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“I wish to live on land.”

Han Sooyoung peeks behind her potion bottles. Behind her self-made coral shelf is the faint light from the outside peering into her little cave, the seaweed covering the entrance parted by thin fingers.

When Han Sooyoung looks up with disinterested eyes, ears catching the smooth glide of the most beautiful voice she’s ever heard, she’s met with caramel hair and pale shoulders dimmed by the cave’s lack of lighting. A visitor.

Her eyes flicker down to where the woman’s hips have faded into this gorgeous aquamarine. Scales the color of an oasis’ waters, glimmering even in the dark. Then she looks back up and finally see the woman’s face and realizes, with her expression souring:

“Are you lost, Your Highness?”

Han Sooyoung snatches a jar of kelp from the shelf and makes a show of tossing it towards her cauldron. It hovers, suspended in the water, and Han Sooyoung’s eel familiars unscrew the cap smoothly.

Yoo Sangah frowns, swimming in. “No, I’m not. I’ve come to ask for your help, Han Sooyoung.”

“With our history in mind?” Han Sooyoung scowls. “The beloved crown princess of the merfolk, seeking out the infamous sea witch for help? Do you take me for a fool?”

“I never said that.”

“You didn’t need to. All you merfolk are the same.”

Han Sooyoung grabs several potion bottles and throws them into her cauldron. They crash into it, against the bottom, and a thick layer of fog rises.

“Get out. Coming here uninvited is offensive enough as is. I’m a sea witch, not a barbarian.” Han Sooyoung grabs a ladle, stirring her brew and grimacing when the stench catches up to her nostrils. She pinches her nose, inching her face away and throwing a petulant glare Yoo Sangah’s way. “Have you no manners, Crown Princess? Or do you simply think of me as below you?”

“Sea witch—” Yoo Sangah wades through the dark, murky waters of Han Sooyoung’s abode, flinching yet dodging all things suspicious, haphazardly hovering around them, “I never meant to offend you. Though I hate this as much as you do, I know no one else as skilled as you are. I have no one else to turn to. Your magic is powerful.”

A fact everyone in all seven seas are aware of. Han Sooyoung’s name and her powers, for all their notoriety, are nothing small. The merfolks’ court magicians don’t even come close to her skill.

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Han Sooyoung says and waves Yoo Sangah off. “Don’t you have a kingdom to help govern? Jewelry to try on? Lessons to learn as a queen-to-be?”

“Han Sooyoung-ssi,” Yoo Sangah grabs her wrist, “I’m being serious.”

There’s this glint in her eyes, desperate and bright. Her shoulders are tense, and this catches Han Sooyoung’s interest.

“...Crown Princess of the merfolk, Yoo Sangah,” announces Han Sooyoung, “what did you say you were here for?”

The boiling cauldron by Han Sooyoung’s side is momentarily forgotten, abandoned. Yoo Sangah is all she sees. The mermaid’s lips, lit a bright, suspicious shade from the brew next to them, part.

The mermaid says, “I wish to live on land, to be human.”

A wish not unheard of. Han Sooyoung’s face scrunches up and she scoffs, turning away.

“Did you meet a human prince, the man of your dreams? Saved him and breathed life back into him?”

Previous clients—all merfolk—have come to Han Sooyoung for the same thing, the same request, the same wish.

More often than not, their tales ended in agony. Seafoam, rising from roaring waves and disappearing against the cool surface of weathered rock. Han Sooyoung had never felt any remorse for them, then. The merfolk treated her terribly and only when they needed something from her did they treat her as an equal. Even when they begged for their life or accepted their fate, tears drenching their cheeks all the same, meeting Han Sooyoung for one final time at the shore, Han Sooyoung had felt nothing. Several times, her face twisted, yet nothing in her ever stirred.

Looking at Yoo Sangah now, in front of her, she guesses her fate to be the same. But then Yoo Sangah has this determined expression on her face—not unfamiliar, but not resembling the usual: one of a maiden’s, vying for a human lover. And there’s a flicker of hesitance, and Yoo Sangah is not quite looking at her after a quick, fleeting second.

Her breath slips through, to the water. “I want to run away,” she says. Her breath slips through again, past her lips, and this time, it trembles so much that the water around it wavers with. “Please,” she says, “Help me run away, Han Sooyoung-ssi.”

There is no crown on her head.

Han Sooyoung’s mouth curls into this intrigued, amused smile.

“You’re abandoning your people?” she asks. Then, “You’re abandoning your people.”

And then she laughs, incredulous, shoving yet another potion bottle into the cauldron. The shatter of clay echoes in the cave, loud, and rings in both their ears.

“Now that’s a first. I thought you were loved—beloved by your kingdom, your family. Are you not?”

Yoo Sangah lets go of Han Sooyoung’s wrist and whips her head away, fists clenched at her sides. To run from riches and the affection of her people, to run from a life of luxury—not many people would understand.

“I need to escape,” is all Yoo Sangah answers.

Her gaze slides over to the seaweed blocking the entrance, weaving up in the water.

“I… know that there’s an equal price to pay, but I’m willing to do it no matter the consequence. Help me live on land, give me legs,” she turns back to Han Sooyoung, with trembling lips, “Help me live. Please.”

Han Sooyoung reaches forward, fingers drawing down the line of Yoo Sangah’s jaw. She tilts the mermaid’s head up, holding her by the chin and forcing their gazes to lock.

After seeing through the failures of several merfolk and their disappearances back into the ocean, Han Sooyoung had promised herself to never repeat this; she was a sea witch, yes, but she still had a heart. She might hate the merfolk and she might not grieve over their losses, but she was also this: unsettled, disturbed. When their time came, Han Sooyoung had never been thrilled. Because she was not a monster. She was not unfeeling. She isn’t both of these now, either—this, she’d like to believe.

“I pity you,” she tells Yoo Sangah in a murmur, “you realize that, right?”

“It’s hard not to,” Yoo Sangah responds. She offers Han Sooyoung this resigned smile, eyes wrinkled at the ends, turned into crescents. Yoo Sangah is beautiful, Han Sooyoung thinks. An unrivaled gem of the ocean.

“...I will take from you your comfort,” says Han Sooyoung, who lets go of Yoo Sangah’s chin with a scowl, “You will feel as if you’re walking on sharp knives with every step you take. You will not tell anyone of this, or of me, or of what I have done for you. And you will disintegrate into seafoam, someday.”

At the last sentence, Yoo Sangah stiffens.

“I don’t want to turn into seafoam,” she says. “Is there a way out of the last part?”

Han Sooyoung gives her a lingering, wandering look.

“You have to fall in love,” she eventually answers, “and make the one you fall in love with reciprocate your feelings. There is no other way.”

“All I want is to finally live as my own person.” Yoo Sangah looks almost distraught. Aghast, devastated, like she can’t accept this. “Sea witch, I do not wish for love.”

This time, Han Sooyoung’s lips pull into a sad smile. “It’s a cruel fate that you can’t change, Yoo Sangah,” she mutters, “There is no way around.”

Dread strikes through Yoo Sangah’s expression. Han Sooyoung pities her, but even then—“Do you still wish to live on land, as a human?” Han Sooyoung asks.

“Yes,” answers Yoo Sangah, quietly. Despite everything, there’s no hesitance in her voice. She slides her gaze back over to Han Sooyoung and promptly shakes off her earlier devastation. Firmer, “Turn me into a human, Han Sooyoung-ssi.”

Han Sooyoung refers Yoo Sangah to a friend of hers, a human witch who lives in a small cottage near the shore.

This is what Han Sooyoung tells her right before they part: she’ll learn the basics of being human from him, but she’ll have to live somewhere else. Soon, she’ll be all on her own and neither Han Sooyoung nor Kim Dokja, her human witch friend, will help her for free.

It’s only after a long few days that Han Sooyoung finds out from Kim Dokja that he’s helped Yoo Sangah get well-acquainted with the townsfolk. He tells her that Yoo Sangah is doing great despite everything and that she lives in a spare room in the local church. The head priest had offered it to her after warming up to her.

Kim Dokja cackles at Han Sooyoung’s expression each time she comes to the surface. He’d say, always: You’re acting like she’s some ex you’re still clinging to. Don’t tell me you somehow fell in love with her? Wait, no—don’t tell me… at first sight—?!

Without fail, Han Sooyoung would immediately cut him off, raise her fist, and snap back at him with: Shut up, you rat bastard! Die!

Like this, the days pass. Han Sooyoung doesn’t know why she keeps going back to the surface in hopes of catching even a small glimpse of Yoo Sangah. With the merfolk kingdom already thrown into disarray and grief, thinking that their precious crown princess has passed on somewhere far in the waters, Han Sooyoung should be satisfied. And she is, don’t get her wrong.

Han Sooyoung enjoys whittling the seconds away by looking through her crystal ball and watching the merfolks’ pathetic excuse of a king wallow in his loss by fattening himself up while Yoo Sangah’s brothers, being the goddamn bastards they are, release all their pent-up stress by bedding stranger after stranger. Han Sooyoung has never felt this pleased or triumphant all her life, and she’s lived one long life.

Yet her mind still wanders to caramel hair and bright eyes. The soft and gentle tone of a voice. Lithe fingers, pale skin.

Han Sooyoung, for reasons she can’t understand herself, can’t stop thinking about Yoo Sangah for even a second.

She weaves through high tides and crashing waves and washes up on the beach with her own pair of human legs. She loses something valuable each time she rises from the waters with her new limbs: rare, priceless ingredients for spells and potions, trinkets she’s kept over the years holding great sentimental value. A piece of herself for a woman she barely knows—it’s a bit laughable. She doesn’t really know why she’s doing this.

Then, when Han Sooyoung feels herself about to drift off to sleep one evening, goosebumps break out all over her skin. Her eyes squeeze shut and there’s a sudden, faint echoing call of her name ringing in her ears.

Almost instinctively, Han Sooyoung dashes up to the surface and pants so heavily when she pops her head out the water that her lungs feel like giving out, and she almost knocks out right then and there.

“Han Sooyoung-ssi.”

Yoo Sangah is standing right in front of her, knees submerged. She smells of the warm baked goods Han Sooyoung has heard of from Kim Dokja. A little of holy water, too, and fresh lilies. And she’s smiling at her, hair tumbling freely down her back, stopping just below her shoulder blades.

And then Yoo Sangah says, voice carried by the breeze, tucking a stray lock of her hair behind her ear, “Hello.”

She reaches out her hand, offering it up to Han Sooyoung like she wants to pull her up into the humid air, to the land, where she is.

She asks, “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

This is how Han Sooyoung reunites with Yoo Sangah: with her heart catching in her throat, larger waves rolling in as the temperature drops, the backdrop a blur of sand and dusk.

Yoo Sangah is beautiful, Han Sooyoung thinks, not for the first time.

They meet every week around the same time.

It’s an unplanned routine they’ve now gotten used to, with the currents pulling Han Sooyoung towards Yoo Sangah each time the former mermaid yells out her name at the ocean.

The water around Han Sooyoung darkens, then coalesces, wrapping around her body. When Han Sooyoung pulls herself out of the sea, she’s wearing a loose, thin black dress made from her magic.

She shakes off the foam when she’s reached a depth so shallow that the water only laps at her ankles. Han Sooyoung knows for sure that she smells of the sea. Starkly contrasting this is Yoo Sangah herself, no longer smelling of the sea but of the land. Flowers, dirt, sand. Clearly, she’s long since gotten used to being a human and life on land.

And yet here, where her skin dries and she’s far from her home, Yoo Sangah looks the most comfortable. Still so unfairly gorgeous, framed in Han Sooyoung’s vision by the dusklight, honey trailing down her hair. She’s grasping the edge of her straw hat and looking over at Han Sooyoung with her usual smile, the wind picking up at the end of her sundress when she steps forward and sinks her feet into the wet sand. It’s like the penalty of her wish isn’t there; Yoo Sangah walks like it doesn’t feel like she’s walking on a road of knives.

“I told the children from the orphanage about you,” Yoo Sangah tells Han Sooyoung when they’re side by side. The two of them stand right before the shore, where the foam barely grazes the tip of their toes. “I told them that real sea witches weren’t as evil and scary as the ones in their picture books. They asked me how I knew, then asked me if I was a mermaid, and I asked them how they knew.”

Han Sooyoung scoffs. “They sound nosy, those human kids. I don’t know how you deal with them, but you seem to enjoy it and your human life.”

“It’s much better than my old life as a mermaid,” Yoo Sangah says, “and I have you to thank for everything. The humans are nice, and I feel free. I feel like I’m finally living for myself.”

“Even with the pain in your feet?”

“Even with the pain in my feet.”

Han Sooyoung sighs and crosses her arms over her chest. “You don’t speak like the merfolk anymore.”

Yoo Sangha hums. “It’s far too formal. When I spoke as usual to the humans, they all gave me weird looks. One of the church’s priests even asked me, Why do you talk like that? And when I asked them what they meant, they told me I spoke like I’m someone from a hundred years ago.”

At this, Han Sooyoung snickers. “You were embarrassed, weren’t you? Now you know how arrogantly you used to talk. How the merfolk speak is always the same, and that’s one of the things I hate about you lot.”

She glances at Yoo Sangah, then back at the horizon. The sun, with all its blurry edges, already halfway past the water. The waves in the far distance, crashing against large boulders rooted to the seabed.

“So,” Han Sooyoung begins again, “life has been good for you, but it won’t last if you don’t fulfill the condition for your wish. How’s the spouse hunting going?”

Yoo Sangah’s face contorts. “Terrible.”

“That’s impossible,” Han Sooyoung huffs out. “Do you keep getting rejected? That wouldn’t make sense. No one with a brain and two eyes would reject you.”

“Oh?” Yoo Sangah glances over at Han Sooyoung, surprised. “Is that what you think, Han Sooyoung-ssi?”

“Objectively speaking,” Han Sooyoung is quick to defend herself, insistently averting her eyes, “you aren’t… ugly. Even I can’t deny that, okay? I was just saying—”

“Does this mean that you’d like to date me, Han Sooyoung-ssi?”

“—that you—what did you just say—”

Han Sooyoung sputters, head snapping back to Yoo Sangah, flustered. For a moment, staring in disbelief at the expression on Yoo Sangah’s face, Han Sooyoung tries to collect herself.

Exasperated, she gives the former mermaid a look.

“I do not,” she says, dryly, “appreciate your sense of humor.”

Then, Yoo Sangah is laughing at her, loud and nothing brief. Han Sooyoung is stunned by both her reaction and how she looks like this, and promptly tucks the sight of Yoo Sangah laughing into her chest. Into a corner of her heart. Feels the thrum of it assimilate into her pulse, warming her.

“The townsfolk have been nothing but welcoming and nice to me, a stranger they know practically nothing of,” Yoo Sangah says, wiping a corner of her eye. “I volunteer at the local church and orphanage often, and human children are a joy. Did you know that?”

Han Sooyoung’s face sours. “No child is a joy. They’re all brats, human or otherwise.”

Yoo Sangah ignores her remark.

“There was this one child who asked me today about mermaids. She was enthusiastic and curious, so I didn’t have the heart to refuse her questions. I answered all of them, and she wholeheartedly thought I was a mermaid, so she asked me a couple hundred more times, and I still couldn’t turn her away, but…”

She slides her gaze down to her feet, kicking the sand. It lands over a clump of washed-up seashells, hiding it from the sun. A tide rides up the shore and pulls it all away—the sand, the seashells—and Yoo Sangah steps forward and feels the momentary rushing water, lapping up her ankles.

“...I couldn’t answer her last question.”

“What was it?”

Slowly, Han Sooyoung watches Yoo Sangah’s lips part. Her mouth, traced by the soft, diminishing light of dusk.

“The child asked me,” says Yoo Sangah, quietly, “Will you turn into seafoam? What about your happy ending?”

Han Sooyoung goes silent.

“They’re innocent questions. The stories of mermaids turning into seafoam have gotten popular among the landfolk over the years, and what she asked was nothing more than childlike curiosity, but,” Yoo Sangah exhales a strangled breath, and her fingers curl into the hemline of her sundress, “I didn’t know how to answer her. I couldn’t lie or tell the truth, I couldn’t.”

Admitting things would be accepting things, her fate. Giving up officially, conceding to the inevitable. Lying would do just the same, because Yoo Sangah was and will always be well aware of the things that will come after, for her. When her days on land are over, unable to find anyone to love and love her back. Seafoam disappearing, pulled back into the sea by the tide.

“If I could,” Yoo Sangah says, looking back at the sunset, at the darker colors of the sky fading into the candlelit orange near the sun, “I’d like to keep on living, like this. I’d like to have a happy ending.”

In Han Sooyoung’s chest, something stirs.

A feeling, an emotion—she isn’t so sure. Still, she watches Yoo Sangah, standing next to her and staring at her trembling shoulders.

“...Is that a wish you want me to grant?” asks Han Sooyoung, after a good minute.

Yoo Sangah laughs and shakes her head. Her laugh is empty, but her eyes close like they always do. She is never not beautiful; Han Sooyoung feels sick to the stomach.

“No,” Yoo Sangah answers, stepping back from the sea. “I just… wanted to get all of this off my chest.”

For a moment, all Han Sooyoung does is stare at Yoo Sangah, lips pressed together. And in a moment of uncharacteristic behavior, her mouth moves before she can stop it and she speaks.

“Can I do anything for you?” she asks.

Yoo Sangah doesn’t look back at her but extends a hand, so Han Sooyoung inches close and takes it in her own. Their fingers fall between them to their sides, entwined, and Yoo Sangah’s palm is far warmer than Han Sooyoung’s. Like the sun against the waves, meeting at the distant, smudged horizon-line.

“Just—” Yoo Sangah’s fingertips press into her knuckles, tight, “Let’s just stay like this, for a while. For a while, just hold my hand.”

There’s silence. A pause.

“I can do that,” Han Sooyoung squeezes Yoo Sangah’s hand back, still watching Yoo Sangah with a distant look in her eyes. She steps closer to Sangah, until their sides are touching. “It—this won’t cost anything. Nothing will, from now on.”

A wind blows, threading through their fingers, Yoo Sangah’s hair, her lashes. The shadows, laid over her bare cheeks full of unshed tears, trembling. There are words stuck in Han Sooyoung’s throat, piling up, blocking her airway. She can’t really breathe like this, but she tries to and inhales deeply. There’s a promise teetering on the tip of her tongue. When Han Sooyoung takes in another breath, it slips past her lips, trembling and cold and chapped, and her throat dries.

“I won’t take anything from you anymore.”

The words spill down her chin, dropping into the sea and disappearing like seafoam. The promise doesn’t stay here with them, physically. But Han Sooyoung thinks she’s kept it plenty safe between their palms, tight enough for it to be kept there for millenia. Safe, and warm from Yoo Sangah’s palm.

It’s then that Han Sooyoung realizes: Yoo Sangah is here, with her. She is nowhere else.

She could be anywhere else, making the most of this new life of hers. She could be playing with the human children, chatting away with the townsfolk. She doesn’t need to keep on seeing Han Sooyoung. She doesn’t need to.

In the corner of her eye, Han Sooyoung notices how Yoo Sangah’s trembling slows just a little. Watches her, for a few seconds too long. The sun disappears somewhere below the sea, and all Han Sooyoung can see is Yoo Sangah.

For once, Han Sooyoung wants to dive back into the sea and let her gills breathe for her again. Her lungs tighten, and she’s struggling to breathe just a little bit with Yoo Sangah by her side, in her vision.

Tearing her gaze away, Han Sooyoung looks back at the sky. Overhead, the seagulls are squawking, and Han Sooyoung distantly wonders if Yoo Sangah is beautiful even when she’s not looking at her. She wants to steal a glance at her again, but decides not to. Han Sooyoung holds back on the thought, and breathes.

Yoo Sangah is as quiet as she is. They don’t speak for a long time after this, but Han Sooyoung finds that she doesn’t mind at all.

There was a novelty to Yoo Sangah that Han Sooyoung couldn’t explain.

Maybe it was from the way she pulled her out the water and to the sand, hair blown by the wind, brushing past her shoulders. Maybe it was in the way her fingers pressed into her wrist, trailing up to the inside of her palm. Maybe it was in the way she spoke or in the way her eyes turned into these lovely little crescents just as the sun sank, just as it gave way to the moon.

It was in the way she would seek out Han Sooyoung’s hand, quiet and still, a low tide in the midst of the rushing waters of the world. In the slots of her fingers, where Han Sooyoung’s own would slip into, always. Where they would hold each other tight, until they’d get used to holding each other like this. Holding each other’s hands.

Sometimes, they’d dive their legs halfway into the ocean.

Yoo Sangah, who now had warm skin, would shriek every time the cold water rolled up her thighs. The foam would tickle her knees, wetting the end of her sundress. Sometimes, they were shorts. Sometimes, they were long pants. Jeans, Yoo Sangah had told Han Sooyoung once. Han Sooyoung had thought, several times already, that it was unfair. Everything was unfair, because everything looked good on Yoo Sangah.

Like this—like now, Han Sooyoung finds that she has to suppress the urge of framing Yoo Sangah with her magic like a portrait. A beautiful, beautiful painting, the smudge of her cheeks pink and gold-tinted, and blurred like she was a sight plucked straight out of a dream.

Exactly like this, Han Sooyoung wants to frame her in wood and cotton. But then Yoo Sangah steps forward and lifts her hands to Han Sooyoung’s cheeks and their roles switch; Yoo Sangah frames Han Sooyoung’s face with her palms, holding her like she’s holding something precious.

Yoo Sangah’s shoulders relax. Letting out a long exhale, she drops her head to Han Sooyoung’s bare shoulder and breathes her in.

“The pain in my feet,” Yoo Sangah says, “Whenever we touch this close, it lets up a little.”

Han Sooyoung frowns. “It still hurts, then.”

“It does,” Yoo Sangah hums. “But this is enough.”

She raises her head and Han Sooyoung sucks in a breath. Yoo Sangah presses their foreheads together, drops her fingers to Han Sooyoung’s and dangles them just above the sea.

“Sooyoung-ah,” Yoo Sangah says, quietly, “You’re—” her mouth moves with uncertainty, and then clamps shut. She shakes her head. “This—” she starts over, and her lips tremble. “This is all I need.”

What goes unsaid are the words, You’re all I need.

Han Sooyoung can hear them with terrifying clarity, and her heart seizes in her chest. The emotion is here again, resurfacing. The ache Han Sooyoung feels stems from a pain not her own. It’s nothing bone-deep, not quite, and nothing devastating or large. But it pulses through her veins still, into the spreading warmth of linked fingers.

The ache fades into something desperate. Han Sooyoung aches for Yoo Sangah’s own ache to stop.

“...There’s a way to get rid of your curse,” she says, after a long silence.

“I have nothing else to offer,” Yoo Sangah smiles, soft, “Nothing else to sacrifice. I have—”

Her breath hitches, and she looks down.

“I have nothing.”

Her hands, cupping the sea witch’s, grasping them like they’re her lifeline. The only proof of her existence right here, right now. She’s real, and she exists—here, with Han Sooyoung. Undoubtedly, irrevocably, she is here. The press of Han Sooyoung’s thumbs against her curled fingers, her knuckles—this is all the evidence she needs. It’s the most grounding thing she’s ever known.

Yoo Sangah looks back up, and Han Sooyoung reads the words spread across her expression, the curve of her mouth. The things that go unsaid, in terrifying clarity:

I have nothing but you, now, and I—

Han Sooyoung’s pupils tremble.

I don’t want to lose you.

Han Sooyoung doesn’t want to lose her, either.

“Write her a happy ending.”

Han Sooyoung shoots a frown Kim Dokja’s way.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Kim Dokja huffs, carding his fingers through a clump of wet sand. They’re lying side by side, out on the beach, and the sun has barely risen. “You’ve studied magic your whole life. You can do things no other witch can do, land or sea. Give Yoo Sangah a happy ending if you want to.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Isn’t it?”

Kim Dokja throws a pebble into the sea and it hits the water, the waves, rippling out, messy. The ripples are gone too slow, but they eventually fade into the saltwater.

“Getting rid of the pain in her feet—you can do that easily, can’t you, Han Sooyoung?”

“You don’t understand,” Han Sooyoung grumbles, under her breath. Her eyes flicker up to the clouds, their undersides lit only faintly by the warm dawnlight, the fade of red and orange and yellow, everything so warm. Like clockwork, her thoughts flicker to familiar fingers, palms. Caramel hair, and billowing sundresses. Meetings at dusk.

“Every wish comes at a price,” Han Sooyoung shakes her head. “Yoo Sangah has nothing left she can lose.”

“She has you.”

Waves, rushing over the shoreline. Seafoam, disappearing right against Han Sooyoung’s ankles.

Kim Dokja grabs something from the sand again. Another pebble, is his first thought, but when he feels the object in his hands, he realizes it’s a seashell. For a moment, all he does is stare at it.

“...Sangah-ssi values you most, now,” he says eventually, quietly. “She has nothing but you.”

Kim Dokja turns to face Han Sooyoung. He takes her hand, places the seashell in her palm and curls her fingers inwards, around it.

“Give her her happy ending, Sooyoung.”

Clasping the seashell tightly, Han Sooyoung doesn’t look away from her fist.

Yoo Sangah wakes up in cold sweat at the crack of dawn.

Her breathing’s ragged, her chest feels tight. Everything feels colder than usual. Too cold, almost.

Yoo Sangah jumps to her feet—scrambles out her room barefoot and still in her nightgown—and runs. The pain in her feet is gone. It’s a terrifying realization.

It’s high tide. The sea is pulling her in by her calves when she runs desperately into it. It’s dark, too dark, and she can’t see a thing. The waves lash at her, screeching against boulders and rumbling loudly as the seafoam dissipates into her skin.

Yoo Sangah forces herself through, combing through the waters with wobbly legs and shallow breathing.

She grabs at the water, tries finding—something. Anything. Something tangible. Something that can quell her panic.

She doesn’t know what she’s looking for, just that the realization that the pain in her feet is gone and that that in itself is horrifying.

Yoo Sangah has nothing to lose. She has nothing left to give. Why is it that the consequence of her wish is gone so suddenly?

The water she’s tried scooping up slips between her fingers. Yoo Sangah scrambles to get it, or anything. A sign, a semblance of something. What is it? What is it she’s lost? What is it that’s precious to her? What is it? What did she lose?

The sea roars out against Yoo Sangah, and she’s pushed away by the force of the waves. She almost stumbles back into the wet sand of the shore, but she persists forward and tries, and tries again.

And then, with her hands deep in the water, it hits her.

“Sooyoung,” she exhales. “Sooyoung, Sooyoung, Sooyoung! Han Sooyoung! Where are you!”

Her mouth trembles. Han Sooyoung is nothing Yoo Sangah wants to lose. Nothing she can lose.

“Sooyoung-ah!”

She trudges forward and almost slips from the rock under her feet.

The waves take this opportunity to shove her back to the shore, and Yoo Sangah stumbles back onto land, bracing for impact with her palms, pressed up against the wet sand. Her vision is blurred. She’s tired. She’s panting heavily.

Yoo Sangah scrambles to her feet and weakly, weakly pushes forward. The waves graze the end of her hair, wetting it. Her knees have disappeared into the sea. Water splashes against her nightgown. None of these reach her face, but her cheeks are wet, too. Somehow, some way—Yoo Sangah doesn’t bring her hands up. She doesn’t question why it’s getting harder to see or what this ridiculous sound that she’s hearing is, from her lips ringing in her ears.

Please, she thinks. Anyone—anything but her.

Every part of her trembles. Her hand aches for Han Sooyoung’s own. Threading her fingers through the waves, rolling and crashing past and against her, it feels cold, too familiar. It feels like Han Sooyoung’s fingers slotted against hers.

“Han Sooyoung! Please—!”

Something cracks here, in her voice. She’s been pushed back again by the sea, and the water now only reaches her ankles.

“Sooyoung-ah,” Yoo Sangah pants. Then, “Sooyoung-ah, Sooyoung-ah, Sooyoung-ah! You—please—”

Don’t tell me you’re gone.

Don’t tell me I’ve lost you.

Her tears trickle down her chin, dropping back to the waves. The tide pulls it into the sea, and Yoo Sangah lets out this choked-up, gurgle of a sob.

“Please,” she says, quieter, “Please, Han Sooyoung. Where are you?”

“Not in the sea, obviously.”

Yoo Sangah’s pupils blow wide. She turns on her heel and is met with a familiar cheshire grin. Her mouth trembles.

“So, um.” Han Sooyoung stretches her legs, shows them off with a small, unsure laugh. She’s wearing a cheap graphic tee and shorts, and she looks a little more rugged than usual. “This was sort of an,” she wiggles her legs playfully, “impulsive decision, but there’s no going back, so.”

She makes these awful, awful jazz hands at Yoo Sangah.

“I’m now a, uh, human! Surprise!”

When Yoo Sangah doesn’t respond, Han Sooyoung huffs, looks away, and scratches the back of her neck. It isn’t visible this deep into the night, but Yoo Sangah is sure that Han Sooyoung is blushing right now, all the way up to her ears like how she always does.

“Would it kill you to react?” she grumbles. “I did all of this for good reason, you know. And I know that I’m probably—partially—at fault for not telling you that I was planning to become human, with permanent legs and all, but—fuck, why am I—what am I even doing here—” she groans, “Shit, actually, tell you what. I know I’ve made fun of you for enjoying your life as a human, and I know I’ve said plenty of times that the ocean is leagues better, but have you tried those ‛lemon candies’ they have around here? Why are they so good? Why does no one have them in the sea? And the lollipops—God, the lollipops. Have you tried any of those? I’d lose my ocean citizenship for one any day, fuck. But these—”

Han Sooyoung’s face scrunches up, and she grimaces when she pulls at a string at her side, which snaps back into her skin when she lets it go. A bra, Yoo Sangah realizes. She blinks.

Incredulous, Han Sooyoung hisses, “Who made these things?”

Yoo Sangah blinks again.

Then, when Han Sooyoung’s words finally, officially, fully sink in, she bursts into laughter.

She clutches her stomach, back hunching over, and the tears in her eyes are from this, now, beading around her lashes.

And then she looks back up and grins so wide that her cheeks hurt, and while Han Sooyoung is speechless beyond disbelief at her reaction, Yoo Sangah takes off into a sprint.

In a heartbeat, she’s got Han Sooyoung in her arms, body curled against hers, fitted in this gap, in this place. Chin against her collarbone, nose against the side of her neck.

“You’re an idiot,” Yoo Sangah says.

The words slip past her dry lips easily. She’s still laughing a little, and the sound is a bit wet, and her tears haven’t stopped just yet, not really. Her hair falls into place, brushing against the side of Han Sooyoung’s neck this close, and it tickles.

Han Sooyoung feels a bit breathless.

“Idiot…” Han Sooyoung huffs, “Why are you laughing...”

Despite her words, Han Sooyoung slides her own arms around Yoo Sangah, over her back, reciprocating the hug.

They don’t speak for a long time. None of them mind.

But when the silence stretches for what feels like a little too long, Han Sooyoung pushes Yoo Sangah away, and before the former mermaid can open her mouth to protest, she’s bringing her forehead to hers, fingers cupping her jaw.

Yoo Sangah grips Han Sooyoung’s tee, stiffening, breath hitching.

Han Sooyoung looks directly at her, and it’s very hard to keep her lips from curling upwards.

She says, “I gave you your happy ending. You had nothing else to lose, but I had plenty, so I did the math, did the magic, and gave you your happy ending.”

Yoo Sangah’s forehead creases. “What did you—no…” Her eyes widen in realization. “But—magic—you dedicated your whole life to mastering it. Everyone in the ocean knows this. It—your life’s work—”

“It gets pretty boring after a while,” Han Sooyoung shrugs, “And the idea of living so long alone doesn’t really do it for me anymore.”

She grins, the foolish kind, and it just somehow says, Not after you happened to me.

Yoo Sangah’s chest overflows with a familiar warmth. She sniffles, presses her fingertips deeper into Han Sooyoung’s waist and murmurs, “You’re an idiot, Han Sooyoung.”

Han Sooyoung shoots her an offended look.

“I give you your happy ending and this is how you treat m—mmf!”

Yoo Sangah shuts her up with a kiss, then pulls away before Han Sooyoung can properly register it.

“I don’t need my happy ending anymore,” Yoo Sangah places her forehead back against Han Sooyoung’s. “Write my epilogue for me. Write yourself in it, too. I want you in it. You have to be in it.”

“Shit, that’s a big request, but, uh. Does that mean—” Han Sooyoung grimaces at herself. “The joke from a while back—I’m not sure if you remember, but…”

Yoo Sangah lets out a small, light laugh, and leans closer to Han Sooyoung’s face.

“Mn,” she hums, “I don’t think I remember?”

“...Sangah.”

“I’m joking,” she says, and it’s like there’s a giggle she’s holding back. In the background, the sun has started rising, and Sangah’s colors spill over into the sky behind her.

She asks, “Would you like to date me, Sooyoung-ah?”

Stupefied, Han Sooyoung sputters for a bit, face redder and brighter. She scoffs, huffs, and scowls, but she can’t—can never—look away from Yoo Sangah even if the embarrassment she’s feeling for herself is so bad she’s about to implode. She doesn’t look away.

”Idiot,” Han Sooyoung grumbles, and their noses brush. “You already know my answer.”

Yoo Sangah laughs again, and Han Sooyoung feels her breaths fan across her lips and slip through, into her throat, settling into her pulse. Fading into her skin.

“You’re right,” Yoo Sangah replies, hushed and leaning in, “I do.”

When their eyes flutter shut, their lips meet.

Their epilogue starts here.