Chapter Text
Nagi has spent the better half of his day watching the minutes on the clock tick by. Now is no exception. Shouei's been asleep for the past hour, and Nagi's done nothing but stare at the glowing green numbers of his alarm clock as he spaces out. He gets to see Reo today. It's been so long since the last time, or at least it feels like it. He misses his voice, and his smile—especially his smile. It's all he can think about. No matter how much he's tried to focus throughout the day, Nagi's thoughts have always circled back to Reo within a couple seconds. He can't say he's tried all too hard, though. Reo is much more interesting than whatever his teachers had to say.
Honestly, Nagi can hardly remember most of the day. He spent so long spacing out, at some point he feels like his body started controlling itself while he did nothing but imagine the purple hair and beautiful smile he knew he'd be seeing later. It was nice in a way. Maybe there's a strat to it so he can do that all the time and never have to use up his mental stamina ever again. Probably not. The only reason he was able to daydream for so long anyway is because Shouei is still hardly sparing him a word. Usually when Nagi spaces out, Shouei snaps him out it somehow. Now he's left alone in his mind without interruption.
How long is Shouei gonna keep this up? Nagi finds himself sighing out loud. He used to think being alone is for the best—that he prefers not speaking to anyone and going home to play games in the solitude of his bedroom, but Shouei being distant has him realizing it sucks. He didn't notice having Shouei around to talk with made him feel so much less lonely. Before he met him in junior high, lonliness was a permanent condition for him. Even now, there is still a lingering feeling in Nagi that something is missing. A hole in his chest, a malfunction in his brain, something inherently wrong with him that makes him feel distant from other people. Shouei's his friend. Nagi knows this. He likes spending time with him. He feels better around him. Still, this feeling never truly goes away, and it's only gotten stronger since their fight—if you can even call it that.
All he can look forward to is seeing Reo. If he sees Reo, this feeling will go away. Won't it? Every time he's gone to the beach, he's felt strangely…complete. Is it because of Reo? How can someone he's just met feel like they're the thing he's been missing all along. And why does it get harder and harder to leave with each time they meet? He hates it. He hates how it feels to step off the shore and plummet right back into his lonliness—face reality and come to terms with the fact that Reo can never leave with him. That this hole in his chest will have to stay, because unlike the movies, mermaids can't grow legs.
Even so, Nagi will savor the time he can spend with him. If they're meant to only meet at night, then that's what he'll do. He's happy with that. As long as Reo still finds him interesting, as long as he still wants to see him, Nagi will continue walking to the beach again and again.
That's why as soon as the clock hits 12AM, Nagi is already walking out of Shouei's room and down the hall. He stays close to the wall, dragging his hand along it to navigate in the dark. All he can hope for is that Shouei doesn't wake up. Everything will only get worse if he does. Nagi wants him to stop being mad, he would tell him about Reo if he could, but he can't—he promised. So for now, he'll do what Shouei asked, and just 'leave him alone and fuck off' until he's less angry.
As he approaches the stairs, Nagi notices a dim light shining through the railing. Is someone awake? If they see him, he's definitely screwed. Nagi pauses at the top with bated breath, peaking into the dining room. Despite not seeing anyone, he can faintly make out Shizuo's voice.
"I'll pick up some more hours this week," he says, quiet words hardly audible above the hum of the air conditioner.
"Will you be okay?" Rei asks. "I can stay at work later as well."
"No, you have the kids to take care of," Shizuo says.
Rei sighs and there's a pause before she continues, "Don't push yourself too hard. We can take turns if anything."
"I'll be okay, don't worry about me."
"You know I will."
The conversation seems to fade, or maybe they speak quieter, but either way Nagi can't hear them anymore. He tries his best to listen for anything, frozen at the top of the stairs. Then, the light goes out, and he nearly jumps at the sound of footsteps coming closer. Shit.
Nagi backs up, thoughts running a hundred miles per minute. He's in the bathroom before he can question the choice and he turns the knob all the way as he closes the door, scared to make even the slightest sound. Even with the walls seperating him from Shouei's parents, Nagi holds his breath as they walk through the hallway. It's only when what he assumes is their bedroom door closes, that he lets out a sigh.
He shouldn't have heard that. God, why did he have to hear that? Nagi places his palms against his eyes with a shaky exhale. It has to be his fault that they're talking about working more. Shouei never mentioned having money issues before. Sure, it's not something they'd usually discuss in the first place, but three kids is expensive enough as it is, and now he's here—another kid to feed, and if Rei is serious about going to court, that's even more money they'll have to spend.
Think about Reo. Nagi rubs his hands across his face and tries to picture his eyes, his hands, his hair. Strangely, it calms him down. It'll all be okay when he gets to the beach. Nagi places his hand on the doorknob and slowly opens the door. Even though he's sure the hallway is empty, he sticks his head out to make sure before he steps out. Nagi's always slow, but as he tiptoes down the stairs, he's sure this is the slowest he's ever walked in his life.
When he makes it outside for good, relief floods his entire body. This must be what it's like to be the protagonist of a horror game, Nagi thinks. That was horrible. He basks in the light breeze for a few moments, letting his eyes fall shut while the wind kisses his skin. Less than an hour before he gets to see Reo.
Nagi lets his body carry him toward the beach. Anytime his mind wanders back to the conversation he overheard, he replaces the words with thoughts of Reo. To him, he's not a burden. To Reo he's normal—he's interesting. Is it because he's a human or is it something more? He hopes it's more.
The cool air sends a chill down Nagi's spine and he wraps his arms around himself. Even with his hoodie on he's cold. The water's gonna to be freezing. It's this thought that makes Nagi realize he forgot to bring a towel with him again. He always ends up walking back to Shouei's house shivering. The cold is such a pain. Does Reo not get cold on the surface? He doesn't wear clothes or anything, and the water is probably warmer than the ground, at least by the coast. Does that mean he's warm-blooded then? Are mermaid's even mammals—there is so much Nagi doesn't know yet.
He ponders these questions as he walks, and when he steps onto the sand, he finds the beach as empty as ever. He casts his gaze into the water. Within it, he sees Reo, body slightly swaying with the push and pull of the tide.
"Nagi!"
"Hey, Reo." Nagi walks until he's right near the edge of the water and strips off his hoodie, leaving only his shirt underneath. Even though he'll be colder now, later on he can take off his shirt and put the hoodie on so he has at least something to keep him warm.
"You didn't bring a towel," Reo asks. His eyes follow Nagi as sets the hoodie down onto the sand. He toes off his shoes, avoiding Reo's gaze like a dog that knows its done something wrong, and when his toes hit the water, his entire body stiffens.
Even as his hair rises and fights to trap in the heat, Nagi continues further, sinking to his knees to sit beside Reo in the sea. "I forgot."
"You're gonna freeze," he says, pinching Nagi's cheek.
"Reo…" he whines.
"You need to remember!"
Despite the scolding, Reo still looks at him so gently it hardly feels like a reprimand. His smile doesn't even leave his face, and Nagi's glad it doesn't. He could spend hours admiring how his lips curl and his eyes crinkle, eyebrows drawing inwards.
"I will next time," Nagi says.
"Well, next time you might not even need it."
"Ah, too bad."
Reo shakes his head with a laugh. "Was your day okay?"
"Eh," Nagi shrugs. Now that he's with Reo it's pretty good. "I just waited to see you. How was Reo's?"
"Boring, like always," Reo sighs. Nagi notices now how one of his hands is just below the surface, toying with something underneath.
"You brought something?"
"Oh, yeah!" Reo's face lights up. He pulls a bag out of the water and onto his tail, which is propped up a bit in between them. It's strikingly purple just like his hair. Even in the dark, it shimmers under the bit of light the moon provides. Nagi hasn't gotten to truly look at it much until now—Reo does his best to keep his tail hidden most of the time. With how they're positioned though, no one would be able to see it past Nagi's body, so he takes his time looking at it as Reo carefully unties the strings holding the bag closed. He notices the center dips inward slightly. Is it made up of two muscles then? That would probably mean he could move both sides independently of each other. Damn, that's cool.
Nagi wants to touch it. Just as he is about to reach out, Reo gets the bag open and brandishes a…handheld radio?
"I have a bunch of human stuff I've found," Reo explains, excitement obvious on his face. "I thought maybe you could tell me what they are."
Cute.
Nagi points at the object in his hands, "Well, that's a radio."
"Radio…" Reo mumbles like he's testing how the words feel on his tongue. "What does it do?"
"Well," Nagi thinks about how he can explain it for a moment. "If someone else has another one, you can talk to them by speaking into it, and if they're within a certain distance they'll hear it."
He turns it around in his hand. "So, it's sorta like vocalizers. How do they work? Sound waves?"
"Vocalizers?" Nagi tilts his head. "No, it uses radio waves."
"Oh…" Reo trails off, eyebrows furrowed as he stares at it.
Nagi holds out his hand, "Here, lemme see."
Reo hands it to him easily, leaning in closely as Nagi begins to explain the different parts of it.
"This is the button you press when you want to talk." He presses it and turns his hand to let Reo see, then he continues, "This is the speaker that let's you hear other people. And this knob here controls the channel you're on. In order to talk to someone, you guys have to be on the same channel. The antenna here is what receives the waves. I don't really know the exact way they travel, that stuff is complicated, but yeah," he finishes, letting Reo take it back.
"Woah, that's so cool."
"I guess," Nagi never really thought too much about it. It is sorta cool.
"We have something kinda like that. Doesn't work the same, though."
"Hm," Nagi hums. He's more interested in watching Reo than learning how underwater radios work, but if he asks then he'll speak a bunch and he can continue staring. He likes hearing Reo talk.
"How do yours work?"
Reo smiles and puts the walkie back into his bag, "Ours are called vocalizers. They let people talk to each other by using sound waves. It's not something we use all that often, they take a bit to travel if you're really far away."
"Oh, yeah we don't use these much either. Phones work better and reach further."
"Wait, I remember you mentioning them using radio waves too!" Reo perks up. "Those don't have the antenna thing though?"
"They work a bit differently. I honestly couldn't tell you how," Nagi says, scratching awkwardly at his nape.
"That's okay, you already taught me a lot," Reo grins. He leans over and ruffles Nagi's hair. His hand is a bit wet, but he can't find it in himself to be annoyed at the water that drips onto him—far too focused on the feeling of Reo's fingers against his scalp. It's nice.
"It feels a lot different dry…" Reo says.
"My hair?" Nagi asks.
Reo hums. His hand slows in his hair, gently carding through it. Nagi lets his eyes fall closed. It's foreign—someone else's hand in his hair, the feeling of fingers dragging across his scalp. He likes it, or he likes when Reo does it. Nagi opens his eyes slowly, disappointed as the other stops his movements. He finds him looking right back, eyes locking with his in the silence.
"I—uhm," Reo quickly takes his hand away, face turning pink, "Sorry."
Before he can put his hand back under the water, Nagi takes hold of his wrist and gently brings it back to his head. "No, I like it."
Reo pauses, eyes wide for a moment before they soften. He lets his fingers run through Nagi's hair once again, starting at his hairline. They press into his scalp softly, nails ghosting against his skin with each gentle scratch. Nagi's eyes don't fall from Reo's as his hand travels down to the side above his ear.
The silence should be awkward. Nagi refuses to make eye contact with most people for even a few seconds when they're speaking, let alone when they're not talking at all. Still, something about Reo is different. He leans into his touch as his palm falls to his cheek and his thumb traces along his cheekbone.
"Reo," Nagi mumbles. He watches how Reo's eyes flick down to his lips before coming back up to meet his eyes as if it never happened. For the first time in his life, Nagi wants someone to kiss him. He wants Reo to kiss him.
When Reo starts to lean in, Nagi's sure he will. So he lets his eyes fall closed and he waits, but instead of their lips meeting, Nagi feels a soft pressure resting against his forehead. It's not what he wants in the slightest. Still, he'll never complain about any attention Reo gives him. He opens his eyes and with their foreheads pressed together, he admires how Reo's lashes fan out against his cheeks.
Reo laughs quietly as he opens his eyes. They only meet his for a second before Reo backs away and lets his hand fall back onto his lap beside the bag. He looks down at it, looking a bit sad despite the way he laughed.
Swallowing down his disappointment, Nagi speaks, "Have anything else to show me?"
"Yeah, but it can wait." Reo fastens the bag with a soft smile on his face. It looks different that usual.
"Huh, why?"
"I realized that even though you've taught me so much about humans, I haven't taught you anything about mermaids."
Nagi wants to refute because Reo has taught him some stuff, but he also wants to know more, so he lets the words die on his tongue. "What are you gonna teach me?"
"Hm," Reo looks up, pursing his lips in thought. "Anything you wanna know?"
"Are mermaids…mammals?"
Reo bursts out laughing, and Nagi stares at him helplessly. He didn't think it was that dumb of a question. Through his lingering giggles, Reo speaks, "I'm sorry, that's just not what I was expecting."
Nagi pouts, "What did you expect?"
"I don't know. It's a reasonable question…I thought you'd be more interested in our society than anything to be honest."
"Oh," Nagi turns away, a bit embarrassed.
Reo leans to the side to get back in his field of vision and smiles brightly. "It's okay, I'm happy to answer anything. We're similar to mammals, but have some stuff that doesn't really fit."
Nagi lets himself face Reo again and he listens aptly as he continues explaining.
"We classify ourselves as undines."
"Wait, so you don't call yourselves mermaids?"
"No, we're mermaids, but there are other types of…" Reo pauses for a moment. He teases his bottom lip between his teeth before continuing, "Acquatic humanoids, I guess you can say. Undine is a word that encompasses all of us."
At this, Nagi's eyes widen. "Huh, really? What other ones exist?"
"Well, there are quite a few but the ones most similar to mermaids are probably merrows? They have tails that are really similar to ours, but their upper body is much different. Their skulls are wider and they have tusks."
"Wow…" Nagi looks intently at Reo, imagining how he'd look with tusks. Super weird. Kinda cool, though. "Do you guys fight each other?"
"They tend to live at lower depths than mermaids like to," Reo explains. "There's been fights occassionally over prey but not really habitat. I'd say mermaids fight more with other mermaids than other undines."
Every new thing Nagi learns has him realizing how little of a difference there is between life in the ocean and life on the ground. He thought mermaids would live in some sort of fantasy, completely different than his, but where there is life, there is bound to be conflict, that much Nagi knows just from taking his average history or environmental science class.
Reo tilts his head, seeming as if he's searching for something within Nagi's silence. "Anything else you're curious about?"
"Can you sing well?"
"Huh?" Reo froze, eyebrows furrowing. "Where did that come from?"
"Since mermaids and other creatures are real, then some of the stories have to be real, right? Is the good at singing part also real, or are some mermaids good and others aren't, just like humans?"
Reo toys with the string on his bag, twisting it between his fingers with a distant expression. Even though he's the one that offered to tell Nagi more, with every question he asks, Reo seems more and more hesitant to answer. Does he still view Nagi as a threat?
"Nagi…" Reo looks up at him with his head tilted down. "You know I would never hurt you, right?"
What? Nagi pauses for a moment, completely lost. What makes Reo think he'd ever be worried about that? "Reo's only ever been nice to me."
"Yeah, but–"
"I trust you, Reo. You wouldn't hurt me."
With those words, Reo's lips curve into a soft small and he sighs quietly. "The truth is…mermaids hunted humans in the past. Many undines have developed flexible voices that we use to mimic and lure prey."
Reo seems to be searching for something in Nagi's face as he continues, "Our voices can't directly lure people through some sort of compelling force—it just so happens that humans are drawn to pretty voices."
"That makes sense," Nagi says.
"You're not…freaked out or anything?"
He shrugs, "We hunted you guys too, right? That's just how animals are."
"Yeah…I guess you're right," Reo chuckles.
"Can I hear?" Nagi asks. Ever since they first met, he wondered if Reo could sing, and now that he knows he can, he only wants to hear it more.
Reo's eyebrows furrow, "What?"
"Can I hear you sing?"
Maybe he shouldn't have asked. Reo seemed worried about telling him in the first place. He couldn't care less about the past and who hunted who though—Reo could lure him singing or not. If Reo had bad intentions, Nagi would've died a long time ago back when they first met. Instead, he saved him.
He watches Reo's face shift between several expressions. As he thinks, silence falls over them, and other than the quiet sloshing of the waves, the beach is deathly silent.
"Not here," Reo says, finally locking eyes with Nagi. "Next time, when we're further out I will."
Nagi hums. He was already looking forward to their next meeting—he always looks forward to any time he gets to see Reo. Even though he has no idea where he plans to take him, as long as he gets to spend time with him, Nagi can't care less. The issue now is getting through the next few days without getting lost imagining Reo's voice. What sort of song will he sing? How will he sound?
Even as they part, and he watches Reo swim away, Nagi sits in the waves until he's shaking. He knows his hoodie can never warm him in the way being with Reo seems to do, so he walks home with a song falling from his lips and purple eyes in his mind.