A/N: This may seem like a filler chapter, but I deem this a very important chapter that has to do with character development and the passage of time, so please enjoy as I write what I love most about this story: a lot of dialogue.

By the way, this chapter probably seems unbearably cutesy and fluffy, which is usually not my thing. Don't worry, readers! It's still not my thing. As some of you may have surmised, the happy times will not last. BRING ON THE PAIN.

Also, if Kingdom Hearts worlds have computers and technology like that, wouldn't they have televisions? I just assumed…

"Axel, why are you always in my room when I wake up?" Yuffie asked one morning, upon rolling over and finding him leaning over her, watching her in a rather creepy manner.

"'Cause I think you're cute when you're sleeping," he replied unashamedly.

"You…think I'm cute…when I'm sleeping," Yuffie repeated flatly.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"'Cause it's the only time I ever catch you not screaming at me or throwing stuff at me or hitting me or just generally being a harpy."

"Ohh, you—" Yuffie was cut off as she attempted to leap out of the bed and grab him, but only ended up getting herself tangled in the sheets and falling to the floor heavily.

"Somebody needs coffee," Axel said in a singsong voice as he practically skipped out of the room.

Yuffie grumbled, disengaged herself from the covers, and followed him into the kitchen for breakfast.

"I'm bored," Yuffie said, perusing the bookcase. "How come you don't got a television here, Axel?"

"Because you don't get any stations in a pocket dimension where there aren't any stations transmitting radio waves to receive. That's why," Axel said, sounding just as bored as she was.

"So, technically, in order to make T.V. stations, we'd have to broadcast it ourselves," she ventured.

"Yeah, and unless you want me doing Happy Time Puppet Hour, then that's probably not an option."

"There is something very disturbing about the image of you playing with puppets."

Axel grinned at her, showing his teeth in a way that reminded her of a shark.

"Don't do that!" she snapped, glaring at him.

"Don't do what?" he replied innocently, fluttering his eyelashes.

"Never mind," Yuffie sighed.

"I'm bored," Yuffie said to Axel a few days later.

"You're always bored, apparently."

"Let's do something."

"Okay, what do you want to do?" Axel asked her, lifting an eyebrow.

"Well, duh," Yuffie said.

"What do you mean, duh? I asked you a question. What do you want to do?"

"And I said duh because if I knew what I wanted to do, I wouldn't be bored, now would I?" she replied matter-of-factly, crossing her arms over her chest and giving him a look.

"Then don't tell me you're bored if you have no idea what you want to do. If you're bored, then that's your problem, sweetcakes." Axel waved a dismissing hand at her and continued to loll about, taking up the whole couch.

"Sheesh, you act like you own the place."

"I do own the place."

"…"

"Yeah, great comeback, Yuffie. An endless spring of wit, that's you."

"Well, you don't own the place," she said.

"Uh, technically, I do."

"Nuh-uh."

"Says who then?"

"Says me."

"And who gave you the authority to say that I don't own the house I created?" Axel asked, clearly bored with her.

"God."

"What god?"

"Well, mine of course."

"And who is this 'God'?"

"Me, dummy."

"Prove it."

"All right, how?"

"Tell me what I'm thinking right now."

"You're thinking that I'm stupid."

"But I think that all the time. It doesn't take omniscience to guess that one."

Yuffie snarled and pounced on him, wiggling her fingers under his armpits. He tried to keep a straight face, but after a few moments burst into uncontrollable laughter.

"Okay! Okay, uncle! I give, aaah!"

Yuffie released him, and he laid there on the couch, his body going into little spasms of giggles as he tried to catch his breath.

"Sheesh, I didn't even actually know you were ticklish. I just wanted to see if that would work."

"Yeah, well, I am, and it did, and don't ever do it again," Axel said, panting but still managing to sound cranky.

"You don't want me to do it again," Yuffie said with a strange sort of tone to her voice.

"No."

"Never again?"

"No," Axel said, cottoning on to her tone of voice. "Yuffie, don't you do it. Don't you dare."

"I don't know what you're talking about," she replied, smiling benignly. At that, she got up and left him to ponder when she would strike next.

"Um, Axel, you've been a bit, er…jumpy lately," Kairi said over dinner a week later. "Are you okay?"

"Fine, fine, perfectly fine," he said irritably, throwing his hands into the air and almost slinging meatloaf on Yuffie and Kairi.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"He's definitely not okay," said Yuffie, smirking evilly at him over her mashed potatoes.

"He just won't admit that he's scared."

"Scared? What is he scared of?" Kairi asked, cocking her head at him.

"Me," she replied, cackling with her mouth full.

"Yuffie, that's disgusting! Swallow your food," Kairi admonished, pointing a fork at her reproachfully.

Yuffie merely turned her head toward Kairi and chewed noisily with her mouth open. Kairi cringed but refrained from saying anything more.

"Hey, Kairi?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm bored."

"I know."

"How do you know that?" Yuffie asked, staring at her, wide-eyed.

"This the fifth time you've said it."

"Oh." Yuffie blinked.

"This is the fifth time you've said it in the past fifteen minutes actually."

"Really?"

"Really. Do you even realize you're saying it anymore?"

"Nope. Don't even remember saying it more than once."

"So go do something if you're bored."

"But there's nothing to do."

"Go paint."

"Don't got no paints."

"I do. There's blank canvas and paint and everything else you'll need in my room. Go get it."

"Okay. Thanks, Kairi."

Yuffie stared at the blank canvas on the easel in front of her. She had the tip of her tongue between her front teeth, and she had been staring at the canvas for the past ten minutes, a dripping paintbrush in her hands, unmoving.

Slowly, she moved the brush forward and made a mark, with red paint, on the stretched cloth.

"What's that?"

Yuffie whirled around, jabbing wildly with her brush. Axel just managed to dodge out of her way in time to avoid getting a face full of red paint.

"Don't sneak up on me like that," Yuffie yelled at him, flinging paint as she gestured with the palette in her other hand.

"Fine. So what are you doing?"

"None of your business, sir," she said, turning her pert nose up at him.

"Tell me," he ordered.

"No. Now leave me alone to work in peace."

"Teeeell meee," he wheedled.

"No. Now go away!"

"I will if you tell me what you're doing," he said.

Yuffie threw the palette and her brush down and jumped on him, knocking him to the hard wood of the porch and tickling him mercilessly. He laughed and laughed, unable to stop himself, and finally, when he was gasping for breath, he cried, "I give up! All right! I'll leave you alone!"

Yuffie got off of him without another word, dusted her hands together, picked up her paintbrush, and turned away from him. She heard him leave soon afterward.

Kairi came upon her several days later to find that she was working on the painting again.

"Uh, Yuffie," she ventured, hesitating.

Yuffie turned around and looked at Kairi. She had blue paint at the corner of one eye and there was bright green paint smeared across her forehead and chin.

"Yeah?" she prompted.

"What…uh…what is that?"

"You mean you can't tell?" Yuffie asked, giving Kairi a look like she was the stupidest person ever born.

"Uh, well, it looks like…"

"It looks like shit, doesn't it?" Yuffie's face fell.

"No, no! Just, give me a hint here."

"Okay!" she said, excited to be showing off her masterpiece. "It's someone you know."

"Er…is it…" Kairi squinted and turned her head to a painful angle. "…Axel?"

"Yeah! What clued you in?"

"The, uh, the red hair," she said.

Yuffie nodded, biting her lip. "Yeah, that's what I'm most proud of."

Kairi stared at the mass of red triangles that were supposed to be Axel's hair. Underneath that was a vaguely brownish-pinkish blob with two green, lopsided splotches placed around the middle of the brownish-pinkish blob. There were two black spots underneath the two green splotches and there was a large black patch underneath all of that. An angry red slash marked where Kairi supposed Axel's mouth should have been.

"So, I guess I'll leave you to that and check out the finished product later, huh?" Kairi said.

"Yeah, yeah, I really don't want Axel to see until I'm done though."

"Right, I'll keep him distracted. Somehow."

"Thanks, Kairi, you're a pal."

"My masterpiece is finished!" Yuffie announced, bursting into the living room where Axel was reading a comic book and Kairi had a huge manuscript in her hands.

"You have a masterpiece?" Axel asked, disinterested.

"Yes. And it's wonderful," Yuffie shot back.

"'Kay."

"You're not interested in seeing it at all?" she asked.

"Nope."

"Axel!"

"Fine, fine."

Yuffie dashed out of the room, and a few seconds later, crashed back in through the door, holding the canvas with the "portrait" of Axel on it.

"Ta-da!"

"What the hell is that?" Axel asked, his mouth dropping open. Kairi winced as Yuffie's face turned stony.

"It's you, dumbass."

"I think it's wonderful, Yuffie!" Kairi proclaimed, attempting to cut off any ensuing arguments.

"That's…me?" Axel looked stunned.

"Yes."

"That is how you see me?"

"Of course! Isn't it great?" Yuffie asked, a dangerous note to her voice.

"If that's how you see me, it's no wonder you act like you do."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Yuffie squawked.

"It means that that painting is ugly and that you are certainly no artist, madam."
Yuffie huffed and stomped out of the room, furious with him for spitting on all of her hard work. Sure, she was not the greatest painter ever, but she had worked really hard on it. The least he could do was show some gratitude since she had thought of him.

"Kairi, Yuffie's still not talking to me."

Kairi sighed. She had foreseen this. Axel could not be trusted to solve his own problems, especially when it came to a girl like Yuffie.

"Of course she's not talking to you, dummy. You acted like a royal jerk."

"What? Should I have lied to her about how that painting looked? I wasn't about to say it looked wonderful just because she made it. I mean, aren't people supposed to tell the truth and stuff?" Axel was genuinely confused.

"You really don't know what you're supposed to do with this kind of stuff?"

"Well, I guess I don't!" he yelled, frustrated.

"You tell her thanks for thinking about you, Axel. Even if the picture wasn't that good, at least she was thinking about you. Did you think of it that way?"

He stared at her, dumbstruck. "Oh."

"So now what are you going to do, Axel?"

"Er…"

"You're gonna go apologize to her, duh."

"Oh."

"So go do it!"

"Okay, okay, I'm going."

"Er, Yuffie." Axel knocked on her door. "Yuffie?" No answer. "C'mon, Yuffie, I want to talk to you." Still no answer. "Open up the door or I'll bust it down."

Kairi walked around the corner, crossed her arms, and tapped her foot at him.

"What?" he snapped.

"That is not how you do it."

"Well, how do you do it then, Miss Priss?"

"Like this," Kairi said, walking up to Yuffie's bedroom door. "Yuffie? Jerkface is going to grovel and apologize and kiss your feet. You might want to let him in. Also, if you have a camera, now would be a good time to turn it on so you can savor this moment for the rest of your life, okay?"

Almost before Kairi had even finished speaking, the door swung open and Yuffie's hand shot out and dragged Axel in by the collar. Kairi shook her head and went into the kitchen to make some tea. She had a feeling Axel would need it.

Axel stomped into the kitchen and made as much noise sitting down as he could manage without hurting himself in the process.

Kairi looked at him. "I take it you did it wrong then."

"Did it wrong!" he exclaimed.

"Yep. I knew you would."

"Knew I would!"

"That's what I said."

Axel made an inarticulate noise of fury and snatched the cup of tea Kairi offered to him.

"I did what you said! I apologized for being a jerk!"

"What, exactly, did you say?"

"I told her I was sorry that I told her the truth and that next time, I'd lie," he replied, throwing the sizzling hot tea back like whiskey.

Kairi winced. "Uh, it's a little hot." Axel just looked at her.

She shrugged. "Okay…well, you did it wrong."

"Did it wrong!"

"Can you stop doing that? Yes, you did it wrong, like I knew you would, so here's what you have to do next. Apologizing for being a jerk is a step-by-step, tedious process."

"This is not worth it."

"Have you even kissed Yuffie yet?"

"What?" He stared at her, gobsmacked. "What are you even talking about, Kairi? I thought we were talking about apologizing and how I did it wrong."

"You obviously like her, Axel. And you're an idiot if you don't know she likes you back. Otherwise she wouldn't have cared when you said her painting was crap."

"I…you…who…"

"You haven't even kissed her." Kairi stared at him like he was crazy. "No wonder she's so cranky."

"Whuh…bluh…"

"How long has she been here now? Three weeks? How long have you known her now? I've been hearing about Yuffie for more than a few months now…"

Axel stared at her, openmouthed.

"Yeah, you're pretty lame for this, Axel. Pret-ty lame."

Axel got up without another word and left the room. Kairi shook her head once more.

The next day, Axel barged into Kairi's room while she was sleeping, yelling about something.

"What in the world…?"

"I need you to tell me what I have to do to get Yuffie to talk to me again!"

"All right, you need to lavish her with a gift, but it has to be an appropriate thing for the occasion," Kairi told him, yawning. She had expected him sometime that day, but not quite this early in the morning.

"What's appropriate for the occasion?"

"I dunno. You figure it out."

"You mean that's all you've got for me?" he shouted, looking desperate.

"If you figure this out for yourself, it will be that much better, in Yuffie's opinion. Trust me, Axel."

"Fine."

Axel left, and Kairi groaned, rolled over, and shoved her head under the pillow for a couple more hours of sleep.

Axel staggered into the living room two days later with something square in his arms.

"Um," Kairi said, lifting an eyebrow, "what is that?"

"This," he replied, sounding entirely too pleased with himself, "is what's going to make Yuffie talk to me."

"…really."

"Really," he nodded to himself, setting it against the wall. "Hey, Kairi, can I borrow your paints and brushes?"

Kairi hesitated, then shrugged to herself, not really sure what he was up to, but not really sure she cared all that much anymore. He could not possibly get himself in more trouble with Yuffie unless he killed a puppy in front of her or something.

"Sure."

"Thanks," he said excitedly, practically scurrying out of the room in his hurry.

Over the next few days, Kairi caught Axel working on something in his room, in secret, but she did not investigate. She had a funny feeling she knew what he was doing.

"Is Axel still in his room?" Yuffie asked, slipping around the corner, looking cautious.

"Yep."

"What's he doing in there?"

"I think he's working on something to apologize to you," Kairi said, idly flipping through the novel she had been reading in lieu of painting.

"What a dork," Yuffie chirped, flopping down on the couch next to Kairi.

"Well, he is trying to apologize. He doesn't want you to be mad at him anymore."
Yuffie rolled her eyes. "I'm not even mad at him anymore, sheesh. I can't hold a grudge for more than a few hours."

"You're not mad at him?" Kairi repeated, gawping at her.

"Nope!" She grinned. "I'm just a good actor is all."

"Why would you pretend to be mad at him then?" Kairi asked, still confused.

"Because I love making him uncomfortable."

"Why?"

"Because he's always got the upper hand! Don't you ever just wanna wipe that smug look off his face?"

Kairi pondered this. "You're right."

Yuffie nodded to herself. "'Course I am."

"Isn't it boring in your room?"

Yuffie sighed dramatically and put a fluttering hand to her forehead. "Oh, god, it's awful."

"What do you do in there all day?"

"Mostly exercise. Practice my fighting style. That sort of thing."

"Kairi!" Axel yelled, his voice getting closer. "I'm done with it! Come and see!"

Yuffie jumped up and in a series of very complicated acrobatic movements, flung herself out the front door just as Axel turned the corner from the hallway to the living room.

He blinked for a moment, then said, "Did I just see…?"

Kairi looked at him blankly.

"Never mind," he said, shaking his head. "Do you want to see what I've done?"

"I'm not sure. What have you done, Axel?"

He gestured for her to come to his room, so she followed him down the short hallway and into his sparse bedroom. Her eyes fell on the canvas propped against the wall.

"Uh, so that's what you were carrying when—"

"Yep."

Kairi continued to take in the whole painting. "That's amazing, Axel. I never knew you were an artist…"

"I'm not. Or at least, I never thought I was. Maybe my Other was? I don't know. I've never tried it before. What do you think?"

"With some practice, Axel, you could be great." Kairi was still staring at the painting.

He had rendered a picture of him and Yuffie, sitting beside a stream that was wending its way through thick trees. Sunlight reflected off the water. The colors were bright and cheerful with careful blending. All of the landscape and proportions could use some practice, but what caught Kairi's eyes was the image of Yuffie.

She was lovingly rendered, down to the very last hair on her head. Axel had captured her very essence—from the laughter in her gray eyes to the dark brown highlights in her sun-kissed hair.

"You think it'll work?"

Kairi pondered what Yuffie had said just minutes before about not really being mad at Axel and swallowed her smile, instead choosing to nod seriously and say, "If this doesn't, I don't know what will."

Yuffie had successfully reentered her room when Axel knocked on her door. She sighed, resolving that unless Axel did something entirely stupid, she would let him apologize and get on with her life. She liked messing with his mind, but she was tired of playing games.

"Come in," she called.

Axel sidled into the doorway, struggling to keep something hidden behind his back. Whatever it was, it was really too large to stay hidden there.

"I just wanted to bring you something that I thought you might like," he said, trying to seem casual.

"Yes?" Yuffie asked coldly, trying not to grin at his act.

"I whipped this up in my spare time," he said to her, pulling out a square canvas from behind his back. She gasped.

"Axel," she stuttered out, "it's beautiful."

"You like it?"

"Of course I like it!" she said, staring at him in wonder.

"I wanted to say I was sorry for insulting your painting, and to really apologize, I made this for you."

"Thank you," she said faintly, still staring at it.

"Am I forgiven?" he said slowly.

There was a pause, but before he could leave the room in defeat, he found himself with his arms full of happy ninja.

"Thankyouthankyouthankyou!" she gasped, nuzzling her face into his chest.

"I'm glad you like it," he wheezed, having the breath squeezed out of him.

"I love it!" she squealed. "Is it mine to keep? Really?"

"Yes. Yours to keep."

"You made this for me?"

"Yes. All for you."

He looked into her eyes as she grinned at him, and for some reason he could not fathom, found himself sinking to his knees. He smiled back at her as he sat fully on the floor with her in his lap.

"All for you," he said again.