One Change - A KH "What If?" (DISCONTINUED/MOVED)

358(5)

Day 85

Roxas raised his keyblade up triumphantly, letting a rather cocky smile form. He lowered it after a moment or two and turned to check on Ikrux. But he was rather rudely reminded that his friend wasn't with him on the mission, and felt a tug in his chest. Not having Ikrux with him on the mission made it rather dull. Plus, Roxas had to do twice as much work without his friend, and he was a bit exhausted.

But, it was the strangest thing. Ikrux wasn't in the Grey Area that morning, and, no matter how much Roxas argued against it, Marluxia sent him on the mission alone. Ikrux's door was even locked, but Roxas had earlier figured that he was still asleep, and waited at least half an hour for him to wake up. But Marluxia had sent him away before he could go check on his friend, and the worry had been eating away at him all day.

Roxas shook off his thoughts and let a Corridor of Darkness wash over him. After all, if he just stood there, nothing would get done.

When he eventually reached the other end, he walked over to one of the couches and grabbed a form off of the table and began to fill it out. Well, as much as he could, anyway. Having a simple, small meeting would take too long, plus, Roxas couldn't really do it without Ikrux. Filling out the form was decently easy, even though he hadn't done it all that often.

Quickly, Roxas capped the pen and set it down on the mini table, and then headed through the hallway. He could just drop off the paperwork at the door of the office and continue along his way to Ikrux's room. Which was exactly what he did; place the paperwork on the floor, and then give the door a knock or two. He didn't wait for someone to answer, though, he just continued down the hallway. He didn't really care about anything else at the moment, besides checking on his friend.

When he reached the door, and was just about to touch the door handle, realization poked at him. He didn't exactly know how to approach the situation. Sure, he should just ask Ikrux if he was okay, but what if he didn't answer. Eventually, he just decided to just go along with whatever happened.

And with a deep breath, he opened the door. He didn't know what he was expecting, but this wasn't it. What he saw was Ikrux, sitting on his bed staring at the wall. Which, seemed fine, but when Roxas looked closer, he saw that there were tear stains on his cheeks. He took a deep breath and shut the door behind him, feeling a twinge of regret when Ikrux flinched.

Roxas withheld a sigh and approached the bed, sitting down with a bounce. "Ikrux, what happened?"

"N-nothing, I'm fine." Ikrux turned his head to face Roxas and smiled through his tears, but in the next moment, he put his head on his knees and let out a choked sob. Clearly, this was going to be harder than Roxas had initially thought.

Roxas rested a gentle hand on his friends' shoulder, smiling warmly. "Ikrux there's clearly something wrong. Please tell me. I can't help if I don't know the problem."

Ikrux took a deep breath, nodding. Even though his voice shook, Roxas could clearly hear him. "I- I was going to go to the library, b- because I woke up early. But as I got there, Larxene told me she wanted to speak with me."

Roxas narrowed his gaze. He didn't trust Larxene, obviously. She had been the one to kill him, or so he remembered. But if she did something to Ikrux..

After a moment or two, Ikrux continued. "She told me that she saw how well I performed yesterday, using the powers of darkness against your powers of light. And then she- she told me that using darkness took great strength, and that-" he stopped with a small sob.

Roxas scooted closer to Ikrux and moved his arm around the latter's shoulders to pull him close. Ikrux immediately leaned into the touch, crying against Roxas' chest. Roxas, in response, hugged him tightly, rubbing circles on his back.