"Um, excuse me." Miku walked up to Chise, a tall female lifeguard with silvery hair, and sheepishly began to ask a question. Rin and Gumi were closely behind her.

"Um... I was... that girl who couldn't swim and was drowning. Do you know the lifeguard who saved me?"

Miku gave her big puppy-eyes, hoping the girl would know the answer.

"Oh, yes... I do know her. Why? You want to thank her?" Chise pat Miku's head. Miku was cute, so naturally people took to petting her randomly.

Miku nodded. "I also want to do more than that! But please! Don't tell me her name!" Miku raised her hand up.

"Huh? Why?" Chise responded.

"Because... I want to her to tell me her name herself. I want to hear it from her! So, where is she?" Miku flailed.

"Well... okay. So I won't tell you her name." Chise went on. "But I need to warn you that Luー I-I mean... she's not exactly... vocal? Plus she doesn't really talk to anyone and I unfortunately don't know where she's at. She wanders off a lot without saying where she's going. She's... so cool..."

Chise floated off into a daze.

"Huh." Miku processed the information. "So she's the mysterious and silent type!"

"Yes, exactly!" Chise said, smiling wide. "She's a newcomer, yet she's the most sophisticated of us all! We all admire her!"

"And I can see why!" Miku cheered.

Rin and Gumi were watching the conversation, totally left out of it.

"Miku's not the only one crazy for her." Rin mentioned. Gumi nodded.

"Well, all I have to say is good luck having her tell you her name. That is, if you even find her!" Chise said.

"Alright!" Miku winked. "I accept this challenge! I will find her no matter what! Bye!"

With those final words, the spunky girl dashed off and Chise waved.

"That was so cute..." she muttered.

"Miku, hey! Wait up!" Miku's friends dashed off too, struggling to keep up with her.


"Someone as mysterious and heroic and silent as her is bound to be somewhere in line for... the Silver Serpent, the mega-waterside!" Miku insisted to herself.

The Silver Serpent... the biggest waterslide in the entire Otome Park! The first half of the slide is in complete darkness, when suddenly it shoots the rider out in front of a massive, soaking drop, leading straight into the water below! The water jets are fierce, making the ride speedy and extra thrilling.

Gumi's mouth gaped open as she tilted her head up to see how tall it was. Rin took her hand and pushed Gumi's mouth shut.

"Come on guys, I just know we'll find her in line for the water slide!" Miku eagerly urged.

Without a warning, she began to rush in that direction, towards the seemingly endless flight of blue stairs that swirled around in a spiraling pattern.

"Ah! Miku, don't run!" Gumi rasied her hand out to get Miku's attention. It was no use.

"Miku, there's too many stairs leading to there!" Rin yelled as well. "You're going to get exhausted!"

Miku suddenly came yelling down from the platform of stairs she had climbed.

"Come on guys, you said you wanted to see her too! What are you waiting for!?" Miku continued zooming up the stairs.

"But she—" Gumi started.

"—might not even be up there in the first place?" Rin finished her friend's sentence.

"It's so high up, maybe I'll be able to spy her from the top!" Miku yelled back down. The goofy smile was on her face again.

"…where in the world does Miku get all this energy from?" her two friends said in unison.

Gumi and Rin shrugged and began hiking up the stairs. They were many small flights, equaling a huge total of stairs in total. Eventually, their feet were aching, legs were shaking, and they were panting and sweating profusely.

"I swear, this must lead all the way to the sky…" Rin groaned. Gumi collapsed in deep breaths next to her.

"Okay, time to motivate us both!" Rin held a fist in the air. "Fight Gumi… fight… Rin, ganbatte… do your best… one, two, one, two..."

Rin breathlessly continued up the stairs. She was panting like a puppy, when suddenly, Gumi whimpered, grabbed her ankle, and quickly sat down right down on the edge. She was breathing heavily and an expression of agony was on her face.

"Rin... I think I pulled a leg muscle..." she squeaked out.

"Aw, oh no..." Rin said.

"Rin, I can't move... upwards or downwards. What am I going to do?"

"Well..." Rin squat down next to Gumi, causing relief for her own stiff legs. "We're closer to the top. So maybe once we get to the top, um... you can slide down the Silver Serpent, then rest at the bottom...?"

"Slide down... this slide!?" Gumi's mouth gaped in horror.

"But Gumi... what else are you going to do? You can't walk back down..."

"No! I can! I'll walk down all my myself-" Gumi jolted up, immediately whimpered as she got on her feet, and collapsed back down again in pain.

"Awawawa!" she grabbed her ankle tightly.

"Gumi... I have an idea." Rin stood back up and looked at her. "Hold on to the railing, hold onto my hand, and hop on your one leg that doesn't hurt. We'll go up, because it's dangerous to hop while going down."

Gumi, with teary eyes and a red face, nodded.

"But Rin... I... really don't want to slide down the slide." she squeaked.

"Gumi. If we have to, then I'll be with you." Rin closed her eyes and calmly reassured. "I promise."

Gumi, feeling relieved and grateful, grabbed onto Rin's hand tightly as she hobbled up the steps with one foot. Secretly, she didn't want to let go of Rin's hand. Holding hands made her feel secure, and she always knew she could hold onto Rin's as tightly as she needed.


After a few torturous mini-flights of stairs, the two girls had made it to the top, their faces all red. Miku was sitting on a beach chair at the top platform, panting her lungs out.

"Welcome, to the Silver Serpent Slide!" said the lady monitoring the slide. "Your friend Miku collapsed as soon as she got up here! She hadn't even realized that it's me here, haha!"

"Wait… no way…" Rin and Gumi gasped and sputtered in unison.

"M-M-Meiko!?"

The lady monitoring the slide was Miss Meiko Sakine, the girls' music teacher. She was a good, kind teacher, but very eccentric in her ideas and often was a little bit bossy (especially when it was about getting the class to do her weird lesson plans.)

She was a teacher with a youthful personality who often hung out with students, which was why everybody called her by her first name, Meiko.

"Well, well. Rin and Gumi are here too!" Meiko welcomed, flashing her mischevious grin. "So are you here to go to go down the slide? I'm super-surprised that timid little Gumi is all the way up here!"

Meiko also liked to tease.

"Don't call her timid!" Rin raised her voice. "Her leg's hurt! Yet she still continued climbing the stairs anyway! I'd call that courage!"

Meiko began to laugh. Rin was acting rather cute.

"I'm going to make you go down the slide!" the teacher continued.

"Ahhh!" all the girls screamed instinctively in unison, including Miku. Meiko burst into laughter, as if she enjoyed hearing their little screams…

Gumi peeked over the edge of the tall platform, seeing the water park—literally miniature below them. They were so high up that it looked like everything was spinning.

She cried and Rin walked up to pat her gently.

"Wait, before you slide down, I'm going to tell the story behind the slide." Meiko suddenly said. "Maybe it'll cheer Gumi up. She loves princess stories, doesn't she?"

Gumi shook her head and curled up into a little ball. Meiko continued talking.

"The story of the Silver Serpent slide is that… you're a princess, trapped in the top room of a tall tower in the middle of the sea. One day, a giant sea serpent rises out of the sea and tries to crush the tower and drown the princess into the sea."

Rin was hugging Gumi, who was being even more scared by the story.

"Come on girl, you can swim! The slide won't be that scary!"

Meiko continued, "But suddenly, a mermaid prince appears and tries to slay the serpent. As the serpent moves erratically, the prince tells the princess to jump on the long beast and to slide down it's back to the safety of his arms. You're going to slide down the serpent's back into the mermaid prince's arms! Does that sound exciting, girls?"

Miku suddenly jolted up from her chair. Her cheeks turned a rosy shade of pink and she grabbed onto her fluttering heart...

"That reminds me… of the lifeguard who saved me. She, who took me into her arms. If I were a princess…" Miku thought, suddenly turning tomato-red. "Oh my gosh… would that girl be my prince?"

Miku had the strangest of epiphanies. "Maybe… she slid off while we were climbing up here… and she's now waiting for me at the bottom. If I were to drown, she would surely grab me into her arms again just like before…"

Miku got chills re-imagining the contact she and the lifeguard had, even if only for a split second before Miku blacked out. She remembered how her arms and warmth had felt, so clearly. Her touch had felt so intimate, for a reason Miku couldn't explain in words.

Remembering her gave Miku that much courage, enough courage to go down the Silver Serpent.

"Meiko." Miku, with a flushed face, walked up to the teacher. "I'm going to slide down. Gumi, Rin… would you care to accompany me?"

Gumi was almost crying out of fear. "Miku, whyyy?" She squealed. "Don't do it…"

"Guys. I need to. My p-prince… sh-she is waiting for me at the bottom of the slide. I know it… I feel it…" the breeze began blowing through Miku's hair as she tilted her head back. Simply just talking about her made a kind of magic come alive inside of Miku.

"You're talking crazy-talk again, Miku…" Rin said, knowing exactly who this "prince" was.

"Guys… you can walk back down the stairs. I will slide down…" Miku began to walk.

"Wait! No! Gumi's leg is hurt and she can't-" Rin shouted, but Miku didn't seem to be paying attention.

She walked up to the dark tunnel filled with rushing water. The bottom was unable to be seen from the angle and the slope looked very steep, as if it could just swallow a person, especially a girl Miku's size.

"I can't believe she's going to do it!" Gumi and Rin huddled together in terror. Gumi pinched Rin's cheek.

Miku gave them one last cheerful smile, one last silly wink, and a final friendly wave…

"Have fun, Miku!" Meiko yelled the words and Miku closed her eyes, let go of the sides, and slid down with a whoop. The whole time, she held on to the love she had for her lifeguard hero in her heart.

Miku's two friends watched Miku get sucked down in dread.

"Miku!" They scrambled to the slide and proceeded to scream down the hole.

"Miiikuuuuu!"

Their calls echoed, and suddenly, out of the hole, a loud shrill scream came out and pieced the girls' ears.

It was Miku's scream or terror!

"Oh no, she's screaming!" Rin shrieked. Gumi pretended to faint.

"I bet they're screams of having too much FUN!" Meiko said. "So Rin, Gumi. Are you going to slide down too?"

Gumi looked at Meiko like she was crazy. Her teeth were chattering.

"No! I am simply waiting up her for my leg to get better... and then I'll walk back down. Oh... I hope it'll get better soon..." Gumi whimpered.

Rin sighed and pet Gumi again, softly behind her ear, where her wavy hair was soft.

"You're like a rabbit, Gumi." she said. "You're soft, twitchy, and timid. Don't worry though. Rin's going to be here with you."


Meanwhile, Miku was speeding towards the end of the slide, being sprayed out into a pool of semi-shallow water.

Sssssploosh!

"Aah, that was scary!" Miku said to herself, climbing out, feeling the weight of her heavy pigtails drag her down. Her heart was thumpthumpthumping. "But at the same time, it wasn't that bad! I thought I'd be landing in much deeper water!"

Right as Miku let out a relieved sigh and smiled, she spotted the lazy river very close by.

"Lazy river!" Miku shouted. "I love those!"

Miku actually had never been in a lazy river before, but she always imagined them to be so heavenly and relaxing... heck, anything with the word "lazy" in it had to be, right? The epitome of paradises!

Miku rushed there!

"Yes, I can't wait!"

Meanwhile, Gumi and Rin were seeing everything she was doing from the top of the "tower".

"I can see every single thing Miku does from here." Rin said.

Gumi was actually laughing, not even out of nervousness.

"It's so funny to see Miku spazzing out all by herself." she said.

"Pfbft. Yeah. It's also kind of cute." Rin said. "That's certainly our Miku. We could never mistake her."

"Welcome to the Aqua Promenade!" said the petite red-haired lady who monitored the lazy river. She had a flower tucked behind her ear and her name tag read "Haruko". She looked very childlike.

"I'm kidding! It's just the lazy river! But I'm not kidding either, because this attraction is called the Aqua Promenade. Wait... was I kidding, or not?" Haruko spazzed out, much like Miku habitually did.

"I dunno!" Miku said. "But did you happen to see one of the lifeguards going into here?" Miku asked. The tingles started again!

"Gee... I'm sorry, I don't know. I think I fell asleep?" Haruko said. "This music they play here is really... yaaawn..." Haruko clasped a hand over her mouth and collapsed back, closing her eyes.

"Enjoy the lazy river. Don't forget to get... a tube..."

Miku ended up missing the last part of Haruko's sentence, and excitedly swooped in the shallow stream without a tube to float on.

Haruko's eyes are fluttering shut, so she unfortunately couldn't see.

Down the lazy river Miku went. It felt good, relaxing and smooth.

"I totally forgot about finding her!" she said to herself. "But maybe she's here? I couldn't imagine someone heroic like her wanting to be in the lazy river, but..."

Meanwhile, Gumi and Rin were still watching Miku.

"She's going off without us..." Rin groaned.

"Well, I have a feeling she's looking for who she wants to see." Gumi said. "See how fired up she is?"

"It's like... we're spying on her, Gumi." Rin said.

"I'm sure she wouldn't mind." Gumi insisted.

"You guys have been acting like you have a sweet little secret." Meiko said. "What's the story, anyway? Who does Miku want to see? You've been acting like a bunch of 'otome' today since I saw you at Otome park!"

Rin and Gumi told Meiko the story.

"Now that's just cute beyond words." Meiko said. "But I mean... it's also really nice to hear. Miku is safe because somebody saved her? I have to say, I owe that person a million!"

"Yeah." Rin said. "So do I. Because Miku is..."

"...a true friend." Gumi finished. "And we couldn't ever lose someone like her."

Memories of Miku and visions of her smiling flashed through their heads as they all talked about her.

"Class wouldn't be the same without her," Meiko said. "She's a fun lil' girl, that's for sure!"

"Miku... she might be too hyper sometimes, and hard to keep up with, but..."

Everyone finished what Rin had to say. A warm breeze blew by.

"That's what we like about her."


"Is the lazy river supposed to have a current running through it?" Miku asked a boy sitting on a blue tube, sipping a drink that smelled delicious.

"Well of course!" he said. "How else would the tubes be floating through here? And where's your tube?"

Miku gave an awkward smile and giggled nervously.

"Aaaaah... um, I'm not good with currents, haha! And a tube? I don't have one! Whooa!"

And suddenly, the steady smooth current became a little bit brasher. Miku was being swept away, mostly because her long locks were dragging her.

"Whoops!" she cried out in her head. "I guess I can't be lazy here after all, haha! Whoa-"

This time she had been tripped over by a pipe spraying water out forcefully.

"I'm so clumsy!" she cried out mentally. Her face dunked into the water and she struggled to get up.


Bump!

Something curious knocked on to the back of Luka's floating tube. She tilted her sunglasses just for a second. She could've just imagined it. She continued sipping her Blue Hawaii drink and crossed her long legs one more time. She was thoroughly enjoying herself doing something so simple.

Splash!

Something curious made a splash to her side, and this time Luka tilted her sunglasses upwards and looked. There was a hand sticking up out of the water... before bending itself and being submerged back down.

Familiar long, turquoise hair was floating above the water...

Luka's drink slipped from her hands and landed into the water, dying a small part of it blue. Immediately she lowered herself from her tube and dove underwater...

Miku had gone from feeling silly to being devastated. Was she going to drown again!?

Her eyes were closed tight, and for a second she thought she was only imagining the warm embrace that encompassed her all over again...

Miku suddenly felt like she was floating in a sea of stars and dreams.

It was more than a grip. It immersed her in a warm, floaty feeling. Long hair enclosing over her, a sweet beautiful face being near hers... what was this? The exact same thing was happening again!?

Still underwater, she dared to open her eyes.

The first thing she saw once they fluttered open was a face that made her heart stop. It was smiling subtly, a mature and friendly-looking face... with long hair trailing behind her as if she were a mermaid. Her arms were grabbing onto Miku's body.

This time, Miku took her arms, and shifted backwards, putting her hands in hers and holding on tightly.

She smiled and her heart fluttered. They were both floating. It was so surreal for Miku.

Soon they stood up with their upper bodies out of the water. Without a word, Miku hugged the girl tightly as if she were a longtime friend. Her heart was beating so fast that she was sure she could be able to feel it, yet she didn't mind. She couldn't let her go. Her hero...

"Who is this girl?" Luka thought, as her curiosity peaked. "This is strange, very strange. She's like an illusion... she's drowned twice in front of my very own eyes. This is the second the I've saved her..."

Luka took her own arms slowly, and gently and began embracing the strange girl back. Her touch was securing, yet subtle, as if the mysterious girl was made out of something so fragile that could just slip away.

"Her hair is so long." she thought, brushing it with her fingers. "Such a mysterious girl."

A strange girl, like an illusion. Already, she had made Luka feel emotions she hadn't felt until this day. The feeling of saving somebody who was slowly slipping away... longing to see their face again, with a smile to know that they're okay.

And now, as she had her in her arms, she didn't want her to slip away again into the depths of deep water. Her heart simply wouldn't take it.

"Why do you always drown?" Luka thought.

They didn't even know each other's names. They hadn't spoke a word to each other, yet already, they felt like an important friend to each other. Someone that either of them couldn't let go of.

Slowly, they parted from the hug and looked each other in the eye.

Luka thought Miku's eyes were so pretty, exactly like the water that surrounded her.

Miku thought Luka's eyes looked like sapphires, so vivid, deep and gallant.

As excitement was pounding through her, Miku began smiling.

Suddenly, Luka felt something warm bubble up in her heart. Miku's smile...

She got to see the poor girl smile... she was okay. Her smile was so cheerful and shone in the sunlight above them.

Luka's face went red, and to hide her misty eyes, she closed her eyes and grinned as well.

"Thank you." the first words flew from Miku's mouth and touched Luka.

"You saved me twice. You're really my hero." she said. "I've been looking for you. I want us... I want us to be friends."

Miku's heart was beating so fast, and her cheeks turned a rosy pink. She shyly looked away, then back to Luka's face.

Luka couldn't believe what she was hearing. This girl... the one she simply couldn't forget about. She wanted to be friends...?

Friends... it was a word Luka was unfamiliar with. She felt immensely happy, yet...

"We are already friends."

Luka spoke her thoughts without thinking about them. She instantly turned a bit red.

"I mean... I..." Luka hid her face.

Miku couldn't believe what she saw either. This girl was shy? The last thing Miku expected was for her hero to be shy.

But Miku's heart fluttered. She had heard Luka's voice for the first time and it was the exact way she had imagined itーdeep and beautiful like the ocean itself.

"I know what you mean." Miku said. "You were my friend, always. Well, since you saved me. I still can't thank you enough. Plus, you're so pretty!"

"I..." Luka's words froze in her mouth.

"Thanks..."

Without a word, Luka put her hands around Miku's shoulder and bashfully looked into her face.

"I am so relieved you are okay." she said, trembling the slightest bit. "You had me so worried... please, don't worry me like this again."

Miku put her hand into Luka's.

"I'm sorry. Well, I can't swim, I'm clumsy... but you're so amazing because you can! I want... I wanna be like you someday! You inspired me!"

Luka hasn't felt this touched in such a long time.

"Come on." Miku said. "Let's play together! It's my way of thanking you!"

Seeing her smile... how grateful Luka felt when she had thanked her... how important they already were to each other...

Luka knew right at that moment that she had a true friend.


"That girl Miku was talking with... could it be?" Gumi peered down to the lazy river.

"You know? I think it is! She looks the way Miku described her, all beautiful and kind." Rin answered.

Gumi sighed.

"It's been a while... and my leg isn't feeling better. I guess..."

She gulped. Her body overrun with shivers and her stomach began aching.

"Since I still can't walk down the stairs, I'm going to have to slide down the Silver Serpent to get down. Rin, help me..."

...


A/N: Who's Haruko? Why, she's another one of my OC's!

Oh, and "otome" is basically Japanese for "maiden", or "young girl", or female youth. Just throwing that out there because Meiko made a pun about the park's name and the girls' behavior.

Yay! And oh no! Gumi has to face her fears... but we're going to find out more about Luka, and see how she and Miku bond :3