Kaiser Seahorse

It came quickly to Fubuki’s attention that Ryo was not joking. Though that could mostly be because Ryo didn’t joke, ever.

“But you spend so much time here,” Fubuki replied, gesturing to the lighthouse and the water that surrounded it.

“That’s because I like it,” Ryo confirmed, “For the most part it is quiet and out of the way. It’s a good place to collect my thoughts while having something nice to look at.”

Fubuki knew that the ‘something nice to look at’ was referring to the ocean, not himself or Asuka, who wasn’t with them right now.

“But… it’s just not possible for someone who spends so much time by the sea to not enjoy being in it,” protested Fubuki.

Ryo answered, “Can you really picture me swimming?”

And Fubuki had to admit that he couldn’t. At least not easily.

“Well all right, if you can’t swim I’ll just drop it,” said Fubuki indifferently.

“There’s a difference between not being able to do something and not enjoying doing it,” Ryo said, a bit offended at the accusation.

Turning away to hide his amusement, Fubuki went on, “You might well be able to. But if you don’t swim I’ll never see you doing it, so you can’t really prove that point either way.”

“You’re a difficult man,” Ryo commented, fully aware of the trap he had fallen into and not caring, “I’ll meet you there at sunset.”

“Where?”

“The beach of course. You can hardly expect to go swimming around here.” He had a good point, lighthouses were generally put in place to warn sailors against rocks, and there were a lot of rocks around the cliff face nearby.

“All right, I’ll meet you there.” Fubuki could hardly wait.

By the time he did go to meet Ryo at the beach most of the other students had already gone in for the day, with the few remaining stragglers at enough of a distance to not see either of them. He was kitted out in his usual black bodysuit that he used for surfing. As Ryo approached in a pair of dark blue trunks the stoic boy was starting to regret not being as prepared tackle the water as Fubuki was.

“You look great!” Fubuki called over, before Ryo had a chance to threaten him not to say anything.

“Can we just get on with this?” Ryo walked past him and into the water, the shallow waves lapping against his ankles.

“By all mean,” said Fubuki, following behind him and wading through the water until they were both up to their waists.

As the two stopped there was a short pause as Fubuki waited eagerly for Ryo to start swimming. With a shifting of limbs that could only be described as ‘awkward’, Ryo lowered himself into the water and started moving ahead in a breaststroke. Fubuki followed him, finding it easy to keep up since he’d had a lot more practise at swimming than Ryo had.

“You’re pretty good,” he commented, watching the movement of Ryo’s arms with an interest that was slightly more than healthy.

Ryo didn’t answer. His gaze was set ahead; he seemed to be putting his whole focus into this.

After a few more minutes Fubuki said, “We can go back now if you want. You’ve more than proved your point.”

Ryo made a sudden turn and stopped to look at him, drops of water trickling down his chest slowly. It was hard not to stare.

“I’m already out here now, we can carry on until it gets too dull or dark to continue,” he said, and then turned back to swimming.

Considering Ryo was the blandest person Fubuki had ever met it was difficult to try and think of what he would view as ‘too dull’, but Fubuki didn’t mind. He liked being in the water and he liked being with Ryo, so this was a perfect combination of the two.

It got dark before it got too dull for Ryo, and even then the two carried on moving through the water, not venturing too far away from the island. The darkness didn’t bother Fubuki in the slightest, as much as he was loath to admit that, and it didn’t seem to hold any troubles for Ryo either.

By the time they walked back onto the shore he estimated that it was probably long past midnight.

“I enjoyed this,” said Ryo, picking up one of the towels they’d left on the shore and running it through his hair, “If it wasn’t such an undignified activity we could do it again.”

“Undignified? I could name a few people who would pay to see you like this,” Fubuki laughed, looking at the towel and the wet hair intently.

“Well they can spend their money on something more useful,” replied Ryo, throwing another towel at Fubuki, “Because they’re not going to see me in the water anytime soon.”

No, Fubuki thought, that privilege is mine alone.