Chapter Text
When Kaveh saw the look on his professor's face he just knew that something awful was going to happen.
“Hello students! Today’s class will be a little different, I will be assigning your midterm projects.”
Groaning filled the lecture hall, the professor was well known for their easy classes but boring, tedious, and difficult projects.
“Yes, yes, I know midterms are hard and my projects ‘suck’. Don’t think that I don’t follow the teacher rating sites that you guys use, I have to get student feedback somehow.”
“Anyways, as I was saying, today I will be assigning your midterm project. We will be spending the next couple weeks of class over at the aquarium, specifically we will be looking at the design and structure of the building, displays, and the routes taken by guests. You will be drawing a detailed blueprint of the building and tanks based on what you see and give ideas on how to improve the overall design of the aquarium. Employee only and restricted areas should be added but as you don’t have access to those areas you may guess the sizes.”
“A large part of the assignment will be about the animals exhibits, determining if the area and structure of the tanks suits the animal, write about why or why not the tank suits the animal in a separate document. Nothing big, just a short paragraph or two about why you think the tank does not suit the animal and where you would move it or how you would improve it.”
Immediately the entire class started murmuring to each other. Kaveh himself was in shock, a project that takes up class time without extra lessons was a blessing all on its own, but one at the aquarium? The one where the merman that had recently been rescued after being severely injured? This was going to be quite an easy project, he had already done an assignment like this in another class before the merman was brought in. The assignment would be quick, if only a little tedious, as he would have to rewrite a large portion of the assignment, and update his blueprints. The only potential problem would be…
“Excuse me sir! Will the in-class visits be paid for or do we have to buy our own? And can we make visits outside of class? Will those be paid for too?”
That exactly, it’s not like he couldn’t afford to go for the class visits but it would put an unnecessary strain on his already string thin budget. Just as he was lamenting his already empty wallet getting emptier the professor piped up.
“Don’t worry about that! I’ve gotten permission to give my classes a two month long pass into the aquarium. One pass per person and a pass will be fifty dollars, you can make as many trips to the aquarium as you’d like, both for class and not. Although I don’t know how comfortable it’ll be with so many people trying to get into it these days.”
Nice! Not a big investment in the long run and he could get some artistic inspiration from the less crowded parts of the aquarium. This was less horrible news then he thought, the only problem would be the new exhibits and the merman. Everyone would be wanting to see him, both to try to communicate and to just see him, so he doubted he would be able to get a good look at him, at least for the first couple weeks. It should be fine, he needed to do other parts of the aquarium first and when the crowds fade he should be able to get the bare minimum done at least.
Kaveh wondered how long it would take for people to communicate with the merman, with the considerable reward they were giving out and the many people at least peripherally interested in the mer it wouldn’t be surprising if the mer learned to communicate in some capacity in at least a week, maybe less. The mer had already been in the aquarium for 2 weeks, which seemed to be for recovery as the exhibit only just opened a couple days ago. Well it wasn’t really any of his business, even if he did drool a little at the amount they offered for helping the mer communicate, the mer would probably be able to understand everyone long after Kaveh took a look.
“Ok! Enough chit-chat everyone we are starting class now, take out your books. If you want to get the passes come see me after class to sign up, if you can’t do the assignment for whatever reason email me separately and we can work out an alternate assignment for you. Now! Today we will be talking about…”
Kaveh startled out of his thoughts as the professor spoke and quickly began pulling out his books, he could think about the project and the merman later, first, class.
A couple days later Kaveh got his pass for the aquarium and decides to ignore the assignment for now, he focused on other classes and rewrote his assignment taking out the exhibits that have changed and leaving spaces for the new ones. After around three weeks have passed and he’s sure that the aquarium will be less crowded he heads there early on a Monday morning, When the crowds will be thin and he doesn’t have school. He has dinner planned with Tighnari, Dehya, and Nilou at around 6pm today and if he’s lucky he can sketch out the newer exhibits and get the written portion of the assignment all pounded out in a single day.
He gets a good amount of progress done in the first few hours, he’s finished most of the assignment, all that’s left is the merman exhibit, which he is, admittedly, a little nervous about. Not because of the mer or because he thinks that the sketch or the write up will be hard but because even after all this time the mer has still refused to communicate and with how desperate some people seem to be getting, he desperately hopes that no one crazy will be at the exhibit when he gets there.
It’s only 1:30pm and the sketch will take the longest, the write up should be pretty easy all things considered. As much as the mer is a different species they are also known to be intelligent, surely the employee’s or the mer himself would have decorated it, since he’s been here for more than a month?
Wrong. Oh how very wrong he is.
The first thing he sees when he steps into the exhibit is the merman.
He’s laying on a rock near the glass of the tank, seemingly sunbathing on it with imaginary sunlight. He is as stunning as the rumors have depicted him, short silver hair with green accents that blend in perfectly, his bangs parted in the middle, side swept slightly covering his left eye. His eyes were a brilliant, almost emerald green. His body was sculpted like a greek god, light clear skin with defined muscles, six-pack abs and a shining tail that started a dark green at his hips and slowly melting into a mossy green around halfway down his tail, then silver at the tips of his tail.
The second thing he sees is an atrocity.
“Oh this CANNOT be how you live.”
He honestly didn’t mean to say it out loud, but how could he not when faced with the blatant disaster that’s in front of him. Well, if he’s started it out like this, how can he not continue. After a quick look around to see if anyone is in the exhibit, (no one, it’s empty. Not entirely surprising this time of day but a little unexpected.) he concludes that it doesn't really matter if the mer can understand him or not he at least has to express this tragedy out loud.
“I can’t believe you spend your days in this bland and boring prison! Look at this, the walls are bare, there’s barely any color in here! Everything looks all squished together with no thought on how it looks! No decorations! Not even an idea of something as simple as a wall for privacy! What is this! Agony is what this is, how can you even look at this disaster without going insane! Much less living in it!”
To be, begrudgingly, fair to the aquarium staff, the tank does look well kept, if bland as all hell, it’s clean, has some semblance of furniture, and does look like it is attached to a separate private tank, likely for the mer to escape to when overwhelmed or not interested in people. When he starts yelling the merman looks his way lazily as if used to the sound of crazies in his space, which considering the stories he’s heard of the people who get too worked up trying to communicate with him, he’s not too surprised about that. Now that he (however temporarily) has the merman’s attention he’s going to use it to the fullest.
“How do you live like this,” He says, throwing up his hands as his eyes scan the tank again. As if the tragedy of its existence will be erased if he looks at it longer. “Where are the colors? There’s no separation of rooms, no sense of the space given! The staff know how to make an exhibit that’s humane and prevents depression in animals. Least of all for an obviously intelligent species. There aren't even very many plants in there, is that by choice or have you pulled up all the other, more exciting plants in there? I know there were more, this place has less plants than the jellyfish exhibit! I can’t even see anything on the walls! What kind of person doesn’t have at least some kind of decorations on the walls!?!”
He’s catching his breath a little when he looks up and sees the merman looking at him with an expression he can’t decipher but looks a little like amusement.
“What?” He huffs, turning to glare at the merman. Whose still lounging on the rock, lightly flicking his tail. “Why are you looking at me like that? It’s not my fault that your tank looks like a child put in little, store bought, packaged fish bowl decorations. No, that’s an insult to children to say that, because at least children would put in more color, not this sad, pathetic, BLAND attempt of interior decorating.”
He knows in the back of his mind that the merman doesn't understand him, if he can even hear him through all the glass and water at all. But the way the mer looks at him, as if he found a particularly interesting tv show that he can watch on mute and miss nothing of importance, is pissing him off.
So with that in mind, he steps closer to the mer’s tank and starts gesturing at the mer, hoping but not really expecting the mer to respond to it even a little. He first gestures to the walls then the pile of aquatic plants and rocks and what even looks like some tools or water toys, untouched by the looks of it, and gives the merman the most ‘what the fuck is this’ face he can muster.
Surprisingly the merman does respond, unfortunately the response is just a stupid fucking grin. The fucker is totally amused that he can’t stand the way the tank looks and makes no effort to even look like he’s thinking of getting up to move anything.
Now, Kaveh is usually pretty good at just waving off people who piss him off, but for some reason, the merman is just pushing all the buttons that make him want to immediately prove him wrong. So, naturally, he quickly turns to a new page in his sketchbook and starts a quick sketch of the tank as it could be, beautiful and not immediately as revolting as it currently is.
As he does this, he can see the merman gazing at him, not with any particular intention, just watching. He still looks amused and it irks him a little but it’s fine because most of his attention is on the drawing coming to life underneath him, he’ll make the merman move something at least. He puts the finishing touches on the drawing and faces it towards the merman.
He watches the mer’s face very, very, closely. He wants the fucker to see the art and life he could live with, instead of the drearly bland setup he has now. He wants to see the mer’s eyes to widen, for him to immediately start moving things around. Predictably though, (even though he’s only seen the mer for around 20 minutes) he just looks at the drawing for a minute or two before turning away, clearly dismissing it. He almost gets mad, before he has the thought that maybe the mer just doesn’t like something about it, everyone has different tastes even if he doesn't think they’re particularly good. So he starts another drawing, finishes and shows it to the mer again. Again, he dismisses the drawing after looking at it for a couple minutes. So he starts again, and again, and again…
Eventually he gets so fed up with the mer that he actually gives up on drawing all together and starts wracking his brain to see if he could figure out if the mer is just fucking with him, or actually doesn’t like his designs, or some combination of the two. But, unfortunately, any specific responses are gonna need a more complicated communication system than just gauging his facial reactions and a nod or shake of the head. He thinks it over for a couple of minutes, the merman in his peripheral just sitting there, lazily watching him, when he gets a jolt of inspiration.
“I’m gonna teach you sign language.” he declares, looking the mer in the eyes. “I need to get you to answer me in a complete sentence and this is how I’ll do it. I don’t care how long it takes. I am going to do this, I will make this exhibit perfect even if it kills me. You will like it, that is a threat.”
He points at the merman for emphasis, the merman still looks mildly amused even if he probably can’t understand what's being said. He won’t look that amused when he brings over his old Sumeru Sign Language textbook and flashcards. He takes a quick glance at the time and realizes it’s almost 5:30pm. His eyes widen as he starts hurriedly packing up his things, if he runs home he’ll only have 15 minutes to get ready before he has to head out to meet up with his friends for dinner.
Ahhh, guess he’s going to be late. Better text them now to tell them he’s going to be late then leave them hanging, they won’t like it but they’ll like it a lot more then if he just showed up late again.
As he’s heading towards the exit he takes one last glance at the merman, he has still yet to move and looks just as amused as the moment he started talking at him when he got there.
He glares at the mer and just before he leaves says
“Don’t think this is the end, I will get you to redecorate before my midterm project is over.”
With that said he whips around and starts sprinting towards the exit hoping to make it back to his house before it’s too late to take a shower.