The Prettiest Boy

Somehow, Lea manages to send his mood from upset, to fascinated, to frustrated… and finally to happy in the span of a few short minutes. There’s something in his attitude and in his smile that’s completely and hopelessly contagious. The way that he cockily tells Ven to get up and fight him without any knowledge of how tough of an opponent he’s facing is both admirable and stupid: if he decided to pull out his actual Keyblade, Lea would be annihilated, which his friend – Isa is his name, Ven thinks – is quick to point out after his loss. The way that he laughs is… a word that Ven doesn’t know how to describe with his four, short years of available memories. He finds that he’s all too sad to see Lea go when he does.

“I’ll see you when I see you;” he tells Ven, glancing over his shoulder with a grin quirking the corners of his lips, “after all, we’re friends now – get it memorized.”

Lea doesn’t have to tell him twice: Ven doesn’t think that he could forget even if he wanted to. “Okay, Lea.”

The snarky, loudmouthed, bright redhead saunters off as Ven turns around to head his own way. As much as he’d like to stay, he knows that he can’t, and that Lea has his own things to do based on how hurried Isa was. He makes himself a promise to come back at some point and find Lea again.

Perhaps if Aqua or Terra were there, they could have explained the feelings that blossomed up inside of him that day.

The second time that he sees him, Saïx has a hand clapped on his shoulder, and he looks so far gone that Axel’s nearly certain that the hand is to keep him from falling over.

Green eyes, wide in surprise that he doesn’t truly feel, look up to meet the golden gaze of the man who had been his friend once upon a time. He swears that he can spot a similar look of recognition within those chilling hues that make Saïx seem so much less human than Axel can still remember him having been when they were children.

How could Saïx not notice the remarkable similarities between Roxas and Ventus? Even so, they both know better than to speak up about it.

“Lord Xemnas has decided that you are the most fit to look after Roxas,” Saïx eventually says, breaking the silence with his monotonous voice.

“Why do I have to do it?”

Instead of answering, Saïx replies with a query of his own: “Are you questioning an order?”

Knowing better than to press further, Axel’s brow furrows as he reaches out to take Ventus’ – his name is Roxas now, he mentally corrects – arm, pulling him close. These days, Saïx stirs up memories of feeling discomfort, and he doesn’t like Roxas being so close to him (if he could even feel dislike to begin with). Roxas practically stumbles right into Axel, and it’s so strange to him that the newborn Nobody is so short compared to him now: they used to be around the same height.

“All right: I’ll watch the kid.”

“See to it that you do. He has no memories, so he’s learning from what’s around him.”

Saïx never says anything without intention, and Axel knows what he’s trying to say: Roxas doesn’t know them – he doesn’t remember Radiant Garden as Ventus would.

“I won’t let him kill himself or anything; I’m not that irresponsible.”

With that, Saïx leaves the two of them alone. The hallway is deafeningly silent, Axel’s green hues staring down into pools of endless blue that look up at him blankly, as though waiting for some sort of instruction like a mindless robot. It’s almost unsettling in comparison to what he remembers Ventus – Roxas – being like when he was a teenager, with a Heart still beating in his chest. The reason it isn’t unsettling is because he can’t feel anything like that anymore.

Axel puts on one of those signature grins in an attempt to break the tension. “Do you want to go get some ice cream?”

Roxas tilts his head slightly in confusion. “Ice… cream…?”

“Yeah; it’s great,” and a hand claps Roxas’ shoulder, causing the kid to lurch forward slightly. “C’mon: I know a great spot.”

Despite what Saïx had said to him, Axel calls him by the name he remembers having been assigned to that face, all blonde curls and spikes and royal blue eyes that seemed to go on forever.

Roxas does not respond.

A knock sounds from the bedroom door, causing Ven to look up from the text in his hands. “Come in,” he calls. He would answer the door, himself, but being asleep for so long had taken a toll on his body, leaving lean muscle worn thin to nearly nothing, his once healthy weight far too low. As it was, he was leaning against the backboard of the bed for support, turning the pages of his reading material about as much as he was capable of for the time being.

He shuts the book as the door opens. At first, it seems like whoever is on the other side is hesitant to step into the room. Ven, puzzled, was about to call out to the stranger again before they made themself known to him, causing his blue hues to widen.  

“Is… that you, Lea?”

A grin found the redhead’s features. At least Ven had his name memorized. “I told you that we’d see each other again, didn’t I? Don’t tell me that you forgot.”

Smiling widely, Ven set his book aside and motioned for Lea to take a seat next to him. “Of course I didn’t forget,” he replied as Lea made his way over and sat on the edge of the bed. “I just… didn’t expect to see you here, of all places. No one told me you were around.”

“Are you serious? How could no one have mentioned that?” Lea set a hand over his chest to couple with his overly theatrical tone, as though he was emotionally wounded and would never recover. He decided to go the extra mile and flop backwards onto the bed, throwing his free arm over his eyes. “I thought they were my friends.”

Ven laughed. “Did you take some classes in theatrics this past decade?”

“Not a chance,” and Lea sat back up. “I’m just that good.”

“It’s nice to see you again.”

“Right back at you, Ventus.” The two of them sat there for a while, doing nothing more than smiling. After a moment, though, Lea seemed to remember that there was something he needed to tell the other. “Hold up: I brought you something.”

“If it’s food, I can’t promise I’ll eat it: I can’t really handle that much right now.”

“I think that this counts as a light snack instead of real food,” Lea countered, “and who doesn’t ever have room for ice cream?” With that, he whipped out a stick of blue ice cream, extending it to Ven. The blonde looked at it in confusion before taking it from Lea’s hand, which he quickly filled with another bar. Ven turned it over once or twice, as though examining it before his eyes trailed back up to Lea, who was taking a bite out of his own. Emerald eyes flitted over to look at Ven, a spark of concern in their gaze. “Are you really not hungry enough for something this light?”

“I-it’s not that,” he insisted, “it’s just—”

Lea waited until it seemed obvious to him that Ven didn’t plan to finish that sentence. “What’s up?”

“… I swear that I’ve seen this somewhere before… but I know that there’s no way that could be.” His memories were very crisp and clear after having joined with Vanitas over ten years ago, and he’d never seen ice cream like this, both during his time with Xehanort and his time with Eraqus. Why did this seem so nostalgic, then…?

“Come on, man: I keep telling people to get stuff memorized and they keep on forgetting.” Ven cocked an eyebrow, earning a sigh from Lea. “Some people like to say that déjà vu is a sensation from past lives – something you did in a life before the one you’re living right now. Maybe… you’ve had this ice cream before in some other lifetime, and that’s why you can’t remember.”

Lea hoped that was the case.

Ven glanced back at the ice cream in his hand, a slight trickle of light blue liquid trailing down the stick and onto his fingers. After a moment, he bit into the bar, letting the cold sensation and… strange flavor wash over his tongue. His eyes widened in surprise as he chewed, tasting the combination of flavors in his mouth in slight awe.

“It’s salty… but sweet.”

Roxas, you said the exact same thing the other day.

I did? I don’t remember…

“You okay there, Ventus?”

Lea’s answer was the blonde throwing his arms around his neck with a surprising amount of force for someone who had been catatonic so recently. He fell back onto the mattress with Ven lying on top of him, hugging him with all of the strength in his stringy, atrophied arms (to the point that Lea could feel his weak muscles quivering from the strain). Green hues, wide in shock, glanced down at the boy that had buried his face into his collarbone. He couldn’t tell whether the way his shoulders shook was because he was crying or laughing, any sound of facial expression muffled by Lea’s shirt.

“W-what’s all this about, Ventus?”

The boy detached from him, and Lea saw that he was, in fact, both laughing and crying: there was a big, stupid grin on his face and tears in his eyes.

“I’m Ven!”

“… Yeah: we established that.”

“You don’t understand, Lea! I’m not Sora, I’m Ven – I’ve always been Ven – and I remember!”

Lea’s gaze lit up. “You mean that—?”

“Yes: I remember! I fell asleep, and I found Sora. When he released his Heart, a Nobody was born. He had a Nobody with a Heart – my Heart – but no memories. I remember the Organization, I remember it all, I remember you! Lea, I was Roxas, and I’m Ven!”

Now it was Lea’s turn to wrap his arms around Ven, the two of them a laughing, crying mess, tangled up in each others’ limbs and arms, making an absolute mess of the bedsheets, blankets, and ice cream sticks barely clutched in their fingers. Ven just kept on repeating who he was, Lea telling him that he knew – he knew and he had it memorized – and then they’d laugh and cry some more.

It was euphoric – fantastic – better than any other feeling Ven had ever experienced in his life, knowing who he was. After struggling with the knowledge that he was someone he wasn’t for so long, he was Ven, and that was right – it always had been. His face was the same, the name fit better than Roxas ever had, and he was himself again. There was no way he could ever hope to explain the feeling in words.

When the two boys eventually calmed down, Lea flopped down next to Ven, his face aching from smiling so brightly. The blonde’s eyes were shining when he looked into them, and he felt like he was at home for the first time in what felt like forever. He had missed that face – the face of the boy he had met in Radiant Garden so long ago, only to meet again under names that didn’t belong to them so many years later. Ven remembered the rollercoaster of a year that the two of them had spent together, eating ice cream and watching the sunset.

“I missed you, Ventus.”

“Just “Ven” is fine, Lea. I missed you, too.”

“It’s good to know that the name bit had to come first,” he replied sarcastically, earning him the slightest of punches to the arm. “I’ll get that memorized, Ven.”

If it was possible for the blonde’s smile to grow wider, it did, and he scooted closer to Lea despite his muscles’ protests against movement. He’d worked them quite a bit in his half-wrestle with Lea, and since the two of them had removed the topmost blanket from the bed, having gotten it sticky from spilled ice cream, the skinny boy was cold. He remembered nights where he would accidentally fall asleep in the room assigned to Lea while they were under their false names from time to time. He remembered that Axel had been warm. Much to Ven’s delight, Lea was very much the same, and he smuggled right up to his chest, settling an ear against it. Unlike the other times he had cuddled with the redhead, he could hear a pulse within his ribs.

Ven shut his eyes, humming for a moment. “Can I ask you something?”

“Fire away, Ven,” and Lea’s voice resonated in his chest.

“Do you remember that one time that you said you loved me?”

It took every ounce of willpower for Lea not to pull away from Ven at that moment, but his face turned about as red at his mess of hair. “You were awake for that?!” Ven looked up at him and nodded, his pleasant grin having turned mischievous. Lea eventually settled back down with a huff, his face still as red as a ripe tomato. “Yeah: I remember…” he said, sounding embarrassed. His Heart seemed to be saying the same thing, with how quickly it was fluttering.

“I love you, too.”

All of the fire in Lea’s body froze at Ven’s words, and he swore that his still new and fragile Heart skipped a few beats as the boy pressed a quick kiss to his jawline. “I think I have ever since we met in Radiant Garden… but I just didn’t know it back then.”

“… You’re not messing with me, right?”

“Not even a little bit.”

A silence stretched between the two of them for a long time before Lea truly felt himself relax. The smile that returned to his features was serene – not a smirk or a Cheshire grin, but truly and completely contented. Long and lanky fingers found refuge in Ven’s golden curls and spikes, stroking it gently. This earned him a happy and sleepy sort of hum, Ven readjusting himself to get into a better cuddling position.

“Well… I guess I don’t need to repeat what I said, right?”