The sun beams down like it has a personal vendetta. The waves roll in all soft and serene, completely oblivious to the emotional carnage unraveling on the sand.

Enter Mimi.
Alone.
Her thumbs are working overtime on her sticker-encrusted phone. Her eyes are dead. Her soul is clinging to life by a glittery hairpin. She's been grinding for hours—tapping, swiping, muttering to herself in an ancient gamer tongue no mortal was meant to understand.

Mimi lets out a long, dramatic groan, throwing her arms in the air as she stares at her phone screen one last time. No rare pulls. No sea waifu. Just the bitter taste of defeat. The wind whips her hair dramatically—collapsing to her knees in the wet sand like she just found out her family lineage is cursed to always pull 3-stars.

Mimi's eyes light up as she hears the familiar voice.
And there. The narrator—washed up on shore, looking thoroughly drenched and miserable.

[Coughing] I have seen things. Dark things. Things that should never be spoken of—

Mimi plops down next to the narrator, scowling.

You threw me into the ocean.

Oh, well, that's so much better.

A silence. The waves crash softly in the background.

Have you ever been tossed by waves, knowing that your own story might never continue? Have you ever been forced to contemplate the existence of narrative itself, wondering if—

...

But—

Without another thought, she grabs the narrator with both hands and begins running, heart racing as she closes the distance. The crowd is massive. The voices louder. Whatever’s happening, Maku is at the center of it.

Mimi pushes forward, determined to reach Maku through the writhing mass of people. But the crowd is dense—too dense. Her—let’s say, generously proportioned—frame isn’t exactly built for tight spaces, but that has never stopped her before. She wedges her way through, twisting her shoulders, shoving, slipping, squeezing. But every move she makes comes at a cost.

And the cost is me.

I make accidental contact with a part of the human anatomy I was never meant to experience.
A scandalized gasp echoes through the crowd. Mimi pushes harder. I am dragged along with her, forced against more flesh, muscle, and highly inappropriate zones I would rather not narrate further.

By the time she finally breaks through, I am spiritually damaged beyond repair. I will never be the same.
Mimi, of course, is completely unfazed. She shakes off the journey like she didn’t just violate several people by accident and fixes her eyes the girl at the center of it all like some ethereal beachside deity.

One beachgoer sighs.

And there—dear God, there—Maku. Dripping seawater, bare skin gleaming, and a vibe so potent it should’ve come with a parental advisory. The kind of sight that doesn’t just take your breath—it steals your entire respiratory system, sells it on Etsy, and uses the profits to buy more audacity.
Her shirt—oversized, soaked, and clearly working through some issues—is plastered to her like a love letter that never got sent, holding on for dear life and ruining yours in the process. The wind is clearly in on it, too. It tousles her hair just enough to activate primal panic. Golden specks of sand kiss her legs—stuck to her skin in a constellation of “you will never know peace again.” And her skin? It glows like she moisturized with moonlight and bad decisions. Her whole presence is a hate crime against emotional stability.

The people around her vibrate with reverence. With awe. With the shared, unspoken agony of “Oh no. I’d let her ruin me.”

And Maku?
Maku just exists.
Maku is silent. Still. Utterly unbothered.
Her expression betrays nothing. No awareness. No intention. Just that perfect, apathetic calm that says: I didn’t mean to ruin you. But I’m not going to stop.

Mimi blinks—once, twice—like her brain is trying to reboot with the emotional equivalent of a paperclip and a scream. Her worry doesn’t fade; it mutates. Evolves. Upgrades into a brand-new flavor of confusion so raw it could be served at a questionable sushi bar.
She storms toward Maku, high on instinct and bad judgment, hands slamming onto her hips like she’s about to reclaim control of the narrative via sheer force of sparkle and spite. She stands tall. Proud. Emotionally compromised but trying to hide it with posture.
Her whole energy says: “I’m not spiraling, YOU’RE spiraling.”
(Reader’s note: she is, in fact, absolutely spiraling.)

A few of the (not) cultists averts their gaze. Someone in the back quickly buries a suspicious-looking conch shell in the sand.

Maku looks over her shoulders. Sure enough, someone is painstakingly shaping Maku’s likeness in the sand, complete with sunglasses.

Mimi gestures to the growing pile of empty coconuts—some cracked, some gnawed, one inexplicably wearing sunglasses. A graveyard of tropical beverages surrounds Maku’s beach throne.

Mimi gives it an experimental swirl, the liquid sloshing inside with a soft glug-glug. The faint scent of coconut and something… extra hit her nose. Maku simply leans back, arms behind her head, watching with an infuriatingly relaxed smirk.

Maku stretches out in her chair, completely unfazed, and shoots Mimi a lazy grin.

Maku wiggles her fingers ominously before reaching for another untouched coconut beside her. With a dramatic sluuuurp, she takes a long, slow sip through the straw, never breaking eye contact.

Maku raises the coconut with all the poise of a drunk sea goddess about to smite the concept of sobriety with reckless abandon and questionable morals.

But then—
Gravity speaks.
She folds sideways off her throne like someone hit the off switch on her spine.
Wet. Noodle. Physics.
Just a long, slow whomp of a descent ending ass-first in the sand like destiny said, “Sit, girl.”

Maku tries to stand again, wobbles with all the grace of a baby deer on roller skates, and falls face-first into the sand with a muffled fwoomp.

Maku lifts her face, now speckled with sand and seaweed, and immediately spits out a mouthful.

Maku curls up in a dramatic fetal position.

Maku's words slow, slurrier now.

Maku lets out a loud, unmistakable snore that kicks up a tiny puff of sand.

Your best friend.

That is a good question.

…Handle?

That’s… shockingly responsible of you.

Aaaaand there it is.

No, that’s exactly what you’re saying.

Wait, hold on. If you’re gonna hijack the cult for snacks, why not just take over completely?

…That’s actually really smart.

That’s deeply concerning.

You got knocked unconscious and it improved your thinking?

That’s not how that works…

I fear what you will become.