Title: This is Real
Fandom: Kingdom Hearts (2)
Character(s): Roxas
Rating: G
Genre: Angst, Romance
Note: Inspired by ideas brewing in my head late a night. Slight Roxas+Namine
Disclaimer: I own nothing but this fanfic.
Written: July 16, 2006

I'm Roxas, but ... I'm not just myself.

I'm you ...

Everything you see, I see. Everything you know, I know. Everything you feel, I feel. Or at least I remember how it is to feel from what you remember.

Is that all I am?

A reflection made from your memories?

But I'm different than you even if it's only a little bit. You're more optimistic and cheerful than me. You have friends that remember you and are waiting for you to come back to them. No matter where you go, you'll always have a home to go back to.

You have a family.

A mother's touch. I only remember from your memories how that feels like. Firm and gentle, warm and comforting. And when she holds you in her arms, it's like you're being welcomed home.

Do you know how lucky you are?

Lucky to go where you want to; to do what you want to do; to say what you want to say.

To feel what you want to feel.

These emotions I feel -- No. I don't have a heart, so I can't feel. I can only remember how to feel from what I felt when I was still a part of you before you turned into a heartless.

Then that feeling of brotherhood I had with Axel was just a memory of that bond between you and Riku, wasn't it? Then the anger and loss I 'feel' at loosing whatever life I had in that fake Twilight Town ... It was just some elaborate memory of when the heartless took your world and you lost your friends?

That's not fair. I want these 'feelings' to be real. I want them to be my own. I don't want them to be a memory of something you felt.

I want to hate and to be scared. I want to be happy and experience that natural high that makes you grin like a complete idiot. I want to actually feel sadness on my own, to know for a fact that I'm not just remembering how to be emotionally pained.

I don't want to reflect how you feel for Kairi with Namine.

I want to tell Namine that I'm not just mirroring you.

I want to look into her eyes without having to look out of yours and through Kairi's.

I want to hold her because I want to, not because you're holding Kairi.

I want to love Namine because I do love her and not because you love Kairi.

No matter what Yen Sid told you and what you believe, I love Namine.

This is too strong to be just a memory.

This is real.