"Thanks," the pretty guy says, handing the pen back to Kyungsoo. He flashes a toothy smile, eyes crinkling up in the corners. Ohh, that's so cute, Kyungsoo is cooing internally— "Did you make it yourself, by the way?"

Kyungsoo blinks, confused. "...What?" he eventually manages to ask.

"The ink," the guy says, looking back down at the pen pointedly. "Did you make it?"

He feels the sneer pulling his lip up subconsciously. "That's racist," Kyungsoo snaps, eyes furrowing in a disappointed glare.

The guy sputters. "W-what?" he asks. "I was just asking!"

"You gonna tell me the joke now?" Kyungsoo asks. "Go ahead, get it over with."

"...Huh?"

He sighs, waiting expectantly. Or he supposes he'll just feed him the line. " How many tickles does it take ..." he starts, cycling his hands slowly.

"Oh!" the guy barks, clapping his hands together. "Ten tickles! Tentacles! Ha! I knew that one!" He bursts out in a shrill, loud laugh as he slaps the surface of his table.

Kyungsoo is definitely not amused by the joke. The guy realizes this a lot quicker than he would've guessed, turning appropriately bashful as he chews on his bottom lip. "And no, I bought that ink. It's archival standard," Kyungsoo adds.

"I didn't mean it to be...offensive..." the guy mumbles, looking down at his hands. "I didn't know..."

He lets out a long sigh and starts piling his supplies into his bag. "It's fine," Kyungsoo says to his desk. Better to just head back to his room, stew, and miss home than to alienate more classmates.

The station is liveable, of course. One can survive here. Everyone can survive here, which was the whole point. But that doesn't mean it's particularly pleasant to live outside of the water and have to breathe in humid, oxygen loaded air as a substitute. It's doable. It's necessary if one wants to advance their career in the Galactic Fleet. But if Kyungsoo had to hear one more joke about his limbs, or making his own ink, or whatever other stupid stereotypes people have built up around his species just because he resembles some Earth Prime creatures, he's going to show them just how many people he can simultaneously choke with said tentacles.

"Wait, hey!" cries a familiar voice, and Kyungsoo slows to a stop just as the guy from class barrels a meter past him and backtracks. "I'm sorry!" he repeats, clutching all of his paperwork in his hands. "I wasn't trying to insult you, I promise!"

"I know," Kyungsoo says, unable to hold the sigh back. "I said it was fine. I just get it a lot."

The guy clears his throat. "Umm," he says. "If it makes you feel better...I would probably get that a lot too..." He chews on the inside of his lip as Kyungsoo gives him a confused look. The moment grows more awkward as it drags on, before the guy glances around nervously and reaches up to tug the hat off of his head, running his fingers through his hair to fluff it out. Two small ears pop up from the mussed, brown mop, fuzzy gray in color and floppy. They're only visible for a moment before the hat slides back on, and the guy pushes a finger underneath to tuck the tip of one of the ears back in place.

"You're a—," What the hell is that word... He can't recall the names of a lot of nonaquatic species. "A dog?"

The guy bristles, straightening up his spine and scrunching his brows. "I am not !" he exclaims, the volume shocking himself, and he curls inward in embarrassment. "I'm an Arctocephan. We're not even Chimeras. Our aural extensions just...resemble Earth Prime seal ears."

"Gee, that must be so hard for you," Kyungsoo says dryly. He shifts his weight onto his rear tentacles and stares unsympathetically. He may have similar skin tones to Primelings, but there's no disguising what he is.

The guy is unamused, scowling at Kyungsoo before his eyes dip low enough to catch the movement and he looks away, properly abashed. "I guess you can't exactly hide, huh?" he mumbles to the floor.

"Not really," Kyungsoo says. "Not that I'd want to. I'm not ashamed."

"Well, I'm not either," the guy rushes to clarify. "It's just...easier...than having to sit there and...explain that you're not...well, you get it, obviously..."

"Yup."

The guy purses his lips, looking down at his feet. Aside from the little ears, he looks humanoid enough that he could've passed for a Primeling aside from the slate gray skin, which Kyungsoo guesses was the whole point behind the hat. "My name's Jongin," he says finally.

"Kyungsoo," he answers.

Jongin clicks his tongue. "I'm sorry again, by the way," he says, looking straight into his eyes for emphasis.

It's his turn to blush now, under that sincere look. "I said it was fine," Kyungsoo mutters. "Anyway, I gotta...go."

"Oh, right!" Jongin exclaims, too loudly again before clapping a hand over his mouth. "Sorry. Um. I'll see you later."

He watches Jongin shuffle backward awkwardly before spinning around and walking off. That ended surprisingly well.

—

His roommate is getting out of control. Just because Kyungsoo does not require much space to sleep doesn't mean Baekhyun can spread all of his junk out in their pod. Kyungsoo flicks one of his tentacles through the water, sending a headset floating back off toward Baekhyun's side. He turns to his corner and propels back under the black dome of his bed. Like most Pulpoans, he enjoys sleeping in cramped, dark places. Their home world is comprised of a large, cavernous network of tunnels and caves. Why the Galactic Fleet decided to pair him with a Lutran like Baekhyun then, is a question that might never go answered. Or perhaps the answer is simply that the Galactic Fleet doesn't care, and the assignment was simply random.

Kyungsoo flicks his legs to whip up a small current, just enough to carry away Baekhyun's stray fur. It's everywhere, and it gets in everything. Rude otter , he finds himself thinking uncharitably before feeling remorseful and curling up under his dome.

His communicator thrums against his wrist, startling him from sleep. Kyungsoo whirls in place, groggily pulling it toward his eyes and waiting for them to focus. The hologram comes to life above his arm, displaying Jongin's face.

"Hey!" the hologram chirps. "You busy?"

Kyungsoo garbles out some incoherent sound and clears his throat. His translator brace is still in his bag. Whoops. He quickly pulls the dome back and kicks off for the surface of the pod, wiping the droplets out of his eyes and slicking his hair back. "No," he repeats. "What's up?"

"Oh crap, did I wake you?" Jongin's face falls, his little ears drooping.

"Don't apologize!" Kyungsoo warns before Jongin can have a chance to get it out. They've been talking for a couple of weeks now, and he's discovered that as giggly and dorky as Jongin is (and oh, his laugh ), he has a penchant for turning into a shy little seal pup at a second's notice, and starts apologizing for every possible infraction.

Jongin blushes. It's so cute, and he's pretty sure Jongin doesn't realize when he does it, it makes his ears stick up a little. He doesn't cover them when he's alone or around Kyungsoo, but even when he's in public and under the cover of the hat, it'll lift a bit from the ears. So cute. "Do you want to go see the coral gardens?" he asks shyly. "They brought some new stuff there today."

"What kind of new stuff?" Kyungsoo asks.

“Uh….new...coral…” Jongin says slowly, sounding embarrassed at having to spell it out.

“Oh,” Kyungsoo says, blushing a little bit himself. He clears his throat. “Yeah, that'd be great.”

The coral garden is actually underwater, unlike the majority of the public spaces on the station. For the most part though, Kyungsoo has been avoiding it ever since some prey species saw him there and got scared. Even after all their advancements and treaties and everything, some people still feel weird when around predator species. Like Kyungsoo would just lasso a classmate and snap their head off in Navigation or snack on his partner in Zero Gravity Training. It’s not like the species of fish that they serve in the mess are any sentient ones. Even fish eat fish, he thinks to himself as he makes his way down the tunnels.

The entrance to the gardens has two pillars, where they’ve activated a force field. Taking one more step forward means stepping into a full water enclosure from their humid hallway. From here, he can see the gardens are empty. Perfect. Kyungsoo lets out a happy sigh before crouching down and leaping into the gate, spiraling through the water nearly five meters up before stretching his limbs out as the artif