AN:

This is my first story written for Free, but I love Rintori and I've been thinking about a mermaid/pirate AU since I first watched the anime. I only have one or two chapters of this story written, but I have the entire thing planned out, so it shouldn't take terribly long to complete.

This first chapter is more of an intro, just to introduce Aiichirou and explain the Mer a bit. I hope you guys enjoy, feel free to leave a review~

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He never used to be so lonely.

That wasn't true, not by a long shot. It couldn't be true; his situation hadn't changed, so how could it have gotten worse?

Easy, his mind whispered, part of a never ending stream of subconscious chatter that eased the silence around him, The longer you're alone, the more lonely you become.

Aiichirou wasn't sure how long he'd been alone... His whole life certainly, but how long was that? He didn't know, couldn't even begin to guess. He had no concept of time beyond the rising and setting of the sun, the push and pull of the tide. He had nowhere to be though and nothing to do, so really, it didn't matter.

Except that it was starting to feel like a very long time.

Sometimes Aiichirou tried keeping count of the days as they passed. He'd stay near the surface and watch as the sky turned grey, then pink, then orange, then blue, before reversing back to black. That was one. One day. One day closer to... what? He didn't know.

He could never keep it up for long. The farthest he'd ever made it was fifteen. Fifteen days of swimming, in no particular direction, maybe even in circles, with no end in sight. He'd had to stop; the counting made him sick. After all, how many days had passed before he'd even thought to count? Thousands maybe. How many days would pass until something, anything happened? Maybe thousands more.

Or maybe nothing would ever happened. Maybe this was his existence, floating freely for all eternity with no where to go, nothing to do, no purpose or direction, no companionship to ease his time.

He knew there were others like him. He'd seen them, sightings so few and far between that by the time he saw the next one, he'd begun to think he'd imagined the one before them.

They were real though, with arms and hands and fingers like his. Their stomachs, their backs, they were all the same. Their tails were different, in color and length, but they were close enough.

Aiichirou had never seen his own face, but when he looked at the other Mer, he saw himself looking back.

Whenever they crossed paths he felt a pull, a powerful desire to connect that was both exhilarating and suffocating. The pure hope that enveloped him at each sighting pushed tears from his eyes, made his throat feel raw.

They would hardly look at him.

Aiichirou knew he could speak. He didn't know how or why he'd learned the language that lived inside him, but it was there. There were so many words trapped inside of his head; words he knew the meaning of but didn't quite understand, words he had never spoken and didn't remember learning, but that itched at the back of his throat, begging to be uttered.

They came out garbled, distorted by the black water that filled his mouth every time he opened it, but he was sure the others understood him. They looked at him and looked away, shook their heads as he pleaded for a response, an acknowledgment, a word. They brushed him off as he grabbed their hands, their arms, whatever he could reach.

Please hear me!

With blank, shuttered faces, sometimes painted with freezing scowls, they paid him no more mind than the fish did. They floated past with little effort, unblinking and uncaring until they were long out of his sight, never to be seen again.

Aiichirou didn't want to be like them, void of emotion and purpose. Their eyes scared him as well; they were milky white and accustomed to the darkness of the deep water they favored, probably blind in the light of the sun. It was more than enough motivation to keep him venturing to the surface, even if it seemed pointless. He wouldn't, couldn't become that.

A Mer creature's only true desire is to hoard treasure. Even the floating almost-corpses Aiichirou had encountered were laden with whatever jewels and ornaments they could find. The trouble with deep water though was that not a lot of treasure made it out that far. Usually it was dropped into the sea near ports by silly girls or careless merchants. There, it was either buried in the sand or snatched up by whatever Mer happened to see it first. Very few pieces managed to drift out to sea and even fewer were lost on open water.

Still, that didn't stop the deep water creatures from searching, staying at the deepest depths, hunting endlessly through the sand for a spark of gem, a glint of gold, anything to slake their need.

Aiichirou himself had meager adornments; a few gems tangled in his hair, silver necklaces that wound around his neck and drifted behind him. He'd found bangles too, thin ones that sometimes slipped over his small hands.

He didn't really mind though; he'd found them all by chance, had never in his life searched for jewelry. It was just that when he found them... he couldn't bring himself to leave them behind.

After all, they were all special to someone. Every piece he wore had once belonged to someone, given as a gift from a friend or a lover or even just a gift to themselves. They had made someone happy, no matter how small, and they had probably made someone sad too, when they had been lost. He couldn't stand it, to see something that had once been cherished left to tarnish at the bottom of the sea, lost forever in the darkness.

He couldn't stand to see them left alone.

So he gathered them up and found a place for them on his own body, a new home to adorn until... Until whatever happened, happened.

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Thanks for reading~