Nagisa Kaido walked among the waves of the undertow, watching and waiting. She was good at that, and the waters of the Fukushima shore both calmed her and gave her more reason to worry. If she closed her eyes and walked, she could feel the pull of destiny here, strong and manifold. The undertow pulled her towards many directions and the one true path at the same time. The sea shone, and was great and vast.

Some people used space as references for eternity; Nagisa used the ocean. It wasn't as vast, but it went on forever in a loop around the world, and that was good enough.

She heard a small snort - familiar - and turned, smiled, and wiggled her fingers at the newcomer.

"Ah, Fuma, how wonderful to finally see you here," she said, in Japanese, because it was the language of the land.

"Good to be had," Fuma said, in perfect English, because it was the language of his deviant's heart. A crooked smile played at his lips, and his hair once again was dyed with honey brown highlights. Nagisa still smiled, despite the worry. Fuma was too neat for the beach - he looked out of place in his designer clothing, a very tame goth Loli get-up that of course looked splendid on him. He wore running shoes here, in this place that saw so few of them because the sand filled them, consumed them. "How are your grandparents?"

"They are absent," Nagisa said, now in English, accented but good, because speaking the language now felt important somehow. "Taking holiday in...Jamaica? Haiti? One of these. Which is the one with the voodoo men who make zombie slaves?"

Zombie had been Nagisa's first word of English, after the words, night, of, the, living, and dead. It had somewhat stayed with her.

"Haiti," Fuma said, cocking his head. Nagisa said, "Ah, I see. Then let us hope they are not in Jamaica!"

Fuma's eyes softened as he looked at his best friend, soaking and starting to stumble in the undertow as they walked in what Nagisa, at least, would have called two very different paths. He held his hand out. "Here," he said, "it isn't safe. There are sea creatures. Nessie's escaped, you know."

"Nessie," Nagisa said, and made a short, high bark of laughter that might have scared sea birds, if there were any near. "Nessie is a fiction weaved by the Scottish government for silly American tourists. We are Japanese, and know better of that."

"So," Fuma said, smiling, "did you ever find that tengu that stole your underwear?"

"Oh," Nagisa said, accepting Fuma's hand and coming out of the water. "Well."

"Yes," Fuma said, eyes amused. "'Oh.' There was a man, William Shakespeare. Yukino would know him as the comic relief in Romeo X Juliet, silly girl she is. As he said, there are more things in heaven and earth."

"Than what?" Nagisa said, nose scrunching in confusion. "More things in heaven and earth. As opposed to what?"

Fuma grinned, and said, "'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than dreamed of in your philosophy.' That's from Hamlet, act one, scene five. It's not in the curriculum here, but it probably will be for my new school."

"You're moving?" Nagisa said, startled back into Japanese. "Where? When? How? I thought your father was too enamored of his job here to move to Tokyo!"

"Not Tokyo," Fuma said. "That was years ago, and I'm sure the position there is filled capably by now. He got an offer as a pyrotechnician in America, in California. We couldn't afford Los Angeles, so we're moving to a town called Port Fugue. An odd name for a place to settle permanently and sanely."

"California," Nagisa said, feeling faint. "Oh. I...will you come back to Japan often? You are my only friend, Fuma. You're the only one I want here."

"The only?" Fuma teased. "What about Ma-ri-na?"

"Marina," Nagisa said quietly, "will never love me. My heart always aims too high."

"Hey," Fuma said, pulling her close, "you'll always have me. I'll always be your friend."

"Will you warm my bed?" Nagisa said in English, keeping her head down as she said it to hide her embarrassed blush. "No, don't answer. You would, wouldn't you?"

"Nagi," Fuma said, "we're young. We're hot. We're young, hot up-and-comers, and we have our entire lives before us. You don't have to find your one true love before the end of high school. In fact, that almost never happens. If you decided to sleep with me, it would be a great honor, and I would rock your world. But don't make the first person you sleep with your only hope, okay? For the girl's sake as well as yours."

"Up-and-comers, huh?" Nagisa said. "How terribly you've demoted me! I was number thirteen in Rolling Stone Japan's top thirty bright new stars, and now I am only up-and-coming!"

"Yeah, well," Fuma frowned, "you may have struck it big before you hit fourteen, Ms. Pianissimo Belissima, but some of us still don't know what to write. Seinen, shounen? God forbid, josei?"

"Shoujo, definitely," Nagisa said. "Don't think I haven't seen those issues of Sailor Moon under your bed, and I know Sailor Moon isn't your kind of pin-up girl."

"Who said anything about Sailor Moon?" Fuma laughed. "Sailor Mars is hot. And Prince Diamond isn't out of the running, either, even though he's a...what's the English word for yowamushi?"

"I don't know," Nagisa said, and then they were quiet, the only sounds the happy yells of the young and the turning of the tides. Even on the sand, Nagisa could have told you, there was destiny. It was strongest in the water, but it was here on the shores, in the city, in the suburbs, in the mountainside onsen, in Belgium and Vienna and England, and, Nagisa was certain, in Port Fugue.

"I'm coming with you," Nagisa announced, "to Port Fugue."

The sun ignited the waters in a spectacular sunset, and it felt somehow not very melodramatic at all. Fuma looked down at his friend. He said, "They don't allow minors to have housing in California, I think. Where will you go?"

"Like I said," Nagisa said, "I'm coming with you. Didn't your parents always say that I was like a daughter to them? I hope they still think that. They were more my guardians than Chinami and Kosuke."

"Your grandparents still have control over your life," Fuma said. "You'll have to get permission from both sets of step-parents, the evil and the sainted."

"I don't have to worry about the evil step-mother. She's not really evil, but in any case, Chinami would only be thrilled to get rid of me," Nagisa said. "Until I am twenty, she has access to my bank account, and she doesn't like to be reminded that it is mine."

"Nagisa," Fuma said, then paused. He sighed, and said, "Thanks for coming with. I'll tell my parents that you're coming along, and I'll try to work out a decent rent for you. Mom and pop won't mind at all."

"Is your mother still trying to get us together?" Nagisa asked. Fuma snorted, and said, "Yes, damn you. Not happening, not if you were the last attractive human in the world. I like you, but you're like my sister. That's too gross."

"And you have man parts," Nagisa said. Fuma snorted. He said, "Yeah, and I think I'll keep them. Come on, the sand's going to kill my only pair of good shoes, and then I'll have to go shopping with mom tomorrow and I'll miss a perfectly good Sunday."