UNA and her SKIMMA were inseparable for the next few years. They did everything together. They hosted various tea parties, most of which were private, but a few were opened up to UNA’s parents if compensation in the form of sweets or gifts was promised. They filled out various sketchbooks, and even painted on the walls of the house once in a while, something for which they were both punished in equal measure almost every time. UNA, from time to time, even went as far as to paint her best friend’s body and cover it from head to toe in every color she could come up with. The colors always faded away at first, but enough iterations later, they stuck to her best friend in a few places and refused to come off. UNA didn’t mind. She liked her SKIMMA better this way. White in most places, with spots that were colored in various shades of different shapes and sizes. Wall and body paintings aside, UNA and her SKIMMA also went through various comics and picture books together. They even had numerous storybooks read to them by UNA’s father. The duo spent entire evenings playing in the nearby parks, and entire days walking through the city they lived in with UNA’s parents.

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UNA and her SKIMMA loved walking through the strange yet fascinating land they found themselves living in. They kept forgetting the names of the streets and neighborhoods they walked through, but they loved them all nevertheless. The city they lived in was located on something UNA’s father called hills, which apparently rolled. Its streets were narrow, and made of mismatched stone in most places. The houses got larger and taller the higher one climbed through the city. The various parts of the streets matched better in those areas too, and they were somehow not made of stone either.

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UNA loved the neighborhood that came right after hers, the one where each house was of a different color, brighter than the one before it. She suspected that everybody in the neighborhood was competing for a prize of some kind. She didn’t know why, but the fact that her father never confirmed or denied this, and instead only laughed whenever she brought it up, made her even surer about it.

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The SKIMMA loved the neighborhood that was covered in paintings of various kinds. Some were of animals, some of scary creatures with large teeth, others of little OSZA like UNA doing various things. Many paintings had adult OSZA holding each other, or posing in different degrees of clothing, some smiling while others just showing their teeth. A few paintings even had really old wrinkly OSZA in them. The ones that fascinated UNA the most were the ones which only had weird, fat letters in them, letters that looked similar to the kind UNA studied at school. UNA suspected that the SKIMMA loved this neighborhood due to the animal paintings, especially the one that contained an animal that looked very similar to it, but she said nothing. It made her best friend happy. She didn’t want to question that. And she never did.