Hello my readers! as you can see, i have decided to upload my new(er) story that i have been gradually working on the past few months as i am in a deep writers block with Addicted. no worries though, i'll try to get chapter 8 up for that as soon as i can. i'm just really stuck on it right now... but in the mean time, i'll be posting this one as well. Be expecting another more lighthearted one where Axel is a Gardener soon. it was inspired by a commercial and my friend's and my crazy yaoi-filled minds xD enjoy!

Chapter 1

I never thought that my parents would die before I turned forty. Who would have known that I would be sitting outside of the emergency room, listening to doctors pass by in a meaningless attempt to bring them back to life when I was wasn't even fifteen? My whole body was numb ever since I had see them in a bloody mess being lifted onto stretchers and driven to the hospital after we had gotten into an accident. I didn't say anything as doctors checked to make sure nothing had happened to me, only nodding or shaking my head when they asked me questions. My gaze was fixed on their unmoving bodies, and if I hadn't been so... painless, I would have noticed the large gash in my arm being attended to.

Twelve hours ago I had been arguing with my parents about the 'friend' I had been seeing. Twelve hours ago I was being driven home from a boy's house that I had snuck off to many times before, only this time getting caught. Twelve hours ago I had a family.

..::_ღ∆๒๒ץкℓиՀღ_::..

I had never been on a plane before. Honestly, if things weren't as they were, I would have been scared out of my mind. But I guess you can gain some things from a loss. Of course, conquering my fear of heights in exchange for my parents' lives wasn't a choice I would have made had I been given the option.

Destiny Islands was a place I only knew from foggy memories of before I was eight years old. The only thing I remembered was the salty smell of the ocean and a few of the faces of people I had played with. Aunt Aerith, Uncle Leon, Uncle Cid, Sora, and Riku. I wondered if it would be any different than Twilight Town. I shivered at the thought of that place. At the thought of my years at Twilight Town High. Of Him. I scratched lightly at the growing itch on my fabric-covered wrist. How long ago had it been since I was able to wear short sleeves in public?

I chuckled darkly at how ignorant the doctors had been. How had they not been able to tell the difference between the fresh bruises from flying out of a car window and year to day old scars and hand-shaped bruises? I guess he was right. No matter what happened he would always get away with it.

The flight attendant announced that we were arriving at our destination and to put on our seatbelts for landing. When I stepped off of the plane, maneuvering carefully between people rushed to get where they were going, I stopped when I heard my name being called. "Roxas! Hey, we're over here!" It was Uncle Leon, and... Uncle Cid was standing next to him. I walked over, wincing when Leon dropped his hand onto my shoulder. "How ya doin', kiddo? Lets go get your stuff and then we can head home. Sora's pretty upset we didn't let him come with us."

I only nodded, but that seemed to be enough because with one final pat on my shoulder (causing me to wince again), we were collecting my two suitcases and backpack and piling into Uncle Cid's truck. The second I had stepped outside my nose was assaulted by the strong smell of ocean.

We drove down to a ferry boat that lead us onto the actual island, all together adding up to about forty minutes of sitting in a cramped, beat up red truck. I felt seasick about ten minutes in. All I have to say is that I would never get on a boat again in my life. Luckily though, after puking my guts out and being able to stand on solid ground for a couple of seconds, the horrible feeling in my stomach subsided and we were able to climb back in the car and drive the rest of the way to the Leonheart household.

The second I stepped foot into that house waves of nostalgia came at me with hurricane force. All of the memories of when we were little. Of when I was happy...

"ROOOXXAASSS!" I whipped around to the door only to see a blur of brown and blue before I was most literally tackled to the ground. "I haven't seen you in forever! Since, like, we were eight!" It took me only a second to notice who this insane brunette still clinging onto me was.

I cracked a small smile, for his sake, and hugged him back lightly after I was able to sit up. "Hey Sora."

When he pulled away I had to stop my eyes from widening a bit. He wasn't the tiny little Sora I knew way back when. His skin was tan from the sun, his hair slightly lighter, and his eyes bluer than ever. Not to mention he had grown a whole lot. We always teased him for being the shortest (even though I was only half an inch taller) and now, he was the same height, if not taller.

"Hey, aren't you forgetting something?" a deeper voice asked from behind him, obscured from view by the mess of spikes known as Sora's hair.

Sora beamed and jumped up, dragging me to my feet with him. "Right! Roxas, you remember Riku, don't you?" He stepped aside to reveal a very tall, muscled boy with long silver hair and kind of greenish blue eyes. I nodded, waving slightly at him.

"Long time no see." he grinned, walking over to place his hand on my head and roughly mess up my half-spiked hair. "How's my favorite blonde?"

"We're all going down to the beach today." Sora said excitedly, keeping me from answering Riku's question. Well, it wasn't like I wanted to answer anyway... "You should come with us, Roxas! It'll be like a celebration of you coming back to the Islands!"

Celebration? What in God's name made him think that now of all times was a time to celebrate? I was going to have to repeat exactly what happened in Twilight Town at school, the whole place reeked of saltwater, I got in a car crash resulting in a giant gash in my arm, my parents had died barely two days ago, and somewhere out there he was pissed and would probably come looking for me, and he wants to celebrate?

"Come on, it'll get your mind off things." Sora smiled sympathetically, touching my arm lightly. I didn't look away for a good ten second before dropping my gaze to the floor with a sigh and mumbling. "Fine..."

"Great! Come on, everybody's waiting!" and with that I was dragged off to Riku's car (apparently he got his drivers license over the summer) and out to the closest beach. Which was right in our backyard. I guessed by the fact that there was a huge bonfire and just a million people there that I would have been going whether I wanted to or not.

I sat on one of the logs that was circling the fire for the entire time, either roasting marshmallows to stuff my face full of smores or just sitting there. Sora tried to convince me to go play volleyball with him and some other people, but I just shook my head and told him I was tired. He frowned but left me alone.

The rest of the night consisted of everyone huddled around the fire for warmth and light, everyone just joining in on the ever-changing conversation. I stared at my soda, swishing the clear bubbly liquid around in its can. Sprite was my favorite, but I just couldn't get myself to drink it with the horrible twisting in my stomach. Maybe I had too many smores...

"Roxas!" I snapped my head up at the sound of my name and saw Sora start to grin. "You remember Namine, right?" he said, and I followed my gaze to the blonde girl next to him, who waved at me shyly.

I did a quick scanning of memories in my head real quick until I remembered her. Namine. Everyone always mistook us as twins. I had had a crush on her since I was five, and that went on until I was ten. I cried and cried when we were moving, saying I didn't want to leave and that I wanted to stay with Namine. I complained about it for weeks afterwards, too; about how they completely ruined my chances with her. But that was all before I started liking guys... "Yeah." I nodded, directing my gaze on her. Her hair was lighter, but she was still just as pale as I remembered. At least some things hadn't changed.

"Are you feeling alright? You look sick..." she said, the best intention at heart. Never once had Namine done something to hurt someone, even if sometimes her comments could be taken the wrong way. She was just honest, was all.

Oh god, too many smores... I sprinted to the trashcan, which was luckily a good couple yards away. Not lucky that I had to run farther, but lucky because no one would be able to hear me.

"Rox, you okay?" Sora asked frantically, running over to me and patting my back lightly.

I nodded breathlessly, hunched over the trashcan with an even worse odor than before, gripping both sides for support. "Too much junk food, I guess." I said, taking a few deep breathes before standing upright again. I started to walk towards the group again but he grabbed my arm.

"Are you sure you're okay?" I could see the worry that filled his eyes, and it was because of more than just the stomachache. "I mean, you don't have to push yourself. You're going through a lot and I... I'm just worried about you." At this he clapped his hands together and bowed his head in a sort of pleading way. "So if there's anything I can do you let me know, okay? Don't bottle everything up inside! It's not healthy!"

If only he knew... I sighed, but smiled at him. "Okay."

"Now what do you say we take you home?" he grinned. "I left my backpack in Riku's car, so we'll have to go get him real quick, kay?" I nodded as he carefully dragged me back to the group and announced we were leaving, then grabbing Riku and dragging both of us to the silver one's car. It took Sora a lot of convincing to get Riku to allow me to ride in his car, for fear of me puking all over the back seat of his brand new convertible. I wanted to do just that to see if he would cry about me ruining his 'baby'. Lucky for him I couldn't puke on command...

When we arrived back at Sora's (our?) house it was already past midnight. Didn't really matter to me; I hadn't slept in three days, and tonight would be the fourth. Even when I did sleep, it wasn't like I got more than four hours in anyway. Sora fell asleep almost instantly after he said goodnight to Riku. At the moment we were sharing a bed. They hadn't gotten me one yet, and there weren't any extra rooms or beds in the house. At least Sora's bed was full sized... I sighed and rolled over so I wasn't facing him anymore and closed my eyes, but no matter how tired I was, I just couldn't sleep.

..::_ღ∆๒๒ץкℓиՀღ_::..

I wasn't surprised that no one was awake when I came downstairs at five A.M. the next morning. It was Sunday, after all. Most people were enjoying their last day of sleeping in before work or school. But considering I hadn't slept a wink the night before, the second the sky started to get lighter I was on my feet and making my way down the stairs as quietly as I could. At first I was just sitting at the island in the center of the kitchen, but after a couple minutes I was filling the coffee maker with water and coffee beans. I spent the remainder of the time searching the fridge for creamer (they actually had a lot of different flavors; I chose the vanilla-caramel one) and sitting at the island on one of the three stools that occupied it.

"Your up early." I spun around to see Leon standing at the edge of the kitchen, his eyes still hazy with sleep. "I remember when you were the crabbiest kid ever if you woke up before eleven."

I shrugged, pouring myself my coffee and heading up the stairs to the room I was sharing with Sora. Once inside, I picked out my clothes for the day, took a few sips of my scalding cup of coffee, and went to take a shower. I must have stayed in there for more than an hour, mostly just staring off into space as the water that was much too hot loosened my tense muscles until I had used up every last drop of hot water. Only when I started shivering did I finally step out to dry off and get dressed. I brushed my teeth and ran my fingers through my hair (down on the left and up on the right to get my spiky look), trusting that it looked fine since I couldn't see myself in the mirror from all of the fog on it.

By the time I finally came out of the bathroom it was seven, and my coffee was cooling off. Sora was still sound asleep, snoring softly and half of his body hanging off the side of his bed. I walked past my sleeping cousin and to my bag sitting by his nightstand, sitting on the floor next to it and taking out my laptop.

Sora woke up two hours later, around nine. I watched him groan and roll off the bed in what seemed like slow motion before he trudged slowly out the door, the shower coming on a couple minutes later. It was then that I decided to check my phone for the first time in two days.

I wished I had never done that.

Four missed calls, three voicemails, thirteen text messages, and two picture messages. All from the same person. I knew it was a stupid idea, but I scrolled through all of the messages.

'come over tonight'

'where are you?'

'Roxas, you have fifteen minutes to get your ass over here'

'no one is at your house'

'answer me'

' where did you run off to?'

'I'm going to find you, Roxas'

'I miss you'

'you cant run from me'

'tell me where you are'

'I heard what happened. Is poor roxy just heartbroken?'

'finding you will be easy, so why don't you just tell me where you are?'

'roxas'

My hands were shaking, but I moved onto the voice messages anyway. At least one of them was from Leon... but the other two... I dropped my phone. My voice had gone else ware, or else I would have been screaming. All I could do was open my mouth and pray that his words weren't true.

"Roxas? Roxas!" Sora yelled, running over to me. When had the water stopped? "Roxas are you okay? You're so pale! And you're shaking, Roxas, what happened?"

No. I couldn't let him know. Knowing Sora, if he found out anything was wrong he would never leave me alone. I couldn't make him worry like that. With a few shakes of the head to clear my thoughts, I smiled and nodded. "I'm fine. I was just surprised, is all. A friend of mine said that he finally got a girlfriend."

He didn't look convinced, but that didn't stop him from nodding. "Alright... but if there's anything bothering you, you can tell me okay?" he glanced over his shoulder towards the door, sniffing the air a bit, and then turned back to me with a grin. "I smell breakfast!" he jumped up, grabbed my hand, and pulled me down the stairs to the kitchen where Leon had cooked up some eggs and bacon. I sat at the counter and poked at my food, every now and then taking a small bite of my eggs.

"Your bed came in today, Roxas." Leon said after he had gotten his food and was sitting next to us at the dinner table. "Your uncle Cid and I are going to go get it and set it up in your room, so why don't you and Sora go out and get you some things? I know you need school supplies and your starting tomorrow, and maybe some clothes that wont make you melt when you walk outside."

I nodded, dumping my uneaten food into the garbage disposal and going to pick out my shoes from Sora's room while he finished eating. We left the house around ten thirty, Riku waiting patiently for us outside. I didn't really understand the relationship between those two. It was easy to see how much Riku changed when he was with Sora. He had always been a bit of a bully to me, and yet acted like his whole world revolved around my cousin. I had only been around them for a day, but based on that and when I was still living here, I had enough knowledge to know that whenever I saw Sora, more often than not Riku wouldn't be too far off.

We drove down to the mall, which was less than ten minutes away. I had to admit, living on an island had it's perks; it didn't take thirty minutes to get where you wanted to go, and that was when the roads were clear. The second we stepped foot in the mall, Sora was dragging me to different stores so fast I had no time to think. We spent about twenty minutes in each store, mostly him and Riku picking out clothes for me that I would never wear. Occasionally they would try to get me to try things on, but anything that didn't have long sleeves I refused.

"Come on, Roxas!" Sora begged, pushing the pile of shirts towards me. "How will we know if they fit unless you try them on?"

"I'm not gonna do it." I said, crossing my arms.

"Please?"

"No"

"Why not?"

"Just no."

Sora pouted and turned to Riku, who was busy browsing through the numerous amounts of t-shirts. "Riku? Can't you tell Roxas to try on at least one outfit?"

"He doesn't have to if he doesn't want to, Sora." Riku sighed, handing him a few more shirts. "Lets go get some food, I'm hungry."

"Oh yeah! I totally forgot about food!" Sora grinned, cheering up immediately. "Alright, lets go pay for these and then it's onward to the food court!"

Riku grinned, for the first time directing his gaze solely on me. His eyes held a sort of knowing, as if he could tell I was anxious. And as if on cue, my phone began buzzing in my pocket. I tensed automatically, hesitating to reach into my pocket. I didn't want to see. I knew who it was.

"Aren't you going to get that?" Sora asked, suddenly back and with three bags full of clothes and leaning over my shoulder.

"No. It's not important..." I said quietly, but I couldn't help the shivers that crept up my spine at the thought of what would happen once he found me. At least I could pretend to enjoy my time here, for now.