A/N: Don't worry guys, I'm not dead... though I did get sick three times, had to go to the hospital for a heart chek-up (nothing was wrong though), had to do exams (I got 92 for physics, almost as much as Rox, lol), then there was winter holydays (Which I totally spent on skating and sewing, I'm such a bad author), and then school started again and tried to kill me, then there was exams for cello,... Oh and my friend lend me her playstation 2 for a few days (after a bit of begging and a lot of nagging), so I could play KH2 (Which totally did not help to write this story)... But, the next chapter is finally finished!

I was kind of really unhappy with half of this chapter and completely rewrote Roxas' and Axel's dialogue. With the help of one of my teachers. Can you imagine?

Thanks to Leoshishi-chan, HellzLittleAngel, TheCloakedSchemer-6 and hanatos Angelos Girl for reviewing! I love you guys!

Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom hearts. The song is Kill, Kill, kill from the Pierces.

Chapter IX

Christmas parties
I asked you please to leave my heart
But you refused to go
I can't take this pain much longer
You insist on teaching me what I already know
Absence made this heart grow fonder
-The Pierces

I had planned to sleep in – like, really sleep in, until 2 or something – but my mother would have none of that. She, too, thought that cycling in this snow was too dangerous and I had to take the bus to Sora's. It wasn't like I had a particular dislike for busses, but I did hate taking the bus to Sora. Because there was none at all. So I had to take the bus to God-knows-where first, and go to Duffel from there.

And that too wouldn't be too awful either if the busses didn't have this terrible habit of showing up late or not showing up at all when it snowed. Of course, my mother had taken that all into account and woke me up at 10, so I could take the bus at 2 o' clock.

But in the end I needed even more than 2 hours for something that normally only took 20 minutes (and then I didn't take the time in account it took to run back to get that stupid present I got for Xion – because Sora had had the brilliant idea to do a present tombola – which made me miss my bus), and I was cold and cranky by the time I finally arrived.

It didn't stop Sora from beaming at me when he threw the door open and tugging me inside, before slamming the door shut again.

"Guuuuuys! Roxas finally ariveeed~!" he sang – out of tune, may I say – and Namine's, Kairi's and Riku's heads popped through the door of Sora's room. Sora's house was a little strange. His parents had thought it was a good idea to have bedrooms on the ground floor, and their living room and everything else on the first floor. I never understood why.

A smile played on my lips when I was my friends again, but my face darkened immediately upon entering the room.

Sora had promised me it would be a small party, and it was. There were only two girls I didn't know, but I'd seen them before and I knew they were from his school. Then there was Kairi, Riku, Namine and Xion. And in the middle of the room, grinning brightly, was the reason for my suddenly gloomy mood – Axel.

I should have known he would be here. I should've known better tan to believe Sora would leave me alone just because Sophia had asked him to. Hell, he hadn't even promised anything.

I shouldn't have been caught off guard and I really shouldn't have been staring at him.

He saw my dumbfound look and winked. I knew I was turning red.

Partly because I wasn't mentally prepared yet, partly that wicked grin made me think about my dreams last night.

We decided to just play a game of cards. Sora had insisted on a snowball fight, but I wanted to warm up a bit first.

After a while, one of the girls (I learned her name was Charlotte) sighed after losing yet again.

"Can't we do something else? This is boring." She sighed again.

Axel put his cards down. "If we're going to take a break, I'm going to get some new sweets."

We all stared at him, but he just shrugged and went upstairs in search for his prize.

"Now that was random," Kairi noted.

"I wonder if he's a cat person," Namine said.

"…That was random."

"No, it totally makes sense!" Namine argued. "Just look at him. He completely acts like a cat. I wonder if he has one…"

"He does!" Sora piped up and everyone turned their attention on him. "He's got three!"

"How do you know that?" Axel stood in the doorway with some Christmas snacks in his hands. "I'm pretty sure I've never talked about my cats at the drawing academy."

Sora looked like a small kid that just had been caught stealing candy.

"Secret sources?" He provided.

Axel looked at him as if he was some creepy old stalker. I'd never seen him like this, creeped out and baffled and not at all that confident for once. It made him look more human and maybe even a little bit cute. It made me smile.

"Sooooo… Are we going to continue playing cards?" Kathlein, the other girl I didn't know, said.

"No! Let's play seven minutes in heaven!" Charlotte exclaimed, desperate for something that didn't involve her probably losing again. Soon After, Sora had found a bottle and the game could begin.

Charlotte smiled, and from the corner of my eye, I could see Axel winking at her. I seethed. Was he going to play that game again? Did he really think he could win me over by making me jealous? By kissing other girls again? That was not going to happen. What was he going to do anyway? Make out in a closet? I could ignore that… Well, he could try and make an awful lot of noise… But still!

I hear the girl squeak, and looked up, praying to God to please not make those thoughts come true.

I saw Axel smirking at me, quite amused, and… not quite making a move to get up.

Confused, I looked at the closet, where the girl stood with… Riku? When the door closed, Sora immediately scooted closer to press his ear against it.

"Sora, that's not nice," Kairi whizzed, but he didn't listen.

Instead, his eyes got big. "She's confessing," he whispered, bewildered. Now, Kairi looked interested too, but bit her lip.

"Come on Sora, even more the reason to not eavesdrop," Namine now said, and after a hard glare, Sora came back again.

"Okay, then what do you suggest we do?" he asked with a pout. "I'm not going to wait and do nothing for 7 minutes."

"Twister?" Xion tentively asked. And for the second time, Sora was sent out to search something.

"I want to spin the spinner," Xion covered when he came back.

"I'll step aside for this game, there are too many players," Kathlein explained.

"Yeah, me too," Namine said.

It was only when Kairi shouted: "Let's make it a battle between the boys!" when I realized I should have been backing out too. I didn't want to play twister with Axel. I mean, come on. Twister. Was there any classic game more suggestive? I think not.

But I knew Sora would never let me go, and I would only give Axel inspiration if I complained, so I swallowed my protest and got ready for the game.

It turned out better than I had expected. Sora lost his balance first, and almost made me lose mine too, but I could catch myself on time. And then, strangely enough, Axel did not make any moves to annoy me. On the contrary, he played the game as best as he could – and I must admit, he was quite good. He tried to take my good spots with his long legs and arms, but I was determined to show him I had a good balance. I didn't do figure skating for nothing. Before long, it turned into a full-fledged balance battle.

I didn't even notice at first when the closet door opened and Riku and Charlotte came out, but a small sniffle caught my attention. I looked up to see Riku whisper something soothing to the girl, but I couldn't quite understand.

"She must have been rejected. Too bad. They would have made a cute couple," Axel sighed, and I send him a questioning look, but he mouthed something among the lines of 'I'll tell you later.'

Sora gave the bottle a large swing, but my attention was claimed by a 'left foot green' from Xion, and I was searching for a nice green spot before Axel could take it. Ah yeeeesss, got it.

"Left hand green."

Oh, damn that spot was a little more difficult. And Axel had already taken it. Shit. That other green spot then. Why were his legs so damn long?

I had to maneuver in a crab-like position – beneath Axel, because I couldn't reach over his arms – which wasn't really stable and I hoped Xion would spin fast. But that hope was shattered when Sora exclaimed "Heh, guys, awesome~!" and she turned her head towards him.

"What now?" I huffed.

"You're not going to believe this," he laughed. "You'll have to get in the closet together with Axel."

I snapped my head in his direction, but unfortunately lost my balance at the same time, making me fall hard on my butt.

"What?" I hissed. That was just too much of a coincidence, they must have cheated. But there was nothing I could do. I ignored Axel's waiting hand and stomped off to the stupid closet.

As soon as the closet doors closed, the air around us turned into ice. I crossed my arms and glared at Axel. He must have been a part of this plot. It was something he would do, trying to cheat at spin the bottle to get me in the closet with him.

"Well, that was a mean stunt they played on us," he said while scratching his head.

"You would have liked it better if Charlotte would be here instead of me, wouldn't you?" Why did I say that?

"Charlotte? Nah, she isn't my type," he answered, but it sounded forced, like that wasn't what he wanted to say at all.

I decided to shut up. I wouldn't say anything for these stupid seven minutes, and then when this was all over, I could just come out of the closed and – wait, no that sounded all wrong. Anyway. If this was over, I would just forget everything that happened and go home, saying I had practice the next morning or something. That sounded believable.

Axel didn't say anything either, and somehow that annoyed me a bit. He seemed nervous. He shouldn't be nervous at all. After all, he was a player. If he finally saw I wasn't someone to be played with, he should just accept that, give me some last dirty comment, and then move on. No, he shouldn't be nervous at all.

The silence was slowly becoming unbearable, but I was not going to break it.

Axel cleared his throat.

"Boring don't you think? This closet I mean."

"Bwaah…" I stopped myself there.

"What do you mean, 'bwaah'?"

I didn't answer him. What was I going to say anyway? The closet was boring, wasn't it? If you didn't take into account how sexy he looked right now. But he didn't need to know that.

Another long, painful silence. Axel was fidgeting, but I wouldn't say anything. It was probably partly his fault we were stuck in here. It soothed him right to fidget. Why was he nervous anyway?

"They're probably eating all the food right now," he said, just to say something. "Or maybe they're opening the presents. You know, I found this perfect present for you, but I picked Namine's name, too bad. I got here a pair of earrings, every girl likes that, don't th-"

"You saw something… for me?"

Axel's look said something among the lines of 'why the fucking hell did I let that slip?' and he wanted to just drop the subject, but that made me even curiouser.

"Why were you searching for something to give me?"

Axel took a deep breath, as if he wanted to calm his nerves. I expected him to look away, but he didn't. He looked straight at me.

"I wanted to buy you something special, because you're special to me too, Roxas."

"But you didn't, because you picked someone else's name. Really special, huh?" I was pissed. Was he trying to win me over with some stupid, corny lie?

"You wouldn't accept it."

I didn't say anything. I'd never admit to his face that he was right. But he should stop looking at me like that. Soon. It made me feel all jittery. I didn't like it.

"Just, go chase some girl or something. I'm not going to be your boyfriend" - saying that felt really weird – "to be thrown away like a piece of junk after a few weeks, when you get bored of me."

"Didn't you ever consider I might have been serious this whole time?"

"And how many girls did you tell that lie, exactly?"

"None!"

"Yeah, right," I looked away.

"… Roxas… Every girl I've been with knew pretty damn well that it was just a fling. Go ask Olette if you don't believe me!"

There was a pause. I didn't say anything. Didn't want to say anything, didn't even know what to tell him.

He sighed, noticing I wasn't going to give in.

"Look ,Roxas… No, Look a t me!" He made a move as if he wanted to grab my chin and make me look at him, but he didn't dare. I was happy about that. I kept looking away, just to taunt him. To show him he didn't have power over me. I wouldn't fall for him or his stupid, sweet lies.

But I wasn't kidding anyone. I'd fallen for him a long, long time ago.

"Roxas?" He asked carefully. I looked up. He was fiddling a bit. "Roxas, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you cry.

Cry? No way, I didn't cry. Well I did, but that was when I was ten, and I'd broken my hand. I never cried.

I couldn't deny it though, as I could feel the water slowly trickling down over my cheeks, a single tear even hanging off my nose.

It was weird, Alien. Such an unknown feeling. My head was spinning with questions of 'why the hell am I crying?'

Axel tried to soothe me, clearly having no clue what to do now, while I was just watching him with big, questioning blue eyes, the tears still sliding down my face.

He was so close then, wiping away the tears, looking at me intensely. Somewhere in the back of my mind, there was a small voice telling me to look away, maybe even push him away or at least do something about the closeness, but I couldn't. It merely made me blink twice, but that didn't stop him from slowly inching closer, taking it as a sign when I didn't move.

Axel's eyes were closed and his lips were soft – so soft – while he pressed them lightly against mine and his arms tightened around me as if he never, ever wanted to let me go again.

I don't know why my hand was suddenly in his hair. I have no idea why I hesitantly started kissing him back.

He pulled away far too soon, but when I opened my eyes, he was beaming at me. I looked away, blushing, my mind still not really comprehending what had just happened.

His lips were on my neck then, and I turned my head to say something, but I forgot what it was as soon as he kissed me again.

The small voice in the back of my head was back again, shouting at me that this should stop now. It was so wrong on so many levels, but its cries obtained no hearing. My brain was too occupied with how his kiss was somehow fiercer, more confident than before, with how my insides were beginning to turn into jelly, and especially with how he slow but sure pried my lips apart, but it decided to not resist in the slightest. On the contrary.

There was a loud bang and sudden silence. When I looked up, the closed doors were open and Sora was standing there, looking quite surprised. Unfortunately, he recovered quickly and a grin appeared on his face.

"The seven minutes are over guys, time to get out of the closet."

I ignored the double meaning in his comment in favor of giving him the deadliest glare I could think of.

Things got awkward after that. I avoided Axel's eyes as much as possible, and he didn't seem to know what to do. To speak the truth, I didn't either.

After a few more games, Sora decided it was finally time to play his snowball fight. It was dark already, but that would only make it more exciting. Or something like that.

Everyone scurried out to the hall to get ready. Everyone but Axel, who had been so stupid to take his gloves with him to Sora's room, and they were now lost somewhere in the mess. Sora claimed he had tidied it, but to be frank, it looked as unkempt as ever.

That's when I got a plan.

I hurried over to my bag and reentered the room not a minute later. Axel was still searching, but he looked up when he noticed me.

He raised one eyebrow at the paper in my hand. I knew I was fidgeting, but I didn't care.

"What's that?" He asked.

"My number."

I knew I was blushing, and I almost regretted what I'd done. But the smile on his face was worth it.

We're kind of halfway the story, guys! Now the evil plot can begin. Muhahahaha.

Also, I kind of need idea's for what could happen to Roxas and Axel on a date. (I'm looking at you to give me idea's, HellzLittleAngel, request whatever you want, because you promised me that story, which I trust you will finish before I die - Ahh, postponin everything, I know the evil temptation, lol)

Random fact of the day:
On average, 100 people choke to death on ball-point pens every year.