Chapter 2

Seeing Things as They Are, and Aren't

Axel's grin widened. "Well Roxas," he said, "this should be an interesting year."

I raised an eyebrow. "Okay…" I said, slightly confused. What exactly was going to make this an interesting year, anyway? Ah well, I wasn't going to ask. Instead I launched myself up from the small white stepstool onto my bed, and sat with my legs crossed, facing Axel. "So what's your major?" I asked, just to defy the numbness of my unhelpful brain. "Chemistry." He said, that same broad smirk on his face. Weird, I wouldn't have thought of him as a science major. Was I stereotyping? Probably. Still, he just seemed too… wild for something like that. He must have seen some evidence of my confusion on my face, because a few seconds later he added, "I like to set things on fire. Or, rather, fire in general. So I decided to be a chem. major. What about you? What are you here for?"

Should have known. I held in my third sigh of the evening as I replied, "Linguistics." And waited for the- "But… why? What's interesting about that?" Yep, I knew it. Everyone pretty much asked that, so I was almost used to it by now. Almost, but not quite.

"I like words." Axel shook his head at my answer, turning back around to continue unpacking.

"Well," He began, "since you aren't going to ask, I'm from Hollow Bastion so it's a short trip home, I have an older brother who I hope you never have to meet, and I got these tattoos on my eighteenth birthday."

I was silent, not really sure how to respond. Well, I figured, he's probably expecting me to say something similar back. You know, the traditional 'get to know your roomie' stuff. Great. "I'm from Twilight Town, and I have a slightly older twin named Sora who you'll probably meet pretty soon. That's pretty much it." Okay, so I didn't really like to talk about myself much. At all. If I didn't hate psychiatrists, and I do, one might say that I have trust issues. Seriously. As in, if I didn't know someone well I really hated them knowing more than basic stuff about me. Call it irrational, people always do. It's just something that really bothers me. Maybe I'd trust this Axel guy more eventually, but just being assigned as my roommate didn't give him a "Get Insights Into Roxas Free" card.

Silence decided to set up camp in our room after that. Axel focused on unpacking (if you can count unceremoniously stuffing clothes into a drawer unpacking) and when I realized he wasn't going to say anything else I grabbed my iPod, hooked the headphones over my ears, and snatched the black spiral notebook from the end of my bed and the pen sitting on top of it. Japanese rap flooded my ears as I absentmindedly began to write.

"What the crap is that?" came Axel's query from right by my head. I jumped about a foot, definitely not expecting him to get that freaking close to me. He was looking down at my notebook curiously. Uneasy, I scooted away from the insane one and closer to the wall.

"It's a code-thing I came up with last year." I explained. He leaned a bit closer to get a better look and I restrained myself from giving him a fist in his face. Geez, hadn't the guy ever heard of personal space? I scowled up at him, and Axel finally backed off, chuckling. Okay, I really didn't like this guy. All I'd wanted to do was describe a new character that had decided to make himself known to me earlier that day. Oh, you think that's weird? I would say "a character that I'd come up with earlier that day", but it didn't exactly happen that way. Characters just sort-of pop up in my mind sometimes, so I write about them. Sora says that I have a bunch of little people living in my head, so I must be schizophrenic. I disagree, not that anything I say makes a difference. I swear, why I tell him anything at all is beyond me. Sheesh. But Axel didn't seem capable of leaving me alone for longer than five minutes, I closed my notebook, put the pen in a pants pocket, and without a word stalked out of the room.

XxX

Well, well, well. Being the observant creature that I am, I watched Roxas out of the corner of my eye as he huffed and pouted his way out the door. It was only when the door clicked shut that I allowed myself a full smirk in all its Axel-ish glory. Oh, are you confused? Allow me to explain.

I'm Axel Nakamura, pyro extraordinaire and resident sexy beast. Yeah, be amazed. I am. But more to the point, I was also apparently the roommate of a very moody blond. I wasn't kidding when I said this year was going to be interesting. You see, I have an excellent memory, and it helps that Roxas isn't exactly a common name. Starting to get the picture here? Yeah, I said I was from Hollow Bastion, that much is true. That's why I'm going to school here (Hollow Bastion University, if you must know), if you must know- they give scholarships to residents. But back the point, namely that I didn't actually grow up here. Nah, my parents had wanted to raise my brother and me on Destiny Islands. I wasn't sure why Roxas didn't remember me (and it was apparent by his adorably confused expression when he opened the door that he didn't), but I was sure as hell going to find out. At some point. Somehow. Maybe it was because he hadn't seen my in ten years, who knows?

I was still smirking broadly as I dragged a beat-up guitar case out from under my bed and plopped it on my bed. This was my baby, the one thing besides fire I really cared about. Ha, makes me sound pretty gay, doesn't it? Whatever, I like my music. Probably not quite as much as Dem, but everyone knows he's absolutely crazy about anything that every remotely resembles music, which is why the freak has his sights set on the MAE program (Masters of… Something About Teaching) so he could teach music to little kids or something like that. Like I said: freak. Don't get my wrong, Dem's my best friend. When it comes to him, freak is a term of endearment.

After turning off my MP3 player I sat down on a free spot on my bed, opened up my guitar case, hoisted out the acoustic, and started plucking aimlessly at its strings. This is what I liked best about music, I think. Just playing without any real point to it, without really thinking about it. And then my phone rang. Scowling, I rifled through a pocket in my black cargo pants and flipped the cell open.

"Sexy beast speaking." Yeah, that was how I usually answer my phone. Like I said before: be amazed.

"Axel." Ah, it was Xemnas. Oh joy. "We have a new member joining us tonight. 11 o'clock. Stokes Cemetery." My smirk turned almost feral. A new member meant initiation, which meant plenty of fire. Heh.

"No problem. I'll be there."

"Until then."

He hung up, not giving me a chance for some witty reply. Well fine then. I would have given the phone a dirty look, but I was too excited by my new-found plans for later that night. I slipped my phone back into its former pocket and returned to fiddling with my guitar, mind again elsewhere.

XxX

My roommate was an idiot. A crazy idiot, no less. Apparently I wasn't going to be spending much time in my room this year- my first year at college. If you hadn't guessed yet, I wasn't much of a people person. I can't figure anyone out (except maybe my brother) and no one seems to have gotten me figured out either. Granted, that might be partially my fault what with my need for a certain level of anonymity, but whatever. I had my friends and we got along most of the time. That was enough for me. But if Axel was going to be there all the time and doing everything possible to piss me off like before we were going to have problems. Well, he'd probably figure out to leave me alone soon enough. Everyone always did.

In hindsight, my exit might have been a bit… melodramatic (hey, at least I hadn't slammed the door), but it was definitely worth it. I just wish I knew Hollow Bastion University's campus better. Then maybe I wouldn't have been parked on a park bench (oh the irony), bent over my notebook like before. The only thing I knew about this park (if you could call it that, stupid place was so small) was that it was just on the other side of the obviously inadequate parking lot for Ryle Hall, the dorm building that was now officially my personal hell. There was a trail that ran the length of the park, from the parking lot to Main Street one of the two biggest streets in Hollow Bastion. I was just glad that benches and tables were scattered throughout the park so I could write in peace, in the corner farthest away from Ryle.

Tadanobu Sato

Kitsune

As a human, Sato has a mop of white-blonde hair that goes almost to his chin with bangs that are constantly obscuring his vision.

Sato's natural form is that of a slightly-larger-than-average fox. In fact, he has even been known to be called cute in the past. Beware. He can and will exploit this.

A grin tugged at my lips. I couldn't help it- this new character of mine was just crazy- he was a fox demon, Japanese style, who had a knight-in-shining armor complex. So yeah, none of my characters were exactly 'normal'- probably says a lot about me. Ah well.

Crap. I scowled skyward, at the retreating sun that was making writing increasingly more difficult by the second. Stupid sunset, that meant if I wanted to work on Sato's personality I'd have go inside- probably back to the Room From Hell, Courtesy of el Clinically Insane Roommate. Trying to get anything written in Sora's room would be like trying to do homework at an arcade- it just wouldn't work. There was always Hayner and Pence's room, but that was a trap, too. Without a doubt we'd just end up playing video games. All right then, nothing for it but to go back and hope that Axel had left in the hour or two I'd been gone.

I trudged back slowly, wanting to do anything but rush, up the walk and through the parking lot and through the small door on the southern end of the U. Extracting the keys from my pocket yet again, I unlocked the door, expecting the immanent smell of brimstone (or at least smoke of some kind), but was surprised to find the room (relatively) empty. Axel had already left, for what I had no idea. Relieved, I permitted myself a small smile, and flopped down on my bed, grabbed my headphones (I could feel a tradition forming), and closed my eyes, letting my mind drift off into something like sleep.

A/N

Finally, another chapter! I'm soooo sorry it took so long to update! I have about a million excuses, but oh well. I updated. So be happy. xD

Now then, on to business:

I need two things, if people would be kind enough to oblige. The first is a beta reader, or something to that extent. It'd be great to talk to someone about this story-thing that just kinda started writing itself, plus get another pair of eyes looking at grammatical stuff/ spelling errors/ typos. 's new (to me) Beta stuff is a little intimidating, so I just figured I'd ask if anyone was interested. So… anyone interested?

The second thing isn't so much a need, I guess. It might make the writing better and the chapters longer though. -wink wink- Can you guess? Yep, reviews! I don't even particularly care what you say (just please don't be unnecessarily mean, just mean enough to get the point across, if you want to be mean at all). So please review and make me happy. Okay, enough begging. Kida, signing off!