~Clay is training at 3am again :/ it’s ok Aaron has the power of cuddles on his side~
Aaron
———
Clang
Clang
Aaron woke up to what sounded like someone training. He turned his head to look out his window and confirmed that it was, in fact, the middle of the night. According to his phone, 2:47am.
Which meant that, yes, someone was training. And that someone was Clay.
Again.
Aaron dragged himself out of bed, a very difficult task as his bed was very comfy, and walked down the hall towards the training room.
“Clay, why are you awake?” Aaron asked as the door opened.
“I’m training.” Clay responded. “Would you like to join me?”
Aaron sighed. “No, it’s nearly 3 in the morning. We should both be asleep right now.”
“I already slept.”
And of course by that Clay meant they slept for about 2 hours.
“Y’know I’m pretty sure the recommended hours of sleep is 8.”
“I’m fine. You can go back to bed.” Clay resumed their training.
Aaron walked up behind them and wrapped his arms around their waist. “How am I supposed to sleep when I know you’re awake?”
“Okay, then stay up and train with me.”
“But I’m tiiiiiired…” Aaron complained. “Can you cuddle with me?”
Clay did their best to turn and face him. “Aaron-”
“Pleeeaaase?” Aaron looked up at them and batted his eyelashes, “If you won’t sleep for your health then can you sleep for mine?”
Clay raised an eyebrow, “How does me sleeping improve your health? You can sleep just fine on your own.”
“No I can’t,” Aaron countered, “and if I don’t sleep then I’ll be sleep deprived. Imagine how unproductive I’d be if I was sleep deprived!” He was too tired to know whether or not his argument made sense, but Clay had only slept for 2 hours and they were probably also tired.
Clay gave him an unconvinced look. They then cupped Aaron’s face and kissed his forehead. “Fine, I’ll go to sleep.”
Success!
“-after I finish this.”
“UUUUGGGHHHHHH… . .. .” Aaron groaned. Almost. He was so close. If he let Clay continue training they wouldn’t go to sleep at all.
“What? I said I’d go to sleep!”
“You just said you were gonna continue training.”
“Fine, fine, I’ll go to sleep now. Can I change into my pajamas first?”
Aaron nodded, removing his arms from around Clay’s waist to instead hold their hand.
After Clay put away their sword the two of them walked towards Clay’s room so that Aaron could wait outside while Clay changed clothes, then headed towards Aaron’s room.
After lying down, Aaron once again wrapped his arms around Clay, their arms around him as well.
Despite claiming they weren’t tired, Clay seemed to already be drifting off.
Good.
Aaron, no longer with a reason to stay awake, fell asleep.
~Jay plays videogames by a lake sorta near his house and he meets a mermaid~
Jay
———
Jay sat down on the grass near the lake he found the other day, pulling his switch out of his backpack. The lake was only a few minutes’ walk from his house and no one else seemed to live close enough to know about it, so it was a nice place to hang out on his own.
Jay moved his backpack farther away from the water and opened his Prime Empire save file. He was on level 25 and was hoping to get through at least 5 more levels before he had to head home.
-
Jay had just cleared level 27 when he saw something in the corner of his eye. He paused and saved his game, then glanced at the water.
Something was looking at him.
It was too deep in the water for Jay to see what it was, but, using common sense, he deduced it was probably a really big fish. He had no idea what kinds of fish lived in lakes, but it was probably a koi fish or something. Those got fairly big. The fish was still staring at Jay, so, not sure what to do, Jay waved. The fish blinked.
Wait.
Did fish blink? Jay thought they didn’t have eyelids or something? How could a fish blink without eyelids?? Before Jay could think too deeply about fish biology and if everything he learned in school was fake, the fish swam closer to the surface-
That was not a fish. That was a person. Which explaned the blinking, since people do in fact have eyelids, but why were they underwater? How long had they been there? What-
Woah.
Ok, that wasn’t a person either. Jay stared at its- uh, their? red scales scattered across their face and arms, their red fishy tail, their webbed fingers, and they waved back-
They waved back.
They were a mermaid.
A mermaid just waved to Jay.
Jay lived a few minutes walk away from a lake where a mermaid lived.
This was the coolest day of Jay’s life. Cole and Skylor would not believe this- actually, they really wouldn’t. He’d have to take a picture or something so he could prove he really saw a mermaid. But that might scare the mermaid away..
Jay would figure out how to get his friends to believe him later. Right now, he was interacting with a mermaid. Jay waved again, because he was smart like that. As soon as he did, he remembered that he had waved first and probably looked stupid for waving again.
The mermaid watched him for a few seconds before bringing their head above water. Their hair was dark brown and very fluffy. Even though the mermaid had just been underwater, their hair spiked upwards. That was not what water usually did to hair. Jay wondered if there was some sort of underwater hair gel product that mermaids used. They were also wearing what looked like a completely normal crop top t-shirt, which was not what Jay would’ve imagined mermaids would wear. Did mermaids have underwater clothes factories? What was the fabric made out of? How did mermaids dye fabric while underwater? Did they go above water to dye the fabric? Wait. That wasn’t important right now. Jay could ask about the mermaid clothing industry later.
Jay set his switch near his backpack. “Hi. My name’s Jay.” he held out his hand. The mermaid looked at it. Oh. Maybe mermaids didn’t shake hands. That might not be a thing in their culture. Jay felt a little bit stupid. “Uh. Sorry. I guess mermaids don’t do handshakes.” he retracted his hand. “What’s a mermaid greeting? What do mermaids do?”
“We usually just say ‘hi’.”
Jay stared at the mermaid. They just talked. They could understand Jay. He had expected that mermaids likely had a language, he just hadn’t expected it would be Ninjargon. Jay could have a conversation with a mermaid.
“YOU CAN TALK?!” Jay said, like an incredibly intelligent person.
“Um. Yeah?” the mermaid replied, looking amused. “You asked me a question, were you not expecting an answer?”
“Well. No, not really. I didn’t think you spoke Ninjargon.”
“I didn’t think you spoke Merlopian. I guess they’re the same language.”
“Um. What’s your name?” Jay wanted to be able to refer to the mermaid as something other than ‘the mermaid’.
The mermaid looked at Jay for a second before answering. “Kai.”
Oh. That was a nice name. Kai.
“What were you doing earlier?” Kai asked. “With that,” -they pointed to Jay’s switch- “what is that?”
“Oh, I was playing Prime Empire! It’s this cool new videogame, it came out just last month.” Jay picked up his switch. “I’m pretty far in the game already, since I’m really good at videogames. Prime Emire works on pretty much all gaming consoles, even older ones! I play it on my switch since a switch is much more portable than, like, a playstation or something.” Jay began talking about the pros and cons of different gaming consoles until Kai interrupted him.
“I don’t know what any of that means.”
Ah. Right. Gaming console pros and cons would not make sense to a mermaid. Mermaids didn’t have videogames. Mermaids lived underwater.
“Oh, sorry. Um. This” -Jay motioned to his switch- “is my switch. It’s a gaming console. Gaming consoles are devices made to play videogames on, although most consoles can be used for other things, too.” Jay was probably doing a terrible job explaining, but to be fair he hadn’t had time to make a powerpoint about it first.
“If you want, I can show you how it works?” Jay offered.
Kai hesitated for a moment. “Sure.” They swam closer to the edge of the lake.
Jay turned on his switch and began rambling away about the inner workings of a switch as well as other electronics, and how some of them are built.
-
Jay looked at the time. It was 7:45. He was supposed to be home 15 minutes ago.
“Aw crap, I’m late! I was supposed to be home already!” Jay scrambled to collect his things. “Sorry, I have to go! But I can come back tomorrow afternoon? If that’s ok?” he hefted his backpack over his shoulder and looked at Kai.
“Oh. Um. Yeah, sure.” Kai replied, a shocked expression on their face- probably because Jay had stopped in the middle of his sentence to suddenly exclaim that he had to leave.
Jay nodded and ran off in the direction of his house.
On the way back home, he thought about Kai. He was going to hang out at the lake with Kai tomorrow afternoon. Kai wanted- or at least was willing- to spend time with Jay. A smile spread across his face.
Jay was friends with a mermaid. Sort of.
He was going to spend so much time at the lake over the weekend.
Lui wanted to scream. He wanted to scream at the top of his lungs. It was unbelievable. He couldn’t believe it. And yet here it was, on the screen right in front of his eyes. He sat there, staring at his phone in disbelief, as Oliver walked up and sat next to him on the couch.
“...”
“...”
“..Lui, are you alright?”
Lui dropped his phone and immediately began frantically signing everything that was on his mind to his poor, innocent friend who most likely did not want to sit through a long rant on this fine morning. He noticed the increasingly confused look on Oliver’s face and realized he’d lost him, most likely when he trailed off into a side rant. What was his point again? Oh right, That. He quickly wrapped up his explanation-rant and picked up his phone to show Oliver.
“Ah. I. Um. I-I see??”
Oliver didn’t get it. Lui had to find Len, Len would understand. Lui left Oliver’s side and burst into Len’s room, causing Len to fall off his bed. Lui walked over to him.
“Uh hey, what’s up? Y’know you can knock. Is everything good?”
Lui shoved his phone in Len’s direction as Len got up from the ground. He took a few moments to look at the screen. “..oh, pog-” Lui’s jaw dropped as he stared in betrayal. He snatched his phone back and stormed off to find someone else. Len was left utterly baffled, as he was apparently completely unaware of his betrayal.
Seriously, how could he think it was cool that Piko got his ears pierced without inviting Lui to shop for earrings with him?!
