Note: Makoto and Haruka (and any other sea person) appear like mermen creatures amongst each other while to normal humans they appear like the actual mammal/fish they are. If that makes sense.
Makoto's eyes shot open, his entire body tensing as the shark invaded his mouth with a lustful hunger.
Rin was kissing him.
Rin's hands clung to the orcas upper arms, fingernails digging tightly into the tanned skin. The killer whale's heart beat erratically in his chest and he only panicked more when the shark tried to make the kiss deeper, tilting his head and pressing even closer in an almost desperate flurry of motion.
Makoto shoved Rin off of him, using all of his strength do so and easily succeeding in driving the surprised shark back. He covered his mouth in shock, staring at the other with wide, terrified green eyes. He was stock still.
Rin seemed to look just as terrified for his part, staring right back at the other with a sense of growing horror in his red tinted eyes.
The dark ocean rocked around them, and the space between them seemed miles apart.
Makoto finally found the courage to speak, "R-Rin…Rin, I'm sorry!" And Rin expected Makoto to say a lot of things, to yell and curse him out mostly. But he had not expected an apology. And it infuriated him. He whirled away without a word and dove back down into the ocean, his mind only urging him to run the fuck away from the situation.
The orca hesitated, his mind and heart still racing. He didn't know what he had done wrong to elicit a kiss from the other. He…He didn't like Rin that way. That he was sure of. But that didn't mean he didn't care about him, and was immune to his feelings at the moment. So with that thought he followed after his friend, watching as he agitatedly raced back into the cave they had found for Gou.
He supposed there wasn't going to be any food tonight.
He watched the shark slip inside and tried to follow suit, only to be reminded he didn't quite fit. He sighed and floated at the entrance, debating whether to talk to him. He didn't want to awaken Gou though, nor talk to her brother like this in front of her. So he stayed quiet, hovering silently and thinking.
He debated going out and hunting something for them but decided against it. They had been eating well enough, and he didn't want to get separated on accident. A part of him worried that Rin would cut their journey short and refuse to aid him further because of his actions. He prayed it wasn't so.
Haruka jumped high into the air, head bumping the little ball above the tank before arcing down and slipping back into the clear still water. He heard the annoying whistle and rolled his eyes before swimming over to Blue and getting his deserved fish.
Blue gave him a smile and a head rub that Haruka could care less about, eyeing the bucket of fish beside him. It took a moment but he finally got the reward he actually wanted and ate it. He looked back over at his human for what to do next.
Not that he was complying and being obedient or anything. He was just bored out of his mind and this gave him at least some sort of stimulation and kept him from thinking of Makoto and the wide open ocean. Blue raised his hand again and the dolphin dove down to jump up high once more.
Rei blew the whistle, notifying that the correct move was given and waited for the dolphin to dive back down. He kneeled down as the animal swam in front of him expectingly, rubbing his head and praising him quietly. He cried out when a force barreled into him, almost knocking him into the pool. Two arms wrapped around his mid-section and a blond little head placed itself on his shoulder.
"Rei! You're doing it!"
"Nagisa, get off me!" Rei pushed back, annoyed, only to have the other tighten his grip with a laugh. He shot the other a glare, turning his head only to find Nagisa doing the same. Their noses touched, they were that close. Rei felt his features heating up while the blond only seemed to be smiling brighter-
A splash of water hit them both out of their moment and back to the reality of a hungry dolphin. Haruka glared at them, raising his tail to splash them again in his impatience. Blue seemed to get the message, scrabbling to give the other a fish. Satisfied, Haruka let them be and swam a bit away.
"How'd you finally get him to listen?" The blond asked, shaking the water from his hair before deciding to sit beside his coworker. He crossed his legs, his knee pressing against the other's thigh. Rei hesitated but decided not to shift away. The blond would only follow him anyway. He pulled his glasses off and wiped the water droplets away with the corner of his shirt before pushing them back up the bridge of his nose.
"I wish I knew." He answered honestly, "It makes no logical sense. He suddenly jumped on his own and started listening to me." The blue haired trainer recounted, looking over at the dolphin who had finished his snack and was back to swimming lazy circles.
"I think he's grown attached to you." Nagisa grinned, nibbling at his bottom lip idly as he decided to continue, "I think he fell for your weird hair color and patience and love for beautiful things like himself!"
Rei gave him a look, raising an eyebrow, "I think he just wanted the mackerel." He deadpanned.
Nagisa's smile softened, standing up and stretching, "Who says I was talking about the dolphin!" He sighed out, skipping off and out of the area. Rei furrowed his brows at the comment, whirling back to watch the shorter man disappear.
Even though he was too late he still stuttered out, "N-Nagisa! What's that suppose to mean?" He didn't receive an answer, of course, and was left to mull the words over in his mind. His face was beginning to heat up at all the implications when he felt a nudge on his leg. He looked down to find the dolphin nosing his knee and looking up at him.
He pet his head, and sighed out, "Haru, you have it so easy…You get to just swim around and play. Don't have to think about weird relationships..."
Gou knew there was something wrong. She could feel it in the water, a thick miasma of tension between her brother and the orca. Something she knew had never been there before, but appeared so suddenly and volatile-y that it could not be shrugged off.
She wondered if something had happened last night. It was evident they hadn't caught anything, perhaps they miscalculated and got into a little spat? But Gou couldn't imagine Makoto causing or keeping an argument going for this long. Furthermore, the poor whale kept glancing at the shark with worried looks. He was only ever ignored.
Gou frowned at it all, but kept silent for now, and held on to the brunet as they swam closer and closer to their destination. It was awkward and boring and she did not like it one bit. Her brother held a face of concentration but his gritted teeth and locked jaw showed how angry he truly was. She worried about her brother…did Makoto do something mean to him? She couldn't imagine it…but…what if…
She couldn't take it anymore. She tapped at Makoto's shoulder, "What's wrong with you two?" She asked bluntly, frowning at the brunet as she demanded an answer. Makoto hesitated, glancing desperately toward the male shark for some sort of help. Rin stopped his swimming.
"Nothing's wrong." He snapped, "Everything's just fine and dandy, right Makoto?" He made eye contact with the orca for the first time in hours. The brunet stared at him in utter incomprehension at the statement. Everything was most certainly not fine and dandy.
"Rin…I-I'm so-" Makoto tried again, quietly in some semblance of a murmur, only to have the shark lash out in a sudden movement. Makoto visibly flinched, fearing the worse, when instead it was only a desperate grab at his hand. The grip on it was firm and unrelenting, and soon the shark was dragging him onward.
"I said everything was fine." Rin repeated, squeezing the hand roughly and turning to face forward. The conversation ended and Makoto let himself be dragged through the sea, his mind stumbling around in confusion at how to approach the situation he had ended up in. Gou remained as confused as ever but let it go for now. It was clear Rin would tell her nothing in front of the mammal. She would definitely interrogate her brother at their next stop, alone.
Rin kept a strong grip on the orca's hand partly because he was angry but mostly because he was afraid he would swim away. He knew he had messed up. Fucked up really. And he was terrified the whale would leave him and his sister after the awful stunt he pulled. He tightened his grip when he realized that the only reason the whale probably did stick around was again, as always, for that stupid dolphin.
He didn't know when or how or why this happened. All he knew was at some point during this journey his heart started to hurt. The killer whale was too damn nice, too damn sweet, too damn handsome, too damn perfect. And it pissed him off to no end. Especially because he would never be able to partake in that niceness and sweetness because he was a shark and the killer whale was after a dolphin.
The trio continued on like this for some time, until hunger soon overcame them and they began searching out a place to hide their charge. They finally found a suitable den and Rin helped his sister in and got her comfortable while Makoto went up for some air.
The shark was about to leave and go find his hunting partner when he was held back by the soft yet firm grip of his sister. He turned to her with a questioning look, "I don't know what happened, and you don't have to tell me if you don't want to." She began, shooting him a glare when he went to interrupt her, silencing him preemptively, "But Makoto has only ever been nice to us, so will you two make up?"
"It's not that simple, Gou." Rin barked, crossing his arms defensively and sending a glance at the cave opening. Good, the mammal wasn't back yet. The girl sighed at her brother's behavior, resting her arms against the rocky floor.
"It is though. Because that orca will forgive anyone in a heartbeat and you know it. He's forgiven you before for worst things." She added, giving him a look, "And he's been patient with my situation all this time."
"If he wasn't I'd kill him." Rin spat out immediately at the thought/
Gou seemed to smile sadly at that, drawing idle patterns on the surface beneath her. The statement reminded her of all the doubt she had been toying with and trying to deny to no avail, "…Rin…if…" She paused, looking down and away from her elder brother, "If…there's ever any real danger or emergency. Don't hesitate to leave me behind ok."
Rin stared at her in disbelief, "Are you crazy? I would never do-"
"I'm not starting an argument about this. I just wanted to make sure you knew…I wouldn't be angry." She continued more firmly, although her gaze remained firmly on the cave floor.
"Gou, stop talking like this." Rin growled, giving her a stern look, "I'll be back with food soon, you stay here and don't do anything stupid!"
She laughed lightly, "I wouldn't." Rin didn't feel assured but slipped away anyway. He was too agitated to deal with his sister's feelings of lack of value at the moment. They were absurd. He sighed tiredly, feeling all the more miserable over his circumstances. He paused when he realized the stupid orca wasn't even waiting out here.
A moment of panic coursed through him at the thought of the other leaving entirely, abandoning them for good. That is, until he decided to look up. Much to his relief the mammal was there, head out of water, most likely breathing…and taking his sweet time. Rin swam up without another thought, breaking the surface beside him.
Makoto didn't look at him but heard his splash, "I can see it." He whispered in awe. His green eyes stared off into the distance, where a seemingly insignificant speck of land dotted the horizon. Rin followed his gaze, seeing it for himself and frowned slightly. Their trek was almost over. The sight filled the orca with hope; it filled the shark with only bitter disappointment.
"We'll reach it tomorrow. Let's go find food." Rin spoke out. He didn't want to look at the end of their travels any longer. Also, he was quite hungry, and in light of his recent conversation with his little sister, did not want to stay out too long. He was ready to dive back in when an arm stopped him. Why did everyone keep trying to stop him today. He glared at the whale to find him smiling his usual smile at him.
"Rin, I just wanted to tell you…Thank you so much for doing all this for me." Makoto murmured honestly, bringing the shark into a hug that made the predator tense up uncomfortably. "And I'm still sorry…that…i don't feel that way…" The mammal continued a bit lamely, pulling back. His smile looked more nervous, his eyebrows quirked up, and he searched the others face for forgiveness.
Rin felt embarrassed and red-faced and all around pretty shitty. "You're shitty at rejecting someone." He informed bluntly, peeling the hands that were on his shoulders away with a shrug.
"I'm sorry." Makoto repeated, his arms drooping at his sides in defeat.
"Stop apologizing!" Rin snapped, and watched as the other went to apologize and then decided against it. Instead, he gave a sheepish apologetic smile instead. Which was just as bad. Rin rolled his eyes, "Just drop the whole thing ok? We'll get your damn dolphin boy back. But first I seriously need to eat and so does Gou."
Makoto gave a nod of agreement and followed the other down into the ocean waves, the tension seeming to dissipate as plans for today's hunt were discussed.
"Come on Haru…" Rei encouraged, making wide gestures for the dolphin to move. He'd been so perfectly obedient and docile up until this point. Doing everything he asked of him. But now, now the dolphin was refusing to cooperate at all, pressing himself against the far side of his tank.
They were trying to do a practice show for the alterred dolphin performance, with Haru as the finale, but said dolphin refused to leave the safety of his tank. "The other dolphins aren't in the show tank, Haru! Trust me! Just go!" The glasses wearing man pleaded, the other trainers giving him an annoyed look at how much time this was taking. This would never do in the real show.
Nagisa watched the ordeal with a pout before running along past Rei, grabbing a mackerel from the bucket behind him and sending it flying into the other tank. The reaction was immediate, with the dolphin racing toward the prey and grabbing it. Nagisa made a triumphant gesture and watched as Haru tensed, looked around and, after seeing the new tank really was void of other life, relaxed.
"Nagisa when did you get here?" Rei asked, staring at the short man who waved the question off. He merely shoved the other toward where the dolphin was now waiting.
"Just go, do your part! So that you all can squeeze one last big practice before your first show!" The blond brushed off, giving his back a firm comforting pat-although it seemed significantly lower than it probably should have been, much too close to his butt he deduced. Though the other was height challenged so perhaps…anyway-before he skipped back away from whence he came. Rei would never, ever, understand his coworker.
Nevertheless, he followed the somewhat command and quickly ran over to have Haru do his tricks. He would swim out at the end of the show, jump up high into the sky, higher than any of the previous dolphins and wave his tail at the crowd. After, three more flips of varying height and direction would occur. His entire routine lasted no more than five minutes, and Rei was focused on making them count precisely.
Haruka didn't really care to know why they had him move into this tank, only glad that it was vacant. He had feared he would run into the pod and be forced into some sort of unwanted social interaction. He followed Blue's commands easily enough, enjoying his rewards before being directed to finally swim back into his home.
Rei let out a sigh of relief, ignoring the mumbles of his coworkers and watching Haru carefully to make sure he was fine. He heard the signal as the other trainers started the practice show one more time. The entire spectacle was about a half hour, and Haru appeared twenty five minutes in so he occupied himself by watching the dolphin swim gracefully.
When he did summon him, Haru seemed to have learned and entered the tank with little hesitation. Rei felt his entire body relax at that. The show was going to go just fine now. He was sure of it.
this chapter sucks im sorry its really boring but necessary
more fun next chapter i promise
please read and review and ill love you lots!
see you next week
