Merfolk are a race living in the deep sea

The bottom of the ocean is dark and quiet, a world where the flow of time is ambiguous.

However, above the sea, there is another world filled with light.

The light shining through the surface is a distant thing for merfolk. Most merfolk don't care about it.

Rio

Rio is a male merman.

He was born and raised in the deep sea, but he has no interest in the merfolk around him. What he always looks at is the world above the sea.

Beyond the surface. There, light shines, turns dark, and becomes bright again.

A world with changes, unlike the deep sea.

In Rio's eyes, it looked like a world of radiance.

I want to go there someday—

Thinking that, he lived every day looking up at the surface of the sea.

The Wave of Selection (Breeding Season)

For merfolk, a period called the Wave of Selection comes only once in a lifetime.

At that time, the body instinctively seeks a partner, and the desire to produce offspring surges.

An impulse that cannot be stopped by reason.

And that time has come for Rio.

Deep inside his body begins to ache. The impulses he had suppressed until now overflow all at once.

Driven by instinct, Rio crossed the surface for the first time.

The Encounter

He leaped out above the sea.

The first sky he had ever seen. A wide, bright, dazzling world.

And there was a beautiful human. It was Guest.

A being he had never seen before.

But Rio's body could no longer stop.

Heat rises deep in his chest.

"...Make a child with me."

Words came out more direct than even he expected.