This Warmth Of Yours

Chapter 34 - This Warmth Of Yours [END]

Two young men packed up their picnic blanket as the skies turned darker and lightless. The one with brown hair looked around, spotting a young girl with a head of pink sitting on a bench alone. She seemed to be focused on an object in her lap, or was it her hand? He couldn't tell from where he was.

"Huh, she looks familiar," he noted. "Who does?" the other man asked, picking up the basket of their belongings.

The brunette squinted, gasping. "Oh shit. Huh, is today a holiday?"

"Language, dumbass!" the other man instantly barked.

The brunette shook his head and pointed in the direction of the girl. "No time to point out your hypocrisy, ain't that Kana's friend?"

"What!?" He followed the direction of his index finger, almost dropping the basket in his arms. "What's she doing here?! It's a school day, right? Do her pare- friends know where she is?! It's dangerous for a girl to be out this late on her own! She's so far away from home-"

Aoi gave the man a light peck on the cheek and took out his phone, still his carefree self. "Relax! I'll shoot Kana a message and tell her we have ourselves a lost child." Immediately after sending his message, he began skipping towards the girl.

The other man was in disbelief, trotting closely behind him.

Aoi cleared his throat as he got in front of her, catching her off guard as he kneeled. "Greetings once more, milady, it seems that our meeting has been ordained by fate-"

A loud phone call interrupted his theatrics. Aoi looked at the caller and grinned, excusing himself. Haru gasped, stashing the mirror back into her pocket. "Aoi? And you're...?"

The azure-haired man chuckled as Aoi walked away. "We met before, but we didn't get to talk that much. I'm Chuuya, Aoi's..."

Haru was drawn to his rose-pink eyes. They looked similar to Nami's in its tranquillity. Was this how Nami wanted to look like if her hair dye didn't fail on her? He looked like bubblegum. Or was it cotton candy? The physical contrast between him and Aoi was striking. Aoi looked like a dirt rag next to him, despite Aoi himself being fairly attractive. She chuckled. "Sorry, I remember you now! What are you two doing here?"

"That's a question I'd much rather ask you..." the man answered, his speech tremulous.

"Oh!" Haru forgot that they lived here. Still, the world must be small for them to run into each other like that. "I... skipped school?" she answered, anxiously giggling.

He sighed. "Yeah, I can see that. Won't ask why, but you should go home soon. It's getting real dark. Unless you want to spend the night with-"

"Alright kids!" Aoi returned with a spunk in his step, wrapping both their shoulders in his long arms. "Backup's arriving soon, so our duty now's to have fun until they do!"

Chuuya scoffed. "Huh? We have to send her home-"

"Let's go to the aquarium!" Aoi interrupted. He winked at Chuuya in an attempt to reassure him, but all that did was make him even more anxious.

"An aquarium...!" Haru's eyes twinkled. She seemed to have forgotten that she was supposed to be getting home by now. "Yep, yep! There'll be lots of fish there! There's an aquarium that extends over your head in a hallway, you know!?" Aoi exclaimed excitedly.

"Woah...!"

Chuuya was always weak to these types of people, Aoi knew that too. He sighed. "Let's go, then. Be quick, it closes soon."

The inside was darker than she expected. The walls were filled with see-through enclosures of sea creatures she'd never seen before. There were cute illustrations of mascots on cardboard cutouts pointing to where their kind could be found. One of the mascots was a penguin. Somewhere in this building were penguins and she needed to find them.