Happy Valentine's Day, take 2!

Last time I talked about The Prince and Elika

This time I want to talk about

Aqua/Zack from Kingdom Hearts

While the Prince and Elika had an entire game to bond (if out of order)  Aqua and Zack are only together for one jaunt through a world.

But Sweet Cosmos does it make an impression.

Let's look at a few of the incidents:
Zack is incredibly cheerful, and while he's not afraid to fight Aqua, he also wants to protect her.
Aqua is very much okay with fighting boys, but knows Zack can't handle an ice giant so she has him stop.

Zack has one of his most famous interactions in Final Fantasy with her:

He's also one of two people to touch Aqua throughout the entire game (via cutscene).  The only other time is when Terranort lifts her up by the neck in an attempt to kill her. 

Aqua is noted to blush when Zack leaves (though the graphics didn't show it.)  and she also covers her heart while she's shown to be embarrassed.  She's not shown to be embarrassed in front of any other character.  The only other time she's shown to cover her heart is in the opening when a (possibly) corrupted Terra walks by her.

And then there's their goals.  Zack wants to be a hero in order to protect people, as does Aqua.  They both train to do it.  But while Aqua gets to actually go out and do it, it's for more selfish reasons then Zack's.  She's going because she's ordered and she saves the worlds semi accidentally as she tries to find her friends.  Zack may not have left yet, but when he does he will do it with no ulterior motives.  (With that being said, Aqua's motives are pretty pure all in all, and none  of the Trio left to save the world)

Unfortunately, as Birth By Sleep is one of the most recently released Kingdom Hearts games, Zack does not show up in the earlier ones since Birth By Sleep takes place ten years before Kingdom Hearts 1 takes place.  So, we don't know what happened to him.  The credits imply that Sephiroth may be responsible for his disappearance.  However, as Aqua has disappeared too (and Terra, and Ven) I hold he's doing what he always wanted to do.

He's out, being a hero and searching for them. 

(And by that, I mean Hades threw him into the Realm of Darkness when Zack started asking questions so he's currently living there with Aqua until Kingdom Hearts 3.)