The ocean eyes

3. The price of proximity

"It's complicated."

He sees his nervous fingers clenching and unclenching, as if Gulf doesn't know if he needs to defend himself now, so his fists still turn into open trembling palms.

"What exactly? You said that you have a big family."

"Yes, I have: father, mother and sister. But relationships are not always easy."

Mew nods in understanding. "Me too. I don't have a mother, but there are a lot of brothers and sisters, and my father is very strict with all of us. If you disobey, then..."

He involuntarily pulls his head into his shoulders, because he recalls the reprimand for helping Gulf. Wow, and he got it then for interfering in the affairs of the elements!

"How much is a lot?" Gulf tilts his head curiously.

"Ten," Mew is embarrassed, because he already understands that for people such a number is really a lot. "But I closely communicate with only one sister, Jom."

He had already lost count of what the number of evening they were together was: the fifth? tenth? One thing Mew knows for sure: he doesn't want them to end. But everything has its end, and how much longer this guy will endure such conversations with 'emptiness', because he did not dare to appear in front of his eyes, he does not know.

He does not have a lot of experience of communicating with people (zero, to be honest), but even he understands: to get closer, you need to give something in return, and Mew is still only taking.

Time.

Knowledge.

The warmth of the radiant eyes, which is so easy to catch even in the darkness of the sea twilight.

And he cannot give anything in return, because... it is dangerous. For him and for Gulf, because he really does not know what an acquaintance with a mermaid is fraught with for a person - what if he goes crazy with horror? And he definitely does not want this for this sunny boy.

"So I am close with my sister," he nods in agreement and continues their dialogue, not knowing what internal dilemmas are now boiling in Mew's head. "And my father... He is strict, because I am the heir to the family, so I have many responsibilities to it. So he demands me."

"Demands?"

"Yes! You should have heard what a scandal he threw at me when he learned that the yacht sank and I almost went to the bottom with it."

"That is, some kind of boat is more expensive for him than his own son?" Mew leans forward in disbelief.

"No, what are you talking about!" Gulf immediately shakes his head. "He really worries about me, and this yacht is nothing for our family, we will buy another one. But he likes to repeat that big money is a big responsibility, and this is what he demands from me."

"And you..."

"And I'm tired of this," the guy somehow doomedly lowers his head and clasps his knees with his hands. "I just want to live without all this pressure - do I ask so much? I want to walk around the city with my friends, go out into nature for a picnic and watch movies late, eating popcorn. I want to live a normal life, you know?"

Mew does not understand, because he does not know all these things, he never had them - exactly in the way Gulf described it. But he... also wants, wants to try it all. He wants to do it all together with this guy - this is such a strange desire for a creature that is afraid to even appear to his eyes. Therefore, he quietly replies, "I understand..."

"And I don't even have anyone to do all this with, can you imagine? My childhood friends no longer communicate with me, because my father forbade me. He says, to be friends with them is not in terms with my status. And the new ones... they are somehow completely false: they only do what they boast, who has more money and who has a more luxurious car."