A month after "Home", here comes its prequel, "Hollow"! They both can be read independantly so you don't have to have read one of them to read the other, but if you like this one, I strongly invite you to check "Home" as well :D

Disclaimer : I ain't owning no Kingdom Hearts, bro.

Axel was angry, and he didn't even understand why.

First of all, that was impossible. The Nobody 101 Manual was pretty clear, they couldn't get any feeling. And, last time he checked, anger was a feeling.

Then, it was stupid anyway to get angry. He was defending an empty house in an empty town. And he was defending it from the creatures he was supposed to work with.

He had not planned to come here anyway. Today's mission was just gathering intel about the town, to see how it was now that the lock was… well, locked. He had been aimlessly wandering through the streets, ignoring the Heartless swarming here and there, until his feet had brought him to this very particular house, and the simple sight of heartless around it had turned him crazy.

After burning them all, very cautious not to burn the houses, he stared at the door.

It had been so long. Almost ten years now. Ten years since he left that house, and never came back. Back then, he was still a kid. Back then, he still had a heart.

He carefully pushed the door. The place was empty, of course. Everything was empty. A hollow house in Hollow Bastion, matching his hollow chest.

Many things were destroyed. It was a wonder the house was still there, actually. Most of the furnitures were damaged by humidity, by time. There was dust everywhere. Here and there, fragments of what could have been a glass, a vase, a picture frame glittered on the floor.

On the table, there was a plate and a glass. As if the occupant of the house had left in the middle of a meal. Left, or died. He bitterly thought.

He visited the place, destroying the few Heartless that were in there. They would come back, and he knew it. It was fine, as long as he wasn't there to see them.

He slowly climbed up the stairs, all the way to a familiar door. The name Lea was written on it, pictures with faded colours pinned on it. He chuckled. Most of the drawings involved flames. If only I knew, back then…

He turned the doorknob slowly, really slowly. The door opened in a creak.

He wasn't ready for what was in there.

"We'll be back before nightfall. Don't touch anything in my room!"

This was his last promise. This was the promise he never held. But his mother… She stayed true to her word. While the whole house was upside-down, the room was exactly the same. The crayons on the desk. The clean clothes folded on the bed. The dirty ones on the floor. The dog leash on the chair. The pictures on the nightstand.

The Nobody 101 Manual was pretty clear, and yet he was somehow overwhelmed by feelings. He sat on his bed, took the two pictures and looked at them. On one of them, a woman with fiery green eyes was smiling at the camera, while a tall man was holding her hand, a tiny boy on his shoulders. On the second, two kids, one with bright red hair, the other with cool blue hair, were dressed up as pirates and had a plastic sword in the hand. Between them, a puppy was wearing a pirate hat.

Axel mindlessly put the tip of his fingers on the dog. "Bonfire…"

A drop of water fell on the picture. Was the roof leaking? He looked up, but everything looked fine. It took him a while and a few other drops on the pictures to understand he was crying.

He had no heart, and yet, his hollow chest was painful right now. He had no idea of whether his family had survived or not. They probably didn't. As far as he was aware of, no one survived the attack of Heartless, and the destruction of the world. His family had died a decade ago, and he only realised it now.

Slowly, he put the pictures back in place and got up. He carefully closed the door, and went downstairs. Opening a closet, he found a broom and chuckled. What was the point? And yet, he still cleaned the place up. Dusted the few shelves that were still on the walls. Opened the windows for a moment to air the room.

It was time to go. He couldn't stay there forever - his absence would soon get noticed. But, before leaving, he slid something in his pocket. Now he could go.

He met up with the others. They had been sent in a group - Xigbar, Demyx, Saïx and himself. Demyx wasn't there yet. Knowing him, he was probably playing the sitar on a bench, or taking a nap. Axel was relieved not to be the last one, though. He would probably avoid remarks.

"Did you see anything interesting?" Quietly asked Saïx. Axel feared he knew (once again, wasn't fear a feeling? That made no sense.), but Saïx didn't add anything.

"Nothing unusual. Not a living soul around. Plenty of Heartless, though."

Saïx nodded in silence, and Xigbar shrugged. "Same here. No sign of the lock, no sign of any hidden room in the Castle. Oh, Demyx, any luck?"

"Mh? No, nothing…" Demyx had just appeared, and from his face, it was obvious he had just taken a nap ; but strangely enough, no one said anything. As if they were all in a hurry to leave this place.

"Let's RtC." Suggested Xigbar, and they all nodded. He opened a Corridor, and stepped into it, followed closely by Demyx. Saïx walked towards the dark portal, but stopped just before it, looking around.

"Do you remember it?" He asked, surprising Axel. The redhead sighed.

"Yeah. I went back home." He confessed, almost shameful. "Everything was…"

"A mess?" Saïx completed. Axel nodded. "I know. It was the same…" He didn't finish his sentence, but he didn't have to.

Axel felt guilty for actually being surprised that Saïx had went back to his own house. If he had, why wouldn't the number seven had too? Taking a deep breathe, he dug his hand into his pocket, taking out the two glass bottles he had taken at his place.

"Call me stupid if you want, but I took that. I know we don't have feelings… But we still have memories. I'd like not to lose them."

Saïx gave him one of his rare smiles (which involved the corners of his mouth to go up from about two millimeters, which was as happy as he could look), and took from his own pocket a similar bottle.

"Let's never mention that to anyone."

"Oh, are you telling me you would willingly keep something from Xemnas? That's unexpected."

Saïx didn't answer and put the bottle back in his pocket. Axel chuckled and did the same.

"Hey, Saïx?"

"Yes?"

"Do you think you could… Avoid sending me on mission here? I don't know, send Demyx, or someone else. I'd rather not come back."

Saïx kept silent for a moment, then slowly nodded. "Fine. I'll do my best to avoid sending you here."

"You ladies coming or what?" Xigbar's voice, coming right through the portal, interrupted their discussions.

"And I'll make sure he, out of all people, will never find out about it."

Axel smiled at Saïx, and stepped into the portal.

In both his pocket and in Saïx's pocket, small bottles of the perfumes their parents used to wear. Their families might be gone, but they would never forget.

"That's our secret, then." He turned back, showing his fist to Saïx, who bumped his own against it.

"Our secret."

And even though life drew them apart, never once they told anyone about these bottles.

I'm pretty sure Xigbar also visited his old house. Probably to see if there was still a few bottles he could take... Not the same kind of bottles though :p

Fun fact that led to this story: When I was, I don't know, 10 or something, there was this perfume bottle in a shop that smelled lily of the valley (not sure if it's a big thing anywhere else but we have lots of them blooming in France around May, whatever), and I had no idea why, but the smell felt incredibly nostalgic (if I had to put a word on it, I would say that when I smelled it, I felt home/safe, which was weird because it was only perfume). My mother told me later that when I was a baby she used to wear this kind of fragrance. So yeah, I could clearly remember a fragrance from when I was a baby and still had feelings associated to it, and I think the brain is pretty awesome for that!

So this is the reason both Axel and Saïx took things that reminded them the smell of their parents. Hopefully it doesn't sound too creepy XD

Also, I can imagine Lea's room to be the exact way it was, without any trace of dust or any thing. Just like in Harry Potter his mother's love protected him as a baby, I wanted this promise he and his mother made to have cast a sort of spell on the house, 'as long as he has not come back, the room must be in the state he left it'.

Hope you enjoyed this one shot :D I'm sure that deep inside, Isa is still here. I dislike Saïx but I do like Isa so I miss the boi !