Leon wasn’t sure if he had heard her correctly, “Who?”“Me Leon, why do I not look like Princess? I’m sorry if you don’t want to

come, I just thought that it would be funny if these two idiots asked you instead of me. I thought that it was funny.” She backed away from Leon as she was saying so, “Anyways, I guess it was too early for you to know…” She backed away even further until she was backed into the railing between the Kaleido Stage and the ocean, if she remembered correctly she was at least 10 feet off of the ground, or at least to the water’s surface, so that means that this is the 10 feet above and below water drop, she thought to herself a bit before figuring out what to do.

She quickly turned around and hoisted herself on the railing and dived into the cold water below. Leon had been running to her so that she didn’t need to do that, but before he could do that she jumped. He had gasped along with her friends, the only people that were currently not worried as the others were, was her two cousins. Leon was about to dive in out after her, but a hand of Akio shot out to his wrist, “I wouldn’t go out there if I were you, you wont find her till she comes to shore.”

“And why would that be? She can’t swim, she’ll be washed up on shore dead if I don’t go and get her!”

Aoi’s face masked of emotions almost broke, but not quite, he asked one question, “Has she swam recently?”

“What? Why would I know? All I know is that the last time I saw her in the water, she almost died!” Leon sputtered angrily, trying to get the firm grip on his wrist off.

“The thing is Leon-san is that Sora—“ Aoi spoke then stopped when Akio hushed him.

“Hush up Aoi, she needs to tell him, we are not in the place to do so.” Akio spoke in a harsh whisper, still loud enough to reach Leon’s ears, but Akio didn’t know that.

“So it is only her place to tell me?” Leon said. Then stalked off Kaleido Stage property to the place where the Girl’s Dormitory reaches the shore.

Sora came to a halt in the water when she thought that she was at a safe enough distance away from shore. She sighed underwater, content that she was finally in the water. She had missed the feeling of the water gracefully moving around her petite figure, it was almost as if the water was her first love. Touching her curves and then feeling around her torso a tail materialized where her legs should be. Sora hadn’t felt so good in ages, this feeling was close to the embraces that she and Leon had, had intimately, but this feeling where the water was consuming her very being into itself, was just tantalizing.

She wished that she could stay and embrace the water just where she was, just stay here and be as free as she possibly could be. Have no work being in the way or family or Leon--, wait there is Leon probably plucking his beautiful long silver strands of hair out of his delicate head that fits so perfectly between her hands. She

remembered the reason why she was here in the ocean right at this very moment and knew that she had to go back.

The water encircled her and left legs where her tail used to be. She sighed, looked down in the water, just wait and soon enough we can go swimming again with everyone else. I miss my nakama.

She turned away from the view of the deep dark blue sea and headed up towards the surface. When the water from the surface broke, she saw Leon a white dot on the shore by the dormitories and headed there. This is going to be quite hard when the last time he saw me in the water I was training for the Angel’s Maneuver. This must be quite shocking that I just swam across the bay over to the middle in under 10 seconds and then proceeded to stay there for I would say--, she looked around her and the shadows were casted, 2 ½ hours. Urg, this is going to be VERY very hard.

Leon had been staring at his shoes as he looked up and saw Sora swimming to him. He had been very worried, paced a few times, but what kept him from following in suit after her in the water was the words that her two cousins had shared when he was walking away.

“Do you think that he knows?” Akio said.“No I think that his expression would have been calmer if he had known when she jumped off the ledge.” Aoi stated the blank stare as always was still on.“You know?” His father nudged him on, “What do you think she looks like when underwater?”Aoi grabbed Akio’s head in a headlock and proceeded to answer; “If I didn’t know any better I would think that we have a pervert on our hands!” Aoi smirked at the tainted red cheeks of his father.He recoiled at the name ‘pervert’ and held up his hands in surrender, “Hey, I just wanted to know if she looks like us!”

Leon was still wondering what they meant, ‘look like us’, they didn’t have any physical attributes, except for the tanning of skin color, but that was just about it. Now that he thought about it, her eyes seemed to hold a blue hue today; he brushed it off as if a trick of the light, but what if it wasn’t just a trick of the light and something much more interesting was going on.

Now that he looked at her, her hair had a tint of blue in it making it a shade darker, she looked older now than she had that day and he started wondering if anything else changed, he shook his head in trying to keep his urges under control. I am not a horny hormonal teenage boy god dammit! He screamed at himself in his head. He had just gotten done with the mental fight he was having with himself when he looked at her glistening form, water droplets coming off as she stood up and gently dried her hair by combing her fingers through it.

She glided her hands down her legs and down her arms to get the slightly damp limbs dry again and then proceeded to walk over to Leon and kiss his cheek.

She giggled at his red face and he wrapped his arms around her damp form and whispered in her ear, “Don’t ever scare me like that again.” She snuggled into his shoulder and wrapped her hands in his hair to lightly message his scalp to ease his worries. Slowly they made their way to a sitting position on the sand and sat there.