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Think. Try and think, however impossible you know such a task to be, of the universe. Of all of it, in all of the time it has been and all of the time it will still be. Its existence is existence. From any angle you try to look at it, you can see what amounts to nothing compared to all it has to show. Compared to all it has seen, perhaps?
Do you suppose the universe has a capability for looking at itself? Or for self-reflection of any kind? Do you think the wind sees itself, when we can do no such thing, only feel it? And do you think it feels us when it passes us by? How does existence feel , and could anything it feels be remotely similar to a person’s feelings?
Can the ocean know the dread of time passing, when it birthed us and shall one day consume us? Can we conceptualize the pain of the mountains, for their eons of being chipped away and eroded? Can we even dream to understand the responsibility the sun carries with keeping the Earth alive?
Certainly not. Not ever. Not all of humanity combined could even glean at what the heart of our very home must feel. And yet, are we really so divorced from existence itself? Is there truly not one single emotion we might feel exactly in the same manner and intensity as the universe itself feels?
Maybe there is one.
Of the innumerable stories that make up history, allow me to share my personal favorite. One from long before any lasting records of what it tells could've even been produced. That it endures to this day, therefore, reveals a facet of why it is worth telling.
At the time, humanity had scarcely begun to stand out from its animal peers; though they had their tools and communities, they were still, above all, survivors. No living being could be anything but, in the harsh, chaotic environment that was the Earth. To live was to fight against nature.
Not that nature intended to be fighting with its children. No, that was an unseen collateral of its real battle: against itself.
In the primordial formation of the Earth, the forces of nature were not yet adversarial; Izuku, the wind, and Katsuki, the heat, gave shape to the Earth's crust; Shouto, the cold, and Eijirou, the water, cooled and solidified it.
Still barely conscious of existence—that is to say, of themselves—in their cosmic dance they created time, created light, created life. Each time their young bodies, raw with the energy of creation, so much as touched, reality was given unforeseen details. That chaos was peace.
Once the world had grown complex, however, so had they. They saw what was theirs—what was them— and from that awareness something grew. Pride. Ego. A desire in each of them to lay claim to all of it.
In the way that humans count minutes, they counted centuries. In the way we count seconds, they counted disasters. Typhoons, droughts, floods, ice ages, and everything in between, as they battled for supremacy over the Earth.
Eventually Izuku, the most sensible of the four, demanded a truce so they could reexamine the state of things. No longer did the violent clashes of their nature bring new beauty into the world; all they caused was destruction. It was a matter of preserving themselves that they should find a way to preserve creation.
And so, after much deliberation, it was agreed that each deity would reign over a different part of the world, to be theirs and theirs only.
Katsuki, ever the fiercest of the four, claimed the continents for himself, for the land was heated by the sun from above, and the molten rock from below. Eijirou claimed the oceans, the seas, rivers and lakes, though he ceded to Izuku the control of the rain—the latter taking the skies for himself. Shouto was content to rule over the cold emptiness beyond the skies; though, to share a piece of Earth, he also froze its two extremities.
If only it took so little to qualm the hearts of the gods, however. For belligerent men it is already not the case, much less so on the level of the cosmos. Surely did storms and quakes and blizzards persist, though at a much less threatening pace than before. There was some balance.
Now relegated to border each other, where the firmament met the void, Izuku and Shouto formed a bond yet unseen. Rather than fighting as before, the two were now content with their places in existence. And so, they took to talking. Sharing their opinions on, well, themselves—on creation. And though it was obvious that they had so much in common, for the first time they appreciated that fact. Found closeness in proximity.
Though the world had, so far, known at best subsided tumult, for the first time it experienced serenity. As wind and cold let their hearts connect, a balance took hold. Existence took a distinct shape for once: winter.
The lower heights, however, were ruled by less agreeable gods.
“Eijirou you seahorse-brained drop of sweat, what the fuck do you think you’re doing splashing your waves on my land?”
It is said that humanity came to be at the only time in the process of creation at which the four deities all touched each other simultaneously, each contributing something that made it the most distinct of species.
Katsuki’s gift was temper.
“Do you see anywhere else they could be going, Katsuki? Because I don’t. The waves move forward and they gotta end up hitting something, figured you’d be able to understand that much.”
Eijirou’s was endurance.
“Why’s it gotta have fucking waves to start with? The water you have inside my land doesn’t do that shit.”
“Yeah, because my lakes and rivers are inside your land. Your land is inside my ocean. I am not violating our agreement.”
“ Yes you fucking are when you’re destroying my domain! I already have the other two fucking up my mountains, but those I can always erupt. You have no fucking right to be eroding my shores.”
To any mortal being that might be witnessing this exchange, they’d at most notice some abnormal reaction in nature. A pillar of particularly harsh sunlight, shining down on a cliffside. Or the surface of the water, rippling in an unusual way. A quick turbulent pulse, almost like a scoff.
“ Your shores? Since when are they yours?”
Were they very close to the sunbeam, they'd also notice its edges shifting around on the grass, as though the light was quaking in anger.
"Wh– since the moment I claimed the land, you fucking dumbass!"
"No," Eijirou said, moving closer to the cliffside, "you claimed all the land touched by the sun. This—" a particularly large wave hit the rock, wetting the area he meant to point out, "—is all covered by the high tide. It's no different than the seabed. So, it's my domain."
“Do you even listen to yourself? Or do you have fish in your ears? If it’s only covered for half the day, then it’s very much not the same!”
Humans would’ve figured out much earlier that the Earth is round, and that it rotates, had they known how much the land and the sea liked to go around in circles with each other.
“It’s not just the high tide, Katsuki! With the waves hitting it during the day too, it’s wet most of the time!”
What little vegetation remained on the clifftop charred instantly. “ And we’re back to the fucking problem at hand! Stop hitting my shit with your damn waves!”
Eijirou took to a practiced routine, a way he knew from experience in which water could exacerbate fire far more than any fuel could. “No,” he said calmly, mouth opening into a shark-toothed smile. “Talk with Shouto and move the moon if you’re that bothered. My waves aren’t going anywhere other than forward.”
With that, he locked his crab-red eyes with Katsuki’s ember-red ones as he sunk back into the ocean, smug expression slowly disappearing under the water. Yet, even from below sea level, he still saw the blinding glow of his fellow god burning so intensely with rage that his normally orange figure turned to blue flame.
In the following months, some version of the same argument was had over and over again, always to the same unchanging result. They both knew Eijirou’s suggestion had been practically rhetorical, since there was no chance Shouto would collaborate with Katsuki to placate him in a dispute he had no stakes in. As such, the status quo was maintained, with waves hitting the shores as they always did—and eroding them with slighter ease now that the vegetation on them kept burning away.
It was the nature of nature, however, that things never stayed the same for too long. And, as it usually happened, it was Katsuki who took the first move.
“Katsuki! What the fuck are you doing?!” Eijirou yelled, right after springing out of a spout of hot water and smoke, the origin of which was a massive volcanic eruption in the middle of the ocean.
The other god’s wicked grin shone across the distance like a sun setting in the horizon of his lips. “Giving you more shores to destroy. Is that not what you like to do?”
The response was on par with the moon quip, considering the sheer flow of lava spreading around in the water, forming a landmass big enough to be an entire new continent. Whatever soil he might lose on the shores was negligible compared to how much of the Earth’s surface he had just robbed from Eijirou.
“What the fuck gives you the right to do this, Katsuki?” Even underneath his scales, it was possible to see that the water deity’s face was as red as the corals that spiked out of his head. His voice boomed like a thunderstorm that would sink even the sturdiest of ships in a fraction of a second. “This violates our agreement!”
“Tch, like hell it does. This land is pretty fucking hot from the magma right now, and the sun is fully hitting it too.” Indeed it was. Katsuki was, in all senses of the word, radiant with smug satisfaction.
“All of this because of my waves?!” Eijirou asked, indignant.
Katsuki’s expression turned completely serious as he stared at him. “Yeah, obviously. You disrespect what is mine, I’ll disrespect what’s yours.”
The ocean water began bubbling, even in spots far away from the eruption. “That so? Well, just remember, Katsuki, that all you can do is evaporate my water. But your magma will eventually run out.”
“Fucking. Try. Me.” As he spoke, a new surge of lava and smoke jutted out of the water.
“With pleasure.” Taking advantage of the new burst, Eijirou amplified the tidal waves it produced, allowing them to travel all the way towards the other continents, carrying enough force to level a forest.
“The fuck are you doing?!” Katsuki growled.
“Playing the game you started.”
The heat deity’s form turned to a wisp of fire, concernedly zooming about in all directions to see the results of Eijirou’s stunt. Monumental waves, the proportions of which hadn’t been seen in eons, crashed against cliff sides, flooded land and obliterated islands. Huge chunks of earth broke off, falling into the ocean. Others were carried in a muddy avalanche down to nearby rivers and streams, which promptly redirected them to the ocean as well, in torrential speeds not possible without divine intervention.
“Well, how about that,” Eijirou gloated, materializing next to Katsuki when the latter paused to gawk at the waves that wouldn’t cease attacking his domain. “Thanks for the tsunami, Katsuki.” Even if he could contain his smile, he would never even think of it at that moment.
The water around where they stood could clearly be seen boiling, thick pillars of steam rising from it; the mud running down the hill under them solidified into clay. Katsuki burned so intensely with anger that some parts of his body were out of even Eijirou’s visible light spectrum.
“I’m going to fucking end you! ”
And so took hold a sequence of disasters unlike any that had been seen since the division of the realms. Even with only half the gods responsible for the chaos this time, it was still very much an age of cataclysms. Like so many of our origins we fail to observe in nature, so, too, came from it humanity’s propensity for causing massive destruction in a fight over land divisions.
Katsuki’s first provision was to cause massive earthquakes, breaking off huge blocks of land so that they would fall into the ocean and act as a dam against the waves. To counteract it, Eijirou greatly increased the strength of the undertow, pulling the rocks further out into the water.
Katsuki turned the sunlight harsher, on the shore and all across the land, drying up rivers and lakes and even lowering the sea level. He thought himself victorious for how long his drought lasted, but that was only the time it took Eijirou to negotiate with Izuku that he take back control of the rain; wielding it once more, he retaliated with torrential storms, of such intensity that they flooded the lands and caused erosion comparable to that of the waves themselves.
Aggravated that Izuku collaborated with his opponent, Katsuki made his own demand of the wind god for control over hot air masses. He blew the storm clouds away from the shores, further into the sea, and also set the wind against the waves such that he lessened their reach. Eijirou, in turn, took the opportunity to make the high tide even higher once night set and the air cooled down.
And so it was this exchange of blow for blow, day after day, millennium after millennium; the sunlight, the rain, the hot wind, the waves, ever strong. Incessant, just as their spirits.
It was just another day of their fighting, of weather phenomena and insults, when a monotonic voice rang loudly from beside them: “That’s enough.”
Both Eijirou and Katsuki ceased their actions for a moment to turn and see a perfectly split spot on the ground; the water half was frozen, with the land half covered in snow. Over it, hovered Shouto.
“This has gone on for far too long. Are both of you seriously unwilling to learn anything? To make any concession?”
“Frostbrain, the fuck are you–”
“Shut up, Katsuki.” He leveled them both with a stare that only the cold itself could muster, one that froze water and cooled heat enough to let him speak. “I am tired of this. Of an entire era of fighting and destruction. You are avatars of creation, you should have evolved beyond this. Have you even seen what you are fighting over? It no longer exists.”
And so, in the stillness of their ceasefire, they took notice for the first time that, indeed, the shores which had sparked this entire conflict no longer existed—at least not remotely in the form they once did. The land was now level with the ocean, turned to sand; a pale gold color, darker where it met the water. It was unrecognizable, and yet they’d become so engulfed in their competition that they hadn’t even recognized that fact.
As the two deities were left speechless by the sight, Shouto made his parting threat. “If the two of you don’t stop fighting at once and take care of what is yours, I will freeze this whole planet over. Start acting like gods.”
They stared as he vanished and the spot under him thawed. They hadn’t even realized that the land and the ocean formed a single plane.
Eijirou was the first to break the silence. “Well, damn.” He scratched the back of his neck, in equal parts astonished and embarrassed. “I can’t even... I can’t even believe it, I—How?”
“Dunno,” Katsuki said quietly, face burning red. The only thing he hated more than being lectured by Shouto was Shouto being right. “I guess there was so much going on that I didn’t even see this. If you hadn’t –”
“Shut it, Katsuki. Don’t start this again.”
“Well, but this doesn’t change anything! It’s still the shore! It’s still my land!”
“And it’s still covered by my tide,” Eijirou said pointedly, but then lowered his offensive tone. “But we’ve seen now that fighting over that doesn’t solve the problem. As long as we both exist, we’ll have a shore. So maybe let’s just not... think about this for a while. Leave this be as its own thing. Take care of our other duties.”
“And leave it unguarded?”
“Not like having us guard it has done much good for it.”
To his chagrin, Katsuki couldn’t help but snort. “Tch. Fair enough, I guess.”
Eijirou let out the faintest smile at the other god, who internally mirrored the gesture. It was an immense relief on both to have finally ended their war, even if not to the result either expected.
In the following years, the shores were left untouched, in the state they were in when the fight ceased. The two gods redirected their focus to all the things they had neglected in their realms during the conflict. They helped restructure the living conditions of all the creatures affected by the war, even collaborating with each other at times for issues related to inland bodies of water. They restored biomes, reshaped terrain, and even returned to Izuku the powers they had borrowed from him. Existence began reaching normalcy once more.
Yet the shores never left their minds. From both the middle of the ocean and the heart of the continents, they would both longingly stare at the horizon, often meeting each other’s gaze. Part of it was the remaining sense of entitlement to it, of course. But something else pricked at their hearts, too. Intrigue. There was a whole new element of creation of their own making that they knew nothing of. How similar was it to what it once was? Had the shores simply been reshaped, or had they in some way been lost? Was there perhaps—though an inquiry they would not let their minds turn into words—more substance to their opponent’s claim of it, now?
Though they stirred these thoughts in quiet and secrecy, to know humanity is to know the gods, and curiosity is a force stronger than any man or deity.
One night, Eijirou approached the shore. He hovered over the water, right before where it met the sand, and just took in the full image. This vast place, so different from what he’d known before, even in the eons of both him and the world existing. He had to explore it, he needed to see more, feel more , pact be damned. So he tried something he’d never done before: taking human form.
With a snap of his fingers, he felt his appearance change. He also felt himself freefalling from where he hovered a moment ago, letting out a yelp as he plunged into the ocean. The experience was completely new; he’d never felt water that way before. The way human skin does. It was surreal, almost incomprehensible.
He’d also never felt himself running out of breath before, but that was a much less pleasant surprise. With a twirl of his hand, he raised himself to the surface and expelled the salt water from his respiratory system. Feeling much better, he lowered himself once more, until his feet met the seabed, and then slowly walked toward the sand.
What a weird thing it was to be human. Eijirou, the deity of water, was for the first time truly understanding what it felt to be wet. He also realized walking took a great deal more effort than flying.
Once he’d made it to dry land, he felt yet another whole other slew of new sensations. The sand under his feet; the cold night air hitting his wet ankles; and how much bigger everything seemed, now that he was human sized.
He stood still for a long moment, just taking in the magnitude of all he was experiencing. Both what it was to exist as a mortal, and this new shore he’d so long dreamed of witnessing up close. It was enough to move him, enough to make him forget all the anger he once felt that led to this very moment.
Deciding to explore more—he wanted to explore everything, for goodness’ sake—he took a step forward and nearly fell. As it turns out, it’s a lot less difficult to walk on land as it is in water. Having adjusted to that fact, he began walking—and in short time, running—in all directions.
He felt the dry sand, looser than the one near the water, and jumped from one to the other, repeatedly, in awe. He held both in his hands, threw it into the air, threw it into the sea. He climbed sand dunes, then slid down them. He bathed in the ocean, got swept over by waves, and pulled by the undertow. Felt his hair wet, felt saltiness, felt the breeze.
As he stood admiring the seashells he’d collected from the sand, moving them around in his hands, he heard a familiar voice from behind him.
“Hey dumbass, you know no human has hair like that, right?”
The last being he expected to see here—and the last one he wanted to see, too—was here. In human form as well, but even with skin it was undoubtedly Katsuki.
“K-Katsuki?! What are you doing here?”
The other god raised an eyebrow. “Same question goes to you, dumbass.”
Eijirou gulped. He was right. They both weren’t supposed to be here, and if anything it was Katsuki that caught him.
“I just, well...” He sighed, then took a deep breath. The situation was already underway, no better option than being honest. “I’ve just been curious about this place. Ever since... you know. I wanted to see what it was like. How it’s changed. I just—”
“Then there’s your answer.”
“Huh?”
Katsuki looked uncharacteristically timid as he spoke, staring at the sand rather than at Eijirou. “I also wanted to see how things are here. Couldn’t fucking stand not knowing what a part of the world is like. We own this shit.”
“Yeah.” Eijirou felt comforted by the fact that Katsuki had been feeling the same as him this whole time. Maybe his desire to see the shore hadn’t been so selfish, after all. Or maybe they were both selfish. That was the most likely answer, given everything. “How long have you been coming here?”
“‘Bout a week.”
So they weren’t even that far off from each other when they gave in. “I see. And you decided to turn into a human as well?” As the realization set in for Eijirou, so did a grin on his face.
What a curious thing humans were. Eijirou had seen Katsuki’s face turn red countless times, but never only around the cheeks. “Well yeah, duh. It’s not some genius idea, Eijirou. I didn’t want you to see me, so that was the most obvious choice. That’s why I only came here at night, too.”
“Wait, you’ve never been here during the day?”
“That’s what I just said, shithead.”
Eijirou chewed on that information. Surely this place would look even greater during the day. Katsuki would be much more in his element, too. That he—that they both—had deprived themselves of that because of their dumb argument made him feel ashamed once more.
And yet, here they were. Both humanified, under the moonlight, both equally guilty of their predicament. And they were having the most casual and amicable conversation they’d had in millenia—maybe ever!
He’d always known that they were similar, of course they were. But here he saw that Katsuki had the same wants as him, the same feelings, the same idea. For the first time they felt like equals.
“Let’s see it together, then!” he declared loudly, slamming his fists together.
“What?” Katsuki asked, perplexed.
“The shore, during the day! We both know of each other being here, now, there’s no need to hide anymore.”
Katsuki furrowed his eyebrows. It was weird to see him annoyedly pensive without the flames dancing around his face, the only remnant of that being his blond hair that jutted out like sunbeams. For a second he looked like he was going to yell at Eijirou for the dumb suggestion—he could almost hear it in his head—but then his countenance softened somewhat. An expression never before seen in the other’s face formed: resignation.
“Sure.” He shrugged. “Whatever.”
And an expression that Eijirou was glad had been appearing more often formed on his own: a wide, genuine smile.
“Great! How long will it take for the sun to rise?”
“About a third of a day.”
“Oh, I see.” Despite having lived through billions of years, in that moment Eijirou still felt impatient to have to wait for a few hours. “Well, let’s do something in the meantime.”
“Do what?”
“Well, you’ve been coming here longer than me. I’m sure you’ve seen all the fun things we can do.”
Katsuki had the look of a seahorse who’d been told to climb a mountain.
“Seriously?” Eijirou asked, exasperated. “What did you even do all this time?”
“Explored,” Katsuki answered defensively. “Walked along the shore, saw how the shape of the continent changed, the different types of sand, the rocks…”
“Man, Katsuki, millions of eons of existing and you still haven’t learned how to live?”
There was that full-faced blush he was used to seeing. “The fuck’s that supposed to mean?”
“Did you even swim in the ocean?”
“Of fucking course not, I’m not entering that thing, that’s your shit.”
Eijirou raised an eyebrow. “So? You’re breathing air right now, and that’s Izuku’s domain.”
Katsuki clicked his tongue, offering no counter argument, but not moving from his spot either.
Eijirou wouldn’t stand for that. He didn’t want to stand at all, he wanted to swim with the other god. So he broke out the flammable water grin.
“Oh, I see what’s going on. You’re scared your little flame self will be put out by the water.”
“What?!”
Eijirou was certain that, somewhere in the world, a volcano erupted.
“I’m not scared of fucking anything , especially not your water,” Katsuki said, getting his finger in Eijirou’s face, before turning and running towards the ocean like a god on a mission. “I’ll show you scared!”
He watched as Katsuki jumped headfirst into the water, firing an explosion behind himself to get more distance, and landed with a splash. Then he began laughing uncontrollably as, one second later, a loud and desperate “FUCK” was followed by flailing limbs.
“Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Oh my fucking sun,” Katsuki cursed, launching himself with another explosion back onto the sand. “Eijirou, you fuck, that shit is ice cold!”
It took Eijirou a couple dozen seconds of laughter and catching his breath before he could wheeze out a response. “What? Can– can’t the god of heat deal with– a little cold?”
“A little cold, not this shit! And I can deal with it, I just need to get used to it.”
“Oh yeah?” Eijirou asked, wiping a tear away.
“Fucking obviously. I’m gonna master this ocean better than you in no time.”
Eijirou smiled at the challenge. “If you say so, then catch up with me!” Before he’d even finished the words, he set off running towards the ocean, maybe kicking up some sand in Katsuki’s face.
“You fucker!”
Getting back on his feet in a second, Katsuki trailed right behind him, though he froze in place the moment he set foot in the water. “Fuck! Cold! Shit! Cold! Cold! Fuck!”
Eijirou laughed merrily as he watched him from afar, swimming backwards perfectly as if it were nowhere near his first time; it simply came naturally to him.
Once Katsuki finally got used to the water, however, he darted towards Eijirou with a manic grin, propelling himself with blasts of fire he released from his hands. Very quickly he was closing the distance, until a yet-unseen wave appeared from under him, tossing him several meters up.
“The fuck?!”
“No miracles, Katsuki!” Eijirou yelled, bringing his hands around his mouth to amplify the words. “We’re humans now, you gotta beat me fair and square.”
Just as he finished talking, the other god landed, once again, with a splash. Then rose from the water with an expression fiercer than most piranhas.
“It’s on.”
The two swam and chased each other around for a long time, dashing and diving and throwing water at each other. Despite Eijirou’s natural swimming prowess, Katsuki’s sheer will and commitment allowed him to catch up to him several times. They started getting sloppier as time went on, however, not due to being tired, but due to how much they were laughing.
Eijirou had never seen Katsuki like that: happy, relaxed, disarmed . It was truly a sight to behold. There was something deeply captivating about seeing him laugh with his eyes closed, illuminated by the moonlight, signature scowl completely gone. It felt like a miracle in its own right, one that Eijirou caused through a perfectly human activity. Amid all the new human sensations Eijirou had experienced so far tonight, he felt a twinge of a new one he couldn’t quite put to words, but couldn’t focus on it too long as Katsuki was soon lunging toward him again.
Once they got bored of swimming in the ocean, Eijirou took them back to land to show Katsuki the fun of sliding down the sand dunes. It took very little for them to make a competition out of who could climb and slide down all the dunes the fastest, to which Katsuki took as quickly as Eijirou did swimming, beating him by several minutes.
Having finished that, they began simply walking along the sand. Every few meters or so, Katsuki would stop to look at a stone on the ground or a rocky formation on the incline. Eijirou didn’t really get what was fascinating about them, but he enjoyed looking at how interested Katsuki was, the sparkle in his eyes. He imagined that, maybe, that was the same reason Katsuki didn’t complain about all of the seashells Eijirou stopped to collect and marvel at.
Just being in each other’s company, be it laughing together or in peaceful silence, was comforting. Like it finally made sense how the two of them could be parts of the same universe. They did not think about their previous arguments, or their duties, or any of those things less important than simply living that moment. The whole existence they originated seemed to finally have found its purpose. Before they even realized it, their surroundings became tinted orange as the sun sprouted on the horizon.
“Fucking finally.”
“Eh, I had fun waiting for it. Didn’t you?”
Katsuki mumbled something Eijirou couldn’t quite make out, looking sheepishly to the sand.
“What did you say?”
“I said this was the best night I had in this place, goddammit!” he clarified, back to his usual Katsuki self. “Drain the fucking water from your ears, dumbass!”
Despite the yelling, which he was more than used to at this point, Eijirou took on his widest smile yet at the words.
Soon enough, however, his focus was moved to different words. In the distance, from voices he did not recognize.
“Oh shit, are those–”
“Humans,” Katsuki confirmed.
“Should we hide?”
Katsuki looked at him like he’d just suggested he give Izuku control of the sun. “Are you fucking crazy? We waited all night to see how this place is during the day. We’re not gonna hide because of our creations. And why would we, anyway?”
“I don’t know, it’s just we’ve never been among humans before. What if they figure out who we are?”
“We can eradicate their entire species if we want, Eijirou. And we don’t have to fucking talk to anyone, so you don’t risk your dumb mouth giving away anything. Here, let me just–”
With a spin of his finger, Katsuki produced a flame that split into two, swirling around their lower bodies. From them, he materialized pieces of cloth that wrapped around their hips and thighs and extended down to their knees; his in orange, Eijirou’s in red.
“What are these?”
“Clothes. Humans wear them to cover their groins for whatever reason. And now, to fix your shitty hair.”
Katsuki brought up his hand to grab the back of Eijirou’s head. The red, spiky hair Eijirou had adopted in resemblance of his usual appearance turned to black straight hair that fell around his face.
Though the transformation was instantaneous, Katsuki did not move his hand. He stood there, holding Eijirou’s head, their eyes locked into one another’s. Something about this moment felt tense, yet grand. Like waiting for the sun to rise as the sky has already turned pink. Eijirou felt that prickling sensation once more, but he couldn’t quite tell what to do. He had only the faintest impression that it would either go away or grow even stronger if he were to get closer to Katsuki.
Katsuki looked at him with an expression of awe similar to when he was looking at the rocks. That redness to his cheeks had returned, too. After a few seconds of silence, he finally let go and lowered his hand, causing Eijirou to almost grab his arm by reflex to place it back.
“There, you look... much better now, you’re welcome.”
With that, he turned away from him to walk towards the humans they’d heard. Eijirou still remained stunned in that unknown feeling for a moment before following after him.
As it turned out, their plans of not interacting much with the humans were doomed to fail from the beginning, as their species proved to be extremely social. No sooner were they spotted by the family they’d heard, they were approached and asked all sorts of questions. Though Eijirou initially thought this to be exactly what he feared, an interrogatory after their true identities, it turned out that it was just how humans make conversation; asking their names, where they were from, what was their occupation... and it also turned out that Katsuki was an excellent bluffer and liar, which Eijirou wasn’t sure he should be surprised by or not.
They learned that humans call that place “the beach”, and that many of them went there for leisurely time—much like the two of them had the previous night. True enough, it took no time for more and more groups of humans to arrive, many of them bringing food and gadgets Eijirou had never seen.
Katsuki was very familiar with human culture, though he wasn’t fond of interacting with them other than the bare minimum information needed to not call attention to themselves. Eijirou had only ever dealt with the fishermen and sailors who used his rivers and lakes, and he’d never paid them much attention. However, once Katsuki had provided him with what he needed not to screw up, he had newfound fun by interacting with people and learning about their lives.
And they found out humans had even more varied ways to have fun at the beach! They used boards to swim and to slide down sand dunes, they had leather bubbles they played with, they threw nets at the water to catch fish; Eijirou partook in all those activities, and dragged Katsuki with him. For some of them, Katsuki played along, and they had fun together beating the poor mortals at their own games the pair had never even heard of; for others, Katsuki said he was content simply watching from a distance as Eijirou had fun.
By noon, however, the two sat down together against the incline, far away from everyone. They watched as the sun shone bright over the beach, painting beautiful reflections on the ocean and illuminating the golden sand. They watched the humans playing, running, swimming, resting; all of them having fun. There was a completeness, yet a simplicity to it all.
“And to think this all came out of our dumb fight,” Eijirou said eventually.
“‘S weird. We attacked each other and destroyed shit for ages. It feels wrong that that would result in something like this.”
Eijirou turned to look at Katsuki, though the latter kept his eyes firmly forward. “I dunno. I mean, I get what you mean, but also, like... this all is here because of the fight. The sand, the tide, the sun, the wind. It’s all like this because of us.”
Katsuki said nothing more than a hum for a long moment, during which Eijirou went back to facing the beach, though he felt his back sliding down the incline until his head was resting on Katsuki’s shoulder.
“I guess, in the end...” Katsuki eventually resumed, “you don’t think we failed as gods?”
“No. I guess not. I mean, look how much the world has changed since we made it. The wind blows, the waves crash, ice melts. Everything is always transforming because of us. That’s what we did here, too.”
Katsuki jolted slightly at the sound of those words. Eijirou made to remove his head from his shoulder, but Katsuki quickly brought his hand to hold him in place as he readjusted his posture.
“You think that’s what we are, then? Not creators or destroyers, but agents of change?”
“Fuck if I know,” Eijirou said, causing Katsuki to snort. “But I guess that makes sense to me. We transformed the shore into what it is now, and we transformed ourselves in the process too.”
Katsuki faced him with a teasing smile. “I hope you don’t plan on us remaining humans forever.”
He smiled back, softer. “No, but I also don’t plan on going back to fighting with you over every little thing.”
Katsuki’s expression turned resolute, though not in his usual competitive way. A caring way. “Definitely not. Though, there are some advantages to having a physical body.”
To make his point, he hugged Eijirou tightly against him and pulled him away from the incline, landing with his back against the sand with Eijirou resting on his chest. Like before, they were left gazing into each other’s eyes, faces inches apart; though, this time, the sensation Eijirou felt was different. He no longer felt unsure of what he should do. Or, to put it more precisely, he didn’t care if he made a mistake. It was like bravery, but also like the certainty of something safe. A contradiction, and yet perfectly right, like the ocean laying on top of the sun.
“Katsuki,” he said, voice wispy but clearly heard by the other, of that he was sure. “I don’t want the beach for myself. It couldn’t exist if it wasn’t for you, so it simply isn’t fair for me–”
He was interrupted by the god below him grabbing his head and pulling him down to kiss him. The moment their lips pressed together, Eijirou felt his soul boiling. He felt his body melting away. He felt the divine transformation of existence changing reality forever. As he kissed Katsuki back, over and over again, wrapping his arms around his neck to hold him as close to him as possible, he was neither god nor human; he was in love.
“Eijirou,” Katsuki said when they broke apart, eyes still firmly locked with those of his lover, “this isn’t mine or yours, this is ours. This is us . The beach is not a continent or ocean; it’s where the land meets the sea. And so will I meet you here, forever.”
Think. Try and think, however impossible you know such a task to be, of every single moment in time, every single second spent together, that led you to loving your loved ones.
Once we find that we love someone, we have already been in possession of that love for longer. It is a complete and beautiful picture, that we simply learn to see. So too did the bright sun, the hot winds, the high tide, the harsh rains and the beach already exist when summer came to be. Love is our own creation to discover.
Can we, humans, imagine and, furthermore, feel what the universe feels for itself? Know precisely why the cosmos is set so that the water will cool lava into solid stone? Can we tell that there is no difference in how far the sun is from the ocean, no matter if it’s shining bright at midday or kissing it on the horizon?
Dear reader, I hope you find the beauty in all your chipped stones. I hope you find warmth in your midnight swims. I hope you forget the difference between gods and humans because you’ve forgotten what you, yourself, are.