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It was supposed to be just a simple excursion. If asked, Izuku would have told someone it was for research, but really he just wanted to get away. A few hours with nothing but the sea surrounding him and a backpack full of snacks sounded like the perfect way to spend a day off to him.
Except Izuku’s motor died.
He didn’t know how far out he was, but the shoreline had long disappeared and he hadn’t seen any other boats in at least an hour. He was losing hope for a rescue, and only when he ran out of All Mighty bars did Izuku remember Bakugou telling him he was an idiot for not getting his radio fixed.
So maybe Izuku was an idiot, and he was an idiot who was lost at sea with no one to know where he went or how to find him.
Another hour passed, and he sat in the center of his boat with his knees to his chest. His one blessing was that the sky was clear and he wouldn’t be swept away by a storm, if that mattered, but still, he was lost. He was very, very lost.
At some point Izuku started to weep. Uncontrollably, actually, as he imagined never seeing his mom again, or the dad he hadn’t seen since he was 5, who was totally gonna come home one day, or Bakugou, who told him to fix his stupid radio before going out again. Why didn’t Izuku fix his stupid radio before going out again? Why did his motor have to break?
And so Izuku cried because there was nothing left to do, and he was out of All Mighty bars.
And then when he finally ran out of tears, that was when he realized how truly and completely helpless he was.
“Help,” he croaked. “Somebody… please. Anybody. Help me…”
His boat jerked so hard with a loud thud that he tipped over onto his slide and slid across the deck. He caught himself and scrambled to his hands and knees, careful not to lose his balance. Did he hit a buoy? A small island? Another boat?
But there was nothing.
His boat jerked again, and Izuku yelped, but this time he saw the bright red fin with a black tip gliding through the water.
His heart stopped.
A shark.
Or a dolphin, which was objectively worse.
But a shark.
He crawled to his backpack and dug through it until he found his guide, and he flipped through dozens of annotated and tabbed pages until he got to the sharks. Red, red, red. He flipped frantically, searching to find if this was either friend or foe, but none of the example fins were anything like this one.
Was this a new discovery? Had Izuku stumbled upon an entirely new species of shark that had never before been documented? Was he going to get a shark named after him?
No, no, no, Izuku focus. You won’t be discovering anything if you get turned into shark food!
The boat jarred again, and this time he felt the entire vessel jerk backwards as if it had been shoved out of the way. It drifted back with a woosh and splashed some of the water onto the deck. Izuku jumped up and ran to the mast to steer it back—but to where? Where was he supposed to aim the boat? It didn’t matter if he died here or three feet starboard, he was going to be dead.
He was going to die.
He dropped to his knees as his chest tightened. This couldn’t be happening.
The boat lurched again, and a gust of wind brushed through his hair. He lifted his head, and he saw that his boat wasn’t being attacked, it was moving.
He climbed back to his feet and watched with awe as his boat glided easily across the water without the hum of a motor. His heart jumped in his chest, and he quickly inspected the sides to see what was happening, but what he found was that very same bright red fin swimming furiously behind him.
He could almost see the body. It was large for a fish, but not necessarily so for a shark or for any creature capable of propelling a boat, but then as he kept looking, the image changed.
The bottom half of its body was red and black and sleek and marvelous, but the top…
Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. “Oh my god!”
Izuku grasped the side of the boat, his eyes as wide as any eyes could stretch, as he gaped down at the creature beneath him.
“A mermaid!”
The boat jerked to a stop, and before he could realize what was happening, he saw the fin dart beneath the water and far, far away.
“Wait!” Izuku called out. “Come back, please! I’m sorry!”
He looked back over his shoulder and hoped he could see the shore, but he was still too far out. Hope had come for him, and Izuku had chased it away.
What did he know about mermaids? That they weren’t real, for one, but that wouldn’t help him right now. No, he had to use his head. He had to think. Even if he was going to die today at sea, he had seen something spectacular, which was just enough to nip the fear and despair right in the bud.
And one thought came that he prayed at least held a little merit. He was pretty sure that every mythological creature he’d ever read about liked offerings and gifts, so maybe, just maybe, a mermaid would be the same.
“I’ve got jerky!”
It was a little pathetic, he knew, but it was all the food he had left, and sharks were pretty omnivorous, weren’t they? And an offering of nothing was way better than an offering of everything, according to the stories.
He had to hope.
He had to.
He waited with bated breath, listening and watching for any sign of the mermaid’s return, but the water was as clear and still as a lake on a windless day. He exhaled deeply, and closed his eyes, but just as he as about to give up hope, a splash soaked from him head to toe.
He coughed and sputtered and wiped the salt water from his eyes before he dared to open them, but what he saw through the initial blur made his heart pound again.
It took a moment to see him—him—but when Izuku did, he found himself completely speechless.
There was no doubt that he wasn’t human, even without the tail flicking playfully behind him. His eyes were as red as rubies (kind of like Bakugou’s, but that’s not the point), and there were bright red scales on his shoulders, a few reaching up to his throat. His hair was black near his head, but at the ends it turned a vibrant red. His fingers were webbed, and when he smiled, he had a mouth of the sharpest, deadliest teeth Izuku had ever seen, but he seemed so friendly it was impossible to feel anything but awe.
Izuku collapsed right there on his ass in shock, and the merman’s face dropped. He didn’t expect him to be able to speak, let alone know his language, but the words that came out of his mouth made him shout in surprise.
“You good, bro?”
Izuku screamed.
Panic flashed across the merman’s face before he ducked beneath the water.
“No, wait!” Izuku shouted as he crawled to the edge of the boat after him. “I’m sorry! I didn’t know you could speak!”
The top of a head and two eyes popped up over the water to look up at him.
“I do have jerky,” he said pitifully. “It’s my roommate’s, though, so it’s kind of spicy.”
He raised his head a little higher. “Spicy?”
“Yeah, it makes your mouth tingle,” he said, and the merman frowned. “It burns, kind of. I don’t know if you’ll like it.”
He didn’t seem sure, but Izuku was determined. It wasn’t every day that one met a merman, let alone got the opportunity to expose them to a new experience. He was building an interspecies cultural bridge here, which he felt was extremely important.
He moved back to his bag, and the boat dipped again as the merman pulled himself up to the edge. He found the piece of jerky at the bottom of his bag, thankfully still wrapped, and he hurriedly removed the plastic because there was enough of that in the ocean—never mind it would still end up there regardless of whether he made it home or not.
He returned to present the stick of meat, which he then realized wasn’t jerky at all even though he had falsely promised it. The merman didn’t seem to care though.
He bit into it without the careful manners of a human, and he smacked as he chewed with the most curious expression like he couldn’t decide if he liked it or not. Izuku half expected him to spit it out, but then he swallowed and chomped down on the rest, seeming to decide it pleased him.
“Do you have any more?”
“Not with me,” Izuku admitted. He didn’t have anything left, actually, but he didn’t think that mentioning that would be considerate. The merman tapped a set of sharp claws onto the boat, and then with a nod, he ducked back down again.
Izuku opened his mouth to beg him to come back, but then he was thrown backwards by the back end of his boat being hoisted up. He yelped as they sped away, and all he could do was right himself so he could watch where they were going.
Slowly but surely, even as the sky darkened, he could see the city approach like a promise, and he was so overjoyed that he began to weep again—silently, though as to not disturb his rescuer.
God, a merman had come to save him. What were the odds? What were the chances? Thirty million to one? At least!
And the worst part was that if he told anyone, they would never believe him.
But he wouldn’t tell anyone.
No, as exciting as this was, the odds must have been higher than he knew because the others rescued before him would have kept this secret too. He didn’t know for sure, but deep down he felt like telling anyone about this would have been a violation to the merfolk’s peaceful and private existence, and now he owed this merman his life. So it was safe to say, in return, Izuku owed him his privacy.
“Excuse me,” he called out before they were close enough for anyone to see them. The boat stopped, and soon the merman popped back out of the water. “I wanted to say thank you, if that’s okay.”
He smiled up at him as bright as the sun, and Izuku felt himself flush.
“And, ummm, I’ll be back next week, probably, after I get my boat fixed, so if you see me, and umm– I’ll have more snacks, okay? If you want any, I mean. I’ll pack extra. Is there anything you like? I mean, is there something I can bring first you to eat?”
“I like meat,” he said without having to think about it. “No fish. I have plenty of that.”
“Right, no fish,” Izuku said. “I’ll, umm, see what I can do.”
He smiled again, and then the next thing Izuku knew, he was speeding away again even faster like the merman was so happy about the promise of snacks that he wanted to get Izuku back to have his boat fixed as quickly as possible. At least, Izuku hoped that was why.
Was it presumptuous of him to offer?
But all he said was that he would be in the same spot, not that the merman
had to come get anything, which was a pretty big distinction, in his opinion. The ball was in his court– um, ocean. It was fine. It was just an offer anyway, no big deal.
And that was how Izuku ended up bringing boxes of everything from pork cutlets to chicken wings out into the ocean once a week while a merman answered a thousand questions Izuku never expected to have.
Among them, of course, was the merman’s name.
He called himself Eijirou.
And he was Izuku’s best kept secret. (Next to never telling anyone that both his motor and his radio broke, of course).