincidentally enough, almost matched perfectly with her eye color and slinging it over her right shoulder, she trotted downstairs, where Heine and her mother were already busy eating breakfast.

"Where's dad?" Naminé asked as she hung her backpack on the backrest of her chair and sat down.

"He finished working really late last night, Naminé… scheduling another get-together with a famous art connoisseur from Spira. Naminé nodded along as she meticulously graced butter onto her piece of toast. Someone coming from Spira meant Naminé had to speak in English, while someone coming from New Twilight meant speaking in French.

Naminé's parents (as well as her family) were well known in the art world. Her grandfather, Shino Fujiwara (on the father side) owned a small, but well developed and prestigious museum downtown. Her mother and her family were well known in New Twilight (whose capital was called Twilight Town, which was also her mother's hometown) because of their amazing art talents. The marriage of Naminé's parents symbolized the bridge between two very powerful art-associated families.

At 7:00 AM sharp, the doorbell of the Fujiwara Household rang. Naminé got up and answered the door, and welcomed Kairi, Selphie and Orette in. The girls always came over to Naminé's before going to school in her car, which was chauffeured by Matsuzawa-san (as they called him), the family driver. Heine and Naminé used to go to school together before he learned how to drive. Naminé felt a little alone having to go to school by herself since then, so her friends volunteered to carpool with her every morning, despite the fact that Kairi had her own driver to take her, since she was the mayor's daughter. She did walk to school sometimes, such as on the first day of school, when her dad needed Matsuzawa early in the morning.

"Agh, I'm so screwed for our social studies test, Naminé! Save me!" Selphie threw her arms around Naminé and pretended to cry.

"It shouldn't be a problem if you read the book, Selphie… don't worry." Naminé reassured.

"See, that's the thing," Kairi folded her arms, "she didn't read the book." The book they were referring to was their summer reading book for social studies, entitled Home in the Islands, which was a book written by a girl who lived a long time ago in Destiny Islands, and described everything that happened in her life in great detail. This provided historians with plentiful knowledge of what life was like back then.

Orette sighed, "And I can't give her the answers to it, either, because one, that would be considered cheating, and two, Ms. Hiirigizawa changes the test every year just to make sure."

"Oh well, Selphie… I'm sure we can tell you as much about it as we can in the car." Naminé patted Selphie's back and Selphie let go.

"I hope so!"

"Alright, just let me grab my stuff and we'll go," Naminé told her friends. They waited in the living room as usual as Naminé got her backpack from the breakfast table in the kitchen and slung it over her shoulder. Heine left earlier because he forgot one of his binders, which contained a worksheet that had to be done over the night in his locker.

The four girls hopped into the black car, with Naminé in the passenger seat, and the three in the back. As usual, Matsuzawa-san was driving.

"Everyone buckled in?" he asked. Everyone replied with a chipper "Yes!" and he pulled out of the Fujiwara driveway.

As they drove through the streets, Kairi and Orette told Selphie as much as they could about the book, while Naminé added in a couple of details—even Matsuzawa helped—but generally, Naminé just stared out the window. She watched a couple of familiar faces from school walk there, or bike, or whatever preferred means of transportation.

Either Kairi couldn't recognize her own boyfriend, she was too absorbed into helping Selphie out, or she didn't care at all, but Naminé saw him walking to school. Roxas was way ahead of him on a skateboard.

Wait, Naminé thought, skateboard?

She never knew that about Roxas. But then again, the two hadn't really talked. He mostly stuck with his cousin, and Pints or Heine or Riku or Tidus or Wakka. He hadn't interacted much with the girls, except for Kairi, when she'd come over to Sora's house.

She couldn't help but stare at him—his blonde spikes bending back from the speed he was going at on his blue skateboard, the peaceful yet adventurous look on his face… wait, what was she thinking? She thanked her dad for thinking of getting a car with tinted windows, because if he had seen her staring at him through her car's windows, who knew what form of mockery would come later from one of the guys.

At last, they approached the school. Matsuzawa pulled up in front of the entrance.

"Your mother wants you back at home by 4:30, Miss Fujiwara—for the dinner."

"Okay. Thanks, Matsuzawa." Naminé said as she closed the car door and he drove off. Naminé usually walked home instead of getting picked up, because by 3:00, her dad needed the car a lot and went to a lot of places.

In perfect timing, Roxas, followed by Sora, arrived right after they did.

"Okay, so you have to remember that—Sora!" Kairi's attention immediately turned to Sora as she hugged him and he kissed her on the lips briefly.

"Oh gods, not now, Kairi!" Selphie pulled Kairi away from Sora, "I have social studies first period!" she said frantically as she pulled Kairi into the building. Naminé and the others followed them.

"Well, I'll see you guys later, then." Orette said as they neared the junior hallway. She waved goodbye and walked off to join Pints and Heine, who were already there.

Naminé and Roxas walked beside each other, while a few meters ahead, Selphie was still attempting to memorize a lot of details beside Kairi, who was beside Sora.

"Wow, she's really screwed for this test." Roxas blurted out in an attempt to start a conversation.

"I guess so," Naminé laughed softly, "this happens to Selphie all the time, we're used to it, but one day she's going to have to fend for herself."

"That's true." Roxas nodded. He looked at the girl walking beside him, who was a little shorter by him. She looked so serene and content, like she didn't want any more in life than just to be in school with her friends. On the other hand, he… well, he didn't even know what he wanted out of life just yet.

"Umm, this is gonna sound weird," Naminé said, "but I saw you skateboarding to school this morning… I didn't know you knew how to skateboard."

"Well, I haven't been skateboarding to school 'cuz… it just got fixed… It got broken on the flight here from New Twilight—"

"Oh, you used to live in New Twilight?" Naminé asked. He nodded.

"Uh-huh."

"Parlez-vous le français?" (Do you speak French?), she said. Roxas was a little surpised.

"Oui." (Yes.) he replied. "Wow, your accent is almost flawless."

She giggled, "Well if you lived in New Twilight, you gotta know French. I go there a lot, because my mom was born there."

"That's coo—waiiiit. Naminé, what's your last name again?"

"Fujiwara." She answered him.

"Seriously?"

"Yup."

"Wow." Roxas' blue orbs widened; "Your family's pretty well known in New Twilight, you know."

"I know." she smiled at him warmly.

"So do you paint a lot and stuff?"

"I do sketches mostly, but I do a lot of paintings too. My sculpting is pretty bad, though, and I'm not too fond of it."

"Wow, so it runs in the family... except your brother, I guess."

"Heine?" Naminé rolled her eyes; "He's… an artist, in his own perverted and incomprehensible way."

Roxas laughed, "Nice one."

They all went their separate ways as they approached the sophomore hallway. Naminé opened her locker and checked the schedule, which was taped on the back of the door. It was Wednesday, and she had English first period. Then she glanced onto the overhead clock in the hallway, which read 7:20—enough time for Selphie to continue cramming, she thought. She preferred to get to school early and avoid the traffic and the crowded hallways, and so did most of her friends. She unpacked her backpack, and pulled out her English binder and her pencil case and headed over to Kairi's locker, where Selphie and Sora were.

"YES!" Selphie exclaimed, "I think I actually might pass this!" She raised a fist into the air in triumph, then ran off to her locker to get her things and unpack. Kairi sighed.

"I swear, that girl sometimes…" Kairi smiled at Sora and he smiled back at her, "Hey Naminé, Matsuzawa said you guys had another dinner tonight."

"Yeah, we do… we've been having a lot lately." she said, watching as Sora wrapped his arms around Kairi from behind. She was a little tempted to roll her eyes—but she didn't. She loved how the two were finally together, but sometimes they didn't really need to bring their romance into school, right? The gang often hung out which each other over the weekend, and they got a lot of Sora and Kairi PDA from that. "But I don't mind, I guess."

Sora whispered something into Kairi's ear and she giggled. Naminé smiled a little anxiously. "Uhh, I'll see you guys later."

"Okay, Naminé." Kairi giggled again as Sora kissed her cheek. This time, since she had her back towards them and they couldn't see her, she did roll her eyes.

"Haha, they just can't get enough of each other, can they?" Roxas commented as he joined her in walking. To where, she wasn't sure herself, but she just felt like she didn't need to be talking to Kairi while Sora was practically all over Kairi.

"It's a little annoying sometimes." Naminé admitted. Immediately, since her little conversation with Roxas a while ago, she felt like could trust him. She didn't know how that made sense, but it just… did. He had this trustworthy aura to him.

"Tell me about it," Roxas agreed, "whenever Kairi comes over, oh boy… I swear, at the rate those two are going, they're gonna have premarital—"

Naminé coughed purposefully to cut him off.

"Right. Ahaha." Roxas felt a little embarrassed. For a second there, he felt like he was talking to someone he had known for awhile, or someone like Heine. But Naminé wasn't like her brother at all. He looked at her again and noticed her long eyelashes and her icy blue eyes. Wow, they were just… mesmerizing.

"So, Naminé…"

"Hmm?"

"I wanna see you paint or draw something." She stopped in her tracks. Roxas noticed she stopped and looked back.

"Why?" Naminé questioned. The rest of the gang… it wasn't that they didn't care about Naminé's art—they loved her art—but they didn't really care about the effort or the way she accomplished the work. Roxas had been the first to ask her such a question.

"I just… want to." Roxas looked away, "Umm, is that ok with you?"

Naminé shook her head, "Yeah, it's okay." By then they were in the main hall of the school, which had a fountain in the middle of it. Obviously, Destiny Islands put a lot of money into the school. The two sat beside each other on the rim of the fountain, which wasn't running at the time. Naminé opened her English binder and took out a pencil from her pencil case and turned to a fresh piece of loose-leaf paper.

"What do you want me to draw?" she asked him, looking him straight into the eye. Roxas was startled a bit, and found himself staring abruptly into her eyes before answering "Anything you want."

"Hmm…" Naminé thought for a while.

She didn't know what came over her, but it was like her hand took a life of its own. Pencil lead danced gracefully, precisely and skillfully on the paper. There were a lot of straight lines that formed acute angles. Eventually, a face formed. She continued.

Roxas watched her silently as she was immediately immersed in her drawing. She was so immersed; she didn't notice him staring at her serious face.

"Done." She said after a couple of minutes. Roxas immediately stopped staring before she caught him. She gasped, as if she herself didn't know what sort of creation she made. Roxas looked at the piece of paper.

She drew him. She drew Roxas, just as she saw him on his skateboard in the morning.