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The realization comes early on, when they’re all working in the greenhouse. It’s a blissful sort of day, with bright skies and a light breeze—the kind of day where no one particularly wants to be harvesting vegetables.
“It’s so nice out,” Iori laments. “Weather like this really just makes me wanna go to the beach…”
“Same here,” chimes Natsuno. “Y’know, my cousins used to live by the beach. We would always go to visit them and run around and play volleyball on the sand, it was really fun.”
“Really? Huh,” says Nenji, from where he’s wrestling with some sort of cornstalk. “That’s weird. My cousins did too.”
Then everyone freezes.
Shu and Yuki had once explained to them their bizarre experience of having the same memories of visiting grandparents. This was amidst a series of other life-shattering revelations, and had thus caused everyone to say woah, that’s crazy, and promptly forget about it.
Until right now, at least. But it makes sense. Ashitaba was on a river, not the ocean, and any memories outside of Ashitaba were all just from Universal Control.
“So none of us have ever actually been to the beach? We’ve never had a real beach day?” Tomi asks. “Man, that’s depressing…”
“If you’d like to be technical,” Okino says, “all of our memories before leaving the pods were artificial in some way. We’ve never actually done anything.”
“That’s even worse!”
“So let’s fix it,” Yuki says. “There’s a coast here, right? On this... planet.”
There is a coast. It’s a ways away from where they woke up and their main base of operations, so no one has ever really bothered to visit it—but all it takes is Iori, Natsuno, and Tomi beginning to chant beach day, beach day before they collectively decide to change that.
The beach day is planned for later that week. No one can agree on what exactly a “picturesque, perfect beach day” entails, so everyone just does their own preparations. When the time comes, it’s bright and early, and they've all loaded up a haphazard little beach wagon with the various things they drew up and constructed in the automated factory.
Tamao is very interested in the idea of colorful little beach drinks, complete with tiny umbrellas. She describes them as “quaint”. Upon arriving at the shore, the first thing she does is set up a makeshift tiki bar with the company of Juro and Megumi, who are trying very hard to be supportive.
Unfortunately for Tamao, none of the facilities they’ve been able to get up and running on the new world are very good at creating complex organic materials yet. This means that the ingredients Tamao is working with are questionable at best, and poisonous lab chemicals at worst.
Tamao hums happily as she shakes a mixture that may or may not be slightly glowing.
“That sure is very... green, Tamao-san,” Juro says.
“Isn’t it?”
“Looks good to me,” Amiguchi says. “What’s a beach day without a nice drink and some lovely ladies, am I right?” Before anyone can stop him, he swipes one of the martini glasses and takes a long sip.
Everyone holds their breath.
Amiguchi swallows then lets out an audible pwahhh. “Oh, yeah. I can vibe with this.”
Everyone lets out the breath.
Sekigahara appears in full-body scuba gear. “I’m going to catalogue the sea creatures, see what Project Ark planted here,” he says. This is Sekigahara speak for I am going to hide in the ocean for several hours to avoid a social situation.
“Be safe, Ei-kun,” Iori says, slightly red. Sekigahara gives her what is probably a very affectionate look. No one can tell because he’s in full scuba gear.
“Wait, Ogata-kun, look,” Tomi says. “There really are waves!”
For some reason, Tomi had been very excited about the potential of going surfing. She’d been drawing up designs for the perfect surfboard (pink, with a bunny motif) all week. She'd also expressed a desire to try to go tandem surfing with Nenji, which absolutely no one thought would go well.
“Oh yeah! So we’re tryin’ this?” Nenji says, winding up his arm like he’s preparing to fist-fight the ocean. “Alright. Come at me, waves!”
It does not go well.
“Ogata, you have to actually stand up straight to balance on a surfboard!” Tomi cries out as they start to go under again.
“What are you talking about? I am standin’ straight!” He’s not standing straight.
After several more failed attempts, they drudge back onto shore, defeated.
“Impressive,” Hijiyama sardonically quips.
“Shut up, man. I’d like to see you try it.”
Hijiyama huffs. “It’s a wooden board and some water. I was a solider. How hard can it be?”
Tomi grins as she hands over the pink surfboard. “Be my guest, then.”
From where he’s lounging on the sand, Amiguchi laughs loudly. All morning, he’d been self-described ‘vibing’. The only item he created in advance for the entire day was a singular pair of sunglasses.
“You sure you don’t want wait until Okino gets here to try to show off, man? We won’t judge.” Hijiyama goes red.
Okino still hadn’t arrived, mostly by virtue of not being a morning person. He assured everyone he’d join them later. Out of all of them, he spent the most time working on the AI project, and definitely had the weirdest sleeping schedule because of it.
“I-I don’t need to show off,” Hijiyama sputters. “This isn’t even going to be a challenge. Watch.”
In Hijiyama’s defense, he does manage to get into the wave and stand up on the surfboard. In Hijiyama's non-defense, he looks terrible doing it.
“This is easy,” Hijiyama says. He’s wobbling on the board like a baby deer.
This is the exact moment that Okino finally appears.
Okino had clearly gone into one of the automated factories and constructed himself some sort of beach-fashion monstrosity. His Hawaiian shirt is floral-patterned and artfully unbuttoned at the collar. He’s got a long lei of pink flowers around his neck and pink aviator sunglasses perched on his head to match. Somehow, despite the fact that he’s probably 30 meters away, he manages to make direct eye-contact with Hijiyama, who is still attempting to maintain balance.
“Surf’s up, Hijiyama-kun,” Okino says.
Hijiyama falls off the board and disappears into the ocean. No one sees him again for 30 minutes.
“Would you like to go snorkeling, Tomi?” Megumi asks. “I’ve been thinking about what Sekigahara said, about seeing the sea creatures…it seems nice.”
“Oh! Sure!” Tomi beams. “You wanna come too, Ogata? You can make it up to me for sucking at surfing.”
“You sucked too,” he grumbles, but he’s already grabbing a snorkeling mask.
“You want to invite Juro, Megumi?”
“I think he’s still helping Tamao-san with her drinks,” Megumi says. “She has, um… a lot of ideas.”
Tomi winces and laughs. “Ah, yeah, he’s a real trooper for that. Well, anyone else wanna come?”
“I’m alright,” Natsuno says. “I think Keitaro and I are going to take a walk.” She laces her fingers together with Miura’s, who is completely red from head to toe.
“A walk sounds nice,” Ryoko says. She’s been hiding from the sun under a bucket hat, and does appear to be somewhat out of place amidst the whole ordeal of ‘being outside’. “I might go for one too…”
“I can go with you,” Yuki chimes in. She’d been particularly kind to Ryoko ever since they all woke up in the pods, not that she’d ever admit it.
“As can I,” Gouto adds. He had been awkwardly standing a good 10 feet behind the group. He also wore a long-sleeve button down shirt and dress loafers to the beach.
“I’ll say here with Amiguchi-kun and Okino-kun,” Iori says with a smile. “I just want to enjoy the sun.”
“Hell yeah!” Amiguchi says, giving her a high-five. “Let’s vibe.”
There are a few moments of everyone enjoying the day, relaxing in the weather. Although it might have been a while, Iori does not feel like she’s been lounging for a particularly long time before she hears Tomi’s voice, calling out to her as she rushes up from the shore.
“Iori! I’m pretty sure I just saw Ei-kun fighting a shark!”
Megumi appears next to her, elegantly wringing water out of her hair. “Tomi, I think that was actually just Hijiyama….”
Nenji joins the group, yanking off his snorkeling mask. “Obviously,” he snorts. “Everyone knows that sharks aren’t real.”
This statement is finally what causes Amiguchi to cease vibing. He chokes a little on his drink before sitting up and taking his sunglasses off very slowly.
“Wait, dude, do you mean, like… on this planet? Or just in general?”
“Why were they fighting?” Iori asks. “Is Ei-kun okay?”
“I’m sure he’s fine,” Megumi assures. “I think they might have been… having fun?”
“Wait, was Hijiyama even wearing scuba gear?” asks Tomi.
“Hijiyama-kun’s fine,” comes Okino’s voice, from where he’s sitting and sipping a piña colada. No one knows where he got it.
“Is no one going to acknowledge that Nenji thinks that sharks aren’t real?”
“Hijiyama-kun’s getting hungry, so he’ll be coming back up for lunch soon,” Okino continues, as if Amiguchi hadn’t spoken. Everyone had long accepted Okino and Hijiyama’s weird telepathy thing, so no one questions this.
“Ooo, lunch,” Iori replies, her voice sounding dreamy.
“Alright, you know what? Fine. Whatever,” Amiguchi grumbles. “I’m just gonna go find Yuki-chan.”
“I saw her with Natusno by the rocks over there,” Tomi supplies.
“Oh, now you can acknowledge when I’m speaking?”
“Woah, what’s your problem, man?” says Nenji. When Amiguchi doesn’t immediately answer, he adds, “Shark got your tongue?”
Amiguchi downs the rest of his drink in one swing.
Elsewhere, by the rocks, Natsuno has discovered alien life.
“It is highly improbable that this is an alien,” Gouto is saying. “There were many strange and fantastical creatures in the oceans on Earth. More than likely, this is a member of a sea species sent here with Project Ark that we are all just personally unfamiliar with.”
“Uh, no way. Look at it,” Natsuno says. The creature wiggles. Gouto looks vaguely ill. “Keitaro, you agree with me, right? This is toooootally an alien.”
Miura tilts his head to the side, looking an impressive combination of contemplative and uncomfortable. “It is certainly…. alien-like,” he decides on. Natsuno beams.
Ryoko pokes the creature with a stick. "Is it possible that evolution continued after the original species was planted here? In different ways than it did on Earth,” she asks. She pokes it again. It makes a squelching noise.
“Well, that wouldn’t make it an alien, right?” says Juro. He and Tamao are holding questionable cocktails and keeping a comfortable distance. “I mean, if it evolved naturally here, then it’s the only truly native species on this planet, and we’re the aliens….”
“Oh my god. We’re the aliens.” Natusno puts her head in her hands. Miura and Takamiya both gently place a hand on her shoulder.
“Hey guys, what’s happening over here?” comes Amiguchi’s voice as he walks up to the scene. “Everyone down by the shore is being kind of insane, so––“
He frowns as he looks at the creature by everyone’s feet. It makes a grotesque little movement, as if waving hello.
“Oh, alright,” he says. “This is–– this is worse, actually.”
The moment is interrupted with a loud water-crashing sound as Hijiyama bursts above the waves and hoists himself onto a rock.
“Hey,” he greets, as if he hadn’t just spawned out of nowhere. “Are we having lunch soon?” Then he catches sight of the thing they’re all surrounding and frowns. “Wait, what is that?”
“A sea creature,” Gouto says, while everyone else answers an alien simultaneously.
“Oh,” Hijiyama says. “Actually, I think Sekigahara found a cave with a bunch of those in it.”
Natusno’s head whips up, brief existential crisis forgotten. “He found their nest? Oh man, Keitaro, Yuki-chan, can we go? We can make more scuba gear, right? We can be like breakthrough scientists documenting never-before-seen….” Her voices fades out of hearing range as she drags Yuki and Keitaro back up the hill toward the automated factories. Tamao giggles, Amiguchi looks fond.
“They’re actually just weird fish,” says Sekigahara behind them. Everyone whips around in horror.
Gouto, at least, looks smug. “Thank you, Sekigahara.”
“Dude, when the hell did you get here?” asks Amiguchi.
“I’ve been here the whole time.”
“Okay, that’s objectively untrue.”
Hijiyama says, “Lunch?”
“You know, in movies,” Juro mutters, “I feel like beach days are a lot different than this.”
Amiguchi laughs. “I mean, to be fair, I think most lives that are depicted in movies are a lot different from ours.”
“Oh, but the story of our lives would make for a fun movie, wouldn’t it?” Tamao smiles.
“It would be an abysmal movie,” Gouto says. “There’s too many of us. It would be hard for an audience to keep track of.” Ryoko quietly stabs his foot with the stick.
“Maybe not a movie then,” Juro says. “A video game?”
There’s a brief sobering moment. No one voices the thought, but they’re all thinking of Izumi’s phrasing about his Sentinel modifications, of metachips and upgrades amidst battles they weren’t sure they’d ever come out of.
“I’ve had enough of games,” Ryoko answers. She gives a swift sweep with her foot to the sea-alien creature, and it goes sailing back into the water, where it belongs.
“Heeeey! Guys!!”
They all turn to see the other half of their group waving furiously at them.
“Come join us, we’re gonna have lunch!” Iori calls out through cupped hands.
“Be right there!” Sekigahara calls back. Everyone is privately surprised that he even knew how to be that loud.
As they walk to join the others, Tamao falls in line next to Juro. “You know, Juro-san,” she starts, “Even if it’s not like a movie, I quite like our beach day.”
Juro looks up, watching his thirteen friends ahead of him laugh and squabble. He looks at Megumi, waiting patently for him with a smile, and he smiles himself.
“Yeah,” he says. “Me too.”