Maybe it was just Axel. Maybe it was the way he saw the blond. Maybe it was how infuriatingly perfect Roxas seemed to have it when in reality he was trapped in a web of gossip and unreasonable compulsions to do things because they were 'the right things to do'. Then again, maybe it was just Axel. Axel who was feeling worn a little too thin; Axel who was dozing off in math class; Axel who should be taking notes. "The answer, Axel?" He snapped up at the waist wiping away a tiny trail of drool that had begun to form at the corner of his mouth.

The answer. Why him? Hadn't he answered one yesterday? Did he really need this? "Seven x to the eighth power divided by y squared?" He hated putting things in a question tone. Was this Jeopardy? Was this all really necessary?

There seemed to be a lot of questions in his mind at the moment. One of them was why he was asking so many questions. Is this what he got for going to bed early? Brain cells firing off faster than he'd care them to? There were more questions flying around his gray matter than there were notes in a symphony, more than bullets on a battlefield. He felt rather poetic at the moment, but that didn't really seem to matter seeing as this was Algebra 2.

Axel in math class. Roxas a row over and two seats up staring at him with a small smirk tugging at his lips. One boring math teacher with glazed over eyes suddenly jumping to attention to do her job. "And how did you get that?" The redhead was beginning to feel like this was a teacher's go to method when they didn't want to solve something. That or he was wrong. With the way Roxas was trying to hide a smile, he was feeling like it was the latter.

Here began his lengthy explanation as he tried to justify himself to the class. He really wished he didn't have to defend himself. Couldn't they just take him at his word? Or if he was wrong, could the woman at least tell him he was wrong instead of making him waste two minutes of their time with his long winded run through? He realized at the end, that's all she had wanted. Two minutes of class killed. Fifty-one to go.

Once the attention was off him, he could go back to things that mattered. The things his brain prioritized. Questions like why Roxas looked so good in the clothes of a poser, or why he was able to smile so emptily, but get away with it. He knew the blond was sick. Physically. Not mentally. He knew that much, but the books he had caught the blond reading had told him something else as well. That moment he had snagged a glimpse of the other at the library; it had been similar to seeing a chameleon with all the colors stripped out of it. Roxas, when he was all alone, was black and white. He was print. He was easy to read. He was binary. In school, he pretended to be the rainbow. Colorful and beautiful to the eye. Gorgeous enough to please anyone.

The redhead hypothesized that this was strongly due to the blond's parents' desire for him to be the next School President, but in that small moment of secluded intimacy, where Axel's eyes had met Roxas', he had been forced to abandon all his assumption about the blond. Everything had to be reconstructed.

Everyone knew that Roxas was sick. It was the biggest tragedy to humanity since the Black Plague. People when they found out that Roxas' life was nothing more than a wisp of fog destined to disappear in morning's light seemed to stop breathing for a moment. It was as if they believed that if they could abandon that single breath and gift it to the blond, he could keep on living. Roxas on the ever positive side of things pretended he didn't notice these instances of pity. He ignored the stares and questions and just focused on being himself. His sickness, although a part of him, did not define who he was. Observing him some more, Axel decided that this was the key reason why the smaller male was so popular. Roxas put hope and faith in people. Something not a lot of students had anymore.

It was the year 2046 and every human beneath the age of thirty was having an identity crisis. AI- Artificial Intelligence- had taken over command. They performed jobs, did maintenance, cooked, cleaned, and made everything easy living at an affordable price. Most adults loved it. The convenience and freedom it left them was amazing. The robots didn't make mistakes like a human did, but to the youth, it had left them homeless. There was no way for them to find a niche in the world. Where were they to go when mechanical pieces of perfection had left them out in the cold?

School provided some sort of shelter from the impending storm, but Axel, just like everyone else, could feel the tsunami of hopeless confusion that was approaching. "I just don't know." The phrase was the mantra of their age group. Where was there to turn? To run to? Why do anything when something else equally as smart and more capable could out do you? Some days he felt desolation crash in, most of the time, though, he could struggle to withstand it.

The older demographics seemed deaf to their cries. They seemed to believe that their progression of AI would immortalize them. They were also well aware of its downside too. Certain jobs such as teaching in public schools, nursing, and other things that directly needed a human's touch, due to the psychological nature of it, were protected. Sadly, the jobs were not enough in number for their children.

At the same time, World War 3 was being waged online. The government had long lost control of the digital expanse. Their threats of shutting down satellites had been met with hackers crying out and launching their own. Laws passed declaring that they'd shoot such things out of the sky had been quickly annulled as they lost control of their computerized missiles. The battle had moved from the real world to online. The concept that someone would actually physically fight one another seemed gruesome and barbaric. Espionage had become digital with viruses. Warfare had become mental avatars killing each other through ending the electric signals in the brain. Less mess. Less losses. Somehow, there were unspoken rules to all of this. He who had developed them was unknown, a pioneer of them all. The first to transcend the physical realm into The Database. Some theorized it was the first creator, Ansem Berkousky, the original inventor of AI, but this could not be proven.

So how did that all tie in to Roxas in the library and Axel in math class? The redhead picked at his cuticles, before he pulled out his tablet and typed a short message using his classmate communicator to the blond.

Axel Brennant: I saw what you were reading.

He waited with godlike patience for the other to receive his message and react. To his disappointment, the blond didn't even flinch.

Roxas Torm: So? People read, Axel. What's your point?

Biting his lip, Axel glanced up at the teacher who had retreated to her desk. She wasn't monitoring their personal dialog, he hoped.

Axel Brennant: I have something to show you.

Roxas Torm: …okay. You do know normal people at least start with a hello before getting strangely freaky, right?

His cheeks flushed.

Axel Brennant: Right, sorry. Hello.

Roxas Torm: Well it's a little beside the point now. What did you want to show me?

Axel Brennant: You live near Eagle's Peak, right? On Bluebell, right near Lauren Brooke's house?

Roxas Torm: …yes? How do you know this?

Giving a frustrated sigh, he began to type faster.

Axel Brennant: Look, I'm not exactly good with people, and you've ridden my bus for the last five years. You get off on the stop right before mine. I just want to show you something that you might like. It has to do with those books you were reading. The ones on Tuesday? The ones from the RS.

'Restricted section, that's right, Roxas. I saw you.' He rubbed his hands together to create friction for the room was oddly cold. As he waited, he saw what was happening within the other teen's head: painful deliberation and consideration. He wanted to know what Axel could possibly know about anything in the restricted section. If it hadn't been for the fact that their high school was at least fifty years old, there wouldn't even be a restricted section. All those old manuscripts and research papers on hacking would never have been allowed in an 'esteemed institution of learning' like this.

Roxas Torm: This better be good, or I'm reporting you to the office.

Axel Brennant: That's all I needed. See you at the bus.

Never had he been so happy for the bell at the end of school to ring.

Thank you to Layla for Beta and please review if you enjoyed.