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Alberto missed being seen as a monster, and that felt wrong somehow. It was supposed to be a good thing that people didn't scream when they caught a glimpse of his scales. He wasn't supposed to feel sad and nostalgic over the fountain in the center of town being taken down. This was good. This was progress.
The problem was, it seemed like everyone expected that if they accepted his tail, then he had to make sure that he was human in practically every other way possible. No eating fish raw, because it was too "disgusting." No using hands for utensils in public. No hissing, no matter how startled you get.
There was even a weird pressure after a while for Alberto to stop going out on rainy days or swimming in the harbor. Because then people would remember that he wasn't human. And then they would get scared. And then, well, he couldn't be blamed if they got aggressive, because Alberto looked threatening with those sharp claws and teeth, after all. And he owed it to them to not be threatening, because they were trusting him.
Alberto missed not understanding human culture. It had been easier then.
What made it worse was that from the sound of Luca's letters, he didn't miss being a monster at all. Quite the opposite, really. He talked about how even when he did transform back, it felt weird to him, like he never wanted to go back. Like he wanted to forget about that part of his life and focus just on being human. For Luca, humanity was freedom. For Alberto, it was quickly becoming a cage.
When Luca came back to Portorosso, he was probably going to be the golden child. Though that didn't surprise Alberto one bit. Luca had always been the golden child. Alberto had always been the problem child.
He missed people being scared of him, and something about that felt shameful. People weren't supposed to want other people to be scared of them. They were supposed to want everyone to like them.
Of course, Alberto wasn't exactly people, was he?
Unlike Luca, he had always delighted in living in the in-between. He loved feeling that moment when his hair rippled back into scales. He loved that one breathless second that happened when he switched from breathing water to breathing air.
Everyone said he was growing up into someone downright respectable, and Alberto didn't know how to express how much he hated being respectable. He wanted to go back to scaring fishermen in the darkness. He wanted people to look at him and say "What is that?" He wanted to overhear hushed tales about the thing that was coming for them all.
But that was wrong, wasn't it? Here he had been given a chance at humanity and he was daydreaming about throwing it away.
He had gotten off the island, and yet he missed the island.
The thing was, if he wanted a chance to be with Luca, then he had to find a way to make this whole "human" thing work. Because Luca loved the humans. Because being seen as a monster was Luca's worst nightmare. Because Luca actually thought he had the ability to be something other than a monster, and Alberto wasn't going to tell him otherwise. Luca was the furthest thing from a monster, anyway.
Alberto, though... Alberto was another story.
It was fine. Of course, it was fine. He just had to find a way to survive until Luca and Giulia came home for the summer. Then they would have all sorts of adventures again and he would have a chance to be scary without people rejecting him. Until then, he had to just keep his head down and not get anyone mad at him.
Of course, some people were mad at him simply for existing in the first place. There were still people who would spit at his feet on a rainy day, or the fishermen who always had vaguely threatening frowns on their faces when he was around. Alberto practiced tiptoeing through the world, promising himself that it was temporary, that it would be better someday, that Luca was worth it.
Luca was worth anything.
Even listening to Bruno.