Sakura sat kneeling on a beach towel, a cool breeze ruffling her hair. She was reading; steadily flipping page after page, while the bright sun, unusually benevolent today, did not glare maliciously down upon her as it usually did. Instead it chose to shine smilingly down, the pale rays of light softly illuminating the white sand beach. It was a perfect day.
She sighed and crossed her legs. It may have been a perfect day, but it was still sunny, since it was still California in the summer, and Sakura couldn't handle sun. Well, it was more her skin that couldn't handle it. She herself didn't mind sun, although the pitter patter of rain on the roof and the languidness of rainy days appealed to her in a way that summer sun never could. It was just that her skin fried if she even dared to venture outside for a few seconds without sunscreen. It was for that reason that she was now sitting underneath a hefty yellow beach umbrella, swathed in layers of waterproof sunscreen while wearing a large broad sunhat. Her skin felt clammy, but it was for good reason. Although she did like pink, she did not especially care for the painful pink shade of sunburn, especially when it was featured on her skin.
It was beginning to be a bit too bright for reading, so Sakura yawned and put her book down, leaning back and uncrossing her legs. She shut her eyes for a second, breathing in the smell of salt and sea and sand, hearing the screech and call of gulls and the dim muttering of nearby people all sunbathing and swimming, and feeling the grainy sun-baked sand as she curled her toes in it, the wind blowing her hair across her face. Days like this had been hard to come by, so she decided to treasure it.
She sat back up and suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted an ice cream cart. It was a cute little cart, and a line was already forming so she stood up, brushed a few stray grains of sand off her dress and set off towards it. She strolled forwards, her flipflops softly smacking against the soles of her feet, and clutched a few bills in her hand so tightly that one would be surprised if they didn't emerge from her fingers majorly crumpled and with at least one tear. Sakura began to realize that this would be the likely course of events if she didn't loosen her grip on the money, so she told herself to calm down and tried to relax. The reason for her anxiety was that although she had studied English fervently and assiduously at school in Japan, she was still unsure of her speaking ability, and the past few days in America had proved that she was very liable to being misunderstood. She could only hope the vendor would understand her.
She joined the line and began to wait, idly tapping her foot. Soon enough, the people in front of her all got their ice cream and moved on, so she shuffled forward and ordered a strawberry cone. Luckily, the vendor managed to hear her right and handed her the correct flavour scoop of ice cream, which she then tentatively licked, savoring the icy sweetness. But when she turned to walk away, she was too absorbed in her ice cream to notice that the next person in line was standing directly in her path, and, as you can guess, a collision occurred.
The ice cream was first smushed into the girl's extremely freckled chest, before Sakura hurriedly moved back and dropped the cone, landing it scoop-first in the sand.
"I…"
Sakura whirled around back to the ice cream cart, hastily grabbed a few tissues and furiously began rubbing at the ice cream on the girl's clothes and chest.
"I am very sorry!"
Sakura continued to simultaneously clean and apologize until the girl, having said it was fine multiple times, finally removed her hands and stopped her.
"Really, it's okay!" she said, laughing good-naturedly as Sakura continued to apologize and bow repeatedly.
"I will buy one for you," she decided, and was about to turn back but was stopped by the girl grabbing her arm.
"It's okay! Really, it's me who should be apologizing and buying you another one." She moved in front of Sakura to the cart before she could protest and bought two ice creams, one strawberry to give to Sakura and the other chocolate, to eat herself. Sakura could do nothing but take it and thank her profusely, and apologize a few times more.
The girl seemed greatly amused by Sakura's extensive apologies, and Sakura in general, and invited her to sit beside her on the beach. Sakura replied that she'd think about it, and that if she did she'd have to move her stuff, to which the girl, whose name turned out to be Emily Jones, responded that since she wasn't carrying much she'd go sit next to her instead. And that is how Sakura ended up next to an extremely loud, outspoken girl who let her ice cream drip onto the beach towel and sat much too close for comfort and whose skin was so dotted with freckles that she looked like an over-sprinkled cake, except instead of sprinkles it was freckles; and instead of icing it was skin.
"Ice cream is good, but you know what would be even better?" Emily asked, licking her rapidly melting scoop and getting it all over the sides of her face. Sakura tried not to look disgusted.
"What?"
"Snow cones!" Emily exclaimed excitedly. "I've been having a real craving for them recently." She took another haphazard lick at her ice cream while Sakura rapidly flipped through her mental English dictionary to see if she knew the terms 'snow cone' and 'craving'. After a few seconds of searching, she concluded that she didn't.
"What is a snow cone?"
Emily immediately sat up, alarmed. "You don't know what a snow cone is?"
Sakura shook her head. "I do not."
"They're like those, ice cream things except they have paper cones and they're like colored ice bits, and they're really nice to eat when it's hot."
Sakura thought for a second, before her eyes suddenly lit up. "Ahh!" she exclaimed, thumping the side of her fist on her palm. "We have those! Okay, I know what those are."
Emily smiled and returned to the relaxed position she was in before, a pleased look on her face. "So, do you live around here?" she asked, cocking her head to the side.
Sakura shook her head, wondering why Emily was asking so many questions and being so nosy to a person she had just met. Perhaps it's an American thing, she thought. "Ah, but I am here to visit a family person, they live close here."
"Then how long are you staying here for?" Emily chomped into her ice cream cone, turning her head to look at Sakura as she waited for an answer.
"A few months," Sakura replied, and tried to subtly shuffle away from Emily, who now had ice cream in her dirty blonde hair and was taking up most of the space on the towel. But as soon as she had settled into a more comfortable position farther away, Emily shifted closer again, even closer than before. Sakura tried not to scream in frustration.
"Hey, you better finish your ice cream or it'll melt!" she declared, in reference to the still circular scoop of ice cream sitting atop Sakura's cone, while she was demolishing the last remnants of her own.
"It is fine, I-" But before Sakura could finish her sentence, Emily had reached over and grabbed her ice cream.
"Let me taste yours!"
Having said this, she proceeded to take a lick of the scoop, while Sakura was too stunned and horrified to react.
"Mm, chocolate is better," Emily decided, and handed it back to a speechless Sakura.
"I…" she trailed off, staring down at her now unappetizing scoop. "You may have it." She shuddered and held it out to Emily, looking away.
"Huh?" Emily tilted her head to the side, taken aback. "You don't want it? Wait…" Her face folded into a grin. "You're not saliva-conscious, are you?"
"I do not know what that means," Sakura replied curtly, frowning slightly.
"It's like uh, you don't like it when other people eat food that you've been eating. Like, sharing food and stuff."
"I see," she muttered. "Then yes, I am not so comfortable with that."
"Ah, okay then. Sorry about that!" she apologized, then burst into laughter. A very obnoxious-sounding laughter too, Sakura noted. She sighed and wished Emily would leave.
And so an afternoon passed, with Emily talking far too much and far too loudly, and with Sakura trying to drop hints, both verbal and physical, that she wanted Emily to leave, all of which flew straight over her head.
Eventually, Emily stood up, declared that she'd have to leave, unfortunately, and bid Sakura farewell, waving as she ran off. Sakura let out a deep breath.
Finally, she thought, picking her stuff up. What an annoying person. She tucked her book under her arm and began to set off for home, the sun just beginning to creep below the horizon.
I really hope I do not see them again.