Chelsea bit the bottom of her lip as she spread her arms out and tried to concentrate on the lake in front of her. Today was the twenty fourth of Winter – best known as the Starry Night Festival to the residents of Sunny Island. The people would ask or be asked to take another out to view the stars, enjoy dinner together, or go on a date. Probably another reason why Chelsea referred to this day as Single Awareness Day instead of its real name – on every other day. This year was different; someone had actually asked her to go ice-skating with him.
Chelsea found this particular date to be rather important and decided to dress accordingly for it, so as to not lower her companion's opinion of her; she was wearing a plaid jacket, the edges lined with faux fur, and a simple pair of jeans, tucked into a pair of snow white ice-skates. Her date's outfit wasn't much different; he was wearing a dark green burberry coat over his usual blue shirt and a black pair of jeans, a blue and white checkered Nordic hat balanced on his head.
Warmth enveloped Chelsea's gloved hand as her date slid up next to her on the frozen lake and smiled warmly at her.
"Are... are you having fun?" the magenta-haired boy asked the strawberry blonde girl. Chelsea nodded in agreement.
"Yeah... but I still don't think I've got the hang of this," she stated, looking down at the ground at her skates. This was the first time she had been ice-skating, and she had no idea how to do it. When she asked her best friend, Natalie – who, ironically, was Elliot's sister – about it, the tomboy had shrugged and said that ice-skating was a lot like roller-skating. Alas, Chelsea didn't get the opportunity to do that very much during her lifespan, and she had forgotten how, so now, she was holding Elliot's hand in a death grip.
"Relax," Elliot reassured her, lifting up Chelsea's face with his finger so that she was looking at the forest ahead instead of the ice. "And don't look at the ground."
Chelsea blushed slightly and looked ahead. She began to swing her legs back and forth, back and forth... only to fall. Quickly, she wrenched her hand out of Elliot's and placed her hands out in front of her, wincing slightly when they made contact with the cold ice.
"Whoa! That was quite a fall, are you okay?" Elliot asked, crouching down to help Chelsea up. Some shards of ice had stuck to Chelsea's gloves, and she brushed them together to get them off.
"Yes, I'm alright," the young farmer said, turning a little pink at falling down, and in front of her date, nonetheless. Elliot looked at her face and noticed the color, holding her hand so that neither of them would fall – it was quite hard to stand still on ice-skates, after all.
"Why's your face pink?" he asked. Chelsea blushed harder and looked away, sapphire blue eyes refusing to meet golden brown eyes.
"Erm... it's just the temperature out here. Don't ask me why the Harvest Goddess chose to make it this cold out here!" the blonde snapped, making a mental note to herself to apologize to the Harvest Goddess about that little gripe later.
"Alright, whatever you say..." Elliot sighed, skating ahead and holding Chelsea's hand tightly so that she wouldn't fall again. The girl pursed her lips and looked away, unconsciously tightening her grasp around the fuzzy blue glove the warm hand was encased in.
Why can't I just tell her how I feel? Elliot thought to himself, mentally hitting himself. It's just like how Natalie predicted. I'm just too chicken to do it.
"Elliot? Eeellioooot?" A voice snapped him out of his thoughts, and he blinked.
"Huh?" he asked dumbly, earning a roll of the eyes from the girl sliding next to him.
"And he's back from the dead," Chelsea remarked. "You went out there for a second and almost crashed into that fence." The blonde emphasized this fact by pointing at a nearby fence, a few ice-skate marks in the snow piled up against it. "What happened?"
"Oh, sorry... I was just thinking..." The glasses-wearing boy averted his eyes, not letting go of Chelsea's hand. He was wishing that Chelsea wouldn't ask him any further questions about it, and it looked like the Harvest Goddess had decided to look warmly upon him today – luck-wise, of course, not weather-wise, otherwise he wouldn't have asked Chelsea to do this in the first place. Chelsea nodded, seemingly happy with what she got, and went back to focusing on not falling like she had previously. Not surprisingly, she slipped and grabbed Elliot's arm, pulling him down with her.
"Damn! I wish ice wasn't so slippery!" Chelsea cursed as she released Elliot's hand. Luckily, the both of them had landed on their backsides, so not much damage was done. The couple realized their current situation – leaning against each other for support so that they wouldn't go slipping over the ice – and began to blush, before Chelsea interrupted the silence with a giggle, Elliot joining in a little bit later.
"Goddess, I'm so glad no-one saw that!" Elliot stated, using his arms to support his body as he pulled himself up from the ground, holding his hand out for Chelsea as soon as he managed to stand straight.
"Yeah, I don't think we would live it down!" Chelsea agreed. The two continued skating, holding hands and keeping each other standing up. Elliot looked up at the stars twinkling brightly in the sky, and secretly, he wished that the night would never end.
Little did he know that Chelsea was for wishing the exact same thing.