Work Text:
Though he’d never tell Rin, Haruka had a dream like that, too. But he wasn’t a half-fish-man in his. In this dream, Haruka was just an ordinary chef who worked at a restaurant overlooking the ocean. He would both cook and serve the dishes, usually lunch and dinner as well as desserts. Once the day was done, he’d usually stop by the public pool before returning to his own home. It was a simple existence.
That night, he decided to swim in the ocean instead. It was closer, and something about the water felt more inviting that evening. He never thought of himself as someone who would stare out at the purple and red horizon and wonder what else was out there. He’s fine where he is. Yet, when he looked out that way, he felt something strange stirring in his chest.
Shaking his head, he looked down at the water again. But something caught his eye below the surface, and he ducked his head down to get a better look. It shined and glittered in the light filtering through the surface of the water, like a cherry blossom petal. A pink scale? He’d never seen a fish like that around here, and his mind immediately went to the idea of fish people… but he quickly quashed that thought down. He knew well enough that there was no such thing. Catching it with cupped hands, he changed back into his clothes and carefully took it back to his place.
The next day, a new customer arrived at the cafe. Haruka knew, because as popular as their place is, there’s only so many people in their small town. A police officer? This new arrival had intense red eyes and wine-colored hair, and when he flashed a smile, Haruka could see that he had uniquely pointed teeth.
“Hey! You make burgers here?”
Easy enough-- Haruka grilled it as he made his own lunch. With only a few others enjoying lunch in this place, the cop sat at a table near Haruka’s.
“The view here is amazing!” he said, looking wide-eyed out at the ocean before taking a big bite. His eyes also lit up as he sighed in delight, quickly taking another bite. Could it really be that delicious?
“I guess,” Haruka said in response, taking smaller bites of his own mackerel lunch. The cop glanced down at the plate briefly, before looking back up at Haruka.
“Don’t you like the beach?” the cop asks. “It’s like the whole world’s on the other side of it.”
Haruka didn’t get why the cop was being so chummy while they were both just eating on their breaks. But he gave it another look, with the white sand and blue waters illuminated intensely in the noontime sun. He looked out all the way where the sky and the water met, nearly blending into each other on this cloudless day.
“I gotta get back to it. Will you be here tomorrow?”
“Yeah.”
Whatever it is that the cop wanted, Haruka supposed he didn’t have any problem with him coming around.
---
The next day, the officer came around with a net full of fish.
“Here. You like mackerel, right? So take it.”
Haruka looked at the net full of mackerel. It doesn’t look like it came from the market, so how did he catch that many so quickly?
“Are you a fisherman in your spare time?”
“Ahh, I guess you could say that,” the officer said, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I’m kinda tired of fish, though. I want more red meat!”
“So, another burger? I need a name for the order.”
There were a couple more people around now that before, but he didn’t actually need a name to keep track of who this guy was. It just helped keep it more convenient, that’s all. Not that he was trying to get the officer’s name. But the man’s face lit up with a big, toothy smile, and all the mental reasoning that he made for himself melted away before it.
“Matsuoka Rin!”
Most days after that, Rin would stop by for lunch, bringing some mackerel and usually ordering something meaty. Once, Ikuya was about to come up to take his order, and came back behind the counter with a confused (and not all that friendly) look.
“Who is that guy?”
Despite how they would talk somewhat and pass the time around lunch, Haruka didn’t know anything beyond what Rin had told him.
One day, he talked about life outside of the small town. Despite looking the same age as Haruka himself, he sure had traveled a lot more-- Haruka had never been anywhere else. But that was fine. He didn’t have interest in stuff beyond this. He could swim and have a steady life. Yet he looked out over the ocean from time to time…
“Hey, Haru,” he started, looking out there as well. “You go swimming, don’t you?”
And so, at the beach is where he went to swim. Rin was to join him soon. Normally, his friends would join him at the pool when they weren’t busy. But Haruka was fine with swimming and enjoying the water by itself… even if he felt somewhat alone in it at times. He laid on his back in the water, letting himself float… until he heard running steps, quickly followed by a huge splash.
He swam next to Rin, who gave him that big, bright smile again… and swam past him, glittering pink scales and fin passing by Haruka’s eyes.
---
“I’m a merman, not a half-fish-man!”
“But you’re half a fish.”
The both of them laid on the beach together, after their swim. At first, Haruka didn’t even say anything about what he’d seen, letting himself feel as if in a dream. Just the two of them, swimming together, Haruka swimming with a creature that everyone told him didn’t exist as a child...
“My sister and I are the last I’ve ever seen. And when I saw you… even though you’re a human, you looked just like one of us. Which is why I knew I could trust you about it.”
Rin gave a slight laugh, as he looked over to Haruka.
“I kinda thought that you’d change, like me, when I first saw you.”
Haruka was silent for a moment. “I thought your tail was some trick,” he said back, prodding at one of the scales, prompting blushing and awkward protest from Rin. But he still could hardly believe that these half-fish-men could really exist, let alone in this small town.
“We swim from place to place, never keeping to one place too long,” Rin went on, as if he knew that Haruka would wonder about that. “We only got here recently. But… Haru, I wanted to know if you’d want to… go anywhere.”
Outside of this village? With just that fish people exist, was this some kind of call to adventure? But he couldn’t just jump at this call. His life has been established here, as simple as it is, and he’s become so settled into the routine that there’s something intimidating about breaking it. Could he really just do something like go somewhere completely new?
“You don’t have to answer it right now. It’ll be a while until we go.”
There must be something about the ocean that changed people. Nothing ever stayed the same about it. And though Haruka continued to cook and serve meals at the cafe, he kept thinking about it, especially as they swam together more. What did Rin see, and… would he want to see it as well? Enough to change everything?
---
He wondered what he would ultimately decide upon in his dream.