“Haha! I guess you’re right, but think about it this way, nothing bad has happened yet, so things are still a’right.”
Mizumachi chuckled to himself at Kyohei’s meek attitude as he drew in closer to him, putting trust in him, an Ayakashi. Well, he didn’t mind doing a good deed every now and again before he goes to do what he normally does, which is tricking humans. That’s the job of his kind, wouldn’t you know?
“No prob! Wanna hold hands or something? Would that help you feel more relaxed?”
The forest was dark and there was a chilly wind that would blow past the forest every now and again. It wouldn’t do Kyouhei any good if he’d accidentally gotten himself separated from Mizumachi, who was actually trying to do a good deed for once.
“You made your way pretty deep into the forest, but it won’t take very long to get back out, so don’t worry. You’ll be out of here safe and sound in no time.”
Mizumachi tried to console the worried little guy the best that he could. It was hard to figure out how to console a human when you yourself were not human.
Did this guy think Kyouhei was a toddler or something?! He went to immediately deny the offer of a hand to hold and then paused to reconsider.
The last time he’d been alone (and not just in a random place, in the comfort of his own home) something had snatched him up and spirited him away. As strange as the situation was….
“I’ll take a rain check on the hand-holding, but… you don’t mind if I walk fairly close to you?” Personal bubbles were weird and personal, Kyou didn’t want to accidentally trample on a societal norm.
“Thank you for your kindness. Assuming this is a forest near to where I live, would you want to come by for some food? I feel like I should pay you back for this somehow.”
[水] – That was pretty sad to say, but it was true that Mizumachi wasn’t exactly smart. He wasn’t the type to bully anyone though since that was just cowardly. Teasing? Sure, he’s up for that. Just your casual poking at a friend.
He didn’t always think before he spoke so it wasn’t like he was too surprised by the fact that he may have accidentally offended a friend of his. He was going to have to be careful from now on about mentioning height around Kyouhei it seemed like.
“Ahh… well, I’ll be more careful from now on.”
He was going to be careful about what he said in general from now on. He didn’t want to have Kyouhei snapping on him again after all.
It was true that energy and aptitude was important when participating in sports, but that wasn’t the only thing necessary. One also needed to have determination. Some of the athletes he knew from high school were a good example of this. It’s not to say that everyone could get by with determination alone, but it was at least something that could make up for the parts that you were lacking.
“Hm? Well you don’t have to drink it by itself right? You could always drink milk with something else. Make a smoothie or eat cereal?”
Cookies and milk was a good idea too. Mac and cheese? What else can you put milk into? Pancakes? Does milk go into that?
“I think the majority of it is genetics though. My family is full of tall people. Exercise is pretty good for growth too?”
“No—–o!” Kyouhei fake sobbed and allowed himself to drape over the countertop, next to the large cups of inviting smoothie. “I didn’t mean to snap, honest. No need to be sensitive about the topic of height on my part!”
It really wasn’t a big deal, it was all low blood-sugar levels in Kyou’s opinion. A good old sip would solve all his problems. And so he solved his problem with a large gulp of ice cold and delightfully smooth snack.
“I think I just got the short end of the genetic stick. Both my parents are of average height for their uh… their ethnicities, but here I am, not even five and a half feet, and… complaining too darn much about something I can’t fix!”
He wasn’t gonna be a negative Nelly about this. No way. Not on a night that demanded community and work ethic!
He meant exactly what he said. The ‘others’ were the other Ayakashi and animals that weren’t very happy to have a human intruding into their space and making a ruckus with the volume of his voice. There were a few who were excited to see a human because don’t you know that some Ayakashi consider humans to be delicacies?
“Yeah? Sounds like you may have been spirited here by a mischievous Ayakashi. You don’t look hurt, so it should be a small prank.”
Maybe another Tanuki? He wouldn’t be too surprised if that were to be the case. It was their job to trick people after all. Even he was tricking Kyouhei by making him think that he was another human.
“I’m Mizumachi. I got separated from my friends. I think they ditched me. I guess when you’re young you want to be reckless, haha! Come on, I’ll help you get out of this forest, just follow me.”
Whether you trusted him or not was up to you, Kyouhei. It would be better for you to do so or another Ayakashi may just ghost you away.
Ayakashi? Wait. Wait, wait, hold up, hol’ on… Ayakashi? Kyouhei felt the word crawl up his back like an adventurous hand, nails long but only ghosting over his skin… And, well, who could blame him?
The idea that he could’ve been hurt meant virtually nothing to him, not compared to the thought of staying unhurt in this situation. He was in a vulnerable position.
“N… nice to meet you, although the circumstances are a bit…” The brunet trailed off and drew a little closer, eyeing up his “rescuer” carefully. Even though he had little to no options – actually, his options were to go with Mizumachi or get lost – he wasn’t about to get snatched up by anything else.
“I’m Kyouhei. Thank you for being willing to lead me to safety.”
Mizumachi looked over the Mer with his clear blue eyes with a friendly smile on his face. It was not too often when someone would remember to come and greet him as the Master of the River. Respect was something that didn’t seem to be taught now a days. It was good to know that some out there still valued polite protocol.
“From the Bermuda Triangle, is it? That is quite some distance. The waters there more turbulent than the ones here, so you shall find it easy to get along here. Though boring it may be in comparison, the waters are friendly.”
It was the humans who weren’t so friendly, unfortunately. From what he’s seen thus far (though minuscule), the Mer was an agreeable lad. It would be just fine to allow him to take up short residence in his territory.
Motioning for the young Mer to come closer, he extended a hand, long fingers opened invitingly. If Kyouhei was going to be a guest in the territory then the current residents had to know he was welcomed. That was easy enough by giving Kyouhei a seal, which Mizumachi did by kissing the back of the hand.
“I will allow you to take short residence in these waters. Come closer to I may give you my seal proving that you are welcome here. I am the master of these Waters and most call me Mizumachi, it’s a pleasure to meet you, young one.”
Kyouhei couldn’t help but hold himself still and at rapt attention in the face of the water diety. Despite the fact that this one looked friendly as could be, he knew that diety’s often reflected their environment.
Water was an unpredictable and merciless element, and so most masters were the same, changing on a whim.
“Ah, it is but I felt that a change of scenery was necessary…” His general attitude was being received well, that was good! He still shied away from giving up too many details. “Thank you, I’m sure I’ll enjoy these waters.”
He offered up his hand, not quite resting it in the hand of Mizumachi but letting a little water separate the obvious warmth there, as was often more comfortable than skin-on-skin contact.
“Thank you once again. I’ll do my best to follow your example while in these waters.”
[水] - They were like potato nuts. He was now imagining potatoes being added into trail mix for people to munch on while they were going hiking. It was full of carbs so it would give you lots of energy. Potatoes are really big though, so they wouldn’t be very travel friendly.
“Potato nuts, heh. Makes me want to replace all nuts with potatoes.”
Just to see what would happen, of course.
With Kyouhei’s reaction to being called short, Mizumachi was taken aback. Thinking on it, he could guess why he was upset by it. The blond has always been on the taller side, so he couldn’t really understand how anyone who was short felt about their vertical challenges. Looks like he may have offended his friend with the comment he made nonchalantly without thinking much on his words.
“Ah… sorry dude, I didn’t mean anything by it. Just saying you were short compared to me, but lots of people are. You’re average in height and that’s fine. Some of the best athletes I know are your height or shorter.”
He used to look down (figuratively speaking) on people who were shorter than him, but after playing football with many teams, he started to realize that height wasn’t the only quality one needed as an athlete. Skill, heart, and strategy was needed. He didn’t see shorter athletes as being beneath him. Mizumachi respected all of them.
“Haha, I was born this way! Though I guess drinking lots of milk would help?”
Well, if all nuts were replaced by potatoes… he wouldn’t have to worry about his allergy anymore, maybe? Wait, wait, it couldn’t be that simple, right? His allergy was something he’d always lived with and had had to take precautions against… but just removing them altogether… would his body, just on policy, develop an allergic reaction to another food?
Ah, crap, he’d snapped. Kyouhei wasn’t used to playful poking at his height and so he’d reacted defensively… Mizumachi didn’t even have anything to apologize for!
“Aha, it’s fine, ‘Machi, my fault for getting all prickly. I know you wouldn’t tease me about something I can’t help with the purpose of hurting me. You’re too nice for that.” Too nice and… how could Kyou say that his tall friend didn’t seem smart enough to bully someone without accidentally insulting him?
That was interesting. The brunet had never dared to get invested in any sports because one; he was short for his age all across the globe and two; sports seemed like something you needed a lot of energy and aptitude to participate in.
“Makes me think of a song, but I can’t recall it completely.” He let out a soft huff and then tilted his head back, eyebrows furrowed. “Milk, huh? Can’t say I like milk by itself all that much.”
Mizumachi was sniffing the air, catching the scent of
someone new in the woods. Not a very familiar scent at all. Smelled… too clean.
The forest was abuzz with energy with all the inhabitants of the forest being
disturbed by this ‘intruder.’
Stalking between all the trees, he stopped to see the image
of a human. Quite rare to find someone around these parts. Many humans have
stopped coming this far for some reason. Perhaps it was all the inhabitants
that were scaring everyone away. What was it? Courage testing? Something like
that. Curious about what this human was doing, Mizumachi focused on the
features of frightened human to mimic his appearance the best that he could.
He ended up very tall. Maybe this was because even among the
others of his kind he was a large tanuki? Was that way he was ridiculously tall
as a human? Should he like adjust the height a bit more to make him look a bit
less intimidate—oof! Too late.
“Haha! You’re a funny
one! I won’t kill ya. The others here might, but I won’t. They’re just a bit
restless because you’re trespassing into their territory.”
The tanuki-turned-human was looking all around at the
rustling branches of the trees, and listening to the howling of the wind.
“So what were you
even doing here anyways? Some courage test?”
The others? What was that supposed to mean? Kyouhei was on the verge of tears, the only thing keeping him from falling to his knees and bursting into stressed tears was the exhaustion.
“I wouldn’t be here willingly unless someone threatened my life!” He protested, hands wringing his shirt anxiously. “I woke up here- I have no- Who even are you???”
Whoever they were, they were extremely tall. If the brunet felt more confident about his estimation abilities, he would say this guy was at least twice his size and looked like he could easily Supplex the lost student.
“Who would come here on a courage test, aside from some species of complete idiots….”
River Guardian!au /w mer!au Kyouhei @qtpie-kyouhei Let me know if you want anything changed!
How unfortunate it was that humans would begin by worshiping you and revering you as some God, to then completely forgetting about your existence and treading onto your territory. With humans’ desire to gain more territory, he was losing land that he looked over. Parts of the river were being damned. It was affecting not only his health but also his power. Mizumachi was the Guardian Spirit of the River and he had been watching over many generations come and go during his time, and was now unsure of how much longer he’d be able to do so.
As of right now the only ones who knew of his existence were a sparse number of humans who still had ‘the sight’ but also Ayakashi. To most, he looked like an odd visage of some silver fish– one almost too large for the river it occupied. To others with the sight, he looked to be a giant human wearing a silver Kimono adorned with golden and blue decorations.
With long, polished nails, glassy blue eyes, a pale complexion complete with delicate shimmering scales that were dotted all along his skin. In between his fingers were webs which likely served the purpose of helping him swim through the water. His feet? Well, he had no feet, but he had fins. A beautiful dark blue fin that shone in the water– if you could even bare witness to such a sight and see him as anything more than a simple oversized-fish.
He watched over all of the river’s inhabitants and sometimes he’d come across some of them such as Merpeople. They were quite rare now a days as many lived in seclusion or were hunted by humans for their blood or their meat. Apparently humans believed those to grant them eternal life? What a grand fallacy.
Feeling a small disturbance in the water near him, he looked over to see one such merperson swimming up towards him. Perhaps he had a guest who wished to greet him?
While many might think traveling or migration to be a waste of time, Kyouhei would often revel in his ability to traverse wherever his home (the water) touched, from the great blue seas to the freshwater rivers… It was worth the danger, most of the time.
Of course, it was only good manners to ask permission from the local deity before traveling in and through unknown territory. That and it was safer, to have the most powerful thing in the water aware of you.
Good thing they weren’t too difficult to find, especially not when the area was smaller. Which was actually a little worrying. Maybe he should help out before moving on through?
The basic-appearing Mer, with dark brown pupils and sclera the color of volcanic sand, skin pale as the water reflected most of the suns rays and he spent only the least amount of time out of the water, fluttered his navy blue tail at an easy pace until he was settled close to where the river guardian sat, scratching absently at a patch of scales that decorated his lower-left abdomen.
“Ah, Master of the River… I’ll be lingering about your territory and came to you for guidance, as well as to introduce myself.” Kyouhei dipped his head, hands clasped in front of him nervously.
“I am Kyouhei, originally from the Bermuda Triangle in the Atlantic Seas. I pray you’ll allow me short residence here!”
By the dictionary’s definition of “lost”, (unable to find one’s way; not knowing one’s whereabouts), Kyouhei was confoundingly lost and near hopeless in his exploits to become unlost.
Mostly because he was also lost to the way he’d become lost - last he remembered he’d decided to take a break from work and had curled up over his books, not intending to pass out, but….
What else could explain him waking up in what seemed to be the definition of a haunted forest. The shadows, the lack of anything green, the crooked stone paths, the mist… the ambiance, in other words, was slowly causing him to panic.
Nervous is his efforts to keep moving along the barely distinguishable path, Kyouhei tried not to let every sudden, unexplainable noise or oddly shaped shadow get to him, and mostly succeeded until he turned a sharp corner and bumped right into someone.
“Oh god, please don’t kill me I don’t wanna die here-” slipped out on instinct as Kyouhei stumbled back, eyes wide with fear (he was unable to deny it at this point) and body shaking like a leaf as a whole.
[水] - Haha! A beach-y person. That’s one way to term it. He loved being in the water as much as he loved being on the football field.
"I guess you could say that? I love the water. Though I also love the football field. Guess you can consnider me a water giant who plays football, haha!“
There was something much like a beach a distance away, but for someone like Mizumachi, it was always well worth the travel. He just considered it to be something like a fun adventure. Travelling to the beach was nothing compared to taking a flight to the US for the sake of football for the ‘American Football Youth World cup’. That sure was a great time, it was!
It was always a mystery to a lot of people how he could be as energetic as he was. He ate a lot of food as expected of an anthlete and he just practiced very hard, and his body was quite used to working hard every day to break down and build itself to be even stronger. It wasn’t as though they met up every single day for practice so it was a game of balancing time to be honest.
Not to forget that depending on the time of the year it was and the seasons, some clubs would go on break. You can’t expect kids to be swimming in pools in the winter time after all. If the school was blessed to have an indoors pool, it was fine, but not every institution was quite that lucky.
"Nhaaha! Yep! I’m working towards what I want to do. For now I want to continue being an athlete. I don’t plan on quitting just yet. Well, let’s get going! If we stick around too long, it’ll get dark.”
Mizumachi playfully saluted back and he started to lead the way back towards the dorm, going through a different route that Kyouhei took to get here. Mizumachi took different routes all the time to see something new and interesting.
“So sporty things in general interest you?” Swimming and football were the two most sporty activities Kyouhei could imagine, and since Mizumachi looked like he could knock the freshman over with a finger, it wasn’t too hard to imagine him on a field.
… Did that make him the nerd in this situation? Science was a pretty nerdy thing, so it did fit, this metaphorical boot he himself created in that very moment.
Before he could ask, he realized they were talking more about school than sports now, and that they needed to get going. Settling into an easy pace next to Mizumachi was easy, although he had no idea where they were going.
“I’ll probably stick with what I have too.” It wasn’t like he was a risk taker, after all, and he felt like it would be a pain if he started over with another major in mind. “And thanks for taking me back.”
[水] - Yep! Just about anything was good with Mizumachi. He didn’t have any complaints or anything to give with what he’d added to the blender so he kept quiet as he watched Kyouhei preparing the smoothie. With the smaller male almost running into his arm, the athlete lifted his arm up and out of the way so he didn’t run headfirst into his bicep.
“Yeah? Where do they come from then? Are they like potatoes?”
Mizumachi wasn’t allergic to anything himself so he didn’t know firsthand what it was like to suffer an allergic reaction. He could only assume that it seriously sucked. He was going to have to be careful around Kyouhei then if he had peanuts with him. Don’t want to hurt your friend after all.
“Nhaa~ Sounds good! We should set up a trip one day! I can show you around the beach!”
With a big grin, he moved in close to wrap an arm around Kyouhei’s shoulders. A bit of a reach… and a stretch, mind you but that’s okay! He’s flexible enough to pull it off. Okay no, just less than a minute of this was starting to hurt with the awkward posture he had to twist his body into.
“You’re pretty short, huh?”
Sometimes Mizumachi just spoke without thinking much on what he was saying. He didn’t mean anything by it, but it was true that Kyouhei was just ‘short’ in comparison to Mizumachi.
Cheeks puffed out slightly in embarrassment, Kyouhei mumbled a quiet thanks at Mizumachi for moving at the last second and slipped over to his cabinet to snag some large cups, perfect for big drinks.
“I think so…?” They grew out of the ground, right? Or something equally odd. He nearly snorted while putting his answer together. “Yeah, they’re the potato nuts.”
A beach day… that sounded really nice, actually. Kyouhei was already imagining how the sand would feel under his toes, how the salty breeze would hit his face when Mizumachi brought him into a bit of an awkward side hug.
“Ghck!” Kyouhei coughed, nearly dropping the cups but managing to land them both on the counter. “Yeah! I’m short! That’s fine! It’s great, I’m just. I’m not even five and a half feet tall, was there something you were trying to say?”
This was all said with his palms steadily dragging down his cheeks, which not only made some of the words slur together but also steadily stretched his face out so that when he looked up at Mizumachi to confront him, it looked like he was pouting. And he was.
“… you’re really tall, man. What is your secret? Please tell me.”