"Hey, Axel! Looks like you're feeling better today!"

"Oh, hey Demyx, you're up early!" I replied.

"So are you. what's up?" Demyx asked.

"Just getting a little restless after all these easy missions." I sighed.

"Well, Axel, if you hadn't gotten injured, you wouldn't have gotten easy missions." he teased.

I laughed. "Fair enough. So what are you up to, then?"

"I was just gonna work on a new song. Wanna hear it?"

"Sure!" Unlike the rest of the Organization, I liked a lot of Demyx's music.

"You know what, Axel?" Demyx asked out of nowhere.

"Hm?"

"It really means a lot to me that you appreciate how hard I work for my music." Demyx could always pull off random comments like that.

"Hey, that's what friends are for. But aren't we Nobodies not supposed to have emotions?" I teased.

"Nah, that's just some stupid lie Xemnas made up." he declared.

"I guess that makes two of us."

Demyx smiled. "Hey, pick a song, I'll play it! he exclaimed, returning to his normal enthusiastic self. He played a few more songs. I even found myself singing along at one point.

"Here's a good one!" Demyx said as he began another song. I recognized it immediately and started using the coffee table as a sort of drum.

"DEMYX, WOULD YOU STOP THAT INFERNAL RACKET?!" It was Larxene. We played and sang louder until the song was over. She wasn't going to stop us from rocking out, and in an out-of-the-way part of the castle at that.

"Well, we better get to work." I said when we had finished.

"Yeah, I guess so." Demyx agreed sadly.

We headed to the Grey Area, trying to avoid Larxene along the way. Roxas was waiting when we got there.

"Hey, guys." he greeted us.

"Axel, you're finally here." Saïx was walking towards us.

"You're teamed with Roxas for heart collection today. I heard there's a group of Emblem Heartless in Twilight Town." He turned to Demyx. "There's some more Heartless outside the castle. You can take them."

"But… but I'm not cut out for combat! Can't I have a recon mission or something?" Demyx complained.

"Perhaps you would like to take that issue to Master Xemnas?" Saïx said, turning away. Demyx sighed and reluctantly headed towards the castle entrance.

"So, Roxas, you ready to go collect hearts?" I asked.

He nodded silently.

"Geez, don't talk my ears off!" I joked. "Let's go."

Roxas had made tremendous progress in his fighting skills over the past week. I was amazed to see how easily he took out the Heartless. I had made a lot of progress as well, but I still hadn't fully recovered from the injuries I took fighting the giant Heartless last week. Pretty soon, we had collected more than enough hearts.

"Good work today, Roxas. You've made a lot of progress lately." I said.

"Thanks." he mumbled, looking at the ground.

"Come on, chatterbox, let's head back."

"Yeah…"

"Hey, Roxas, you got any plans for the afternoon?" I asked, hoping to get more than one word at a time out of him.

"Well," he began "I was just going to check in with Saïx and then go to my room like always."

Poor kid. "Go to your room?!" I exclaimed. "Oh, Roxas, Roxas…"

"Wait up!" Three kids suddenly came sprinting around the corner and stopped near us.

"No fair, Hayner!" one exclaimed. "You got a head start!"

"All right, we'll have a rematch." the boy who must have been Hayner agreed. The three ran off, and as they left, Hayner shouted: "Last one to the station buys everyone ice cream!"

"Oh, sure, now you tell us!" one of his friends replied.

When they were gone, Roxas looked up at me. "Who were they?" he asked.

"Probably just some kids who live here. I answered.

"They sure acted weird." he mused.

"Really? How do you figure?"

"Why did those last two seem to enjoy getting pushed around like that? They were even making those 'ha ha' noises."

"You mean laughter?" I asked, trying not to laugh a bit myself. "Sometimes people with hearts just do that, even if it doesn't make any sense."

"Oh… so I guess they're different from us." Roxas decided.

"Hey, let's go get some ice cream before we head back." I suggested.

"Why?"

"Whaddaya mean, why? Because we're friends that's why."

"So, friends are people who have ice cream together?" Roxas wondered aloud.

I thought back to the morning, and the comment I had made about friends. "That's what friends are for." But... what exactly IS a friend? Sure, I've always known the answer to that question, but I could never put it into words.

"Sort of…" I searched for something to help Roxas understand. "That, or laugh at stupid stuff that doesn't make any sense. Like those kids we just saw-they were friends. C'mon, I'll show you how it works." I'd seen how the others ignored or just plain disliked Roxas. He needed somebody to treat him like a friend.

For the next few days, Roxas and I met after work to hang out at the station. He was making progress every day. Not only were his fighting skills improving, but he was getting better at holding up his end of a conversation, too.

Maybe Roxas and I could be friends.

Updates for this are going to be slow, my schedule is kind of crazy, but I'll try to keep up with this as much as I can :) Thanks for reading! :)