M.A.R.

Chapter 6

"What is wrong, Ami? Why do you cry?" Mitsukuni asks as the two settle down, hidden by a forest of rocks in the water. Seals all around them barked and barked, not none dared to venture close.

Ami took a shaky breath in, wiped her salty tears away, and smiled at the remarkable merman. "It's nothing. Don't worry about it, Mitsukuni; I'll be fine."

"How do you cry?" he asked right after. Surprised, Ami looked at his eyes. They held nothing but curiosity, just like before.

"W-well..." she thought about it for a moment, taken aback by how fast the question was asked. "How do you cry?" she asked him in return.

"I do not." he answered with the same speed as before in an even blunter tone. This only left Ami even more lost for an explanation.

"Actually... I don't really know..." she gave up after putting exactly two seconds of thought into it. "It just kind of happens."

"When you are in pain or when you are sad or mad?" he asked, lying his head down on his arms which were resting on a rock.

"Mhmm..." Ami agreed, her mind floating elsewhere, her eyes spacing out towards the sea.

"So, which is it, Ami? Pain, sadness, or anger?" Mitsukuni asked with the same clueless innocent tint in his voice.

Ami threw him a questioning look as a sly smile crept in his face. With permission of that devious smirk, she dropped the subject, already feeling in a better mood.

"So, why did you kiss me, merman?" she asked, turning her slightly blushing smile to the sea.

"Because I knew you wanted it." He declared quickly in a smug manner.

Ami gasped as she shot him an embarrassed and angry look. "You wanted it, too!" she huffed in a humiliated tone. "I felt it..."

She turned away again, only this time to gaze at her wrinkling fingers on her lap. Mitsukuni watched her for a while as she did this, not sure if she knew she had a soft smile painted on her lips. Did looking at her hands give her that much happiness? He wondered why and how.

Swimming up to her, he took one of her hands in both of his and inspected it as carefully as he could. It looked like raisons, but it felt so soft in his palms. He turned back to Ami whose soft, gentle smile was wiped clear off of her face. He looked back at the hand, confused. Did she want it back? Did he mess it up? Was it ruined forever?

"I am sorry..." he mumbled to her, not sure what else to do. He must have ruined everything because she wasn't smiling anymore!

"F-for wh-wha-" she stuttered out before gasping the rest of the words back down her throat.

Mitsukuni had taken her hand and pressed his cold, velvety lips on her hand, cupping it with his own hands. Ami's heart swelled in her chest, dying to burst through. No one has ever apologized to her like that before. It practically left her breathless.

Slowly, Mitsukuni pulled his lips away and looked up at her from below. "I am sorry for making you sad..." he apologized. "I did not know that would make you sad."

Ami simply sat there, dumbfounded. What was he talking about? Was she sad? Did she seem sad? "I-I'm not-t sad-d." she murmured as best she could.

Mitsukuni smiled in evident relief. "That is good to hear! I did not make you sad!"

The relief in his eyes struck something in Ami. It pressed a button in her head. "Why are you so worried? Why are you here, Mitsukuni?" she asked, all seriousness in her voice.

His smile slid off his face as his brows furrowed together, his eyes suddenly an unreadable cloudy green as he let go of her hand. He kept eye contact with her for a moment as he chewed on his bottom lip, wondering if it was right to tell her. Sighing, he turned away.

"It was for you," he fibbed after a silent moment. "I had to come back to see you..."

"Come back? We've met before?" Ami shelled him with questions in an urgent voice.

"You do not remember..." he mumbled as if he expected that. "Well, it was years ago. I cannot expect you to remember."

"No, no, no!" Ami denied. "Please don't just shrug it off, Mitsukuni! Please! Tell me, where have we met before?"

"In the ocean," he answered without hesitation. "You were drowning just like last night, except you were a bit smaller..." he measured how tall he recalled her to be by placing one hand about three feet above the other one that was on the rock.

"You saved me before?" Ami half whispered, half choked. "When was this?!"

"I do not really remember. Ten years ago."

Ami's shoulders dropped in realization. "You saved me... You're the reason I'm still... alive..."

Mitsukuni smiled, taking this as a good thing, and raised himself until he could loosely wrap his arms around her waist, his head lying on her abdomen.

A moment passes as the distant barking of the seals faded into the back ground. Soon, all you could hear were the silent tears flowing carefully down Ami's cheeks and falling gracefully into Mitsukuni's hair.

"Why does that make you cry again?" he asked, brusquely, not moving anything but his lips.

"Because my parents-" Ami stifled a sob as a quick memory of their smiling faces flashed in her mind at the thought of them. She hurriedly wrapped a hand around her mouth, hoping to hold back even more sobs. Ami squeezed her eyes shut, hoping it'd hold back the tears that were triggering the sobs escaping from her lips. She slowly slid her fingers off her lips, but just enough to let a whisper slip through. "They died on that ship. Everyone d-" Ami's throat went tight again as another wave of chocking guilt flushed through her.

"If they wanted you to die with them they would not have pushed you out into the ocean." Mitsukuni reassured with his usual speed and blunt, truthful tone as he hid the left side of his face in her soft, smooth tummy.

Ami knew that what he was saying was true, but it didn't help slow down the tears gushing out of her eyes. She pressed her hand harder on her lips as she shut her eyes as tight as she could.

"If it were really your time to go..." his lips tickled the sensitive skin on her sides. Only moving his sea foam green eyes, he glanced up at her in such a way that made the tears stop almost automatically. Then he turned back to the delicate skin in front of him as he finished, "Then I would not have found and saved you." With two fingers on her back, he walked up her spine with every last word he said, sending tingling chills up and down her body. "But you are here," he moved his head back from her, his finger tips gently grazing her quivering skin, "Alive," he looked up at her and wasted no time filling in the gap between their faces, their noses gently touching, his lips ever so slightly moving against hers, "With me..." he whispered as his lips roughly and passionately stole hers...