A/N: As I promised: the fourth chapter, before 1 July. (Did I write the day right? I remember learning something about dates, but I've totally forgotten)

Thanks to Sexy-Tacos-Emo-Waffles, Miss-Dreev and Namichan11 for the reviews! (Hah, I found that sneaky little reply button)

Disclaimer: I don't own KH. The song is Wicked game by Chris Isaak.

Chapter IV

Wicked Game
No, I don't want to fall in love
[This love is only gonna break your heart]
No, I don't want to fall in love
[This love is only gonna break your heart]
With you
With you
-Chris Isaak

The week passed by slowly. Ignoring Axel proved to be harder than I had expected. The first two days were all right. I occasionally saw him in the hallways, but he didn't seem to notice me. Wednesday however, his strategy changed.

I was talking to Olette. Ever since our conversation on Monday, she seemed determined to get me out of my 'don't talk to anyone habit', as she liked to call it. She was planning to introduce me to some of her friends, and I was starting to regret talking to her. She was a nice girl and all, but going from talking to no-one all day to being pushed in the center of attention was a bit too much for me right now.

"You were thinking you regret talking to me, weren't you?"

I looked at her in surprise, ready to deny it, but she stopped me.

"Your face is an open book. I'm sorry, maybe I've been a bit too pushy, but you're missing a big part of your life you know, you should –"

She broke off in the middle of her sentence, her eyes fixated on something right behind me. Before I could turn around to find the problem, there was a hand on my shoulder and a voice in my ear.

"Good morning, Sunshine."

I didn't need to see him to know who this voice belonged to, but my eyes, wide with shock, saw his retreating back anyway. He didn't look back, but I knew he was smiling.

At that moment I made up my mind. I would not, ever, give in to him. He was a player, and I was his newfound toy. And people always tire of new fancy toys, if you just give them some time. I wouldn't give him my heart, insignificant as it was, he wasn't worth it. It was too fragile to use as a plaything. I couldn't let him break it.

Obviously, my plan would backfire. I should have known this, but I was too young, too naïve, too inexperienced. I didn't know better.

I suddenly became aware of Olette staring at me.

"Why do I get the impression none of your friends have a problem with Axel?"

I was able to successfully avoid Axel for the rest of the week. To my surprise, Olette wasn't mad at me. Not for being gay, not for falling for her ex-boyfriend, not even for lying to her. Maybe she recognized herself in me. Maybe she was still a bit shaken from the recent events. Maybe she was afraid of the thought of having Axel near her. Whatever the case may be, she helped me, and I was grateful for that.

Whenever Axel came too close, we would just walk away. One of us was bound to spot him right away. It was his own fault really; who would want a hairdo that made you look like your head was on fire? Like this, he couldn't sneak up to me anymore. He couldn't even get closer than ten meters.

But Saturday was slowly approaching. And I didn't have Olette to help me out then.

Actually, my friends did have a problem. And it involved Axel.

I had no idea how Sora could possibly know about That Friday. With all of the juicy details. He couldn't have heard it from Axel, because he was equally surprised when the boy brought That Day up. He could have faked it, but I highly doubted that possibility, because if that was true, he wouldn't while away his Saturday mornings here, but in an acting school. He would make it big.

Sora obviously did not like the fact that I wasn't talking to Axel at all. Axel had yet to say something to me too, but I could feel that he was waiting for the right time, for the minute I wouldn't expect it, the moment I let my guard down. And he was clearly enjoying the wait. He didn't even try to hide his gaze as he was staring down at me.

I glared back angrily. Remember, you will not give in to him.

I couldn't wipe the smile off his face. That evil, beau- stupid grin.

After another twenty minutes of undergoing being watched while talking idly with Xion, I'd had enough. I couldn't handle wanting to look up every few seconds, constantly reminding myself I would not give in and the muscles I needed to keep the scowl on my face were beginning to ache.

"I'm going to the bathroom."

The whole way I could feel Axel's eyes burning on the back of my head.

I actually did not need to go to the bathroom. What I did need to do was get my head cooled off a bit. The sink water was doing wonders. I really needed to calm myself a bit. I'd made up my mind and I would stick with my decision. Giving in would only hurt me. But doing that when his attention was on me constantly was hard, way too hard. I needed to get him to look away. I needed him to think 'I'll better leave Roxas alone, before he castrates me'. And I had the perfect plan. He only had to say one thing to me. I had a good pair of brains. This would surely work. After a firm nod to myself in the mirror, I left the bathroom.

When I reentered the room, I instantly noticed two things that were not good.

One, all of my friends where standing around Sora. Normally, this would not be worth worrying for. But it was the looks on their faces that made me suspicious. Xion looked a bit worried, but her face was firm, as if she had just made a decision she didn't really liked, but which she knew was best. Namine was softly smiling, while Kairi and Riku were both grinning, and Sora had an impossible huge grin on his face, and from seeing his face, I just knew he had a 'perfect idea'. Which would be really bad for me, without a doubt.

Two, Axel was nowhere to be seen.

I didn't know which one was worse.

Cautiously, I walked back to my table. I was instantly welcomed back by Xion, who demanded my attention with a small cough.

"Sora's holding a picnic in two weeks. The drawing school will be closed due to maintenance, so he thought why not have a small party? You'll come right?"

Sora was known to hold these picnics/parties/meetings/whatever regularly, and if I knew one thing about them, then it was that they were never small. He would invite a whole group and first have a picnic. After the picnic came the fun. You never knew what these activities were, but they were almost never innocent.

By the look on Sora's face, I could see Axel would come, by the twinkle in his eyes I could see I wouldn't like the activities at all, but I had no excuse not to come. I usually attended all of his parties and I knew my friends would only accept 'I have an important skating match' as an excuse, and I was pretty sure they would check.

"Off course," I answered, the tone of my voice contradicting what I was saying.

Sora's smile grew and transformed into an evil grin, stars shining in his eyes with excitement. I would have hit him, but I was interrupted by an even more evil voice.

"Rrroxass, I'm horny."

Stay calm, Roxas. Remember the plan. Don't let him distract you. Not even with that soft, tainted breath in your neck.

"Well, why don't you go visit your girlfriend then? She'll be happy to help you with your problems." The words held more bitterness than I intended, but I couldn't help it. It was what he did to Olette. It was what he did to me. And even though the words and the venom in them where just part of the plan, I meant everything I said.

Axel's smile dropped. He looked like he was actually surprised I didn't freeze and stare dumbly at him, a slight blush on my cheeks. As if he would never have expected his stupid flirting and his dull pick-up lines to fail.

He sat down and began to draw again. He didn't say a word, even when Sora asked him something, the only reply the little boy got was a grunt.

Needles to say, I was satisfied. I'd originally planned to get Xion on my side, but Sora had been faster. But that didn't matter anymore. The plan was working better than expected.

Olette had finally introduced me to her friends, Hayner and Pence. I was in a good mood, as I hadn't seen Axel for the last few days. But I didn't have the time to enjoy my small victory. I had other problems at the moment. Like the big ass Latin test we had to take next week.

"God, I'm totally going to flunk!"

"Olette, stop being so irritating, I'm getting stressed out and I don't even take Latin classes!" Even though I only knew him for a few days, it was already clear to me Hayner detested homework.

"But Hayner, I really—"

"Guys, shut up! I'm trying to learn here!"

"You're no fun! We're on a break! Just eat your sandwiches. You shouldn't even be thinking of your homework right now," Hayner complained. "Pence, even you are studying. You never do!"

"Oh, Hayner, be quiet! I've got a French test next period. I need to study."

I dropped my head on the table as the discussion around me got more heated.

"Guuuuuuuys… Just. Shut. Up," I whined.

That's how it went for several days, but there was always something small nagging in the back of my head. I didn't really notice it, thinking it were just nerves for the upcoming test. It would go away.

But it didn't go away. I noticed only Friday at noon that I hadn't seen Axel since Saturday. I hadn't even caught a glimpse of his hair. It was almost impossible not to notice him when he was nearby, so it wasn't like I had just overlooked him. Is he avoiding me? I shrugged the thought off. It was only my imagination. I would see him on Saturday.

Saturday morning came. No Axel. 10 o' clock went by. No Axel. The clock's minute hand did another full round. No Axel. I should be happy, satisfied even, but I wasn't. If anything, I felt guilt for saying what I had said, however true it was. And even though I would never admit it to myself, I knew that deep down, I really wanted Axel to sit beside me again.

I looked out for Axel on Monday. There was no way he could hide from me. I could remember the times when I was avoiding him and I knew that in the small corridors of our school, it was impossible to not pass each other one way or the other. Even then, I didn't even spot him in the distance once. I did spot Demyx though. He was talking on his mobile phone and when he noticed me, he waved some.

And the next day was the same, as well as the day after, and the day after, though I did see Larxene, typing away on her phone while talking to a girl on her left. She didn't see me though.

As the days went by, it became harder and harder to deny that I wasn't really interested in seeing the redhead again, that I only checked every hallway for him because I was worried he was sick or something and not coming to school. It was hard to tell myself that I really, really didn't miss him. It was becoming hard to pretend that this was just a slight crush, or that I liked him only a little bit. And most of all, it was hard to not stop my plan.

I didn't want to tell Olette about my problems. It was just impossible that she didn't feel hurt when I talked about Axel, when I said how he went out of his way to annoy me. I knew she was sad about it, but there are things you can't hide from your friends, even if you didn't know them for a long time.

Friday, Hayner had enough of it.

"Roxas, what's wrong with you?" Even though he didn't sound too nice, I knew he was worried. But I was not in the mood right now.

"What?"

"You've been behaving rather strangely this week, Roxas," Olette replied.

"Don't think we don't notice. When you come to school in the morning, you're happy, during the day you look around, searching the whole time, and then when you leave, you're almost depressed. What are you up to mate?"

I hadn't really noticed my own behavior, but now I was thinking about it, Hayner was right.

"It's just…" I sighted, not sure what to say. "Well, it's Axel. I was rather harsh to him a while ago, and I haven't seen him since, not even at school, maybe he's skipping, I don't know, it's just so…" I sighted again.

"Well, he's been coming to school, I've seen him," Pence said.

"Yeah, and he had a pretty big fight with his girlfriend at school, about a week ago. I'm surprised you haven't heard about it. It was kind of the talk of the school," Olette agreed.

"Well, sorry for having no friends except for you guys."

"No, but really, you should have heard about it. They broke up soon after, it's hard to say who dumped who, I guess it was sort of a mutual agreement that they didn't like each other anymore," Olette went on. "Though I doubt he ever liked her," she added bitterly.

And I acually felt guilty. He'd gone out of his way to not see my face. He must hate me. And all that just because of some stupid comment I made. I really felt like a dick right now. But oh well, that just showed how sincere he'd been about me. And then I remembered Olette's words, her bitterness seaping through my skin, until it invaded my veins. As if he'd ever been sincere to anyone about liking them.

Saturday morning found me somewhere in a park in Duffel, attending a stupid picnic. I was sleep deprived, because I had been up almost all night, thinking about what I would do if a certain someone would come and what I would do if he didn't come. He'd promised Sora to come, right? But he'd gone out of his way to avoid me for two weeks; it probably wouldn't hurt him to skip this picnic. Then I was wondering if I wanted him to come, and soon after I found myself denying that the answer was yes. When I had finally fallen asleep, my dreams were plagued by red hair, teardrop tattoos and piercing green eyes.

I couldn't help but to hold my breath when I finally, finally, saw those bright eyes in reality, his cocky grin in place. And I could feel the anger welling up. Because of him, as he just stood there, like he just hadn't totally avoided me for two weeks. Because of me, as I was incredibly happy to see him again.

A/N: The next chapter will take a while as I'm going on a vacation and I probably won't be able to write. But then when I come back I've got to get a surgary to remove my wisdom teeth, which is kind of bad for me because it'll probably hurt a lot, but good for you because I'm going to sit at home for a whole week with nothing to do but to write some Akuroku.

So expect chapter 5 in about four weeks.

Random Fact of the Day:
Studies show that if a cat falls off the seventh floor of a building it has about thirty percent less chance of surviving than a cat that falls off the twentieth floor. It supposedly takes about eight floors for the cat to realize what is occurring, relax and correct itself.
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