Summary: "I'm here for Aomine-kun, actually," the really cute stranger corrected her. Satsuki's hopes sank faster than her pitiful swimming skills. T.R.C.S. looked past her, to where her best guy friend was glaring obliviously at the ocean's horizon, and added, "His po- people want him to come home." Her hopes for a summer romance experienced a swift and joyful revival. "He's never talked about his family much," she prodded curiously. T.R.C.S. seemed briefly pained, and Satsuki immediately felt terrible for making such a pretty person unhappy. "Well, he did leave us for a reason, I suppose." [merfolk!au] [gen, with hint of momoi/kuroko]
Disclaimer: I don't own KnB or the cover picture.
It was to be expected that his pod would eventually catch up to him.
Daiki supposed that he wasn't nearly as surprised as he should've been when it turned out to be Tetsuya. Tetsuya had been the only other scale-brother (or scale-sister) that shared his passion for basketball and his unique shifting ability.
Well. Not land-basketball. Mer-basketball used tails instead of hands, water where there was air and ground, coral for baskets and woven spheres of kelp instead of rubber, etc. Really, 'basketball' wasn't a very exclusive or original name, seeing as many games, both land- and mer-, involved balls and baskets.
And. Well. Not entirely 'unique' of a shifting ability, since it wasn't unheard of for merpeople to have the genetic mutation of being able to sprout legs instead of a tail, and all of the other minutiae (dropping fins, gills, scales, gaining different lungs, a self-regulating circulatory system, fully opaque skin that was 'normally' tough and colored) necessary to blend in as an ordinary land-person.
But the mutation came and went, as fickle as the legends of merfolk, and it was still rare enough that their pod became infamously labeled as the 'Generation of Miracles.' Possibly because it was a fracking miracle that all of their individual personalities had come together with minimal dissent, and definitely because it was unheard of for so many shifters to be born in a single generation.
And the former achievement of keeping them all together for so long was more of a testament to Seijuurou's charisma and forcefulness than it was to their actual pod-bonds.
Seijuurou was fracking terrifying. Daiki suspected it to be the kelpie blood in him. Out of GoM pod, Seijuurou and Tetsuya, the half-brothers, were also the only half-bloods in the clan; Akashi Sr., an intimidating Arctic mer-immigrant to the East Sea merpeople nation, had apparently gotten around despite his literal cold-bloodedness. First with some kelpie, who produced Seijuurou, with all of his mother's coloring and his father's frosty attraction. Then with, more impressively, a siren, who produced Tetsuya, with all of his father's coloring and his mother's abilities.
Tetsuya and Seijuurou had never seemed all too bothered by not knowing his mother at all, though, and it wasn't like any of the other Miracles were all too close to their own spawn-mothers or brood-sires. Except maybe Ryouta, who was such a sucker for attention that they all joked he must be part dogfish.
Anyway, that was all off-topic, not-relevant, and a result of his own mind trying to distract him from the imminent confrontation he really wished he didn't have to face.
'Why the Deeps did I have to agree to Satsuki's whining about going to the beach? Oh, yeah, because I was kinda really fracking homesick and thought that it was a minnow's chance in the Deeps that a mer would recognize me,' Daiki sarcastically thought to himself, watching his podmate and scale-brother draw closer with the careful walk of those who weren't entirely comfortable with legs- or gravity or ground -yet.
"We need to talk," he decided to get it out first, before Tetsuya could try any of his sneaky siren- or just plain sneaky Tetsuya -tricks. Daiki fondly remembered several childhood antics that had proven just how persuasive his best (mer) friend could be. He wasn't feeling very fond right now, though, about the implications of such persuasiveness standing in front of him, even as seeing his scale-brother again evoked other strongly mixed feelings.
Tetsuya, slyly snarky as ever behind his pokerface, smiled faintly at him, apparently genuinely pleased to see him again, whole and healthy (even if scaleless and tailless). "You haven't lost that talent for stating the obvious, I see."
He clearly expected him to chuckle and reminiscence and fall back into their familiar, easy camaraderie. And it would be so simple to do so. To let himself forget why he left the Miracles, left the merpeople, and allow himself to be coaxed and enticed back with gentle concessions, subtle coercion.
Which was why Daiki forced himself to keep frowning and scowling down at him. "Why are you here, Tetsu?"
"You know why I'm here," Tetsuya answered glibly, going along with his businesslike tone.
"I left for a reason, Tetsu. I'm not going back, and you can't change my mind," he warned, defensive and wary.
He seemed to sense that, and understandingly raised his hands- carefully -in a gesture to calm down. "Let's take a walk on the beach, Aomine-kun. Catch up. Can't podmates do that anymore? I'm not going to force you to come back to us, Aomine-kun- you know I wouldn't use my thrall on you," the mer-siren added reproachfully, sounding a little hurt, "so just hear me out, okay? We were all worried about you, you know. And I'm sure you want to feel your- feet -in the tide after being landlocked for so long."
And the Deeps if he wasn't right, in all of his guilt-tripping glory. Daiki knew Tetsuya was definitely not going to just drop the subject, but… it really had been a long time since he'd felt the sea, the surf, the authentic saltwater on his skin, and he really wanted to feel it again, even if wasn't water-on-scales.
"Fracking Deeps," he swore with heartfelt tiredness, already drained from interacting with unassuming, make-you-feel-the-blame, expert convincer Tetsuya. "Shipwreck," Daiki added for emphasis, and just because he could, he tossed in the roughly equivalent land-curses as well. "Fucking shitty hell, Tetsu, no need for your railroading, I'll go, I'll go."
"Please don't make me scrub out your teeth with a sponge, Aomine-kun," Tetsuya scolded, reproachful once more, "as it would be unpleasant for both you and the sponge, no doubt. And what is 'railroading?'" he tagged on, even as he looked happy with his compliance and lead the way down to the shore.
Daiki felt a brief twinge of apology and annoyance as they quietly passed the unresponsive, oblivious Satsuki. She was really decent for a land-dweller, and had been helpful in her willingness to mentally make up excuses for his occasional inexperience about land-matters. She was accepting of a little weirdness in her life, and she wasn't nearly as fluff-headed as she seemed and sometimes acted, and… okay, admittedly, he'd at first liked her just because her 'unusual' hair and eye color reminded him of home, but still. They'd… actually gotten to be good friends; a friend he could count on, and probably his best land-person friend. In land-terms: they were bros (even though she was a girl.)
"Did you really have to enthrall her?" he complained to Tetsuya, delicately picking his way ahead to the sand, where the lighter bluetail appeared much more comfortable.
"Yes," was his short reply, and the elongated addend of, "she might eavesdrop, or ask uncomfortable questions."
" … You talk more, now," Daiki noted. "A lot more forceful, too. 'Railroading' means to kinda trample over somebody's protests until they did what you said. Like… what Akashi did," he explained, habitually referring to Seijuurou by the more formal last name. "Or does, I suppose."
Tetsuya looked forward, expressionlessly, as they walked away from the beach-house. "Are you saying that I'm more like Seijuurou now, Aomine-kun?" he asked bluntly, giving no indication of whether or not that was a bad thing.
" … yes?"
"Maybe I am," he freely confessed, catching Daiki off guard. Tetsuya had hated being compared to his blood-brother before, though he hadn't hated Seijuurou, exactly. "I spent more time with him since you left and the pod broke up. There's a lot of pressure and public scrutiny on a pod-captain who had a member desert, and then watched his pod fall apart. I had to keep him steady-" since nobody else was there to, he didn't say, "in case he went Gold."
Daiki instinctively sucked in a breath. Seijuurou going Gold wasn't something he would wish on the most aggravating of opponents. The redtail was fracking terrifying enough as sane, rational self; the Miracles had only seen him giving in to his kelpie-inherited madness- which was even more unstable than the regular strain of kelpie madness, since he was just a half-blood -once, and, Deeps, there wasn't an expletive or word strong enough to fully convey the fin-freezing pure fright that it'd caused.
"Did he?" Daiki asked softly, suddenly feeling very guilty- or, rather, more guilty. Of course Tetsuya had said that to make him feel guilty, he knew that, but he didn't think Tetsuya would lie to him for the sake of a guilt-trip that wasn't guaranteed to get him to come back. Though, if he was lying, it wasn't like Daiki could ever discern the difference.
" … No," Tetsuya breathed out, staring down blankly at his human toes, leaving light idents on the sand behind him, "he didn't. But one eye turned gold a few times, and it's a daily struggle- a daily fear -for him now. Midorima-kun only visits when the Tides of Fate forecast it as a 'very lucky' day for Cancers, and even then, he only stays in our reef for a brief update and a lucky-item drop-off before leaving. Murasakibara-kun lives in a nearby reef, and comes more often, but just to present Seijuurou with his latest catches, like- like offerings of some sort to a finicky ocean deity. And Kise-kun visits most often, whenever he's not busy with his modeling contracts, but he's so, so afraid of Seijuurou. He tries to laugh it off, and he also tries to convince me to leave Seijuurou to our father- but I can't do that to him."
And you never visit, because you left and started this whole mess, he still didn't say.
Daiki looked away at the pleading tone in Tetsuya's voice as he neared the end of his talk, broken up and bitter. They wandered along the shore in silence for a long while, him taking off his shoes to feel the water caress his feet welcomingly, he clearly recovering his composure from his emotional explanation. Neither looked at each other- couldn't bear to -until Tetsuya looked at him first, in fragile hope.
"Tetsu…" he pleaded himself, stomach churning at disappointing his best friend, his scale-brother, his former podmate. "You know I can't."
"Why not?" Tetsuya retorted with an edge of sharpness, still upset, though his face was as blank as ever. "Tell me why, Aomine-kun. Explain to me and make me understand. You know I usually support everything you do, unless it's stupid, so why- why didn't you say goodbye before you left me?"
And that was really it, wasn't it. He didn't want to disappoint his best friend, his scale-brother, his former-podmate, but he already had, from the moment he'd implied that he hadn't trusted or loved him enough to treat him as a best friend, a scale-brother, and an at-the-time podmate.
"Because I thought you'd think it was stupid, okay!?" Daiki bit out, frustrated, ruffling his own hair and feeling the lack of gills keenly for the first time in years as he heaved in breaths. "I didn't- I didn't want to spend the rest of my life knowing that there was this whole entire other world out there that I didn't explore or experience just because most merpeople couldn't go on land and thought it was boring! I didn't think it was boring! I thought it was wonderful, and- and bright and brilliant and different- and I thought I wanted to live it a little!
"I thought… I thought… I thought the other Miracles wouldn't understand and would try to stop me, and I knew how much our pod meant to you. I thought it would be unfair of me to make you choose between coming with me or staying with the pod. I didn't think the Miracles would just… drift apart. I'm- I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry, Tetsu, but I'm still not going back."
Tetsuya was very quiet, by his side.
Daiki chanced a nervous glance at him for his reaction.
He was shaking.
With carefully restrained… something.
His fingers curled into fists, and his head was bowed, and he didn't face him when he asked lowly, "You're sorry for not expecting that the pod would break? That's what you're sorry for, Ahomine?"
Tetsuya whirled around, eyes gleaming- but not with siren thrall, just with shiny tears and rage, which was probably scarier and worse to see on softspoken Tetsuya -and teeth bared as he hissed, "You- I- You idiot!"
He raised a fist, clenched tight, then seemed to think twice, stopping and staring at it as he told him, in a deceptively calmed voice, "the only reason I'm not punching you right now, Ahomine, is because it would raise questions from Satsuki-san, and she's a nice human who I owe for enthralling and who, anyway, doesn't deserve to be worrying over the possibility of her normal, ordinary, human friend getting into fistfights over vacation. We are going to be talking about this later."
Giving Daiki a decisive, stormy nod, Tetsuya then walked into the sea until he completely went under.
Seeing as he knew the lighter bluetail probably had a tail by now, Daiki sighed, and began the long trudge home, though he remembered to put his shoes on before he got to Satsuki.
'Looks like Akashi Sr.'s icy temper didn't completely go to just Seijuurou,' he noted distantly.
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-Please review.-
Daiki, Daiki, Daiki. Oh, you idiot. But you're Tetsuya's idiot, no?
And yes, this is gen. Just with hints of bromance, and Satsuki's maybe-onesided-maybe-not helpless infatuation with Tetsuya (which isn't, actually, entirely the fault of his siren genes. Mostly, yeah, because he's technically supernaturally pretty, but also because he's nice and polite and softspoken and basically makes Satsuki want to squeal, kiss him senseless, and hug him in equal parts.)