It's Called Love, Right?

Chapter 16 - Not So Bad

[Dawn's POV]

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Something cold dripped onto my face as I slowly opened my eyes to adjust my blurry vision.

"Where am I?" I muttered while I looked around, only to realize I was in a cave near the beach. I took a glance outside, noting the pouring rain and raging gust. "So there was going to be a storm after all..." I said to myself. Then it all came back to me.

Clams, treasures, kelps...

That's right. I saw a giant clam and decided to swim towards it, but the kelps ended up trying to strangle me. It sounded odd as I thought about it—kelps trying to strangle people.

Totally normal.

Wait. I paused for a second. If I was being strangled by kelps, then how did I end up here? Ash. He must of been the one that rescued me. And the glimpse of blue right before I fainted must have been his aqua suit. I stood up and looked around the cave for any signs of Ash. No luck.

"Where did he go?" I frowned as my mind was invaded by paranoia. What if he was also badly injured because of the kelps? What if he ditched me? What if he had to sacrifice himself in order to save me?

I cleared my head before the thoughts could get any worse. Ash would be okay. After all, he was Ash Ketchum, the son of the infamous leader of Mafia Org.

Suddenly, my thoughts were interrupted by approaching foot steps. My heart beat accelerated as I held my breath. To my relieve, it was Ash, who casually strolled in here from behind the cave. I released my tension with a sigh.

"You scared me."

He threw me my oxygen tank, the one that was thrown away by the kelps. "After the storm stops, we'll go diving again."

"You got this back?" I pointed at the oxygen tank.

"Yeah." He looked at me. "You can't diving without a oxygen tank, can you?"

I shook my head. "But how did you find it? The kelps threw it away!"

"It was there when I chopped all the kelps in half." He shrugged nonchalantly. "It was harder than I thought though, considering that you fainted."

He just chopped the kelps in half while protecting me? That easily?

"I'm gonna go and see if the storm is going to stop anytime sooner. By the look of it, it will. You've been lucky." He turned around and walked out the cave.

"Wait!" I grabbed him by the arm, making him flinch in pain. I immediately released let. "Are you...hurt?"

"I'm fine," he said, "I could take care of myself after the exam is over."

I shook my head and gave him a look of disapproval. "No way! If you go diving in this state, then the salt water will infect your wounds. Plus, it's my fault that you got hurt."

Not even bothering to wait for his reply, I pressed him down into a sitting position and slid off the top half of his aqua suit. I couldn't help but blush at his bare skin.

Slightly tanned, Ash's body was covered in old scars, even visible on his abdomen (which I tried really hard to not touch). I'd hate to admit it, but despite his personality—he had quite the body.

What? Not my fault I was born a fan girl.

Trying my best to ignore his fit body, I slipped his right arm out of the sleeve and examined his wound. There was a deep cut across his should blades to his arm around the size of an index finger, tearing open his toned muscles. Seeing the still-trickling blood, the injury obviously wasn't properly treated.