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Wooyoung had been on land for almost an entire year by now. Still, he was far from understanding many things about the human world, and maybe he could add the concept of a road trip to his list of questions. He wasn’t sure if that was the first or the second time he was on a road trip with his friends since the first trip was cut short after Wooyoung accidentally lost his sea stone inside a ball pit. They needed to rush to the first hotel they found before the mermaid’s magic wore off and everyone saw his tail. A part of him didn’t consider it too much of a problem because his half-moon beta-like tail painted in onyx black was gorgeous. Everyone should be graced with the view, but it would cause a scene, and he would need water as soon as possible.
So, with all the movies he saw and all he heard from his friends, especially from the other three mermaids that came to land before him, Wooyoung was expecting a little… more? Possibly more singing, but Yunho and Mingi did it even before the car moved and even chose songs that both Yeosang and Wooyoung knew enough to sing along. Perhaps it was too much expectation in something that naturally wasn’t all that, but it wasn’t bad either. Or maybe he was just too excited for their destination that everything before there wouldn’t quite satisfy him. It had happened before, so Wooyoung’s bet was on this last option.
“Remember when you raced with sharks?” Yeosang's voice called his attention, making him look at the two mermaids in the backseat.
“Wait, you what?” Yunho looked at him, both surprised and concerned, taking his eyes off the road for a few seconds.
“Raced with sharks.” Wooyoung laughed at his reaction, looking again at both mermaids in the backseat. “Mingi, you have been here for almost six years. Did you never talk about the Thalassian Games to them?”
Yunho intervened. “I think he mentioned it once. But nothing about racing with sharks.”
“I talked about it before!” Mingi defended himself. “But it’s been a while.”
“It’s like an Olympics with aquatic sports, right?” Yunho asked.
“What is an Olympic?” Wooyoung tilted his head to the side. He already heard what humans considered aquatic sports, but that one word was new.
“Worldwide sports competition with multiple categories that happens every four years.” Yeosang answered with a monotone voice while he looked at his phone, typing something.
“Well... yeah”. Mingi said, chuckling. “Very formal explanation, though.”
“That’s how Jongho explained to me after I asked when he said Hongjoong, Seonghwa, and San were in an Olympic competition to see who was the most oblivious.”
“Makes sense,” Yunho laughed, the other three following the action until Wooyoung tuned on his seat.
“You shouldn’t be laughing, Yeo.”
“Why not? They are oblivious that they all like each other.” Yeosang stared at him.
“Because you are exactly like them.”
Mingi whistled while Yeosang rolled his eyes, his attention back to his phone.
“I have no idea what you are talking about”
“Wen Junhui begs to differ”. Wooyoung scoffed, moving to his seat again to look outside.
“Wait, wait”. Mingi said, his index finger up as if trying to connect invisible dots. “ The Wen Junhui?”
“Yes”. Wooyoung sighed.
“Dude, you got Wen Junhui’s attention and were oblivious?” Mingi asked.
“He was only being nice to me. We met at one of those noble parties and decided to stay together because that's what two introverts do. That’s all. Wooyoung is just being delusional.” Yeosang said.
“Sometimes I forget you are from underwater royalty,” Yunho commented.
“It’s nothing much to remember. It is just a title that doesn’t have many implications like the human version.”
“Anyway, that doesn’t change the fact that Junhui flirted with you the entire night, and you are still lying to yourself because you were completely blind to see it that day.”
“Delusional.” Yeosang gave Wooyoung the tongue.
Yunho stopped at a red light. “Who is Wen Junhui?”
“One of the most beautiful men ever,” Wooyoung said. “You look at him and understand how humans drown at the sea because of a mermaid.”
“He’s on land, working as an actor in China,” Mingi said.
“Oh, is he? Interesting.” Wooyoung smiled, reaching for his phone at the same time Yeosang slapped his arm.
Yeosang quickly changed the topic, even though he knew it wouldn’t be enough to stop his friend. While he was on his phone, Wooyoung heard Yeosang explaining more about the Thalassian Games to Yunho, who questioned almost everything like the cute curious human that he was. At some point, the conversation died, and Wooyoung took a few moments to photograph the view whenever Yunho slowed down a little to follow the flow of the road.
Holding the camera that Seonghwa gifted him to celebrate his first month on land, he captured some of the landscape of the road. Nothing more than some trees, a few sky pictures, and at least two pictures of Yunho driving. Mingi shared the sandwiches he and Seonghwa packed both cars with so they could eat something while on the road, and a calm talk comparing mermaid and human food filled the vehicle.
They probably spent the last hour like that, slowly changing the topic from different foods to cooking skills. Distracted by the stories shared by Yunho and Mingi about Hongjoong's misfortunes in the kitchen, Wooyoung had only noticed that the car stopped after Jongho honked next to them.
“How are you?” Yeosang asked the younger one once everyone was out of both cars.
“Glad to know I have great self-control when driving with these three for five hours.” Jongho smiled sarcastically. It looked cute to Wooyoung, but he remained silent to avoid being punched. Instead, the mermaid held Yeosang’s arm as both tried not to laugh once they spotted Hongjoong.
“What?” the other asked, staring confusedly at them.
“I told them about when you squeezed an egg to fry it.” Mingi smiled.
Hongjoong gave him the middle finger, making Wooyoung loudly laugh.
“Ok, let’s give each other the tongue later.” Seonghwa laughed. “The flowers first, please.”
Jongho pouted for a second. “Ah, can’t we let them fight now?”
“I bet on Hongjoong.” Yeosang raised his hand, ignoring the distraught noise Mingi made.
“My vote is to get popcorn first.” Yunho smiled, soon changing his expression as Seonghwa looked at him in reprehension. “Ok, let’s go see the flowers. Fight later.”
“Show the path, captain” San smiled at Hongjoong, his dimples popping out.
Wooyoung watched the other’s cheeks change to a bright pink while he moved around, complaining about the nickname as if no one saw his smile. Jongho, however, seemed ready to punch someone, so Wooyoung snapped a photo of him and ran before Jongho could catch him.
Walking between Jongho and Yeosang, Wooyoung looked around the place. That road trip was to take the mermaid to see a flower field since he arrived on land at the end of the spring season and was slowly catching up with some human festivals. So far, it looked like many places he'd seen already, the parking lot surrounded by trees like one of the parks Wooyoung once went to. A stone path led to what seemed to be the central building with a circular arch, its walls painted with multiple colors in abstract lines. It was pretty, and the circular shape of the door felt like a portal to a different place.
Inside that building, the walls were divided into orange and yellow, with big windows balancing the vibrant colors with some green, white, and blue decorations. Wooyoung thought it was funny that a cactus was right next to the box office, considering many people walked there.
“I’ll go validate our tickets,” Hongjoong said, soon pointing to the white couch next to the box office. “You can sit if you want.”
San loudly complained at the suggestion, making Seonghwa laugh before he patted the boy’s head. Following the orange wall, Wooyoung and Yeosang found a hallway that leads to a small cafeteria. Dragging Seonghwa to buy things for them, Hongjoong returned when everyone had a drink and a few sweets in their hands.
“So, what is the plan?” Yunho asked. “Just the flower field?”
“There’s nothing much besides it, but the field is huge,” Hongjoong said. “They have murals on the way to the flowers, so we can take photos there. And they also have a souvenir shop.”
“Do we have a limited time?” Seonghwa questioned.
“Not really, they close around 8PM. Five hours is good enough for us.”
“Well, it’s what it took us to get here,” Yeosang pointed out.
Seonghwa laughed. “Indeed.”
Wooyoung focused on the ice cream Seonghwa brought him, a few plans to see the entire field circling around as everyone finished eating. They decided that if anything happened, their meeting point would be the cafeteria they were in.
With Hongjoong leading the way since he had visited the place before, Wooyoung watched Jongho rolling his eyes at San and Seonghwa walking near the older one. A little after the cafeteria's small outside area, the first mural could be seen already. It was a graffiti wall with the solar system all in pastel colors, and Wooyoung made sure that Seonghwa was right below Mars before he took the picture, saying he could stay anywhere for the next photo since he was a star. In front of the solar system, a red car was painted on a dark grey road surrounded by green vegetation and a clear sky.
“Isn't it one of the roads to get here?” San asked.
“I think so,” Jongho answered after he took a selfie. “Next time, we should get a convertible car like this.”
“I agree!” Mingi exclaimed while photographing Yunho with an open mouth to 'eat' Venus.
With small pauses to let people pass and take their own photos, the group stopped at each wall mural. There was one with a beach landscape with six girls dressed in white playing on it, one with a lake with a duo of swans, where Jongho asked Yeosang to imitate one of the swan's poses for a photo. For the last two murals, one had a blue woman's face, sunglasses of the same color and red lips, some circles, and other abstract decorations with a color scheme of blue, red, and yellow. The other one had a light pink convertible car with multiple flowers around and inside the vehicle.
Wooyoung heard his friends trying to make a last pose on the murals, but his attention was on the colors before him. It reminded him of coral reefs, a never-ending sea of colors, shapes, and smells. He wasn’t on the sea now, and although he had seen flowers already, the scene in front of him almost made him cry.
A warning sign for the uneven ground of that field was adorned with yellow flowers almost in the same tone as the sign. Wooyoung caught a glimpse of a red-haired girl almost falling down near them if it wasn't for her friend holding her arm. Hongjoong pointed out that coming on a weekday would give them more space to enjoy the flowers, as people usually visit the field on the weekends, but it didn’t mean they would be there all by themselves.
Yeosang pulled Wooyoung by the hand, happily pointing at a row of light pink and red flowers. “These are carnations! San said it is my birth flower.”
“A birth flower?”
“Yeah, humans assign flowers and gemstones to each day of the year, so everyone has a birth flower.”
San stopped between them, scaring Wooyoung for a second, laughing at the scream he let out before running to escape the mermaid’s slaps. After receiving a bite as ‘revenge’ for the scare, San talked more about the birth flowers, trying to teach Wooyoung his own flower before naming all the group flowers. They tried to find some of them in the field, but they soon got distracted by the simple beauty of the place.
There were some field guides around, explaining a bit about the place's history. Most of the flowers were planted by humans instead of naturally occurring, none of them in a monoculture way, which was why everything was so colorful and free. Seonghwa brought them some 'flower crown kits' after they sat among a few white and purple flowers. Wooyoung gave up pretty fast and decided to watch Jongho making four flower crowns on a roll, excitedly hugging him after the younger one gave him one.
On an accidental mermaid-only group, Wooyoung walked around with Yeosang, Mingi, and Seonghwa, the last two explaining some things about the place and human stuff, small knowledge they learned as they were on land longer. Yunho soon reached them, though, and Wooyoung wasn’t exactly sure how they ended up rolling on the grass, but it happened.
Lost in that sea of colors and whatever shenanigans he and his friends made, Wooyoung realized he was tired after he sat down on higher ground. A happy type of tiredness, the soft smile on his lips confirming it while he rested his head on Jongho’s shoulder. The sky was changing from blue to orange, sunset upon them as Hongjoong and Seonghwa started to talk about going to a hotel for the night. Wooyoung didn’t pay much attention to that talk, focusing on the view ahead of him.
Thinking about the road trip, Wooyoung decided that his previous thoughts about the concept were affected by his anxiety about arriving at the flower field. Maybe this road trip thing humans did was more about the destination and the friends you were on the road with than the trip by itself. Thinking about it like that made more sense that humans enjoyed such a thing. He would need to do it again to be sure. Maybe he could try it on the trip back to the countryside where they lived. And, maybe if Wooyoung had asked, he would have had more time than just the trip back.