Chapter Text
The hot Splatlandian sun beamed down on the sea creatures living in the city of Splatsville.
In one of the many scrapyards found in the desert surrounding the city, a young Inkling girl was sitting on a modestly sized boulder, doting on a little creature in her lap—her Salmonid friend that was named Kipper. She repeatedly brushed her hand over the orange fringe on Kipper’s head before using the same hand to scratch under his chin. The Salmonid closed his eyes in bliss and gurgled happily, making the Inkling girl giggle once his tongue began to hang from his mouth.
“Veronika!”
The Inkling raised her head towards the direction of the person who called for her. Once she recognized who the voice belonged to, a bright smile formed on her face.
“Hey, Hiro!” Veronika greeted her approaching friend, who was an Octoling boy around her age. “Was Judo practice fun?”
“Eh, it was alright,” Hiro shrugged, “Honestly I couldn’t wait to get back home, ‘cause I wanted to hang out with you.”
“Are you ever gonna show me some of your moves? I wanna see you in action!” Veronika joked. Hiro bashfully scratched the back of his head.
“Haha, um, well…”
“ Veronika!”
The Inkling flinched. Kipper suddenly jumped from Veronika’s lap and scurried away to safety. Kipper was afraid of the person who had that voice.
Veronika also recognized this second person who shouted her name, but this person did not bring the same kind of joy that someone like Hiro did. The good mood quickly dissolved as she spotted her father’s lanky figure walking over to her.
“How many times have I told ya not to talk to those upper-classers?” he chastised on arrival, an annoyed scowl on his face. “Ya just don’t listen, girl!”
“Sorry, Pa…” Veronika looked down at her boots.
“Ya always are, huh? Go take in the scrap from today.”
“Yes, Pa…”
Veronika hopped down from the boulder and slowly went on her way, hanging her head low. Hiro watched her with sadness in his eyes until Veronika’s father spoke, or rather barked, once again.
“Well, go on! Git! Don’tcha got yer cushy place to run off to?” Veronika’s father glowered at Hiro for a moment. He then turned up his nose and started to walk back towards the way he came.
“Bet yer just as spoiled as they come.”
Hiro stared down the Inkling man with the angriest glare an eleven-year-old could manage to give. Never did he wish so badly that he could shoot laser beams from his eyes and burn holes into the back of another person’s head until now.
When her father was completely out of sight, Hiro wandered over to the downtrodden Veronika, who was busy loading scrap into a weathered utility wagon.
“Psst, Vee…”
Veronika blinked, then whipped her head around to look at the Octoling boy.
“Let’s meet at Turtle Rock tomorrow afternoon,” he whispered to her.
Slowly, a toothy grin made its way onto Veronika’s face, and Hiro was pleased by this. Hiro liked to see Veronika smiling again.
“Yeah! I’ll see you there!” her singular braid bobbed up and down with her eager nod. “You can count on it!”
“See ya, then!”
— <> ⦁ <> ⦁ <> —
That was the last time he ever saw her.
Summer vacation came and went, yet Veronika didn’t appear at school once it was back in session. As her absence stretched from a week into a month, and then eventually the remainder of his middle school years, Hiro resigned to the reality that Veronika possibly lost contact when she disappeared from his life. But a small part of him never accepted that completely—not with knowing of the dynamic that made up Veronika’s family. Could it be called a “family” really…?
Hiro found himself yearning every now and then, wishing he could see his best friend just one more time. Even if it would only whittle down to exchanging proper goodbyes between each other before going their own separate ways, Hiro just wanted to know if Veronika made it out okay.
That was why it turned out to be quite the surprise when during a particularly boring Human Studies class, reading the same few lines over and over again from his textbook, Hiro thought himself to be hallucinating as he half-heartedly listened to his teacher break the silence with her announcement.
“Class, pardon the interruption—but we have a new student joining us,” the barred mudskipper droned, known to the students as Ms. Barrera, “Please give a warm welcome to the one and only…Veronika.”
“Hey.”
Hiro perked up immediately, his red eyes snapping up to land on said new student. Was that the very same Veronika he knew?
Surely, it could be one of those instances where one person had the same name as another…
As the class murmured a chorus of various greetings, ranging from actual spoken “Hellos” and “Heys” to non-committal mumbles and hums, Hiro’s eyes scanned over the Inkling girl standing at the front of the classroom.
Yellow tentacles with one done up in a braid and the other hanging free, yellow eyes with an orange ring around each outer iris, a set of small eyebrows with one brandishing a slit…
Veronika had a little notch in her right tentacle’s sucker that reminded him of one of the ancient languages' numbers. What was it called again? Number three?
Thinking about it that way would help him for next week’s quiz, at least—
“If you’re not going to greet our new student, Mister Kanaloa, then at the very least you should refrain from staring at her.” Ms. Barrera remarked, looking straight at the Octoling over her tiny, oval shaped glasses.
Hiro sat up a little straighter in his seat and cleared his throat, directing his eyes back to his textbook.
“Uh, right…sorry.” he muttered. He tried to ignore the snickers and giggles of his classmates around him.
Veronika’s eyes appeared to light up at the mention of Hiro’s last name, now curiously eyeing the Octoling boy who was pretending to be very interested in his textbook, but remained silent otherwise.
“You may take a seat now, Veronika; I’ll give you a textbook in a moment. We’re currently on page three-hundred-eighty.”
“Sure, Teach’,” Veronika voiced as she headed to an unoccupied desk, which happened to be in the row just ahead of Hiro but one spot to the right, making her sitting across from him diagonally.
Hiro stole a glance at the Inkling again, now able to see her from behind as she took out a notebook and pencil from her travel-worn messenger bag.
Her school uniform consisted of the typical white button-up shirt and a long, light gray pleated skirt, although some of her shirt buttons were undone and her clothes were wrinkled in a few places. She wore boots instead of school loafers, which Hiro found odd but soon decided he had no room to judge, as he himself was wearing his U-Jelly sneakers and many other students donned their choice of footwear besides loafers. Despite that, everything else about her seemed normal enough.
But was this truly the same Veronika from his childhood?
He needed to get a better look at her hair…
“Psst, Hiro! You got the answer to practice question number five?” a lime green Inkling boy whispered, neighboring the left of Hiro’s seat and shaking the Octoling’s shoulder to get his attention. Irritated from being startled by his classmate, Hiro faced him with knitted eyebrows.
“Why don’t you read the passage yourself, Clyde? That one’s easy.” he hissed.
“It’s way too long! Pretty soon I’ll be as ancient as these humans by the time I finish it.”
“Well you better get a move on, then. The questions are due at the end of class.” Hiro responded before turning back to his own assignment.
“Shit…”
Frazzled, Clyde settled on trying to tackle the behemoth of a paragraph, deciding to leave Hiro be. But Hiro wasn’t even sure if he could concentrate on the rest of his schoolwork now—not with the novel situation that happened within the last ten minutes.
He needed to know for sure if the new student really was Veronika, his childhood best friend that suddenly disappeared off the face of the Earth one day.
If Hiro’s late-night-zone-out music listening sessions had amounted to something, and all his prayers and wishes had finally come true…then by cod he wasn’t going to question it for a single second.
He and Veronika had lots of catching up to do.
— <> ⦁ <> ⦁ <> —
Finishing his assignment at the very first ring of the school bell, Hiro scrambled to pack up his supplies and placed his worksheet atop the pile on Ms. Barrera’s desk. He hurried into the hallway and looked around for the new student, desperately hoping she didn’t slip away into the sea of high schoolers. Luckily, he caught sight of her without much difficulty.
“Hey, Veronika!”
Veronika turned her head towards the voice. Her eyes darted around until she saw the indigo Octoling boy maneuvering around students, intent on reaching her.
“Uhh, hi…‘Mister Kanaloa’?” Veronika hesitantly greeted once he was close, as she didn’t know his name. Hiro let out a brief chuckle.
“Yes, that’s me,” he confirmed with jest, before becoming serious again. “So, this might be a weird question, but…could I see your hair?”
“My hair?” Veronika raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah. It’s interesting; I was wondering how you styled it.”
“Uh, sure.”
Veronika gathered up her tentacles and awkwardly presented them to the Octoling, who inspected them carefully.
Don’t see that notch in her suction cup…
She turned the ends of her tentacles over on each side to provide a completely thorough look. Ever so slightly, Hiro’s posture deflated, masking the disappointment he felt from showing up on his face.
No, maybe it isn’t her after all…
“All done?” Veronika asked.
“Yeah, thanks…” a sigh came from the Octoling as he adjusted his backpack straps, getting ready to make his leave. “Sorry to bother you. I thought you were someone I knew, since you look weirdly familiar.”
“Do they wear their hair like mine?”
“She did when we were little…she also had a small chunk of her suction cup gone, since her fish friend accidentally chewed it off in his sleep.”
The Inkling girl froze after hearing that. Her fire-ringed irises flickered at Hiro, staring at the boy hard.
Hiro had no other choice but to stare back, finding himself growing uncomfortable under her scrutiny, but maintained eye contact nonetheless as he waited to see what she would do next.
“…Hiro?”
Hiro tilted his head with a nervous smile. Did she recognize him?
Veronika grabbed her right tentacle and turned up the underside, revealing the telltale divet in the wall of her suction cup that was immediately familiar to the Octoling.
“I was hiding it under my hand when I was showing you, since I’m a little conscious about it…”
Hiro stood in place, not believing his eyes, nor his ears.
It was really her.
“Veronika…”
Next thing she knew, Veronika was scooped into a hug by her no longer lost friend, much to her embarrassment.
“H-Hey, Hiro! Not in public, dude!”
She started to push Hiro away, but only used enough force to express that she wanted to be let go instead of rudely shoving him off. It certainly had been a long time since they last saw each other, but Veronika preferred to keep the displays of affection to themselves and not to the watchful eyes of the various students around her.
“Oh—my bad, Vee!” Hiro promptly released Veronika, trying to keep it cool (which was moot at this point, as Veronika felt a blush warming her cheeks).
“I’m just really happy to see you again! I’m glad you’re okay.”
“I’m happy to see you, too,” Veronika responded in earnest, despite looking elsewhere as she fiddled with her braid.
“What made you finally recognize me?”
“When the teacher called you by your last name, I wasn’t sure…but then you mentioned the aftermath of Kipper’s sleep-snacking, and I knew it was you.”
“You have to tell me everything that happened while you were gone!” Hiro briefly placed his hands on Veronika’s shoulders. “Well—not everything if you don’t want to, but you have to spill the important stuff.”
“Yeah man, of course,” she playfully punched him on his forearm once he removed his grip. “Maybe after school though, ‘cause I’m still trying to get used to everything.”
“For sure! Lemme give you my digits.”
“Ah—Um, I don’t have a phone…” Veronika sheepishly admitted.
“Oh…do you wanna meet up at a certain spot, then?” Hiro asked.
Veronika paused for a moment to weigh her options. It didn’t take long before a grin plastered itself across her face, already having the perfect place in mind.
“Let’s meet at Turtle Rock,” she suggested, “I won’t leave you hanging this time.”
“Can we head there together? I’ll wait for you at the school entrance,” Hiro said. His eyes then softened, gazing at Veronika with tenderness before he verbalized the sentiment he was currently feeling.
“I don’t want to lose you again…”
The moment was cut short when the school bell rang throughout the hallways, signaling the start of the next class period. The interruption gave Veronika a chance to think of the right thing to say next, as Hiro seemed to be heartfelt when he spoke to her.
“Don’t worry Hiro, you won’t lose me.” Veronika assured her best friend. She raised her pinky finger and extended her arm outwards to the Octoling boy, offering it for him to take.
Hiro couldn’t help but smile. He locked his own pinky finger with Veronika’s, feeling her finger curl tightly around his once they connected, and he reciprocated in response. The action seemed to serve as proof that Veronika was bound to her word, and she would not let him down.
Hiro looked up from their hands to have Veronika’s eyes meet his, her attention never wavering as the steadiness in her voice reinforced her trust.
“You can count on it.”
— <> ⦁ <> ⦁ <> —
After school ended, Veronika met up with Hiro at the entrance to Splatsville High School as she promised. Hiro bought snacks and drinks from the food truck parked near the school, and the reunited pair trekked to Turtle Rock, knowing the way by heart even after all the time that’s passed between them. Once they found their usual spot on the rock formation and tore open their food packaging, Hiro took a healthy sip from his drink and slammed the cup down on the stone, ready for Veronika to drop the details regarding her whereabouts for the last couple of years.
“Ahh…so lay it on me, Vee,” Hiro said, putting his prime focus on her as he laid on his side with an arm propping up his head.
Veronika rolled her drink cup back and forth across her interlocked hands.
“Well…it’s…shell, I don’t even know where to start.”
“Whatcha been doing all this time?”
“Just searching for scrap like I was raised to do,” she shrugged, “Nothin’ else interesting.”
“What happened on the day we were supposed to meet up here? Did you finally get fed up that I wasn’t showing you Judo stuff?” Hiro joked with a grin.
Veronika’s hands stopped rolling her cup. A somberness washed over her face, and she found herself unable to look at anything else besides her drink.
Sensing the mood shift, Hiro sat up straight and crossed his legs.
“Hey, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
“I-I do. Eventually,” Veronika insisted, her head snapping up to momentarily look at Hiro. Her gaze then settled on the desertscape in front of them. “Just…maybe another time.”
Hiro gave an understanding nod, looking down at the straw in his drink and playing with it. He decided to let Veronika ask something about him this time.
“Um…do you still do Judo, actually?”
“Nah, I couldn’t keep up with it,” he replied, “It was getting hard to juggle Judo and school since I had more responsibilities as I got older and all that. But on the upside, it gave me more free time in my schedule to do ink sports.”
“Ink sports?”
“Mhm, like Turf War and Anarchy Battles,” Hiro nodded. An excited look then suddenly lit up his face as an idea entered his head.
“Hey, we should play Turf War sometime!”
Hiro watched Veronika crumple her empty pretzel bag into a ball, her expression not changing into something more enthusiastic like he anticipated.
“Don’t think I’m fit for that.”
“Whaaat? Rough and tumble Veronika not fit for Turf War? No way!” Hiro gently nudged Veronika’s shoulder with his as she finished the last of her drink. “I think you’d be a natural.”
“Maybe…” Veronika put the crumpled ball into her empty drink cup, closing the lid over it. A bit of silence passed between the two after that.
Carp, this isn’t going too well…
Hiro didn’t want to force Veronika to keep talking about something she seemed to hold little interest in, so he desperately racked his brain for a subject that would make for more suitable conversation.
Think, think…oh!
“Do you still live in Eeltail Alley?”
“Nah, I left,” Veronika put her cup aside and leaned back, supporting her weight on her palms. “I’m living somewhere a little more remote now.”
“Remote? You’re not hunkering down in some sketchy area, are you?”
“Nahhh, it’s all good!” the Inkling casually waved her hand. “I’m set up in a real cozy spot, and I have lots of freedom.”
“That’s awesome,” Hiro nodded, popping a wasabi-flavored chip into his mouth. He munched for a bit, enjoying the flavor before he spoke again.
“Y’know, I’d be stoked if you could come over to my place sometime, too.”
“Would your parents even be chill with that?” Veronika asked.
“Ehh, you can just come when they’re not home,” Hiro shrugged, “What they don’t know won’t hurt ‘em.”
A playful smirk stretched across Veronika’s face.
“Bad boy Hiro arc?” she voiced, quirking an eyebrow.
“I’m not becoming a delinquent,” Hiro flipped his hair and took a sip through his straw. “Being exceptional all the time just gets a little boring, is all.”
“The ego, too! Are you sure you’re Hiro?” Veronika tilted her head with mock incredulousness. Against his will, Hiro felt a grin working its way onto his face.
“Shut uuuup,”
The two broke into a laugh, feeling as if they were back in time again, loitering on the middle school playground while their conversation flowed without either of them missing a beat.
“I really am glad to see you again, Vee.”
Boldly, Hiro reached for Veronika’s hand and clasped his fingers over the back of hers.
Veronika’s golden irises locked onto Hiro.
“I really missed you.”
“…Don’t get all mushy,” she jokingly chided and turned her head to look elsewhere—but made no move to pull her hand away. “I’m not going anywhere, Hiro.”
“Good,” Hiro gave her hand a squeeze. “‘Cause hanging out today was only the tip of the iceberg. We have a lot of lost time to make up for.”
Veronika’s lips curved into a light smile, despite her gaze being cast downward on the texture of the rock they sat upon.
Not wanting the gesture to overstay its welcome and make her uncomfortable, along with a new conversation topic coming to mind, Hiro released Veronika’s hand from his grip.
“Oh, I can also introduce you to my friends!”
The Inkling’s eyes fixed onto the Octoling again.
“Friends?”
She hoped she didn’t sound too taken aback. But she shortly realized it made sense for Hiro to branch out and meet more people; his social world expanded while hers stayed relatively solitary in their time apart, occupying her time with scavenging for junk instead of living like the average school-aged kid.
“Yeah, I’ve met some more people in high school. But I’m still friends with Nemona, if you remember her.”
“Oh yeah, Nemona!” Veronika felt nothing other than content once she heard that. Nemona was someone familiar, someone that she remembered fondly before the events that led to her absence had occurred.
“Does she remember me?”
“She totally does. We reminisced about you a lot, Vee. ” Hiro emphasized.
Veronika felt a sensation of something tugging at her hearts. It touched her to know she was still thought about, even in all the time that she was gone…
“I’m really sorry I disappeared on you guys…” her head dipped low as she looked down at her lap.
“Hey, don’t stress about it. I’m just glad you’re here now. And Nemona will be glad, too.” Hiro affirmed. Veronika gave the Octoling boy an appreciative look, and he returned it in kind before he continued on.
“And I’ll be extra glad if you get to meet my friends! When do you wanna do the meet up?”
“Honestly, whenever works; it’s up to you,” Veronika shrugged.
“Hmm…how about this Friday, after school? We can meet up near Barnacle & Dime.” Hiro suggested.
Veronika hesitated for a moment before she supplied her answer.
“…Is that, like, a restaurant?”
“It’s the place with the fountains? In the Splatsville Supercenter Mall?” Hiro filled in.
The confused look continued to remain on the Inkling’s face.
“Y’know what, just wait for me at the school entrance again on Friday; we can go together.” Hiro said.
Veronika momentarily chewed on her bottom lip, appearing to mull over something for a second before she spoke again.
“…I might not be as prepared for this as I thought.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t make fun of me, but…I’ve never really been to the mall,” she began, her hands slowly rubbing up and down her arms. “You grew up differently than I did, and you know about all these things and places while I’m out of the loop for a lot of stuff…I’m gonna stick out like a sore thumb.”
“Aw, it’ll be fun! My friends are super chill,” Hiro reassured his best friend, “I know you’ll fit right in.”
Veronika exhaled, sitting up straight as her hands returned to her lap.
“I hope that’s true,” she said, then looked over to Hiro. “Thanks for inviting me.”
“No problem,” Hiro gathered his trash and stood up from the rock they sat on. “I’m gonna start heading home, how about you?”
“I gotta get back too,” Veronika also got onto her feet and collected her trash, brushing pebbles from her long, gray skirt. “We can walk together until we gotta split.”
Hiro had no complaints about that, joining step with Veronika as they began the hike back towards the city. Once they arrived at the border of the city boundaries (which they seemed to reach far more quickly than they liked), Veronika announced it was as far as she’d go.
“See you tomorrow,” the Inkling waved to the Octoling before starting her walk home. Hiro waved after her as she departed.
“See you!” he called out, “Get home safe!”
“I will!”
At long last, two childhood friends were finally reunited. Hiro floated on a high of optimistic anticipation the entire way home, excited for the experiences that would come in getting to be with his best friend again, and Veronika felt a comforting warmth that cradled her hearts and put her at ease, realizing just how much she missed the grounding presence that Hiro brought. She was truly grateful that they had crossed paths again.
What was once lost for the young cephalopods had been miraculously found, and would hopefully be around to stay for as long as time would tell.
Unbeknownst to them, the invisible red thread that bound the two Splatlandian youths together would strengthen into something more…
— <> ⦁ <> ⦁ <> —
Nem 📚👓
Nemona Drummond
Nem 📚👓
-
Yeah, the new card pack I ordered should be coming
tomorrow.
12:31pm
Hiro
-
Awesome! Send a pic in the gc when you get it
12:31pm
Nem 📚👓
-
For sure!
12:31pm
——— Wednesday, September ■th, 20■■ M.E. ———
Hiro
-
Nemona!!
21:59pm
Nem 📚👓
-
Yes?
22:00pm
Hiro
-
You remember Veronika, right?
22:00pm
Nem 📚👓
-
Of course; I could never forget her.
22:00pm
Hiro
-
Well guess what
She’s going to our school!!
22:00pm
Nem 📚👓
-
For eel!?
Are you serious?
22:00pm
Hiro
-
Yes!
She showed up in my Human Studies class but I didn’t
recognize her at first
I met up with her after school and we got to catch up
I’m soooo happy to see her again
22:01pm
Nem 📚👓
-
You’re not pulling my tentacle are you?
Could you give me her number if she gave it to you?
I’d love to talk to her again too!
22:01pm
Hiro
-
She doesn’t have a phone, sadly
22:01pm
Nem 📚👓
-
Oh…
22:01pm
Hiro
-
But!
I told her she can meet the rest of the guys
So I was thinking we could all hang out this Friday at the mall
for introductions and stuff
I wanted to discuss the details with u
And everyone else of course but I wanted to tell u the news first
22:02pm
Nem 📚👓
-
Sounds like a good idea, I’m down!
We can talk about it more in the group chat when
you’re ready.
22:02pm
Hiro
-
Sweet! I’ll probably text them in the morning tho,
don’t want the notifs to wake anybody up
22:02pm
Nem 📚👓
-
That’s fair; Dante would probably blow up the chat if you
sent a message now.
22:02pm
Hiro
-
Haha true, the questions would be endless
But yup Veronika is here again!!
I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep tonight, I’m so giddy
22:03pm
Nem 📚👓
-
You gotta try, we have to meet with our guidance
counselors tomorrow for college stuff remember?
22:03pm
Hiro
-
Oh you’re right, almost forgot about that 😮💨
I’ll leave the convo here then so I’m not bothering ya
22:03pm
Nem 📚👓
-
You weren’t bothering me, don’t worry.
I’ll talk to you tomorrow then?
22:03pm
Hiro
-
Yeah let’s talk more tomorrow 👌
G’night Nem! 👊🐙
22:03pm
Nem 📚👓
-
Goodnight Hiro! 👊🦑
22:03pm