“ t—that’s… the smile… i was hoping to see… ” ( aka roxas & sora have the same radiant, beautiful smile & this hurts a LOT )
after the damage / @azaleatides
THEY WERE RUNNING OUT OF TIME. the walls were caving in &. dust filled the air , threatening to invade their lungs in large amounts &. suffocate them at any time. roxas felt a sharp pain at his side – to afraid to look , he didn’t know whether it was a scratch , broken bone , or something far worse. kairi , on the other hand , seemed uninjured. well , lacking serious injury , that is. her hand was still broken from the fight &. her legs probably weren’t doing so well after the fall the two of them had taken when the ceiling collapsed on top of them. he couldn’t tell for sure , though , since the two of them had been separated quite a bit. it’s possible that she was doing worse than he was.
❝you okay?❞ his voice rasps , the gravel of it reflecting how he was feeling at the moment. no response. that worried him more than anything.❝kairi?❞ he tries once more , but the attempt is futile. the cracks in between the rubble atop them let little light in , making it so that he couldn’t see where she was either.
finally forcing himself to move , roxas makes his way over to where he supposed kairi would be. luckily , he spots her about where he had expected. he’s not happy , though , noticing the way that she’s lying. face down – chest barely rising &. falling. kneeling down next to her , he takes her in his arms , brushing her hair out of her face to get a better look at her. she’s bruised , covered in scrapes , but otherwise appeared to be fine at a single glance.
her eyes open slowly , unfocused &. glazed over as if she’s– no. she’s not. she’s fine. ❛ rox… as? ❜ her voice is so small &. frail – reminding roxas that he &. kairi really are just kids , after all. he finds it hard to breathe looking at her like this , thought that his breath was taken away because of kairi rather than the broken rib that had pierced his lung. funny , he was so worried about kairi &. the others , he couldn’t even notice what was wrong with himself.
❛could you… smile for me? ❜ smile? it was an odd request , he didn’t fully understand why she had asked him to do that ( &. he never would ) but he complied anyways. it’s easier than he thought it would be to fake a smile. after he does so , he notices kairi smile as well , as if remembering something from her past or from a dream. the way she looks at him is what surprises him most , though. her eyes aren’t any more focused than they were before , but they have a certain glint , a certain joy to them that he can’t figure out.
but what was there to be happy about? roxas could practically feel the life draining out of her as she made her request – he didn’t want to believe it , but he knew that it was more than likely that she wouldn’t make it out of this. that neither of them would make it out of this.
❛t—that’s… the smile… i was hoping to see… ❜ he can barely hear her now , in fact he almost asks her to repeat herself before he feels it. upon taking a breath to ask , he finally notices the pain he had felt resurfacing &. increasing tenfold.
kairi’s eyes droop shut before she goes limp in his arms , one final name escaping from her lips. sora. that must’ve been why she looked so happy – she had imagined sora’s smile instead of his own. normally he would’ve been angry at that thought , but right now it didn’t matter. smile now gone from his face , roxas lays her down &. painfully lies down next to her , gazing up at the roof of their prison before he closes his eyes &. takes his last breath.
his earlier suspicion had now been confirmed.
they’d never get to see another sunset.