Dedication: To my old English teacher and new Key Club adviser, since she made me write a short story for her class and it made me happy to have an actually fun homework assignment XP
A/N: I originally was going to put this up for Christmas but decided not to. So here we are, end of summer, and I thought this fanfic. fit it. So, just so you know, my writing styles changed since I wrote this. If you read my dedication then you know I wrote this for my English class... Well, the first half at least. It was for symbolic words - you could either draw the words (like drawing a dog instead of writing "dog") or could color a word (like coloring the word blue, blue or writing girl in pink). I decided to color and ended up with 40 symbolic words, coming in first for my class. Second place only had 24 words which made me feel like I worked too hard.
Special Thanks: Goes to TMA (A.K.K: TheMysteriousAuthoress) who always betas me. Thank you for the glow-in-the-dark candy cane for Christmas XP
Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own Kingdom Hearts.
Sea Salt Ice Cream
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By Water and Earth Alchemist
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The sky was bleached shades of red, orange, pink, dark blue and purple in the setting sun's light. The colors melted into the ocean, creating a distorted reflection of it in the waves. Seagulls cried overhead while the beach was deserted, leaving only a lone boy sitting on the seawall. His chocolate brown eyes watched the sunset blankly on the last day of summer vacation.
The boardwalk was almost completely empty, just like the beach. Only two people were left, one being a man who ran the ice cream stand and the other a little girl, around the boy's age, with dark auburn hair and emerald green eyes. She walked slowly towards the boy carrying two blue popsicles – one in each hand. She sat down next to the boy on the seawall once she was close enough and thrust one of the popsicles an inch away from his fact, startling him.
"Sea salt ice cream, just for you. Now cheer up!" She smiled at him cheerfully, a light giggle passing her lips.
He, on the other hand, continued to frown. "Thanks," He muttered quietly while taking the popsicle from her. He mindlessly took a bite of it while the girl beside him could only sigh, her smile dropping from her lips.
"Why are you so upset?" She asked sourly before placing the sea salt ice cream in her mouth and gazed, frustrated, towards the water.
There was a small silence between the two before the boy answered, "It's the end of summer vacation – duh!"
"That's all?" The auburn-haired girl beside him giggled. "Can't you act your age for once Hayner?"
He glared at her angrily out of the corner of his eye and growled, "You're one to talk."
She ignored him. "You know what everyone says?" She didn't give him enough time to answer, or guess for that matter, "The end of one journey is usually the start of a new one..." She paused, tapping her index finger against her chin with a thoughtful look in her eyes. She suddenly spoke-up a second later, as if she never stopped talking to begin with.
"And-" She exclaimed, excitedly, "-if not, we always have sea salt ice cream!"
He smirked at her, allowing himself to laugh for a split second. "Yeah, sea salt ice cream."
It had been several years from that day, but in Twilight Town the sunsets never really changed that much. Each summer vacation concluded with the same ending :Hayner being upset that it was over. Each year the same girl would buy him sea salt ice cream and tell him the very same thing.
This year, though, was different.
Hayner watched her sit at the edge of the clock tower, her feet dangling over the edge as she stared at the sunset with a straight face. Her emerald eyes were full of thought and, every few moments, she'd bit her lip at whatever passing thought ran through her mind. This wasn't like her, and he had a vague idea just why she was like this too.
He quietly left even though she probably hadn't even noticed him there in the first place and came back within a few minutes. In his hands, he now held two blue popsicles; none other than the famous sea salt ice cream. He approached her hesitantly but quickly shrugged off that hesitance when he came to stand beside her.
"Hey..." He tried to sound as cheerful as he could be. It wasn't helping that she wasn't paying any attention to him and the distend look remained in her eyes.
He sat down beside her, moving one of the popsicles up in front of her eyes, startling her as she literally jumped out of her thought. She took the ice cream from him, plastering a fake smile on her lips though her eyes held sincerity.
"Thanks," She said before looking back out at the sunset, the smile dropping from her face. He sighed, kicking his feet up in the air like it would do something and placing the freezing cold ice cream in his mouth without much thought.
He knew he'd have to say something to her, like she always did to him, but this time... This time it was different. They both felt that weird empty feeling in their hearts, though they didn't know what they had lost. She felt it the most too or that's what he thought anyway.
He took the Popsicle out of his mouth a second later, feeling goose bumps run across his arms and a shiver run down his spine at just how cold the ice cream was. He grimmest, glaring at the ice cream like the whole situation was its fault, before looking back towards the young woman beside him with worry hidden in his eyes.
"Olette..." He began, startling her again - her eyes quickly shooting to him. He saw her nod, encouraging him to go on. "... I know you've been really bothered by that... feeling-" He spat the word, "-but you, me and Pense are all going through this too. Don't think about it too hard."
"Yeah, but whenever I try not to think about just what it is I think about it even more," She replied softly, her eyes looking back towards the sunset as the sea salt ice cream in her hand melted, the light blue liquid dripping off the top and down to the entrance of the train station.
He slowly let his eyes fall to the ice cream in her hand, letting his eyes stay there for a while before a sudden spark appeared in them that quickly set them ablaze with excitement.
He smirked at her, his teeth tainted blue from the ice cream. "We'll find out whatever it is sooner or later - I don't want to spend the last day of summer vacation worrying about it."
She looked back at him, curious to why his tone took a sudden - more cheerful - change. "If not, then we don't have to worry about that till later. Until then, we'll always have sea salt ice cream!"
She let a smile pass her lips as all signs of worry or thought fully disappeared from her face as she punched his arm playfully. "Very funny, taking what I tell you nearly every year and using it on me!"
"So, it's true - isn't it?"
Her smile became widen and he knew she was back to being the normal Olette he knew, at least for now. "Yeah, I guess you're right..." She looked back towards her ice cream, watching it melt. She chuckled lightly, "Sea salt ice cream."
If you're confused, Olette was sad/felt something was missing because Roxas "left" and how odd they felt around Sora. She was thinking about all of that.
Hope you liked, and if you did like, please review. I just luv reviews and they make me feel all warm inside.
Expect more KH fanfictions from me soon!
Later . . . Water and Earth Alchemist