An Unexpected Meeting

Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts

He's standing at the edge of one world and looking out into another. Before him, the salty seawater tumbles over itself and slaps against the shore, then washes up a little more. But as the border of the wave nears his feet, it stops suddenly and retreats, as though just realizing his hulking form for the first time and afraid of it. He watches this cycle repeat itself until he thinks the memory of it will be forever imprinted behind his eyes. Then, when he can't stand watching the monotonous waters' desperate attempts at reaching for something new any longer, he turns away and begins kicking a seashell through the sand as he walks. Might as well; he won't be expected to return home for another hour.

Hands in the pockets of his coat, blonde head turned down, one step after another, he walks, though he is only half focused on the shell. The rest of his attention is on Axel…Saïx…Xion.

Xion…

He kicks too hard and sends the shell tumbling out of his reach. With a sigh, he follows after it, but this time he just picks it up and places it in his pocket. A small keepsake, he thinks hazily, from a small world. Finally, he looks up again, only to find something unexpected: A girl sits on the edge of a wooden dock mere feet in front of him.

He freezes, struggling to recall Vexen's instructions on stealth. The girl hasn't seen him yet, so maybe he can sneak away undetected, or if he's quick, he can open a Corri—

Too late. Her head turns and they lock eyes. He curses his stupidity, still trying to put together a plan of escape while observing the civilian.

She's obviously a native, if her suntanned skin and summer attire are any indication, but she's just a kid—probably younger than he is. For a brief moment, she looks surprised, but that quickly gives way to annoyance. He's not sure what reaction he expected from her, but it definitely wasn't that.

"You're not Tidus," she huffs, turning away again.

Caught off guard, and not knowing what else to do, he responds. "Um…no, I'm not."

"Well, you're supposed to be. I've been waiting here for twenty minutes." She crosses her arms and sticks her lower lip out in a childish pout.

He's at a complete loss for words now, but, having abandoned any notion of being able to leave quietly, he just stands there, uncomfortably shifting from foot to foot to fill the seconds. The girl, however, is apparently not so affected by the silence, as she soon glances at him once again and asks, "Aren't you going to tell me who you are?"

"Am I supposed to?" In the Organization, introductions are more or less ceremonies, and are never done by the person in question, except in their Superior's case. He can't really say he's ever given the concept much thought, but he just figured things worked pretty much the same everywhere.

"Unless you want me to call you 'that boy who doesn't know how to dress for warm weather,' then yes." Dropping the irritated expression in favor of a curious one, she rotates her whole body to face him, eyes flicking up and down to examine him. "Seriously, how can you stand wearing that big coat? It's got to be, like, a thousand degrees in it!"

Taken aback, he, too, looks down at his dark apparel. The coat is a symbol of membership in the Organization, and, as such, he's never been anywhere without it. Shrugging, he replies, "I'm used to it."

Her nose wrinkles in dislike before returning to normal. "Well, my name's Selphie. Selphie Tilmitt." Now that he's actually paying attention to the person he's begun talking to, he takes a second to absorb her appearance. Her hair, which is about the color of the bark on the surrounding palm trees, would probably be shoulder-length, except that it drastically curls at the edges, and her eyes are the color of the leaves. She wears a yellow denim dress and a blue beaded bracelet around her tiny wrist. Her sandals are sitting beside her while she swings the tips of her toes through the water below.

"…Roxas," he concedes after a long pause.

An energetic smile breaks out on the girl—Selphie's—face. "Now we're getting somewhere!" she exclaims in her cheery, albeit shrill, voice. "So, since I know everyone on the islands, and you're obviously not from around here, Roxas"—she makes a point of drawing out his name, as if bragging about a prize she's won—"why don't you tell me a little more about yourself?" He's honestly a little stunned that she noticed that so quickly. Maybe she isn't such a simple-minded child, after all.

All at once, Roxas feels his defenses return, and he reflexively tenses. "I'm really not supposed to talk to strangers," he mutters, looking away. He doesn't want to go home yet, but he has orders to follow.

Selphie lets out a dramatic groan and rolls her huge eyes. "Puh-lease. Do I look strange to you?"

Roxas just blinks. "Well…your hair looks pretty strange."

This offends Selphie more than he thought it would. She makes a sound like she's shocked by his candor, then shakes her head. "Fine. If that's the way you're gonna be, you can just leave." With that, she returns to proper pouting position.

Something inside Roxas droops, just a little. "Oh…okay." He turns around to begin walking back to where he first entered the world, but is halted by a shout.

"Wait!"

Confused and a tad frustrated, he stops once again to face the speaker. "But you just told me to go," he reasons.

"I wasn't being serious. Don't you know the difference between when a girl means what she says and when she doesn't?" She asks this as though the answer should be obvious, which only adds to his confusion. He doesn't understand why she would say something she doesn't mean, or why this would be an exclusively female trait. Of the two girls he's known, Larxene was always straightforward about how she felt, and Xion, though quiet, doesn't waste her words, either.

At the thought of his raven-haired friend, his chest inexplicably tightens, making it difficult to breathe, and his fists clench as he attempts to divert his attention elsewhere. "No," he eventually answers, though Selphie seem to have already noticed his bizarre behavior.

"Hey, what's wrong?" she questions, and, though her tone might indicate otherwise, she appears to be genuinely concerned.

Roxas' first instinct is to push the matter aside. "It's nothing," he says, averting his gaze to the trees, to the sky, to that dull, lonely ocean that still seems to be trying too hard.

"Oh, come on," she pleads, "you can tell me. We are friends now, aren't we?"

This instantly pulls him out of his troubled thoughts, his eyes going wide in complete incomprehension. "Friends? But…we haven't even had ice cream!" How could anyone be friends without it?

But this fact doesn't seem to bother Selphie like he thinks it should. In fact, she appears more perplexed by his outburst than anything. Red-faced, he opens his mouth to retract his statement, fearing he's said something dumb, when, to his surprise, the girl begins laughing, a high-pitched ringing sound that slices the air between them in two.

"The look on your face is priceless," she says through bouts of giggles, which only serves to deepen his blush.

"It's not funny," he complains. The act of eating ice cream together is sacred, reserved for people who care about each other, and should be treated with respect.

After a few more seconds of teasing laughter, Selphie finally quiets down. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry." Oddly enough, he doesn't believe her. "But you can still tell me what's on your mind. I'm a good listener." She smiles again, and although it goes against everything he's been taught, he finds that he wants to confide in this complete stranger. He can't explain why; maybe he's just desperate for someone to hear him out, especially since he doesn't know how to talk to Axel anymore, or maybe, maybe…

Defying the orders of the voice in his head, which sounds unsurprisingly like Saïx, he crosses the distance to Selphie and sits down beside her. She stares at him intently, waiting for him to speak.

"It's…a friend of mine," he starts. "She's…sick, and I want to help her, but I don't know how. No matter how hard I think about it, I just feel so useless." He sighs and gazes at his new acquaintance, anticipating her response.

After a while, she says, "Why don't you try thinking with your heart?" spreading her arms apart to emphasize the simplicity of her obvious solution. She seems to be pleased with her answer, too, but Roxas frowns.

"Because I don't have one," he explains.

This remark looks to amuse her, though she manages to withhold her laughter this time. "Everyone has a heart, silly."

"That's not what I was told."

"Hm…" The brunette pauses to think about her response. "The way I see it, if you didn't have a heart, you would be really mean, but you're not, so you must!" she proclaims, proud of her brilliant deduction. The corners of his lips creep upwards ever so slightly, even if she is wrong, but Selphie continues before he can speak. "When a gentleman wants to apologize to a lady, he should do so with sincerity, and buy an expensive gift for good measure," she says in a calm, practiced voice, like she's reciting something. Leaning a little closer to him, she adds, "I read that in a magazine once."

His eyebrows scrunch together to express the confusion that doubles every minute he spends with this girl. "What kind of gift?" He doesn't really get how that would help, but figures asking her that would be a futile endeavor.

"That's easy! Girls like all kinds of things: Flowers, jewelry, clothes, shoes…" She excitedly lists several more items, each one more extravagant than the last, but none of them sound like anything Xion would want. "Then what does she like?" Selphie finally demands in exasperation.

At first, he can think of only one thing, and, sadly, he already knows what Selphie will say about it. "She likes…ice cream." Then, with a start, he remembers something else, and reaches inside his pocket. "And seashells. She likes seashells," he declares, his smile slowly becoming more prominent.

The young girl's expression contorts into one of unabashed distaste for what she'd just heard. "Ice cream and seashells? She sounds just as weird as Kairi." But the look disappears just as quickly as it came, as it usually does.

Roxas does not hear this last not-so-subtle affront, as he is too preoccupied with thoughts of his new plan. Instead, he stands back up, newfound determination glittering in his azure eyes. Selphie follows in the same way shortly after, wearing a happier face that is much more characteristic of her. When she moves, her hair bounces in a way that he finds funny. Tilting her head and lacing her fingers together behind her back, she beams at him, then faces forward to stare at some unknown object in the distance. His eyes remain on her. "Thank you…Selphie," he whispers. She doesn't look back at him, but he thinks he sees her smile widen. "I'm glad I met you."

This gets a reaction out of her, but, yet again, it's not the one he expects. "So am I. When I tell Tidus I met a boy, he'll totally be completely jealous, then he'll forget all about his stupid ballgame!" she chirps in a sing-song manner. He laughs, even though he's not sure what 'jealous' is. Oh well. He can ask Axel about it later—which he resolves will happen, after he sees Xion.

It's time to head back, he realizes. But before he leaves, he has one more question.

"Is it okay if I come back tomorrow, same time, same place?" It's not worth mentioning to her that he'll need another shell.

"Are diamonds a girl's best friend?" Selphie counters, winking.

With a grin, Roxas nods, then runs off, opening a Corridor as he does. Before stepping through the portal, he casts one last glance over his shoulder at the sea. Suddenly, it doesn't seem so lonely anymore.