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Air unfiltered by water felt thin and paltry. Chan wasn’t sure he liked it and he dipped below the surface after one breath, leaving nary a ripple behind. Dawn had lit the world in shades of grey and blue but his vision was acute and in his moment above water, he had seen the beach. A distant bar of sand at the foot of the cliff, bare of all but jumbled rocks and a bird or two.
Chan drifted closer on the current, feeling the faint push and pull of the little waves that burbled as they broke on the shore and hissed as they slid back. The seafloor was very near, the depth here shallower than even the scream’s breeding grounds in the lagoon, and but for schools of tiny, darting fish and the odd crab or shellfish buried under a thin layer of silty sand, he was alone here. A surge of loneliness almost had him turning away and swimming back to where Felix waited far from the coast.
Movement.
Rising enough that his eyes were above the water, Chan saw a shape on the beach, just out of reach of the waves. A human. It’d been a long time since Chan last saw one of those. Felix had kept them both well clear of inhabited shores and could hear the echo of a boat in the sea from miles away, which made those easy to avoid. Chan’s senses were now keen enough to pick up such warning signs, too, and he heeded them devoutly.
The human was walking along the water’s edge at a speed that was less than a crawl for Chan. They didn’t seem to be going anywhere in particular, their pace suggesting aimless leisure. He couldn’t tell if they were watching the ocean or looking ahead but Chan took care to remain unnoticed as he followed them to the far end of the beach. There, the human turned around and began walking the way they’d come, just as unhurried as before. They reached the tumble of rocks Chan had first found Felix amongst and he decided he’d seen enough.
With a twitch of his fins, Chan was heading back out to sea.
Felix rejoined him in the open water and asked, ‘Was your human there?’
‘I don’t know,’ Chan answered, more troubled than he cared to admit.
‘Do you want to leave or stay another day?’
Chan thought about it for a while and Felix brushed close, a mirage twined with shadows, the ocean’s gifts to them. Eventually, he said, ‘Stay.’
Felix acquiesced with a muted trill before coiling their tail and launching ahead, an invitation to chase and play and put aside all thoughts of humans that Chan gladly took them up on.
He returned to the shore at the next dawn, and the next one, and the one after that. So did the human. Chan was sure it was the same one, their gait unchanging and their lap of the beach slow. Felix gave no indication of impatience but they told Chan that they could only stay one more day as there wasn’t enough food this close to a place so densely populated with humans to sustain a pair of adult mer very long and, besides, they were both flirting with more danger than Felix liked.
They didn’t just have themselves to think of now, after all – from Felix’s clutch of six eggs, four spirited hatchlings had emerged last autumn and they were growing swift and strong. Come next spring, the pups would be ready to leave the safety of the lagoon and the protection of the scream’s caretakers, those mer too old to breed who favoured warmer waters year-round, and join their parents in the wider ocean.
Chan agreed to Felix’s stipulation and on the fifth and final morning, he let himself be bold and swam in closer than he had yet. The human was not especially tall – Chan was distantly sure he’d been taller in his first life – and they a second skin over – no, that wasn’t right. The second skin was clothing. Chan couldn’t remember the rationale behind wearing it in such warm weather. He also thought, somewhat tentatively, that this human was male. The human sexes often had visible differences and if this was Chan’s human, they were definitely male.
The human stopped where the cliff cut across the sand and marked the end of the beach, little waves washing up against its base. They turned to look out over the water rather than promptly retracing their steps and, fuelled by something unnameable, Chan flicked his flukes just below the surface to create a distinct splash.
He was close enough to see the human freeze and he was close enough to hear their soft-dry-shallow voice as they asked, ‘Chan-hyung?’
His heart beat hard behind his ribs and he made no sudden movements to draw their eyes, his body primed to lunge or flee at an instant’s notice.
When no response came, the human sagged and rubbed their hands over their face. ‘Stupid,’ they muttered. ‘Stupid. Of course it’s not him.’
They started their walk back and Chan let his head emerge into the cool air and he offered a low whistle almost indistinguishable from the rush of the waves breaking on the cliff face.
The human halted mid-step, their shoulders bunching up towards their ears. But they didn’t turn around and after a moment, they continued on their way.
Chan watched them go and very nearly let them. By the time he’d decided to commit to catching the human’s attention, they were far enough away that he had to swim after them. He drew level with them and lifted the end of his tail into the air to slap down on the surface, a sharp sound in the early morning quiet.
The human jumped and spun around, staring wildly. They saw Chan immediately and their mouth opened but nothing came out.
He stared back, defiant and curious and something too faint to be anything meaningful. Once, it might’ve been a deep well of emotion stamped with the human’s name but the ocean had demanded everything from Chan in order to rebirth him and, in howling, choking agony, he had given up all that made him Chan-the-human. Including whatever passion he’d once felt for this human. Perhaps it had been love, the kind Felix had for Seungmin. There wasn’t enough of it left for Chan to be able to tell.
‘It’s you,’ the human gasped, their eyes wide. ‘You came back.’
They stumbled forward and it was pure instinct for Chan to drift backwards, the sea his security against humankind. The human stopped as soon as they realised what he was doing and their face twisted. It took Chan a whole second to remember enough about human facial expressions to recognise pain and grief writ large.
‘Chan-hyung?’ they asked. ‘Please, talk to me. Please.’
Talking. Words. Surface air.
Chan grimaced but he was here for a reason so he did as he’d practised, and rasped, ‘Changbin.’ He hadn’t known he’d remembered the name until he spoke it. ‘I once made you a promise. I have come to keep it.’
The human – Changbin – wrapped their arms around themself and made an odd noise. Their shoulders trembled and their breath came in harsh puffs.
They were crying, Chan realised. The echo of emotion in his chest squeezed tight. ‘Why do you grieve?’ he asked, unsure of the correct response.
Changbin wiped their face roughly and sniffed hard. ‘I’ve missed you a lot, hyung. It’s been twelve years since I saw you.’
Chan knew he’d promised to return in ten summers, if he could.
‘I couldn’t come sooner,’ he said. ‘The ocean did not fulfil its claim on me many summers past and then –’ He subsided mid-sentence, about to mention that he and Felix had pups now and they required a lot of attention and nurturing. But that was precious information and he didn’t think he wanted to give it to a human, even one he’d once known and cared for.
‘It – it all worked, then?’ Changbin asked, their gaze flicking over what little of Chan they could see. ‘Felix helped you with – everything?’
‘Yes,’ Chan agreed, and he did a slow backwards roll to show off his tail, though he knew Changbin’s wouldn’t be able to make out the colour in this light.
Changbin’s mouth was open again when Chan tossed his head and resettled. ‘You really did it. You’re a – like Felix.’
That was evident so Chan said nothing, watching Changbin watch him.
‘Are you happy now?’ they asked abruptly. ‘You said Felix could give you happiness, hyung.’
Chan thought of Felix, his silvery mate, waiting for him out in deeper waters, and their pups, playful and beloved, already restless to surf the ocean’s wild currents and plumb its pitch-dark depths. He thought of Seungmin, whose isolationist nature and love for Felix had once made them resentful of Chan but who now welcomed Chan on their hunts, and he thought of the other members of the scream whom he had trusted to keep watch while he slept.
Many cycles ago, Chan had been hollowed out by an aged sorrow that he couldn’t shake, until Felix. Felix, who gave him life again.
Human smiles were not quite like mer smiles but Chan was fairly sure he was making a reasonable attempt at one, his teeth bared without menace or threat. ‘Yes,’ he repeated. ‘They offered me a death and in the ocean I was reborn.’
Changbin looked worried by that – they wouldn’t understand what the rebirth meant, and how could they? – but nodded. ‘Good. I am very glad.’ They hesitated only briefly. ‘Would you like to hear about me? And the others?’
Chan no longer remembered who the others were but that faint echo was still pressing close to his heart. ‘Do you have happiness of your own?’
The question startled a short laugh from Changbin. ‘I do. I have a wife and two children. Our son is six and our daughter is three.’
Chan trilled, a sound of shared joy, though Changbin didn’t seem to recognise it as such.
‘I think I’d just started seeing Lee Minho when you, ah, you left,’ Changbin continued, some of that grief weighing down their shoulders again. ‘It didn’t last. I couldn’t – I wasn’t up for anything for a while.’ They cleared their throat. ‘Hyunjin and Jisung came home early, of course. I tried to tell them about you and Felix but, um, that didn’t work so well either. Hyunjin thought the shock had driven me crazy and tried to make me go to a psychiatrist. Jisung... I think Jisung believed me. We don’t really talk about it now.’
Those names had meant something to Chan, once. The echo told him so.
‘You gave them the truth,’ he said. ‘It is their decision to recognise it or not. Do your family know?’
Changbin cleared their throat again, standing up straighter. ‘You’re right, hyung. And no, they don’t know about – this.’ They gestured vaguely at Chan. ‘All they know is who you were to me, before.’
‘Good. Do not tell them, Changbin.’ One, maybe two humans knowing, Chan could accept that and no more.
‘I won’t,’ Changbin vowed. ‘Your secret’s safe with me, Chan-hyung. For as long as I live.’
Trusting a human in any capacity didn’t come easily in this body, this life. But there was a stark sincerity about Changbin and, though he was probably being influenced by the dregs of his emotional attachment to the human, Chan found he didn’t wish to be cruel to them. So, he would rely on his past self’s judgement.
‘I will trust you on this,’ Chan said, the words alien on his tongue.
A gull cawed and wheeled overhead, and the strange bubble around them popped. The need to return to open waters and to Felix thrummed under Chan’s skin.
Changbin seemed to realise this, too. ‘You’re going now, aren’t you? Will I see you again?’
‘No.’ The answer was swift and sure. Chan had fulfilled the promise he made in another lifetime and, in doing so, divested himself of any lingering sense of connection to land and those who lived on it. ‘I am going home. It’s far from here.’
‘Oh.’ Changbin shrank a bit but their face didn’t twist again. ‘Thank you for coming to see me, hyung.’
‘I made a promise,’ Chan said simply.
With that, he dipped below the surface of the sea, thoroughly sick of dry air, and powered away from the shore for the last time. His face was turned to the lightening sky and his gaze was tilted back to where he knew Felix and their pups and the rest of his life were waiting for him, and he was happier than he’d ever been.