I have a lot of feelings.

This is how that one scene in KH2 went, right???

Kingdom Hearts IV trailer

But I also keep thinking about how in KH3 he seems all happy and cute and sweet in all his cutscenes. And don't get me wrong, I love that for him, but it also feels kind of…out of place to me based on what we've seen from him in the previous games.

So what if he's not happy in those scenes? What if it's all an act? He has no idea what to do with himself now that he's feeling so many emotions. He sure as hell won't admit that to anyone though - that's too embarrassing. So instead, he just looks at people who do know how to exist with emotions and tries to mirror them.

And who better to mirror than Sora? Sora is the epitome of Heart™️in this series, with a heart so strong that he took down most of the Organization with it. And factor in that most of the time we see Ienzo in KH3 is when he's on the phone with Sora. So maybe he just observes Sora's happy-go-lucky attitude and tries to copy it, because clearly that's how people with strong hearts and good control over their emotions are supposed to act. But it's all surface level. On the inside, Ienzo has absolutely no clue what he's doing or how to process this new swarm of emotions.

Just faking it until he makes it. (Or until he can't anymore and he falls apart.)

I like the idea that Even nudged (more like shoved) little Ienzo away from the humanities and into the sciences, so Zexion ended up with a sense of guilt over indulging in it, and then growing up in the Organization gave him a sense of guilt over having a good time ever. Having a hobby makes you like Demyx, so make sure you have enough reasons to justify it in a well-written essay. Reading for research; reading to learn about something that is not useful for work, but still may be applied; reading to learn about something just to know it, not because it'll be useful; reading fiction; reading fantasy, the ultimate escapism; could he even bring himself to try going further?