A/N: Chapter 4. Pre-CoM. Namixas.
Disclaimer: No. I don't.
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Q u e s t i o n i n g
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N a m i x a s
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Blank slate, white walls
black coat, resolve falls;
Lost in memories, seek help from you
A guardian angel, eyes so blue
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"No way!" Roxas yelled, making Naminé wince as she clapped her hands over her ears.
"I'm pretty sure some Nobodies didn't hear you from, like, fifty miles away," she growled, glaring at the blonde number Thirteen.
He gave her his infamous puppy-eyes, and her anger melted, once again, easily. But that was not distracting her---
"Say biddy-bye to your knight."
"Naminé!" he whined once again, his eyes glued to the white marble figurine she had just taken off the board and replaced with her own black rook. "Come on, some consideration here!"
She stuck out her tongue. "You challenged me to a game of chess, if I remember correctly." That he did, after thirty minutes of wheedling her to stop drawing for just an hour and do something else. Roxas' eyebrows were now furrowed once again, and she automatically reached over the board and smoothed them out, ignoring the blush that spread across his cheeks instantly. He looked up indignantly at her.
"No distractions!" He snapped, supposedly pondering his next move, which would do nothing to hinder his impending loss.
"You're terrible at chess," she remarked, rubbing her chin thoughtfully.
"Phht," Moving his queen, he snarled. Whether at the chessboard, at her, or at nonlife in general, Naminé had no idea.
A smile spread across her face as she picked up her rook and moved it two squares, taking his queen. Ignoring Roxas' vehement objections, she clapped her hands gleefully. "Check...and mate."
"Naminé!" He said loudly, jutting out his lower lip. From the right angle, it looked as if he was going to cry.
"You are terrible at chess."
"Phht. Whatever," Roxas grumbled, gathering the pieces together (and he looked like he was itching to throw them at her) and putting them back inside the board, closing it with a snap that threatened to break it into marble pieces.
"Give me that," she wrenched the board from his grip and stood up, walking to her white closet in the corner. She was in the process of shoving it into the topmost shelf when she heard a chair topple over. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Roxas grinning sheepishly at her from the floor. Apparently, he had stretched his arms and tipped his chair far enough to make him lose his balance. Resulting in one blonde spilled on the floor. She rolled her eyes and shoved the board back in place (meaning, between the Monopoly box and Demyx's bag of limited-edition Disney stamps).
"Now what do we do...what to do..." he was murmuring as she rummaged through another drawer, pulling out her trusty white pencil and her sketchpad.
"No. What do you do," she glared at him, not wanting him to waste any more of her time.
She and Roxas had reached a silent agreement: forget the whole portrait sketching thing and let everything be. His portrait itself had disappeared, and truth be told, she didn't care where it ended up. Funny how a sheet of paper can bare your soul to the last person you'd want to.
Uhm. Like she had a soul, anyway.
She bit her lip as her pencil started its usual feathery touch on the very white, very blank paper. Well, it started to move, but for the first time in her existence, she had absolutely no urge to draw.
Cripes.
Roxas was humming, not something that Naminé would really like to hear today.
The paper remained blank, and she resisted the urge to bang her head on the table for lack of anything to draw. She hated seeing a blank piece of paper, in fact, she hated seeing anything blank. Which would be a paradox; she herself was a blank slate. What she knew had only been supplied by others, her memories were nothing but whiteness.
She wanted to scribble hard on the paper, draw harsh black lines, draw anything just to make it not so blank.
Unlike her.
"If you stare any more at that sheet of paper it'll burst into flames," Roxas interrupted her train of thought. She didn't know whether to feel mad or grateful. Whatever, she can't feel, so there's no difference. She instead drew tiny little bars on one corner of the white paper...
Thirteen bars. Thirteen days.
Hm. She wondered whether Xemnas had a fetish for the number thirteen.
-don't push me away-
Roxas placed his elbows on the table and looked around, not in boredom, but out of sheer curiousity. He had only noticed it just now; Naminé probably had not been introduced to a certain thing called color.
White curtains, white ceiling, white walls, white floors, white chairs, white dresser, white illuminating Materia, you name it, she has it in white.
Now, the Castle That Never Was was technically white in itself, but color had sneaked its way in, giving it, at least, a semblance of looking normally lived in. His own bedsheets were midnight blue. Axel's carpeting was warm red. Heck, even Xigbar's room was dotted with splashes of sandy yellow and palmtree green (number Two had always had a thing for beaches, and Roxas was sensible enough not to ask why).
The only thing in her room that wasn't white was her sketches, her materials, and she herself. Okay, so that may count as 'things' already, but that's besides Roxas' point.
He had more than once gritted his teeth in frustration over the overabundance of white everytime he spent time in her room; it made him want to grab her crayons and watercolor and just splash any other color that white on the blank walls.
Roxas picked at the edge of his black sleeve, glancing every so often at the girl across him. Naminé looked lost as she stared at the piece of blank paper in front of her. His gaze traveled from the white (jeez--even her pencil was white) pencil twirling slowly in her dainty fingers upwards.
Flaxen locks framed her face in a blonde embrace, and irregularly chopped bangs covered her forehead and brushed furrowed eyebrows lightly. She hadn't drawn her hair over her shoulder like she usually does, and truth be told, Roxas liked it when she did. Pale lips were pursed together in concentration under a well-defined, if not small, nose, and her big, blue and really blue eyes conveyed frustration.
Naminé looks cute when she's frustrated. Really. That's why Roxas likes to pester her so much.
There goes Roxas again.
"What, you have artist's block?" he asked, tilting his head.
She glanced up at him. "Is there such a thing as artist's block, Roxie?"
He bared his teeth at her at the mention of his nickname; it sounded so damn girly. "Well, it sure as hell looks that you've got it now."
"I need my inspiration."
"Really?" he said sarcastically.
Naminé glared at him before darkening something she had marked earlier on the paper. Roxas raised an eyebrow as he peered at the paper. She hurriedly snatched it away, sticking out her tongue at him.
And she says he has the maturity of a five-year old.
He tapped his fingers on the white table before speaking up. "Question!"
She gave him an exasperated look. "Again?"
"Obviously."
"Since I don't have anything better to do, let me hear it and I'll try to answer whatever crazy thing you have to ask this time," she said evenly, putting down her pencil and lacing her fingers together. Roxas interpreted from the statement and the tone of voice that she really meant 'Ask anything like the last time you did and you're dead.' Yeah. She meant something like that.
Swallowing nervously, he brushed away a few stray strands of hair dangling from the front of his eyes.
"Why do you like the color white so much, Naminé?"
"I don't like white," she said immediately, almost angrily.
"O-oh." He leaned away slightly, surprised at her reaction. "Okay."
She scowled at him, picking her pencil up and started scrubbing the pencil viciously on the paper.
"Uhm, if I might ask, why is your room so white, then?"
Naminé stared at the paper, and spoke without really looking at him."Xemnas wants it white."
"What about you?"
"I don't get sunlight much often. I'm a Nobody only by the skin of my teeth, but that doesn't have to do anything with the white dress, does it? White is innocence. In my case, white means I'm practically nothing," she said in a very final tone of voice.
"You're being random today," he countered.
"Because you keep asking me these questions," she snapped back.
He laced his hands behind his head and reclined slightly. "And you answer them, proving that you do know something."
"And that's supposed to cheer me up?"
"Whoever said you had to be cheered up?"
"Shut up, Roxas," she huffed.
Now, Roxas is a very stubborn Nobody, in fact, he's the most stubborn of them all. When he wants to get to someone, he simply does not stop until he does so. He wasn't going to be scared off by Naminé going into one of her primadonna moments.
"You're the one who's touchy today," he said, amused. "You're not practically nothing, you know. At least, not to me," he added in an undertone.
"I heard that," she muttered, her pencil clattering onto the table with a loud echo. "Stop trying to pretend that you care, okay? It's sickening."
Roxas rolled his eyes. Typical Nobody defensive reaction. He was already used to that.
"But I do care."
"No you don't."
"Yes I do."
"No you don't."
"Yes I do."
"No you don't."
"No I don't."
"Yes you do!" Naminé exclaimed, flustered. She clapped a hand to her mouth after realizing what she had just said.
"Hm?" he laughed at the indignation on her face.
"You can't care about me," she said quietly. "You musn't."
"Why not?"
"Because you can't."
Roxas crossed his arms and pouted. "Just because I don't have a heart doesn't mean that I can't remember how to feel concern, you know. Stop pushing me away; we're in this together."
"I need no-one, we were never in this together," she hissed, venom dripping from every syllable.
Roxas bit his lip and forced the hurt expression from his face, pasting on the grin that he made sure everyone saw as who he was. Happy Kid strikes again. "Wooh, never in this together," he imitated. "Like hell no."
"Well," Naminé said, raising her voice as her pencil blazed to life across the sheet of paper. "I'm advising you stop caring right now."
"I can't do that."
"Stop being so thick," she shot at him, annoyed. "You don't have feelings, you have borrowed ones---"
"So I have feelings then, even if they're only borrowed!" He pointed out, but he fell silent at the look on her face.
"---and besides, you can't care about someone who's not here, right?"
"Sure I can---," he sat bolt upright in his chair, jolted as he comprehended what she had just said, and the trace of sadness in her voice. "What do you mean, 'someone who's not here'?" He asked urgently, not really wanting to hear her answer.
Naminé eyed him and quirked an eyebrow. "You are dense," she sighed, sliding the sheet of paper across the table for him to see.
Roxas felt himself blanch as he stared at the black-and-white rendition of Castle Oblivion. Exactly as how Xemnas had described in the meeting.
"What?" he joked in a dry voice, "Are you planning to be the Order's architect?"
"I'm not joking, Roxas. I'm leaving in two weeks for Castle Oblivion."
He felt his resolve crumble as he stared at her deadly serious expression. Swallowing the rapidly-forming lump in his throat, he portalled out soundlessly, not wanting to let the girl he loved see him crying for her.
Screw not being able to feel. He loved Naminé, and there's no way in hell he's giving up on her.
-sparkling, shiny, stinging, lovely-
Naminé stared, stunned, not at the empty chair Roxas had just portalled out of, but at the twin small circles of saltwater sitting innocently on the sketch she had handed to him.
They sparkled in the white light, and her own tears sparkled too as they trailed down her skin.
The tears felt cold, just like her.
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Why do all my fanfiction end up being so dramatic? Geez!