Masigla says, Wow. I haven't been paying attention to my other fic, have I? I seem to be playing favorites. xD There's just so much inspiration for this particular fic… And it was totally not my intention to have Selphie come off as a complete bitch in the last chapter.

And I know I said in chapter two that Kairi's last name was Sakagami… but I changed it to Yamanaka, because it sounds better. :D

The Art of Love
masigla

"Is Hayner sick or something? He wasn't in any of my classes."

"..what?" Naminé tilted her head in confusion.

"He wasn't in any of my classes, either." Olette added.

"That's weird, I saw him leave before I did."

A moment of silence passed as the group deduced the possible situations.

"…damn." Riku's hand covered his face in frustration.

"I can't believe this," Naminé was on the verge of slamming her head down on the table, "this could only mean he took his car and drove off somewhere!"

Chapter Four
guidance and pizza

"It's nothing really important, I guess." Naminé shrugged, "Dad and Hayner aren't good friends… I don't think they are even friends,"

"Are you serious?" Selphie asked, "I thought you all were like… tightly-bonded."

"See, that's where you're wrong." the blonde looked down. "My family is very, very dysfunctional."

"So you mean to say," Kairi tapped her dainty fingers on the table they were all hunched around at, "that the Fujiwara family that has been close friends with my family has been putting up a façade to make it look like they were a nice, happy family when they really aren't?"

Naminé nodded. "Basically."

"God, all these things popping up." Tidus twirled a blitzball on his finger, "We haven't even gotten to Christmas season yet but we have all this drama already."

"Ah well, time's changin', ya?" Wakka said, "We gonna have these complicated things followin' us 'round 'till a long time."

"You're right, Wakka." Riku agreed, his muscular arms folded and his head down in thought, "So very, very, painfully right."

"So what should we do?" Pence asked, "Anyone have suggestions on Hayner's current whereabouts?"

"Well," Olette started, "I think we'd all like to think that the school called Naminé's parents saying that Hayner wasn't in any of his morning classes."

"Yeah." Everyone said in unison.

"Chances are someone—guidance counselor, in particular—is going to come up and talk to Naminé about this to see if she knows anything." she added.

"And it's our job to make sure that if someone does, the class won't start making ugly rumors about any kind of trouble Naminé could have possibly gotten herself into." Selphie suggested.

"Good idea." Kairi smiled briefly then frowned again, "But what will we say if we ask why the guidance counselor wants to see her?"

"I think we should be honest, but be kind of vague about it." Riku said, "If we answer something other than that people use their imaginations to cook up something totally beyond what is considered possible for the human brain to conjure up."

"So what do we say?"

"Family issues."

"Right."

"But still," said Sora, "you can't help but wonder where that guy went off to."

"I hope he's alright," Olette said under her breath. A few seconds later, the bell rang throughout the school, signaling the end of lunch period. The group stood up with their trays of empty food and disposed of them on the way out of the cafeteria.

"Ms. Fujiwara," a woman who was waiting just outside the cafeteria doors leaned on the wall with her arms folded, "would you mind coming with me for a short while?"

Naminé turned to the direction of the voice. It was Mrs. Yoshifumi, the guidance counselor. It was as expected. Mrs. Yoshifumi turned to Kairi, who was right next to Naminé when they were exiting the cafeteria. "Ms. Yamanaka, I trust you can tell Mr. Okabe that Naminé won't be in his class for a few minutes. You have him next period with her, don't you?"

"Yes, Mrs. Yoshifumi. I will." Kairi told her.

"Well then, Ms. Fujiwara. This way, please." and with that, Mrs. Yoshifumi led Naminé away to her office. The others saw this and then resumed normal activity. In history class, Kairi and Selphie had gone a tad earlier to tell Mr. Okabe that Naminé was in the office, and he kindly accidentally skipped over Naminé's name during role call.

''

"So how'd it go?" Sora asked Naminé. It was the end of the day and Naminé wasn't able to return to history class, but went to the class after that. During the five-minute intervals between classes both Kairi and Selphie had made it a point to tell her what the homework was.

"Extremely long." Naminé sighed. "She just asked me if I happened to know where he was. Of course, I said no. But I told her about my family."

"Really?"

"I think it would help." she shrugged, "I mean, … I don't know. I'm just so confused right now."

"That's fine." he said. "Hey, a bunch of us are going down to the beach tomorrow since it's Saturday. We thought it might help get everyone's minds off things and just have fun. Can you come?"

"I have no idea, actually." she said. From the corner of her eye she saw Roxas walk towards them. He stopped beside Sora and asked what was going on, and Sora told him that Naminé had just heard of the plans for Saturday.

"My dad and I kind of got into a fight last night, too,"

"What?" Sora asked. "I thought it was just him and Hayner."

"Well, not quite." Naminé sighed again, "He got kind of ticked because I haven't been doing a lot of art lately,"

"So?" Roxas said, "tell him you're going to the beach to paint there."

"Only I'll have to come back and actually have something or else he'll think I just went there to hang out with my apparently 'lazy friends',"

"That's easy, we'll help you come up with something, Naminé." Roxas smiled.

"Thanks. I guess I'll be able to come, then. But right now I have to go home and talk to my mom about Hayner and stuff." she shut her locker closed and picked up her backpack from the floor. "I'll see you guys tomorrow."

" 'kay, bye!"

''

When you read this note,
I probably would have already gone a couple of miles from home.
Sorry about disappearing so suddenly.
I've kind of been planning it for a long time.
It's really important that I finish it.
I'll be back, definitely.
So don't worry about me running away.
I just need to take care of some things.
Don't send the police after me, please.
Thanks.

--Hayner

PS- please tell Naminé that this doesn't mean she gets to date anyone while I'm away!

"Your mother told me to give that to you," Matsuzawa explained to Naminé when she set foot into her house. Her mother was out with their father. He told her that they knew he was missing because the school had called and they had talked about possibilities for a while, but right now they were apparently invited to a dinner. Naminé would be eating dinner alone tonight. "it was a note we found in Hayner's room."

"I see," Naminé read over the note again and laughed a little at his spontaneous last line, "thanks, Matsuzawa."

"No problem. Now… your mother suggested ordering pizza for tonight with your friends here and you could watch a movie with them downstairs in the home theater. Your father however said that you should eat dinner alone and work on art right after." He rolled his eyes, "I personally would go with your mother's suggestion."

Naminé smiled. Actually, she was so tired that she couldn't. To Matsuzawa it seemed more of a facial twitch than a smile. He noticed she seemed really stressed out. Her eyes were a little glossy and her face was pale.

"I think I'll do that." she said to him as she climbed up the stairs. "I'll go call some people up. I don't care if dad gets mad… it's not like you can just force yourself to spontaneously come up with something to do for art. It has to come to your thoughts by itself."

"Exactly what I was thinking, Ms. Fujiwara."

Naminé entered her room and practically dove right into her fluffy bed. She had no idea why, but she felt an irresistible urge to scream into her pillow. So she buried her face into the whiteness of her pillow and let out a muffled scream. It was a bad day for her.

After the little venting scenario, she rolled over and grabbed her phone. The first number she dialed was Kairi's.

"Hello, this is Kairi. I'm not able to answer your call right now, sorry, so leave a message after the beep."

Oh, poo on that no answer response. Naminé decided that Kairi was probably busy handling something having to do with her mother, so she decided to call Olette next.

"Sorry, Naminé." Olette said when Naminé had offered, "It's my parents' wedding anniversary today, so I can't."

Selphie was out shopping with her friends from summer camp that went to another school.
Naminé didn't dare to try and call Tidus and Wakka.
Pence was babysitting his little sister.
Riku had guitar lessons, and then he had a party to go to for the soccer team from outside of school.
So she decided to call Sora. Or Roxas. Or both of them. They lived in the same house, it didn't matter.

"Hello?" the other end of the line was Roxas.

"Oh, hey, Roxas! Are you and Sora doing anything tonight?"

"Actually," Roxas paused, "Kairi's over here and we were planning to watch a movie. Kairi told us Selphie sent her a message that you were asking around for people to come over, though."

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah."

"So, can you guys come?"

"Not sure. Call back in five and we'll have an answer."

"Okay then." Naminé hung up. At the rate this was going, she would rather just not eat anything and go to her room to paint something rather angsty. Angsty wasn't a word for Naminé. Naminé and angst just did not match for some reason, but today she felt like it.

She turned on her television to kill five minutes. The five minutes were spent mindlessly flipping through a wide array of channels. Out of nearly 200, Naminé could not find anything that was worth five minutes only. But before she knew it, it was already time to call back.

"Oh?" It was Sora's mother who answered this time, "They just left a minute ago."

"Oh. Umm. Okay. Sorry for bothering you, Mrs. Jukodo."

"It's quite alright, Naminé. Take care!"

Then, Naminé decided that the three decided that they didn't want to hang out with her and went someplace else. However, five minutes since Naminé had first called was when the doorbell rang. She sat idly by, still mindlessly flipping channels when the doorbell rang a second time. She concluded that Matsuzawa was probably busy one way or another, or fell asleep or whatnot, and yanked herself out of bed. Running to the door, she stopped in front of it for a few to regain her normal breathing pattern. Her hands took hold of the knob, turning it and then pulling the door open.

"Roxas?" Naminé asked.

"Surprise!" he said gleefully, "We decided to come over and keep you company!"

"We…?" Naminé blinked. She then saw Sora and Kairi running down towards her porch, as if they were catching up. Then she noticed Roxas' arm holding his skateboard.

Oh.

"Jesus, Roxas!" Sora huffed, "You and your freakin' skateboard…" Kairi patted his back, out of breath as well.

"So anyways," Roxas laughed, "Pizza and a movie, Selphie told us. What are we watching?" And just like that, as if it wasn't his first time into her house, he let himself in and put his skateboard where he felt it was safe. "Awesome house, by the way. It's really… artsy."

"Uhh, no duh." Kairi said sarcastically. She abruptly shifted the strap of her bag that was nearly falling off her shoulders. "I brought DVDs that we were thinking of watching at home before you called."

"Wow, you guys." Naminé was still kind of adjusting to the current situation. "I totally did not expect this. I thought you guys went somewhere else."

"Aww, phooey on that." Sora pinched Naminé's cheek, "We were getting bored at home anyways. Plus, we're almost never here even though you probably have the biggest TV out of all of us, considering you have a home theater."

Naminé laughed. That was true. It was a wonder why her place was almost never selected for movie nights like this. It was probably because her friends had always been and always will be intimidated by Naminé's dad. But now, when they were told that Naminé was just home alone, they decided to come. It was a funny thought.

Naminé led the three down to the basement where a 50-inch television stood. Across from it were three rows of red seats, just like a real movie theater. There was even a popcorn maker to the side of the seats, but it was rarely used because pizza became the main course for home movie nights like this one.

"So, here are our selections:" Kairi stood in front of the TV, three DVDs in her hands. She held them up one by one. " 'The Scrapbook', 'House of Flying Keyblades' and this really random one I found called 'Kingdom Hearts'. No idea what it's about."

"Oh, God, Kairi," Sora moaned, "Not 'The Scrapbook'! You've watched that one a million times!"

"Yeah, but not with you guys. It'd be interesting to see if one of you cries." She grinned.

"My vote goes to 'House of Flying Keyblades'. It sounds fun." Roxas raised his right hand up, "That 'Kingdom Hearts' one is cooky. I've watched it before. It's about the darkness and people's hearts and stuff like that. It was kinda confusing."

"Okay then. I guess we're watching 'House of Flying Keyblades'. Is that alright with you, Naminé?"

"Of course!" Naminé replied. Her attention to the movie selection was only half-witted. Her left ear was immersed into the music the pizza place was playing while she was on hold for a little while. When the employee came back, Naminé placed in delivery orders for two large, thin crust cheese pizzas, which would be on their way "in 30 minutes or less or you get free pretzels!"

They decided to start watching the movie even though the pizza had not arrived. Matsuzawa came in to check on them once in a while, and on his fourth check he brought the pizza and soda down with him. They opened the first box. Sora and Kairi were surprisingly the first ones to indulge. When the couple had gotten their pieces Naminé had her eyes on one piece that just seemed better than the others.

She wasn't the only one thinking that.

She she reached out to grab the slice, she was a little startled to find that she had not touched the pizza.

She had touched Roxas' hand that was already on the slice.

The two suddenly found themselves staring at each other. Sora and Kairi noticed the silence and the lack of movement and stared at the two.

Awkward moment.

"Oh, sorry." Naminé quickly took her hand off his.

"Uh, that's okay. You want this slice? You can have it if you want…" Roxas told her.

"Nah, that's okay." She reassured him by grabbing a different slice. Roxas replied with an "okay then" and grabbed the slice that his hand was on. Then the movie watching resumed.

About halfway through the movie, the two boxes of pizza had been consumed. They had just started on the second bottle of soda, and they weren't about to stop.

"Hold up," Sora said. Naminé paused the movie. "Bathroom break?"

Kairi laughed. "Right. Go already!" She pushed Sora gently and he stood up to go to the bathroom. And as if the caller was some sort of God of Timing, Naminé's cellphone rang. She took it out and looked at the caller ID. It read "PAYPHONE", so Naminé wasn't so sure if she should pick it up.

Paranoia kicking in, Naminé let the phone ring and didn't answer. A little later it prompted her of a new voice message. Sora had returned from the bathroom already but Naminé requested for a little more time so she could check the message out.

"Hey, Naminé. It's Hayner. Do you miss me? I know you do! I know everyone does! Anyways. I wanted to call just to let you know I'm alive if you're worried or something. Okay. Bye…. I hope you haven't been dating. Even though I've only been gone for basically a day. You never know."

Masigla says, Oh yay! Hayner's alive! Rejoice! Because in case you forgot, he's smart. XD And z0mg. Namixas moment!

(click review button for more namixas goodness in the next chapter :D)