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Why is Love so Hard to Find?

written by:

hikari - aozora

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xxo0oxx

Author's Note: My latest creation, based on certain things that happened in my real school and stuff, changed a little bit, of course, to make it true "fan fiction." And I'm not saying I'm the main character, though I very well might be, but she could also be a good friend who gave me this inspiration, but I didn't say anything. You shall never know the truth! (Unless of course I said something about it earlier ... disregard anything you may have heard! I lie, I tell you, lie!) Mwahaha!

I asked you guys to vote on whether I should make it a Sora x Kairi pairing, a Roxas x Kairi pairing, or a Roxas x Namine pairing, and the Roxmine one by a landslide! Well, of course, by landslide, I mean a whole two votes. The Roxiri idea was not very popular. I didn't get a single vote for that.

So here you go! A fresh, new Roxas x Namine fan fiction full of drama, romance, and the real-life tribulations of eigth graders sick and tired of their ghetto middle school! (That's really the way it was, believe me. Man, am I happy to be outta there.Ghetto was the way my friend, portrayed in the story as Rikku, liked to put it.) Of course, it wouldn't be fiction unless I tweaked the events a little bit and changed the characters' names to conceal their identity (it's for their own safety), but who reads these author's notes anyway? Coincidentally enough, the characters I chose to portray the real people and such actually fit their personalities.It's weird how that works out ... and I had to think about it for a long time, too. That's partly why it took me so long to get this story up and running ... the other part being that school started (high school! I'm a freshman ... they call us "fish") and I was more worried about getting eaten by upperclassmen than writing a new fan fiction. (There are some ... ahem ... interesting sophmores in my biology class ...)

Okay! Now, the moment you've all been waiting for! (Well, not really, but it sounds so much more intriguing that way.) My newest concauction -- "Why is Love so Hard to Find?" Read, review, and, most of all, enjoy! Hah, that makes it sound so much like it's a piece of food, when I put it that way XD!

xxo0oxx

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy, and/or Disney characters used in this story. I merely own the plot of the story and any OC's that may end up stuck in there somewhere.

xxo0oxx

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'Thought Text'

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Really Emphasized Text

xxo0oxx

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Chapter One

It was the beginning of the end

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A new year. The last year.

Well, here, anyway.

I stepped into the tan-brick building with my head held high, a false smile on my face. It's not like I was trying to hide anything; I was only attempting to make a statement.

This was eighth grade, after all. We were supposed to be setting an example for the younger, midget-versions of ourselves that roamed the other corridors. We were supposed to be boosting their confidence, lying to them through our teeth about how exciting middle school was going to be, about how much fun we had when we were in their grade.

That was my excuse, at least.

Honestly, I was just trying to fit in, trying to be what I obviously wasn't ... But they didn't know that. They didn't know me. They just saw me as they always did -- that geeky, blonde-haired kid that was always drawing-or-something, who was in choir-or-something, who hung out with the smart-kids-or-whatever, blah, blah, blah. Still, I stood tall, feigning confidence, and weaved my way through the dense traffic of other hallway-goers to my first class ... my last first class ...

First days, in my opinion, were overrated.

New years were supposed to mean fresh starts, a clean slate, full of new students to meet and opportunities galore ... Chances to make new, better first impressions ... A way to be noticed, for once ...

But walking these halls, I was practically invisible.

Sure, they noticed that a few things were different ...

"I love what you did to your hair!"

'It's called a straightening iron. Not a big deal.'

"It looks lighter."

'Um, not really.'

"Did you get taller?"

'Psh. Yeah. Like an inch, maybe.'

"Are you losing weight?"

'No. I just got "taller."'

... very few, on that note ...

But not enough to matter. They still didn't notice me.

And I knew they never would. 'How silly of me to hope so.'

So I struggled through the mob of students and squeezed into my first class, tossing my books under the first empty desk I could locate and sliding into the seat. All around me were familiar faces -- tossing paper airplanes, dangling their feet over the edge of the desks, slamming their books hard onto the wood, poking their neighbors, exchanging summer memories, fixing their hair, joking and pointing, smiling, and laughing, and shouting -- the same group of people I had been classmates with since elementary school, and naturally, the same first-day chaos that came with the lot.

They were all the same, in a way, and so was I -- we all thought alike, you could say, and that's why we had always been together. Maybe that's why I felt so invisible ... because I blended into them, going largely unnoticed by the rest of the population. I was just another one of them -- miniscule and unimportant on my own ... and maybe that's why, in turn, I sought to stand out.

I wanted to be different ... in a good way.

Shaking my head to rid it of these negative thoughts, I slid my sketchbook out from beneath my chair and laid it flat on the desk in front of me. Sliding a pencil out from within it's metal coils, I opened it, flipping past several pages until I came to my latest piece of work, swiftly scribbling away as I awaited the first bell.

"Namine!"

I was aware of a person now occupying the seat to the left of me me and a rather loud thud! that sounded as her own books smacked against the desk. She swiveled in her chair and placed her elbows beside my sketchbook, her head resting in her palms.

"Oh, hey, Yuna," I replied in a less-than-enthusiastic tone, not once taking my eyes away from my work. I was busy. And it's not like she would begrudge me for it, anyway. She was, afterall, one of my best friends.

"How was your summer?" she asked me, not really caring if I answered her or not, just trying to make conversation in the midst of an already deafening classroom. But before I could answer her, she craned her neck to see the contents of my sketchbook and asked, "Whatcha doing? Drawing?"

"Writing," I corrected her. It was a common mistake, but I was surprised that she made it. She was the artist -- a far better one than I would ever be.

"Right," she said with a shrug. "My bad." She flicked the sketchbook's metal rings. "It always confuses me, since I have one just like it, you know, but I draw in mine."

I knew.

"Why do you write in a sketchbook, anyway?" she asked.

I cocked my head to the side and tilted the paper just a tad. "I dunno," I replied. "I guess I don't like those little lines. They're so ... controlling. I can fit as much as I want onto a page like this."

"Yeah, I guess," she said, and then she suddenly shouted, "Rikku!"

There was another familiar thud to my right, a frustrated, high-pitched sigh, and the said blonde sat down. Her wavy hair was hanging in two braided pigtails on either side of her neck, and despite the exhaustion expressed in her face, she flashed us a toothy grin. "Yuna! Nami -- ooh! Working on a story?"

Well, at least she remembered.

I nodded, and as if on cue, the sound of the bell rang throughout the school, and the classroom cleared immediately. Every student found their seat, and from within the crowd, the teacher emerged. She began speaking, introducing herself as Ms. Janssen, and what she said next, I did not hear. I was too busy scanning the room, eyeing each and every one of the students, observing just how much they had changed, or hadn't. My gaze fell upon my friends, my enemies, the popular girls, the math whiz, the all-star, the computer geek, last-year's crush ...

There he was, sitting straight in front of me, on the opposite side of the room, playing games on his cell phone under the desk, his captivating, azure blue eyes seemingly fixed on the tan wood, his spiky, chocolate brown hair even more attractively unruly than it was the last time I laid eyes on him ...

Sora.

But really, I don't know what I saw in him, anyway.

He was a good friend ... in a sense, and maybe that was why. Maybe it was because he conversed with me like he had nothing to hide. Maybe it was because around him, I didn't feel as ignored. Maybe it was because he seemed to understand, and confided that he trusted me. Or maybe, it was because the way that he used me made me feel like he cared.

Whatever the reason, I'm over him now.

Though it's strange ... how I thought I never would be ...

Suddenly, my train of thought was interrupted by several quick jabs to the side with the end of a pencil. I turned to face Rikku, who leaned in ever so slightly, as if she had something to say. I listened.

"Hey, you seen Selphie?" she asked me in a hushed tone, though honestly, no one could have heard her over the teacher's monotonous droning, anyway.

I shook my head. "No," I replied, and, noticing that the pencil in her hands was my own, I snatched it from her and continued with my work. It was much more interesting and, to me, important than what the teacher had to say anyway.

"Oh." Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rikku lean forward in her seat, stretching to see past the row of heads to her left. "Never mind," she told me. "I see her now. Way at the end. Tifa and Paine, too."

"Okay," I said, the word embedded in a sigh, and I squeezed in two more words to the page before I flipped to a clean sheet. To tell the truth, I wasn't really listening to her, however cruel of a friend I might sound in saying so. It was the first day of school, the first day of eighth grade, and I had failed to learn from my past mistakes. I had gotten my hopes up ... again. Therefore, I wasn't in a very good mood.

I had wanted so much more than I was given, and it was unsatisfying. I wanted to fit in, and to do so I had tried to stand out, but apparently, all I had succeeded in doing was camoflauging myself even more. I had tried and tried and tried for so long ... I guess that keeping my emotions to myself was my wasy of admitting defeat.

Sure, I had a circle of friends ... however short the diameter may have measured. I had Yuna and Rikku and Selphie and Paine and Tifa ... but that was about it. For so long I had tried to convince myself that their friendship was enough ... and that was just another task that I had failed.

It was true. It had to be true.

But I didn't believe much of anything, anymore.

I heaved a sigh, and let my gaze linger on the very last word I had written -- "was."

Such a simple word, yet so fitting.

And my mind began to wander ...

There was a time in my life when I was happy, I was content and pleased with what I had. I was cheerful, positive, and I seized every day, yearning to reach my full potential. There was nothing that could get in my way, it seemed.

But that was then. Everything had changed since then, and I found myself powerless to stop it.

Now, life seemed almost impossible.

So as I sat there, surrounded by the same familiar faces, for the last time before we went our seperate ways, all I could manage were hazy recollections of times past, times full of smiles and laughter, when we were all young, naive, and oblivious to the treaturous things that awaited us outside the safe haven of those blissful days.

And I know I wasn't the only one.

It all happened so fast, and nobody saw it coming. It hit like a ton of bricks slapped to the head, and I couldn't have been the only one hurting.

In fact, I had seen it ... how it hurt the others, how it hurt my friends.

Yuna ... she cried, overwhelmed by it, and unable to keep up. She tried to hide it with a smile, a laugh, and an oddly-placed witty remark, but through it all, I could see her pain, all reflected in her eyes.

Rikku ... the normally bouncy, jubilant girl grew somewhat quiet and reserved, still speaking, but not as often as she used to. She built a brick wall, making her tough, sure, but at the same time pushing us away. She credited it with maturity, but her lies didn't fool us.

Selphie ... I can remember a time when she was carefree, confident, and always spoke her mind. When it hit, her personality amplified, almost as if she was broken. Now, her laughter was too frequent to be sincere, merely disguising her problems.

Paine ... in the past she was a clever, bright, and insightful child, helpful to all. But over time, as her intellect grew, the way about her shifted, and she became dark, pessimistic, and at times, violent. With her, we just didn't understand.

Tifa ... she had always been strong, but even she went through a change. She grew distant, preferring a different crowd at times, encircling herself with people of Kairi, Yuffie, Rinoa, and Aerith's status. Sure, she kept in touch, but it wasn't the same.

As for myself ... I grew quiet, anxious, and unsettled. I watched the changes take place, and did nothing.

Nothing.

Not that there was anything I could have done.

But I should have at least tried.

We fell apart, crumbled to pieces in plain sight, but we tried to ignore it, tried to act like nothing was happening. And yet, after all of our efforts, we are still breaking, still hurting, afraid that things will never be the same as they were.

Still, we go about our lives as if nothing is wrong, when really, everything is.

We are invisible, like ghosts, or shadows -- very much there, but completely unseen.

In our own way, we pleaded for help, but we were confident that no one would.

As my eyes drooped closed in a prolonged blink, and I became part of the darkness again, another bell rang out, and the students all rose. It was time to move on.

Move on.

Easier said than done.

I closed my sketchbook and tucked my pencil safely in the bindings, stacking the item gently on top of my other books. Then, I slid out from between the desk and chair, turning on my heels, and slowly merging with the stream of students as we poured out of the room ... just like any other day.

But it wasn't.

It was the beginning of the end.

And I was one class closer.

xxo0oxx

Author's Note: Depressing? I know. I had to establish that the year started on a negative note, so that the storyline will seem more dynamic, and the events incorperated will be all the more dramatic. We all love drama, don't we? (Well, not in real life, of course, but it makes things so much more interesting in fan fictions, doesn't it?) Besides, the fact that this is based on life gives me an excuse to spice it up a bit! I've done my fan fiction experimenting with oneshots, Bittersweet Melody, and such, and I think I know how to make this one better. I've learned from my mistakes, and reviews are always helpful, too!

Love it? Hate it? Both? Review, and I promise you a sugary treat! Believe me, anything you throw at me, I'll completely understand. Seriously, don't hold back. I know this chapter was a little dark, but it will lighten up ... or will it? You'll just have to read and review to find out!

xxo0oxx

Next Chapter: The lunchtime ramblings were pointless, as usual.

xxo0oxx