Archive of Our Own

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Seungmin could hear a roar coming from the sky; a storm sending tremble throughout the waves of his ocean. The moon screams too, he remembered his mother’s words. She screams to the ocean and the ocean listens. The ocean swallowed all the pain, to paint them flat and unremarkable onto the vase of posterity.

To release her from it, to watch her become The Moon and all her tenderness again.

Storms forbid people from reaching the ocean. They are too cowardly, his father told him and all the young mermen, back when his tail was too weak to carry him to the surface.

Yet, there he was. Sitting upon a low reef far from the faintest hue of the yellow fireflies, watching as the full moon — so bright and broken all at once — cried to the dark ocean which mirrored her true state. It pained him, sometimes. To see the soft light he often found comfort laced within become a veneer of the broken celestial.

So he did what he could: listen.

Rain started splashing over him, ocean waves craning themselves below the fin of his tail before they hit the harsh reef; parting into shards of glass that gleamed under the moonlight. Unlike the ocean which carried warmth within waves, the downpour carried coldness, yet Seungmin found it comforting still.

It is always nice to know and accept things from both sides.

His father was probably training other young mermen under there. He thought about him — wide shoulders and composed state — swam around with words of their rules flowing from his mouth. No one is allowed to get near the land unless you are twenty-one, was one of those. Do not let humans see your true form.

He chuckled a little, although his voice almost became inaudible within the continuous growl the sky let out. Humans are brutal indeed. Too many times he had seen corpses float above The Great Cave, cuts scattered around the rotting skin — so deep that sometimes the remaining flowing blood could be smelled from his house.

As the rain did not relent — continued to brush his hair and wash his body with the water — a blurred version of himself started to show on the ocean surface. Scarlet mop with pale white highlights sat upon his head as the waving ocean distorting his form.

The reflection of his red hair stretched; flowed around the face with features that grew softer with the gentle touch of ocean waves. She smiled at him. Tranquility stored inside her starry eyes shoot down his limbs, cradling him in the most tender way possible.

He lost in the feelings before the waves crashed the reef again, shattered mirage of his mother fell into broken shards of glass.

His own reflection stared back at him; gaze storing nothing. Empty. Without his mother by his side.

She had gone for so long.

He was still there, stunned in a line between memories and reality when he heard a faint sob came from behind. He dove himself inside the ocean in an instant, the splash of water drowned within the moon’s cries.

Usually he would get into his town. But the faint hum of trembling notes wailing from the land stopped him. He turned, head peeking from the rough reef as his gaze locked to a hunched form inside the dimming cave next to the beach.

The moon shone on the human, for it was a boy, indigo blue hair fluttering against the salty breeze and petrichor-stained wind, locks falling upon his face. He was crying, it seemed. Palms smeared with scarlet patches of blood — that didn’t seem like it was coming from him — and a knife on the stones, laid abandoned next to his shaking feet.

But one that made Seungmin’s eyebrows knitted together was the string of notes the boy brokenly hummed. It stored familiarity, broken pieces he had been yearning for so long. The same melody he used to hear every time he fell asleep.

His mother’s song.

He inched closer; unable to retract the urge to listen. To listen to how the notes ebbed away like the gentle current, how instead of the tranquility his mother held, this voice sounded broken and fragile, yet the beauty remained. Of course. It was his mother’s song.

The storm grew faint inside his ears. Suddenly the voice — stained by sharp rough edges of crying — was the only thing he could hear. It still had the magic laced within; fainter, but it was there. Unlike his mother with a voice of The Ocean, his singing was harsher. Thick with humanity.

Broken.

Dying.

He watched the boy rocked back and forth, like the motion of the rising and setting sun: east, middle, west, repeat. The scarlet tint smeared around his skin, scattered all over his pieces of clothing, and the only thing Seungmin could catch with his equally scarlet eyes was brutality. 

It is so human.

Seungmin almost thought his eyes were burning, for they were not meant to be used outside the water for more than an hour. And yet, he stilled. He dove every once in a while, getting away from any possibility of his father seeing his irritated eyes and questioning him, but he stayed on the surface for longer.

Because voices don’t travel in water.

He wanted to listen for a longer time. Relish the yearn which had grown like hunger inside him: like gulls peck the empty dry earth. He listened. Until the voice grew faint to finally disappear; as the boy walked with wobbly feet deeper into the cave.

Seungmin dove into his ocean. His father didn’t ask him why his eyes were slightly redder. Not that he had time to look properly.

Not when Seungmin went straight to his cave, cleaving apart the curtain of kelps in front of the opening and threw himself into tender muscles of a shell that once was his mother’s. A cave that once was hers. Warmth of her presence stored within the fiber of the chamber.

But she was not here anymore.

Long gone.

The night blurred into a vague memory inside his head. Seungmin woke up to the noises of young merpeople playing outside his cave, eyes swollen and cheeks puffed up; he almost thought he was seeing a blobfish. Rays of the sun filtered through the ocean were bright; yellow hue shifted to green-ish, almost like the color of young kelp.

The memory flashed upon his eyes was so vivid. His mother waking him up in the morning. Standing amid a golden glow shining around her body as if she was Thetys; except for the black orbs of dead star Thetys had, his mother’s were sparkling with warmth. How the waves played with her hair; scarlet locks dancing along in the current. How her tail — maroon and glimmering — flicked against the kelps.

He missed her — missed his mom. His body and mind had grown tired from collecting pieces of her evanescing presence within his home. He looked around him — his cave, his father, the fish, the town — all of these were the echo of who she was, haunting from each corner of his sight.

Last night, for once, the echo of her came alive.

Roughly, of course, with the unfamiliar touch of humanity staining her graceful notes. Yet, it was still hers.

Seungmin wanted to listen again.

“Seungmin!” someone called from afar, and his head immediately perked up.

A young merman showed from the corals, eyes crinkling happily with a gummy smile on his face. “Look!” he said again, a seahorse in hand. “You got mail!”

Ah, Seungmin sighed. He knew what it would be about.

Nonetheless, he reached for the seahorse with a polite smile, waiting for the young merman to tickle the seahorse in a way only he knew before a voice came out from it; strangled at first, but it eventually managed, delivering news with a static and emotionless tone.

He almost could not register the words. They floated around him, words of how he was already twenty years old and the pearl ceremony would be held as soon as he hit the age of twenty-one. The news that should’ve excited him. If only he can control his magic.

“Thank you,” he murmured, a waning smile on his face. The young merman grinned happily, giggling with his seahorse as he swam past Seungmin and disappeared behind other corals, to somewhere else he didn’t know.

He planned to visit Minho’s house. Annoy the elder, perhaps, just so he would try to annoy him too and he wouldn’t have much time for his foggy brain to mind unimportant stuff. Instead, he swam back to his cave, and the kelps shifted a little; giving him a gap to swim inside before closing back.

Eyes clenched tight, he told himself — echoing his mother’s instruction years ago.

Feel the waves. His hands clamped together in front of his chest. The ocean spun around him, scraping against his skin so hard it felt like burning. He was dizzy from spinning despite not seeing any of the movements around.

Gather them inside here. His chest started to burn. Fire swelled beneath his skin. Tearing muscles. Breaking bones. Twisting joints. Pounding forcefully against the thick walls of his skull. It grew stronger, and stronger, until he couldn’t hold it anymore.

“I can’t,” he breathed out, as he fell face-first to bed. His tail weakly flicked around before laying limp, unmoving. He imagined this was how his mother’s state was, when the humans killed her without showing any mercy.

Hopeless, so broken and unworthy.

Unworthy was a familiar word. A word everyone called his mother. A freak who loved the land so much. More than her own home, they said, but Seungmin was sure she loved him more than anything. For his mother had always come back to sing him to sleep.

Until she stopped coming back.

She was gone, killed by the brutality which was laid by the hands of humans. Seungmin still remembered how excited she was that morning, telling him about the animals which could light up brighter than seashells on the land, about how clear the stars looked — They look like fish swimming in the sky! — about everything.

Seungmin used to excitedly wait for her. For her to come back with another interesting thing about the land; the language, the people, everything.. For her to teach Seungmin how to control the force of magic around him, using the shining pearl that held the same hue of his and his mother’s hair hanging atop his chest.

His mother’s pearl was supposed to help him to control his magic. But it was gone with his mother, leaving no traces of existence except the broken fragments kept deep within her son’s memories.

“This pearl will help to connect your wavelength with the magic”, she had said, slender finger pointing onto the gleaming pearl on Seungmin’s chest.

The connector of Seungmin and the magic force of The Ocean.

He sighed, and little bubbles hovered around him from the force.

Minho mastered the magic of healing. How to heal wounds whenever any of their brethren got hurt, whether it be major and minor injuries from little cuts to broken bones. He had mastered it at the age of ten, knocking in front of Seungmin’s flower house cave every morning to gush about a new potion skill he learned.

And yet, Seungmin had nothing to show.

Minho grew older and wiser. He started to stop gushing and bragging about his new ability to Seungmin once he understood why Seungmin didn’t have any magic skills. He explained the knowledge to the younger, at least those he could learn with head and not magic. Sometimes he let Seungmin help when he was being nice.

Seungmin wanted it. To be able to ace an ability to perform magic. He wanted to be able to make his own pearl too. He would reach the age of twenty-one in a blink of an eye and he still couldn’t perform any magic.

He couldn’t do it unless his mother’s pearl was found.

For years he searched around the house and around the places where his mother was dumped into the ocean, but it was nowhere to be found. The remaining place was land. Maybe someone took the pearl away when she was being tortured. Took the gleaming treasure away as her life was being stolen from her grasp.

But without the pearl Seungmin couldn’t perform the magic to turn his tail into feet. He couldn’t go.

He sighed again. Thinking about what would happen if he just let himself be the useless merman; unable to do anything and unable to have any children, for the pearl was also the element he would make his children from.

A hopeless, useless merman. Unworthy. That’s what he would be.

An idea perked inside his mind. He sat up, blinking heavily to get rid of the dizziness as everything spun around his slender form. He thought of the hunched figure inside the cave. The flutter of indigo blue hair against the wind as he hummed his mother’s song.

He looked up, straight to the sky.

The color was red; scarlet hue tint taking over the rich blue entirely. Bleeding the sky.

Approaching night.

Awaiting moon.

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Deserted town of mortals

Scarlet flooding, soaking the torn muscles

I stood amid ruins: tall, proud, unnerved

Echoes of myself;

Fading.

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The air around him was thick with the buzz of people’s voices. Various tones and emotions blur into one; cramping the narrow lane in the market that Jisung almost found it hard to breathe. He turned into a smaller lane: almost like a hidden crook from humanity behind the tall tree, cautious gaze peered on his surroundings.

It was mid-afternoon, meaning the glaring sun went for a full blast. So hot he could see the steam of the last humid which evaporated from the dirt below his feet. Shadows of other people - wandering around the market trying to trade for stuff - still visible from where he crouched down.

“Are you sure you saw Jisung?” The faint murmur came afar, almost unheard but enough to make Jisung’s chest tightened. “That Jisung? We all know he wouldn’t show up under the sun this bright.”

“Shh,” Jisung whispered, as the lizard inside his pocket perked up with excitement visible from the way it jumped in excitement over seeing the open sun. “Not now, Axel,” the lizard whined when Jisung pushed its head back inside, his pocket zipped closed.

“Are you sure it is him?” The voice came alive again, this time Jisung could hear it closer, as he tried his best to align his body within the large tree.

“It was him! The eye patch, his blue hair, it was him! I have no idea why he would wander around the market at this hour but I have been hunting that bastard for years. I could recognize him blind.”

Bullshit, Jisung rolled his eyes, clenching his lips together for the word to not slip. He could barely see around with one eye, how could a pathetic human like him say he would recognize him blind? It’s ridiculous.

The scraping sound of their sole against the dirt still echoed around the narrow lane, so close Jisung was not even daring to breathe too loud. He could hear some additional sound — footsteps with two different paces overlapping together before stopping next to the walls.

“Oh hey, Mr. Kim! Long time no see,” the voice said, coming from the lower part of the walls — they were crouching there, it seemed. “Is that your son?”

“Yes, yes this is my son,” the other voice — sickeningly sweet, a faint smell of alcohol could be sensed even from distance — said, before whispering, “Come on, greet,” to his son; and Jisung rolled his eyes, feeling his blood boiled from the tone he used.

“Hello,” the little boy’s voice was small, choked out wobbly with fear. He heard a loud ‘tsk’ coming from the father, as he apologized to the other men with the same sweet voice that made Jisung almost want to vomit in place.

“I’m sorry,” he said, a faint slap of skin against the skin could be heard in mere seconds. “I taught him how to greet people properly but it seems like he’s just not good at it. We never want a disrespectful child, do we? That would be embarrassing.”

“ ‘m sorry,” the boy murmured, and Jisung could imagine his shaken figure; shoulder sagged and lips trembling as tears started to accumulate inside the pearl eyes whose stars started to dim.

“We were talking about Han Jisung,” the man did not even receive the boy’s apology, ignoring him like he had no worth. “You must have known him, right? The last child of the Han family who was rumored to have killed his whole family members when he was fifteen...”

“It can not be true,” another person snorted, drawing out a smirk on Jisung’s face. “I refused to believe a fifteen-year-old boy could kill his whole family. I know he is crazy but he must’ve gotten help.”

There was a clap. He wasn’t sure who, but someone clapped in excitement as if he just realized something. “Don’t you remember the other woman's corpse we found along with his family? What if she was the one who helped him to kill his family and he killed her afterward?”

“Why would he kill someone who helped him?” by the time these words were being uttered, Jisung was already there: crouched atop the high walls, looking down with a manic look on his face.

“Having fun on this fine bright day, gentlemen?”

He enjoyed seeing their reactions; mouth agape as their feet backed off from their reflex — showing how much Jisung’s presence feared them — shaky hands covering their mouth before pointing onto him; vocal cord unable to make a sound.

“I- I told you he’s here- I told yo-” the first man stuttered, but the small dagger which landed on the wall next to his face — a smirk cracked on Jisung’s face as he watched strands of hair fell to earth — was quick to shut him up.

Jisung jumped onto the ground, dagger spun in between his fingers as he walked onto the first man who was stunned on the wall with wide eyes. “Asked you if you’re having fun,” Jisung sang, his voice deep. “Having fun talking about me, huh, Sir?”

The sharp edge of his dagger sat below the man’s chin, and Jisung chuckled at the way goosebumps rose along his skin. Another dagger split the air, successfully pining the other man’s cloak onto the tree with his peripheral sight.

“You’re no fun,” his laughter was manic, cold eyes holding no emotions. “I want to play with y’all a little, but you’re already thinking of leaving? That’s disrespectful, Sir.” He moved his dagger from the man’s chin and stabbed it onto the wall through his cloak with no hesitation, before making his way onto the other man: a father of the child.

“Greetings, Sir,” his lips moved into a slow smirk. “Thought you know the best in being polite and not disrespectful?” he averted his gaze onto the little child, and he was faced with eyes filled with wonders and thick fog of fear.

Another dagger pierced through the blue cloak of the father before he dragged the kid away; into a corner where he could still watch the three of them but far enough for them to not be able to hear their conversation.

He could see the way the kid flinched as he placed his dagger gently against the back of his neck — so gently it was possible to hurt. Keeping the smirk and glare on his face, he whispered, “What’s your name?”

“M- Minjun,” he trembled, almost crying. “K- Kim Minjun.”

“Don’t cry, Minjun-ah,” his voice grew gentle.

Minjun seemed conflicted, but Jisung wouldn’t blame him. Not with how contrasting his whole demeanor was with the words he just uttered. He curled a little smile, nonetheless. Inching closer to Minjun’s ears with his eyes still cast on the three men observing them.

“If he hits you again,” — he squeezed Minjun’s shoulder blade gently, sighing as he saw his small face twisted in pain — “just run. If you run far enough to the beach, the ocean will hear you. She will save innocent souls of those who suffer.”

“Hyung, were you-” he tried to say, but paused himself in between.

“Go on,” Jisung said. “We don’t have that much time.”

“Were you one of those she saved?”

Jisung stood up, slashing a little cut on the boy’s shoulder without breaking the cold emotionless expression on his face. “Yes,” he whispered, “hang in there, Minjun-ah.”

Harshly, he dragged Minjun back to his father; who immediately looked like he was a beast about to maul a deer when he saw the scar on Minjun’s shoulder. “You hurt children too, Jisung? Take innocent souls like my son too?”

Jisung kept his lips tightened into a fine line as his dagger slashed across his cheek. Minjun’s father groaned, scarlet substance dripped down his hand as he tried to stop the bleeding. He was yelling in panic, despite the cut for sure wasn’t going to drain his blood off.

“You’re a monster,” he grumbled, trying to pull off a small knife from his pocket belt to attack. Only for Jisung to stop his hand midways; twisting his wrist to another angle until he heard a loud crack.

He laughed again, brushing his blue locks back and revealing a big cut across his face as he kicked the fallen knife aside and whispered, “You have no idea what a monster is.”

He walked to the other men, using the daggers he pinned them with to leave at least one cut on both their skin as well. As he was satisfied, there were three men on the ground, wailing as if they were mauled to death — which was not true. Not quite.

Jisung gave Minjun a wink as he leaped onto the roof, eyes scanning the scarlet patch of blood that started to stain the white cloth on his back. Another soul with stained purity.

“Well that was fun,” he giggled, unzipping his pocket and placing Axel on his shoulder; the lizard hummed happily as it got to see the sunshine. “Humans are weird, don’t they? What do you think?”

Axel didn’t answer, but from the warmth of his tongue licking the column of Jisung’s neck, he knew what it wanted to say.

I’m always here for you.

The sun hung low when they arrived at the beach. Jisung drank the view in front of him; the open ocean and faint light of the moon hovered above the skyline. The waves were gentle, rippling under the wind’s mercy and caressing the golden sand.

Ocean, he called, but his dry lips clenched. A sigh he let out was heavy, as the familiar force started twisting his gut and burning his eyes.

Are you listening?

After a quick trip into the cave — digging his bundle for the deepest livestock and cleaning himself from the bloodstains — he dragged his feet to a crook under the highest reef, sat atop a large stone with the sand cradling his bare feet.

The waves grew closer as the darkness started to take over the sky, trickling up to his ankles before retreating; as if the ocean was washing him from all the stains. Recovering purity. Except for Jisung, there was none of it: he had been stained and will forever remain. Not even the ocean could save him now.

“Do you think I did wrong?” he whispered, to whom he didn’t know.

He watched Axel munching sea worms below the stone, cheeks puffed up as it made a quick attempt to dig further. “Killed his own family at the age of fifteen, they said...” he trailed off again, leaning his back to the rough surface. “No one talked about how tempted they were trying to kill me first.”

The waning moon smiled across the sky. Jisung looked at her, paler version of the sun’s shine staring at him back. He couldn’t help but feel like the moon; stained with broken fragments which he messily taped together, hiding behind the shine of others. Burying the fact that both he and the moon were dying.

He blinked the tears from his eyes, but his view only got blurrier, sky lane fading into a pitch-black world as he pressed the heels of his palm against his eyelids; an attempt he made to stop himself from crying.

It was futile. A sob ripped from his chest; he felt like he just swallowed the ocean whole. The ache of his throat. His lungs felt like they were inhaling a gallon of seawater, helpless spasms growing deeper yet no air could make it through.

A song brushed against his eardrums. Calm tune echoed from somewhere around the ocean, voice so tranquil easing out every weight pressing against his chest. Breaking the walls of wilted flowers he had built as a veneer of his ruin; emotions flowing at the rapid speed, wave after wave washing over him as he dropped onto the golden sand with knees flushed against his chest.

Warm waves of the ocean filled the space around him, yet despite the danger, these strong currents held all he could feel was tenderness, the ocean cradling him as if he was her baby; not a twenty-year-old man with a stained broken soul.

He cried to the ocean, letting himself lost inside the warmth. Darkness of the night engulfed him with peace, yet the stars shone above along the moon; a reassurance that he would never get lost. He cried, cried and cried, the tightness of his chest and guilt twisting his gut flowing away as the rainfall of tears.

The sense of time didn’t matter here; for how two hours could feel like two minutes and the other way on other occasions. Jisung couldn’t remember for how long had he poured everything into the ocean, for how long had he drowned inside the hands of comfort the ocean offered, a shiver running down his spine as the breeze grew colder.

Yet, he stilled. Eyes clamped shut, enjoying the way his clothes were sticking and crawling against his skin, body completely soaked with salt water up to his chest. The song remained unnerved, voice deeper than the one he used to hear, but the magic their voice held remained the same.

Silver sparkles of the moon laced within the ocean surface were the first thing he saw when his eyes fluttered open. He looked around, searching for the source of the voice as memories filled his body as much as blood and bones.

He could still see Axel on top of the stone, one leg holding a worm to stay still while it shoved another worm into its mouth, soft sound came from it as it munched on its food happily, free of worries.

“Come here, buddy,” he cupped Axel onto his palms, the lizard humming happily while nuzzled into his skin. It soon had sat on Jisung’s shoulder, clawing his loose shirt as Jisung walked around the coast, following the voice.

The footprint he left got deeper as he walked on the moist sand, muscles grew sore as his eyes relentlessly peered at his surroundings; to find the source of the song. It almost felt like the voice was following him, for how he had been so far from where he started yet the voice remained clear without any fade.

Fireflies inside the forest were the only source of light at this kind of night; when the moon wanes and half-hidden behind the thick cloud of the upcoming storm. Stars were dimming, splattering of golden light being covered by the fog of uncertainty.

As his limbs grew tired, Jisung stopped, laying on his back facing the sky. He didn’t realize how his breath was already labored, the salty air of ocean breeze filling his lungs in a heavier way than usual. He frowned as the song stopped, fading into silence and leaving him yearning for warmth.

“Hey,” the sudden voice — a soft one, too soft for his ears which used to brutality to process — made him jump in alert, one hand quickly gripping the handle of his dagger.

“Woah. Calm down, young man. I’m not going to hurt you,” they said, the voice echoed around him, trapping him inside an invisible room he didn’t know where it came. So he looked around the beach, trying to find even the faintest glimpse of living aside the dancing branches of trees.

A chuckle rang behind him, chirping as if it was a hummingbird. “Behind you,” they giggled, and Jisung turned quickly, not letting go of his dagger yet just in case. But the sight which greeted him was far beyond what he expected.

“Hi,” they said once they locked eyes, voice unexpectedly deeper. They were resting their arms on the side of the reef, a few pieces of coral in front of it. They looked human, except for the ears which resemble fins, and the maroon scaled tail swaying lazily behind them. But what struck Jisung the most was their eyes. Their eyes were the hue of the ocean surface during sunrise; gleaming under the moonlight.

“Wha- what?” his frown deepened, eyes blinking continuously.

“Someone is looking for you,” they said again, this time their voice shifted into a softer tone. “Over there.” There were scales scattered on the honey skin of their hand, as they pointed to the north, where a small figure could be seen: crouching behind a high reef.

“Who are you?” Jisung still didn’t move, struck by the creature’s gleaming eyes.

“You can call me Seungmin. I’m a- well, as you can see,” — they swayed their tails behind them again, a wide grin on their face — “I’m a merman.”

The way he talked was distinct. Jisung couldn’t tell how, but it felt like how it would sound if the ocean could speak; clear pronunciation of words, accenting each last syllable. Thin and soft voice flowing with such tranquility.

He wasn’t sure about it, but he followed Seungmin in the direction he was pointing at. The small figure grew bigger and clearer as he inched closer until he stood aside from the high reef; frowning when he realized it was Minjun.

He quickly ran into the little boy, crouching next to him with a worried look on his face — this time he didn’t need to hide it behind a veneer of brutal light he usually did — and he pulled him into his arms; feeling every shiver running down his small body as small sobs and whimpers hitting his chest.

“Are you okay?”

Minjun didn’t answer, small fingers clutching weakly on the collar of Jisung’s shirt as more sobs and broken syllables fell out of his quivering lips. Words were incoherent, but a couple of words Jisung could make in between his whimpers were ‘scared’, ‘hurts’, and ‘sorry’.

“Hey don’t say sorry,” Jisung murmured to the top of his head, brushing his back in a comforting manner. “What happened, Minjun-ah?”

“ ‘m didn’t clean the house... ‘m fell asleep without cleaning the house ‘nd Ma was mad- Junnie said- said sorry but-” he broke down into tears again, throwing himself onto Jisung’s lap. Just then he saw a blooming purple on the back of his neck and went down to his shoulder.

“Did she hit you?”

Minjun shook his head against Jisung’s chest, sobs began to quiet down but tears were still flowing. “Ma didn’t hit- ,” he stuttered, sniffling and shivering from the cold breeze. “Father did- he hit Ma too...”

Jisung frowned at that, not expecting it. “Why was he hitting your ma?”

“ ‘cause if- if Junnie did something wrong it’s- it’s Ma’s fault,” Jisung didn’t expect the answer; once again berating himself for thinking that the brutality and unfairness he had faced was the worst one human can do.

“You’re safe here, Jun-ah,” he quickly whispered, leaning onto the rough surface of the broken reef. “Look,” he said, hand retreating from Minjun’s back to his own shoulder, taking Axel that was hiding behind his neck all the time into his palm. “His name is Axel.”

The lizard hid behind his fingers as Jisung showed it to Minjun, drawing out soft giggles in between his sniffles. “It’s cute,” he murmured, eyes not leaving Axel even once. “Hi Axel,” he moved a finger to touch it, in which Axel responded with soft noises, as it nuzzled into the boy’s skin; a smile cracked on his small face.

Jisung left Minjun with Axel on the reef, walking onto the spot where the sand was moister; eyes peered to find the merman he just saw earlier. “Seungmin?” he called experimentally, not sure if he wanted the merman to show up or not.

“Here,” the scarlet mop of his hair perked from behind a low reef; the nearest to where the waves swept.

Jisung walked towards him; hesitant to drag his feet but curiosity leading his path. When he arrived, the merman was reaching out his hand, patting the empty spot next to where he sat. “Sit,” he said, voice high and sharp.

“How did you know he was searching for me?”

Seungmin laughed, as if Jisung just asked something too obvious. “I asked him why he was here. We don’t usually have a guest- let alone a little kid during a storm like this,” he pointed up to the sky; for it was growling, thick clouds pouring light drops of rain.

“She’s crying again,” Seungmin murmured, and Jisung wasn’t sure if he wanted him to listen to those bits of words or not: so he didn’t reply.

“Is it-” he opened his mouth again, but shutting it up.

“Go on,” Seungmin urged, now clenching his eyes shut — a whine almost slipped past Jisung’s lips at the act, for he still wanted to see his scarlet irises again.

“Is it okay for us humans to see you?”

Seungmin’s eyes fluttered open; eyelashes fluttered against the raindrops. “Actually, I don’t know,” he whispered, a look of sadness crossing his features. “I lost my mother to a human before. Since then we never really talked about coming to the land.”

“Why are you here, then?”

“I always come whenever it’s a stormy night. Appreciating things my mother used to appreciate. Listening to a cry my mother used to listen to.” Jisung wasn’t sure if he was supposed to understand the crypticy; the scorpion’s tail hidden in his words.

“I want to listen to you,” he said again, this time turning his head towards Jisung; stars of curiosity twinkle every time he blinks. “What’s your name?”

“Jisung,” he answered, shortly. He didn’t have reason to provide the merman with a proper answer anyway. But he did nonetheless, escaping the creeping guilt: “Han Jisung.”

“Ah,” Seungmin smiled again; soft locks of his hair framing his face and falling over his eyebrows. “Nice to know you, Jisung. I prefer humans with bloody hands and swollen eyes than people with sickeningly sweet smiles and clean hands.”

Jisung laughed, actually feeling the stretch of cheeks muscles he had been missing for years. “I see you know about humanity quite well,” he muttered, carving the lifting edges of Seungmin’s lips into his mind.

“I figured along the way.”

“Losing a mother,” Jisung trailed off, the thought of not opening up to a stranger dissolved into the thin air. Seungmin had a color in his voice; the color of the ocean. The color of comfort; one that Jisung had found only in one person in his life. “I’d say I’ve been there too, the first one was the mother I love. And the second one was the mother I didn’t.”

Seungmin’s eyebrow quirked, intrigued. “You have two mothers?”

“I had one,” the memories filled through him again; the guilt, pain, the scarlet-tinted floor. “Another one was someone that felt more mother than my mother ever had.”

He watched the way Seungmin’s hair bounced as he nodded, prompting him to keep going. But Jisung stilled. With ocean waves trickle under his feet, pooling him with warmth before retreating as if telling him to not become too attached. For everything always finds its way to come and go.

“My mother said humans are nice,” Seungmin was smiling, and Jisung wondered how he kept that smile to look sincere despite the sadness that might have crept. “I want to cherish things she used to appreciate. Such beautiful things shouldn’t be left alone.”

Jisung let out some soft noises over Seungmin’s words; a mix of disbelief and relief. He sounded like the ocean; in every inch of his presence. For Jisung who had always been captivated by the ocean - how open and caring she is, how she swallowed all his pained cries —- he was struck. Attached.

Exactly the last thing he should’ve done.

“You should come often if you want,” he whispered, for once pushing through the wounded barrier his logic has built. “You know it already. When there’s a storm, no one comes near. It’s only me.”

“And why should I believe in you, Jisung?”

“You said it earlier,” he cracked a smile. “Because my skin is stained with blood and my eyes are swollen with traces of guilt.”

Seungmin smiled as he closed his eyes again; the faint silver light of the moon hitting his eyelids. There was warmth flooding inside Jisung’s chest, replacing the twisting guilt and thumping along his heartbeat. The heart that pulsing pace he had ignored for too long; for once he felt it alive.

The fire of life inside his skin flickered alive after years of waiting.

───── ⋆⋅☽✧☾⋅⋆ ─────

Waning moon and hooting owls

Serenity of loneliness

Ocean, are you listening?

You stilled, all ears.

Knitted a string for us both

Red and unbreakable

───── ⋆⋅☽✧☾⋅⋆ ─────

Storm came often after that day. Seungmin glanced upwards at the darkening surface of his ocean, waves gaining strength and spun around a random spot before retreating back.

She’s angry, his sister said. But Seungmin knew better; she was never angry. Ocean listened. Swallowed all the pain and words the moon spitted out; killing them in silence.

Jisung was blue today. But he has always been blue. Seungmin imagined people around him — if Jisung ever had any — would think he came from the ocean, from how bright blue his irises were, the messy mop of hair which mirrored the way the night sky looked, and his soft features which lit up like the moonlight.

Sometimes Seungmin spotted purple blooms scattered around his jaw like a series of broken flowers. Sometimes it was the red angry lines along his hands, or the weird crack his shoulders made and the choked groan he would let out secretly.

They come and go; Seungmin realized. He could tell from his touch alone: if Jisung hissed when he grazed his fingertips — coated with sea water — that means the broken skin is new. If the silence drowned them, it means it has been there for at least two days.

One that never left, though — was the big cut that slashed across the left side of his face. It extended from just below his eyebrow down to his cheekbone, the darkening scarlet trace of brutality he eventually adopted as a part of his personality.

“What did you do today,” Seungmin asked, tail swaying lazily against the waves which growing high.

Jisung paused now, considering. His finger curled below his chin, propped upon his folded legs sitting on the high reef. Seungmin loved this about him: no matter how many times the same question had been asked, he answered Seungmin as if it was the first time.

“Minjun was hungry,” Jisung said, a frown visible on his face. “His father locked him inside his room for three days without any food. His mother managed to sneak some water in, though.”

Seungmin hummed, watching the ocean eye of Jisung’s flickered like flames under the dimming surroundings. “I was asking about you,” he murmured. “What did you do?”

“I broke the door,” he giggled, as if he was talking about the weather — and not the fact that he just barged into someone’s house. “I picked up some food from the kitchen, threatening that bastard to not move or I will kill his son. He gave it away, though. I took Minjun with me into the forest. Watched some butterflies,” his eye was now lost, wandering in sweet memories.

“You made him happy,” Seungmin smiled at the blooming dust across Jisung’s cheeks, a contrast of saturation within their monochrome surroundings. “Where is he now?”

Jisung’s face twisted into something Seungmin could only describe as a disappointment. “Well he has to come back,” he muttered, the edges of his lips weighted down. “I told him to tell his parents that I forced him to do stuff for me. I feel bad but I have to hurt him a little too, so they won’t be too suspicious.”

“It’s for the best. And he likes you,” Seungmin reassured. He averted his gaze onto the creature on Jisung’s neck, noticing the gleaming light in the middle of their forehead. He frowned immediately, glancing at Jisung with curiosity filling his eyes. “Where did you get them?”

Jisung followed the line of Seungmin’s gaze, sighing in temporary relief as he realized what Seungmin meant was Axel.

“Well,” he trailed off, cupping his palm next to his shoulder for Axel to climb down. “I got him in between the ruin of my old house,” — he grazed his thumb over Axel’s head — “he was hurt and broken, you know? I just thought maybe this could be a sign there was still warmth running inside my vessels after all.”

“Don’t ‘him’ them,” Seungmin couldn’t stop himself before the words slipped. “Do you even know if Axel is male or female?”

“Ah,” Jisung sounded — and looked — flustered, parting his lips as if he was about to say something but he clamped them shut again. “I didn’t,” — he paused again, trying to find the right words — “I thought they’re a male because, I don’t know. I just thought so.”

Seungmin didn’t say anything, his scarlet irises cast down to each movement of the creature: the way their eyes gleamed under the moonlight, faint flicker of light with the mix of blue and red — mostly blue — twinkling in the middle of their head. “They’re patrons,” he finally said, observing Jisung’s shift of emotions.

His frown lasted a little longer this time. “What are patrons?”

“Our creatures,” Seungmin was wandering in curiosity; first his mother’s song, and now this. He looked at Jisung again, a homeless boy with only one companion — couldn’t even afford food for both of them; relying on nature with no trace of luxury ever touched his skin.

It was almost impossible for Jisung to have his mother’s pearl.

“Patrons are protectors,” he finally explained, reaching out a hand to it. “We usually used them as a companion; a friend on a journey. One that would never leave you unless you tell them to.” A smile etched on his lips as Axel climbed to his palms; nuzzling onto the warmth of an ocean child.

“See this?” his pointer finger grazed over the faint light, not touching but enough for Axel to back off a little; alerted. “That’s the sign of Patrons. They’re similar to lizard human has, but it’s different because of this.”

Jisung didn’t look convinced, but Seungmin wasn’t sure whether he only made up his expression or it was genuine. Perhaps it was his privilege as he only showed one eye; emotions gushed through only half of himself, not enough for others to tell whether he was faking or not.

“Are you going to take them from me?” His voice — although Seungmin could tell he was trying to stay calm — was filled with a thin string of panic, fear engulfing his tone of the thought that Axel would leave.

“No,” he smiled, putting Axel back to Jisung’s shoulder. “I don’t have the right to. It’s yours, they’re already bonded with you.”

“So they won’t leave me unless I tell them to?”

“Pretty much, yeah. I don’t remember if we ever had patrons before but those that I’ve seen are pretty much like that. They can understand you too, right?”

Jisung nodded, the thin fog lifted from his blue irises. “I think Axel can. Sometimes I talk with them and even though they obviously don’t answer I just feel understood.” His eyes grew brighter, gaze so fond as he patted Axel’s head with such tenderness.

“That’s good, then,” Seungmin murmured, gazing up to the sky. It was still raining, but the sky wasn’t growling. As if it was only there for a brief moment, to refresh the withering soul of the living. Of theirs.

He darted his eyes over Jisung, whose eye cast far on the ocean’s gleaming surface. His indigo hair was drenched with the downpour; matting and sticking over his forehead, but one that made Seungmin frowned was the look of a storm which crept their hands on his face.

Like the moon on the verge of the storm; holding onto the last bit of sunshine for him to not crumble away within the rain and throw himself onto the ocean’s embrace.

“Have you ever thought of throwing yourself into the ocean?” Jisung asked, the shift of his tone — and the sudden heaviness of the topic — made Seungmin jolted in place.

“I live in there, Jisung-ah,” he choked out a giggle, though the light feathery notes he often had weighted to drown within the freezing sand. “Why would you ask that?”

Jisung looked conflicted for a brief second, the heel of his feet sunk inside the golden pebbles; waves caressing his skin. “I thought about that sometimes, you know,” he breathed thickly, eyes never once leaving the ocean. “How would it feel to drown myself inside it, will it hurt or will it just feel like sleeping.”

The rain grew quiet, only a few drops beating down the earth.

“I think it would feel warm,” Seungmin whispered. He hoped it felt like that for his mother; to be reunited with hands which carried her birth as death approached. “My mother passed away in the sea too. Human killed her and threw her back in there.”

“Just her and the sea,” Jisung murmured, trying to crack a little smile but it split his face in half; sadness and happiness mixed in a blurred line. “When I died, I want to be buried in the ocean.”

Seungmin expected him to continue, for the moon to let himself break and throw all the broken pieces into the ocean. But he didn’t. Instead he stilled, watching the waves dancing along with the sea breeze with a little smile that finally looked real.

“Will you come with me?” he saw the tremble of Jisung’s lips despite the edges being forced to lift; the splitting fragments of his demeanor.

“I will wait for you there,” he answered, it was a promise he shouldn’t have made. But there was always something about Jisung — the fragile layer of glass covering the tragedy of his past — that made it impossible for him to say no. Something about the moon that made Seungmin always wanted to say yes. To listen and follow.

Relief broke on Jisung’s face, and he reached for him, the cold skin of the moon wrapped inside the warm fingers of the ocean. They stayed like that for a moment, inhaling the shared breeze of the ocean and waning moon.

“When the first time you come here,” Jisung beat the silence again, this time he was facing Seungmin. “Were you looking for something?”

Seungmin was taken aback by the question; realizing the reason why he was talking with Jisung in the first place. His mother’s song lulled in Jisung's soft voice and the existence of her pearl in any humans’ hand.

Storms used to be a reason for him to dig more about Jisung’s correlation with his mother; except as the storms come and go it eventually became reasons for him to see Jisung. To sit on the reef and enjoy the little time they had. Sometimes on those days his hand would accidentally brush against Jisung’s, and he would look up and smile, water drops of rain hanging from his ears and hair like pearls.

“I was curious about something,” he admitted, fiddling with a strand of mature kelp which was brought by another wave. “Remember the song I sang when we first met?”

Jisung frowned. “Song? You only came up from the sea saying someone is looking for me.”

Right. Jisung didn’t know, he berated himself. He glanced over the sea again, escaping himself from Jisung’s curious gaze before closing his eyes; humming the soft string of notes as the image of his mother came to life behind his eyelids.

It was as if he tried to sound like his mother; even though he knew such a thing wasn’t possible, for how distinct his voice was from her and how he would never ever be his mother. He supposed it was enough, as long as the notes are the same.

When he finished, he didn’t dare to open his eyes. He wasn’t sure why, but there was fear rose in him; lodging in his throat. He could feel the rain stopped pouring; a petrichor-stained breeze caressing his face. And Jisung was quiet as well.

“Go on,” Jisung trembled the words out, and Seungmin could see from his peripheral vision how his feet were shaking in place. “What about that song?” he urged, as if they were running out of time. He wasn’t really wrong, but the one who was running out of time was Seungmin. Jisung had plenty of time, he didn’t have the responsibility to fulfill as Seungmin did.

“It was my mother’s song,” he whispered. He braced himself to look at Jisung; but he was faced with the sight of Jisung standing from the reef, face as dark as the new moon.

“I heard someone,” he said, but his eye was not alert. “You should go back soon, Seungmin-ah. All the fishermen are going to sail soon,” he continued. He pointed at the sky with a trembling finger as he added, “The storm had stopped too.”

Seungmin ached for an answer. For further explanation. But from the storm he saw in the back of Jisung’s figure, he knew he wouldn't get anything. So he listened. “Okay,” he uttered the word clearly, although a part of himself was yearning for curiosity.

When he looked back, Jisung quickly split his face into a smile again, torn and broken. But Seungmin didn’t ask why. He mirrored Jisung’s smile into his own face — hoping he could see how terrible he was at lying — and dove into his ocean.

Leaving the broken moon to shine; before coming back as another storm. For him to listen again.

───── ⋆⋅☽✧☾⋅⋆ ─────

Collided souls under the moonlight

I can see anguish in your bloody eyes; perhaps it was mine

Reflection of who I am (only you can see)

Lies and guilt and happiness

Can I have this forever?

───── ⋆⋅☽✧☾⋅⋆ ─────

“Seungmin?” Minho’s head perked from behind his house, startling Seungmin from knitting strands of kelps into a bundle of blankets for Minho’s fish.

“What?” he asked, letting Minho in. He dumped the finished blanket on top of his drawer; where the other two blankets were placed. Glancing over to the opening of the cave, he found the sight of the older merman, both hands on his hip as he glared at him.

Minho pouted, swimming inside his cave and sitting on his bed with a huff. “Your father asked me whether you were playing with me these days or not. He said you’re gone too often,” he finally said, his tone flat and emotionless, like the sound of the seashore.

“And?”

“I said I don’t know.”

Seungmin stilled, staring blankly at the elder whose face had always been unreadable. He was fiddling with the scales of his tail, restless fingers rubbing on the back of his neck as well. “You know what,” he finally breathed, before continuing, “you’re going to turn twenty-one soon.”

Seungmin nodded, still listening. They’ve never talked about serious matters. Ever since they were children, they would play around; Minho teasing Seungmin and Seungmin rolling his eyes in annoyance but still following him everywhere.

Even when Minho decided to let Seungmin learn about the art of healing with him, jokes had always been thrown around. Intense and serious bubbles of ambiance had never been their thing.

“Have you found your mother’s pearl?”

“No,” Seungmin was quick to answer his question; he could hear the hitch of his breath. “I haven’t,” he added, more calmly.

“You are searching for it aren’t you? That’s why you come to the land more often,” it wasn’t a question, so Seungmin didn’t answer; letting Minho finish what he actually wanted to say.

“Are you listening?”

“Yes,” he nodded.

Minho sighed, his eyes roamed around the chamber. They spent plenty of their childhood here, sleeping together with the same song his mother lulled and waking up in the morning; Minho whining for Seungmin to wake up so they could play.

“Do you remember the song mother sang to us whenever she tucks us to sleep?” the words fell out of his lips without Seungmin could stop, floating around them and brushing against Minho’s eardrums, causing sadness to bleed into his face.

“I do,” he said, a motion that was supposed to be a short blink lasted longer than it should. Perhaps the image of his mother came alive in the back of his eyelids as clear as it did to Seungmin, even though Seungmin’s eyes were wide open.

“I heard someone singing the same song in the land. A human. The first time I saw him he was crying on the reef; his hands stained with blood — typical antagonist — but the continuous cry he let out was pained and choked; typical protagonist. I supposed there is no such thing as a one-sided coin in humanity, am I right?”

“So does he have your mother’s pearl?” Despite the rage Seungmin expected to roar from the elder, he was calm. As if the idea of Seungmin meeting a human wasn’t as bad as he thought.

“I don’t know. He hasn’t told me.”

Minho raised an eyebrow. “I thought you’ve met him quite often?”

“I did. I got to know about him more since he’s quite a distant type of person. His name is Jisung, Han Jisung. He is twenty years old. He is soft and kind but he hides all of that under a barrier for too long he isn’t even sure if he can step out of it or not,” he felt like his mouth was overflowing, words of Jisung in his head piling together in a way that’s far from neat.

“I don’t,” Minho started, pausing a little before continuing, “I don’t think I understand what kind of bond you two are building for the past few months.”

Seungmin coughed off a laugh, the tone flew in between sadness and confusion. “Trust me. Neither do I,” he stood to pick up all three blankets, tossing them onto Minho’s chest which the older caught with a whine.

“Tell Soonie, Doongie, and Dori I love them,” he giggled, peeking his head outside the cave to watch over the sky. The painted scarlet sky was clear; no sign of thick clouds or approaching storm. He got inside with a sigh, laying on his bed with eyes closed.

“Wow,” Minho chuckled, bemused. “I’m surprised you can remember their names now.”

“You know what,” Minho spoke up again, the bed rose a little as he stood, “Your mother always said to follow your heart. If your heart is not screaming for danger then just trust it. Trust Jisung if your heart said so; if the ocean said so.”

Seungmin laughed, although it was a little choked. “Is that how you confessed to Jeongin?”

“Shut up, Kim Seungmin,” he slapped Seungmin’s shoulder, but the ridiculous blush of his ears gave it away. Seungmin was still laughing when Minho started pinning him, hand roaming to the most ticklish areas and drawing out peals of laughter from Seungmin’s lips.

That night he thought about how he wanted to go to the land again; to see Jisung. The lack of storm had never made him worried before, but as weeks passed without any sign of storm the fear started bubbling inside his chest and presented him a realization.

He yearned for the moon.

Maybe one night he could come again; when the moon becomes vulnerable enough to let out some cry, even when days aren’t as hard as they usually have been.

The next storm came before the sun bleeds into the night.

The big star hung high upon the blue sky; golden rays pierced through the transparency of the ocean before the thick clouds came, covering the shine. The blue sky grew darker, shifting from a perfume of oversaturation to the serenity of monochrome.

Seungmin could feel the way his lips lifted into a smile, a crack of happiness split his face. It was the first time for him to come near the land without the moon shining his path. But they promised to meet when it’s storming. Perhaps he didn’t need the moon anymore when a moon as real as Jisung was within his reach.

Waves were high when he reached over the reef; rough surface becoming too familiar underneath his fingertips. He shook his head to get rid of ocean hands from the locks of his hair, eyes peering around the shore to find the familiar figure.

He found him; but instead of the little smile he often offered whenever he stood right where Seungmin arrived, he was crouching behind another low reef, a small figure hidden inside the crook offering temporary shelter.

“Jisung?” Seungmin called him as soft as he could, but he was not moving.

Panic rushed through his veins as he quickly swam near the human, quiet gasp escaped his lips upon the sight; Jisung leaning onto the reef with half-lidded eyes, whole body trembling with shallow breath and a knife fell from his hand.

“Minnie?” he mumbled weakly, trying to lift his head from where it was mindlessly resting on with a groan, flinching from pain. “What are you doing?” he asked, his tone urged but there was a sense of knowingness to it; a little smile of familiarity.

“What were you doing? Why are you hurt?” he found himself throwing arrows of questions, panic and fear of the memory of wounded body swelling under his skin; taking a wheel of his usually calm and composed demeanor.

“I’m okay, Seungmin-ah,” he tugged a weak smile, but the continuous shudder passing through his body was telling otherwise.

Seungmin eyed the scarlet tint which drip down to the golden sand from the ripped parts of his clothes; his arms, his thighs, even his waist Seungmin had always imagined looping his hand around — to hold him with tenderness and erasing traces of brutality scattered inside his soul.

“You’re not,” Seungmin’s voice broke, hiding the burning of his eyes with diving down his ocean as quick as he could; grabbing seaweed and herbs he had memorized from Minho’s book before swimming back up, pulling Jisung from the harsh reef down into the gentle hands of sand and ocean.

“Stay still, now,” he murmured sternly, movements careful as he pushed the sleeve of his shirt up; revealing the long cut which struck down his arm. Seungmin swallowed the quiet whimper Jisung let out as he cleaned and bound the wound.

Jisung’s eyes were teary now; even the one below his eye patch. Tears rolled down in silence, along with another series of whines which he swallowed and let out as hard, short exhales. “Ow,” he whimpered once, exhales grew heavy and choked as the time went by.

“Don’t hold,” Seungmin uttered the words as he caressed Jisung’s soft cheeks, the only place remaining untouched from the thickening fiber of muscles. “It’s just me... If you’re hurt then show that you’re hurt. It’s not a problem.”

“No,” Jisung choked out, but more tears followed. His head slumped backwards in an attempt of shaking itself, teetering on the edge of unconsciousness.

Seungmin smiled sadly at the sight, placing his hand over Jisung’s eyes as the storm began to quiet down, covering his sight from the glaring sun. He started humming his mother’s song and Jisung’s composure broke; sobs falling from his lips as his body seized in anguish. Fragments he hadn’t let Seungmin listen to. Unspoken words he buried under the thin shield of stolen sunshine.

“It was her, right?” Seungmin was still smiling, lifting his gaze from another wound he had bound to the quivering edges of Jisung’s chapped lips. “Someone that was more mother than your mother had ever been.”

Jisung didn’t answer, but the increasing volume of his sobs gave it away. Seungmin bound the last wound on his thigh, eyes scanning over his body before pulling his head close; pressing them length to length so close that nothing could fit between them.

His honey skin grew slippery under the steady falls of Jisung’s tears, sparks of salt from different sources collided together over his scales, gleaming under the bloody dusk and the storm which started to grow louder.

“I’m sorry,” he choked out, words that usually came in a steady pace from him became broken and vulnerable. “I’m sorry, Seungmin-ah.”

Seungmin didn’t answer, not breaking the hum of familiar notes lulling with the voice his throat made which he finally loved. And in no time, Jisung’s breath came out peacefully, walls of brutality shattered with only the peacefulness of his sleeping face remained. The stained purity of the blue moon laid bare for Seungmin to see.

Watching Jisung’s sleeping face overwhelmed him. To know that Jisung was real, that Jisung was there, and all mortals always come and go. The temporality of their existence scared him. Yet, he watched the serenity unraveled in front of him; piercing through the broken walls of Jisung’s skin like the rays of light peeking through parted leaves on the spring day.

The spring day when Jisung taught Seungmin how to write his name on the sand; icy cold skin of his fingers wrapping around Seungmin’s warmth, guiding it with care and tenderness as if he was afraid Seungmin could break.

“I thought merpeople speak Korean as well,” Jisung giggled, his eye-patch was thrown somewhere else, somewhere Seungmin didn’t know. Somewhere outside the map of constellation Seungmin printed into his mind.

“We don’t,” Seungmin spoke up, his finger trailing over the scales of Axel’s tail. “We have our own language. My mother said there used to be a Korean Class for us, because we have magic to change our tails to feet if we want to visit the land. It’ll not be fun if no one understands what we’re talking about, right?”

Jisung laughed, his voice sharp with joy. He reached out for Seungmin’s hand, then; palm out facing the sky. “Give me your hand,” he said, a warm smile etched on his face. At these times, Jisung looked like the sun. Seungmin didn’t like the sun, but Jisung was sun and moon at once; luminance and tenderness.

Even when his skin brushed against Jisung’s, he didn’t flinch upon the contact.

“I’ll teach you how to write my name too,” he said, and his hand started moving Seungmin’s finger against the golden sand.

Seungmin smiled as he leaned against the corals, his finger tracing over a mental image of both their names written on the sand. He didn’t even hesitate, strokes sure and calculated. He will never forget.

He watched as the pouring rain started filling the path his finger had been through. How the next wave ceased around them, erasing the existence of names Seungmin left on the canvas of sand; a canvas of their meetings.

한지성, it read. And next to it; 김승민.

“What were you doing today,” The question was usual, the exact same string of words Seungmin always asked. Only this time his tone came out more hard; like there was an urge to it, a twisting fear against his gut.

He expected it would be uncomfortable for Jisung to lay his head on his upper tail where all the scales were, but Jisung wasn’t moving. His eyes fluttered open slowly, his hand resting above his eyes as he let out a loud exhale. “I was in the town,” he whispered.

Seungmin hesitated a little, but he decided to break through, landing his fingers gently above Jisung’s head, carding through the indigo locks gently. “What were you doing there?” he breathed, trying to catch every little detail of Jisung’s demeanor.

“I came to the old town where I used to live,” his answer came after ten seconds, a battle of hesitation. “Just walking around,” he added, the twitch of his lips giving it away. The lie he had trained himself to make, a pile of reassuring words with empty reality.

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I wasn’t lying,” he tried to argue, flinching a little as Axel climbed onto his shoulder, licking the side of his neck which wasn’t hurt.

“Are you trying to convince me that you got hurt this bad from walking around the town?”

Jisung didn’t give him any answer. They drowned inside the silence, quiet sound of ocean waves crashing against the reef and the faint grumble from the sky filling the air around them.

“The storm is bad today,” Seungmin broke the suffocating silence, his hand never once leaving the soft locks of Jisung’s hair.

“It’s not,” Seungmin could see the frown on Jisung’s face as he uttered the words, glancing up to the sky. “Look, you can still see the sun from here. It’s already red, but the storm is not bad. We’ve seen a lot of the worst storms before.”

But what Seungmin meant was not that storm.

“The moon cries again,” Seungmin mindlessly spurred, for once not really wanting to think before speaking. For once he didn’t want to make sure whether Jisung would understand what he was talking about or not. “It’s sad, you know? I love moon but the only time I can see her is when she is crying to the ocean.”

“I love the ocean,” Jisung shifted in place, looking like he was trying to find out whether he can sit up or not. He managed, a little groan fell out of his gritted teeth as he finally sat next to Seungmin, their shoulders brushed against each other.

“I’ve lived here for quite a while because your mother told me that, ocean will hear me. That she will save the innocent souls of those who suffer. That she would listen.”

He was quiet for a while, eyes clenched tight and lips trembled in anguish and grief that both of them had felt. Seungmin realized Jisung was not a type that could swallow and kill the pain in silence. He was the moon; a soul with pain and stains stored inside the broken heart, killing and rotting him from the inside.

A moon that needed an ocean to listen to his cries, to hold him through it as the pain poured in the form of rainfall. So Seungmin reached for him, his hand looped on the back of his neck as he pulled them close; hearts beating against each other as a series of sobs poured from the moon.

The veneer had finally broken, a storm coming in a steady fall as Seungmin swallowed all the pained whimpers he let out; ragged breaths and shaky inhales.

“I miss her too,” he said the least, hoping that the pain would be eased out if they took it together.

“I’m sorry,” Jisung said again, but this time he pushed through all the burning of his throat to let out more words. “She wouldn’t be gone if I- if I was a little bit patient. She wouldn’t be gone if I didn’t ask her to stay with me- if I didn’t ask her to free me from my family- she wouldn’t be gone if I-”

The rest of his sentence was lost in between gasps and whimpers, Jisung burying his head onto Seungmin’s chest as he choked out a couple of broken syllables before he surrendered, giving up on talking even more. “I’m sorry, Seungmin-ah,” he cried again, knocking Seungmin’s breath out of his chest.

“Don’t say sorry,” Seungmin tried to soothe him through it, even though he could feel his eyes were burning from both tears and irritation. “She decided to do that, Jisungie. It was her choice and it’s not on you.”

“Yeah but still,” he argued, but he stopped midways, his voice lost in the cry. After a few beats of silence which perhaps enough for Jisung to find his voice back, he finally asked again, “So was the song, the one your mother used to sing to you?”

“Yeah.”

Jisung hummed, his fingers fiddling with the scales of Seungmin’s tail. “How do you know that I know about it?”

The sliver of memories rose a smile on Seungmin’s face. “It was storming, heavier than this,” he said, pointing up to the sky. “You were sitting on that stone, blood staining your hands and a knife covered with blood next to your feet. And then you hummed that song.”

“Oh.” Unlike Seungmin, Jisung’s face twisted into an ugly flinch, a look of sadness that should not be crossing his features. “I was, uh, well. I accidentally killed someone that day. Not that he was innocent, he kidnapped a little girl and was trying to rape her. I didn’t mean to kill him but I guess I slammed him to the door too hard and, yeah…” he trailed off, anxiously rubbing the back of his neck.

“If you didn’t do that the little girl probably would die,” Seungmin smiled at him. It was weird how everything about Jisung always made him want to smile.

“You’re right,” as the words escaped his hearty lips, Jisung was playing with the sand; sprinkling them onto the reef. He spoke again, “Was it the only thing that made you decide to talk to me?”

“No,” he was startled by how fast he answered Jisung’s question, deciding to pause a little before continuing, “I was searching for my mother’s pearl too.”

Jisung’s eyes flickered in something that Seungmin couldn’t quite decide; in the middle of disbelief and curiosity. “Your mother’s what?” he asked, this time the curiosity sparked more, flaming under his ocean eyes.

“My mother’s pearl. I need it to connect myself with the magic. If I couldn’t find it I can’t turn my tail into feet and I also can’t” - he swallowed for a beat - “I also can’t get married.”

The other was quiet for a few minutes, blinking his eyes before darting the line of his gaze down. “Oh, wow,” he said, tension filling his act. “I wasn’t, I never thought you would get married,” he admitted, and there was a blush tinting his cheeks that Seungmin wasn’t sure whether it came from the dusk or not.

“I still don’t have anyone, though,” he laughed, a part of him was glad that he didn’t. “If I can get the pearl I might just use it to turn my tail into feet, maybe? And if I can finally control the magic I can make my own pearl as well. That’s what we use to make children if we’re getting married.”

“If you’re getting married,” Jisung echoed, and Seungmin wondered why. But he didn’t ask.

“How do you-” he started again, the bulge on his throat moving as he swallowed before continuing, “how do you make children, exactly? I assume it’s different from what humans do?”

Seungmin bowed a little, drawing a circle on the sand. “Every merperson will have one pearl, we make it once we reach the age of twenty-one,” he explained. He drew another circle next to the first one. “So when you got married, you have your pearl and your partner’s pearl, right?”

Jisung nodded, his expression grew serious.

“Now you break these two pearls and put them together inside this sacred shell.” He drew a shell in the middle of the circles, breaking two circles into four pieces and dragging a line from halves of both circles into the shell. “And then your child will be born! Young merpeople used their mother’s remaining pearl to control their magic until they could make their own.”

“What happens if you can’t?” he asked, and Seungmin forced a smile to tug itself on his lips.

“Then you’ll just be infertile. No one will want you and you can’t keep the line of your family tree. A disappointment, perhaps,” he tried to articulate each word carefully, so as to not hurt Jisung and his own feelings in the process.

“And my mother’s pearl will only last until I’m twenty-one. It won’t be able to connect me with the magic after that since I’m supposed to already have my own pearl by that age.”

“How does the pearl look like?” Jisung asked him, he was kneeling now, his knees sunk slightly into the surface.

“It’s half-moon shaped because it’s only a half of the pearl. The color is red,” — he pointed onto his own hair — “like this, and it will shine when the magic is being used.”

Jisung frowned. He was recalling his memories now, Seungmin could tell. He couldn’t help himself not coo by how adorable Jisung’s face was whenever he was thinking hard; his finger rested just below his chin and eyebrows drew together with a little pout.

“I think,” he started, a smile that Seungmin expected to be a happy, proud one looked slightly crooked with something he couldn’t tell what. “I think I’ve seen it before. I’ll see if I can find it,” his smile was softer now, the silver light and tenderness of the moon. He reached over Seungmin’s head and patted his hair gently.

“I will find it for you,” his words sounded more like a promise instead of a general statement, weighted with the responsibility that Seungmin could only see when someone was swearing on top of an altar.

'I won’t let you feel like you’re a disappointment'  was the last words of Jisung’s promise before they parted ways, and Seungmin had wondered whether it was his only reason to help him.

The storm had ended, and the sky was starting to bleed again; a cheery red of the sun’s rise. Seungmin wondered if there’s something implied in the way Jisung’s eyes were staring at him so softly as he watched him dive back to the ocean, if there was something he wanted to say but he didn’t.

He wasn’t sure whether it was the same thing he wanted to say too, but as he got deeper into his ocean; he had decided that when he met Jisung in the next storm, he would make sure to tell Jisung about it.

He didn’t want to wait any longer.

───── ⋆⋅☽✧☾⋅⋆ ─────

Gentle rain and my thick haze of storm

Numbing pain and awaiting void (your song pulled me back)

Perhaps it was you whom I’ve waited to come; had always been you

In the afternoon where storm came without any signs

Unspoken words: I love you.

───── ⋆⋅☽✧☾⋅⋆ ─────

The next storm came; Jisung wasn’t there.

Seungmin watched the ceasing waves alone; lost in his thoughts while his ears alerted — an attempt to catch any sound of someone else’s existence around the beach, someone that he hoped to be Jisung. The fireflies — they looked like glowing corals with wings — floated around him, faint light flickering as if it was trying to replace the moon.

But Seungmin’s moon was not replaceable.

He waited from dusk until dawn; from bleeding sun to a moonless night which darkness soon erased by another opened wound of the sun’s birth. The gentle rain had stopped pouring, silent cry without the moon’s shattered pieces fading from existence.

Seungmin moved his finger around the sand again, feeling the way each grain rippled down his hand, slipping away from his fingers before hiding between the others. He glanced at the written names next to the reef — countless attempts of the waves to erase them yet Seungmin didn’t stop his strokes.

The sun hung high above his head.

The moon disappeared.

───── ⋆⋅☽✧☾⋅⋆ ─────

Gloomy Tuesday

Metal scent and rotten wheat

Storm came and perhaps you too

But I was not there; gone.

Flowers withered, and the moon died.

───── ⋆⋅☽✧☾⋅⋆ ─────

Jisung wakes up inside a small chamber; rotten wheat laid under his body, stained with droplets of blood. The scarlet fluid he had been too familiar with; flooding the cold floor from where it flows around his skin. He can hear the growling of the sky, thunder and the moon’s cries.

He wonders if Seungmin comes to the land.

He knows he does. Seungmin is never the one who breaks his own promise. Ocean will always be there, waiting and listening.

Guilt gushes through his veins as he glances upwards, to the small crack on the dirty wall which slightly blurred from the black eye he got a few days ago. But it’s enough, he supposes. He sits there, leaning against the wooden fence of the prison, watching the storm and pretending that the ocean is near.

Perhaps it’s a wild imagination he had always had that makes the salty breeze of the ocean fill his nose, along with the faint sound of waves crashing the reef. He closes his eyes, letting the image to be carved in his sight; two souls under the moonlight, free from all veneer of reality and living inside their own serenity.

He feels Axel leaps onto his thigh, curling into a small ball and nuzzling their head against the loose white shirt Jisung wears — the sleeves already ruined from where they were scratching his skin, rage burning from where the sharp edges tearing his flesh.

And yet, Axel nuzzles happily; as if the scars on Jisung’s belly weren’t made of brutality a creature as sacred as them should forbid. As if they haven’t gotten into many problems from everything Jisung had done; ever since he decided to pick them up from the piled debris of his old house.

He hums the song softly as he pets Axel’s head, a broken smile splits his face. He remembers the time Seungmin would look over his parchment paper curiously; trying to see what Jisung was writing despite he wasn’t able to read.

He still remembers how the moon was; a waning crescent walking to the end.

“What are you always writing?” Seungmin had asked him, stars in his scarlet eyes twinkled with curiosity, so sharp Jisung didn’t dare to breathe.

“A poem,” he said. It was an answer he had always offered whenever Seungmin asked. He loved it about him; no matter how many times Jisung had given him the same answer, Seungmin always asked again as if the interest never faded from the first one.

“Will you show me one day?” was the first follow-up question Seungmin had asked him, on the twenty-first meeting. The storm was gentle that night, rain caressing their skin almost as warm as the ocean always did.

Jisung remembers the reassuring nod he had given Seungmin. And he still remembers how the lifting edges of his petal lips pulled him into a shimmering world of serenity. “Okay,” he remembers saying. It was one out of many promises he had made.

One of the countless promises he isn’t sure would be able to fulfill.

He remembers the last time he saw Seungmin. The scarlet mop of hair with highlights of moonlight that he noticed had thickens from the first time they met; growing and evolving along with the sharpening edges of his jaw and the bulge on his front throat.

He had always enjoyed watching Seungmin grow. For it was like watching a blooming flower, a butterfly growing through all the phases, yet some things stilled and never once changing. Like the way stars dance across his skin whenever their skins brushed against each other, or the way his chest burns whenever he sees the red of Seungmin’s presence.

“I love you,” he whispers, the words he wanted to say but he didn’t.

He lets regret consume him; swallowing him whole. He lets the image of Seungmin’s face when he beamed at him before he dove back to the sea, how his eyes struck and tied Jisung’s in as if it was an anchor; a pair of ocean eyes he had fallen too deep into.

He shoves his hand into his pocket, ignoring every scream of pain his muscles silently spurred every time he moves even an inch. He grazes his fingertips around the pearl; the warmth of familiarity and rough edges of broken grief.

Another promise he made to Seungmin that he isn’t sure he would be able to fulfill. Not when he can’t even get out of the prison he had been thrown into, with guards lining on every corner with hawk eyes stealing the life out of the prisoners. He sleeps in the same position that night; leaning onto the wooden fence, back facing the entrance.

September twenty-two. His third day in the prison.

He can still remember how he got in; his memory is so clear that he starts doubting whether he made it up or if it has really happened. The vivid color of napalm sky, the specks of dust floated around him as he ran as fast as he could, eyes fixed to his only destination: ocean.

Everything happened all at once, then. For it was the kingdom’s guard, size twice bigger than him, making it easy to tower over him as he took a hold of his blue hair and slammed his head to the road. Jisung was delirious, fevered with a dream of his ocean smiling within his arms.

But no matter how hard he tried to squirm, to get on his feet and run; he was only a feather compared to the weight of the sole pressing on the back of his ribs. He felt dozens — or perhaps it was hundreds, he couldn’t tell — pairs of limbs pounding his body; his head spun as he realized a void growing in the back of his eyelids.

His head cracked the ground again, pushed by another rigid thing that surely wasn’t hand, leaving him stunned and breathless. His eyes had closed when he felt the sharp edges of the knife — or maybe swords, spears, anything — against his skin, brutality cutting through all the straps that Seungmin had tied with his delicate touch.

The flicker of light he tried to focus on started to fly away; the blood gushed hot on his chilled skin. He thought he screamed. Or maybe not. He felt consciousness slipping away from his fingers like broken shards of the ocean wave, and the last thing he could think was: Seungmin.

“I should have told him that night, don’t you think?” he shakes his head weakly, holding Axel in his palms. “I’m such a fool,” he whispers, feeling tears start burning his eyes. “I just wanted him to be happy. But now I take away everything we ever had. The only happiness I ever had.”

He sings the song that had started everything, his voice soft. Relishing the yearn through the string of melody, in hopes that maybe it will reach Seungmin if nature is generous enough.

He doesn’t have much time yet. The guards will come in no time, it could be in two days, or tomorrow, or even this night, they will mercilessly drag Jisung and tied his limp body, throwing him like a broken doll and let the ocean fill his lungs until no more air left.

Draining the life out of his wounded cover.

“Will you keep our memories?” he asks, knowing full well that Axel won’t answer. He looks outside through the crack on the wall, watching as the sky growls for an upcoming storm again. Rain will fall again.

The moon will cry and Seungmin will come.

“Stay down here,” he quickly says as an idea perks into his mind. He puts Axel down to the wheat-covered floor, pulling out a pile of parchment paper and rummaging on it; trying to find the right one.

He finds it, a folded parchment at the very bottom of the pile. With careful hands, he unfolds it, folds by fold releasing the fragrance of sea he isn’t sure whether his mind made it up or it’s really there. Regardless he inhales it thoughtfully, as if he was afraid that he would forget how does it smell like.

His finger runs through all the words he had written down carefully, collecting specks of raven charcoal on his fingertips.

     Deserted town of mortals
     Scarlet flooding, soaking the torn muscles
     I stood amid ruins: tall, proud, unnerved
     Echoes of myself;
     Fading.

He was the moon back then. On the first meeting with Seungmin. A dying moon with all the broken fragments, with all the wound and brutality were hidden under the veneer of sunshine. Pooling guilt he hides under his unemphatic act, all the manic laughs he had built to hide the tears he shed over his bloody hands.

He built his veneer too thick that he couldn’t see who he truly was anymore. Echoes of his past self that had already fading within a maze; lost and perhaps never meant to be found.

     Waning moon and hooting owls
     Serenity of loneliness
     Ocean, are you listening?
     You stilled, all ears.
     Knitted a string for us both
     Red and unbreakable

And Seungmin came to his night sky. The ocean that never once questioned everything he did. The ocean that just understands. Seungmin who rarely said anything, bringing serenity to his loneliness — something that Jisung had always had.

A pair of scarlet eyes which struck him in the same way the ocean did, whose waves guide him into a shimmering world; a brightness he had always feared of suddenly looked peaceful. He loved it whenever Seungmin sang, for he had always had a way to lace each note together into a melody; a smile etched on his face until he was all sparkles and magic.

     Collided souls under the moonlight
     I can see anguish in your bloody eyes; perhaps it was mine
     Reflection of who I am (only you can see)
     Lies and guilt and happiness
     Can I have this forever?

He wants to have it forever. The sight of moonlight hitting their skin, the way they played with waves as if they were toddlers again, the laugh and giggle escaping Seungmin’s lips whenever he wrote a word in the wrong way (and Jisung would laugh too.)

He misses Seungmin, whose eyes can see through his soul with ease yet not doing anything whenever Jisung lied to him. The cries he let out as Seungmin pulled their bodies to flush against each other so close that nothing could fit, the sadness inside his eyes which mirrored the same anguish tearing his soul open.

He wants them to be together. But he knows they can’t. His life is already at its limit.

     Gentle rain and my thick haze of storm
     Numbing pain and awaiting void (you pulled me back)
     It was you whom I’ve waited to come; had always been you
     In the afternoon when storm came without any signs
     Unspoken words: I love you.

He will miss waiting for the storm to come. Spending his morning to watch any sign coming from the sky, to pay attention to the smallest detail of the cloud’s movement and thickness. A reason Seungmin had unconsciously given for Jisung to keep going.

Seungmin who would always be there to pull him back from the madness of humanity, to swallow all the pain, painting them flat and unremarkable onto the vase of posterity. To release him from it, so he can become his moon again.

     Gloomy Tuesday
     Metal scent and rotten wheat
     Storm came and perhaps you too
     But I was not there; gone.
     Flowers withered, and the moon died.

“I love you, Seungmin-ah,” he whispers, as he grabs the charcoal with a shaky hand, writing the next phrases for it to be finished. For a piece of himself to be finished.

     Listen, ocean;
     Night will fall on you too
     You have survived, everything up to this moment
     So grip tight, hum, laugh, cry.
     I am here and forever will be;
     My echo will sail back home
     To the warm harbor of your gentle palms.

     I love you
     My ocean, my little ocean
     Despite it all, I love you.

He folds the parchment paper into the smallest bit, shoving the broken pearl inside of it. The guards will start their round in a bit, to walk around the prison and make sure everything is fine. Jisung only has a little time to finish everything.

“Come here, buddy,” he says, placing Axel onto his cupping palms. They beam at him, a pair of eyes which twinkle but dead at the same time; a pair of orbs from the dead star coated with silver moonlight.

He offers them a smile, patting their head softly for the last time; burning every glimpse of their presence into the back of his thick skull. The kind eyes, the overlapped blue and red light in the middle of their head, Jisung wants to remember everything. He should not forget about them. He would never.

“Can you go to Seungmin?” he can feel the pain lodged in his throat as he chokes out the words, trying his best not to break into tears.

Axel beams at him, and Jisung doesn’t know whether he is imagining things again or not, but their eyes are glossier than they had been. Rich with stars, perhaps it was the grief they had experienced before that Jisung forced them to feel again.

“I love you, okay?” he tugs a smile with all his willpower, a shaky finger rubbing the top of their head; watching the way they nuzzle onto his touch for the last time. “It’s not because I hate you. I love you, so much. But I need you to give these to Seungmin,” — his voice breaks, — “okay?”

Axel doesn’t give him an answer, and Jisung takes the last second to press them onto his nose; feeling the warmth of Axel’s tongue licking his nose in the form of a kiss for the last time. He feels it, the pain and reluctance of letting his companion go — but he has no other option.

They part, Jisung placing Axel back to the floor and pointing at the crack on the wall. “Go over there,” — he doesn’t even care if the tears have rolled down his cheeks by now — “you will find Seungmin on the beach. Don’t leave him alone after that, okay?”

With that, he watches Axel leave with a folded parchment and Seungmin’s pearl saved inside their pocket. Their movement had always been swift and agile, but at this very moment, a part of Jisung hopes they are not.

He hopes he is imagining things.

“I’ll miss you, buddy,” he whispers, letting himself be pulled into a sea of agony, the familiar pain of loneliness swallows him whole. And yet, he doesn’t fight any longer. He surrenders under the current, letting the last cry fall as heavy as the rain outside, as the drumming beat of downpour lulling him into a temporary peace before the real one approaches.

───── ⋆⋅☽✧☾⋅⋆ ─────

Listen, ocean;

Night will fall on you too

You have survived, everything up to this moment

So grip tight, hum, laugh, cry.

I am here and forever will be;

My echo will sail back home

In the warm harbor of your gentle palms.

───── ⋆⋅☽✧☾⋅⋆ ─────

“When I died, I want to be buried in the ocean.”

Jisung gazes up to the sky despite his neck feeling like it’s about to snap from holding the weight. The dusk has fallen; sun bleeds to death and moon unravels in front of his eyes, the beauty he would see for the last time.

He imagines how wide Seungmin’s smile will be if he is here. How he would giggle happily at the sight of his moon shining with such beauty, all celestials enraptured. Mortals and immortals. The life and death.

He hears the ocean waves, splashes of water crashing over the stubborn reef. The continuous attempts ocean made to reunite with the land, even when it lasts barely a second. He looks over the dark color ocean adopted from the night sky, the same indigo hue the locks which fall above his eyes have.

Little smile curls on his face as he realizes his eyes are roaming around; perhaps already getting used to looking for the scarlet. But everything is blue. The ocean, the sky, even the moon have a faint tint of blue splattering over her purity.

“Finally,” someone says in front of him, he doesn’t even realize that two people who were holding him — dragging him harshly from the prison to the beach — had managed to make himself kneel on the ground. They are laughing, it seems; they might think Jisung has never kneel this low.

He had. The familiar warmth which greets as his knees sink onto the golden pebble is the very proof of how close he always had to the ground.

“Finally we caught you, huh?” the man in front of him laughs again, and from the ugly twist of his tone, Jisung can already tell who. The same man he got rid of a handful of hair from in the market. Jisung stills. He doesn’t have a responsibility to answer him, so he doesn’t.

“Han Jisung, Han Jisung,” he sings song, crouching in front of him and grabs his jaw hard. “A little boy who killed all his family at the age of fifteen,” — he trails over Jisung’s features with the sharp point of his knife — “A man who killed the kingdom’s assassins by himself. A bastard I have always hunted,” he presses the knife on his slender throat; and Jisung doesn’t even bother to flinch.

“Finally under my mercy,” the words he utters are followed with a satisfied laugh. He gets up, the thick sole of his boot presses down Jisung’s knee, emphasizing how Jisung is completely under him. Perhaps in his narcissistic mind Jisung would do anything he wants, perhaps in his scenario Jisung would beg for his life.

But Jisung knows he will not. If there is one thing he regrets, it is that he never told Seungmin how much he loves him. That he will never hear the way Seungmin pronounces his name again; how his voice — so delicate and heavily accented all at once — would call Jisung’s name playfully, with a pretty smile shining bright that the stars will hide.

If there is one thing he would regret, it is that he can’t see Seungmin again.

Suddenly he hears the man spit above him, disgusting slick lands on his head. He can feel the rage start swelling beneath his skin, fueled by the laughter the three of them let out around him. And yet, he stills. Clenching his eyes tight and playing the image of Seungmin’s smile instead.

“Jisung-hyung…”  Despite the loudness of their laughter, Jisung manages to pick up a weak voice calling his name — as if he was hoping that Jisung would not hear and would not turn his head to face him — but he did.

Minjun-ah, he wants to call, but his voice is nowhere to be found. The little boy is standing next to his father; a shudder passes through him temporally over the tight grip his father has on him. Jisung can see the tears pooling in his eyes, threatening to fall at any moment.

He manages to give Minjun a weak smile, forcing his head to nod for the last time; before the image of the blurring crowd around him leaves his sight — his head slammed against the ground. He feels breathless, stunned from the iron grip yanking his hair and the sole pressing against his spine.

It feels as if he is already drowning. But he is not.

“Han Jisung, a well-known criminal—” someone’s voice buzzed into his ears, a voice that is made to sound stern despite the man who is saying it is the most cowardly among them all; an empty trait he built for everyone to believe.

“He killed his own family at the age of fifteen, and since then had been spotted—” his voice, once again becomes an incoherent buzz inside Jisung’s ears; an unpleasant feeling mixed with annoyance stirring his gut. A part of himself wants everything to end, for him to reunite with the ocean.

To finally be buried inside the hands of the ocean.

He can’t really tell when exactly the man stops sputtering words — case by case of Jisung’s criminality — but at some point the sound is gone, replaced by the faint clapping sound of those who are watching; waves by waves yet nowhere near to cheerful.

“And with that, we all had agreed that the only suitable punishment for him to receive is a capital penalty.” Death. Once again the crowd cheers, although in the mid of it all Jisung can tell how forced their cheers are; barely there and full of hesitation.

After all, half of them are those he had helped before.

Soon he is being moved, dragged harshly through the center of all the attention. He can still see the long crook as wide as his body splits the sand; the last trace of his existence that will be swept away by the ocean.

He will be forgotten. By a few. And soon, everyone.

The thoughts and fear are quick to leave his mind as quickly as they came. The wide surface of the ocean faces him; the wild, dark waves with a touch of silver from the moonlight. Gleaming within the darkness.

As the ropes around his wrists and ankles are being tightened together — so tight they are hurting — Jisung’s heart burns inside his chest. He can’t tell from what, perhaps it is excitement, or fear, or simply confusion.

“Any last word?” the man who was spitting on his head asks, his fingers have found their way around his jaw again, harshly pulling his face up.

“No,” Jisung chokes out, his head spinning and sight blurring. The small boat they are on is unstable against the waves, for how they are spinning and crashing wildly as if they can’t wait to pull Jisung into their arms.

“Alright,” he laughs, and the gentle rain starts pouring; trickling down Jisung’s cheeks. Had he had more energy he would be smiling wide right now. The ocean, the moon, the storm. It’s as if he has Seungmin next to him too.

And in no time; he is thrown to the ocean.

When his back hits and falls beneath the waves, he is unmoving, tied by the rope with no more force left under his skin. He doesn’t expect himself to come back up, but he does. He goes through the torture of rises and falls; the way each chance to breathe becomes further apart and each breath less than the last.

He had held his breath under the ocean before, this isn’t like that. It’s like having a knife on his throat and being told not to let his heart beat. Of course it will beat. And just like that his lungs will inhale too, whether it’s air or briny water.

At the moment waves tuck him to go inside for the deepest it has been, he knows he has been kissed by the moon for the final time. In moments he will float like the seaweed, nothing more than flesh and bones ready to decay the currents.

He lets the current take him to the place he is supposed to be. Wherever it is. He closes his eyes and surrenders under the mercy of the ocean. A place where his lover was born. A place of his lover.

On the edge of unconsciousness, he can feel a gentle tug of the ropes, and he thinks it is stuck on a coral. But he can’t open his eyes. His white shirt floats from where they were sticking to his blood-covered skin, and for that very moment; all he can feel is tenderness.

It isn’t until he feels fingers covering his mouth and nose he realizes that his hands are free; that his limbs are sprawling along with the current. He tries to open his eyes, fighting through the burning feeling of the ocean water — and he sees it.

A pair of scarlet eyes beaming into his own, a little smile etched on his face. Seungmin looks ethereal like this; with strands of his hair floating around his head like a halo and the glow his scales naturally carry, faint light reflected on his nose and cheeks.

He looks bound with the ocean, every part of ocean waves creating an illusion for Seungmin to look even more breathtaking than the sea breeze does.

“Jisung,” Seungmin mouths, as he starts using his tail to bring both of them back up; his hands wrapped securely around Jisung’s torso, not minding the stain of brutality he currently stored around his skin.

He places Jisung gently on top of the sand, next to the high reef where they met for the first time. Jisung’s sight is still blurry, his body becomes too worn out to even bring himself up as he coughs out the water. His chest aches, but there’s a taste of serenity engulfing him; a shimmering paradise only Seungmin can hold.

He slumps back to the sand, the thick air starting to loosen up as he regulates his breath; never once peeling his gaze from Seungmin.

Seungmin glows for a few beats, red lights engulfing his body before his tail turns into a pair of feet; the scales of his tail knitted together as a piece of clothing around his waist. Jisung was breathless against the view, his eyes remained wide even after the glow dims. 

“Seung-” he opens his mouth but is cut by the sudden move; Seungmin pulls him into his embrace, crashing their chests together so close that nothing would fit between them. He tightens his arms on the back of Jisung's neck, grips shaky but it’s clear that he doesn’t want to let go.

Perhaps the thought of losing each other scares him the same way it scares Jisung.

“Hey,” Jisung softly calls, but his voice is rough from the mix of thirst and tiresome. “Seungmin,” he calls his name again, and again, and again, voice growing softer until there is no more left; leaving only the continuous movement of his lips.

He can feel the warmth of Seungmin’s tears hitting the crook of his shoulder, can feel each shudder run down his back whenever another sob is ripped from his throat, how his whole body shakes from fear and relief.

“Why,” Seungmin finally asks with his quiet voice. “Why did you do that?”

Jisung’s heart breaks along with the break of Seungmin’s voice. “I just,” he starts, giving up on recovering his strained voice. “I sold the pearl when I was a child,” he said, regret thick in the air as he inhales. “So I have to take it back. And I don't want you to feel like your life is a disappointment because of me,” he finishes, leaning his weight onto Seungmin completely.

“And did you think I would care to live when you were dead?” Seungmin cries harder, his ragged breath is cold against Jisung’s neck, sending stars to dance across his skin. 

Jisung gasps, but he quickly gathers all his willpower to bring his gaze back to Seungmin, ignoring the whines he lets out in between his cries as he gently loosening the grip Seungmin has around his body. “Hey,” he calls him, cupping his face in his palms. “Why are you crying, Seungmin-ah?”

“How can I,” he sobs onto Jisung’s rough palm, holding his hand tight. “How can I not? I- I almost lost you, Jisung. I almost lost you.” His voice breaks again, high and sharp knocking the breath out of Jisung’s chest.

“Seungmin,” he tries to call him again, to pull him back from the fear trapping him; to show him that he is here. “Hey, Seungmin-ah. Look at me, please?”

Seungmin chokes through the tears and cries harder, but despite it all he manages to trail his gaze back to Jisung’s eyes. They exchange looks on each other, the yearn that swelled inside themselves like hunger finally drinking from the dust of each other’s presence.

Seungmin runs his fingertips on his face, and his eyes brimming with tears again; lips quivering so hard that even his voice starts to shake. “I don’t want to lose you,” he whispers, and Jisung can see the sincerity shooting through his eyes.

“I love you,” he says it. Clearly. There is an urge implied in his tone, a taste of regret for not saying it sooner. “I don’t want to lose you too. You are important to me, Seungmin. I will risk my everything for you.” He cradles Seungmin’s face in hands; wiping the traces of tears on his cheeks.

“You fool,” Seungmin cries harder, pulling Jisung close into a hug. “I love you too, you fool. My moon, my only moon. It's ridiculous how much I love you, please don’t risk your life for me. I can’t bear the thought of losing you again.”

And so Jisung risks a small kiss on Seungmin’s forehead, to relish the building yearn of affection inside of him. The small liberty. “I love you,” he says it again. “My ocean, my little ocean,” he sings song, “I love you.”

They stay like that for the rest of the night, Seungmin’s gentle hands binding Jisung’s wound carefully; as if he is afraid that Jisung will break. His thumb grazes over the big scar on Jisung’s left eye, not applying any pressure but enough for Jisung to shudder.

“Where did you get this?” he asks, but there is no urgency in his voice. Had Jisung doesn’t reply, he would never ask it again.

“My father,” Jisung quietly answers, he has nothing to hide from Seungmin now. He let the veneer of his wounded soul shatter completely, leaving every imperfection of himself bare for Seungmin to see. “It happened when I was fifteen,” he adds, pausing a little. “When, yeah. When everything happened.”

As the sun slowly rises the skyline as the dawn, Seungmin has his head on Jisung’s lap, existing together in the world of peace. He looks at Jisung, trailing and tracing his features with his gaze alone: the mole on his cheek, the way his hair looks under the reddening sky.

“Can I ask you for something?” Seungmin asks; Jisung loves it when Seungmin like this. When he becomes too curious and excited that he can’t help to keep talking. For the ocean to finally talk instead of just listening.

“Go ahead, love,” he giggles at the pink dust tinting Seungmin’s cheeks, poking his nose in adoration. “What is it?”

He takes Axel from where they were next to them, pulling out the folded parchment paper and handing it to Jisung. “You know I can’t read,” he whines, a pout on his face. “Can you read it for me?”

“Ah,” Jisung giggles, pulling Seungmin back to his lap and carding his fingers through soft maroon locks gently. He glances over Axel, who is beaming at both of them; the light in the middle of their head flickered purple, a mix of blue and red.

He clears his throat, leaning his back comfortably to the reef before he starts reading his handwriting, relishing memories in every word. The first day he met Seungmin, when Minjun was crying and they helped him out, the storms that came after, the stars residing in Seungmin’s eyes whenever they bath themselves under the moonlight, and the day Jisung got caught.

   “Listen, ocean;
    Night will fall on you too
    You have survived, everything up to this moment
    So grip tight, hum, laugh, cry.
    I am here and forever will be;
    I will be back home
   To the warm harbor of your gentle arms.”

“Promise you’ll never leave me?” Seungmin’s voice is still hoarse from crying, the taste of bitterness remains although happiness and relief are more prominent.

“I’m not done yet,” Jisung laughs, taking another breath before continuing, “I love you. My ocean,” — he pokes Seungmin’s nose again, giggling — “my little ocean. Despite it all: I love you.”

“Answer me now,” Seungmin whines again, sitting up to look at Jisung’s eyes properly. His gaze trails down to his feet, “I managed to learn all the magic I need to make my own pearl in one day because of you. Don’t you think I deserve an answer?”

Jisung inches his face closer and presses their foreheads together. The sun rose behind Seungmin, rays of golden light shining around him; outlines his form.

“I promise,” he whispers, his hand finding its way to cradle Seungmin’s face, another one gently resting on his waist. “Promise me you won’t leave me too?”

Seungmin nods softly, and his eyes sparkle with stars. “Promise.”

Jisung giggles as he realizes that Seungmin’s gaze has trailed from his eyes to somewhere else, pink blush swallowing his face whole. He watches as Seungmin opens his mouth but closes it back together; timidly looking down and fiddling with his fingers.

“Do you want to kiss me?”

A flush spreads across Seungmin’s face — almost as red as his hair — and he bites on his lip, but he nodded nonetheless, the timidness still not fading away from his whole demeanor.

The gentle breeze blows as Jisung inches himself closer to Seungmin’s face. Their eyes flutter closed as their noses brush together. It is soft. Seungmin’s lips are soft when they get caught in between his chapped one; completing each other like two pieces of puzzle pieces. Both of them drown in the ocean of tenderness; touch full of care.

Coral blush of dawn tints both the moon and ocean as they part; and Jisung giggles at the way Seungmin seems to chase over his lips, as if he will never get enough of it.

“I love you,” he hugs Seungmin again, now he is the one who doesn’t want to let go.

“I love you too,” Seungmin whispers, and their eyes lock on each other again; silent ‘I love you’s being exchanged in every twinkle of their stars.

They share another gentle kiss after that, happy of being together. The moon shines faintly over the skyline, fainter and fainter as the sun rises high. A crack of smile never once leaving Seungmin’s face; the edges of his lips keep lifting and his cheeks continue to stretch until they can’t anymore.

“Whenever I see the moon,” he is hugging Jisung now, head resting on each other’s shoulders. “It will remind me of you. And I hate to see the moon without you. So don’t leave me anywhere, okay?”

“I will try my best,” Jisung pats his head, sensing the fear that starts to pull him down again. “We can’t predict what the future had planned, Seungmin-ah. But whatever happens, we will always have each other.”

“Okay,” Seungmin mumbles against his shoulder. “I love you.”

Jisung isn’t sure how many times he had heard the same words being uttered with Seungmin’s voice that day, but he knows he will never get bored over it. He loves it whenever Seungmin talks. Whenever Seungmin sings his mother’s song. Whenever it’s Seungmin.

“I love you too, my ocean.”

───── ⋆⋅☽✧☾⋅⋆ ─────

I love you.

My ocean, my little ocean

Despite it all: I love you.

───── ⋆⋅☽✧☾⋅⋆ ─────