#not putting axel and xion in this pained me i almost added a comment about them checking the worlds for sora and kairi buuuut i couldnt fit

[scoobysnack1107]

Second Date: Memories

Thank you to @axlorg89 for the RokuNami prompts! My writing might be a little rusty, but I hope you enjoy! I don’t usually write non-AU pieces (because of how convoluted the plot of KH is), but I figured I’d give it a shot. You can consider this post KH3. 

                              “I’m starting to feel like you hate me.”

Naminé looks up from her canvas, expertly outlined with elegant strokes of gold and azure and rolls her eyes at the sullen boy sitting on the chair next to her. His own canvas is almost entirely blank, save for the misshapen oval (a face?) sketched with rough strokes of black crayon. 

The lines are hardly better than a child’s scribbles. Filled with his frustration but determination to persevere until something was created. Every line just screams Roxas. Her Roxas. 

Naminé can’t help herself. She loves it. 

“You said I could pick what we did this time,” Naminé gently reminds him. She tries her best to hide a budding laugh behind her hand, but the blond beside her sees through her right away. Like always. 

He growls at her, lower lip slipping into a childish pout. “But you know I can’t draw! And besides, aren’t dates supposed to be like...going to the movies or eating out at some fancy restaurant? Not that I have a ton of munny...” Roxas mumbles the last part under his breath with an embarrassed blush. Sea salt ice cream...so beautiful, yet so expensive.

Naminé sighs but scoots her chair closer. She grabs his hand, fitting her small fingers over his large ones. Her hands are steady but her cheeks burn and her heart - the one she isn’t supposed to have - begins to beat faster. 

“You just need to practice,” Naminé says and starts to ease his hand across the page. She tries not to think of how warm his hands are or how his breath is now tickling the nape of her neck. The girl just keeps drawing.

Roxas is mesmerized as she frames his deformed head with ribbons of corn silk ; the blue dots, the eyes, become gradient pools of soft blues. Those harsh, ugly lines are still there. Are still his. But her hands - which he notes are quite tiny in comparison to his own large, calloused ones - bring beauty to each mistake with ease. 

‘This girl,’ he thinks with growing awe, ‘she’s amazing...and mine.’                                       

To think that anyone would have wanted to hurt her, to ‘dispose’ of her...

Roxas’s hands begin to tighten, forgetting the colored crayon in his hand. It begins to crack.

“Roxas?”

The concern in her voice breaks the former Organization member out of his dark reverie. His grip on the crayon relaxes. “Sorry. Just...thinking.”

“About the past?” Naminé asks with a sad but knowing smile.

Roxas uses his free hand to scratch the back of his head. “Yeah. I mean, we’re together again, and we have our own lives outside of Sora and Kairi but...”

Naminé sighs. “Sometimes it still bothers you. What we had to go through to get here, the people who hurt us, the people we hurt...that pain...” Naminé pauses and visibly grimaces, “might not ever go away, but Roxas--”

“I know. I wouldn’t change anything either,” Roxas finishes and his eyes soften as he brushes a loose lock of her hair behind her ear. “I would never...risk losing you. Not again.”

Naminé pulls her hand from his to rub away the gathering tears at the corners of her eyes. Her voice comes out small, broken, and uncertain. “You really mean that? Y-You’re not lying?”

Roxas shakes his head; a tender smile growing as he brings their foreheads together. “You and I. We always tell each other the truth, right?”

Naminé mirrors a watery smile, nodding. “Always.”

Her tears fall onto his lips. Entices him to close the distance. 

A heartbeat passes between them. 

“I love you,” he breathes so quietly that he’s surprised when she whispers it back just as softly. As if she too is afraid of what those words can do. What they mean coming from someone who isn’t supposed to exist and barely understands the nuances of having a ‘heart.’ Of using that heart to ‘love someone.’

Their hearts beat again to fill the silence before he mends her pain with his lips.  

“You never did tell me why you took down all those pictures,” Roxas comments quietly, watching as the small artist eyes the surrounding blank walls for a place to plaster their portraits.

 The haze of twilight is settling upon the skies now, and the blond skater struggles to silence his stomach’s endless complaint for sea salt ice cream. Despite his best efforts, a loud and agonized groan escapes from his impatient organ.

Naminé giggles, almost dropping the roll of tape in her hands. “Sea salt ice cream time already?”

“Naminé~~,” Roxas whines and presses his head against the back of the chair.

Another laugh escapes the girl. “Alright, I won’t tease you today. Just give me a minute to tape these up.”  

“If you can even reach,” Roxas adds with a snort. 

Naminé answers with a defiant huff, but a few fruitless moments on her tip-toes produces the defeated sigh the skater is waiting for. “Roxas...”

“Coming,” Roxas calls back in a sing-song-voice and lifts himself out of the chair to hang the pictures. 

“Be quiet you,” Naminé pouts cutely and hands him the two pictures. “I want them side-by-side.”

 Roxas chuckles. “What? So everyone can see how bad I suck compared to you?”

“No!” Naminé says quickly, “I-I just want us to be together. That’s all.”

“But they’re just pictures, right?”

“Roxas, they’re memories. Our memories. Of us together.” Naminé clasps her hands together and holds them against her chest. Her gaze moves to her sandal-clad feet, voice wavering into a distant mumble. As if she’s speaking to herself. “When I first lived here, these walls were filled with memories, but they weren’t mine. They belonged to Sora. I might put a few of them back up, but what I really want is for these walls to tell our story. I want them to hold our adventures. Our memories.”

Naminé doesn’t look up when she finishes, and Roxas can tell that’s she’s uncertain again. The way she’s now clutching the hem of her dress, her body coiled tight in an attempt to keep from falling apart. 

Roxas tilts her chin up gently. Their eyes meet. Glassy cerulean and understanding azure. “Which is why you wanted us to draw together this time.”

“I-I wanted the first thing to go back on these walls to be something we created,” Naminé says before adding with a blush on the apples of her cheeks, “Together.”

“Well, I’d say we’re off to a great start,” Roxas grins. He moves to tape the two pictures up the near the window. The curtain is still drawn so twilight can pour into the room as it melts into stars. Both pictures catch hints of the hazy orange and pinks hues. 

Naminé touches the temporary paint on the pages and smiles. “Yeah, I think so too.”

“But,” Roxas adds sheepishly, “I’d prefer if you’d do the drawing from now on.” 

“Okay, but then what you like to do for our next date?” Naminé asks.

Roxas shrugs and shoves his hands into the pockets of his cargo pants. “I don’t know. Anything really.”

Naminé grins mischievously at his response and leans forward, tilting her head cutely at Roxas. Roxas instinctively straightens. He remains quiet but eyes the blonde wearily. 

“Well~” Naminé says teasingly, “I was thinking we could go to a karaoke bar. Axel and Xion said you sing.”

Roxas pales. “I’m going to kill them.”

“Why? Don’t you want to sing for me?” Naminé prods with a pout. 

‘Too adorable for her own good,’ Roxas thinks. 

Roxas sighs and touches her face. “I’ll serenade you for as long as you want. Promise.”

“Me and my beautiful soul?” 

She’s trying not to burst into a fit of giggles; Roxas decides he’s going to have to have a very long talk with his two best friends but entwines his fingers with Naminé’s and replies with a softness reserved solely for her. “You and your beautiful soul. But, let’s get going now, alright? I really need some sea salt ice cream.”

“It is that time of the day,” Naminé agrees.

Roxas laughs, swinging his free arm around her waist. “You really do get me.”

“I’m glad.”