In the suburbs of Tokyo, under a great big tent, were twenty pools. Each was filled with 4000 gallons of water — part distilled, part oceanic. People swirled around these pools, particles caught in the crowd’s current. Every one of them fixed their eyes — glinting, searching, hungry for gold — on what lay in these pools. Koi. Goldfish. Searching for the prettiest. Who would take home the gold?
In the halls of this school lay Koi and Goldeen, the prettiest fish that you’d ever seen. Koi, of course, was prettier, that was the way of the world, but the other fish said Goldeen was quite a special girl. Soon it came time for the annual school dance, where the fish swum ‘round in a syncopated prance. The dance, though, was just a backdrop for the main event, the choosing of the prom queen and their subsequent assent.
Koi was sure to win — everybody said so — but Goldeen wanted that crown too, ignorant of the lengths to which she’d go.
The week before the big pageant, Goldeen roamed the halls. She swam from class to class, looking for some relief between these walls. The pressure was mounting. She wanted this too much. In that state, she could be set off with simply a single touch.
Goldeen and Koi bumped nare to nare. Watch it!, Koi said, and shoved Goldeen towards the air. She drifted up for a second, nearly floating out, before swishing her fin and coming face to face with Koi’s snout. In the kerfuffle, Goldeen lost her fish pellets, which Koi picked up and took with malice. These are mine now, Koi said, and swam away quickly. Goldeen looked on, her food disappearing, her intentions growing prickly. A lifetime of run ins, just like that. Fish against fish, Goldeen treated like scat. Left in a crumpled pile of fins on the school floor, she looked up, looked out, to what lay past the door.
Koi swimming down the hall, swimming towards her crown. And that’s when Goldeen knew she had to take her down because who was she to leave Goldeen in such a state as this, while she was out there, winning, thriving, enjoying a life of bliss.
Goldeen began to hatch a plan, right then and there — revenge! She knew what she wanted, she could feel her stomach clench. Goldeen saw a shining scale — like it was left for her — laid in the corner of the room. She swam towards it, picked it up, and then began to zoom.
Koi couldn't have known what would happen, and soon enough it did. She felt a kind of pain in her heart, and looked back to see a mis-aligned fin. Behind her stood Goldeen, smiling bright, knowing that she could win. Goldeen pushed the fin deeper into Koi's back until it reached her heart, at which part the heart stopped working and Koi gave a start.
Koi’s eyes went blank. She began towards drift to the air, but Goldeen managed to hold on. “You can’t get away this easily,” she said and held with all her brawn.
And that’s when the surprise came.
“Eat me.”
Goldeen heard it from everywhere.
“Eat me.”
“I want you to eat me.”
Goldeen swum in circles, briefly letting go of Koi’s corpse before remembering and tightening her grip.
“Who are you?” Goldeen cried.
“Eat me. You will be beautiful.” And Goldeen knew, she knew exactly what it was. She flicked her eyes to the golden corpse and swam closer. She pressed her nare up against Koi’s golden scales, smelling them — briny, metallic, chalky.
“Eat me,” it said again. And Goldeen didn’t have to be told.
She unlocked her jaw and snapped off a piece of Koi’s scales, and instantly she felt her mind careening, her body whirling around the room. She swam up to a mirror and saw that her scales had a new lustre, they were becoming more golden, white patches began to spread across her stomach.
She was becoming Koi, and Koi she’d be, no one would have to know. Goldeen pushed Koi’s body into a back room and decided to embrace her new fate. She’d be ‘Kio,’ she decided.
Kio left the corpse behind and began to swim down the halls, unrecognizable but beloved by all for her enthralling looks. By that night, though, the effect began to wear off. Kio found old patches of Goldeen peeking through from beneath her newfound luster.
She swam back to the room where the body was stored.
“Eat me,” it said again.
Kio hesitated.
“Eat me,” it said.
Kio rushed up to the body of Koi, needing no further encouragement.
“Eat me. Eat me. Eat me.”
With each bite, the voice grew louder. Kio kept chewing, letting the voice fill her ears.
“EAT ME. EAT ME. EATMEEATMEEATMEATMEATMEAT –”
It stopped. Kio looked up. She reeled back. It was gone. The body. It was gone — plucked clean, bits of detritus falling out of Kio’s mouth. There was no more sustenance. Kio looked up again. Bones. A skeleton. A fish, filleted, chewed up, spit out.
Kio backed up. Horror. It was a horror. She swam out of the room. This would last until the prom was over, she hoped. It would last long enough for her to win.
Kio swam into the dance hall, where people greeted her with admiration.
“You are beautiful,” they all proclaimed. They cast their votes. The votes were tallied. The tally was announced. Kio had won.
Kio went up onto stage to receive her adoration, the disguise was still working, and then came her prize.
A hand reached down into the pool. Someone had bought Kio. They grasped two hands round her body so she couldn’t squirm, and then they brought her out of the water, preparing to place her into a separate tube for shipment. Suddenly, the instant the water dripped off Kio’s scales, they turned back to Goldeen’s.
The buyer dropped Goldeen in horror, never having seen magic fish before.
People screamed, forming a big circle round the horrific fish, watching it lose its golden scales as they turned a paltry orange. Goldeen gulped for water, trying to find sustenance once again, but nothing would come to her.
“Eat me,” she told them.
“Eat me…” But they couldn’t.
The people stood back, and Goldeen writhed on concrete, beating the grey matter with her fin as the last bits of life drained from her veins.
