Chapter Text
The summer heat was draining the life force from Miyuki as he stood in the hot sand, the sun beating down on him from above. Even the light breeze coming from the ocean in front of him did little to cool his warmed skin, and he was only thankful for the muffling silence surrounding him. At least, until he felt someone knock into him, causing him to stumble sideways. He turned his head to see Kuramochi standing before him, a volleyball tucked under his arm.
"Remind me how I ended up here again?"
"Six crushed allergy pills in your coffee and a five hour drive to Shichigahama."
Miyuki rolled his eyes, utterly bored at the prospect of spending the day at one of Miyagi's beaches because his so called "friends" decided to knock him out and kidnap him. He'd rather spend the day on the field practicing, but apparently Kuramochi had other plans on how to spend their first university weekend off. "Come on Miyuki! At least you prepared and put your aids in this morning, because we're gonna be here for two nights."
He subconsciously poked at one of his aids at the mention of them, wanting nothing more than to take them out in that moment if it spared him from Kuramochi's voice. "That's because I was planning on going to school, you know, back in Tokyo," he said, and Kuramochi clapped him on the back before spinning the volleyball on his finger.
"I can see that- you're still wearing your baseball tee. Well, when you're done pouting, you can join us in our game of beach volleyball."
"I think I'll pass."
"You sure? Jun-san and Tetsu-san are really going at it. Tanba-san already took a ball to the face."
"I'm good, maybe later though."
"Okaaaay," he said quietly, drawing the word out in hope that Miyuki would change his mind. But when he saw Miyuki was adamant in his decision, he simply shrugged his shoulders and headed back to their teammates. Once Kuramochi was out of sight, Miyuki decided to continue down the beach path, wanting to further himself from the summer crowds.
Once he'd reached a portion of the beach with fewer people, he removed his hearing aids, appreciating the silence that followed- although he could still hear the vague background noises of the crowd. When he was alone he always preferred to remove the aids, especially if he was surrounded by something as peaceful as a beach- but he'd never admit that to Kuramochi.
He also would never tell Kuramochi that he was actually starting to enjoy being there, now that he was walking along the shoreline, feeling the water rise up to his ankles. Miyuki had barely even noticed when the sea level started to rise, and he'd entered the part of the beach covered in large stones- ones that he'd eventually started to climb over in order to continue on.
And it wasn't until he was hit in the head with a shell that he noticed he was no longer alone.
Turning toward the direction the throw came from, Miyuki saw that there was a boy sitting on one of the rocks, his back facing toward Miyuki as he tossed shells over his shoulder. "You might wanna watch where you throw those," Miyuki said, and muffled a laugh as the boy flinched, immediately pushing off the rock and dipping his waist beneath the water.
He hesitated a moment before spinning around and showing Miyuki his golden eyes on the backdrop of the midday sun. The boy held a dark head of curled brown hair, a few strands dripping water onto the stone as he leaned onto it for support, his scattered freckles standing out against the tanned skin caused by being on the beach far too long.
Miyuki watched as the boy's mouth began to move furiously, too fast for Miyuki to read his lips for anything he was saying. "I'm- hold on, I can't hear anything you're saying," he said, tapping his ear with one hand while the other reached into his pocket, searching for the aids he dropped in there earlier. But to his surprise, when he glanced back up at the boy, a smile had taken shape on his face, as his elbows took the weight of his body so he could sign to Miyuki.
'Are you deaf?' He'd asked, gesturing to his own ear before pointing back at Miyuki. 'Do you know how to sign?' The boy added upon seeing Miyuki's blank expression, the corners of his mouth lifting higher when Miyuki slowly nodded. Biting his lower lip, the boy gestured to the aids Miyuki had pulled out of his pocket. 'Are you going to put those in, or just stare at me?'
Being pulled out of his stupor, Miyuki took time to place an aid in each ear, grunting at the loud, uncomfortable static resounding within his skull when each turned on. He closed his eyes until the pain resided, and found that the boy had been watching him patiently when he reopened his eyes. "Well, this is... unexpected," Miyuki muttered, and the boy cocked his head to the side.
"Mhm, I didn't expect anyone to come this far down the shore... it can get a bit dangerous with the tide levels this time of year," he said, and his voice was filled with this pleasant cheerfulness and sincerity that Miyuki was glad for once in his life he had hearing aids. "Oh, and I'm sorry about the shell. I didn't hear anyone come up behind me..." He glanced down at Miyuki's bare feet with a knowing grin on his face, because of course he hadn't heard Miyuki's silent footsteps over the sound of the water crashing against the rocky shore.
"How do you know sign language?" Miyuki blurted out unexpectedly, surprising them both.
The boy looked up for a moment in thought. "I learned it growing up. My whole family knows it- for days when we don't feel like using our voices," he said, and Miyuki wanted to ask just what he had meant by that, but the boy's tone had a sense of finality to it.
So Miyuki watched him with an interested gaze, asking "If it's so dangerous down here, why are you in the water?" He watched as the boy paled at the question, trying to hide his discomfort with a smirk.
"Because I'm an excellent swimmer and I'm not afraid of water like a lot of humans are," he responded, crossing his arms over the grey stone and resting his head atop his arms, where Miyuki's gaze was drawn to. He actually had quite a bit of muscle built up in his biceps, trailing down to his forearms where the sun was reflecting oddly onto, making... his...
Narrowing his gaze onto the boy's forearms, Miyuki's head cocked to the side in question. "What the-" he muttered, taking a step toward the boy, only for him to quickly drop his arms out of sight. "What were those?" He asked, causing the boy to shake his head.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Then show me your arms."
"Why should I, you pervert!"
"Pervert? What kind of pervert likes arms?"
"Someone with an arm fetish, I guess?! I've been on your internet, I heard all about the oddities of some of you humans!" He exclaimed, and Miyuki took another step toward the boy. There was that word again- human. What kind of person referred to people as a human?
"Why do you keep saying that?"
"Saying what?"
"Human. You talk like you aren't one, it's weird," Miyuki stated, taking another step toward him. The boy fidgeted in his spot in the water, obviously uncomfortable with Miyuki's encroaching figure. His gaze wandered for a moment before landing back on Miyuki, reluctance in his eyes.
"Okay, okay fine, just wait!" He exclaimed, and Miyuki halted his movements. "Just... shit, um... sit down, I guess." Miyuki listened to his instructions, sitting down on the stone the boy was previously sitting on, yet leaving enough room for him to use to support his weight once more. The boy glanced around awkwardly, and Miyuki figured they waited a good few minutes before the boy spoke again.
"Just... promise you won't freak out."
"I promise."
"Pinky promise!"
"What?"
"You have to pinky promise!"
"... Fine," Miyuki said, holding out his left hand with the pinky extended. The boy waited a few more seconds before lifting his arm out of the water, hooking his pinky with Miyuki's. At first, he wasn't sure what the boy had been so worried about- until he took a closer look at the boy's arm. "Is this some sort of... extreme cosplay thing?"
"No, that's... all real."
Beginning from the wrist down to the boy's elbow were shining, golden scales, each about an inch large. They were packed together tightly at the wrist, then they widened until they reached the base of the forearm. Miyuki turned the boy's hand, their fingers still interlocked, and noticed that a few, smaller scales dotted the back of his hand as well.
Hesitantly, Miyuki brought his free hand up, brushing his thumb along the side of the boy's forearm. They felt coarse under his touch, each scale having small hexagonal shapes making it up. Miyuki almost resisted the urge to pull at one, and was horrified when Eijun's skin tightly pulled up with it. "That hurts!" He said, smacking Miyuki's hand away. But Miyuki only stared at him, completely bewildered.
"So, you what, glued those into your skin?"
"I already said they're real!"
Except that would be impossible, Miyuki thought. He watched as the boy became increasingly determined to prove Miyuki wrong, however unreasonable it was. And with a pout on his face, he reached his hand back out toward Miyuki. "Pull me up."
Shooting him an incredulous look, Miyuki went to grip his forearm, until he felt the sharpness of the scales. "Oh, sorry," the boy said, reaching further toward Miyuki until he gripped his bicep, which was scale-free. He allowed Miyuki to pull on his left arm, while he braced his right against the stone, pushing himself up so Miyuki didn't take all the weight.
Miyuki pulled him up until he no longer felt the weight of the boy, who immediately yelled "close your eyes!" Miyuki did so without thinking, mentally slapping himself for listening to a kid who was probably insane judging by the state of his body. But nonetheless, he kept his eyes closed until instructed with a very quiet "okay."
When he opened his eyes, Miyuki actually took a step back from the shock. From the waist down... he... was a fish... a mermaid? Merman? Whatever the proper term, his lower half from the waist down was adorned with bright golden scales, turning darker and darker until it reached the reddish-brown caudal fin, with golden tendrils swaying in the water around it.
"Pretty neat, huh?" He said with a wink.
"Neat?" Miyuki said, unable to take his eyes off the scales. "That's some... dedication you have there, I guess."
"You still don't think it's real?!"
"Well it's not! It can't be!"
Scowling, the boy wrapped quickly wrapped his arm around Miyuki's waist, and dragged him down to his knees. Gripping Miyuki's hand, he placed it on his side, and the boy took a deep breath. Miyuki felt something pulse beneath his hand, and he quickly pulled his hand from the boy's side. The boy smiled, pointing to the area he had just placed Miyuki's hand.
"Look," he said. "Can you fake gills?"
Miyuki glanced to where he was pointing, and sure enough, when the boy took another deep breath, three horizontal slits in the boy's stomach lifted up. Holy shit, holy shit... Without thinking, Miyuki reached down and grazed his hand against the boy's stomach, looking for some sort of detachable latch, because if the mermaid tail was indeed fake, there would be someway to take it off.
He found nothing.
As far as Miyuki could tell, the kid wasn't lying.
"Satisfied?"
"Maybe?"
"Well, can you stop groping me and then decide?"
"Right, sorry," Miyuki amended, removing his hand from the boy's waist. In the back of his mind he was still telling himself that it was completely impossible for him to be... "And what are you exactly?" Miyuki asked. "A mer...man or something?"
"Not... exactly... think distant, Roman cousin."
"And that is?"
"A siren."
"A siren," Miyuki repeated, trying to remember his mythology class from last semester. "Like the 'singing death songs and making ships crash into giant rocks and killing sailors' siren?" He said, and the both gave him a half nod, trying to pin point where to correct him.
"Yeah, though we're not really in the killing people business anymore," he explained, and Miyuki watched as his tail fin flickered in the water. "In fact, my family owns a fishing business." Miyuki choked back a laugh at that, surprised at how calm he was all things considering.
"Isn't that like... cannibalism?"
"I- you- that's rude. That is so rude, treating me like I'm a fish... I don't look like this all the time, you know. How do you think my kind has been able to survive so long without humans hunting us to extinction?" He asked rhetorically, crossing his arms over his chest. "We can take human form, too. In fact, I go to school, I play sports, I have friends and a life. I don't play Aquaman all day."
Miyuki sat back and crossed his legs, genuinely curious about the kid's story. "What do you mean human form?" He wondered. "Like... no gills or scales and two feet, human?" At that, the boy nodded, giving Miyuki a lopsided grin.
"One-hundred percent human," he said, glancing down below Miyuki's waist.
Well then.
"So... what's your name, kid?"
"Sawamura Eijun. And I'm not a kid! I'm eighteen years old!" So he was only a year younger than Miyuki, then? The boy- no, Eijun, narrowed his gaze on him, his nose scrunching in the process. "And you? What's your name?" He asked, holding out his hand for Miyuki to shake.
"Miyuki Kazuya," he responded, hesitating a moment before shaking Eijun's hand. He felt the small scales on the backside of Eijun's hand with his thumb, and he decided he oddly liked the roughness to it. Eijun smiled again before pulling his hand back. He leaned over the rock he was sitting on and pulled something out of the water.
He handed it to Miyuki, and he realized Eijun had given him a conch shell- probably what he'd been throwing before. "Well Miyuki Kazuya, you've just met your first siren."