He wasn't sure how it happened, but lunch turned into a walk through the snow-covered town, which turned into a road trip to the beach, which lead to laughing and singing and playing in the waves until it was time to drive back. It was… magical, in its own little, sweet, cliché sort of way. It was the kind of day he hadn't had since he was a child.

"I had a great time."

Zero's head turned at the sound of her voice, his lips pulling up into a small smile. "Yeah. I did, too. Been a while…" He let his voice trail off. I was happy today because I wasn't focusing on my own pitiful situation. For a while, I stopped thinking about everything that was wrong. Bringing it up to myself or anyone else is a surefire way to ruin my mood.

"Me, too." Kira looked out the window at the darkness beyond, blinking sleepily and pulling her blanket around her shoulders more securely. "I still can't believe we went to the beach…" She giggled. "When I still lived with my mom, we did this kind of crazy stuff all the time. She was really… spontaneous."

Taking a sip of his drink—a freshly brewed iced tea laced with fruit-flavored syrup—he pressed her on the offered topic. "Are you more of a structure person?"

She sighed, shaking her head. "I… don't know. I think I'm spontaneous, but we always managed to fight about where we would go and what we would do and whether or not it was a good idea." She paused to sip her own beverage. "I guess we were too alike."

Zero nodded slowly, swirling the liquid around in the glass as he searched for a way to voice his thoughts. "Well… I think that's normal. I always had that problem with my dad. I took after him, and I was just like him in a lot of ways, but we… clashed at any and every turn." Which was why he wound up here, miles from home, pretending he didn't need his family to hold him up anymore. "My brother and my mom had similar issues."

Kira shifted among the blanket, turning towards the male and leaning against the back of the couch. "Tell me more about your family." Her voice was muted with sleep but held a sincere tone of interest, her hand coming up to cover a yawn.

Laughter shook his shoulders, and he turned his eyes towards the ceiling with a reminiscent, almost bitter sigh. "I have a mother, father, and twin brother. They're all living, and they're not too far from here." He sighed softly. "I mean—they're a couple hours from here, but they're not in a different country or anything." It was a weak sort of argument, but it was the only thing his brain would give to his tongue. "My, uh, my dad was a mechanic, and my mom worked a lot of different jobs. She loved to craft stuff, so she'd sell her creations at different fairs and stuff. She would help people garden, she would work at restaurants and factories… really anything she had the time and health for."

Kira listened with rapt attention, surprising him by opening her eyes wider rather than falling into the warm embrace of sleep. "Were you happy? I mean, did you all get along for the most part?"

He nodded. "Yeah, mostly." Swallowing, he picked at a piece of lint on his thigh. "It wasn't until I got older that things went south. I just—" he shrugged helplessly, his lips twisting into a confused scowl, "—I just didn't want to take over the family business. I wanted to… get out in the world, and see new things, and…"

She stared up at him, waiting for him to regain the sentence he had dropped just a moment ago, but he didn't. He drank from the glass in his hands and stared at the wall, his face fading into a state of apathetic nothingness.

"And…?" she pressed.

"And now I wait tables in a small town with no intention of ever moving somewhere bigger or better." He shrugged his shoulders. "Honestly, it would probably be more exciting to spend the day under the hood of a car, but I guess that's how life works, huh?"

Kira gave him a soft smile, taking another sip of tea and pausing for a few moments before offering a reply to his rhetorical question. "I think that life has a way of humbling us, yes. Showing us things we need to see, whether or not we really want to see them." She took a deep breath, her shoulders climbing and falling in synch. "If you had stayed home and worked on cars, you never would have known whether what you found out here was better or worse than what you left behind. It's a lesson—it's the part of growing up that helps us make better decisions."

There was a brief silence, and she shrugged her shoulders, ducking her head to take another sip with a quiet utterance. "At least, that's how I see it…"

Zero didn't say anything for a while, contemplating what she had said as he polished off the rest of the drink and set the empty glass aside. "So then… do you believe in second chances?"

She looked up at him, brow creased in thought. Then she smiled. "Yes. I do."

For a moment, neither of them spoke, staring at each other in the dim light of the evening. He could hear her breathing softly, though the sound soon faded beneath the pounding of his own heartbeat on the inside of his chest.

Slowly extending his hand, he cupped the side of her face and leaned closer, parting his lips as they came to brush against hers. Soft. That was the first thought that invaded his mind. Her lips were soft and sweet, and the strands of hair that fell over his hand smelled like the ocean and the sunshine and everything good about the day they had spent together.

Too soon—entirely too soon—he pulled away, meeting her eyes and breaking the silence. "If someone is going to give me a second chance, I better hand out some of them myself. There's no point in staying hung up on old wounds forever, right?"

Kira flushed but nodded her head, smiling widely. "Right. Gotta start fresh."

"Exactly." He leaned back, putting his feet up on the coffee table and turning his attention to the woman at his left. "Now, tell me about your family. Do you have any siblings?"

And as Kira started to explain her own family and past to him, he couldn't help but feel that he really was receiving a second chance. His first attempt at a new life hadn't worked out, but maybe he could try again. His first attempt at love hadn't worked out, but here he was, on the couch with a young woman he could easily see himself spending quite a bit of time with over the next year or so. Getting to know her. Maybe winding up with something more. Something permanent.

It wasn't much, just a ghost of a chance, but it was there.

And he was going to take it.

-End

Mentions: NavyRose, Kage no Akuma-Shadow Demon, Ronniriot, Guest, Mya Kiryu, and xmxoxoxnxy. Thank you all for your replies, and I'm sorry I let this story sit for so long.