"Uncle!" A young boy, no older than seven, called out as soon as he saw the small fishing boat settle onto the beach. He ignored the chiding "Makoto", and sprinted ahead of his father before he could be tugged back and made to wait. His short legs kicked up wet sand as he ran, causing one of his waraji to slip and be left behind. He reached the water, but two strong arms hoisted him up in order to prevent him from splashing further into it.

"Is that Makoto?" the man asked, seeming to know the answer already- eyes sparkling from his weatherworn face as he removed the straw, coned hat from his head, revealing bright red hair, to place on Makoto's own. "You've grown since I saw you last," he considered, and Makoto nodded his head vigorously, happy that the man had noticed.

"I'm a big brother now," Makoto volunteered, pride lacing his voice and he lifted his head up quickly only to lower it to prevent the large hat from sliding off.

"So you are!" the man agreed, settling the boy down and onto his feet. He took Makoto's hand and guided him back toward the boy's father who cast him an apologetic look.

"I'm sorry, he just couldn't wait to see you." Makoto's father chuckled, bowing his head in greeting. He had recovered the lost waraji and quickly grabbed a hold of Makoto's leg to slip it back on before his son ran off haphazardly again.

"It's no problem. My son, Rin, is around his age." The man waved off with his free hand, turning back to Makoto. "I have something for you. A congratulatory gift to the new, big brother."

"Really?" Makoto's eyes gleamed with excitement, and his hands came up to grip either side of the coned hat.

"Hold on now," the fisherman instructed with a laugh, giving Makoto's shoulder a fond pat. He gingerly eased his way back to his little fishing boat, reaching in for a blue and white ceramic vase, almost like a bowl, but tall enough to place flowers in. He handed it carefully to Makoto who held it carefully with both hands to keep from dropping it. "What do you think?"

"Fish!" Makoto jumped, accidently swooshing the fish around in the bowl with the movement. There were three fish in the vase and they were small and white, with blue dots above their gills.

"Easy now," the fisherman reminded him, halting Makoto's antsy form with a hand to his arm. "They're fish I found today in the traps. Best to be gentle with them."

"Oh!" Makoto's mouth opened slightly and he took great effort to keep still and not jostle the vase any more than necessary. "These fish are from the sea?"

"That's right, I caught many more where these little ones came from." He pointed to the large, hand-woven net filled with flailing fish. They were all bound together in a pile kept near the back of the boat. "It's thanks to the Sea God that my catches have been plentiful."

"Sea god?" he asked. He had heard the name occasionally come up in conversation when going with his parents around the small harbor village. He also knew that his parents presented a large offering of their rice crops to the sea at the end of every harvest, loading packages of it onto a raft and having the village elder bless their home with strong smelling incense and whispered ancient words.

He never understood just what it was all for, but it was a reoccurrence in his village since he could remember. On his last birthday, his parents had brought him to the shrine and the village elder had rubbed warm fish oil onto both his cheeks and forehead, beseeching the ocean to protect him and guide him as he got older.

It was then, on the walk back home and with his hands held in both his parents' own, that he asked them. His parents had both smiled quietly, indulgently patting his head and promising that he would one day understand too. And here, the uncle he had befriended was giving him that same smile. A smile that knew but couldn't tell, eyes looking at him and contemplating on whether to pass it off or to answer as simply as possible for a child to understand.

"Yes, the Sea God, Lord Nanase," the old man answered quietly. "He is the one who provides us with all that our village needs to survive. Without him, we would have no fish, no rain."

The line between Makoto's brows wrinkled as he listened, mouth puckering slightly. "He is…He is good?" he managed nervously, still not really grasping just what this Sea God meant to the village, or to himself. But if the Sea God gave all these things to his village, then it would reason for the Sea God to be good. Right?

The old man laughed, prompting quiet chuckles from his father beside them. "Yes, Makoto, Lord Nanase is very good." He knelt by the boy, grinning and patting Makoto's shoulder. Makoto didn't understand just what was making them all smile at him so big, but he returned theirs with a big, answering grin of his own.

"But remember Makoto," his father was then saying, smile faltering slightly when the wind began to pick up, whipping at the sleeves of his kimono. He guided Makoto by the hand to stand in front of them so that the boy was shielded from the strong gusts. "The ocean is very big and deserves our respect."

Makoto stared at them with puzzled eyes, not sure what they meant and the two adults fixed him again with those indulgent smiles.

"Yes," the old fisherman agreed, his next words cryptic and mystifying to young Makoto's ears. "The water gives, and water takes away."

"You understand Makoto?" his father asked.

Makoto nodded, looking down at his feet nervously- still no closer to finding the answer he needed to put everything together. But he knew now, something inside him was changing. A strange inkling in his heart that made the blue, deep water around him seem ominous somehow. Strange and dangerous.

He cast his eyes to the sea and watched the white caps atop of the waves collide into each other when a strong wind blew by. Hearing the story of the Sea God had made him anxious, and he wondered just how such a being could exist. Neither his father nor the old fisherman noticed his discomfort and Makoto nearly sighed in relief when his father was saying goodbye and pulling him away.

When they arrived back to the village, Makoto soon forgot about the anxiousness he had felt that day hearing about the Sea God. Makoto did his best to take care of the fish the fisherman had sent him home with. He fed them, changed out their water and visited with them every day. He did his very best, but they only lasted a few weeks before he was preparing a burial for them behind his family's home. A small vase of flowers and a large rock for a grave marker the only indication that they had existed.

He didn't know it then, but looking back, he should have recognized it for the strange foreboding feeling he felt before hearing about the good uncle's disappearance. The old fisherman had gone out one day as he always did, but he never returned when the skies grew dark and the ocean became rough. It wasn't until a few days later that another fisherman had chanced upon wreckage of the old fisherman's ship and when news came of no body being found, Makoto and his father knew at once that their old friend was gone.

The words the fisherman had told him echoed in his mind from then on, "The water gives, and the water takes away."

Makoto never went near the ocean again, and the only swimming he ever did was in the controlled knee-deep expanses of his family's rice farm. He barely ever went near the river, except to indulge his young brother and sister and to collect water for drinking. But he still stayed far away from where the river mouth met with the sea, and vowed to never go in for fear that he too, would be taken away.