As Deep As The Ocean || •Mermaid AU• || KiriBaku

12

Long nails ran over his skin, not sharp enough to hurt or cause harsh red lines to form, but just pressured enough to be felt through his slumber-induced haze, the slight pressure providing a small relief to his extremely tense muscles. He must've drifted asleep at some point, but judging by the slightly orange tinge to the sky, the light pouring through the small windows casting an orange glow across the entire cave, and it seems to have only been a few hours. Opening his bright red eyes, the blonde was assaulted by the too-bright sun shining down on him, eyelids feeling heavy from the crying he had done the night before, and despite not being able to see his own reflection, he was certain they were red and puffy. 

It hadn’t been anything too serious… just the crushing realisation he had amounted to nothing in his life. He left his family, his mum, to run away and travel, only to fall off the deep-end before he had made any real contribution to the world. 

When the sun’s rays became interrupted, a shadow being cast over his face, the blonde looked up, meeting a pair of fluorescent yellow eyes smiling down on him. What should have been the whites of her eyes were instead a dark, almost inky colour, and the blonde’s heart was hammering in his throat as his brain worked faster than intended after just waking up. 

Someone else had found him. And that person was not a human. He was going to die here. 

He became aware of the wet, slippery feeling climbing up his leg, seeming to suck at his skin, and when he looked down at the odd sensation, he found a pink tentacle clutching at his leg, the pressure suffocatingly tight against Bakugou’s tense leg. Following the limb, the unscaled, pastel skin up towards their centre, his panic spiked again as he found himself almost completely restrained in tentacles. There was one covering each of his arms, and two occupying each of his legs, and while every instinct was screaming at him to escape, to run away and fight for his life, he thought resisting was too hard, settling back down and sighing. His heart was racing and his breathing heavy as he comprehended the imminent end of his life, but thoughts of running and fighting weighed him down like lead, seemingly too hard in his fragile state. He accepted his fate, flicking his eyes back to the person sitting next to him, taking in the continuation of the pink skin up to the individual’s face, determined to be aware of his final moments in life. 

Her yellow eyes were framed by dark and thick lashes, with large, bouncy coils that were a slightly darker pink than her smooth skin covering her forehead, her curls reaching nearly chin length and framing her strong jaw perfectly. She seemed to notice him looking at her, because her yellow eyes glanced down at him, her smile widening slightly, before bouncing back up to her hands, which were now running over and through Bakugou’s blonde hair. 

“Hello! Eijirou said you were sleeping, and he didn’t want to leave you alone, since he said you didn’t like it when he did that last time. So, he asked me to come and sit with you!” She said, voice cheery and smile blinding as she wrapped her fingers through blonde strands, the ashy colour standing stark against the girl’s pink fingers.

A beat of silence washed over them, and Bakugou bluntly stared at the pink girl, watching as her too-wide smile faltered at the tense atmosphere, before falling completely. Bakugou just averted his gaze, staring up at the dripping ceiling, before shutting his eyes, letting the darkness fill him in an attempt to block out the slightly worsening headache that had been growing for days. 

“I honestly thought you were going to kill me at first.” He muttered after a few more minutes, and the girl’s fingers momentarily paused their movements, before she once again began to card her fingers through his hair, scrubbing her pointed nails over his scalp and soothing him from his tenseness. Last night he had been convinced his hair was matted beyond repair and that he would need to cut it all off, but with the ease the girl was playing with his hair, he doubted that was still the case. 

“Nah, I can’t really do much to hurt you anyway.” She hummed out a small laugh, her pink lips forming a soft smile, and Bakugou scoffed. 

“I guarantee that you could kill me in an instant.” The blunt tone of his voice provided little room for debate, and as much as the girl wanted to argue, disagree and say the blonde had a chance against her, she knew he wasn’t interested in the pointless conversation… 

He was also correct. It wouldn’t take much for her to grossly overpower him if she wanted. Her tentacles were made of pure muscle, probably capable of crushing every bone in the blonde’s body if she so wanted. Luckily, she didn’t.

“My name is Mina.” She said, shaking her head at her previous thought, before scratching gently at Bakugou’s scalp, massaging the skin there, each of her tentacles restricting slightly, their pressure providing a soothing feeling over Bakugou’s body. The slight massage reminded him of his mum, when he would come home after a long day and just collapse, and she would spend hours with him helping to destress. 

“Bakugou.” He said by way of response, coming back to the present, and she smiled at him before finally releasing her suctioning tentacles from his body, the gentle suckers coming off with a small pop and leaving a slightly red ring where they were previously.

“I know. Eiji told us!” She retreated away from the blonde slightly, walking (walking!) over to the water's edge and slipping in. Bakugou blinked, rubbing at his eyes and quickly shooting up from his spot on the rocky edge, watching the pink girl happily rub water over her entire body. 

“What the fuck?” His voice echoed around the enclosed walls of the grotto, making it seem louder than it was. The girl looked up at him, pausing her movements of washing water over her skin, raising a brow slightly at the blonde. She momentarily seemed panicked, her eyes wide as she stared at him.

“I’m sorry?” 

“You walked. Like, you don’t have a tail.” He said, rather than asked, and Mina nodded slowly as if to say ‘yes, and?’. She had been sitting with him for over an hour, and he’s been conscious for several minutes, and had definitely been able to feel her tentacles across his body. It really shouldn’t have been all that much of a surprise.

“Yeah, I have tentacles. They don’t really work the same way tails do. Denki and Eiji did mention how weirdly you responded to their tails, actually.” She muttered the last part more to herself than anyone, continuing to cover her body in water, rubbing circular movements over the pink skin lining the entirety of her body. She had traces of scales running down her arms, covering her entire middle section, before subtly blending into the skin of the tentacles in place of her legs, the scales a shimmering pink in the light of the day, the ones disappearing behind the curve of her body shifting with the light to a teal green colour. 

“No, I know, but, everyone else just kind of… shuffles. I thought you would be the same.” Although, now that he thinks about it, he couldn’t imagine why she would shuffle when tentacles work like glorified legs. 

“Yeah, but tentacles are like legs.” He just thought that. “So, I don't need to shuffle. I can walk, like you.”

*****

I am so, so, so sorry about the late update. to make a long story short, my house had no wifi for a few days, and we didn't pay the service bill so I didn't have data, either. I tried to work on this, but obviously I can't access it offline, so there was only so much I can do.

Hopefully updates will be somewhat back on track, but I am behind in writing, so no gurantees.