Struck dumb. A static bomb of glitter and starlight filled her mind in a whirling jumble, and there was simply no way that Kyoko's poor mind could settle down enough to process the magic standing in front of her.
"Tsuruga-San?" she whispered.
He flinched.
and was saved by the frantic call from just a little further down the beach.
"Kyoko-chan!" called the distinct voice of Jelly Woods, the "Goddess" as Kyoko preferred to see her. Jelly saw it all happening and nearly screamed to divert Kyoko's gaze from the golden Adonis in the water. "There you are, Kyoko-chan! I thought you were going to wait in the hotel for me! I left you for only moments and off you wandered. I was worried." Jelly was counting on distracting the girl with this mild scolding, and was shocked to see her immediately prostrate herself in the damp sand, heedless of her clothes, with arms and forehead down in the sand.
"Forgive me, Goddess!" she cried. "I was thoughtless and selfish and could not resist the magic of this beautiful landscape. I wanted to find a merm..." and with that, Kyoko stopped, raised her head and slowly turned to see if the miraculous juxtaposition of Tsuruga Ren and a fairy prince of the ocean were really there, or if her imagination had merely gotten the better of her.
It hardly needs mentioning that the innate physicality of the man in question combined with his absolute level of panic had combined in a split second dive the moment Kyoko's gaze left him. He was long gone. A mere memory in the air, as he swam below the surface as though his life depended on it, for the bit of beach around the bend from which Kyoko had just walked. His muscles burned and his lungs ached, but he made it out of her field of vision in less time than it takes for a world-class beautician to upbraid a guilt-susceptible teen.
Gasping and dragging his limbs from the once welcoming waters of anonymity, he made a mad dash for the hotel room, and the Tsuruga Ren wig in his carry on bag.
Meanwhile, a distracted and unusually quiet teen was walking slowly along beside a goddess who was praying silently to any gods who might head her that a certain idiotic boy had had the sense to get himself out of view and into his wig as fast as he could, and that this quirky girl she'd come to adore had somehow not noticed a thing.