Author's Note
This is a remixed version of an earlier fanfic I wrote years and years ago. In remixing, the idea is to take the same plot and re-write it as if you were coming up with it for the first time – and well, I couldn't resist the idea of revisiting one of my favorite Kingdom Hearts couples. While this doesn't entirely spoil 358/2 Days, it does visit plot elements from there, as a heads-up!
Disclaimer
Kingdom Hearts belongs to Disney and Square-Enix. I'm merely borrowing these characters for a story or two.
In his dreams, Roxas ceased to be. Instead, he - this dark-haired kid with boundless energy - would run across stretches of deserted towns and dusty paths and fight yellow-eyed shadows, all in hopes of keeping 'the light' safe. His name would become Sora, always yelled in conjunction with Donald! and Goofy! - and he would move forward one step at a time, no matter how much his heart ached. As he would continue his dream journey, the landscape of his dusty paths and underwater streams would shift, and he would become a hooded kid in a long black cloak underneath a dark, cloudy sky with a heart-shaped moon. The bright city lights would blind him, threatening to engulf him in its rain showers if he weren't careful.
Sometimes, the ground would shatter underneath him, and he would again become Sora, using cards this time to fight people in the same hoods he had once worn. A girl in white would draw at the very top of the tower, her hands deftly pulling together pieces of memories – his and other people's – before re-arranging them in perfect order.
Nothing remained constant in those dreams. Not even the chains that bound him - bound Sora - remained stable. They would always (always) shatter, engulfing him into pieces of data, like the pieces of code Pence sometimes toyed with.
Once, someone had told him that dreams were the brain's way of sifting through events that occurred during the day. Logically, Roxas knew this every time he stretched out his hand and waited for an imaginary key to appear.
As he tossed and turned and imagined worlds, he subconsciously understood that his brain was piecing together Pence's summer project on Javascript, just as it was piecing together Olette's fantasy romance novel and even Hayner's embellished and elaborated Summer Struggle stories. (His own project, on the stars that never appeared in Twilight Town's sky, rarely appeared in his dreams. Huh.)
Because logically, he wasn't Sora. He was never Sora. He is Roxas of Twilight Town, the kid who eats sea-salt ice cream every sunset during his summer vacation. He laughs at Hayner's stupid jokes and groans every time Olette asks him to go shopping. He's a victim of Pence's photo shoots (and the subsequent subject of most of them). He also has this stupid, impossible crush on his best friend Olette that he can never admit, because best friends don't date each other without ruining the underlying social dynamics of their world. Hayner would groan and moan if Roxas and Olette became "we people," a united group that acted and thought for each other, and so Roxas would never act upon those lingering feelings. Even if he thinks he and Olette would never become "we people," because frankly, their interests were far too different to run that risk.
Maybe that's why Roxas dreams about Sora and Kairi - about the impossible, insurmountable obstacles they face - every time he closes his eyes. When Sora loses Kairi, Roxas's heart aches too. He recognizes that gnawing ache. He couldn't bear to lose someone important.
(He thinks. Every time he thinks about loss, the growing, piling pain of loss, his heart twists again.)
But he doesn't think he knows loss. Roxas of Twilight Town has never lost anyone important - and he hopes he never will.
He doesn't care for this crazy dream world. He doesn't care for a world where he reunites with the girl he loves, only to rush headfirst into battle because the fate of the multiverse matters so much more than her.
But the hooded figures from his dreams laugh at him. They muse, "Don't want to get mixed up? You're already there."
He points a shaky finger at them, screaming obscenities that would've made Hayner proud.
Their leader, with his deep baritone voice, just laughs. "You're afraid of discovering yourself, aren't you? Pity."
The figures circle him, laughing and laughing until he jolts up, pulling the covers around him as he stares at his alarm clock. Four AM, it reads as if nothing had ever happened. The curtains move with the light breeze of the night, and for a second, Roxas imagines the black hoods of the—of the people that haunt his dreams.
He takes a deep breath. As long as he is Roxas of Twilight Town, no dream world will conquer him. He can't be afraid of discovering himself if he already knows who he is - and who he cares for. While he doesn't understand how (or why) he dreams of Sora, Donald, Goofy, Riku, and Kairi, he will move forward like them.
He leans back against his headboard. "I should tell her," he mutters. "I should tell her I like her, first thing in the morning." Maybe the truth would set him free – and the hooded men would finally find a new target to taunt.
But more importantly, he only had a few days left with Olette, before they would disperse to their separate classes and acknowledge each other as classmates, rather than the fast friends they had always been. If he didn't say anything now, he wasn't sure when he ever would.
In the morning, he rushes to the Usual Spot, hoping and hoping that Olette's arrived early (as she always does). She smiles at him as he walks in - but Hayner and Pence are already there. Roxas inwardly sighs as he greets them. There will always be tomorrow, and the day after that, before summer comes to a crashing end.
Except there wasn't, and as Roxas stares at the sleeping, dark-haired boy with boundless energy before him, he knows when he's been defeated by his dreams.
"It looks like my summer vacation's over," he muses as he steps forward.
His heart aches. In that moment, he – painfully - realizes that like Sora, he had chosen the universe over the girl. The dream world had (unfortunately) conquered him too.