#engineering include liquid

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Red Lobster was killed by private equity, not Endless Shrimp

For the rest of May, my bestselling solarpunk utopian novel THE LOST CAUSE (2023) is available as a $2.99, DRM-free ebook!

A decade ago, a hedge fund had an improbable viral comedy hit: a 294-page slide deck explaining why Olive Garden was going out of business, blaming the failure on too many breadsticks and insufficiently salted pasta-water:

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/940944/000092189514002031/ex991dfan14a06297125_091114.pdf

Everyone loved this story. As David Dayen wrote for Salon, it let readers "mock that silly chain restaurant they remember from their childhoods in the suburbs" and laugh at "the silly hedge fund that took the time to write the world’s worst review":

https://www.salon.com/2014/09/17/the_real_olive_garden_scandal_why_greedy_hedge_funders_suddenly_care_so_much_about_breadsticks/

But – as Dayen wrote at the time, the hedge fund that produced that slide deck, Starboard Value, was not motivated by dissatisfaction with bread-sticks. They were "activist investors" (finspeak for "rapacious assholes") with a giant stake in Darden Restaurants, Olive Garden's parent company. They wanted Darden to liquidate all of Olive Garden's real-estate holdings and declare a one-off dividend that would net investors a billion dollars, while literally yanking the floor out from beneath Olive Garden, converting it from owner to tenant, subject to rent-shocks and other nasty surprises.

They wanted to asset-strip the company, in other words ("asset strip" is what they call it in hedge-fund land; the mafia calls it a "bust-out," famous to anyone who watched the twenty-third episode of The Sopranos):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bust_Out

Starboard didn't have enough money to force the sale, but they had recently engineered the CEO's ouster. The giant slide-deck making fun of Olive Garden's food was just a PR campaign to help it sell the bust-out by creating a narrative that they were being activists* to save this badly managed disaster of a restaurant chain.

*assholes

Starboard was bent on eviscerating Darden like a couple of entrail-maddened dogs in an elk carcass:

https://web.archive.org/web/20051220005944/http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~solan/dogsinelk/

They had forced Darden to sell off another of its holdings, Red Lobster, to a hedge-fund called Golden Gate Capital. Golden Gate flogged all of Red Lobster's real estate holdings for $2.1 billion the same day, then pissed it all away on dividends to its shareholders, including Starboard. The new landlords, a Real Estate Investment Trust, proceeded to charge so much for rent on those buildings Red Lobster just flogged that the company's net earnings immediately dropped by half.

Dayen ends his piece with these prophetic words:

Olive Garden and Red Lobster may not be destinations for hipster Internet journalists, and they have seen revenue declines amid stagnant middle-class wages and increased competition. But they are still profitable businesses. Thousands of Americans work there. Why should they be bled dry by predatory investors in the name of “shareholder value”? What of the value of worker productivity instead of the financial engineers?

Flash forward a decade. Today, Dayen is editor-in-chief of The American Prospect, one of the best sources of news about private equity looting in the world. Writing for the Prospect, Luke Goldstein picks up Dayen's story, ten years on:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-05-22-raiding-red-lobster/

It's not pretty. Ten years of being bled out on rents and flipped from one hedge fund to another has killed Red Lobster. It just shuttered 50 restaurants and declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Ten years hasn't changed much; the same kind of snark that was deployed at the news of Olive Garden's imminent demise is now being hurled at Red Lobster.

Instead of dunking on free bread-sticks, Red Lobster's grave-dancers are jeering at "Endless Shrimp," a promotional deal that works exactly how it sounds like it would work. Endless Shrimp cost the chain $11m.

Which raises a question: why did Red Lobster make this money-losing offer? Are they just good-hearted slobs? Can't they do math?

Or, you know, was it another hedge-fund, bust-out scam?

Here's a hint. The supplier who provided Red Lobster with all that shrimp is Thai Union. Thai Union also owns Red Lobster. They bought the chain from Golden Gate Capital, last seen in 2014, holding a flash-sale on all of Red Lobster's buildings, pocketing billions, and cutting Red Lobster's earnings in half.

Red Lobster rose to success – 700 restaurants nationwide at its peak – by combining no-frills dining with powerful buying power, which it used to force discounts from seafood suppliers. In response, the seafood industry consolidated through a wave of mergers, turning into a cozy cartel that could resist the buyer power of Red Lobster and other major customers.

This was facilitated by conservation efforts that limited the total volume of biomass that fishers were allowed to extract, and allocated quotas to existing companies and individual fishermen. The costs of complying with this "catch management" system were high, punishingly so for small independents, bearably so for large conglomerates.

Competition from overseas fisheries drove consolidation further, as countries in the global south were blocked from implementing their own conservation efforts. US fisheries merged further, seeking economies of scale that would let them compete, largely by shafting fishermen and other suppliers. Today's Alaskan crab fishery is dominated by a four-company cartel; in the Pacific Northwest, most fish goes through a single intermediary, Pacific Seafood.

These dominant actors entered into illegal collusive arrangements with one another to rig their markets and further immiserate their suppliers, who filed antitrust suits accusing the companies of operating a monopsony (a market with a powerful buyer, akin to a monopoly, which is a market with a powerful seller):

https://www.classaction.org/news/pacific-seafood-under-fire-for-allegedly-fixing-prices-paid-to-dungeness-crabbers-in-pacific-northwest

Golden Gate bought Red Lobster in the midst of these fish wars, promising to right its ship. As Goldstein points out, that's the same promise they made when they bought Payless shoes, just before they destroyed the company and flogged it off to Alden Capital, the hedge fund that bought and destroyed dozens of America's most beloved newspapers:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/16/sociopathic-monsters/#all-the-news-thats-fit-to-print

Under Golden Gate's management, Red Lobster saw its staffing levels slashed, so diners endured longer wait times to be seated and served. Then, in 2020, they sold the company to Thai Union, the company's largest supplier (a transaction Goldstein likens to a Walmart buyout of Procter and Gamble).

Thai Union continued to bleed Red Lobster, imposing more cuts and loading it up with more debts financed by yet another private equity giant, Fortress Investment Group. That brings us to today, with Thai Union having moved a gigantic amount of its own product through a failing, debt-loaded subsidiary, even as it lobbies for deregulation of American fisheries, which would let it and its lobbying partners drain American waters of the last of its depleted fish stocks.

Dayen's 2020 must-read book Monopolized describes the way that monopolies proliferate, using the US health care industry as a case-study:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/29/fractal-bullshit/#dayenu

After deregulation allowed the pharma sector to consolidate, it acquired pricing power of hospitals, who found themselves gouged to the edge of bankruptcy on drug prices. Hospitals then merged into regional monopolies, which allowed them to resist pharma pricing power – and gouge health insurance companies, who saw the price of routine care explode. So the insurance companies gobbled each other up, too, leaving most of us with two or fewer choices for health insurance – even as insurance prices skyrocketed, and our benefits shrank.

Today, Americans pay more for worse healthcare, which is delivered by health workers who get paid less and work under worse conditions. That's because, lacking a regulator to consolidate patients' interests, and strong unions to consolidate workers' interests, patients and workers are easy pickings for those consolidated links in the health supply-chain.

That's a pretty good model for understanding what's happened to Red Lobster: monopoly power and monopsony power begat more monopolies and monoposonies in the supply chain. Everything that hasn't consolidated is defenseless: diners, restaurant workers, fishermen, and the environment. We're all fucked.

Decent, no-frills family restaurant are good. Great, even. I'm not the world's greatest fan of chain restaurants, but I'm also comfortably middle-class and not struggling to afford to give my family a nice night out at a place with good food, friendly staff and reasonable prices. These places are easy pickings for looters because the people who patronize them have little power in our society – and because those of us with more power are easily tricked into sneering at these places' failures as a kind of comeuppance that's all that's due to tacky joints that serve the working class.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/23/spineless/#invertebrates

[cosmictuesdays]

CHEMIST HAS THE POWER TO TAME SKUNK'S SPRAY

Copyright 1994 Chicago Tribune Company Chicago Tribune November 25, 1994 Friday

HEADLINE: CHEMIST HAS THE POWER TO TAME SKUNK'S SPRAY

BYLINE: By Peter Kendall, Tribune Staff Writer.

Salk conquered polio. Einstein unraveled relativity. And Krebaum? Well, Paul Krebaum, it appears, has developed the first home remedy for skunk spray.

If ever an idea was in the air, it was this: How do you get rid of the smell that comes from two tiny but ingenious glands at the business end of a skunk.

A garden hose is impotent, soap is utterly useless, and tomato juice is a quaint old wives' tale that has left many people with skunk-sprayed dogs that not only stink, but are pink.

But Krebaum's formula, distributed nationally in recent months on e-mail and in state agriculture department bulletins, is winning over converts who thought the only viable antidote was the passage of time.

The story of how Krebaum, a Lisle chemist, has conquered the fetid, putrid odor of skunk is a simple tale of necessity being the mother invention.

But, alas, Krebaum's formula will never bring riches to its inventor, for the solution is trapped within a cruel chemical Catch-22.

The very chemical properties that make his formula deodorize skunk spray make it impossible to package. It will burst out of any bottles.

If the story of Krebaum's formula is ever made into a movie, the first scene will show Krebaum working away in his lab at Molex Inc. in Lisle. His face is screwed up as he smells something bad.

He is doing research using chemicals called thiols--some of the nastiest smelling chemicals around.

Thiols are produced by many things, including the degradation of proteins. Thiols are responsible for the odors that comes from decomposing flesh and fecal matter.

Most animals have a deep-seated repulsion to thiols, a gift of evolution that keeps them from eating things that will make them ill.

Using basic chemistry knowledge, Krebaum figured out a way to get these foul smelling thiols out of his lab by changing them into other compounds. The trick was oxidation-getting oxygen molecules to bond with thiols and change them into things that didn't smell bad at all.

To do that, he made a solution of simple ingredients-hydrogen peroxide and sodium bicarbonate (baking soda)--that did the trick quite well. The solution threw off oxygen like a dog shakes off water, and some of that oxygen grabbed onto the thiols and neutralized them.

Meanwhile, in Lisle and elsewhere, evolution had been chugging along for eons and produced an animal that scientists call mephitis mephitis, the common striped skunk. Natural selection led the skunk to develop a spray that exploits other animals' aversion to thiols. Skunk spray is, fundamentally, essence of putrification.

But fate never would bring mephitis mephitis and Paul Krebaum together, at least not directly. Krebaum has himself never smelled skunk spray at any greater concentration than that lingering in the air on a country road.

There were, instead, intermediaries--one of Krebaum's colleagues and a pet cat.

"He came in to work and said his cat had an encounter with a skunk," Krebaum recalled. "He said he had tried tomato juice, and it didn't work, and the cat still wasn't able to come into the house."

Krebaum knew skunk spray was made of thiols ("general knowledge," he calls it), and suggested using a variation of the formula he used for getting rid of thiols in the lab.

"He came back the next day and said the stuff worked like magic, that every trace of skunk odor is completely gone from the cat," Krebaum said.

The variation he developed for the cat was this: 1 quart of 3 percent hydrogen peroxide, which costs about $2 at a drugstore; 1/4 cup of baking soda; and 1 teaspoon of liquid soap, which breaks up the oils in skunk spray and allows the other ingredients in the solution to do their stuff. The solution should be rinsed off the pet with tap water.

In October 1993, Chemical and Engineering News published Krebaum's formula.

One of the most interested readers of the article was Tom McCutcheon, who was then with the West Virginia Department of Agriculture. McCutcheon, a plant pest biologist, was something of an answer man for callers to the department.

"We'd get probably a dozen calls a year, 'What do we do, our pet's been sprayed by a skunk,'" McCutcheon said. "Tomato juice is the old remedy. Everybody would say, 'We've tried that, and it doesn't work at all.' We really didn't have a remedy."

When he read of Krebaum's formula, he was skeptical. Over the years, he had learned never to recomend [sic] anything he hadn't tried himself, but getting sprayed by a skunk posed practical difficulties.

"I asked my dog if she'd volunteer, but she said no," McCutcheon said.

It was while driving last February through the hickory and oak forests of Roane County, West Virginia, that McCutcheon spotted a road-killed skunk. More hit than run over and preserved by the late winter chill, the skunk was in fine shape.

Carefully, he wrapped the skunk inside two plastic bags and put it in the trunk. He knew he had a potent specimen for his experiment when he went into a drugstore to buy the ingredients for Krebaum's formula and the druggist noticed the smell on McCutcheon's clothing.

Back behind his office, he made up the solution.

"The whole time, my eyes were watering--I had never been this close to a skunk in all my life," he said. "I dunked the skunk in the bucket, and immediately the smell went away. I was very surprised and impressed."

Krebaum had briefly considered trying to figure out a way to patent his formula, but quickly abandoned the idea.

The formula is, essentially, a chemical engine for churning out oxygen, and all that oxygen refuses to be bottled.

"Once you mix the hydrogen peroxide with the baking soda, it is no longer stable," said Krebaum. "You can't store it in a bottle, because it would explode from all the oxygen."

"It wasn't worth trying to get a patent on it because I couldn't put it in a bottle, said Krebaum. "So why not make this a free-gift-to-humanity type deal."

-end-

[sukirichi]

[ DUSK ‘TILL DAWN : 013 ]

“we who bear the burden of the crown do not need to love. you only need to stay here, with me, in power, in greed, in lust – in victory.”

cw. modern royal au. infidelity. slight angst. toxic characters & toxic relationships. 18+. smut (nothing explicit.) unedited. suggestive. fluff. alcohol consumption.

notes. feedbacks / reblogs/ comments are appreciated <3 ALSO!! i am very bad at describing places (i tried my best) but just so you guys can visualize things better, i included photos of where this chapter took place at the end of the fic

wc. 12.1k

series masterlist 

[ THIRTEEN ] it hurts to be something, it’s worse to be nothing with you. i’ve done the math, there’s no solution. we’ll never last – why can’t i let go of this?

“Rin,” you stopped his hands from going any further, your fingers closed around his. He paid you no mind as he merely flicks your hands away. The top three buttons of your blouse have already been popped open, the white lace of your bra visible to his eyes. They visibly darkened with lust. Grasping his hand again, you held him tighter this time around, preventing him from exposing you to him. “Rin, please. Stop.”

Rintaro finally stopped. His fingers froze in the air, his thumb caressing the button like he’s fighting back an itch to completely rip your blouse apart. Maybe on another day, you would’ve found his hunger to be flattering. But not here, not in the middle of nowhere, and definitely not when he smelled like smoke. Not when he smelled like all the horrible things he’d gotten from her.

Cocking his brow, he leant back at the hood of his car. He stared up at you, his pretty eyes narrowed into slits.

“What? You don’t want me to touch you?”

You vehemently shook your head no. You awaited it – some sort of angry response from him. It wasn’t often you rejected his advances, but it was written crystal clear on your face: he made you uncomfortable. He found it sickening, how you looked at him like he was some vermin.

“Fine,” he spat out, rounding the vehicle as he opens his door. “Get in the car.”

“But… I can’t just leave–”

“I’ll have someone take care of it. Get. In. The. Car.”

You glance back at your car. Kuroo’s cellphone was still inside, along with your gun engraved with your family crest. If anyone were to peek inside, it wouldn’t be far to assume that you were out to kill someone. Not to mention, it was your private vehicle, not the Palace’s issued ones. Quickly, you raise a finger to Rintaro and ask him to wait, running back to your car before slipping the phone inside your pockets. In less than a minute, you’d opened the passenger’s seat and buckled the seatbelt.

The silence was painful.

There’s nothing but the smooth hum of the car’s engine, the rhythmic tapping of Rintaro’s hand against the wheel. He didn’t bother turning the radio on, and you were too lost staring at the trees whizzing by to strike up a conversation. There were too many things to ask, too many answers that demanded your attention, and so little time for it all. You wanted him to break the silence first, until sleep beat you to it. With the clock reading half an hour past four, you found yourself nodding off, shaken awake by the constant road bumps ahead.

Six am.

You straightened your back. The scenery had shifted from the dense forestry. Beside you, Rintaro looked half-awake, cracking his neck from side to side.

You watched as the gentle fingers of dawn painted the sky in hues of rose and gold. With the car travelling along the coastal road, you glanced sideways, captivated by the mesmerizing vista unfolding before your eyes. You’d seen the sea before, but never at this time – never when the sun was beginning to stretch its arms as if to embrace it. The sea, that of liquid sapphire, shimmered under the first light of day, each tiny, soft wave crested with a translucent luminescence – something both haunting and mysterious that made it hard to look away. It was deep and bewitching, like it would whisper to you the secrets of the deep if you looked close enough.

Rolling the windows down, you gazed at the horizon – right where the ocean kissed the sky, and birthed with it the symphony of color. Pastels of pink and lavender blended into a cerulean blue. The sun, a radiant gem emerging from its slumber, cast a golden path across the water and shimmered across the ripples, inviting the soul to wander its glittering trail. You felt the need to reach out to it – to skirt your fingers across the horizon, wondering if somehow the sea could drown you in its beauty and your pain could be forgotten.

As the car cruised along, your eyes remained transfixed on the sea. Drawn to its endless, vast rhythmic dance of a push and pull. The waves rolled in a timeless cadence, their gentle roar a comforting lullaby. Each surge and retreat of the water mirrored your own steady breaths – in and out – a silent meditation that made you feel as if everything was almost okay.

Through the open window, the scent of salt and the crispness of morning air filtered through. It filled the car with the essence of the sea, masking the scent of Rintaro’s stumped cigarette. For a moment, you were filled with a profound sense of peace. A moment of stillness amid the journey. The sea, with its infinite expanse and eternal ebb, seemed to hold all the answers. It wasn’t like Itachiyama whose beauty brought calmness to your soul and silenced all your fears. It was entirely a beauty of itself, one that haunted you and prodded at your bones, picking your soul apart and gently sewing back them together.

Like an unstoppable force, like watching a car crash into another – it was hard to take your eyes off of it.

“Where are you taking me?” you broke the silence after a while, choosing to keep the windows rolled down. Beside you, Rintaro spared you a quick glance before turning his eyes back to the road.

“You’ll find out when we get there.”

Nodding, you propped your chin onto your arm. Now that you were awake, the events from the past few hours finally caught up to you. The meeting with Kuroo, Atsumu’s sex tape, being chased by Rintaro, and your call not reaching Kiyoomi – Kiyoomi. Gods. He must be so worried. But your phone’s battery died long ago, and there was a bigger matter at hand – Rintaro’s accusation, and the way he’d hid his hurt with a smirk.

It was a side of him you’d never seen before.

Sure, he’d been angry when you did anything that concerned Iris, or when you left for Itachiyama after his displeasure about it. But this time, he looked more hurt than angry, as if he couldn’t believe you would go so far.

You rolled the windows up. The sounds of the humming of the car and the breeze slipping through muted.

“Rin,” you mumbled, toying with your fingers in your lap. “I didn’t try to kill you, you know.”

Your husband snorted. “Oh, you didn’t? Could’ve fooled me. It’s not every day you see your wife’s new maid slipping something in my drink, but if you truly did not have anything to do with it, then I guess it’s safe to assume your maid is out to assassinate me,” grip tightening on the wheel, he forced himself to exhale through his nose. “Do you deny this?”

“Airi has nothing to do with this.”

“Do enlighten me, then, because I don’t know what to think of you anymore,” he gritted his teeth, and you were shocked into silence. It was quite the confession coming from him. “I have made mistakes. Many of them. I have hurt you, again and again, but do you really wish to end my life?” he shot you a look, only to turn his head away – staring out into the sea before you. You wondered if it’s because he couldn’t stand to look at you, or he didn’t want you to see whatever might show in his face.

“I didn’t think you could be so cruel, Princess.”

Your face fell, the light in your eyes dimming as his words sunk in. “I told her to crush some sleeping pills in your tea so I could sneak out without you noticing. I wasn’t trying to ‘kill’ you.”

“And where would you go without me? A lady like you should never leave the castle premises unsupervised,” he reminded, the edges of his lips curling into a dissatisfied smile. “Unless you don’t want me knowing who it is you’re meeting.”

Sighing, you let your head drop to your hands. “Enough with the accusations, Rin. How many times do I have to tell you I have never cheated on you?” you rolled your eyes at him, your arms crossed to your chest, irked. “If you really must know, I met up with Kuroo Tetsurou – yes, the man who wrote that article about your tryst and ruined your reputation. You know what I did? I paid him to disappear from this country, and to completely erase any traces of what he’d written. I did it for you. I did it because I no longer want to see you suffering from the hands of another, so don’t you dare go around treating me like I’m your enemy, because at the end of it all, I’m the only one on your side. Do you understand?”

It was a half lie, but a white lie in your defense. The end would justify the means. Rintaro didn’t have to know the whole truth, not when there was a chance he’d ruin your plans. He only needed to let his guard down, to completely trust you on this because that last part you would not lie about.

He could hurt you – take your heart and crush it until there was nothing left. But it would not change the fact that you were his wife, and he your husband. It wouldn’t change the fact you were bound by vows you’d spoken in front of Her Majesty, in front of the Gods they worshipped in a sacred chapel. You would never, and could never, go as far as to make Rintaro detestable in the eyes of others. He was yours to hate and love. No one else could take that right away from you. He simply wasn’t for the world to pick apart.

Silence clouds the car. With a quick glance, you saw his grip loosening on the steering wheel, his shoulders visibly relaxing as his brows pinched together. “You did that… for me?”

You scoffed. “You have no idea the things I would do for you.”

“Then why keep it a secret from me? I would’ve gone with you. I could’ve sorted it out myself.”

“You couldn’t. You’ve barely been touching any of your work ever since the scandal happened,” you pointed out, holding your hand up to flash him your ring – the one you never dared took off, not even in the shower, and especially not when Kiyoomi had been nudging his way into your heart. “I’m your wife. I promised to share the burden of the crown with you. If a time comes that you’re unable to handle the troubles coming your way, then I will step in and do it for you.”

Rintaro blinked rapidly, as if clearing away the images that troubled him. “I’m sorry,” he finally said, “I’m just… You said you hated me, and that you regretted marrying me. So when I saw Airi mess with my tea, I immediately thought you wanted me out of your life.”

You looked out the window. Pursing your lips, you couldn’t help but think to yourself – if only it were that easy.

“You’re my husband. I would be devastated if you died.”

Rintaro drove around for a few more minutes before finally arriving in a gated community. Although community was a stretch, considering there were no other houses around. Not a single person could be seen. The entire beach was closed off from that point on. He wouldn’t answer any of your questions either, simply smiling to himself as he drove past a grove of trees until you broke through – the sounds of the waves audible and muted, as if they were from a distance. Before you stood a large white mansion, hidden by the tall trees, but peeking just enough to be highlighted by the golden dawn.

“We’re here,” Rintaro announced, bouncing out of his seat to run around your side and open the door for you. You couldn’t help but snicker at his sudden chivalry. Nevertheless, you slipped your hand into his, following him as he led you to the pebbled walkway leading up into the house. “I bought this beach for us.”

“Rin, you can’t do that. The beaches should be open to the public.”

Rintaro squeezed your hand. There was a lightness to his step, almost as if he was floating through air – or maybe your reassurance had simply made his body feel lighter. “Indulge me a little, wife. Let me show you around first, and if you really don’t like it… then I’ll put it up for sale, okay?”

You couldn’t argue with that. It was hard to, anyway, when he struggled to open the doors as he refused to let go of your hand. After fumbling for the keys, he finally got them in and pushed the doors open.

You could see much from where you stood. At the break of dawn, the sun’s first golden rays began to dance across the tranquil surface of the sea, casting a gentle, shimmering glow that greeted the grand beach house with a tender embrace.

The luxurious abode, with its elegant arches and expensive terraces, stood proudly against the backdrop of the awakening sky. Its hues of pink and orange melded seamlessly into the lingering blue of the night. Your eyes widened, watching as the colors bounced off the water and reflected back onto the sturdy white pillars of the house’s exterior. The soft, ambient light illuminated its exquisite architecture, revealing intricate details and the soft contours of its stone façade.

Stepping onto the grounds for the first time, you let your hands run through the textures of the pillars, feeling its smoothened out surface. 

The house, a vision of opulence and warmth, beckoned you with its ethereal allure. Each window and glass wall, strategically placed, welcomed the sunrise with open arms, allowing the light to flood the interior spaces with a radiant glow. The reflections danced upon the surface of the pristine pool outside, playful patterns dancing along the walls and the ceiling. It made the entire house seem alive with its morning gentle touch.

You felt your breath get caught in your throat – stunned by the beauty of it all.

You moved towards the edge of the expansive backyard, where the manicured lawn stretched out like a verdant carpet leading directly to the soft sands of the secluded beach. The sound of the waves, a soothing melody, called out to you. It mingled with the rustling leaves of the palms that framed the house. The air, crisp and salty, invigorated your senses and filled you with a sense of profound peace and connection.

Unbeknownst to you, Rintaro was drunk on your expressions. He lit up each time you smiled at a corner, his heart blooming and swelling he felt it would burst out of his chest. For one of the few times in his life, he felt proud of himself.

“I bought this mansion a year after I started courting you,” he said, his gaze transfixed on the way your hands were still intertwined. It caused him to trail after you like a lost puppy; not that he minded. He just liked being here with you. With that thought in mind, he absentmindedly caressed your wedding ring with the pads of his thumb. “I didn’t have concrete plans in mind yet, but I knew I would end up marrying you someday, and the Palace didn’t seem like a good place for us to enjoy our married life. But here… we can live separately from the rules imposed on us. Here, we are not Princess or Prince. It could just be the two of us.”

You bit your lip, your heart hesitant. It fluttered at the sincerity of his words, swooned at the revelation he’d been planning this for years. You could imagine it – Rintaro walking through this property a year into your courtship, the young Prince nodding to himself because he just knew this place would be yours.

“It’s still mostly empty, of course. I didn’t want to decorate it without asking for your opinions, and I figured maybe you’d want to take the lead in that area,” he encouraged with a smile.

And really, who could say no to that? When he gave you such a beautiful house and handed you the reigns to do as you pleased, then you would turn this house into something you could call your home.

Every detail of the beach house was meticulously designed for both grandeur and intimacy. The spacious terraces offered the perfect setting for private dinners and joyful gatherings with family and friends, promising countless evenings of laughter and love under the starlit sky. You could already envision long, leisurely breakfasts on the balcony, the sea’s gentle murmur a constant, comforting presence.

You would sip your morning coffee in your nightgown, reading the newspaper, or letting your eyes close as you let the sea breeze gently wake you up from the remnants of your slumber. Behind you, your husband would sneak up in nothing but his sleep shirt, his voice deep and croaky with sleep laced to it. He would wrap his arms around your waist, coo good morning in your ears as he buried his face on the crook of your neck.

It was the perfect house to live the married life in.

The moment is too beautiful that it let the walls you’d put up slowly crumble. It gave way for your mind to entertain the thought of hope, of second chances, of a life where Rintaro apologized for everything he did and you forgave him for it. A life where he finally left Iris behind, and moved in here with you – being a loving husband and wife like he’d promised.

Regardless of his mistakes, you couldn’t deny he chose this haven with care.

He understood your yearning for a sanctuary that felt both majestic and personal. You could see his vision in every corner of the house – in the way the morning light filled the rooms, in the carefully carved openness that invited the outside world to become part of your home, and in the promise of countless memories waiting to be made within its walls.

“It’ll get very bright here in a few minutes,” he murmured, his voice echoing through the spacious expanse. “I know you hate dark places, so I wanted something that had a lot of room for sunlight.”

You hummed. “That was thoughtful of you.”

“I only had you in mind when I was looking for our place.”

Tugging at your hand, you let Rintaro drag you upstairs and show you around. “This is our bedroom,” he gestured, and you stepped inside, glancing back at him and down at your intertwined hands in a silent query. Rintaro smiled, nodding as he gently let go of your hand to let you look around the room.

Taking small, careful steps away from him, you let your eyes take in the sight before you. The room was a sanctuary of tranquility, bathed in the soft, warm hues of the rising sun. The bed, dressed in crisp white linens with accents of deep red, invited you to sink into its comfort. Candles flickered softly on a low, modern nightstand, casting a gentle, ambient glow that complemented the natural light streaming through the expansive glass wall.

The true masterpiece, however, was the view.

The entire far wall of the room was made of glass, offering an unobstructed vista of the ocean beyond. Palm trees gently swayed in the morning breeze, framing the horizon perfectly.

You moved closer to the glass, your heart swelling with awe and contentment. Outside, on the spacious terrace, two elegant lounge chairs awaited, promising peaceful mornings and serene evenings spent with the one you loved. The lush greenery surrounding the room blended seamlessly with the view, making it feel as though you lived in harmony with nature.

“Want to see the best part?”

You giggled. “You mean to tell me something could get better than this?”

“Of course. You know I’m only choosing the best for you.”

Leading you into another room at the end of the hall, Rintaro smirked – proud and barely holding back his excitement as he swung the door open. As you stepped inside, a gasp of pure delight escaped your lips – followed by bubbling laughter in disbelief.

The morning sun streamed through the grand, arched windows, casting a warm, golden light that danced sprightly across the room. The room seemed almost enchanted, a perfect blend of nature and comfort, invite you to lose yourself in your own world and let the time pass you by.

Towering bookshelves lined the walls, filled to the brim with volumes of all kinds, promising endless hours of exploration and discovery. The rich, earthy scent of aged paper and polished wood filled the air, wrapping around you like a comforting embrace. A graceful spiral staircase wound its way up to a second level, where more books awaited, their spines gleaming in the soft light.

Your eyes were immediately drawn to the cozy seating area, where a plush of sofa beckoned you to sink into its depths and get lost in a story. The soft, muted colors of the cushions and throws added a touch of warmth, making the space feel lived-in and inviting. A quaint reading lamp stood nearby, ready to cast its gentle glow over late night reading sessions. Behind you, you could hear Rintaro move through the room as well – gently picking up knick-knacks placed along the way.

“–And here is your reading corner, or… whatever you’d like it to be really. If you want to crochet, or paint with Tobio, you can use this room.”

“I thought you said this place was empty,” you joked, gazing up at the myriad of books displayed.

“Yes, it is,” smiling to himself, he leant against the wall and crossed his arms across his chest, content to let you indulge yourself by exploring. “But I made sure to fill this place up first, as I figured this would be the room you’d spent the most time in. I went ahead and collected all the books I know you liked, along with other things I thought you would enjoy.”

There it was again – the thumping of your heart over his words.

It was too easy to get carried away, especially when Rintaro was being unnecessarily sweet. It almost felt as if… nothing was wrong at all. And for a moment – just for now – you let yourself forget everything and focused on the present. With your heart tucked and hidden away for safety under your sleeve, you pointedly averted your gaze from your husband. You knew you wouldn’t be able to handle seeing him like that – content, unguarded, with hooded eyes watching you tenderly. Like he was in love with you, and he meant it when he said he wanted no one else to spend his future with.

You turned your attentions back to the room, the lush greenery that adorned the space, with ferns and potted plants that brought a taste of the outside world in.

You could already imagine yourself curled up on the sofa with a book, the sounds of the waves gently crashing in the background, or perhaps sitting by the window on a rainy day – the patter of raindrops providing a soothing soundtrack to your literary adventures.

You couldn’t help but feel your heart swell in adoration, even as you tried so hard to fight against it.

The Prince had carefully curated this heaven for you. He’d ensured you could have a space where you would spend countless mornings in, a cup of tea in hand, watching the sun rise over the horizon. Afternoons would be spent exploring the vast worlds in the many books that lined the shelves, each one a new journey waiting to be embarked upon.

This reading room was more than just a space; it was an escape from the world. A place where you could retreat and recharge, surrounded by the things you loved most. As you stood there, bathed in the soft morning light, you were bombarded by a mix of emotions – an internal debate whether to feel elated or depressed.

How could someone know you so well, and still hurt you in the process? Love truly was a dangerous thing.

However, you pushed that thought out of your mind. You did not want any arguments tainting this space, this home. Rintaro’s efforts didn’t deserve to be shattered, either. You would save it for another time. For now, you would explore every inch and corner of this house. “And here’s the backyard – plenty of space for our future kids to play in. I’m thinking twins, one boy and one girl, and then we’ll stop trying for another. Two little devils should be enough. The boy needs to be the eldest though, so he can protect his little Princess,” his eyes lit up, and you can see it already.

Rintaro must’ve seen it, too – the scene of your children running around, chasing other. Your little boy would be screaming at the top of his lungs, your little girl blowing bubbles as her hair bounced around her cute little face with each tiny step she took. If she ever tripped, her brother would immediately be there for her. He’d cradle her soft cheeks in his equally small hands, wiping her tears away and telling her it’d be okay. And then they would run to their parents for comfort – Rintaro would bring them into his arms, pressing kisses to their foreheads before he brought them back to their mama. Then, you’d pull out the first-aid kit, plastering band-aids on every scraped knee and kissing all the boo-boos away.

It was a beautiful thing to imagine. Letting your kids grow up in a beautiful place, with a loving father who would stop at nothing to ensure their happiness, building a family.

It put a smile to your face. “You do know I can’t control who comes out first, right?”

“Yes, but a man could dream,” he shrugged and faced your way, his eyes softening as he scanned your face. You didn’t know why Rintaro looked so beautiful in that moment. The picture perfect image of a Prince Charming, his hazel eyes seeing things you couldn’t, his smile hesitant yet hopeful. “I hope our little girl looks like you. She’d be very pretty just like her Mom.”

Heat rushed at the nape of your neck. It was a flood of emotions all at once – flustered, flattered, frustrated.

You immediately pointed your body in a different direction. Sliding the glass doors aside, you kicked off your heels and sunk your feet into the grass. It was a much needed reprieve after walking and driving for hours with those darned heels. Soon enough, you could hear Rintaro trailing behind you – a quick, curious glance letting you know he’d picked up your heels, your shoes dangling on his crooked fingers.

“Can we have a dog?”

“We could have a dog,” he grinned, and then gestured for you to come follow him. Feet sinking into the sand, your hands found solace in his bicep. Rintaro practically puffs up with male pride the moment your nails sunk into his skin. It was silly, enough to make you roll your eyes, but you kept on walking and walking – the sounds of sand crunching beneath your feet and the delicious warmth emanating from your husband a great way to start the morning. Eventually, you’d made it to the front of the house, where the crystalline pool stood just before the sea announced its presence.

“And in the beachfront, well, we could do pretty much anything. Barbecue, invite friends over for dinner. Oh, and there’s a wine cellar in the basement. I think I had that filled up, too. Do you want to have a quick drink before we go?” Shaking your head at him, Rintaro nods, gnawing at his lip before he decides – fuck it – and finally lets his hand rest on top of yours.

The position was oddly intimate. You weren’t embracing each other, yet you’d never been so close to him before. Your sides pressed against one another, your hand curled onto his arm, with his large, veiny hands caressing yours. It’s a little too perfect, and it makes you just a little too in love. Unable to help it, and drunk in the serenity of it all, you let your head fall back to his shoulder. Eyes closed, breaths shallow – your heartbeat in sync with his.

Thump, thump, thump. The schwaa of the waves. The whoosh of the wind.

It was like heaven on earth.

Above you, Rintaro cleared his throat. “So? What do you think? Is it to your liking? If it isn’t, I could always look for a different house–”

“It’s beautiful, Rin. Thank you.”

“You like it?”

“I love it,” you told him, opening your eyes to smile up at him, your cheek still smooshed against his broad shoulders. “It’d be a perfect home for us.”

“O-Okay,” he blushed, averting his gaze from you as he stared at the sea instead. The motion made you chuckle. It wasn’t always Rintaro could be such a flustered, affected man, but you adored the rare times when he was. Just then, an idea popped up in your head and you grinned, tapping his shoulder with your nails.

“Hey. Why don’t we have a little housewarming party to make it feel more like home?”

“We can?”

“We can do whatever we want, Rin,” you reminded him, and then scrunched your nose as you thought of the whole process. Furniture shopping, talking with interior designers, adding your personal touch, bringing in some of your most important things to this beach house that was literally miles away from the Palace. “–Although decorating it would take a lot of time and you must be busy–”

Rintaro’s eyes widened in panic. “I’m not busy. Well, I am, but I’ll make time. Let’s – Let’s decorate. I want to turn this into our home, too.”

You squeezed his bicep, warmth flooding your senses.

As you wandered through the house, your heart swelled with love and gratitude. The beach house wasn’t just a place to live in; it was a dream woven into reality. A testament to the life you would build together. Standing there, bathed in the tender embrace of the sunrise, you felt an unbreakable bond to this place, knowing that it would be the backdrop to your love story – however complicated it may be – a place where you both would grow, laugh, and find solace in each other for the years to come.

For the next few months following your arrival, you and Rintaro dedicated yourselves to transforming the beach house into a true home. It was a long, arduous process – infusing every corner with your touch, and Rintaro with his love for knick-knacks. Countless mornings were spent wandering through local markets, hand in hand, searching for pieces that spoke to you – the future you would create.

It was a great opportunity to fool the media, too, a silent declaration to the world that your marriage would not be swayed by petty rumors.

Well, they were not just rumors, but the Queen seemed ardently pleased by the amassed support.

Rintaro, suddenly the considerate partner and doting husband, would often pause to hold up a delicate vase or an intricately carved wooden sculpture, his eyes seeking your approval. You, in turn, would smile and nod, trusting his impeccable taste and loving the way he always seemed to know what would make your heart sing.

It was as if he knew what you’d like before you even said it out loud. Maybe it was because he’d spent two years of his life courting you that he now knew you like the back of his hand.

Whatever it was, the media ate it up. The article regarding his cheating scandal eventually became nothing but measly gossip. You remained in contact with Kuroo, however, his article about Iris only waiting to drop at your signal.

It should’ve been released months ago. You could’ve ruined her already, snatched your husband back right under her nose – you just couldn’t do it. Not yet. Not when she’d been pointedly avoiding Rintaro, and your husband was acting like he forgot she existed. Could it be both of them couldn’t handle the criticism, after all? Did they care more about their reputations and image than their ‘passionate love affair’?

But then again, neither of them wanted to be exposed for their trysts.

It was all Atsumu’s doing.

And that actress – poor Hiroda Yuki – still remained oblivious to the sex tape you hid under your closet. A secret you would bury there forever, a secret you’d take with you to your grave. You hadn’t heard news of her getting knocked up, and her career was still soaring. For now, you had nothing to worry about. It seemed peaceful – for now.

In the meantime, you dedicated your afternoons in the arrangement and rearrangement of everything you’ve collected – snow globes from your trips overseas with your parents, Rintaro’s random collection of weapons and key chains from his own adventures. The living room, with its expansive glass walls and view of the endless ocean, became a canvas for you to experiment with. There were no rules here.

You placed a soft, oversized rug in the center, its deep blues and greens echoing the colors of the sea. Comfortable chairs and sofas were positioned to invite conversation and relaxation, while vibrant cushions and throws added splashes of color and warmth. You insisted on color, ensuring that the beach house had to be vibrant and thrumming with life. You refused to let it be like the Palace – dull yet overwhelming with all its arching marble statues and golden chandeliers.

And then the dining area, envisioned as the heart of your home, where family and friends would gather, received special attention. You chose a large, rustic wooden table, its surface polished to a warm glow. Around it, you placed mismatched chairs (which greatly bothered Kiyoomi when you sent him photos), but you told him that each had its own story and character. The space was an organized mess, eclectic yet coherent. Above the table, Rintaro hung a chandelier of delicate glass orbs that cast a soft, magical light during evening meals.

The master bedroom was a different tale itself. It was the room you and Rintaro spent the most time on. You established several rules before proceeding, drilling it into his head that:

Rule no. 1: He was not allowed to bring any women inside. (He scoffed at it, offended, but agreed anyway.)

Rule no. 2: Lavender essential oils were the only scents allowed. Vanilla scents were forbidden. (He didn’t understand why you were so vehemently against it, but again – whatever makes the wife happy, was what he said. That alone made you question… did he not know what Iris smelled like? He knew all your favorite perfumes by heart, yet could not recognize the distinctness of vanilla? You quickly dropped the subject.)

And finally, Rule no. 3: No arguments inside the bedroom.

(Rintaro was barely able to hide his shock at you suggesting it. His eyes widened for a moment, an expression he quickly schooled into that of nonchalance. “Of course,” he’d said, “Any conversation that may require a debate will always be had outside. Never here.” To which you replied, “Never here, Rintaro. This is our space. We will not be enemies here.)

There it was, the master bedroom, a sanctuary of tranquility and intimacy. Soft, sheer curtains were chosen to filter the morning light. The bed was adorned with luxurious linens and a variety of textured pillows, making it a perfect retreat after long days spent exploring the island or entertaining the guests you would have over.

Personal touches, like framed photographs of your wedding, and the candid ones he’d taken of you each time he called for you in the Yuzuru Estate, were placed on the nightstands.

All that was left was to invite his brothers over for the housewarming party.

You and Rintaro decided to keep it a secret for now. After all, it wasn’t every day that the brothers all gathered together for dinner outside the Palace. You debated inviting the Queen over, too, but after that recent fiasco and her snide remarks about your mother, you were heavily against it. Rintaro, on the other hand, couldn’t care less. He just wanted to spend time with his brothers – saying they’ve never done that before. Hopefully, it wasn’t too late for them to rekindle their brotherhood.

It sounded like an absurd idea at first, you admitted. You didn’t have to go so far to help your husband get along with his own brothers, but whether you liked it or not, you were married – and marriage often came with demanding responsibilities.

Of course, there was still the issue of Iris: would she be invited or not?

You gauged it for the first few weeks. Waiting, listening, and watching with a careful eye on how Rintaro would be acting. You’d also piloted the agenda, peering over it like a hawk to see if he would sneak in a thing or two. Or maybe he had a room for her. But – much to your surprise – there was none. There were exactly nine guest rooms; one for each brother and their wife, and one for the Queen or your parents, whoever wanted to visit.

Still, it made you turn your nose upwards.

You didn’t fancy the thought of Kiyoomi sharing a room with Iris. In fact, the image of them sharing the same bed was enough to make your stomach turn upside down. But knowing Kiyoomi? He’d probably make her sleep on the floor than be anywhere near her.

Finally, after some finishing touches, you both sent out the invitations.

The housewarming party was an intimate, private event. It was challenging at first – their schedules did not align with each other, and Prince Wakatoshi was not warming up to the idea. However, his son, Wakashi, badly wanted to see the sea. That was all it took before he’d agreed, and soon, even the busybody Shinsuke accepted the invitation – with the promise Airi could also come.

Pride bloomed in your chest. It seemed like an impossible feat at the beginning, gathering all the Princes into one place. But they’re all here now – Keiji was reading books to Wakashi, Tobio is playing beach volleyball with Tooru, Rintaro, and Atsumu. Osamu declined his brothers’ invitation as soon as he caught sight of your kitchen, pushing past his blond-haired twin and declaring that your kitchen was now his. You all laughed about it, and Osamu hasn’t left since.

Wakatoshi was there in your living room, cuddled up on the couch with his wife, Camilla. They both snoozed in peace, lulled by the Princes’ distant shouts and yells from their game. Behind them, Shinsuke crouched over the paperwork he’d brought with him, Airi happily gazing at her Prince as she wiped glasses and silverware.

Kiyoomi and Iris, for some reason, did not participate in any of the activities. The Second Prince has worn a stormy expression the moment he parked his car, his wife in tow. Iris didn’t look great either – her face pale and lips chapped.

You made a mental note to ask him about it later. For now, you would enjoy yourself.

Stepping out of the living room, you walked past the pool and to the beach. The Princes were still playing on a 2v2, Tobio and Tooru on one team, Rintaro and Atsumu on the other. As you got there, your sundress puffing up from the wind, you noticed Maiko was already on one of the lawn chairs – smiling fondly at her husband who scored once more.

You followed her gaze. Now that was a sight, indeed. All the Princes were shirtless – their muscles rippling with each jump or aggressive spike of the ball. They’d already been tanned after playing under the sun for hours, their healthy golden glow illuminated by the setting sun. Rintaro himself had you struggling to look away. Wearing sun shades, a black compression arm sleeve, and his shorts hanging low on his hips – it suddenly felt hot despite the breeze.

Shaking your head to yourself, you tore your gaze away from him and sat next to the Princess. “Maiko,” you greeted, handing her a watermelon juice.

“Your Highness!” she beamed, gladly accepting the drink and playing with the umbrella before she continued, “Thank you for having us over.”

“It was my pleasure,” Smiling, you watched her closely, not missing the way her cheeks flamed each time Tooru scored and he looked her way. The movement was subtle, barely noticeable from another’s eye, but it was clear in that moment it meant the world to Maiko. Beside you, the Princess hid her giddy smile behind her drink, her bare toes curling into the sand beneath you. “So. You and Tooru seem to have gotten along more.”

“Hmm, I wouldn’t say that,” she scrunched her nose, “He was really worried for you, you know. He wouldn’t stop telling me how he was going to beat the Crown Prince up. And when that article went out…”

“We’ve moved past that.”

“You have?” she perked up, “I mean, that’s good. Have you forgiven him?”

You took another sip of your drink, and then snorted. “Of course not. But I think we’re at this point in our marriage where we’re pretending to be happily married, and it’s hard for me to not play my part,” when Maiko titled her head to the side, confused, you gestured to the grand abode behind you. “He’s bought me this house, helped me decorate it. We spent many nights talking about how we’d like it to be, and now we’re all here. His brothers, their wives – everyone is laughing and having fun. How could I ruin it by dwelling on the past?”

Maiko didn’t look entirely convinced. You couldn’t blame her – you weren’t very convinced yourself.

Things were going a little too smoothly for your liking. Until now, you still had your doubts that everything was suddenly okay, that Rintaro and Iris have suddenly decided to end their relationship. But you’d asked around, bribed the maids in Belleview Manor, and they all said the same thing.

Rintaro and Iris have not spoken to each other ever since your return.

It felt as if Rintaro had been sincere when he said he only slept with her because he felt lonely with you. A pathetic excuse, of course, something only an imbecile would fall for. But you’d long accepted that Rintaro was an oddity and complexity of itself.

The only way to truly understand him was to let him show all versions of himself, both the good and the bad, before you could see which one of him you could love the most.

And this Rintaro?

The loyal, caring husband who’d given you this home? The one who wouldn’t stop stealing kisses even when no one was looking? The one who proved to you that the master bedroom upstairs indeed had very soft, luxurious beds by fucking you in it all the way until the morning?

You liked that Rintaro very much.

“I’m always here for you,” Maiko said after a moment, her smile genuine as she gazed upon the secluded area. “The house is beautiful, by the way. I can see why you looked so happy ever since the Crown Prince showed this place to you.”

“It’s our home. It was the best thing he could’ve given me.”

Saying it loud felt like an accomplishment. Your mother had always told you that you would be great at managing your own house someday. It felt surreal to see with your own eyes that she’d been right.

“To be honest, I never expected I would have moments like this,” quipped Maiko, her smile wavering as she plucked out the cocktail umbrella. “Before I married Tooru, it was lonely in the Rai Estate. My mother died giving birth to me, and my father married the next woman who presented herself to him. Sometimes I think he did that because he wanted me to grow up with a mother, but my stepmother was never fond of me. It was a lonely childhood, I must admit,” she confessed with a sarcastic chuckle, lifting her head to stare at her husband. “But then Prince Tooru came along. The Queen started bringing him along whenever she visited my father, and the Prince and I would always have playdates. I remember I would cry each time they had to return to the Palace.”

You tipped your head to the side, curious. “The Queen brought Tooru to the Rai Estate?”

Maiko nodded. “Yes. You didn’t know? Her Majesty is my godmother,” she informed, absentmindedly spinning the ring on her finger. “She was close friends with my father, and they remained in contact even when she married the King. I’d say she was the closest I ever got to having a mother figure, but Her Majesty is too busy to waste her time looking after a little girl.”

“I see,” you murmured, and reached over to clasp her bare shoulder with a comforting squeeze. “I’m sorry about your mother, Maiko. I hadn’t known she’d already passed.”

“It’s alright, not a lot of people mourned her death anyway. And people easily forgot she existed because my father remarried very soon,” she shrugged, a forlorn look crossing her sharp features. “My father said I don’t look like her. Sometimes, I think that fact made it easier for him to move on, because he never saw her in me.”

“Did your father love her?”

“Probably not. You know how marriages between nobles are; I wouldn’t be surprised if it was arranged. He never talked about her either, so I wouldn’t know.”

You hummed to yourself, “Does the Queen still visit Lord Rai?”

“Not lately, no. She got occupied handling the Kingdom’s affairs when His Majesty passed away, but they still send each other letters during birthdays. I’m not sure the Queen has written back to my father in a while, though,” as quickly as she said it, Maiko’s back straightened, her free hands waving frantically in the air. “Oh, I hope this doesn’t change the way you see me, Princess. I promise the Queen does not hold any special favors to me.”

“Not at all, Maiko. You’re still the same Princess in my eyes.”

“TAKE THAT!”

Both of your heads snapped in the Princes’ direction. Tobio, pumping his arms in the air as Atsumu tugged at his blond locks from the other side of the net. Tooru was running around – or more like bouncing – while your husband was down on one knee, panting heavily with sweat dripping down his chest.

Before you could process what was going on, Tooru bolted for Maiko’s direction, whooping and hollering as he picked her up and twirled her. Maiko’s squeal was lodged in her chest upon Tooru’s crushing hug. He kept spinning her, enough to have Maiko wobbly on her feet when he finally put her down, holding her at an arm’s length away as he exclaimed, “Did you see that? Rintaro couldn’t receive my serve!”

“It was just a lucky serve!” defended your husband.

“Yeah, right.”

Rintaro turned to you, his ears turning red as he stood up and dusted the sand of his abs. “It was a lucky serve.”

You put your hand up to your mouth, concealing your laughter. “I’m sure it was.”

As the sun began to set, casting a warm glow over the horizon, the air buzzed with excitement and the scent of blooming flowers from the garden. The sound of waves crashing softly in the background added a serene rhythm to the lively conversations that flowed as effortlessly as the wine. The brothers, their bond evident in their playful banter and shared stories, mingled around the spacious terrace, their laughter mingling with the music that floated through the air.

You eventually left Maiko, seeing as the Princes did not have any plans on stopping their game anytime soon. You didn’t want to rush them into dinner either, not when Rintaro looked like he was having the time of his life.

Dusting sand off your dress, you took yours and Maiko’s empty glasses back inside. Airi and Osamu were still in the kitchen; the former smiling at you when you handed her the glasses, while Osamu remained elbow-deep in some dough. You left them soon to their devices, heading out of the kitchen when you nearly bumped into a firm chest.

“Hey.”

“Kiyoomi,” you blinked up at him, joy radiating from every pore now that he was here. Kiyoomi looked handsome in just his cream, short-sleeved linen shirt, his curls tousled and falling beautifully to frame his face. Until now, you were still beguiled by his striking beauty. “Thank you for coming on such short notice. I heard you’d been occupied with some things in Itachiyama.”

“Nothing out of the ordinary, and I would never decline an invitation from you,” he said softly, dipping his head so you could hear him better. His close proximity set your heart racing, and before you noticed it, you had your dress balled into your fists. “You did a great job with the place. It’s lovely.”

“Thank you,” you breathed out, voice light and airy as you gestured outside. “Are you not going to join your brothers in their game?”

Kiyoomi shook his head, a mischievous smirk gracing his handsome features. “If I did, then Rintaro’s team would lose.”

“Oh, are you a better player than him?”

“I’m better than him in all aspects,” he declared, offhandedly gesturing to their brother on the couch.  “Though I could never hit as hard as Wakatoshi. You should’ve seen him in his prime – he was a monster as long as he had the ball in his hands.”

“I didn’t know you played volleyball, too.”

“We used to play a lot when we were younger. Before duties called.”

You nodded, silently escorting him out of the kitchen. You could already feel Airi’s gaze burning holes at the back of your head. “How is Iris, by the way? I don’t think I’ve seen her around.”

“She said she wasn’t feeling well, so she’s been holed up in bed ever since,” informed Kiyoomi, scratching his cheek in thought. “Did she have a fight with Rin?”

“No, I don’t think so. I think… it’s because Rintaro is ignoring her, and she might be upset about that,” wrinkling your nose, you raised both hands in the air as a form of surrender. “But let’s not talk about unpleasant things. How was your trip to Itachiyama? And Kanami! How is she? I didn’t get to properly say goodbye to her last time.”

Kiyoomi’s lip twitched with amusement. “She’s fine, just a little mad that I took you home without informing her beforehand. She really wanted to spend more time with you.”

I didn’t want to leave either, you almost told him, biting back your tongue at the last moment.

Finding yourself alone with the older Prince, the air thickened with unspoken tension. A palpable static seemed to crackle between you two. Every glance exchanged was laden with unvoiced words, and every accidental touch sent a jolt of electricity through you. He stood close to you, his presence comforting and warm, yet an invisible barrier held you apart – neither brave enough to bridge the gap.

Your heart raced as you felt the weight of his presence beside you, the magnetic pull urging you closer. The silence was almost deafening – filled with the potential of what could be said, yet the fear of breaking it kept you mute.

Finally, Kiyoomi, with a nervous swallow and a shy, almost boyish smile, broke the silence.

“How was the meeting with Kuroo?” he began, his voice soft but trembling with the same tension you felt.

You told him everything without a detail to spare. Your words were hushed, voice barely above a whisper in case anyone accidentally walked in on you. Kiyoomi nodded as he took everything in, the tension on his shoulders increasing. “I see. Has he contacted you ever since?”

“The last message I got from him was from a few days ago. He says he’s got everything he needs – he’s just waiting for the green light.”

“So we’re just waiting for him to drop the bomb.”

“Practically, yes,” you agreed, when an idea formed in your head. Clapping your hands together, you tugged at Kiyoomi’s sleeve. “Actually, could you come with me? I wanted to show you something.”

Kiyoomi wasn’t able to say his response before you’re dragging him upstairs. You already knew the house like the back of your hand, confident you could navigate through it even with your eyes closed. Once you’d reached your destination, you swung the doors open – arms outstretched to show it off. “This is my reading corner, a library of sorts. And here–” you led him to a wall you’d intentionally kept empty, “–is your corner.”

“My corner?”

“Yes, you know, like how everyone has their own space in your library back at the farmhouse.”

“That’s a family house. This is your house with your husband.”

“Rintaro bought it because he wanted to have a safe space with his family, and you’re his brother. That makes you my family too, doesn’t it?”

Your smile was warm, sincere and elated upon presenting him his ‘corner.’ Kiyoomi couldn’t blame you for not noticing the fleeting hurt in his eyes, his disappointment quickly masked with a practiced, cordial nod.

“Family. Right,” he echoed, “I’ll make sure to add my own things someday here. Thank you.”

“FUCK YEAH!” roared Atsumu from below. All too quickly, the moment is broken. You and Kiyoomi stepped away from each other, both releasing a breath you didn’t noticed you held.

“I should go–”

“Of course,” Kiyoomi agreed, his nods a tad too hurried. He’s looking at everywhere but you now. “I’ll follow in a bit.”

You were hesitant to leave. It’d felt like forever since you’d last spoken to Kiyoomi. Ever since that night your call did not push through when Rintaro chased after you, Kiyoomi had been restless. He’d text you every morning and night, without fail, to reassure himself you did not come to harm. He was sweet – undeniably so – and it felt like a waste. Everything did. You couldn’t spend time with him, or speak to him freely like you did in Itachiyama anymore. Here, in Inarizaki, the cameras devoured everything you and Rintaro did.

It came without question you’d unknowingly distanced yourself from the Second Prince.

With a heart heavy of doubt, you exited the room. The last you saw of Kiyoomi was him slouched over his corner, his eyes closed and his head resting on his arm.

You skipped down the stairs, careful of the ankle-length of your sundress. The living room was already a mess when you got there – Atsumu was shaking Wakatoshi awake by the shoulders, screaming that he’d won against ‘stupid Tooru.’ Tooru, on the other hand, was being comforted by his wife, a pout permanent on his face.

“Hey,” an arm wrapped itself around your waist. Tensing, you quickly smiled when you saw it was just Rintaro – now dressed in a plain white button-up, the top three buttons left open to cool himself.

“Hey back.”

“Why didn’t you watch me play?”

You almost laughed at him. It was a comical sight – your tall husband slouching and pouting like a kicked puppy. Shaking your head at him, you let him pull you into an embrace, his arms engulfing you completely. You’re wholly warm like this, his head on top of yours, your cheek on his warm chest that’s still slightly damp with sweat.

“We have guests over, Rin. I have to make sure everyone’s settled.”

“But I played good,” he whines above you, his head dipping to playfully nibble at your ear. Rintaro crushes you in the embrace, your bodies pressed close enough that the growing tent in his trousers poked you through your sundress. Breath hitching, your tilted your neck to give him more access – warily looking out for onlookers. Thankfully, his brothers were all occupied with searching for snacks.

“I’m not inviting my brothers over next time. They take up too much of your attention.”

“Don’t be weird,” you teased, “I’m all yours tonight.”

Tipping your chin to look him in the eye, Rintaro presses a tender kiss at the insides of your wrist. “All mine for a lifetime, hopefully.��

“We’re married. I don’t think we have much of a choice in that aspect.”

When Rintaro smiled, his whole face lit up, his teeth flashing wickedly. Squeezing your waist, his eyes took in the warm, golden lights of your house. The bustling noise his brothers made, and the aroma of dinner being prepared. “We really outdid ourselves, huh. This place turned out better than I expected.”

You patted his firm stomach. “Should we all celebrate with some dinner?”

Nodding, Rintaro pressed a kiss to your forehead before disappearing in the kitchen. Atsumu followed not long after, complaining that ‘Samu was taking ‘too darned long’ preparing his food. You can’t help the smile making its way into your face. Rintaro was right; you really outdid yourselves. The night was a success – everyone was happy, and it finally felt like everything was normal.

“Nee-chan,” Tobio appeared before you, a towel wrapped around his neck. His grin is bright, cheeks flushed from the game and still breathing heavily. “Thank you for the party. I don’t think I’ve had this much fun before.”

“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself, Tobio,” you beamed at him, watching from behind him as Wakatoshi shook his head at all the noise his brothers made – not missing the way his lips curled just the slightest when his son joined in on the joyous atmosphere.

“You should teach me how to play volleyball someday.”

“Of course!” Tobio said, a little eagerly. Just then, his eyes dimmed, his smile wavering as he approached you, a hand cupped at the sides of his mouth. “But sis… are you sure you’re okay with Rintaro? He seems oddly clingy to you today. If he bothers you, let me know, okay? I’ll beat him up. I’ll ask Shinsuke-nii to help me too–”

“Calm down. No one’s getting beaten up today. Let’s just enjoy dinner, alright?”

Tobio sulked, his shoulders closing in together with a frown. However, all that disappeared when Osamu and Airi appeared with dinner. Within minutes, all of you were situated in the long table. Everyone dug in, a mumbled ‘thanks’ and a quick prayer led by Wakatoshi.

Beside you, Rintaro squeezed your thigh before standing up. The scraping of his chair alerted everyone – multiple pairs of heads turning your way as he raised a glass.

“I wanted to make a toast – to thank everyone for coming despite their busy schedules. This home – our home – means the world to me, and there’s no one else but family who I’d rather share this moment with. I want to thank my wife, too, for bringing light into my life,” he gestured your way, causing a bout of sniggers coming from Atsumu. You rolled your eyes and decided to ignore him. “Also, I am very happy to announce that the scandal has been officially cleared. The writer of that article has left the country, and the media is no longer attacking me. I am officially an honorable man again.”

“To honor?” Osamu raised his wine with a snort, and everyone glared at him. “Oh, my bad, I thought that’s what we were toasting for.”

“Osamu,” warned Shinsuke.

“To good memories,” you announced, followed by a chorus of echoes, “And to family.” Pointing your drink in Kiyoomi’s way, the Prince raised his drink, his small smile hidden behind the glass.

“To family.”

As twilight deepened into night, the garden lights twinkled like stars, and the gathering moved inside to the cozy warmth of the living room. Stories and laughter continued late into the evening, the house filled with the comforting sounds of family and the promise of many more cherished moments to come.

It was a night of celebration, not just of a new home, but of the bonds that made it a true haven—a place where love, laughter, and the warmth of family would forever reside.

It was a moment you would cherish while it lasted.

Everyone headed straight for the wine cellar after dinner.

It caused a ruckus – half of the Princes were passed out drunk in their rooms, while the rest stayed up playing Mario Kart. It had been Tobio’s idea, and with Rintaro eagerly joining in, it soon turned into the competitive bout it was now. Whoever lost would skinny dip in the pool without turning the heater on.

You shook your head at their antics.

You cleaned up after everyone, Maiko and Camilla apologizing that they wanted to tend to their drunk husbands and couldn’t help. You quickly waved them away, unbothered. If anything, you appreciated how the noise slowly dissipated – leaving you alone with Kiyoomi who’d volunteered to help clean up. The silence is comfortable as you maneuvered around the dining room.

“Your Highness!” exclaimed Airi, wiping her hands on her apron as she rushed to you both. “Please, leave that behind, I’ll take care of it!”

As gently as you could, you snatched back the wet rug from her hands. “Airi, darling, you can go ahead and rest. I’ll take over here.”

“Oh but Princess, I could never! I’ll clean everything up–”

Kiyoomi smiled at her. “It’s okay, Airi. I’m sure Shinsuke’s been dying to talk to you, too,” Airi flushed red, causing the Prince to rumble in laughter beside you. “Go. We’ll handle this.”

“T-Thank you.”

Airi dashed upstairs, sending you both one last grateful glance before disappearing.

Guilt washed over you at the sight of her. Airi and Kita seemed to be happy together, but you knew the harsh reality that the chances of them working out were low. Not only was she a maid, but she had completely nothing to her name – no family, no college degree, and had a mouth that required dire control. At least here in the privacy of your home, they would receive no criticism, but as soon as you all returned home to the Palace… you sighed.

You couldn’t tell whether you were comforted at the thought you were not the only one suffering when it came to love.

You’re elbow deep in the sink washing the dishes, Kiyoomi at your side silently wiping the plates, when you remembered an empty seat at the table. “Iris didn’t come down for dinner. Should I bring her some leftovers?”

Kiyoomi grumbled, uninterested. “I’m sure she’ll come around once she’s hungry, and that should be soon. She’s had a mad appetite lately.”

Speaking of the devil, a light tap came from the countertops. You whipped your head at the soft, lilting voice. Iris stood a few feet away from you, a basket covered with red cloth held in front of her stomach. She looked sheepish; her brown hair falling down her in graceful waves, but her eyes were red and swollen, as if she’d been crying the entire time.

You snuck a glance at Kiyoomi, questioning, but he merely shrugged, turning his back to her and resuming with his task.

“Your Highness. May I speak with you?” her eyes darted to her husband’s figure, shifting from foot to foot. “Alone?”

“Of course. Excuse me for a moment,” bowing to Kiyoomi, you quickly washed your hands and followed Iris. She led you past the living room and out to the pools. The Princes’ shouts and banters became nothing but background noise. There, Iris situated herself in the picnic table under the willow tree, tucking her hair behind her ear.

“What is it you wanted to talk about?”

She nudged the basket your way, lifting the red cloth to reveal… pastries? “I baked these cookies for you this morning before we left the Palace. Please, have some. Consider it my peace offering.”

You fell silent. Mouth opening and closing as you searched for the right words, you settled for a forced smile. “Thank you. That’s very kind of you.”

Iris gnawed on her lip, and dragged her chair closer to you. Much to your surprise, her hands landed on your knee, her big, green eyes pleading. “Listen, Princess, I know we got off on the wrong footing, and I really want to put that behind us and start new.”

“Uh,” you blinked back, “O-Okay?”

“I’m sorry for everything. I really am. I didn’t mean for Rintaro’s lies to drag on and go this far, and if you must know, I never supported him on his plan–”

“Why?” you didn’t mean for your words to come out harsh. But it did, and you tilted your head to the side, oddly calm as you asked, “Why don’t you support him? Don’t you want to be his?”

Iris’ bravado faltered for a minute.

“I-I did at one point. It gets tiring having to hide your relationship, you know? But his plans seemed too absurd to me, and it sounded impossible that he could achieve it.”

“Do you think he’s not fit to be King?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“It’s what you implied,” you reiterated, scanning her face for answers – for the truth – when realization dawned on you. Leaning back, you flicked her hands away from your lap, lips curling in distaste. “You look down on him, Iris. You don’t think he’s a capable Prince at all.”

Iris clenched her jaw in an attempt to bite back a retort. “He has his many great qualities, but sometimes the Crown Prince loses touch of what is real and what is not,” she said, her placid tone betraying the fire burning in her eyes. “This is why I’m hoping we can be friends and start anew, Princess. I’m letting you know I’m breaking up with Rin. In fact, we have not been talking as of lately–”

“You fucked him in my bed lately. Do you really expect I would believe you?”

Her gaze was ice cold as it cut to you. “That was months ago, and he was the one who brought me there.”

“Let’s say he did. But who’s to say you did not seduce him beforehand?”

“He said his room felt lonely without you there, and he brought me for company. Don’t you realize, Princess? Your husband longs for you more than you know.”

Unable to help it, you chortled out a laugh. “What, are you saying he loves me?”

“He might,” she gritted her teeth, “But he needs to get over me first. That’s why I’m letting him go – you’re a kind person and you don’t deserve to be treated as second best. I’m putting my heart aside so you can finally enjoy your marriage.”

Your jaw dropped. “You’re doing this for me? How very benevolent of you, Princess.”

“It’s really not that hard to believe I want you to be happy.”

You shook your head, refusing to believe it was this easy. “Why the sudden change of heart? Is it because you couldn’t handle being called a slut by everyone?”

“I am not a slut, nor am I a homewrecker. He loved me first, don’t you forget that,” she spat out, her words laced with poison. It had you narrowing your eyes at her, and the Princess cowered for a moment, dropping her gaze down her lap as she stumbled over what to say next. “But the truth is… I never loved him. Or if I did, it wasn’t to the point where I would throw away my marriage to him. I want stability, Your Highness, and my union with Kiyoomi provided me that. Stability, security, and power – I have it all. There’s nothing more I could possibly want.”

“Then why were you sleeping with my husband?”

Iris shut her eyes, her hands balled into fists at her lap. “Because my husband wasn’t around. He avoided me like the plague during the early stages of our marriage, and the Palace is too big a place for someone like me. I’m human, too. I got lonely. You cannot blame me for seeking out the warmth of another. He wasn’t yours during those times, so you can’t put this over our heads again and again.”

“You were using him,” you stated, shooting up from your seat. Kiyoomi had told you about it. Hell, even Maiko had an inkling their relationship was nothing but exploitative on Iris’ part, but hearing it coming from her – hearing how she used your husband like he was a mere toy or puppet for her to play with as she pleases… your blood boiled.

“You knew Rintaro was in love with you, and you took advantage of that. How could you?”

“Because he was there when no one else was.”

You stood rigidly, trying to quell the storm brewing within you. Fixing your gaze on the horizon, you avoided Iris’s eyes, afraid that even a fleeting glance would betray the torrent of emotions you fought to contain. Each breath was a deliberate effort to maintain your composure, your mind a battlefield of unspoken accusations and restrained fury.

Despite the turmoil, you held yourself with regal poise.

“I think I’m going to have a drink,” you decided, sending one last forced smile her way. “Care for some?”

Color drained from the Princess’ face. “No, I-I’m laying off the drinks for a while. I’ve never been a drinker anyway.”

You watched Iris from the corner of your eye, noting how she subtly used her arms to hug her stomach, her movements slow and deliberate. Since arriving at the beach house, Iris had looked unusually pale and sickly, her vitality drained. She kept her distance from Rintaro, a fact that hadn’t gone unnoticed by everyone.

A wild thought flickered through your mind – could Iris be pregnant?

You quickly dismissed the idea, shaking your head, but the possibility lingered – filling you with a growing sense of dread. The realization settled in her chest like a heavy stone, the implications threating to unravel the fragile ‘peace’ between you all.

“Hmm.” You dug your nails to your palm, licking your lips as you tried to still your beating heart. “I think I’ll head to bed soon. Good night, Iris.”

“Princess,” Iris called out from where she sat, her beautiful face crestfallen and desperate. “Have you forgiven me? Can we be friends?”

“I’ll think about it.”

You headed back inside the house, your breathing growing shallower with each step you took. Faintly, you heard Rintaro’s concerned voice calling after you. You paid him no mind, taking two steps at a time as you pushed open the door to their shared bedroom.

Kiyoomi was already inside, in the middle of taking off his wristwatch when you came bustling in. Your name fell on his lips. You ignored him, too, heading for the bed with crumpled sheets from where Iris must’ve slept. You threw the pillows on the ground, the blankets balled and discarded to the side, as you looked for something – searched for answers. Her belongings all came crashing to the ground as you picked it apart one by one, hauling her suitcase from the drawer before kicking it to the floor.

“Princess,” Kiyoomi sounded worried, his hands coming up to reach for you when you slapped it away. Concern flashed over his face, more so when he saw the tears welling up in your eyes. “What’s wrong? What are you doing?”

“She’s hiding something. I know it.”

It didn’t take much effort to open her suitcase. Clothes, shoes, her makeup bag – you emptied it of its contents and felt around for any hidden zippers. None. It was empty, save for some unused tampons scattering right beneath your feet.

Your vision began to grow blurry.

Pushing past Kiyoomi, you dashed for the bathroom and knelt on the ground, opening the trash bin and digging through the heap of dry paper towels. You stared at it, confused. Why throw away perfectly good and unused napkins? Determined, you flipped the bin upside down. A white, thin object fell on the ground with a soft clink.

You reached for it with shaky hands.

It was a pregnancy test – one that read positive.

Behind you, you heard Kiyoomi’s sharp inhale. “It’s not mine,” his words faded into the background, “I never touched her.”

When you found the strength to speak, your voice came out weak and cracked.

“…I know you’re not the father.”

from the left: beach house → master bedroom → reading room

[alltheirdamn]

DECLINED | Mechanic!Joel x f!reader

*The Oil Change*

Summary: Joel decides to give you a lesson in changing oil... Rating: 18+ Explicit Word Count: 4k Warnings: Pre-Outbreak AU, mechanic!Joel, f! masturbation, fingering, squirting, power dynamic shift, submission, overstimulation, unprotected piv sex, size kink, dirty talk, praise kink, pet names (babydoll, darlin', cowboy), ROUGH sex, creampie, lots of banter, questionable information on how to change oil, joel being the MAN that he is A/N: Just a fun lil drabble about our two favorite people ever... also, I am definitely NOT a qualified mechanic with this story, so pls don't follow these instructions when changing your oil lol unless you want to include a mind-blowing orgasm to the mix

Masterlist | Ko-fi

“Okay, so what now?” You asked, staring at the engine of your car.

It was a quiet Saturday at the shop, and Joel had insisted on teaching you how to change the oil. You were ready to get greased up with the car on a jack and the hood open. Joel leaned over the car, pointing to the oil cap beside the engine. 

“See that? That’s where the oil is. We gotta check the levels first before changin’ it,” he explained.

“So… just unscrew it and look into it?” You sounded like a typical dumb girl in a mechanic shop.

Joel was patient with you, though, and far too eager to teach you the ropes. Untwisting the oil cap, he pulled out a long stick beside it, covered in dark liquid. Holding it on the base of a dirty towel, he presented it to you, pointing at the lines on the bottom of it. 

“S’called a dipstick,” he said. “Those lines on the bottom show your fuel levels. If it’s below that line, means you needa change it. What’s it sayin’, babydoll?”

You inspected the dipstick and saw the oil coating it under the line. So far, so easy. 

“Says I need new oil,” you nodded. 

Joel hummed his approval, putting the dipstick back into its spot and leaving the oil cap open. Rounding the car, he pulled up some sort of flat-rolling device. He nodded his head over to it, wordlessly instructing you to follow him. He put it at the side of your car, moving it back and forth to show you how it worked.

“This’ll help you get under the car. S’called a creeper. You just lay down on it and slide under. Think you can do it or want to watch me work?”

You contemplated it, knowing you had seen him on it plenty of other times. You spent countless afternoons watching him lying on the underside of a vehicle, with his thighs flexing under his jeans and his shirt riding up to expose his lower stomach. He always had a particular look when he came back out from under the cars, his hair disheveled and a stupid grin plastered on his face. For such a simple job, Joel sure did love it. 

“I can do it,” you decided. “You can’t be the only one getting all greased up and dirty.”

Joel smirked at you, his hand coming to palm your ass. Leaning into his touch, you pecked him on the cheek and lowered yourself onto the creeper. Staring up at him, you gave him a questioning look as if to ask what now? Pressing his word boot against your shoe, he slid you under the car slowly, your view of him being replaced by the underside of your car. Everything looked just as confusing as it did under the hood. Joel pushed an empty metal pan under with you, along with a wrench and a towel. 

“Alright, babydoll,” he said, his voice closer as he crouched down. “This is where it’ll get messy. Just listen to my instructions, and you’ll be fine.”

“I’m trusting you with my life,” you grumbled. “Don’t let me get covered in oil down here, cowboy.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, babydoll. Now, take a look up and find the drain plug. Should look like a lil’ metal screw. You got it?”

Your eyes scanned upwards, straining until you settled on the screw. You grabbed the wrench and lined it up with the screw. 

“I just unscrew it?” you hollered. 

“Wait! Hold on, babydoll!” Joel called out. 

You heard shuffling beside the car and suddenly felt his shadow beside you. He squeezed his way under the car with you; his body angled sideways to get a view of the drain plug. You glanced over at his face, giving him a soft smile. He had that look of focus cresting over his features, his lips pursed, and forehead scrunched together. It was cute seeing him take this so seriously.  

“Alright, alright,” he exhaled. “The oil s’gonna come out fast, so be ready for it. Try movin’ your body my way so you don’t get it all over ya’.”

“You make this sound so dirty,” you laughed. 

“It is dirty,” he said pointedly. “Get that pretty lil’ mind outta the gutter.”

“Or what?” you questioned, shuffling your body against the creep. You leaned into his broad frame, feeling his chest press against your back.

“Focus,” he growled. Despite his irritation, you could feel him harden against you. 

“Okay, okay,” you relented. 

Reaching up, you used the wrench to loosen the screw, utterly oblivious to the chaos that was about to transpire. The screw shot out onto the metal pan with a thud, followed by a heavy stream of oil splashing against the empty pan. Thick, black oil splattered onto your cheek and neck, the warmth of it staining your skin. You yelped at the contact, rolling off the creeper and falling into Joel’s open arms. His chest shook with laughter as he hauled you further from the oil, still steadily draining out. 

“I warned ya’,” he said. “It’s messy.”

“You didn’t tell me I’d get hit with the oil!” you yelled, jabbing him with your elbow, which only sent him into another fit of laughter. “It’s not funny!”

“S’kinda funny,” he chuckled. “I’ll get you all cleaned up after, don’t worry.”

“You fucking better,” you grumbled.

You watched the oil finally finish draining, a slow drip falling into the filled pan. Joel shimmied out from under the car, whispering in your ear to stay put. He came back a moment later, reaching down to hand you some sort of metal canister. Turning it in your hand, you read the label and saw OIL FILTER plastered on the side. 

“Now we gotta change the oil filter,” Joel explained. “First, y’gotta get the old one out, then we can replace it.”

“Why don’t you do the rest? I’m already messy enough.”

“Oh, so you can talk dirty, but I can’t, huh?” He teased, squeezing your calf as it stuck out under the car.

“Oh, shut up!”

Joel bent down to lay under the car with you again, tilting his head to look at the oil filter. His hand twisted the old canister until another glob of oil fell into the pan, smearing over your t-shirt. The oil leaked down his hand, covering the straps and face of his watch and coloring his tan skin. 

“Jesus Christ, Joel!” 

“Why don’t ya’ save that hootin’ and hollerin’ for after the oil change,” he quipped. “I’ll make sure ya’ say that again, just in a different way.”

You glanced at him, welcomed by an overdramatic wink on his handsome face. He nudged you with your elbow, turning your focus back to the oil change. Guiding your hand up to the empty space, he helped you install the new filter, both of your hands working in tandem as you twisted it back into place.

“There ya’ go, babydoll. Good job.”

“Joel,” you warned. “If you keep talking in my ear like that, I’m going to smack the shit outta you.”

“I reckon you’d rather fuck me,” he whispered in your ear.

Joel shuffled out from under the car, leaving the space vacant around you. You managed to get your body back onto the surface of the creeper, propping your knees up to help propel you forward and out, but as you did, an oil-slicked hand grabbed your ankle. You yelped at the contact, your body lurching from under the car and back into the sun-drenched garage. Joel stood over you with a coy grin and a stiffness in his jeans you were all too familiar with. 

You cocked an eyebrow at him, an unspoken warning to him about what he was thinking. You were covered in oil and felt absolutely disgusting… he was not touching you.

“Don’t you even think about it,” you warned, sitting up on the creeper. It rolled back against the car, hitting the side door with a soft thud. 

Joel stalked forward, crouching to meet you at eye level. He had those stupid fucking puppy dog eyes, and his bottom lip was pushed out and extra pouty. He was undeniably cute, but you wouldn’t cave. 

“We got ten minutes to kill ‘til we can recheck the levels,” he insisted.

“Ten minutes? You won’t even last two, cowboy.”

That did him in.

Pulling the edge of the creeper forward, Joel came down to eye level, a flash of intensity cresting over his brown eyes. His hand brushed over your neck, tugging at your ponytail.

“Says you, babydoll. I’ll have you coverin’ the floor in your juices in less than a minute,” he argued.

Your mouth fell open, both shocked and a bit turned on. He wasn’t wrong, but you were determined to prove him wrong. Arching your body forward, your hands gripped the collar of his flannel, hauling him into a long kiss. His tongue brushed over your bottom lip, making you moan helplessly. Damn this man and his ability to make you submissive and pliable.

“Do you think you’re that good?” you taunted, working your mouth down to nip at the patchy beard covering his jaw.

Joel’s hand untangled from your hair and moved to your neck, squeezing your throat gently—a warning. He held you steady as he met your eyes with a fierce look, his eyes nearly black.

“Do you need a reminder, darlin’? ‘Cause I ain’t afraid to teach you a lesson.”

“You’re already teaching me a lesson,” you reminded him, with a touch of sassiness in your voice. “A lesson in changing oil.”

“Keep it up, babydoll. Y’know I love it when you’re a brat. Means I get to fuck it right out of ya’.”

“And I give you full permission to fuck me later. Right now, oil change,” you emphasized.

He huffed a loud groan, rolling his eyes and straightening to his full height. Offering a hand, Joel helped you stand back up, pecking you on the cheek before leading you back to the open hood of the car. 

“When the oil’s settled, we’ll check the dipstick again to make sure the filters workin’,” he explained.

“Sounds easy enough. And that’s it?” You asked.

“Yup. All good after that, babydoll. We just gotta kill them ten minutes.” He gave you a side eye, insinuating what you both could be doing.

“I’m sure you can make yourself busy,” you smiled, blissfully aware of how much you were killing him.

“Rather be busy makin’ you scream my name,” he grumbled, inspecting your car's engine.

“Aw, is my man pouting?” You teased, rounding the edge of the hood to hug him from behind. You pressed your cheek against his shoulder blade, working your grease-covered hands over the buttons of his flannel. Your fingers danced over each one, toying with them just to elicit his response. 

“You’re killing me, babydoll,” Joel groaned. 

“Am I?” You asked innocently. Your hands trailed down his stomach, inching closer to his belt. 

Joel’s hand shot forward, his thick fingers wrapping around your wrist. You gasped as they tightened around your skin, his arm twisting until he maneuvered you around to stand in front of him. Your ass hit the edge of the bumper at the exact moment his hands came up to pull your face to his. His lips crashed onto yours, his tongue seeking yours as he forced your mouth open wider. A desperate whimper escaped your mouth, only making his movements more intense and all-consuming. Your teeth dug into the plush skin of his bottom lip, tugging gently as he broke away. 

“I’m beggin’ you, babydoll. Please let me fill that pretty pussy, I’m about to lose my damn mind.”

You smirked, folding your arms over your chest. His eyes were saucers; his pupils lost amidst the brown in his irises. Despite the afternoon sun still flecking across the corners of the garage, shadows danced over his features, emphasizing the hungry look he was giving you. You knew it would be easy to cave into his needs—you wanted to—but maybe, just maybe, you’d enjoy seeing him work for it. 

“You wanna beg for it, cowboy?” You asked. “Let me see it.”

Joel’s mouth parted, words failing him as he studied your posture and dominant voice. You lifted your chin, trying to level him with a heavy stare even with the inches of height he had over you. 

“Well?” You questioned. 

“Whatcha want, darlin’? Y’wanna see me on my knees?” He suggested, shifting slightly. 

Your eyes flicked down to the bulge in his jeans, watching it strain against the zipper the longer you stared. Your tongue darted out, rolling over your bottom lip before you bit into it. Joel let out an impatient groan before sinking to his knees before you. Now, the eye contact shifted, your height imposing over his. Seeing his eyes strain upwards to look at you gave you a new sense of control. You liked it.

“Is this what ya’ wanted?” His voice dropped an octave. 

“I don’t hear any begging,” you shrugged. 

Joel clasped his hands together, holding them in front of his chest, as he met your eyes with a pleading stare. His kiss-swollen lips pushed out into a pout, and his voice was agonizingly desperate as he spoke.

“Please, babydoll,” he begged. “I’m dyin’ to see you ruin the floors of this damn garage. Fuckin’ desperate to make you cum all over my cock, please.”

“I like you begging,” you mused. “You’re so handsome on your knees.”

Joel groaned, letting his head fall against your thighs. Running his hands up your jeans, his fingers worked towards your zipper, which you quickly swatted away. Carding your hand through the sweaty curls atop his head, you yanked them back to force his eyes on you again.

“Do you want to see me cum?” You questioned. 

Joel nodded pathetically, his thick neck straining the longer he looked up at you. You noted the outline of his veins under his sun-kissed skin and how his throat bobbed with each word you spoke. 

“Fuck, babydoll. Yes. Please, I want it s’bad,” he pleaded.

“Then be a good boy and watch,” you commanded.

Arousal flooded through your veins as you unzipped your jeans, shimming them down your hips and thighs before discarding them somewhere amidst the mess of the workspace. Standing before him in only a tiny lace thong, you watched as Joel wordlessly tracked your movements, his eyes zeroed in on the apparent slickness between your thighs. You had done such a good job of restraining yourself earlier to saying no, but how could you deny a man on his knees? 

“No touching,” you ordered. “You’re only allowed to watch.”

Hooking your thumbs under the band of your underwear, you let them slowly fall to the ground, your legs stepping out of them as you adjusted yourself against the bumper of the car. Pressing your ass against the cold metal frame, you lifted one leg to rest on top of the bumper; your foot pressed down as you shifted your weight to support your body. Joel obediently watched, his hands resting on his thighs as ordered. 

You moved your hand down your abdomen, your fingers drifting lower as you teased your wet folds. Joel watched with rapt attention, his eyes never leaving the sight of your hand. You made small circles over your clit, the brush of your fingers against it electrifying your nerves. Unrefined pleasure coursed through you as your movements intensified, your hips rolling against your hand as you chased your orgasm. Joel let out a strangled groan, and your eyes snapped to him, only to catch his hand palming over his cock beneath his jeans.

“No,” you said firmly. “You can’t touch yourself yet.”

“Babydoll,” he whined. “S’fuckin’ killin’ me.”

You leveled him with a heavy stare, pushing two fingers inside your aching cunt with a cry of pleasure falling off your lips. You wanted to see him work for it and see how long he’d last without snapping. With two fingers curling deep inside you, you brought your other hand into the mix, drawing those same lazy circles over your clit until you felt that white-hot pressure building inside your core. Joel still hadn’t moved an inch; every muscle in his body tensed as he watched helplessly. You curled your fingers harder, pulling more soft sounds from your mouth as you teetered on the edge of release.

“Joel,” you panted. “I—I need your fucking mouth.”

There was no hesitation.

He crawled to you, replacing the fingers on your clit with his mouth, his tongue stroking the aching bud with fervor. Each flick and drag of his tongue was another shockwave through your nerves, pushing you closer and closer until you were crying out into the space around you. With one large hand gripping the back of your thigh, Joel pressed his tongue harder against your clit until you were crashing over the edge. You came with his name falling off of your tongue, your wet arousal dripping down the bridge of his nose as he pushed his face further into you. Joel wrapped his fingers around your wrist, pulling your fingers from your wet entrance, and sucked them into his mouth. Your eyes connected as he stared up at you, his tongue gliding up each finger as if he were a starved man. 

Fuck control, and fuck the oil change; you needed him. Now. 

“Take me, cowboy,” you pleaded. “Fuck me like you mean it.”

“Y’gonna regret sayin’ that,” he warned, hauling himself to his feet. 

Joel’s arms wrapped around the back of your knees, throwing you over his shoulder. You yelped at the sudden movement, your hands bracing against his lower back. The garage became a blur as he moved past the cars and mess of tools on the ground. Maneuvering you onto the workbench, Joel guided you back until you were flush with the wooden bench, his body hovering over you. His hands moved swiftly on his belt buckle, letting his cock spring free as he hauled your legs over his shoulders. 

“Don’t get grease all over me,” you said. “Keep your filthy hands to yourself, cowboy.”

“Oh, don’t worry, m’gonna make a fuckin’ mess of you,” Joel smirked and lined his cock up with your entrance. 

He drove into you with such force your body shifted upwards on the bench, your skin digging into the wood as you tried to adjust to his size. No matter how many times Joel fucked you, you were always breathless when he filled you with every inch of his cock. He had you bent in half in this position, his hands braced behind you on the bench, and your legs folded over his shoulders. The strength behind each thrust was brutal, and you cried out with each snap of his hips against yours. 

“Did ya’ enjoy teasin’ me, babydoll?” He grunted. “You like seein’ me on my knees beggin’ for this pussy?”

“Yes!” You wailed, tears forming in your eyes. 

“Gonna make you fuckin’ beg for my cum, darlin’. Let’s fuckin’ hear it. Scream for me.”

Joel fucked you with abandon until you were a crying mess. Your hands wound around his neck, nails digging into his skin just for stability. The flutter of your cunt around him sucked him in further, plunging his cock at a deeper angle that catapulted you right to the precipice of release. He knows it, too. If you thought his pace was brutal before—this was violent. He was claiming you in every single buck of his hips, and you steal a glance upwards to see his face twisted up in determination. 

Your voice was becoming hoarse from screaming his name; the void of the garage filled with the sounds of your cries and the disgusting slap of his hips against your slick cunt. Every muscle in your legs tensed and shook as you tried to quell the desperate need for release. You couldn’t hold it much longer; his cock was rubbing against that perfect spot inside you. 

“I can feel that pussy clenchin’ my cock, babydoll,” Joel whispered, lowering his mouth to your ear. “Don’t fuckin’ cum yet. Not ‘til I tell you.”

“Joel, I—I can’t wait,” you sobbed. “Please, I need it.”

“Be a good girl for me,” he growled. “You can do it.”

Your chest heaved with another sob, the tears overflowing as your cunt clenched harder. You were using every ounce of your energy to hold your orgasm at bay, to force your body to wait until he gave you that release. His greased fingers found your overly sensitive clit, pressing right against the bud and alighting the nerves inside you. Your back arched off the bench as you stifled another scream of pleasure. 

“Look at you,” he taunted. “So fuckin’ desperate now, huh? Teased me all day, and now y’wanna cum so bad? Alright, babydoll, cum for me.”

The world fizzled out as your orgasm wracked through your body, lurching you upwards into his arms as you clung to him with shaking limbs. A stream of liquid poured from your pulsating cunt, a ripple of pleasure folding over your nerves and tumbling you into oblivion. Joel’s body tensed under you as he filled you with his release, hot ropes painting the inside of your cunt. Another wave of arousal tore through you, drenching the bench beneath you and dripping onto the floor. Even amidst the haze of your orgasm, you could hear Joel chuckling softly.

“Told you I’d have ya’ drenchin’ the ground.”

“Shut. Up.” You panted. 

“Mhmm,” he hummed, kissing your tear-soaked cheek. 

Joel removed himself from you, easing your sore legs off his shoulders and placing your feet on the floor. Your vision was still blurred as you stared at his face, his lips twitching with a smug grin and a trail of sweat rolling down his temples. 

“I reckon that oil’s ready to check now, darlin’,” he said, offering you a hand.

You took it, winding your fingers through his. With a squeeze of his fingers, you walked over to the car, trying—and failing—to hide the limp in your steps. You couldn’t focus on anything other than the feeling of his cum leaking out of you and down your thighs, but you watched silently as he pulled out the dipstick and presented it to you.

“Good job, darlin’,” he smiled. “Now ya’ know how to change the oil. Whatcha wanna learn next?”

You rolled your eyes, grabbing your underwear from the floor and slipping them over your hips. 

“Maybe I can teach you how to slow down your damn sex drive, cowboy. You’re gonna fucking break me in half one day,” you grumbled. 

“Don’t think you’d mind it much, babydoll.”

Joel tugged you close, tipping your chin up to meet his lips with a tender kiss. You were pliant in his hands, molding yourself to each hard muscle of his body. Running your hands up his biceps, you gripped his shoulders and slipped your tongue over his. He palmed your ass, pressing your body tighter against his chest. 

“You’re a terrible teacher, you know that?” You mumbled against his mouth.

“But ya’ love me,” he tossed back, his teeth sinking into your bottom lip. 

“Yeah, I do,” you sighed happily. 

“And I love you, babydoll.”

[macmay]

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[moonastro]

ASTROLOGY notes Pt.1

⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ✶ random notes and observations ✶ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆

❥ what i realised from observing celebrity charts, Chiron conjunct MC may bring fame but in exchange fans may know a lot about your wounded areas or generally may know a lot about the individual ( including a lot of transformative area of their lives). They become almost like a mentor in the eyes of their fans. The individual with Chiron conjunct MC may be a comfort person to a lot of people.

❥ lord of your Vedic 5th bouse determines how you'll act when becoming a parent.

For example, in 2nd house, individual may gain wealth through having children. Children may be valued, may find sudden fulfilment through becoming a parent.

In 6th house, may bring a lot of health issues to the parent or the child as it is seen as a hard house in Vedic astrology. It can bring unexpected bills to the parent after having children also.

In 12th house, may bring mental health issues to the parent or child, also isolation can be a big issue here. Is also seen as a difficult house to have 5th lord in. May be some confusion when communicating to the child.

❥ Planets near the MC line (if no planets check the IC) can determine and help to figure what career path may be best for you.

-For example, individuals with Moon near the MC line (or IC) can be seen working as a marine, cooks, nurses, working with women, travelling (flight attendant), restaurants.

-With Venus near the MC line, something to do with beauty, music, entertainment, hotels, luxuries, art, pleasures.

-Mars near MC line may suggest working with metal, construction, police, surgeons, engineers, vehicles, a lot of energy, weapons, soldiers.

❥ If no planets near MC or IC line in natal chart, observe where there is a cluster in a particular house with multiple of planets.

-For example, if most planets are in fifth house, expect your work to do something with politics, religious rituals, entertainment, authorship, stockbrokers.

-Planets clustered in 11th house, individuals may work as accountants, in group work, trade and business, financial institution.

-In first, may be self employed, working with the body(like gym, health club, model etc.) politics, publicity.

❥ ALSOOO. The sign in which the cluster of planets are occurring at may also be significant.

-For example, lots of planets in libra, may suggest jobs to do with artists, fashion, advertising, interior design, receptionists, judges, cosmetics, prostitutes.

-Multiple planets in the sign of Scorpio, may relate to drugs, chemicals, scientists, liquids, doctors, nurses, police, occult, insurance.

-In Capricorn, may manifest mining, raw materials, lumber, extraction and processing.

images are not mine

❥ Mars in 7th house individuals loveee to argue, they find it really entertaining.

❥ moon in Scorpio individuals tend to have a missing relationship with masculine figures. its more of an on and off relationship.

❥ what i have learned from Vedic astrology is that planets have cast spell aspects.

-For example Saturn has three aspects and they are 3rd, 7th and 10th house away from itself.

-So say you have saturn in the 5th house. saturn will also have influence on the 7th, 11th and 2nd house in your chart. so if you are studying saturn in your chart, these aspects will also be important.

❥ Virgo placements like to touch but don't necessarily liked to be touched by other people. For example, they might love to massage your head with their fingers or like to carefully stroke your palm and so on.

❥ so saturn rules restrictions, limitations, longevity and so on. so what house saturn is in will determine what will take longer for you to master in your life.

-For example, saturn in 10th house individuals may struggle to find a job at a young age.

-saturn in 7th house people may have difficulty with relationships and may not date until they actually get married.

-saturn in 11th house, this may bring tension and problems relating to social groups and friends. the individual may have difficulty with friendships and may be unfamiliar with big group setting.

⤷ don't forget that overtime saturn matures in your chart and brings LONGEVITY and success in that house its in. Of course aspects are really important as well.

That is it everyonee!! ❣

I hope you enjoyed this post. 🌠

Thank you for reading and once again don't be shy to give feedback as i would really appreciate it. 🌝

[usafphantom2]

‘Flying at over Mach 3 is a thermal problem. Everything is too hot, including any air you slow down to interact with the vehicle. You are trying to make the vehicle (and the pilots inside) survive for hours in a pizza oven, while they are getting cozy with two 500 million BTU/hour flamethrowers,’ Iain McClatchie, an aviation and turbine engine expert

Quora.

‘When you look at a graph like this, your first impression might be that the vehicle is this glowing hot thing slicing through the icy -52 C air at 80,000 feet. So naturally, you think of the air as cooling the airplane down.

NO…Not so much. The air has to change to the vehicle’s speed to touch the vehicle, and that requires work. That work heats the air. At Mach 3.2, the stagnation temperature of the air is 740 F, which is hotter than every (labelled) point on the above graph! (The nacelles around the engine afterburners, unlabelled, are in fact hotter than the air around them

Basically, the shocks from the airplane heat the air around it, but the vehicle itself cools the air in contact with it down. Once the airplane passes by, all that disturbed air tumbles to a stop, leaving a path of hot air through the upper atmosphere.

‘So back to life in the pizza oven. The basic solution is (a) leave most of the airframe hot and make it out of stuff like titanium and stainless steel that are strong when hot, and (b) start with a large amount of cold fuel, and then dump heat from critical areas into the fuel before burning it. When decoupling from an aerial tanker, half the SR-71’s weight was fuel.

‘A special type of kerosene fuel, JP-7, was developed for the SR-71 to be good as a heat sink. It boils away at 285 C at 1 atmosphere pressure, which is the upper end of the kerosene range. When the plane tanked up at 30,000 feet, the kerosene might start below 0 C. At speed, it would be used to cool the avionics and cockpit, and by the time it arrived at the engine it would get up to 177 C. It was then used as hydraulic fluid for the various engine actuators, primarily the variable geometry nozzle. By the time it got to the fuel injectors it had gotten up to 316 C (but wasn’t boiling because it was at several atmospheres of pressure). At cruise the burner cans were at 330 kPa (about 3.3x the pressure at sea level), so the fuel still didn’t boil as it left the nozzles but the droplets would have evaporated very quickly.’

McClatchie continues;

‘JP-7 is mostly a mix of hydrocarbons centered around C12H26 (dodecane). The graph above shows the vapor pressure of dodecane as a function of reciprocal absolute temperature. That makes it a bit hard to read. 0.0024, for instance, is 417 Kelvin which is 143 Celsius. Liquids start to boil when their vapor pressure is greater than the ambient pressure. I’ve labelled the boiling point of dodecane at 2900 Pa, which is the absolute pressure at 80,000 feet, and 13000 Pa, which is the minimum absolute pressure in the SR-71 fuel tanks. Note that the dodecane component of JP-7 starts to boil at 162 C at sea level… quite a bit less than the advertised 285 C which is actually when the stuff boils away completely.

‘The flash point of JP-7 is 60 C. The fuel was held in tanks whose walls were formed of the skin of the vehicle. Since fuel vapor against the top skin of the vehicle would be well over 60 C during cruise, if air was allowed in any ignition source in the tank would cause a deflagration and destruction of the vehicle. Instead, nitrogen gas from a 260-liter liquid nitrogen dewar was used to pressurize the tanks. This would have mostly been an issue during descent, when the ambient pressure rose and extra gas was needed to fill the tank ullage space. Click on the full article to read more.

Written by Linda Sheffield

@Habubrats71 via X

[zooliminology]

Some questions (sorry for so many lol):

can one turn on the faucet of golbo's bathtub? If so, what comes out? If not, is it compatible to be able to hook it up to a water source, or is its engineering non-compatible with our devices?

Does there appear to be any water or water 2 in the pseudoflora of the greenhouses? If there is water 2, this would help explain why one is incapacitated upon eating them (or any extraplanar pseudoflora).

We can see princes touching some liquid in the greenhouses, what is that? Is it water 2? Since water 2 can't be brought back to HQ, are princes OK with touching normal water?

Do princes take place in any other enrichment besides booping the water?

Do princes sleep?

What was that section in the training video where Tau got jumped by the glitter cloud ("Oh shit we gotta r-")? Where was that, what was that thing, how did the researchers escape or did it, like, teleport them?

Near the beginning of the training video, where it says that entities may randomly appear in our world only to disappear a few days later, what is the entity pictured?

Golbo's bathtub, if you are asking about the one that is used as its current enclosure, is a normal bathtub. However, if you are speaking of bathtubs in the Far Plane, whether or not they work is highly dependent on its locations. No bathtubs in the Greenhouses work. Bathtubs found outside that area dispense water 2.

Any water-like substance seen in the Greenhouses is water 2. The presence of water 2 in pseudoflora is part of the reason eating them is inadvisable.

See above. Princes do not seem to detect any difference between water and water 2 and thus H2O is used in their enclosure.

Princes will "patrol" the parameters of their enclosure along with digging in the dirt of potted plants. There is not a known reason for this action, but it is theorized that it is due to dirt being an uncommon sight in the Greenhouses. Whether moss or another ground covering would stop this behavior has not been tested.

Princes do not sleep. They do, however, periodically rest on the ground for relatively long periods of time.

The phenomenon known as the "Glitter Storm" is seen on rare occasions in certain parts of the Far Plane, particularly in areas with large amounts of pseudoflora. Think of the Far Plains and the Greenhouses. Aside from strong winds, it seems to not be harmful other than the large amount of glitter it despoits onto researchers. Strangely, this glitter does not stick onto any farplanar material- including entities.

That was Sigma's attempt at a Strider.

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Transparent paper-based material can hold boiling water and degrade in deep ocean in under a year

A team of biomaterial engineers, environmental resource specialists and industrial design researchers affiliated with a host of institutions across Japan has developed a biodegradable material that is clear and can hold boiling water—and it degrades in less than a year after settling on the ocean floor. Their work is published in the journal Science Advances. Prior research has shown that millions of tons of plastics are piling up in the environment, including on the ocean floor. Because of this, scientists have been looking for better, biodegradable replacements. In this new effort, the research team has developed a paper-based, clear, biodegradable material that can stand up to liquids for several hours, even those that have been heated, allowing them to replace plastic cups, straws, and other everyday objects.

Read more.

[whirligig-girl]

At time of writing, Kerbal Space Program 1 is on sale for $10 on Steam.

If you have wanted to buy KSP and have never gotten around to it, now would be a good time.

Despite the failure and cancellation of KSP2, KSP1 is still a really great game. I bought it for 18 dollars in 2012, and it remains one of my favorite games of all time and perhaps the most cost effective game purchase I've ever made.

KSP1's development is completely finished, but the modding scene is still going strong.

The DLCs are also available for half price. Here's my thoughts on them:

Making History: adds historical-themed rocket parts in new size categories, and a mission editor that allows you to design mission plans and share them for other players to fly. I do not recommend this one, because the rocket parts have been done better by free mods, and because no one ever ended up using the mission editor since those missions are walled off in their own scenarios and can't be integrated into a normal game.

Breaking Ground: adds sparse rocks and other ground scatters to the surface of planets to be explored by rovers. Much more interestingly, adds robotic parts which can totally change the kinds of vehicles and crafts you can build. I do recommend this, because the addition of robotic parts adds so much to the game.

But the real goodies are in unofficial mods. Here's my absolute must-haves:

Restock: The rocket parts in the stock game are a mix of different styles by different amateur artists who have worked on the game over the years, lacking an overall cohesive style. Restock reskins (but otherwise does not modify) all of the stock parts using new models and textures that bring a cohesive visual identity to KSP that it has sorely missed. The models are higher fidelity in most cases, but they have been made efficiently so that the game will actually run and load faster and smoother with Restock than without it. (Github)

Restock Plus adds a few other parts in the same style to round out some missing parts, and if you do not have Making History, it will add its own versions of those parts for free (and with better game balance, in my opinion). (Github)

Scatterer: Replaces the archaic stock atmosphere rendering from 2011 with an accurate simulation of rayleigh scattering, vastly improving the look of planets both in space and on the surface. (Github)

KSP Community Fixes: Bug fixes and quality of life tweaks, especially useful in light of KSP's development being discontinued. (Github)

Some tips (below the cut)

KSP allows you to build rockets almost lego style out of modular parts. The game does include a few tutorials which I do recommend you try (imperfect though they are), but here's a few other helpful tips:

there are two ways to attach parts: node attach (connecting parts via those green and black spheres that appear when you're holding a part) and surface attach (connecting parts where your mouse is). If a part can be surface attached, it will always prioritize that over node attach. So if you're trying to put together a rocket tank and the tank keeps trying to attach to the other tank wrong, you have to change your camera angle so that the nodes can come together without your mouse going over the part. The alternative is to hold the ALT key, which will force the part to attach only to a node.

The C key and the X key control angle snap and symmetry mode. There's also buttons for these on the lower left of the u.i. Symmetry is a must for building rockets.

There's three main types of engines: Liquid Fuel rocket engines, which require separate fuel tank parts burning Liquid Fuel and Oxidizer, Solid Rocket Boosters, which contain their own fuel and can not use fuel tanks or be throttled, and Jet Engines, which burn liquid fuel and atmospheric oxygen from air intakes, at a high efficiency.

There's also the ion engine, which uses electricity for power and xenon gas as a propellant for extremely high efficiency and extremely low thrust, the nuclear thermal rocket, which uses an onboard nuclear reactor to heat up liquid fuel propellant for high efficiency and low thrust, and monopropellant RCS, which are steering thrusters that use monopropellant tanks shared between all stages. There's also a single 'normal' engine that burns monopropellant, the Puff.

At a first approximation the game uses real orbital mechanics. To get to space, you just have to go straight up above 70 kilometers. To stay in space, you must enter orbit, which means your sideways velocity has to be somewhere around 2500 meters per second so as you fall you curve around the planet. The M key brings up the map mode, showing you your trajectory. It'll also show you if your orbit intersects the planet, and you can mouse over Ap (your apoapsis, the farthest distance in your orbit) or Pe (your periapsis, the closest approach in your orbit) to see if they are above 70 kilometers.

At first approximation the game uses real rocket science. The more fuel you add, the more fuel you're wasting to carry that fuel. Staging (detaching tanks and engines when they're no longer needed) using decouplers is a must. Parachutes are also a must if you want to preserve the lives of your Kerbals, but remember. This game is realistic. Parachutes will not work on airless bodies like the Mun, and they may not be enough on their own on martian planets like Duna which have only thin atmospheres.

Career mode is kinda... not very well made? I would start with Science Mode. The tech tree will kind of ease you into building with limited parts. But you can always jump right into sandbox mode.

Rocket parts come in a few diameters sizes: 0.625m, 1.25m, 1.875m, 2.5m, 3.75m, and 5m. In addition, there are 1.25m (mk1), diamond-shaped 1.25x2.5 (mk2), and roughly 3.75m (mk3) spaceplane parts. The aerodynamics and structure works out best when same diameter parts are connected together. There are adapter parts to facilitate this, as well as fairings (procedurally shaped aerodynamic casings) and engine plates if you need to get around this.

Turn on Advanced Tweakables in the settings. This will allow you to right click on parts and select "rigid attachment", and to use "autostrut", both of which are necessary for making rockets behave. (you could try and use strut parts, but that can bloat your part count and often times it isnt clear how to even attach a strut in the direction you need) This is one of my least favorite parts of KSP, as this is pretty tedious for a large rocket, but it's necessary to keep it from flopping around. For some reason KSP's developers thought that floppy rockets (even when they should be perfectly rigid), would be more fun. The idea comes from the early days of the game, when the conventional wisdom was "if it moves and it shouldn't, add struts; if it doesn't move and it should, add more boosters." The game has gotten a lot more complicated now, and that design philosophy should have been left in 2012. There's also a mod, Kerbal Joint Reinforcement, that will provide this functionality without needing autostrut and rigid attachment per part.

On efficient launches, you're going to end up looking like you're burning up. This is a limitation of the 1/10th scale planets in KSP, and how that plays with the 7/8ths scale atmospheres. During a real launch as well as an efficient KSP launch, you'll end up travelling at 1500-2000 m/s in the upper atmosphere, but in the real world that's only a fraction of orbital velocity. In KSP, that is near orbital velocity, and so the game is balanced to assume you're in reentry conditions. If you have fairings to protect sensitive parts of your ship, you should be fine.

KSP's small scale makes Apollo's Lunar Orbit Rendezvous approach inefficient for the Mun and Minmus. It's actually cheaper to just directly land on the surface. This can be fixed by installing a rescale mod such as Sigma Dimensions, and setting it to 2.5 rescale and resize, and 1.6 rotation period scale. This makes delta-v 1.6 times larger than stock KSP, resulting in more realistic proportioned rockets. The game honestly isn't any harder in this state, it just needs somewhat bigger rockets. All that aside, the "Apollo style" orbital rendezvous approach works great for all other planets, since interplanetary transfer requires more fuel as do most planetary landings. This approach has two spacecrafts launch either together or separately that travel to the destination planet docked together. The lander then separates, lands, and eventually launches again, but only back into orbit, where the orbiter picks up the crew and they launch back home.

The KSP solar system is not a 1:1 copy of our system. Moho is a lot like Mercury, Eve is like Venus but purple and much more massive, Kerbin is like Earth, Mun is like the Moon but about three times closer, Minmus is a small moon orbiting far from Kerbin, Duna is like Mars, but instead of small asteroid moons, it has an almost planet sized moon which is almost a binary companion. Jool is a gas giant that orbits where Jupiter should, but it's undersized, and orbited by three huge planet sized moons, including the ocean world Laythe, the ice planet Vall, and the airless Kerbin-mass rocky planet Tylo. In addition, two small minor moons. There's also a big Ceres analogue called Dres and Eeloo, a cracked, icy world in a 2:3 resonance with Jool, just how Pluto is in a 2:3 resonance with Neptune. There are mods that add more planets to the stock system, as well as mods that replace the stock system entirely. There's even Real Solar System (which is designed to be played with Realism Overhaul, a modpack that's almost a different game entirely)

[rjzimmerman]

Yesterday felt like an earthquake shook the foundations of our climate and environmental laws, followed by a hurricane that scattered the bits all over the place and a wildfire that burned those bits that weren't scattered. I didn't watch any part of yesterday's debauchery, either on TV or streaming or the alerts that pop up on my iPhone or iPad, or read anything (neither national, local or environmental or climate specialized media). I figured most of the crap he did yesterday will be the subject of strategic lawsuits, and much will be tossed out as contrary to legislation or regulation or unconstitutional. In other words, I'll pay attention to the reconstruction, not the destruction. But.......it was still a horse shit day.

This compilation from the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law (of the Columbia Law School/Columbia Climate School) is outstanding. Click/tap on the caption of this post and you'll be able to figure out what happened and sort things out as you want. Just click/tap on the caption and go for it. But if you don't want to do that, here's the compilation, abbreviated. Italicized/red fonts are my addition, either explanatory or editorial.

PUTTING AMERICA FIRST IN INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL AGREEMENTS

Withdraw from Paris Climate Agreement

Withdraw from any other agreements made under UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

Revoke any financial commitments under UNFCCC

Revoke U.S. International Climate Finance Plan

DECLARING A NATIONAL ENERGY EMERGENCY

Declares national energy emergency, primarily based on high energy prices

Use any lawful emergency authorities “to facilitate the identification, leasing, siting, production, transportation, refining, and generation of domestic energy resources.”

Use Defense Production Act and federal eminent domain authorities

Issue emergency fuel waivers to allow year-round sale of E15 gasoline (E15 is ethanol/gasoline mix)

“Expedite the completion of all authorized and appropriated infrastructure, energy, environmental and natural resources projects”

Use emergency authorities and nationwide permits to grant approvals under Clean Water Act Sec. 404, Rivers and Harbors Act Sec. 10, and Marine Protection Research and Sanctuaries Act Sec. 103 for energy projects

Use emergency consultation processes under Endangered Species Act, and frequent convening of Endangered Species Act Committee, for energy projects

Use construction authority of Army Corps of Engineers

The term “energy” is defined to mean “crude oil, natural gas, lease condensates, natural gas liquids, refined petroleum products, uranium, coal, biofuels, geothermal heat, the kinetic movement of flowing water, and critical minerals” [not wind or solar] (excluding wind and solar is childish and just plain stupid)

UNLEASHING AMERICAN ENERGY

“eliminate the ‘electric vehicle (EV) mandate’ and promote true consumer choice … by terminating … state emissions waivers that function to limit sales of gasoline-powered automobiles; and by considering the elimination of unfair subsidies and other ill-conceived government-imposed market distortions that favor EVs” (the elon musk pacifier....i.e., Tesla)

“safeguard the American people’s freedom to choose from a variety of goods and appliances, including but not limited to lightbulbs, dishwashers, washing machines, gas stoves, water heaters, toilets, and shower heads”

Require all agency heads to review all existing regulations “that impose an undue burden on the identification, development, or use of domestic energy resources – with particular attention to oil, natural gas, coal, hydropower, biofuels, critical mineral, and nuclear energy resources”

Attorney General “shall consider whether pending litigation against illegal, dangerous, or harmful policies should be resolved through stays or other relief”

Revocation of many executive orders

Terminate the American Climate Corps

Council on Environmental Quality must propose rescinding its NEPA regulations (NEPA regulations are the core of our environmental laws)

CEQ to convene working group to expedite permitting approvals

“all agencies must prioritize efficiency and certainty over any other objectives, including those of activist groups that do not align with the policy goals”

“facilitate the permitting and construction of interstate energy transportation and other critical energy infrastructure, including … pipelines”

In NEPA and other permitting reviews, “agencies shall adhere to only the relevant legislated requirements for environmental considerations and any considerations beyond those requirements are eliminated”

Disband Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases; all of its guidance, recommendations, etc. are withdrawn

Consider eliminating the “social cost of carbon” calculation

EPA in collaboration with other agencies shall submit recommendations to OMB “on the legality and continuing applicability” of the greenhouse gas endangerment finding of 2009 (this is the core concept from the US Supreme Court case that provides the legal basis for greenhouse gas controls)

Immediately pause disbursement of funds appropriated through Inflation Reduction Act or Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act; review processes for issuing grants, loans, contracts, or any other financial disbursement of appropriated funds

Secretary of Energy to restart reviews of applications for approvals of LNG export projects

Maritime Administration to review approvals for proposed deepwater ports for LNG export

“identify all agency actions that impose undue burdens on the domestic mining and processing of non-fuel minerals and undertake steps to revise or rescind such actions”

UNLEASHING ALASKA’S EXTRAORDINARY RESOURCE POTENTIAL

Expedite permitting and leasing of energy and natural resource projects in Alaska

Prioritize development of Alaska’s LNG potential

End restrictions on development of Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and certain other areas in Alaska

Numerous other actions to facilitate energy development in Alaska

TEMPORARY WITHDRAWAL OF ALL AREAS ON THE OUTER CONTINENTAL SHELF FROM OFFSHORE WIND LEASING AND REVIEW OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT’S LEASING AND PERMITTING PRACTICES FOR WIND PROJECTS

Stop leasing of federal waters for offshore wind

Issue no new or renewed approvals, rights of way, loans for onshore or offshore wind projects

“consider the environmental impact of onshore and offshore wind projects upon wildlife, including, but limited to, birds and marine mammals”

PUTTING PEOPLE OVER FISH: STOPPING RADICAL ENVIRONMENTALISM TO PROVIDE WATER TO SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Restart work “to route more water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to other parts of the state for use by the people there who desperately need a reliable water supply”

“The recent deadly and historically destructive wildfires in Southern California underscore why the State of California needs a reliable water supply and sound vegetation management practices in order to provide water desperately needed there”

DELIVERING EMERGENCY PRICE RELIEF FOR AMERICAN FAMILIES AND DEFEATING THE COST-OF-LIVING CRISIS

Among many other actions, “eliminate counterproductive requirements that raise the costs of home appliances”

“Eliminate harmful, coercive ‘climate’ policies that increase the costs of food and fuel”

[libraryofloveletters]

Work Place Friendly

Sergio ‘Checo’ Perez x Fem!Reader

Warnings: engineer!reader, max is trying to get everyone drunk, being tipsy, checo has zero rizz but reader makes it work, alcohol and the consumption of.

Word Count: 404

Author's Note: I feel like no one writes for checo lmao - he has his dilf moments but don't quote me on that (I know christine will when she sees this lmao)

--

RedBull hosts their annual holiday party, everyone sprawled out through the factory and you two ? Well.. that was a different story. 

As one of the lead engineers, you sort of got roped into doing a lot of things that you don't want to do - that included a 6th round of shots with the world champion at this year's holiday party.

His arm over your shoulder, handing you a glass. "Last one!" You tell him, the man pouts.

"Come on y/n! Have some fun, you're so serious!" He laughs, squeezing your shoulder as he taps his glass to yours, the two of you downing the liquid. The tequila, patron of course, burnt on its way down. You cleared your throat, rubbing your chest.

Max was getting pulled away by someone, you aren't sure what he was yelling but you decided you didn't care and that you needed some fresh air.

Typically, you were a one drink and done type of gal but somehow Max had wrangled you into doing shots, your head spun as you stumbled your way outside. The cold air woke you up slightly, your body pressed to the wall for a moment before you found yourself walking to the benches.

"Hey," a voice calls, you look up to see Checo. "Hi!" you smiled, almost tripping over your own two feet.

The man is up and his hand on your arm, steadying you as he helps you to the bench. "Thanks," you mumbled, taking a second to gather yourself. The reflection of the Christmas lights around the factory lit up the place and the cold air was sobering you up fast; your head pounding in sync with your heart.

"You okay? What happened?" Checo's hand rested on your back, rubbing it softly. You nodded, "shots with Max happened."

The man laughs, nodding in understanding. "I don't know how he holds all of that, I'd be wobbling by now."

"Yeah," you breathe, "my head is spinning."

"That's probably because of me."

You look over at the man, his cheesy line still processing in your head and all you can do is laugh. You see that Checo's cheeks have gone red, you blame it on the alcohol.

In an attempt to comfort him, your hand rests on his. "Does that line usually work?"

Checo chuckles, shaking his head. "No."

You smile, leaning over. A hand resting on his jaw when you kiss him. "It does, tonight."

"I'll say more of them, then." He whispers and you laugh, shaking your head. "Quit while you're ahead, babe."

[lonestarflight]

"Core Stage for Artemis II Rocket Moved to Pegasus Barge for Departure to Kennedy Space Center

This image shows team members moving the first core stage that will help launch the first crewed flight of NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket for the agency’s Artemis II mission. The move marked the first time a fully assembled Moon rocket stage for a crewed mission has rolled out from NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans since the Apollo Program.

The core stage was moved onto the agency’s Pegasus barge, where it will be ferried to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The core stage for the SLS mega rocket is the largest stage NASA has ever produced. At 212 feet tall, the stage consists of five major elements, including two huge propellant tanks that collectively hold more than 733,000 gallons of super chilled liquid propellant to feed four RS-25 engines at its base. During launch and flight, the stage will operate for just over eight minutes, producing more than 2 million pounds of thrust to help send a crew of four astronauts inside NASA’s Orion spacecraft onward to the Moon.

NASA is working to land the first woman, first person of color, and its first international partner astronaut on the Moon under Artemis. SLS is part of NASA’s backbone for deep space exploration, along with the Orion spacecraft and Gateway in orbit around the Moon and commercial human landing systems, next-generation space, next-generational spacesuits, and rovers on the lunar surface. SLS is the only rocket that can send Orion, astronauts, and supplies to the Moon in a single launch."

Credit: NASA

Date: July 16, 2024

Posted on Flickr by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center: link

[mindblowingscience]

A team of scientists has created a new shape-changing polymer that could transform how future soft materials are constructed. Made using a material called a liquid crystalline elastomer (LCE), a soft rubber-like material that can be stimulated by external forces like light or heat, the polymer is so versatile that it can move in several directions. Its behavior, which resembles the movements of animals in nature, includes being able to twist, tilt left and right, shrink and expand, said Xiaoguang Wang, co-author of the study and an assistant professor in chemical and biomolecular engineering at The Ohio State University.

Continue Reading.

[jisokai]

Ochako’s earliest memory is a warning: to stay away from the ocean, and what lurks inside it.

[mermaid AU where Ochako is from an island surrounded by sea creatures, and the only one willing to see them as anything but monsters]

part 1: your siren song (my lullaby)

uraraka ochako x toga himiko ch 1/2 | 16.3k words | masterlist | ao3

cw (includes spoilers for fic): human/monster relationship, blood, blood drinking, descriptions of corpses, illness, major character death, violence, law enforcement, cultural tensions, child neglect (ish), implied kidnapping notes: shoutout to gigi perez for sailor song and vonabel for the partial beta <3

Oh, won't you kiss me on the mouth and love me like a sailor? And when you get a taste, can you tell me what's my flavor? I don't believe in God, but I believe that you're my savior My mom says that she's worried, but I'm covered in this favor

- Sailor Song, by Gigi Perez

The ocean has a lethal sort of beauty.

Murk darkens the shore, brown sediment clouding beneath the surface. It blooms with each wave against the docks—the disturbance of a spoon dragging through a bowl of miso soup. The grains expand and disperse, swirling with clumps of seaweed and driftwood and garbage. This water is cold and unforgiving, the result of a recent storm scraping at eroded mountains. Clouds linger above, a shield against the sun.

It’s not unusual for the water to take this form, especially in the summer when typhoon season sweeps in. The clusters of islands to the south of Japan usually take the damage—monsters of weather blazing through the Philippines or Taiwan, leaving pleasant stormclouds blowing towards Musutafu. Kaone, the most recent typhoon, was the largest the town experienced in years, managing to dodge Taiwan’s coast in a line straight for Japan, an angry and swirling tirade of rain.

Today, three days after the storm passed, everything is in order when the Urarakas take their Saturday trip to the harbor. Everything but the brown of the ocean, the angry waves that jostle the docks forcefully, the looming darkness of the sky.

The stench of the sea is strongest here, carried in through lines of boats, their wireframes and decks littered with buckets and bins of fish, some still writhing in captivity. The vessels are loud—painted bright colors with blaring horns to announce their arrival, crew members jumping out with ropes for mooring. A yellow ship docks close to where Ochako stands, hand in her father’s. Wide, brown eyes watch as a man leaps from the deck to secure the ship, then drift to the engine. Liquid spills from one of the tubes, coating the water beneath it in a pearlescent shimmer—the shine of an abalone.

Her father’s hand tightens, tugging her firmly. Ochako didn’t notice in her staring that she had walked forward, entranced. He doesn’t elaborate. She takes three steps back to his side.

She knows what he’s thinking—an incident from elementary school at the forefront of his mind. Ochako’s memory is hazy, a series of flashing feelings and images: stomach plummeting as her body tipped over the dock, the blunt force of the water when she broke through its surface. She remembers a warm and sunny day, but the ocean was cold, terrifying. Consuming. It stole her breath, only let her take shallow and stuttered inhales as she writhed in its grasp. 

(There was a glimmer of something beneath her, a faded gold smeared across her vision in the chaos of her flailing. Something alien, terrifying. Something pulling her deeper.)

She remembers the onlookers above her. They laid safe on the deck, anchored on their stomachs while reaching for her. But nobody would dare join her in the water.

Standing here years later, Ochako still doesn’t know what happened. The memory hasn’t faded with time, but it was never more than a fuzzy collection of images to begin with.

Her father worries that she’ll trip again, or stand too close to the edge. Ochako understands enough to know that falling was no fault of her own. She was pulled by something beneath the surface—something calling to her. She knows that if it were to happen again—if whatever song that lured her in the first time is sung again—her father’s hand won’t be enough to stop her.

Disappearances aren’t common in Musutafu, but they happen enough for locals and visitors to be aware of, to speculate. No one lost has been found, posters with names and contact information stapled over one another, faded on bulletin boards. Oftentimes they display the faces of children, kids the adults assume are lost to the ocean—to the monsters some believe lurk beneath the surface.

Ochako has heard the stories time and time again, words inscribed in the depths of her memory. Tales of writhing beasts in the water, ones that claw through the exterior of fishing boats, tear through nets, and wrench open metal traps. To steal the prey for themselves. To steal people.

But they only exist in stories. Ochako has never even seen a photo of the supposed monsters. There is no evidence of their reality. She has only the mental images of half human, half sea creature amalgamations. Her father says they’re ugly things, deformed and mangled and lesser than—akin to old depictions of ningyo in traditional paintings: twisted faces, bodies almost entirely fish, with bony arms and claws for hands.

They’re horrifying, enough to make adults shudder. But Ochako’s fear leans more towards curiosity. Fascination. When she opens her books and traces her fingers over scale patterns and wispy fins… She dares to think these creatures are beautiful.

She’s wondered before—what it would take to see one.

“Higa-san,” her father greets as the boat unloads.

The man stands at the edge of the dock, wide shoulders on sturdy legs. One of his crew passes wire boxes of fresh catch. He grips the handles tightly, slamming them against the wood with a thump. The fish inside are slender and grey with darker coloration at the top. They jostle from the movement. One wriggles above the others, still alive.

“Uraraka.”

Ochako’s hold on her father tightens, eyes trained on the fish. Its body inflates slightly, gills flaring desperately. Is it suffocating? She wonders. Is it in pain?

“The water treating you well?”

Higa grunts, heaving a large crate. Ochako recognizes the fish inside this one, the patterned edges of mackerel. None of them move. “Still not normal. ‘S murky out there, choppy. Full moon ain’t helpin’.” His slanted eyes move to Ochako, her own glued to the corpses before her.

What would happen if she set them free, if she tipped over that box and put them back into the water? Would they come back to life, righten like zombies, and swim home? Or would they float like buoys on a line, surrendered to their death.

“—grabbed our net today ‘n tore it. Had such a creepy grin, all teeth. A nasty thing. Was the first time one came s’close to the boat, figured we shoot ‘n haul it. But as soon as the spear hit, bloody thing turned to seafoam.”

Ochako blinks as she tunes back into the conversation.

Her dad makes a sound of surprise. “Seafoam?”

“Awful foam. Red as blood with a nasty stench. Miya was yackin’ for ten minutes at least.”

“You should report it to the Coast Guard,” Uraraka insists, knuckles white from gripping Ochako.

“You ‘Matonchu wouldn’t know what to do with the information,” Higa scoffs. “Would just give ya a reason to interfere with our fishin’. Like hell we’re tellin’em. ‘S a matter for the Musu.”

The Musu people were the dominant group of the Musutafu township for centuries, even long after the Yamato, or Yamatonchu—the people of mainland Japan—expanded to the east. They're recognizable by a difference in features: thick hair as straight as a blade, freckled skin, striking eyelashes. Higa is a descendant of the Musu, a member of one of the few remaining families on the island. 

His eyes narrow, irises darkening as they train on Uraraka’s face. A warning. “So ya better keep yer damn mouths shut.”

Ochako doesn't know much about the Musu, her knowledge limited to brief mentions in school. She knows they don't fear the sea the way Yamato do; instead honing understanding from years of navigating canoes on the open water, so skilled they could reach smaller islands off the coast. They had a relationship with animals that was lost over time: one built from reciprocity, responsibility. But it changed when the Yamato came. 

When she stares at Higa-san’s angry face, his stern voice ringing as a warning to stay out of his business, she wonders if the Musu ever dream of going back.

The rest of the outing is a blur. Strung along by her father’s hand, Ochako wades through rows of markets, eye level with piles of catch. She passes the glistening scales of mahi mahi, the slippery skin of eel, smooth shells of mussels that clack like stones rolling through a current. Her parents stop several times—at the most affordable stands—to purchase carefully weighed portions of seafood.

Their last stop is at a table filled with shellfish. The woman at the stall shovels handfuls of shrimp in a bag with dark fingers, each addition making a wet plop. She ties the crinkly bag before murmuring a warm thank you, passing it to Ochako’s mother while taking the bills and coins.

A boy sits on a stool behind the table. His eyes are wide and carefully watching the exchange, curtained by thick and dark bangs. When his mother turns to wave at the Urarakas, he swipes a raw shrimp off the table, the head held between his fingers while he bites the meat and legs and tail. Ochako watches with fascination—and disgust—as he chews quickly and swallows, shell and all. 

“Hanta!” the woman chides while Ochako’s father makes to exit. 

The boy laughs, mouth stretching into a grin plastered crookedly across his face. His eyes meet Ochako’s and his delight somehow grows further.

“That’s that boy I was telling you about yesterday,” Ochako’s father mutters, pulling her attention back to the faces of her parents.

“The Musu boy?” her mother asks. “Who’s always in the water at the southern beach?” 

He grunts in affirmation. “They’re crazy—all of them. Who lets a kid in that water? By himself?”

Ochako’s eyes return to the market table. The boy is still grinning on the stool, bare feet swinging while the woman—his mother, Ochako assumes—softly sweeps at his bangs with her fingers. She smiles fondly at her son.

Ochako thinks he looks loved.

Ochako is loved too, in a different sort of way. Her parents have a love that inspires protectiveness. They worry about her, for her.

“You’re precious to us,” her mother says, fingers caressing the plush of her cheek.

Ochako knows this. And she knows the message buried beneath those words: that she’s important but small, and too young to understand what her parents know. The adults make decisions for her that she’ll come to appreciate when she’s older.

But Ochako sees other types of love around her—love like that: a boy and his mom who gives him freedom and choice, and she wonders what sort of love is the best. Maybe certain types of love work for some people and not others. Maybe some people only know one way to love.

Maybe people only ever know the love they were given. 

Ochako considers this one the longest. She worries too—about her parents. The image of their faces twisted in a grimace, murmuring about the bills, is a reminder burned in her memory. They don’t discuss these things when Ochako is present, but the kitchen is halfway down the hall; she catches glimpses through the door and slivers of conversation on the way to the bathroom.

Her worry sits uncomfortably in her chest. During particularly restless nights it rises above the skin, a crushing weight.

It’s the kind of worry that makes her feel small, that makes her say I don’t want any, or I don’t need it. It’s the kind of worry that she can’t say aloud, because she’s not supposed to be aware of it in the first place. It’s the kind of worry that makes her parents worry back, because their sweet girl never wants anything. Never makes a fuss.

So Ochako listens to her parents. She heeds their warnings, even when curiosity stirs within her body, pulling her where she desperately wants to be but can’t go.

The only water she’s allowed to play in is the stream behind their home. It’s a conservative size, just deep enough to reach the bottom of her calves, and with a width barely greater than her wingspan. There’s hardly a bank, just clusters of grass that flatten into sparse river sand. The current is gentle and the forest is quiet, deemed safe enough for Ochako to explore alone—so long as she stays within the confines of the Uraraka property.

(Borders are an imaginary thing, a mental image of a gate or line drawn across the yard. Ochako doesn’t understand why people are the only beings restricted by them—the water and fish and birds don’t have any sense of these territories, instead guided by the divots in the ground, the wall of the shallow bank. 

But Ochako listens. She confines herself to the section of stream and forest her parents allow her, and she enjoys her time here, playing away from watchful eyes.)

Even in the darkness of the settling dusk, she kicks through the water on her own. Red rays of light skim the surface of the stream, kissing the skin of her legs. Her feet stomp quickly, chasing a frog on the bank. She inhales when her hands gently trap it, fingers cupped against the wet dirt. She lifts it carefully towards her face, wide brown blinking with delight. 

Her pointer finger lifts to press against the back of the amphibian, tracing slimy ridges of skin. A loud croak sounds from its throat, underbelly jerking with the vibrations, and Ochako makes a sound of surprise. Her hand jerks and the frog leaps directly for the water. 

It lands with a splash, ripples radiating in a disfigured circle. Another blooms when the frog hops downstream, concentric shapes overlapping. Ochako follows carefully, her footsteps another disturbance on the surface.

The frog pauses at the imaginary border: the edge of the stream before it crosses the neighbor's land. Ochako halts. The amphibian croaks again, an overtone song that smothers the buzz of insects. The girl giggles softly at the sound, eyes narrowing as she prepares to catch it once more. Her hands open carefully before they dart forwards. She huffs in disappointment when they cut through water, missing the frog as its legs stretch to launch through the gap between her palms.

Her eyes lift to watch its escape, bounding and croaking down the stream. Her breath catches in her throat.

A trail of lights flicker on the surface.

Ochako cranes her neck to peer at the trees. Littered along the lower branches is a line of fireflies. Their dancing light trails through the woods, bobbing gently upstream. It’s too weak to illuminate the forest, but the blinks of gold marble along the water.

Ochako steps forward without thinking.

Her steps sparkle when she crosses the border—that arbitrary boundary. The rapid shuffling of her feet comes to life, illuminated swirls of ripples. She breaks into a run, frog forgotten as she now chases the light.

Her foot catches on something sharp. She falls with a yelp, arms stretched to catch herself as she lands against a pile of rough stones. The result is painful: scraped skin and a litter of future bruises. Standing is a challenge, arms shakily hoisting her body, knees wobbling as she shifts her weight to her feet.

She stands in darkness. 

Ochako sighs, staring along the water as if conjuring the light to return. It doesn’t, the only glow is now the house at her backside. Her arms pebble from the cold, drenched clothes clinging to her skin. The aches of her fall start to register. She trudges back home.

Her mother tucks her into bed, leaning over her small frame to press a kiss on her forehead.

“I love you.” Her voice is quiet, face half illuminated by the bedside lamp.

Ochako’s response is a ritual, a whisper of, “I love you too.”

(What does it mean to love someone because you’re supposed to, Ochako wonders. How do you distinguish love from attachment, from comfort and familiarity and habit? 

Are those things even considered love?)

Ochako thinks her mother would be sad if she said these thoughts aloud. A crease would form along her forehead, familiar wrinkles of confusion and worry. Maybe even hurt.

Instead, in Ochako’s silence, her mother wears the slope of a smile. She reaches to tuck loose hair behind the girl’s ear, and then to turn off the lamp. Darkness envelops the room, her mother now nothing more than a dark figure.

When she exits and Ochako is left by herself, she hurries to toss off the covers that were so neatly arranged over her body. She sits on her knees and turns towards the window.

The stream is visible, a small dip in the ground that sits in the transition from yard to forest. Dim moonlight flickers atop the water, but that’s all.

The following weekend, she sees the Musu boy again. This time while his mother efficiently manages the market stand, he sits on a low stool, a bag of peanuts open on his lap as he talks excitedly with another kid. They both have a thin braided band around their ankle, one yellow and the other red. Even in earshot, Ochako has no idea what they’re saying—or at least, what the black haired one is saying. The other sits quietly, nodding along.

The former beams when his eyes catch Ochako. His grin engulfs his entire face and he stands, grabbing the bag of peanuts and stretching his arm out. He says something loudly, but Ochako doesn’t understand.

The woman behind the table interjects with more unfamiliar sounds. It’s a musical speech, one that dips low at times, rolling like the tide. The boy's eyes flicker with clarity, turning back with the same grin.

“Have some!” he says this time.

She nods and grabs a fistful in her small fingers. They’re good—gently roasted with a touch of salt, the sweetness of the sea. She smiles.

“I’m Hanta!” he continues, wide eyes watching her eat. He points to his friend. “And that’s Koji.”

Hanta. Koji. Their names ring with song. She tries to repeat them but they fall flat in her voice. She doesn’t know how to make their sounds.

“I’m Uraraka,” she replies.

They eat their peanuts together quietly, scooping handfuls into chubby cheeks. It’s mostly quiet, with Hanta swinging his legs and grinning, asking questions like, “Do you like shrimp?”

Ochako nods to most of them.

The other boy—Koji—sits quietly, never saying a word. But he watches, eyes trailing between Ochako and Hanta as they talk. His gaze falls when she looks his way. She notices his long and dark eyelashes.

Ochako wants to ask her own questions. About the Musu people��who they are, what that even means. She wants to ask about Higa-san, if they know anything about the sea monsters. She wants to know how this boy has gone into the water by himself and come out alive.

She wonders if he knows anything about the fireflies.

A tug leads her away before she’s ready. She whips her head towards her mother, free hand still cupping a sprinkling of peanuts, face twisted in an uncontrollable plea. Ochako doesn’t want to leave.

Her mother pauses, eyes softening with a guilty smile. “We need to go,” she says gently.

Ochako’s eyes fall in disappointment, then lift to Hanta and Koji. The former smiles brightly and waves. He looks like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

“See you!” He cheers. Koji timidly waves beside him.

She pouts the entire walk home, but neither of her parents notice. Instead they talk in soft voices, murmurs of words like budgeting and expenses. Normally Ochako would listen carefully, matching their worried expressions, but now an ugly part of her thinks it’s fair, that they’re all unhappy together.

The disappointment doesn’t leave with time. Instead it grows, festers like a mold that sits heavy in her chest. There’s a heat in her cheeks, a tightness in her stomach. Does she have to wait until next week to see them again? Will it be for the same amount of time?

She heads straight to her room, sparing no parting words. Her parents don’t mention it, voices drifting to the kitchen where they continue to talk in increasing volume. Ochako huffs, kneeling on her futon, hands grasping the duvet in tight fists. Her teeth are clenched as she swallows back tears. Part of her wants to stomp back to the kitchen while sobbing, loud noises that can’t be ignored. The other knows that her parents wouldn’t like it, that she’d regret it later.

Abruptly she stands, turning to reenter the hall. The voices carry through the house, louder without the door as a guard. Ochako takes softs steps to the kitchen, listening as she approaches.

“—think moving is going to give us the most opportunities,” her mother murmurs. “It’s becoming more expensive than the mainland.”

Her father grunts. “It would take months to get out of our contracts. Besides, there’s no guarantee we’ll find similar positions.”

“We could stay in Mie. My parents would happily host us until one of us secures a job.”

“And give Ochako that kind of instability? She’s still so young.”

“You think it’s worse than living here?”

The air is still as several moments pass. Ochako tries to imagine the faces they’re making, her mother’s pinched brow, her father’s pursed lips. She wants to crane her neck to look through the doorway. She wants to know why they said her name.

Footsteps sound, her parents shuffling. Ochako panics, starting swiftly and quietly to her room. Her heart gallops as she closes the door and stands behind it, taking ragged inhales. When her breathing calms, her chest is still tight with something unsettling. Her parents' voices start again, muted sounds behind the wall.

She exits into the hall again, this time jostling the handle and deliberately thumping her feet across the floor. Her parents’ conversation halts. They watch expectantly when she enters the dining room. She doesn’t say anything.

“Ocha-chan?” her mother probes.

The girl’s heart is uneasy. Her body is still swirling with disappointment, with now additional curiosity.

“Can I play outside?” Her voice is small.

Her mother smiles, shoulders relaxing. She glances at Ochako’s father with an expression the girl doesn’t understand. He nods curtly and she answers, “Okay honey. Just remember to stay inside the yard.”

Ochako bobs her head, eyes averting to the floor. Something else gnaws at her chest, not a tightness this time but a sting. She scurries to the genkan, hastily strapping on her shoes before heading out the door. When she reaches the creek and turns around, her mom waves from the window. The sting eases.

The water is cold against her skin, rushing along her sandals as she steps into the stream. It runs to her calves, washing away the itchiness from stalking through the grass.

There are no fireflies.

She pouts, standing and craning her head to the sky. It’s a royal blue, deep while bright, the quilt of late afternoon. Streams of fluff slice through the fabric, clouds stitching the atmosphere together.

When she brings her head back down, turning to the window, her parents are gone. Her pout pulls into a scowl.

She runs.

It starts with jagged steps, tripping through the water before she returns to the bank, and bolts along the stream. Her heart pounds in her chest when she crosses the boundary into her neighbor’s yard, and then the next neighbor, then the third one. She doesn’t look back, eyes trained forwards as the water curves into the forest, turning perpendicular to the neat line of houses. 

The ground is forgiving despite her sandals. She runs with ease, next to the rushing water. It stops shortly, disappearing just before an incline. The trees thin out as she climbs the hill and stands at the crest, overlooking a sunny break of canopy. The light streams along a wide river, a plane of green and brown. Its body snakes in a lazy curve, a weak pulse pumping the current.

Ochako’s side of the river has a gentler slope, transitioning from water to land via a sea of pebbles. They’re bright white, bleached under the sun. As she inches down the hill and towards the bank, she notices that they’re smooth ovals, sprinkled with occasional sharp stones—like fragments of coral or bone. A few large stones sit in the water, ripples wrinkling around them.

She has never been here, hardly knew there was a river so close to home. It’s a quaint stretch of land… a secret. Warm with bright light but also shrouds of trees, the sun dappling through. The hum of water strolling downstream. The call of birds she has never heard.

Her heart slows, steadying as she takes in the serenity. Ochako wishes she could play here, where it’s calm and wide and with more to explore. Her parents might let her, since it’s a river: a pretty river with stones and soft grass. A river that—

That smells rancid.

The scent is an ambush, flooding her nose with a horrible kind of sweetness. A fishy sourness that springs tears in her eyes. Her stomach turns, face twisting further with each shallow breath.

A morbid curiosity takes over. Ochako turns her head towards the source, reluctantly breathing in. She takes a hesitant step downstream, stones rolling as she walks. The pungency strengthens.

She freezes after passing a clump of driftwood, wide eyes locking on a figure behind it.

It’s long and motionless and clearly the source of the smell. Despite the dread pooling in Ochako’s stomach, a heaviness and nausea, she walks closer. She wants to see.

An animal, a sea creature with slippery skin. It has a bulbous head and a long mouth—a dolphin. A beady eye stares straight into the sky. Ochako can see her own reflection in its blackness.

Two small holes puncture the animal’s body, smeared faintly in red. Crusted blood lines the openings. Along its stomach are gashes. Not long, but deep, like claws were stabbed violently through the flesh. Similarly, there are no blood stains, only faint dried clots and light smears.

Ochako gawks openly, completely frozen. Her heart continues to drum, to thump, thump, thump between her ribs. She struggles to inhale, throat and chest tightening.

It’s… it’s terrifying, naturally. A large creature, longer than Ochako’s own body, splayed out along the bank, sucked dry by some other animal she can’t imagine. But as dreadful as the sight is, she’s filled with an inexplicable wonder, that persistent curiosity. Pure awe at encountering something this rare, this impossible. The still-fresh skin is grey, a storm stretched taught along muscle and flesh. It fades to yellow at the edges of the fins and mouth, aged like paper. Ochako feels the urge to reach for it, to run a finger along the slippery surface.

The body suddenly twitches. Ochako’s heart drops, body leaping to take two steps back.

Its mouth parts, revealing the pink of its tongue. “Hnngh,” it moans.

Ochako yelps, body moving on instinct as she turns to sprint away. Panic floods her veins, icy, as her mind flashes with images of the creature somehow chasing after her. She doesn’t look back, head jerking to find the spring and follow it home, fueled by fear.

The journey is longer than she remembers. Low branches swipe across her shoulders, twigs grasping her clothes like hands. Her father’s worries race through her head, pictures of something ugly and unfathomable sinking teeth in her neck and leaving her drained on the shore. His warnings thump through her head, spinning on repeat.

Stay away from the water Ochako. 

Relief floods her system as she catches sight of the neighbor’s home. She’s close, so close. Only a minute later and she’ll be safe. Safe in the stream, safe in her backyard. Safe with her parents. She wants to cry in their arms and hear their soothing voices, their gentle hands cradling her hair and cheeks. 

When she crosses the final imaginary border, relief swells so heavily in her stomach that she halts. She heaves, lungs burning as she sucks in air. Mud and scratches splatter her legs, stinging. Her eyes burn as they fill with tears.

Her parents are right: she should listen to them, to keep herself safe. This worry they have, these limitations and rules, are to protect her, because they love her. Ochako’s heart hurts. Guilt claws at her stomach. 

When her breath settles she anxiously turns to the house, ready to run inside.

Her parents are still out of sight.

The guilt in her gut hardens into something she’s never felt before. Something heavy, and dreadful.

The week is hard for Ochako.

Confusing feelings swirl inside her—a typhoon of feelings that scare her, make her want to do things she knows are wrong. She doesn’t understand what she saw, what her parents are whispering about, why she’s too young to know.

(Will she ever get to know?)

Nobody is safe enough for her to share these questions. Instead she sits quietly with this storm inside her chest, raging winds and murky water pounding against the cage of her flesh. If it’s lucky it will find its way to the surface of her skin, emptying itself through her lashes. She doesn’t notice when this happens.

Her parents do. They catch the faraway look in her eyes, her subdued attitude, a lack of focus. They worry, brows furrowed when they ask if she’s okay. Their expressions make her stomach turn—do they know she disobeyed them? 

“Ochako, do you want to go to the mochi stand tonight?” her father probes. His voice is soft.

She recalls hushed voices in the kitchen, discussing work and money. She frowns and says, “No,” in a quiet voice.

Her mother’s face falls. Ochako feels worse.

When the weekend returns and her dad asks if they’re ready to go to the market, her mother offers to stay home with Ochako. 

The girl shakes her head, mumbling, “I want to go.” 

The adults trade glances, confused by her attitude. Her mother watches her daughter’s face carefully. 

“Are you sure?” she asks.

Ochako nods quickly, and that’s enough to convince them. 

She walks through the markets with a hand in her mother’s. Her eyes skim along the lines eagerly, brightening when they land on Hanta and Koji. They sit on the same stools as the previous weekend. She waves when they notice her.

Her mom tugs her arm. She started towards them without realizing it.

“C’mon Ocha-chan.”

Her round face lifts, eyes widening in a plea to stay. Her mother’s breath hitches, chest freezing in apprehension. She looks nervously to the table, the boys sitting on their stools as the older woman bags orders of fish.

Another second passes. Ochako lowers her gaze, turning to follow where her father walks ahead.

Her mother folds. “We can go say hi,” she offers.

Ochako beams, eyes sparkling. She misses her mother’s flicker of guilt as she turns and barrels ahead.

“Hi,” she says, breathless, when she stands before Hanta’s grin and Koji’s reserved interest.

“Hi!” the former replies. He stretches his arm to offer a bag of sunflower seeds.

Ochako’s mother releases her, letting the girl take a handful and work them open with her teeth. The shells splinter easily, falling into her palm to be discarded in a bag by Koji’s feet. Ochako relishes the nutty flavor, audibly humming. Her mother smiles.

She likes this table, the company of Hanta and Koji. They’re kind and carefree. Hanta does all the talking, but Koji nods along, occasionally making hand gestures that Hanta translates with words. She giggles at one of his jokes and turns to her mother to see if she caught it too, then pauses when she sees her talking to the woman behind the table.

“That’s my mom,” Hanta says plainly. “Your mom is nice.”

Ochako nods immediately. “I love my mom.”

Her eyes avert to the ground as soon as she says it, brain pausing. Not in apprehension or uncertainty, but in question. Why do they love each other?

“Me too,” Hanta responds. He chews the seed shells and swallows them. “I love lots of things.”

Ochako straightens. “You do?”

He nods, humming in affirmation.

“How do you know?”

“I just do,” he asserts. His eyes lift in thought. “Ma says we have love for everything inside us.”

Ochako stares at him with bewilderment. “Really?”

“Mhm. Everything comes from love, so we love everything. She says when we do things for love, that’s when the best things happen. Like the fireflies.”

Ochako’s breath halts. “The fireflies?”

Hanta grins. “You haven’t heard?”

Ochako shakes her head. She wants to say she has only seen them, but the words catch in her throat.

“A very long time ago one of our oldest grammas was in love. But granpa had to go away, and they were both very sad. He left on a boat by the river next to their home, so gramma waited every night for him with a torch to help him find his way home. The people and animals called her the ‘Lady of Fire’.

“She stood there every night with her torch, finding ways to keep it burning even in heavy rain—until there was a typhoon. But even when the wind and rain blew it out, gramma stood there waiting. She cried and cried, only wishing for granpa to come home safe. Her love was so inspiring that the moon herself came down to light the way. She turned into a million twinkling bugs that could fly in the rain. Granpa came home that very night.”

Ochako’s mouth hangs ajar as she listens, eyes full moons. She’s never heard such a beautiful story.

“That’s where fireflies come from,” he reminds her.

“Wow,” she breathes.

Hanta nods, grinning. “Yup. And Koji can talk to them!”

The smaller boy jolts at the mention of his name, but he doesn’t make any gesture of disagreement.

“Really?” Ochako asks in amazement.

“Mhmm! People from old gramma’s family can do things like that when they love.”

Something in Ochako’s chest expands at his words, like it’s grown. Then it clenches in envy. Urgency.

“Is that something I can do too?” she asks.

“Ma says anyone can do it,” he answers. He parts his lips to speak, but no words escape. They pull into a frown and Ochako thinks the expression is out of place. “… You can lose it too, like Higa-san.”

The brunette blinks in surprise. “Higa-san? He lost it?” 

Hanta’s wide eyes dart to his mother, then to Ochako. She is captivated, clinging onto every word.

“His love.”

“Oh.” Ochako frowns. She thought he would say more.

“Yeah,” he answers with a shrug, swinging his feet.

Ochako wants to probe but she doesn’t know how to navigate thoughts like these. Where does she start? What sort of question makes sense for this?

“What did he love?” she tries.

Hanta frowns again. 

“The ocean,” he says flatly, as if it’s the only thing worth loving.

Ochako doesn’t understand. She knows love as a feeling for people: for family members and marriage and maybe a cat. Even so, love isn’t openly shared, instead kept for private conversations and the gaps in speech. How can you love something so big, so vast, so… inanimate?

So terrifying.

“Ocha-chan.”

She blinks, turning to her mother’s voice.

“We should go now.” It’s a command disguised as a suggestion. “But we can come back next time, okay?”

Ochako turns to Hanta, questions brimming at the base of her throat. She wants to know what it means to love the ocean, how Hanta knows that Higa-san lost his love, how he knows that the man had it in the first place.

She wants to ask Hanta and Koji what their love feels like.

Her mother’s hand slips into her own. It’s warm, and Ochako grasps it on instinct.

“Next time,” she repeats.

Ochako nods, mindlessly shoving the remaining seeds in the pocket of her jacket as they turn away. When they walk along the dock and her dad raises a hand to Higa unloading his boat, something stirs beneath the surface of Ochako’s subconscious.

Her parents watch her wander through the stream under the falling sun. They sit by the window absorbed in conversation, but focused enough to occasionally glance her way. Ochako finds it burdensome. Part of her wishes they would leave again.

She busies herself with her bucket and net, grinning triumphantly when she catches a minnow. It circles the bottom of the net, darting within its cage. Ochako giggles as she lifts the mesh, minnow flopping in the air. Her chubby hand traps it and she laughs again at its slippery skin. It writhes in her grasp, along the tunnel of her palm.

Brown eyes peer through the opening. Its small head comes closer, inching towards her thumb. Without warning it slips through her hold and leaps into the air. The girl shrieks and lifts her opposite arm to catch it in the bucket.

The fish lands with a plop, splatting against the empty bottom. Plop, plop, plop follows as it thrashes against the plastic. Until it stops.

Ochako’s smile falters as she stares at the creature. Its tiny body is motionless. Stripes of silver and green shimmer in the light. Its eye is a black bead, small but swallowing her whole. 

The dolphin flashes through her mind, and she moves quickly, dipping the rim of the bucket under the water for a second before raising it. She stares into the shallowness, holding her breath.

The minnow twitches, jolting to life, and Ochako exhales.

She pours the water back into the stream, watching closely as the fish darts upstream to the bank. A mix of guilt and relief sits inside her chest.

“Ochako,” her father calls behind her.

She turns to see him standing half outside the door. He waves.

“Dinner’s ready.”

The girl nods, understanding the order. She gives the bucket a final shake and walks up the bank. Red seeps into the sky from the horizon, dusk creeping in. When she finally reaches the door she steals one final look at the water. A white heron swoops in, standing in the shallows. It steps slowly, then jerks forward to thrash its beak into the stream.

A faint flicker of yellow bobs above it.

They have tuna for dinner, sashimi on rice with pickled plums and stringy cucumber. Ochako eats slowly, letting the softness of the meat melt over her tongue. She wonders what the fish looked like when it died, if it thrashed in a bucket.

“Ocha-chan,” her mother interrupts her thoughts. She speaks gently. “What do you think about going to Mie soon, to see baachan and jiisan?”

The girl looks up to her parents’ faces. They’re uncertain, almost nervous.

“Okay,” she answers easily. Her mother relaxes until she adds, “For how long?”

The adults trade glances. Ochako is not given an answer.

When night falls and Ochako is tucked into the covers, she is restless. 

The water calls for her, floods her ears with the ghost of its song. Her mind is powerless to her body, watching as she rises from her futon and makes for the bedroom door. The house is silent, her parents in slumber. She shuffles to the genkan without a sound.

The night is alive, loud as despite its darkness. Humidity thickens the air and buzzes with the call of insects. A dense cluster of yellow twinkle above the stream, and Ochako’s breath catches.

Fireflies.

They breathe along the water, one entity dancing through the branches. Their trails smear behind them, illuminated strokes of a pen. They are the only light littering through the woods, miniature lanterns tracing the stream back to its source. 

Ochako follows obediently, walking the trail of water through the neighbors’ territories, through the thick wooded land and up the hill to the river. Her heart is steady, mind too concentrated to let unease seep through her skin. In an instant she is at the top of the hill, stepping down towards the bank. The fireflies thin as she nears the water. They flicker for a moment more, then fade away just as the moon breaks over the trees. The river stones bathe in its gaze, bands of brilliant white creeping along their surfaces. 

The night is quiet here. Ochako’s never stood in such darkness alone, never even considered it. She thinks she should be scared, filled with jitters to run, to get away and get safe as fast as she can. Instead she’s calm, at peace. The night has a special sort of serenity.

Or it would, if it weren’t for the stench of death.

It’s the same smell from last time, sourness that pulls her attention to the carcass on the shore. There the same dolphin rests, tipped on its side and properly rotting. The flesh is a patchwork of black and grey, body half decayed to reveal the skeleton beneath. A spine rests in the center, attached to an unbroken cage of ribs. The skull is partially visible, skin peeled from its mouth. Even in the darkness, the bones shine like pearls, like the stones along this shore, bleached from time in the sun.

It almost looks human, Ochako muses, with shorter arms and a misshapen head.

Human, with a tail.

She thinks of Koji, his ability to speak to animals. Would he have understood that last dying breath she witnessed? Would he be able to talk with it now, with its body half gone and more bone than flesh.

Ochako wishes she had such a gift, something to connect her to the world she inhabits, to make life clearer. To make it her’s.

A splash erupts from the river.

She turns, heart racing. The water ripples, waves echoing from the cluster of jagged rocks. The wrinkles gather moonlight in a woven pattern, scaly slithering skin. Something is lurking, dragging its body through the shallows.

A limb appears, breaking through the surface. It’s scrawny and withered with a misfigured hand attached to the end, sharp claws hooking into the divots of the rock. It tenses, weary muscles twitching to heave itself upwards. Another gurgled sound passes as it fails to lift itself. Ochako steps away from the bank carefully, wide eyes trained on the creature’s arm.

Her heart leaps when it rises above the rock, a face coming into view before it slumps over, grunts and wheezes shuddering through the air. Strangled sounds.

The rest of its body is as withered as its arm, flesh tight to the bone—

Human bones, Ochako thinks. Human mixed with the remains of the dolphin beside her.

It has a human face, at least, but its body is akin to a ningyo. Sharp fins creep out the side of its head, darkness pooling at the edges. It has something like hair, something matted and mangled with tufts of feathers slicing through the scalp, jutting out as if placed by force. The torso is gaunt, skin tight against a hollow stomach and quilted with the skin of other creatures: more feathers, slippery dolphin skin, the hard shell of shrimp. They’re scattered along the body, dipping down the length of a withered tail. 

Despite the fear shooting through Ochako’s veins, pure ice frosting her blood, she can’t move or look away. She is enchanted by this creature, drawn to its angles and curves, the slices of fins that sprout from its arms and tail, matching the webbing between its fingers. It’s mangy; it’s starved. 

It’s something she never knew existed.

“It’s hideous,” her father would shudder.

In one hand—one claw—is the squelching body of an octopus. It splats against the rock, tentacles lolling into the water as the body slides between hasty fingers. Under the moonlight, the faintest tint of red is visible.

The ningyo lowers to its prey, lips parting to bare pointed teeth. They lurch forward, sink into rubbery flesh, hands clenched so tight that fingernails pierce through the cephalopod. Dark liquid dribbles down: blood, a blue hue, splattering on the rock. The skin immediately loses color.

This is a hunger Ochako does not know. Every movement strikes a tremor through the ningyo’s body, hands shaking as they struggle to hold their meal. Its face, almost human (almost girlish), is smeared with fluids, a long tongue lapping the excess. A twisted face, sharp and angled and boney.

An honest face, a lively face that Ochako can read. When claws sink into the octopus for a second time, tearing open its body to drain every drop of fluid, the creature’s eyes soften. Jerking movements smooth, now reduced to lazy mawing. Its mouth curves into a crescent moon—a grin—and Ochako is captivated, paralyzed by fascination and fear. It looks happy, almost euphoric. Ochako has never seen such a pure expression of joy.

When the ningyo finishes it drops the scraps of its meal in the water. A slithering tongue laps over its hands and arms, boney things splattered with scales. In the unreliable light of the moon it almost looks like its forearms are darkening, the underside spotted with growing suckers.

Ochako has no choice. Her feet carry her forwards without permission or warning. In an instant she is ankle deep in the water, wide eyed under the spotlight of the moon.

Her steps splash loudly. The ningyo snarls, twisting its face into a glare before jerking its body off the rock and into the water. A tail breaks through the surface, glinting before thrashing downwards, splattering Ochako with a quick pelt of rain. In the next moment, the water calms and the girl is once again alone on the shore. Alone except for the skeleton laying behind her.

Standing in the water, in occupied water, Ochako is no longer cold with fear. There is no warning repeatedly blaring stay away, stay away, stay away. She is still and quiet, frozen except for the one thing she can process:Whatever this creature is, it’s beautiful.

No fireflies blink along the stream the following day.

Ochako stands in the water, chest vibrating with an urgency she’s never felt before. Despite the lack of light, she trudges forwards to the river. When she arrives she is left only in the company of the rotting dolphin.

She yearns for another glimpse. Somewhere in these strange sights and terrifying encounters lay answers. Answers about living, about love. They’re at the edges of her fingertips but still too far away, an insect flying just out of reach.

The fireflies don’t glow for two more days. The following night they return, but fade moments later. Still, the girl slips from her bedroom to the genkan, and then up the stream. Five days pass like this, with each visit the dolphin fading further to bones.

The next night she leaps the instant her parents quiet, pacing down the hall and past the kitchen. She stands at the entrance of the genkan, peering out the window of the door to the stream. It’s dark, her eyes needing time to adjust before the forms of the trees become visible.

“Ocha-chan?” 

The girl jumps, body tense with caught, caught, caught as she faces her mother.

“What are you doing here?”

She doesn’t know what to say. Even though this is her mother, something in her stomach yells that she can’t be trusted. If she speaks honestly she will be scolded, or worse banned from playing outside altogether. If she is dishonest, she will have to carry the weight of her guilt, of deceiving someone she loves—of someone who loves her.

Silence, she quickly learns, is another poor choice. Silence makes room for suspicion. It grows in her mother’s eyes with each passing second.

“I was looking outside.” It’s the best answer she can conjure.

“Oh,” her mother says plainly. Ochako can’t read the tone of her voice. “Do you want to play in the stream? It’s late.”

Ochako shakes her head honestly. She doesn’t want to play.

“Did you see something?” her mother tries again.

The girl nods. It is also honest, but delayed. Does it hurt her mother to keep secrets like this? Her parents do the same, having hushed conversations that Ochako never hears about, discussions with her name spoken softly, secretly.

“What did you see?”

Ochako’s chest flares with something prickly and tight. She doesn’t want to answer.

“I don’t know,” she answers, and that’s the end of it. She returns to her room.

The next day when night settles in, she can hear her parents murmuring in the kitchen when they would normally be in their room. Ochako, for the second night in a row, is forced to stay inside. She sits under her covers, staring out the window towards the stream.

The fireflies dance again.

Excitement vibrates through her veins when the family leaves for the docks, Ochako teeming with questions she wants to ask Hanta. But her dad’s grip on her is tight while her mother exchanges bills and coins for today’s purchase—a bag of crab legs, long and orange with spikes stretching the plastic.

“Ocha-chan, we don’t have time to stop today.”

Disappointment floods the girl and her instinct is to pout. Why didn’t they say anything ahead of time? Why tell her now, when they know her sparse conversations are the best part of these trips?

Her dad furrows his brow. “Do you need to tell them something?”

She turns to the boys perched on their stools. Hanta is watching curiously, eyes wide as ever, searching her face and what lies beyond it. Those questions she wants to ask, but questions that can only be shared in confidence: Do you know what I saw? Is it the same thing Higa sees, what everyone else is so afraid of?

Hanta follows her example, silent as he holds her gaze. Something in his expression shifts, something subtle, like the glint in his eyes.

Will she come back?

Koji clutches his friend, a hand to the wrist. Hanta’s head twitches, offering the tiniest nod. Ochako inhales, brightening.

The stream is calm, capturing Ochako’s gaze through dinner as the yellow blinking of fireflies settle along the bank. Her parents tuck away in their bedroom when it’s time for bed, and finally she can run along the water, through the forest, up the hill to the steady river.

The moon isn’t present except for the bugs holding the remnants of its light. Ochako’s eyes adapt, allowing her to trace the silhouettes of the river bank, the skeleton, the large stones in the water. 

The creature strewn atop them. Feasting.

Ochako’s heart pounds as she watches sharp teeth sink into a fish, the wet smacks of its tail sounding against the stone. The predator growls, almost a high pitched hiss. Ochako steps forward unconsciously.

This time when their eyes lock, neither are shocked. The ningyo halts, eyes darkening. Fins flicker, glinting under nonexistent light. Ochako holds her breath. She can feel her blood pulsing through her skin, pounding against her ears.

The creature lowers its head to resume its meal, but its gaze never falls. When it finishes and drops the corpse into the water, it cleans itself, tongue tracing every smeared remnant of blood. Ochako takes one step forward, fascinated.

The ningyo hisses before disappearing into the water once again.

Days pass. Ochako slips away every night dutifully, wanting to catch another glimpse. She wonders if she visits often enough, just to watch it feed, will these moments eventually add to an entire conversation? Could fragments of standing at a distance in careful observation lead to flickers of understanding—could she learn to distinguish its sounds and motions, grow to know what each one means?

But she wants more than distance. She wants to take one step and then another until her skin is pressed against the ningyo. She wants to run her hands over scales and fins and the slivers of other beasts nestled into the skin. She wants to hold the creature’s face close and stare into its eyes. She wants to whisper questions between them: to ask what inspires it to make such complicated faces, faces that look like love while draining a life of everything it had.

If Ochako steps forward she will instead witness the twist of a horrible glare, a growl, and loneliness for the remainder of her night.

“Hanta,” she says firmly, though breathless. She rushed through the markets to reach him, her parents bobbing through the other tables as they make their way over. “How—how do I get closer to the water?”

He blinks and looks at Koji. The latter averts his eyes.

“I want it to trust me. How…”

Hanta hums, turning his gaze to her again. “You have to give.”

“Give?”

“Mhm. Every time you take from the water, you ask for permission and offer something in return.”

Ochako frowns. “What do I give?”

“Depends,” the boy answers plainly. “I sing before each dive and I leave flowers where I catch mussels. Stuff like that. Koji braids the grass.”

Ochako wonders what she has to give. Her eyes fall to the bins of shrimp and oyster, the piles of sleek fish shimmering on the table. But the ningyo only takes blood, and Ochako is not sure if it will eat prey from the Uraraka refrigerator. Maybe she can catch a frog—though the thought makes her stomach queasy. A flower is easier to start with.

Koji nudges his friend with an elbow, glossy eyes dancing as if to communicate on their own. Hanta gasps, a grin spreading across his face as he digs into his pocket.

“Oh yeah! Here.” He stretches out his arm, his fist clenched.

Ochako raises her palm to receive the gift. It’s a soft and small bundle of thread. When Hanta’s arm retreats, she sees a band of braids. The width is the same as the anklets the boys wear, only the string is a deep pink.

“You’ll be safer with that in the water, especially with a Kono. We can make a different color if you don’t like pink.”

“Kono?” The girl holds the bracelet carefully. “I like pink.”

Hanta’s grin grows. “Perfect. Put it on your right leg, ‘kay?”

Ochako nods dutifully. A promise.

The fireflies do not shine for several days.

When they finally light again, sparks flickering in the trees, Ochako leaps with excitement. A feeling deep within her says that this time will be different, somehow. The touch of her anklet is barely noticeable as she hurries along the creek, whispering thanks to the miniature lanterns for lighting her way.

When she arrives, the ningyo is not present.

The girl frowns, turning to the woods where the fireflies still bob. She inches towards the water to get a look, stones shifting with each step. Maybe they just missed one another. She sighs.

The river is cold against her skin when she dips her feet into the shallows. A shudder rattles up her body, raising the hair along her arms. Only the thrum of bugs carry through the night. Ochako’s stomach sinks in disappointment. Maybe the creature could sense she did not find anything to give.

Something lurches from the water.

It’s just in front of Ochako, a roaring splash against one of the larger stones. A tail whips through the river while spindly arms grip and heave. Droplets scatter through the air, pelting Ochako in a moment of rain. Her chest blossoms with hope.

The feeling tightens when she is met with hissing and growling, voice holding the coarseness of a thunderstorm. A voice of thirst and a voice of fear.

Back away, Ochako can hear it scream. Your kind are not meant to come this close.

She swallows the onslaught of tears that threaten to spill, stinging her nose with something close to shame. Why is she always forbidden from the places she wants to be? Would she be welcomed if she had something to give? But what does she have to offer? Her eyes dart along the creature—the marred face of a bird protruding from its shoulder, amphibious legs twisted within its skin. She thinks of Hanta and his eagerness to share, whether he is offering snacks or jewelry or knowledge. He gives what he has, whatever Ochako might want.

She moves without thinking. With empty hands, she stretches out her arm.

The beast reacts with a flinch and a hiss, backing away as if threatened. Then it pauses, fins flickering while its eyes dart skeptically.

Ochako nods. She takes one step forward and rolls the sleeve of her nightshirt. Her chest and stomach ache with nerves but she does not move. 

A growl erupts from the belly of the creature while it bares its teeth. Ochako’s breath hitches as it lurches forward, moving erratically to latch a claw onto her arm. It stings, but brown eyes don’t waver from the ningyo’s glare. The air stills, as if the insects are holding their breath in anticipation.

This is all I have. The words are buried at the base of Ochako’s throat.

Gentleness is not what she would have expected, but when the creature leans forward, the first thing Ochako feels is the featherlight touch of lips against her skin. They’re soft, ghostly, careful. Until they curl back to unleash sharp fangs. The pinch against her forearm is painful when they puncture the skin. Blood begins to trickle—only for a moment before soft lips return. The slippery wetness of a tongue laps along the trail, saliva like a balm that turns the pain to a buzz.

A thrill runs through Ochako as the ningyo drinks from her. Part of it comes from the novelty and the risk—this adrenaline of disobeying, doing that she wants. But the other part is something much deeper, something inexplicable. Watching the creature’s face soften as it eats, sucking at the life running through Ochako’s arms, blooms a warmth through her body. 

Being relied on and having capacity to give—Ochako has never experienced this before. This is intimate beyond her imagination.

Maybe this is how love begins.

When the two finally part, the ningyo slipping away unceremoniously, Ochako is left lightheaded under the first glow of the moon.

The trek home is both endless and instantaneous. The forest stands still and dark when Ochako turns to take one final glance back. She enters her home with trembling legs. 

When she lays to sleep, she presses two fingertips against her arm, imagining them as pointed teeth. Her vision suddenly bursts with flames of static and her body goes limp, trapped beneath the weight of the blankets.

When the sun rises and morning arrives, she is too weak to wake.

Two days pass. While fevers wrack her body, Ochako is plagued by visions of the water—of dark fins and a bright tail, of a smile like the crescent moon. Her parents fuss diligently, clouds of worry spilling from their bodies and gathering by the bed, ready to suffocate and swallow Ochako whole. But as she slips in and out of consciousness, eyes heavy with exhaustion, she fixates on the bedroom window.

“Ocha-chan?” her mother asks after the girl mumbles something incoherent. Lines run through the skin of her forehead—an unending tide. “Is something wrong?”

The girl groans. “Hngh…f—flies.”

“Ocha-chan?” Her voice rings with the pitch of panic.

“Fireflies,” the girl manages, gasping. Her vision is too unreliable—smearing every color and shape together—to see if the bugs are dancing through the trees.

“What about them sweetie?”

Heat courses through her body, swallowing her brain. She whines, breath quickening as tears of futility pool in her eyes. Everything feels so urgent, and she is imprisoned in her bed.

“Ocha-chan… Ochako!?”

The girl sighs in defeat, losing to the force of her eyelids. Like a wave against the shore, sleep washes over her with ease. She has no choice but to surrender.

But she can’t stand the thought of the ningyo waiting for her, alone.

When Ochako is finally strong enough to stand, she spends her day feeling restless, anxiously waiting for the sun to fall and darkness to seep through the sky. She routinely lifts the sleeve of her shirt to stare at the markings on her arms, a finger running over two small, dark scabs. During dinner, her eyes focus on the window, waiting eagerly for a spark of yellow.

“—chan? Ochako!”

She jolts from her trance, turning to face her mother.

“Are you still not feeling well?”

She shakes her head. “I’m okay.”

“Really? You still seem out of it…”

“Try to eat more,” her father encourages. “Meat will help you regain your strength.”

Ochako nods as her eyes descend to her bowl, watching shrimp wontons bob through a thick soup. The meat is sweet on her tongue, chewy and coated in salty broth. Her stomach tightens when she imagines the animals in front of her, long and spindly bodies skittering out of the bowl and across the table. They track soup along the floor as they make their escape, leaping when they reach the stream. Skinny legs shuffle through the water, leading all the way to the river she yearns to return to.

“Ocha-chan—” her mother’s voice tears her from the window once again. “Are you sure you’re okay?Her spine straightens as she nods, spooning another dumpling into her mouth. This time as the flavor floods her tongue, she has the morbid curiosity of what she tastes like.

She is not the first to arrive at the river. 

When she crests the hill she immediately looks for the water, searching for the stones standing in its darkness. A figure rests on the one closest to the bank. Ochako’s heart stirs as she descends to the shallows, itching to run but restraining herself. Heated excitement boils along her skin when she finally stands before a slippery tail and sharp fins. Her eyes shine as they trace claws and teeth and scales. 

“Hi,” she whispers, a reverent breath. 

The ningyo inhales, eyes rapidly scanning the girl’s skin. It leaps into the depth of the water.

Ochako blinks, swallowing the disappointment rising in her chest. It floods her lungs while a weight sinks in her stomach, plummeting somewhere deeper than she knew existed. Her eyes water, brown lakes of hurt and confusion. Should she have tried to return sooner? Was that enough to lose her merit, her trust?

The water stirs.

A head slices through the surface, ripples circling pale hair. Ochako’s breath catches. It’s too easy for her to hope, her heart switching between guilt and glee with commitment she is not prepared for, rocking her like a ship through a storm. The ningyo inches closer, carving through the water until it begins crawling along the bank. Its stare is enough to beckon Ochako forwards.

Yes, she feels the answer nestled in her chest. Always yes.

The two meet in ankle deep water, where a stone is wedged into the sand. The ningyo heaves itself on the flat surface, dragging with it the writhing body of an eel. It’s long, longer than Ochako’s legs, and wide enough that the beast's fingers don’t touch in their grip—instead digging sharp nails into the flesh. The animal wriggles desperately, tail slapping against the rock and water in protest.

The ningyo extends its arm. An offering, Ochako realizes—for her.

She immediately shakes her head, hands raising in gesture for the creature to take it back. Her eyes scan spindly arms and visible ribs, the hollowness of the creature’s cheeks. “I don’t need it.”

Pale eyes twitch, furrowing in a glare. The ningyo’s lips part, exposing teeth as they lower to piercing the slippery skin. The head of the eel squirms violently, beady eye twitching as fins flare, making futile attempts to breathe—or maybe scream. Blood pours from the puncture wounds, a line of crimson. The ningyo extends its arm a second time.

Panic bubbles in Ochako’s chest as the liquid rolls down the side of the eel, threatening to drip from the bottom of its belly. Without thinking, she reaches for it, cupping the animal where it’s bleeding before it can be wasted, and pushing her hand towards the ningyo’s mouth. 

“Take it,” she insists. “I’m okay.”

Hesitantly, the creature obeys, finally lowering its head. It refuses to break her gaze as it drinks, lips touching the slippery flesh before sucking. It laps hungrily, hurriedly, claws digging to keep the animal still. Eventually the eel goes stiff, unmoving as the last of its life is drained. Ochako watches in fascination, stomach twisting the way it did at dinner.

This feels different than the shrimp, somehow. 

When the eel is discarded, thwacking against the stone before sliding into the water, Ochako’s hands are all that remain between the pair. They are still smeared with scarlet, precious blood.

The ningyo reaches for them, clutching her softness between careful claws. Its tongue laps through her fingers and the lines of her palm, tracing every bump and curve and wrinkle. Ochako is frozen, watching with bated breath as if this moment will end if she makes the wrong move. Her eyes dart with greed, roaming with the intention to memorize every detail of this creature—the sharpness of its eyes, the softness of its lips. Wet hair clinging to its face. The occasional flicker of fins.

The creature’s touch is warm despite the chill of the night. Heat radiates from her hands until it nestles into her chest. This feeling blooming inside her, this buzz, is like the warmth of the sun. Something divine. Something like love.

“Himiko.” Ochako breathes the word like a prayer, a promise. She doesn't know why she says it; what depths it bubbled from. But it rises with urgency, like a secret impatiently waiting to escape its confines and make itself known.

The ningyo pauses, Ochako fears from displeasure, until a moment passes and those lips (so, so, so soft) curl against her skin.

Something akin to a purr rumbles through the chest of the ningyo—of Himiko. It—she—grins while nuzzling her face into Ochako’s palms. A hum sounds, high and clear, the trill of a bird's sweetest song. Ochako’s skin is alive, hands searing as she dares to press them firmer against Himiko’s cheeks.

“Himiko,” Ochako repeats, this time louder. Confident.

Himiko’s head shakes, burying itself further in Ochako’s hold. Another sound releases from the ningyo’s lungs: a high pitched babble. Ochako’s grin grows uncontrollably, cheeks tight with glee. Her heart is warm, so warm.

A sudden pressure captures two fingers, a firm but dull row of edges and points. A bite—soft and playful. Ochako watches with awe as Himiko scrapes her teeth over skin, the vibration of giggles accompanying the rough sensation. The girl is reminded of a cat: their flickering ears and affectionate gnawing. Himiko’s eyes flutter closed and open again, holding Ochako’s gaze. Her irises flood with the blackness of the sky, and her mouth pulls sharply into the curve of the moon.

Ochako’s chest tickles, and all she can think is—

Cute.

The remainder of Ochako’s summer break flies by, passing like a riptide—all at once, exhilarating. The night becomes her ally, the fireflies her friends. Her parents’ sleep and lack of attention a source of peace. 

Himiko waits for Ochako as dutifully as Ochako waits for the evening. The ningyo perches along the stones, fins flickering with anticipation. The human finds a special warmth in knowing someone is waiting for her—someone who counts on her making an appearance, who will sit with the anticipation and the urgency for her.

One night, Himiko offers a return gift: a handful of pearls. They’re perfectly smooth, shining like tiny moons in her palm. Ochako inspects them under the lamp in her room, marveling at the variety in color. Cream, pink, gold. A single black one. They make soft clicking sounds as they roll through the divots in her hand, and Ochako is taken by their perfection. Afraid of what her parents will do if they find them, she keeps them in a bag under her pillow. 

On nights when the insects take longer to light, she rolls her hands through the pearls while glancing out the window, urging the clock to hurry.

Ochako wants to know if Himiko’s heart also hurts when the time moves too slow. Does she pray the sun will fall faster, plummeting the sky into darkness just so they can meet a few minutes sooner?

The cynical part of Ochako’s heart—the one weathered by her parents’ view on the world—says yes, but only because of what the girl can offer. It says Himiko’s grin is only a display of sharp teeth eager to sink into her flesh, to taste and to drain her.

(The desperate part of her heart says she doesn't care. That this is an exchange where she can feel needed. Why should she care why Himiko waits and grins under moonlight, eyes shining like the moon itself?)

But Himiko takes from Ochako sparingly, spaced out by days and in small quantities. The hopeful part of Ochako’s heart assumes this is a form of consideration, for her small body that fell ill days ago. During the nights in between, Himiko eats from Ochako’s tender hands, letting the human watch as the ningyo steals life from other creatures, breathing them into herself before discarding them to the water.

How many corpses live in this river, Ochako wonders. How many skeletons line the murky floor? All these stones that cover the bank, sun bleached and brilliant white—are these pebbles the smoothed fragments of bone? Is Ochako sifting her feet through a cemetery every night, walking along a graveyard where the deceased are never buried? The skeleton of the dolphin is still in sight, greeting her every time she visits.

Now, she finds its presence comforting.

After each meal, Himiko will clean Ochako’s hands and steal any evidence of their encounters. Ochako places those hands on Himiko’s cheeks, runs fingers along the fins that sprout beneath her temples. Himiko’s eyes flutter, mouth stretching into a smile that Ochako can only describe as sweet before the creature’s head shakes to latch her teeth onto fingers, gnawing down chubby knuckles and grasping the plush skin of Ochako’s palm. 

Ochako feels a rush every time she gives herself to Himiko. The sting of fangs pierce through her skin and tear through the scabs attempting to heal, but the pain brings a rush of heat through her body, settling in her stomach and chest. She loves the feeling of being relied on, not coddled and fussed over. This is a love of need. Ochako is used to a love outlined by borders—limits on what she can do, what she can give, what she can take. But Himiko takes and takes and takes. And Ochako wants her to.

Ochako lets herself be greedy in return. She pulls Himiko closer, runs her eyes over her body, touches her skin and nails and teeth. Fingers thread through the creature’s hair, prodding at the clumps of other animals that are forced into her flesh. Himiko lets her, happily preening under the attention and the touch. It makes Ochako greedier, hungrier to know this unusual being.

Ochako learns that there is a part of her heart she did not see before, one that clings and aches and yearns. One that wants to spear inside of Himiko the way the ningyo sinks teeth into Ochako’s arms.

It scares her.

“Ocha-chan, are you picking at your arms? Those cuts aren’t getting any better.”

The girl’s heart quickens, instinctively running her opposite hand along the scabs—scabs that have not faded in a week. Luckily they’re small and easy to keep out of sight, but with her mother holding her hand as they walk along the dock, she scrutinizes them closely.

Ochako doesn’t answer.

“What’d you do to hurt yourself, anyways?” her father interjects. “They’re weird marks.”

She shrugs on instinct, frowning at her arm in a manner that convinces the adults of her ignorance. Ochako has learned that this is her failsafe, the best way to avoid outright lying or telling truths that will take important things away from her.

“Try not to make them worse,” her mother adds softly. “You’ve never had this problem before.”

The girl nods, only half listening as the trio enters the market. Brown eyes spot her friends before glancing towards her mother, pleading.

“Can I talk to Hanta?”

The response is as usual: an apprehensive nod. “Don’t leave their table, okay?”

Ochako bounds over, openly grinning when she stands before the table. She turns to wave at her parents before shining eyes meet wide, black ones.

Black eyes that drop to her arm.

Her heart stutters, hesitating at the shock on Hanta’s face. He’s never looked so surprised.

“Woah,” is all he says. 

Koji doesn’t share his disbelief. Ochako watches them both, brow furrowing.

“You… the yellow one? At the southern shore?”

Her frown deepens as she shakes her head. “The river in the woods. I don’t know what color she is.”

“The river…” he trails off, turning to Koji.

The shorter boy responds with a nod and series of hand gestures. One includes him opening a balled fist, like sunrays flaring, or a blooming flower.

“That’s Musu land,” Hanta says, watching Koji’s hands as they continue dancing. “And freshwater. The Kono live in the ocean. Maybe she swims upshore for food, to avoid the boats.”

Kono, that word again. Ochako repeats it. “Where… where do they come from?”

Hanta shakes his head. “They’re people. Lost people.”

“People?”

“Usually kids. Younger than us.”

Ochako frowns. “But they become—” monsters, her brain continues. Beasts that incite fear and inflict pain. Though, only if you see them that way, if you choose to be afraid. “They become Kono?”

Hanta nods.

“Why do they change?”

He shrugs. “Sometimes the water is the only place you can go.”

Her frown deepens. What circumstances would force someone to the water, for it to be their only solace? What happened to Himiko for this to be her life—darting between river and sea, no choice but to drink from animals, to be reduced to skin and bones.

“Do they…” her eyes widen. “Can they turn back into people?”

Hanta blinks, processing the question. He doesn’t know.

Ochako wishes she could sit here forever, sharing questions with Hanta and Koji. They answer her freely, honestly. They admit when they don’t know. She wants to share more, to share the beauty she was shown, to ask if they have seen it too. Admiration waits on the tip of her tongue, descriptions of Himiko’s smile, the unexpected gentleness hiding in her claws and teeth.

She thinks they already know.

“Thank you,” she says instead, voice low and soft. “For teaching me.”

Hanta shakes his head. “You already knew.”

Ochako has hardly a moment to consider what that means when a commotion stirs at the entrance of the markets. A deep shout, followed by a thrum of voices chattering at once—panicking. Ochako frowns as the crowd shifts, people rushing by the table and forcing her closer to the boys.  A hand finds her arm, her father materializing to lift her on his hip.

“Sorry kid. It’s getting busy, so we’ll have to leave sooner than usual.” His voice is level, but he looks troubled.

“What happened?” she asks quietly, shifting in his arms. The crowd is thick around them. Her eyes don’t travel far. 

“Just Higa-san causing some excitement. He got something strange today.”

Ochako’s heart jolts, eyes scanning furiously. Her stomach sinks with the heaviness of an omen. Her father’s hand cups her hair—an attempt to redirect her attention. Her unease grows.

“I wanna see.”

“No you don’t.” His reply is rushed, unconvincing. Irritating. “We need to go.”

Ochako cranes her neck, wriggling in her father’s arms. He grunts, voice hardening. “Ochako—”

She sees it. Past the tables lining the square, towards the exit on the docks, stands a swarm of people. With her hand pressing on her father’s shoulder, she has the leverage to skim her eyes overhead and catch the center of their attention—Higa-san, face twisted in a victorious grin. It’s sinister, sending chills through her veins.

In his hand thrusting triumphantly in the air is an arm: mangy, green, coated in scales. Purple fins protrude along the side and claws hang from the end. It’s been severed at the bicep, a loose tangle of flesh and skin, stringy muscle with the sharp splinter of bone.

Ochako panics, breaths turning to the staccato of panting. The air doesn’t fill her lungs, leaving her chasing for more, hurried.

“Ochako—”

She screams, a blood curdling sound. Harsh and high, raspy, one that floods any adult with fear. Heads turn towards the sound, eyes catching her twisted face, reddening furiously and flooding with tears.

Her parents move, attempting to calm her with soothing words that she can’t hear. Her father runs a hand along her back as he continues for the closest exit, people freely parting to let them through. But it only pushes Ochako further, pulling another round of wails from the depths of her throat, spilling from the sickness in her stomach. The cries are broken and unrelenting. Hands touch her face. Her mother’s mouth moves to catch her attention, but Ochako misses every word, deafened by her own screams.

“---be okay. There’s—safe, only—in the water. … protect—”

Ochako’s face crumples further, eyes squeezing with pain. She knows what her mother is trying to say: that she’s safe, the danger is only in the water, that people are here to protect her from whatever that was.

Ochako wails, but not from fear.

Or at least, not the fear her mother thinks she feels.

She cries herself to sleep and wakes in her room, staring out the window as soon as her eyes flutter open. The sun hangs low, casting orange through the clouds. The smell of cooked fish rises from the crack beneath her door.

Ochako hardly eats before returning to bed. She waits as the moon’s fullness lifts above the trees and dots of yellow blink above the stream. As soon as her parents close their bedroom door, she runs into the night.

There is no flirtatious dance with the shore. Ochako stomps through the water, charging straight to the stones where Himiko usually waits. The ningyo is present, pressed against her usual rock. She freezes at Ochako’s erratic movements, alarmed. Before the creature can react, small hands and arms engulf her shoulders and torso.

Only now is the unease in Ochako’s stomach settled. Himiko is here, alive and in front of her.

Himiko’s head jerks, nuzzling itself into the nook of Ochako’s neck. The girl sobs.

Red fins flicker against the brunette’s skin. The ningyo shifts and Ochako panics, arms tightening on instinct. Himiko stills. Ochako continues to sob, one hand shakily moving to Himiko’s forearm, tracing the skin, squeezing the flesh. She’s intact, whole. Both arms. Skin and bone and fins.

Confused, Himiko mirrors her actions. She runs sharp nails over Ochako’s skin, scraping as they squeeze in return. The pain is stabbing, sharp, but Ochako welcomes it, leans further into the touch.

Himiko is here.

The girl’s cries don’t wane for a long time, but the ningyo never protests or makes for an escape. Instead she lays pliant, easily held as if she welcomes the worry.

A sharpness grazes Ochako’s collarbone, the base of her throat. The girl doesn’t flinch, one hand raising to nestle into pale strands of hair. Encouraging. When the teeth finally pierce her, the sting comes with a wave of relief, body falling limp with relaxation. With Himiko wrapped in her arms and buried in her flesh, Ochako is reminded that she has something to give.

When Himiko finishes she runs her tongue along the skin, lapping until the runs of scarlet are fully cleaned. It tickles, pulling giggles from the girl. Himiko makes a throaty sound in response, the vibrations running along Ochako’s throat.

Bodies still wound in a tangle of arms and legs and tail, Ochako finds the strength to pull her head from Himiko’s. Under the full strength of the moon, she sees details that were previously secrets: the touch of gold that seeps through Himiko’s skin and scales, shimmering in her irises and every strand of hair. The fins lining her body are deep crimson along the edge, like blood seeping from her veins. Himiko—true to name—is the embodiment of light. Ochako is lost in the way Himiko’s body shimmers under the moon, illuminating the growing plush of her cheek, the point of her teeth. 

Then Himiko blinks, and something sparkles.

Pink sprouts from the center of Himiko’s irises, blooming to settle in the rims. Rosiness dusts her hair, runs along the veins that trail from flesh to fin. When Ochako finds the will to look away from Himiko’s face, she finds the sparkles trail down to her claws, clustered in her nails. They run along her tail, fluttering through scales and pooling in her largest fin.

The sight is beautiful, impossible. Here by the water with the Ochako’s blood running through her body, Himiko glows. Her light holds its own against the strength of the moon, her own lantern to navigate wherever she yearns to be.

Ochako thinks she is witnessing magic.

Is this what everyone fears—so much they won’t even skim their fingers over the water? Himiko grins, the glint of a knife, before yanking Ochako’s arm to drag her deep into the darkness. Ochako does not resist, does not know how to resist. She only hopes that Himiko will not let her go.

Ochako bursts awake, sitting upright with a gasp. Dreams and reality dance through her mind, still hazy with sleep. A hand reaches for the base of her neck, right beneath the collar of her shirt. The raw skin stings beneath her fingers. It’s sticky, the residual ooze glistening when she pulls away.

She flops backwards with a sigh. Memories of Himiko bloom behind her eyes: her pretty grin, her tight embrace, the pink bioluminescence that scattered along her body. Her teeth, piercing through the skin of her throat.

Ochako exhales, hands fisting the blanket.

Eventually she stands, stealing a glance out the window while she tugs up her collar and makes for the kitchen.

Her mother prepares an omelet, laid neatly across fried rice at the base of the bowl. The egg unrolls perfectly when cut.

“Did you sleep okay Ocha-chan?”

She nods.

“You’ve been waking up later than usual,” her father notes. “Try not to stay up so late. You start school again this week.”

Ochako nods again.

“I’ll be working again,” her mother adds. “So we’ll both be gone when you come home. Are you interested in any clubs? Maybe it’d be good to have something to keep you at school.”

Ochako pauses, considering. Nothing comes to mind. She isn’t particularly interested in sports, and the other clubs usually have fees or requirements to buy supplies. She shakes her head. She would rather spend that time elsewhere—with Himiko.

“That’s fine,” her father answers. “The neighbors will be around if you need anything. Just stick to the usual rules, okay?”

Stay in the backyard, Ochako thinks. A promise routinely broken. She nods.

Her mother frowns. “Are you sure you don’t want to try anything? I don’t want you to get lonely if we get back late.”

Ochako watches her parents trade glances, uncertain what they mean. Her father is uncharacteristically relaxed. Her mother is unusually stressed, pushing.

“Let her do what she wants,” her father’s voice is firm. His brow furrows before his eyes widen. Ochako doesn’t know what that means, but her mother sighs and nods.

The air has a tension Ochako is not used to. She prods, curious. “Why are you working late?”

Her mother smiles tightly. “Just changes in the company. Don’t worry about it.”

The tension thickens.

After her first day back at school, Ochako returns to an empty house. The neighbor waves as she walks home, letting the girl know she can call if anything happens. Ochako hurries after nodding, running inside to drop her bag and change clothes. There is no hesitation as she treads outside, beyond the boundary of her home. No fireflies light her path—this time wandering under the heat of the sun. 

Inexplicably, Ochako intuits that Himiko knows she is coming. She crests the hill, panting and flustered. Brown irises scan the rocks, the water—water incredibly blue.

A head bursts from the plane, scattering ripples across its surface. Himiko, hair like starlight and eyes molten gold, bobbing towards the shore. Ochako grins, racing forwards.

They no longer rely on the moon to meet, neither the darkness she rests in or the bugs that carry her light. Himiko is a ritual to Ochako, now under the sun.

Ochako thinks this is how it was meant to be, that Himiko was made to be seen in her fullness, in the confidence of day. She’s easier to understand, to watch, to know. The depth of her colors are apparent, the flashes of gold and flushes of pink. She internalizes that light, shines it along her scales and fins when she leads Ochako through murk and shadow.

Maybe Himiko is a star, a sun. A source of light and warmth. 

(Of love.)

Ochako knows she should return home when red blooms along the horizon; her parents will be home in less than an hour. She turns to Himiko’s delicate frame, her soft face. 

“Thank you.”

She struggles to elaborate. This is a thanks that holds weight in its ambiguity. She wants to add, For depending on me. For trusting me. For sharing with me things that are special to you.

“Thank you,” Himiko parrots, words coated in the scratch of thirst.

Ochako swallows. She can’t tell whether Himiko understands the words or not, if this language means anything to a creature of salt and claws and blood. But Ochako thinks she understands what Himiko has buried in her speech.

For seeing me. For taking me under your care. For coming back, time and time again.

Himiko’s body fills out with time, flesh over bone thickening with sturdiness and strength. Smaller animals still find their way into her skin—the sharp curved shell of a horseshoe crab, the spots of flounder. But her face remains soft, kind.

One afternoon, when the sun hangs hot at an angle, Ochako only has a moment to appreciate the sight of Himiko before the ningyo pulls her from the bank of the river. They fall into the crystal of water, clear aquamarine. Himiko holds Ochako tightly, the girl squeezing with equal strength as she kicks her legs.

Ochako’s gaze follows the now familiar floor of the river: large stones smoothed by time, white and banded and broken. Like bones of an unfathomable giant that used to roam the earth. Tufts of grass peek through the cracks. Fish dart through the hairs, small and silver, glittering when a ray of sun catches their scales. 

They pass banks Ochako knows, stones that she holds fondness for, pockets along the shore that she recognizes as homes. Her eyes light with familiarity, catching sight of other creatures she has come to love.

The river is a second home.

Himiko leads Ochako further than they’ve been before. When the river widens as it winds around a hill, the stones grow into boulders. They line an opening beneath the bank, a set of ancient teeth framing a mouth of darkness. Himiko carries forward without pause. Ochako does not resist.

A minute stretches slowly, rolling like a stone against the current. Light shortly fades to blackness as the pair is swallowed by the cave. The water squeezes Ochako’s temples, ears popping when she adjusts her jaw. Stone wraps around them, faults and fragments jutting just out of reach. Ochako’s heart races, lungs tightening.

Darkness claims her vision for an instant before it blooms with pink. Himiko’s body glows, dust sparkling along her form. It illuminates the walls, the shadows of figures dancing as they carry forwards. 

Himiko is the light—she is Ochako’s compass and way. 

The water shifts, heavier against their bodies. A chill rushes over Ochako as Himiko twists through the channels. Her lungs start to burn.

Before air comes, Ochako has her first taste of sea. Salty, sweet. A light streams ahead and brown eyes widen, catching a rush of colors blooming beneath her. 

They slip through an opening, one that overwhelms Ochako with blue. Blue when she takes her first glimpse of the open water, blue when Himiko drags her through the surface to breathe. Ochako gasps, heaving deeply as she clutches to the ningyo—her lifeline. Her heart races, fueled by her desperate breaths, and rooted in the warnings she remembers before anything else: Stay away from the water. 

Danger, danger, danger, blares through her mind, punctuated by each erratic heartbeat. 

Himiko adjusts her grip, wrapping an arm around Ochako’s waist. The calamity quiets.

Ochako’s breaths slow and her body relaxes, eyes roaming with wonder. The pair float next to a cliff: a slab of dark rock jutting between sky and ocean. Though she’s never seen it from this angle, Ochako knows cliffs like these only exist in the south of the island. The face of the rock curves around them, hugging Himiko who holds Ochako. Along its surface are blooms of coral, lengths of kelp, seagrasses woven together. The rocks are a second shore beneath the surface, a forest for fish to bury themselves in, before dropping straight down.

Ochako’s stomach sinks, falling through the abyss below her. Heights have never been an issue, but floating here, above a depth she cannot fathom, her body buzzes with a fear she did not know she could feel. She latches onto Himiko for life. 

The ningyo holds her steady. Her tail sways to propel them around the face of the rocks—slowly, to let Ochako take in the force of blue, the lives that drift within it, depend on it. Wonder swallows her and steals every sense in her body, coating her eyes and squeezing her ears. Something aches in her chest, hollowing out her heart in a yearning to understand, to learn. Himiko’s touch helps to soothe the sting, but the pain lingers.

When they round the corner, they glide over reefs—rooted in an ocean floor. Ochako’s stomach eases at the sight of sand and stone beneath her. 

Her stomach drops again when she looks up. A figure bobs in the water ahead of them, a notable distance from the proper shore.

In a panic she clutches Himiko and kicks her legs. It’s a futile attempt to escape, to protect the ningyo from being spotted. The creature doesn’t budge, her tail much stronger in the water than Ochako’s legs. The human struggles, eyes wide in fear and confusion.

“Himiko—” she wails, breathy. Doesn’t she understand that she’s in danger?

Himiko looks at Ochako with equal confusion, head cocked. The girl frowns, sparing another glance at the figure in the water. Her breath catches.

The figure is Hanta, floating on a surfboard. His dark hair sticks against his head, lean frame covered by a sleeved shirt she does not recognize. His head twitches before turning towards the pair, large eyes meeting Ochako. He freezes, then grins. The contact only lasts another second before he paddles through a wave, board sliding against clear blue and towards the shore—where Koji sits in the sand, Ochako realizes.

A heaviness tugs at her heart. Her lips twist in a pout as she rests her head in the crook of Himiko’s neck. Her stomach hurts with something. Something like envy.

When the ningyo returns her to the bank of the river, Ochako soaked in her day clothes, words bubble up her throat without warning, spilling with urgency.

“I love you.”

Himiko’s fins flicker against her head. Her lashes flutter twice before a grin spans her face. All sharp, bright teeth.

“Love you,” she echoes, voice the smoothness of a pearl.

Ochako’s eyes pool with tears. Her chest and stomach hurt. She wants to hear Himiko say it again and again. Himiko’s voice makes the words mean something she’s never known before.

“Wish I could stay,” she whispers, searching for an answer. A lump forms in her throat.

“Stay,” Himiko whispers back.

But she can’t. So Ochako walks home, that lump in her throat never settling.

“Ocha-chan,” her mother starts at dinner—this one rare, before sunset. Alarm bells had blared through the girl’s body during the afternoon, alerting her to come home just in time for their arrival. “Your dad and I are planning a trip to Mie for winter break.”

She nods, scraping the rice at the bottom of her bowl. It's a tradition for their family to visit the Ise shrine. “For New Years?” 

Her mother hums in affirmation.

Ochako frowns, pausing mid-bite. Will Himiko be okay alone for that long?

“Ochako?”

Round eyes turn to her father’s wrinkled face.

“Is there something wrong?”

“No, just—will we be there the whole break?”

“Mhmm. Your mother and I need to take a couple trips to a couple cities we haven’t been before: Kameyama and Suzuka.”

Her brow furrows further. Her grandparents are in Matsusaka; they only ever visit the south of Mie or east, where her other extended family live. “What’s in Kameyama and Suzuka?”

“Some businesses we need to visit for work,” her mother answers. “But we can also visit some of the historical sites. I’d like to see the neighborhoods, too.”

“Okay.” It sounds boring to Ochako, and she doesn’t get why a neighborhood would be worthwhile to see. “Why do you need to visit for work?”

They make a few comments, but none of them feel like an answer.

The last time Ochako runs along the stream, she doesn’t bother changing from her uniform. After dumping her backpack by the door she makes a run for the woods. Urgency pulls her, a fish reeled along Himiko’s line.

She bursts from the thick of trees, shoes sliding against the pebbles as she slows. Her eyes dart anxiously across the shore, feet stuttering when they catch pale gold glimmering above a stone. She steadies herself, marching forwards while Himiko clutches the rock in tense arms. Ochako grins as the ningyo pulls itself to shore—

Ochako nearly slips down the bank. Her feet freeze while her eyes grow to full moons.

Himiko walks.

They’re shaky steps on unpracticed legs, but she rises. The ningyo—or now human—stands. Her figure is bare except for the water rolling down her skin. It glistens in the sun, daytime stars raining against her body. A human body. A body like Ochako’s, with sturdy legs and a round face. 

Ochako’s heart stutters, lips parted as Himiko inches closer, soft feet pressing sharp rock. She carries herself with uncertainty, alien in a body that she once knew well. The brunette takes one step forward, encouraging.

“Himiko.” The sound is hardly a breath, lungs emptied in awe.

Is this what love can do: transform creatures, let them take the parts of one another that bring them closer together? Ochako’s every step, her diligence to return—is this the result of her careful questions, her patience? It must be her blood running through Himiko’s body, her flesh covering her bones. Every taste of Ochako’s blood was a pact, the whisper of a swear.

A promise that brought them here.

Himiko continues with the shake of a fawn. Ochako watches carefully, stepping slowly. Patiently, always patiently waiting for her. But her heart thrums, buzzing all the way to her fingertips as she imagines meeting Himiko’s hands. Their fingers can interlace into a basket of tenderly woven flesh, letting Ochako pull Himiko along her own world—through grass and trees and sky.

Ochako can bring her home. She can bring her two homes together.

She holds her breath for Himiko’s final steps, speeding her own so they can meet in the middle. Her hands raise, palms facing the sun—facing Himiko’s reaching for her.

A sharp snap sounds from another part of the woods. A spear releasing, shooting across the bank to pierce Himiko’s back. Ochako flinches and Himiko screams, teeth bared and eyes shrunken in pain. The sound is cut a second later when her flesh dissolves midair, cells bubbling into red liquid that bursts, coating Ochako’s front and splattering the ground before her. She stumbles, arms still stretched as she collapses, knees bruising against Himiko’s stain.

Sounds erupt from the side, chaotic but muffled while Ochako’s lungs tighten. She heaves, half gags and half desperate gulps of air, as she frantically shoves her hands against the stones. The world is split, torn into two as she wails. Saltwater floods her vision, splattering against the spill of Himiko. 

Commotion follows. A hand grasps Ochako’s arm and she screams, thrashing in the hold of someone wearing two shades of blue—a police officer. She catches similar figures scattered throughout the shore, surrounding her. 

Her cries are deafening. Under the scorching light of the sun, her body is hot, too hot. The sizzling crack of lightning. She doesn't want to be touched. She wants Himiko. Himiko’s flesh, her own flesh, a body she had yet to understand and love in its entirety.

She blinks through her storm, vision clearing enough to spot Higa-san by an officer. He holds his speargun in hand, face twisted in that sinister grin of victory.

For all her questions about love, all her curiosities and her doubts, Ochako is certain when she sits atop Himiko’s melted remains. Staring at Higa-san through her pinched face, all Ochako knows is that this feeling in her chest and stomach—this tightness and sickening void—is her first experience of hatred.

[bnsni]

Listening to Nicki Minaj and David Guetta song called hey mama gave me ideas....

Beginning 2000'. Ur a sport car racer in the city of ur choice and ur kinda known in town to be very good.

Imagine one day u found an abandonned race car that has a yellow orange red paint job and decide to repair it and use it to do races (u know, like the one in Tokyo?). Because like, the car has a unique design u've never seen before, not even for a rally. And is in perfect condition.

The day of the race, u arrive and everyone is quiet bc wow, that car is new, shiny and beautiful. They all stare at u, including others competitors.

In summary, u start ur race, and praise the car asf like "yeah baby, give me all u've got", "show them what u can do", "that's right, go on, don't stop","such a perfect engine revving to prove them we are the best"... and u notice the car litteraly has no speed limite, is doing an outrageously good performance and seems to be enjoying the race. The adrenaline running through ur blood make u ignore the fact that the car seems to react and live the moment.

Because of this, u win every races and end up beating every records. Nobody has ever made such an impressive performance.

To avoid having people touch ur new jewel, you leave quickly after recieving some prices and go back home. You blast some music to celebrate.

Back home, u decide to wash the car when u notice some weird pinky liquid coming out from under the car.

If u want u can eventually write what happen next (it's midnight and my brain is nwjfifishs) but i kust wanted to share this idea with u :))

Have a nive day/night ~~~<3

gosh!! that is such a good idea omg. I always like the idea of bots going along whatever their new humans are taking them to, preffering to remain silent while the human just,,does whatever they want to do lmaoo. Only escaping to their bases at night then returning the morning after like they hadnt left.

Given the human is a racer I can imagine they would manhandle the car a lot,,,,and Cybertronian are naturally sensitive on the driving wheel as well as the joysticks (and the pedals, too. Especially, the pedals) which leads to several pent up 'frustrations' from the bot themselves....👀👀

Doesn't also help the way you keep praising the car, touches always so rough yet soft when you knead the joystick or swivel the wheel....

I don't have much to add but,,,,

—CURIOUS, you hunch over, other hand pointing the mouth of the hose to the crevices of the wheels. They rolled across enough dirt already, but you miss impatient skidding of the the wheels back and forth.

Whatever strange substance that was, it had a tangy smell to it — almost pungent, yet also a little sweet?

You curled out a finger and dipped it into the viscous liquid. It was strangely cool to the touch, yet the tip of your skin flared with a mild burn a only a balm would induce.

Moreover, the crush, candy color were reminiscent of the cherry flavored Gatorade, you hoard often from the shops. Is this some new kind of fuel? If so, then why weren't you informed? Trends these days....always so discreet. But, how did it end up here?

The thought of shoving your finger inside your mouth, going against all ethical hygiene practices for a taste to satisfy your curiosity, is short-lived the moment the engine rumbled.

But it wasn't just a rumble....almost like a whine. Did it just breedle? Did it talk?

You yelped and scrambled on your back when the car shifted : a blur of mesh metal parts, churning and transforming into shape. Then, a shadow loomed above you, caging you in. Chuffs of steam heaved, like breaths of a a beast and two blue flaring lights for eyes, fervent and desperate...