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They couldn’t find her ring.
Lara fiddles with her hand, almost afloat by the lack of weight on her index finger– she never did find her ring, after that whole incident. Her sisters couldn’t find it, even after searching across the seas with her father.
She and Mari had searched the beach, much to Mari’s begrudging acknowledgement. Even after hours, where they only stopped because Lara was pushed to take a break, it was nowhere to be found.
She lays on the futon, staring at the ceiling. Without her ring, her nails scratch at her finger, leaving miniscule red marks in its wake. Without the feeling of cool metal on her fingers, her thoughts are free rein, where her dreams come more aggressively, bloodier than ever. The feeling of the tip of a sword at her neck, the burning pain in her mouth after the slice of a blade through her tongue, blurry blue eyes that have no trace of warmth, leave her more anxious, more restless in the dead of night than she’d like to be.
So, she doesn’t sleep.
It’s cowardly, she knows. It’s what she’s always been– too scared to take the potion, too afraid to stand up against the consequences of her own actions.
But she’s always been good at running from what she’s supposed to do.
3 hours of no sleep sometimes turn into a whole night without. Dark eye bags turn into falling asleep while walking. She knows it’s bad, when even as a mermaid she couldn’t go without 6 hours of sleep at minimum. Especially so for a human. But the little sleep she does get, always ends up with her scrambling awake, reaching for a face long gone.
“Dear sister, are you sure you won’t come with us?”
Lisa tilts her head, eyebrows furrowed in what must be confusion and frustration. Lara knows how she feels about humans, and for good reason.
“I just have some things to wrap up. I want to say goodbye to my friends!”
“..Fine. Just stay safe, okay?”
She nods vigorously, but Lisa still sighs as she swims away with the rest of her family. She shakes her head with a smile, there are just some things that can’t be helped.
“Lara.” At the sound of Lisa’s voice, she looks back to the sea, meeting her sister’s eyes that shine in the sun.
“Don’t get too close. They may seem nice at first, but all humans ever do is reject those different from them. Don’t let a pretty face fool you again.”
With that, her sister disappears beneath the sea.
“You’re finally done?” Mari yawns from behind her, stretching her arms. The light of the sunset shines down on her, turning her black hair into gold thread and dark eyes into honey. Lara swivels her head back towards the sea, face strangely tingly and her heart beating loudly in her chest.
“..Yeah, thanks for waiting, Mari.”
She stands up, but she takes one step and the world blurs, her vision tilting sideways– she stumbles backwards, losing balance and almost falling onto the sand when she’s caught by Mari– thankfully not by her punch this time.
“..You’ve got to stop falling into me.” Mari’s exasperated voice rings by her ear.
Lara looks up despite her head feeling like a box of ingredients at the cake store, and meets Mari’s furrowed eyebrows and wide eyes.
Her breath hitches.
It’s the first time she’s seen Mari from the ground up, being taller than her and all– and the sunlit pink of her face reminds her of the prince she once knew, on that very night where his skin was turned porcelain by the moonlight.
She doesn’t know if the lack of sleep is doing something to her senses, but she feels the same way she felt that night–except that she’s in the embrace of Otsu Mari, and she is-
-She is beautiful. And that twists something inside Lara’s gut, and she doesn’t know why.
Her family has left the human world. She is the last one left, and sooner or later, she’ll have to leave too. It’s the same timeframe as before, where she has to save her family, but in this case, all she has to do is go back to her home. There’s nothing else that needs saving. She doesn’t have any reason to be here anymore.
This place isn’t her home.
The witch was right. She found her true love through so many in the human realm, and she’s fulfilled the prophecy and saved her family.
She should feel happy.
She leans on Mari’s shoulder as she helps her up. She feels the warmth radiating from skin beneath the shirt Mari wears, burning from where their shoulders touch.
She imagines tracing over the point where they touch, and tells herself: Remember this moment.
Remember this moment– as she burrows her head into Mari’s neck when they get home, much to her chagrin– You have to.
She has to.
The dream’s different this time.
It’s the same for the most part, up to the point after the dagger is pointed at her neck. It doesn’t stab into her neck, nor does she dissolve into seafoam. Simply nothing happens. After a long pause, Lara looks up hesitantly, but it isn’t the prince standing there.
“Lara,” Mari says, looking at her with blank eyes. The back of her head’s lit up by the sunlight, and she’s back at the beach, sand scraping her knees raw.
“Ma-” She’s cut off by Mari’s hands that move up her shoulder onto her neck.
She can’t breathe.
Her hands scramble against Mari’s vice like grip around her neck, scratching and digging into Mari’s hands but she doesn’t budge. She chokes on nothing, exclaiming as her legs thrash against the sand that feels solid beneath her feet.
“Why are you still here, mermaid?”
Lara wants to scream. She wants to wail and ask her why she’s doing this, but nothing comes out.
“I only let you stay because I took pity on you. Why would a human ever want you here?”
No, she shakes her head, or tries to. That’s not true, they’ve been kind to me.
The humans she met were kind. Himeka, Luca…
But no, Mari- Mari’s case was different. So much more complications, too many stakes.
“You don’t belong here, Lara-” The last word seems to reverberate and echo inside her skull, but she’s still fighting back the lack of oxygen that reaches her lungs, that shriek and contract painfully in her chest.
Lara. She continues to scratch at Mari’s hands, a weight starting to press down on her own and a strange burning sensation on her neck.
Lara!
Her arms are suddenly pushed off, and she has no choice to surrender to the helplessness that overtakes her as her vision blurs and she gags, and this death hurts so much why did no one tell her it hurt so much-
“Lara!”
She sucks in a breath, throat suddenly clear as she feels air gushing into her lungs. She sits up and curls over, heaving as she takes in her surroundings.
She’s not at the beach. She notes the moonlight filtering in through the curtains, the soft fabric of the bed beneath her, and a slight soreness to her neck, as she touches the raw skin.
“Lara,” Mari says, voice noticeably winded, and Lara turns around to look at Mari- the real Mari, tousled bedhead and rumpled shirt, sitting on her futon with her, hands outstretched as if unsure what to do.
“Do you..know where you are?”
Lara nods slowly. She tries to reply, but she struggles to calm her breathing, where she heaves in and out too fast to muster up any air to reply.
Mari shifts, the fabric on the futon shifting. She makes a motion for Lara to look up.
“Match my breathing, like this.” Her hand raises as she breathes in and falls as she breathes out, chest rising and falling at a steady pace. Lara matches it to the best of her ability, and soon enough, she manages to calm down enough to control her breathing at a slower pace. She clears her throat, which is hoarse from what she guesses might be strain.
“What happened?”
“You were thrashing, which woke me up. You weren’t breathing either. Another bad dream?”
Another? But she was so sure she didn’t wake anybody up when she had nightmares.
“Guess I watched too many dramas, huh?” She jokes weakly, her voice falling flat and tired.
Mari eyes her strangely. She shakes her head.
“You’re a really bad liar.” She almost sounds angry, and Lara can’t help but flinch minutely.
How would she react if Lara told her she didn’t wanna leave? Would she be rejected again, thrown out on her own this time, or would it be like the dream-
She shudders. No, don’t think about that.
“..I’m hungry.” She replies, because she can’t think of anything else to say to Mari apart from admitting the truth. Because she can’t bear the thought of rejection again.
Because she’s a coward.
“..Let’s get you some food.” Mari says, but it sounds like she’s pulling teeth.
It must get really bad by the time Mari speaks up about it. Then again, she’s never been able to escape Mari’s wrath.
“Why haven’t you been sleeping?”
She’s cornered her in the kitchen, as Lara had been sneaking some cereal into her bowl for breakfast. Mari’s arms are crossed as she leans against the table, sitting there and feigning innocence as she takes a sip of water from her mug.
Lara considers faking obliviousness for a brief second, but she sees the stare Mari’s giving her, and she knows it’s only delaying the inevitable.
And Mari asks like she already knows the answer, and is just waiting to see what she’ll do.
“I just…” Her nails scratch at the soft skin on her index finger, already scarred over by red angry marks.
Her lips press together as she starts to form the words, her own body tensing.
Except this time she can’t hide behind a lack of voice to escape this situation, nor can she keep hiding from her forever.
“Well, your family has been very good to me and I’m grateful for all that you’ve given me, but..”
Mari blinks at her blankly, and Lara has no choice but to trudge on.
“I guess? I just never had time to process the events that happened before I came here. And now my nightmares are coming back worse than before.”
She tries for levity, pulls her teeth back into a smile that used to feel so easy to her– it doesn’t feel very convincing when Mari narrows her eyes at her.
Mari looks her over, gaze dragging down from her face to her fidgeting hands. Her eyebrows furrow.
“You should’ve told me.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to bother you..”
But that doesn’t even begin to cover the whole of it. Of course she would’ve liked to ask for help, on sleepless nights where even closing her eyes felt like torture.
Mari’s dependable. If Lara were an Anchovy away from its school, Mari would be a flashlight fish guiding the way for her in the darkest corners of the ocean. Just like that day in the rain, Mari would hold her hand once again and lead her back into warmth, all thoughts once again dispelled by this human girl in front of her.
But she was afraid.
It was a weird time right now. She was already on thin ice with her purpose on land fulfilled– the next right thing to do would be to go back to sea, her curiosity satiated for a lifetime, and leave this place as soon as possible, true love aside.
She didn’t want to speed up that process, because something about Otsu Mari never satiated her. And that was terrifying.
No human would accept a mermaid into their household. Temporarily was one thing, more than that was a whole other issue.
Deny it all she wanted, but her sister might be right–no way a human, much less Mari, would like her. Mari, who was so headstrong and tough in the ways that she wasn’t.
It was easy to deny it when she had to save the world, muster false bravado and confidence for survival. But in practice? It’s a different thing entirely.
She had to leave.
“Lara.”
She blinks. Somewhere in between her thoughts, Mari had gotten a lot closer to her, from her position across the kitchen and walked up to her. Mari grabs her hand, which now hangs loosely from her grip.
Her hand, that has blood poking out from broken skin.
A tremor ripples through her body as she observes her trembling fingers– mermaids never bled. This was the first time she’d seen blood, or felt its warmth on her skin like this. It didn’t help the stinging that ripped through what looked like a tiny cut on her finger.
Pinpricks of red rose from the wound, and it reminded her of red wine seeping into pristine tablecloth, of ballgowns with squeaky shoes, of cold metal at her throat.
Is this what she would’ve seen if that dagger had gone through her throat?
“I-” She clasps a hand to her mouth, a sudden wave of nausea threatening to knock her over. She felt the pressure of Mari’s hands on her back. Was she going to die a second time?
“You’re not gonna die, idiot.”
Mari shifts her hold on Lara, holding the wrist of her injured hand with an arm slinged around her shoulder. Lara vaguely registers Mari guiding her away from the kitchen and in the direction of the bathroom.
Mari tugs her forward, far gentler than what she knows those rough hands are capable of. It’d be funny, if not for the way her heart kicks up in her chest.
Mari sits her down on a stool while rummaging in the cabinet. She dabs a cotton swab on the wound, spots of bright red on the white fabric. Then, she peels a plaster, like it’s been practiced a dozen times before.
“You seem very skilled at this,” she says as Mari’s hands press the plaster onto her finger.
“I have to be, in boxing. It’s something of an occupational hazard.” She smiles, like she’s made some sort of joke. Lara will have to ask her about it before she leaves.
The plaster’s fixed. The bleeding and stinging has stopped. Mari’s hand still holds onto Lara’s own.
She takes a breath.
“I’m sorry, Mari.”
“For what?” Mari asks, a hand reaching out to her. Lara feels a gentle weight on her head, patting her hair down. Lara has to remind herself it’s just some human tradition again, nothing special.
“I..I’ve troubled you and your family, so I’ll leave soon, I swear! Just..give me some time.”
Mari’s hand stills. Then starts moving again.
“Oh.”
“Yeah! So I’ll be out here as soon as possible,” she injects as much false cheer into her voice as she possibly can, as much enthusiasm as possible at the thought of going back to the sea.
She looks away from grey eyes, to the bathroom floor and watches the dust fly through the crack of light past the door.
Because she has to be happy. She has to be.
Sleeping gets better, but Lara doesn’t.
They soon figured out that she slept better with someone next to her, which led to sleepovers more often than not– but on nights where no one was free, she got to sleep next to Mari.
It’s why she didn’t want Mari to know in the first place. She knew she’d get attached, too fast, too strongly, to the girl that she fell for that day by the lake.
For the girl with boxing gloves and a strong exterior with a heart of pure gold. The girl who had severe bedhead, who refused to admit she snored in her sleep, who rolled over with an arm slinged around her in the dead of night.
She never rejected her despite knowing she was a mermaid, she knows that.
But she doesn’t know her past life, her selfishness and all the mistakes she made to the ones she loved. All of it would be another tide against her, another reason why she shouldn’t set their differences aside.
It’s all of the wrongs she’s committed, to her father and her sisters. She could easily hurt Mari the same way.
All she has to do is prevent that from ever being a possibility. All she has to do is leave.
And still, she doubts.
“Lady witch, do you think..I should go back?” She asks from the bedroom floor. Mari’s left to go buy groceries for lunch, while Lara’s opted to stay in for once.
“I thought you’d already set your mind on going back. Why the doubt?” Lady witch’s voice drawls, indifferent by now to Lara’s continued musings.
“I dunno, I just think I’ll miss…the human world.”
“Such a foolish sentiment.” She tsks, “Haven’t you had enough of it by now?”
No, she thinks, as she imagines black hair lit up gold, sparks dancing in grey eyes, and the image of a back lit up by the sun.
Because now she knows what Mari looks like in the sunlight, she knows the way her eyes crinkle when she smiles, the mole on her upper shoulder, how she’s a hugger when she sleeps, and how she cleans the necklace she has every night.
Now she knows so much more, and it’s no longer enough.
“Yeah,” She laughs, “I guess I have.”
It’s been getting harder for her to say that without her voice wavering.
—
They go back to the beach while Lara tries not to think about how she’ll have to say goodbye there soon.
“Lara! Come here!”
Mari calls her over from where she’s squatting at a random spot. As Lara walks closer, she sees a stick in her hand and some wobbly indents in the sand. Mari’s face is tinted pink at her cheeks and she has a strangely pinched expression.
“I thought you would like something like this. Seems right up your alley.”
She looks back at the indents, tilting her head this way and that. It looks…like a face? Or a fish? She looks back at Mari questioningly.
“It’s us,” Mari mumbles, her face even more red this time. She looks away. Lara looks back at the drawing, studying it properly this time.
It certainly has…unique qualities. She can kind of see the face. But what catches her eye is the shape in the middle, two curves and a triangle in the middle– she instantly recognises it as a heart.
She looks towards Mari’s reddened ears, and can’t help but break out in a wide grin as she cosies up beside Mari, hugging her from behind.
“Thank you Mari! I love it so much, I’m gonna take a photo of it!”
“Wait, no- don’t take a photo, or I swear you won’t get TV for life-”
Mari raises a hand, blocking her camera from the light as they go back and forth over the drawing. By the time they’re done, the drawing’s already been covered by the sand they’d kicked up into the air.
“I really wanted to keep it though..”
Mari laughs from behind her, a beautiful melody comparable to that of whale songs.
“You’re stupid, but I'll just draw it for you again whenever you wanna see it.” Then, she seems to catch herself, pausing.
“I mean, before you leave, of course.” She looks away, her smile from before but a distant memory.
“Yeah.”
They stand there in silence, before Mari speaks up again.
“Let’s play a game.”
“Hm?”
“First one to look back loses. Loser has to do whatever the winner wants.”
Then, Mari’s arms are wrapped around her waist, grasping her left, scarred hand as she puts something cool onto her palm.
Her hands pull away. She sees its shine gleams in the light, a ring, in the shape of what she recognises as the hamaguri clam. Her breath hitches. She whirls around to face Mari, who has a sparkling glint in her eye and red cheeks.
“I win.” Mari tilts her head, a smirk on her face. Then, she looks away, eyes flicking everywhere but Lara, who’s staring at her, mouth agape.
“I..don't want you to leave. But if that's what makes you happy, then I could never refuse that.”
She puts a hand into the collar of her shirt, pulling out an identical charm attached to a necklace, right above her cross.
She offers a small smile, eyes turning into half moons.
“As proof we knew each other. For humans, it means…” She trails off, hesitating as she looks down at the charm in her hand.
“..Nevermind.” She coughs into the back of her hand and looks away. “I’ll tell you some other time.”
But Lara struggles to catch up to speed.
“I don’t want you to leave.” She says, as if that phrase doesn’t reach into Lara and tear her apart, like Mari doesn’t know about the tears building behind starry eyes, heart pounding wildly in her chest.
“You..don’t want me to leave?”
Then, Mari pauses. Looks up at Lara and meets her gaze head on.
“Yeah..I thought you knew that.”
Then, Lara laughs. For the first time in a while, it’s out of pure relief.
“Thank you, Mari. But I…” She swallows, steps back with fingers curled tightly around the ring.
“I don’t know if I’m allowed to recieve your generosity. After all I’ve done…it might be best for me to go back to the sea.”
At that, Mari’s eyebrow raises.
“You’ve already taken plenty. Window, food expenses, travel, and clothes…Did you really think a hundred thousand yen would cut it for all of that?”
“Then I’ll pay back all of it! If I leave, you’ll be able to save on all that..”
“No. That..came out wrong. Even if I do save all that money…You’ve been staying here for so long without a problem, and I just think your focus is in the wrong place.” She shakes her head, eyes boring into Lara.
Before Lara can begin to muster a reply, she continues.
“Don’t, leave because you feel bad, but because you truly want to leave.” Her voice sounds slightly strained, weirdly persistent. Her eyebrows are furrowed, eyes downcast at the ground.
At that expression, Lara clamps her mouth shut. Because Mari was right. She was right, but her heart still told her that Mari didn’t know the whole of it. She didn’t know how her family fell into ruin, didn’t know how her heart beat traitorously in her chest every time they got too close, how Lara laid down to face Mari when she was asleep.
Mari’s expression told her as much. She was causing this distress.
Lara shakes her head.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Hurt me? Lara, I wake up everyday at five to train, I go to the boxing club every week. I think I can handle you.” Mari shakes her head incredulously, like everything's so straightforward and she can speak it into existence. It makes Lara want to believe her.
“But this is different. Boxing can’t fight against whatever will happen if I…again…”
A hand grasps her palm.
“Then tell me.”
Fingers curl around her own, and she feels the ring leave her palm. She shuts her eyes, where warm tears fall down her cheeks.
“Tell me what will happen, then we’ll decide if we can fight against it. Together.”
Cool metal slides back onto her index finger, and it’s like what felt like such a short time ago, when she was presented with her family ring somewhere far, far away from here.
She opens her eyes, and Mari is right in front of her– gaze strong with dark hazel eyes looking right at her– as if she can read every single thought she’s had.
The ring is on her index finger.
There’s still so many reasons why she can’t, why they’d never work out. And yet.
She sees a girl lit up by the moonlight, a human who sees a mermaid, and someone who sees her.
Tentatively, once more, she allows herself to hope. That maybe, it’ll be alright, if it’s her, if it’s them.
She nods. Mari gives a small, relieved smile back, and she feels the tightness in her chest loosen. Her doubts seem to dissipate, so small in the face of that smile she wants to protect.
She tests the weight of the ring on her finger, staring at the way it dazzles in the light, and feels a swell of something rise in her chest. But this time it’s not sorrow, she’s sure.
She looks at the ring on her finger, and it’s like she’d never lost it.
They share Mari’s bed now.
Mari says its economical, but she pulls Lara closer to her when she’s close to falling off the edge of the bed, and pulls the blanket over her in the middle of the night if she ever startles awake. She says its practical, but the bed is big enough to only fit one person and a half, and they end up with limbs tangled together more often than not. She doesn’t really understand why Mari has to make excuses.
For the most part, at least the nightmares are scarce. With the ring Mari gave her, she’s been free to fiddle with it rather than her hands now, and the scabs that once seemed to be perpetually on her skin have begun to heal.
I’m happy, she thinks, not for the first time, as she watches Mari scramble eggs at the stovetop from where she stands in the hallway. The sunlight streams in to the kitchen, and a rainbow of colours dances across her hair, the back of her head, and the lines of her arm as she moves this way and that. Her hair is tied up into a stubby ponytail, some loose strands falling in her face as she narrows her eyes in concentration. Lara steps forward.
“Boo.” She tugs the hair tie free, and Mari exclaims as her hair falls into her eyes, tousled and messy from running. Cute.
“Would it hurt to skip the running and stay in bed sometime?”
“I don’t complain about all that cake you’ve eaten, so I think it’s fair that I get my morning runs.” She laughs as Lara pouts in response, a sound that Lara had come to realise was fond.
They sit at the dining table as Lara shovels scrambled egg and rice into her mouth. It tastes heavenly, savory spring onions in the egg that blends perfectly with the rice. Mari’s really outdone herself these days. As she finishes the last of it, Mari asks her if she’s going to talk to her family about staying.
“My sister’s not gonna be happy about it, but…I’ll talk to her.”
“You mean we’ll talk to her. You’re stuck with me now. I can’t leave my girlfriend alone to defend herself.” She raises up her necklace, the clam charm glittering at her in the light.
Her heart skips a beat as she almost chokes on the remainder of the rice she has. She still hasn’t gotten used to it. Girlfriends. She traces a finger around the ring on her index finger, letting the cooling sensation calm herself.
Of course the nights aren’t perfect. She still has nightmares that have her thrashing awake sometimes and her heartbeat still kicks up at the sound of a knife dropping. But.
When she wakes up to see Mari by her side, it’s a little more bearable.
“You lovebirds done hogging the table yet?” Yoshiya drawls as he comes out from the hallway, yawning into his hand.
“Lovebirds?!” Mari exclaims, practically pouncing out of her chair to face her indifferent brother, who just shrugs in response.
“Love..” Lara murmurs, more to herself as she ponders the word. She looks back to Mari, who turns back mid lecture to meet her gaze.
Mari smiles at her questioningly, the light catching her eyes, and Lara can feel her own eyes widening as her face heats up. The same way she felt some hundred years ago, on that balcony, except there’s no more prince, no dagger, no true love to pursue– just Mari.
And to her, that’s all she needs.