It was a warm spring day, and Kennoda Maka had fallen asleep in the park, with his head and arms laying on a picnic table. His homework paper laid in front of him, weighed down by his fingers just enough that it wouldn’t blow away in the breeze. Seeing that his guard was down, Mimi Maka snatched the page out from under him. Ken awoke with a jolt and saw his friend running off with it.

“Mimi!” Ken yelled. He stood up and reached out towards her.

Mimi kept on running. She laughed and stuck her tongue out at him. “You snooze, you lose, Ken!”

“Give that back,” Ken demanded, as he ran after her through the park.

“Only if you catch me,” Mimi said in a sing-song voice as she outran him.

Ken could only run so far, until he ran out of stamina. “That’s… Not fair!” Ken panted, with his hands on his knees, as he stopped to catch his breath. “You know I can’t run as fast as you!” 

He had been frail ever since his premature birth. As a small child, he had all sorts of illnesses. He had a weak immune system and weak muscles to boot. He could never keep up with Mimi’s athleticism, no matter how hard he tried, causing him to be plagued with frustration and insecurities. He loved Mimi, because she was the impossible ideal that he strived for. He didn’t love her mooching off of his homework, but he weirdly appreciated when she did things like this that forced him to try to push his weak body just a little harder, with hopes that it would slowly get stronger.

Ken looked up to see Mimi effortlessly climbing the monkey bars, with the corner of his homework in her mouth.

Determined, Ken reached up and grabbed the first bar. He stretched his arm out towards the second bar, but he couldn’t get a grip on it and fell face-first into the dirt. He grumbled to himself in frustration and then looked up to see Mimi swinging widely from the monkey bars. Once she was high in the air, she let go, did a backflip and landed at the very top of the jungle gym.

Ken looked up at her in awe. “She’s so cool,” he thought to himself. He felt that strange mixture of admiration, pride, and incompetence that he often felt around her.

“Well, it looks like your homework is mine,” Mimi said, victoriously, seemingly unaware of the conflicted feelings she evoked in her meek friend. She squatted and waved the paper around in a taunting manner.

“You won’t learn anything from copying the answers,” Ken informed her, with a disappointed look on his face. He wished Mimi would venture to go out of her comfort zone as well. She was incredible with anything athletic, but when it came to studies, well…

“Oh, whatever,” Mimi exclaimed with a snobby look on her face. “All I need is to get a good grade on the assignment.” 

“You know, I could help you study, if you want,” Ken offered, willingly. 

“Nah, I’m good,” Mimi declined with a shrug. “It’s not like this stuff comes in handy in real life, anyway.” She hopped down from the jungle gym, her long pink hair floating behind her, and landed perfectly on her feet like a cat. “School work is just an obstacle,” she added, while pushing her hair back behind her shoulder, “on my way to becoming an athlete! Someday,” her face turned determined as she made a tight fist and looked up at the sky, “I’ll win a triathlon! Maybe even compete in the Olympics! The sky’s the limit!”

“Yeah!” Ken exclaimed, raising his fists up to cheer her on. “You can do it, Mimi!” He really did want her to be successful. He wasn’t one to want others to fail just because he couldn’t succeed. He wanted her to continue being strong for him.

“Excuse me,” a soft female voice chimed in. “Did you say ‘Mimi’?”

Ken and Mimi looked over to the newcomer who stood by the playground.

“Would you happen to be Mimi and Ken Maka?” she asked. The tall, elegant young woman with blonde hair looked at them as though they had said something profound.

“Who’s asking?” Mimi replied, sassily, with a sidelong glance and a hand on the hip of her blue bodysuit.

“My name is Rei Maka,” the woman replied, cheerfully, “and I come from the kingdom of Maka.”

“Your name is Maka too?” Ken asked in surprise, “Bizarre!”

Mimi pointed to Ken and then herself as she said “Ken and I share the name Maka, even though we aren’t related! It must be a common name around here.”

“I can shed some light on that for you,” the young lady said with a soft smile and gentle green eyes. “Could I have a moment of your time?”

Ken and Mimi looked at each other for assurance. The two have known each other as long as they could remember. They practically had telepathy at this point. They could sense that the other felt inclined to trust this person. They turned back to the stranger and nodded.

Ken and Mimi sat side-by-side on a swingset, as the mysterious Rei sat on a nearby bar facing them. “The place I come from is also called Maka,” she began to explain.

“Really?” Mimi asked, skeptically. “Where’s that?”

Ken had one hand on the rope of the swing and the other on his chin as his brown eyes were deep in thought. “Saudi Arabia, I think?” Mecca was the closest place name that he could dig up from his vast pool of knowledge.

Rei shook her head serenely. “This may be hard to believe, but the Maka that I speak of is actually not on this Earth. Maka is a planet in an entirely different dimension.”

“Huh?!” The two exclaimed in unison. Mimi lurched forward and stretched the swing bars out wide, while Ken fell off his swing and crashed down to the dirt. He released a small “ow” that only Mimi could hear.

“The two of you,” Rei continued, “as well as anyone else with the surname Maka, are also from that world.”

“Wait, what?!” Ken exclaimed.

“You’re crazy, lady!” Mimi proclaimed dramatically.

“I assure you, I’m not,” Rei replied calmly.

“That’s just what a crazy person would say,” Ken whispered to Mimi, who nodded in agreement. 

Meanwhile, Rei rummaged through her purse. “Here’s your proof,” she said, as she pulled out two small oval devices that had screens and buttons like a handheld game system or electronic toy.

The two friends stared at the mysterious things in Rei’s hands.