The Meaning of a 'Heart' - Akuroku Fanfiction

I was never the worse child, but nor the best. I was pretty intelligent, if you could call sneaking out, getting drunk, then coming home all without anyone noticing 'intelligent'. You could call it 'crafty' or even 'sneaky', but a name is just a name, right? It doesn't represent who you are or yourself in any way. There are thousands and possibly millions of people in the world with your exact same name, but how do you differentiate them just by that given information alone? It's just that. You Can't. Did you know that some people don't have names? If you are lucky enough to have a name, or even fortunate enough to have a name all your own, which only belongs to you, will someone be able to tell everything about you? No. So that's that, a name means nothing. Then how do you tell one person from the next? Well, by their personality and looks, of course. But what of a blind person? Then it is personality, I guess. But a deaf person? If you think about logic, there wouldn't be any possible way to tell one person from another. Humans are just simple beings in this world, and complicated ones at that. To tell a human from another based on only name would be impossible. We are given names when we are born and have them until we die. It is something we never forget. But what happens when you forget everything? Including your own name and others'? As humans, we have a special part in our body called a 'heart'. This 'heart' is the foundation of our beings. We cannot live without it. If you think about it, a heart is the only way we can tell one person from the next, because of how we feel about them. But then what of a Nobody you ask? No. We do not have them. Does this mean we have no feelings? Yes. But living without a heart can be a good thing, for a nobody, that is. It means no hurt, and no pain. But… if a heart is what we need to be able to have emotions, then how come I feel this way whenever I am around him? I've always thought of a heart to be a physical thing, a thing which no one can even begin to decipher. I never thought that a 'heart' could also be an emotion in on itself. I was told this by someone very close to me. Someone that I love very much and with all my heart wish I could be with.





---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------





"Haha! Stop it!" I laughed and threw a snowball towards the boy in front of me.

Why is it so blurry? I know who he is... but I can't put a picture into my mind... the name escapes me...

"Why should I?" the boy threw atleast a dozen snowballs at a time back at me and I ducked to try and miss them.
I turned to look behind me as the snowballs flew past. "Heh.. you misse-" As I turned to look back at the blonde in front of me, I copped a lump of snow in the middle of my face.
"You deserve it, Axel~" the blonde laughed and started running towards me.
I laughed back and wiped the cold substance from my face before turning and running in the other direction.

I remember now... It was December, and it was snowing...  It's... still December, right?

"Axel!"
I stopped running and looked up as the boy launched himself at me. "Wait! Roxas, wait!"

That's the name!

We both laughed as we fell back onto the snow. "What's wrong, I'm just giving you what you deserve." Roxas grinned evilly and I flinched back.

Hah... that's right... I mixed up his hair gel with glue... you could have poked an eye out with his spikes!

"You're evil..." I flicked the blonde's nose before rolling my eyes rather dramatically.
"Your point? And who said I was doing something bad..." Roxas winked and placed his arms around my neck. "Hmm? What, you really think I'm evil?" he pouted and tilted his head.
"N-no..." I tried keeping my breathing even, which didn't seem to be working.
Roxas just laughed. "I'm pretty sure you're the evil one." He leaned in close to my face and pressed his forehead to mine.

His face... It's still blurry... Why can't I picture it!

"I-I'm not.." I stuttered and shifted my green eyes to look around once before looking back at the blonde on top of me. There wasn't anyone around, which was a good thing. This would have looked very awkward.
"What? You're not evil? Let's test it!" Roxas cheered and moved to glide his lips over mine and as he did so I tensed. "Axel~" the blonde grinned and pressed his lips to mine lightly.
"W-wait!" I got caught off-guard, and as Roxas kissed me I started feeling fire erupt around me. After a moment I grinned and pressed my lips back to his. I flicked my eyes to my right side and saw the snow around us had melted, before looking to my left and watching the same thing happen. I laughed and Roxas pulled back to look at the circle of burnt grass around us, and then to the rest of the snow covered park, before looking back at me and winking. "See, evil."
"Shut up... you know you like me anyway." I brushed some of the blondes hair from his face and smiled lightly.
"Hm.. Yeah. Your right." Roxas smiled. "But I wanna see something..." He leaned forward again and tilted my chin up, then kissed the hollow of my neck carefully.
I tensed once more and felt fire come out of my arms and hands. "Roxas.. don't.." I clenched my fists, hoping to stop the flames, which did no good.
"You whine too much." Roxas looked at the flames in my hands and tilted his head. "So what happens if I do this.." he waited a moment before leaning close to my face and kissing me once, then, ever so lightly, pressing the tip of his tongue to my lip, then quickly pulling back.
As soon as he did so, I felt the flames burst from my hands and over the ground, then forming into a circle of fire around us. My eyes widened and I watched as the blonde in front of me just laughed.
"It's a good thing you love me so much, otherwise I'd be toast." Roxas smiled at the circle of flames around us and lay his head on my chest.
"I do love you, but... we don't have hearts, Roxy.." I sighed. I had told him this a thousand times, and yet he still believed we did.
"Then what do you call what happened just then? Axel... remember, a heart isn't always a physical thing. The heart itself can be made up of emotion. All we need is emotion to build up our hearts and then our hearts tell us who people are. Not our mind, our hearts."


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



I squirmed and moved my hand to reach out to hug the blonde, only for it to be stopped short of its mark by a small tug. 'What?' I opened my eyes, with much difficulty and assessed the room around me. White. 'Am I... in castle oblivion? But... I can't be, that's long gone..' I blinked my eyes a few times. Where was the boy? 'That- but it was real? Wasn't it.. It's so familiar, but...' I swallowed and tried remembering the last thing before I fell asleep. 'When did I fall asleep? I was.. driving wasn't I? Home from... someone's house and then-' My head shot up as I heard a voice from outside the room.
"Is he awake!?"
"Calm down, sir. He's fine.."
"Fine!? Where is he!"
"Sir, please calm down."
"No! Axel, where is he!"
"Follow me, Sir. But please, lower your voice."
'People need to be quieter around here...' I looked down to my arm, remembering the tugging from before, and spotted tubes coming out from it. "What.." I started panicking and tried getting up, only to be stopped by a beeping from a machine. 'I'm in a hospital..'
"Oh, excuse me, sir!" the nurse ran towards Axel's room after hearing the beeping, and the blonde ran after her.
"AXEL!"
I turned and saw a blonde headed boy, around the age of seventeen, run at me, then get stopped by the same nurse than ran into my room to stop the beeping. The nurse spoke to the boy quietly before walking out of the room. I tilted my head. Who was this kid?
"Axel? No it's not true, is it?" The blonde started getting upset.
"Um, are you talking to me?" I shifted my eyes to look at the door to my hospital room. 'They should stop letting crazies run around the hospital.'
"What? Of course I'm talking to you!"
"... Oh Okay." I just nodded, pretending I was understanding and looked away. I looked back up when a doctor walked into the room and led the boy outside. The doctor came back to me and explained to me what had happened. "I- what?" 'A car accident? Which explains the last thing I remember was..'
"Axel..." The blonde boy peeked around the corner and the doctor waved him in. I smiled lightly.
"Yes?" I waited before looking at the doctor and watched him nod, then walk out of the room. The doctor had told me who I was, who my family is and who my friends were. He mentioned a blonde kid as well.. what was his name..
"You remember!" The blonde smiled, but immediately let it drop as I shook my head.
I pointed to a clipboard next to my bed, with my identification on it. "Sorry.."
The boy pouted and walked to sit on the end of the hospital bed. "Do you remember me?"
I thought hard, and my forehead creased. "You look familiar?" I remembered where I had come from, and what I was. A Nobody. No heart. Someone told me I had one once.. but who was it?
"Roxas. My name is Roxas, Axel. Got it memorized?" the blonde laughed and smiled brightly. It really looked like his eyes were sparkling.
"Um.. Is that a catchphrase from a movie or game or something?" I watched as the boy's face dropped slightly but perked right back up again.
"Never mind... Roxas, remember? I'm Roxas."
I tried sifting through my memories, of any recognition of this boy, but every time I pulled people into my mind they were blurred, and no one seemed to fit what he looked like. I remember him from somewhere, but not from a memory, from somewhere deep in my chest. I felt like this boy, Roxas, was mine, like we somehow belonged together.
The boy called Roxas' face lit up ever so brightly and my stomach fluttered. He began laughing and moved his hand towards mine. The blonde boy's smile faded to despair as I spoke, like everything in the world that mattered to him was lost.
"Roxas... That's a funny name."