Big Sister Fujioka

The Secret of Ouran Bay

"C'mon, Nēchan! Since when do you let me beat you to the top?"

"Shut up. You always complain that I leave you in the dust. I was trying to be nice."

"I think you've been skipping your training days at the dojo."

Jin paused in her climb, gaping up at her sister. Haruhi snickered and kept moving up the rocky terrain. She clambered up onto a large rock that jutted out on the side of the trail and stopped for a second, looking back at Jin with another witty quip on her tongue. Between one blink and the next Jin had passed her. Now it was Haruhi's turn to gape. She stumbled after Jin, but there was no point trying to catch up. Jin bounded up the slope with ease, kicking loose dirt and rocks back down the hill in her wake.

Less than a minute later, Jin crested the edge of the hill and finally stopped, catching her breath and allowing Haruhi to join her. Her calf muscles burned, as did her lungs, but there was a thrill in the ache that Jin honestly loved. Judging by the sweat that soaked Haruhi's shirt and her bright red face as she wheezed, it was not a mutually shared love.

Jin rolled her eyes playfully and held out a hand, pulling her sister the last two steps back onto flat ground. Haruhi limped another four steps forward and collapsed onto a boulder, breathing heavily and occasionally coughing. Jin moved to stand by her sister, swinging the small bag off her back and pulling out a bottle of water. Haruhi lunged for the bottle, cradling it in her hands but not drinking it just yet. Jin appreciated Haruhi's aversion to choking. Especially after the long walk it took to get up here in the first place. She would not be thrilled if she was forced to immediately carry Haruhi back down to the beach and pray there was a doctor on hand.

Pushing her flyways out of her face, Jin looked around. When she had first discovered the faintly worn footpath on the edge of the beach, she and Haruhi had walked along the tree line down to the water, trying to see where it was supposed to lead. The vegetation had hidden everything from view, so the only course of action was to follow the trail itself. After all, they had come to the beach for the purpose of finding something new. Having grown up just a few blocks away from the ocean, they'd been shocked to actually find a place they had never explored before. Now, finally getting to see the fruits of their labors, Jin decided the journey was well worth it.

Their long hike up the steep incline had spit them out on a rectangle of stone, most likely the top of a cliff. Jin carefully made her way closer to the edge and craned her head to search for the bottom. The stone jutted out over the ocean, waves crashing against the base at an angle Jin couldn't see. The distance down to the water made her vision swim a bit so she backed off. They weren't guaranteed to die should they fall... but they should definitely avoid the edge all the same.

Facing the ocean, trees and thick vegetation lined the long sides of the cliff, while behind them the stone narrowed into another thin, overgrown path of sand heading back in the direction of the road that bridged between town and the local beach. Jin wracked her brain, trying to remember if she'd ever seen where that path ended, but came up empty. Which was weird, because she and Haruhi had been walking down that road to the beach ever since their parents carried them as babies.

Jin stared out towards the horizon, a few drops of ocean spray kicking up over the lip of the rock to splash over her toes. Haruhi stood and slowly shuffled her way to stand beside her, pressing the water bottle back into Jin's hands along the way. Jin took a couple gulps and stuffed the bottle back into her bag before following Haruhi's careful movements. The two approached the edge and stopped five steps away from tumbling over. Haruhi dropped to her knees and crawled a few more inches, peering up and down the shoreline.

"Hey! I think I see a house down there!"

"Down where?" Jin inched a little closer, leaning over her sister. Haruhi pointed to the left, opposite from where they'd come from. Jin stretched her neck a little more and, sure enough, she saw a rather grand looking beach house off in the distance. For a moment she thought it was a temple, but then noticed the large bay windows and the yacht tied to the docks at the base of the stairs that lead down from the house. The beach it stood guard over was empty, a stark difference from the dense population on the beach the sisters had just come from.