Chapter Text
As the summer sun begins its descent on the sea beyond the docks, Taehyun comes out of his aunt’s summer cottage and makes his way to the nearby beach. It’s a five-minute walk through low grass prickling his usually naked feet and sand sticking between his fingers, but Taehyun doesn’t get annoyed by that. A religious habit of his, one that he loves the most after spending the whole day studying and working hard on his research, one that isn’t going anywhere yet but he’s hopeful that he’ll find a topic for it this summer.
The warm weather embraces him like a sticky hug, the smell of saltwater clinging to his nostrils thanks to the sea breeze, and Taehyun suddenly feels like he’s at home. Ever since he was a child, he always loved the beach and everything about it – becoming a marine biologist was only expected taking in consideration his obsession with the sea and beaches. When he thinks about it, he doesn’t see any other path for him besides working in this field and getting to know more and helping these creatures.
The lukewarm flat sand meets the soles of his feet, and it feels nice to feel something other than the wood surface of the cottage’s floor for the whole day – or the clean white tiles of the Marine Rehabilitation Center that he volunteers three times a week. Taehyun starts his daily walk through the beach with the faraway sound of the cars in the road and the waves crashing at the shore, eyes scanning for any trash left behind or seashells that need to go back, sometimes even searching for jellyfishes or other animals that accidentally get stranded.
As he continues walking and watches the gentle waves coming up along the shore, something catches the white light coming from his flashlight, something shiny and clearly far from where he is. It doesn’t take him by surprise, he has seen it happen a bunch of times when the high tide comes in full force, always some wounded creature getting stuck in the shoreline and needing some help to get back on water. But something feels out of place as he squints his eyes to see better where the creature landed.
This one stands further back from the shoreline, beyond the lifeguard stand and slightly hidden by the prickly bushes. For a creature to wiggle that far, even in a beach not large like this one and with the aid of the high tide, it’s very unlikely.
“Hey!” Taehyun calls, assuming that no fish would ever reach that far from the water and whatever he’s seeing could only be a human. With each closer step he takes through the looser sand, the shape of the creature looks strangely human and starts to make more sense in his head. “Are you okay? Do you need hel–”
He doesn’t get the chance to finish, a hissing noise cuts him off as Taehyun shines the light in the direction. Taehyun flinches and almost lets the flashlight fall from his grip, ankles wobbling in the sand as he takes a step back. He squints his eyes at the darkness and allows the gaps of light in his hand to help see whatever hissed back at him – it couldn’t be a wounded creature stuck in net or plastic, nor a homeless person using the sound of the waves as a lullaby to sleep.
Whatever hissed at him, it could never be human.
The first thing Taehyun sees is a long tail with a fin by the side, the color so luminescent that even in the dark, he could notice how shiny it looks. He tries to move the flashlight in his shaky grip towards the tail, almost gasping as he sees the sparkly blue looking exactly like the ocean. Blue isn’t a common color in nature, it was the first thing Taehyun learned back when he was in college, there’s no such thing as true blue color or pigment in nature, usually to achieve such a color, nature uses tricks of light. But here he is, looking at a tail filled with scales that shimmer in all shades of blue he can name at the top of his head – indigo, cobalt, persian, cerulean, dodger, baby blue. All of it mixing in a mouth-gaping sight, beautiful and like nothing he has ever seen before.
Taehyun slowly scans up the unusual creature, noticing the tail fading to a strangely pale skin, like those porcelain dolls Kai’s sister keeps as decoration in the rehabilitation center. He could see scales traveling up the torso in a paler shade of blue, decorating the creature’s ribs and obliques, sporadically showing up on its shoulders and neck. There’s gills a few centimeters underneath his pecs and neck, slowly opening and closing as the creature tries to breathe. A large fin goes all over its back in the same multi-shade of blue of the tail, shorter ones in a paler shade on its jaw.
All he can think about is what the hell he’s looking at because as his eyes fall on its face, he can see human features.
The face is chiseled and shaped so statuesque-like that Taehyun had to rub his eyes to make sure that he was seeing right. The radiant pale blue of the scales made shy appearances in a few spots of the face and ears, giving way to a strange pinkish blush on the cheeks and equally pink lips. But the eyes, the eyes are the ones that Taehyun cannot look away no matter how hard he tries.
Navy blue, like the ocean at night, Vivid Cerulean, like the skies during the day; but strikingly different from human’s eyes. The sclera is completely dark and almost scary to stare at, meanwhile the iris portrays a more soothing feeling. Taehyun stares, almost mesmerized at the sight, not even noticing the deadly stare the creature is giving back to him. When he finally breaks the spell, he notices the blonde hair falling around its head like the halo of an angel, not long but not short either, something in between.
The perfect balance between an angel and a demon, some would say. But in that moment, Taehyun can only think about how this creature is the most beautiful being he has ever seen.
His amazement doesn’t last for long. The horrific sight of blood in his tails and fins, along with the broken off portion of a harpoon buried deep in the flesh doesn’t go unnoticed by Taehyun’s worried eyes. He can’t simply let this creature here, injured and whimpering from the wound, hissing in fright, coiled in a ball protectively and at the mercy of someone else that probably won’t think about helping it. Taehyun isn’t a marine veterinarian, but he’s a marine biologist and spending time with Kai in the center has given him the minor knowledge of how to help in situations like this.
“Y-You–” Taehyun starts with a stutter, but he can’t let the words out fast enough before the creature lunges forward to attack, bearing its teeth and showing out hands that look more like claws. It doesn’t reach far before crying out in pain and falling back on the sand, whimpering painfully and curling in itself again.
Taehyun falls back on the sand too, heart hammering against his chest and hands trembling aggressively in fright. He remains in that position for what feels like minutes, thinking back to the creature’s alarmingly sharp teeth and claws, ready to rip his face and neck apart in order to protect itself from more harm. It’s no doubt that if the creature wasn’t injured, Taehyun would probably be torn to shreds as soon as it pounced his way. He has grown with the tales of mermaids and how predatory they are, the differences between them and sirens, the old stories the elderly people from the town used to tell about relatives that got taken to the bottom of the ocean and drowned by mermaids, torn to pieces and never to be found again.
It was all tales and nonsense to Taehyun, especially when he started college and realized how impossible it would be the existence of something mythical like mermaids. But, was it impossible? Isn’t he looking at one right at this moment?
A pitiful and heart-wrenching sound takes him back to reality. The one thing that he always thought was created to scare children that went to the beach at night alone and to explain mysterious deaths on the ocean stands right in front of him, needing the aid of a skeptic. It couldn’t be a simple cosplay, no fake tail would bleed and no one would pretend this much. It looks far too real for him to be making this all up, it has to be real.
“You’re badly hurt, you need to stop moving. Do you understand me?” Taehyun says warily, slowly moving from the sand and trying to get back on his feet. The abrupt motion doesn’t seem welcomed by the creature, who attempts to lunge again to attack but fails once again. “Stop moving! I’m trying to help. I’m not going to hurt you.”
His words don't make things any better, but at least gives him time to approach the creature without getting injured too. Taehyun watches as its fins flicker rapidly, crying in pain and trying to keep the human away at all costs. The breathing patterns become shallower, an almost wheezing sound coming out of the creature as his gills flap and tremble without stopping. It doesn’t take a genius to know that it was going through the first stages of lack of water, and by the looks of it, it has been quite some time since the creature got stranded there.
Taehyun gets filled with panic as he sees the creature almost convulsing as it tries to breathe, looking around frantically in search of something that could help – he belatedly regrets not bringing a water bottle, he never forgets one when he goes on his nightly walk. Like a light at the end of the tunnel, he sees a forgotten plastic bucket that some child must’ve accidentally left behind. It’s small and probably won’t do much except give Taehyun an exhausting task, but it’ll have to do in order to assure the creature’s survival.
He kicks off his sandals and runs in the bucket’s direction, falling and stumbling in the sand several times until he reaches it. Taehyun sprints towards the water and hisses as the freezing coldness shocks his adrenaline consumed body. He doesn’t dwell on the numbness that sips through his body, focused on dipping the bucket low and filling it to the brim with water. Once it’s done, he walks out as the water sloshes, going back to the wounded creature. Taehyun curses as he feels the sand clinging to his wet skin relentlessly, but his mind can barely care about that.
His only worry at the moment is to make sure the creature doesn’t die on him.
Upon his reappearance, the creature started to hiss and cry out again, almost as if trying to get someone of its kind to help, probably thinking that Taehyun will try to harm it the same way whoever stuck that harpoon on its tail did. Taehyun tries to hush him, but it doesn’t work and his whispers of be quiet! seems to mean absolutely nothing to the creature. Do mermaids understand the human language? For the first time in ages, Taehyun doesn’t have an answer on the tip of his tongue about a marine creature.
“Please, be quiet,” he whisper-shouts, looking around the empty beach in hopes that no one will suddenly appear from thin air and get to the creature. Taehyun looks down at the mermaid and lifts the bucket, heart almost stopping mid-beat as he sees the fear in the creature’s eyes. “This is water, I’m going to pour it on you to make sure you won’t die. I’m here to help you, I swear.”
Taehyun took a deep breath and slowly started to pour the water on the creature’s torso, using his own shaky hands instead of flipping the bucket down. The creature startled at first from the action, but relaxed entirely when the water began to run down its skin and scales. Taehyun diligently kept his task of filling his hand with water and pouring down on the creature, moving towards its head and letting the water fall down on the blonde locks. The creature sputtered and jerked from the sensation, but did not try to attack. If anything, it let out a relieved sigh and closed its eyes, the gills moving slowly and its chest rising and falling steadily.
“Feeling better?” Taehyun asks in a whisper as he pours the last handful of water inside the bucket, watching closely for any shift in the creature’s face. Its eyes suddenly opened, hands going in the buckets direction and tapping on it, silently but clearly asking for more. “Oh, you need more?”
A stupid question, but one that makes Taehyun leap to his feet and run back to the water in what could only be considered desperation. The creature isn’t in any danger of dying from lack of water, but he can’t help running like his life depends on it. In the same fashion, he hurries back and kneels down by the creature’s side, going back to pouring down water and relaxing as the creature responds positively to it.
By the fourth bucket of water and the creature completely soaked and visibly feeling better, Taehyun decides that he has to start helping it in some way. The wound doesn’t look like it’s getting any better and he knows that it’ll be a matter of time until it infects. He could call Kai and ask for help, but it feels dangerous to let someone else know about the mermaid’s existence. Taehyun takes a deep breath and wets his hand, letting the drops fall on the mermaid’s wounded fins.
“I don’t know if you can understand me, but we need to do something about this wound,” he says, pointing at the harpoon still lodged on the tail. The creature stares at him with narrowed eyes, jaw clenched and seemingly ready to attack again. Just to make sure, Taehyun retreats his hand back to the bucket and keeps a somewhat distance between them. “I’m not a veterinarian, but I have some sort of knowledge about creatures like you. Not like you, per se, but animals that live in the water. I don’t know much about you, but I can help you.”
Taehyun purses his lips and holds his breath, thinking that actions could be better understood if his words are not getting across. He slowly moves his hand and reaches for the wounded area, with the same care Kai taught him on the first day of his volunteering work in the center. As it seems, his gentleness isn’t enough because the creature lets out a horrific cry that echoes in the emptiness of the beach. In his panic, Taehyun lunges forward without thinking twice, smacking a hand over the creature’s mouth in hopes to silence it.
And in that moment, his life flashed before his eyes and Taehyun knew that he wouldn’t survive to see the morning thanks to his reckless act.
To his immense surprise, the creature didn’t bite or bear his teeth or even used its claws to rip Taehyun’s hands from his wrists. Instead, it reached up and grabbed Taehyun’s head, sharp nails pressing against his temples, not threatening but still too dangerous for the human to not feel the shivers on his spine from fear. Taehyun freezes on the spot, waiting for whatever the mermaid intends to do, accepting his fate without a fight. The creature blinks back at Taehyun before dropping its hands and shaking his head to make Taehyun get away. Taehyun obeys, pulling away like he got burned, letting out the breath he didn’t know he was holding this whole time.
“I’m sorry, I won’t touch you again,” Taehyun breathes out, still a little dizzy from whatever happened in that moment. “But you have to be quiet. You can’t make noise like that! If someone hears you, you’ll be having more than a harpoon in your tail, you understand me?”
The creature only looks back at Taehyun, almost as if listening but not being able to give a proper answer. If it understands what he was saying, it matters little because it seemed to understand the intentions behind Taehyun’s voice and his gestures as he used his hand while speaking, pointing at the wound and at the mermaid. It seems to understand that it has to stay quiet and that Taehyun wants to help, and that’s enough for now.
“Now, I gotta touch you so I can see the wound better,” he explains, slowly reaching for the wound again. He received a low and guttural sound, an angry warning for him to not fuck things up. Taehyun took two deep breaths and took his phone from his pocket, using the light to better examine the wound. “It didn’t go all the way through, but it’s lodged there,” I need to remove this, you can’t heal with the broken harpoon in your tail, you get it?”
The mermaid tilted his head to the side, not quite understanding what the other was saying. Taehyun mimicked pulling out the harpoon, receiving a very negative answer from the creature. It curled up again, pulling its tail closer and hissing back at Taehyun, teeth showing and eyes back in the narrowed shape.
“I won’t remove it unless you allow me to,” Taehyun tries, sitting back on his heels and keeping his hands above his thighs. He knows the creature is scared, but the fear of someone seeing them makes Taehyun feel frustrated. “I swear on my life that I won’t hurt you.”
No answer, only the low hissing and the waves crashing against the shore. Taehyun sighs defeatedly, running his hands on his hair without caring about getting sand on the strands.
“C’mon, you gotta help me here so I can help you,” he says, tilting his head in the mermaid’s direction, hoping to see the face that its hidden behind the wounded tail. “Do you want to die here? Because if you don’t let me help you and I don’t take this thing out, you’ll die by the morning. It’ll get infected, you’ll bleed and there won’t be any water, you’ll be as good as dead.”
For a better understanding of the message, Taehyun lolls his head to the side, closes his head and lets his tongue hang out momentarily to simulate his death. That seems to do the work, but doesn’t change anything. The mermaid blinks once, twice, breathes in the droplets of water clinging on his body, but doesn't move or make any indication for Taehyun to approach.
“You understand me, but you don’t trust me. That’s okay, that’s fine.” Taehyun says to himself, swallowing heavily and pressing a hand to his chest, looking back at the creature with the most friendly and polite smile he can muster. “My name is Taehyun. I don’t suppose you know my language, so I won’t ask you what your name is. I just want you to know mine.”
The mermaid just stares at Taehyun, his dark and blue eyes taking on a more defenseless shape, but his whole body remains protected behind his tail, unmoving. Taehyun carefully shifts the bucket of water until it’s close to the mermaid, hands going inside and picking up as much water as he can, gently pouring it on the end of the tail gently.
“I need to help you, and for that to happen I need you to trust me,” he tries once again, a little annoyed by the lack of answer but determined to help the creature even if he has to spend the whole night trying – he hopes it won’t take this long. “I can’t do anything here, so I have to take you back to my house. I can carry you in my arms, but you have to stay quiet so no one can hear you, okay?”
The creature hugs itself protectively, head tilted to the side as he listens, but surely not understanding exactly what Taehyun means. Taehyun exhales deep and tiredly, scooting on his knees until he’s dangerously close to the mermaid. It follows each of Taehyun’s movements with its eyes, looking suspiciously at the human.
“I have to pick you up, in my arms. I have to touch you,” Taehyun quietly explains. His hands mime a scooping and lifting motion, pointing at the mermaid’s figure. The immediate answer is bared teeth and the mermaid trying to run away. Taehyun feels a headache coming his way, but he pushes his frustration and anger to focus on building trust. “I won’t do it unless you let me, but I can’t help you here. I know you’re scared, but I promise I won’t harm you like whoever did this to you.”
He can only hope that the mermaid can see the truth in his tone and eyes as he looks back at it. Taehyun would never do such a horrendous thing such as hurting a marine creature. The thought alone is enough to have his hands clenched into fists and anger bubbling inside of him. Volunteering in the Marine Rehabilitation Center has slowly shown him how cruel humans can be with defenseless creatures – not that the creature in front of him could be considered such.
“I’ll pick you up, we’re gonna go back to my house, I’ll help you and then you can go back to your house. Sounds good, doesn’t it?” Taehyun coaxes him, speaking softly and quietly. The creature seems to think about it for a moment, before closing his eyes in the closest to giving him consent. Taehyun takes a deep breath and chants quietly, “Please, don’t bite me. Please, don’t bite me. Please, don’t bite me.”
This close, Taehyun can see how tall the mermaid looks. If he were to stand it on the tip of his tail, it would probably be way taller than Taehyun. but otherwise, the creature looks petite and almost helpless. Taehyun slides his hands swiftly underneath the mermaid’s body, between the sand and its tail, careful to not disturb the harpoon lodged there and putting enough strength on the grip to not accidentally let the creature fall and break the little trust he managed to gather.
Honestly, he was expecting the creature to kill him on the spot again. It hissed quietly and trashed as Taehyun managed to get it out of the sand, but it didn’t try anything that could harm the human. When he gets to his feet, Taehyun takes several deep breaths and focuses on keeping his balance with the added weight. He has the mermaid cradled in his arms bridal style, right arm supporting the long tail and making sure the harpoon piece is still in place.
“See, that wasn’t so bad,” Taehyun says with a chuckle, looking at the mermaid’s face and suddenly startled by how close they are – he can see the freckles in the creature’s cheeks and the droplets on its skin. He shakes his head and sends a soft smile back. “Thanks for trusting me. I promise it won’t take long.”
Walking through sand was not an easy feat, especially with someone else in arms, but Taehyun hasn’t been running on the beach at the crack-of-dawn daily for nothing these past months. Of course, he doesn’t dare running with the mermaid in his arms, but he settles for a fast pace back to his cottage in worries that the creature will be having another fit of asphyxia from the lack of water.
For the first time in his life, Taehyun mentally thanked his aunt for buying a nearby cottage instead of one of the expensive houses close to downtown, or else he probably wouldn’t be able to help this creature.
The walk back felt like an eternity for him and especially for his legs, but in reality it didn’t last more than eight minutes maximum. Taehyun had to keep a tight grip on the mermaid’s slippery skin – which got him hisses and sharp teeth dangerously close to his face –, but he managed to keep the creature steady and for the harpoon to not pierce more of the skin. By the time he gets to the cottage, Taehyun feels his knees weakening and his heartbeat loud in his ears.
“We’re here,” he announces, angling the mermaid’s body so that he could fit it through the open front door. With an elbow, Taehyun turns on the light and finally lets out the breath he’s been holding the whole way to the house, fearful of getting killed and worried about not bringing the creature in time to save it.
Suddenly, a gasped wail comes from the creature in his arms. Taehyun looks to the side in time to see it ducking its head and thrashing around in his hold, attempting to cover its eyes with his blueish claws. It takes him a time to understand what’s happening, the creature hasn’t reacted like this throughout the walk and the harpoon is still exactly where it was when Taehyun scooped the creature from the sand.
Then, it hits him. The light, that’s what’s bothering the mermaid.
“Fuck, I’m so sorry!” Taehyun apologizes hastily, sprinting the remaining steps to the bathroom – the only place he could put this creature, his mind supplies.
How stupid could he be? Of course a creature that only knows life underwater would be bothered by man-made lighting. Taehyun spends the whole way apologizing under his breath, kicking down the door to the bathroom and foregoing the lights. He carefully places the mermaid into the tub, tail curved upward and fins draped over the edge. The cries have ceased completely, a few whimpers here and there, but nothing that could make Taehyun worried like minutes ago.
Taehyun drops to his knees and opens the faucet, making sure the water was on the cold side. The mermaid startles at first, body twitching and confusion on its face as it looks back at Taehyun, chest heaving and gills trembling as it breathes in the water pooling around it, running water falling directly into its large tail. Taehyun isn’t looking at its face at first, focused on examining the wound with his eyes. The harpoon seems to be in the same place, and the crying and whimpering have stopped so that must be something.
“This is a bathtub. It’ll fill with water in a second,” Taehyun explains as he sees the confusion in the mermaid’s face. “I have to get some things to help with the wound. I’ll be right back.”
He gets up from the bathtub side and sprints through the house, locking the front door and drawing all the curtains shut, making sure to leave only the living room light on and picking up a bunch of used candles that were left forgotten in the kitchen drawers. Taehyun picks up his phone and checks his battery percentage after using the flashlight for so long, it’ll have to handle a few more minutes.
When he comes back to the bathroom, the mermaid is sitting motionless in the tub, looking at Taehyun as he paces around and leaves the things he gathered. Taehyun tries not to look at the mermaid for too long, feeling a strange warm feeling on the tip of his ears at having this much attention on him.
“So, I know you don’t like the lights but I need some of them on so I can help you,” he says, putting the candles on the edge of the bathtub. “These are candles, it’s nothing like the bulb lights, okay?”
Taehyun strikes a match with trembling hands, instantly getting a hiss from the mermaid as it turns away from the impending danger, water sloshing to the floor and soaking Taehyun’s shorts. He takes a deep breath and explains that nothing will happen if it doesn’t touch the fire. The mermaid seems a little wary, watching Taehyun light up all the candles and having the flickering yellowish light illuminating the bathroom. It’s far from being what Taehyun needs, but it’ll have to suffice for the sake of not scaring the creature.
“And this is a flashlight. I won’t put it in your face like I did on the beach so you can relax,” Taehyun says, showing the flashlight on his phone, pointing it to the ceiling and setting it on the sink countertop. The mermaid’s head turns upwards to stare at the light, suddenly mesmerized. “Now, I have to take this harpoon out and you might need stitches. Will you let me do that?”
He doesn’t wait for an answer because it’s not necessary – he’ll have to do it with or without consent in such a life or death situation. Taehyun rummages through all the cabinets in the bathroom, looking for the first aid kit his aunt always keeps at home and a few things he got from the Rehabilitation Center. Then, he pulls up a stepping stool that he usually leaves in the corner, sitting on it near the mermaid’s tail end. Taehyun turns off the water once the bathtub is full, watching the more calm and content features in the mermaid’s face while being nearly submerged.
As it seems, the mermaid isn’t paying much attention to him. Taehyun clears his throat and gathers its attention, motioning at the harpoon. With his glove cladded hands, he mimics once again that same harpoon removing motion he made back on the beach, receiving a whimper as answer. The mermaid sinks down further into the water, only the upper part of his face out.
“C’mon, we’re already here and I need to do this so you don’t die.” Taehyun sighs. “I trust that you won’t try to kill me when I get this out. Do you trust me too?”
The mermaid blinks and stares at him for a moment, before slowly sinking under the water until its back was on the floor of the tub, completely submerged. Taehyun watches in awe as it pushes the tail further out of the bathtub, giving the human a silent answer to the question. I trust you, Taehyun imagines that the action means that. Momentarily, he doesn’t move, watching the nearly glowing eyes looking back at him, indigo and cerulean, hypnotizing.
It dawns on Taehyun that the creature in front of him is completely non-human, breathing underwater, chest rising and falling slowly as his own does with oxygen. A reality check in the worst of moments, this is truly a mermaid, the one from the tales that he used to be fascinated with as a child and thought it was silly when he became an adult.
Right now, he has a supposed mythological creature, breathing in his bathtub and patiently waiting for him to stop drooling and get to work.
“Well, I hope this is a yes,” he whispers to himself, exhaling and forcing his hands to stop shaking – Kai told him once, being nervous won’t do anything except harm the animal even more; he has to take a deep breath and remember that he’s there to help.
With that in mind, Taehyun does as he was taught and begins the task at hand. He starts with disinfecting the area around the wound and examining it better, just to make sure how deep the harpoon has penetrated the flesh. Deep enough to be lodged, but not deadly to the creature. It’s a common thing for some humans to go through the motions of hunting sea creatures but unable to finish, for lack of strength most of the time. Taehyun has seen sea animals pierced with harpoons, has helped Kai treat them and get the thing removed, he knows exactly what he has to do but he still fears. Especially when he glances down and sees the mermaid still underwater, expectantly staring back at him.
Taehyun isn’t one to shrink from attention, but something about those eyes staring at him makes him feel like he’s back on practice classes in college with his professors judging and looking down at him.
“I’m pulling it out now, ready?” Taehyun asks, hands around the broken harpoon piece and looking down at the mermaid for confirmation. Not like the creature can hear him properly underwater, but it closes his eyes as if to give him permission.
His grip around the end of the harpoon got tighter and he wiggled the thing to make sure that the harpoon isn’t ribbed or has ridges at the end or anything that could make this more complicated than it already is. Immediately, the mermaid underwater whines and cries, the sounds muffled and barely audible – Taehyun realizes only now that the creature was intelligent enough to know that it had to be quiet, and that keeping underwater was the best option to do so. After accessing it and coming to the conclusion that the harpoon was a regular one, Taehyun takes a deep breath and with gritted teeth he pulls the harpoon out in one swift motion.
The reaction happens immediately, the mermaid underwater thrashes and screams, bubbles rising up and the water sloshing around and over the edge, its arms flailing desperately from the sudden pain. Taehyun mutters apologies as he presses a large and thick portion of gauze to the open wound, throwing the harpoon piece on the ground and focusing on calming down the mermaid.
“It’s okay! It’s all done! You did a great job, baby–” Taehyun stops, suddenly realizing that the creature in front of him isn’t one of the animals he helps in the center. There’s no reason for him to be calling it baby, of all things. “I mean, you did very well in holding the pain. I’m proud of you.”
The praises and the pet name seems to go unheard, but the mermaid starts to calm down significantly, chest still heaving underwater. Taehyun lifts the gauze and sees the scarlet red blood in it and in the tail. At least, it isn’t drenched which is a good sign according to the knowledge he acquired with time, but the wound doesn’t look pleasant and he knows that cleaning and bandaging it won’t be enough. Taehyun goes back to pressing the gauze firmly down on the tail, waiting for the mermaid to calm down completely.
“I think it’ll need a few stitches,” he murmurs, watching the blood oozing languidly from the deep wound. Taehyun changed his bloody gloves for new ones and gathered the material he needed for the stitching – a few things that Kai gave him in case an emergency came out, something that Taehyun thought was silly back then. “I want to say sorry beforehand for the horrible work, as I said, I’m not a veterinarian. My friend usually does the stitches but I can’t call him.”
Taehyun doesn’t bother explaining the process, he simply shows the needle and thread and gestures to the wound. He doesn’t wait for permission either, puncturing the needle through the thick scales of the mermaid’s tail and fin, beginning the process of the stitching. It’s nothing like human skin and far from any other animals that Taehyun helped stitching in the center, but Taehyun managed to do everything as best as he could with an unhappy mermaid staring at him and no knowledge of how to stitch a mythological creature.
Kai would be proud of him with how fast he managed to stitch the wound.
“All done. Not a perfect work, but I think this will help you heal,” he says sheepishly, motioning for the mermaid to rise from the water.
The mermaid sits up and leans forward, dark and sparkly eyes watching its tail without the piece of harpoon stuck in it. Its claw-like hands run over the freshly-stitched part of its body, and Taehyun notices that not only it has a different shade and shape compared to human’s hands, it also has some sort of webbing between the fingers. What a fascinating thing, he thinks as he watches the creature tentatively touching the stitching, examining the unusual pattern in its tail.
“You need to be very careful with that. I’m not sure if you can get it wet, but I don’t know much about your kind so I don’t even know if you need stitches and–” Taehyun pauses, blushing at how silly he must sound babbling this much. He’s only supposed to warn the creature and ask for it to be careful. His embarrassment deepens when he sees the mermaid’s eyes on him, staring so deep into him that Taehyun feared that it could see his soul and all the thoughts in his head. “Sorry, I’m still a little nervous. It’s not everyday you get to see something like you.”
He’s not as shocked as he was at first anymore, but it’s still too much for his mind. Whenever he catches a glimpse of the mermaid’s tail swaying side to side or the sparkly fins or even the gills moving as it breathes, Taehyun sinks deeper on how real of this is. A real mermaid right in front of him, and he still thinks that he’ll open his eyes and wake up back in his bed with his alarm blasting and three messages from Kai asking him to bring more coffee. Taehyun pinches himself three times already, but you can never be too sure when facing such a situation.
“Anyways, you should get some rest,” he says out of sudden, getting up from the stool in shaky feeth and discarting the bloody gloves in the trash, gathering the supplies he used and putting it back on the cabinets. Meanwhile, the mermaid keeps its eyes trained on all of his movements, not even blinking. “I sure need some rest too. And a shower, but you’re here and I don’t know if you’ll feel comfortable but this is the only bathroom. So I’ll just…”
Taehyun trails off, walking over to the shower and taking off his clothes, throwing it at the hamper and feeling incredibly self-concious about the eyes on his naked body. He could hear the movement in the bath water, but he tried not to look behind – if he had to be honest, Taehyun’s feeling very shy with his nakedness in front of a complete stranger creature. He hops into the shower and scrubs off any remnants of sand and sweat from the day, taking the most quick shower of his whole life. Taehyun steps out and wraps a towel around his waist, covering his nakedness.
And he could swear that he heard a discontent sound coming from the creature still staring at him, but Taehyun could be hearing things from how tired he suddenly feels.
As it seems, the sound of discontentment wasn’t fabricated by his mind and Taehyun hears it again as he dries himself and pretends to not see the mermaid’s still staring at him. He wears the pair of pajama pants and shirts that he left there in the morning as fast as he can, turning back to see the creature fighting with the long strands of damp hair sticking to his face and neck. Underwater, it probably doesn’t have to worry about such a thing. The pout on his lips as it tries to get out of the way is so adorable that Taehyun has to hold back a coo.
“It’s your hair in the way?” Taehyun asks, approaching the tub and crouching down until he’s eye to eye with the creature. “I can tie it for you if you want. “My friend’s growing his hair and he says it gets in the way sometimes, so I always have a hair tie with me.”
The mermaid stares at him curiously for a moment, gills flapping a little as he breathes, hands stop fumbling with the blonde strands, eyes glowing like nighttime and daytime together. Taehyun swallows and looks away before the blush finds its way back to his cheeks. It takes quite a moment for the mermaid to reply, turning its back to Taehyun and letting its way too long hair fall down. It stops close to its neck, the wet strands clinging to its neck and almost touching its gills. Taehyun lets out the breath he was holding and fishes the black hair tie he keeps on his shorts.
“It’s plain black and boring, but it’ll prevent it from sticking to your neck and gills,” he comments, gently testing the waters first by touching the wet ends of the hair. The mermaid shivers from the touch, but doesn’t hiss or tries to attack – a progress between them, and Taehyun can’t help the smile that blooms on his face.
Taehyun is far from being the most expert when it comes to tying hair, but sometimes he has to tie Kai’s when he younger has his hands busy. Tying the mermaid’s hair isn’t any different, especially with the length being close to what Kai’s hair is. Taehyun runs his fingers over the strands, combing it before pushing everything behind and tying it in a loose ponytail. Once he deems it good enough, Taehyun moves his hands away and watches the mermaid turn back to him again.
The widened eyes and the mouth slightly agape doesn’t go unnoticed, but Taehyun doesn’t understand what any of that means. Besides, it’s too late and he’s too tired to play guess with whatever the mermaid wants him to know.
“Now we both need some well-deserved rest,” he says with a doopey smile, sleep clinging to his body and slowly forcing his eyes to close. “You gotta stay here, okay? No leaving the bathtub, no wandering around the house and no leaving the house. I’ll get you back in the sea first thing in the morning. All you have to do is rest.”
The mermaid blinks and slowly cocks his head to the side, watching silently as Taehyun leans in and blows out the candles, leaving the bathroom in complete darkness like he knew that the creature would prefer. Taehyun picks up his phone from the sink and shines the flashlight to the ground to not accidentally step on anything, giving the mermaid one last look and muttering a goodnight that never received a reply.
Back in his room, Taehyun crawls into the bed, picking up his blankets and throwing them over his body. From where he lies, he can see the open bathroom door, and the mermaid could easily see him too if it turned back. Taehyun reaches over and flicks off the bedside lamp, a far away part of his mind panicking about the fact that he has a mermaid in his bathtub and that his words doesn’t mean the creature would be there – or worse, that the creature won’t kill him on his lips.
Taehyun should be worried about his own safety, but all he does is watch the mermaid’s tail languidly moving side by side in the darkness of the bathroom, the shades of blue looking soothing and lulling him to sleep. In the back of his mind, he hopes that he won’t wake up to an empty bathroom.
Taehyun wakes up to the sound of his alarm blasting, pulling him back to consciousness in the worst way possible. He groans and tosses on the bed at the annoying tune, hand touching around aimlessly on the covers and pillows as he tries to find the offending object. After an eternity of tapping around and not finding the phone anywhere, Taehyun forces his eyes open in the semi-darkness of his room and finds the device sitting on the small table by his bed, exactly where he left last night.
He picks up the phone and turns off the alarm, going back to bed and lazing around as he checks for any new messages – a few from his mother, a bunch from Kai asking him to bring more coffee when he get on the Rehabilitation Center and a two notifications on his email about the thesis he should be working on. Taehyun sighs and lets the phone fall at the empty side of his bed, his slowly awakening mind bringing him back to the happenings from yesterday night.
And at the thought of it, Taehyun’s eyes go as wide as saucers and he jumps out of bed, looking at the open door in hopes to see a tail waiting for him in the bathroom. In his haste, he almost slips over something and falls on the floor, but he’s fast to catch his balance. The sole of his feet get wet in the process, and he frowns at the sight that awaits him in the bathroom.
Nothing, complete emptiness and puddles of water on the floor. The bathtub is half-filled and the candles are thrown around instead of hanging on the edge like he left before going to sleep. There’s sand at the bottom of the tub and the water looks a little disgusting with the mix of blood and dirt, and that couldn’t come from anywhere else except the mermaid that was supposed to be there. Has the creature vanished? Has it left the house? Taehyun feels anxiety pooling on his stomach as he thinks about all the consequences that could come from his silly attempt at helping it.
But a mermaid couldn’t simply crawl out of his house without him not listening, right?
Taehyun opens the drain and lets the water flow down, all remnants of whatever happened last night going down with it. He sits by the edge and runs his hands on his hair, regretting not drying it before passing out on his bed from tiredness. Did last night really happen? He thinks as he watches the strange pattern of water on the tiles, a large puddle near the bathtub and a bunch of footprints leading out of the bathroom. That alone looks a little too suspicious, but that could be his own footprints from last night and the large puddle could be from the mermaid moving in its sleep. The cottage doesn’t have a large bathtub per se.
When the water is all gone and the bathtub is back to its original clean state, Taehyun picks up the candles on the ground and stores them in the drawers. He stands by the sink and brushes his teeth, staring at his own reflection in the mirror. As the minutes pass, the happenings from last night look more and more like a dream he made up, especially when he thinks about how different the creature looked. From the tales and the drawings he saw, mermaids looked more human in the upper half, and the one from yesterday looked nothing like that. If anything, Taehyun could’ve made that up after reading that stupid scary book that Kai recommended to him.
Walking back to his room, he almost slips once again, soles stepping on something hard and bruising. Cursing lowly, Taehyun crouches and inspects whatever was on his way back to the bed. A shiny pearl necklace, one of those necklaces that he saw his aunt wear sometimes – probably not as shiny or heavy like this one, an indicator of the realness of the pearls. Taehyun takes the jewelry in his hands and walks to the kitchen, picking up a glass and filling with whatever juice he has left in the fridge.
As he sits on a stool and looks at the necklace in his hand, Taehyun wonders where he has seen this before and how it ended on his bedroom floor. Sure, it could be one of the necklaces from his aunt but he doubts the thing would find its way to his bedroom all alone. Besides, his aunt wouldn’t forget one of her prized possessions when she left, and her closet is too far away from his bedroom to accidentally be there. He watches and watches the white and round pearls, mesmerizingly shining under the sunbeams coming from the open window, looking expensive enough to have Taehyun gagging at the sight. Did he bring it from the beach yesterday? He has brought back home a bunch of things from his nightly walks, a few pieces of jewelry that he sometimes gives to Kai’s sisters, but nothing like this.
Hypothetically, Taehyun wonders if the necklace belongs to the mermaid he bought back home yesterday, it could be the only owner of this expensive and beautiful jewelry. Taehyun tries to think hard about the scenes from last night, trying to remember if the creature has a necklace around its neck or anything of the sort. As it seems, the morning wiped away the creature and most of his memories from last time.
All Taehyun can remember is blue eyes and the silk feeling of blonde strands on his fingers from when he tied the creature’s hair. He couldn’t have imagined all that, right?
He’s about to swim down in broken memories from yesterday and more hypothetical situations when he hears his phone ringing from the bedroom. Taehyun drops the pearl necklace on the island and downs the last sip of juice on his glass, trudging back to his room. He picks up the phone and answers the call without looking at the screen – it’s not like he gets many calls, he doesn’t have to look to know exactly who would be calling him at eight a.m on a weekday.
“Dude, it’s almost nine, where are you?” Kai’s voice comes from the other side of the line, a little annoyed but soothing as always.
Taehyun sighs, laying down on the mattress. “Can you please chill out? It’s not even my day to volunteer in the center.”
“Just because it isn’t your day, doesn’t mean you don’t have to come,” Kai huffs, some rustling coming from the other side. From the sound of it, he’s probably getting something from the fridge in the makeshift kitchen in the building.
Taehyun knows that his words are mostly because of the coffee that Kai needs him to bring – working at the Marine Rehabilitation Center earned Kai a good income but a terrible coffee addiction. But he can hear the underlying feelings on that, how Kai wants his company at work hours too. They’ve been attached to the hip ever since they were children, it’s only understandable that they would’ve been together as adults. Before they parted ways in college to pursue different majors, they promised to stick together even with different professions.
Call it destiny that Kai landed a job in the same town that Taehyun’s aunt has a cottage, the same town that Taehyun decided to spend some time in while working on his thesis.
“Did you forget I’m working on a thesis?” Taehyun snorts, constantly feeling the need to remind the younger that he’s not totally out of college.
“Can’t you work on it here?” Kai asks, sounding very desperate by now. “Hiyyih forgot the coffee and I have a surgery scheduled for ten and I need some coffee.”
“You wouldn’t need coffee if you actually slept instead of playing games with your online boyfriend.”
It’s a new addition to their routine: Kai’s almost online boyfriend. A guy named Beomgyu that he met while playing whatever online game that Taehyun can’t remember the name no matter how hard he tries. They were friends at first, having absolutely nothing in common and constantly bickering when they had to play together. Taehyun watched with his own eyes how opposites attract because someday Kai was complaining about this dude that killed him during a friendly match and right next he was gushing about how itsnighttime was the love of his life and a bunch of other bullshit that Taehyun didn’t paid attention.
To make it shorter, Kai has a boyfriend that he never met in person that is addicted to strange interspecies stories and conspiracy theories. Taehyun never talked to the dude, but Kai seems happy and that’s what matters – even if he has to endure hours and more hours of his best friend yapping about the love of his life.
“He’s not my boyfriend… Yet,” he says, sounding very sure of himself. Taehyun rolls his eyes affectionately, he wonders when that will happen because it’s been months and Kai hasn’t done anything besides simping over the guy. A whine comes from the other side of the line, followed by a, “Taehyunie, please. Only you can save me now.”
“I’m never going to finish my thesis if you keep asking me to come to the center everyday,” Taehyun complains, but with no actual annoyance in his voice.
It’s not like he’s getting any far with his thesis or spending his time mopping in the house. Ever since he moved there, Taehyun spent more time doing a bunch of other things instead of working on his thesis. He works in the center, he takes walks on the beach, he reads books that aren’t adding anything to his life and he found a new cooking hobby that’s been going better than sitting in front of his laptop staring at the blank document while waiting for words to appear.
Besides, staying at home today will only get him crazy as he tries to convince himself if the mermaid that he helped yesterday is real or a product of his tired and sleep-deprived mind.
“I know you love it here, you don’t have to keep up the tsundere act,” Kai jokes. Taehyun can almost see the smirk on the other’s face. “Oh, and bring some of those donuts that you bought last week! I need some sugar too.”
“The donuts are coming from what pockets? Because I don’t have anything on me.”
“Forget the donuts then. Just bring the coffee.”
“I’ll be down there in a few, get the machine working,” Taehyun announced, getting up from the bed and looking for something to wear in his wardrobe. One look at the three remaining shirts and the only shorts available, he makes a mental note to wash his clothes when he gets back. “Say, do you have any books about mermaids?”
It’s an idea that pops in his head, something that wasn’t meant to be said out loud but he can’t take back now. Taehyun has zero knowledge about mermaids and he knows that he couldn’t simply create such a creature. Maybe if he reads about it and acquires some knowledge, he’ll be able to come up with a plausible explanation for what happened yesterday. Can mermaids wipe memories? Can they disappear when it’s daylight? Taehyun has way too many questions and no source to find the answers – and the tales he remembers from the past, doesn’t talk that much about mermaids besides the predatory behavior and their beauty.
It’s a shot in the dark, but if anyone must have some knowledge about mermaids, it must be Kai or anyone close to him.
“Mermaids?” Kai repeats, sounding slightly surprised. “Like The Little Mermaid and stuff?”
Taehyun rolls his eyes as he changes his sleep shirt for a clean one. “No, dumbass. Why would I ask for a fairytale?”
“I don’t know, I gave up trying to understand you long ago.”
“Remind me again why we’re best friends?”
“Because we both love marine creatures and we were losers back in school.”
Sometimes, he regrets asking questions that Kai would have an answer on the tip of his tongue.
“You do know that was a rhetorical question, right?” Taehyun says with a huff, picking up his stuff and putting on the pockets of his shorts. He doesn’t take much with him besides his wallet and his jeep keys. “I”m talking about those conspiracy theory books. You have any about mermaids or merpeople or whatever those nerds call them?”
“Funny hearing a marine biologist nerd calling another person a nerd,” Kai giggles. “I think Lea or Gyu must have some books about that. Do you want me to check it out?”
“I’ll be very grateful,” he says, balancing the phone between his ear and his shoulder as he tries to shove his laptop inside the case. It’s not like he’ll actually do something while in the center, but he would feel guilty by leaving behind.
“Why the sudden interest in mermaids?” Kai asks, the sound of a fork scraping on the plate coming right next. Taehyun takes a look at the small clock on the table, it’s not early enough and not late enough, the hour in between where Kai usually has his breakfast. “I thought you were against the possibility of them existing in the ocean.”
“Dunno,” Taehyun admits, shrugging and almost letting the phone fall. He picks it up and holds it with his free hand, making a beeline for the kitchen. “Want to know more about it after the book you lent me.”
A lie, but it’s not like Kai will mind. And by the sudden gasp of surprise coming from the younger’s side of the line, it seems that the lie did more good than bad.
“I knew you were going to like that one!” Kai says excitedly. “Have you got to the part where the mermaid and the human fucked?”
Taehyun flinches. He should’ve known that a book recommended by Kai who was actually recommended by his almost boyfriend would have some weird thing like interspecies fucking. Taehyun isn’t in the mood to even think about such a thing, especially when there’s already a mermaid in his mind and half of his memories aren’t in the right place. What if he gets the idea of doing that with the injured mermaid stuck in his head and that slowly becomes a reality to his muddled memories? That would be mortifyingly embarrassing.
“No, and if that actually happens I’ll stop reading the book,” he says, lacking the joking tone. Honestly, Taehyun means it when he says he’ll stop reading if something like that happens. “For your sake and mine, let’s hope there’s no interspicies intercourse.”
Kai huffs loudly. “You’re so boring, Taehyunie.”
“I’m hanging up,” he announces, putting the dirty glass inside the sink and patting his pockets to make sure that everything is in place. If there’s one thing he hates the most, is accidentally forgetting something and only remembering when he’s too far from the house.
“Don’t forget my coffee. Have a safe drive, love you.”
Taehyun replies with a mumbled okay, love you too, and picks up the laptop case he left above the kitchen island. Next to it, the pearl necklace that he was looking obsessively at minutes ago before Kai took his mind out of it. Taehyun slips his phone in the back pocket of his shorts and stares at the jewelry for a few, unsure if he should leave where it is or take it with him to make sure it doesn’t disappear too. But what will he do with a pearl necklace inside his pocket for the whole day?
Shaking his head, Taehyun picks up the case and leaves the necklace in the same place, giving it one last look before turning on his back and making his way to the door. He can obsess about the thing and all the things that happened yesterday once the day is over. Right now, he has to aid a sleep-deprived and coffee-addicted marine veterinarian waiting for his daily dose of caffeine.
Maybe, Taehyun developed a new obsession.
He wasn’t expecting to be this interested in merfolk – he finally learned the correct name, and how mermaid was created by the humans rather than a name that the creatures use. At first, he only wanted to know a little more to cease his curiosity and fill in the gaps in his memory. He wanted to know if merfolk looked like the one he helped, if they truly disappeared when daylight came, if they didn’t know how to speak human language because as far as he remembers, the creature hasn’t spoken a single thing to him. That’s all Taehyun wanted to know, but the topic turned out to be interesting.
As expected, Kai’s almost boyfriend had a real book about mermaids, not one of the adult novels with interspecies frolicking or anything like that. And he was friendly enough to send Kai the PDF version of it to make things easier for Taehyun. If Kai ever managed to have the balls to ask the guy out, he already has Taehyun’s blessings. Mermaids: The Myths, Legends and Lore has been opened in his laptop since he got the file, never once getting closed or left behind. It’s an understatement when Taehyun says that he read all of it in a single night to morning, only realizing he forgot to sleep when he heard the birds chirping and the shy sunbeams trying to get into the house through the window. It’s ridiculous how he spent the whole day almost falling asleep because of his reckless obsession.
Honestly, the book didn’t give him that much information. Sure, he knows better about the mythical aspects of those creatures and he even gathered nice information about how different parts of the world sees merfolk, but it didn’t help with what he truly wanted to know. And as always, a reddit community post was where Taehyun found the answers he was looking for.
A few things were bullshit, stories about people that crossed paths with merfolk and some exaggerated R-rated drawings that Taehyun felt the need to wash his eyes with bleach after seeing it. But, with a little digging and three mugs of coffee, he managed to find gold among the dirty. Real people talking about physical characteristics and some information that hit a little too close to his encounter with the injured merman. Some of the stories even looked similar to what happened to him – seeing a merperson on the beach, helping them, not remembering much from the encounter.
For a few days, Taehyun felt satiated with the answers and ready to move on from that one in a million situation that happened to him. But his curiosity got the best of him, and he found himself checking out each and every page with information about merfolk that he could find. He went from young novels to that horrible book that Kai recommended to him, from blogs about merfolk obsessed to drawings that he found on Pinterest. Taehyun saw everything the internet has to offer about those creatures, but his curiosity still wasn’t satisfied.
Along with the obsession with merfolk and the nightly visits to the reddit community about the creatures, Taehyun officially has what could only be called a secret admirer.
It all started that morning when he left for the MRC and spent the day helping Kai with what he could and allowing the younger to talk about his growing crush on Beomgyu. Taehyun came back home late enough to forgo his nightly walk on the beach, settling for taking a long shower and lazing around in his home. It took him quite some time to notice the absence of the pearl necklace on the kitchen island or the amount of sand footprints left on the floor. And by the time he noticed all those things, it was morning and Taehyun had something waiting for him at the doormat when he was leaving for his right day of volunteering at the MRC.
A conch shell sat on the Welcome! doormat that Taehyun never bothered changing. Slightly beige like sand and with its inside pinkish, large enough to almost not fit on the palm of his hand. Taehyun took the shell and looked at the sides of the empty road, suspecting the way the shell was left behind. No wind would be able to bring it this far, and Taehyun doubts any of his neighbours would leave it there without knocking at the door – not even the school girl who has a silly crush on him would do such. It looks purposefully left there, as if whoever brought it wanted Taehyun to see it.
From that day onward, every morning a new shell would be waiting for Taehyun as he left the house. Somedays, he’d trip on them and almost hurt his feet; on others, he stood by the door in hopes of catching the culprit but it never works. When Taehyun opens his door, no matter the hour of the morning, the shells are already waiting for him by the doormat. No notes or anything that could let him know about the identity of the person.
After a whole month, Taehyun has a large collection of shells that he keeps inside a cardboard box under his bed, some he keeps displayed on the kitchen island and his bedroom table. Conch, Scallop, Miter, Nautilus, Cowrie, Abalone, you name it. Taehyun probably has all the shells that the ocean can offer, some he doesn’t even know the name of and can’t find anywhere on the internet from how rare they must be.
This morning, Taehyun is volunteering at the MRC, trying to focus on the work instead of the new pinkish shell that he left at home. Thankfully, an injured female seal has been rescued on the beach and that got enough distraction for Taehyun. From what he could gather from the other veterinarians, the seal got injured on the tail’s end by a boat rudder – not something unusual, taking in consideration how boat enthusiasts were always using the beaches to show around, interfering with the marine animal life. After an x-ray and sonogram, she’s been taken out of intubation and properly taken care of. Kai was the one to stitch the wound and bandage it, with an unusually silent Taehyun giving him the necessary tools.
Taehyun watches the seal swim around the small pool in circles, head lifted to the sky as she lets out content noises. She looks particularly happy despite the bandage in her tail and that’s enough to have a smile blooming in Taehyun’s face. In moments like this, he realizes how much he made a right choice in listening to his heart instead of following the path his parents wanted. He loves the marine creatures, loves assuring them well-being, loves seeing them happy. It brings him a joy that he knows nothing else could.
“You can feed her,” Kai says with a laugh, taking Taehyun’s attention from the animal.
“She’s looking good,” Taehyun comments, picking up one of the gloves and wearing it. He reaches into the bucket and tosses a fish up into the air. The seal immediately lifted her head and caught the fish to devour it. “Gotta admit that you always do a good job.”
“What can I say, I was born with the gift of helping marine animals,” Kai brags, walking over to the edge of the little pool. The seal follows right after, hopping up onto the edge with her head lifted eagerly, as if waiting for the veterinarian to pat her like they usually do with domestic animals.
“Okay, tone down this big ego of yours before it starts to crush me,” he jokes, setting the bucket down on the slippery ground. “Hey, how’s things going with Beomgyu-ssi?”
“Same, same,” Kai shrugs, hand gently caressing the seal’s head.
“You still haven’t confessed?” Taehyun snorts, his rubber boots making a squelching noise as he approaches the pool. He offers another fish to the seal, which completely abandons Kai’s caresses to take the fish right from Taehyun’s waiting hand.
“It’s not as easy as you make it sound,” he whines, wiggling his shoulders in a childish manner. Taehyun snorts again, watching the seal roar back before slipping back into the water. “And it’s not like you can say anything about it since you’ve never been in this position.”
Perhaps it is true that Taehyun doesn’t have that much experience in the love field and not much luggage to support him, but he imagines that things shouldn’t be that difficult. Kai has been swimming in circles around confessing to Beomgyu for months now, it shouldn’t take this much to speak your feelings to the one you love, right?
“Just because I never dated doesn’t mean I don’t know how it works,” Taehyun retaliates with an eye-roll.
Amazedly, he watches how easily the seal seems to adapt to the small pool and the environment around. It’s something Taehyun noticed in his third day volunteering in the MRC, how quickly the team is able to facilitate trust with the creature they rescue, to ensure their happiness, health and safety. To this day, he still remembers when Kai risked his own life to get inside a tank with a baby orca whale, all in the hopes of gaining its trust. Sometimes, Taehyun wishes he could do the same, but a rational part of him still values his safety.
But come to think of it, wasn’t he risking his own life when he tried to help that mermaid?
“Long distance relationships are too complicated,” Kai says with a grimace, crossing his arms and watching the seal swim. His voice has a different tone, one that sounds more uncertain. “Besides, I don’t even know how he feels.”
“Trust me, Kai-yah, no one would give someone a big ass figure from an anime girl if they weren’t in love with that person,” he says, matter-of-factly. It’s almost painful to watch how oblivious Kai becomes when the topic about Beomgyu’s feelings for him is brought up.
How can someone simply not see that the other is unconditionally in love with them?
“You would give me one, and you’re not in love with me,” Kai points out, tilting his head to the side and raising his eyebrows. He sure has a point, but it’s meaningless to the topic because Taehyun isn’t in love with Kai the same way that his online almost-boyfriend is.
“That’s different,” he says with a sigh, taking off the glove and shoving it in the pockets of his shorts – it’ll probably smell like fish later, but he doesn’t mind. “We’re platonic soulmates. I would give you my kidney if you needed it.”
“Taehyunie, you love me so much,” Kai sing-songs with a cute voice, nuzzling his head on Taehyun’s shoulder in an annoying manner that he came to get used to. Taehyun jokingly nudges him away, ripping a giggle from the other. “I wish Gyu-yah loved me like you do,” he adds as an afterthought, with his eyebrows slightly furrowed.
Taehyun mentally face-palms himself, nothing he says will get the clear message across so he settles for giving up. One way or another Kai will eventually realize that Beomgyu is equally down bad and they will work things out. What’s left for him in the meantime is to sigh deeply and endure his best friend’s obliviousness.
“Sometimes you’re so stupid, but I’ll let you suffer with that,” Taehyun says, giving the seal one last look before turning his back and marching out of the room with Kai on his tail. “So, I have something to tell you but you gotta stay quiet.”
Something inside tells him that it’s a bad idea to speak about his secret admirer. It’s not like he wants to hide this from his best friend or keep it a secret only between him and the stranger that keeps leaving shells by his front door. It’s just that Taehyun never thought about how to bring the topic before. What is he supposed to say, that a stranger knows his address and gives him shells but never shows their face? Kai would get the police to the scene in the blink of an eye – or worse, he’d invite himself to spend some time in Taehyun’s house.
But, he’s been facing a few doubts and keeping it to himself won’t get anywhere. And Taehyun knows that he can count on his best friend, even if he decides to overreact or do something stupid.
“A secret?” Kai gasps exaggeratedly, putting his gloveless hands over his mouth. “Oh, this is just like high school times.”
Taehyun takes a deep breath and lets it all out like ripping a band-aid off. “So… I think I have a secret admirer.”
A beat of silence, only the voice of the other person on the building floating around them. For a moment, Taehyun almost thinks that Kai has lost his ability to talk or it’s too shocked to say anything. He wants to look to his side, but holds back from doing it because he fears what will be the younger’s reaction. It’s not everyday that Taehyun brings such news – it wasn’t even usual for him to talk about these things back in high school and college.
“What?!” Kai’s loud screech finally comes out, gathering all the eyes on the hallways to them.
“Be quiet!” Taehyun hisses, slapping his hands over Kai’s mouth to prevent him from attracting more attention to them.
Taehyun pushes the other inside the first open door he can see – one of the consultation rooms. He closes the door behind him with a kick and slowly takes his hands away from Kai’s mouth, hoping that no one will come inside once Kai lets out one more of his loud and surprised gasps.
“Taehyunie, you’ve been keeping this from me for how long?” Kai asks, blinking his surprised eyes and keeping his mouth slightly agape, still baffled at the information.
“It’s not that serious,” he tries to play it off, leaning back into the door and keeping his hands behind so Kai can’t see the way he gets fidgety whenever he thinks about someone taking interest in him to the point of giving him gifts. Taehyun doesn’t even remember the last time someone liked him to that extent. “I don’t even know if it’s really a secret admirer.”
“I don’t believe you,” Kai points a finger at him, leaning into the table near him. He takes a good look into Taehyun’s face and suddenly a smile appears, followed by a full-body wiggle and an excitement that reminds him of how Kai would be whenever he saw Taehyun talking with anyone that wasn’t a friend. “Tell me more before I burst out from curiosity.”
“I’ve been receiving shells everyday for quite some time,” Taehyun starts, a little unsure of how to bring it up. “It’s only the shells, no message, no note, nothing. I mean, if it was someone really interested in me, they would try to contact me, wouldn’t they?”
And that’s what's been keeping Taehyun confused and unsure everytime he opens his door in the morning and sees a new shell. It was understandable at first, but it’s been a whole month and no sign of whoever it’s leaving those gifts to him. It’s not a stalker and not someone he knows, those options would eventually be followed by notes or even pictures of him since he’s been accepting the gifts instead of throwing them out. Taehyun doesn’t get why this person wouldn’t want to show themselves, why they want to keep this mysterious act for so long, why they’re choosing to keep him constantly curious instead of finally giving him answers and more hope.
“What if they’re shy?” Kai says, finger tapping against his chin thoughtfully.
“It could be an option, but a whole month of shells and no attempt to interact with me?” Taehyun gnaws at his lower lip. “I don’t understand.”
“Taehyunie, not everyone is straightforward like you. Take me for example,” he gesticulates to himself with open arms, eyebrows wiggling playfully. Taehyun lets out a breathy chuckle. “I would totally leave shells in Gyu-hyung’s front door and never try to talk to him if I could. Maybe the fact that you’re accepting the shells is enough for this person. Maybe they still don’t have the courage to speak to you.”
It could be a good answer for now, but it’s still not enough for him. It leaves a strange taste on his tongue, that feeling of something missing prickling under his skin.
“But it’s not enough for me,” Taehyun admits in a whisper, looking at his rubber boots and the imprint of the soles on the pristine floor. “You know how curious I get.”
“Give them time!” Kai reassures him, clapping his hands together excitedly. “I’m pretty sure they’ll leave a message some day and you’ll finally have someone too.”
“I wouldn’t count on that but I’ll listen to you this time,” he says, still looking down and thoughtful.
Perhaps, he has been so excited and curious that he hasn't given much thought about how the other part feels. Of course he knows that not everyone will be just like him when it comes to feelings, so maybe he has been projecting his own ways of acting into someone else. Kai must be right this time, his secret admirer must be someone shy and a little awkward when it comes to feelings. Taehyun decides that he’ll give them time – but that doesn’t mean he’ll stop overreacting sometimes.
“I’m so excited!” Kai announces, closing the distance between them with large steps and pinching both of Taehyun’s cheeks in a painful grip. He pinches and shakes his cheeks until Taehyun feels that burning sensation on his skin, trying to swat away the younger’s hands. “My Taehyunie’s finally one step from getting laid.”
“Shut up,” he huffs, feeling embarrassed by the choice of words. Taehyun hasn’t been the most active in those fields, but it’s not like he chose to. Between his thesis and the volunteering, he feels like he barely has time to seek those things.
So yeah, he hasn’t been intimate with someone for a long time – which isn’t bad, but isn’t good too because he has to constantly face the best friend slander.
“I’ll be going out for drinks tonight, are you down?” Kai asks once they’re out of the room, walking side by side in the large hallways.
Taehyun frowns. “It’s Wednesday.”
“I’m not seeing the problem,” he says, mimicking the same furrowed eyebrows and pursed lips Taehyun is sporting. Kai puts one hand on his shoulder with a little more strength than necessary, squeezing the muscle. “You gotta relax and enjoy life a little more.”
Taehyun wouldn’t call himself a goody-two-shoes or a prude like some might think he is. He does go out and he does indulge in some flirting with strangers that doesn’t go too far, he likes to club and to drink and to have fun. But he’s the type of person that has a time to do those things, and a Wednesday night isn’t the time. Not that Kai thinks the same, since he’s been asking him to go out for drinks every day since the beginning of the week.
“When you develop an alcohol addiction from all the beer you keep drinking daily, I’ll remind you of how much you relaxed and enjoyed life ,” Taehyun chides, taking all the paperwork Bahiyyih left on the desk for him to help her sort through.
“Such a bummer,” Kai huffs, opening the door for Taehyun and letting him in into the private office room – the one that Kai barely uses for anything other than napping and pretending that he’s doing the paperwork that usually gets all in Taehyun and Bahiyyih’s back. “Are you coming?”
“‘course. You need someone to drive your drunk ass back home,” he replies, clicking his tongue before sitting in the chair and dropping the stack of paper into the table. It makes a muffled sound, which means that he’ll spend the rest of his supposedly shift working on this – by now, Taehyun should ask for a paycheck with how much he works in the MRC for free.
“You’re the best, Taehyunie!” Kai cheers, ruffling Taehyun’s hair playfully before throwing himself on the small couch by the end of the room. “It’s all on me this time.”
It better be, Taehyun thinks as he steals a glance at his best friend getting comfortable for a quick nap, looking back at the papers in front of him and sighing deeply to himself. It’s going to be a long day, but Taehyun strangely enjoys the busy and long days spent doing something that he likes.
Taehyun should’ve imagined that something wasn’t right the moment he went out of his house and didn’t see any shells waiting for him at the doormat.
After days and more days of receiving shells to the point he had to find a new cardboard box to put them in, the lack of it when he opened his door kinda took him by surprise. It shouldn’t be a big deal, maybe the person couldn’t make it to his house, maybe they were busy that morning, maybe something happened on the way and they didn’t want to be caught in the act. His mind keeps supplying him with excuses throughout the day, all in the vague hopes of not making him feel down.
Did his secret admirer give up on him? Did they realize how boring and sort of workaholic Taehyun can be? Taehyun can’t help thinking the worst of it, always one for putting the blame all on him rather than trying to think more positively when something like that happens. It wouldn’t be the first time that someone supposedly interested in him gets turned down once they get the chance to know him better and see beyond the silent persona and the muscles. But what gets him bothered is the fact that his secret admirer didn’t even try to get to know him before giving up.
To summarize, Taehyun spent the whole day sulking and feeding the animals while letting his self-depracating thoughts spiral out of control. When the sun setted and most of the employees at the MRC were getting ready to clock out, Taehyun forewent another day of drinking with Kai and drove straight home with a half-assed excuse of having an headache because of his thesis – it always works, the only good things this thesis has been doing for him.
As soon as he parks his jeep in the outdoors garage and hops out of the veihicule, Taehyun frowns at the sight of his door wide open. He was pretty sure that he locked it out before going out – and even if he left it open, nothing would happen because of how safe this neighbourhood is. Taehyun walks warily at the completely dark entrance, noticing the trail of wet sand and the footprints shape on the wood flooring. Whoever broke into his house, probably came from the beach, which could mean that it was a stranger.
Taehyun inspects the knob and it’s not surprising to see that it was forcefully broken, a part of him feeling more calm at the fact that he did lock the door before going to work. But who would go through the motions of breaking his knob to get inside the house? Sure, Taehyun has a few valuable things in the place, but nothing worth going through this much to steal it. Taehyun takes a deep breath and silently steps on the small stairs, passing through the door and quickly touching the switch to get the lights on.
He expected lots of things in that moment, like anyone would after seeing their door ajar and the possibility of getting stolen. Still, none of the things that went through his head could even reach the tip of the sight that greets him.
Sandy footprints mixed with droplets of blood on the floor, making a trail to the living room, to the couch to be more specific. A muffled sound of surprise comes from a completely naked figure that looks back at him, damp blonde hair barely tied, blue eyes that look exactly like the pools that Taehyun had to help clean back in the MRC. A dead fish stuck between the person’s mouth, and he has knowledge enough to know that it’s a tuna, a large one that would make any fisherman go envious at the sight.
None of this makes any fucking sense.
“What the–” Taehyun cuts off, frozen by the weirdness of it all. It takes him only a beat to digest that a naked stranger is sitting on his couch with a large tuna in his mouth, and Taehyun lets his backpack meet the floor as he exclaims with widened eyes, “Who the fuck are you?! What the fuck is happening?! What the fuck is this?!”
The stranger blinks back at Taehyun, innocently looking at the human that is close to going through a mental-breakdown. Taehyun heaves as he waits for the stranger to attack or do any more weird shit, but nothing comes. The man keeps sitting on the couch, staring at Taehyun as if waiting for something, eyebrows softly furrowing as if this isn’t the reaction he was waiting for.
“How did you manage to get inside?!” Taehyun inquires loudly, fishing the phone from his pocket with trembling hands. “If you don’t leave right now, I’m gonna call the fucking police!”
All the answer he gets is a tilt of head and more furrowed eyebrows. The stranger keeps staring back at him and if Taehyun wasn’t mostly shocked from the sight, he’d be shaking in fear at how uncomfortable the whole thing is. Why would such a creepy situation happen to him of all people? Taehyun isn’t the most lucky person out there, but this is beyond bad luck.
“Are you listening to me? I’m calling the police!” He warns, pointing at his phone and pretending to be typing numbers, but his hands are shaking and he can’t even unlock his phone because he knows damn well the police will take an eternity to get there – and what if this weirdo is only waiting for him to call the police to attack? Taehyun would rather not risk it.
Still no verbal answer, but the stranger moves for the first time. He spits the fish into his own naked lap, showing off a bloody smile that would make anyone pass out. Taehyun holds tight to his phone, frozen in place as he watches the stranger smile back at him to the point that his eyes close and dimples show up in his cheeks. If he wasn’t scared to death and feeling shivers all over, he would be able to appreciate the beauty of that face a little more.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” he mutters under his breath, watching the blood slightly dripping from his mouth. “Is that blood? Are you hurt? What the fuck, what the fuck.”
Damned be his polite side that would be worried about a burlar and weirdo well-being instead of focusing on what could possibly happen to him. Taehyun swallows, the stench of dead fish mixed with the iron of blood makes his stomach curl and turn, ready to spill what he had for lunch before he left the MRC.
“Listen, this is not funny,” Taehyun says as assertively as he can, but it sounds choked and weak. He hopes this stranger can’t notice the fear, or else he’ll be screwed because weirdo’s like this usually can sense these things and fuck, Taehyun doesn’t want to die. “You better tell me who you are or I’m going to…”
Call the police, for real this time? He repeated that same threat twice and the stranger didn’t even seem fazed or scared by that. It’s not like saying it a third time will make him suddenly feel scared and finally end this nightmare.
“Okay, okay. Breathe, Taehyun. Breathe and ignore the stench of blood. You can do it, you can do it,” he says to himself, approaching the stranger with slow and cautious steps.
One foot at a time, until he’s standing a nice distance from him. If he tries to attack, Taehyun can still make a run for the door and scream for help. Fortunately, nothing happens besides the stranger’s eyes following Taehyun and his smile to disappear. This close, his state of nudity becomes even more proeminent and Taehyun feels his cheeks burning from embarrassment. He never imagined that his night would end with someone naked in his living room.
“I’m gonna ask again, who are you?” Taehyun says, letting out a loud exhale when the stranger only looks back at him with confusion plastered all over his beautiful face. “So, you’re not going to answer me.”
In the silence and with the fear slowly slipping away, Taehyun analyzes the face looking back at him better. Those eyes seem way too familiar, but he can’t actually remember where he has seen such blue eyes looking back at him with this same confusion. There’s freckles in his cheeks and a pink blush that makes him look perpetually embarrassed, but Taehyun doubts that he feels such. Then, he sees the gleaming of the pearl necklace in his neck and everything clicks in place.
“You’re the merman from that night!” Taehyun exclaims with a gasp, eyes widened.
That seems to get a good reaction from the stranger – who’s not actually that stranger but it’s still a stranger. The merman nods his head and looks at Taehyun with gleaming eyes, just like the pearls in his neck. Taehyun feels slightly relieved that it’s not a weirdo in front of him, but that feeling doesn’t last for long because questions are popping up in his head. Why is the merman here? Why does he have legs? And why is there a fish in the equation?
“You remember me, right?” Taehyun asks just to make sure, receiving another enthusiastic nod. “Okay, we’re getting somewhere in this weird communication. So, why are you here? Are you still injured?”
It seems that complicated questions don't get anywhere because the merman looks back at him with slightly furrowed eyebrows, not even bothering to shake or nod his head. He picks up the large tuna in his arms like a baby and gets to his feet, exposing more of his nudity and making Taehyun look away, not ready to see the merman in such a compromising position. He makes a discontent noise and shoves the fish close to Taehyun, almost pushing it against the human’s chest and getting a surprised noise from him.
“This is for me?” Taehyun asks, keeping his eyes on the merman’s face and the large tuna. “Why are you giving me a dead fish?”
The merman blinks at him as if not understanding what he means with that question. Taehyun picks up the tuna in his arms and stares at the unmovable eyes and the open mouth, the stench strong enough to have him holding back from barfing. The merman looks hopeful as he watches Taehyun hold the gift – if a dead fish could be called such. Taehyun scrunches his nose and closes his eyes, hoping that he won’t accidentally throw up when he opens his mouth.
“So you broke into my house, completely naked, got my floor all dirty with blood, to give me a dead fish?” he asks, watching the merman nod with a bright and still bloody smile. Taehyun shakes his head. “Thanks, but I’m throwing this in the trash.”
Taehyun turns and moves to the kitchen in tired steps. The fish is heavier than he looked, and he has to make a little more strength than he imagined to hold it for long enough to reach the kitchen. But his attempt is cut short as he feels the merman standing in front of him, an angry grimace on his beautiful face as he tries to stop Taehyun. Hands around his shoulders and pressing against the skin hard enough to hurt. He belatedly notices that the claws he saw that night are nowhere to be seen.
He looks like any other human would.
“What? What?” he huffs as he tries to shuffle away from the grip but to no avail. “What do you want me to do with this?”
The merman motions at the fish and back to his own mouth, almost as if he’s taking a bite from it. Taehyun should’ve imagined that eating the thing would be the most expected answer, but he can’t help feeling his stomach turn. He hasn’t eaten fish in a long time – ever since he started college to be more exact. It wasn't the marine biologist's excuse that some use, Taehyun only felt like he couldn’t eat that anymore and stopped altogether.
“I don’t eat fish. And even if I did, I can’t eat it raw like this,” Taehyun explains, watching the crestfallen look that shows up in the merman’s face. He mutters an excuse and gives the fish back to him, watching the merman hold it in his arms effortlessly and look down at it with a pout. “You know, it’s way too weird to have a conversation with you while you’re naked. Let me get you something to wear.”
A half-assed excuse to put some more distance between them for Taehyun to collect his mind. Way too much happened in a short amount of time and he’s still too disoriented to properly digest everything. He sprints to his room and searches for something in his wardrobe. None of his clothes would actually fit the tall merman, but thankfully one of Kai’s sweaters sat forgotten in the back of the wardrobe, hopefully waiting for the day it would see the world again. Tonight’s your lucky night, dude, Taehyun thinks as he snatches the cream-colored sweater.
When he comes back to the living room, he finds the merman sitting back on the couch and munching on a piece of the raw tuna, looking very grumpy with his dimples showing up and blue eyes staring at the sandy footprints on the floor. Taehyun feels amused and disgusted at the same time, but he pushes those feelings behind to shove the sweater in the merman’s way. He looks at the article of clothing like it's deeply offending, still munching on the fish. Taehyun mimics the act of putting the sweater on his body and waits for the merman to understand.
“How’s your tail? And where is your tail?” Taehyun asks, turning away when the merman picks up the sweater and tries to dress it. He receives a huff as an answer, and Taehyun is slowly getting the gist that their communication will basically be like this. “You can’t speak my language but you can understand me. That makes no fucking sense.”
He turns back and sees the merman struggling with the sleeves, trying to rip it with his teeth. Taehyun is fast to approach and prevent him from screwing up Kai’s sweater. He helps the merman push his arms through the sleeves until his hands are out, and the creature looks back at him in surprise, almost shocked by the magic of sleeves. Taehyun chuckles, noticing the closeness between them and pulling away, three steps behind and accidentally stepping on the mixture of sand and blood droplets.
“I gotta clean this up,” Taehyun announces with a sigh. The merman doesn’t seem to pay attention to whatever he said, still amazed by the sweater around his body – it’s long enough to reach mid-thigh, which is enough to hide things that Taehyun doesn’t want to see right now. “You stay right on this couch, get it?”
The merman is fast on his feet as soon as Taehyun walks to the small closet where his aunt usually keeps the brooms and mops. Taehyun stops and turns back to the creature that stops walking and blinks back at him with sparkly eyes. He won’t lie, those eyes could get away with anything they wanted but Taehyun isn’t about to give in that easily.
“No, I told you to stay on the couch,” he says more assertively, pointing at the couch behind them. The merman doesn’t bother looking at it, he keeps his eyes on Taehyun. “If you keep walking around in this mess, you're gonna make everything worse. Stay. On. The. Couch.”
This time, the creature seems to understand that it needs to stay still in a place while he cleans, but it doesn’t choose the couch. The merman walks to the kitchen island, sitting on the stool and spinning side to side like a child would do. Taehyun lets out a quiet chuckle at the sight, gathering the supplies he needs and getting to work. He sweeps the sand and mops the crusty ones thanks to the blood droplets. It’s a burdensome thing to do after a long day of work, but Taehyun wouldn’t be able to rest knowing the mess that would be waiting for him in the morning.
He moves to the couch and picks up the fish forgotten by the carpet, blood staining the once yellow piece that his aunt liked the most. Guess he’ll have to buy a new one for her, because this is beyond his knowledge of cleaning. He rolls the carpet around the headless tuna and tries not to gag at the strong stench – or the thought of the merman eating it raw and tasteless.
Taehyun is about to throw everything on the porch when he hears a noise coming from his guest. The merman is looking at him, holding one of the many shells he received the past month; the first one to be more exact, the beige one with a pinkish inside. Taehyun doesn’t know why he put it there, but sometimes he enjoys taking his morning coffee while looking at it, but that was before his secret admirer decided to give up on him.
“It’s a gift,” he explains, pointing at the shell. “Someone gave it to me.”
The merman rolls his eyes, looking very offended when he stares back at the human. Taehyun frowns, unable to understand the sudden change of emotion in the creature. The merman points at the shell and points to himself, hand tapping at his chest almost desperately. It takes him a few seconds to understand exactly what the creature means, but once it does, he can’t help the loud gasp followed by widened eyes; the carpet in his hold almost falling to the ground with a thump.
“You were the one giving me the shells?” Taehyun asks, unable to mask his surprise. The merman seems happy with the question, nodding his head excitedly and pressing the shell to his chest.
At least he has an answer to the question that has been keeping him awake every night, but he can’t quite understand the reason behind it. Why is the merman giving him shells? A part of Taehyun’s brain tells him that maybe it was his way of thanking him for what he did that night, but a whole month of shells? No one would be grateful for that long. He finally has an answer but it makes absolutely no sense to him, especially with the other gift that will hopefully be in the trash at the end of the night.
“Why?” Taehyun asks, his surprise turning into confusion in a matter of seconds.
It doesn’t seem to be the right question, for the merman tilts his head and mimics the confusion plastered in Taehyun’s face. What a frustrating situation! He finally knows the identity of the one he’s been calling a secret admirer but he can’t have any proper answers because he’s talking to someone who can’t actually answer him. Taehyun feels like running his hands on his hair and ripping it out of his scalp, but he can’t do that since his hands are dirty. He presses the back of his hand against his slightly sweaty forehead and takes a deep breath.
“Ugh, talking to you feels like asking rhetorical questions because you can’t give me answers,” he says bitterly, looking in the merman’s direction to see him staring back, the shell still in his hold. “I’m gonna take it that you were giving me these shells as thanks for helping you that night at the beach, right?”
The merman shakes his head, putting the shell back on the kitchen island and walking closer to Taehyun. He instinctively tries to take two steps back, but he can’t do much with the couch behind him, unless he wants to fall into it. The merman stops too close, leaning into Taehyun’s face and looking deep into his eyes, trying to convey something that Taehyun can’t understand and feels embarrassed to look for too long, straying his eyes down at the dirty carpet. The creature sighs, giving some space between their faces and shaking his head again.
“No?” Taehyun asks, but still doesn’t look up. Suddenly, their height difference and how human the merman looks makes him feel anxious, a strange feeling brewing on his stomach. Taehyun sighs defeatedly and throws his hands up, startling the merman for a moment. “You know what. I don’t understand you and it’s too late for all of this.”
Another set of wrong words, leading to the merman huffing and mimicking the same motion, hands in the air and stomping out of the house through the same door he broke. It takes Taehyun no more than seconds to realize where the creature is going, a sudden spike of worry showing up as he runs after the creature, surprised by how far he can go in such a short time.
“Where are you going?” He whisper-shouts, hoping that none of his neighbors would look behind their curtains – all of them know his aunt, it’d be a matter of time until he received a call from the old woman demanding to know why a half-naked man was coming out of her house. “You can’t walk around wearing only a large sweater!”
The merman doesn’t look behind and doesn’t care at all to his words, feet walking on the sand and back to the place it probably came from. The sea, still a little far from the house but it wouldn’t be a problem since the creature must’ve grown used to the path with time. Taehyun still can’t process the fact that it has legs and those legs have been making the five minute walk to his house every morning to leave a shell by his doormat. He tries to keep up the pace but his lungs are almost collapsing when they finally reach the beach, the shoes in his feet making it difficult to walk on the uneven sand.
“Wait, merman!” Taehyun screams at the emptiness of the beach, but the creature still gives him no attention.
All he can do is watch the merman throw himself at the calm waves and disappear, taking with him one of Kai’s prized sweaters and leaving behind more questions that Taehyun will never have an answer to. On the way back home, he belatedly regrets not asking for his name or trying to be more understanding, but crying over spilled milk won’t lead anywhere.
Taehyun puts the spoiled carpet with the headless fish on the porch and goes to the bathroom, making a mental note to look for someone to fix his doorknob and to be a little more understanding with the merman when he comes back – if he comes back.
Maybe it was wishful thinking of his part to say that the merman would come back. It’s been officially two weeks since that eventful reunion – not that Taehyun is counting or anything. No new shells waiting at his doormat and no large tuna in his living room, it’s almost like all those things were hallucinations that Taehyun clinged to because he’s feeling lonely. It could be a reasonable answer, but the shells decorating his house and the spoiled carpet are too real to be mere hallucinations.
If he had to be honest, Taehyun doesn’t even know why he’s so focused on that. He knows the identity of the person that was giving him the shells and he managed to see the merman again, he should be pushing this page behind and following with his daily life as usual. But he can’t stop thinking about that creature, no matter how hard he tries. At work, his mind eventually drifts to his reunion and how the merman looked offended; at home, everything reminds him of the creature to the point that he had to hide the shells for a few days.
No matter the hour, Taehyun always goes back to thinking about the creature.
As the last summer sun finally makes its descent on the horizon, Taehyun drives to a beach farther from the one in his home. It’s been a stressful and tiring day, and with the merman’s face haunting his head and making him mess up most of his tasks, it made everything more difficult. He needs some time to relax away from the place that reminds him of the merman the most.
The pier isn’t a place that Taehyun visits with frequency, mostly because it’s a long drive from his home and doesn’t look like the safest spot. It’s even advised for tourists to not cross the chains, but Taehyun knows that nothing will actually happen to him. He’s been here before, the spot he usually goes when life is weighing him down and no place brings him comfort. Taehyun parks at the sidewalk and comes out of the car, taking off his shoes and stepping against the cold wood.
A strong breeze brings the seawater scent, wafting against his face and hair, pushing the black strands away from his face. Taehyun sits at the end of the pier, soaking his feet on the dark waters and throwing his head back, eyes on the sky. It’s filled with stars and the moon is casting down its pale glow over the ocean, its blurry reflection on the ocean bringing a sort of calmness to Taehyun.
Taehyun takes a deep breath and looks at the horizon, the waves swaying gently in the vastness. For the first time in those two weeks, he allows his mind to freely think about all the things that happened, about the merman that he’s been futilely trying to keep away. He wonders where he must be, if he’s deep underwater and maybe going through the same turmoil as him; if he spent the last two weeks equally pretending to not think about Taehyun.
He can’t help thinking back to the shells and how annoyed he looked when Taehyun said it was a thank-you gift. Was it supposed to mean something else? They know absolutely nothing about each other, Taehyun only interacted with him when he helped him that night and on the night of the dead fish. He tried to search and know more about this supposedly custom, but he received absolutely nothing besides a BTS fanfic – and Taehyun isn’t prone to seek information on fiction.
No matter how long he thinks about it, the situation becomes more and more confusing and frustrating. Taehyun hates not having answers, he feels like he’s forever stuck in a maze, only getting into dead-ends.
Taehyun sighs, reaching another mental dead-end and giving up for now. His head is throbbing and he should be relaxing instead of frying brain cells while looking for answers that he’ll never have. He swings his feet underwater, hands resting on the wet wood, eyes closing on their own accord. The sounds of the waves crashing on the shore and the cars driving in the street afar act almost like white noise, and he allows himself to soak in the calmness around him.
But it doesn’t last for too long, a loud splash steals his attention and his eyes open instinctively. Taehyun looks around, wondering if the sound came from someone taking a late-night swim or some teenager getting challenged to skinny-dip. He waits for a head to submerge and laughter, but the dead silence around him along with the darkness makes things a little unsettling. Taehyun isn’t one to get easily scared, but he has to admit that the environment isn’t the most safe.
With narrowed eyes and only the moonlight glow, it’s a little difficult to see in the water but he manages to see a shape underneath, the color looking very human to be a fish or any other animal. Taehyun flinches at first, ready to pull his feet from the water, but relaxes when he sees the figure swimming closer to him.
As soon as it reaches his submerged feet, Taehyun sees the top of a head and eyes slowly coming out of the water. Wet and blonde strands pushed behind in a half-assed ponytail, cerulean and navy staring back at him in a well-known narrowed shape. Taehyun holds his breath, taken aback by the sudden appearance in front of him. Slowly, he lets out the breath he was holding and allows his tense shoulders to go slack. You’re not in danger, he mentally assures, leaning a little forward.
“Hey,” he says softly. The merman widens his eyes and lets out a surprised noise, submerging again. “Please don’t go. You don’t have to run away from me.”
Taehyun raises his hand to touch the underwater merman, but he refrains from doing it. It feels like a long time until the creature decides to resurface, looking warily at the human for a beat. Taehyun keeps a friendly smile on his lips, and he hopes it doesn’t look fake. The merman seems to trust him, for it allows his whole face to go out of the water, lips in a tight line and eyes never once leaving Taehyun’s face.
“I’m sorry about what happened that night. I didn’t mean to offend you or anything, I just… don’t understand you,” Taehyun admits sheepishly. “But you understand me, right?”
The merman nods solemnly, blinking his eyes at him. Taehyun still can’t comprehend how the creature understands him but can’t communicate, and it’s something that makes him annoyed. He wants to have a proper conversation with the merman, to know more about him and his kind, to finally have answers. He must’ve been silent for a few minutes, since the merman lets out a huff that almost feels like he’s nudging Taehyun to keep talking.
“I’m really grateful for all the shells you gave me. They’re very pretty,” he comments, feeling more at ease now that the creature seems to be more comfortable around him. Taehyun goes back to swinging his feet, chuckling as he sees the amusement in the merman’s face. “How did you find those? Some of them I couldn’t even find online from how rare they must be.”
It dawns on him not even a second later that the merman can’t actually answer him that. Taehyun shakes his head at his own stupidity and sighs profoundly, feeling strangely disappointed that he can’t communicate properly with the creature. It’s nice to know that he can understand everything that Taehyun says, but it feels so frustrating that Taehyun can’t hear the merman or receive answers. It feels like a one-way conversation, sparkling more and more his curiosity.
“I forgot you can’t actually answer me,” Taehyun chuckles humorlessly. “You know, sometimes it’s a little hard for me to talk to you. It feels like I”m speaking all by myself, I wish you would say something t–”
Unexpectedly, Taehyun feels salty water and tender flesh pressed gently against his lips. It takes him a few seconds to understand exactly what’s happening, and once he does it, his eyes go as wide as the moon in the sky and he can’t move a single muscle. The merman’s hands are cupping his jaw and keeping their lips pressed for what feels like a long time, pulling away as fast as it started. Taehyun remains frozen as he sees the creature back in the water, blinking his eyes and looking back at the human with uneasiness in his dark eyes.
“Can you hear me now?”
Taehyun hears the voice, sees the lips moving, sees the hopeness in those eyes but he can’t make up that the words spoken came from the merman that has remained silent for so long. He blinks continuously, lips hanging open in shock, waiting for his brain to process.
“What the fuck?!” he exclaims with a jolt, pulling his feet away from the water and ready to bolt from the pier.
It doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t make any fucking sense. Why did the merman kiss him? Why is it talking right now? Why is it smiling at Taehyun’s frightened reaction?
“Since when can you speak?” Taehyun inquires, pointing a shaky finger in the merman’s direction.
The merman smiles, reaching for the pier’s edge and resting his elbows on it. “Since I was born.”
Taehyun gapes, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, unable to form actual words to speak. He has been yearning for a proper conversation with the merman, but the unexpected way he achieved such makes him too taken aback to do anything besides stare at the creature.
“Am I tripping right now?” he asks to himself, hands on his face and fingers rubbing at his eyes.
“You’re sitting on the ground, how could you trip?” the merman asks, eyebrows slightly furrowed in confusion.
“I’m totally hallucinating, that’s the only thing that can explain this, ” Taehyun continues, not even paying attention to the merman close to him.
It’s too much too soon for his brain, he can’t even digest that the voice next to him is coming from a supposedly mythical creature that hasn't spoken a single word since they met.
“You’re not. Stop worrying so much,” the creature says, a wet hand resting on Taehyun’s thigh to get him out of his head – which works, but not in the way both of them were expecting. Taehyun jerks from the touch with a gasp, holding his breath as his eyes go straight to the merman. He gets an amused smile from the creature, followed by a teasing, “Weren’t you the one who wanted me to speak with you?”
“ How can you communicate?” Taehyun asks, instead of dwelling on how annoyingly attractive the voice sounds – he really doesn’t want to think about that. “And why haven’t you done it before? Like two weeks ago when you broke into my house and gave me a dead fish.”
“You wanted me to kiss you back then?”
“Huh?”
“Do humans normally kiss strangers on the mouth?” the merman asks, looking sideways.
“That’s not–” Taehyun starts, but holds back whatever his mouth was about to come up with. “You know what? I’m not even going to ask.”
He still can’t understand how the merman can speak or why he kissed him, but Taehyun decides that what’s done it’s done and there’s no reason to dwell on it too much – a half-lie, there’s more than enough reasons to dwell on the specifics of what happened. Taehyun looks at the merman, having those navy and cerulean blue eyes completely focused on him. He looks away in embarrassment, catching a glimpse of his tail’s end swaying out of the water. The bandage has disappeared, and the flesh looks healed and working fine. At least something to make him feel at ease on this strange night.
“It’s nice to be able to finally talk to you,” the merman says, resting his head on his arms over the pier’s edge, letting out a low giggle. “You’re kinda stupid, did you know that?”
Taehyun gapes. “Are you fucking with me?”
“And you curse a lot, but it’s okay,” he continues, looking at Taehyun the same way that Kai does whenever he sees a Beomgyu photo in his lockscreen – but it wouldn’t make any sense for the merman to look at him like that. “So you liked the shells?”
“Slow down, we’re going a little too fast,” Taehyun says, hugging his knees and taking deep breaths. He said he wouldn’t dwell on how the creature is speaking to him but he simply can’t not think about it. Taehyun’s curiosity is like a monster that eats him from the inside out. “Are you not going to explain to me how you’re able to talk now?”
“You humans claim to have so much knowledge about things but know absolutely nothing,” the merman snorts, carving straight lines in the pier’s wood with his sharp claws. Taehyun shivers at the sight, fearful that those claws could slice him in pieces even though he knows that it won’t happen. “A kiss from a mer allows them to be able to communicate in any language the person they kissed speaks. Now, I speak your language fluently.”
“That makes absolutely no sense,” he says, mostly to himself.
How would an ephemeral thing such as a press of lips would render the creature the ability to speak a language fluently? Taehyun knows that skepticism wouldn’t lead anywhere when it comes to understanding aspects of a creature that shouldn’t exist in the real world, but he can’t help it. As interesting as the concept of gaining fluency through kiss sounds, it makes no sense when brought to the scientific ambit. Taehyun has always vehemently followed the science and skeptical side of seeing things, so everything about this creature shouldn’t make sense, but somehow it does.
He doesn’t have an answer and still doesn’t understand, but it seems to make sense that something as magical as a mermaid would be able to gain fluency in a language through a kiss.
“Some things are not meant to make sense to your kind, but it makes sense to mine,” the merman says. “Any more questions?”
“Do you have any other superpowers I have no knowledge of?” Taehyun jokes, drawing circles above his naked knees.
The merman frowns, raising his head. “Superpowers?”
“Telepathy, mind reading, strength, super speed, teleportation? You know, those types of powers,” he lists the superpowers he knows from head. Surprisingly, the merman lets out a loud laughter after, almost throwing his head back. Taehyun looks at him in confusion, the sound sticking to the walls of his ears and echoing like a melody that brings him a strange sense of comfort.
“Humans are so silly,” he says with remnants of laughter in his voice. “And no, I don’t have any of those. My strength and speed are better compared to your kind, but it isn’t a superpower.”
“Fascinating.”
“Fascinating?”
“Well, I’m a marine biologist and you’re a one of a kind creature,” Taehyun explains, slowly detangling himself from the straining position and dipping his feet back underwater. The merman watches his every move. “It’s only natural that I get fascinated by your existence.”
As much as he mostly reaches dead-ends and feels frustrated whenever he thinks about this merman’s existence and everything about him, it never stops being fascinating. Kisses to acquire fluency? Strength and speed heightened? Ability to have legs and look more human-like? Probably a whole language of their own and a society underwater? That’s literally an extremely curious marine biologist’s dream come true – Taehyun’s dream come true, to be more exact.
This creature standing next to him, looking at him with equal curiosity is slowly but surely becoming Taehyun’s new obsession. He can’t have enough of him whenever the shock passes, he can’t wait to gather more knowledge about him, he can’t wait to have more questions with only a few gaining answers.
“What’s that?” the merman asks, chin propped on his hands.
“A marine biologist?” Taehyun says, receiving an enthusiastic nod. It’s impossible to not smile at how cute the merman looks sometimes. “It’s someone that studies marine animals. Like fishes and mammals.”
“Fascinating,” he says, but it lacks the usual emotion followed by the words. It mostly sounds like the merman is repeating it, adorably so. Taehyun swings his feet underwater, and the merman mimics the movement with his own tail, leaving only the end of it outside of the water. “So you study mers too?”
“Mers?”
“My kind, the most interesting beings in the ocean,” the merman brags, chest puffed out in pride.
“We don’t have much information on that,” Taehyun admits sheepishly. It wouldn’t be fair to lie when the merman looks so excited about the humans gathering knowledge about them. “People believe you guys are not real.”
“Not real?!” he gasps, undoubtedly offended. “What a blasphemy.”
“I’m pretty sure that blasphemy isn’t the right word for that,” Taehyun chuckles, raising his head in defeat when he sees the murderous gaze behind those dark eyes. “You’re the first Mer I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“That’s good. I don’t like sharing what’s mine,” the merman says, all the feelings from being considered a mythical being to the humans left aside and giving way to a sultriness that makes Taehyun feel a little fidgety.
Taehyun swallows, playing with the shirt’s hem. “What?”
“You haven’t answered my question,” he points out, drumming his claws against the wood. The sound echoes in the emptiness of the pier, matching the beat of Taehyun’s heart picking up at the different air around them. “Did you like the shells I left for you?”
“I did, but you already know that,” he replies, still unsure why the shells are back as the main topic.
“Well, I need verbal confirmation that you’re accepting my gifts before I proceed with the courting ritual,” the merman says matter-of-factly.
“Courting what?”
“Courting ritual,” he repeats, leaning away from the pier and moving until he’s standing in front of Taehyun’s legs. Taehyun watches as the claws rest above his shorts-covered thighs, slowly and tentatively as if waiting for the human to pull him away. Taehyun doesn’t move, and the merman takes that as permission to keep going. He looks up and his eyes are filled with something that makes Taehyun’s stomach twist in a not-so-uncomfortable way. “I like you, human. So I’m choosing you as my mate.”
“You gotta be shitting me,” Taehyun snorts under his breath.
Mate? As in the other half of a pair or as in copulating? Taehyun blushes brightly at the idea of copulating with a mythical creature, or being the other half of a pair with a creature that he barely knows. Sure, his love life isn’t the best and he hasn’t had any action in quite some time, but he’s not desperate to the point of indulging in some interspecies sex or one of those Disney-esque forbidden romances with mermaids and humans.
The merman frowns. “I don’t quite understand what you mean by that.”
“Choosing me as your mate? You don’t even know me.” Taehyun laughs, perplexed by the situation he got himself into. “I’m not even from the same species as you!”
“Tiny details that matter little,” he says, moving his hand dismissively before resting it above Taehyun’s thigh again. It soaks the fabric of his shorts, makes droplets of water creep down his legs and reach the sea again. It’s cold and wet and salty, exactly like the merman. “And I don’t need to know you. I know what I feel and that’s what matters.”
“Have you thought about how I feel?” Taehyun asks, a little desperate.
Once again, nothing makes sense to him. How did he go from helping an injured merman to receiving shells that he thought meant something romantic to accidentally starting the process of becoming mates to a creature he barely knows? And to top it off, he was right about the shells being a gift from a secret admirer, but he’d never in a million years imagine that it would be a merman giving them to him. Taehyun feels a little dizzy, too much information getting dumped in his tired brain to be assimilated.
“You accepted my gifts so that must mean you feel the same,” the merman says, but he doesn’t sound as certain as he did before. The semblance in Taehyun’s face must be speaking all that he can’t for the merman to feel taken aback.
“No. That’s not what it means,” he says, sounding harsher than he intended. The merman startles at the unusual tone on his voice, pulling his hands away almost as if burned. Taehyun feels a little terrible, taking a deep breath and trying to calm his erratic heart so he doesn’t accidentally lashes out on the merman. “Don’t get me wrong, but we don’t even know each other’s names. How could we be mates when we don't even know the bare minimum?”
“Oh, what a terrible mistake of mine,” the merman announces, one hand over his naked chest. Taehyun looks away before he can see how muscled the creature looks, focusing on his own feet in the dark water. “My name is Soobin, from Drarian.”
The question he has kept inside of him for the longest, finally able to see the light of day and rest with an answer. Soobin, he mentally repeats until the name fills up the empty gaps and rewrites itself over the hundred times Taehyun used mermaid or creature to speak about Soobin. It feels strange to have a name after weeks of calling him in such a way, but his real name seems to find its own way filling the blanks and settling in Taehyun’s overactive brain.
“I’m Taehyun, from here.”
Soobin claps his hands together and excitedly announces, “Now we know each other’s names, so we can be mates!”
Taehyun would find this extremely adorable and go soft at the sight, but not tonight. He holds back from freaking out at the idea that Soobin is completely obsessed over them becoming mates – how has he even fallen from Taehyun when they only saw each other two times and barely exchanged words since Taehyun was the only talking? Shouldn’t feelings take longer to develop? He doesn’t even feel the same for the merman so how is he supposed to react?
When it comes to love and feelings, Taehyun has the same knowledge a child has of the adult world.
“No, Soobin. That’s not how it works.” Taehyun tries to mitigate his decline, but it’s proven to be such a hard task with Soobin looking at him with hopeful eyes. “I’m sorry if you got the wrong idea about me accepting the shells. I thought they were a gift from a stranger and meant something else. I would’ve never accepted them if I knew what they meant.”
Silence hits them like an unexpected harsh wave. Taehyun can hear his heartbeat pounding in his ears, the emptiness of the night and the low sound of the waves crashing at the shore making him more anxious than relieved. Soobin seems frozen in front of him, a statue of a broken-hearted merman. Taehyun brings one hand to his mouth and nibbles at his nail, tasting salt from the water on his tongue; it’s better than the bitter taste of turning down a love confession – or what looks like a love confession.
“You don’t want to be my mate?” Soobin asks, voice coming out weaker.
“No. I mean yes– I mean–” Taehyun shuts his mouth, feeling worse as he sees the downturn of Soobin’s eyebrows and his eyes staring at the water under his body. “We’re too different, that wouldn’t work like you want it to,” he adds with a sigh.
“I already told you that those differences mean nothing to me,” Soobin argues, taking Taehyun’s hands and engulfing it with his own.
Taehyun hasn’t noticed how big they are compared to his, not like he had any time to notice such a thing when his two encounters with Soobin were mostly erratic. Soobin holds him like he’s made of the finest china, gentle even when his claws look sharper than blades and the scales could easily hurt the human. Taehyun can see webs between the fingers and how the claws and the fingers look like one, attached together in a sapphire blue shade. Taehyun can’t take his eyes off it, mesmerized by the shape and color.
It should be frightening to have a merman holding him, but Taehyun feels that weird sensation on his belly again.
“But they mean something to me, Soobin,” he admits defeatedly, forcing his eyes to look at Soobin’s face. “Shouldn’t you care about your mate’s feelings, too?”
“Of course!” Soobin exclaims, his voice taking the colors of excitement back. Taehyun smiles weakly, it sounds like a melody to his ears. “My mate’s feelings are more important than mine!”
“So, let’s take this slow,” Taehyun says, barely able to control the words that freely come out of his mouth.
Maybe it’s the years without receiving romantic attention from someone, maybe it’s the calmness of their surroundings, maybe it’s the moon shining down on them, maybe it’s the way Soobin holds him so gently. Or maybe it’s none of those things and Taehyun has officially lost his mind. But here he is, allowing a merman to supposedly court him.
“Let’s get to know each other.”
“Get to know each other?” Soobin asks in confusion.
“Let’s make a deal. I’m gonna come here every night and we’re going to talk. About each other and getting to know more,” he explains as best as he can. Do mers only start courting someone they barely know and become mates? Taehyun stores that question for later. “That’s what we humans do when we want to date someone.”
“Date?”
“My bad, that’s what we do when we want to mate someone.”
“Oh, I understand it now!” Soobin gasps, squeezing Taehyun’s hands between his – still gentle, even with the strength he could accidentally put from how agitated he looks. “You want to talk before accepting my courting.”
“Exactly,” he nods. “I need to know more than your name in order to accept what you want.”
“It’s alright!” Soobin says. “I can do the courting ritual from the beginning if that means getting you to accept it, Taehyun.”
For the first time in his whole life, Taehyun feels a full-body shiver upon hearing his own name being spoken in someone’s voice. Soobin has a way of saying it, almost as if he’s purring his name and letting out a devotion that shouldn’t exist. Taehyun had a few relationships in the past and crushes like anyone else would, but he doesn’t remember ever feeling like this whenever he heard his name spoken by them.
Soobin says his name with a love that shouldn’t exist, a love that makes Taehyun feel like he’s drowning in the sea without any way of reaching the surface. It’s terrifying, it makes him feel like there’s not enough air around for him to breathe, but something tells him that it’s okay. He’ll eventually find comfort in the fear and drowning won’t haunt him because Soobin will be waiting for him at the bottom of the ocean.
Taehyun shakes his head, breaking the fog of stupid thoughts. “That’s not what–”
“I beg your pardon, but I have to go. The humans usually fish in this area around this time and I have to be careful to not get myself injured again,” Soobin interrupts him, throwing a wink his way along with a blind smile. “But come to think of it, I wouldn’t mind having you aiding me and showing your body to me again.”
“That’s not what happened that night!” Taehyun gasps, blushing. Is this creature really thinking that Taehyun showed his body because he wanted to?
“Farewell, Taehyun.”
Soobin brings their hands up until they’re dangerously close to his lips. Leaning down, he leaves a kiss on the back of Taehyun’s hands. Salty and wet, but lacking the cold from how hot Taehyun feels at the sudden display of affection. He’s not a foreign to hand kisses, Kai gave him lots during their years together, but his kisses never felt like this. Soobin kisses with the intent of making Taehyun feel flustered, maybe even shy at the touch. Taehyun looks to the side and pulls his hands away from the embrace, keeping them safely behind his back.
Soobin chuckles in a low tone, more shivers awakening in Taehyun’s body. “I hope to see you here tomorrow night.”
“Bye, Soobin,” he says quietly once the merman’s body is out of sight, his tail the last thing he sees in the darkness of the sea before laying his back down against the pier’s wood and staring at the sky, cheeks still burning and that feeling in his belly unable to be quenched down, the back of his hands feeling a little dry from the saltiness of the kiss.
Taehyun still can’t grasp everything that happened tonight, but it seems that he has a date tomorrow night.