The bus ride to work was surprisingly pleasant, the smallest of smiles tugging at the corners of your lips for a reason you couldn't quite name, the groan of the engine squeaking to a stop as you stood up, walked off the bus, and headed to work. Today didn't feel so bad.

As soon as the elevator stopped at your floor and your feet propelled you forward on the dirty office carpet, a familiar voice called your attention off to the side.

"You!" your coworker muttered through gritted teeth, eyes flitting back and forth to avoid causing a scene in the quiet office space. "What was that shit you pulled last night?"

Your smile didn't waver as you continued to walk. "Hm? Oh, I thought I was pretty clear on the phone…he didn't show up, so I left. And had a much better time with someone else as a result." They stood slack-jawed, taken aback by your sudden unabashed boldness.

"Someone…is that who told me to 'shut up' on the phone? Nearly blew my ears out!"

Sitting down at your desk you looked at them fully now, for once confident in tossing aside the mask. "Yes. And I told him to say it. It's quite rude to yell at someone for doing nothing wrong, you know." The look of incredulity on their face only tightened your smile more, lips taut against the front of your teeth.

Steam nearly pouring out of their nostrils, your coworker finally turned around in a huff and sat down at their own desk. You anticipated they would not bother you for the rest of the day, maybe even for days after that. It felt…good.

The quiet of the afternoon, undisturbed outside of the morning spat with your coworker, was a welcome change compared to the events of the previous evening; a blind date that didn't show up, buried feelings of inadequacy bubbling to the surface like a freshly opened soda can, an overwhelming feeling of appreciation for the merman whose name you finally knew. Your cheeks felt warm at the thought of him, surprisingly gentle despite his penchant for pranks and sharp exterior. He was complex, not unlike a human, and every evening he seemed to surprise you with something new.

You took your usual route home once you stepped off the bus, walking past a variety of familiar shops that you never really went into. When you were almost to the corner of the street, however, you stopped as a window display caught your eye.

"…That's perfect!" you exclaimed, marching into the small bookstore.

Heading straight to the section for children felt a bit odd, but it would have the best selection of things you were looking for. Unable to find the book in the window display, you flagged down an employee.

"Uh, excuse me! Can you help me find one of the books in the display at the front of the store?"

A kind-looking older woman smiled at you. "Oh, of course! Which one did you want?"

Saying the words aloud made the whole idea sound immediately absurd. "The kid's book about mermaids." The woman nodded, nearly knocking the ill-fitting large glasses balanced precariously on the end of her nose to the floor.

"Oh, it's a new one we just received. Let me see…over this way I believe," she said, shuffling over to a section marked "FANTASY." It took all your strength to keep from laughing knowing the sign was…well, incorrect. Mermaids were real, and Bakugou was solid visual proof.

"Your child will enjoy this I'm sure, the story is very cute." She pulled a book from a shelf as you stuttered in place.

"What?! Oh, oh…n-no I don't have kids. It's uh…for my nephew! He just loves anything to do with the ocean and is all about mermaids and things like that right now…" you muttered nervously. The whole idea of showing Bakugou a book about what humans generalized about mermaids would either be hilarious or dangerous depending on how he reacted. "Thank you." Taking the book from the woman you looked around the store, getting another idea. "Do you have books on animals? And maybe dinosaurs, too?"

The woman's face it up at being able to help you find a few more things. "Oh sure thing, dear. Right this way!"

A bag of books now gripped in your hand, you made your way home to change clothes and head down to the pier. It felt a bit odd to bring Bakugou a bunch of children's picture books considering he was an adult, but the idea of showing him things he would probably never see otherwise was too entertaining of an opportunity to pass up. You wondered which animal might be his favorite, which ones he would find completely unappealing, his opinion on…well, everything; you just wanted to know more about him. He was getting better at communicating, even if his grammar and word usage was simple. Maybe you'd find out more about where he came from, his home, and why he seemed to be just as alone as you.

After grabbing a snack from the beach hut - the owner finally stopped asking why you'd suddenly doubled your appetite - your sand-covered feet carried you towards the familiar pier. The sound of yelling caught your attention as you walked closer. Looking up several wildly moving silhouettes stood at the end of the wooden structure.

"Oh no…" you groaned, hoping they wouldn't cause much trouble as you slowed your pace, not wanting to bring attention to yourself.

"…can't believe this!" a female voice yelled out, disrupting the otherwise calm atmosphere. "Maybe if you weren't such an ASSHOLE this wouldn't even be an issue!"

"You serious?!" a man replied, rounding on the woman. You stood far back on the pier, toes curling in the warm sand under your feet as you looked at your phone in an attempt to appear uninterested and uninvolved in case they noticed you. "You're blaming you cheating on ME?!"

You gulped, eyes glued to your phone screen. Oh…no. This might not end well.

"Maybe if you gave me some attention every once in a while I wouldn't have done it! When's the last you asked me how my shitty day was, huh?!" the woman screamed, voice cracking from the strain of trying not to break down crying - a familiar sound that made you inwardly cringe.

"I gave you everything! Fuck you!" A yelp made you look up to now see only one person on the dock, silhouette dark and foreboding and intense against the orange sunset. The contrast was jarring, but a large splash brought your eyeline down to the water below the pier.

You cursed under your breath. "Shit…Bakugou, you better not be nearby…"

The creak of wood under quickly moving feet came closer and closer as the man stomped angrily off the pier towards the road. He ignored you, but he walked close enough for you to feel the heartache and rage radiating off him like steam from a whistling kettle. When he was far enough away for you to be sure he wasn't coming back, you quickly walked to the edge of the pier towards the loud splashing in the water. Setting down your bag of storybooks and snacks you knelt over the edge to see the upset woman, waving arms disturbing the normally calm water under the wooden slats.

"Hey!" you called out to her. She looked up, makeup running down her face, brows furrowed in frustration. "Do you need help? I can uh, try and pull you up!"

She seemed skeptical, tossing wet hair out of her eyes to squint up at you through the glare of the sun reflecting off the water. "Who the hell are you?" Her voice was rough, laced with agitation at the situation.

"I saw what happened. None of my business, I'm just offering you a hand if you need it," you replied, hoping she saw you as a neutral observer and nothing more. After a few seconds, the woman sighed, but she extended her hand up out of the water. It took a few tries, the water making her skin difficult to grip properly, but eventually, you managed to help her up and onto the pier.

She coughed before standing up, trying to retain some sliver of dignity in what you knew was an embarrassing situation. "Uh…thanks I guess." You watched as she walked past you on the pier not bothering to wait for a reply, clothes dripping and heavy as she tried to hold herself together, to not break down, to appear fine.

You sighed, hoping the unwanted excitement didn't scare Bakugou away completely. Bare feet swung over the edge of the pier as you pulled the bag of books closer, taking one of the hashimaki sticks in hand. If there was one good thing about being single, it was the distinct lack of relationship drama.

After about ten minutes of waiting, a familiar touch at your foot brought your eyes down to the now calm water.

Bakugou's light blonde hair poked out from the top of the water, slowly rising up to reveal those striking ruby eyes of his darting around cautiously to make sure you were alone.

"It's OK, those people are gone now," you replied to his silent question, looking back over your shoulder one last time, the occasional seagull or car the only other sounds outside of the comforting shift of ocean waves. "You need to be careful that no one sees you…I wouldn't stay too close to the shore when I'm not here."

The merman made his way onto the pier like he normally did, though before laying down he grabbed you by the chin to look carefully into your eyes, turning your head gingerly from side to side. You could feel your cheeks heating up at the close contact.

"Uh, wh-"

"No sad today," he responded. He was checking for tears, conscious of the previous night's emotional events. "Good." With that he let go, but rather than resting on the pier next to you as you expected, he laid his head down on your thigh - using it as a pillow - his glittering tail flowing over the edge of the pier, calm eyes looking up at you. His damp hair left a wet spot on your pants, but you didn't really mind.

He then opened his mouth expectantly…like he wanted you to feed him, a king waiting to be served his daily meal.

"You serious?" His look silently conveyed that yes, he was serious. You rolled your eyes, but grabbed the extra hashimaki, hovering it above his mouth before he bit off half in a single swift motion. He was Dionysus and you were his servant, feeding him delicately as he lay in your lap contentedly. Too cute to say 'no' to, you obliged Bakugou's spoiled behavior. It was your own fault, after all.

"I brought something for you today, hopefully, it's not too weird…" you muttered, grabbing the bag of books and pulling them close as Bakugou fiddled with the now clean stick in his mouth eyeing the bag suspiciously. "I found some books. I know you can't read words but they're mostly pictures, anyway."

Bakugou turned around in your lap, his chin resting in one hand, the other draped behind you, his fingers fiddling with the soft fabric of your shirt hem. It felt protective, in a way; maybe it was Bakugou communicating silently that you weren't alone, and neither was he, soft touches and close contact a reminder of a memory shared under the delicate moonlight. You smiled softly at the thought.

Over the next hour you flipped through the book of land animals, Bakugou pointing to ones that caught his attention and asking broken questions about the more unique looking ones: do elephants eat with their trunks? How do large birds fly if they're so heavy? Why are giraffe necks so long? The innocent questions of an inquisitive mind, you answered them as best you could in terms he could understand. He seemed particularly fond of animals with sharp teeth and ferocious claws, such as tigers and wolves.

He was nearly sitting halfway in your lap at one point, ruby eyes looking curiously at the picture book in your hands, tail swaying softly over the edge of the pier. Unconsciously, your free hand ran up to his soft hair, fingers threading through the damp strands like a wide-tooth comb. Bakugou leaned into the touch, especially liking if you scratched his scalp lightly. Was that a…purr? Low and soft and nearly silent, but it was there. Afraid if you brought it up he would stop, your lips pursed together tightly.

The book wasn't long, so you brought out another - this one on dinosaurs. You couldn't provide quite as many answers to questions he asked since you were far from an expert on creatures that went extinct millions of years ago.

"That," Bakugou interrupted suddenly as you flipped to a new page in the dinosaur book, pointing at a particularly ugly-looking fish. "It alive."

You blinked, fingers stopping atop his hair. "What?" you asked. "This thing's alive?" He seemed annoyed at your stationary hand, nudging it slightly as he nodded.

His eyes shifted, thinking of the right words to convey his thoughts. "It…very deep, hides," he said, looking at the illustrated image of the ancient-looking fish.

"You're saying this fish, which hasn't been seen alive for millions of years…that it exists? Like, swimming around?" If what he mentioned was true, it would be a scientific breakthrough for sure! Then you remembered that just by existing, Bakugou was himself an anomaly…so of course it made sense that things lurked in the darkness of the ocean where no human could easily go, undiscovered for millennia.

He rolled his eyes at your skepticism. "Tch. Yeah, it alive."

"Holy shit that's pretty cool…" At that, he seemed to perk up, once again proud that he could make you smile.

Turning one more page Bakugou froze in your lap as you felt the hairs on the back of his neck against your wrist stiffen, eyes going wide. You felt his arm tense at your back, webbed hand tightening around the hem of your shirt.

The image was of the infamous Megalodon.

"Hey, it's alright, just a picture…wait," you stopped, a wretched thought sinking into your stomach. "This…it doesn't exist…right? These can't exist still, they're too big not to notice. These were twice as big as sharks are now…" Despite your words, he genuinely looked scared. You quickly closed the book, blocking the picture from view. Nervously he shook his head, jaw clenched tightly, back muscles rigid.

"No…" he finally said, voice barely above a whisper. "But…teeth same as…" his voice trailed off, eyes shifting slowly to his tail, to the scars. While he seemed unbothered by them once you mentioned his tail was pretty weeks earlier, now there was a shift in demeanor, shame coating his features. Unconsciously your hand deviated from his hair to his shoulder, thumb rubbing soft circles into his skin in some attempt to comfort.

"So that's how you got…mm. I'm sorry. You're safe now, though…" Eventually he calmed down, the muscles in his shoulders relaxing under your touch. "Hey, I have one more book, and I think you might find this one funny. Maybe it'll cheer you up a bit, make you laugh. No more sharks or bad things, I promise."

He turned to face you, eyes holding an unfamiliar sadness in them that made your heart break. Last night started out as a disaster, but by the time you went to sleep everything felt calm and you felt…happy, and it was all because of him. Now it was your turn to return the favor.

You pulled out the book on mermaids and held it up to him, downcast eyes looking up at the cover. His eye immediately twitched, snapping him out of dark memories and unwanted visions. "What…is that?" voice laced with obvious disgust at the crudely drawn image on the front of the book of a little mermaid girl playing with fish and having a tea party with seashells.

You unsuccessfully tried to hold in a laugh at his expression, hoping the shift in the topic could lift his mood. "It's a book for children about mermaids, like you. Except everyone thinks mermaids aren't real…so this is what they think up."

"Me?!" he screeched, snatching the book from you and flipping through the pages angrily. "I'm real!"

"I know you're real, but I might be one of only a few."

Bakugou flipped through the book's laminated pages, growling at a few particularly egregious illustrations of mermaids riding on seahorses and building castles out of coral. You had to cover his mouth at one point when he started yelling in the middle of the book, hoping no one lurking around would hear. His anger dissipated towards the end of the story, a swarm of merpeople gathering around for a birthday party, the faraway look in his eyes appearing once more.

"What's wrong?" you asked, hoping prying more into his life wasn't out of the question. Hesitating before speaking, a clawed finger pointed to the group of happy merpeople, smiling and laughing together without a care in the world.

"I'm…I stay away. From home."

"Stay away…why? You don't uh, have to tell me if you don't want to…" Your hand was still on his bare shoulder, his hand still clinging to your shirt.

Slowly Bakugou pointed to his tail, lightly running a finger over a particularly deep scar on his hip. "…followed me. Smelled me. Swam away home…"

It took you a minute to piece together his words, lips parted and brows furrowed at his implication. "So…you swam away, from the shark that attacked you. Then it followed you…to your home?" He nodded slowly after a moment, confirming your assumptions.

"It…" he turned away, a mixture of anger and regret etched in his face, fangs visible and eyes fierce. "It hurt others. My fault."

Your heart caught in your throat at his words. He blamed himself for getting other merpeople hurt while trying to just make it home safely. Predators of the sea were unforgiving in their pursuit of food, sharks having the ability to sniff out a single drop of blood hundreds of meters away. The scene played out in your mind, not unlike the picture book sitting on your lap.

Bakugou, ever the curious prankster, explored an area rarely visited looking for adventure, a challenge outside whatever the day to day routine of merpeople involved.

Distracted, he didn't notice the silent shark swimming close by, watching, waiting for the right opportunity.

A spill of blood, a yell underwater, the flit of a tail, gnashing of teeth.

He swam.

Faster and faster, weaving in and out of underwater caverns, hiding behind a long-forgotten shipwreck thinking he was safe to swim home, to forget.

A shark's sense of smell is no less dangerous than the rows of teeth stained with the metallic taste of blood.

It followed silently.

A heavy sigh of relief escaped Bakugou as he made it home, though his tail was a permanent reminder of what might happen when wandering too far from the familiar, from the safe, from the tedium.

A scream. Another. And another. His blood ran cold.

Someone - a hero, a protector - drove the shark away, but the damage was done, and fingers pointed to merman with the ruby eyes.

"He's dangerous!"

"What if it comes back?"

"He brought it here!"

So he fled, swam far from home where he could be alone in his guilt, somewhere the shark wouldn't follow. Closer to shore - to humans - was the answer. Threats of the deep didn't often make their way so close to humanity.

Then he saw you.

"Bakugou…" Eyes glazed over with images of his story, you jolted back to reality when a cool hand touched your face. Looking down at the merman still perched in your lap you saw the imprints of your fingers in his shoulder, gripping harder than you'd realized as your imagination ran away from you. "Shit, sorry! Sorry…" you apologized, letting go quickly. The expression on his face was calm, a controlled look of concern. "I understand now. Well, sorta, I dunno. Anyway…sorry. But you also shouldn't blame yourself for anything, it's not your fault."

He started to argue, brows furrowed. "But-!"

"No," you whispered, placing a finger to his lips to hush him. His lips were surprisingly soft. "No sad…got it?" You mimicked his own words from earlier back at him.

You watched his throat bob up and down as he swallowed thickly, the gills on the sides of his neck shivering against his gentle breathing as he stilled his eyes, red trained on you. His breath against your finger was warm, contrasting the refreshing coolness of his skin. The moment seemed to stretch far longer than reality before you took your hand away calmly, a single instance expanding into a frame-by-frame memory in slow motion.

Finally, he nodded. He understood.

The rest of the evening - despite having little light once the sun set - was occupied with Bakugou laying across your lap and flipping through the books one more time, the occasional question breaking the quiet ocean stillness. Setting the books down Bakugou yawned and settled into your lap, using your legs as a lumpy pillow.

"Uh, no, you can't fall asleep here-" One eye opened to look up at you before letting out a low growl. "Dude, I gotta go home…" As adorable as it was having Bakugou attempt to fall asleep in your lap, sleeping on the pier outside wasn't exactly part of your plan for the day.

However…you couldn't pass up the opportunity to rake your fingers through his soft hair one last time, feeling him sigh contentedly as his eyes fluttered closed. While he was still a mystery, today proved important in understanding more about him; he seemed to trust you enough to bare his vulnerability, his fears, his own insecurities. He was far more human in his flaws than you initially realized, raw and sincere behind ruby eyes and glistening tail and otherworldly beauty.

Under the moonlight ghosting across the shoreline, a gentle hum hit your throat, the sound reverberating against the silent creak of salt-stained wood. A webbed hand held onto your shirt, muscles relaxing against your thighs as Bakugou started to drift off to the sound of your voice, a song unfamiliar but still alluring. You let him relax, telling yourself another five minutes couldn't hurt as you committed the image of the sleeping merman to memory, adding it to the growing stack of mental snapshots stowed away in an unseen storybook, a smile tugging at your lips.