Archive of Our Own ^beta

Mermaid au

Jimin was someone who easily believed in anything he read or was told. He couldn't help it. His brain just had a way of making most things believable.

Like this one time where his classmates in highschool kept talking about the rumor of a female ghost walking the halls and chasing down any student she sees past school hours. 

He had tried to dismiss it as something ridiculous and nothing but a rumor, but he couldn't stop thinking about it no matter what he did until even the mere thought of it terrified him and he found himself skipping his afternoon dance club. 

Hoseok was the one that cornered him and asked him why he was missing club meetings. And when he told him, Hoseok, unsurprised that it was something as simple as a rumored ghost (because he knew Jimin all too well), started walking with him to and from the afternoon meetings.

So, as expected, when he read about rumored sightings of mermaids, he couldn't help but feel excited and intrigued at the possibility that they could exist.

"Mermaids don't exist, Jimin." Hoseok drawled.

The first thing he had done after reading about it was to call over Hoseok, who was none too happy when he arrived to find out what Jimin had wanted him for.

"But hyung you don't understand! There's pictures as proofs and everything!" He jumped on the balls of his feet excitedly as he watched his hyung flop down on his apartment sofa with a groan.

"Jiminie, pictures can be edited. You know this better than anyone."

And he did. It was a part of his major when he was in college. But he wasn't thinking about that at the moment.

"This is just like when you thought vampires were real."

Yes, he had believed vampires were real. 

That is what happened after he read too many vampire books and got curious and went to research them only to gain even more curiosity and eventually start to believe that yes, they exist.

Hoseok, at the time, was the sole victim of his excitement as soon as he stumbled upon this new-found information.

It had gotten so bad that he even dragged him on a road trip two states over because he thought he had found their coven. Hoseok still didn't know why he allowed him to drag him there.

It had taken him a week (consisting of long conversations, debunking videos and logic) to finally convince him that they weren't real, and it took another week of movie marathons and wine to cheer him up after he got bummed out by it.

He immediately chucked his shoe at a smirking Hoseok who blocked the object with his arms.

"Wait...you believed vampires were real?"

He spun around with a pout and saw Taehyung, his roommate, standing there with his jaw dropped. His brown hair was slightly ruffled and his large grey t-shirt was stretched across his broad shoulders, his sweats dragging along the floor behind him.

Kim Taehyung. A man he instantly clicked with and became close with almost immediately in his last year of college. He was majoring in photography at the time and had literally run into Jimin when he was searching for someone to model for him. For a project of some sort.

He had quoted these words exactly: "I asked for a model and god gave me his angel. Heck yes."

When they had lain tangled together on the ground that day during lunch break, being the socialite that he was, he hit it off with Hoseok too when he joined them.

Hit it off a little too well if he must say.

It had been almost disgusting to watch. The way their eyes wouldn't leave each other and how they, for some reason, had forgotten he was there because they were so absorbed in each other. As much as Jimin was a romantic himself, doesn't mean he liked being the single third wheel. Hopefully one day he would find someone to love and care for too.

"And what about it?"

"I did too!"

"What?" both he and Hoseok said at the same time.

"Wait...you didn't know? I thought I told you."

"My boyfriend is as crazy as my best friend. What did I ever do?" Hoseok groaned from his spot on the couch.

With a wave of his hand, he went over to Taehyung and grabbed his wrist. "Let's leave the non-believer and go talk about how hot and cold vampires are."

Hoseok lifted his head and called out to their retreating figures, "Are we still on for the beach tomorrow?" and heard their unified "Yes!"

That night, like every other night, Jimin found himself staring at the moon from his window. He didn’t know why it was so hard for him to fall immediately to sleep at night, but it wasn’t something he particularly complained about. He always felt as if there was something out of the norm about the moon. Something mystical even. He felt drawn to it. A pull that reached his very core but it felt...natural, so he let it happen. 

The full moon was out tonight, so the pull was stronger. He was relaxed, weightless. He watched the moon until his eyes got heavy and his body dropped, and with one last look towards the moon, he finally went to bed.

❤❤❤❤

As usual, Jimin was the last to go to sleep but the first to rise.

He and taehyung had spent most of the night talking about vampires and covens and how romantic it would be to cuddle up to a vampire on a warm summer’s day to help cool down...before Hoseok came and kidnapped his boyfriend so they could get some sleep.

He left his room and went straight to the kitchen. He took one quick glance at everything and said, "Cereal for breakfast it is." And that was where the sleepy couple found him when they dragged their heavy feet over to him.

"Where's ours?" Hoseok asked groggily, his voice still laced with remnants of sleep.

"Still in the box," was his straight reply as he shoved another spoonful of cereal into his mouth.

"I grew you and this is how you repay me?"

"I grew my wings and now I'm flying on my own. You have yours too, so use them."

He flicked him and proceeded to drag Taehyung with him to pass by.

"I want a spoon, Jimin."

"Here you go, sweetie."

He raised a spoon to give to the baby bird that is Taehyung, but he was yanked away by his scowling boyfriend.

"If I have to make my own, so do you."

"But you're my boyfriend. Make it for me." He pouted.

"As Jiminie so quoted, I grew my wings and now I'm flying on my own. You have yours too so use them." He punctuated this statement by shoving him towards the cereal box.

With identical pouts on their faces, they made their breakfast together before they joined Jimin at the table.

"So what's the plan for today?" Hoseok inquired as he ate.

"Um, a plan? I thought we were just going to pack a food basket and our beach things before we leave..."

"Well, that's it. That's the plan."

That resulted in a pair of blank looks, and he shrugged at them as Jimin got up to wash his empty plate.

"I'll meet you guys back in the living room in like forty-five minutes to an hour," he told them with a nod of his head and got a look of pure shock from his best friend.

"Forty-five minutes to an hour?!" Hoseok choked out.

"Yeah. What about it?"

"You're getting thirty minutes and nothing more."

"Are you my mother?"

"Yes. Yes I am."

Jimin huffed, flicked his hair and left the pair laughing behind him.

Forty-five minutes later, Jimin emerged from his room in his knee-length shorts and white elbow-length shirt with his white sneakers, his blond hair brushed back.

"Told you," was Hoseok’s first comment when he saw him. "If I had given him his forty-five to an hour, he wouldn't be out yet."

"Whatever. Did you pack the basket?"

"Duh. Let's go."

Jimin rolled his eyes and followed behind the pair to lock up after making sure that everything was safe in its place and that nothing was left on.

"Of course you would be in the passenger seat," Jimin stated after he spied Taehyung bouncing in the front.

"Well obviously. My boyfriend is the one driving."

"Don't be pouty, Jimin." Hoseok pinched his cheek as he entered the car, and Jimin did too pout right afterwards with a scowl in Hoseok’s direction.

"Woo!" Taehyung yelled as the car started. "To the beach we go!" And then they were gone.

Jimin had always loved the beach. The smell of the salt wafting up his nose, the sound of the waves crashing against the shore. It was calming. It was cool and the atmosphere helped him to clear his mind when everything became too much.

It was his mending place, and he cherished it.

So he couldn't help the smile that stretched across his face when they pulled into the parking lot.

The first thing he did was to yank his clothes off, all except for his shorts. He slathered on his sunscreen before he made a beeline straight for the water.

"You could help us with the stuff you know!" Hoseok yelled after him.

He stopped in his tracks and flung his head back with a groan before he stomped his way back up the car to grab the food.

"Thank you." Hoseok smiled sweetly.

"Yeah, yeah."

They found a clear spot by the trees and placed their stuff there and almost immediately the two love birds curled into each other.

“Of course I was going to be the third wheel,” he mumbled to himself as he shook his head and headed straight for the water.

He wasted no time in diving beneath the surface, the water surrounding him like one big bear hug, and he welcomed it.

He swam and swam until he realized that he had swum too far. Nowhere unfamiliar, but it'd been a while since he'd been there.

A small corner of the beach where it had its own little shore, surrounded by trees causing shade to fall over the area. A quiet little spot where the tide was bearable. He hoped no one else had found it.

He couldn't stay though, the love induced pair might think he’d drowned or something.

Though as he turned to go back, something caught his eye.

It was so fast he thought he almost imagined it. Was that a tail? he thought. But he brushed it off.

He turned again to leave and felt something brush against his leg that had him screaming and swimming to the closest place, the shore.

Fuck that. Fuck that. He’d never heard about any shark sightings on this beach for however long he'd lived there, but he wasn't about to take a chance and be the first to get eaten.

His eyes were trained on the waters looking intently for a shark fin, but after ten minutes of looking, his heart rate slowed and he felt it was safe to return.

On his way back, he felt the same feeling against his leg and held a scream ready at his throat but froze instead of releasing it.

He cocked his head curiously at the red-haired person that was peeking above the water. Only half of their face was being shown.

"Um...hi?"

He got no reply. They just stared at him. Their big doe eyes blinked curiously at him in a way that almost seemed child-like.

He was about to ask them something else when he just barely made out the sound of Taehyung and Hoseok yelling for him like a pair of banshees.

"I, I have to go...um, ok." He spared them one more glance before he swam away towards the pair that sounded like they had just lost their child.

The closer he got to shore, the more he felt as if someone was staring a hole through his head, and when he glanced back, there he was, the red-head, watching him.

"OH MY GOD JIMIN! WHERE THE HELL WERE YOU?!" And that would be Hoseok. Momentarily forgetting about the red-head, he swam straight into the wide-open arms of Hoseok and Taehyung, who couldn't wait for him to leave the water.

"WE THOUGHT YOU DROWNED!" Taehyung screamed in his ear and he flinched.

"I swam too far and I didn't realize, sorry. I was on another side of the beach." He giggled into their hugs.

"Don't don't do that to us again!" He almost rolled his eyes but when he thought about it, they had every right to be worried.

"Hey Min, who's that staring at you?" He turned to see what Taehyung was gesturing at and saw the red-head still there, half his head still peeking from above the waves.

"Don't know."

"Ooooh, Min has an admirer," Taehyung teased with a poke in his cheeks.

This time he rolled his eyes with a smile and shoved his hand away from his cheeks. "Yeah, yeah. Let's go eat—I'm hungry."

And as he went about having fun for the rest of the day, he could still feel the stare of a certain red-head from afar.

❤❤❤❤

It was another month and two weeks before Jimin had another break and decided to go back to the beach. For some reason his thoughts had been plagued with questions about the red-haired man. Who was he? Why was he staring at him so much? Why were his eyes so pre— anyways, he was going back.

The wind was blowing cool and the sun was offering just the right amount of heat.

He had borrowed Hoseok's car knowing that he wasn't using it that weekend. He’d planned to stay in with his boyfriend and watch movies all day.

Instead of driving to the front where they always parked, he drove further down where it was more deserted and parked there.

He grabbed his towel and food from the car and padded his way through a few trees before he reached where he’d swum to the last time he was there.

The moment he got comfortable, he could almost immediately feel the stress and knots in his shoulders loosening. He felt lighter. He felt like he could breathe again.

He stripped off his shirt, and with his trunks on he ran straight for the water and dived in.

He’d all but forgotten about the red-head...

Until he turned to head back to shore and almost ran into the one that had been infiltrating his thoughts.

He was just...there. Looking at him and blinking with his round, dark eyes. It wasn't really scaring him. It was just...strange.

"Hi?"

As he expected. No response.

"What's your name?"

He expected nothing again, but his eyes widened when he lifted his head above the water. No answer, but this was progress.

He blinked at him once more and drifted forward a little.

It startled Jimin because he didn't expect him to do that, but nevertheless, he gave the red-headed man a smile.

"What's your name?"

His face scrunched together in concentration before his lips parted. "Koo..."

"Koo?" He got a small nod in response.

"Um...hi, Koo."

He blinked at him. "...hi..."

His voice was so small and he was just downright adorable but...

"Where's your parents?"

He drifted closer again. "P...par...ents?" 

Jimin opened his mouth to speak again, but the feeling of his leg muscles tightening cut him off.

"Ow, shit," he hissed as the cramp worsened.

"Hurt?" Koo asked curiously.

"Y-yeah. Hey, I'll talk to you later, yeah?" He didn't wait for a response and turned to go back to shore with difficulty.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow." He pulled himself onto the sand and grabbed his right leg, massaging the area as best as he could.

"Hurt?" He looked up and Koo was at the edge of the shoreline, his lower body still in the water.

"Yeah, but I'll be fine," he told him.

He watched his forehead crease in the middle again as a look of pure concentration crossed his features. He was so cute with the world's cutest nose scrunch ever.

He stayed like that for a good five minutes, then he started crawling forward before hesitating and looking back. He seemingly smiled at his legs before continuing forward until he reached Jimin.

He cocked his head curiously at the flared red on Jimin’s cheeks. "Um... you're, you're kind of... naked."

And he was. Butt-ass naked sitting on his heels, and his body was a sight that made Jimin want to frame it and put it in his home to admire every day...ok that sounded creepy but listen—

"Help now?" His eyes were so...large and round...and innocent that Jimin wanted to grab him and squeeze him.

"Um..." Should he or should he not? "Its...it's fine really." He smiled.

"Want he— t-to help." He shifted forward and Jimin practically melted at the eager puppy-like look on his face. If he had a tail it would be wagging at a fast rate behind him.

"It's f-fine now. Don't worry, okay?" He wasn't lying either. He lifted his hands and moved his leg to show that it was okay. 

As much as he would love for this adorable tall glass of water to touch him, he couldn't. He didn't know jack shit about the guy.

"Okay?"

"Yeah, I'm good." He nodded his head in affirmation. "So Koo, where are you from and where're your parents?" He needed to know because he looked old enough, but he had the face of a baby basically, and he didn't want anyone thinking he kidnapped their kid.

"Mmm...water." He pointed behind himself.

"Water?"

"Mm."

Jimin was confused. Why was he talking about the water?

"What's wrong with the water?"

His face scrunched up into that look of concentration before he pointed at the water again.

"From water."

Huh? "You're...from the water?" Ridiculous. He prob wasn't sane. Damnit. A hot guy pays attention to him for the first time in what felt like decades and he was crazy.

"Secret," he whispered.

Oh, good. He really was insane. How could he leave without being straight up rude?

"Um...I have to go now." He moved to get up and took a step back when his hand was grabbed.

"No!" Jimin would have yanked his hand back if it weren't for the sadness written across his face. Jimin was a softie, so sue him. He couldn't help it.

"What?"

"No!"

His sentences were broken. He spoke as if he was a child. That was what was making him confused. Was he an adult or not?

"You don't...want me to go?"

"No!" He shook his head from side to side. "New friend!"

Jimin could feel his heart melt at the sight of the puppy eyes that were honed in on him. So no one could really blame him for going back to sit next to the cute stranger.

"Tell secret. Don't go!" He still had a firm grip on Jimin’s arm, and Jimin’s strength kink was about to come to light because he could tell that Koo was quite strong.

"What secret?"

"You don't tell?" he leaned forward and whispered. Jimin almost wanted to reach up and pinch his cheeks.

"Won't tell." He smiled to reassure the other.

"Okay."

He finally released Jimin’s hand from his grip and stood up.

The flush that covered Jimin’s face was unavoidable, since Koo's...thing was dangling right there in his face.

He fought not to stare and spun his head the other way.

"Look!" 

Dude! That was what he didn't want to do.

"Look!" He called again but he sounded a bit further away, so Jimin turned back and saw him heading towards the water.

What was he even doing?

He didn't slow in his stride at all and dived right under the water.

Maybe this was Jimin’s chance to run before his crazy ass came back.

But Jimin's curiosity won over anything else, so he remained seated where he was until he saw Koo's red head pop up from beneath the water.

He motioned him closer.

Don't go, Jimin. You don't know what he's gonna do.

Jimin got up and walked closer to the waterline. He was curious. Don't judge him.

He bent down and watched as he looked around for anyone else before he turned back with a smile.

Needless to say, what Jimin saw next almost had him passing out. His breath locked in his throat. It couldn't be. It just couldn't be. It wasn't possible. But Hoseok said...and Hoseok had been right so far...but nevertheless he just saw...and deep down—not very far—in his gut he knew that what he was seeing in front of him, was real.

Koo, probably seeing the stricken look on Jimin’s face crawled back out of the water, his tail or fin or whatever, ranging from sky blue to dark blue with its shimmering scales, dragging behind him.

He paused before his nose scrunched in concentration, and if Jimin almost passed out from his stopped breath before, then he definitely wasn't breathing now...and maybe that was the reason his vision went black at the sight of Koo's tail slowly morphing into a pair of long, thick muscled legs.

 ❤❤❤❤

When Jimin came to, he was on his bed with a cloth over his forehead.

He groaned and threw the cloth next to him as he sat up.

"Jimin!"

"Ah!" He flipped over from the body that collided with his. Well, more like bodies.

"Taehyung, Hoseok, get. off," he wheezed.

"We thought you were dead!" What?

"What? Wait...how did I get here? Where's Koo?" He twisted his head from left to right searching for the red-head but didn't see him anywhere.

"Oh, him. He locked himself in the bathroom twenty minutes ago," Taehyung said in the most casual tone ever.

"What?! Why?!" He jumped off the bed and swayed on his feet for a moment before grounding himself.

"Take your time, Min. You were passed out for a couple of hours."

He was so confused. What the hell had happened? "Huh? What even happened?"

They each took him by the hand and sat him back down on the bed.

"Well," Hoseok started, "it was when we started to get worried because you hadn't returned, and it was starting to get dark. We knew you usually spend a while at the beach but not THAT long, so we came looking for you. We had to take a cab of course, which was a fucking hassle, Jesus can you believe—"

"Hyung!"

"Sorry, where was I? Okay. So we came looking for you, but we couldn't find you on the beach. Imagine how fucking terrified we were? I almost lost my damn mind."

He saw the frown deepening on his hyung's face and felt guilty for making him worry again. He reached his hand around his waist to hug him. "Sorry, hyung."

He felt his hand run over his still slightly damp hair. "It's alright, Min, just glad you're safe."

"You should've seen him screaming his head off on the beach. This couple saw him and told him to be quiet, and he told them to go suck on a rusty nail and almost kicked the guy's head off, but I managed to pull him back."

"I have no regrets," Hoseok huffed, but Jimin only smiled and hugged him tighter.

"Until we saw this red-haired dude dragging you on his back up the beach from God knows where—" Taehyung's eyes were wide as he told his story.

"Koo!" He remembered.

"Yeah, him. So Hoseok, in full father mode, took you first and checked if you were okay before he turned on him and started questioning him but the poor boy looked so confused. Hoseok then simmered down a little to ask him what happened and he yelled ‘nothing!’ like he was hiding something but anyways he told us his name after we asked and then led us to your stuff like why the fuck did you park so far oh my god!"

Both Jimin and Hoseok looked at Taehyung who seemed as though he wasn't taking any breaths while recounting what happened. He looked like he was having fun telling his story.

"So some doctor who was thankfully on the beach at the time reassured us that you just passed out and that you should be fine but we should get you warmed up to prevent anything from happening. We thanked him and when we got ready to leave this Koo dude outright REFUSED to leave. Like he kept speaking in broken English which was kind of cute and latched onto my arm but here we have this naked dude hanging on my arm and instead of being glad we didn't call the police on his weird ass, he was refusing to let us leave without him."

He took a deep breath.

"So we came back here and he latched onto your side the whole time we cleaned you up and put you to bed, but like, twenty minutes ago he locked himself in the bathroom and hasn't been out since. End."

There was a minute of silence before Jimin jumped off his bed and rushed to the bathroom door despite his dizziness and the calls from his friends to sit back down.

"Koo! Koo are you okay?!" He yelled as he knocked on the door rapidly.

He stopped and waited for some sort of reply and got it not long after. "Min? Min!"

"Pull the door, Koo."

"Okay!"

He heard a lot of bumping around and winced at some of the harsh sounds before he heard the click of the lock.

He wasted no time and pushed the door open only to bump into something on the floor and almost fall over.

His tail.

He hurriedly closed the door before Taehyung and Hoseok could see. "Koo, what happened?"

He looked up from his place on the floor with his bright innocent eyes and hummed. "Well...itched so...found water to stop itch." He nodded to himself as if proud that he’d almost made a complete sentence.

"Oh! So can you can't stay on land long?" he asked curiously.

"Can survive! Just...hmm...will itch. Brother taught me!"

Now that shocked him. He didn't expect him to have a brother. "Your brother was the one that taught you everything?"

"Yup! Is Min okay now?" He pouted.

He giggled. "Yeah, yeah, I'm okay. Can I touch your tail, Koo?"

"Yes!" And it surprised Jimin when the tail flapped.

This was such a RARE opportunity that it was almost like he was in a dream. He slowly reached out and lightly stroked the side of his tail. It was so light, it tickled and caused Koo to shiver.

It felt...well, wet and thick. He expected it to feel slimy, but it wasn't. It was hard but not too hard to the point where it would be stiff and hard to move. And it was just so pretty. Jimin wanted to take a picture of it and frame it but...that might seem too weird.

He eventually withdrew his hand and glanced up. Was Koo blushing? He was the definition of adorable and no one could change his mind.

"Hey! You guys okay in there?" Hoseok's voice came through the door followed by three consecutive knocks, and Jimin realized that he was maybe in there too long and he had to get Koo to hide his tail.

"Yeah! Give us a sec!"

He bent back down and whispered. "Alright Koo, you're going to have to hide your tail now, okay?"

"Why? Danger?"

Jimin giggled again at Koo's innocence. "No, sweetie. But my friends don't know you're a mermaid so we don't want to scare them, okay?"

His eyebrows scrunched together and he hummed before he nodded. "Okay!"

Unbeknownst to them, on the other side of the door, two eavesdroppers were shocked stiff and couldn’t believe what they had just heard. 

They had been about to leave to give them their privacy when they had faintly heard Jimin’s uttered words. Taehyung’s eyes grew wider and brighter, almost childlike, and meanwhile, Hoseok looked as if he had imagined what he had just heard.

Mermaid? But that wasn’t supposed to exist. They must be playing. They must be. But deep down they knew they weren’t.

Hoseok had to grab a hold of Taehyung before his boyfriend could bust through the door in all his excited glory and pull him away to the kitchen with his mind still scrambled.

Back in the bathroom, Jimin watched Koo close his eyes in concentration before gaping in amazement as his tail slowly morphed into the pair of legs that he loved.

"Let's go."

Koo grabbed his outstretched hand and let himself be pulled up. He immediately wrapped himself around Jimin's frame, and Jimin just ruffled his hair laughing. "Cutie."

After he helped Koo into his baby blue bathrobe that hung behind the door, they exited the bathroom and, weirdly, his friends were nowhere to be seen, but he soon found them in the kitchen making food. The weird thing was, when they got to the kitchen, they were only spared a glance before both boys looked away.

Hoseok looked almost nervous while Taehyung looked giddy and wouldn't look them in the eye.

"Uh...everything okay?"

"Uh, yeah sure." Hoseok would’ve been more believable if his voice hadn't cracked halfway through.

He rolled his eyes and sighed at the pair. "Alright. Spill it. What's wrong?"

Meanwhile, Koo couldn’t care less about anything going on. He was too busy nuzzling the hell out of Jimin's neck and sniffing him. Jimin would find it extremely weird...if he wasn't enjoying it, but back to the pair being sketchy.

He watched them exchange looks before Taehyung dropped what he was doing and ran over to grab Jimin's hands.

It was natural for Taehyung to do this but apparently he should've made that clear to Koo, who growled and abruptly yanked on Jimin's hands.

"Don't...grab...Min."

Jimin spun around with his jaw dropped and held Koo's pouting face in his hands. "Aw, sweetie, you got a full sentence."

Koo physically preened under Jimin’s praise, ignoring the the flabbergasted looks they were getting.

"Jiminie!"

"Oh! Sorry Tae, what was it?" He spun back around and Koo went straight back to Jimin's neck.

"So we...kind of...eavesdropped on you two in the bathroom. Heh."

It took a while to click as he watched Taehyung in front of him nervously wringing his hands, Hoseok tense at the sink.

When it did sink in, Jimin's hand paused where it was in Koo's hair and his eyes widened. "Oh my god!” His eyes shifted between the two, and if possible, his eyes got wider. He opened his mouth to speak but got cut off.

“Wait! Don’t scream! First off, Hoseok hyung over here is still in shock and doesn’t believe it for a second. Even said that Koo was crazy.” He gestured behind him to the still tensed Hoseok with his back turned. “While I, on the other hand,” He placed his hand to his chest, “am excited at the possibility that there’s a mythical creature among us.

“Uh…” Jimin was at a loss for words but could anyone blame him? He didn’t know what to do. Luckily for him, Taehyung started speaking again.

“So uh...can we see his tail? For Hoseok to believe and for my dreams to come true?” He was practically vibrating where he stood, and if Jimin weren’t shocked still he probably would’ve cooed at him. 

“Um...Koo?”

Without lifting his head from Jimin’s neck, he answered, “Hm?”

“They want to see your tail...is that okay?” This time he lifted his head and peered at the two of them cautiously before he looked back at Jimin. 

“No tell?”

“They won’t...right?” He questioned the pair.

“We won’t!” Taehyung answered. 

Hoseok sighed heavily and dried his hands before he spun around. “Okay.”

Koo looked at them for a while before he nodded his head and proceeded to pull Jimin with him to the bathroom. When he got there, he took off his robe without an ounce of shame and stepped inside the tub. 

He took a quick glance at his friends, and while Taehyung looked positively over the moon, Hoseok looked skeptical of the whole thing. That was until he watched Koo fumble around with the knobs and water started spraying from the shower head. His frown transformed into a look of pure surprise with his mouth dropped open, as Koo’s legs morphed into his long shimmery blue tail. 

A few things took place after that: Taehyung screamed, which spooked Koo into screaming, and Hoseok fainted. Well then.

❤❤❤❤

Jimin had to calm down Koo, who latched onto Jimin and hid behind him, refusing to let go and almost yanking him into the tub, the shower now off.

Taehyung had stopped screaming after he realized that his boyfriend had fainted. Jimin had tried to help but couldn’t move because Koo wasn’t letting him go at all.

“Koo, it’s okay. You can let go now.” But he didn’t. “Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked over his shoulder, his forehead creasing in concern. 

Koo hesitated. “Um…tell soon?”

“Ok…” Jimin looked him over with his eyebrow raised before he turned back around to go check on Hoseok. Koo let him move this time.

They got him to his room and on his bed, and after after checking to see if he had hit his head hard anywhere, they deemed him okay.

Future conversations or discussions that needed to happen were unfortunately forgotten as they spent the rest of the day looking after the eldest.

Taehyung was the caregiver for the day as he ran back and forth between different rooms, practically a master multi-tasker. He made them dinner and saved a plate for when his boyfriend would wake up, which he eventually did half an hour after dinner was finished.

❤❤❤❤

They went over a few things with Hoseok and Taehyung after that, you know, after they informed them of the brother called Seokjin, who was currently searching for his sibling. Hoseok looked almost faint again but he was fine. 

They all agreed that Jungkook would be sleeping with him, that they needed to find a way for him to ease his itching when he was aching for water after a while, to which Jimin found a solution.

“Here. This is a bottle of lotion, the more liquidy kind to use on your feet when you feel the itch for water, and this is a spray bottle filled with water. Don't spray it on your legs, you know, because it'll turn and such...so spray it everywhere else except there,” he told a surprised Koo as he held out his hands that gripped the bottles.

Jimin honestly did not expect that to work but after going on a test run for awhile, it did.

They also talked about getting him clothes because, well...he took to walking around their home naked very often...not that Jimin had any problems with that, but the other two certainly did. 

Clothes. Jimin came to realise that it was probably the hardest thing Jimin had ever done, because Koo in a black ripped skinny jeans and a plaid fitted button down should be considered a crime. Jimin spent a majority of the shopping spree either mentally drooling over Koo's fit or glancing left and right at Koo trying on hoodies with the sleeves rubbing the knuckles of his fingers. He was truly after Jimin’s heart, and he was heading for it full force. Bunny-toothed smile and all. 

He eventually found out too that all Koo could eat was meat, well specifically, fish. That was all he ate when he was home. His body wasn’t used to anything else, so it took a while for his body to get accustomed to different foods. 

Jimin was happy to say that Koo was getting more and more settled in. And his sentences? Full and complete. He learned fast. Jimin had once asked him if he didn’t miss his brother, and he had said, “Yeah, I do but he has quite the sniffer on him, so he’ll find me eventually.” 

When Koo had said that he would be clingy, he meant it. After showing Koo where he worked, almost everyday after that he came there during his lunch, and he didn’t really mind it much since he didn’t like leaving him alone for eight hours even though they had showed him how the tv worked.

Plus, his co-workers had taken a liking to him and his vibrant red hair. A little too well in Jimin’s opinion. He didn’t have to do much about the vultures that wanted to swarm his Koo, because as soon as they tried to be flirty, he would just say two words—“I’m taken”—and they would be gone. 

He felt so much satisfaction from it that he couldn’t refrain from running his hand through his hair in reward.

As for the two of them now, they were at a park where Koo was chasing the baby ducks while Jimin watched, his eyes trained on the overgrown man-child he’d come to love.

Love…

Love?

Did he love Koo? It had only been a month. Was it possible to fall in love with someone in four weeks? 

His eyes focused on the humorous sight of Koo having a screaming match with the mother of the baby ducks, and Jimin felt his expression soften. He came to the conclusion that, yes, it was possible to fall in love within a month. 

He was about to tell Koo leave the mother and her babies alone, when his phone started ringing in his pocket. He fetched it from his jeans and saw that Hoseok was calling him and quickly answered.

“Ho—”

“Jimin!” Hoseok’s frantic voice cut him off. “You need to get home now!”

Jimin was already waving his hand to get Koo’s attention. He started making his way over with a frown.

“Just get here, please!” And then Hoseok hung up with a faint sound in the background that sounded like Taehyung shouting “No!”

“Everything alright?” Koo asked worriedly. 

“I don’t think so—we have to get home.” 

He nodded an ‘okay’ and reached down to grab his hand as they walked back to the car. Holding hands with Koo was almost second nature to him now. It was just natural. 

Moving too fast? Probably. Did he care? Not really.

He might’ve broken a few speed limits here and there while driving home, but that was no one’s business. He swung the car in the parking lot and locked it behind them as they raced up to their home and threw the door open. 

What he saw when they burst through the door was not anything he expected. 

There was a naked man standing on top of the table in the centre of the room with a tree branch aimed at Taehyung. His blond hair came just above his wide shoulders with his bangs brushing just the top of his eyes. 

“Give me my brother back, you peasants!” 

There was a horrified Hoseok clutching his phone to his chest, peeking over the couch, while Taehyung was the one trying to take the stranger head-on. 

“Excuse me?! Who are you calling a peasant, you limp dick mad-man.” 

Jimin and Hoseok’s mouths dropped open out of shock. Of course Taehyung would be the only person crazy enough to stand up to a naked man waving around a thick tree branch. 

Wait, did he say brother?

“Jinie-hyung!” Koo’s voice broke through the tense atmosphere as he took off and proceeded to tackle the man off their table in a hug.

Jinie-hyung?

Wait…

“Baby Koo!” the man yelled and squeezed Koo in a hug.

“You’re his brother!” His brother had finally found him. He was happy to finally meet the brother that Koo looked up to so much. Granted, he hadn’t expected for it to happen like this, but it was whatever.

He found himself on the other end of a glare. “Yes I am, and you’re the one that stole my brother.”

He was about to reply when Koo lifted his hand and pinched his brother’s nose. 

“Ow, Koo, stop that! That hurts!”

He only pinched harder. “Stop glaring at him.”

“Okay! Shit, alright!” He finally let go and got up off him, then helping him up as well. 

“Why are you acting so attached to this human?” He glanced between the two then stared hard at Koo’s face, which flushed to the very roots of his bright hair. “Ohh my god! He’s your mate!”

A what?

“Mate?” Jimin asked confused as his friends glanced between each other.

The brother spun around to Koo with his eyebrows creased. “You haven’t told him yet?”

Koo giggled sheepishly. “I forgot?”

Jin smiled but sighed, “Of course you did. Come on, let’s sit, so I can explain. I want the cutie next to me, what’s your name?”

Jimin practically preened because of the compliment and the clear approval in his tone. 

“Well I’m Park Jimin, the still glaring baby over there and one of my best friends is Kim Taehyung, and his boyfriend still hiding behind the couch and my other best friend is Jung Hoseok. Welcome.”

Before he could move to sit, Jin was in front of him and pulled him into a hug all the while mumbling “tiny” over and over again until a whine came from Koo and he was promptly pulled from Jin’s arms. 

“He’s my mate not yours.” Jin rolled his eyes in response.

It took awhile for Hoseok to come out of hiding and shake Jin’s hand. It was probably due to the fact that he was still scared or that Jin was still very much naked. 

Taehyung was just upset about being called a peasant until Jin apologized, and then all was well. He went back to his chipper self that yipped questions about what the color of his tail was, if there were more of them, and if he was staying, etc. 

Jin placed his hand on Tae’s knee to settle down his hyper self a bit. “I’ll get to your questions in a bit, but first I have to tell dear Jimin here what a mate is. Now I want no interruptions until I’m finished. Understood?”

They all nodded their heads up and down.

“Okay, so,” he began, “when mermaids are born, they are automatically connected to their other halves, whether they are born yet or not. As far as we can tell, the age gap has been, at the most, four years but anyways, in the soulmate system there’s a scale. There’re normal soulmates, then phoenix soulmates which are basically soulmates that are continuously rebirthed for each other, and finally there’re moon soulmates.”

Everyone was silent and engrossed in what Jin was saying. The only one who didn’t look completely drawn in was Koo, who was smiling at the floor with his hand tracing Jimin’s palm.

“Moon soulmates are a lot stronger than the normal and rebirthed soulmates. They’re the ones that unknowingly watch the moon together, who feel a pull in their souls towards it.” 

Jimin felt a flash of familiarity with the words he spoke. The nights when he just didn’t feel the need to sleep. If anything he felt more alive. He would stay up most nights just staring at the moon, and he would feel drawn to it. That deep longing for something...now he knew what it was.

“They tend to find each other more quickly because the pull is that strong. I’m surprised that you hadn’t found each other sooner to be honest.” He turned to them.

Koo scratched behind his head and chuckled, “I found him a long time ago actually. Just watched him though.”

Jin stared at him over Jimin’s shoulder before he reached over and pulled at Koo’s cheek. “So that’s where you would sneak off to everyday. Cute.”

“Ok, but what I want to know is, are you accepting of the whole mate thing? Do you accept my brother?” He was glaring at him now, as if he were about to spit out a hard ‘no’ and be killed by the mermaid brother.

But why would he say no?

Naturally, Jimin should be running out of the room and away from Koo and his brother after all that he was told. It eerily reminded him of lifelong partners for heaven’s sake, and he was still just twenty-three…

He was strangely calm at the moment about the whole thing. Maybe this was the reason that he had hardly dated. Maybe it was fate’s way of saying that something like this was waiting for him, that Koo was waiting for him.

He looked at Koo, who was next to him, staring at him with his eyes wide and round and his cheeks puffed up from pressing his lips together, and Jimin almost caved into the urge to coo and pinch his cheeks.

Was this what being whipped was?

He didn’t care.

“Of course I do. We’re going through the dating phase at the moment, going at a comfortable pace and moving strong.” He smiled warmly at the mermaid who inched closer into his side and nuzzled his nose with his.

“You’re both so cute, I’m sick.” Taehyung sniffled, and the others grinned in agreement.

Tae then reminded Jin of his unanswered questions, and he got right down to answering all of them...even the weird ones.

Tae was in the middle of rambling off other questions to the mermaid, when Koo interrupted. “How did you take so long to find me? You’re nose is getting old hyung.”

After a sharp gasp from his brother and a slap to the back of his head when Koo laughed, he answered. “For your information, you brat, my nose still works just as fine as it did years ago. And it took me a while because...I got distracted.”

The blank stare he got in return was almost comical. “It was food wasn’t it?”

Jin held up a finger. “That AND cute guys.”

Koo facepalmed, Hoseok sighed, and Tae gave him a high five. Jimin? He just watched the scene with a smile on his face.

After spending more time allowing Hoseok to get used to Jin without him thinking he would jump him, they all drove down to the beach to send Jin back. No, he wasn’t staying. They sadly didn’t have enough space to accommodate another person. Koo got sad at that, but after Jin reassured him that he would make regular visits to check on him, his pout disappeared. 

They also discovered that Jin’s tail was a bright, ruby red accentuated with lighter shades of pink that shone in the light when the sun hit it. 

Their tails made a beautiful sight as he and Koo swam and leaped into the secluded part of the beach. He wasn’t sure if Tae’s mouth had closed at any point during that time. Even Hoseok was in awe. It was stunning.

Yes, there was also more of them. A whole clan that apparently missed Koo, so Jin told him to visit when he could, and Koo agreed. 

They parted ways and drove back home, Jimin’s hand entwined with Koo’s and his head nestled in the crook of his shoulder.

He was happy. Really happy. He wasn’t crazy (suck that Hoseok), and he had finally found a love like Hoseok and Tae’s. Maybe even stronger considering the type of bond they had.  

And if they finally mated fully two weeks later under the lit, starry night sky surrounded by his favourite flowers, it was no ones business.