Chapter Text
Gunil shoots up from the water. Salt coats his tongue, the roof of his mouth, all of him really. He scrabbles for purchase but his fingers are wet, and the wood is wetter. His limbs ache and his nails slip. His body tries to give up, tries to pull him back into the crashing waves.
“Help!” Spluttering. Someone dipping over and under the roiling water. A boy he barely knows, and barely recognizes without a grin to pair with his great, wide eyes, now marred with utter terror.
He grips the wood, the slab of planks that used to once be stunning bits and pieces of an auspicious ship. For a moment, he stares dizzy at what had once been a sturdy, unbreakable, part of his life. Thunder booms overhead, and he’s startled back into motion.
Once again, his body fights him, but he fights back, pulling off one arm from the wood, thrusting it through the pellets of rain, the choppy water, and the small, shattered bits of debris. He grabs onto the boy’s collar, and with all the strength he can muster, he pulls on him.
It feels impossible, it feels like the hardest thing he’ll ever do, and it is. And it may be the last thing he ever does. But he manages. Hauling the coughing, gagging, but alive boy onto the slab of wood.
Astonished, near dead, the boy stares at him, blue in the lips, purple in the face. Weakly, he reaches for Gunil, and tries desperately even in his drowned state, to pull Gunil’s arm back onto the plank, to return the favor and save Gunil too.
Gunil’s other hand slips, and he can only watch the other boy scrabble feebly for a grip on his wrists, before he plunges into the water, pushed further and further down. He can’t tell where the sky was, and where the water continued.
Finally, he gives into the heaviness of his chest, of his head, of his legs and arms, and goes slack, watching the bubbles trickle up from his mouth, blending with the spots dancing in his vision. He fades in and out.
The salt doesn’t feel so bad, he thinks.
༄
“There’s a storm tonight .”
Jungsu pauses, turning to Hyeongjun inquisitively, the light in the spots along his cheeks and tail sputtering. Hyeongjun has a knack for that. Telling the weather above the surface, feeling it in the water before the clouds and winds can even attempt to assemble themselves. Or rather, the water tells him.
Unwavering, Hyeongjun meets his eye, running his finger along the slug sitting on his shoulder, always with him, always following them, wherever they go.
Swallowing nervously, Jungsu wades a bit away, hovering over the reef, watching the light scatter over the thousands of colors splayed before him.
Approaching him, fish gliding along his skin before even realizing he was there and spooking away, Hyeongjun rests a hand on Jungsu’s arm. " We’re close to the shore ,” he remarks, wary. Jungsu glides his finger over the tentacles of a sea anemone, letting it try and nibble at his finger before pulling back, recognizing he isn’t food.
Hyeongjun clicks his tongue exasperatedly, letting him go and falling back. “ Just be careful, Jungsu. You know what Father says. ”
Turning in the water, flicking Hyeongjun in the face chidingly with his tail, Jungsu replies, “ I’m always careful, Hyeongjun .” Ignoring Hyeongjun’s doubtful stare as he begins making his way back to their father and Jooyeon.
He wasn’t lying. Jungsu was always careful. No human would ever lay a hand, or a blade, on his skin. Not ever again.
༄
When night falls, Jungsu lays on the edge of the sea moss, eyes wide open, Jooyeon cuddled into his back, tail flicking sporadically according to the rhythm of his dreams. He listens for Hyeongjun’s and Father’s breaths, waiting painstakingly for them to even and slow.
He pries himself free from Jooyeon’s vice-like, sleepy grip, shaking out his tail, holding his hand over the shimmering chains adorning his neck. Father will hear the noise, and he’ll lose a, quite literally, golden opportunity.
Wasting no time, he speeds off, creatures making way for him as he quickly and eagerly makes his way to the surface. He breaks through the water, gasping in the crisp, midnight air. He looks around, searching for the shore. He can see it, just barely, a giant in the distance. That’s where the humans dwell. That’s where he’ll find the shiny things.
The water is calm. A placid surface that shines and shimmers and glitters beneath the moon. Nothing is prettier than light playing over water, Jungsu thinks, turning onto his back, letting the refraction warp his image and person as he becomes split between water and air. Person and animal. Sea, and land. That is the kind of dichotomy he embodies.
Then he remembers he has a goal, and possibly, no more than tonight to accomplish it. The water is calm. As Hyeongjun had forewarned, that means a storm is coming. A big one that will wrack the waters and whatever misfortuned creatures that may be resting atop it.
That means no humans. That means Jungsu has the shore to himself. And humans are as wasteful and butterfingered as they are cruel. He’s sure to find a few shiny things here and there. Ones of silver and gold and maybe copper, the ones that blend into his tail if he sits in the sunlight just right.
Or at least, that’s how it was supposed to go. Jungsu hears something that has him snapping upright, his ears fluttering flat against his head. He dips his mouth beneath the water, looking for the source of the noise. There.
An innocuous ship, grand and broad, an eyesore of a mass floating between sea and sky. Jungsu’s muscles go stiff, and he sits a moment between wonder and disdain. His tail twitches, begging to flee back to Father and to rest and sleep. To safety and security.
That noise though. Slowly, carefully, Jungsu swims towards the ship, entranced. Soft, pleasing sounds ring from the ship’s deck. Music. It’s music. Wooden-plucked notes embrace Jungsu and pull him forward against his own will.
The ship sits low in the water. It’s smaller than most. A cozy thing compared to the ones Jungsu has perused, sucked into the sands of the ocean’s floor, ever so slowly being eaten and rotten away by time and nature.
With a burst of strength, a shock of an impulse, Jungsu grabs onto the ridges of the wood and pulls himself swiftly to a cut in the ship’s side. There is a slat of wood beneath it, and he rests awkwardly, tensely atop it.
What is he doing? This was insane. He was peering into the humans’ world, a world he despised, and he could only stare into it with wonder and awe, stuck under the spell of that noise. That music.
Gaping open-mouthed, he peers into the cutout, eyes darting between the humans frolicking, their legs stomping and skipping over the hard, wooden, floor. Did that not hurt? It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t care. He searches fervently for the source of the music. He can't, won’t, entertain anything else.
His gaze stops, stutters, and sticks to the human sat precariously at the tip of the ship’s nose as if he didn’t care if the thing rocked, and he fell, and he sank. He was too caught up in the air about him, the giddy, gleeful ambiance that radiates from him as he smiles and laughs and plays.
He’s the source. An instrument with a hollow face and a long neck lined with strings hugged in his arms. The human’s fingers move in a hypnotizing dance over its strings, plucking them and stroking them, making notes of delicious, rich melody come from the hole in the hollow face
The human is a sorcerer, Jungsu determines, bewitched. He examines the human, and apprehends him raptly. He looks much like Jungsu himself, meaning, he has a face. Two eyes and a nose and a mouth. A mouth turned up in a bright, beaming thing that sits like the sun in the sky.
Jungsu should be distracted by the pendant hanging from his neck, golden and glinting in the ship’s lamplight. It’s just his type of treasure, and it would sit perfect with his other stolen accessories. Even the gold in his ears is glorious. Yet again and again, Jungsu finds himself awed by the human’s smile instead, brighter than any gold he’s ever beheld.
How could he steal a smile? That wasn’t possible.
Jungsu is grateful for the sudden strike of lightning in the distance. Breaking his trance. He also loathes it. The music immediately stopped and the human with his magic gone stiff and still. Thunder booms overhead, and with it, a panic sets in the humans. The water responds to their wild frenzy, pushing and pulling at the ship brutally.
The human drops the instrument to the ground, and Jungsu winces, pulling back from the cutout, hiding his face as the static in the air builds. The storm had come indeed, and it’d come quick, with little warning.
To the shouts and screams of the humans, Jungsu leaps into the water where he is safe, where he is hidden. He should go now. He should let consequence befall these stupid humans for sailing out into still waters. But he stays. For whatever inexplicable reason he cannot understand, he stays.
The poor fish and animals dart away from the ship as it rocks and tremors, sending shocks and ripples through the water around it. Inconsiderate thing.
He glows sharply and jarringly, involuntarily distressed when lightning splits through the sky, hitting the sails the humans are desperately trying to reel in. The whole ship lights up, and the heat and pressure and crashing water, the most dangerous vengeful thing to exist, splinters it.
Part of Jungsu thinks that’s how it’s supposed to go, right? This was justice. The same nets on the side of this ship, had been the same thickness and shape of the ones that had strangled his mother and taken her away. The water was taking what had been taken from it.
The rest of him can't stand it. Paralyzed, he shudders and cracks with his own conflict.
He apologizes to the water, to his mother, to Father, to himself , and begins darting around the debris, pushing it up to the surface, and maneuvering it away from humans and fish alike. He won’t touch one, he swears, even if they sink, he will not touch a human. That, he will not interfere.
They’re lucky it would seem. All so lucky, Jungsu thinks reprehensibly. Pulling themselves into mini boats and onto large rafts of their broken-apart wonder. Slowly, Jungsu lowers himself into the water, not daring to be seen by any of them. He’ll risk not only himself but his family as well. He would never forgive himself.
His eyes fall from the unresting surface, widening. Straight ahead, is the sorcerer, sinking like stone into the water. Limp and lifeless.
Jungsu had sworn. Yet he betrays himself, breaks his own trust. He zips forward, hooking his arms around the human’s waist. Dawn breaks through the water as he breaks through the surface, pulling the human along with him with more urgency than he can justify.
The shore. He’ll leave the human on the shore. Then he’ll go home, cuddle Jooyeon until he’s somehow able to sleep, and then he’s going to forget any of this ever happened. And he’s going to be careful. He really is from here on out. He’ll listen to Hyeongjun and Father. He will.
It’s a hard feat, but he does it. He pulls the human onto shore, and lays him across warm sand, the sun peeking over the horizon as if watching Jungsu, making sure he makes good on his promise. His hands hover over the human.
He sits perfectly still in Jungsu’s arms. Have Jungsu’s efforts been for naught? Has he really died? Jungsu’s stomach churns and his chest aches. He shouldn’t be upset. There’s no reason for him to be. Though there can’t be a reason for everything, least of all this.
Maybe it will take magic. Jungsu lifts himself unsteadily on his palms, a fear old and taught and branded into him curling comfortable into the confines of his ribs sputtering to a restless wake. He parts his lips, opens his mouth, and sings.
His voice comes out shaky and broken. Unused, neglected. For years on end he’s abandoned it. He's surprised he can do it at all. But sing he does. Brushing his hands over the human’s face, feeling for any signs of life. His breath hitches and his song stutters when the human moves, his hand coming up, resting over Jungsu’s.
His eyes shutter open and Jungsu freezes, blinking owlishly down at the human. His voice trails off into an echo of itself, and he knows he’s done something irreversible.
Frantic, he rips the treasure from the human’s neck, a shoddy payment, and he bounds into the water. He doesn’t know how, but he’s going to forget all of this. He will.
༄
Hyeongjun holds up his hands, watching as the sea bunny leisurely mills about his palms. Jungsu doesn’t even think he’s looking his way. At least not until Hyeongjun pipes up, trilling pensively. “ Is that a new necklace? ”
Jungsu freezes, eyes darting around to see if Father or Jooyeon were in earshot. It feels blatantly obvious. The guilt painted onto his skin, visible for anyone to see, most of all his pod. In his mind, he sees the human’s touch staining his hand, vibrant and garish.
A hum reverberates through his body, a dismissive noise that only makes Hyeongjun more suspicious. “ Yeah. I found it nearby. You know how it is close to the shore. ” He resists touching it at that moment, fearing it will burn him for his lies. The water should punish him for misplacing Hyeongjun’s trust.
Before Hyeongjun can articulate his disbelief, the water around them shifts. They sit up immediately, resting their tails along the cool stone, Hyeongjun setting Kkito back on his shoulder. " Father ?” he says, relaying concern, “ Is something the matter? ”
Jooyeon trails after their father, long hair pulled and tied back neatly by Hyeongjun’s hand. His expression is vague. He doesn’t look nearly as distressed as Father. Then again, Jooyeon tends to be ambivalent where Father is most worried. Father’s face is lined and carved with a somber graveness.
“ There are signs of a shipwreck nearby ,” he informs, “ With it so near land, humans will likely flock to it and its lost spoils since they are capable. ” Jungsu swallows, gills quivering anxiously. His tail flicks over the seabed, sand shifting and flying about him lazily, irritatedly. A crab scurries away, bothered. Jungsu empathizes.
Sensing his disrest, if nothing else, Father swims near him, placing a large, heavy hand on his shoulder and then stroking back his hair. “ Worry not, my alevin. The humans won’t touch us. ” Jungsu ducks his head, not knowing how to reconcile with the fact that one already has touched him. No, he touched them .
Jooyeon comes up behind him, wrapping his arms around Jungsu’s back, digging his chin into Jungsu’s neck, comforting. It should make Jungsu feel better. It works only somewhat. “ We’re going to stay in this area and shelter for a portion of the season. We can’t risk being seen by humans, and we can’t risk not finding shore before the next season.”
“ Stay? ” Jungsu bursts, eyes widening, “ Shouldn’t we leave as soon as possible?"
“ We can’t risk it ,” Jooyeon says, but there’s not much conviction to back his words. This is what Father had told him before, and this is what he was telling them now, rehearsed. “ Not… ”
Jungsu shakes his head emphatically, gently pushing Jooyeon away, pressing his palms flat into the rock beneath him, feeling every bit of sediment and grain dig into his skin. “ I get it ,” he says flatly. Again dragging his tail through the floor. He pushes himself off, crossing his arms and putting distance between himself and his pod.
He’s not that upset. At least, not for the reasons Jooyeon and Father think. They overestimate the humans here, clearly. But he doesn’t want to stay here. How is he supposed to ever forget the sorcerer, if they begin to share a home?
He looks back, meeting Hyeongjun’s eyes, all-consuming and knowing. He flees before Hyeongjun’s stare can strip him completely raw, and his secret has no way of fading to nothing.
༄
He reasons it’s caution. It’s a necessary precedent that he return to the shore. The sun is high in the sky. If Jungsu is seen in the water, he will look like nothing more than aureate sunlight glinting along the beaming horizon. He approaches the shore carefully, peeking over a crop of jutted rocks, eyes scanning the beach.
The human isn’t there. Jungsu chews into his lip, heart rolling over somberly in his chest. He hopes it was the human himself who had picked himself up from where Jungsu had set him. Against all odds, Jungsu hopes he has survived.
He’s ready to leave, nerves alight and limbs jittery. Scolding himself for ever being so daring. For ever being so stupid . When a spark of light catches his eye. He stills, halfway through the motion of diving into the water.
Barely disturbing it, he slinks beneath the surface, only his eyes left above. Moving as to not create any ripples, any bubbles, any sign of a presence bigger than was usual in an area this shallow.
On the highest alert, Jungsu pulls himself onto the beach, wincing at the feel of warm, gritty sand dragging bit by bit over the length of his tail. It’s nothing he’s not used to. He’s garnered this strength over time. It feels too reminiscent this time though, like he’s laying directly in an impression the human had left behind.
The thought halts him. And he sits there for a moment, crossing his arms and resting his head over them. Basking in the warmth of the day. This is a luxury rarely enjoyed in the sea, even as a shallow dweller. It feels nice.
And there. The shine. Right before him. He props himself on his elbows and picks up the metal between his two fingers. He recognizes it, its round, stout shape. It has a sharp point to it, that he pricks his finger pad on. This had decorated the human’s ear. He’s seen objects like this before, but he had never known what the needle was for.
Curiously, he puts it to the lobe of his ear, gasping and falling flat onto the sand at the shocking sting. Right, that wasn’t the smartest of him.
Voices ring overhead, and he snaps his neck up, seeing for the first time the towers that loom over the cliffs, tall and grand. A human home. Stealthily, he dips back into the water, and disappears.
༄
He wipes his hand along the flat, cool surface. The mirror is like water, but clearer, and without distortion. Underwater it collects algae and sand and snails. It requires a clean with every use. This one is new, and it’s barely damaged. It comes from the human’s ship, no doubt.
He squints, holding up the ear needle. He turns his head, once again pressing the point to his lobe. His gills flutter, scales glowing in pulses, and he pushes, wincing. It’s inconvenient. The needle is too blunt to go right through the skin without effort. What was the use of it?
“ Jungsu? ”
He startles, clenching the gold in his fist, terrified of dropping it. These things are small, and Jungsu is only so inept in finding them. He spins around, blinking up at Jooyeon zoning in on him, hair untied today, floating in wisps majestically through the water. His hair looks spun from the gold itself. It reminds Jungsu of his mother sometimes. Her tail like sunbleached sands.
Peering at him doe-eyed, Jooyeon circles him. Stopping, looking into the mirror, and touching his face, molding it like clay. “ What are you doing? ” he wonders, curious and obstinately so.
Jungsu only hesitates a second before holding up his newest treasure. Jooyeon makes a small ooh sound, swimming about Jungsu excitedly for a moment as if to celebrate Jungsu’s findings even though it meant nothing to him personally. Jungsu has no choice but to smile, fond.
Looking at it wondrously, Jooyeon remarks mildly, “ You know Father wouldn’t like you exploring the wreckage. He’s worried enough as it is. ” He doesn’t say it the same way Hyeongjun would, with a distance and weighted concern. He says it like an unimportant observation. Just a fact to be plainly stated.
Once again, Jungsu lies. “ I’m being careful .” He turns the ear needle in his hand and purses his lips. “ Jooyeon, can you stab this through my ear? ” He thinks that would be easier than doing it himself.
Raising a brow, Jooyeon wades closer, taking it from Jungsu, and inspecting the point. “ I don’t think it will hurt much, ” Jungsu assures, “ I mean humans do it…Even if I bleed, don’t worry. It won’t hurt.”
Worrying his bottom lip, Jooyeon nods, settling in the sand and pulling Jungsu down with him. He cradles Jungsu’s jaw in his hand and turns Jungsu’s face to the side. The needle to Jungsu’s skin is a chill through his whole body.
“ You know, I don’t mind if you want to explore the human world, ” Jooyeon says suddenly, pressing down and stunning Jungsu into an inability to respond. “ Really, I’m not like Father. And I’m not so anxious as Hyeongjun .” The needle goes into the skin, Jungsu can feel it now, gills shuttering, body tensing wholly.
Jooyeon doesn’t prolong the experience, pushing it fully through, and pulling back. “ Just don’t go too far from us, okay ?” He finds Jungsu’s hand, clenched into the sand, squeezing it gently. “ Tell us about it .” He turns around, and retrieves the mirror, bringing it up to show Jungsu.
Jungsu inclines his head, shaking it, letting the gold dangle from his ear. He likes it. He likes it a lot. “ Thank you ,” he says. For more than the favor. Jooyeon grins, nodding eagerly. Happy to please.
༄
Somehow, Jungsu is inexplicably encouraged to go back to the shore. He’s surprised, and a bit delighted, to see more treasure. He’s a fish, and he’s being offered the bait without a hook. He keeps returning to the shore. Shiny things wait for him. Pretty things. More than jewelry. Things he doesn’t have any use for. Things he wouldn’t even know how to use.
He doesn’t wonder why they’re there. He doesn’t wonder if he should be taking them. But if there’s one thing Jungsu has ever been weak to. It is a pretty, shiny thing that glows effervescently in the sunlight.
There’s a problem arising though. Not the one he would expect in indulging this little lost and found. His pod is taking notice. He’s having to hide his things beneath the sand and in the walls of their cove, apologizing to the creatures whose homes he is disturbing.
Father’s disapproving glances are what harrow Jungsu the most, edged with a biting taint of sadness. He goes back though. He can’t help it. That’s what he tells himself. His sense of safety has been warped, and he’s begun to find solace in the beach, in its warmth and gifts and glimmer.
He never said he wasn’t a fool.
It becomes a critical cycle, a snake eating its own tail. He’s begun to go to the beach not for any other reason but to escape the guilt, the uncertainty, the feeling of a suffocating secret. He’s a liar, and he’s made everyone else a liar along with him.
And, the sand is warm.
He’s on his way one day when Father calls him. “ Jungsu .” He turns, trying not to appear as guilty as he feels. His father does that thing where he tucks Jungsu’s hair behind his ear. His eyes catch on the golden hoop, and his face rearranges, carefully blank.
“ Father? ”
Father heaves a breath, disrupting the water around him. He twines a strand of Jungsu’s red hair between his fingers, shaking his head. Without another word, he swims away, eyes sad. Somehow, Jungsu thinks he knows what he was going to say. He hears it, an echo in his bones, shimmering over his tail. He wishes Father wouldn’t worry. As much as he resembles her, Jungsu is not his mother.
A little careless, a little rash, Jungsu approaches the beach, coming up above the water without a second thought, as he’s been doing for days now. However, it’s not the typical pretty thing that awaits him this time around.
He gasps, inhaling air, and diving back down.
Wildly, he treads in one place, frantically making to turn around and swim away. But it’s too late to run from this now, isn’t it? Tense, stiff, he spins back around, and peeks above the water, eyes shifting into a subtle glare. Of course, it would be this senseless human leaving him all these gifts. Only him.
He sits blase in the sand, long pants covering his oddly split legs. It strikes Jungsu again, how the human strangely mirrors him. They’re so very similar, it irks Jungsu, and it bothers him more so that it makes him wonder about the human more than he ever should.
He cocks his head, observing Jungsu from afar, mouth parted in awe. It makes Jungsu glare harder. The human shouldn’t be so stunned. No doubt he’s seen someone like Jungsu before. He’s probably seen his scales worn around another human’s neck like a prize. Maybe he’s used some for one of his own spells.
As to be expected, he holds in his hands something shiny. Something that Jungsu’s eyes catch and cannot leave. He needs it, he determines. He absolutely must have whatever the human is holding. And he will fight for it. The human has seen him already, there is no use in hiding himself now. Might as well leave his mark.
He prowls through the water, slowly honing in on the golden disc-like object the human holds. He gets closer and closer, sinking his arms into shifting sands, moved this way and that, swished beneath sea foam. When the human moves, Jungsu freezes in spite of his defiance. Eyes going wide and heart slamming against his rib cage.
He’s not a very good hunter, is he? It’s good all the human does is gingerly crawl forward, leaving the object at Jungsu’s fingertips. Then crawls back, just as careful and delicate, barely bothering the sand beneath him, he’s so preciously gentle.
Surprised, Jungsu reaches forward, sinking slowly back into the water, letting it take him back to drifting among it. He observes the thing, rubbing his thumb over the polished smoothness of it. There’s a crack in it, and he sticks his nail beneath it, popping it open.
He jumps at first, shuddering at the sudden ticking noise that comes from the white face of the object. Once he gets used to it though, it’s calming. He presses it up to his ear, the one not sensitive from healing, and becomes still. Listening to the ticking time with the waves crashing against the shore.
This is sorcery. He’s been gifted a little object of sorcery. He shuts it and dips beneath the surface, holding it close to his chest. He wants as much time with it as possible. Human things never last long beneath sea.
The human sits back, folding his knees into his chest, resting his hands around them. He never looks away from Jungsu. Never stops that ever admiring gaze that makes Jungsu’s skin crawl.
“You’re pretty.”
Jungsu for a singular moment, loses function in his tail. He dips beneath the water and pops back up, gaping unwittingly. Human voices are so odd. They don’t echo in his head and settle like silt. They float softly over the air, barely strong enough to survive a calm ocean chatter.
It’s like a song in itself. It settles beneath his skin, makes him warm, too warm. And then he registers the words, tucks them into the forefront of the mind where they refuse to dislodge from. Pretty.
Jungsu takes no time in diving back into the water, and speeding away.
Pretty.