To Raberba Girl, for inspiring this project and sparking my interest in fanfiction again.

DISCLAIMER: Kingdom Hearts belongs to Disney and Square Enix. I do not stand to profit from this work from any way. Trust me on this—if I owned Kingdom Hearts, I'd be making them work faster on KH3. :)

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Stupid Questions

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"Axel…"

The Flurry of Dancing Flames sighed and braced himself for yet another stupid and probably awkward question from Roxas. He liked the kid, and Xion too. He really did. He'd be willing to die for either of them, which was saying something, considering he didn't currently have a heart with which to grow that attached to people.

But a man can only handle so many questions from two naïve, innocent, cuter-than-a-kitten kids before he reached his breaking point. The speed at which one reaches this breaking point is proportional to the ratio of awkward questions to normal questions, and the equation definitely favored the awkward questions in this situation. This perpetual, annoying situation.

But what was he supposed to do? Send the kids out into the wild and wonderful world without him? We would never admit it, but he had contemplated this idea before. He had seriously considered just telling Roxas to look it up on the internet or something when he asked about a certain bodily procedure after hearing its name uttered by Demyx (who had soon after turned into a human campfire). But he couldn't bring himself to that. Roxas and Xion were, in some odd way, like his own children, and that meant he had to follow the duties of a father, even if that meant answering questions he didn't want to answer.

Plus, the idea of Roxas seeing the internet explain that little thing terrified him more than the scariest spooks in Halloween Town.

His own questions played in his mind: Why did I adopt the two cutest things in the Organization? Why did I think it was a good idea to become a father to these kids? Why did I—

"…What's tapioca pudding?"

Axel sighed in relief. This was something he could answer. "Tapioca pudding is a kind of food. It's a little like that fudge I made us one time, but a lot creamier. It tastes like vanilla with a dash of coconut. Why do you ask?"

"Well, I was sitting around bored, and Luxord gave me a page of comics and told me to entertain myself. One of the comics had a dog who said he never gets tapioca pudding in the infantry. That reminds me-what's the infantry?"

That night, Luxord found that his favorite card deck had been turned into a pile of ashes.

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I hope you enjoyed this short story. There will be a second chapter (it's already partially written, in fact). If you want to see Axel react to more stupid, possibly awkward questions, feel free to send in ideas. Reviews are always appreciated.

And for the record, Axel told Roxas he'd understand the 'bodily procedure' when he was older. The infantry question… well, take it as a free prompt, I want to read the result. :)