A/N: I had a little over two-hundred words of this sitting in my Documents folder for little over a year and decided 'why not, let's get this bad boy finished and out of the way'. I'm still looking forward to reading the Miyanaga family drama, which is the reason why I have to constantly reread the manga and familiarize myself with it every time I wait for a new chapter, among finally getting around to (reading past the first two chapters of) Shinohayu: The Dawn of Age and Biyori/BG.
She doesn't know why she keeps coming back to it. There's no solace in staring into the water's pristine, untouched surface, no joy in the weight of the warm sun on her skin.
There's her, the pier, and the blue of the sky reflected in those depths. The world is quiet.
The fish swim amidst their own, happy and oblivious.
To Saki they were pretty, shining things, but even at her child's age she couldn't look past that and saw them as a means to fill her belly. She didn't understand that one had to descale the fish, remove the bones and organs, and cook it however as you pleased before you could serve it on your plate and eat it.
To her wheelchair-bound sister, the fish were an extension of the part of her that, given time, would no longer be able to walk or run or swim. In those bygone halcyon days she had loved to be in the water, sending forth soundless ripples with those wide strokes that could only be made by pouring every drop of strength into the pads of the fingertips; and the fish would scatter and some would flee, but they would always return to the calming surface. Breaching for air, for bits of crumbled bread meant for the birds loitering on the beach.
But to Teru…
She purses her lips, shakes her head, and gets down on her haunches. She rolls up the sleeve of her jacket and dips her fingers into the water, then plunges further and submerges her hand up to her wrist. The fish beat a hasty retreat.
She sighs through her nostrils, a harsh and bitter sound. The water is cold, biting, weightless. But to the fish, it is as simple as walking on land. No problem at all.
"So ignorant," she says, watching them idle and swim and be fish. "You don't know any better."
And then she remembers, with startling clarity, the dreams: of fish bigger than her, wide and large and eyes so bulbous alien, chasing her in the endless brine, snapping at her, biting her, dislocates its jaws like a snake and swallow her whole. There are the dreams of being trapped in a nucleus of schools upon schools of tiny fish, and the fish have faces—human faces—and they are each familiar and unwanted, shouting, cursing, crying, pleading, reassuring, and all that they say does and does not make sense.
She shivers. The fish don't have to worry about family drama. They don't have to worry about a sister who tries her damnedest to talk to her—even when they both know (and Teru hopes Saki knows) it's all for naught. They don't have to worry about blonde-haired, blue-eyed girls that look all too much like the dead and think every time it's just Awai and only Awai. They don't have to worry about curious high school girls and mahjong commentators wondering how the Tiger of Shiraitodai and that demure-looking brunette from Kiyosumi who wiped the floor of Amae Koromo could possibly be related.
But most of all, they don't have to worry about the reflections of themselves, young and unbroken, glaring back, transmitting all that needs to be said and conveyed with eyes that belong on demons.
"You're all so lucky," Teru tells them, and slowly retracts her hand. Lifts her to face and watches the droplets run down her arm with a storm behind her eyes.
Blood runs thick, but it, too, can be diluted. Just like water.
And water runs deep, just like the sea.