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He picks up the book solely because the cover is blue, not the cerulean blue of the sky but lighter, more green, and he thinks if it were a shade brighter it would match Till’s eyes.
He finishes the book in a day. It was a collection, filled with stories about snow witches and naked emperors and the like, but there was an odd mix of ‘happily ever afters’ and more tragic endings, only alleviated by the promise of heaven. Above all else, this is what struck him as the most childish: there was no heaven, only indifferent stars and cold space. And the only God to be found was a boy with silver hair and burning eyes.
Childish as it is, Ivan keeps the book because of one particular story. It’s one of the more tragic endings with a promise of heaven as a cheap comfort. He finds himself rereading it over and over again, just that one story, because even if she wasn’t real and neither heaven nor mermaids exist, there was some comfort in seeing a part of himself reflected in the words.
However, there were a few key differences between his circumstances and the ones in the story.
For one, Ivan wasn’t a mermaid.
Instead of a fish tail covered in brilliant scales, he has two legs for running after a boy who would never look his way, and his singing voice was among the best of his year but nothing as impressive as a mermaid’s would be if they existed.
Furthermore, he’s never been to the sea. There was none as far as he knew. In Anakt garden, the environment was carefully controlled to ensure that the human pets would be able to focus on their vocal development, with the addition of things like education. It was stifling, the artificiality of it all. Every leaf and every breeze, even the temperature of the river with all of the mechanical fish, all of it was to raise them so that when they were slaughtered, they died as stars. That aside, there wasn’t an ocean on the planet.
He heard that tears were supposed to be salty once, like the sea was, but that was something he’d never known. He was never one for feeling so passionately to the point of tears. Not when an alien held him by his collar and dangled him off the edge of a roof, not when he was auctioned off to the highest bidder and not when Till let go of his hands as the stars burned across the sky like a wrathful God. Maybe he couldn’t cry in the same way fish can’t breathe air or aliens couldn’t sing. Maybe he just lacked the right parts.
Ah, but mermaids couldn’t cry either.
Secondly, Till was not a prince.
Till goes to sleep most nights scratched and bruised. He does not have big, dark eyes like the prince from the story; his eyes are bright and shiny like marbles, more often than not narrowed, especially when he talks to Ivan. Till is rough and passionate and the sort of untameable that a fire is, burning just as hot. He leads with his heart and fights like a boar—digging his heels in the ground and fighting for the sake of it, because Till can’t win against the Segyin but it’s the principle of the thing.
Unlike the prince, there was no happy ending awaiting him at the end of this story. Even if he survived the season, even if Ivan died for him, he’d still be trapped. The two of them were doomed from the start.
Finally, Ivan never pulls Till out of the water.
Ivan never kisses his forehead when he leaves him on the shore.
Ivan crushes his flowers beneath his heel, pushes his face into the dirt and leaves him with bruises on his cheeks.
Maybe if he put in the effort, he could love the way Mizi and Sua do, even if it would only be a cheap and one-sided imitation. Till would like that, he likes soft and gentle things like Mizi and flowers. He tries to picture it: Till looking at him sweetly, eyes bright with delight, smiling at him the way he smiles only for Mizi. It’s not Till at all. Because Ivan watches Till, knows everything about him, and Till would never look at him sweetly or grin at him with his teeth. The boy he loves would never love him back.
In the end, his love has never been sweet in the first place, so why start now. Ivan does not love gently, he loves with his teeth.
***
There’s something funny about Till’s own unrequited love. Maybe he was the mermaid since he was the one with the passion and kind way of loving, following that heart of his to the end. Maybe Ivan had got it wrong and Till was the mermaid, Mizi was the prince, Sua was the princess and he was nothing at all.
***
Sua was throwing it all away.
She was one of the lucky few who got to be in love, the fairytale happy ending sort, picture perfect in a way that made everyone else seethe and Ivan’s teeth ache, and she was going to throw it all away. Of course, their happiness wasn’t going to last forever, but the audacity of her to lie to Mizi that they would tie and both move on…
Did she think she was a martyr?
She was going to be trauma. Something to haunt Mizi for however long she lives. And she could try to act like it was for Mizi’s sake but she was just selfish: she just wanted an out and death happened to be the easiest way. Or perhaps she just wanted Mizi to live on and remember her. Sua was lucky like that, she had someone who would mourn her.
***
This was the last night that she would breathe the same air as he did…
She laughed and danced with the thought of death in her heart.
***
Ivan’s first kiss tastes like rainwater.
This wasn’t how things were supposed to go but Till had stopped singing. And Ivan’s always known that Mizi meant everything to him, but he never realized it was to this extent. Ah, but he did go back for her. That time too, he fought that alien because Mizi was there. Everything he did was for her, every fight he started, every song he wrote and picture he drew—even when he was singing with him, he was singing to her. With her gone, he was ready to die.
He really was the mermaid.
Ivan doesn't fight like Till. He plays along with the Segyins, smiling for the camera and collecting the sponsorships; he was always obedient, but this was not something he could remain passive about. Not Till.
Till fights the kiss but the second his hands are around his neck, he goes limp, like he’s giving up. Ivan hates every second of it but he doesn’t let go. He’ll keep him from turning into sea foam.
He watches as Till’s score climbs. They don’t bother with restraints this time.
Maybe it’s because he’s about to die, but the moment he lets go and starts to fall feels like a brief eternity. He sees Till's eyes widen, sparkling and clear like glass marbles. His blood tastes the same as Till’s. Hundreds of regrets burn in his throat: he should have been kinder, should’ve tried harder to love gentler, but it’s too late for that now. At the very least, he can give Till his blood.
***
One more time, with her eyes half glazed, she looked at the prince. Then she threw herself from the ship into the sea, and she felt her body dissolve into foam.