I do not own Soul Eater; I do not profit from this writing.

002

Ocean Breeze

Liz opened her eyes slowly, remembering that she needed to roll over or else she was going to burn. She sat up, checked her watch, and then realized that one third of their trio was missing. Around them, the waves slid up and down the surface of the rather secluded beach, and seagulls chased what patrons were present, trying to steal ice cream from them.

Patti sat on her own bright yellow and blue towel, eating some of that ice cream. She had a floppy straw hat tipped low over her face, one hand atop it as a strong ocean breeze through and threatened to blow it off and out to sea. "Hey, look!" she shouted. "That bird is trying to make friends!"

Liz turned to see what her little sister was pointing at, and her eyes nearly bugged out of her head. The bird was literally dive-bombing a man who was running at top speed towards the parking lot. He threw his cone over his shoulder and the bird circled him once, then dropped to the ground to tend to its newfound treat.

"I don't know about that," she said under her breath. Aloud, she said, "Where did Kid go?"

Patti grinned and pointed about twenty yards down, where Liz spied him hunched over the sand. She pushed her sunglasses up on the bridge of her nose and stood, hands brushing loose sand off of her flat stomach and backside. She slipped her feet into her sandals and began the walk over to him.

"What are you doing?" she asked, kneeling down next to him. She idly cleared away her arrow-straight hair, strands of the dark blonde and light brown mixture threatening to stick in her lipgloss.

"I'm building a replica of the academy," he said plainly, never once taking his golden eyes from the sand he was carving. He rocked back onto his ankles, the thin, sharp plastic tool he'd been using to perfect some of the smaller detail dangling from his fingertips.

"What do you think?" he asked, finally looking at her.

She leaned in for a closer look. "Wow, Kid. This is really... symmetrical," she said. She looked up at him and smiled.

"YOU REALLY THINK SO?" he beamed.

"Absolutely," she said. "Now, can you come and put lotion on my back so I don't burn? I don't want any strange or uneven tan lines," she said with a hint of warning. He had just opened his mouth to protest her demand when they both heard Patti yelling.

"HEY YOU STUPID BIRD YOU'D BETTER GET AWAY!"

"Patti?" Liz called, cupping her hands to her mouth as she shouted. "You'd probably be better not antagonizing him!" she advised, speaking of the seagull who had spotted her tasty chocolate snack.

Patti got up and tore through the sand, straight at Kid and Liz, the cone still in her hand. "I don't get it, he just had like four, why would he want mine?" she said, a very dumbfounded tone to her voice. At that exact moment, the top of her ice cream finally gave way to the heat of the afternoon sun and began to slide. It slid and slid, and before anyone noticed, it had landed with a -thump- on Kid's creation.

Liz and Patti both gasped, and Kid made a choking noise. They watched in horror as the replica of the academy, so perfect in every detail, collapsed in slow motion, falling in rubble into the sand from which it had come.

"Nnn!" Kid cried.

"Aw, Kid, I'm sorry!" Patti said. She looked at her sister, who looked back at her with a 'Now you've done it' face. Patti put her hand on his bare shoulder. "I'm really sorry. I can help you build another one?" she offered.

He broke off into wailing about how it wouldn't be centered or symmetrical and that she'd sabotaged his castle because she was trying to torture him and what had he ever done to deserve that sort of thing from the universe and he was lower than the shit on the bottom of someone's shoe and she should kill him right then.

Liz crept up to the other side of him and nodded to her sister. Simultaneously, both of the blondes leaned in and planted kisses on either of his cheeks, in the exact same spot at the exact same time. At once, his sobbing stopped and he sat bolt upright, hands covering his eyes.

"Ahh-hahaha -," he said, turning a violent shade of crimson. "That both of you could devise a plan to destroy my beautiful work of art to drive me mad is one thing, but that both of you have figured out an equally embarrassing and yet effective way to snap me out of it is quite another," he confessed, narrowing his golden eyes at them suspiciously. "I feel this is something you will learn to abuse."

Liz and Patti threw their heads back and laughed as hard as the seagulls sang.