"Haha! Race you to the bottom, Xion!" Roxas called to his best friend, taking off down the mountain. It was just him and her today; Axel didn't like snow very much, and had decided to stay home. The snow was perfect today, and the sky was clear. What a better day to snowboard- this was the first time he and Xion got to do this since last year. Not that the beach and eating sea-salt ice-cream wasn't fun, but that first rush as he boarded down the mountain always took the cake. At least for the winter season.
"Hey, no fair!" the female companion said as Roxas took off before her, but launched herself after him immediately, laughing as she felt the air sweep through her face.
After years of doing this, even on his first day back on the snowboard, he was an expert at it. He was gliding over the snow flawlessly, without an awkward turn, stumble, or being thrown off balance. At the same time, Xion was doing equally as great. It was amazing how similar they were, almost all of their talents were the same and on par with one another. The only reason that the blonde was ahead is because he gave himself a head start.
Everything that happened next faded into a blur. He remembered an avalanche, seeing Xion okay behind him, and then he arrived at the bottom of the mountain...
"Xion? Xion!" she had disappeared. "Xion!- Xion! XION!"
"Xion!" Roxas bolted upright in his single bed, tears stinging his eyes and sweat beading his forehead. Not again... He used his bare arm to wipe the perspiration from his forehead, tears running down his face. The first time he had gotten to sleep this week, and it was plagued by the only thing he wished he couldn't remember.
He switched the position of his legs to leave the bed, taking and wrapping a housecoat around his naked body as he did. Shadows fell under his eyes, and his hair was in disarray- he hadn't taken care of himself since the incident a week ago. Feeling his way in the dark to downstairs, he found his way to the couch, and sobbed into the pillow. Rest definitely wouldn't be visiting the blonde again tonight. "Xion..."
Minutes passed into hours, and the sun found itself crawling up the edge of horizon. Golden rays of light beamed through the window, and illuminated the paling face of the poor boy. It felt warm on his cheek, and it looked beautiful. It reminded him of the days he, Xion, and Axel sat atop the clock tower after school, eating ice-cream, just talking and laughing until the sun had set. If it was winter and the sun was up, it was already past mid-morning, he knew that. But it's not like this was the first time this week that he had watched the sun come up.
The teenage boy flinched when his cell phone started ringing. Oh yeah, he had forgotten to turn it off last night, hadn't he? And now it was eight in the morning. He would have been awake otherwise, anyway.
"H-hello?" he mumbled into it, hoping it wasn't his older brother Cloud or anything. Not that he didn't love Cloud, or Ventus, he just didn't think he could deal with them right now. Both were a little rough around the edges, but protective at the same time.
"Rox, I'm coming to pick you up." It was Axel. "There's..." he gulped audibly. "There's something you should see..."
"Okay, I'll just get dressed," Roxas replied, hanging up. What could the redhead want on a whim at a time like this? He pulled his casual clothing on, and sort of made a half-hearted attempt to make himself presentable. It wasn't long before he could hear the grinding of the wheels of his boyfriend's car come up the driveway. Without much hesitation, he walked outside, and opened the door to the passenger's seat.
A hand reached over to lovingly ruffle the blonde spikes, before backing up out of the driveway and going towards their destination.
"Roxas..." Axel opened his arm towards the smaller boy beside him, who in turn put his hand there. "You probably aren't going to like this- I know I sure didn't- but you'll find out about it soon enough, anyway."
"What is it?" Axel didn't grace him with an answer.
They pulled into the police station, to Roxas's surprised but unquestioning look. Axel patiently went along, waiting for his broken boyfriend. He hated seeing him in this much pain; Xion and Roxas had been very close since they met. They all had been, and Axel had cried a few tears in the process, as well.
"Officer Luxord," the taller of the duo greeted him, and the officer nodded without words and brought them to their destination.
"Xion...!" Roxas mumbled as he entered the room, running to her side. She was incased in ice, almost like she was crystalized.
"We finally found her this morning. We're just sorry we couldn't find her before she got into that state..."
Roxas had to hold himself back from subbing all over again, but his head tilted forward, and a tear did manage to escape his eye. "Xion, I'm sorry... I know it's my fault.. I'm to blame... I'm really the one who did this to you, aren't I?" the salty tear dripped off of his rounded chin, hitting the ice. Some of the more delicate shards shattered off.
"Roxas, I'll drive you ho-" without warning, the blonde ran right past his long-term significant other, and out of the police station. He couldn't cry like this in front of a police officer! He couldn't cry like this in front of Axel...
His feet fled along the pavement, dully hitting it with every step he took. He ran past his house, and headed towards the clock tower.
"Come on, Roxas! We're late; I bet Axel's already waiting for us!"
Roxas sat on the tower, in midday, for the first time in a while. He shivered, seeing as it was winter, and delicate flakes of snow were coming down upon him. The blonde had, stupidly, left a suitable jacket at home. His fingers felt frozen. He might've been sad, but he wasn't stupid; Roxas left before he could get hypothermia.
Upon returning home, he locked himself in the basement, sitting in the bench of his piano. Xion could play the piano, too...
With the strong blue eyes he had, Roxas looked at the songbook that was perched so he cold read the notes.
"Roxas! Demyx is finally going to teach us how to read music today- aren't you excited?"
With a trebling hand, he reached up and took the lovely songbook. Demyx had given him and Xion identical ones as Christmas presents last year, so they could easily learn duets together. Thinking about it, it must've always seemed like he and Xion were lovers, but it was more like they were twins. With different parents and birthdays, of course.
The blonde flipped to the back of the book; several blank, unused pages laid before him. Like a ghost, or a zombie, he tore them out of the book without thinking, and retrieved himself a pen. Never had he actually written music on his own, but he had seen Demyx do it so many times it was almost natural.
Over the course of her life, Xion had stated humming beautiful, yet random, tunes at the moss blissful of times. He collected the tunes on paper, and forged them into a song. Her song. He could almost see the smile on her face again.
"Roxas! First day of Summer Vacation, and you know what that means; we finally get to go to the beach!"
"If you put a shell to your ear, you can hear the ocean."
"You were in a coma for almost two weeks, I'm so glad you're okay. I'll call Axel to let him know."
Tears hit the paper as he wrote, but it didn't stop the beautiful melody of music playing through his head. Why did this have to happen to Xion? He lost someone who was like a little sister to him, and he'd never find someone like her again. Axel was his lover, and Demyx was a friend, but Xion had been his best friend.
He flicked through the pages as he finished. It seemed lovely, but didn't describe that blue-eyed girl quite enough. So he tore out a few more pages, and wrote a remix of the song. By the time he was done, his fingers were numb, and his eyes were swollen red from crying.
"I hope you like it, Xion..."
"Hey! Hey man, wake up!" Demyx was shaking Roxas, who looked up with half-open, glazed-over eyes.
"D-Demyx?"
"And Axel," the redhead snuck up on him from the other side, protectively putting an arm around his shoulder. "I figured it out eventually that you'd be down here."
"How'd you figure?" for the first time since Xion's death, Roxas leaned into the touch. He finally had his feelings out.
"Probably because he looked in through the basement window-"
"I did not!" with Axel's flushed face, Roxas couldn't help but smile and laugh a little.
"Thanks guys," he pursed his lips a little and not missing the invitation, Axel gave him a peck on the lips. He should hae guessed that Axel would have broken in the basement window, again. The redhead seemed to enjoy doing that whenever he was down here.
"Hey, Roxas, where'd you get this music? I've never seen it before," the other blonde stated, looking at the newly-done-in (but old-looking, due to tear stains) sheets of music. "It looks really nice. How'd you find it?"
Roxas looked away from Demyx (which was into Axel's chest), and mumbled, "I wrote it."
Demyx was stunned. "...This is amazing! What's it called? Aha, little Roxas is becoming a musical prodigy~" the sitar-playing blonde sang.
"I haven't thought of anything for a name yet. I wrote it for Xion, though..." almost instantly, the smile turned to a frown. Axel held him close, and Demyx was spewing apologies. "It's alright..."
"But you know..." Demyx said, holding Roxas's shoulder. "If you wrote it for Xion, I'm sure she'd like it if you played it at her funeral."
And so the song was played. At the school memorial for Xion, and for the wake, which was about half a month following the accident. Axel was there both times, watching as Roxas played the piano to it, and Demyx a violin. The funeral waited, and no name was given to the song.
It was over half a year later when the actual funeral commenced. It was held at the beach, with only Xion's parents and some of her closest friends- Roxas, Axel, Demyx, along with her cousin Sora and her friend Riku. Unlike everyone else there at the beach, who was dressed rather formally, the blonde wore the clothes he had the first day he met her, along with a necklace of seashells that had been left by her while he was in his coma.
He looked very out of place, and at the same time, people felt he was the one who only really fit. His looks had so much more meaning.
Only he and Demyx played. Once again, he played the piano (which was fairly hard to drag out to the shore), and the other blonde played a slightly modified version on his sitar. They played while others spread the ashes. Roxas played solo while Demyx allowed some to drift into the ocean, and vice versa- never had they appreciated the song more than this.
While everyone else was silent, they played the remix, which Roxas had decided to appropriately call the 'Final Goodbye Mix'.
And as it was Roxas's turn to spread a few handfuls to the sand and sea before him, he was sure he heard Xion's voice saying, "Roxas, don't be sad. Memories together will never go away. Memories of you and me will always be together... Forever..."
Goodbye... Xion...
"So, did you finally figure out a name for your tribute to Xion?" Axel questioned his lover quietly, holding Roxas close. In turn, Roxas slipped an arm back around his lover's waist, and sat there silently for a few minutes, watching the water sparkle in the sunset.
"Yeah..." he nodded. "Musique Pour La Tristesse De Xion."
Smiling, green eyes looked into blue ones. "I'm sure she loves it."