Disclaimer: Akira Amano made Katekyo Hitman REBORN!

Claimer: I own the plot and OCs; nothing more, nothing less.

Warnings: takes place before Gola Mosca; slight mention of blood

Pairings: BelOC

"The hotel isn't that way."

Belphegor has stopped walking and is turned to where Aria is heading. She took a really early right turn, while the hotel was straight ahead. He isn't sure if she's just trying to go to the other side of the street to keep away from him, or if she wanted to do something else.

"I'm not going back. I'm going to the aquarium here. It's supposed to be small, but nice."

"Ushishishi, an aquarium, you say? Aren't they mostly used to amuse and entertain little children? Are you a little child?"

"No, but it doesn't hurt to act like one just a little bit sometimes," Aria responds.

When Aria crosses the street, she manages to take a look back to see that Belphegor is following close behind. She frowns at this, wanting to have time to herself to escape her most hated foe. She wanted to be able to forget what this boy has done to her parents. Was an escape too hard to ask for? She decided to "eat" her way out of this annoyance by sticking a new cherry sucker into her mouth.

The Prince didn't like the idea of him going back to the hotel and doing nothing while the girl was able to have fun by going to an aquarium. Someone who is royal like himself should be the one having fun while the peasant should be having no fun because they're just trying to get through with their lives. They didn't have leisure time like the royal family. To Belphegor, this was common sense that Aria didn't seem to have.

But Belphegor can see why Aria wouldn't want to go back to the hotel and be cooped up there. The day is still perfect. There's still a blue sky, a light breeze, and it's perfectly warm. Belphegor can only assume this based on what everything looks like around him, because since he's always cold, it doesn't feel like a perfect day unless it's ninety degrees outside.

Once they're both across the street, Belphegor falls into stride with Aria. The both of them are silent. Belphegor has a large array of ideas that are playing through his head so that he'll be able to possibly find out more about Aria's personal grudge against him. The idea of her having a grudge still bugs him.

Once they make it to the aquarium, the girl ends up paying for her and for the blond-haired boy. As soon as they go inside, there's a small curved all. In the middle is a cylinder-like tank with what looks like dirty green water. There's a transparent jellyfish in it, floating around and with long waving tentacles. Along the wall are smaller tanks. The water inside looks black, but the jellyfish inside are florescent bright colors that are slightly differently shaped than the jellyfish next to them, along with different tentacle length.

There's only one thing Belphegor is thinking of at this particular moment…

Sushi…

The blond-haired boy follows the brown-haired girl as she walks to the wall of jellyfish to analyze the hardly-live fish closer. The boy digs his hands into his pockets and watches the jellyfish float in their small tank while the girl lightly taps on the glass to where it won't disturb anything even if they react to the tapping.

Eventually, they both move on. What's next is a small hall where the aisle isn't very wide. On both sides are glass walls. On the other side of the glass are faked trees with roots going through dirty water where there's moss floating along the top of the water. Swimming through the liquid are a couple of otters while, on the other side of the aisle, are sleeping otters that look older.

Aria and Belphegor are keeping a comfortable distance from each other. Aria has her arms crossed and is leaning in on herself as she watches the otters with interest. Belphegor can't seem to be more bored than he is now. Both assassins suddenly hear giggling. A girl with light brown hair and green eyes stands next to Belphegor with a polite smile, making him turn to her.

"They're cute, aren't they? It makes you wonder how they can have so much fun in this little space," the girl says with what she could consider a cute smile. It looks like her friends are at the end of the hall and glancing back at her openly flirting with Prince the Ripper.

Finally, an idea can come into play.

"I don't care for them, but my girlfriend does."

Belphegor takes Aria's right hand with his own right hand. He pulls her close, causing her to stumble a bit. He holds her steady by wrapping his left arm around her waist. He turns to Aria, shoving his face rather close to her ear with a playful grin at her. Aria turns to Belphegor with a terrified glare.

"Wh-What are you d-doing?" she stutters. Her disgust wasn't letting her form her words properly.

"I'm wondering how you like the otters," Belphegor replies. He leans even closer to Aria's ear to whisper, "There's this girl taking an interest in me and I need to get her off my back and stop being so annoying."

Aria bites her lip and turns. She sees a girl pass by with her head lowered in between her shoulders. There are other two girls who look like they're waiting for her. They all link arms with each other and they seem to be comforting the downcast girl. Then they begin to laugh as if they told a joke to cheer her up.

"Alright, they're gone. Now let me go."

"Actually, there are still some girls behind us. They came in after us. Ushishishi."

Aria does her best to look natural as she leans back a little bit. She does see a larger group of girls mixed with guys. They're lingering behind the two assassins, and a few of the girls in the group seem to be eying Belphegor, and glaring at Aria. How was it that The Prince could get such blunt fans? They didn't seem to care that Aria could see their heated glares on her head.

She leans forward out of their sight. Normally, these things don't bother her, but she's never been fully glared at by a few different girls before. She normally stays under the radar, so she's never undergone any glares at herself except from Xanxus or Squalo.

Then there was the strange feeling in the pit of her stomach. The girl didn't like the idea of other different girls coming onto the boy holding her close right now. She wants them to stay away, and she seems to like that the blond-haired boy is using her for just that. The Italian girl tells herself that this is because she doesn't want other people getting in the way of her revenge, which might be to somehow get this younger Italian hurt here.

Belphegor lets their intertwined hands hang limply, and he keeps Aria close to his side. They continue onto the next room. The floor is concrete, and the walls look like concrete as well. On the right is a wall with tanks filled with different small colorful fish, along with different seahorses. In the middle and more to the left is a large tank with an open top and lowered to where children can reach over the glass. In the tank are a few large fish, and a few sting rays that are swimming along the glass and sometimes reaching out past the surface of the water.

Aria's eyes sparkle, surprisingly. She races toward the tank of fish and sting rays and reaches out to a sting ray that's reaching up where she is. Belphegor stumbles a little as he was suddenly pulled toward the tank because of their linked arms by their hands. The Prince frowns when he sees the Italian girl petting a sting ray.

What was so special about some stupid fish? She should be excited to even see The Prince. Why could a fish earn that kind of reaction from her, when she hardly reacted to him at all?

Aria turns to Belphegor with a content smile. She has the nerve to ask, "Don't you want to pet the sting ray?"

"No, the water is full of fish-crap. Why would I stick my hand into that filth?"

"… I'm pretty sure the people who work here wouldn't let the fish swim in their own filth all of the time. I'm sure they at least clean it up."

All the while, Aria is thinking, I hope they bite you.

"I doubt it's all the time," is Belphegor's response to repeat his decision.

Aria shrugs at Belphegor. Her hand is beginning to burn, and she wants to tear her hand from his so badly that it's getting hard to enjoy the feeling of the sting ray underneath her hand. She's trying so hard not to scowl or show Belphegor that she's angry with this situation. She wouldn't let him win, and she couldn't confirm his suspicion that she has something against him that he couldn't possibly know about.

The girl spends a little more time trying to pet the sting ray that swim by. Belphegor watches her reaching into the water with a smile every time she manages to even graze the skin of the fish. He never knew that such childish things could make this rather serious girl smile like an idiotic kid. He wants her attention again and mostly while she's still smiling like that. The boy could never make someone grin like that with his presence; he only saw scowls and frowns when he came around.

The Prince pulls the gunman away from the tank. She retaliates a little, but then quickly falls silent as they move onto the next exhibit. Belphegor keeps the gunman close to his side, now rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand because the same group of three girls from before is at the end of the hall.

The hall is covered by glass, and all around is filled with water. Large fish are swimming around, and just as the two assassins go into the hallway, a large shark swims over the top of the glass tunnel. The two teenagers stop walking and look up at the shark.

"Ushishishi, Squalo…" Belphegor states as he sees the shark swim overhead. "He would enjoy this…"

"But he wouldn't enjoy being associated with a shark as much as he likes to see one," Aria mumbles. She might not understand Squalo very well, even though she hears all his whining without saying a word, but she's sure that he wouldn't like being called a shark by the blond.

Aria tries to move away from Belphegor, but forgets that their hands are linked together. The two assassins start to slowly walk along the side of the water tunnel as they watch the different living things swimming around. Belphegor gives his famous chuckle as he responds to Aria's last statement, "Ushishishi, as if I care."

"And you wonder why Squalo hates you…" Aria mumbles.

"I don't because I don't care. Beside, deep down inside, he adores me because I'm a prince, after all. A prince's subjects love him."

"What a fantastical world you live in," Aria mumbles again as they reach the end of the water tunnel. They had seen large fish and a few different sharks. "In order to have subjects, you need to rule something, and you don't. Beside, no one loves you so possible subjects-to-be already hate you. So no subjects love you."

Belphegor pulls Aria by a door probably meant to be for employees. It's a little out of the way from the water tunnel. Belphegor pushes Aria's back against the door but she doesn't flinch. He chuckles as he grabs her chin, surprisingly not silently threatening to slit her neck by putting one of his precious silver knives up against her warm skin. Aria glares, not liking to be touched by Belphegor.

"Subjects will come to love their prince. I might have to start one by one. Guess I'll start with you, toy. I'll make you love your prince."

Belphegor keeps a hold of Aria's chin and uses his other hand to take out the sucker from her mouth. This irritates her and it shows on her face, but it makes Belphegor all the more excited. He pulls her face forward and leans in, crashing their lips together. There's the painful sound and feeling of teeth clacking together, but Prince the Ripper seems to enjoy this pain in his gums.

Naturally, she tastes like cherries.

Aria widens her eyes, her senses exploding into a chaotic state as her nerve endings her head seem to be set on fire. She looks like she feels like this blood-loving boy is tainting her very being, every fiber of what makes her who she is. It's hard to explain why, but that's how it is. The body goes numb, the muscles stiffen uncomfortably, and pupils dilate and then shrink as she comprehends just what is really happening. This couldn't be happening, not to her. This wasn't supposed to happen. She wanted to be his friend so that her betrayal would hit hard, but this was something else completely and it wasn't supposed to happen. The most she could do was fight out of this.

The gunman bites down on Prince the Ripper's bottom lip. She doesn't draw blood, but she makes it painful. Prince the Ripper suddenly slips a knife out of his sleeve so that it's right beside Aria's now-discarded sucker in his hand. He presses the cold metal up against her neck, where there's already a pink line, and draws blood. He doesn't like the feeling of his bottom lip being bitten.

The gunman puts her hands on Prince the Ripper's shoulders and pushes him away, letting go of his lip. She looks completely enraged. The gunman snatches her sucker out of Prince the Ripper's hand, knocking his knife to the floor. She stomps away as people had watched the scene unfold. They widen their eyes when they see Prince the Ripper pick up his knife. He throws them only the worst kind of smile and everyone immediately hustles to the exit. If he was going to hurt someone with that knife of his, they didn't want it to be them.

Now then, where did that toy of his go? His toy was much more entertaining than he anticipated all the time.

Well, I understand if you guys didn't necessarily like this chapter. I mean, I am distracted with college. And even if that is, I'm still kind of content with the chapter. I published this before I have to go to Chemistry Lecture.

Either way, seeing as I'm currently working on the next update as I'm publishing this, I'm going to need THREE or FOUR reviews before I do update.

I tried to add some humor a little bit in one part-I'm sure you guys know where *Cough*Squaloshark*Cough*-but... I think I may have failed...