Chapter Text
Life in the real world was hard. You really had to work at your job. You had to put in so much effort to make friends, who never even wanted to have a girls’ night in. Even going to the beach was hard! It was hard to find the time, it was hard learning how to swim, and when you got home, you had to shower again because there were tiny pieces of the sand all over you! It was also weird. The entire concept of liquid took a lot of getting used to. Bathing in it, drinking it, having it come out of pretty much your whole body. And bodies in general- so soft and squishy! And the hair they grew!
Barbie, now officially Barbara, could not get used to all the body hair. Empowered women may not have to shave their legs, but Barbie certainly kept hers hair-free. It seemed like a small thing she could control, in a world where there was so much out of her control. Real world fashions were generally a lot more drab than what she was used to, but she still managed to wear some of her signature pink most days, too.
Mattel had been good enough to offer her a job, probably out of fear she’d be picked up by a competitor if they didn’t. The pay was good enough that she didn’t have to stay with Gloria for any longer than it took for her to at least sort of familiarize herself with how to live in her new world.
So today marked a whole year since she’d left Barbie World. It didn’t feel like a big enough event to take off work from, but it seemed like an occasion she should mark in some way. She’d decided to grab takeout from her favorite Italian place on the way back to her apartment, which she’d enjoy with a glass of wine. Then Gloria and Sasha were going to come over for a rare girls’ night.
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Ken had fully intended to find his place in Barbie World after Barbie left, and to be happy that she was happy, and to move on. For about two months, he tried different jobs. He successfully convinced the government to approve a housing development for Kens (not dreamhouses, but small apartments). He rode horses; he never realized Barbie World even had horses! But with everything he tried, and everything he accomplished, he couldn’t stop thinking about Barbie. She may not really care what he was doing, but he still wished he could tell her about it. He could be Ken without her, and he felt like he was doing a decent job of it so far, but he really, really missed her. So after everyone was asleep one night, he borrowed a car and started the journey back to the real world, without a word to anyone.
He didn’t have much of a plan. Ideally he’d run into Barbie after he arrived, with an, “Oh, I was just in the neighborhood, how’ve you been?” Did that sound stupid? Probably. Maybe he should pretend he’d been practicing his driving and had gotten lost? Maybe part of the reason she’d left was to get away from him, and she’d actually just be annoyed he’d followed her. By the time Ken arrived at real world beach, he’d decided that coming after Barbie was a mistake. But he didn’t want to go back to Barbie World with all the other Barbies and the endless perfect days that he’d spend missing his Barbie. She was somewhere here, in this world. Maybe he could stay here, and be Ken here, and at least know that Barbie was out there somewhere, looking at the same sky he was. For tonight, he supposed he could sleep on the beach, like he’d done in Barbie World for so long.