Chapter 18: I Feel Like Eating Ice Cream
A bright blue canopy on the corner of the square, the kind that shimmered like a summer sky. Underneath it, a stand.
An ice cream stand.
Roy stopped walking.
He stared at it like it had insulted his ancestors.
"…Ice cream?"
He hadn't thought about it. He hadn't craved it.
But now that he saw it… now that the image had wormed its way into his brain…
He needed it.
He didn't know why.
He just felt it—a strange surge of childish urgency. Maybe it was the heat. Or the crowd. Or just the fact that he hadn't done something pointlessly self-indulgent in a while.
Whatever the reason, he made his way toward the stand.
Vanilla. Strawberry. Citrus. Something vaguely blue and probably artificial.
He was reaching for his wallet when it happened.
Someone brushed past him. Light contact—shoulder to shoulder—but it spun him slightly, just enough to throw him off balance.
He turned with a half-apology already forming in his mouth.
But then he stopped.
Just for a second, in the blur of bodies moving across the plaza, he saw something.
A smile. Wide. Warm.
And then gone.
Swallowed up by the crowd.
Roy blinked.
"…What?"
He stepped forward, eyes darting between the people. Searching. Scanning.
But there was no sign.
No coat.
No voice.
No presence.
Just the noise of the crowd. Laughter. Chatter. The soft clink of spoons in plastic cups.
What the hell was that?
It hadn't been a hallucination. He was sure of it. The smile—that expression—it tugged at something deep in his memory, something far back. Old. Fragile.
But the more he reached for it, the more it slipped away, like a word on the tip of the tongue.
Eventually, he gave up. Not because he wanted to.
Because there was nothing else to chase.
He turned back to the stand, heart still unsteady in his chest.
"…Yeah," he muttered. "Screw it."
He ordered a cone—mangi. The vendor gave him a strong nod but didn't comment.
He sat down on the nearest bench, not even caring that it was half-covered in sun. The first bite of the ice cream was cold enough to make his teeth ache.
Still.
It was good.
Simple. Pointless. Sweet.
He let himself sit there for a while, surrounded by people he didn't know, holding a flavour that would melt before he finished it.
And for once, he wasn't thinking about the tournament. Or the base. Or the witch.
He was just a guy.
Alone with his ice cream.
And maybe, just maybe, that was okay.