Chapter Text
5AM sharp, the most ambitious seagulls have begun their desperate cawing. Mine stands and strides into his bathroom with an uncanny kind of experience, eyes still closed as he traverses the room. Two or three emails he’ll never bother with reading let alone responding to arrive in the five minutes he spends in that room, the sound of which is drowned out by the noisy alarm clock a colleague from a previous job got him. Before the autumn sun can rise to prompt more frantic battling between the birds outside, Mine is down in the backroom of his store, tightening the straps on his overalls as he prepares for another busy day of work. He debones and breaks down the last of the fish needed for today’s shipment, the quota set by his current business partner having been increased last minute, before wheeling the refrigerated merchandise down the large hill that separates his store from the village centre where all the other businesses thrive. He’s back in his own store within a quarter of an hour, loading being taken care of by the truck driver in his stead this particular morning. He says it's because he’s feeling nice, but Mine knows it's because he can’t stand to sit and prolong their time together. He pays no mind to this, certainly not taking his frustrations out on a particularly stubborn fish whose head will be promptly hacked off his with most heavy-duty implement of oceanic torture.
The rest of his day passes in blissful silence, accompanied only by the wind, the birds, and the glide of his knives as he continues to break down fish. They’ll never sell, evident by the complete lack of customers in the front despite the daily hustle and bustle down the hill, but the birds will appreciate the free meal when the time comes. It was either the mindless work he had become skilled enough to carry out without so much as a second thought or being sat with his own thoughts, and he has enough of that in the evening.
The solitary fishmonger has no ties to the village, nor does he have any desire for loyalties, unless you count the old lady that runs the pharmacy only four doors down and appreciates large crowds and general company about as much as he does. He sells his own stock for the sake of simplicity, being unable to hand off the extra fish he manages to catch that fall outside of his bi-montly quota to a town full of what he assumes to be distrustful strangers wary of his status as an outsider. He has never stopped to question whether he may be the one driving them away as this would require him to think about himself for longer than three seconds, and he doesn’t have the time to pursue such an obvious line of questioning. So long as they kept their distance, he would mind his own issues.
Having lived in the village for about a month now, he often comes across what he has categorised as the town’s celebrity. A tired looking man around his age can be seen everywhere all at once, seemingly stretched thin across the entire village as he helps anyone and everyone in sight. His behaviour confused Mine, leaving him staring for much longer than is polite or normal when he catches sight of one of his heroic deeds. If he isn’t helping an older gentleman carry his groceries from the store he just helped stock, he’s walking a line of schoolchildren home as if he were a mother duck, dropping them off at their respective houses. Mine wouldn’t say it out loud, but the image of that has him stifling a small chuckle, killing it the moment he feels a tickle in his chest. He’s not in a position of power, he isn’t in the running to become mayor, and he’s not some hot shot from the city visiting his family to play the role of the doting and loveable son. Mine checked. So, what good does all this do for him? The thanks of the elderly community cannot be used to pay his salary, and the delighted smiles of parents all throughout the village served no tangible purpose to him. That’s how Mine saw it, at least. He was just a fisherman like anybody else living here, and yet he never once saw him on a boat, working for himself.
It frustrated Mine. He didn’t understand how someone so giving could exist when there was nothing to gain from any of it. Its not like his good will could be referenced professionally on a future resume, all it did was act as a waste of his precious time. Despite this, people seemed to idolise him. He had only been in the village’s pub once on a ‘bonding exercise’ with colleagues that drove in just to meet at some middle-point, but he swears that if he had gone every night since then he’d still hear the patrons singing the exact same praises over and over again. Dojima Daigo was their hero, but to Mine he was life’s greatest mystery.
5AM sharp, the frantic cries of the gulls seem to grow louder with every passing day. Mine has unplugged his alarm clock by now, sick of it running a few minutes too late for his liking. He stumbles through the darkness of his bedroom once more and hits the light switch to the bathroom without having to fumble to find it, his spatial awareness a point of envy for many who have had the displeasure of working with him before. He stares in his own tired eyes as he brushes his teeth and sees nothing, his soul void of everything but the drive to keep working. If he could personify the sliver of his soul hidden behind the many walls he has up, it would be a lonely little child chipping away at a never-ending pile of rubble, working for the promise of something. He knew what it was he sought. He didn't want to think about it anymore. Only half a year, and then he would be free. Only six months more, and he could move to the next town where he was almost as unwanted as the one that would come after that. He would never settle, find a home and slow down. He wasn’t the kind of dog that settled, took love and internalised it and got better, healthier, kinder. He would never be a pet, he didn't have it in him to be loyal.
6AM and he was out of the house, cursing at himself for getting so lost in his own head so easily. He would forget about this instance by the next day, where it would repeat itself until the delivery driver arrived again. The winds at sea were bitterly chilling but forgiving in the way of force, causing him no issues other than a brief loss of mobility in his fingers as his body got used to the icy environment. With time came further dexterity, and with that came his source of further income. On the rare occasion he would catch a fish that was commonly used in meals in the area only to let it go after a period of pondering, deciding this wouldn’t be the day he offered the villagers charity by keeping spare stock they would actually need.
A whole stretch of his day is spent on this boat doing what he would call lazing about, fishing in a leisurely manner. If asked, he would say this is how he keeps his skills sharp between shipments, but he would never admit that he actually just enjoyed fishing for the sake of it. His job ruined that aspect of his free time, but on rare occasions he was afforded the opportunity to forget it all and be at peace with the sea. It reminded him of easier times, when the world was kinder and he was more ignorant. To live and learn is to be plagued with the evils of humanity, that’s one of the many philosophies he lived by. They made life more bearable at one point, now they were too large a part of his character to let go. Why deny the truth either way?
It was these kinds of days where he would see the most of the subject of his confusion when he eventually returned to the harbour. This time, the man was acting as a stand-in for a sick employee at the local bakery. Mine truly failed to understand. He failed to understand why, when he saw these displays of true and earnest kindness, that his heart began to beat irregularly. He failed to understand why he felt the corners of his mouth quirk upwards, if only for a second. He failed to understand why he was suddenly much clumsier than he thought, dropping his nets or losing his balance with a cooler in hand. It made no sense at all, but it could if he let himself think about it for long enough. His favourite excuse was that he didn’t have time for that, not in this line of work. If that made any sense, he wouldn’t be out here at all.
Some days, Mine would take his boat out again despite only just docking, desperate to escape his own mind no matter how long it would take. It was like he was running away, but it would be anyone’s guess as to what he might be fleeing from. Either way, it never worked. Once he laid eyes on Daigo, he was done for. For the rest of the day, he would float about his mind and meddle in everything he tried to accomplish past that point. It was a fruitless endeavour, and yet he would sit out there in the cold and the dark and wait until he could go home in peace, knowing their paths wouldn’t cross even for a second. He was like a solitary animal, scared off by even the presence of humans, although he felt more like a deer in headlights whenever that man was involved.
6PM on the dot, a full twelve hours spent enabling a one-sided game of cat and mouse with not much to show for it. Mine stalked through hidden alleys under the cover of the night, unwilling to reveal himself under the lights of the homes by the street. The boisterous laughter of pub patrons kept his pace swift even at an incline, and he eventually burst into his home through the door to his backroom. Work was done for the day, his mind much too frazzled to effectively deal with any fish he might have caught in a daze, let alone handle a knife with any regard for his own safety. He opts for a searing hot shower instead, the steam making the adjoining bedroom seem damp. He scrubs at his skin, leaving raised marks all over himself, red and angry. He washes his hair with too much force, leaving his scalp tender. He doesn’t allow himself the option to get used to the warmth, letting it comfort him. He ends the ordeal with a blast of cold water straight from the arctic, and only then was he satisfied. He swears the suffering is worth it, it helps with discipline and keeping himself in line. He operates under the illusion that his free will, the thing that makes him human, is a separate being made to sabotage him.
The bed is cold and uninviting when he is finally done looking into his own eyes in the mirror, searching for something, anything at all. It creaks in the most awkward of ways and the old springs dig into his ribs when he shifts, but he’s out like a light before he can even think to complain. He’ll dream of an unforgiving landscape of ice as the cold night air filtering in through his open window surrounds him, but for once it’ll feel that little bit warmer as a familiar laugh follows it.