Taeil loved fish. He always had, and he figured he always would. He sat on his bed, staring into one of the many tanks he had along the walls in his room. This specific tank held his very pregnant female orange swordfish. Well, it did last night. This morning it was filled with little baby fishes. Taeil went through and counted them all. There were twelve in total who had survived. He smiled happily, he was a grandfather.

“You did a good job, Dubu!” He said as he drop in a few flakes of fish food.

He picked up the specialized food for his Oscars, but accidently knocked it over. The flakes landed all over the floor, leaving virtually none in the bottle.

“Ah, damn!” he mumbled.

After cleaning up all the flakes, he started getting changed. He trained his fish to be on a very specific schedule. The Oscars would start going crazy if they weren’t fed soon. He threw in some other generic food, which they were definitely not happy about, but it would do. He jogged into the kitchen to grab one of his protein shakes before he left. PO was in the kitchen, looking through the fridge.

“Morning, Hoon!”

“Ah, good morning, Hyung!” he said. “Where are you off too?”

“Oh, I dropped my damn fish food and need to get more. I also need to get another small tank for Dubu's babies. They were born last night!” he said.

“Congrats man!” PO laughed.

“… Do you want to come with me?” he asked. “You know… There is a girl who works there that I think you might like. She’s super smart when it comes to animals, and she’s cute too! She’s a little too young for me, but I think you’d like her!”

Classic Taeil. PO and Taeil are best friends, ever since they first met all those years ago. PO had just reached his five year single mark. Taeil tried setting him up, finding dates for both of them, but PO never followed through. PO had a poker face on. He pursed his lips and finally nodded.

“Ok. I’ll go!”

~

Taeil found this pet store by accident three years ago. It looked small and decrepit on the outside, but on the inside was amazing. The walls were lined with different fish, some you couldn’t find in Korea. It was an American based store, as they were in the heart of the expat district. It carried all different food and treats that Taeil couldn’t read. Most of the workers were American as well. Taeil opened the door and let PO walk in first.

“Whoa…” PO muttered.

“Yeah, it’s cool, right?” Taeil chuckled, pushing up his glasses. “They have a bunch of exotic pets too! Like sugar gliders and ferrets and such..”

“Hey, Taeil!”

The two of them turned around. There was a girl standing there. She was short, about the same height as Taeil. She had bubblegum pink hair that was tied in pigtail braids, a few stray hairs fell in front of her face. She had a black V-neck shirt on and plain blue jeans that were cuffed at the bottom and a pair of dark purple converse. She was also wearing a green apron that had the store's logo on the front. PO stared at her face. She had a small button noise and big bright blue eyes, which were slightly hidden behind a pair of brown thick-rimmed glasses. Her face was littered with freckles and birthmarks, one specific one right above her lip like Marilyn Monroe.

“Ah, hey Bambi!” Taeil said, then turned to PO. “Jihoon, this is Bambi!” he turned back to Bambi. “Bambi, this is my friend, Jihoon!”

Bambi bowed her head, “Its nice to meet you, Jihoon!”

PO's cheeks turned red watching her. Her shirt hung open slightly, showing off part of her bra. It was a beige color that was covered with black lace. Her chest was on the larger side, much larger. When she stood up and realized PO was looking at her, Bambi blushed and pushed her glasses up.

“O-oh!” PO stuttered, then bowed. “Its, um, it’s nice to meet you too!”

“Taeil Oppa, did Dubu have her babies yet?” Bambi asked, turning her attention back to Taeil.

PO pouted, feeling like he messed up his chance. The two of them went back and forth for awhile, talking about fish. PO started getting bored, but didn’t want to leave.

“Hey, Bambi! Why don’t you show Hoon those glowing fish?” Taeil said. “I’m going to run to the bathroom, but I'll meet you over there!”

“Oh, sure!” Bambi said, finally turning her attention back to PO. “Follow me!”

PO gave her a smile and walked behind her. He noticed that she was wide hips, and frankly, she had a nice . His eyes dropped down a few times, watching her walk. They finally stopped at a section where all the tanks were lit with black lights. The fish inside glowed brightly in different colors. There were red, purple, blue, yellow, green, but the ones that stood out the most were the pink ones.

“These guys are my favorite!” Bambi said, crouching down to look at the pink fish. “If you couldn’t tell, pink is my favorite color!”

“Ah, really? M-me too!” PO said, crouching next to her. “They are really cool… How do they glow?”

“Lots of people think that these guys are injected with dyes, but that’s not the case. Almost twenty years ago, there were a few researchers in Singapore who were studying zebrafish, which are these guys.” Bambi stood up and pointed at the tank containing the smallest fish. “There’s a gene called green florescent protein, or GFP for short, which is found in jellyfish. They took a little bit of the gene and inserted it into a zebrafish embryo, and when the fish was born, it was neon yellow and glowed!” Bambi laughed and turned to PO. “Isn’t it kind of cool? Their main goal was to make a fish that was able to detect pollution by selectively fluorescing in the presence of environmental toxins.” Bambi noticed that PO had a semi-confused look on his face. She rubbed her cheek, trying to hide her blush and gave a shy smile. “I, uh, I sometimes ramble when it comes to animals…”

“N-no, I liked it! It’s, um, it’s kind of cute…” PO said, looking at the fish.

He looked at Bambi in the glass of the tank. She had a big smile on her face and was looking down at the floor.

“Tell me more about them!” PO said, which caught Bambi off-guard.

“Oh! Um… Well, a few years after they discovered that they were able to produce yellow fish, they went on and tried some other colors. The next one was red, they took a similar gene from a sea coral. In the beginning they only used zebrafish, but afterwards they started working on medaka, or rice fish. It wasn’t until 2011 that the blue and purple ones were released. 2013 were the pink and orange ones, and 2014 were a different shade of red and blue. And that’s about all the random knowledge I have on GloFish!”

PO laughed and clapped his hands, “That’s amazing that you know that much!”

“Did Bambi tell you the GloFish story?” Taeil asked, walking up behind the two.

“Yeah! It’s really cool, Hyung! Why don’t you have any?” PO asked.

Taeil shrugged, “They’re just regular freshwater fish, besides them glowing, they aren’t that special.”

“They glow! That’s special, isn’t it?” PO said, looking over at Bambi.

She had a smile on her face. Her hands were clasped in front of her and she was looking down at her hands. PO couldn’t help but think about how adorable she looked. He didn’t have much time to think before his phone vibrated. He pulled it out of his pocket and saw a reminder on the screen.

Reminder : Practice at 5

Taeil realized what time it was and frowned.

“Ah, we have practice!” he turned to Bambi. “I’ll come back again later in the week, ok?”

“Of course! I'm always here! Let me ring you up.”

The two followed her up to an empty cash register and she logged in. PO was surprised about how quick she was able to type into the computer and scan everything. The total came up and Taeil was about to swipe his card, but Bambi stopped him. She pulled out a card that was on a string against her hip and scanned her card. It immediately took of 30%.

“Ah! Bambi! You didn’t have to do that!” Taeil said.

Bambi smiled, her eyes drifting over to PO, “Its my pleasure! But, to make it up to me, you two have to come back in?” she looked directly at PO. “I have a lot more to tell you about all the animals here!”

PO laughed and nodded, “I can’t wait!”

Bambi handed Taeil the bag, shoving the receipt into it.

“It was nice seeing you again, Taeil!” She smiled at him and then smiled at PO. “It was really nice meeting you, Jihoon!”

“It was, really nice meeting you too, Bambi!” PO said.

They said parting words and Bambi watched them walk out. When the got to the door, PO turned around and gave her a small wave.