b u b b l e  b l o w i n '

"Oh my god." Baekhyun gushes, snorting through a large mass of bubbles that fly in front of Chanyeol's eyes. "Did you hear about Huang Zitao?"

"I ing knooooow right! He's sooooooooo bad-!" Sehun sighs dreamily, getting a slap to the face by Luhan's, his seahorse boyfriend, tail.

"Oi, watch yourself, Sehun, your wife is right here!" Luhan hisses back, eyes flickering back and forth between his bulging stomach and Sehun's stoic seahorse face.

Yixing the starfish pulls a leg over the aquarium at Luhan, "I thought the males were supposed to get pregnant in a seahorse relationship."

"They do, , that's why Luhan is carrying their children." Kyungsoo creeps over on his tiny crabby legs and sits down on the rock next to them.

"Oh my god, does that mean Sehun's the girl in the relationship?" Chanyeol asks, making him and his catfish boyfriend snigger obnoxiously.

"No," Jongin comes over and pinches Chanyeol's whiskers with his own pair of claws. "That means Baekhyun's the girl in your relationship."

"Hey," Minseok warns sternly points one of his eight octopus arms at them. "Y'all need to chill. And Jongin, you're literally the second youngest out of us all here; don't go walking around like you own The Cove."

"Actually Kris does-"

The lobster named Jongin squeezes Jongdae's beak from under his tentacles and gives Minseok a roll of his eyes. "Whatever, Minseok, you're just an octopus dating a squid."

The octopus walks over, the color of his skin changing to a yellow orange with blue stripes. "Mind you, you hard-shelled freak, I'm a ing Blue Ring Octopus and I can poison your crusty any day."

"YEAH! GO BACK TO THE SEA SPONGES, JONGIN!" Sehun hoots, snorting air bubbles that almost make Kyungsoo the crab fall off his rock if it weren't for Jongdae's tentacles.

"YOU'RE NOT EVEN LEGAL AND YOU'RE ALREADY CARRYING CHILDREN!" The lobster yelled back, shoving the youngest sea creature down to the sand.

"Kyungsoo gives Luhan a light pinch. "Should we do something about this?"

Luhan glances at their significant others before shrugging. "Nah, not really."

WHAT THE DON'T PINCH MY BELLY, YOU DUMB! I'M PREGNANT AND I'M TOO FAT FOR THIS!" The seahorse yelled, whacking Jongin's head with his curled tail.

"Hey guys-" Kris the moorish idol swims over, but promptly stops when he notices a big lobster fighting a pregnant seahorse.

He gives everybody, mainly Minseok, a pointed look. 

"Do I even want to know?"

"No, not really." Jongdae says, flailing his tentacles around for no reason at all. "Sehun's just forever PMSing because of his pregnancy."

"Anywho!" Baekhyun the catfihs interrupts, pushing his way through Jongdae and leaning up against Kris. "Did you hear about the new fish in town? Huang Zitao?"

"Um yeah, he's my neighbor." Kris answers, blinking.

"We're all living in the same fish tank if you didn't care to notice," Kyungsoo snorts, folding his arms and fixing his moustache.

"I heard he's from the ocean." Luhan says suddenly with awe in his voice, fins swimming faster than before and sparkling eyes.

"No way!" Yixing gushes along with him. "That's so coral!"

"Stop trying to make coral happen, Yixing," Jongdae muses. "It's just not going to happen!"

"OH MY GOD HERE HE COMES!!!" Minseok screams, pushing Kris with a large slap of his arm. "GO GET 'EM TIGER!!!"

"WHAT THE ARE YOU DOING--"

Tao the clownfish blinks as soon as Kris stops in front of him. 

"Um, hello." Tao says.

Kris only floats there.

"Hello? You're Kris, the person who owns The Cove, right?"

And thus, Kris majestically flops facefirst into the sand beneath him while the clownfish just awkwardly floats away.

--

"Dude." Jongdae breathes in between his bales of laughter once Kris awakes, "He's totally into you."

"As if." The moorish idol sighs. "He seems really nice..."

Baekhyun materialized and the amount of bubbles that escape Kris's mouth once he's there is tremendous.

"Then go out with him."

"YEAH! TAKE HIM TO..." Jongin pauses to lock eyes with his crab boyfriend with a devious smile. "THE DROPOFF!"

Kris's mouth drops and he thinks that there's no way that the oxygen in the water is going to reach his gills so he just blacks out once again.

 

--

 

The next week, Kris tries again - and by trying again, I mean legitimately almost showing his fin up Tao's when he accidentally bumps into his backside.

And needless to say, it was going well.

At least, that's what he thought.

"So... How do you like life here in the tank?" Kris asks, wincing as how too many bubbles escaped his mouth as soon as he said that.

Tao the clownfish laughed, and Kris found himself smiling.

"It's pretty good. Reaaaaaally different from the ocean."

Kris stopped swimming with the other fish. "Oh really? Then what's the Big Blue like?"

Tao stopped too, blinking. "Well... Um... It's Big... And it's blue..."

The moorish idol nods decisively, as if he was the smartest fish in town (actually that was Minseok). 

"I knew it."

 

--

 

"Of course the Big Blue is ing big and blue!" Kyungsoo scolds him as soon as Kris comes to The Cove to tell them what happened on their little 'date'.

"IT'S CALLED THE BIG BLUE FOR A REASON, DAMMIT!" Chanyeol cries out, squeaking when Kris glares at him.

Baekhyun sighs, smacking his fin on his face. "Goddammit, Kris. I didn't think you'd be this bad."

Kris gives him a stare before sighing. "Alright, then what do you want me to do with him? I keep swimming facefirst into the sand whenever I see him."

"Like Jongin said," Luhan nods his head towards the lobster 'showing off his guns', "Take Tao to The Dropoff. It's the perfect date place!"

 

--

 

"The Dropoff?" Tao asks innocently the next day. "What's that?"

"It's sort of like The Cove." Kris says, wincing when one of his bubbles hits Tao square in the face as he swam with the other to his own. "You know, just more... Urban?"

"I'll have to ask Joonmyeon since I'm already here at home..." The clownfish says, biting his fin as he looks at his father glaring holes into Kris's head from the anemone.

Kris gulps and all the bubbles start to flow out of his gills like an oxygen tank.

"I'll tell you tomorrow and we can go then?" Tao asks hopefully, smiling at the moorish idol.

Kris gives a stiff nod and immediately swims away once Joonmyeon pulls Tao in with the flick of his fin.

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING? WHO THE HELL WAS THAT? WHO THAT BOY, IS HE YOUR BOYFRIEND?" Joonmyeon the clownfish screams at his son.

Tao blinks. "Joonmyeon--"

"WHAT DID I TELL YOU,  HUANG ZITAO? I SAID NO DATING BEFORE YOU MARRY!"

The smaller clownfish gives Joonmyeon a pointed glare. "JOONMYEON CALM THE DOWN!"

Joonmyeon glares at him, but he shuts up nonetheless.

"Look, I really like Kris, okay? Won't you let me go to The Dropoff with him-?"

"I'll have to - WAIT DID YOU JUST SAY YOU WERE GOING TO THE DROPOFF?!"

Tao blinks. "Yeah, why?"

Joonmyeon proceeds to curse in a string of colorful profanities.

 

--

 

"Um, wow, you look great." is the first thing Kris says once he enters the anemone.

"Yeah, I look the same everyday and free." Joonmyeon snaps, and Kris suddenly feels like burying his face in the sand for another reason.

 

--

 

"Soooo, what are we supposed to do here?" Tao asks, swimming really close to Kris.

Kris cleared his throat and tried not to focus on how close their fins were. 

"I was thinking that we could play with The ."

Tao narrows his eyes at him and stops swimming, raising a fin in anger. "Excuse me?"

Kris curses. "NOT YOUR ! I MEANT THAT !" He hurriedly points to the floating sea vehicle in front of them.

The clownfish turns around after looking at it. 

"...Kris, that's a boat, not a ."

Kris was upset that he could not dive into the sand as of right now.

"...Oh."

 

--

 

", KRIS, THAT WAS THE BEST DAY EVER!" Tao exclaims as he and Kris enter his anemone.

"aND IT'S ABOUT TO GET BETTER." Kris winks before tackling Tao down to the floor of the anemone.

"What do you mean?" Tao asks, blinking.

Kris leans in, blowing bubbles into his gills and making him gasp beneath him. 

"You'll see~"

"Krisssssss~" Tao drunkenly moans, using his fins to pull the moorish idol closer. "Moooooore~"

Kris winks again before digging his fish nose into his gills and blowing bubbles, all the while dragging his fin dangerously low to where Tao's bum was located.

He was about to push his fin up the clownfish's butthole when--

"oH MY ING NARWHALS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Joonmyeon shouts as he drops the pearls he was carrying. "wHAT IS gOing oN HERE?!?!??!?!?!?!??"

Kris immediately floats toward the opening of the anemone with wide eyes. "NOTHING, MR. JOONMYEON!!!!!"

Joonmyeon narrows his eyes. "I knew this was going to happen."

The moorish idol blinks. "What????"

Joonmyeon's eyes gleam dangerously and Kris can't even scream when Joonmyeon pulls out an angry scallop on his right fin.

"i gaVE YOU ONE CHANCE!!!!"

"NO WAIT I'M SORRY--"

"TOO LATE! NO MORE CHANCE!!!!! YOU DIEEEEEE!!!!"

 

--

 

"oH MY ING GOD TAO IT HURTS EVERYWHERE." Kris screeches the next day when everybody is gathered in the fish hospital to visit him.

Tao sighs, used to it.

"Just keep swimming."

--words; like 1,600--

kris :

tao and joonmyeon :