Miss Heir wasn't very kind to me.

Chapter 78-9: Aquarium and Seaside Park (Continued)

Go down the stairs and follow the cute shark stickers on the sign to reach the shark hall, where a huge aquarium comes into view.

"Wow! It's huge."

Asami and Chiai both sighed.

The entire venue was like a giant screen theater, showing a shark documentary.

Kurokawa Mio was in high spirits, the joy in her eyes was like stars in the sky, and she rushed down the stairs in her high-heeled sandals, making crisp footsteps on the tiled floor.

"Masumi, take a picture for me."

Kurokawa Mio stood in front of the sink and waved at him.

"Oh." Masumi responded, walked closer and picked up the phone. Just as he was about to adjust the angle and press the shutter, the lens was suddenly blocked by a streak of light-colored curly hair.

"——Mio-sister, let me take a picture for you."

Qian Ai smiled gently and stood between the two of them: "Masumi-san's photography skills are terrible. He and I are childhood sweethearts. Before we went to Tokyo, Masumi-san often took photos for me, but the results were never satisfactory."

"...That's it."

Kurokawa Mio said with a forced smile: "Then I'll trouble you, Sister Qianai."

"You're welcome, Mio-nee."

Qian Ai smiled and took pictures of Kurokawa Mio, "Come, look here, um, this angle is very good."

She was not lying about this. Qianai's photography skills were indeed much more advanced than Masumi's. The angles, lighting, composition, and even the capture of the shark's movements behind her were all excellent in the photos.

Masumi glanced briefly at the friendly "sisters" and then stopped paying attention. Since her camera was already on, she decided to take a few photos.

He then aimed at a large, lemon-colored light yellow shark in the tank and pressed the shutter.

After a "click", Masumi checked the photo and found a face stealing the show in the lower left corner.

With her honey-golden long hair swaying, Kurokawa Mio smiled like a flower.

"Qiang Qiang!"

She naturally took Masumi's left arm, stretched out her soft fingertips, pointed at the shark and asked:

"Masumi, do you know what kind of shark this is? I can tell you."

The sweet aroma filled Masumi's nose, and he couldn't help but feel the urge to sneeze.

He subconsciously turned his head, but saw a streak of light-colored curly hair, which stopped the sneeze.

"It's a lemon shark. I saw it when I went to Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan in April."

Qian Ai also seemed to take it for granted and put her arm around Masumi's right arm, her lips forming a smooth arc: "Masumi-san, this shark looks big, right? It's even bigger than the one I saw in Osaka."

"I heard the largest lemon shark can grow to 3.4 meters, almost as big as two Masumi-sans."

"I have only one."

"Ah! Masumi-san, look at that shark. It has spots like leopard prints on its body. It's so cute."

"Yeah." Masumi, who was sandwiched between two girls with his arms around him, reacted calmly.

"Mamaru, do you know its name? It's called..."

"Leopard sharks are also on display at the Shinagawa Aquarium in Tokyo," Kurokawa Mio quickly replied. "They have zebra-like stripes when they're young, but they develop leopard-like spots as they mature. They're nocturnal sharks found in the Indian and Pacific Oceans."

After she finished speaking in one breath, she raised her chin slightly and looked at Qian Ai, with a sharp and confident look in her smiling eyes.

"Hey, Mio-nee really knows a lot about sharks."

"Each each other."

"The one with the white dorsal fin..."

"It's a gray shark."

"The ones swimming in that group over there are..."

"Hammerhead shark."

The two girls immediately turned into marine life illustrations, asking each other questions to identify shark species.

Although the shark species were also written on the explanation board, the slightly aggressive commentary of the two beautiful girls was much more interesting than the monotonous text.

Because today is not a holiday, there are few visitors in the aquarium, and at this moment all the attention in the shark hall is drawn here.

Masumi felt uncomfortable with the tense atmosphere. He curled his lips and spoke gently to the two of them: "Kurokawa, Chiai... let me go first..."

Kurokawa Mio and Chiai still held Masumi's arms tightly, their white fingers digging into his skin, but their attention was no longer on Masumi, and they continued to talk to each other.

Masumi held his breath and slowly pulled his arms out from between the two women's arms. After finally getting out of the way, he let out a breath and suddenly someone patted his shoulder.

"Who?"

Turning her head, the black-haired girl blinked her purple eyes in confusion.

"So it's Kamiyo."

"You're so proud of yourself over there," Kamiyo Rin said expressionlessly, "Two girls are vying for your affection."

"That's not the case."

Masumi sighed, then walked forward along the curve of the aquarium, and Rinone followed him.

"Forget about Kurokawa, even Chiai..." He sighed again as if he was troubled.

Linyin seemed to be hesitant to speak, and her lips opened and closed several times: "I think Qian Ai should..."

"You should like me, right?" Masumi continued for her.

She nodded, a look of surprise in her eyes: "So you are aware of it."

"Of course I'm not that slow, I've just been pretending to be confused." Masumi said frankly, "Just like the male protagonists in those light novels."

After saying this, he remembered that Kamishiro didn't read light novels at all. Just as he was about to explain, he saw Rinyin nod slightly.

"I heard Mami-san mention to me that light novel authors like to make the male protagonists emotionally insensitive, or because they have suffered psychological trauma and are afraid to accept other people's feelings."

"Seno explained it to you in detail."

Masumi nodded and asked, "Isn't it a very irresponsible character?"

Lin Yin shook her head slightly:

"I don't care about them, I only care about you."

Masumi was slightly stunned, and then heard Rin add slowly:
"...I care about what you think."

Masumi fell silent upon hearing this, his gaze fixed on a small tank in the corner, where a small shark with spikes on its dorsal fin was swimming.

He examined the information board curiously. The name of this shark was a cold-water shark, commonly found in aquariums in Hokkaido. It was the only one in the Amagi Seaside Theme Park aquarium.

His thoughts sank into the depths of memory. Masumi stared at the sink, his lips twitching slightly as he spoke to Rin:
"Qian Ai her, because of her mixed-race background when she was young, it was difficult for her to integrate into the group. Because of this, she would subconsciously rely on the people around her who were familiar to her, so she has been very attached to me since she was a child."

"After entering junior high school, something happened that I'm not aware of. She betrayed herself by following the crowd."

"At that time, because I was a senior like Gu, I suddenly had unrealistic expectations of myself. From my previous state of going with the flow, I became paranoid and conceited."

"I think it's because of this that Qian Ai mistakenly projected her inner longing onto me."

"This feeling was probably born from that time."

"However, I'm not sure if this feeling is love or admiration. I think Qian Ai thinks so too. So, like me, she's pretending to be confused while carefully seeking the answer."

Masumi said this calmly, then looked at Rin, who was listening intently.

Her shiny black hair was draped over her delicate snow-white shoulders. She was wearing a navy blue dress, a nondescript outfit, and her footsteps in flat shoes were light and subtle.

She said nothing, and silence fell between them.

The two walked through the circular tank displaying lemon sharks and stopped in front of a tunnel, which was a famous shark tunnel in the Amagi Seaside Theme Park.

The corals glow brightly under the light.

The seaweed forest formed by the accumulation of Sargassum cuts the light into different horizontal and vertical rays. Looking up, you can see black fish fins passing through the algae, just like a black bird flying across the sky above the forest.

The water ripples with light, and the entire tunnel is reflected in a halo of sea blue and fragmented gold.

"...So beautiful." He heard a soft murmur.

Linyin stood under the tunnel with her graceful neck raised. Her pretty, snow-white face was illuminated by the screen, giving it a soft glow.

In this dreamlike and beautiful scene, she was like a mermaid in the sea, with a thin line on her eyelids that revealed a serious and negative charm, like the sea level in the far distance of her vision.

Masumi was slightly stunned, his eyes drawn to her brightly lit profile.

Rinne noticed Masumi looking at her and asked with a silent gaze what was going on. He seemed to have accidentally looked past her.

Masumi shook his head to indicate that he was fine, then looked towards the tank and casually asked, "What kind of shark is that? A great white shark?"

The shark tunnel only had an information board at the entrance, but he hadn't noticed it just now.

"Blacktip shark."

Rinne answered.

"It is a ferocious tropical shark that lives in shallow coral reefs in the Indian and Pacific Oceans."

"As for the great white shark you mentioned, this type of shark must constantly swim and have water flow through its gills to get oxygen, so it needs a lot of space to move around."

"The largest artificial aquarium in China is only 35 meters wide and 10 meters deep. Great white sharks will repeatedly hit the aquarium glass in such a narrow environment, making them difficult to keep in an aquarium."

"Is this written on the information board at the entrance?" Masumi was slightly surprised. His memory was amazing.

"No."

Rinyin shook her head slightly. "Because this is my first time going to an aquarium, I did some research in advance."

Isn’t this even more amazing?
"I see."

Masumi nodded, thought for a moment, and said, "Speaking of the largest artificial aquarium in the country, it seems to be at the aquarium in Okinawa. I remember it was called... 'Kuroshio Sea'. There you can see large marine creatures like whale sharks."

"Well, have you been to Okinawa?" Rin asked.

"No."

"A senior in high school told me this. She was from Okinawa."

"She?" Rinne narrowed her eyes in thought, her gaze shifting from the sink to Masumi's face: "Is it that... my Rugu-senpai?"

"Ah."

"Are you still in touch with her?"

"have nothing left."

Before Rinyin could ask "why", Masumi replied: "Two years ago, we last contacted each other. At that time, I wanted to ask her to meet me, but she refused."

“I really liked you in the past, so I don’t want to be disappointed when I see you now,” she said.

Rinyin thought this sentence sounded familiar.

"Well, I looked it up later. It's a line from the book South of the Border, West of the Sun."

The person who said this was the hero's first love, Miss Shimamoto, a beautiful, charming woman whose behavior was unpredictable and distant.

"In terms of being unpredictable, my senior Rugu is indeed very similar to Miss Shimamoto in the book." Masumi smiled bitterly.

When Linyin heard this, the corners of her lips twitched slightly, but she said nothing and just stared at the sink silently.

The two fell silent again.

The entire tunnel is not very long. Masumi and Rinone walked through the tunnel with the swimming fish. In front of them was the last area of ​​the shark museum, an experience area where they were allowed to touch sharks with their hands.

Several small sharks swam leisurely in the shallow sand at the bottom of the tank. The introduction signs read "Catshark" and "Dogshark".

Mami had arrived here before them. She squatted in front of the tank, stroking the cat shark's dorsal fin with her hand, with a look of confusion on her face.

"This thing doesn't look like a cat, why is it called a cat shark?"

"Its English name is bamboo shark." Qian Ai said while looking at the explanation board.

"That's even weirder." Mami withdrew her hand and stroked a dog shark, which was slightly larger than a cat shark. The shark's skin was slippery. "It doesn't look like bamboo at all."

"She seems to be in high spirits today."

Masumi looked at Asami from a distance and spoke softly in a voice that only Rin could hear. He was not deliberately lowering his voice, but was just acting naturally in the aquarium.

"Don't you know?" Lin Yin's face remained calm: "I thought Sister Mami would tell you everything."

"Today is her birthday."

"So that's it."

Masumi nodded, and his vision was suddenly filled with dazzling honey-gold.

"You're here, Masumi."

A smile appeared on Kurokawa Mio's lips, and then she let out a sigh of relief, and her snow-white shoulders exposed to the air leaned over and pressed against Masumi's chest.

"I almost thought you were lost."

"I'm not a kid."

"Oh? Really?" Kurokawa Mio pressed her cheek close to him, breathing out ambiguous hot air from between her lips: "Then, can you let me see your 'adult' side?"

"The penguin show is about to begin." Linyin glanced at the time on the mobile phone screen.

"I don't want to see a clumsy penguin." Her honey-gold hair tangled against her chest, and a muffled voice echoed, "How can you be as charming as a shark?"

"I really want to see it." The troubled Masumi used this as an excuse: "How about you stay here and watch the sharks, and I'll go watch the penguins..."

"I was kidding!" Kurokawa Mio raised her face from her chest and chuckled, "Actually, I like penguins the most."

"Since Masumi said so, let's go and see it together."

As she spoke, she hugged Masumi even tighter. Rin stared dimly at the arms that were hugging each other as the three of them walked towards the penguin house.

Although it is a performance, penguins do not have the high intelligence of dolphins after all, so they just stroll leisurely along the route planned by the aquarium.

There were tourists sitting on both sides of the stands recording videos with their mobile phones. Since it was a Monday, there were not many people and even the seats in the first row were empty.

Six people sat down in the front row.

"They're wobbling back and forth, walking so slowly. Won't they get caught by their predators?" Mami rested her chin on her hand, watching the penguins. "I heard penguins recognize humans as their own kind."

Shaking back and forth... Masumi subconsciously glanced at Haiyue when he heard this, and found that she was not looking at the penguin, but was looking down at her mobile phone.

When I got closer, I found that she was looking through the photos of marine life she had just taken.

"Don't you want to see the penguins?"

Haiyue shook her head: "On land... I'm not interested..."

A fundamentalist about marine life?

After walking sluggishly on land, the penguins jumped into the pool of the venue and showed quite flexible swimming skills.

Haiyue, who was originally looking down at her phone, suddenly looked up, raised her phone, aimed it at the swimming penguins, and frantically pressed the shutter button.

It turns out he is a fundamentalist of the water tribe.

Masumi looked away from her and noticed that the other girls were also concentrating on watching the penguins: Asami, Chiai, Kurokawa, and Kamishiro.

Suddenly there was a roar of surprise from the audience.

Masumi looked in the direction of the voice.

A tiny baby penguin came wobbling onto the stage.

Unlike other black and white adult penguins, it is covered with brown fluff. It has a streamlined appearance but a round and furry body, which attracts the attention of all tourists as soon as it appears.

This must be the penguin named "tomorin".

He does have a cute and popular appearance, no wonder young women and children tourists are all fascinated by him.

Masumi cleared his mind, picked up his phone, aimed at the baby penguin and pressed the shutter.

Although I initially said that I came to the aquarium to explore the competition venue, now I seem to be enjoying this trip to the park.

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(End of this chapter)