Chapter Text
He stood up from the edge of the water, curling the bundle he held closer.
The night sky above him shone with stars as he walked to the house from the dock, water splashing off of him with every step. The bundle he held shifted, a small hand popping out from between the layers. “Shh,” he whispered, brushing his thumb over the tiny cheek that followed. “We will be safe here.” He looked up at the looming house above them, pulling the key from around his neck with a small sigh.
As he entered the building, he shifted the baby around, humming softly.
Although there were covers over the furniture, curtains drawn over the windows, the lights turned on quickly. He yanked the cover off of the couch, watching warily as the dust floated off of it and settled immediately back down. “I will have to clean all of this,” he muttered, rocking the baby in his arm. “I am glad you are a quiet child,” he turned his head to face the baby, curling up on the couch at the same time. “My son, we are in a situation. A dire predicament.”
There was a sparse scattering of soft purple hair peeking out from the bundle, now, drying off. The baby stared up at him with wide purple eyes, a hand tucked into a small mouth.
“We can make it through,” he whispered. “Eh, Hitoshi?”
Hitoshi gurgled softly, gumming at the tips of his own fingers.
With a small smile of his own, the man bent his head down and kissed his son’s forehead, staying there for a moment with his eyes shut. So much had happened, so many things had been put into motion. “I wish your other father were here,” he whispered into Hitoshi’s hair. “I wish I knew where he was. Where he went off to. I wish I could tell him you existed.”
He leaned back against the couch, jiggling his son gently. Hitoshi gurgled again, his small feet kicking out of the bundle. Going up his legs were some slowly-disappearing scales, the same soft shade of purple as his hair.
The man looked down at them, reaching up to his own neck and sighing as he traced his fingers across the gills he had. They were disappearing as well. “We cannot let others know,” he told his son. “I will have to impress that upon you when you are old enough to understand such a thing. For now,” he put his free hand against Hitoshi’s stomach. “We will simply have to hide.”
His hand glowed a bright gold for a minute, fading out to nothing as he closed his eyes again.
When the light was gone, so were his son’s scales and his own gills.
“So,” Aizawa Shouta opened his eyes again. “We start our new lives. What do we do, Hitoshi?”
Nineteen Years Later
With a remarkably composed face, Hitoshi raced down the sidewalk towards home.
“Dad!” He called out as he got inside, shuffling his shoes off and yanking his bag off over his head. “Dad!”
“Hitoshi?”
“I got my letter, today!” Hitoshi moved into the kitchen, coming to stand at his father’s side. He held up the envelope, a crooked grin on his face as he did. “I was at work and when our mail person came in, she handed it off to me. I have had to wait for hours to read it,” he hummed as his father continued chopping up vegetables. “Dad,” he almost whined the word out.
“Hm,” Shouta glanced at him, “That sounds unfortunate.”
He continued chopping.
“Dad,” Hitoshi was whining this time, holding the letter in both hands.
He had been made to promise that he would open the letter with his father. The envelope he was holding had the news of whether or not he had made it into the university he had applied to. As a late-starter, more focused on gaining experience, Hitoshi had held off for a year. The letter had to answer to a question he was almost dreading the answer to – what if he hadn’t gotten in?
The college’s marine biology program was an amazing course, from the sound of it. He had always been drawn to the sea, much in the same way his father was.
“Alright, alright,” Shouta put down the knife, shooing his son towards the table. He pulled a cup of tea closer to himself, gesturing at the still-steaming one that waited for Hitoshi. “Drink your tea, kid. And open the envelope already, are you trying to raise our blood pressure with your waiting?” He grinned when Hitoshi stuck his tongue out and pulled his own tea close. The envelope was laid out on the table for a moment as Hitoshi warmed up his fingers, both of them staring at it.
Hitoshi took a deep breath, setting his tea down before picking the envelope back up. “This is it,” he nodded.
“Go ahead,” Shouta nodded back.
With careful movements, Hitoshi slid his finger under the flap, gritting his teeth as his nerves rose. This was it, as he had said. This was what made the course of his future shift. With the letter in his hands, he felt almost ready to pass out. “Dear Aizawa Hitoshi,” he read, scanning a few lines faster than his mouth was reading. He dropped the letter, choked on his breath, then fell backward.
“Hitoshi?”
“Congratulations, it is our greatest pleasure to inform you that you have been admitted!” he crowed the words out, his hands hitting the air with the letter held between them. He rolled over and onto his stomach, flattening the letter on the wooden floor beneath him. The cushion he had been sitting on was pushed under the table. “I got in,” he breathed the words out. They were a decently wealthy family, never really needing to work to get by, but this would change his future. This would put him in a field of work he had always loved, an environment he adored.
He had been drawn to the ocean since he was a toddler – younger, if his father was to be believed.
When he looked at his dad, Hitoshi saw a rare smile on his face.
Aizawa Shouta grinned like a jack-o-lantern most of the time – he was actually happy when he did, but he tended to fake the expression. He didn’t often feel like smiling, for the most part. Hitoshi could count on one hand the number of times he had seen his dad smile at other people. He smiled so much more when they were home, usually because of something Hitoshi had done, but it was still somewhat rare. “I am proud of you,” his dad gestured for him to sit up. When he did, Hitoshi chuckled as Shouta reached over and dragged him close, pressing a firm kiss to the top of his head. “I am so very proud of you, kid.”
“I can’t believe I got in!” Hitoshi put an arm around him, leaning into his side. Hugging his father like this always made him feel safe. Like nothing in the world could touch him.
His father had always been his protector. Had taught him how to be safe, how to defend himself and others.
“I can,” Shouta laughed a little. “Kid, you worked so hard on your homework that I found you passed out over it several times. You pushed through and came out of every class you took with some of the top grades because of how dedicated you were to what you wanted. Hitoshi,” he tilted his head down and Hitoshi smiled at him. “You’ve always done great in school. If they hadn’t accepted you as their student, even with a gap year, they would have been insanely stupid.”
“Dad,” Hitoshi grinned, grabbing his cup of tea and staying where he was. He needed the emotional anchor right then.
He had gotten into his top choice school.
“Come on,” Shouta nudged the bottom of his chin against his son’s head. “Come help me finish dinner. I want to eat before it gets too late.”
Hitoshi stood up and followed him, sipping gently at his tea before setting it on the counter. He took the bowl his dad handed him, as well as the spoon, and began mixing the vegetables together as Shouta poured them in. “You generally only make this when it’s time to celebrate something,” he leaned back against the counter, curling his toes as he worked. It looked a little silly, especially with his socks riding down and somewhat off, and he felt like a little kid again.
“We’re celebrating you getting into your school,” Shouta reached up and grabbed a few spices, shaking them into the bowl with barely a glance.
“And if I hadn’t?”
“You were going to.”
It helped settle his nerves, hearing his father be so matter-of-fact about it. So calm about the fact that Hitoshi had done something so difficult. Like he had never doubted it. He had always believed in Hitoshi, always trusted that he would do well. He smiled as he worked on dinner with his dad, as they always had.
About to turn twenty, Hitoshi wouldn’t change anything about his life. He had a great dad, had gotten into his top school, and was finally certain of what he wanted to do with his life.
Of course, that was when life always chose to throw something at you.
Hitoshi bolted upright in his bed, panting, as he shook off the remains of whatever dream he had been having.
His hands shook as he sat there, until he had to curl forward to avoid his arms giving out and knocking him back down. Not knowing why he had woken up, Hitoshi looked around his room. There was nothing out of place, nothing out of the ordinary. The clock told him that it was almost three in the morning. Hitoshi grabbed the water bottle he kept on his bedside and popped it open, draining half of it before he heard something.
Splashing.
Looking out his window, Hitoshi put the bottle back down and stood up. His bedroom window faced the dock at the back of their house, closed in on both sides by a fence that extended out into the water. A privacy measure, for the most part. It helped to define property lines as well.
There.
Down at the dock, Hitoshi could see the water moving in an odd way. It slapped up against the dock, the current trying to go the opposite way. The moment he saw a hand pop up, he threw all caution to the wind, throwing on a shirt and grabbing the giant flashlight he kept by his closet door in case of power outages. They didn’t happen often, which was good because it meant the batteries would still work. As he moved, Hitoshi gave a brief thought towards waking his dad, but brushed it aside.
If someone was drowning, he had no time for that. As it was, he had barely had time to grab the shirt that kept him from just being in his underwear.
Making it to the dock, Hitoshi turned on the flashlight and searched the water quickly. Where had he seen the hand? Where was the person he had seen? Just as he was about to dive into the water to search the bottom, he spotted them. A blond man, about his age, struggling with something near the corner of the dock. He was thrashing in the water, scrabbling towards something in the darker depths of the water. Hitoshi couldn’t see anything, could only see his head and shoulders.
His blond hair was saturated into a deep gold color, sticking to the sides of his face. It had to be a trick of the light, Hitoshi thought, but he could have sworn he saw golden eyes as well.
“Hey,” he called out softly, holding up his hands as the other guy startled. “I’m not going to hurt you, are you okay?”
The blond stared at him for a minute, his head tilted to the side, before opening his mouth. Something that almost sounded like a language came out, leaving Hitoshi blinking in confusion. “Okay, I did not catch that,” he stepped closer. The blond man was pressed into the corner of the dock, his back against the shore, and Hitoshi felt bad about cornering him. He was obviously freaked out. “Hey,” he said again, aiming the flashlight at the water once more. “My name is Hitoshi,” he crouched down. “Are you stuck?”
His chest heaving, the blond looked at Hitoshi, then looked back at the water. He seemed to be debating something.
“I can help you,” Hitoshi moved towards him again. “I’m just glad you came here – anyone else in this neighborhood is asleep already. They’re not waking up for a bit. This is probably the only dock you could have touched down at and found someone who could help you.” He kept his voice soft, as calm as possible, as he moved within an arm’s length of the man.
Looking up at him again, the man nodded slowly.
With his head tilted back, Hitoshi could see lines on the sides of his throat. Partially mute due to an injury? That would explain the lack of speaking. If he had fallen off a boat or – fuck – been pushed, he wouldn’t have been able to call for help. Hitoshi reached forward. “Can you understand me?”
A nod.
“Okay,” Hitoshi took a deep breath. “My name is Hitoshi. I am going to help you. How do you need help?”
Mimicking him, his chest moving with a breath so deep Hitoshi could almost feel it, the blond man swam a little further back, hefting himself up onto the rocks with just the muscles in his arms. If it had been less of a panicking sort of situation, Hitoshi would have appreciated the strength the guy had. He might have flirted a little.
His brain stopped cold when he saw the other end of the man, however.
The bright gold of the scale-coated tail was almost blinding in the darkness of the night, spotlighted by Hitoshi’s flashlight. Fighting to keep his breathing even, Hitoshi clasped both of his hands around his flashlight to keep it steady. “Okay,” he said again. “I,” he studied the tail a little closer when he noticed a line of oozing red, frowning.
The reason he had gone for a Marine Biology course was that he loved ocean animals. He had taken some intro-level classes at a community college, knew how to do basic care for creatures with scales. The ocean was a fascinating and terrifying place.
“Let me see the end of your tail,” Hitoshi balanced the flashlight on the dock, creeping forward and gesturing for the actual merman to bring his tail up the rest of the way. He reached out a hand and gently placed it on the scales. When he pressed down a little, it was cold. Like an actual fish. There was a muscular push back against his hand and Hitoshi nodded. “Did you get caught on something? Oh, there it is,” he reached out to gather as much of the material in his hands as possible.
It was a fishing net.
“Figures,” he muttered, his disbelief being pushed out of his mind as he got to work. “Some jerk decided to fish where he’s not supposed to,” Hitoshi hauled the merman’s tail up into his lap, turning the flashlight so he could continue to see what he was doing. He shook his head, untangling the net and almost swearing when he found hooks in the edge of it. That was what had caught the merman, he realized. There was a golden scale impaled on one of them.
He tugged it off carefully, turning the section of tail in his lap so that he could unlatch the last hook.
“There,” Hitoshi dragged the entirety of the fishing net onto the dock, shoving it as far away from the edge as possible. The merman watched it with a crinkled nose, eyes narrowing. “I’m going to take it further up the shore,” Hitoshi told him.
The merman nodded.
“Do you need me to do anything for the injury?” Hitoshi gestured at the slow-bleeding wound. The merman shook his head this time, grinning and showing off sharp teeth. The edge of his tail felt odd, like the time that Hitoshi had gotten to touch an electric eel. The texture between the scales and the edge felt strange. If he could study him, the merman would be a fascinating biology lesson.
Hitoshi had barely thought that when he was being tugged underwater.
The odd chirpy language from before sounded like words under the surface of the water. “Thank you!” The merman grinned again. “Thought I was going to be stuck like that forever. Would have killed me, eventually, can’t swim right with my tail stuck like that.”
He leaned up and pecked Hitoshi on the mouth before turning and darting off into the darkness.
As he moved towards the surface again, breaking through and bobbing in the gentle tide, Hitoshi blinked a couple of times. “This,” he looked up towards the sky, wondering if there was indeed something out there listening. “Is not what I was looking for, as far as early birthday presents go.” He dragged himself back onto shore, staring after the direction the merman had gone.
Hitoshi stood up, eventually, and dragged the fishing net in like he had said he would.
Tugging his shirt down, he picked up the flashlight and the scale. It still shimmered, even in the dim light and away from the original owner. Hitoshi went back inside, wiping his feet off thoroughly before heading upstairs to take a shower.
When he was clean and dry, Hitoshi went back to bed. He put the scale on his bedside table.