Comfort Food
It occurs to Sora out of the blue that his ice cream isn't salty enough and automatically he's distracted by what a cool metaphor that is. Out of the blue. It's fitting to someone like himself, constantly surrounded by its various incarnations. It's like the idea came to him from out of the sky, floating down from its wide expanse. Or it rode the ocean waves, cresting and breaking across the sand to wash across his sea-drenched feet. He revels in his Poetic Thoughts until he remembers exactly what it is that came out of the blue, which is the realization that his ice cream is just way too sweet. He resists the urge to dunk it in the sand and lick the grains off.
Riku doesn't seem surprised when Sora tells him about his weird craving, aside from raising an eyebrow. "Maybe you're pregnant," he deadpans, casting an appraising glance at Sora's stomach. The comment results in Sora jumping up and tackling the other about the midsection, which results in Riku trapping Sora in a headlock, which results in Sora shouting "This isn't how you should treat pregnant people!"
In the ensuing scuffle, the ice cream is knocked to the ground. Riku refuses to let Sora pick it back up.
-xXx-
Sora goes to the local ice cream shop the following day and asks if they carry sea-salt ice cream. The older man behind the counter shakes his head, but says that if brought a recipe, he can make a batch. Undeterred, Sora buys a vanilla popsicle and makes a detour home to grab a salt shaker. The salt only melts the ice cream faster, making it run in gooey rivers down his fingers. And it tastes gross, nowhere near achieving that delicate balance of sweet and salty that Uncle Scrooge managed to perfect. It's like eating vanilla soup out of a kid's grubby hand.
Well, how hard could finding a recipe be?
-xXx-
Very hard, actually. Kairi accompanies him to the library to root through cookbooks, but a couple hours worth of searching produces nothing. They buy consolatory bottles of soda and retreat to the island to consider their options.
Sora wishes he could still hop on the Gummi Ship and travel to Twilight Town. But he"s certain that, like before, the pathways between worlds have been closed off and that it would be an abuse of power to unlock those routes again. It wasn't difficult to imagine the feet-stomping tantrum Donald would have if Sora went traipsing from world to world, just for some ice cream.
Sora plunks down on the sand next to Kairi, who has taken a sheet of paper from her notebook and made a four-sided fortune teller, one of those silly little things that you work with your index finger and thumb.
"Pick a color," she orders, holding it out to him.
Sora reviews his choices written on the sides. "Blue."
"B-L-U-E," Kairi intones, opening the paper vertically, then horizontally as she calls out each letter. Sora chugs down the rest of his soda and nearly burns his throat with the fizz. "Now pick a number."
"Three."
She opens the numbered flap and reads his fortune aloud. "Expect good news from a dear friend soon."
"Hey, that's a good one!" Sora appeases. Kairi smiles, pleased at her own cleverness. All her friends write dumb fortunes like "I like you" and "You're cute" and she got sick of the inanity.
"Do you want to make one?" she asks, offering up her notebook.
"Ah, no, that's okay--" But she's given him an idea. "Actually, yeah can I see your pen?"
Kairi passes both items over to him and Sora turns to a fresh sheet of paper and begins to write.
Does anybody know a recipe for sea-salt ice cream? Please reply. -Sora
He considers for a moment and then doodles a little key after his name, just in case everyone has forgotten him again. He tears the note out, rolls it up, and crams it into his empty soda bottle. Kairi agrees to take apart one of her handmade charms, a doll made of thlassa shells with a cork for a head, so Sora can use the cork as a stopper.
Without even kicking off his shoes, Sora takes the bottle and rushes into the tide. With a mighty heave, he pitches it as far as he can into the sea. The bottle plops beneath the surface momentarily before bobbing back up, the note safe and airtight inside. Sora swims out after it and, cupping his hands, creates little waves to push it onward. The sun gleams orange and low on the horizon before Sora finally loses sight of the bottle. He contents himself by licking the saltwater from his lips until Kairi calls him back to the shore.
-xXx-
Roxas is secretly pleased that Sora is intent on getting his favorite ice cream for him. But being a part of Sora, his appreciation is none too secret, which only fuels Sora's determination and drives him out to the beach everyday, scanning the waves for any sign of a reply. It's the thought that counts, Roxas supposes, though he knows that Sora is pretty oblivious of him most of the time.
It's silly, this craving Roxas has for sea-salt ice cream, but he needs it, needs it to remember a time and place that is exclusively his. Sora may be familiar with Twilight Town and its inhabitants, but certain memories are for Roxas alone. Sora has no idea that Hayner has a scar on his forehead, obtained when he swiped Roxas' skateboard out from under his feet only to ride it laughing straight into the tram. Only Roxas knows that Olette has a bit of a crush on Pence (and he knows he's the only one because Olette made him swear to keep it a secret). And Roxas would like to see Sora figure out the secret route to get on top of the central station building. Even Seifer couldn't figure it out, and he searched relentlessly for two weeks after Hayner "accidentally" dropped ice cream on his head.
A part of Roxas worries that none of that may be real at all. How much of it was constructed just to keep him blissfully occupied while Sora slept? The scar, the crush, the secret route, do they all still exist without him?
If nothing else, Roxas knows the ice-cream does.
-xXx-
Sora and Riku are sparring when Kairi makes the discovery on the beach. She knows what it is at once, recognizes the smiling face on the cork stopper that once used to be a doll head. It takes some time to break up the boys, but fistfuls of seaweed lobbed at their heads finally does the trick.
"I have something for you!" she chirps merrily at their dour, soaking expressions, waving the bottle in her hand.
She lets Sora do the honors, and they crowd around him as he twists the cork out with a pop and dumps the rolled up paper out into his hand. His original note is paper clipped to a piece of stiff parchment. The handwriting is big and slanted and written in gold ink.
Aye, lad, I know the recipe for sea-salt ice cream. I trust this is for you and your friends alone. You wouldn't want to run me out of business now, would ye?
-$
Sea-salt Ice Cream
2 eggs
2 cups milk
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup. heavy whipping cream
Sea salt to taste
1. Separate the eggs into two good sized bowls.
2. Beat the egg whites until stiff.
3. Mix the egg yolks and sugar until thick.
4. Slowly bring milk to boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally.
5. Pour hot milk into yolk/sugar mixture and mix well.
6. Pour milk/yolk/sugar mixture back into pot and heat on medium until thicker to make a custard (DO NOT BOIL)
7. Pour custard in with beaten egg whites and mix well.
8. Add sea salt (keep adding salt until it tastes salty sweet)
9. Allow mixture to cool.
10. Once cool, add cream and vanilla to mixture.
11. Freeze
-xXx-
Sora nearly skips to the ice cream parlor. Nearly. Riku's walking beside him and his presence tempers any frivolous gaiety. But Sora does hum under his breath. Lightly though.
His spirits sink altogether, however, when they enter the shop and find the place completely swamped with people. The man behind the counter is harried, but apologetic. Business is booming thanks to the summer festival, but that means he won't have the time to make a batch of their ice cream. He looks the recipe over though and says that they should be able to make it themselves, just follow the instructions.
"Summer festival?!" Sora cries once they're back outside and free from the throng. "Why didn't I know of this?"
"UM," Riku intones significantly and points down the hill where the twinkle of lights and a Ferris wheel can be seen on the other side of town.
"Neat! I'll race ya!" Sora crows and takes off running.
Riku sighs. When he considers the adventure they've both been through, he's impressed by how Sora managed to triumph over evil and save the world. But sometimes he's impressed that Sora managed to make it through alive at all.
-xXx-
Sora overdoes it with the cotton candy at the festival and his stomach protests at the thought of ice cream for a few days. Finally though, he gathers the ingredients together and makes it all the way through instructions #1-5 with no problems. He even indulges in some "I can't believe it's this easy!" gloating. Then he makes it to instruction #6 and nearly sets the kitchen on fire.
He swears he had his back turned for only an instant, the mixture simmering away without a bubble in sight. Yet, when he turned back, the mixture was scorched black against the sides of the pot and smoke was filling the air.
You wouldn't think you could almost burn down a building by making ice cream. Kairi will just laugh at him, so he packs up everything and heads over to Riku's place instead.
-xXx-
With Riku's aid, they make it all the way to instruction #8.
"Needs more salt."
"Are you sure? We don't want to put too much in."
Riku eats another spoonful and smacks his lips thoughtfully. "No, it's still pretty sweet. I can hardly taste the salt."
"Okaaaaay."
-xXx-
Sora had innocently asked Roxas once, "What do Nobodies eat?" The next thing Sora knew, he was down on his knees clutching his heart as it seized up.
"Yum," Roxas said, voice barely a recognized thought in the back of Sora's head.
"Ah, I get the point!" Sora panted, picking himself up as the pressure on his heart decreased. A couple of minutes passed as he caught his breath, and then "...really?"
"No!"
"Then what?"
"...we ate a lot of takeout."
Well, technically the rest of Organization XIII ate a lot of takeout; Roxas usually came in too late and was left to scrounge through the pillaged remains. He couldn't recall how many times he'd had the cheese scraped off an empty pizza box for dinner. Xigbar would laugh at him, brandishing his plate topped with three slices, and Larxene, mouth full, would glower at him as if to say, "I DARE you to call me a pig."
Axel usually jumped in at this point and set everyone else's food on
fire. Just to heat things up, he would say, and everyone would pause in
stomping out their flaming pizza to groan at the pun. Roxas appreciated
the gesture, if only because it allowed him to swipe Axel's food while
he was busy standing up for him.
It was quite an adjustment when Roxas actually had friends that shared with him. Not that he remembered the change, of course. In his mind, he had lived an entire lifetime in Twilight Town. But Roxas remembered one particular occasion when Hayner had surprised them by spending the last of his allowance on sea-salt ice cream for all of them. He had taken the treat with a stunned, undeserving look, almost as though he had been given a bar of gold.
"You're letting it melt!" Hayner had chastised when he sat there motionless for too long. "I didn't spend my money so you could let my gift go to waste."
Roxas immediately popped the ice cream into his mouth. He couldn't remember a time before or after that when it had tasted so good.
It was difficult to reconcile the memories of his time spent in the Organization with those created by DiZ. But he recognized that time with the ice cream to be when he first entered the simulation.
He knows it's strange, this longing for a time and a place that he was forced into. But compared with where he was coming from, he can't say it was all that bad.
So sue him, the ice cream was comfort food.
-xXx-
Their first batch of ice cream is far from perfect. And they didn't even freeze it yet.
"I told you we were putting too much salt in!"
Riku can't reply as he's too busy gagging.
-xXx-
Kairi does laugh when Sora and Riku show up on her doorstep, ingredients and recipe in hand, but she stands aside and allows them to take over her kitchen. In the end, Kairi ends up making the ice-cream since she actually uses precise measurements, follows the directions carefully, and can taste when there's enough salt in the mixture.
"All that's left is to freeze it," Kairi announces once she's all finished.
"That's easy!" Sora leaps up and holds his arm out. He almost doesn't have to concentrate, as with a bright glow and a metallic snap, the Keyblade materializes in his hand instantaneously. "Stand back," he cautions.
Kairi sets the bowl on the counter and hurries out of the way. Sora twirls the Keyblade unnecessarily (but it looks cool), crouches into position, and takes aim.
"Blizzard!"
Nothing happens. Kairi and Riku give each other sidelong glances.
"Huh," Sora rubs his head, confused. He tries the spell again, eyes narrowed in intense focus.
"Blizzard!"
Still nothing. And still nothing the six tries after that.
-xXx-
Donald, Merlin, somebody? How do I cast Blizzard again? -S
Kairi suggests that they just freeze it the hard way, which is just as well since when they receive Donald's reply a few weeks later, the note is all but illegible in its fury. Sora takes it to mean $#&!!! and leaves it at that.
-xXx-
STICKS!
The thought reverberates through Sora's head and he has no doubt that it's Roxas. "Wait!" Sora cries, interrupting Kairi as she's about to pour the ice cream mixture into shallow pans. "We need sticks."
"It'll be easier to just eat it with spoons," Riku says.
"No!" Sora insists, echoing Roxas' sentiments. "It won't be the same."
The most obvious place to find sticks is on a tree, so Sora heads outside and high jumps into the nearest one. He snaps the smallish twigs off the bigger branches and strips them of their leaves. He considers stripping them of their bark too, but eh.
Back inside, Kairi has an ice cube tray, a box of toothpicks, and a sardonic look on her face.
"Oh," grins Sora. "That'll work too."
-xXx-
"How much longer?"
"Much longer if you keep opening that door."
As a result, the ice cream isn't frozen by the time evening falls. They each keep an ice cube tray, and Kairi sees the boys off as they rush home to put their ice cream in the freezer.
-xXx-
Sora wakes up in the middle of the night and heads into the kitchen for a glass of water. He roots through the freezer for ice cubes and an excuse to check on the ice cream. It's finally frozen; he prods one of the toothpicks sticking out of the tray and is pleased when it doesn't budge even the slightest. He takes the tray out and slowly bends it backwards, feeling more than hearing when one of the cubes pop out of place.
He takes a lick of the tiny ice cream square on a stick. It's not soft like it should be, but the taste is dead on, an appealing contrast of sweet and salty.
Perfect, Sora thinks. Mm, Roxas concurs.
Dawn finds them lying on the beach. Sora sucks on the ice cream, toothpick wiggling between his lips, and plays connect-the-dots with the stars.
"See that big one? The one that doesn't twinkle? I bet that's Atlantica."
You can't possibly know that.
"Sure! See, if that's Atlantica, then that star over there has to be Halloween Town." Sora makes a grand sweeping gesture with his arm as he points out the worlds. "So then that one there has to be...?"
...the Pridelands?
"...oh. I was going to say Port Royal. But you might be right!"
What about that one then?
Sora examines the star with as much concentration as an atom inspecting the universe can. "Twilight Town. Don't you think?"
A pause. Then: Yes. Definitely.
They lay there watching that particular star until the darkness fades away and it's obscured by a crystal blue sky.