That's What Friends Are For
I sat on the top of the bell tower in Twilight Town, eating sea salt ice cream. The sun was setting, setting a wash of yellow, orange, and red colors over the town. I scratched my bright red hair as I waited for Roxas and Xion to show up and join me and enjoy 'the icing on the cake', a tradition I had started. I turned around when I heard footsteps coming from the bell tower stairwell. A blond haired boy and a black haired girl wearing black cloaks like mine walked up to me, each one swinging their legs over the edge of the tower siding. I took a big bite out of my ice cream, and handed the two kids each an ice cream.
"Here, this is the last time you two kids can mooch off of me for ice cream though. Got it memorized?" I said teasingly. Roxas and Xion giggled at my joke, taking their ice creams. We all sat there, dangling our legs for a moment. Roxas took a huge bite out of his ice cream, and Xion sat there looking at the sunset, not noticing her ice cream dripping down onto her cloak.
"Uh, your ice cream's melting." I informed her. She looked over at me in a startled way, then closed her eyes and laughed as she took a bite out of her dripping popsicle. Roxas laughed too, and then looked up to me.
"So, what was your mission today?" Roxas asked me conversationally.
"Eh, just some basic Recon. Nothing interesting." I replied, shaking my head and smiling. I looked over at Roxas. "What did you do today?" I asked.
"Xion and I were on a mission together to find a runaway Heartless. He put up quite a fight!" Roxas exclaimed, starting to laugh. Xion nodded in agreement.
"That Heartless would have gotten away if I had not snuck around behind it! I saved the day, didn't I?" she said, teasing Roxas and poking him on the shoulder. Roxas looked at Xion, smiling and nodding. Xion, looking satisfied, took a huge bite out of her ice cream. That reminded me to look at my own ice cream. It was dripping when I checked it, and there was a small blue puddle on my lap. I looked up quickly, and noticed Roxas was ignoring his ice cream too. I poked his arm and pointed at his own blue puddle that was growing on his coat.
"Oh-whoops!" Roxas laughed, quickly brushing off his cloak.
We all sat there for a few moments, watching the sunset's colors become even more vivid. Roxas's face turned serious, and then he turned to face me.
"Uh, Axel? Can I ask you something?" he asked timidly, looking up at me. I shrugged.
"Sure! What's bugging you?" I replied.
"Well, I know that you've said that we're friends before, but I just wanted to know what friends do when their friends are in trouble, or are sad, or, well...you know what I mean?" Roxas said, getting flustered. I shrugged again and smiled.
"From what I've learned about friends-and observed about them, is that they support their friends that need help. That's what friends are for! I guess." I answered him casually. Roxas lightened up then, looking over at Xion to see if she had heard that.
"Hmm, 'that's what friends are for', huh? Well, I guess that means you and Xion can't bail out on me if I get in trouble for this blue stain on my coat!" Roxas exclaimed, laughing. I decided that would be a good time to show him and Xion my own ice cream stain. We would all have some explaining to do when we RTC'd.
Seeing that even I had gotten a stain on my coat sent both kids into gales of laughter. Personally, I didn't see what was so funny, but I laughed along with them.
Laughing with your friends, even when you don't understand why? I guess that's another thing that friends are for.
- Axel