Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts or its characters
Title: Countdown
Chapter: 1 "9 Days, 14 Hours, 42 Minutes, 38 Seconds"
Summary: AU If a clock could count down to the moment you meet your soul mate, would you want to know? Once the clock strikes zero, Axel and Roxas learn that their intended soul mates are most certainly not female and angrily rebel against their destiny, but can you really change something as definite as fate? Akuroku Soriku Demyx Cleon
Author's Notes: I saw this on tumblr the other day and it just went like PAH! in my head. I was like, this is flippin' adorable, why am I not writing to this? After looking into it, I found that it's from the movie TiMER and well, I thought it was still a cute idea so let me just say first that the IDEA of a TIMER is from the movie but the plot is way different. It might even be darker than that of the real movie. This is tale of self-discovery, rebellion, and pain where two individuals must resist social pressures and conformity in order to be happy. Apparently the movie sucked too but don't worry, my version will be way more interesting. But yes, this was my inspiration. And alas, let's have fun, shall we?
9 days, 14 hours, 42 minutes, 37 seconds…
9 days, 14 hours, 42 minutes, 36 seconds…
9 days, 14 hours, 42 minutes, 35 seconds…
"…Are you listening to me, Axel!?" A voice called loudly, effectively snapping the redhead out of his thoughts. Axel hastily diverted his attention away from the timer on his wrist and looked up, blinking once, twice, and then a third time. His eyes locked onto a pair of oceanic eyes that at the moment were looking back at him perplexingly.
"Sorry, what?" The crimson haired man asked distractedly.
A look of slight irritation crossed Demyx's face briefly before he sighed. "You're not still glued to that timer, are you?" Axel shrugged his thin shoulders at that, sweeping his eyes to look over at the slowly decreasing numbers on his right wrist again.
9 days, 14 hours, 41 minutes, 57 seconds…
9 days, 14 hours, 41 minutes, 56 seconds…
"Axel, seriously, it's not healthy to keep looking at that all the time. I swear I see you at stare at it every single second of the day." The blond pointed out, reaching across the café table to poke his best friend at the center point of his forehead. When Axel didn't reply, Demyx brought his hand back so he could rest his cheek against it. "It's gotten worse too, a bit of an obsession now." Tearing his emerald green eyes away from the timer, the crimson haired man finally focused his attention on the blond in front of him.
"I wouldn't call it an obsession, more like a hobby of mine."
"You're joking, right? A hobby is something you like to do out of leisure. An obsession is when something is constantly intruding in on your mind and life. You, my friend, are obsessed with finding out when you'll meet your soul mate." A cheeky grin made its way onto Demyx's face as Axel rolled his eyes in response. "Come on, admit it. You act tough and mean but deep down, you're just a romantic at heart."
Axel pinned his best friend with a spare-me look and just scoffed. "You're a dumbass." Although his words were strong, he still couldn't help but glance over at his timer again.
9 days, 14 hours, 41 minutes, 38 seconds…
After peeling his away from the decreasing number, he mentally sighed. 'Maybe I am obsessed.' He admitted to himself silently. Taking a sip of his coffee, he reveled in its taste before setting it back down and raising a brow at the blond. "Perhaps I'm just curious." Axel explained. "What about you? Aren't you curious as to when you'll meet your soul mate?" Demyx's blue eyes blinked at that, not expecting Axel to ask such a thing but nonetheless, he pulled down his navy blue wristband, showing Axel the timer on his wrist that he usually kept hidden. Why Demyx chose to hide his countdown timer was unbeknownst to him but like the good friend he was, Axel didn't push it. The redhead barely read the numbers on Demyx's wrist before the blond snatched his arm back and slid the wristband back into its proper place. '15 days, 21 hours, 36 minutes, 8 seconds.' Axel thought, making a mental note for himself.
"Satisfied?" The blond questioned with a raised brow of his own. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. "I don't know why you're so keen to find out who your soul mate is. I don't even want to know when I'll meet mine. Me, I rather just be like water and go with the flow and watch where the ripples go." While Axel appreciated his best friend's metaphoric sentence, he sighed softly.
"You don't understand Demyx; it's never been this low before. I'm finally seeing single digits…" Axel explained, giving into the temptations and looking back at the timer again. This time, only a fair few seconds had passed by. 'Shit.' Axel swore mentally, suddenly coming to the realization that he was indeed obsessed. Despite his heckling before, the blond in front of him smiled earnestly.
"Yeah, you must be excited then, huh?"
"Yeah, a little bit." Axel confessed, the corner of his lips curving upwards into a small smile.
Glancing at the time on his phone quickly, Demyx finished off the last of latté with one last gulp, grabbed his bag, and stood to his feet. "Come on, break's over. We'll be late for class if we don't get going." Cursing under his breath, Axel quickly downed the rest of his coffee, ignoring the blistering yet comforting feeling of it burning his throat, and nodded, picking his bag up as well. The two friends disposed of their beverages, adjusted the straps of their schoolbags, and began a leisurely walk back to their university. The two had been best friend for years, meeting one another at the age of nine in primary school. They'd laugh or lie if asked but they really did love one another like best friends typically did – thirteen years together would do that to people. How could they have known that they'd be attending Radiant Garden University together? Axel majored in fire science and minored in chemistry while Demyx excelled at his music theory studies and performing arts. As the two walked back to RGU, Demyx chatted on about the latest sheet music he had to sight read the other day. Taking advantage of the situation, Axel took the time to distract himself once again. Reaching up to run a hand through his wild red spikes, he quickly and subtlety glanced at the numbers on his wrist.
9 days, 14 hours, 38 minutes, 41 seconds…
9 days, 14 hours, 38 minutes, 40 seconds…
9 days, 14 hours, 38 minutes, 39 seconds…
9 days, 14 hours, 38 minutes, 38 seconds…
9 days, 14 hours, 38 minutes, 37 seconds…
'I can't help but look at this thing.' Axel thought feebly. 'For someone like me, a soul mate is something I can actually count on that won't disappear from my life.' Referring to his broken family, he felt his heart tighten and clench painfully. Axel wasn't the average 23 year old; no, his life was a lot more complicated than that of most people his age. Hell, even Demyx had to agree and he was the most chaotic person Axel knew. Axel was the son of Reno and Elena Gongaga, a pair of revered intelligence agents that worked for the Shinra Electric Power Company, Radiant Garden's governmental structure. They were known as Turks. From what Axel remembered, his parents weren't around much, often leaving him alone to raise and care for his younger sister, Kairi – not that he minded of course – who was eight years his junior. Reno and Elena Gongaga were part of an investigative bureau of sorts and were even assassins at some point in their careers; they basically did whatever they were required to do.
"If there's one thing you have to know about our work, Axel, is that we are consummate professionals. We take our work very seriously, yo." Axel once heard his father say, his lips curving upwards a little at the remembrance of his father's favorite catchphrase. He'd end often everything he said with the word 'yo'. "And even if it meant killing our family, your mother and I would still complete the job because that's what we do as professionals." That particular memory made his blood run cold for it was because of that, that Axel decided to take Kairi and leave his home behind. He packed everything of his and Kairi's, made a quick beeline for a different sector within Radiant Garden, and assigned himself her new guardian. Being as such, he was forced to take up a part-time job as quickly as he could so he could support both him and his little sister. At the moment, she went to a same-sex high school as that was the only way she could get an education without having to be removed from his care. Boarding schools were usually expensive but after hearing his case about their parents being Turks and high-ranking governmental officials, they allowed for Kairi to attend school there.
'Mom told us to promise her that we'd run away before that ever happened though. I'm glad we left when we did. It's better to be safe than sorry.' The crimson haired man thought, thinking of the green eyes his mother had. Although he had inherited his mother's eyes and father's fiery hair color, chin, and spikes, Axel felt that he resembled his mother more. Kairi on the other had inherited both her eye and hair color from their father. 'Despite all that, I know Mom and Dad still loved us very much. They just might love their work more.' Axel wasn't stupid; he knew that his parents worked for a very important and hush-hush sort of bureau. His parents always wore business suits too and he cringed mentally when he remembered once thinking they were just business officials. No, they were much more than that. 'It's been years since we've heard from them though. I'm not even sure if they're still alive. I'm sure they understood why Kairi and I left though.' Glancing at his wrist once again, he sighed mentally.
9 days, 14 hours, 32 minutes, 16 seconds…
9 days, 14 hours, 32 minutes, 15 seconds…
9 days, 14 hours, 32 minutes, 14 seconds…
9 days, 14 hours, 32 minutes, 13 seconds…
"So what's your ideal soul mate like?" Demyx asked smoothly, drawing Axel away from his thoughts. The blond raised his eyebrows curiously, "Anything you're looking for?"
"I'd imagine her to be someone I feel particularly and perfectly connected to. Someone's who's beautiful but doesn't know it; I don't mean in the physical sense – though I wouldn't mind of course – but someone who's beautiful to me because I love her. She has to be strong-willed and not take any shit from me or anyone else but is willing to come to me if she needs me." A genuine smile graced Axel's handsome face. "She's someone I'll have an eternal bond with after all and well, I've always been into brunettes." He said jokingly at last. Axel then hummed. "In a society like ours, love is something sacred. I mean, that's why we're slapped on with these timers, right? Since our government has philosophical views in how we're supposed to live?" The thought of his parents' work popped up in his mind again but he pushed it away quickly. "They think that they can control when we'll meet our soul mates. It makes me wonder how they know any of that stuff though."
"Yeah, from the very second we are born, timers are placed upon our wrists." Subconsciously rubbing at the wristband that concealed his timer, Demyx frowned. "In a society like ours, where the government controls everything, it has to be done this way. After the war with Zanarkand, we lost everything. In a dark and desolate world such as ours, we need love in our lives to stay strong. In my romanticism history class, I remember reading a theory that we are individually created as 'half-souls'. We were supposed to have been condemned to spend the rest of our lives searching for the other half of our souls but I guess the Shinra Electric Power Company messed that one up and adopted a policy of their own." He rubbed the back of his head uncomfortably, "Listen Axel, I don't know too much about this timer business and I'm not about to throw out random conspiracy ideas but in my opinion," His voice suddenly turned soft so only Axel could hear, "There's something the government's hiding from us."
"What do you mean?" Axel whispered back.
"I mean think about it, why would we even need to know who our soul mates are? Who cares as long we're happy? Think about all those people who could be happy together but instead chose not to do anything when they saw that their timers weren't linked up?" Demyx made a point; Axel couldn't remember how many times he had seen people leave one another just because their timers weren't in sync. They had thrown away months or even years of happiness just because they weren't technically 'soul mates'. He himself had broken off many relationships with women simply because their timers were not in sync. "Love is love." Demyx said finally as he looked up at the cloudless sky. "Why would it matter to Shinra when it is that we meet our soul mate? No one exactly knows why we have these timers on our wrists; all we do know is that it tells us when we'll meet our soul mate."
His face was serious as he spoke but even still, Axel could sense the teasing sound in Demyx's voice. The crimson haired man laughed a little and shook his head. "You're just busting my balls, aren't you?" The blond's eyes shifted from the sky to look at Axel and the redhead smirked once he saw the dancing mirth in Demyx's blue orbs. "Yeah, you're just messing around." He pushed his best friend's shoulder, shoving him away. "You're such an ass, always jerking my chain. And here I thought you were being serious and actually on to something."
Demyx stuck his tongue out at Axel and gave the older boy a shove of his own. "I'm just screwing with you. The hell if I know why we have these things on our wrists." As his alarm went off on his cell phone, Demyx glanced at it quickly before touching two fingers to his forehead. "Later, Ax." He said, giving his friend a two-finger salute before sauntering off to the music building for class. Axel watched his friend's retreating back before pulling his phone out as well. He still had another couple minutes before he had to leave. Pulling back his arm slowly, he read the numbers on his wrist once again.
9 days, 14 hours, 30 minutes, 49 seconds…
"The Zanarkand War, huh?" Axel suddenly said out loud, repeating Demyx's words from earlier. "I wouldn't be surprised if the President instigated these timers so those that are lost can their way forward again." The Zanarkand and Radiant Garden happened well before he was born but he still felt like he was living in a post-apocalyptic world. There wasn't any physical destruction to the city anymore but Axel couldn't count how many times he had seen lost souls wandering aimlessly around the city. "It would make sense though. These timers give people a new sense of hope; something to look forward to." He then placed a hand over his heart. "And for someone with nothing, this timer gives me nothing but hope." He tightened his hold over his schoolbag before shaking his head and walking in direction of the science building. "I can't wait to meet her." Axel said to himself finally as a small but happy smile graced his lips. "I'm sure she'll be amazing." He remarked finally, turning to look at the decreasing numerals on his wrist again. "And beautiful."
9 days, 14 hours, 30 minutes, 45 seconds…
9 days, 14 hours, 30 minutes, 44 seconds…
Author's Notes: And this is where we end chapter one. I didn't really write as much as I usually do. I think this is only around 3k words. Sorry about that! I'm just curious to see if people will like this story. Just let it be known that I have no idea what I'm writing yet, I just know it's going to be drama filled. It'll be quite fun watching all the identity crisis that goes on in this story. Thanks for your time, everyone! If you're still in an AkuRoku mood, go and read my KH3 AkuRoku fic, Second Chances : ) You'll love it!
Read and review? Kay thanks!