~o~

Chapter 10:

Is this what it felt like? Is this how Haru felt when Rin left years ago?

Makoto was finally beginning to understand how earthshattering it was to lose the most important person in your life without any warning. Haru just vanished and left no traces for anyone to find him. For all the kingdom knew, the young prince was dead or kidnapped; but if it were a kidnapping wouldn't they thieves be after some kind of ransom?

It had been a week since Makoto last saw Haru. Just after Haru was reunited with Rin.

He knew that that human was at the root of this. It had to be him. Nine years went by with no acting out on Haru's part, then that human comes back into the picture for one day and Haru goes missing without a trace. The whole kingdom had search parties scattered as far as they could swim to look for any signs of the missing royalty, but no one could find anything leading to Haru.

Heartbroken and desperate, Makoto made it his personal mission to seek out Haru. He would search for the prince morning and night in all of the hidden places he had known Haru to run off to when he was younger, but those places all had one thing in common: no Haru.

He had taken to swimming closer to the shoreline than he would have ever considered before, assuming that Haru was hiding out near the human's beaches to be closer to his human.

This particular morning he was swimming close enough to the shoreline to see where the waves washed up on the sand. He was close enough to scan the beach, but far enough that he could probably go unnoticed by any humans. His heart raced and he raised only his eyes above the water, the rest of his face hidden. This was Makoto's new routine. He would stay there and wait, watching for any and all activity.

Today when he began skimming the shoreline he noticed two figures swimming on the other side of the shore. His heart jumped at the sight. From above the water they appeared to be human enough…but just maybe…

...

Rin splashed around lazily as he floated on his back, catching his breath.

"You can even beat me racing with legs. I've got the advantage now and you still beat me!" Haru grinned and splashed town into the water touching the sand with his palms and pushing off of it. When he broke the surface and gasped for air Rin swam over to him, taking Haru's hand in his.

"Do you miss the ocean?" Blue eyes searched deep red ones for a moment and slender shoulders shrugged.

"Rin you know I don't remember being a mermaid." Haru waded gently in the water and smiled. "Swimming is a lot better than walking though." Rin's laughter was cut off when he felt both of Haru's hands on the side of his face. Before he knew it Haru was pulling him under the waves.

Blue eyes watched Rin's face closely, smiling freely. Rin felt his heart race when he saw Haru smile, still holding his face. It was so hard not to kiss him.

When they both surfaced for air again Rin pushed back the hair dripping in his face and gave Haru a bewildered look.

"What was that for?" Haru still smiled the smile that made Rin's heart race.

"I wanted to see you underwater. How I used to see you." Rin's face almost turned as red as his hair. He fumbled over a response when they heard a faint voice in the distance. Strangely enough, it wasn't coming from land, but from the ocean. They both turned out towards the ocean, looking for the source of the voice.

"You heard that too?" Rin asked, earning a nod from Haru. After a few seconds a head appeared above the water, still fairly far away, but quickly racing towards them. It called out again, too far to understand what they were saying.

"What is he saying?" Haru shrugged and started to swim out closer to the figure. It was even closer.

"Haru!" The voice shouted, he sounded frantic. Rin stayed close to Haru, grabbing his wrist gently, feeling the urge to protect Haru from this stranger.

"Haru! Haru!" In a matter of seconds there was a frantic, brown haired green eyed mermaid before the two who quickly wrapped Haru in an embrace. He was crying with his eyes squeezed shut.

"You're alive! I'm so relieved! Everyone thinks you're dead! Haru, what happened? Where have you been? Are you okay?" Haru squirmed away from the stranger and looked at the panicked green-eyed merman. This person didn't give Haru the same feeling as when he reunited with Rin. This stranger startled him and made him nervous. He dipped his head under the water, shocked to see a shimmering green tail before him.

"You're a mermaid…" He breathed, Rin possessively reaching out to grab Haru's hand. The mermaid quickly locked eyes with Rin, venom in his bright green eyes.

"You! You're the one who did this! All of this is your fault. Do you have any idea what you did? The whole kingdom is hysterical! Do you have any idea who he is? Come on Haru, you're coming with me!" He yelled, snatching Haru's arm and starting to swim out to sea as quickly as he could. He felt Haru struggle behind him, but pulled him along anyway, berating him as they swam.

"I don't know what you were thinking, Haru. I've been worried sick looking for you!" After a few moments he felt Haru stop fighting behind him. Makoto glanced behind him for the first time, realizing that Haru was not the same. He stopped swimming as soon as he saw Haru's long legs floating behind him. Haru was almost unconscious from being underwater so long, Makoto panicked and carried him quickly to the surface. He didn't know what to do. He didn't understand how any of this happened. When Haru made it above the water he immediately took a suffocated gasp of air, coughing out the water he was choking on. Makoto raced back towards the shore, cradling the now-human Haru to his chest.

He returned to a panicked Rin, who looked even more panicked when he saw Haru coughing in his arms.

"He's a human now, he needs to breathe! Did you want to kill him?" Makoto was crying still clutching Haru close.

"I didn't know! I don't know what to do. How…how did this even happen? Why would you do this?" He sobbed pressing his face into Haru's black hair that smelled less like Haru than ever. Rin flinched at the accusations and reached out to stroke Haru's hair soothingly.

"First of all, I don't even know you. Second of all, I didn't do this. I just found him like this." Haru's breathing calmed down and he reached out to grab Rin's arm. "Are you okay, Haru?" He asked, full of concern. Haru nodded and reached both arms out to Rin.

Makoto looked at this through tear-blurred vision and reluctantly released Haru to Rin, who held his waist securely with one arm. Rin looked at the crying mermaid sympathetically.

"Look, don't take it personally. He doesn't have any memory. Whatever he did to turn himself human must have made him lose his memory." Makoto swam close to Haru, rubbing the tears from his eyes and reaching out to touch his face with a shaky hand. He stared into those lovely blue eyes that he'd known his whole life, which for once didn't know him in return. He closed his eyes tightly again and dove into the water, swimming out to sea once more.

Haru clung tightly to Rin, shaken from the encounter.

"Come on, let's go back home."

...

"Why was that guy so mad at me?" Haru asked from his curled up ball on the couch, wrapped in a fluffy blanket. Rin was on the floor digging through his shelf of DVDs.

"I'm not sure Haru. I didn't know him, but he seemed more upset than mad. It sounds like you just vanished from your mermaid world."

Haru snuggled his face into the soft fabric.

"But I thought you said I didn't like it there." Rin looked back at him sympathetically.

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean they didn't care about you." He couldn't shake the memory of the one thing the strange mermaid said to him though, "do you have any idea who he is?" the mermaid asked.

"He didn't help bring up any memories for you, did he Haru?" Haru shook his head and frowned.

"No he didn't. He seemed really upset though." Haru wrapped his blanket tighter. "I feel bad."

Rin got up from the floor and knelt in front of Haru on the couch.

"Hey, there's nothing you can do anyway because you don't have your memory. Let's just focus on that first and we'll worry about everything else afterwards." He leaned over and kissed Haru's forehead. "Okay?" Haru blushed and buried his face in his blanket again. Rin smiled and went back to sorting through his shelf. "Now where is it…"

After a few more minutes of digging through his shelf he pulls out an old dusty DVD case. He blew the dust off and grinned triumphantly.

"Here we go!" He popped out the disc and popped it into the television before settling down on the couch next to Haru. "Now just to be clear, this isn't mine. It was Gou's when she was a kid but it got wrapped up with my stuff when I moved out. But at least it's coming in handy now." Rin laughed as the screen opened with fireworks and the Disney castle intro. Haru was immediately enthralled in the movie. This was the first time that he had seen the television running, so that alone was amazing to him. Rin stretched back on the couch and yawned. Now of course, he was less than excited to be watching The Little Mermaid for the gazillionth time since his childhood. Gou used to have this movie on repeat, all day every day. But he was more than willing to give Haru some kind of insight to his underwater life- even if it were a fictional children's cartoon.

He found it pretty insane to be watching a movie about a mermaid with his very own mermaid, who was in a similar circumstance. He thought of Haru as Ariel and himself as Prince Eric, except he didn't have Eric's dreamy smile and Haru was significantly sexier than Ariel. He snorted at the thought.

Haru watched intensely as Prince Eric's ship caught on fire and Rin tried to suppress his grin when Haru clung to his arm nervously. Rin watched the visible relief wash over Haru when Ariel brought Eric to shore and leaned over.

"You know, that's kind of how you saved me the one night. Except with less singing; and you didn't run off after." Haru looked up at Rin with sparkling blue eyes, full of wonder.

"I did?" Rin smiled and leaned closer to Haru on the couch.

"Mmhm."

When Sebastian started to sing his famous "Under the Sea" Gou stuck her head in the livingroom, giving her brother a judgmental look.

"The Little Mermaid? Really?" Rin was startled at the appearance of his sister and threw a pillow at her.

"Mind your own business Gou!" She rolled her eyes and tossed her purse over her shoulder.

"Whatever. I'm going out, be back soon. Enjoy your kid movie and try not to do it on the couch while I'm gone!" and she headed out the door, leaving Rin flustered and blushing. Haru gave him a confused look.

"Do what?" Rin's face heated up even more and he rubbed his forehead.

"Nothing. Don't worry about it."

They easily went back to watching the movie and Rin's mind started fabricating strange thoughts and questions. That merman said that the whole kingdom was worried for Haru, maybe he was a princess- no a prince. But Rin had yet to meet a female mermaid. Maybe those weren't even real? Maybe Haru was a princess. Or crazier yet, Haru could have been the real-life King Triton. King Haru. Rin wondered if he had a trident too.

When Ariel went to Ursula's cave Haru was frightened again, but this time curled close to Rin, sharing the blanket with him and leaning on his shoulder. The warmth from Haru's body and the soft black pillow of hair he rested his cheek on was enough to quickly lull Rin into a comfortable sleep.

Haru continued to watch the movie as if he would find some magical cure to his problems within the old Disney classic. He figured if Ariel had a way to get her voice back, he had to have a way to get her memory back. He couldn't help but feel a pang of jealousy that Ariel only lost her voice. He and Rin already knew each other, so losing his voice would have been an easy thing to fix. Besides, he didn't like talking that much anyway.

When Ursula tricked Prince Eric into falling in love with her Haru felt a pang of nervousness that he had his own Ursula. Was it Gou? He shook off the thought immediately. She was Rin's sister. Besides, she didn't get in the way of the two of them anyway.

All Ariel had to do was kiss Eric before the sunset or something, was that all he had to do? How was he supposed to do that? Every time they tried to kiss they were interrupted so he didn't know what to do anyway! But what if his sunset already passed? What if he was too late? Haru cuddled close to Rin, his slow deep breaths making his head hot.

Ursula was vanquished, and Haru felt a wave of relief and Triton finally approved of her relationship. And they finally kissed. So that's all I have to do? Press my mouth against his? Haru thought that sounded easy enough.

He sat up and straddled Rin's lap, watching his sleeping face closely before leaning in and pressing his mouth firmly against Rin's. Rin startled awake and pulled away from him.

"What are you doing?" He asked, confused and half-asleep. Haru frowned, disappointed that his memory didn't magically return.

"I'm kissing you." Rin rubbed the sleep from his eye and chuckled.

"You can't just press your face into someone else's and call it a kiss." Haru pouted and sat back on Rin's knees. Rin's eyes flickered with a small flame of the passion that he was trying so hard to repress. "Do you really want to kiss me?" Haru's mouth formed a pout and he glanced down.

"Well that's what I was trying to do." Rin's hand reached up to cup Haru's cheek.

"Why the sudden interest?" Haru looked at Rin with innocent eyes.

"I thought that it might bring back my memory, like in the movie. If it's not too late."

Rin's expression was nothing but tender when he rubbed his thumb across Haru's soft cheek. And whispered "You're so sweet."

"Well first of all you want to look into each other's eyes." Haru's cheeks turned a light pink shade when Rin's serious maroon eyes locked with his own innocent blue ones. "I'll lead, just follow." Rin leaned in almost completely, his breath ghosting against Haru's lips. Haru quickly pressed into the kiss, his soft lips meeting Rin's. Rin's lips moved with ease against Haru's willing ones. He pulled away from Haru slightly, leaving him hanging for a second before diving back in for another kiss, this one less chaste and with more force. Haru's hands clutched at Rin's ribcage, while one of Rin's slipped into Haru's hair.

Rin slowed down the pace of the kiss and changed to little light kisses at Haru's lips, but Haru didn't want that. His fingers dug into Rin's skin as he pressed forcefully against Rin's mouth, his lithe body pressed against Rin's with an urgency he hadn't known was inside of him. Rin grinned, exposing his sharp teeth. He was pleasantly surprised by Haru's forcefulness. This was more like the Haru he had known before. In one smooth motion Rin had Haru on his back against the cushions and was teasingly kissing away at Haru, his hands lightly ghosting up and down Haru's sides. Haru arched into his touch with a small gasp of pleasure. Rin took this as his sign to pull away. He couldn't take things too far with Haru. He was just learning about kissing all over again; and he knew it would be too easy for him to take it all the way. It was so hard for Rin to resist the beautiful, warm body that was pulsing beneath his own. Rin pulled his lips away with a smile.

"And that's how you kiss." Hazy blue eyes looked into maroon ones imploringly and slender hands tried to pull him back.

"I want more," Haru begged. Rin bit down on his inner lip roughly, the pain reminding him not to rip the clothes straight from Haru's sweet skin and lick every inch of him.

"Not right now." Rin cuddled down next to Haru on the couch, the two of their bodies barely fitting on the cushion.

"Why not?" Haru whined quietly. Rin pushed Haru's long bangs from away from his eyes and grinned with his pointy teeth.

"Because you're just so damn irresistible that I'll eat you up." He emphasized with a teasing bite in front of his nose.

Haru pouted like a petulant child only to receive laughter from Rin.

"Pouting won't get you anywhere." Slender arms constricted Rin like a strait jacket.

"But it felt so good…" Haru mumbled into Rin's chest. Rin placed a finger under Haru's chin and tilted his head up, and gently raked his teeth along Haru's protruding lower lip and pulling away, sending a shiver through Haru's entire body.

"And if you behave I'll teach you things that feel even better." Rin whispered promisingly in Haru's ear. Haru's heart was pounding harder than he had known it to pound, his breathing was erratic and his hands were shaking. He just wanted to grab Rin and drag him into another heated kiss, but when his fingertips reached for Rin's face he was chastised. "Remember, behave." Haru huffed and at that moment Gou walked back through the door.

"Yo! I thought I told you two not to bang on the couch! I sit there!" Rin jumped off the couch and slammed his hand against the door frame.

"And I thought I told you to mind your own fucking business!" Gou stood in the doorway adamantly with her hands on her hips.

"Your attitude doesn't intimidate me, I've lived with it for eighteen years! Do. Your. Worst." Rin was about to snap back at her when he glanced at the nervous Haru on the couch. Instead of continuing their sibling spat he just puffed out some air and rolled his eyes.

"Whatever." And he returned to sitting on the couch with Haru.

"What, that's the best you've got? Is it because your boyfriend's here?" She harassed from the door.

"I'm not gonna play games with you right now Gou. It's not fair to Haru." Gou grinned and plopped down on the sofa next to Haru.

"Speaking of Haru, tell me a little bit about yourself." Blue eyes watched the young girl with uncertainty and he looked back at Rin.

"Ahh, I don't really know anything about myself." Gou's face twisted in the same way Rin's did when he was confused.

"What kind of an answer is that?" Rin intervened.

"Don't be rude."

"How is that rude? He's the one who won't hold a conversation with me!"

"Maybe it's because he isn't fond of loud girls." Haru put his palms in the air defensively.

"I never said that! I just can't remember anything about myself." Gou's anger quelled and confusion was present again.

"No way, so you have like, amnesia?" Rin grunted, he didn't really want to drag Gou into this but it was already too late.

"Sort of like that. We're trying to figure it out ourselves."

"So did you actually know him before he started living here or did you just pick up some poor confused stranger off the streets? That would make a lot more sense to me." Rin took in a deep breath. Gou was really trying to push his temper today.

"We really did know each other. I don't really want to talk about it anymore, it's already difficult enough." Gou was quiet for a moment, which was a fairly big deal for her.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know it was actually a serious thing. I hope you get your memory back soon, Haru." Rin's eyes widened in surprise.

"Wow. That was really mature of you Gou." She gave him a dismissive glance.

"It wasn't for you. It was for Haru." Haru was speechless between the two. Gou was making him nervous. He just felt nervous in general around people he didn't know; which in fact was everyone but Rin. "Oh by the way Rin, I ran into Souske today. He's been looking for you, he seemed pretty irritated." Rin shrugged and looked at Haru.

"He can wait."

"He told me to ask you when you're going back to,"

"When I'm ready." And Rin gave Gou a look that she knew meant he was done talking about that topic.

"Who's Souske?" Haru asked meekly, earning Rin's hand on his in response.

"Nobody you have to worry about." The atmosphere in the room was different. It had changed so dramatically in the past hour, on moment they're passionately kissing, the next Gou and Rin were screaming at one another, and now this mention of Souske shifted the room to something different and unfamiliar to Haru. It was all so much to take in.

"Hey, how about we go make some dinner. I'll fry up mackerel for you. Did you want to try something different with it for a change?" Rin wisely decided to change topics after sensing Haru's discomfort. Haru's face lit up with excitement and he shook his head.

They headed into the kitchen together, and Haru knew that the rest of the day would be good because he now had the promise of mackerel. And so long as Haru had mackerel, he knew everything would be alright.

~o~

What's this? New Character introduction?

Will there be more to expect from this? Why is Souske a problem?

I'd love to hear your guesses, and you'll find out what happens in the upcoming chapters,

Until next time,

Chayin