-A Changing Snack-(My Winning RP Contest Entry)
A short gust of wind drew a strand of platinum blonde hair from its carefully groomed position, yet the rouge hairs remained unnoticed. The young woman lounged on a deck chair, sprawled across it elegantly. Though her gaze was directed in the general direction of the clear waters of the hotel’s pool, her eyes were unfocused. She was barely conscious, the comforting heat of the sun luring her to sleep.
However, events conspired to prevent the woman from getting any rest to compensate for her late night the night before. A loud splash resulted in her being soaked with cool water, her position being rather nearer to the pool’s crystal clear waters than many of the other lounge chairs spread about its perimeter. She made a disgusted noise in her throat, turning her gaze to the child that had just jumped in, one who was now followed by what she assumed was a younger brother yelling “cannonball!” Again, a wave of water broke at the pool’s edge, and again a blast of spray swept over her. ‘Children are so noisy,’ she thought, though she had never been allowed to be so carefree at that age, ‘Such a nice hotel as this oughtn’t let such rambunctious people as they are in. I suppose they’re willing to take in anyone who possesses the money to pay.’ She made another small noise expressing her disgust. Her father, of course, was the one paying for her stay, and she rationalized this to herself in saying “he offered.”
She glanced down at herself, exasperated at being wet. She had just purchased this bikini, and wondered how they dared. Not only had they gotten her wet, but they’d not bothered to apologize, and their parents had seen nothing wrong with their actions. She contemplated glaring at them, yet decided otherwise, not deeming them worth potentially wrinkling her forehead from frowning. Instead, with an air of nonchalance, she relaxed once more, slipping on the vintage shades she had forgotten to wear before and arranging herself in such a way as to develop the most even tan possible.
Her hand reached to the small box of chocolate pocky she had at her side. ‘Even the rich,’ she thought rather guiltily, ‘deserved certain pleasures that just so happen to be cheap.’ Only a single piece of pocky was left in the box, yet her manicured figures slid it out with the greatest amount of grace she could muster. She began to nibble slowly on the chocolate enveloped stick of biscuit, disregarding the fact that the sun may melt the chocolate and it might drip onto her crimson nails. She savored the chocolate as it spread across her tongue, and enjoyed the textural contrast of the biscuit stick. As she finished it, she gazed at her sullied nail and sighed. Then, she glanced around furtively and, after ascertaining no one was looking, carefully licked the chocolate from her fingers, rather disappointed she hadn’t realized the box only contained one.
Loathe to be seen purchasing pocky, she remembered there was one in her room. Her older brother had given it to her as a joke, knowing of her furtive love of the treat. She vaguely remembered a comment that it was hand-made, gourmet, and “special” in some way, but she hadn’t deemed it necessary to remember. Still, in her hotel room laid a piece of pocky. She couldn’t resist, and her sweet tooth only served to drag her on. As she stood, wrapping a towel around her bikini-clad form, she pushed back memories of her brother teasing her for her sweet tooth, saying she’d get fat. She had, of course, indignantly retorted something to the effect of “I don’t need sugar, I simply like it a lot, and if I work out every day I’ll remain quite skinny, thank you!” And he had, of course, been unable to reply due to being doubled up laughing.
She strode to the elevator with as much cool elegance as she could muster, staring icily at any who dared look in her direction. Her brother was such an immature person, and he did so enjoy bothering her. The difficulty was in that he knew just how to annoy her most. He targeted that which she felt most self conscious about: her love of sweets which she deemed unbefitting of one of her social status. Still feeling rather frustrated with her brother, she stood off to the side and waited for an elevator to arrive. While she had been by the pool, the sun had been shining down on her, keeping her warm. Inside the hotel itself, though, air conditioning maintained a cool temperature. While normally that temperature was quite satisfactory, she was still damp despite the towel she had wrapped tightly around herself. Always susceptible to cold temperatures, she found herself shivering slightly and longing to escape to the sanctuary of her hotel room, where she maintained the thermostat at a temperature she found more to her liking: a steady 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
The chime noting the elevator’s arrival, a high pitched noise that generally rather annoyed her, was this time welcomed. She carefully picked her way into the elevator which was surprisingly cramped, though thankfully vacant of the atrocious music that occasionally accompanied the devices. She called her floor to the poor man hired by the hotel for the purpose of pressing the elevator’s buttons, and he obliged. The building was thirty floors high, and gradually emptied as people reached their respective floors and exited. By the time they reached her floor, there was only one left to continue upward, other than the staff. The elevator dinged yet again, as it did every time a destination was reached. The small number 23 appeared on the digital readout of which floor they were on, and the doors opened smoothly. She had requested, or rather demanded, the best suite on the twenty-third floor, and it was the best suite on the twenty-third floor that she received. She had felt good about the number twenty-three: it was her age and, oddly, had always been a lucky number. ‘I should have a lucky year,’ she thought, reminding herself to take advantage of it.
She strode down the corridor, her key-card in the slot when she reached her door. The room was indeed one of the better suites in the hotel, only slightly below the penthouse, yet she was not impressed by the splendor. Eager to shed her cold exterior and revel in the warmth of her room, kept at a comfortable eighty degrees, she grabbed a change of clothes and began to change. Knowing she was in no mood to exit the room, much less the hotel, she did not put her usual care into selecting a trendy and carefully matched outfit, and as a result looked more casual and less forced than she often did in public. A loose red top and a black silk skirt were hastily thrown on, and she set herself to looking for the pocky.
Unsure where it could be, she began with the obvious places yet soon realized thought was futile: the refrigerator would have protected it from the heat, yet she hadn’t the foresight to think of such a thing before it was too late. If she had planed to eat it soon, it might have been on a table or on the counter in the full kitchen. She even picked through her suitcases, yet to no avail. She was greatly relieved when, finally, she found it in the closet, in a place she never would have thought to look. She pulled out the thin shape and set it on her table as she returned to the rooms she had searched and turned out the lights, as something about rooms with lights left on annoyed her nearly as much as her brother. She returned to the table and set down, tilting her head slightly to the side and examining it.
It was wrapped in parchment paper with “Gourmet Pocky Shoppe” emblazoned on it in a light brown font. The packaging was mainly uniform, yet seemed a bit excessive in size when compared to the single treat within. Even after unwrapping and examining it from all angles, she saw nothing that would in any way cause her to say it was “special.” Yes, it was rather less uniform than the factory produced ones and yes, she could tell there was a definite difference in the quality of chocolate used, that would all be expected of any product calling itself a “gourmet” version of a mass produced item. ‘Perhaps,’ she thought, ‘there’s something special about the flavor? Or maybe it’s just the hundredth they sold.’ She attempted to reconcile t she did not even admit to herself she had that it was not “special” as her brother had said. Still, pocky was pocky, and this looked better than most.
She extended her hand toward the biscuit stick, yet hastily pulled it back as she felt a sort of pulsing. It had seemed to originate from the pocky, yet she was far too well learned to believe in something like a magical origin. It was, of course, a figment of her imagination. Convinced of this, she reached out one more time, longing to devour the chocolate pocky laying innocently before her. Once again, she felt an odd pulsing and instinctively yanked back her hand. This time, however, it did not stop after she removed her hand from the vicinity of the pocky. The outline of the pocky began to shimmer and then, much to her surprise, morph. Its outline and colors became vague, misty, and undefined. It seemed to gradually take on the form of something animalistic, and eventually it became obvious that the pocky was transforming into something human.
After a mere few minutes, where pocky she was about to eat lay now a young boy sat, looking around as if disorientated and confused. His hair was cropped and the same color as his deep brown eyes. He was, in fact, quite beautiful and seemed to have a look of boyish innocence and mischievousness about him. There was one thing about him, however, that could not be missed despite her mind already being overloaded by the shock of having what she had planned to eat turn into a human. This young boy, who could be no more than ten, was sitting on the table in her suite completely, and unashamedly, naked. Normally, she would have averted her eyes and been utterly useless. Now, however, her mind was in a rather shocked state and she later commented it was just as if it was another thing, nothing nearly so special as his hair being the exact color of milk chocolate, and definitely not as confusing as the odd aroma of chocolate now wafting about the room.
She took it in stride, disappearing into her closet to find the most sexually ambiguous clothes she owned and proffering them to the boy. When she found he had no idea what to do with clothing, having been pocky and never having any experience with the stuff, she calmly helped him get dressed. “Your name?” she asked, among various other comments that seemed to be spewing from her mouth with no way of stopping them. He had shaken his head. ‘How on earth would he have a name? It would be a marvel if he can even talk’ she remembered thinking. “It’s not a problem, Kaoni, we’ll think of something.” She had said the name without thinking, once having a dog she had named that, however she found it fit. “Kaoni,” he repeated, forming the word and feeling it. Then he nodded briefly.
By now, he was garbed in a loose t-shirt and shorts; however both were too large for his small form. “We’ll go shopping later, Kaoni. I just have to lay down for a bit.” She turned around, yet found it was simpler to sit then to walk all the way to the bed. ‘I’m rather dizzy,’ she remembered thinking, ‘maybe I’m sick.’ After that, she remembered no more for a few hours, having feinted rather belatedly from the shock and crumpled to the floor. Kaoni, however, remembers finding the vast amounts of chocolate she had stored in various locations. He remembers using it to draw pretty pictures on the wall he could show the nice lady when she woke up. He remembers jumping of the bed and having a great time. And he also remembers how shocked the lady was when she woke to find he had not been a dream, and then her horror and the chocolate smeared across the walls.
