Beetlejuice and Elizabeth

9. Fishy fishy cross my ocean

I visited the dock many times after that to the point I could consider myself friends with gang orca. He's a compassionate person and he takes being a hero very seriously.

"Call me Kugo, kid" he told my one night.

He says he appreciates my company when he patrols the dock and marina at night.

"I just don't wanna be alone. You've shown me a kindness that I have all but lost amongst my peers. They are not kind. They are cruel and unfair. The friends I thought I had have become scarce." I sniffled and rubbed my nose. "It's just nice to be in your company. And look I'm learning so much!"

"Can't you make more friends your age in class?"

"Not really. They're all older than me. They hate me because I'm so young and know so much." I paused to wipe my eyes. "When I first met Beetlejuice, he was helping me read. And every night we would read from the time mother went to bed and then she woke again. I got smart...really smart. And I was able to skip two grades. If I was tested now I could skip the rest of middle school entirely and go straight to Highschool or college."

"Then why don't you?" Kugo said.

"Because the friends I had made in middle school both wanna be heroes someday and I don't doubt them. I wanna be there when it happens. Call it psychological torture."

"You don't need that kid." He said placing a hand on my head.

"But don't I? I banished my best friend to save another and then I lost him too." I smiled and looked at the moving water, entranced. "I'm immortal, I can't die, and now I have regeneration. I don't belong anywhere."

"None of that was your fault."

"But I'm the one who feels guilty?"

"Don't be too hard on yourself. Even as a hero sometimes you can't save everyone and even worse there can be times where the villain you're fighting was once a dear friend or classmate." Kugo said while ruffling my hair. "Being a hero is not an easy job but the people you save are a good reason. You saved your friend even at the expense of losing another. Not that one life weighs more than another. But you saved someone and that has to count for something."

"I still don't wanna skip another grade. It will be lonely and miserable but I wanna stay in school with Bakugo and Midoriya."

🪲

I had died again in the time between 7th and 8th grade.

In the time I've known gang orca or Sakamata Kugo I could see him as a father figure almost. He was kind to me and could scold me just as harshly as mother. He never took to yelling at me or telling me I was doing something wrong. He would kindly guide me to the right answer or until I was close enough to figure it out myself.

Mother found out about my nightly excursions to the docks sometime around the second month and began packing a bag with two lunches in it.

He always complemented mother's cooking even things as simple as a sandwich. I have my suspicions and have teased him relentlessly.

Suspicions were confirmed when he brought me home from the dock and talked to my mother about taking me and her somewhere. He was a stumbling mess and he had bit his own tongue talking.

Gang orca invited us to an aquarium. It wasn't his aquarium but we still went because they had a new exhibit on penguins.

I was the most excited I had been since...nvm. I was just really happy.

"Lizzie slow down you're going to far away!" Mother yelled.

"Be faster! Look at all the pretty fish!" I began to rattle off facts and the scientific names of each fish I saw. "Sea otters can sleep for up to 11 hours a day and adults can weight anything from 14 and 45 Kg."