Ohno likes the smell of the sea.

His mind thinks in shapes, in three dimensions; his proudest artistic creations must be seen to be felt; and he has always been more preoccupied with the tangible—but the scent of the ocean brings him calm and awareness like nothing else. He can, and has, spent hours along the border of water and air, letting the warm sunlight dry his face and taking deep breaths through his nose to fill his lungs with that exquisite scent of salt and algae which reminds him: he loves the ocean. He loves everything about the ocean, even this.

This is how he describes it to the others when they ask him why he breaks for the surface so often, and it's all true.

It's just not the truth.

The truth is sitting at the pier again, like he does every now and then. He's alone this time, and Ohno prefers it this way. There is no movement except for the waves breaking on the shore; there is no noise save for the wind. The sun is still in the sky, but he can tell by the subtle shift of the currents that sunset will be upon them soon.

In this stillness, with the boy's attention trained on the horizon, Ohno can pretend that they understand each other, that the few centimetres between the boy's dangling limbs and the water were just that.

---

The first time was an accident, the way most beginnings were.

Ohno was, as he was wont to do, floating amongst the foam in a frivolous form of passing time. The lazy pull of the waves lulled him into a state halfway between conscious and not, and he did not notice that he had reached the far end of the pier until his hip collided with one of the wooden posts propping it above the water. He pouted and grumbled and frowned at the wood but decided to take it as his cue to return home. Midday meant it was time for midday meals, after all.

Just when he was about to dive back underwater, a lilting humming sound from further down the pier caught his attention.

He didn't know noises could sound like that above water.

He quietly swam closer, the sound gradually became clearer, and he nearly broke the unspoken taboo against being revealed to land-dwellers just to satisfy his curiosity. The source of the charming melody was a human boy.

The perched body was all angles, decidedly bony but somehow not sharp. From his face to his limbs, soft curves capped each corner the same way running water leaves its mark on a stone. The colour of the fabric that covered his torso reminded him of a specific fish he loved to watch in the corals. In his head, Ohno dubbed the boy Tang.

Whatever plans he had for going home were quickly capsized by his new discovery, nothing but sight and sound mooring him to the pier.

He was there for hours.

Tang would switch between unenunciated notes and whispered syllables and full-out vocals for a melody entirely of his own creation, fingers twitching all the while as if that was where the sound was coming from. Every now and then, his position would shift into a new, convoluted arrangement of limbs that Ohno itched to impersonate if it weren't for his buoyancy and tail. It was a riveting performance, and Ohno became a fan.

But better than the concerts were the silences.

The next time Ohno found Tang at the pier, Ohno took his front-row seat for the show; but there was none that day. Instead, Tang simply watched the ocean, and Ohno watched him, eager to find a trace of his thoughts conveyed through his features. With his attention on the great beyond, could he see the same limitless possibility as Ohno did? Could he feel the same overwhelming sense of belonging? Alas, his face betrayed nothing, and Ohno liked that, too.

It was during such a visit that Ohno realised Tang never had an audience. There was no one and nothing else on the pier with him; on the blankness of that canvas, Ohno's imagination went wild.

Based on just a scant amount of observation and the tidal pull he felt from the moment he first heard the music, he conjured Tang's entire essence in his mind: Tang was bursting from the need to be recognised; he came to the pier not for a quiet reprieve but for a chance to unleash everything he was, to be whatever he felt like being that day; he was drawn to the border of the sky and the sea because it the closest he could get to a brink, a physical manifestation of sheer potential he wanted for himself.

But he was still alone, drifting, searching.

Ohno could understand Tang.

---

It all came crashing down, the way most fantasies did.

Ohno found Tang sitting at the pier again, like he did every now and then; but for the first time he wasn't alone. He brought three others: one of them calm like a fire goby but unafraid to show his personality; another slim, bright, and hardy the way chromis deceivingly are; and the final one was a royal gramma on land if Ohno had ever seen one.

He stayed farther out, hiding behind a convenient outcropping of rocks to watch Tang and his school dart around on the pier and along the narrow beach. They were a rambunctious, colourful bunch that reminded him of the guppies that liked to play hide and seek in the sandcastles he sculpted for fun back home. (With a start, he realised he hadn't made one in a while.)

It was different watching Tang like this. It hurt more, for reasons of which he wasn't entirely sure. Ohno didn't like the feeling. He decided he should leave, but a whirlpool of activity on the shore kept him stranded for a little longer.

Whatever game they were playing turned into wrestling on the sand, and a clear loser soon emerged. Fire Goby and Royal Gramma grabbed Tang by the arms, and Chromis had his feet. Together, they hefted Tang up and waded deeper into the water, easily ignoring his shouts of protest.

Ohno paid rapt attention. This was the closest Tang had actually ever come to the ocean. Sure, he was known to leave a few centimetres between his dangling limbs and the water, but there was no sturdy pier beneath him this time. The only things that kept him dry were his friends, and it was obvious to everyone how less longer that would last.

They swung—once, twice, and splash.

Call Ohno a romantic, but the ocean felt different with both of them in it for the first time. The tidal pull that had been a subtle but insistent influence since the beginning felt stronger than ever, and Ohno nearly broke the unspoken taboo against being revealed to land-dwellers just to swim closer, to see what Tang's hair looked like suspended underwater.

Then Tang sprung up like the water was boiling instead of the refreshing temperateness of mid-summer, and he angrily made for the shore. He didn't even stop once he reached the site of the group's belongings; his friends had to chase after him in order to catch up. Ohno was able to swim closer and hide under the pier in their distraction.

Gone was the fun, relaxed atmosphere of the day, instead replaced with defensive aggression Ohno would recognise in any wounded prey. Words were exchanged, but Ohno didn't need to know what the specific syllables meant. From the tense, shivering Tang to the placating others, the prank was not taken well at all. It was obvious from the desperate hug of his arms around his chest and misery visible on his face that Tang hated the water.

Somehow, it felt like a personal rejection.

The beach outing did not last long after that. The others wrapped Tang up in fluffy rectangles of fabric and took turns staying by his side as they packed up all of their belongings in one of those moving metal things that land-dwellers needed since they couldn't swim.

Chromis had busied himself with picking up spare pieces of trash as they readied to leave, and it took him longer than it probably should have to notice the others were going without him. In his rush to catch up to them he tripped, sprawling both limbs and miscellany onto the sand.

It was the first time Ohno had ever heard Tang laugh, and then they were gone.

The only one left was Ohno, gaze affixed on the shore as if there were still something to observe.

The ideas about Tang which Ohno had built up in his mind crumbled like sand, leaving him with nothing but a memory of what was once there and a reminder that the closeness he felt between them was entirely manufactured.

Tang may have been alone, but it was by choice. Tang may have been shifty, but he was well-anchored. Tang may have been searching for something when he visited the pier, but it certainly was never about the ocean itself. Today's observations made it abundantly clear.

Tang could never understand him.

---

That was a few moon cycles ago, and it says something that despite the uneven way his heart broke on that fateful day, he still came back for Tang. It didn't even take him seven nights to return to the pier. When Tang wasn't there, as it happened every now and then, Ohno worried for the first time that the prank had warded Tang off from ever returning.

As evidenced by Tang's presence today, that certainly was not the case.

Today must be another silent day. Ohno stays until the sun sets, but Tang hasn't spoken a word or hummed a tune that entire time. His attention remains trained on the rapidly changing colours of the sky, and Ohno's attention remains trained on him.

At first, he liked the silences because there was nothing in them to contradict the beliefs he made up about Tang's disposition, his interests, his proximity to Ohno's personality. Tang was as perfect for him as any made-up dream. That was the Tang he had fallen in love with.

Now, it's different. Ohno quickly decided he'll take whatever parts of Tang he can get without actually being able to reveal himself to the boy on the pier. If it only affected him, Ohno would have thrown caution to the current so many moons ago, sometime between the first time and the day he decided he didn't care what Tang is actually like—but this is bigger than him. It always has been. Now, the silences are special because they are the only thing he and Tang have ever truly shared together.

Ohno wants to change that.

Ohno wants Tang to know that if ever he was looking for something, there was in fact something to find. Even if he didn't expect anything from the ocean, the ocean had something to give him.

The problem, exactly, is what. (Ohno is known for his creativity, but he is not the sea's best thinker.)

By the time Tang leaves that night, nothing illuminates him but the moon's reflection of a sun they can no longer see, the shadows wrap around him like fluffy rectangles of fabric, and Ohno has an idea.

He's always been more preoccupied with the tangible.

---

There are usually a few days in between visits, but Nino plans to return to his beach very early the next morning. deciding on a whim to try to catch the sunrise since he was able to see the sunset last night. One would think that after all these months of coming to his pier, he would have seen the sun set from that vantage point already, but nope.

(This is, actually, what Sho thinks. He said as much last night, when Nino was first struck with the idea to invite the guys to join him. They all begged off for various reasons, which he more or less expected; but to Aiba's credit, he said he was interested. To Aiba's discredit, he was still sleeping when Nino called him this morning. Nino didn't bother calling twice; the sunrise waits for no man.)

He walks the familiar route to the small stretch of sand that he claimed for himself this summer. Despite the long, sturdy pier he's been hanging out on, he hasn't seen any boats. Despite the upkeep of the beach, he hasn't seen any people or any proof that others know this place exists any other time he's visited, which makes this place his.

Which makes the sight awaiting him there all the more startling.

The sandcastle is far enough from the water that the waves couldn't accidentally wash it away with the tide being as low as it is, and it's more intricate than anything Nino's ever seen before in his life. For certain, it was crafted, and not moulded; there certainly no moulds for something like this at any store Nino's been to. It must have taken the builder all night to even out the battlements atop the outer walls, to build towers as high as his waist, to plot a courtyard large enough for him to step into if he were confident enough that he wouldn't accidentally knock anything over in the waxing morning light. (He's not.)

This last thing is what reminds him that he left the comforts of his bedroom this morning with a goal, and a peek over at the horizon reveals he was moments away from accidentally missing it. He had previously intended to watch the day break at the end of the pier, but instead he sits where he stands. Being next to the sandcastle like this, it's like he has company.

Nino hasn't thought of the word 'resplendent' since he was in middle school, half-heartedly studying for a vocabulary quiz the next day; but as the sun greets him in a slow yet steady crescendo, there is no other description at the forefront of his mind.

Pinks and oranges that somehow seem softer than their setting counterparts chase away the dark blues of the sky in a way that reminds him of flute arpeggios before melting into a light blue sky that promises another balmy day of summer.

He turns to admire the sandcastle in the brighter lighting and finds details he missed the first time: individually-carved impressions of stones on the walls, spiraling staircases on the column of each tower, perfectly smooth shells and rocks for decoration, … a pier.

Not a drawbridge, no; the thing sticking out of the entrance portal is too long for that. Considering the attention to detail on every other part of the castle, the incongruity of the architecture choice has to be on purpose. He follows it to the end, almost reaching where the sand turns smooth, and finds clusters of doodles deeply grooved in the sand.

The first is plainly a fish, one with a boxy outline, triangular tail, and low pointed snout. He's no ichthyologist, but the shape of it kind of reminds him of the bright yellow fish he's seen in the aquarium at his dentist's office, and that's good enough for him.

The next kinda looks like a person laying down except the person's body is actually a pretzel, and he isn't even going to try to make further sense out of that one.

The last one is a mess of lines and curves that could maybe be a word, or possibly a signature. If it is, it's not a name he recognises, which is a shame. He'd love to meet whoever forged this impressive structure, let them know that someone out there saw their creation and appreciated it. The two of them could share this beach for the rest of the summer, if only Nino could figure out what their name is. He tries sounding it aloud, and all that comes out is,

"Ohno?"