Chapter Text
"This is boring." Haru was sitting on a stool in Makoto's kitchen, kicking his feet absently. Spread out on the table was a stack of books Makoto had borrowed from the library, with titles like "Sharks of the World," "Sharks: Creatures of the Deep," "Shark Facts," and "Sharks!". Haru liked that one. He picked it out because it had an exclaimation point in the title. Exclaimation points were important.
"Nuh-uh, this is scientific." Makoto corrected, flipping a page in the big book that had NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC OCEANS printed across the cover in big white letters. He didn't know half of the words in it, but he had already decided that he was definitely learnng a lot. His siblings wouldn't be back from their after-school hike for awhile, so they knew they weren't in the way by usurping the entire table for the time being.
"Scientific, or whatever. Let's just go swimming and find the shark again." Haru commented, pushing one of the volumes aside. Did Makoto even know half of the words in that book? He was dismissing Haru, and they both knew it, but he was right. Haru was looking for excuses to go swimming. When wasn't he? The thing here was, that he wasn't sure how to explain Rin to Makoto without saying "I met a boy who is a fish." Though his explanation had basically boiled down to that. He had never been particularly verbose.
"Wow, did you know, that sharks have like, an endless supply of teeth? Yeah, if they bite into something and lose one, another one sorta pulls forward and takes its place. Some sharks can have like, two...um. four zeroes...twenty thousand teeth before they die!" Makoto was totally engrossed in the book, but Haru just found himself sighing, flipping another page idly. On that page was a photo of a Tiger Shark. Yeah, it looked sort of like Rin. Sort of. It had a lot less...person to it, but maybe Rin was related to it? Or something like that. Wait. That could be fish-racist. He shouldn't assume that all fish that look similar are related. Yeah. Fish-racist. Fishist? That's a stupid word.
He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts as though they were extra droplets of water that made his hair stick to his face. Anyway, the page called the shark in question a Tiger Shark. Named for the stripes that mostly appear on juveniles, they are only second to great whites in terms of human-related shark attacks. In fact, they will eat almost anything.
He smiled to himself, (almost morbidly) thinking of how Rin had gobbled up his mother's ex-pet. He still had to come up with a good excuse for that one. He was bad at excuses. They always came out along the lines of 'Oh, I was shaving the eel,' or 'I had to go eat some shampoo.' Yeah, he had to work on that.
The book continued on about how tiger sharks have been found with all sorts of things in their stomach, from alarm clocks and seat cushions to a whole severed human arm (which had been cut off of the person before the shark ate it, somehow. Haru found this mental image more comedic than horrifying). Though they mostly ate fish and stingrays. He made a mental note to ask Rin later what he liked to eat. Maybe he'd bring him something. If it wasn't something ridiculous, like stingray or alarm clock.
Still, all of that information, and it didn't say anything about them being people, or talking, or getting caught in tidepools. The goldfish-eating was kind of explained, at least. He let out an audible sigh. "Can't we just go looking for him?"
"I'd rather look at pictures of sharks in books. Your shark sounds okay, but-"
Haru popped his head over the top of Makoto's book, propping himself up on the table by his hands. "But what?"
"But! He's in the ocean!"
"So?"
There was silence for a few moments. Of course. Makoto was afraid of the ocean. Haru was always so picky about his words, but at the same time, he had a habit of being dreadfully blunt. One would think that quiet children were more tactful, but for Haruka, it was more along the lines of the fact that perhaps he had just never practiced with human interaction well enough to pick up on the subtleties, or lackthereof, that affected the emotions of others. Actually, it was probably none of these things. He was just tactless. Finally, he opened his mouth again. "We'll go find him."
Makoto retorted by slamming his hands down on the table hard enough to knock the stack of books over. "I'm never going in the ocean! You can't make me!" he yelled. The outburst hadn't been totally unwarranted, but it did feel a little uncharacteristic. After all, Makoto was usually the calm one, always smiles and reassurance that they could do whatever they wanted, go wherever they wanted, grow up to be whatever they wanted to be. Or something else inspriational that may as well have been out of a cheap American fortune cookie. Makoto was a master of another kind of zen, but he was also still a kid. A kid whose nerve had just been struck, and ultimate fear disregarded by someone he cared about.
Haru slowly lowered himself, realizing what he had just done. He hadn't meant to upset Makoto, but he just did. Good job there dropping the ball on one of the only people in the world that he had filed into his "important" category. Way to be mean about it, too.
Makoto's feelings were way more important than being fishist.