Returning Home

The afternoon sun dipped below the horizon, casting a nostalgic orange glow over the ocean’s surface, a faded color reminiscent of old photographs. A small boat rocked gently between the waves. Tinged with salt, the ocean breeze rustled the hair of the two young men.

Tatsumiya sat perched on the gunwale with a small smile as he met Akira’s cool, steady gaze.

“Be careful. Don’t drown.” Said Akira softly.

Standing by the boat’s edge, Akira tugged his collar up ever so slightly. He always kept his skin covered—even in the scorching summer heat, he rarely showed his neck.

“C’mon, relax. Have you forgotten what everyone calls me?” Tatsumiya gave his chest a proud little pat. “They don’t call me Mr. Merman for nothing!”

“That’s just a nickname…” Akira shook his head and emitted a small sigh. “Just find what you’re looking for, and return soon.”

“You got it!”

Tatsumiya flashed a grin and let gravity tug him backwards. His toes traced a graceful arc through the air before he hit the water with a splash.

Cold seawater wrapped around his body. Bubbles slipped past his ears and rose to break at the surface. The familiar briny taste filled his mouth. In a comfort as deep as returning to the womb, he inhaled—then slowly breathed out.

The oxygen in the ocean tasted lightly sweet.

Every weekend, he and Akira took his foster father’s boat out to fish, though fishing was never his purpose. Tatsumiya would always sink into the depths of the sea, in search of a certain something — He never told Akira a word about this, because even he himself felt it was some idle nonsense..

Today would probably end with no results whatsoever.

After checking that his legs were working fine, he dove deep with no hesitation. The light is starting to fade, pressure mounted, but his eyes picked out fish silhouettes and the jagged outlines of the reef with ease. He searched the area as usual, but found nothing.

…I should head back soon. If I stay down too long, Akira will worry.

Just as he was about to surface —

Something grabbed his ankle.

Tatsumiya spun around in panic. The moment his eyes locked onto the figure, his heart hammered like a frantic drum.

— A mermaid!

Found at last!

Her upper body was buried in jet-black hair as thick and dark as kelp, hiding her features. Her lower half was a rugged tail covered in coarse brown scales, just like a deep-sea fish. It was not the storybook-like, delicate mermaid Tatsumiya long imagined. Yet, she radiated an undeniable, primal authenticity.

Tatsumiya instinctively reached out his hand, holding her outstretched cold hand in return.

Yet the mermaid tilted her head, then twisted free and shot toward the sea surface. Tatsumiya scrambled after her, but with human legs, he couldn’t match the speed of a tail. Just when he thought he’d lost her, she glanced back a look and slowed her pace. They broke the surface almost simultaneously. The setting sun scattered gold across the waves.

The mermaid stared as if in a reverie. After a long moment, she spoke.

“At last… I have found you.”

Her voice was beautiful as a song from heaven, though her words came out halting and awkward. Tatsumiya’s eyes widened.

“You know me?”

To his further shock, the mermaid bowed low humbly.

“My prince… Your Highness. I’m so relieved… you’re safe.” Her voice trembled on the verge of tears.

“Huh? Prince…?” Tatsumiya’s jaw nearly dropped.

“That white hair… that red streak. Those marks… are the marks of merman royalty.” The mermaid looked at him with earnest devotion. “You… are the last of the royal bloodline. Please… return to the deep sea.”

“Return? To the deep sea?” Tatsumiya’s mind struggled to process this. “But look at me—I don’t have a tail. How am I supposed to live down there?”

“It’s… alright. I received a magic potion… from an alchemist.” The mermaid pulled a corked glass bottle from the array of objects tied to her waist. The liquid inside glowed an eerie, sickly green.

Um… is that actually safe to drink?

“Drink this, and you’ll grow a tail,” she said proudly. “It’s very rare, very precious. The transformation… permanent.”

“Wait, hold on—” Tatsumiya cut in, panic rising. “So if I drink this magic potion, I’ll be a merman forever? I’ll never get my human legs back?”

“That’s correct.” Her tone was firm as a reef. “The deep sea… is… where you belong.”

Tatsumiya was speechless. He’d lived his entire life on land. Carefree as he usually was, this was too big a choice to make on the spot.

“This is… way too sudden. Can I have some time before making any decision? I need some time, to think about this,” he said hesitantly.

The mermaid blinked, as if she’d expected this response. “I understand. When the sun sinks into the abyss… for the seventh time… I’ll wait here… for your answer.”

She pressed the bottle swiftly into his hands, turned without another word, and vanished into the depths of the sea waves.

Tatsumiya stared at the bottle in his hands, his mind spinning. Choosing the sea meant never returning to land. A tail would set him free underwater but leave him unable to take a single step on shore.

And if anything kept him on the surface, it was the people he knew.

His foster father Magumo was hands-off and wouldn’t interfere. His friends—the yokai who hung around the izakaya his father ran—kept joking he should just live in the ocean anyway, given how easily the heat on the land made him frequently sick.

Then, who else was there?

Akira. Waiting on the boat.

Wait—how long have I been down here?

Tatsumiya snapped back to reality and swam frantically toward the boat. Akira was usually gentle, but when he got truly angry, he was terrifying. Besides, Tatsumiya had never told Akira he was half-merman.

A memory surfaced.

Elementary school, summer break, local swimming pool. Tatsumiya had been showing off his diving skills in the deep end while Akira, pale on the pool’s edge, watched. A few minutes later, Akira—who couldn’t swim—had suddenly jumped in to “save” him and nearly drowned himself.

That’s when Tatsumiya realized: to Akira, he was just a human who happened to be good at swimming. And normal humans—drown.

A cold dread gripped him. When he reached the boat and found it empty, his fears came true—Akira must have jumped without hesitation, thinking that he had drowned.

Tatsumiya dove back in immediately and shut his eyes tightly to focus. He felt the flow of the sea currents with his entire body, and his ears tuned into the vibrations from all directions. With a sudden jolt, he shot through the water directly towards the direction of the setting sun.

In a few moments, he spotted a figure bobbing in the waves: Akira, flailing his arms in the water, clear signs of drowning.

Tatsumiya circled him with his arms in a panic and searched for a place to stand. No boats in sight, but the shore was not that far. Tatsumiya took a deep breath and swam to the beach with Akira in tow.

When they reached safety, Tatsumiya lay Akira on the sand and watched him, eyes closed shut. As Tatsumiya was watching, a drop of seawater dripped down from his lashes onto Aikra’s lips.

Tatsumiya’s heart skipped a beat. Oh yeah, come to think of it, humans need CPR when they drown.

As he leaned in, Akira suddenly coughed violently. Tatsumiya jumped back and started patting his back guiltily, hoping that Aikra could feel a bit better.

When Akira’s breathing finally steadied, his first words were:

“I’m so glad that you’re safe…”

“That’s my line!” Tatsumiya shouted, voice cracking with relief and lingering fear. “I’m the one who’s glad you’re okay! My heart almost stopped!”

“Well… you didn’t come back for so long… I waited… I was worried!” Akira laughed weakly, wringing out his soaked shirt.

“Don’t you ever do something that stupid again.” Tatsumiya gripped Akira’s shoulders hard, his hands still trembling. “Promise.”

Akira looked away with a sheepish smile. “I bet you think I’m ridiculous… jumping in when I can’t even swim…”

“Ridiculous? No way!” Tatsumiya brightened immediately, leaning in with a wide grin.

“Actually… knowing you worried about me that much makes me kinda happy!” He winked. “You really like me a lot! You do, don’t you, Akira?”

Akira laughed, and the tension left him. “Geez. You’re always like this.”

Seeing that bright smile, Tatsumiya’s playful mask slipped. He found himself staring—the twilight made Akira’s hair glow golden, water droplets clung to his shoulders, and the soaked shirt hung translucent against his skin.

Tatsumiya’s gaze was drawn, like a magnet, to Akira’s neck. Through the wet fabric, he caught a glimpse of something—a mark like an old surgical scar.

Tatsumiya’s throat went dry. Like in a dream, his hand reached up and pinched his own cheek.

Right… if I really am going back to the deep sea, I’ll confess to Akira before I leave.

 

 

“You’ve got some nerve, abandoning the boat like that.” Magumo’s voice was low and gravelly, like a rusty saw making its way through a gigantic piece of timber. Magumo’s brow was deeply furrowed. Tatsumiya couldn’t bring himself to look up to meet his adoptive father in the eye.

The izakaya had closed for the night. Magumo, a kappa and the proprietor, stopped sweeping and finally glanced at Tatsumiya, who was frantically scrubbing a small stain on the table, cold sweat beading on his forehead.

Tatsumiya braced for a scolding, but Magumo only sighed. The light sigh fell like dust to the cleanly-scrubbed floor.

“It’s not a problem. I’ll have the old Sea Hag bring the boat back. She owes me for her tab anyway.”

While Tatsumiya stood there, mildly shocked because of how easily his father dealt with the issue, Magumo suddenly leaned in and sniffed him. Tatsumiya flinched back in surprise.

“You… you met a mermaid today, didn’t you?” Magumo’s eyebrows shot up.

“What? You can tell just by smelling the scent?”

“Of course I can. The yokai aura on you is identical to your mother’s.” Magumo’s face darkened. “What did those lunatics tell you?”

“Hey! Don’t call them that, Pops!” Tatsumiya protested. “She was a nice person—well, she was a nice fish! She called me a merman prince!”

“…What?”

Tatsumiya quickly explained: the mermaid had given him a week to decide whether to return to the deep sea.

“Pops, what should I do?”

“Do what you wish,” Magumo said dismissively. “You’re an adult now. Make your own decisions.”

“I am actually kinda curious about life under the sea!” Tatsumiya said honestly. “I mean, it’s just not right to be merman royalty and know nothing about the kind of lives merman lead!”

“You need to do something about that thick skull of yours.” Magumo’s frown deepened.

“Th- thick skull?”

“Stop thinking you have to be ‘fully merman’ or ‘fully human’. You’re a half-blood, and that’s what it is.'” Magumo pressed a hand to his forehead and sighed heavily. “You’re young. Too damn young.”

“Well yeah, compared to a four-hundred-year-old geezer like you, everyone’s young!” Tatsumiya stuck out his tongue. His father’s advice always sounded like riddles.

Magumo tapped Tatsumiya’s head lightly with his broom. “Anyway—think hard. Think about what ‘home’ actually means to you.”

Tatsumiya rubbed his throbbing forehead and let the advice wash over him. He wasn’t like his father—he couldn’t extract profound truths from the chaos that run the universe.

 

 

Seven days.

He had to tell Akira before the deadline. There was no time to waste. Determined, Tatsumiya took Akira to the aquarium the very next day.

The summer vacation crowds were packed so tightly you could barely move. Akira’s steps grew unsteady—he’d always hated crowds. Tatsumiya grabbed Akira’s hand and pulled him through the throng to a secluded tunnel tank he’d scouted out beforehand.

Thank god I did my homework… at least in this darkness he won’t see how red my face is.

Inside the massive tank, jellyfishes drifted like translucent flowers. The ethereal blue glow lit Akira’s profile, making even his long lashes shimmer. Tatsumiya felt his heart hammer so hard he thought it might leap from his throat.

Alone together in the dim light… it’s just like a confession scene from a manga.

“Hey, Akira…”

His throat felt tight and his palms were slick with sweat. Akira turned; his eyes looked deeper than ever in the blue light. Pushed by that gaze, Tatsumiya gripped Akira’s shoulders hard—so tense he squeezed too tight, his voice trembling.

“There’s something I have to tell you! The truth is, I—”

Sensing his distress, Akira narrowed his eyes gently. “It’s okay, Ryu.”

His voice came out calm and steady. Akira laid his hand over Tatsumiya’s cold one, stroking it soothingly.

“Don’t look at the tanks. Just look at me. Take a deep breath.”

“…Huh?” Tatsumiya froze.

“It’s dark in here, everything’s blue, and there’s water everywhere…” Akira’s expression turned apologetic. “I made you remember how it felt to drown yesterday, didn’t I? I’m sorry.”

Akira reached up to touch Tatsumiya’s cheek gently. His fingertips felt cool. “Look, your hands are shaking. You’re breathing too fast.”

His gaze was so pure and caring it made Tatsumiya want to crawl into a hole.

No! That’s not it at all! I’m a merman—I can’t drown! Are you trying to be my mom or something?!

Inside, Tatsumiya was screaming, but outwardly his face cycled through shades of red and blue.

“N-no! Akira, I’m just nervous—”

“It’s alright.” Akira stepped even closer and stood on his toes, pressing his forehead gently against Tatsumiya’s Clink.

This is too close! Way too close! Tatsumiya could feel Akira’s warm breath on his lips and almost forgot how to breathe.

“There’s no need to push yourself when you are with me. Let’s go outside and calm down, okay?”

No! We can’t leave! An alarm blared in Tatsumiya’s head. If I back down now, it’s all over!

“I—”

Just as he was about to blurt everything out, he caught sight of their reflection in the glass: a silver-white fish gliding past, its shadow overlapping with his.

If I had a tail… is that how I’d look in Akira’s eyes?

Backlit by the ghostly blue glow, Akira stood there—the perfect silhouette of a pure, normal human.

Tatsumiya opened his mouth. No sound came out. He tried again—nothing.

“Akira…” he finally croaked, his voice hollow and weak. “You… you really don’t understand anything…”

“Hmm. I do understand.” Akira smiled kindly with relief and squeezed Tatsumiya’s stiff hand. “Come on, let’s get some ice cream and cool your head.”

… You don’t. You really, really don’t.

Tatsumiya followed him to the exit in resignation. The bottle in his bag pressed cold against his back through the fabric—a countdown ticking away. It was only when the bright rays of the sun bathed him that he regained his senses. He is running out of time…

 

 

After that, Tatsumiya became obsessed. He burned through his part-time savings, but his mind held only one thought: confess to Akira.

Day three: the summer festival—goldfish scooping, crowds in yukata. Fireworks burst overhead; he tried to speak but the words stuck in his throat like a fishbone.

Day five: a late-night movie. The flickering screen cast shadows across Akira’s face. Tatsumiya reached for his hand on the armrest again and again, each time pulling back at the last second. Every time he is about to touch Akira’s fingertips, a cold would suddenly grip him and make him extract his reaching hand.

Is there a name for this malady, Tatsumiya wondered. He liked Akira to the point where he would give his life, gladly, but his body fails to act in the way he desires it to be.

As if there is something sounding up a gong in his heart: “STOP! No more talking, or else it will all be over!!”

As the seventh day approached, anxiety squeezed his chest, making it difficult for him to breath. Between frantic efforts and midsummer’s brutal heat on land, his half-merman body was reaching its limit.

On the evening of the seventh day, the sky bled a gruesome, dripping red. Tatsumiya stood at Akira’s door. The moment he raised his hand to knock, a deafening roar filled his mind.

Drop. Drop. Like water falling into an empty tank—chilling to the bone. The door warped like a wave, emitting a sheen of cold silver light that made him sick to the stomach.

“Ta…? Tatsumiya!” Akira’s voice rang out as the door opened, but it sounded distant and hollow, like the wail of a bubble rising from the deep. Tatsumiya’s legs gave way and he plunged into darkness. 

The last scene he saw was Akira, running towards him frantically.

He fell into a dream—a long-sealed memory, damp and slightly sweet.

 

 

Third grade, summer. For Tatsumiya, it was literal hell.

The worn-down fan in the nurse’s office rattled uselessly, spewing wave after wave of hot air. Wrapped in ice packs and wet towels, Tatsumiya cursed deliriously in his fevered haze.

“Stupid Pops… what was he thinking? Even the yokai at the tavern said I didn’t have to go to school. Why do I have to shrivel up here with a bunch of humans…”

As he was about to evaporate from the sauna-like heat, the door to the nurse’s office opened with a bang.

“Tatsumiya-kun, did I wake you? I’m so sorry!” The nurse’s voice was congested as she led a boy inside.

It was Akira.

Back then, Akira had been thinner, quieter—like a blade of dried-up grass that might snap at any moment. His white shirt bore muddy footprints, his knees scraped raw and mixed with debris. He looked like a broken doll fished from a dumpster.

“Some kids… played a nasty prank on him. I’m going to get medicine, so let him rest next to you.”

The nurse left, pulling a blue curtain between the beds. The room fell eerily quiet except for the drone of screeching cicadas outside.

Without an apparent reason, and acting half on instinct, Tatsumiya slipped from his bed and peered through the gap in the curtain at the other boy, cast in shadow.

Akira moaned softly in his sleep and tugged at his collar. Was it because of the heat? The fabric slipped, revealing a scar on his neck.

It was dark reddish, centipede-like—crawling across his throat and disappearing into the hair at his nape.

It looked… as if his head had once been sliced clean off and hastily sewn back on.

Young Tatsumiya held his breath, and somehow crawled onto Akira’s bed, pressing his face close to the scar.

As he stared, a strange coolness spread through his parched throat. His heart pounded against his ribs, as if it is about to pop out. This emotion is not pity or anger, but something else entirely.

The infirmary peeled away like old wallpaper.

The stifling heat and cicada chorus were gone.

Tatsumiya found himself curled in a cold, silver-lit metal sink. The air reeked of the sweet scent of raw fish and iron. Long strands of red and white hair lay scattered around him.

He looked up. On a cutting board sat a woman’s severed head.

He knew instinctively: this was his mother.

Her eyes held a compassion as deep as light at the bottom of the sea. Even severed, her gaze wrapped around his trembling heart like a lullaby.

From her neck, ruby-red blood dripped, hitting the metal with heavy echoes.

It was the most beautiful red Tatsumiya had ever seen.

—And it matched the scar on Akira’s neck exactly.

“I found you… someone like me…”

In the sink, infant Tatsumiya reached out a trembling hand toward the red flowing from his mother, wanting to hold that hue of scarlet in his tiny outstretched palm.

In the present day, he reached out his hand and brushed the ugly scar on Akira’s neck.

An electric shiver ran through his entire body.

In that moment, he finally understood.

His obsession with Akira wasn’t some simple, superficial, light human “love”. 

It was a shared malady, a compassion shared by those who are diseased.

This man smelled exactly like the moment of his own birth—broken, raw, and sickeningly sweet.

The electric shiver, this shudder… rolled across more than a decade, threatening to swallow him whole like a raging tide of tsunami.

“Hah…!”

Tatsumiya gasped and bolted upright.

He was in Akira’s room. No smell of iron now—only Akira’s scent, which brought tears of relief to his eyes.

Still, the dream’s strange coolness stayed lodged in his bones, and dissipated much slower than usual.

He turned his head and watched Akira by the window. Akira’s back is turned, dressed in his ever-present high-collared shirt, fingers fiddling with some string.

Looking at Akira at work, Tatsumiya felt a tightness in his chest. I’m such a fraud. I can’t skip around in the sun like a normal person, but I can’t accept my dark and bizarre merman instincts either. I’m just a monster stuck between worlds, trying to stay close to a “proper human” like Akira.

If Akira ever found out about the bloody thoughts that filled my mind when I stared at that scar in the nurse’s office that summer…

“Ah, you’re awake.” Akira turned around.

In his hands was an upside-down teru teru bozu doll.

“When we were kids, I used to make these whenever you had a heatstroke,” Akira said casually, holding up the clumsy, inverted white cloth figure, talking lightly as if he was commenting on the weather. “I thought if I made it rain, it might cool you down. You always hated the heat, so… I thought it might help.”

That awkward, adorable little doll made Tatsumiya’s nose tingle.

“I’m not as weak as I used to be!” He forced himself upright with exaggerated energy and showed off his biceps. “Look! I’m Macho-Tatsumiya-sama now!”

“Ha, zero credibility there.” Akira laughed and reached over to press a hand against Tatsumiya’s forehead. “You’re still burning up, Mr. Macho.”

Akira’s eyes met his at close range. All the rehearsed confession lines evaporated from Tatsumiya’s head.

Right… Pops said it: “Stop thinking you have to be ‘fully merman’ or ‘fully human’……All you are is you yourself.”

Hey.. if these instincts are part of me, what is he running away from?

“Hey, Akira…” Tatsumiya stopped joking around, his voice turning serious.

“Will you… always be my friend?”

Akira blinked in surprise, then gave him an exasperated smile. “Of course. What are you even talking about. Are you still half-asleep or something?”

“Then… what if…” Tatsumiya grabbed the blanket edge, twisted it in his hands, and took one last gamble. “Even if I turned out to be… a total creep with some twisted fetish… would you still accept me?”

He braced himself for disgust. None came. The silence stretched on.

However, Akira was not even surprised. Not even one bit.

“Pfft… what kind of question is that?”

A low chuckle tickled his ear. Before he could react, Akira leaned down close; warm breath brushed against Tatsumiya’s ear. They were impossibly close—he could feel the scar beneath Akira’s collar shift with each breath.

“That’s fine with me. Besides…”

Akira’s joking voice dropped into an oddly sensual, honeyed tone Tatsumiya had never heard before.

“I might be way more of a pervert than you are.”

…

“…………Huh?”

Tatsumiya’s mind went completely blank.

Heat hotter than any summer fever surged straight to his head; his face burned red and felt like it would explode.

He didn’t need to return to the sea.

He didn’t need to pretend to be a “normal human”. 

Because, there had been a place for him all along, right here.

“Uugh…”

He let out a strangled yelp and, overwhelmed by shock and embarrassment, buried his face in the pillow and promptly fainted again.

“…Good grief. Fainting from just that?”

Akira said calmly, pulling the blanket over him and placing a fresh ice pack on his forehead with practiced ease.

“Sleep well, mister pervert.”

Tatsumiya stared at Akira’s face, hovering above so very closely. Those eyes that normally showed no drastic emotions now hold him and him only.

As he looked into those eyes, the crippling anxiety within him, the fear of being shunned as an “outsider” died down, and he felt peace for the first time in a long while.

He used to think all the time, thinking and fretting about where his home truly is, where did he belong? Was it the depths of the sea, dark, freezing, mysterious. Or was it Pop’s izakaya, loud with the clamor of customers and the greasy smell emitting from the kitchen? But it was until this moment, feeling the temperature from Akira’s fingertips, that he finally understood.

——Home is where Aikira is. It’s that simple.

Be it a monster with a fishtail, or a pervert with a messed up head. As long as this one person –Akira is here for me, as long as these hands would willingly take my hands in his, he is no longer the lonely orphan that nobody wants.

Tatsumiya thought these thoughts in a lightheaded swirl, soon his eyelids drooped, hazy in sleep.

The peace that came with knowing someone accepts your all enveloped him like warm water. He laid down all his defenses, and allowed himself to be drifted to sleep.

And this time, he cannot smell the blood in his dreams anymore.

All that he smelt was the light, welcoming scent of soap coming from Akira.

 

 

The izakaya that afternoon was quiet. Sunlight filtered through old wood, mixing with the faint scent of last night’s sake.

“Pops, I… decided not to go back to the deep sea.”

Tatsumiya kept his eyes down as he scrubbed the counter. He’d already returned the potion to the mermaid at the shore that morning. Letting it go made him feel light, lighter than he had ever felt in his life.

Magumo, arranging sake bottles on the shelf, paused briefly.

“…I see. Well, that’s fine too,” he said simply. His voice raw and scratchy as it always had been.

“Pops… did you know this would happen?” Tatsumiya looked up curiously at his father.

“Of course. Who do you think raised you?” Magumo turned around. His usually stern eyes held a warmth even Tatsumiya could recognize.

Tatsumiya grinned goofily and scratched his head. “But honestly! When I gave the medicine back, I expected a huge scene from the mermaid, but she just said ‘love conquers all’ and left. What the heck are those merfolk thinking?”

“Trying to understand lunatics is a waste of time.” Magumo snorted, sat down, and lit a cigarette.

Gray smoke curled upward. After watching the notes of dust dance in the light for a while, Tatsumiya asked casually, “Say… Pops. I never asked before, but… what was my mother like?”

Magumo’s cigarette-holding hand froze mid-air. Smoke veiled his expression as his mind wandered back twenty years, the walls of the izakaya seemed to melt into transparency.

“Hey, Mag!” In his memory, Tsubaki sat cross-legged on the threshold, her wild red-and-white hair framing a bratty grin as she slapped his shoulder.

“How about becoming my boyfriend? After all, I am such a beauty!”

Magumo, busy gutting fish, barely glanced up. “Forget it. I’m a freshwater yokai. Come back after you’ve washed off that seawater stink and turned into a river fish.”

“Tch, you’re so boring—” Tsubaki sighed dramatically and looked up at the sky. For just a moment, sharp loneliness flickered across her face.

“…Honestly, I don’t care who it is. As long as they take me away from this godforsaken deep sea. I’ll love whoever does that.”

The cicadas screamed outside. Tsubaki kept smiling, but her eyes bled with intense, frightening hunger.

“I’d give that person anything. Every scale, every bone in my body… even if they told me to carve out my own heart—”

She turned to Magumo with a smile so pure it was chilling to the spine. “I’d rip it out with my own hands and show it to them, gladly.”

Magumo felt a rare stab of pity. “Living like that… you’ll only get devoured by some bad man.”

He exhaled slowly. Behind the veil of smoke, a faint, bitter smile curved his lips—one Tatsumiya had never seen.

“…She was a mindless, beautiful lunatic.”

Tatsumiya laughed softly. “Sounds like I inherited some troublesome blood.”

They returned to cleaning while waiting for Akira. Akira had worked at the izakaya for two years now; among all the yokai, he was the only human—their bridge to the human world. He didn’t know their true identities, but without his calm presence and skill at the stove, the place would have folded long ago. For water creatures like them, mastering kitchen fire was no easy feat.

Tatsumiya’s heart brimmed with sweet anticipation.It was okay that he still couldn’t confess properly, after all.

His pulse quickened as he glanced at the clock. His heart light as a feather. After Akira’s shift, they’d grab ice cream together. This weekend, they’d go fishing. And maybe by next summer, he could finally work up the courage to kiss that centipede-like scar…

He believed they had all the time in the world.

Tinkle.

The wind chime rang, and Akira came in, his high-collared shirt perfectly buttoned as always.

“Akira! You made it!” Tatsumiya started to rush forward, then froze when he saw the apologetic look on Akira’s face.

“I need to talk to you both about something…”

Akira said quietly, his deep eyes flickering with an emotion Tatsumiya couldn’t read. “I will be quitting at the end of next month. My uncle arranged a tutoring job for me and… I can’t turn it down.”

“…Wha?”

The smile on Tatsumiya’s face froze instantly, as if a bucket of ice water tipped over his head and drenched him from head to toe.

The future he’d envisioned, the one he just thought would stretch on forever without end, crumbled beneath his feet like glass, shattering to the clear, cruel ring of the stained-glass wind chime.

 

 

End