Kaito awoke feeling more tired than he'd ever felt in his life. His body still felt unnaturally warm and the gash in his side stung quite a bit. Not to mention, a bathtub wasn't exactly a comfortable place to sleep for a full grown merman. He stretched as best as he could manage in his limited space, being careful so as not to reopen his wound. Turning slightly, he noticed that Meiko was still sitting next to him, her face cradled in her arms, which had probably gone numb thanks to the uncomfortable sleeping position.
A smile crept up on his lips as he leaned his head on the rim of the bathtub to rest in front of hers. As a child, the elder mermaids had told him many tales about the hazards that humans were. "They have loud, booming voices that can make your ears bleed," and "The nails on their fingers, and especially their toes, are razor sharp," and even "The hair that grows on their legs sting like a jellyfish's tentacles." Now, having a human before him, he had trouble believing those tales. Most of them, anyway. He wasn't going to discredit the one about their booming voices just yet, because her voice had gotten rather loud when he hit her with his tail fin yesterday.
Meiko shifted her head, groaning softly. He noticed that there was a scratch across her cheek and he felt even worse about how he slapped her. He reached a hand out gingerly, trying not to wake her, and placed it just over the scratch. A soft melody emitted from somewhere deep in his throat and a light blue glow spread from the tips of his webbed fingers to the small cut across her cheek. In a matter of moments, the cut sealed and it was gone without a single trace.
His hand lingered on her face for a moment; it looked a lot softer in her sleep. He'd only just met her but she seemed to have an eternal crease between her brows in her waking moments. She had soft brown hair that came down to her chin and fierce brown eyes. He'd never seen anyone with brown hair up close before. Brown was a rather uncommon color where he lived. Most merpeople's hair and eyes came in vibrant colors like blue, red, orange, yellow, green, sometimes even a jet black. A merchild born with brown hair was believed to be a descendant of humans; sometimes the child's mother would be accused of mating with a human and would be forced to leave the pod. Kaito had always thought that was an awfully harsh punishment. Seeing it in person, he thought brown hair was beautiful.
Suddenly, Meiko opened her eyes. "Mmm, what time is it?" she mumbled groggily, rubbing her eyes and standing up from the chair. "God, my neck is killing me. So, how are you holding up?"
Kaito stared at her blankly for a moment. "Ummm, what do you mean… by… 'holding up'?" He spoke slowly, not quite accustomed to speaking like a human.
"Feeling. How are you feeling?" Meiko gestured enthusiastically as she spoke, as if doing so would somehow help him understand better. "Y'know, does your wound still hurt?"
He smiled. Humans had some strange habits. "Yes, it does still sting quite a bit. But it is not infected thanks to you. You have my gratitude, queen Meiko." He bowed his head, smiling humbly.
"Wait, what?" She sat down so her face was level with his. "Why 'queen'? I mean, I'm certainly not opposed to the title, I find it rather fitting myself-" she trailed off for a moment, propping her head up with a hand. "But, really why are you calling me 'queen'?"
"Well, I assumed, since you are wearing a crown, and you own this building that is larger than all the other neighboring ones, that you were royalty of some kind…"
"What? No, this isn't a crown- It's just a headband and it happens to be gold colored." She took the headband out of her hair and handed it to him. "See? And also, I do not own this whole building. I own a very small part of it, but only temporarily. It's called rent- Are you even listening?"
The merman was now glancing around the small bathroom, entranced by all the foreign objects held within. "What do you call this?" He asked breathlessly, opening a bottle of shampoo and sniffing it. His blue eyes suddenly lit up. "It smells wonderful."
Meiko ran a hand through her hair. Great. Just great. "That's called shampoo. It's for washing your hair-"
He tipped the bottle back, trying to get the sweet smelling pink gel into his open mouth.
"Hey!" She quickly snatched the bottle out of his hands and set it down out of his reach. "That is not food okay? Are you hungry?"
"Now that you mention it, I guess I am."
"Okay, well what do you eat?"
"Fish, oysters, shrimp, sometimes squid but they are hard to catch unless you are in a group."
"Alright, so I'll just bring you a bunch of seafood I guess." She stared at him wearily. "I don't know if I trust you being here by yourself."
"Do not worry. I shall be fine on my own."
Meiko grumbled something under her breath incoherently and left the room. "Don't try to eat anything else in there!" She called from down the hallway just before the door slammed shut.
Kaito sat still for little while but began surveying the room once he was sure she wasn't going to come back all of the sudden and catch him snooping around. It was a very interesting room. It seemed humans had the power to control water at will. Meiko turned a knob earlier and it had caused water to pour out into a bowl.
He grabbed the bar of soap next to him and sniffed it. It smelled alright, not as good as the pink gel from before, but it had a fragrant smell to it. He squeezed his hand around it and the bar of soap slipped out, hit the ceiling, and came down, just narrowly missing his head.
Startled, the merman nearly fell out of the bathtub. Whatever that thing was, it seemed dangerous.
Meiko walked into the apartment complex, numerous shopping bags in hand, as she fiddled for her keys. Her shopping trip had been rather quick, as she had no idea what kind of miscief the merman sitting in her bathtub would be up to in her absence.
Suddenly, someone grabbed her from behind, wrapping their arms around her waist. "Heeeyyyy, Meiko!"
Meiko turned around, though she really didn't need to in order to guess who it was that had suddenly attacked her. "Jesus, Miku, do you have to be so loud so early in the morning?"
Miku smiled. "It isn't even morning! It's noon already!"
"Yeah, well, it's morning for me." She grumbled.
Miku lived in the apartment right next to Meiko's. She was an excitable 16 year old with long teal colored hair that was usually put up in twintails. She had always insisted to Meiko that teal was her natural hair color but she had had a rather hard time believing her. Now, having seen a mythical creature that wasn't supposed to exist, the idea didn't seem quite so ridiculous. She lived on her own despite being so young and Meiko had never really bothered to question why, she just looked out for her and made sure she always had enough to eat and some company every once in a while.
"So, what have you got there?" Miku asked, releasing her hold on Meiko and looking over at all the bags in her hands.
"Oh… just… some food." Meiko continued walking to her apartment hurriedly. "Don't worry about it. I'll see ya later, Miku!" She waved just before closing the door.
"Hey, Kaito, I'm back!" She called from the entrance, kicking off her shoes and walking over to the bathroom. "I didn't know which kind of fish you preferred so I bought a bunch of different types and-"
The merman sat up straight and smiled innocently. He coughed and a few bubbles escaped his lips. "That shampoo stuff really did not taste very good, Meiko."
The two had finished eating and Meiko had cleared up their mess for them. "So, what is it like? Living in the ocean, I mean?"
"Well, I have known no other way of living until now, so I am not sure that I can describe it to you properly." Kaito began, staring at his webbed hands in concentration. "But a great many things are very different about our lifestyles."
"Yeah, no kidding." Meiko scoffed. "I specifically told you not to eat my shampoo."
"I already apologized for that!" He groaned indignantly. Hiding his face in his arms, as his cheeks turned pink.
"I'm joking, don't worry about it!" She laughed, bringing a hand up to cover her mouth.
His head came back up and he grabbed hold of her hand suddenly. "Your nails." He slid his hand underneath hers so he could get a better look. "They're red!"
She blushed slightly at the sudden contact. "Yeah… You can paint them different colors using nail polish."
The merman's eyes brightened at that. "Do you think you could paint mine?!"
"I guess so… What color do you want? Blue?"
"No. I think I like red."
(A/N): This is going a lot slower than I had originally planned, I didn't wanna pile on too much mermaid folklore just yet. (I actually did a bit of research about them, though.)
I hope you are enjoying this anyway!
You have no idea how many times I was singing "Under The Sea" in my head while writing this.
Thanks for reading!