Well, this chapter came out rather quickly, I guess. o.O About a week or so after? Okay, maybe not that fast. I was hoping to update faster, but this ended up becoming a rather long chapter! I'm hoping I can write all the chapters this long, honestly... I like long chapters (although this one is only what? 10 pages? Phew).
Anyway, I'm so thankful for all of the reviews! I really didn't expect much of a reply to this, but quite a few of you apparently took a liking to it and I'm quite please. n.n Haha. Some of you didn't comment, which I'm a bit sad about... though you did end up adding it to your favorites list. o.O; Either way, I'm happy for your support:D
Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, and I don't know if it'd be as enjoyable if I did! XD; Although we'd certainly see a lot more AkuRoku than what we got... lawl. :3
-
Chapter 2 – Hiding My Heart
-
I wanted to get away from him, ignore him, and dislike him even. I wanted to push him away and tell him he wasn't wanted around me. At one point, I even wanted to seriously kill him for making me so mad, though that was only once. I'd never want that again.
I wanted a lot of things...
He gave me things, too. Too many things. Things I hadn't even dreamed of, nor thought anyone was capable of dreaming of. I think he spoiled me sometimes.
He'd always say I was the one spoiling him, though.
--
Roxas sighed, walking the whitewashed halls of The Castle That Never Was. Such a dreary name, though it held true to its purpose: to contain creatures that were never meant to be. To house them and keep them safe from the world and maybe even keep the world safe from them.
It failed in that latter aspect, though, and would later fail in the former as well. But again, that's another story.
He brushed a hand through his blonde locks, always feeling a bit lonely whenever he walked these hallways. Even if they were filled to the brim with bustling life and busy people, he'd still feel lonely. It was just the general air of the entire castle; it gave off an empty life to reflect the lives within.
In other words, it only served to make Roxas feel as empty on the outside as he did on the inside. He wished, half-heartedly (and that should not be a term taken at all literally, dears), that something exciting and different would happen. Not to say that different things didn't happen everyday, not with those two morons, Axel and Demyx, around.
Hell, even Xigbar and Larxene would sometimes get into the ruckus, if usually only by accident. Well, if you could call 'accident' as being whenever Ax and Dem would piss either the Savage Nymph or Freeshooter off unintentionally with one of their little messes.
Roxas would wonder why Xemnas hadn't just turned the two into Nothings, yet, and figure that maybe they were useful. Or that maybe Xemnas was secretly entertained by them, as well. He rolled his eyes, wondering how anyone could be entertained by such... such acts! But then again, Xemnas was probably more of a sadist than even Larxene... who knew what he liked and disliked.
"Where are you goin', Roxy?"
Roxas slowed then stopped, not wanting to appear as though he'd been as surprised as he really had been. The young blonde had gotten a bit of an image as a stoic in the Castle, and for some reason, he felt like he had to keep that image. It might've been the only connection to being an actual person that he had, after all. Even simple 'images' and 'assumptions of character' people would make on one another could easily be used as an actual personality and sense of self.
Though it would probably take a fellow Nobody to understand just what these Nobodies went through to have a sense of self.
"Nowhere too interesting," he replied, finally, looking back at Larxene. She eyed him like a hawk from where she stood, leaning against an open door he'd passed about five feet back. Roxas could practically feel her icy eyes pulling him apart like sharp, prickling claws, investigating every move and stance of his as if it were her hobby.
"Oh?" she asked, raising a slender, pale brow in question. Now she had to know. "Secrets, secrets are no fun. Secrets are for everyone," Larxene stated off the rhyme, coolly. "Come on, Roxas, dear." The ends of her bow-like lips curved up, an appearance that may have been enticing to the likes of anyone other than stone-faced Roxas.
"No." He turned around again, to continue walking. She frowned.
"You're no fun, either," Larxene pointed out, tilting her head up to glare down at him further as he walked on. And then her form wasn't where she had been, reappearing in a blink of the eye elsewhere. To be specific, in front of Roxas. She stopped him with a forefinger to his forehead, the younger blonde looked annoyed now.
"Roxas needs to learn to tell Miss Larxene where he is going," she said slowly and carefully, to allow him to soak in every poison-laced vowel and consonant. "Otherwise, Roxas could find himself in a horrible bind one day, with no one around to help him."
"Roxas doesn't need anyone around to help him."
Larxene's brows furrowed now.
"Oh, really?" She pushed hard on his forehead and released him, the boy tilting back a ways before bringing himself back to his original position, feeling an indent where her fingernail had been.
"Really," Roxas verified, not even bothering to look up at her with his clear blue eyes.
"Hmf, have it your way, then." She disappeared in a black flash again, and Roxas couldn't see where she had gone this time, but assumed it wasn't so important either way. If she followed him, it was technically Axel's problem, not his after all.
The lone female member of the Organization had been giving him frightening looks ever since he'd appeared. Axel had told him she gave everyone such scary glares when Roxas had pointed it out to him, but the teen Nobody still seemed to feel she may have had something personal against him.
Just what, he may never learn, but it was odd. If she hated him for his eyes alone (which was silly to him, his eyes weren't all that special, he woke up with them every day... it's not like they changed or anything or did anything too different), surely she wouldn't care where he was going or what he was doing. Just that he was going there and doing it. Larxene read really questionable books, as well, Roxas noticed. Maybe she was just... supposed to be an odd girl.
Roxas continued onwards through the brightly lit corridors, their wide passages not helping his feeling of overall emptiness. Maybe a bit of different color or added decoration here and there would change things...
Speaking of added decoration, as Roxas returned his attention to a place where it would actually be of use in helping him not run into things and other people, he realized Zexion would be passing uncomfortably close if he kept his distance from the wall any longer. Closing the distance between him and the smooth expanse of white, Roxas nodded a silent greeting to Zexion, whom merely waved back with a gloved hand, not even bothering to glance down at the shorter member of Organization XIII.
Roxas hardly minded. He thought Zexion was perhaps even creepier than Larxene, if only because he hadn't bothered to speak to Roxas once since the blonde had appeared at the Castle. He knew Zexion spoke, he'd heard his voice quite a few times in Organization meetings and even in fairly casual conversations with the likes of Demyx. But, for some reason, Zexion hadn't once directed a comment towards Roxas at all.
He didn't ignore him. He just... didn't speak to him. This was what got to Roxas more than Larxene's bitter words and looks. And so, because he wasn't sure of the older Nobody's intent due to lack of interaction, Roxas was more wary around him than with the others, even moving over to another side of the room when Zexion came near.
Finally, the doors that served as both the entrance and exit for The Castle That Never Was were in Roxas's view and his pace increased a bit by this sight. He wasn't running late to Axel's little get-together or anything, but getting out of the Castle was always a welcome thing for the teen. Even Dark City, a Heartless-filled town shrouded in forever night and lit by electric lights like some city that never slept, held more life than the Castle. At least the Heartless were fun to smack around, anyway, according to his fellow members. He hadn't tried getting near any. Of course, Roxas hadn't walked around Dark City since he'd first... appeared in this world, after all. That probably had some part in him having not seen a Heartless too close up, as well.
-
Numbing cold dripped down his soaked hair, leaving him shaking in its unending wake. The rain was falling like dulled down knives, cutting dimly into his reddened-from-cold skin, leaving colder and colder spots with each drop. He had no clue how he'd gotten there nor where he'd been before. Had he always been there? Maybe... this was all he could remember and so it felt like all that there was to life. To existing. He had no desire for hopes, dreams, loves... Others' lives did not even exist in his current state of mind.
All that was there was the rain.
His back hurt from shivering so much and for so long, but he couldn't stop himself. How long had it been? Had he even an idea of time? What was going on?
"... Nnn..." The blonde bit his bottom lip and stared straight ahead, dimly. His eyes certainly held neither life nor a want to life. They were empty, like his inside. He could've sworn he'd been a part of something... someone... anything just moments earlier. What had happened? Why did he feel so...
Alone?
"Hey, kid." A voice came from down the alleyway, echoing faintly between the tall walls of the buildings the blonde had situated himself between, staring mindlessly at the brick texture of the building before him and sitting propped up against the one behind.
The blonde didn't move, merely shook in his spot and stared ahead. He did not acknowledge anything going on, at least not yet.
"Kid." This time, the tone was a bit more insistent and annoyed. One could tell the speaker didn't like to be ignored.
But still, nothing. The blonde boy let out a sigh this time, but it was clearly coincidence, or something of the like.
"Okay, that's it."
After an echoing of footsteps made its way towards him, the blonde soon found himself pulled up roughly by the arm, forced to stare into another set of vibrantly colored eyes, these ones a piercing shade of green. They bore into his pool-like eyes firmly, requesting some kind of response.
"Are you going to pay attention, or what?" A thin, fire-engine red eyebrow, similar shade to the shock of red hair that flowed and spiked its way out from behind the older male's head, raised itself with question.
"...hnn," was all he gained as a reply, if it could be considered even that.
"Hello?" The redhead dropped the younger male's arm, the latter soon falling back to the ground like a doll. His fair features even reminded the taller being of a porcelain piece of work, shaped and sculpted to capture hearts.
What a coincidence, that whole 'capture hearts' thing. He would've chuckled if it had been another time that he thought of this.
"You're a good-looking brat, but a brat nonetheless," the red-haired man muttered, scratched the back of his head. "Wake up and get up, I don't feel like being too patient today." He resisted kicking the blonde, instead opting to pick him up again and merely shake him. "Come on."
"... what's... my..."
"Mmm?" He listened close, putting his head close to the boy's face to hear. "What?"
"... What's my... na..."
"I can't tell you that," he quickly replied, realizing the question. "You'll have to remember that for yourself and tell ol' Xemmy." The redhead soon heard one of the most miserable sighs he'd ever had to hear thus far. "OH, it isn't that bad! Geezus."
The blonde finally found himself the will to move his eyes and focus them on the one he was speaking (if you could say that...) to.
"Then who are...?"
"Axel," the taller one replied, curtly. "A-X-E-L. Got it memorized?"
"Axel," the blonde repeated, taking himself from Axel's hands and standing by himself, if still weakly. "... where are we?"
"I'm not the guy you should be askin' these things," Axel responded, though it was obvious he would probably know the simple answers to the blonde's simple questions. "I'm just a mere messenger boy, and right now I've got a package to bring to a certain Xemnas," he smirked, though the expression didn't reach his eyes.
"... alright."
"Now come on, Nameless," Axel suddenly said, pushing the blonde in front of him with a hand. "I was hoping I wouldn't have had to wait all night for you and I ended up doing just that, agh, what a waste of time." His words indicated annoyance, but his tone of voice didn't exactly match it the way the shorter being thought they should have.
"S... sorry," the blonde found the right word.
"Whatever, not like I really care." Sharp, green eyes avoided the eye contact that was now being given. "Now move it!"
-
Roxas retook the path he and Axel had taken that first day he had been here, a surge of memories behind each step and each glance from side to side. He remembered that trashcan being there... and that litter there, too! Roxas practically reveled in his ability to remember everything that had happened on that first day, though his face showed no change in emotion.
He was excited because this meant that it wasn't him who had problems remembering things. It must've been what Xemnas had told him about.
His... 'circumstance.' Whatever his circumstance was, then, it was the reason he couldn't remember. When Axel had brought Roxas to the Organization leader, the man had bore down into Roxas's being with his fierce eyes.
The memory of that frightened Roxas just like it had when it was happening. The first contact he had with someone else was with Axel, who, despite all appearances, owned a much more pleasant personality than Xemnas.
Xemnas's sharp, shaped features personified his stony-faced being completely. Because he had no heart, he didn't pretend like he did. Not like the other Nobodies in the Castle... everyone else clung to their hearts' memories, holding onto their personalities as much as they could.
Roxas couldn't do that.
Xemnas chose not to. Roxas didn't feel so lonely when he thought of this, though he wasn't sure why he'd felt lonely before.
Oh, yes... no memories. He would forget that the others weren't like him. It wasn't like they spoke about their past selves or anything like that. It must've been a secret clinging onto that they all did, trying to keep a stoic front but keeping hold of what they once were with slipping hands and frantic need.
They needed to still feel human. This was, apparently, why Xemnas had come up with the plot to use Kingdom Hearts to give them all hearts again. These thirteen followed him just to regain a sense they'd lost thanks to several reasons.
Axel had shared one of these reasons with Roxas after they had left Xemnas's wing of the Castle (because he had his own wing, of course). Apparently Xemnas and another five members of the Organization had been working together some time before they were Nobodies, doing work on the study of the heart. These studies went awry, however, and these six ended up the way Roxas now knew them.
Nobodies. Not exactly the pinnacle of existence, but the blonde definitely thought it was one step up from not existing at all. At times, anyway. Other times, he wondered if it would ache less to be erased from the world.
Just like the wild Nobodies who roamed the streets of Dark City, and even the worlds beyond this one, Roxas (along with the other Organization members) also felt an inner urge to be complete and whole. But, unlike the wild Nobodies, Roxas didn't carry out on that instinct to be complete. He didn't go searching for someone with a heart, looking to take it for his own. Nobodies were above Heartless, and the Organization members, Roxas included, were above the Nobodies. It was simple as that.
Roxas felt a cool chill go through the air and shuddered slightly, remembering the cold rain that had bled its way into his skin the last time he'd been out here. Now the sky was very clear, still dark and night-like as ever, but cloudless. It held the chill of night air, despite it being the beginning of day, and he walked through a billow of mist that had curled out from an alleyway. Now that he looked at it, it seemed as though the rain clouds from just a few weeks before had fallen to the ground, as his walking path had begun to get foggier and foggier with each step.
It was unsettling.
The entirety of Dark City was mysterious, shrouding its secrets in mist, fog, and darkness. It was distrusting of its own inhabitants, keeping even their paths hidden from knowledge at times. Thinking of this, Roxas now felt alone outside, too. If even an inanimate world did not want to trust him and include him in it, he really did not belong, did he?
"Roxas!" The blonde's eyes shot up from where they'd been staring thoughtfully at the ground. He looked around, but all he saw was the dense mist, licking and trailing across the bare skin on his neck and face. The rest of him was covered in the Organization outfit, where the fog could not reach.
"Axel?" Roxas called back, turning around in 360 degrees to find where the redhead's voice was coming from. He still didn't see the older man anywhere. "Axel wh—"
He felt a gloved hand cover over his mouth, stopping any further sound from reaching any decibels higher than a muffled noise. A body had also found itself behind Roxas, and the blonde could feel the familiar height difference between them whenever the person behind him would breathe in and out.
"Shhh," came Axel's voice into his ear, and Roxas felt a wave of heat spread from that side of his face to the other. He briefly thanked the mist for perhaps covering up that odd reaction. "... be careful out here, Blondie." Roxas could hear the smile in that sarcastic tone.
He roughly turned his head away from Axel's hand, pulling himself away from the taller male's reach.
"What are you doing?" Roxas questioned him, suspiciously. "You said you wanted to show me something, so come on. Where is it?" He suddenly felt like getting it all over with so he could return to his room and do nothing for the rest of the day. It wasn't a very welcoming idea otherwise, but he'd begun to feel avoidant of Axel and his room, while obviously not the most private place in the world, was much better than out here.
"Tch, where's the fun in rushing these things, Rox?" Axel asked him, his silhouette like a black and red shadow behind the whitish grey of everything else. Roxas could see his hands go up as he spoke, the redhead's usual animated way of speaking even being apparent in the fog.
"I didn't know we were having fun," Roxas replied, steadily. He peered up warily at where Axel's head was, the only clue to this being the jagged red outline at the top of the shadow he was talking to.
"Oh, don't be that way," Axel laughed. He closed the distance between the two and now Roxas could see his bright, green eyes. "Besides, Dollface" he continued, a hand soon appearing under Roxas's chin to push his gaze up towards Axel's eyes, "it's right over here, come on."
"Dollface," Roxas repeated, in a very annoyed tone. His glare held no amusement at the statement. Axel merely chuckled, releasing his hold on the boy's face, and turned, indicating for the blonde to follow him. Roxas obeyed, despite half of him willing him to go some other way, any other way, as long as it wasn't where Axel was leading him.
He blindly followed Axel's shape for a few minutes, the redhead apparently knowing where he was going despite the dense mist blocking anything but the buildings' lower halves from sight.
"Not much longer, Rox," Axel reassured the blonde, probably fully aware that Roxas was glaring long, sharp daggers at his head.
"Is it really that far?" Roxas asked him, curiosity overtaking his annoyance now. "What is it?"
"You'll see when we get there," Axel replied, a mischievous grin apparent in his voice. "Be patient, it's not so far now."
"... I'm wondering if I should be afraid of what you're going to show me," Roxas muttered, following Axel closely now. Axel finally glanced back at the teen, though only for a second, before returning his attention to the path ahead.
"That's for you to decide when we get there," the older Nobody answered truthfully, before bringing a hand up to ruffle Roxas's hair even as they walked. Roxas knocked his arm away quickly, making an angry sound like a growl and a groan.
"Cute."
"Shut up."
--
Obviously, I took my time to write this one. xD And I even put some thought into where Axel is taking him, don't worry... But! Don't assume it's something OMGSOGRAND or anything like that! Hahaha, I'm not that creative... Haha, it's just. Well, you'll see. :3 Please don't be as upset as I was when I found out that the first of the "(insert number that I've forgotten) Wonders of Twilight Town" was only considered a wonder because of Rai's screw-up. XD; "OMG IT CHANGES, Y'KNOW." Hahaha, though that did amuse me... anyway, you know the deal. :0
REVIEW, and then I'll be happy and stuff. –waves to Trysta- :D Hiiii! (random shameless plug. x.x GO CHECK OUT DEEPSHADOWS2'S WORK, especially if you like Harry Potter fanfiction. She and her friend have tons. o.O Tons, I'm telling you.)
... er. Yeah. Back to the subject of Nobody Keep Secrets: reviewwwwww. Whee. I wanna know what you think, be it good or bad. n.n;;