Chapter Text
The day Eiji’s life changed forever was a day like any other. Actually, it was a little on the boring side. Each cast of his fishing net had yielded miserably small returns, and the wait times between casts were excruciating. Bored and tired, Eiji’s crewmates had long retreated to the cabin to drink beer and play cards. Eiji didn’t mind that much. Sure, it meant he had to do a greater share of the work, but he also got to be alone with the sea.
Most of his twenty-five years had been spent on the sea, or in close proximity to it. Alone on the deck, he was struck by the sensory hallmarks of being home: there was the sound of it, the churn of the waves against the bow; and the sight of the sun sparkling in the ebb and flow of the tide; and that fresh, briny smell that stirred at dawn and gave way to a sort of earthy stink in the evening. Eiji didn’t much mind the stink, either. He’d grown up in a fishing town and had long lost his aversion to it.
Rising from the barrel upon which he’d ruminated for the last hour, he leaned out over the side rail and looked down at the water where the winch cable disappeared into its depths. It was about time to pull up the net. Sunset was well underway and, while the painted orange sky was a sight to behold, if they didn’t get moving soon they would have to navigate home in the dark.
With a yawn and a stretch to bring the life back into his limbs, Eiji pressed the button on the hydraulic winch and waited. A great mechanical whirring sounded as the motor got to work drawing in the cable. Slowly, ever so slowly, the old, worn net attached to the winch rose up and out of the water. Given the day’s catch, Eiji wasn’t expecting much, but this one seemed to be a little beefier than usual. Maybe the day wouldn’t be a total loss after all.
The net shed gallons of water as it rose from the sea to hang parallel to the boat, the silvery scaled sides of bluefin tuna glinting red and yellow and orange in the fading daylight. That was when he saw it: a flash of blue—no, violet, brilliant violet—shimmering among the scales. He frowned. A trick of the light, maybe? He was pretty tired, and the time of day made even ordinary sights look a little magical.
Thinking little of it, Eiji pulled back on the crane controls and brought the net over the boat and onto the deck, showering himself in flecks of saltwater in the process. Eiji pawed at his eyelids as he approached the net, trying to clear them.
When he opened his eyes, he saw it again: that flash of violet. He blinked. Were his salt-stung eyes playing tricks on him? Whether he was seeing things or not, a heavy feeling deep in his gut told him to proceed with caution. He drew closer to the net with slow, careful steps, on the lookout for anything amiss.
There was definitely something strange about this catch. Amid the heave and writhe of slow-suffocating tuna lurked something larger. Something different. Something purple. A giant, purple fish. Did Eiji know of any such fish? He cycled through his mental rolodex of Atlantic fishes and came up empty. Could it be an octopus or squid? Hardly: the shape was all wrong, distinctly fishlike, all smooth scales, no suckers. So then… could this be a new species entirely?
Eiji’s pulse thumped in his throat as he drew close to the mouth of the net, equal parts excited and scared. He reached for it slowly, carefully, and his hands grasped the rope, and he pulled back, and—
All at once the net came to life before him. Eiji fell back with a cry as something sharp and serrated plunged through the net's weave, aiming for his stomach and missing by mere centimeters. He scrambled back on his hands and feet and watched, wide-eyed, as his mysterious catch rose up from within the confines of the net.
Shoulder length blonde hair. Brilliant green eyes. Slitted gills along the ribcage. Strings of pearls and shells hanging round its neck. Spindly arms dotted with complex gold and green designs. Gold-tipped fingers clasped around a wicked-looking knife.
Eiji’s catch was… a person?
No, this wasn’t a person, for Eiji could see now the slow transition at the waist from smooth human skin to pearlescent purple scales, the very same scales he had spied in glimpses when he hoisted the net. The rest of the tail disappeared from view beneath the writhing mass of tuna, but he didn't need to see it to know in his heart the name of the creature entangled in his net.
Part human. Part fish. There was no other explanation.
Eiji had caught a mermaid.
“Okay. Okay,” Eiji said, mostly to himself, rising to his feet and approaching with both hands raised in surrender. Obviously, he wasn’t interested in meddling in the affairs of mythical creatures. He’d loosen the net, send them on their way, and never think about any of this again. Easy peasy.
It seemed easy enough, except as soon as he got near the mermaid, they began thrashing wildly, still brandishing that pointy knife in his direction. Eiji quickly realized they were all tangled up in the net, and the more they thrashed, the worse it got. They would need to be cut loose before they could be released.
Eiji fetched his utility knife out of his pocket and flipped open the blade. The mermaid recoiled at the sight of it.
“Listen,” Eiji said, hands still raised, “I’m not going to hurt you, okay? I have to cut the net open to free you.”
He searched those piercing green eyes for some sign of recognition or understanding, but they were unreadable. Eiji grimaced. Bleeding out on the deck of a commercial fishing boat was not the way he wanted to go. Still, he couldn’t leave the mermaid to rot here. He had to try.
He decided to start from the tail end first since it was furthest from the business end of the knife. He cut the first few cords open painstakingly, using simple, exaggerated movements to convey his intentions to the mermaid as he pulled the net away from their tail piece by piece. His hands shook as he worked his way up toward their torso. He sure hoped he wasn’t about to get stabbed.
But the mermaid didn’t stab him. They seemed to understand what he was doing at this point: they kept their knife at the ready, but made no move to use it as Eiji cut the cords closest to their chest. Finally, he reached the top of the net and sawed away the last cord, throwing it to the side. The mermaid sprung into action immediately, wriggling free of the fish around them, but there was something wrong: their movements were weak, ineffective. They pulled their tail loose from the pile and let out a pained, distinctly human cry. Eiji was at once amazed and horrified by what he saw.
The tail was long and elegant, its brilliant violet hue shifting into jade and lavender at intervals. The last golden rays of sun painted it in a fiery silhouette and set ablaze the drops of water it shed as it thrashed. But at its end, instead of the full fan of a tailfin he had expected to see, at least half of it had been crudely ripped away, maybe more. Blood leaked in rivulets from its raw open end. Where the fin met the tail proper he could see bone. Eiji’s blood went cold at the sight of it.
“You can’t swim like this, can you?” he said.
The mermaid shrank back on their elbows and took great, heaving breaths; Eiji recognized now that the unreadable look in their eyes was pain. That to him was answer enough. There was no way he could return them to the sea like this. They would surely die. Though he hadn’t expected any of this, he felt a certain sense of responsibility for them now. He couldn’t just turn a blind eye.
“Eiji, everything alright out there?”
Eiji’s head snapped up. He’d been so wrapped up in his discovery that he’d forgotten about his crewmates.
“Hide!” he whispered. Whether the mermaid understood him or realized on their own that someone else was coming, they wriggled beneath the pile of fish and out of sight.
“I heard a shout,” his crewmate said as he approached. “You good?”
“Yeah!” Eiji scrambled to his feet. “Just lost my footing while handling the net. The deck gets so slippery.”
“Don’t I know it. No matter how many times you eat shit out here, it always feels like the first.”
“Right, right,” Eiji said, leaning on the wall of the cabin as casually as he could.
“You need help? Looks like a decent catch.”
“No! Uh, no. I’ll handle it. I—I need some time alone with my thoughts anyway. You know me and the sea. Helps me think.”
“You ever think that maybe you and the sea know each other a little too well? You should try joining us sometime. Hang out with some humans for once. I can’t imagine the fish make great conversation.”
Eiji offered him a tight smile. “Next time.”
“Suit yourself,” he said, tossing a wave over his shoulder and sauntering away.
Eiji huffed. All the men on the boat ever talked about was booze and women. He didn’t drink much, and he had little interest in women—at least, not the kind of interest they had. The way they talked about them left a bad taste in his mouth. He’d take the silent companionship of the sea anyday.
Once he was sure the crewman was gone, Eiji nudged at the net with his foot. “Hey. You can come out now.”
The mermaid peered out at him with one piercing green eye.
“I have to put these fish on ice. If you stay here, sooner or later one of the crew is going to find you. And if they do, I don’t know what they will do to you. It’s dangerous, do you understand?”
The green eye stared at him.
Eiji sighed and rubbed his temple. Could they even understand a word he was saying?
“Look. I think I have an idea of where to hide you, at least for now. Once we get back to port we can figure out what to do. But you have to cooperate, okay? So don’t—don’t stab me.”
The eye blinked. The mermaid rose up from the pile of fish and looked at him expectantly.
Taking that as a good sign, Eiji gingerly cut a good-size circle of net around them. He figured they probably wouldn’t allow him to touch them, so instead he used the net to drag them over to the huge live bait well at the stern which was currently devoid of fish but full of water. The mermaid seemed alarmed at first, but gradually they relaxed into a sort of poised vigilance, watching over his movements with their keen eyes. Eiji threw back the lid on the live bait well and gestured inside.
“It’s a little unpleasant, but you should be safe in here,” he said.
They peeked into the well and frowned.
“I know,” Eiji said, “I’m sorr—”
Before he could finish, the mermaid leapt into the well and disappeared in a flash. Eiji couldn’t believe how fast and smooth their movement was.
“I’m going to close the lid now,” he said, looking into the well. The mermaid stared back, letting out a few bubbles from their submerged nose as if to answer him. “It might take a while, but I’ll come back for you. I promise.”
Once the lid was closed, it was like every emotion he’d ever felt flooded him at once. He leaned against the side of the boat and took a minute just to catch his breath. Was he dreaming? Was this real? There wasn’t seriously a mermaid in the well, was there? Eiji wanted to check, but it was remarkable enough already that the mermaid had been willing to hide in there. He didn’t want to tempt fate by disturbing them now.
As he gradually put the tuna on ice, he replayed the events of the evening in his mind’s eye. The mermaid hadn’t spoken to him, but he had sensed some sort of understanding in their eyes. He didn’t get the sense he was dealing with a feral creature here. Maybe they could understand his language but not speak it, or perhaps they had simply read his intentions. Either way, he was thankful for that understanding, however limited.
Once they returned to port, Eiji played nice with his crewmates, helping them clean the boat and get everything ready for the next day. They chatted with dismay over the ruined net while Eiji acted oblivious: nets broke sometimes, after all, and this was one of the few nets on board which had not yet been switched over to nylon. It was bound to happen. They were too tired to really question it.
Finally, after what felt like a century, everyone bid each other goodnight and went their separate ways. Eiji breathed a sigh of relief. Now his night would really begin. His first priority was to take a look at the mermaid’s wound, but the boat was not the place to do it. The lighting was crappy and the sanitation was iffy at best. He had a decent first aid kit at his place, but how would he get the mermaid there?
Once he had some semblance of a plan, he backed his truck carefully down onto the pier and loaded a transport bin about the size of a kiddie pool in the back. He filled it with enough seawater to cover the bottom, then crossed the gangplank back onto the boat.
“Hey, you can come out now,” he said as he opened the lid, standing back in case they leapt out the way they had gone in. Nothing happened. It had been a few hours since he had first hidden the mermaid in the well; could they have fallen asleep?
But then one hand grasped at the lip of the well, followed by the other. Eiji watched as the mermaid struggled to lift themself of the well, their movements clumsy and lethargic. Their skin seemed even paler than before, almost ashen. Their sharp eyes had gone dull with exhaustion.
Panic spread through him as he helped the mermaid out of the well and onto the deck. Could they have lost too much blood? Clearly, they were in no state to be manhandled over to the truck. Instead, he fetched the piece of net from earlier and securely fastened it around their torso and part of their tail, leaving a handle at the end.
“I’m going to pick you up now,” he said.
The mermaid blinked at him and looked away, resting their head on the deck.
He supposed that was as close to permission as he would ever get. So, taking a deep breath, he grabbed the handle of the makeshift bag and slung it over his shoulder. The mermaid shifted a little on his back, but they made no sound. Still, with the injured tailfin hanging out, he was mindful not to swing it into anything as he departed the ship. Once he reached his truck, he carefully lowered the mermaid, net and all, into the bin in the back.
“We’re going to my house so that I can look at your injury,” he said. The mermaid didn’t look at him. “It’s a bumpy ride, so hold on tight.”
He closed the back door and pulled the shutter over the truck bed to protect the mermaid from road debris and prying eyes. All the way home, he drove as carefully as he could, but each bump in the road had him cringing and looking back at the trunk in the rearview, even though he couldn’t see anything. His house was in a prime location for most of his purposes: far from the hustle and bustle of the city, up on a tall bluff overlooking the ocean, sporting a nice big yard, and free from nosy neighbors, but that night he wished more than anything that he’d picked a place closer to the docks.
As soon as he was through the front door, he got to work. First, the mermaid needed water—no, they needed saltwater specifically. Eiji set the bathtub to fill with hot water and scoured every cabinet in the house for salt. For once he was grateful for the extra boxes he’d bought on sale some time ago and never got around to using. Still, he wasn’t sure it would be enough.
He swirled the water around with a wooden spoon and then began to cool it down once all the salt had dissolved. Without a meter to test the salinity, he had no way of knowing whether it was salty enough, so he gave it a taste. It sure tasted like the ocean, though it lacked that distinctive briny aftertaste he’d come to know well over the years. He just hoped it would be okay for the mermaid. The last thing he wanted was for them to get sick.
Once the water was as ready as he could make it, he went back out to the truck and peeled back the shutter. Most of the water had sloshed out of the bin in transit. Inside, the mermaid seemed shaken but intact. Eiji carefully picked up the net-bundle and carried it into the house.
“How does it feel? Is it okay?” he asked once the mermaid was in water, though he knew he would get no answer. The mermaid slumped against the wall and peered at him with tired eyes. The end of their tail couldn’t fit all the way in the tub, so their injured tailfin hung limply over the ceramic. A small but steady drip of blood trailed down the side of the tub and soaked into the grout below.
Eiji swallowed hard. Now it was time to get a look at that thing. He washed his shaking hands and got the first aid kit and rubbing alcohol out from the cabinet. The mermaid regarded the objects with suspicion, but they made no move to stop him.
“I’m going to touch it now,” he said, gesturing to the fin.
The mermaid flinched minutely when he first made contact with their tailfin. It felt different than he’d expected: not slimy at all, but rather smooth and silky, with a certain roughness to it when it slid through his fingers. Now that he was looking at it closely, he could see the way the deep purple at its base faded and lost vibrance the further out it fanned, terminating in delicate, translucent ends. Eiji could have studied it forever, but now was not the time to be contemplating its beauty. Not when they needed his help. Steadying himself, he turned his attention to the open wound where the other half of the fin should have been.
The transition between the brilliant purple scales and the inner white flesh was abrupt and jarring, and Eiji noticed the tip of what looked like a vertebra at the center. The wound itself wasn’t that wide, and the vertebra was cushioned with enough flesh around it that it didn’t stick out beyond the tail’s ragged edge. It seemed almost like a chunk had been ripped clean out rather than being torn or gored. Maybe it had gotten stuck under something? One thing was for sure: the wound needed stitches. Eiji didn’t know of any local vets that took on mythical creatures, so he would have to handle this alone.
“Okay,” he said, mostly to himself. “Let’s do this.”
The first step: sterilization. Eiji uncapped the rubbing alcohol and took a deep breath.
“This is going to hurt,” he said.
He poured it over the wound. The mermaid shrank back immediately, tail swinging, water sloshing out of the tub and onto the tile. Suddenly that knife was out again, brandished in his direction.
“Hey. Hey. I’m just trying to help,” Eiji said, scrambling back and raising his hands. How could he explain what he was doing so they would understand? He thought for a moment, then got the needle and thread out of the first aid kit.
“Look,” he said, rolling up his sleeve and showing them the long, faded scar on his tricep. He’d busted his arm open when he slipped on a rock once while fishing. There was no one around for miles and he was bleeding too much to drive, so he’d sewed it up himself. It wasn’t a pretty scar by any means, but he was still proud of his handiwork.
The mermaid’s gaze flicked from the scar to his face and back again. He traced the needle along the scar, pointing out the raised bumps where the thread had held the wound together.
“I’m going to sew up your tail like this so it stops bleeding. Understand?”
He searched those bright green eyes for recognition. They didn’t reveal much, but they lowered their knife a little. That was a good sign. The mermaid would simply have to trust that he was trying to help, and he would have to trust that the mermaid wouldn’t stab him. Talk about an uneasy alliance.
Eiji cleaned his tools with rubbing alcohol and approached the wound. He pinched it shut carefully with tweezers and placed the needle a few centimeters out from the ragged edge of skin, projecting with his mind where he thought the sutures should go.
“Here we go,” he said, eyes flicking up to meet the mermaid’s. They were watching him intently.
The skin was tough and thick, thicker than his was, and he quickly realized he had to account for the lay of the scales when placing the needle. The mermaid only flinched a little when he used pliers to poke the curved needle through the skin and flesh and out the other side. He passed the thread through itself twice and pulled, forming a surgeon’s knot, then tied it off and snipped away the extra thread. So far so good. He worked slowly and carefully, placing a suture every couple of centimeters. It was a long gash and the minutes felt like hours as he worked to close it completely. At least he was well versed in his knots.
The mermaid handled it well at first, but gradually they seemed to become more and more fatigued. They leaned back against the tile, pale-faced, and clenched the wall of the tub with a white-knuckled grip. At some point they had put the knife away. Eiji saw now in the better light of the bathroom that they wore some sort of twine sash upon their waist with a small sheath attached. That must have been where they were keeping the knife when they weren't busy threatening him with it.
Eiji’s forehead poured sweat as he began to sew up the last inch of the gash. He felt the tail tremble under his touch and looked up. The mermaid’s breaths came a little quicker now; they looked utterly exhausted. Eiji had worked from outside to inside and he wondered if the side closest to the remaining part of their fin was more sensitive.
“Hey, it’s okay,” he said softly. He reached out and set a tentative hand on an uninjured patch of tail, patting it reassuringly. “I’m almost done, alright? You’re almost there. You just need to be strong for a little while longer.”
The mermaid didn’t look much better, but they seemed to tremble a little less.
He wished he could hurry up and finish it, but he knew attention to detail was paramount and he didn’t want his fatigue to drive him to make stupid mistakes. So he stayed slow and steady all the way through it, even as his fingers shook, even as his arms began to ache.
Once he’d snipped the last thread, he sat back with a gasp. It was like he’d been holding his breath and suddenly all the air had returned to him at once. His head spun. His eyes ached. Man, it had been a long day. But his job wasn’t quite done yet. He shook his hands to keep them limber and cut out a large piece of gauze, folding it into a neat rectangle.
“I’m going to cover it. Do you want to look first?”
The mermaid didn’t look at him. He took that as a no. Still, it seemed like progress that they were willing to look away when he was so close. Carefully, he placed the gauze over the wound and secured it in place with a few long pieces of tape. Would the tape even stay? He supposed he would find out.
“Um, I guess it’s too much to ask for you not to get it wet, huh?” he said, scratching the back of his head awkwardly.
They stared at each other for a minute.
“Right. Anyway…”
Eiji put away the first aid supplies and used towels to mop up the spilled water. He cleaned up the blood on the side of the tub, too, hoping come morning he wouldn’t find any more.
“Okay… well… I know you’ve had a long day, and so have I, so I’ll leave you alone now. I’ll come and check on you in the morning. Um, have a good night?”
Eiji grabbed his toothbrush on the way out and closed the door behind him. As soon as it was closed, he leaned against the wall and scrubbed a hand over his face. Have a good night? Why did he have to be so awkward? He’d be lucky if the mermaid didn’t understand him.
Once he was alone, the fatigue hit him all at once. It was all he could do to brush his teeth and spot-clean his body in the house’s half bath. As he scrubbed his face with a washcloth, he couldn’t help but worry about his unexpected houseguest. What if they had lost too much blood? What if the wound got infected? What if the water’s salinity was off and they got sick? There were so many different things that could go wrong. If something happened to the mermaid, he’d never forgive himself.
Looking himself in the eyes, he shooed away his worries firmly. He’d done his best, and that was all anyone could do in life. He had to believe in that.
He fell into bed with a groan, ignoring his rumbling stomach. He was hungry, but there was no way he could possibly lift a finger to make something after all that had transpired that day. His last thoughts as he drifted off to sleep were blue: the undulating blue of the ocean, water and seafoam rolling over him in waves, washing away his fragmented worries into its unknowable depths.