It was a warm summer day and the two of them had gone off for a swim. They had gotten to talking and Alberto remembered the record player he had on the island.
"It's called a record player?" Alberto asked once. "Yeah Giulia showed me the one her mom in Genova has." Luca had explained. Record…player. The words sounded funny to Alberto. He had always called it the singing lady machine until Luca had corrected him. He liked Singing Lady Machine more as it fit the record he had found it with. Lying under the bay on the seafloor, he'd found the thing half buried in the sand after his encounter the night before with some fishermen. A janky opera record lay on its turntable, the sticker in the center crumbling in the water. It was a little scratched but even so he cherished the record as his first one to have. Luca soon helped that collection grow as he bought some from a record store in Genova. As time passed Luca would mail records back to Alberto along with his letters and soon Alberto had amassed a few.
There was a healthy array of genres. From pop to opera, folk, then jazz and classical. He wasn't too picky with his tastes, but it was the records with those soft romantic songs that he cherished the most. He'd seen humans dancing to this sort of music. It was…different. To this gentler melody they'd go slow and careful. They locked hands and waltzed too and fro, dipping and swaying, holding each other delicately. Luca had confirmed this human dancing in a letter. Here he explained all about the awkward horrors of practicing the same such thing in a class at school called ballroom dancing. He'd be paired up to dance with random girls each time and carefully avoid getting the fabled "cooties" the younger students would joke about. Whatever that was. It had never looked awkward to Alberto but maybe it was thought of differently by humans.
It was funny. He felt so strange learning of all these great new concepts from Luca like ballroom dancing and record players. Wasn't he supposed to be the one to know what human things were? He practically taught Luca how to act human and be a part of a world on land. It was worth it though. A slew of new and interesting things lay ripe for his exploration and Luca began to show him what they were.
Pulling themselves out of the water and onto the island they shook off their wetness watching their scales and tails fade back to skin and flesh. "I wanted to wait till you came back for the summer so I stashed that new record you sent me with your last letter with all the other human things." Alberto explained. "You waited all that time? Hopefully you didn't forget where you put it." Luca chuckled remembering how Alberto's collection had once been disjointed, his records everywhere. He had to look under multiple piles of trinkets just to find anything to play last summer. Luckily though when they came over to the record player, what once had been such a disorganized collection was now neat and tidy. In a wooden crate lay all the records Luca had given him. The crate had been set next to the record player on the far end of the desk in the large round room.
Carefully Alberto reached into the crate pulling out the first record. The plastic carefully wrapped about it hadn't even been removed yet. "For Alberto, enjoy!" The three words stared back in a bold black marker written on the wrapping. The handwriting was unmistakably Lucas. With bated breath he picked at an edge of the plastic shrink wrapping and peeled it off avoiding tearing the writing, not wanting to mar the heartfelt words, and set it aside. The intricately illustrated record jacket stared back at him with multicolored music notes. He tipped it on its side pulling out the record from within the thin cardboard jacket and set it on the turntable. He then placed the needle on the record and turned the crank.
Music began to pour out of the record player. The tempo of the first song was a little slow but even so it lay ripe with the thrum of acoustic instruments and a bittersweet yearning melody. With a sound that was a little jazzy and a little somber at first it soon picked up into an intimate feel. A sweet voice full of a great cadence rang out as a young lady began to sing. Alberto met Luca's gaze and smiled contentedly. It was lovely.
"This is kinda like the music they'd play when we danced at school." Luca explained. "Can you show me how it goes? I've only seen it done a little." Alberto asked."W-well…ya need a partner for this kinda stuff and…" "And what?" Alberto inquired rhetorically "Is it too awkward? I mean… I could be your partner. I wouldn't be going in blind." An unexpected burning intrigue ensnared Luca at the thought of it all. It confused him inside as it was so different from any feeling he'd had before about such things like dancing. A strange comfort arose at the idea of dancing with Alberto. Could he do it without a girl? "Okay." Luca agreed. "You can lead then." Nervously he reached out a hand tangling his fingers between Alberto's calloused digits worn from the hard work of hauling nets. His other hand wrapped carefully about Alberto's waist, ensnaring them in an intimate position.
"You step back with me." Luca instructed . "Then you step sideways…now forward." It was clumsy but soon enough Alberto had gotten the hang of it as Luca taught him what to do. Each word came out stronger as Luca's voice soon began showing more comfort with the situation. The music began to swell and soon enough their speed changed matching the tempo of the song's faster bits. But dancing wasn't all easy, especially in a trinket filled room with only so much space. Luca tripped over a carelessly placed crate toppling backwards as Alberto caught him in an unplanned dip. In that moment it was as if their world's had stopped. Their gazes locked and a faint blush spread over Luca's face. He blinked away the fear of having almost fallen as they uprighted and suddenly a bout of laughter enveloped them from the near fail. "Hey, you're not a bad dancer." Luca complimented. "Neither are you." Alberto agreed. As the song ended they just held each other, basking in each other's embrace.
"So I thought you didn't like dancing?" Alberto questioned "Well I don't like doing it at school. It's so awful. The teachers are always like 'you gotta learn cause what if you wanna woo a girl or something.' It's always just romantic and cheezy and so weird….I don't wanna dance with any of those girls. I just wanna dance… With you." Luca let out the last two words in a quiet voice, anxious of what Alberto would say. "That's fine. We can dance more." Alberto responded smiling.
A sudden thought crystallized in Luca's mind turning into a hard truth. He didn't like girls. He liked Alberto. No…he loved Alberto. After many summer's shared between the two of them, the realization set in. His heart began to pound faster, almost running away until he muttered the familiar words. "Silenzio Bruno!" Then he said one simple phrase. It was just four words that had been brewing for a few years since that one summer they met. "I-I love you Alberto." It came out a little hesitant, coated in the worry that Alberto might not receive his true feelings well. Instead Alberto hugged Luca close as a new song began and repeated the sentiment. "l love you too." Alberto took his hand once more, their fingers intertwining and placed his arm about Lucas waist. "So, can I have this dance?" Alberto asked as he gazed into Luca's eyes. "Yes you can." Luca replied, smiling shyly.
