Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ If only for one moment, I could be like you... ❯ Bubbles and Surprises ( Chapter 16 )

AN: sorry for the delay! I got lazy and tired from work and college! *Dodges flames* DON'T HURT ME! I'll be updating faster, because you doth demand!

Another note, the teaser (which I meant to fix…but I apparently never did, DOES NOT involve Marik...damn those M word names. MAKO MAKO MAKO!!!! RAWR!

Ryou was jolted awake by Jono flopping back onto the couch next to him. "Wake up! Sleepy head, it's time to give those fins of yours a little exercise!" He said merrily. Ryou smiled a bit, sitting up and stretching a bit. "Just get dressed, we'll skip breakfast today, because you're not supposed to eat before swimming, besides, I'm sure Mako will have a few spare fish for you to gnaw on." Ryou turned slightly pink "I don't GNAW on fish...I eat them." He said indignantly, causing Jono to laugh. "I know, I was just kidding with you, c'mon up up up!" He said leaving the room, already dressed. Ryou wondered briefly, where Jono had gotten his morning perkiness, but shrugged as he dressed. Today would be a great day, FINALLY some time to just swim!

~~~~~

Jono lead Ryou into the swim center's main hallway, where most admissions were sold, before pressing a button on the wall, filling the room with an echoing buzz. Ryou could already smell the sea, which he found rather strange, for even though the building was quite large there was NO way the sea could have possibly moved to fit inside of it. "Yeah Yeah, I'm coming." Mako bellowed opening the doors for them. "This had better be good, I don't like leaving the place closed for no good reason." Jono smiled. "When have I EVER lead you wrong?" Mako gave Jono a flat look. "Jonouchi, you ALWAYS manage to lead me wrong..." Jono twitched slightly. "Now that's not true!"

Ryou blinked as he followed the two quietly. "It's more than true!" Mako said, laughing a bit. "Anyhow, who's your little friend?" He asked, turning to look at Ryou. "That's Ryou, I'll tell you a little about him in a bit." Jono said, looking back as they passed the long corridor of glass, on either side of which were Mako's fish. (Much like sea world) Ryou smiled lightly, and stopped to look at a few of the dolphins swim close to the glass and squeak at him. "Hi! Hi! Come play with us! Come sing with us! Dance in the waters with us!" They chirped at him, alongside Ryou as he walked the corridor. Ryou hadn't ever been good at talking with dolphins as some of his kind was, but he could understand them just the same, although that was about the only sea creature he could understand. "J-Jono...can I play with the dolphins?" He said softly, as they reached the end of the corridor.

As it turns out, Ryou was allowed to use Mako's personal swimming area, namely the UNGODLY large tank that was on the walls of the perimeter of the building. It circled the building, and each of the three public pools. There were tunnels that separated each tank, although they were only separated in quadrants, so he could shuffle the fish out of a tank to clean it, without having too large an ordeal. Thus he cleaned the tanks one at a time, never draining all of them at once. Jono had sent Mako out after he had agreed to allow Ryou to use the tanks, to get lunch.

"Ok, now just hop in, we're gonna surprise him! You'll be his dreams come true. Just remember to be patient with him. When he comes back, hide. I'll shove him into the water and then you can surprise him." Ryou smiled and hugged Jono, quickly stripping down and hopping into the warm water. Within seconds he was once more the mystical creature of the deep, which was long thought fictitious.

Ryou sighed contentedly, the warm waters washing over him as relaxing as a hot tub would be to Jono. Ryou smiled moments after and completely submerged into the water, swimming to the bottom and stretching out, glad to finally have the room to move. As relaxing as baths were at Jono's place, this was FAR better. Ryou looked around before blinking a bit. The fish in this tank weren't the fish he often saw. There were swordfish, narwhales, manatees and a few tiny fish. Ryou blinked and swam close to the smaller fish, but when he got too near they exploded into huge fish that were nearly four times their original sizes, and looked as though they were about to spit air at him.

Ryou stared at the puffer fish before him, before jumping at the sounds of mumbling outside the water. He stayed low and watched as a loud thundering splash fell into the waters, followed by multiple bubbles of air. Mako looked none too thrilled at being shoved into the water; in fact he looked downright pissed. Ryou blinked and swam up to Mako slowly, while he was still turning himself upright to swim back up and curse at Jono.

Ryou smiled softly, swimming around him slowly, wrapping his fins around Mako softly. Mako's eyes were wider than saucers, as he watched Ryou, feeling the seemingly feather-soft fins wrap around and brush against him as Ryou circled him. The only thought that continued to echo through Mako's mind was `merman', and he reached out to touch Ryou, but drew his hand back, not wanting to ruin this if it was a dream.

Ryou noticed that Mako seemed to be turning blue, before remembering that humans would sooner drown themselves to continue to gaze upon merfolk than depart companies for air. He smiled and unwrapped himself from Mako, swimming down a bit and hugging him gently, swimming up to the air.

It was only a matter of minutes before Mako, having caught his breath turned to Ryou and hugged him. "Oh my god! They DO exist! Do you know what this means?!" He exclaimed. Jono laughed a bit, relieved that Mako hadn't drowned. He had been worried about his sea-obsessed friend when he didn't come back for a few minutes, but thankfully Ryou had saved him. Mako grinned proudly. "This means those dumb asses at sea world were wrong and I was right! HA! I knew that merpeople existed!" he said turning to Ryou, a new urge growing within him. Study!

With that, Mako pulled a handy-dandy-compact air tank from his pocket. It wouldn't last more than a few minutes, but that's all he would need. Tugging Ryou, he dived back below the water, tank now in use and began to study the beautiful creature before him. Ryou began feeling nervous at the look Mako was giving him...

Ryou squeaked when Mako snatched his tailfin and pulled it to his face, leaving Ryou hanging upside down in the water. "Hey!" he started to protest, before Mako began tickling the fin in such a way that caused it to fan out to it's full size, making Ryou's tailfin even more billowy than it originally was, and revealing a bright crimson, that seemed velvety because of the hues of Blue and purple that accompanied it. Obviously flaring the fins was a way to attract mates. Ryou turned pink. "HEY! Stop that! That's personal!" He yelped yanking his tail back and swatting Mako with it slightly. "You don't flash YOUR goods about for no reason, and neither will I! I'll have you know!" He said immediately shaking his fins back to their hidden state.

Mako smiled and swam closer to Ryou, who was now blushing darkly and began roughly estimating the length of his fins. After which he began examining Ryou's torso and back, looking for possible gills. He even checked a bit in Ryou's hair. Ryou couldn't seem to stop blushing, his hormones were insane...Mako was touching him and he just wanted to be mated. He twitched lightly, forcing himself to think of other things...but he was having a tough time not thinking back to Ootogi and Yugi, and how they had touched him.

Ryou bit his lip and forced himself to watch the fish before him. `Don't think about home...you'll just get horny.' He stopped, blinking. `...Did I just think that?...oh Neptune…you're cruel.' He thought, surprised that the word `horny' was even IN his vocabulary, much less USED...by HIM! Ryou! `That'll be something Yugi'd love...innocent sweet Ryou, saying Horny...' he thought as Mako finished up.

An: much to my own dismay, I've decided to do a bit of editing and yeah…post next chapter in…roughly 7 hours.