A.N.) In the last chapter, Roxas gave a very hokey set of lines. That was my homage to the scene where Romeo and Juliet meet; their first lines together form a perfect Shakespearean/English sonnet. While the dialogue definitely is not in iambic pentameter, I tried to make the syllables and lines fit (then I broke the lines apart for the quotations but I left the capital letters at each line there). So, yeah, that's why it was like that.

Disclaimer) I do not own Kingdom Hearts. (I've been doing this disclaimer. Always will do it.)

At First Sight

Chapter 4: Simple and Clean

"ROXAS!"

"Roxas!"

"Come on, Roxas! Where'd you go?" Hayner shouted through his cupped hands. Pence followed the walking megaphone up and down and all-around the Tran Common hoping to find their companion that was lost in the dance hall. All around people were rushing to get their food down and play some last minute games before heading to either the next big thing or prepare for the main event to come soon. Hayner was not one for preparation.

"We're all meeting at the Sandlot for whatever was put there! Come out!"

"We have to find something else to do, since Hayner got us thrown out of that hall!"

The blonde glared towards Pence. "That was Seifer's fault! Why do I always get punished for his stupid ego…? ROXAS!" he burst with frustration. "If you're napping, and giving up on the Night of Lights Challenge, I will have rights to rip on you!"

"Maybe he went to the Clock Tower?"

"Why? Nothing's going to be set up there until after that cheesy fireworks display. It's a ghost town right now."

"Maybe that's why he would go there. Maybe he needs some alone time."

"To what? Nap? Heck no, he needs to stick it out like the rest of us! ROXAS-AH!" People around the boys cringed at the pitch of his yelling and went faster to go find another area to have fun.

"He doesn't want to be found, Hanyer," Pence said, pleading with his friend to let the XIII be.

Abruptly, Hayner stopped by the route to that led to the Train Station and Clock Tower, clenching his fists.

Pence was all the more worried. "Hey—?"

"Naminé will be there, Roxas!" Hayner shouted till it echoed to the skies. "She's pretty and… yeah—you don't want someone coming on to her, right?"

"I don't think that's going to work, Hayner," Pence sighed, shaking his head.

"You said he likes the blonde girl, right? Her name is Naminé, right? How's that not going to work—ROXAS! Sora found Naminé, and she'll be there with the rest of us! We're missing out on pizza and ice cream, so get your butt out here already!"

Huffing and panting like a drained puppy, Hayner gave up and walked back to where he was told the group would be.

"I don't think he really liked her like that…" Pence whispered as his last reasoning before leaving after his best friend.

Out from one of the thickest shadows, Roxas emerged with eyes lit with offence. Not even giving Hayner's accusations a breath of retention, he glanced at his friends' backs in the distance, then ran in the opposite direction; to the Clock Tower, was his motive. He spotted the lady he treasured, supposedly gone forever, run up the very path he was, escaping the rowdy nature and forces that would only have pulled them apart. Hayner said the Tower was deserted for now, and that fact gave Roxas hope that he had an opportunity to be alone with Xion the XIVth.

Once the Clock Tower was in view, he immediately spotted the glow of Xion's face, and the silhouette of her clad-white attire and dark hair reflecting the light of the moon at a tilted stance in the sky. She shined as bright as the sun that met the moon at the horizon ever dawn and dusk. Soft, he stared at the standoff of sun and moon and noted that her lips where moving, but he heard little. The distance was too great.

Nothing will happen if I don't move, he told himself before jerking his joints into a controlled walk to the back stairway that would carry him to the balcony where she sat. She leaned her hand to her cheek, perplexed, as if waiting for something.

He wanted to be there, with her. The last he remember her before his memories cruelly faded, he was fighting through The World That Never Was to get to Xemnas and Kingdom Hearts. I wanted to fulfill her last wish, and thought with hope and luck, maybe I could be with her again. He trudged up each step so slowly, while his heart beat in joyous excitement. Counting the seconds, he knew he'd be to the top soon. I wanted her back so badly; I was willing to risk everything. I was willing to risk everything that was the shambles of my life to possibly go back to when we were together.

But now she's here again. We can finally be together forever, like how we planned with Axel. Or Lea, now. Does she know about that? Another thing to talk to her about then.

In front of his eyes was the sign that he never bothered to read, saying not to enter due to dangerous heights.

Never stopped him before, and especially wasn't going to stop him now.

Okay, this is it. Don't be creepy again. Don't be creepy again. Don't be creepy again.

He edged the door a tad and got through before the ear-destroying creaking could disturb them and heard her rusted voice force out words like her throat was swollen.

"Darn it…" she quietly said.

Despite the context of her cursing herself, Roxas felt a circulation of a light breathless feeling bundled in his chest that was sighed with smitten delight.

"I remember…." she started. Roxas shift to reveal himself to the girl but was instantly pushed back by her quick completion, saying, "—I remember Seifer mentioning Hayner's other competitor was a blonde guy with spiked bedhead!"

Roxas was taken back with a dead-eyed shock of just being identified solely by his hair. I wake up like this, but I wouldn't call it bedhead…

"I know it's you, Roxas!" she exclaimed clenching her dress skirt.

Roxas stiffed, he'd been caught and upset her.

"Why does he have to fight under Hayner, Seifer's sworn rival?" she rambled aimlessly, showing she was still oblivious. He released a held inhale. "If what he said to me was faithful… Then I'll be pushed to deny Seifer's crew. Can I do that? They're my friends too…" The thought of having to do that made Xion aware of the cold; hugging her arms around the torso, she settled, "Their silly bickering shouldn't be what keeps us apart."

"Couldn't have said it better myself!" Roxas said grinning, before realizing that he just scared the poor young lady into a fright that made her fall back and yelp.

"Ouch," she mumbled in a second of pain before Roxas was at her side and pushed her back into her previous spot and claimed space beside her. "Roxas, did you hear all that?"

"Yes, but at this moment Hayner, Seifer, and everyone else is no longer in our world. It's just you and me right now. No feuding friends to hold us back."

"How'd you even get here without me seeing you below or hearing you come up the steps?" she asked, rubbing the place where her head broke her impact.

"I've taken to blending into the dark areas and barely making a sound. I've scared Sora bunch of times by accident." He smiled at her squinted frustration and blush from the embarrassment at her blunder that she still hadn't let go.

"You live with Sora now? On the Destiny Islands?" she asked softly, finally putting her hands down, opening her big blue eyes.

"Yeah. After I was revived from Sora's heart, they found me wandering here in Twilight Town in what you will remember as my Zombie Mode." They took a moment to laugh at that memory, all the times Axel teased him about it in when he fought on missions, when Xion would have to scream at him at times just to snap him out of his morning grogginess. It felt good. And they had plenty of space to dabble. "He brought me to the Islands and before I knew it, I was in a routine, being adopted into Sora's family and being forced to go to school five days a week. Sometimes The King Mickey will ask us to go clear heartless outbreaks in other worlds (Maleficent is still alive and well—unfortunately), but that's where I've been."

He tilted his head. "Where have you been hiding?"

She smiled. "It's all quite hazy in the beginning, but Seifer and the others said they found me here," she patted the stone seat beside her, "a few months ago. I live with them in a string of sleepovers and I'm dragged to school. Until you touched me, I was in my own Zombie Mode, or a Puppet Mode, I guess."

"You're not a puppet—!"

"In my haze, I had no real free-will to deny what they told me to do. As directed, this puppet would play out all her orders from the master…"

"You—are—not—a—puppet."

"But I was," she said softly, reaching over to grasp his hand. "You freed the heart I didn't know I had. In that dance hall, and back then."

"I love you, Xion… I didn't really comprehend it then, but I did. And though I forgot you in my mind, my heart never did."

"I love you too. But Seifer and the others will go after you if they see us together."

"Let me worry about them," he told her with this mischievous smirk that could be hidden. "When you're mad at me, I suffer more, anyways."

Blinking, she was confused. "I don't think you've ever made me really angry, Roxas."

"Don't you remember when I said we were special, and you got mad and ignored me for the next few days. I was drawn to near tearing my hair out trying to figure out when I could apologize to you without making it worse! And Lea and Demyx's advice made it even more confusing!" A flashback of how he lost sleep thinking about how he "flipped the wrong switch" (as Lea said) made a flood of horrible, life-draining chills come back to him.

"I don't recall that—"

"I sure do." Sulking.

"—Who's Lea?"

"Huh?" Roxas piped up from his head down in defeat. "Oh, I forgot. Axel became a Somebody again and goes by his Somebody name now, which was Lea."

"Oh."

A comforting silence was greatly appreciated till Roxas spoke again.

"You know, you could come with me to the Islands. You'd be as far away from Seifer as fitting, and we could be together everyday."

"They're my friends too, Roxas. They have their issues, but they've been nothing but nice to me and treated me well. I can't just ditch them. And what if what we're feeling is too quick and will be gone before we know it? What if we're too young and with each passing second we're wrenched apart?"

"I've loved you from a year long friendship, a horrible loss of killing you, something that, looking back, might now be considered suicide, and months upon months of not knowing you. I think what we have is near invincible."

"I've loved you through friendship, death, dwelling in darkness and pain, and even through my haze. I know I was waiting for you, deep down."

"So was I."

"Do you… Do you promise not to abuse my love? I promise not to abuse yours."

"I do." His fists tightened. "And I promise to protect you. I know that this is fragile and without you, everything is nothing. Can you use your Keyblade?"

"I don't know. I haven't tried."

…

"Are you sure you don't want to sleep on this before committing?" Xion whispered, turning away.

"No one's going to get to sleep tonight. And I've never been more sure."

"XION!" a barking goat echoed from down the Station Heights. So far away, but the two lovers heard it as if in front of them.

"It's Rai," she informed, shooting up from her seat. "They're coming. We have to separate for now."

"Why can't we stay together? We can take them."

"Roxas, please!"

"Alright," he grunted reluctantly standing. "But you owe me something to help hold me over!"

"Hold you over a few hours at most?"

"Yup." He leaned over, grasping her shoulders to steal a kiss, very light, but enough to hold her breathless. "There is no reason to be suspicious of me, Xion. My love for you is—"

"—as boundless as the sea," she finished, kissing him once more herself, then, with a hard shove, let him go.

Barely making it around the corner, Roxas was called back.

"Yes, Xi?" he answered, darting back to his place by her side.

"Where should we meet again? When?"

"XION! WE'VE BEEN SEARCHIN' EVERYWHERE, Y'KNOW?!"

"In an hour, lets meet in the Tram Common. No one we know will be there!"

"I won't fail you. I… I forgot what else I wanted to say."

Smiling, Roxas took a stance and dug his hands in his pockets. "I can wait till you remember."

"You can't."

"Come on out, Xion!" Vivi's voice broke into their world.

"NOW!" Fu shouted, in a furious fit.

"See? We have to part now for real. In a hour we will reunite again."

Slowly, painfully, Roxas left her on the Clock Tower.

"Till then," he said last.

A.N.) Thank you for your time, and please review. Have a good day, everyone! ^_^