tofi's trail: morning dip

Aoi darted past him and Rei had to follow her because she wasn’t supposed to run off all on her own to the ocean, and it was clear that the ocean was her goal since she was wearing her swimsuit and flip flops and had a water donut under an arm.

Why she was up so early he didn’t get. Because they were living on a new beach much warmer than the last one they lived at a couple years back? She was too excitable about it and not even the smallest ones were this excitable this early in the morning. Though it was almost nine already. Maybe she was just making the most of it before she would have to start going to school on this island.

She let out a startled yell from up ahead and Rei hurried jis steps. She looked more excited than scared, though. Rei’s reaction to what she had encountered was a, “What. The Hell.”

“Lovely morning, isn’t it!” said the stranger cheerfully. Which would be just fine and not really weird, if it weren’t for the fish tail attached to the man’s waist. Mermaids--or mermen, he supposed, were not exactly supposed to be real. They were stories from places like their mom’s home country or Anzu’s dad’s home country and stuff. From other places too sure and they probably had stories of them here too, but what. The Hell.

“You’re a mermaid!” Aoi shouted and pointed, and the blond merman laughed and smiled cheerfully and he waved the fin of his tail out of the shallows of the water. “I’m a mermaid!” he confirmed, and Rei could tell that this would be a person might be on a similar wavelength as his little sister.

“Merman, seriously, why..” Rei had muttered it to himself because he still couldn’t quite believe it was real, maybe he was still asleep and was having some whacky dream, and the merman who apparently heard him smiled up at him. “Because I like morning sunbathing in this spot,” he said, as if Rei had asked by he was in that exact place instead of wondering why he was seeing a merman at all.

“Is it a great spot?” Aoi asked, while Rei sighed deeply and lit another few cigarettes to add to the one he had already been smoking. “Yup, it’s a great spot,” the merman agreed. He slapped his colorful tail fin onto the water surface a few times. “The water feels nice and so does the rising sun. Plus it’s pretty.”

“Do you want to play? I want to dive!” Aoi seemed to think that was a great response to what he had just said. Rei groaned. “Rei-nii, let’s play with Mr. Mermaid!”

“Yeah let’s play, Rei-nii,” the merman said, the most shit-eating innocent smile on his face. “The best diving spot here is over there,” he then added, motioning to a low cliff. “And if you want you can just call me Carl!”

“Carl? Why Carl?”

“Isn’t it his name?”

“It is my name!”

Aoi tipped her head to the side with a scrutinizing look on her face. “Carl doesn’t sound mermaidy at all.” That’s not rude at all. Rei wanted to bury his face in his hands and groan.

“There aren’t any really mermaid-typical names, but sorry to disappoint?”

“Nah it’s fine,” Aoi decided. “Rei-nii, Carl, look when I dive!”

And she was off, shouting to Carl that she was Aoi, by the way! and she was headed for the cliff he had pointed out.

“You’ve got a cute kid..sister?” The last bit was an amendment when Carl saw the expression making way onto Rei’s face. “Sorry to break your bubble about mermaids, I guess?”

“Nah it’s fine,” Rei decided, mimicking his little sister. “It’s weird but it’s whatever or something.” The merman laughed. “As if humans aren’t super weird with their legs and stuff.” Rei snorted. “Yeah right, okay, we’re super weird.” But eh, he was fine with that. Man, he thought as he watched Aoi wave from the top of the cliff, evolution is weird.

Morning Dip