》red herring
mixwoo:
Sunwoo jumps, breath tumbling out of him as if he’d been punched in the stomach. He doesn’t expect the sudden peal of laughter, and he’s not quite ready for what’s supposed to come next. Laughter from an enemy almost always means things are about to hit the fan; he’s learned that one from experience. He braces himself for the worst, and when it doesn’t come, Sunwoo stares. “Wait, really?” It isn’t much, but it’s the barest glimmer of hope Sunwoo’s found since this conversation started and he latches onto it. “No, I mean— I’d love for you to keep coming. If you— If you really like the fish, yeah!” His voice is still trembling, and there’s a thin film of water threatening to spill from his eyes, but now his heart is pounding with something else entirely. Maybe he’s a little excited that this threatening figure thinks fish are cute. Maybe he’s hoping he’ll get to talk about fish a few more times before he ends up stuffed on someone’s wall. “If you don’t hurt anyone— yes, yeah, absolutely. You can come here as long as you’d like. Just… don’t hurt anyone?” He’s still staring, dumbfounded, and before the other man can get a word in he quickly says— “You really think the fish are cute?”
The kid looks like Shu pulled a gun on him and then announced it’s fake. He might as well have done the metaphorical version of that, honestly. Still hilarious.
Obviously he’s processing a lot, and Shu graciously lets him get it all out. He’s counting two requests to not hurt anyone, and maybe four stutters. Not bad.
“If I’m not given a reason to hurt anyone, then no one gets hurt,” Shu assures him without... really assuring him of anything besides don’t piss me off. In the longrun though, it does seem his aquarium trips will go on as usual.
He does lather on the surprise at the insinuation he’s lying about his perception of fish however. “Do people think the fish aren’t cute?” he asks. “Even the deep sea ones that walked out of a horror film have their own charm to me. Shame an aquarium can’t host them.”

















