(Maguro's POV)
You know, being a tuna isn't as simple as it sounds.
I wasn't just any tuna. I was the Maguro—First Retainer of the Sea King, Champion of the Coral Vanguard, Slayer of the Giant Plankton of Reef No. 7.
I still have the battle scar from when it hit me with its giant eye.
Anyway.
I was the most loyal, most fearsome, most respected tuna in the Southern Current. I served the Sea King personally. I guarded the gates of the Abyss Trench. I even once delivered a message to a kraken using only interpretive bubble-dance.
But despite all that… I was curious.
About the surface world.About humans.About one very specific thing.... coffee.
I'd heard whispers drifting down from fishing boats. The smell. The cups. The rituals. The human obsession. It called to me. Like… like an espresso-scented prophecy.
So, I did the unthinkable.
I asked for a wish.
"You dare reject my gift?" the Sea King boomed, swirls of magic rising off his shoulders as his seaweed cape flowed dramatically behind him.
"I do not reject it, Your Salty Majesty," I said, bowing.
"I just… would like something else."
His eyes narrowed. "More power?"
"No."
"A new trident?"
"Nope."
"You want to rule the Western Currents? I can arrange that."
I took a deep breath. "I want to be human."
The entire coral court gasped. Somewhere, an eel fainted.
"You want what?" the Sea King asked, blinking slowly.
"I want to walk on land. I want legs. I want to explore the world above and… try coffee."
He stared at me like I'd just grown barnacles on my face. "Coffee? You want to risk your life, your rank, your gills—for brown bean water?"
"Yes."
Silence.
Then he muttered, "This is why I stopped granting wishes after the shrimp incident."
But finally, with a long, royal sigh that echoed through seven leagues of sea, he raised his trident and gave me what I asked for.
"One wish. One chance. May your weird land dreams not destroy you."
And POOF.
I washed up on shore in the most dramatic way possible: face-first in seafoam, coughing up the ocean, my hair tangled in driftwood, and my legs—
LEGSSSS.
They were long and wobbly and pale and very not-scaly. I touched my knees and gasped.
"So many bendy bits," I whispered in awe.
I tried to stand.
Failed.
Tried again.
Toppled into a crab.
It looked up at me with such deep judgment, I bowed. "Sorry, honored crustacean."
I wandered around town like a lost, wet cryptid. People stared. Children asked their parents if I was a movie promotion.
I saw someone holding a hot cup, steam rising from it like a tiny cloud.
My heart skipped.
Could it be?
I followed the smell down a narrow street and into a small stall with a sleepy-looking woman behind a strange machine that hissed and puffed like an angry clam.
She looked up. "You okay, miss? You… uh… lost?"
"I smell the bean," I said.
"I'm sorry?"
I pointed at the cup in her hand. "The brown juice. The steaming elixir. The sacred extract. I want that."
"…Coffee?"
"Yes. Three of it."
The first sip changed me.
My pupils dilated. My soul left my body. I saw all seven of my past lives. One of them was a jellyfish.
It was—how do I explain? It was bitter. Hot. Sharp. Earthy. It was like being punched in the brain with joy and confusion and mystery.
My hands trembled. I slammed the cup down. "OH MY COODD," I cried.
"This… this is THE THING!"
The barista took a step back.
"You—what?"
"This is it! The holy nectar! The taste of ambition! The flavor of dreams steeped in stress!"
"…It's just espresso."
"Wait…" I muttered, pupils still vibrating.
"What… what do you call this sacred place? This temple of bean and steam?"
The barista squinted at me. "...It's a café?"
The word hit me like a rogue wave.
Café.
I'd heard it before. Somewhere deep below.
Back when I was still a tuna, I used to eavesdrop on human sailors through the surface of the sea. Old sea dogs on yachts would sit around sipping little cups and mumbling things like
"Let's hit that café when we dock—my back can't take this boat anymore."
"They've got oat milk now."
"I told you she was a barista, Brad!"
I didn't know what it meant back then. I thought "café" was a type of surface creature. Maybe a migrating bird.
Now I understood.
They weren't talking about a bird.
They were talking about this.
About coffee.
About destiny.
Now I knew.
It was a place.
A temple of the brew.A sacred house of steam and comfort and quiet music and people pretending to write books while eavesdropping on drama.
I looked at the barista with glowing eyes.
"Where can I find one?"
"You're… literally in one."
"Then I must never leave. I will become a café. I will live here. Breathe espresso. Sleep in a mug rack."
The barista blinked. "Do you want a job?"
"Yes! I mean, what's a job?"
That was the moment.
The moment I knew.
I didn't just want coffee. I wanted to make it. Serve it. Understand it. I wanted a place of my own. A café, where people could come in grumpy and leave smiling and jittery.
But I didn't know how to get one.
All I knew was that I, Maguro, ex-tuna of the deep, now reborn with legs, bangs, and an espresso addiction...
Was going to open the best café this town had ever seen.
Even if it killed me.
To be continued