Two and Four

Sat together on the sand, Sora and Kairi watched in quiet appreciation as the sun kissed the top of the sea. The sky was a deep amber colour, burning orange at the horizon and casting the clouds as near-black silhouettes above them. The breeze played between them, pushing and pulling the grains of sand much like the water at their feet. Not too far away, Sora caught a glimpse of a large shell on the sand, just out of reach of the sea's edge.

"Hey, Kairi?" he said, turning back to her. "This was where you found your charm, wasn't it?"

Kairi smiled. "Yeah. Why?"

He shrugged. "Oh, nothing. I was just reminded of it." The silence was about to settle between them again when a thought occurred to him. "Why did you take it?"

"The charm?" Now it was Kairi's turn to shrug. "I'm not sure. I liked it, I guess. I'd never seen anything like it before, and I wanted to keep it."

Sora mulled this over for a second, before grinning. "Well it's a good thing you did! How else would I have gotten back to you and the others?"

"Sora, you didn't need a charm to help you do that!" she laughed. Then she reached over, poking him in the chest. "This is where your heart belongs. You would have found your way home with or without the shell, see?"

He hummed. "Hadn't thought of that. Hey, wait – you sound like Riku!"

They laughed at that for a minute, the sound resonating across the strip of sand they sat on. When at last they calmed down, the sun was almost half-way gone, waking up another part of the world. Looking back at where he'd seen the shell, Sora watched curiously as a wave smothered it; when it receded, the shell had gone.

'Why did we never have a charm?' Roxas thought.

'We did,' Naminé answered. 'Just different ones, that's all.'

'We never had one together.'

'Didn't we have Sora and Kairi's?'

He thought about it, but shook his head. 'That didn't really belong to us. And even if we did borrow it, it wouldn't feel right.'

Naminé stayed silent for a while. 'You and Xion shared one, right?'

'Yeah… sort of.' His memory of that time was fuzzy – anything beyond his time in Twilight Town was, to be honest. He had, in a way, shared a charm then, too: the trophy crystals with Hayner, Pence and Olette. He smiled fondly; thank goodness Sora stayed friends with them.

'You know,' Naminé said, 'I don't think Sora and Kairi would mind taking one for us.'

Sora scrambled to his feet. Running after the disappearing sea, he thrust his hand into the shallows where he'd seen the strange shell, feeling elated when his hand grasped its shape. He pulled it out and inspected it; it was a simple fan-shape, but a little cross had been scratched at the base, and it was oddly coloured: a faint black fading into white and back again. It shone when he tilted it.

"That's pretty," Kairi said, coming up beside him.

"Yeah," he agreed. "I can't even say why I like it."

'I love it,' Naminé smiled.

Roxas smiled back. 'Yeah, me too.'