Dreams, Evershifting

by RandomdudeNo123

Summary:

"Sometimes, I wonder if this is all just a desperate dream." She whispers. A lingering thought latches on her mind, and for a moment before sanity finds her again, her hand reaches upwards. Pulling it back down, she continues the thought. "Out of everyone in the world, I would find the only other person similar to me. Doesn't that sound like a fairy tale?"

He shines down, the light filtering through him. He is amused, he is joyful, he is serene. He looks on her, a playful tint in his gaze, and lets out a smile that taunted her with it's nonchalance.

"Anything I can do to convince you...?"

(Mizuki and Highmore watch a movie. It's a nice movie.)

Chapter 1: Main Part

The moons were blue tonight.

Highmore had never seen the moons turn anything beyond silver before. From a window in the dorm they shared, she looked up at the ever remote sky, wondering at the strange shade the night had turned. 

The moons were white, cold, and remote. This was a fact, a constant unchanging. It shone above like a spotlight for all, a lighthouse ever-distant. From her earliest memories of her family, to the lingering days with that priest, and even past the memories of that open campfire, the moons had always shone as an indifferent shade of silver, no matter what. But now, of all nights, it had turned blue, and so another thing she had always taken as truth slipped past her fingers.

Her fingers. Tensing and untensing, she looks down on them. In the blue moonlight, they almost looked as if they were underwater, alien to her.  The shadows that fell upon on them were never absolute, either, as if the moonlight had set upon them a soft glow. But, strangest of all, they were both alike- both tinted blue and otherworldly.

Highmore sighs to herself as she stares down on them. What else in her life she considered immutable could still be changed?

The doorway creaks open, a slit of light peeking through.

Mizuki pops his head inside, a bit like a thief sneaking into the night. Careful eyes looked to the bunkbed, seeing it unoccupied, before seeing her by the desk, looking up at the moon. Seeing her staring outside, he swings the doorway out fully before stepping inside.

"Phew. I was a bit worried you went to sleep early."

She blinks. "Worried? Why?"

"Well..." A white speck glints on his face as he flashes a small smile, a DVD held in his hand. Now unafraid of accidentally waking her, he bounds up to her in a few steps, before holding up the DVD case. A photo of a monochrome feline, with a blank stare and pajamas, silently judged her. It seemed to be a Higashian name beginning with O- Highmore was too sleepy to read the rest of it.

"Kirara said it was good. Want to watch it?"

She yawns a little. "Mm."

Mizuki tilts his head, still holding the case with both hands. "Do you want to stop me from watching it?"

"Mm."

He blinks, trying to interpret that. "Are you too tired to care?"

"Mhm."

That was that, then. Shrugging, Mizuki goes to the couch. "Well, I'm going to watch it. If it gets too noisy, just poke me, ok?"

That was enough staring at the moon, then. Getting up off the desk, she grabs a blanket off the lower bunk before curling up next to him on the couch, throwing the blanket over herself. With a small smile, Mizuki adjusts his shoulder to give her head a more comfortable rest, letting her lean on him as the television flared open. The white of the screen mixed with the blue moonlight, filling the room with a dreamlike light that felt ever so strange.

And wasn't the scene strange enough already? A half formed reject curled up next to a true seaborn, both watching movies on a television as if that made them human. A wandering soul, anchored down by wreckage and yet patiently waiting.

These were strange times, indeed. But right now, all Highmore knew was that staying close to Mizuki quieted both sides of herself. And so, yawning, she settled in as the movie began to play.

---

Sleep came in fits for tonight. 

If she put in the effort to stay awake, Highmore might have been able to follow the plot of the movie. But as it stood now, she was slipping in and out of consciousness, only half-registering the scenes flashing before her.

Shifting her head slightly, she looked up at Mizuki's entranced gaze as he stared at the television screen, sharp as ever. She didn't know how much Mizuki actually slept. Seaborn slept, she knew that much, but to what extent, she didn't know. Dormancy was a trait she was familiar with, the moments where her natural body was at ease and so there was no impulse to struggle against. Seaborn without a purpose fell into dormancy- but that was different from the sleep humans had. A dormant seaborn would not stir unless it was called to a new purpose, and in return, did not sleep while it was under command.

So, right now, was this an inhuman being without the need for rest in the human sense, or just a young man staying up long past his bedtime?

Either way, Mizuki was awake, and he was alert. Noticing the small shift in her breathing, he stirs, his muscles shifting slightly beneath his skin. Without turning his gaze off the screen, he asks a question.

"... Did you have a sister?"

Highmore blinks, wondering where a sudden question like that had come from. Then, as if in response, her attention was drawn towards the screen.

The monochrome feline was resting on a picnic blanket, lying on the lap of his older sister. His friends, two Perro, a Cautus, and a blonde Aegir, were all clustered around, trying to make flower crowns. The big sister smiles down at her little brother from the picnic blanket, before adorning him with a flower crown. And, as if on instinct, Mizuki raises an unconscious hand to his head, as if expecting a flower crown of his own.

Highmore sighs softly, closing her eyes. "No, just a mom and dad. None of that now."

"Do you miss them?" He asks, and there is a certain strangeness in his tone. Not quite sympathy, no. There was a hint of curiosity nestled somewhere deep within, like feeling grasping towards an object he hadn't known.

"Every day." She answers, slowly. But a small question disturbs her. Mizuki had also been under the care of that priest, Cicero. Had he gone through the same thing as her, in a different fashion? Did he lose everything, the same as her? Softer, she replies to him. "How about you? Do you miss your family?"

He doesn't answer. His gaze is back on the screen he watches with wide eyes, almost as if hunting, searching for something in the pixels of the screen.

The sister waves away the monochrome boy with a smile on her face.

The monochrome boy doesn't look back.

"I know I should have one. Everything comes from something. And yet... I don't remember them." He lingers on this thought for a while, floating in a black space where no memory endured. But the sensation of Highmore still lying there anchors his thoughts, preventing them from drifting off entirely. Turning back to her, he asks the first question on his mind.

"Are we family?"

"Mm. Close to it."

Highmore didn't given the question much thought, not when she's curled up in such a soft blanket and warm and sleepy. Whatever came naturally just did. She could worry about it later.

But Mizuki had heard her, loud and clear. His irises widen slightly as he gently shivers, as if trying to capture every sensation of this moment. "Is this what it feels like?"

She has to think about this for a moment. The earliest days were something like this, maybe. Resting by the shore with a half-remembered tune, lying on her mother's lap as she listens to songs with the backing of the waves. That much, she'd never forget. 

But Mizuki couldn't remember anything like that, and for the first time, Highmore feels something towards him she once thought she never could- pity. Adjusting her position, she shifts herself closer to him.

"There should be a lullaby. Should I sing you a lullaby?"

"But I'm not sleepy yet." He protests, a small frown on his face. The movie was still playing in front of them, after all.

But still, Highmore felt sleepy. With the thought of a half-remembered lullaby playing in her mind, she slowly slips back into unconsciousness.

---

When next she came to, the movie has only gotten stranger.

The monochrome feline had regained it's color, somehow. Now it was rising up an endless staircase, shivering in terror as it rose higher and higher. All around him, the walls skittered with spider legs and rustling horrors, irises of eyes melding and splitting from the whites of hungry teeth and gluttunous voids, a writhing mass of horrors upon horrors. The little feline's eyes were shrunk smaller than the button on his polo, barely holding on as he slowly willed himself up the stairs.

But Highmore didn't scare easily anymore. She watches the scene with half-lidded eyes, hair completely veiling one of them as she struggled to hold them both open. At some point in this slumbering state, she had slid off Mizuki's shoulder and right onto his lap, but she felt too comfortable to get back up to her old position. She would have slid back here anyways- that's the justification her half-conscious mind gave herself.

If Mizuki minded, though, he didn't say anything. His head was propped up by his arms, breathing serene as he watches the kitten struggle to ascend, tailed ever by the fearful void. Absentmindedly, his hand digs into a bowl of popcorn, sitting on a table just to the side of the couch they were both sitting on. Highmore could smell the butter.

Strange. This was supposed to be a terrifying scene, she knew. But she felt no terror here, and neither did he. There was an emptiness in her chest at the scene, the lingering throught that something that was supposed to be there just wasn't. Sleepily, she turns her head upwards. "Do you ever get scared?"

Mizuki jolts slightly, more out of surprise that she hadn't completely fallen asleep. Calming down, he tilts his head. "What does that feel like?"

She doesn't know how to answer. Fear is an instinct, more than anything. Fear is a sapping of the bones, a lurking sensation that gripped your limbs and weighed them down. It was the emptiness in your chest as your stared down an empty doorway and waited for someone to come home, it was the clamminess on your skin as you held on to someone's hand and prayed they'd look at you just this once. But how did she explain that to him?

She forms an answer- an incomplete one, but an answer. "It feels like a cold grip on your stomach. Like someone is squeezing on your chest from the inside."

"Oh." He blinks, and a reaction Highmore didn't expect surfaces: Recognition. "I think I have."

Her lips part slightly as Highmore thinks about this. What did someone like Mizuki even have to fear? If he hadn't remembered his family and he parted ways with Cicero willingly, who could have had to lose?

She hums. She thinks she knows the answer.

"Was it because of me?"

"... A little." He admits.

A lot lay on Mizuki in their first encounter, on his innate knowledge to subdue that raging illusion. Beyond that, to dig her out from within, and to cut off the limbs that still clung to her. And yet, just as much relied on her, to heed his call from inside and awaken from the nightmare. He had provided her the means to escape, but it would have to be her choice to live on.

It had not been love at first sight, when she had first opened her eyes. Just the care of a stranger and the quiet that followed exhaustion. She would still say she had not deserved a single iota of it. 

"But you're still with me, so I'm not scared anymore." He smiles, and that unfairly twists her insides much worse than any fear. Taking up the popcorn bowl, he lowers it to her face. "Want some?"

The smell of melted butter fills her nose for a few seconds. A bit absentmindedly, Highmore takes a few flakes of popcorn, nimbly holding them in her fingers. It's junk food, she's well aware, but he was offering and she was sleepy. Mizuki holds the bowl in front of her a bit longer, waiting for her to take more, before putting it by the foot of the couch, next to her dangling arm.

It's crunchy. Satisfying, she thinks.

A bit of his food-loving nature was rubbing off on her, she realizes. That may have been the first time she'd gone out of her way to describe food.

Food. That was a thought she never focused on until now. So long ago, food had lost all it's taste for her. Days upon days had passed before when food was a sullen necessity of life. Days of shoveling tasteless fuel down a throat long gone hoarse, days where it felt like the effort to lift her arms was not worth the bile that roiled in her stomach as she forced herself to live a while longer. The food was grey those days.

Two fingers slip into the bowl, before pulling out a single piece of popcorn. It's golden brown, hints of light glinting from the reflection of the television. She stares at it, a silent wonder filling her thoughts.

Since when had the food regained it's color? 

She doesn't hesitate to slip it into her mouth. She can taste the smooth butter alongside the sweet spikes of flavor as bits of caramel fall on her tongue, the soft crunch of the flake giving way to her teeth. It lingers on her tongue a bit longer, even after she had eaten it, that blend of salt and sugar that she could now taste fully.

And she wonders. She wonders so much.

When had it changed? When had it become worth it once again to move her arms, stretch out and reach for something? 

When had living become something she wanted to do?

Against herself, she chuckles, wiping away a small tear that pooled in her eye. This was silly. So, so silly. This was supposed to be a peaceful night. Mizuki was watching a movie. How could he do that if she turned into a sobbing wreck here and now?

"... Highmore...?"

She wipes away her own tears, leaving them on her sleeve. The taste of caramel still lingers on her mind, even after the tears were gone. Looking up to purple eyes, she wonders if it did the same for him. "Do you have a favorite food?"

His answer was almost immediate.

"Do you count?" 

And that was Mizuki. So sweet, so frustrating. She banishes the thoughts out of her mind with a single slightly annoyed expression. "No."

Whether that was a tease or not, she'd never know, because Mizuki immediately rebounds, excitedly listing out every option that floated up to his mind. "Seafood, I think. But meat also tastes good, and fruit when it's fresh is sweet and tasty, but candy is sweet without the water, and vegetables always have this satisfying crunch, but..." He trails off, before bouncing it back to her. "You?"

"Mmm..." She has to think about that one, think to  a time before it all. "Seaweed Salad. My family used to have it once a week, while we could. It was before... before everything."

She trails off as two fingers brush through her hair, the strange sensation she maybe remembered. But the fingers were smoother and more dexterous this time, the only proof that she was living in the present instead of a wistful recollection.

"Your wish is my command." He smiles. His fingers move more absentmindedly than anything, tousling her hair in their little expedition of her. Maybe he hadn't even noticed that his fingers were moving- Highmore wouldn't have questioned that. "I know the recipe, or at least something close."

"I wasn't asking..." She begins, but trails off.

"But you were wishing." He answers, as if that resolved that. "And besides, I want to taste your favorite food too. If it means that much, it must taste wonderful."

Highmore wonders about that, too. Was the salad what made it special, or her family? Did the popcorn taste good because it just was, or because they were sharing it together?

The meat on the campfire that day could not have tasted good. Even as an objective fact- there was no seasoning, no spice, no real trick to make it more palatable. He had roasted the meat over the flame, as simply as that.

Was it because he had met her that day that it was his favorite?

On the screen, the feline manages to clamber up to the top of the staircase. There, at the peak of his little ascent, a small bedroom lay waiting. The feline clambers into bed, body trembling, irises shrunk into tiny dots as he slowly closes his eyes. As his breathing steadied, the crawling horrors subsided, voids melting away and eyes falling shut, until all that was left was a small lump on a bed, slowly dreaming.

---

Highmore doesn't fall asleep this time. It would be difficult to, after seeing the scene of the dreaming boy. Curiosity overwhelms her sleepiness, at least enough to keep her eyelids unshut.

They mostly watched in silence, watching as the feline jumped in between dream worlds in emotionless monochrome and reality in pale color. Reality was terror, so they retreated back to dreaming. Dreaming solved nothing, so they forced themselves back awake. But the dreams of family and friends would no longer let him leave. 

And so now there was two of them. And the colored feline was the real one, while the monochrome feline was his evil dream self...?

Mizuki was strange. It made sense that he would watch strange movies, she supposed. In any case, they had split apart, facing off each other, the choice to sleep endlessly against the choice to stay awake.

As the feline fought with his dream self, Highmore mulls to herself, a deep hum coming from the bottom of her throat.

A small sensation stirs her back, the brushing of a finger on her temple. Two eyes look down on her, mouth pursed with a flitting sense of curiosity.

"You look like you're thinking of something. Let it out?"

"The one in the movie reminds me of myself." She slowly admits, as something in her right arm stirs. "Trapped between two worlds, unable to choose one or the other. Ever at war with myself, as flawed as I am."

Lights flash on screen, and for a second, their attention is diverted. The knife flashes, and gashes appear on both their arms. Red hands claw streaks into the colored one, and the monochrome bleeds too. To destroy one is to destroy the other. 

She knows all too well at this point. Her arm lies dormant on her body, still a part of her. She can't be rid of it anymore than she can be rid of herself.

"But I like what you are."

Moonlight shines through the window, steady as ever. Mizuki looks down as he says it, and for a second Highmore thinks that the moonlight shines through him.

She barely manages a smile, the curling tip of her mouth the only sign of her emotion.

"You only say that because I'm the only thing like you."

And he smiles, at peace with that.

"I like me. And you're like me, so I like you, too." A ghostly touch flits on her purplish palm, the tip of a tentacle tracing circles into it. "Does that make it wrong?"

Blunt as always. A small blush forms, but she ignores it.

Turning to the screen, she barely catches the movie's ending. The feline was holding on to his monochrome self, enveloping them in a hug. Then, as if he was never there, or had always been there, the monochrome one vanishes. The older one lingers, hugging the space where nothing was, making peace with everything. Then, he stands up, finding the door away from the dreamworld.

He steps through, and closes the door behind him.

If there was another part of the story, Highmore wouldn't know. Because, right now, the thought of dreams had filled her mind entirely. Had she stepped through a door like the feline in the film? Was this all some strange dream, this entire strange situation before her? There were so many questions left unanswered, so much she wants to ask Mizuki. But as the blue moonlight shines through him, only one question rose to her mind.

"Are you real?"

He tilts his head, chuckling. "I think I am."

It felt so much like a fantasy, like she had fallen into the movie's imaginary world. The moon's beams fill the room like sunlight through water, filtering down to them like light to the ocean floor. 

"Sometimes, I wonder if this is all just a desperate dream." She whispers. A lingering thought latches on her mind, and for a moment before sanity finds her again, her hand reaches upwards. Pulling it back down, she continues the thought. "Out of everyone in the world, I would find the only other person similar to me. Doesn't that sound like a fairy tale?"

He shines down, the light filtering through him. He is amused, he is joyful, he is serene. He looks on her, a playful tint in his gaze, and lets out a smile that taunted her with it's nonchalance.

"Anything I can do to convince you...?"

Highmore rises up, latching on to his gaze.

"Just hold still."

She takes a breath, and the impulse she'd long held back finally goes through. Hands dart out, too fast for his comfortable mind to register, as they fall upon his face. For a moment, a small part of her had expected her fingers to phase right through him. But instead, they fall on warm flesh as she feels them give way to her grip. They feel warm and soft, like clay for the molding, the proof of his existence.

Then they twitch as he breaks into a smile, a small bloom of red rising into his pale cheeks as her fingertips feel ever so slightly warmer. He understands her question now, as sure as his own hand rises to hold her own and warms it up fully.

Did the form they take matter? As she holds him in her hands, Highmore wonders how much it would have changed. If she had fully transformed and he had chosen differently, would something like this still have happened? Or if she had maintained her full humanity and he had never revealed his true self, would they still be this way?

She doesn't know. All she knows was the feeling of soft warmth between her fingers. Both her hands were holding him firmly, pressing against him as an unconscious smile slowly took over her face. He was here to see, to hear, to touch, to smell of the sea and to taste...

For a single moment, completely unbidden, a traitorous question floated in her mind.

Would a kiss taste like caramel, too?

But before insanity could take her fully, Mizuki smiles back, a little cheekily. "Convinced?"

And that jolted her out of her insanity fairly quickly. Sighing, she lets go of his face before lying back down on his lap. Her hair splays out behind her, scattering all over his legs and onto the floor. "You can't be a dream. Nothing in my subconscious could ever create something like you."

She murmurs that last statement, not quite a compliment, not quite an insult. And, she supposes, as her eyelids slowly drift shut, that that was the best summation of him she could offer. Not quite one, but not quite the other.

Human or Seaborn, Illusion or Dream, he was still Mizuki.

So could she say the same thing for herself?

... Highmore doesn't know. And as the scent of the sea overwhelms her and her consciousness sinks lower and lower, she finds that the question might not be as important as she thinks anymore.

---

She's breathing steadily now.

As the feline finally confessed to his friends and the credits roll, Mizuki lets out a soft breath. He didn't understand the movie, or at least not in the same way Kirara might have. If Highmore was fully awake, she could have explained it to him, but she needed her rest. 

Still, Mizuki thinks- it was a fun movie.

Using his tentacles to lift the empty bowl back to the sink and making a mental note not to crunch the unpopped kernels again, Mizuki looked down. Highmore was gently sleeping, completely at ease now. She's rarely like this, so Mizuki spends a few seconds staring, marking this moment down in his mind.

But, really, his lap couldn't be that good a pillow, right? A proper bed would do her much better.

Adjusting his legs a little, he nudges her lightly. 

"All right, I'm going to bring you to bed now. That's fine, right?"

Gentle snoring. He's not sure what he expected. 

Carefully, two tentacles slip underneath her, lifting her up as cautiously as possible. He only relies on them long enough to position his arms, before gently lowering her onto them. He's carried her before, after all. He knows where to put his arms. An extra tentacle holds her head upright while the rest of him lifts. 

Mizuki gets up. She's heavier than he remembers, and that is good. She was light when they had first met, with not enough food for her. Now, at least, she's getting enough.

He gently steps around the couch before lowering her into her bed. The sheets fold and crease as she's lowered onto them, but she doesn't stir as she's placed into her own bed. A gentle blanket drape, and that's a job well done.

He's about to climb up to his own bunk, but one of his tentacles, the one that had cradled her head, wasn't retracting. Looking back, he sees that her unconscious hands had grabbed hold of it.

... Well. He could sleep nearby. Just for tonight.

Lowering himself on her bed, taking the spot furthest from her just in case she minded, he pulls down a pillow from above before propping his head up with it. He was sleepy, too, but his form was comfortable underneath the illusion. Softly smiling, he gently closes his eyes, remembering every detail of this exact moment.

"Good night, Highmore."

---

Bonus:

"The rental's due today..."

"Rental?" Utage rolls her eyes, sighing. "Girl, come on! Didn't those shops close out a gazillion years ago?"

"The rental from that Anaty to Akafuyu to You to Me to Him isn't, though." Kirara mutters, tugging her jacket closer to herself. "I don't like having to explain bad things. Feels uncomfortable."

"Gotcha, gotcha! Well, their dorm's right there." They stop by a non-descript door, Utage's eyebrows bouncing up as she remembers who else would be sharing the door with him. "Ooh, do you think they're busy right now?"

"You know them. They're never busy, and definitely never like that anyways." Kirara rolls her eyes. Utage liked playing matchmaker, sure, but maybe this was a bit excessive. "Mizuki, I'm coming in-"

ohtheyresleepinginthesamebedwhatthehell

A blue blush erupts across Kirara's face as her tentacles spike out. That was, like, totally a couple thing! And Kirara didn't pay attention to a lot of VNs, but this was a DEEP couple thing, right? She'd just assumed that Mizuki was like her and spent more time on games than people, but was Utage right all along?! And there's the coral girl, too...

She had never spoken to the Coral Girl before, but she felt a strange sense of kinship between loners. Coral Girl was an edgy loner, and Kirara was a quiet loner. So, um, good on her for finding someone. Kirara knows first hand just how lonely being isolated can be. Trust is important, she thinks. Maybe.

Unfortunately, the person Kirara trusted the most was NOT one she trusted to see that sight. They'd be spread across every GC. Random people would be congratulating them down rhe hallways. Utage would practically be arranging their wedding, if she wasn't already plotting it. And Kirara knows that loners like themselves would get vaporized under that spotlight. She needed to get Utage away, somehow.

"Ooh, you're blushing, you're blushing!" And with a smaller, more devious smirk, she leans down. "What did you see?"

Kirara was a good person at heart, and knew her time had come to be sacrificed to the Riajuus. Mentally wiping away a single tear of regret, she silently musters the strength to say what she must.

This one's for you, depressed coral girl.

"There's a fashion botique that opened two floors down, right? We should check that out."

Utage's eyes triple in size as she gasps, and Kirara could have sworn she could see stars twinkling in them. "You're so right, bestie. We can get back to the DVD later!" She begins to bound off, but stops herself halfway.  "... Wait a sec. Since when were you into fashion?"

"You're... a good influence."

Utage gasps, wiping away a small tear of joy. "That's everything I've ever wanted to hear from you."

Kirara stops. "... Really...?"

"Nope!" She begins, before dragging Kirara along again. "Now, c'mon! There's a pink tea party dress I know you'd be so cute in!"

 

Notes:

Mizuki: I can fix her. *Actually fixes her*

First off, did you recognize the thing they were watching? It shouldn't matter if you don't recognize it, so don't worry about it. If you do... What are Mizuki's last words in Higashian?

Anyways... I should probably explain the second chapter. The second chapter is an experimental version of a scene in the fic. It's a pretty big change, so I split it apart for you to take a look at and see how it works. It'll be clear once you look at it, I hope.

As a side note, I finally decided to catalogue all the Mizuhai fics into one big chronological pile. By the time you're reading this (unless you're really fast and stuff), you should be able to get everything in one big list! (Grani arc's wrap-up next time! I swear!)

Chapter 2: Experimental Alternate

She takes a breath, and the impulse she'd long held back finally goes through. Hands dart out, too fast for his comfortable mind to register, and-

For a moment, a small part of her had expected her fingers to phase right through him. But instead, they fall on warm flesh as she feels them give way to her grip. They feel warm and soft, like clay for the molding. 

Then they twitch as he breaks into a smile, a small bloom of red rising into his pale cheeks as her fingertips feel ever so slightly warmer.

He understands her question now, as sure as his own hand rises to hold her own and warms it up fully.

Did the form they take matter? As she holds him in her hands, Highmore wonders how much it would have changed. If she had fully transformed and he had chosen differently, would something like this still have happened? Or if she had maintained her full humanity and he had never revealed his true self, would they still be this way?

She doesn't know. All she knows was the feeling of soft warmth between her fingers. Both her hands were holding him firmly, pressing against him as an unconscious smile slowly took over her face. He was here to see, to hear, to touch, to smell of the sea and to taste...

For a single moment, completely unbidden, a traitorous question floated in her mind.

Would a kiss taste like caramel, too?

Notes:

This one's a little test for how obtrusive slipping art in the chapters could be. Are the images too large or do they interfere with the story too much? Or are they even good enough to post yet? I'm still a beginner in the whole art business, after all. (I won't be discouraged if you guys say no- I'll likely just keep the two mediums separate/in bonus chapters when the mood strikes me.)

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 5 of Emotional Support Jellyfish