"It's something that you can eat?" I asked while I was touching my chin and staring at him. I couldn't understand what Axel was trying to explain.
"No, not at all," he replied glaring at me. "Roxas, are you even paying attention?"
"I'm trying, but it's too difficult to understand!" I exclaimed, I couldn't avoid to throw my arms in the air and close my eyes tightly.
Then, he blinked a couple of times and said nothing. I looked at the sky and kept quiet for a while. The light of the sunset painted our time together with an intense orange color. We were sitting on the top of that tower, again. During my first days hanging out with Axel I was actually scared of falling down from there, but then I got used to be on the tower and I finally moved on from that dramatic phase.
It was true that I was the one who asked Axel in the first place, but I quickly regretted it when the explanation became too dense.
"Please, can we start again?" I looked at him with my best puppy eyes. He rolled his eyes, trying to avoid looking directly at me.
"Fine."
"So, can you explain to me what is hatred?" I asked to him, again.
"It's like an emotion, an abstract thing. You can't touch it, eat it, or see it," he said. "I'm not really an expert on feelings or emotions. As you already know, nobodies like us don't have a heart, and we can't feel".
I touched my chest lightly and whispered, "I'm empty?"
"But I can explain you what others have told me, or what I can understand from looking at other people. You know, complete people," he added.
Maybe it was true that we were incomplete beings, and probably we didn't have a heart, but I had a weird sensation on my chest every time he said those things. It felt really bad. But I couldn't even understand why it felt bad if I wasn't supposed to feel anything at all.
"There are creatures who are full of hatred, and you have already met them. Remember? The heartless."
I looked at him, puzzled.
"Why?" I asked. That's the only think I could say.
"I don't know, maybe because they don't have a heart? And that's also why they are called heartless. It's easy, Roxas" he replied.
"Actually… It's not that easy. We don't have a heart neither, but we aren't heartless. In fact, we fight against them. And on top of all that, we don't feel… anything," I replied to him.
He stayed quiet, looking directly at the sunset. Maybe he didn't know how to answer me.
"We are nobodies," he finally said. "Even though we don't have a heart like them, we are not heartless, we are just nobodies. We don't feel, we are… empty. Heartless are full of darkness and hatred."
"I'm glad to be empty, then," I said.
"Why would you say that?" he looked at me, and touched my shoulder. And again, I felt something when I was supposed to not feel anything. Just because he touched me, something inside of me reacted.
"Because at least we aren't dark creatures that destroy everything. And that's what they do because of their hatred".
"That's a good point!" he exclaimed. He smiled at me, and once again I felt a reaction.
"What's the opposite of hatred? I mean, If the the lack of a heart creates hatred, what happens when you have a heart?" I asked to him again.
"Love."
I hadn't heard that word before. I stared at him, while he brushed a strain of hair behind his ear.
"Hatred makes you want to destroy everything, that's how heartless behave, they are loveless creatures. On the other side, love makes you want to protect the people that are important to you," he said. He was still playing with his hair.
"So, you could say that if you don't hate something, you love it?" I asked to him. He looked at me while I was talking and I felt something again. I didn't know what I was feeling. And it was confusing because I shouldn't feel anything.
"I guess so," he replied, smiling. I noticed that his hand was almost touching mine.
"I think that…" I started to say.
"Huh?" he said, quickly. He didn't stop staring at me.
"I love you," I replied. I closed my eyes for a while. I couldn't explain what was going on inside of me.
When I opened my eyes, he said, "I love you too".
His cheeks were red, and my breathing became faster. He finally held my hand, and I could feel like a bomb exploding inside of me. And that was true, I was feeling something.
"Your cheeks are red," I said.
"And yours too!" he replied, holding my hand tightly.
I stared at the endless sunset sky, "maybe we got a sunburn".