Chapter 317: Hello – A Friendly Interlude Between Humans and Non-Humans
The man looked incredibly young—no older than twenty, at most.
He had long, silvery-white hair that fell in loose, slightly wavy strands. Still damp, it draped over his shoulders and cascaded down his body, concealing most of him from view.
Amid the sea of white were two locks of jet-black hair. They grew from the crown of his head and hung down in front of his temples on either side. Their perfectly symmetrical placement, together with the familiar black-and-white color scheme, immediately brought the great whale to mind.
Even more whale-like were the man’s eyes.
They were large, tranquil black eyes with a gentle warmth to them. Their outer corners drooped ever so slightly, giving him an innocent expression. Framed by thick, long silver-white eyelashes, they reminded Everly of the sleeping-eyed angel dolls from a certain doll brand whenever he lowered his gaze.
Encircling each black iris was a flawless ring of pure Klein blue, fitted seamlessly around its outer edge. The structure was almost identical to the great whale’s eyes, making it difficult not to suspect a connection between the two at first glance.
Curiously, when those blue-ringed eyes belonged to the whale, they had simply seemed beautiful. But now that they were part of a human—or rather, a humanoid—face, Everly suddenly realized that the blue rings resembled the eyes of androids from science fiction. They carried a cold, futuristic sharpness and an unmistakably inhuman quality. The result was oddly contradictory: the man looked both gentle and unyielding, pure yet unfathomably complex, wrapped in an aura that was at once mysterious and paradoxical.
Purely in terms of appearance, he was someone impossible to ignore.
“Hah… haaah…”
Freshly born from the egg, the man seemed unaccustomed to breathing air directly.
His eyes widened, the blue-ringed pupils filled with confusion and curiosity as he stared unblinkingly at Everly. Like a newborn animal, he instinctively imitated the very first person he saw, treating Everly as his model. Copying her movements, he expanded his chest and inhaled through his nose, then compressed his lungs and exhaled through his nostrils.
“Haah… haah…”
After repeating the motion several times, the man suddenly coughed violently, expelling a mouthful of fluid from his nose and mouth.
Once the amniotic fluid had cleared from his airway, he took another breath. This time, the rasping noise in his throat was gone. His breathing became smooth and steady, just like that of an ordinary human.
“Ah… ah…”
Now that he could breathe properly, the man, who had been lying limply over the edge of the eggshell, finally seemed to have enough strength to move. Opening his mouth and letting out meaningless little “ah” sounds, he braced his hands against the rim of the shell and struggled to stand.
The eggshell was staying afloat mainly because of the liquid pooled at its bottom and the man’s own weight. The moment he shifted, its center of gravity changed, and the shell began rocking violently.
Completely unaccustomed to the instability, the man stared blankly, his reactions a beat slower than normal. After only a few wobbles inside the shell, he lost his balance.
Splash!
He tumbled headfirst out of the eggshell and into the sea.
Everly had been wondering whether she ought to fish him out. To her surprise, however, the silver-haired man who had been all clumsy awkwardness inside the shell became a completely different person the instant he entered the water—as though he had returned to the place where he truly belonged.
His previously sluggish movements flowed together with effortless grace.
His hands swept smoothly through the water on either side, and his body instinctively began to swim.
The curtain of long hair that had concealed his body drifted apart with the current like a translucent veil. As it floated aside, the naked figure beneath was finally revealed to Everly in full.
Her eyes flew wide open in shock.
Aside from his hair and eye color, the only unusual feature of his upper body was his hands. A closer look revealed a thin, transparent webbing stretched between his long fingers, allowing him to slice through the water with remarkable ease.
As for his lower body…
Everly had never seen such a bizarre creature before.
From the abdomen downward, where a human’s most private anatomy should have been, his human form abruptly gave way to the black-and-white tail of a whale.
Of course, a whale’s tail is enormous—far too large to match a human body. The man’s lower half therefore ended in a proportionally scaled-down version of a whale’s tail, its overall silhouette forming a graceful S curve.
The tail was only slightly thicker than his waist. Visually, its full, rounded curve corresponded neatly to where a human’s hips would be. Beyond that, it tapered inward into a long, elegant streamline. Near the tip, the solid black-and-white coloration gradually faded into a translucent, fan-shaped fluke, with beautiful ribbon-like streamers trailing from both ends.
The familiar anatomy eased Everly’s wariness somewhat.
The egg had appeared after the great whale’s body dissolved, and the man before her had hatched from that very egg. He possessed so many of the whale’s traits that, even if he wasn’t the great whale itself, he had to be its offspring.
The great whale had been friendly.
Did that mean this merman was friendly too?
With that thought in mind, Everly cautiously raised a hand in greeting.
“Hi… hello?”
Seeing her gesture, the merman tilted his head. Then, without warning, he adjusted his posture, flicked his tail, and slipped beneath the water.
A soft splash echoed across the sea.
The next instant, he broke the surface again—and his face was suddenly right in front of hers, no more than half an arm’s length away.
Everly jumped in fright.
She had no idea whether he was friend or foe. No matter how attractive he was, she wasn’t about to let an unknown creature get that close without hesitation. Like a startled koi darting away in a pond, she flicked the fish tail formed from seawater and shot backward with a quick swish.
Unfortunately, she had a fish tail…
…and so did the merman.
His, however, was real—something he had been born with. Hers was merely a makeshift tail sustained by psychic power. The two were in completely different leagues.
Psychic energy recovered only slowly on its own. Even after resting for so long, Everly had managed to replenish only a tiny amount. She had barely swum a few strokes before her artificial tail ran out of power and dissolved on its own.
Then the surface of the sea rippled.
Before Everly could react, the merman’s strikingly handsome face was right in front of hers again.
“…”
Fortunately, he showed no intention of attacking her. Instead, his slightly drooping eyes stared fixedly at her mouth. He opened his own lips and, imitating her movements, worked his tongue clumsily as he produced a string of garbled sounds.
“Ah… hlo… hlo…”
Clearly, he was trying to learn how to speak from her.
Everly stopped trying to swim away.
Judging by his behavior, he didn’t seem hostile… Besides, she probably couldn’t outrun a merman in the water anyway. She might as well try communicating.
After a moment’s thought, she opened her mouth wide and deliberately exaggerated every movement involved in pronouncing the words, making sure he could see each step.
“Like this. Watch closely… Hel… lo.”
“Hlo… hlo…”
Still babbling, the merman drifted closer and reached out with a hand webbed by thin, transparent membranes between the fingers.
Everly held her breath, forcing herself not to flinch away. Her eyes remained locked on the approaching hand, every muscle in her body tightening, ready to flee at the slightest sign of danger.
Her heart pounded in her chest.
A cool fingertip slipped gently between her lips and rested on her tongue, pressing lightly against it. Then it moved lower before tracing across the roof of her mouth and along her gums, all with the detached curiosity of someone conducting an examination, utterly devoid of any suggestive intent.
Just inches away, the merman’s eyes were filled with intense curiosity and concentration.
He looked as though he were trying to solve one of the world’s greatest mysteries.
After feeling around for a while, he withdrew his hand from Everly’s mouth and immediately stuck it into his own. Tugging at his tongue, he prodded his upper and lower gums, seemingly comparing the differences.
After “adjusting” himself for quite some time, he finally pulled his hand back and tried again.
“…Hel… lo… Hel… lo… Hello.”
At first, his words came out haltingly, each syllable stumbling over the next. But after only a few attempts, the merman found the trick.
The tongue that had been writhing about like an earthworm gradually settled into proper movements, and his teeth, which had been clacking together chaotically, finally learned how to cooperate instead of colliding with one another in frantic confusion.
“Hello… Everly… hello…”
He practiced slowly, over and over. Once he had mastered the greeting, he began adding Everly’s name to the end. Strangely enough, although it was the first time he’d ever spoken it, he pronounced her name even more naturally than he did “hello.”
Everly was astonished.
The merman had only just emerged from the egg. By all rights, he shouldn’t have known her name. Could he actually be the great whale in a different body? Or were merfolk like zebrafish and certain other animals, possessing inherited memories that allowed them to retain the experiences of their whale parent?
“Hello, Everly… hello…”
The merman continued murmuring the words to himself.
After practicing for quite some time, he finally spoke them smoothly. Then he added a gesture.
Just as Everly had done earlier, he raised one hand and waved at her in exactly the same way. His blue-ringed eyes, slightly drooping at the corners, were utterly serious as they remained fixed on her.
“Hi. Hello, Everly…”
He was greeting her.
He had spent all that time practicing for the sole purpose of greeting her properly.
The realization struck Everly like a heavy blow.
In that instant, the invisible barrier separating their two species seemed to shatter.
She paused for a moment before smiling warmly at him.
“Hello… You’re very smart. You said that perfectly.”
“Smart… perfectly…”
Like a parrot mimicking human speech, the merman unconsciously repeated her words, his tongue moving instinctively as he copied her pronunciation.
As he echoed them, he finally seemed to realize that Everly was praising him.
He stared blankly for a moment.
Then, all at once, a faint blush spread across his fair face.
“Ah… ah…”
He gave a soft little hum, then quickly ducked his flushed face beneath the water. Only his pair of large, long-lashed eyes remained above the surface as he looked at Everly, seeming both flustered and delighted, blowing a stream of bubbles.
Blurp… blurp…
The sight made Everly’s heart soften.
Keeping her voice gentle, afraid of startling the merman, she asked earnestly,
“Is it really you… the great whale?”
The merman poked half his head out of the water.
“…Great… whale…”
“If it is you, nod your head like this.” Everly demonstrated with a small nod. “If it isn’t, then shake your head like this. Do you understand?”
The merman blinked. After staring blankly for a moment, he nodded.
“So you understand… Then, is it really you? Are you my whale friend?”
This time, beneath Everly’s hopeful gaze, the merman nodded without the slightest hesitation.
“…Great… whale…”
The moment he finished speaking, perhaps finding Everly’s eager stare too intense, he ducked back beneath the surface once more, happily blowing bubbles.
Blurp… blurp…