My name is Kyoko Sakura, and for the past year, I've been having the same dream every single night. In my sleep, I work as a waitress or something, I guess in some otaku restaurant because sometimes I'm a French maid and other times a catgirl and sometimes I’m cosplaying as Chun-Li or Morrigan or someone like that. It's really weird and whatever anime equivalent to Freud there is would have a field day with me. You'd think I'd just have food dreams, but nope, I have these oddities.

So I go around in my cute dress, acting like a total ditz for the 30-year old men pretending to eat really slowly as they stare soullessly at me. It's so creepy, but at least they tip well. Who am I kidding Japanese people don't tip. This goes on for a long while though. At least until....He appears.

“Hey girl.” It's this middle aged fat dude, complete with unwashed hair, a shirt a size too small, and a body pillow perpetually in his arms. He shows up every single night without fail, and unlike all the other boys, he wants my number (rather than just looking at me), so he can call me (maybe). To put it quite simply, I'm not as pleased at my situation at moments such as these due to this man's making me uncomfortable in various ways such as the example I previously stated, and it does not improve my dreams by any significant amount, in fact doing the opposite.

“Yo,” I always say, both in an attempt to show off my steaming hot swagger and to get him to not respond out of embarrassment for trying to interact with someone of such a high caliber of swagger compared to his own. Doesn't work.

“Please me greatly, my loli lovely,” he mumbles like a drunk commenter on Danbooru at 3 AM.

“Um no.” I throw food at him until he goes away. And then I wake up. Like I said, I don't understand this dream in the slightest, but it happens every night, so it's gotta be relevant somehow, right? This can't be just a parody for the sake of it. I mean really, come on. It's important. Surely. Trust me.

WEDDING DAY

T-MINUS 05:27

Mmm... The farmer's market had a special aroma. It smelled of dirt and mulch and all the good stuff from back in the good old days on the prairie. It was a granola girl's grandest goal, to go here. Shopping for all the freshest deals and freshest food... Speaking of crunchy things, Kyoko craved some granola bars. She wandered around the market, for a while, but there was nary a stick of grainy goodness to be found. This sucks, she thought, ready to end her own life at the expense of a lack of food. Not really.

This whole trip Kyoko had only stolen a dozen or so fruit. Was she going soft in her old age? (No, because she was like fourteen.) Maybe her stealing senses were weakened due to her crippling love.. for... Anyway, it didn't seem that there were any granola bars, which was totally lame. At least this farmer's market was a good place to buy Madoka and Homura a last-minute wedding gift. Or it wasn't, but that wasn't going to stop her from doing it anyway.

Madoka already had a kickin' sombrero, so the hat stand was out of the question, though that red one was awfully cute..-- No Kyoko, think about the presents, not yourself! Hm. Would she look good in a poncho? Okay, nobody looks good in a poncho. There were a couple taco stands; no gifts to buy there. Wow, Mexico was just filled to the brim with nothing but stereotypes, or something. Kyoko wondered why. She then passed a sketchy watch vendor. She noted the gigantic clock necklace up for sale, and the dark skin of said vendor. Ah, so that's what he's doing nowadays.

The more and more she looked through this farmer's market, the more and more it seemed to turn into a flea market. Kyoko chalked it up to the author's lack of creativity. I mean, why can't I just buy them some fresh food?? She thought, though this thought was directed towards the author herself. It's because you'd steal it all at the wedding, Kyoko. Yeah, you're probably right, she thought in reply.

Finally, Kyoko came upon a simple stand displaying a few jars of honey shaped like bears. Hmm, honey sounded good. Good like eatin' good. In fact-- Good, like stealin' good. Nobody was there at the stand, so nobody would miss it. She swiped the bear and turned around, poised to make her waltz away--

“MARISA STOLE THE PRECIOUS THING!” An orange blur whizzed by and karate-chopped the bear from Kyoko's hands. The blur was gone before the bear even hit the ground. What the flip? She glanced around, but nobody was there. Still somewhat afraid of whatever the crap that was, she stood in place for a moment, but nobody ever showed up. Kyoko shrugged and bent over to pick the bear up off the dirt. “Never waste food~” Kyoko sang to herself. “Or Sakura'll murder your ass!~” It was a good song. She wrote it herself, did you know that?

As soon as her fingers touched the fallen honey, she heard a “HIYA!” and another karate chop hit her arm. Ouch! What was that all about? She was just gonna put it back! (The previous statement is a gross fabrication of the truth.) Now Kyoko had to get revenge. Using her super-fast magical girl reflexes, the next time the blur appeared, she made a grab for it. She caught its skinny little hand and slammed it onto the ground. Then she flung it into the honey stand with a mighty crash. The whole thing tumbled apart, and bears of honey rolled all over the surrounding grass and dirt. This triumph deserved an awesome fist-pump. Yeeeeeeeaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh.

As the dust settled from the stand falling apart, Kyoko discovered just who her foe actually was-- the orange blur belong to none other than Don Patch, everyone's favorite sun dude!

His eyes were still in a humorous spinning spiral, but he was still able to murmur something. “No Marisa...Not the... No steal... You can't do...” He abruptly came into full consciousness (reminiscent of Sayaka, for some reason) and hopped onto his feet, posing in a defensive formation.

“Relax, bub,” Kyoko said in her best Hugh Jackman impersonation. “I'm not Marisa. Though at this point I wouldn't be surprised if she showed up and this became a Beyond Nova Touhou crossover.”

“No, you are!” he retorted. “Marisa steals things, and you steal things. Therefore you are Marisa!” His logic was infallible.

“Okay, I call foul. This is the first chapter I have stolen anything in either of these damned fan fictions. That does not make me a kleptomaniac. Just a jerk.”

“Hmm...” Don Patch contemplated for a moment. “It's almost as if one of your primary character traits was forgotten and only now brought up because it's convenient for plot and jokes...”

“Yeah,” she said. A citrus fruit appeared out of thin air and fell into her hand. She held it out to him. “Orange you convinced now?”

“No... No I understand! You're actually Marisa in disguise!!” he lunged at her, but she side-stepped and he flew into the booth behind him, wrecking all the Vividred Operation merchandise on display. Good riddance.

As he got up and staggered back over, he mumbled, “I guessyouaren't Marisa sorry...” He was still in a daze from the first crash, so this next one only added to what was probably a severe concussion. “Just uh takeallmystuff thenIguess...”

“Ah man I can't do that now,” Kyoko told him. “I can't friggin' steal from THE Don Patch!”

“Aww, how flattering,” he said, now seemingly completely fine. Maybe compliments from magical girls were a secret power that could heal people... Kyoko took note of this, so she could remember to test it later.

“And I'm really sorry about the shack,” she said. She thought the orange blur was like, Aquaman or someone. Though Aquaman probably only has super speed in the water. Unless... unless he's so fast underwater that he can use viscosity to carry the water with him onto the land so that the land acts as the same medium as water to him! #waterbasedphysicsjokes

“S'okay, sister. I can rebuild it faster than Shinji can--”

“Don't finish that.” This fic was strictly KA-Rated, and Kyoko wouldn't stand for its rating to be any damn higher than that. (This statement is an untruth of great proportions.)

“Don't have to.” Wow, he already finished fixing the whole stand. What an accurate comparison after all. “Now, what would'ja like to buy?”

“Uh, honey.”

“Which kind?” Don patch gestured his hand over the rows and rows of this admittedly larger-than-expected assortment of different bears of honey. They came in all sorts of sizes, and more brands than Kyoko thought possible. She didn't even know there were that many beekeepers in Mexico, let alone honey distributors.

“What's... the difference in all these brands?” she asked.

“No difference. It’s all just honey.”

“Then how much are they?”

Don Patch gave a Tommy Lee Jones-style implied facepalm. “Sister, I'm asking you what size you want. We got cubs, and we got mama bears, and we got papa bears, and we even got grizzly bears for all you ultra-savers out there.”

“How much is in... a mama bear?”

“1.37 bears,” he answered simply.

“I, what.”

“The bear is the SI unit of measurement for honey. It follows the same prefix patterns as all other measurements, but nobody would buy anything like a millibear or kilobear of honey, so marketers just make their own silly terms up to confuse customers into buying worse deals.” At least he was honest.

“Uh... What about a decabear?”

“I... Well then.” Don Patch reached under the stand and opened a secret compartment, pulling out the biggest friggin' bear of honey in the world. (Once again, the previous statement is factually inaccurate; the biggest bear of honey in the world is actually six megabears large, made in New Brunswick in 1999. It beat the previous world record-holder by a whopping 6700 hectobears.)

“Here you go. It's my only one. It's a secret to everybody, except for you now.” Wait. This was an adequate wedding gift, Kyoko realized. Score. “That'll be fifty-two dollars, please.”

“You mean pesos, right? Fifty-two pesos?”

“Nope. This is a decabear of honey, sister. Shit's like gold. Pay up!”

“But I don't have any US Dollars. We live in Mexico, Don Patch.” Suddenly his name made sense in the context of the setting, so it wasn't just an obscure anime reference anymore. “You're lucky I've lived here long enough to even have pesos; if you tried this on any of the other magical girls, they'd probably hand you yen notes.”

“Fine fine,” Don Patch grumbled, arms crossed. “Just give me your stupid pesos.” Kyoko handed over the money, but she couldn't help but feel a little guilty about this exchange for some reason. No idea why, though.

“Arigatou,” Kyoko bowed and took the gigantic bear. She could barely hold it in her hands, it was so huge. Luckily she was a magical girl and thus has super augmented strength powers or whatever. Hmm... This bear actually had a pretty cute design. Looked almost like a tiny person. She thought for a moment and decided. She would name it... Mini-her. Nah, just kidding. What a terribly outdated reference that would have been. Good thing she didn't make it.

“Come again,” he said. “Or not, I don't care.” As she began to walk away, a sudden thought popped into her mind like an anorexic teen giving birth.

“Wait. Are you gonna be at the Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo anime's Tenth Anniversary Cast Reunion in November?”

“Of course I am. That's the only kind of gig I can get anymore,” Don Patch said in the disgruntled tone of a washed-up Star Trek actor. His eyes narrowed and he smirked. “Are you?”

“Crap, how did you even--”

“I knew you seemed familiar. Well, thanks for stopping by. See you soon.”

Kyoko hurried away. She was so glad nobody else was around. Whew, that was a close one. Now to get this bear to the wedding!