Chapter Text
“Hey, Don’t go too far ahead--!”
Before the voice could complete his warning, a blur of electric blue and a billowing tail darted past, the owner letting out a small mischievous chortle.
“Mizuta!” Tsuji cried out again. He sighed, stopping in place to rearrange the small sack of woven kelp over his shoulders. It wasn't unlike the smaller of the two to completely blow off any and all voiced concerns- something Tsuji and his careful nature had become well acquainted with through the years. Normally, he’d put up a bit more of a fight, nag a bit more, but it was early. Painfully early. And Mizuta had to insist on hunting mackerel today.
It wasn’t necessarily that he had given into the smaller blond, it was just...some battles were better not fought, especially when they involved Mizuta’s favorite food.
The larger of the two let out another defeated sigh, fist rubbing wearily at his tired eyes. The other merman had already darted far out ahead, Tsuji straining a bit to keep his eyes focused on him as the blue of the water swallowed his equally as blue form. How a guppy was able to move so fast was still beyond him.
Mizuta slowed as he approached the shoal, forgetting how easy it was for his friend to overtake any distance he might’ve put between them. The blond glanced over his shoulder and let out a surprised gasp, seeing as the other was already rapidly approaching with a tired scowl pulling at his face. Tsuji slowed down to a stop at his friend’s side, hand whipping out to firmly grasp Mizuta’s shoulder.
“I said don’t go too far ahead…” He grunted, a bit more of an authoritative bite to his deeper voice. Mizuta shrugged and let out a small laugh, too weak to really be considered playful as he knew Tsuji got kinda weird about safety stuff in open water. He never really understood why, but it still comforted him a little knowing that Tsuji looked out of him so much...even if it meant not really getting to do much that didn’t end up upsetting him. Tsuji gave Mizuta a nagging look, eyes narrowing, and Mizuta gave him a shallow nod in return.
The blond turned to face away from him, pulling his shoulder out of Tsuji’s grasp as he raised an arm to point ahead of them, “Anyways, c’mon, breakfast.” Tsuji nodded and kept pace as they swam on ahead-- or rather, Mizuta slowed down enough to stay by Tsuji’s side as he didn’t want to make him mad this early in the morning.
A decent sized school of mackerel frenzied themselves through a cloud of plankton about ten or fifteen yards ahead. Tsuji and Mizuta met gazes and nodded, Tsuji smiling a bit as he removed his sack from his shoulders, handing it over to Mizuta before suddenly darting off to the side.
Mizuta knew the drill.
Tsuji was much larger and more agile than him, him being blessed with the lower half of a sleek and speedy tuna. Mizuta’s own build was much more delicate and showy in comparison, a shorter, fatter tail and long, billowing caudal and dorsal fins that matched the shimmering electric blue scales of his body in hue, haphazardly dappled with small black spots. Because of their differences in physique, Tsuji was often left to rounding up their prey, using the confusion to his advantage. He would draw them in closely, the school winding together to avoid the much larger predator that swam circles around them, and he’d wait until just the right moment to signal to Mizuta.
Mizuta clutched the sack that Tsuji had handed off to him tightly in his fists, ready and waiting for the signal. A few more rounds, and Tsuji was satisfied with the compacted cylinder of mackerel. He slowed his pace and raised his arm; Mizuta immediately springing to action.
He lined himself up with the heaviest concentration of fish for his first go, and darted forward, directly into the center of the school. His bag held open like a net to catch a few unlucky fish as he swam through them as the rest avoided Mizuta.The duo repeated this process a few times until they were both satisfied with the results.
Mizuta quickly fastened the sack shut as the fish dispersed around them, preventing the escape of their meal before they could swim back home to the safety of the reef. It was too dangerous to eat while out in open waters, any chum they left behind would be too risky of an invite to sharks. He handed the sack over to Tsuji as he swam up to his side to join him.
“Ahhh, we got A LOT today!” the smaller blond beamed, stretching his arms over his head.
His companion nodded, focusing his attention on making sure the bag was secured before slinging it back over his shoulders. “We should really head back now before it gets much later. The fishermen will be out soon…” Tsuji trailed off, eyes searching around the surface of the water for any shadows. It was still early, and the sun was not high in the sky, so it would be difficult to spot anything unless directly overhead. It worried him, and he cursed himself for being so reckless in agreeing to come out this early. They had what the came for, yes, but they still had the trip back home to worry about....for Tsuji to worry about, really.
“Aw, c’mon, it’ll be fine!” Mizuta tried to reassure him, watching his friend’s face and the way his eyebrows furrowed as he stared upwards. “You worry way too much Tsuji, you’re gonna give yourself a headache!!” The blond laughed, reaching his hands upwards to pull at Tsuji’s cheeks. The larger of the two frowned, face squished between Mizuta’s small palms. The blond let out another laugh as Tsuji reached up to pry his face free from his grasp, pouting at him.
“You’re so gloomy, Tsuji, c’mooon...” Mizuta teased, pulling his hands away, still giggling to himself.
“H-hey! I am not!” Tsuji snapped back, “Being concerned with safety is being responsible...not gloomy….” He continued on, “You would’ve been pulled into a fisherman’s boat years ago if I wasn’t around to watch over you..!” He argued.
“Yeah, oookay Tsuji.” Mizuta laughed, shoving playfully at the other’s shoulders. “You act more like my mom than my best friend sometimes.”
“Well somebody has to!” Tsuji snapped, clearly annoyed now. “You can be so reckless sometimes, you know that, right?” He looked down at the smaller blond, his large eyes stared back up at him. The two of them had known each other for what feels like forever now, Tsuji had always felt an instinctive protectiveness over Mizuta, since they were literal small fry. Whenever those big, deep blue eyes looked at him, or that huge smile of gnarled teeth was flashed in his direction...Tsuji couldn't help but feel a small tug at his heart, and a small knot in the depths of his stomach. Mizuta could ask him to fistfight a great white shark, and he’d agree to it if he looked at him long enough with that oddly endearing smile.
It was endearing enough for Tsuji to sometimes consider his smile cute. A lot of things about Mizuta, actually, he found himself describing with that word. The way his large eyes took over a good portion of his round face, choppy blond hair that parted to a point in the center of his forehead...his cute little nose and relatively full lips that stretched over the wide smile of his… Even the rest of his body was probably just as endearing. Mizuta was slim, but rounded off just enough to blend well into the shorter, fat tail he had. And of course, Tsuji thought the bright blue of his scales contrasted nicely with deepness of his irises. It was terrible.
Tsuji, in comparison, was long and lean, his torso leading into his tail built for speed and quick reflexes over everything else. He’d been described as sort of gangly looking before, mostly because of the very prominent cheekbones on his slim face, deeply set eyes, eyebrows that were near constantly drawn together, and his choppy mess of black hair that hung limply down to the base of his neck. He definitely wasn’t exactly cute in the same way that he thought Mizuta was, but he didn’t think of himself to be ugly, either.
Tsuji snapped back after a moment of silence fell between them, Mizuta’s eyebrows furrowing slightly, as he realized he’d been staring at the blond.
Tsuji opened his mouth to speak again, but stopped short, glowering instead.
“Regardless,” Tsuji spat, crossing his arms over his chest as a small flustered blush crept across the bridge of his nose in response to Mizuta’s teasing, “we really need to head back now.”
“Okay, okay okay…” Mizuta fought off a few more chuckles, turning to head back towards the direction of the reef. Tsuji sighed, falling to match the other’s pace, eyes still hesitantly scanning around and above them as they made their way back.
“Ah, Mizuta hold on a second,” the bag of their catch thrashed violently against Tsuji’s back, forcing him to stop for a moment to readjust. Mizuta turned back to look at him, scoffing.
“They really don’t wanna get eaten, I guess.” he laughed as Tsuji struggled to keep the bag closed, Tsuji in return shot him a quick glare before fiddling with securing the ties that kept the bag shut.
Mizuta reached out towards him, offering to help, but Tsuji quickly swatted his hands away as he fought with the bag of twenty or so mackerel that wanted anything but to calm down. Mizuta huffed and reached out again, pulling at the one strap of the bag, “Here, at least let me try--!”
The second Tsuji’s grasp loosened, the bag thrashed wildly in Mizuta’s hands; a few mackerel escaping before Tsuji reached back to grab the bag from Mizuta, who fumbled, letting go as the fish fought a little harder than he was expecting for them to.
“A-ah! Shit!” He cried, darting off after a few of the fish that desperately swam back towards the school, still in a frenzied mess.
“MIZUTA!” Tsuji yelled after him, struggling to close the bag again, to which a few more fish sprang out before he could secure it completely. He slung the bag back over his shoulders, “Will you WAIT--!” He yelled again.
Mizuta quickly met back up with the school of mackerel, readying himself to lunge at a few stragglers as the rest swirled around him in a confused mess. He was mostly acting on instinct now, ignoring Tsuji’s yells behind him. He stopped in the center when he had a fish in either hand, proud of himself for being able to at least make up for a few the fish that had escaped because of him.
Tsuji quickly covered the distance between Mizuta and himself, but stopped dead about 5 yards out. His eyes darted up towards the surface and back down to Mizuta’s stationary figure in the middle of the mess of fish.
“MIZUTA--!” He yelled, waving his arms to draw the others attention back to him.
Mizuta’s back was turned to him, but Tsuji hesitated a second too long.
The next thing that Mizuta knew, the school was drawing tightly in around him, haphazardly knocking into him and making it difficult to swim out without releasing the two fish that he’d caught. A shadow loomed directly overhead, and Mizuta’s reaction time was not quick enough. He released the fish in his grasp and tried to swim away, but the frenzied mass blocked his way.
Tsuji screamed Mizuta’s name again, rapidly circling around as a net descended over-top of his friend and the other fish. He knew better. He really knew better than allowing Mizuta to drag him out this early.
The net pursed, and closed over the group, pulling upwards. The mackerel and Mizuta swimming downwards in a desperate struggle to free themselves. Tsuji screamed and pulled at the net with all of his strength, swimming downwards with them.
“TSUJI DO SOMETHING” Mizuta cried, pressing himself against the net, hand sticking out of an opening for Tsuji.
“I-I CAN’T!” He yelled, struggling as the net began ascending towards the surface. It was too strong for him to do any good, and all he could do was frantically pull, hoping to find an opening big enough for Mizuta to squeeze out of before he was pulled out of the water. unfortunately, he quickly learned that there was no such opening, the net was relatively new and the material it was made out of far too strong to be broken.
The top of the net breached the surface, and Tsuji gave one final struggle before his friend was pulled up and out of his grasp. He swam in frantic circles around the base of the boat, trying to think of something, anything.
But Mizuta was as good as dead now. All merfolk knew that.
-