The seaweed isn't always greener in somebody else's lake.
The Seaweed Is Not Always Greener
Johnny's Entertainment
PG, crack; It would have been (G) but there's an extremely bad-tempered puffer fish with a foul mouth in it.
Characters/Pairings: NEWS, Massu-centric; Yamapi/Massu, sort of
Summary: Underwater AU. Massu is a shark (but not that kind of shark) and he just wants to find a place where he belongs.
Notes: No, I don't know what I'm on (except maybe an excess of coffee). ETA: Title was stolen from a line in "Under the Sea" from Disney's "The Little Mermaid". This also came about due to a twitter conversation concerning dental nightmares with miquilis and getyourzexion . They're too kind and humble and would probably refuse to acknowledge the blame any credit for helping with the idea, but it's true! This wouldn't have been possible without them. :D
Massu was a shark. If he had to be honest - and he usually was - he was not a very good shark. Sometimes he dreamed of being a fierce and fearsome great white. Or a powerful and sleek hammerhead. He longed to be something great. Something that caught everyone’s attention. Something amazing.
But no. Every day, Massu would swim around and around the shallows, just your ordinary, garden variety, not-very-frightening carpet shark. He ate plankton and really tiny fish. Once, he’d had ambitions of grandeur and chased down a turtle. In the end, however, he just hadn’t had the heart to eat the poor thing. (Then the turtle had slapped him in the face with a flipper before swimming off. His nose still hurt quite a bit.)
He wondered if maybe there was something else out there - a bigger world. A better world. A world suited for a shark like him. One morning, he just threw his fins in the air and said “To heck with it!” He bid his home reef goodbye and set off on a journey.
===
Not all reefs are created equal, Massu discovers. The one he’s found now is a riot of color - purples and pinks and oranges and blues. Fish he’s never seen before dart restlessly among the coral, and Massu feels a great surge of joy just watching them.
“Hey. Hey, can you get out of the way?” a gruff voice behind him asks.
He feels something butting against his tail and whips around. But there’s nothing there.
“Over here,” the voice says, sounding resigned.
Massu adjusts his gaze and looks down. He squints. There’s a tiny fish there. Flat and orange, with a white belly. It looks kind of disgruntled.
“What are you staring at?” he asks Massu suspiciously.
“I’ve never seen a fish like you before, Mr...?”
“Ryo. My name is Ryo, and don’t you forget it,” says the fish, sweeping past Massu to rest among the coral. “What’s your name?”
“Massu.”
“And what are you?”
“I’m a shark!”
In an instant, Ryo puffs up. He inflates like a balloon. With spikes. “Don’t come near me, fucker,” he says flatly. “I have fucking poison stings and I’m not fucking afraid to use them.”
Massu’s eyes widen at this unexpected language. “I’m not that kind of shark,” he says, and he can’t help but sound almost apologetic about it.
“I’ve heard that line before, son of a bitch. You say that and then you’ll eat me.”
“It’s true! If I eat big things I get indigestion.”
Ryo glares a moment longer and then deflates. “Really? I count as a big thing?”
Massu waves his tail in assent. Ryo looks so pleased that Massu doesn’t have the heart to say that he doesn’t, not really, not when he’s deflated like that and the poison spikes are nowhere to be seen.
“Oh. Okay, then. You’re not such a bad shark.”
“Have you met a lot of sharks?”
Ryo slowly flaps his right fin. “A few. Some are better than others. So, are you moving in?”
Massu looks around the reef. It’s certainly pretty, and Ryo doesn’t seem so bad, so long as Massu stays on his good side. But there’s still a lot of sea left to see.
“I don’t know,” he says at last. “I’ll have to think about it.”
Ryo sniffs and swells just a tiny bit. “Suit yourself.”
===
Massu doesn’t get very far, however. That’s because there’s a group of jellyfish that he almost runs smack into blocking his path. And what actually stops him is a jellyfish waving its tentacles frantically.
“Hey! I suggest you go another way!” shouts the jelly.
Massu is startled. “You can talk!”
“What? Yes, of course, I can! And you should turn back! We’re blooming here, you know.”
“Um. Yes. I can see that. Can all your friends talk, too? All the jellyfish I’ve met were kind of...”
“Dumb?” the jelly offers. “Yeah, you can say it. I won’t be offended. To tell you the truth, I’m kind of a genius.”
Massu is intrigued. He’s never met a genius anything before. “What it like? Being one?”
“Lonely, mostly. I don’t have a lot of friends,” it says. It stops its waving and hangs still, forlorn.
Massu’s heart reaches out to it. “I know how you feel,” he says sympathetically. “What’s your name?”
“Shige. You can call me Shige.”
“We can be friends, Shige.”
The jelly perks up so suddenly that it shoots four feet to the left. “Really?” it asks as soon as Massu has moved to face him again.
“Sure!”
“Ah! If we’re friends, that means we can hug, right? Friends do that! I heard about it.”
Massu eyes the tentacles regretfully. “No. No, hugging is for things that have arms and we don’t have those.”
“Oh...”
“We can still be friends without hugging!”
“But will you explore the reef and its many mysteries with me? I’d do it alone, but there’s a nasty puffer fish swimming around and it makes me nervous. It was quite rude to me yesterday.”
“Ryo isn’t so bad!”
“He called me a brainless mouth and said I should grow a spine. Only he said it less politely.”
“Oh. He only gets like that when you scare him. I think.”
Shige seems to vibrate with excitement. “Ah! Then maybe you can explore the reef with me! If we’re together, I’m sure we’ll be all right!”
Massu considers this. “I still have some things I want to do elsewhere. But if I’m ever back this way again, I would like to do that.”
“What?! You’re leaving so soon? But we just met! We’re friends now!”
“That’s the best thing about being someone’s friend. You still are, even from far away.”
Shige looks doubtful.
Massu thinks, swims some distance away, and thrashes his tail as hard as he can. The water around him bubbles and churns, and a wave - slow and heavy - rolls away from him and into the group of jellies, including Shige. He swims back, smiling. “Did you feel that?”
“Of course I felt it!” Shige says, looking at him as if he were daft.
“Then I’m going to do that every day! If you feel a wave, that’s me!”
Shige is quiet for a moment. He’s a genius and he’s no fool. But then he raises his tentacles again, and it’s almost like he’s dancing. Badly, and in an uncoordinated fashion, but it looks like dancing, nevertheless. “All right! I’ll look forward to it!”
Massu and Shige say their goodbyes. Massu does a barrel roll for Shige, just before he swims out of sight.
Shige dances in return.
===
Massu thinks he’s lost. It’s a funny thing, being lost when you’re not actually going anywhere. But that’s what he is. He’s quite sure he’s reached a depth he’s never reached before because it’s starting to hurt just a little bit.
The problem is he doesn’t know which way leads to shallower water and, for the first time since he left his home, Massu feels scared.
As he floats there, frozen in fear and indecision, a shadow appears. A rather large shadow. Massu feels his mouth fall open just a little as it looms closer and closer... Until suddenly there’s a dolphin there, one so clearly, unabashedly... pink. It clicks and murmurs, and makes odd high-pitched noises that, the more Massu listens, the more entranced he becomes. The dolphin is singing.
He tries not to make a sound, tries not to move a muscle, but the dolphin notices him anyway and abruptly stops.
“You heard me,” says the dolphin flatly, and Massu suddenly remembers that dolphins have a far broader diet than jellies and tiny little pufferfish.
“Y-yes,” Massu says nervously. “I-I didn’t mean to.”
The dolphin stares at him.
“I really liked it,” Massu says truthfully, hopefully. “Please don’t eat me.”
The dolphin blinks. “You...really liked it?”
Massu nods enthusiastically and the dolphin sighs.
“I’m not going to eat you,” says the dolphin, sounding appalled. “There aren’t that many fish that like my singing. My pod always complains that I’m too loud.”
Massu nearly sinks in relief. “That’s a shame. It sounds lovely.”
“Hmmm. What’s your name?”
“I’m called Massu. What about you?”
“Tegoshi.” The dolphin extends a flipper which Massu lightly brushes his own fin against. “So, what are you exactly?”
“I’m a shark.”
Tegoshi looks him up and down.
“Not that kind of shark.”
“Oh. I thought you looked kind of small.” Tegoshi slowly circles him. “But...a word of advice?”
Massu tilts his head. “Yes?”
“You probably shouldn’t be out this deep. There are a lot of big fish here.”
“I know. I’m lost.”
Tegoshi is suddenly sympathetic. “I’ve been lost before! It wasn’t much fun.”
Massu is surprised. “Aren’t you supposed to have a good sense of direction?”
“Yeah, well. I was distracted.” Tegoshi thought for a moment. “Tell you what. Since you were so kind as to say that you like my singing, I’ll help you out.”
“Will you point me in the direction of the shallows?”
Tegoshi nods. “More than that, I’ll swim with you for a bit. There are... other sharks out there, and not all of them are as nice as you. I don’t want you to get eaten. I need someone out there who likes my songs.”
Massu smiles inside. Tegoshi is rather vain - even by dolphin standards - and rather self-absorbed. Nevertheless, that same vanity is harmless and works in Massu’s favour instead of the other way around. “Okay. Thank you.”
Tegoshi waves this away. “Don’t thank me yet. I plan on making you listen to all my songs and you have to tell me your honest opinion. Deal?”
Massu thinks this is a small price to pay for being escorted to safer waters. “Deal.”
===
After quite a bit of swimming and ten songs later, the sea around them changes. There are tall seaweeds waving in the current - kelp - their thick, dark green leaves bringing an odd sort of twilight.
There are figures that dart amongst the stalks. Quick, sleek figures. Massu slows as they approach, intimidated.
“Otter,” Tegoshi sniffs. “They’re so childish.”
The words are barely out of his mouth when one of the otters comes barrelling through the water, twisting and thrashing wildly. It slams right into Massu, who is flung against Tegoshi.
“Get it off! Get it off! Get it off! GET IT OFF!” the otter shrieks frantically. “Get it off before it bites me!”
Massu shakes his head, checking himself for any injuries. He seems to be fine.
“There’s nothing on you,” Tegoshi is saying.
“I can feel it!” the otter shouts. “It’s slimy and-”
“It’s just your kelp,” Massu says helpfully, swimming around seizing the trailing bit of seaweed with his mouth.
The otter stops abruptly, blinks, then shoots straight up toward the surface.
“That was rude,” Massu says, hurt.
“Don’t worry about it. I think he just went to breathe.”
And, just as Tegoshi said, the otter comes diving back with a sheepish look on his face. “Sorry about that.”
“No worries,” says Massu.
“It was amusing,” says Tegoshi.
The otter looks from one of them to the other. “You’re a strange pair. A dolphin and a-what are you?”
“I’m a shark.”
“SHAAAAAAAAAAAARK!”
“I’m not that kind of shark!” Massu shouts before the otter could shout any louder and swim away.
“He’s not that kind of shark!” Tegoshi vouches for him.
The otter calms down. “Oh. Okay. Anyway, thanks for helping me out earlier. Name’s Keiichiro.”
“I’m Massu and he’s Tegoshi.”
Paws meet fins and flippers.
“So what brings you to my neighbourhood?” Keiichiro asks curiously. “Is it the fish? The fish are quite good.”
“No...not really. I was lost and Tegoshi was helping me find my way home. Except...”
“Except this isn’t your home,” Keiichiro finishes.
“I’m sorry,” Tegoshi says. “I was too busy singing and kind of forgot to pay attention.”
“It’s all right,” Massu shrugs. “At least it’s shallower.”
Keiichiro eyes them. “You guys want a clam?”
“No, thank you.”
“I don’t like things with shells on them,” Tegoshi says regretfully. “Shells hurt.”
“Silly! We don’t eat the shells. I’ll break them open.”
“You can do that?”
“Sure! We have tools.”
Tegoshi looks interested and excited. “I’ve never had clams before. Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“Not at all!”
Keiichiro - Kei-chan as Tegoshi quickly names him - smashes the shellfish on a rock he sets on his belly. It’s kind of messy, but in the end, Massu appreciates not having razor-sharp shells in his gums.
“Ah, that was a fine meal,” Tegoshi says appreciatively, blowing bubbles out through his blowhole. “I think I can get used to oysters.”
Kei-chan excitedly waves his paws. “Really? Would you like to hang out for a bit?”
“Sure! Why not?”
“What about you, Massu?”
Massu thinks about it carefully. The place is quite nice, though a bit too cold for his tastes. And the kelp makes the water dark. He longs for bright sunshine, warmer waves, and splashes of color. But he likes Kei-chan and Tegoshi a lot.
“...I think I’ll have to pass.”
Tegoshi looks a little disappointed. “Are you sure? I don’t know if otters will like to listen to me singing.”
“I’ll listen!” Kei-chan barks excitedly.
“I’ll come by and visit, maybe,” Massu says.
“Can you find your way by yourself?”
Massu turns and eyes the vast sea. Seaweed wave at him, as if enticing him to stay. But he’s still not sure if this is a place where he could belong. He squares his dorsal fin. “I have to,” he says.
And with a flip of a flipper, a flick of a tail, and the gentle pat of a paw, they say their goodbyes.
===
Massu follows a current of water. He’s not sure where the current is going, but it’s better than wandering around without any particular aim. However, it does seem like the water is growing warmer by degrees.
He cruises along, his thoughts wandering over the places he’s seen and the other creatures he’s met. They were all wonderful, and he hoped they all considered him a friend. They could still see each other someday, he was sure of that. And when that happened-
“Ouch! Oooh! Sorry!”
Massu stops abruptly and swings his tail around in confusion. Something feels weird. Something’s wrong. His tail is heavy- “Hey! What are you doing?!”
“Aaargh! Just-hold still!” says the strange-looking fish that was currently somehow attached to his lower half. Via a large sucker on his head. The fish surges forward with powerful strokes of its tail and disengages with a strange pop and a number of bubbles.
“I’m sorry,” the sucker-fish apologizes. “I got swept into the current by accident - didn’t mean to bump into you!”
Massu studies the stranger. “That’s a strange thing you’ve got on your head.”
“Hmmm? Oh, this? All remoras have it. We use it to stick to stuff. Makes it so much easier to cruise the ocean, you know? And nobody bugs me if I’m stuck to a bigger fish. Like a shark.”
“I’m a shark.”
The remora pauses then looks him up and down. “You’re a pretty odd-looking shark. Very. Uh. Decorative. And kind of small.”
Massu looks at the patterns on his fin. “Yeah. And yeah.”
“I like it!” says the remora.
Massu thanks him and decides to introduce himself. The remora seems to be nice enough. If a bit...distracted. “My name is Massu. What’s yours?”
“Huh? Oh. You can call me Pi,” says Pi, who’s looking around with a frown.
“Are you okay?”
“What? Oh. I seem to have misplaced my shark.”
Massu wonders how one could misplace a shark. “What kind of shark was it?”
“Cow shark.” Pi moves a little closer. “Between you and me, he was kind of dumb. But, well, he scared the bigger fish away. I only removed myself from him for a bit because he was trying to score with some girl and I felt like a third wheel. But now he’s lost.”
Massu personally thinks it’s a good thing the cow shark is nowhere near them. He kind of likes being alive.
Finally, Pi just sighs, flips his tail, and turns. “Ah. Well. It was bound to happen sooner or later. Jin always did like the deep, dark sea. I like it where it’s warm.”
“Me, too!” Massu says, falling in beside Pi who starts swimming with the current. “And I like more colourful places.”
Pi glances at him and nods. “I know what you mean. Hey, why don’t we swim together for a while?”
Massu readily agrees.
===
Pi, like Massu, has been to a lot of places and has met a lot of animals. Massu doesn't notice the time passing as he listens avidly to Pi telling him of something really huge that lived near the surface and roared a lot but never really spoke. Pi had been attached to it for a couple of days before he grew bored with it and swam away. Pi also tells him of gentle giant whales, of noisy dolphin pods, of the soaring rays, and the terrifying great white.
Massu listens in admiration and - for a bit, during the great white story - envy.
“Why the sigh?” Pi asks curiously.
“Sometimes I wish I was a great white,” Massu admits. “They look very powerful. I look...decorative.”
“But great whites are lonely. And no one likes them. It’s quite sad.” Pi pauses. “I’m sorry I said that. It wasn’t meant as an insult. I like your patterns.”
“You do?”
Pi nods. “They make the sea look less dreary. You know, other sharks make other fish fear them, and it can be fun being with them and watching things that would have eaten me run away. But no one wants to have everyone running away from them. No one wants to be hated or feared.”
“You’re not afraid of them,” Massu points out.
“I get along well with others,” Pi says modestly. “I like being friends with lots of different fish. It’s fun, and I get to go places and do stuff that I wouldn’t have on my own.”
Massu nods. “I think I understand. I’ve been travelling a lot myself. I’ve met a lot of different creatures. There was a singing pink dolphin-”
“Was his name Tegoshi and did he never shut up?”
“You know him?!”
“I told you. I get around.” Pi stops moving forward and swims in place for a while. “Why were you travelling?”
Massu stares at him. He’s the first to ever ask him that question point-blank. “I’m looking for a new home.”
“What’s wrong with your old one?”
Massu thinks about this. His old home had been warm. There had been plenty to eat. And there hadn’t been very many things that had wanted to eat Massu in turn. It had been...perfect. “Nothing, actually. Except...”
“Except what?”
“Except it was kind of lonely. I guess you wouldn’t understand that. You’re popular and make friends easily.”
“I don’t know what a home feels like,” Pi blurts out.
Massu turns to him, startled. “What?”
Pi waves his slender tail. “I’ve been wandering for as long as I can remember. I don’t have a home,” he says, looking suddenly forlorn. For some reason, his sad expression cuts through Massu, and he rushes to reassure him.
“I don’t know if you’d like it - compared to moving around so much. Everything always stays the same.”
“I wouldn’t mind having something be in the same place when I wake up. It’s...comforting.”
Massu finds himself nodding slowly as he realizes that he agrees. It’s been fun wandering the ocean, but now...now he just wants something comfortable. Somewhere warm and familiar. But... “I wish I could remember the way home.”
And Pi moves closer, fin brushing fin. “You don’t have to look for it alone, you know.”
“W-what?”
“Would you rather travel alone?”
Massu thinks about it - about navigating the great blue expanse that was their world by himself - and realizes he’s had enough of that. “Are you sure? You might get bored with me and swim off. That’s okay.”
He gently waves both fins in the water and it’s kind of reassuring. “I’m a remora,” he says. “I tend to stick around.”
===
It’s a vast ocean. Some days are cold, and some seas are hostile. It's hard to find the old reef he'd left behind. But Massu realizes he doesn't really mind.
Somehow, suddenly, everywhere is home.
Johnny's Entertainment
PG, crack; It would have been (G) but there's an extremely bad-tempered puffer fish with a foul mouth in it.
Characters/Pairings: NEWS, Massu-centric; Yamapi/Massu, sort of
Summary: Underwater AU. Massu is a shark (but not that kind of shark) and he just wants to find a place where he belongs.
Notes: No, I don't know what I'm on (except maybe an excess of coffee). ETA: Title was stolen from a line in "Under the Sea" from Disney's "The Little Mermaid". This also came about due to a twitter conversation concerning dental nightmares with miquilis and getyourzexion . They're too kind and humble and would probably refuse to acknowledge the blame any credit for helping with the idea, but it's true! This wouldn't have been possible without them. :D
Massu was a shark. If he had to be honest - and he usually was - he was not a very good shark. Sometimes he dreamed of being a fierce and fearsome great white. Or a powerful and sleek hammerhead. He longed to be something great. Something that caught everyone’s attention. Something amazing.
But no. Every day, Massu would swim around and around the shallows, just your ordinary, garden variety, not-very-frightening carpet shark. He ate plankton and really tiny fish. Once, he’d had ambitions of grandeur and chased down a turtle. In the end, however, he just hadn’t had the heart to eat the poor thing. (Then the turtle had slapped him in the face with a flipper before swimming off. His nose still hurt quite a bit.)
He wondered if maybe there was something else out there - a bigger world. A better world. A world suited for a shark like him. One morning, he just threw his fins in the air and said “To heck with it!” He bid his home reef goodbye and set off on a journey.
===
Not all reefs are created equal, Massu discovers. The one he’s found now is a riot of color - purples and pinks and oranges and blues. Fish he’s never seen before dart restlessly among the coral, and Massu feels a great surge of joy just watching them.
“Hey. Hey, can you get out of the way?” a gruff voice behind him asks.
He feels something butting against his tail and whips around. But there’s nothing there.
“Over here,” the voice says, sounding resigned.
Massu adjusts his gaze and looks down. He squints. There’s a tiny fish there. Flat and orange, with a white belly. It looks kind of disgruntled.
“What are you staring at?” he asks Massu suspiciously.
“I’ve never seen a fish like you before, Mr...?”
“Ryo. My name is Ryo, and don’t you forget it,” says the fish, sweeping past Massu to rest among the coral. “What’s your name?”
“Massu.”
“And what are you?”
“I’m a shark!”
In an instant, Ryo puffs up. He inflates like a balloon. With spikes. “Don’t come near me, fucker,” he says flatly. “I have fucking poison stings and I’m not fucking afraid to use them.”
Massu’s eyes widen at this unexpected language. “I’m not that kind of shark,” he says, and he can’t help but sound almost apologetic about it.
“I’ve heard that line before, son of a bitch. You say that and then you’ll eat me.”
“It’s true! If I eat big things I get indigestion.”
Ryo glares a moment longer and then deflates. “Really? I count as a big thing?”
Massu waves his tail in assent. Ryo looks so pleased that Massu doesn’t have the heart to say that he doesn’t, not really, not when he’s deflated like that and the poison spikes are nowhere to be seen.
“Oh. Okay, then. You’re not such a bad shark.”
“Have you met a lot of sharks?”
Ryo slowly flaps his right fin. “A few. Some are better than others. So, are you moving in?”
Massu looks around the reef. It’s certainly pretty, and Ryo doesn’t seem so bad, so long as Massu stays on his good side. But there’s still a lot of sea left to see.
“I don’t know,” he says at last. “I’ll have to think about it.”
Ryo sniffs and swells just a tiny bit. “Suit yourself.”
===
Massu doesn’t get very far, however. That’s because there’s a group of jellyfish that he almost runs smack into blocking his path. And what actually stops him is a jellyfish waving its tentacles frantically.
“Hey! I suggest you go another way!” shouts the jelly.
Massu is startled. “You can talk!”
“What? Yes, of course, I can! And you should turn back! We’re blooming here, you know.”
“Um. Yes. I can see that. Can all your friends talk, too? All the jellyfish I’ve met were kind of...”
“Dumb?” the jelly offers. “Yeah, you can say it. I won’t be offended. To tell you the truth, I’m kind of a genius.”
Massu is intrigued. He’s never met a genius anything before. “What it like? Being one?”
“Lonely, mostly. I don’t have a lot of friends,” it says. It stops its waving and hangs still, forlorn.
Massu’s heart reaches out to it. “I know how you feel,” he says sympathetically. “What’s your name?”
“Shige. You can call me Shige.”
“We can be friends, Shige.”
The jelly perks up so suddenly that it shoots four feet to the left. “Really?” it asks as soon as Massu has moved to face him again.
“Sure!”
“Ah! If we’re friends, that means we can hug, right? Friends do that! I heard about it.”
Massu eyes the tentacles regretfully. “No. No, hugging is for things that have arms and we don’t have those.”
“Oh...”
“We can still be friends without hugging!”
“But will you explore the reef and its many mysteries with me? I’d do it alone, but there’s a nasty puffer fish swimming around and it makes me nervous. It was quite rude to me yesterday.”
“Ryo isn’t so bad!”
“He called me a brainless mouth and said I should grow a spine. Only he said it less politely.”
“Oh. He only gets like that when you scare him. I think.”
Shige seems to vibrate with excitement. “Ah! Then maybe you can explore the reef with me! If we’re together, I’m sure we’ll be all right!”
Massu considers this. “I still have some things I want to do elsewhere. But if I’m ever back this way again, I would like to do that.”
“What?! You’re leaving so soon? But we just met! We’re friends now!”
“That’s the best thing about being someone’s friend. You still are, even from far away.”
Shige looks doubtful.
Massu thinks, swims some distance away, and thrashes his tail as hard as he can. The water around him bubbles and churns, and a wave - slow and heavy - rolls away from him and into the group of jellies, including Shige. He swims back, smiling. “Did you feel that?”
“Of course I felt it!” Shige says, looking at him as if he were daft.
“Then I’m going to do that every day! If you feel a wave, that’s me!”
Shige is quiet for a moment. He’s a genius and he’s no fool. But then he raises his tentacles again, and it’s almost like he’s dancing. Badly, and in an uncoordinated fashion, but it looks like dancing, nevertheless. “All right! I’ll look forward to it!”
Massu and Shige say their goodbyes. Massu does a barrel roll for Shige, just before he swims out of sight.
Shige dances in return.
===
Massu thinks he’s lost. It’s a funny thing, being lost when you’re not actually going anywhere. But that’s what he is. He’s quite sure he’s reached a depth he’s never reached before because it’s starting to hurt just a little bit.
The problem is he doesn’t know which way leads to shallower water and, for the first time since he left his home, Massu feels scared.
As he floats there, frozen in fear and indecision, a shadow appears. A rather large shadow. Massu feels his mouth fall open just a little as it looms closer and closer... Until suddenly there’s a dolphin there, one so clearly, unabashedly... pink. It clicks and murmurs, and makes odd high-pitched noises that, the more Massu listens, the more entranced he becomes. The dolphin is singing.
He tries not to make a sound, tries not to move a muscle, but the dolphin notices him anyway and abruptly stops.
“You heard me,” says the dolphin flatly, and Massu suddenly remembers that dolphins have a far broader diet than jellies and tiny little pufferfish.
“Y-yes,” Massu says nervously. “I-I didn’t mean to.”
The dolphin stares at him.
“I really liked it,” Massu says truthfully, hopefully. “Please don’t eat me.”
The dolphin blinks. “You...really liked it?”
Massu nods enthusiastically and the dolphin sighs.
“I’m not going to eat you,” says the dolphin, sounding appalled. “There aren’t that many fish that like my singing. My pod always complains that I’m too loud.”
Massu nearly sinks in relief. “That’s a shame. It sounds lovely.”
“Hmmm. What’s your name?”
“I’m called Massu. What about you?”
“Tegoshi.” The dolphin extends a flipper which Massu lightly brushes his own fin against. “So, what are you exactly?”
“I’m a shark.”
Tegoshi looks him up and down.
“Not that kind of shark.”
“Oh. I thought you looked kind of small.” Tegoshi slowly circles him. “But...a word of advice?”
Massu tilts his head. “Yes?”
“You probably shouldn’t be out this deep. There are a lot of big fish here.”
“I know. I’m lost.”
Tegoshi is suddenly sympathetic. “I’ve been lost before! It wasn’t much fun.”
Massu is surprised. “Aren’t you supposed to have a good sense of direction?”
“Yeah, well. I was distracted.” Tegoshi thought for a moment. “Tell you what. Since you were so kind as to say that you like my singing, I’ll help you out.”
“Will you point me in the direction of the shallows?”
Tegoshi nods. “More than that, I’ll swim with you for a bit. There are... other sharks out there, and not all of them are as nice as you. I don’t want you to get eaten. I need someone out there who likes my songs.”
Massu smiles inside. Tegoshi is rather vain - even by dolphin standards - and rather self-absorbed. Nevertheless, that same vanity is harmless and works in Massu’s favour instead of the other way around. “Okay. Thank you.”
Tegoshi waves this away. “Don’t thank me yet. I plan on making you listen to all my songs and you have to tell me your honest opinion. Deal?”
Massu thinks this is a small price to pay for being escorted to safer waters. “Deal.”
===
After quite a bit of swimming and ten songs later, the sea around them changes. There are tall seaweeds waving in the current - kelp - their thick, dark green leaves bringing an odd sort of twilight.
There are figures that dart amongst the stalks. Quick, sleek figures. Massu slows as they approach, intimidated.
“Otter,” Tegoshi sniffs. “They’re so childish.”
The words are barely out of his mouth when one of the otters comes barrelling through the water, twisting and thrashing wildly. It slams right into Massu, who is flung against Tegoshi.
“Get it off! Get it off! Get it off! GET IT OFF!” the otter shrieks frantically. “Get it off before it bites me!”
Massu shakes his head, checking himself for any injuries. He seems to be fine.
“There’s nothing on you,” Tegoshi is saying.
“I can feel it!” the otter shouts. “It’s slimy and-”
“It’s just your kelp,” Massu says helpfully, swimming around seizing the trailing bit of seaweed with his mouth.
The otter stops abruptly, blinks, then shoots straight up toward the surface.
“That was rude,” Massu says, hurt.
“Don’t worry about it. I think he just went to breathe.”
And, just as Tegoshi said, the otter comes diving back with a sheepish look on his face. “Sorry about that.”
“No worries,” says Massu.
“It was amusing,” says Tegoshi.
The otter looks from one of them to the other. “You’re a strange pair. A dolphin and a-what are you?”
“I’m a shark.”
“SHAAAAAAAAAAAARK!”
“I’m not that kind of shark!” Massu shouts before the otter could shout any louder and swim away.
“He’s not that kind of shark!” Tegoshi vouches for him.
The otter calms down. “Oh. Okay. Anyway, thanks for helping me out earlier. Name’s Keiichiro.”
“I’m Massu and he’s Tegoshi.”
Paws meet fins and flippers.
“So what brings you to my neighbourhood?” Keiichiro asks curiously. “Is it the fish? The fish are quite good.”
“No...not really. I was lost and Tegoshi was helping me find my way home. Except...”
“Except this isn’t your home,” Keiichiro finishes.
“I’m sorry,” Tegoshi says. “I was too busy singing and kind of forgot to pay attention.”
“It’s all right,” Massu shrugs. “At least it’s shallower.”
Keiichiro eyes them. “You guys want a clam?”
“No, thank you.”
“I don’t like things with shells on them,” Tegoshi says regretfully. “Shells hurt.”
“Silly! We don’t eat the shells. I’ll break them open.”
“You can do that?”
“Sure! We have tools.”
Tegoshi looks interested and excited. “I’ve never had clams before. Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“Not at all!”
Keiichiro - Kei-chan as Tegoshi quickly names him - smashes the shellfish on a rock he sets on his belly. It’s kind of messy, but in the end, Massu appreciates not having razor-sharp shells in his gums.
“Ah, that was a fine meal,” Tegoshi says appreciatively, blowing bubbles out through his blowhole. “I think I can get used to oysters.”
Kei-chan excitedly waves his paws. “Really? Would you like to hang out for a bit?”
“Sure! Why not?”
“What about you, Massu?”
Massu thinks about it carefully. The place is quite nice, though a bit too cold for his tastes. And the kelp makes the water dark. He longs for bright sunshine, warmer waves, and splashes of color. But he likes Kei-chan and Tegoshi a lot.
“...I think I’ll have to pass.”
Tegoshi looks a little disappointed. “Are you sure? I don’t know if otters will like to listen to me singing.”
“I’ll listen!” Kei-chan barks excitedly.
“I’ll come by and visit, maybe,” Massu says.
“Can you find your way by yourself?”
Massu turns and eyes the vast sea. Seaweed wave at him, as if enticing him to stay. But he’s still not sure if this is a place where he could belong. He squares his dorsal fin. “I have to,” he says.
And with a flip of a flipper, a flick of a tail, and the gentle pat of a paw, they say their goodbyes.
===
Massu follows a current of water. He’s not sure where the current is going, but it’s better than wandering around without any particular aim. However, it does seem like the water is growing warmer by degrees.
He cruises along, his thoughts wandering over the places he’s seen and the other creatures he’s met. They were all wonderful, and he hoped they all considered him a friend. They could still see each other someday, he was sure of that. And when that happened-
“Ouch! Oooh! Sorry!”
Massu stops abruptly and swings his tail around in confusion. Something feels weird. Something’s wrong. His tail is heavy- “Hey! What are you doing?!”
“Aaargh! Just-hold still!” says the strange-looking fish that was currently somehow attached to his lower half. Via a large sucker on his head. The fish surges forward with powerful strokes of its tail and disengages with a strange pop and a number of bubbles.
“I’m sorry,” the sucker-fish apologizes. “I got swept into the current by accident - didn’t mean to bump into you!”
Massu studies the stranger. “That’s a strange thing you’ve got on your head.”
“Hmmm? Oh, this? All remoras have it. We use it to stick to stuff. Makes it so much easier to cruise the ocean, you know? And nobody bugs me if I’m stuck to a bigger fish. Like a shark.”
“I’m a shark.”
The remora pauses then looks him up and down. “You’re a pretty odd-looking shark. Very. Uh. Decorative. And kind of small.”
Massu looks at the patterns on his fin. “Yeah. And yeah.”
“I like it!” says the remora.
Massu thanks him and decides to introduce himself. The remora seems to be nice enough. If a bit...distracted. “My name is Massu. What’s yours?”
“Huh? Oh. You can call me Pi,” says Pi, who’s looking around with a frown.
“Are you okay?”
“What? Oh. I seem to have misplaced my shark.”
Massu wonders how one could misplace a shark. “What kind of shark was it?”
“Cow shark.” Pi moves a little closer. “Between you and me, he was kind of dumb. But, well, he scared the bigger fish away. I only removed myself from him for a bit because he was trying to score with some girl and I felt like a third wheel. But now he’s lost.”
Massu personally thinks it’s a good thing the cow shark is nowhere near them. He kind of likes being alive.
Finally, Pi just sighs, flips his tail, and turns. “Ah. Well. It was bound to happen sooner or later. Jin always did like the deep, dark sea. I like it where it’s warm.”
“Me, too!” Massu says, falling in beside Pi who starts swimming with the current. “And I like more colourful places.”
Pi glances at him and nods. “I know what you mean. Hey, why don’t we swim together for a while?”
Massu readily agrees.
===
Pi, like Massu, has been to a lot of places and has met a lot of animals. Massu doesn't notice the time passing as he listens avidly to Pi telling him of something really huge that lived near the surface and roared a lot but never really spoke. Pi had been attached to it for a couple of days before he grew bored with it and swam away. Pi also tells him of gentle giant whales, of noisy dolphin pods, of the soaring rays, and the terrifying great white.
Massu listens in admiration and - for a bit, during the great white story - envy.
“Why the sigh?” Pi asks curiously.
“Sometimes I wish I was a great white,” Massu admits. “They look very powerful. I look...decorative.”
“But great whites are lonely. And no one likes them. It’s quite sad.” Pi pauses. “I’m sorry I said that. It wasn’t meant as an insult. I like your patterns.”
“You do?”
Pi nods. “They make the sea look less dreary. You know, other sharks make other fish fear them, and it can be fun being with them and watching things that would have eaten me run away. But no one wants to have everyone running away from them. No one wants to be hated or feared.”
“You’re not afraid of them,” Massu points out.
“I get along well with others,” Pi says modestly. “I like being friends with lots of different fish. It’s fun, and I get to go places and do stuff that I wouldn’t have on my own.”
Massu nods. “I think I understand. I’ve been travelling a lot myself. I’ve met a lot of different creatures. There was a singing pink dolphin-”
“Was his name Tegoshi and did he never shut up?”
“You know him?!”
“I told you. I get around.” Pi stops moving forward and swims in place for a while. “Why were you travelling?”
Massu stares at him. He’s the first to ever ask him that question point-blank. “I’m looking for a new home.”
“What’s wrong with your old one?”
Massu thinks about this. His old home had been warm. There had been plenty to eat. And there hadn’t been very many things that had wanted to eat Massu in turn. It had been...perfect. “Nothing, actually. Except...”
“Except what?”
“Except it was kind of lonely. I guess you wouldn’t understand that. You’re popular and make friends easily.”
“I don’t know what a home feels like,” Pi blurts out.
Massu turns to him, startled. “What?”
Pi waves his slender tail. “I’ve been wandering for as long as I can remember. I don’t have a home,” he says, looking suddenly forlorn. For some reason, his sad expression cuts through Massu, and he rushes to reassure him.
“I don’t know if you’d like it - compared to moving around so much. Everything always stays the same.”
“I wouldn’t mind having something be in the same place when I wake up. It’s...comforting.”
Massu finds himself nodding slowly as he realizes that he agrees. It’s been fun wandering the ocean, but now...now he just wants something comfortable. Somewhere warm and familiar. But... “I wish I could remember the way home.”
And Pi moves closer, fin brushing fin. “You don’t have to look for it alone, you know.”
“W-what?”
“Would you rather travel alone?”
Massu thinks about it - about navigating the great blue expanse that was their world by himself - and realizes he’s had enough of that. “Are you sure? You might get bored with me and swim off. That’s okay.”
He gently waves both fins in the water and it’s kind of reassuring. “I’m a remora,” he says. “I tend to stick around.”
===
It’s a vast ocean. Some days are cold, and some seas are hostile. It's hard to find the old reef he'd left behind. But Massu realizes he doesn't really mind.
Somehow, suddenly, everywhere is home.