6.

"Remind me again why you dragged me here?" Roxas pointedly asked his brother while being pulled by the arm, out of the grassy areas and into sand.

"Becaaause… you've been in the house all bloody week and you desperately need some fresh O and vitamin D!" Sora readjusted his bag carrying towels and change of clothes as he and Roxas edged closer to the licking waves of the water. Roxas rolled his eyes at his brother's lame science jargon.

Gulls were gliding overhead and trying to nail some leftovers at the garbage cans nearby. It was about 2:30 in the afternoon, so all harmful sun rays had left their sentry towers. Sora lay some down towels for them to sit on, while Roxas quickly scoped the area.

"Hey, brother. Don't those people go to our school?" Sora looked up to see where Roxas was motioning to. A group of upperclassmen were several feet away from the twins. Five guys and a girl were playing volleyball. Not far from them, two other were talking amongst themselves; two rather large men were laying on the sand, tanning; one seemed to have brought along all his homework to do; one seemingly playing solitaire; and one sitting comfortably on a beach chair with an affixed umbrella, reading.

"Yeah, I've seen them around." Sora boldly stripped off his shorts to reveal his swimming trunks underneath, then crossed his arms at the hem of his shirt and pulled it straight off.

"Woah, can you not do that when I'm looking right at you?" Roxas furrowed his brow.

Sora chuckled. "Why? Am I getting you hot?" The blond scoffed, blue eyes darting anywhere else. "Besides, it's exactly what you see in the mirror anyways."

Roxas tipped his head to the side with a look that said 'yeah right.' "Please! I have way more muscle than you, twiglet. I am the younger one!" He crossed his arms and smirked with triumph, for Sora knew that it was scientific fact that the second twin is always 'bigger'.

"Sure," Sora replied, sarcastically. "That stuff underneath your arms isn't muscle, fat boy! It's all that junk you eat." He prodded his brother's bicep; relegation dripping from his eyes.

Roxas swiftly threw off his black wife beater. He pointed to Sora's nose making the brunet cross his eyes. "Maybe you have more arms, but I have more abs!" He proudly put his hand on his hip and pointed towards his flexing stomach. Despite how scrawny he looked, upon closer inspection you'd see lines of a slowly forming six-pack.

It was Sora's turn to boast. "Oh please! That is nothing compared to this!"

The twins argued over their physique for a good ten minutes until a light feminine voice giggled behind Roxas saying, "You're both flat like a Ken doll!" Roxas whipped his head around while his brother looked over his shoulder. "Hey guys." Xion smiled sweetly, the tip of a blue popsicle between her pink lips.

"Hey Xion." Sora said politely. They were in the same math class and had lockers relatively close by each other ('Strife' and 'Stone'), but he had never seen her outside school hours before. She had white, round sunglasses balanced atop her black hair, and she wore a black one piece suit and pink flip flops. Sora briefly noticed all this while Roxas was focused on something else.

Xion seemed to have read the blond's mind, because she giggled at the dazed look in his face and took her arm from behind her slim back and held something infront of his face. Extra saliva formed behind his bottom teeth. Roxas' eyes widened. "For me?" He said cautiously as if it was too good to be true.

"If you want…" she said casually while shrugging, waving the popsicle stick back and forth like a pendulum. Roxas broke into a smile, took Xion's face in one hand and kissed her hard and full on the cheek. And then quickly snatched the sea-salt ice cream from her fingers. If only there was a chance that Roxas was straight…that might have been weird. But alas, Xion thought him too cute for words.

The three then sat together in front of the waters, looking out into the horizon. Sora sat in the middle of Roxas and Xion, wearing only his swim trunks. (As opposed to Roxas who decided to stop undressing at his low-rise jeans.) He dug into his bag and pulled out a bottle of Coppertone. He looked to the side to see Roxas pouting over a lonely popsicle stick. "Hey Casper, you should cover up." And the passed him the bottle.

"My skin isn't as sensitive as yours, you toddler. Besides, wasn't it you who said I needed vitamin D?" Roxas cocked an eyebrow.

"Yeah, vitamin D. Not skin cancer. I don't wanna look like a cowboy when I grow up." He said, knowingly, still motioning to the bottle. Roxas snorted and pulled out his sunglasses.

Xion looked at the two. "Do you guys always argue, like this?" She was answered by a simultaneous and passive 'yes' from both of them. "Ahh, twins." Xion said calmly and looked back towards the water.

Suddenly, a volley ball landed next to Roxas. He ignored it and turned to Sora. "See, that's what I hate about beaches: they're always crowded and people are always getting in your way." Sora looked around at the throng of people in their area of the beach. An old woman watching her grandchildren make a sandcastle, a few little girls collecting rocks by the shore, a couple here and there sun bathing.

A boy called over to Roxas. "Hey throw it back!"

"NO!" Roxas spat over his shoulder, not looking at him. Had he, though, he would have noticed that it was Riku with all of his senior-class friends. A couple of 'what the hells' were issued from a redhead and a guy with an eye-patch.

A blond girl looked over impatiently, from the redhead's and silveret's side of the net while on the other side stood a guy with girlishly pink hair to match his flower-print Speedos, the pirate and a …hippie? (He had a bizarre combustion of mullet and mohawk attached to his head.) Said hippie looked at the silveret and shrugged his shoulders.

Sora sighed as he finished spreading sunscreen over his chest, glancing back at Riku when he called out again. "Hey! I need my ball!" Roxas was donning sunglasses, but a very bright scowl could probably still be seen from fifty miles in any direction.

"YOU NEED A COUPLE OF THEM!"

The blond girl cackled manically. Riku's two teammates held their stomachs with laughter. Even emo-reading-dude looked up from his novel, smirking, to see an annoyed silver-haired teen crossing his arms over his chest like a child.

Sora playfully knocked on his brother's shoulder a bit before skirting around him to throw the ball, sinewy arms lobbing the ball right to Riku. "Ignore him. He's like that."

Riku was taken aback by the power of the throw. He nonetheless clutched it and nodded back to the brunet. "Thanks Sor'! Nice arm!"

Sora wiped his hands of the sand. "Thanks!" He received a flash of a smile from the silveret before he reluctantly went back to his group. Sora returned to his spot, extending his cream-coloured legs and resting on his elbows. He pondered on the last time he and Riku has spoken. 'Not since last week.'

Roxas blissfully looked out into the waves while letting the gentle breeze glide through his golden locks. Sora and Xion were startled by a new voice a few ways from the volleyball game. "Hey Xion! I don't get number four!" The guy with his nose in a calculus textbook waved her over. Sora looked questionably at the girl.

"That's Vexen. He tutors me in chem and bio but since he sucks at math, that's where my expertise lie!" She smiled proudly. Although Vexen was a year older than both of them, Xion was the brightest girl in Advanced Functions, period 2. "Hey, you're pretty good at chapter 14. Why don't you come with?"

"Umm…" He looked at Roxas, debating whether to leave him for a while.

The blond just waved passively, still taken by the waves. "Go. Leave me in my solitude."


THANK YOU to all my lovely readers!

YHS
xDelfin