Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts. Also, I do not own the rights to Roxas' backstory, but I still consider it a better version than: "he magically appeared when Sora became a heartless".

Warnings: This fiction contains and is not limited to boy/boy moments, the use and abuse of stereotypes, hints at original pairings, very despicable people, emo-Riku, lustful teenagers, underage drinking, a mix of the last two points, questionable situations, morally ambiguous choices and a few, occasional and really shy attempts at humor.

Chapter 13: A Lonely Boy's Story

Many years ago

"Where have you left your skirt, Roxas?"

"I don't want to sit next to Roxas!"

"Why do you keep going to the boys' toilet, Roxas? The girl one suits you more!"

Even since primary school, Roxas' life had not been easy. He had always been a quite shy, insecure and reserved kid, whose mannerisms and looks were way too feminine for him not to be targeted from the usual bullies.

His older brother, despite caring for him, had always been far too busy with high-level sport competitions to realize what he was going through.

But his parents...

His parents had always told him not to listen to what people said. "Be yourself and be honest with yourself." They kept telling him.

And so, one day when he was eight, Roxas decided to try and listen to them; when someone told him that his hairstyle was ridiculous, Roxas forced himself to smile and simply answered: "You really think so? Too bad, because I like it."

From that day on, things started to get better. The first time had been difficult, but after that he slowly learned to ignore people's caustic remarks. Bullies quickly started to get bored at their own inability to get a reaction out of him, so most of them stopped picking on him.

But still, he was lonely. Sure, he had stopped being bullied, but that had not given him what he wanted most.

A friend.

It was only when he was twelve that Roxas started realizing that he was somehow different.

One day of October, Roxas was crossing the school courtyard when he saw him: a tall boy, an upperclassman probably, sitting alone. What hit Roxas the most were not his silky silver-hair or his sharp green eyes. It was his scared look, like he was expecting someone to reach him from behind to prank him. Roxas knew that look way too well, having experienced those feelings first-hand.

He could not bring himself to approach the lonely boy, but he quickly realized that he could not stop thinking about him for the rest of the day.

And so, the day after, he searched for him again. And then the day after that. He didn't do much more than observing him for the few seconds that took him to walk past him, but he knew that he had to talk to that boy.

It was only on the fourth day that Roxas gathered all of his courage and decided to try and sit next to him.

"Hey."

The boy didn't answer, observing the newcomer with his cold eyes, clearly expecting some kind of surprise.

"I... uhm... I'm Roxas. Who are you?" he tried once more.

The silver-haired boy took another long suspicious look, then he finally talked.

"My name is Riku."

Roxas and Riku became fast friends. Roxas quickly realized that they had a lot in common: they both were geeks, both socially awkward and, most importantly, both quite lonely.

As time passed, they learned to open to each other little by little. Riku was there for Roxas when someone painted his hair pink and Roxas was there for Riku when none else would join him for his birthday.

"You know, Roxas? You're my best friend."

"You're my best friend too, Riku."

Things started to change when Riku went to high school. Roxas' brother, Cloud, had introduced him to the 'healthy lifestyle of competitive-level sport' and his body had changed to reflect it. That, coupled to an impressive growth spurt, had managed to earn Riku some interest from a dedicate part of the female school population, not to say an easy ticket to popularity.

He had started competing in the swimming team, where he had managed to catch the interest of Axel and Saïx, who in turn had introduced him to Larxene. In little more than a couple of weeks, he had started hanging out with Seifer's gang and his life had made a 180-degree turn.

Roxas, being one year younger and still in secondary school, could do nothing more than look from the distance at his best friend making some new friends and hoping not to be left behind. He was scared that Riku would forget about little small insignificant him, now that he was all that popular and had found a company more appropriate to his status.

Luckily, Roxas' fears were unfounded: Riku kept on spending time with him every time he wasn't on school. More than that, when he finally got to high school himself, the first thing Riku did was to introduce him to his new friends, making Roxas an active part of the group.

It was around those times that Roxas fully realized that he liked Riku as more than a friend. When he was around him, he was feeling protected and at peace with himself. More than that... he was surprised to realize that he had never noticed before how beautiful he was.

At first, he struggled against those feelings, thinking that they were somehow wrong. It took him nearly a year to finally accept that, yeah, he liked guys and was in love with his best friend. With acceptance came realization that he could've never really be at peace with himself if he had to hide his feelings for the rest of his life. And so, he decided to make the big step, starting with his parents.

One fateful Saturday of July he told them that he was gay.

Roxas was sure that they would have supported him, maybe helped him find a way to tell Riku how he was feeling. He just didn't know how wrong he was.

That Saturday would have been remembered as Roxas' worst day in life. He remembered his mother crying, keeping on asking herself what she had done wrong in raising him. And he remembered his father standing up and walking away, refusing to even look at him.

Roxas had never felt so lonely in his whole life. 'Be yourself and be honest with yourself' they had always told him. Just a bunch of lies! He had been himself, he had told the truth, and now his parents despised him. If that was what being honest amounted to, it clearly wasn't worth it.

Roxas swore to himself that he would've never made the same mistake again: he would have stopped saying what he felt or thought if that would have meant troubles.

But that also meant never telling Riku how he felt towards him.

Well, if things were like that, so be it: better to have him as a friend than not having him at all. Roxas would've kept on saying that to himself for the following year.

Roxas' sophomore year in Twilight High was one of experimentation. He spent nearly every moment trying to keep in check his own emotions. He could not afford to let slip out something that may have let people suspect his feelings for his best friend.

He slowly became less and less inclined to talk about his opinions or thoughts, developing an unsuspected ability to talk about everything and nothing. He quickly realized that it was quite easy to earn people's sympathy by simply telling them what they wanted to hear, he had just to take advantage of that. After all, the world is your oyster.

Since the moment Riku had started dating Kairi, one of the most popular girls in the school, Roxas had started to spend increasingly less time with him, afraid that if they were alone for too long, he may have slipped and said something he may have regretted.

And, of course, the discovery of Riku's relationship had managed to shatter the small part that was left intact of Roxas' heart.

Still, he wanted to be happy for his friend, and so he relegated those feelings away. Sometimes, he felt like he was slowly transforming into a sad sack of lies.

He put away those thoughts too.

But despite all of that, he still treasured every single moment he could spend with his best friend, whom, in turn, seemed to keep on appreciating his company.

Roxas had always been more of a listener than a talker and that trait accentuated with his new attitude. Which meant that one evening, when Riku asked him to go drink something together because he had 'something to discuss about', he wasn't surprised at all, figuring that Riku would've wanted to talk about some quarrel with Kairi or just spend a few hours together.

He could've never expected what was going to happen.

Riku had welcomed him in his house around 8 PM. His parents weren't home, something about 'theater night'. There was something different about his friend, that evening: for once, he was wearing an elegant shirt, quite too elegant for a 'friends evening'. He was unusually clumsy, keeping on dropping things, like he was being really, really nervous. And finally... he smelled really good, was he wearing cologne?

Roxas was waiting for his friend to tell him what he wanted to talk about, but Riku didn't seem intentioned in the slightest to spill the beans, keeping on avoiding the subject. Whatever that could be.

At least until he received a phone call around 9. "Hey." "Alright." "Nope, sorry, I can't tonight." "Stuff to do... listen, I can't talk now, we'll talk tomorrow, ok?" "Uh... bye."

Riku put the phone back in his pocket and after a few seconds of embarrassing silence, Roxas talked.

"Kairi?"

"Kairi."

For some reason, Riku seemed extremely uneasy to talk about his girlfriend.

"Listen." Roxas offered. "If you want to see her, no problem, I can come back another evening."

"No, stay, please!" Riku's strong reaction surprised him. As it did seeing him blush a moment later.

Roxas didn't really understand what was going on, but he figured out his friend needed a little bit of encouragement. "Come on, Riku, you know you can talk about anything with me."

And Riku talked.

Roxas' worst fears became reality the morning after that fateful evening. Even since the morning, he could tell that something was wrong. Scattered groups of people were confabulating everywhere, way more than usual. Even worse: every time he got closer to someone, people stopped talking, pretending that nothing was happening.

Roxas spent the whole morning wondering what was going on, a feeble voice in the back of his mind, slowly growing stronger as time passed, was suggesting him that maybe he himself was the reason people were acting that way. Maybe... somehow... someone had discovered that he was not exactly as straight as he was supposed to be.

The situation exploded on midday, when Roxas reached his usual table in the cafeteria, where his friends were eating. Riku wasn't there.

He took his place, quietly, without saying a word. The atmosphere was icy cold and none was talking.

Then, after a few interminable minutes, the silver mane of his best friend suddenly appeared behind him. Riku looked awful: he had deep dark bags under his eyes and his hair was ruffled. His natural pale complexion was far worse than usual and made him look sick. For the first time in years, Roxas could see in him the same timid, scared boy he had first met when he was twelve.

He was holding a tray with some food on it and was bearing a strange expression, like if he wasn't sure he could sit with them. But when he finally reached their table, Roxas realized that all the seats were taken. Riku stood there, with the tray in his hands, no one looking at him. Not even once.

And then Kairi stood up and pushed him back violently, catching him by surprise and making him fall on his butt, the content of his tray spilling over his clothes.

"You thought it was fun?" she screamed in his face, not even waiting for him to get back on his feet.

Riku, anyway, didn't seem like he was planning on getting back up. He was staring at his shoes, as if waiting for an answer from them.

"I bet you had the time of your life, humiliating me the way you did for so long!" she reiterated when she realized that she wasn't getting an answer. The way she was screaming, theatrically and uselessly loudly, was getting the attention of all of the cafeteria.

"After all I have done for you... I thought we were a couple!" At the hearing of those words, a doubt started to insinuate in Roxas' mind, but... how could she know? "I had projects for the two of us, you know? I wanted to go live together, spending my life with you!" Kairi was blabbering incoherently, her eyes filled with tears and her makeup starting to stream down her face.

And then she said the sentence Roxas was fearing would have come.

"All of this just to find out that you are a fucking queer!"

Roxas didn't even dare to imagine how Riku could have felt at those words. Without even being on the receiving end of those insults, he felt himself breaking inside.

"You're gay, Riku, I know it!" Kairi exclaimed, with complete disdain in his voice. Everyone in the cafeteria was observing the scene. Some people were whispering, some were frowning, but the worst Roxas saw was the everlasting grin on Seifer's face. That idiot was clearly enjoying the situation!

Roxas wanted to scream! To tell Kairi to stop sassing his friend! To punch Seifer so he would stop laughing! To stand up for Riku and tell everyone in there to leave him alone!

But he couldn't.

He was paralyzed in fear that someone might start saying the same things about him. For a split second, he felt relieved, nearly happy that Riku and not himself was being targeted. But then he crossed Riku's gaze, who was still on the ground, not having yet found the strength to get back up.

He averted his look.

Roxas would have hated himself for the rest of his life for having thought something like that, even if just for an instant.

He didn't remember clearly what happened after that: Kairi had probably stopped screaming. Riku must have stood up and walked away.

And Roxas... well, Roxas had done absolutely nothing, watching his best friend walk away, too shocked to react and too scared to be picked on if only he had tried to run behind him.

Roxas tried to call his friend that evening, but Riku kept on refusing his calls. For the next two days, he watched him being mocked, bullied and targeted from various groups of people, not daring to get close to him during school in fear of being outed as well.

He was feeling awful: from one side he wanted to sustain his best friend but, on the other side, the memories of all the bullying of his old school days were still too vivid in his mind.

It was only on the dawn of the third day -with Riku keeping on rejecting his phone calls- that he finally approached him during the morning.

It didn't go well. The second Riku saw him getting closer, he simply stood up and started walking away.

The day after, Roxas tried again, this time trying to corner him before he could run away. He pushed him away and disappeared in the crowd.

The third time Roxas was more determined than ever and, when Riku tried to get away, he ran after him, forcing him to listen. He would never forget the look of despise in Riku's eyes, followed by those three words that would've kept on haunting him for years.

"I hate you!"

That was the last time Roxas talked to Riku.

End Notes: Wow, another way-too-serious-chapter. I wanted to start with shedding some light on Roxas' backstory, but there will be more chapters set in the past (for Riku and for Sora, obviously). Hope you'll like them :).

Preview: Sora, Roxas and Riku are starting to get closer, but that didn't escape the observant eyes of a certain someone...

Next Chapter: Rising Tension