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“Hey, guys, what do think this thing is? A worm?”
“Think he’s some kinda lost sea slug.”
“Can’t swim, so he’s not a fish.”
“I don’t think he can bite, either. All he can do is cry. Maybe he’s just a floating piece of trash some human tossed in?”
A trio of cichlid mermen encroached on Guy, all older and bigger than Guy. Their harsh laughter and mocking jeers bubbled up around him, and Guy flinched, trying to back away from the small gang. His back fin hit a smooth stone behind him as the boys crowded in around to get a closer look. There was no backing out that way.
“I’m… I’m not crying.” Guy muttered through clenched teeth, face visibly red. It was almost not a lie. Guy had been crying again when they found him, and there were still tears in his eyes, but he refused to let them fall and float away. He had to deny them that satisfaction, at least. His small hands balled up into fists, and he glanced around again for a route of escape.
The tip of his tail flickered back and forth fretfully, disturbing the water around him. He lacked a tail fin or the freedom of movement most tails would have. His was spiny and prehensile, and –like most people would never fail to remind himself and his father— most seahorses died early on from being such poor swimmers. A quick, smooth escape maneuver was pretty impossible for him for now. He couldn’t outswim them in any direction.
That was why his dad didn’t like Guy getting in unnecessary fights.
“First things first! Train, grow big and strong, and above all else, survive! Survive, so you can grow bigger and stronger! Like me!”
He knew his father’s words by heart, better than he knew the plates of his own tail. And he didn’t doubt those words. Duy had managed to survive a very long life for a seahorse. He knew what he was talking about.
But Guy just wasn’t as good as Duy was at hiding or avoiding these things. He wasn’t calm and unflappable like Duy was. His jaw clenched. His fingernails dug into the pale skin of his palms. His thick, bony tail curled around a patch of seagrass, keeping him still against the sea currents.
“Hey! I’ve got it!” The largest boy pestering him suddenly announced, swimming closer to Guy. His large tail fanned out, smacking against Guy’s. It jostled him a bit, but didn’t loosen Guy’s hold on the grass. Guy’s tail didn’t make for good swimming, but it could keep a strong grip. “I know what this thing is!”
Trepidation gripped Guy as one of the boys gripped a fistful of his hair and yanked it hard enough to enter a tug of war with Guy’s still anchored tail. He squirmed desperately and tried to shove the boy off of him, but the merman refused to release him.
“Stuck to the ground, can’t swim, no brain…” He shook Guy’s head around, like he was listening for something to rattle in there. “This thing’s a coral!”
“Yeah, that’s definitely it!”
“That explains why it looks so gaudy and dumb!”
Another round of laughter bubbled around Guy, floating upwards in the sea as lightly as Guy’s now-falling tears did.
“Hm, I can’t remember…” The grip in his hair pulled harder, and Guy winced as he felt himself being stretched thin between the hold his tail had on the ground and the hold this guy had in his hair. “Does coral feel pain?”
“You know what…?” one of the others said in a fake-pensive tone, scratching his chin. “I forgot too.”
Another voice piped up curiously with barely contained laughter. “We’ve got one right here. How about we test it out?”
Guy’s tail curled tighter, straining the seagrass as he kept himself still. He took in a shallow gulp of seawater and gritted his teeth.
When he saw his dad later, he would have to find an excuse for his injuries. Tomorrow, he would probably have to find new ones. But whatever anyone said or did to him, there was going to be a tomorrow. Guy had lived this long, and he was going to live just as long as his dad. He’d just have to apologize to Duy for getting into yet another fight and giving another fish a black eye or a broken fin.
With that thought in mind, Guy rubbed his eyes, checked again for another route, another way, then steeled his heart when his mind was made up. “Sorry, papa,” he said quietly to himself.
His tail sprung free and he catapulted upward from the force of the pull on his hair, throwing his captor off-balance and catching him off-guard. With the added power and speed from that upward momentum, Guy swiped his tail up at the bullies in front of him. The spiny protrusions scratched them, and the muscular tail wrapped around his head and neck. Guy rolled forward and dragged the cichlid with him, grappling the larger boy forward and slamming him to the seabed with a powerful somersault. His tail spines tingled from the impact, but that was nothing compared to how the boy’s whole body shook. He coughed and gasped, and this time, the eruption of bubbles that escaped from his mouth were the farthest thing from laughter.
Guy started tumbling as he pulled out of the flip, but kept rolling through the water until he was upright again, hands still balled into fists. After the initial shock wore off, the merboys glared, and defiance filled his eyes as he glowered back at them, not even caring anymore that the tears in his eyes were falling. “I’m a seahorse. And I’m the seahorse that’ll be the strongest merman in the seven seas!” Guy declared, taking a defensive stance. It came out louder than he intended, but Guy was unapologetic. “Remember that! And,” Guy forced a grin, tried to make it as big and bold as Duy’s, even as his voice shook, “Keep cheering me on!”
The largest one scowled as he pushed himself back up, swaying weakly in the current. “You mouth-breathing little kelp-for-brains—! You’re fish food!”
Following his lead, the other merboys circled Guy aggressively in threat. They were kids themselves, but in this hostile swarm, they gave off the impression of fully grown, dominant merfolk. Guy straightened up and anchored himself, preparing for the worst. “Bring it on!”
Just when it seemed like they were about to lunge at him, before they could actually retaliate, black slime oozed and rose around them suddenly, like smog clouding the water. Everything vanished in a suffocating burst of ink.
Guy reflexively clasped his hands over his mouth. The other boys’ lungs burned as they struggled to free himself from the swirling, nauseating cloud, coughing and choking on the toxic taste of it. Panic left them frozen and disoriented, paralyzed in surprise.
The water was dark and murky, dulling all five senses. In the heavy darkness, Guy felt a tentacle brush against his body deliberately. Guy’s tail curled around it.
Once Guy was holding on, the tentacle pulled forward, and Guy was dragged along behind it as the merman attached to it siphoned past the murky fog. Guy kept his tail grip tightened as his companion sped through the water. He weathered the merman’s fast lunges and sharp pivots until the ink around him dissipated and they reached a part of the brighter, open ocean. He didn’t watch the blues and greens of the ocean that were bursting back into color around him. He watched the now-visible silver hair flowing gracefully in front of him.
“Kakashi!” Guy called out in greeting as soon as he could. His face lit up with a smile. “Thanks for the save!”
Guy giggled and grinned with pride, staying on securely for the free ride through the ocean. When they were far enough away that the disoriented cichlids were in no danger of catching up to them, Kakashi’s tentacle wiggled to pull itself from Guy’s grip. Guy’s tail uncurled from its holdfast to free it.
With a sigh that fluttered his gills, Kakashi grunted, “Always getting in trouble. This is why your dad told me to babysit you.”
In a single, fluid motion, Guy righted himself to swim upright again and shot a frown in Kakashi’s direction. “He didn’t tell you to babysit me,” Guy remarked belatedly, flexing his tail. “I’m not a baby.” All Duy had asked of Kakashi was to watch out for Guy while Duy was on his trip to deeper oceans. The last thing Guy wanted anyone to see him as was a clumsy baby seahorse. He certainly wasn’t going to let himself be called a baby by Kakashi.
Kakashi spun around to face Guy. Water rippled around the mass of gyrating tentacles. His grey hair was wild and soft in the water, framing the round contours of his face, which helped soften the hard look Kakashi was sending Guy. Even with the seaweed mask covering Kakashi’s mouth, his scrutinizing expression was as piercing as ever. “That might as well be exactly what he said,” he deadpanned, advancing with precision, cutting through his elusive remarks. Kakashi circled around him tauntingly, prompting Guy to track him with his eyes, turning his head and then his body as well to follow him. “It’s not like you were about to swim away peacefully.”
Guy opened his mouth to muster a rebuttal, to defend himself and say that he had exhausted that option, but he soon closed it again. He couldn’t deny that. It was hard enough to form words at all when Kakashi’s dark eyes pierced through him like that.
Guy let the ocean push and pull him while he treaded against it slightly, bobbing and ebbing and flowing as he got his thoughts in order. “I had it handled. I could take them!” He offered in his own defense.
Kakashi snorted out a chuckle and rolled his eyes. “Probably,” he said, and Guy raised his eyebrows in surprise that Kakashi apparently believed in his strength to some degree. “It wouldn’t have been worth it, though. Even you can find better exercises than picking fights with bottom feeders.”
Guy bit his lip and took a deep breath, shaking off the tears from earlier that still clung to his eyelashes. He replaced his pout with a grin and his brightest, most confident Nice Guy pose. “You’re right, I can! Thank you for cheering me on yet again, my dear Rival!”
Kakashi rolled his eyes again and sunk down to settle on a large, flat rock underneath him. He ran his hands down each tentacle, apparently massaging them. Guy wondered if it was like when his tail cramped after dancing sometimes. He wondered if those tentacles could even get cramps.
It went without saying, but Kakashi wasn’t a seahorse like Guy or Duy, despite his admiration for the latter. Kakashi technically wasn’t a merman at all. He was a cecealia– half-man, half-mimic octopus. He had long, dark grey tentacles, marked with rings of lighter greys and whites. It was a rather striking appearance for a boy who opted to turn invisible so much of the time. A master of disguise and dexterity, and a natural born hunter. Truly, a prodigy from the start. The cream of the crop; a person with a frightening reputation to uphold.
In contrast, Guy hadn’t even quite mastered the art of camouflage, even though it was just as much his birthright as it was Kakashi’s.
Guy glanced down at his pelvis, where his humanlike torso morphed with his merfolk bottom half. A muscular, thick tail with bony, square plates, covered by a thin stretch of shimmery green skin that tapered into orange at the tip, adorned with small protrusions like coral. He had a twin pair of fins at his pelvis, which he would consider a leg up on Kakashi’s complete lack of fins, if not for the fact that they were more for steering than for proving any extra force in his swimming. The dorsal fin on his back that actually did help him swim was just more arrays of thin, undulating bone and stretched skin.
Seahorses and mimic octopi were both rarities among the merfolk, but for very different reasons.
When Kakashi finally seemed satisfied with the state of his appendages, he stopped massaging them and simply lounged on the rock. “You need to get better at fleeing,” Kakashi advised. “Learn when to drop it and go away.”
Guy’s tail found something to wrap around and anchor himself to as well, letting him lounge in the gentle current. “If I gave up on things as often as you think I should, our rivalry would never have even started.”
Kakashi simply hummed in response, his lips curled up in a half-smile. “So, you’re saying you didn’t deescalate because you want those guppies to be your new rivals? I see how it is.”
“That’s not—!” He pressed his lips together, unable to answer. Kakashi’s half-smile quickly shifted into a smirk, and Guy changed color slightly. “All I’m saying is that you and my dad don’t need to worry so much!”
“I’m not worried. But it’s pretty obvious they’re going to make fun of you no matter how much you fight back.” Kakashi shrugged. “After all, what kind of fish can’t swim?”
The muscles in Guy’s prehensile tail twitched at that remark. Guy and Kakashi were rivals, and sometimes Guy mused about considering each other friends, but whatever they were to each other, Kakashi never sugarcoated anything. Guy preferred it that way over pity, though. Kakashi was so impudent that he made Guy forget to be sad.
Guy let out a loud huff as he let go of the seaweed anchoring him in place again, then drifted up freely. “I can swim! I’m swimming right now!” Guy darted around Kakashi swiftly. His arms propelled him forward to make up for the weaker swimming ability of his tail, and his fins steered him nimbly.
Kakashi arched an eyebrow. “Barely,” he said. Which was a compliment, coming from Kakashi.
“And I get better every day! Prepare yourself, because one day, I’ll be dashing ahead and leaving you in my bubbles!”
“You might,” Kakashi shrugged again, this time with all his limbs. “If you don’t get yourself killed first.”
“Fine! That’s it, you asked for it! I’ll show you how great I am!” Feigning outrage, Guy reared back and pointed a finger at Kakashi in challenge. “Tail wrestling match!”
“Maa… I didn’t think you’d want to get your tailfin kicked so soon after you got out of a fight.” Despite the disinterested tone, Kakashi unfurled his tentacles from around the rock and floated back up to meet Guy’s eye level. He could hide his enthusiasm in his voice, but he couldn’t hide that twinkle in his eyes.
“Sounds to me like you’re scared~” Guy said in a sing-song voice, adding a little wiggle dance.
Kakashi hummed skeptically. “Scared of what? I could crush you.”
“Ha! You saw how strong I was earlier,” Guy teased. “And now you know which of us is the stronger rival! You’re scared of how powerful my tail is compared to yours!”
“I don’t have any tails. But…” From the tip of Kakashi’s tentacles to their base, a mesmerizing green and orange pattern rippled along his body, spiny and sharp in mimicry Guy’s own tail. As always, Guy was blown away by how special his rival was, like a riptide coursing through him. “I guess I’ll play along. You’ll just keep bugging me if I say no.”
They swam and swirled around each other confrontationally. The water whirled around them while they stared each other down. “Ready, set…” Guy chanted. “Go!”
They both turned tail and dove, heads tucked down, grabbing for something to anchor their upper bodies to the ground. Kakashi wrapped his arms around a sunken boulder, and Guy held onto a reef. Their “tails” naturally found each other and curled together, then pulled with all the strength their bodies had. This was a game they’d made up to test their raw strengths against each other, trying to see who could force the other to slip up first. “Like arm-wrestling, but bigger and better,” Guy had aptly described it.
The powerful muscles in Guy’s tail flexed, gradually forcing the sole tentacle Kakashi was using back. Guy could see Kakashi’s limb struggle and tremble against Guy’s. Just when it seemed like the win was about to go to Guy, Kakashi abruptly added all his tentacles to the mix, pushing with so much force that Guy’s hands slipped from their stronghold. He was launched, twirling meters through the water. Guy rolled in the water, flailing his arms and tail until he could finally bring himself to a stable halt.
Once the world stopped spinning around Guy, he grinned dizzily and swam back to Kakashi, who had already gone back to perching on a stone. His tentacles had returned to their usual dark colors and smooth texture. As unbothered as Kakashi acted, Guy could see the way his chest rose and fell to catch his breath from exertion. Guy knew he was getting stronger. He’d never made Kakashi feel the need to use all eight tentacles in a match before.
“Kakashi!” Guy declared, giving him two thumbs up. “Thank you!”
“For ‘cheering,’?” Kakashi asked with a sardonic smile. Another mimicry of sorts.
Guy just grinned and waved his tail, wrapping the tapered end against one of Kakashi’s tentacles to anchor them together. “For everything!”
In response, Kakashi wordlessly curled one of his other tentacles up the taper end of Guy’s tail.