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Die’s life in Toba was as predictable as the tide – and just as dull. Cold, even.
The small town on the Mie coast moved to a rhythm older than its people: fishing boats at dawn, shutters closing before dusk, polite nods passed between neighbours too tired to speak.
Die moved through it like a misplaced ember – restless, burning too bright for a place that preferred its corners quiet, its skies grey, its pulse nearly still.
He worked long hours at the local convenience store, bagging bentos and scanning lottery tickets for the same three customers. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead like they resented his presence.
He didn’t belong here. Not really.
Not with that fire-red hair he refused to dye back to his natural black. Not with the sarcasm that bled into his voice even when he tried to be polite. Not with the way he carried his guitar like it was the only thing that truly knew him.
He was too loud in a place that worshipped silence. Too alive in a town that had forgotten how to feel.
At night, he walked home in quiet, the click of his boots on concrete louder than any conversation he’d had all day. Dinner was an afterthought. Music wasn’t.
That old guitar – scratched, chipped, always a little out of tune – was his release.
He’d take it to the beach, sit on the same warped piece of driftwood, and strum. Play. Not for anyone. Just to break the monotony. Just to breathe.
And someone listened.
Not someone.
Something.
Far beyond the breaking waves, past the last of the fishing lines, something stirred beneath the surface.
Eyes the color of storms pierced the black water. Hair like molten platinum floated weightless in the currents, catching the glimmer of moonlight in ghostly flashes. A golden-pink tail stirred the sand with soundless grace, coiled tight against a long, lithe body that didn’t belong to any human world. Not fully male, not quite female — the lines of that form were delicate, ageless.
Beautiful in a way that a person might fear without knowing why.
It watched with eyes that had seen centuries pass like moments. Watched him. Night after night. Drawn in by something it didn’t understand.
The songs were simple — human, flawed, clumsy — but they vibrated.
With ache. Desire.
Danger lived in such longing. Such sadness. Such fire.
The creature had seen how human need twisted into greed, how they ruined what they reached for. There were reasons to stay hidden. Reasons to turn away.
And yet.
The boy kept coming back, always to the same place, always with that same quiet grief and spark of stubborn hope.
And the being in the sea — old, cautious, a presence woven from salt and sorrow, shaped by currents and longing – came back, too.
A creature who should’ve stayed far from shore. But never did.
Sometimes, it drifted too close – drawn by the treacherous melodies and a curiosity that refused to fade. Sometimes, the boy seemed to notice. Looked out at the water like he felt something stirring.
But the beach was always empty. The sea, always dark.
And the silence between them – for now – stayed unbroken.
**
Far beneath the surface, where the sun’s reach failed and the water grew cold with memory – two figures lingered in the deep.
One drifted, motionless, just above the ocean floor. Golden-pink tail curled beneath a delicate frame, arms wrapped around themselves, long hair catching faint flickers of bioluminescence. Gaze fixed unwaveringly upward – past kelp forests and jagged rocks – toward the world above.
Watching. Listening.
The other cut through the stillness like a blade. Hair wild and tangled, colored like crushed violets and midnight ink, trailing behind in frantic ribbons. Smaller, but fierce. Pale eyes glowed feral – unblinking, unbroken. His tail flashed silver streaked with teal, slicing through water like lightning.
“You’re watching again.”
The words cracked through the water, sharper than any current. Void of amusement. No pretense.
Silence.
“You always watch them.” A circling motion – not graceful, but sharp and fast, like a predator deciding whether to strike. “Do you want to die? They never change. Corrupt the world. Burn it. Poison it.”
Still no answer. “He’s just like the rest. Fragile. Full of noise and need.” The silver-tailed one spat the words like venom, darting close, stopping just short of collision. Face inches away, eyes burning. “They always seem harmless at first. And then they lie through their rotten teeth to get what they don’t deserve.”
A flicker of a flinch. Barely recognizable.
“Did you forget?“ the wild one hissed, voice low now, bitter. “Last time, they carved you open, drained your blood for medicine. Called you a god, then gutted you for proof. You still bear the mark. And yet, here you are – drifting back to the fire.”
The storm-eyed figure finally spoke. Quiet voice, soft enough to be dangerous: “This one’s different.”
“They’re never different,” came the hissed reply.
“He sings,” the taller murmured, eyes never leaving the distant shimmer of moonlight above. “Like he doesn’t know anyone’s listening. Like he’s hoping the ocean swallows him.”
A hollow, humorless laugh. “Then let it. Let it take him. Let the sea be kind for once.” Teeth flashed like bone. “He’s human. They lie. They take. And they never stay.”
No reaction.
“I’m not dragging your bleeding body home again,” the silver-tailed snarled. “The sea can’t fix what they break.”
The platinum-haired didn’t answer.
“You are ancient. Older than most of the bones under this sea. But the moment a mortal boy picks up a broken guitar, you melt like kelp in the sun. It’s pathetic.”
“I’m not melting.”
“No?” Mockery. “Then stop watching him.”
Silence stretched between them – heavy, cold, brined with memory.
Finally, softer, almost bitter, “One day, he’ll look at you. He’ll want to touch what he doesn’t understand. That’s all it takes. One curious finger, one lie, one promise they never keep.”
The platinum-haired turned toward him. “And what if I want to believe it? Just once more?”
A pause. Quiet, sad: “Then you’re more of a fool than I thought.”
A faint shift in the water between them.
It stilled – until far above, the seabed trembled.
**
Die almost didn’t notice it at first.
The air went still. Too still.
Waves that usually lapped against the shore like lazy animals slid back in retreat, baring long stretches of wet sand that glittered like spilled mercury. The sea held its breath.
He froze, one hand on his guitar’s neck. It was quiet. Quieter than he’d ever heard it. The usual chatter of night insects, the low hum of the tide, even the distant creak of boats moored in the harbor — gone. Only a silence wrong in his bones.
Then the sound came.
Low at first, almost like wind — except it was coming from the water.
A rolling, growing roar.
He stood, guitar dangling useless at his side, as a dark shadow swelled on the horizon. No crest, no white foam — just a wall. Solid, black, impossibly tall, blotting out the moon.
It moved fast. Too fast.
Somewhere far down the beach, a man shouted. Another voice joined in — panic laced, urgent — and then they were drowned out by the thunder.
The wave kept rising.
Die ran.
Sand shifted under his boots, slowing him, every step heavier than the last. The roar was deafening now, swallowing his breath, rattling in his chest. He didn’t dare look back — but he could feel it, the shadow stretching over him, cold and massive.
He didn’t make it to the street.
The water hit like a freight train, lifting him, twisting him, hurling him into the dark. His guitar was gone in an instant, ripped from his hands, spinning into blackness. Salt water burned down his throat as he fought for breath, for the surface, for anything solid — but there was only more water.
The current dragged him under. Spun him so violently he couldn’t tell up from down. The world was a blur of sand and foam and cold so sharp it felt like knives against his skin.
His lungs burned. Darkness crept from his vision’s edges.
Then – movement.
Something surged through the chaos, fast and precise, cutting through the currents as if they weren’t there. A shadow swept past, too long and fluid to be human.
An arm — strong, unyielding — hooked under his chest. The grip was firm, the motion deliberate. He was pulled sideways, away from the churning heart of the wave. Through the blur of sand and foam, the shape that held him never came fully into focus — just the flash of pale hair in the dark, the shimmer of something that wasn’t skin.
His vision dimmed. The roar faded.
He didn’t feel himself breach the surface.
**
When he came to, he lay on wet sand. Night air cold. Debris scattered across the beach. His clothes clung heavy, his breath ragged.
No one was there.
Only the waves, sliding back into the dark.
Far out, beyond the breakers, something golden-pink flickered once beneath the surface — and was gone.
**
Below the churning waves, the current still hadn’t settled. The androgynous form hovered in the dark, hair drifting like pale fire, the warmth of the red-headed human still clinging to his fingertips.
The water split as another figure tore through it, fast and violent. Eyes like frozen lightning, his tail darkened, the silver drowned in stormy teal. Always a bad sign.
He stopped a body-length away, silent, gaze sharp enough to cut. The weight of his disappointment pressed heavier than the sea itself. Then, without a word, he turned and vanished into the dark, the water still trembling in his wake.
The platinum haired stayed where he was, suspended between rock and open water. He knew the rules – every single one of them: Do not touch. Do not linger. Do not get seen. He had broken them all.
He should have let the human slip into the black and be carried away.
But he couldn’t. Not when the tide had closed over him, not when that fragile song had already wound itself into his bones. Some things the sea could not wash away.
**
For days afterward, Die told himself it had been nothing more than a drowning man’s delirium – a shape conjured by panic, a flash of colour born from lack of air and too much fear.
But when he returned to the beach and found his guitar half-buried in the sand – battered, waterlogged, yet somehow intact – doubt crept in.
Legends he’d heard as a child whispered in his mind. Old tales told of a merman in Ise Bay, glimpsed between storms, dismissed as folklore. For the first time, Die wondered if they were true.
The image wouldn’t leave him – pale hair drifting around a lithe frame, flashes of rose shimmer, luminous eyes bright as storms.
He hadn’t meant to become obsessed. But he needed to know.
The old fishermen at the harbour – weathered men with salt-streaked beards and eyes sharp as hooks – traded stories over chipped mugs at the docks. Some were drunker than others, voices slurred but details unwavering: sightings of a luminous figure beneath the waves, a creature said to wander the bay, and sometimes even help the doomed.
Die listened, careful not to reveal too much. He didn’t tell them about the flash of gold or the strange pull that had wrapped itself around his chest that night in the sea. Instead, he asked questions – probing, persistent – chasing threads that led him to the dusty archives of the local library.
Soon he was sifting through brittle pages and yellowed newspaper clippings, piecing together overseen patterns and scattered reports spanning centuries, all describing the same impossible figure with a gleaming tail.
Days slipped into weeks.
Life went on, unchanged on the surface.
Long shifts under humming fluorescent lights, bagging bentos and cigarettes for the same few regulars. The rhythm should have felt comforting. Instead, it felt hollow.
His coworkers noticed the change. The distance in his eyes. The loss of his usual bite. The tremor in his hands. They whispered that surviving didn’t equal living, that the tsunami had broken something in him.
They didn’t know he was chasing a ghost.
Night after night, after closing, Die wandered to the beach instead of home. Back to the place that should’ve been his grave.
The guitar stayed behind. Silent. Waiting.
He didn’t come to play.
He came to watch the water.
Half-hoping for proof.
A glimpse of what he thought he’d seen.
One night, he stepped into the shallows, trousers rolled to his knees. The waves licked at his calves, soaking the fabric. He tilted his head, searching the dark, as if expecting an answer.
“Are you real?”
Beneath the surface, the one he spoke to stayed hidden – heart pounding in a chest that hadn’t beat in centuries, wondering why the songs he longed for now refused to rise.
**
After weeks of prowling the shoreline and combing through archives, Die’s visits to the beach grew less frequent. Not because the memory had faded – it never did – but because the endless searching had left him raw.
He told himself to stop. To go back to playing, to living.
And somehow, he did.
He started carrying his guitar again. Not to the crowded stretch of sand where the fishermen could see him, but to a narrow cove half-hidden by jagged rocks, a place the locals didn’t bother with. The tides there were strange, the shore a scatter of dark stone and driftwood, the horizon framed in cliffs.
No one to overhear.
No one to watch.
There, he sat with his back to the rocks, playing into the wind. Not songs for an audience, but for himself – slow, meandering melodies that carried across the water before the waves swallowed them whole. Sometimes he closed his eyes and imagined the notes sinking into the sea.
He didn’t know that far below, he had a listener.
Golden tail, rose shimmer. The merman had been cautious to keep his distance. The human’s persistence had unsettled him – the questions, the way he kept returning to the bay. That strange feeling in his chest that refused to go away whenever he felt the red-head’s presence.
Curiosity was dangerous. He knew that by painful experience.
But here, in the cove’s shadow, the music was different.
Unhunting. Unasking. Just… there.
The third time Die came to the cove, the sea creature surfaced.
Not close — just far enough that the fading light turned him into a shifting glimmer, hair pale against the water, tail a soft flare of gold and pink.
Die’s fingers stilled on the strings. His pulse was suddenly in his throat.
“You’re real,” he breathed.
The merman’s eyes narrowed slightly. He should have flinched. Or run. They always did. “You’re not afraid,” he said, voice low.
“I should be,” Die admitted, his voice unsteady but clear.
A pause. Something inside the merman tightened, uncomfortably.
“Thank you. For that night.”
The words stopped him. Gratitude. Not worship, not fear, not a demand for proof or a bargain for luck. Just thanks.
“You… thank me?” His voice sounded strange in his ears.
“Yeah,” Die said, brow furrowing. “Most people don’t thank someone who hauls them out of a tsunami?”
The merman’s gaze shifted, unreadable. Most people screamed. Or prayed. Or pretended afterward they’d seen nothing at all. Or … started to hunt them.
“Most people… don’t see me twice.” The words slipped out quieter than intended, almost reluctant.
Die studied him, but the water between them kept every answer blurred.
“I wasn’t trying to ferret you out,” he said at last. “I just—wanted to know if I imagined it.”
A flick of his tail sent ripples toward the rocks. “You didn’t.”
The silence that followed wasn’t awkward — just stretched, filled with the tide’s rhythm and the hush of wind over stone. Die’s hands hovered over the strings, itching to fill the space.
“You… play often,” the merman said, eyes flicking toward the guitar. “I’ve heard you before. Before the storm.”
A hesitation, then, softer: “I like it.”
The admission felt heavier than it should, pulling at the edges of something he didn’t want to name.
It tugged a crooked smile from Die. “Guess I’ve got at least one fan, then.”
His lips twitched — not quite a smile, but something close. “One is enough.”
He wasn’t sure if it was true, but in this moment, with the music waiting, it felt like it could be.
They didn’t exchange names. They didn’t move closer. But when Die began playing again, he stayed — floating just at the edge of the cove, listening, as the moonlight turned the sea to silver.
**
They met again, and again. At first, it was only the smallest exchanges — a tilt of the head, a curious glance, fingers brushing the surface of the water without daring to touch. Shinya — Die learned his name only after weeks — spoke sparingly, his words as rare as pearls. But his silences were not empty. They were watchful, searching. And when he did speak, it was in a voice that carried the weight of tides.
Die told him about ramen steaming in winter streets, music so loud it made the air shake, neon bleeding against rain-soaked asphalt. In return, Shinya spoke of drifting gardens of coral, of trenches so deep light had never touched them, of currents that could carry you halfway around the world without you noticing.
Their secret meetings stretched over months, each encounter weaving threads of connection tighter between them. The unspoken grew heavy with meaning, something neither dared to name aloud.
One afternoon, the sky broke. A storm slammed the coast without warning. The waves surged, flooding their hidden cove. Die tried to fight the water, but every step sank him deeper. Panic clawed at his ribs.
Then Shinya was there. Cold fingers wrapped around his wrist — strong, unyielding. He didn’t pull Die toward shore. He pulled him under.
The shock stole the air from Die’s lungs. Then a voice — not spoken, but thrumming through his chest, through the water — Breathe. Trust me.
And Shinya’s mouth was on his.
It was nothing like Die had imagined kisses to be. Not soft, not tentative — but the moment his lips sealed over Die’s, air flooded in, sweet and burning. It was survival. It was surrender. The currents roared around them, salt stinging Die’s eyes, but all he could see was pale hair fanning like light through water, and the unblinking intensity in Shinya’s gaze.
They swam. Or rather, Shinya carried him, the storm raging somewhere far above, until the water stilled and the world narrowed to the sound of his own heartbeat.
When they broke the surface, Die clung to him, shivering, every nerve raw. His voice was hoarse. “Was that—”
“Breathing,” Shinya cut in quickly, looking away, but the faint blush along his ears betrayed him.
Die’s laugh came out as a breathless rasp. “Best breath I’ve ever had.”
Shinya glared, but the glare faltered under the crooked grin Die gave him. “You’re impossible.”
“Admit it,” Die murmured, drifting closer, salt still clinging to his lips. “You liked it.”
Shinya’s mouth opened — probably to deny it — but Die didn’t give him the chance. This time he kissed him with no storm to excuse it. No panic. No need for air. Just want. Saltwater rose and fell around them, carrying the months of glances and silences into this single, quiet inevitability.
When they parted, Shinya’s expression was unreadable. His golden-pink tail stirred idly in the water beneath. His voice was almost a whisper. “That wasn’t breathing.”
“No,” Die said, smiling faintly. “That was better.”
**
Beneath the surface, Shinya drifted. The taste of salt and the ghost of Die’s lips still lingered, spreading weightless warmth through his chest.
“I saw that.”
The words cut the hush like a knife, cold as an undercurrent.
A glint of silver circled him before resolving into a lean, familiar form.
“Kyo.” Shinya’s voice was taut – a single syllable bracing for the weight of what might follow.
The other slid closer, smooth and deliberate, pale eyes fixed on him.
“Sharing breath?” His tone was flat, scalpel-precise. “Really. You could’ve just used your hand to cover his nose and mouth. Same result. Less touching. Less… desperate.”
Shinya’s jaw clenched. “It wasn’t like that.”
“Wasn’t it?” Kyo’s tail drew a lazy arc, sending a ripple that split the water between them. He watched Shinya as if cataloguing mistakes. “I’ve been watching. Your little cove. The way he waits there every night. How you sneak out to him.” No warmth in the words – only the hard edge of accusation. “You want him.”
“Leave him alone.” Low enough that the words trembled.
Kyo tilted his head, mock-considering. “Tempting.”
But Shinya knew him too well — this was testing for weakness, not indecision.
“Or maybe I should show myself,” Kyo went on. “See how fast your human runs when he gets a proper look.”
“He’s not like the others.” Steady. Not pleading. Not hopeful. Only the truth he’d seen.
They held each other’s gaze, the water heavy with things unspoken. The smaller paused, not because he doubted — but because he hated the certainty in Shinya’s tone. Then, softer than his earlier barbs, almost resigned: “I think you might be right.”
Shinya blinked – a tiny, involuntary crack in his composure. Agreement wasn’t what he’d braced for, least of all from his oldest friend. For a moment, it almost felt like admission of someone who’d watched enough to be afraid of being proven wrong.
“That’s the problem,” the smaller added, voice low, the words dropping like a stone into deep water.
Kyo’s silver-teal tail flashed; he turned, a cold shaft of movement, and vanished into the darker blue. His voice drifted back, even and measured: “Storms pass. But humans? They’re gone before you even notice.”
The shadow of him lingered in the current, leaving Shinya alone with the echo of what had been said – and the knowledge that Kyo’s warning had teeth sharper than his jokes.
**
The next night, the cove lay quiet.
The tide whispered against the rocks, moonlight breaking over the surface in silver shards.
Kyo hovered just beyond the shallows, where the light could not reach. The human was there, as always – sitting cross-legged on the sand, guitar resting against one knee, fingers idly coaxing songs from the strings. The notes floated over the water like something fragile, dissolving into the night air before they could sink.
Kyo watched. Measured. The way the human’s gaze sometimes wandered toward the dark water, not with fear but with an almost patient hope. The way his hands stilled whenever the sea shifted strangely, as if listening for something that might answer.
He could break that hope with a single glimpse – let the pale lunar light touch his eyes, let the shape of him rise from the water in all its alien sharpness. Watch the shock curdle into terror. His kind’s mesmerizing beauty casted spells over humans, sparked fear in them. It would be easy.
But for now – he decided against it.
Instead, he drifted a little closer, just enough for the current to carry his presence toward the shore – a subtle shift, the kind that prickled skin without explanation. The human’s head lifted, fingers stilling on the strings. He frowned at the dark water, searching.
Kyo lingered there, close enough to see every flicker of expression, but far enough to remain a shadow.
Testing.
When the red-head’s gaze didn’t falter – when he stayed, guitar still in his lap, eyes fixed on the unseen – Kyo turned silently and sank back into the deep.
**
After his last encounter with Kyo, Shinya stayed away.
Not because the pull to the cove had lessened – if anything, it burned hotter now – but because Kyo’s word clung to him like cold saltwater.
The taste of that last night still lingered: salt on his lips, Die’s breath in his chest, the unguarded way the human had looked at him after. Shinya had gone to the deep with his pulse pounding, carrying a warmth that felt as dangerous as any storm.
And then Kyo had found him. Had spoken those measured warnings that cut deeper than teeth.
He had known his old companion could be sharp, even cruel when he wanted to be, but the thought of him circling the cove – of him watching – gnawed at something in his chest.
If Kyo knew, others could find out.
And if others found out, they might decide Die was a threat – or a toy.
Shinya had seen what “curiosity” could mean in the wrong hands.
The thought made his pulse turn cold.
So, he kept to the deep.
Each night, he swam past the rocks where they used to meet, slowing against the current, aching to break the surface – but he didn’t. He told himself that watching from the shadows was safer. That distance was protection.
It was easier than admitting the truth: He didn’t know how to keep Die safe at all.
The pattern held for days.
And on the nights he broke – when the ache outweighed his resolve – he stayed far offshore, hidden in the black water, watching Die sit in their cove with his guitar, playing into the wind like the sound alone might draw him closer.
Every note was a tug on a thread Shinya was trying – and failing, to cut.
Days bled into weeks. Weeks into months.
And Die’s expression changed. From quiet expectation, to confusion, to something heavier. Shinya recognized that look. It was the look of someone losing hope.
That was when Kyo appeared again.
Not lurking in the shadows, but gliding into the moonlight where Die could see him.
Shinya, watching from the depths, felt his chest tighten.
This wasn’t a test.
This was pity.
**
Die sat in the cove long after the tide had turned, the salt air heavy and still. He’d played every song he knew twice, letting the sound spill into the night. Hoping. Hoping Shinya would appear.
But the water remained dark, unbroken.
It had been like this for months – no explanation, no promise. Just nothingness where there used to be… something.
He tried not to think about their kiss. About the hours of hushed words full of curiosity and quiet touches. About the way Shinya’s voice had felt when he told him to trust. He tried – and failed. He wanted to hear that voice again.
A faint ripple caught his eye.
Not from the place where Shinya usually emerged, but from the jagged black rocks at the far edge of the cove.
Then he saw him.
Not Shinya.
This one had a different glow. A sharper edge to his movements, deliberate. Emerald and turquoise gleamed along his wet frame, his hair a dark, tangled fall of ink streaked with blue-violet, drifting like deepwater-kelp. His pale eyes reflected the moon as if it lived inside them. His tail – shorter than Shinya’s – shimmered in streaks of silver and teal, scales catching the light in dizzying patterns.
Beautiful, yes, but in a way that felt dangerous – like a rip current you didn’t notice until it was too late.
“You’re the red-haired landwalker,” the stranger said.
“And you’re … not Shinya.” Die’s voice was rougher than intended.
The stranger tilted his head, faint amusement ghosting across his face. “No. I’m not.” His voice was smooth, but there was something coiled in it – not cruelty exactly, but something that made Die think of teeth hidden in shadows. “I’m Kyo. His smarter friend.”
They regarded each other for a long beat. Not hostile. But weighted.
“He’s … busy,” Kyo went on. “Doesn’t mean you should sit here alone, looking like the tide already took you.”
Die bristled. “I’m not--“ But he was. He knew it.
Kyo drifted closer. His gaze didn’t waver.
“You miss him.” Not a question.
Die looked away. “… Yeah. I guess I do.”
Something flickered over Kyo’s features — not quite pity, not quite understanding. “Careful,” he said at last. “Storms pass. And when they do, most things that came with them… don’t come back.”
Die frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
But the silver tail had already sliced a bright arc through the water, vanishing into the dark.
Die sat there a long time afterward, the words circling in his head like driftwood caught in a current.
**
That night, Die lay awake in his small apartment, the sea’s breath drifting in through the open window. The glow of his phone lit his face in the dark, pale light pooling in his eyes.
The message waited at the top of his inbox, flagged as important.
An offer he’d dreamed of for years.
A chance to play in a real band, to leave this small town behind.
Small label, but renowned. LP deal already sealed. The first tour dates set.
The email was a week old – the deadline to accept inching closer.
He only had a day left to confirm – or deny.
His thumb hovered over the reply button. The cursor blinked back at him like a question he couldn’t answer.
He imagined the streets of Osaka – neon bleeding into wet asphalt, music pulsing from hidden basements, a city that could swallow him whole and spit him out burning brighter. It was everything he’d once wanted.
But his mind kept dragging him back to the cove. To a golden-pink shimmer under the moon. To a voice telling him to trust. To the weight of a forehead pressed to his own in the dark. To cool fingertips that brushed his arms – unintentional, but unforgettable – while he played, lost in the music…
He turned the phone face-down, the light cutting out, leaving him in shadow. The sound of waves reached through the window – faint, relentless. Reminding him on weeks and months in the now-empty cove, of waiting for someone who might never return.
Kyo’s words resounded in his heads: Storms pass.
But this didn’t feel like a storm. It felt like drowning slowly.
The decision came quietly, like a tide turning.
He would go.
Still… some stubborn, aching part of him refused to disappear without a word. The cove had been theirs, once. If Shinya wouldn’t come, Die would say it to the waves. Let the sea carry his truth wherever it pleased.
In a short few days, he’d take the train. But before, he would go to the cove one last time.
**
The deep was still. Only the slow, unhurried sway of Shinya’s tail disturbed the silt, sending faint clouds drifting upward. He’d been there too long, suspended between the sea floor and the surface, avoiding the pull that had been gnawing at him for months.
The current shifted – subtle but distinct – and the faint taste of salt sharpened in his mouth, the kind that carried another presence. Shinya didn’t turn right away. He knew that pattern. That weight.
Kyo’s shadow slid into his periphery before his face did, dark hair drifting like threads of ink through water.
“You’ve been hiding,” Kyo said. His tone was flat, almost casual, but in it was the quiet bite of someone who’d been counting the days.
“Keeping my distance,” Shinya replied, gaze fixed on the slow sway of the weeds below.
“From him - your guitar player human.” There was no question in it. Just fact.
Shinya’s jaw tightened slightly. “It’s safer.”
Kyo circled lazily, not like a predator, but like someone examining some strange shell the tide had brought in. “Safer for who?” He let the words hang there, drifting closer until the cool currents between them began to mingle.
Shinya’s eyes cut toward him, sharp. “I saw you with him.”
Kyo’s mouth twitched – not quite a smile, not quite denial. “I know. You were skulking down in the dark, weren’t you? Watching.”
Shinya didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.
“Usually,” Kyo went on, voice slipping into something quieter, “they vanish first. Wander off. Lose interest. Go back to their unmeaningful little lives. They are fragile... Fickle.” His gaze drifted past Shinya for a moment, as if to some long-buried memory. “It’s their nature.”
Though something coiled deep in his chest, Shinya chose to stay silent.
“But this one…” Kyo’s eyes came back to him, sharp, silver in the dim. “He’s still there. Still waiting. Even when you were nowhere to be found for him. Longer than any I’ve seen before.”
Shinya’s fingers curled slightly, faint ripples trailing from his hands. “… And?”
“And…” Kyo tilted his head, weighing the words. “… I think you’ll regret it if you don’t go back.”
That made Shinya still completely.
Kyo never encouraged contact with humans. Not once. He ridiculed them, dismissed them, sometimes worse. And now, here he was, looking Shinya dead in the eye and telling him to seek one out.
Shinya studied him, searching for hidden cruelty, for the twist he knew had to be there. But Kyo’s expression was unreadable – calm, almost bored – save for the faintest flicker of something that might have been curiosity.
For a moment, the water between them felt thinner, more dangerous. The stillness between them was unbroken, but the weight of Kyo’s daze felt like a stone dropped into water – the ripples would reach him eventually.
**
Long after Kyo was gone, Shinya lingered in the dim deep, the cold pressing in from every side. His tail moved just enough to keep him suspended, threads of silt curling upward into the darkness. Kyo’s voice stayed with him like an echo in the bones.
I think you’ll regret it if you don’t go back to him.
Even here, he could feel Die – faint vibrations through the water, the ghost of cords reaching farther than any human ear could hear. Die was still coming to the cove, still playing to empty waves.
Shinya told himself it was mercy, keeping away. Safer. Every day Die came without seeing him was one more step toward letting go. Returning now would only make the inevitable harder.
And yet, the pull was there. Steady. Insistent. Like the tide itself had chosen a direction and expected him to follow.
When he rose toward the shallows, the moon hung low, spilling silver across the water. The air was heavy with salt, the kind that clung to skin and stayed there.
Die was perched on the same rock as always, guitar case beside him, hair catching the faint breeze off the sea. He wasn’t looking at the water but out toward the horizon, as if trying to speak to something far beyond it.
“I’m going to Osaka,” he said into the night, the words catching in the salt-heavy air. “The band… they want me. This is my chance – the one I waited for.” His voice was steady, but underneath was the ache of someone talking to a void he didn’t expect to answer. Months of silence had taught him not to.
And yet, the tilt of his head, the way his fingers twitched against his thigh, betrayed the habit of glancing toward where he hoped Shinya might be.
“I thought I’d be scared, leaving,” he went on, hushed. “But it’s… quieter, somehow. Like a storm finally passing.”
Beneath the surface, Shinya hovered just outside the moon’s reach, every part of him taut. He almost sank back into the deep, unseen, the way he had for months. But something in Die’s voice held him there – raw, hopeful. It pulled him forward until the cool wash of the shallows brushed his skin.
The surface broke softly.
Die’s head snapped toward the sound of water breaking, and for a second, disbelief flared in his eyes before it softened into something else — something Shinya couldn’t quite name.
“Shinya?” The name was barely more than a whisper, like a spell that might break if spoken too loud.
Shinya surfaced fully, water sliding from his hair in silver strands. He treaded just close enough for the moonlight to catch in eyes. “I heard you,” he said, voice gentle, uncertain.
Die’s breath hitched. “I wasn’t sure you’d come back.” His fingers flexed once, as though resisting the urge to reach for him. “I thought maybe you’d left for good.”
“I stayed close,” Shinya replied. His tail shifted lazily under the water, scattering light. “But far enough you couldn’t see me.”
Die’s brow furrowed. “Why?”
“Because if I came closer, I might have asked you to stay.” His gaze was steady, but the tide beneath it pulled hard. “And you… shouldn’t. Your life’s not meant to be tied to these rocks, or to me. You’d wither here.”
The guitarist gave a short, almost bitter laugh. “I felt most alive when I was with you.”
Shinya’s gaze softened, but the sorrow in it deepened. “Die… You have a human life. A life that’s yours to live,” he said quietly, each word carrying the weight of centuries. “I live forever. Your lifetime is just a heartbeat in mine.”
The waves lapped between them, each retreat tugging at Die’s calves like a question. “So that’s it? You came back just to tell me to leave?”
Shinya’s eyes glimmered, dark and bright all at once. “I came back,” he said, voice trembling despite him, “because I wanted to see you before I couldn’t anymore.”
Die’s gaze searched him, trying to read the truth in every small movement. “And what am I to you, then? Just another human who drifts in and out with the tide?”
Shinya’s jaw tightened. He looked away for half a heartbeat, then back. “No. You’re… something the tide brought that I wish I could keep.”
Die’s breath caught. His hands curled at his sides, nails pressing into his palms. “Then don’t let me go.”
Shinya’s eyes closed briefly, like he was bracing against a current stronger than himself. “If you stayed, one day you’d hate me for it. You’d see what the sea can take, and you’d wish you’d left when you had the chance.”
The wind curled between them, tasting of salt and something older. Die’s voice was steadier now, though his throat worked to keep it that way. “Then, at least, let me see you. Every day. Until I go.”
Shinya hesitated. The word no lingered on his lips, but when he met Die’s eyes again, it was gone. “…Every day,” he murmured.
**
And so they did.
The final days moved too quickly, every hour slipping past like sand through their hands. Both felt it, though neither named it aloud. That knowledge sat between them, heavier than the tide.
Some afternoons, Die played on the rocks. His guitar was worn, its strings uneven, but Shinya listened as though every note carried the weight of his heart. He floated just beyond the shallows, hair pale in the wind, tail stirring slow arcs through the water. His face rarely changed, but his eyes — storm-dark, unblinking — softened whenever Die’s voice cracked on a lyric. And that was enough to make Die’s chest ache.
Other days, Shinya pulled him gently into the sea. Die held to his shoulders, laughter torn from him when the current carried them spinning into the shallows. Water stung his eyes, hair plastered to his cheeks, but still he laughed, and Shinya watched him like someone memorizing a dream that could never last. Sometimes they drifted without words until the sky burned copper, silence full of small touches — fingers brushing skin, foreheads leaning together, knuckles catching for just a heartbeat too long.
On one of the last days, when the sun was a smear of red sinking into water, Die pressed something into Shinya’s palm. His guitar pick — worn smooth, looped with a strip of cord. His smile tried to tilt crooked, but it broke halfway.
“So you don’t forget the sound.”
Shinya closed his fingers around it slowly, as if the gesture itself hurt. He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. But he let Die tie it around his wrist.
They spoke less than they touched — fingers trailing through wet hair, knuckles brushing against knuckles, small collisions in the water that lingered too long.
It was joy sharpened by its own ending, every laugh tangled with the ache of knowing it was the last time for something.
And still, they didn’t stop.
**
The night before Die’s departure, the air was thick with salt and quiet.
Die sat on the rocks, trousers rolled, bare feet drifting in the cool shallows. Shinya lingered just out of reach, his tail shifting in the dark water. They did not speak of Osaka, of neon streets, of departures. To say it aloud would make it real. But the silence itself felt like goodbye already.
Die’s toes brushed the flick of Shinya’s fin. For a moment, neither moved.
Then Die leaned forward. His hand trembled slightly as he brushed wet hair from Shinya’s face, his fingers lingering against cold skin. He pressed their foreheads together, holding still. The coolness of seawater clung between them, sharp as the moment just before waking. His voice, when it came, cracked like a snapped string.
“Don’t you dare forget me.”
Shinya closed his eyes. His lips curved into the faintest, saddest smile — a smile that held centuries of restraint and grief. His answer was quiet enough to be mistaken for the tide itself. As if I could.
Something in Die broke then. He leaned in, closing the space between them in a kiss that was nothing like the careful touches before. It was urgent, unsteady, and it carried the heaviness of something both inevitable and impossible.
His hands catching at Shinya’s shoulders as if to anchor himself. Salt stung his mouth, water slid between them, but none of it mattered. Shinya answered with equal force, pulling him closer, tail stirring in restless arcs beneath the surface. The kiss was too fierce to last, but neither let go until breath forced them apart.
When they finally pulled back, their foreheads touched again, both gasping, eyes wide and raw. No words came. The kiss had said what neither could: I want. I need. I don’t know if I’ll ever have this again.
They stayed like that until the tide rose higher, urging against Die’s legs as if even the sea itself wanted him gone. When he finally stood to leave, Shinya remained in the water, eyes lifted, gaze steady but burning with all the words he still could not say.
**
The morning came pale, drained of color, the air tinged with iron and salt.
At the station, Die stood with his guitar case strapped across his back, ticket folded so tightly it creased into his skin. He glanced at the announcement board, then at the strip of sea visible beyond the tracks. His gaze kept pulling there, restless, hoping for a shimmer in the waves. The horizon remained empty.
Far offshore, beneath the water, Shinya felt the train before it appeared — a low vibration thrumming through stone and current, strange and heavy, rattling into his bones. When the whistle tore through the air above, the sound carried down sharp and merciless.
On the platform, the doors opened. Passengers pressed forward. Die stepped with them, one last glance cast toward the ocean, but the waves rolled blank and indifferent.
Through the glass, seated now, he pressed his forehead against the window. His palm lifted to the glass as the train pulled away, eyes still searching the horizon until it blurred.
Below, Shinya lingered motionless in the deep, tail coiled tight, the pick hanging cold and dark against his wrist. He curled his hand over it, holding it as though it might keep the sound of Die’s music alive inside him.
The vibration of the train faded. The sea closed around him, whispered a prayer lost to the icy wind. The silence that followed pressed heavier than any storm.
Time stretched like the endless tide, but for Shinya, every second without Die felt like a thousand years.
**
Fin – Part 1