#this made me think of adachi starting a regular routine of visiting a dock every other day to leave behind a human trinket

[i-just-wanna-be-called-sparkle]

Now that I think of it, maybe it was Mookie's own naivete that got him captured by Wakaba...? I don't know how she would've found him in the first place, but maybe she was pspspsing him, y'know, trying to act nice and non-threatening to avoid scaring him away, and, since he's intrigued by humans, he started talking to her voluntarily? And then he found out about Wakaba's research and wanted to help her, to help humans understand merfolk and bridge the gap between their species, like you said... But, of course, he didn't realize he was falling right into a trap...

Or! Or! Maybe Rumi was sick and Takuto had tried everything to help her, but it was only getting worse... and so he thought that, by bringing her to Wakaba, her research team could help him find a cure or something, but then they captured them and only made it worse. Of course, Mookie would later get his healing magic, and Rumi would repress that trauma, so, maybe, in his eyes, at least she's doing better now?

In any case, him being betrayed by Wakaba would make him choosing to trust Adachi more painful... But I dunno if that makes sense, I'm just brainstorming here, haha

I can see it being a mix of Maruki’s naivete and also Wakaba sugar coating words very very heavily, unless that’s already what you meant. It makes sense that since Mookie’s had so little interactions with humans he wouldn’t understand why they would be deceiving, or doesn’t think they would be deceiving at all. He’s also probably projecting his own nature there. But yeah, basically Wakaba sugarcoats some information and straight up hides other info, and since Maruki thinks she’s telling the truth or doesn’t have a reason to lie, and also has very little info on humans at all, he doesn’t understand or know what exactly he’s getting into.

Wakaba probably did pspspspsps him into talking with her lmao- But I feel like she found him through extensive research. Found as much as she could about merfolk legends and merfolk sightings until she could pinpoint approximate locations for them? Most likely going in not expecting much herself, but surprise surprise, there’s Mookie!

I like the idea of Rumi being sick because there’s actually quite a bit you could do with that! Wakaba could be talking to Maruki, telling him about her experiments and research in exchange for info on merfolk life, slowly getting him to lower his guard around her etc etc. And that golden moment that shows that poor Maruki trusts her is when he goes to her asking about if anything can be done for Rumi. Wakaba says that if both he and Rumi can come along to be experimented on, they can find out what exactly Rumi’s problem is while using Maruki’s healthy body as reference and help her overcome the sickness. And I don’t feel as if Wakaba would lie here… Even if she wasn’t helping Rumi for her or Maruki’s sakes, she’d do what she can to cure her or just keep her alive because of how valuable these test subjects are. The sad part is imagining her keeping Rumi sick, just to see how illness effects a merperson’s body compared to a human’s body…

But after all of that pain and trauma, it would make it very difficult for Maruki to choose trusting Adachi. I don’t think Rumi would be very happy to see Maruki anywhere near a human, either, so who knows what would happen if she did…