My husband introduced me to Kingdom Hearts and I've been watching him play. Maybe I'm the most cliché woman of all time, but Axel is my favorite. I also love Roxas.
Me and my friends have joked for a long time about how Roxas is the Sea Salt Trio's Riku/Terra because his name has 'rocks' in it but actually thinking about it Roxas is the group's angst machine (affectionate), has a more aggressive fighting style (when dual wielding), and temporarily abandoned the others before realising he was wrong. All three of these are common traits with the earth boys.
Going even further, Xion is the most emotionally open of the trio and sacrifices herself for what she considers to be the greater good at the end of the game she was introduced in, putting her more in line with Sora/Ven. (There's also the parallel between everyone forgetting Xion at the end of days and forgetting Sora after CoM)
This means that by process of elimination, Axel is the Kairi/Aqua.
No idea if any of this is intentional, but if it is, what is Nomura cooking?
I've been headcanoning Roxas as transmasc for a while now actually. And Axel is the 100% supportive, cool bff, of course.
I think it's actually helped me feel more affirmed as a trans man as too. I ended up identifying a lot with Roxas over the past few 8 years I've been in the fandom.
I apologize for only ever uploading sketchy stuff when I do upload. I've got a bunch of brainworms at the moment that I wish I could share more of.