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It's dawn, and morning is steadily leaking into the night sky. Wispy cirrus clouds are steadily drenching in a pungent orange and pink flavor as the birdcalls slowly silence the harmonic symphony of the crickets.
Roxas and Sora, twin brothers alike in the face but different as night and day, have been lost since midnight. Roxas walks at a steady gate, but Sora is anxious.
"Why're you so jumpy, Sora?" Roxas growls at him, "We've done this before."
Sora doesn't answer. He just shakes his head, biting his lip.
"Oh, yeah…you weren't here last time."
"Mm-mm." He shakes his head again.
"That's right," Roxas nods, a small frown pulling the corners of his lips, "I didn't find you yet. I thought you were…dead then."
Roxas looks down, sorrow filling his eyes at his lonely-looking reflection in the shallow puddle. Sora hurries to pick him back up.
"But I'm not! See, Rox?" He pinches the corners of the blonde's cheeks, pulling them up into an awkward smile, "Would I be able to do that if I wasn't here?"
The boy beams brightly, Roxas laughing through his nose as his cheeks are released. He shakes his head, retaining a small smile. Sora's here. He was just lost for those two years, like they are now.
"Where are we going, exactly?" Sora asks, scratching the back of his head. Roxas groans. He's told the brother a million times – they're running away. Away from that awful place so many consider home. They're running away and they'll never be found again. By them, at least.
Sora sighs openly when there's no answer, kicking a beautifully colored puddle of water from the sunrise – a bit of liquid sky. He feels his toes get damp as he continues to walk, the sun continuing to creep over the hills.
"I haven't slept all night…" Sora yawns after a while, his stretch traveling all the way to his tipped toes, "Can't we rest somewhere?"
Roxas stifles a yawn himself, nodding sleepily as they enter a train station with an ornate black gate sparkling with last night's showers. They reach a lamppost just as the light blinks off right on curfew, laying against it and nodding into sleep almost instantly.
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"Kid? Kiiiiiid."
Roxas's eyes slowly flutter open, revealing a blurry mush of red hair, apricot skin, and two vibrant slits of green. As his senses regain, he feels the warm hand against his cheek, the cold metal against the back of his head.
"What's a cute kid like you doing in a dump like this, huh?"
Roxas looks at the malachite eyes, dazed, blinking ever-so-slowly. "Sora…Sora, wake up."
The man cocks his head. Roxas's eyes are now focused enough to notice the strange diamonds under each of those beautiful, Egyptian eyes. "'Sora'?"
"I'm awake." Sora utters meekly, looking up at the man as well. He notices how close he is to the two of them. "Wow. Your eyes are really pretty."
"Hm," the redheaded man laughs, "The better to check you out with." Sora's laugh ensues the older man's as he stands up, offering a hand. "Need help?"
"Thanks!" Sora chimes gleefully. Roxas huffs, almost enviously.
"I'm guessing you don't live anywhere, sleeping against a lamppost and all?"
Sora looks up. This guy's really tall. And how does he get his hair sleeked back like that without it looking so greasy? "Well, I used to, but we ran away."
"'We'?"
"Yeah. Me and Roxas."
The man strokes his chin. Sora notices that he's not really a man – more like a teenager. Or probably in his twenties. "You still look pretty tired, kid. Mind coming back to my place to rest a bit?"
"You wouldn't mind?" The boy lightens up immediately, bringing his fists to his chin like a puppy.
"Of course not. I won't be giving up my bed or anything since it's the middle of the day and –"
His words are cut off by a quick, tight hug around the waist. "I'm Sora. What's your name?"
"Axel," the young man replies promptly, patting him on the head. "So, who's this Roxas kid?"
"Oh, he's my brother." Sora half-skips as he follows the character almost twice his height.
"How do you do?" Roxas groans bluntly. Axel starts, spinning around to look at the blonde as if he didn't even notice him before. He raises his eyebrows at the stern, hungry look in the boy's eyes.
"Fine, how're you." It's not a question. Roxas huffs.
Axel's "place" turns out to be the basement of record store where his best friend, a slightly younger man by the name of Demyx, works. They exchange simultaneous hand gestures and "eeeey!"s as the Axel leads Roxas down the black stairs that match the rest of the shop.
His room is lit by Christmas lights – there are no lamps or windows and the walls are also painted either a dark blue or jet black. An electric skillet is set on the floor, plugged into the wall accordingly, supposedly where Axel cooks all his meals.
"The bed's over there," Axel directs the boy's attention to the opposite corner of the room where a bed with a camouflage-patterened bedspread is set up, supposedly foldable.
"Are you sure we'll fit?" Sora pipes up, looking excitedly from one end of the room to the next.
Axel chuckles. "Tch. Trust me, as small as you are…you'll fit perfectly fine."
Sora flops down on the bed with Roxas, sighing happily. He missed beds like this. It's so cozy and somehow warm. It must be because they're underground. He perks up on the bed and Roxas takes this moment to have a second glance around the miniscule room, his eyes falling on a lonesome drawer on the ground next to the empty skillet. He lets curiosity steal him away as his feet meet the ground.
"Do I have to take my shoes off?" Sora asks Axel. The man shrugs as his head resurfaces from the mini-fridge, revealing a small can of Mountain Dew: Code Red. Roxas takes his shoes off anyway, padding over to the make-shift kitchen in loose-socked feet. An assortment of shiny objects are in the drawer, disheveled and shimmering. The red, green, orange, and blue Christmas lights dance off the flat reflections, creating a stunning light show in Roxas's already stunning eyes. The edges are jagged, they end in points, they're cold when you touch them…he knows because he's felt them before. He stoops down to touch one of the hilts and shivers. Yes. Yes, that's what he remembers. He picks up one of them, a faint shing whispering to him as it quickly moves across another surface. He stares at his twirling reflecting in the blade.
"Roxas what're you doing?"
It's two years ago again. All over again. Roxas can feel Sora's eyes staring at the back of his blonde head. He can feel his face contorting into that usual, sad, confused look. Biting his lower lip and standing on his tiptoes, just to have a better look.
Roxas stands, spinning around. There he is. His own brother, his own fraternal twin brother. His face is the same – his lips, his nose, his cheekbones…the only distinctly different feature is his hair. Instead of being soft curls and a gingery blonde, it's cinnamon-colored and goes off in tangents.
But the one thing that Roxas hates the most is his eyes. The same.
Exact.
Eyes.
They're round and blue, the same exact blue. They shimmer in the same exact way. They show the same sorrow, the same anger. All his emotions are exact replicas of Roxas's, and the boy hates it. He wishes that someday, he'll get to be himself, to be the one, true person to have eyes like that, pretty, sapphire eyes like that. And not only that, but be the one who can actually show his emotions in the right way. Be the only one. The only one.
"Hellooo? Roxas?"
Sora arches his eyebrows at him in the same exact way, confused.
That fucking does it.
Roxas lunges, holding the steak knife firmly in his right hand, grasping him by the shoulder with his left, but Sora is too quick. He cries out, encircling Roxas's right wrist with a vice grip. The tip of the blade is just an inch from Sora's terrified, widened eye.
"What're you--!?" he grunts, writhing to pull the knife away from his cornea, but Roxas promises extraordinary strength. He wrestles with him for an endless amount of time, tripping over the drawer of knives, the clanging filling the small basement, until Roxasfinally manages to pin him onto the camouflage bedspread, staring down at malachite, green eyes.
Axel moves quickly, twisting Roxas's wrist around in a swift movement, pinning him to the bed. Roxas snarls and spits, struggling and rolling around the bed as he tries to get up, restrained by Axel's skinny, but strong arms. The redhead feels a raised surface under his foot and for a split second, and only a split second, he bends down and picks it up, swinging heavily across Roxas's temple. Stars.
Darkness.
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"His name is Roxas."
Axel, hunched over in his plastic chair with metal legs, huffs, annoyed. "But who the hell is Sora?"
Vexen raises an eyebrow behind his glasses and long, blonde hair. He crosses his arms behind his back after straightening his tie. "You've obviously been informed incorrectly. Sora was Roxas's brother. He died two years ago."
"But how did he die?"
Vexen looks at the blonde boy through the glass, his arms bound in a strait jacket, his head bowed savagely despite the lack of movement. His hair stuck out in unusual places. "He killed him. Stabbed him in each eye thrice with a steak knife."
Axel merely leans back in his chair. He turns a ghostly white.
"So I'm guessing you met Sora, correct?"
Axel nods.
Vexen gives a despicable smirk, adjusting his glasses. "Roxas and Sora were close. Too close, I must say. Their parents mistreated them, which is probably one of the reasons Roxas was driven to do such a vile act. He's been living here ever since, in the asylum. He's escaped several times before, but he has been acting…rather odd lately."
"Tell me about it." Axel mumbles.
"As you have witnessed, he switches back and forth equally between two personalities – himself and 'Sora', his dead twin brother. In order to cope with his loss, he's developed a second persona which he believes is his actual brother…back from the dead. A bridge over his emotional, and mental, gap."
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A/N: If you didn't get it, feel free to leave a review and I'll explain!