Work Text
Shouyou heard the music long before he saw its source, and felt it along his skin long before hearing it.Down through the town’s narrow streets he crept, careful of the wet cobblestones and yet still tripping along as he fell toward the melody. The music echoed like a howling beast far out in the foothills on the horizon, but it chilled as if that beast were snarling in your ear.Haloed by the blackness of evening, the sounds dripped with the sweetness of overripe fruit, stung like choking tears, thrilled like that breathless moment before plunging into deep water. How did the music frighten and beckon all the same?Once he passed a cluster of fishing docks he’d only ever glimpsed from his window, the street widened into a square flanked on one side by looming houses, and on the other by the lake stretched miles to the southeast. He couldn’t fathom what had made the music so many things at once, but just like sun-shy docks emerging from the mist as the day warmed, the melody unclouded in the cradle of the square, and tapered down to one thing only: longing.Many townspeople hovered about with mugs of ale and unfocused smiles, stomping their shoes in the muddy earth, but in the midst there stood a few slender sorts who held instruments like lovers, playing those longing notes.Shouyou snuck to the nearest barrel rolled out for the festivities and tapped it for a drink, gulping gratefully as his eyes flit from one musician to the next. Tall, taller, tallest, towering: one twiddling her fingers along a shining flute, another’s bow zig-zagging along his fiddle like a darting minnow, the third skillfully tapping on her drum, and the fourth…The fourth, the towering one, was a youth with long hair so inky-deep he might have melted into the sky above if not for his pale, pointed face. He, too, embraced his instrument, but frowned deeply at it as he plucked notes from its strings. Shouyou squeezed his cup to his chest and watched sharp eyebrows dipping toward a steep nose, and below that a startling red tongue wetting parted lips. The boy’s fingers were long and just graceful enough to remind one of willow leaves and not wispy, curling fish bones. They were deft, trickling like a stream, making music that was at once melodic and discordant.All four wore garments too fine, too light for the evening, like courtiers or gauzy maidens from epic poetry—all day Shouyou had felt summer in the air, but the night was cool and damp—and when Shouyou looked closely, he noticed the bottoms of their skirts and robes dripped with dew. When the boy twirled past him, his cloak spattered Shouyou’s breeches with startling-cold water. Icy, like lakeshore tides kissing an ache into your toes.Looking at him made Shouyou shiver in sympathy. But, they were unbothered, moving to and fro led by the playful, or besotted, or lonely melodies, and that meant the boy with the deft fingers passed by Shouyou many times. But, while the boy was transfixed with his music, Shouyou was transfixed with him.Shouyou wasn’t the only one caught in their net of notes and staves, for other folk began to dance, sloshing their drinks, grabbing at each other’s cloaks, laughing too hard and staring too long. They made merry, merrier than perhaps they should. But, then, no one here would tell them they shouldn’t.Soon the crowd pulled Shouyou into a ring around the players, spinning too fast and yet too slow, and even when the ring broke it only made smaller rings to encircle the music. Shouyou crowed as he clasped hands with a maid whose cheeks were round and red with drink, and they spun and spun and spun until he couldn’t tell which way was up and which way was the lake. Laughing, hands held out, Shouyou turned in the middle of the square and found himself falling through the crowd of merrymakers toward the puddled ground below.
≈≈≈
Falling, falling.
≈≈≈
Before his palms sank into the sopping mud, before his knees soaked through with wet, his breath knocked from his lungs and he was enveloped in folds of cool white.Choking, gasping for air, Shouyou peered up into deep-blue eyes, at a fair, frowning face. Stomach swooping, he stared up at the glassy surface of the lake from deep below, at the light warping with each gentle wave of the current, before—A raucous cry rose from the crowd, and Shouyou blinked, finding himself in the arms of a boy.Any music playing now glanced past them as he struggled to keep his knees from buckling. All was quiet and roaring, like holding bubbles of air in your mouth as you waded through the peaceful silence, closed your eyes, and wondered how long you could stay suspended until you had to tilt your body up and break the surface.The boy’s face was open, curious and… almost as stunned as Shouyou’s. One hand left Shouyou’s elbow to brush inky hair from his eyes, but the other lingered on his shoulder, the pads of his cool fingers brushing Shouyou’s collarbone.“You,” Shouyou said finally. “You caught me…”Shouyou swallowed, and the noise of the crowd again fell away as he stared into the boy’s eyes. A flicker of a smile drew him then to the boy’s lips, before a soft touch on his arm drew his gaze down to the fingers wrapping around his wrist, lingering on his quickening pulse.“I caught you,” he agreed.
≈≈≈
He fell.
≈≈≈
“How did you find me?”Shouyou startled, feet shuffling on the shiny-wet planks of the old pier before daring to look up at the boy through the breeze-warmed night, so close to the water’s edge it seemed he might step off and wander along the surface until he disappeared into the darkness.The boy was still transfixing, still tall and melting against the winking sky as he peered at Shouyou. He was still swathed in clinging fabric like he had indeed been wandering all over—and under—the lake, and he still plucked at his instrument, a zither, with still-willowy fingers.Not one of his fellow musicians stood with him as he played. Not a soul stood or slept near this rotting pier, so far from home.The notes hung idly in the space between them as Shouyou only stared.“Well?”Shouyou gulped, rasped, “I don’t know.”The boy tilted his head before returning to the melody that had beckoned Shouyou so cajolingly.“I heard you,” Shouyou tried. “Far away, I heard the music like before. And I just couldn’t—stay.”Again, he had felt it before he heard it, sitting up in his window reading by candlelight. While his family slept, he had let the notes embrace him lovingly and tug, leading him hazily from his house, so far from the lake, until he was winding through the deserted streets to the water once more.“You didn’t hear it last night,” the boy said, affronted, as he played.“Well!” Shouyou huffed, folding his arms even as he moved closer to stand at the boy’s shoulder, watching the fine wood of the instrument gleam as it appeared here and there from under the shadow of the boy’s graceful hands. “That can only be your fault! I was sick with drink after the party in the square,” he admitted. “I went to bed early and dreamt the sky turned to water.”“I thought you had forgotten me already.” The boy sat before looking back on Shouyou. His posture was both monarchical... and mopish. “My king says your folk are fickle and easily diverted.”“King?” Shouyou laughed. Tension broken, he joined the proud boy, heedless of his breeches dampening on the creaking pier, heedless of his leather shoes skimming the lakewater. “Your king’s wrong, at least about me. My sister says I’m remarkably single-minded.”The boy looked down at him, sharp brows raised. “Are you certain she didn’t say simple-minded?”Shouyou shoved at the boy’s arm, but as soon as they touched, a cry of dismay died in his throat. The boy’s sleeve was indeed sopping, and the skin revealed through the eyelets of fabric from shoulder to wrist felt cool to the touch.“Well, at least I’m not a fish,” Shouyou said eventually, but it took quite a long time for his fingers to slide from the smooth skin.“I am not a fish,” the boy said, handsome as he was stern.“You’re as soggy and chilly as a carp!”“Be careful; you are talking to a prince.”“A fish prince,” Shouyou corrected with incredulous laughter.The boy leaned close to almost—shove back at Shouyou, but those long fingers caught on his skin, too, tickled over the short hairs there. Shouyou’s breath caught, and the fish prince’s curious eyes flicked up to his mouth.“Do you have a name?” he asked.“Ah… Hinata. Hinata Shouyou.”“Shouyou…” The boy seemed to come to himself after he’d held the shape of Shouyou’s name in his mouth long enough. “Shouyou, would you like to hear a new song?”Something stopped Shouyou from asking for a name, in return. Instead, he nodded and bumped the boy’s shoulder when he lifted his instrument, and they held their breaths together until the thrum of the first note.
≈≈≈
The sun was too bright, and the day too long, in Shouyou’s opinion.“Brother, what has you sulking so?” a voice rang from the doorway of the library. Shouyou dropped his book into his lap to better glare at his sister. “You’re usually running about from sunup to sundown, but since you’ve come back from school for the summer, you’re simply boring!”“Oh, Natsu. Who taught you to be so rude to your big brother?” he asked, pushing himself up so he could frown more effectively over the the sofa.“You, very likely,” she returned with a smart look. Her neat plait of red hair glinted a little in the light from the fireplace, cheeks round with a grin. She was getting too old—too clever—to tease. “Shouyou, what’s wrong?” she asked, stepping daintily through the door before flopping down in the chaise across from him, needlepoint canvas dangling from her fingers as she watched him.Shouyou tossed himself back onto the sofa with a groan, hoping that he might hear the music already if he strained a little harder. “I met a new... friend,” he admitted.When Shouyou offered nothing more, she laughed, “How diverting this new friendship must be.”“Natsu,” Shouyou warned, pressing his palms to his hot face as her laughter bounced off the high ceilings.“Don’t worry. I won’t tell,” she said eventually, kind. “I must meet your friend someday—the one that draws you out after dark like some creature of the night.”She was much too clever.But Shouyou was too distracted to blush, body itching with anticipation.
≈≈≈
“Shouyou, would you follow my music anywhere?”“Well, I followed the path of your music, and at the end of it, I found you!” Shouyou reasoned, cheeks pink, although he hoped the sliver of moon above them wasn’t bright enough to reveal how pink. “It seems to work out alright, when I do.”The boy grinned briefly, teeth sharp-looking in the darkness.“It helps you’re not an abysmal player.”The grin slid into exasperation, and then his willow-hands were on Shouyou again, merciless and tickling as they tumbled to their backs in the sandy grass along the shoreline.“Abysmal?!” the boy hissed.“Not-abysmal!” Shouyou clarified, and shrieked with laughter when his fish prince pinned Shouyou’s shoulders to the damp ground.
≈≈≈
He followed the music each night.
≈≈≈
Shouyou watched the boy with hitched breaths as he picked a somber tune from his zither, this time perched on a rock they’d found along the shore where the ripples of tide tickled at their toes. They were plastered together from hip to shoulder, and more than once Shouyou’s hand came to pull at the boy’s waist when he leaned too far into a chord and threatened to unbalance them both.The height of summer had passed and now followed the descent. Having spent so many nights in enjoyment, this night felt bereft, as though there was no more laughter to muster. Even still, he wanted to linger in this moment forever.When the boy moved into the last chorus, his eyes moved over the shape of Shouyou’s jaw and the wave of curls framing his forehead. His face was lonely as a stone, and Shouyou found tears slipping down his own cheeks as the song slowed.At the ringing of the final note, the boy closed his eyes.“I told my king about you,” he murmured after some time. “He forbade me from meeting you any longer.”Shouyou was gripped with terror in an instant. “Why?”“Shouyou, we cannot belong together. I cannot have you, unless—” he broke off, sighing deeply. “I have played too long.”“N-no,” Shouyou said. “Unless what?”No answer came. Instead, the boy slid off the rock and out of Shouyou’s arms, pulling Shouyou’s heart with him as he pulled away. He stood in the dark shallows and wouldn’t turn to look at Shouyou again.The tears he’d shed for his music clinged to his chin as more gathered in his eyes, stinging and ugly. Only moments ago he’d wished for the summer to last forever, to suspend the two of them in youth and harmony and in love in an eternal night. But, Shouyou had learned so little of this boy—this night-creature—that he might have nothing to remember him by if eternity ended too soon.“Tell me your name, before you go,” Shouyou wailed quietly, hands lifting to his own throat.“Shouyou,” the boy groaned, but he turned toward his voice. Even as relief flooded Shouyou’s body, grief flooded in too.The boy looked suddenly very old, and very young, all at once, lost again as the sky lightened around them. Shouyou realized they’d been together all night, making music and looking out at the lake, and at each other, in wonder.“Tell me. If you must go, and I can’t follow!”“If I don’t tell you my name, there’s a chance you’ll forget me. It will be easier than remembering. It’ll be like waking from a dream.”“Why would I want that?” Shouyou’s voice shook with confusion and hurt. “I want you!”The boy paused.“I never want to forget my fish prince,” Shouyou added, and the boy’s hesitance broke under a hiss of exasperation.“You are a very stupid human,” said the boy, but Shouyou could feel his resolve weakening.“You like me anyway!”His smile, fleeting but more and more frequent each night they spent together, appeared again. “I don’t like you,” he argued, and Shouyou felt again the crushing hurt before all of it spilled out at his next words: “I love you.”“Well, I love you, too!” Shouyou cried. “So, I can’t let you go. I’ll do anything for you!”The boy drew himself up, looking out at the lake once more, before he turned to Shouyou and held out his long-fingered hand. “There is a way. But, if you follow me any further, there’s no turning back.”Shouyou’s sobs died, but the tears fell still as Shouyou waded through the water to stand at his side, shivering when their fingers intertwined.“I wouldn’t anyway,” Shouyou replied, voice full of water. “I’ve told you, I’m remarkably single-minded!” He laughed and wiped at his face when the boy’s mouth tipped into a sweet smile.The boy looked down to the dark water at their knees, shifted his zither so it rested against his hip, and held out his other hand.“There is no turning back,” he repeated.In his palm was a glass phial, full of a faintly sparkling tincture.“Drink.”
≈≈≈
He felt the caress of the water’s surface at his chin, over his ears, at the crown of his head.
≈≈≈
An instant of panic overtook Shouyou as he closed his eyes against the heavens, all the stars snuffing out. A hand squeezed his, and instinctively Shouyou gasped at the air before disappearing beneath the surface.As he held that hand, he felt the pebbles and growth of the lakebed between his bare toes as they walked beneath the water like any other night strolling on the edges of town in deepest darkness.A part of him waited for the needful moment when he sucked water into his lungs, but that moment never arrived, and so after some minutes being led blindly, Shouyou opened his eyes.He was met with the most beautiful sight he’d ever laid eyes on. Before him plunged a deep valley beneath the lake, and beyond it Shouyou could make out the shimmering outlines of a palace, with parapets like the swirling back of a snail, arches like the gleaming scales of a whitefish, and windows inlaid with precious jewels. In the glistening shadow of the palace sat a grand city in its likeness, faint light pouring from each window.It was then that Shouyou noticed the glow beside him. When he turned, what he saw rivaled even the beauty of the fantastical scene before them: a boy, perhaps, whose skin shone like a pearl, whose hair floated around him in an ink-drip corona, whose wide eyes rivaled the finest of sapphires, whose mouth broke into the most glittering smile of sharp white teeth.If this boy hadn’t already taken away his breath, Shouyou would have been left gasping.The boy raised Shouyou’s hand to his mouth and kissed it, eyelashes delicate as fish bones against his cheeks.“My name is Tobio,” he said, voice as clear as a bell yet suddenly shy, and Shouyou reached out to trace his shining lips as shafts of light pierced the water around them with the rise of the sun.“Tobio,” Shouyou sounded out, and the last of the air held in his mouth bubbled out and sparkled to the surface above them.Never again was he tempted to look up. Instead, he watched Tobio break into a peal of laughter, and drifted close to kiss him.
≈≈≈
After, they spent no nights, only eternal moments, together in the city beneath the lake, with dances and banquets and tourneys and revelry unmatched by anything Shouyou had witnessed above the surface.He was met with unrivaled kindness, with gifts and flowing fabrics and jewelry befitting the prince always at his side, and each time he slept, although he found he didn’t often need it, he awoke with an ever-brighter glow beneath his skin.Tobio showed him each watery nook and cranny of his kingdom with an arm around his shoulders and lips often upon his ear, and throughout Shouyou tried to commit to memory every beatific smile and every worshipful kiss.Although each one bled together quite beautifully after a while.“Ah, so you are a fish prince!” Shouyou laughed one day while they walked through a market full of wondrous treasures and foods beyond compare.“The cleverer of your folk might call my kingdom ‘the land of nixies,’ of those who’ve heard of us at all.”“Nixies? Water spirits?”Tobio looked at him, incredulous. “Didn’t you suspect?”“I daren’t assume what you were a prince of. All the stories could be false!” Shouyou bit his lip. “Though I thought you were rather odd, swimming in your clothes all the time.”Tobio rolled his eyes. “You’re lucky I love you so,” he said, and pulled him down a street paved with gleaming shells and water-worn pebbles. “Come, I think it is time to visit with the king, and then I’ll take you to meet my brothers and sisters!”Shouyou tripped a little over a memory of sun-red plaits tied with yellow ribbon.“What’s wrong?” Tobio asked, smile dimming.But, Shouyou couldn’t answer. “How many siblings do you have?” he asked after too long.“Perhaps hundreds? I’ve lost count.”Shaking himself, Shouyou laughed, kissing his prince sweetly. “Well, then no one will take offence if I can’t recall a single name!”Tobio kissed his cheek, and they laughed as they ran.
≈≈≈
“I fear what will happen if I ask,” Tobio murmured as they lay stretched out one night in his grand bed.Shouyou watched a cloud of fish shimmer past one of the arched windows at the end of the cavernous room, listlessly accepting the comfort of long fingers combing through his hair. Alone, they often spent hours that felt like months—perhaps years—in a bed surrounded by complete opulence, surrounded by each other, endlessly in love as he’d hoped. But, Shouyou could not remember when he’d last asked for the time.“Ask what?” Shouyou prompted eventually, unmoving as Tobio curled around him.“What has made you so unhappy—so tired of me…”Shouyou sat up to shove a palm into Tobio’s chest with a fierce frown. “I will never tire of you.”Tobio peered up at Shouyou with a knowing look. “You think of home.”“I…” Shouyou began, his voice failing him. “I’d forgotten I had a sister.”“I do that all the time,” Tobio said, but the hand that moved over Shouyou’s ribs betrayed his impatience. After another age of Shouyou’s silence, he added, “I warned you there’s no turning back.”“I’m not turning back. It’s just not the same for me. You have 271 sisters, but I only have the one!”Tobio sighed, but his hand combed through Shouyou’s hair sweetly.“Don’t you think we could visit her now and again, so she won’t have to worry? She would like to meet you.”It was Tobio’s turn to look out beyond the window, his mouth a grim line for a moment before he turned back with a smile, thumb moving up to Shouyou’s chin to tip him down.“I would do anything for you,” he said between kisses.
≈≈≈
The setting sun was hot and the breeze humid, which Shouyou thought rather unseasonable for early fall. Everything boomed with life as if the summer had begun again—people chattered in the markets, fishermen hauled in great heaps of fish, and Shouyou wandered up through the streets awash with happiness.Turning the corner just a street or two from home, Shouyou spotted her.“Natsu!” he crowed, nearly jumping with excitement. But, as she turned, something turned over in his belly.Her hair, usually loosely plaited down her back, knotted high around her ears in a womanly style. She was taller, thinner without the roundness of teenage years lingering in her cheeks. She walked along holding an older man’s arm, smiled and wrinkles appeared at the corners of her eyes.Shouyou gasped, and when she found him, she gasped, too.“Shouyou?”“Natsu, I am so happy to see you!” he said, leaping toward her and pulling her into his arms. “I missed you!”“Oh, Shouyou! Are you alright? You look—you haven’t aged a day, it looks like!” she said, holding his cheeks. “What on earth are you wearing? Did you join the circus?”“Not quite,” Shouyou laughed, kissing her forehead.“Will you be staying long?” Natsu continued, a little too lightly. “We should all have dinner, perhaps at our house—Tadashi inherited such a lovely home from his father.” Shouyou watched her glance with a familiar look at the man she’d been walking with, and held his breath as she waved him over with a hand bearing a glinting gold ring. “It will be so lovely, having you back, brother—”“When did you marry?” Shouyou asked, eyes wide.Natsu blinked, as thrown as he was, before she propped her hand on her waist. The familiar gesture comforted him, having spent many a moment on the wrong end of the glare that accompanied it, but her words had no comfort at all.“Well, you can’t have expected me to wait on your say-so to begin courting! I’m nearly twenty-one, for goodness’ sake!”“That’s impossible!” he cried.“Shouyou,” she said, impatience high and red in her cheeks like she’d start crying any moment. “Stop being silly! It’s been years since you went and disappeared!”Shouyou stared at his sister for several breathless moments, before turning.And running.He heard her cry out, but he could not stop. Tears pricked at his eyes as he darted back toward the lake, and as the sun dipped low behind the mountains fear grew in his heart.If he went back to the lake… would his sister be old and frail if he ever returned home? Even worse, would any echo of his family remain?
≈≈≈
“I’m sorry,” Tobio said, fingers clawing at his hair as he paced back and forth on their balcony. “I should have… but I was so afraid—” he cut himself off before striding to Shouyou and cupping his face in his hands. “It will become easier in time. One day, you might even forget.”“I can’t forget her,” Shouyou cried, voice cracking. “Please, Tobio, is there nothing you can do?”Shouyou accepted a kiss like a lifeline, like a breath of air to a drowning man, and let his prince embrace him as the the lake city bathed in moon-glow.When Shouyou finally let Tobio go, it was only to follow him to bed, falling into his embrace and curling into his chest, as if he could sleep and when he woke, all would be a terrible dream.“I will try,” Tobio whispered against his hair. Shouyou shuddered, exhaustion weighing on him, but before he fell under, Tobio said once more, “I would do anything for you.”
≈≈≈
Shouyou woke to the sound of church bells. Groggy and unsettled, he sat up and looked about at the vast and beautiful arches of the prince’s bower, wondering for the first time if he should forget.The bells chimed ten as he pulled on his robes, but he spent a long time staring into the mirror before breathing he realized. Heart hammering, Shouyou strode to the balcony and looked out, for there were no churches, nor bells, in the city below the lake.Tobio was there when he stepped onto the balcony, looking out over the city toward Shouyou’s old home, still as a statue. Clinging to him, Shouyou followed his gaze.“I implored the king’s help,” Tobio began, voice low. “I begged, and I begged. But I was unsure of his decision until now.”Shouyou noticed that the lake’s surface seemed much higher, distant and unreachable above them, and as he looked out he saw the obscure shadows of a town far away. Roofs and roads and docks all intertwined neatly as the town spilled toward the city, but there was no sun above.Only water.“Tobio,” Shouyou whispered, holding him tight.
≈≈≈
Shouyou held Tobio’s hand in a vice as they raced into town, but as soon as they stepped upon the furthest docks, they noticed a man.He was an old fisherman, shuffling along the dock beneath the water with a rod slung over his shoulder, pipe in his mouth and hat on his head. He nodded at them as they ran by, and brought out his tackle box as they slowed to watch him.More and more they noticed merchants, bakers, farmers, coopers, all, who smiled kindly when Shouyou passed through town with Tobio at his side.It was a day like any other in the murky waters of the early morning.Passing by the square where they had first met, they saw a group of nixies erecting awnings of silvery fabric, and the townsfolk nearby eagerly looked on as they set out their wares.“Shouyou!” someone called out, and Shouyou’s heart skipped with relief. Running toward him, she held out her arms and he embraced her gladly. “After you left so suddenly the other day, I was worried you wouldn’t appear for another age!”“I was worried myself,” he admitted faintly. “Are you alright?”“I’m better than I was this morning! You missed a lovely summer festival last night,” Natsu said, excited. “I’ve never heard music so fine. We danced and drank—goodness—all night until the storm came.”“The storm?”“Couldn’t you hear it? It rained for hours; if we hadn’t drunk that scrumptious wine at the festival, we might’ve been up all night. We dreamt that the town was drowning!”Shouyou glanced up at Tobio, who stared unblinkingly in terror like a whitefish caught in a net.“We slept through it,” Shouyou said eventually, rattled when a great fat perch swam lazily over Natsu’s head and she looked past it, grinning as if it were just something to chuckle at and forget in the next breath. Instead, her eyes landed on Tobio.Color flooded Natu’s cheeks as she realized. “So, is this your creature of the night, Shouyou?” she teased, giggling a little as Tobio took her hand and bowed to kiss her knuckles.With nothing else to say, Shouyou nodded, and introduced them, and they strolled through the town as the sun slowly bore streaks into the blue-green waters of the lake.In a beam of light, Tobio shone like a pearl, hair drifting like kelp, eyes unblinkingly blue, teeth glintingly sharp, eerie and beautiful as the music he made. He caught Shouyou’s eye, and his expression froze.A long moment passed like a shuddering breath of air before diving into water, before Shouyou stepped close, reached his own pale hand to Tobio’s cheek and drifted close to kiss him.Up close, he looked lost again, until Shouyou murmured, “No turning back.”