The Dolphin of Fate

Takumi woke up to the smell of Núi Và Sông instant coffee emanating from the dining room. "Bailu must've made me a mug before heading to work", he happily thought to himself. The fragrance brought back happy memories of his childhood in Prey Nokor, on the other side of the ocean from gloomy Shirabad. Somehow fate had brought both Takumi and Bailu across the ocean, to this strange land where people from all walks of life were united in their love for caffeinated beverages, guns, and self-help talk.

For Takumi and Bailu, it was 0verflotch that produced the first spark. Nights of online gaming after work led to cheesy dates at Xingbucks and the Kongo cloud forest spheres, and despite Takumi's parents' strong opinions on the Earth Kingdom, they were quick to accept Bailu once they saw how attuned she was to their son's coffee preferences.

After checking the family group chat on WhoZZat and brushing his teeth, Takumi got up out of bed and walked past the coffee and croissant on the dining table. Someone had left a package at his apartment's doorstep. Upon opening the door, he saw a shoebox sized cardboard box lying at the doorstep. He sighed to himself, "Ối giời ơi, if Da-hye sent me another 'care package' of experimental sugar-free gum I'm blocking her number for a week. I'm 24 for Vishnu's sake, so stop treating me like your guinea pig kid brother!"

He tore the tape holding the top flaps in place. A grey dolphin plushie sprawled along three sides of the box, with a garish self-help book in the middle. He picked the box up and squinted at the text on the front cover- it read "12 Rules of Life: An Antidote to Soggy Cheese Fries". Takumi couldn't help but chuckle at the ridiculous pose the middle-aged professor was making on the cover photo. "Oh Urdunn ibn-Kefa, you're so full of it" he murmured to himself. He had no idea who'd mailed him this box as a joke, although the dolphin plushie was a nice touch. Maybe his girlfriend would like it.

Suddenly, some cheery music started blasting from the cardboard box. Takumi couldn't make out what the lyrics were at first, but as the music crescendoed he kept hearing the word "shark" over and over again. "I don't have time for this", he thought to himself. He rushed back inside, took some sips of still-warm coffee, then nibbled at his croissant and pineapple parfait as he pondered how to make the music stop.

"Daddy Shark doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo, Daddy Shark doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo, Daddy Shark doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo, DADDY SHARK"

Gulping down his parfait, Takumi remembered there was a anomalous weight near the bottom of the box, behind the dolphin plushie's torso. "Maybe there's a micro-playback widget attached to the box", he thought. Upon finishing his coffee, he walked back, opened the front door, and picked up the box. He took out the plushie, and lo and behold, there was a gum pack-sized electronic device attached to the inside of the box.

"Run away doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo, Run away doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo, Run away doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo, RUN AWAY!"

He grabbed the self-help book and deftly chucked it at the bottom of the now-empty box, holding the bottom with his other hand for support. After a whizzing sound, the repeating Baby Shark abruptly stopped. Takumi inwardly sighed of relief. "I should probably hide the Urdunn ibn-Kefa book", he thought to himself. "Don't want bae to think I ordered it for me." After getting dressed, he stashed the self-help book under the living room couch, then tossed the remains of the playback widget in the landfill bin before putting the dolphin plushie back in the box and on the floor near the coat hanger. Without a second thought, he locked the door and headed down the steps to the ground floor for his work commute.

Twenty kilometers north of Takumi, Sapna and Pa-jung were taking a boba break from their 9-to-5s as remote employees for MyFace's burgeoning Shirabad operations division. While Pa-jung and Sapna worked on different teams, both of their managers decided to celebrate meeting quarterly profit goals by buying superfluous merchandise for everyone on their team and their pets. Sapna was more fond of Animal Junction plushies than Pa-jung was of arrogant, tweed-wearing psychologists from Brancaland-du-Nord. But when they were both "offered" to take home a dozen self-help books, 20 plushies, and three boxes of mochi donuts between them, they agreed that unconventional gifts needed to be dealt with through unconventional measures.

"I still can't believe you hacked Ki-woo's fWinsta account and got the contact info from all of the people he follows on there," Sapna remarked as she clutched her 20 oz mango magic smoothie.

Pa-jung shrugged. "It's really easy when the profile is set to public. Or so I've heard from Twinge- I mean, H-pop groupies who apparently work on the Winsta product in the Baie area." He adjusted his sunglasses so Sapna couldn't see his shifting eyes.

Sapna chuckled, "Don't be embarrassed, we all know the ladies dig your navy blue fit and Aviators." She absentlymindedly fidgeted with her pigtail. "Although I'm sure your Esla decal helps. How did you get the idea to comb through Ki-woo's socials to find people to drone-mail the Urdunn ibn-Kefa books to?"

"He seems to know a lot of people from college here," Pa-jung shifted in his chair and flexed his arms. "That guy keeps mentioning all the attention he gets from women in long-term relationships everytime we hang out in person." His expression tensed slightly.

"Pa-jung, you know he means well. If it weren't for him, Min-hyuk and Yureum might've never met, which means we wouldn't be here celebrating our hefty MyFace bonuses and drone delivery magic." She chuckled at how absurd the situation was. "Anyway, I gotta go buy cat food at Trader Jamal's. See you at dinner with Min-hyuk and Yureum tomorrow?"

Pa-jung smiled. Min-hyuk and Yureum were the probably the cutest couple he knew in Shirabad. From bickering over Maxemon Woah to serving as tour guides to all their other friends from out of town, they were basically the mommy and daddy of the extended friend group. Pa-jung wasn't doing too badly playing the field among the twentysomething age singles in Shirabad, but he hoped to find someone he could settle down with and lowkey brag to his friends about like Min-hyuk did.

Sapna finished the rest of her drink, tossed it in the trash, and waved bye to Pa-jung before walking out to the bus stop. The drizzle had stopped, and the sun had come out, illumating the puddles on the street and bathing the nearby sidewalk in golden light.

As Bailu stepped inside to the supermarket to buy a bouquet of roses, she got an incoming phone call. She saw it was from her hopefully-soon-to-be-fiancee's older sister.

"Hello Da-hye, what's up?" She hoped the conversation wouldn't last too long. Da-hye was generally pleasant and fun to be around, but she was fond of telling long-winded stories about her cat and her husband's musical prowess.

A chirpy voice chimed out of her phone. "Hey Bailu, I'm don't have much time to talk since I'm shuffling between shifts, but just wanted to check in on how the proposal's going!"

"Don't worry chị, I didn't forget! Just buying roses for the display," Bailu sighed out of relief. She was slightly taken aback at how she'd used the Núi Và Sông kinship term, guess it was muscle memory after so many dinner dates with Takumi's parents.

"Alright well good luck! Text me when you get home, 妹妹!"

As she made her way to the floral section, Bailu noticed a short young woman with cinnamon hued skin and her hair in pigtails. She was wearing a "hermanas doing it for themselves" sweater under her windbreaker, and she was gazing up at the succulents on the top shelf. For some reason, she had an urge to call out to her.

"Those succulents sure look nice, huh?"

Sapna turned around to see a graceful woman with an inscrutable accent smiling at her. She wondered what the lady in scrubs could be so cheerful about, then smiled back. "Yeah, they do. Nice flowers by the way!" She gestured at the bouquet of roses in the woman's arms, then walked briskly towards the pets section of the Trader Jamal, afraid that she'd let her clandestine drone deliveries slip if she engaged in any more small talk.

After checking out the flowers and balloons she had bought, Bailu walked back to her car and drove back to the apartment she shared with her boyfriend. It was a bit far from the city center, but closer to where Takumi's parents lived and to the Seylish Sound waterfront. As she drove down the freeway, the clouds on the horizon had cleared and the snowcapped Rainah-yama was visible on the left.

Once Bailu got home and ascended the staircase to their apartment, she opened the door to an opened drone delivery box with a dolphin plushie placed inside. "Oh wow, that's a nice plushie!" she squealed. "Takumi loves dolphins, I think I'll add it to my proposal display!" She picked up the plushie and walked inside.

After inflating and laying out the balloons on their shared bed, she set the bouquet down on the nightstand and placed the dolphin next to the letter "W". Then she changed out of her work clothes, sat down on the couch, and turned on the latest H-drama while waiting for her boyfriend to come home.

It was 6 pm and Takumi was off work. Checking his phone, he got a text from his bae asking him to pick up some takeout curry for dinner, which he obliged. During the commute back to his apartment, he wondered if his girlfriend had spotted the self-help book when she got home. Takumi was pretty good at keeping his weed stash hidden from his parents as a teenager, although he swore his sister's fiancee spotted him with a blunt once or twice when he was snowboarding with him. So he wasn't terribly worried about keeping the immortal manosphere writings of Urdunn ibn-Kefa concealed from his prying girlfriend.

As Takumi ascended the stair steps to their apartment, he felt like something was off. He couldn't shake the feeling that there was something unusual about today, barring the weird drone delivery. When he opened the door, he saw that the delivery box was still there but the dolphin plushie was gone. A wave of dread swept through him. "Could bae have found out about the delivery?" He felt his heart racing as if he'd smoked an unexpectedly strong blunt. (It'd been years since he smoked more than twice a week. He had since switched to edibles, which had more predictable side effects for him).

"Hi baobei, you got me my coconut curry with prawns right?" Bailu beamed as she heard him step inside. She was wearing a sapphire dress and a dark blouse tonight.

"Uh, yeah I did." He took out two steaming trays filled with turmeric colored food with jasmine rice on the side. "I got us veggie rolls and mango sticky rice for dessert."

As they feasted on their takeout dinner and made small talk about each other's day, Bailu abruptly asked "Bae, I saw a dolphin plushie that was delivered to our doorstep this morning after I left for work. Did you order that online?"

"No", Takumi responded, trying not to look suspicious. "I wasn't expecting a package this week. Haven't ordered anything random so I have no idea what's going on with that."

Bailu's expression shifted, as if she knew something was up. To Takumi's relief, she didn't press him on the plushie. "Well just so you know, I have something I'd like to show you after we finish eating." Takumi shifted in his chair, not knowing what to expect. "I'm going to go freshen up, meet you in our bedroom". She kissed him on the cheek and walked off.

Takumi nervously walked down the hall to their bedroom. Part of him was paranoid Bailu had found the copy of the book under the bed and wanted to lure him in their bedroom under false pretenses. He winced internally as he opened the door, expecting the worst.

Instead of an angry girlfriend brandishing a manosphere self-help book, he saw a row of letter-shaped balloons strewn across their bed, with a bouquet of roses on one end and the dolphin plushie he had placed back in the box before leaving for work on the other end. The letters spelled out "WILL YOU MARRY ME" and were arranged with the plushie and the bouquet to make a heart shape on the bed. In the middle were two engagement rings in their ring boxes. Takumi gasped, "Ối giời ơi, I can't believe it! Hell yeah, I wanna marry you!"

He turned around and saw Bailu beaming brightly at her soon-to-be-fiancee. "SURPRISE! I saw the plushie that was delivered here when I got home so I decided to add it to my proposal display! I know you get a lot of pressure from your parents to follow in your family's footsteps, and I know you hate making stressful decisions, so I decided to handle the proposal so you wouldn't have to!"

"Wait, did you plan this with my sister?" Takumi was incredulous. As relieved as he was to know that his family approved of his Earthie immigrant girlfriend, it was a little embarrassing to think his older sister was still involved with his love life in some way. "I mean, you're right about the decision making part, I had no idea when would be a good time to pop the question." He hugged Bailu tightly and grabbed one of the rings from the bed. Not wanting to be completely emasculated by being proposed to by his bae, he insisted on putting Bailu's engagement ring on her finger himself.

Bailu paused the recording on her phone as the newly engaged couple embraced and her fiancee pecked her gently on the lips. As she wrapped her arm around Takumi's back, her new ring caught the light of one of the candles. From Takumi's vantage point, the light reflected in one of the dolphin plushie's eyes, as if it were smiling at him. "From the prank delivery to a surprise proposal from the love of my life, who knew today would turn out this way?" he dreamily mused. He gazed at the dolphin, then lost himself in his woman's arms.