18. Walks on the Beach
Alicia Blade
610 words
She'd been gone for a week and Mamoru was twitching with impatience for her return. Any minute he knew she'd come dancing into the arcade, smiling and bubbly and telling Mamoru all about her family's vacation to the beach.
Okay, fine, she would actually be telling Motoki all about her family's vacation to the beach, but that wasn't the important part.
"Usagi-chan, you're back!"
Mamoru jumped and spun around on the stool, a goofy grin on his face that he simply couldn't hide. And he was not to be disappointed as Usagi radiantly skipped straight to the counter and plopped herself down on the stool next to Mamoru, setting a basket onto the countertop and returning Motoki's greeting with "One chocolate milkshake, please! Motoki, I've missed your shakes so much!"
The arcade clerk chuckled and immediately set to work, leaving Mamoru to stare whimsically at the girl, his heart thudding. If it wasn't completely against every fiber of his mental being, he would have tackled her in a great big hug—he'd missed her so much!
But just as Usagi turned her attention to him, Mamoru painfully forced the smile down from his face, though he couldn't tame the rapid beating of his heart.
"Hi, Mamoru-baka!"
He bit his tongue and clutched a hand around his coffee mug. It was all he could do to keep from latching onto her shoulders and pleading with her never to leave him for so long again.
"Hey, Odango," he replied in a voice strained by attempts not to smile giddily. "How was the beach?"
"Oh, it was wonderful!" she said, beaming, and pushed the basked she'd brought in toward him. "I spent almost the whole time out on the sand, walking around and looking at the waves. I saw one sunrise and three sunsets and two seals and an otter and I think I saw a killer whale! And look at all these shells I brought back!"
Mamoru was grateful when she turned her sparkling blue eyes toward the basket so that his impossibly wide grin could break out again. His heart was expanding to the full width of his chest as she reached into the basket and began shifting through the treasures within. Finally, he forced himself to follow her gaze and found himself looking at quite the collection of beach souvenirs: seashells, sand dollars, and polished stones of all shapes and colors.
Curiously, he reached in and picked out a handful of little shells, clam and mussel and oysters and a bunch he couldn't name, then peered up at Usagi from the corner of his eye.
"Odango," he said, biting back a laugh, "all these shells are broken. You're supposed to keep the ones that are intact."
Rolling her eyes, Usagi snorted at the suggestion. "That's silly. The whole shells will always find someone to take them home. But the broken shells are the ones that really need someone to love and appreciate them." To prove her point, Usagi picked a particularly dark and bumpy and broken oyster shell off of Mamoru's palm and held it up with a loving look on her face. "See the inside, right here? It has a whole rainbow of colors, and I bet this one had a pearl in it once. It doesn't need to be perfect to be pretty. You see?"
"I see," Mamoru murmured, but he wasn't looking at the shell. Finally, his willpower broke down on him altogether and he practically jumped off the stool, wrapping the girl up in a huge, overpowering hug. After her squeal of stunned surprise, he pressed his cheek against her hair and whispered. "Welcome back, Odango."