“Here.” Rome offered a paper tray piled high with a trio of corn dogs. “You’re Amerikan, right? This at least should be familiar.”
Soda gaped first at the food, then her, breathless from running to catch up across the boardwalk. “Wh— yes? But I,” she added helplessly, “I’ve never had corndogs, they’re like— they’re a fair food, we never went to fairs.”
Rome blinked. “Oh.” A pause. “I thought— nevermind.”
“Ain’t sayin’ I’m mad about it,” Soda protested, expression creasing, shaking her head just enough to send her short tentas bouncing and keep her eyes on Rome. “I— I, uh— thanks.” She took one off the top and stuffed it in her mouth to avoid further conversation, and pointedly looked away from Rome’s amused half-smile.
Truthfully, she appreciated it, so much it embarrassed her. Rome was always doing things like this; it had been her idea to come to the boardwalk in the first place, but even still she’d offered to go back home after seeing how much the place overwhelmed Soda. She could’ve been a better judge of character, but it wasn’t like Soda minded; she couldn’t remember the last time someone had offered her that kind of courtesy.
Neither was it like Soda wasn’t delighted to take in the sights: the boardwalk was soaked with hot afternoon sun and ocean salt-spray, crowded with attractions and tourists and local kids starting their summer off with a bang. A section of ocean had been cordoned off with buoys and dense nets for swimming, monitored by lifeguards and a Geiger counter; pale beaches encircled a broad crescent around the shallow bay, and waves beckoned by the strong sea-breeze beat up against support beams where the platform hung over the water. It might as well have been a city itself if Soda didn’t know better; there were clothes shops and restaurants and plazas shaded with colorful canvas, rollercoasters and arcades, hotels and a casino, even something that looked like an amphitheater positioned in the center of the bay.
Walking off from the food stand, Rome caught her line of sight. “It’s a construction project,” she supplied. “They’re thinking of building a stage here, but it’s still in development.”
“How d’you know?”
She thinned her lips in poorly-veiled annoyance; Soda opened her mouth to apologize, but she just said, “My sister. She’s important enough to be told the broad strokes of that stuff, even if she doesn’t get the details, or like, a say.”
Soda didn’t have anything to say to that; she just took another corn dog.
“…Do you like them?” Rome asked, a little awkwardly.
She nodded hastily, swallowing. “Pl— plenty, yeah.”
So they stood in silence.
Despite the breeze, the tropical sun beat down on them, and the fresh hot food hadn’t helped. Soda levered herself onto the bottom rung of the railing, being otherwise too short to prop her elbows on top and intent on squishing the cool surface of her tentas against her cheeks. She’d grown accustomed to their new length, and even though it made her face look even chubbier it was more than made up for by the literal weight off her shoulders. Rome had the benefit of extraordinarily thin tentas, a match to her wiry build, and therefore little weight to contend with.
Her ink was bright, hot pink at the moment, stark compared to her light skin and Soda’s namesake—their team’s signature, thanks to Lyn’s not-insignificant trouble with changing color. Her face was slim, with a sharp chin and shallow nose, her thin lips set in a brooding frown. Soda thought she was the prettiest person she’d ever seen.
Not that she was going to tell her that.
“Um, what kind of food did you have?” Rome asked, glancing over. Soda managed to wrench her gaze off her just in time to look natural.
It took her a moment, both to remember and, more frantically, get her thoughts in order. “Well, stuff we grew and found mostly. Ma would go to the market once in awhile and home-cook with whatever she found, and specially we’d get Da’s olive oil cake.”
Rome’s face twitched. “You mean a farmer’s market?”
“In some places it was a store,” Soda answered, oblivious. “But ‘sides from the city it was mostly open-air, yeah. Da called it the agora.” The word sounded strange in her mouth: like augur with an extra a, and its vowels strained; she paused and looked to Rome from the corners of wide round eyes, chin propped between her palms, weighing her reaction. “The folks from around would come in to sell their farm food, milk and fruit and meat and stuff, but to get anything else you had to take a car to town.”
She watched as Rome went from perplexed onto tenterhooks and then settled for polite dismay, trying not to make her floundering for which question to ask first too obvious. “Oh,” she said, eventually, and then left it at that.
Soda kept her mouth shut, for lack of anything to add. Instead she hooked her foot around one of the railing’s beams and turned to study the boardwalk. Maybe Rome would ask about the car. She’d seen much fewer cars since arriving in Inkopolis, but there were a lot of bikes and an expansive monorail, so she guessed that made up for it. There were a lot of food stands, too.
“What’s olive oil cake?” Rome asked finally.
She hadn’t prepared for that one; her face flushed cold with surprise. “Like— it’s a dessert from where Da grew up? You make it with olive oil instead of butter so it ain’t so sweet.” An embarrassed beat. She continues, slower and pulling hard on her shirt with one hand, “We— um, it was too wet to grow olives where we— we were, so we didn’t get it often.”
Rome nodded, slow and deliberately. Soda doesn’t notice her following her gaze, still pointed very much not on Rome, across to the refreshment stands littering the scuffed boardwalk.
“...Did you not like sweet things?”
Soda scratched her arm absently. Rome had made her put sunblock on, but it still itched. “Um, we didn’t get those much. I dunno? Ma didn’t make... like... pastries or anything. And Da didn’t cook very—much?”
She’d hardly got the words out before her wrist was caught in Rome’s long calloused fingers and she’s being pulled across the boardwalk, headed for a stand labeled with a bright flag emblazoned with a vaguely star-shaped symbol.
“Kakigōri,” Rome pronounced for her, offering a small triumphant smile and letting go of her wrist much too soon for Soda’s tastes. She turned to the vendor and ordered rapid-fire, too fast for Soda to keep track of when she’s never heard of the thing; when she turned back it was to explain, airily, “It’s finely-shaved ice, and a really popular treat in Inkopolis. Let me know if it’s too sweet for you, okay? I got strawberry.”
“Okay,” Soda answered, because what else was she supposed to do?
It wasn’t as strange as she’d worried it’d be, thankfully. She scraped at its milky topping with the proffered spoon while Rome counted out G to the vendor. It looked a little like the shaved ice cups her dad would request in the other city across the ocean, though much taller, and less creamy. She might’ve mistaken it for cotton candy if Rome hadn’t told her otherwise, and if it wasn’t so blissfully, wonderfully cold.
She definitely would have been content to just stand there and devour, the cup sticking to her hands, but Rome pointed her toward a two-seat table near one of the many small docks jutting out from the main walk. It was quiet at this end, opposite the majority of attractions, so almost all the seats were open—periodically, the orange coaster would roar above them, its legs plunging into concrete on the inland side. Rome smiled again, leaning forward a little over her own melon-flavored cup: an orangey-peach color this time. “What about this? Do you like it?”
All Soda had to do was glance up looking like a deer in headlights, her serving half-gone.
Rome laughed, honest and for some reason a little relieved, and Soda thought her hearts were going to melt straight out of her like a weird mint-flavored milk topping.
“Yes, then?”
“Yes,” Soda managed, nodding emphatically. “Th— Thank you, so much. Really.”
“It’s nothing.” But she glows, almost literally, her freckles reflecting the sunlight. “I get it all the time when it’s hot. There’s stands or stores around almost every battle stage; they make it pretty obvious.”
Still. Saying thanks didn’t feel like enough. Rome was so pretty, and kind, and patient, and she couldn’t figure out why this all felt wrong. It was the sweetest thing she’d ever had, but she liked it enough. She liked being here. Soda stared down at the kakigōri, unsure of what to say, for the trillionth time. “No, it’s... I didn’t... get to do stuff like this. Ever. So it’s really nice. You’re really nice.”
Rome drew in a breath. “...Oh. Thanks.”
Silence with her wasn’t uncomfortable, Soda noticed. It wasn’t anticipatory, or expectant, like waiting for her brother to interrupt or waiting for her mother to tell her what to do. It was just quiet.
“I used to get it with my sister,” Rome mumbled, almost too low for Soda to hear. “It was a tradition. I took her with me to battles and we’d get kakigōri after.” She paused. “So... it’s nice for me, too.”
Soda smiled gratefully, a little sadly, drawing her shoulders in—the ache in her chest cinched tight, almost unbearable. Rome gave a light little laugh and pressed her own serving across the table. “Here, try mine. And let me have a bite.”
After that, they talk about the rollercoaster. Rome frowns about Soda’s fear of heights but doesn’t push it; they compromise with the Ferris wheel. She takes her in the tourist shops and the arcade with its blacklights and retro music. Soda spends at least two hours trying to win a big fat stuffed animal, to Rome’s eventual pity, dwindling funds, and one-hit knock-out success. She turns out the last of her pockets to finance dinner under the pavilions. Construction on the amphitheater resumes as the sun starts to sink, and under a sky turning brilliant orange and blue, they stand on the boardwalk and theorize possible layouts.
When the stars come out, they take the monorail home.
Soda tucks her knees to her chin and leans her head on Rome’s shoulder, eyelids heavy, watching her scroll Skitter. Tournament season begins in earnest tomorrow and the app’s already alive with debate and predictions. She can still taste her candied dessert on her tongue.
“Hey, Rome,” she mumbles.
“Yeah, sleepyhead?” Rome answers.
“Thanks.”
“Of course.”
In their lull, the monorail hums.
“We should, um... do that again.”
Rome glances at her, amused. “What? I need more money before we do that. Did you forget everything so soon?”
Soda doesn’t have the energy for anything but a half-hearted raspberry. “Naw, silly. I think I’ll remember it forever. I just... enjoyed it a lot.”
She watches Rome from the corner of her eye. “Yeah, why not? We have all the time in the world, Soda.”