Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Welcome to my island

See the palm trees wave in the wind

- Caroline Polachek, Welcome to My Island

When Yuuji was young, he loved going to the beach.

Anytime he could, he begged for his grandpa over and over to take him there, and despite his grumbling and muttering, he never denied him anything in those days. He still remembers the hot sand under his bare feet, the clear water washing up the shore, all the fish he could just picture hidden deep underneath, even if he couldn’t see them with his own eyes.

He had this visceral memory of wanting to go in there, as deep into the ocean as he could, and talk to them—as if fishes could talk. Maybe they can, amongst themselves. Looking back on it, that was probably when Yuuji first took an interest in marine biology.

It’s funny. Throughout all his schooling, he’d been an ace at sports, even forced to participate in activities he didn’t want to do, when he’d rather be elsewhere, like the small aquarium in his town. The shocked expressions of his teachers when they saw his chosen career path still makes him burst out laughing, but despite their doubt and constant begging him to reconsider, he persisted. He went through college, and succeeded. Graduated with honors, even!

And now, he’s surrounded by water and engulfed in the ocean, on his way down an elevator to a giant, state-of-the-art marine biology research facility over fifteen thousand feet underwater, in the abyssal zone in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

He itches to press his palm against the strengthened crystal, but a pointed look from his supervisor, Ieiri Shoko, keeps him from doing so, even if it’s with a pout. Instead, he feasts his eyes on what lay outside: the incredible span of water surrounding the land all of them stood on. Over seventy-one percent of planet Earth was made of water, and the lower and lower they got, the more he noticed the sun above them slowly fading out of sight, the ocean stretching into infinity.

Yuuji bounces on his feet, ignoring Ieiri-san’s judgemental look. Of course he’d accepted, this was the offer of a lifetime! Getting such a high-profile job offer on the onset of graduation is the stuff of dreams. Besides, Yuuji had already kind of known about this facility, long before he’d gotten the job offer.

Extremely high tech, extremely secretive, extremely elite. It was kind of a living myth among his class, even though you could just go online and look up their official website. The reason it’s so legendary isn’t because of the expensive structure or undoubtedly incredible experiments and research going on down here, it’s because nobody knows just what they’re researching. Nothing ever leaked, outside of stuff that they had presented to the public already.

Sure, the high pay and prestige might’ve been incentives, but truth be told? He would’ve accepted anyway, just for the curiosity factor.

His new supervisor hums as she flips over his file, lit cigarette hanging from her mouth. Yuuji watches it nervously, lightly batting the smoke away from him—is it even safe to smoke in here?

“Itadori Yuuji, twenty-one,” she raises an eyebrow at his file, “you had a sports scholarship, and chose to study marine biology instead?”

“Yes, ma’am!” Yuuji grins, and salutes for no particular reason. “I was also in the occult club in high school!”

“Good to know,” she replies gingerly, “you’ll fit well here.”

Wait, what?

Before he can ask what she means, the elevator comes to a stop and the doors slide open. Yuuji looks around at the near-black expanse outside the crystal, only vaguely lit by the electrical lights coming from within the vast facility. Choosing to put that out of his mind for now, he follows after Ieiri-san.

As they set foot into a perfectly-clean, well-lit corridor, Yuuji realizes that… Well, he’s not exactly sure what he’s going to do. Other than the hefty salary and his relocation expenses being paid for, his contract was essentially just an extensive NDA, vaguely-defined duties and a waiver of any legal responsibilities should anything happen to him. He doesn’t know much about his actual tasks.

They’d assured him it was for secrecy, but maybe he should’ve asked more questions?

“This entire section of the facility is new,” Ieiri-san explains as they walk. “Everything you can see from there—” she nods at a far-off metallic door, “—to there—” she points at some far-off point in the hall where the pristine floor curves into a corner, “—was built recently just for this project.”

Yuuji blinks, and looks around slowly with a new perspective. The walls on one side have a metallic coating resembling aluminum panels, but Yuuji has no idea if that’s what it is—interior design isn’t exactly his strength. On the other side, the walls are entirely made up of wide crystal panels showing the ocean outside, essentially making half of this floor a window. There are cold lights lined all along this section of the hall mounted on the little corners where the walls met the ceiling, illuminating them, the first few meters of the ocean outside, and the clean linoleum floor they’re currently walking on.

Bottom line is, this place is expensive. Yuuji begins sweating a bit as he gives a friendly wave to a passing cleaner sweeping through—add in all the employees and upkeep, on top of the already existing wings of the facility, and it gets obscenely expensive, and all this for one project? Why?

Ieiri-san had been keeping a side-eye out for his reaction, and she huffs at the obvious confusion on his face. “I’m sure you have questions,” she says, and ruffles through her notepad, pulling out a multi-page file that she hands over to Yuuji. Gingerly, he starts rifling through the pages.

“Truth is,” she continues as they cross a corner, “we’re extremely short-staffed on this project. We’ve lost around forty percent of our team members since the board of directors approved it, and we weren’t that many to begin with. They keep throwing money our way, but it’s not much use if no one’s around to use it, so you were hired as an assistant exclusively for this one.”

Yuuji takes this information in carefully. It’s true that while he might have the skills, he doesn’t have the curriculum that such a high-profile institution might usually ask for. At best, he might have hoped for an internship, so to receive a full job offer from the get-go… Yeah, he should’ve been more suspicious. But! He’s not one to call it quits so early on, so he zooms through as many of the notes as he can before they get to wherever they’re going.

There’s lots of details about the project’s natural habitat, the holding area they’re using, its ecosystem, stuff surrounding it but nothing about what it actually is. The notes, while detailed, seem to be working backwards. Yuuji has no problems picking stuff up on the fly, but even he’s struggling to decipher this.

And then, he gets to the last set of pages. There’s a grainy picture of some bright blue scales, and Yuuji squints down at the line printed beside it on top.

Subject: 71289-Limitless

And under it, underscored:

Gojo Satoru.

“Is this a new specimen?” Yuuji asks tentatively. “Why do they have a name?”

He waits for an answer, bewildered. After a loaded silence, Ieiri-san replies, ”It’s… Something like that. It’s better if you see for yourself.”

Not exactly filled with confidence, they pass another corner—just how big is this place?—and Yuuji almost bumps into her back as she slows down. “Here we are.”

There’s an isolated set of large doors a few feet away, metallic, with no windows to be seen, being guarded by a suited man in a lab coat. He’s got blond hair, and a pair of glasses that almost seem like safety goggles, but not quite. The whole thing screams importance. Yuuji’s eyes widen as the vaguely familiar figure suddenly becomes crystal clear.

“Nanamin?” He calls out, shocked and delighted. The other man stiffens at the sound of his voice, but then, the tension seems to release as he gazes at Yuuji.

“Itadori-kun. Of course,” he sighs, and turns to them properly. “I did not expect you would be our new recruit.”

Nanami sounds resigned to this fact, and Yuuji grins widely at it. Ieiri-san looks vaguely curious at the exchange, smoke puffing off her cigarette. “Nanamin was my favorite teacher at college,” Yuuji explains to her eagerly, even though she did not ask, and looks giddily at his former professor. “Man, it’s so good to see you!”

“Please do not refer to me that way in a professional setting,” Nanami sighs, pushing up his glasses, but Yuuji’s certain he can see him fighting back a smile. However, he quickly sobers, and resumes his serious posture. “I assume Ieiri-san has briefed you on the project?”

“She gave me this,” Yuuji holds up the ruffled papers. “I’m still not sure I understand what it’s about.”

“You will,” Nanami replies simply, and turns to Ieiri-san, nodding. “Shall we?”

She nods back at him, and Yuuji looks between them, disconcerted. Finally, standing in front of him, they both grab one of the two handles, and open the doors. Yuuji blinks as he walks in after them, trying to adjust to the new lighting. From the sterile, slightly tinged scent, he’s in a lab. A fairly large one, too, with a wide array of high-tech equipment, and the biggest window he’s ever seen, spanning from wall to wall and floor to the near-hundred-feet ceiling, if not more, showing the brightest blue gemstone he’s witnessed in his life, in six pairs.

Yuuji rubs his eyes. Six pairs? That doesn’t seem right. Six pairs of bright blue gems, with an iridescent circle in the middle, punctuated by a pale canvas surrounding them, with a mop of white seaweed on top.

He rubs his eyes again, and again. The canvas isn’t pale, it’s pale flesh. It’s not white seaweed on top, it’s white hair. Those pretty gems aren’t a pile of diamonds, they’re six pairs of eyes at least twice of Yuuji’s entire size, trained firmly on him, sparkling with mirth. It’s a face that rises and rises, revealing a perfectly symmetrical face framed by glowing aquamarine marks, running down an absolutely gigantic torso, toned like a healthy human’s, but his defined hipbones fade into a tail with the prettiest turquoise scales Yuuji has ever seen, ending in two pointed tips at the end, just like a shark’s.

The doors close soundly at the same time Yuuji’s jaw drops, sealing his fate.

“Subject: 71289-Limitless,” Nanami recites dutifully, stepping closer to the reinforced glass. “Gojo Satoru. In other words…”

“A merman,” Yuuji breathes. The sound of his unfamiliar voice draws the attention of the magnificent creature before him. His marks run in horizontal patterns down his skin, and seem like gashes around his arms, glowing brightly and pulsing slightly, like a steady heartbeat. Much like the rest of him, his arms are massive, and without any strict measurements at hand, Gojo Satoru looks to be at least a few hundred feet tall. Yuuji’s mind immediately goes to Godzilla, and he gulps.

He’d been so focused on the merman himself that he didn’t even notice his over-hundred-feet-long tank is filled to the brim with water. Gojo inches closer to the glass wall, and slowly splays his gigantic hand over the crystal, easily covering a good portion of it, gazing directly into Yuuji’s core. His fingers are webbed with clear claws at the tip, and behind his placid smile, Yuuji can see a hint of pearly white teeth.

As a child, Yuuji loved treasure-hunting. It was one of his favorite things to do on the beach, not for the greed of finding something shiny he could covet for himself, but because of the thrill. This deep-seated want to find something no one but the most clever people could truly find, and see it for what it is.

Yuuji doesn’t have the chance to get scared before he thinks, unbidden: he’s beautiful.

“Welcome to the project,” Ieiri-san says wryly, and it’s enough to snap him out of his trance. Both of his superiors are looking at him intently, and Yuuji flushes under their scrutiny. How many people reacted like that? How many ran away shrieking in terror? He doesn’t wanna know—he can’t imagine running from such a gorgeous creature. Not yet, at least.

“You might want to take another look at your notes, you’ll need them.” Nanami gestures at Yuuji’s loose papers. Some of them had fluttered to the floor, escaping his slackened hold. Sheepishly, he quickly gathers them back up. For some reason, the action causes the smile on the giant merman’s face to widen, so much so that it resembles a grin.

There’s a thousand questions swimming around in his mind, but the first that comes out is: “Why is he here?”

Ieiri’s eyebrows rise, and Gojo tilts his head slightly, the action causing Yuuji to notice his ear fins, which flop slightly under the water at the movement. Why is that cute? Yuuji shakes the thought off, and amends the question:

“I mean, he’s massive,” Yuuji gestures widely at the merman, who seems to preen at the action. “Did you… Capture him? How?”

Ieiri-san gives Nanamin a pointed look. “I told you those papers were useless,” she deadpans, but Nanamin only pushes his glasses further up with a frown. Ieiri sighs, and holds her cigarette between her fingers as she steps forward. “Let’s start with the basics. Gojo is a merman, but he’s highly intelligent, much more than us. We can’t communicate vocally, but we’re certain he understands us.”

She throws a side-glance at Gojo, and he responds by sticking his tongue out. The sudden action draws a startled giggle from Yuuji, and the merman’s eyes snap back to him, hyper-focused. Yuuji shifts under his view, slightly heated under his collar—it’s from the fright of those massive eyes. Totally.

“He has powers we’ve never seen on any living species before,” Ieiri-san continues, “this is his maximum size, but he can shrink himself, and he can change his tail into legs if he so desires. We’ve caught him trying to sneak through the submarine docks a few times. Short of actual speech, he’s entirely capable of mimicking humans. Don’t be fooled by his behavior, Gojo is insanely powerful. He could destroy this whole facility in the blink of an eye.”

On cue, Yuuji blinks. “You’re joking,” he states, baffled. Wordlessly, Nanami moves forward, looking up at Gojo calmly as he speaks.

“This sheet of glass was made with an experimental type of crystal. It has been tested under rigorous tests that are usually reserved for nuclear material. A million tons worth of flaming metal couldn’t make a dent,” Nanami taps on the glass. “To put that into perspective, not even a tank could break it with a blast, but we speculate Gojo-san could slice through it like paper.”

Yuuji gawks, turning wildly between his two supervisors, and to add the cherry on the cake, Ieiri-san casually chirps, “We’ve seen him move entire mountains underwater before.”

What the fuck.

“Then—why hasn’t he escaped?” Yuuji all but wails, and can he be blamed, with this information? “How did you capture him?”

“We didn’t. He let himself be taken.” Ieiri-san takes another puff of her cigarette. “The truth is, he only hangs around because we amuse him.”

“Huh?!” Yuuji swivels around, facing up at the massive merman behind the crystal barrier who gazes at them smugly, as if through a giant magnifying glass. He swallows, and asks nervously, “Uh, and what happens if you stop amusing him?”

Ieiri-san’s eyes travel off to the side as she continues smoking her cigarette in silence. As if he heard them perfectly, Gojo’s resting grin breaks out into a smirk. A very wide smirk with a hint of pearly fangs that could probably tear through glass, steel cables, an entire facility like paper. Dimly, Yuuji thinks back to all his life choices that led to him studying marine biology. Of course the job offer was too good to be true. Of course.

“My job?” He squeaks after a long, long moment of silence.

“Research assistance,” Nanami explains, presenting forth another set of documents and a datapad. “You will help us prepare the labs and aid us in cataloging our material, you will also spend a few hours with Gojo-san daily, and anything you observe must be documented, even if there are no deviations in his usual patterns. We’ll brief you on more details tomorrow, but outside of work hours, you’re essentially free to come and go as you please.”

Yuuji takes this in, gingerly accepting the objects. “Uh, that’s it?”

“It is not as easy as it sounds, if that’s what you’re concerned about,” Ieiri-san says wryly, and then she adds. “Not many people last.”

Yuuji waits for further encouragement, but it never comes. When he notices his crestfallen look, Nanami sighs.

“You’ll do fine, Itadori-kun. I trust your abilities.” He states, and it seems genuine, which lifts Yuuji’s spirits slightly, and he smiles at Nanamin. Behind him, Gojo pouts, for some reason. “In any case, we’ve had no cases of Gojo-san cannibalizing people, so you’re not in any mortal peril.”

“Yet.” Ieiri-san adds brightly, and Yuuji tries not to feel like he’s getting tossed to the sharks. “Come, we’ll show you your dorm room.”

As Yuuji makes to follow them, he pauses and looks back at the merman. He’s still watching them, just as placid, but there’s a tiny glint in his eye, so cunning that it almost takes Yuuji’s breath away.

He has to follow his supervisors, so he does, but what does it say about him that he’s looking forward to spending time with the merman?

What did I get myself into? That’s a question that Yuuji turns over and over in his mind. Yet, he settles into the facility easier than expected. He sleeps like a rock after he’s led to his dorm room, and by the next day, he’s up and about early, the shock of last night stored somewhere in the back of his mind. If Yuuji were someone else, he’d ask what’s wrong with himself.

Yuuji genuinely doesn’t know if it’s some sort of coping mechanism, or if he’s just like this. He doesn’t stop to think too hard about it, especially when, during his exploratory venture of the facility that first morning, he stumbles on a very familiar person.

He’d woken up earlier than he intended, and of course, he wasn’t going to stay cooped up in his room, no matter how nice it is. Yuuji assumes that he would’ve received some instruction as to where to go if he’d gotten up at normal people hours, but since he doesn’t, he takes to dressing normally and stepping outside for a stroll, like he’ll be going to a park on a sunny day and not the wide hallways of a research facility constructed entirely underwater.

This early on, there aren’t many people roaming around, so Yuuji doesn’t come across anyone at first. The facility is labyrinthine, rooms upon rooms of polished linoleum and hallways that branch into more hallways with more rooms. There is the occasional map, but he prefers guiding himself by instinct, so he rarely glances at them. He doesn’t even know how many floors there are, and which ones he has clearance to enter, so he goes into most of them, just in case. There’s lots of glass cages, and lots of angry scientists chasing him out, some of them with shoes or research equipment in hand.

“Get out!” A black-haired girl yells with a sword hilt-like instrument in her hand. Yuuji doesn’t even begin to understand what it is before she chucks it at his head, and he deftly dodges it before it can cut his head off. He comes to the conclusion that it’s probably better to flee before she can try it again, or use him as an experiment, so he runs back out with an apology thrown behind him.

He gets a speculum to the nose for his troubles. So, not his best idea. Yuuji restrains himself from entering rooms uninvited after that, even when he desperately wants to take a peek, like the rooms in construction sectioned off with plastic sheets, or the deeper halls billowing a cold breeze.

Instead, he pauses in his stroll, and stops to admire the gigantic flat crystals that make up the exterior walls of this facility. He smiles softly at the marine life floating, swaying, swimming outside, both directly lit and in the darkness beyond, the subtly dim colors of the deep sea. Even though his responsibility lay with Gojo, he was also encouraged to bring forth any interesting findings about sea life. What would it be like, to touch and coexist with it? To have the ability to ride and let yourself be taken by the waves harboring it?

As Yuuji thinks this, itching to reach beyond the glass, a voice breaks him out of his musing. “Itadori?” He hears, shocked, and Yuuji swivels around to greet the sight of a tall young man in a lab coat, with distinctive spiky hair.

“Fushiguro!” Yuuji exclaims, and before he knows it, he’s jumping forward to hug the first of his two best friends. He half-expects Megumi to step out of the way, but he doesn’t move, so Yuuji glomps him, laughing at how tense he is before he relaxes.

“Dude, you didn’t tell me you worked here!” Yuuji grins as he pulls back, while Megumi gives him a little strained smile. He’d been friends with him since high school, but while their other best friend Nobara went to study fashion, Megumi joined him in marine biology. They’d lost contact a little bit after graduation, much to his own disappointment, and now Yuuji understands why.

“I do,” Megumi nods, “I wanted to tell you, but I’m sure you know how tight security is now, contracts included.” Yuuji sighs, knowing very well what he means. Megumi appraises him. “So they did hire you, then?”

There’s something weird about the way he says that. Did? Yuuji wonders, before putting it away and nodding enthusiastically.

“Yeah! I’m starting today,” he explains, before faltering slightly, suddenly remembering his actual job. “Uh, they want me to—”

“Stop,” Megumi interrupts, holding up an open palm. “You can’t tell me, remember?”

Yuuji flushes in embarrassment. “Right,” he chokes, “I’m guessing you can’t tell me what you’re doing, either?”

Megumi shakes his head morosely, and Yuuji deflates. While he’d already known secrecy’s a big, big deal around here, it kind of kills his enthusiasm knowing that he can’t talk about it with his friends, even if they’re also working here, because even projects are kept secret from other teams. It’s standard practice, but still.

A few moments pass in mortifyingly awkward silence. Yuuji tries to scramble for something else to talk about, now that the wind’s been taken off his sails, until Megumi gives a long-suffering sigh.

“You don’t need to tell me, anyway,” he mutters darkly, “everyone knows what they’re hiring for right now. He’s kind of an open secret.”

There’s a bitterness in Megumi’s voice when he says he, the same way he would talk about an annoying classmate or an unhelpful teacher. Like instinct, Yuuji immediately knows who he’s talking about, and his eyes widen.

“Oh, you’re familiar with—him?” He asks, following Megumi’s game and saying no names.

“A bit,” Megumi tilts his head, “I had to help with some stuff, unwillingly.”

He doesn’t elaborate more. Yuuji laughs nervously as he scratches his cheek. “Any wisdom you wanna impart?”

Megumi doesn’t hesitate. “There’s a reason most don’t last with him,” he states flatly, “but he’s not evil, just a force of nature. Don’t give him a reason to eat you alive and you’ll be fine.”

Yuuji gawks at him. “He eats people?” He asks, aghast. Just yesterday he was told the exact opposite, Jesus Christ.

Megumi smiles wryly. “Not while others watch,” he states, and it’s truly a testament that Yuuji can’t tell if he’s joking. He should stop asking about that merman, it’s like any new information he gets makes the whole situation worse. Before he can ask anything else or consider handing in a resignation notice, there’s a little buzz in his pocket, and Yuuji pulls out his phone, cursing when he sees the notification.

“Shit, my shift’s starting!” He hastily shoves his phone back and waves at a wide-eyed Megumi. “Talk later, Fushiguro!”

He’s already speeding down the corridor as Megumi calls after him. Yuuji continues waving at him, but he can’t really make out what he says in his hurry. It’s only later that he’ll recall he was telling him to be careful.

Nanami’s impatiently tapping his clockwatch as Yuuji rushes into the lab, sheepishly apologizing and explaining how he got lost while exploring. Nanami sighs in response.

“This is why first-day escorts are necessary, Itadori-kun.”

Yuuji blinks, letting an awkward moment of silence pass. “There was a first-day escort?”

Nanami pinches the bridge of his nose. “You’d know if you’d waited for us!” Yuuji gulps at the sharpness in his tone, feeling like he’s a student starting out again and not a recently-hired professional. After a moment, Nanamin sighs, and recomposes himself. “Well, no matter. You’re here now. Ieiri-san?”

Yuuji hadn’t even noticed her at first. She’d been sitting nonchalantly on a chair, once again smoking, observing something in the distance. At Nanami’s call, she stands, nodding in acknowledgement at Yuuji.

“Usually, we’d have you observe and study Gojo in this lab. We’re doing something different today.” She states, and turns around in the direction of the giant glass cage. Nanamin follows after her, and so does Yuuji. He looks for the merman, but sees no sign of him, only bright scales, sand, and white seaweed in the place he should be.

Yuuji almost smacks himself in the forehead. That’s him, laying sideways. That’s how he looks. How did he not register it? Suddenly, though, an idea occurs to him.

“Can he camouflage himself?” He asks suddenly, and both his supervisors freeze. “I mean, I didn’t notice him when I walked in. It’s not that I’m unobservant, I just—”

“No, no, it’s a good suggestion,” Nanamin says with a pensive expression. Ieiri-san hums, and tosses him a square object that he catches at the same time Gojo’s eyes train on him.

“You should write it down there, along with anything you find.” Yuuji looks at the object. A notepad, with a pen strapped to it with a string. Not very enthused, he jots down that brief thought as they stop in front of Gojo. Ieiri-san knocks on the glass, and just like before, he gradually rises to his full height, until he’s towering and looking down at all of them, the same way they would look at a bug, but with none of the contempt. Only amusement, and something unreadable, in Yuuji’s case.

One thing that jumps at him is that, despite his colossal size, his mass doesn’t seem proportional to it. Yuuji gets the feeling that he could’ve stood immediately, but chose to make a show of it for some reason. Before he writes this down, he hesitatingly waves up at the merman, and his eyes fill with glee.

“Follow me,” Ieiri-san says again, and Yuuji isn’t sure if she’s referring to him or Gojo as she leads them to the right side of the lab.

It seems like this is a familiar and well-rehearsed action for them, though. Gojo swims along with her, and she opens a door on the far wall that Yuuji hadn’t noticed until now. They walk into a smaller tunnel made of a rocky material illuminated only by dim overhead lights, noticeably darker than the rest of the facility, but still keeping one crystal wall for the merman’s side.

In this low lighting, Gojo’s scales, his eyes, his marks seem like a guiding light towards their destination. Every so often, Gojo’s eyes flit towards Yuuji’s, and Yuuji’s always there to meet them. Even though the air is getting colder, he feels his heart beating harder against his chest, for some reason.

They arrive at a miniaturized version of a lab, with less equipment, but significantly more viewing space. There’s a lot of seats arranged neatly with their backs against a flat wall, the rest is a curved window with perfect visibility of the ocean underwater, almost like an aquarium. Gingerly, they all sit down. Gojo’s side opens up into a massive holding area, built by cordoning off a section of the actual sea and its rocky bed, which he swims to gracefully. Amid the algae, jagged rocks, and small fishes that have squeezed in, Gojo looks right at home. With his size and majesty, he almost looks like their king.

As if he could hear this thought, Gojo rolls on his back, and locks gazes with Yuuji. He doesn’t break it off as he swims further and further away. The first third of the holding area is perfectly lit, but it gets darker farther on. Gojo stops at its darkest corner, to the point where he should be almost a speck. Yuuji can’t see his skin or hair, but he sees the way his six eyes make a perfect formation, the glimmer of his scales like diamonds, the glow of his marks so prominent in the dark that he almost resembles a living lighthouse. He’s beautiful.

Yuuji remembers to pick up his jaw, and quickly looks up to see that their little viewing balcony has been made as part of an actual cave—hopefully they secured it in case of tectonic shifts. He focuses back on Gojo, but it seems he’d noticed his attention drifting. His eyes become narrowed crescent moons in the dark, and then, he’s charging forward. Tail flapping at a dizzying speed behind him, Gojo looks like he’ll smash right into them. Ieiri-san and Nanamin tense, but—

Yuuji doesn’t detect any danger. And his intuition is right, because at the last minute, Gojo swerves up, leaving a trail of floating dirt behind him as he pivots up, up, to the tallest point in the holding area. The builders were generous with the height of this thing. And then, he’s dropping back down, rolling over and over like a hurricane, creating swirls in the water with his tail. Yuuji doesn’t know when he stood up, but he’s almost pressed up against the glass, and he’s there to watch the moment Gojo barely avoids hitting the ground by skidding to a stop and kicking his tail harshly against it.

It’s like a controlled explosion. The glass doesn’t shatter, but there’s dirty and sand everywhere, obscuring their view. Yuuji feels disappointment creep up, but then, amidst the disaster, there he sees them—little balls of crystal, as small as pearls, floating in the air. They reflect not just the artificial lights installed on the small alcove, but the natural glow from Gojo’s body. He smoothly spins between and around them, and Yuuji watches them turn a mix of white, green and blue rays, creating an astounding show of lights that makes him dizzy from hypnotization.

“Oh my God…” Someone whispers, and Yuuji thinks it might have come from him.

Far too soon, it ends. The clutter clears out, sand and pearls drifting back into the ground, and the lights peter out until only Gojo remains. He looks relaxed, expectant. Yuuji unconsciously clasps his hands together, and begins clapping enthusiastically. At his praise, the merman preens, and begins doing vertical loops. Excited, but leisurely. A mere expression. He doesn’t need Yuuji’s attention for this. Later, Yuuji will wonder how he knows that.

There’s heavy breathing inside their viewing cabin, and it takes him a moment to realize it’s coming from all of them. It takes him another to remember he’s not alone.

“That,” Nanami’s voice sounds shaky and unsteady, completely unlike himself, “was new.”

Then again, Yuuji is in no place to judge, because his own voice sounds small and a little broken as he asks. “He’s never done that before?”

“Never.” Nanamin rasps, and immediately stands up. Yuuji looks at Ieiri-san, and she looks stricken, her cigarette completely forgotten, in what must be a first for her. She stands with Nanami and marches to the exit of the viewing area.

“Where are you going?” Yuuji asks, half-perplexed.

“The footage,” Nanami explains sharply, “we need to make sure it’s clean and usable. We cannot lose this.”

For some reason, something in Yuuji feels dismay. “You were recording this?” He asks, apprehensive.

“Of course,” Nanami replies as he adjusts his tie, “we are working out how to capture audio underwater, but visually, we’ve got cameras all over.”

Yuuji falls quiet, unsettled. However, Ieiri-san remembers something, and she turns to him sharply. “Stay here. Keep observing him.”

He almost asks the third question of why, but then, it strikes him—if Gojo hadn’t done this ever before, then something must have pushed him to do so. If he only did it in Yuuji’s presence, then…

Yuuji swallows, a scary but pleasant feeling sinking in him. Ieiri-san gives him a knowing look, and exchanges a wordless glance with Nanami. They say nothing, but both nod at him as they leave, leaving him alone with Gojo Satoru in the interim. The door closes not with finality, but a certain sense of expectation.

Looking at Gojo, Yuuji sees the merman watching him keenly. Observe him, he’d been told, study him. But who’s really observing who?

The minutes tick by, and Nanamin and Ieiri-san don’t come back. It’s true that they didn’t give Yuuji an estimate, but it’s still a bit disconcerting, being left ironically unsupervised for the time being. Now that he’s come down from the high of the earlier display and his heartbeat has gone back to a normal rate, he realizes that observing Gojo is… Leisurely.

It’s not boring, and it is fascinating in a lot of ways, but not every moment is like that show he gave, and Yuuji’s kind of grateful for it. For the most part, Gojo lazes about, and Yuuji writes down hypotheses, theories, behavioral patterns and occasional doodles. The biggest entry so far was the light show, but—something in him blanches at the idea of sharing it. It felt private. Personal. He might’ve left out a few details.

One thing for sure, though? Gojo loves toying with him. Every so often, he’ll speed up and and kick up a fuss. Not as extravagant as before, but enough to make Yuuji jump, smile and laugh. It always leaves the merman pleased, to get those reactions out of him. Sometimes he’ll drift to the window, make a face, or just… Watch, with those brightly placid eyes of his.

With his size, with the way he is, it should be unsettling. It’s not. Eventually, Yuuji can’t keep himself from speaking.

“Why did you do that, earlier?” He asks, looking at Gojo intently. He doesn’t react with anything other than a blink, still looking at Yuuji. He doesn’t take it to heart—they can’t really communicate, after all. Still, he continues. “It was beautiful. Thank you.”

Gojo trills at his praise, using something in his vocal box that makes his neck gills tremble quickly. Yuuji appraises him. Maybe they can communicate, even if they can’t talk?

“I know what they said, but… It can’t be too fun being here, right?” Yuuji says with trepidation. “Being watched and studied all the time… That kinda sucks.”

At this, Gojo stands from his lazing about, back in a vertical position and with his undivided attention on Yuuji. Flushing, Yuuji clears his throat.

“You know, back in my hometown, I was very good at sports, but I wasn’t passionate about them. I preferred things like occult club, and then, marine biology, so I was looked at weird a lot of times,” he takes on a wistful tone. Despite that, high school wasn’t a bad time for him, at all. Thinking about it now just feels nostalgic. “I know it’s not the same, but I get how it feels, a little bit.”

Although his six eyes crinkle at the corners, predictably, Gojo doesn’t answer, but Yuuji actually doesn’t mind. It’s a little like talking with an old friend, if that makes sense. He feels at ease with him. “Besides, don’t you miss your home? Or your friends?”

Gojo tenses at the mention of those. Yuuji doesn’t miss how the mass of his body suddenly goes stiff, but it’s not a sore kind of stiff, the type that implies previous pain. However the merman’s brain works, Yuuji gets the impression that maybe he hadn’t thought about those in a long time. He doesn’t wanna drive him away by pointing this out, though, so Yuuji continues talking about himself, as a distraction.

“I do miss my friends sometimes. Oh, you might know Fushiguro! Spiky hair? Very broody?” Yuuji shapes his hands like spikes and puts them up to his hair. Gojo shoots him a look, and puts on a very exaggerated frown that makes Yuuji laugh. “Yeah, he’s like that. I saw him for the first time in a while earlier. All my other friends went down their own paths, and I’m happy for them. We keep in contact and we can meet up every now and then, but it’s not the same, y’know?”

Gojo inclines his head. Not quite a nod, but enough to tell Yuuji he understands what he means, regardless of whether he can personally relate to it. For some reason, that makes him feel happy, so he smiles easily and states, “Well, I hope I can make your time easier here. Even though you could escape at any time, haha…”

His chuckle comes out nervously, but Gojo gives him a confident smirk, as if to confirm the idea. He doesn’t doubt it, at all. Then, on this pleasant line of thought, an idea jumps to Yuuji and he snaps his fingers. “You know what? As long as you’re here, I’ll be your friend! How’s that sound?” Yuuji grins, and Gojo actually seems taken aback by this. Them, being friends.

The merman tilts his head slightly, actually breaking his held gaze with Yuuji, but before he can get worried, he snaps back into place and gives a languid smile. Yuuji jumps from his seat triumphantly and whoops. “Yeah, thought so too!”

He does a silly little dance in celebration, and Gojo trills enthusiastically. On a human, it would sound a bit like a laugh. When the joy of this victory ends, Yuuji paces in place, and Gojo swims lightly, in tempo with his steps.

”Hm, Gojo Satoru…” Yuuji mutters, “Why did they give you that name? Did you give it to them, somehow?”

At that, Gojo smirks again, and slashes his tail downwards in multiple directions. Yuuji blinks again and again, and notices what he drew—the character for his name. Mermen know kanji?

Well, after everything, it’s not that weird. Maybe he saw it somewhere and just copied it? Still, Yuuji files it away and nods. “That makes more sense. Much better than a set of numbers,” Yuuji smiles, and then ponders something. He tilts his head. “You know, now that we’re friends, can I call you Satoru?”

The merman’s six eyes widen, and then, the widest grin splits on his face. Yuuji determinedly ignores the razor teeth and focuses on the mirth in his eyes. He chirps and trills, doing a little loop in place, and Yuuji feels touched, that he’s being held as a confidante this easily.

“Aw, thanks! I’m glad you trust me. You can call me Yuuji, too!” He exclaims, and then pauses. “I mean, you can’t speak, but it’s the thought that counts, right?”

Satoru smiles indulgently. Before Yuuji can say anything else, though, there’s a buzzer, and a red light flashes above the door a single time. Suddenly, his new friend looks morose and bitter. Yuuji sighs, deflated.

“That means our time is up, right?” He asks, and Satoru does something like a shrug, pointing at the door. Yuuji decides not to let it get to him, and he makes himself perk up again. “Well, no need to be sad. It’s my job to help watch over you, so you’ll see me a lot!”

That does seem to cheer up Satoru. He chirps again happily, and together, they move back to the tunnel. While there had been a sense of trepidation his first time, going back alone with Satoru feels easier, like a routine he’s already gotten used to. They emerge in the main lab, just as pristine as ever, except there’s a laptop missing. Nanamin and Ieiri-san aren’t there, so Yuuji guesses they’re cleaning up the light show footage. He wonders what their reaction will be to this new friendship.

He wonders if he should tell.

Before Yuuji leaves, Satoru taps heavily on the glass of his cage. Yuuji looks at him, and at the clawed, pointed tip of his index finger. He aims it slowly at the ceiling, and Yuuji traces its path to one of the vents, innocuous, but human-sized.

Before Yuuji can ask what this means, he hears the door opening, and a coworker he hasn’t introduced himself to yet flits in, quickly going through the documents on tables. Yet, rudely, Yuuji can’t introduce himself then, because now he has been given this new sign, this puzzle.

“See you later.” He whispers, and finally steps through the door.

Yuuji doesn’t know what he got himself into, and he actually can’t wait to find out.

Look at you in denim and bows

I know the mode, the mode is lethal

Say you wanna show me a place

The place is here, the here is inside you

Where did you come from, you?

Pretty with the critical mass

Your body has the body power

Lying at the foot of a linden

In a navel ring inventing June

Where did you come from, you?

- Caroline Polachek, Blood and Butter

As the days pass by, the facility doesn’t get any less big, but he does get more used to it. Despite the dizzy haze Yuuji has been feeling since truly meeting Satoru, he’s made an effort to get to know his coworkers. Namely, the folks in his wing and as many of the ones in other projects as he can. It’s tough to meet them all, given the two thousand something people working here, but he’s not giving up just yet.

Some of the older scientists are a bit… Difficult, since they believe that Yuuji has done nothing to show how he’s earned his job. He doesn’t pay much attention to those. Others still have a grudge for the way he interrupted their work that first day, but that’s ridiculous! It was just a small visit!

“A small visit that could’ve gotten everyone killed!” The same black-haired girl from before barks. Maki, he learns her name is. Yuuji struggles to see how dissecting a fish could bring about the end of the facility, but he wisely stays his tongue.

Still, some of the people he truly befriends are nicer. They’re a fun bunch to spend his time with, especially when Megumi joins them, to his chagrin. The facility has a lot of lounge rooms, most of which are filled with recreational tools, and one of his new friends is kind enough to point him to a small one that’s a bit isolated from the rest but near his dorm floor, very rarely used by others.

Yuuji basically kisses their feet in gratitude, because this is what he’d been missing since settling in. When the giddiness of this shiny new place runs out, Yuuji settles on a routine. Outside of his work hours, he goes to this lone lounge room, plops down on an armchair with his earphones and a notepad, and begins observing the fish.

Nobara groaned at him when he told her this over the phone, but it’s more fun than it sounds. Not only does he get to hone abilities that help him with Satoru, but he also gets to glance at ocean life he doesn’t get to see up top. Most times he strikes up conversations with the fishes that come near the windows, and sometimes he gets looked at weirdly for this, but there’s no real problem. Sea life needs company, too! Just look at Satoru.

There are multiple monitors set up around the lounge room, displaying ambient images of wild sea life, the likes of which you could find in Finding Nemo and miscellaneous nature documentaries. Some of them show the hour, which makes sense, since having no actual sunlight this deep underwater does screw up your sense of time.

He kind of wishes they’d play Titanic, just because it would be really funny.

It’s somewhere in the afternoon when he gets a free shift. Megumi is busy working, and his supervisors are always busy, so he can’t even go have a one-sided conversation with Nanamin. Besides, he’s only getting clipped answers about the light show footage, and Yuuji’s got no idea what they’re doing with it other than just study, so things are the tiniest bit sour on that front.

Anyway, going to the surface is a very involved process that requires either written permission or a bunch of conditions that Yuuji doesn’t find himself in right now, and it’s just not worth the hassle for one measly free day.

So, instead of doing that, he plops down on a plush armchair, and watches the fish swim by the large window.

He’s got a notepad on one hand, a pencil on the either, and a song playing in his earphones. Yuuji grins at a passing anglerfish, tracing the soft glow emanating from its light gland with his finger. Anglerfish are kind of terrifying, with that wide mouth and those razor teeth, but they’re also just little guys. This one just needs a good meal, they probably rarely come across good food this deep down.

Plus, there’s also the fact that after meeting a gigantic merman, not much can face him anymore.

Yuuji hums to the beat of the song in his ears as he jots down his notes. Truth be told, he’d expected a bit more chaos in his first week, especially after everything that happened with Gojo Satoru. After that day, Yuuji had anticipated something else with bated breath. Something more. It felt like Satoru held a dangling rope in front of him, with the reward at the end hidden in bundled cloth, waiting to be unraveled.

Maybe he’s looking at it wrong. Maybe the true reward is just getting to interact with Satoru, but he just has Yuuji waiting. He’s good at following his intuition, and everytime they interact, anticipation creeps on his spine, despite staying mostly docile, only keeping his unique ways of showing affection for whenever Yuuji takes care of him alone. Satoru watches and stares, and Yuuji wonders if he’s thinking, or planning something.

Regardless, the one thing that remains true is that Yuuji doesn’t feel like he’s in danger. Despite having been warned over and over of the merman’s attitude, it’s a pleasant surprise just how easy it is to spend time with him. Maybe it’s because they’re friends now, he thinks with a smile.

Who knows, maybe they’ll even let him visit Satoru outside of his work hours if he asks nicely. Grinning, he stretches his arms victoriously, craning his neck, and settling his sight on the transparent wall in front of him, meeting distractingly bright blue eyes spanning the width of the window’s circumference, punctuated by glowing marks.

Yuuji’s pen clatters to the floor.

He blinks, forgetting to pick up his jaw as he stares at the very merman he was just thinking of, swimming behind the glass wall happily, looking at Yuuji unblinkingly, and—no, he isn’t dreaming. He’s very much outside of his holding area, in the wide open sea, lazily reclining on a rock and staring at Yuuji.

The clock ticks for five seconds in a haze. Yuuji doesn’t dare take his eyes off of Satoru, and, now that his attention is on him, the merman grins, waving joyfully, and speeds off in a swirl, tail flapping rapidly behind him. And right after it, Yuuji, who clambers off his seat and chases after him like a freaking fool.

A janitor yelps as Yuuji skids right by him. “Sorry!” He yells without looking back, because his eyes are glued onto Satoru, tracking him through the many reinforced windows inside the facility. It’s impossible to lose sight of him, not with the dazzling marks and scales on his body, cutting through the darkness of the deep sea, but this time, he’s taken by the merman’s unhinged antics as he swims.

For starters, with each window that Yuuji passes, leaving behind befuddled scientists that yell after him, or scream at the sight of a Godzilla-sized merman swimming outside their facility, Satoru gets smaller. Shrinking a few inches on the first window, then a dozen on the second, and by the fourth one, his body is close to fitting inside the window’s frame.

As Yuuji jumps over a cart full of probably very important research material, he catches a glimpse of Satoru’s face, and he winks, making Yuuji stutter slightly as the gemstone-like eye blinks out of sight and rounds a corner, with the tail growing ever smaller. Yuuji speeds after him, full throttle now.

Of course, he nearly bumps into Megumi next. “Itadori?” He asks, confused. He’s clearly between shifts, too. “What—”

“Sorry, can’t talk!” Yuuji exclaims, continuing this impromptu race. As he runs, it becomes kind of obvious the facility wasn’t planned to be this big. He runs into areas he’d never been in, wide open spaces with unfinished paint and an aesthetic design that’s less modernized than the rest.

He doesn’t know why it’s open, it might connect to the submarine docks, but he can’t check and won’t check, because he’s entirely focused on Satoru’s little chase game. He’s getting further away, so Yuuji cuts through a little path he’s certain will lead to the next hallway, and sure enough, he’s there, and would have smacked into Satoru’s smirking face if it weren’t for the thick crystal separating them.

Yuuji’s revved up, feeling the adrenaline in his body, sweating and panting. He’s ready to keep going, and would’ve, had it not been for the fact that Satoru had stopped.

He doesn’t know why, like so many thing about this merman, and opens his mouth to ask one of the thousand different things swirling in his mind, when he notices he’s not gazing at a fifty-feet long creature, but at a tall man that, were it not for the scaled tail, marks and eyes, would’ve passed as a human.

He can shrink himself, Yuuji remembers Ieiri-san saying, as he sees the mirth in Satoru’s eyes. He’s perfectly capable of mimicking humans.

Yuuji looks down at his tail, half-expecting to see a pair of flapping legs, but it’s just his tail. Smaller, but the same one. He looks back up to see a considering expression on Satoru’s face, as if he’d read Yuuji’s thoughts. Without thinking, he stumbles forward, and lays a palm over the glass window. Satoru looks at it, up at Yuuji, then back at it. Gently, he lays his own hand over it.

They’re not the same size. Satoru’s fingers are longer and more slender than this. A perfect pianist’s hands, even with the webbing joining them. Yuuji can see the shine of his scales through this webbing, and he adjusts his fingers slightly to match up with Satoru’s own.

Fleeting, the image comes—Yuuji’s hand, matching up with the merman’s. Almost like he could close that unseen gap between them, like he could just will himself to reach through the crystal and—

And touch.

“What do you want?” Yuuji whispers, mystified. At his question, Satoru grins again, and points at him. Or, maybe not him, but some spot point behind him. Before Yuuji can turn to look, Satoru dives down, disappearing somewhere below Yuuji’s line of sight. He groans, frustrated, until he notices which direction he dived for—the lab.

His last ditch effort, Yuuji sprints back the way he came, feeling sheepish and slightly guilty at the frazzled scientists and researchers he left in his path. The cart he’d jumped over was a mess, and he skillfully evades its route, but it probably doesn’t work, given the yells he receives on the way.

Still, he makes it to the lab room, pushing through the set of doors, and, just as he expected, there’s Satoru, tall as a building, flapping lazily behind the glass. Yuuji can’t find it in himself to say anything, he just drops to his knees like his strings got cut, and stares.

It’s not long until he hears the doors opening again.

“Itadori-kun,” Nanami says severely, marching to his side. “What on earth was all that?”

“It’s just—” Yuuji’s voice catches, suddenly unsure of himself. “He showed up during my break, outside the glass, and he ran so I—”

He breaks off. God, he feels like an idiot now. However, instead of berating him, Nanami sighs and lays a hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t let it get to you,” he murmurs, “or rather, don’t let him get to you. This just means he likes you.”

Likes him, huh? What exactly does that mean?

He won’t get an answer tonight, so he just sits there with Nanamin, feeling the seconds tick by as he watches Satoru laze about, a placed smile on his face.

Something shifts as time passes. By the time his first month ends, Yuuji comes to realize that he’s kind of taking everyone else’s jobs. By that, he means that he ends up spending way more time in Gojo Satoru’s vicinity than he was ever supposed to.

It’s not like he’s some ultra-talented expert that needs to help everyone with his skills, he’s still just a research assistant, but of the relatively small research group he’s part of, he’s the only one Satoru shows any response to anymore, much to everyone else’s frustration.

Yuuji doesn’t know why, because he doesn’t show any signs of hostility to the other researchers, he just shows indifference to anyone that isn’t Yuuji. Even Ieiri-san and Nanamin can’t get much from him anymore, much to their chagrin. Of course, no amount of talking to the merman will yield any explanations, he just looks at Yuuji and responds to his stimuli, but no more. He gets the feeling that even if they could communicate verbally, he wouldn’t want to give an answer.

And then, there’s the other side of it—Yuuji himself. Because, if this really bothered him that much, he’d request a change in his duties or bring these concerns to his directors in a professional manner, but he doesn’t because… He likes having Satoru’s attention.

It’s a scary thought. It’s a dangerous thought, recognizing that despite the annoyances, pranks, riddles, there’s a pleasant buzz in his head every time he’s alone with Satoru, which then spreads to his heart whenever he lays eyes on Yuuji like he sees him, all of him, and not like food or just another boring human.

There’s something wrong with him, he knows, and Megumi agrees the next lunch they have together.

“You’re distracted today,” he states the minute he joins up with Yuuji as they walk into the cafeteria.

“Am I?” Yuuji scratches his neck nervously, and laughs weakly. “Guess I didn’t have a good night.”

That’s kind of true, in a way. Before he’d left the lab, Satoru had made a few leaps in the larger cordoned area for observation. Yuuji had been amazed, tracing the glow in the darkness as he exerted himself physically in a way he rarely sees, until he noticed Satoru had wandered off to the deepest, darkest part, where nothing but the shine of his marks could be seen.

He didn’t do another light show, or some sort of trick. He just stayed there. Yuuji thought that maybe he ought to have been scared, or freaked out, but the only thing he felt was captivation, as he held Satoru’s bright gaze even through the glass and darkness. The sight stayed with him as Yuuji struggled to fall asleep.

“Well, that’s natural, given your project,” Megumi notes, breaking Yuuji out of his memories. Somehow, they’d gotten their trays and sat down at a vacated table, and he didn’t even notice. He digs in immediately, the food is surprisingly high-quality and tasty for a research facility, but maybe films gave him the wrong idea about these types of standards.

Still, Megumi doesn’t eat just yet. He only stares at Yuuji dubiously. “It’s impressive you’ve lasted this long,” he says slowly, “most people would have quit by now.”

It’s incredible that they still have to talk around the subject, given Satoru has revealed himself to more people than not. Still, Yuuji frowns down at his tray. “Ieiri-san and Nanamin said something like that, yeah,” he mutters. “Don’t really know why, though.”

He kind of does. If Satoru did any of what he’s doing with Yuuji with them, then he definitely does. He’s just not sure why the idea makes him feel sour. Is it them not knowing Satoru isn’t some thing to run away from, or is it Satoru giving anyone else this kind of treatment?

After a moment of silence, Megumi speaks in a lower tone, careful for anyone listening in. “You know, some scientists in my team are whispering about what’s going on in your project,” he pauses as Yuuji suddenly looks up at him, then amends carefully. “It’s not… Bad, exactly, but—”

“It’s about me, isn’t it?” Yuuji says drily, and Megumi grimaces.

“It’s not not about you. All I’m saying is that they’re noting your ability to,” he gestures slightly at Yuuji, “get his attention.”

Suddenly, he feels heat on his cheek and Yuuji tries to wave it away, flustered. “It’s nothing special, I just—”

“Don’t tell me.” Megumi interrupts flatly.

“Right,” Yuuji winces, and returns to his food. Instead of finally eating, Megumi goes to take the cup of coffee he’d brought, and sips it slightly. After a moment, he sighs and sets it back down.

“What I mean to say is…” Megumi looks at Yuuji directly, “You have something that no one else in your project has. Use it carefully.”

Yuuji stews on this. Megumi’s words hit one of those things that Yuuji’s not entirely sure he gets, but at the same time, he kind of does. He’s not entirely sure what that something is, but his mind trails to Satoru, to his intent gazes, his nonverbal communications in response to Yuuji’s one-sided conversations, and feels that buzz again.

The grin comes unbidden, and Yuuji laughs a bit, louder now, “Well, guess I am special, then!” He jokes, and Megumi snorts. Whatever he’d been trying to get across, it did its job. Pleased, he starts eating with Yuuji. Yuuji’s usually fine with carrying the conversation during lunch, but this time he doesn’t say much, preferring to let his mind wander.

He expected that to be the end of it. Megumi sips his coffee for a few seconds in silence, before he breathes and puts it down again.

“I recommended you.” He says blankly. Yuuji freezes, and raises his eyes, chopsticks frozen in mid-air.

“Whuh?” Is the only thing he can say with a mouth full of half-chewed rice. He swallows it down quickly, patting his chest, and amends, “What?”

“They asked me for references,” his friend continues, looking up at the ceiling like he’s telling old news, “they were getting desperate with the staffing situation, and out of all our classmates back then, the only one I thought would do a good job was you.”

Suddenly, Yuuji feels uncertain. He’s not as shocked or surprised as he would’ve thought, but… Well, he looks at Megumi expectantly. “And…?” He asks, hesitantly.

“And I was right.” Megumi finishes decisively, and returns to his drink. The sudden cloud disappearing, Yuuji grins at his friend, relieved, and goes back to wolfing down his food. Off the corner in his eye, he sees Megumi’s lip quirk up, just slightly. With that cleared, Yuuji suddenly thinks of what Satoru would make him log onto his notepad later…

So, travels to the surface are limited and complicated, that’s not new. The reason why is apparently the insane depth of the research facility—it’s just unfeasible to allow its thousand something employees free range travel topside, so the facility’s equipped with fully functional dorms, occupying more than a couple wings with the sheer amount of staff.

When Yuuji signed his contract, one of the terms was an iron-clad NDA that kept him from telling basically anything to anyone outside the facility. Thankfully, phone calls and online communication are permitted, so he calls Nobara pretty regularly. She always tells him she doesn’t care about whatever’s going on with his fishes, too busy studying to become a professional fashionista, but Yuuji keeps sneaking information about the facility and she always listens. When he alluded to their rooming situation…

“That’s a disaster waiting to happen,” she scoffed, and Yuuji winced because, yeah.

Yuuji later found out that he was supposed to room with Megumi. He’s not entirely sure what happened, but apparently there was a change in plans, and that first night he arrived he was given his own room. Granted, not a big one, but still. Most low-level rooms are still fairly good. His own is carpeted and well-furnished, with his own closet, bathroom, and even a TV! It’s all a bit squished, but he’s got nothing to complain about. Yuuji is just… Still a bit confused about the switch-up, especially since Megumi didn’t have any answers for him about it.

It’s something that keeps nagging at him, the question lingering there in the back of his mind like a tiny pulse underneath his brain. Like it’s thumping, thump, thump, thumping inside his head.

Except that lingering doubts aren’t supposed to do that. It’s the middle of the night when Yuuji blearily opens his eyes, taking a few seconds to adjust to the fact that he’s not seeing much of anything. It’s freaking dark, and waking up so suddenly like that makes him feel dizzy and groggy—even in bed, it feels like the room’s spinning. But even if he can’t see anything, he can still hear, and what he hears is a faint thumping under running water.

It takes him a full second to realize that the sound comes from his bathroom. Just like that, a shot of adrenaline injects itself right into Yuuji’s veins and his eyes shoot open. He leaps from the bed, crashing right into his closet and pain blooming across his shoulder. Yuuji curses, but he stumbles his way to the light switch, flicking it on as he gropes blindly for the bathroom door, and turns the handle.

The first thing he notices is that the shower is on, for some reason. Yuuji quickly blinks away the blurriness, and sees that underneath the fluorescent lighting, on the white tiles, there’s a tiny sparkle that catches his eye. A shiny silver ball that is, unmistakeable, a pearl, complete with a seashell almost as blinding as it—only its pattern is a dizzying array of aquamarine tones that reminds him of six pairs of living gemstones.

Yuuji closes his eyes tightly. It’s late, it’s too freaking late for this, but even with the scrambled, sleep-deprived state his mind is in, he’s just—he’s too weak.

He leans down to pick the seashell up, not exactly sure why or what for. Maybe the sight hypnotized him upon visual contact, but he doesn’t get to grab it before something impacts his right cheek. Yuuji yelps, stumbling back in shock as he clutches his pained cheek, frantically looking for his assailant—and there, hanging from a vent near the ceiling, a pair of flailing legs.

Yuuji blinks. Maybe he’s still in a dream? Because that’s the only explanation he’s got for such an absurd sight. There’s a body clearly stuck halfway in the vent, and whoever’s body that is, they’re struggling to get their legs inside. They’re very long legs, too, and very pale, with a nice shape to them. Slim, but strong, and—

His brain isn’t working properly, why the hell is he checking out a stranger assailant’s legs? Why and how did they invade his dorm, and clearly, do so terrible a job that they couldn’t even manage to enter and leave quietly? Who is this? He hears their grunts and the banging of their arms inside the metal tunnel, and there’s something familiar about it, something that…

All of Yuuji’s hairs stand on end as Ieiri-san’s words echo in his head again. He can change his tail into legs if he so desires.

“Satoru?” He breathes, and everything seems to freeze. For a second, neither of them do anything, and then—Yuuji doesn’t know what drives him to inch forward and run a nail up one of those smooth soles.

There’s a startled chirp above him, and the feet jerk. Suddenly, there’s a bright blue tail in their place, which smacks him up the chin and quickly wriggles inside the vent. Yuuji scrambles after him, unsure that he can actually follow the merman.

“Wait, don’t go!” He yells, and waits a moment for something.

There’s only silence, and he’s about to curse himself for scaring Satoru off, when he hears some shuffling about inside the vent. Yuuji takes a few steps back, cranes his head up, and watches Satoru pop his own head out. Just his head, shrunk to a human size, and whatever minimal embarrassment Satoru might have felt has clearly glided right over him, as he trains his six eyes on Yuuji, watching him closely.

Yuuji’s at a loss for what to say. It’s almost frustrating that after everything this merman has put him through, Yuuji still struggles to stay composed, especially when his eyes are locked to that entrancing gaze. And yet, it seems Satoru is perfectly content to just watch him. He simply can’t be that interesting to an otherworldly being, right?

Not taking his eyes away from Satoru, Yuuji tries to reach for the running shower head, but pauses when the merman subtly shakes his head. Instead, Yuuji leans down and carefully picks up the seashell with both hands, and holds it up for Satoru, its pearl glinting in the light. Even when mostly inside the vent, Yuuji can see how Satoru brightens and preens.

“Did you put this here?” Yuuji asks, and Satoru nods, clearly proud. He swallows, and continues. “What’s it for?”

At his question, Satoru smirks. He shuffles forward slightly, and takes out his hand. With a webbed finger, he points at the pearl, then at his own chest, and finally, at Yuuji. Goosebumps sprout along his back as Satoru winks, and finally disappears down the vent for good.

He’s left standing there, confused but warm, while his feet get wet by the running shower in the middle of the night. Yuuji’s thumbs had begun caressing the shell, and he doesn’t even know when that happened. There’s that pleasant buzz in his chest, spreading in all sorts of directions, and he’s not entirely sure if this is a dream he’ll wake up from anytime soon.

Yuuji looks down at the seashell, and tilts his head. Anything you observe must be documented, he recalls. Well. He could probably find some kind of loophole, something that means he’ll have some kind of excuse if—when—this is found out. He could find it right now, if he wanted.

But it’s so late, he’s so tired, and Yuuji—Yuuji really doesn’t want to find an excuse or defense. Not for this.

There’s no harm in keeping one thing for himself, right?

Welcome to my island

Hope you like me, you ain't leavin'

- Caroline Polachek, Welcome to My Island