IX. Stars
Axel had always been the boy with stars in his eyes and better things on his mind. He only saw the things ahead of him: places he would go, people he would meet, things he would do. All this played like movies behind his eyes constantly over and over, but he never seemed to grow tired. He wanted to leave this small town more than anything else. He'd outgrown this town years ago and longed to spread his wings.
Roxas had always been helplessly in love with Axel. Day after day, he dreamed of hugging, kissing, holding the redhead. The redhead had this strange effect on him and his mass amount of determination attracted him like nothing else. That had sparked the blond's initial interest in him. As Roxas grew to be friends with Axel, though, his attraction only swelled. Every part of Axel interested him, even most of his bad habits. He'd never met anyone like Axel before and it excited him.
When the two first met, they slowly became closer, but not the way or the fashion Roxas had wanted. He wanted the redhead to take interest in him as well. He wanted the redhead to bring them closer and talk to him. But that didn't happen. Roxas always had to seek him out, and through his work alone, they became friends. The blond doubted that Axel even knew he was there. It didn't seem to make a difference to him. He never commented or asked about it when Roxas missed a day of school, he never asked for the blond's presence or invited him anywhere, and he never talked to Roxas about anything other than himself and his dreams.
It wasn't necessarily Axel's fault. He just didn't live in the now. The future held all his attention, and that hurt Roxas. He didn't mean anything to Axel, not even enough for the redhead to see him and realize his presence. He never even talked to Roxas. He only talked at him with minor cues where the blond had to respond with 'yes' or 'no'. Literally anyone could've replaced him and it wouldn't have mattered to Axel.
Pressure and depression built up over time and Roxas neared the end of his very long rope. He began noticing all the small things Axel did to invalidate his existence. He never called Roxas by name, opting to call him Blondie instead. He tuned out whenever Roxas tried to say something longer than two words. He never asked Roxas anything about himself. Eventually, the rage and hurt overwhelmed Roxas and he had to do something about it.
They were in Axel's tree house (Roxas always laughed at the thought of a 17 year old having a tree house) on a Friday. Night had long since fallen, so Axel watched the stars in the sky from a window carved out of the side of the tree house. Roxas watched him from one of the two bean bag chairs lying around. He sat there listlessly, not realizing that tonight would be the night he finally snapped. Neither of them had any idea of what was about to occur.
It all started simply enough. Axel began to rant about getting out of here and visiting the stars and kissing them good night every single night. Roxas listened to this mindlessly, but then Axel made a few missteps. He asked Roxas a question, calling him Blondie, and when Roxas tried to answer in more than a few words, the redhead continued talking, interrupting and ignoring him. All the rage came crashing down on Roxas.
Roxas shot up from his seat and rapidly approached the redhead. He grabbed Axel by the shoulder and spun him around so that they faced each other. Axel made a sound of confusion and knit his eyebrows together. "Axel!" Roxas seethed. "Look at me! Just look at me!" he yelled. When Axel tried to turn back around, Roxas stopped him. "Look at me, goddamn it! Look at me!"
"Why? What's this all about, Blondie?" he wondered. Even though he had asked a question, he trued to turn around once more to gaze at the stars.
"Blondie!? Do you even know my fucking name?" he demanded. "We've been friends for years and you don't even know my goddamn name! And you never even look at me! You don't even know what the fuck I look like!" Roxas's lungs burned, but he screamed anyway. Being so mild-mannered, his throat wasn't used to all this yelling.
"You seem upset," Axel noted.
"Upset? UPSET?!" Roxas shrieked. "What the fuck! I'm screaming at you, Axel! Screaming. You don't know my name, you don't know what the fuck I look like, you don't even know how I—" And then Roxas lost his mind, but in a good way. Axel's lips covered his and well. Fucking fireworks. The kiss only lasted a few seconds, but it was enough to make the blond weak at the knees. "Huh…? What? Why…?" Roxas wondered incoherently. His face hurt from blushing so intensely.
Finally, Axel turned to face the stars again. He put a hand on Roxas's shoulder and made the blond face the stars, too. "You love me, don't you?" he asked very nonchalantly.
"Huh? How did you know?" Roxas wondered, having eyes only for Axel, who had eyes only for stars.
"Why?" he wondered after a long pause of ignoring the blond's questions. "Why would you fall in love with me?" Gently, he put his hands to the window and gripped the rough wood, feeling several loose, withering strands of wood under his fingertips. For some reason, even though he was looking at the stars, he seemed grounded on earth for the first time.
Roxas shrugged shyly. "I don't know. I just did, I guess." A moment passed and Roxas became irritated again. "And you never answered my question! Why did you even kiss me in the first place? Answer it! I have a right to know!"
Shrugging, Axel responded quickly, "To shut you up." But he didn't pause long enough for Roxas to respond with anger. Instead, he rested a hand Roxas's shoulder, the one furthest away from him. "Now, look at the stars. Look at them, Roxas. Don't you just see the future up there? See, there," Axel rested his head on Roxas's vacant shoulder to see the view from the shorter boy's perspective and pointed to a cluster of stars, "there's the place I'm going to live when I get older. You see it, right? Well, except, maybe it's where you'll live when you get older. I think that's how it works. You see what you want because you want it badly enough. And from here, that little group of stars is in prime position to represent the earthly things you want in your life," he explained.
The proximity of the redhead, the fact that they were touching (something that had never happened before), made Roxas feel flustered. Axel had also never explained what he saw when he looked up at the stars before. Roxas tried to follow the redhead's explanation. He described the places Roxas could look to see what he truly wanted and how the objects themselves changed for everyone.
"Now that I've explained it all to you, when you look at the place where your house is, what do you see?" Axel wondered, sounding raptly interested. He gazed at his blond companion intensely.
"Um," Roxas flushed pink for a moment, "I guess I see a house. But it's kind of small. It looks more like a shack on a beach or something, but it's not on the beach. It's in the suburbs and I think I can see a skyscraper in the background and there's a grassy lawn and flowers in window boxes. It looks cozy enough for a small family or something."
Axel released Roxas for a moment and stood up straight. He breathed in the night air and closed his eyes for a moment. Then he opened them again and returned his hand to its place on Roxas's shoulder. He pulled the blond against his side. "You know, Roxas, and yes, I do know your name, I've been wondering why a perfectly nice person like yourself would ever fall in love with me. And I could never figure it out. I tried to push you away, really, I did." Axel grinned a charismatic smile and looked down at the boy pressed against his side who stared back up at him in awe.
"I didn't want to fall in love. I thought it would tie me down and chain me to this place. So I tried to ignore you and avoid you so that you would leave. But you never did. You just kept following me. And I like that about you. You don't give up, Roxas, and I love that. And I had this feeling we had the same vision of where we would end up and I didn't know if I was just stupid or if I was lovesick and just hoping for the best. And I never told you about where exactly we would live but now," Axel paused for a long moment.
He gazed more deeply into Roxas's eyes and smiled at him.
Roxas's cheeks burned as he gazed up at this wonderful boy. He was completely entranced, loving everything about this moment.
"I thought that maybe if we saw something similar, then we would end up the same place eventually. And it turns out, we do. So now I know that no matter where we go or what we do with our lives, we'll end up together somewhere that isn't here. And now I know that being in love with you won't change that. And I hope it never does."
"Axel…" Roxas really didn't know what to say, so he decided to say what he'd been wanting to for a very long time. "I love you. You're my sky. And I've always loved you."
Axel blushed bright red, making Roxas smile. He'd never seen the redhead blush before. "R-roxas…"he whispered, "I guess you're kinda like my stars. If I'm your sky, I mean. But I mean, really I'm not." He kissed Roxas on the cheek despite his embarrassment. "And I've been watching the stars longer than I've even known what they were called."
