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merryfortune · 3 days ago

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Thrown Over the Horizon

Written for Femslash February 2025

Day 2. Horizon

Series: Glitter Puffs

Title: Thrown Over the Horizon

Ship: Laura/Minori

Fandom: Tropical Rouge Pretty Cure

Word Count: 2,060

Rating: T

Warning: None

Tags: Angst, Open/Ambiguous Ending, Amnesia, Crushes, Referenced Bullying

Mermaids aren’t real and Minori was a fool for ever thinking otherwise, especially at her big age.

She was fourteen after all, going on fifteen next year but where had the past twelve months gone, on that note? Minori felt vexed and defeated as she stared at the horizon and allowed the sunset to burn into her retinas. The irritation in her eyes was nothing compared to how she felt inside.

Her shoulders slumped, her hands balled into fists that sent tremors up her arms. She was beside herself with rage: all of it aimed at herself.

She had been laughed at today. Merciless mocked, looked down upon. That’s what she got for piping up, for trying to stand on equal footing to her more sociable peers. She should stick to being the nerdy wallflower in the corner. Her head was too up in the clouds for her classmates down on Earth.

Or, more accurately, too down in the depths of the ocean with the flotsam.

The incident had occurred during the last period of the day, during a free study as their regular literature teacher had been feeling unwell. So, the students were entrusted with doing their own reading and note making. Easy enough. Especially when they were studying Hans Christen Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, of all things.

An eclectic choice as part of a greater unit on fairy tales, folk tales, and mythology. Last week they had been reading Momotaro, after all. Minori, however, much preferred The Little Mermaid. It made her heart soar - and her mouth run.

Somehow the topic came up: do you believe in mermaids?

The class had grown unsettled. Chatter had broken out over the sound of pages turning in books or pen against paper. People grouped together, sat on desks and started to goof off. Minori did her best to ignore such immaturity but school was almost over, her ears pricked up.

She had opinions.

Opinions she had to voice as her blood began to inexplicably boil as she heard some of her classmates’ baseless speculation on mermaids.

So, she spoke up. It wasn’t a fight that she was picking but it was certainly one she was anyway. She couldn’t help herself. The way she spoke, her sneering demeanour. For too long, Minori had been a soured nerd even now as she had only the best intentions.

She corrected people, replaced them with her own information - equally as baseless. Minori didn’t even know where some of this was coming from. She was an obsessive for mermaids, their mythology and lore, but some of the things coming out of her mouth as she found her courage to share her passion with her classmates… She didn’t remember which books or websites they had come from a source.

Instead of web links and page numbers, there was a blurry silhouette on her mind. Of a girl. With a fish’s tail instead of legs. A face she couldn’t place and feelings that burgeoned ever so peculiar. Her heart began to race.

Minori couldn’t explain it. The unwavering faith and belief in magic that had suddenly welled up inside of her. It turned to a liquid courage and so, she ran her mouth. She spoke with all the confidence of a scientist, telling her peers exactly what she knew about mermaids - and her certainty in their existence.

It was the first snicker that hurt her the most.

The noise was stifled and pricked on Minori’s ears. She had to glance through the classroom to confirm it had occurred at all, unable to put a face to the noise. Her movements only caused ripples. As soon as her head was turned, more snickering. Soon, all out laughter, and teasing questions that pierced her heart as she was made to feel small for her outburst.

As she should. Believing in mermaids was something she should have grown out of when she was as young as eight. Honestly, Minori thought she had and yet. Her own words, spoken with a full chest of belief, now disintegrated. Turned to dust.

Turned to pen ink.

Humiliated by this incident, Minori turned to the only one who would listen to her and listen to her vent without judgement: her journal.

Minori had nowhere to be after school. Tropical Club? What’s that. She belonged to the losers walking home alone club and was a seething member of it. Especially this afternoon as she marched off in any direction but her route home. She wanted to be gone, to get away, somewhere she could curl and up die with her journal in her lap.

For some reason, she ended up on the beach.

Dear diary, her teenage angst bullshit was about to have a body count if she wasn’t careful and it was going to be hers, too, by the way. Minori couldn’t stand it. Was it the hormones? Why was it the hormones? Something was making her feel so intense and it wasn’t just the fact she had just committed social suicide.

Minori tucked herself away on a sandy ledge. She hid her eyes under her fluffy bangs, to reduce the glare of the sun as it slowly set over the horizon. There was a salty breeze but its tang had nothing on her frustration. She hunched down over her journal and began to write. Her latest entry, the emotions that she felt. Tears streamed down from underneath her thick, circular glasses and smudged freshly written words. They just flowed out of her from a deep well of repression and humiliation.

Once Minori started, she couldn’t stop.

She just had so much to say. An entire year’s worth of words that she couldn’t explain. At some point, it stopped being a journal entry to her and it started to become a conversation, a letter to someone incredibly specific. She could think of all their traits.

The self-absorption and the self sacrifice. Her confidence left little to be desired as it turned into the determination that she needed to make her dreams come true. Her strange, fantastical dreams. And the curiosity towards life itself, life outside of her norm…

Her abandonment of Minori.

The complete redaction of her name, face, and memory associated with her.

Minori couldn’t think of a single person in her life who was missing - nor someone who would even fit the gap if they were. She was just so, so angry at this person, this girl, who had abandoned her and left her wanting more.

More of what?

Minori wasn’t sure. Her hand ached pretty bad but her heart ached worse. At least she felt better, kind of? At the very least, she had emptied all of her thoughts, her feelings, onto these pages but as she read them back, straining her eyes in the lowlight, Minori realised something.

None of this shit made any fucking sense.

Her irritation wound right back up. She could feel it in the molecules of her sweat, the way her hairs rose on the back of her neck. She clicked her tongue. Trash, rubbish, garbage. It was all for naught and as it was all for naught, she didn’t want this in her journal.

These soppy pages upon pages of teenage angst. Her rage and lust towards this missing person: the one who had convinced her that mermaids were real. As if.

Minori tore the pages out. It was tough, she had to tug at them hard, to rip the paper but it was worth it in the end. She balled them up and tried to throw them away. It was like she was holding a baseball as a pitcher, her arm lurched forward without thinking but she stopped herself before the release. Her fingers slotted in between the crumpled folds, getting paper cuts.

If she threw away her feelings now, they would end up in the sand. How useless. But there was something she remembered now, through the taste of the salt she had shed in her tears: the taste of papaya juice out of a glass bottle. A glass bottle she had enjoyed over lunch and kept, inexplicably, in her bag.

Minori found it in her middle school randoseru and admired the glass momentarily. Traces of juice still lurked at the bottom, that was why she kept it, she finished it before she had a chance to wash it out before she tossed it in the recycling. The base of the bottle was thick and reflected the twilight beautifully. Minori swallowed and briefly, she tasted those sweet fruit juices from earlier and it brought her comfort.

Confirming in her mind, this coincidence had been on purpose on the grander scale. So, she stuffed her papers into the bottle. She unfurled them and folded them so they would fit through the nozzle and pass by the lip. She screwed the cap on tight and removed the orange branding around the midsection of the bottle so only her torn out pages could be seen.

Her heart pounded in her chest.

She stood up. Stiff, awkward, and determined. She kicked off her loafers and shimmied out of her socks. Minori scrunched her toes through the hot hands and took a breath. She was ready to fully purge herself of her foolishness now and so, she walked, confident, towards the shoreline.

Minori stared out over the horizon and drank in the scenery of the water. The way it turned wine dark with the encroaching night and yet, scorchingly bright with the blazing sunset. She watched the water, how the waves collected themselves and crashed in entropy. The foam ebbed and flowed and sometimes, the water would reach her.

It felt cold on her ankles but she liked it. A devilish tickle that reminded her: people drowned here, everyday. The ocean was a grave for many, many things: people and animals, wrecked ships and sunken treasures. Now, it would become the final resting place for her snivelling past self, so stupid to think mermaids were real and somewhere in these beguiling fathoms.

Minori focused her eyes. She finished watching the enchanting rhythm of the ocean and turned inward. She wasn’t the sporty type and it would be embarrassing to have to repeat herself until she did it right, so Minori resolved to do it right and thus, only once. She wound herself up and got lost in how limber she became as she loosened up.

Once ready, Minori counted herself down, “A-one, and a-two, and.. Three!”

Then, she lobbed that bottle as far as she could.

Minori surprised herself with her strength as she threw it as hard as she could. She watched it fly to the air, somersaulting. She held her breath as it soared. It glinted against the mix of inky darkness and intense vermillion of the sunset and then.

Plonk.

It hit the waves at their furthest point on the immediate shores. She could hardly see it as it landed bottom first, its neck akin to a flagpole as the water accepted it as one of her own.

Such an impressive throw took a lot out of Minori as she huffed and puffed. She to squint just to watch the bottle sink into the water. It disappeared quickly beneath crashing waves that foamed and frothed. She had put all her heart and effort into that lob and got it a fair way out over the immediate shore where she stood. The water lapped at her ankles, tugged on her dress, and there was now no more proof of Minori’s foolishness.

Of her feelings.

That felt good. To be rid of them, let the mermaids find it.

Yet little did she know… exactly that would happen.

The bottle continued to sink and sink. Its spiral sent bubbles in its graceful wake and a mermaid with eyes of the clearest blue and fingernails painted an immaculate, opalescent pink would find it. She shouldn’t have ventured out but as soon as she had, she was rewarded with Minori’s bounty.

With just a touch, an admiration of the smooth glass, that mermaid would be reminded of a certain human girl who wore coke bottle spectacles - and why her own belief in the goodness in humans was true.

But until then…

Minori would stand on the beach and stand her ground in turn. She was a fool for believing in mermaids.

#femslash #femslashfeb2025 #femslash february 2025 #tropical rouge pretty cure #tropical rouge precure #minolaura #minori ichinose #ichinose minori #cure papaya #cure la mer #laura (precure)#writing tag #thrown over the horizon #glitter puffs #glitter puffs 2025 #minori x laura #laura x minori

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merryfortune · 4 days ago

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Smells like Team Spirit

Written for Femslash February 2025

Day 3. Fracture

Series: Glitter Puffs

Title: Smells Like Team Spirit

Ship: Nozomi/Rin

Fandom: Yes Pretty Cure 5

Word Count: 1,749

Rating: T

Warning: None

Tags: Fluff, Established Relationship, Kissing, Slight Injury

“Go Rin, yeah, go, go!” Nozomi yelled from the side of the field.

Rin and her fellow futsal players were out in the grass, beat down by a harsh, summer heat and locked in a passionate tussle with their opponents. Despite these intense conditions, they were playing the best game of their lives. A well oiled machine, drenched in sweat and built up by weeks of practice.

Now, finally, here it was: the semi-finals. Whoever triumphed over the other would be sent straight to the finals and from there? Victory was within their grasp. All they needed was to overcome the currently tied scoreboard. The referees whistled and pointed, the crowd roared as the junior athletes raced across the field.

The formations were tight and well coordinated. Pressure was clearly mounting on both sides. It was all but a stalemate as the soccer ball went back and forth in triangular motions, pummeled by swift, strong kicks and in the instances of the goalie, amazing feats of throwing.

Nozomi was dazzled and she was, by far and large, the number one fangirl on the sidelines. Why wouldn’t she be? Her girlfriend was the extraordinarily capable and fiery ace of the team.

Rin was, without a shadow of a doubt on such a searing day, the MVP by a country mile. Even the opposing team and coach had a gleam of respect and admiration for her in their eyes. Her number coming up the most in shouted advice from the players in green.

Nozomi couldn’t be prouder. She knew Rin and the other girls on her team had worked really hard for this and here it came. The climax of the game. How exciting! Nozomi held her breath and bit her tongue, yet all that amazement had to go somewhere. She thrashed a silent cheer, her pigtails bouncing and her fists flailing, as she tried not to disrupt Rin’s concentration.

Sweat beaded down the side of her face. Rin’s eyes narrowed as she glanced between options, possible ways forward. She ran. Hard. Hard enough to kick up dirt and grass in her wake. She kept consistent with her off-siders, their trusting glances in wait of what Rin was going to do, they would fall her lead off a cliff if they had to.

Rin would never, of course, but it was do or die as time ticked by.

They couldn’t stall. It was now or never.

So Rin took her shot.

It was risky but risk was all they had. She swiped her arms out, to give her as much room from the opposing players as possible. The formation made her feel like an eagle as she lined up the shot in instant speed. She was so far out. Stupidly far out for this kind of kick but Rin didn’t care. Her blood thrummed inside of her as instinct took over and she knew that this was not going to be luck. This was going to be culmination of all her hard work.

Assuming the risk paid off as time all but slowed within Rin’s mind and her perception of the field. The sun must have fried her brain as its rays on her scalp was all she could feel. Everything else melted away in the boiling hot conditions. All that Rin was left was the slurry of what she had to do to get this soccer ball into the rival goal.

The power, the timing, the strength she needed. Rin could feel it in her readied body, adrenaline pumping. All she could see were these calculations across the green grass and the white goal. The metal poles glinted, the net fluttered in the slight breeze and then.

Rin kicked the ball.

It went soaring high. Higher than the players, higher than the crowds. Birds - swallows, Nozomi would think - swooped low and into the blades of grass just to avoid the ball. It spun and it flipped, its shape obscured even that of the sun as everyone watched in awe of Rin’s shoot.

Everyone except the rival goalie.

Her heart must have dropped as she launched herself up, heavy gear and all. Only… to miss.

The ball grazed the top of her armoured head and hit the ground behind her.

“Goal!” the Referee bellowed, a whistle punctuating the announcement - only to blend the sound of the timer being up.

The siren rang through the skies. Birds scattered and people cheered. Rin’s jaw dropped. She did it. She had beaten the buzzer and put the final score on the board. It was changed manually by an opposing team’s manager.

“Point to Cinq Lumières.” the Referee added.

As though it needed to be said at all as celebration erupted on the field. Rin could hardly believe it as people yelled not just for her team but her alone. The other two girls jogged over and patted her on the back. They grinned and slapped hard. Their rivals slow clapped them out, shook hands with them and Rin managed to return such sentiments of true sportsmanship.

All whilst in this stupor of hers. It wasn’t even the finals, yes, but they were within sight - and possibility. What would it be like to win real big and take home the trophy? Rin’s heart seized as she was too humble to explore such possibilities. Her ears rang with tinnitus as she stood, dumbfounded, with her disbelief as more formalities were wrung out over the loudspeaker and such.

It only became real to her when Nozomi bounded over, clumsy and happy as a puppy dog.

“Rin, Rin, Rin!” Nozomi squealed. “I’m so proud of you!”

She flung herself in pride at Rin and Rin managed to catch her. Thankfully. She held her girlfriend around her waist whilst Nozomi continued to launch herself like a missile. Rin had to bend backwards just to make sure Rin didn’t sent them both flying - or worse, crashing.

Nozomi nuzzled against Rin’s cheek. She didn’t mind one bit that Rin stank and was slick with sweat. It was all to the wayside as Nozomi cheered and celebrated.

“Woohoo, you are the greatest, Rin!” Nozomi cheered as she peeled herself back off Rin.

“Not yet I’m not.” Rin chuckled.

“Yes, you are, gimmie a hip, gimmie a hooray, gimmie a… hip-hip hooray!” Nozomi shouted.

All but in Rin’s ears but Nozomi had gotten too carried away in her overbearing joy for Rin. She wobbled on her spot, bent down low and tried to do what she had seen in the movies. She tried to scoop Rin up from her midsection. Her arms slid underneath her, her legs bowed.

She got, maybe, Rin’s right foot off the ground but that was about it. Rin laughed awkwardly whilst Nozomi stretched and strained. To inevitably buckle under her weight - and what she had taken on of Rin’s. Rin was pure muscle despite being such a small size and Nozomi couldn’t handle that at all.

Nozomi went down like a sack of potatoes, head over bum and collapsed. She brought Rin down with her, too. It was ungraceful and klutsy and had them both seeing stars for a minute.

Rin moaned slightly, “A-Are you okay, Nozomi?” She was probably fine. Nozomi had broken her fall and Nozomi had broken her own with her butt but still.

Not a single good noise came out of Nozomi’s mouth.

Rin was in her lap, their legs were entangled. They looked like they should have been in the middle of a gamer of twister, not after a futsal match/ It was so cliche but they had ended up in such a compromising position but not an impossible one. Rin would know, she had all kinds of bumps, bruises, scratches and scrapes thanks to sports injuries.

Which… by the way… now was definitely not the time to get even the slightest graze!

“I… I think I…” Nozomi’s voice was breathy and panicked.

Rin turned her head and saw how Nozomi’s chest went up and down. Her big inhales and even bigger exhales. All of it just to explode in tears.

“I think I broke my ankle!” Nozomi screamed. “I-It really hurts, Rin!”

Rin sighed. “Let me take a look…”

She wriggled out of Nozomi’s lap and turned herself onto her knees. She smiled, sympathetic, at Nozomi as she had a poke and prod. She pushed down Nozomi’s socks, not even a lump or some redness.

“Your all right, Nozomi, not even a fracture. Maybe you just sprained it?” Rin suggested through Nozomi’s hysterics.

Nozomi’s chin turned a strawberry and she had a frantic look of worry in her eyes. She wasn’t sure if she believed Rin or not but surely some as big as her, Cure Dream, should be right as rain because of something as small as falling over on a football field.

Rin picked up Nozomi by the foot. She was all too easy to swing around, being light as a feather and breakable as a stick, apparently. She cupped it and leaned into Nozomi’s leg, felt the prickle of her haphazardly shaved calf and smiled. She pecked Nozomi’s ankle, right where she feared it hurt the most.

Nozomi winced but her expression became a bashful appreciation.

“See? I kissed your booboo all better, c’mon, let’s get up an’ at ‘em.” Rin said.

“Okay.” Nozomi replied, her voice soft and quiet, a scant blush across her face.

Nozomi moved her leg off Rin’s shoulder at her own volition and let Rin get up first. She sported a hefty - and exaggerated - grunt as she all but did a burpee, to express just how fine she felt despite the accidental tumble. Then, Rin offered her hand to Nozomi.

Nozomi accepted it and Rin gave it her all to hold her. Nozomi’s heart fluttered as she felt the tight squeeze of Rin’s calloused hand against her soft palm. Rin grunted and Nozomi almost toppled frontwards this time but Rin eased her back onto the balls of her feet. Only for Nozomi to simper and seethe, ever so slightly under her breath to at least pretend to put on a brave face.

Though just as both expected, Nozomi was ginger on both feet once Rin had her up on them. Rin sighed and shook her head. She let Nozomi use her as a crutch, bringing them both closer, cheek to cheek, as Nozomi hobbled off the field so Rin could go and join her teammates. They had caused quite a scene as it was.

#femslash #femslashfeb2025 #femslash february 2025 #nozorin #nozomi yumehara #yumehara nozomi #rin natsuki #natsuki rin #yes precure 5 #yes precure 5 gogo #writing tag #smells like team spirit #glitter puffs #glitter puffs 2025

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