Pruned Trees Re-Sprout!! ~ Ragazza Volpe Magica ~

The following morning, Pacifica was up bright and early and made sure the rest of the room knew she was READY. Begrudgingly, Shouri and Taika rose from the depths of their slumber. Much to the otter's chagrin, her traveling companions wanted to satiate their hunger rather than their thirst for swimming. Ultimately they grabbed a quick breakfast from the vending machine before returning to their room to prepare for their swim day in earnest.

“Non ho intenzione di uscire!” Taika cried out from the bathroom.

“Come on! You were fine in the store yesterday!” Pacifica protested.

Shouri sat on one of the chairs in their room at the MA Office, checking on the news with one of his tuners whilst the girls argued. Notably, he had already changed into his swim trunks.

“È facile da dire, per te!” the fox continued to protest.

Pacifica frowned hard, glaring at the door. Suddenly a wicked thought came to mind. “Okay fine, Sho and I will head down to the pool ourselves,” the otter simpered. Shouri raised an eyebrow but didn’t move or even offer any input.

“You wouldn’t-!”

“Look, all I know girl is I’m gonna have a wonderful time with our Maestro. Have fun staring at the same four walls for the next three hours!”

The door suddenly opened. Despite all her protesting, Taika did change back into her swimsuit. “But we’re changing back when we get done.” Taika held up her clothes.

“Wonderful. Let’s get going.” Shouri rose from his chair, grabbing his towel.

Leaving the room, Pacifica took the lead, with Shouri behind her, and Taika bringing up the rear. Trailing behind, the lunar fox narrowed her eyes. Shouri was shirtless and Pacifica was always dressed in swimwear. How was it so easy for them? Did they have no shame?! She bitterly thought to herself.

“It’s fine Taika,” Pacifica spoke aloud, causing the trailing vixen to jump.

“È solo che ho le mie regole, ok?” Taika grumbled.

“Girl, there’s having standards and then there’s being a prude,” the otter chuckled, earning an annoyed groan from her lunar counterpart.

“Girls behave,” Shouri chided them.

The pool was in the illustrious “Building C”, which required they cross the entire property to get to. A couple of nature element Resonators working for the MA office were wandering about, despite the heat, making sure the lawn was nice and healthy.

“Yeah, this sucks,” Shouri complained, trudging under the noon-time sun to reach their goal.

“Why did they put it on the other side of the damn world?” Pacifica whimpered.

“Io brucio, tu bruci, egli brucia, noi bruciamo...” Taika panted out. She was lugging her and Shouri’s clothes in their backpack, and it wasn’t helping the heat situation.

Finally reaching their destination, the trio lit up (most of all Pacifica) at what they had found. There were no less than four full swimming pools, several hot tubs, and couple smaller wading pools. It was almost like a water park in scale.

The majority of people here were water Resonators and their Maestros, with some other elements mixed in. The lifeguards on duty consisted of a Maestro and a squad of three water elements scattered about the facility. They were identifiable by the bright yellow and red swim clothing adorned with the word "GUARD".

Other than that, there was a distinct lack of fire and lightning elements, but that was expected given their particular affinities to water as a whole.

Pacifica was nearly vibrating with excitement, but also she wanted to be with her friends, so she instead grabbed both Shouri and Taika’s hands and pulled them towards the pools, muttering “Oh boy” repeatedly.

“Let’s put our stuff up first at least!” Shouri yelped, noting how rapidly they were approaching water.

“I’m too young to die!” Taika cried out.

The first stop was the hot tubs. Given how warm it was outside already, these were vacant. Pacifica sat on the edge and removed her sandals. Spinning around she dipped her feet in the water. “Oh yeah... that’s the ticket...” She was already melting with only being a tiny way in the water. “It’s great!” She turned back to her companions who were putting away their “beach bag” and shoes.

Shouri walked up next to Pacifica and sat next to her. “Surprised you didn’t jump in,” he chuckled.

She took that as a challenge. “Bet?”

SPLASH

“Achichichi!” She surfaced and rushed to the side of the hot tub.

“Hot?” Shouri asked failing to suppress his laughter.

“A LITTLE,” Pacifica shouted.

The Maestro slid in, sitting next to his Resonator. “Oh yeah, needed this bad.” He let out a pleasured sigh, finally being allowed to truly relax for the first time in days.

Taika fidgeted with the edge of her skirt, looking to and fro and making small whimpers of uncertainty.

“Come on in Taika, it’s shallow enough to stand, you’ll be fine,” Pacifica urged her friend to join them in the soothing waters of the public hot tub.

The fox-girl continued to shuffle outside the tiny pool nervously.

Pacifica grinned, knowing exactly how to get her in. “Okay, suit yourself.” Pacifica reached around and wrapped her arm around Shouri’s shoulder, pulling him closer to her. “Isn’t this comfy Sho?” she asked loudly.

“The water in this hot tub has been warmed to a comfortable level, yes,” he stated in the most dead-pan voice he could muster.

“She’s never gonna fall for it if you say it like that!” Pacifica hissed.

“She can do what she wants. If she doesn’t want to swim, deal with it,” Shouri hissed back.

“W-well! I’m still gonna have fun with you then!”

It was at that point that Taika had sat next to Shouri, opposite Pacifica, and leaned on him. “This is nice,” she squeaked.

“Aaaah Taika!” Pacifica squealed, delighted that her friend was joining them.

And so, the two girls leaned up against their Maestro, resting their heads on the shoulder closest to them. Seeing how he was going to be here awhile, he fished one of the tuners off his side and resumed reading.

A few people passed by and noted between themselves the position Shouri was in. The Maestro himself didn’t hear the comments, but the two girls bearing the animal ears certainly did – eliciting a smug, victorious smirk from Pacifica and flustering Taika. (Neither gave up their respective positions.)

After getting their fill of the hot tub, the party moved on to the main event: swimming.

Shouri just dove in and began swimming across the pool. “Ooh, good form,” Pacifica noted. “Wait here Taika.” And then Pacifica dove into the pool, shooting towards their Maestro like a rocket. Poor Taika was just left alone with her thoughts and the pool itself. It was just so easy for them to swim. Looking up, she saw Shouri atop Pacifica’s back, being paraded around.

This was just something the young lunar had to accept. Water would be part of her life as long as Pacifica was with them, and Pacifica has implied she has no reason to leave Shouri’s care. Taika had to just get used to it and learn to swim.

Now if only her instructor was present to teach. An annoyed glance was cast towards the end of the pool where Pacifica was surely violating some kind of public display of affection rule. Glancing down laid the chlorinated water of the pool, and thankfully they started the water-wary vixen at the stairs. The only way she would get a piece of the shirtless Maestro pie was to go over there. And the obvious thing was to walk in; it seemed shallow enough at a glance. She could probably walk most of the way over to where Pacifica and Shouri were playing. Grabbing the handrail she took her first steps in.

Cold, it was cold. But she did just get out of a hot tub, so it was just her body adjusting to the new temperature dynamic.

Step step step

Down the pool stairs, she descended with the water rising up her legs, and finally her hips. She trembled as the water invaded her tail-fur. Trying to ignore that sensation, she continued walking towards the deep end of the pool. It was a difficult endeavor wading through the pool water, but it was still manageable. Glancing back up again, Pacifica was still having a great time carrying an annoyed Shouri around. While Taika didn’t think she could accomplish the same task as her well-trained counterpart, she would have appreciated some attention, especially since Pacifica was the one who offered to teach her how to swim.

Finally, Pacifica caught sight of Taika, right as the fox sunk under the water. Turns out there was a sudden drop-off between the shallow and deep ends of the pool that the non-swimmer hadn’t expected. Within seconds Taika was above water again on Pacifica’s back, coughing up a storm.

“Sorry sorry sorry!” Pacifica fretted while bringing Taika back to safer waters. She set her lunar friend down on the steps and sat next to her.

“Why did you try walking in the deep end?” Pacifica questioned.

“You left me so I wanted to come after you,” Taika replied, before coughing some more.

The otter wilted. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

Shouri floated on his back, reading another article on his tuner. He glanced over at the pair. Flipping on the talk button on Pacifica’s tuner specifically, he whispered into her mind.

“Told ya.”

Shouri had been asking Pacifica to go teach Taika to swim as she promised but kept getting blown off.

Pacifica felt even worse hearing that from her Maestro, but she couldn’t be mad at him – she deserved the reprimand. “Okay, I promise I won’t let our shirtless Maestro distract me again. I’m going to make you water-safe by the end of the day,” Pacifica declared.

And so the swimming lessons began!

Pacifica was quite thorough with her teaching, beginning with showing Taika how to move her arms above the water. Then she moved on to having the learner kick her legs while holding on to the side of the pool.

Next was getting used to not having the ground under her. Pacifica had Taika lower herself in the water in such a way that her feet were off the pool floor and she was floating. This took a couple of tries to accomplish since Taika panicked with nothing underneath her, but with some gentle reassurance, she managed this feat.

Finally, it was time to piece it all together. They started on one end of the pool and the two girls swam across the width of the pool. At the end of it, they stood up straight.

“You did it Taika!” Pacifica cheered, hugging her friend tightly.

“I did.” Taika couldn’t help but smile.

“That’s the basics, we can practice in the shallow end until you feel comfortable enough to swim in the deeper parts of the pool, but when you can you can do this!”

And then it was time for Pacifica to show off again – she dove into the water and flew through the water at an incredible speed. She circled the perimeter of the pool, then grabbed Shouri from underneath where he was floating and pulled him to Taika. “Ta-da!” She shouted, holding Shouri from behind.

“I doubt I could do all of that.” Taika chuckled nervously.

“Indeed,” Shouri grumbled, returning the tuner he was reading to his side.

Deciding they had enough swimming for the day, the trio returned to the lockers where Shouri and Taika had put their things earlier on in the day. The entire time Pacifica and Taika were attached to the respective arms they had claimed from their Maestro.

They stood in front of the lockers. “Girls,” he raised his voice.

“One more minute.” Pacifica rubbed her cheek against his arm. “This etude stuff is nice,” she clarified.

“Maybe two more minutes Sho,” Taika cooed.

The Maestro grew irritable, he just wanted to go relax in their room. He tugged on his arms, but that only caused the two Resonators to cling tighter. He relaxed for a second to give himself more wiggle room and yanked both of his arms away.

“Aw come on!” Pacifica pouted.

“I wasn’t done yet,” Taika whined.

Despite the protesting, Shouri grabbed his clothes and departed for the men’s changing rooms. Taika went on the right. Pacifica waited outside between the two rooms for her friends to change back to their streetwear.

Shouri returned first. Pacifica, still charged from earlier decided she wanted more and immediately tried to latch onto her Maestro’s arm.

However, a rather sinister smirk rose upon Shouri’s lips. Turning on his heel, he gently batted away Pacifica’s arm and pinned her to the lockers. There was a moment of shock, but then she saw the expression he wore. “Sh-sho...uri...?” the otter-girl stammered out, her face reddening. The look he was giving her, was so... indecent.

“Oh Pacifica, you’ve had all kinds of fun today,” Shouri spoke breathily. Pacifica whimpered quietly, failing to control her breathing. She jumped as he used his free hand to trace up her neck and behind her head, holding her in place as he drew close. His head hovered next to hers, she could feel his breath on her neck. What was happening?! What was he going to do to her?

“I’m sure you wouldn’t mind giving these people a show,” he chuckled, “You’d put on quite the performance.”

Pacifica shivered, unable to form words, her entire face was completely beet-red.

“N-no Shou...ri...” she managed to get out.

He stepped away from her per her request. “Okay,” he tittered, satisfied with that. Pacifica’s legs finally gave out and she slumped to the ground, covering her immeasurably warm face.

Taika however, had returned at this point and bore witness to the entire thing. Her expression was shifting between anger, embarrassment, and jealousy. With a resigned sigh, he decided to head this problem off at the pass. He stepped towards Taika who backed up. She too hit the lockers, and then she too found herself restrained against the lockers by their Maestro.

He gently pushed her chin up with his free hand. Drawing close, their lips nearly touched, causing Taika to close her eyes with fearful anticipation. However, Shouri diverted course before impact, hovering just over her ear. She squeaked at the sudden feeling of his breath, keeping her eyes shut tightly.

“What’s wrong my little vixen? Did you think I forgot about you?” he sensually whispered. She felt him wrap his arms around the small of her back and pull her closer to him. “Perhaps, we could show these fools the passionate love of a Lunar?” he continued to speak with his breath.

“N-non...” she whimpered.

“Alright.” He released the girl, who barely managed to keep her balance before she joined Pacifica on the ground in a puddle of fluster.

“Come now girls, our room awaits,” Shouri chuckled, starting to walk away.

“F-fuck you Sho...” Pacifica uttered, sniffling a bit.

“Gli piace solo stuzzicare...” Taika trembled.

Shouri laid on the bed alone, flipping through the channels to find something to watch on the television. Taika and Pacifica were there, lying on the floor in defeat.

They were both utterly humiliated and upon further reflection, they deserved it.

Well, at least Pacifica deserved it. Taika was punished for crimes yet to be committed.

Either way, they both felt the same.

Deep in both of their hearts, they were aligned on one thing: they liked seeing that seductive side of Shouri. The way he looked and toyed with them both to turn them into a puddle of mush on the ground. Just thinking about it elicited such a rush in the pair.

Exhausted from today’s activities, the group opted out of work tonight but agreed they had to get work done tomorrow for sure.

“Alright, I’m gonna hit the hay,” Shouri announced, flicking the television and bedside lamps off.

Having only just gotten over their prior embarrassment, Pacifica and Taika reluctantly crawled into bed with their Maestro.

“Oh? Deciding to join me after all?” He couldn’t help but chuckle. The girls curled in on themselves slightly, their faces slightly reddening.

Taika moved first, hugging Shouri from the side. Pacifica didn’t want to be left out and took her position opposite of her Lunar counterpart.

Shouri smiled contentedly; he decided to give them a bit of a treat and gently scratched the base of their ears.

“Sho...” Pacifica cooed.

“That’s good...” Taika let out a pleasured sigh.

Another day ended with the trio falling fast asleep together.