Disclaimer: I don't own the Kingdom Hearts franchise or any of it's characters and encourage support of the official release.

Sonic Dawn

Aftershock

I just waited for something to go wrong, but nothing did.

I just started staring at my ceiling from my bed as soon as I awoke to my alarm without a struggle. The day before, my best female friend and I kissed and decided on giving us a try. The crazy thing was that it was so… easy? We just immediately melded and didn't have to play any games. It just happened naturally.

At that point, I'd only dated sparsely because I never found anyone worth being serious with. With Xion, the connection was there immediately from being friends. It was a real connection that I didn't second-guess; but there was doubt in my heart. I could only guess that part of my heart was staunchly waiting for someone else. I didn't really matter though; I didn't feel like it was going to get in the way of anything.

Getting ready to go to school was downright refreshing as I had this new energy about me. My hair felt stronger, my teeth felt fresher, and my clothes felt cooler. I was just wearing dark jeans, a black shirt, and a white jacket, but I felt great. Every step I took down the stairs to the kitchen felt like it had more reason behind it. My mother immediately caught on to my mood.

"You seem ready this morning," my mother said with a pretty and warm smile.

"Well today's a new day," I responded nonchalantly. My mother smiled again and sipped coffee from a mug as she leaned against the counter looking introspective. Without thinking it through much, I told her, "I kissed Xion yesterday."

Her eyes immediately widened and flashed to me as she separated the mug from her lips to speak. "You kissed Xion?" she asked incredulously.

I smiled to myself as I poured myself some orange juice. "Yeah." I didn't need to say much else; my smile did the talking for me.

"Are you two going to date now?" my mom asked, still shocked.

"Yeah," I responded simply. I chugged my juice.

"Just like that?" My mother was now smiling.

"Yeah," was all I had to say again as I smiled back. We both looked at each other with a quiet joy for obvious reasons. I felt good that it made us both smile like this. It was pleasant and felt like it should. We just had trouble doing this for a long while now. Breaking the homely feeling in the kitchen was my phone as Axel informed me that he was outside already. My mom and I hugged goodbye as I jogged outside.

I neared the passenger door, and to my surprise, saw Kairi sitting in the passenger seat. I gave her a confused look and she simply smiled and jerked her head backwards, implying that I should sit in the back. I did so and immediately understood why. Xion was in the back, behind Axel's seat. She gave me a broad smile which I returned as I crawled in.

"Hey Axel, hey Kairi," I said quickly, barely flashing looks in their direction as I sat properly. I looked at Xion smile at me and practically whispered, "Hey," to her.

"Hey," she said back softly. Barely even thinking about it, we leaned in for a decent peck on the lips.

"Oh my gosh… you weren't kidding," Kairi said, looking into the rearview. Xion giggled loudly and I smiled, comprehending Kairi's disbelief.

"I figured you might want to see your new girlfriend and her sister A-S-A-P, so I made a call and made it happen," Axel said as he drove. I could tell he had a smile on even though I only vaguely saw his face. As I looked back at Xion, it was apparent that she had been looking at me and had a big smile slapped on her face still. I could only return it.

*

"Are you ready for this?" Xion asked. I was confused at the question, but had an inkling that I knew what she meant.

"Ready for what?"

"Well we're going to psych which we have with Naminé and Riku and I haven't told them anything about us yet. Have you?" I could hear hope in her voice as she said that last part.

"No, but they're about to find out." I gave Xion an encouraging smile and took her hand as we escaped the craziness of the hallway and waltzed into our psychology class's room together. We entered knowing that Naminé and Riku were typically in class quickly. As expected, both Naminé and Riku were in the room already. Riku was standing over by Naminé's desk and the two of them were clearly talking idly amongst themselves.

Naminé noticed us first and had an undecipherable look on her face. Riku quickly caught on and turned his head to see us walking towards them. Although my gut wanted to keep my eyes on Naminé more, as I was sure Xion was doing, I couldn't help but focus on Riku's face more. Unlink Naminé, I could read his face. It was disappointed, shocked, and disguised by an intrigued smile, all at the same time.

"Hey guys," I called casually as Xion quickly gave a small wave, adding to my greeting.

"Hey…" Naminé said, a small smile on her face. Riku simply nodded, keeping his same face. There was a silent moment before Naminé shot a look at our conjoined hands. Xion and I smiled as she turned her head in a confused manner. I looked at our conjoined hands and opened my mouth to say something, but just ended up smiling and nodding, which Xion laughed at. I looked up again and saw that Riku's smile was completely gone and Naminé was looking in another direction completely. I felt my heart begin to beat erratically and felt blessed when Mr. Taylor walked in and told us all to take our seats.

Riku and I wandered to where our seats were and class proceeded like normal. I could've sworn that when I was taking notes though that Riku was flashing me looks. I could tell Xion was doing the same, but it felt like she was staring with the warmth of a summer day while Riku stared with the intensity of a winter blizzard. I don't think I'd ever anticipated the end of class like I did that day.

When class did end, Xion got to the door first and anticipated me catching up to her with a smile. I rushed over to her in my desperation to leave the awkwardness of class; the only reason she was at the door first was because she sat closer to it and was already ready to leave. I put my arm around her and immediately started talking about a song I was writing that didn't exist yet. My desperate attempt at conversation worked at once, but as Xion was talking, I took a passive look behind us. I caught a glimpse of Naminé and she just seemed to be standing at the door of class like a beautiful diamond statue, looking after us.

***

"So you did know all along?" I asked Axel as I took another lick. He, Xion, and myself were all on the clock tower again, taking advantage of the warmth.

"All along?" Axel looked up pensively. "No, but she did let me in on it two days ago. I agreed to help-"

"Which is why you left at the best possible time." I finished for Axel.

Axel chuckled, as I seemed to have hit the nail on the head. "Exactly right." Xion, sitting to my left, let herself lean onto me as Axel confirmed my suspicion. Considering we were so high, she really must've trusted me considering we were sitting on the edge. It was comforting and encouraging at the same time.

"Everyone seemed to have taken it well today," I commented, trying to keep the mood up still.

"Except Riku and Naminé…" Xion said with disappointment. As she said that, I swore I could see Axel's body vibrate as he chuckled to himself. I thought nothing more of it at the time.

"They were probably really surprised. They'll get over it and welcome it later," I encouraged, hoping my exact scenario would repeat itself for them.

"Maybe a struggle match will help get out all the negative feelings," Axel suggested.

"Yeah, maybe…" I said absentmindedly. I thought of Axel's statement as a joke more than anything else.

"Kairi was pretty excited," Xion mentioned. "How was Sora?"

"Well, instead of seeing him at lunch, I kind of hung out with Axel and Demyx," I sheepishly admitted. "Just talking about when our next show would be." I thought of Riku and desperately wanted to not be in Sonic Dawn at that time. I just looked at the sunset and licked my ice cream.

I'll admit that this was kind of a short filler, but I felt it was important to show certain reactions and to show how Roxas and Xion themselves actually felt. The next chapter should hopefully be out a lot sooner and will really move things along again.