Full Chapter Title: A conclusion is simply the place where you get tired of thinking

December 24, 2011.

Christmas Eve.

A time to love, party, have fun, drink, celebrate, and be joyous.

Right?

Wrong.

Well, not wrong for the rest of the world, but for me, Axel, Kairi, and Sora, it was pretty much a day of hell. I would include Ellie and Riku in the group of people, as they are my friends, you know, but the two of them weren't fucking talking to anyone! In fact, they're the reason the day had become a living hell. The past three days, for that matter. Ever since that weird fight they'd had in the middle of the lobby, things had been horrible.

No one but Kairi had heard from Ellie, and even then Kairi told us she barely said a word, not leaving her room, and likewise with Riku. Sora had come up to me on the second day of this weird event and told me that Riku was at work but didn't talk to anyone.

It was true.

When I went to go confront Riku about what was going on, he grabbed me by the collar and threw me out of his office without saying a word to me.

And now, two days later, Kairi, Sora, Axel and I were at Axel and Sora's apartment, trying to figure out what to do about this whole thing. Every single one of us was frustrated with it.

"I say we kidnap Ellie and lock her and Riku in a closet together," Sora said, rolling his eyes. "You know, like what you guys did to me and Riku."

"That's a stupid idea," Axel retorted.

"I agree with Axel," Kairi said with a nod.

I just sat there and said nothing. I'd had nothing to do with the Halloween incident, being nothing but an innocent bystander who was lucky enough to witness the whole thing. I doubted, though, that the madness that worked for Sora and Riku, would work for the two fighting now. Mainly because Riku already knew it was a possibility, but also because Ellie wouldn't stand to be locked away.

"And why is it a stupid idea?" Sora leaned back in his chair, holding onto the kitchen table so he wouldn't fall.

I was expecting Axel to answer, but instead, Kairi did. "Because it's not you and Riku, Sora. You guys have known each other for as long as you've been alive. You have a way of working things out that the rest of us don't understand. Plus, we knew what was going on. We don't know what's going on now." She grabbed the edge of Sora's chair and pushed it back to the ground. "Understand?"

"I suppose." He did understand. I know he understood. He was just being a difficult annoying brat.

Like an older brother.

Or, I'm told that's what one's like.

I don't actually know anything about them.

"So, what are we going to do?" I finally asked. Even though I didn't actually want to know what the plan was going to end up being, as I planned to avoid every moment of it, I felt like I needed to ask. Show I'm engaged, and I care about my friends. If you could call Ellie that. Her comment about me irritating her still pissed me off.

No one seemed to know how to answer my question. The hot chocolate Kairi had made for us was still steaming in front of me, untouched. I was the only one who was in no mood to drink anything. This was not how I wanted to spend my Christmas Eve. Even staying at home with my family, or going to visit Hayner (who still wasn't talking to me) would be better than this.

And trust me, those things are pretty bad...

"I think," Axel eventually said, "that we should talk to Ellie and Riku. Find out what's going on."

"Uh, duh we have to do that," Sora said, rolling his eyes. "That much's been obvious from the beginning." He was obviously not happy with the conversation we were having, probably even more so than me.

"No need to get snippy with me," Axel snapped. "I was only suggesting something."

"Yeah? Well next time suggest something better, because I doubt talking to the two of them will have any effect!" He groaned and leaned his head in his hands. "They just had to do this now, didn't they."

Kairi's hand moved to Sora's shoulder, and I became confused. "What do you mean?" I asked. "What's so special about right now, other than the fact that it's almost Christmas?" Sora's head stayed down in the table, so I had no idea what his reaction to my question was. "What are you guys keeping from us?" This got Sora to have some kind of reaction. Not a good one, though. He jumped up from the table and glared at me.

"It's none of your business!"

"Sora!" Both Kairi and Axel reacted before I even knew what was going on, Axel grabbing Sora's wrist, and Kairi moving in front of him as I fell out of my chair, surprised. It looked as though Sora had been about to punch me.

I was so confused.

I thought he looked at me like some kind of brother or something.

"Don't get mad at Roxas, and it is his business," Kairi scolded, slowly pushing Sora back down in his seat. He was still glowering at me, and I remember Axel moving around the angry man to help me back to my feet, then after that Kairi sighed and turned to face me. "I'm sorry, Roxas, this is just really stressful for the two of us."

"Both of you?" Now Axel was as confused as I was. "Okay, what's going on?"

Sora looked away, like he was embarrassed or something, though I didn't know what could be so weird. Kairi too, seemed to be a little awkward.

"Well," she began, "it's actually not that big of a deal what's happening, but this whole thing with Ellie and Riku kinda made this news somewhat... well, miniscule. The two of us had been planning on telling everyone tomorrow, but now it's not that important."

"Yeah, and that's really irritating." Sora crossed his arms and glared at me. Me for some reason. It could have been Axel, or even Kairi, but of course not. He was glaring at me like all of this was my fault. There was no way this thing could have been my fault.

"Okay, so what's this news?"

"Well, Sora and I are moving back to Destiny Island after the new year."

"What?"

Kairi looked extremely happy, as did Sora, but I know for a fact that I was in complete shock. How Axel acted I couldn't tell, as he was behind me now, but I figured it was similar to my own reaction: complete and utterly stupefied.

"Moving back to Destiny Island? Why?" I asked, trying not to stutter. "What happened?"

"Well, as you know," Kairi explained, "Sora and I have both been studying to get our college degrees, right? Well, last week we both finished all of our credits and I'm officially a registered nurse, and Sora got his teaching license, so we decided to move back to the place we grew up."

"O-oh," I muttered, looking away. Here I thought that nothing would change with me and my friends, but of course that wasn't the case. Of course...

"Yeah, so we were going to tell you that tomorrow, but then Ellie and Riku got into their weird fight, and we decided it wasn't the right time," Sora finished, looking a bit calmer. "So there. You know. Can we finish figuring out what to do about the two idiots?"

The only thing I could do was lay my head down on the table and groan. "Hold on, hold on, why are you guys going to do that?" I asked though my arms.

I could just imagine Sora rolling his eyes as his chair was pushed back. All of a sudden, my collar was grabbed and I was pulled off my seat and onto the ground. Axel gasped and yelled at Sora, but I figured I deserved it. I mean, my voice wasn't very nice when I asked that question, so obviously he wasn't happy with me at all.

"Why do you think? Because it's our home, dammit!" He glared at me then continued. "Riku may be happy here, but I prefer the place where I grew up, and Kairi agreed with me on this, so we've been planning to go back since we pretty much moved here."

"But we didn't tell Riku because we thought he'd be upset about it, and try to stop us."

"We thought it was time to do it now, but for now, Riku and Ellie are more important," Kairi said quietly. "Part of being friends, right?" I felt somewhat bad. Kairi and Sora were always kinda on the back burner of my life, and I never really paid attention to how my antics and problems affected them.

Or anyone, for that matter.

I wondered why I did that, sitting on the ground that day. I could only think about how I didn't really ever think about my actions and how they affected the people around me. How my being an ass hurt Axel, assuming things angered Riku, being a pathetic idiot annoyed Sora.

How keeping my feelings for Axel a secret hurt Naminé.

Sure, thoughts about this had crossed my mind before, and I even felt a bit guilty sometimes, but really the thoughts didn't stay with me long. Everything always came back to me in my mind, making me feel sorry for myself and I just wanted to blame everyone else for the things that went wrong in my life.

"Roxas? You okay?" Axel asked, and I could feel his hand on my shoulder. I hadn't even noticed that my head was bent, hands clenched, and eyes narrowed. Though I'm sure my eyes were covered by the hair that I'd let grow a bit longer than normal, I was sure Axel knew what was going on in my head, that I was angry about something. Chances are, he thought I was angry at Sora and Kairi.

I wasn't.

"I'm fine... I'm just..." I sighed and pushed myself off the floor, trying to decide what I could say to them. "When we've figured out what's going on, and get Riku and Ellie back together and not fighting anymore, I'd like to talk to you guys. Okay?"

Kairi and Sora exchanged glances, but nodded.

"Okay, so who am I going to see?"

They stuck me with Ellie.

Or, more like Axel didn't want to go alone, but he wanted to check up on her, and it made more sense for Sora and Kairi to go see Riku, as he was their best friend.

Still, it didn't make me very happy.

There I go, complaining again. Man, I have a problem with that, don't I?

Oh well. I have a good reason to not really want to talk to Ellie, as she's clearly stated recently that she hates me, which doesn't make any sense to the way she'd been acting before Axel disappeared, after I met Terra and Ven.

No complaining... No complaining...

"Roxas? You keep spacing out, and more than usual. You okay?" Axel and I were outside of Ellie and Kairi's apartment as I waited patiently for Axel to open the door. Kairi had given him a key earlier, so it's not like we were breaking and entering. We had permission to go in from one of the people living there. Ellie couldn't find any loophole in that.

"I'm fine," I managed to say, smiling. "Just... I don't know why Ellie's been acting so weird to me. I thought we were friends, and close, but then she said I irritate her... I just don't understand what's going on. I can't help but think I did something to set off this whole issue, and I feel pretty guilty." My eyes closed when Axel pulled me into a hug, and I felt like crying.

He was too good for me.

I wanted him.

I needed him.

But he was too good for me.

"I guess Ellie's reasoning for thinking you're irritating is the same as why I hate Riku so much." I pushed away.

"You hate Riku? Since when?"

"Since the day I met him, but that's not the point," he said with a quiet laugh. "Right now, we have an Ellie to go talk to, right?"

"I guess... But I still want to know the reason." I had to know the reason, whether it was going to be from Axel, or Ellie, I had to know why Riku and I were victims, and of what. Riku probably knew, actually, but still. I didn't. And this wasn't just about me. It involved Axel as well.

So I wasn't being all weird and selfish.

"Hm... maybe I'll tell you in a little while." Without saying anything else, Axel placed the key in the lock and opened the door, grinning at me. The two of us entered the building, and I expected something completely different than what was there. Maybe I'd see Ellie acting completely normal, just recovering from a cold, or maybe she wouldn't be there.

But no.

She was there.

Sitting in the living room.

In her pajamas.

Doing nothing but staring at the wall.

…. How does that make any sense?

Ellie. Ellie of all people, was acting like some kind of angsty teenage girl whose boyfriend just broke up with her or something. It so did not fit her persona, and it made me feel slightly like the world was completely out of whack. Axel seemed to feel like this as well. When I glanced up at him, his face was pale, and the entirety of his body was shaking.

I placed a hand on his arm to try and calm him down, but for some reason, this attracted the attention of Ellie. Her tired eyes moved over to us, revealing a sallow face that looked slightly dead. When she saw us, a sigh escaped her lips and she lay down on the couch.

"Go away," she muttered, though it sounded like her voice hadn't been used in a really long time.

"Go away? You want me to go away?" Axel laughed, sounding like some kind of maniac who was going to kill us all. "And why the hell would I do that?"

"Because you're going to want to talk to me, and I have nothing to talk about."

"I just want to know what's going on."

"Nothing's going on. Everything's fine. What makes you think something's wrong? Huh? Can't I take a few sick days? Huh? Do I have to be at work every single damn day of my life? Do I? Do I?" She sat up again and glared at Axel, who only seemed able to take a step back. At the moment, I didn't care what was going on between Ellie and Riku.

I just wanted to know if she was PMSing or something, because man was she acting like a bitch. More than usual, in my opinion.

"Look, Ellie, just tell me-" Axel started to say, but shut up when a pillow whacked him in the face. I couldn't help but let out a snort at that. It was just too funny how perfect the moment had been. Axel, however, didn't seem to find this very amusing, and he slapped a hand over my mouth to keep me from actually laughing. This only made me more amused.

So I licked his hand.

"Dammit Roxas!" He yelled, pulling away. I smiled up at him innocently, completely forgetting that Ellie was there until she giggled quietly. Only, it didn't seem like a happy giggle. More like some kind of depressed, doomed sounding one.

"I don't want to tell you."

Axel sighed, and after hitting me over the head for licking his hand, walked over to her. I rubbed the back of my head and watched in silence as my boyfriend sat down next to the horrible looking Ellie and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. A pang of jealousy ran through me, which was annoying and stupid. He was just trying to comfort her, be a good cousin and friend. I had no reason to be jealous.

No reason to want to leave.

No reason...

"Just tell me! I'm not going to hate you, or anything. What's going on with you and Riku? And why were you fighting?"

Tears formed in the corner of Ellie's eyes, but she wiped them away, trying not to let either of us know she had been about to cry. When I made eye contact with Axel, however, I knew that he knew.

"Riku was just being weird. More than usual," she began to say. She sounded embarrassed, like this was the worst thing that could ever happen to her. Made me kind of mad. Then I remembered that not everything was about me, and calmed down a little bit. Ellie had every reason and right to be upset, even though none of us know why.

"He kept telling me that he wanted to spend time with me on Christmas, but I always spend that day with Ansem. Three hundred and sixty-four days out of the year I'm Riku's, and on this one day I want to spend with the man who adopted me. Riku knows this. He knows that I need to spend time with my father. But he started telling me that he wanted to go on a date that night. I told him no, and that he needed to stop being so needy. It was one night. And my birthday, you know?"

I had no idea Ellie's birthday was on Christmas day. It must have been interesting for her to find Axel nearly dead on the street for her birthday...

"So, he was pressuring you into doing something you didn't want?" Axel's voice was low, dangerous, and rather scary. "That's it, I'm going to go beat up that son of a-"

"He was going to ask me to marry him."

I was so shocked that I nearly tripped over nothing. While not moving. Axel too, had to sit down so he didn't fall over from the surprise of what Ellie said.

Riku wanted to marry her.

He was serious about this.

I had so not been expecting that.

"I asked him why he was so insistent on being with me that night, what was so special about it, why we couldn't just go out the night after that, or the night before, and he snapped. He yelled at me, 'because I was going to ask you to marry me, dammit!' I didn't know what to do. Then he told me he wanted to propose on my birthday. On the day we started dating six years ago." Ellie actually started crying again. "I couldn't do anything. I had to leave. I didn't want to, oh god, I didn't want to, but... but..."

"Why didn't you just say you would?" I asked, knowing those were the words on Axel's mind. He seemed to dead in the head to speak at all, let alone understand really what was going on. "Why did you hesitate, and then run? It's not like you."

By now I was on the other side of the couches, standing in front of Ellie. She was watching me sadly, with a bit of hate in her eyes. I was expecting that, of course. I'd just asked the question she'd probably been torturing herself with for the past three days.

"I was scared," she whispered. "I was scared, and surprised, and confused, and now..." She closed her eyes and shook her head. "Now I'm such a horrible person! Riku... he doesn't need to be with a woman who's too scared of even saying yes to a question she's been wanting to hear for the past three years."

"Then you're an idiot!" Everyone in the room jumped, especially me, who certainly wasn't expecting Riku to appear randomly in Ellie's apartment. I hadn't heard him come in, or anything. He just kinda... showed up. He looked furious.

"Riku, I don't think-" Axel started to say, but Riku shut him up.

"Axel, Roxas, get out of here. I want to talk to Ellie."

I backed away immediately, but Axel didn't. He took his sweet time making his way towards me, stopping right in front of Riku in the process, glaring at him. After a terrifying moment of a stare down, Axel nodded then moved away, grabbing my arm and dragging me out of the room...

...and into the kitchen so we could listen to the conversation going on in the other room. I hissed at Axel that we should actually leave, but he hit me over the head.

Jerk.

"Riku, I'm sorry... you... you deserve so much better than I do and-"

"Shut up Ellie." I could only imagine the scene taking place behind the wall. Ellie, sitting on the couch, blanket wrapped around her body, Riku standing in front of her, eyes closed, probably thinking of something to say. "Shut up... you think I deserve better than you? Well obviously you're an idiot. I can't have anyone better than you. There's no such thing." I could argue with that, but I also wasn't Riku. Then, his real speech began.

"You don't see what you've done, do you? What you've done to me, how you've saved me, changed my life, created happiness for me in a time when I thought I was going to die. When I thought dying was the only way to get out of the hell hole that was my life. I don't know what it was that attracted me to you on that day, why I sat next to you and decided to be a flirt, or why I started looking at you through the eyes of someone who could actually fall in love again. I don't know why I did, but I'm so fucking glad. If I hadn't, I wouldn't be here now. I wouldn't be here with you. I wouldn't have experienced the six best years of my life. I wouldn't have fallen in love with the prettiest damn woman in the world."

I smiled to myself, thinking about Ellie's reaction to this. No doubt she was blushing. Who wouldn't be if a guy they loved just said that to them? At the thought of this, my hand moved to Axel's holding it tightly. He gripped my hand back, then leaned the back of his head against the wall, closing his eyes. He was not at all happy for some reason.

I knew I would have to figure out the reason later.

"There is no one better than you, Ellie, because no one could have saved me like you did. No one could have done that. Kairi would have tried, Sora would have failed after saying a single word, but you... you barely knew me and already saved my life. I love you, Ellie. I love you more than anything in this world, and I know you feel the same way about me. Though, I doubt you love me more than I love you. But it doesn't matter. I want you, Ellie. I fucking need you in my life."

Now I could imagine Riku moving closer to Ellie, than kneeling in front of her, grabbing one of her hands.

"So I'm going to ask you this time. This time I'm going to do it right." A pause. "Ellie, will you marry me?"

"Riku... I-"

"Will you marry me?" I smiled quietly to myself as I heard Ellie burst into tears.

"Yes!" There was a small crash from the other room, and I assumed Ellie hugged Riku, probably knocking him onto his back. No doubt she was kissing him.

My smile got wider, and I glanced up at Axel, expecting him to be happy for his cousin as well.

But he had a scowl etched onto his face.

"You two are getting married? When? Where? Will you let me plan it? You'd better!" Kairi was full of excitement when she and Sora showed up later. The six of us were sitting in Ellie and Kairi's apartment, or... I guess it's just Kairi's now. Soon to be no one's. Ellie rolled her eyes, a light blush still painting her cheeks, probably from what Riku had said. It was interesting to see her like that.

"I don't know, Kairi."

"Well, you guys will have to make sure to tell me ASAP, because I need to make sure both Sora and I are available, and here, when that happens!"

"Oh right, you guys are moving back to Destiny Island, right?"

"How did you know?"
"Sora isn't very good at keeping things hidden."

"I didn't say anything!"

We all laughed at Sora's outburst, though the laugh from next to me was clearly forced. I glanced up at Axel for a moment, wondering what the hell could be going on in that genius brain of his. I knew he didn't like Riku, but shouldn't he be happy for Ellie?
"Stop laughing at me! Anyway, Roxas, don't you have something you want to say to us?" Sora obviously didn't want the attention on him. So he moved it off to me.

He's can be such a jerk sometimes.

But I nodded anyway, and leaned away from Axel.

"I guess... well, it's been about a year and a half since I met you guys, right?" They all nodded. "So, I've been a complete and total selfish jack-ass during that time. To everyone, in my own way. Riku, you and I definitely got off on the wrong start, with me thinking Ellie had a crush on me and everything."

"Meh, I really didn't care. Just liked to see you scared," Riku said grinning. He was in a much better mood now...

"Jerk. Anyway," I smiled as everyone laughed, "Sora, I treated you like an imbecile, even though you're really not one, Kairi, it's my fault Naminé left, and probably my fault she didn't want to talk to anyone, Ellie... well, I don't really know what I did to you, but you seem to hate me anyway-"

"I don't hate you..." She this in such a way that just made me want to strangle the woman. Ever feel that way?
"-and Axel. You're probably the one I tortured the most, for reasons you know as well as I do." He smiled up at me. A real smile. "So I wanted to thank you guys for sticking with me, being my friends as I went though all of these weird changes in life, grew up a bit, and I want to apologize for being so... um..."

"Horribly immature and bitchy?" Sora suggested.

"If you weren't on the other side of the room, I would have just slapped you, you realize that, right?"

"Of course."

As we continued to talk, laughing, having fun, sharing interesting stories, the clock ticked slowly towards the end of the night. And soon. It was Christmas day.

For the first time since Naminé left, and things just went crazy, really crazy, in my life, things seemed normal. Things seemed fun.

I love my life.

It was really late when Axel took me home. Around three in the morning. But I honestly wasn't that tired. I just wanted to spend some time with him.

"Want to know what's interesting?" I asked, trying to spark some conversation. Axel's former somber expression had returned not long after our little party was over, and he hadn't spoken to me the entire way home. Kinda irritating, but what can you do?

"Hm?" He asked me this without even taking his eyes off the road, like he didn't really care.

"So much has changed over the past year. This time, last year, I hated you. I honestly thought you were the worst person in this world. Now, I can't imagine living my life without you." This made him smile. "But now, over the course of a day, so much has changed. Ellie and Riku are getting married, Sora and Kairi are moving away... going back farther, I'm probably never going to see Naminé again... my best friend won't talk to me."

At the thought of Hayner, I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the rest. A warm hand wrapped around mine. I felt so happy for the comfort of Axel as I remembered the last conversation I'd ever hand with Hayner, how Olette told me he didn't even want to talk about me, much less talk to me.

He was one of the weirdest people ever.

"It's also weird," Axel mused, "how your view of the world changed."

"What?"

Axel laughed as he pulled into the parking lot to my home. "When I first met you, everything pissed you off. My music being too loud angered you to the point of hating me on first glance. You never talked to anyone unless it was necessary, you obsessed over some of the stupidest things. You wouldn't even let me talk to you." Axel's conversation was cut off when he opened the door and stepped out. I followed his lead, and was surprised to find it was snowing.

Snow...

I discovered I liked snow. Axel hated it, so he always wanted to just be with me when the white flakes were falling down from the sky. A lot of the time, he wouldn't even try and initiate sex. Just, lay next to me, holding me to his warm, warm body.

I liked that.

The two of us hurried into my apartment, trying not to get too cold. I actually wanted to be cold. A good excuse to be with Axel all night. Not that he was leaving anyway.

"Now," he finally said, continuing from before once we were inside, "now you act like nothing can phase you. You're quieter, you pay more attention to the world around you. You've grown up in the past year. Maybe it was the car accident that changed you. Maybe I'm the cause. Or maybe you just woke up one day and realized that your life has been pretty good, and you shouldn't complain. I don't know. I don't care why. I'm just glad you're you." He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me close, leaning down to kiss me.

I reacted immediately to the warm lips pressed against mine, closing my eyes and smiling.

This is all I wanted.

But...

"Axel, why are you so upset about Ellie and Riku getting married?" I asked after he pulled away for air. I was panting slightly, so it was hard to get the words out, but once I had, Axel's mood changed immediately. He kissed me again quickly, then moved away, heading to my bedroom. I followed, curious.

"I've told you this before, but Ellie and I have a very... odd relationship. I love her, but not in the way that I love you. And she feels the same way about me. I guess you could say we both idolize each other." He said all of this while sitting down on my bed, looking up at me. I blushed, embarrassed by the intensity of his gaze. "I feel like... I feel like Riku's taking Ellie away from me, and there's nothing I can do about it."

"You do realize they're not going anywhere, right?" I asked, sitting down next to him, getting as close as possible. "She's just moving on with her life."

"I know, I know. And I have no right to feel this way! Ellie's my best friend. I should be happy for her. Still, when Riku asked her to marry him, I felt like something was being taken away from me. I guess this is how Ellie felt when I chose to be with you after coming back. That's why she hates you so much right now."

That made more sense.

Man, these two are so weird...

After a moment of silence, I grinned, realizing what I had to do. What I could do. What my right was. I stood up quickly and moved over to Axel, straddling his stomach as I sat down again. As quickly and forcefully as I could, I pushed him down on the bed, and smiled.

"I guess I'm just going to have to fill that hole you feel," I whispered haughtily in Axel's ear before kissing him. "So, Axel, I want to know: will you move in with me?"

I guess in a way I was making fun of Riku, and Axel knew it. Still, he grabbed my head gently and continued to kiss me deeply, eyes closing. I thought about everything we'd gone through since I'd met him, everything that'd changed me, everything that still could change.

My friendship.

My family.

My love.

My entire future was up for grabs.

I hoped it wouldn't change.

"Of course I'll move in with you. Got it memorized?"