Hello, I'm not dead! D'you want some Kingdom Hearts goofiness in these troubling times? Of course you do.
Fandom: Kingdom Hearts
Rating: E for Everyone
Summary: Roxas and Ventus have the same face. This gives Roxas, channeling his inner prankster, a fantastic idea, and in the process gets to know his doppelganger a little better. Sorta spoilers for KH3?
AO3 Link
"So..."
Roxas jumped at the sound of his own voice, which meant only one thing: it wasn’t actually his voice.
He turned around from what he was doing, mainly eating lunch in the Bistro in Twilight Town. Ventus stood behind him, looking around, surreptitiously, taking in the golden hues of the town with interest. That’s right—he really hadn’t come here since...since everything happened. Roxas’s eyes darted back to Xion, sitting across from him, who was chewing on her salad silently while looking up at Ventus.
Well, this was awkward.
“Uh. Hey?” Roxas said, gesturing towards the empty seat besides him. Ventus happily took the seat, smiling. “What brings you by?”
It had only been about a week since...since it all happened, and Roxas, Xion, Axel, and Sa—Isa, it was still weird calling him that--had gotten an apartment together in Twilight Town. They had barely had time to settle, and everyone besides Axel and Xion were still distant right now, which was entirely understandable. So seeing Ventus was a bit of a surprise, though the sheer weirdness of seeing his mirror image was dampening any happiness at actually seeing him again; he just wasn’t used to it yet.
Plus, Roxas really didn’t know anything about him. It put him on edge.
“I just wanted to talk to you about something!” Ventus said. “I think we might have been ignoring the elephant in the room?”
Roxas flicked his eyes to Xion again. She was very interested in the remaining croutons on her plate, and stared at them with great interest.
“You mean...the face thing.”
Ventus nodded. “The face thing.”
Roxas shrugged. “What’s there to say about it?”
“I wanna know why we look the same!” Ventus said.
“Ventus--”
“You can call me Ven!”
“Okay, Ven, I don’t know. Probably something about you being in Sora’s heart when I got...made, I guess.”
Ventus looks thoughtful for a moment, then nods. “Yeah, I think that makes sense.”
Roxas sits in awkward silence until Xion breaks it by letting out a laugh. Roxas looks at her, eyebrow raised. “What’s so funny?”
“It’s just—you two look exactly the same, but you’re totally different. Seeing Ventus is kinda like seeing a dog walk on its hind legs because I’m so used to you being kind of a grump.”
Ventus grinned at her. “We didn’t get a chance to talk! You’re Xion, right? You can call me Ven too, okay?”
Suddenly, a distant memory surfaced in Roxas’s mind, and he started to smile. Xion saw the look on his face and cocked her head to the side. “You have a look, Roxas. What is it?”
“I think I have an idea,” Roxas said. “It’s gonna be fun.”
***
Xion was being weirdly quiet. That was the first thing Axel noticed.
The second thing he noticed was that Roxas looked like he was desperately trying to hold in either gas or a secret and it was very obvious.
“So,” Axel started after taking a bite of his ice cream. They were sitting at the top of the clocktower, just them this time since Isa and Hayner, Pence, and Olette had somewhere to be that afternoon.
“So?” Roxas said, but it sounded...off. Again, like he was holding something back. Axel bit his lip. Was something wrong? Had he said something? Had Isa said something and Roxas hadn’t wanted to bother him about it?
The imagination ran wild, and Axel couldn’t help but think that maybe having his friends back for the first time in a long time was making him lose his cool way more easily than he was supposed to, which first of all, made him feel like a giant idiot, and he should probably be calming himself down by now.
“...Axel?” Xion’s soft voice broke him out of his train of thought. She gestured toward his ice cream. “It’s gonna melt. Were you going to say something?”
Axel really wanted to identify the look on Xion’s face. He squinted. There was a sparkle of mischief in her eyes, like she was trying to hold in a laugh.
“Okay. What’s going on?” Axel said, exasperated and looking at the two of them, gesturing wildly with his quickly melting ice cream. “You two are both acting really weird, and I really don’t want to find out there’s something else life-changing and terrible I don’t know about.”
Ah, there it was. Xion was trying to hide her grin behind her hand and looking away, and Roxas suddenly looked sort of like a deer in the headlights.
“Wait. Don’t tell me.” Xion’s grin turned to full-on giggling, and Axel scrubbed at his teeth with his finger. “Did I get something stuck in my teeth?”
Xion belted out in full laughter, and so did Roxas, but it wasn’t anything like Roxas’s laugh. Axel leaned back, pointing an accusatory finger at the boy next to him. “Suspicions confirmed! You and Roxas are trying to Parent Trap me, aren’t you, Ven?”
Ven just finished laughing, and with a voice that sounded like it was apt to erupt into laughter again, he just said “Lea, I have no idea what that means!”
Axel couldn’t find it in himself to resist letting out a barking laugh of his own. “I didn’t think the reference was that obscure...”
***
Aqua leaned over to Terra. “Do you think Ven might be depressed?”
Terra nodded, looking over at Ven, who was acting very jittery, but not in the usual, excited-about-something way—more like someone who was trying not to fail a test. “I don’t know what’s going on with him. You think we should ask?”
Aqua was already standing up from the grass outside the hall in the Land of Departure and heading towards Ven. Terra followed, hanging back slightly.
“Hey Ven,” she said. It took just a split second too long for him to respond.
“I—huh? Yeah?” He said, the end of his sentence lilting upward uncomfortably. “What’s up?”
Terra and Aqua narrowed their eyes and tilted their heads at the same time.
“You sound…tired,” Terra said.
“Do I?”
Aqua went into full-on worry mode. “Listen, I know you’ve been having trouble sleeping since...everything, but if you need help you know you can just ask--”
Terra patted Aqua on the back, stopping her mid-spiel and causing her to stop, a little embarassed. “It’s okay, he knows he can come to us if he needs to. Ven, you’ve been putting off practice all day. You sure you don’t need to take a break?”
“No, I really am fine, guys. Thanks.” Okay, Aqua thought. Definitely off.
Aqua put her hand on Ven’s head and rubbed his head affectionately. “No, you’re not. Go take a nap, Ven, and then we’ll do some sparring. You’re still a little rusty.”
Terra smiled. “Unless you can prove you’re not?”
“C’mon, don’t tease him, Terra.”
Ven smirked. “I could take you on anytime, Terra.”
Aqua rolled her eyes. “I’ll leave you to it.”
As she retreated to the side, flopping back down on the grass to watch Terra and Ven spar, Ven suddenly looked like he remembered something and shook his head. “Wait, actually, that nap sounds kind of good after all?”
Terra smiled knowingly. “Oh no, I’m not letting you back out now. C’mon, let’s go!” and summoned his keyblade.
“...Fiiiiine,” Ven said, looking nervous.
And then summoned dual keyblades.
Ven looked at Terra.
Terra looked at Ven.
Aqua looked at Ven.
Ven looked at Aqua.
“...Roxas let me borrow his keyblades?”
***
Axel, Terra, and Aqua sat at Le Grand Bistrot, Aqua sipping some coffee while Axel munched on a sandwich, perpetual twilight making them all glow softly in the orange light.
“So,” He started. “Roxas and Ven have Parent Trap’d us three times.”
“...Parent Trap’d?” Terra asked.
“It’s not important. What is important is who gave them the idea and how we persuade them to un-give it.”
“Do you think it was Xion?” Aqua said. “Those three have been spending a lot of time together recently. I’m glad Ven’s making friends.”
“Weren’t they in the same heart for three years or something like that? Shouldn’t they already know each other?”
“Nobody knows how hearts work, Terra, I’m pretty sure Ansem the Wise is making it up. But, back to the subject, I don’t think it’s Xion. Not that she isn’t capable of pranking, I just don’t think she woulda come up with it.” Axel had finished his sandwich and was dusting his hands of crumbs. “You think it might’ve been Ven?”
Terra and Aqua looked at each other. “I mean, I honestly don’t think something like that would’ve occurred to him in the first place,” Aqua said.
Axel leaned back in his seat. “All right then, that just leaves Roxas.”
A beat of silence passed while they all looked at each other.
“Yeah, that sounds right,” they all said at once.
***
Xion couldn’t stop laughing while Roxas rubbed furiously at his forehead while he looked in the mirror in their apartment, but to no avail. The giant ‘R’ just wasn’t budging.
In the mirror, Roxas saw Axel leaning against the doorframe of the bathroom. “Gotta keep track of you somehow,” he said, smirking.
Roxas whipped around, looking like a man who was ready to kill. “Axel, I swear, if this is permanent--”
“Relax, it’s just sharpie. It’ll come out eventually...Roxas? Roxas, remember, we have security deposit on this place and if you tear it up with keyblades that’s a couple hundred out of your future college fund...”
***
“...He still hasn’t noticed.”
Aqua shrugged. “Probably for the best. I’m kind of surprised the image turned out so clear, though. Who knew he had ticklish ankles.”
The tiny Wayfinder drawing on Ven’s left outer ankle had gone totally unnoticed. It was temporary, anyway. Apparently Axel’s plan was much more drastic, and they doubted there would be any more switching for a while.
“...Hey guys, did someone give me a tattoo while I was asleep?”
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