Chapter 1: Was that?

The first thing Rima notices when she arrived in California was that it was hot, really hot that her body started sweating ugly. The second she noticed when she sees her ride waiting for her, casually dressed in black punk skirt and wearing a carefree smile, is that Amu's hair was neon pink. It's too neon that it actually glows.

It looked ridiculous.

"Rima! Rima!" Amu yells, waving her arms back and forth aggressively, almost slapping a passerby in the face. "Over here!"

"Amu, were you under the impression I wouldn't see you?" Rima replies when she reaches her friend, dropping her suitcase on the floor ungracefully to give her friend a hug. "Because I totally see you. Anyone who was still two kilometers away will, you know, with a hair like that."

"Hey! I'm trying here!" Amu retorted and pushed Rima from arm-length and posed. "What do you think?"

"It's unique," Rima said as she felt her sweat drop onto her chest. "Tell me your car has air-conditioning."

"It has," Amu says and Rima instantly sighs in the thought of cold air, "but baby, I own a convertible so we're not using it."

Rima glared at her friend, "I hate you Hinamori."

"Hey! You could at least pretend to love me," Amu teased, "It's been a year since I left."

Amu's English is fluent seeing that it is her language. Her Japanese, though, sucks, it sucks but she can speak it. Rima on the other hand can't speak enough English to save her life, add in the heavy Asian accent too.

"Well I'm here, aren't I?" Rima said and hold her heavy luggage up again, it had wheels, so even a petite girl like her can drag it around. "I would like to be somewhere else though; somewhere with air conditioning. And possibly ice cream, but just the aircon would be a start."

Amu saved her tiny friend from her torture and carried Rima's luggage onto the backseat of her car with an ugly grunt. "What's in that?" Rima opened her mouth to answer but Amu changed her mind. "Never mind. You'd better not be thinking any smartass comments about my Japanese right now, either or I will make you try to speak English, and then where will you be?"

"I love you," Rima grins speaking in English, "You love me."

"I don't know what you're trying to say," Amu follows it up with a cheeky wink, "but whatever noise you just made, it wasn't English."

"I'll smother you in your sleep," Rima says with a smile, and it's almost as if it's only been a little while since she and Amu were last sitting next to each other, fondly insulting each other as a way of saying hello.

- Line Break -

"I'm really glad you came to visit," Amu says over dinner. "You sound so bored on the phone and I was under the impression of you dying on your couch, must have been lonely without a boyfriend."

Rima kicked her friend under the table and Amu tried kicking back, but failed when Rima dodged it. "I'm really excited about the place you always talked about over the phone." Rima picks up the thick noodles with the disposable chopsticks Amu had handed her when the take-out had come. "Minus the weather."

"California is a wonderful place." Amu grins, gazing outside at the beach view the window gives. "If there's anything I got used to in Japan, it's that it's nothing compared to in here. Everyone loves the sun."

Rima tapped her chopsticks against her bowl, she follows Amu's gaze. "It seems okay here," Rima says. "Except for the weather. I never imagined that it got worse than Japan in July but I was so wrong."

"You'll get used to it."

"Do you?"

Amu laughs. "No," she says. "It sucks forever. But the beaches make up for it and the boys distracts you completely from the heat with their tanned chests."

"That's the most depressing advice you've ever given me," Rima says. She sets her chopsticks down, full, and stretches. "I am going to sleep an eternity. I'm sorry if you had plans for my vacation because I am going to be channeling my inner Utau and sleeping like a body in a morgue for the next three days."

"You'll be staying in my guest room." Amu's face lights up like the lights during Christmas season, "My very first guest!"

Rima looks one more time out the window as she stands. Something jumps, and it startles her into banging her knee into Amu's low-sitting table. She clutched her leg and scowls in the direction of the window. "What was that?"

"What was what?" Amu is laughing at her and Rima doesn't get what's so funny when she's seen Amu walk head-on into so many doors she's surprised Amu's nose hasn't gone flat to accommodate her.

"I saw something moving outside your window!" Rima narrows her eyes thoughtfully, "Something fast."

"It's most likely a mosquito or something, Mashiro, nothing worth destroying your shins over."

"It was way bigger than a mosquito." Rima continues to rub absently at her shin. "Way, way bigger."

"We're on the sixteenth floor, Rima."

"I'm telling you, I saw something!" It's true that it had looked way too huge to be hovering outside a window, but Rima is sure she saw it.

"The hallucinations have started," Amu whispers sadly.

Frowning, Rima squints one last time at the window before conceding defeat. "Maybe my eyes are playing tricks on me," she says, and tugs on the neck of her t-shirt uncomfortably as Amu keeps laughing.

"A good three-day morgue nap and you'll be as good as new," Amu promises, and Rima allows herself to be led to Amu's guest quarters. "You're here for three whole weeks, so sleep as much as you need to get ready for Amu's mega-foxy-hot tour of California, Baby!"

"Does the tour cater to the English-lacking participants?" Rima yawns wide enough her jaw cracks and Amu snickers.

"It was made especially for English-lacking participants."

"Sounds perfect." Rima starts to close the door and Amu smiles again, still so bright and happy about… whatever she's so bright and happy about. Rima sees her look down at her phone.

"I'm really glad you came, Rima," Amu says, and Rima playfully pats her on the back.

"I'm glad I came too." Rima scratches at her hair and sighs. "Unless that massive thing I saw out your window really was a mosquito, in which case I should have stayed in Japan."

Amu rolls her eyes exaggeratedly. "Goodnight, Rima."

- Line Break -

Amu had especially taken a break from her part-time jobs exclusively to hang out with Rima, so Rima doesn't sleep the promised seventy-two hours. Instead she peels herself out of bed, and washes her face, and puts on a simple sundress over a random bikini so that Amu can take her around the beach.

"You were right about the boys," Rima said taking a cold glass of something a star struck boy had given her for free. "It does distract from the heat."

Amu rolled her eyes, "You've always loved the attention."

"It's not my fault I'm that blessed." Rima flicked her golden wild excuse of a hair to her back and raises her sunglasses up to her hair. She was always something, wherever she went, boys would give her looks and she enjoys it. "Aren't you something too?"

Amu giggles as one of the boys flexed his muscles to impress her and his lady-companion scowled at him and glared at us. Amu was tempted to raise her middle but she knew better so she winked at the guy and turned back to a sweating Rima who looked absolutely sexy with her pose. "So, what else do you want to do?"

Rima lifts her head and drops her shoulders in a shrug, scanning the beach with speculative eyes. When she looks across the street, near a vendor selling knock-off Americana shirts and hats, her gaze falls to a shadow on the sidewalk. "Is that a frog?"

It's a big frog; bigger than any frog that Rima has ever seen. It's not just the mosquitoes in California that are oversized, she thinks. She rubs at her eyes with the back of the unoccupied hand, but it's still there when she drops her hand; all slippery slimy skin and bulging eyes. It is most definitively a frog, and Rima has never heard of any frogs quite that large.

"What?" Amu places her drink on the counter top while winking at the guy who takes her glass away and then pokes at Rima's cheek. "Why would there be a frog?"

"Over there," Rima insists, pointing toward the vendor and Amu follows her finger skeptically, taking in the shirts with big off-color American flags and New York Yankees hats. "It's right…" But it's gone. The frog is gone. "I didn't imagine it— there was definitely a frog there."

"Rima, that doesn't even make sense. A frog would get trampled so easily out here."

"It was the size of a small dog." Rima pushes her second glass into Amu's hands for her to finish. "It would be hard to trample a frog the size of a Jack Russell Terrier."

Amu sets her hand on Rima's shoulder. "Do we need to talk? I think you need to get out of your illusions, Rima. They're tickling your already over-active imagination. You're turning into one of those people."

"What are you trying to say, huh?"

"If you start talking to me about how the frog has a stop watch and wants you to follow it to Wonderland—"

"That was a white rabbit, Amu, a white rabbit in a waistcoat. I'm talking about—"

"The moral of the story is that you're imagining weird creatures, Rima."

"I didn't imagine the frog, Amu. There was a huge frog, right there!"

"Sure," Amu says. "Maybe if you kiss him, he'll turn into a prince." She starts to pull Rima away, into the flow of traffic down the beach. "Was he wearing a cute sweater? Frog boyfriends shouldn't be trusted unless they like European cut sweaters."

"Ha ha ha." Rima doesn't fight Amu's tug. "I'm not saying I believe in fairy tales, only that my eyes are not bad enough that I would imagine a huge frog like that."

"I distinctly remember you swearing you saw Daniel Radcliffe once when we went to your modeling tour," Amu says. "You yelled 'Harry Potter' off the balcony at the top of your lungs for minutes until Utau's boyfriend, Ku-what, carried you caveman style back inside."

"Kukai. I was drunk, Amu, give me a break." Rima quickens her pace to match Amu stride for stride as they weave through the throngs of people playing volleyball. "Things happen when you're drunk and I'm not drunk right now." She pouts, "I saw the frog, Amu."

"Sure you did, I totally believe you."

Rima gives up on convincing her friend. The boys' effect is starting to wear off, and Rima feels the most disgusting glaze of sweat rising to the surface of her skin in an unattractive way. "We could head toward a mall?"

"Actually," Amu says, her bubblegum pink hair bobbing thoughtfully as she pulls Rima toward a bus stop where it seems like a million people are waiting, "I went to the library once—"

Rima laughed and Amu glared at her friend. "Why the heck were you at the library?"

"It has really cool air-conditioning, there are a lot of hot geeky boys, plus the picture books were interesting," Amu said counting in her mind the reasons why and glared at her amused friend. "Shut up and let me finish, anyway there's the book—"

"Let me guess, it had beautiful illustrations?"

"Yes, now it's a classic fairy tale or a legend, I don't know." Amu said annoyed. "It's a really old book but it was interesting to read and I ended up reading the whole story, in the end, my butt ached from the hours of sitting."

"I like legends," Rima said. "Do tell."

"The legend, or fairy tale, was about the royal family," Amu said. "The boys, of the royal family."

Rima edged closer to her friend who seemed to lower her voice, which was pretty stupid since they were at an all-American filled place and as if person would suddenly pop up and say they understand Japanese. Rima fought to insult her friend, but decided she would do so later, after Amu finishes her story.

"Well, I don't really remember much." Amu scratched her pink hair, "but it starts from a long time ago. The prince was engaged to his first love and they were to wed soon. On their wedding day, his first love disappeared and he searched everywhere for her. After several years, he was getting old and he had no heir, so his mother told him to marry another princess of a kingdom." Amu shrugged, "They did so, but a day after the wedding, his first love appeared and she was furious. She was kidnapped by some peoples who didn't want her as queen. She felt betrayed because he gave up so quickly." Amu made wild gestures, "She was mad at the king."

"And then?" The bus pulls up, and Amu drags Rima on. They're smashed between bodies, and if Rima had thought it was hot before, it was nothing compared to now.

"It turns out the girl was magical since she was from a witch heritage," Amu said as Rima was practically sprawled on her to rid herself of from the boy who was trying to touch her.

"A witch?"

"It's a legend, or a fairy tale!"

"What did she do with her magical powers, then?" Someone jostles Amu from behind, and she almost trips, but steadies herself since Rima was near. "Curse them?"

A couple other passengers turn to look at them; possibly surprised to hear Japanese on the bus. "Exactly," Amu says. "She cursed them. It's like a marriage curse."

"Like what now?" Rima was pushed forward when the bus halted and called a bus stop. Amu folded her arms as if to let Rima now this wasn't their stop. Rima cursed, she wanted out of this bus.

"Like if the prince isn't married when he turns 25, he turns into a frog," Amu says. "That doesn't mean you become a frog on your twenty-fifth birthday though. It can happen anytime, just, Bam, frog!"

A laughter bubbles onto Rima's throat, "A what?"

"A frog," Amu says, snickering. "The prince gets turned into a frog. And he can't return to being a prince until he finds someone to kiss him. Then he'll turn back into a prince and live happily ever after with whatever odd human being walks around kissing frogs."

"What kind of curse is that even?" Rima shook her head, "It sounds like some messed up Grimm fairy tale."

"I think the logic of it was that if they were in such a hurry to marry and have kids, then she'd punish them for not being married at twenty five?" Amu has a single bead of sweat gracefully dripping down the side of her face, even though Rima might as well have jumped into a swimming pool of her own sweat at this point. "It's a really old legend. There's even an old movie version. We can watch it if you want, but it's pretty dodgy quality."

"No one gets married at twenty five anymore, these days," Rima says. "I feel sorry for your prince."

"It seems like Prince Ian is around that age," Amu says, finally nodding her head toward the exit of the bus, indicating they should get off at this stop. "All the princes before that have been married off at eighteen, but he was studying abroad. Still is, I think?" Amu produces a noise Rima thinks is supposed to be a thinking noise, but instead is a little more like the slow churn of a cement mixer "He was in Europe, last I heard."

"How do you not know where the prince of your country is?"

"I don't do gossip," Amu shrugged. "I have a friend though."

"You?"

"I should shove you in to traffic."

"But I came all this way to see you, Amu!" Rima says flirtatiously, and out of the corner of her eye, there it is again. "Amu, there's—"

"If you say you see a giant frog, nothing is going to stop me from pushing you in front of the bus we just got off of."

Rima turns her head all the way, and there it is again, standing at the bus stop like it had alighted off the vehicle just behind them. She blinks, and the frog is gone again, "Didn't you see it?"

"I think the heat is getting to me," Amu says. "I need more boys. Either that or your hallucinations are contagious."

"You did see it!" Rima says. Her long mane of hair was starting to stick on her neck.

"I didn't see anything," Amu replies. "It's very hot. I think we should both drink water and stop imagining giant amphibians."