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Chapter Text

At a location hidden and far away from human sight, there’s a merman coming out of the water, his movements precise and so very delicate any other creature was sure to be jealous. Surrounded by miles and miles of sea, the merman desperately needed to be alone, he was looking for silence, privacy, everything his family refused to give him, so he reached that part of the reef that several of his kind told him to stay away from.

The sun was high in the cloudless blue sky, the wind was blowing softly, matching itself with the dance the waves were performing, back and forth, crashing against the rocks that came out of the surface where the merman decided to take a rest, barely out of the water. The trees and plants all around were giving him enough shadow so the sun wasn’t making him dry and uncomfortable, the sound of the sea was the best thing to make him forget everything that had been bothering him. The merman pushes himself up a bit more, just enough for him to rest his elbows over the rock, his arm muscles tensing and relaxing in one swift movement. 

The merman decided to enjoy the calmness just for another moment, trying to collect his thoughts one by one, trying to figure out a way to please his people… it wasn’t working. A sound takes him by surprise, a strange sound he hadn’t heard before, so of course, he’s curious. He turns his torso in looks for the sound, maybe it was a lost dolphin or one of those birds that always stole the best fishes, but when he realizes it’s nothing like that, the merman gasps softly.

There are three men swimming in the distance, those creatures his people called land-walkers, swimming in the water by the other side of the merman’s little hiding place. They were dangerously close, he could tell, but for some reason he didn’t move, he kept staring at them. They swam superficially, not sinking completely into the sea, just observing the bottom of the reef where the merman knew there were a bunch of sea creatures lurking around. He giggles softly when he sees them swim so clumsily, with those fake fins they attached to their long limbs, it was nothing like how the merpeople swam, effortlessly. The land walkers also had objects attached to their heads so they could see and breathe underwater. It was a strange sight yet he couldn’t look away, it was strange seeing someone that resembled him so much yet, they were so different.

The merman knows he should go immediately but he stays, he watches them with curiosity popping out of his eyes. The men start to drift away eventually, they didn’t catch a sight of the merman at all; the merman, on the other hand, doesn’t know what they were doing there but leaves a mental note to tell his father, so the others don’t get scared in case they come back.

The merman sinks into the ocean when the land walkers are gone, when he can’t see their movements in the water anymore.

He doesn’t know this, but it won’t be the last time he’ll see them.

~~~

The three men step down of the small ship and walk the short distance from the dock to the University facilities, more specifically to the Marine Life Search Center of Jeju. They dump all of their equipment to the ground as their dripping bodies find dry clothes to change into. Taehyung is the first to sigh as he always does, making it clear how tired he is – he starts to get out of his wetsuit, pulling it uncomfortably from his arms and torso. Namjoon finds his backpack inside of his locker, then throws a towel over his head so he can start drying his light brown hair. Yoongi on the other hand, pulls a laptop out of his bag and turns it on, too eager to see the pictures they took from underneath the surface.

“It was a great idea to go to this area!” Yoongi comments, pulling out the camera from one of the backpacks they took with them, “The fishes were much bigger than usual, and the corals were so colorful, the water was so clear too and so, so, so…”

“Amazing?”

“Yeah, really amazing!” he says excitedly while Taehyung and Namjoon share a look, not bothering to hide their smirks.

Nothing excites Min Yoongi as much as going underwater and discovering new areas, discovering new families of fishes, turtles or corals, taking pictures of those new discoveries and studying how he could improve the life process of those ecosystems. Since he was just a little kid, Min Yoongi’s one true dream was to be a biologist, since his grandfather showed him all the books collecting dust in his library, first the ones about fantastic stories of pirates and mermaids, then the ones about whales, dolphins and little clown fishes. Yoongi never wanted anything else for his future, not even when his parents bought him that brown wooden piano and the lessons were once the best part of his day.  He became a marine life biologist and at age 26 he had his dream job, having the chance to explore coral reefs every other week.

Namjoon and Taehyung were his lab partners and diving buddies, although they leaned more towards the environmental field, they collaborated in different types of projects together. At first, Namjoon was that only friend he made in college, they weren’t really close until graduation, when they both landed a job at the University. They met Taehyung six months later when he was their assigned intern and assistant, after three years they were pretty much inseparable.

“I’m thinking we could go diving just a bit down south next week,” Yoongi comments as he loads the pictures from his camera to the computer, “According to the map the reef opens to the sea in that area so-”

“Didn’t you agree to go with us to that conference with Dr. Hwang on water pollution?” Taehyung asks hurriedly, his suit half-way down his stomach. Yoongi mutters a curse, “You didn’t forget, did you?”

“Right, yeah, no, of course I didn’t forget,” Yoongi says, “There are five days of a work week, Tae, we can go scuba diving on Thursday.”

“That’s the day of the conference, hyung,” Namjoon says calmly.

“Right, I meant Tuesday.”

“Whatever you say, hyung,” Taehyung rolls his eyes, dropping his towel over his shoulders as he fetches clothes from his bag.

The next Tuesday, Yoongi is back in the water. There wasn’t a place he felt more at peace than inside the ocean, diving deeper and deeper, leisurely taking the whole scenery in with camera in hand, recording or taking pictures of what he felt necessary. Driving the boat south, Yoongi and his friends found vast areas of open water surrounded by virgin coasts that had medium size trees and they knew that below them, thousands of kilometers of sea life could be found. 

For the most of it, it was like any other research trip. The water was clear and calm, the sea animals weren’t too scared of them, swimming serenely just a few meters ahead, the corals were of vibrant colors and providing homes for many different little creatures that Yoongi took pictures of.  It was alright, until Yoongi felt a pull of his right arm. It was Taehyung, alarmingly getting his attention and pointing at an area by the sand underneath their bodies. Yoongi frowned, trying to find what Taehyung wanted him to see.

His heart sank when he spotted it.

It wasn’t big nor could have gotten his attention since he was so distracted with the corals. A plastic bag was moving along with the currents, getting caught on different pieces of coral and then getting freed again. How could a plastic bag get there, so far away from the main coast? Taehyung hurriedly swims to the bottom, catching the plastic bag with his right hand and carefully folding it, securing it in his belt. The rest of the expedition is uneventful but they swim with their eyes wide open, in case they spot more random pieces of plastic.

Back at the University, Taehyung is the most frantic of the three.

“I can not believe human beings are so disgusting!”

“You’re a human being, Taehyung,” Namjoon reminds him calmly. They have changed to their regular clothes, although their hair is still damp.

“Yeah, but I’m not a fucking dirty pig!” he says in rage, “I mean such a beautiful, untouched place and there’s a fucking plastic bag wandering around? What if one of the fishes got caught in there? What if a turtle choked to death?”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Yoongi agrees. His mood had sunken exponentially as they had gotten closer to the shore, he couldn’t stop thinking about the repercussions of more and more garbage coming closer to the reef – it had been one of the cleanest in the country for decades, “We should file a report or something.”

“Yeah,” Namjoon nods his head, “But we should also do research on our own, there must be a reason why that plastic bag reached that place, someone must be dumping garbage in the sea and the tides are moving it all the way to the reef.”

If Taehyung and Namjoon weren’t inspired enough to get to work, after they attend that conference on water pollution they definitely are. By next Monday, they arrive to the office with a work-plan on how to start studying the water currents and decide to take not one but three trips to the reef area that week. They say the sooner they find the problem it’ll be easier to solve. Yoongi agrees, only that his field is more on the species of fish and how that problem might affect them, so he gets carried on by his two co-workers. It’s fine as long as he gets to visit the reef again and again.

By Friday they have located several pieces of plastic further south, from water bottles, plastic bags, small toys and fish nets. Yoongi is enraged the more things they collect in their bags, he’s waiting for the moment they find a turtle trapped in one of those nets, or dead fishes at the bottom of the sea, then he might go berserk. Namjoon comments the problem might come from the commercial area in Jeju, the part that connects with the sea, so he’s planning a trip with a couple of his colleagues to investigate.

That same Friday, when they are about to sail back to the shore with all their equipment back and secured on the boat, Yoongi has to give a double take to a spot far from their location. He thinks he sees a figure move right above the water surface, it’s hidden between the foliage but he sees it too clearly. He sees shoulders swim, a head sink in the water and then come out again. He quickly pulls out his camera in hopes the camera lens will help him focus it better, but when he looks again, the figure is gone.

Maybe he’s going crazy, Yoongi snorts quietly, he must be too tired from that hectic week.

~~~

The merman sees the boat from the distance, hears the roar of that massive object sail far and far away, only when it has completely vanished in the horizon does he decide to swim freely towards his home, where he’ll talk nonstop about the land walkers that have been helping clean their reef.

~~~

“Tada!” Taehyung sing-songs, “What do you think?”

“Help to Save the High Rock Reef,” Yoongi reads the pamphlet Taehyung designed in his computer, in big blue letters it read the details they had found in only two weeks, behind there was one of the pictures Yoongi had taken using the University drone, “What’s the point of this exactly?”

“To give awareness to people,” he answers as he sips from his iced americano, “If people realize their garbage is affecting the beaches, maybe they’ll start fucking recycling.”

“Okay, but you realize the reef is not a beach,” he says.

“They don’t know the difference,” Taehyung shrugs, “They’ll just think their vacations will be ruined because the sea water is dirty.”

In part, Taehyung was right. Jeju was the preferred location for vacationers during the summer and at that time, in that awfully hot July, the streets were packed with tourists, stores kept filling the shelves with cheesy I LOVE JEJU key-chains while hotels were making more money than any other month of the year. The beaches were streaming with bodies twenty four/seven so Yoongi always preferred to stick to work and his quiet house down the road, far from the heavy touristic area.  

They planned another trip to the reef that afternoon, in looks for more garbage to clean and report. The day wasn’t as sunny as the previous days, the sky was a light grey that went from miles to the horizon, it wasn’t cold at all, but it gave it a different feel as Yoongi removed his t-shirt and dived into the water with Namjoon and Taehyung coming behind him – it was somewhat gloomy, not as exciting as the days before. They had found a pattern in their task, swimming more towards the bottom of the ocean, where the plastic usually found its way to sink or get tangled in pieces of corals. Yoongi got distracted often times, finding interesting patterns in the coral or family of fishes hiding from the tides.

Something catches Yoongi’s eye when he’s right in the curve of a massive coral, a few meters from Namjoon and a great distance from Taehyung. It’s a circular shape that has sunk to the sand, it shines so much Yoongi immediately thinks it might be a piece of broken glass – he swims to get it, when he wraps it in his hand, he realizes it’s a sea shell of a shiny and pretty rose color. He wants to smile but the octo trapped between his lips prevents him to, he only pockets the shell and continues his way, only that not two meters away, there’s another shell, this one colored a light green. He picks two pieces more when he realizes they form a trail, each tiny shell located specifically in tiny lumps of sand around the corals.

Yoongi starts to follow the trail, not even considering what it might mean. He swims underneath a coral, around it and then upwards, so much his head comes out of the water and he has to float and look around. He finds himself on the side of a rocky shore, with lots of plants almost touching the water. Yoongi takes that moment as a chance to remove the octo from his mouth and rest, in the meantime, he figures crabs must hide somewhere between the rocks and they’re the responsible for the sea shell trail, so with a snort and a shake of his head, he’s preparing to go back to the bottom, when he catches a figure behind one of the scrape rocks.  

It’s a person, there’s no doubt about that, but he looks so different from anyone Yoongi has ever seen before. The person has no clothes on and is relaxing as if it was the public pool, the only thing Yoongi can see are his bare shoulders, arms, neck and head, for the rest is covered by the rocks. He looks young and calm, with no real worries in his mind but the thing that alarms Yoongi right away is the tone of his skin, the stranger is pale, so so pale he must have been out in the water for so long he’s suffering from hypothermia, he also has strange patches of blue and purple around his neck, forehead and cheeks. He has grey colored hair that falls around his head, covering his ears and forehead, but Yoongi has a tiny glimpse of his eyes, which are really small and dark slits. The stranger also has plump peachy lips and chubby cheeks that make him look way too young to be out here alone. His worries escalate.

Yoongi swims closer to him, only to be affronted with a hiss.

“Hey, don’t be scared!” he says, trying for his voice to reach him, giving they were separated a few meters, “How did you get here? You shouldn’t be out here alone. Are you alone?”

The stranger doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even acknowledge his questions, only looks at Yoongi with curiosity, “My name is Min Yoongi, I can help you get back to the shore!”

Nothing.

“Seriously, this isn’t safe,” he pushes, “If you’ve been here all day you’re gonna start dehydrating and you might drown, not to mention you’re really pale already, you must be cold!”

The stranger leans his head to the side, curiosity at its peak, his eyes growing in size with each word Yoongi speaks.

“Okay, I guess you don’t speak Korean,” he figures, so he starts talking with his arms, “I’m going to swim there and get you, we can swim back to my boat!”

The moment Yoongi starts to swim around the rock, the man hisses again but this time, with a very clear shake of his head. Yoongi doesn’t get it, why doesn’t he want help? Before Yoongi can come up with another reason why the stranger should accept his help, he sees him smirk, at first it’s small and slow, but then it grows and grows and Yoongi thinks he has a glimpse of four sharp fangs instead of two. It happens in a second but the stranger sinks in the water, a few bubbles coming out to the surface, and then nothing. No movement, no more bubbles, just the calm sound of the waves crashing against the rocks.

Yoongi calls for him, calls and calls and worries he might have drowned right in front of his eyes but it’s impossible, nobody drowns in a second just like that. He waits for ten minutes but when he realizes the stranger has completely disappeared, he gives up and swims back to the boat.

“Where were you?” Namjoon asks hurriedly when he sees him, he and Taehyung are already perched up on the boat so he must have taken longer than what he thought.

“Sorry I- I saw- Something really weird just happened,” he tries to gather his thoughts but he just can’t find a logical way to explain it. Yoongi pulls himself up to the boat, throwing all his equipment to the side, pushing his dark hair out of his eyes, “I think I saw a person.”

Namjoon and Taehyung turn their heads at the same time, “What?”

“Like, a person, didn’t have a suit on or anything,” he starts to say, “I thought he was lost and I got scared ‘cause he was already so pale so I tried to help him but he didn’t want me close. And- then he just sank.”

“Sank?”

“Yeah like, one moment he was there, the next second he sank to the ocean and didn’t come back,” he shrugs, he feels worse and worse.

“You think he drowned?!” Taehyung asks in alarm.

“I don’t know,” Yoongi says, “I saw bubbles and then nothing at all, I didn’t see him swimming away-”

“Maybe he went to the bottom and swam away without you noticing,” Namjoon interjects.

“But okay- why would he be here? It’s 45 minutes of a boat ride to the main island, how the fuck is he out here alone?”

Taehyung and Namjoon seem to worry just as much as Yoongi, so they decide to drive by the area Yoongi thinks he saw the person but it’s empty of human life. The plants are moving with the breeze and the waves crack over the rocks, Yoongi focuses his eyes on that spot where the person was hiding from him and there’s nothing, only water and more water.

“Maybe he got out of the water and went inside the reef, like, between the plants,” Taehyung says hopefully.

“And what? He lives here?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugs, “Do you feel alright? Maybe we should have asked you that first, do you feel dizzy?”

“No, I’m not dizzy,” Yoongi says annoyed, “I know what I saw I’m not fucking crazy.”

“I’m not saying you’re crazy but sometimes tiredness makes you see things from a different perspective,” the younger tries to explain, “Like, maybe it was shadows and seaweed and that’s why you didn’t hear an answer…”

“Let’s just go home,” Yoongi mutters with a frown, getting up and starting the boat to drive it to the other side, towards the University.

As the wind slaps his face with force, he grabs six of the shells he found in the sea, all six fit in the palm of his hand. There’s no way he imagined that man, there’s no way he imagined the way he saw him and his taunting smirk. He doesn’t know why but he knows the sea shells are evidence.

~~~

The merman’s heart is racing, he keeps swimming at top speed without looking back, too scared to see if they were following him. He saw him, he saw him up close and all he wanted was to be closer. His family warned him about land-walkers being dangerous but he didn’t know what could be dangerous about him, his kind features and calming voice, he and his friends were helping them get a cleaner home, how bad could they be?

The merman reaches his home eventually, the big palace made of pearl aqua corals and rocks decorated in pink and blue seashells, the merpeople saw him and bowed their heads, a custom he didn’t care for anymore. He decides he won’t tell anyone what happened…he’ll keep that encounter all to himself.

~~~

Yoongi is willing to let the event go. That night as he’s trying to fall asleep he remembers the things Taehyung said. Maybe he was really tired after all, maybe his eyes were showing him things that weren’t there. Anything seems to be a good enough explanation because there’s no way a man could be out there at open sea, all alone and without food or fresh water. Yoongi closes his eyes with one last huff, hoping to finally fall asleep as the clock strikes 2:40am.

Yoongi is willing to let the event go as they drive the boat to areas they have never visited. The biologists’ route takes them further and further south, where the plants are growing massively and the corals are much different than what Yoongi had ever seen. The sun has been hiding behind clouds that week, so the whole scenery looks somber somehow. The splash of cold water is familiar as he enters the ocean, swimming expertly with Namjoon and Taehyung behind him. He tries to let it go, he does, even if his mind is trapped in the boy’s features and pale skin.

He tries to let it go until he spots those damn seashells again.

Yoongi frowns underneath his mask. There are more seashells this time, all aligned in a trail that leads him to a point behind a massive body of corals, the shells start to get located over the corals, in tiny lumps of sand that obviously weren’t there before – it was like that last time, only that he wasn’t aware that it could be placed there by a person. He realizes the shells are a way to lead him to the surface, so Yoongi gets his head out of the water. He realizes he’s within a calmer area of the reef, the waves come and go but he can’t see the open ocean from there – it’s all hidden by rocks, tall cliffs and plants. It’s silent apart from the sound of the water moving along with the tide.

Something falls in the water then, something small that makes it splash on his face. Yoongi searches everywhere for the cause of the disturbance until his eyes land on a very lean and pale torso. The boy is there again, looking at him cautiously, he’s several meters away from Yoongi and half of his body is hidden behind a rock – somehow he feels unsafe since the man is outside of the water and Yoongi’s in the ocean, wearing the heavy scuba gear.

Yoongi is a loss of words, he wants to ask so many things but all he does is look at the stranger back. There’s something about the way the light hits him, or something about his features that makes him look unreal. He has never seen eyes so dark before, yet his skin glints as if it was made of shiny diamonds against the morning light. The stranger starts smiling then, just like before, only this time he doesn’t show his teeth.

“Who are you?” is the first coherent thing Yoongi thinks to ask, “Why are you here all alone?”

It’s not like he really expected an answer this time, but what comes from the man’s mouth lets him so much more confused. It’s a high pitched sound that’s thick against the man’s throat, it’s not Russian, even if that’s the weirdest language Yoongi has ever heard in person – it somehow reminds him of a whale’s call. The man seems embarrassed after he’s made that sound for he hides just a little more behind the rock.

“Hey, hey, so you’re not Korean then, that’s cool…” Yoongi says calmly, removing his mask and letting it hang around his neck so he can see the man better, “Do you speak English?”

The man stays silent but brings his head to the side, curious.

“Are you alone?” Yoongi tries again. He just wants to know how the hell a man has been out in the sea for a week and doesn’t ask for help, instead refuses it. The stranger doesn’t answer of course, “If you want,” Yoongi tries again as he swims closer, with very slow and careful movements, “If you want I can take you to my boat.”

“Boat,” says the stranger and Yoongi is shocked to hear something he can finally understand. His voice sounds different then, it’s not as thick and aggressive, is softer and high, kind of childish in a way.

“Yes, my boat,” Yoongi says eagerly, “I have a boat and we can go to land.”

“Land,” he repeats, with a bigger smile on his face, “You land.”

“Yes?” Yoongi tilts his head, “I’m from land, and you’re too. I can help you swim with me, the boat is not that far from here.”

“Boat! Here! Land!” the strange says as he smiles bigger, his cheeks scrunching up and making his eyes form thin and tender lines. The closer Yoongi is, the more details he catches, the skin of the stranger isn’t dry, even if he’s been out of the water for a couple of minutes – the droplets of water travel slowly from his shoulders to the curves of his chest. The patches of blue and purple on his skin haven’t disappeared since the last time they saw each other, his hair is tangled in several different places.

“So you’re just gonna repeat everything I say until you learn the language?” Yoongi chuckles, “That’s fine, I can teach you Korean, but you have to come to land with me.”

Then, the man shakes his head as his face transforms into a frown. Yoongi is puzzled, how come he doesn’t want to go? He’s sure in any language a person that’s been lost in the sea would come crashing against him, asking for help, asking to be taken to civilization.

“Okay, I’ll- I’ll leave you to it then…” Yoongi says shortly, placing his mask back on and turning to swim back, only he feels something land on the top of his head. It doesn’t hurt much, but it sure annoys him, “What the hell was that for?!”

The stranger is looking at him with an expectant face, a mix between excitement and fear. He shakes his head again as if that would be enough for Yoongi to understand what he wants, “You want me to stay?”

“Stay,” he repeats softly, carefully, waiting to see what Yoongi’s next action will be. Yoongi doesn’t move so the stranger smiles once again, “You stay.”

“Okay, but I can’t stay for long,” he says, turning back a couple of times, “My friends will start worrying about me.”

“Me. You.” the stranger says eagerly, he moves his hands against his chest, kind of making it seem that he’s about to talk about himself, but what comes next is another bizarre noise, too long and something Yoongi will never be able to repeat.

“You?” the boy asks and waits for Yoongi’s answer.

“Me? Oh, that’s your name!”

“That’s your name!” he repeats like an echo, “That’s your name!”

“No, no,” Yoongi chuckles, “My name is Min Yoongi,” he says this as he touches his chest, just like Jimin did a few seconds ago, “Min Yoongi and you are…”

That noise again, something long and thick that Yoongi can’t begin to understand but there are two distinct syllables, Ji Min. Yoongi laughs without removing his eyes from the man, “I don’t think I can repeat that but- is it okay if I call you Jimin? Is a very common name from where I come from.”

The man who he then will start calling Jimin leans his head to the side with that same innocent smile, “You’re Jimin.” Yoongi repeats.

“Jimin!”

“Great, this is easier now!” Yoongi mutters, swimming that remaining meter between him and the rock Jimin was lying on, “So you want to stay here all alone, Jimin?”

Of course the other doesn’t answer, only tilts his head to the other side, “Jimin stay.”

Yoongi chuckles, “Well, I’m sure people on land must be looking for you, your parents and friends.”

“Friends?”

Yoongi nods, “A friend is…someone you know and are close with. I could be your friend,” he says this as he points at himself and Jimin smiles big and full, it’s an expression he’s seen many times on many different people but somehow, he’s never felt it so genuine before.

“You friend!” he says excitedly and then he gets serious once again, “Friend?”

“Yes,” he nods, “I’m your friend.”

“Friend…” his voice is quiet and now seems like he’s nervous about something. Jimin plays with his hands as he says the next thing, “Friend stay?”

“I can’t stay-” Yoongi’s interrupted by Jimin’s frown and shake of his head.

“You stay.”

Before Yoongi can refuse, Jimin moves from his spot and disappears behind the rock, he doesn’t see him swim away but he clearly hears the splash of water. Yoongi waits and figures Jimin is about to go, just like last time – obviously he misinterpreted the concept of ‘stay’ and was asking Yoongi to leave, so with a pretty similar frown, Yoongi places his goggles back on-

“Min Yoongi!” Jimin calls his name in the most graceful way, making it sound even better to his ears. When Yoongi finally sees him far in the distance than what he was, the other is signaling him to come closer. Yoongi sighs, wondering why he is even playing all these games with that stranger. He follows Jimin to that area of the reef where the rocks look flatter and smooth, where Jimin hasn’t completely gone out of the water. When he’s barely closer, Jimin speaks.

“Min Yoongi friend,” he repeats, “Min Yoongi friend stay…”

“I don’t-”

Yoongi is interrupted again but this time, when Jimin sinks to the bottom of the ocean he makes it in a way that he clearly shows himself and Yoongi, at age 26, probably knows what a heart attack is like. He sees a long tail spring from the water as Jimin’s torso sinks to the bottom. He wouldn’t compare it to any other animal’s tail – it’s colored light grey and flat in the end like a whale’s, although he could spot scales in that brief second he showed it to Yoongi. The biologist takes a second to breathe but then he desperately tries to put on his mask and swim to the bottom in looks for Jimin. Yoongi does this as fast as possible and his body is fully back in the water, it doesn’t take him long to spot him, leisurely swimming a few meters from him.

This is something Yoongi never dreamed to see.

Jimin’s body is half of a man’s, half of a fish – his tail is much longer compared to his torso and now Yoongi can spot other smaller fins that come out from his sides that are textured differently, kind of remind him of a jelly fish. The scales travel from the tail but end their journey by Jimin’s navel, giving him a normal human looking torso. Although, the more he details his skin, he realizes Jimin has tiny cuts around the ribs – which he has to call gills since they open and close every other second, making it clear Jimin uses them to breathe underwater. He has other similar cuts on his neck.

Jimin looks at him with a smirk but continues swimming around, showing his elegant tail so Yoongi can appreciate him. He swims in a way that his entire body curls with the tides of the sea, his arms sometimes coming to the front and then staying on each of his sides. The skin of Jimin’s tail camouflages with the dark bottom of the ocean while his skin strikes in wonderful pale colors that make a heavy contrast. The biologist is aware he’s spending all the oxygen available in his tank, his breathing hasn’t calmed down at all, but he can’t take his eyes off of Jimin. It’s a miraculous and fantastic view – he starts to wonder if all of it might be just a dream. Yoongi doesn’t know what to do until Jimin comes closer, barely leaving inches between them and holds his hand, pulling him so they can swim together.

It’s strange but amazing at the same time. Yoongi can barely keep up with Jimin since he’s capable of swimming so fast and effortlessly, he hasn’t let go of his hand. Jimin takes him to the surface after a couple of seconds and Yoongi just can’t stop looking at him. The creature who he can no longer associate with a human pulls himself up out of the water to rest in the flat rocks, his tail curling to a side and now Yoongi can clearly see all its colors as they shine against the natural light, full on display – they’re different shades of blue, grey and even a golden rose by the tips. Yoongi follows him and pulls himself out of the water as well, carrying the heavy oxygen tank behind his back. It’s strange but his initial fear has passed, all he wants to do now is ask questions, so many questions are swirling around in his mind.

“You-” yet, Yoongi can’t mutter a single comprehensible word, “Can I touch it?”

“Touch?” Jimin repeats as the droplets of water drip down his face, collarbones and chest. This close, Yoongi can perceive Jimin’s scent of salted sea water and a weird type of plant they find all around the reef – it’s not unpleasant, it’s just something he’s never sensed before in a person.

“Yes, touch…likes this,” he replies and very carefully, extends his ungloved hand to touch a part of Jimin’s tail, where his thigh should be. Jimin lets him but his eyes go from his hand to Yoongi’s face, back again to his tail – it seems that he’s nervous. Yoongi trails his fingers upwards, trying to understand the transition between Jimin’s seemingly human torso and his fish-like tail. The scales form a pattern he’s seen thousands of times in other sea creatures, small, transparent, fingernail shaped scales that are incrusted in his colored skin and then they progressively grow disperse, until the texture between bottom and top changes to smooth porcelain skin.

Jimin’s gills are closed, not moving because he must be using other mechanism to breathe out of the water. Yoongi has many questions but he doesn’t speak them, not because Jimin won’t understand, but because he’s afraid he would understand and then he’d scare him away.

“This is pretty cool,” is what Yoongi says with a nervous laugh, a tiny part of his mind still screaming that this might be just a trick of his imagination, “This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Jimin can definitely sense the air, for he smiles along with Yoongi, “Touch.”

Before Yoongi can answer, Jimin makes a sudden movement and then he’s grabbing one of Yoongi’s legs, squeezing it repeatedly, “That’s my leg…”

“Leg,” Jimin says the word, “You leg.”

“Yes, I have legs,” he replies as he sits in a more comfortable position so Jimin can examine his leg better, he goes from his knee to his ankle, pulling his plastic fin so he can expose Yoongi’s foot. It tingles the second his cold fingers come in touch with said foot, so Yoongi jerks and giggles embarrassingly, “It tingles, sorry…”

“Sorry…”

“No it’s- it’s fine,” Yoongi says, pulling his leg back, “So you’re probably not from land, huh? And that’s why you’re here, and that’s why you got scared the other day…”

Jimin doesn’t answer, he only looks at Yoongi through wet eyelashes, “You land, me here,” is what he says slowly.

“You learn fast,” Yoongi comments, “Remember my name?”

“Name,” he repeats, “Min Yoongi.”

“Yes!” he nods with a smile, amazed by how intelligent Jimin is, “And yours?”

“Yours?”

“Your name,” Yoongi repeats as he carefully touches Jimin’s chest, “I’m Yoongi and you are?”

“Jimin!”

Yoongi’s chuckle is involuntary but comes out naturally as he sees Jimin’s sweet smile, all because he remembered his given name. Now it makes sense why Jimin didn’t look like anyone he’d seen before, his features were somewhat different all together, now he could see his ears weren’t like a humans, but with irregular lines that were probably shaped to help him hear better underwater. Suddenly, as he really takes in Jimin’s presence, Yoongi is so taken aback by the sight: he’s a merman, that mythological creature he read about over and over in his grandfather’s books – something he thought was just a fantasy all those years back – Jimin’s not supposed to exist yet there he sat, all perfect, pure features watching Yoongi analyze the situation. His heart is racing again.

“Yoongi!” they hear a new voice call Yoongi’s name, a voice he quickly identifies as Namjoon’s and then, he can hear the roar of the boat’s engine. Yoongi completely lost track of time so Namjoon and Taehyung must be worried about him.  Jimin opens his eyes wide when he realizes they could have company and throws himself back into the ocean.

“Shit!” Yoongi says, searching for Jimin down in the water. The merman pulls his head out to watch him but with his tail well hidden, “My friends, they’re looking for me.”

“Friends,” Jimin repeats.

“Yes, you don’t have to worry about them,” he replies, “They won’t hurt you.”

“Hurt.”

“I’ll explain more when I come back,” Yoongi says as he jumps into the water as well.

“Come back,” Jimin says carefully.

“Yes, come back and see you right here,” he says and Jimin doesn’t waste any time to get closer once again. Jimin trails his hand down Yoongi’s cheek without notice, almost like that was his way of saying goodbye, a goodbye that is way too quick with the way Jimin sinks into the water completely and Yoongi places his mask back on and starts to swim out of the hidden form of water.

“What the fuck were you doing all the way out here?” calls Namjoon, he’s clearly furious. Taehyung isn’t in a better mood, pulling Yoongi by the neck of his suit so he can sit on the boat deck, handling his body like a sack of potatoes.

“We thought you drowned or something, it’s been 40 minutes since we agreed to meet here!” says Taehyung.

And then comes the tricky part. Yoongi considers Namjoon and Taehyung his best friends and he knows they’re smart, logical and cultured people – he would have thought if he found a merman they would be the first people he’d tell yet he can’t say anything about Jimin. He’s still shaking, his heart is still racing but he racks his brain for a good lie to tell them. He can’t tell the truth, not because they won’t believe him nor because they might do harm to Jimin – he just doesn’t want anyone to know about him yet…or maybe ever.

“Sorry I just- I saw- I saw these turtles,” he says inconvincibly, “They were massive, like, so big.”

“Seriously?” Namjoon groans, “You scared us to death because of some turtles? God damn it, you can be a real imbecile sometimes.”

They take off and Yoongi takes the biggest breath he’s ever taken.

He just hopes he can see Jimin again soon.

~~~

“They just- they aren’t so bad,” Jimin tells one of his many sisters. It’s been two moons since he first saw the land-walker called Yoongi and his excitement hasn’t died down. He’s visited the same place where they met twice but Yoongi hasn’t shown – he tries to ignore that fact. He wasn’t scared then, he can’t be scared now. Chungha, his youngest sister, looks at him worriedly.

“You know what father says about land walkers,” she says with her soft voice. They are laying in smooth rock, sun bathing as the clouds have finally moved away to brighter days. Their entire city lies beneath that massive cliff, the entire city that will in one moment of the future belong to him.  

“They clean the reef, they don’t cause harm to other creatures, why would they hurt us?”

“I wouldn’t know,” she says, as she pulls her bright blonde hair to the front, her lilac tail curling to a side as she rests on her elbows, “I don’t know any of them so I can’t speak in their behalf, but you’ve heard the stories just as much as I have. Many of our own have been killed or taken prisoners.”

“But they’ve escaped!” Jimin replies.

“They’ve escaped and they have died,” Chungha answers, “Can’t you just ignore them? Just stop swimming there to see them. It doesn’t matter if they look harmless to you, you know father will be furious if he finds out you’ve been going there after he told you not to.”

“I can do whatever I want,” he pouts, his arms folding over his chest, “I’m of age already.”

“Yeah, but you’re also the crowned prince and you’re to obey your father,” she fights, “You think I want to marry Kai? He’s my childhood friend and all but don’t you think I’d want an opinion in this? We have to do things we don’t want, that’s how it is.”

She abruptly stops her speech to scratch a patch of skin by her left hip, “This damn thing keeps bothering me!”

“It’s getting red,” Jimin says as he approaches her, “Don’t you think we should see Myah?”

“It’ll be fine, I probably swam too near a coral or one of those wild lobsters scratched me,” she says, “It’s nothing.”

Jimin remains in that spot for a while, more merpeople come and go to enjoy the sun. Chungha rolls her eyes as Jimin’s tail jumps erratically to go swim, to go find the land walkers again.

“I’ll cover for you,” she finally says, “But be careful, we care about you, brother.”

Jimin smiles, touching her cheek softly, just like he did to Yoongi those days back.

~~~

The third time he sees Jimin, Yoongi is almost expecting to be disappointed. The first time Taehyung told him he was probably seeing things, the second he was convinced all of it must have been a dream but the third, there’s no way to explain the third. Yoongi takes one of the university boats without telling Namjoon or Taehyung, he goes with the excuse of research, although all he wants to do is talk with the merman.

Yoongi pulls the boat nearby the area he saw Jimin last time, he isn’t wearing his scuba gear, he only has swimming trunks and a light t-shirt. He waits there in silent hope that he’ll catch a massive tail swirling around the water, he waits and waits until suddenly, there’s a splash of water – wetting his hair and clothes.

“Shit,” he mutters with a chuckle as he dries off.

“Shit!”

“Hey, Jiminie!” he calls eagerly, drying of his hair with his finger as he sits down on a side of the boat, letting his naked legs dangle. Jimin appears as Yoongi’s heartbeat speeds up uncontrollably. 

“Hey, Yoongi!”

Yoongi giggles with the way Jimin imitates everything he says, still so amazed with the speed he learns new words and their meaning. The sun rays make Jimin look more like a sculpture than a living creature, his skin glints with the tiny drops of water that roll down of his body, his hair is still tangled but shines in a way that resembles silk more than actual hair. He’s beautiful, that’s all he can think about as Jimin has his eyes glued on him.

“Leg!” Jimin swims the distance between them and holds one of his ankles with both hands, “Leg!”

“Yeah, I don’t have my suit on,” he explains, “You like legs?”

“Me like legs.”

“I like legs,” Yoongi corrects him but chuckles as Jimin only tilts his head to the side, still squeezing and caressing Yoongi’s leg in a way that doesn’t make him completely uncomfortable.

“What were you doing?” Yoongi asks as if to start a conversation. Jimin tilts his head again.

“Doing.”

“Yeah, like… you’re here now, but before? You go where?” he points to other areas around to see if Jimin can understand what he’s saying. Jimin only shakes his head delicately.

“No,” he says, “You no.”

Yoongi thinks it through and realizes Jimin probably understood that he was asking where he lived and if he could come, “Okay, what about this?” He pulls the different little colored shells Jimin had been hiding around the corals for Yoongi to find him, when Jimin sees them, his face lights up.

“You!” and then he disappears to the bottom of the ocean. It takes him a couple of second to come to the surface again, with a dozen new shells in his hands and one tiny crystal of aquamarine color.

“Wow, that’s a lot!” Yoongi says as he crouches closer to where Jimin is.

“This you,” Jimin says as he gives him all the shells.

“For me?”

“For you,” Jimin corrects with a bigger, simple and honest smile.

If you were to ask Yoongi what he’d be doing during that summer, he wouldn’t have expected to answer: teaching Korean to a merman. At first it’s incredibly complicated with the way Jimin only wants to swim and play with Yoongi’s toes, he gets distracted easily but then he catches up to new content quickly, he learns so many words in only an hour every day, it’s amazing. Jimin gets progressively interested the more days pass, he learns easy words like “water”, “sky” and “house”, and more complicated ones like “heart” and “mind”. Jimin doesn’t speak much on his own but repeats sentences like a parrot, Yoongi figures that’s a way to learn too.

The weeks pass with Yoongi visiting Jimin’s hiding place two to four days a week, while he day-dreams about seeing him as he spends his work hours at the lab. Yoongi takes several objects with him to show Jimin, everything from a toy keyboard, magazines, sunglasses, everyday things that he leaves in Jimin’s hands to see his reaction.

Yoongi decides to start a journal of his encounters with the merman, a journal he doesn’t ever leave unattended.

Day 1.

Subject to which I’ll refer as Jimin is a merman. Contrary to popular belief, merpeople exist. Although he may appear as humans or fish, he’s not any. Could be described as a mammal with appearance of a human being above the pelvis and the appearance of a dolphin or whale below –

Day 2.

Jimin doesn’t speak any language known to humans, instead, seems to have a communicational method similar to whales. It’s based on high pitched, unintelligible noises to the human ear, not even underwater (has been tested)

Day 5.

Jimin shows immense intelligence. Like dolphins, his learning capacity is impressive. Has learned several words and concepts in only five encounters and is capable of understanding full sentences, responding with signs or expressions. Would need a full investigation on his brain, but is to assume that his neocortex is advanced for he solves problems and is self-aware of the investigator and the implications of these encounters. Jimin’s intelligence traits could be associated with a human –

Day 14.

Jimin feeds on raw fish, crabs, lobsters, and occasionally seaweed. Hunting seems to be easy for him since his speed surpasses his victim’s. Haven’t tried giving him regular human food for it might cause stomach distress.

Day 21.

“What is that?” asks Jimin one sunny afternoon. It’s day twenty-one and Jimin is finally capable of forming a few sentences. He’s experimental with the language, forming phrases that sometimes make no sense but he smiles throughout, waiting for Yoongi to catch up with him and what he means to say. Yoongi sits at the back of the boat, journal in one hand, pen in the other, while Jimin floats lazily in the water, his arms spread open and a peaceful expression on his face. They’ve gotten used to each other for the most part, no longer does Yoongi feels anxious when he sees the merman, nor does the merman has that sort of shy, cautious appearance when they cross looks.

“It’s a journal,” he answers, pushing the sunglasses up the bridge of his nose, “I write things about you so I don’t forget them…”

Jimin perks up as he realizes Yoongi’s journal is all about him, “Forget?”

“Yes, it’s when-” he looks for the perfect words so Jimin can understand easily, “If I want to think about you, I’ll read this and remember important things. If I don’t, I might forget over time.”

“Me write?” he says, with a higher voice. Yoongi chuckles.

“I haven’t taught you how to write,” he answers, “After you learn how to speak properly, we can learn how to read and write.”

“Okay!” Jimin nods, switching positions so he’s no longer on his back, but floating vertically. Yoongi comes forward then, his mind ringing with eagerness. It hasn’t been that long since he first saw Jimin but he figures Jimin can provide him answers now.

“Do you think you can tell me more about yourself, Jimin?” he asks, coming forward and swinging his legs over the border. Jimin looks at him and says nothing, that usual tilt of his head present indicating he’s confused and curious, “Like- so I can get to know you. And then you can ask me something, although you do that all the time.”

Jimin blinks a couple of times but nods his head, “What to know?”

“Umh- why don’t you tell me how old you are,” Yoongi asks.

“Old…”

“Do you remember what I told you about years and the moment one is born, how we count the years-”

“Yes, I remember,” Jimin says slowly. He stares at the bottom of the ocean for a couple of seconds before he says, “I live 285 full moons.”

“What?” It’s what Yoongi answers, his mouth half open. He’s pretty sure the imaginary mathematical equations are flying out of his brain, like all those memes Taehyung shares on their group chat. It takes him longer than usual to answer, to even understand what Jimin just said, to even comprehend the fact that Jimin can count to over 100 just with one simple lesson on numbers Yoongi gave him a week ago, “You mean- one full moon happens every month so that’s-” Yoongi takes his journal and does the math in a corner in tiny, hurried scribbles, “That’s…almost 24 years.”

Jimin shrugs, “Twenty four. Yoongi how old?”

“I’m twenty six,” he answers with a smile, somehow he likes that Jimin might be around his own age. He does the simple multiplication on his journal so he can give Jimin an answer he can understand better, “That’s… 312 full moons, give or take.”

“You bigger!” Jimin snickers, one hand hiding his mouth – something he did each time he was sure his double fangs would show.

“I’m not bigger,” Yoongi replies with the same patience, “I’m pretty sure you’re bigger than me, I’m older.”

Jimin giggles harder, playing with the bubbles in the water, “Another question!”

“Okay,” Yoongi places his journal right next to his hip and comes just an inch closer to the edge, “Do you have family? Mother, father, siblings?”

Jimin nods his head happily, “I have all. Mother, father and 8 siblings.”

“Oh, wow, you have many,” Yoongi replies interested, “Are they older than you?”

“Uh- no…” Jimin says, less excited, “I’m older.”

“Oldest,” he corrects, “And what are they like?”

“Siblings pretty,” he answers after he’s giving it a thought, “Two males, eight females. Tails not like mine, other colors.”

“Oh, so… your tails’ characteristics aren’t indicative of your relativeness,” Yoongi quickly says, mostly to himself than to Jimin, since the other tilts his head, confused, “Nevermind. And- what about your parents? How old are they?”

Jimin doesn’t answer right away. For a moment, Yoongi thinks he’s doing the math just like last time but instead, Jimin lunges forward with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, “Another question!”

“You don’t want to talk about your parents?” Yoongi replies softly, impressed by the way Jimin can make the decision to avoid the conversation. He’s so smart. Jimin shakes his head, glancing down.

“Okay, that’s okay,” Yoongi says reassuringly, “Then, where do you live?”

Again, Jimin takes longer to answer, “Me tell you, you don’t go there.”

The merman’s smile trembles as he waits for Yoongi’s response. Yoongi shakes his head, even if his hands shake with the urgency to know more about the merpeople and how they live, “Of course not, unless you invite me there.”

“You don’t go there,” Jimin repeats, “It’s bad- bad things happen to you and me.”

Suddenly he’s nervous hearing Jimin’s words, he looks serious enough, it’s not just empty words coming out of the merman’s mouth, “I won’t. I promise. I won’t go there.”

Jimin nods, “Me live there,” he says as he points to his left, “Not far from here. House is bottom of the sea, big house with she sells-”

“Sea shells,” Yoongi corrects.

“Yes,” Jimin continues, “We live up and down, down is better because hide from land walkers-”

Yoongi blinks rapidly, “Hang on, who are land walkers?”

“You,” Jimin answers simply.

“You don’t want us to find your home?”

Yoongi knows is a stupid question with all the warnings Jimin already gave him. Jimin catches his eyes, sighing as he thinks his answer, “Land walkers take me, me and family and do bad things.”

Yoongi’s skin goes cold. He’s not surprised about Jimin’s answer, he knows what humans are capable of doing to those things they aren’t familiar with, humans can be cruel and ignorant, causing harm to so many creatures. It makes him angry just to think about it. He nods slowly, not wanting to disturb Jimin more than necessary.

“Yoongi don’t do bad things, yeah?”

“No, of course not, Jimin,” he replies quickly, “I wouldn’t, I- I’m not like that and I won’t go there. You can trust me.”

“Trust you,” Jimin repeats with a firm nod, a corner of his mouth lifting slowly.

“You haven’t asked me a question,” Yoongi reminds him, trying to lift the mood.

Jimin gives it a thought, his tail moving from one side to the other calmly, “Where Yoongi live?”

“I live on land,” he laughs as Jimin frowns with the obvious answer, “I have a house not too far from the shore. It belonged to my grandfather and he left it to me and my brother, but since my brother doesn’t live here anymore, it’s mine. It’s not big or fancy or anything like that, it’s just- fine.”

Jimin listens attentively, his eyes shining with interest and…something Yoongi can’t quite name, “Jimin go?”

Yoongi raises a brow, “Sure, Jiminie, you’re invited but you- you don’t have legs.” he says, not understanding completely what the other means.

Jimin seems to realize something and his expression shows that he said a thing he didn’t mean to, “Me go but in water,” Jimin says with a chuckle that doesn’t sound too convincing, “House not far from shore. I go, swim.”

“Oh…” is what Yoongi says, “Isn’t it dangerous for you? I mean, there are more land walkers-”

“Next question!”

That day, Yoongi realizes Jimin has understood the concept of dodging conversation, shamelessly asking to change the subject altogether when he doesn’t feel like talking about a certain topic. They talk about other dozen things that day and at night, when Yoongi is back at his old, shabby house, he sits down at the dining table to write everything Jimin told him. He gets distracted at times, remembering something funny Jimin did or say. Yoongi likes the fact that he has Jimin’s full attention during those days, he likes knowing that Jimin and Yoongi are each other’s secrets – for whatever weird reason he’s not ready to think about just yet. His journal is already half-filled and it’s been less than a month of these encounters, the pages full of words and sketches of the things he observes every day.

That night, as Yoongi lies in his bed with the feeling of the rocking boat still present, he thinks about Jimin’s comment about coming to his house. He wonders what he really meant since Jimin hadn’t shown interest in coming to the city before, especially since he seems to be scared of humans. Nonetheless, he plays with the idea of Jimin being there, sitting on his couch and watching TV – it’s funny for the most part, the massive tail dripping water all over the worn out wooden floors. Yoongi chuckles with his cheek pressed against the pillow and catches himself sighing, a feeling of want striking his chest.

Weird.

Yoongi turns around, his arm underneath the pillow and Jimin’s face imprinted underneath his eyelids.

“I haven’t seen you so focused on work since your thesis,” Namjoon comments at lunch some other day. It’s been several weeks since Yoongi met Jimin and truth be told, he couldn’t think about anything else. He was really behind on his actual research for the University, all his time spent at open sea, having conversations with Jimin, swimming with him – it’s true that Jimin had shown Yoongi new areas of the reef where no scientist had ever gone to, he had new material he could show to his superiors, if only he didn’t spend his time day-dreaming about a said merman and actually got to work. To Namjoon, Taehyung and the rest of his colleagues, he was so involved on his work it looked almost obsessive. Yoongi stopped going on expeditions with other people, he only requested the boat for his own.

“Yeah, you even abandoned us with the cleaning project too!” Taehyung whines as he shoves a piece of kimbap into his mouth. Their expeditions had taken a turn east, where Yoongi knew Jimin and the rest of the merpeople weren’t located so it worked perfectly for them.

“Sorry,” he mutters, “I’m just really focused on this. Once I’m done I’ll get to work with you guys.”

It probably didn’t sound convincing – it didn’t even sound convincing to him. When exactly would this project of his end? He didn’t know what he was going to do over time, would he spend the rest of his life with this secret buried in his heart? Would he be the only one to know about merpeople? Would he write everything and leave it hidden underneath his mattress for when he died, someone could find it and publish his work posthumously? He knew of biologists that spent their lives investigating certain families of animals, whether it’d be lions, bears or whales. Would he be like that? Visiting Jimin every now and then to see how he behaved, how he encountered a partner, mate with them and have babies? Somehow it didn’t work for Yoongi, somehow it didn’t click.

Somehow Yoongi wanted Jimin to stay like that forever, perky, bubbly and unbothered about general things. Yoongi wanted to always be a teacher to Jimin and when Jimin mastered the language, then he could teach him something else, whatever the hell he could think of.

Yoongi leaves the cafeteria with his journal safely hidden inside his backpack, all the necessary equipment for diving packed as well. He was out of there in a minute, a little giddy as he imagined what he and Jimin would do that day. Yoongi likes the times he swims with Jimin. There’s something intimate about it, quite personal. He gets to see Jimin fully and without barriers – Jimin doesn’t know about barriers at all, anyway. They could be swimming side by side with some distance between them, but then he’d come closer and leave no space at all. Once they meet, Jimin leads the way to a secluded area not far from the boat, he comes out of the water with one effortless jump to rest over some rocks, Yoongi on the other hand, takes a bit longer – the heavy oxygen tank making it impossible. His body drips water as he crawls to a flatter rock, his limbs are tired from the swim. He sighs, letting his lungs contract with the natural air, “You should be more considerate next time, Jiminie,” he says tiredly, “I can’t swim as fast as you.”

“Turtle,” Jimin rolls his eyes, “Slow turtle.”

“Yeah well, let’s go on land and see who wins on a running race, huh?”

“Jiminie can’t run,” Jimin pushes his shoulder playfully, a gesture he picked up from Yoongi.

Yoongi laughs, letting the sun heat up his body for a while. Jimin comes closer, helped by his arms, to rest right next to Yoongi. As they lay side by side, Yoongi notices how much longer Jimin is – their torsos are relatively the same long but his tail elongates much further than Yoongi’s leg. Jimin’s hand snakes to his side then, searching for contact right away. Yoongi despises wearing a diving suit sometimes – Jimin doesn’t know the concept of personal space and he could be feeling so much more, he could be feeling Jimin’s tender fingers all over his arms at times.

A sudden movement takes him by surprise, a coldness the moment Jimin moves his hand and places it on his own shoulder. Yoongi has noticed him do that lately, scratching momentarily in various places of his body.

“Hey, are you okay?” he asks, “You itchy there?”

“Yeah- itchy,” Jimin repeats, expression annoyed.

“Did you get hurt with something?” Yoongi asks when he notices there’s a red mark forming there, it doesn’t look too bad and he figures it was caused by Jimin’s nails. Jimin shakes his head, a line forming between his eyebrows.

“Not hurt,” he answers, “Don’t know what is. Sisters are itchy too.”

Yoongi stops for a second, his mind traveling to several possibilities. Jimin isn’t paying attention, he just continues to scratch. Now, after thinking and thinking, the biologist in Yoongi steps ahead, sitting on his knees to inspect Jimin’s shoulder better. It’s irritated and Jimin is probably making it worse when he scratches, but as he comes closer he can see small and white freckle-like dots here and there. Yoongi doesn’t want to panic but something tells him this isn’t right.

“Hey, Jiminie, does it itch somewhere else?”

“Here,” he says calmly, letting Yoongi place his cold fingers anywhere he wants, “And here, here, and here.”

He points to his stomach, some place he can’t reach on his back and even on his tail. Yoongi comes even closer, to see if the same white dots are present in all those areas.

“Has this happened before?” he asks in case it’s something conditional of merpeople. He doesn’t want to jump to conclusions. Jimin shakes his head.

“Sister has itchy since two full moons,” he explains, “Myah saw but Myah doesn’t know what’s wrong.”

“Who’s Myah?”

“She cures sick people,” Jimin says proudly, “She cure when we can’t eat or swim.”

“Oh- so she’s like your doctor?”

“Doctor,” Jimin smiles, “Yes!”

“But she doesn’t know what’s happening…” he says deep in thought. He doesn’t want to jump to conclusions but white spots are never a good sign, it could be easily an allergic reaction to something new Jimin ate, or maybe something environmental but if Jimin (and his sisters for that matter) aren’t treated properly, they could get worse.

Worse than that, Yoongi had no idea what he could do to help them.

“It’s okay,” says Jimin when Yoongi has been quiet for too long, “Doesn’t hurt.”

“Right,” he replies, “If it hurts, you tell me okay? We can figure out what’s happening.”

“You doctor?”

“No,” he chuckles, “But I work with ani-” he stops, wonders if Jimin might be offended to be called an animal, “I work with sea creatures,” he says instead, “I could help.”

“You work?”

“Yeah, turtles, fish, starfish,” Yoongi explains, “Why do you think I was there at the reef to begin with?”

Jimin doesn’t answer, only looks at Yoongi attentively. There’s something hidden in his eyes, something that might look like fear.

“You eat the sea creatures?”

“What! No!” Yoongi yelps, “Well, I eat fish occasionally but so do you! I don’t eat turtles or anything like that! I study them, I learn about their behavior, what they do day by day. If they have families I should learn how they reproduce and their methods. If something’s wrong I have to find out why and how to fix it. I don’t hurt them at all!”

Jimin listens carefully, distractedly scratching his shoulder.

“I don’t know what I can do for you to trust me completely but-” Yoongi says, “I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you or any other creature, Jimin, really.”

The merman only listens to him, his eyes deep in Yoongi’s, “You don’t tell people my secret?”

“No,” he shakes his head, a bit surprised Jimin waited all this time to ask that, “I don’t think I should tell people about you, this is a big secret and- I’m not sure everyone would react the same way.”

Jimin nods quietly, “I don’t tell people.”

“No one knows you come to see me?”

The merman shakes his head, “Danger.”

“But I’m not-”

“I know,” Jimin interrupts, “But family doesn’t. Family scared of land walkers.”

“Oh, right, because of what you told me…” Yoongi mutters, “Well- don’t worry, okay? I won’t hurt you.”

Jimin smiles softly as he looks down to his tail, his hair falling over his eyes. Yoongi takes this as a chance to bring it to a side, to uncover his eyes. It seems Jimin likes the touch for he leans into it, closing his eyes with a sigh. Jimin’s hair is thicker than his own and he can’t even thread his fingers through since it’s so tangled but he likes the moment, he likes that Jimin feels so comfortable with him.

It’s strange when Yoongi thinks about this connection he’s found with Jimin, the excitement he feels when they meet, the pure joy he seems to give the merman just by calling his name. It’s strange because Yoongi hasn’t connected like that with anyone else – he has friends but would he dream about them at nights? Would he long for their company when they aren’t together? No, he wouldn’t. That’s something that only Jimin does.

~~~

“You’re to stay here from now on!” his father fumes, his long, dark tail slapping the sand as he erratically swims from one place to the other, “I don’t want you wandering around with that land walker!”

He spits the last words as if there was a sour taste of dead crab in his tongue – it infuriates Jimin. All his life, Jimin has respected the strong man that he called his father. He was the most powerful creature in their colony, only followed by the sharks that travelled there every other time. Jimin didn’t think they resembled each other; he knew each aspect of himself came from his mother, who was delicate, thoughtful, considerate and kind.

“But he’s my friend!” Jimin whines, “And he’s harmless, it’s been a full moon and he hasn’t put a hand on me, he even told me he’s kept me a secret!”

Somehow, one of Jimin’s cousins had seen him with Yoongi and had told his father – the King of the Deep Rocks – about their escapades, he was furious of course; Jimin had disobeyed him – even though Jimin couldn’t understand what was so wrong about it if he was safe. Jimin’s mother floats on his side without saying a word, too scared of his father’s temper.

“And you believed him, of course!”

“What’s not to believe? Have you seen more land walkers around the reef?”

“That’s not the point!” his father yells, “If I’m telling you that you’re to stay here, you will stay here!”

“No…” Jimin all but whispers, “I won’t.”

“Are you refusing?”

“Yes… I don’t want to stay here-”

“You’re the prince! You should give the example to the rest-”

“I don’t care if I’m the prince!” he cries, “I’m tired of being just a title. I’m tired that this title and this family get to control my whole life. I want to make my own decisions and I don’t want you to tell me what to do anymore!”

“Are you resigning to your title?” his father turns, causing a bunch of bubbles to surge from the water. Jimin’s heart sinks, is that what he really wants? One of his brothers could take the title, one of them might be better suited for the job anyway but… he’s the prince, no one else should be.

“No,” he answers carefully, “I- I don’t resign I just- I want things to be different.”

“And by different you mean you want to disobey me whenever you want!” his father yells. At that moment, Jimin’s mother swims between the two, her thin and elegant tail floating as if it was made of the most refine seaweed in all the seven seas.

“Maybe we should take a moment to think,” she tries, placing her long fingers on his father’s strong shoulder, “He’s just a boy.”

“It’s about time he takes responsibility!” his father roars, “If he doesn’t want to be king then someone else-”

There’s a commotion coming from outside their home, a multitude of shouts and words he can’t quite follow. The three of them share a look and swim to see what’s happening. Jimin spots some of his family members hurriedly coming in a circle, their tails hitting one another.

“Your grace,” someone says but Jimin doesn’t pay attention, “It’s your daughter, Chungha, she’s fallen incredibly ill but she wanted to see Prince Jimin, she said he knew how to fix it.”

“Me?!”

Jimin’s heart constricts when he has a glance of Chunga, her beautiful glowing face contorts in pain, her mouth has turned a faint purple and beneath her chin, blood colored veins are traveling north from the visible parts of her chest – it looks painful and Chungha’s cries are enough proof. 

~~~

Yoongi waits, sitting on the edge of the boat as usual, waits for Jimin to come splashing around. It’s a sunny morning, he had breakfast not half an hour ago and he’s feeling great overall – he picked up two sunflowers on his way to the dock from that little garden that sits at the back of the University. He was planning on explaining to Jimin what sunflowers did – how they grew tall and faced the sun as it rose from the east (since Jimin already knew the four cardinal points) and followed it across the sky until it set in the west. If everything went well after that conversation and Jimin understood how amazing and particular sunflowers were, he wanted to tell him he was very much like a sunflower, all perky and bright and clever. Would that count as a pick-up line? He didn’t think about that.

The sea looks calm, swinging with the wind.

He doesn’t see or hear him come, only feels something grabbing him at the ankle.

“Yoongi!” the merman frantically calls.

“Jesus Christ, Jimin!” he shouts, placing a hand on his chest once he realizes it’s the merman and not some other creature trying to eat him alive, “You scared me!”

“Sorry, Yoongi, you have to come!”

The merman is chest out of the water, his tail jerking and splashing uneasily – much like when Yoongi is anxious, he bounces his knee nonstop.

“What?” Yoongi asks, “Where?”

“Sister is sick!” he says in a hurry, turning his neck to see something far away, “Bad! Need help!”

“But- Jimin, you said I shouldn’t go-”

“I know-” Jimin frowns, splashing more water with his tail, “Myah doesn’t know what to do, you doctor!”

“I’m not a doctor, Jimin!” suddenly Yoongi is scared, “And- your people, won’t they be scared or mad?”

“Don’t care!” Jimin shouts, his fangs are really noticeable, “Sister is sick!”

“Okay! Okay!” Yoongi stands up to grab his scuba diving gear, starts to put on his suit, “What’s wrong with her?”

“She- the itch, itch in all her body!” Jimin starts to explain, “Dark skin, and- and- dark lines!”

“Dark lines?”

Jimin nods wildly, “Dark lines on her face. She can’t breathe.”

“So the lines are on her neck?” Yoongi asks, trying to think about any other disease he might have seen or read some time before. He couldn’t think of anything at the moment, he was too nervous with Jimin’s yells.

“Fast, Yoongi!” the merman called, turning over and over as if he was to take off any second.

“Hang on!”

When Yoongi has his suit on, he runs to the first aid kit. He feels dumb taking the allergy medicine but that’s the only idea he has, the red itch and trouble breathing were similar to what happened when Taehyung ate peanuts – Yoongi had to check what the lines Jimin was talking about were like. He packs the medicine, alcohol, gauze and other ointment he had for burns just in case it worked for irritated skin.   

Yoongi jumps into the water and tells Jimin to lead the way but the other shakes his head, “No. Slow!” he cries, “Put mask!”  

Yoongi doesn’t argue, he wears the mask and before he can realize what’s happening, Jimin takes a hold of the belt on his shoulder and bolts – quite literally. Yoongi almost screams but he was underwater, that’d be stupid. He can’t see much since the bubbles are running past in every direction, tries not to breathe erratically since the oxygen might run low too quickly. Jimin swims amazingly fast, Yoongi can’t believe he thought Jimin was a fast swimmer before. The merman starts to slow down as soon as Yoongi gets used to the speed, it didn’t even take him two minutes to reach the destination. Yoongi notices how the corals are bigger, of other colors he’d never seen before, more crabs wander around, more fishes are out of their caves. It feels like a different dimension all together.

Slower in speed, Jimin takes him to the shore, where there’s sand and rocks and Yoongi can take off his mask to breathe comfortably.

Jimin shouts something in that particular language of his and then all of the sudden, Yoongi can spot at least fifteen mermaids and mermen sitting or lying at different spots on rocks. The merpeople are incredibly, there’s not one that doesn’t have glowing skin or a shiny tail of a beautiful color, their hairs vary in tone as well, but they don’t seem to have dark colored hair – like Yoongi’s or people on land. He feels vulnerable. A few meters away, he can see merpeople gathered in a circle, the water probably reached their hips, so they were in a position similar to kneeling. 

“This way,” Jimin says slowly, he looked shy…or scared. Probably scared.

Yoongi follows quietly, leaving the heavy oxygen tank and the fins on a side so he could walk more easily. The splashing takes everyone by surprise, they can see him now, they see him walk in two legs and they’re outraged, there’s no other word to describe it. Yoongi grabs Jimin’s hand without thinking when a few mermen come marching towards him angrily, their fangs full on display. Jimin says something Yoongi can’t understand in a thick voice, something threatening – they stay back. Jimin turns to look at Yoongi with big eyes.

“I won’t let them hurt you,” he says clearly and softly, almost without an accent. It doesn’t occur to the man that Jimin has some sort of authority above the others.

Yoongi trust Jimin, he trusts him enough to have come to a place that was previously described as dangerous but he can’t help to be terrified as they go near the big group, he doesn’t think Jimin can possibly save him from everyone there. It’s two against a dozen at least. Yoongi sees several merpeople, some younger and some older, he specifically sees the merman with the pointy crown made of broken seashells and the darkest tail in there. Was that their…leader?

Jimin comes closer to them, letting go of Yoongi’s hand, and speaks up. The group turns and they make sounds similar to gasps. There, Yoongi notices someone laying down in the water. It’s a female, he can tell when her long blond hair falls from her shoulder to the ground letting show her breasts. Her body is very small and delicate, almost fragile, her skin is like Jimin’s – not quite white but it’s definitely a tone that isn’t human. Her tail is light purple and smooth like silk – Yoongi sees she’s in pain with the way she contorts and whines, her ribs marking with each heavy breath she takes, it sounds ragged, like the air is barely reaching her lungs. She must be Jimin’s sister. 

Yoongi realizes Jimin has been speaking, it sounds desperate, his hand gestures a clear sign. He points at Yoongi a couple of times and then to the girl in the middle of the circle. She smiles at him, telling him to come closer. Jimin is about to comply, only that the big merman with the dark tail stands in the middle, his chest puffed out and his fangs much bigger than any Yoongi has seen so far.

Jimin begs, he pleads the man to let them stand closer, or at least that’s what Yoongi can read with only his body language. He hasn’t stopped shaking, he doesn’t have an escape plan, not when he left his oxygen tank discarded and the merpeople could catch him in less than five seconds. He starts to come to terms with the fact that he might die there, in the hands of merpeople – he just hopes they finish him quickly. Yoongi looks at Jimin then, the desperation in his eyes, the plead in his voice, the threatening fist and fangs of that big merman that must be their leader.

Yoongi figures if they are going to kill him, it’s very likely Jimin might share the same fate as him, “It’s bad- bad things happen to you and me,” Jimin had said that time. Yoongi is too distracted in his own thoughts to realize the conversation has calmed a notch; Jimin turns to get his attention.

“Yoongi…” he calls softly, “They say you see her but- but if you do something to hurt you- you dead.”

Jimin grimaces as he says this. Yoongi walks slowly, raising his hand to show he’s only going to open the little blue bag attached to his hip, “I won’t do anything to harm her,” he answers for Jimin to translate, his voice quivers, “I’m going to examine her first.”

“Examine?”

“See what’s wrong with her,” he clarifies quickly, he doesn’t want any misunderstandings. Yoongi comes close enough to the mermaid, he kneels by her side, sees the marks much clearer, it’s the same marks Jimin has in some parts of his body only that they look more painful, the skin is almost raw, opening it in patterns that look like lightning in the sky, the white dots are bigger and grosser – Jimin’s sister hisses when Yoongi places his gloved hand on her ribs. She mutters something in that language of them and Jimin crawls to stand next to them, “Hurts,” the young merman translates.

“She can’t breathe, right?” Yoongi asks, placing his left hand by her neck, seeing as her gills are closed at the moment. Jimin translates, asking the question in his language. The girl shakes her head slowly. Yoongi’s brain is running 100 m/hour, trying to come up with an answer for this situation. The things he studied before are out of his brain, he can’t think of a disease at that moment – his work doesn’t even involve diseases! He’s not a veterinarian! The one image that keeps coming and going is Taehyung’s swollen lips when he ingests peanuts, Taehyung’s thick voice when he claims his throat is closing up after eating seafood, Taehyung’s swollen fingers when he gets stung by bees, Taehyung’s red skin when it’s too hot, he’s too sweaty and his skin doesn’t resist and starts getting irritated.

Taehyung was allergic to almost everything, so he and Namjoon had learned how to apply the allergy medicine a few years back (saving them several trips to the hospital). Yoongi doesn’t think it’ll cure her but he hopes, he hopes with all his might as he takes the syringe from the tiny bag.

“Jimin, listen,” he calls for the merman, “I’m taking a syringe from my bag. It’s a pointy and sharp object that has some medicine in it. I’ll use it on your sister so don’t be scared, okay? It’ll hurt just a little bit but hopefully it’ll help her breathe better.”  

Jimin nods in understanding, starts to explain to her sister the same things Yoongi told him. He’d wish he had thought about it a bit more. The moment the merpeople realized Yoongi had a pointy object in his hand, they all but jumped at him. Jimin gasped and as quick as lightning stood between him and the rest, Yoongi shivered when he looked at their fangs, all ready to attack. Jimin begged and begged, pushed some of them away so they would let Yoongi apply the injection. The merpeople screamed in protest, splashing water with their strong tails. Yoongi hurried, placing the syringe in that one strategic spot in the mermaid’s arm.

He noticed Jimin was worried as well but he didn’t protest, he just watched as his sister hissed and then relaxed, her breathing still heavy. Yoongi wasn’t religious but God, he prayed it worked, he prayed the mermaid’s metabolism was somewhat similar to a human’s and the allergy medicine did something – otherwise he was a dead man.

“It’ll take a couple of minutes,” he explains, his own heart beating furiously.

“She will cure?” Jimin asks carefully, stealing glances to the bigger merman with the crown.

“I don’t know,” Yoongi answers, “I don’t think so, this looks bad. I’d have to run some tests, maybe take samples of her skin to see if there’s strange bacteria in-”

The strong merman with the crown comes closer, his wide chest puffed out, his tail punching the water as if to get everyone’s attention.  He speaks to Jimin, his voice is so thick Yoongi imagines it must be painful for him to speak. Jimin answers him, somehow he looks scared but decided, his eyes are sharp and his lips pursed. A third mermaid gets their attention but this time, she points at Jimin’s sister, who’s still lying in the water. There’s a commotion, mermaids and mermen all gather around her and Yoongi knows that’s his last day on earth. She’s probably dying, choking on air, Yoongi gave her a shot and finished her for good.

Jimin sinks by her side, his tail touching Yoongi’s calves, he grabs her by the head and says something. Yoongi looks up at the bright blue sky, wondering how his life turned out like this.

“Yoongi,” Jimin calls, his voice sounds tired all of the sudden, “She say she breathe better…” and when the merman turns, his smile is of relief. Yoongi sighs when he sees it, the glint of his eyes and the pretty curve of his pink lips. Yoongi sinks on his knees relieved. He might live. The moment doesn’t last long, the merpeople start to come closer to Yoongi, with that same predatory look. Jimin lets go of his sister and stands in front of him, grabbing his hand with his own. “Go, Yoongi,” he says cautiously, “Take mask and go.”

“But- I don’t know where I am,” he says quickly.

“Just go,” he repeats, his eyes are bigger in alarm, “I find you and take you to boat, but go!”

Yoongi doesn’t understand completely but he complies, turning and running to where he left the oxygen tank by the sand. He has an advantage for he can run much faster, rising his knees above the water – he realizes merpeople can’t be quite as agile in that shallow pond (their tails seem too heavy) Yoongi puts on the oxygen tank, his mask and fins and just when he’s about to sink and swim, he thinks it through: is it really a good idea to go on deeper waters when mermaids are following him? He looks back and sees them in the distance; he can’t sink, if he does he’s definitely dead.

He hears a screech much further and the merpeople stop altogether. Jimin appears, looking confident and powerful, his back is straight and his eyes look threating. Yoongi wishes he could understand what the merman is saying for the others stop chasing after him, they stay back as Jimin crawls to be closer to Yoongi – he steals glances of course, his façade falls with each step he’s closer to Yoongi, he’s nervous and worried.

“We go now!” he says, “Give me your hand.”

Just like last time, once their hands connect, Jimin jumps in the water and bolts – his speed probably unmatchable to any other sea creature of his size. Yoongi is still terrified but he’s relieved, he’s relieved they’re getting away. He doesn’t understand what happened completely but he hopes Jimin will explain the best he can. They reach his boat in less than five minutes.

Jimin’s head comes out of the water first, followed by Yoongi. It’s the first quiet and calmed moment they have that day and Yoongi realizes the other seems…gloomy.  He looks back a couple of times, pushes Yoongi to get on the boat, “Go home,” he voices hesitantly.

“Wait, are you going back there?” Yoongi asks in alarm, trying to pry himself of Jimin’s strong hands, “Will you be okay? And what about your sister-”

“Sister better,” he answers with much bigger eyes, “Isn’t she?”

“I told you, that medicine isn’t permanent and-” he explains carefully, his body almost reaching the stairs to climb the boat, “You might get just as sick as her, Jimin, why don’t you- I need to run some tests on you or someone on your family, I need to see what’s going on.”

Jimin stares at the ocean water, his jaw clenching and unclenching with each tormented thought he has. The merman looks up at Yoongi once again, with a thousand questions swirling in his dark pupils.

“Go home,” he repeats and just when Yoongi is about to protest, he says, “And I follow you.”