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The wind whips through Shiro’s hair as he runs, his face splitting into a smile as the shoreline comes into view.
It’s been so long since Shiro smelled the salt in the air or felt the cool ocean breeze on his skin. Too long.
Two hundred and eighty five days since he last laid eyes on his best friend. Six thousand eight hundred and forty hours since he held Keith’s hand in his. Twenty four million, six hundred twenty four thousand seconds since Keith’s lips touched his own, certifying what Shiro has known since he was eleven years old—that he is in love with the boy from the shore.
Sometimes, it seems like just yesterday that Shiro first met Keith, walking along the shoreline alone after his parents brought him to the seaside for the summer, to get away from the oppressive heat and hustle and bustle of the city. Shiro hadn’t been excited, not the way most children might have been. His parents brought their work with them, content to let Shiro entertain himself, but he’d never learned to swim and he had no friends. Until he’d found Keith—tangled up in a fisherman's net near the jetty. Shiro had never run so fast in his entire life, cutting Keith free with the pocket knife his dad had given him when he joined the boy scouts the year before.
The other boy had thrashed and hissed like a wild thing, only stopping when he realized Shiro wasn’t trying to hurt him, but set him free. Eventually, Shiro got him out of the net and Keith had shuffled back on the sand—dark, wet hair clinging to his head and his ripped clothing showing off his knobby knees and scratched up arms. Before Shiro could talk to him, he’d stood up and raced away disappearing behind the jetty before Shiro could catch up. He’d spent hours searching for him, long enough his parents had come to find him in the dark, yelling at him for staying out so long.
Shiro returned to the same spot day after day, hoping. After a week Keith had shown up again just as mysteriously, shoving an intricately woven, sailors knot bracelet at Shiro and whispering thank you. Shiro had slid the bracelet onto his right wrist, a funny tingling in his chest at the sight—no one had ever given anything like this before. When Shiro had looked up, Keith was still there watching. The next day Shiro returned and Keith was there again. That summer they spent every waking moment together climbing the jetty and building forts out of driftwood and sharing secrets beneath the stars.
When it came time for Shiro to leave, he’d tried to give Keith his phone number but Keith had shaken his head, mumbling something about living off the grid, but promising to be on the beach when Shiro returned the following summer. Shiro spent the next year sure Keith was a fever dream. That next summer, shortly after his twelfth birthday, when his family returned to the beach house for the summer, Keith was waiting for him digging a castle in the sand.
Every summer after that first one, Shiro would return to the seaside and spend three glorious months with Keith until he had to return to the city. As the years passed lots of things changed—Shiro got taller, got braces, grew muscles, lost his braces, even lost an arm and through it all the one thing that never changed was Keith. Well, that’s not true, Keith changed too. He got taller and broader, his hair grew longer in the back and his smile became more mischievous, but the heart of who Keith was— the fiery little boy who’d become Shiro’s best friend, that never changed. His devotion to Shiro never wavered. He looked at Shiro in his most awkward gawky years, and after he lost his arm in the accident, the same way he always had.
By the time Shiro was sixteen he was so in love with Keith it hurt, but he never said anything, afraid to scare the other boy away. Eventually, he begged to write letters to Keith over the long fall and winter months since they couldn’t call or text. Keith’s family traveled for work the rest of the year and had no permanent address, or at least that’s what Keith always said. His parents were never around to meet but then again, neither were Shiro’s so it never seemed too strange.
Shiro’s seventeenth summer was the one that changed everything. That summer he came into his own— finally feeling brave enough to ask Keith to teach him how to swim. He never did learn, too distracted by Keith’s hands on his body as he tried in vain to get Shiro to learn how to float. He got his driver's license and a car and spent the lazy days of summer driving Keith down the shoreline and wishing the days would never end. But, end they always did. That summer though, instead of parting with a hug, Keith had risen onto his tiptoes and kissed Shiro. It was a kiss Shiro carried with him for the next two hundred and eighty five days and the promise of seeing Keith again was the only thing that got him through them all.
This summer things will be different.
Shiro’s eighteen now, they both are, and Shiro has some pretty exciting news to share that will change everything for both of them. He just needs to find Keith first so he can tell him.
“Keith,” Shiro yells as his feet hit the sand. He can’t see him yet, but he’s got to be here somewhere—he always is.
“Keith,” he yells again, sand kicking up beneath his bare feet as he sprints across the sand towards the jetty.
“Keith,” he yells once more as he comes to a stop, turning in circles to try and find the other boy.
“Keith,” he whispers, the ocean lapping at his feet as he realizes he is alone.
By the time the sun is disappearing beyond the horizon, it’s clear Keith is not coming.
Shiro spends the following day searching the entire city, scouring their favorite places, but no one seems to know what has happened to Keith. No one seems to remember the beautiful boy with the dark hair and disarming smile except Shiro.
Despite this all he returns to the same spot on the beach the next day and the one after that and the one after that, but still no Keith.
What he does find, is an assortment of things washed up from the sea—a beautiful piece of violet colored sea glass that reminds him of Keith’s eyes, and a sand dollar with a perfect hole in it almost as if it were made be to hung—Shiro loops a piece of sailing cord through it and wears it around his neck. There is a rusted old key that looks like it came off a pirate ship, a silver dollar with a barnacle attached, and a broken compass that always points north. He can’t explain why, but these things feel meant for him.
Every day he hopes for a sight of Keith and instead finds something new, each of the curious items washed up on the large rock near the jetty where he’d first found Keith all those years ago. There’s no pattern to the items and though Shiro can’t prove it, He can’t shake the feeling that the sea is washing treasures ashore just for him.
Shiro doesn’t want treasure, he wants Keith.
June bleeds into July and the hole in Shiro’s heart grows, as does the collection of random treasures from that now cover the top of his dresser. Beautiful and interesting as they are, none of them lessen the ache in his chest as he watches the waves crest in the distance and wonders what happened to Keith.
Day after day Shiro returns, waiting, and by the last week of July it feels as if even the sea shares his mood—tumultuous waves crashing angrily against the jetty as rain thunders down. It’s not all that unusual for summer storms here, but this one is particularly nasty. Still, Shiro endures—huddled under his rainbow umbrella as he sits cross legged on the wet sand and stares out over the sea.
The sky is so dark it’s hard for Shiro to tell what part of the horizon is the sea and what’s the sky—all of it painted in shades of gray and obscured by the rain that thunders down, drenching his clothes and washing away any hope of finding a new treasure today. The weather is just as miserable as Shiro, who worries the sand dollar that hangs around his neck between thumb and forefinger and sighs. He sits until his body trembles from the cold, his clothes long soaked through despite his umbrella and the sun is non-existent, set somewhere behind the clouds.
With a heavy sigh Shiro rises, resolved to return the next day when a flash of lightning sets the dark sky ablaze and he catches sight of something in the water. The light is gone before he can get a good look, but even a flash of light is enough for Shiro to be sure what he’s seen.
Someone is in the ocean.
Someone with dark hair and an achingly familiar jawline.
“Keith,” Shiro stutters, his umbrella falling to the sand and blowing away in the wind.
It can’t be. And yet.
“Keith,” Shiro yells again, his voice drowned out by the crash of thunder and the rain that pounds against his head.
It’s impossible. Not even Keith— brave, fearless, good swimmer Keith—would be in the sea during a storm like this. Shiro’s got to be hallucinating. It has to be a seal or a dolphin breaching the water at the end of the jetty.
The odds of it being Keith are slim to none but the what if crawls into Shiro’s brain and won’t leave.
Mind made up, Shiro runs directly for the jetty, stumbling in the sand and falling to his knees, quickly pushing himself up before lunging forward. It’s not safe to be out here in weather like this, but Shiro can’t go home without being sure. Even the smallest possibility of finding Keith is something he has to investigate, no matter how impossible or dangerous it might be.
Hand trembling, Shiro claws his way up the side of the rocky jetty. It’s difficult going with one hand and between the massive waves sending icy spray his way and the rain still pouring down, Shiro can barely see; furiously blinking the water from his eyes as he struggles forward, nearly slipping sideways off the rocks. He manages to stay upright, but just barely, accruing an uncomfortable amount of scratches against his palm as he half walks and half crawls his way down the jetty, desperate for another glimpse of what lies beneath the sea.
“Keith,” he screams into the darkness.
If there’s an answer, Shiro can’t hear it above the crashing waves that are nearly as loud as thunder this far out at the end of the jetty. He peers into the darkness, desperate for another sign of what he swears he saw before. He leans as far forward as he can without falling off the edge, unprepared for the exceptionally large wave that slams against the jetty and engulfs him in water.
Shiro slips, his wrist slamming against the edge of the rock as he uses his thigh muscles to hold himself steady. By some miracle when the wave subsides, Shiro is still hanging onto the rock. It’s only when a bright flash of lightning blazes through the sky that Shiro catches sight of something on the rock below him—his bracelet.
The bottom drops out of Shiro’s stomach as he lifts his arm, a visceral pain lancing through him at the sight of his bare wrist. He’s worn that hand woven sailor knot bracelet since the day he walked onto the beach missing an arm—terrified to witness Keith’s reaction to seeing him missing his right arm and the bracelet Keith had given him when they were eleven. To his immense relief Keith had crashed into Shiro hugging the life out of him and begging him to never get hurt again. The next day Keith had shown up on the beach with a new bracelet and slid it onto Shiro’s left wrist whispering ‘you’re still Shiro’. It’s been three years since that day and Shiro’s never taken it off, not once. Some of the threads are splitting now and he’s got a permanent tan line beneath it, but the bracelet is a part of him the same way Keith is.
And now the bracelet is gone—the cotton worn thin in spots from age and split apart by the rocks beneath him.
Water laps at the rock below, the bracelet shifting sideways with the tide, and Shiro forgets how to breathe. Even ripped in half he cannot lose the bracelet. He won’t lose it. It’s all he has left of Keith and—no, he won’t go down that path. Keith will come back, and when he does Shiro will be wearing his bracelet if it kills him.
Another wave crashes, nearly sweeping the bracelet out to sea. Panic rising, Shiro braces himself as he slides feet first down the edge jetty— slipping down lower until his feet hit the rock below. Once he’s down on the lower rock he snatches the bracelet and shoves it as far down into his pocket as it will go, ignoring the tears on his face as they’re washed away by the rain. He’s so close to the sea now it nearly envelops him, the tide rising unnervingly fast as the fury of the waves grow.
It’s not until the water is knee high, the rock beneath his feet no longer visible, that it occurs to Shiro he can’t swim. Sure, he can tread water with Keith when the sand is under his toes, but swim in the deep sea? Absolutely not.
The panic that had subsided once he got his bracelet safely tucked away returns tenfold as bolts of lightning crack through the sky, illuminating the very dark and very empty sea. Shiro wants to cry for his stupidity. Keith isn’t out here, of course he isn’t—no one could survive in the sea like this. His mind played tricks on him and now he’s stuck at the end of the jetty as the tide threatens to engulf him.
It’s so dark he can barely see as his hand scrambles to find something stable enough to hold on to, and is met with nothing but slippery, smooth rock. Strong as he is, he’s still unable to climb back up without anything to hold on to. He tries anyway, the tips of his fingers bleeding as he slams them into the rock, desperately trying to claw his way back up. Every inch he gains is lost the moment a new wave slams into the jetty, stealing the air from Shiro’s lungs as he uses all of his strength to cling to the rock and not be washed away.
The harder he tries to get back up, the harder the waves slam into his back as if taunting him. Between the rain and waves it's nearly impossible for him to even keep his eyes open, not that it matters since it’s too dark to see anything. Still he doesn’t give up, not even as fatigue threatens his muscles and the chill makes his limbs go numb. Shiro is not going to die out here in the sea, he’s going to climb this damn jetty.
Last summer he promised Keith he’d return to the shore, and when Keith comes back—which he will—Shiro is going to be there waiting for him if it kills him.
Despite the thought, Shiro doesn’t actually expect to die. He expects to get back atop the rocks and make his way back to the shore. Which means it comes as a great surprise when one second he’s nearly got himself halfway up the massive rock, and the next second a wave strong as a brick wall slams into him. His grip falters and his strength fails him as he’s pulled into the unforgiving waters.
If Shiro was cold before, it’s nothing compared to the ice that floods his veins as his entire body sinks into the sea—a cold unlike anything he’s ever felt sending shock waves of pain into his entire body as the air in his lungs escapes with a stifled cry he can’t contain. A cry that has him swallowing down seawater and choking on it. His heart constricts as he realizes he doesn't even know which way is up. Everything is dark and even as he forces his eyes open, ignoring the way the saltwater stings his eyes, it's impossible to know which way is up.
Against all odds Shiro fights, desperately trying to propel himself upwards—or at least in the direction he hopes is upwards—but it’s impossible. He’s too weak from trying to climb, and too inexperienced a swimmer to be able to make his body go the direction he wants. He’s at the mercy of the sea as he’s flung around, twisting and spinning as the last of the air leaves his lungs.
This time when Shiro cries, his tears become a part of the sea just like his body will.
Eventually, Shiro stops fighting; too exhausted and disoriented, letting his eyes fall shut as he shoves his hand into his pocket and curls his fingers around the bracelet.
His last thoughts before the darkness engulfs him are of Keith.
“Shiro,” someone calls, a melodic voice so familiar his chest aches.
It takes a few moments for Shiro’s confusion to clear enough for him to place the familiarity. Keith. The voice sounds like Keith. But Keith isn’t here, and Shiro is at the bottom of the sea and maybe this is what being dead feels like. It hurts more than Shiro thought being dead would, every inch of his body sore and aching.
“Shiro! Wake up,” the voice repeats. “Wake the fuck up, goddamn it.”
“I didn’t know they cursed in heaven,” Shiro mumbles.
“Shiro,” the voice gasps—and yeah that’s definitely Keith’s voice. “You’re not dead. Oh my god.”
Shiro opens his eyes, blinking up at the face that’s filled his dreams for the last three hundred and six days.
“Keith,” Shiro whispers, lifting his hand to cup the side of Keith’s face. There’s a jagged scar that runs across his right cheek that wasn’t there before, his features sharped with age. He looks different but the same, and Shiro’s heart threatens to beat right out of his chest. “Are you okay?”
“Am I—oh my god,” Keith groans, holding Shiro’s face in his cold, wet hands. “Who cares about me. You almost died. What were you doing at the end of the jetty you absolute idiot? You can’t swim.”
Shiro swallows, throat raw and chest aching as he inhales a shuddering breath and drops his hand from Keith’s face to reach into his pocket and pull out the bracelet—the strings frayed and shredded in his palm. It’s a shadow of its former self, barely recognizable now but it’s Shiro’s.
“I couldn’t lose it, I promised you I’d never take it off.”
Keith’s face tightens as he bends in half, resting his forehead against Shiro’s. “You stupid, beautiful boy.”
Shiro laughs then winces, coughing water out of his lungs as he turns his face into Keith’s stomach to avoid spitting in his face. It’s only when he stops coughing that he realizes the wet, slimy thing beneath his head isn’t Keith’s wet pants or even seaweed. It’s a tail—a mermaid tail.
“Keith, you’re a mermaid,” he gasps.
He’s heard stories of mermaids of course, everyone in these parts have. But that’s all it’s ever been, stories. It’s been decades since anyone saw a mermaid
in the cove—most of them long ago driven out by fishing boats, or tourists so eager to take their photo they’d begun to destroy the mer homes; through excessive diving, plundering of resources or littering. A decade ago the city council had created regulations aimed at stopping the extinction of the mermaid population, but to Shiro’s knowledge they never had returned.
Mermaids might not be a fairytale, but they’re rare as hell and Shiro can hardly believe his own eyes.
“Um, yeah…about that,” Keith says, his stomach muscles flexing as he inhales sharply. “I didn’t know how to tell you. Fuck. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Shiro. This is all my fault. If I hadn’t left all those gifts, maybe you would’ve stopped coming and then this never would have happened.”
“You left them,” Shiro whispers, reaching up to ghost his fingers over the swell of Keith’s belly where his flesh turns to scale.
“Well, yeah,” Keith mumbles, sounding almost shy. “It’s not what you deserve but I couldn’t come ashore to meet you and—”
“I loved them. Saved them all,” Shiro says, marveling at the sight of Keith’s quivering belly as he drags his pointer and forefinger across the beautiful dark purple scales.
“I knew it was dangerous, but I couldn’t stop coming to see you. That first day when you came I nearly dragged myself out of the sea with my hands to get to you.”
“Why didn’t you?” Shiro asks, marveling at the sight of Keith’s bare skin and dark purple scales that lay just below his belly button.
“I wanted to. So badly. But I’m not…I’m not who I was before,” he says, stroking the hair back off Shiro’s forehead.
“I don’t understand,” Shiro whispers, grateful that the rain has stopped pounding on the rock above them that’s been shielding them from the storm.
Keith blows out a heavy breath. “My dad’s human. He’s a deep sea fisherman, works offshore most of the year. One night during a storm he fell off his boat and nearly drowned but…my mom, she’s a mermaid, well she saved him. They uh, fell in love and had me.”
“For as long as I can remember I’ve been able to shift back and forth. That summer you first found me, I’d gotten tangled in the fishermen’s net while swimming with my mom’s pod. But then you showed up and…and I’d never met a human beside my dad. My parents had forbidden me from telling anyone about my secret, afraid of what might happen if humans found out mermaids had come back. It seemed innocent enough to lie to you then, when it was what I was supposed to do. The older I got the harder it became not to tell you. Shiro… you have no idea how many times I almost told you.”
It would be so easy to be angry or hurt, but all Shiro feels is relief at seeing Keith again—at knowing he is safe.
“You saved me,” Shiro says, the shredded pieces of his bracelet still clasped in his palm as he brings it up to cradle Keith’s face in his hand.
“Always,” Keith exhales, resting his cheek against Shiro’s palm. “But please don’t go out onto the jetty during a storm again. You could die.”
“I mean, my boyfriend is a mermaid, so I’m pretty sure he’d rescue me if I did almost die again,” Shiro teases.
“Too soon,” Keith grumbles, eyebrows tightly knit together as he hugs Shiro just that little bit closer. “Also um… you um… so you still want to be my boyfriend? Even after I kept who I really was from you?”
“I know exactly who you are,” Shiro tells him, smoothing his thumb over the arch of Keith’s cheek and collecting the droplets of seawater that cling to his flesh. “Tail or no tail it doesn’t change what’s inside of you, who you are. You’re still Keith. My Keith.”
Keith makes a high pitched noise, curling around Shiro with his tail in a protective hold.
“I can’t believe you went to the end of the jetty for a stupid bracelet I made you when we were fifteen.”
“I’d go anywhere for you, Keith.”
The sound those words punch from Keith’s throat is nothing short of otherworldly: a cry not unlike the wind whistling across the sea during a storm.
“Keith, I love—”
“I love you, too. Don’t you dare ever do that to me again, you understand?” Keith cries, his tears falling down onto Shiro’s cheeks like raindrops. “I love you so much and I didn’t…I can’t…you deserve more than three months a year with me. You deserve someone who can love you the way you deserve every day, and I can’t be that person. I can’t follow you, Shiro. Once I came of age I lost the ability to transform. I’m bound to the sea heart and soul now.”
In the distance the waves crash against the jetty as the clouds part to cast a single ray of moonlight over Keith—his purple tail shimmering in the glow. He’s beautiful and conviction drips from Shiro’s voice as he speaks his next words.
“Guess it’s up to me to follow you then.”
The cool morning breeze wafts through the open window as the ocean waves crashing outside slowly drag Shiro out of dreamland. He’s so relaxed and comfortable he could stay here all day, but there’s something even more alluring than sleep waiting for Shiro just outside his front door.
Yawning widely, Shiro rolls out of bed and rubs the sleep from his eyes as he stretches his sleep heavy limbs. A quick glance at the clock tells him it’s not yet seven in the morning, meaning Shiro’s got two hours before his first morning lecture—plenty of time for a morning dip in the sea.
Shiro wastes no time in stumbling to his dresser and grabbing a bathing suit, tugging it up his thighs and shimmying his ass into it. It’s a tight squeeze, maybe a size too small if he’s being honest, but Keith’s face goes pink when Shiro wears this particular one—his fin flipping in the water—so Shiro maybe possibly wears it more than the others.
Keith. Just thinking about him set’s Shiro’s heart fluttering as he leaves the bedroom and walks into his tiny kitchenette, grabbing his cold brew from the fridge and chugging it black straight from the bottle. Normally he likes it with milk and ice but Shiro’s not about to waste any time this morning. Later when he’s on campus he might need to head to the coffee shop for a muffin and a latte, but for now he chugs just enough cold brew to wake him up before shoving it back into the fridge and heading for the front door. He grabs a clean towel off the hook by the door, not even bothering with sandals as he opens the front door, still unable to believe his luck in finding a waterfront bungalow with direct beach access that he could afford.
Well, afford might be a bit of an exaggeration since his parents are footing the bill while he gets his degree, but Shiro isn’t above using his puppy dog eyes on his parents to get a little help with rent. Not if it means he is only steps away from Keith.
With an exuberant laugh Shiro takes off at a run, the sand beneath his toes warm.
It takes less than five minutes for Shiro to make his way down around the jetty, to the small secluded cove that lays on the other side. Like every morning, Keith is already there—his head bobbing in the waves as he waits for Shiro. Even at a distance it’s easy to tell when Keith realizes he’s there— his massive fin splashing in the water as he dives beneath the waves to get as close to the shore as he can.
Dropping his towel on the dry sand, Shiro takes off at a sprint—unfazed by the icy chill of the water this early. He’s come to love the sea in the morning— loves everything about every moment he gets to spend with Keith. It’s been an adjustment these past few months, but now Shiro welcomes the way the water laps at his legs, and he feels as much a part of the ocean as he does the land. He suspects it might have something to do with the single mermaid scale Keith wove into his new sailors knot bracelet, but then again it might just be that Shiro loves the sea as an extension of loving Keith.
“Morning, beautiful,” Shiro says, waist deep in the water when Keith’s body collides with his own, pulling Shiro down to his knees and into a hug.
“Morning yourself,” Keith laughs, smoothing his hands up Shiro’s back as his tail twists around Shiro’s legs beneath the water enveloping him in a full body hug, goosebumps popping up on Shiro’s arm as the smooth scales rub against his bare legs.
“I missed you,” Shiro tells him, relaxing his body and knowing Keith will easily keep them afloat. Shiro’s a much better swimmer now than he was a few months prior, but he still lives for the moments Keith cradles him in his arms and tail, keeping them afloat so Shiro can focus all of his attention on Keith.
“Missed you too,” Keith says, pressing a kiss to Shiro’s lips. He tastes salty, like the sea, and Shiro chases his lips, deepening the kiss.
“How long do we have today?” Keith asks, his left hand not so discreetly finding its way to Shiro’s ass.
“Long enough,” Shiro grins, knocking their foreheads together.
“It’s never long enough,” Keith retorts.
“Sap,” Shiro teases, kissing his cute nose.
“Mmm,” Keith hums, eyes fluttering shut as Shiro smooths his left hand down Keith’s side low enough to caress the sensitive scales at his hip. “But you love me.”
“Yeah,” Shiro agrees, his heart full to bursting at the realization that right here and now his life is perfect. “I do.”