He feels suffocated.

There's a dull ache reverberating throughout his body but he can't quite put his finger on what it is that's causing it. Like a treacherous echo, it licks shyly at his skin in a slow, teasing manner and the sleeping figure imagines that there's a faint, familiar voice, calling for him, calling his name.

He hasn't heard her speak for what feels like years and, realizing this subconsciously, his dream intensifies its hold on his ankles.

It's not until he hears an idyllic song that he's pulled back into reality. Blue eyes instantaneously open as the figure is forced back into his present and away from the seductive song of his slumber.

His hotel room is on fire.

"Shit," he curses, finally realizing why he had felt so heavy in his sleep as he grabs his pair of jeans from the floor and hurriedly puts them on. The song that had awoken him has finally stopped and as he looks around in agitation, he realizes that he can't figure out where it had been coming from. Whatever it was had reeked of nostalgia; teased him with the memory of a memory: one that was surely his but surely without a name.

Either way, he realizes that he doesn't have time for this. He grabs for the keys to his bike, his wallet, and shouts another bout of angry indignation as he realizes that he's unable to locate his cell phone.

It isn't until the old jingle begins to play once more that darkened blue traces its location.

If he had still been allowed the right to be himself, there would have been a moment of hesitation and tentativeness in regards to the mysterious phone call. Unfortunately for him, the room is on fire, no one will be coming to his aid, and, at this point, the man's had enough of the bullshit that the others like to consider nothing more than a silly game.

Grabbing the aged device from where it had been resting on the bed, the man taps a green icon on the screen and mutters an impatient, "What?"

"Your brother."

The pair of words stings more than the flames.

"What about him?"

On the other end of the line is sad laughter.

And then it goes dead.

"Fuck," the man finishes lamely. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."

He longs for a moment to just allow the phone to drop from his hand and onto the floor below him. He longs for a moment to forget about everything that's happened, everything that still has to happen, everything that's happening. He longs for a moment to just bow his head in remorse and simply mourn for the life that he had and the life that he had lost; for the resounding emptiness that has decided to hold camp within the blank vacancy of his heart; for the brother who had once always been there but now seems like an imaginary friend he had conjured up in order to remind himself that he didn't always have to be alone.

But the room is on fire. So he probably doesn't have time for that.

He can't even remember the last time he had allowed himself to cry.

Not allowing himself to think another moment on the matter, the man pulls the ragged black hoodie over his head, pockets what little remains of his things, and dashes through the door right before it collapses from the heat of the flames.

n o n e x i s t e n t

two years ago.

logging onto thmblr. . .

log-in successful.

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Yes. | No.

06/13/xxxx

This is so weird and I feel absolutely dumb for doing this, but okay. It's for my brother, Sora. He says that my weird "pseudo-angst" phase has gone on long enough and that if I don't vent to him about it, then I should at least vent to the entire Internet about it.

He may be the older twin but age doesn't really matter: I'm pretty sure I'm still the brighter one.

… I say as I proceed to essentially vent to the entire Internet about my problems anyway because I have no idea what else to do, I'm bored as fuck during my summer vacation, and I figure that since this is private Sora won't be able to read it anyway which I really appreciate because he needs to stop fretting about me and worry about his own life. I can take care of myself.

So where to start?

Alright, Internet, my name is Roxas Hikari. I'm seventeen and in a month or two, I'll be starting my final year over at Twilight Town Prep. I'm not smarter than my friend, Riku (who's probably going to be valedictorian), but I'm not dumber than my other friend, Tidus, who is as stupid as he is athletic (so basically a lot). I'm not richer than Selphie (who can afford to throw away any article of clothing after wearing it once), but I'm not poorer than Olette (who lives with just her bedridden grandmother and whose only household income is provided by the government). I'm not as attractive as Kairi, but I'd say I'm a better catch than Pence. I'm not as outgoing as Hayner or Axel, but I'm definitely more sociable than Xion.

I'm just an incredibly average guy living it up in an incredibly average town with an exceptional brother that's willing to do whatever it takes to put a smile on my face and an exceptional mother who is a world-famous doctor.

I don't have a dad—or, I mean, I guess I technically have a dad, but it's not like I would really know. Him and my mother divorced when Sora and I were only four. Just goes to show you that "love" isn't really all it's hyped up to be.

Yes, Internet, I get it: I'm seventeen. I'm not supposed to get what "love" is.

Well, frankly, you sound like an old, angry white man and I don't give a damn about your critiques of my generation.

Ugh, it's awful that I'm basically talking to an inanimate object and can already feel myself getting worked up and frustrated over a lack of understanding that the two of us share. I'm so terrible with words—that's where it probably comes from. I don't know. Either way, this is why I can't talk to a real person about any of my problems and have to settle for this. Great.

You're doing this for Sora, Roxas. Just remind yourself that, stop getting angry, and finish your stupid rant to your stupid laptop screen.

From what I've gathered, "love" as we've come to know it has become so idealized that it's simply unrealistic. When you think of "love," you think about The Notebook or those stupid Disney princess movies, and stuff like that is exactly what it is: fictional. It's not about destiny and it's not about soulmates. The closest things we really have to love in this world of ours are infatuation and the bonds of friendship. Or maybe that counts as borderline love. I don't know. I'm not good at wording myself.

It's like…. When you think of falling in love with someone, you imagine that everything becomes just peachy and that the only thing that matters in your world is her (or him, for that matter) and you start to believe that even if things look like they're going to bad, they're going to turn out just fine because you love someone and they love you and so as long as you have their love and they have yours it'll be okay, because that's what we're all content with settling with nowadays: being okay.

Sometimes though, I watch the way Sora looks at Kairi and I think to myself, "Man, if love exists, then they have it."

But I don't know, he hasn't found the balls to even ask her out yet, so I guess I'll get back to you on that.

Oh, who am I kidding. I don't think I'm going to bother writing another one of these. Ever. In my entire life. Talk about an awful waste of twenty minutes, Sora, I could be beating those DLC levels for Fire Emblem that I never got to last year.

Goodbye, Internet. Or at least, thmblr's blogging section. I think I'll stick to the more social aspect of social networking; you know, status updates and photos of food and the like.

Wait! If you exit the server now, your thoughts will be deleted!

Oh no, save it as a draft! | Yeah, as they should be.

Roxas slams the laptop shut with a growl and kicks angrily at the ground, forcing his rolling chair to scoot out from under his loft bed. Hearing the sound, an all-too-familiar head pokes out from under the bedsheets to stare down at the incoherent blond.

"Well, Roxie? Finally done venting to the keyboard about your daddy issues?"

"God, Sora," the slightly younger man exclaims as he grabs a pair of three-day-old boxers from off the floor and chucks it in the vague direction of his chuckling brother. "You know that's not what it's about!"

The brunet easily catches the underwear in-between his teeth with a suggestive smile—much to Roxas' disgust. "I know that that's what it's about, but it seems like you're still in denial." With an abrupt turn of his head, the pair of boxers falls beside him on the bed and he licks his lips with curiosity. "Hey, did you have a burrito for lunch a few days ago?"

His brother wrinkles his nose in distaste, looks around for something else to throw up at his elder, but ultimately fails in his task. "I'm not going to answer that question. Or respond to that comment. God, Sora, you're awful."

"I mean," he starts, and Roxas instantly narrows his eyes at the way Sora trails off with that slightly high-pitched tone of his because it's a tone that's only ever used when he wants something. "If I'm that awful, then since you're such an amazing twin brother—"

Seeing that he was right in his assumption, the blond rotates his spinning chair away from the unfinished plea and makes a start for the bedroom door. "Nope. I feel like we do this every time we're bored. Go call Riku or Tidus to help you out this time because I'm not in the mood."

"But Roxass," he moans, "They're never as good as you!"

His younger brother is torn between snorting at the pathetic attempt at flattery and scowling at the nickname. He settles for an odd mixture of both.

"I swear, for the past three years, whenever you get bored you ask me to help you think of a cool way to ask Kairi out. And then we spend hours coming up with something and you still don't ask her out. Like, I don't even understand what the point of this is anymore because at this point it's just really sad."

And then Sora does this thing where he sticks out his bottom lip just a tad and widens his eyes as much as he can and just stares at Roxas while making a low whimpering noise in the back of his throat.

The blond already has his hand on the doorknob and it would just be so easy for him to twist and push and be along his way, but of course, he wouldn't be Roxas if he wasn't easily suckered into doing things he didn't want to do.

"Fine," he allows with a sigh as he throws himself back into his spinning chair. "Plan: SoKai is totally a Thing, Version 137. Let's go."

There's a whooping cheer from atop the loft bed until Sora succeeds in hitting his head on the ceiling and toppling onto the floor with a pained, "I-I did that on purpose!"

Roxas can't help but laugh, "Yeah, as per usual."

"It's for the best."

"But I'm scared."

"Just believe that things will be okay."

"I-I don't know that they will be!"

"There's nothing else that can be done. I'm sorry."

Darkness.

a/n: Hi there! Some of you may recognize me as the former 0Wishful-Thoughts0 and this story as a remake of my original Kingdom Hearts fanfic of the same title. The story was never finished on my old account, but after three years (and some big changes to my writing style), I've decided to restart it and revamp it.

And don't worry: this time I would've already introduced the main focus of the plot before we hit Chapter 15, LOL.

With this revamp, I'm hoping to keep the story more balanced (catering to both the "drama" category and the "humor" category instead of trying to focus too much on the latter) and more focused (eliminating some of the elaborate filler stuff I had going on in the first take of this story), so I hope that everyone will enjoy it a bit more. c:

Thanks to everyone for reading and feedback is super appreciated!