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Maybe some of the things that Will had been led to believe were unavoidable and unchangeable, weren’t. Maybe it just took reaching for the hand of your neighbor and standing up together.

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Despite what the officer at the Town Hall said, the rumor mill in the days following didn’t know what exactly had happened at the construction site.

But for four days, nothing happened at the site. No men in suits lingered in the parking lot, no crews or machines came and went.

Will and Itori used the time to shore up Itori’s strength, spending hours together every night before Will’s exhaustion became obvious and Itori sent him home.

After those days though, they still weren’t close enough to Itori walking on dry land. Even the wound on his leg, which Itori said should have healed to nothing, stayed a silvery scar on his scales. Itori blamed it on the ‘bleed’ of the spring. Apologized for not being stronger.

Then, on the fifth day, bulldozers rolled into the grocery parking lot.

That night, Will met Itori down past the construction site, at the tree.

“Hey,” Will said as he walked up to the tree, the water sloshing around his ankles. Itori reached for him, drawing him in for a kiss.

It was becoming routine, the kisses. Will liked the novelty of having a routine. Knowing that at the end of a long day, he got this.

Not for very much longer.

He shoved the thought away. He would never want Itori to stay in a place like this for him. No matter how much he was growing to care for him.

“I have something for you,” Itori said when they parted.

“For me?”

Itori took his hand. He opened his own palm, revealing an object there. It glimmered in the low light, a swirling shape.

“I owe you a courting gift,” Itori said, and tilted his palm so that the object slid into Will’s.

“What?” Will plucked at the string attached to the glimmering object. He lifted it up, and realized it was a necklace.

The shiny pendant of it was some sort of pearl, deep gray in color and not round. It looked almost flattened, like a teardrop or a splatter of water. At the center top, a tiny hole had been drilled through the thinner material, and it had been strung on what looked like woven sinew.

Will blinked at the necklace in disbelief. “Did you make this?”

“Yes,” Itori said. “I lack access to most of my tools, so I could only string a single pearl, but I hope this is acceptable.”

Will stared at him, stuck between surprise and disbelief.

“For me?” He didn’t understand. No one had ever given him anything like this.

“I should have given it to you earlier. It took some time to find the right pearl.”

Will open his mouth and then shut it. What?

“Thank you, this is beautiful,” Will managed. “I–” he almost said that humans didn’t have courting gifts, but of course they did. Jewelry was even a common one.

It was just most often given to women.

He looked down at the pearl, heart sinking. A pearl necklace wasn’t something that men could wear.

But here, with Itori, the rules were different, weren’t they?

Will brought the string up over his head and slid the necklace on. The pendant pearl came to lay cold against his sternum.

“I haven’t brought you anything,” Will said dumbly.