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you said you'd always be
with me, but you're not

──● simba
THE LION KING

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There's nothing quite like a game of beach volleyball with the Morrigan family. Especially when Kei and Yume are the opposing team captains. Kei isn't the biggest fan of beach volleyball, especially when it means he's going to work up a sweat in the heat, but he wouldn't really give a game up for anything. 

As his dad always said, twelve was the perfect amount for team games. Kei couldn't really argue with that. Jady couldn't play because of her injury, still healing. She was petulant about it, but promised that she didn't mind if the others played, it'd still be fun to watch. So Arietta joined them, while their dad sat beside Jady, watching with a fond smile under the umbrella he'd set out for them. 

Kei and Yume weren't always the team captains, but they were picked most often to be on opposing teams almost consistently, so eventually it just made sense for it to be that way. Although, they didn't really pick teams themselves, they'd figured out pretty quickly that it was only the fastest way to hurt someone's feelings in a fun game. So instead they drew names.

Yume just happened to draw Arietta's name first, something that Kei rolled his eyes at when his siblings interchanged devious looks. They were ridiculous, Arietta was his friend, at least right now anyway, and he didn't mind her just being that, even if he had felt more than a few pangs of ugly jealousy at watching a group of beach goer's flirting with her. 

Kei's team ended up being Reysa, Jasiri, Junpei, Merlene, and Elliot.

Yume had the others, Arietta, Delaney, Kasumi, Akiho, and Elijah.

Yume had the best setters, Akiho and Arietta were both great at it, and Yume herself was an excellent server. However, Reysa had the best jump serves in the family, and Merlene was a fantastic receiver. Kei himself wasn't the best volleyball player, but he was an alright spiker.

At least the day they had picked to go to the beach was beautiful. It's wasn't incredibly crowded, at least not much more than usual, and the warmth was at a near perfect temperature. Probably a little warmer than some of his siblings would prefer, but not warm enough to chase them all inside for fear of overheating during a volleyball game. The ocean around them was glittering, the calls of birds ringing through his ears as he glanced back towards the beach paths. People were littered about, talking and laughing chipperly, enjoying the warmth and basking in the clear sunshine the day had promised. 

Yume's laugh pulled him back towards the net, where she was pulling up her hair with a giggle, talking to Arietta chipperly. She was wearing shorts, and a full suit like she usually did. Kei wasn't sure how many of their siblings actually knew why she refused to wear two pieces, but it wasn't his buissness to tell anyway. He himself wore a shirt at the beach too, he'd just rather not have it off. Unlike Elijah, who practically jumped at the opportunity to do so, taking plenty of pictures of himself. It wasn't a secret to any of them to who those pictures were being sent to. 

Shaking his head slightly, he settled on the opposing side of the next, glancing up when he heard Arietta say his name. She'd just turned to him, grinning on the other side, eyes glittering in the light of the day. "Did you hear me?"

Kei shook his head a little, only internally embarrassed at the fact he hadn't heard her at all. Instead shoving the shame down into the pit of his stomach. "No, what did you say?"

"Could you help me with sunscreen?"

What.

Every thought stalled in his head for a moment, staring at her borderline blankly. Arietta Trym, his crush, who was in an incredibly flattering dark floral bikini, was asking him to help her with sunscreen? Like something a partner would do?

Don't overreact Kei, friends help each other with sunscreen all the time.

Yeah, but there are plenty of people around her. Yume, for one.

Okay, but-

"Kei?"

He blinked, realizing that he hadn't answered, and some of his siblings were not so subtly watching them. Shame flickered up his cheeks, but refusing to let anything other than firm calm leak through his voice, he nodded. "Sure, sorry. Of course I can."

Arietta beamed at him, and Kei thought he might die right there. It wouldn't have been the worst way to go out if he was being honest. Regardless, he must have been staring, because he felt Elijah nudge his back "Go on Kei, go help Arietta with her sunscreen." His grin was feral, but if looks could kill, Elijah would have been dead twice over with the scalding glare that Kei sent his way as Arietta giggled, pulling his arm over to where she had set her stuff, not far from the volleyball set up. 

She had a near hot pink umbrella sitting against the sand, casting shade over a small area. She only smiled, motioning for Kei to sit down. After he did so, she sat in front of him, handing him her sunscreen bottle.

Maybe he was going to die here after all.

As calmly as he could, and praying to whatever might be up there that Ari could in fact, not hear his heartbeat, he put some in his hands and set his hands on her back. She tensed at the chill, but relaxed a moment after, a snicker of a laugh filtering through her body. He could feel the vibration of it running up her spine, and he felt himself fall a little farther in love with her.

Some people say that love is a choice, at least somewhat, and you have power over who you love. Kei knows it's not. It's never been a choice, and never will be, but even if it had been, he thinks he would have chosen to love Arietta.

She was easy to love. She was bright, and sparkly, and soft, and gentle, and overwhelmingly talented. He can't in good conscience say she's the sun, because she's not. Arietta isn't the sun, because she still has that ambiavert sense to her. She can go from partying one moment, to watching the sunset by herself, and still be entirely content. She's really a gentle soul, and even in some of the most aggressive, angry situations where she'd have every right to yell and scream and fight, she isn't. She's patient, and in complete honesty, that might be Kei's favorite thing about her. He has a lot of favorite things about her, it's hard to pick one. Arietta is his favorite. She's just his favorite. All-encompassing, all-inclusive.

So Ari isn't the sun. 

Kei thinks if he's the moon, then she must be the stars.

So close, and so unfathomably far. He wishes she lived closer, he does, but at the same time, he's glad he can still admire her beauty and talent, he's glad he can watch her shine as bright as she's ever wanted, even if she's not close enough to touch.

He's never been much of a talker, not really, but now he finds the burning temptation of telling her just how he feels on his tongue. Kei's smarter than just giving into an impulse of a thought, but he does genuinely debate on telling her. It'd be a good time to do it, wouldn't it? Halfway through their vacation, where she could just go home if she found he couldn't be around her anymore, but he doesn't know if he's ready for that.

It might be better just having a small part of her, than not having any of her at all.

His thumb brushes across a red patch of skin near the left side of her back, and she tenses slightly, huffing a breath of laughter. Before Kei can ask, she turns her head, angling it slightly over her shoulder towards him. "Sunburn. I forgot to reapply sunscreen every couple hours last weekened when I went with Finn and Oudia. "

Finn Keats and Oudia Bronte, her friends here if he recalled correctly. They worked on the same set with her, and she seemed incredibly fond of them. He couldn't help but hoping it was purely in a platonic way. Still, even if it wasn't, he did want her to be happy, he'd just never asked cause he didn't know how well he'd handle hearing about how in love she was with someone else when he was so desperately in love with her.

Arietta seemed unaware of his troubled thoughts, smiling at him for a moment. Her features softened after a moment, staring at him directly. Kei didn't break the eye contact, hands lingering near her waist where they'd stopped. She was still for a brief moment, then turned entirely to face him, arms wrapping around his neck again. His hands remained unmoved from where they'd skirted around her skin. "i'm really, really glad you're here Kei."

"Well i'd hope so."

She smiled again, a fond, soft little thing. "Yeah, yeah...I mean I'm really glad you decided to come to the beach today. I know you don't like it much. The sand and everything."

Kei really, really prayed that she couldn't hear his heartbeat, because he was pretty sure it was about to pound right out his chest. He could feel the heat in his stomach rise, but assured himself he could blame it on the outside temperature. "It's alright. It's not too hot outside."

"I know." He could feel her fingertips tracing the back of his neck, playing with the ends of his hair, and he tried to push away any realization that this was a very intimate moment, and his siblings were probably watching with no sense of shame. "Still, I missed you a lot."

The words stirred in his soul, and he resisted the urge to hold her a little tighter. "I missed you too, Ari."

She tilted her head then, her braided hair falling over her shoulder as she looked up at him. Hesitation passed over her features, nose scrunching up in thought before she sucked in a breath. "Kei, do-"

"Hey!"

A sharp call from farther down the beach made them both look up. They weren't being called at, no, but one of Kei's siblings were. 

Yume.

Yume barely glanced up before there was some guy standing in front of her, grinning at her. "Hey, did you hear me?"

They were close enough that Kei could see Yume's features shift into something unreadable. "No. I'm sorry, do I know you?"

"No, but you could."

"No, thank you."

At this point some of Kei's other siblings had turned to watch the interaction, Kei breifly noting the slightly defensive position that Yume had suddenly switched into. She shook her head at him, picking up the volleyball that had fallen on the ground and going to turn away when he began talking to her again.

"Has anyone told you that you kinda look like Azula?"

She paused, turning back to him "..like, the character from Avater: The Last Airbender?"

"Yeah."

"How so?" She set the volleyball under her arm, watching him carefully then.

"Well, you know, she's asian, or chinese or something."

"Excuse me?"

He blinked, then scoffed "Oh don't tell me you're one of those people who take offense to everything once ethnicity is mentioned."

Yume opened her mouth, then shut it, just blankly staring at him. Fortunately, Reysa looked like she'd had enough, going over to them. "First of all, Azula is said to be Japanese If she was in todays' world, but she is a fictional character-"

"Yeah, I wasn't talking to you."

This time Merlene spoke up "Well you are now, so why don't you back the fuck up."

"Excuse me? I'm not gonna listen to a bunch of girls-"

Elijah stepped in front of all of them "Okay buddy, listen, my sister isn't interested in you. Believe it or not, her standards are a little higher than someone who clearly still has some evolving to do."

Kei had to bite his tongue to avoid laughing, something his other siblings didn't mind indulging in at all. The guy was just staring blankly at the group now, then scowled, taking a step closer "Shut up-"

And who could it be, but Dai Morrigan, who put his hand on his shoulder from behind him, a menacing, but polite smile on his face. "Sir, i'd hate to have any kind of negative interaction with you, so be very careful how you talk to my children." he  just pulled his hand back, sticking it into his shorts and coming out with a card "You'll be talking to my lawyer if you want to continue to harass my daughter or her siblings."

Seeing that he was obviously at a loss, and surronded, his face grew red, but he jerked away from Dai's touch, stepping back and scoffing before turning away. "Whatever, she's ugly anyway-"

There was a pause of silence, just a beat, and then Kasumi spoke. Her soft, simple voice turning lethal. "What did you just say?"

"You better take that back right now." Junpei had picked up the fallen volleyball from Yume, tilting her head at him.

"Yeah, and what if I don't? I could beat up any one of you."

Elliot stuck his hands in his own pockets, shrugging. "Maybe you could, but I doubt you can erase internet presence."

"What?"

Elliot pointed to Jasiri, who had her video camera up. Her head poked over it, and she smiled innocently. "I have nearly five million followers on youtube alone. Wouldn't this be interesting content?"

Akiho just blinked, evenly "I'd suggest you apologize, and then walk away unless you want this everywhere"

His face grew to a brighter red "You can't record me! That's - that's illegal or something!"

Jady smiled, still happily in her seat "Technically, this is public land, public property, so we have every right to record our family vacation, it's not our fault you interuppted and started harassing our sister."

Delaney smiled too, bright, simple, and oh-so-threatening "We wouldn't want that to get out now, would we? So why don't you just scurry along and not bother us, or any other people who clearly want nothing to do with you!"

The new star of Jarsiri's show just stared blankly at them for a moment, then scowled even more, but turned and stormed off, as if he had any right to be upset over a situation he'd caused in the first place.

Arietta blinked, puffing out her cheeks as the siblings slowly moved back to the volleyball net to start their game in a few minutes, "Well...this is only a reminder that I never want to be on the wrong side of the Morrigan family."

Kei smiled a little at her, shaking his head "All of us like you, you're pretty safe."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

She smiled again, that soft, sincere thing, but glanced to her side and brightened "Oh! It's Finn and Oudia! They told me they were coming to the beach this weekend!" She stood, taking his hand and pulling him up. Before he could register what was happening, she tugged him to where they were coming down to meet the family, only a few feet from the makeshift volleyball court.

Oudia was in a yellow bikini, Finn beside her in dark blue shorts, swinging her hand in his gently. Kei noted it absently, feeling the slight relief of knowing that Oudai and Finn were dating each other. Of course, that didn't account for the fact that they might be polyamorous-

"Oudia! Finn! Meet my boyfriend, Keitaro Morrigan!"

What.

"Boyfriend?" He felt himself echo the word.

Behind him, he heard Yume, "Boyfriend??"

His siblings followed suit, and he could practically feel the blazing gazes of each of them on his back. "Boyfriend ?!"

There was a beat of silence then, and Arietta turned to face him "..yeah? Is..everything okay?"

"I, you, well, Arietta - we're dating?"

There was again that tense silence, and he felt her hand slip from his, clasping it in her other one as she held it to her chest "..we aren't?"

Kei felt shell shocked, to put it simply. He didn't have any words at the moment, staring at her. Everything felt slow, but suddenly he saw the slow lining of tears in Arietta's eyes, her mouth beginning to tremble as she bit the inside of her cheek to prevent the start of her crying.

"Oh."

The word echoed across the sand, into the ocean, and into the hollows of his now entirely empty mind. He didn't even have the thought to reach for her again, to grab her hand and tell her that he was in love with her, before she turned and took off towards the parking lot.

He didn't even have enough sense to chase after her.

✦

✦ OPHELIA ✦

hi everyone!

i've made a schedule for myself recently
and dictated specific time for writing
so i'm not overdoing it. i've decided that
you're all probably write, and publishing
multiple chapters in a week for multiple
weeks in a row isn't good for me, so
if i do start doing that again, and it isn't
break, please encourage me to stop. It's
not good for me, and i'm gonna do my
best to manage my time properly!

i love you all, thank you for your
support and care for me. I love
you all so much, and i really started
crying when you all started to 
comment your love and support.

anyway, please enjoy this chapter. today
is a free day for me in my schedule, so
i decided to try writing a bit. I won't be
publishing another chapter till next week!

<3 thankyou all again,
this has got to be the best applyfic
group i've ever been a part of 

What would your characters swimsuit/ beach attire look like?

──● answers