Antithetical Ecology

3 weeks later

Date: 30 January 2066, 07:28 am

Location: School Grounds, Recreation center

Specific Location: Aqua center

"That's not how you do it you.... I've officially ran out of words to describe you with." These words seemed to float over the serene atmosphere carried around by the gentle zephyr that caressed everything in its path. The bright early morning rays of the morning sun gently blanketed everything in view in warm calming sunlight as it slowly rose from the horizon. The two, Akagi and Ritsu, sat on a bench at the shores of the massive pool of water before them, a fishing rod tightly clenched in her hands leading lazily into the calm waves of the water gently rippling with waves of low magnitude.

"It's not my fault the fish just don't feel like waking up today." Ritsu said to defend herself

"Patience pays." Akagi said while he took out his own rod started attaching the bait to the hook. Realizing that Ritsu was watching him, he decided to torture her a bit by taking out the bait from the hook and thrusting it far into the water.

"What are you doing?" Ritsu immediately started up, "how do you expect to catch anything without…" but she was quickly interrupted by the words, "You talk too much, quiet down sometimes." And that she did watching in silence and eagerness like that of a child awaiting some sort of a miracle.

Akagi tightly held the rod as he did his best to remain still and vigorously shook the handle on intervals making sure to remain perfectly still in between. Ritsu was a bit confused at this point but chose to remain silent as she expected an explanation because in the past 3 weeks that they had been together she had come to learn that Akagi is actually quite clever and did everything for a reason despite his lazy nature. Time seemed to come to a standstill as Ritsu eagerly awaited anything to feed her curiosity. The wind slightly picked up gently plucking a drying leaf from its place gliding it almost skillfully towards the water surface until suddenly the line shook and Akagi immediately thrusted the line with two big fish closely in tow landing in a slight thud beside them. Ritsu could only watch in shock as Akagi picked up the two fish clearly dumbfounded as though she had just witnessed a magic trick.

"How…What… Are you a wizard or something?"

"You talk too much." Akagi replied, "Let me explain."

The Explanation

"Listen well and listen good because I'm not repeating myself." Akagi started, his tone lazy as usual. "As you can see, I used a special type of hook called a double hook and as the name implies it has two hooks. This type of hook can't just be used by anyone as only skilled fishermen can use it." he said displaying the two hooks attached to a single line.

"There are different categories of fish but I prefer to classify them as greedy fish, hungry fish, smart fish and depressed fish. Depressed fish normally don't even come up to the surface of the water because they are always busy doing whatever fish do. Fish that always jump at bait are the greedy fish, hunger fuels their every action and they strive to satisfy it as fast as they can. They are mostly found near the shores of water bodies so as to quickly eat whatever falls into the water.

Next is hungry fish, these kind of fish are unpredictable because they are basically normal fish however they do not just jump at any opportunity like the greedy fish. Last but not least are the Smart fish, they normally don't stay in groups because each fish sees itself as 'smarter' than the rest. They are highly predictable but not just anyone can predict their moves. They stay at the centre most of the lake and do their best to completely mask their own presence but they do not stay deep inside the water because they feed on small insects that may have fallen in water. The reason I threw the hook far into the lake was to catch them and I shook the hook to confuse them into thinking that it was a drowning insect struggling for survival. I didn't use bait because I didn't feel like it." He concluded as he past the rod over to her.

"And that concludes your fourth wish." Akagi sighed as he reached into his pocket and fished out a medicine capsule and threw some pills into his mouth.

Recently Akagi had agreed to fulfill Ritsu's desires and fishing in the morning happened to be one of them. The list was still very long, not to mention that it seemed to have no end and Akagi hated the fact that he had woken up early on a weekend just to go fishing.

Ritsu still trying to process the information she had just received could only but stare at Akagi. She wondered where Akagi had learnt all that but chose to remain silent as his words constantly towered over her mind as though he had just said them, "Don't pry yourself into my life." But she still wondered why he kept his life secret.

"Are you going to take this or continue spacing out you weird girl?" Akagi said as he handed the rod to her. Ritsu finally snapped back to reality and took the rod and her eyes instantly flew to the water surface gently rippling with currents. She was happy Akagi had agreed to help despite the fact that he didn't like her one bit.

After the whole fishing 'expedition' the duo left the center with their rods on Akagi's back and a bucket in Ritsu's hand with 3 big fish and one much smaller one. "The pond here is…" Ritsu had barely uttered those words when Akagi immediately interrupted saying, "Don't even think about putting the blame on the pond, you couldn't catch your own fish because you can't"

Ritsu immediately started pouting as she started giving hundreds of reasons as to why she couldn't get a good catch. Akagi on the other hand simply walked on in pure silence thinking to himself, "Why did I sign up for this when I could be asleep right now."

Date: 31 January 2066, 08:57 am

Location: Tuition Section

Specific location: First Year classes, Class 1-B

"And that concludes today's history lesson." said the teacher as he finally put down his tablet and the screen went black. "Hendrick!" he called out. "I would highly advice that you concentrate more in class and do your other things during the day." He finished before he proceeded out of class right before it burst into murmurs as students slowly got up stretching while others started sleeping on their desks… and in the midst of all this Hendrick finally looked up from his M.S. screen and looking around the room, he asked, "Did someone call me?" and it was after fully scanning the room that he realized the teacher had left and his attention immediately returned to his screen.

"DON'T!" Akagi said as he turned off the table screen and took out his metallic strip without taking his eyes off the screen, the two were seated on their desk as usual amid the noisy classroom. Ritsu on the other hand slightly confused by this said, "I haven't done anything…"

"YET!" Akagi added as soon as she completed her statement as he went on typing. A few ago Akagi had noticed Ritsu look at him and just as she was about to say something she was immediately interrupted by the word, "DON'T!"

"Any plans for today?" Ritsu asked a smile, which Akagi knew all too well, playing about her face, "since we have the rest of the day to ourselves, I was thinking we make another dream come true." she added.

"And just what do you have for me right now?" Akagi asked with a look that could easily be interpreted as, "Here we go again."

A few later

The two leisurely walked alongside each other as they walked through the busy hallway filled with murmurs and all sorts of noises as students chatted time away minding their own businesses barely noticing as the two walked past them in a deafening silence. Unfortunately, Ritsu broke that eternal silence when she said "I'm going to powder my nose, I'll be right back." but Akagi simply walked on, his mind wandering far past the hallway, past the confines of the school and far into the horizon as he walked on completely oblivious to his surroundings. Ritsu took no notice of this and immediately turned to walk away.

Everyone on his path paved way for him as he walked on, his bored as usual, his mind drifting within the clouds as nobody dared come close to him until he bumped into a fellow who happened to be running out of Class 1-D.

"Oh…Err… I'm sorry… I didn't see you there." The boy said stumbling back a bit. The scene slowly gathered on-lookers as students gradually quiet down as all attention was fixed on the two. The boy (being shorter than Akagi) finally looked up at him and suddenly exclaimed, "Oh… It's you, Koremitsu… I think…We are in the same class, I sit behind you, I'm Ikari." with a warm smile meant to ward off any tension. As soon as Akagi heard his voice, his eyes went dull as he could only but let out a sigh as he recalled the boy playing a major part in Ritsu's disappearance.

"I know, I've seen you before." Akagi replied, his tone ice cold as he tried to walk past the boy because he clearly didn't want anything to do with Ikari. On seeing this, Ikari on the other hand immediately started after him through the crowd of on-lookers who parted for them as they walked by however, one look at Ikari could clearly tell anyone that he had completely no idea as to what he was doing. The silence that radiated from Akagi constantly irritated him past his breaking point, until, with a sigh of reassurance, he finally mustered up the courage to try and start a conversation.

"You and Takagi sure are close, are you perhaps seeing each other or something?" he then added a slight chuckle to at least show that he came in peace and it was only a silly question, what he didn't know however was that Akagi doesn't dwell much on peace and if anyone dares act like they know him or pry into his life, they unfortunately end up on his bad side.

Akagi came to a sudden stop in his tracks and turned to look straight into Ikari's eyes and being that the latter was shorter he almost felt as though he was staring right into the eyes of a predator slowly assessing its prey before going in for the kill.

"Digging up in unrestricted area is fault, don't go assuming things and coming up with your own tale to tell." Those simple words to Ikari almost felt like a threat as time seemed to have warped itself around the two of them almost as though they were in another world instead of the school hallway.

"AKAGI!!" came another voice from the other end of the hallway and all the thousands of eyes that had been fixed on the lion and the scared lamb instantly turned in that direction.

"Great, just great." Akagi sighed to himself as he lost all interest in the prey before him and turned on his way.