Work Text:
After Aira had been so insistent that him and Kohaku should go to the zoo, Kohaku, with a huff, finally agreed to it and Aira cheered and wrapped his arms around him.
*
Aira had also insisted that the rest of Alkaloid and Crazy:B come along with them and without saying anything, Kohaku solemnly nodded and Aira was grinning.
*
Arriving at the zoo, Hiiro and Aira were the only ones enthusiastic to be there; Hiiro because he hadn't been to a zoo before and Aira because he's glad the rest of his friends joined them.
The others weren't disappointed to be there, per se, but they probably would've rather been any place rather than a zoo, but Aira, full of so much energy, hopped off the bus they came on and eagerly persuaded everyone to get off.
"Okay, we can just go around in small groups! Kohaku, come with me! Let's see the otter exhibition!" Aira exclaims and quickly grabs Kohaku with one hand and runs off with him whilst his other hand is preoccupied with trying to keep his hat down so it doesn't blow off in the wind.
The rest of the group stand shocked at just being left but then Hiiro is quick to turn around and grin, "Okay, let's just walk around together then! Hurry, everyone! We need to see everything!"
*
When Aira and Kohaku get to the otters, Aira is sat there squealing,
"Wah! Kohaku, they're so cute!"
Aira crouches down so he's able to see under the water of the otters and that's when one comes up to him and places it's paw on the glass which causes Aira to squeal more and families to look their way.
"Kohaku! Come here, place your hand with the otter too!" Kohaku prays doing so will stop Aira from screaming so much.
It doesn't. It encourages it more as Aira says absurd sentences such as,
"You're just like Snow White! You have such a connection with animals, Koko!"
and,
"You've made a best friend, I can't believe it! The otter likes you more than me!"
Kohaku thinks it's ridiculous and as quick as he puts his hand on the glass, he takes it off and the otter swims away and Kohaku swears the otter had a mischievous glint in its eyes but he shakes the thought out of his head - what a ridiculous thought to even have.
Aira continues to walk around the otter exhibit for the next thirty minutes despite it only being a small area and Kohaku has to drag Aira out because Aira has been dangerously close to jumping in and swimming with the otters.
Aira just continues to grin at Kohaku.
*
The groups ended up meeting together after and they spend the rest of the time walking around together seeing all types of animals.
The group is relieved for the day to finally end; Aira's been keeping them on their feet all day and they're exhausted but to their surprise, Aira announces that he booked the hotel here so they're all able to stay in animal themed rooms.
They all simultaneously let out a disappointed sigh except Hiiro, who is just as excited about this all as Aira.
When they get to the hotel, Aira announces it's rooms of two and he eagerly grabs onto Kohaku's arm, "I'm rooming with Koko! You guys have to choose amongst yourselves."
Niki is quick to grab ahold of Mayoi and Tatsumi is quick to grab onto Hiiro which left Himeru shaking his head as he was the one that had to be stuck with Rinne.
"MeruMeru! I'm glad ya want to room with me," Rinne exclaims and wraps his arm around the back of Himeru's head which instantly gets shrugged off.
"Himeru didn't have a choice."
Aira begins handing out the keys as everyone is now partnered up and with a rushed 'goodnight' and 'see you all bright and early in the morning!' Aira and Kohaku disappear into the elevator.
Looking down, everyone realises the rooms are all next to each other anyway.
Rinne laughs.
*
Tatsumi is the first to wake up and he feels something is off right away.
He looks at the time and upon seeing its 8am, he knows something is wrong immediately as Aira is always waking at 7am and is quick to wake everyone else up after.
Tatsumi knows Aira likes routine and with this being so unlike him, Tatsumi is quick to get up, get dressed and knock on the door of Aira's and Kohaku's shared hotel room.
There's no response and this makes Tatsumi panic more and he suddenly stops knocking as he can hear squeaks and squeals coming from inside their room.
He can hear footsteps from behind and looks to see Hiiro coming out of their room, wiping his eyes and sleepily walking towards Tatsumi.
"What's... up with you?" Hiiro asks and Tatsumi explains that he feels something is wrong and that there's now weird noises coming from inside Aira's room.
"Hmm..." Hiiro puts his ear to the door and can hear the same squeals and it wakes him up more.
Hiiro is making 'ooh'ing and 'aah'ing sounds whenever he hears a slightly different noise and Tatsumi can't help but to internally facepalm.
As the noises continue and get louder, Niki, Mayoi, Himeru and Rinne also start to emerge from their rooms.
"What's goin' on in there then?" Rinne asks, "it's so damn loud."
It goes quiet and everyone in the hallway can hear the noises coming from Aira's and Kohaku's room.
"Have you tried opening the door, Tatsumi?" Himeru says, albeit bitterly.
Tatsumi nods and he pulls the handle down to prove it doesn't open so Himeru huffs and Niki butts in,
"Me and Mayoi will go down to get a spare key, wait for us here."
It takes close to ten minutes but they both come back with a key in their hand and pass it to Tatsumi; opening the door he finds Aira and Kohaku are not in their beds - in fact, Tatsumi looks around their whole rooms and they're nowhere to be seen.
"Huh?"
It's not until Tatsumi hears another squeal from behind that he turns around and instead of seeing Aira and Kohaku, he sees two otters in place of them.
"Uwah!" Mayoi cries out and hides behind Niki whilst everyone else tries to all squeeze through the door.
"Otters!" Hiiro shouts and runs towards them which then causes the both to scatter and hide under the bed.
"Oops, my bad."
Tatsumi crouches down and sticks his hand out; almost like a peace offering to let them know there's no threat.
They carefully make their way out and Tatsumi picks Kohaku up with one hand and picks Aira up with the other. He goes to walk out the door but there's a worker of the hotel there as he had heard the noise.
The worker's eyes widen, "What're you doing with those?" and before anyone has time to protest, he's taking them out of Tatsumi's grasp and calling a zookeeper to say how there's been two animals that have escaped.
Tatsumi sighs.
Everyone else is watching the whole ordeal happen until Hiiro speaks up,
"What are we waiting for?! They are our friends, shouldn't we help them?"
Tatsumi goes to sit on the bed, "We don't even know if they are actually Kohaku and Aira, we just assumed they were. Plus, what else can we do right now? We can't exactly go into the otter exhibit and try to take those otters."
The room falls silent.
*
As Aira and Kohaku are being placed into the otter exhibit, Aira squeals again but not the excited squeal he was doing yesterday; it was almost distressing for Kohaku to hear. He felt bad and he just wanted to turn back into a human again - how they even turned into otters in the first place was beyond him.
Once they were in the exhibit, Kohaku and Aira had swum to the nearest rocks and Kohaku had curled there first. Aira made a questioning squeak and as Kohaku lifted his nose, Aira took it as a 'yes' and huddled around him.
This brought attraction to the exhibit - seeing two otters cuddling together.
"Awh, look at those two there by the rocks!" A little girl had shouted and everyone had got their phones and started taking their pictures.
As Mayoi and Niki were walking nearby, they turned around and saw what everyone else was 'aww'ing at.
"Kohaku!"
"Aira!"
Niki and Mayoi simultaneously shouted and the two otters looked up at the sound of their names and swam towards where their friends were.
They were clawing at the glass and despite being otters, Niki and Mayoi could see how sad and upset they were being stuck in there.
"We'll find a way to get you out," Niki whispers and he grabs Mayoi's hand and runs off to find the rest of the group.
Aira makes another distressed squeal and slowly makes his way back to the rocks where Kohaku then follows.
Kohaku gently places his paw upon Aira's own which causes more people to gather around and see these two otters holding hands.
Aira nuzzles his nose deeper into Kohaku's neck.
*
Aira hadn't seen anyone else throughout the day; he hoped Niki and Mayoi had gone to find their friends but they never returned so Aira spent most of the day either sitting by the rocks or floating in the water.
Despite Aira being an otter lover, turning into an otter wasn't much fun and Aira wasn't enjoying it at all. Maybe it would be fun if Aira was originally an otter.
Kohaku would try to cheer Aira up, he found a funny-shaped rock and after a lot of squeaks and nudging, Aira figured out that the rock was for him and Kohaku was hinting at it being similar to a 'heart shape' and it made Aira internally smile.
When Kohaku turns away, Aira stuffs the rock in the loose pocket of his skin.
It was turning night and the zoo had closed by now. Aira swam towards the inside apartment of the exhibit so he wouldn't have to stay out in the cold but even after curling up, his little otter body was still shivering slightly and so Kohaku had got up from his space and cuddled Aira, it stopped the shivers immediately and Kohaku touched his nose with Aira's before both of them fell asleep.
*
When they both woke the next day and went outside, they were greeted by their friends standing by the exhibit and quickly swam over to them with Aira trying to jump over the glass.
"Hey, hey," Tatsumi says and slowly puts his hand over and Aira jumps to cuddle his arm.
"Quiet," he whispers, "get in this bag quick and we can escape before anyone sees us here."
Kohaku and Aira obediently do so and they all make their way back to the hotel.
*
When they get back to their room, Kohaku and Aira both crawl out their bag and rest on the bed but despite the size of the bed, they both cuddle and Aira initiates the hand (paw) holding first.
The group leaves the room again but Tatsumi takes the key with him this time so he can easily access their room and he's able to check in on them tomorrow.
He feels bad for them and he hopes they're able to change back soon.
*
Aira wakes up to see pink hair clouding in his vision and he can feel his back getting warmer by the second, almost on the sticky side of 'hot'.
His brain is muddled and as he slowly gets up, he looks down he realises with a sigh of relief that they're human again and that his paws have changed back to hands.
"Kohaku! Kohaku! Wake up, quick, Kohaku!" He's shouting and pushing Kohaku's shoulder.
He moves only a little bit before tiredly opening his eyes and once he sees Aira's bright green eyes and wide grin again, he's more awake and he hugs Aira.
"Aira! We're back to normal," Kohaku breathes out and falls back onto the bed, grinning.
They turn towards the door as they hear the door handle rattling and see Tatsumi standing there and look slightly confused before a smile breaks out on his face.
"Oh, thank God you guys turned back," he breathes out, "it means you can pack up now. We're going to leave this place soon."
They nod and Tatsumi exits.
*
As they're getting on board the bus, Aira only just realises his pocket is weighing down and that there's actually something in his pocket.
He reaches into it to grab whatever it is and smiles as he realises it's the heart-shaped rock Kohaku had given him yesterday - when they were still otters.
Kohaku stops in his tracks as he doesn't hear footsteps behind him and turns to see Aira inspecting something in his hand.
Upon closer inspection, he sees it's the rock he gave to Aira and a light dusting covers his cheekbones. As Aira looks up to him, he smiles and then reaches up to kiss Kohaku on his cheek.
He then steps down and reaches towards Kohaku's hand; grabbing ahold of it and squeezing tightly. He smiles again when he receives a squeeze back.
Kohaku and Aira continue to hold their hands as they board the bus and make their way back home.
Aira's other hand is stuffed in his pocket.
It's tightly holding onto the rock.