A/N: Bet you've missed my Akushi oneshots, huh? 8D

No?

Then... this is awkward. :I /stares at you awkwardly

I feel bad, I need to update everything, but I've been caught in a sort of a writer's block. :C Unblock art, and then writer's block comes, haha. This has just been sitting around for a while. It's a next life kind of thing.

Dedicated to all the other Akushi people out there, all you people giving this pairing more love- you know who you are. ;) I'd mention people by name, but I don't want to make anyone feel obliged to review.

Somewhere Only We Know

"Is this the place that I've been dreaming of?" –

Sometimes, I dream. It's always of this place I've never been, some place on the border of imagination and edge of insanity. But that's fine with me.

xxx

The warm, orange light flitted through the small spaces in the leaves like little tropical birds making their way to the top of the canopy. A few branches cracked underfoot every few steps I took, but the sound blended in smoothly with the peaceful composition of the forest. Real birds, not ones made of light, sung to one another from their comfortable holes of houses and balconies of branches. Three squirrels raced by as they chattered amiably about their race.

I was oblivious to it all, though. I was too busy looking for someone.

"Hey!" I called, and the birds quieted and fluttered away. "You here?"

Only a few nervous chatters from the squirrels and whatever else ran amongst the fallen leaves resounded in response.

"Hello?" I tried again, beginning to feel a bit desperate. She was always there, every time I had come. If she wasn't, well... what would I do? I only seemed to come if there was some purpose for going.

Sighing, I dragged my heels through the reds and yellows and browns of fall littering the forest floor. There was a little creek only a ways away, where we'd sit; maybe, hopefully she'd be there.

When I finally came to it, it gurgled a peaceful hello before babbling along to the mossy rocks and stoic trees again. There was a long log hanging over the water from each steep bank in tranquil silence. She wasn't there.

Well, let me just say it now, I guess. I had no idea who this girl was. She had been sitting there the first time I came. I could've sworn she was part of a painting or something, she and the forest were so perfect. But then she gracefully swung her leg through the water, using her arms to make sure she didn't fall, and I took a second to realize she was a person, an actual person. Seemed to have been forever since I had seen any people. Darkness wasn't really the best company.

I sat down with a dull thump, not with that grace she normally had. I was so acquainted with complete, utter silence, just listening to the creek run was comforting. Still, I wished the girl would come.

And like a whispering ghost, she did. All of a sudden the vacant space next to me was occupied as it was meant to be, and she was sitting there like she had been all along.

"Come here often?" she laughed softly, but the sounds of the forest were so muted and like music in the background that her voice filled my ears.

"Not much else to do." The quietness of my own voice vaguely surprised me. She giggled again, except a little sadness touched it this time. Swinging her legs back and forth, she dipped the tips of her toes in the water.

I noticed her coat. It was so out of place, yet it wasn't. Not for me, at least. Every time I saw her, my mind would come back to that little fact no matter how many times I thought about it. The only difference was that she was barefoot, but she didn't seem to mind at all. In fact, it suited her, with the way her feet barely brushed the ground when she'd actually get up. If I had taken my boots off, I bet I would have had a million splinters in my feet in no time.

"Will you tell me your name this time?" It was our little routine after the... number of times I had come there. I lost count somewhere along the way- I wasn't Roxas, after all. Not that I wanted to really think about him that moment.

"Nope."

I only chuckled at the answer, the same answer I had received who knows how many times over.

"And why not?"

"Because I said so."

Something in the back of my mind told me that I was supposed to be the one with all the mysteries, and not her. But as unusual as it seemed, that suited her too. Or maybe I just liked it on her.

"Well then, Miss Bossy, will you tell me..." I searched hard for something I hadn't said before. I had to settle for an old one. "...your... home world?"

"Far away," she hummed pleasantly. I snorted.

"Your birthday?"

"Even I don't know that for sure."

"Your... initials."

"Just some letters."

"You know, you're starting to sound a lot like me."

"Learned from the best," she said cheerfully, turning her head to me so I could see her smile.

"Oh, so... from me, did you?"

"Um, well..." she stuttered, trying to come up with a cover-up. I had caught her- I caught her a lot. Little hints she'd accidentally drop.

"So you did know me." I grinned in satisfaction, though it felt like I had discovered that each time (though maybe I had already known it before). It all kind of blurred together into a mesh of questions and laughter and smiles. Her eyes fell.

"You know I can't tell you." Her small lips barely moved, barely twitched. "I wish I could."

"I know, I know. But when you hint things like that, I can't help but notice."

She had refused to tell me anything about her- something about not being able to mess with things, me having to find things out on my own. A part of me almost didn't want to find out about her past, because I had this strange feeling it would mess things up if I did. Like, I'd find something out I didn't want to know and it couldn't be just us sitting on that fallen tree with no worries. I didn't have many that mattered, anyway.

"Axel."

I looked over at her in response, thinking about the way she said my name. She didn't say it too often. Her eyes were still downcast, big, blue balls of sadness.

"I want to show you something." In the blink of an eye, she was on her bare feet and a hand was offered to me. There was a smile on her lips, and I couldn't help but smile back. Taking her hand, I got up. She didn't let go of my hand.

"Where are we going?"

Suddenly, she began pulling me across the log and into the forest.

"Somewhere." Her laugh rang out like a little bell, and my hand tightened over hers as she broke into a run.

The trees were getting denser and denser as we flew along, and at times they would brush my coat we were so close to them. But it wasn't like some creepy storybook tale where they reached out and tried to grab you, no; they let us through and almost seemed to close up behind us, urging us on.

Out of nowhere, the ocean just appeared through the trees. Just there, right on the other side of the thick forest, a very familiar looking beach looking untouched and pure. But hey, who was I to question things that happened there? Considering them even having happened, that is.

"This is-"

"Not where you think it is, if that's what you were going to say."

"Hm. Nevermind, then."

Still with a tight hold on my hand, she pulled me over to a strangely bent tree leaning so far over the water it looked ready to fall in. I leaned against it with hands behind my head, and she seated herself on the trunk, staring out at the setting sun. I had seen a lot of sunsets in my lifetime, believe you me, but this one looked a lot different in a way.

"I had a dream like this once," she told me, dared to tell me. "Except it's prettier now, because this is real."

"Is it?"

"As real as things get, for people like me." She looked down at her fingertips as if the most interesting thing in all the worlds was on them.

"Then I suppose-" I stretched out comfortably, fighting the urge to yawn with a few blinks. "-that it's got to be a lot real for me too."

"You're more real than a lot of people I've met, Axel."

"You must not've met a lot of people."

She didn't say anything, but the briefest glance to her face told me that she didn't believe me one bit. Part of the look seemed a bit resigned, like she knew arguing with me was pointless.

"This is the last time," she murmured instead, watching her fingers ensnare one another in her lap. I hoisted myself up onto the tree next to her with a grunt and leaned forward with hands hanging over my knees.

"Last time for what?"

"Coming here like this."

"How do you know?" I didn't let on how much disappointment I really felt.

"Because you're almost there, Axel- you've almost found your way. I came here to keep you company, and, well, because I wanted to too... I know you, I know you get lonely. You can't deny that."

I had started to open my mouth to retort, but it clamped short when I admitted to myself she was right. I hated being alone.

She scooted over to the dangling side of the tree and popped a small yellow fruit off its stem at the base of the long palm leaves. When she had made it back next to me without even so much as teetering to either side, she held the fruit in her lap so I could see it.

It was shaped just like a little star, each edge rounded and soft like the rest of the fruit, its two remaining green leaves flowering from the stem. It was a pretty, delicate little fruit. I remembered hearing about them somewhere before.

She ripped it in two to reveal the eggshell colored seeds planted in its yellow flesh. One half she gripped tightly and held to herself like her life depended on it, and the other she offered to me.

"Promise me, Axel. Promise you'll eat this when you do find your way."

I took the half in my hand and held it firmly. My gaze fell on it for a second, and then I grinned up at her. "Promise."

"Thank you, Axel." Suddenly she leaned over and threw her arms around me, burying her face in my shoulder. I stayed stunned for a moment before hugging her back, breathing in the salty air and her scent.

"What was that for?" I whispered in her ear, chuckling a bit.

"I'll miss you."

"We'll see each other again. That's what these are for, right?" I held my half up behind her shoulder so we could see it. She sniffled a bit when she saw it and giggled softly, pressing her face back into my shoulder again. Her words came out muffled through my thick coat.

"You're always right, Axel."

"Heh. Not all the time. And what's with you, saying my name so much?"

"I realized I'll have to go back to how it was before. I could only say it when I was sad, sad because you were gone. Now I can say it with you here."

I laughed at what was a bit childish and maybe deeper than I thought. My free hand and chin resting on her head, pulling her into me, I grinned against her hair.

"Wish I could say your name over and over like you say mine."

I could feel her warm, light breath tumble down my neck. "I wish you could too."

She pulled herself away, reluctantly, and she looked right into my eyes with her deep ones.

"You'll be there?"

"The next life? Of course."

"Promise?"

"Always."

xxx

It's dark again. Did any of that really happen at all? Who knows.

But there's something in my closed hand. I can't see it, but it's soft and in the shape of a half star.

I know I'm one step closer to finding my heart- now I have something to look forward to when I get it back.

"This could be the end of everything, so why don't we go, somewhere only we know?"—

Quotes at beginning and end from Keane's song Somewhere Only We Know. There's two versions, the original and the Glee one (which I prefer a little more over the original), but I feel the original probably conveys more of the atmosphere Keane was trying to create. I heard it in a trailer for the Winnie the Pooh movie, but I'm sure I've heard it elsewhere. XD Good song, which is why I had to do something for it.

Hopefully it's quite obvious that's Xion. They're just in some place Nobodies/Replicas go after they die or something. Imagine the forest like the Hundred Acre Woods (perhaps that had something to do with the trailer for Winnie the Pooh, lol).

Bleh, this is kinda more a long drabble than anything. But hopefully you still enjoyed. :)