• The
  trip to the beach was supposed to be relaxing but taking twelve rowdy boys to a
  place filled with exposed skin was a decidedly bad idea.
• Thankfully,
  Ukai had the foresight to bring Sakeo along and she is more than willing to
  help keep them in line.
• Before
  long their addiction to volleyball outweighs the rush of their hormones and the
  boys are happily playing skins versus shirts; now garnering the attention of
  the females they were formerly oogling. The entire situation gives Ukai a
  headache.
• He
  goes for a stroll, finding the opening to a cave and the little boy in his soul
  can’t help exploring it. Upon entry, however, his adult self is back in full
  force when the sight of a decidedly beautiful woman comes into view.
• She
  greets him with a bright smile, waving him over to join her. Lost in a trance
  of sorts, he complies, shucking his shirt and entering the pool she’s in,
  finding the water surprisingly warm.
• It’s
  when he gets closer that he notices…she has a tail; a mermaid tail. At which
  point he faints dead away into the water.
• He
  awakens drenched upon his back on the sandy floor, his vision filled with her
  face. When she sees he’s ok she giggles. “If you wanted a kiss, you could have
  just asked,” she teases. It takes a minute for him to realize she saved his
  life.
• “How…is
  this…are you real?” he asks reaching up to touch her face.
• “Of
  course, I’m real! What kind of question is that?” she asks a bit miffed.
• “Sorry!
  It’s just…I’ve never seen your kind before,” he hastily apologizes.
• She
  pouts a bit, crossing her arms. “That’s because there’s not many of us left.”
  Her voice is sadder now, eyes staring into the distance. But she snaps out of
  it quickly, eyes landing on him once more. “So, tell me about yourself, you’re
  the first human I’ve actually met!”
• Ukai
  sits up, leaning against the stone of the cave and talks. He tells her about
  himself, his life, his team, his fears, his dreams, all of it. It’s like she’s
  unlocked his ability to be honest with his feelings for the first time in
  decades simply because he knows, there’s no one for her to tell these things to.
• She
  shares about herself as well, the vast distances she’s traveled and the beauty
  in the depths of the sea not experienced by humans.
• “Do
  you want to go there?” she asks excitedly.
• “How?
  I can’t breathe underwater.”
• “Silly
  goose,” she teases pushing against his chest, the touch warming him all the way
  through, “don’t you think if I’m real, magic is real too?”
• Ukai
  agrees he never considered that. And so, from that day on he’d meet with her
  once a week on the weekend, traveling far and wide within the sea.
• Their
  relationship blossoms into deep love, their shared experiences treasured by
  both.
• “I
  want to stay with you,” he confesses one day years later. He’s no longer a
  coach, the last of “his boys” from the original team he started with long gone
  to college and into their own adult lives. He’s stayed in touch but he knows, no
  human woman will ever fill the void of his mermaid princess.
• “Then
  let’s go see the witch doctor,” she advises.
• When
  all the preliminaries are set, he asks if he can say goodbye to his family and
  friends. She agrees, and so he goes, one by one to each of his boys, explaining
  that he’s leaving for good. At first, they don’t understand, don’t believe him,
  think he’s crazy. But he gets them all to agree to come to the shoreline on a
  certain date at a certain time.
• And
  in the sight of his former team, Takeda and the girls included, Ukai undergoes
  his transformation. Gone are his legs, replaced by a brilliant orange tail.
  There’s many tears of goodbye, but most of them are happy since Ukai is so
  overjoyed to finally be able to travel with his love for the rest of his life.
• The
  two, mermaid and man, wave goodbye to their shoreline friends, promising to
  come back in a year’s time to see them.
• And
  none of them ever miss those meetings.

@nsfwhaikyuu-knb