Sea Bunny Shores - HayaRyuu (Discontinued for now)

second.

(Sorry for any typos! Lemme know if you see any!)

Ryuu waits until the guards have their backs turned before dashing forward. The sound startles the guards. "Hey! HEY!" one yells. "Get that merboy! He's trying to leave!"

Ryuuichi panics as they get closer to him. He notices some coral and swims over it before moving back around, throwing the guards off.

He's at the gate.

Ryuuichi swims through, and the guards look at him with disdain and shock. But, they do not chase after him.

He laughs softly, spinning around. Everything looks the same. Why was it considered dangerous? Sure, the water here was a little salty, but nothing too scary. Ryuuichi keeps swimming, gradually heading up.

"I know The Chairwoman is gonna be so angry at me, but I'm only going to be up here for a few minutes."

It's like he's swimming towards the sun, and it feels incredible. Finally, he's reached it.

He's reached the surface, but he pauses. What if this was a bad idea? Should he really be doing this?

Closing his eyes, he brings his hand above the water.

"It feels so different, colder."

"Ow!" he pulls his hand back. His hand began to sting violently, more pigmented scales growing over his hand. "What..." he says, confused.

He looks back towards the sun before diving back down into the depths of the sea. "Maybe this was a bad idea."

Ryuuichi holds his hand to his heart, swimming back slowly to the kingdom. Will they even let him back in?

Once he returns to the gate, he notices Kotaro, Saikawa and The Chairwoman talking to the guards.

"Oh no, I can't let them see me now!" He swims away quickly, taking another route entirely.

He doesn't look back and hides behind a rock. Ryuu peaks out, but his eye catches on something sparkly. It's coming from a cave.

The merboy tilts his head as he gradually approaches. The cave is covered in vines.

He pushes them out of the way, seeing a shiny bottle on the ground.

Kashima continues down the cavern. But he sees a shadow, surrounded by orange light. He crouches down and looks over, seeing another merman pouring different mixtures into a cauldron.

Ryuuichi swims out, "Uh, hi?" he greets.

The merman stumbles, turning around. He grabs a knife off the table and points it at the boy's neck. Ryuuichi puts his hands up, whimpering.

"Who are you?" the man blares.

"I'm Ryuuichi! I promise I didn't come here to cause harm!"

The man raises an eyebrow and looks the boy up and down.

"You seem pretty weak." he puts away his knife. "What's a merboy doing out of the kingdom?"

Ryuuichi hesitates. The man is suspicious, no doubt about that. "I decided to take a bit of a trip."

"A trip to where?"

"The surface." Ryuuichi blurts.

"The surface?" The man laughs. "Don't you realize that leaving the water can cause harm to your body?" he says, looking at Ryuuichi's hand, which was slowly removing itself from the scales.

"Yeah, I realize that now."

The man hums. "So, you want to go to the surface..." he smirks. "I might be able to help with that."