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The small child is watching as bandits raid his house, hidden underneath a table and some rags. He watches has his father screams and brandishes an oar at them, but he doesn’t see the man coming up behind with a sword. His father does not notice the man until the sword is buried deep into his back. He watches as his mother pleads for mercy not to be taken, she resists, scratching and kicking until one of the bandits gets fed up and slits her throat open. She slumps over on the floor, her eyes filled with surprise but then dimming, dimming, until there is no light in them.
The bandits kick things in his house, and finding nothing on value they spit on the floor and leave. Nevertheless, the child stays hidden underneath the table the whole day and night and up until the next morning when he cannot stand it anymore.
Once he leaves his house he sees that every other house in this small fishing village has been given the same treatment and there is no one left around except for the bodies of his neighbours and the seagulls picking at them.
He walks to the beach, looking out in the endless sea and wonders if this is the end for him as well. He doesn’t know if he’s crying or the salty sea spray is getting to his face. He walks aimlessly, not noticing he's gone from the sandy part of the beach to the stony part. He doesn't notice his surroundings until he accidentally sticks his foot into a small rocky cove. It's s small one that he has visited many times, often looking for little creatures that wash up in it. He finds it’s not empty today: the visitors are two shark pups. He gets his foot out and crouches down to peer at them more closely. Normally when creatures wash up in this little cove he just tosses them in a basket to eat them later, but he had never seen a shark before.
He marvels at their flexible movements, so much more elegant and fluid than the skittish fish he is used to. On an impulse he reaches out his hand to touch them and the cove is small enough that they cannot escape his grasp. He gasps when he feels the texture of their skin, he isn't expecting it to be so rough. It reminds him of running his hand through gritty sand. With the sun beating down on his back, he watches the shark pups until dusk, when the tide was going out and the little cove is emptied of sea water. He watches them falter and struggle for air and he wonders if he will watch the light wither away from their eyes like his mother’s. Her face suddenly fills his thoughts and he is overwhelmed with foreboding and rage and he decides he will not let them die. He grabs one of the shark pups and carries it over to the sea, not letting go of the struggling animal until he is waist deep in water and he knows it can swim away. It darts away from him like so many other sea creatures and the boy says goodbye in his head. He goes back for the second shark and releases it as well, though he hesitates for a moment before letting go of its tail. Soon in darts into the murkiness of the water and becomes unseen. The boy stays in the sea, the chilly evening air and the cold water making him feel as cold as his soul. He eventually goes back to his parents’ house, their bodies still were they lay and falls asleep under the table.
The next morning he almost does not get up. He wonders, if he laid on the floor long enough without eating, would he become a corpse like his mother?
A strange impulse overcomes him, the same one that had made him touch the shark pups yesterday. He wants to see the little cove again, even though he was sure the sharks would not be there. Why would they? No creature ever washed up in that same spot twice. Still, before he knows it, he's up and heading through the stone beach towards the cove. His heart begins beating faster when he approaches the cove and sees there was something in it. He almost cries out when he comes upon and sees the two shark pups again. He sticks his hand into the water, and this time they do not shy away from it. One of them even brushes up against it, the rough skin rasping the back of his hand.
“Jiromaru,” he whispers to the one the one closest to him, the one that brushed against him. He looks at the other one, “Saburomaru, nice to meet you. I’m Shiranui.”