"Shouldn't you run screaming from water or something?" said Aomine, watching Kagami sit right at the part of the bay where the water covered him up to his ears, and he breathed in the spaces between push and pull. "Go sit in a volcano."
"Seen one," said Kagami, hauling himself out a few inches to snipe at Aomine, as the waterbender had thought he would. "You'd run screaming. Hot enough to melt your face off."
"Oh, is that what happened to yours," said Aomine, and Satsuki, wrapped around Tetsu on the beach, giggled.
"I'm not afraid of water," said Kagami. "So you're fresh out of luck there, jackass."
Aomine pushed the sea at him. Not a lot. Just a little, in with the push and pull of the tides, dragging at his bones.
Well. Maybe a lot. Kagami surfaced sputtering, and the wave crashed up the beach and splashed Satsuki, who squealed, and Tetsu, who tightened his hold on her automatically. Sweep people out to sea one time, they never forgot it. Or two. Or ten. Whatever, he always saved them again, scooped them safely out of the water.
"Aomine-kun," said Tetsu. "Don't drown Kagami-kun. That's wrong."
"I've drowned before," remarked Kagami, rolling his eyes at Tetsu and Satsuki to show he was above Aomine's level, like they all liked to pretend they were. "Lived, though. Never minded it."
"The ocean loves you," said Tetsu. Kagami looked at him, surprised, and Tetsu clarified, "It's a saying. If the ocean drags you down then lets you go, we say that it loves you. It lets you live again."
Satsuki laid her head on Tetsu's shoulder. "So romantic," she said, and sighed.
"I know," said Kagami. "I knew a Water Tribe guy- he said that too. He was from the North, though."
"It's a northern saying," agreed Tetsu. "How many times has it happened to you?"
"A few," said Kagami. "Once when I was small- they'd thought they lost me, but then I opened my eyes and coughed it all up. Been shipwrecked twice since, always fun. I surf, so I go under a lot, but drowning is different."
"You are one unlucky dude," said Aomine, eyeing Kagami skeptically. "Or just careless."
Kagami shrugged. "What can I say?" he said. "The ocean loves me."
Loves to suck out your life through your lungs, Aomine thought about saying, but didn't, because Satsuki would get upset. "Surf?" he said instead. "You surf?"
"Yeah," said Kagami, and turned to look out at the bay. The elephant koi were moving, but Aomine wasn't hunting them today. "Waves aren't good here, though."
Aomine considered telling Kagami how stupid he was, but rather than open his mouth, he pushed a wave again at Kagami, this one huge, moving out to the ocean so that Satsuki wouldn't complain, and Tetsu give him decidedly less meat tonight. It struck him on the back of the head- engulfed him- and when he surfaced this time, spitting saltwater, Aomine grinned at him.
Kagami was quick on the uptake, once you whacked him over the head with it. He grinned too. "Got boards?" he said.
"What do you think?" said Aomine.
"I think we're going to start dinner late today," said Satsuki, but she stood, and stretched all the inches of her glorious figure. Aomine was rarely so obliging. "In the boatshed, Kagamin. Let's go."
.0.
Sometimes Aomine was a huge asshole, selfish and lazy and capricious, vicious as sea-salt spray right in the eyes- but sometimes he did things like this, like whip up all the bay just so that they could play on it, moving in and around them with his own board of ice and dipping Kuroko and Momoi out of the water, raising Kagami's waves higher and higher until he was racing Aomine as much as the ocean, the wind in his hair.
"It's weird that there's no one else here," said Kagami. "I mean, it's a great day, you'd think the other villagers would come down. Not a lot, but some."
"Oh," said Momoi, and twisted her long rope of hair over her shoulder. "That's because of the Unagi."
"What's the Unagi," said Kagami.
Kuroko put his hand over his eyes, expressively.
On cue- on fucking cue- the water at the mouth of the bay erupted, and Aomine whooped and raced off to it, the waves rising behind him churning up the ice that formed and collapsed in his wake.
"Nothing to worry about," Momoi said, airily. "Dai-chan can take care of it, it's just that it makes some of the others nervous to play here. Kagamin, we should get to the shore now until it's over. Come on, race you!"
"What the hell," said Kagami, but Momoi was already moving, and the ocean boiled around his legs, and Kagami moved, blasting behind him gouts of fire until he crawled up onto the beach spitting water and turned around to see Aomine playing keep-away with a sea-serpent. It's shining body arced high over the water, and the elephant koi fled in all directions; jumping the rock in their haste to get away.
"What the hell," Kagami said, as Kuroko and Momoi more decorously rid themselves of the consequences of their hasty exit.
"That is the Unagi," said Kuroko. "It feeds on the elephant koi, and lives in the bay. It enjoys human, when it can get it."
"And Dai-chan keeps it away from us, when we want to swim here," said Momoi brightly. "The other waterbenders help out during catching time, but other than that none of them want to risk it. They're not as strong as Dai-chan."
"It will go away soon," said Kuroko. "Aomine-kun just has to hit it a few times. The waves must have attracted it."
Kagami stared at them, brushing sand and salt off their skin, seemingly unconcerned about their friend fighting a giant sea-serpent just for kicks. "What happens if it eats him?' he asked.
"That would be a pity," Kuroko suggested very seriously. Momoi nodded, hiding a smile.
Kagami gave up.
.0.
Kise came in over the horizon just as it was getting dark, at first a small dark speck against the long thrown-out rays of the sun, then as he came closer a small dark speck doing lazy, looping whorls, moving up and down on the air currents, expanding too much energy to move, and not really to much purpose. Classic Kise.
Aomine sent up waterspouts to show Kise they'd seen him, because who else on Kiyoshi Island greeted the Avatar with waterspouts? No one, that's who, and he changed course abruptly, coming in low and fast.
Kagami floated on his board up to where Aomine had made himself an ice platform and tried to think of a way to get on it without getting himself stuck.
Aomine swatted in his direction. "Go away, you're melting my float."
"What?" said Kagami, and then looked down at his hand and put it on the ice, leaving a visible imprint.
"THE WATER IS FREEZING," called Satsuki from the shore, where she'd retreated at last after one of Aomine's waves washed a elephant koi out, leaving them to stare at it flopping around massively until Aomine pulled it back into the sea, embarrassed. Kuroko had left, possibly to start dinner now that Kise was on his way, but no one could be sure. "KAGAMIN IS THE ONLY HEAT SOURCE."
"Huh," said Kagami. "Didn't realise I was doing that."
Aomine rolled his eyes and let the platform collapse, falling to the literally icy water. "We should go," he said. "Kise will whine and whine and whine until we feed him, and Tetsu gets pissy if his food gets cold."
"Okay," said Kagami peaceably, and Aomine washed them back to the shore in huge, easy waves, so that the water lapped gently at Satsuki's toes, and deposited them at her feet without effort. They gathered up their gear and left without looking back up at Kise's shadow. He would arrive when he did, and no sooner.
"I've never surfed waterbender waves before," said Kagami, a touch dreamily. "Man, I can't believe that bastard could have done this and never said a word."
"That northern guy?" said Aomine, dripping water out his ears, teasing it out with his fingers, pulling it out of Satsuki's hair as they walked. Kagami just plain dried fast. Probably a firebender thing. "Maybe he couldn't do it good enough to get a good ride." But Aomine could, because Aomine was the greatest. Southern Tribe waterbenders passed through now and then and could never believe that Aomine had never trained under a master, and did not want to.
"Yeah," said Kagami. "I mean, Ember Island has some great waves, but these bending ones are bigger. He was a tightass, though. Probably wouldn't have done it even if he'd be able to."
Aomine wanted to say, where are all these places? Who are all those people? How much more of the world have you seen than we have, and what's it like? Aomine has been to the next town over, and never spent the night off the island. Kise has been all over the world, and Kagami talked like he meant to do the same, to visit the poles and ride a sky bison, to see a dragon- to fight a dragon, like the firebenders of old- and stand on the walls of Ba Sing Se.
Satsuki touched his arm, smiled. Aomine thought no, because how could he ever leave Satsuki, or Tetsu? What would they do without him? (What would he do without them?) All their lives were on Kiyoshi Island, and Kagami was just a drifter; even Kise only came back because it was on his way, and the Avatar never stopped moving.
"I think Ki-chan will have an announcement tonight," she said, and speak of the devil, Kise whooshed over their heads, laughing at them, calling out "Kurokochiiiiiiii," as he headed for the house, and Aomine could hear Tetsu's sigh, floating out the windows, along with the light and smell of home.