So, here's the fourth chapter. O.o I had problems. You'll see them when you read. Roxas is secretly soft-hearted, despite not having a heart... and Axel is just a confusing individual. And Demyx is just annoying. 8D But I adore Demyx nonetheless.

Hopefully, you could enjoy this chapter despite how djsdjsdkalsjdk it gets. o.o;;

Disclaimer – Um. I'm hardly Tetsuya Nomura, so... yeah. There.

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Chapter 4 – Actual Reality

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Determined, proud, sly, and that terribly sarcastic tone of voice of his...

Hearts, he was annoying. But I know that even if we had met in some other way, in some other life... we'd end up the same way we ended up in this life.

Correction, this 'half-life.' Am I right?

While my Other Half was out doing who-knows-what, I was busy dealing with him. I wonder who had the tougher job; saving many worlds at the same time or trying to keep a problematic... relationship... silent? I'll never get used to that word.

He kept his mouth shut, even at the end. And even so... I wanted to hear him acknowledge it. Us, I mean. More than what he said, though his ambiguous words certainly allowed me a rather bitter smile in spite of my Other's complete obliviousness.

It was amusing. I should've known he'd... leave... in such a manner.

There are too many words and ideas I may never get used to.

--

For the next few days, he didn't even have to try to avoid the redhead like he usually did. Axel hadn't spoken to him since the day he had brought him out to see Kingdom Hearts' vague form in the sky.

It would've been unsettling (and at first Roxas thought something was wrong), but the blue-eyed boy didn't dwell on it. It just wasn't important. It wasn't like he was losing anything important in Axel if they never spoke again; he hardly knew the 8th Member at all, really.

Roxas figured something was up that first day, of course, when he didn't wake up to Axel appearing in his room and escaping from some other Organization member whom he'd annoyed. He had opened his eyes to the already-familiar darkness of his room, the only light leaking into the room coming from the crack underneath his door. The rather useless window at the right of his bed had showed the still-stormy skies of Dark City, the rain having gone on through the 'night.'

He even waited a few moments in the still darkness for Axel to pop in randomly through a shadowy portal and hide in his closet, but nothing like that happened. And so the blonde went on with his day, half of him still waiting for the fire-loving Nobody to randomly pester him about this and that or, more importantly, question him about the events of the day before.

And then a couple more days went by. It came to the point where he would pass Axel in one of many of the Castle That Never Was's hallways wordlessly and not even think to look back and see if the redhead acknowledged him.

If he had, he would've seen Axel glance back at him every single time.

-

"Don't you miss him?"

The sitar player's voice was beginning to grow gratingly irritating to Axel, as this question had been posed way too many times that day. That week. All the time.

Axel turned his head away from the taller blonde who had decided to bend over onto Axel and invade his personal space, trying to peer into the pyro's eyes for more answers than what he'd been getting thus far. It was a repeated routine, done over and over in hopes of some new answer. Demyx was either naive, trying to annoy Axel on purpose, or possibly both.

"Who cares?" he replied as he always did.

"I do," Demyx answered simply and honestly. He scowled and stood up straight again, before flopping down beside Axel where he was sitting. The redhead scooted away a bit, visibly uncomfortable with the close proximity of his fellow Nobody.

They were both seated on one of the balconies of the Castle, overlooking the skyscraper-filled City That Never Was, their legs dangling carelessly over the unprotected edge. Xemnas sorely needed walls or some kind of fencing in these kinds of places, no matter how much more sinister a dangerous walkway was. As if any of the other Organization members wanted to fall to some horrible total nonexistence thanks to some little scenery idea.

"Go away already," Axel stated, glaring wearily. "Not-life wouldn't feel half as sucky if you weren't around to keep reminding me of things."

Demyx frowned, appearing sincerely hurt. Axel knew otherwise. A shadow of what would've been hurt had merely flit across the blonde's face at the appropriate time. No hearts, no feelings. No anything.

"And it's that kind of attitude that is making you so miserable, not me," Demyx retorted, crossing his arms and turning his body the other way, as far as their seating arrangement would allow.

Axel glowered for a few more moments, well aware of the fact that Demyx's eyes demanded an apology at the back of his head.

As if he was going to give one.

"Forget this," he muttered, swiftly rising to his feet and striding back inside, barely acknowledging the fact that Demyx tried to drag himself along by quickly grabbing hold of the end of Axel's Organization coat before the blonde fell over himself in his attempts to keep Axel close by.

"Axel!" Demyx yelled, just as the redhead cut him off by walking inside and shutting the door behind himself loudly. Axel sighed once he was in and away from number 9, relieved, but knew he'd have to keep walking if he wanted the silence to stay. Glancing both ways quickly, Axel went right and walked quickly down the hallway with the nearest turn so he could seemingly disappear behind it.

Moments later, Demyx burst into the scene as well, but obviously too late. He glared at his mental image of Axel, seeing as how he would probably have to wait a while before he could do the same to the real thing.

Axel, meanwhile, was making his way quietly down one of the many, many, many hallways of the Castle That Never Was. He sincerely wished that its name were true at the moment. Well, that was untrue. He sincerely wished its name were true most of the time, not just the moment.

Especially after that odd incident with Roxas. Just what the hell happened there, anyway?

The redhead wasn't one to angst. Really... who ANGSTED nowadays? That was the job of the lonely, avenging hero of the story, right? Not the villain. Especially one so truly, honestly heartless. But this was no ordinary story.

The hero was a boy with bright, blue eyes and the widest smile around. And one of the so-called 'villains' was his other half. Is... his other half.

Axel turned another corner, his arms folded in thought across his chest as he walked. His expression held nothing but boredom in his gaze, but inside that mind was an odd clock ticking. Definitely odd. Definitely... wrong. Or was it right?

There were always two sides to a story. Two sides to an epic of heroics and villainy. One could hear the triumphant tale of the hero and his companions... or would you rather listen to the more lonely truth of the villains who can't love?

Axel mused like this often nowadays. He missed emotions, really. He missed the true feeling of missing something. All he had were shadowy flickers that would drift across that empty hole in his chest. But it wasn't like anyone else in that Castle was better off... correct?

But at least they looked forward to something. Especially Xemnas, man, he was really looking forward to having a heart again. Even at the cost of...

-

Roxas just couldn't get his hair to work. No matter what, it always just... stuck up on that one side of his head. The blonde frowned at his reflection, ungloved fingers running through his hair several times over. All that gave him was a bad case of static attack.

"Rrrgh." The boy shook his head, and ran over to his bed to flop on it in boredom-disguised-as-despair. There wasn't much to do around the Castle... Demyx would waste time playing that sitar. Larxene read rather questionable novels. Vexen... what the hell DID Vexen do? Well, Vexen lurked that lab of his, right? Right... right.

And what did Roxas do? Nothing. But hopefully that'd change soon. There was supposed to be a meeting later that not-day concerning a certain Castle Oblivion and what was going down over there. He rolled over on the bed to give his ceiling a stare as opposed to drowning himself in his pillow.

Demyx kept mentioning how he wanted to go to Castle Oblivion to see the Visitor. Who the heck is the Visitor, though? Roxas frowned, stretching his arm out in front of him and reaching for the ceiling.

Maybe he's going to be a new Organization member? Roxas thought. He watched his hand curl up then open, flexing every finger slowly, watching the bones and inner workings move as he did so.

It was then that the blonde realized that he lived a very riveting life. He nearly sighed but stopped himself as an odd sensation went through his head.

ATTENTION, MEMBERS. MEETING... NOW.

-

Demyx glared at Axel from where he sat, the redhead doing his best to ignore the sitar player. Roxas watched the two from where he was, wondering what had happened between them. Then again, Axel just seemed to have a knack for ticking people off.

"So, Number Eleven, you are to take charge of Castle Oblivion," Xemnas finally stated, turning his attention towards the flowery member.

"Thank you, Superior," Marluxia replied, smiling, his voice suddenly reminding Roxas of a cardboard covering of some sort. Hidden intent, that is... Or maybe that was just the way he always spoke. Marluxia talked in a strange manner, anyway. "I'll make sure to carry out the duty I've been, so graciously, given."

"Don't thank me," Xemnas cut in. "Just don't screw up."

Marluxia's smile faded, the brunette seeming to deflate in his chair as he sat back and returned to a rather chilling appearance. Roxas noticed Larxene giving Number 11 a meaningful look, wondering what that was all about. But his attention was soon stolen by Xemnas once more.

"Now. For the rest of the Castle Oblivion crew..." The Superior appeared rather cunning now as he spoke, his fingers lacing together in front of him. "Numbers Four, Five, Six... Twelve—" Demyx made a rather happy sound, "—and..." He gave the group a final look around, as if trying to figure out who he missed.

Axel didn't move. He didn't want to leave, that would be leaving Roxas (... who did currently hate him...) with Demyx (... who he hated) and Demyx would probably tell the younger blonde all kinds of stories. False stories. Then again...

The redhead turned slightly, giving Roxas a questioning look. Roxas blinked, unaware of where that came from, but he found himself looking back to Axel regardless. The 8th member gazed imploringly into Roxas's true-blue eyes, and soon the blonde felt uncomfortable under his stare. He was the first to break the contact, choosing to look at Xemnas again.

Axel's brows furrowed in indecision as he also returned his eyes to the leader. Finally, the fiery male slowly raised his hand.

"Axel?" One of Xemnas's eyebrows rose in question, though the rest of his face revealed him to actually be quite amused. "You want to volunteer?"

"... y-yeah, sure," Axel answered, Demyx shooting him a 'Whatthehell?' look. He noted it out of the corner of his eye, half-shrugging in reply.

"Great, then this is your team, Eleven," Xemnas spoke again to Marluxia, gesturing out grandly with his arms. "Hopefully you'll all return safely after our Visitor pays Oblivion a visit."

"Visitor?" Demyx finally spoke aloud, and rather loud at that. Larxene glared at the outburst.

"Yeah, the keybl—" she nearly answered, but Axel cut her off.

"Yes, a visitor, Demyx," he seemed to hiss. Dark green eyes shot warningly in Larxene's direction before glancing for less than a second in Roxas's.

Now Roxas was interested, but he still didn't speak.

"You'll see, Number Nine," Xemnas finally said, though his tone only made both Demyx and Roxas more curious. "And with that, meeting adjourned."

-

"Why'd you do that?" Demyx nearly shook the redhead but restrained himself. "Who knows how long 'til you come back!"

"Yeah, well...," Axel avoided his eyes, "... It just... seemed like a good idea to me." He faked a grin, something he did more than the usual Nobody, and turned to leave.

"Now I'll miss both of you..." Demyx said quietly, which was new.

"That's just too bad," Axel deadpanned, not looking back. "You'll find new friends. Lexaeus seems like he could come out of his shell more." Demyx frowned, but watched Axel with intrigued curiosity as the pyro began chuckling. "Heh, I'd suggest Zexion, but he'd probably punch you before you could say anything..."

"Axel," Demyx finally said, watching Number Eight's back as he walked away, "... Are you alright?"

To this, the redhead finally turned his head a bit, giving the sitar player a profile shot of his face.

"Yeah! Never better."

It was then that Demyx realized that maybe the markings under Axel's eyes were actually cleverly hidden tears.

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o.o; I don't know. Review? Please? It's short, considering the wait, but it was really just a from-here-to-there chapter. x.x;;; I'm sorry. But yes, so things got a little weird, and um... I really don't know. –twitch- It's nearly six AM. Anyway, I'll update this again later-style.