FIC: Love is a Many-Tentacled Thing, SanaYuki, NC17 (2/6)
Title: Love is a Many-Tentacled Thing (2/6)
Author: Ociwen
Pairing/characters: Sanada/Yukimura with others
Rating: NC-17
Wordcount: 47 000
Warning (if any): Bad fic ahoy! This fic contains spoilers for 40.5, crude humour, bodily functions and crabs.
Summary: Sanada experiences a sea change in order to begin a relationship with Yukimura. Can he balance his secrets, the Rikkai Dai tennis club, and still achieve his goal?
Notes (if any): Thank you pixxers for all the help and koneko_meow for the beta. Written for a rude and ungrateful recipient in balls_it_up. Hopefully others can appreciate the humour-and horror-involved in badfic. Have your umbrellas ready!
This fic has been truncated into 6 sections due to length. These are not chapters. [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6]
"There's a brilliant player on the court," Yanagi says. "Raw talent. I told him to try out."
Yukimura looks at him. "Oh really?" he says. "A friend of Akaya's?"
Yanagi has been on edge all lunch hour. They have a perch on one of the hills around the tennis courts, near a shady magnolia tree, the one that all the junior high students like to confess under. The two of them absorb the sunlight while they can in the warm spring weather. It's cold enough that Yukimura has to sit on his jacket, but beyond that, the weather is beautiful-bright sun, blue sky filled with puffy clouds and even the crisp chill on the air feels good. Yukimura breathes it in deeply.
Beside Yanagi, Marui and Akaya wrestle over some snack that Jackal-foolishly!-only brought one extra serving of. Yukimura smiles at them, and rolls his eyes when he turns away.
"No, the exchange student staying with Niou," Yanagi says. "We played a bit this morning. I know you won't like his form, but you could correct that. He'd be a monster on the circuit."
Yukimura nods. "That's nice," he says. He leans back on the hill, cringing at the damp grass poking his back. Overhead, the clouds float by, lazy and fat. They're far enough from the school and the road that Yukimura can smell the fishy presence of the sea, a few miles away. He closes his eyes, imagining the feel of his watercolour pencils in his hand, imagining the beautiful rich blue the water must be today.
If only he could skip practice and bike down to his beach to paint today.
But he can't.
With a frown, he cracks an eye open. Yanagi looms over Yukimura's view, an unsaid well written across his expressionless features.
"Whatever," Yukimura says, "Have him come this afternoon and I'll see. Nishiki would be pissed if he was booted off the team his senior year, but…"
Yanagi smiles. He picks up the novel he set down between them. "Excellent," he says.
*--+--~--L--~--+--*
At lunch, Yagyuu and Niou eat on the rooftop. Sanada doesn't really know many other students yet, and he doesn't speak with many of his classmates-there are few opportunities and it's awkward. He has nothing in common with them. Their petty lives revolve around popular culture he doesn't understand and references he doesn't catch.
So he sits in class and stays quiet, letting Yagyuu stand up to answer the questions the teachers ask. Sanada lets the other students be social and laugh as he thinks about her and how he can possibly find her…
And the pool. He wants to know about the school pool. So he follows Niou to the rooftop, climbing stairs and slipping through the emergency door leading to the roof. The view when Niou pushes the door open and walks out is beautiful, and when Sanada notices the sliver of blue water in the east, his heart flutters. His fingers itch to reach out and touch the sea, to feel it floating over his body.
But he knows he can't. He hasn’t had an opportunity to slip down to the beach and jump in. He hasn't had an opportunity to watch her, either.
Sanada frowns.
Until he hears the sound of splashing. It perks his ears up; it perks his hopes up too. He walks over, ignoring Yagyuu (who walks onto the roof not more than a few steps behind him) and Niou. Around a storage shed, Sanada's eyes go wide. He sucks in a deep breath.
There, in the middle of the roof, is a pool. Not a natural pool like he was expecting, full of lily pads and lazy, floating turtles, maybe a few koi fish to nip at his toes. But this is still a long, rectangular structure holding enough water that he could…
Swim freely in…
"Excellent," he mutters.
Sanada rides high on the discovery of the pool all afternoon. He floats through the hallways after classes like a jellyfish on a current, light and weightless because he would have room to swim and stretch and move!
How he'd be able to use it and splash around without discovery, he doesn't yet know, but inside, confidence blooms that he'd find a way.
With Yagyuu and Niou, he floats to afternoon tennis practice. By the bank, he sees Yanagi talking with a smaller boy, one with seaweed hair and a dark smile. Yanagi nods to Sanada and the boy leans to ask him something.
"This is Akaya," Yanagi tells Sanada.
Akaya takes a step forward, hand raised in a wave. And in the process, he manages to step on Sanada's toes. Sanada hisses. Akaya cringes.
"Sorry," he mutters.
Sanada narrows his eyes, but he says nothing. Akaya forces an awkward laugh to cut the silence; it does nothing to help the throb of his toes. The temptation to smack the kid is strong, but Sanada holds back on it for now.
"Ah, you must be Sanada," he hears behind himself. A soft, strong voice that…
Sanada nearly chokes.
She walks up to him, hand on her hip and a cocked eyebrow under her blowing hair. Except she's not a she, she's a he and he has a tennis club uniform on and a racket in his free hand.
"Yukimura," Yanagi says. "This is Sanada Genichirou, the exchange student staying with Niou…"
But Sanada can't hear anything more, he can't hear anything, can't see anything, can't focus on anything except the crushing realization that he's been wrong all along about her because she's a him and this is a boy named Yukimura who plays tennis standing in front of him and…
If it was hard to breathe when his human lungs first formed, then now it is nearly impossible. Sanada feels overwhelmed by the sudden understanding. His body has gone numb, his insides have crumpled up like seaweed, even worse when Yukimura laughs and tells him,
"Let's see your tennis, Sanada."
In an instant, everything has become even more complicated. And Sanada doesn't think that mermagic or pearls of wisdom will help in the least.
*--+--~--O--~--+--*
Sanada turns out to have better tennis than Yukimura expected. He expected another one of Yanagi's "prospects"-a kid with drive and determination and two, maybe three years of tennis experience, but no real talent.
Sanada says he's never played tennis before.
Yukimura doesn't believe him. No one who plays like that has no tennis experience. "Sanada's just being humble," he murmurs to himself. Yukimura stands at the edge of a tennis court, his chest doing odd fluttering things the way it did the first time he saw Sanada.
I was psychic that day, he thinks.
Sanada moves faster than lightning across the court. He's at the ball before Akaya's finished with a follow-through. His defense is a strong mountain, better than Jackal's: nothing gets past Sanada, not even when Akaya kicks the net and goes into devil mode.
Yukimura's heart swells with pride, watching his ace-newly reunited with the team in high school-put all his effort into waving his racket around. But Sanada cuts his smashes down, wielding his racket like a sword and slicing into Akaya's shots, invading them like fire.
"You have a good eye for talent," Yukimura says to Yanagi.
Yanagi hums.
"But his form sucks," Yukimura says, as soon as Sanada takes the match point. He frowns as Sanada lowers his racket and wipes his brow with the back of his hand. His cap hides his eyes from Yukimura when he nods to Sanada to come over. Sanada shuffles. His feet flop in his shoes-Yukimura can't figure out if they're too big for Sanada, or if they just don't fit right.
Sometimes, Sanada walks stiffly. Other times, he walks and his knees are bowed. He's like a fish out of water off the courts. Yukimura has yet to figure out why.
Sanada won't look him in the eye, either, when Yukimura tells him, "I'm making you fukubuchou, but you need to work on your form. You're too stiff on the court when you serve, Sanada. Lean lower with your legs and you'll have even more power."
It's a lie, though. Sanada's serve is flawless, all raw power and unleashed speed, faster than Yagyuu's laser, quieter than Yanagi's cicada drop shot, heavier than the 108th Hadokyou, and yet…
Yukimura can't stop himself from saying these things to criticize Sanada. The words form on his tongue before he can think; Sanada makes him uncomfortable, when he turns and his eyes flicker over Yukimura's body, all dark and soul-searching and deep and Yukimura has to say these things because he's all tied up inside.
He walks beside Yanagi and Yagyuu into the change rooms after practice, sighing in the fragrant air, ripe with plum blossoms and the salty sea, which stings his senses with spring. Out of the corner of his eye, Yukimura watches Sanada pick up his tennisbag and shuffle with them, awkward but tall as his shadow catches the dying sun.
The weather is getting warmer and the crickets becoming louder at night. Yukimura pads into the clubhouse showers and he doesn't have to rush any longer, either, because the bite of winter has left, melted along with the last of the snow in the deepest shadows. Under the spray of water, he sighs as the hot water cascades over his body. It drowns his skin in a comfortable rush. He stands there so long that his soap starts to melt in his hand and Jackal and Yanagi and Yagyuu finish, wandering back to the lockers.
Sanada's still here, naked and dripping across the misty cloud of water. Yukimura wants to watch him, but he doesn’t understand why. There's something about the way Sanada stands there, turned from Yukimura as the water glistens down his broad back, over his flat butt. Sanada tips his head back, his hair dark and glossy and wet like the finest seaweed.
"Eh…" Akaya says, breaking Yukimura's thoughts when he suddenly prances over to Sanada. "Fukubuchou, you have weird feet."
And then next, Niou joins him, clamping a hand down on Sanada's back as it hunches with a cringe. "You're right, chibi," he says. Sanada swats at Niou's hand. He tries to backhand Akaya too, but they both jump out of the way, skidding across the tiles.
"Never noticed his webbed toes before!" Niou says. He laughs with his sly, narrowed eyes as Sanada flushes and tucks his toes together, trying to hide them when Yukimura looks, unable to stop his own curiosity.
"Maybe he's part sea bass!" Akaya says. His laughter is nearly as deep as Niou's, until Marui pipes up that he wouldn't mind some sushi right now.
Sanada growls, "I'm not!" as loud as he shouts for Akaya to go get changed, the insolent brat. Yukimura feels bad; guilt pricks his insides, but he doesn't say anything, he just stands there and shakes his head at Akaya, telling him no without a word because his throat has closed up again.
They're alone in the showers after Marui and Niou prance off, laughing at inside jokes about Sanada's feet and how he's a duck out of water and man, wouldn't that explain a lot? Sanada's turned away from Yukimura again. Yukimura approaches him carefully, seeing the hard set of Sanada's jaw and the way he presses his face to the tiled wall.
Yukimura clears his throat. Sanada's neck twitches. He doesn't turn around. Yukimura hovers his hand near Sanada's wet back, but he holds off touching Sanada because it might get weird. They're teammates and Yukimura doesn't want to scare the exchange student off, not when he plays tennis nearly as well as Yukimura himself.
Keeping his voice purposely low he says, "Sanada, you'll turn into an umeboshi if you stay in here much longer." Sanada makes a noise. "We're going out tonight, as a team," Yukimura adds. He swallows a swell in his throat, which rises like the tide, coming and going in a pulsing ache. "Will you come?"
Reluctantly, Yukimura can feel it, Sanada shuts the shower off. His back heaves with a heavy sigh as the water drips off his body. Yukimura leaves him alone to walk back to the locker rooms, frowning at Niou and Akaya and Marui who waggle their eyebrows and grin.
"Sushi?" Niou asks. "Sea bass, perhaps?"
Marui snorts and doubles over with laughter again. Akaya snickers until Sanada stomps into the room behind Yukimura and slams his locker open. Having his locker next to Sanada's makes Yukimura glad and he glances down to Sanada's feet. They look normal, they look fine, only his toes seem stumpier than Yukimura's own because the skin rises higher; there is a webbed part. He's seen weirder things in the hospital before.
A melancholic ache fills him. His eyes feel heavy with not-quite tears when he looks because he would tell Sanada they're fine, they won't hinder his tennis and Yukimura doesn't mind, but he can't bridge that gap. His body fails and his mouth goes dry and he berates himself inside for it. Instead, Yukimura does his best and flashes Sanada a quick smile, though he doesn't feel it. It's forced and Sanada just frowns and look away, pulling his socks on as quickly as possible.
His feet are still wet. It must be uncomfortable, but Sanada doesn't complain, not when they walk with the team, traipsing along the canals that lead towards the sea, in search of a cheap sushi joint, the butt of Niou's joking. Petals float along the canal surface, swirling in the slow-moving water as the team ebbs and flows, walking from one side of the street back to the canal boardwalk. Yukimura ghosts his hand along the railing edge. He stays close to Yanagi and Sanada, who walk in silence and seem to soak up the atmosphere of dusk. The purpling sun shines across the canal, out towards the sea in a dying gasp. The evening birds chirp in the fragrant pines and waxy bushes. Yukimura can hear the faint sounds of sea breezes rustling the grasses of the dunes. He aches to walk back along his beach, to listen to the rushing waves filling his ears and maybe even the gurgling noises of mermaids.
Mermaids! he thinks. Yukimura bites his lip to suppress a laugh, lest Sanada get the wrong idea that he's laughing with Akaya and Niou and Marui at him and not his own foolish thought.
"This place looks good," Marui announces. He waves his hand and Akaya and Jackal cross the street to where Marui leans into the window, reading a menu and nodding. Yagyuu and Niou follow, then Yanagi, Sanada and Yukimura.
They can't be more than a couple blocks from the sea, although further from Yukimura's place, his secluded beach, which is more south, more rocky, more undesirable. Still, from the windows of the sushi bar, Yukimura can see the piers lined with boats and skips. It makes him ache to run home, grab his watercolour pad and his pencils and ride his bike furiously to catch the rays of the last dusky sun on the water surface. It's calm tonight-no storm in sight-just a little breeze that makes the evening beautiful. To be sitting in a sushi bar with his teammates, deciding over what sushi combos to order feels good. And it feels even better with Sanada here.
"Chef's delight!" Marui announces to the waitress. "The extra super special combo version for-" he points his finger around the table, counting the team off, "-eight."
The sushi platter is as delicate as a painting, Yukimura would admit. Jewel toned sashimi and sushi: tuna, salmon, yellowtail, shrimp tempura that smells divine when he leans over to breathe in the oily fumes of the crispy batter, fresh from the deep fry. Even the baby octopus, violet-tinted tentacles curling over pristine rice makes Yukimura's mouth water.
Beside him, Sanada is warm and slightly sweaty, his arm pressed to Yukimura's because of the tight space around the table. Yukimura picks up the octopus sushi and sets it down on Sanada's plate, smiling when he says "Here you go."
Sanada looks down at the sushi and his eyes go wide. His mouth drops open and then his face flushes…
A shade of green.
"Don't you like sushi?" Yukimura asks. Before he can apologize, Sanada mutters an apology first, and Yukimura burns with shame at assuming things.
"Sea bass?" Niou offers, holding out another piece of sushi to Sanada with his chopsticks.
Sanada's throat bobs, his eyes even buggier than with the octopus.
"Stop that!" Yukimura snaps at Niou. Niou snorts and pops the sea bass sushi into his mouth.
Sanada says nothing, but Yukimura can feel the slight heaves of his chest. He's probably embarrassed, he thinks, and he doesn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Around the table, everyone digs in. Yagyuu asks Niou to pass a scallop and Akaya moans as he chews on a salmon sashimi. Marui asks Yanagi about the tennis lineup as he sprays California roll from his mouth and Jackal swipes another sea bass, which makes Niou grin in Sanada's direction.
The rumbling appetite Yukimura had before shrivels up completely. He leans toward Sanada, trying his best to smile, although he feels awful. His chest twists, much like the way Sanada keeps wringing a paper napkin under the table. "Do you want to get some ramen?" he offers.
Sanada blinks, but he doesn't look any less green. "It's fine," he mutters. He stands up, sliding off the end seat and bowing his head. "Thank you for the offer. It's fine." His words are as tight and drawn as the thin set of his mouth.
Yukimura watches Sanada leave, his heart growing heavy as the sushi platter empties.
Instead of helping himself to a crab roll, he grabs his bags and walks to the door, flinging it open to see if he can catch Sanada. The night air is thick with the smells of the ocean and frying food, noodle joints and katsudon and sushi and everything else that would normally make him even hungrier, if it weren't for the hollow ache inside. He looks for Sanada, whipping his head around as he runs down the street, running along the canal, but he sees no one else, just parked lorries and a few forlorn bicycles, neglected by their owners in favour of beer.
With a sigh, Yukimura gives up. His bags slump against his back. His heart tugs towards the sea and he begins a walk, breathing in the cool spring night as his footsteps take him towards the water.
*--+--~--V--~--+--*
One of the perks of assuming the position of fukubuchou is that Sanada is given a set of keys. He doesn't understand the human preoccupation with locking public buildings-like the school-but he follows the protocol and locks the clubhouse on the nights designated.
And he also is able to unlock the door to the roof of the school.
It's been over two weeks and he hasn't been able to confess to Yukimura. He doesn't know how he would even begin to confess and he's running out of time. The desire for Yukimura-even after the discovery that he wasn't a she-never left, if anything, it's stronger than ever.
He slips onto the roof under the cover of darkness. There is nothing but the stars overhead-as much as there can be stars, given that the bright lights of the city dull the sky into a murky blackness. Sanada creeps across the roof, cringing at the squeak of his runners. His legs twitch-it's late and he still hasn’t flopped around yet.
The pool is dark too, but there is enough light from the surrounding school buildings that he can see the shimmering edge. He peels his clothes off with a loud sigh. The water calls to him, urging him to come in and swim, and with silent motions, he dives in. The water laps at his body as his legs fuse together-not painful, just an odd tingling, as if his lower half has fallen asleep, only to wake up in his true form.
Sanada dunks his head under, his fin brushing the bottom of the pool as he swims a lazy circle. He stares up at the sky from under the water's surface. His gills open and close, sucking in the oxygen from the water. When he exhales, pushing water from his lungs, the bubbles tickle his neck. The pool water, however, stifles his laughter at the sensation rippling over his skin.
It feels good to stretch out. It feels good to swim a lap or three without interruption. It feels good to lie on his back and flip his fin up and propel himself through the smooth, cool pool water. His body falls lax and he can feel his body releasing itself and he floats under water, eyes open and grateful for the wetness lubricating his skin, his scales, himself.
Being a human twenty three hours of the day everyday is changing him, Sanada knows. Feelings he never had before as a merman, expressions and desires…now he feels them, even like this, with his tail and fin and gills, underwater, tasting the bitter chlorine that makes him gag sometimes (but its better than a tiny bathtub in Niou's house). Now, he wants Yukimura, however humans want each other, with a raw sexual desire that scares him, that makes him flush all over and gasp and get erections and sweaty palms and lose his composure.
Thinking about Yukimura now…Sanada wants him. He sighs into the water, watching the bubble of air jiggle to the surface and pop. His tail feels limp and tight all at once and his butt…Sanada never felt the numb coils of tension before, but he knows he wants to release it too. To…fertilize.
He rolls over, facing the bottom of the pool in an attempt to hide his flush even from himself. He touches his cheeks, feeling the feverish skin with his fingertips and then he groans. The noise vibrates through the water, a reminder of these new feelings wracking even his true form.
Yukimura, he thinks. What do I say to you…?
Sanada knows his problem is twofold: first, the confession of love. Second, the confession of his true self. But Sanada doesn't know which comes first because they are intertwined.
I changed for YOU! he thinks. You are the reason I came onto land…
If he's not quick, Yukimura will be the reason he has to go home soon, too. Sanada swallows a hard lump at that prospect. It stings his eyes thinking about that, about leaving Yukimura on land forever, nothing said, and being able to watch him from the rock shelves, nothing more ever again. It hurts his chest and makes him shiver and frown, moaning softly because it aches more than anything, a dull pain ever-present in his cartilage.
He wants to touch Yukimura and walk on the beach, webbed toes be damned. He wants to hold Yukimura's hand and feel the ocean breezes whipping through their hair. He wants to feel Yukimura laugh against his chest. He wants to lick the salt spray of the sea from Yukimura's face, to see if he would smile at Sanada the way he would smile softly at the sea as Sanada watched, alone and longing from the deep.
Sanada thinks and aches and splashes around until his legs rip apart. His lungs burn, eager for the air. The secret burden weighs his chest down as he pushes himself off the bottom of the pool, surfacing with a gasp. He bobs on the surface, the air cool on his ears and forehead until he drags himself out of the water, awkward and heavy on the pool ladder.
He does the responsible human duty and phones Niou's mother with the cellphone they bought for him. "I'll be back soon," he says. "Thank you for waiting." Niou's family is kind to him, accepting his situation without questions, without mockery Niou does, sometimes, teasing Sanada about his strange feet, his strange habits and the fact he hates sushi.
I don't hate sushi… he thinks as he walks on the empty, darkened streets towards Niou's home. But some of it…
It was too much like home. It was too much a reminder of his request of the keeper of the sea magic, asking to become a human so he could be with Yukimura. Seeing the boiled baby octopuses, frozen and screaming at him silently, even though they were dead, curled up in a death throng…
Sanada shakes his head. No! I won't think about that…
But their expressions haunt him. He can hear their plopping noises. He can see their shiny eyes, their tiny beaks, their ever-changing skin in the pavement as he shuffles home, although it's all in his mind, really.
Sanada adjusts his cap, trying to block out the shifting bushes that flower, smelling more fragrant that any coral, than any clams or anemones under the sea, and equally as colourful. He breathes in the air. He loves the sweetness of spring blossoms mixing with the sea salt and the mist rising off the ocean as the night tide comes in.
One day soon, he'll need to return unless he confesses.
Sanada clenches his jaw. He balls his fist. He turns the corner and opens the gate to Niou's house, letting himself inside.
Yukimura…
It's late and Sanada yawns, eager for sleep to rest his legs. They still prickle from his latest nocturnal transformation and they feel wet on the inside, as if he has a long, single stitch line where his tail was cut. He shuffles into the kitchen, nodding to Niou's mother and accepting a warm bowl of soup from her hands.
Nameko miso soup. Sanada sniffs it, inhaling the fumes; he can practically taste the earthy mushrooms and salty broth already. "Thank you," he mutters.
She smiles at him. "I know it's your favourite."
And it's ironic, that, because the soup tastes more of the land than the sea, but Sanada loves the slippery mushrooms. He loves the tiny green spring onions that burst sharp flavour over his tongue. He loves the silken, smooth cubes of tofu that slide down his throat along with the hot broth, warming his insides after a brisk walk home.
He slithers down in his chair, sated and satisfied, before he says good night and wanders upstairs to go to bed. Ghostly orange light from the streetlamps shine into the upstairs corridor, illuminating a path for Sanada. No one else, not even Niou's younger brother, are in bed yet. The silence up here is palpable, where Sanada can hear the sound of his own footsteps, his breathing, his thoughts.
Niou isn't home, Sanada can see that much when he flicks the light on. He must be out with Yagyuu, Sanada thinks as he pulls his clothes off for a second time. His hair is still wet from the pool and he smells faintly of chlorine, but his wide yawn and sluggish limbs draw him to the futon on the floor rather than a shower.
The night is warm enough-and the soup in his belly too-that Sanada can comfortably crawl under the futon cover in just a thin cotton yukata. After he turns off the light, he sighs into the pleasant quiet. No one asking him asinine questions about Yagyuu in class, no one snoring or flopping around on the bed. No one else.
Just him.
Sanada shifts his eyes, but there's really, honestly no one else in the room with him. Just the lumpy, messy sheets on Niou's bed, masquerading as his form. With another sigh, Sanada slips his hand under the flap of the yukata, loosening the tie just a little. He bites his lip as he groans when blood rushes to his swelling cock. His mind floats to Yukimura, drifting thoughts and images of Yukimura playing tennis, his hair damp with sweat and the muscles of his bum shifting under his shorts. Yukimura on the beach, sitting on a bleached piece of driftwood, licking his lips and sketching something on his paper pad as he looks out onto the ocean, his gaze burning through Sanada, who watches and waits and hopes.
Tension rises in his belly. His fingers curl around his dick, stroking the head slowly as he savours the feeling, the pleasure coiling between his legs, tides of sensation rising and rising as his hand moves faster, grips harder. Sanada exhales, digging his feet in and raising his hips, bucking into the sensations that make his knees turn to jelly and his head light.
"Yukimura…" he whispers. I want you so much…
If nothing else, Sanada would become human all over again just to experience these emotions, these feelings in his body as he flushes. He pants and squeezes his hand, grunting and shifting his legs under the futon cover, shaking at the ripples of pleasure that tingle his skin, that shiver down his back, that-
"Need a hand?"
Sanada's eyes flash open. Niou closes the door behind himself and walks over, leaning down onto his knees over Sanada before Sanada even has a chance to pull his hand out of his yukata and try to gain some sense of composure. Anger rises inside, and at the same time, his innards slither down to his feet because Niou looms over him, close enough that his hair brushes Sanada's face. His breath is hot in Sanada's ear.
"I don't mind helping," he says. With a low grunt, Niou cups his own cock, rubbing his palm over the bulge between his legs. Sanada continues to stare, wide-eyed: he'd thought humans did these things alone, in private, not with each other…
"I'm always so fucking hard after going out with Yagyuu," Niou murmurs.
Face on fire, Sanada removes his hand from between his legs, wiping it on his belly in the process. He shifts under the futon cover and sucks in an unsteady breath. "I did not want to know that," he says through his teeth.
"And I don't want your help," he adds.
Niou shrugs. "Worth a try." He stands up and flops backwards onto his bed. "By the way, deal is-you don't say anything to Yagyuu and I don't say anything to Yukimura and we forget all this, ne?"
Any other time, Sanada might shake on it. As it is, precum sticks between his sweaty fingers. He grunts and rolls onto his side, half-wishing he'd taken Niou up on the offer. His dick is hard enough he's about to burst. Lying on his side only adds to the pressure straining between his legs. Sanada closes his eyes, trying to remember the mermeditation he used to practice under the sea. But his dick is distracting, pulsing against his thigh, hot and heavy.
When Niou leaves the bedroom to brush his teeth and shower, Sanada's barely got a hand back under his yukata again before he's shuddering and shaking and spilling hot come onto his hand.
Yukimura's name is mouthed on his lips.
*--+--~--E--~--+--*
Yukimura can't stop thinking about Sanada.
He sits in class, doodling in art in his sketchbook, trying to recreate a seascape from memory, all flowing lines of ink and washes of blue. It looks more like a mess of kanji characters for "strength" and "determination" and "rice paddy" and even "webbed toes". He flushes and crumples the paper up, thankful that he's not in Niou's class again this year.
Two days ago Niou had the gall to walk up to Yukimura-not long after the sushi incident with Sanada-and ask Yukimura "Do you have a crush on anyone?" Yukimura had been adjusting the ball machine, trying to help Akaya out. When Niou asked that question, all cat smiles and waggling eyebrows, the balls shot straight up from the machine and ripped a hole through the basketball nets in the gymnasium.
"You seem distracted," Niou says, when Yukimura picks at his lunch, looking off into space and dropping his chopsticks on the floor of the classroom.
"Why are you here?" Yukimura asks him. He hands Niou a clipboard for the beautification committee. Niou looks down at it and blinks, before passing the clipboard off to Yagyuu, who also decided to randomly show up and bother Yukimura.
Yukimura does his best to ignore Niou, but he can't shake the itching feeling, the shiver at the back of his neck that Niou knows something he doesn’t. Feeling flush, Yukimura cranks open a classroom window and chews on his rice. It's hard to swallow when his mouth has closed off and the nori congeals on his tongue, salty and slimy and sticking to his back teeth.
He rests his cheek on his fist, looking out at the expansive blue sky. It's a beautiful spring day; he wishes that he were anywhere else than trapped in school, going over paperwork for the beautification committee, all numbers and dates for meetings that mean nothing. Yukimura wonders about Sanada, who is probably off eating lunch with Yanagi somewhere, muttering about the tennis club under a patch of sun on the roof, maybe.
Yukimura envies Yanagi. He narrows his eyes at the thought of seeing Yanagi and Sanada leaning heads together, all friendly in a way Yukimura never could be because he has these awful thoughts.
The awful thoughts come and go: in school, during lunchtime, at home. When he lies in bed at night, Yukimura thinks of running along the beach with Sanada, dragging Sanada by the hand through the crashing white-capped waves until they fall down in a heap on the sand. Yukimura shifts in his bed, the mattress creaking. He bites his lip to keep quiet and slips his hand between his legs. Thoughts of the beach and Sanada and the rising tides make tides of pleasure filter through his belly, his cock swollen and sensitive under the touch of his hand.
He thinks about Sanada's toes and the extra skin between them. Does it feel different from Yukimura's toes? Would Sanada moan if Yukimura licked them?
He shivers and cups his straining balls with the other hand. The jolts of sweet pain make his thighs shake and his toes dig into the sheets as he jerks himself off, thinking of nothing, thinking of the sea and the salty wind and the grainy sand and Sanada…
Yukimura doesn't like the way Marui and Akaya and Niou snicker behind Sanada's back, but he leaves Sanada to deal with it, to use his backhand slap and knock the teasing out of them. He murmurs to Sanada "Extra laps for any behavior Rikkai would frown down on", hoping Sanada will understand the meaning behind his gesture, but Yukimura never knows if Sanada catches on.
Sanada is hard and dense like a mountain, and impossible like the sea. Yukimura wants to capture him, the same way he wants to capture the perfect view of the ocean, but Sanada keeps slipping through his fingers. He'll tell Yukimura to go home and that he'll lock up the clubhouse. Sanada talks with Yanagi not him. He lives with Niou of all people and skips out on sushi nights with the team. He's the perfect student-Yukimura's heard from Yagyuu that Sanada and Niou sometimes do homework together at night.
I don't believe that, he thinks. Niou doesn't DO homework to start with.
Sanada puts up with Akaya half the time and smacks him across the cheek for his lip the rest. When Sanada offers to lock up tonight, Yukimura shakes his head. "No, I will," he says. He looks up at Sanada, pleading with his eyes, forcing his way to Sanada's gaze under that dark shady cap. Please stay here. Please talk with me. Please let me understand you.
Sanada opens his mouth, hesitating on words that he never says. Slowly, he nods and ducks his head. "All right," he mumbles. "Good night."
And with that, he grabs his tennis bag and leaves. Yukimura's hopeful smile falls when the door slams closed behind Sanada.
"Dammit," he murmurs, slamming his hand down on the bench beside him. His hand throbs, the bench harder than he thought on his knuckles.
He could mope, he could run after Sanada and beg him to stay, but Yukimura hesitates too, because these feelings are strange, pulling at his chest the way the sea tugs, demanding attention, demanding something he can't grasp yet. But he can investigate.
Yukimura shifts his eyes. No one else is around. Diffuse purple light glimmers through the window of the clubhouse, illuminating a path straight to Sanada's locker cubby. He bites his lip. I shouldn't…he thinks, but his hands say otherwise, pulling at the latch to open it.
He flushes, face feverish and head light, as if he's drunk a glass of sake. His legs are a little unsteady when he peers inside, searching for clues about Sanada, about whatever he can find. What does Sanada feel? Does he like the tennis club? Does he-could he-like Yukimura?
Yukimura looks down at his feet, unable to face Sanada's locker without blushing harder. He lifts his eyes and smiles to himself when he looks inside. Normally, Sanada's standing in front of it, blocking Yukimura's view. Now, he can see everything.
And it's depressingly boring.
His shoulders sink.
One single pair of relatively new runners on the bottom. A jacket hung on the right-hand hook. A tennis rulebook on the middle shelf and a spare water bottle, half-full, on the top shelf. No plastered cutouts of models like Jackal has, no cutouts of Avril Lavigne and anime characters like Marui has. No mounds of garbage like Akaya. No mouldy sneakers like Niou. No tennis magazines and old school notes like Yanagi. Not even a stinky, fermenting bottle of Pocari Sweat like Yagyuu has.
"He's not even human," Yukimura mumbles. With a heavy sigh, and a deeper press on his shoulders, Yukimura grabs his tennis bag and locks up. He shuffles as he walks home, taking the long way, walking behind the train tracks and listening to the rattling percussion and the soft chirps of late afternoon birds. The moon is a pale crescent on the horizon, bright against the darkening sky. He checks his watch, but there isn't enough time to walk down to the ocean before supper.
That thought, too, makes his shoulders slump even lower. Yukimura sniffles. The air grows thicker by the day, heaving with upcoming summer heat and the heavy scent of the sea that fills his lungs like a drug. He knows that Sanada isn't boring. He knows that Sanada must have something under that hard, crab-like shell. Yukimura wants to seep under it and find out.
Sanada, why did you come here-
His cellphone starts to buzz in his pocket. Yukimura's heart swells, expanding in his chest to press against his ribs, but when he sees the number and "unknown sender", his frown returns.
He flips his cell open. "Yes?"
"Yukimura-kun? This is Kato, captain of the swim club at school. I wanted to call because we’re having a problem."
Yukimura clicks his tongue. A train rushes past, drowning out whatever Kato says next. Irritated, he snaps, "Well it's not my problem!"
"Actually, we at the swim club think it is but…ah…" Kato pauses. "Um…can we meet to discuss it tomorrow?"
Yukimura exhales a huff into his phone, making sure Kato knows how annoyed he is. He walks down the street, leaning against his cell phone and shaking his head. "We have practice at 7:30. Tomorrow's no good."
"It has to be tomorrow! It has to be before the swim club starts. Please please come to the school pool at 7am. It concerns one of your players-"
"Players?" Yukimura says, echoing Kato. He scrunches his brow. "Well…fine. Seven then."
He lies in bed and worries. Kato wouldn't say over the phone what the problem was. Yukimura watched the evening news, frantic that someone had drowned, but there was nothing. He called Yanagi to ask the stats of the health of the team. Everyone was fine. Yukimura even called Niou's number; he was too ashamed to try Sanada without a good reason.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
Niou grunted.
"Is…aa…" Yukimura's face was on fire and he ducked deeper into the shadows of his bedroom, just in case anyone walked by his bedroom and asked. "Is Sanada okay?"
A pause.
Yukimura's pulse raced. His mouth went dry, even in the damp evening warmth.
"Yup, he's fine too," Niou said. That was enough to sate Yukimura's need to know.
But now, he's still concerned. He should have pressed Niou for answers. He should have told Niou to put Sanada on the line. Sanada…he wouldn't have eaten some sushi and passed out and then Niou covered it up and dumped his body into the sea…?
Yukimura swallows and squeezes his eyes, tears pricking the edges as he sees an image of Sanada in his mind. In watercolour-of course-the colours bleeding pale and muted as Sanada's pale corpse floats on the morning swell of sea, the water lapping at his ankles, the fish eating his-
"No!" Yukimura whispers. He shakes his head. "No! No!"
He can't stand the tension inside, the coils of agonized unknown that eat him, so he flips his sheets off, crawls to his desk and frantically types Sanada's number into his cellphone.
One ring.
Yukimura bites his lip.
Two rings.
Yukimura squirms.
Three rings.
Yukimura sucks in a breath.
"Hello?"
Sanada.
And the realization hits him that he has no good reason to call. Yukimura's face burns. He waves his hand and stutters over an excuse, asking Sanada if he would mind getting out the balls before practice tomorrow.
"Sorry for the trouble," Yukimura murmurs.
"It's okay," Sanada says.
He hangs up, but Kato's unexplained intrusion, his strange phone call lingers on Yukimura's mind, the way the chirping of the crickets seeps through his open window, heralding sleep with long, mournful cries.
"-so you see, there's the problem," Kato says. He pokes at the slimy trail with the net, scooping it up and holding it aloft, water dripping from the mesh back into the pool.
"That's the tenth time. Almost every single night." Kato scrunches his nose up.
Yukimura raises an eyebrow. "It doesn't even look human," he says. Kato dumps the net into a bucket and Yukimura peers inside, staring at the strand. "It looks more like-"
"-a giant fish poo," Kato finishes.
"Yeah…."
"One of our seniors said he saw someone in a tennis uniform two nights ago sneaking onto the roof and he thought he heard splashing too. It's one of your guys." Kato pulls on a pair of rubber gloves, cringing at the large fish poo in the bucket. "It's gotta stop," he says, "or the school will find out and then the guy's gonna be really embarrassed when every student finds out."
Yukimura continues to frown and shake his head. If he'd known that Kato would have dragged him up to the rooftop on a cold, dewy morning to show him a giant fish poo, Yukimura would have stayed to help Sanada set up the balls instead.
"You're sure its one of my team?" he asks, raising a second skeptical eyebrow.
"Look," Kato says as he drops the bucket. It hits the ground with a loud plop, making Yukimura wince and jump aside in case the poo hit him. "Takki saw a tennis club member-and he's a reliable guy. Just talk to your team and maybe that'll stop this. It's fucking sick and we're tired of fishing out-"
"-fish poo," Yukimura offers. He flashes Kato a smirk.
"-yeah, well, it's nasty," Kato says.
Yukimura groans. "All right, I'll talk to the club," he says. "But for all your Takki-kun knows, it could be a…a…" Yukimura waves his hand, thinking aloud, "-a mermaid splashing around here and leaving you presents."
"That's not funny," Kato snaps.
Yukimura happens to think it is.
*--+--~--S--~--+--*
"So," Yukimura says, "that's the situation."
Blood rushes in Sanada's ears. A shiver runs down his spine, cold and clammy over his skin and he's grateful that he's wearing his jacket today, otherwise Yanagi or Yukimura would notice the frigid sweat breaking out over his arms. With a shaking hand, he adjusts his cap, hiding his face too.
"What should we do?" he grumbles.
"Hn," Yanagi says. He looks at Sanada, and then turns to Yukimura, too slow for Sanada's comfort. "This calls for one action and one action alone."
Yukimura nods.
"A stakeout."
Sanada didn't know. Not until Yukimura approached him and Yanagi this afternoon, whispering that he had some "important team business" to discuss. Even now, waiting for Yukimura outside the conbini, shame stains his face, hot and angry on his cheeks.
All those years living in the ocean, he never once gave it a second thought. He was sentient-yes, and he is sentient now, too-but…with the water slipping over him, caressing his tail and body all of the time, he rarely noticed the releases he'd make into the water. It just was. On land, it’s a different sensation. Water doesn't float through his body. He's heavy and dry and the feeling of having to go is that much more pressing when he doesn't have to.
It never occurred to him in the pool, that needed hour of transformation each day, that he would have been leaving…
Sanada clenches his jaw at the thought, at his own foolish forgetting.
"How long will this take?" he asks Yanagi.
Yanagi squints into the amber sun, shining its last gasp on the wide windows of the store. He looks down at his wrist to check his watch. "The swim team captain said that the poopetrator-" Yanagi coughs on a laugh. Sanada coughs on a choke.
"-I mean the perpetrator arrives in the late evenings, no later than midnight, we'll assume, seeing as he's likely a student at school."
Sanada grunts. Yukimura emerges from the conbini with a bag of bentos and a smile. For a moment, Sanada can forget everything else, everything but the light shining golden across Yukimura's face, a halo of wind lifting his hair up. And Sanada's beating heart, too.
The reality of the situation hits him when they climb the stairs to the school rooftop. "Let's sit here," Yukimura says. He points to an alcove, sheltered from the wind but facing the direction of the ocean. Sanada sets his bags down and Yanagi spreads his jacket on the paved roof before he sits down first.
Yukimura sits beside Sanada and Sanada stiffens. He concentrates on his breathing when Yukimura passes him the omelet bento and his fingertips brush Sanada's hand. Sanada is sweaty. He's damp and gross and shaking and he stares at his feet, worry gnawing at his stomach that Yukimura will find out. Yukimura jokes with Yanagi that the swim team is crazy.
"I think they think mermaids live here!" Yukimura says. His laughter chimes in the air and he pushes back a lock of hair, his lock on Sanada's heart as tight as ever.
Sanada knows he can't tell Yukimura yet, but he has a week left. His bento sits untouched as he stares into the distance, watching the buildings recede as night swells and the crickets come out to sing, even high up here on the rooftop. The pool hums, louder than the ocean, but Sanada can feel the tides pulling him, pushing him, tempting him with their watery cool.
His legs twitch, eager and desperate to transform and soak and swim. I can't, he thinks. Sanada splays his fingers across the top of his thigh, trying to calm the increasing shakes that make his legs twitch and spasm, itching to change. The collar of his shirt feels too tight, straining and hot where his gills should be. Sanada fights to keep his head up but the air is so dry, parching his tongue and making the lump of fear in his throat all the more palpable the longer they sit here.
"Perhaps…I could stay," he offers when Yukimura yawns.
Yukimura shakes his head. "I don't-I mean, we don’t want you to be alone here," he says. It is his turn to look at his bento and touch his toes together. The light is too poor from the dim floodlights on the roof for Sanada to tell, but Yukimura touches his face and fans it with a hand.
"Are you hot?" Yanagi asks. "Are you feeling all right?"
Yukimura shakes his head. "I'm fine."
"You could go home," Sanada says. He bites the inside of his bottom lip. I need this pool, Yukimura. Please understand…
Yanagi sends Sanada a pointed look after he turns to Sanada, eyes drifting over the untouched bento. "Not hungry, Genichirou?" he asks.
Sanada picks at the bento with shaking chopsticks. "I will be…good to catch this person," he mutters. Under his breath, he makes a silent prayer to the kami of the sea to help him, to preserve his secret from Yukimura until he's ready. The food sits solid and heavy in his stomach, tasting ashen and earthy. His knees ache until he sits up and tucks them under his body.
Sanada sets the bento down. Yukimura does the same; Sanada can see he hasn't touched much of his dinner either.
"I just want to get this over with," Yukimura says. "The swim team captain was really unpleasant about the whole thing. It didn't even look human!"
Yanagi hums. "Oh?"
Sanada fidgets. His toes lose consciousness, prickling uncomfortably as the first few drops of rain start to fall. The water patters across his bare arms and makes him shiver. But his legs fare worse. The water taunts him, teases him, urges him to run for the pool and dive in to stop the agonizing passing of time as Yukimura and Yanagi pull umbrellas out, ignorant that they are waiting for the person who is sitting right with them.
Yukimura yawns.
Yanagi sighs.
Sanada balls his fist. He forces himself to keep a straight face as pain cuts through his legs, as the tears rip deeper, down to the bone that needs to morph soon or he’ll be a fish out of water, gasping for air and dying, choking and Yukimura will laugh at him with that beautiful, soft voice.
The rain laps at his sneakers, it kisses his face, sliding down the side of his face where his cap doesn't cover. Sanada changes position, wanting to hug his legs and squeeze his eyes at the deep-rooted ache that slices his belly, his legs. The time passes slowly, painfully slow. The city lights blink, all bright yellows and orange and red in the inky sky, not even dulled by the rain.
"No one's shown up yet," Yukimura says. He yawns again and stands up. His umbrella shakes fat drops of rain onto Sanada's head, but the drizzle has lessened. His heart swells, hope that Yukimura and Yanagi will leave him before its too late makes Sanada's insides leap up into his throat.
He nods. "You can go. I'll stay."
The rain stops as suddenly as it began. A fierce quiet descends in the moments before Sanada's ear prick at the distance roar of the ocean, alive and thriving tonight while he shrivels, dry and aching and desperate for the pool's water to wash over his body and sate that primal need.
Yukimura hesitates. Sanada regrets it, too. Another night, another possible confession he could have made failed because Yanagi was here. He wants to take Yukimura in his arms and hold him tight, to breathe in Yukimura's damp hair and wipe the sad smile from his face, but Yukimura would never accept that.
Not right now.
And besides, Sanada can't concentrate, not when his body leans, strains, needs to go in the pool before midnight ticks down and traps him. A fish out of water.
"All right," Yukimura murmurs. "Yanagi, are you coming?"
Yanagi glances at Sanada, a blank expression on his face. For a long moment, Sanada holds his breathe, tension coiling up as Yanagi pauses. Yanagi blinks and then opens his mouth with deliberate tardiness. "Good night," he tells Sanada. "Call us if you find anyone."
The door to the school has barely clicked shut before Sanada has peeled off his clothes. His knees are jelly, as insubstantial as jellyfish when he staggers to the pool's edge, collapsing into the water with a loud splash that echoes over the rooftop.
He should care. He should have taken care to muffle his noises, to shut off the lights, to dive in silently, but he can't, not when the water swallows his head, his body and his legs meld into one single tail. His body releases, a pent up sensation he hadn't noticed until his tail and stomach goes slack, relaxing into the water as he swims through it. His gills suck in a gasping, refreshing gulp of water that tickles his neck and Sanada gurgles.
"Tarundoru…"
He sighs and rolls over onto his back, floating under the water and staring up at the surface, seeing a shadowed, rippling face peering down at him.
Sanada's insides freeze.
"I knew there was something," Yanagi says. He taps his long fingers on the edge of the pool. A pregnant pause passes but Sanada offers no answer. He turns away and slips his head under the water until it covers everything but his eyes. Chlorine stings his vision, blurring Yanagi's satisfied smirk.
"Is there something you'd like to tell me, Genichirou?" he asks.
Sanada continues to breathe through his gills. He lifts his eyes to Yanagi and surfaces a little higher. "Isn't it obvious?" he spits. Sanada swishes his tail through the water with a heavy sigh. The air pushed out of his gills makes a raspberry in the water.
Yanagi chuckles. "May I touch it?" he asks.
Sanada stares at him, pursing his lips. Yanagi raises his eyebrows and shrugs. "It's curious," he says. "That creatures like you exist."
"I'm not a-"
"I could tell Yukimura." Yanagi pulls his cellphone out and Sanada's heart stops dead in his chest. The water takes on a sudden chill. His tail falls slack, his fin limp.
"I could call him and tell him about you," Yanagi says.
Sanada swallows hard. A faint breeze rustles the trees and combs through his hair, cold compared to the temperature of the water, and as brittle as Yanagi's narrow-eyed look he gives Sanada.
Yanagi tucks his cell away. Sanada keeps staring, tense and taught and fraught with worry. Anyone but Yukimura…
"However, your condition is more interesting to me than pitiable," Yanagi says. He leans back over the edge of the pool, but he stops before his finger swirls the water. With a slight curl of his lip, he adds, "I gain nothing with your secret," he says. "Whatever rules mermen have underwater, humans help their friends out. Secrets hurt."
Slowly, Sanada nods. Yanagi's words echo in his mind even after he crawls out of the water, his hands and feet shriveled up when Yanagi hands him a towel from his tennisbag. Guilt pricks at his chest, a burden slumping his shoulders when Yanagi grabs the net and fishes the poo out, dropping it into a bucket that he and Sanada flush down one of the fourth floor toilets.
"I wonder what Yukimura will think of this," Yanagi murmurs after they rinse the bucket and switch off the roof lights.
Sanada trudges along, his body tired and little refreshed. He closes his eyes and shakes his head. "Don’t tell him. Please," he whispers.
Secrets may hurt, but they won't hurt nearly as much as it would to receive Yukimura's rejection.
I need more time, Sanada thinks.
Yanagi says, "What are you afraid of?"
Sanada can't answer.
*--+--~--Y--~--+--*
Author: Ociwen
Pairing/characters: Sanada/Yukimura with others
Rating: NC-17
Wordcount: 47 000
Warning (if any): Bad fic ahoy! This fic contains spoilers for 40.5, crude humour, bodily functions and crabs.
Summary: Sanada experiences a sea change in order to begin a relationship with Yukimura. Can he balance his secrets, the Rikkai Dai tennis club, and still achieve his goal?
Notes (if any): Thank you pixxers for all the help and koneko_meow for the beta. Written for a rude and ungrateful recipient in balls_it_up. Hopefully others can appreciate the humour-and horror-involved in badfic. Have your umbrellas ready!
This fic has been truncated into 6 sections due to length. These are not chapters. [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6]
"There's a brilliant player on the court," Yanagi says. "Raw talent. I told him to try out."
Yukimura looks at him. "Oh really?" he says. "A friend of Akaya's?"
Yanagi has been on edge all lunch hour. They have a perch on one of the hills around the tennis courts, near a shady magnolia tree, the one that all the junior high students like to confess under. The two of them absorb the sunlight while they can in the warm spring weather. It's cold enough that Yukimura has to sit on his jacket, but beyond that, the weather is beautiful-bright sun, blue sky filled with puffy clouds and even the crisp chill on the air feels good. Yukimura breathes it in deeply.
Beside Yanagi, Marui and Akaya wrestle over some snack that Jackal-foolishly!-only brought one extra serving of. Yukimura smiles at them, and rolls his eyes when he turns away.
"No, the exchange student staying with Niou," Yanagi says. "We played a bit this morning. I know you won't like his form, but you could correct that. He'd be a monster on the circuit."
Yukimura nods. "That's nice," he says. He leans back on the hill, cringing at the damp grass poking his back. Overhead, the clouds float by, lazy and fat. They're far enough from the school and the road that Yukimura can smell the fishy presence of the sea, a few miles away. He closes his eyes, imagining the feel of his watercolour pencils in his hand, imagining the beautiful rich blue the water must be today.
If only he could skip practice and bike down to his beach to paint today.
But he can't.
With a frown, he cracks an eye open. Yanagi looms over Yukimura's view, an unsaid well written across his expressionless features.
"Whatever," Yukimura says, "Have him come this afternoon and I'll see. Nishiki would be pissed if he was booted off the team his senior year, but…"
Yanagi smiles. He picks up the novel he set down between them. "Excellent," he says.
*--+--~--L--~--+--*
At lunch, Yagyuu and Niou eat on the rooftop. Sanada doesn't really know many other students yet, and he doesn't speak with many of his classmates-there are few opportunities and it's awkward. He has nothing in common with them. Their petty lives revolve around popular culture he doesn't understand and references he doesn't catch.
So he sits in class and stays quiet, letting Yagyuu stand up to answer the questions the teachers ask. Sanada lets the other students be social and laugh as he thinks about her and how he can possibly find her…
And the pool. He wants to know about the school pool. So he follows Niou to the rooftop, climbing stairs and slipping through the emergency door leading to the roof. The view when Niou pushes the door open and walks out is beautiful, and when Sanada notices the sliver of blue water in the east, his heart flutters. His fingers itch to reach out and touch the sea, to feel it floating over his body.
But he knows he can't. He hasn’t had an opportunity to slip down to the beach and jump in. He hasn't had an opportunity to watch her, either.
Sanada frowns.
Until he hears the sound of splashing. It perks his ears up; it perks his hopes up too. He walks over, ignoring Yagyuu (who walks onto the roof not more than a few steps behind him) and Niou. Around a storage shed, Sanada's eyes go wide. He sucks in a deep breath.
There, in the middle of the roof, is a pool. Not a natural pool like he was expecting, full of lily pads and lazy, floating turtles, maybe a few koi fish to nip at his toes. But this is still a long, rectangular structure holding enough water that he could…
Swim freely in…
"Excellent," he mutters.
Sanada rides high on the discovery of the pool all afternoon. He floats through the hallways after classes like a jellyfish on a current, light and weightless because he would have room to swim and stretch and move!
How he'd be able to use it and splash around without discovery, he doesn't yet know, but inside, confidence blooms that he'd find a way.
With Yagyuu and Niou, he floats to afternoon tennis practice. By the bank, he sees Yanagi talking with a smaller boy, one with seaweed hair and a dark smile. Yanagi nods to Sanada and the boy leans to ask him something.
"This is Akaya," Yanagi tells Sanada.
Akaya takes a step forward, hand raised in a wave. And in the process, he manages to step on Sanada's toes. Sanada hisses. Akaya cringes.
"Sorry," he mutters.
Sanada narrows his eyes, but he says nothing. Akaya forces an awkward laugh to cut the silence; it does nothing to help the throb of his toes. The temptation to smack the kid is strong, but Sanada holds back on it for now.
"Ah, you must be Sanada," he hears behind himself. A soft, strong voice that…
Sanada nearly chokes.
She walks up to him, hand on her hip and a cocked eyebrow under her blowing hair. Except she's not a she, she's a he and he has a tennis club uniform on and a racket in his free hand.
"Yukimura," Yanagi says. "This is Sanada Genichirou, the exchange student staying with Niou…"
But Sanada can't hear anything more, he can't hear anything, can't see anything, can't focus on anything except the crushing realization that he's been wrong all along about her because she's a him and this is a boy named Yukimura who plays tennis standing in front of him and…
If it was hard to breathe when his human lungs first formed, then now it is nearly impossible. Sanada feels overwhelmed by the sudden understanding. His body has gone numb, his insides have crumpled up like seaweed, even worse when Yukimura laughs and tells him,
"Let's see your tennis, Sanada."
In an instant, everything has become even more complicated. And Sanada doesn't think that mermagic or pearls of wisdom will help in the least.
*--+--~--O--~--+--*
Sanada turns out to have better tennis than Yukimura expected. He expected another one of Yanagi's "prospects"-a kid with drive and determination and two, maybe three years of tennis experience, but no real talent.
Sanada says he's never played tennis before.
Yukimura doesn't believe him. No one who plays like that has no tennis experience. "Sanada's just being humble," he murmurs to himself. Yukimura stands at the edge of a tennis court, his chest doing odd fluttering things the way it did the first time he saw Sanada.
I was psychic that day, he thinks.
Sanada moves faster than lightning across the court. He's at the ball before Akaya's finished with a follow-through. His defense is a strong mountain, better than Jackal's: nothing gets past Sanada, not even when Akaya kicks the net and goes into devil mode.
Yukimura's heart swells with pride, watching his ace-newly reunited with the team in high school-put all his effort into waving his racket around. But Sanada cuts his smashes down, wielding his racket like a sword and slicing into Akaya's shots, invading them like fire.
"You have a good eye for talent," Yukimura says to Yanagi.
Yanagi hums.
"But his form sucks," Yukimura says, as soon as Sanada takes the match point. He frowns as Sanada lowers his racket and wipes his brow with the back of his hand. His cap hides his eyes from Yukimura when he nods to Sanada to come over. Sanada shuffles. His feet flop in his shoes-Yukimura can't figure out if they're too big for Sanada, or if they just don't fit right.
Sometimes, Sanada walks stiffly. Other times, he walks and his knees are bowed. He's like a fish out of water off the courts. Yukimura has yet to figure out why.
Sanada won't look him in the eye, either, when Yukimura tells him, "I'm making you fukubuchou, but you need to work on your form. You're too stiff on the court when you serve, Sanada. Lean lower with your legs and you'll have even more power."
It's a lie, though. Sanada's serve is flawless, all raw power and unleashed speed, faster than Yagyuu's laser, quieter than Yanagi's cicada drop shot, heavier than the 108th Hadokyou, and yet…
Yukimura can't stop himself from saying these things to criticize Sanada. The words form on his tongue before he can think; Sanada makes him uncomfortable, when he turns and his eyes flicker over Yukimura's body, all dark and soul-searching and deep and Yukimura has to say these things because he's all tied up inside.
He walks beside Yanagi and Yagyuu into the change rooms after practice, sighing in the fragrant air, ripe with plum blossoms and the salty sea, which stings his senses with spring. Out of the corner of his eye, Yukimura watches Sanada pick up his tennisbag and shuffle with them, awkward but tall as his shadow catches the dying sun.
The weather is getting warmer and the crickets becoming louder at night. Yukimura pads into the clubhouse showers and he doesn't have to rush any longer, either, because the bite of winter has left, melted along with the last of the snow in the deepest shadows. Under the spray of water, he sighs as the hot water cascades over his body. It drowns his skin in a comfortable rush. He stands there so long that his soap starts to melt in his hand and Jackal and Yanagi and Yagyuu finish, wandering back to the lockers.
Sanada's still here, naked and dripping across the misty cloud of water. Yukimura wants to watch him, but he doesn’t understand why. There's something about the way Sanada stands there, turned from Yukimura as the water glistens down his broad back, over his flat butt. Sanada tips his head back, his hair dark and glossy and wet like the finest seaweed.
"Eh…" Akaya says, breaking Yukimura's thoughts when he suddenly prances over to Sanada. "Fukubuchou, you have weird feet."
And then next, Niou joins him, clamping a hand down on Sanada's back as it hunches with a cringe. "You're right, chibi," he says. Sanada swats at Niou's hand. He tries to backhand Akaya too, but they both jump out of the way, skidding across the tiles.
"Never noticed his webbed toes before!" Niou says. He laughs with his sly, narrowed eyes as Sanada flushes and tucks his toes together, trying to hide them when Yukimura looks, unable to stop his own curiosity.
"Maybe he's part sea bass!" Akaya says. His laughter is nearly as deep as Niou's, until Marui pipes up that he wouldn't mind some sushi right now.
Sanada growls, "I'm not!" as loud as he shouts for Akaya to go get changed, the insolent brat. Yukimura feels bad; guilt pricks his insides, but he doesn't say anything, he just stands there and shakes his head at Akaya, telling him no without a word because his throat has closed up again.
They're alone in the showers after Marui and Niou prance off, laughing at inside jokes about Sanada's feet and how he's a duck out of water and man, wouldn't that explain a lot? Sanada's turned away from Yukimura again. Yukimura approaches him carefully, seeing the hard set of Sanada's jaw and the way he presses his face to the tiled wall.
Yukimura clears his throat. Sanada's neck twitches. He doesn't turn around. Yukimura hovers his hand near Sanada's wet back, but he holds off touching Sanada because it might get weird. They're teammates and Yukimura doesn't want to scare the exchange student off, not when he plays tennis nearly as well as Yukimura himself.
Keeping his voice purposely low he says, "Sanada, you'll turn into an umeboshi if you stay in here much longer." Sanada makes a noise. "We're going out tonight, as a team," Yukimura adds. He swallows a swell in his throat, which rises like the tide, coming and going in a pulsing ache. "Will you come?"
Reluctantly, Yukimura can feel it, Sanada shuts the shower off. His back heaves with a heavy sigh as the water drips off his body. Yukimura leaves him alone to walk back to the locker rooms, frowning at Niou and Akaya and Marui who waggle their eyebrows and grin.
"Sushi?" Niou asks. "Sea bass, perhaps?"
Marui snorts and doubles over with laughter again. Akaya snickers until Sanada stomps into the room behind Yukimura and slams his locker open. Having his locker next to Sanada's makes Yukimura glad and he glances down to Sanada's feet. They look normal, they look fine, only his toes seem stumpier than Yukimura's own because the skin rises higher; there is a webbed part. He's seen weirder things in the hospital before.
A melancholic ache fills him. His eyes feel heavy with not-quite tears when he looks because he would tell Sanada they're fine, they won't hinder his tennis and Yukimura doesn't mind, but he can't bridge that gap. His body fails and his mouth goes dry and he berates himself inside for it. Instead, Yukimura does his best and flashes Sanada a quick smile, though he doesn't feel it. It's forced and Sanada just frowns and look away, pulling his socks on as quickly as possible.
His feet are still wet. It must be uncomfortable, but Sanada doesn't complain, not when they walk with the team, traipsing along the canals that lead towards the sea, in search of a cheap sushi joint, the butt of Niou's joking. Petals float along the canal surface, swirling in the slow-moving water as the team ebbs and flows, walking from one side of the street back to the canal boardwalk. Yukimura ghosts his hand along the railing edge. He stays close to Yanagi and Sanada, who walk in silence and seem to soak up the atmosphere of dusk. The purpling sun shines across the canal, out towards the sea in a dying gasp. The evening birds chirp in the fragrant pines and waxy bushes. Yukimura can hear the faint sounds of sea breezes rustling the grasses of the dunes. He aches to walk back along his beach, to listen to the rushing waves filling his ears and maybe even the gurgling noises of mermaids.
Mermaids! he thinks. Yukimura bites his lip to suppress a laugh, lest Sanada get the wrong idea that he's laughing with Akaya and Niou and Marui at him and not his own foolish thought.
"This place looks good," Marui announces. He waves his hand and Akaya and Jackal cross the street to where Marui leans into the window, reading a menu and nodding. Yagyuu and Niou follow, then Yanagi, Sanada and Yukimura.
They can't be more than a couple blocks from the sea, although further from Yukimura's place, his secluded beach, which is more south, more rocky, more undesirable. Still, from the windows of the sushi bar, Yukimura can see the piers lined with boats and skips. It makes him ache to run home, grab his watercolour pad and his pencils and ride his bike furiously to catch the rays of the last dusky sun on the water surface. It's calm tonight-no storm in sight-just a little breeze that makes the evening beautiful. To be sitting in a sushi bar with his teammates, deciding over what sushi combos to order feels good. And it feels even better with Sanada here.
"Chef's delight!" Marui announces to the waitress. "The extra super special combo version for-" he points his finger around the table, counting the team off, "-eight."
The sushi platter is as delicate as a painting, Yukimura would admit. Jewel toned sashimi and sushi: tuna, salmon, yellowtail, shrimp tempura that smells divine when he leans over to breathe in the oily fumes of the crispy batter, fresh from the deep fry. Even the baby octopus, violet-tinted tentacles curling over pristine rice makes Yukimura's mouth water.
Beside him, Sanada is warm and slightly sweaty, his arm pressed to Yukimura's because of the tight space around the table. Yukimura picks up the octopus sushi and sets it down on Sanada's plate, smiling when he says "Here you go."
Sanada looks down at the sushi and his eyes go wide. His mouth drops open and then his face flushes…
A shade of green.
"Don't you like sushi?" Yukimura asks. Before he can apologize, Sanada mutters an apology first, and Yukimura burns with shame at assuming things.
"Sea bass?" Niou offers, holding out another piece of sushi to Sanada with his chopsticks.
Sanada's throat bobs, his eyes even buggier than with the octopus.
"Stop that!" Yukimura snaps at Niou. Niou snorts and pops the sea bass sushi into his mouth.
Sanada says nothing, but Yukimura can feel the slight heaves of his chest. He's probably embarrassed, he thinks, and he doesn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Around the table, everyone digs in. Yagyuu asks Niou to pass a scallop and Akaya moans as he chews on a salmon sashimi. Marui asks Yanagi about the tennis lineup as he sprays California roll from his mouth and Jackal swipes another sea bass, which makes Niou grin in Sanada's direction.
The rumbling appetite Yukimura had before shrivels up completely. He leans toward Sanada, trying his best to smile, although he feels awful. His chest twists, much like the way Sanada keeps wringing a paper napkin under the table. "Do you want to get some ramen?" he offers.
Sanada blinks, but he doesn't look any less green. "It's fine," he mutters. He stands up, sliding off the end seat and bowing his head. "Thank you for the offer. It's fine." His words are as tight and drawn as the thin set of his mouth.
Yukimura watches Sanada leave, his heart growing heavy as the sushi platter empties.
Instead of helping himself to a crab roll, he grabs his bags and walks to the door, flinging it open to see if he can catch Sanada. The night air is thick with the smells of the ocean and frying food, noodle joints and katsudon and sushi and everything else that would normally make him even hungrier, if it weren't for the hollow ache inside. He looks for Sanada, whipping his head around as he runs down the street, running along the canal, but he sees no one else, just parked lorries and a few forlorn bicycles, neglected by their owners in favour of beer.
With a sigh, Yukimura gives up. His bags slump against his back. His heart tugs towards the sea and he begins a walk, breathing in the cool spring night as his footsteps take him towards the water.
*--+--~--V--~--+--*
One of the perks of assuming the position of fukubuchou is that Sanada is given a set of keys. He doesn't understand the human preoccupation with locking public buildings-like the school-but he follows the protocol and locks the clubhouse on the nights designated.
And he also is able to unlock the door to the roof of the school.
It's been over two weeks and he hasn't been able to confess to Yukimura. He doesn't know how he would even begin to confess and he's running out of time. The desire for Yukimura-even after the discovery that he wasn't a she-never left, if anything, it's stronger than ever.
He slips onto the roof under the cover of darkness. There is nothing but the stars overhead-as much as there can be stars, given that the bright lights of the city dull the sky into a murky blackness. Sanada creeps across the roof, cringing at the squeak of his runners. His legs twitch-it's late and he still hasn’t flopped around yet.
The pool is dark too, but there is enough light from the surrounding school buildings that he can see the shimmering edge. He peels his clothes off with a loud sigh. The water calls to him, urging him to come in and swim, and with silent motions, he dives in. The water laps at his body as his legs fuse together-not painful, just an odd tingling, as if his lower half has fallen asleep, only to wake up in his true form.
Sanada dunks his head under, his fin brushing the bottom of the pool as he swims a lazy circle. He stares up at the sky from under the water's surface. His gills open and close, sucking in the oxygen from the water. When he exhales, pushing water from his lungs, the bubbles tickle his neck. The pool water, however, stifles his laughter at the sensation rippling over his skin.
It feels good to stretch out. It feels good to swim a lap or three without interruption. It feels good to lie on his back and flip his fin up and propel himself through the smooth, cool pool water. His body falls lax and he can feel his body releasing itself and he floats under water, eyes open and grateful for the wetness lubricating his skin, his scales, himself.
Being a human twenty three hours of the day everyday is changing him, Sanada knows. Feelings he never had before as a merman, expressions and desires…now he feels them, even like this, with his tail and fin and gills, underwater, tasting the bitter chlorine that makes him gag sometimes (but its better than a tiny bathtub in Niou's house). Now, he wants Yukimura, however humans want each other, with a raw sexual desire that scares him, that makes him flush all over and gasp and get erections and sweaty palms and lose his composure.
Thinking about Yukimura now…Sanada wants him. He sighs into the water, watching the bubble of air jiggle to the surface and pop. His tail feels limp and tight all at once and his butt…Sanada never felt the numb coils of tension before, but he knows he wants to release it too. To…fertilize.
He rolls over, facing the bottom of the pool in an attempt to hide his flush even from himself. He touches his cheeks, feeling the feverish skin with his fingertips and then he groans. The noise vibrates through the water, a reminder of these new feelings wracking even his true form.
Yukimura, he thinks. What do I say to you…?
Sanada knows his problem is twofold: first, the confession of love. Second, the confession of his true self. But Sanada doesn't know which comes first because they are intertwined.
I changed for YOU! he thinks. You are the reason I came onto land…
If he's not quick, Yukimura will be the reason he has to go home soon, too. Sanada swallows a hard lump at that prospect. It stings his eyes thinking about that, about leaving Yukimura on land forever, nothing said, and being able to watch him from the rock shelves, nothing more ever again. It hurts his chest and makes him shiver and frown, moaning softly because it aches more than anything, a dull pain ever-present in his cartilage.
He wants to touch Yukimura and walk on the beach, webbed toes be damned. He wants to hold Yukimura's hand and feel the ocean breezes whipping through their hair. He wants to feel Yukimura laugh against his chest. He wants to lick the salt spray of the sea from Yukimura's face, to see if he would smile at Sanada the way he would smile softly at the sea as Sanada watched, alone and longing from the deep.
Sanada thinks and aches and splashes around until his legs rip apart. His lungs burn, eager for the air. The secret burden weighs his chest down as he pushes himself off the bottom of the pool, surfacing with a gasp. He bobs on the surface, the air cool on his ears and forehead until he drags himself out of the water, awkward and heavy on the pool ladder.
He does the responsible human duty and phones Niou's mother with the cellphone they bought for him. "I'll be back soon," he says. "Thank you for waiting." Niou's family is kind to him, accepting his situation without questions, without mockery Niou does, sometimes, teasing Sanada about his strange feet, his strange habits and the fact he hates sushi.
I don't hate sushi… he thinks as he walks on the empty, darkened streets towards Niou's home. But some of it…
It was too much like home. It was too much a reminder of his request of the keeper of the sea magic, asking to become a human so he could be with Yukimura. Seeing the boiled baby octopuses, frozen and screaming at him silently, even though they were dead, curled up in a death throng…
Sanada shakes his head. No! I won't think about that…
But their expressions haunt him. He can hear their plopping noises. He can see their shiny eyes, their tiny beaks, their ever-changing skin in the pavement as he shuffles home, although it's all in his mind, really.
Sanada adjusts his cap, trying to block out the shifting bushes that flower, smelling more fragrant that any coral, than any clams or anemones under the sea, and equally as colourful. He breathes in the air. He loves the sweetness of spring blossoms mixing with the sea salt and the mist rising off the ocean as the night tide comes in.
One day soon, he'll need to return unless he confesses.
Sanada clenches his jaw. He balls his fist. He turns the corner and opens the gate to Niou's house, letting himself inside.
Yukimura…
It's late and Sanada yawns, eager for sleep to rest his legs. They still prickle from his latest nocturnal transformation and they feel wet on the inside, as if he has a long, single stitch line where his tail was cut. He shuffles into the kitchen, nodding to Niou's mother and accepting a warm bowl of soup from her hands.
Nameko miso soup. Sanada sniffs it, inhaling the fumes; he can practically taste the earthy mushrooms and salty broth already. "Thank you," he mutters.
She smiles at him. "I know it's your favourite."
And it's ironic, that, because the soup tastes more of the land than the sea, but Sanada loves the slippery mushrooms. He loves the tiny green spring onions that burst sharp flavour over his tongue. He loves the silken, smooth cubes of tofu that slide down his throat along with the hot broth, warming his insides after a brisk walk home.
He slithers down in his chair, sated and satisfied, before he says good night and wanders upstairs to go to bed. Ghostly orange light from the streetlamps shine into the upstairs corridor, illuminating a path for Sanada. No one else, not even Niou's younger brother, are in bed yet. The silence up here is palpable, where Sanada can hear the sound of his own footsteps, his breathing, his thoughts.
Niou isn't home, Sanada can see that much when he flicks the light on. He must be out with Yagyuu, Sanada thinks as he pulls his clothes off for a second time. His hair is still wet from the pool and he smells faintly of chlorine, but his wide yawn and sluggish limbs draw him to the futon on the floor rather than a shower.
The night is warm enough-and the soup in his belly too-that Sanada can comfortably crawl under the futon cover in just a thin cotton yukata. After he turns off the light, he sighs into the pleasant quiet. No one asking him asinine questions about Yagyuu in class, no one snoring or flopping around on the bed. No one else.
Just him.
Sanada shifts his eyes, but there's really, honestly no one else in the room with him. Just the lumpy, messy sheets on Niou's bed, masquerading as his form. With another sigh, Sanada slips his hand under the flap of the yukata, loosening the tie just a little. He bites his lip as he groans when blood rushes to his swelling cock. His mind floats to Yukimura, drifting thoughts and images of Yukimura playing tennis, his hair damp with sweat and the muscles of his bum shifting under his shorts. Yukimura on the beach, sitting on a bleached piece of driftwood, licking his lips and sketching something on his paper pad as he looks out onto the ocean, his gaze burning through Sanada, who watches and waits and hopes.
Tension rises in his belly. His fingers curl around his dick, stroking the head slowly as he savours the feeling, the pleasure coiling between his legs, tides of sensation rising and rising as his hand moves faster, grips harder. Sanada exhales, digging his feet in and raising his hips, bucking into the sensations that make his knees turn to jelly and his head light.
"Yukimura…" he whispers. I want you so much…
If nothing else, Sanada would become human all over again just to experience these emotions, these feelings in his body as he flushes. He pants and squeezes his hand, grunting and shifting his legs under the futon cover, shaking at the ripples of pleasure that tingle his skin, that shiver down his back, that-
"Need a hand?"
Sanada's eyes flash open. Niou closes the door behind himself and walks over, leaning down onto his knees over Sanada before Sanada even has a chance to pull his hand out of his yukata and try to gain some sense of composure. Anger rises inside, and at the same time, his innards slither down to his feet because Niou looms over him, close enough that his hair brushes Sanada's face. His breath is hot in Sanada's ear.
"I don't mind helping," he says. With a low grunt, Niou cups his own cock, rubbing his palm over the bulge between his legs. Sanada continues to stare, wide-eyed: he'd thought humans did these things alone, in private, not with each other…
"I'm always so fucking hard after going out with Yagyuu," Niou murmurs.
Face on fire, Sanada removes his hand from between his legs, wiping it on his belly in the process. He shifts under the futon cover and sucks in an unsteady breath. "I did not want to know that," he says through his teeth.
"And I don't want your help," he adds.
Niou shrugs. "Worth a try." He stands up and flops backwards onto his bed. "By the way, deal is-you don't say anything to Yagyuu and I don't say anything to Yukimura and we forget all this, ne?"
Any other time, Sanada might shake on it. As it is, precum sticks between his sweaty fingers. He grunts and rolls onto his side, half-wishing he'd taken Niou up on the offer. His dick is hard enough he's about to burst. Lying on his side only adds to the pressure straining between his legs. Sanada closes his eyes, trying to remember the mermeditation he used to practice under the sea. But his dick is distracting, pulsing against his thigh, hot and heavy.
When Niou leaves the bedroom to brush his teeth and shower, Sanada's barely got a hand back under his yukata again before he's shuddering and shaking and spilling hot come onto his hand.
Yukimura's name is mouthed on his lips.
*--+--~--E--~--+--*
Yukimura can't stop thinking about Sanada.
He sits in class, doodling in art in his sketchbook, trying to recreate a seascape from memory, all flowing lines of ink and washes of blue. It looks more like a mess of kanji characters for "strength" and "determination" and "rice paddy" and even "webbed toes". He flushes and crumples the paper up, thankful that he's not in Niou's class again this year.
Two days ago Niou had the gall to walk up to Yukimura-not long after the sushi incident with Sanada-and ask Yukimura "Do you have a crush on anyone?" Yukimura had been adjusting the ball machine, trying to help Akaya out. When Niou asked that question, all cat smiles and waggling eyebrows, the balls shot straight up from the machine and ripped a hole through the basketball nets in the gymnasium.
"You seem distracted," Niou says, when Yukimura picks at his lunch, looking off into space and dropping his chopsticks on the floor of the classroom.
"Why are you here?" Yukimura asks him. He hands Niou a clipboard for the beautification committee. Niou looks down at it and blinks, before passing the clipboard off to Yagyuu, who also decided to randomly show up and bother Yukimura.
Yukimura does his best to ignore Niou, but he can't shake the itching feeling, the shiver at the back of his neck that Niou knows something he doesn’t. Feeling flush, Yukimura cranks open a classroom window and chews on his rice. It's hard to swallow when his mouth has closed off and the nori congeals on his tongue, salty and slimy and sticking to his back teeth.
He rests his cheek on his fist, looking out at the expansive blue sky. It's a beautiful spring day; he wishes that he were anywhere else than trapped in school, going over paperwork for the beautification committee, all numbers and dates for meetings that mean nothing. Yukimura wonders about Sanada, who is probably off eating lunch with Yanagi somewhere, muttering about the tennis club under a patch of sun on the roof, maybe.
Yukimura envies Yanagi. He narrows his eyes at the thought of seeing Yanagi and Sanada leaning heads together, all friendly in a way Yukimura never could be because he has these awful thoughts.
The awful thoughts come and go: in school, during lunchtime, at home. When he lies in bed at night, Yukimura thinks of running along the beach with Sanada, dragging Sanada by the hand through the crashing white-capped waves until they fall down in a heap on the sand. Yukimura shifts in his bed, the mattress creaking. He bites his lip to keep quiet and slips his hand between his legs. Thoughts of the beach and Sanada and the rising tides make tides of pleasure filter through his belly, his cock swollen and sensitive under the touch of his hand.
He thinks about Sanada's toes and the extra skin between them. Does it feel different from Yukimura's toes? Would Sanada moan if Yukimura licked them?
He shivers and cups his straining balls with the other hand. The jolts of sweet pain make his thighs shake and his toes dig into the sheets as he jerks himself off, thinking of nothing, thinking of the sea and the salty wind and the grainy sand and Sanada…
Yukimura doesn't like the way Marui and Akaya and Niou snicker behind Sanada's back, but he leaves Sanada to deal with it, to use his backhand slap and knock the teasing out of them. He murmurs to Sanada "Extra laps for any behavior Rikkai would frown down on", hoping Sanada will understand the meaning behind his gesture, but Yukimura never knows if Sanada catches on.
Sanada is hard and dense like a mountain, and impossible like the sea. Yukimura wants to capture him, the same way he wants to capture the perfect view of the ocean, but Sanada keeps slipping through his fingers. He'll tell Yukimura to go home and that he'll lock up the clubhouse. Sanada talks with Yanagi not him. He lives with Niou of all people and skips out on sushi nights with the team. He's the perfect student-Yukimura's heard from Yagyuu that Sanada and Niou sometimes do homework together at night.
I don't believe that, he thinks. Niou doesn't DO homework to start with.
Sanada puts up with Akaya half the time and smacks him across the cheek for his lip the rest. When Sanada offers to lock up tonight, Yukimura shakes his head. "No, I will," he says. He looks up at Sanada, pleading with his eyes, forcing his way to Sanada's gaze under that dark shady cap. Please stay here. Please talk with me. Please let me understand you.
Sanada opens his mouth, hesitating on words that he never says. Slowly, he nods and ducks his head. "All right," he mumbles. "Good night."
And with that, he grabs his tennis bag and leaves. Yukimura's hopeful smile falls when the door slams closed behind Sanada.
"Dammit," he murmurs, slamming his hand down on the bench beside him. His hand throbs, the bench harder than he thought on his knuckles.
He could mope, he could run after Sanada and beg him to stay, but Yukimura hesitates too, because these feelings are strange, pulling at his chest the way the sea tugs, demanding attention, demanding something he can't grasp yet. But he can investigate.
Yukimura shifts his eyes. No one else is around. Diffuse purple light glimmers through the window of the clubhouse, illuminating a path straight to Sanada's locker cubby. He bites his lip. I shouldn't…he thinks, but his hands say otherwise, pulling at the latch to open it.
He flushes, face feverish and head light, as if he's drunk a glass of sake. His legs are a little unsteady when he peers inside, searching for clues about Sanada, about whatever he can find. What does Sanada feel? Does he like the tennis club? Does he-could he-like Yukimura?
Yukimura looks down at his feet, unable to face Sanada's locker without blushing harder. He lifts his eyes and smiles to himself when he looks inside. Normally, Sanada's standing in front of it, blocking Yukimura's view. Now, he can see everything.
And it's depressingly boring.
His shoulders sink.
One single pair of relatively new runners on the bottom. A jacket hung on the right-hand hook. A tennis rulebook on the middle shelf and a spare water bottle, half-full, on the top shelf. No plastered cutouts of models like Jackal has, no cutouts of Avril Lavigne and anime characters like Marui has. No mounds of garbage like Akaya. No mouldy sneakers like Niou. No tennis magazines and old school notes like Yanagi. Not even a stinky, fermenting bottle of Pocari Sweat like Yagyuu has.
"He's not even human," Yukimura mumbles. With a heavy sigh, and a deeper press on his shoulders, Yukimura grabs his tennis bag and locks up. He shuffles as he walks home, taking the long way, walking behind the train tracks and listening to the rattling percussion and the soft chirps of late afternoon birds. The moon is a pale crescent on the horizon, bright against the darkening sky. He checks his watch, but there isn't enough time to walk down to the ocean before supper.
That thought, too, makes his shoulders slump even lower. Yukimura sniffles. The air grows thicker by the day, heaving with upcoming summer heat and the heavy scent of the sea that fills his lungs like a drug. He knows that Sanada isn't boring. He knows that Sanada must have something under that hard, crab-like shell. Yukimura wants to seep under it and find out.
Sanada, why did you come here-
His cellphone starts to buzz in his pocket. Yukimura's heart swells, expanding in his chest to press against his ribs, but when he sees the number and "unknown sender", his frown returns.
He flips his cell open. "Yes?"
"Yukimura-kun? This is Kato, captain of the swim club at school. I wanted to call because we’re having a problem."
Yukimura clicks his tongue. A train rushes past, drowning out whatever Kato says next. Irritated, he snaps, "Well it's not my problem!"
"Actually, we at the swim club think it is but…ah…" Kato pauses. "Um…can we meet to discuss it tomorrow?"
Yukimura exhales a huff into his phone, making sure Kato knows how annoyed he is. He walks down the street, leaning against his cell phone and shaking his head. "We have practice at 7:30. Tomorrow's no good."
"It has to be tomorrow! It has to be before the swim club starts. Please please come to the school pool at 7am. It concerns one of your players-"
"Players?" Yukimura says, echoing Kato. He scrunches his brow. "Well…fine. Seven then."
He lies in bed and worries. Kato wouldn't say over the phone what the problem was. Yukimura watched the evening news, frantic that someone had drowned, but there was nothing. He called Yanagi to ask the stats of the health of the team. Everyone was fine. Yukimura even called Niou's number; he was too ashamed to try Sanada without a good reason.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
Niou grunted.
"Is…aa…" Yukimura's face was on fire and he ducked deeper into the shadows of his bedroom, just in case anyone walked by his bedroom and asked. "Is Sanada okay?"
A pause.
Yukimura's pulse raced. His mouth went dry, even in the damp evening warmth.
"Yup, he's fine too," Niou said. That was enough to sate Yukimura's need to know.
But now, he's still concerned. He should have pressed Niou for answers. He should have told Niou to put Sanada on the line. Sanada…he wouldn't have eaten some sushi and passed out and then Niou covered it up and dumped his body into the sea…?
Yukimura swallows and squeezes his eyes, tears pricking the edges as he sees an image of Sanada in his mind. In watercolour-of course-the colours bleeding pale and muted as Sanada's pale corpse floats on the morning swell of sea, the water lapping at his ankles, the fish eating his-
"No!" Yukimura whispers. He shakes his head. "No! No!"
He can't stand the tension inside, the coils of agonized unknown that eat him, so he flips his sheets off, crawls to his desk and frantically types Sanada's number into his cellphone.
One ring.
Yukimura bites his lip.
Two rings.
Yukimura squirms.
Three rings.
Yukimura sucks in a breath.
"Hello?"
Sanada.
And the realization hits him that he has no good reason to call. Yukimura's face burns. He waves his hand and stutters over an excuse, asking Sanada if he would mind getting out the balls before practice tomorrow.
"Sorry for the trouble," Yukimura murmurs.
"It's okay," Sanada says.
He hangs up, but Kato's unexplained intrusion, his strange phone call lingers on Yukimura's mind, the way the chirping of the crickets seeps through his open window, heralding sleep with long, mournful cries.
"-so you see, there's the problem," Kato says. He pokes at the slimy trail with the net, scooping it up and holding it aloft, water dripping from the mesh back into the pool.
"That's the tenth time. Almost every single night." Kato scrunches his nose up.
Yukimura raises an eyebrow. "It doesn't even look human," he says. Kato dumps the net into a bucket and Yukimura peers inside, staring at the strand. "It looks more like-"
"-a giant fish poo," Kato finishes.
"Yeah…."
"One of our seniors said he saw someone in a tennis uniform two nights ago sneaking onto the roof and he thought he heard splashing too. It's one of your guys." Kato pulls on a pair of rubber gloves, cringing at the large fish poo in the bucket. "It's gotta stop," he says, "or the school will find out and then the guy's gonna be really embarrassed when every student finds out."
Yukimura continues to frown and shake his head. If he'd known that Kato would have dragged him up to the rooftop on a cold, dewy morning to show him a giant fish poo, Yukimura would have stayed to help Sanada set up the balls instead.
"You're sure its one of my team?" he asks, raising a second skeptical eyebrow.
"Look," Kato says as he drops the bucket. It hits the ground with a loud plop, making Yukimura wince and jump aside in case the poo hit him. "Takki saw a tennis club member-and he's a reliable guy. Just talk to your team and maybe that'll stop this. It's fucking sick and we're tired of fishing out-"
"-fish poo," Yukimura offers. He flashes Kato a smirk.
"-yeah, well, it's nasty," Kato says.
Yukimura groans. "All right, I'll talk to the club," he says. "But for all your Takki-kun knows, it could be a…a…" Yukimura waves his hand, thinking aloud, "-a mermaid splashing around here and leaving you presents."
"That's not funny," Kato snaps.
Yukimura happens to think it is.
*--+--~--S--~--+--*
"So," Yukimura says, "that's the situation."
Blood rushes in Sanada's ears. A shiver runs down his spine, cold and clammy over his skin and he's grateful that he's wearing his jacket today, otherwise Yanagi or Yukimura would notice the frigid sweat breaking out over his arms. With a shaking hand, he adjusts his cap, hiding his face too.
"What should we do?" he grumbles.
"Hn," Yanagi says. He looks at Sanada, and then turns to Yukimura, too slow for Sanada's comfort. "This calls for one action and one action alone."
Yukimura nods.
"A stakeout."
Sanada didn't know. Not until Yukimura approached him and Yanagi this afternoon, whispering that he had some "important team business" to discuss. Even now, waiting for Yukimura outside the conbini, shame stains his face, hot and angry on his cheeks.
All those years living in the ocean, he never once gave it a second thought. He was sentient-yes, and he is sentient now, too-but…with the water slipping over him, caressing his tail and body all of the time, he rarely noticed the releases he'd make into the water. It just was. On land, it’s a different sensation. Water doesn't float through his body. He's heavy and dry and the feeling of having to go is that much more pressing when he doesn't have to.
It never occurred to him in the pool, that needed hour of transformation each day, that he would have been leaving…
Sanada clenches his jaw at the thought, at his own foolish forgetting.
"How long will this take?" he asks Yanagi.
Yanagi squints into the amber sun, shining its last gasp on the wide windows of the store. He looks down at his wrist to check his watch. "The swim team captain said that the poopetrator-" Yanagi coughs on a laugh. Sanada coughs on a choke.
"-I mean the perpetrator arrives in the late evenings, no later than midnight, we'll assume, seeing as he's likely a student at school."
Sanada grunts. Yukimura emerges from the conbini with a bag of bentos and a smile. For a moment, Sanada can forget everything else, everything but the light shining golden across Yukimura's face, a halo of wind lifting his hair up. And Sanada's beating heart, too.
The reality of the situation hits him when they climb the stairs to the school rooftop. "Let's sit here," Yukimura says. He points to an alcove, sheltered from the wind but facing the direction of the ocean. Sanada sets his bags down and Yanagi spreads his jacket on the paved roof before he sits down first.
Yukimura sits beside Sanada and Sanada stiffens. He concentrates on his breathing when Yukimura passes him the omelet bento and his fingertips brush Sanada's hand. Sanada is sweaty. He's damp and gross and shaking and he stares at his feet, worry gnawing at his stomach that Yukimura will find out. Yukimura jokes with Yanagi that the swim team is crazy.
"I think they think mermaids live here!" Yukimura says. His laughter chimes in the air and he pushes back a lock of hair, his lock on Sanada's heart as tight as ever.
Sanada knows he can't tell Yukimura yet, but he has a week left. His bento sits untouched as he stares into the distance, watching the buildings recede as night swells and the crickets come out to sing, even high up here on the rooftop. The pool hums, louder than the ocean, but Sanada can feel the tides pulling him, pushing him, tempting him with their watery cool.
His legs twitch, eager and desperate to transform and soak and swim. I can't, he thinks. Sanada splays his fingers across the top of his thigh, trying to calm the increasing shakes that make his legs twitch and spasm, itching to change. The collar of his shirt feels too tight, straining and hot where his gills should be. Sanada fights to keep his head up but the air is so dry, parching his tongue and making the lump of fear in his throat all the more palpable the longer they sit here.
"Perhaps…I could stay," he offers when Yukimura yawns.
Yukimura shakes his head. "I don't-I mean, we don’t want you to be alone here," he says. It is his turn to look at his bento and touch his toes together. The light is too poor from the dim floodlights on the roof for Sanada to tell, but Yukimura touches his face and fans it with a hand.
"Are you hot?" Yanagi asks. "Are you feeling all right?"
Yukimura shakes his head. "I'm fine."
"You could go home," Sanada says. He bites the inside of his bottom lip. I need this pool, Yukimura. Please understand…
Yanagi sends Sanada a pointed look after he turns to Sanada, eyes drifting over the untouched bento. "Not hungry, Genichirou?" he asks.
Sanada picks at the bento with shaking chopsticks. "I will be…good to catch this person," he mutters. Under his breath, he makes a silent prayer to the kami of the sea to help him, to preserve his secret from Yukimura until he's ready. The food sits solid and heavy in his stomach, tasting ashen and earthy. His knees ache until he sits up and tucks them under his body.
Sanada sets the bento down. Yukimura does the same; Sanada can see he hasn't touched much of his dinner either.
"I just want to get this over with," Yukimura says. "The swim team captain was really unpleasant about the whole thing. It didn't even look human!"
Yanagi hums. "Oh?"
Sanada fidgets. His toes lose consciousness, prickling uncomfortably as the first few drops of rain start to fall. The water patters across his bare arms and makes him shiver. But his legs fare worse. The water taunts him, teases him, urges him to run for the pool and dive in to stop the agonizing passing of time as Yukimura and Yanagi pull umbrellas out, ignorant that they are waiting for the person who is sitting right with them.
Yukimura yawns.
Yanagi sighs.
Sanada balls his fist. He forces himself to keep a straight face as pain cuts through his legs, as the tears rip deeper, down to the bone that needs to morph soon or he’ll be a fish out of water, gasping for air and dying, choking and Yukimura will laugh at him with that beautiful, soft voice.
The rain laps at his sneakers, it kisses his face, sliding down the side of his face where his cap doesn't cover. Sanada changes position, wanting to hug his legs and squeeze his eyes at the deep-rooted ache that slices his belly, his legs. The time passes slowly, painfully slow. The city lights blink, all bright yellows and orange and red in the inky sky, not even dulled by the rain.
"No one's shown up yet," Yukimura says. He yawns again and stands up. His umbrella shakes fat drops of rain onto Sanada's head, but the drizzle has lessened. His heart swells, hope that Yukimura and Yanagi will leave him before its too late makes Sanada's insides leap up into his throat.
He nods. "You can go. I'll stay."
The rain stops as suddenly as it began. A fierce quiet descends in the moments before Sanada's ear prick at the distance roar of the ocean, alive and thriving tonight while he shrivels, dry and aching and desperate for the pool's water to wash over his body and sate that primal need.
Yukimura hesitates. Sanada regrets it, too. Another night, another possible confession he could have made failed because Yanagi was here. He wants to take Yukimura in his arms and hold him tight, to breathe in Yukimura's damp hair and wipe the sad smile from his face, but Yukimura would never accept that.
Not right now.
And besides, Sanada can't concentrate, not when his body leans, strains, needs to go in the pool before midnight ticks down and traps him. A fish out of water.
"All right," Yukimura murmurs. "Yanagi, are you coming?"
Yanagi glances at Sanada, a blank expression on his face. For a long moment, Sanada holds his breathe, tension coiling up as Yanagi pauses. Yanagi blinks and then opens his mouth with deliberate tardiness. "Good night," he tells Sanada. "Call us if you find anyone."
The door to the school has barely clicked shut before Sanada has peeled off his clothes. His knees are jelly, as insubstantial as jellyfish when he staggers to the pool's edge, collapsing into the water with a loud splash that echoes over the rooftop.
He should care. He should have taken care to muffle his noises, to shut off the lights, to dive in silently, but he can't, not when the water swallows his head, his body and his legs meld into one single tail. His body releases, a pent up sensation he hadn't noticed until his tail and stomach goes slack, relaxing into the water as he swims through it. His gills suck in a gasping, refreshing gulp of water that tickles his neck and Sanada gurgles.
"Tarundoru…"
He sighs and rolls over onto his back, floating under the water and staring up at the surface, seeing a shadowed, rippling face peering down at him.
Sanada's insides freeze.
"I knew there was something," Yanagi says. He taps his long fingers on the edge of the pool. A pregnant pause passes but Sanada offers no answer. He turns away and slips his head under the water until it covers everything but his eyes. Chlorine stings his vision, blurring Yanagi's satisfied smirk.
"Is there something you'd like to tell me, Genichirou?" he asks.
Sanada continues to breathe through his gills. He lifts his eyes to Yanagi and surfaces a little higher. "Isn't it obvious?" he spits. Sanada swishes his tail through the water with a heavy sigh. The air pushed out of his gills makes a raspberry in the water.
Yanagi chuckles. "May I touch it?" he asks.
Sanada stares at him, pursing his lips. Yanagi raises his eyebrows and shrugs. "It's curious," he says. "That creatures like you exist."
"I'm not a-"
"I could tell Yukimura." Yanagi pulls his cellphone out and Sanada's heart stops dead in his chest. The water takes on a sudden chill. His tail falls slack, his fin limp.
"I could call him and tell him about you," Yanagi says.
Sanada swallows hard. A faint breeze rustles the trees and combs through his hair, cold compared to the temperature of the water, and as brittle as Yanagi's narrow-eyed look he gives Sanada.
Yanagi tucks his cell away. Sanada keeps staring, tense and taught and fraught with worry. Anyone but Yukimura…
"However, your condition is more interesting to me than pitiable," Yanagi says. He leans back over the edge of the pool, but he stops before his finger swirls the water. With a slight curl of his lip, he adds, "I gain nothing with your secret," he says. "Whatever rules mermen have underwater, humans help their friends out. Secrets hurt."
Slowly, Sanada nods. Yanagi's words echo in his mind even after he crawls out of the water, his hands and feet shriveled up when Yanagi hands him a towel from his tennisbag. Guilt pricks at his chest, a burden slumping his shoulders when Yanagi grabs the net and fishes the poo out, dropping it into a bucket that he and Sanada flush down one of the fourth floor toilets.
"I wonder what Yukimura will think of this," Yanagi murmurs after they rinse the bucket and switch off the roof lights.
Sanada trudges along, his body tired and little refreshed. He closes his eyes and shakes his head. "Don’t tell him. Please," he whispers.
Secrets may hurt, but they won't hurt nearly as much as it would to receive Yukimura's rejection.
I need more time, Sanada thinks.
Yanagi says, "What are you afraid of?"
Sanada can't answer.
*--+--~--Y--~--+--*