I accidentally wrote an akuroku Christmas fic last January and promptly forgot about it. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays beautiful humans, I hope all your wishes come true.ย
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Once upon a time, Roxas Strife and Axel Flynn were best friends. Back in the day, back when things like what grade you were in and who you hung out with didnโt matter, back when the only qualifying factor was neighborhood proximity and skill with a bat.
Well, and back when Roxas didnโt have a debilitating, soul-crushing, fool-making crush on his best friend. Former best friend. Which he was over, of course. Thirteen-year-old Roxas had walked around with stars in his eyes and his heart in his throat every time he so much as looked at Axel, sure, and it made things awkward for a minute, yes. But that was a long time ago.
In the real world, where a high school freshman was too fucking cool to hang out with a dumb middle-schooler, Roxas and Axel fell apart. Slowly, at first, and then entirely. And it wouldโve been fine โ Axel made new friends, joined the band, Roxas made new friends, joined the Struggle team โ it shouldโve been fine. They shouldโve fallen off each otherโs radar, nothing more than a small blip on the rare occasion their eyes caught in the hallway, maybe a mutual head nod when they crossed paths on their street. Childhood friendships faded into obscurity all the time โ it shouldโve been fine.
It wasnโt fine. Roxasโฆwell, Roxas was bitter. Roxas was bitter, and stubborn, and he knew that his ability to hold a grudge wasnโt exactly one of his better personality traits. And Axel โ well, maybe Axel was bitter too. Maybe Axel was bitter too, or maybe he just wanted to be absolutely sure that Roxas never quite forgot about him, because neither of them ever managed to settle for being passing ships in the hallway. No, their childhood friendship had to fade into a low-grade animosity โ never outright aggressive, never anything downright meanโฆthey just, they never just crossed paths. No, there always had to be a snide comment, a snarky one-liner, a raised eyebrow and a smirk and a sneer. Axel standing shoulder to shoulder with his new best friend, his upgrade, Roxas being dragged away by his long-suffering, eye-rolling twin brother.
Every few months, maybe once a semester, it would come to a head. Axel would poke and prod and just generally be a pain in the ass, and it would build up and up and up until Roxas thought he was going to explode from it. From irritation and frustration and confusion, because at the end of it all he never quite understood why.
Maybe the why didnโt matter. Maybe the why was just to rile Roxas up, to get a rise out of him, to see how close Roxas would come to lunging fist-first at Axel and doing his best to beat the ever-loving shit out him. Maybe it was because Axel had figured out, despite Roxasโ best efforts, about Roxasโ once upon a time massive fucking crush, and this was his form of payback. Axel hadnโt ever struck Roxas as particularly homophobic, sure, but there was a big fucking difference between having a gay best friend and having a gay best friend with a devastatingly obvious crush on you. Maybe it was payback, and punishment, and just plain spite.
But thisโฆthis was a new low. This was a brand new form of punishment, something even Axel hadnโt sunk to before.
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