Roxas was staring at her. He had been for a while now, maybe ever since they had sat down, but Xion had been too happily consumed with eating her ice cream to notice. It wasn't until she lifted her head, about to open her mouth and say something or another, only for whatever thought she'd been about to share to flee her mind the moment she saw that Roxas' gaze was fixed squarely on the top of her head.
Maybe the silence should have clued her in but that in itself wasn't unusual - their little trio was capable of sitting in silence for long stretches of time, forsaking words and communicating through sideways grins, playful nudges, and, though Axel would surely deny it if she or Roxas ever said anything, soft, wondering glances and even softer eyes. The silence wasn't awkward; it was nice, peaceful, and it only made Xion appreciate how easy everything with them was. So few things for her ever were but Roxas and Axel seemed to be the constant exception. Xion could just be with them and she appreciated that most of all, that she could just sit and glow with the knowledge that she was with her two favorite people in the world, that to them she would never be anything less than what she was - their friend.
Still, this was the first time she's caught one of them staring at the top of her head. Roxas' brow was furrowed and Xion had to stifle a flash of worry because it only ever did that when he was worried or thinking really hard about something. She couldn't possibly imagine what though, and had to resist reaching ice cream-sticky fingers up to her head and feeling for something strange. Roxas would tell her, right?
Normally she'd feel confident if that were the case but today Roxas seemed to be off in his own little world. If this had played out like it normally did, he should've hastily averted his eyes by now, giving her a shrug and a sheepish smile. This time his gaze persisted; he hadn't noticed that she'd noticed he was so apparently lost in thought.
Xion blinked and tucked a stray hair behind her ear. She smiled, a bit awkwardly at first, but it quickly turned teasing.
"Um, Roxas? Your ice cream is dripping all over your hand."
Roxas' gaze finally wandered below her hairline and he stared blankly at her for a couple seconds before jerking to life. Xion couldn't help but laugh, especially when he caught sight of his fingers and made a disgusted face. She watched him use his cloak to wipe his fingers clean and thought it was a good thing their cloaks were black. It made it easier to hide stains.
"Oh, I, uh, hadn't noticed," Roxas said, and Xion thought no, really.
"Is there a mushroom growing out the side of my head or something?" she asked, only half joking. Axel told her once that there was a world where that could happen to people and she hadn't been to it yet, she didn't think. She wondered how long she could hide something like that from Saix. Maybe if she kept her hood up all times around everyone but Roxas and Axel?
Roxas shook his head, grinning a little. "No, nothing like that. It's just..." His grin faded and he looked unsure for just a second before blurting out, "I think you're taller than me!"
Xion blinked again. "Really?" she said.
He was nodding enthusiastically now. "Yeah."
Well, she supposed there was only one way to find out. Xion got to her feet, Roxas quickly following after her, and she spanned a measuring hand over the top of her head and then Roxas'.
Huh, she thought. She was taller than him, even if it was only by half an inch.
She'd never really given thought to their heights before. It had always felt like they were pretty much equal in height, something that was confirmed when they were out on a mission together and it started raining; she grinned at the memory of Roxas' hair lying flat on his head for the first time in all that she's known him. Whatever little extra height he had on her before was due to his spikes but now they didn't even make a difference. Xion wondered when she had outgrown him.
Truthfully, it felt more than a little nice. It felt a lot like when she completed a mission successfully in almost no time at all, like this slight inch was its own kind of victory.
"Wow," she said, laughing in delight. "I really am!"
Roxas laughed with her and she wondered why he wasn't mad. It seemed silly to her but height was a point of contention amongst some of the males she'd idly observed. Then again, this was Roxas; he was like absolutely no one in the Organization so it'd make sense that that would extend to normal human male behavior.
She laid the palm of her hand flat on his head and mussed up his hair. "You're so tiny," she said, letting a teasing note creep into her voice. Roxas rolled his eyes and swatted her hand away, but he was still grinning so she knew he didn't mind.
"Hey now," he said. "Don't get a big head about this, alright? You're hardly towering over me."
"Well, maybe not towering," she conceded, only for her smile to take on a bit of a sly edge; a side effect, she thought, of being friends with Axel. "But I'm definitely a little higher than you."
"'Little' being the key word here, Xion," Roxas said wryly.
She beamed at him. "I'm so glad you agree."
She had to wait a few seconds for him to get it and giggled when he threw his popsicle stick at her. It bounced off her side and went clattering over the edge, only setting her off into further peals of laughter. Roxas joined in and she felt so full in that moment, so buoyant with triumph and good humor. Xion wanted to hold onto these moments forever, to scoop them up and cup them in her hands like a seashell, infinitely precious, vital, and all for reasons that continued to elude her, as fickle as her keyblade - something bone deep or maybe even further than that, in that place where her heart was supposed to be but wasn't. All Xion knew was that it felt right and maybe that was all that really mattered for now, the rightness of being here in this time and place.
There was only one thing missing. Well, one someone. But he was coming up behind them now, waving the hand that wasn't holding ice cream in greeting and settling down in his usual spot. She hadn't gotten the Winner stick but she felt like one all the same, getting to now spend time with both of them.
"Axel, get this," Roxas said excitedly. "Xion is taller than me!"
Axel looked between the two of them and shook his head, but Xion saw the fond smile that tugged at his mouth before it eased into his normal smirk.
"And this is news how?" Axel said in his typical lazy drawl. Xion couldn't help but feel a little disappointed by his under-reaction and Roxas apparently felt the same because he looked at Axel sort of indignantly.
"C'mon, Axel! This is a huge deal. I didn't know Nobodies could get taller."
There was a pause and then Axel gave Xion a long, considering glance. She had a moment where she struggled not to fidget under it, busying her hands with the folds of her cloak, but then she felt ridiculous because this was Axel, of all people. She straightened up and met his eyes full on and there was that flicker of a smile again.
"Have you been drinking a lot of milk lately?" he asked, and really, sometimes Axel just made no sense at all.
Xion felt her face scrunch up in confusion. "Milk?" she said, testing the new word on her lips. "What's that?"
She gazed sidelong at Roxas and he looked just as confused as she did. They both shrugged at each other, completely at a loss as to what Axel was talking about.
"Oh jeez," Axel said with a sigh. "Okay, gather round kiddies because we're about to have ourselves a little lesson." She and Roxas exchanged another look, this time more amused, but they wordlessly shuffled closer. They usually sat with the barest of space between them but not now; now they were all sitting with their sides pressed directly against each other.
Xion wondered what purpose this all served and what any of it had to do with her being taller, but there was also a deep, secret thrill, one that came from having them closer than ever. She had thoughts then, strange things that Axel would surely scoff at or would say they didn't have the capacity for, so Xion tried to tuck them away as she waited for Axel to get on with his lesson. But they lurked in the way she admired how the sunset's colors played off Axel's fiery red hair or how she wanted to smooth out the lines in Roxas' brow with her fingers: I like the idea of not knowing where one of us ends and the other begins and together, it's almost like we make up a whole.
She wondered if any of this showed in her smile when she looked at them.
Axel brandished his ice cream. "See this ice cream you guys love? Milk is one of the things that it's made out of and milk has calcium which-" He trailed off at the blank looks Roxas and Xion were giving him. "What aren't you two getting?"
"But this is sea salt ice cream," Xion said, feeling like she was the one explaining things to Axel for a change.
Roxas nodded his head. "Yeah, I thought our ice cream was made from sea salt, not this milk thing."
Xion watched as Axel sighed and put a hand to his mouth but she could've sworn he was smiling through his fingers. He snapped them a couple seconds later. "Alright, it's like this. Foods can be made up of different ingredients, especially stuff like ice cream which comes in different flavors. Sea salt ice cream is made from milk because all ice cream is made from milk, but it's also made from sea salt too. Got it memorized?"
Roxas made a face. "How were we supposed to know that?"
"And what does milk have to do with me being taller?" Xion wondered.
Axe looked like he was trying really hard not to laugh at them. "Because milk has this nutrient in it called calcium, which gives you strong, healthy bones. Somebodies are told to drink lots of milk growing up for that reason. It'll also help you get taller, hence me jokingly asking Xion if she's been drinking a lot of milk lately."
She glanced at Roxas, wondering if he had understood a word of that, and he looked like he had gotten a brain freeze just from listening to Axel talk. She could more than relate; she was struggling to relate this new knowledge to terms she already understood. Maybe nutrients were a bit like ethers or elixirs?
She tried to work it over but it was as beyond her comprehension as one of Lord Xemnas' speeches. She sighed and shook her head.
"You say the strangest things, Axel," she said finally.
"Heh, that's rich coming from you," Axel said. He didn't even have to lean over Roxas, they were all sitting so close together, just reach out his ridiculously long arm and ruffle her hair with his fingers. Out of the corner of her eye, Roxas was watching them with the goofiest grin on his face; Xion could feel it spreading to her own. "Anyway, being taller than Roxas isn't all that impressive. You're both still the tiniest members of the Organization at the end of the day."
"Or maybe you're just freakishly tall," Roxas said, making Xion splutter out a laugh and Axel to switch gears and start mussing up Roxas' hair. Xion's laughter just didn't stop; it quickly became the kind that hurts your stomach and makes you clutch at your sides, you're laughing so hard, especially when Roxas cried, "How come you two always go for the hair!?" as he tried to dodge Axel's persistent fingers.
She hadn't known laughter until she had started hanging out with Roxas and Axel. She remembered the first time she felt laughter bubble up in her throat and how shocked she was to discover that she was the source of the strange noise that had left her mouth. Laughter and friendship and sea salt ice cream – these were things she might have never discovered for herself, things she owed entirely to them.
Xion laughed and laughed and laughed and wanted every day with her friends to be just like this.