I am sooooo sorry this update took so long. No excuse really, but I had a ton of school stuff to deal with... But ANYWAY, my writing style might be kind of different now, and there might be a few plot holes from the last update. So, enjoy this (short) update on the story with all the OOC you could hope for.

BTW, thanks to those who left reviews encouraging me to keep going on this story. I was really considering discontinuing, but I feel motivated enough to try to finish this story before this summer ends!

And, I, of course, don't own Free! or Frozen. :D

"The characters on packaging are so hard to read."

"Oh, do you remember what these katakana mean?"

"That one is 'shi' and the other is 'n'. At least, I think so..."

"Then, this is cinnamon. Kristoff, watch out for the sign behind you."

Said six foot foreigner stopped just short of knocking over a banner advertising a sale on mayonnaise. Elsa smiled gently before turning back to the shelves. The two of them had decided to stop by a nearby grocery store after club, looking for tonight's dinner among other things. Although they could speak Japanese fluently enough with other students at this point, they still struggled to comprehend the language as quickly as a native could.

The two of them continued ambling through the aisles looking up and down the shelves, crossing items off their list as they retrieved them. Kristoff hit the side of his head a few times with his hand. "Ugh, I think I still have some pool water in my ears. I keep thinking I'm hearing weird things." He shook his head a bit.

They were in the fish section now, and Elsa examined a package of mackerel. "Oh? Like what kind of things?" she asked nonchalantly, humoring her companion after a long day of school and swim practice. When Kristoff didn't respond after a few moments, she turned to face him and instantly stiffened after watching his normally happy expression grow serious.

Kristoff narrowed his eyes before glancing around the area. "Like breathing coming from someone I can't see…"

After a minute of silence between the pair, Elsa laughed nervously. "Oh, I'm sure you're just imagining things. Or more pool water got in your ear than you realize. Let's finish shopping, then head home and do our homework." She walked forward, pushing the cart past the large displays of live fish swimming in tanks. Her blue eyes were so concentrated on finding bright yellow sale stickers that she never saw the largest fish tank begin tipping to its side …

"Elsa!"

As soon as he heard the huge glass tank creaking in its descent and saw the murky water begin spilling out from the top, Kristoff sprinted and lunged at the unaware queen. He'd just barely reached her when the tank slammed onto the store's tile floor, shattering and releasing a wave of greenish, fishy water. Kristoff managed to push Elsa out of harm's way, but his foot was caught in the path of the tank. Both foreigners felt flying shards of glass rip at their uniforms' and icy, dirty water flooded and pooled around their lower halves.

Feeling her skin suddenly coming into contact with the cold liquid, Elsa went into a panic. She fumbled around her pockets. She had taken her gloves off earlier to avoid suspicion. But now she could practically see the water around her just freezing from touching her. She was groping over all her uniform's pockets. It was spreading rapidly. The water was everywhere. It was filling up the store. It was all turning to ice. Elsa was clawing at her blazer's pockets. Oh, where did she put her gloves? They would protect her. And they would protect everyone from her. Why were they stubbornly getting caught in her pocket?

Then, a large warm presence surrounded Elsa; Kristoff scooped her up and quickly brought her out of the pool of water in the fish department. He tentatively set her down but kept his arms around her. Elsa herself held Kristoff's blazer tightly in her bare hands, her breathing ragged and her eyes shut.

"It's alright. It's alright. It's alright." Kristoff steadily repeated in Elsa's ear. "Open your eyes." She shook her head vigorously, keeping her eyes tightly shut. She clutched Kristoff's shirt more strongly and almost thought she heard him wince. "Calm down, Elsa. Just take a look around." She gritted her teeth for a few seconds, still refusing to witness all the damage she'd done again. But fighting back tears, the blond hesitantly forced her doe eyes open.

The fall had scattered the glass shards, but they had stayed contained in the fish department. The live fish flopped around dully, and some other displays in the way of the tank had gotten knocked over, but employees were already beginning to mop up the mess and get the fish back into tanks. The water had only reached a couple meters from where the tank fell and was already disappearing down several drains in the area. No ice anywhere.

And no possible culprit in sight either. All the bystanders and employees simply looked on at the spectacle. No one was running out the door or even looking suspicious in general. Despite scanning the crowd for a good couple minutes, Elsa could not detect who might've caused the tank to tip over. Either the culprit had managed to blend into the crowd or already escaped by now, or the fall had been an honest accident.

Elsa's grip relaxed and tension left her body. At least, no one had gotten seriously injured. Sighing deeply in relief, she lifted herself to her feet and brushed herself off. Just then, the store manager came rushing over, frantically apologizing, asking if they were alright, and bowing profusely all at the same time. Elsa insisted they were alright, and she was just glad no one was hurt.

"Are you sure, ma'am?" the manager asked anxiously. "Your clothes are a bit torn up, and I'm concerned for your friend as well." Alarmed, Elsa turned to the blond still sitting on the floor. Kristoff clutched his ankle, rubbing it with some discomfort but no serious pain in his expression.

"Kristoff! Is your ankle alright?" Elsa knelt down to examine the injury.

"I'll be fine. It's just bruised and wet. I've dealt with worse before."

The queen was about to insist before the manager, almost in tears, bowed lower than 90 degrees and exclaimed, "I'm so sorry! There's no excuse for this! We take full responsibility! Although there's no way we can completely apologize for this, we can offer you discounts and whatever you may ask of us!" Kristoff and Elsa were about to protest the excessive generosity before they paused, shared a look, then pulled out their damp but still readable shopping list.

"Well, if it's not too much to ask…"

Argh, I suck at writing suspense. Welp, hopefully this was enough to compensate for the year or so I haven't posted. But there will be more to comes within the next week, I promise!

This isn't relevant to the plot at all, but I just wanted to mention and partially rant about the katakana characters "shi"(シ) and "n"(ン). I did learn the Japanese alphabet in school, and in my opinion, the hardest characters to learn are "shi," "tsu,"(ツ) "n," and "so"(ソ). If you can't see those because of whatever device you're on, those four are the ones that look like smiley faces and Cyclops smiley faces. I think that it is ridiculously difficult to tell them apart. Half of my class had trouble doing so, and the teacher just said that sometimes it just takes a native speaker to distinct them in handwritten Japanese. So, I figured it would more than a little hard for Elsa and Kristoff to tell them apart on the crazy fonts of Japanese packaging. So, yeah, ok, I'm done ranting now.

R&R, and please correct any of my grammatical mistakes!