We barely made the dolphin show after the Natsumi episode. The arena was filling up.
“Made it.”
“Yeah — next showing was way later.”
If we hadn’t made it we’d have had to kill time, and we’d done the aquarium already. Just the gift shop wasn’t enough.
We sat and the show began. Dolphins burst out of the water and batted suspended balls. Then jumped through hoops a staffer extended. Then spun thrown hula-hoops on their snouts.
“Aquarium dolphins are talented as ever.”
“Yeah — the in-sync staff-and-dolphin combo is fun.”
I understood why kids go nuts for these. (I am, however, no longer at the spill-the-juice stage.)
“Bit of trivia: only one of those moves is taught. The rest are natural behavior.”
“Really?”
“Yeah — the stand on tail and reverse move you just saw requires training.”
“Makes sense — that’s not a natural-world behavior.”
Even with full gal styling, Kano remains encyclopedic. She did graduate top of Shinshiroike and get into Sahoda straight out. We chatted as the show wound — 20 minutes flew.
The dolphins kept the crowd hyped to the end — riding humans, mid-air spins.
“Show was great.”
“Wild that it works at any age.”
“You didn’t spill juice — relief.”
“I told you that wouldn’t happen.”
(How long had she been worried?) She smirked.
“You weren’t secretly hoping for the ero-manga scene to play out?”
“My HP is at zero — drop the bit.”
“Hmm, what to do.”
She’ll keep using the ero-manga bit forever. How did she find them?
We headed to the gift shop near the exit. Sweets, plushies, keychains — fish-themed.
“Yuito — suit me?”
She’d snuck up behind me. Behind her — wearing a penguin headpiece.
”…Hmm.”
“Hey — that reaction actually stings.”
“No, no — it’s not bad, just — doesn’t fit you, somehow.”
“That’s the same thing as no.”
I scrambled. Kano is more cool-beautiful than cute — the cute headpiece had a clash. She came around partway.
“Punishment for bullying — you wear it.”
“Wait —”
She put a penguin head on me. Looked at me for a second — and laughed.
“Yeah, fits you great. Buying it — wear it the rest of the day.”
“It can’t suit me.”
I looked terrible, certainly. A guy my age wearing this would be sad. New form of psychological warfare.
“Purchase decided.”
“For real?!”
“Day-long-wear was a joke. Could be useful sometime.”
”…Can’t picture when.”
(She was paying so I let it go.)
“Next one?”
“You’re going to try more?”
“Wanna collect them all?”
She pointed at a shelf full of dolphin, jellyfish, etc., headpieces. (I let her have her way until she was satisfied.)