Chapter Text
There was a blank page on the desk in front of Satoru. The white of the paper blinked at him tauntingly, and he blinked back, unmoving. He was supposed to be writing out story outlines. He was supposed to be sketching characters and scenes and ideas. He was supposed to be doing anything productive, except that he wasn't. With an aggravated sigh, he knocked the paper and pencil aside. He typed an SOS on his phone.
Satoru:
Do you think it's possible to lose your talent? Maybe I dropped it somewhere.
He wasn't expecting Hiromi to respond, not really. It was late. A glance at the clock on his phone told him it was midnight, and Hiromi had a son to take care of and a taxing career to wake up to in the morning. Nonetheless, a response is what Satoru got, and in little more than a minute at that.
Hiromi:
Are you staring at a piece of paper again? I'm no artist, but I don't know if that will help... ^^'
Hiromi:
It's late. Maybe you should sleep?
Satoru smiled at the concern and tapped out a quick reply.
Satoru:
I plead the fifth. Why are you awake?
Hiromi:
We're not in America, you can't do that!
Hiromi:
Mirai woke us up, Kayo told me she could take care of it but I'm staying up just in case.
Hiromi:
Kayo says to draw something about yourself, which means it should be a superhero manga.
Satoru huffed a laugh and rubbed the back of his neck, sheepish. He wasn't quite sure how to respond to that, but it made his chest fill up with warmth. He may have had few friends, few enough that he could count them on one hand, but the ones he did have were close. Their words meant a lot to him.
Satoru:
Please tell her thank you, but I'm hardly a superhero.
Hiromi:
You don't have to be so modest. What you did when we were children really was amazing.
Satoru winced. He didn't think he really deserved the high praise. Helping Kayo wasn't what he set out to do at first, back then. It started out as wanting to fit in, wanting to be liked by everybody.
So he befriended Kayo, the girl who didn't seem to like anybody. Somewhere along the way the two of them, liars and fakers, learned to be real. The voice in the back of his head started up, the voice that asked, what would Wonder Guy do? And he knew the answer was, help her.
Satoru wasn't a superhero. He just did what was right out of a selfish desire to see her skin clean of the bruises her mother so often left. To earn more of those small, precious smiles from a friend. To hear her say, are you stupid?
Another message appeared on the screen.
Hiromi:
I don't know if this helps, but I like to go to the beach when I need to think. You can hear the waves, and background noise boosts creativity. It's very pretty at night.
Satoru thought about it, and the idea wasn't half bad. If nothing else, he would get the chance to stretch his legs. He nodded and stood up, typing a message back.
To: Hiromi
Thank you. I think I'll do that. Goodnight, Hiromi.
From: Hiromi
Goodnight. I hope you think of something!
Satoru left his phone on the desk, toed on his shoes and shrugged on a jacket that he discovered, five seconds later, he didn't need. It was warm outside, and the sticky night air clung to his skin. He walked the short distance from his apartment door down to the parking lot and found his car.
His car. It was a recent addition to Satoru's life, added after some of his manga finally gained popularity. Before then he never had enough money, but between his job and the extra profit from his manga, he'd finally been able to save up. He was doing decently enough as a mangaka, he thought, he just... hadn't made it big yet. That was the thing. Sure, he had plenty of ideas for small projects, but he was looking for the big idea. The one that would make his career. The one that would say, 'this is my story. The one that only I can tell.'
Or, Satoru thought, sliding into the driver seat and turning the key in the ignition, I'm searching for something that doesn't exist, and this is the most I'll ever be.
He shook his head. The glass was half full, not empty.
The beach was far enough that it was a long walk, but a short drive. When Satoru arrived it was empty, because some reasonable people actually went to bed early when they had to get in the morning. He was probably going to regret this.
The sand crunched under his feet and it was hard to regret. The sky was clear up above and the stars were shining down. Satoru could smell the salt of the sea, and there was a cool breeze. The moon cast a pale glow across the sand, the waves crashed peacefully. He wanted to draw it.
Manga ideas, Satoru reminded himself, and began to wander up the beach with his hands in his jacket pockets. He was supposed to be thinking of characters and plots. It was a little hard to do that, though, when his mind somehow kept wandering to his grocery list. It was late, he was tired, and he had the current focusing ability of a goldfish. The only ideas that came to mind were small, useless ones. He wandered the beach, watching sea shells pass by in the sand, and his mind wandered as well.
After the fifth time Satoru caught himself wondering something along the lines of, should I change the brand of coffee I get? The other kind tastes better, but it's more expensive, he gave up. He looked up at the sky, exhaled, and decided to start the trek back. Just when Satoru turned around and took a step forward, he froze.
There was a shape in the water. A human shape.
Satoru took off running before he even knew it. He waded into the water. It was cold. It filled his shoes and stuck his jeans to his skin. He barely registered it through the roaring of the blood in his ears.
"Hey! Hey!" He shouted. "Are you okay?"
The shape didn't respond, just swayed with the water carrying it. Satoru squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, and then he was close enough to hook his arms under the unconscious person's, wrapping them around a wet, bare torso. He grunted as he heaved the man backwards. His back strained with the movement as he dragged him out of the water, and onto the beach.
But as the man came further and further out of the ocean, it became more and more clear to Satoru that maybe he wasn't a man. Unless Satoru was hallucinating from the panic, that wasn't a pair of legs.
That was a fish tail.
Satoru stopped, stared, and a hysterical laugh almost bubbled from his lips. Well, mermaid— merman?— or not, Satoru wasn't going to let someone die.
Please don't be dead, Satoru thought, please don't be dead. He pressed his fingers to a cold neck, strangely enough having to move what seemed to be a collar out of the way, and felt the warmth of relief when he found a pulse. He pushed on the man's chest, wondering if a merman could even drown. Would he be able to breathe on land? Should Satoru put him back in the water?
Water rushed out of the man's mouth. Satoru hurried to roll him on his side, letting him cough and splutter. When he was done, he gulped ragged breaths in.
That was one hurdle out of the way. The next... the man was injured, he had gashes that looked like they were from claws, or some kind of pronged weapon. The bloody marks were enough to make Satoru's stomach turn. He took off his jacket and pressed it to the worst of them, a set of marks that went from the man's chest to his navel.
Satoru sat there uselessly, hands hovering. He couldn't take the merman to a hospital. What if they tried to put him in captivity? Half fish or not, he looked so human.
Satoru heard that nagging voice again, in the back of his mind.
What would Wonder Guy do?
Satoru put one arm under the merman's shoulders and the other under his tail and heaved him up with a grunt. His arms and legs trembled under the weight, his feet stumbled on the first step. Mermen, apparently, were heavy. It was probably the tail.
Satoru was soaked everywhere he touched the unconscious man by the time he got to the car. He fumbled to open the door and then he was dropping him ungracefully in the backseat. His back hurt unbearably, he was panting, and there was sweat dripping down his face. Being a part-time mangaka, part-time pizza man had apparently not left Satoru in the best of shape.
The merman's chest was still rising and falling, thank god. Satoru shut the door and got in the front.
The drive home passed in a blur of nerves and panicked, racing thoughts. Satoru restrained himself as much as he could, but he couldn't help glancing at the back occasionally to see if the man was still there. That this wasn't a dream. That he really did have an injured, half fish, half human hybrid dripping sea water in the back seat of his car.
When Satoru pulled into the parking lot of his apartment complex, he had to go ahead at first to unlock the door and leave it open. He came back and eyed the merman with a resigned look. His muscles burned in protest when he lifted the unconscious body into his arms again. The trek up the stairs seemed to last forever, and he was praying that none of his neighbors would choose this moment to look out their windows.
Somehow, Satoru made it, and the sound of his front door shutting behind him was a sweet one. He forced himself to stumble the rest of the way to the bathroom. Standing next to the bathtub, he strained himself leaning down to peel back the cover that trapped the heat in. His legs gave out on him, and he dropped the merman into the tub harder than he intended to. Somehow, he still didn't stir. His head lolled back against the edge of the tub, and the end of his too-long tail went over the opposite edge, bent upwards to press against the wall. Satoru winced at the position.
Satoru flipped on the bathroom light and took the view in as he pressed the buttons to lower the temperature of the water in the tub.
The merman had short blond hair and, if merpeople aged the same way people did, Satoru thought he looked to be in his twenties. His tail was a beautiful, glittering gold that made Satoru's fingers itch for his pencils to capture the color with. He had patches of the same gold scales as his tail on parts of his body, like his shoulders and cheekbones. Where the ears of a human would be, he had fins. His hands were webbed and clawed. He was slender and sinewy, with an attractive face.
He could be a model. Well... ignoring the 'half fish' thing.
Satoru frowned when his eyes landed on the man's neck. There was definitely a collar there, a silver chain one like a choke collar for a dog. There was something hanging off of it, some sort of tag, maybe. When Satoru held it up to look at it, it was blank. He shrugged it off as another one of the many questions he would have to ask when the man wakes up.
Satoru searched the apartment for the first-aid kit that he'd never used before. When he found it, he was generous with the supplies he pulled out. He didn't know what all he was supposed to use. His stomach was twisting with nerves. He decided to start simple and use disinfectant on the wounds. He peeled away the jacket he had pressed to the merman's chest, and tossed it aside. At the first sting of disinfectant, Satoru watched the man's eyebrows draw together in pain. He tried to be quick.
Satoru tried not to think about whether or not the gashes on his torso needed stitches. He didn't know how, and he was afraid he would make a mistake. Instead, he found a bandage in the kit, and applied it to the man's torso. He found gauze to tape to the rest of the injuries, though they were just small scratches.
When he was done, Satoru sat back on his heels and breathed a sigh of relief. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.
Aside from the slight rise and fall motion of his chest, the merman was so still, it was almost frightening. All Satoru could do was hope that he woke up in the morning. A merman on his hands was enough to deal with already, let alone a merman in a coma.
"Please be okay," Satoru said under his breath, raking a hand through his hair. He forced himself to stand up and tear himself away from the scene before him. Then, he shut the light off and wondered.
What have I gotten myself into?