Chapter 2: The Water's Reluctant Embrace
The cottage door swung shut on its complaining hinge, sealing them in the dim, quiet space. Taichi was a dead weight over his shoulder, his tail dragging across the floorboards with a sound like sandpaper.
Yamato’s back was on fire. He staggered toward the corner where the old tub sat, its white porcelain stained tea-brown from years of hard water and neglect. He wouldn’t let himself think, wouldn’t let the reality of what he was doing catch up. It was just a thing to move, a problem to solve.
He couldn’t lift him over the high rim. Not without dropping him.
“I have to… put you down,” Yamato grunted, his voice strained.
Taichi didn’t respond. His head lolled against Yamato’s back.
Gently as he could, Yamato knelt, letting the merman slide from his shoulder onto the floorboards beside the tub. Taichi’s body hit with a soft, heavy thump. A sharp gasp tore from his lips, his amber eyes flying open, wild with panic. His hand, with its long, slightly webbed fingers, slapped against the floor, claws scraping for purchase. He was trying to push away, to get back to the sea scent he’d caught on the wind, but his body wouldn’t obey.
“Stop,” Yamato said, not a command, but a plea. He held his hands up, empty. “You’re safe. Just… wait.”
He turned to the hand pump bolted to the wall above the tub, its iron lever rusted red. He grabbed the chipped enamel basin he used for washing and wedged it under the spout. He worked the lever. It groaned, then spat, then coughed out a stream of icy, clear water from the cliffside spring.
The sound of it hitting the metal basin seemed to hypnotize Taichi. His frantic movements stilled. His slit pupils dilated, fixed on the flow. His gills, thin slits along his ribs that Yamato hadn’t noticed before, fluttered weakly.
Yamato dumped the first basin into the tub. It wasn’t enough to even cover the bottom. This would take forever.
“The water’s coming,” he said, pumping again. “Just hold on.”
He worked in a frantic rhythm: pump, fill, dump. The metallic screech of the pump and the splash of water became the only sounds. His shoulder muscles bunched and burned. Sweat stung his eyes. Each time he tipped the basin, the water level in the tub crept up—an inch, then two.
Taichi watched, his chest heaving. His fingers inched toward a tiny puddle that had spilled on the floor beside him. He touched it, then brought his wet fingertips to his parched lips, his eyes closing in a moment of pure, tortured relief.
That small, desperate gesture cut through Yamato’s fatigue. He pumped faster.
When there was about five inches of water in the tub, Yamato stopped. “I need to get you in. Now. Can you help?”
Taichi’s eyes met his, the feral intelligence clouded by exhaustion. He gave a single, slight nod.
Yamato got behind him, slipping his arms under Taichi’s shoulders. The merman’s skin was chillingly cool. “On three. Push with your arms. One, two, three.”
They moved in a ragged, uncoordinated heave. Yamato lifted, Taichi pushed. His powerful tail thrashed once, slapping against the side of the tub with a wet crack. They half-fell, half-slid over the high rim and collapsed into the shallow water with a huge, sloshing splash that soaked Yamato to the skin.
Taichi cried out—a raw, sharp sound—as his body settled. The water, cold and fresh, wasn’t the ocean, but it was wet. His entire being seemed to focus inward. A profound shudder racked him from head to tail-fin. He sank down, submerging his face, his gills flaring open and closed rhythmically. Bubbles rose around his hair.
Yamato knelt on the soaked floor, catching his breath, water dripping from his hair and nose. He watched.
Slowly, Taichi lifted his head. Water streamed down the planes of his face, beaded on his eyelashes. He looked at his arms, at his tail lying in the tub. The vibrant orange scales were still cracked, the tears in his fin gaping, but they were no longer dry dust. They gleamed dully under the light of the single bulb.
“More,” Taichi rasped. His voice was less a thought-echo now, more an actual sound, grating and hoarse. “Need to submerge.”
“The pump’s slow,” Yamato said. “And this is fresh water. Is that… is it okay?”
A grimace. “It is water. It is life. It is not salt, but it will keep the rot from the air out.” He swallowed with difficulty. “My scales… they need the pressure of the deep. This is a… a sip, when I need a river.”
Yamato looked at the barely-covered form, at the battered torso still exposed to the air. He pushed himself up, his clothes heavy and cold. “I’ll get more. But I need to get my guitar. And I need to get a friend. She knows… plants. Medicine. More than I do.”
Taichi’s head snapped toward him, alarm flashing in those amber eyes. “Another human?”
“She’s not like Kaito. She’s quiet. She lives in the marshes, she knows things.” Yamato tried to sound sure. He wasn’t. “You’re hurt. Your arm is broken. I can’t fix that. I can’t fix any of this.”
They stared at each other over the chipped rim of the tub. Distrust warred with undeniable need in Taichi’s face. His pride was a tangible thing, cracked like his scales. Finally, his gaze dropped to the water. He gave another small, defeated nod.
“Do not be long,” he muttered, the words barely audible. “The dry pain… it is coming back. It chews at the edges of the wet.”
Yamato grabbed his jacket from a nail on the wall, shrugging into the damp wool. He paused at the door, looking back. Taichi had laid his head back against the porcelain, his eyes closed. His breathing was deeper now, but each exhale hitched slightly. In the weak light, the scars on his torso stood out, silvery and old, against the newer, angry wounds. The magnificent tail, coiled in the cramped space, looked both powerful and profoundly fragile.
“I’ll be back,” Yamato said, to himself as much as to the merman.
He slipped out into the night.
The cliff path felt different in the dark. The wind was colder, carrying the full-throated roar of the sea below. His mind replayed it all: the coins hitting the planks, Kaito’s laugh, the feel of those cool, scaled muscles under his hands, the terror in Taichi’s eyes when he’d hit the floor.
He found his guitar case where he’d shoved it, untouched behind the crates. The market was deserted now, just husks of stalls and the reek of the day’s decay. He clutched the case handle, its familiar grip a tiny anchor.
He didn’t go home. He turned inland, toward the brackish marshes where the village gave way to whispering reeds and soggy ground. Riko’s shack was even smaller than his, built on stilts, reached by a wobbly plank walkway. A faint, earthy glow came from her window.
He knocked, the sound swallowed by the wet night.
After a moment, the door opened a crack. Riko’s face appeared, sharp and curious, framed by frizzy black hair streaked with green from algae dyes. Her eyes, dark and quick, took him in—soaked, shivering, guitar in hand, breath coming in clouds.
“Yamato? It’s late. You look like you dragged something up from the deep.”
He let out a shaky breath that was almost a laugh. “Riko. I need help. I’ve done something… really stupid.”
She studied him for another second, then opened the door wider. The smell of drying herbs and fermented mud wafted out. “Stupid how?”
He stepped inside, the warmth of her small fire immediately embracing him. He set his guitar case down carefully.
“I bought a merman from Kaito,” he said, the words blunt and unbelievable in the cozy room.
Riko froze, a jar of dried willow bark in her hand. She slowly turned to face him. “You what.”
“He’s dying. In my tub. He’s a prince, Riko. His scales are cracked. His arm’s broken. He’s just… lying there. I have no salt, no medicine, no idea what to do.” The words tumbled out now, a desperate flood. “He needed water. I gave him fresh. He says it’s not enough. And Kaito… Kaito’s going to be looking for him. For me.”
Riko placed the jar on her cluttered table with deliberate slowness. She walked to the window, looking out into the direction of Yamato’s cottage. When she spoke, her voice was low and serious. “A sunlight mer. From the shallows.”
“You know of them?”
“Everyone who listens to the old water knows the stories. Their tribe is fading. The nets take too many.” She turned back, her gaze piercing. “You spent your last coins.”
It wasn’t a question. Yamato just nodded.
A long silence stretched, broken only by the pop of the fire. Then Riko moved, sudden and decisive. She grabbed a waxed canvas satchel and began pulling things from shelves: bundles of kelp dried into tough straps, jars of pungent salve, a clutch of fibrous reeds.
“Fresh water will stabilize him, but it’ll leach his minerals. He needs salt, and something for the scale rot that’ll set in.” She shoved the items into the bag. “The break I can maybe splint. The rest… it’s up to him. And up to how much trouble you’ve just brought to both our doors.”
She slung the satchel over her shoulder and nodded toward the door. “Well? You said he’s dying. Let’s not stand here and let it happen.”
Relief, sharp and staggering, washed through Yamato. He grabbed his guitar case again, as if it were a shield. Together, they stepped back out into the swallowing dark, the path back to the cottage feeling even more treacherous than before.
Back inside his own door, the air felt charged, different. The only sound was the slow, rhythmic drip of water from the pump spout.
Taichi was exactly where Yamato had left him, but his eyes were open. They locked onto Yamato, then flicked to Riko, instantly wary, his body tensing in the water. A low, threatening vibration hummed in the air, the sound a cornered animal makes.
“Taichi,” Yamato said, stepping forward, hands raised. “This is Riko. She’s here to help.”
Riko didn’t approach. She stood just inside the doorway, her satchel held loosely, and gave a small, non-threatening nod. “Prince of the Sunlit Water,” she said, her voice respectful. “The land offers its poor medicines.”
Taichi’s amber eyes narrowed, evaluating her, the strange words. The defensive hum faded, but the tension didn’t. He looked from her back to Yamato, the question clear in his exhausted face.
What now?
Yamato met his gaze, the weight of it all settling firmly on his shoulders. The tub, the creature in it, the friend beside him, the angry captain somewhere in the night.
Now, they tried to keep him alive.