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“I’m telling you, Iwa-chan! They exist!”
Iwaizumi sighed and dragged his very sleepy partner back into their tent. “Here I was thinking that aliens were your only hyperfixation. How could I be so wrong?”
Oikawa pouted, but let himself get dragged back to the tents they set up earlier in the day. Besides, it wasn’t like he was planning to sleep that night. He’d just wait for Iwaizumi to fall asleep before heading out into the wilderness once again.
Now that Nationals were over, the coaches for Seijoh and Karasuno’s VBC decided to host a joint-training camp but left it up to the captains to plan it out. One thing led to another and their camp ended up becoming an actual camp at an outdoor campsite with an actual lake.
Iwaizumi and Daichi had lost control over the meetings and Oikawa and Suga ended up presenting a week-long camp proposal on how camping will significantly improve everyone’s stamina, durability and concentration. They had even created a list of potential campsites so that the coaches wouldn’t need to.
The plan was too perfect, Daichi and Iwaizumi knew they should have dug deeper but it was too late. It was only on their second day there did they realise why Oikawa and Suga had pushed for certain locations.
Iwaizumi found a folder in Oikawa’s bag and even though he knew he shouldn’t be snooping around his partner’s belongings, he was well aware of how Oikawa’s alien research looked like, and this looked awfully similar.
Inside the folder, Iwaizumi found the list of campsites they had presented to the coaches with the title “Places that have reported ‘sightings of creatures with no known origins’.”
Again, Iwaizumi and Daichi should have known .
Apparently, the current place they were at had mermaids. The lake was supposedly ‘deeper than it looked’ and that a ‘local mermaid species thrives at the bottom’.
The two boys spent the first three nights stopping their partners from sneaking off after bedtime and drowning in the lake. While the lake was not ‘deeper than it let on’ , it was still a body of water. Hell, Iwaizumi was pretty sure Oikawa could drown in a puddle.
Except this time, Suga and Oikawa had a plan.
They’d sneak out at their usual time and let themselves get caught. Usually, Daichi and Iwaizumi would fall asleep after their partners did, but Oikawa sat out from the morning trek and Suga had a ‘stomachache’ during dinner and ‘needed a nap’. There was no way their partners would be able to stay up longer than them.
And they were right.
Granted, they didn’t expect Daichi and Iwaizumi to hold out till 2am but at least they had a few hours. Everyone had to get up at 6am to start their morning exercises so that gave them three hours to explore and one hour to rest (they were at a training camp, after all).
“Koushi!” Oikawa whispered, spotting his fellow paranormal expert waiting by the trail and jogging up to him.
They had scouted the lake on the first day under the guise of ‘wanting to have a BBQ there on the last day’. They knew the safest way to get there while avoiding any of the adults that may have gone off to smoke.
Once they were at the beach, Oikawa dropped his bag to pull out two flashlights. Inside, Oikawa had packed a second change of clothes for the two of them… just in case.
“Where do we start?”
“By the deepest end of the lake, duh! C’mon Tooru!”
As they were approaching the deeper end, they noticed that they weren’t the only ones there. There were five figures sitting at the end of the wooden pier. The pier was so old and unstable that they had not even planned to go on it themselves.
Oikawa and Suga’s immediate instinct was to hide behind one of the trees, but as they did so, they noticed that the figures were not unfamiliar. In fact, one of them had an extremely recognizable mop of orange hair .
“Oh God.”
The two darted out of their hiding spot and started dashing towards the pier. Their sixteen year old kouhais were sitting on an unstable pier in the deep part of the lake at 2am .
Sure, kids like them did dumb things all the time. (For instance, planning a joint camp for the sole purpose of mermaid spotting). But this was actually dangerous and Oikawa and Suga would never forgive themselves if something happened to their underclassmen.
They were still pretty far from the first years but they were close enough that Suga could make out who the others were. As expected, they were his first years. Because, of course, they were his first years.
Oikawa figured they were within ear shot (at least, for someone as loud as him) and yelled out for them.
“Tobio-chan and friends! Get off the pier!”
Unfortunately, Oikawa’s booming voice managed to spook them so badly that three of them fell into the water.
“Fuck.”
Neither Suga nor Oikawa knew who had cursed under their breath. They were too focused on running as fast as they could onto the pier, dropping their bags and equipment on the grass.
“Suga-san! Oikawa-san! Wait–!” Yachi started, apparently being one of the only two that had not fallen into the water.
“They’re fine.” Tsukishima cut her off, noticing her panic and how the two upperclassmen had not calmed down. “They can swim. They’re–”
“This is a matter of safety, Tsukishima-kun!” Oikawa raised his voice slightly at the middle blocker, causing the two first year’s eyebrows to shoot up. They’ve heard stories about Oikawa’s ‘captain voice’ but they had never heard it in action before. It was as scary as the rumours said they were.
“Oikawa-san–”
“Don't even try, Tsukishima-kun! Sneak off in the middle of the night like dumb teenagers, fine. But don’t do something reckless and dangerous like this! Were you guys even thinking ?! Holy shit–”
“Tooru.” Suga cut him off, kneeling by the edge of the pier with his back towards the three of them. His voice was panicked but serious. “I don’t see them.”
“What?!”
“I can’t see any of them.”
While they did not have their flashlights, the moonlight was bright enough that night to see one another and the surface of the water. Suga’s vision was better than most people his age and the fact that he couldn’t see any of their heads was a huge cause of concern.
“Fuck.”
The two upperclassmen did something they could only describe as instinct. They kicked their shoes off and jumped into the lake.
“Oikawa-san–!” “Suga-san–!”
The voices of the two first years were cut off by the loud splash Suga and Oikawa made when they jumped into the water. It was dark, cold and their clothes were weighing them down.
So much for yelling at Tsukishima and Yachi for their ‘dangerous’ and ‘reckless’ behaviour. Oikawa ended up doing the opposite of what he preached in the middle of preaching it .
In the darkness, the two setters managed to grab onto one another’s shirts as they swum around in a desperate attempt to find their kouhais. With their vision impaired, they stretched their arms and legs out as far as they could in the hopes that they’d hit something, anything .
They were too focused on trying to find their missing kouhais and avoid bursting into tears to realise that they had been underwater for far too long. Their wet and heavy clothes had even pulled them down further than they had planned too. The surface looked too far and their limbs felt like they were being held down by lead.
The two of them gripped onto one another’s forearm as they tried to swim back up to shore but they were both too slow. Suga was the first to have his instincts kick in and tried to breathe, only to inhale a mouthful of water. He tried to let go of Oikawa in hopes that the other boy would make it out but it only prompted Oikawa to do the same.
The two of them were drowning . Daichi and Iwaizumi were going to be so mad .
Just as they were losing their battle to stay conscious, both Suga and Oikawa felt something grab onto their torso’s and propel them to the surface. Whatever it was, it was strong and it was fast .
“Senpais!” “Oh, thank fucking God…”
The two setters were being held up by something as they caught their breath. They were still in the lake and from the sound of Tsukishima’s voice, they were relatively far from the pier. Though, the first voice did not sound like Yachi and it sounded a lot closer.
“Oikawa-san? Are you–”
Oikawa and Suga turned to look at what was holding them up, only to realise they were being held up by Hinata and Kageyama with Yamaguchi floating in between them.
“Tobio! Oh thank fuck–” Oikawa used the little strength he had left to throw his arms around his middle school kouhais.
All the emotion from nearly losing three of his fellow athletes, with one being Kageyama , and almost drowning in the middle of a lake finally hit Oikawa. He soon found himself crying and apologising for everything he had ever done to the young boy and telling him how glad he was that Kageyama and the others were still alive.
Judging from the loud cries and endless mutters of ‘Thank God you guys are alive’ in between sniffles, Suga was doing the same. Whatever anger they had earlier had vanished and were replaced by extreme relief.
“Oikawa-san, Suga-san. We’re going to take you guys to shore now.”
“Give us a second. We’ll catch our breath and swim.”
“It’s okay. We can take you guys back.” Hinata reassured them with a smile and Suga could feel the boy’s grip tightened. Hinata was fast and agile, but he was not exactly the strongest in their team and yet his grip felt too strong.
“What? But–”
“Just… Trust us, Oikawa-san.” Kageyama muttered, not making eye contact with Oikawa after his senpai had just held onto him and cried about how glad he was that he was still alive. He did tighten his grip on Oikawa, though.
“Wh–” Oikawa started but was cut off when he started to move at lightning fast speed. “AHH!”
Behind Oikawa, Suga had an extra second to process what had happened to his friend before the same thing happened to him. In that second, he could have sworn he saw a fin pop out of the water behind Kageyama.
Back on the shore, Tsukishima was holding up Oikawa’s bag. “I noticed there were clothes in here but no towels so Yachi went to grab some.” The middle blocker stepped forward and pulled the two setters of the water.
“Thanks, Tsukishima.” Suga nodded to the younger boy with a smile before turning back to his kouhais. “C’mon. I’ll help you guys out.”
“Uhm…” Hinata scratched the back of his head and in the moonlight, the two third years noticed that Hinata’s arms had an unnatural hue. “We can’t really…”
“We can. We should, actually.” Kageyama cut his partner off, looking down and avoiding eye contact with his upperclassmen. “They… They risked their lives for us. The least we can do is tell them.”
Oikawa and Suga watched the three of them squirm. They were clearly hiding something. As curious as Oikawa and Suga were by nature, they cared more about the safety and health of their kouhais above all else.
“Look, we can talk about it later when we’re all on land and dry. But right now, I need you guys to come up here. I really don’t want you guys to fall sick or drown like us.”
Oikawa reached his arm out for Kageyama to grab. Kageyama hesitated but let himself be dragged out of the water. Seeing that, Hinata and Yamaguchi did the same and let Suga pull them out of the water.
Once they were out, Oikawa and Suga finally noticed what the ‘big secret’ was.
“Are those… Where are your legs?”
Hinata laughed nervously and pushed himself up so that the rest of his tail was out of the water. Kageyama and Yamaguchi followed suit, with Kageyama overlapping his tail with Hinata’s, almost like an attempt to comfort the smaller one.
Hinata’s tail seemed to be the smallest of the bunch. It was orange and shaped a little differently from Kageyama and Yamaguchi. He seemed a little more firm and almost like a koi fish. In fact, the patterns on Hinata’s tail did resemble the patterns found on a koi fish.
Kageyama and Yamaguchi’s tails were quite similar. Both of their tails were darker, longer and had fins with ends that flowed better in the water. It reminded Suga and Oikawa of betta fishes.
“Mermaids.” Tsukishima spoke up and walked towards Yamaguchi. “We’re mermaids.”
Yamaguchi gave a soft smile as Tsukishima lifted his partner up and carried him towards one of the dry rocks nearby. He picked up one of the wet shorts he must have fished out of the water and draped it across Yamaguchi’s lap.
“Wait. ‘We’?” Oikawa repeated.
“Yeah. The four of us are mermaids and Yachi’s part-mermaid. She can’t shift like the rest of us but she has gills so she can breathe underwater.”
“Oh? Do all mermaids need to be full mermaids to shift?”
“No, not all breeds”. Hinata answered as he shifted closer to Kageyama for warmth. “But she’s the same breed as me and we need to have two merparents to shift. Kageyama and Yamaguchi are the same breed but they don’t.”
“Oh, wow.” Suga turned to face Oikawa. “This was not how I was expecting this night to go.”
“To be fair, drowning and discovering our kouhais were mermaids wasn’t on my annual bingo list either.” Oikawa agreed and took a moment to wrap his head around everything. “Wait. Why were you guys underwater for so long after you fell in? Were you hiding from us? Do you guys automatically shift when you touch water”
“We weren’t hiding, per say. But we're a little cautious about going back up.”
“Because we’d see your tails?”
“No. Because Oikawa-san sounded really mad…” Hinata admitted. “Also, we don’t shift whenever we touch water.”
“So why were you guys down there so long?”
“Actually,” Yamaguchi spoke up from his place on the rock. The two setters noticed that the boy’s legs were back and he was wearing his soaked shorts. “We were only underwater for about forty seconds or so before you guys jumped in. It just seemed longer because you guys were panicking…”
That… made sense. Suga barely scanned the surface of the water before deciding to jump in.
“Then when we were underwater…”
“That’s when we started shifting.” Kageyama spoke up. “But it takes a while and when we do have to shift, we go limp so we can’t move towards you guys.”
“But once we could, we swam as fast as we could, I promise!” Hinata finished and looked up at his two upperclassmen with wide eyes.
“I believe that, Chibi-chan.” Oikawa rubbed his ribs. He had a feeling he would develop a bruise in the shape of Kageyama’s arm the next morning.
The two upperclassmen sighed and got up on their feet. They picked up the soaked shorts Tsukishima had set down earlier and went to crouch by Kageyama and Hinata.
“I honestly don’t know what to say.” Oikawa started. “Just because you guys are not at risk of drowning, it doesn't mean you guys are safe from other dangers out here. I want to be mad that you guys went out to the lake alone without telling anyone… But it’s pretty obvious why you guys didn’t. ”
“We’re still sorry.” Tsukishima spoke up from behind them, his arm around Yamaguchi and rubbing the boy’s cold shoulders. “We made you two worry and almost die.”
“You guys did.” Oikawa turned to Suga. “What do you think?”
“How about…” Suga thought to himself for a moment. “You guys can come here and swim after lights out for the remainder of the camp as long as one of us is here. And when we say it’s time to go to bed, then it’s time to go to bed.”
“Deal!” Hinata nearly jumped up, forgetting he had shifted back and his lower half was currently naked. Had Kageyama’s tail not been firmly placed over Hinata’s exposed parts, the smaller boy would have embarrassed himself. He sheepishly accepted the shorts Suga offered him and turned around to slide them on.
“King.” Tsukishima spoke up, nodding his head to the side. “You may want to leg up soon. We have visitors.”
Suga and Oikawa moved away from Kageyama to give him privacy while also looking at the three figures running towards them. Judging from the middle one’s stature, it was Yachi carrying a few towels in her hands.
As for the other two, they were too far for Oikawa and Suga to recognize in the dim moonlight.
“She called for help?”
“She thought you two were dying.”
“That’s fair.”
Oikawa and Suga prepared themselves for what they were going to tell the two newcomers. All seven of them were in deep shit but they did not want to cause a big scene and disrupt the camp itself.
As the three got closer, the blood drained from Oikawa and Suga’s faces. Out of everyone at camp, Yachi had called the two people that would be pissed at Oikawa and Suga even if they had not fallen into the lake.
“Oikawa Tooru.” Iwaizumi yelled out once he recognized his partner of nearly a decade. “You have five seconds to explain to me why the fuck Yachi woke us up and told us that you two were drowning ?!”
“Iwa-chan…”
“Koushi.” Daichi sounded disappointed, which was significantly more terrifying than him being upset.
“Oh no.”