The late afternoon sun was sinking behind the low coastal buildings of Izu when Stevan stepped through the university gates with a tired backpack and the restrained optimism of someone who had prepared for everything except reality. The breeze was carrying the smell of salt and grilled food from the shops near the station, and students were scattered across the courtyard, chatting, laughing, rushing to clubs or pretending they had a reason to be outside.
Stevan was scanning the campus, trying to decide which direction looked least hostile. Everything seemed normal. Everything seemed peaceful. Everything seemed manageable.
Which, for him, was a statistical impossibility.
He had barely taken three steps into the courtyard when someone slammed a large, meaty hand on his shoulder. Stevan froze, then slowly turned.
Two shirtless giants—because calling them "men" felt insufficient—were towering above him with unnatural smiles stretching across their faces. Their physiques were absurd, sculpted, glistening as if they had just finished wrestling a whale with their bare hands.
Stevan's mind stalled.
Those couldn't be them. Those couldn't be the infamous faces he had seen online only once, in a perfectly innocent documentary titled "Clubs to Avoid in Izu University."
And yet—
The taller one leaned in, eyes shining with the light of a man who considered chaos a greeting.
"You're new," he said.
The other giant nodded, crossing his arms in a display of dominance that could have intimidated a refrigerator. "Exchange student?"
Stevan swallowed. "Yes."
Both giants clapped him on the back at the same time, nearly folding his lungs.
"Welcome!" the taller one roared. "I'm Tokita! This is Kotobuki! We're with the Diving Club!"
Stevan blinked slowly.
The Diving Club.
Here.
Now.
Before he had the chance to run.
Kotobuki leaned closer, whispering as if sharing a government secret. "We sensed it. The aura."
"The what?" Stevan asked.
Tokita raised a finger dramatically. "Your aura of misfortune."
Stevan's stomach dropped.
"Well," he muttered, "that didn't take long."
Before he could ask how they could possibly know anything, the two giants grabbed his arms with the elegance of forklifts and dragged him toward the club building. Students moved aside automatically, forming a path in terrified respect, as though they were watching two apex predators carry prey back to their den.
Stevan tried to understand whether he had a choice. He quickly concluded he did not.
They reached the Diving Club building—a humble structure that looked perfectly normal from the outside. That was the first lie.
The moment they shoved the door open, the sound of shouting, laughter, and poorly tuned karaoke washed over him like a tidal wave. Inside, half a dozen men were drinking, screaming, arguing, or posing dramatically in various states of undress.
Stevan's first instinct was to turn around.
Tokita and Kotobuki prevented that by pushing him in and closing the door behind them.
Iori Kitahara, fully naked except for the life jacket he was inexplicably wearing, pointed an accusing finger at him. "New guy!"
Kouhei Imamura, holding a stack of manga like they were holy scripture, looked at Stevan with the wide-eyed excitement of a fan spotting a rare collectible. "He looks normal. We can fix that."
Stevan considered running through the window. The window seemed safer.
Tokita clapped loudly, silencing the room. "Listen up! This is Stevan. Exchange student. First year. Marine Biology."
Kouhei whispered, "A scholar. He's doomed."
Iori leaned forward. "He's built. Maybe he can drink."
Kotobuki cracked his knuckles. "We shall test him."
Stevan raised a hand. "I'm not sure—"
He didn't finish. Someone placed a bottle of brutal, unreasonably strong alcohol in his hand. Another person yelled, "Initiation!" Someone else shouted, "Strip battle!" A third voice screamed, "Do both!"
Stevan took a small step back.
His brain whispered danger.
His instincts whispered run.
His fate whispered too late.
Tokita pushed a cup into his free hand. "Drink. If you survive, we accept you. If you don't—"
"You still get accepted," Kouhei added. "But horizontally."
Stevan eyed the drink. It was colorless. It was odorless. It was probably illegal.
He tried to delay the inevitable with rationality. "Shouldn't we start with introductions?"
Kotobuki raised a brow. "We did."
Iori nodded. "We introduced you."
Kouhei slammed both hands on the table. "Drink!"
Stevan exhaled. He knew it was hopeless. He had moved across the world to study marine life, but fate had delivered him directly into the arms of the two most dangerous words in Japanese university culture.
Grand Blue.
He lifted the glass and drank.
The liquid hit his throat like a flaming harpoon. His vision blurred for half a second, then sharpened unnaturally. The room tilted. Someone cheered. Someone else bet money on how fast he would collapse. A distant voice shouted, "Look! He's still standing!"
Stevan set the glass down slowly.
Tokita stared at him, stunned.
Kotobuki leaned in. "You lived."
Stevan blinked. "I think so."
Iori stepped forward with admiration. "The foreigner is strong."
Kouhei narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "Or cursed."
That word made everyone pause.
Tokita scratched his chin. "Actually… why does that sound familiar?"
Kotobuki nodded slowly. "I heard some rumors from overseas."
Stevan felt cold.
He had hoped they wouldn't know.
Kouhei snapped his fingers. "Wait. Isn't there a story about an exchange student whose dives always turn into disasters?"
Iori pointed at Stevan. "You're him, aren't you?"
Every pair of eyes in the room focused on him with the combined intensity of sharks smelling blood.
Stevan hesitated. He could lie. But he had the statistical certainty of someone who had tried lying before and paid with multiple hospital visits.
He sighed. "Yes. People used to call me… the Cursed Diver."
The room went silent.
Then it exploded with laughter, cheers, and insane enthusiasm.
Tokita grabbed him by both shoulders. "Perfect!"
Kotobuki raised his fists. "You're one of us!"
Kouhei clapped like a fan at a concert. "We have acquired a rare specimen!"
Iori nodded with serious determination. "You're joining the club."
Stevan lifted a hand. "I didn't—"
"No choice!" everyone shouted in unison.
Before Stevan could protest, someone shoved a diving wetsuit into his arms. Someone else threw him a towel. A third person yelled, "Test dive! Now!"
He tried to explain that the sun was already setting, that diving at night required preparation, supervision, safety checks—
But Grand Blue didn't operate on logic. It operated on alcohol, impulse, and peer pressure strong enough to warp physics.
Within ten minutes, Stevan was standing on the beach as the waves were rolling gently under the dimming sky. The wind was colder now, brushing against his skin as he adjusted the wetsuit Tokita had given him. Unfortunately, it was two sizes too small, compressing his ribs like an aggressive anaconda.
Iori stood beside him, fully naked as always, stretching casually.
Kouhei stood on his other side, also naked but attempting a dramatic pose from an anime Stevan didn't recognize.
Tokita and Kotobuki walked over with their scuba gear and pointed toward the water.
"First dive test," Tokita said.
"Simple," Kotobuki added. "Just don't die."
Stevan took a deep breath. He had survived worse. Probably.
They moved into the water, the cold immediately biting at Stevan's ankles. He steadied his breathing. The ocean was calm, peaceful, beautifully illuminated by the gradient of orange and blue from the sky. It was the kind of scenery that should have inspired confidence.
Which made Stevan nervous.
His dives never went smoothly. Something always went wrong. Always.
He submerged with the others, adjusting his mask. The underwater world opened around him—fish gliding lazily, bubbles rising in slow streams, the muted silence wrapping everything in serenity.
And that serenity lasted precisely eight seconds.
A sudden tug on his fin nearly startled him into swallowing half the ocean. He turned sharply, expecting a snag or a loose cable.
Instead, he saw Iori drifting sideways, tangled in a cluster of seaweed he had somehow managed to wrap around his arms like a straightjacket. Kouhei was trying to help but only succeeded in tangling himself too.
Stevan swam toward them to assist, but as soon as he reached the struggling pair, a large shadow appeared beneath him. His brain screamed danger. He kicked upward instinctively, knocking into Kouhei, who collided with Iori, who spun in a frantic circle.
The shadow rose.
It wasn't a shark.
It wasn't a sea monster.
It was worse.
Tokita surfaced beneath them like a torpedo, yelling underwater with the fury of a man who had miscalculated buoyancy.
Kouhei panicked and flailed.
Iori flailed harder.
Stevan attempted to stop the chaos. He failed.
The mess of limbs triggered a chain reaction—mask straps pulled, regulators yanked, fins flying off feet—until all four men surfaced in a violent splash, coughing, shouting, gasping, and laughing all at once.
On the shore, Kotobuki was watching with the quiet satisfaction of a scientist observing a natural disaster. "Prediction confirmed. His curse amplifies ours."
Stevan spat water and glared weakly. "This isn't normal!"
Iori grinned. "For you, maybe."
Kouhei raised a fist. "For us, it's Tuesday."
Tokita patted Stevan's back with a slap heavy enough to bruise a car. "You passed."
Stevan blinked. "Passed what?"
"The dive test," Tokita said proudly. "Welcome to Grand Blue."
A cheer erupted from the beach. Someone had already prepared drinks. Someone else lit a grill. The night sky was darkening, waves rolling softly against the shore, and Stevan was dragged back toward the club like a prisoner being escorted to execution.
He didn't resist anymore.
Not because he accepted his fate—
But because he already understood a simple truth:
There was no escaping Grand Blue.
Not now.
Not ever.
And somewhere deep inside, past the terror and the exhaustion, a small part of him whispered that maybe—just maybe—this was exactly where he belonged.