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maki is watching a queen trigger fish absentmindedly float throughout its space in its large tropical tank at the opening of the aquarium. she catches brief glimpses of herself in the midday gleam of the sun against the class, distorting the scars on her face and her wild tendrils of hair and her long, wiry limbs even further.
as the marbled water teams with fish of every color beneath her likeness, maki recognizes herself even less than usual, to the point that she doesn’t really know what she’s looking at. she’s a new breed, maybe, dredged out of the water kicking and screaming.
the roaring water fountain at the entrance muffles the noises of banal human chatter. maki alternates from tugging onto her tie, and then anxiously moves onto readjusting her hair clips, then to braiding and then unbraiding her hair, and then and then and then.
she huffs and rocks on her feet, glancing to the entrance and then back at the tank. the tickets she bought for kaito and herself are tucked into her waistband. he’s late. later and later by the moment.
how irresponsible.
it was his idea to drag her out on her birthday to go to the aquarium, anyways, and now he isn’t even here to walk her in. she didn’t ask him to do any of this.
(she won’t admit it, but maki wanted to thank him for at least being thoughtful when planning her birthday outing. once it was over, and nothing could go wrong. she likes the ocean, maybe. not that it’s your business.)
she rolls her eyes to no one, and mumbles about how unreliable kaito is and how dumb she looks standing here alone. if kaito really wants to give her a birthday surprise, he can find her his own damn self.
just as she turns to leave, she hears a familiar voice.
“maki roll!” kaito loyally runs up to her. his slippers awkwardly slap against the carpet. he’s smiling from ear-to-ear, like they hadn’t seen each other in weeks.
“what took you so long?” maki responds dryly. “i was about to leave without you.”
“what do you mean?” kaito shoots back defensively. “i’m here on time-“
“you’re 30 minutes late.”
“well, i’m here now!” he says, throwing an arm around her frame and squeezing her. “all’s well ends well, or whatever the expression is!”
she wants to stay mad at him, but she doesn’t have it in her today. he looks happy to be here.
“you look…. nice. or something close to it,” maki acknowledges, sinking into the familiarity of his frame.
he kisses her on the cheek.
maki finds herself, hand in kaito’s, in front of another tank, hidden further down the recesses of the aquarium’s hallways. the room’s walls curve in on themselves, reminiscent almost of a cave. and like a lantern to guide a treacherous path, dim yellow lights line the hallway where the colorful, carpeted floor runs into the wall.
she stands, taking in the details of a new tank. this one is full of more tropical fish. there’s a neon yellow tang, and a school of four-striped damsel fish. she sees a pacific regal blue tang, a porcupine pufferfish, a long-nosed butterfly fish, some lionfish. she points out the royal gramma basslets to kaito.
they walk a bit further down the hall, and maki stops to read a plaque with information on the fish. there’s a drawing of black and white fish, striped and shaped like a sail boat. moorish idol. they range from africa to the indian ocean to hawaii to southern japan. diurnal, and striped. coral dwellers. maki looks up, and back into the tank, and sees the real thing.
maki notices the stripes the adorn the fish. they’re thick and heavy black bars. maki has scars that look similar. but these fish are supposed to be striped. people aren’t born with scars. she’s had scars that deep and that thick since she was very young.
she wonders to herself for just a moment, if aliens ever visited, if they would know she was a person, the same as anyone else. maybe her unique markings would make them think she was something else. she’s accepted that even keebo seems more human than she does. but aliens wouldn’t ever visit. that would be ridiculous.
her train of thought is interrupted by kaito’s voice, especially loud against the gentleness of the water tanks. “what are you thinking about? you look lost in something.”
maki keeps looking at the tank, almost pretending that she didn’t hear his question.
after too many moments without a response, kaito goes back to talking. “i really love comb jellies. they’re a kind of jellyfish that are bioluminescent.”
“bioluminescent, huh?” maki half smiles and half cringes at the familiarity of the word in her mouth.
“i feel like astronauts have a lot in common with marine biologists who study deep sea life,” kaito adds, and the tone of his voice almost makes it feel like a confession.
“is that so?”
“think about it. you’re exploring a brand-new world. it’s dark, and cold and scary. you have to bring your own oxygen. it’s insanely dangerous, and you don’t know what you’re going to find. but the pay-off comes when you satiate your urge for curiosity, and science thanks you, too. and you get to see things no man has ever seen before.”
maki nods, and kaito says “hey, come with me. i want to take you to the deep-sea room to see the jellies.”
the first tank they pass by in the darkness of the deep-sea room is the barbeled dragon fish. it has so many teeth in its mouth that they almost look like they are overflowing back into the water.
it has deep set eyes that look like they’re rotting, kaito points out to maki, but they are the only kind of fish that can see red light. it helps them to be an apex predator. that means it’s the biggest and baddest predatory in the ecosystem.
he then points out to maki something called a pelican eel. the beast is horrific. it’s long, and black, like some kind of horrible snake, with a head like a titanic beak and a jaw that unhinges like a door.
they’re known by a bunch of different names, kaito tells her. pelican eel, gulper eel, umbrella-mouth eel. oh, speaking of names, next are the vampire squids.
kaito squeezes maki’s hand, and drags her over to another plaque. vampyroteuthis infernalis, it reads. that’s latin for “vampire squid from hell,” he tells her with a laugh.
(maki smiles too. there’s a sense of unexpected familiarity. her own name means demon princess.)
the next tank if full of the comb jellies kaito promised maki. they’re around the shape and size of an egg, and float in their own water like debris, or a lost interloper.
the jellies are glowing and flashing like fireworks. reds, oranges, greens and blues and magentas, flashing out of a celebration of life itself against the black nothingness of their tank. maki thinks she could look at this all day, like a planetarium projector against the surface of her ceiling. it’s like watching a night sky full of stars rejoice.
kaito breaks the silence. “i know it’s dark in here, but i want to give you your birthday card now.” he digs into the breast pocket of his jacket and pulls out an unsealed envelope.
maki takes it out without having to tear the seam, but she doesn’t open the inside to read his personalized note. she knows he meant for her to see the front.
it’s an illustration of an alien, wearing a helmet and bobbing in the sea, surrounded by whales and sharks and fish of every color. it reads “you’re out of this world!”