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As Toshirou walked up to the front desk of the aquarium, he could already see the apologetic smile forming on his face before the employee at the desk even looked up at him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, tone polite but firm, “we’re closing very soon and aren’t taking any new guests. We open again tomorrow at-“
“I know.” Toshirou hunched his shoulders awkwardly, hands shoved in the pockets of his black jeans. “I’m, uh. Here to see a member of staff.”
The employee paused at that, and flicked his sunglasses down his nose in a surprisingly smooth movement – revealing dark, cobalt blue eyes – to visibly look him up and down.
Then he clapped his hands together, a delighted smile brightening his expression.
Why was he wearing sunglasses indoors anyway? It wasn’t that bright. If anything, it was really fucking dark in here.
“Oh! You’re the boyfriend.” His eyebrows waggled.
Toshirou couldn’t decide which was worse – the eyebrow waggling, or the implication that he’d already cemented himself into the aquarium staff lore.
Gintoki had sworn he’d be subtle.
Something of this must have shown on his face, because the employee laughed loudly and waved a hand in a don’t worry about it gesture.
“It was always gonna be a big deal,” he explained as he stepped out from behind the desk, started walking down one of the darkened corridors and beckoned Toshirou after him. “Kintoki has never brought anyone here, never mind one of his paramours.”
“Kintoki?” Toshirou repeated, baffled. Then, “paramour?”
The employee laughed again. Actually, now that he was listening, it actually sounded like he was full-on ha ha haing.
He’d never heard anyone do that in real life; he’d assumed that no one did.
As they moved through the corridors, the employee – who introduced himself as Sakamoto a few minutes after was reasonably polite – pointed out certain fish in the tanks they passed and offered a few facts about each, seemingly not checking any of the information boards near each tank. There was a kind of natural tour guide energy to him, and it was putting Toshirou more at ease, even though this man was technically a stranger and he’d never really been good around people he didn’t already know.
(toshirou did consider asking if his leaving the front desk for so long was a good idea, but ultimately decided against it. not his company, not his problem.)
The place wasn’t deserted, but given how soon they would be closing there were very few customers – or as Sakamoto had termed them, guests – around.
A pair of young women – one with buns in her pink hair and carrying an umbrella, and the other with long dark hair wearing a traditional patterned kimono – were watching the jellyfish bob up and down near one of the infinity tanks, while in the tunnel a young man in glasses craned his neck to watch the sharks pass overhead.
“You’ve got more space than I thought,” Toshirou remarked, once they’d exited the tunnel.
They’d been walking for nearly fifteen minutes now down a mostly linear path, but they’d passed countless side-corridors that all seemed to meander further into the building, giving the whole place a labyrinthine feel. He had been here before – it was where he’d met Gintoki after all – but he didn’t remember it being quite this large last time.
Sakamoto chuckled, eyes hidden by his sunglasses. How he could see in the already dark corridors was a mystery.
“Everyone always says that!” He exclaimed, but didn’t elaborate.
As they got deeper and deeper into the aquarium, the already small number of guests dwindled further. Most of them had been heading back towards the entrance to begin with, so no one seemed to be left this far in anymore.
“The main tank is just through here,” Sakamoto said, veering sharply left into a corridor Toshirou hadn’t even seen in the gloom, marked only by red lighting embedded into the floor.
Abruptly he stopped, almost making Toshirou bump into him. He turned and lowered his sunglasses just enough that his wink was visible in the dull glow; it made his normally blue eyes gleam a bloody red.
“This is staff only, though,” he whispered, somehow both conspiratorial and laced with warning. “Don’t tell anyone. Ha ha!” His guffaw broke the strange spell that had come over them, and he moved ahead.
Toshirou waited until he’d pushed open the door at the end of the short hallway before releasing a breath.
Gintoki had said that his friends would be weird, but not this weird.
Following behind, he ducked under a few low hanging pipes that were definitely a health and safety violation and took in the room beyond.
The last time he’d been in here it had been packed with people, all facing the enormous fish tank which took up the entire back wall. 40 feet across and 20 feet high, with fish of varying species and size darting to and fro inside and all softly lit in dim blues and whites, it was instantly eye-catching.
Now, the room was almost completely empty, but for one notable exception.
Within the tank, drifting lazily on his back as tiny fish swirled around him and in full mermaid get-up, was Gintoki.
His fake tail was blindingly white, with a vaguely metallic sheen when he caught the lights just so, and blended into the skin of his torso with a completely imperceptible seam.
(toshirou had asked him about it, on their second date. demanded to know how the trick worked, how the tail looked and moved so naturally when it should be awkward and clumsy.
gintoki had just cocked his head, smiled small and secret, and changed the subject.)
Floating freely in the water, his hair was a feathery halo around his head, easily drawing the attention of any watching before they even realised it had happened.
Toshirou knew the feeling. That had been his first experience, after all.
If asked, he would deny that it had been love at first sight.
He somehow felt too old for stories like that now, in his late twenties and drudging his way through work and life. But he couldn’t deny that the second he’d laid eyes on Gintoki in that tank, performing one of his afternoon routines for the gathered crowd, that he’d felt something, a jolt low in his spine that had made him straighten.
When Gintoki had caught his eye where he’d been standing at the back of the room, somehow seeing through the people and the darkness, and crooked his fingers in a lazy wave, that jolt had turned into a spark.
Toshirou hadn’t even waited until the end of the performance.
He’d stalked out of the aquarium, cheeks burning for reasons he didn’t understand and refused to contemplate. But, before he left, he did snatch a flyer for the mermaid performances, unable to fully abandon the thought. That flyer was where he’d learned his name, and subsequently found it impossible to clear the image of that stranger floating in the tank, body curved into a silvery half-moon that seemed to glow under the lights.
The next day, during the quieter early morning performance, he’d watched the whole thing through and studiously avoided Gintoki’s gaze whenever he thought it might be turning his way.
It had been the third time that Gintoki followed him out – hair dripping rivulets down his neck and from where his hair was plastered to his cheeks – flashed a cocky grin that had too many sharp teeth to be natural, and teased about when he was finally going to muster the courage to ask for his number.
Toshirou had sworn at him, then took the proffered phone with only slightly trembling hands.
Getting the attention of such an attractive man, and so soon, was an unusual experience for him and he hadn’t wanted to fuck it up. Not when something about him seemed so dangerous, so other-worldly even in the broad light of day.
Thankfully, it turned out that his nerves had been spectacularly misplaced.
Gintoki was both an insufferable bastard and a massive nerd, abrasive and loud but not in the typical way of an extrovert. In fact, he could blend into the background very well, when he wanted to.
As soon as Toshirou had realised this – approximately three dates into their tentative relationship – he’d relaxed, and everything had gone much easier after that.
Now, a month on, he could confidently say that Gintoki was one of the people he was closest to – never mind the already short list, and the fact that he would be incredibly hesitant to say that to the man in question.
Tonight, however, was the first time Gintoki had actually asked him to meet him after work.
Usually he requested that they meet elsewhere, for various reasons that tended to boil down to if my colleagues met you they would never let me live it down and I might actually die.
Toshirou knew not to take offence at this; Gintoki had explained at length after a notably frosty dinner that it wasn’t that he was ashamed of him, but that everyone he worked with took an excessive interest in his personal life and he tried to keep crossover to a minimum.
Either he’d been worn down by constant requests or something else had changed, because now here Toshirou was.
In the tank, Gintoki rolled over and noticed him, breaking into a giddy grin. Waving in his direction with a hold on gesture, he swam up to the surface and out of view.
“Oi, Kintoki!” Sakamoto yelled, as if he could be heard, “you’re still on the clock!”
“When has that ever stopped him?”
Toshirou jumped at the unfamiliar voice, and turned to find a man who had apparently followed them through the staff entrance.
With long dark hair pulled into a ponytail at the nape of his neck – some strands hanging loose and framing his face – glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, and a cream turtleneck, he looked more like an academic than an aquarium worker.
“Zura!” Sakamoto spun around, apparently entirely unsurprised to find him there, and drew him into a hug.
“It’s Katsura,” the man said with the air of someone cycled through various levels of annoyance at being misnamed. After an eye roll in Toshirou’s direction, he added, “get off, buffoon, we saw each other at lunch.”
“Ha ha ha!” Despite his gaiety, Sakamoto pulled away and absently brushed Katsura’s hair behind his ear. Unexpectedly, considering his earlier annoyance, he put up no resistance to this.
“So.”
Both of them turned to look at Toshirou, Sakamoto’s hand coming down to rest on Katsura’s shoulder and absently brush a thumb against his neck. Under the unnerving gazes, he resisted the urge to bristle.
“You’re Hijikata Toshirou, yes?” Katsura continued, unminding of the hand on his shoulder. “Gintoki’s lover.”
Toshirou coughed. First paramour and now lover, what next? Companion?
“Yeah.”
“Gintoki didn’t tell us much.”
“Nope!” Sakamoto added cheerily. “Ah, what did he say again? ‘I’ve got a boyfriend now, fuck off?’”
Toshirou winced. When Gintoki had relayed this exact story to him, he’d been half-hoping it had been made up. No such luck.
“Gintoki’ll probably be a while cleaning up.” Katsura’s expression was polite but entirely unwelcoming, even if the effect was somewhat mitigated by Sakamoto practically hanging off of his shoulder. “Why don’t you wait in the office, while we close up? He’ll go there first anyway.”
Having no real reason to refuse, other than getting the creeps from both of them, Toshirou nodded and followed.
The two of them led him back into the staff corridor they’d been in earlier and around a corner he could have sworn hadn’t been there before; there seemed to be a whole network of corridors and doorways for staff use only that wound around the belly of the building. Silent but for the occasional rattle of a pipe and the clatter of boots against the metal grate flooring and with dim lighting, it was unnecessarily eerie.
“Hijikata-san,” Katsura said, catching his attention. He was looking over his shoulder at him as he walked, though seemingly having no difficulty finding his footing without sight as an aid. “Tell me about yourself. What do you do?”
Feeling distinctly like he was at some kind of interview, Toshirou ran a finger around the collar of his shirt.
“I’m a police officer. With the Met.”
Katsura tilted his head. “A police officer,” he repeated, tone inscrutable.
From behind him, Sakamoto made an excited noise, rather like a puppy that had found a new toy.
“’Guarding the Shogun’s bathroom’ kind of police officer, or ‘chasing murderers down back alleys’ kind of police officer?”
Toshirou grimaced. “These days there’s not much of a difference.”
“Boo. Boring.”
“It’s my job.” He couldn’t help feeling a bit defensive. He loved what he did, and was committed to doing it right, when and where he could.
Katsura hummed indecisively, then swerved into a narrow corridor with a well-lit door at the end.
The change in lighting was so sudden it made Toshirou blink rapidly and squint against the brightness.
“Mind your step,” Sakamoto warned.
Indeed, underfoot was a tangle of pipes and cables in the greatest concentration he’d yet seen; whatever they were connected to, wherever the electronic heart of the building was, must be close by.
“Ever heard of health and safety?” He grumbled as he moved forward, eyes fixed on the floor.
To keep his balance, he rested a hand on one of the nearby pipes, glad that whatever was inside wasn’t boiling hot.
He could have sworn, however, that he felt it groan and move at his touch, and that the metal depressed ever so slightly under his fingers, like it was soft.
Snatching his hand free, he hurried along faster.
This building was fucking creepy; how Gintoki worked here he had no idea, but he wanted out as soon as fucking possible.
On the other side of the door, at least, everything seemed normal enough.
Inside was a relatively small office, furnished with a sagging metal desk in the centre of the room which was surrounded by eight cheap folding chairs, a small kitchenette tucked in the corner, and a large corkboard along the back wall which seemed to be filled with photographs, certificates, and other documents which seemed related to the actual work at hand.
Like every other office Toshirou had ever set foot in, everything looked both completely overused and like it had never been touched in the entire time it had been in the building.
It was the only normal part of the aquarium he’d seen yet.
Strangely, there didn’t seem to be any other entry into the room, but at this point Toshirou wasn’t too surprised. It would have been weirder if there had been another door.
“We’ll send Gintoki your way,” Katsura was saying, hovering by the doorway. He’d not stepped inside, merely holding the door open for Toshirou to pass. “Please wait here.”
In bright light for the first time, Toshirou found him examining him anew.
Something about him seemed extremely familiar, but the glasses and hair were throwing him off. Had he seen a picture of him somewhere before? Perhaps in the back of one of Gintoki’s photos on his phone.
But then, why did he feel like he’d seen it at work?
“Sure.” He shuffled his feet. Added a, “thanks,” for lack of anything else to say.
“If you leave, then remember.” From this distance Sakamoto’s eyes were obscured, and all Toshirou could see was the reflection of himself in the lenses of his sunglasses. “Don’t get lost. Ha ha!”
With that he waved goodbye, Katsura simply nodding curtly, then they closed the door, leaving him inside. He thought he caught the beginnings of a harshly whispered conversation – “you didn’t tell me Gintoki was dating a cop!” “How was I supposed to know!” – but it trailed off before he could get a proper grasp on it.
With nothing else to do, he settled himself on one of the chairs and waited.
It took him a minute or two to realise there was no clock in the room – not even on the ancient microwave, which was apparently unplugged – so he was forced to check his phone every time he wanted to see how long it had been.
Whether as a consequence of him checking it so often, or whatever the fuck else seemed to be going on in this place, time seemed to crawl in here.
He glanced through a rack of old leaflets on the wall – leafing through each one before putting it back – then glanced at the time and was shocked to learn it had barely been five minutes. It should have been much longer, shouldn’t it?
Feeling antsy and uncomfortable, he went over to the corkboard to examine the photos.
Though nosy by nature and profession, he avoided looking too closely at the documents pinned up at random intervals; he didn’t like the idea of unnecessarily pissing off either Katsura or Sakamoto.
Each was clearly commemorative of some event or other – some were birthdays, others staff leaving parties, occasionally the successful breeding of a rare species – going back all the way to the opening of the aquarium. In some of the newer ones he actually recognised Katsura and Sakamoto, as well as the girl with buns in her hair and the boy with glasses he’d passed by earlier. Perhaps they were volunteers.
All perfectly normal for a business that had been open as long as this one, but something was…off.
Toshirou frowned at the wall. Squinted at the older photographs.
Blurry patches in the corners, shadows in the background darker than they should be, and, in some of the group photos, a staff member who never fully showed their face; none of it made any sense. Whenever he tried to focus on the abnormalities and see past them, it was like they washed right over his brain.
No matter how hard he tried, they never stuck.
He shook his head and approached the question from a different angle.
Why would the owner of the aquarium proudly display such consistently poor quality photographs? Surely there were better versions available?
Toshirou found himself leaning closer to one of the oldest photographs; the one where the blurry patch was the largest of them all, approximately human-sized. Perhaps if he was so close that there was nothing else in his field of vision, he would finally be able to focus on it.
A headache started to pound at his temples as he stared, but it was working. The blurry patch was becoming clearer!
Nose centimetres from the paper – the smell of ink and must and, weirdly, salt filling his nostrils – he watched as vague nothingness formed into colour and shape.
Tall, humanoid, and silver.
Silver.
That was important. Why?
Why couldn’t he remem-
“Boo!”
Toshirou jumped violently, falling away from the wall of photographs and into the side of the kitchenette, elbow colliding painfully with the kettle and sending it skittering across the countertop with a painful screech.
Standing in the entrance, smug as ever, Gintoki leaned against the doorframe.
“Those old things that interesting?”
“Your fault for leaving me here for so fucking long. Had to do something,” Toshirou groused, brushing himself off. He could barely even remember what he’d been looking at so intently; the memory was slippery when he tried to grasp onto it, and soon what had been so important now seemed insignificant.
It was all Gintoki’s fault; the man was a walking distraction.
Though Toshirou technically saw him in fewer clothes than this semi-regularly, there was something about the fit of his t-shirt – the way it stretched across his chest and shoulders – that emphasised his muscles more than if he’d been completely naked.
When he raised an arm to flick the leather jacket in his hand over his shoulder, the fabric rode up just enough to reveal a sliver of skin.
Toshirou only realised he was staring when Gintoki cleared his throat, a knowing look in his eyes.
“Yeah?” He said leeringly.
“Shut it.” Toshirou coughed and looked away. His cheeks felt warm, and he wished there was a fish tank nearby he could shove his face into and cool down. “We leaving or what?”
“As his majesty commands!” Gintoki bowed with an unnecessary flourish, stepping aside to free up the doorway.
“You’re a bastard.”
“A bastard you like.”
As he passed by, Gintoki swung behind him and wrapped himself around Toshirou – hands around his waist and chin hooked over his shoulder – who tensed at the contact but made no effort to push him off. Even when he felt Gintoki’s perpetually cold fingers snake under his shirt, skimming the skin and leaving icy trails in their wake, he didn’t try to stop him.
It felt good, too good for him to unnecessarily deny himself the sensation.
“Or am I wrong?” Gintoki persisted, voice low and breath puffing warm against his neck.
Again, Toshirou was reminded of the impression he’d had on meeting Gintoki properly for the first time; this man was dangerous, though it turned out not entirely in the way he’d been expecting.
(something tickled at the corners of his memory.
40 year old photographs. someone there who shouldn’t be, or at least not looking as young he did. skin brushed in inhuman silver. the corridor ahead which had been narrow and twisting and dark but now was wide and lit just like the rest of the aquarium.
then gintoki leaned into his peripheral vision and smiled at him again, the way he seemed to save for him alone, and the uneasy memories were obliterated once and for all.)
“So? Where are we going?” He leaned backwards into Gintoki, just a little, and was rewarded for his efforts by Gintoki’s voice rumbling against his spine like thunder.
“Oh, don’t worry.” One of Gintoki’s nails scratched ever so slightly into his skin, making him wince, then was soothed by the cool pads of his fingers. “You’ll like it.”
Toshirou had to crane his neck to meet his eye, but did anyway, intending to give him shit for being careless with his nails – and why did he even keep them that long anyway? – but stopped in his tracks on actually meeting his gaze.
Though they’d been doing this for nearly a month and a half now, it still took his breath away every time he took in just how fathomless Gintoki’s eyes were, the blood-redness of them seeming to go back and back and back to impossible depths that called to him like the sky to a pilot or the void to an astronaut; every time he went deeper, it became harder and harder to pull himself back.
When Gintoki finally blinked, eyes crinkling as his smile widened, Toshirou felt breath whoosh back into his lungs.
“I think,” Gintoki said, grip tightening around his waist, “that you’ll really, really like it.”
Toshirou opened his mouth to reply, but found no words would come.
“You ever been to the beach at sunset?”
Being a fields and woods kind of kid when he wasn’t shutting himself away indoors, he hadn’t.
“No?” Gintoki pulled an almost cartoonishly sad face, exaggerated but for how genuine it seemed to be. “A shame. But at least I get to see your reaction.”
“Okay.” His hands were still tracing Toshirou’s hip bone, and he was slightly embarrassed as the word came out breathier than he intended, when his already poor Tokyo accent slipped even further. “Should we be swimmin’ at night?”
For some reason Gintoki snorted, his laughter warm against Toshirou’s shoulder.
“Oh, don’t worry. We’ll be fine. Besides,” his voice turned flirtatious again, “I’ve got something I want to show you.”
“If this is an excuse to whip out your fuckin’ dick again-“
“That was one time.”
“Yeah, and once was enough.”
Gintoki tilted his head inwards, nose brushing the curve of Toshirou’s jaw just beneath his ear. “That’s not what you were saying when I-“
He cut off when Toshirou elbowed him in the stomach, but laughed it off.
“Like I was saying-” Gintoki actually nipped the skin of his neck between his teeth, making him suck in a breath. “You’ll like it. But it’s a secret.” The last words were hushed.
He frowned, but was finding it difficult to concentrate; the chill of Gintoki’s fingers was becoming more and more pronounced as Toshirou’s skin heated.
“What- ah, what kind of secret?”
Gintoki all at once lifted away from his back, leaving a void behind him. He had to dig his teeth into his lower lip to avoid making some kind of embarrassing noise.
Luckily, he made up for it by interlacing their fingers and pulling him along, pressing his index finger to his smiling lips.
“Secret,” he repeated in a loud whisper.
Toshirou rolled his eyes. “What secrets could you possibly have? You’re an aquarium mermaid.”
At that, Gintoki looked back again, dimple peeking through on his cheek, but didn’t elaborate.
“Alright,” Toshirou conceded, after almost a full minute of silence. “Keep your secrets, bastard.”
“Only for a bit longer, smartarse.” He squeezed his hand, eyes swirling in the deep blue light of the aquarium and hair even more silver than usual. “Then, you’ll know everything. I’ll show you the trick.”
That conversation from their third date flashed in his mind and a shiver went down Toshirou’s spine.
For some reason he couldn’t quite put his finger on, he felt like he was on the edge of something, some point of no return that loomed ahead in silver and crimson.
But he couldn’t resist. Couldn’t quite ignore the call, the twisting in his gut that happened every time Gintoki even so much as looked at him.
He had his hand around Toshirou’s throat, benevolent by whim alone, and yet he couldn’t pull away.
“Can’t wait,” he said, feeling Gintoki’s nails scrape lightly over his palm.
When he smiled at him – all teeth like that first day in the aquarium car park – he swallowed, pushed forward, and forced himself to not look back.