Vermillion.
Roxas/Xion
Written: August 16th, 2009 (old upload)

Sometimes, he sees her from the corner of his eyes. Other times, he turns around and there she is, standing just around the corner, but as soon as he blinks she's gone. Most of the times, however, she's sitting next to him on the clock tower, her hand over his as they finish up the last of the ice-cream popsicles, but she never says a word, or maybe, if she does, he can never remember it.

(Maybe it's because she's just a dream?)

She's always smiling at him. It's a small, sad smile, and sometimes (always), he wishes she wouldn't disappear every time he did as much as to glance so he could ask her why.

Why she always smiled like that, why she always disappeared, why she never spoke to him, why she couldn't stay, why, why, why—

He remembers asking his friends about the girl dressed in black with the black hair and pretty blue eyes, once. He also remembers the strange looks they gave him. He remembers how they just stared at him, cocking an eyebrow, before asking:

"What girl, Roxas?"

It didn't take him much longer to realize that, oh, maybe he was the only one who could see her.

Maybe he was crazy. Maybe he needed help and this was his mind's way of telling him, by creating some strange girl (with black hair and blue eyes that reminded him of somebody and—), making him feel like he had a lump in his throat, and making his heart beat faster than it should.

Maybe he was in love with a figment of his imagination.

One day, she doesn't disappear when he glances at her. One day, she just stands in front of the train station, smiling that sad smile of hers and motioning for him to follow. The lump is back, his heart is beating far too quickly, and there's a little voice in the back of his head, telling him that she wasn't real, that he was just dreaming, but he ignored it. All of it.

His feet are already moving, up the stairs, after her, and, before he knows it, they're both on the ledge of the clock tower. She smiles at him, sitting down, and he does the same.

He thinks he opened his mouth to speak, maybe he even moved in a little closer, but he isn't quite sure. His memories get blurry every time he's around her, and sometimes he feels like his actions aren't his own, like she's making his body move on it's own.

That is irrelevant, however.

What is relevant is when she turns to him, placing a finger on his lips and shaking her head, that same old sad smile still on her lips. He blinks, instantly closing his mouth.

She says nothing, turning away from him, before taking two sea salt ice-cream popsicles, from, well, nowhere. He wonders, for a second, how such a thing was possible, before nodding and taking the popsicle from her hand.

"...Who are you?" He says, not even realizing that he had spoken before the words were coming out of his mouth. She just glances at him, however, before lowering the popsicle from her mouth and staring at that instead.

There are a few seconds of awkward silence, and he has to keep the popsicle close to his mouth to refrain from biting his lip. He stares at the sky, she stares at her popsicle, and this all goes on for a few seconds before he finally decides to try again.

"Do you have a name?" He asks, smiling as if attempting to encourage her to speak.

Nothing. Not even a glance or a nod to show that she had heard him.

Time to change tactics.

"...I'm Roxas, by the way."

The only response he gets, of course, is silence.

He sighs, taking one good lick at his popsicle while attempting to ignore how fast his heart was beating, or how sweaty his palms felt, because this was all just a dream. None of this was real, it was all just in his head, and he could not forget that, no matter how fast his heart beat, or how hard it became to breathe, because he was eventually going to wake up in bed, almost as if nothing had happened. Getting worked up over something as insignificant as a dream was pointless, and-

"You're not dreaming." She says, almost as if she had read his mind, and he feels his breath hitch. He stares at her, furrowing his brows, and she twists the popsicle in her hands.

"How did you—?"

"I'm..." She interrupts him, staring as her ice-cream dripped onto her cloak (another thing he should ask her about), before shaking her head. "I am whoever you think I am."

He cocks an eyebrow, scooting in a little closer to her and pursing his lips. "That... Makes no sense."

"Is that so...?" She begins, her voice almost sounding bitter as she speaks (the keyword here being almost). "Sorry."

For a moment, he feels a little bit of déjà vu, as if he had heard someone say those same exact words in that same exact tone a long time ago, but that couldn't be right.

He shrugs off the feeling, placing his hand over hers and smiling, albeit a bit awkwardly. "No, no, it's alright. Just... Your name?"

She glances at his hand, looking surprised, before looking at him. "No, I..." She says, and there's something in her eyes that makes him feel as if he were missing out on some strange, inside joke. "I don't have a name, not anymore."

He frowns, and, maybe, just maybe, his hand tightens around hers, if only a little. "...I'm sorry."

"I'm not sad, Roxas." She says, and brings the popsicle back up to her lips. "We both did what we had to do."

"What...?" It's all he can muster with what little eloquence his confusion has left him with, but it's enough. She smiles at him, leaning in a little closer, and, maybe, her hand tightens a little around his, too.

"You'll understand, soon." And then she lets go of his hand, stands up, walks off the ledge, and—

"Xion!"

—the world goes black.

He doesn't know how, exactly, he got himself into this position, but he does know that he's on his bedroom floor, tangled between sheets, with a sharp pain in his head and-

Was he dreaming about something?

His vision is blurry, and maybe it has something to do with the fact that he had, most likely, just fallen off the bed, but it doesn't really matter, He untangles himself from his sheets, picks himself off the floor, and gets on the bed again.

There's this little voice in the back of his head, telling him that he's forgotten about something important, but he doesn't pay much attention to it. He remembers dreaming about something with her, but what? He remembers her face, her hand against his, her blue eyes staring back at him, but...

There isn't much else.

He thinks that, maybe, he's over thinking things. That he shouldn't think about her as much as he did. She isn't real, she'll never be real, she was just a figment of his imagination, somebody who never was and never will be.

Nobody.

So why did it bother him as much as it did?

Why was it that, just before he finally fell asleep once again, he swore he heard himself mutter "Xion"?

(Maybe he really was crazy.)

(Maybe he really was in love.)