Chapter Text
Ryuji stood in his doorway, brain struggling to catch up to the fact that the mer was awake. The still-drying hair plastered to his cheeks told Ryuji that he hadn't been up for very long. He was too distracted by the mer’s wide grey eyes to pay much attention to that fact, though. It wasn't until the mer hissed loudly at him, after he took a few steps closer in an attempt to get a better view of them, that he snapped out of whatever trace he had entered and was able to properly take stock of the situation.
He watched as the fins lining the mer’s ears flared out and flushed an even deeper red than they normally were, wide grey eyes frantically looking everywhere but at Ryuji, and sharp claws all but ripping through the plastic of the tub.
Ryuji knew that he was a far cry from a genius, but even he could tell that this wasn’t a creature he wanted to make any sudden movements around. So he relaxed his posture as best he could and held his hands out with the palms up, trying to emit as non-threatening of an aura as he could.
He made sure to move slowly, but even so he still saw the mer flinch slightly with every step he took. As he got closer, Ryuji noticed that the mer was shaking ever so slightly and that his breathing was far too quick and shallow to be normal — as much as Ryuji could judge of what normal looked like on a mer. Ryuji was worried that he mer would start hyperventilating on him.
Thanks to Futaba, he already had a bit of experience dealing with panic attacks and the symptoms that came with them, but for some reason, his gut told him his offers to help wouldn't be well received.
Luckily, his bed wasn't too far from the door, which meant that he got to stay well out of lunging range if the mer decided to go on the offensive.
As he sat on his bed, he realized he had no idea what to do now. He’d been so busy getting the guy home and preparing for when he woke up that he hadn't considered how to move forward once he did. He either had a very dangerous and very scared creature in his room, or, if the legends were to be believed, an animal that was sapient instead of simply sentient. Neither of those options really reassured him.
Ryuji hoped it was the latter; his only experience with taking care of animals was when he had catsat for Futaba, and he was pretty sure that wasn’t really applicable here. He couldn't imagine that taking care of a pampered house cat was anything like trying to take care of a wild animal. If the mer was sapient at least that meant he could be reasoned with, eventually, and that would almost definitely make everything go smoother in the end.
He conveniently ignored the fact that human-level intelligence meant a human-like ability to come up with revenge plans if he pissed the mer off enough.
For now, he decided that it would be best to just let the mer work out whatever he was thinking or feeling on his own before Ryuji could even try to begin figuring out anything about him.
He decided that distracting himself by reading a few of his favorite mangas was his best course of action. He made sure to keep the mer in his peripheral vision, constantly checking for any change in his behavior. Already, he could see that there was less pure terror on the mer’s face; whether that was because he’d made no attempts to get closer in several minutes, or because he was no longer directly watching him, Ryuji couldn't tell, but he also wasn't about to start complaining.
It took awhile, but eventually whatever adrenaline had entered the mer’s system when Ryuji had first appeared vanished, leaving him slumped over and clearly exhausted.
The mer straightened himself out and focused his attention on Ryuji once more as soon as he realized that he was being watched again, his head cocked to the side with both confusion and curiosity starting to creep into eyes where there had previously been only fear.
Ryuji, who’d been trying hard not to set the guy off again, started to worry that he had when he saw the mer startle, but his fins stayed right where they were and if anything he only looked more confused.
Curiosity seeming to get the better of him, the mer called out with a few fast, high pitched clicks, reminiscent of the sounds dolphins made. When Ryuji didn’t reply, an annoyed frown overtook his fine features.
Silence filled the room for the next few seconds, the mer seeming to think hard about something as his brow started furrowing.
At last he spoke, slowly, his voice trembling slightly.
“Who are you? Where are we? What do you want?”
The words themselves were stilted and disjointed, and the pronunciation more than a bit off, but understandable all the same.
Ryuji briefly got distracted as he wondered where the mer had learned Japanese, whether it was some magical innate knowledge or if the mer had somehow managed to learn the language by watching humans, which was, in Ryuji's opinion, a good deal more impressive.
He noticed that the mer’s ear fins were beginning to flick back and forth along with his claws once again flexing against the plastic, and realized that he should probably answer the mer’s questions sooner rather than later.
“Well, my name’s Ryuji,” he started off as he gestured to himself and immediately wanted to smack himself, because who else could he mean — the plant sitting on the window sill?
The mer spent a few minutes repeating the words several times before nodding to himself, satisfied with the fact that he was saying them correctly.
“My name is Akira,” he parroted back to Ryuji, hand movements and all. Finally, he could stop referring to Akira as just “the mer” now that he had a name for him.
He was about to start answering Akira’s other questions when a loud growling sound interrupted him. He chuckled when he realised that the sound had come from Akira, or more specifically Akira’s stomach. It really shouldn't have surprised him as much as it did, considering he had a good idea of how long Akira had been without food.
“We should probably get some food into you before we start talking, huh?” Without waiting for any sort of response aside from the thoroughly confused expression that had once again settled onto Akira's face, he turned on his heels and hurried out of the room.