Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THE PREVIEW PICTURE! IT BELONGS TO HoliMeiMei ON DEVIANTART! I also do not own any of the characters. All I own is the storyline.

When they were 13, Jack broke out. It was an embarrassing development of the fall of 7th grade, and none of the acne medications he tried seemed to do any good. When Rapunzel's face popped out of the water for the first time that summer, he was guiltily relieved to see her face dotted with pimples. He had been under the impression that majestic underwater maidens with shiny tails never had skin problems, but apparently he had been wrong. Not that the acne made her any less pretty. If anything, it made her more…real. Less of a fairy tale girl, less of someone whose beauty was impossibly out of his reach.

Jack wondered if he imagined the split-second relieved look on Rapunzel's face. Maybe she had been worried about the same thing. But neither of them said anything about it.

"Jack! Jaaaaack! Guess what?" she chirped as she slipped up onto the ledge.

"What?"

She let out a delighted squeal. "I get to go to public school for high school! It was really hard to convince Mother, but I did! I mean, I can't do any extracurricular stuff and I have a really strict curfew, but that's okay. She's gonna let me go to school and make actual, real-life school friends and it'll be amazing!"

"So I'm not an actual, real-life friend?" Jack put on a fake pout. "I guess humans and sea lions aren't good enough for you, Zellie!"

Rapunzel's face fell. "Nooo, I mean like…year-round friends. Mermaids. I didn't mean—"

Jack rolled his eyes. "Chill, Zellie, I was just kidding. I know what you mean. I'm really happy for you."

"Really?" She beamed and wrapped him up in a tight hug. "Thank you, Jack!"

And he was happy for her, truly. But he couldn't help but feel jealous.

All this time, he had thought of himself as one of Rapunzel's only friends…her best friend. He had her all to himself, and it was oddly satisfying. But now he was going to have to share her. Being as chipper and bubbly as she was, she would have no problem finding a new best friend who wasn't him.

But what really made his heart sink was that she would be meeting plenty of merboys, all of whom she'd see every day for nine months (or however long the mermaid school year was, anyway) instead of the measly one and a half months they had together. He had always felt it was hopeless to expect anything to come of his feelings, but now it seemed like a lost cause. Why would Rapunzel want to be with a human when she could be with one of her own kind?

On July 4, Jack was more than happy to escape the festivities of the beach. It was always suffocatingly crowded during the holiday, with the towels sprawled out on the sand practically making the beach look like a quilt. Even after he had weaved his way through the crowd and swam to the caves, he could still hear the noisy din of voices.

"I wish it wasn't so loud," he complained to Rapunzel.

"Why don't we go into one of the caves so it blocks out the noise?" she suggested.

"Okay." They swam into the largest cave and pulled themselves up onto a familiar ledge, one near to the entrance that they had sat on many times.

"So much commotion just for a bunch of old guys signing a dumb document a long time ago," he joked. "But I can't complain. My family always gets fried chicken for dinner and then goes and sees the fireworks. Hey, have you ever seen the fireworks?"

She looked at him in confusion. "The what?"

"So I guess you haven't, then. You should come out of the water tonight, around 10. They're huge color explosions in the sky and they look really cool."

"So that's the noise I always hear. I asked Mother about it one time, and she said it's the sound of sea serpents battling and crashing up against one another, and it's just another example of why the open sea is a strange and dangerous place."

Jack laughed. "Nope, I can assure you they're perfectly safe…except for your ears, perhaps. They're pretty loud. But yeah, you should definitely sneak up here and watch them!"

"Oh! Do you think you could come watch them with me?" Her eyes lit up. "Since your beach house is pretty close to here. Could you sneak out?"

He shook his head sadly. "No…I have to go with my family. They're gonna notice if I sneak off. I wish I could, though."

"Oh." Her face fell, and she wasn't the only one to feel disappointed. Jack was suddenly lost in a daydream of her leaning onto his shoulder as they watched the reds and greens and golds swell like a balloon before falling away into the stars. He imagined himself turning to look at her, grabbing her face as she looked at him in surprise. He imagined himself pressing his mouth against hers. And never in his life did he think he had wanted anything so bad.

YES, JACK AND RAPUNZEL MUST NOW DEAL WITH THE LOATHSOME ACNE! I've had trouble with it for years, so I vent my ongoing annoyance by forcing it on fictional characters :D So yeah, Punzel convinces her mother to send her to public school in order to make her life more interesting! Jack meanwhile feels a little jealous for the first time, because he's never really had to share her friendship and now he does. I didn't really want him to come across as possessive, but keep in mind that the entire time they've known each other they've had this dynamic of him being one of very few important people (and sea lions) in her life, and now he's worried about how this new change will affect their relationship.

Ah yes, the all-too-common fantasy of kissing your crush and feeling fireworks while watching actual fireworks! Came so damn close to that becoming a reality for me this past summer because I had my very first boyfriend, but alas, I was in France during the 4th of July! And said boyfriend has since dumped me, so looks like next summer will be devoid of firework kisses X( So I feel Jack's pain. But hey, at least he has many more years yet to kiss his crush under the fireworks XD