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Alberto stared curiously from the treehouse as Luca staggered across the yard, a plank of wood balanced precariously across his shoulder. “What in Poseidon’s name are you doing?”
“Come- down- and- help-” Luca wheezed, his face turning the colour of a tomato under the strain, an taking pity on him, Alberto swiftly jumped down and took the plank from him.
“Better?” he said with an amused smirk.
“Much, thanks,” Luca panted, hands on his knees. He looked up at his friend, who appeared completely unfazed by the load on his shoulders. “Does that even weigh anything to you?”
“Nah. It’s like holding a fishing net. An empty fishing net.” He flexed his muscles for dramatic effect and Luca snorted, hoping the curtain of hair that fell into his face was enough to hide his blush.
Alberto had always been taller than him and constantly wrote about helping Massimo with fishing in his letters, but what Luca hadn’t expected when he arrived at Portorosso that summer was the way rivulets of water would cascade down his body as they got out of the water, the way his shirts seemed flatteringly just so on the tight side, and most surprisingly, the way Luca couldn’t keep his eyes off him.
In all honesty, his friend had transfixed him from the moment they met, but this kind of...longing seemed different somehow, more serious.
“So, are you going to tell me what it’s for?” Alberto’s cheerful voice snapped him out of his reverie.
He lit up, extraordinarily pleased at the idea of showing Alberto something he’d learnt about in Genoa. “It’s a secret! Now, come on, let’s go to the island!”
“What have you got up your tiny little sleeve?” he teased, and Luca grinned back. “You’ll just have to wait!”
“I hate waiting,” Alberto grumbled good-naturedly. “In that case, race you to the island!”
“Not fair!” Luca yelled as his friend sprinted off into the morning, hurriedly running after him. The two of them dove into the water almost at the exact time, tails arcing as they rocketed into the air and splashed back down, looking for all the world like an underwater dance troupe, and Luca had never felt so free.
Alberto whooped as he transformed back and forth, his shining eyes constant throughout his two forms. Luca forced himself to tear his gaze away, hoping the splattering of blue across his skin was enough to conceal his blush.
It was stupid, it was unfair, and for the past few months, he’d been telling himself that it meant nothing. It was just a silly infatuation, he whispered at the mirror. Friends had crushes on each other all the time.
At least, that’s what he’d tried desperately to believe until yesterday morning, when he’d found the small teal heart on the inside of his wrist. Faint but unmistakably there.
A heartmark.
It was the stuff of myths and folklore, fairy tales told to every child of the sea folk as they were tucked into bed at night. When a sea creature falls in love, the tattoo of a heart blooms upon their skin, aquamarine blue for the ocean. While his grandmother didn’t and never intended to bear one, both his parents were marked with identical hearts, binding them to each other.
Luca had always found it rather sweet before. Now he was terrified.
Terrified of what it might mean, the depth of his uncharted feelings for the most important person in his life, terrified of the look on Alberto’s face when he inevitably found out-
“Earth to Luca!”
He blinked, panicked, then realised they’d reached the island and he was lying on his back on the sand. Alberto offered him a hand. “You all right?”
Luca took the proffered hand, careful to ensure his wrist, covered by a bracelet though it was, was never in sight. “Yeah. Thanks.”
Flustered, he brushed the sand off his clothes, more out of a lack of anything to do than any true necessity to do so.
“So? You gonna show me that surprise?” The warmth in Alberto’s voice seemed to thaw something within him. It was still them, still Alberto and Luca, the two of them on their Vespa against the world, and Luca would be damned if he gave that up because of a stupid heartmark.
Reassured, he smiled. “Follow me!”
They scaled the tower, limbs coordinated from all the years of frequenting the spot, and Luca led Alberto to the very side of the tower, exactly where they used to jump off, calling out for gravity. “Stay here,” he instructed, while he clambered up to the roof to grab the coils of rope, hammer and box of nails he knew was there.
“Now attach the ropes to each side of the plank.”
Looking confused, Alberto did as he was told. “And then what?”
Between them, they managed to string it up between the branches of the tree and the side of the tower, reinforced by a generous handful of nails. “I still don’t get it,” Alberto whined. “What’s the point of all this?”
“Patience, ‘Berto,” he chided, then laughed and grabbed his arm, ignoring the sparks it sent up his veins, courtesy of the heartmark. It was not going to bother him today. “Come on, it’s ready!”
Alberto fairly leaped to the ground. “Finally!”
“Sit on the plank, and I’ll push you from behind.”
His friend looked suspicious. “Are you sure you aren’t just trying to catapult me into the water?”
Luca burst out laughing. “It’s a swing, ‘Berto! I learned all about in Portorosso. You sit on it, and you fly into the sky! It’s very popular with humans. Don’t you trust me?” he asked, feigning annoyance.
“Stop using those puppy eyes on me, geez,” Alberto teased. “You know I can’t resist it when you do that.”
Luca willed away his blush. “Hold on to the rope.” And Luca absolutely, resolutely did not look at the space on Alberto’s left wrist where his own heartmark was.
Not that it would have mattered. The tanned skin was blank.
Tamping down his disappointment, Luca summoned all the peppiness he could muster into his voice. “Ready?”
At Alberto’s assent, he gently placed both hands on his friend’s back and pushed, slightly comforted by Alberto’s surprised whoops as he swung into the air. “Take me, gravity!” he hollered, and Luca pushed again, harder.
“Luc!” Alberto turned, mid-air, to look back down at him. “I’m flying!”
The sight was breathtaking. It wasn’t just the honey-golden sunlight hitting his skin at just the right angle, or the vast blue sky that brought out the turquoise shine of his eyes. It was the pure, unadulterated joy on his face that made Luca’s heart beat just a little faster.
He took a mental picture, and saved it.
As a result, Alberto crashed into him as he landed, sending them both sprawling to the floor in an undignified heap. Luca squawked. “You’re squashing me!”
“Sorry,” Alberto said, laughing, not sounding very apologetic at all.
It was then that Luca noticed the proximity of their faces, and all the blood rushed to his cheeks. Poseidon’s sake, not again.
“Luca.”
“What?” If his voice came out a little strangled, well, he could always attribute it to the way Alberto’s body was flattening him.
Alberto looked more serious than Luca had ever seen. “I know,” he whispered.
Luca’s heart stopped beating. Panic was streaking through his body, bolts of lightning shooting through his veins, and for a moment, he was glad he was on the ground, because if he hadn’t been, he was sure that declaration would have been enough to make him fall. “Know...what?”
In one fluid movement, Alberto reached to grab Luca’s left arm, lifting the inside of his wrist up to the light.
No. No no no no no.
He jerked his arm away as though it had been burnt. “Forgive me,” he said stiffly. “I can make it go away, cover it, you won’t ever have to see it again, I promise-”
Alberto cut him off with the lightest of kisses to his nose.
“Luca,” he said gently. “Breathe.”
“Sorry,” he gasped, his skin tingled. “I’ll- I’ll try.”
Alberto disentangled their limbs and pulled Luca up into a sitting position, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “One in, one out. That’s it,” he said encouragingly as Luca’s breathing began to even out again. “I got you.”
He raised his right arm and held it in front of Luca, who just blinked at it, confused, until he spotted the blue heart on his wrist. Was that-
“No,” he breathed. “‘Berto?”
“Yeah,” Alberto replied with a laugh. “Look, it’s the same as yours.”
Luca held his arm up, and true to his word, their hearts were matching, the exact same shade of aquamarine, the exact same size. “What- what does this mean, then?” he asked, when he’d finally regained his voice.
“Whatever you want,” Alberto said softly. “Hey, look at me. You know I love you, right?”
“I love you too.” He burrowed his face in Alberto’s shoulder, face flaming. “Obviously.”
Alberto huffed out a laugh, and Luca could feel its vibrations against his cheek. “Well, that’s a relief,” he joked, but Luca could sense the joy in his words. “Wanna get your turn on the swing?”
A slow smile spread across Luca’s face. “Yeah.”
“Yeah?” Alberto jumped up. “Yeah, come on!”
He got on the plank, Alberto’s hands a comforting presence on the small of his back, tracing small circles until he nodded. “Ready.”
And then he was flying, soaring through the air, and he couldn’t help the incredulous gasp that left his mouth at the sight of the sea and the sand below him. He was one with the air and the sky and the clouds, and he was weightless.
“Take me, gravity!” he called, loud, and Alberto cheered, pushing him again. “Go, Luca!”
It was wild and exhilarating and perfect, swinging through the air like a bird but knowing that he would, at the end of it, always return into Alberto’s waiting arms. “Your turn!” he laughed as they tumbled to the ground after a while, his arms coming up to circle Alberto’s waist. Their lips met for the briefest of kisses, natural and instinctive like breathing, and Luca loved him, loved him, loved him.
Luca was grinning like a besotted fool when they finally got up again. “How high do you wanna go this time?”
“High enough for me to bring you back a fish from the sky,” Alberto deadpanned, and they both burst into giggles. “All right then,” Luca agreed. “Get aboard the train to the sky!”
He didn’t know how long they stayed there, taking turns pushing each other all the way up to dizzying heights, falling back into each other’s embraces and exchanging kisses between pushes. Alberto pushed him up, again and again, and he was laughing harder than he ever had in his life, and the very sky itself seemed to glow gold as the sun’s rays painted the tops of the clouds orange.
He looked at his wrist again, then, halfway in the air, in his very own bubble of gravity, and for the first time, his heartmark felt beautiful, like an invisible thread connecting them both, like a swing that would, despite how high he flew, always being him back to Alberto.
“Home?” Alberto asked when he caught him deftly and Luca hooked his arms around his neck. Luca leaned up to peck him on the lips. “Definitely. We can come back to the swing though, right?”
“Of course! We’ll leave it there, always,” Alberto promised, and Luca beamed. He felt the way he did when his true form had been revealed during the Portorosso Cup and, thanks to Massimo, the people began to cheer for him and Alberto. As though he had shrugged off a heavy cloak he hadn’t been aware he’d been wearing.
“Race you across that path?” Alberto was pointing to the sunset-lit trail across the water, and his smile was positively devilish. “Last one to the house owes the other a kiss. You on?”
Laughing, he got to his feet, already skidding across the sand. “Always,” he yelled at the top of his lungs. “Always, Alberto Scorfano!”
(He won the race, and to say he was pleased with his prize would have been an enormous understatement.)