Egg Rolls

There was darkness.

Everywhere-every corner, every nook and cranny- everywhere, as far as the eye could see, there was darkness.

In some places in the jar, there were such high levels of darkness; one could not even see their own hand shape when held up to the eyes.


It was dark.


But unlike most kinds of darkness, this darkness felt warm.

---

Deep in the kitchens of The Grand Chinese Palace, a widely popular Chinese restaurant in the humble city of Radiant Gardens, a very angry manager yelled furiously at his new employee. This man was short and stocky, his face red with fury. He screamed in Chinese to the recently hired delivery girl, Naminé, who had fallen asleep near the counter.


The blonde woman awoke with a start when he finally dumped a bucket of ice-cold water that he had just taken out of the freezer on her.

"S-Sorry," she tried apologizing, though she shivered as she did so.

The man grumbled what seemed to be a curse in Chinese, and then angrily waved a finger at her. "I told you to deliver order number thirteen! Won Ton with a side of Egg Rolls," he said, remembering his blood pressure and trying his best not to raise his voice. "And what do you do? You fall asleep on the job!" by that point, he began to scream again.

"S-Sorry," Naminé repeated, shaking not only because of the cold, but also because of the fear. "I won't do it again. I just couldn't sleep last-"

"I don't need your excuse! Order number thirteen, Won Ton and Egg Rolls!"

"Y-Yes Sir," Naminé replied as she dried herself with several napkins that had the
restaurant's logo printed on them. With a jump start, she rapidly prepared the order and placed it safely into a plastic bag, which also had the restaurant's logo on it. Just as she was about to set foot out of the door, her boss stopped her suddenly.

"You girl!" he exclaimed as Naminé looked at him impatiently. "You forgot your hat!"

"Do I really have to-?" Naminé began, quietly.

"Store policy!" the man stated formally, handing the embarrassed blond a panda eared hat.

As she uncomfortably wore the itchy fabric on her head, the man smiled proudly. "My wife makes them."

"I should get going now," Naminé said quickly, not wanting to hear his whole story or be held up any longer.

Entirely ignoring her last sentence, the round man went on. "They represent the logo. Eat, Eat, And Eat More! I came up with it. It's genius, no?"

Naminé nodded faintly as the man went on, marveling at his intelligence out loud. "I'm so smart! I'm a genius! Eat, Eat, And Eat More! Customers will always come back! I'm so smart! I'm…"


Finally, he stopped himself when noticing Naminé still standing there.


"What are you doing!?" he exclaimed. "Order number thirteen, Won Ton and Shrimp Rice!"

"Egg rolls," Naminé corrected shyly.

"That's what I said!" yelled the little man. "Now go!"

Naminé ran out of the building, into the Grand Chinese Palace Delivery Truck. Then, the new employee departed on her very first delivery, order number thirteen.

~~

The blue Grand Chinese Palace van circled the neighborhood with a clueless driver.

"What was the address again?" Naminé asked herself, steering the wheel of the car hopelessly. "I should have written it down… I know it's somewhere on this block…"

The constant fear of appearing a random person's doorstep with the order of Won Ton and Egg Rolls and giving her new workplace a bad reputation made her spine tingle. Surely, she'd get fired, and she couldn't have that.

After wandering the neighborhood so many times, Naminé finally parked the large van and stepped out. She checked her phone, the phone that her boss had said was strictly for work, and read that she had one voice mail.

With sparkle in her eyes, she thought that perhaps he would actually be helpful, and maybe he left her the address.

But the voicemail only said, in that angry, stressed voice, "Order number thirteen, Won Ton and Egg Rolls!"

Naminé yelled out, now frustrated with her job. She had broken her timid shell into one of pure irritability. She angrily decided to dump the bag of food onto the stairs of a very old house.

"If order thirteen really wants their food, let them look for it!" she huffed, hands curling into fists as she stomped back to her truck.



"Excuse me?"



Naminé, now stopping dead in her tracks, slowly turned around, only to see a very displeased customer facing her.

"You're from the Grand Chinese Palace, right?" the boy with the spiky yellow hair asked her.

"M-Me..?" Naminé asked, stunned. She shook her head after considering, What if he saw me throwing the food?

"But, that's your van, isn't it?" the boy asked, waving a finger at the blue van. "And you're even wearing the panda hat!"

Flustered, Naminé nervously corrected herself. "Did I…say no? I meant to say y-yes! I work there…"

"Do you know where my order is? I've been waiting for two hours!"

"A-Are you number thirteen?" Naminé asked, not able to bear hearing the response.

"I am! Won Ton and Egg Rolls," The boy explained, saying the set of words that would one day drive Naminé mad.

WON TON AND EGG ROLLS

WON TON AND EGG ROLLS

WON TON AND EGG ROLLS

"O-oh…" Naminé murmured, afraid to tell the poor, hungry customer of the terrible fate of the food he had ordered. "Well, you see…"

"What, Kairi?" the boy asked, reading the name plate off of Naminé's uniform.

"What? Oh! This isn't my uniform… it belongs to, well," Naminé took a pause to giggle," Kairi."

The boy turned away to scratch his head, embarrassed.



Then, the two very awkward figures stood facing each other. None of them talked, which made the situation worse.


"Roxas!" the boy yelled suddenly. As he did so, he scared Naminé and a flock of birds. After scaring them, he clasped his hand over his mouth, flushing a red color.


"…What?" Naminé asked when everything went quiet again.


"That's my name!" Roxas exclaimed, not being able to stop screaming for some strange reason.


"Why are you yelling?" Naminé asked as she took a step away from the one who she saw as weird.

"I-I'm yelling?" Roxas asked, later slapping himself on the forehead. "Um, forget this ever happened. Let's just start over. Do you have my order, Kairi? I mean- AH! Let's start over again, hello! I'm Roxas! You're a panda; you must be from- NO! Wait, I meant-"

"Are you okay, Sir?" Naminé asked, worried for the stranger named Roxas.

"I'm sorry," Roxas said, utterly disappointed with him self. "I just… I never… Um, never mind."

"What?"

"So what's your name?" Roxas asked, coolly.

"My name is Naminé," Naminé said gesturing towards herself.

"Naminé," Roxas repeated, surprising everyone by not screaming it out to the heavens like he did to his name.

"Yes… and, Sir? I'm sorry about your order…" Naminé finally summoned up the courage to show Roxas the spilled Won Ton Soup and the dirty egg rolls rolling out of the bag on the doorstep of someone's house. "It was…an accident?"

Roxas' face went horrified at the sight of his order that was violently left to rot on a random doorway.

"My food…" he said, clearly saddened.

"I'm so sorry Sir! It's…my first delivery, and, I didn't know your address, so…"

"Well, that's fine then," Roxas said giving her a wide smirk disguised as a smile. "I guess you'll just have to make me my order for free then."

Naminé almost stopped breathing, blinking, and thinking. "What."

"It's on your van there!" Roxas pointed to the saying printed on the side, and then he read it out loud. "If anything happens during delivery, your meal is free!"

"B-But, if I come back and tell my manager that something happened to your meal, then…he'll…fire me…"

Roxas frowned and stood silent for a moment. "Well, then you can just make me my Won Ton and Egg Rolls at my house. For all the extra time there, just tell your boss that you were stuck in traffic. Come on, Naminé!"

"What…but, sir!" Naminé insisted, as the man grabbed hold of her wrist.

"Call me Roxas," Roxas said, offering a genuine smile. "Sir is too formal."

"A-Alright…" She tried getting used to it.



"Roxas."

~~

There was darkness, everywhere.

"Naminé… I told you that asking my neighbor for some dough was a horrible idea."

"You…didn't tell me that your neighbor was a magician."

"Wizard," Roxas corrected, automatically.

"It's the same thing," Naminé said, crossed arms and a pout on her face.

"Merlin," Roxas whined, looking up towards the giant towering in front of them. "Why did you have to cast a spell today, of all days?"

The man with the long beard looked to be in deep thought. "I know that was the regular dough I gave you, it just had to be. It was in the regular food cabinet… Hm…"

"MERLIN!" Roxas snapped, jumping up and down. "Why today!? I had company today!" He gestured towards the fuming Naminé.

To make egg rolls, Naminé needed dough. Roxas had not a single crumb. Together, they asked around the neighborhood until Roxas' neighbor, Merlin, offered them an entire bag.
Reluctantly, Roxas accepted it. He thought perhaps it was actually normal, and it wasn't infected with some sort of magic.

He was wrong.

When Roxas and Naminé both opened the bag of, quote on quote, "dough", a puff of misty, purple smoke popped out, and both Roxas and Naminé shrunk down into the size of small chipmunks.

The two, very angry and confused tiny people stormed straight back to Merlin's house.

"Oh dear," Merlin had said at the sight.

For safe keeping, just in case the rats he had in his house got Naminé or Roxas, Merlin placed them both in a large jar as he searched his many spell books for a spell to change them back.

And in that jar, it was very dark.


The darkness, at first, was very cold.


"This is the weirdest delivery ever," Naminé said, sitting in her corner of the glass container. "After this, I'll stick to cooking in the kitchen."

"And I still didn't get my Won Ton and Egg Rolls," Roxas said, burying his head in his knees.

Naminé frowned at the sight of the unhappy customer. "Sorry, Roxas… It's my fault…"

"No, Naminé! If it's anyone's fault it's mine. I was too lazy to drive to the restaurant, so I decided to order a delivery instead." He smiled when he saw Naminé smile. "I won't be lazy next time."

The blond girl sighed, and then she shivered. "Isn't it cold in here?"

Roxas, just really wanting an excuse to hold her, jumped at the chance. He wrapped his arms tightly around her, holding her head on his chest.

"I'll keep you warm!" he exclaimed, wanting to sound like a hero of some sort.
Merlin, who was happening to just peek over at the two miniature figures, smiled gently, knowing true love when he saw it.

In the palms of his hands, he made appear a single, white flour tortilla.

He wrapped the dough around the two, huddling characters as if it were a blanket. Then, as if he did nothing, he continued searching his books to find a way to change them back to their original size.

The two, tiny boy and girl, together, resembled an egg roll.

This darkness was warm.

~~

Naminé combed the scrap pieces of flour out of her hair as Roxas dusted off his pants.

"I'm glad Merlin finally found a way to change us back," Roxas said, laughing nervously.

Naminé nodded in agreement. "I'm really sorry about the food," she said, getting ready to head back to the restaurant.



"It's fine!" Roxas said, laughing. "I hate Won Ton and Egg Rolls."



Naminé froze for several seconds.


Roxas laughed more. "I felt like I needed to order it." He shrugged. "Maybe it was because I was supposed to…"

"Supposed to what?" Naminé asked, curiously.

"I…"

"Roxas?"

"Remember when I met you? A-At first?"

"You kept screaming."

"Y-Yeah! That's because… I've never…"

"…Never what?"

"I've never felt so nervous!" He took a deep breath. "I've never met someone as pretty as you, Naminé."

"Huh!?"

"I think I felt like I needed to order that stuff… because I was supposed to meet you…"

Naminé shook her head. "I'm not supposed to date on the job, Roxas."

When silence befell them, Naminé quickly added, "…But I can see you after my shift!"

Roxas smiled widely, for he was happy to have a person that brought him such great warmth to agree to be with him.

Naminé ran off towards her van after exchanging farewells, and again waved good-bye to order number thirteen.

Roxas waved back, not being able to stop smiling so much.
The van soon drove off.

"Ah, I see you two will be seeing each other more," said Merlin, who came out of literally nowhere.

"Yup," Roxas said, already used to Merlin's random entrances.

"That's very good, young man!" Merlin cheered, "Very good indeed!"

Roxas grinned. "We looked like an egg roll together, didn't we?"

"Of the sort!" boomed Merlin.

"That's my favorite food," Roxas commented.

"What!? The last time I offered-!" The wizard reddened with anger. "Is my cooking all that bad!?"

"Don't scream so loud," Roxas said, heading back to his house.

In darkness, there was warmth.

That warmth, was an egg roll. -