"The 'seven wonders of Twilight Town' inspired my friends and I…" Hayner typed away on his laptop. He was seated in the "usual spot" in the back alleys of Twilight Town. He was on the green couch, his head pounding hard as he stared at his screen and began to type their paper. Only two days were left in summer vacation, so Hayner had to get going on the independent study assignment. He and his friends Olette, Pence, and Roxas had spent the entire day running around in circles to see if the "seven wonders of Twilight Town" were true or not. Some of the mysteries included stairs that counted differently up and down, a doppelganger showing up whenever you passed by a small water fountain, and a mystery train that had no conductor or passengers. All of them had turned out to be fake, so it was up to Hayner to fill three pages with their facts and discoveries.
Hayner sighed. Pence and Roxas had gone out to check out to see if the seventh wonder, a mysterious girl in the window of the abandoned mansion, was true or not. Since the other six were not true, Hayner and Olette had decided together that there was no point in checking it out with them. Even if the seventh had been true, that's only one out of six, and six beats one. Olette had gone off to go get some sea-salt ice cream for the four of them and wouldn't be back for another ten minutes. Since it was summer, the lines at the ice cream stand were packed all the way to the sandlot! Everyone wanted a taste of the salty, sweet goodness of sea-salt ice cream.
"We wanted to do something that would let us learn a little more about our beloved town. We've all been living here our entire lives (And we probably won't ever leave) and thought we could educate ourselves about the history. There have been rumors going around for ages about the mysterious 'seven wonders of Twilight Town', which, as the name suggests, are seven strange objects or locations within the town."
"What happened to 'the rumors were bogus; the end'?" a girl said from next to Hayner. He jumped and turned away from the screen to see Olette standing above him with a small cloth bag that most likely contained ice cream.
Hayner tried to play it off cool, though inside his heart was racing. "Don't sneak up on me like that. Anyways, you didn't really think I would put that in a paper, do you? We're gonna be sophomores, Olette! I've gotta make a good impression on the teachers!" he exclaimed, setting down the laptop next to him. He needed a break anyways.
Olette giggled. She set down the bag on the coffee table in front of the couch. "Jeez, Hayner, can't you take a joke once in a while?" she asked with a soft smile. Hayner frowned at her and turned back to his laptop. He lifted it and placed it gently on his lap and began to type away.
"The first 'wonder' was the spooky steps. We learned about this from our dear friends Seifer, Rai, Fuu, and Vivi. According to the rumor, the steps leading to Twilight Terrace from the station count differently up and down."
"Wow, Hayner, I didn't know you could actually write a decent paper," Olette noted. She sat down next to the teen and looked over at his laptop, her chin resting on his shoulder.
"Shut up," Hayner replied, shrugging, which caused her head to fall off his shoulder. Olette frowned but turned back to the computer as she watched Hayner's fingers dance across the keyboard as he slowly but surely wrote the essay.
"We descended and ascended the stairs approximately ten times for each person in our group. As hypothesized, the stairs counted twelve steps up and down. There was no difference. It turns out the the person who started the rumor, Rai, had just miscounted when he was going up and down."
Olette blinked. "And this is supposed to fill three pages? That's barely three sentences!" Olette said.
Hayner groaned and turned to her. "What, do you want to write this? Do you want to write this masterpiece? I will gladly hand over this laptop and let you compose this work of art."
Olette sighed. "I'd…rather not."
"Exactly."
"The next wonder is nicknamed "The Friend From Beyond the Wall". It is said that Grandstander balls are flown out of the wall on the far end of a bricked-off alleyway in Twilight Terrace. Roxas and Pence went off to check it out, but it turns out Roxas was just throwing them to scare Pence."
As Hayner began to type the next sentence explaining how Roxas ruined the entire expedition, Olette closed the laptop. Hayner cringed his eyebrows and turned to her. "What the heck was that for?"
Olette smiled softly. She leaned over and placed a small, chaste kiss on his cheek. "You're working too hard, Hayner. You're not letting anyone else work on the paper but you. You need a break." As Olette leaned down to the bag full of the slowly melting ice cream, Hayner reached his hand up to his cheek and touched it, blushing as red as a tomato. Maybe taking a break wouldn't be too bad of an idea.