"What are you thinking about, Sora? Because it sure isn't math."

Sora looked up from his doodle-covered notebook and grinned sheepishly. "Uh... sorry, Kairi. I just can't concentrate, you know?" He rolled over onto his back and stared up at his bedroom ceiling. "Lately I can't think straight at all."

Kairi, lying a few feet away, reached across the paper-strewn floor and grabbed Sora's notebook. Her eyes widened at the crude drawing of a red-haired man clad in black and she looked at Sora. "This is..."

"Axel, yeah." Sora craned his head back to look at Kairi. "I met him only a few times, but... I dunno. It's like we were old friends, but we didn't quite recognize each other." Because of Roxas. He knew Axel... they were friends. Sora played with the hem of his shirt awkwardly. "And... before he died... he told me he just wanted to see Roxas again." Sighing, he looked back up at the ceiling and ran a hand through his hair. "I... I feel bad for him, you know? Because Roxas was with him, and he didn't even know it. I just... I just want to apologize to him. Or something."

Her gaze returning to the drawing, Kairi thought quietly for a while. "Are you sure that you're the one who wants to apologize?" she finally asked.

"Huh?" Sora tried looking at Kairi, found it too difficult on his back, and rolled onto his belly. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, are you sure that you want to apologize to Axel, and it's not Roxas who does?" Kairi sat up and tossed the notebook back to Sora. She tucked a strand of auburn hair behind her ear and looked absently out the window. "Sometimes, I can feel Naminé inside me. Like, I used to love peanut butter. I'd eat it all the time."

"Yeah, you'd just stick a spoon in the jar and eat it plain. That was so nasty!"

Kairi chuckled, a sad little laugh. "Well, now I can't stand the stuff. I guess Naminé doesn't like it. And she loves to look at the full moon – I can feel her smile every time I glance up at it." She locked eyes with Sora. "So do you want to see Axel again, or does Roxas?"

He'd never thought of it that way. Sora folded his hands on the floor and rested his chin on them, his brow furrowed in deep thought. "I think... both of us do," he muttered, "but for kind of different reasons." He looked away and rested one of his hands on his head, partially obscuring his face.

"Hmm..." The two were silent for several minutes, both lost in their own minds. Finally, Kairi perked up a bit. "Do you think the King could help you?"

"Hey, yeah!" Sora sat up excitedly. "He used to be good friends with Ansem the Wise – I'll bet he knows about what happens to a Nobody when they're destroyed. Let's go ask him!" He jumped to his feet, face aglow with enthusiasm.

"But Sora, how will we contact him?"

Sora stopped, pondered for a moment, then plopped dejectedly on the floor. "Oh. Yeah." He always forgot the little details like that. Still, there had to be a way! He rubbed his chin and pondered for a few seconds before snapping his fingers. "Ah! Let's ask Riku! He was with the King more than we were, so I'll be he knows!"

"Okay! Good idea!"

They jumped to their feet, all prospects of homework forgotten, and thundered down the stairs of Sora's house. "Mom! We're going to Riku's!" Sora yelled as he shoved his feet into his shoes. Not bothering to wait for an answer, he followed Kairi out the door and ran down the street. They were both so intimately familiar with the way that neither paused for an instant to consider where they were going, and in a matter of minutes they were at the house Riku shared with his older sister. Already sweating in the tropical heat, Sora wiped his face and rang the doorbell, flashing Kairi an optimistic grin.

A young woman with the same platinum hair as Riku, only pulled back in a long ponytail, answered the door, a water bottle in one hand and a towel over her shoulder. "Oh. Hey guys, come on in." She stepped aside to let Sora and Kairi in, taking a swig from her bottle as she did so. "Baby Brother's sleeping right now. I'll go wake him up."

"Riku's sleeping?" Sora asked, glancing at his watch. "You've got to be kidding me, Yuri It's three o'clock!"

Yuri shrugged. "It's those new painkillers they gave him. The doc says they're not as strong as the old ones, but they knock him out for almost an hour every day. Some kinda side effect or something."

Riku's still taking meds for his broken ribs? Sora wondered, slightly perturbed by the information. He must have been injured worse than they first thought. "How much longer will he need to take them?"

Yuri shrugged by way of reply. She tossed the water bottle and the towel onto the couch in the living room; an exercise video of some kind was paused on the TV. "C'mon, let's wake up Sleeping Beauty."

Sora and Kairi followed Yuri down a small hallway to Riku's door. "Rikuuuu!" Yuri yelled, pounding her fist on the door. "Get your lazy ass outta bed!"

"Go'way, dammit!" came the slurred reply.

"You've got com-pa-neeeee!" Yuri sang, tapping out a rhythm on the door. Kairi stifled a giggle.

Sora heard a sleepy growl from behind the door and the sounds of Riku stumbling to the door. Finally it opened and Riku peered out of his darkened room, wearing nothing more than some shorts and a rumpled undershirt. He blinked in the bright light until he could finally see. "Oh! Sora. Kairi. Hey. C'mon in." Yawning, Riku ran his fingers through his disheveled hair and opened the door wide enough for them to enter.

Immediately Kairi walked to the window and opened the blinds, letting sunlight flood the room and making Riku wince and cover his eyes briefly. Kairi ignored his reaction. "How're you doing, Riku?" she asked, clearing some loose papers off a chair so she could sit down. Normally Riku's room was very clean, but lately he'd been falling behind.

"Just peachy," Riku replied in a deadpan tone. He stiffly sat down on the edge of his bed, carefully favoring his left side. "I don't know what the hell those docs are giving me now, but I feel like a narcoleptic." He smiled lopsidedly. "At least I have an excuse for falling asleep in class now – and I swear, Sora, if you so much as try poking me in the ribs, I'll kill you where you stand."

Sora, who had been edging suspiciously close to Riku, held up his hands and looked as innocent as he possibly could. "I wasn't even thinking about it."

Riku snorted. "Yeah, right." He suppressed another yawn and rubbed his eyes. "So. What's up?"

"We need to contact King Mickey."

His mind a little muddled from sleep and the painkillers for the ribs broken by Xemnas, Riku had trouble comprehending Sora. "...Wait... what...? ...Why?"

"King Mickey knows a lot about Nobodies."

"...And?"

Kairi jumped to the rescue. "Sora's been bothered lately by what happened to Axel," she explained. "He wants to know what exactly happens to Nobodies when their bodies are destroyed."

"Oooooooooh." Riku looked from Kairi to Sora, then back to Kairi. "So... what do we do?"

You've got to be kidding me! Sora made a strangled sound in his throat and pulled at his hair with frustration. "That's what we're here to ask you!"

"What made you think I'd know?"

"Well, you spent the most time with him, didn't you?"

"Yeah, but it's not like he gave me his phone number or anything – "

"Guys!" Kairi interrupted, hoping to gain control of the situation before it got out of hand. "Stop arguing! You won't solve anything."

"We're not arguing!" the two protested in unison.

Kairi crumpled up some of Riku's old homework and somehow managed to hit both of them with a paper ball at the same time. "Yes you are. Stop it. Now listen up, I just got an idea – Sora, you secured the passageways between worlds, right?"

"Yeah..."

"So that means people can travel safely between worlds now, right?"

"Yeah." But we don't have a Gummi ship, Sora thought, although he figured Kairi wasn't headed in that direction.

Drawing her legs up until she was squatting on the chair, Kairi leaned forward excitedly. "So all we have to do is somehow transmit a message through the right passageway."

Riku thoughtfully tapped his teeth with his thumbnail. "That would work," he began, "except that we have no way to send a message."

"Oh! What about Kairi's message in a bottle?" Sora suggested. "That found me eventually." He smiled at Kairi, who happily returned the gesture.

"That took almost a month to reach you," Riku, ever pragmatic, replied. "So unless you want to wait that long..."

He didn't, and neither did Roxas. Sora frowned and crossed his arms, then shrugged; what choice did he have? "Maybe it'll take less time – I'm pretty sure Kingdom Hearts is the furthest away you can get from anything."

"I've got a bottle we can use!" Kairi offered, raising her hand in the air as if she were in class. "Sora, you can write the message."

"Well, that's great," Riku said, carefully laying down on his bed. "You guys get right on that, and I'll go back to sleep."

Sora and Kairi exchanged knowing glances, grinned, and maneuvered into an attack position. "Oh no you don't!" Sora yelled. He grabbed Riku's arm while Kairi latched onto Riku's leg, and with one heave they pulled Riku out of bed and into an undignified heap onto the floor.

"Ow ow ow! Son of a bitch!" Riku swore, untangling himself from his sheets. "You guys are so dead!"

"You're gonna hafta catch us first!" Kairi teased.

She and Sora dashed out with Riku hot on their heels. As the three of them sprinted down the street, shouting playful insults at each other, Sora couldn't stop smiling. For a long time there had been a small part of him, a stubborn little bit of his soul, that always felt lonesome and sad. But not anymore.