Love Deeper than the Ocean | IzuOcha Mermaid AU

Chapter 4 | Two Sides of a Fairy Tale

Ochaco's Pov.

  "Where did you get that bracelet?" Mina asked. They were relaxing on the couch.

  "From my stalker- I mean friend!" she blurted. 

  "You have a stalker?" Momo blinked at her in surprise. 

  "Kind of..." she pushed her index fingers together. "But he's actually a really pleasant person."

  He wasn't a person at all... But he wouldn't appreciate it if she told her friends that.  Also, they wouldn't believe her.

  "Someone's stalking Ochaco?" Tsu looked up from her book. They all stared at her. 

  "Okay! Okay!" she waved her hands in front of her face, "Yeah, he's kind of been watching be for a while and we actually met yesterday. He gave me this bracelet today."

  "Isn't that really creepy?" Toru commented.

  "Yeah..." she sweatdropped, "But really he's really nice."

  "What if he has other motives?" Jiro chimed in.

  "I sincerely doubt that," Ochaco told them.

  "Can we meet him?" they questioned in unison. 

  "No!" she shouted. 

  It would be bad if they met Izuku... Everyone would freak out. He would freak out and swim away. Her friends would freak out and call everyone and then the world would know! Poor Izuku... Maybe it was a bad idea that they met at all... 

  "I need to go," she realized the time. The time was to meet Izuku. 

  After she left, she waited five minutes to make sure they weren't going to follow her, and once she realized they were respecting her privacy, she went to meet Izuku. 

  On the way, she got a mint ice cream for him and a mint one for her. He really seemed to like ice cream and she liked ice cream too. 

  "Hi Izuku," she greeted him. She took off her shoes and let her feet rest in the water. 

  "Hi," he smiled and swam a little closer to the rocks.

  "Your second ice cream of the day," she handed it to him. 

  "You don't need to keep getting ice cream for me," he took it from her, "But thanks!"

  He licked the mint and chocolate and she waited for his reaction.

  "This one's good too!" he told her.

  "Are there any myths about humans?" Ochaco wondered.

  "A lot," he told her, "Why?"

  "I was wondering because we have a lot of stories about you too," she told him, "Except we thought that you were imaginary."

  "What are your myths about us?" he wondered. 

  "A lot of them are about how you have the most beautiful voices, but then there always a twist to them," she started, "Sirens are said to sing and stop sailors in their tracks before drowning them. The stereotype is that they're female and really pretty."

  "That sounds actually awful..." Izuku stared into the water, "I'm pretty sure a few of us did that in the past though. I hate to think about it... But yeah. They lumped us all together. We're not like that anymore. Also, I guess you can say we have pleasant voices."

  "Could you sing a song for me?"

Izuku's Pov.

  'What should I say to her?'

  Well... He couldn't sing as well as the others anyway, but that wasn't the point. There was a myth that went around. Sirens could entrance a human by singing to them.  He didn't want her to fall in love with him just because he sang a song. But they were just friends anyway! Well... He wasn't sure if he had a crush on her or not, but either way, it was never going to work because they were different species. 

  "I don't think that's a good idea," Izuku told her.

  "Aw... Okay," she looked a little disappointed.

  "I think it would better if you didn't hear my awful singing," he let out a nervous laugh. His mom always said his voice was nice, but it was too embarrassing to show Ochaco anyway, "Want to hear our myths?"

  When she nodded her head, he started telling them.

  "It's said that humans threw so much plastic in the ocean that sirens get stuck after swimming into the garbage... Animals eat all of the plastic and then die of starvation because they don't get enough nutrients..." he looked up to her and wanted her to say it wasn't true, but instead of laughing about it being ridiculous, her eyes were filled with sympathy.

  "Izuku... That's actually true..." Ochaco confessed, "I don't throw things in the ocean, but in some places, there's a lot of garbage."

  "So that was true!?" Izuku exclaimed.

  "Yeah... On top of that, there can be a lot of oil spills from ships... I wish it wasn't true, but unfortunately, we're damaging the environment..." she told him, looking really sad. 

  "Any other myths you want debunked?" she wondered.

  "Well, there was another one about you eating sirens, but considering you didn't even know what we are, that's probably not true," he told her, "I think there was another one... Something about a siren turning to a human?"

  "We have a movie about that. I don't think it's true. I mean, it's impossible to change species," she told him.

  "What's a movie?" he asked. She was right. Changing species was impossible. 

  "Never mind," Ochaco shook her head, "That's probably a little difficult to explain unless you watched one yourself."

  "What? Like how I watch you?" he wondered. "But that doesn't count, does it?"

  Why did he keep saying things like that? It was clearly making her uncomfortable... 

  "No it doesn't," she seemed to be caught off guard. Well... It was only natural after he was basically saying 'I stalk you' over and over somehow by accident.

  "Anyway, it's about a mermaid- I mean siren," she corrected herself, "and she falls in love with a prince, and by the end of the movie they live happily ever after."

  What was up with humans calling sirens mermaids, mermen, or merfolk? 

  "Actually, we have something like that too, " Izuku remembered. "It goes something like a siren was in love and then stripped away from her home and left her family for a human."

  "Probably the same story," she nodded her head. "Anyway, I have to go now or my friends are going to get suspicious of me. Meet me here tomorrow."

  Finally, they left each other. While he was swimming, he found something that he couldn't believe. He was scared and happy to find this particular item. Was it the right time for this? Did this truly mean what he thought? In any case, he took the shell with him.