Apart from the Ocean part 14

[estirose]

Title: Apart from the Ocean (part 14)
Author: estirose
Fandom: Kamen Rider Kiva
Words: ~1200
Characters: Shinoda Aya (OC), Kuramae Noboru (OC), Ramon
Warnings/Rating: 13+/PG-13
Prompt: Table 2, prompt: Joy
Summary: Aya has to live with the fact that monsters don't think like humans.
Author's Notes: I'm hoping to use as many of the 25 prompts as I can for one story, and am therefore designating parts as I go along. Any left over prompts will be used as snapshots on Aya's life. Since the characters are Japanese, I've used Japanese name order here. The universe itself belongs to Toei and TV-Asahi, as does the original version of Kuramae Noboru. The universe that Aya slips into is from my "Boxed In" AU.

Aya rubbed a finger against her neck, looking at the mirror. She could easily see growing long hair; there was a faint outline of the gills, enough that people would look twice at her. It was almost like having a few small, red lines on each side of her neck.
 
But she did breathe better in the water. And she had to breathe air even less, an advantage when she finally ran away.
 
Because of her treatment, she hadn't been allowed outside; Kuramae-san had promised he'd remedy that, bring back one of the joys in her life. She knew she'd have to plan what she said carefully while probing for security details, security weaknesses that would get her out of there. The researchers would probably have their guard lowered anyway - it wasn't like she ever caused any problems intentionally.
 
In the meantime, it was past time to meet the other "endangered" people, or at least that's what her father had urged. She only liked the idea because it gave her access to roam a little more. She could pinpoint where her father was at all times; he couldn't do the same for her, so she could escape him every so often.
 
And she couldn't remain buried in those thick volumes of Merman folklore and tales forever. Even if she was memorizing them for future use. Chances were, she wouldn't be able to take them outside, and she certainly would be burdened by their presence if she got beyond the facility's walls.
 
So, when her father urged her out of the corridor one day after he'd finished off with the facility's latest supplied human woman, she let him take her there.
 
He took her down a long corridor to a room that had windows to the outside, which surprised her. "They're so strong, even Riki can't bust them!" her father told her as she looked at them, before sweeping her along to meet the three others in the room, two men and a woman. They looked completely normal, though Aya knew that the two males had to be the non-humans, because her father had used male pronouns when talking about the two. One was a beefy male with straight hair, the other a slightly older male with slightly curlier hair. Aya was willing to bet that Mr. Beefy was the Franken.
 
"This is Megumi," her father said, and Aya absently noted that he didn't bother to use a honorific at all. Maybe he felt he didn't need one. "Jiro fathered her on a human woman."
 
Aya made a mental note to ask for Megumi-san's mother's name; it apparently wasn't important to her father. "Hi," Aya said, smiling. "Shinoda Aya."
 
"Aso Megumi," the woman introduced herself back. "I've heard a little bit about you - are you Shinoda Aya, the swimmer?"
 
"You must be a sports fan - I haven't swum competitively in two years, ever since I learned I was Merman," Aya said, realizing that just a few weeks before, she would have said "half Merman" or "of Merman ancestry". Listening to her father, Kuramae-san, and everybody else in the facility call her a Merman must have rubbed off. Of course, with her gills, she probably was more Merman than human now. She was going to have to start calling herself a Merman after all. A new Merman, if the Fangaire and humans of this world had their way. Or at least the staff of the research facility.

"I have an interest," the woman said casually, and at that moment, the named clicked.

"Aso Megumi, the model?" Aya asked. She could hardly believe it - she and the others were nobodies, but Aso Megumi was a fairly well-known model, and the disappearance of herself and the people around her had to have garnered some attention.

Aso-san nodded. "Just call me Megumi, since we're not going anywhere at the moment."

"Then you can call me Aya," Aya responded.

"You stopped swimming?" her father butted in, wide-eyed. Of course, the last time they'd seen each other she had still been swimming competitively.

"Competitively, because Merman blood was an unfair advantage," Aya said. The man near Megumi snorted.

"And this is Jiro, he's a Wolfen," her father said, indicating the man who had snorted. His reaction made sense; from what she knew of the Wolfen, they were primal creatures, ruled by emotion. They wouldn't 'get' not using one's natural advantages.

"She still acts human," Jiro said to her father, not bothering to greet her. "Can't you do anything about that?"

"Hu-ma-n Bl-oo-d," the third man, who had to be the captive Franken, said. She didn't know if he meant it pejoratively, or was just commenting on the situation.

Her father smiled at the other man. "And this is Riki, he's a Franken," her father said cheerfully. "He can break anything! Except the windows."

Riki solemnly regarded her, and she had to wonder if he found her interesting, or if the Franken were just slow thinkers as Kuramae-san had said. Maybe he liked her. There were probably a lot of far worse things than having a Franken like one. "Riki watches out for me," her father confided.

The Franken reached out a beefy hand and mussed her father's hair, smiling a little. "Dau-gh-ter." He then reached out and mussed Aya's hair too. Aya didn't protest, figuring it was a sign of affection.

"He likes you," her father translated.

Aya couldn't help but smile back. "I like him, too." She hoped that the Franken wouldn't find it offensive that she hadn't said it directly to him. Or if he did, it would be several hours later, when she wasn't in the same room with him.

Riki patted her on the head. "Gi-ill-s," he said, making a slow motion at her neck.

"Isn't it great?" her father asked in the general direction of Riki.

Neither she nor Riki had a chance to answer as the door slid open to reveal Kuramae-san, who stepped forward with a smile. She wondered if he'd come in to congratulate her on her ability to communicate with Riki. A movement caught her attention from the corner of her eye, and she turned to see Megumi tentatively step back, and her father Jiro step forward aggressively, as if to protect his daughter. Heck, he was clearly and plainly protecting his daughter.

"Kiva sealed you," Megumi said, clearly having met somebody that looked an awful lot like Kuramae-san before. And from her reaction, Aya had no doubt that Kuramae-san's lookalike had caused a lot of problems. Megumi came up beside her father, as if ready to go into battle.

"Huh?" Kuramae-san asked.