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The concern isn’t particularly consuming, the sea will wash over that until it’s smooth again.
Maybe a little pathetically, he’s simply just lonely.
“You’ll call the Taniwha out,” She chides. His music dies when Shoko’s pipe hooks on the flute, strangling his song, “Unless that’s what you want.”
“Let me have a vice.”
Leaning into a well-repeated lecture, she lets his song go, “Don’t kill us, Suguru. You know what it is.”
He knows, they all know, calling out an omen is risky enough, on a sea that decided they were Eastbound in lieu of Northwest, even more so.
Regardless of warning, unresponsive to logic or culture or the safety of holy things, Suguru sings to the sea until the sky bleeds on the surface, until the night breaks on the horizon.
Like last time, like always, Suguru feels for him. His eyes are useless on a dock like this. The first hints come swiftly, merely a disturbance amongst the plankton, spreading ripples of their evolution-made magic through the water, slivers of bioluminescence glitter deeply over the slowing circles. He upsets the water till the harbours' constellations rival the skies.
Habitually and against counsel, Suguru places his flute on the wet wood, wondering how far the king tide will be, whether he should be more cautious of his precious things, but the stars spiral over the sea surface and Suguru’s never thought twice about the lethality of a whirlpool before conceding to it. Placing his clothes neatly beneath, he dives.
There’s this single fleeting moment, sometimes it’s playful, and others, he feels malice in the water, and though Suguru cannot tell where the surface is, or which direction he might find his exit, he knows he’s descending far faster than poorly skimmed stones.
Safe is not what he should feel, but Suguru has always had a soft spot for the wrong and the wonderful, and especially for the ones who play with his life like it’s a joke, but at least he’s aware of his shitty sense of self-preservation.
At least he’s aware of how crazy he is when the beast he offered himself to snaps its maws in his face, lighting up the whole dark world that resides under the surface at night. He’s beautiful. Streaming light through the water, like Suguru’s own little sun. He gets little flashes of daybreak if he’s lucky sometimes. But they never travel together. What this spirit is, it’s not kaitiaki.
It’s deadly and Suguru knows that, he’s so aware. He’s aware of the gnashing jaw in his face like he is the pouty look that follows.
The surface comes with a gasp of fresh air, and deep darkness, far from the land and solace or help. One moment of calming breath passes, then Suguru gets flung until he slaps into inky depths, sinking, left to make his own way up the second time.
“Suguru!” He calls, “You better be damn careful with that music,” Slithering, not with the current, but more like he is the current, like he will be what he wills and everything else should let him.
“Knew you’d come.” Hair a mimicry of the waters' inkiness crowds his face, sticking incessantly to him until it becomes turmoils in the sea, “Satoru—” Drawing his name all the way out, shaking his face around just so it makes that dumb sound when his lips slap against razor teeth with the motions, gilled ears flopping stupidly, endearingly.
“I coulda been anything.” And far, far more seriously, he adds, “I could’ve been nothing.”
“Yeah!” Suguru agrees, gasping, flailing far less gracefully. After all, Suguru never learnt to swim, “But I- unh, I..” It’s pathetic, he claws at the water and forgets everything he was told, Suguru admits, “Imma- I’m gon- drown.”
“You’re an idiot.” He seethes, “Honestly, jumping in like that? You’d deserve it too.”
So the spirit stares him down, languidly rolling his edgeless body through the sea, and Suguru stares back, because he knows who’ll break first.
“Okay, okay, stop that.” He’s soft. He wasn’t always soft. Suguru taught him to be like that, just like the spirit taught him the effects of long slow strokes, how, even in smothering waimate, he can flow easily if he knows how the water will try him, “Suguru,” He croons, voice far away like it always is, rippling over the air it wasn’t built for, “Slowly,” And he guides, in a manner unfitting for his purpose, his hands wrap under Suguru’s, naturally far bigger, giving him ground, giving him anything, “Breathe slowly.”
“The storm got us.” He gasps, disobediently heaving.
“I know,” Frowning, Satoru avows, “I was too close.”
“It’s gonna take a week to get North.” Suguru kicks, quickly and strongly, wearing himself against a current being built to accommodate his inexperience, instead of with it, using it.
“I don’t care.” A little more feverishly, like the devil he is, he clicks his teeth once teasingly.
Sucking down air like he’s forgetting how safe he is in the hands of a curse, Suguru manages, “Coulda killed my crew, Satoru.”
“You’re not breathing properly, Suguru.” And Satoru just really doesn’t care, not about anything but one, “Lean on me.”
“Please.” Suguru thanks, rolling into the embodiment of water, filling up all the space around them, tails and fins slicing the currents to ribbons as they caress Suguru’s fragile skin with care. Fearlessly, he lets himself be encompassed by the larger body, hands wrapping over his hips, meeting in the middle with ease. Overlapping even. “It’s cold.” So Satoru warms him up too.
“So demanding, Suguru.” He purrs, “Don’t you know who you’re talking to?”
“Satoru.” He answers with ease. Unlike the first time, he’d stuttered out a few unsavoury curses and followed with a creative name or two, but Suguru never calls him what he is anymore, because Satoru’s not really a monster, “My gentle giant.”
Tightly packed under scaled arms, slick with oils and water, Satoru lies on the sea surface with an ease Suguru simply cannot achieve.
“You must be really stupid, then.” He chastises, nosing into his scalp where his human hair tangles with salt, “You must be utterly insane.”
Their bodies simmer along the precious line they meet, the bright feeling comparable to treasured jade, Suguru’s skin soaks up the sun.
“The first time you called me brave.” He argues.
“Thats the same as stupid,” Satoru snips, maws clicking together like a rattle, a threat. Suguru melts into it, “Your playing was different, it was sadder.”
Admittedly, Suguru curls into the arms than cradle him and says, “I was sad. I missed you.”
“Clingy human.” But he can hear the smile, Suguru doesn’t have to raise his head at all, not when Satoru’s the one who trailed him, fascinated religiously, wrecking so many vessels people began to call Suguru himself cursed, “You shouldn’t play so publicly.”
“Possessive much.” But Suguru’s running his hands all over Satoru’s starlit body, trailing the whiri of his own making, of land sought material, tracing every bump of the harakeke rope, “I don’t care who hears, so long as you do.”
Suguru slowly slips into intricate weaves, pulling the only content of the kete free. Crafted of whaletooth, carved with claws, this kōauau is the nicest he knows. Resting on a chest that doesn’t really breathe as much as it doesn’t beat, Suguru’s clumsy human hands trace his gift, intricately designed spirals of stories. New divots appear with every song he introduces Satoru to, he’s almost halfway.
“When I introduce you to these stories,” He asks, holding the treasure in the same manner Satoru holds him, “Doesn’t it make you curious about the people who die to you?”
“Are they really dead if there are stories?” Satoru counters, indifferent to what he is.
“No,” Suguru agrees indecisively, “Yes, also.”
Gently, Suguru whistles into bone and writes a new chorus. Satoru seamlessly translates it into the waves, swimming with souls who wait for the stars to change again, for pōhutukawa to hold them. A route Suguru will eventually take.
What Satoru does is not give himself away as it is an exchange of mauri. Warming that bright gold place their skin meets, washing the tangles from inky hair, Satoru runs his monstrous talons over vulnerable skin, like he wants to carve himself into it too. But he won’t. Because Suguru taught him to love gently and to love a lot.
“You are beautiful, Suguru.” He purrs, giving his life over to one soul unlike his exchange with the sea.
Defiance sings through the flute, Suguru is just a person.
“Your heart.” Satoru corrects, flowing out and in all around them, easy and content, smothering Suguru’s fear of the depth so effectively it’s like it was never really there at all, “Your mauri is beautiful, Suguru.”
“And when you kill me?” He grins, like the shadow over them isn’t threatening as much as the bottomless inkwell below.
Not on purpose, never on purpose. But Satoru is more than his shapeless tails or the things which he loves. Beyond a dwelling, he is everything the sea is. An equally artful and impendent way to die, a tour de force as adaptable to beauty as it is lethality, Satoru is all of it. Impossible to control and pointless to contain. Something built for respect out of fear, not loyalty.
But Satoru took all the fear and replaced it with comfort, so Suguru just waits for him to finish scratching inhumanly perfect patterns into the kōauau, kissing the hand that holds him out of the cold death Satoru doesn’t exactly control, but reigns.
“I wouldn’t kill you, kaihou.”
Mockingly, Suguru chastens him, “Don’t you know who you’re talking about?”
Fondly, but not without guilt, Satoru’s smoothed fingertip rubs the scar ripping from his lip, a reminder of when they discovered that while Satoru can be soft, he cannot choose the sharpness of his teeth.
“You shouldn’t talk while I carve,” Curling into himself a little, curling around Suguru, Satoru affectionately knocks their foreheads together, nosing down his cheek, “It’s dangerous.”
“You better shut me up then.”
Averse to blowing bone dust through the air, Suguru washes the flute in water, playing for Satoru again, but something far more personal than the waves he’s attached to. He whistles intimately over the sea surface, into the starlight from skin and sky. Relaxing into Satoru’s body, big enough he must crawl from his chest to his neck, but not so impractical that they have to be creative about the way they twist into each other's limbs and fingers.
It’s unlike Satoru’s despotic ebb and flow with the water, it’s a response from choice, Suguru plays and gives back what Satoru wished over him, making them both feel full and rich with love.
“It’s so cruel you can’t play while we kiss.”
Suguru would try, maybe he could play a song on Satoru. He invites the kiss freely, invites the hands that hold him steady, above the water and below the stars that dance upon it.
Satoru yields to him, gentle about the claws that tease him, a tiny, shimmering reminder of the power Suguru toys with.
Always so slow about it, Suguru holds him steady at the base of his skull and they just feed from each other, sharing skin, warmth, and life. The beautiful in between.
“You’re not a Kaitiaki.”
It’s unusual to acknowledge, some unspoken sort of rule, but neither of them is really naïve enough to forget it.
“I’m not.” He agrees, indifferent about himself, upset about his loss of skin, sweeping in for lips and meeting fingers.
“We met in the water,” And Suguru never learnt to swim, “Why aren’t I dead?”
Maybe all ignorant or avoidant or honest, Satoru coos with ease, “I have favourites.”
“That’s not what you are.”
But Satoru takes the words out of his mouth again, and suddenly Suguru doesn’t really care why he didn’t drown when he should’ve. Suguru’s likely been answered before, in a language he knows and a dialect he doesn’t.
They share, back and forth, rocking with the same calm haven of the ocean Satoru’s reserving for them, needy useless pinching answering, Not what I was, until silver recedes into ink — burning ardently.
Until the day breaks again.
“I’ll see you again,” Suguru promises, “In the Northwest this time.”
“If I let you.” With a grin and a non-threatening snap of teeth, “Maybe you will.”
Suguru hold on for as long as he can, fingertips dragging a last devastating line down skin turning water before him, swimming hands searching the water for the last tug of a body he shouldn’t have ever encountered, let alone dared to touch.
“Don’t you dare sink me again.” He calls
“Tāku whaiāipo,” Satoru purrs, his voice waves back and forward, echoing like the water it was made from, then with that dark teasing look like he’s not promising what he’s really saying, more like blatantly lying, “I’d never.”
He sighs, eyeing the precarious distance to the rocks, Satoru always leaves him just a little further every time, but he swims, slowly and with struggle, and without a single lick of resistance from the sea. He’s sure Satoru knows what the stone he skimmed for it meant.
Before he really means for it, Suguru’s laughter bubbles out as the tide roars for his ankles, racing him to the dock, shunting him just a little violently.
Playfully tangled in his hair, dragging at his legs, the sea is warm like a home.