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“We’re best friends, right?” The words rolled off of Roxas’s tongue, false and imitated from someone else’s explanation. Seeing Axel’s eyes light up brought him a temporary relief, fleeting as the questions kept flowing, immediately tripping Roxas up and setting him stumbling down a cavern of pressure and disappointment at his lack of memory. “I’m so sorry, Axel.” he whispered, tears prickling at his eyes. Not only was he confused, dazed, and frustrated; he could practically feel the despair rolling off in waves from the redhead. A sea of emotions, and Roxas was drowning in it, the raft of memories too far to reach, only drifting further the more he struggled against the tide pulling him under.
Ever since the accident, Roxas’s past had been blurry, like a photograph with the faces scratched out, one crucial piece missing. He vaguely remembered screeching tires, a vivid pain, and red, red everywhere. Shouting, sirens, screaming, his maybe? Or someone else’s? Everything was unclear. The only details of his life before the accident that he had were the ones Namine told him. She was a sweet girl who said she had been his friend before and still wanted to be now, even without his memories. Once she murmured something about it “not being the first time she’d been forgotten,” which Roxas had no response to.
She brought him a notebook the next day, a spiral tan one, titled “Who I am”, informing him that she had drawn in it the pictures of her life for an art biography project. Flipping through the pages, she pointed out to him the ways their lives intertwined, and the observations she had of his. Over and over he spotted a figure next to him with bright red hair and shining green eyes. Everything about him seemed luminous, like the sun or a blazing fire. Namine explained to him that this man was Axel, his best friend. But no matter how diligently Roxas tried to remember him, not even a speck remained. It seemed ironic, the most striking figure in her book was the one he could picture himself with the least.
He turned his attention back to the matter at hand: how the hell to handle a lunatic ex-best friend. Axel’s despair had merged into red-hot anger, his skin seemed to be practically steaming and his hair like flames. His eyes were the only cold thing about him, the sadness in them freezing Roxas in place. An icy glare, fitting with Roxas’s cold shoulder. And then he broke. The flames melted away, Axel’s body wracked with sobs, his hands shaking as he raised them to cover his mouth. His tears were water flowing from a dam, washing away the forest fire of rage and creating an ocean of anguish. He seemed to wobble, his tall stature swaying like a palm tree in the wind. If Roxas was the wind, he was a hurricane, destroying everything in his path, the eye only left for himself.
His fall was like that of a corpse; his body limp and drooping, his knees reaching the ground first and his hands next. Roxas couldn’t stand to watch anymore. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Axel” he choked out before spinning on his heels and bolting, tripping over his own feet. Tears blurred his vision as he stumbled into an alley somewhere, slumping onto the wall, his elbows bracing his body as his forehead rested on the brick. “I hate this, I hate this, I hate this! How the hell am I supposed to remember everyone else if I can’t even remember myself?” Hot, frustrated tears rolled down his face, dripping to his chin. He could taste the salt in them.
His breath caught in his throat. Salty, but sweet.
The memories began to drip in, like the melting ice cream in the summertime under the blazing sunshine. Oranges and yellows and reds of the sunset view from a clock tower ledge. Axel’s voice, saying words he swore he’d never heard before, and a girl’s voice, somewhere farther in the distance. The cold, salty, sweet ice cream and rough wooden stick he held between his fingers.
In all of it, in every image, Axel was present. His bright hair, his loud laugh, his smooth voice, his empty, emotionless eyes. Roxas saw red everywhere. But not an angry red, the red that soothed him; the red like the sunset. The red hair which nimble hands would comb through. ‘ Red is the one that travels the farthest’
Roxas backed away from the wall, a smile dancing on his lips. He twirled around and sprinted back, not sure exactly where he was going, but trusting that his heart would lead him. Brimming with excitement and relief, he leapt through the streets, like a wildflower blossoming through the cracks in the pavement towards the sun. He jumped up the steps, taking them 2, 3 at a time, rising bit by bit closer to the top of the tower, where he knew happiness awaited him. As he rounded the corner, panting and breathless, his eyes landed on the color of his dreams and distant memories.
At the sound of Roxas’s heaving, Axel turned around in confusion, barely managing to lift himself from the ledge before Roxas rushed forward, yanking Axel into a suffocatingly tight hug. His arms wrapped around the redhead’s thin frame, only loosening when Axel let out a shaky laugh. “Roxas… you remembered.” At the sound of his voice, Roxas pulled away, lifting his eyes to meet the green ones from his memories, and now, his present.
“Yeah, I did.” Axel smiled ruffling his hand through his spikes. “But how? I thought it was all gone, the accident...” Roxas grinned sheepishly. “Believe it or not, it was the ice cream’s saltiness that brought it all back to me.” The redhead couldn’t help it, his giggles bubbled from his lips at once, the idea that ice cream could mend a broken memory was just too comical. “Don’t laugh! You’re lucky I got them back at all!” “Yeah? Well, I’m Axel, your best friend. Got it memorized?”