Chapter Text
“Don't tell me you're planning on fishing here.”
Hajime curses, fumbling, and the hook slips from his hand to hit water the color of ink. It shimmers, dying sunlight ricocheting off of metal, and a ripple of blue turns his head to the whip of a tail too big to belong to something he could catch.
The hook’s dangling in front of him before he can blink, it’s string pinched between pale, slender fingers and swinging like a pendulum. “It’s going to storm any minute now.”
Hajime sighs.
“I’d hoped you things weren’t real,” he mutters and reaches forward, just barely keeping himself from toppling over when the hand’s yanked backwards.
“Rude,” The creature whines, “didn’t even thank me.” Hajime sees matted brown hair and eyes too old for the rest of it’s face, features youthful and fair and pretty; he catches himself, lets his gaze linger for a moment until he’s sure this thing is flattered enough, and snatches the hook from its grasp, bolting from the beach with an indignant shout ringing against his eardrums.
He gets caught in the rain on the way home and falls asleep to thunder beating hard against his roof.
***
“I can’t believe you’re back again.” Hajime doesn’t jump this time, and he’s just a little proud of himself for it. “I could literally curse you. I could make it so you never catch another fish.” Hajime hangs his head over the edge of the dock, searching, and it's perched on a rock right under a broken wooden slat with its lip pushed out in a pout.
“You won’t though,” Hajime responds, and it’s satisfying to see the creature startle and fall off it’s rock. “You’re just a kid.”
“Am not. I’m a merman. You’re a kid.” It-his-face has resurfaced, tinted pink from embarrassment, Hajime thinks. “And I’m not going to let you off easy just because you’re-” He stutters. “You’re cute.” It’s Hajime’s turn to blush, ears burning, and he swings himself back onto the dock. There’s a splash and he's dripping with water the next second, the merkid having vaulted himself practically into Hajime’s lap.
“You’re going to show me around the village.” He proclaims, holding fast onto Hajime’s soaked shirt. “As payment.”
“For what,” Hajime tries to shove him but something cold and wriggling has wrapped itself around his back, and Hajime realizes belatedly that it’s a tail. “Get off of me.”
“For being rude. And I’ve never seen it. Also for calling me a kid, I’m turning four millennia in a couple of years.” He ticks off the list on the same slender fingers that had dangled Hajime’s hook in front of him the night before. Hajime snorts, shoving a little harder. “And as thanks for me not cursing you and your whole family.”
Oh.
Hajime thinks his sisters might actually kill him if he gets them cursed again; the last time, it been a vindictive forest sprite that had made his family’s hair fall out. Hajime doesn’t want to find out if this merman is more creative. The village isn’t really that big, he reasons.
“Whatever,” Hajime bites out. “But I’m not carrying you around the whole town.”
“I’m sure you could,” the creature leers, poking at Hajime’s arms, “I’ll take care of it. Come back tomorrow.”
He’s gone before Hajime can respond, traceless, and Hajime wonders how he’d gotten conned out of fishing for the second day in a row as the sun falls under the water.
***
There’s a boy on pier the next morning dressed in water-stained shorts and a t-shirt monogrammed with Hajime’s shop’s logo, dangling his feet off the end and skipping pebbles to skim across the surface of the shoreline. He turns when Hajime gets closer, grinning at him like they’re old friends and tugging at the hem of Hajime’s pants to make him sit down.
“It’s so calm,” he muses and kicks his legs, forcing the water to ripple and soak the bottoms of Hajime’s pants. “You’re not going to fish today?”
“I thought I was stuck babysitting you?” Hajime responds, flicking his counterpart’s ear just to spite him, and ducking when a jet of water grazes the top of his head. “None of that,” he warns, “I don’t want to deal with people asking why I’m walking around the village with a merman.” It hits him, then, that the creature beside him looks about as human as Hajime does himself; there’s a smattering of blue scales the size of Hajime's fingernail on the backs of his hands and the side of his neck, but aside from that he’s all long, long legs and boyish grins. Hajime turns red when he finds he’s been caught staring, eyes following his own.
“Like it?”
Hajime coughs, standing up.
“Dumbass. You want to see the village or not?”
***
“My name’s Tooru, you can stop calling me ‘dumbass’.”
Hajime snorts, shoving a paper bag into Tooru’s hand and leaving coins on the wooden counter.
“I’m Iwaizumi.” Tooru rolls his eyes.
“I know that,” he drawls, teasing. “I’m magic, remember?”
He doesn’t think about the eyes on them as they leave, Tooru’s presence vaguely enchanting, be it magic or the natural charisma he carries that has Hajime stopping at food stands for the idiot.
“‘Dumbass’ fits you better.” Hajime takes the bag from him and tears it open, breaking off a piece of milk bread and dropping it into Tooru’s palm. Tooru watches him chew and swallow his own, curious, and Hajime rolls his eyes. “You eat it?” He motions, taking another bite. Tooru shrugs, copying him, and Hajime thinks he should really be more shocked when the tips of Tooru’s fingers start glowing blue.
“It’s good,” Tooru plucks the bag from his hand, rifling through it. “Can we get more?” Hajime groans.
“You haven’t let me fish for the past two days, where do you think I’m going to get the money for-” Tooru’s wiggling sticky, glowing fingers in his face, close enough that Hajime goes cross-eyed.
“This means I liked it.” Tooru states, and Hajime sighs.
He doesn't even like milk bread, Hajime thinks as Tooru steps away from the stand with an armful of it and a smile that plays teasing and twisting at the pit of Hajime’s stomach.
***
Tooru stays at his heels until the sun begins to set, fading yellow turning his scales green and dark blue when light dips below the horizon and it becomes hard to see the cracks in the dock’s wooden planks.. Hajime’s gut twists when Tooru wades past shallow water, the fluorescent shimmer of his legs fusing visible underwater in Tooru’s own light. He waves back when Tooru does, lonely and faint, too far from the shore for Hajime to see Tooru’s face above the water.
Hajime sits on the pier afterwards. His eyes are tired enough that he thinks he can make out Tooru swimming down to wherever, whip fast and brighter than Hajime can stand to look at.
***
The village hasn’t been this productive in years, usually just kept afloat by the tiny troupes of tourists that passed through every so often. Hajime wants to accredit it to his fishing skills finally paying off, but he knows it's Tooru, knows that it’s something in his magic that makes the orchards flower and fish come up with the tide even when the seasons drip into one another.
Hajime doesn’t see him, though, and the habit he’d made of checking under the dock when he visits each morning fades when Tooru stays gone but makes the village flourish like Hajime’s never seen it.
It’s years later when Hajime finds his spot on the pier taken again, and Tooru grins at him like it's been minutes rather than almost forever since they’d met before pushing Hajime off the dock and into freezing water the color of Tooru’s scales.
“This place has changed!” Tooru splashes him. Hajime’s heaving, breathing fast, and he chalks it up to shock and the niggling tremble in the back of his mind that years have treated Tooru well. “You’ve changed,” Tooru says this softly, but it's punctuated by another wave dousing Hajime.
“Now you come back,” Hajime mutters, spitting seawater from his mouth. Tooru waves him off.
“I couldn’t leave my patron city unattended, could I?” Tooru kicks, swift and strong, propelling him towards shore and whisking the sea foam surrounding Hajime. “You should show me what’s different!” Tooru calls, and Hajime follows, reckoning the village deserves more than to be exposed to Tooru without him chaperoning.
They're sitting at the dock again when Hajime remembers, nudges Tooru’s shoulder and doesn't think about how Tooru’s grown into himself, wiry yet strong.
Tooru’s also taller, infuriatingly so, a slight shift upwards that makes Hajime have to tilt his head towards the sky just the slightest bit to properly glare at him.
“What's a patron city?” Tooru stares at him for a minute, blinking owlishly.
“It’s hard to explain.” Hajime flicks his forehead.
“I’m not dumb.”
“That could be contested,” Tooru ducks away as he says it, laughing.
“Shut up. Answer my question, idiot.”
Tooru sighs.
“It’s a magic thing, magic isn’t meant to be explained, for god’s sake, Iwa-chan!” Tooru whines and wrings his hands, exasperated, as Hajime raises an eyebrow. “I’m bound to here.”
“Why?” Hajime catches the tips of Tooru’s ears flare red, spilling over his neck and the cut of his collarbones.
“If I knew, I’d tell you.” It’s dismissive, a shut door, and Hajime knows when to drop things.
***
Tooru doesn’t linger this time, tearing himself away from the shore and ducking underneath the waves without saying goodbye, and Hajime pretends it doesn’t sting like saltwater in his eyes.
***
“I think he knows.”
“I think you’re overreacting.” Keiji doesn’t even look at him.
“No, Keiji, he knows,” Tooru whines.
“Isn’t that a good thing? You were literally pining for years.”
“It’s too soon.” Keiji sighs and pushes Tooru’s tail from off of his legs.
“He’ll only grow older.” There’s something flickering behind Keiji’s impassivity, behind the schooled set his features usually have when he’s dealing with Tooru. “Human lives are pitifully short.”
***
Hajime wants to drown the next time he sees Tooru, months after he’d disappeared the last time, and glaring at the girl sitting beside Hajime on the dock as if she’d clipped his fins.
“Hajime-kun, you didn’t tell me you knew a merman!”
“I wish I didn’t,” Hajime mutters, and it’s just a little funny when Tooru submerges himself and splashes Hajime and Hiyori-chan with enough water to make them shiver.
Hiyori leaves after Tooru’s sixth splash, relentless, and Hajime tries not to laugh at how utterly petty he’s being.
“You’re not going to follow her?” Tooru asks, but there’s light in his eyes that give him away, and Hajime shakes his head.
“The sun’s just starting to set.”
Tooru nods, hoisting himself onto the pier. His tail has disappeared, split into long, long legs in a pair of shorts Hajime has to avert his eyes from.
“They’re the only one’s I could find, Iwa-chan, don’t be lewd.” Tooru’s blushing despite himself, staring determinedly out towards the horizon and kicking his feet.
“You’re back, then?” Hajime follows the drop of the sun, ricocheting light as it hits the water and turning Tooru’s skin almost gold.
“Yeah,” Tooru purses his lips. “Not forever, though.”
Hajime snorts, shoving him.
“Forever’s too long, anyways.”