Chapter Text
If Kaoru stayed far enough back, it meant that he wouldn’t be in the water or the sand, which was really much better. His nanny was asleep on a towel (or, at least, he was pretty sure that she was asleep, based on the way that she hadn’t moved despite Kaoru walking away from the sand), but that meant that he wouldn’t be “encouraged” to go any further.
She meant well, or that’s what his parents said, but she didn’t tend to interfere with what he was doing.
That was fine. Kaoru liked to do his own thing, and other nannies had tried to encourage him to do more on their vacations. His parents were… somewhere, doing something, and this nanny was letting Kaoru do his own thing.
Right now, that meant papers spread across the edge of the dock, just enough that if it wasn’t private, he’d probably block anyone else’s paths back there. He drew his brush across the papers, carefully imitating the shape of the shores against the waves, far out of reach of the water.
It wasn’t that he was afraid of the water, he wasn’t some kind of coward. He just… didn’t see the appeal.
He was six now. He didn’t need to go running into the water and getting covered in sand, it would be so hard to get off and then he’d get it in the house, and it would probably get in his bed , and that was just—
There was something in the water.
Throughout his drawing, Kaoru had seen plenty of wildlife that he emanated on the page in front of him, but that…
It was hard to see, the green color nearly blending into the clear, crashing waters, but he was sure . That was a person. But just as soon as they appeared, the person disappeared beneath the waters.
Were they in trouble? Kaoru glanced over his shoulder and then back out of the water.
No. There wasn’t a person in the water. That was just—that was preposterous (Mother said that sometimes, when she was particularly annoyed with a client. It was preposterous what they were demanding! Completely out of the picture!). They would have had to swim in from the water since this was a private beach, and not even the strongest swimmer could last that long.
Kaoru went back to his drawings, keeping a careful eye on the horizon. For a while, it was just as peaceful as before, only the occasional spout of water or crash of a far-off wave disturbing the shores. But then—
Certain as it was the first time, the water was breached, a head staring out over the beach, nearly in the same position as the first time. This time, Kaoru caught their eye.
It was—it was a child ? They couldn’t be any older than him, maybe seven or eight. Larger than Kaoru, probably, but he was small for his age. How on earth had they gotten that far out into the water? They didn’t seem to be struggling, but there was no way that they could just infinitely float there…
Before Kaoru could consider further, the head disappeared into the water again, and was that—no. No, no no. That couldn’t be—
A tail.
Kaoru ran out into the sand, his shoes falling behind at the towel, staring out into the water. When it lapped at his feet, he took a few steps backward, not wanting to get his feet wet.
But he swore…
He turned back to his nanny, and she waved back at him, after a few moment’s hesitation. Kaoru crossed his arms over his chest, looking out over the water. She probably wouldn’t even see what he was looking at, she could hardly seem to see him when he was right in front of her!
No. He didn’t need her help. There was definitely someone out there .
Another moment of gazing into the water and Kaoru had to bite back a scream.
Something touched his foot.
He looked down, eyes wide, and screeched as he was dragged into the water, immediately soaked from head to toe. He struggled against the hold, pushing and shoving and—
“Hey, quit it!” Kaoru went still, sitting up in the water and pushing his dripping hair out of his face, eyes wide. In front of him sat a boy with green hair and a bright, big smile. “I know you saw me. You totally made eye contact.”
“This is my beach,” Kaoru said, glancing over his shoulder to his still-distracted nanny and then back at the other child. “How did you get here, this is private land.”
“... you don’t own the ocean .” The other child laughed, leaning in close. “I know you didn’t just see my face.”
Kaoru looked down at that moment and breathed out. His eyes widened in awe, covering his mouth. This… he was…
“Who are you?”
“You can call me Kojiro! Dude, I’ve never met somebody like you before! This is so cool , I told Ainosuke that it was totally worth checking out the surface and he was all—”
“You haven’t met someone like me? I’m normal, you’ve got… you’re… a mermaid?” Kaoru had, of course, read all of the fairytales and stories available to him because even though they were light reading, they impressed his teachers before they realized how advanced he was. There were plenty of stories of people who were half-fish half-human, but those were stories . Not a single one of them was nonfiction, they were all tales of sick and hallucinating sailors or mystical tales spun by writers! This… Kojiro, he was real.
“Yeah, well, everybody looks like me where I’m from, so watch what you’re calling normal!” He laughed, still, and Kaoru sank into the water a little bit more, letting his body bob with the soft waves. “What’s your name? I told you mine? C’mon, you guys have got to have names, there’s like a ton of you.”
“Kaoru Sakurayashiki.”
“Kaoru. Cool. I’m gonna call you Kaoru. Do you come here often?”
“We’re on a vacation. My parents had a business trip and they decided to extend the stay so that I could experience more of the beach,” Kaoru answered, the same answer that he had been giving since his parents first planned the trip. It wasn’t like he wasn’t excited , he just… didn’t know if he was really very enthusiastic about being on the beach.
Not before Kojiro , at least.
“So just for today?” Kojiro prodded, splashing his tail (his tail !) in the water.
“Tomorrow is our last day,” Kaoru affirmed, crossing his arms behind his back and swaying a little bit. “But Mother has things that we have to attend.”
“So only today, to experience everything! Kaoru, I wish I’d known you were here sooner!” Kojiro laughed, and Kaoru couldn’t help but smile back at him. “C’mon. One way to make up for the time we don’t get!”
Kaoru was dragged forward again, splashing and wrestling in the waves. Kojiro would duck away, swimming farther out than Kaoru could follow, and then laughing and circling back.
It felt like hours, though Kaoru couldn’t tell how long they really played. Eventually, Kojiro’s glances behind him became too frequent to ignore. He had to get back. He had to leave.
“Will you be back?” Kojiro asked, looking up at him and shaking drying hair out of his face. It was unnatural for him, as unnatural as it was that Kaoru’s own hair wasn’t dry.
“I don’t know. We go somewhere every summer.” They didn’t repeat a lot, and Kaoru usually didn’t mind that. He liked to see the world! To get to do everything that he wanted to! But to have somewhere to go back to.
He was pretty fond of just being home, sometimes.
“Well. I’ll try to look for you, as much as I can. We’ll meet again, Kaoru Sakurayashiki.” Kojiro grinned at him, extending a hand.
Kaoru shook it.
“I’ll make sure that we do. Promise.”
“Promise.” Kojiro agreed, holding onto his hand for a moment longer before letting go. “Until next time! Thanks for proving humans are just as cool as I thought they were!” he shouted, disappearing into the waves.
He watched until he completely vanished amongst the ocean waves again and then stood up to walk back up to his towel. He pulled his book back out, doodling until he heard footsteps on the balcony.
“Kaoru!” His parents were back. Good. They needed to know this.
Kaoru wiped sandy hands against his towel, but he couldn’t get rid of all of it. He ran up to his parents, looking out to the water and then back at them.
“You’d never believe what I saw today,” Kaoru gasped after a moment, shaking his wet hair out.
Mother stared at him in a little bit of bewilderment. “Did you go out into the water?”
“Yes, well, Kojiro, I saw him in the waves, and—” In his excitement, Kaoru found it hard to explain what all he’d seen that day, but he tried. He went through the whole story, seeing Kojiro in the waves, meeting him, playing with him.
Mother brushed his wet hair back from his face with a smile, kissing his forehead.
“That sounds like an excellent story, Kaoru,” she said softly. “You always have the best imagination. You’re going to be able to spin quite the story when you get older.”
“No, but—”
“Let’s get you cleaned off. Your father is getting dinner ready now.”
Mother led him inside as Kaoru glanced over his shoulder one more time at the water.
He knew that Kojiro was real.
He’d make sure that he proved it.
—
It was ridiculous. It was an insane bedtime story that he’d convinced himself was real. Mermaids! Actual, real-life half-fish people who swam around the ocean and thought humans were a mythical species. No wonder his mother had thought that he was making up stories, and asked his nanny to watch him more closely the next day.
Sure, he was a child, but to be that convinced that mermaids were real…
Years had passed since he met Kojiro, giving him plenty of time to get rid of the delusions of what had happened. He didn’t have any reason to believe a single word of it was true, but yet…
He found himself, sometimes, when he was painting, thinking about it. He always liked to paint landscapes, the world around him. His focus was rarely creatures, never people . Those made so much less sense than the vast expanse of land that surrounded him. So Kaoru painted landscapes.
Every so often, he’d find himself sketching a tail into the ocean. A head popping up out of the waves. The approximation of a boy who couldn’t look anything like his imagination supplied, not anymore.
Every so often, he’d find himself dreaming of green hair and waking up confused.
But he was finishing high school now, and he couldn’t tell people that. He wouldn’t dare admit that he dreamed of mermaids because he thought that they were real. Kaoru was already a strange person at school, already drew plenty of (wanted, admittedly) attention. The last thing he needed was to ruin his reputation by admitting that he full-heartedly still believed that mermaids were real and that he’d met one.
And still, it was shaping his whole life.
Kaoru stared at the books in front of him, pouring over pages and pages of content. He’d decided to pursue marine biology and underwater technology once he finished his education here. Their technology was so low-level, there were bound to be ways to explore the ocean no one had even considered before.
To discover things no one would believe.
He was not studying the ocean just to go be the one who discovered mermaids.
“Marine biology,” a voice spoke up. Kaoru didn’t lift his head from the books, only his eyes to gaze at the person who’d approached. A boy, near his age, stood in front of him, blue hair styled much more purposefully than Kaoru’s. He slid into the chair across from him without invitation and stretched out, his foot touching Kaoru’s beneath the table.
Despite the instinctual urge to pull back, he didn’t.
“There’s plenty of unexplored space in the ocean. I’d like to make a name for myself, beyond just being an artist. Discovering new species by advancing the capabilities of underwater technology seems like an advantageous pursuit.” His paintings were good, but they weren’t enough to make the world know who Sakurayashiki Kaoru was. He wasn’t the biggest fan of crowds of people, but he wanted to do something that he could show he was proud of.
“Your paintings, huh? Funny, I’m looking into marine biology as well. Isn’t the ocean fascinating ?” He grinned, exposing the points of teeth that Kaoru’s overactive imagination translated into sharp fangs, much like many of the creatures he’d studied and drawn. Teeth capable of ripping flesh apart and rendering another creature incapable of escape.
Kaoru leaned forward, fascinated. “Really?”
“Oh, yes! I just can’t keep away from the ocean for too long! I feel like it’s been so long already, and I’ve only just moved here.” He groaned dramatically, leaning across the table before extending a hand. “Ainosuke Shindo.”
“Kaoru Sakurayashiki.” He shook his hand, smiling. “I understand how you feel.”
It was easy, becoming friends with Ainosuke. He was different than many of the others at school, and Kaoru liked that. He was quick to get piercings, though not as many as Kaoru, to skip classes with him, to try all sorts of things that everyone else claimed was bad for him.
He was interesting, too, smarter than so many of the other students there. Able to keep up with Kaoru even on his most in-depth rants, shooting back questions and jokes that had both of them engaged hours past when they were supposed to be working on anything.
Ainosuke became his best friend quickly (not that there was a terrible amount of competition for that; Kaoru was surprised with himself more than anything). They did everything together.
For months.
And Ainosuke hung on Kaoru’s words as much as Kaoru held onto his and it made him… well…
A few years ago, Kaoru had stopped telling anyone about the mermaids. He’d stopped claiming they were true, and if anyone happened to catch his fascination with them, he’d say it was about the art and mythology that surrounded them. Perfectly pleasant and normal reasons to be interested.
Ainosuke knew that he was interested in mermaids, in sea creatures that shouldn’t truly exist, and Kaoru passed it off as imagination due to his studies for so long. Reading old sailor’s recountings of the ocean to understand how scientists had progressed with their studies brought plenty of strange and fantastical stories, it was no wonder some stuck with him.
But after months…
What was the worst that could happen? If he just told Ainosuke. Admitted to it. Let someone else in on the world that haunted his thoughts since he’d been a child.
Kaoru stood in front of the paintings, arms crossed over his chest as he stared at them expectantly.
“You must have a very consistent imagination,” Ainosuke finally spoke, standing up straight and wiggling his eyebrows at Kaoru. “I’m sensing a theme.” He jabbed a finger toward one of the clearer images of Kojiro in the water, waving his hand out to show how many truly featured the other boy that Kaoru had met. Maybe he should be embarrassed, showing his new friend this, but… well. It was too late for that now.
And he’d already decided. He knew what he was going to do.
“I don’t know if it’s so much imagination as a more impressive memory.” Kaoru stepped forward, breathing in deeply. “I met him.”
“You met him,” Ainosuke repeated, not turning to face him. His tone did not have the immediate judgment that Kaoru had gotten used to when he first tried to explain what had happened, but Ainosuke’s tone was hard to read, sometimes. He was treating this just as sensationally as Kaoru saying that he was going to get another piercing, and just do this one himself to save money despite the fact that he had no need to save money.
“The mermaid. Kojiro. I’ve met him, when I was young. Just once, but… I am going to find him again. The species, all of it. I want to know more.”
Ainosuke turned, his eyes sparkling and a smirk filling his face.
“Who would have thought, Kaoru Sakurayashiki enamored by stories of mermaids he’s convinced are real?” He laughed, stepping forward. “How about this: I’ll help you, and you can prove to me just what you’re saying.”
Kaoru blinked, having started to recoil back at Ainosuke’s initial tone, instead brightening up and nodding his head. He wasn’t sure that Ainosuke believed him, but he was going to help him with this discovery, he wasn’t just going to immediately discount it and call Kaoru crazy.
“I’ll prove that I’m right. And if I can’t, I’ll owe you.”
“ Oh .” Ainosuke smirked. Delighted. “I do so like a debt endowed to me. I hope you can keep my interest, little Kaoru.” He extended a hand that Kaoru immediately took.
They would do this. Together, as a team.
Kaoru smiled to himself, turning back to his paintings to stare at the depictions of Kojiro.
He would find him again. He would prove himself.