Since the characters are in an environment where English isn't spoken, their speech is no longer bolded and any English word is in bold unless stated otherwise.

As soon as Tenta yanked me into the tv, my whole world went white.

Then off white. Because I tripped over myself once I was pulled through and face planted right onto the carpet floor.

What a way to start a life in Inkopolis, isn't it?

I could hear Tenta snickering behind me as I pushed myself up from the carpet and spat out a couple of fibers that ended up in my mouth. As I shook my head to knock off any dirt that may have gotten onto my face, I began to look around Tenta's apartment.

In my immediate surroundings I could see a generally well furnished room. There was an off white couch, a chair a little ways away from it, and a rug that had the weirdest pattern of jellyfish and cocktails scattered all over it. The carpet itself wasn't very dirty, though various pieces of small wrappers and trash littered the space around us. Posters decorated the walls, featuring a variety of bands, some of which I was sure wasn't featured in official Nintendo social media despite my fuzzy vision making them nearly into an incoherent blurry mess. Most of the posters that covered the walls looked like they featured Callie and Marie, unsurprisingly. Tenta was definitely a fan of theirs based on just how many damn posters there were.

"You got a lotta Squid Sister's merch, huh?" I murmured as I peered around the area. There was a shelf up towards the ceiling that looked like it had a whole bunch of shoeboxes. Weird, but kind of expected since in the starting screen of splat, the inkling that lives in that room has shelves with shoeboxes too.

Tenta shrugged and started picking up the wrappers along the ground and tidying up, "They're two of my favorite people. Sorry about the mess, by the way. I didn't really plan for there to be company."

I waved a dismissive hand and made my way to the couch, plopping myself onto it and sagging into the cushions as comfortably as I could. As Tenta picked up the trash and briefly exited the room, I glanced at a nearby window a little ways to my right and could see that it was night time, just like how it was 12,000 years ago. Or back at home…? This dimensional time stuff was so confusing. In this world, would my sister currently be dead? Would everyone I knew be dead? ...Is there possibly a human version of me buried in the dirt right now? What the fuck.

As I delved deep into my thoughts and started having a bit of a crisis, I could feel Tenta sit down next to me. We sorta just chilled there for a couple of minutes, really taking in what was going on. I was a human in an inkling's body, now in Inkopolis (Maybe? We were in an apartment and the only apartments I knew were Flounder Heights, which are a little ways away from the city.), and Tenta was an inkling who was in a human household for a while, now hosting a human turned inkling in his apartment. It sounded so absurd, but it was happening. We were practically in some sort of fan work, going through the fantasies of some random Splatoon fan in the world. And frankly, I was happy that everything was going great for now.

After a few more minutes of just sitting and chilling, Tenta turned to me and tilted his head, looking curious. His lime colored eyes looked right into mine as a small grin spread across his slightly rosy cheeks.

"What's the first thing you wanna do here?"

I stared at him for a couple moments, then looked up at the ceiling as I pondered what I wanted to do. I gave it some serious thought, debating on what activity I would've liked to do since I was literally in my favorite video game. There was plenty of things to participate in and do. I could try out doing turf wars. I could look at the Squid Sisters. I could meet Cap'n Cuttlefish. I could see one of the little jellyfish that only went up to inkling's waists! Only one problem…

"It's like two in the morning. Let's sleep."

Tenta gaped at me for a moment, then briefly looked around for a clock and couldn't find one. He looked miffed for a second, then hunched his shoulders as he huffed and accepted defeat. I was right, it was too late to do anything. No activities would be going on at this hour and everyone would be asleep, save for a few night owls. I'm personally a night owl myself, but I really wanted to just get some damn sleep so I could wake up and get my new life in Inkopolis started in the day.

With a soft frown, Tenta stood from the couch and took my hand, pulling on it while pointing a thumb toward one of the doorways in the room.

"Let me at least show you around my place. You're gonna be living with me for a while, anyway."

Reluctantly, I let him tug me off the couch and onto my feet, which were already tired from Pre-Tour Exhaustion. His apartment was a pretty decent size, considering he used to live alone before I came in. He showed me his kitchen, which had brown, wooden cabinets and a little sink that had only two dishes stacked up in it. Then he showed me his bathroom, a little small but definitely not cramped. Everything in there was organized comfortably and we both easily fit in there with no trouble.

Next was the guest bedroom, which wasn't a guest bedroom. Since Tenta had been living by himself, he'd apparently decided to just use it as his 'game room' instead. Bean bags for seats were piled in a corner, high tech looking game controllers were all over the floor, their cords tangled up around each other and all of them connected to a single system and tv. A little ways away from the game console was a desk with a chair tucked under it, a full desktop computer in sleep mode tangled up in the desk as well.

Finally, there was Tenta's bedroom. Posters were everywhere, including the ground (He said that it probably fell off the wall while he was gone, he'd always had trouble with hanging that one up). More shelves were in one corner of the room, more showboxes in some of the cubbies with action figures and silly, childlike toys in the others. I could see one or two trophies in one of the slots, too, the statue being an inkling in a dynamic pose while shooting a splattershot. Another tv was in the room, too, right on top of a dresser with six drawers.

As I pondered on what kind of two a.m. commercials they'd play in this world, Tenta darted past me and immediately belly-flopped onto his bed, moaning in delight as the blankets molded to his form. His limbs were sprawled out across the entire bed, his feet hanging off the edges and one of his socks was halfway off of his foot. His tentacles were just like his limbs, flopped around his head in a chaotic manner as he buried his face into the mattress in pure joy.

"Rmm ymm shmmrm am ymm drmrm mamm drm armmymm?" Tenta mumbled, face still in his pillow and absolutely impossible to understand.

"What?"

He lifted his head and rested his cheek on the pillow instead, "Are you sure you don't wanna do anything? Something small? Like going out and getting a bite?"

I shook my head, "I don't really want to go out right now, I'm ready to just conk out and do everything during the day."

Tenta visibly deflated, a dull frown replacing his hopeful grin as he sighed and again shoved his face into his pillow. I stared at him for a little bit, my droopy ears tilting down a tad as I realized I probably wasn't going about this right. I should do something, even if it's a small activity. Something to jumpstart my experience in the Splatoon world. Something that I've forgotten to do ever since I became an inkling..something like…

After a few minutes, I realized that I actually kinda did want to do something that I definitely should've done a long time ago.

Stepping over to Tenta's bed, I gently nudged his foot and watched as he lifted his head and flipped over onto his back, staring up at me expectantly.

"Teach me how to change my color." I said, scooting onto the side of the bed he wasn't occupying.

With a wide grin, Tenta immediately sat up and shuffled closer to me, fixing his tentacles so that they were right by the sides of his face rather than sprawled out in odd directions.

"Okay, so- Inklings can change to any color we want," Tenta instantly got started, almost talking as if he were an enthusiastic elementary school teacher, "and it's so easy for us that we can even do it with our eyes closed."

I gave him a confused look, "We can?"

He nodded erratically, hands constantly moving as he gestured to emphasize his meaning, "Yeah! Inklings have this-uh...this...this magnetic organ thing in our bodies? It lets us sense our surroundings and inklings with the same ink color. We can sense inklings of other colors, too, but it takes more focus, which is why we don't really do it in battle."

Mechanics from the game flashed in my mind, reminding me of different facts that I learned on my own when playing, "But we can sense them a lot more easily if they're covered in our ink, right?"

He nodded again, "Right! And when changing colors, we use that organ thing to sense the colors around us and we just...change to it! You don't have to think about it much, it just happens."

I was a little skeptical, I couldn't deny it.

"I haven't sensed anything in my whole time of being an inkling. Maybe it's 'cause I'm part human?" I muttered curiously, playing with the fabric of the blankets.

Tenta made a curious expression, seeming almost confused by my interjection. He frowned and glanced down at the blankets for a minute, pondering on what to do next. Then, he quickly looked back up at me and I could see his gaze lock onto the lone tentacle that rested by the right side of my face.

Then, out of nowhere he thrusted his arms out and grabbed my wrists, directing my hands to his own tentacles and forcing me to touch them. I was about to protest and ask what the hell he was doing, but he quickly spewed out his reasoning in a very vague and faintly disturbing manner.

"Close your eyes."

I sent him a glare for his sporadic act, but reluctantly closed my eyes anyway.

"...Okay, now what?"

"Focus on your fingers and try to feel something. They taught us a little like this in preschool."

Huffing through my nostrils, I complied with Tenta's advice and furrowed my brow, doing my best to focus on my fingers. I could feel his tentacles in my grasp, their moist and almost slimy texture was rather unique. They moved ever so slightly as I rubbed my thumb on one of them, really doing my best to understand this whole 'sensing surroundings' thing.

Still feeling nothing, I grunted softly and tried to focus a little harder. All I was getting was a black space, I couldn't feel anything that was foreign or something I hadn't experienced as a human. I could feel the faint blow of the A/C on the back of my neck, along with the fabric of the blankets rubbing against my legs. I could feel Tenta's warm hands on my wrists, and I could feel his legs occasionally change positions.

I also could hear many things too, all the sounds were much more noticeable than when I was human. I could hear people walking in the hallways of the building, chatting as they stepped by Tenta's door. I could hear the faint buzzing of a fly in the living room, probably around the sink with the two dishes that had bits of food around them. I could hear Tenta's slightly quickened breath as he wondered if something was going to happen. I could hear the crickets outside, which made me wonder how they survived the Great Flood that killed all humans. I could hear someone jamming out to a song upstairs, dancing to the beat and singing to lyrics they barely knew. I could hear…a...hum?

My ears twitched as I registered the faint humming that I hadn't thought about, but I could somehow feel that it'd been there for a while. Was I somehow just ignoring it? It was there, I could hear it. Except...I didn't hear it. It wasn't a sound, but it felt like a sound. Kinda? I'm really trying my best to explain it, but it's not easy. It's as hard as trying to explain sight to a blind person, or hearing to deaf.

I did my best to fix all my attention on the humming, tuning out all other senses. My ears were working to their max as I listened to the sound, realizing it was an extremely foreign noise I'd never heard before. And it was so faint, I definitely never would've heard it if I hadn't taken the time to hone in on it like this. Except now, since it was the only thing I was listening to, it was louder than ever.

Licking my dry lips, I figuratively tried to get closer to the sound. It...sorta worked? This experience is hard to put into words, as is most senses that people experience. I was so close to the humming, I could almost taste it. As I arched my brow and gave one last attempt to concentrate on the sound, it slammed right into my face and changed my perception of the world forever. What used to be one of the faintest sounds, was now one of the loudest things in the room. Everything was humming and it was So. Fucking. Weird.

I swear, I practically unlocked a skill just like in a video game. Everything was humming now. Everything. I could feel it all. I could sense the shoebox in the second highest shelf in the right corner closest to the door. I could sense the wiggling jellyfish tapping on a phone just outside the apartment. I could sense all of the clothes in Tenta's closet and his shoes that were haphazardly thrown in there. I could sense...Everything.

Remembering my primary objective, I concentrated on the being right in front of me, Tenta himself. What used to be nothing but a slimy, weird flesh bag of ink in my hands was now the pinkest, loudest sensation I had ever felt. My nerves were screaming at me that what I was holding, was full of pink ink. I didn't even know I had nerves that could do that.

While concentrating on Tenta's pink tentacles, I could sense my own tentacles and just how...purpley they were. With a quick twitch of my ear, I tried to focus on the pink in Tenta's tentacles and match it to my own. I felt a warmth bloom at the top of my back and quickly dart up to my head, filling it with a fuzzy and soothing...soup. Immediately after, the warmth went back down into the rest of my body, flooding my body with a happy cosiness that made me feel surprisingly at peace.

I opened my golden eyes, staring right into Tenta's bright green. A wide smile of pride was spread from ear to ear on his face, his eyes almost sparkling as he bounced excitedly in his seat.

"You did it! You did it!" He squealed, taking his hands off my wrists and squishing my cheeks with them instead. Almost immediately after, he removed his hands and gently cupped my side tentacle, the grin never faltering as he fiddled with my tentacle and held it up into my field of vision.

Pink.

Pink!

"It's pink…" I gasped in awe, even though I already knew based on Tenta's reaction that I had changed the color. It was still such a marveling sight to me, seeing my own tentacle being pink instead of purple after so long. It was the exact same hue as Tenta's, a very vibrant and saturated pink that would remind you of sweet strawberry starbursts. At the very tip I could see a faint hint of purple, slowly fading away to make room for the pink ink until I couldn't see it anymore. So this was how inklings changed their color...

"It never really hit me on just how fucking cool inklings are," I whispered with amazement as the warm feeling slowly faded away, "I jus-I can feel everything! Only when I focus but- I thi- this is so fucking cool!"

"I just wish I got it on video! It'd be cool to document your experiences being an inkling for the first time!" Tenta cheered, seemingly looking around for something. "I just gotta find out where my...phone...is." He trailed off, remembering that his gear was taken off the first day in our house and his phone was likely in his pocket.

I winced and looked the other way, "Oops. Guess we kinda forgot all about your stuff, huh? Maybe we can go back and get it? And your hero gear, too."

Tenta shrugged and rolled his shoulders a bit, "Yeah, we can go back when we get up in the morning. I'll need a new phone, though, it's practically in shards and has no use whatsoever. Oh fuck- that means I'll have to reinstall everything! Noooooooo."

I watched him visibly deflate again, flopping backwards onto the bed with a loud and exaggerated groan. He kicked his legs a few times in frustration in childlike anger before eventually sighing and staring up at the ceiling blankly.

After a few moments, he looked back down at me, "We should probably get ready for bed."

I whined and copied his earlier mini tantrum, "I don't like showering thooough."

He instantly sat up and darted off the bed, jogging to the bedroom door and looking back at me with a joyful expression.

"You're gonna like this kind."

Again yanking me off of the bed and shoving me out the door, Tenta quickly showed me the bathroom that he literally showed me ten minutes ago, this time planning on giving me a more in depth explanation of everything.

"This-" He patted a little compartment that was built into the shower just a little ways away from the bathtub, "-is the ink powder container."

I gave it a curious look, "A what?"

"Ink powder." He repeated, sliding it open just like a drawer, some of the white powder that was inside falling out onto the ground. "It mixes with the water that you're provided with and makes baths a lot more comfortable for us. It's what I meant that time when I said 'Ink Bath'. Just remember to check it everyday so you don't accidentally splat yourself if you run out."

He then pulled up a finger, licked it (which was a red flag), stuck it into the powder (which was another red flag), and held it out to me with a bunch of it coating his finger tip (a boutique of red flags).

"Here, try some. It's actually edible." He offered, an odd and extremely suspicious smile on his face.

I glanced at his face and didn't see anything absolutely malicious with a clear desire to kill me, so I decided to trust him and taste a bit of it.

Bad Idea.

I sputtered all over the bathroom floor and came close to retching as the absolute worst, motherfucking taste coated my tongue. It tasted like poison mixed with bleach with a hint of snake venom or something. And weirdly, a hint of mint.

"Motherfucker!" I hissed as I spat out the awful powder, sending Tenta a death glare, "You di-You didn't just get me to eat something poisonous, did you?! Not cool!"

The other inkling was cackling so hard he was coughing his lungs out, that odd smile having turned into that familiar shit-eating grin I knew and hated.

"Nope! It's edible! I didn't say it tasted good!" He wheezed, weakly patting my shoulder in a small attempt to apologize.

Still a little pissed, I grabbed one of the toilet paper rolls that was in the sink's cabinets and threw it at his forehead. Except, I missed and hit him straight in the face, Tenta sharply cutting off his laughter with a loud yelp as the toilet paper collided with his nose and fell to the floor. A small red spot was on the bridge of his nose and he briefly rubbed it with his fingers before falling back into a giggling fit.

"Wanna see me snort it?" He snickered, raising his hand back over the compartment while looking back at me, 100 percent knowing I would absolutely object.

I raised my arms in a questioning gesture, "Why the hell would you snort it?"

He shrugged and slowly started dipping his hand in, "It's good stuff."

I promptly moved his hand and shut the container while staring him right in the eye.

"Please teach me something other than the shower powder." I muttered, determined not to have a drugged Tenta in the apartment with me at two in the morning.

He laughed at my arupt topic change but decided to go with it, pick up one of the shampoo bottles on the edge of the bathtub.

"This is a tentacle cleaner."

"What."

"It-" He giggled, covering his mouth with a hand, "It's a tentacle cleaner. Tentacles are actually mostly self cleaning, but we like the refreshing feeling and scent of shampoo so we use it now to smell good. It's very nice and leaves your tentacles a lot healthier than they would be without it."

"You sound like a commercial."

He ignored me, instead choosing to more closely inspect the bottle, turning it in his hands, "This one has a strawberry scent, but I wanna eventually get a lime scented one. Maybe I'll get a grape one for you, since your resting color 's purple."

I made a grabby motion for the bottle and he handed it to me, so I got to inspect it myself. A cartoon picture of an inkling flaunting their tentacles was the first thing I saw, strawberries acting as a border around the image. A bunch of text was there that I couldn't understand at all, some more bold than others. Curious, I snapped open the lid of the bottle and sniffed it for a second, for some reason needing to prove that it was actually strawberry scented. It was. Vividly.

"How do you clean your tentacles, anyway? I've kinda just been awkwardly scrubbing it with a rag. Not fun." I asked as I handed the bottle back to him, looking around to see if he had any 'tentacle cleaning looking tools' in the bathroom hung up somewhere.

"It's really easy, actually." He explained, squirting a little bit of the shampoo onto his hand, "They sell these really soft rags that are meant for tentacles since they're a little sensitive, and you just put some of the shampoo on the tentacle and then gently scrub."

He then smacked his hand against my tentacle with a soft plalppht as the cool shampoo splattered all over my tentacle.

I stared at him with half lidded eyes, doing my best to seem unamused despite the good comedic timing of it. He stared at me right back with a blank expression, something that was oddly hilarious at this time of night.

After literally thirty solid seconds of us staring at each other, we both simultaneously snorted and broke out into laughter. Every second we were getting closer and closer to three a.m. and as a result we were closer to losing our minds due to sleepy loopiness. My laughter had been cut short by a yawn, which really told me how tired I was. Had my eyes always ached this much?

"Anyway-" Tenta eventually continued after we got over our small laughing fit, "You just scrub the shampoo all on the tentacle with the rag and then rinse it off with the ink water. Don't forget to scrub in the suction cups, they're more sensitive but they're like the perfect area for bacteria to build up a bit."

"Sweet." I murmured, rubbing my eyes with my hands to wake myself up a bit since sleepiness was really starting to set in, "Can I shower first? I really feel like I'm gonna pass out any second now."

"Yeah, sure." Tenta nodded and started heading out the door, "I'll give you some of my clothes for pajamas. They might be a little big, though."

"Yeah, I'm tiny. I know."

…

Tenta was trying so hard to hold back his laughter.

"Don't."

"Y-"

"No."

"B-"

"Out. Get out."

Wheezing out a hard laugh, Tenta quickly darted out the bathroom and slammed the door behind himself before I could forcibly push him out myself. Once he was gone, I quickly locked the door and turned back to the bathtub.

In the span of a couple minutes I managed to remove my clothes and get myself in the tub with little issue. When I turned on the faucet, I briefly felt a moment of dread but was pleasantly surprised to see that the water definitely wasn't water. It...looked a lot like water? It was clear just like it, but I could tell by the texture that it definitely was a little thicker, almost as thick as ink itself. It was really nice to soak in compared to the awful feeling of water going over my skin and tentacles.

After a little while of just happily soaking in the bathtub and almost falling asleep because of it, I began to actually wash myself and realized just how dirty I really was. Due to being an inkling back at home, I would always take like 20 second showers and never really sat down and scrubbed myself clean. As a result, I never noticed how much dirt I accumulated over time and felt disgusted with myself over how gross I let my body become.

Eventually, though, I managed to scrub all the dirt off and felt genuinely clean and fresh for the first time in forever. Scrubbing my tentacles was nice, too. The light scent of strawberries reminded of me of starbursts the entire time I used the shampoo and I was never more ready to fall asleep from how nice it was. Subconsciously, I slowly slipped down into the tub until everything under my nose was under the inky water because of how comfortable I was.

And then I fell asleep.

…

…

Tenta knocked at the door and woke me back up with a start

"Will-ee? I got your clothes! Do you want me to come in and put them by the sink while you're in the bath? Or do you wanna have me to hand them to you once you're done from behind the door?"

"Uhh…" I answered intelligently as I quickly rinsed myself off and unplugged the drain, "You can hand them to me, I'll get them in a sec."

I almost slipped on the edge of the tub when I clambered out in a slight hurry, which would've been a gigantic disaster if I actually did. It was a jarring change when the cool air whirled around my wet skin and almost instantly caused me to shiver. I quickly grabbed a towel off from one of the cabinets in the sink and wrapped it around my waist before unlocking the door, greeting Tenta on the other side.

"Er-You could've dried off a little before you opened the door," He joked upon seeing me, clothes wrapped up in a neat pile in his arms. "There wasn't any rush, even though you were in there for almost thirty minutes."

"Whoops-" I was a little bit in a rush, "I wasn't really thinking about it. I was actually starting to fall asleep because that was the first bath I've had in years. The smell of strawberries didn't help much, either."

Tenta smiled as he handed me the pajamas, "Yeah, it's nice, isn't it? Maybe we should go to an inkling bathhouse sometime, a lot of people do once they finish their daily battles."

As I went to shut the door, I sent him a questioning look, "Bathhouse?"

Tenta gave me the same expression, "Do you not know what a bathhouse is? Did humans not have those?"

"Uh…" I searched my mind for any sort of instance that I may have heard the term somewhere, but nothing came up, "Nope. Is it a furniture store for bathtubs?"

"It's-Um…," Tenta looked like he was about to explain, but quickly faltered, "I think I'd rather tell you when you're not wet, naked, and borderline about to collapse where you stand."

...

Right.

Quickly taking the clothes out of his arms and shutting the door, I unwrapped the towel from my waist and dried myself off within the span of ten seconds. I then put on the pajamas, which were very nice and fuzzy. What looked to be a superhero logo was on the dark blue, short sleeved shirt that I was given, which matched with the darker blue pants that had the same logo in a repeating pattern. The clothes were a size too large just like Tenta said they would be, but they were still a comfortable fit.

Tossing the damp towel I used and my dirty clothes into a nearby hamper, I stepped out of the bathroom feeling better than ever. Everything on me felt really clean and perfect, and I smelled like strawberries. I was living the life in luxury. What's more luxurious than smelling like strawberries?

After standing in front of the bathroom doorway for ten seconds, I immediately turned to my right and walked right past Tenta (who was trying to get my attention) and into his bedroom. I then promptly climbed onto the bed and face planted right into a pillow, completely knocked out before my head even touched it.

I stirred awake from a deep sleep as I felt shifting along the bed, opening my eyes to complete darkness. Due to my drowsiness, I completely forgot where I was in the moment and almost lost my mind, but then the memories instantly came back to me. I focused on my surroundings for a split second and could tell that it was Tenta on the bed behind me, smelling like fresh strawberries which must've meant he'd recently gotten out of the shower.

"...Welcome to the land of blankets and snuffles, may I take your order?" I mumbled out of nowhere, still feeling like I was going through a fever dream thanks to the drowsiness.

"...What?" Was the confused reply I got back, which prompted a drunken chuckle from me.

"I dunno...You woke me up."

"Shit. My bad," Tenta quickly apologized, "I tried to be careful but I guess it didn't work."

"'S fine…" I accepted his apology with no hesitation and turned over on my other side to face him.

"By the way..." I started, catching his attention and seeing his eyes look at me expectantly in the dark room, "Can we get me fitted for some new glasses tomorrow? Being blind is annoying."

"...Yeah, sure." He yawned, "I should be able to pay for your new eyes pretty easily."

"Oh fuck," The realization that Tenta was going to be paying for me until I got a job or something hit me dead on and nearly startled me fully awake, "I don't have a way to pay you back."

Tenta shook his head as he pulled the blankets to cover more of his torso, "Don' worry about it. I got loads of money from battle, plus my mom helps me pay rent. I've got plenty saved up for stuff like this."

I frowned, "It still doesn't sit right with me, knowing I'm gonna be a freeloader to a friend like you. Can I at least take over some of the chores?"

He waved a dismissive hand, "Knock yourself out. But it's not a contract thing, I'm doing this completely voluntary."

"...Thanks, Tenta. This isn't some sarcastic friendship thing- I really mean it."

"No pro-Oh, that reminds me. I can tell you my real name now, if you want."

"...If I want?"

"Yeah, like-" A yawn cut him off, "-like...You couldn't understand my real name when I told you so you started calling me by that really dumb nickname."

"And yet, you still answer to it."

"..." He chose to ignore my interjection, "But anyway, you should probably call me by something in the inkling language so people don't get suspicious or weirded out."

"...Tenta."

"Fuck you."

"It sounds the exact same to me." I snickered, "I literally can't tell the difference except by how my mouth moves when I say it."

"Yeah-well, I can." He muttered bitterly, scooting a little bit closer, "It sounds nothing like the English version, so I probably won't respond to you when you first start saying it."

"Wait-Does this mean that if there's an equivalent for William in your language, it'll sound the exact same to me?" I wondered, true science going on in my mind, "Quick, say some generic inkling names for boys."

"No."

"Tenta."

"Eat shit."

"Please?"

"..." He groaned as bitterly and exaggeratedly as he could, but complied with my wishes and listed as many names as he knew. Some sounded somewhat close to my name and some of them sounded absolutely nothing like it at all and some of them really made me want to strangle the parents of those poor kids.

None of them matched my name correctly, by the way. The closest was "Wilson" which wasn't very close at all, but the good side about it was that it could be shortened to "Will" with no problem. That would mean that I would still go by Will in both worlds and it'd sound the exact same to me, though Tenta would have a harder time adjusting since he didn't have the weird language magic thing I got when I turned into an inkling.

"Wilson it is! That's my new name." I cheered, saying it under my breath a few times to get myself used to it. I had a human name and an inkling name now. I felt like some sort of weird double agent.

"Good for you, let's sleep now before we start telling each other's life stories from sleep deprivation." Tenta huffed, shoving his face into a pillow, groaning out an exhausted 'I'm so tiiireeeed' that was muffled by the fabric.

"Great idea. In 2001, William Montie Brown was born on a cool September day at around 3 o'clock in the m-"

Tenta immediately smushed a pillow over my face, hissing at me to shut the fuck up as he suffocated me to near death. Then we both fell asleep right after.

And that was my first two hours in the Splatoon universe.

heeeeeey

it's exam week over here as i post this and i am not havin fun

i made this quick short chapter to get the excitement going a bit. the boys aren't in inkopolis yet but they should be in next chappie

this is basically a filler chapter to amuse yall and finally get the plot going (plus will is finally learning how to be a goddamn inkling)

also

pls don't badger me to update, i go at my own pace. motivational reviews such as "i can't wait for the next chapter!" are fine but just reviewing to say that ur impatient makes me go :[

but yea.

thanks for reading