Ninorielle von abgemeldet (The little Mermaid) ================================================================================ Kapitel 4: –Brave New World- ---------------------------- Nino finally opened her eyes. “What- what have you done fish?!” Ohno nearly screamed. “Well,… errrh, actually… It didn’t go as we thought, huh?” Matsuken said. Nino sat up and watched down at herself to see what actually happened. She was rather disappointed with the result; her chest got even flatter, her shoulders went slightly broader and she was even growing some armpit hair (urrrgh). But her face lighted up when she saw that she really had legs. Still, something was weird. “Oh? I didn’t think human would have a small 3rd leg? How do they walk on that?” She tried to stand up carefully, scared she might fall over, as she was unskilled with the new limbs. However, Nino was surprised when it felt like she had been walking on those two legs her whole life. (The ‘3rd leg’ was still dangling uselessly in air though.) Ohno and Matsuken simply gaped at her. The mermaid turned human was still confused about the ‘3rd leg’ between her two longer ones and touched it curiously. And touched it again. And made it swing. And poked it. And squeezed it. And… “STOP TO TICKLE YOUR PICKLE, GIRL!!” Ohno exclaimed, face bright red. Nino and Matsuken stared at him in surprise. “Oh-chan? Shouldn’t you rather say ‘boy’ by scolding her now?” The face of the crab turned almost purple.”QUIET FISH OR I’LL MAKE YOU SASHIMI! Beside the fact that Ninorielle is human… Why the heck did she become a male?! What in the world has happened?” Having told Ohno the whole story, he skimmed through the copy of the contract. “Ah, here it is, in very small fonts. ‘The lovely person signing this contract with sexy Johnny will, no matter of her original form, be transformed into a sexy, young, male human for only 3 days, unless…’ etc.” Ohno stared worried at the contract and sighed. “Nino-chan, do you just know in what you got into there? There were a lot of people Johnny got with such deals. Just one person ever managed to get this required kiss of true love. That was actually your-“ Ohno stopped when suddenly footsteps were hearable. Someone was approaching and Ohno and Matsuken hid in the water. Nino stiffened when the person coming up behind the rocks and walking straight into the direction of the sea was no other than the human he fell in love with. Sho wasn’t aware of him, so Nino took the chance to watch him quietly. His hazel eyes were beautiful and the way the wind brushed lightly through his brown hair looked amazing. Nino held his breath at the image, trying to take it all in. When Sho felt the gaze on him, he turned and jumped with a “UWAH!” at the still naked Nino standing there totally nonchalantly. “Oh my God! Are you okay? Have you been robbed? Why do you not have any clothes?” Sho hoped strongly the young man standing in front of him was not a pervert. “Ah- I’m sorry! I have no clothes yet, I just turned human. Hahaha” Nino scratched his back-head in embarrassment and smiled apologetically. Sho wasn’t someone who’d judge a stranger from the first impression, but that innocent smile washed away every trace of distrust or suspicions. (And he wondered if his heart really should beat so fast.) “You… Did you just say ‘turned human’?” he asked confused. “What exactly are you then?” “I came out of the sea. I actually have a fishtail.” Nino said cutely and not convincing at all. Sho believed that the poor person in front of him lost his sanity; he couldn’t let him stay there just like that without clothes. (His sense of duty being a prince prohibited to leave the guy all alone. Furthermore, he was worried a bad man could take that somewhat cute boy away.) “Even though it might be totally ridiculous to take a strange, and naked, and probably lunatic man to my resting place… I cannot respond it to leave you out here all alone. I consider it as my duty to help you, so just come with my, we need to dress you first.” Sho took off one of his parkers (fortunately, he decided to wear the double-parker today), threw it over Nino’s shoulders (though it barely covered anything, even less the important body parts) and they went off the beach, Ohno and Matsuken watching their disappearing backs. Nino gaped at the huge villa in front of him. From an old framed photo he found in a sunken boat, he knew that the houses of humans looked different, but he didn’t think they’d be as large as the castle undersea. From far away, they had always looked small. So humans had actually really enormous houses. Nino was amazed by the human world for another time. “Ah, you have probably never seen such a huge house. I am sorry; my parents tend to exaggerate in every occasion. If we find some time later on, I can show you around.” Oh. But Nino was still amazed by his house. Sho guided him into the enormous building through a labyrinth of alleys and finally into a room with immense, white doors. The little furniture inside -a large bed, a chair, a desk with a small tortoise in her aquarium on it and a huge wardrobe- was white with golden ornaments. “This is my room.” Sho scratched his back-head. “Actually, I do not stay here as often as I would like to, so there are rather few pieces of furniture in here- just as many as I need.” He went to the wardrobe, opened it and stepped into it. (So humans’ wardrobes are deeper than they look from the outside, Nino noticed.) After some time, Sho came out again with several clothes in his hands. “It is so ridiculously huge in there, I have to admit that I get lost in there regularly, but here you go,” he reached Nino the clothes without looking at Nino directly, “try these on and see if they fit you.” “Thank you.” Nino smiled shyly. He has never worn clothes before; he didn’t know how to put them on. So the naked man simply took the first piece of fabric out of the stack Sho was holding, and the underwear went experimentally right on his head. Nino thought that it kind of fitted but it was still weird. Sho instead blushed but immediately began to laugh loudly at him, holding his stomach. “Oh right, I forgot. You just ‘turned’ human.” He tried to get his breath back and dressed up the other man, still giggling. “Do you have at least a name?” “I’m Ninorielle, but friends call me simply Nino.” “Oh, that is a difficult name indeed. Would you be okay if I called you Nino too?” “Su- Sure.” “Great, Nino then. I hope that we become good friends!” Sho smiled. Nino blushed slightly at the call of his name. He thought he liked his name far more if Sho was the one saying it…Wait, did he just say ‘friends’!? “My name is Sho. It is a huge pleasure to meet you.” He held out a hand. The now (casual but attractive) clothed man stared curiously at the hand, wondering what would happen now. But nothing happened and Sho just took it back again, looking embarrassed. “You know, you just could have asked if you wanted to touch my belly, I don’t mind that!” Sho blushed from ear to ear. That boy was far too lovely naive. “Uhm, well… What exactly were you again?” Sho asked, even though he wasn’t sure if he really wanted to know. But he needed to get distracted. “I was a mermaid.” Nino said straight out. The prince looked at him dumbfounded. “A mermaid? What is that? Is that- Oh, wait.” He went back into the wardrobe, shuffling around and finally coming out again, wearing a short, black maid-dress with white laces. “Something like that?” he stepped in front of Nino gracefully, making a few turns. “Eh… No, that’s not right.” “Oh. But… but I look cute spotting a dress, do I not?” Sho made some more turns. “Actually,… not. It looks rather weird. Do you like humiliating yourself?” Nino loughed hardly at the pouting face Sho was making, it was cute. Sho smiled at the chuckling man; when he laughed like that, he didn’t seem like a stranger at all. The ‘maid’ made more turns, which made Nino laughing even louder and Sho laughing with him. “Can I… could I maybe stay here?” Nino asked when the laughter stopped. He looked at Sho pleadingly. The other man reluctantly nodded “Sure.” It’s risky to take a stranger into your own house, but the prince longed to find out more about his visitor whom was weird but still captivating him. The house was huge enough, his cold room could need a comrade and no one would become aware of him anyway. Sho just had changed back into his normal clothing, when suddenly a loud rattle was heard outside and with a “pang” someone seemed to have crashed into the doors. After a short moment of silence the doors finally opened and Aiba peeked in cautiously. A pink rabbit hold tightly on his ankle. Sho started to feel deeply afraid of that pet. “Sho-chan? Are you in here?” he asked. “Well, it does seem so. What are you doing there?” “Sho, Sho-chan” Aiba jumped into the room, “there is a new rescue petition for little tortoises, and…OOOOH, who’s that?” “This is, uhm, Nino, he will stay here for some time.” “Oh hi, Nino-chan. I’m Aiba. Nice to meet you.” “Nice to meet you too. Are you hurt? I think you just …” “No, I’m fine, thanks. Nothing can bust my strong head. I’m far too smart for that. Haha” “Ah, okay then. But if you had brain in there, wouldn’t you be able to not run against doors in first place?” “That, uhm, was an experiment to see how stable the door is. By now, I can tell you that it is really heavy. Oh, uhm, you have pretty hair Nino-chan!” “Really? I think it’s plain and stupid.” “Don’t say these things Nino-chan, it looks beautiful. It seems easy to bend. Do you know that situation when you wake up and there are all those strands standing randomly in the air?” “Oh, yeah, believe me, I have that too! And it’s so hard to get them back to their right place again! I could spend the whole day in front of the mirror then!” “Yeah! You know, I tried some experiments to gain control about that problem… well, some went not as thought, once a bottle exploded and my hair turned green, but…” Sho watched them both absorbed in their conversation, talking as if they knew each other for years. He knew that Aiba was good at making friends easily, but he and Nino seemed somehow to be on one wavelength. (He tried to not remind Aiba that most of those experiments proceeded in Sho’s kitchen which got useless after that.) The flow of the conversation was lost when a loud growl echoed through the room. The both childhood friends looked at each other, then at Nino, who was scratching his back-head embarrassedly. “Ah, I haven’t eaten for quite a while…” “It is okay, I will make you up something to eat.” Sho said grinning when a second growl was heard. “My stomach approves.” Aiba said sheepishly. That far, Sho has never understood his parents’ need to employ maids; they wouldn’t be needed if the house was small one (which would have been by far enough). But for once, he was glad that he didn’t had to use cooking utensils all by himself; the clumsy site of him wasn’t what he wanted to show Nino the very first. Furthermore, his nanny was pleased that she could prepare more than just one plate. While they ate, Aiba told Nino about the experiments he already did (the food in his mouth flying all over the table), Nino listened attentive (trying to dodge the flying food) and Sho pointed out which items (mostly Sho’s) went broke or afire through that. “Well Aiba…I am sure you did not show up for Iku-chan’s food, did you?” The prince asked. “Oh, yeah! I almost forgot! There’s a new petition for rescuing little tortoises in the neighbor town. Do you remember the fishers there? They catch those little cuties and sell them on the street market. The petition is to forbid such a business. Can you believe it? There’s still no law against catching these helpless sweetie-pies!!” “Yes, that is in fact incredible. Let us go as soon as possible. Nino, would you like to come with us?” Nino nodded. He didn’t really want to, but he didn’t know where to go else and as long as his Sho was there, he would follow. After all, Nino was glad that he came with those two. Sho looked really handsome, trying to rescue the little tortoises and Nino simply joined it for the fun. (Even though, as a future reign of the undersea world, he should worry about those things too.) He enjoyed the company of Aiba he really got along with well and Sho would smile at him from time to time and Nino just would smile back. It was obvious that Sho still didn’t believe his mermaid story, but he would still take his time explaining ‘human stuff’ to Nino with divine patience. Spending his day by Sho’s side, the time went far too fast and it was evening already. They went back home and Aiba could easily persuade Sho for him to sleep over in the huge villa (even though the pink rabbit was still sneaking around). After Nino took a bath (Sho explained him how to do) he went back into the room. But Aiba was the only one in there. “Where is Sho?” he asked, hoping to sound not too disappointed. “I guess he’s at the beach. He always goes there.” “The beach?” “Yeah, some days ago he was rescued by a mysterious woman from drowning. I think he goes there in hope he meets her again.” “I see.” “Do you know that the mole on your chin makes you somewhat cute? If you had boobs I would surely mistake you for a girl!” Right that moment the prince came back into the room and Nino wanted to scream at him that the person he searches for is right in front of his eyes, but he couldn’t. He didn’t have any evidence anyway. Sho came up to Nino and ruffled his hair. “Don’t look so sad. You can sleep in my bed, it’s huge enough.” “And me?” Aiba jumped happily, hoping for a cuddle-battle. “You sleep in the guest-futon on the floor.” Sho said dryly. “Ye~s.” Aiba answered disappointed, all his energy gone. Sho turned back to Nino. “Let’s go to sleep. It is late and tomorrow, I’ll show you around town.” Sho climbed into the bed on one side, Nino on the other. While Nino and Aiba fell asleep immediately (with Aiba snoring terribly), Sho kept awake until sunrise. He couldn’t stop watching his new friend. Before he finally fell asleep, he grabbed Nino’s hand and mumbled: “I cannot escape the feeling that we already met…Your presence seems so familiar to me… Tell me why I long so strongly for kissing the mole on your chin…” Hosted by Animexx e.V. (http://www.animexx.de)