I was challenged by a friend to pull the names of two random Kingdom Hearts characters out of a hat and write a story with them. The next challenge: Tifa and Axel. I hope I did all right keeping them in character, hope you like ^-^

Axel and Tifa Lockheart belong to Square Enix and Nomura Tetsuya-sensei

The brunette skidded to a stop when she saw the black-cloaked redhead leaning against the wall of a building sucking on a blue popsicle. "Yo. I hear you're looking for a guy with spiky hair?" he teased, a smirk coming on to his face.

"Ha ha, very funny," the woman retorted. "Not you. This spiky-haired guy is blonde."

The man's jade eyes seemed to cloud over as the smirk faded. "You too, huh?" He studied his melting ice cream. "Same song, second verse. I'm missing a spiky-haired blonde guy..."

There was a moment of silence before the woman spoke again. "Tifa."

"Eh?"

"My name. Tifa Lockheart."

"I'll make sure to remember that." He straightened to his full height. "The name's Axel. Got it memorized?"

Tifa smiled slightly. "Sure thing." She accepted the profferred ice cream from Axel and sat on a nearby park bench. "I've never seen a shade of blue like this on food before."

"Well, sea salt ice cream is hardly an ordinary food." He sat next to her on the bench and licked a drop of ice cream off his leather glove.

"Sea salt ice cream?" Tifa looked at the dessert quizzically before taking a bite, making a face as the flavor hit her tongue.

Axel chuckled slightly. "I didn't like it either at first. But Roxas loved the stuff. I got used to it."

"Roxas?"

"...yeah. Roxas. He's my best friend. My missing spiky blonde..." Axel glanced over to make eye contact with Tifa. "You haven't seen him, have you? Short, blue eyes, black coat like mine?"

She shook her head. "Nope, sorry. Haven't seen him."

"Figures." Axel turned his attention to the little blue droplets on his boot.

Tifa studied him for a moment. "You must really care about Roxas."

He shrugged. "As much as I can, I guess." He leaned back on the bench and stretched out. "He's kind of a weird kid, Roxas. Usually pretty quiet, kinda moody... kept to himself a lot. Especially the first few days."

The corner of Tifa's mouth lifted slightly. "Sounds like Cloud. He's pretty quiet too."

"It's strange that people so quiet can be the ones with the biggest impact on us."

"It is." Tifa finished her ice cream, then noticed some writing on it. "Winner?"

Axel quickly turned his head away to hide the pained expression on his face. "It lets you get a free ice cream at the shop. Roxas gave me one before he left..." He stood up and threw his empty stick in a nearby trash can. "Maybe you and Cloud can eat ice cream together."

"Maybe." Tifa pocketed the stick and stood up herself. "Thanks for the ice cream."

"No problem, Tifa. I hope you find the one you're looking for."

"Yeah... you too, Axel." She hesitated for a moment, then stood on the bench and quickly kissed his cheek. "Good luck." And with that, she ran off down the road, Axel just rubbing the spot her lips touched his cheek as he watched her black hair fade out of sight.