Roxas didn't try to respond as his friend spoke, even when he referenced a scene from Roxas' life that he obviously hadn't lived yet.
The two of them—three, really, but of course they wouldn't have remembered that whenever this happened—together, in another life. It sounded right. That's what he'd wanted, that awful day when he'd run through a dark world toward his destiny. If he couldn't have the old life back, the one before he'd begun to question what he was doing and who he was doing it for, then he'd wanted a new one, and there were only a few people he wanted in it.
And here they were, maybe not how any of them would have imagined it back then, but close enough for Roxas to be satisfied. But there was more to this story, and Axel wouldn't have gathered them just to note that an unremembered promise had more or less been fulfilled.
Roxas let his ice cream bar drift down until it was dripping on the sand, practically forgotten as they gave Axel the time he needed to say what he wanted. And it was a good thing, because when he reached those last few, halting words, something twisted hard in Roxas' stomach and seized up in his chest and he could barely breathe, much less think about eating ice cream.
"What?"
He was startled to realize that was his own voice. But it was too quiet and choked to be his; it didn't sound anything like him. And it couldn't be him who said that, because that would mean Axel really said what Roxas thought he did, and that couldn't be true. No. Not Axel. He was the one who survived, one of fourteen to make it through the purging of Organization XIII. The only one of the three of them who still had a chance to go back and watch the sunset from the clock tower.
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The two of them—three, really, but of course they wouldn't have remembered that whenever this happened—together, in another life. It sounded right. That's what he'd wanted, that awful day when he'd run through a dark world toward his destiny. If he couldn't have the old life back, the one before he'd begun to question what he was doing and who he was doing it for, then he'd wanted a new one, and there were only a few people he wanted in it.
And here they were, maybe not how any of them would have imagined it back then, but close enough for Roxas to be satisfied. But there was more to this story, and Axel wouldn't have gathered them just to note that an unremembered promise had more or less been fulfilled.
Roxas let his ice cream bar drift down until it was dripping on the sand, practically forgotten as they gave Axel the time he needed to say what he wanted. And it was a good thing, because when he reached those last few, halting words, something twisted hard in Roxas' stomach and seized up in his chest and he could barely breathe, much less think about eating ice cream.
"What?"
He was startled to realize that was his own voice. But it was too quiet and choked to be his; it didn't sound anything like him. And it couldn't be him who said that, because that would mean Axel really said what Roxas thought he did, and that couldn't be true. No. Not Axel. He was the one who survived, one of fourteen to make it through the purging of Organization XIII. The only one of the three of them who still had a chance to go back and watch the sunset from the clock tower.
He couldn't be dead. Not Axel.