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ifyougoillfollow · 11 months

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as we sink into the open sea

M/F, Gen | QPR MicNight | 1720 words | Selkie AU CW: Depiction of Suicide Attempt (non-graphic)

On the eve of his nineteenth birthday, Yamada Hizashi walks into the ocean and comes back with a wife.

Please understand, that wasn't his intention. Yamada Hizashi is not the kind of man to believe in tales of sirens and sea wives, and he is especially not the kind of man with dreams of snaring one for himself. He is, in point of fact, not a man of any dreams at all. Not anymore.

So he walks into the ocean, figuring that if he can't find the will to keep dreaming, then he can at least find some peace at last. He finds a wife, instead.

Or rather, she finds him.

She finds him as his body hits the sea floor, at the very moment the first wave of doubt rolls over him in one fell, unrelenting swoop, much too late for him to do anything about it. He's so overcome with it he doesn't think much of the figure that glides out of the ocean murk and sidles right up to him. Wide, shark-bright eyes peer at him, so close they fill up his entire swimming, pin-pricking vision, and all Hizashi can think about is how soon he's going to die, and how he’s not so sure he wants to die after all, and how little what he wants matters in this final moment, as in all the rest before it, and then the figure places one cold hand on his colder cheek and kisses him. She's all Hizashi can think of, then.

She's dark-haired and beautiful. And strong. And a good swimmer, too, but that's to be expected. She drags him back to shore, lips locked tight over his the whole way, and she doesn't let go until his lungs are clear of ocean brine.

Hizashi lies there, alive and silent on the cold, wet sand for a good while after. Long enough for the first hint of morning blue to blush over the horizon. The sea maiden lies with him, just as alive, just as silent, and infinitely more at ease. Cozied right up to his side, as if she belongs there, seemingly content to remain there for however long Hizashi has left on this Earth now that she's saved him. Try as he might, he can't figure out whether he's grateful or not. He does, however, remember his manners, on occasion, so when he finally finds his voice again, he uses it to thank her.

"You're welcome," the sea maiden replies. There's laughter in her voice. Hizashi doesn't know what there is to laugh about, though he finds himself wishing she'd actually done so, just so he could hear it. He used to love laughter. Impossibly, he still does.

Yamada Hizashi had a knack for making people laugh, once. It was all he knew how to do, really. He doesn't know much of anything now, least of all how to make the sea maiden in his arms laugh, so he says nothing.

The sea maiden in his arms says nothing either, at first, for just long enough Hizashi startles when she does speak: "Is that it?"

"Pardon?"

"Is that all you're going to say?"

"... Is there more I should be saying?"

"There must be." There it is again – the laugh in her voice. "You don't strike me as the quiet type in the least."

That's what it is – she's teasing him. It's much too familiar to do anything but rankle. "Listen, Miss –”

She snorts. "Nemuri."

"Listen –” his face burns as he realizes that's her given name, and he refuses to say it "– listen, I'm grateful to you for saving me and all, but you don't know anything about me."

She peels away from his side. "Liar."

"Pardon?"

"You're not grateful at all," she grunts through an impressive stretch, current-strong arms flung upward and out towards the heavens. She's wearing a sealskin cape and nothing else, and is so unembarrassed by it Hizashi can't muster up any on her behalf. She winks at him. "But you will be," she adds. Then: "Take off your clothes."

"Pardon?"

This time she does laugh – seagull-like – loud and sharp and to the point. "Well, I don't know much about land folk, but it's my understanding you don't handle being wet all that well."

Hizashi wraps his arms around himself, scowling. "I'll be fine."

"Suit yourself."

The sea maiden stands – or at least tries to. She heaves herself upward in a motion that would probably be fluid underwater, then loses her balance, toppling backwards onto the sand, rump first. The sight of her glaring down at her legs is almost enough to pull a laugh out of Hizashi.

"Stupid things," she grumbles, kicking up sand.

Hizashi does laugh, then, which is a mistake. The sea maiden stands, suddenly sure-footed in her indignation, and uses her newfound mastery over her lower appendages to kick sand in his direction.

Hizashi cannot stop laughing. He laughs until his new companion loses interest in burying him under sand. He laughs until the sun finally frees itself from under the weight of the horizon. He laughs until he almost forgets he just tried to kill himself.

When he's all laughed out, the sea maiden is still there. Sitting across from him, hands and feet planted firmly in the sand, peering at him with a smile so dry it's a wonder she doesn't hail from land herself.

Without a word, she stands again, solid and steady, all remaining traces of sea legs gone, and hauls Hizashi to his own significantly less steady feet. While he's still reeling from... all of it – the strength of her hands around his, the seafoam-salt smell of her filling his impossibly pumping lungs, the laughter still clanging through every hollow part of him – the sea maiden takes her sealskin cape and drapes it over Hizashi's shoulders.

It's soft and musky and so warm it feels more alive than he does, but, most of all, it's heavy.

Hizashi tries to shrug it off. "Thanks," he says stiffly, "but I said I'm fine."

"I heard you," says the sea maiden, rearranging the cape around him.

"I don't need it."

"I know."

She fastens the cape closed around his neck, patting his chest firmly. It's so long it covers Hizashi all the way down to his shins. On her, it must have just brushed over the sand at her feet. The uncanny warmth of it doesn't seep even as the seafront breeze hits it, makes it flap and flutter around him in a heavy, even bump-bump, bump-bump beat. Nothing could ever hope to reach him past that beat and that warmth.

"I don't want it, either," he lies, because he has to, because he's never known what to do in the face of so much want, because he's always wanted too many things, and he's wanted them too much.

"Neither do I," says the sea maiden, breezy as the morning. "Maybe we should leave it here, lying around. I'm sure no one else would find it, if we hid it well enough."

Hizashi blanches at the thought. He may not be the kind of man to believe in tales of sea wives, but he has heard enough of them to be wary of the kind of man who does. He fumbles for the clasp at the base of his throat. "Just take it back. Go home."

"Hm, I don't think so." She sidesteps his attempts to foist the cape back onto her, walking away backwards, hands clasped behind her head. "I think I'll stick around here for awhile. Explore the land realm. It seems exciting."

Hizashi chases after her, cape held out like a net. "It isn't."

She twirls away again. "Liar."

"It's too exciting, then. Dangerous."

"So is the ocean – didn't stop you from walking into it."

"That was –" Hizashi falters, loses his footing "– different," he finishes lamely, hands fisted in the sand-soiled cape caught under his knees.

The sea maiden stands over him. "You're right," she says, "that was different – I'm not going into this trying to die. I'd say that alone makes my odds of survival look pretty swell, don't you think?"

Hizashi stares up at her, looming tall against the dawn sky, so tall she dwarves the rising sun itself, and has no doubt she'd survive even the drying of all seven seas if it meant she got to live.

"You're naked," he says, because he's running out of arguments, and the will to keep making them.

"I wouldn't be if you gave me your clothes,” she shoots back, “I gave you mine, didn't I? It would only be fair."

The cape is velvet-smooth as Hizashi slides it out from under himself, warmer still from the heat of his body and the sun-washed sand, which slides off of it like ocean spray from mossy seaside cliffs. His sea maiden – Nemuri – takes it from him and helps him back to his feet. She folds it over her arm, as if merely holding on to it for the moment, and arches an expectant eyebrow at him.

Sighing, Hizashi shrugs off his coat. "Yes,” he relents, “I suppose it would only be fair."

On the dawn of his nineteenth birthday, Yamada Hizashi walks into town with nothing but a sealskin cape on his back and a wife.

Or so the townsfolk like to tell it, because the townsfolk love a good fairy tale romance almost as much as they love to pity him. In time, they will come to pity him even this moment and his sea-wild wife, as outrageous as she is beautiful, as the very ocean itself, and Yamada Hizashi will do what he has always done in the face of undue pity, which is to laugh in it and continue loving whoever and whatever he loves, in whichever way he sees fit.

But that will come later. For now, in the rosy light of a dawn he never planned to see, Hizashi walks into town beside Nemuri, the sea maiden who saved his life – the woman who will be called his wife and be so much more – and is content enough to have finally figured out he’s grateful, even if he has yet to figure out much else. The rest will follow, he’s sure, in good time and – even better – good company.

#yamada hizashi #present mic #kayama nemuri #midnight #micnight #qpr micnight #i wrote a thing #mermay #cw: suicide #it feels weird adding such a heavy content warning given that this is not a heavy story overall but better safe than sorry #anyway surprise mermay fic everyone!#it's me i'm everyone #this fic blindsided me ngl but i quickly grew obsessed with it and needless to say i got Lore #lore that i refused to even hint at in the fic because i Do Not need any more long form wips and i do love me a good one-shot #but who knows maybe one day i'll revisit this au i do so love it #also decided to post the whole fic here instead of just doing my usual ao3 link thingy because i recently locked my fics to registered user #-only because of the whole ai fuckery going around lately which y'know sucks #but this way anyone who wants to read it but doesn't have an ao3 account can do so through here so hopefully that helps #anyway #enjoy loves <3

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