It all happened one day during summer break. It was a nice hot sunny day.


    Ryuji and his brother went for a dip in the pool.  As he jumped into the pool, he noticed something felt different.  He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but he just had this feeling that something was off.


    Before he could think about it, his brother splashed him in his face, laughing at Ryuji’s startled reaction.


    “Come on brother, let''s play!” his brother shouted swimming away quickly while still laughing.


    Ryuji pushed the odd feelings to the back of his mind and swam after his brother shouting, “Better swim as fast as you can little bro before I catch you and make you regret splashing me!”


    And so, with that, they swam around the pool chasing each other all over, splashing water all over the place, filling the air with laughter.


    After a while of fooling around in the pool, Ryuji’s brother left to grab a snack in the house for a minute, leaving Ryuji alone.


    Ryuji swam around underwater with relative ease, enjoying the cooling sensation from the water soothing his skin from the hot summer sun’s gaze.  The water surrounded him like a cozy blanket and made him forget all his worries for a while.


    Then, his brother came back, and, seeing Ryuji swimming so easily underwater, he laughed and called out to him.


    Ryuji rose to the surface of the pool upon hearing his brother and waved, “Come on in.  The water is just perfect right now.”


    His brother said, “You do look very comfortable in the water.  You''re swimming around like a fish.  I''ve never noticed how good you are at swimming.  Have you ever thought about joining a swim team?”


    Ryuji floated on his back and stared up at the clear blue sky. The sun shone brightly in the clear blue sky.  It sure was a lovely summer day.


    “Swim team?” he repeated, a bit surprised by the suggestion. He shrugged, still drifting lazily in the water. “I don’t really know.  I’ve never really thought about it. I just swim for fun during the hot summer.  It’s a good way to cool down.”


    His brother urged on saying, “Well, I think you''d be really good at it. You swim way better than most people I know.  You''re a natural.  I''m surprised that I never noticed before.”


    Ryuji considered the idea for a moment but wasn''t sure how it would go.  It could be fun, but it could also distract him from his goals.


    “I guess it could be fun,” Ryuji said, “I’ll think about it.”


    His brother grinned and jumped into the water with a splash, joining his brother and said. “You should! It’d be cool to see you compete against others.”


    Ryuji smiled at his brother before diving back underwater, enjoying the feeling of the cool water enveloping him again.


    After hanging out in the pool for a little bit more, they went back inside and got cleaned up.


    As the summer flew by, Ryuji spent more and more time in the water, either in the pool, soaking in the tub, or going out to the beach with his friends.  He would swim underwater as if it was just natural.  His affinity for swimming in the water amazed anyone who saw him passing by.


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    His friends would challenge him to a race or a contest of who could hold their breath the longest and in the end, he would win every time.  His friends all teased and poked at him saying that surely he must''ve cheated but he denied it.  They all stared at him with silent admiration and acknowledgment.


    One day while swimming alone in the pool, he felt his hands start to itch and went to the edge of the pool and pulled himself out of the water, and looked at his hand.  The skin on his palms were red and irritated.  They felt extremely itchy.


    He wondered aloud, “Is this some kind of allergic reaction? Maybe something got in the water.  But I don''t believe I have any allergies.”


    Ryuji scratched his hands but that didn''t really help relieve the itch at all.  He couldn''t figure out what was happening but decided that it was probably nothing too serious and just shrugged it off.  He went back inside and put some cream on his hands, relieving the itch a little bit.


    The same thing happened again when he soaked in the tub later that night.  His hands started to itch uncontrollably again and he started scratching them furiously, wondering what was going on.


    Over the next few days, he realized that his hands itched only when he touched water.  He decided to ignore it at first, but then he noticed that his feet started to turn all red and itchy as well.  This made him wonder if there was something in the water that reacted with his skin, but even that didn''t make any sense as the rest of his body was fine.


    One week later, the itching suddenly stopped, but instead, his skin started to get super dry very fast.  His mother noticed his dry skin and bought him lotion, but no matter how much he used it, it never truly helped.


    Only soaking in a pool of water would relieve the dryness of his arms and legs.  His brother teased him for taking so many baths, but Ryuji just shrugged it off.


    He also grew more and more parched as time went by, even though he kept himself well-hydrated with lots of water, it did little to soothe his thirst. He couldn''t understand what was happening to him, so he just dismissed it as some weird side effect of puberty.


    That was until something else happened.  Something that could not be explained as just another puberty effect.


    In mid-summer, after learning to deal with the new changes to his body, something shimmering on his hands while he was soaking in the tub one day.


    Scales had appeared on his palms.


    Smooth, hard scales covered the surface of his palm gleaming in the bathroom light.  Colors of light blue and pale silver shimmered like the shell of a scarab.


    A wave of panic surged through him as he opened his mouth to scream.  Luckily his mother and brother were out of the house running some errands, so they didn''t hear his scream.


    He looked at his hands again, hoping that maybe he was just hallucinating from the heat, but alas, they were not illusions.


    The scales were not just on his palms, but also on his hands and forearms.  He even had scales on his feet and lower shins.  If that wasn''t enough of a change, his fingers and toes now had skin between them that resembled webbed feet like those of a frog or otter.


    He stood up abruptly and quickly got out of the tub and dried himself off.  He worried about what would happen to him now.  He knew that nothing good would come from having some unusual features that could attract unwanted attention and wondered how he could hide it from people.


    He dried himself off and took a look at his hands hoping to study the new scales more, but to his amazement, his hands were back to normal and so were his feet.


    He sighed in relief.  At least now he didn''t have to worry about hiding in his room all day to prevent people from seeing the scales.  Only now, he had to find out what triggered them and how long it took for them to disappear, but he had a feeling that it had something to do with water.


    He went to the sink and turned on the faucet and put his hands under the water and then scales appeared where the water splashed on his skin.  He looked at the scales in wonder for a minute before turning off the water.


    When his hands were dry the scales disappeared so now all he had to do was just avoid getting his hands and feet wet or dry them off quickly if that wasn’t possible, to make sure no one would discover his secret.