Epilogue

Happily Ever After

October 12, 2027, 4:48 p.m.

"Mommy, where are we going?" a tiny little voice sounded from the backseat.

"Well you two are going to go play with Kairi. Doesn't that sound fun?" her mother answered her, smiling a little.

The small girl squealed in delight, "Ooh, I love playing with Kairi! Is Axel gonna be there?!"

"No, no honey. Axel is coming out with mommy and daddy."

She pouted a little, huffing, "Riku isn't as fun as Axel…"

Namine couldn't hold back a giggle, "Rosie, honey… that's not a nice thing to say."

"He pays more attention to Sammy than me!" she whined, "Just 'cause Sammy is a dumb baby…"

"Be nice to your brother, Rosie!" her father scolded her, peeking back at her in the rear-view mirror. "Besides, Riku isn't going to be with you either."

She leaned forward in her carseat, waiting on edge to hear who she'd be torturing in tandem with Kairi that night. "Who is then?!"

"Ohhh just your favorite person in the worlddd," Roxas sang, grinning as Rosie began to jump up and down happily.

"Uncle Demyx!"

Namine just shook her head, "I love how Axel's weird cousin is somehow our daughter's favorite person."

Roxas just shrugged, pulling into Axel's driveway. "I think it's that weird sitar thing he plays. Rosie loves that thing."

The moment Rosie was released from her carseat, she took off at a run to tackle Kairi, who was standing with her parents and Demyx on the front porch. Sammy somehow remained asleep as they unbuckled his carrier and handed him over to Demyx.

"Thanks for watching the kids, Dem. I feel like we haven't gotten to see you guys in forever," Namine said, smiling at Axel and Riku.

"It's no problem at all! I love these guys," Demyx said, taking Sammy's carrier. "Now who wants to hear my new song?!"

Kairi and Rosie shrieked in joy, running into the house without so much as a goodbye to their parents. Demyx saluted them, disappearing inside with the kids.

"Lets go! I am starving," Axel said, already making his way to his car. He walked with a bit of a limp now, but he was walking… and that's definitely a huge accomplishment for him.

On their way to the restaurant, the two couples idly chattered away. The long-time friends hadn't seen each other in a few weeks, which was highly unusual for them.

Once they were seated at dinner, Riku suddenly looked up at the trio. "So… I always feel like Axel is never telling me the whole story about how you guys got together. I know he and Namine dated before, but it feels like there's a lot more to the story."

Roxas and Namine exchanged glances, both chuckling a little. "You wanna tell him or should I?" Roxas asked.

Namine shrugged, "You start, I'll jump in somewhere."

"So… back in high school Namine and I actually met online in a chatroom about our favorite video game. Neither of us wanted to give our real names, so… we went under the names 'Sammy' and 'Rosie'. We chatted back and forth for a long time, and sort of just fell in love with each other. When Kairi died, Namine's family moved them across the country and somehow… through some weird twist of fate, she ended up at my school."

Namine took over the story, smiling a little, "Of course, neither of us knew at first… But then Axel asked me out, and since I never thought I was ever going to actually meet Sammy, I said yes. I guess it was the night after our first date that Roxas found out that I was Rosie. Of course, then I was dating his best friend… So he didn't tell me for the longest time! I swear, it was fucking months before I found out he was Sammy. God, I was so pissed that night…"

"You didn't seem that pissed!" Roxas interjected defensively.

She just laughed, "I was livid. I was mad that he waited to tell me, but I was even more angry with myself that I didn't figure it out. The night Axel wrecked his motorcycle, he was literally messaging me as Sammy while hugging me in the waiting room! I had no idea!"

"Wait, so what exactly happened when you found out he was Sammy?" Riku asked, on the edge of his chair.

"We kissed…" Namine admitted, looking at Axel sheepishly. "But then I decided to stay with Axel. I was in love with you, ya know!"

Axel just laughed, "I was in love with you too, Nami."

"But… as much as I tried, I couldn't keep Roxas out of my head. Every time I went to sleep I would dream about him, every time I saw him my heart would flutter… It was like the universe was drawing us towards each other no matter how much either of us tried to fight it. On top of it all, Axel and I had started growing further apart."

"I knew that she was falling out of love with me," Axel cut in, "And… that was also about the time in college when I started looking at men differently."

Riku laughed, nodding, "Yeah, and I wasn't making that easy on you… You were the cutest damn freshman I'd ever seen."

"So one day I decided to just sit Axel down and tell him the truth. The entire truth, about Sammy and Roxas and everything," Namine continued, "And… he was surprisingly okay with it. We broke up mutually, no feelings hurt or love lost."

"Then a few weeks later Axel approached me," Roxas picked up, "And basically told me that I had his blessing to be with Namine if it was what I still wanted. So… I bought a ring."

"Whoa…" Riku mumbled, "I had no idea all of that was going on back in college. So you just proposed out of the blue like that? Like, you didn't even date or anything?"

Roxas shrugged, "At that point, we'd been best friends for so long that it wasn't necessary. I literally threw my heart on the line…"

"But I said yes immediately," Namine finished his sentence, grabbing his hand. "We got married as soon as we were done with school."

"Well yeah, I was at your wedding," Riku laughed, rolling his eyes. "Actually, Axel… was that our first official date as a couple?"

Axel nodded, "It was… One of your moron friends came waltzing up to me one day and told me that you liked me and said I should ask you out. I was going to the wedding alone anyways, so I figured I'd give it a shot."

"I totally put him up to that, you know. I was too nervous to ask you out myself," Riku admitted, blushing a little.

"You? You always seemed so cool and confident and carefree," Axel said in disbelief. "I was so jealous of that… You were really that nervous to ask me out?"

Riku shrugged again, putting his hands up, "And now look at us… over ten years later and we have our own little girl."

"You two don't know how much it means to me that you named her Kairi…" Namine told them, smiling in rememberance of her sister. "She honors my sister in the most perfect of ways."

"She is kinda perfect, huh?" Axel mused, grinning to himself.

Namine sighed, thinking to herself about the past. Back in high school, she never would have seen herself where she was now. She definitely wouldn't have seen Axel where he was. But finally, after years of drama and heartache, everything was as it should be. Life was just… perfect.