Chapter Text
Barbie races her way back up Gloria’s driveway, pink envelope in hand, throwing open the door to announce, “Ken sent me a letter!”
Gloria looks up from the papers strewn across the coffee table, pushing her hair back out of her face from where it had slipped out of her bun. “That’s wonderful, Barbie! How has he been doing?”
Barbie tilts her head, puzzled, “I have no idea? Anyway, I’m going to go read this in my room!” Barbie leaves Gloria to stare at the wall, strutting her way past Sasha’s room (door locked, keep out sign on display), Gloria and Sasha’s dad’s room, (door half-open showing a figure lying on the bed with duolingo open) and finally stops at a bright pink door with a glittering handle.
Moments later she lays sprawled across her pink duvet, letter plopped down in front of her. Ken’s voice echoes through the room as a visual of Beach Ken standing in his natural habitat fills the screen.
“Hi Barbie! Things have been totally great in BarbieLand, never been better, even. I live in your old dreamhouse with some of the other Kens now. I have news, actually!” Surfer Ken walks into the shot, putting his arm around Beach Ken’s shoulders “Surfer Ken and I are boyfriend-boyfriend!”
Surfer Ken leans further into his sweetheart, planting a kiss on Beach Ken’s cheek. “It’s true, once we learned to settle our differences we discovered that actually it’s way more fun to make up and make out than be fighting all the time.”
“Sometimes Allan joins in too!” Beach Ken added with a grin.
“You, you didn’t have to tell her that.” Allan says from behind the camera.
Beach Ken laughs, confused, “But it’s true?”
Allan ducks into frame in front of the Kens, “Yeah, so ANYWAY, what Ken and Ken are trying to say is we’ve been having a great time learning who we are! Also, everyone in BarbieLand has housing now, so that’s definitely an improvement.”
Surfer Ken yells from behind, “Also we have a Ken in one of the lower courts!”
“Also we have a Ken in one of the lower courts,” Allan confirms, moving back out of frame.
Beach Ken slips out from under Surfer Ken’s arms, walking closer to the screen. “We all really miss you Barbie, but we’re so happy that you found a place where you don’t have to be Just Barbie.”
“That said,” Surfer Ken peeks out from behind Beach Ken, “We’re having a huge blowout and wondered if you’d wanna join?”
“Yeah!” Beach Ken agreed as if just remembering, “Weird Barbie is hosting it in her Weird House later today, all the Kens and Barbies and Non-Kens-Or-Barbies are invited! We’d love for you to stop by!”
Beach Ken stepped back into Surfer Ken, the two posing together like a wedding invitation photo, saying in unison, “Sincerely, Kens.”
The video faded out to show Barbie staring at the letter in her hands, face expressionless. “Huh.”
It made sense, kind of. Her Ken and Surfer Ken had always seemed kind of obsessed with each other. She was mostly just confused that, “Kens can like making out? Can Barbies like making out?!”
The first time Ken leant in for a kiss, she gave him one because that’s what she was supposed to do. The times after that, she didn’t bother, it really wasn’t very fun. She figured Ken just hadn’t realized they didn’t have to and that’s why he always leaned in after a day out.
But Ken enjoying kisses?
She had kissed other Barbies as well. Sometimes during girl’s night they would play spin-the-bottle. The way the game worked was, you spin a bottle and whoever it lands on you put your lips on their lips and make happy sounds, and the more happy about it you both seem the more points you win. A lot of the other Barbies were really good at it.
It took her awhile to figure out, but after enough rounds and paying attention to what the other Barbies did to each other, she figured out how to communicate to the other Barbie that it was their turn to seem really happy. Like putting her tongue in their mouth or biting their lip or pulling their hair or humming into the kiss. The other Barbies all had their own way of communicating, the tricks didn’t work the same with them all.
Before long, she was the best of all at playing spin-the-bottle. Everyone kept track of the points in their head, and it was gauche to talk about who had won, but eventually she knew that it was always her.
Maybe Ken and Ken and sometimes-also-Allan were playing spin-the-bottle and that’s what they meant? But the kiss on the cheek didn’t make either of them make happy sounds, so what was that about? Did they just… like doing it?
She could ask Ken about it at the party.