"Mister, mister, I want a balloon, too! That cute Jigglypuff one looks cute!"

"Eh? Oh, here you go, little miss. Merry Christmas!"

"Yay! Thank you, mister! Merry Christmas, too!" a blue haired seven-year-old girl said as she thanked the man at the balloon stand.

The little girl, holding the balloon tightly in her hand, walked over to Lake Verity. At the vicinity of the lake, she saw an Ice Cream Stall.

"Mister, mister" she said, trying to get the Ice Cream man's attention. "I want an Ice Cream!"

"What flavor, dear?" the Ice Cream man asked.

"Snow Cone! I want a snow cone instead. Strawberry!" the girl jumped up and down.

"Alright then." The man scooped up a cold and pink scoop of ice cream and placed it on a sugar cone. "Here you go. Merry Christmas, little one." the man handed over the snow cone.

"Oh! The snow cone is pretty" she exclaimed. "Thank you, mister ice cream man~"

…

The girl, now holding a snow cone in one hand and a balloon in another hand, made her way to the side of the lake. There she sat on the cold green grass to watch some water pokemons play around the lake water bathed by the warming morning sun.

"It's cold here." The girl said, setting aside her red backpack beside her on the grass. "It's almost Christmas, anyway. It's tomorrow already." She looked up.

A little while after she was licking her snow cone, her balloon still held tightly in her palm, something unexpected happened.

"Magi-Magikarp! Magi-karp!" an orange Magikarp suddenly flopped out of the water just right in front of her.

"Aaah!" the girl, startled, accidentally dropped her snow cone in the water.

"Oh… no! My snow cone!" she gasped. Her dropping of the snow cone made her hands shake and made her let go of her Jigglypuff-shaped balloon.

She looked up. The balloon flew upward, missing the sharp points of the trees. The girl tried to jump and catch back her balloon, but it was no use. The balloon wasn't coming back.

"B-balloon…" she muttered as she went back to sitting on the grass. "I want my… balloon." She started to cry. She looked up again with her teary eyes and stretched her right arm up towards the direction the balloon flew. "Balloon…"

The girl continued crying. No one was around the lake anyway, so she was alone to cry.

…

"Hey, stop crying." A little boy's voice came behind her.

The girl didn't hear him. She continued crying.

"Don't cry anymore…" the boy's voice said.

The girl shook her head and continued on.

The boy didn't reply for a while. He seemed to be thinking.

"Dee Dee, that's so childish of you to cry." The boy snickered.

The girl stopped her tears and looked behind her.

"Kenny!" she screamed. "Don't sneak up on me and just call me 'Dee Dee'!"

"Well." The eight-year-old boy shrugged. "You wouldn't stop, so this was just the perfect time to call you 'Dee Dee'."

Little Dawn pouted, noticing that he was holding a balloon, too. "Hmph. Why are you here?"

"Nothing. I like being here, ya know." Little Kenny sat beside her on the grass.

Dawn looked at him in dismay. "You just love to tease me, don't you?" she elbowed him.

"Of course, Dee Dee. Aren't I your friend? I looked for you when your Mom told me you weren't home." he smiled, hiding his little pink cheeks. "You're always in trouble!" he laughed.

Dawn laughed as well and counterattacked, "Like you don't get in trouble whenever you play with wild pokemon!"

Kenny flustered and tried to change the subject. "A-anyway, why were you crying earlier?"

"None of your business." She turned her back in front of him.

"Aww c'mon, Dee Dee, tell me…" he pleaded.

"No!" she refused. Dawn didn't like to admit stuff to that Kenny; it would embarrass herself.

"Well then, I guess you were crying over small things again, right?" he poked her back playfully.

"No way! Never!" she was still in denial. "I'll tell you if… I can have your balloon."

"My balloon? You can just get one, you know." He looked at his Piplup-looking balloon.

"But… balloon… went up…" Dawn looked to the sky. Her balloon must have reached heaven by now.

"So…" Kenny tried to find the right words. "You were crying over a balloon?"

Dawn hated to admit it, but he was right. "Um… yes."

"I don't get it. Who would cry over losing their balloon?" he questioned.

She shook her head and said, "Well… I thought that if my friends were like balloons, and if I let go of one, I can't get them back. I thought of my balloon as a friend, too."

Kenny slowly smiled and pulled her hand gently. "Then tie the balloons to your heart! That way you'll never let any balloon or friend go far from you~" he tied his Piplup balloon to her wrist.

Dawn took her hand and looked at the string tied. Her eyes followed the string just to see the new balloon she had. "Are you giving this to… me?"

"Yeah…" Kenny avoided looking at Dawn to hide his pink face again. "I guess you loved balloons more than me."

The little girl smiled. Unexpectedly, she hugged the little boy. "You're the best friend I've ever had!"

Kenny, surprised, hugged her back and said, "We'll always be the best of friends, Dee Dee~"

"We'll still be best friends 'til the end, won't we?" a 14-year-old girl whispered to herself as she sat by her windowsill. "Wait, wait, how did I get to the point of remembering that memory?" she laughed to herself.

As she sat by the windowsill, she looked down to the happy people frolicking around the snow and she could hear the many shouts of 'Merry Christmas!' and 'Happy Holidays!'

She noticed a man giving balloons to the little children. "Hey, look, it's that guy who gave me that Jigglypuff balloon seven years ago."

Dawn thought for a while. "That reminds me…" she got off the windowsill and opened her drawer. She seemed to be searching something.

Five minutes later, she brought out a small inflated balloon that had the colors of a Piplup. She inflated the balloon with her breath and tied a thin string to its end.

"Balloon…" she said to herself. "I can't believe I still have this after those many years. This was the balloon that Kenny gave me before, wasn't it?" she tied the string to her wrist, like what Kenny did before.

She then went back to sitting on her windowsill; her wrist and balloon were sticking out of her window.

A flash of red light suddenly came from her pocket and traveled onto her bed. Piplup came out of his pokeball.

"Good morning, Piplup." His master greeted. "Merry Christmas~"

"Piiip… lup!" the penguin nodded and continued to yawn.

Dawn smiled. "Let's take a walk later in the snow, kay?"

Piplup nodded again, opening his eyes wider. "Pip…lup?" he was startled.

"What's wrong?" Dawn asked the penguin.

"Pip! Piplup! Pip!" he was pointing to the string tied to her wrist.

"What about that? It's just a balloon." She shrugged.

But Piplup was hallucinating; because of his sleepiness, he had thought the string to be some sort of snake strangling her wrist. Piplup accidentally let out a small bubble attack.

"Piplup! What are you doing?" Dawn quickly dodged the attack, but the bubbles hit the string on her hand, causing the balloon string to loosen and snap.

"Ah! My balloon!" she looked upwards. "It's floating away…" she turned to Piplup, but the pokemon quickly fell asleep on her bed.

"Well, it's gone. Once the balloon is let go, you can't get it back." She muttered as she stood and returned Piplup in his pokeball.

Dawn sighed as she jumped on her bed and just sat there. She replayed the memories of her with that balloon. She became lost in thought.

After a while, something or someone knocked on her window. "Are you perhaps missing a balloon, missy?" a voice said. It was similar to the voice she heard seven years ago.

Dawn turned her head to the window. "Kenny!" she said, seeing him riding a Staraptor, holding the Piplup balloon in his hand. "You're always so childish, Dee Dee, still playing with balloons." He laughed.

She raged. "Like you're the one to talk! You're the one that gave me that balloon seven years ago, didn't you?"

Kenny examined the balloon. It seemed familiar to him. "Hmm, oh yeah, I did give this to you while you were crying. Haha!" he gave the balloon to her.

Dawn pouted like how she did seven years ago. She tied the balloon to her wrist. "Why are you here, riding a Staraptor?"

"Well…" he played with fingers. "Would you like to… go to Sunnyshore City with me? I heard there would be fireworks there tonight…"

Dawn smirked. "Kenny, are you asking me out on a date?" she asked the 15-year-old boy.

"N-no way!" he denied. "I… was just asking you if you'd like to come with me!"

She laughed. "I hate to admit it, but you're kinda cute when you deny~"

Kenny's face became red. "H-hey! Stop that! Can we just go now?"

"Sure." Dawn shrugged and exited from the window and climbed on the black bird with the Piplup balloon newly tied to her wrist. She then hugged Kenny.

"Dawn, why are you hugging me like that…?" he asked, a chill running down his spine.

"I'm… not good with heights. Really. I don't wanna look down. Just tell me when we're there." She closed her eyes and prayed that she wouldn't fall.

Kenny smiled and said, "Hold on tight, then." He signaled his Staraptor to go to Sunnyshore City.

…

While they were above Hearthome City, Kenny heard Dawn mutter something in her sleep, saying,

"Kenny… please don't go… we'll be friends always, right..? Don't go my balloon… I… I'll always hold on and love you until the end…"

A/N: Fluffy fluffy fluffy . It's too fluffy in the end ._. What am I thinking? Oh, if you haven't noticed, the italicized part is the past and the normal font is the present. IT'S SO SHORT (NUUUUU) AND THE CHARACTERS MIGHT BE OOC SO I'M SOOOOO SORRY (NUUUUU) XC

(Sorry if this wasn't in the update list, either. I didn't ave internet until just today, so I couldn't update. Sorry!)

Anyway, my third Penguinshipping story~! And my first Christmas story~! (Although it's not very Christmas-ish enough :/ :T :C).

This idea just came into my head so suddenly because my cousin texted me some chain message saying "Friends are like balloons. Once you let them go, you can't get them back. So I'm going to tie you to my heart so I'll never lose you. Happy Friendship Day!" and blah blah blah. The sentence touched me, so I dedicated this story to Penguinshipping since it's my most favorite pairing out of EVERYTHING, really.

This is Kira07, signing out.

Ja ne, minna~!