Your façade
                      can't disguise
                                              the fact that
                                                                    you're in misery


      Naminé settled onto the edge of her bed, unable to continue her mindless pacing around her apartment. She had slowly dwindled her untraceable steps into her bedroom, and finally convinced her body to stop moving. She was tired; the endless physical wandering wasn't helpful either.
      When she first sat, her body didn't hide its unwillingness to stay still. Rigid, right on the edge, fighting the comfort of the soft mattress. Exhaustion won out.
She shuffled herself onto the bed, enough that she could take the weight off her legs and sit properly. Keeping her back taught, Naminé looked down at the duvet, a delicate azure with faint brushings of gold helter skelter along the bed. She reached towards the closest one and touched it with her fingertips. Gentle at first, but her strokes got deeper, aggressive, until she had to grab the cloth to keep from taking the colour right off.
      A few days were all she had left. A few days before Naminé Hoshi would be taken from the world, cease to exist forevermore. In a few days, she would disappear and become Mrs. Hiro Takamura.
      Tears burned beneath her moonlit cheeks, and it wasn't long before they were on the other side, too. She’d been with Hiro for a long time; the thought of becoming his never bothered her before. It was never an aversive thought either. She would often consider her future with Hiro, and it always seemed the destiny that would unfold. But after the last couple of weeks, after everything that passed...
      After Roxas Awayuki...
      Even, white teeth bit into a trembling lower lip. Naminé shook her head, wisps of platinum blond hair scattering out of order.
      No. It wasn't his fault. And what would blaming him do? Nothing except make her broken heart lose the key shards able to hold it together...if someone were to ever try and fix it again.
      She could blame it on his failure to admit his feelings sooner than he did. But such a hypocritical accusation left a bittersweet taste in the back of her throat.
      Why was it up to him to say the first "Be with me..."
      Or
                                              I love you...
      Naminé looked up, staring into the moonwet night. Shafts of silvery light reached to her, casting a shattered glass mosaic from the lingering tears and tracks on her face. Her heartbeat had dulled within her chest, pulsing for biology only. She felt like she would disappear tomorrow. After all, what would change in the days in between?
      She sidled over to the table beside the pillows of the bed. The snowflake cover on her phone gleamed in the moonlight. Her fingers shook above the object, hesitations trying to gain control. It was warm when she picked it up, reminding her of how cold her hands had become. She thought it a consequence of how much she had been wringing her hands, desperate to find a strong enough distraction to keep the pain away.
      It never worked.
      1:37 glared at her when she opened it, the bright light biting at her tear-shaken eyes. No one in their right mind would pick up the phone at this hour. They would know it was her; personalized ringtones weren't as helpful as they claimed to be.
      She pushed off the impartial bed, dialling the number with a considerable pause between each digit. She could've used speed dial, but she needed to dial it, savouring the sound of each number her thumb touched. Piecing the tones into a single sequence, the number that would reach out to the only person who could save her now.
      She fingered the moon-touched glass of the balcony door as the first ring echoed in her ear. Naminé pushed against the glass and began to pull the door to the side. The pale light clung to the imprint of her hand that remained.

                                                              ~

      Roxas didn't move as the Passion melody drifted through his empty apartment. He dropped his left foot onto the right with a defiant thump, refusing to disturb the prone position he'd taken upon the couch. He kept his eyes on the painfully unaltered speed of his ceiling fan. He hated its perfection – no stutters, or dead spots in the blade movements. The lack of flaws was embittering.
      He wanted to hear her voice. About as much as he wanted to wipe it from his memories. And his heart. He didn't want to hear what she had to say because he knew the way her tongue would arrange the first syllable for her voice to speak would have him listening to the rest and longing for more.
      "Shit, damn, f—" A colourful array of curses painted his teeth-bitten lips as he slammed his hands onto the couch and shoved his whining body up. He continued to make a racket by stamping like a child down the hall.
      He hated how that ringtone always ended on "wonk uoy naht noitceffa erom deen I".
      Roxas smacked the phone and yanked it up from the table, imaging a cord attached to it so that he could have ripped it out.
      He frowned when he saw the "1 New Voice Mail" message on the screen. It had barely been a minute between the ringtone and his tantrum to get the phone.
      "Don't have much to say, huh?" He pressed 'ok' and swept past the 'one missed call' reminder. Pressing the required sequence of buttons, Roxas forced himself to slow down, impatiently listening to the standardized answering machine voice instead of hitting buttons before he was told to. He didn't want to be in a hurry to hear the message, muttering to himself that he wasn't. He shifted his weight back and forth, giving into the restlessness and demanded to hear the message.
      He knew himself better than he liked. The first breath of Naminé within the message had him clutching the phone for more.
      But not in the way he expected. Or wanted.
      "H-Hey Roxas..." Her voice was too quiet. Roxas bit down on his lip. He could hear the tears in her throat.
      "I'm sorry to bother you so late..." Roxas stopped moving, frozen by her choice of words. And that lingering distance in her voice.
      "But I needed to call before I lose the nerve." Roxas leaned forward, supporting his weight on his desk chair. Air clustered in his throat, unable to get past his heart, pounding there with irrational paranoia. He pressed the phone against his ear, desperate to change what leaked out of it.
      "I'm sorry, Roxas." The shaking boy could hear the lament of a breeze brushing over the mouthpiece of her phone. It was like thunder to his ears.
      The last words barely touched him as he hurled himself from the apartment. It took mere seconds for him to enter into the night.
      "And Goodbye."

                                                              ~

      "Mmmm... Twilight residence..." He recognized the voice. Riku's new girlfriend. He didn't remember her name. And didn't much care.
      "Call
                911!" He didn't speak more than he had to. It wasted precious running oxygen.
      "Ex—excuse—"
      "911! It—
                            Naminé!"
      "Wait!" The voice lost the sleepy confusion. Roxas could hear Riku in the background, but the pounding of his heart drowned it back out.
      "Roxas?"
      "Naminé! Just call—" He swerved around a corner, throwing his arms out to keep his balance. He missed whatever reply came out. He threw the phone back to his ear, "911!"
      "What's wrong! Roxas! Rox—"
      He snapped the phone shut in his fist and ran harder.

                                                              ~

      Roxas could hear the faint cry of the sirens as Naminé's apartment building entered his sights. He knew the townhouse crew would soon be joining him, but waiting for anything wasn't an option.
      A brief obstacle sent a chill through his mind—the only one who would let him in was—
      The worry shattered when his fist went through the glass of the inside door. Shards bit into his arm as he reached in and yanked the latch down. Blood went over his black and white rings, crimson rivulets circling his fingers. He shoved the door out of his way, and vaulted up the stairs, three at a time. He pulled himself up with the railing, refusing to fall now. The police would be getting the intruder alarm. Good. Bring the whole damn force.
      Just don't let me be too late!
      Roxas threw his shoulder into the door, forcing it to open before the knob was fully turned. Splintering wood echoed in his head. He pivoted, stumbling down the hall and into her bedroom.
      The image to greet him stopped his heart. The moonlight white end of her dress drifted in the mild breeze, leaving angelic wisps in the darkness of the night. Whatever she was standing on was taller than the railing, and the wall wasn't going to hold onto her wrist.
      All she had to do was lean forward.
      "Naminé!" She didn't flinch, didn't move. Roxas could not swallow the stone in his throat. She was already lost.
      He dashed forward, slamming his leg into his bed on the way past. His shin cried out at his refusal to stop.
      Roxas reached up to grab her hips and pulled her towards him. They both fell back; he slammed into the wall, but kept her on top of him, refusing to let her fall onto anything else. His body cursed him, but he slapped away the hands of blinding pain.
      Naminé!
      He gathered her into his arms, clutching her tight. Her scattered hair clung to his bleeding arm as he cradled her head in his elbow.
      Her beautiful sapphire eyes were closed to him, glistening tracks of fresh tears still leading from them and down her cheeks. Her lips were cracked apart, barely a breath passing between them.
      Roxas choked on her name and shook her a little. When he did, the hand furthest from his body fell, grazing his thigh before hitting the ground between his legs.
      That's when Roxas noticed the blood.
      It hadn't touched the part of her dress that had been moving in the wind's breath because of how she had been holding her arms. But it had been pooling beneath her; it glistened on the balcony floor.
      And now, it covered him both.
      "Shit. Shit. No!" Roxas slid the dying girl down onto his lap. He tore at his shirt, ripping out whatever tourniquet would come. He grabbed her arms and held them above her, pressing the stained fabric against the cuts. He knew the injuries weren't obviously fatal, but they were deep enough to not have clotted yet.
      How much blood did she lose? How long had it been—
      One Missed Call...
      Where was the help!?
      He finally heard the sirens again, but Naminé's fading life was all he could see. His stomach tremored with sobs; he hunched over, but wouldn't move his arms.
      His tears wiped at the blood smears on her pale face.
      "Don't leave me, Naminé..."
   
     Not again...