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There's not much to this mundane detective's life.
She does papers. She lounges on the couch with her favorite shark. They'll do nothing with each other next to each other.
Gura'll scroll though social media, her tail slapping the couch when she spots something funny. Amelia usually takes notice and lifts her head up after stuffing it into the buttery yellow folder of papers that're pushed up against her knees. All she'll really do is smile at the silver-haired shark as she continues to go through her phone.
Gura hums a song. Sweet, yet somehow melancholic. The upbeat tone is hiding a different meaning under it. Frankly, the nostalgia tugging at Amelia's busyworked brain is killing her. She needs a distraction.
"Hey, stinky," Amelia goes, her voice raspily toned.
"Hm?" She's still looking at her phone.
"What song's that?"
Gura pauses. She tilts her head to the side away from Amelia, using her bangs to hide her face a little. She softly speaks, "Um.. You don't remember?"
A side of the detective wants to shut herself up so the two of them could go back to what they were doing, but the side of her that wanted to keep initiating the conversation kept whispering directly into her ear as if this was an important thing to ask.
Amelia shakes her head.
Gura turns to look at her detective and raises an eyebrow before smiling gently, a warm and friendly smile that made all the butterflies in Amelia's stomach start bubbling again. "Well, you taught me this song, you... defecto detecto!" she says, giggling.
The time-traveler gives a smile to her shark's silly antics as she looks deep into her ocean-blue eyes fondly with both adoration, yet curiosity. She wants to open her mouth but something in herself is keeping it shut. She has no words to speak. She doesn't know the questions she wants to ask, but desperately yearns to know the answers to all of them.
She keeps this all to herself.
Gura goes on, obviously noticing Amelia's perplexion.
"Well, then. I'll sing it with the words for ya, m'kay?"
The girl clears her throat. "Ahem. Hm~
"Not long ago in my highschool days..."
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January 17th, 1998
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Setting foot into the video store, Amelia H. Watson has her head low. A familiar, bubbly voice... The one she was looking for.
It was Gura.
The shark girl whom the detective used to attend highschool together with was tapping her shoe on the tiles and waiting in line.
Amelia is becoming aware of her surroundings. Gura's holding a movie disk case. And there:
Ina was by Gura's side.
Amelia stood still in disbelief. What happened to this timeline? To the promises they both made?
She lets out a coughed laugh, trying to tell herself that it was all fake - that it was all just another joke that Holmes had pulled on her.
But no: the feeling of pained tears rolling down her cold cheeks was all too real.
Running away from reality, the detective conceals her emotions. She tips her deerstalker hat and wipes her tears with her already rain-soaked hand, yet more small drops prick the edges of her eyes again.
Now outside in the gloomy streets painted of abstract grays and somehow nostalgic ash-blue hues, Amelia stops for a moment. She looks behind her and notices that both Gura and Ina hadn't moved an inch. What difference did it really make if Amelia didn't... well... make a difference?
The blonde detective places a hand on the glass walls of the video store. The downpour of rain formed raindrops on the glass, merging together on the window to form a liquidy reflection of herself. The splayed palm turns into a fist.
' Why am I even crying? I shouldn't be crying. '
Amelia reaches into the inner pockets of her trench coat and pulls out her notepad alongside a pen that she covers up from the rain with her own body. With two large swoops that feel like slashes to the heart, she overlaps 'Gawr Gura,' the blood-red ink seeping through the beige 1900s paper. It's like the sound of the ball in the pen swishing against the paper is echoing in her head louder than the rain, louder than the thunder, louder than anything else but the sound of her heart beating in her chest.
A drop or two of salty water fall onto the page before she's able to sniffle and wipe them away with the sleeve of her coat.
' Ugh.. Pull yourself together, Watson. I can fix this. We can fix this. We always have. '
With the click of a button on her watch, Amelia's back to where she started. A flash of blue splashes through the detective's head, clouding all but one of her thoughts: Gura, Gura, Gura, echoing through her head.
In the endless void of timelines, Amelia typically stands beside Amelia and Amelia and Amelia and Amelia, all reflections of past attempts and so many that she loses count and her head starts to hurt. This time, Amelia stands alone. Alone in the infinite abyss of time.
But no. Amelia knows better.
During the first loop, there is no time to waste.
Click
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