[New friend?]

Obsi woke up today feeling wonderful. Nothing had disturbed him and he felt refreshed after the exercise.

Crawling out of his cave-hole he stretched and mused what he should do today.

Aaah, finally some quiet time, I can finally think without the constant fish swimming around and- wait, it's quiet? Oh no.

Obsi quickly dived back into his cave and began sensing with his echolocation.

No no no no, that can't be possible, there were lots of fish still around when I went to sleep! Another predator? Why here! There was so little fish around because I kept hunting them! The smell of blood? But I ate most of it... Just what happened here!

Finding no answer with his echolocation he decided to move out and find the cause of this all. He started circling his territory, finding everything gone in a little over hundred meter radius gone, after that line there were fish again. Further investigation led him to find many dead fish corpses, around fifty dead fish lay throughout his territory, none of which he had killed. Still they had teeth marks on them and were sucked dry of blood.

What the hell, did I sleep walk? No, these teeth marks are smaller than mine, about 70 cm across. Mine are above a meter in diameter. A second leech? But where did they go? And why are all the fish gone if they only killed fifty? Are they really that bad at hunting? If so then I gotta find them. No way will I lose my feeding grounds because someone incompetent barged in here.

With that resolve went out to find who had come to fester on his feed source. Going by the logic that he dug a cave to hide in he began searching the ground.

It had taken his 30 minutes to find, mostly because he started searching from the wrong direction. When he had gotten close to it he felt it. What's that? It feels... familiar? Skin feel though but flexible, two arms, lots of teeth... I found you! Unlucky for you that I know how dangerous those teeth are!

As Obsi slowly moved towards the entrance of the far smaller cave he considered what to do.

Kill them? No, they're kin and I will be difficult, maybe shoo them away? But they seem so... small, like a kid. That leaves me with cooperation. I don't even know if they're willing to cooperate with me, that sounds like a stupid way to die. I guess I'll wake them for now, no real chance I'll be able to ambush them when they have echolocation and the cave's too small for me.

Ready at the cave entrance he screeched.

"Screee!"

Wake up and come out!

He immediately felt shuffling from the cave, the small leech almost barging out, barely managing to stop as it saw Obsi ready at the entrance.

"Scree!"

What do you think you're doing here! This is my plot!

What Obsi had expected was an attack, perhaps even an attempt at intimidation. What he got though he was wholly unprepared for.

"Scree!" 'sorry!'

Wha- I can understand them?

"Scree?" 'you can understand me?'

"Scree!" 'y-yes I'm sorry for coming here! I thought it was safe here and that you wouldn't be mad! I'm sorry!'

Well I'm not mad anymore, what the fuck... 'so you came here in hopes of it being safe? Without knowing who the owner of this plot is?'

'yes, I'm sorry...'

'enough with the sorrys, I expected you to attack me or try intimidation. This? This I didn't expect, you're just a child.'

'um, yes, aaa but sir, aren't you a child too? I-I mean I don't want to be rude an-'

'enough, yes I'm a child, but do I look like one? Do you feel like I'm a child?'

'no...'

'see, not a child, you on the other hand are so small I would have mistaken you for a newborn.'

'I'm not a newborn! I'm 28 sleep's old!'

'huh? Well that's unexpected, you're still small though, and you sound like a child.'

'I'm not a child...'

'right... Anyways come out of the hole, you'll have to explain why all the fish are gone.'

'... okay.'

As the new leech came out Obsi's suspicion was confirmed, it was small, he remembered not being that small anymore on his second day here. When it finally got out of its hole it fidgeted nervously.

'don't worry, I won't eat you, now explain why there are no fish around here anymore.'

As the small leech started its expansion he got more and more confident that the thing didn't know squat about hunting, the kills it got seemingly random and based on luck.

'alright that's enough, I'll teach you to hunt, maybe you'll even grow up. Ah by the way my name is Obsi.'

'It's not my fault I'm so small! There was barely anything for me to eat! ... and I'm K-Karka...'

FFS how the hell does it manage to act cute as a damn terrifying leech monster! 'alright Karka, what do you know about hunting? We'll set a base line of what I teach based on that.'

Unfortunately for Obsi Karka knew nothing of hunting, the poor thing had fed on dead fish it found, not even getting to suck that much blood which stoped it from reaching maturity. Hell it just reached level 3... what did I get myself into? Obsi cursed himself as he began to teach it the basics of hunting, how to move around quietly and quickly and how to observe prey. Also tail whip, that was important.

Three hours later and Karka had reached level 4, with the guidance of Obsi she also learned tail whip and sneak, she was too small to learn charge yet. Also Obsi found out she was a girl. That's why she sounded feminine, for a while I thought I sounded like that too.

Ending their little outing they began to swim back. They chatted for a bit until Karka started swimming away.

'where are you going?' Obsi asked.

'ah umm my cave?' Karka answered quite flustered.

'and what if another predator comes looking around because of the clearing you caused? I doubt you could win even against a small nibbler fish and they're downright awful at being a predator.'

'I just thought you wouldn't want someone weak to bother you...'

'you're still small like a Tuna, I'd feel bad if you died. Come on then, let's go.'

As they arrived at Obsi's gave Karka began digging a new hole a few meters away.

'what are you doing now? I'll just expand my hole so you can fit inside it.'

'ah, umm...'

Is she blushing? Can leech blush? Oh... 'that's not what I ment, what if something attacks you in that hole? It's a few meters away but the hole would be too small for me to come and help.'

'oh...' at Obsi's response Karka visibly deflated.

She's that disappointed... haaa, what the fuck happened to my life... a fish admirer...

As Obsi started digging his cave was soon big enough for Karka to come and help, together they finish the expansion in 3 hours.

'umm Obsi, why did we dig the hole so big? It fits much more than just the two of us...' Karka began blushing again.

Poor girl still hopes. 'for a few reasons, I might have a growth spurt again, you will reach maturity soon, there's quite a lot of things that could happen.' there, now you won't be so hopeless as to become a burden.

As Obsi finished Karka had gone completely purple from the blush. Obsi could feel her heartbeat from a distance. I fucked myself didn't I?

As Obsi thought that he settled into his newly expanded cave, soon joined by Karka who got as close to him as possible, to her disappointment Obsi was already sleeping.

Unbeknownst to Obsi he had dug himself a hole in a more metaphorical way as Karka decided to stay with him as long as possible.

...

Stupid human physiology in fish...

...