"Come on, smile. Why don't you smile?" Fuji prompted as he swam around Tezuka in graceful circles. The map on his glittering tail had dots indicating the capital of each country.

Tezuka could think of numerous reasons why he was not smiling. He had lost his voice, he had been kidnapped into the ocean, and he had been unwillingly changed into a merman—surely anyone would be justified not to smile after that. Besides, he rarely smiled even under normal circumstances anyway. But he could hardly reply to Fuji's question because, as stated above, he could not speak.

"Prince Tezuka, I've heard that you didn't speak much anyhow, so I figured it would be all right to take away your voice. You don't hate me for this, ne?" Fuji queried with his usual smile.

Tezuka wanted to point out that there were a thousand differences between not speaking much and not being able to speak at all. One could use the toilet only a few times a day, but it didn't mean that one could get by without ever using the toilet, did it? Still, Tezuka did not reply, because, again, he could not speak.

"It's nice with you here, you know. I'm glad you're here to keep me company," Fuji murmured, pulling absent-mindedly at the loose cotton on the cushion he was holding in mild embarrassment.

Tezuka looked at Fuji's strangely sad profile, and felt his heart soften.

He often felt lonely too, even with all those people around him.

No one had ever really understood him. Everyone at the palace looked up to him and was completely loyal to him, but there were always things that they could never understand. Even Oishi, who knew Tezuka best, never knew most of the things that Tezuka thought about.

Sometimes Tezuka would wonder if that really was the life he wanted. He had servants, expensive clothes, and anything he desired to eat. But he did not have someone that he could really talk to. Was this the life he wanted?

He started to think that he could sort of understand why he was kidnapped into the ocean.

--

Oishi looked around nervously. It had not been long, probably a minute at most, but he had already lost sight of the person he wanted to save.

"Might be a water bogey," Oishi thought and shuddered. In their kingdom, common belief had it that water bogies would come to the ocean and grab people to take their place in July.

It was July.

The "person" he saw could be a water bogey, luring him into the ocean to take his life. It certainly explained Oishi's current situation.

Oishi felt like he had heard his own death sentence being announced as he turned back to realize that he could no longer see the shoreline. He was exhausted from having swum this far. There was no way he could make it back. In fact, he could hardly distinguish which way was "back".

As he began to panic, the red-haired water bogey (Oishi had decided that it must be a water bogey and there was no way he would change his mind now) glided past him. Eiji had come back to ask whether the race was over.

Oishi cried out, struggling to keep as far away from Eiji as possible, "Please let me go! I've never done anything bad in my life, water bogey-san!"

"Water bogey? Where? Where?" Eiji exclaimed in fright and quickly swam away. A water bogey! How exciting! He made a mental plan to tell Gakuto all about meeting a water bogey as soon as he got home.

Oishi was confused at the fact that the water bogey seemed to have shirked in fright as soon as he started screaming, but even without the water bogey he was still in trouble. He started imagining various ways he was going to die. He could slowly drown as all his strength left him, his desperate calls for help unheard. He could be eaten by sharks or stung by jellyfish. He could be taken away by another water bogey, or he could be killed by a tsunami. Or maybe grinded to death by a Loch Ness monster. None of these seemed like a nice way to die.

Eiji, meanwhile, was well on his way home to tell Gakuto about his adventures on The Surface. All of a sudden it struck him, again, that he was on a mission. It also struck him that the strange human who was screaming about water bogies looked suspiciously like Prince Tezuka's friend and appointed recipient of his note.

Eiji quickly swam back to The Surface. Oishi was still hanging onto life—with survival instinct tactics, but it was impossible for him to win this battle against the waves. Suddenly remembering that humans were unable to breathe underwater—poor them!—Eiji swam over and brought Oishi back to the surface.

It was the first time that Eiji had seen any human besides Prince Tezuka up this close. He studied Oishi with interest. This one looks nothing like Prince Tezuka, but he looks nice too… Eiji found himself wondering just how all the other humans looked like.

If Oishi had been unconscious, Eiji, having never heard of CPR, would be unable to do anything to help him. Fortunately Oishi was still breathing and very much conscious. Blinking the salty water out of his eyes, Oishi found himself looking into the face of the water bogey he had previously thought he had gotten rid of.

Feeling doomed, Oishi could only accept his fate. Still, he couldn't help thinking that this boy in front of him looked nothing like a water bogey. Did water bogies have band-aids on their cheeks? Did water bogies have those weird tails with movie posters on them? Weren't water bogies supposed to be hideous? This one certainly wasn't hideous. In fact, he was extremely cute—perhaps water bogies came in all shapes and sizes. Like humans.

Oishi decided that even if this was not a water bogey, it could not be a human being either. Human beings did not have dry hair when they had just surfaced from water.

What can he be then? Sea otter? Sea lion? Sea snake? Sea iPod? No, he can't be an iPod. Syuichiro, you have swallowed too much water and lost your senses.

"Are you a friend of Prince Tezuka?" Eiji began carefully.

Oishi immediately forgot about all the above musings. He couldn't care less what species Eiji was as long as he knew about Prince Tezuka. He had, despite putting on a hopeful façade, thought that Tezuka had been long dead, and news that his prince was still alive and (sort of) well almost brought tears of joy to his eyes. He quickly nodded, still too out-of-breath to speak in sentences, and eagerly waited for the reply.

"He wants me to give this to you," Eiji pulled out the note, which Oishi excitedly read.

"AAAH! Prince Tezuka must be in trouble," Oishi coughed out as he read on. "If he was having a wonderful time, he would not tell me to, so he would not make me envious. He must be under great distress, but not wanting me to worry, pretended that he was fine."

Eiji listened to his line of thought and decided that Oishi certainly did understand Tezuka well.

"This won't do. I must rescue him," Oishi declared, took a deep breath and prepared to dive.

"No way. That will kill you," Eiji dragged him back up. "We live at a really deep place. You won't be able to reach it. Don't worry, I know Fuji well. Even though he can be sadistic at times, I'm sure he will treat your Prince Tezuka nicely."

"Oh." Oishi looked regretful.

Eiji patted him assuringly, and prepared to take his leave. He knew that his parents would probably murder him when he got home, but he still had to go back. "Well then, zannen munen, matta—" He was only half-finished when Oishi cried, "No! I'll die if you leave me here!"

Eiji looked around. Land was nowhere in sight. He remembered that humans were not accustomed to swimming long distances, so he held out his hand to Oishi.

"Come on, I'll bring you back to your kingdom."

Under the setting sun, the human and the merman swam happily towards the shore. Eiji, who was always curious, fired off questions about humans, which Oishi gladly answered. Oishi in turn fired off questions about Tezuka's current situation, and Eiji promised him several times that he would not let any harm befall Tezuka. Oishi had been pretty shocked that such a species like mermen actually existed, but Eiji obviously couldn't have been anything else, and so Oishi decided that since there were water bogies, the fact that there were mermen should not be a surprise. By the time they reached the shore a few hours later, they had become fast friends and were swimming in Synchro.

"Thanks for the—"Oishi began when he noticed a big problem. As you can see, they had not been really that far from Oishi's kingdom in the first place, so why did it take them so many hours to reach land? The truth was, since it was Eiji's first time on The Surface, he had no idea which direction he was supposed to go and had brought Oishi to the Neighboring Kingdom of the Neighboring Kingdom.

"This is not my kingdom," Oishi wept.

"Sorry," Eiji apologized shamefacedly.

Then they heard a very deep and very sexy voice in a Kansai accent. "Gakuto? Is that you?"

They looked up to see a blue-haired man with glasses. Eiji realized that this must be the sexy blue-haired knight Gakuto had told him about.

"Ah, sorry, wrong person. I thought you were Gakuto because you both have red hair," Oshitari explained. He then looked at Oishi. "You are Oishi from the Neighboring Kingdom, right? Come on up and dry yourself. Ootori will drive you back to your kingdom."

"Thanks," Oishi murmured, rather surprised that Oshitari looked all unfazed at seeing a merman. He did not know that Oshitari had been actually dating one.

"You are Eiji, aren't you?" Oshitari added. "Tell Gakuto that I miss him."

"Okay. Bye-bye then!" Eiji grinned and disappeared into the sea with a parting wave of his tail.

Oishi, shivering, was pulled ashore and made comfy by Ootori and various other people Oshitari had commanded to help. Recalling the events that happened that day, he almost believed that it must be a dream. But he had the note from Tezuka in his very handwriting, so it couldn't have been a dream.

Eiji had said that he lived in a strict family, so it would be hard for him to ever come visit again. Chances are that he would never come visit again.

But, Oishi still believed that they would meet again. Someday.


TBC. Thanks for reading! Reviews are very welcome:)