Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, or the characters.

For Each Breath

Throughout existence, there were a million worlds. And in each of those millions of worlds, were millions of people. There are people to spare, of course. Maybe we should even kill a few in the worlds where there are too many people and not enough food. People shouldn't suffer because of the existence of other people, but they do anyway. That's one of the amazing things about life.

All he could hear was his breathing next to him. They were sitting together on the top of the bell tower across from the fountain. For fun, they went drinking earlier and rung the bell a couple times just to make people angry. This poor town had been invaded by heartless and the people here lived in fear. The town was silent, except Demyx's long breaths next to him.

Axel and Demyx watched as a heartless tracked down someone with a heart. Axel smiled as he remembered something Xemnas told him once. "Demyx, Xemnas says that for every breath I take, 3 people die. Isn't that crazy? But what do we care, we don't really die anyway."

Demyx turned his gaze to Axel. "3 people?" He asked in a tone Axel couldn't quite place.

"Yeah." Axel took in a deep breath, and then slowly exhaled. "I wonder if having your heart eaten by the heartless counts as dying," he continued. "Or if being a nobody is like being a zombie."

Axel waited patiently in the silence for Demyx to say something. "Dem…?" Axel looked over at his friend, who was staring off in to the distance as always.

"With every breath?"

Axel nodded slowly ", yeah." He leaned back and stared to the sky, sure he said something to upset Demyx. Then he heard something, or rather, he didn't. The air was still, and the silence was overwhelming.

Demyx had stopped breathing.

Axel stared at him in awe. "Breathe. Even if you don't take breaths, those people will still die. Their fate's already been decided." Demyx sighed.

"But I don't want them to."

"We can't change life. Death is life," he answered simply.

"Then what are we? We don't die, and we can't live without hearts. Does our breathing count? With each breath we take, and each thing we eat, are we killing people who need it more than we do?"

"Shut up, Demyx!" Axel yelled, his voice echoing through the empty streets of Traverse Town. He grabbed Demyx's small shoulders and glared in to those glowing eyes of his. "Worry about yourself. If you worry about everyone else, you'll be one of the 3 that dies when someone you don't even know takes a breath! In our existence, you have no time to be selfless." Demyx smiled.

And they both think that maybe, just for today, they can be selfish and breathe all they want, because if you don't breathe you'll be the one to die.

End