Cross-posted on ao3

Kairi never knew a face could hurt so much from just smiling, yet here she was, in pain.

"How can I help you?" she asked, beaming her most pleasant(ly painful) smile at the customer that had approached her. It was the same smile she offered to the little old lady that came in every week but never bought anything, and to the snot nosed kids that always messed up the shirts she just finished folding, and especially to that one witch and her husband that would demand to see a manager to complain about every little injustice this store had heaped onto their poor little shoulders. And now she was offering it to a young man that was clearly looking for something more than the store could provide.

The guy smiled back. It was a full smile, meant to provide her with a good view of all his pretty little pearly whites. The corner of her eye twitched in annoyance, but she kept that awful smile of her own plastered to her face.

"Well, you see, I'm afraid I'm in a bit of a pickle." Mr. Prince-Charming-Wannabe leaned against the display stand she had been organizing, disturbing a pile of shirts she had been reorganizing and simultaneously lowering and already terrible opinion of him. "There's this pretty girl I'm thinking about asking out, but I have no idea when she gets off work. You wouldn't happen to have an idea, would you?"

"Excuse me?"

He seemed to take her question as one of confusion and not of blatant disbelief that he was really trying to be smooth with an exhausted retail worker.

"It's you doll. I wanna take you out! We could go out to grab a bite to eat, catch a movie, get to know one another. The whole shebang! Whaddya say?"

The guy looked at her expectantly, as if he'd just offered her a deal she couldn't possibly refuse. Kairi took a deep breath to calm herself. (Or at least try to, anyway.) This guy was sounding an awful lot like that snob Gaston Belle had been telling her about the other day; full of himself to the point of believing he was so charming, all he had to do was bat those pretty lashes and flash a million watt smile in hopes that it'd blind her from the the obvious joke for a personality he had.

'If it weren't for the laws of this land I would have slaughtered you for presuming to think I was such an easy catch.' ― Was what she wanted to say. But what came out of her mouth was:

"Sorry, not interested."

What. She still needed her job.

Stranger McDanger's face clouded in an instant as her zero second thought response. Kairi narrowed her eyes slightly, but didn't for one second let her smile drop. If this guy was gonna throw a tantrum― which would have made her job ten times worse than it already was and wasn't really something she wanted, but was undoubtedly getting ―then she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of letting him see anything other than the customer exclusive expression.

"Now hold on just a minute." He began to protest, much to her annoyance. "You sure you don't wanna think about your answer for a second before throwing me under the bus?"

"Nope."

His expression soured considerably. Bunching his fists together, he hotly asked, "Well why not? I'm a nice guy! You don't even know me and you're already blowin' me off?"

'Wish I could blow you up instead, but prison orange really isn't my color.'

"I don't owe you anything. 'No' should be a sufficient answer to your question and you should just take it instead of making a scene like a miffed toddler." Kairi snapped at him and partially turned away to continue her task. "Now, unless you're planning on buying something, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

The man child silently fumed, opening and closing his mouth without providing any accompanying sounds of rebuttal. She watched him from the corner of her eye, prepared to take drastic measures to defend herself if he got violent. Instead, he snapped his mouth shut with an audible click and turned to leave. But not before knocking over her pile of shirts and stepping over them.

"Bastard," she muttered, kneeling to pick the merchandise up. The pain in her face reversed as the smile flipped into a full blown scowl.

'Keep calm Kai. He's not worth it. He's so not worth it. No matter how much you want to punch his stupid face in just remember that an assault record does not look good on any transcript or resume.'

She took another slow, steadying breath as she cleaned up the mess the stranger had made. Setting the clothes back on the stand, Kairi folded each shirt with a precision that could cut through steel, trying to hide away her irritation between the folds and creases of every shirt. However, just as she was starting to find her zen place where she could mentally pummel the offender without the law hindering her, another customer arrived to interrupt her.

"Man, you handled that asshole like a champ. For a second there I thought you were going to pop and punch his teeth in, but nope! You showed him the door with all the grace and civility befitting of a princess. Not bad."

Kairi turned around to look up at a tree of a man, her face morphing from practiced politeness to confusion and then neutral suspicion in two seconds flat as she processed what he'd said. The man ran a hand through a mane of brilliant red hair as he gave her a sharp grin. Metal clinked against metal and a plastic bag rustled at his side as he shifted his grip on it. His sense of style could only be compared to some manic hybrid cross between early 2000's punk and Dad Fashion. Bluntly put, he was a walking fashion nightmare, yet somehow oddly put together despite it all. Kairi instantly decided that he was much better than the last dude that approached her.

"If I'd beaten him like I wanted to then I'd have to explain to my manager why there's blood all over the merchandise, and I really don't feel like filling out all that paperwork." She shrugged nonchalantly.

He threw his head back in caustic laughter. "I like your spit fire kid! What's your name?"

"Shouldn't you introduce yourself before asking for a lady's name? I believe that is the gracious and civil thing to do." A crooked half smirk pulled at her lips, one brow rising slightly as she teasingly threw his own words back at him.

"Touché."

He mimicked her expression and reached into his back pocket, fishing out a worn leather wallet. Pulling out a card, he handed it to her with a flip of his fingers. Kairi examined it in mild curiosity. She eyed his name, 'Axel Fyer', and resisted snorting at it. (Obviously it was a stage name, and a cheesy one at that.) Immediately after her attention was drawn towards the logo. A large bird wreathed in a ring of fire took up most of the card, colored with a golden-orange enamel.

Kairi stared at that bird for a long time. There was just something so familiar about it. She knew she'd seen it somewhere before…

Her attention strayed toward the shopping bag in Axel's hand. Through the near sheer plastic she spied what appeared to be a packet of balloons, the tip of a paint roller poking out the top, and two large cans of red and silver spray paint. And that's when it clicked.

"I know who you are!" she gasped excitedly. "They call you Firebird, don't they?"

Firebird was a street artist that had recently been gaining notoriety on the news because they― he ―kept painting murals in both strange and illegal places. Images of his paintings were all over the internet these days, all signed with the trademark bird flying in a ring of fire. "A modern day phoenix", she had heard people refer to it as. It seemed most fitting now that she'd met the artist behind the art.

"At your service your highness." Axel flicked his wrist out and gave her a quarter bow. She shook her head with a snort and handed his card back.

"Yeah, no. I'm gonna have to ask you to drop the honorifics before someone gets hurt."

"Then what am I supposed to refer to you as? Feisty Red? Miss Retail? Potential mobster in disguise?"

Did he just really like making nicknames for people? She couldn't help but wonder at that as he listed off a few more ideas. With a click of her tongue, she said, "The name's Kairi. Nice to meet you, Axel."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." He held up his hands. "Easy on the formalities there. I thought we had reached an understanding?"

"Oh we have now." She tossed her head over her shoulder. "If we hadn't I'd have directed you to the door like the last guy."

"The lives of customers and retail workers are never easy. But it's the little victories like this, where both can coexist in peace, that matter the most."

"... What fortune cookie did you get that from?"

"Mmm…" His face screwed up as he pretended to actually think about it. Then he lifted his arm to look at his watch. "My brain, just now at a quarter past three. June sixth in the year of our glorious lord and savior, Kingdom Hearts, twenty-nineteen."

"Amazing. You must often be blessed with frequent moments of absolute clarity such as that one. It's a wonder you're not the most sought after man in all the land, for your wisdom truly knows no bounds."

"I'm sensing some sarcasm here."

"How astute of you."

If it weren't for the way his smile actually curved around his eyes, cunning and clear as jade, Kairi might not have believed he was truly joking with her. As it stood, however, Axel was quickly becoming the funniest customer she had ever encountered. Conversing with him came naturally and she didn't feel constrained into making or listening to polite jokes. It was nice to laugh at something she actually found funny.

And when she grinned back at him, her face didn't hurt in the slightest.

The sun was setting by the time Kairi left the store, her bag strung over her shoulder and her hair no longer constrained by what she referred to as the "professional ponytail". After meeting the Firebird then it felt like nothing would pop her bubble again for the rest of the evening, and she was gonna make use of this high in lieu of the exhausting start to her day.

She took out her phone and began to message her father, telling him that she was on her way home, when the unmistakable thrum of a bass caught her attention. She looked around for the source― it was close, that much she could tell ―but wherever it was, it wasn't anywhere she could see. Deciding quickly, Kairi messaged her dad that she would be stopping by Selphie's for a minute before coming home, and then set off to find the music. A strangely certain feeling was welling up in her chest; an idea of just who might possibly be playing music in such a quiet area.

A few minutes was all the time Kairi spent searching. It was on an empty street facing the docks of Destiny Island's main port that she found none other that Axel 'Firebird' Fyer working on a new project. He had his hair pulled back now and a mask covered the lower half of his face to protect him from the paint fumes. A small radio sat on the ground with the rest of his equipment. Now that she was closer, she recognized the song as 'Explode' by Written by Wolves.

Axel bobbed to the beat as he painted. His movements were sure, yet were also flowy with practiced ease. Dancing to the music added an extra flair to the already extra way he painted.

After watching him for another couple seconds, she shifted so her hand was on her hip and called out to him.

"I'm pretty sure that what you're doing is considered illegal."

Axel stopped spraying down the wall on reflex, spun around and gave his most bashfully unremorseful expression possible, as if he'd been caught by the authorities. However, when he noticed it was just her, he pulled the mask off his face and gave her a sharp grin.

"It's only illegal if the cops are onto me." He tapped his forehead with a conspiratorial wink. "But you wouldn't tell them where I've set up shop today, would you?"

"Only if there was something in it for me. After all, this is private property of the Mayor. The Mayor who just so happens to be my father~."

He let out a low whistle. "Shoulda told me you were actual royalty. I woulda kept calling you Your Highness."

"And if I had my bat with me then I'd have hit you with it, so I guess that makes us both lucky."

Axel threw his head back, cackling.

"Alright, alright! If you're gonna play dirty, then you may as well get dirty."

"Wait, what?"

Gesturing for her to come closer, he bent over and plucked a few filled balloons from the ground and dropped them into her hands. He watched her eye them suspiciously, grinning. Her eyebrows rose a fraction. What exactly was he expecting her to do with these?

Seeing her apparent confusion, Axel picked up another balloon, took a couple steps away from his project, and flung it towards the wall as hard as he could. It exploded in a glorious concoction of neon purple pain and rubber against the backdrop of midnight blue and silver. He pointed at her and the balloons in her hands and then drew an invisible line between her and the wall.

"It works best if you time it with the music," he instructed. "Gives it more of a sense of purpose amongst the feelings of reckless abandon that comes with just going absolutely apeshit."

Kairi smirked, shrugging off her coat and moving to stand a little further back than Axel had. She lined herself up, eyeing where she wanted the balloon to go, and wound her arm her arm around before releasing the pitch. It splattered in a glorious spray of vibrant lemon yellow.

"It's cute that you think I need lessons on how to pitch, but A+ for effort." She cracked her neck and geared up to throw another balloon.

Axel stepped out of her way, watching her with an intense fascination. She didn't feel the least intimidated by him though. Unlike most guys, who would stare at her without even bothering to conceal their filthy thoughts, Axel's attention was a more critically appraising one; he possessed the eyes of an artist, carefully studying her form, dissecting the individual motions she made, and reached his own conclusions as she sent the balloon flying.

It exploded in a spray of shocking orange.

Eventually Kairi stopped being aware of Axel altogether. The bass of the music weaved through her body, settling in her bones and becoming one with the beat of her heart. Each pitch thrown was a pronounced note. Each exhale made was to the skip of a beat. Her focus was trained solely on the wall and the mural taking form right in front of her.

Now it's the time

I'm taking back what is mine

You can trash your guitar

But you know I'll just tear down the walls

Feel my heart explode!

She ran out of balloons in no time at all, but now there was a wildness raring to go within her.

With a wide grin, Axel tossed her a can of neon pink spray, picking up a silver and red one for himself. Before they dived back into the act of artful vandalism, he also pulled out a checkered bandana and handed it to her, before slipping his mask back over his face. By the time she'd secured it around her head the music had swept her away again.

Remember me

As I go down in history

So don't stand in my way

If I have to then I'm taking off

Feel my heart explode!

There had never been so little rhyme or reason to what she was doing as there was in that moment. Paint went flying as she danced, coating herself, the ground, Axel― Really at this point nothing was going to go uncolored. And that was fine by her.

The two of them synced well, trading off colors with ease as if they'd been doing it for more than the last half hour of their lives, painting in places without really being told. Kairi wasn't nearly as artistic as her cousin, Naminé, preferring to actually build things over drawing them, but in this instance she really felt like an artist. Laughing, Kairi emptied the bottle of neon pink with a flourish and stood back to admire her and Axel's handiwork.

"I was thinking I'd call it 'Wild Knight'. Whaddya think?" he asked, slipping the mask off.

In the center of the mural was a girl in armor wielding a sword. Her hair was made of the sunset, streaming reds and golds like the dying fingers of light that stretched towards the night sky; shades of violet and dusky pink highlighted the shadows and accentuated the strands that did not face the light. Surrounding this girl was the ever expanding evening sky and the explosions that Kairi had created to accompany it. It made the fantasy scene pop with an untameable energy.

"I love it," she breathed.

Axel smiled and clapped her on the shoulder. He bent over to pick up an orange can, shook it, and then carefully made his signature, marking this painting as Firebird's property. But instead of putting the can down once he was done, he turned and handed it to her. An eyebrow rose as she took it from him and he gestured towards the wall.

"All artists involved need to sign their work," was his matter-of-fact response. "Go on. Sign it however you want. As long as it doesn't incriminate you for vandalism of course. I have a feeling you've got an image to uphold."

Though she stuck her tongue out at him, Kairi was smirking. Now what could she sign as? Not her initials, no way. That'd be too obvious. It couldn't be something that'd be physically linked to her, either, so that also excluded any titles that involved her red hair.

Her gaze honed in on Axel's trademark. A bird in flames. Perhaps she could go with something similar. Grinning, Kairi knelt down and began to spray the area next to the Firebird.

"Is that a… spiky cat?" Axel raised a brow when she finished.

Kairi rolled her eyes and threw the bottle back at him. He caught it without even blinking.

"No. It's a flaming cat! I figured I'd borrow your motif until I could come up with something better."

"A flaming cat? Huh." He tapped his chin for a moment and then snapped his fingers. "Aha! I finally figured out what to call you! How does Infernocat sound?"

The nickname rolled around in her mind before rolling off her tongue. "Infernocat… Ya know… I actually kinda like that."

His eyes crinkled at the corners and she felt the same being reflected on her face. Axel clapped her on the shoulder again and turned back to the painting.

"Firebird and Infernocat. Partners in crime and stress relief. Vandalizing one building at a time in a conquest to make the world colorful and bludgeoning the naysayers with killer pitches. Look out world, here we come."

"Are you having fun?"

"The possibility is real. Are you?"

"I just might be." Kairi looked down at her paint splattered clothes. Oh, it was such a good thing this wasn't her school uniform. But that wouldn't stop her dad from questioning what she'd been doing since she was supposed to be hanging out with Selphie right now. If she didn't get this stuff out soon he was going to kill her.

"Hey uh, Axel?"

"Yeah?"

"You wouldn't happen to have a larger bandana on you, would ya?"