"Dear Rachael," the letter in my mailbox that morning read. "Tonight at around 10 o' clock PM, a rare and beautiful event will take place. The moonlight jellies will be passing by Pelican Town on their long journey south for the winter. We're all gathering at the beach to watch. You don't want to miss this!"

It was written to me by a man named Demetrius. But whoever it'd been written by, if this was such a "rare and beautiful" thing, they were right about one thing; I couldn't miss it. I'd already missed an earthquake; I didn't need to be missing anything else.

To my surprise, when I got to town, I saw that the bridge to the beach was blocked off with a rope. Huh, and I was thinking this was going to be a casual gathering; I guess I was in for a festival!

…What to do, though? I had another batch of sunflowers growing, and there wasn't much I could do there until they were ready to be harvested.

I facepalmed when I realized that, well, they weren't going to be. Tomorrow was the first of fall. They were as good as dead.

With a sigh, I headed back toward home to dig those up so I wouldn't have to tomorrow.

Once that was done, the sun was still high up in the sky.

I looked around my farm for a while. What was I going to do with this place, anyway? Yeah, I had a little plot of land clear to grow crops, but… it was a bit overwhelming, just how much space I actually had that was going to waste. I mean, what if my grandfather could see just how messed up and overgrown I was leaving this place?! He would have had a riot! Or even worse… he would probably have sighed and shook his head solemnly every time he looked at it. If he was watching overhead from somewhere, he was probably doing all that and then some. But I'd tried chopping stuff down! It all just came growing back! I couldn't get the whole plot covered in a day even if I started the moment I woke up.

…Maybe if I put down some paths or something, then put different crops in different sections… Yeah, I'd do that! I had that vision, and I liked it. I supposed I'd get to work on that tomorrow.

I could also imagine that after I'd finished this big project and given the farm this new look, Sam would come by and be absolutely floored.

Well, my thinking about Sam had started for the day, hadn't it?

Would he be at the beach tonight? I couldn't tell whether or not he was the type to take interest in things like rare events of nature. Well, I supposed I'd find out, because crush or no crush, I wasn't one to pass up a rare natural event.

So one of my first days here repeated itself, except I knew I had a limit, and a plan. Even without the physical limit, I was under an additional time limit; I wanted to get to the beach early, in case those "moonlight jellies" were scheduled to come by at precisely 10.

By the time the sun went down, I had made some pretty damn good progress; there was a distinct section where the land was clear!

The time was now 9:30pm. Oof. That's when I'd wanted to be there. Not much to do but to rush down there, I suppose.

I made it to the beach at precisely 10. And I was a little surprised at the excitement in the air. It seemed like everyone from town was here (I saw Sam, Sebastian, and Abigail standing together on one part of the pier, the part Sebastian would stand on some days). The whole place was decorated, and it just felt like we were all waiting for something exciting.

Out of comfort, I immediately headed for my usual fishing spot, not to fish, but to observe, for once. I sat down, then noticed that Sam's mother was standing next to me. After a few seconds, she looked to her left and saw me there.

"Hello, Rachael!" she greeted me. "…I just realized… is this your first time seeing the moonlight jellies?"

"Yeah," I nodded. "To be honest, I'd never heard of these things until this morning."

"Oh, you are going to love them," she said. "They're absolutely beautiful."

I didn't know if they were going to be beautiful, but they were going to be a unique sight. That much, I did know.

…Moonlight jellies… were these things, like, a glowing jellyfish of some sort? Were they going to fly in the air? Were they going to be in the water? Were people going to ride by on boats, where the jellies would be stuck like barnacles?

Should I go say hi to Sam? What were they all talking about over there?

Yeah. Sam looked like he was having the time of his life over there, with his two best friends…. Damn it, I'd thought we weren't doing this tonight, brain.

I had nothing else to do while waiting for the mysterious moonlight jellies to come by, so I plunged into the darkness that was my own mind.

And somehow, it told me that nobody would ever love me.

Look, I don't know. At least… I didn't. At the time, even, my logical mind knew there was no way to prove that statement. There was no way to prove that I wouldn't find true companionship someday. Yet somehow, some way, the hatred within my own mind was winning. Nobody would ever see anything special in me, the darkness was saying. There's nothing out there for me, it was saying.

I have nobody, it insisted. I could move all the way to a remote valley and still find nothing. Hell, I could mail-order a companion, and the company would shut down before shipping them to me. This was a matter of destiny, nothing else. If everyone deserved love… this was what it was like to be the exception.

You're probably sick of hearing me go on about that, so I'll stop. I think I got the point across.

I didn't even have that much time to think before everyone went quiet. The silence was loud enough, if that makes any sense, to pull me back to reality.

And as if to provide me an answer of some kind, the world sent these glowing jellyfish-like creatures our way. I couldn't find it in me to hate myself anymore when I was seeing this for the first time. Most of them glowed a silvery glow, but I could have sworn one's glow was a bit greener. I think my focus was mostly on that one the whole time.

Once all the jellies had been in front of us for a moment or so, everyone else started conversing again. Most of this conversation was about the spectacle in front of us.

"IT'S THE RARE GREEN JELLY!" a kid's voice cried with happiness, from somewhere to my right.

As if he was the first to see it, gasps and remarks of complete awe quickly followed.

So this was the moonlight jelly. This was perhaps one of the greatest new things I'd ever learned.

I looked to see where the kid was.

I didn't find him… but I did see Sam coming around the corner of Willy's shop. Before my brain could even react, he was sitting directly to my left.

"Hey," I smiled. I knew my face was flushing and became more grateful than usual for the darkness.

"Hey," he replied. "Is this your first time seeing the moonlight jellies?"

"Yeah," I nodded, looking back out at them. "They're beautiful."

"They sure are, aren't they?" said Sam. "Do you think they're poisonous?"

"I dunno," I replied. "There are some deadly jellyfish out there. Are these things even jellyfish?"

"I'm not sure," said Sam.

I moved my eyeballs, not my head, to look at Sam for a moment.

I could have sworn he was looking at me. My heart did a sort of double-beat. Gee, if I didn't want to get my hopes up, that didn't help at all.

We both watched the jellies for a few more moments. For some reason, my mind went to the logistics. What was making these things glow? Was it a serum flowing through their veins, and their bodies were transparent? Maybe it was a harmless bacterium of some sort? Maybe it was even the work of electricity, which would make sense considering the jellyfish's electric stereotype.

Suddenly, I felt something nudge my left arm. I looked over to see that Sam had done the nudging, and he was now pointing over to my right.

I looked, initially confused. The only thing I could think of was that Sebastian and Abigail were sitting rather close to each other, to the point where one of them would only have to move one finger to touch the other's hand. Then I inferred that that was completely what Sam wanted me to see.

To confirm my inference, he whispered "Just kiss already."

I laughed quietly.

"If I may," I whispered back, looking at Sam. "How long have they been… so… shippable, for lack of a better term?"

"How long have they been an 'OTP'?" Sam responded, doing me one better. "As long as I can freakin' remember."

"I've had a gut feeling about two people liking each other before," I said. "I think I'm right again."

"Well, if you are right, could they just get together already?!" asked Sam. "It's painful at this point."

"Yo, I know what you're talking about," I said with a bit of a laugh.

At this point, the jellies were starting to drift away from our neck of the ocean. People were even beginning to leave. I figured Sam would be one of them.

Not really. I waited until the jellies were just a glowing cluster way down the shoreline before I stood up, and my heart jolted again when I heard Sam stand up beside me.

"Hey…" he said. "Thanks… for the cue ball you gave me. I think I'm actually getting better!"

"You're absolutely welcome," I smiled, feeling all warm and fuzzy. "I'm not that great at billiards, either."

"Maybe I should take you on sometime," he said, rather confidently.

"Yeah, but be prepared to win," I laughed.

"Nah, it's you that should be prepared for that," he insisted.

"Just let me know," I said. "Yeah, I do stuff, but my schedule overall is pretty open. Come find me if you want to play!"

"Will do!" said Sam.

If nothing else, I had never seen anything like the spectacle of the moonlight jelly in my 20 years of life. That alone would have made it a good night regardless. Sam made it, like, thrice as awesome, though.