Dramatic Melody
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Soda Pop
“Two soda pops, please.”
She was still surprised by how he talked—there was a certain authoritative quality in his voice that made it almost impossible to say no to. It made her slightly afraid, but at the same time it made her admire him all the more.
“Coming up, you two!” the restaurant’s owner said as he pushed buttons on the cash register. “You two on a date?”
“Oh, well, uhh...” the woman stuttered out. Her companion, on the other hand, simply nodded with a smile.
“Ah, that’s sweet! Well, you two enjoy your stay here, all right?” the owner said as he handed the pair two bottles. Both of them thanked him and sat on a table at the corner of the Seashore House—the farthest from the entrance they could find, as requested by the woman. Thankfully, many of the restaurant’s customers were beachgoers who were taking their breaks, all still in their bikinis and bathing suits, so they swarmed near the entrance to keep themselves as close to the ocean as possible.
“It technically is a date, you know,” the man said as they sat down.
“Yeah, I guess,” the woman replied. “I never really thought of them as dates.”
“What did you think they were, then?”
“I don’t know,” she shrugged as she took a sip from the bottle and made a quick glance at the restaurant’s entrance. “At first they seemed like casual conversations, but maybe we’ve moved past the casual part long ago.”
“There was nothing casual about the last one,” he said with a smirk. The woman couldn’t help but chuckle at the remark. It had been more than a month since their last date—or not-so-casual conversation—but she could still replay every moment of it in her mind. She could remember the breeze blowing from Lilycove Bay, the soda pops they drank back then, the uncertainty of their decision being drowned by a kiss...
“I suppose it wasn’t casual,” she said as she took another sip from her bottle. The man couldn’t help but stare at her. He loved it when she nonchalantly twirled the straw to mix her drink after taking a sip. It was such a simple action, but he found it very appealing to watch.
“You’re staring again,” she said, snapping him out of his thoughts.
“You make it hard not to,” he replied almost instantly. She had fallen for his words far too many times, but they never failed to make her blush.
“How long have you been saving that one?”
“Just thought of it, I swear,” he said as he drank from his own soda pop, finishing almost half of the entire bottle with one chug.
“Well, someone’s in a hurry—” she began, but she stopped when she heard the restaurant door open. She lowered her body and glanced at the entrance, and she let out a huge sigh of relief when she saw that it was just the old man who was in charge of keeping the beach clean with his Zigzagoon.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” the man said.
“Oh, uhh, nothing,” she stuttered.
“You’re not good at hiding your emotions, you know,” he said with a worried smile.
“Nothing’s wrong, really,” she said as she reached out for her bottle and took another sip. “It was just a surprise—”
She heard the door open again, and she slouched even lower while taking quick glances at the entrance. A heavier sigh of relief followed after the restaurant’s newest customer—a young girl in a plain white dress—closed the door.
He raised an eyebrow and looked around. There was nothing out of the ordinary in the shack—none of the customers paid any attention to them, and there was no one who seemed suspicious. It was only after he saw her play with a black handkerchief she had withdrawn from her pocket that he understood what was going on.
“You’re worried they’ll find us, aren’t you?” he whispered.
She swiftly pocketed her handkerchief when she heard him, although she knew there wasn’t any fooling him at that point. She wanted to speak, but all she could give in reply was a small nod.
“Could I borrow the handkerchief?” he said as he extended his hand. She was hesitant, but his demanding tone was mixed with a sense of caring, making it even more impossible for her to say no.
“When I saw you wearing this when we were in Mt. Chimney, I still thought you looked beautiful,” he said as he stretched the handkerchief in front of her, revealing a white insignia etched prominently across the piece of cloth.
“Shh, be careful!” she said as she grabbed the handkerchief from him and swiftly pocketed it. “What if someone saw you holding that, huh? They’ll hand us over to the police, or worse, to the team.”
“You’re cute when you get flustered, you know?” he said with a smirk.
“Then you’ll find me drop-dead gorgeous if you keep talking about it,” she replied.
“I’m sorry,” he said as he took another chug from his bottle, leaving just a sliver of its contents. “But what I wanted to get at is how that handkerchief doesn’t define you anymore. You’ve left the team, and you won’t be able to move forward if you keep looking back.”
Their conversation stopped when they heard the door open again, prompting a look from both of them. In came an older-looking girl who donned a white dress similar to the girl they had seen come in earlier. Her keen stares around the restaurant made it obvious that she was looking for someone. The woman took many worried glances at the girl, keeping herself hidden in case she was one of her fellow grunts in a civilian outfit. She only found herself relaxing when the girl went to the table of who they surmised was her partner and dragged her out of the Seashore House, earning a chuckle from the man.
“How can you be so calm about all of this?” she started, sitting herself upright. “You left your team too, you know. You’re in as big a risk as being caught as I am. And from what you’ve shared, Maxie’s an even tougher leader than Archie.”
“He is, from what you’ve told me about Archie,” he replied. “And hey, I’m worried too, you know. But worrying isn’t gonna do me any good, so I stop thinking about it.”
“But isn’t it impossible to stop thinking about it? I can’t shake off the feeling that somehow, one of my old teammates would suddenly find us and rat me out to Shelly. And then I’ll have to go back and be demoted to the lowest of the grunts.”
“That’s not gonna happen,” he said matter-of-factly.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I know you have it in you to go against them.”
“Again, how can you be so sure?”
“Well, you’re here with me right now,” he said as he finished the rest of his soda pop. “And I’m supposed to be, what, a no-good Team Magma grunt you should be avoiding at all costs? Maybe even one you should be turning in to your admins for hostage? And here you are, not only being with me and letting me wander freely, but even continuing to date me after finding out I’m part of the rival team. I dunno about you, but that takes a lot of guts to pull off.”
She couldn’t help but smile at that remark. He always knew what to say to turn her bad mood around, as many of their previous dates had proven. It was what made his assertiveness less intimidating and more attractive.
“There’s that smile,” he teased. “It was torture waiting for it to come back.”
“I swear, it’s like you’ve memorized a book of cheesy lines,” she said as she finished her own bottle. “No, a trilogy of cheesiness.”
“If that’s what I have to do to keep you from being worried, then so be it,” he said with a smirk. “And, hey, just so you know, I’ll do everything I can to make this work. Right now we’re both just a pair of runaways, but I swear we’ll get through this. We’ll find a great place to stay where none of our teammates would find us, and we’ll find our way back to living normal lives.”
He then reached below the table and pulled out two more bottles of soda pop. He handed one to her and said, “And I know all of that will be worth it because I’ll be able to spend all that time with you.”
“How’d you get these two bottles?” she asked as she took hers.
“I have my ways,” he replied as he turned around and winked at the owner in the counter, who winked back in reply.
“Very clever,” she said as she took her first sip from her second bottle, prompting another stare from the man. “So, shall we go, then?”
“Where to?”
“I don’t know,” she answered with a smile. “But that’s part of the fun, right?”
So unlike my previous one-shots, I wanted to make something that was lighter and that ended on a high note for everyone involved. And with Valentine's Day just around the corner, I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to try writing about a couple who’s still in love. Common as that may be, I’ve never really tried writing about one outside of some conversations for Trainers of Hoenn, so writing with this subject is very new to me-hence my frustration and worry about how the one-shot ended up.
I got the idea for this one-shot after reading Poetry’s gift to me for Yuletide, “Dessert Course”. After reading it, I was so amazed by how effective the story was in conveying character that I wanted to try my hand in writing something similar to it, especially in terms of how it’s set in a restaurant and how it revolves around one conversation. So huge thank you to Poetry for inspiring me to write this!
Also unlike my previous one-shots, these author’s notes are at the end because I didn’t want to spoil the reveal of who these characters are. For those who have read Humans of Hoenn and/or follow its Tumblr counterpart, the characters here are these two lovebirds, who have definitely become two of my favorites. After writing their respective second conversations for the Tumblr blog, I was motivated to write what happened next, so “Soda Pop” takes place a short while after they’ve escaped from their respective teams.
I put these author notes in the end because I didn’t want to make the connection obvious from the start, and I did want to find out if the story worked or not without this as context. I’m hoping it can still stand alone as its own one-shot and have the connection with those conversations as a bonus.
In the end, I’m glad I was able to put this together despite all my gripes, and it was refreshing trying out something both familiar and unfamiliar to me. Thank you for reading “Soda Pop”!
![[Imaginative]:[Clockwork]](/data/avatars/m/192/192875.jpg?1525616141){kind=avatar}
