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Chapter Text

Yuuri plunges his arm in the water again and curses when he splashes his face and glasses and ends up empty-handed. The season for fishing has just started but so far his bucket only counts a lazy crab and tiny fishes that he will have to throw back in the sea.

The days are slow in Hasetsu during the off-season, even more so since Yuuri has retired. He still goes to the rink and has a couple of ice shows planned next winter, but it’s nothing like the training rhythm he was used to. He works at the Onsen, where the patrons are rare and the tourists have not started to come yet, and so he spends most of his time at the beach or the ballet studio. He comes home in the evening to help in the kitchen or in the baths.

He sits back on a big rock and wipes his wet hands on his jeans. He sighs and peels a long strand of algae off his forearm with a wince.

“Do you come here often?”

Yuuri jumps in surprise. He was fairly certain to be alone. It takes a bit of hiking to reach this small cove and only a handful of inhabitants of Hasetsu know about it. There’s not a lot of sand and it’s mainly boulders and rocks that jut out far into the sea, making the place a good spot for fishing, but not so much for swimming.

Yuuri looks around. No one is on the beach. He squints but he cannot see anything but white sand and quiet waves.

He shakes his head and wipes his forehead with the back of his hand. The sun is high in the sky, it’s getting hot, and he’s hungry. He must have stayed alone so long that he’s hearing voices in the lapping of the ocean.

“You should try this reef over there, it’s full of spider crabs.”

This time Yuuri jerks up. He stands precariously on a green rock, his net in one hand and his bucket in the other. His heart quickens. Something large and dark is moving under the waves next to him. He takes a step back when it breaks the surface. He has a loud sigh of relief.

It’s a seal. A brown seal, rather fat and friendly looking. Yuuri squats. It doesn’t seem afraid. It’s not uncommon to see seals around the harbor, lying on the pontoons and enjoying the sun while they wait for the fish to come to them in the trawlers.

Yuuri takes one of the wriggling fishes in his bucket and throws it. The seal catches it like a dog catches a tennis ball, and disappears into the water. Yuuri smiles for a second, until he frowns again. Seals don’t speak. He is clearly imagining voices.

“Are you going to ignore me forever?”

The voice has come closer. Yuuri feels a chill down his spine. He turns around and flinches.

There is a man in the water, holding onto a boulder to keep himself afloat. Yuuri had not seen him between the waves and the rocks, only his face and the top of his chest are visible from where he is.

Yuuri has already seen divers here before. The cove is quiet, far from the tourists, their noise, and their pollution, the area is perfect for snorkeling. Usually, they don’t pay attention to him and they busy themselves each in their own spot without disturbing the other.

“I’m sorry I- I thought I was alone,” Yuuri balbutiates.

“It’s fine.”

The man doesn’t look like the people Yuuri usually comes across. Not even like the tourists he greets at the Onsen. He has no diving gear, no mask, no snorkel. His skin is so pale it looks like it is glowing. His hair is silver and it is so long that it floats in the water around him. His shoulders are wide and his biceps perfectly defined. Yuuri swallows. His throat is tight.

Yuuri forces himself to stop staring not to be rude. He frowns again. The man couldn’t look more out of place if he tried. Maybe it’s a surfer.

“Erm- Are you fishing too?” Yuuri asks abruptly, as to make up for his lack of response to the previous questions.

“Nah, I’m just swimming around, taking Makka out a little bit…”

Yuuri doesn’t really know what he is talking about but he doesn’t ask. For a second he thinks the conversation is over, but another question comes.

“Did you catch something?”

Yuuri shakes his head down. “It’s too early in the year, I barely caught a crab…”

The diver cocks his head to the side and raises an eyebrow. He taps his lip with his finger, and disappears in the water before Yuuri can speak again. A long minute passes and Yuuri notes that he must be used to diving to hold his breath for so long. He is starting to worry when the man comes back up.

He doesn’t even seem out of breath. He is holding something in his hands. Yuuri opens a gaping mouth. It’s a giant clam, at least five times as big as what Yuuri usually finds between the rocks. He has sometimes seen exceptionally big conches at the fish market, but he doesn’t remember ever seeing one that size.

The man has a large, blissful smile at Yuuri’s surprised face. His mouth almost looks like a heart.

“You need to go quite deep for these ones but they are delicious, very squishy!” he says as he pushes the clam toward Yuuri, who shakes his head.

“You should keep it for yourself, it’s a really big one.”

“No, it’s fine, it’s not that big and I can always find another one.”

Yuuri is getting more and more confused, but once again, doesn’t ask further. This whole situation is strange and he doesn’t really know where it is going. Part of him is curious, but he’s never at ease with strangers and he’d feel much better if this conversation was over quickly.

A cloud passes in front of the sun and the sky darkens. Yuuri checks the time. His stomach growls. It’s a good enough excuse to leave politely.

“It’s getting late, I have to go. Thank you for erm- this,” he says as he picks up the clam and throws it in his bucket.

The man flashes him another huge smile and Yuuri flushes. It’s a really nice smile. “See you later!”

Yuuri is not sure he will ever see him again but he is glad that the discussion is over. He is about to turn around when something catches his attention. The diver pushes back against the rocks and swims away. Yuuri freezes into place.

Until now he could only see the chest of the man, and he was reasonably assuming that he was a regular man in a swimsuit, albeit a very good looking man. But now he sees that he was wrong. He blinks and his eyes widen behind his glasses. For a second he thinks that it’s just the reflection of the sun in the water, the fluid movement of the waves and the froth stirred by the wind that make him imagine shapes and forms. He keeps looking and his stomach twists as he realizes that the man doesn’t have legs.

Instead he has a giant tail. A fishtail, covered in thousands of iridescent scales. It’s longer and wider than human legs, flexible, powerful as it kicks under the surface and easily moves against the current. It glimmers with silvers, blues, greens, pinks, purples, it reflects the light in every color that Yuuri’s eyes can see and then some.

Yuuri watches it undulate as the man swims away. The large fin at the end of the tail rises above the water for a second, and disappears under the dark surface of the ocean.

Yuuri’s knees buckle. He falls on his butt. He stares at the quiet surface in dismay. His heart is beating so fast that feels almost nauseous.

It’s ten good minutes before he manages to gather his thoughts, stand back up, and pick up his bucket to leave.

“He had a fishtail.”

“A fishtail?”

“Yeah! Like- no legs, just a tail, and a fin at the end!”

“A fin?”

“Yeah, like a tuna or something.”

Mari and Yuuko look at him with worried eyes. They have just finished dinner and the whole family has marveled at the giant clam that Yuuri brought back from his outing at the beach. He has told his parents that he was lucky to find a good spot for clams and mussels, but what he has seen is too big to keep it all for himself. When his parents go to bed, he cannot help but share what he has seen with his sister and his friend.

“So… a mermaid,“ Mari says, perplexed.

“Exactly!” Yuuri gasps, relieved that he is not the only one to reach this conclusion.

Yuuko and Mari exchange a glance.

“Looks like someone stayed under the sun a bit too long…” Mari teases.

“No I swear!” Yuuri insists. To be fair, he has himself spent the rest of the afternoon worrying about his mental health, and had he not had the clam as a proof that it happened, he would have thought it was just his imagination and not talked about it to anyone.

“Half man, half tuna…” Yuuko wonders.

“We should get sushi tomorrow,” Mari says absentmindedly.

“Maybe it was a fancy swimsuit like in these waterparks.”

Yuuri shakes his head. “It wasn’t… It was… It was not a suit.”

No fabric, no material could look like this under the sun, Yuuri knows it. And even if it were a suit, it could not explain how the tail was so flexible. There is no way that a pair of legs was hidden in the costume. The whole thing makes Yuuri shudder.

“You didn’t see clearly, he was just a cute diver and you got distracted,” Mari says with a wink.

Yuuri blushes. “No, really-”

“He offered you a giant clam and you fell in love.”

“It’s not-”

"Was there a pearl in the clam?” Yuuko asks with curiosity.

“Come on Yuuri, it’s ok,” Mari coos. “Are you going to see him again?”

“I don’t know, he went underwater and left.”

“He left? He didn’t come back on the beach?”

“I didn’t see him come out of the water.”

“He hid behind a rock until you left? That’s awkward.”

“Really awkward,“ Mari adds."Maybe he swam to the next cove.”

“That’s quite a distance,” Yuuko says with a frown. “I’m not sure… Even a good swimmer… I mean I wouldn’t try it.”

“Yuuri, you got friendzoned by a guy disguised as a tuna.”

Yuuri face and ears are crimson. He knows that his story sounds ridiculous, and part of his brain still wonders if he has had an hallucination, but hearing it said out loud just makes him sad and upset. He grunts in frustration and storms out as Mari and Yuuko laugh behind him.

The next day Yuuri goes back to the cove. He sits on the rocks and watches the horizon anxiously. He waits. The sun reflects on the waves just like it did the day before and makes him hope for a visit.

He waits two whole hours. Nothing happens. He bitterly drags his feet back home and avoids running into Mari when he sneaks back into his bedroom.

He goes back the next day. And the day after. And the day after. Every time he looks around, far over the horizon, closer right next to him behind the rocks. A couple of times he thinks he has seen a strand of silver hair or the reflection of scales. He throws a few fishes in the water in hopes to attract the brown seal. A week passes.

“Still thinking about tuna-man?”

“Mari, he was real.”

“He was a dude with a swimsuit… Get over it and pass me the plates over there.”

Yuuri hands her the plates and grabs the sponge to finish washing the dishes. Maybe she is right. He is not sure about what he remembers anymore.

At night when he closes his eyes, he sees the colors of the tail and the iridescent scales.

Maybe it was just a dream.

Chapter Text

Yuuri still goes to the beach but he stops looking at the horizon in hopes of seeing the giant fishtail.

He mumbles for himself as he fumbles in the water. He finds a big crab hidden in the sand. When he goes to put it in his bucket, he stops. The bucket is full of water. A bright blue tropical fish floats lazily under the surface.

“Do you like it? I caught it for you.”

Yuuri jumps. It’s the same voice. He looks up. The silver hair, the marble skin, the wide shoulders. Yuuri almost wants to cry in relief. He is not crazy. It wasn’t a dream.

“It’s you!” he gasps, louder than he would have liked.

“I’m Victor.”

“Victor?”

“This is Makkachin,” the man replies as he points at the seal. “She loves to play. She likes you because you give her fishes.”

“Just… Victor?”

Victor nods.

Yuuri’s heart is beating. He needs to ask. “You- you have a tail…” he stammers awkwardly.

Victor pushes on his arms to pull himself up out of the water and sit on a round boulder. Yuuri stumbles backward. It looks terrifying.

At his waist, his skin fades under silver scales that darken as they go down his hips and follow the curve of his tail. It bends and curls like a snake body and Yuuri is absolutely sure that there are no legs, no bones underneath. It ends with a wide fin, so thin is that is it translucent. Victor dips it in and out of the water like a kid plays in a puddle. He splashes the brown seal and laughs.

Yuuri has hardly ever felt so conflicted. It looks nothing close to normal and yet he cannot look away. It is at the same time horrifying and absolutely gorgeous. Yuuri’s eyes follow the soft movement of Victor’s hair down his back, the arch of his spine, the curve of his hips that is so perfectly round now that he is sitting out of the water.  

Victor catches his gaze. He suddenly looks worried and stops playing with the water with his tail.

“Are you afraid?” he asks softly.

“I- It’s… I had never seen… that.”

The truth is, Yuuri has no idea of what exactly he is feeling. It is like his brain cannot process all the things he is seeing. There is something deeply disturbing in the way Victor’s chest fades into his tail but Yuuri is mesmerized. The more he looks at him, the more he wonders how he didn’t see from the first time that Victor was not exactly an ordinary man.

The skin between his fingers goes up to the first knuckles and forms a thin web that lets the light shine through. His elbows and his shoulders are covered in tiny scales, so pale and delicate that they blend into his skin. And his eyes, they are so unnaturally blue that Yuuri cannot believe that he had not noticed them before. The light reflects on the water onto his chest in flickering spots. His shoulders are square and his pecs and abs carved by a life of swimming. Yuuri feels strangely hot.

He realizes that he has been staring in a very impolite way. He wants to apologize but when he looks up, it seems that Victor is doing exactly the same, examining Yuuri’s figure, his legs, the way he stands and he balances on his feet. Their eyes meet and Yuuri’s heart quickens.

“I won't hurt you,” Victor says, and Yuuri naively wants to believe him.

“I thought you’d not come back.”

“The currents were not good, it was dangerous to come close to the beach.”

“Will you come back tomorrow?”

“Will you?”

“Yes.”

“Then yes.”

Yuuri relaxes slightly. He dares to take a couple of steps toward Victor to sit close enough to talk quietly. He still has a hard time taking his eyes off the tail, until Victor flips his hair back behind his shoulder and something catches Yuuri’s attention. On his neck, behind his ear, Victor’s skin is ripped. Yuuri shivers. He shifts to look closer. The skin moves and the gashes open and close. Yuuri flinches back.

“Are you hurt?” he asks with worry. Victor doesn’t seem to be in pain. He looks like he doesn’t even know that he has holes in his neck.

“No?”

Yuuri’s jaw falls slack. “Oh my god… You have gills?”

“Don’t you?”

“No!”

“That’s weird.”

“What-”

Yuuri sighs and can’t repress a nervous chuckle. Being told that he is weird by a mermaid, that’s one more thing he never thought would happen to him.

The brown seal comes closer and plays with Victor in the water. Yuuri cannot get tired of watching them.

As agreed he goes back to the beach the next day, and Victor makes him promise to come the following day, and again the day after, and asks again until they don’t have to say it anymore and they just meet in the same spot in the morning. Mari asks Yuuri where he disappears every day and he just says that he goes fishing. He spends the day enjoying the sun and talking with Victor, and at the end of the day, Victor brings him crabs, urchin, oysters, and clams to fill his bucket to the top to pretend he was actually fishing.

At first Yuuri kept a reasonable distance, but as the days pass, he gets tired of trying to stay out of reach as if Victor was always about to attack him. One day Yuuri shows up at the beach but doesn’t walk on the rocks over the sea. He stays on the sand and waits for Victor to join him

“You’re not making this very easy,” Victor whines as he drags himself on the wet sand. He keeps the end of his tail in the water, just where the waves come to die.

“Sorry. I thought the sand would be more comfortable to sit and relax.”

Victor pouts and rubs his arms to remove the sand that is sticking to his skin.

“Can I touch it?” Yuuri asks as he points at Victor’s tail.

Victor raises an eyebrow but he nods. Yuuri extends his hand and lets the tips of his fingers brush over the scales that run down Victor’s hip. It’s smoother than he thought it would be. After a moment he places his whole hand flat and runs it down the side of the tail. It’s firm and plump. He can feel the muscles twitch under the skin as he moves his hand down. Victor blushes.

“Do you feel it when I touch you?”

Victor nods again. “Your hand is warm.”

Yuuri moves to reach the tailfin. It feels like silky fabric, soft and fragile. Yuuri traces the pattern with his finger and Victor twitches.

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri murmurs, still captivated.

“It tingles.”

Yuuri runs his hand back up toward Victor’s stomach. Something feels weird under his palm. Some of the scales are arranged in a strange way. It looks like there’s a gash in his tail. Without thinking, Yuuri runs his finger over it. Victor gasps and squirms away.

“Are you hurt? Did I hurt you?” Yuuri asks with worry.

“No- not really. It felt weird. I don’t usually let people touch me there. Only for mating.”

Yuuri takes back his hand and flushes to the root of his hair. The slit is right in the middle front of Victor’s tail and Yuuri had not thought a second that he was doing something inappropriate.

“You could’ve warned me!” Yuuri complains nervously.

“I didn’t think you would put your finger right there on purpose!” Victor chuckles.

Yuuri is embarrassed but he cannot help but glance at the slit in Victor’s tail again.

“How do you... reproduce?” he dares to ask.

Victor frowns in incomprehension. “The female lays eggs inside the male and then they are fertilized in his belly and it makes little fishes, how else?”

Yuuri shrugs vaguely. He’ll deal with this problem later. “Nah, I was just asking…” He pauses before he asks again, “Do you have a mate?”

Victor shakes his head. “I’ve always been rather solitary. I think I hoped I could meet someone while traveling.

Mari scolds Yuuri for being distracted when he helps in the kitchen at the Onsen and Yuuri realizes that Victor never really leaves his thoughts anymore. To be fair, who would not think about something so incredible as meeting a mermaid?

Victor tells Yuuri about the deep sea. About other merpeople, about his life before he left the northern sea. He narrates the first time he came to the surface, the first time he visited the wreck of a ship, and that one time he swam into a school of sharks. Yuuri listens for hours like he’d listen to an epic odyssey. Sometimes he wonders if any of it is true, but to be honest, he doesn’t really care. He just wants to listen to the purr of Victor’s voice over the lapping of the waves and the whistle of the wind.

“I wish I could see all of this,” Yuuri says one day after Victor finishes describing the coral reefs and the exotic fish that live around it.

“Come with me.”

Yuuri blinks. “What? How?”

Victor shrugs. “I don’t know. We can figure it out?”

Yuuri feels weirdly worried. While they have gotten closer, he still has never been in the water with Victor. He was always either on the beach where Victor is helpless because he has to crawl on the sand, or on the boulders at a safe distance from the sea. He doesn’t reply and throws a shrimp for Makkachin to catch before changing subject.

That night Yuuri googles it. He finds gorgeous images of beautiful mermaids brushing their hair while enjoying the sun. He thinks about Victor and the way his hair floats in the water like a silver halo. He bites his lip. He goes from website to website, he reads forum posts of people who pretend to have met actual mermaids, he squints at dark, blurry pictures that are supposed to be proof of their stories. It is well after midnight when he reaches a strange part of the internet where he doesn’t know what to believe anymore. Bloggers share terrible tales of lost sailors, lured to their death by shiny curls of hair and colored scales. There are illustrations of creatures with spines, claws, pointy teeth, and mad eyes. Rumor has it they look gorgeous when they are above the surface, and the deeper they go the more terrifying they look.

The next day Yuuri is slightly relieved to see that Victor is just his usual self. No claws or spines. He has pinned up his hair with a piece of coral and his back shimmers with hundreds of silver scales that enhance the curve of his spine down to his tail. Yuuri feels his ears blush at the sight.

He cannot force himself to bring up the subject. He wouldn’t even know where to start. “Hey, are you trying to seduce me to eat me? Just asking, no big deal.”

It is another couple of weeks before he gathers the confidence to confront Victor.

“Victor… Why did you come here?” he asks, softly but seriously.

“Makkachin likes to play in the algae that grow between the rocks by the beach.”

“Are you sure?” Yuuri insists.

“Why?”

“I read… things. About mermaids.”

“What things?”

Yuuri dodges the question. “Why did you come to see me? I’m not interesting at all. You could be swimming around the world instead of staying here with me.”

Victor’s face changes and Yuuri can see that he is hurt by his words.

“I saw you when you were fishing,” Victor explains slowly. “You put back the small fishes into the sea and it attracted Makkachin. She brought me to you. I thought it was nice that you freed your smaller catches. I don’t usually see humans alone at the beach, I avoid them because I don’t know how they would react. But you… You looked like you wouldn’t hurt me?”

Yuuri looks down at himself. His jeans rolled up at the ankles, his net that has seen better days, and his empty plastic bucket. Even if he had wanted to, he wouldn’t have been able to hurt anyone, let alone a giant fish who could drag him underwater and wait for him to suffocate.

Victor sees his hesitation and the doubt in his eyes. “I’m not magical, you know?” he adds. “We’re just another species, we evolved that way.”

Yuuri nods but he doesn’t believe a word of it. Nothing in the way Victor’s scales glimmer in the sun, the way his tail moves in the water, the way his hair shines down his back, is natural. If it’s not magic then Yuuri doesn’t know how to explain why he is so captivated when Victor speaks, when he smiles, when he blushes. Why he loves to see him swim and play with the fin of his tail. Why he is happy when Victor is happy, and why he is so upset to see him sad.

“I like you a lot,” Yuuri confesses, “and I wish I could come with you but I… I- Maybe later.”

Victor cannot completely hide his disappointment. His eyes are sad but he nods anyway. “I understand.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I hope that one day you’ll trust me enough.”

“You don’t trust us either... You hide from fishermen and divers.”

“I trust you.”

At first Yuuri thinks that it’s a bit easy for an answer, and shrugs it off. But when he goes back home that night, he realizes that if he told other people about Victor, if he brought them to the cove to surprise him in an ambush, they’d probably try to capture him. He would be kept in a lab until they understand how he is half man, half fish, or sent to Sea World to jump through hoops for food as a circus animal. Realization dawns on Yuuri that Victor actually trusts him with his life.

On the first day of July, Victor is sitting on the rocks and brushing his hair with an urchin when Yuuri comes to meet him. The silver strands fall down his back and match the scales that run down his spine. The curve of his tail at his hips makes Yuuri flush once again and he is genuinely concerned about being physically attracted to a fish.

When the sun gets too hot Victor goes back into the water not to dry out. When he emerges he sees that Yuuri is taking off his shoes.

“What are you doing?”

Yuuri doesn’t reply. He takes off his socks and rolls up his jeans up to his knees. He sits on a rock and lets his feet dip into the water next to Victor. His heart is beating fast. He expects Victor to pull him to the bottom at any seconds.

But Victor does not move. He has not taken his eyes off him since he has started to take off his shoes, and he is now looking at his feet curiously.

“Your toes are really pretty,” he says after a moment.

Yuuri has a crooked smile. “This is kinda weird for a compliment.”

“Really? I like when someone says that my tail is pretty.”

“I mean… It is pretty.”

Victor splashes Yuuri with a quick move of his fin. He has a smile so big that his mouth looks like a heart. Yuuri’s heart tightens.

That night Yuuri takes a decision. Victor trusts him not to talk about him to other people and come back to the shore with nets and harpoons. If he has not tried to pull him into the water to eat him before, despite having had several occasions, there’s no reason for him to do it later.

Chapter Text

Yuuri comes to see Victor almost every day. They agree to meet at different places sometimes, depending on the tide and the weather. Mari gives Yuuri a bad time every time he comes late to care for the patrons of the Onsen. He stays up late at night to finish washing the dishes and mop the changing rooms of the baths, then he collapses on his bed and he dreams of submerged cities and colorful fishes. He is up with the first lights of the morning to run to the beach where Victor is waiting for him.

Sometimes Victor does not come and Yuuri’s chest tightens in regrets. He knows that Victor cannot be happy just swimming circles in this small cove like a goldfish in a bowl, and so he understands when he leaves for a few days. Other times Yuuri has too much to do at the Onsen or at the rink and he is busy the whole day. He does loads after loads of laundry with towels and bathrobes for the hot springs with a heavy heart, thinking about Victor who must be waiting for him and he has no way to contact him.

They meet and Yuuri sits on the rocks, letting his feet in the water, and Victor comes up between his legs. When they feel lazy they lie on the beach and enjoy the pleasant heat of the sun. Victor keeps the tip of his tail in the water.

“How long can you stay out?” Yuuri asks as Victor moves so he is in the water up to his waist again.

“I don’t know. It feels weird when I start drying so I go back.”

A few times Yuuri brings his lunch to spend the whole day with Victor. He feeds him pieces of raw salmon from his bento with his chopsticks and he watches him blush down to his collar bones. Victor winces at the taste of soy sauce, but soon asks to try it again. He tries to return the favor and brings a feisty octopus, which Yuuri promptly refuses to eat alive. The octopus suctions itself to his arm and sprays his T-shirt with ink before Victor manages to take it off and throw it back into the water with embarrassed apologies. 

Yuuri takes another few days to think but he soon tells Victor what has been on his mind lately.

“I want to come with you,” he says when he joins him at the beach the next day.

“Where?”

“In the water.”

Victor’s eyebrows rise. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

There’s a voice in Yuuri’s brain that tells him that this might as well be the last thing he’ll do in his life, but Victor looks so happy that Yuuri forces himself to ignore his concerns.

Victor beams. He swims a circle and splashes Yuuri with his tail, before coming back and resting against the rocks to wait for him to join him.

Yuuri hesitates. He has a little sigh and unbuttons his jeans to take them off. He folds them, and when he bends to put them down, something pokes his butt. He gasps and turns around.

Victor blushes. “I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?”

“Not really but-”

“You touched my tail so I thought I could… Your behind is really round and squishy.”

Yuuri flushes too. “I… I guess?”

Yuuri takes off his shirt and dips his toes in the water. He flinches back. He sits down and lets his legs plunge into the water. He shivers as the hairs on his thighs rise. He warily touches the surface with his hand and splashes himself a few times. Victor looks at him curiously.

“It’s cold, ok?” Yuuri mumbles.

“Not really? We’ve had warm currents from the south lately, it feels just nice.”

Yuuri looks at Victor and for a moment he wonders how he is not cold in the water. Seals have a nice layer of fat under their skin to protect them, but Yuuri would be hard-pressed to find an ounce of fat on Victor’s body. His pecs are firm and defined, his shoulders sculpted, and his abs chiseled to perfection. Yuuri briefly forgets what he was about to do.

Victor takes him out of his fantasy. “Yuuri? Have you changed your mind?”

Yuuri shakes his head to clear his thoughts. He takes off his glasses and puts them aside. He hesitates for one more second, takes a deep breath, and jumps in. He plunges under the surface and swims back up. His whole body shudders at the shock of the freezing water.

Victor seems amused. “You’re not very good at floating,” he notes as Yuuri keeps moving his arms and legs to keep his head out of the water.

“Let’s see how good you are at walking next time,” Yuuri replies bitterly.

Victor chuckles. He grabs Yuuri’s hand, and Yuuri barely has time to take in a deep breath before Victor pulls him with him toward the bottom.

They go deeper and deeper and Yuuri cannot stop looking at Victor. The way his hair floats in the water and creates a silver halo around him. The way his tail undulates and his scales reflect the light from the surface. Fishes of all kinds swim around them. Victor keeps pulling Yuuri by the hand. A shoal of fish passes by them. Victor lets go Yuuri’s hand to go meet a sea turtle. Yuuri had never seen one so close. He is captivated. Victor swims deeper to pick up a handful of seaweed at the bottom of the ocean and feed it to the turtle.

Yuuri kicks with his legs to go back up and catch his breath. He looks up and feels a chill down his spine. The surface is much farther than he thought. With the power of Victor’s tail, they have dived so easily that Yuuri didn’t think about the time he would need to go back up.

He kicks and swims but he cannot seem to move up. It is like his body suddenly weighs a ton and he is being pulled to the bottom by the current. The more he struggles, the worse it gets. His chest is constricted by the lack of oxygen and he can feel his heart race against his ribs. He keeps swimming but it seems that the surface is moving farther and father. His muscles get tired and his mind becomes blurry. He desperately tries to call for help, but when he opens his mouth, he just lets out his last bubble of air and swallows a cup of seawater that burns when it floods his throat and nose. He sees Victor’s silhouette swim toward him, and everything goes black.

It is strange, Yuuri thinks, how he is losing consciousness and yet he can feel Victor’s lips against his. It’s soft but urging. Victor is holding his face and pressing his mouth against his. He parts his lips, and in a desperate second of survival instinct, Yuuri takes in a breath.

Suddenly he is not drowning anymore. It's a gulp of fresh air, a breath of life in his lungs. It dissipates the fog in his brain and the numbing that had caught his body.

Victor doesn’t wait for him to understand what is going on. He grabs Yuuri by the waist and carries him up to the surface. He swims toward the beach until the water is shallow enough that he can safely put Yuuri down on the sand.

Yuuri drags himself out of the water and stays on his knees as he violently coughs the salt out of his throat and gasps to breathe. He is freezing, covered in goosebumps, and his whole body shakes like a leaf. His mind is rushing. His chest heaves and his heart refuses to calm down.

“Are you alright?” Victor asks with worry.

Yuuri nods weakly.

“I'm sorry, I got too excited, it was the first time and-”

“It was worth it,” Yuuri cuts in a breath.

“I almost killed you.”

Yuuri nods again. “Worth it.”

Yuuri straightens up. Victor has crawled up next to him. The waves that crash on the sand come to lick the end of his tail. Undisturbed by the fact that they’re both covered in wet sand, Yuuri cradles Victor’s face in his hands. He can feel his gills with the tip of his fingers. He gets close enough to see every trait of Victor’s face neatly without his glasses.

“How did you do this?”

Victor shrugs. “I don’t run out of oxygen, I can share a bit of it.”

Yuuri has a small chuckle. Everything is crazy. Just a month ago he was bored to death in his small town and now he is kissed back to life by a man with a fishtail who can breathe underwater.

“Are you ok?” Victor asks again when Yuuri keeps looking at him without letting him go.

Yuuri nods. He bends over to close the distance between them. He holds Victor’s cheeks and presses a kiss on his lips.

It tastes like salt and iodine. It's fresh like the wind over the sea. It makes Yuuri’s whole body shiver with excitement, it wakes something, deep inside his chest. He is soaked to the bones, trembling as the cold penetrates every layer of his skin, and yet it feels like he is burning inside.

He pulls away slightly to look at Victor’s reaction. Their eyes meet and the next second Victor is kissing him back, fiercely and hungrily. They roll in the sand without breaking the kiss and Yuuri finally knows what it’s like to be held in Victor’s arms.

“I thought you were afraid,” Victor whispers when they finally pull apart.

“I was,” Yuuri admits. “But… What I feel for you… It’s stronger than fear.”

Yuuri stays on the beach until the sun almost disappears behind the horizon. He barely hears Mari when she scolds him for coming home late after they have finished the chores without him. When he goes to bed, his cheeks are pink and his heart still fluttering. He closes his eyes and his dreams are filled with all the colors of Victor’s tail.

The following days are pure idyll. They cannot see each other enough and, at night, Yuuri wishes Victor could be by his side. He wishes Victor could hold him in his arms under the blanket and they could wake up together in the morning. As much as he loves their kisses, he sometimes would like not to be wet and cold every time they hug. In the back of his mind, he knows that their relationship makes no sense. They will never be able to live together, no matter how often Yuuri goes to see Victor. He tries not to think about it.

August comes with summer storms and rain. Several times they cancel their dates because of the weather forecast. The humidity in the air is suffocating. One night is particularly violent and Yuuri stares through the window as the thunder rips through the dark sky. The trees bend under the wind and, in the ocean, the waves rise high and mercilessly crash on the shore.

Yuuri knows that Victor is safe, deep under the surface, maybe he has even swum away to reach a quieter beach for the night. Yuuri tries to convince himself but he cannot help but fear the worst. His heart knows that something is wrong.

When the sun finally shines through the clouds in the early morning, Yuuri runs to the cove.

He walks to the rocks and looks into the water in hope to see Victor or Makkachin. The surface is calm and Victor is not there.

The storm has brought a small boat crashing against the boulders. Plastic bottles and other pieces of garbage have been brought by the waves, and the cove that used to be such a preserved haven is now sad to look at. Yuuri walks farther along the beach. A large fishing net has also been washed up.

Yuuri shudders. His guts twist. There’s something in the net. From afar, it looks like it could be a washed up dolphin, but if Yuuri is honest with himself, that’s the outline of a human body.

When he gets closer there's no doubt anymore. The pearly skin, the silver hair. It's Victor, lying out of the water, eyes closed and completely motionless. His whole body is tangled in the green fishing net in a big bundle of ropes, algae, and dead fishes. Yuuri’s heart skips a beat. For a second he thinks that the man might not be Victor, but his face cannot lie, not when Yuuri knows every line of it better than his own. Victor’s tail has disappeared. Instead, he has legs. Two long legs, white and firm as if they were sculpted in marble, covered in salt and sand and scratched at the knees.

Yuuri kneels. “Victor!” he calls as tries to pull away the net and take him into his arms. He puts his hand on his chest. He sighs in relief. Victor is still breathing, feebly but regularly. He is cold and his skin is so pale that his lips look blue. Yuuri looks at his new legs again.

“Oh Victor... What happened to you?”

Chapter Text

Yuuri’s fingers tremble over Victor’s skin. His gills are gone, and so are the scales that were on his shoulders and his arms. He has a few scratches here and there due to the ropes of the net and the sand. Yuuri’s chest tightens painfully.

He tries to undo the net but it’s so thick and slippery that he barely manages to loosen it. He reaches for his phone but stops when he doesn’t know who to call.

He is fairly sure that Victor is not registered anywhere, and he really doesn’t feel like spending the next three hours at the police station to try and explain how this man suddenly appeared out of nowhere, naked, and not even able to give his address or the name of a relative.

Yuuri calls his sister. It takes him all the pleading in the world to convince her to fetch the lifeguard and make him come to the cove. When they arrive Mari takes Yuuri aside.

"Do you know him ?"

Yuuri scratches the back of his head. “Do you remember the tuna-man?”

Mari glances above Yuuri’s shoulder at Victor. The lifeguard is squatting to look at the net. “He doesn't look anything like a tuna.”

“He had a fishtail and he was in the sea, that's how he got tangled in that net.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“How do you explain that then?”

“He’s an idiot who was on this little boat over there and got surprised by the storm and tadaaa.”

Yuuri rolls his eyes. “Come on! Look at the size of this net! It’s one to fish in the open sea, you don’t just fall into it when you fall off your boat.”

“The storm brought it there from the ocean.”

Yuuri understands that there’s no point in arguing with his sister. He wants to bring Victor to safety first.

“Please,” he begs in a whisper. “I’ll take care of him, you don’t have to do anything.”

Mari stares at him for long seconds and Yuuri feels like she’s looking through his soul.

“... You are responsible for him,” she eventually says, “and you explain that to the parents.”

The lifeguard cuts the net around Victor. After a couple of minutes of struggling he looks up at Yuuri, and they come to the conclusion that they have to cut a good part of Victor’s hair to loosen the ropes that are tangled around his shoulders and neck. Yuuri feels a pang of regret but nods, he wants to bring Victor to a doctor as quickly as possible.

“He’s naked,” Mari notes when Victor is finally free.

Yuuri blushes. “I noticed, thanks.”

“He’s really…”

“I know.”

“Gifted by nature.”

“Mari!”

The lifeguard wants to call the coastguard and Yuuri balbutiates something about Victor being a friend of his and that they don’t need to call anyone about the incident, in fact, he’d be really grateful if they could avoid telling the officials about this. The lifeguard doesn’t look convinced, but the Katsukis have been living by the port for generations and everybody likes them, he doesn’t want to cause them troubles. He helps them carry Victor back home.

Yuuri’s parents welcome their new visitor without too many questions. Hiroko hurries to help Yuuri take care of his new friend, and throws clothes and a fresh set of sheets at him while he confusedly and as vaguely as possible explains the situation.

They put Victor in bed in Yuuri’s room before calling a doctor. When he arrives Yuuri mumbles something about Victor snorkeling and getting surprised by the weather. The doctor diagnoses dehydration and hypothermia, maybe a concussion.

They cover Victor with blankets. Yuuri doesn’t take his eyes off him to make sure that he is breathing. After a while, the colors come back on his face. His skin is not translucent anymore, his cheeks get rosy and his lips pink. Yuuri had never seen Victor sleep before. He looks so peaceful that Yuuri almost forgets their troubles.

Victor eventually stirs. Yuuri watches him closely. “Victor?”

He blinks.

“How do you feel?”

He yawns. “I have… a bad headache.”

He rubs his face with his hand. He frowns and looks at his palm. The web between his fingers has receded. His hands look just like Yuuri’s now. His eyes go up his forearm. His elbow is smooth, without scales. He blinks at Yuuri and his eyes widen. His mouth falls open. He looks around frantically. He is not in the water. He is not even remotely close to the sea. He is dry and warm. Everything is wrong.

“It’s ok, you’re ok-” Yuuri starts in a poor attempt to stop what is coming, but Victor is already sitting up in the bed and pulling the blankets aside. His eyes become so wide that Yuuri flinches. Victor gets paler if possible and his face distorts in absolute horror.

“What did you do!?” he cries out when he sees his legs.

“I didn’t do anything I-”

“What did you do to me !?”

“I don't know we-”

“Why did you do that!?

“Victor please listen, I’d never-”

“I trusted you!”

A low voice rises from behind them and interrupts Victor's panic.

“He found you passed out on the beach,” Mari says coldly as she enters the room. “Without Yuuri you might have died of hypothermia before someone else found you. This is our place. If you want to leave you're free to go.”

Victor looks up at Yuuri and his eyes ask a million questions. Yuuri nods slowly to confirm what Mari just said.

Victor runs his fingers through his bangs and frowns again. He touches at the back of his head and looks back at Yuuri.

Yuuri lowers his head in embarrassment. “We had to cut it, it was badly tangled in the net and with the salt and the sand… it was impossible to comb and we wanted to make sure you were safe quickly. I’m sorry.”

Victor pinches his lips. Slowly, he brings his hand to his thigh where he used to have scales. He pinches the green fabric of the shorts he is wearing and rubs it between his fingers.

“It’s an outfit of the inn,” Yuuri explains. “We found you naked and... not that I don’t... but my sister and my mother…”

Victor pulls on the waistband to peek under it. Yuuri feels his whole body flush up to his ears. Victor is too upset to notice.

Yuuri waits until he is sure that Mari will not come back in the bedroom and that he is alone with Victor to speak more seriously.

“Is it… permanent?” he asks quietly with a tilt of the head toward Victor’s legs.

Victor shakes his head down. “I don’t know. I didn’t know this could happen.”

“That’s a lot of years of evolution at once.”

Victor looks up and he almost looks apologetic. “I had no idea.”

“What happened?”

Victor sighs. He looks away and seems vaguely ashamed. “I got caught in a lost net. I usually see them but it was so dark… My fin got tangled, I couldn’t swim to get out of the current. It brought me close to the shore and I think I hit the rocks. I guess I got washed up by the tide.”

“You had never been out of the water before?”

“No long enough to dry.”

The doctor comes back later that day after being told that Victor is awake. He asks him a lot of questions and tests his coordination. Victor is unable to tell him the date of the day, not even the year, he has no idea of what kind of job he has or where he lives. While his strength and reflexes are excellent on the upper part of his body, it becomes evident that he has troubles with his legs. He is asked to stand up to check his balance and it quickly appears that he is unable to stay on his feet. He struggles to get up, and when he finally does, it is only to fall backward on his bed immediately.

The doctor manipulates his legs for a while. He checks his feet and his joints. He frowns and scratches his head.

“His legs are extremely stiff. I see this kind of case in people who have been bedridden for several years or who have paralysis... Not in athletic young men.”

Yuuri shifts awkwardly and shrugs. Mari squints suspiciously.

Victor cannot explain how his legs became so rigid. The doctor shakes his head and mutters something about the concussion being worse than what he thought. 

“It should get better with rest and then light exercise,” he eventually sighs after Victor asks him if he can still swim. “I’ll recommend you to a physical therapist.” He takes a few steps to move away from Victor and pretends to fumble in his briefcase as bends slightly to whisper into Yuuri’s ear. “He is very disoriented. Bad memory loss. Severe confusion. He keeps talking about the sea, and swimming, and... being a fish?” the doctor says, and he shakes his head in empathy. “It might be a traumatic disorder from almost drowning on top of the concussion. Let him rest. If he still talks nonsense in a few days, call me back.”

Yuuri feels extremely embarrassed but he nods politely and prays that the doctor will not try to dig further into Victor’s problem. He just wanted to make sure that he was healthy.

Victor sleeps through the rest of the day, still hidden under several blankets. Yuuri checks on him a few times between his chores around the inn. Sometimes he wonders if Victor is actually asleep or just pretending, to be left alone and avoid conversation. He doesn’t insist and gives him the time he needs. He only comes back when it’s time for dinner.

“You must be hungry… You’ve not eaten anything today.”

Victor’s stomach growls and he reluctantly nods. He relaxes slightly when he sees the tray that Yuuri is bringing. It’s mostly raw fish, algae, and fish broth.

“I didn’t know what you would want to eat but I know you like these ones.”

Yuuri spends the next half hour teaching Victor how to use chopsticks, and the following half hour watching him eat with his fingers. After the first minutes of hesitation, Victor gulps down everything Yuuri had brought, despite the tray being generously filled as Yuuri wasn’t sure what Victor would prefer and had chosen a bit of every fish they had in the kitchen. Victor sighs and lies back in the bed. He looks much calmer than he did before his meal. Yuuri feels slightly better when he kisses him good night and leaves to sleep on a futon in the next room.

Victor wakes up several times during the night. He dreams that he is suffocating, that he is drowning, that he is drying and cannot go back to the water. He forgets where he is and how he ended up here. He panics when he realizes that his legs are not just a nightmare. Every time Yuuri whispers comforting words and runs a wet cloth on his forehead. He stays by his side and holds his hand until he calms down and falls back asleep.

In the morning Victor’s eyes are puffy and his hair messy. He looks up from his pillow and his heart tightens. Yuuri is sleeping in an armchair beside his bed, uncomfortably slouched against the armrest. It looks like he fell asleep while he was watching over him. Victor suddenly feels terribly guilty that he accused him the day before when Yuuri was just taking care of him.

“I’m sorry about yesterday,” he says when Yuuri wakes up a few minutes later.

“It’s ok. I don’t know what I’d have done if I had woken up at the bottom of the ocean with a fishtail.”

Yuuri knows that their relationship is strange and that they may never be able to make it work, and maybe Victor hates him now that he is stuck in his bedroom instead of swimming freely in the ocean. But since he found Victor on the dry land, something has changed inside him. He has realized that he felt exactly the same toward Victor no matter if he was swimming or walking or lying in a washed up net.

“Listen…” he says as he moves closer to Victor and takes his hand. “I love you. I love you whether you have a tail, or legs, or anything. I’ll do everything I can to help you be happy again.”

Victor blinks in surprise. “You love me?”

“Yeah.”

“But why? I can’t do anything anymore now I can’t even get out of bed…”

Yuuri has a soft smile. “I wasn’t sure but… I loved to come and see you at the beach, I couldn’t spend enough time with you, I was always thinking about you… I thought it was because you are a mermaid but actually… It’s because you make me happy.”

Victor pauses for a moment. He gently pulls Yuuri down so he can kiss him. “I love you too.”

Victor sleeps a lot the following days. He still complains about a headache and fatigue and Yuuri makes sure that he stays in bed. Mari also keeps an eye on him and Yuuri suspects that she’d rather know him in bed than stumbling around the inn. Twice Yuuri walks in to bring Victor food and he finds him out of his blanket, looking at his legs thoughtfully, touching where his skin used to be covered in scales. He looks at his feet and his toes with circumspection, before hiding them again under the sheets.

When he feels better Victor gets tired of lying all day. He holds onto a chair and pushes himself up. For a second he wobbles on his legs, before his knees buckle and Yuuri helps him sit back down.

There’s something strangely endearing in watching Victor learn to walk. He looks like a fawn taking its first steps. When he is standing he is slightly taller than Yuuri, and it makes Yuuri feel all kinds of things. Yuuri hugs him with the excuse of helping him stand up and it is a whole new feeling. Yuuri already loved when Victor held him when they were at the beach, but there is something intimate in being alone in the bedroom instead of being on an open beach. It’s not cold and wet anymore. He doesn’t have to worry about the sand and the water. It is just soft and warm, comforting, and it feels like it is soothing all his problems. He looks up and Victor is blushing. Yuuri is almost sure that Victor was thinking the same things, and it might be even more overwhelming for him since he had never thought he would have a relationship on the dry land. Yuuri tightens his embrace.

Victor lowers his head to kiss him. He could get used to this.

Chapter Text

Victor doesn't sleep much better the following nights. Yuuri eventually lies in bed with him and holds him close. On the bad nights, Victor clings onto him like he is more of an octopus than a mermaid. Yuuri never pushes him away.

The whole family makes sure that Victor rests and recovers. Mari takes pity on him and his hair chopped off unevenly, and does her best to give him a decent haircut. Yuuri spends most of his time with him and explains him everything about his life that he had not already explained and that Victor gets to see now that he is out of the water.

When Victor feels better, when his head doesn’t hurt anymore and he is almost over the shock of the past few days, Yuuri makes a suggestion.

“I was thinking…” he starts one night just before they go to sleep. “Maybe your tail would come back if you went back into the water?”

Victor sighs. He touches his thigh again and shakes his head. “I’ve thought about it too… But don’t see how it could, really…”

“It doesn’t hurt to try?”

Victor has a noncommittal shrug.

The next day they wait for the patrons to leave the resort and for Yuuri’s family to be done with their chores. When the night falls and everyone has retreated into their bedroom, Yuuri helps Victor walk to the back of the inn. He opens the door to the steaming pool of spring water and Victor’s eyebrows rise in surprise.

“We’re not very good at floating but we like to soak in hot water to relax,” Yuuri says with a side smile.

“But… There’s not much room to swim?”

“We don’t swim, we just sit and enjoy the heat. It’s is very hot, I don’t know if you’ll like it. Tell me if you want to get out.”

Victor nods. Yuuri starts undressing out of habit until he feels Victor’s gaze over him. He blushes when he realizes that Victor had never seen him naked before. Victor looks at him for a moment, and takes off his own clothes without saying anything.

Slowly, Yuuri helps Victor step down into the water until he has water up to his chest. For a few seconds, they hold their breath and wait. Only the soft sound of the water surrounds them.

“Do you feel anything?” Yuuri asks quietly.

Victor remains silent. After a minute he shakes his head and hides his face in his hands.

“No. It’s not working,” he whimpers. He lets himself sink down until he is completely underwater. Yuuri watches him but after only a few seconds Victor comes back up and gasps for air. “It’s not coming back,” he sobs weakly as he rubs his neck where he used to have gills.

“Hey it’s ok-”

“I can never go back!”

“Oh Victor…”

He looks at his feet, curls and uncurls his toes, tries to wave his legs in the water, without much success. They both look in the water but nothing happens, Victor’s legs remain exactly the same.

Victor hides behind his bangs but the defeated look on his face makes Yuuri’s heart ache. He wipes his cheek with the back of his hand.

“I’m so sorry…” Yuuri mutters.

Victor lets himself be hugged. He lets Yuuri hold him and he rests his head on his shoulder.

In the following days, Victor gets better at walking. He struggles in the stairs and he gets tired quickly, but he doesn’t have to hold onto every piece of furniture in the room to go from one spot to the other. He accepts to eat something else than raw fish and algae. Yuuri feels lucky that they live so close to the port and already had a decent amount of raw fish in their diet. Victor gulps down several portions of every kind of fish they have. He tries beef and pork but Yuuri can see that it’s not a success. He eats a few vegetables. On the whole he remains silent most of the time, and Yuuri can’t stand to see him so desperate when he used to be so bubbly.

Yuuri is convinced that they have not tried everything yet to make Victor’s tail reappear. He waits until Victor feels good enough and he can walk well enough to go outside, and shares his idea with him.

“I was thinking that we could go to the beach tomorrow. What do you think?”

Victor looks up, and he knows that it’s their last plan to try and give him his life back. He nods.

They walk slowly but when they arrive by the cove, Victor quickens the pace. There’s a fat seal enjoying the sun on the rocks.

“Makka!”

The seal drags itself on the sand and claps its fins. Victor hugs it without restraint.

“I missed you…” he whispers. The seal makes loud complaining noise and Victor hugs it tighter. “I know! Look at me…”

Yuuri comes up to them and reminds Victor of why they were at the beach in the first place. Victor is visibly anxious. Yuuri takes his hand and squeezes it lightly.

Yuuri takes off his shoes and socks and rolls up the hem of his pants. Victor does the same. They walk to the water together. The wet sand moves under their feet. The waves come to lick their ankles and retreat. Victor let’s go Yuuri’s hand.

“It's working!” he gasps.

Yuuri’s heart races. “Is it?”

“Yeah! I feel it in my toes!”

The next second Victor is stepping out of his pants and underwear and throwing his shirt over his head. He takes a few big steps in the water and, when the waves come up to his hips, he collapses and disappears under the surface. Yuuri tenses. He waits. When Victor doesn't come back up, Yuuri runs into the water. This is when the large end of a fishtail rises in the air and splashes him. Yuuri whines, but Victor is already a hundred feet away.

Yuuri watches the sea from the beach and waits quietly. From time to time Victor comes back up and Yuuri can see him play with Makkachin and flash the fin of his tail above the surface. At one point he disappears for a while and Yuuri lies back on the sand and looks at the clouds. His chest feels lighter now that Victor can be happy again. No matter how excited he was to have Victor with him on the land, he couldn’t ignore how sad it made him not to be able to swim.

“Yuuri!”

Yuuri straightens up. Victor is on the sand, still partly in the water, and gesturing for Yuuri to come to him. When he joins him, Victor pulls him down with him and Yuuri yelps at the cold water. Victor shushes him with a kiss. They roll on the wet sand, covered and uncovered by the waves that crash on the beach.

“I love you so much,” Victor murmurs when they finally part.

Yuuri smiles, but it’s a small, bittersweet pout. “I’ll miss you.”

Victor’s face changes into a worried frown. “Are you leaving me?”

“I can't follow you in the water and I can't hold you back on the land.”

“You're not holding me back! I don’t want to leave!”

“But… The ocean…”

“I thought I could... stay with you and come swim from time to time if you let me. I don't need much I just... sometimes?”

“But it’d never be enough-”

“I need you more than I need the sea.”

Yuuri takes a second to make sure he has heard properly. “Are you sure?”

“You know, at the Onsen, when I thought my tail would not come back… I was sad but... I was happy that I finally got to spend more time with you. I figured it was actually for the best.”

“You think so?”

“I’d rather live with you than go back to my former life.”

Yuuri almost wants to cry. For days he had been mentally preparing himself for the moment Victor would get his tail back and leave him to travel the oceans. It broke his heart but it would have been even worse to keep Victor on the land like a fish in an aquarium. But now Victor is with him even though he is free to swim away, and he is ready to sacrifice a huge part of his life just for Yuuri.

“We can go to the beach every day if you want to,” Yuuri says. “I’ll never hold you back.”

“Thank you.”

“Just promise that you’ll always come back.”

Victor kisses his forehead. “Always.”

The tide goes out. Victor's tail dries and he pouts as his tail splits into two legs. His fin disappears. They both look at it happening with wide eyes. The scales sink into his skin, the large fin slowly retracts and splits into two feet. Victor sighs.

“Is it painful?” Yuuri asks.

“Not really. It feels like pins and needles. I had felt it before when I was out of the water but I thought I was just drying.”

Soon all the scales are gone and Victor wiggles his toes to make sure everything works properly. Yuuri looks at him for a moment, before he throws him his pants and underwear.

“You need to get dressed, it’s not a nudist beach.”

Victor gets used to living on the dry land. He goes back to the sea every time he wants to and Yuuri, true to his word, never holds him back. Sometimes he leaves for a few days, maybe even a week. He always tells Yuuri before he leaves and comes back when he said he would. Yuuri is glad that Victor is enjoying his freedom, and their reunions after a few days spent away from each other are always particularly sweet.

They have not stopped sleeping together after the first nights that Victor spent at the Onsen. Their physical proximity and the privacy of the bedroom lead Victor to discover exactly how the new lower half of his body works. Yuuri gives basic explanations, never without blushing to the root of his hair. Victor learns very quickly, much faster than he learned how to walk. He is eager to try all sorts of things that Yuuri had never even thought about. Yuuri doesn’t complain.

“This is much better than mating,” Victor says with a contented sigh after a cuddle that left Yuuri all weak and panting.

“Really?”

Victor nods seriously. “I was not ready to carry eggs.”

Yuuri brings Victor to the rink and later Victor comes with him to ice shows across the world. He gets to swim in new places but is always on the dry land, right behind the barrier of the rink when Yuuri is performing.

They find a place to live in Hasetsu, close to the beach and the Onsen but that is their own home just for the two of them.

One day they meet volunteers at the beach, and before Yuuri knows it, Victor becomes a member of a charity that protects the wildlife of the oceans. The other members of the association wonder how he is so well informed on a lot of subjects and Yuuri ends up pretending that Victor has a BA in marine biology. They come close to a disaster when Victor falls off the boat they use for exploration - Yuuri is convinced he jumped in willingly no matter how many times Victor denies it. They are still not sure how many people saw his tail and how many believe he was able to swim to the beach even though they were ten miles from the shore.

“You’re actually working to protect yourself,” Yuuri says one night with a little smile. “It’s not really charity…”

“The other fishes don’t have anyone to save them when they get washed up… I was lucky, I like to pay it forward.”

When fall comes the weather gets fresher and Yuuri doesn’t always go to the beach with Victor, who himself starts going less often because he gets cold when he comes out of the water. After watching him mope around on a rainy day, Yuuri brings him a surprise. It’s small and very fluffy. It jumps around Victor’s legs as soon as they meet.

“It’s a poodle,” Yuuri says as Victor takes it into his arms to look at it more closely. “We can’t keep a seal at home but I thought he’d keep us company.”

Victor observes the dog curiously. “Does it swim?”

“About as well as me,” Yuuri chuckles, “but I’m sure he’ll love to go to the beach with us and play in the water.”

Victor seems happy with this answer. He grows fond of his puppy very quickly, and Yuuri’s heart swells when Victor and his dog go for strolls by the sea and they both come back covered with sand and salt.

“You have a piece of algae behind your ear,” Yuuri mutters when Victor comes home from the beach and kisses him.

“Oops.”

“Shower.”

“I’m not dirty, it’s just salt.”

“It’s salt and sand, two things that I don’t really want in my bed…”

“But-”

Yuuri shakes his head. “No shower, no cuddles.”

Victor pouts and turns to drag his feet to the bathroom.

“I’ll be waiting for you in the bedroom,” Yuuri purrs before he leaves, and Victor immediately stops sulking.

The next spring Yuuri takes classes to learn and go scuba diving. Victor takes him to his favorite spots in the area. Yuuri almost drowns another couple of times when he removes his mouthpiece to kiss Victor. It’s still worth it every time.

Just before the anniversary of their first meeting, Victor leaves for almost two weeks. When he comes back he has a present for Yuuri. It’s a pair of rings, encrusted with white nacre that reflects pinks, blues, and greens in the sunlight.

“I saw that people were wearing rings,” Victor says softly as he takes Yuuri’s hand, and Yuuri’s heart races like never before. “That mates wear rings that match when they have decided to stay together. I don’t know if it’s something you want to do but I thought… I know that it’s a lot, but I don’t ever want to be with someone else, I want to stay with you, and I would be very happy if we were mates… for life.”

Yuuri nods slowly. He takes one of the rings and brings Victor’s hand up to slide it on his ring finger. “I’d love to,” he mutters with a smile. Victor beams. He puts the other ring on Yuuri’s finger and pulls him in a kiss.

“I love you.”