Roxas awoke the next morning to find Axel's arm resting around his waist. He shivered at the contact, only to have the redhead pull the blonde in that much closer to him. Now his back was touching Axel's chest. His bare chest. Roxas took a deep breath and slowly let it out to keep himself calm. Then Axel shifted, removing his arm from around Roxas. He let out a sigh of relief.

"Good morning," Axel then spoke up, his voice rough but sweet. The tone of it made Roxas shutter. "Are you cold?"

"N-no, I'm fine," he replied. "Good morning."

"Did you sleep well?"

"I slept fine. You?"

"Yeah." He sighed, sitting up. "It feels good to be back in my old room."

"Do you think the others realised that I stayed in here last night?" he then asked.

"Probably not."

"And if they did?"

"So what? By the way, what was your bad dream even about?"

Roxas turned the colour of the Axel's hair almost instantly. "You'll laugh and think it's stupid."

He smiled. "No I won't."

"Yes you will."

"Roxas, you can tell me."

"It's too embarrassing."

"Don't worry about it. Just tell me."

"No, I really don't want to."

"Please." His voice was soft now as he started to plead with the blonde.

And the blonde couldn't resist the softness of that voice. "Fine," he gave in, also sitting up at this point.

The redhead smiled again at his victory. "So what happened in this bad dream of yours?"

"You were gone," he answered after a moment of hesitation, his voice low. "Or you were leaving, but you weren't planning on ever coming back. You were going to be leaving forever. For good." His blue eyes avoided the green eyes of his friend as he told him about the nightmare. "Then as you drove off, you were hit by another car." He cringed at the thought. "You didn't survive the accident. You were gone."

"Roxas," his firm arms pulled him into a warm embrace, "I'm right here and I'm not going anywhere. I may go back to college at the end of summer, but I'll always come back here and return to you. And I'll stay alive."

Roxas pushed himself away from Axel and stumbled out of the bed. "It doesn't even matter. It was a stupid dream."

Axel stepped out of his bed now, too, and walked over to Roxas. "It wasn't stupid," he denied. The blonde wouldn't look at him, though. "Hey," he cupped Roxas's face in his hands, "look at me." Axel tilted Roxas's head up so he could look into those blue eyes. There was something different about them; there was more depth too them. It was almost as if they were revealing something to his green eyes that he had never been seen before. But they were beautiful eyes.

"Axel?" Roxas spoke up, his voice cracking.

"Yeah?"

"We're really close," he pointed out.

That was true. Axel hadn't noticed this, but he and Roxas were now barely an inch apart.

"Yeah," he repeated. He tilted Roxas's head a little more and started to lean in closer to him.

"Axel," he said his name again with the only breath he had left.

And then they were only a breath apart…

"Roxas! Axel!" a female voice shouted. The two sprung away from each other, coming back to their senses. Kairi then appeared in the doorway. "Oh good, you two are awake. We have breakfast ready for all of us." She disappeared again.

"Axel," Roxas said once more after a few moments of silence.

"Let's get downstairs," the redhead replied. And he left.

"But—" the blonde started. Axel was already gone, though. So he sighed. "But what just happened?" he asked himself. "Or what was about to happen?" He shook his head and made his way downstairs.

Roxas was quiet all throughout breakfast and he avoided eye contact with all the others, especially Axel. Instead, he just kept his eyes on his plate of food. He couldn't stop thinking about the moment between him and Axel. He had been right in front of Roxas, not even an inch away. He had been holding his face in his firm and comforting hands. His green eyes were intense as they gazed through his blue eyes and into his soul. And his lips were slightly parted and looked so soft to touch…

"Rox? Roxas!" Riku called his name.

"Huh?" he replied, snapping back to reality.

"Are you feeling okay?" Naminé checked.

"I'm fine," he lied.

"You just completely spaced out," Sora told him.

"Did I? Sorry."

"You don't have to be sorry," Kairi denied. "We were just saying."

Roxas only nodded in reply, still keeping his head down.

"Roxas," his body tensed up when Axel said his name, "is everything all right?"

"Everything's fine," he lied again.

"Can you look up at us, then?" he asked.

Though he hesitated, Roxas did lift his head and he locked his eyes with Axel's. And for a few moments, they just stared at each other intently, forgetting about the other four.

"Did something happen between you two before you came down here?" Riku wondered, speaking up.

"No," Axel also lied now. He took the last bite of his breakfast. "Hey Riku, could you give me a ride to my old workplace? I wanna talk to the boss about possibly getting my job back for the summer."

"Sure," he accepted. "We can go now."

They dropped their plates in the sink. Riku grabbed his keys and gave Sora a quick goodbye kiss on the cheek. They then walked out of the house and climbed into the blue car. Once they started down the road, Riku asked again, "Okay, what the hell happened?"

"What are you talking about?" Axel asked in reply.

"You know very well what I'm talking about."

"Not really, though."

"What the hell happened between you and Roxas?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Nothing."

"Don't lie to me, Axel. Something obviously happened."

He sighed. "You really wanna know?"

"I wouldn't have asked otherwise."

"Okay, well…I guess I almost kissed Roxas."

Riku slammed on the breaks, causing both him and Axel to be tossed forward, despite their seatbelts being worn. The redhead threw his hands in front of his head to keep it from bouncing off the dashboard.

Once Riku pulled over and stopped the car, he turned on the redhead. "You what?" he exclaimed.

He only shook his head. "Don't make me say it again."

He then smiled. "That's great, though."

"What's so great about it?"

"The fact that I knew you liked Roxas."

"Nothing even happened, Riku!"

"But you did want to kiss him?"

"You see, that's the thing; I'm not sure if I actually wanted to kiss him or not."

"Oh…well…" He sighed, trailing off.

"I don't know what to do now," he then said.

"You need to talk to Roxas."

"About what?"

"About how he feels with the whole situation."

"How am I supposed to talk to Roxas about how he feels when I don't even know how I feel?"

He shrugged. "Maybe it'll come to you when you talk to him."

"I don't think it works that way, Riku."

"You never know until you try."

"Riku, I—" He sighed, cutting himself off. "I don't think it's that simple."

"All right, fine," he gave in. He started the car back up. "Let's just drop it, then. This conversation never happened."

And with that said, they were back on the road.