Chapter Text
“The other dude I told you about? He’s such a jerk!”
“Oh really.”
“Yeah! And he always disappears sometime after noon and I never see him until it’s cocktail hour,” Kaminari jabs a finger at the colourful sign behind him promising discounted cocktails between 6 and 7pm.
“Wow, annoying.”
“Super annoying! And because he’s the owner’s son he gets away with it!”
“Mmm, I see.”
“And then he gets all the girls cause he’s got the looks! That’s so unfair, dude!”
“Sure, Kami.” Kirishima’s heard it all, really. Kaminari’s asshole coworker-slash-manager, the girls he doesn’t receive attention from, said girls flirting with said coworker. All of it.
“You don’t get it! And because he’s good behind the counter doesn’t mean he’s any good with a lady! While here I am — ”
“I’m sure you’ll be alright, man.”
“Wow, so much for compassion.” Kaminari’s face is stern when Kirishima looks up — the kind of stern brought on by concentrated affected dissatisfaction. “Are you even listening? Are you still thinking about that fish?”
Kirishima shoots him an annoyed look. “It wasn’t a fish! It was way too big, and no fish here would have that colour.”
Denki purses his lips, picking up a washcloth to start rubbing down the counter. This conversation doesn’t seem to age well — after a couple days of this back and forth, Kaminari is mostly convinced of Kirishima’s delusion, not his reason. “I don’t know what to tell you, honestly. Better just forget it, go surf or work or something.”
Kirishima drops his head onto his arms folded on the countertop with a sigh. “I’ll go, you know that. But I just…” he trails off, looking at the ocean water shimmering under the sun. There are people in bright surf shorts scattered across its surface, and he can see patches of light blue water around the reef clusters. His gaze lingers. Last time he went near the reef, he almost lost his board and saw something that decidedly could not be a fish.
“Kiri, you know I love you, but that sounds more like you overheated in the sun,” Kaminari looms over Kirishima and speaks with conviction. “Not met a creepy humanoid cephalopod.”
Kirishima keeps his eyes sweeping across the ocean. He spots a surfer struggling to swim against the waves — he should report that to his shift partner if the fella doesn’t right himself soon. There’s nothing he can say, and what he’s already said sounds well-nigh unbelievable. A human body with a scaly lower half sitting ten feet underwater? Fat chance of anyone taking that seriously.
Kirishima remembers him. He’s fairly sure it was a he, with a pale angular face and broad muscled shoulders, sandy blond hair billowing in the stream. He was still, appearing casually comfortable under the pressure of water, and when Kirishima raked through it to get closer, he only snarled, exposing sharp white canines and making Kirishima falter for a moment.
A moment too long, because the blond was gone the next instant, shiny iridescent scales on his tail flicking away behind a reef cluster, and when the Kirishima surged after him, he couldn’t spot a single clue as to where he’d disappeared.
The glass in Kaminari’s hands clunks on the counter surface.
“Dude, come on! You’re like, obsessed, you need to chill. Your fish will come find you if it wants to, now go do your job, Tetsu’s been manning the post all alone all morning!” That is true, actually, and makes Kirishima cringe guiltily.
He’s not on duty today, strictly speaking, but him and Tetsu have been doing both of their shifts together for the sake of maximum efficiency and at least a little fun. Today, though, he spent the morning paddling through the shallow rippling water along the part of the beach closest to the reef, hoping against hope for another sighting of the logic-defying merman.
Because that’s what he was. A merman.
Kirishima refuses to say that out loud.
His stool screeches against the floor when he gets up and waves goodbye to Denki. “I should, yeah. I'll tell Tetsu you said hi.”
***
Kirishima does quick work of sweeping the area for rented surfing equipment and putting it away, and after checking in with Tetsu at the little lifeguard tower, he snatches a red whistle off a hook in the storage shed and sets off down the beach to patrol for lost kids or unlucky surfers swept too far off the coast (and also pretends not to see Tetsu’s sardonically raised eyebrow because yes, he knows this is a stupidly transparent excuse, and no, he is not going to talk about it).
It’s golden hour, and the sand is warm shifting under his feet, giving back the heat of the day. It’s not a long trek to the border of their beach marked by a long wooden pier, maybe ten minutes tops, and it’s easy to let the people and water and music behind him blend into white noise. Maybe he will stay at the pier for a while, let the dry wood feed comfort and heat into his muscles as he drifts between a sleepy daze and awakeness. A good end to the day, and then Kaminari will invariably demand they all get a drink, and Tetsu will laugh and go along with it, and they will herd Kiri to the bar with friendly shoves and hands slapped to sunburnt shoulders, and someone will chastise Kirishima for forgetting sunscreen again, shaming his peeling red skin, and, and —
oh.
Kirishima’s shudder of a breath drags his excitement out and spills it into the quiet evening air.
Looks like he won’t be admiring the sunset alone today.
Kirishima picks up his pace from where he momentarily hesitated, taking care to step softly on the rough weathered wood not to startle the bizarre creature sleeping on the edge of the pier. Kirishima takes it — damn, rude — takes him in, from the pale hair and face and shoulders to softly rising chest to hips to bright glistening tail wrapped in hundreds and hundreds of little pearl-shiny scales and almost forgets to breathe because goddamn, Kaminari was right.
His fish found Kirishima himself.
He has never experienced tunnel vision, but here, now, eyes open wide as though that has any effect on how much he can take in and etch into the backs of his eyelids, this is the closest thing he can think of. Kirishima feels the little jackhammer of a thought knocking recklessly, relentlessly against the shell of profound disbelief, struggling to the front of his mind to yell look at him! and fuck if he’s not worth looking at; he is a vision and a half, bathed in softening sunlight, arms folded beneath his head and looking disturbingly normal for a person halfway covered in scales. His lower body stretches into a smooth, sinuous tail, longer than Kirishima is tall and disappearing off the edge of the pier. It looks gorgeous, but it also looks strong, and sturdy, and wow, that must be a whole lot of muscle packed into confetti-bright colours.
Kirishima is now standing maybe three steps away, lowering himself into a half-crouch and silently wondering how he hasn’t spooked the mer-dude yet. Debating with himself the appropriateness of touching a stranger — especially an essentially naked stranger, who is resting in a place pointedly remote from any human activity, which is conventionally interpreted as a ‘do not disturb’ — Kirishima’s gaze runs over the man — actually clearly a man, now that Kirishima is close, and not much older than Kirishima himself, at least in the part that is human — and then their eyes meet.
Shit!
Kirishima has a heartbeat moment to think, red, redredred — before the eyes are gone in a flash of movement, and in a single powerful curve of his body the merman twists, rolls, and throws himself into the water, the tail dragging across the wood and swinging up in an arch that catches Kirishima’s side and sends him stumbling right towards the edge of the pier. There is no graceful way to cover up a yell when slipping into the uncertainty of a fall, and with another, water-muffled shit! he drops into the salty waves.
The salt stings in his throat and burns in his nose, chasing out his breath and replacing it with a brief panic. Even with his eyes open, the picture is blurry between the sea water and the irritated tears, and it’s hard to know up from down, until suddenly, the world rights itself with a rough pull and a pair of arms hauling Kirishima towards the surface.
Kirishima wheezes, arms flailing to try and keep himself on the right side of the water surface — the one with the air — until his frantic movement is interrupted by a hard grip and a fiery, annoyed, “You moron!”
“Uh?”
“Shut the fuck up and stay still unless you’d rather get out of this yourself!”
Kirishima feels the arms tighten around his chest and finally allows himself a deep breath to calm down. He wipes the hair sticking to his face away to have an unobscured look around — he is floating in the shadow of the pier with this nobody’s benevolent help. God, some lifeguard he is, nevermind that he probably would’ve been fine regardless of a stranger’s help. Owwie.
Where did he even come from, this vengeful spirit against Kirishima’s professional pride, he was here alone with… right.
“Wait!” Kirishima twists in the arms encircling him, or attempts to, but doesn’t catch more than a narrow glimpse of his savior’s face. “I know you!”
He keeps squirming until the arms let go, and there’s an unsteady moment before he remembers he can actually swim, and then he whips around to find himself once again looking into the deepest, reddest eyes. This time there’s nothing stopping him from reaching out and latching on to the merman’s arm, bringing his face closer.
“I have seen you before!” Kirishima breathes with all the wow speeding exhilaration through his blood. The face sours, and there is a ruddy tint on the cheeks. “I… I just! Can we talk?” Kirishima searches for something to say, but this is so, so out of nowhere, he is out of his depth and sinking in the endlessness of red eyes and, wow. “Please?”