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despite the rocking of gentle evening tides—the siren song of the sea, calm enough to lull babies to sleep—haruhisa is restless. sea salt permeates the air, clings to his skin. it has a sharp, stinging odor, not too unlike the tight embrace of a doting mother.
once again, he's home.
it doesn’t take long for an age-old curiosity to take root underneath his skin. lingering “what if”s rise to the surface with every flash of color he sees pop over the waves. laying in wait, it comes to full bloom with ashito.
(hana is already calling out with a sharp cry but her voice is drowned out by the roaring of the sea. footing having been shook loose, they watch as ashito’s board slips out from underneath him and sends him diving into the water.
she stumbles backwards after walking straight into anri’s outstretched hand.
“wait. there’s a second wave coming through.”
in the pause between waves, haruhisa makes out the silhouette of his board bobbing amongst foamy white waters. then—a flash of gleaming red, bright and out of place amongst ocean blues. he leans forward. feels himself sink into the sand as he shifts his weight onto the balls of his feet, cranes his neck to try and catch a closer look.
the second wave comes crashing through. with it, disappointment.
it’s the wrong color. nor she does have scales.
still, he finds his pulse quickening at the sight.
moments later, ashito emerges from the waters. hauls himself onto his surfboard and paddles back to shore. brown, damp curls cling to his forehead like a bed of seaweed as he flops back down onto the sand. the tail flicks in and out of the waves, pomegranate red glinting silver in the sunlight, before disappearing down into the depths.
hana is quick to grab him by the shoulders. hiss an angry "i told you to watch the waves" in water-clogged ears and cuff ashito on the back of his head.
haruhisa continues to stare at the turbulent sea.
for a red sea bream, the size of their tail was much too big.)
haruhisa’s suspicions are correct: the younger boy did, indeed, come across a mermaid.
they just aren’t the one he’s looking for.
his memory of her is hazy, a watercolor painting that has been left out in the sun for too long, colors bleached and faded. haruhisa isn’t artistically gifted. the only way he knows how to draw is circles for heads, sticks for limbs. but trace a painting a hundred times, commit each brush stroke, every mark of the pencil, to memory, and haruhisa could very well become an artist himself, if only for the sake of that one painting.
he sees her in the most peculiar of places. silvery hair in waning crescent moons. the line of her nose in a passing stranger. picking up a stray shell in the sand, running his thumbs over coral pink ridges, haruhisa thinks of her smile.
ever since he’s returned to ehime, he’s developed a nightly routine. it takes the form of a yellow post-it note pinned to the corner of his parents' dining table, the creaking of the front door bidding him goodbye as he slips out of the house onto the shore.
he waits in the same place it all began: a secluded area down the shore, far from the main path. it is shouldered by a rocky hill and a small cluster of green trees. unfavored by the locals, for there is not much of a view and too many stones to carefully traverse.
the sand is a pale blue, cast in shadow by the moon. it is the color of dim skies on rainy days, the tone of his mother’s voice when he tells her he’s thinking of going to college in tokyo.
straw sandals are abandoned in favor of burying his toes in the sand, of brushing against seashells and washed up twigs.
there is an old tale found only in worn books sheltered in the mythology section of libraries—eat the flesh of a mermaid and you will achieve immortality.
people search for mermaids in order to gain life but haruhisa, he would give his life to see her again.
he whispers this to the tides. the sea hears many things: the confessions of lovers, the wishes of young children, the silent tears of widows. it is privy to many things, holds the secrets of the world.
even after spending thousands of years on this planet, humans still have not uncovered everything the ocean has to offer.
haruhisa is, however, patient.
perched by the rocks, letting seafoam wash over his toes, haruhisa finds the ocean’s reply. a dorsal fin emerging from evening waters, streaks of silver catching the moonlight. above the crest of midnight waves, even darker eyes meet his gaze.
her face is sharper. the years have taken away traces of baby fat and pressed her lips into a thin line.
when she rises, bares pointed teeth at him, he finds that she’s grown her hair out as well. it spills over her shoulders and down into the water. carved into her stomach is the definition of muscle, just above where ink stains the lower half of her body, marking the border between human and killer whale.
there is yet another tale regarding mermaids, a story passed down from his grandmother to his ears. she sits him on his lap, runs thin fingers through his hair, and tells him about a girl.
young and pretty, (“you got your looks from me,” she adds with a curve to her lips. haruhisa simply nods his head.) she is accompanying her father on a fishing trip when she falls into the waters. the waves are ruthless and the boat unsteady. of course, she knows how to swim, but—there is no shore for her feet to touch upon. she is thousands of meters from the coast and thousands more above the ocean floor.
steadily sinking as bubbles float up above, hands wrap around her middle and pass her back to her father.
he knows how this story ends, having whispered his own tale back to his grandmother.
haruhisa smiles.
"it's nice to see you again."
at this, she stills. long eyelashes flutter as her lips form the shape of his given name, shortened to only two syllables.
he speaks in a quiet voice, tells her about how much he missed ehime. how the stars in tokyo are replaced with led billboard signs, how if he closed his eyes in his bedroom and listened to the idling of cars and faded laughter of pedestrians, he could envision the sea.
and with the sea, her.
resting her head on the stones, she listens. damp cheeks press against worn grays, eroded by both time and the sea. occasionally, there is the clicking of sharpened nails tapping against the rocks, punctuating the ends of his sentences.
haruhisa has so much to say, has years of unspoken conversations tucked away in the privacy of his ribcage, but he is silenced by a flick of her wrist.
pressing splayed fingertips to the middle of her chest, just right above her heart, she says:
“matsuri.”
the word for festivals, holidays, things worth celebrating.
leaning forward to echo her name back at her, syllables soft and gentle on his tongue, haruhisa makes a note to etch today's date on his calendar.