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Though the seasons on the islands were hardly a consequence, she had been counting them as they went along. It was summer one night when she called for her son and he didn’t come down. She thought that maybe he had spent too much time outside, running around with his friends on that playful island just a mile out from the shoreline. He must’ve passed out, forgetting to eat before he slept. She didn’t go upstairs to check on him, as his tendencies for sleep were ever-present throughout his life.
She couldn’t quite remember the day after. Things felt strange, like time had decided to stop for a period. Like she had slept in her bedroom for longer than a few hours, and rather a few weeks. But when her husband woke up on the other side of her bed, expressing similar thoughts, they both chalked it up to the night they spent watching movies together on the couch while their son dozed in his bed upstairs.
The morning after, when she had already prepared a small meal for him to eat when her child inevitably woke up starving, it was never eaten. She went upstairs to check and found his room as he always left it: spare clothes lying on the floor where he never bothered to put them away. Toys from his infancy were hanging from the ceiling on strings or decking his shelves like collectables. His window was hanging open.
Though she would warn him, her child often liked to sit out on the roof at night. And sometimes, it was his means of coming and going from the house. He must’ve left for the day without saying anything. Perhaps he was eager about getting that raft built, and couldn’t be bothered to take the normal way down the stairs.
The sun passed through the sky and set on the horizon, yet he never walked through the front door. That evening, she and her husband were once again sitting on the couch in the living room, faces illuminated by the multi-colored lights from their movie. He laughed at some of the jokes. She did not stop staring at the door.
The morning came slowly and she glanced over at the plate that she was preparing to set with food. Her son’s favourite, some fluffy pancakes. But she did not hear his stumbling footsteps through the ceiling above her when she started up the stove. She didn’t watch him rush down the stairs and eagerly approach the kitchen, leaning over the counter to check if she had gotten the maple syrup out or not. He didn’t run up to her side and watch as she flipped the pancake over and heard the sizzle as the batter was cooked.
Her husband was more than willing to listen when she told him that she hadn’t seen their son in a few days. He suggested that he must’ve been staying at his friend’s house. She asked which friend. He said the boy with the silver hair and bright green eyes.
But his parents didn’t know either. They only shrugged and said that their son was prone to going out for a few days at a time.
A few days was turning into a week. People began searching the town for the missing children. It was a small town and everyone knew everyone else. There was no hiding those two from anyone. Even the mayor’s daughter, who was always seen playing with those two boys, said she had no idea where they could’ve gone.
A week turned into a month. She never stopped worrying about the missing boy, she swore she’d known him better than she should have. Like she’d invited him to her house to have dinner with her family. But her family was only she and her husband? Why would she invite this young boy to have dinner with them? And thinking about it, the mayor’s daughter had come over for dinner a few times, as well. But why?
Another month passed and she kept walking by the door that she had forgotten about, with a boy’s childhood relics inside and clothes that would no longer fit him when he woke up. That missing boy never turned up and their parents were fearful that he must’ve accomplished his goal of sailing to another world, as he called it. But the poor girl that he said motivated him to go searching for other worlds, she never went with him. She stayed on the islands, attending school now that the fall season had come around. She was starting her second year of high school, too.
The coldest season started, and it was a frighteningly cold one, too. Never did it snow, but frost would form on the windows and prompt her to go looking for blankets to stay warm through the night. In her efforts to find the storage closet, she would sometimes stumble into a room she had never been in before. Filled with spare clothes on the floor that must’ve belonged to a previous family that lived in this house. Toys adorning the shelves and hanging from the ceiling. How interesting that she’d never seen this before.
The winter passed, but not without its tolls. Her husband had caught some sort of flu and passed shortly before the temperatures began to rise again. He wasn’t an old man, nor was she. There were many that attended his funeral and mourned the loss of such a young life, someone who had never had a child to carry on his name.
Spring came and with it, the rainy seasons. The gardens began growing again, including the one she had planted over her husband’s ashes. A bed of roses, white in color. He enjoyed their beauty and the scent when they blossomed. It only seemed fitting to planet such beautiful flowers where he would now rest. Perhaps they would blossom a thousand times over, to act as testament to the man who died too soon.
Summer came soon after, and all the children were rushing home after the final day of school. For some reason, she stood outside in front of her house to watch them go. She looked over every face that ran by and waved at some that met her gaze. She even noticed the mayor’s daughter walking with them. Why she had come outside to watch the children run, she didn’t quite know. She didn’t know why she was standing out there, like she was waiting for someone she knew to come running so she could congratulate him on making it through another year. But she had no one like that. And soon enough, she went back inside.
As the summer passed and school began again, as she was drinking tea in her garden, she watched the mayor’s daughter walk by with a friend at her side, both dressed in school uniforms. In her hands, a glass bottle with a note inside. She hadn’t seen the girl go to that island off the shore since her friend disappeared, the boy with the silver hair and green eyes. It was the first time she’d seen the young girl even go towards the beach. Perhaps she had some words she needed to say to the boy she missed dearly.
The girl broke into a sprint and suddenly, she recalled why the young girl would visit their house when she was younger. It was to talk to her son, the young boy she had raised and would often need to scold when he didn’t come home on time for dinner. She nearly dropped her cup in the dirt, remembering that boy’s cheerful face and how she hadn’t seen it in almost a year. She rushed inside and up the stairs that he used to jump down in the mornings. She ran to the end of the hall where that door was that she had somehow forgotten about. And inside was an old child’s room, the floor covered in his spare clothes, and his toys and trinkets coating the walls. Dust hung thick in the air, the window latched shut and the curtains drawn. She stumbled towards his desk and saw a frame. She grabbed the frame and wiped the dust off the glass, staring down at the photo inside. Tears dripped onto the glass as she stared at the photo of her son standing next to the mayor’s daughter and his best friend who had gone missing a year ago. She clutched it tight to her chest, muttering swears beneath her breath that she couldn’t have forgotten about her son, no, she couldn’t have. She shouldn’t have. She would never have forgotten her boy’s beautiful smile. It just wasn’t possible.
“You’re, uh, sure you wanna do this?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t know her. I could tell her just as easily, if you’d prefer.”
“I wouldn’t have come here if I wasn’t ready to do it.”
“I know, I’m just saying, you don’t need to be the one to do it.”
“Well, I feel like I should be the one.”
The sun was rising, not that anyone could tell. The skies were dark with clouds. Winter was here and it brought chills with it, leaving forst over the garden and wilting the roses that once sprouted from the soil. The flakes drifted down from overhead, falling on his black coat and dotting his blond spikes white. His escort, the silver-haired boy with bright green eyes, was somehow able to bear being out in the cold weather with his vest and shorts on. How Riku could stand it, Roxas wasn’t sure.
They were staring at each other. Roxas’ snippy response reminded Riku how much he still needed to tell the Nobody that he was sorry for what happened a little over a year ago. But now was not the time nor place. Roxas certainly wouldn’t appreciate such words now. Maybe later, when he came back to the tower.
Riku sighed, “Just remember to be nice. She’s been through a lot.”
Roxas shoulders drooped and he mumbled, “Alright.”
Riku lifted his right hand to the door and knocked on it twice. Above them, the clouds rumbled. Roxas looked up at the clouds and saw the flickers of light hidden in the dark atmosphere. He felt a rain drop or two peck his face.
There was shuffling behind the door, and then it opened. A woman had answered, about as tall as Riku was. Her hair a chestnut brown color and eyes as green as the plants in her garden were during the spring. She was holding a cup in one hand, her own holding the door open.
She looked at Riku and smiled warmly. “Ah, Riku. I haven’t seen you for a few months.” She let go of the door and stepped towards him with arms open.
Riku didn’t deny the gesture and gave her a polite hug back. “We’ve been busy dealing with everything outside of the islands. Sorry I didn’t get to visit. But I did bring someone who’s been wanting to meet you.”
She pulled away from the young man’s embrace, still clutching her teacup in one hand, and looked to his left. Though he wore the strangest attire she’d ever seen on a boy his age, there was something familiar about him almost immediately. She swore she’d never seen him before, but his face was familiar. The wide-eyed gaze he had when he looked up. His tanned skin like he often spent his days outside. Blue eyes that were as deep as the ocean themself.
She knew that face well.
When Roxas said nothing, Riku nudged him with his elbow. Roxas stuttered and quickly said, “N-nice to meet you, ma’am.”
She felt her heart stop beating for a moment. Though his voice wasn’t familiar, she thought she knew it. Like an old photo of a very brittle memory from forever ago that was hiding between the pages in a book on the shelf.
And her heart went on beating. She offered the young boy a smile and said, “Nice to meet you, as well…”
She waited for a response, for him to say his name. But he didn’t give one. As if he wasn’t used to the idea.
Riku’s hand landed on his shoulder and he gave a little shake. “Sorry, this is Roxas.”
Roxas gave Riku a strange look and swatted his hand away.
What a strange name, she thought to herself.
“He wanted to talk to you about some of the stuff that’s been happening with Sora.”
Her heart skipped a beat at the sound of her son’s name. But she kept on smiling. “Oh, you’re a friend of his?”
Roxas looked away, “Uh, kinda. It’s complicated.”
She snickered and said, “Riku said the same thing when he first came back to the islands. Though he hasn’t made much of an attempt to tell me what’s been going on besides mentioning ‘other worlds.’ Whatever that means.”
“Sorry, I probably should’ve tried harder,” Riku rubbed a hand over the back of his head. “But I do need to get back to looking for Sora. So I’ll leave you two be.”
The two said goodbye, as they were used to doing. Roxas stole another glance at Riku as he walked away. The Keyblade Master walked back down the path they had taken to get to this house, disappearing over the crest of a hill.
More rain started to fall and thunder rumbled overhead. She looked up at the sky at the sound of it. Then back down to Roxas, whose coat was already turning slick with droplets. “Oh, pardon me, we shouldn’t be talking out in this kind of weather. Come inside.”
She left the door open and walked back into the comfort of her home. Roxas followed, scraping his boots on the doormat before he walked in. He learned to do that after he’d accidentally trekked mud into his dorm room back home, and Xion went about scolding him for it.
He looked around the room noticing how big the bottom floor of the house was. There was a sofa sitting in front of a fireplace, and a television sitting above that. A few chairs for additional seating, and end tables with lamps sitting on them. Farther back, the floor turned from wooden floors to tile, and there was a long stretch of a dining table. Appliances like a fridge, a stovetop, and an oven lined the wall with the tile.
It all felt somewhat familiar.
“You must be freezing, would you like some tea?”
Roxas looked back to the woman who had ushered him into her home. She was already in the kitchen on the far side of the room, pouring something from a kettle into her cup.
He didn’t deny that he felt cold, but he wasn’t sure whether or not to say yes. “What’s tea?” he asked.
She didn’t expect such a base question and nearly spilled tea over the lip of her cup. She lifted her gaze to meet Roxas’ on the far side of the room. Her first thought was that the question must’ve been a joke. But when she saw his face, she only saw confusion and intrigue. He truly didn’t know.
“Oh, well,” she looked back down at the cup. “At its most basic, it’s hot water boiled over some leaves.”
She motioned for Roxas to come closer and took another cup from the cabinet. As he approached, a strange scent filled the air. Something he didn’t know. He watched her pour some of her concoction into the second cup, then slide it towards Roxas.
When he didn’t immediately take the cup in hand, she said, “It’s cinnamon apple flavor.”
He didn’t know what that meant either. He knew what apples were, but cinnamon was as foreign to him as the word itself.
Roxas took the cup in hand and lifted it to his mouth. The liquid wasn’t scalding, but definitely hotter than he was used to. He nearly coughed it up, but the strange taste of the tea was alluring. He pulled the cup away and stared down at the brown liquid inside, watching steam rise from from the top and disappear into thin air.
“It tastes...good, thank you,” he smiled politely and set the cup down on the surface of the counter. “I’ve never had tea before…or ci...cinn-a-mon?”
For a moment, she was amazed by how little Roxas seemed to know. But it was amusing listening to him try to pronounce the word. Especially with a crooked smile that her own son used to give when he didn’t know how to say a word either.
She leaned on the counter and gently swirled her tea with a spoon. “It’s my favourite, and it’s Sora’s, too. I used to have to make thrice as much for everyone because the boy could down two whole servings by himself.”
Roxas smiled at the thought. “That sounds like Sora alright.”
“Mmm, anyways,” she put her spoon in the cup and took the cup with her towards the couch in the living area. She placed it on one of the end tables and sat down. When she looked up, Roxas was still standing at the counter, staring at her with wide eyes that almost seemed to glow in the dark.
Her brows furrowed and she smiled, gesturing with her hand for Roxas to come closer. The boy responded immediately, taking his cup and setting it down on the other end table before sitting on the couch himself.
“So, do tell me how you know Sora. And what exactly he got himself into.”
Roxas kept staring, his fingertips tapping against his legs as he realized he was going to have to explain this to Sora’s mother. The poor woman had no idea what happened to her son, only hearing some news when Riku came home after the final fight against Xehanort. And even then, he hadn’t gotten to explain much. Being caught between looking for Sora and having to deal with his own family demanding an answer to his absence, he didn’t get much time to worry about Sora’s family. Or at least, his mother.
“Uh, how much do you already know?” Roxas asked.
“Not much, I’d imagine. Just that Sora, Riku and Kairi managed to find other worlds. Something about magical keys that defend the worlds. Darkness that attacks people. And some crazy old man that was trying to put an end to everything.” She smiled at the absurdity of that last comment. “I’d imagine the full story is quite different, maybe a little less crazy than that. But I’m open-minded and I’m willing to listen.”
When she looked back at Roxas, she was surprised to see the expression on his face. Wide eyes and the corners of his mouth turned down into a frown. “Ah, about that…” he laughed nervously. “It, uh, does get crazier? If you can believe that?”
Her smile vanished and she leaned forward. “I’m still willing to listen.”
Roxas stared, blinked once, then hunched forward. “Alright, well, I’ll start with what I know then.”
He told her about the Heartless. Beings that manifest due to the darkness in people’s hearts. They have great fear of the Keyblade, hence why they would attack Sora. They search fervently for other hearts to devour, to sate their hunger for what was stolen from them. Even hearts of other worlds, which were being consumed and destroyed as the Heartless attacked. Destiny Islands was one of those places that was destroyed.
“And when a world’s heart is devoured, everyone in that world gets thrown into the Realm of Darkness. Which sounds ridiculous, I know. But when the worlds were restored when Sora defeated Xehanort’s Heartless, everyone came back as well. And it’s like time never passed.”
“I see…” she took another sip of her tea. The rain was beginning to pour outside and a lightning bolt flashed through one of the windows. “That explains that one strange night after Sora disappeared… My husband and I, we felt like we’d been sleeping forever.”
He told her about Castle Oblivion. The place where members of the Organization that Roxas used to work for had manipulated Sora and tried to use him as a weapon. Who Naminé was and what she was forced to do for the entire year afterwards.
“Naminé is also Kairi’s Nobody. When Sora stabbed himself with the Keyblade-” Roxas saw her wince when he said that, but continued talking, “-he released his heart and Kairi’s heart from his body.”
The poor woman was frowning now, staring at the tea in her cup. “Was he hurt doing that?”
Roxas wanted to say no. He very desperately wanted to say no and save her some grief.
“Yes, he was.”
She took a moment to think it over, to process what was said. Roxas couldn’t fathom what she must’ve been imagining.
“But...he was okay afterwards, right?”
“Yeah! He was a Heartless for a really short time, but Kairi got him back and he was perfectly fine.”
“...I see.”
“...”
“...You mentioned that Naminé is Kairi’s ‘Nobody?’ What’s that?”
“Oh, a Nobody is what’s left behind when someone turns into a Heartless.”
“‘Left behind?’”
“Like, their body.”
“So then...did Sora have a Nobody?”
Like he was suddenly thrown onto a stage with a spotlight shining in his eyes, Roxas perked up. “Y-yes, actually! That’s me.”
She met his gaze. Roxas wasn’t sure what to expect, but he wasn’t ready for the shock and fear and sense of dread that her expression gave off. “Y-you’re his…”
Roxas felt his heart drop in his chest, realizing what she had assumed. “NO! I mean, not anymore. I-I have my own body, this isn’t Sora’s.”
He had that same crooked smile that Sora would wear whenever her son would stumble over explaining something. Thinking about it now, no wonder she saw similarities between the two boys.
“Then...why don’t you look like him?”
Roxas closed his eyes. “Ah, yeah. That. I’ll, uh, get to that.”
He told her about Organization XIII and Xemnas. What they had made Xion for and the clash that the two were forced to have. Why everyone had forgotten who Sora was for the past year. When Riku had kidnapped him and Roxas was forcibly driven back to Sora, to recomplete the person he came from. He told her about Sora flying through other worlds and helping as many people as he could while cutting down the rest of the Organization.
“So he did come home?”
Roxas took another sip of the tea, feeling how parched he was with having to explain all of this. She had already turned on the lamps when the lack of sunlight proved to make the room too dark.
“For a short time, yeah. But he got called off again almost immediately.”
“Heavens forbid that boy sits still, even for a day,” she laughed to herself, smiling as she remembered the fond memories of her son. “He hasn’t changed much then. I swear, that child never knew what it meant to sit still and breathe. He always had to be running around and finding away off these islands.”
“He’s gotten a better appreciation for taking a break every once in a while. Adventuring life must’ve been tiring, ‘cause he was happy to sit down and eat some ice cream in Twilight Town from time to time.”
“That’s where you’re from, right?”
“Yeah.”
“How come you showed up there, and not in Hollow...whatever the name of that castle was?”
“That’s...a great question,” Roxas smiled at the query. “There’s a lot I don’t know about myself, so that’s another thing to ask the others once I go back.”
“For someone that’s curious about himself and the world around him, you’ve been slacking, Roxas,” she lifted the cup up and took another sip, keeping eye contact with the boy the entire time.
He laughed, genuinely. Then lifted his head up as a realization came to him. “I dunno, maybe it has something to do with the others in Sora’s heart…”
“‘Other’s?’ I thought it was just you and...what was her name?”
“Xion.”
“Right, sorry. I’m terrible with names, if my husband were still here, he could tell you.”
“No, there was someone else… No one really knew about him, either.”
He told her about Ventus. The boy who looked just liked Roxas, who’s heart had connected to and stayed with Sora for the past 11-years. He talked about Terra, who met Riku when he was still just a little kid, bequeathing his Keyblade to the young boy and telling Riku what he was destined for. He mentioned Aqua, who had cast a spell to protect Kairi if she were ever in danger and needed someone to keep her safe. And how all three were eventually beaten by Xehanort: Terra losing his body to the man, Ventus shattering his own heart into pieces, and Aqua falling into the Realm of Darkness to save her friend.
“That’s...awful,” she muttered, trying to envision them all. “And you said this was over a decade ago?”
“Yeah.”
“Sora was only four-years old...when Ventus’ heart was broken and needed someone to keep him safe.”
“...”
“Oh, that poor boy... Is he awake again?”
“Yes, Sora woke him up, body and all.”
“That’s good,” she smiled at the thought. “Ah, it’s just like Sora to have done something like that. Listening to a complete stranger, even with good intentions to help them.”
“Did he listen to strangers when he was little?” Roxas asked.
“No, but he listened to Riku, who would tell Sora to do all sorts of embarrassing things,” she snickered. “He was older, so he had seniority. But you’d swear Sora didn’t have any self-respect. At one point, Sora had deemed himself Riku’s rival and that’s when he’d had enough. The two started playing with swords after that. All to win little Kairi’s attention.”
She was smiling, remembering the memories of the two playing on the beach and Kairi watching them go at it.
“He still vies for her attention. He actually threw himself in front of Xehanort to protect her once. Nearly got himself killed-”
Her green eyes popped open and she choked on her tea, immediately trying to cough it up. Roxas leaned forward, reaching out with both hands, trying to help her in what way he could. She managed to hand him the cup and coughed into her arm, trying to clear her throat.
“S-sorry I didn’t realize that was-” Roxas cut himself off, already feeling guilty for how insensitive the comment was.
“I-It’s fine,” she wheezed, coughing one more time into her arm. She reached for her cup again and Roxas handed it back to her. “I just wasn’t expecting that, is all.” She tried smiling to alleviate the boy of some guilt. “No, that makes too much sense. Sora’s always been going out of his way to impress and protect Kairi. That he would try to give his life for her, gosh,” she sighed and smiled. “That boy can be too passionate about things sometimes.”
“Y-yeah…”
She looked up and saw Roxas’ troubled gaze. “...What happened?”
Roxas took a deep breath in, already trying to sort through the details in his head.
He told her about the Keyblade War and Xehanort. How Xemnas was Xehanort’s Nobody, and that the Organization that Roxas was a part of was going to be used to create the χ-blade. A new one being made out of various people from various times had gone out of their way to manipulate Sora and Riku’s Mark of Mastery exams. How Sora lost his power in the aftermath and had to go on a journey to reclaim it all. Or they would be unable to defend the worlds from Xehanort’s plan for a new Keyblade War.
“He managed to get Aqua out of the Realm of Darkness, and with her help, he found Ventus and woke him up, too. After that, they went to the graveyard and it...gets hazy after that. I remember them failing to fight at first, everyone being cut down, but I also remember someone showing up and helping turn the odds in their favor,” Roxas shook his head. “It’s weird.”
“How odd,” she mumbled. “But the second one must be true, right? Otherwise you and Riku wouldn’t be here.”
“Yeah…” He wanted to agree wholeheartedly. But it still felt strange to have two sets of memories that directly contradicted each other.
The storm outside was getting worse and another lightning bolt struck. The lamps flickered for a second before they went out. And they were sitting in the dark.
“Hang on. I have candles somewhere.” She glanced down as she walked past. “Oh, and Roxas, you didn’t tell me you were out of tea!” She took Roxas’ cup off the table as she walked towards the kitchen.
Roxas watched as best he could in the dark room. “I, uh, didn’t know I could ask for more.”
“You’re always welcome to more. Who else will drink Sora’s batch while he’s gone?” She walked back towards Roxas and handed him the cup, freshly refilled with the sweet tea.
“I bet Ventus would like it,” Roxas shrugged, sipping from the cup again.
“Maybe. You should tell him to visit then. I’d be more than happy to meet him, too.” She placed some candles on the tables, lighting them with a match.
“He’d probably like to thank the person that raised his protector,” Roxas said.
“Ah, it wasn’t just me. My husband had the biggest impact on Sora’s kindness. Luckily he didn’t pick up his father’s tendency to swear.”
She snickered to herself.
Roxas wanted to laugh with her, but his mind was on something else. He glanced around the room again, looking for anything he might have missed. He spotted picture frames hanging from the walls, featuring moments from Sora’s youth, his parents’ wedding, his first time he beat Riku in a sword fight (at age eleven) . He could see the staircase that led upstairs, but hadn’t heard anything above besides the patter of rain against the roof and thunder from the storm outside.
Roxas looked back to her. “Where is he anyways?”
Her smile diminished, but didn’t vanish completely. “He’s...gone now.”
Roxas tilted his head. “Was he...attacked by a Heartless or something?”
“No, nothing like that… There was an awful flu season almost a year ago… He didn’t recover fast enough.”
She looked up again, expecting the same looks of pity that she often got from neighbors or other people in town when they saw the poor woman. But saw a different expression. Roxas’ puppy-eyed face, completely oblivious to what she was talking about. She could almost predict what he was about to say.
“What’s flu season…?”
She felt like she might’ve been on the cusp of tears a moment ago. But now she was baffled by this strange boy in front of her. His stories must’ve been entirely true, and any doubt left in her mind that they weren’t was snuffed out by this one question. How insensitive it might’ve sounded coming from anyone else. But Roxas was exactly who he said he was: Sora’s Nobody, lacking the boy’s memories for even the most basic concepts like sickness or death.
“It’s...a time of year when it’s easier to catch the flu. Which is a type of sickness. It’s more deadly around infants and elderly people.” She watched Roxas’ expression change slowly as she explained. “My husband wasn’t too old, but he wasn’t in the best of health when he caught it. And he passed away.”
There was still a hint of confusion in his eyes. But he must’ve realized how dreadful the topic really was. “I...I think I understand, I’m sorry.” He bowed his head as he apologized.
She tried to smile for her. “There’s no reason to be sorry, sweetie. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Roxas lifted his head again, this time with embarrassment plastered on his face. “This is just the one-hundred and fifty-seventh time something like this has happened since I got this body. There’s still so much I don’t know and I get embarrassed over it.”
She blinked once, trying to process his words. “Exactly… one-hundred and fifty-seven?”
“Yeah, I’ve been counting.”
She was astonished once again by Roxas. The boy who didn’t know what tea or the flu was, was somehow able to recall every single time he failed to understand a basic concept.
“You’ve certainly got a good memory, at least.”
He scoffed. “No, not really. I can’t remember the first days I was born very well. It’s after that first week, things start to stick.”
Another round of astonishment. “Roxas, you do realize that most people can’t remember things before they were an infant, right?”
He tilted his head again. “An ‘infant’...?”
She sighed. “A child. Usually younger than six.”
Roxas pondered the new word to himself. “Uh, is there a word for someone that’s younger than two-years?”
“Why?”
“Because I’m younger than two-years,” He stared at her with a blank expression.
She blinked. He really was not lying whatsoever. She started snickering to herself, shaking her head and placing it in her one free hand. “Okay, true. You are very, very young. But you look a lot older than that.”
“So it’s based on appearance?”
“Well, maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know.”
“‘Cause Ventus is like…twenty-seven and he doesn’t look that old at all. At least from what I can tell.” Roxas sipped on his tea some more.
“Do you know anyone near that age?”
“My friend, Axel.”
“Axel? I thought you said he was in the Organization?”
“OH, right. I never finished, sorry.”
He finally told her about what happened in the Keyblade Graveyard. Sora cut down each of the Organization members with everyone’s help, taking solace in the fact that many would be recompleted when they returned. He confronted Vanitas about who he wanted to be. Helped Terra take back the body that was stolen from him all too long ago. Gave Xion back her memories that were sealed away from everyone. Released Roxas’ heart from within him and brought him back to the real world.
“He even helped me and my friends get back something we needed. The sigil in our names that Xemnas gave us, it was the foundation for our friendship. And we just wanted to prove it was ours.”
“Your names? Oh, you mean the ‘x’ in them.”
“Yeah, they’re like our original names, but switched around.”
“I see. How interesting… I guess it wouldn’t do if your name was also Sora, would it?”
They both snickered.
“Doesn’t end there, does it?”
“No...Xehanort nabbed Kairi and used her against Sora to make him keep fighting. And then he…”
She leaned forward when Roxas’ pause lasted longer than a second. “Did he hurt her?”
“He shattered Kairi’s heart.”
She felt her own heart drop in her chest.
Roxas’ free hand clutched at his chest. “I swear, I could feel how much he was hurting after that, and I wasn’t even there. He was ready to give up right there, so we dropped everything and went to help him. We were a bit late, though… He’d already summoned Kingdom Hearts.”
“That’s the big heart in the sky, right?”
Roxas nodded. “Sora volunteered to go and stop Xehanort while we held it back, but Xehanort’s replicas came after us and we had to fight them off.” He ran a hand over the back of his neck. “That was actually the first time I talked to Ventus outside of seeing him in the maze.”
She was suddenly very interested in that. “How’d it feel talking to someone that looked exactly like you?”
Roxas put on a dumb smile. “I dunno, I’d have to ask Sora…” he mumbled, thinking of Sora’s own black-haired twin. “It was kinda weird, but he said I was really good at fighting. I wasn’t sure what to say, so I just told him he wasn’t too bad at it, either.”
“You all won then?”
“Yeah...we won. We were the ones who walked away from it all. But Sora…”
His mother tilted her head. “He tried to do something, didn’t he…”
Roxas was hesitant to speak. “I dunno why I didn’t try to hold him back, but I guess he managed to pull it off… He went to get Kairi back, I don’t even know how… ” He shook his head. “But after everyone went back home and settled down, we got invited to the island and I...I swear I saw Sora was sitting next to Kairi on that tree.”
“Ah, that tree that hangs over the water right? With the star-shaped fruit?”
Roxas nodded.
“He loves that tree, it has such a nice view of the sunset...”
She sighed and set her cup on the table. She stood up and started walking towards the staircase on the far side of the room. Roxas watched her take a step towards the first stair before she froze and looked back over her shoulder. Sure enough, Roxas hadn’t moved an inch. She smiled warmly and gestured with her hand for Roxas to follow.
“That tree was actually where my husband and I shared our first kiss,” she said as she walked down the narrow hallway. “How...telling that he would sit on that same tree with Kairi by his side.”
Lightning flickered through the windows, letting Roxas see how few doors there were upstairs. Just three in total, one for a storage closet, one for his mother, and one for Sora himself.
Her hand landed on the handle at the end of the hallway she pressed the door in.
Inside was a foreign sight. But Roxas felt it was familiar. A small room, much like the one he had in Twilight Town. A bed set near the windows, curtains pulled back to let them see the rainy weather outside. Toys that could only have belonged to a child sitting on the shelves, placed in precarious poses. Some clothes that certainly wouldn’t fit Roxas sitting on the floor. A thin layer of dust coated everything in the room.
Roxas glanced around again, unable to shake the feeling that he must’ve been here before. “Is this…?”
“Sora’s room, yes,” she sighed looking around. “Hasn’t been used in almost two years. But I’ve kept it as he left it in case he comes home and needs a place to sleep.”
Roxas took another step forward, like he was looking around for something. His eyes drifted from the bed to the table in the corner to the closet door. The entire time, she was watching him.
He finally stopped on the shelf across the room. Making sure not to kick anything on his way over, Roxas approached and reached towards the shelf, looking at the picture frames. His fingers latched onto one in particular and held it in front of him.
Roxas’ eyes looked at the photo inside the frame and his gloved hand wiped off some of the dust. There was a young boy, couldn’t have been older than seven or eight years, holding up a wooden sword in his hand. His spiky hair threatened to poke the two people that were crouched behind him. A man and a woman on each side of their son, smiling in tandem.
She walked up behind Roxas and looked over his shoulder, recognizing the photo he held. Her left hand drifted towards her shoulder while her right touched the edge of the frame. Her fingers running over the smooth edge as she reminisced over the memory held inside. “Ah, I remember that day. Sora had finally managed to beat Tidus in a fight. He was so happy about it that he ran home and demanded we take a photo of him covered in dirt and bruises to remember his first ever victory.”
Roxas smiled at the photo. “Heh.”
“He had run into the house, tracking mud everywhere with a bloody nose and everything. I would’ve taken it up with Tidus’ father if that man even cared for what his son did. But Sora didn’t care how much it hurt. He was just proud of himself for winning on fair terms. And I was proud of him, too.”
Roxas looked up at the rest of the photos on the shelf. One of them was Sora, Riku and Kairi on the island offshore. Another was a younger Sora and Riku star-gazing on the roof. Another was Kairi grabbing Sora by the hand, tugging the red-faced boy along. And another photo of him, much older this time, standing next to his father, with a big grin on his face that perfectly mimicked his father’s.
She was staring at that photo in particular. “Ah, I remember that one. It was one of the last photos we got of the two of them together before Sora disappeared.” She reached forward and plucked it off the shelf, brushing the dust away. “If Sora wasn’t with Riku and Kairi, you could always find the boy hounding his father for attention. Though that was before they’d gotten the idea to build their raft and set sail for distant worlds.”
Roxas was still staring at the photo and she held it out to him. He took it and brushed away more of the dust. His blue eyes staring intently at the image.
She stared at Roxas as he observed the photo in his hands. He blinked once, unmoving from his spot.
“Do you recognize it?” she asked.
“Yes, I do,” Roxas mumbled. “But I don’t remember it.”
“I imagine you’d have Sora to thank for that…” she sighed, staring at the shadows in the room. “Sorry, on his behalf. It must feel strange knowing something so personal like this.”
“It’s...fine.”
His breath hitched when he spoke and his voice cracked a smidge. She turned her head back to her guest and saw Roxas still hadn’t moved. As if moving would somehow cause something bad to happen.
She bent down to get a better look at Roxas’ face and saw how glossy his eyes were. But he did not look away from the photo once.
“Are you feeling alright?” she asked, looking back at the photo in his hands. “You don’t need to be up here if it’s too much.”
“No, really, it’s…” He took a deep breath and spoke in a broken tone. “It’s fine.”
She wasn't sure whether or not to believe Roxas based on that reaction. And then she wondered if the boy understood what he was feeling. After all, he didn’t know what some other basic ideas were. It wouldn’t be too far a stretch to say he couldn’t quite grasp what was making him so emotional now.
But that must’ve been outside the realm of reason. From the stories he told, Roxas understood grief and sadness a little too well for someone as young as he was.
His hands trembled every few seconds and he said in a raspy voice, “I-I’m just surprised you kept these after all this time.”
No matter how Roxas would’ve tried, his voice couldn’t waver enough to sound like that. No, she heard another voice when he spoke. A voice that had gotten deeper as the years passed, but had that achingly familiar kindness embedded in it. It reminded her of her late husband. And it sounded like her missing son.
Roxas didn’t seem to realize what he’d said and he flinched, finally pulling his gaze off the photo. The tear streaks on his face reflected with each flashing bolt outside the window, but he looked clueless. Like he didn’t know he was crying, or the significance of what he was holding.
She’d cupped her mouth with her hands, trying her best to hold back her own tears. But it was difficult not to weep when she heard her son’s voice for the first time in two years. She couldn’t help herself and pulled the young child into her grasp. Roxas gasped and nearly dropped the photo he was holding when she did so. Her arms wrapped around his back, his head resting on her shoulder.
The hug tightened and Roxas felt strange. He’d only been hugged like this once, and even then, it was coming from friends. Not from this woman who barely knew him. Sure, he was the Nobody of her son, but what did that matter?
She seemed to realize how strange it was and pulled away, her hands landing on the boy’s shoulders and meeting his confused expression. Tears were still staining his cheeks and the whites of his eyes were red from crying. But looking at him, you wouldn’t think he’d known he was crying.
“I’m sorry,” she said bluntly. “It’s...you had his voice.... And the way you looked, I-”
His brows furrowed and he gave her the same confused stare that he did downstairs.
She took a deep breath, letting her composure return. “You sounded like Sora… And I couldn’t help myself. I’m sorry, Roxas.”
He blinked once, another tear running down his cheek. Blissfully unaware, he just smiled and said, “That’s not a bad thing, is it?”
She couldn’t help but smile back. She bent down and brushed her thumb under his eyes, wiping away the tears best she could. Roxas almost backed away, but said nothing.
She met his gaze again and this time, she knew what she recognized: it was Sora’s face. But not quite. Roxas had Sora’s eyes, but the voice of another boy. Sora was never this blond, even after spending months out in the sun, but the way his hair spiked was similar. He was almost a spitting image of Sora.
For as much as her heart ached to hear her child’s voice again, she diminished the thought of outwardly comparing the two. In all the stories she heard today, Roxas often said how much he wanted to be his own person. Roxas was not Sora, but they were quite similar. If someone were to spot the two talking to each other, they might think the two were brothers of some kind. Not the same, but they could’ve shared the same blood.
For months, she had waited for Sora to come home, ready to give him all the hugs she’d been wanting to for the past two years. To congratulate him on winning a war, saving the world three different times, finding new friends across reality. And of course, to scold him for never coming down for dinner, and for never visiting when he had the chance, and for making his friends go searching for him after he vanished.
And she would keep waiting for Sora to come home, of course. But today, someone else had come home. He could never truly replace Sora, and she wouldn’t want him to. But Roxas was already proving that he wasn’t just a good other, but also a good brother.