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Morning had begun only a few moments before, still covered by dreary grays and the dark blue of night, until the crosshatching of light across the water came in its full iridescent amber. The brightness of the rising sun was undefined, fuzzy around the edges and lighting the dark blue water in orange hues. The path down to the shore became more and more broad, packed with loose sand, dirt, and an occasional root or collection of hard rock.
The path spilled out onto a dock and a stretch of pale yellow sand. The small waves lapped at the shore, darkening the earth and occasionally imparting plant debris upon the wet strand. Foam from the lake gathered in clumps like the steamed milk on coffee.
A canoe bobbed side to side with the gentle waves, trapped between packed, cold sand and the foamy water, one end clacking against the dock. It was tied securely to a post which dug into a little patch of grass further into the shoreline.
Hanzo walked onto the dock, his calloused feet feeling the change from natural earth to rough wood as the sound of songbirds faintly drew him closer. The wood of the dock always felt to him somehow simultaneously slimy and rough like sandpaper, and on top of that, now it was cold, from the cool night before.
The air smelled like water, freshwater, not a drop of salt. The sun cast the sky into a colorful smear of reds, oranges, pinks and yellows. Warm colors filled the sky despite the chill of the summer morning and the close proximity to the lake.
He held in his hands a bento box, red swim trunks, and a towel. He wore his own black swim trunks and a shirt, just in case he wanted to swim with his companion.
He got to the end of the dock and set everything he was carrying down away from the edge. He set his phone on top of the bento box when he remembered that he had forgotten last time and nearly lost his old phone to the surf.
He sat down at the edge of the dock, letting his feet slip into the water, the cool silence enveloping him.
The waves broke against the shore softly and the dock swayed. He reminded himself to talk to the groundskeeper about that. They would have to have someone fix it soon, but it was not too terrible yet.
Hanzo was early this morning, so he would have to wait for his friend to arrive for breakfast.
He felt something soft brush against the side of his foot.
He recoiled pulling both his feet up above the water. When he looked down, he could not see what it was that had touched him.
Then he heard a clink against the metal ladder. He turned to look as his companion’s brunette head peaked above the edge of the dock.
The water was shallow here, so Hanzo knew that he was not standing yet.
He waved. “Hello.”
McCree’s second eyelids blinked and he gave a sleepy smile in response to the greeting.
Hanzo grabbed the towel and moved it closer to the ladder without getting up, he then turned back to give him some privacy.
Hanzo heard the moment McCree stepped onto the dock, but he kept his eyes on the sunrise, trailing the wisp of a brilliant pastel cloud as he heard the rustling of the towel being used and the drag of dry swim trunks over skin.
Once McCree was decent he sat down next to Hanzo. He had the towel wrapped around his shoulders.
“Howdy, nice morning, ain’t it?” McCree asked, scratching his left hand over his bare belly. “The sunrise is real nice today.”
Hanzo turned to look at him. “It is a lovely morning.”
McCree held out a shell. “Take a gander at this.”
Hanzo looked at the small shell to see its spotted colors, mostly browns and other natural hues, it fit in the palm of his hand, small, unseeming, and cold from the chill of the water.
“Thank you,” Hanzo said as he reached into his own pocket to grab a button to exchange for it.
Hanzo didn’t entirely remember when they started exchanging buttons and sea shells, but his collection had been growing over the few months that he had been coming here. McCree placed the large button down onto the deck.
“What do you do with the shells anyhow?” McCree asked from beside him as he pulled Hanzo’s bento box onto his lap.
“I keep them,” Hanzo admitted, turning the shell over in his hand. “They help with my art.”
“That’s good to hear,” McCree said as he unwrapped the pale yellow furoshiki from around the bento box.
“I have been thinking about making them into a sculpture or something similar, however, I haven’t fully decided yet,” Hanzo admitted as he pulled his camera strap up and over his head.
McCree laid the furoshiki down on the dock after Hanzo stood up and walked down the dock back the way he had came, holding his camera in his hands.
“Do you mind if I get you in the shot?” Hanzo asked, turning and taking a roaming look through his viewfinder at the lake.
Hanzo only let himself briefly pause on McCree the first time, sweeping his camera to the side and then back again for center to rest naturally.
“I think this has the potential to make a lovely piece.” Hanzo commented more to himself than McCree.
“I ain’t nothin’ special,” McCree flustered out a non-answer.
Hanzo angled himself to get the sun and McCree into the shot better, McCree gave him a sheepish look and nodded his consent to be photographed.
He adjusted the setting on the camera for a bit, and found that it could not fit any more of the scene into the shot, despite wanting to get some more of the mountainside into the composition.
He took a step back and found himself free falling. A startled "oh!" passed his lips when his lower half hit water.
McCree was already hopping down off of the dock and into the foot deep water when Hanzo had regained his senses from his surprise.
“Are you hurt?” McCree asked, offering Hanzo a hand to stand up with. The water came up to his mid calf even though Hanzo’s shorts and part of his shirt were now soaked.
“No, I was just startled,” Hanzo replied sincerely as he took McCree’s offered hand. He didn’t worry about checking his camera for damage, since it was waterproof.
McCree smiled at him brightly and then chuckled. “Clumsy.”
“I am not clumsy.” Hanzo could feel his face warm.
He looked down at the blurred photograph that he had taken of McCree’s turned body and worried expression as Hanzo had fallen.
When Hanzo turned the camera to show him, McCree let out a wheezing laugh and covered his mouth with his hand. “I look real stupid in that one.”
“I am half tempted to say you look stupid in all of them,” Hanzo said, “but that would be insulting my photography skills.”
“Alright, Mr. Starving Artist,” McCree jabbed as he pushed on Hanzo’s shoulder.
“I am not starving.”
“Oh?” McCree raised an eyebrow, his too sharp teeth showing when he smiled. “I guess you won’t mind me eating all of the food then?”
“No,” Hanzo agreed, the weight of his own breakfast sitting warm and low in his belly. “I would not mind at all.”
Hanzo looked down at his feet and saw minnows gathering there.
“Tiny fish,” McCree breathed, seemingly enraptured with the standard sight of the small iridescent fish.
“Have you never seen a minnow before?” Hanzo asked.
“I have, but they just don't come near me normally,” McCree admitted. "I don't usually come close to shore either."
“Hold still and they might start to bite,” Hanzo said as he watched the small fish bob back and forth, flitting about as they pleased and getting closer.
“It don’t hurt, right?” McCree shifted his eyes to Hanzo and then back to his own feet.
“It tickles.”
McCree startled and started to move when a flash of tiny silver nibbled at the skin of the side of his foot. “Nope, nope, don’t like how that feels one bit.”
“You scared them away!” Hanzo laughed as McCree scrambled onto the dock.
McCree meeked out an apology, now standing up on the dock fully, bopping up and down nearly imperceptibly with the movement of the water under the pier.
“You make a terrible Mermaid,” Hanzo chided playfully. “Afraid of tiny fish.”
McCree looked amused. “Mermaid.”
“Merman?” Hanzo rephrased. “Merperson.”
“That’s even worse,” McCree said with a smirk. “Mermaid, I’ve got the hair for it.”
“I do not think you are a fair maiden of the sea.” Hanzo moved to pull himself onto the dock as well. “I misspoke.”
McCree let out a dramatically wounded tone, a betrayed look on his face.
“You are too burly and crude,” Hanzo said. “I like it though.”
“If I could get big enough seashells I could make myself a bra,” McCree said with a chuckle, cupping his chest to accentuate his point as they walked back to the end of the dock.
Hanzo snorted, but his mind once again was back to his art with the mention of seashells.
He found himself pausing at the picture on his phone of his view of the lake at night, his mind stuttering when he looked at how entirely empty and flat the scene felt.
He wondered what was missing as he sat down quietly with McCree, listening to the story about his mother who was being stubborn and mischievous only half-heartedly. McCree picks at the bento box, and Hanzo worries that he is not feeling well.
Sad eyes set upon him as the food is placed onto the deck.
"Hey, Hanzo?" McCree says, his voice low. "I'm really sorry to tell you this, but I'm leaving soon."
Hanzo startles. "What?"
"My mom is migrating the family out to the ocean again," Jesse explains. "I have to leave, I won't be back, not for many years, and by then... I don't know."
"Okay."
"Okay?" Jesse parrots. "That's your response?"
"I don't know what you want me to say about this," Hanzo murmurs. "I can't do anything to stop you from leaving."
"No." He stares out at the water, something in his eyes reflecting the murky water. "You can't."
Hanzo does not say, "Don't go." He does not say "Can you take me with you?" He doesn't say "Do you love me?"
Jesse says, "Can you wait for me?"
Hanzo swallows his response of "always, always and for however long it takes you to swim back." Swallows his response of, "I don't think I have liked anyone as much as I have liked you." Chokes on, "please come back, please make it back to me someday, safe and happy, please."
Instead, his voice gets rough and smooth and waterlogged, the weird feeling bubbles and bloats in the hollow of his throat and between his own ears, like he can't speak properly around the hurt.
"Patience..."
He swallows around the obtrusive feeling, and tries again. "Patience is not something I am known for, but I will try."
Jesse nods.
And Hanzo is doing the math. How much it would cost him to escape his family at this point. How he could get work to pay for college classes if he decided to pursue marine biology.
Jesse is scooting down off the wood and into the water. It is a little over waist high, here at the end of the dock.
He stands his hands coming to Hanzo's knees gently. "I won't be coming back for a long time, but I don't want this to be goodbye."
Hanzo clenches his jaw and nods. He can feel the sting of tears as he reaches out.
His hand comes to rest on the prickly stubble of Jesse's jaw. "It's okay."
"It's not," Jesse whispers, his voice breaking. "It's not okay, I wanna just– steal you away from all of this, Hanzo, and I can't, I can't do anything."
"Jesse, listen to me," Hanzo says, his fingers moving to further hold Jesse's jaw as more weight is placed into his hands. "When you see me next, I will be free of my clan, and I will smile and come with you if you must migrate, and there will be no more than a few years between now and then, I promise."
Jesse nodded, his face contorted with tears that would not fall. "Can... can I kiss you?"
Hanzo smiled. "Of course."
Jesse tasted like water and sun, and the daylight was enough now that Hanzo knew he would have to go soon. For fear of being seen, but oh how he didn't want to let him leave.
The water was eventually still, and calm, and Hanzo was alone as the morning light began to warm him and the breeze cut straight through his disbelieving form.
He was gone.