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Fabrizio winces and covers his eyes with his hand when a well-aimed ray of sunshine lands on his face.
“What kind of kindergarten stuff is this again, you curly shrimp?”
Ermal chuckles excitedly, raising clouds of spray with a tail splash on the water surface. The boat sways, and Fabrizio almost misses the net for the second time.
“Mermaids are mythical creatures, and male mermaids are even more,” he lectures. “Begone, floaty anomaly.”
The net is not very big; he isn’t some kind of a poacher after all. The amount of fish caught in it will be enough for him, and some will remain for the cat. Fabrizio suspects that the insufferable creature — who still tries to blind him with a small round mirror — is also secretly feeding from the same net. Otherwise, why else would he have been sticking around here for all this time?
“Fabbri,” the merman articulates the name distinctly, drawing attention and clearly imitating his pronunciation, because his own language is much more melodic and completely impossible for people to imitate. But also this can be due to Fabrizio’s absolute inability to learn any foreign language.
“Where did you get the mirror? And why do you even need it, apart from disturbing me?” Fabrizio says that deliberately strictly, because otherwise this talking (and quite talkative) sardine will become playful and try to drown him again. As a joke, of course, but it won’t do him any good either.
“How about I give you a hairbrush instead, so you would sit on a stone and comb your curls, like in all those stories.”
“You don't look like a person who has a hairbrush at home,” Ermal retorts, swimming closer.
“Should I smash your beautiful curly head with a paddle?” Fabrizio offers politely, smoothing his actually quite disheveled hair.
“Should I kick you in the teeth with my tail?”
Ermal’s tail is long, massive, with the scales firm to the touch and glistening in the sunlight. You can easily stun someone with such a tail, then grab tightly and drag to the bottom of the sea. Or for some reason, drag along for a dozen or two meters, only to push back to the surface after that. And then ask with a pointy-toothy grin:
“Kind of scary, isn’t it?”
(That's how they met one day, actually.)
Fabrizio guides the boat toward the shore, pretending not to see the merman following him under the water. The sun rises higher, a hot summer day lies ahead, and the man is a little curious about where and how Ermal spends his afternoons, deep under the sea.
He leaves his boat at the dock, puts the fish in a bag, and is about to leave when the merman reappears on the surface.
“Will you come over tonight?” He asks with an intonation like “I'm not really interested, but it would be nice”.
“I can even bring the cat with me,” Fabrizio chuckles.
Ermal snorts — completely cat-like — with an expression of profound disgust on his face.
Fabrizio would have never thought that a sea creature could be allergic to cats. The other day, he brought the cat with him as an experiment, but in the end it turned out that they literally could not stand each other. The cat sniffed him thoroughly and concluded that the new neighbour was a fish, and besides, not very tasty; Ermal, on the other hand, couldn’t stop sneezing so loud that it could probably be heard on the other side of the harbour.
“So you’ll come,” concludes Ermal and disappears, but not before showering him with a wave of spray instead of proper goodbye.
Fabrizio shows him a not-very-decent gesture, aware that he might as well have kicked a wave, for example.
(They both know that he will come.)
***
Waves slowly cover the shoreline and roll back into the sea. The moon path leaves a trail of silvery gleams over the water surface, while Fabrizio walks in shallow water towards a small pile of rocks. The water is warm; perhaps — almost certainly — he will go for a swim later.
“You're late,” says Ermal, he always says that, although they never agree on the exact time.
“I was looking for a hairbrush for you,” Fabrizio sits down next to him, the stones are still warm after a whole day of scorching sun.
“And you didn’t find it, as I can see,” Ermal nods at his hair.
“And how clever you are, I can only wonder…”
Fabrizio moves some small stones to the side and leans back, putting a jacket under his head. The sky is full of stars, the moonlight covers softly everything around — what else could you desire on such a good night?
Ermal tosses and turns for a while, trying to find a comfortable position — it’s not an easy task considering his tail. And then sets his curly head on Fabrizio's chest and lies still, also looking at the sky.
“Your hair is still wet, do you know?” Fabrizio complains lazily.
“One more move, and I’ll throw you in the water,” the merman warns him nonchalantly.
Fabrizio, in revenge, runs his fingers through dark curls, and Ermal falls silent immediately, relaxes completely and only sways his tail slowly, judging by the quiet splashing audible through the sound of waves.
Rays of moonlight glide over the water, Ermal hums quietly something in his language, soft voice merges with the melody of the night. But soon it becomes quiet, as if he even falls asleep.
Fabrizio knows that later the merman will again go back to his usual playful-mocking manner and, probably, he’ll try to drown him again or something else like that.
But for now, he enjoys the moment of calm and allows himself to caress Ermal's face gently, outlining his sharp features. Lingers on his lips, feeling his smile with the fingertips.
And smiles too, looking into the star-sprinkled sky.