Kirishima swam until he grew tired, then slept adrift in the water with just his nose above the surface. When he awoke it was still dark, but the sky to the east was tinged faintly with gray, so Kirishima was able to orient himself and continue onwards.

He passed by the human town as the sun was rising and thought of how Bakugou would soon be waking and beginning his journey. Walking was slower than swimming, Kirishima knew, so it would probably take Bakugou longer to reach it than it had taken him. That was okay, though; he didn't mind waiting. It was far better than the idea of Bakugou waiting for him.

The ship on the seafloor was one of those things young selkies talked about amongst each other, knowledge passed between friends and siblings for who-knows-how-long. Most selkies in the area visited it, alone or in groups of two or three, because it was fascinating – a chance to see a human vessel up close without the humans, stunning in its scope and grandeur, even as rotted and retaken by the ocean as it was.

The ship had been heading towards the town, maybe, or leaving it; Kirishima didn't know if there had been a battle or a storm or just an accident. It didn't matter, because the result was the same: the ship lay broken in half on the ocean floor, its contents strewn about, scattered and musty-dark with ocean detritus.

The gold was something the selkies shared amongst themselves, too. Sometimes visitors would take a coin, tuck it in their mouth and smuggle it back to shore to show off. The selkies knew it was human money, of course, but they didn't spend it; they kept it because the coins were beautiful. They were in a chest, so they didn't collect grime the same way the rest of the ship did, and they bore designs: human heads in profile, words, birds, wreaths of leaves. Kirishima hadn't taken one himself, but he'd had the opportunity once to examine a coin on land, and he'd been loath to hand it back afterwards.

Kirishima was relieved to see the wreck still there, and the chest too. He pushed it open with his snout and discovered that while it was less full than he remembered, it definitely wasn't empty yet. He gently, gingerly took coins in his mouth one at a time, shifting each one to his cheeks and holding them like a rodent holds seeds.

He had no idea which coins were worth the most, and anyways the light was bad enough on the ocean floor that he couldn't even tell which he was putting into his mouth. He hoped it was enough, but in any event he could always swim back out and get more if needed. He felt a little guilty about taking so many – the chest certainly looked emptier after he was done with it – but it wasn't as if he'd taken them all. And, anyways, he was going to use them the way the humans who made them originally had intended. That had to make up for it a little, right?

It was a strange sensation to swim back with the coins in his mouth, and the whole time Kirishima had to make a conscious effort not to swallow them. Luckily the trip was uneventful, because if anything had startled him he probably would have lost them. By the time he passed by the town again, swimming south now, it was past noon, but he knew he was making good time.

He reached the meeting place before Bakugou did and spat the coins out onto the sand before transforming back into a human. Then he washed them in the seawater and carried them away to wait, looking each one over in turn to pass the time.

Bakugou finally arrived in the late afternoon, looking tired but not hurt. Kirishima spotted him first and yelled out a greeting, running to meet him at first before realizing he'd have to leave all the coins on the sand; even though it was deserted, some streak of paranoia made him not want to leave the money sitting out in the open.

"Hey," Bakugou said, as soon as they were close enough to talk. "Did you…"

Kirishima gestured at the coins as the answer to Bakugou's unfinished question. Bakugou fell to his knees in the sand, picking up the coins and turning them over, one after another. "I've never seen money like this before."

"It's old," Kirishima said, squatting next to him.

"It's – is it real gold? It is, isn't it?"

Kirishima had no idea, but Bakugou seemed to be pleased, so he felt his own chest swell with pride. "Do you think it will be enough?" he asked.

"It will be way, way more than enough," Bakugou said. There were nearly too many coins for him to hold all at once. "Did I get them all?"

Kirishima patted the sand to make sure, but Bakugou had. Bakugou turned and set off towards the town, but when Kirishima tried to follow, the boy stopped. "Kirishima, what are you doing?"

"I want to go with you," he said, embarrassed at how whiny his own voice sounded. "I want to see the town with you."

"You're naked, idiot," Bakugou said. "You'll look like some weird wild man if you go into the town like that. No one will sell us anything."

"I'll look like a selkie," Kirishima said quietly, realizing. "You're right. I can't…"

"Look." Bakugou set about half of the coins down in the sand at Kirishima's feet. "I'll go buy something for you to wear and come back, and then we can go into the town together to get the rest. Is that okay?"

"Yes!" Kirishima beamed at him. "Thank you!"

After Bakugou left, Kirishima took the money and went into the trees, positioning himself so he could keep an eye out for Bakugou but also avoid any other humans who might come this way. The closer they got to the town, he knew, the busier the beaches would be, and they were now quite close, no more than a twenty minute walk away.

The time seemed to stretch on forever. In the shadow of the trees, Kirishima felt cold even when he wrapped his sealskin around him, and the ground seemed so rough and uneven compared to the soft sand of the beach. But he was glad he'd hidden himself, because as he watched through the gaps in the trees he saw a fishing boat go by in the shallow water, headed towards the town. Kirishima was past the point of doubting Bakugou would return, but he still ached every minute he was alone.

It probably wasn't much more than an hour, but Kirishima still felt a thrill of excitement when at last he spotted Bakugou, holding a bundle in his hands. He had a new bag over his shoulder, too. Kirishima came out of the trees, grinning, dropping coins as he went.

"Here," Bakugou said, handing him the bundle. "Your clothes." As Kirishima started getting dressed, Bakugou kept talking: "They all made a big fuss about the money when I exchanged it. I was right – it was way more than enough. We can keep the rest of it for now."

Kirishima listened as he got dressed, at least until he began to struggle to figure out what exactly went where and how to put it on. He had worn human clothing before. He didn't do it much, of course, but he had visited a human town before. If there was one thing that was blindingly obvious about humans, it was that they all wore clothes, all the time. Even this past week Bakugou had kept his clothes on, tattered and frayed as they were. The fact that Kirishima had been naked hadn't seemed to bother him, but he hadn't discarded that human impulse of his to clothe himself, either.

Still, Kirishima fought with the clothing, and Bakugou had to help him, had to point out to him which side was the front and tie the strings on the pants and the neck of the shirt. Kirishima felt terribly awkward; this was the first time he'd been so out of his element around Bakugou, and he knew it was only about to get worse. Still, Bakugou said nothing, didn't tease or comment on it, just frowned in concentration and, when they were all done, gave Kirishima a once-over and a curt nod.

He was nervous too, Kirishima realized. Maybe it would be better if only Bakugou went, but Kirishima felt a surge of disappointment at the idea. He wanted to see the human town, wanted to see it with Bakugou – to see how the boy interacted with other humans, to hear his explanations and his reactions to the things around him.

They tucked the money into the bag, but Kirishima wasn't sure what to do with his sealskin. If he brought it with them, there was the risk of someone recognizing what it was and trying to steal it, but he wasn't sure how safe it was to leave it behind. In the end, he opted to roll it up tightly and tuck it under his arm, hoping it looked like a normal pelt to anyone who noticed it. It felt too strange to be without it; he knew if he left it behind, he'd be worrying about it the entire time.

Then they were finally ready to enter the town. "You keep calling it a town," said Bakugou as they walked towards it. "It's really more of a city, isn't it?"

"What's the difference?"

"Size," Bakugou said. "Cities are bigger."

"Oh," Kirishima said. "I have no idea. So is it a city?" Bakugou didn't answer and Kirishima felt terribly ignorant. "Then what's a village? You come from a village, right? Is it larger?"

"It's smaller than a town," Bakugou said. "Very small. We'd have to go to a nearby town to sell or buy anything, because it was too small to even have stores."

"Oh," Kirishima said again, not knowing what to say. He stuck close to Bakugou as he walked, nearly stepping on the boy's heels.

The city, if that was the correct term, was as grand as Kirishima had imagined, having previously only ever seen it from the shore. The streets were laid with stones and the houses' roofs were all the same bright orange-brown shingles. The whole place was loud with peoples' voices.

"We'll get shoes first," Bakugou said, nearly running into Kirishima as he stopped to speak. "Then food and supplies. Then the map."

"Okay," Kirishima said, perfectly content to let Bakugou handle it. He was half regretting his decision already. The voices around him – children playing, vendors calling out what they were selling, groups casually conversing – made him half regret coming at all.

Bakugou must have sensed this, because he slowed to walk alongside Kirishima and spoke slowly, directly into his ear. "It won't take long," he said. "We'll stay the night in an inn, and head out tomorrow morning."

Kirishima nodded and tried to relax. He trusted Bakugou, and this was not going to be that bad.

xxxxx

Kirishima decided he hated shoes.

"You have to wear them," Bakugou said for the thousandth time. Kirishima hadn't been able to pay attention at all the entire time; when Bakugou had been filling up a second, new bag with food, he'd been fidgeting, slipping them on and off and tapping the toes on the ground, trying to get used to the feeling. "The ground isn't like the beach. If you don't wear them, you'll get hurt, idiot."

"I know. I know." And Kirishima did know. That didn't mean he liked it.

"Just need the map now," Bakugou said, moving as if he knew precisely where to go. Well, presumably he could read the signs that hung above every door, so Kirishima supposed he did know. It was still impressive. "Then we'll find an inn and you can take the shoes off there."

"Can I take my shoes off inside the shop?"

"No," Bakugou said. "No. Not until – no."

Kirishima sighed dramatically, although the shoes didn't actually hurt him. They just felt bizarre, a much stranger feeling than having clothing on.

"Here," Bakugou said, steering them into a small building at the end of the street. Kirishima entered just behind him and stopped dead.

After spending the afternoon smelling nothing but humans, he was unprepared for the wave of selkie smell that hit him when he entered the store. It was small, most of the floorspace packed tight with shelves, and Kirishima could only see a single man, sitting behind a counter and reading something. He glanced up as they walked in.

"Welcome," he said, looking at them warily for a moment before, presumably, he caught a whiff of Kirishima's smell. His eyes widened.

"I need a map that shows the cities to the west," Bakugou said, completely oblivious. "I'm from a village near Broadstem, and I need to get back there."

The man's expression of surprise cleared in remarkably short time, and his face turned blank. He had long, tangled dark hair and stubble on his face. Kirishima had never seen a selkie grow a beard, but this one was trying his best. "Right. Wait here," the shopkeeper said, his voice a deep monotone. He rose from where he'd been sitting and wandered off into the back of the store. The smell went with him. There was no doubt.

After the incredulity faded, Kirishima was left feeling worried. He couldn't see the sealskin anywhere on the man… had it been stolen? Was he being forced to work in a human store? Kirishima felt himself nearly quivering with righteous indignation. Bakugou glanced at him over his shoulder, but said nothing, probably assuming Kirishima's excess energy was just from nerves.

"Here," the shopkeeper said, unrolling a scroll to show them. "Doesn't show much further west than Broadstem, but if that's all you needed it should be fine." He pointed out the roads to take while Bakugou listened and nodded along.

A selkie that could read? A selkie that worked in a bookstore?

Bakugou paid and was nearly out the door when Kirishima said, "Wait."

"What?"

"Wait a minute, Bakugou," Kirishima said. He hadn't moved from where he stood in the middle of the store. "I need to do something." The shopkeeper was eyeing them with what might have been amusement, although his face was half-covered by a scarf and the long fringes of his hair so it was hard to tell.

Bakugou watched, open-mouthed, as Kirishima walked up to the shopkeeper. He stopped in front of the man, who still stood, watching him. "Hello."

The shopkeeper only nodded.

"Are you…" Kirishima leaned in and lowered his voice – not to hide from Bakugou, who could still hear him, but just because it felt as if he was discussing something that shouldn't be spoken aloud. "Are you being forced to be here?"

"Your concern is… kind," the shopkeeper said slowly, after a long moment. "However, it's entirely my own choice to be here."

"Oh."

The shopkeeper's eyes flickered between Bakugou and Kirishima, eventually focusing on the sealskin Kirishima still held under his arm. "I assume it's the same for you?"

"Yeah," Kirishima said. "Yeah. My own choice." He swallowed. He wished he had the courage to ask more questions. There was a story here – maybe one like his own, maybe wholly different – that he would never be able to know. But the shopkeeper had already turned his gaze back to the book in his lap, and Bakugou was tugging at his wrist, pulling him out of the store and into the street.

"Kirishima, what the hell?" he said, as soon as they were outside.

"Bakugou!" He was thrumming with so much excitement he could hardly keep his voice low, but it wouldn't exactly be polite to shout this man's secret to the entire city. "He's a selkie."

"Ohhh," Bakugou said, the end of the word rising in pitch like it was a question. "You could tell that?"

"From his smell, yeah. I thought – I thought selkies never talked to humans unless the humans made them, but he said – he said he was – he said it was his own choice!"

"I heard him," Bakugou said, the corner of his mouth quirking into a smile.

"So," Kirishima went on, breathing in deeply, "I'm not the only one." He thought the only selkies in the world lived on beaches, the way he always had, but who knew how many other selkies were living in cities, their true identities unknown to the humans around them?

A strange lightness filled him, and he practically skipped as he walked behind Bakugou, the discomfort of his shoes forgotten.

xxxxx

Apparently an inn was a place where travelers rented rooms for the night. Kirishima hadn't really thought about this very much. He supposed it made sense, since humans did seem to travel a lot, and humans had houses, but obviously the houses could not travel with them, but it still seemed a novel concept. Strange that humans were so fragile they could not sleep on the sand or on the grass for a night.

"It's also because it's dangerous," Bakugou said, when Kirishima expressed this to him. "People could come up and steal your things or attack you if you did that."

That made sense, too. It was the reason selkies couldn't sleep on beaches frequented by humans. The one thing Kirishima had learned again and again in the last few weeks was that humans were just as cruel to other humans as they were to selkies.

"Someone could just walk in here and steal our things, couldn't they?" Kirishima asked. Then Bakugou showed him what a lock was, and that was fascinating, too.

The room felt terribly small – just a bed and a table with a candle, and a small, opaque window that let in a little of the dim post-sunset light. "I'm beat," Bakugou said, setting down the bag and throwing himself onto the bed. He sighed in pleasure. "It feels so good to sleep on a bed."

"What, is the sand not good enough for you?"

"Have you ever slept in a bed?"

"No," Kirishima said.

Bakugou grinned. "Then come here and tell me that's not the best thing you've ever felt."

It was soft – too soft; Kirishima almost felt like he was stuck in it, unable to get up. Bakugou laughed at the surprise on his face at the sensation. "See?"

"I don't know if I can sleep in this," Kirishima said. Sitting up took a lot more effort than it usually did.

"Then sleep on the floor. That just means more space for me."

In the end, they both settled in on the bed, and Kirishima fell asleep.

For a few hours, anyways.

He woke in the middle of the night, lay in the bed and listened to the sound of Bakugou breathing. It was dark and stuffy; the room was warm but there was no breeze, and the musty smell was close to overpowering. No selkies had stayed in this room, at least not as far as Kirishima could tell; he could only smell human, layer upon layer, hundreds of different people's scents mixing. But when he turned his head to the side and inhaled, he could smell Bakugou – familiar enough to be comforting, strong enough to overpower the older, fainter scents.

Kirishima tried for a bit to get back to sleep, but knew he'd be unable to. After a while he sighed and swung his legs over the bed. The room was so small, and he wanted to go for a walk and stretch his legs, but when he unlocked the door and peered down the hallway, the unfamiliarity and the feeling of being alone in a human building sent chills of fear up his spine. He locked the door again and stepped back, feeling restlessness like an actual weight in his chest.

Kirishima began to pace, unable to get more than three or four strides in any direction before he had to turn. The room was small and the bed took up most of it.

After a few minutes of pacing, Kirishima heard a small voice say his name.

He strode to the bed and sat back down. "Bakugou, I'm sorry, did I wake you?"

"What is it?" Bakugou sounded barely conscious. "You alright?"

"I'm fine. I'm sorry."

Bakugou sat up, only slightly visible in the darkness. "What's going on?"

"Nothing! Bakugou, go back to sleep. I'm sorry I woke you. I was just… I couldn't fall back asleep."

There was a pause, but Kirishima didn't hear Bakugou lie back down again. After a moment he added, "I need less sleep than you anyways. I should have expected this."

"Are you nervous about leaving the ocean?"

"No!" Kirishima had answered without thinking. He took a breath and spoke more slowly. "Yes, maybe. Maybe I am nervous. But that's honestly not the reason I can't sleep. I really do sleep less than you. A lot less."

"Uh-huh." Bakugou yawned. "You were pacing around like a caged animal. It woke me up."

"I know," Kirishima said. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry you're stuck in here," Bakugou said, sounding a little more awake now. "I guess you should have slept by the ocean again, and we could have met up tomorrow. So you didn't feel all cooped up or whatever."

"No!" The thought of being away from Bakugou for the entire night again was intolerable. "No, it's fine. I don't mind it that much."

"Kirishima." Something in Bakugou's tone suggested whatever he was about to say was very important.

"Yeah?"

"If you change your mind – if you decide, on the way there or when we get there, that you want to go back to the ocean, I want you to let me know, and I will make sure you get there." He paused, and Kirishima heard him swallow audibly. "I will walk you back to the ocean if I need to. I don't mind. You can… you can tell me, okay?"

"Bakugou," Kirishima said, so filled with emotion he could hardly speak. He felt gratitude and a strange warmth he couldn't express with words. The desire to touch Bakugou was stronger than ever; Kirishima was glad it was dark, because if he'd been able to see him the urge might have been overpowering.

"I don't want you to feel like you owe me for anything," Bakugou said. "I owe you."

"You don't!" Kirishima said, realizing Bakugou's generous offer may very well have just been because he felt obligated. "You owe me nothing. What would you owe me for, anyways?"

Bakugou laughed – a soft sound that gave Kirishima shivers. "You're serious?"

"We're even," Kirishima said firmly. "Let's say we're even."

"How can we be even? After everything –"

"I need you to tell me we're even. I don't want to go with you if you think you owe me anything." He didn't want to budge on this point, and started talking over Bakugou when the boy tried to interrupt him. "I want to go with you. I want to stay with you. But I want to know you're staying with me, and being so nice to me, not out because you think you owe me but because you want to be."

There was a long pause – a minute or more. Kirishima wished to know what Bakugou was thinking about, what struggle was happening inside his head. Kirishima knew he was going to answer, though, one way or another, so he waited without saying anything.

"We're even," Bakugou said at last, his voice low.

Kirishima grinned. "I'm glad. Thank you."

"If we're even, what do you need to thank me for?" Bakugou said. Kirishima thought he might have been smiling as well, but he wasn't sure, since he couldn't make out Bakugou's face.

"I'm happy," Kirishima said. "I'm nervous, but happy."

"Come on," Bakugou said, laying back down and pulling the blankets back around them both. "Go to sleep."

Kirishima didn't fall asleep for at least another hour, but his nervous energy had almost completely left him. He was content to lie next to Bakugou and listen to the gentle, even cadence of his breathing and think of the future – the unknown that rose up ahead of them like a mountain.

They would greet it together.