"Fish Out Of Water" - Kida, Anri, Mikado (DRRR!!)

[wordsworn]

A/N: Another oneshot OT3 drabble-thing! It started as a third person sample for a Kida app, but it's long enough (and cute enough) that I figured I could (should?) go ahead and just post it as a fic also. :]

Summary: The trio take advantage of one of their days off during the summer break and visit the Sunshine City Aquarium together. Cuteness ensues.


[DRRR!!: OT3. 'Fish Out Of Water']

Sunshine City.

It was the place Mikado had immediately mentioned when Kida first asked him where he wanted his tour to start on his arrival in Ikebukuro. And at the time, Kida had turned him down flat, telling him that it was a place to visit with his girlfriend, not his best friend. But, Mikado being Mikado, of course he was dragging his feet when it came to actually asking out the girl he was so obviously head-over-heels for...so Kida had decided to help things along a bit.

It had been easy enough to get them both to agree to the outing: it was simplicity itself to drag Mikado after him wherever he went, and Anri-chan had always been amenable to going places with both of them, even if she'd been hesitant to go anywhere alone with Mikado. And that was just fine with Kida; he never really felt like a third wheel, and even if he did that didn't matter because the other two were so shy and withdrawn and typically awkward that they clearly needed more than just two wheels to keeping things rolling smoothly. Speaking of which—

"Ah, look, look, Mikado! Look at the penguins! They look like they're flying over us!"

Grinning widely, Kida practically skipped forward a step or two, simultaneously pointing upwards at the large, clear, circular tanks overhead and half-turning to look over his shoulder at his best friend, before falling to making fighter-plane noises as the black and white birds shot past overhead.

Mikado just sighed, his own smile looking a lot more forced and uncertain. "...Kida-kun...you've lived here for years, right...? So why is it that you seem so much more excited about this than I do?"

"A-ah, well, they are very cute..." Anri offered with a small smile, an attempt of sorts to keep the peace between the boys.

"Y-E-S!!!" Kida exclaimed, spinning around and darting back to join them, then spreading his arms expansively and keeping pace with them while walking backwards. "But really they're not just cute, they're ~SUPER-CUTE~!" After that bit of cheerfully-mangled English, his grin became decidedly wolfish, and he clasped his hands together over his heart as he went on, "Though of course, even so, they're still not even HALF as cute as our lovely, erotic Anri-chan! Their considerable and gentlemanly charm is nothing compared to that of a quirky high school girl with a hot body and glasses!"

"MASAOMI!" Mikado half-yelled, half-yelped, colour swiftly rising to his face that had both anger and embarrassment at its source. "Don't talk about her that way!"

Anri went a little pink herself, and briefly looked down, though otherwise she didn't comment or protest, so Kida chuckled and casually waved away Mikado's indignation.

"Anri-chan doesn't seem to mind, though--she knows it's true, and a compliment besides! You're the only one who's making a scene, Mikado~"

Mikado sputtered a bit, but Kida just smiled a lighthearted smile in response. "Right! So never mind the lectures for the day since ~SCHOOL IS OUT~ for the summer! C'mon, let's go!"

Still grinning widely, Kida linked arms with the both of them and pulled them inside.

~ $ ~
It wasn't the largest aquarium Kida had ever been to--the Tokyo Sea Life Park or the Shinagawa aquarium were both bigger and fancier and not that far away--but it was still a nice, cool place to visit on a hot summer afternoon like today. Plus, Mikado (who had never gone on their field trips back in elementary school, and doubtless had continued that cowardly trend after Kida had moved away) seemed a little awestruck by the place, despite his earlier comment about Kida being more excited about being here.

Since a tour group was taking up most of the space on the first floor, they'd gone upstairs to see the tropical animals first, ogling the frogs and the snakes, then poked around in the gift shop a little (where Kida had done his best to ignore the curiously cold glint in Mikado's eyes when they passed a rack of sea-creature-themed hats, from rays to penguins to sharks); to break the mildly unnerving tension, Kida had insisted that they all buy matching cellphone charms of a fuzzy, almost painfully cute baby seal. The seals were actually on that floor too, but they were all sleeping, so before long, Kida had hauled them back downstairs, which was fairly empty now since it was lunch time. They stayed close together and took their time at each exhibit, admiring the brightly-coloured coral and even more brightly-coloured fish, smiling at the sea otters, and snapping pictures with their phones as an aquarium employee swam in a tank with some of the fish.

They lingered the longest at the big central tank that held the rays and the sharks, all three unable to look away from the deadly grace of those sleek undersea predators...at least until Kida started humming the Jaws theme under his breath and suddenly grabbed Mikado from behind, eliciting a startled squawk, followed by an unusually irritated shove from his best friend that just made Kida laugh all the harder. (Of course, he knew why Mikado was irritated right then: he'd made Mikado look a little uncool in front of Anri-chan. But well, Mikado wasn't normally very cool anyway, so that was okay. Besides he'd make it up to him soon...)

Kida had continued to link arms with them each time he tugged them from exhibit to exhibit, like a child pulling his parents along after him, and their arrival at their last stop (before going back outside for the sea lion feeding, anyway) was no different. Kida was the only one of the trio who had been to that aquarium before, the only one who knew exactly what to expect, and he'd intentionally saved this exhibit for last: a long, dark tunnel with low lighting and scores of jellyfish drifting all around and overhead.

It was easily the most romantic spot in the whole aquarium.

So, once he was satisfied that his two companions were enthralled with the exhibit, Kida took advantage of the next passing group of visitors, letting the three of them be jostled a bit--enough to casually slip his arms out of theirs and link the two of them together instead.

Somewhat surprisingly, neither seemed to notice, their attention caught by the ethereal beauty of the translucent creatures surrounding them. So Kida just stood back and watched them standing there arm in arm, their backs to him, not even aware that he'd left them. His smile was a little sad and faintly but firmly tinged with loneliness as he raised his phone to snap a quick picture, capturing that perfect moment of peace forever.

Once he was satisfied with the shot, he looked down at it pensively, almost meditatively. He'd taken plenty of pictures that day already, and tonight he'd send them to a nurse he'd made friends with, along with a request that she to show them to her. But this one was different.

This one, he decided, he would keep just for himself.

His brooding line of thought was interrupted by Mikado's sudden (and more than a little loud and flustered) discovery that he'd been standing arm-in-arm with Anri for the last seven minutes or so, as well as Anri's soft, haltingly-spoken reassurances that it was okay, that she hadn't really minded it. (She'd realised their situation a lot sooner than Mikado, though going by the gentle colour in her cheeks as well as the fact that she hadn't pulled away, Kida definitely believed that she was telling the truth about not minding the arrangement.)

Shutting his phone with a snap, Kida grinned and stepped forward before their mutual stuttering and minor flailing got any worse.

"Maaaan, looking at all these fish is making me really hungry! We've seen just about everything there is to see here, so let's go fishing for a deal with Simon and see if he'll give us a discount on some sushi!"

Draping an arm around both their shoulders, Kida gently pushed them closer together as well as forward, onward toward the warm summer sunlight just visible at the dark tunnel's end.