"Mizu-chan, what about this one?" Ruka smiled innocently as she held up a provocative bikini. I shivered as I immediately pushed it back onto the rack. That was unexpectantly frightening.
"I-I'm only looking for one-pieces." I said.
"Oh, Mizu-chan, you're no longer in middle school!" Ruka tsked, before shoving more of the same style of bikinis into my arms. "This is your chance to snag a poor soul with your womanly wiles!"
"Ruka, I'm just trying to find a swimsuit, not trying to become a succubus." I said as I tried not to grimace at the swimsuits in my hands. But man, is this what girls like to wear nowadays? Their confidence that their boobage wouldn't escape from the flimsy pieces of cloth was scary.
Ruka giggled. "Aw, I'm just messing with you!" she said as she put away the bikinis. "But still…" she mumbled as she went through another rack lost in thought. I followed suit.
"By the way," I said as checked the size of another swimsuit. (It was too small.) "Thanks for deciding to help me out." I could've asked Gou since she was in the swimming club and all, but…
'No fair!' Nagisa whined. 'How come Gou gets to come and not me?! You need all the input you can get if you want a sexy, er, quality swimsuit!'
'NA-GI-SA.' I gritted my teeth. 'I am going to the fucking beach, not the damn Miss Universe beauty contest!'
'Ugh, it's come to this.' Nagisa sighed before suddenly locking his arms around Gou. 'I'm taking Gou hostage!'
'It's KOU, you imbecile!' Gou said as she struggled in Nagisa's embrace. ('N-nagisa-kun, that's going a bit too far…' Tachibana hesitantly said.) 'I swear, once you let go of me I'm gonna kick your ass to Mars!' ('G-gou-chan!' Tachibana said in a shocked voice.)
'Fine, Gou doesn't have to come!' I said exasperatedly. Seeing Nagisa's shining eyes, I quickly added, 'YOU don't have to come either!'
And that was why I ended up calling Ruka.
Ruka blinked. "Of course!" she smiled. "What are friends for if they don't help each other sometimes?" Oh, right. Friends.
"When did we become friends again?" I asked. Immediately, the girl gave an exaggerated gasp.
"You don't remember…?" She said, her voice shaking. "Was it all in my head? Oh, what if I just automatically assumed that we were friends when you didn't feel the same way? How could I be so rude?!"
"N-no, uh, t-that's not what I meant!" Dammit, I just said something wrong again.
"Haha, kidding!" Ruka said, all smiles once more. "But on a more serious note, I've considered you my friend since third grade."
I stared at her. "That long ago?" I whispered. I barely remembered anything from my early years of elementary school.
"Mm-hmm!"
You know, Mizu-chan, I've always been a writer. Even when I was little, I always liked to write. Kanji was particularly fun for me, it was like a code of pictures. I'd write stupid poems every single day. Frogs, shoes, steamed pork buns, it didn't matter what it was, I would write about it.
Anyways, I had recently moved to Iwatobi at that time, so I didn't know many people. Imagine my delight when one of the first school assignments I had was to write a poem about an animal. I spent a lot of time researching in the library. Flamingos, anteaters, salmon, there were so many interesting animals that it was hard for me to just choose!
On the day we had to present our poems, I was shaking in excitement! I would be able to read a poem I had written to the class! How would they react? Would they like it? Well, of course they would like it, I worked hard on it after all! Many of the students wrote about animals like dogs and cats, and there was maybe one about a tiger or an elephant, I don't really remember.
Finally, it was my turn. I went to the front of the room and held my poem tightly in my hands.
"M-my poem is about the orca!" I said.
"Great, it's going to be a girly poem." I heard a boy mutter.
"Kazu, be polite!" Sensei scolded him. "Go ahead, Ruka-chan."
I nodded and then took a deep breath.
"I live in the ocean, dark and deep.
It is where I sleep and it is where I eat.
What do I eat? I eat turtles and seals.
I always like to eat my meals.
I like to bite into the skin
And taste the red blood creeping in
My mouth. And it tastes good too!
I eat a lot, cuz eating's good for you!
I've killed lotsa people,
Cuz they wanted to put me in a zoo!
The sharks are scared of me
Cuz I can roll them all around
And then they go to sleep and then
In my stomach they go down.
So even though I look cute and sweet
Don't mess with me, I won't be beat
Cuz I have some sharp sharp teeth.
I'm a killer whale, and I'm pretty neat!"
It was a pretty horrible poem, to be honest, but as far as my seven-year-old mind was concerned, it was a masterpiece. I smiled, until I noticed that the room was completely silent.
"W-what an interesting poem, Ruka-chan…" Sensei said. (My poor sensei, haha!)
"Woahhh, that was really cool!" A boy blurted out.
"I really liked the blood part!" said another.
"I thought this poem was gonna be girly, but it turned out to be awesome!" Kazu grinned.
It seemed that my poem was a huge hit with my male classmates. Not so much with the females, though. In fact, they started whispering among themselves while giving me strange looks.
For the next few days, none of the girls spoke to me. My mother told me was that it was because I was new and that they didn't know much about me and that I should introduce myself to them, you know, that kind of thing. Still, after many attempts, I still really didn't make any new female friends.
Until one day, you came up to me and said hi.
"Hi, Ruka-chan!" you grinned.
"Oh, Mizu-chan!" I smiled. You weren't giving me strange looks!
"Ya know, I reeeeeally liked your poem last week!' You said as you rocked back and forth on your feet. 'Hana-chan said not to talk to you because you were weird, but you're not weird at all!"
"Huh?! I'm weird?!"
"Dummy, I just said that you weren't weird!"
"O-Oh!"
"Anyways," You said as your eyes started to shine. "I didn't know that orcas ate seals! Orcas are those big black and white fish, right?"
"Yeah! Well, they're whales, not fish though." I said as I pushed up my glasses.
"Ooh, whales!" You said. "I always thought they were cute, but it seems like they're kinda bad, too! That's soooo cool! You know, you seem to know a lot about them!"
"O-of course!" Man, was I such a sucker for compliments! "I did my research after all!"
"Tell me more about whales, then! Oh, and seals, too!"
"Okay! Then…" I tried to remember what I had read. "Oh! Did you know that orcas have the second heaviest brains among all marine mammals?"
"Wow, they must be pretty smart then!"
"Yeah, I guess so!"
"Hey, Ruka-chan…what are mammals?"
"Sorry, I don't remember any of that." I told Ruka.
"Ah, that's no problem. It was a long time ago, anyways." She perused through the swimsuit rack a bit more before saying "But still, you helped me become comfortable in Iwatobi. After that happened, I was able to find some more friends who didn't find me so weird. So, in a way, I'd have to thank you, Mizu-chan." She smiled. "So thanks."
"Y-you're welcome…" I said as I placed another swimsuit onto a pile. Is this what being friends is about? Digging up old memories and feeling fluffy from the nostalgia? I don't particularly remember being that fanatical about killer whales. Still… "You know, you're not a bad person either.."
"Woah, you got a lot in your pile over there." Ruka said, peering behind Mizu-chan. "Ready to try them on?"
"Yeah, sure." Mizu-chan said. The two girls however, were unaware of the two totally-not-suspicious individuals hiding behind a clothes rack.
"This is it, Rei-chan!" Nagisa said fervently. "This is the moment of truth!"
"Nagisa, be quiet!" Rei hissed. "Why are we doing this anyways?"
Nagisa lowered his voice. "This is a vital mission, Rei-chan. We are here to get…" His cell phone suddenly appeared in his hand. "Blackmail material."
"Nagisa-kun!" Rei whispered frantically. "That's illegal!"
"Damn right that's illegal." A voice said above them. Nagisa gulped. He could see pure disgust in her eyes.
"M-mizu-chan! Uh, hi! What a coincidence!"
"Say, Ruka." Mizu-chan said brightly. "I saw two creepy perverts today trying to photograph me. I think they're students from school. What do you think I should do?"
"Somebody tried to..?!" she gasped. Nagisa flinched. Oh, he was going to get it, he was sure of it.
"Yeah, isn't that awful? Maybe I should tell Gou-chan, she looks like somebody who could teach some perverts a hard, painful lesson." Rei yelped. What a horrific, totally-not-beautiful threat! He didn't even want to participate in this, why was he getting punished too?!
"Oh, I see!" Ruka said. "But maybe you should report this incident to Amakata-sensei so that those two boys would be expelled." At this point, Nagisa and Rei were shaking. Expelled?! What if they were expelled?! The expressions the two girls were so filled with disdain that expulsion didn't seem like an impossible thing.
"Oh, but Ruka, that's a bit too harsh. After all, boys are just boys." Mizu-chan said. Nagisa and Rei relaxed a bit. Was that the taste of sweet mercy? Oh, merciful, Mizu-sama! But Mizu-chan thought for a bit more before smiling evilly. "Oh, I know, I'll tell Tachibana-kun."
"Ehhh? Tachibana-kun?" Ruka echoed.
"Yeah, he's so nice and sweet and he rarely gets angry. I wonder how he'll react once I tell him what happened." Nagisa and Rei froze. No. No, anything but that. Sweet, adorable Tachibana? The one who always petted cats that crossed his path? They couldn't even imagine Tachibana-sempai angry, let alone furious. But Tachibana-sempai was human after all. Surely, he was capable of losing his temper as well?
Suddenly, an image of Tachibana appeared in their minds. This Tachibana towered over them, his eyes dark and cold. Gone was his atmosphere of gentleness and kindness. In his place was a tall, muscular man with a hardened face. This man would not hesitate to eradicate any vermin he came across in this world.
"I'm disappointed in you." This Tachibana said, tinging those few words with the harsh flavor of contempt.
Nagisa and Rei gulped. What a frightening image.
"1 new text from Soremiya-san." The phone's automated voice said. Strange, he never really corresponded by text with Ruka before.
He picked up his phone and opened his messages. Ah, it was a batch text. Ruka-chan must have accidentally sent it to him in her haste. She seemed like the type of person to do that.
"I went shopping with Mizu-chan today, and we finally picked one out!" Ruka wrote. "Doesn't she look so cute! XoX "
An image was attached, but it was greyed out. He tapped the image so that the picture would appear.
What a mistake it was.
Mizu-chan was wearing a two-piece, and she obviously wasn't pleased with it. The swimsuit wasn't too revealing, but it did help accentuate the curves that always hid under her usual school uniform. It was light blue, and shimmering accents of green was scattered on it. She was…she was wearing a swimming skirt.
T-that…that is so…c…c-cu—
Ah… In the midst of his flustering, he accidentally deleted the text…
AN: "I always thought they were cute, but it seems like they're kinda bad, too! That's soooo cool!" *cackles* Mizu! M-Mizu-chan! Ahaha! What in the world are you saying?! XD
If you didn't particularly care for this chapter, don't worry. This is the only OC backstory I'll do for this fanfiction series (that I've planned so far anyways), and also, it also gives hints to Mizu-chan's past as well. ((Hmm, but … so much backstory, not enough swimsuits…)) The poem is so bad, haha! It was fun trying to imitate how a child would write a poem. And trust me, I know from experience. *shudders* So many. Bad poems.
But Ruka really did her homework. You know that stanza about sharks? She's referencing how killer whales tend to roll sharks over in the water so that they are upside-down. This causes the shark to go into a coma, which allows the killer whale to eat the shark. Killer whales are fucking hardcore man, I love them.
Kazu is an OC I made on the spot (yay for last-minuteness). Hmm, I could ship him with Ruka but… man it feels kinda awkward. After all, he was made on the spot, so I don't really have any details on him and I'm too lazy to develop him more.
I don't know what the deal is with Ruka. She's like a mixture of Nagisa and Rei with a dash of Tachibana. Haha, she's so weird!
Ah, and the POVs. I'm really sorry about the switching POVs, but I thought I could tell this chapter better with them. I'll try to just stick with one POV in the future, don't worry.
Disclaimer: "Boys will be boys." is only used for humor in this fanfiction. If you ever hear that line used to justify a crime in real life, then run. Run away as fast as you can.
