Yuki sat hunched over on a mahogany bench, tapping away at the rubbery, black buttons of her dark blue Nintendo 3DS, completely engrossed in her game. To her left sat Akahito, her younger brother three years her junior, with his own bright red machine. A girl with dark purple hair, with a gray and maroon beanie atop her head, heavy mascara with crimson lips, and an intimidatingly silver lip piercing perched on her right, smashing her own device’s keys with her fingers. “Hahah, I’m gonna ejaculate into Wonder Trade again,” laughed the gothic girl with a nasal tone. “You’re going to trade level 5 Weedles again, Serah?” Yuki commented with a small, bemused smile, glancing sideways to her friend momentarily in sync with the question. “Hell yeah I am, you think I’m gonna walk around in these damned caves seven million times just to get a Volcarona!?” Fuck no!” She exclaimed indignantly. The Japanese girl only shook her head, still with the same pleasant smile and soft eyes, and turned her gaze back to her game. She was busy picking back up Pokemon Emerald, the third game after Ruby and Sapphire: she appreciated a blast from the past every so often. At the moment, she threw her Mightyena against Flanery’s Torkoal. She remembered having significant difficulty her first play through of the Hoenn series, as Torkoal was a Pokemon that boasted unexpectedly high defenses and great attack power, despite hindered more on the speedy side. With long hours of training dedicated to advanced level-ups, however, Mightyena made quick mincemeat of the gym leader’s strongest and last Pokemon with four turn Crunches. Her feet started doing a mini tap dance, swiveling from side to side in accordance to the Pokemon battle music. After acquiring the gym badge, she commanded her trainer to trudge on towards a Pokecenter, where she promptly healed her party and saved her game in case of a crash.

Her phone started buzzing in her black messenger bag, and she sifted through the front pocket filled with old candy wrappers and receipts to find the source of the familiar vibrations. She unlocked the screen with a swipe of her fingers, and pressed on the green phone icon to pick up to her mother’s voice: “Yuki honey, are you and Akahito out with your friends?” Ueno, Yuki’s mother, inquired with a lightly concerned, casual tone. “Yeah mom, we’re just sitting on the benches near the docks and hanging out with Serah. Why’d you call by the way?” “I wanted you to pick up some groceries for dinner tonight. Your father forgot yesterday, since he was kind of busy dealing with some shady crackers at the store..” A small, but worry-filled sigh escaped Mrs. Soujiro, and Yuki could sense that her maternal figure was not happy about suspicious loiterers around the Tropical Siren, the drink and snack store that her parents built up before she was born. Both of them considered the establishment their sole lifeblood, so they dedicated particular attention to its local reputation. “But do you have any money on you? I’d feel a bit bad about making you come all the way back home, and then to the groceries, but we need it,” her mother spoke with an authoritative voice that still managed to relay that she felt bad about potentially making her daughter ride all across town because of their own forgetfulness. Yuki, hoping her mother could feel the appreciating smile behind her words, replied tenderly, “No, it’s ok, don’t worry about it. I’ll pick it up. Let me see if I have cash though..” She took one quick glance into her pocket and found a twenty and ten dollar bill, and replied with relief into the mouthpiece, “Actually, I do have money mom. I’ll drop by the market when he come back home, ok?” With that, her mom gave her gratitude, and hung up the call afterwards. 

Her brother, thirteen years of age with adolescent acne flaring up on his forehead and at exactly five feet three inches tall, trotted up to her and asked, “What did mom say, Nee-chan?” Yuki put an affectionate hand above his large, dark head and rubbed gently as she replied, “She just wants us to get food for dinner tonight, since they forgot yesterday.” She turned towards Serah’s direction and waved despite her eyes still glued to the 3DS. “We’re going home now Serah, be careful out here ok?” The dark clothed individual shot her gaze from the machine with a pout on her lips. “Aww, already? We JUST got here, are you cray girl? For real, are you cray?” Yuki’s serene smile dropped immediately and leered disapprovingly at her friend; the ghetto way of talking started popping up as a crazy fad some time ago for teenagers and has toned down quite a bit since then, but Serah liked it so much she still swings the trend in full locomotive motion to this day. Yuki did not like this, as this behavior shows that Serah ignorantly spouts this way of speaking without any knowledge of the source, the people in the hood; in addition, she only really uses it when she deems it funny or convenient., and even then it sounded like she was trying too hard to convey humor. Despite that though, Yuki said nothing: the girl was a dear friend since childhood, and if this is what she truly wanted, she will accept it so to not ruin their friendship. “Serah, it has been four hours since we met up, and we started at like, what.. two? It’s already six dude, time to go home.” Her friend simply rolled her eyes around in response, and hung back against the seat, replying with a half-joking, sarcastic whine, “But we’re teenagers Yuki! We’re supposed to be defying our parents’ wishes and causing them constant migraines every night, drinking ‘til we toss all sanity out the window, smoking pot ‘til we crack our heads with nothing but! You’re too much of a goody two shoes for me, and I think it’s time we revoke our friendship status!” The pale Japanese girl only shook her head in familiar amusement, and, before waving goodbye to her friend for the day, said, “Don’t stay out too long, and be careful, ok? Please. I’ll have you over at dinner tomorrow though, hopefully.” With that friendly warning, she and her brother hopped onto their skateboards and rolled away to get dinner.

Yuki pushed a Lucky Charms’ and Cocoa Puffs’ cereal box into the cart as an extra to all the meat, mushrooms, tomatoes, and green onions on the cart. She calmly strolled through the snack lane in no particular hurry, finding the atmosphere of the supermarket to be relaxing: the instrumental jazz music, the cool air, the almost empty state of the building, the rows and rows of browsable items at her leisure. Her brother busied himself on his DS again, underestimating the threat of his surroundings until they took a turn into another aisle and he promptly smacked into another shelf filled with packed instant noodles. She let out a small laugh, to which Akahito mock pouted as he rubbed the top of his head gingerly. She wandered over to the produce area and poked at the golden mangoes, leaving an imprint on their tender bodies. She picked up an orange and tossed it over to her brother, and they started tossing back and forth between them, covering a wider and wider distance: whoever dropped the fruit would have to pay for it. (Un)Fortunately, a store associate swung by and saw their hijinks, and promptly scolded them for their misbehavior. They both smiled sheepishly as they put down the orange in its proper place, sweeping off the dust from the bumpy surface with their fingers for added emphasis, and apologized to the store worker enough times for her to be satisfied. As soon as he turned his back towards them, however, both started giggling madly, holding on to their cart for stability as they trip over their laughter. When their chuckles simmered down enough for them to not stumble round like drunks, they put their arms around each other and pushed the carts together while walking side by side.

Yuki happened upon a small aluminum container of flan in the isolated bakery of the market. She thought about Nixie and how she helped her with the reports in the environmental studies (Or was it science? She couldn’t bother remembering) class, and decided that dropping by and sending a thank-you gift her way wouldn’t hurt. She picked up the flan, shoved it into the cart, and by the time they got out of the market lane, sent her brother with the groceries back home. “I have to go see a friend. She kinda saved me from outright failing a class, so..” Yuki paused slightly, gave him her usual calm smile, and raised the small plastic bag with the jelly-like dessert, “I’m sending her an appreciation gift of some sort.” Akahito furrowed his brows in worry, and shook his head with an expression of mixed disappointment and knowing beguilement on his face. “Y’know sis, it would be nice if you actually tried a bit in school..” He bit his lip and looked up at her carefully, fully aware that his sister did not find the discussion of her academics all that pleasant. “It could give mom some breathing space, for one… She has a lot of stress to deal with as is, but it would help a bit if you could get your grades up.” [i]Ugh, not this again[/i], she thought to herself, and turned around to roll her eyes out of her brother’s sight. [i]I just don’t understand why they can’t just leave me alone about it.. I’ll cross that bridge later, but now, I really don’t want to think about it.[/i] She breathed a long, heavy sigh, stayed silent for at least a minute to let her brother know of her discomfort with his statement, and finally broke the silence, “Go on home ahead before it gets dark. Tell Okaa-san and Otou-san I’ll be back before it gets dark.” She took off on her mini four wheel and blazed down the sidewalk, refusing to give her brother a chance to prolong their unwanted conversation.

As she rolled down the cold, gray pavement under a melting sky of lavender and indigo, Yuki could not help but feel remorse for her rude disregard of her brother’s concern. She made a mental note to apologize to him later when she returned, and stomped her feet onto the ground to propel herself even more forward. She passed by a couple of lovely beach houses on her way to the lighthouse, and because of how close-knit and trusting the small island community was, she still saw kids playing after dark. A good bunch tossed a beach volleyball back and forth, but a particularly sizeable group shot at each other with Nerf guns. She recognized most of the children, and opened her mouth and raised her hand to wave a greeting, when suddenly, one of them shouted, “Hey, it’s YUKI!” Suddenly, the crowd bunched up away from the sidewalk, lined up neatly on one of the lawns, and unleashed a torrent of water in her direction. She laughed, and tried to shield her face from the shots, lest they blind her and make her board wander onto the road. All the kids laughed at her partially soaked self, and she croaked a half mocking, half joking, “Haha” at them, and tried to speed away, when all of a sudden her legs started feeling wobbly. Thinking that the hours of travel took a toll on her feet, she jumped off her board, kicked it into her free hand, jogged down the cement stairs and sat in a rather dark corner right beside it. She decided to take off her pants, since the appearance and the feel of water in more intimate places made her look like she soiled her undies, and she found it blatantly uncomfortable; besides, no one needed to know that she was wearing panties instead of a bikini.

Not long did she realize that her soaked pants would be the least of her worries, and saw that instead of her own two human legs, a deep, sapphire fish tail would replace it. She stared on, dumbfounded by the sight, and launched into a deep, but rather quiet panic. She first rubbed her eyes to see to it that she was not hallucinating; when it was not to be, she started looking around to see if anyone was in her immediate vicinity to notice her: she was less worried about the potential malicious gossip, and more concerned about people mistaking her for a monster and possibly harming her. She tried to think of some explanation for the incident, but nothing came to mind, and the goal of concealing herself before anyone discovered her in this state became top priority. She hurriedly got onto her belly, left her belongings and tried to crawl into the deep azure waters of the ocean, making sure to lie as low as possible; there were still a couple of swimmers and surfers scattered around, and although she would look strange crawling ineffectively through the sand, at least the high waves would mask her figure for the most part. The lighthouse was relatively nearby, and Yuki felt this immense tug towards the building, feeling as if Nixie might have some answers as to why this happened to her. She finally swept herself into the waves, and paddled her way towards the beacon in the darkness, hoping to find enlightenment regarding this recent string of a weird event.