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Sora goes to Ventus first.
"You're delivering these to everybody?" Ventus asks. He sounds uncertain.
Sora nods. "Mm-hmm. You're all still important to me, after... after, you know, everything."
"And I'm not just the 'other Roxas.'"
"Of course not! I mean... I don't know you as well, but you still matter to me. I know I grew up without knowing about it, but... you were there before the others! I had you for a really long time, and— it just— it's really hard to explain, but I miss everybody a lot."
Ventus stares down at the heart-shaped Valentine's card.
"We were part of your heart," he says. "And you miss us now that we're walking around outside of it."
Sora looks away, scratching at the back of his neck. "When you put it that way,
"Come let me nap on your shoulder sometime. Just... don't tell Terra I said that."
Sora gets it too. Even though he barely knows Ventus in the flesh... he sometimes just wants to lie down with him and go to sleep with the person who was in his heart for the longest.
(But Ventus is also very spirited. Sora gets it that Ventus has these moods where he also just wants to wrestle someone. Or challenge them to a race. He doesn't seem to get upset about losing, but neither does he cherish a victory too much — he just seems happy enough to have the fun.)
"Say," Sora says, taking mental inventory of the cards he has left to deliver. "You wouldn't happen to know if I can find Vanitas around here, would you?"
"...Wait, what?"
Vanitas isn't hanging around Ventus, it turns out. So Sora moves on to the next stretch of his search.
He finds Xion down by the train station of Twilight Town. She looks like she just headed out of one shop and is going to go to another. She's on her own... but she doesn't look lonely. At least, Sora doesn't think so. Not right now.
He calls her name. And then he panics, briefly — he hasn't interacted with just Xion, alone, without at least Roxas or some of the others nearby. And he understands that this is... well, this is complicated.
Xion was going to turn into him. Xion, like Roxas, had to dread her own existence being secondary to Sora's. In the bad guys' book, they only needed one person between Xion and Roxas... and the good guys' book was even worse, since it was Sora, the hero, who was "supposed" to exist. The others just had to get screwed over.
Roxas wouldn't simply lay down and get assimilated. At least, not at first. He eventually came to believe that he was less important than Sora.
For Xion, that message was even worse... since she always believed it, from the very start.
(That she couldn't be important enough for her own existence. That, because she was treated like a tool so much by people who kept hurting her and putting her in sick situations alongside Roxas... that she wasn't supposed to ever live out her own life.)
Xion looks up. She notices Sora. Her eyes and his are locked together.
Sora waves shyly.
But Xion runs to meet him.
Sora laughs under his breath. He squirms around (but not too much) in the death-snuggle hug he's just been greeted with.
Right when Sora thinks it's about to border on embarrassing-in-public, Xion gives him one last tight squeeze and lets go, her eyes sparkling.
Wait a second...
"Xion, have you... have you been crying?"
"Yes! I mean, no. I haven't been crying."
"Xion," Sora says coaxingly.
Xion acquiesces. "Well, okay. I have been. It's a little weird."
"You wanna talk about it? It's okay if you don't..."
Xion at first seems to tense up, shirking away— but at the end of Sora's words, she gets a different kind of stubborn determination.
"I'll tell you," she says. "I'm not scared of it."
They go to the Usual Spot to get away from the crowds that were out and about.
"So... what's in the bag?" Sora asks.
Xion blushes. Her hands disappear up in her hoodie sleeves.
"Um... it's just groceries. Axel said he'd cook fancy dinner for us, because he explained to us Valentine's Day and that we could just celebrate it as a... a family..."
The way Xion says the word, it sounds rusty. Unpracticed. New.
"...and I asked what I could get... and he said he didn't want me to bring him anything extra, since we could just all buy each other chocolate on 'Discount Chocolate Day' instead, but that he'd... he'd appreciate if I got the groceries, just because he's at his job today, and the three of us would have more time together if... if the groceries are already there, when he gets home."
"That sounds nice," Sora says. "Like... a really considerate first Valentine's Day. All he needs is you and Roxas. But, hang on... what's 'Discount Chocolate Day'?"
"...The day AFTER a big holiday, when the stores lower all the prices because it's over."
Sora laughs sharply at that.
(He can see how getting chocolate for a girl late would be seen as unromantic. But to Axel, it's all the same chocolate!)
Xion shrinks down, shifting around in that oversized hoodie. It looks like one that would have belonged to a teenage boy once. As boxy as the fit is, though, it looks nice on Xion... because it makes her look all bundled up, safe and secure from the chilly dusk air. And it pairs well with all the shiny studs in her ears (how’d she manage to get so many piercings so fast?!).
Sora squints. From the style of it... that hoodie looks like something that would have belonged to a shorter, skinnier Isa.
"The thing is,” Xion says, “Sometimes I cry and I don't know why. I can't even say that I'm upset. It just... happens. And it's been happening all the time, as of late... sometimes I think it's because I'm thinking about you and how I'm not used to— to not being part of your heart again— but sometimes I don't even think that that's it. I think, sometimes... I just cry and there isn't a reason."
"Is that... a bad thing?"
"Yes!" Xion blurts. "Yes, because— sometimes I'm out in public, or I'm with Roxas and Axel and everything is fine with me and then they suddenly think it isn't! They get so worried over nothing, and I feel bad about it!"
All that proves is Xion has friends who are attentive to her feelings. But if Sora points that out, Xion might try arguing something about how "ungrateful" she must seem for them, so maybe it's not the right move.
"Maybe sometimes," Sora says instead, "you just need to cry. Maybe your body or your heart tells you to, even if... even if you're happy."
"That can... that can be okay?"
"I guess I get how it might not be convenient, if sometimes it happens while you're in public. But if you're with friends... they're there for all your feelings, aren't they?"
"...They are. Axel wouldn't want me to hide anything."
"I wouldn't, either."
Xion hugs him again.
She is very forward about it.
"Maybe it's not even about being upset," Xion says, when she lifts her face from Sora's jacket. "Maybe my heart is just telling me I need to have a good cry."
"That's the spirit," Sora says, grinning.
To him, it all makes sense. From what he knows... Xion wasn't "allowed" to have emotions. That didn't stop her from feeling them, obviously... it just made her feel guilty about experiencing them, have a hard time expressing it, and even feel weird about how much she likes physical affection. Roxas has explained all this to Sora, saying that it's something he and Xion both dealt with, but Xion had it far worse.
"You're still making up for lost time," Sora says, eagerly tousling Xion's hair. "It's so much easier now, though, right?"
Xion grins. "Axel says you're all sappy and sentimental like I am."
Except I never had to hide it, Sora thinks guiltily. But he doesn't feel the need to gloat about that. It'd be cruel. "Hey, I almost forgot! Here!"
Sora presents Xion with his handmade heart valentine.
Xion reads the message out loud. "You're still a part of my heart... and I'm glad you exist. And I'm happy you're you."
The last "you" is underlined with a big bold line.
Xion looks up at Sora and she's just crying. Tears-rolling-down-her-cheeks-in-awe crying.
The next hug from Xion is so joyous, and takes Sora so off-guard that he's thrown off his feet, backwards onto the floor.
Sora finds Roxas at the edge of town.
Roxas is staring off into space. Although he is completely still, it is not an expression of peace; it is more like dormant unease.
Sora lifts a hand.
He doesn't fully know how to approach Roxas when he's like this. It has to be hard, he knows. Because even if he tells Roxas that everything's real... why shouldn't Roxas believe Sora's a figment too?
What Sora winds up doing is just stepping up slowly, and softly (no sudden movements) placing a hand on Roxas' bicep.
He knows it's not proof. But he knows that, with Roxas, touch can help. (Sometimes.)
Roxas (this time) does not react with a flinch, nor by snapping out to grab Sora's wrist.
Sora exhales, at least satisfied that Roxas isn't quick to pull a trigger.
Roxas blinks several times. Like he's slowly noticing that it's Sora who's there.
"Hey," is all Sora says.
Roxas heaves a deep breath. It makes his shoulders pull up and then relax. Visibly.
"I just needed some fresh air," Roxas says. "Away from the routine. I promise."
Sora nods. "You'd never do anything to..."
"I wasn't going to run off and leave anyone. I have everything I could ever want, Sora. You should know that."
By Sora's standards, Roxas' "everything I could ever want" has got to be pretty basic. Roxas doesn't care about being a Keyblade Master. And he maybe doesn't even care about saving the world. Roxas wakes up every morning in a safe house with the two best friends with whom — at last — it is normal for him to be around and be affectionate to and openly be devoted towards. And he likes street fashion, flipping pancakes for those two friends on a weekend morning, and looking like he'll beat up anyone who shoots so much as a nasty glare at Xion. But, Sora thinks those are more like "bonuses" for Roxas.
Sora says, "Just because you have the life you want now, doesn't mean that things sometimes don't feel right."
"I'm just... I'm okay. For now, anyways."
Sora had been staring down. But now he gives Roxas a newly-concerned glance. "Are you scared that something's going to happen? Or that something about you is going to change?"
"Yes, and... yes. It doesn't make sense, though. I just have to wait for these feelings to go away."
"How long have you been out here? Axel's probably worried about you..."
"Don't forget about Xion," Roxas snaps.
"Hey, I didn't mean it like that! In fact, I just saw her. We hugged it out and everything. Oh yeah! Before I forget."
Sora procures the next of his valentines: a minimalist one, but cut from heavy paper.
Roxas stares down at it.
"You... got valentines for..."
"Everyone who's been in my heart."
Roxas goes real quiet.
"I almost want to say you're the most important of all of them," Sora says. "But I feel like you might say... that isn't fair to the others."
"No," Roxas says. "After all, they deserve to exist too..."
"I like hearing you say that. Mostly because... because I want you to feel that about yourself."
Roxas draws in a breath.
He looks cold. Cold and alone.
Sora knows him too well; Roxas is the kind of person who can look like he's lost and abandoned even in the middle of a crowd of his friends. He's seen Roxas' expression change, in the middle of a game night or group meal: from warmth and openness, to one that's just empty all of a sudden. Like he'd never feel love again.
Sora hasn't figured out how to take him back to the land of the living yet. Nobody has.
"Roxas," Sora says. "Can you... read what it says?"
Roxas flips it over.
"'I still want you in my heart,'" he says. "'It hurts when we're apart.' That's... a little corny."
Roxas is smiling. But it also looks like he's crying a little.
"Yeah." Sora shrugs. "But the words are true. They just wound up rhyming. I didn't mean to. They just did."
"Sort of like... sort of like us."
Sora laughs.
"Yeah," he says.
Roxas accepts an arm around his shoulder and a tousle to the hair. It's normally the kind of thing he'd try to get Sora back for. But not today.
"You know," Roxas says, "There actually isn't really anything anyone can do that... that convinces me it's all okay. That I'm real. That I'm not going to wake up from this really good dream, and be back in some reality where I don't have any friends, and kind of never did. Even Xion and Axel... they've tried, and they're still looking, but they haven't found a way to make me believe that it's all true."
"What if I promise? What if I swear on MY life that you're alive and all of this is real?"
Roxas shakes his head. "I'm reading some psychology book for a class. There's this thing called dissociation. And I'm pretty sure... I'm pretty sure that's the word for what keeps happening to me. It's all weird though, because... if I am dissociating... I just had no idea other people go through the same thing. That I'm not alone in this."
Sora places a finger to his chin. He hasn't heard that one before... but then, he's not as literary as Roxas.
"If that's what it's called, then... is there anything we can try? Anything that the book says might work?"
"Truth be told? I don't even know. I try all the tips I can find. But everything I try feels weak. Nothing's enough to break through."
"Then are there any last ones you could try? Ones that you'd need someone else to help you with?"
Roxas shakes his head. "I think I just have to live with this. ...It's my burden. Xion and Axel have their problems too, it's just... it's just that mine's different, and it's the last one that we haven't found anything that helps, even a little. Xion made me reminder bracelets, and I wear them, but... even that just kind of feels nice. There's nothing deeper that it helps with."
"Then... Roxas..."
Roxas shakes his head. "I don't want you to worry about me. I've at least figured out one thing."
"Yeah?"
"If this really is all just some big lie..." Roxas stares upwards, at the red-streaked sky. "It's at least one I enjoy living in. It's still true that, maybe one day I'll wake up and it'll all be gone, but... I've been here awhile, so the chances are still good that it will last longer yet."
"But... Roxas..."
"This is better than I was, Sora. I have the things I wanted the most. I have all my friends. Even the ones I wasn't really friends with — they accept me this go around. It's better than I could have hoped for. If I can at least have this much... if Axel and I don't have to be upset at each other, and Xion isn't slipping through my fingers again... the time with them is what I really wanted most."
It's getting late.
Roxas is staring down at the valentine in his hands.
"I know you say that feeling isn't going away," Sora says. "But even so... Even if you're never going to completely stop dissociating... I want you to know that, I hope you find something someday. We don't have it yet, but maybe one day it could happen. Because even if you think that's better than you could hope for... even if you think you already have enough of what you need to be happy... I still hope that one day, something finally convinces you you're alive. That the life you wanted is real."
"I'm happy with the possibility that all of this is some really good dream," Roxas says. "But even so... Thank you."
Sora and Roxas hug, punch each other in the shoulder, and jostle each other around.
Roxas doesn't look like he's had any kind of a breakthrough. But, he looks happy.
And that, at least, is different than it was in the past.
Sora goes to his last destination.
Weirdly enough, he finds Vanitas sulking at... the Destiny Islands.
Sora looks down at his last valentine, and then back up at the sandbar where Vanitas is standing all by himself and staring out at the horizon. He knew it was weird when his hunch pointed him in this direction; he's even more surprised Vanitas is actually here.
Vanitas seems to jump out of his skin when Sora taps him on the shoulder and presents him with the card.
He stares down at the heart with a look of solid disgust. And he looks back up at Sora with barely any of the emotion getting drawn back out from his face.
"What kind of pussy shit is this?" he asks.
"It's a valentine," Sora says. "For you."
"Why... the fuck..."
"Because you're part of my heart. And you've never had a valentine before. And because I love you."
"Ew! Can't you save it for your girlfriend?!"
"I'm doing something else for her later. But that didn't stop me from making cards for you, Roxas, Xion, and Ventus."
"That sucker got one? Fine. Gosh." Vanitas snatches the heart out of Sora's hands. He reads it in only a second, and it's with the fiercest of glares. His lip curls for a single second, but Sora has what he wanted: Vanitas accepted the card.
And then he whirls around, kicking sand up in Sora's face and yelling expletives at him.
Sora shields his face with his arms.
"You absolute, cringe, dickwad! Don't you have anything better to do than court your enemies? Next time, leave me the fuck alone!"
"Glad you like it!"
"I hate it! And I hate you too!"
"Too bad, 'Nitas!"
"Don't FUCKING nickname me!"
Before Sora can actually get injured for real, he turns tail and runs for the main shore. He has to wipe sand out of his eyes as he does so.
When it's finally safe, Sora calls out, "I love you too!"
Vanitas yells out one last, long, elaborate expletive — but Sora pretends he doesn't hear.