Chapter 7: Dance ( www . youtube . com/watch?v=UWWP9VTKQIE)

Memo: I am really not in to country music, but this song makes my life. I love it. Her voice is beautiful! Sorry it took so long to update; I was busy with orientation stuff. But don't worry: other than Mondays, I will have plenty of time to do a little updating. ;) Thanks for sticking with me, and thanks for reading!

+Some Time Later, Not Much, Though...+

Eden's Pov

There's got to be some explanation for it, and I still haven't figured it out.

Nobodies are supposed to be devoid of feelings and emotions.

But how can anything halfway human survive without them? It just doesn't compute in my head.

Especially after that whole thing. Zexion had called me "Eden" for the first time ever. Unintentionally, too. But it wasn't just the fact that he had actually called me by my right name. It was moreso his reaction.

Embarrassed. Embarrassed? Isn't embarrassed a feeling?

In fact, weren't almost all of our descisions up to that point based on feelings? Zexion didn't HAVE to protect me. He could've just left me. Was it a sense of emotion, or a sense of duty?

I was so confused.

Confused. Wasn't that a feeling?

How could one "be" and have no "being"?

I trusted, and still trust, Zexion. Part of this was based on clear fact. He had saved my butt multiple times. He had taught me useful things to protect myself.

But...there were other reasons.

Because he did those things, those facts, could I not have feelings about him? Negative or positive?

"I'm so confused," I muttered, sitting on a stair step in the basement of Castle Oblivion. How can I not possess feelings about things? Aren't most opinions based on feelings? I have my opinions still. I'm no puppet. Then it hit me. Feelings and emotions are technically controlled by the brain, not the heart! Does this mean I still have all my feelings? Or do they mean "losing your heart" in a figurative sense?

I was going to ask him. Zexion.

He said he had done research. He might know. He might understand.

So I sprinted into a portal, and then I saw him sitting there by himself, obviously in deep thought.

"Hey!"

He opened his one working eye, irritated.

"What do you want." Not a question, but a statement. He knew I was up to something.

"How do you KNOW for SURE that Nobodies don't have emotions?" I asked.

"Why?"

"Just answer the question."

"Okay-because they're beings without hearts."

"But do you mean heart in the figurative sense?"

"No."

"Feelings and emotions are controlled by the brain, not the heart."

Zexion looked at me, very startled.

"What...?"

I repeated myself. He stared at me, eye wide.

"...Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I just made an ingenius discovery. Hah. In your face," I explained.

"Why does it matter?"

"Because if we have feelings still, that changes everything! That means that the Organization has no true purpose, and therefore we shouldn't belong to it anymore!"

"...Denex, it isn't that easy," Zexion said quietly, and I frowned.

"Why not?"

"We can't just walk away or disappear through a portal. I mean, you might be able to, but I can't; and if you did, I'd be dead."

"How can you die if you have no heart?"

Zexion clenched his fists. "Don't get smart with me. I'm serious."

"So am I. Why are you being so...I dunno. I don't even know what one word can describe you."

"What are you talking about?"

"You! You're acting like a pussy!"

"You-"

"No! Let me finish here!" I held out my hand to his mouth, and I could tell he was SO pissed, but I had to say it. "You act so big and bad and like you know everything, but really, you're just another pawn of the Organization! A pawn of Xemnas! And did you know, did you know, that if you rearrange the letters in his name, it spells out MANSEX? Do you REALLY want to be a pawn of a guy who's name is MANSEX?"

Zexion just stared at me for a while, and for once, I couldn't read him easily. I couldn't tell at all what he was thinking.

"You know I'm right, don't you?" I asked after a few moments of awkward silence. I got no response. "Fine, then I'll leave."

So I did. I opened a portal and left.

Damn, I KNOW Nobodies have emotions! I just KNOW it! We may not have HEARTS, but we still FEEL!

And on and on my brain rattled, until I was so irritated and annoyed with myself, I sat down and put my hands over my ears.

"Shut up, Eden!" I said to myself, but I wouldn't. My mind wouldn't stop.

Why am I getting so worked up over this? I'm right, why is that a big deal? I yelled at myself. It's because Zexion won't suck it up and just take a chance and leave!

I pouted, and immediately my old ways of thinking, selfish ways, came back to me.

I should just leave. Nobody would know. Half the people in here are DEAD anyway. If I just up and left, it wouldn't be that big of a deal. I mean, who would find out I have no heart if I never went to the doctor? And Zexion hates his own existance anyway. No big deal, right?

...

...

...

WRONG!

I couldn't EVER bring myself to do that to a person, even if the person had no heart. Especially him. Especially him.

Especially Zexion, because he had done so much just for my sake, without a second thought, just as some sort of instinct. Willing to protect me. He had been the only friend I could really trust in the Organization, no matter how much he would pretend to hate me.

Or maybe he really did.

I don't want you to hate me, I thought, pouting again. I didn't care about necessarily being hated in general. In fact...wait...

No...no, Eden, no. I put my hands to my head again, squeezing my eyes shut. You barely know him. You've known him for like, less than a month. This can't happen.

But I couldn't keep my eyes closed.

No. Gosh no.

His face...was I really starting to see it every time I closed my eyes?

No, no, that's understandable, I assured myself. He's the only person I've really been around these past how many ever days. That's perfectly natural.

But when I tried to remember a face of someone else's, anybody else's, it was hard. Harder than it should've been.

Nobodies aren't supposed to have emotions! I screamed in my mind. I can't love! I can't!

The last time I had actually loved someone of the opposite sex in a romantic way was never. Literally, never.

Yes, that's right. I had used all these boys. I was heartless.

And I was here, too, literally, but not mentally anymore. And it was tearing me in half.

I guess it was bound to happen. There was nothing I could do to fight it. He was someone who, in a funny sort of way, completed me. And that was something I could never take care of.

It wouldn't have been so bad if the circumstances had been different. Like, if we had just met and things happened. But because of the fact that we were confined to such a place as Castle Oblivion, there was nothing that could ever happen, and we would probably die in the end.

Those were my thoughts, and there was nothing I could do to control them.

Dammit, this is your fault, Zexion! I wanted to shout. If you would just stand up against people...if you could just fight for us a little longer...things would be so different. Things would be so much easier.

As much as I hated crying, I couldn't help it. Hot tears came swimming down like little waterfalls.

"Why is this happening?" I mouthed, wiping my eyes, which was completely useless. Just like everything else I did or tried to do. Useless.

Then I felt it.

My right index finger was tickled by something, so I pulled it away from my temple, and out came a silvery-pink ribbon of dust and air. Of magic.

I didn't even want to know at first what my mind had conjured up as a song, but curiousity killed me, and I gave in. Pressing the pretty magic ribbon (great name, huh?) to my forehead, it slowly was absorbed.

...

...

...

I smiled.

Finally...a plan.

+Sometime Later+

Zexion was done.

He was so tired of this Organization. He didn't see any benefit in it anymore, since what Denex said to him was true. Which would mean he still had all of his emotions.

Well, that meant his alias name would be worthless, too. But he couldn't really go back to his old name, Ienzo. There were too many people who would've still remembered him. Like...her...

But Denex would want to be called by her real name, and there wasn't anything Zexion could argue against anymore.

Suddenly he heard a noise, which sounded like a single footstep to him. He blinked his one working eye, looked around, then ignored it and continued his pondering.

Yes, Zexion had had it with the Organization. From now on, he was working for himself.

What about Denex, though?

On the one hand, she was completely attached to Zexion in so many ways. He was stuck with her as far as the Organization went, and he would have to take care of her as long as they each lived, whoever died first.

But on the other hand, she was actually a pretty cool chick as a friend. There was something about her that he admired, and she wasn't completely vain like many other girls he had once known. Her sense of humor was a little wack because of her extreme sarcasm, but other than that, she was pretty tolerable. In fact, maybe more than tolerable in Zexion's mind.

The fact that she actually cared about other people's feelings was a bit new to him, considering the one main girl in his past life was extremely selfish and vain.

He wondered still, though, what kind of past she had come from to end up as she was. When he was sent to capture her, he had to travel to a world he had never seen nor heard of before. She was a college student, in a dorm with no roomie. Did she not have friends or something?

No, of course not, because at this point, she would be a Nobody, and her former roommate probably thought she was the replacement seeing how Eden was dead.

Zexion heard the soft noise again, and this time, he looked up.

Nobody was there, but a new object had been placed in the room.

He got up from the floor and walked over to the little jar. Literally, all it was was a little jar with what looked like air in it. But upon further inspection, he noticed a small, silvery-pink ribbon inside, swirling in nothingness, glowing.

Zexion looked around for Denex, but she was nowhere to be seen.

However, he didn't need her there to prove this was her doing. This was the result of one of her powers. But why would she give him one?

He stopped, almost dropping the jar.

Maybe she was finally ready to tell him about the other guy. Before, when she showed him her power, that's what she was trying to tell him.

Finally.

He unscrewed the lid of the jar as quickly as he could, tossing it to the side. The small ribbon felt like dust between his fingers, like it would slip out of his hand and fall to the floor and break into a thousand microscopic pieces. So he held it in his cupped hands like a pile of sand.

For a few moments, he watched the ribbon swim around in the air, glowing fantastically. Why was it pink? Pink was not an Eden sort of color.

Oh no.

He thought it.

Eden.

Her name was supposed to be Denex. Not Eden. So why did he keep thinking "Eden"?

He had let it slip once, just once, but in his mind, it was a million times over.

First of all, he had never heard the name Eden before. It was...pretty. Zexion had only known one girl in his entire life with a name that started with an "e," so it wasn't common to him at all.

Eden...Denex...weren't they one in the same now because of her discovery? But he couldn't get past his own stubborness to call her Eden all the time. No, she would stay as Denex to him.

Slowly Zexion cleared his mind as best that he could and placed the soft ribbon next to his right temple. It gently flowed in.

It was not what he had expected.

"I hope you never lose your sense of wonder," a woman sang in a soft, country voice. A pretty voice. "You get your fill to eat but always keep that hunger. May you never take one single breath for granted. God forbid love ever leave you empty handed."

At that line, Zexion shuddered. He wanted it to stop, but it couldn't. Only Denex knew how to stop it, and she wasn't here.

"I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean, whenever one door closes I hope one more opens. Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance, and when you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance...I hope you dance. I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance, never settle for the path of least resistance."

Sometimes you have no choice but to settle for the path of least resistance, Zexion felt like muttering, but no one was around to hear it.

"Livin' might mean takin' chances but they're worth takin', lovin' might be a mistake but it's worth makin'."

Unfortunately, no.

"Don't let some hell bent heart leave you bitter-"

How can one NOT?

Zexion felt tense. This was a bad idea. He should've known Denex was up to no good.

"When you come close to sellin' out, reconsider. Give the heavens above more than just a passing glance, and when you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance...I hope you dance. I hope you dance...I hope you dance."

In the background he could hear different words:

"Time is a wheel in constant motion always rolling us along. Tell me who wants to look back on their years and wonder where those years have gone."

Zexion slid against a wall and onto the floor. Why was she giving him this...?

"I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean, whenever one door closes I hope one more opens. Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance, and when you get the choice to sit it out or dance, dance...I hope you dance. I hope you dance...I hope you dance. I hope you dance...I hope you dance. Time is a wheel in constant motion always rolling us along. Tell me who wants to look back on their years and wonder where those years have gone. Time is a wheel in constant motion always rolling us along. Tell me who wants to look back on their years and wonder where those years have gone."

Eden's Pov

I could feel all the breath in my lungs escape as I felt the song end in my head. The strange thing was...did he even listen? The strange thing was that I felt like he didn't. Like he was refusing to.

Had I really hit him in the spot where it hurt most? Did I really catch something here with his past?

Cautiously, I walked down the hallway as quietly as I could and peered in the room where I had left Zexion his ''gift.''

He was still in there, but sitting, head bowed. I couldn't see his face, but from what I could see of his body, it was shaking all over.

''Zexion?'' I couldn't help but call out to him. He didn't move.

''...I hate you, Denex...'' he finally muttered. ''...You don't even know how much."

I drew back, uncertain of what to do. Was...he...really serious?

He muttered something else, but I couldn't hear him.

''What?''

''Get away from me.''