Notes

"Axel, what's love?"

"What?"

"What is love, Axel?"

The redhead blinked, caught of guard and completely clueless as to answer the small, ravenette's sudden yet significant question. He looked down, furrowing his brow in concentration. 
But how could he concentrate, when Xion was staring at him? With those innocent, oceanic orbs that he often felt like he could willing drown in... 

well, if he could feel, anyway.

How could he feel? He was a nobody, the empty shell of a person, cast aside as a mere heartless. Which, is all he was. A being without a heartbeat. 

Yet, suddenly, everything felt so -- unreal. So fake. Like his entire existence was fabricated on the lie that he was never meant to exist. That feelings were for the world beyond his own, and he should be content -- if he could -- looking from the outside, in. 

He couldn't accept that any longer, not with his mind swirling, and this -- sensation, welling up in his chest that he, dare say it, felt. He was tired of accepting the whites and the blacks, as they slowly blurred into the grey reality that everything -- everyone -- was wrong. 

He could feel. How could he not? He knew the joys, and the sorrow. The laughter, the tears. The trials, and the triumphs.

Did he have a heart? He honestly wasn't sure. But that didn't stop him from emotion, for he knew he could feel, through his very soul.

And he knew what he had to do. 

At that moment, he closed his eyes, steadying his voice for the words soon to come. 

"Well, Xion... Love... Love is,"

And he looked up to face the face of an angel, radiating in a childlike innocence, and purity that nothing, not a black cloak, or a blacker world could ever taint.

Short, ebony hair swaying with the soft, summer breeze. The perfect image of complete serenity, shattered by eyes that glistened with a mix of fear and of a hope she clinged to for dear life. A yearning seen clearly, pleading his answer, as though her entire world existed on the brink of shattering into a million fragile pieces in a single moment of disappointment. 

"Love is..."

He tried, oh, how he tried, but he could never find the words to give her, the words to let her know she was his entire reason for existence in this empty life he lived. He couldn't make a sound, beyond the rapid, shaky breaths he took. He opened his mouth, but no words escaped his lips, and he closed it again. 

And Xions expectant, hopeful gaze faltered, and she stepped back, all the hurt in the world evident in her crumbling features. Tears caused by a disappointment she didn't understand what was, nor why she felt it, pricked her eyes, and stained her cheeks. The world became empty, and she with it. 

And in that moment, she raised her keyblade towards the fiery, cloaked figure before her, who staggered back with an expression of both confusion and horror. 

"Goodbye, Axel."

Crystalized fragments, slowly rising to the heavens. 

A single tear, hitting the ground with a final breathe of passion.

And just like that

she was gone. 

///

Axel jerked awake, his breathing rapid, shallow. His mind racing, and his body shaking and drenched in a cold sweat only produced by the very essence of nightmares. 

Nightmares he had been having far too often. 

He lay back, closing his eyes with a defeated sigh. He felt like punching something. Someone. Maybe even himself. Everything was too confusing, too muddled and blurred in the fine line seperating the truth from the lies. 

He was never supposed to feel like this. He was never supposed to feel at all.

Oh, what a smile can do. 

"Gah." He hissed, rolling on his side. "Xion... Why can't I just tell you how I feel."