Chapter Text
Is that a dolphin tail?
No.. dolphins usually don’t come this close to the shore this late..
The sand in her hand glistened under the magnifying glass and flashlight Nene was looking through. It was a humid summer night, as beads of sweat grew on the marine biologist's forehead while she was sitting on her toes digging through sand. She was out collecting samples of the rocks to examine them back at the lab or at home.
Nene was out alone at the beach, which isn’t too surprising as it was early midnight. There was a slight breeze blessing her with occasional cool sometimes, and the night wasn’t silent as she heard the constant crickets and chirping of the bugs nearby.
The close thrashing of the waves was a nice thing to listen to, too. Looking up, she saw a dolphin-like tail within vision. While they normally don’t come to the shore of this specific beach, it wasn’t that unlikely. However..
Was it just Nene, or did the tail look green?
No, it probably just looked like that under the moonlight's reflection on the water.
But was she just imagining things?
While she looked back into the sand and dug around, out of nowhere a big splash of water appeared in front of her, pushing her down and covering her eyes.
“Ack-!” Nene exclaimed, pushing herself up with her hands.
“Oh, hey! Long time no see, fancy meeting you here.”
“What the hell are you doing swimming out so late!?” Nene questioned, recognizing the voice and backing up away from the water.
“Ah, right..” Rui sighed, making it seem like he wasn’t just taking a late night swim. He pushed himself out of the sea, revealing his mermaid tail. “Does this answer your question?”
“No, because I can’t see anything.”
“Hmm.. how about pointing that flashlight towards me? Or maybe opening your eyes?,” Rui giggled, seeing her squeeze her eyes shut.
“You splashed salt water and sand into my eyes…” She grumbled, slowly blinking her eyes open. Nene looked around, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness.
She looked down to her old friend that just came up on shore. His hair looked longer than she last remembered, probably due to it being soaked, and he was wearing a fancy looking white outfit that had long, loose sleeves and seemed like it had a cape that faded to purple and blue.
He looked like a prince that washed up on shore, but anyways..
“What?!” Nene's eyes widened in shock as she looked further and backed up more. She breathed in and out and asked, while pointing to his tail, “That.. that’s fake, right?”
“I'm afraid not. Help me onto the shore, will you?”
Nene grabbed onto Rui’s hands and pulled him up, revealing the rest of his tail. The marine biologist clicked her flashlight on to examine it. Her surprise had turned into admiration, but she still had questions.
“How in the world did you manage to do this…?” She asked, looking at the scales and design of his tail, resisting the temptation to touch it.
“Ahah…” He chuckled awkwardly. “Long story short, I made a potion that would turn me into a mermaid. However… the antidote didn’t work…”
“Yeah. I can tell.” Nene rolled her eyes, taking deep breaths to calm down from the surprise of seeing an old friend as a mermaid Iate at night.
The two were silent for a moment, the only sounds being the waves and the man and women’s breathing. Now, there was a bit of awkwardness mixed in the salty air.
“So… how have you been?” Nene asked, trying to initiate a conversation.
“I certainly have been doing well.. until this mishap…” Rui chuckled. “How about you?”
“I’ve been ok.” She went back to questioning. “So why did you decide to make yourself a mermaid out of nowhere?”
“Out of nowhere? Fufu, you underestimate me.” He responded playfully, but with a slight bit of hesitance. “I’ve been planning this for months, and I’ve always wanted to reach the seafloor and observe all the creatures, you know?”
“Mhm…” The silence continued before another question came up on Nene's mind. “How long have you been a mermaid or whatever? Like, in the ocean?”
“Good question. I have no idea!”
“Great job..” She groaned. “How do you even sleep anyways?” Rui closed his eyes for a few seconds and sighed. “That depends. Sometimes I swim deep enough that I lose track of time, and others I’m too on guard to not try and end up eaten”
“In other words…” Nene groaned again. “You haven’t slept at all.”
“Precisely. And now that you mention it…” Rui’s eyes drooped as he laid his head down onto the sand. “I might as well sleep here tonight… until the humans kill me off..” He closed his eyes and put his hand over his heart dramatically.
“You’re still a human too, just part mermaid.” She chuckled softly at his childish behavior. “But no, you’re not staying here all night!” Her voice changed to being more firm. “You’re going to catch a cold.”
“Really? You’re sweating from the humidity.”
“Y-yeah, but you just came out of the ocean.” She retaliated.
“Point proven..”
“Well, let’s get going then. You can.. crawl or something, my car isn’t too far.” She said, standing up and dusting sand off her shirt.
“Aww, really? Not even going to help me?”
“I’ll drag you then.” Nene grabbed on to his hand and pulled him as she walked.
—
“First of all, I’m not a fish.” Rui said cheekily. “Second, am I really going to stay in your spare bathtub until we find out how to change me back?”
“Who’s we?” Nene joked as she mopped up the floor where water had dropped onto. Getting the mermaid/man to the bathroom wasn’t hard, but it wasn’t easy either. “I guess so. I can't really take you out on a leash, can I?”
Rui groaned, sinking into the empty tub. He sighed, “Normally I wouldn’t object to staying somewhere for a while unless I had something to do…”
“You did this for yourself.”
“For research, for science!” He exclaimed. “Besides, I had some unresolved work in the ocean…”
“Huh?”
“Nothing, nothing. Hey, I have an idea.”
Nene looked back at him with a look saying “go on”
“To turn me back into a human, I made an antidote, right? And it didn’t work… but what if you actually helped me make one again?”
“And how would I do that…?” She asked, doubt lacing her voice.
“Hmmm…” Rui thought, putting a hand on his chin. “Well, I suppose we could go over to my house and get the supplies I used for the potion. Then I could work on an antidote here and everything will be resolved!”
“I guess that’ll work. We’ll discuss this tomorrow, it’s….” She looked down to her phone: 2:17 AM. “Late.”
“You mean discuss this in the morning?” Rui snickered. Nene laughed dryly, “Very funny.” As she put her phone back into her pocket, she felt it vibrate as if someone were calling her.
Who’s calling me in the middle of the night?