Work Text:
The waves crashes and rolled quite tamely that sunny afternoon at the beach. Specifically Yoongis beach. Yoongi has loved this beach since he was a tiny merchild, he'd play in among the seaweed and rocks in his little alcove that humans never entered because it was too dangerous to get there.
But during summer he had to be careful, out side of his little alcove was the vast sands of a small beach that many humans visited in the summer. And they never seemed to be the same ones, always different.
Except this human. The one that sat up on top of some brightly colored structure that Yoongi could never figure out what it was made out of. But Yoongi, even from the far distance, could always spot the brightly dressed human. One thing he had noticed was that this human always came out into the water when someone had one or two hands in the air and called out saying they were 'drowning'.
Yes, Yoongi was aware that humans didn't breathe the same underwater as he did. But surely they all knew how to swim fine, it's not that hard.
Yoongi wanted to meet this human, so he figured he may as well give this 'drowning' thing a go.
Swimming into open water wasn't the problem, it was popping up where other humans could see him and his bright mint colored hair. As long as he only stayed slightly visible by the human with the strange cylinders he sometimes looks through he'll be fine.
Was he really about to do this? Call on the human he'd been secretly crushing on for a few months now? Yeah, he was.
Peeping his head out of the water he took a breath and raised his arm as high as he could into the air in hopes to catch the humans attention. He knew calling this far out wouldn't work, he'd seen humans try, so he just waved, sometimes both arms and occasionally dunked his head under the water, trying to replicate what he figured 'drowning' looked like. He felt stupid and slightly embarrassed until he saw the human finally notice him. Waving just a tiny bit more frantically managed to get the human down from his perch and charging into the water towards him.
Yoongi didn't know whether to stop 'drowning' or keep going or to just swim away. He decided to keep up the act until the human got close enough, he suddenly stopped flailing with half his face under the water, only his eyes and hair visible. The 'life guard', as written on his now soaked yellow t-shirt, kept swilling for him and handed him a yellow floaty thing. "Hey, you're gonna be alright." He said with a oddly rectangular smile as Yoongi held onto the floaty thing and propped his chin on it, admiring the human from this close.
"Yeah?" Yoongi asked shyly and he could feel the human start tugging him and the floaty thing towards the beach and other people. "Wait!" He suddenly panicked.
The human turned to look at him a little confused. "What's wrong? I'm taking you back to land." He said calmly.
"Uuuuummm," Yoongi stared into the water for a moment. "Come with me." He stated more than asked, holding the floaty thing and swimming quickly backwards towards his little cove.
The human looked really shocked. "You're not drowning? Wait where are you Taking me?" He asked as he was tugged away by the mermaid. "And wow you're a fast swimmer and your not even using your arms." He commented. "Are you wearing flippers?"
Yoongi didn't realise how much the human actually talked but he also found he didn't really mind. "No I'm not 'drowning', I'm taking you to my cove, and what's flippers?"
The humans jaw dropped and water splashed inside, making him close it again. "Flippers are amazing, how could you not know?" His question would soon be answered as they had reached the cove. "Wow, this is nice." He said looking around.
"Its nicer under the water." Yoongi offhandedly commented peering at the human over the floaty thing he was still holding. "What do they call you?" He asked.
The human looked confused for a moment before answering. "My name's Taehyung. What's yours?" He was staring into Yoongi's eyes, Yoongi's metallic grey eyes that is. He was forever glad he wasn't stuck with a bright colour like pink or purple.
"Yoongi, they call me Yoongi." He said. "I'm sorry for dragging you out here, but I've wanted to meet you for a while and I didn't know how." He admitted.
"You could have just come by my post and said hi, I would end happily chatted." Taehyung replied charmingly.
"But I can't." Yoongi said, receiving a confused look for Taehyung. Taking a deep breath, the mermaid lifted his silver tail up out of the water for Taehyung to see.
"Wow." The human stared for a long moment before slowly reaching out. "Can I touch?" He asked, eye not leaving the shining scales.
Yoongi shrugged, "only if you don't tell, and let me touch your feet." He answered and Taehyung nodded in understanding before gently sliding his fingers over the scales. He could tell by the touch that this was real.
"That's amazing." He said, "hang on," Taehyung fiddled with something around his wrist before pulling it off and putting a pair of goggles on. He took a deep breath and dipped under the water, Yoongi quickly following.
Now Taehyung could see the seaweed and pretty shells that Yoongi collected in the cove, along with all the brightly coloured fish, coral and of course the entirely of the merman in front of him, staring intently. Yoongi gestured to the humans feet and Taehyung nodded and stuck one out to the merman. Yoongi studied each individual toe and Taehyung had to come up for air before he laughed and sucked in a mouth full of sea water.
The two knew they would definitely see each other again, but maybe not while Taehyung's supposed to still be on duty.