It was supposed to be an ordinary Tuesday. The kind of forgettable, grayscale day that fades into the background of a forgettable, grayscale life. But Kaito Ren had always suspected he wasn't meant for greatness. He just didn't think his grand exit would involve a half-eaten tuna sandwich, an untied shoelace, and a ringtone version of "Careless Whisper."
He stood at the edge of the train platform, tie askew, hair slightly greased with existential despair, and the crumbs of his terrible convenience store lunch still clinging to his lips. The station was unusually empty for 11:47 PM. One other man in a trench coat stood near the vending machine whispering to a can of Boss Coffee, and a woman with blue hair and dead eyes sat slumped on a bench, humming something that sounded like a funeral dirge for goldfish.
Kaito blinked. The train was late.
His phone buzzed. A message from his ex: "Hope you're still not thinking about me. :)"
He sighed. He was.
With the reflexes of a man who had long surrendered to fate, he glanced down to text back something both passive-aggressive and pathetic—perhaps a half-baked haiku—and missed the shoelace looped traitorously around his foot. He stepped forward. Then he wasn't standing. He was flying.
Well. Falling.
His last thought was, "Oh no, not like th—"
When he opened his eyes, there was water.
And then there was more water.
Kaito blinked. Not metaphorical water. Not tears. Actual water. Wet, cold, pressurized, fish-scented, full-body-encompassing OCEAN.
His arms were gone. His legs, also missing. In their place: fins. Scales. Tail. Gills. He tried to scream and farted a stream of confused bubbles.
Somewhere, the laws of reincarnation had made a clerical error.
He was a fish.
"Welcome to the coral zone, newbie."
Kaito spun—rather, flopped—around to see a shrimp. A shrimp wearing seaweed as a headband. He was holding a pebble like it was a clipboard.
"I'm Bub. You're in the transitional reef. You died stupid, didn't you?"
Kaito tried to nod. It turned into an accidental somersault. Bub clicked his claws approvingly.
"Classic. Okay, here's the orientation: you're a clownfish. Don't laugh, it's just your species. You breathe water now. You eat plankton. You run from everything. That includes other fish, sea currents, shadows, bubbles, and sometimes your own reflection."
Kaito wanted to ask questions. Like, "Why me?" or "Can I please go back?" or "Is that eel looking at me weird?" But all he could do was bubble, gurgle, and flail.
"Right. Forgot. You can't talk for the first week. Spirit shock. Your thoughts'll come out in dreams. You'll get used to it. Or you won't. That's also fine. Nature's brutal like that. Come on, I'll show you your algae patch."
The coral zone looked like a trippy art museum curated by sea anemones on psychedelics. Colors throbbed. Lights shimmered. Fish of various shapes zipped by like caffeine addicts at a Black Friday sale. It was beautiful, yes, but also incredibly noisy.
A dolphin laughed maniacally somewhere in the distance. An octopus was breakdancing to the beat of clapping mussels. Two jellyfish were arguing about post-modernism.
Kaito gawked.
Bub paused. "First-timers always get overwhelmed. Breathe in. Breathe out. Through your gills, I mean. Not like that. You're choking. There you go."
They passed a sunken vending machine that now housed three eels and a disco ball.
"Don't ask," Bub warned.
They arrived at a small hole in the reef. It was a bit of crushed coral and algae with a sign that said, "Clownfish Condo #23. No Sharks Allowed."
"This is home," Bub announced.
Kaito stared. It was damp. Cramped. Smelled like fermented kelp.
"You'll learn to love it," Bub lied.
That night, Kaito dreamed.
He was back at the train station. Only this time, the train was made of sardines, and the passengers were all screaming seahorses. The announcer called out destinations like "Existential Crisis Junction" and "Next Stop: Crushed Dreams Central."
A giant catfish wearing a suit read his resume and said, "Not impressive. You wasted your life and now you're wasting mine."
Kaito woke up screaming. Bubbles popped around him.
From the other hole in the reef, Bub groaned. "Keep it down! Some of us have nightmares about being steamed with garlic!"
Kaito stared at the reef ceiling. His gills fluttered.
This was real. He was a fish.
He didn't even like the ocean.
The next morning, Kaito was introduced to the local "ecosystem." It was less of an ecological balance and more of a full-on telenovela.
First, there was Mara, the sarcastic sea turtle with a cracked shell and a traumatic past involving a plastic six-pack ring. She rolled her eyes at everything and had a laugh like a haunted xylophone.
Then came Thren, an ancient blue whale who spoke only in riddles and tragic metaphors. He lived near the Abyssal Shelf and said things like, "The ocean remembers every scream." He was also an excellent baker of kelp muffins.
And finally, there was Murmur, a moray eel who dressed in strips of dead lionfish and claimed to be a fashion icon. He hissed compliments like threats. "You look edible. That's a good thing."
Kaito kept his distance.
Too bad Murmur didn't.
"You smell like reincarnated failure," Murmur said, circling him. "I like it. It's… vintage."
Bub dragged Kaito away before he became a snack.
Life under the sea was both weirder and harder than he expected. Kaito had to learn:
How to avoid being eaten.
How to find food that didn't taste like salted depression.
How to poop without attracting predators.
How to sleep without floating into a jellyfish rave.
Bub helped. Sort of. Mostly by pointing and laughing when Kaito got stuck in seaweed or tried to talk to a crab who turned out to be a rock.
At one point, Kaito tried meditating under a coral arch, hoping he might summon his human form. Instead, he summoned a small army of parasitic worms who took it as an invitation.
Bub had to yank them off with a rusty fork.
"You are not cut out for fish life," he declared. "You're like a wet tissue in a hurricane."
Kaito blew bubbles in agreement.
And yet… something odd began to happen.
Days passed. He began to enjoy the rhythm of swimming. The feel of water flowing past. The glow of the reef at sunset. The way the plankton lit up when he brushed against them. He started recognizing fish he'd never met, but who nodded at him like they shared some ancient aquatic trauma.
He still hated Murmur.
But he laughed more. Slept better. Even dreamed of flying—not falling.
Then came the day of the predator stampede.
It started with a tremor. Then a scream—well, a high-pitched squeal from a crab that had just lost its shell to a rogue wave.
Then they came: barracuda, sharks, a rogue anglerfish with an LED-lighted lure shaped like a clown's nose.
The reef erupted in panic. Fish scattered. Coral snapped. Bub yelled, "Initiate Code F!" and jumped into a beer can.
Kaito didn't know what Code F was. But he swam. Hard. Fast. He darted into a crack in the reef, heart hammering in his fishy chest.
A barracuda zipped past, snapping its jaws.
Kaito closed his eyes.
This was it.
Death #2.
But then… it passed.
He waited. Then opened his eyes.
He was alive.
He'd survived.
That night, while the reef rebuilt itself and the sea cucumbers held a vigil (they were very dramatic), Kaito stared up at the moonlight filtering through the water.
He had died. He had fallen like a fool. He had become something ridiculous.
And yet… he was still here.
Still swimming.
Still… living?
Somewhere deep in the trench, Thren sang a song of old oceans.
Mara floated by and said, "You scream less now. I respect that."
And Bub, popping out of a discarded sandal, raised a pebble in salute. "You're not the worst fish anymore. That title goes to Kevin the sea cucumber. He cries at sand."
Kaito smiled.
As much as a fish can.
And so began his new life beneath the waves—a comedy of errors, a horror of scales, and a bizarre, bubbling second chance.
Welcome to Koko Melon.
It's about to get even weirder.