Memories

Isa and Saix were like two sides of the same coin. And while I had memorized the Isa side, the Saix side was a whole new ball game. There were a lot of things about Saix that were the same as they'd always been: the silence, the OCDness he got about schedules and time, and the calm calculative air about him. But where Saix was icy, bitter and sarcastic, Isa was much warmer. He was open to the ideas of others, and he was willing to admit he didn't know everything. Isa had been curious, he'd wanted to learn more about the world. Now, Saix was as stubborn as hell, and refused to believe that others knew better than he did.

Where I'd once known Isa like the back of my hand, now, it was the same with Roxas. I'd memorized him: his smile, his laugh, the genuineness of all his emotions. There was the way he scowled whenever you called him a kid, and that defensive fierceness he got around Saix whenever he was talking down on Xion. And of course, that zombie-like trance he'd go into whenever he was thinking; his eyes would get all hazy as he focused on a blank space, and he'd get a serious, solemn look on his face as his mind churned silently. He always waited too long to eat his ice cream so that he had to eat it fast before it melted all over him, and he got depressed real easy, especially when he was alone. I could read Roxas like a book, and I had. There wasn't a page I hadn't memorized.

"What were you like as a Somebody, Axel?" Roxas asked, a relaxed smile on his face as he licked some dribbles from his melting ice cream. I frowned at the question, not really wanting to get into it.

"Same guy, more or less." I replied, and Roxas sighed, taking a bite from his snack.

"That's what you always say." He mumbled, his mouth full.

"Swallow before you talk, or you'll choke." I chuckled, sighing. "You can ask me a million times Roxas, and the answer will always be the same." I reminded him, and he sighed back, taking another bite from his ice cream and gazing contemplatively out at the sunset. For a while we just sat there, masked in a comfortable silence, until finally Roxas spoke again.

"How were you the same?" He asked, and I sighed heavily, falling backwards and closing my eyes. "Axel?" Even though my eyes were closed, I knew Roxas had turned his head to fix a solemnly curious gaze on me, and I placed my arm over my eyes in aggravation.

"I'm tryin' to remember, 'kay?" I grumbled. "Just gimme a second." I swore I could hear the satisfied smile as it slid across his face.

I didn't have to try to remember my past life. Memories like that just don't leave you alone: they haunt you every day and force their way into your mind through every crack in your defenses. You couldn't ignore them, so you had to embrace them or just live with them nagging your conscience every second of every day.

Ever since I'd met Roxas, I'd started to prefer the latter.

"I looked pretty much the same." I said finally, and I could almost see the irritated frown on Roxas' face, because I knew that wasn't what he was looking for. "Same hair, same face… My eyes were a little darker though… Oh, and I was a lot shorter." Pulling my arm away, I peeked at Roxas and sneered. "But I was still taller than you, half-pint." Roxas' eyes widened, and he scowled darkly at me. Laughing, I continued. "Huh… Lessee, what else was the same?" I tried to think of ways to compare myself to Lea. "I was still awesome in every way." I grinned.

"I'm guessing you were still an ego-maniac too?" Roxas chuckled, and I pushed him lightly with my foot.

"Yeah, sure." I scowled back. "As for differences… Well, my taste in fashion left something to be desired…" I cringed inwardly as I remembered the outfits Lea had put together.

"What do you mean?" Roxas asked, his blue eyes glowing with curiosity. I could almost see the gears in his mind turning wildly as he tried to imagine what I must have looked like.

"I was a very flamboyant child." I grinned, chuckling. "Very expressive, very… Colorful." I laughed, and Roxas grinned. "Hey, wipe that smile of your face! You don't exactly have a great sense in fashion either, checker-board boy." I smirked, and Roxas fell silent, scowling darkly at me. I laughed, closing my eyes.

"I can't help what I was wearing when I came here." He muttered, his voice full of scowl and pout.

"Oh get over yourself, it was just a joke!" I laughed. I was starting to wish Xion were here to help me out. The third opinion always helped to balance things out. Xion was good at playing mediator between Roxas and me, siding with one to help the other out, and then switching sides sporadically whenever she thought it was a good time.

"Did you have any friends as a Somebody?" Roxas asked, his mood lightening considerably. He seemed to have just noticed the last bits of his ice cream –which were now a puddle on his glove –and was attempting to clean up the mess with his tongue.

"Nope. I was a friendless loser." I replied sarcastically, shooting him a nasty grin. "Of course I had friends! I'm not an anti-social zombie like some people I know." Roxas glared at me, then smirked wickedly.

"Xion won't be very happy when she finds out you've been talking about her like that." He grinned, and I shoved him, laughing hard enough that my sides were starting ache a bit.

"Dude, not cool!" I tried to scowl at him, but the laughter prevented it.

"What was your friend like?" Roxas asked curiously, once the laughter had subsided. I frowned, closing my eyes. How did I explain Isa to Roxas?

"He was a lot like you." I decided, yawning. I opened one eye lazily, just in time to see Roxas' blue eyes grow wide in surprise. He fixed his gaze on me like a laser, waiting for me to continue. "He was kind of quiet, very serious, but he was always thinking." I smiled sadly, my memories bittersweet.

"About?" Roxas pushed, still curious, which only made him seem more like Isa.

"Everything. The world, the worlds, people and heartless." I swung my arms out wide, trying to gesture to everything. "He was curious, like you. He was never satisfied with what people told him. He always had to know more." I grinned, my eyes narrowing as I jabbed verbally at Roxas. He didn't seem to take the hint, so I continued. "He was also pretty solemn, just like you. He was a little zombie-ish maybe, but not as much as you are." I grinned. This time, Roxas scowled, but he continued to listen intently.

"He was addicted to order, and things always had to be on time." I smiled wryly. "He hated being late for anything, and he was always nagging me for messing up his schedule." Roxas laughed at this.

"Sounds like Saix." He grinned, and I forced myself to laugh back, though I couldn't bring myself to look at him.

"Yeah… I guess so." I muttered quietly.

"Do you think he misses you?" Roxas asked suddenly, his voice quiet. This question took me by surprise, and when I looked over at him, I saw a familiar solemnity in his eyes as he watched me. Frowning, I turned away again, thinking silently of Saix. Did he miss me? Did he miss Lea, and the way things used to be?

"Probably not as much as you'd think." I mumbled, closing my eyes. "But, hey, you lose one thing, you gain another, right?" I smiled wryly. The look in Roxas' eyes told me this confused him.

"You ever heard about equivalent exchange?" I asked, yawning. Roxas shook his head, so I pushed on. "It's like this: to get something, you've gotta give something of equal value. I lost that friend, sure, but I got you and Xion instead." I smiled, opening my eyes again. "I guess I got more than I bargained for there, huh?" I grinned. Roxas frowned for a moment, and then turned to face the horizon, his eyes clouding over.

Shuffling about, I forced myself to sit up, looking out at the sunset. Here in Twilight town, the sun never got very high, and it sank pretty slowly. It was still sinking down over the hills, and it looked ready to dip down.

"It's getting pretty late. Don't you think we should head back?" I asked, but Roxas didn't respond. He hadn't stopped staring at the sunset since my spiel about equivalent exchange, and I starting to wonder… Had I said something that he'd taken the wrong way? "You okay?" I asked quietly.

"You know… You're lucky." Roxas said finally, sighing quietly. "I wish I could remember something, or anything, about my life from before."

"Ah, so that's what this is about." I smiled sadly at him. I should have known that was why he'd asked me about my life.

"You know how you were talking about equivalent exchange?" Roxas' solemn look was starting to shift into a smile. "I wonder if it applies for every Nobody? I mean, I lost my heart, I lost my old life, I lost my memory, and anything else I'd had before I became a Nobody… But…" He smiled, glancing over at me. "I guess it was worth it." He smiled. I laughed bitterly, shaking my head at his logic.

"How do you figure THAT?" I chuckled. Roxas looked up at me in that solemn way of his and smiled his genuine smile.

"If I hadn't become a Nobody, I never would have met you." It took me a minute to get over the utter shock that came with what Roxas had just said. Once I did though, I suddenly felt a warm glow in my chest, and I couldn't help but smile back at him. If I'd had a heart, it probably would have melted.

"Roxas…" That kid, that wonderfully sappy and naïve kid, "Y'know… You're a pretty great guy yourself." I smiled, leaning back and closing my eyes. I didn't have to open them to know that he was grinning too.