A Little Sister's Love

Love is Getting Your Heart Broken

"Happy birthday, Erika!"

I drew in as much air as my lungs could take, and blew out the assortment of multicoloured candles in one massive breath. The room filled with whooping and cheering and congratulatory words. Even King Dedede gave me an eager thump on the back.

"You gettin' mighty old, missy!" he guffawed. "It's all downhill from here!"

I forced a smile, trying not to take offence. How old was the King, anyway...?

"Erika!" Tuff interrupted, placing a medium sized box in front of me. "Don't forget our present! This is from me, Tiff, and Kirby."

"Aw, you guys!" I grinned from ear to ear. "You're so sweet!"

I tore open the box to reveal an assortment of colourful candies - but not just any candies.

"These are all my favourites!" I was so touched that they remembered my favourite sweets.

"It wasn't easy hiding them from Kirby until your birthday," said Tiff.

Kirby was already unashamedly reaching into the box and attempting to open a packet of gummy bears.

"Kirby! That's not yours!" Tiff scolded, trying to lift a protesting Kirby out of the candy box.

"Don't worry," I laughed. "He can have some candy, I don't mind."

"You won't be saying that when he eats your whole stash," said Tuff with a cheeky grin.

As everyone began helping themselves to a slice of cake, I looked around the room at all my smiling party guests, thinking about how quickly time passes. Tiff and Tuff were growing up so fast. Their parents, Sir Ebrum and Lady Like, didn't look much different, but they were already adults anyway. Ditto the King. Double ditto Meta Knight, Sword, and Blade - nobody really knew how old they were, especially since they kept themselves hidden beneath armour all the time. Kirby, while still mainly speaking in 'poyo' language, was growing stronger as a warrior every single day.

I couldn't help thinking it was a little bittersweet. Not only that, but the one person I really wanted to be celebrating with me... wasn't there.

Tiff, astute as always, noticed my sadness and placed a gentle hand on the shoulder of my green cardigan. "I'm sure Escargoon will be here soon, Erika."

I instinctively shrugged her hand away and scoffed. "Pffft. Who cares? He obviously didn't even want to come." I turned away with a sassy swish of my pigtails.

Of course I cared, more than anything in the world. I couldn't say it though. Even if I wanted to, I just couldn't make the words leave my mouth, instead sticking in my throat like some disgusting treacle.

It was strange; I couldn't stand the guy when I first moved to Dream Land to take a job as one of King Dedede's servants. But after the Cream Puff incident several months ago we finally put an end to our bitterness, and now it wasn't uncommon for us to hang out together after our work for the day was done. The residents of Cappy Town took notice, even referring to us as a pair. Escargoon-and-Erika. It was unusual to see one without the other. We were firm friends, best friends. We even had cheesy nicknames for each other, Esky and Errie, shortenings of our full names. He didn't like me calling him such a silly nickname at first, but when he started calling me 'Errie' in retaliation, both nicknames just stuck. It was a symbol of just how close we had become in our friendship.

Except that the day we decided to call ourselves friends was the same day I realised I had a crush on him. I tried to push it to the back of my mind, hoping it would go away like all my previous crushes, but that was several months ago and my feelings had only grown stronger since then. I always told myself the same lie; if I didn't say it out loud, it didn't have to be true.