Yes, it is precious

I love it when I'm walkin' on the beach, oh

Kim had been looking forward to going to the beach and letting the warm summer sun wipe her cares away. Feeling the sand part beneath her feet, listen to the crashing of the waves… it was the kind of thing that soothed her restless soul and made all her problems seem far and distant.

When she was a kid, she always wanted to go to the beach. It was a fantasy of hers. But it wasn’t until she came here that she really got to experience that dream. And it was everything she could hope for. Although, in the back of her mind, she knew that this was all a creation of the show; would a real beach be this perfect?

Her hand drifted away from her body, and her fingers brushed against Nick’s. They slowly curled together and soon enough, the two were holding hands tightly.

Suddenly it wasn’t the sunlight making Kim’s body feel so hot. Her heart began to pound and she felt all giddy. A giggly smile pressed up her lips and she brought her free hand to her chest, just enjoying the feeling of her heart beating.

Yeah… this was what she wanted. Her concerns were blown away; a real beach would be perfect, if she had him by her side.

“This is nice,” she breathed, turning and looking up at Nick. To her joy, she caught him looking back at her. She gazed deeply into his eyes, and sighed. “Just the two of us, together, enjoying our time with one another. Don’t you agree?”

“A nice, quiet day at the beach,” Nick echoed her thoughts, nodding slowly. “I feel the same way. This is great, Kim, seriously.”

Kim giggled and nodded. They were both having fun. That was exactly what she’d hoped for. She’d told Nick to take the morning easy, and her own morning had been rather difficult. Now she was putting all of her effort towards making sure that this afternoon… that it would also help him find some comfort here.

I have to talk to him about Sylvia and Dakota… but I don’t know the right way to do that. Kim’s morality knew what she needed to do, but seeing Nick’s smiling face staid her hand. She couldn’t help herself; he was happy.

If she messed that up now… it would just cause more problems. And that wasn’t what she wanted right now.

That’s why Kim kept her mouth shut. It wasn’t because she was giving into Dakota’s threats, or because she had changed her mind.

Nope. It was because she wanted Nick to be happy on their date together.

She would tell him eventually.

But for now, at least…

She would enjoy their time together.

…For all of five minutes. As the two walked hand in hand down the beach, enjoying each other’s company, unfortunately things didn’t stay between them.

“Oh! Look who we have here,” Sylvia said with a grin. She waved at Nick and Kim. “Hi Daddy! Enjoying your date?”

Kim stiffened up and her eyes widened. She couldn’t believe it! Her heart started to race. Sylvia?! And Dani and Emmy and Marley… what are the odds of that happening?! I had just decided… that I wouldn’t say anything… and now Sylvia just shows up in front of me like this!? Agh! I can’t believe this! What should I do now?!

As Kim began to sweat, Nick guessed incorrectly that her sudden discomfort was due to their date suddenly being interrupted like this. So he tried to smooth things over.

“Hey guys, this is a little awkward, huh?” Nick scratched his head and smiled sheepishly. He tried to let go of Kim’s hand, but she tightened her grip so hard it almost started to hurt. So he let it slide. “We were just going for a walk on the beach, didn’t expect to run into anyone else.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet,” Marley said, noting what the others had noticed too, but they had been too polite to say. “Nice to see you again, Kim. Looks like you’re enjoying your date…?” Kim had gone through some changes since the last time they had seen her, which had been only a couple hours ago.

Emmy had her mouth shut tight, a little uncomfortable around a strange boy like Nick, and Dani, like Marley, knew better than to say anything.

Sylvia just blurted it out. “Kim, your boobs are huge!” She said, her eyes widening in surprise. “What happened?! We just saw you like two hours ago!”

Kim’s face turned red and she opened her mouth to reply, but nothing came out. The part of her brain that could make words was too disoriented for smart conversation, and she just squeezed Nick’s hand tighter.

“It must have been Vivian,” Marley said with a sigh, rubbing her temples. Now that the elephant in the room had been addressed, there was no need to keep dancing around it.

“Vivian?” Nick asked, playing dumb.

Kim snapped her head around to look at him, her eyes widening. Her blood ran cold.

“Yeah,” Dani said, nodding. “We left her alone with Kim after picking up clothes for Emmy, and she, well…”

Dani shrugged. It was obvious to her, at least, what must have happened- Kim had either asked Vivian for some enhancements to her chest prior to her date with Nick, or Vivian had gone ahead and done it without asking, probably due to finding it an amusing distraction.

Knowing how her roommate got along with her workout buddy, Dani had a pretty good idea which of those two options was the more likely.

“Nick…” Kim finally managed to talk, her voice coming out in a croak. “It… it’s okay. Don’t worry, I’m fine. It’s not what you think.”

“Really?” Nick looked back at her, surprised. “Because, well, I’m thinking that Vivian made your breasts huge using her transformation, are you saying that isn’t what happened? You’re the one who said she wasn’t unrelated to it.”

Kim wasn’t very good at lying, and she didn’t like doing it, either. So her answer was clear on her face.

“…Okay, yes,” Kim relented with a sigh, her shoulders slumping down. She tugged her hand away from Nick’s, a telling gesture. “But seriously, it’s not what you think.”

She pleaded with him not to pry, and to her relief, he didn’t. He just nodded.

“Well, okay then, works for me,” he agreed.

“Really? You’re not gonna ask?” Sylvia blinked in surprise. She leaned forward curiously. “I thought you’d want to know for sure, Daddy! I mean, you’re always so grumpy about this stuff! I totally imagined you going ‘Hey! How dare she make my date’s breasts ginormous like this!? That’s completely unacceptable! Tell me everything that happened, Kim!’ …You know, because for some reason you don’t like it when a girl’s breasts get bigger.”

Sylvia was well-meaning in her statement, even if she was dreadfully confused about why Nick was taking this so well; she would have loved for him to have such a nonchalant reaction to sudden breast expansions when she was the host!

“Yeah, that ‘reason’ is called consent,” Dani said dryly. “Nick’s perfectly fine with some consensual breast growth, which is probably what happened, right, Kim?” She had to admit, Kim going in for that sort of thing wasn’t the option she’d expected. But she couldn’t imagine a scenario where Vivian did that to Kim against her will and the other girl didn’t take the opportunity to call her out on it.

Kim sighed and slumped her shoulders. “I’d really, really prefer not to talk about this,” she pleaded, and Dani was happy to oblige her.

“That’s why I’m not gonna ask,” Nick explained calmly to Sylvia. “Whatever’s going on, I trust Kim to tell me if she thinks I need to know. So if she wants to keep it to herself, I respect that.”

It was really sweet of him to say that. But given the other massive secret Kim was holding onto right now, Nick’s praise made her want to dig a hole in the sand and bury herself in it.

Sylvia blinked. “Oh. Well, that’s boring,” she said with a huff.

Marley rolled her eyes. “Come on, mom.”

“Well, I’m just saying, if he likes ‘em big, we can always invite a girl or two over for some cactus fun!” Sylvia proposed.

“No, no way!” Kim shook her head fiercely. “Look, I’ve tried big before, and it’s fine, in moderation! But the cactus, that’s… well…”

She realized that she was treading towards describing what had happened on their Dream Alley date, and quickly shut her mouth. Her cheeks pinkened and she looked to Nick to please get her out of this before she made another mistake.

But Nick was looking pretty red, too.

Of course he’s imagining it! Kim knew Nick’s tastes quite well at this point; it was why she had so much fun with the temporary transformation she’d gotten the day of her last date! But right now, around the other girls… it was a little…

That had been something meant just for them.

“…I like your dress!” Emmy suddenly blurted out, catching everyone by surprise.

Kim had nearly forgotten she was there. Sensing an opportunity she quickly turned to the younger girl and smiled. “You… you do? Um, th-thank you.” Personally, Kim hated the qipao; but she was very grateful for the sudden opportunity to change the subject.

“I think it looks great on you,” Emmy said, nodding. This was tricky for her, too. She didn’t exactly have a lot of experience with… well, anything, so making friends was difficult for her. But it seemed wrong to just fade into the background all the time, too. Kim looked like she was about her age, and she seemed relatively normal, at least compared to Sylvia, who was nice and friendly, but her relationship with Emmy’s family was… complicated.

Also, the whole “Daddy” thing… it made the newly-revived girl feel a little awkward.

Kim, on the other hand… maybe they could be friends?

“Is that, um, something from your home country?” She tried. “So pretty… and the fabric, it looks so… um…”

Emmy’s voice trailed off as she noticed the sour look cross Kim’s face. Also the way Nick bristled… did… did she make a mistake somewhere?

“Did I say something wrong?” Emmy looked around nervously, seeing that Marley and Dani were just as uncomfortable as Nick seemed to be. Only Sylvia seemed unfazed.

“…I’m from the pacific northwest,” Kim said dryly.

“Oh, uh… is… is that an island?” Emmy fretted.

Kim’s eye twitched. But she had to remind herself that she was dealing with a girl who was woefully inexperienced with the way the world worked.

“No, it’s… never mind. I was born in the U.S.,” Kim said bluntly.

“Um, me too,” Emmy said, offering that in one of the most absurd attempts at bonding Nick had ever seen.

This was starting to get painful.

“Look, Emmy…” Sylvia took Emmy aside, her look for once one of rational maturity. “Kim is Japanese, not Chinese. That dress she’s wearing is a Chinese dress. So it’s absolutely not something culturally tied to her. And Kim’s really one of those super-PC types, so she probably finds it a little offensive to classify all asians as basically the same thing…”

“Ah!” Emmy turned pale. She snapped her head around to Kim, her eyes wide. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to… um…”

“No, it’s fine,” Kim interrupted. She shook her head. “I’m not thinking you’re racist or something, I don’t care about that. The only reason I’m wearing this is because it’s the only thing I have that fits.”

Marley nodded in sympathy. “Oof. Been there…”

Dani winced too.

“I agree with Emmy though,” Nick said, taking some of the heat off the poor young girl who really didn’t know any better. “Even if you think it doesn’t fit you, Kim, I think you still look great in it.”

Kim turned red and smiled. She reached up and brushed her short bangs aside, in an unsubtle attempt to “subtly” hide her face for a couple seconds.

“It doesn’t fit her,” Sylvia bluntly stated. Everyone turned to look at her, shocked. But she wasn’t fazed. “No, like, objectively.” She reached down and cupped her own breasts for emphasis.

Kim got all flustered again and Emmy turned red as well.

Marley sighed and wished sometimes her mom didn’t say stuff like that, even when she meant well.

“…It fits well enough,” Kim said bluntly. She turned to Emmy and gave the flustered girl one of her dazzling smiles. “Don’t worry, I appreciate the compliment. That was sweet of you to say.”

“Oh, yeah, no problem,” Emmy mumbled, relieved that she hadn’t made the other girl upset. She sighed in relief. “Sorry for not knowing, like, that that’s, um, a Chinese sort of thing… and not… Japanese, right?”

Was it racist that Emmy couldn’t tell them apart? It wasn’t her fault, right? Even though she’d been frontloaded with a ton of knowledge about people and cultures, Kim was technically the only asian person she’d ever met. That didn’t mean she was being racist, right?

“Yeah, that’s why if Kim wants to appeal to her asian roots, then she should dress up as a shrine maiden or a geisha,” Sylvia pointed out.

Emmy was pretty sure, at least, that that was racist. But Kim waved it off with a roll of her eyes and scoffed.

“You’re the one who had me get the schoolgirl uniforms,” she reminded Sylvia. It almost sounded to Nick like Kim wouldn’t have minded dressing up like that.

“Sylvia, I think you’re causing some problems here,” Marley gently tried to warn the well-meaning girl. “Luckily, Kim’s a pretty understanding person.”

“Hey, look, all I’m saying is that most other hosts, they definitely would have given Kim an Asian transformation path,” Sylvia said, holding up her hands. “Like, if she was on Yuki’s season? Look out! …Although that’s true no matter what, um… anyway, I think Kim’s sexy whether she’s asian or not, so there! …Sorry for getting kinda dumb and confused.”

Kim laughed. “Like I said, it’s not a problem.” She leaned over and hugged Nick’s arm against her breasts, enjoying the sudden flustered expression she got from him. “And hey… if Nick likes it so much, maybe it’s not that bad after all…”

“Or he just likes the breasts,” Dani pointed out, finding herself quite enjoying the way Kim was flaunting her assets herself.

“Good point,” Marley nodded. She remembered the way Nick couldn’t tear his eyes away from her boobs back when she was under the effects of that cactus. “That’s definitely the kind of guy he is, unfortunately…”

Her good-natured smile helped to dull the sharpness of her point.

But Nick would really rather the conversation divert from a discussion about his fetishes, especially when Emmy was standing right here soaking it all in like a sponge. He barely knew the girl, and from the guarded way she was staring at him it felt like she was painting a picture of him in her mind that wasn’t very flattering.

What would Carly think if she were here and saw how things were going with her daughter? He asked himself, concerned. She was a pretty carefree person normally, but when it came to Emmy he suspected that she was rather protective.

Then he realized something.

“Wait… where is Carly?” He asked, his eyes zipping to Marley. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t realized it until now! If Marley was here, then her sister had to be around here somewhere, or else Marley should be a puddle of slime!

At the mention of her sister, Marley made a tired face. She glanced at the water, then turned and looked at Dani, who blushed a little.

“It’s… kinda a weird story,” Dani said, scratching her hair. “See… she’s not here, as you can see. But she is. Um…”

“Yeah, we know, so what’s going on?” Kim asked bluntly.

Marley and Dani shared a look while Sylvia tried not to laugh.

“Dani is babysitting her right now!” Sylvia explained. “Getting a nice little 500 BP reward for taking care of Marley, even if only for a couple minutes while Carly goes and has her fun!”

“Oh right, the upgrade, I forgot,” Kim said, nodding. That still didn’t explain what happened to Carly, though.

“I didn’t want to be turned into a puddle of slime again!” Marley sounded way more defensive than Nick expected her to. He looked at her in surprise.

“Slime? What are you talking about?” He asked, concerned.

Now Dani and Sylvia were both trying not to laugh. Dani was doing a better job of it, while Emmy just looked sympathetically at her aunt.

“So, um… I can explain, maybe,” she said timidly, raising her hand. “Mom, she wanted to test out that magic watch of hers, right? So we went to the field outside the hotel, where apparently they experimented with that stuff before, but someone was already using it. It was, um…”

Emmy hadn’t fully memorized everyone’s names yet. “…The loud blonde… and the girl with the witch costume transformation.”

“Oh! Rose and Morgana,” Kim said, recognizing those descriptions from the jump. “Yeah, Rose is kinda loud.”

“Morgana doesn’t have a witch costume transformation, only the hat,” Sylvia clarified for Emmy. “She just likes dressing that way.”

Emmy blinked. “Oh. Uh… okay…”

That sounded weird, but it wasn’t her place to say anything.

“So they kicked you out?” Nick sighed, scratching his head. “Sounds like Rose, I’m afraid.”

“No, they didn’t kick us out,” Dani clarified. “We were all happy to share the space, but then when Carly actually used her watch, well… there was a better place to experiment with it.”

She turned and looked out at the ocean, and Nick got it. He turned to look as well, and so did Kim. Just in time to see a figure come walking out of the waves.

“Oh, hey!” Carly greeted them with a wave of her own, and a big smile filled with sharp teeth. She cut an impressive figure with her fins, and her sleek, fierce-looking body. The kind of appearance that brought all sorts of ideas to mind, and very few of them were sexual.