Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts or any of the characters.
There was something about them that just made Roxas…laugh.
He had heard Xigbar and Demyx arguing one day about laughing. They had said, he remembered, that laughing is something only somebodies can do and really mean. Nobodies just laugh because they remember laughing from the old days. Nothing could really amuse them, and so nothing could really make them laugh.
But they do. Those three- Hayner, Pence, Olette- they make him laugh. And he was really amused. Roxas had tried to tell Axel and Xion only the day before, on the tower, but they had been wrapped up in their own thoughts, and didn't hear a single word. They had things to worry about…things Roxas figured he just wasn't part of.
"Hayner, you're slipping!" the girl, Olette, called out to her blonde friend, who was panting after another Grandstander act.
He lifted himself up and pointed an accusing finger at her. "Hey! I haven't seen you volunteering to entertain the masses!"
"'Entertain the masses?' Have you been reading, Hayner?" Pence asked, and even though they were insulting each other, they were laughing about it. Only friends can do that, Axel had told him. If I insulted someone I wasn't friends with, and expected them to laugh along with me, we would end up fighting, Roxas thought to himself. These three were fascinating in that they rebuked everything he had learned in the Organization about social interaction.
Hayner tossed his struggle bat to the floor and turned to walk away only to stagger back, seeing Roxas for the first time. "Hey, it's you again! The new guy!"
"Oh yeah…we never caught your name!" Olette exclaimed, looking guilty. "Could you tell us now?"
"My name?" Roxas asked, placing a hand over where his heart belonged…if he ever got one. "Oh…I'm Roxas." For a moment he fretted over whether or not he was supposed to give that information out…after all, when he and Axel had encountered Pence before, Axel had avoided giving out his name, and Roxas had been able to do the same the last time he met the three.
He decided to just give up worrying, though. Nobody had told him not to, anyways.
"Roxas. That's a pretty weird name," Hayner stated, but his two friends were quick to defend it.
"And Hayner is normal?" Olette teased him, gently shoving him to the side.
"Yeah, I don't see too many Hayners passing by myself," Pence threw in, and the blonde boy laughed at his friends, leering at them.
"Oh, I see how it is. You guys are picking the new guy over me," Hayner asked grabbing onto Roxas' cloak with two fingers, showing them the material. "This guy is not going to be able to hold up a grandstander act to entertain you two, you know."
"Well, if he took off the cloak he might," Olette said, but then grinned to show Hayner she was only kidding. "I'm just messing around, Hayner. We're not picking Roxas over you. But…why do you wear that, Roxas? Aren't you hot?"
Roxas looked down at the cloak himself. He had never questioned why he had to wear it…he just did. Sometimes it got in the way when he was fighting, but he didn't mind much. He couldn't remember ever wearing anything else.
"Oh…I don't really know, actually."
"Next time you show up, I'm gonna take you to get some new clothes. But for now, I'm beat," Hayner said, surprising Roxas with a little kindness.
"Yeah, let's go to the clock tower and rest up before we've got to head home," Olette said, and Roxas' eyes widened in surprise as he realized that they too hung out up there.
Pence turned to Roxas again. "You want to join us, Roxas? Or do you have to run off again?"
Roxas thought for a moment. Well, he had finished his mission much earlier than expected. Plus, Axel and Xion wouldn't be showing up for a while. It wouldn't hurt to spend time with those three, who had a heart and made him feel the same way.
"Um…sure," he finally decided. He would have just waited for his friends anyways, so he might as well entertain himself as he waited.
"Hey, you got any money for ice cream, new guy?" Hayner asked, turning out his pockets. "I know I promised I'd buy today guys, but…"
"Guess you didn't make as much money at your grandstander act as you thought," Olette pointed out with a giggle, and once again Roxas found himself chuckling, feeling genuinely amused at the three bickering friends before him.
"Hey!" Hayner pointed at the brunette, but he couldn't keep his straight face for long, and soon all four of them were laughing.
Roxas felt around his cloak, but before he could pull out his money, Olette held out a hand to stop him. "It's okay Roxas, I've got it. You want sea-salt too, right?"
So they had sea-salt ice cream too? Roxas found this amazing. I guess Axel was right, he thought to himself. Friends have ice cream together. All friends.
He nodded his head, and the girl smiled kindly at him and bought four sticks, passing them out to her friends as they started the walk through town to the clock tower.
When they finally got up, the three got into their fixed positions- Hayner was sitting far the side, like Axel usually did. Then Pence sat next to him carefully, looking a bit afraid of being so near to the edge, and Olette said daintily on the edge, legs dangling over, and gestured for Roxas to have a seat next to her.
Carefully as always, Roxas sat down much like the girl next to him and took the first lick of his ice cream as the other three did the same.
"Jinx," Pence and Olette said at the same time, and this got them going, as then they both tried to 'jinx' each other- whatever that was- for jinxing each other at the same time.
"Jinx!" "Jinx!" "Jinx!" "Jinx!"
"Hey, enough with the peanut gallery already! New guy is gonna think we're insane," Hayner kicked his foot up to silence his friends, who submerged into giggles.
"Sorry Roxas," Pence told the boy, who found himself laughing still. They always made him laugh. Everything they did was so strange…it was hilarious.
"It's okay," he waved them off with his ice cream. Hayner was already finished with his, and so he flung the stick over the edge and down towards the unsuspecting crowds.
Olette shot him a look. "Hayner! You can't just go around flinging your ice cream off the edge of the building! It could hit someone."
"You know, I heard that if you throw something from this high up, it could actually knock out someone from below," Pence threw in.
"Seriously? Hey, new guy, give me your stick once you're done-,"
"Hayner!"
The three kept on arguing for what seemed like hours, Roxas laughing along with them, until Olette finally rose to her feet.
"I've got to go, my mom doesn't want me to stay out that late."
Pence hopped up too. "Yeah, same here."
Hayner jumped up and kicked at the edge. "Man, we've still got a couple weeks left of school before summer vacation."
"I can't wait!" the girl beside him exclaimed before holding out her hand to Roxas, offering to help him up.
"You comin' too?" Hayner asked him as Roxas stared, dumbfounded at the girl, before he realized what she was trying to do.
"Oh, no…no thanks. I'm gonna hang out here for a little bit longer," he told the three.
Olette smiled and retracted her hand, and the other two nodded and headed towards the staircase.
"Oh, hey, Roxas," Hayner called out before they left, surprising Roxas by calling him his actual name.
"Oh, um…yeah?"
"Next time you're in the area, come down to our usual spot. You'll know where it is because the big curtain.
Roxas gave him a puzzled look. "Ok…why?"
The three exchanged a look and then laughed. "Because we're friends, that's why, silly!" Olette said, grinning over at him.
"Yeah. Don't be a stranger," Hayner added on with a nod, giving him one last grin before he disappeared.
"See ya around Roxas," Pence grinned, following his blonde friend.
"Bye!" Olette added, heading after the pair.
Roxas turned to look out at the always setting sun, and a few moments later footsteps sounded again, and he turned hopefully, thinking that perhaps the three had come back to talk for a little longer, but was surprised to see Axel.
"Oh, hey," he said, turning back as the red head took his usual spot to his right.
"'Oh, hey?' You expecting someone else?" Axel asked his friend, laughing.
"Kind of," Roxas grinned, shrugging his shoulders.
"Xion? She's kinda held up, Roxas," Axel looked away for a moment, staring at the sun.
"No, it was just…nothing," Roxas shook his head. For once, he decided to just keep something to himself. He wasn't sure what Axel would say if he told him that he had been really enjoying himself, that he was sure of it, that he had been having fun the way he did with his two best friends after missions.
"Oh. Oh, man, I forgot to get ice cream."
"It's okay," Roxas shook his head. "Already had some." He looked down as three kids headed through the town square below.
"I'm gonna be late, Hayner, give it back!" Olette chased after her friend. Hayner dashed through the people heading home, waving a red bag in the air, Olette close behind.
"Guys! Wait up!" Pence called, rushing after them.
Roxas stared down at his three "friends" below. Maybe one day he would be like them too…and they'd get to hang out all the time.
"Lucky kids," Axel provided, staring down wistfully.
Roxas felt a surprising rush of sadness that he wasn't supposed to feel watching his friend as he thought about the fine line between somebodies and nobodies.
Because maybe…he'd never be whole.
Author's Note: There's not really a big point to this, but Roxas is my favorite character and I think his friendship with Hayner, Pence and Olette is really sweet…and I wanted him to become friends with them in the real Twilight Town too. :) Hopefully you guys liked it…thanks for reading!