"Roxas?"
"Yeah?"
"What
did you do in Organization 13?"
He gave me a quizzical look.
As if I didn't already know.
"They asked you to do this,
didn't they?"
I grimaced.
He smiled slightly and said,
"Oh, by the way, you guys can come out now."
"Hey,
how'd you know we were here?" asked Sora.
He, Riku, and Kairi
stepped out guiltily from behind a couple of palm trees.
"It
was Sora's idea," accused Riku, trying to sound innocent.
Roxas
smiled and answered sarcastically, "Right."
I sighed, "You
didn't have to come. I could have gotten him to tell you without you
being here."
"No offense Namine, but you're terrible at getting anyone to what you want," said Sora, "Besides you needed moral support."
"Hey
guys, I have a question," Sora, Riku, and Kairi turned to face
him, "If you guys wanted to know what happened when I was in
Organization, why didn't you just ask Namine to tell you?"
"Well,
me and Sora woulda just asked Namine," Kairi explained, "But
Riku wanted Roxas to tell his own story. He said something about
'accepting the past'.
Riku and Roxas exchanged a look. After we
first became our own selves, he and Riku had gotten very close. Maybe
they were talking about darkness.
Roxas, still distracting them
from their question, inquired, "And why is my story any more
important than Namine's or Riku's?"
I was shocked. Roxas
would never deflect a question at someone else. Unless of course he
really did want me to answer that question. But, that question?
Mentioning Castle Oblivion still hurt. And did he really want to know
how much I cared for Sora while he was there? Roxas has always been a
straightforward person, but still.
Kairi's voice tore me away from
my thoughts, "Oh, uh, I guess we never thought about it. I mean,
what do we need to know about Riku?"
Roxas
raised his eyebrows and said, "Do you know how he denied darkness?
As in completely rejected it?"
"Well, wouldn't that be a
good thing?" asked Sora.
"Like your friend Leon said,
there's darkness in every heart. Not counting Princesses of Heart,"
he said, glancing at Kairi, "But a person needs darkness just as
much as light. Without darkness, your soul will torn apart."
They
all stared at him.
Kairi, the first to snap out of it, said
quietly, "Why?"
"Well, your soul needs darkness as
much as it needs light. But when your hearts denies darkness, your
soul puts up a fight. In a battle between your soul and your heart,
your hearts gonna win."
I decided to intervene. Roxas was
over doing it.
"Roxas, please stop changing the
subject."
Riku, deciding that this was his chance to get them
away from the subject of his darkness, agreed, "Yeah, get on
with it."
Sora, now realizing he had been duped, said, "So
will ya?"
Roxas gave me a
darn, I almost had them look.
"I...I
will. But not now. Not until Namine admits to her's."
"W-Why?"
I stammered.
Look, Namine, I doss my story. But so do you. It's
not like I don't know you. It's not like I can't tell that you have a
lot on your chest."
Those words really pierced me. He did
know
me better than anyone else. But Sora...
I couldn't answer that
question. I gave him a pleading look. He nodded, but it didn't
mean he was letting me off the hook. It meant that he understood that
I wasn't ready. Not yet. I loved how he could just understand those
things.
He stared at the sunset. We had talked to the end of the day. He got up and whispered into my ear, "Tell me when you change your mind."
Would
I change my mind? I wanted Roxas to be happy. And, though I knew his
story, did he? I had agreed to ask him to tell Sora, Riku, and Kairi
because I thought it would help him understand himself. Was he
returning the favor?
I got up as well and followed Roxas. Sora,
Riku, and Kairi went off to their own houses. Roxas and I boarded at
the boarding school Selphie's family owned. They had extra rooms this
year, so we were able to get two rooms. We did some accounting and
jobs to pay for our rent.
Roxas walked to his room east-facing room.. Roxas liked watching the sunrise. Sometimes I would come watch it with him. We would spend a quiet moment together, just the two of us. Those moments reminded me of the times I shared with Roxas when he was in Organization XIII
"Hey
Namine, the moon isn't out in dark ocean world tonight. Wanna come
see it with me?"
I
smiled. I always enjoyed going places with Roxas.
"Of
course."
I
stepped through the dark portal he opened. At first, I thought we
were still in the sort of sub dimension that we went through when we
use a dark portal. I realized now that that was not true. The dark
ocean world is completely devoid of light, except for the moon.
Tonight the moon was not there.
"Scary,
isn't it?"
"Oh,
uh, yeah."
I
was so glad he was here. I might not have been able to get back
without him. And it was comforting to have someone with you in a
completely dark place.
We
both sat down. This was what I was, right? Something completely
devoid of anything, more so than a regular nobody.
Roxas,
sensing my sadness, grabbed my hand. We just sat there, silent,
looking at nothing.
I
tried to sleep, but I couldn't get what we discussed to day out of my
mind. Would letting them know me help me learn about myself?It was
all so confusing.
Since I could not fall asleep, I just lay
there, think, thinking...
