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“Shoto, make sure that you don’t go too far!”
His mother called after him, standing on the porch of their oceanside home with the french doors thrown wide behind her. She couldn’t help but smile as she watched her youngest son toddle his way down to the beach that had been his favourite place since he was old enough to run there alone.
“I won’t mama!” He called back, turning and giving her a solemn nod. “I know the rules. Stay near the house. Don’t go in the water.”
He looked so stern that Rei had to swallow a chuckle, marvelling at how much her little boy had grown up for someone who was still so small. It wouldn't be long, she knew, before his father decided that he was old enough to learn the family trade. Until his carefree days of playing on the sand were over for good. She could give him a little more time before that perfect childhood world fell down around him, before he had to learn about all of the hardships that she had carefully shielded him from. She stood for a while watching him, smiling to herself when he set to his near daily task of building a castle that they could watch be washed away by the creeping tides before he went to bed. But eventually she retreated back into the house, trusting that he would be safe on the little stretch of sand that her husband had purchased just for them.
Shoto kicked off his shoes as soon as he possibly could, sinking his wiggling toes into the sand with a happy laugh. He stood for a short second – enjoying the feeling of the grains running between his toes – and then it was time to get to work. He had big plans, or as big as a boy of five could have at any rate, and this castle that day was going to be better than ever. With a moat that filled up from the little stream that trickled down to the water that he wasn’t allowed to run into without his mama holding his hand. And a bridge made of sticks. And a flag .
He moved as close to the lapping tide as he dared, collecting the good hard wet sand that his big brother had shown him to use on his very first castle, his brow furrowing with concentration whilst he carefully filled his bucket.
His mama was going to love this castle. She was going to smile so big when she saw how brave he had been to build it so close to the water, he was sure of it. He filled and turned his buckets one after the other, digging out a wonky little circle for the moat and drawing patterns in the sand with his finger, working with such careful focus that he didn’t notice a splashing in the water behind him, a pair of green eyes and a patch of wild hair that almost looked like sea kelp watching him from the shallows.
***
Izuku had been warned to keep away from the humans. His mother didn’t like it when he swam too far from home, but he was an endlessly curious child, and though he was smaller than any of the other younglings in his pod he was by far the bravest of them all, something that he was really very proud of.
And the boy with the two tone hair had caught his attention from the very first day that he drifted into the shallows to look at the strange land walkers, to listen to their stories and watch them come and go, seemingly heedless of the entire world that was right next to them if they only took a moment to look into the water.
Some of the beaches he visited were busy, and he didn’t like those so much. But this one was so quiet, just the little boy with the carefully parted hair sitting alone in the sand, building something only to watch it be ruined by the waves. Izuku liked the way that he scrunched his nose up when he was working, and the way that he smiled and ran for the lady that must be his mama the second he was done.
That morning the human boy was so close to the water, sitting where the bigger waves would tickle his toes. He was close enough that Izuku thought he might be able to reach out and touch him. Might be able to pop up out of the water and say hello if he was brave enough. He’d wanted to for so long, but his mother had told him that it wasn’t safe. That humans weren’t nice to their people and he had no real reason to doubt her.
But the little boy looked so nice. He had a wide happy smile and bright clever eyes, just like everyone said Izuku had. He was brave enough to come close to the water on his own, and if he wasn’t scared of that then surely Izuku couldn’t be afraid of him. He’d never been scared by the stories about bad humans. There were bad finned too, he had been warned about them for most of his life as well as the land walking folk. But all the finned he knew were good. Maybe the humans he met could be too.
So he took a deep breath and popped his head up over the waves, the sudden movement catching the attention of the wide eyed boy.
“Hi!” Izuku flicked his tailfin up in a wave, giggling when the human’s mouth dropped open. “Can I play with you?”
“Are you a fish?” The human cocked his head to the side, his nose crinkling up the way that Izuku liked best.
“No,” Izuku giggled in reply. “I’m Izuku.”
“What’s an Izuku?”
“Me!”
“Okay.” the boy shrugged. “I’m Shoto.”
“Hi Shoto.” Izuku couldn’t stop smiling, the little boy had gone right back to his sand building without another question, and just like that Izuku was sure that they were friends.
“I’m making a big pretty castle for my mama,” Shoso said, looking up again with a tiny frown. “Want to help?”
Izuku nodded, diving back down into the water to scour for shells that they could use to decorate the castle, handing them to Shoto with a smile that only got bigger when Shoto placed them gently into his sculpture, adding a few sticks that he had collected for good measure to make a tiny bridge. They worked on it until the sun was starting to sink towards the horizon and Izuku could hear his mother calling him home for dinner.
“Will you be back to play tomorrow?” Shoto asked, sitting with his knees pulled up to his chest, his fingers woven together around them.
“If you like.” Izuku nodded, “we can make another castle.”
“Okay.”
Izuku dove into the water with a flick of his tail that he knew would splash just a little water in Shoto’s direction, excited to tell his mother all about his new friend. Excited to see him again the next day, and the one after that.
***
From the first day they met the pair were nearly inseparable. Every morning Shoto ran down to the beach to find Izuku waiting for him. They played together, building more and more elaborate structures as they got older, pouring hours into their sand creations, talking and laughing all day without fail. Rei was worried at first when her son came home telling stories about a fish boy who had brought him shells for his castle windows, but over time she saw Izuku in the water with him, saw the way that he smiled and laughed when they were together, and her worries lessened a little. No matter who they were, someone who made her son that happy couldn’t be bad.
As the years passed they grew together. Izuku teaching Shoto to swim first in the shallows and then – once he was strong enough – guiding him safely into deeper water, showing him all the things that there were to see in the world below the waves, but always making sure that he returned home safely to his mother. In turn Shoto taught Izuku everything that he could think to tell him about the human world. Their stories and their songs, from the most mundane all the way through to myths that he knew – after meeting his finned friend – held at least some truth.
When Shoto was old enough to begin learning the work of his family he was torn from his long quiet days on the beach, sitting instead at a plain wooden desk looking out of the window whilst his tutor droned on about responsibility and finance, the finer points of the work that his father had designated would be his. Those days the one thing that brought him joy was a patch of kelpy hair in the water, a pair of green eyes rising up and meeting his in a silent promise that his friend would be there as soon as he was free.
For his fifteenth birthday his mother bought him a surfboard, for his eighteenth a tiny sailing boat that would ferry him out further out towards the horizon than ever, allowing him to dive into the deep waters and meet some of the people that Izuku called kin.
As they grew the water became Shoto’s haven. A safe place to retreat to when the life inside his home was almost too much to bear. His siblings had been driven away, his mother pulling into herself more and more every day, his father desperate for him to finally turn his back on the sea and – as he put it – become the real man that they needed him to be.
He started staying out on the surface of the water long into the night, laying on the deck of that little sailboat and letting all of the worries that weighed on his heart flow out of him. It was the only place that he really felt at home in those later years, with the stars above him and the water below, Izuku ever at his side to listen, to comfort him when he could and distract him when no comfort could be found.
Shoto didn’t think that Izuku knew how much he had come to adore their time together. Didn’t think that he knew that the days when they were apart were some of the worst that he had ever experienced; that he thought he could weather any storm if Izuku was there beside him.
He didn’t know how to tell his friend what lay deep within his heart. He was a creature of the seas, and Shoto was a man of the shore. How could such a distance be bridged?
Izuku had grown strong and vibrant in the years that had passed between them, his scales shimmering bright emerald in the moonlight, his arms as strong as his tail from the years of swimming and sailing alongside Shoto. He was the jewel of his pod, destined to take on the mantle of their all mighty leader. The bravest and the strongest of all finned peoples in the ocean. It was a lot to carry, and in his quieter moments he would admit that he was afraid. But those nights that he swam with Shoto made it all easier. The bright beautiful eyes, the smile that was more radiant than the light of the moon when they were turned towards him eased his anxious heart.
Izuku didn’t think that Shoto knew how much he cared for him, and he was content to never let it be known if it meant keeping Shoto happy. But his chest ached when they were apart, the waters feeling so much colder when the hand of his human was far away.
***
“Shoto it is high time that you abandoned this foolishness. You need to join me in the city and take your place in the company. I have been patient enough.”
“You haven’t been patient at all,” Shoto shouted back at his father, storming through the house that had long since stopped feeling like home. “It has always been about what you want and never about what I need.”
“There is nothing for you out there in the water, Shoto. Nothing . You need to grow up!”
“You’re wrong.”
He let the door bang behind him, not listening to the shouts from his enraged father back inside the house as he ran down the sand to where his little boat was docked. He could see the confused face of his friend rising out of the water as he approached, shoving the vessel into the surf as hard and fast as he could, relieved when he felt a familiar tug on the lines.
“As far as we can go,” he said, sniffing back a sob. “I need to be away from here tonight, Zu.”
Together they sailed out further than Shoto had ever dared go, knowing that there would be consequences waiting for him when he got home and finding that he didn’t care. It had been a long time since he had cared about much, other than the man laying at his side.
“What if I didn’t go back this time,” he whispered, letting his hand trail down into the water. “What if we just kept sailing forever?”
“Do you want to keep sailing?”
“I don’t know. I just know that I can’t be what he wants me to be.”
They lay in silence for a while, Shoto’s tears silently falling and splashing into the water below. He felt a cool hand slide into his own, webbed fingers tangling with his and squeezing. Shoto turned, looking into the deep green eyes and feeling a familiar flutter in his chest. Izuku was so close, his gills wafting gently in the evening breeze, his features soft in the moonlight.
“I think,” Shoto said, trying to calm his breathing. “I would be happy if I could just be with you. Forever.”
For a long second Izuku didn’t move, and Shoto’s heart fell. Had he been stupid to confess the feelings that he’d hidden for so long? Had so few words ruined the one good thing that he had been holding on to?
But then soft salty lips pressed against his, a tug at his hand pulling him splashing into the water with a laugh, more kisses peppering his face.
“Then stay,” Izuku whispered, pressing their foreheads together, strong arms holding Shoto with ease. “Stay and we’ll work out together, Shoto.”
Shoto nodded, and then Izuku was kissing him again and all of his worries melted away. Everything he needed was right there, in a pair of bright green eyes and a smile that he just couldn't take his eyes off of.
From the shore to the sea, as long as they were together nothing else mattered at all.