A/n: Based in part off of sunsetfemke's (on tumblr) shark merman Jotaro! It's always good to have something a little more lighthearted, and in my opinion, things are just too fun to write when it's between these two.

I hope you enjoy!

Noriaki hummed a bit, even as the soles of his feet were already becoming sandy despite stepping onto the beach maybe one full minute ago. It was nearly amazing how quickly he was going to find himself with sand on his person for years after this, to the point where he would one day lay on his deathbed and particles of scratchy powdered earth would fall softly from the spaces within his wrinkles. This was his life now. Sand in every crevice for eternity. What a way to live.

Still, becoming one with the sand was worth it when he had a backpack full of various trinkets and candies and a mythical creature lounging on a rock just a meter from the shore.

Honestly, he didn't know how the hell he got this lucky- it wasn't every day that someone found out that mermaids were real, tangible things, and it sure as hell wasn't every day that someone found out it was mostly a secret from the rest of the world. Few people were trusted with the knowledge that someone like Jotaro even existed, and that was possibly the most exciting prospect of this, after he got over the initial fear of him possibly deciding that Noriaki would make a very appetizing main course.

"Jotaro! Good morning!" Noriaki called out, watching the dark head of hair lazily raise itself up. He watched as gills fluttered with an apparent huff, watched impassive, rather sleepy eyes watch him back for a moment, and then watched as the shark merman there lifted himself up on his black arms and then turned himself around.

Tail flicking in the water irritably, Noriaki only got an indistinct mumble in reply before Jotaro lowered himself back down on his rock to continue sunning himself. He must have eaten something especially filling, if this was what he was doing with his morning- either that, or he ate something that he really probably shouldn't have eaten. Both had happened before, since it was apparently instinctive for all sharks, whether with a human top half or not, to bite first and ask questions later. Apparently, it had been worse when Jotaro was a child, and he had far too many stories about biting into metal drums, plastic, the ankles of errant swimmers, the tails of his family and all sorts of assorted crap.

Still, that wasn't going to do right then. The both of them had made a previous arrangement here, and Noriaki was still very much awake, even if Jotaro didn't want to be. He took off the backpack (best to not risk losing it in the sea, especially since he was trying tempt Jotaro to the shore) before kicking off his sandals and tossing his shirt aside. He was already wearing swim trunks, so with that he unceremoniously waded into the water.

With how much sun there was, one would think that the water would be somewhat warm, but nope. Noriaki was in the process of having hell freeze over on every inch of his skin, and it didn't go away until he took a deep breath and dunked himself into the water to let himself get used to it. Even then, though, it took far too long to actually make it to Jotaro's little rock, where he pushed himself beside where the creature's mammoth form took up most of the space. What indicated more assholery- taking up so much space or invading someone's makeshift bed while they tried to sleep? Noriaki thought it was the former, obviously.

He poked Jotaro's back, directly wear a dark, star shaped birthmark was on the shoulder. "Oi. Jotaro. Jojo. The Little Mermaid, Tim Burton edition. Pearl of the Ocean. Swedish Fish. Star of the Sea…." Noriaki could go on with all the different horrific, increasingly mushy variations of nicknames for Jotaro, but before he could Jotaro gave a very human groan and then a very inhuman set of annoyed clicking from somewhere in his chest before he rolled over to face the intruder to his makeshift bed.

"It's too early." Jotaro complained gruffly, brows furrowing as he squinted up at Noriaki.

"No, it's not. Haven't you seen the sun?"

"Yea, and it's still too early. Come back when I'm not liable to chew you out." Jotaro snapped his jaws menacingly, the sharp teeth clicking together, but Noriaki had long ago stopped being frightened of the blatantly aggressive display.

"You said it yourself when we first met," Noriaki said airily, bending down a bit to bop Jotaro's nose with one fingertip and enjoying the disgruntled way his nose scrunched up. "I and every other human on earth tastes like 'utter shit'. The point was really driven home when you ate all my chocolates, wrapper and all, just to get the taste of my flesh out. It truly was the most poignant moment of any romance story that could ever be written." Jotaro huffed again, the ear fins on either side of his face fluttering just the slightest bit before Noriaki bent down and kissed the corner of his mouth. "Speaking of chocolates, though… you can't have any if you don't get up."

"..." Jotaro pushed himself up on his elbow, looking to Noriaki. "Caramel, normal ones, or that cherry shit?"

"Yes." Noriaki smiled brightly before Jotaro finally got himself up, then pushed himself off of his rock and into the water with a small splash. Then apparently not satisfied with the size of it, he surfaced again just to sweep his tailfin along the water and knock Noriaki off with a powerful jet stream of brine before darting to shore.

Noriaki floundered for a second before he surfaced, spitting stray water from his mouth as his bang stuck to his face. Asshole. Oh, but Noriaki would be sure to get him back soon. Before that, though, he swam back to the shore as well, standing once he got to the shallows and watching for a moment as Jotaro wiggled his way up the shore. It was always vaguely hilarious to watch, as without legs Jotaro had to dig his claws into the sand and shimmy his way to wherever Noriaki had himself situated on the bank. It was also pretty damn cute. Which was why Noriaki had made it a point to sit a little farther up the beach every time he visited, just to see Jotaro wiggle more.

He'd offer to help, but Jotaro liked doing things on his own, and even if he did help there was the little fact that due to biology flipping the middle finger at Noriaki in general, Jotaro quite literally weighed about a ton. It wasn't even an exaggeration- that was simply how big great whites were.

Once it got to where Jotaro had settled with his body mostly on shore and his tail clapping down against the water every once in awhile, apparently from boredom, Noriaki had his backpack open and was pulling out the little bag of chocolates and assorted other treats inside. No matter how stoic Jotaro tried to look, it was difficult to miss how that intense stare grew to be nearly starry eyed with that kind of excitement, and Noriaki knew from experience that whether or not there was plastic in the way didn't matter a lick to the merman- after all, it wasn't as if one could get chocolate in the ocean.

He made sure to unwrap the pieces of whatever brand this was before Jotaro unceremoniously plucked them from his hands and shoved them haphazardly into his mouth. It didn't take even half a second before it was all down, and when Jotaro opened his mouth to speak, there wasn't even a hint of brown staining the whites of the razors lining his jaws. "Thanks."

"There's more where that came from." Noriaki said before having to sadly shoot down the slightly eager look he was given, "No, no more chocolate- I just mean there's more in here that I've brought. A couple of trinkets from land."

Jotaro nodded, ducking his head down to try and see inside the bag before turning away. "Alright- then if we're really starting show and tell, I have some shit this time around. Hold on." And with that, Jotaro was once again wiggling himself down into the water, casting a very suspicious glance over at his little sunning rock. Noriaki frowned, eyebrows furrowing because he wouldn't put it past Jotaro to use him for sweets and run.

"Hey, you better not go back to sleep! I'm trying to spend time with you!"

"Good grief, I'm not, I'm not," Jotaro waved him off before diving into the water. Some air bubbles drifted to the surface and popped, and Jotaro didn't resurface again for a while. Probably doing something or other down below. Noriaki didn't know who might have found whatever Jotaro had stashed away, but he didn't really know much about the ocean in the first place. And sometimes, with some of the things that Jotaro told him, about things lurking in trenches and bioluminescent disasters of creation, Noriaki didn't think he actually wanted to know. He guessed there was a reason why he and others like him thought of going to the moon before going to the bottom of the sea.

Noriaki spent a couple minutes on shore, rooting through his bag for the things he'd brought. They were just small things that day- after spending a lot of time showing Jotaro the bigger things in the human world on his phone, he'd taken to buying and bringing little trinkets and souvenirs from the places he'd travelled with his parents in the past. Even then, though, he was starting to run out of things to bring, which was a shame. At the very least, Jotaro could be endlessly bought via food, so he would have to start bringing more and more of that.

He set aside the little toys and trinkets, feeling the ice cream mochis to make sure they hadn't melted yet just as a dark head of hair broke the surface, now clad in a torn school hat. Apparently Jotaro had always had that, and though Noriaki didn't know exactly how it got so tattered, he liked to imagine a tiny Jotaro chewing it up with wild abandon the same way a puppy does with a chew toy. Considering the fact that he was a literal anklebiter with a long history of biting things no one should bite, Noriaki was just going to accept this as fact until Jotaro tried to claim it was otherwise.

When Jotaro was wiggling himself back onto the shore, Noriaki noticed that whatever he'd brought seemed to be confined to a pretty big bag made of seaweed and miscellaneous fabric probably gotten from lost swimsuits or clothes dumped into the sea. Jotaro had tried to claim he found things from pirates once, but there was only so much bullshit Kakyoin could buy in life. Stupidly attractive shark mermen, a college admissions process that was slowly sucking the life out of him- sure, he could believe those. But a pirate ship like what Jotaro had tried to describe, with the massive wooden hull and black flag with the skull and crossbones? If Noriaki didn't know that Jotaro was aquatic based and had no access to television, he'd have said he was watching too many movies.

Finally Jotaro settled himself up to where Noriaki was settled (apparently not realizing that Noriaki had moved just the slightest bit up the bank, heh) and opened his little makeshift bag, casually pulling out… holy shit, where does Jotaro keep finding all these pearls?

It's not that Noriaki isn't thankful for them- because he is, he is exceedingly thankful for the treasure that Jotaro was slowly filling his little shoe box under the bed with, but if his parents or someone ever found them, how the hell was he going to explain where he found a dozen or so perfectly round and gleaming pearls on his own, and how the hell would he try to justify the fact that he hadn't sold them? He'd have to talk to Jotaro about that one day, but today was not that day.

Today's pearl was almost the size of a goddamn golf ball, giving off a warm golden tone in the light. Noriaki didn't even think that pearls this big actually even happened around Japan, but then again, it's not like he knew much about the ocean and it's secrets. Jotaro stared at him, face set in that stoic make that he always reverted to when he was trying to hide something, but there was no hiding the gleam of his eyes. Noriaki loved this enormous pearl, and even though it was going to be a pain in the ass to hide, he was definitely keeping it. He leaned over and pecked Jotaro, holding the pearl gingerly with one hand while he reached up and stroked one fluttering earfin with the other. "It's lovely, Jojo- one of these days, I have to find a way to pay you back for these."

Jotaro tried to look away, trying to hide his smile and flush under the brim of his hat even though his fins were still wiggling something fierce. "Don't. You don't have to pay me back, I mean. I got them for you, so don't do that."

"Thank you for clarifying," Noriaki teased, nodding sagely, "because if you hadn't specified that you got this for me, the only human boyfriend you have, I would have never guessed it."

Jotaro groaned, looking back to Noriaki with a little sour twist to his face. "You're still an awful person and you're lucky that I like kissing you."

"I'm wounded, Jojo. You have hurt me. I think I might just go fling myself from yonder cliffside into the unrelenting depths of the ocean for this betrayal. My love, it was good to know you while it lasted, but this is my final adieu- leaving behind a backpack full of melting candy and found dead in my ugliest swim trunks. It's how I want to be remembered for years to come."

"Shut up," Jotaro whined, bonking his head insistently against Noriaki's as he reached over for said backpack. "And if they're melting why exactly are we waiting to eat shit? Humans still don't make a damn lick of sense to me."

Noriaki snorted, and held the bag out of reach to dig through it himself without any prying eyes. Except Jotaro, damn him and his immense size, leaned over his back, pressing his front against Noriaki and rest his chin in red hair to watch anyway. Rude. Noriaki got out first the mochis, since they were most in danger of melting before the end of this, and then a little camel plush he'd gotten while in Egypt. While perhaps a little silly, it was relatively cheap, and it wasn't as if he or his parents had the time to really wait for anything like cartouche necklaces. He handed off one of the pastel ice cream balls to Jotaro and then set the toy in his lap. "People ride these things."

Jotaro bit down, perhaps too hard, into the ice cream treat, and Noriaki could feel him give a full body shudder before straightening up and picking up the fake camel. "... That sounds like bullshit. These are the dumbest looking things I've ever seen. It's… What's it called, exactly? It's pissing me off, whatever it is."

"Ah, right. You wouldn't exactly see them in the sea…" Noriaki smiled a bit, leaning over. "It's called a camel. They live in hot, dry places where almost no water falls, and they keep water in their humps so that they don't die of thirst, basically."

Noriaki waited a few moments while Jotaro examined the plush beast with careful fingers. Then, he muttered, "What do you mean, no water? That just doesn't make any damn sense. Everything needs water. If you don't have water you just have….. Dirt. What the hell kind of place is that, where it has just dirt?" He had gobbled down the last of his mochi in his agitation, and was already reaching for another.

"In some places, the place I went to was like a beach without any kind of ocean in sight. Just sand as far as the eye could see, without a drop of water. Sandy places like that are what we term as 'deserts', while the specific place I was in is a country called Egypt over in the northern most tip of Africa." Jotaro still looked skeptical, but Noriaki could understand that, in a sense. Just as the bottom of the ocean was an alien concept for him, the idea of a place as seemingly fantastical as a wasteland with no water must have been too farfetched to be true for Jotaro. "I'll pull up some pictures from my trip."

Noriaki reached into his bag for his phone, stuffing his mochi into his mouth for safekeeping away from Jotaro's errant hands. Jotaro occupied himself by wiggling his body into a new position, wrapping his arms around the human's waist and resting his chin on his shoulder to have a look. Noriaki scrolled through his pictures until he found the ones he was looking for, and then turned it sideways so Jotaro could see better. He pointed towards the sands stretching out in either direction, serving as a strange backdrop for an image of himself on horseback, a scarf tied over his head. "See? That's the desert. And would you look at that, it's me, riding an entire camel."

Jotaro's brows furrowed as he carefully observed the picture, eyes narrowing. "It's bigger than I expected…" Noriaki wasn't really a person- at 178 cm he was taller than most his age. So compared to the behemoth he had to ride, there had been a sort of fear before he managed to get onto its back. "What's it eat?"

"Plants, mostly, which is good news for us, eh." Noriaki said, smiling a bit at the morbidity of the idea of carnivorous camels. And the ridiculousness of it- who would end up being frightened by a couple of ridiculous looking mammals with humps on their backs? It sounded like the plot of an especially cringe worthy creepypasta. "Not that a camel would ever come here, if it was hungry and carnivorous. I don't think you'd be the type of meat that they'd be used to consuming if that were the case."

"I'd eat it first." Jotaro mumbled, to which Noriaki reached a hand up and patted his cheek.

"I'm sure you would, sweetheart. Now let's get on with eating the rest of these mochis- and by that I mean both of us don't you dare stuff them all in your mouth at once again, I'm still hungry as hell." Jotaro, who had indeed been about to do just that, dejectedly let the mochis roll away from him on the wrappers and Noriaki congratulated himself on preventing both brain freeze for his boyfriend and his own empty stomach.

Noriaki didn't know how long they ended up staying there, going over little alabaster pyramids and pictures of him standing in front of mummies and artifacts, but eventually the bag of tricks ran out, and he was all out of food to offer. Still, the day was warm in a way that didn't immediately make Noriaki want to peel his skin off and cool in a pit of liquid nitrogen, and even if they eventually had to shuffle down towards the shallows so that Jotaro didn't dry out too much they were still pleasantly wrapped around each other in the sands, full stomachs making a nap seem more and more like an option.

He was just carding his hand through Jotaro's wet hair, watching the merman get comfortable as he sunned himself, before he realized something. "You're a son of a bitch." He mumbled fondly, scritching behind Jotaro's ears. Said man's eyelids fluttered for a moment before he sat up a bit, turning his torso around to squint up at Noriaki.

"If I can't call my mother a bitch, you sure as hell can't." Noriaki snorted, then shook his head, gesturing up to the sand at the forgotten waterlogged bag of mismatched fabrics. Jotaro blinked for a moment, his brain catching up to the rest of reality, before he sat up fully. "Oh shit, I forgot I brought something today. Something more than the pearl."

Noriaki snorted, wiggling his fingers at Jotaro teasingly. "What, were you really so distracted by little old me? All I did was some storytelling, Jotaro. You really ought to pay more attention. Maybe the open sea air is starting to get to you. Why not come on land for a bit? I can let you live in my bathtub and we can tell my parents that I found you out in the shallows and just had to make sure that you were okay."

"Pfft, when pigs fly." Jotaro uttered, froze, and then looked away from Noriaki. "Uh. Bag. Better get it. There's something important in- that. Yea."

It took a moment to process what Jotaro had said and then Noriaki turned to where he was shimmying up onto the beach, reaching for the bag and pointedly not looking in the human's direction. "Wait a second- how the hell do you know what a pig is, Jotaro?" That would imply Jotaro having a knowledge of farm animals, and he'd been confused at the mere description of a horse…

"Heard- some sailors. A lot of sailors use the phrase, that's all." Jotaro said haltingly, then cleared his throat as if he'd been cool about this entire thing the whole time. "So the bag. This has something that I had to fight the old man at home for tooth and claw over, considering what it is. It's part of a larger set that's been in the family since the dawn of time, practically."

Jotaro slid down the beach and Noriaki decided to let the debacle go. For now, at the very least. Besides, it wasn't often that Jotaro told him much about his family- Noriaki had always assumed that it had something to do with how dissimilar they would probably be in dynamic than to a human one. Were sharks much different than human families? Were shark mermen any different? He wasn't entirely sure. But still, something like this was more than a little exciting, and Noriaki slid a little closer, pulling his feet from the water and tucking them up under himself.

Jotaro reached a hand into the bag, and then produced one lone tooth, seeming almost fossilized. It looked much, much sharper than any tooth in Jotaro's mouth, and Jotaro explained, "It's from my great grandfather, Jonathan. We still have his jaws at home. We couldn't really find the rest of his body, but the bottom half would be long gone by now, with it being cartilage and shit." Noriaki's breath caught in his throat.

The tooth was easily the size of Noriaki's forearm.

"This… must have come from a very big mouth." He mumbled, gingerly looking over the tooth. Jotaro held it out a little, silently offering Noriaki the chance to take a closer look. He took the chance, taking the tooth gingerly from the thick base. At its thickest part, Noriaki could lay his entire hand flat and none of his fingers would touch the sides of it. He couldn't wrap his mind around how enormous a merman Jotaro's grandfather must have been, with a tooth this big, and presumably with a wide enough mouth to fit more of them.

"That's an understatement." Jotaro said mildly, looking at the tooth in Noriaki's delicate hold. "If you stood in his jaws, you'd see. He could've swallowed you whole."

"That's… incredible." Noriaki mumbled, eyes shining at the strange concept. It was certainly frightening, of course- God knows Jotaro had taken a good bite out of him with his own set of jaws before, on accident. What the hell would it be like to see something so enormous that it could easily dwarf most small vehicles?

Jotaro watched him carefully, looking between him and the tooth he was gingerly turning over in his hands, half afraid he'd somehow screw it up and shatter it. Noriaki handed the large tooth back, and Jotaro gently placed it back in his fabric pouch, looking down at the thing for a moment. "... Sorry."

"For what?" Noriaki asked, eyebrows furrowing. He didn't see anything that Jotaro had done wrong here. Hell, he'd even say that this show and tell was even more successful than others, considering what he'd just learned.

"..." Jotaro was quiet for a moment, contemplative as he watched Noriaki's face. Then he just said, "For not bringing much else. I just had the pearl and Great Grandpa Jonathan's tooth today."

"To be honest, I'm running out of things to bring too." Noriaki confessed, a little smile playing at his lips. Oh, was that really what whis all was about? "I really had to look through my closet to even find where I'd shoved that shitty little camel. And it's not nearly as exciting looking at pictures and hearing about travels, I would guess."

"No." Jotaro said, paused, then continued. "I mean, 'no, you're wrong', not 'no it's not interesting'. I like hearing you talk…." His face went slightly pink, and Noriaki couldn't help the stupid smile that suddenly took up residence on his features. Fuck, he was going to be stuck that way one of these days, with how Jotaro was treating him. "About, the travels. And about. Things. In general. It can't be uninteresting to hear you talk- wait. That's too much."

"That's just enough." Noriaki said, leaning over and kissing Jotaro. The chaste little peck was returned just seconds later, and Jotaro immediately buried his face in Noriaki's shoulder. "I like hearing about the ocean from you, too. I love learning about places. Even if I'll never see them. And even if I think you're making up a few stories."

"I did too see pirates. You're just a stubborn ass."

"Love you too, Jojo."

There was a pause. Then a mumbled, "Love you more." After that, Jotaro lifted his head up just enough to ask, "Now can we go to sleep? All this food and talk is making me tired as hell. It doesn't help that humans are so damn squishy."

Noriaki laughed at that, leaning his head against Jotaro's. "God, I thought you'd never ask. Naptime is way overdue."