“Hey, Roxy…”

“Mmm?”

“…You feel anything yet?”

There was a slight pause, and then:

“I feel that you’ve got a serious case of garlic breath.”

Axel pulls away with an aggravated sigh, lips still shining and wet from having kissed Roxas a few seconds earlier, “You’re lucky I’m heartless, or else you’d be finding yourself short one friend, Rox-ass.”

“If we weren’t heartless, we wouldn’t have been doing this in the first place,” Roxas reminded him tiredly, slumping against his bedroom wall.

Roxas had gotten the idea from a book, actually. Love and hearts were always so connected in the books he’d read that he’d thought that one must surely lead to the other. Maybe, just maybe, if they could find love, they’d be able to get their hearts back. And the only person that he could think of that was worth loving was Axel. The only one who deserved love was Axel. And for a while there, they’d been so sure, so certain, so filled with something that could almost be called hope.

…But it hadn’t worked. Now that Roxas thinks about it, maybe it had been a mistake to base a grand master plan on something out of one of Larxene’s trashy novels.

Axel looks away, smile fading, and Roxas wishes he’d never come up with this idea. It was… stupid of him. With a groan, he lifts himself from the wall and throws himself face down onto his sofa, burying his face into the pillowy arm. “I guess… no matter what way you look at it… zero plus zero still makes…”

“Zero?” Axel finished with a smirk, forming an “O” with his fingers. He joined Roxas on the couch, flopping down limply, then pulling his hood up over his head. “Glad to know you understand kindergarten math, Rox. Maybe you should try tutoring Xigbar. Kingdom Hearts knows he could use it.” It’s a joke, no different than the ones he usually makes, but this time it sounds… bitter. Cheated.

Roxas shifts, flipping over onto his back so that he’s seated normally. He’s only seen this colder side of his fiery friend a handful of times, and has found that he doesn’t much care for it. “Tch,” Roxas begins, searching for some way to lighten the mood, “It’s not my fault that you’re such a crappy kisser. No wonder it didn’t work; I mean, it was like getting snogged by a baby rhinoceros. Not what you’d call ‘appealing’. Seems to me that you didn’t even get any ass as a Somebody.” He pulled his hood down as well, so that the only part of his face visible was a slight smile, then crossed his arms contentedly. Let’s just see Axel try to stay all mopey after THAT!

“What!?” Axel protested, jerking upright. “Like you’re any one to talk! Your Other still believes in the stork, I bet.”

Roxas just sat back, satisfied that he had broken Axel out of his bad humor, until something Axel had said made him frown. “You said… ‘My Other still believes’… Doncha mean, ‘My Other used to believe?’ I mean, he’s dead after all, right…?”

“Oh…Right.” Axel looked away with a grin. “Sorry… slip of the tongue, yanno.”

“Mmm.” Roxas wordlessly replied, closing his eyes. They remained like that for a while, and Axel teetered on the verge of sleep until Roxas spoke again.

“So, now that we’ve established how utterly disgusting this whole romantic escapade attempt was-”

“Horrible,” Axel agreed solemnly. “Could barely keep myself from gagging.”

“…Let’s agree to try it again in the next life. When Mansex finally gets off his ass and gets us our hearts back.”

“…Sounds reasonable enough.” From what Roxas could see of Axel beneath his hood, the redhead was practically beaming ear to ear. He couldn’t say that seeing Axel like that made him happy, but… a tiny shiver raced out from the hole where his heart used to be.

And it was nice.

“You know, Axel…” Roxas began, really thinking aloud more than anything else, “…I never asked you if you felt anything.”

And in the darkness of Roxas’s room, Axel just smiled.


----


No Hearts, One Whole.