Snails
( AU, multiple pairings )
Written: July 1st, 2011 — August 23rd, 2011.

author's note;
Oh boy, so sorry for the super delay, but school started up and I had plenty of other things keeping me busy as well. In any case, this chapter is kind of wobbly by my own standards, but I promise things will start to pick up by next chapter. I'll try to get the next chapter done quickly so it doesn't seem like this one ended in too awkward of a place.

There were said to be seven, unresolved mysteries in Twilight Town.

The stairs that changed numbers depending on whether you were going up or down, the girl who could only be seen from the corner of your eyes, and the low moaning that could only be heard in the abandoned underground tunnels—these were some of the more commonly mentioned and regarded as "wonders" of Twilight Town. Along with these, were another four depending on who you asked and when you asked. If you asked an elementary school child, they would respond by mentioning the dog that often seemed to get itself trapped inside a trash bag. To high school students, the doppelgängers seen by the park fountain were of utmost popularity, along with the alleged special lucky charms that promised an eternal bond (romantic or platonic) between those who gifted them and the ones to receive them. To adults? Of course, the inconsolable sobbing that could be heard at night from the old shrine built for the warriors of light.

But there was an eighth mystery in Twilight Town. One which could be heard during the day, just as it could be heard during the night. It could happen to you—or it could not. It could be happening to your next door neighbor as we speak, or you could be experiencing it during these fear addled moments.

It was the sound of metal scrapping across the pavement. Shrill, unrelenting, and above all, unexplained.

Some claim to have seen sparks flying across the sidewalk for a brief moment—some do not. Some say that they saw dark abominations rising up from the ground from their corners of their eyes, but were ultimately too scared to stick around long enough to find out if they were imagining things or not. Some even claim to have seen the object causing the sound, but they all find themselves lacking the words to describe it once questioned.

Naturally, as with all mysteries contained within a town, these are all highly unproven and have only been passed down through word of mouth and nothing more. But, also as with all mysteries contained within a small, suburban town such as Twilight Town, there was also—

(—the danger of it becoming true—)

—the possibility of there being some verity to them.

(Scrape.)

The scene is one you would expect to see only in the most over the top cop dramas. The kind of scene the unfortunate passersby would only momentarily glance at (only enough for their minds to catch up with what their eyes were seeing) before immediately looking away, their backs hunched as they pretended having seen nothing at all and a slight jump in their step as they hurried away. But that was only to be expected, of course. Because for humans, for those brought up in normal circumstances and in possession of normal priorities, it's so much easier to run away from things we do not want to understand nor do we want to be involved in.

It was in our nature, after all.

When a person is assaulted in the middle of the night, the most common response would be for them to scream and struggle in hopes of finding some opening in order to escape or to draw the attention of a passing good Samaritan. When a person has their arm nearly ripped out of their socket by their assailant, copious amounts of blood falling onto what once used to be a pristine business suit, the most common response would be to scream and plead for mercy, offering to give them whatever they desired just so they would leave. When a person finds themselves pinned against the bottom of an alleyway, a weapon resembling the unintentional lovechild of a cog and a chain staring down at them, the most common response is for them to say a quick prayer while preparing to depart from this world.

But to Ansem the Wise, none of those were the productive responses.

In fact, his "most common" response is something more along the lines of glaring at his assailant with all his might (a youngster dubiously older than any of his charges), his back leaned against the rough concrete wall as he gripped his now useless right arm while keeping completely and utterly silent. He knew what this person wanted, and he also knew that they did not particularly give a damn about where they got their answers from. The information Ansem the Wise held could be extracted from many other sources—he was just unfortunate enough to be the closest and savviest, and only a mere delay should he not divulge it.

"So, old man," his assailant finally says after what Ansem concluded must have been a moment of staring down at him, their voice slow and mocking as if speaking to someone they did not know nor particularly like. It was both infuriating and preoccupying in its own right. "Are you going to cough it up nicely, or am I going to have to rip it out of your followers once I'm through with you?"

In response, Ansem could only chuckle, shaking his head and straightening his posture despite the weapon currently held an inch or two away from his face. "I'm afraid I'll have to refuse," he responds, despite not sounding apologetic in the slightest. "You'll simply have to learn about her elsewhere."

The weapon before him shifts ever-so-slightly, to the point of being a muscular twitch than anything else, and it seems as if his assailant is prepared to stab him in the face right there and then. However, instead of taking the predicted course of action, they simply starts laughing, almost as if they had just been told the most amusing joke ever and had lost control of their own laughter. That does not stop them from raising the weapon above their own head, assuming what must be a battle stance, before finally spitting out something coherent between their laughter—their amusement more and more apparent in every word.

"Too bad," they say, but it doesn't sound like they lament the turn of events in the slightest. "I guess Plan A has been rejected."

(—scrape.)

For all Ven complained about the lack of sunny mornings in Twilight Town, he had to admit it. He loved the rain.

The soft pitter patter of the raindrops as they hit against glass was almost soothing, and it allowed him to forget about a lot of things. It allowed him to momentarily forget about the reason as to why he was living in Twilight Town in the first place, and the fact that after a twenty eight minute long car drive (which he never understood in the first place; he had never even heard of students not walking to school) he would have to face eight hours of standardized education before finally being able to talk with his friends without the constraints of having a teacher breathing down your neck for talking too loudly at the wrong moment. It allowed him to forget about the small snags and hitches that occasionally gave him migraines in the most unexpected of moments, and the way the top bunk still felt weird after all this time.

He glances toward the glass paned front doors of their school, halfway through unlacing his street shoes as his brother stood beside him already in the process of slipping on his slippers, and watches as the rain dripped down the surface. They had only brought one umbrella (seeing as how Roxas had made a habit out of never, ever bringing his umbrella to school—something about it getting stolen by Seifer again), and now they were slightly wet from having to share one little, tiny umbrella between both of them until they finally managed to reach the roof right before the entrance. But that was fine. That wasn't something Ven found that he particularly minded or had any particular complaints about. Regardless of how much his twin brother complained and grumbled about having Ven whine and moan to him about how "sharing is caring!" and how they should both use the umbrella even though Roxas didn't mind getting drenched from head to toe by going without it, he was still happy to be with his brother and help him out. He guesses Roxas must be slightly happy as well, seeing as how he had stopped complaining sometime after getting through the front gate.

"Hey," he hears his brother say, breaking the moment of silence between them and snapping Ven out of his thoughts. He tilts his head around to face him, because eye contact is polite, and finds that his brother had already donned his respective pair of blue slippers while Ven himself hasn't even finished putting his street shoes into the locker. Still, Roxas stands up, patting his hands together to get rid of the drops of water and dirt working with his shoes had left on his hands, before continuing with whatever it was he needed to say. "I'm going ahead. Xion's probably in the classroom by now."

At this, Ven simply nods, finally removing both of his street shoes and unceremoniously shoving them into his locker without much care if someone were to steal them or put gum in them—it wasn't as if there was anybody who disliked him enough to do that. Not that he could think of. "Yeah, you do that," he responds, slipping on the first of the slippers onto his left foot. "Tell Xion I said hi, alright? And... To the rest of the gang too, y'know!"

Roxas pauses, just for a moment, and looks away at some unspecified point on the wall. Ven almost follows his gaze with his own, but then his brother is adjusting the strap on his messenger bag and nodding, even though it's painfully apparent that it isn't with all that enthusiasm. "Yeah, yeah," he replies, almost dismissing what he had been told, and takes a step backward and away from his twin. "Just hurry up. People are going to want to use that bench."

"Oh—uh. Right!" Ven responds, ever so eloquently, scratching the back of head with one of his hands and pulling up the end of his slipper with the other. He feels like there's something else he needs to tell his brother about, something else to mention to Roxas—but he doesn't. Instead he stomps his no longer bare foot on the ground to finish adjusting the slipper on it and Roxas merely shakes his head, muttering something along the lines of see you later before leaving as Ven awkwardly shuffles his other foot into place.

It had become standard procedure for them by now.

Ven avoiding the thumpitty-thump feeling inside his chest every time a certain subject was breached (every time a certain somebody was brought up), and Roxas avoiding the proverbial ulcer in his stomach each time he noticed that thumpitty-thump feeling all over his brother. It wasn't as if it was something that Ven mentioned—but Roxas had a way of knowing things. He had a way of reading every single one of Ven's gestures and what they were trying to hide and he had a way of knowing what he meant when he said certain things, but perhaps that was just common sense. Or perhaps it was the fact that someone with his own face was experiencing those kinds of feelings for someone who, by all intents and purposes, might as well be his real sibling, instead of the twin he only barely regards as a blood relative.

Whatever the case way, Roxas simply knew.

And, of course, that meant Roxas did not approve.

Roxas did not approve of the way Ven would shuffle his feet whenever she was within talking distance of him. Roxas did not approve of the fact that he would scratch at his cheek one time too many and grin a little bit too wide every time she laughed at one of his jokes, and Ven wishes his twin brother would approve. Not because he would actually follow through with anything (he couldn't; he knew certain things were off-limits and she was one of them), but because the fact that Roxas pulling her away from him at every possible moment simply made things millions of times more awkward. It wasn't as if he had intended to like-like his own twin brother's best friend, but it was something that simply happened. Even though he had only wanted to be friends after accidentally toppling over her that one time, he found himself stumbling over his words every time she laughed at one of his jokes and staring for far too long every time she wore a new outfit. She liked the same sports as him, had a natural talent for kendo, and even had as much of a sweet tooth as he did, becoming overjoyed when he offhandedly mentioned to her the unique and exclusive ice cream flavors all the way back in Disney Town.

But Xion was just a good friend to him, and that was all he would (could) ever admit to.

Sighing, Ven finishes adjusting his footwear and pulls his backpack over his shoulders, getting up on his feet and freeing up the bench they had been sitting on. They had managed to arrive a little earlier than what had become usual for the last couple of days, but still, that didn't mean he had to right to laze around until the bell rang. God knows what Kairi would have him do then if she and Sora found him wasting time like that, and either way, he really wasn't one for cutting class or arriving late—nearly seven years of having a certain duo as his best friends had knocked any desire of doing that out of him, as well as his father's somewhat strict upbringing. A successful student was a happy student, and he knew that.

By the time he had snapped out of his musings, he was already halfway through climbing up the stairs to the second floor. He could still hear the sound of the rain, hitting against the windows and roof, decreasing in strength every once in a while and nothing like what he had thought Twilight Town would be like when he first came here. He had thought of the Twilight Town in books, a city with a perpetual sunset that never went down, but that town was only to be found in legends written centuries before him or his brother or any of his friends were born. The Twilight Town of now was a town where rain and snow were commonly seen during the end and start of each year and a town where the beach was absolutely stunning during that one hour between daytime and nighttime. In this Twilight Town of now, there were certain obligations Ven had to attend to—such as refraining from walking around the hallways at the pace of an impaired snail and managing to arrive at his classroom at a reasonable time.

He rubs at his eyes, getting rid of some gunk that had managed to sneak in even after he had washed his face at least three times in the morning and glancing out the windows in the hallway as he walked by. The rain had, fortunately, gone down to a mere drizzle by now. Perhaps it would be sunny outside by the time they were out of school so he and his brother wouldn't be forced to repeat their earlier umbrella fiasco, but that remained to be seen. For now, there were other things he had to worry about. Namely, finding his respective classroom without any mishaps and locating both Sora and Kairi, who seemed to have decided to forgo meeting up at their usual spot right in front of the bathrooms—which was decidedly odd.

He takes another glance at his surroundings, cocking an eyebrow slightly as he realizes that there's no trace of either of his friends, and then slows down his pace a little just in case they were nearby or something. It was definitely strange for both of them to not be here, seeing as how they always made a point of waiting for each other until the last possible moments (something involving an inspiring talk from Kairi about friends sticking together, to which Sora promptly responded with something along the lines of "like gum sticking to the bottom of your shoes, but better!"), but maybe something happened. They were both class representatives, after all, and for all he knew they could have been pulled aside by a teacher in order to discuss something. If so, then he really had no grounds for complaining—not that he was doing that in the first place.

"Hey, Ven! Wait up!"

Ven snaps out of his thoughts then, blinking once and turning around to face whoever had called his name. Just like clockwork, there was Sora running up to him while waving his right arm. Naturally, Ven takes this moment to stop walking and wait up for his friend, a smile on his face, before he notices something (someone) very important was missing.

Where the heck was Kairi?

"Oh man, thanks," Sora says, a little breathless, finally catching up with him and leaning his arm against the wall for a moment, feeling the cool surface. He takes one deep breath, as if to make up for all the ones he skipped running all the way up to the second floor from the gates, and then proceeds to grin at his blond haired friend. "Kairi would have killed me if I didn't find you."

Of course, Ven blinks at this then, cocking an eyebrow and taking another cursory glance at the people around them. Kairi was still definitely not here—which was completely and utterly odd on an apocalypse causing level. Even on days where she would be this close to coming down with a fever or something nasty, she would always be one of the first to be waiting for her friends in the second floor hallways, puffing her cheeks and propping a hand on her hip while scolding them whenever they came late. She was a perfect example of what every student should be like. So, if that was the case, then why wasn't she here?

"Uh... Hey, Sora," Ven says tentatively, after a moment or so, causing Sora to look up at him and mutter something along the lines of yeah. "Where is Kairi, anyways?"

Sora pauses for a second then, staring at him with an unreadable expression on his face, before scratching the back of his neck in a decidedly awkward manner and diverting his eyes from him. "Oh, right," he says, his tone odd. "Nobody's told you yet, right?"

Ven quirks an eyebrow, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Told me what?"

Another pause, and then Sora sighs, straightening his posture and motioning Ven to walk along with him, which he follows. "One of Kairi's relatives died yesterday," he says, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking at Ven as he spoke. "A great uncle or something, I dunno. They were talking to Xion and her since it was pretty sudden, you know?"

Ven nods at this, idly staring out the windows in the hallway as they walked by, feeling just the slightest bit stupid. This was most likely what Roxas meant when he said Xion was probably in her classroom by now, wasn't it? "...Oh," he says, looking away from the windows and down to the floor, looking at their feet and the ridiculous blue slippers they were made to wear inside. "Are... Xion and Kairi gonna to be okay?"

"Yep, I think so!" Sora responds, much more lightly than the tone he was using moments ago, and smiles at his friend. "Kairi told me they only really saw him during those weird family reunion things they had, so they're not really close or anything."

Despite the strange, sinking feeling in the pit on his stomach, Ven finds himself sighing in relief. Even though he shouldn't, and someone just died, he finds himself glad that neither Xion nor Kairi would have to go through the pain of losing someone they considered dear. None of his friends should ever have to go through that.

They both walk together leisurely, finally arriving at their designated classroom after a minute or two and then giving one final glance at the hallways in hopes of spotting Kairi before entering. Their classroom was just as they expected it—a couple of girls rounding around Setzer's assigned seat as he went on and on about gambling or something along those lines, all three members of Twilight Town's self proclaimed disciplinary committee sitting in a corner of the room while most likely discussing who they would "discipline" next, and the odd girl and boy either talking to each other or sitting alone. It was the perfect, ideal lazy classroom setting, and absolutely nothing special.

Both of them settle down around Sora's seat, on the third desk of the fifth row and directly adjacent to Ven's window seat, discussing the most inane of things they could think off the top of their heads—ranging from the simple (what did you have for breakfast?) to the not-so-simple and potentially nauseating (does it look like Seifer's been checking Olette out lately? It totally looks like he has). Ven's leaning over Sora's desk as they talk, responding appropriately to everything his friend says and providing his own conversational pieces here and there while keeping their chit chat from becoming idle. He occasionally glances at the windows across the room, finding himself somewhere between being disappointed and relieved by the fact that the rain had gone down to nothing more than a drizzle every few minutes or so, before returning his full and undivided attention to Sora. And, of course, perhaps he would have continued repeating this course of action over and over again until the bell rang and their homeroom teacher arrived in their classroom, if not for something that caught his eye the next time he glanced outside.

A man.

An eerily familiar man standing in front of the school gates, holding a bright yellow umbrella and wearing an equally as bright and equally as yellow raincoat.

Ven isn't sure of how long he stares at the sight, but he is sure of the fact that he must have been trying to find some bit of recollection that clicked with the person he was seeing for a good long while, since before he had even realized he was staring, Sora was staring at him as if he'd gone daft and nudging him back and forth. He takes a deep breath as he snaps back into reality, spouting a series of eloquent ums and ahs as he returns his gaze to his brown haired friend, and Sora more or less returns his eloquence with some of his own.

"Whoa, are you alright there buddy?" Sora asks, cocking a brow at him and refraining from nudging his friend back into reality more than he has to.

Ven pauses, almost turning his gaze back to the window, before he simply nods and scratches at his cheek, pulling himself into an upright position. "Yeah, I think so," he mutters, although he doesn't quite sound sure of himself. "Sorry 'bout that, I didn't think I'd end up spacing out so bad."

It has been 716 days.

510 days since Xion stopped nervously pacing around his bedroom floor, wringing her fingers and biting her lower lip and thinking of the worst possible case scenarios. 386 days since Xion convinced both of them to tentatively peel themselves away from their cellphones after getting nothing more than the pre-recorded voicemail message and 306 days since Roxas stopped flat out refusing to associate himself with anybody outside of his trio (now turned duo). 148 days since Roxas started hanging out with Hayner, Pence and Olette with a little bit more of frequency and 142 days since Xion took a deep breath and let herself be dragged to new places with new people by her twin sister and her friends.

And then, on the 716th day, he shows up again in a ridiculous get up, standing in front of their high school gate like that was the cool thing to do. The okay thing to do and the sure-not-to-piss-Roxas-off thing to do. Sure. Let's go with that.

"...Roxas," he hears Xion mutter next to him, knowingly, as he finds himself clenching his fists a little more tighter than consciously intended and chewing on the inside of his mouth with a bit more vigor than he had realized. He takes a deep breath, staring at that ridiculous bright yellow get up and that bright red hair and the tattoos on his face he can somehow still make out from all the way up here, and of course he tries to convince himself that any other course of action diverging from staying right here on his desk would be a very bad idea, but he's never been good at convincing other people of things—much less himself.

He only vaguely registers Xion and Olette calling after him and perhaps Vanitas (of all people) telling Xion to stay put before he realizes he's gone up and sprinted out of his classroom, actually running past Xigbar on his way down the stairs and muttering a hurried "bathroom" despite the fact that he's going in the completely wrong way for that to be true. He doesn't have the time to realize in how deep a shit he'll be once this little adrenaline and rage induced dash for the front gates is over, but then again, it isn't like he would particularly care either way. Perhaps Xion and Ven would frown at him and ask what was wrong, and perhaps everyone else would chide him for being so impulsive, but other than that, it wasn't as if nobody would remember about what that one kid with the surname Custor or something did that one day. He had bigger things to deal with at the moment, really.

Bigger things such as seeing whether or not his supposed best friend of four years who one day just decided to go ahead and disappear on both Roxas and Xion had really come back, and if so, then how hard he would be allowed to punch him in the face before someone would come to peel him away from him. Bigger things, such as not being inside a classroom where everyone was suddenly ten times noisier than usual and the air felt thrice as synthetic and not even Xion's presence was enough to soothe his nerves and all the impulsiveness that made him as he was.

Roxas only stops running once he feels the raindrops that had gotten themselves stuck against the edges of the ceiling hit his face, and only once he realizes that his lungs are burning for fresh air after running all the way down from his classroom to being outside and in front of the front doors of his school, staring at the front gates only a couple of yards away from him.

And, unsurprisingly, but not enough to avoid the crushing feeling of disappointment crawling up his skin—no Axel.

Despite himself, he still ends up gritting and grinding his teeth together to keep himself from making any sort of undesirable noise, clenching his fists and leaving small crescent shaped marks on the palms of his hands that he could only barely feel at the moment. Maybe, in any other situation he would have begun to slam his fits against the concrete walls or perhaps he would have gone off to destroy any unfortunate piece of electronics he may have found in his way—but this was not any other situation. At the moment, he was in front of his school, allowing accumulated drops of rain fall on top of his head and in the process of cutting first period. In other words, in a position where such displays of anger would be impossible for him to perform without garnering an ever larger amount of attention to himself than he already had.

Of course, it isn't all that an unnatural response for him to tense up immediately when he feels a hand on his shoulder (as gentle as it may be), and prepare to spin around and punch whoever it was in the face.

But he doesn't. Because he never turns around and the person behind him has to resort to sighing, in a decidedly exasperated manner, in order to get his attention before pulling their hand away and speaking up. "Roxas... You're going to hurt your hands that way. Why are you outside your classroom at this hour?"

Roxas turns around then, already sneering even though it wasn't something he quite meant to do, and recognizing who it was immediately.

Of course it had to be Aqua Pontus, his twin brother's little perfect student council president best friend who everyone loved and praised and nobody dared to go without counseling. His brother's best friend who had never really left him alone ever since day one, where she discovered her best friend and surrogate little brother had a twin with a marked streak for impulsive actions with absolutely no regard for consequences, despite the fact that said twin with said impulsive streak did not want her attention nor pity in the slightest.

"I don't know. Why are you?" He replies, a little too quickly, chewing on the inside of his mouth once again and clenching and unclenching his hands in an attempt to calm himself down slightly. The answer to his question was blatant, really, but he couldn't hold himself back from speaking up just in the same way he couldn't hold himself back from dashing out of his classroom in the first place.

"Well, I'm student council president, Roxas," she replies, smoothly and right on cue, slipping a friendly smile on her face and crossing her arms across her chest, most likely in some attempt to keep herself from taking his hands and forcing him to stop creating crescent shaped marks on his palms with his fingernails. "I have permission from the teachers to go around the school making sure everyone is in their respective classroom. You know this."

"Yeah. Sure thing, Aqua," Roxas says, crinkling his nose slightly and furrowing his brow. "Are you going to force me back into my classroom now? Or are you just going to take me to the faculty office so I can reflect on my actions or something?"

Aqua shakes her head at this, sighing softly and leaning over to be on eye level with him, still smiling. "I would never force anyone to do something, Roxas. You shouldn't think so negatively," she tells him, in the very same motherly tone he's seen her use when attempting to reason with his twin brother and that just makes his stomach twist around in the most uncomfortable of ways. "Besides, you're Ven's brother, and I—"

"Oh—Haha," he finds himself snapping, suddenly, interrupting her mid-sentence and taking a step away from her and towards the still open school gates. Even though he's somewhat sure that she didn't mean what she said in that way and it was all just due to bad communication, he still finds himself spouting things on a whim. "So if I wasn't Ven's brother you wouldn't try to deal with me nicely? Is that it?"

"No— Wait, Roxas! That wasn't what I meant!"

Of course, that's what he hears her begin to say, but he isn't really paying that much attention by now. In fact, he's paying more attention to the fact that he's digging himself an ever deeper hole by running out through those gates and out of school entirely. Naturally, he will never hear the end of this once his little adrenaline induced decision making is over, but then again, has he ever really cared for consequences?

Well. Not really.

And he used to be such a nice kid, too.

By the time he's stopped, and by the time he considers he's far away from the school to stop, he finds himself in that one park near the outskirts of town—near that hill where you could see the best sunsets and watch the trains pass by for hours, but not quite. He finally plops down on some beaten up, sweat coated bench (with inspiring messages such as Yuffie + Leon 4 lyfe and if you can read this you're a ninja scribbled on it), and takes a deep breath for every five he skipped on his way down here.

After a few moments of catching his breath, he lays down on the bench, untying his tie and tossing it aside to the ground, and then proceeding to stare at the dark clouds as they pass by with the occasional short drizzle. Nobody really passed by this area on a normal day anymore (or ever, really, he doesn't really understand why he has the belief that this area used to be somewhat populated at some point in time), and much less on a rainy day such as this. It was the perfect spot for those who did not want to be bothered, and it was the perfect spot for Roxas to numbly take his cellphone out of his pocket, flipping it open and staring at the three measly bars of reception it provided in this area.

Eventually, Roxas sighs, shoving his cellphone back into his pocket and allowing himself to, perhaps, regret the tiniest bit the fact that he let his sporadic moods get the better of him once again. He blinks out the dark spots on his vision from staring at the sky for too long, and rolls over to his side, shuffling into a decidedly less awkward position and allowing one of his arms to hang limply from the side of the bench. Even though it couldn't have been more than half an hour since he ran away from school and not much more than two since he woke up this morning, he was still beginning to feel drowsy. No doubt aided by the nice, cool air and the somewhat calming sound of the breeze causing the few trees in the area to rustle softly.

And, well, who was he to deny the opportunity to take a quick nap, even in these circumstances? For all intents and purposes, this area was deserted, save for the occasional kid who ran all the way here to search for the elusive dog trapped inside a trash bag. In the worst case scenario, he'd be woken up by a bunch of noisy five year olds or by the rain returning to drench everything within town. In the best case, he would wake up in the afternoon to a couple of text messages from his friends either chiding him for running away again or asking him to text them if he hadn't been kidnapped or something.

With that in mind, Roxas allows himself to sleep.

(—and naturally, if he sees a girl dressed in only white in the corners of his vision, it's nothing but a trick of the light.)

(scrape.)

"It's okay to wake up now, Roxas."

question of the chapter;
Favorite world featured in any of the KH games?

author's response;
My favorite world is Olympus Coliseum.

Kingdom Hearts series © Square-Enix, Disney.