Work Text:
It was a day any Dad would ask for--calm lake, sun shining, fish biting… and spending quality time with the kids. Yes, Saijou Claudine had hiked up his khakis high and tilted his angler’s visor back. It was a perfect day, Even encountering his next door neighbor and mortal nemesis on the way out of the house wasn’t enough to dampen Claudine’s spirit. Even if one of his daughters was doing her best to do just that.
“Why are we here?” Fumi whined. “Fishing is so borrrrriiiiing.”
“You’ll never catch dinner with that attitude,” quipped Claudine in that light, dadly manner of his.
Shiori, his other little girl, had patiently cast her fishing rod out into the water, diligently watching the flat surface for a sign of a bite. “Still nothing, Pa.”
“Well, Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Claudine replied.
“I’m sure they made progress, though,” snapped Fumi.
“One more word like that and you’re grounded, missy.” A classic wooden pipe dangled between his lips as a fatherly chuckle escaped his lungs. “Kids these days, I swear….”
“Daaaaaad,” Fumi whinged, “Can we go back already?”
“Excited to get some time in with that Itchy girl of yours, huh?”
“It’s Ichie. She is not my girlfriend,”
“Whatever you say, sport,” said Claudine, offering a fatherly chuckle as his gaze naturally drifted out towards the horizon--where his eyes fell upon the stark gray of a dinghy just a touch more polished than his own.
“There’re the Tendous again,” said Shiori. “They always seem to end up out here at the same time we do.”
“Maya,” said Claudine under her breath, with the sort of vengeance reserved only for mortal nemeses or next-door neighbors. Tendou Maya happened to be both,
As she drove by in her motorboat, Maya--in her usual aviators and khakis--flipped Claudine off. Yachiyo, Maya’s daughter, did the same--but not before offering Shiori a friendly wave and a wink. Shiori blushed as she passed, a detail lost to Claudine as he grit his teeth together, hands running fuming alongside the outside of his cargo shorts.
“God, they suck,” said Fumi quietly.
“Glad I raised you right one way,” said Claudine. “No Saijou and Tendou have gotten along in a hundred years.” So he said, but the memory of making out with Maya years ago during their high-school prom still lingered in his mind.
“But our names aren’t Saijou, they’re Yumeoji,” Shiori pointed out. “We got our surnames from…”
“...Shiori,” commanded Fumi, solemnly removing her ‘Women Want Me, Fish Fear Me’ cap. “We don’t talk about Ma anymore.”
Claudine took off his own fisherman’s visor in memory of his dearly departed, otherwise unnoteworthy wife. He’d never looked at another woman the same way since… even as his heart (and the kids’) longed for another parent in the family. If only he could fish up a new wife…
Right as he was having this thought, Shiori’s line started to tug. “Pa! I feel something!”
“Nice work, Shiori; I always knew you had what it takes,” said Claudine, rushing over to give his daughter a hand with the fishing rod. “Fumi, help me and your sister out.”
“Coming…” Fumi grumbled, dragging herself over to help pull the fishing rod.
The three of them tugged with all of their might. For a second, Claudine thought they had hooked a real big one, like a marlin or a swordfish (which would’ve been quite impressive, considering this was a freshwater lake). “This feller sure is puttin’ up a fight...!”
Planting his heels firmly in the boat, Claudine leaned back and used all of the muscle in his mighty lesbian quadriceps to yank the line back, pulling so hard that the catch flew into the air, half-fish silhouette against the sun.
“Woah there!”
Claudine fell back flat onto his butt but, recognizing the humanoid shape now falling towards him, hurried to his feet to catch the… well, catch. The fish(?) ended up falling into Claudine’s arms in a perfect princess carry, where he realized the catch wasn’t an oversized tuna but instead a beautiful mermaid with raven hair and sea-foam green scales. Claudine looked into her dark, round eyes for a moment, watching a blush creep across her face that no doubt mirrored his own.
“Pa!” Shiori cried. “That’s quite a snapper you fished up there.”
“Shiori, that’s not a snapper, that’s a woman,” Fumi quipped. “A mermaid, by the looks of it. Wouldn’t even taste good with ponzu…”
Would that qualify as cannibalism? Claudine wondered, idly contemplating if he raised his daughter to eat other sentient beings.
“Is she gonna be our new Ma?” asked Shiori, noticing the very gay way in which Claudine was holding the mermaid.
“We just fished her out of a lake,” said Fumi. “What makes you think Pa is gonna marry her? She hasn’t even spoken yet. Does she know Japanese?”
“Y-Yes!” The mermaid squeaked out gayly. “My name’s Mahiru Tsuyuzaki. Me and my family run a farm at the bottom of this lake.”
“You have an underwater farm?” asked Fumi. “What do you harvest there? Clams?”
“Potatoes.”
“You can grow potatoes underwater?”
“C’mon, honey,” said Claudine, still lifting Mahiru with both arms. “Haven’t you had a sea potato before?”
“This isn’t the sea. This is a lake.”
“Well, you know sea cucumbers? It’s the same principle, really.”
“But those aren’t actual cucumbers…”
Claudine grit his teeth. “Teenagers, I swear…” He swiveled around. “Sorry, mon chérie, we didn’t mean to fish you out of your home, I’ll drop you right back--”
“Wait, please!” Mahiru finally spit out the nylon fishing line draped inside her mouth, the hook covered with a small, wet gob of peanut butter. “I haven’t been to the surface in ages… I forgot how warm and nice the sunlight up here is.”
Claudine chuckled. “Don’t get out here much, eh? Can you breathe okay?”
“I have gills and lungs,” Mahiru explained. “The only issue up here with me is really mobility.” She flapped her giant tail in Claudine’s arms to accentuate her point.
“Gotcha. Must be nice to swim around so easily, though.”
“I-It can be pleasant. Even if home can make me feel a little lonely sometimes…”
The downturn in Mahiru’s voice caused Claudine’s heart to sink. “You don’t have much family down there?”
“Oh I have a bunch of siblings, so I’m not wanting for company,” Mahiru explained. “I’m just reminded of my unrequited love for a handsome undersea prince…”
“Aww, you’re straight?” asked Shiori from behind, sounding deflated.
“No this was like one of those lesbian princes.”
“Oh hell yeah,” said Shiori, pumping one fist. “I-I mean, sorry your love is unrequited…”
“It’s okay,” said Mahiru, forcing a smile in Claudine’s arms. “When Prince Karen married Princess Hikari, I wished them only the best. They truly befit one another.”
Kilometers below, both Karen and Hikari were panicking because they’d momentarily forgotten how to breathe underwater.
“But it still stings, in the aftermath,” Mahiru admitted. “I’ve been trying to focus on myself, really. I figure even a dusty old pearl in the sandbank of a lake can shine in the midday sun.”
Claudine sniffled. “That’s a beautiful sentiment, mon chérie. I admire your spirit.”
“What does ‘mon chérie’ mean?” asked Mahiru. “Is that a secret tongue of the land-dwellers?”
It was only now that Claudine realized he was referring to Mahiru extremely gayly. He couldn’t help it--he was more captivated by her tiny pigtails and bulging biceps (when Mahiru had said she was trying to focus on herself, her meaning immediately became clear.) with each passing second. If nothing else, he wanted to see her again. “If I come back here at 5pm on Friday, will you be around to meet me?”
“Paaaaaaa!” Fumi protested. “You’re embarrassing us!”
“Pipe down, ma fille, your Pa is trying to catch some mermaid tail.”
Mahiru cupped hands around her mouth. “Do you really want to see me again?”
Claudine smiled. “Bien sur. I would love nothing more than to get to know you.”
Once again Mahiru turned tomato-red, so flustered that she rolled right out of Claudine’s arms and into the water. “I--I would love that!” she called out behind her.
Claudine chuckled as he watched Mahiru float around the surface. “It’s a date, then.”
His casual admission of the fact sent Mahiru hurtling below the surface to hide her redness. Claudine thought that bashfulness was outright adorable.
“Wait, Ma!” cried Shiori, reaching out towards the frothy bubbles where she’d been only moments prior. “Can I call you Ma?”
“Maybe you can call her Mamahiru,” Claudine suggested.
Fumi facepalmed. “You can’t be serious.”
“What? Delivering groaners is what being a Dad is all about!”
“Well, good luck with your date, Pa!” said Shiori, beaming at him. ”She seems absolutely wonderful.”
Against the odds, Fumi smiled. “She looked nice. And if it doesn’t work out, you can always grill her up with some ponzu.”
“Ma fille, you’d eat your own arm if you slathered it with enough ponzu.”
Fumi didn’t deny it.
Claudine was too fixated upon the mermaid that’d just slipped out of his hands to dwell on his daughter’s potential cannibalism. With hands on his hips he surveyed the spot where Mahiru had disappeared below the water’s surface. They’d only gotten one catch that day, but a potential new lover was a much better find than just some rainbow trout.
Of course, he’d prioritize his children over anything else. If they wanted a new mom, by gum, he’d get them one. Hopefully by following his heart in the process. That was his job as Saijou Claudine, father of the Yumeojis--to be the World’s Greatest Dad, just like the mug Shiori had gotten him for Father’s Day said. It was his mantle to live up to, and every ounce of his pride was riding on it.
Now. What was the best way to cut Tendou Maya’s tires before she got home…?