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The water laps at his legs, receding in a gentle pull, as if to entice him into its depths. Kazuya sinks his feet in the sand and flips the next page of the scorebook, head deep in the last game they played before spring break.
He nearly drops the book in the water when something tickles his toes.
“Gotcha!”
Kazuya fumbles with his glasses, grimacing when his thumb smashes against the lenses and leaves a smudge. He deposits the book in the basket near him and chokes on a laugh as the fingers continue to tease the sensitive skin of his foot.
“Stop it, you menace,” he says, and Eijun lifts himself out of the water with a wide grin, all sharp teeth and otherworldly sunset eyes. Water drips down his neck and gathers at his collarbone as he rests between Kazuya’s feet, elbows in the sand and tail glimmering golden beneath the surface of the water.
“Were you reading a sc- scolbook?”
“Scorebook,” Kazuya says, tweaking his nose. “I’m surprised you remember.”
“Of course I do!” Eijun cries with such indignation that he follows up with a series of clicks and whistles that Kazuya assumes are insults. When he’s done, he brightens up and his tail breaks the water, creating powerful splashes that rain down on them when he thumps it up and down in evident excitement.
“So?” he asks, eyes wide. “What did you bring today?”
Kazuya snorts but drags the basket close to gingerly pull out the violet-tipped flowers he gathered on his way to the beach. They each have five petals that curve outwards, the purple deepening at the edges. The blossoms float across the water and Eijun keens in delight as he gathers them between his arms. His eyebrows scrunch in concentration as he picks them up and fixes them in his braided hair.
“Let me help,” Kazuya says, scooting closer to the mer and cupping his cheek in one hand to keep him still while fixing the stalks in his dark hair.
“Alright,” Kazuya says when he’s done, and shifts back so he can admire the trail of purple blossoms dotting Eijun’s hair. It complements his wide eyes and the alluring pink of his curved lips.
Eijun sinks back into the water, tugging on Kazuya’s hands. He follows and the water undulates around him, as if encouraging him to go deeper. Soon enough, he’s in water up to his elbows and it ebbs about him with deceptive calm, as beautiful as it is dangerous. He shivers involuntarily — it’s late spring but the waters are still cold, even with the sun searing the surface.
The mer leans into his space and wraps his arms around Kazuya’s neck, a pink flush decorating his cheeks. So gentle Kazuya could almost believe he doesn’t possess enough strength to drown a human in a single heartbeat. He finds the edges of Eijun’s hips where the skin gives way to smooth scales and gently thumbs them; He’s careful about keeping them downstrokes. The last time he went against the natural direction of the scales, he’d got a tail smack in his face and a hissing mer. It’s a vividly painful memory he does not wish to relive.
“I want to do it again. The kisoo.”
“Kiss,” Kazuya laughs, although his heart is tumbling about like the helpless fish trapped in his father’s nets. Eijun scowls, his webbed ears pressing against his head.
“Whatever, you porcupine fish!”
Kazuya closes the distance between them. “That’s new,” he snickers against Eijun’s moist lips and then licks up the salty aftertaste. The mer vocalises a series of clicks that drag out and break into a high-pitched whistle. He looks dazed when they part and Kazuya is tempted to kiss him silly.
He might’ve, if not for the gagging sound behind them. Eijun pushes him away and dives into the water with a splash that leaves Kazuya spluttering and choking on the seawater that burns his throat and eyes.
“Is there any time the two of you aren’t snogging?”
Kazuya turns around to glare at his (best) friend- or as well as he can while he’s tearing from the sting in his eyes.
“You’re developing some nasty voyeuristic habits,” he says, throat raspy from the coughing.
“Please,” Kuramochi retorts. “This is a public space.”
“Youichi!”
Eijun emerges from the water a distance from Kazuya, his hands outstretched. The high schooler wades in and avoids the grabby hands, instead pulling the mer into a light headlock, careful to avoid the delicate gills fluttering in the ridges of his neck.
“What are you doing in broad daylight, you moron?”
As the mer struggles, a few flowers fall from his hair and land on the water.
“Let go,” he shrills, “They’re falling out!”
“Gods above,” Kuramochi groans as he releases the mer. Eijun picks up the flowers and pushes them back in his hair in a haphazard arrangement.
Kuramochi and Kazuya make their way out of the water, clothes sogging wet and a mixture of sand and salt forming a dry crust on every inch of exposed skin. Eijun takes great joy in scooping water up in a shell and pouring it over them while they talk about last summer.
“This year’s our last chance to win Koushien,” Kazuya says, staring at the rosy clouds drifting by. He thinks about their seniors’ tears and the momentary disbelief. The anger-frustration burning its way through his veins as he realised that their summer had come to a standstill.
“Didn't you tell me that your Furuya human is like a pearl in a seashell?” Eijun asks, attentive.
“Furuya? Yeah, with the way he’s been pitching reliably, we just might be able to do it.”
“I want to play baseball too,” Eijun grumbles, watching sand trickle out of his hand. “I’d make a pretty good pitcher, right?”
“You’re decent,” Kuramochi says, humouring him. They’ve spent hours playing catch ball with the mer over the years and Kazuya thinks that Eijun has a moving pitch that could be honed into something. If he were human, that is.
The mer preens at the affirmation. “Then, what will you do after you win Koushien?”
The question shouldn’t have silenced them the way it did. But it does and Kazuya thinks about the future he’s dreamed of since the time he could throw a baseball into his father’s open mitt.
“I’m going to go pro,” he says, finally. Eijun’s face twists in confusion as he tries to repeat the word.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m going to play baseball as a job. I’m going to earn money doing it.”
Eijun is silent as he thinks about it. “Like… your father catches fish to earn money?”
“Exactly like that.”
“You’re not coming back?” Eijun asks, his eyes wide. Kazuya swallows and he can feel Kuramochi’s gaze weighing on him.
“Of course I’ll come back. Just, not that often. It’ll be quite busy if I do get into the pro league.”
This isn’t a conversation he wanted to have. Never, if he could have it his way. But this, whatever this is that he has with Eijun, might’ve been doomed from the start.
(He’ll never admit that he’d wished for impossible things like having this merman he’d come to love by his side, with a pair of legs, curling into his side.)
Eijun's expression pinches and he stares at his webbed hands as if they have all the answers to the world.
“I’m planning on going pro too,” Kuramochi says. “But it’ll take me longer than Miyuki. I’ll be back more often than him so we can plan all sorts of nasty things for when he comes back.”
“Hey,” Kazuya protests, as Eijun perks up and a small smile makes its way to his face.
“Promise!”
He sticks out his pinky like how they taught him when they were fifteen and leaving for the big city for the first time. A pinky promise, they told him, was an unbreakable vow.
With the membrane between his fingers, it’s virtually impossible but they make do with what little space they have.
Kuramochi tightens his pinky around the edge of the mer’s own. “Promise.”
“You too,” Eijun says, avoiding Kazuya’s gaze. “Promise me you’ll come back.”
“I’ve still got the rest of the year before I even get the chance to go pro, you know,” Kazuya says, feeling the cool tip of Eijun’s finger. “I promise.”
The sun begins to dip its rays in the expanse of water behind the mer. As the breathtaking glitter in Eijun’s eyes catches gold, Kazuya remembers that with him, the impossible always became possible.