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Kingdom Hearts: Summer of Shadows
All around her was a room, the walls a pure, blinding white except for papers with crayon drawings on them that were affixed to sections of the wall in what looked to be a completely random fashion. The room was sparsely furnished, a white bed against one wall and a white table with drawing materials in the center of the room. She walked towards the table and her gaze fell right on a closed sketch pad. She reached out with a delicate, pale hand and flipped it open. On the first page was a crayon drawing of three friends, two young men and a young woman, sitting on the edge of a cliff watching the stars; a shooting star crossing the page. She heard a young girl's voice in her head.
"Terra…Ventus…," said the voice, listing off what she recognized as names. The voice paused briefly before saying the last name. "…"
1st Day
"Aqua!"
Aqua woke up in bed, the covers flying off of her as she sat up suddenly. She looked around and saw her best friend, Terra staring down at her in surprise.
"What?" asked Aqua groggily. Terra was tall, very tall and had the muscles to go with it. The perks of being the star on the kendo team. He had short, spikey brown hair and intense blue eyes that always looked angry, except to people that knew the gentle heart that rested behind them. He had on an apron and she could smell a variety of breakfast smells wafting into her room. She didn't know when it had started that Terra did the cooking for everyone but he was definitely good at it.
"I woke you up an hour ago to ask if you wanted me to make you breakfast, don't you remember?" asked Terra, trying to look stern but Aqua could see that he was really just amused and teasing her, like usual. "You said yes and that you'd be up in a minute."
"Sorry," she replied sheepishly. Sleep was still clinging to her slightly, fogging her mind, but she figured some breakfast would help. Something was nagging at her though and she racked her mind to remember what it was. Then something clicked, she had gone to sleep in only her underwear. She picked up one of the many pillows that surrounded her, she liked to sleep in comfort after all, and threw it as hard as she could at Terra's head. "Get out while I change you pervert!"
"Sorry!" yelled Terra, fleeing the room from the rain of pillows. She heard laughter from outside the room before Terra closed the door behind him.
With a sigh Aqua threw off the last of the covers and jumped out of bed. She worked automatically, walking into the bathroom conjoined to her room and turning on the shower. She enjoyed the feel of the hot water on her skin and washed quickly, not wanting her breakfast to get cold. Turning off the water she dried off and hung the towel on the wall. She decided to dress pretty normally in a light blue t-shirt and blue jeans. Satisfied, and slightly more awake now, Aqua opened up her bedroom door.
In the living room Aqua saw Terra wrestling with their other housemate, Ventus. Terra had Ventus pinned to the ground but they both had large smiles on their faces. Ventus, Ven as they usually called him, had dirty blonde hair that stuck up all over the place, no matter what he tried to do with it. He'd been good friends with Terra and Aqua for a long time and when his guardian had needed to go out of country for an extended period of time, Ven had moved in with them so that he could finish high school. Terra and Aqua were attending college but were currently on summer vacation. This led to Aqua sleeping in late, much like today.
"What's the fight over today?" asked Aqua, smiling at her friends. The two boys looked up at her, Ven with a mischievous smile and Terra like he'd been caught misbehaving.
"Nothing," replied Terra.
"Over how he was sneaking a peek on you!" laughed Ven.
"I did not!" insisted Terra, tightening his hold on Ven. The boy just started to laugh even harder.
Aqua just gave a sigh. "I'll forgive you this time Terra, just make sure you knock next time, please?"
"I did knock!" replied Terra. "You never wake up when I do. Couldn't you just sleep with clothes or pajamas or something?"
"Told you he took a peek!" interrupted Ven.
"Aqua couldn't help but smile. "Fine," she said. "I'll try to wake up earlier next time. Now, have you two eaten yet?"
"Not yet," replied Ventus. "We were waiting for you."
"Thanks," said Aqua. "Want to get off the floor now?"
"Got it," said Terra, releasing Ventus. As soon as he did Ventus was up and on his feet, moving as quickly as usual. They all sat down and ate the food Terra had made. Aqua was always glad to eat his food, he was a good cook. When they were done, Aqua and Ven worked together to clean up the rather large mess Terra had made in the kitchen. When they were done, it was time to get down to business.
"So," said Terra, looking across the table at his friends. "There's only two weeks left for summer vacation."
"For you!" interrupted Ventus. "I've only got seven days left to enjoy!"
"Which is why it's even more important that we get this done today," said Terra. "We need to go to the mall and get you some new clothes for school, you're growing out of all your old clothes. Soon you'll look like a cartoon character if you continue to wear the same clothes!"
"But I like my clothes!" protested Ven.
"Then we'll just try to get something similar," comforted Aqua. "And you don't know, maybe you'll find something cool at the mall and want to wear that!"
"Fine…," said Ven.
The three friends walked to the train station, hardly anyone drove a car in Twilight Town due to the great transportation system, and took a train into the downtown area. The mall was a huge building that was almost like a town encased in glass. There was definitely enough people inside already to make up a whole town. After passing several stores that they suggested shopping at to Ven, and being told he didn't feel like it, they finally arrived at the same clothing store that Ven did all of his shopping at. Aqua and Terra would point out clothes that they thought would look good on Ven, loading his arms up with a large stack of clothes to try on.
While Terra led Ven to the changing rooms to try to clothes on, Aqua went and browsed the accessories the store had in stock. Browsing down the aisle she saw pendants of many varieties including crowns, hearts, Mickey Mouse heads and a large variety of nonsense shapes that still managed to look rather cool. She didn't find anything that excited her walking down the aisle so she started to walk back up towards where Terra and Ven were. Something caught her attention from the corner of her eye and she turned to look. In between the heart pendants and the crown pendants she saw three brightly colored five pointed stars, one orange, one green and the last blue. She studied them, fascinated by the simple designs that were none the less eye catching. She didn't remember seeing them on her way down, which seemed weird with how much they stood out. Either way she picked up all three and walked back to her friends.
Terra and Ventus were done trying on clothes, a now much smaller pile of clothes in their hands. Together they went to the check-out counter, Terra buying the clothes for Ven. Ven's guardian sent quite a bit of munny every month for Ven's living expenses, but Terra and Aqua would have taken him in even without the compensation. As the clothes were being packed into a bag Aqua bought the three star pendants with her own munny, drawing a questioning look from her two friends.
"What're those?" asked Terra.
"Pendants I found while browsing!" said Aqua, holding them out to show her friends. "I found three; each in a different color and thought we could each keep one, as a sign of our connections to each other."
"These are so cool!" said Ven, grabbing the green one up and staring at it as if he'd never seen anything quite like it before.
Terra was slightly more muted in his response but he took the orange one, also staring at it as if fixated. He looked up after a moment and smiled at Aqua. "These are perfect."
The three friends held the pendants out next to each other, forming a type of triangle. They exchanged bright smiles and Aqua could feel in her heart that the three would be connected for the rest of their lives, no matter what happened.