Anamanaguchi

It was in the sweltering hot summer break before freshman year of high school that Haru realized something was off.

There was a text on his phone when he woke up, sent late last night. It was from Makoto, as if it could've been from anyone else, loner that he was. The message was a short reminder that they were going to spend the day at the ocean, then come back to Haru's place for supper and moongazing. Haru stared out his window at the warming gray-blue sky. In something like fourteen hours time, there'd be a lunar eclipse replacing the spot the sun was creeping towards. Following through his usual morning routine, he climbed into his bathtub and sunk himself up to his eyes.

Thoughts flitted across his subconscious, dancing through sensitive topics with a pas des Basque. Nothing special, the same useless melancholies that refused to be routed from his head. Rin, the future, his swimming. Closing his ears and nose, he submerged himself completely. Though he loved his tub, the water was too tame to satiate his lust. It lacked the wildness to drown out the background whispers of the uncertain future that snuck closer by the day.

When Makoto came to fetch him, he felt the inexplicable urge to pull him into the tub and hold him down until he could understand even simple water such as this. First he would thrash and reject it, his irrational fears overwhelming the truths that Haru knew. Gradually his arms would go slack and he'd perhaps think of how he was failing his family, his mind a prison of terror from which he could not esape. And when his eyes closed, when the struggle ended for real, then Haru could breathe life back into him and Makoto would understand. Makoto would thank him for bringing him enlightenment. What clarity almost drowning brought a body! He tightened his grip on Makoto's wrist, but did not pull. The bathtub was too small for such a powerful revelation. They needed something wilder, more savage. He would know the truth in its rawest form.

Mind roiling, Haru let Makoto pull him out and they headed for the coast.

--

The second Haru hit the cool ocean waters, he knew he was home. Whatever higher being had decided he was destined to be a land-dweller had played a cruel trick on him. Makoto still stood on the shoreline, lagging behind as usual. He still feared the thing that Haru loved so much and it was the gap between them that they could not bridge. Haru resented that fear sometimes, when his mood was especially low and a part of him hated Makoto for being so... Makoto. By now, he could scarcely think of a time when they hadn't been together and it was nigh impossible to imagine a future where they didn't maintain the easy coexistance they had grown accustomed to. There was something frightening about sharing a life with someone the way they shared theirs. People were supposed to flow in and out of life like the turn of the tides, weren't they? Even in a sleepy town like this. People moved, friendships fell apart, times changed. Grandma left. His parents left. Rin left. But there Makoto remained, a zero constant he couldn't derive away as he pleased.

Shaking the thought out of his head, he looked for that loving bite he had craved so passionately in his youth, expanding his body's consciousness to each current and turbulent whorl. Eyes were useless, so he closed both them and the golden shutters of his second eyelids, soaking in the pitchest black until his rusty inner sight returned, illuminating the frenzied swell of life thrumming around him. He let go of his earthly form, slackening the muscles until they were but extensions of water around him, drifting through the river of life and the darkness that surrounded it. It would take him where he needed to go.

The song began, equal measures sparkling and joyous and melancholic and slow, forever changing but always familiar, the complex song the water would whisper to him in his youth when he glutted himself with competitions and challenges. He could neither memorize nor mimic it, only live it when he submerged himself. When he was forced to make due with only his tub in the long winters, he pined for it as a man pined for a woman. He hated that Makoto couldn't hear it. He hated how someone so important to him was so depressingly mortal. If only he could experience the sublime fantasia that lay before him now, laying in eternal wait for fresh eyes to discover it, then Haru could die happy. Hands wrapped around the molecules of the thing that occupied Haru's space, dragging him in with that savory bite he'd been searching for. He wondered when he'd last gone up for air. It didn't matter. The water would take care of him.

Something tore him free from the gentle embrace, jerking him out of his trance. As his sense of self returned, he found himself laying on the beach with Makoto bawling his eyes out over him. Tears rolled down Makoto's babyish cheeks and pattered down onto Haru's face as he waited for Makoto to realize that he was awake.

"I thought you had drowned again!" Makoto cried, snot dripping down his lips in a grotesque display. "You swam straight into a rip current and let it take you. I thought you swam out and dove, but you were under for ten minutes. What were you thinking? You could've died!"

"Did it occur to you that I didn't want you to come get me?"

"What are you saying, Haru?" Makoto squeezed out a hiccuping nervous laugh.

"I was becoming one with the water," Haru said without thinking about it. His motives had been uncertain when he'd set foot in the waves, but now they were crystal clear. "I don't belong here."

"That's not true." Makoto wrung his hands, eyes darting about like dragonflies searching for the right thing to say. "You do belong here, Haru. There are a lot of people who love you and care about you a lot. Is something bothering you? Are you worried about high school? It'll be just like middle school, Dad said so. What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, Makoto." Haru pitied his dear dumb dog of a friend for being so simpleminded, so human. There was something cute about it and he almost gave him an assuring pat on the head and a treat, but that would've been far too condescending.

"You know you can talk to me about anything, right?" Makoto squeezed his hand with his clammy fingers and Haru could not help but recoil somewhat. "Was it something I did? Please talk to me, Haru."

"If I went into the sea and never came back, would you follow me?" Haru figured the question was a strange one, but didn't see the harm in asking it.

"You're scaring me, Haru. Maybe we should go see the doctor? Or go home. Yeah, we'll go home. You'll feel better if you go home." To and fro flickered those dancing dragonflies, kicking into maximum overdrive. "Will you come home with me, Haru? We can talk there if that would make you feel more comfortable."

"You didn't answer my question. If I went into the sea and never came back--"

"I would save you. I would always come save you, every time. You're the most important person in my life. I would never let you--" Makoto choked on the words he'd been tiptoeing around. "--hurt yourself."

"It wouldn't hurt me. The water and I understand each other. So it's okay."

"Stop it, Haru. Please, just stop. We need to go home." Makoto tried to get to his feet but collapsed. He laughed at himself. "I'm pathetic. You need me and I'm still scared of--when you were under and I came in, there was something pulling on me. It dragged me under too. It wasn't a rip current or a fish or anything like that. The ocean was eating me."

"You fight it too much. The water will take care of you if you let it." Haru wrapped a reluctant arm around Makoto's shoulder and wheezed as Makoto crushed him with a counter-hug. He didn't think he'd make much progress on Makoto's understanding of the water today. "Let's go home. You can use my bath."

"Okay." Makoto buried his face in Haru's neck and refused to budge.

Sighing, Haru picked up Makoto like a monkey carrying its baby and began staggering back to his house. Diving had given him an unusual strength and though any other day he wouldn't have bothered attempting such a stunt, he felt fully capable of it in that moment.

"You can put me down, I'm way too--"

Haru silenced him with a look. They went home that way, Haru still feeling the tug of the spring tides on his skin, drawing him to the ocean the way it drew the moon.

--

Talking was something that Haru had never been skilled in and he had little interest in improving his proficiency. What use was there for filling the air with meaningless chatter? Words lacked their own power, depending on humans to interpret and assign value. They lied, obfuscated, twisted and squirmed like roundworms, suiting ideas as necessity deemed, two-faced scribbles that had too much stock placed in them. For people who were not attuned to the ebb and flow of the world currents, words were the inferior good they had to settle for. He could not stand words and yet Makoto insisted that they needed to use the clumsy abstractions whenever possible. Today they were having 'that talk', the one delivered worldwide a hundred million times a day.

"You know you can tell me anything, right?"

They were laying under a sheet in Haru's sitting room at Makoto's behest. He had always been fond of blanket and pillow forts. Haru didn't understand the appeal and Makoto insisted on laying far too close to him, but he would tolerate it.

"How long have you wanted to hurt yourself?"

Makoto's concern coiled around him, smothering him. He closed his second eyelid and the river of life materialized around him. Controlling the flows of energy was easier here and he shoved Makoto's output back tenfold.

"Do you have a plan?" Makoto pushed again, waves trembling with uncertainty. "Were you just going to walk into the ocean and let it take you away?"

Haru directed the flow in ascending tori, conducting them with ease. Makoto would yield eventually.

"Please say something, Haru. I'm scared for you. I'm scared you're going to do something you can't take back. Whatever the problem is, I swear it's temporary."

Haru spoke with slow deliberation. "It's not temporary. It will never be temporary. I don't belong here. I belong with the water."

"That's not true." Makoto flipped the sheet off himself. "I'm going to get some stuff from my house. I'm going to stay with you for a little while, okay? As long as you need to get out of this crisis. Don't leave the house, I'll be right back."

Makoto ran, leaving Haru bundled up in the sheet. Haru didn't intend to stay there, but he wasn't going far. He got up and headed for the bathroom. He filled the tub to the brim and climbed in, submerging himself. For a while, he stared at the ceiling, wondering what Makoto was up to with his fanciful notions of suicide, what supplies he could possibly grab from his home that could cure the alleged ailment. Makoto worried for worries' sake. Maybe he liked it, having someone doting over him and acting as an interpreter for the Real, speaking the language that he despised to the people he couldn't care less about. Haru permitted himself to at least consider that. He wasn't an idiot and he didn't have corks for ears, so he'd heard what some of the other kids called Makoto behind his back. Tard wrangler, babysitter, mother hen. They'd started saying that when Makoto stopped trying to be friends with people who couldn't tolerate Haru. "Unhealthy codependence", the teachers had complained when they found out the hard way to not put them in separate classes. Makoto had gone on a four hour crying jag when he found out they wouldn't be together in third grade. The principal relented to their parents' suggestion that the classroom harmony would remain better balanced if they were together. And so it remained, their destinies intertwined.

Caretaker. The word came to him suddenly as if transmitted from the tub floor straight to his brain. That was what Makoto was. Haru wondered how Makoto saw him. A friend is what he said, but that seemed lacking. A brother, a child, a pet, all of them could substitute 'friend' with ease. But that was a lot to put up with for the sake of platonic relationships. There was a long-term plan, there had to be. No one did something for nothing.

The door slid open.

"Thank goodness." Makoto sighed with relief. "I kept calling and calling you. I was worried that you had gone back to the beach. Come on, I brought some things for us to do."

When Haru took Makoto's hand and stepped out, he examined him in superhuman detail. The dull slant of his eyelids, the length of his fingers, the curves of his body from his lips to his hips, and the scent of saltwater that still clung to him in his hair. The way his chest rose in a sharp gasp. The way his ears went Deptford pink when he realized that Haru had, for once, stripped down to his bones and that he was in close quarters with him.

"You, uh... You were actually naked?" Makoto made an effort to stare at the wall. "I'm sorry, I should've waited for you to, I mean I was worried, but--"

"Do you love me?"

"What?" Makoto yelped, the rest of his face following his ears. "Of course I do, you're my best friend. You're like a brother to me, you know?"

"Not like that." Haru stepped closer, pressing his wet body against Makoto, soaking his clothes. He switched his vision, tugging at the currents of energy around them, reaching deep into the tightly woven fabric of Makoto's being, slipping his fingers in a snarl tucked in the crevice between his abs and pulling him in closer. The more he teased the knot, the more the space around it unraveled, coming out in heaps of fine gold thread that he snared his fingers deeper in, pulling harder, tighter. The truth was in there somewhere, if only he could dig it out.

"Haru, what are you doing?" Makoto gripped at Haru's hands, which were unzipping his fly. "Stop! Please stop it, please!"

Makoto's shorts fell to the tile floor and still Haru buried his arms in the energy, digging in up to his elbows. He hooked his thumbs into Makoto's boxer-briefs.

"Haru, stop it!" Makoto gave him a great shove and Haru tumbled back into the tub.

Haru sat up, frustrated that he couldn't read what Makoto wanted. Makoto was respooling himself. The threads dropped away from Haru's arms and he leaned back, watching Makoto grab his shorts in a rush and retreat to the door.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you. I'll be in the front room when you're ready to get out. We can pretend this didn't happen. Sorry."

Irritated at the turn of events, Haru submerged himself once more and retreated into second sight. If Makoto could see this, could communicate to him through these waves without the lies of words and movement, then it wouldn't be so difficult. He wanted him to understand. He needed a being that could know him and who he could know the way he knew the water. Haru observed his energy form and noticed something different about it. Near where he perceived his human core he saw a sticking out tab of swirling energy like a pill on something run through the dryer too many times. He pulled on it and it came away freely, flowing smooth between his astral fingers. The more he pulled, the faster it came undone and he lost track of time as he pulled on the line, which seemed as endless as the river of light he was suspended in. Reality distorted, his form loosening with each metre he unraveled and he could feel his already weak attachment to his body being torn out. The waters surged stronger around him, shining brighter as he found himself seized in bizarre ecstasy and he pulled faster faster faster fasterfasterfaster until there was nothing left to pull and he had undone himself completely. Unburdened by his body, the water took him in his entirety, stretching his vortices until the cords of his matter were so looptangled that he could no longer keep track of it all and he was happy to surrender the dreary obligation of maintaining a consistent form.

The water, distant as it was, spoke to him. It spoke in the roar of waves and the burble of humble creeks. It spoke to him in waves and pulses and eddies. There was a purpose greater than the one the humans had ascribed to him. He was not a future Olympian. He was not an athlete, not a casual swimmer. He was a conqueror, a prehistoric god, and his awakening was overdue. The waters pledged their loyalties to him and ushered him back to reality. He awoke in the tub and climbed out with some difficulty. His consciousness was everywhere at once and so was his body. He rolled across the floor to check the mirror, stretching up to examine himself. He could feel his body's form, but he wanted to know what the humans would see and he found he approved.

Slithering across the floor, he sought out Makoto to see his impression of his newfound destiny, leaving trails of brine of wake. Makoto having a bit of fruit in the sitting room, fidgeting and checking his watch, no doubt waiting for him to emerge from the bath. Piling himself up into a semi-human shape, Haru walked to him on gelatinous feet and knelt behind him, resting his hands on Makoto's broad shoulders.

"Hey, Haru. I'm really sorry about how I acted back there. I didn't know you felt like that about me and I guess I was surprised. I shouldn't have shoved you. I hope you'll forgive me."

Haru wrapped his arms, quivering with the strain of remaining in this unnatural form, around Makoto's neck and leaned his face into his back.

"Did you forget to towel off? You're really wet. Or is this my punishment for pushing you?" Makoto let out a gentle laugh and patted Haru on his arm. "What do you want for--"

Makoto's words died as he turned around the moment Haru's human form collapsed, exposing him in the exquisite simplicity of his true body. Haru felt the screams more than he heard them, felt the thunder of Makoto's feet on the floor as he tore free and made a break for the door. He was dumbfounded. Makoto was running away. Makoto had never run away from him before, not like this. Without him, what was there left? Ushering strings of thoughtmuscle into action, he surged forward in a rolling wave, flailing his whip-arms in a mute plea. Stay, they begged, lashing themselves around Makoto's ankles, yanking him off his feet. Stay, they begged as they reeled in his caretaker, who was screaming at the top of his lungs. Stay, they begged as Makoto tore gouges in the floor with his nails. He had to stop the screaming, had to make it so Makoto wouldn't leave him, could never leave him. They had committed to being together this long, they had to see it through to the end. More tentacles sprouted from his shapeless back and wrapped around Makoto's wrists, prying up his hands so they could not offer further resistance. He turned him about, laid him on his back and tried to get him comfortable so he could give him a proper explanation.

Haru hovered over Makoto's fragile human body, tugging at the threads of energy around him, trying to figure out how to communicate now that the lying words were lost to his alien tongue.

"Please don't hurt me," whispered Makoto.

The thought was beyond Haru's capabilities. He formed an abstraction of a hand and caressed Makoto's cheek. Makoto whimpered and whined like a kicked puppy beneath him, but Haru kept on conjuring hands and petting him with as many of them as he could keep track of and after a while, Makoto went quiet.

"Are you an alien? A monster? A science experiment?"

Haru gave a lopsided shrug. He was not sure what he was, other than something from before the age of humans.

"Are you... Haru?"

Haru pressed one of his many hands to his central mass and bobbed.

"Have you always been like this? When are you going to turn back? Can you turn back?"

Frustrated with the slow progression of the conversation, Haru twisted a slimy chunk off of his body and shaped it into a blue slug that he pressed to the side of Makoto's head. It slithered into his ear canal, compressing itself to fit through the narrow crevices, and made its way up into Makoto's brain. The slug creased into the folds of his gray matter, squiggling and squirming as it found its new home. Makoto was overrun with shivers at the invasion. The human aspect of Haru knew that it had to be an unpleasant experience, but the old-blooded Haru saw it as a means to an end to ease communication between them.

"Haru?" Fear had begun to edge back into Makoto's voice. "What did you do, Haru? You're Haru, right?"

Some part of Haru knew that if he so desired it, he could snare Makoto in his thrall and utterly enslave his mind. But he liked Makoto. So he let his mind remain unmolested and instead flooded him with images of the deepest corners of the sea, beyond the depths where the sun could reach, beyond the spew of the thermal vents, beyond where any human concept of life could exist and they went deeper, deeper still. Haru dragged him down into the belly of a submerged volcano, the place where he had dreamed of the world he would create for many long centuries. The heat was agonizing, almost unbearable, cat tongues striping flames across his body. Were he a lesser being his cells would've been boiled, his DNA untangled, and his form rendered useless. They were not too far off from the molten core of the earth, but in spite of that they were not alone in the crater. Others like Haru shifted in tangled heaps so tightly wound that one could scarcely tell where one creature started and another ended. Alien masses of flesh slid over them, welcoming them home and dragging them into the heart of the fold. Countless bodies swarmed over them as they sank deeper, deeper. The initial shock of the heat subsided as they continued to swim betwixt the coils of the unseen beings. It seemed there was no end to their descent and somewhere above them, one of Haru's kin started to speak in infrasonic song. Soon, the song echoed down to their position and Haru began to hum in kind, molecules vibrating with the hypnotic intonations. There was no light. There was no thought. There was no pain or hope or fear. There was nothing but the hum of the deep and the endless caress of amorphous bodies.

For a long time the two of them laid there, not breathing, not moving, only humming until the water went silent again. Slowly, slowly, they began to ascend, twisting past their brethren until they left the volcano behind for colder waters that stretched pitch-black pathways in every direction. Makoto found himself longing for the warmth and camaraderie they had forsaken for the loneliness of the near deep. Some life was here, but it was not the same. Creatures illuminated the dark in their own ways, their light was too insignificant for Makoto to appreciate. They rose further into murky twilight blue and clearer waters past that. Schools of fish shining like silver pieces darted in the other direction as Haru's tentacles propelled them upward. Turtles, dolphins, and whales likewise turned tail when faced with his splendor. They were insignificant insects of the sea that knew their place before evolutionary royalty.

When they broke the surface far, far away from any coastlines, they were greeted with the overwhelming vast cosmos, painted in galactic blues and purples and speckled with more stars than Makoto could ever hope to count in his lifetime. The waves rolled around them, transmitting this moment to every corner of the earth, letting their presence be known to the fishermen's ships, the migrating birds, the reflection of the stars, and every cricket in the dune-grass. Makoto did not think he had truly seen the sky before this and he wondered if he would ever see it again. Tears streamed down his face unbidden as he suffocated under the immense weight of the universe he lived in. A feeling stirred in his chest as he felt the pressure more keenly as it arched above like a wave reaching for its peak. It climbed and climbed and then hung, locking him in suspense, making him long for it to crash down about him and tear his mind away with it. It was awesome in the archaic sense of the word, lifting him to dizzying heights and drowning him simultaneously, mingling in a sweet pain that only the silent flow of his tears alleviated. He turned to Haru, struggling to find words to express himself. Remaining mute, Haru cradled him close in his tentacles and rocked him in slow, sweeping swings, letting his human enjoy the splendor of their world. Lessons about the life river and second eyelid could come later. For now, holding him here like this was enough.

Outside of his mind, Makoto opened his eyes. Thick blue gel surrounded him, invading his ears, nose, and mouth. He was suspended in Haru's body. The outside world was foggy in his vision and the noises muffled. The only clear thing he could hear was the steady beating of his heart. For a moment, he was in a blissful state that had been forgotten by man, the peace of being settled in the womb. Then he realized he wasn't breathing and began to thrash. Haru ejected him from his body and laid him on the ground, smoothing his hair with a gooey hand.

<I breathe for you.>

Makoto didn't know where the voice came from, but it was comforting in its familiarity. He made a questioning noise at the slime.

<When you're inside me, I breathe for you.>

Makoto pressed his hand to his chest. He didn't feel worse for the wear even though he'd probably swallowed half a litre of slime while he was unconscious.

<Did you like it? The ocean, that is.>

The wavy feeling rose up inside Makoto again. His words flowed out before he could stop himself. "I love you."

Haru surged over Makoto, tangling their limbs together. Makoto wrapped his legs around the massive slime, squeezing him with his powerful thighs. His clothes were torn from his body and he didn't care what happened to them, didn't care what happened to him as long as he could be with Haru. He prayed the name of his faceless god and kissed his wet, briney flesh. Something thick and slimy pushed between his lips, spitting a slick semi-sweet fluid into his mouth that sent Makoto's temperature skyrocketing.

"Love me... love me..." Makoto sunk his claws into Haru's back, eyes hazy as the juice in his mouth trickled down his throat.

Haru shifted towards the pungent crevice of Makoto's ass, sending a probing tentacle. His hole was bitter with assfunk and salty with sweat, but he spent his sweet time cleaning it up with a few laps of a makeshift tongue. Makoto's toes curled in the air around Haru's continuously transforming bulk, arching his back as Haru sucked his anus until it was plump and rosy with attention. Slippery threads of precum dripped from Makoto's cock as he was stimulated from head to toe. Haru was everywhere, consuming his everything and he loved it, longed for it. Kissing his chapped lips, caressing his naked skin with millions of miniscule hands, sucking his soft pink nipples erect, stroking his thighs and ass, endless sensation, limitless pleasure, neverending never stopping to let him catch a breath.

"Love me, Haru!" Makoto gasped, breathless and dizzy.

The wavy feeling was building, arcing higher and higher and higher than it ever had before, scrambling skyward as Haru played ring-around-the-asshole with the tip of one of his tentacles, secreting more fluids to make his entrance easier. There was a moment when the world froze. They breathed in unison. Haru thrust forward.

The wave came crashing down around Makoto's head, plunging him into the coldest, darkest waters in the world, plummeting deeper, deeper and yet ascending to a degree higher than heaven. His guts spewed out through his cock, shooting sticky white into the blue like glazing on Jello. Seeing stars, he sobbed as Haru gobbled up his cum with great pulling slurps of a fresh arm and kept on pounding into him with the steady force of the waves crashing into the rocky cliffs. His human bodily limits protested, cock painfully sensitive and aching, but Haru tore them down, contracting tighter around him.

"Don't stop. Give me your everything." Makoto knew he would never want for anything else outside of the pulse of Haru's body against him again. And Haru, given a direct link into his caretaker's subconscious through the slug, knew the same.

They switched positions and Makoto straddled the reclining blob. Haru gave him a helping hand in the form of an endearing approximation of a human penis that Makoto gave a crooked half-smile at before sinking down onto it. His muscular thighs bulged with the unexpected strain as he rode the slime. He swept his hair out of his eyes with the heel of his hand, trailing his fingers back through the sextangle that it had twined into. Haru remained beneath him, constantly shifting and transforming, an organic machine made for fucking. Countless tentacles reached up and resumed the sweet torment they'd given him before. They plucked at his skin, infiltrated his nervous system, and wreaked havoc on his most sensitive bits of flesh.

Haru had become fascinated with the reactions he was able to elicit from Makoto and tried winding the tentacle acting as his dick further into him, curling around a few bends to run the full route of the large intestine. No protests as far as he could tell, so he burrowed deeper, wriggling into the much narrower tube of his slippery brown-pink small intestine. Fine microvilli brushed against his tentacle, doing little to impeded his process into the upper small intestine. He finally found resistance in the pyloric sphincter, which was on tight lockdown. Makoto groaned with the faint pain of Haru narrowing his tendril and wriggling through. Haru paid no mind to the sting of stomach acid on his slimy limb, instead adjusting his pH to neutralize it.

Makoto looked down at his protruding belly and rubbed it, feeling the tentacle writhing in his gut like a massive parasitic worm and found the thought that his lover could explore him this intimately gave him a sick arousal. Haru spooled more spare mass in Makoto's stomach and coiled up into his throat, using the curvatures in his esophagus like ladder rungs to claw his way into Makoto's mouth. Once he broke past Makoto's lips, he waved at the human as if to boast of his accomplishment. He zipped into Makoto's ear and out the other side to give him another jolly wave, finding immense delight in navigating the tricky system. Somehow he didn't think Makoto found it as amusing as he did, so he reeled his tentacle in lightning-quick, zooming through his GI tract until he was back where he began in the dank depths of Makoto's lower intestine. He pumped more goo into that arm, expanding it with an explosive burst. It ballooned outward, pressing a hard knot into Makoto's prostate. Haru worked the spot with a tranquil fury, transforming the texture of his arm at his leisure to add new dimensions to the game.

Makoto felt his knees give underneath him and he was rendered a useless slab of pleasure, sobbing Haru's name as his body pitched back and forth atop the rippling monster. He knew he could never enjoy sex with another human again and he didn't mind. He'd sacrifice his life a thousand times to live this unending fantasy. He tried to praise Haru, show his appreciation, beg for more, anything, but when he spoke all that came out was idiotic gibberish that even the Pentagon's top cryptologists couldn't crack. His tongue was swollen fat and stupid like his cock. Everything Haru touched became part of his dominion and he was a cruel but kind ruler, mining every ounce of pleasure possible from Makoto's flesh and digging deeper yet once he thought it spent, finding new veins of sexual ore in the most unlikely places. Between his toes, up his nose, in the crease between his elbow and forearm, everything, absolutely everything Haru touched was an erogenous zone under the ministrations of his tentacles. His whole body became a giant, oversensitive penis ready to burst at a second's notice.

Feeling neglected, the brainslug began plugging into the microscopic network ports of Makoto's brain and lit it up with pure electricity, stimulating the pleasure center. Makoto's squeals rose half an octave as Haru assaulted the last bastion of his being, toying with the sparkfire connections of his mind. Drool rolled down his spasming lips in thin rivers and his eyes rolled back into his head. Pain seared in the left side of his chest, but he was too busy drowning it out in the inhuman ecstasy until he felt his heart stutter then fail. The central pump shut down, unable to process the vast amount of exertion its host was undergoing. Makoto giggled as blackness devoured his vision, gasping for breath with his exhausted lungs. Being fucked to death was okay as long as it was Haru doing it. His dying body slackened atop the monster.

Haru reached inside his flesh and bones, coiling arms around his heart and squeezed it, jolting it back into activity. Likewise he constructed a crude ventilator to keep him breathing, still unrelentless in his assault on Makoto's mind. He was a god and this was solid proof, this human he could make and unmake at his will. Stars and moons from distant galaxies collided within the confines of Makoto's head, a blinding fireworks show of thoughtmotionsound. He could untangle the threads of Makoto's memory and weave them into a shape of his pleasing, he could make him believe that he was a dog or a little girl or anything else he pleased. He could liberate him from his human body, dive into the river of life and shred the useless connection to that inferior form and reassemble him into a shape of his choosing. He could make him into one of his kind. And it was mighty tempting. Makoto was practically begging for it. Haru had never craved for anything else so badly. Not limited edition Loosejaw merchandise, not mackerel, not even the caress of the water on his skin. He had the power to do it. His second sight was on full blast and he could see the seams he'd have to slice to do the deed. It would be a simple task.

"I'm all yours, Haru. Always yours, no matter what. You can do whatever you want!" Makoto gasped around the tendrils in his mouth, sending fresh rivulets of hot spittle coursing down the sides of his chin. Their link was deep enough that Haru didn't have to express his desire.

The voice of his shrewd, craven core egged him on. No better time than now, it assured him. Explicit permission to do whatever he desired was what he'd wanted and he'd gotten it. The nobler part of him thought it was a repulsive display of manipulation and Haru had long detested deception and subterfuge. Makoto wasn't in a clear enough mental state to give what he'd said he was willing to. But what would change even if Makoto wasn't blitzed on sex? When Haru found a way to make his true form mimic his human identity better, he could simply teach Makoto how to make the transition and Makoto could go about his daily life as he had thus far. He wouldn't have to worry about alienating his friends or family if he could wear that useless flesh sack. Unwinding him now, when he had promised to stay for an indeterminate length of time, gave them plenty of time to experiment with the potential of their superior bodies. Yes, unwinding him now was the best plan of action. But before that, he had one last thing to do.

Makoto teetered at the edge of insanity, caught on a carbon nanotube between monstrous ecstasy and agonizing mindbreak the likes of which the world have never seen before. He had long since surrendered complete control of his body to Haru, who was holding him prisoner in this wavy moment, rising past the point of fear and reason, breaking past any sensible peak without the mercy of crashing down and sweeping him away in dizzying undercurrents. Haru had placed some sort of lock on his brain, preventing him from reaching the top of the devil's staircase and escaping from this infernal torment. No matter how high he climbed, how far Haru propelled him with the undulations of his tentacles, he wasn't permitted to bring himself to completion. He slobbered out increasingly incoherent requests for relief, wondering how much more his pathetic human mind could take before shattering apart. Haru made him breathe. Haru kept his heart beating. But he wouldn't slake his thirst for satisfaction. He was chasing illusions of oases in the desert. The strain was too much. He felt the first splinterings of his psyche as a physical pain, nestled deep within the layers of pleasure. His thoughts flashed to his siblings, his family, his friends at school. Would they still love him when he was a vegetable? Would they still stay by his side when he was strapped into machines for the rest of his life? He hoped so.

One final tear slipped out of the overworked duct as he surrendered himself to his inevitable fate.

Seizing the moment, Haru released the lock and everything came tumbling down tumbling down tumbling down. Frantic spasms filled Makoto's whole being, fingers snarling and stretching feet stamping like a rabbit back hunching and snapping head twisting at unhealthy angles jaw dislocating with a great crunch body thrashing twisting scrunching up spreading out shaking shaking endless shaking and twitching his heart went out again he lost his breath but not his consciousness, Haru wouldn't let him miss a second of this, clawing at his electrified skin screaming screaming screaming his throat bloody moaning shuddering sobbing begging gurgling in snot spit and slime sweat pouring down his flesh in fat beads cum shooting shooting shooting squirting creaming hips fucking biting his tongue until it bled not caring letting blood and drool dribble from his mouth with each rapid-fire shot of his cock obliterating another piece of his mind he didn't know what day it was what year it was who he was only that he was in a state of pleasure so intense that it would be his undoing screaming thumping feet fucking himself harder on Haru's tentadick as it flooded his useless human guts with his breederjuice feeling endless feeling fucking loving wanting matter become one melting into Haru's abstract body orgasms smashing into him one after another until he was blind deaf numb to everything but the explosive highs and he never ever ever wanted anything else, never wanted anything but to be Haru's sex toy for the rest of time.

And when Haru watched Makoto lose his mind atop him, he decided that he didn't mind waiting on the transformation. There was something nice about how perfectly that human responded to him. When Makoto stopped moving, almost dead and barely conscious, Haru tallied up his first follower. He set to nursing the boy, fixing his jaw, rehydrating him, and patching the rips in his mental fabric. He even gave him a bath, though he thought this Makoto, covered in blood, sweat, tears, and sperm, was quite appealing to his sensory organs. He put him in a yukata and set him on the porch to sleep for a while, leaving the brainslug in charge of other necessary repairs while he fixed them some watermelon fresh from the icebox.

When he sat on the porch, Makoto had awakened but remained groggy. Haru fed him pieces of watermelon by hand, feeling a deep-rooted pleasure whenever Makoto reached the end of a chunk and suckled on his tentacle in adoration. It made him want to fuck him again, but he knew that Makoto's body was in too delicate of a state to handle anything else tonight. Had he transformed Makoto he wouldn't have to worry about such trivialities, but some part of him savored the restraint he needed to handle the fragile little human who loved him so. They sat that way for a long while, waiting for the lunar eclipse to rise into view. Watermelon juice laid on Makoto's lips in a sticky, sweet gloss and Haru could not help laying a tentacled protrusion onto them to suck it up. Makoto kissed him back without shame. The sun, moon, and earth aligned overhead and they returned their attention to the blood moon. Haru basked in its light while Makoto stargazed in his lap and he realized that he'd been wrong about one fundamental aspect of their relationship. Makoto wasn't the caretaker as he had assumed. He was, protecting Makoto from the humans they would soon conquer.

The current plan of action was clear: assemble the old relay team and draft them into their noble cause. The sleepers dwelling in the blackest pits of the ocean would awake and unite and they would become kings of the post-human civilization. After that, perhaps another land, another galaxy. It seemed feasible, borderline necessary even if he wasn't sure of the specifics yet. He was neither concerned about complications nor fearful of the inevitable retaliation.

Because when he walked into the sea, Makoto would follow.