Work Text:
“Ah, Y/N! Don’t forget your breakfast!”
Your mother’s standing in the kitchen doorway, a plate held in her hands. She’s already dressed for work, hair pulled back from her face in a bun and wearing a pressed black pant suit and heels. Her briefcase is held in her other hand, clearly on her way out when you’d barreled down the stairs.
You bite your lip, hesitating. “Mom, the sunrise is about to start. It takes at least ten minutes to walk down to the beach….” Your stomach growls, adding its own two cents, before you shake your head. There’s not enough time, despite how guilty you feel abandoning a breakfast your mother made for you. “Could you put it in the fridge or give it to Dad? I really gotta go.”
She sighs but smiles. “I’m sure he’d love it. Make sure you eat a good lunch, if you’re going to skip out on breakfast. I don’t like how much weight you’ve lost recently.”
“Yes, Mom,” you answer quickly, cutting off the inevitable lecture she was preparing to dive into. “Love you! Have a good day at work!” You’re through the door before hearing her reply, jogging down the front yard sidewalk and onto the street.
The chill of the morning whips through your sweater and jeans, leaving you rubbing your hands together and hopping on the balls of your feet as you make your way down the street. The neighborhood is quiet at this time, most commuters already on their way into Centum City in Haeundae-gu, while the fishermen of the village had set sail hours before. When you reach the entrance of the neighborhood, you hoist your camera bag more securely on your side before taking the hiking path through the woods, your sneakers scuffing against the rocks and tree roots. The thick, earthy smell of damp wood and dirt fills your nose, the quiet rustles and tiny noises of the forest filling your ears.
Sighing contentedly, you check the color of the sky, noting the deep navy blue and pockets of bright starts still blinking through the early morning. You speed up just a little bit--it would take you at least five minutes to set up your camera equipment when you arrive at the beach.
This project had started just after you’d returned home from your first semester at Seoul University. Exhausted and homesick, you’d hopped on the train back home the second your last exam had let out, eager to get away from your party girl roommate for a week and catch up on weeks of lost sleep. But the insomnia hadn’t faded when you’d tried to sleep in your bedroom—you’d still tossed and turned, anxiety and frustration building until you’d thrown on a hoodie and jeans, tiptoed through the house, and took the hiking trail down to the beach.
Your mother would have killed you, had she known you’d taken the path at night or sat on the beach alone in the dark, but you’d never felt so at peace in your life, just sitting on the sand and listening to the faint roar of the waves on the shore, the rest of the world muted and asleep around you. You’d even spotted the tip of a dolphin tail that night, flicking out of the water with a small splash. When the sun had begun to rise over the ocean, burnt amber rays sinking into the teal blue of Busan’s shore, you’d automatically reached for your camera, only to discover you hadn’t thought to bring it with you through the forest.
You hadn’t made that mistake again.
It’s Thursday morning, your second to last day safely ensconced in the easy comfort of your childhood home, and the ache in your heart at the thought of Saturday’s long train ride back into Seoul grew sharper and sharper with every hour. These last few moments on the beach need to be treasured—they’re probably the only thing that’s going to pull you through finals in the first week of December.
The forest begins to thin at the edges, trees falling away to thin underbrush and large rocks protruding from the ground, and the path ahead finally reveals the crest of the ocean in the distance, just beyond the roaming sands of the shore. Heart leaping, you break out into a quick trot, your eyes on the ring of gold peaking from the horizon, sand slipping into the heels of your sneakers and grinding beneath your socks. On your right, the small harbor lies nestled in the outcropping of a low cliff, the docks forming a small web of interconnected piers and cranes, necks bowed over as their chains dangle into the water.
You glance over at the small fishing ships making their way out to sea, faded hulls emblazoned in red and gold as they slowly sail through the water and create ripples along its surface. It’d be a good idea to grab lunch from the crab shack at the harbor—you make a mental note of that as you head to the lone rock fixed into the middle of the shore, its top smooth and rounded from years of erosion, and sit down. A grimace tugs at your mouth—the seat had still had a few puddles from the earlier tide and now your pants were wet.
But you ignore the discomfort and cross your legs, bag held safely in your lap, and gingerly start to withdraw the camera from within. The sun has risen partway into the horizon, bathing the sky and the ocean in its warm glow and convalescing with the deep navy and light blue of the fading night.
You lift your camera and capture the image behind your lens, but the radiance of the sunrise itself cannot be fully rendered in the camera lens. Nature is never so easily diminished, nor its beauty so easily replicated.
The fishermen of the village have returned from their morning shift and skulk around the pier with scowling faces and tired eyes. Mouth buried in a crab cake sandwich, you watch from above the thick bun as they mill about the dock, talking with one another, laughing raucously and slapping their thighs, many with a soju in hand. Early afternoon is a bit soon to be drinking, but you resolve not to judge—most of them had been up since four in the morning anyway, so really, this time might be their happy hour.
An older man shuffles down from the docks, his aged blue sweater decorated with a dancing cartoon lobster, and spots you at your bench by the main pier. “Well, what do we have here?” He laughs, striding toward you with his arms wide open. The classic old satoori sliding from his tongue a song of nostalgia to your ears.
You toss the sandwich back into the take-away container and hop from your seat, stepping into his hug eagerly. “Uncle Kwon! I missed you!” He smells strongly of fish, but your Busan nose has grown accustomed to filtering that out, only registering the spicy whiff of his wife’s japchae, the lingering humidity of a storm, the salty brine of the morning air.
“Your parents didn’t tell me you were back,” Kwon complains good-naturedly, his grin growing wider when he spots your camera equipment. “Taking photos again, eh? You know, Minyoung and I are renewing our vows in a couple weeks and could use a photographer,” he offers with a waggle of his eyebrows. “We might even pay you in won rather than fried shrimp.”
“I’m offended. You know I’d rather have Auntie's cooking,” you say with a grin, nudging him in the side. “You’re just trying to keep from sharin’. I know you, Uncle Kwon.”
“Guilty as charged.” He grins, a flash of teeth beneath his thick black beard. “Really, though, we’ve been wantin’ to hear about your adventures in the capital. I guess your parents have been hording you to themselves.”
“Maybe,” you concede with a pleased smile. “It’s been really great, being home again. I… I don’t know if Seoul and I agree as much as I thought we would.”
“Oh?”
You hum and nod your head, turning away from the small concern in his jovial eyes. “I’m really sad to leave again in a couple days. You should see some of the pictures I’ve made; I never knew the sunrise on the beach could be so beautiful.”
“That why you should come out on the boat with me, like I’ve been tryin’ to get you to do for years now,” Kwon teases you immediately, slapping a large hand on your knee before stealing one of your fries. “But wait, a couple days? You’re headin’ back already?”
“Yeah,” you sigh, sharing a frown with him. “It’s only fall break, so I just get a week off rather than the month I’ll get for Christmas.”
The frown on his face deepens. “Yah, Y/N… so unfair,” he sighs, before something by the docks catches his eye. You turn to follow his gaze.
Another fishing boat is sliding into the port. It looks like any other fishing vessel, except its clearly seen some hard times. Barnacles climb along the side of the ship, eating away at the small anchor insignia on the flat side of the hull. The crane that is used to drop and life fishing nets into the ground has rusted so severely that bright orange dust clings along its neck. Even the canopy over the captain’s wheel shows its age—a huge, glaring hole opens up to the sky right in the middle.
“That’s not regulation,” Kwon sighs, shaking his head. “I told them last week that they needed to get that fixed as soon as possible. The crane, I mean. That level kind of damage is really unsafe for the fishermen, the integrity of the boat, an’ the ocean. I’d better go give’m another reminder.”
He gets to his feet again and ruffles your hair, grinning broadly at the whine of complaint that follows. “Stop by the house Saturday morning, before you get on your train. I’ll make sure there’s some leftovers for you to take back with you.”
“I will,” you answer, smiling fondly up at him. “Love you.”
“Love you too, shrimp.”
You watch him head toward the boat, idly chewing on one of your now cold fries. Two burly fishermen arrive on the deck and lean over the railing at the sound of Kwon’s voice. They talk for several moments and the men nod along with what the elder is saying, but it’s too far for you to eavesdrop. Still, when Kwon leaves the dock and heads for the central port office, you suspect to write up a report on the men, they turn to each other and start making small, clearly angry gestures.
Concerned, you keep your eye on them as they stalk around the ship, yanking the fastenings of the boat onto the dock and wheeling around a large crate to deposit their fishing haul in. One of the men, the guy that has broad shoulders and a pot belly, moves to the crane controls and starts the process of carefully moving the fish onto the dock. The crane strains under the heavy weight at the end of its ties, and you narrow your eyes at the huge black sack being raised over the deck railing. They’d wrapped their nets in a tarp.
That’s illegal, you think with a huff. In order to guarantee fair practice of fishing and marine conservation, all fishermen were required to use open netting—this had been put into place to attempt to crack down on the illicit whaling industry. You glance over at the port office, wondering if you should head over there and make sure Kwon was informed about this, when the crane suddenly gave a screeching lurch.
The chain securing the tarp and fishing net broke and fell to the dock with a loud clatter, sending the second fisherman scattering out of its way. The haul fell into the crate with a portion of its side still positioned over the dock, sending a small wave of dead fish skittering around on the timbers. The first fisherman leans over and starts barking orders at the other, who hastily comes back and begins struggling to fix the tarp.
Intuition has you withdrawing the camera from your bag and zooming in on the scramble—there’s something obviously suspicious about their hasty attempts to cover the fish, and it has your stomach turning unpleasantly. Through the lens, you watch the skinny man lifting the corner of the net, his thin pale arms straining with the weight, until he slips on the dock, now slimy with fish oil. His hands keep hold of the tarp as he falls, lifting up a section of the haul from the crate and the bright white-blue fish come into your scope and—
You pause. Lean away from the screen for a moment in shock, your eyes glancing up at the fishermen over the camera, before quickly looking back. Sleek scales fill your lens once more, piles and piles of fish tumbling over one another as the skinny man fixes the net, his face chalk white.
You put your camera back in your lap, still sick to your stomach. Adrenaline had zipped through your body like an electric shock. It could have been a trick of the light. Perhaps a bug or something had flown into your camera lens before moving on. But for a second there…
You thought you saw a hand, amongst the crate of fish.
The rest of the day passes slowly, every minute slugging by as slowly as caramel, and the bright ocean and happy families on the beach aren’t enough to distract you from the shock of that morning. You’d spent the afternoon lingering around the pier where before you would have headed home to have lunch with your father, but you can’t bring yourself to leave the harbor.
That sick feeling still rolls around in your stomach. You’d spent the past couple hours trying to convince yourself that it was just a mistake, a faulty angle or a glitch in the digital screen, but the image of a hand, long-fingered, a ring around one finger, still flashes through your mind, and the sheer detail that you remember about it is telling….and terrifying.
You want to go to Kwon and the other elder fishermen, to tell them what you saw, but… you didn’t feel like it was right to throw accusations on the fishermen without better evidence. For one, the larger one of the two was scary—you’d caught him watching you when he’d passed by to eat at the crab shack, a look of interest in his beady eyes, and the nausea in your throat had grown worse. And also… you could get Kwon and the others in a lot of trouble with the national fishing board, if the allegations turned out to be false and they felt that the village community was preying on outsiders temporarily using the port. It had happened before, when one of the high school girls had claimed she had seen a couple of fishermen attempting to hawk whale bones to the community, when in reality the younger, attractive fishermen had simply refused to buy her a drink or take her out on a date.
The grandfathers of their little fishing community had made reparations and apologized, but the damage had been done. The port office had been slapped with several fines and restrictions, the largest of which they were still making payments for. Kwon had talked a lot about the regrets he had from back then, how he should have investigated the story personally rather than filing the report first and asking questions later.
The sun begins its descent over the mountains at your back as you sit on your rock by the shore, your camera clutched tightly in your hands. You’d sent a text message to your parents claiming that you were having dinner with Uncle Kwon, but really you were watching the pier through your camera lens, waiting for the two crooked fishermen to enter town for dinner.
Then you were going to sneak into their storage.
The rotten wood beam under your feet creaked loudly, sending your heart into spasms of fear and adrenaline, but the night around you remained silent as you crept across the pier.
The bell on the town hall clock had struck eight-thirty by the time the fishermen had packed up their equipment and headed into the village, arguing all the way down the street. You’d waited until they’d ducked into a restaurant before taking the stairs up onto the harbor and striding toward the dock, ducking behind other storage units when the elders passed by, keys swinging from their hands after locking up the office. You smother the guilt that rises in your chest when you see Kwon among them, laughing merrily as he tells them a story from out at sea—he wasn’t going to be happy when you told him about tonight, that you’d used him as a cover to sneak into the storage of potentially murderous fishermen, but you have to do this.
You have to make sure.
Panting as quietly as you can, you curl around the pier columns and the port office building, before taking the stairs down to their boat on ginger feet. You glance over your shoulder to make sure that the fishermen haven’t suddenly decided to return, before you move in front of the storage unit door, your hands shaking.
A lock has been wrapped around the handles.
You curse to yourself, your mind racing, before you realize they’d borrowed a lock from the main office. A very specific lock, one that you and the other village children used to play with by the pier under the careful eye of the elders, locking each other in the bulk crab traps and playing pirates. You grab the lock and turn it up on its head, fingers twisting into the rusted loop and pressing it against one side of the fastening, before grinning as the lock easily pops open— the elder fishermen had made it easy for a child to unlock in the event that something happened and one of them was not on hand to help.
You slide the heavy chain through the handles, grimacing at the ringing of the handles as the links slide against them, before you set the lock on the ground by several barrels and wipe your hands clean of the grease on your jeans. You glance at the front of the pier again before pulling the handle open and slipping inside, your heart beat pounding in your ears.
One solitary light remains on in the dim storage unit, throwing shadows against the walls. Several stacked boxes line the room, full of used fishing equipment and old nets, but your attention is caught by the huge black tarp in the center of the room. They’d wrapped it back up again, securing it with a complicated knot, and that in itself is extremely unusual—it encourages the spread of mold and bacteria amongst the fish, to not immediately move them to ice was unsanitary.
Grimacing, you tentatively step toward the bag, raising up on your tiptoes to work at the knot. It’s thick, the hemp rope rough and pricking at your fingers painfully, but with one harsh tug you manage to unravel the knot, and the ensuing avalanche of fish pushes you back into the wall of the storage unit.
Gasping to catch your breath, you nudge the layer of fish off your feet and look up at the mess—if you were wrong about the fishermen, then this would cost you your allowance for at least four months. You step tentatively around the piles of fish on the floor, wavering when your sneakers slipped on the oil now coating the wooden beams, when a small groan suddenly escaped from the larger pile at the base of the tarp.
You freeze, eyes wide, when a several fish slide down the side of the pile, revealing the fingers of a right hand curling feebly against the plastic wrap.
There was a person in that fishing net, and they’re still fucking alive, holy shit, what the fuck—
You scramble forward and start pushing the layers of fish from the pile, careful to keep from stepping on the fingers by your feet. When the pile grows thin enough, you get on your knees and start tossing the fish surrounding the arm over your shoulder until a forearm is revealed, followed by a bicep and a shoulder, the beginnings of a bare chest.
Hands working furiously, you unearth a young man from the mountain, your mouth dropping open with every piece of him that’s revealed. He’s clearly your age, maybe just a bit older, with smooth tan skin and soft hair the color of mangos. His chest and arms are sculpted in muscle, every ridge and curl of his abs neatly defined, and it’d be easier to cope with your immediate appreciation if you hadn’t been panicked three hours ago that you were going to discover a corpse.
You brush your hand over his face and forehead, oil coating your fingers as you try to assess if he’s had a head injury or not. You find a large lump on the back of his head and wince in sympathy, before quickly withdrawing your hands when the boy lets out a faint moan. His eyelashes flutter several times, his lips parting and nose crinkling, and you have a second to be envious of the high curves of his cheekbones before his eyes open.
Warm brown eyes, the color of dark honey, blink and look around dazedly, before landing on you where you’re leaning over him, one hand still pressed against his neck. He stares at you, perplexed, before his memory seems to return. He lurches back, searching the room warily, and you realize he must be looking for the fishermen.
“They’re not here!” You whisper quickly. “It’s just me, and I’m not going to hurt you. I’m here to help. Are you injured anywhere else, apart from your head?”
The boy licks his lips nervously, fear still tightening his lips until they’re nearly white, but he shakes his head slowly. “No,” he whispers back in a raspy voice, his hand reaching up unsteadily to press against his throat.
“Are you sure?” You examine his chest and arms, searching for scratches, before turning to his legs that been uncovered by his movement. The thoughts in your mind screech to a halt.
A long, glistening tail descends from the v of his hips, shining in the low light of the storage unit and casting small pockets of reflected sparkle onto the walls. Periwinkle blue lines weave amongst the emerald scales until they mesh in a brilliant fan of color at the end of his tail, where two fins spring merrily from the place where feet ought to be.
“Um…” You stare openmouthed at the tail, before slowly sliding your gaze back to his eyes, which have darkened in caution. “You—uh…you have a tail.”
One of his brows raise ironically.
“Right. Right.” You shake your head, briefly wondering if the fish fumes have finally liquefied your brain. “So—you’re a mermaid—sorry, merman. Right, that’s…that makes complete sense.”
“Are…you okay?” The merman asks tentatively, his hand reaching out to grab your hand.
“Oh, yeah,” you reply hastily, lying through your teeth. “I mean, it’s not every day a Disney story comes to life right before your eyes. But this is…cool.”
The flustered look on your face draws the beginnings of a wide smile, his cheeks curling into near perfect plums. “You’re cute. For a human.”
You glance at him before your cheeks explode into what must be the most intense blush of your life. “Oh—um—thanks, I’m told that often. I mean, not the human part obviously. But.” You bite your lips to stem the flood of embarrassed rambling pouring from your lips.
“I’m Hoseok.” He offers his hand to you with a friendly smile.
You reach forward for the handshake like you expect, but he uses your hand to tug you forward and press a kiss to your nose. The blush intensifies until your cheeks are burning, and he’s grinning knowingly back at you from where he’s leaning against a crate.
“Y/N,” you choke out, trying to ignore the way the tip of your nose tingles. You have to turn away from the flirtatious look in his eyes, when you get the feeling that you’re forgetting something important. “Oh, shit.”
He looks up in alarm when you shoot to your feet, sneakers slipping as you head for the door. Listening carefully, you crack the door open just enough to slip your head through and look around the dock—the fishermen still have not returned. With any luck, they’re getting plastered at the local bar.
“We need to get you out of here,” you whisper back urgently, navigating your way through the fish until you’re standing by his side. “I don’t know exactly what they have planned for you, but, well, it can’t be very good.”
The fact that he’d been kidnapped seems to return to the forefront of Hoseok’s mind. “Oh, you’re right.” He looks down at his tail before glancing back at you, his eyes analyzing your arms. “You don’t look strong enough to lift me. I think you’re going to have to drag me out.”
Several minutes of awkward, mortifying struggle ensue as you wrap your arms around Hoseok’s chest and hook his arms over yours in order to carefully slide him along the warf. He grunts whenever a rough patch of wood catches on his scale but brushes off the apologies you whisper into his ear. Back straining, you lead him to the end of the pier and glance down at the drop into the water, uncertain.
“Are you going to be okay? I mean, that’s a nasty bump on the back of your head.” Do merpeople even have medical treatment? The thought feels so whimsically odd that it brings a smile to your face.
“Oh, yeah, I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me,” he says cheerfully as he rolls his head back against your chest to peer up at you. He’s very optimistic for a merman that was just kidnapped, probably to be sold on a black market somewhere. It somehow makes you want to protect him even more. “Just help me get into the water and I’ll get better in no time.”
“Okay…” You turn him around so that he can slide into the water, tail first. “Um… it was nice meeting you, Hoseok. I can honestly say I will never forget you.”
“Ah, but we’ve met before,” Hoseok tells you cheerfully, and your hands slip in surprise.
He falls down into the water with a loud splash. You gasp and fall to your hands and knees, peering into the water in concern, but his bright orange head pops up a second later.
“Ah~” He sighs in relief, rubbing one hand against the back of his head. “That feels better already. Really,” he assures you at your dubious look. “But yeah, like I was saying—“
The sounds of a glass bottle breaking shatters the silence of the night. You spin around fearfully, your eyes immediately spotting a group of fishermen making their way down from the village. You can’t tell if the two criminal fishermen are amongst them, but it’s enough to have you bursting at the seams with the urge to run and hide.
You spin around and whisper, “Go! Hoseok, get out of here!” Before you take off down the side of the pier, trying to muffle the impact of your sneakers on the wood as you take the emergency stairs at the side of the dock and duck below, swiping frantically at the cobwebs sticking to your hair. You wait for several long, tense moments as the group of fishermen traipse down the pier, but they turn right toward another dock rather than head down this one.
You press your hand to your chest, your heart beating so hard that you’re shaking under the force of it, but after several minutes you’ve calmed down enough to breathe easier. Tentatively, you step out from under the pier and onto the beach, your eyes searching the water for that spot of bright orange color.
But the ocean remains calm and still.
The next morning, you put your camera aside rather than photograph the sun as it rises against the sky and press your back into the sand. Eyes closed, you listen to the rumbling of the shore and feel the salty air brush against your face and neck, the wind picking up tendrils of your hair lazily.
No one had caught you in your lie as of this morning, but it was only a matter of time before your mother ran into the Kwon’s at the market on Sunday and asked about the dinner. But by then, you’d already be trapped in your tiny dorm room again in Seoul, miserable but determined. You had at least a couple days to figure out what to give as an explanation, because explaining the truth, that you’d rescued a hot merman from two evil fishermen, wasn’t going to cut it.
You’d been unable to fall asleep after you’d returned home from the pier, hoping Hoseok was all right, that he’d made it back to his family somewhere in the ocean. You were a bit disappointed that you hadn’t had the chance to talk with him more. You had racked your memories, trying to remember a time when you might have met a boy with bright orange hair and, you know, a tail, but nothing had turned up. At least, not yet.
You sigh and press your cheek into the sand, smiling contentedly at the rub of the grains against your skin. A pang of loneliness invades your peace at the thought of having to leave Busan, the home of your heart.
A splash suddenly echoes through the quiet of the dawn, and you prop yourself up on your elbows, expecting to see the quick flip of a dolphin’s tail.
Hoseok’s peering at you from the ocean, bright grin intact as he waves, and as you watch, bemusedly, one hand rising to greet him in return, six more heads slowly breach the surface of the water.