My first-ever fanfic. You may notice some parts have been changed; I'm cleaning up Masks a bit.

I clicked the play button on the Youtube video. This particular song was "Bring Me to Life", by Evanescence. Don't ask me why I was singing along, my voice is good, not great, and I'm not vain, but I just like singing. My sketchbook was in front of me, but I had no idea what to draw.

The video credits for the song disappeared and Amy Lee's voice drifted into my ear, as I began to sing along.

"How can you see into my eyes, like open doors…" we crooned.

"Leading you down into my core, where I've become so numb…" Cue a guitar riff.

"Without a soul, oh, oh, oh, oh ohhhhh..."

"My spirit's sleeping somewhere cold, and until you find it there and lead, it, back, home."

"WAKE ME UP—"

That was when my phone rang. I sighed and answered.

It was my best friend, Kairi.

"Hey Namine, how are you?" she all but screamed into the phone.

"Goddammit, Kairi, I'm not deaf, you know! What is it?" I growled, rubbing my ringing ear.

"Sora asked me out! SORAASKEDMEOUT! SORAASKEDMEOUT! SORAASKEDMEOUT!"

I had to calm the girl before she died of asphyxiation by screaming.

"That's nice. And?" I inquired.

"He's hot as hell! He's the star of the track team! Did I also mention he's so very FREAKING HOT?" Kairi yelled back. "Oh, and Roxas asked about you."

My mind was still registering the words describing Sora, and I didn't even catch what she said last. Then I did, and my brain shut down for several seconds.

"Tell him to fuck off," I said in a deadpan tone. "I hate him. Remember what happened in the girl's locker room?"

"Oh come on, every girl fainted of arousal right then and there. He was shirtless! Why did you scream? You had the perfect chance right there!"

"And why are you going on about him being shirtless? I thought you had a crush on Sora."

"Because you need a boyfri—sorry. I forgot about—yeah…" she mumbled.

Oh yeah, I remembered Xigbar alright. We all thought he was just a kind senior who took pity on an itty-bitty freshman.

We also didn't know that he'd be stupid enough to proposition me in front of all of my friends.

"So? Just because he asked me out doesn't mean he's automatically my boyfriend."

"But you too could hit it off!"

"Bullshit of the first order."

It wasn't because of my looks that I felt I would never get Roxas. I knew from the admiring looks guys frequently gave me that I was quite pretty.

But a roadblock in any sort of relationship with Roxas was his personality. He was more arrogant than Napoleon, Caesar, Achilles, and Agamemnon combined. Wait, were those four all arrogant? I think so—they're all accomplished people—but you get my point.

Anyways…Roxas's voice only magnified his stuck-up manner. It was deep, slimy, snide, and effing DISGUSTING to me. The locker room incident only magnified my negative impressions of that rat-bastard. Yeah, he was hot, but looks make the perfect man not.

To top it off, I was a freshman at Kingdom Key High. He was a sophomore, who had failed that grade TWICE. Meaning he was three years older than me. That may not seem like a big problem for other people—my dad is four years older than my mom—but I'm still creeped out by the fact a senior is asking me out.

"Namine? You're creeped out by Roxas?" Kairi asked.

Oh SHIT, I ACTUALLY SAID THAT ALOUD? Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap…

"No!" I retorted.

"Liar, but I'll see you at school. Bye!" Kairi hung up before I could say bye.

I muttered something incoherent about killing Kairi with a chainsaw, before I resumed the video.

Then I got an idea about what to draw. Should I make some scene in Neon Genesis Evangelion, perhaps? What? I like NGE. I settled for Unit 01 killing Zeruel with a prog knife. I drew a caricature of Kairi's face in place of the Angel's mask. Ha.

It was getting late once I'd finished the sketch. I plopped down on my bed, set the alarm clock to eight, and closed the light. I lay in the dark for what seemed hours, just thinking. Roxas asked about me? Seriously?

Just a side note, this is a first-person POV fic, meaning that Namine's views may be biased.

This bias will come up later, if not directly...