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"You can't sleep there," Kageyama says.
The man doesn't move. Kageyama isn't sure he's wearing clothing. His hair is a faded silver-blue-green that reminds him of sunlight on ocean water, and his fair skin is going to burn if he lies half-draped in the river much longer. Kageyama nudges him with his toe.
The man groans, thin and weary. The sound makes Kageyama stop pulling from his milkbox.
"Are you hurt?" he asks then. He tries for concerned and only ends up with less brusque. "Can you stand?"
The man stirs at the question. The surface of the water behind him is disturbed, and Kageyama's eyes widen when a long finned tail breaks the water where his legs should have been, the same transluscent color as sea glass.
Kageyama has always been a credulous person.
"You're a mermaid," he states, glancing back and forth. The canal's riverbank is empty, probably because the early-autumn day is blustery and cold, and the sky above is threatening rain. Kneeling down, he asks, "Are you stuck? Should I push you back in?"
The mermaid shoots a hand forward to grab at his sleeve. Kageyama is so startled that he falls backward into a half-sitting position. "Don't," is the soft reply. "I can't breathe there anymore."
"But you can't live on land, either," Kageyama points out.
"I can't go back," the mermaid whispers. Now that he's closer Kageyama can see that he has a delicate, paper-thin fin where his ear should be, canted closed with supplication. The sight of it makes his cheeks turn red for reasons he can't explain.
He turns away, scratching at his cheek. "What do you want me to do, then?" he grumbles.
"I don't know," the mermaid replies. "I couldn't think of anything else."
Kageyama looks up at the sky. It should start pouring any minute now. That will help the mermaid for a little while, he supposes, but what will he do once the rain stops? What if the cops see him? What if someone finds him and he ends up stuck in an aquarium or, worse, a museum?
Kageyama's expression has morphed into a thunderous frown. He hates feeling responsible for things.
He pulls on the mermaid's arm and drapes it over his shoulder. "I have a bathtub," he says. "Get on my back. I'll carry you."
--
Kageyama's soaked through by the time they make it back to his apartment. He feels bedraggled and exhausted. The mermaid, inversely, was revived enough by the downpour to lock his arms around Kageyama's shoulders and lift his tail from the ground, helping Kageyama carry him as much as he could.
Regardless of the different states they're in when they get to Kageyama's house, they share one thing in common: they could both use a bath.
The mermaid's long tail reaches from one end of the small bathroom to the other. Its fins twitch against the far wall, leaving trails of moisture against the tile. He stares in confusion as Kageyama shoves a shower head into his hands.
When Kageyama twists the water on, he yelps in surprise and drops it. Water gets everywhere. "No!" Kageyama barks, and the mermaid recoils.
Kageyama pinches the bridge of his nose. "No," he says again, quieter. "You use it to clean up. Here." He folds the mermaid's fingers around the shower head, realizing how long they are. They're spindly, with sharp-looking blue claws at the end of each finger, and the back of his hand is pebbled with a subtle scale pattern. Kageyama's eye follows the pattern over the wrist and forearm, across the flash of iridescence in the hollow of the elbow, and up his muscled shoulder.
"What is it?" the mermaid asks, and Kageyama blinks awake.
"I've never seen a mermaid before," he says bluntly. "Go on, rinse off."
The mermaid makes a face. "I don't really understand," he says, politely apologetic. "Do you think you could show me?"
Kageyama is normally off-put by people who can't help themselves, but having a mythical creature in your house is the antithesis of normal. With a sigh, he pulls the shower head into his own hands. He runs the water across the mermaid's chest and down to where his body shifts to shimmering scales.
"But I'm already wet," the mermaid points out.
"This gets the mud and dirt off. Hold still."
"It tickles." The mermaid's dorsal fin starts at the small of his back and extends to the split at the end of his tail, ribbon-like. It presses tight against the mermaid's body when Kageyama sprays it. The rest of him glistens in the plain fluorescent light, and even across the more human aspects of his body there are flickers of blue-green, like ephemeral beauty spots.
"This is soap," Kageyama says. "You know that?"
The mermaid nods. "Sometimes humans used to wash their clothes in the river and it would get everywhere." His voice softens. "It would make my eyes sting. But the stuff you put in the water now is worse."
The washcloth in Kageyama's hand pauses, milimeters from the mermaid's skin. Women haven't washed by the riverbank for a long, long time. "How old are you?" he asks.
"I don't know," the mermaid answers. "Old enough?"
"Old enough for what?"
The look he gets for that is quiet and sad. "Long enough to know that most humans wouldn't do this," the mermaid whispers. "Thank you for your kindness."
The mermaid's eyes are bright gold and slitted like a cat's when he looks into them. Kageyama looks away, feeling his face turning red again. "It's nothing," he mumbles. "Don't mind."
He strokes the soapy washcloth over Suga's skin in a quick, businesslike fashion, not unlike how he washes his own body. As he clears the grime away, he finds himself entranced by the shimmer of the mermaid's scales, the way even his skin glows like a moonlit pearl.
"It's bioluminescence," the mermaid explains when he sees Kageyama staring. He sounds neither proud or embarrassed; it's just a statement of fact. "If you extinguish the light you'll see it better."
Kageyama reaches up and clicks the light off. Immediately specks of blue and green glimmer on the surface of Suga's skin, turning his body into a small constellation of light. Kageyama's eye traces the swirling patterns over the jut of his shoulderblades, down the dip of his spine, and across the narrow flare of his hips.
"It helps us when we're in the deep ocean," the mermaid says. "And for...other things."
"Other things like what?"
"Like hunting; it attracts the fish. Or..." the mermaid clears his throat. "Or mating."
Kageyama's mouth goes a little dry.
"Though that's just a different kind of hunt, I guess," the mermaid says, and now his voice is wry.
The silence that follows feels close. Kageyama wants to blame it for making him inch closer to the mermaid, though he can't. He's just run his hands over the mermaid's body when he was holding a washcloth, but now he's tempted to do it again—to learn what those bumps of light might feel like under his fingers.
Keep it together, he tells himself, and leans back, clicking the light back on without preamble. The mermaid throws a forearm up to block his eyes and hisses with discomfort, a rattling and alien sound.
"Sorry," Kageyama says, and then while he's trying to be polite, adds, "I never asked for your name."
The mermaid takes a moment to answer. He lowers his hand from his eyes, and Kageyama watches his pupils constrict. When he opens his mouth he can see the peek of fangs. "I would allow you to give me a name, if you wished," the mermaid says. "As thanks for rescuing me."
Kageyama blinks at him without understanding.
The mermaid's ear-fins pull closed, offended. "I'm offering you a boon," he snaps. "The least you could do is say thank you."
"Thank you," Kageyama says automatically. "But I don't...what's wrong with your name?"
"Nothing's wrong with my name," is the reply. "I like it. But if you named me, you'd have power over me. I would be at your beck and call."
"Why would I want that?" Kageyama says, irritated and a little weirded out. The mermaid's face slackens with surprise.
"You don't want that?"
"What would I do with it? It's not like you can help me with my paperwork," Kageyama points out. "Or my serves. I play volleyball," he says, belatedly remembering that most people need context when he starts talking about sports again. Volleyball is such an integral part of his life that he segues into it in most of his conversations without thought, much to the annoyance of his coworkers and former lovers.
The mermaid is blinking at him. His ear-fins unfurl slowly; the tines are silver and catch the light, a subtle flash against his fair hair. "Most humans would kill for an opportunity like this," he says. "Are you sure?"
Kageyama nods. This entire conversation has already gone on for too long. "Just tell me your name already."
"It's...Koushi," the mermaid says. "My name is Koushi."
Kageyama leans forward. "I'm Kageyama Tobio," he says. "It's nice to meet you."
He extends his hand. For a moment, Koushi doesn't seem to know what to do with it. "Shake hands," Kageyama prompts.
Koushi's folds his hand around Kageyama's smaller one, one finger at a time. "I'm glad we met, Kageyama." His face breaks into a smile, and Kageyama's chest tightens at the sight. "Thank you."
--
"What's volleyball?" Koushi asks later.
Kageyama really smiles for what feels like the first time in days.