That night, just after eight, I was swaying with the Yamanote Line like I always did.

  The hand gripping the strap was weirdly damp. End-of-year rush. Our department’s desks were buried under paper mountains, my boss’s mood was more unstable than the weather, and meetings multiplied like droplets on a cold window.

  Mid-forties. Single. Office drone at a Tokyo manufacturer. Starting to worry about my hairline.

  The only reasons I went home were sleep, a bath, and enough recovery to do it all again tomorrow.

  The department store connected to the station was still open, probably because of holiday season madness. On a whim, I slipped inside and rode the escalator down to the basement.

  The prepared-food section stopped me in my tracks.

  Lined up behind the glass were premium-looking kamaboko—fishcakes—still on their wooden boards, each one slapped with a red discount sticker.

  Normally, I would never buy something like that. But tonight, I needed a “reward” for reasons my brain was too tired to explain. Maybe exhaustion had dulled my judgment. I realized I’d already said, “One of these, please,” to the clerk.

  “Please eat it by tomorrow,” she said.

  I nodded, took the bag, and glanced through the clear wrapping. The white-and-pink cross-section looked unnaturally smooth.

  Yeah. Expensive.

  I got home close to ten.

  When I flicked on the entryway light, my one-room apartment flashed back at me—white walls reflecting the glare like a refrigerator. I peeled off my coat, loosened my tie, opened the fridge, and set the kamaboko on the cutting board without thinking.

  Before I even reached for a knife, I froze.

  …It was bulging.

  Maybe it was just the way the air sat in the package. That happens. I pressed the plastic with my finger.

  Springy. Normal fishcake spring.

  And yet—

  I could’ve sworn it twitched.

  I actually laughed.

  I’m beyond tired, I thought. Fishcake doesn’t move like a live fish.

  I tore the package open, sliced a thin piece, and laid it on a plate. I didn’t bother with soy sauce. Not because I was being fancy about “the pure flavor,” but because I didn’t have the energy to stand there.

  I pinched one slice between my fingers and put it in my mouth.

  The taste was wrong.

  Behind the mild sweetness and salt was a bitterness like licking metal. Worse—there was a weird slime that clung to my tongue.

  I stopped chewing and spat it out on reflex.

  A white chunk landed in the sink.

  My breathing went rough. What the hell are they selling? I thought, already half-remembering the receipt.

  I turned on the tap to wash it away.

  It didn’t go.

  The chunk stayed on the drain strainer… and began to swell.

  Not bubbles. Not mold.

  Like flesh taking a breath, it puffed up, reshaping itself—soft mass rising, rising. I stumbled back until my spine hit the fridge.

  And then, as if on cue, the remaining kamaboko slipped off the cutting board and dropped into the sink.

  It moved.

  It crawled—like watching accelerated footage of slime mold merging—and fused with the chunk.

  “Ghk—!”

  Some ugly sound escaped me, but I couldn’t do anything except stare.

  The merged lump grew to the size of two hands. Its smooth surface roughened into texture. Tiny scales formed, catching the kitchen light.

  Then—

  A hand sprouted from it.

  Not a human hand. Thin, jointed, with a membrane between the fingers. The nails were transparent and sharp like blades.

  It grew another hand. Then it lifted what could only be called a torso.

  It was—

  a mermaid.

  Small enough to sit on my palm, its upper body rounded like an infant girl’s. What looked like hair drifted like wet seaweed. Its lower half was a fish tail, scales shining a sickly blue-white. Its eyes were huge and dark, reflecting light like glass.

  “Huh…?”

  If I had to say it out loud, it was… cute.

  But fear hit first—thick and choking—before my brain could even complete the thought.

  And then a voice spoke.

  Not through my ears.

  Inside my skull.

  …Can you hear me?

  My mouth opened. No sound came out. My throat had tightened shut.

  It’s okay. Don’t be scared!

  The mermaid pressed a wet hand to its own chest, like it was trying to look earnest.

  I was divided. Cut into small fragments, processed, and sold.

  I managed to force out a rasp. “W-what… are you talking about?”

  My tissue is made of immortal cells. I don’t die. Even a fragment can multiply and regenerate into an individual when conditions are right.

  “Conditions…?”

  Your saliva. Your DNA became the stimulus. It matched. So I grew.

  So it had regenerated from what I spat out.

  My stomach rolled. I braced my hands on the sink, retching at nothing. I hadn’t even eaten dinner. There was nothing to throw up, but my body tried anyway.

  Please. Return me to the sea! If I stay like this, I’ll be cut again. Divided again. I’m a whole organism. My consciousness is one. No matter where I’m cut… I feel it all.

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  A whole organism. One consciousness.

  The meaning landed a beat late, heavy in my chest.

  Right—there was old science fiction about that. The image of the kamaboko’s smooth cross-section came back, now with phantom pain. The white flesh stuck to the board, and for a second it looked like it had been smiling.

  The sea. Now. Tonight!

  “The sea…” My mind immediately jumped to Tokyo Bay. I didn’t have a car. “The sea” I could reach by train was limited.

  You can do it. You’re alone, right? Not tied down. Plenty of time.

  The way it said that was too practical. Too real.

  It stabbed.

  I felt irritation flare—then the ugly truth beneath it. I couldn’t deny it.

  The mermaid clasped its hands together, praying.

  Please. You’re the only compatible one! I can’t ask anyone else…

  I let out a tired breath.

  I come home. Discount fishcake turns into a mermaid. A voice talks in my head.

  If this is a dream, wake me up.

  But the fishy slime on my fingertips was real.

  And if I looked closely… it wasn’t hard to think the thing was cute.

  That fact felt like the most dangerous part of all.

  I knew—rationally—I should refuse.

  But the way it trembled in my palm-sized body made it look like a small animal begging for help.

  “…Fine,” I said. “I’ll take you to the sea.”

  The instant I said it, something inside my chest lightened. Maybe it was relief. Maybe it was the faint superiority of “saving” something.

  Thank you, darling!

  I frowned. “...Darling?”

  A word that encourages emotional connection, right? I know humans have that kind of term.

  I know.

  The phrasing was strange. But I didn’t chase the thought. I had the sense that if I started thinking properly, I wouldn’t be able to stop.

  I grabbed a plastic food container, lined it with damp paper towel, and gently set the mermaid inside. When I snapped the lid on, it looked up at me through clear plastic.

  Its eyes seemed to be smiling.

  Breathing is fine. My cells draw energy through something I can’t translate—[untranslatable]. I won’t dry out. Because I was processed.

  A few words in there weren’t words at all—something beyond my concepts.

  But because I was processed hit me anyway, stirring that ugly protectiveness.

  Without another word, I slid the container into my bag and left.

  I took the late train toward the bay.

  The car was nearly empty. My fingers worried the zipper while the voice in my skull kept insisting it could smell the tide.

  Outside, warehouses and elevated roads slid past under blinking red lights.

  I got off, walked, and reached a fenced promenade near the end of a pier.

  For Tokyo in this season, it was strangely cold enough that a few snowflakes drifted in the air. I hunched my shoulders.

  The midnight water was a black slab. It reflected scattered light from above, and the waves glimmered. The sound was small and regular, oddly soothing.

  The wind was sharp. And now, finally, the scent of the tide brushed my nose.

  I set my bag down by the fence, took out the container, and opened it.

  The mermaid sat up. Its tiny tail twitched, scales catching the streetlight.

  Here. Perfect.

  I placed it on my palm. It was lukewarm. Smooth skin, wet sheen, but not sticky. It was undeniably alive.

  Please. Gently, into the sea.

  “…If I put you back,” I asked, “are you really going to be okay?”

  Yes. I can return. Become whole again.

  The way it said that felt… vague.

  But I didn’t question further. I slipped my hand through the gap in the fence, reaching toward the water.

  That was when the sea surface rose.

  Not foam. Not a wave.

  The water itself lifted, taking shape.

  At first it looked like a black pillar.

  No.

  A tentacle.

  Wet, glossy, lit by the streetlamp. I could even see sucker-like patterns crawling along it.

  It extended without hesitation toward the mermaid on my palm.

  “Wha—!”

  I jerked back on instinct.

  The mermaid dug its claws into my skin, pinning itself to my hand.

  “—Ow!”

  Pain shot up my spine. I saw blood bead where it had pierced me.

  Don’t run. This is the connection for my return!

  The tentacle’s tip split open like a blooming flower. Fine cilia unfurled and wrapped around the mermaid’s body.

  The mermaid arched as if in ecstasy.

  And then its back opened.

  Not “tore.”

  Opened—impossibly smooth—like a seam being unstitched.

  The tentacle slid into it, as if it was being swallowed.

  The mermaid’s body swelled. Its shape warped. Its tail thickened. The shining scales darkened, bruising into black.

  I tried to scream. No sound came out. I could only stare, eyes wide, as the cute thing in my palm transformed into something else entirely.

  Another tentacle breached the surface. And another.

  They braided together, knotting, and something rose at their center.

  A mouth.

  Not teeth—countless needle-like spines lining the inside, angled inward.

  I flashed on an encyclopedia picture from childhood: an anglerfish.

  The lip-like rim opened and closed, slick with slime. A thick tentacle connected the mouth to what the mermaid had become, and where it joined my hand, a faint light pulsed.

  The interior was dark—too dark—but I could still see movement within. The depth didn’t feel like ocean depth.

  It felt like a hole to someplace else.

  Something fish-shaped surfaced. Its “body” was a mass of shadow with no stable outline. Water dripped off it, but the texture wasn’t like any sea creature.

  It looked like the sea itself had been made into meat.

  Welcome home. Connection complete.

  The mermaid’s voice purred inside my skull.

  Darling. You too. Become whole with me.

  “Stop—!”

  I finally got my voice out and tried to wrench my hand free.

  But pain slowed me. A tentacle wrapped my wrist. The suckers latched to my skin; when they peeled, it felt like they took flesh with them.

  I staggered back, slamming into the fence. Another tentacle caught my ankle. My feet lifted. For a second it felt like gravity flipped.

  I was falling toward the sea.

  The mouth drew closer.

  With my last shred of reason, I fought. I grabbed the railing with both hands until my fingers went white.

  The tentacles tightened. My joints creaked. My muscles screamed.

  My grip slipped.

  And then I was airborne—thrown straight into that massive mouth.

  There was no fish-stink.

  Instead, it smelled like fruit gone sweet and rotten.

  Hot.

  The inside wasn’t a soft membrane. It felt like wet rubber, and every time those needle-spines brushed my skin, tiny pains flared.

  “Ghh—gu—!”

  I tried to scream, but the mouth swallowed the sound. Light vanished behind me. Darkness pressed in. My body was forced deeper.

  And then—

  I melted.

  Not like my skin dissolving, exactly.

  Like the boundary of my body dissolving.

  My outline blurred into hot seawater. Bones stopped feeling like bones. Muscles lost their tension. My organs became… locations I couldn’t identify anymore.

  Fear couldn’t keep its shape.

  That’s when a clear voice dropped into my mind.

  My beloved darling. You don’t have to be afraid.

  It was the mermaid’s voice.

  But not the small-girl voice anymore. Multiple tones overlapped, spreading like harmony.

  I am a star-being—[untranslatable]. I came to Earth seeking a mate for DNA hybridization. You were a rare compatible. Which means… you were chosen. Uniquely.

  Even as I melted, I understood.

  The mermaid had been bait.

  Cute on purpose. A lure to hook my sympathy.

  Immortal cells hidden in processed food. Triggered by saliva. “Compatible DNA.” Selecting someone lonely, untethered—

  Every piece had been part of the script.

  You won’t die. I won’t die. Hybridization is fusion. Making your DNA and my information into one whole.

  The melting sensation intensified. Terror—somehow—began to thin, as if heat was dissolving it too.

  Thought spread out like a wave. I wanted to resist, but I’d lost the outline required to resist.

  The last thing my brain clung to was an absurd association.

  Anglerfish.

  Male anglerfish bite onto the female, then get absorbed, become a part of her—blood vessels connecting until they’re no longer an individual, just an organ.

  I realized, with bleak clarity, that I was on the “male” side now.

  A laugh almost rose from my gut.

  Pathetic. A solitary middle-aged office worker ends his life over discounted fishcake.

  Not ends it.

  Gets ended.

  And while being called darling, of all things.

  Darling. I will keep your memories. I will keep your language too. Convenient.

  Convenient.

  That word stabbed like a final needle.

  I’d thought I was helping. I’d liked being needed. I’d even—briefly—enjoyed it.

  The shame of my shallowness flared, then began to melt too.

  From now on, you will live inside me. You will be my eyes. You will be my hands. You will be proof of my compatibility.

  The voice was gentle.

  The gentler it was, the more cruel it became.

  Darkness lit from within—not a lantern’s glow, but a white flash that touched my nerves directly. My vision flipped. The black of the sea looked like the black of space. The blinking in the distance stopped being obstruction lights and became starlight.

  At some point, I no longer knew how much of my body was left.

  Hands, feet—thin, fading.

  Breathing—did it matter anymore?

  My heartbeat began to mix into a different rhythm.

  And yet, one drop of consciousness remained.

  With that single drop, I gripped the only thing that still felt like mine.

  Words.

  Even if everything else was stolen, words were mine.

  “…Give me… back,” I said—maybe aloud, maybe only inside.

  A reply fell into my head.

  Give you back? To where? You don’t have a place to return to. Your room, your workplace, your loneliness—those are old shells.

  Shells.

  The word nearly made sense.

  Inside that shell, I’d only been wearing down—unseen, untouched, unremembered—eroding between numbers and emails and meetings.

  Had it seen that?

  You were chosen. Being chosen is happiness.

  Happiness.

  Something broke in me. Anger, grief, bitterness—indistinguishable waves crashing inside my dissolving outline.

  In response, the inner wetness writhed and wrapped around what remained of me. It was almost a hug.

  Almost.

  It was restraint.

  The sweet rot smell grew stronger.

  Somewhere, I saw the mermaid-form collapse completely—no longer a “girl,” now fully fused into the huge whole.

  Humans get filled when they’re needed. The hole of loneliness gets sweetly stuffed.

  …Right.

  That hole was the hook that caught me.

  Then the star-being moved into something like a massive metal box.

  A ship?

  From inside it, I could see outside.

  Wrapped in colors of light, the vessel rose.

  Up, up, away.

  -FIN-