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Star Pox (10) : Genetically modified fruits aren’t exactly new but every now and then something seems to be going on with them. This year, it’s star fruit. The entire batch from Destiny City’s largest supplier has a strange side effect; a few minutes after eating one, star-shaped ‘freckles’ will begin to cover the skin. While this has been colloquially dubbed’ star pox’, it appears to be a harmless allergic reaction. The freckles fade after a few hours and pose no actual health risks; they’ve become quite popular across social media. This might be your only chance to experience the strange trend! …Unless sales are good enough to bring them back.


This time of year, in spite of it all, remained among Pasha's absolute favorites. It might have been his endless and insistent optimism at play, but no amount of chaos or conflict could fully detract from the little things that brought him joy. There was the annual arrival of the season's first fireflies (an especially important moment, of course), the shifting of seasons that seemed to bring a generally perkier mood to everyone - and the Star Festival, one of his Absolute Musts. Though it wasn't something that had been around for his entire lifetime, it was something that managed to feel like it had, rising up to the top of the events he looked forward to most.

Naturally, this meant that he had to enjoy the festival to the absolute fullest at every chance he got. He always took his time checking out every new stall and vendor, and if something especially neat caught his eye that he hadn't seen in previous years, he would shuffle his entire list of plans and priorities to push it to the top. After stocking up on starry accessories of all kinds, he was just beginning to poke through the section of the festival dedicated to vendors of foods and confections when he heard some sort of squealing and commotion; not anything that seemed bad, as far as he could tell, so he had to assume that just meant there was something super fun in thar direction! Right?

After making a note of where he was leaving off, and trying and failing to see what was going on by standing on his tippy toes, he took his place in the flow of the crowd until he made it to the stall he thought was causing the stir. And it seemed like it was...fruit? Not that fruit wasn't neat and all, but it wasn't something that he thought would get a reaction like that, especially since it had been around for...probably a million years, at least.

Well, maybe he'd guessed the spot wrong. And he was here anyway, so it was only polite to pretend he was as excited about fruit as he would be about candy. Happily, he discovered that he kind of was - one of the people helping tend to the stall had cut starfruit cross-sections in such a way that they could fit together on a stick, like some kind of star kebab or fruit dango. How cute!

Too cute to eat without taking a bunch of pictures, in fact. And maybe a few videos too! He delightedly carried his newest prize to a spot out of the way, where he took some pictures of it, and him, and him and it, before finally taking a bite.

"Ooh, it's good!" he remarked aloud, the words startled out of him by genuine surprise that he'd like a fruit this much. The first of the stars on the stick went down with just one more big bite, and he started scrolling through effect borders to try and find one that said something like 'Destiny City Star Festival' on it, his own image reflected back to him as borders full of hearts and glitter and summer icons flickered by.

He stopped with a little gasp when he got to one that seemed to have given him star freckles. It was a weird clash with the filter tint and border itself, which seemed more beach themed than star themed, but he HAD to use this one if it was going to give him freckle stars! As he glanced down to grab his treat for another bite, he happened to catch a glimpse of some subtle differences in the usual freckles that dotted his arms.

Those were stars too?!

"No way! No way." He turned his arm over to examine it at another angle, then looked at the fruit he held. Had that been what the noise was about? It had to be, right? Was it some kind of trick, or a bad trap? It was an awfully cute trap, if so...

If he ever grew wary of the fruit for any part of the festival, one would never be able to tell. For the entire remainder of the celebration - and a few hours after - his camera roll and every single post made to his socials prominently featured a generous scattering of star-shaped freckles across his skin.