Keith opened his eyes and gazed out on the open waters again. That is until he heard a splash. He already knew what that meant. With a sigh, he sat up and waited. It did not take long before the creature came swimming towards the rock, with a happy meow.
"Again? Really?!" Keith sighed deeply and picked the creature up in his arms. He could no longer relax on his peaceful rock. Every time he tried the creature would come swimming to him. The creature knew he was there. He then had to return the wet and weird-looking creature back to the sand. Today was just another day of doing so. Keith let himself sink into the water before swimming back to the white box on the beach. He made sure to hold the creature above the water. A fragile little creature that could easily swim, but also easily drown. Returning to the white box, Keith sat the creature down on the sand. It meowed for attention, but Keith's attention was somewhere else.
Beside the white box was a little transparent bag. There were some fruits in it, along with a little note saying 'For Mermaid'. Keith was not sure how or when, but somehow, something or someone had seen him. It started 3 days ago when the first bag appeared. The creature left the bag alone as if it knew that the bags were meant for Keith. Every day there was something new in the bags, along with a note saying the same thing every time, usually rewritten multiple times.
The first day the bag contained some meat. It did not look like any fish he had ever tasted so he left that alone.
The second day was an orange and some berries. Keith knew what berries were, so he ate them right away. The orange was a harder case to solve. He had taken a whole bite off it, before realizing that only the inside tasted good.
Keith gently sat up and took the bag. Day three. The bag contained a banana, some strawberries and some blueberries. Keith looked around before slowly eating the strawberries. They were sweet. The blueberries were little sour, but they taste good anyway. The banana was the same case as the orange. Keith struggled, trying to open the banana but eventually found out how to do so. He ate it happily. He could find food for himself in the water, but he was growing desperate for food these days. A sense of sadness fell upon him as he ate the banana slowly.
He finally looked out at the water. He really missed his mother. He missed his home. Bite by bite he finished the banana and placed the peel back into the transparent bag. He studied the note a bit. Paper was also a new thing for Keith. He had never seen that in the water. He was somewhat fascinated by the note, that he nearly forgot the creature. A meow brought Keith back from his study of the note.
"Oh... Sorry, little creature..." Keith watched as the creature started sniffing yet another transparent bag. It had been hidden behind the first bag. Inside was another note, folded. He carefully took the bag. The creature meowed as it sat down beside Keith and watched.
Inside the bag was blue coloured band-aids. Keith however, had no idea what that was. He took the note and unfolded it. Paper felt so weird in Keith's hand. Like it would melt if he took it with him into the water.
'You can use these band-aids for wounds and bruises.' was all the note said. Keith looked confused at the band-aids. He held it up towards the sun and studied it carefully.
"What..." he finally said and looked down at the creature. It meowed back up at him and lifted a paw. Keith lowered the bandaid to the creature. The creature took the band-aid into its mouth and jumped into the box. and placed it into the little bowl. Keith watched it before studying the note in his hand. He had never heard of band-aids before.
"Humans are weird" Keith frowned confused. He then looked over at the creature. He tilted his head as he watched the creature scratch at the bandaid. It looked like it was trying to do something, but Keith had no idea what. He watched the creature for a while before sighing and slowly dragging himself towards the water again.
"E-Ehm...H-Hey" A voice sounded from behind and caught Keith's attention. Shocked and kinda scared he looked in the direction of the sound. The brown-haired boy who Keith had seen bring the creature food every single day. Keith knew the feeling of being frozen with fear all too well, but he was not going to be frozen this time. This was no shark attack, but it was almost as scary. With a gasp, he quickly jumped back into the water and submerged himself under cover.
"Wait!" The boy called out, but Keith was already dived back into the water. The creature jumped out of its box and meowed after Keith. Keith dived to the bottom and hid in a small bush of seaweed as he looked up towards the surface. A disturbance in the water caused him to hide more. Then the brunette boy came into view. He was now also underwater, looking around. As far as Keith was concerned, humans did not belong under water. He had seen one or two of these fragile humans drown before.
Keith had to admire the human boy's ability to see underwater. He had always been told humans could not do that. Not to mention that the boy had taken off most of his human clothes just to be in the water. Keith found that weird. Were the clothes really not meant to be wet? It took a moment but Keith then noticed that he had been spotted. His eyes met the eyes of the human boy. The boy raised his hand slightly and waved it side to side. Keith had no clue what that meant, or what the boy was trying to do. He simply backed up and turned away, swimming further away, before hiding behind a rock. From behind the rock he watched the boy trying to follow him. He was a slow swimmer underwater it seemed, but he tried. Keith watched as the boy then stopped and swam to the surface. Keith peeked out from behind the rock to get a better view but quickly hid again as the boy came back underwater. He swam down, towards Keith. But then stopped. He clearly knew Keith was behind the rock, yet made no effort in trying to scare him out. With the minimum of movement, he tried to peek around the rock to catch a glimpse of Keith. Keith peeked out slightly too. His eyes met the boy's eyes once again, and a smile formed on the boy's lips, as he once again waved with his hand. Keith's eyes went wide, with shock but also confusion. The boy tried to get a better view of Keith, before looking around. He then swam over to the bed of seaweed. Beside it was a little underwater flower. Keith watched as the boy picked the flower before coming back, and holding it out towards him.
The boy was a mystery to Keith, yet he was also scared of him. He knew how ruthless humans could be. Slaughtering dolphins, whales, even sharks. However, this boy seemed clumsy and weird more than anything else. Keith peeked out from behind the rock a little bit more to get a better looked at the boy. True enough, the boy had let go of most of the clothes he had been wearing on land. The sudden movement of the boy scared Keith a little. He watched as the boy went back up to the surface again. Keith frowned a bit before shaking his head. If the boy really could not hold his breath as easily as Keith could, then there was no way the boy was dangerous. Keith was in his natural aliment, while the boy was not. Keith carefully followed the boy up to the surface. The boy sure looked weird to Keith. He did not have a tail, but instead had legs.
While the boy was regaining some air back into his lungs, Keith swam closer to the boy and poked the boy's legs. He watched as the boy wiggled his feet back and forth in opposite directions. It looked weird. Keith backed up a bit as the boy suddenly came back down. They were now in front of each other, rather than hiding behind rocks. The boy looked at Keith all fascinated, meanwhile Keith looked confused. Swiftly Keith circled the boy, yet could not help but to smirk as the boy tried to follow along. Keith looked the boy up and down before backing away again. He started swimming towards the beach where the little creature was surely waiting. The boy followed, slowly but surely behind Keith.
Keith stopped as the boy went back up to the surface. He slowly went up as well. He made sure to be an arm's length away from the boy, but he peeked up from the water. His eyes met the boy's eyes.
"You're... a mermaid..." the boy smiled widely. Keith studied the boys face for a moment.
"And you can't swim very well" Keith answered.
"A-Ay! I swim fine... I just don't have fins..." The boy chuckled. The sound of the chuckle kind of mesmerized Keith. It was a pretty chuckle. Cute almost. It took the boy a moment, but he soon realized he was still holding the underwater flower. He handed it to Keith. Keith simply looked at it, before slowly taking it. As soon as Keith took the flower, the boy smiled.
"Hey, I'm sorry if I scared you before... I'm the one who has left you food and the band-aids" The boy smiled.
"Bandaids?" The word caught Keith's attention, "The thing that creature is playing with?" he asked confused.
"Creature? You mean the cat?" the boy questioned.
"Cat? What is a cat?!" Keith asked, now more confused than ever.
The two stared at each other for what seemed like forever, before the boy started to chuckle again. Keith did not understand what the boy found so funny. But he cracked a small smile anyway. The boy did not seem as dangerous as Keith before had thought. Keith watched and followed slowly as the boy started swimming back towards the beach. The cat had now started meowing out for them. The boy stood up when he was close enough to the beach and looked back at Keith. The boy looked like he was expecting Keith to follow, but Keith had no intention on doing so.
The boy quickly realized that Keith was still slightly scared of him. He went up to the white box and picked up the bandaids.
"These are band-aids..." The boy held up the bandaids. He then sat down in the water and waved Keith over.
"Come here... I won't hurt you. They don't hurt" The boy reassured. Keith narrowed his eyes a little at the boy. He watched as the creature sat down beside the boy and meowed up at him. Keith did not know much about the boy, but he had no problem with the creature. He slowly swam closer to the boy, making sure to have an escape route in case anything went wrong.
When he got close enough, he watched as the boy peeled the band-aid apart and reached over towards Keith. Keith backed away slightly but tried to remain where he was. He felt the bandaid stick to the wound he had on the corner of his lip. It felt weird. The boy then pulled his hands back when the band-aid was in place. Keith reached his hand up and touched the band-aid. It covered his wound, so he could no longer touch it and make it worse.
"It will help heal the wound" the boy nodded.
"Even... under water?" Keith asked, interested.
"I-I don't actually know, but I think so" he nodded and smiled. Keith frowned a bit before looking over at the creature again.
"So... It's a ...cat?" Keith questioned.
"Oh... Yes! We humans call them cats. They are kind of independent and loves food" The boy answered before petting the cat.
"It can't swim very well either" Keith huffed. The cat meowed as a reply.
"But it keeps following you? It seems very fond of you" the boy chuckled.
"Fond of me?" Keith questioned.
"Yeah... It likes you." the boy nodded.
"...But we don't even understand each other" Keith looked completely confused about the sudden row of information.
"Well no but I can tell it likes you. Have you given it a name yet?" he asked.
"A name? Am I supposed to?" Keith answered.
"Well, yeah. It will be your pet" the boy nodded.
"Hm... Cosmo" Keith nodded and looked at the cat. The cat meowed almost as to say that it was happy with the name.
"That's a cool name... And what's your name?" The boy asked, smiling.
"...Keith" Keith answered, hesitantly.
"That's a nice name. My name is Lance" Lance smiled, happily.
"Lance? That's a weird name" Keith smirked.
"Hey now, It's a normal human name" Lance frowned, before smiling.
"Humans are weird" Keith mumbled before turning away.
"Yeah.. we kinda are" Lance pulled his knees closer to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. He leaned his face on his knees as he watched Keith.
Seeing Keith up close was almost even more mesmerizing to Lance. Keith's eyes were a deep blue, almost grey colour. His hair was jet black and semi-long. Like a mullet. Weird, but cute nonetheless. He had pointy ears, and his tail was definitely not fake. It was connected straight to his skin. But what really caught Lance's attention, was the mark Keith had on his right cheek. It was a deep red colour, almost black, and it almost looked like dried blood. The mark went almost all the way to his nose. A little longer and it might as well have gone to his eye. Not to mention the many rifts and bruises he had all over his skin. It looked to Lance as if Keith had been to war with a knife. But he refused to ask about the wounds yet. They had only just met, and he did not want to scare Keith away yet. Keith looked over at Lance after a while of silence.
"What?" Keith asked, narrowing his eyes.
"Nothing... Just... Looking at you. You're really beautiful" Lance smiled gently. Keith quickly looked away. Nobody had ever called him beautiful. Not to mention how Keith felt far from beautiful in any way. His body was wounded. Scared. Broken. A sadness fell over Keith's face. Lance noticed the sadness. He had been watching the mermaid for some days and noticed the same sadness repeating. He wanted to ask. But choose not to.
"Hey... What do you like to eat?" Lance asked instead.
"Eat? Fruits?" Keith looked over at Lance, intrigued by the mention of food.
"Fruits? Like... Berries? You liked the strawberries?" Lance unwrapped his arms from his knees and went back to a normal sitting position.
"Yeah... Berries" Keith nodded. God how hungry he was. Too scared to move out on the more open waters, Keith had very little luck with finding food.
Keith watched as Lance got up on his feet again and walked over to his clothes. He pulled his t-shirt back on and started looking through a little leather bag. He pulled out another transparent bag, which he brought back over to Keith. In the bag were some more strawberries. He handed the bag to Keith, and with great care, Keith slowly took the bag. His eyes looked up at Lance who smiled.
"I'll bring you more food if you want" Lance suggested. Keith slowly nodded and opened the bag. He pulled out a strawberry and started eating it. Keith had no choice but to trust Lance at this point. He seemed kind enough, compared to other humans Keith had seen before. Besides, right now, Lance was the only source of food Keith had. So even if it was just for a while, he needed food to regain some energy.
"Great! Then it's a deal!" Lance said, happily.
"Yeah... A deal..." Keith repeated the words.