Every year, your parents went on a cruise somewhere during summer break.

Whether you wanted to or not, they'd pick a place, pick some outings and off you went on a holiday you very much didn't want to go to.

This year's cruise would last a week, and going on a cruise ship with no one you knew sounded like hell on earth. In fact, you were planning on just staying in the room most of the time to avoid to noise that came with cruise ships.

But maybe this time things would be different. Each time you got on that boat and looked at the people on it, you always hoped that maybe one day you'd meet someone there from far away and get along like two peas in a pod. Stories of summer romances, even if the same ides you had wasn't particularly romantic, left this expectation that a bright star of a person was around the corner. Even if all the years before, there... wasn't.

When it came to cruises, they usually followed the same formula. You'd get on the ship around noon, depart a few hours later, and then the day after you'd be at sea the whole time. Well, at least on the ones you'd been on. You'd just gotten onto the ship yesterday, when you noticed a certain pattern.

You weren't one to remember faces, especially not on a ship with probably thousands of passengers, but this boy...

He was certainly memorable.

He wore colourful clothes, and his hair was this bright purple with blue streaks that you could spot from across the deck. And his personality... He was so distinct. You hadn't even talked to him before but you knew he liked robotics because one of his little robots exploded on deck and he had to apologise... Where he got the tools to make robots on a boat was beyond you— besides, he looked to be using tin foil.

You also picked up quickly that he was Japanese. Occasionally when speaking to staff he'd try his English with this almost knowing look akin to a smug kid correcting an adult. It was hard to describe, it wasn't like he seemed arrogant—

He'd caught your eye. Besides, a kid your age you saw alot was rare anyways, so that didn't help. Most cruises were full of middle aged men and women with a slight alcohol problem that liked basking in the sun and made shitty jokes.

You sort of wanted to talk to him. His bright shine seemed to rub off on you, even after a day of being his involuntary audience.

But you didn't know how to start it, didn't know how bad the language gap would be, didn't know if he'd even want to talk —odd thing to say, yes, but you couldn't help but wonder. He seemed to assume most people were judging him.

But the mad scientist of the ship ended up coming to you.

Unsurprising in theory, he seemed to be relatively observant. And someone his age wasn't actually too common, especially one that didn't look murderous or something.

You had the tendency to forget that the people you looked at sometimes also noticed you in turn, perhaps even forgetting you were perceived altogether.

On one of the decks, somewhere in the teens, was an area by some windows to the sea with plenty of chairs. They were often packed with people, but you had managed a seat over the sea to just read, go on your phone, whatever. And the best part about these seats was that they were right by a little ice cream parlour. It was great.

This mystery boy then strikes again, sitting down right next to you, one of these ice creams in his hand. For a moment you take a sneaky glance at the other seats, there was a few left— only next to adults and much less friendlier looking people... So he didn't do that on purpose... probably...? And with impressively confident words, and a strong accent, he says...

"The ice cream's very good! You should definitely try it."

And then flashes this grin, proud, expecting a response, yet again, like a smug cat.