Stuck in the Shallows / KH

X. New Perspective

You ever think you're doing something for the good of everybody, and it comes right back around to bite you on the ass? Sort of like life asking what makes you so high and mighty that you actually think you can do something that might benefit everybody?

That was how pretty much every good deed Axel ever tried to do panned out. It was a tragedy, honestly, because he really did try to be a good guy. Life just seemed to have other plans in store for him.

With a frown chiseled deep into his angular jaw and his hands clenching his window sill, he stared out of his bedroom window. The night sky was luminous with Kingdom Hearts' golden glow. It was pretty, sure, but it served as a constant reminder of what had for many years been missing in his life.

He wanted to feel whole. From the day he had become a nobody, he had sought meaning in any way that he could. For a while, as he had done when he had a heart, he had stuck close to Saix's side. They had made plans to rise through the Organization's ranks, but there came a point when Saix began to take things a bit too seriously. And their friendship proceeded straight down the drain from there. 

You see, at some point, Saix started to change. He became less open, less... himself. Of course, Axel couldn't deny that he, too, had changed over the course of his time in the Organization, and it was this, combined with their ever growing set of differences, that had finally wedged them apart.

And then he had met Manami.

He had admired her from the start for her bravery in the face of losing everything she knew. Out of sheer curiosity, he started coming around, watching her train with that keyblade of hers. She was determined, and that was partly from whence his admiration for her grew. When he made the connection between her 'Dyme' and his 'Demyx,' which didn't take long, he had tried to put distance between them. He knew that, between the two of them, her ties to the Organization were too strong for comfort. 

But, as strange as it sounds, he just liked her presence. Too much to stay away, unfortunately, which is what finally brought him to the conclusion that he needed to put an end to things. 

But the Organization must have been pretty hot on his heels because it was hardly a day later, and what do you know? 

Manami was a Nobody. 

"Nixamma." 

Stepping from his room, he moved in silence through the castle's barren, white halls. He had already tracked down her bedroom. It was on the opposite end of the hallway as his own. She had locked herself away inside, and he was hardly about to go a-knocking.

What could he even say to her with everything that had happened?

"Howdy neighbor?"

And that look on her face in the Chamber of Echoes? It was devoid of anything. There was none of that passion or zest he had grown so accustomed to over the past year. She may as well have been a zombie! That couldn't have been because of him...

Could it?

He bit his lip, halting a few paces away from her door. Folding his arms, he exhaled laboriously through his nose.

In his mindless pacing, he had passed that door a total of three times. What was stopping him from talking to her?

Shame? Fear? Pride, even?

But that would be impossible.

So then what powerful force was stopping him from just sucking it up and knocking on Manami's door?

He stared it down, uncertainty eating like a wildfire across his face. He raised a hesitant fist.

You know what they always say: Third time's the charm, right?

Before he could lay so much as a finger on the door, the sound of approaching footsteps snagged his attention away. He blinked but was unsurprised by the sight awaiting him halfway down the hall.

Demyx.

"Axel?" He took a step back and averted his eyes, as though having been caught in the act of something he wasn't supposed to be doing.

But Axel knew exactly why Demyx was there.

His bemulleted cohort cleared his throat and clasped his hands behind his back.

Way to be inconspicuous... Dyme.

"Er- what are you doing here?"

Axel moved away from the door and started in Demyx's direction, his expression hardening into an unreadable shell. "You mean on the hallway my room is on? Walking."

"Oh, I, uh. I guess that checks out...?"

Axel stepped past him, abandoning his previous plans to intrude on Manami- er, Nixamma's- evening.

Surely Demyx would make far more favorable company right then. After all... she didn't even know he was alive.

As he went, he couldn't help but shoot a look over his shoulder at where Demyx stood, wringing his hands and seemingly bracing himself, outside of Nixamma's door.

Something not unlike jealously shot, as hot as sun-baked sand, through his veins. What he would have given to be the one Nixamma most desired to see.

But that was never going to happen. And it was probably better that way.

Before Demyx could catch him looking, Axel pushed open the door to his bedroom and, like a shadow, vanished inside.