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Yoongi isn’t a weathered sailor bewitched by tales of the sea, nor is he a pious man resisting the temptation of a siren’s song. His interest in the sea stops at how he can get out of it, thank you very much, that shit is scary. Raised in the low valleys of Daegu, the closest he ever got to deep water was through ‘Laws of the Jungle’ on SBS every Friday night.
Why, then, is he the one who meets Park Jimin?
He’s at a pier in Busan, ragged burlap sack in one hand and camera in the other. The sun has barely risen over the mountains in the distance when Yoongi leans over the dock and sees it; a tiny bubbling under the surface of the water.
Without thinking, Yoongi pokes in a finger.
“Ow!” Yoongi pulls his finger back immediately, inspecting the tiny pricks on the side. It didn’t break the skin, thankfully, so Yoongi drops to his knees to get a closer look just as a face breaks the surface.
The scream he lets out is enough to shock the seagulls from their predatory circling overhead, but then a wet hand shoots forward to cover his mouth. Yoongi’s struggling to scramble back, certain this boy who’s swimming around under the pier is going to pull him under and drown him and dissect his organs for the black market. Then, he notices the flash of silver under the water.
It shocks him enough to still, staring at the sleek fishtail growing from this boy’s torso.
The flash of Yoongi’s camera shutter was more from instinct than anything, but the boy— merman?— splashes back, rubbing away the flash in his eyes. He pouts cutely, still treading water, and snaps out a sentence that sounds like he’s gargling water in his throat.
“Er, pardon me?” Yoongi cocks his head.
He receives another gargle for his efforts.
“Do you need a cough drop? You have something in your throat?”
The boy rolls his eyes, swimming up and beckoning Yoongi closer. Yeah, like he’d do that. He’d rather keep his organs and not drown, thanks.
Yoongi stays unmoving as the boy huffs, impatient, and props his arms up on the deck. Yoongi gets a full view of the boy’s tanned skin rippling under the effort of pushing himself out of the water. When he’s eye level with Yoongi, tail still submerged, the boy grabs the back of Yoongi’s neck and pulls their lips together.
It tastes like the sea and Yoongi’s prepared to be disgusted, but it’s more refreshing saline than muddy brine, more cooling pressure than icy chill, and, when the boy dips in his tongue, more scorching heat than Yoongi can bear.
He pulls back in shock when the boy deepens the kiss, falling back on the dock.
“What are you doing?” He spits incredulously.
The boy’s eyes follow the movements of his lips in a daze.
“I can understand,” he breathes. “I understand the tiny human!”
“Tiny human? Excuse me—”
“Shh,” the boy leans over and presses a finger to Yoongi’s lips. “Your language is terrible. Don’t speak.”
“I don’t want to hear that from someone who sounds like they’re choking on water,” Yoongi scoffs. “That’s a nice fish costume, did your mother sew it for you?”
“You don’t believe in mermen?”
“Do I look like a Disney prince? Fuck no.”
“Then does this look fake?” The boy turns, flaunting the dorsal fin on his back, but Yoongi’s more distracted by the way his skin is stretched taut over the muscles of his back.
“Body modifications have come a long way,” Yoongi justifies, clearing his throat and suppressing a blush.
“And these?” He smiles, and for a second Yoongi is blinded, but then his teeth extend and sharpen into a nest of razor-sharp points.
“Jesus Christ,” Yoongi breathes before yelping as the boy pretends to nip playfully at his ankles. “Enough, kid. Come on, who knows what people dump into the harbour. Get out of the water.”
The boy’s face drains of colour and he splashes back, squeaking, “I won’t come out! Please don’t eat me!”
Yoongi freezes. “Why the fuck would I eat you?”
“Don’t humans eat everything?”
“Why the fuck fuck would I eat you?”
“Am I unappetizing?” The boy has the gall to look offended.
“Sorry, I’m sure you’d look better grilled on a platter with some teriyaki sauce,” Yoongi says sarcastically. “I’m not used to my meals talking to me.”
“You wouldn’t eat me?”
“No.”
The boy pouts. He slicks his hair back with some water and strikes a ridiculous pose, smouldering Yoongi with his gaze. “How about now?”
“This is ridiculous,” Yoongi groans. “I don’t choose my meals based on sex appeal!”
“Oh.” Amazingly, the boy looks surprised at this revelation. “But if you did, would I be appetizing?”
“Yeah, you’d be on the first page of the Michelin Guide,” Yoongi rolls his eyes. “Kid, not to kinkshame, but you seriously need some help.”
The boy narrows his eyes. Within seconds, Yoongi’s fallen on his ass to the dock and being dragged into the water.
His scream gets stuck in his throat as he’s pulled under, the boy keeping a protective grasp around his arms even as Yoongi tries to flail. As Yoongi gasps, feeling the burn in his throat, he hears the melodious laugh of the boy through the water. With two powerful flicks of his tail, they break the surface again.
“Fuck,” Yoongi splutters. “Fuck, okay! I believe you!”
“I’m Park Jimin,” the boy smiles beatifically.
“Nice to know the name of the guy who tried to drown me. I’m Yoongi.”
Against his better judgment, Yoongi returns to the harbour every morning at sunrise. Of course, he brings his camera and burlap sack. As far as Jimin knows, Yoongi’s an avid seashell collector.
(He spent about thirty seconds on Naver and pulls out bullshit like ‘ribbed cantharus’ and ‘lyncina porteri’ but Jimin looks impressed, so there’s that.)
Really, the only downside is that now he has to lug the giant sack of shells across the city at dawn. But Jimin scours the ocean floor to help Yoongi’s ‘collection,’ handing him delicate spiral shells and mineral shards and even empty oyster shells, their mother of pearl glow similar to the sheen of Jimin’s tail.
They pass the hours between sunrise and sunset talking about each other’s worlds. Putting aside his skepticism, Yoongi lets Jimin tell him about the wonders of Atlantis, the gilded city set on the ocean’s trenches hidden by undersea currents. In return, Yoongi brings his camera and shows Jimin snapshots of Daegu; the harvest of apples in the fall, the quiet studiousness of his studio, the thrumbing beat in the hip hop clubs.
More times than he should, Yoongi catches himself before he slips up and invites Jimin back to Daegu with him. It’s far too easy to imagine Jimin, legs instead of a tail, walking by his side through under the night lights, taking a seat next to him in his classes, pressed against him in the clubs.
“Hyung,” Jimin says one day, expression anticipating.
Yoongi hums in reply, not looking up from the camera where he’s swiping through shots he’d snuck yesterday of Jimin against the sunset.
“I was feeling sad I don’t have anything like the cramera—”
“Camera.”
“Carema, whatever. So I bought something to show you instead!”
With that, a starfish lands on his face.
Yoongi nearly drops his camera, yelling in his throat because his mouth is latched shut from this fucking creature. He reaches a hand up to rip it off, but Jimin cries, “don’t hurt him!”
“Mmof!” Yoongi mumbles hysterically.
Jimin carefully lifts the starfish from Yoongi’s face. “Sorry,” he smiles sheepishly. “Namjoon-hyung’s a little excited to meet a human.”
“He’s a star,” Yoongi stares.
“I’m a star,” Namjoon repeats from where he stands on Jimin’s outstretched palms, thrusting out his— chest? Disc? Middle bit?— proudly.
“Like, an actual star. Not a starfish mermaid? Just a starfish?”
“Not everything in the sea is a mermaid, hyung,” Jimin explains slowly, as if to a toddler.
“And he talks?”
“Everything talks; starfish, sharks—” Jimin pauses to gesture to the gunmetal sleekness of his tail and matching dorsal fin— “but you humans are just too deaf to hear it. Here, say hi to Namjoon-hyung!”
Namjoon reaches out one of his five arms and Yoongi gives it a little shake, feeling foolish.
“I don’t like the little human.” A new voice shocks Yoongi and he springs back from the pier’s edge just as a swordfish pokes its nose through the water.
“He’s a lot bigger than you, Hoseok-hyung,” Jimin reminds the fish reasonably.
Yoongi finds himself nodding along before jolting in realization. “Wait, what? How are a starfish and a swordfish your hyungs? How old are they? How old are you??”
“Younger than you, I told you!” Jimin replies obtusely.
“Are you sure we age the same way? Isn’t there some weird fish aging thing like one human year is twenty fish years— fuck, it’s true, isn’t it? You’re actually four hundred. Fuck!”
“I can see why Jihyun is worried. You’re spending a lot of time with this stupid one, Jimin,” Hoseok ignores Yoongi when he makes a noise of indignation at being called stupid.
“Jihyun worries too much,” Jimin scoffs. “And so do you!”
“Your boyfriend?” Yoongi asks, nonchalant. At least, he hopes it’s nonchalant.
From Jimin’s raucous laugh, it’s clear he failed. “My brother, hyung. Jihyunnie’s my brother.”
“Oh. Well, maybe he’s right? Aren’t merpeople supposed to like, hide from humans?”
Jimin shrugs. “As long as I stay in the water, I won’t be seen and my tail won’t dry out. It’s just the water so close to land is so polluted. It’s so much nicer in the deep sea, hyung, you should come!”
“If the water here is so gross, why do you come every day?”
Jimin blushes deep scarlet. “Let me show you what Namjoon-hyung can do with his mouth!” He blurts, thrusting the starfish into Yoongi’s face before he can think too much on Jimin’s response.
At sunset, when Jimin’s rushed home to Jihyun with a philosophical starfish in one hand and an overprotective swordfish in the other, Yoongi heads back and makes the mistake of telling Taehyung.
Taehyung, his ever frivolous childhood friend from Daegu, of course accepts immediately that Yoongi’s met a merman who helps him find pretty seashells. He dismisses Yoongi’s doubts— why did he have to kiss me to understand me? When did he learn that was the way to communicate? How does a starfish contemplate the meaning of life?— to ask clearly more pressing questions.
“Did he hatch from a fish egg?”
“Taehyung,” Yoongi groans, head falling into his arms.
“Why? It’s a good question! If he didn’t, how did his mother birth him? And if you two, you know, and he gets, you know, would he lay an egg? And where does he even keep those, you know, parts?”
“I don’t know?” Yoongi squeaks. “I don’t know and I don’t even want to imagine—” that’s a lie, he’s already imagining— “so stop for fuck’s sake, Tae.”
“I’m not surprised, though.” Taehyung says seriously. “One time I fell off the harbour, but this fish tried to save me, and I’m pretty sure it understood me when I was talking?”
“Fish aren’t merpeople, Taehyung. And Park Jimin isn’t just a fish.”
Taehyung grumbles, poking his hands through the self-made holes in his shirt. “I bet you just like him because he goes around shirtless all the time.”
And now, to add to the thought of Park Jimin’s ‘parts,’ Yoongi’s forced to think about him without a shirt. To hide the redness of his face, Yoongi shoves Taehyung to the ground.
Taehyung’s giggling, still spluttering something about ‘shirt’ and ‘egg’ and Yoongi rolls his eyes, but soon they end up a mess of laughter. Yoongi knows the next time he sees Jimin his eyes will zero in on the apex of his tail and hear Taehyung’s voice whisper, ‘parts,’ so he hits the boy again for that.
Jimin would definitely ask why he’s blushing. Yoongi grins, already anticipating the next morning they see each other.
He should have known the peacefulness wouldn’t last.
Yoongi’s sitting with Jimin watching the sun set down over the water’s edge, dreading the moment Jimin will rush back before Jihyun starts to worry. The golden light casts a glow over Jimin’s face, reflecting off his tail as he flicks it absentmindedly back and forth. The vivid oranges of the sky place a shimmer in the irises of his eyes and dance over Jimin’s cheeks.
Without thinking, Yoongi reaches to brush Jimin’s hair back.
Faster than he can blink, Jimin jerks to the side and his teeth extend, drawing deep gashes into Yoongi’s hand.
They both stare at the wound in shock until blood begins to ooze in thick streams. Yoongi looks up at Jimin’s face, and, with a jolt, realizes how his pupils have dilated and lips pulled over his teeth.
“Jiminnie?” He whispers.
He snaps his head up and recoils at the fear in Yoongi’s eyes. Jimin backs away, fangs still bared, and swallows with difficulty.
“Jimin,” Yoongi urges.
Jimin turns without another glance and dives into the sea.
Yoongi sits on the dock, shell-shocked, palm still dripping droplets of blood into the water.
He’d heard about feeding frenzy, watched enough television to hear the theories of how sharks react to the scent of blood in the water. Yoongi had seen the videos of sharks ripping through diving cages and tearing at their prey. But it seemed impossible to reconcile those ocean predators with the boy who brought him seashells to marvel at their peach and orange patterns and splashed water up at Yoongi on the dock.
For the first time, Yoongi understands the fear of the ocean’s depths.
But that’s not to say Jimin’s allowed to leave, Yoongi grumbles to himself the next morning.
With a sort of anxious apprehension, Yoongi approaches the dock at sunrise. He shouldn’t have worried, because by midday, Jimin still hasn’t turned up.
Yoongi’s kicking his bare feet in the water, imagining Jimin’s face is just below its surface. His sack of seashells lays beside him, camera off for once, and the air is quiet but for the cry of seagulls in the air.
“Shut up,,” he shouts at them. “Go be useful and find that stupid shark, will you?”
By the third day, Jimin’s still missing, and Yoongi is fed up. He stops by the nearby market and points to an entire tank of silvery fish.
“Give me a bucket of those,” he tells the merchants.
“Having a big party?” They ask as they scoop the flopping fish from the tank.
“My friend is seafood,” he explains. “Sorry; he loves seafood, I mean.”
Back at the dock, Yoongi hovers the bucket over the water.
“Can you smell this, Park Jimin?” He taunts. “Stupid shark with your stupid smile and your stupid teeth,” Yoongi mutters as he starts tossing the fish into the water, grimacing at their slimy texture.
Somewhere around the fifth throw, the poor fish is caught directly by a pair of familiar jaws.
“About time,” Yoongi grouses. “How much money did you waste me?”
“I caught them!” Jimin says in earnest. He throws the other fish back onto the dock, where Yoongi kicks them off with a cry of disgust.
“What is this, hyung? Did you think I could be bribed?” Jimin lifts an eyebrow challengingly.
“Yes. Have a fish.”
“Okay,” Jimin acquiesces.
Yoongi watches as Jimin nibbles obediently on a fish in his hand. A weight he hadn’t been aware of is lifted off his chest. For the first time in the past three days, Yoongi relaxes against the dock.
“Hyung,” Jimin hesitates.
“Shut up,” Yoongi closes his eyes and falls back, legs hanging over the deck. “I got used to the quiet without you here.”
“Yoongi-hyung,” Jimin tugs at his ankle. “I—”
“Have another fish, Jimin-ah. The ahjussi looked at me so weird when I asked for an entire bucket.”
“No, I— hyung.”
Yoongi looks up. “Don’t, Jimin. It’s fine.”
But Jimin’s eyes are fixated on the bandage wrapped tight across Yoongi’s hand, brows furrowed in guilt. “It’s not, hyung. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” Yoongi shrugs as best as he can lying down. “Just a natural reaction.”
“But I can control myself better! I’m not— half of me might look like one, but I’m not just an animal.”
“I know, Jimin. I know, so it’s alright.”
“I didn’t come back because of the fish,” Jimin fidgets with something under the water, and Yoongi raises himself up on his elbows to get a better look.
“What’ve you got there?”
“I looked for a long time for it!” Jimin blurts nervously. “I had to ask Namjoon-hyung, and; well, that starfish hyung has no legs really, so he can’t exactly move to know where it is, and his sense of direction already isn’t that great— but— just— here!”
Jimin thrusts a rock into his hand.
“A rock,” Yoongi stares blankly. “You looked for a rock to give me?”
“What? No!” Jimin grabs it back, face crestfallen. “No, it stopped working!”
“No, it’s fine, Jimin, I love rocks. Come on, give it here,” Yoongi assures the boy, fighting to suppress a laugh.
“It’s not a rock! It’s coral, it glows under the sea, it’s seriously pretty,” Jimin sounds on the verge of tears. “I guess it doesn’t work above ground.”
“I still love it, Jimin-ah. Put it in here,” Yoongi sits up to open his seashell sack for Jimin.
“Really?” Jimin says doubtfully, dropping the coral into the bag. “Wait! I have something else for you too.” With that, he pulls out an enormous conch shell.
“Where did you keep that thing?” Yoongi asks in shock, with a sudden unwelcome flashback to Taehyung’s talk about mermen ‘parts.’ He shakes his head to dispel the thought.
“Put your mouth here.”
Yoongi looks straight to Jimin’s hips. “Uh, where?”
“Here,” Jimin points to the opening of the conch. “Just put your mouth there and blow.”
Feeling foolish, Yoongi fumbles with the conch and brings it to his lips, making a sound like a dying whale.
“I’m not doing it!” He hisses, tossing down the shell as Jimin laughs.
“No, purse your lips more!” Jimin takes the conch and demonstrates, making a clear, crisp sound that resonates over the water. “Like that!”
Grumbling, Yoongi tries again. With some awkward coaching and questionable lip stretches, Yoongi manages to hold a clear note before the sun sets.
“You got it!” Jimin cheers. “If you call for me with this, Yoongi-hyung, I’ll always come,” he smiles earnestly. The growing waves push Jimin up and closer to the dock, and Yoongi suddenly finds himself very close to Jimin’s face.
“Um, yeah,” Yoongi clears his throat. “Guess I’ll never use it then.”
Jimin rolls his eyes in a way that shows he knows Yoongi is full of shit. He looks over his shoulder for a brief glance at the darkening horizon and Yoongi’s heart sinks, knowing Jimin needs to return home to his brother.
“You better be here tomorrow morning,” he continues.
“Don’t worry, hyung. I have one more thing to show you, but you can only see it once it gets dark! It can’t be long now.”
Sure enough, as the sky turns from burnt orange to deep purple, the seas begins to light up a brilliant cerulean.
“What the fuck,” Yoongi chokes, moving forward to get a better look. “What is that?”
The sea is almost fluorescent from how it’s glowing, blue lights and wispy streams shimmering under the ocean’s currents. Their brilliance reflects off Jimin’s face in a way that’s somehow even more striking than the sun’s glow, and Yoongi’s suddenly struck with the realization he’s never been able to keep Jimin after dark.
“It’s called the milky seas!” Jimin swims forward to run a hand through the brightly lit waters. “It only happens sometimes, it’s lucky that you can catch it.”
“What?” Yoongi pauses. “You’re not staying?”
Jimin flicks his tail nervously, looking between the dock and the deeper waters. “I have to get back to Jihyun,” he says finally, dejected. “Enjoy it though, hyung.”
“Yeah,” Yoongi tells the empty waters once Jimin’s dived under. “Yeah, enjoy it.”
And so again, he’s left alone at the dock, looking out to the horizon until the lights glow and flicker off one by one.
When Jimin says he has to cover for Jihyun while his brother runs a few errands, Yoongi doesn’t expect to be one of those errands.
He’s at the dock, some stupid part of him that hoping Jimin might show up later in the day. For a second, his heart leaps to his throat at the sight of a dorsal fin cutting through the water.
“Couldn’t even stay away for a day?” He teases, although it applies just as much to himself.
When a face breaks through the water, Yoongi stops short.
“You’re not Jimin,” he says rather stupidly, but the similarity is there; the shape of the eyes, the curve of the lips, the set of the jaw. “Jihyun?”
Jihyun narrows his eyes, swimming closer.
“Your brother’s not here,” Yoongi continues, bending down to speak to the merman. “He said he was busy today, are you looking for him?”
“No,” Jihyun replies, and that’s all Yoongi hears before a net is thrown over his head and he’s dragged under the water.
Yoongi chokes on a mouthful of water, thrashing as Jihyun pulls him into deeper waters away from the coast.
Fuck, he panics. Fuck, what’s with these brothers and trying to drown me?
Jihyun pulls him to the bottom of the seabed even as Yoongi struggles. Through the black spots spreading across his vision, Yoongi catches Jihyun’s look of determination.
“I’m sorry,” he says pityingly. “Jimin-hyung’s been spending too much time on the surface. We’re all worrying for him; this is the only way.”
Yoongi wants to scream. Is this guy fucking serious? He can stay away from Jimin without being drowned, he’s sure. At least, he’s somewhat sure.
He glares although the salt stings his eyes, throwing weak punches at Jihyun’s chest when it’s clear there’s no getting out of the net. Yoongi’s lungs are burning, eyes watering and vision wavering with the pressure in his throat, desperation rising with every second; his eyes flutter closed—
“Hyung!”
Yoongi’s eyes stay closed, body falling limp.
“Hoseok-hyung! Help me!”
Yoongi thinks he hears Jimin’s voice, feels the net around him tug and drag in different directions.
Seconds later, he feels a pair of familiar arms wrap around his middle and a pair of lips press to his. A breath of oxygen is forced into him and Yoongi wheezes, eyes opening to see Jimin staring back with worry etched into his face.
“Hyung? Hyung! Don’t worry, we’ll get you out of here, okay?”
Yoongi looks down and sees Hoseok using his sword-like bill to cut into the net; Jimin’s pulling at the twine but it’s tangled impossibly in the coral at the seabed.
“Hyung—” Jihyun chokes before Jimin tackles him into the silt.
“I cannot believe you Park Jihyun!” Jimin yells fiercely. “Go back right now!”
With one last nervous glance back at Yoongi, Jihyun flits away.
Yoongi tries to help Jimin pull at the net, but he’s losing his breath fast, mind going muddled, arms listless. Jimin darts for the surface, returning with another breath of air that he presses hard to Yoongi’s mouth.
“It’s impossible,” Hoseok tells Jimin, still darting back and forth.
“It’s not!” Jimin cries desperately. He wrenches at the net but it barely budges. A piece of coral breaks off, sending a school of fish scurrying past.
“It is!” Hoseok insists. “Move over.”
Jimin barely has time to duck before Hoseok shoots past Yoongi, cutting a long gash under his ear. Jimin gasps in horror and rushes back, holding his hands to his mouth even as his pupils dilate in reaction to the blood in the water.
Hoseok ignores him, turning back and slicing an identical wound on the other side of Yoongi’s head. Yoongi gasps in relief, water passing through his newly formed gills and healing the open wound in seconds. He draws huge gulps of water through his mouth but oxygen is fed to his lungs, focusing his vision and restoring strength to his limbs.
“I didn’t know you could do that,” Jimin approaches cautiously, hand still over his nose even though Yoongi’s gash has healed.
“I’ve only done it once,” Hoseok explains. “Some stupid kid fell off the deep harbour. I was just trying to nudge him back to the shore, but I accidentally cut his neck and he started breathing underwater. It was so weird though, he kept trying to talk to me? He had all these holes in his shirt, too, like he cut them himself.”
Of course, Yoongi groans to himself. Of course Kim Taehyung’s stupidity would save him at some point.
“So he can breathe now? Hyung? Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Yoongi croaks. He clears his throat, reaching up to touch the flap of skin. “Yeah, that’s really weird.”
“Hyung,” Jimin calls, and he sounds choked up. Yoongi looks up just in time to receive an armful of merman.
“Hey,” Yoongi mumbles into Jimin’s hair. “It’s okay, I’m okay.”
“But you almost weren’t, I was so scared, I thought—”
“But I am,” Yoongi insists. He brings a hand to Jimin’s chin, lifting it to meet his eyes. “And now I’ve got these totally weird gills, and I sort of know how to swim, so you can finally show me around Atlantis.”
The radiant smile Jimin gives him is worth almost drowning for, Yoongi thinks.
After struggling through the water for about two kicks, Jimin maneuvers Yoongi onto his back because he ‘swims like an injured, pregnant, goldfish.’
“I’d like to see how well you can walk with a giant tail,” Yoongi scorns.
“Shut up, hyung,” Jimin laughs, excited at the prospect of showing Yoongi his home. He brings Yoongi’s arms around his neck and Yoongi has to admit as they’re rushing through the ocean current, Jimin has a point; he does look beautiful when he swims.
Hoseok announces he can trust Yoongi— or, as he’s still called, the ‘little human’— when Yoongi spills with stories of Taehyung. He tells Hoseok that no, Taehyung actually can swim, and yes, he was probably hanging off the edge of the harbour by a roll of duct tape just for fun.
The water starts to lighten and shimmer with a golden sheen, turning warmer even as Jimin ducks into a dive down a deep trench. Jimin accelerates, tail snapping ever faster, brushing his fingertips against the algae growing below as he speeds past.
Ahead, a gilded metropolis emerges seemingly out of nowhere in the sea floor. Gigantic bubbles hover above the city, reflecting a pearlescent glow from where the sun’s rays break through the water. There’s tiny shells planted in the ground where crustaceans wander to and fro, a nest of napping dolphins to the side, and towers upon towers of mother of pearl where merpeople dart between the columns.
A few young ones give Jimin a courteous wave as they pass now, and— unless he’s hallucinating— did those fish just bow?
“Did they just—” Yoongi leans over Jimin’s shoulder to ask—
“How is—” Jimin turns just as Yoongi leans, and Yoongi’s lips press to the corner of Jimin’s mouth. Yoongi coughs out a cloud of bubbles as he recoils back, ducking his head and digging his fingers into Jimin’s shoulders in mortification.
“Um,” Jimin flushes red and turns around. “Look! There’s Namjoon-hyung!”
Fuck, why is he so embarrassed? Jimin’s kissed him plenty of times before. Yoongi refuses to acknowledge that two of those kisses were just to keep him breathing, and one of them just to be able to communicate. Yoongi keeps his head down, nodding against Jimin’s back as he moves them further into the city.
Namjoon appears to be sunbathing next to an enormous drill-shaped shell when they approach. He’s unmoving until Jimin pokes one of his arms.
“Hyung?”
“Jimin! Thank god,” Namjoon jerks up. “I’ve been lying here forever, I think Seokjin-hyung forgot about me.”
“He fell into my house again.” A merman emerges from the shell, wiping his hands on a piece of algae. “You broke my favourite anemone, Namjoon!”
“It wasn’t my fault, Jungkook was throwing me!” Namjoon protests, but Yoongi’s distracted by the tail that follows Seokjin. It’s the peacock equivalent of fishtails; a white and fuchsia rosetail that feathers out like billowing flower petals, skimming the ocean floor as he swims forward
“Seokjin-hyung’s a Siamese fighting merman,” Jimin explains as Namjoon and Seokjin continue to bicker in the background, but Yoongi can’t tear his gaze from the tail.
“Hyung?” Jimin asks, subdued. He follows Yoongi’s eyes to Seokjin and his face falls, eyeing his own grey shark tail self-consciously.
Yoongi shakes his head and latches closer to Jimin. “Sorry,” he mutters against Jimin’s neck. “Got distracted.”
Jimin’s still dispirited when another merman joins them, laughing as both Namjoon and Seokjin turn their bickering to lecture him instead.
“Hoseok-hyung! Save me!” The new merman dives behind the swordfish, trying to hide his face somewhere behind Hoseok’s bill.
“I will spear you, Jeon Jungkook,” Hoseok threatens. “Let go of me!”
“Hyung, this is Jungkook,” Jimin introduces.
Jungkook smiles at Yoongi; he’s got the tiniest fins protruding from the cutest tail, grey like Jimin’s but wider and flatter, and when he smiles, his teeth are adorably bunny-like.
“So cute, Jungkookie,” Jimin coos, reaching up to pinch Jungkook’s cheek.
Yoongi gets a face full of razor sharp teeth when Jungkook leaps forward to snap his jaws and jumps almost enough to fall off Jimin’s back, but Jimin just laughs.
“He’s a piranha,” Jimin points out.
“Hah, yeah, I see,” Yoongi wheezes once his heart starts beating again.
Hoseok takes over and continues to coddle Jungkook, nuzzling with his nose in a way that’s meant to be affectionate but really just looks threatening because fuck, that’s a swordfish. Namjoon and Seokjin are still arguing about whether Namjoon has the ability to aim his trajectory better when he’s being tossed when Jimin looks at Yoongi over his shoulder.
“Come on,” he smiles secretively. “I have something to show you.”
Jimin pulls Yoongi away from the group and the busy city, through the fronds and the seaweed, where the sun reflects blue instead of gold off the rocks. They duck into a nest of boulders, weaving through the menacing stalactites and stalagmites with a finesse that Yoongi can’t hope to achieve even on land.
Jimin pauses briefly to point out where a colony of glowing coral lays nestled in the wall, explaining his present to Yoongi and pouting when Yoongi laughs at the reminder (“Rocks,” he snorts; “Coral", Jimin stresses). Soon, Jimin stops where the water glows eerily.
“There,” Jimin points. “Do you see it?”
Yoongi peaks over Jimin’s shoulder and gawks. Right there in the middle of the ocean is a lake, littered with silt and branches at the side. It’s greener and swampier than the rest of the water, the contents beneath indecipherable from its opacity.
“What?” Yoongi gapes. “How is that even possible—”
“It’s a different water,” Jimin says, drifting closer to the edge. He pulls Yoongi off his back and holds him to his side instead. “It’s a little dangerous, though; we shouldn’t go to close. But a lot of shellfish live around here, we can definitely find something for your collection!”
Yoongi’s heart swells, even as he knows the collection is a guise. He’s steeling himself to tell Jimin it was fake; Yoongi woke up at the ass crack of dawn for Jimin, dammit, not some empty mollusks, but he’s interrupted.
“Hyung,” Jimin hesitates. “Hyung, I know I’m not the best person for this. Sharks aren’t exactly what people are expecting when they think of mermaids. Maybe someone like Seokjin-hyung—” he winces— “Or even just any other fish, or even a normal human would be better for yo— for—”
“Shut up, what are you saying?” Yoongi frowns. “There’s nothing wrong with sharks.” He hides his still-bandaged hand behind his back when Jimin’s eyes flicker to it. “And there’s nothing wrong with you.”
“I almost killed you twice now,” Jimin mumbles.
“I don’t care, you can almost kill me ten times over.”
“We can only really see each other at the harbour.”
“I don’t care.”
“None of this makes sense.”
“I don’t care,” Yoongi whispers. “Kiss me.”
One kiss to talk, two to breathe, one by accident, and finally, Yoongi thinks as Jimin flutters his eyes shut and leans closer, one for real. Yoongi shuts his eyes too, heart pounding in his chest, when—
“Fuck!” He gasps; a searing pain shoots under Yoongi’s ears and then he’s drowning again. He shoves Jimin back just before their lips touch, thrashing and coughing and gasping, trying frantically to signal that he can’t breathe—
“Hyung? Hyung!” Jimin cries, holding Yoongi’s arms still. His eyes go wide in horror when he realizes. “You can’t breathe?”
Yoongi nods, eyes closed shut as he tries desperately to conserve what air he can.
Jimin shoots out of the reservoir, slamming into rocks and scraping wounds into his arms and tail. Yoongi, wrapped in the cocoon of Jimin’s arms, stays unscatched.
“Whatever Hoseok-hyung did must not last,” Jimin curses. “Fuck, I should have realized!”
Yoongi wants to hit him, reprimand Jimin for blaming himself when he’s not at fault, but his lungs are burning and this time, there’s the creeping feeling that he actually won’t make it.
“I can’t take you up too quickly, hyung,” Jimin panics, breaking through the cave of rocks and surging upward desperately. “You might get decompression sickness. Fuck! Fuck, what do I do?”
Jimin’s racing for the surface nonetheless. Even with his eyes tightly shut, Yoongi can feel the powerful snaps of Jimin’s tail, the strain in his arms, the racing of his heart.
Yoongi tries to squeeze Jimin’s arm in reassurance before black overtakes over his vision.
Jimin breaks the surface and hauls Yoongi’s lifeless body to the shore, dragging him further up the beach when each wave threatens to pull them back to the water. Once he’s far enough up, he realizes he’s beached himself— there’s no way he’ll be able to crawl back to the water, and his skin is already starting to burn from lack of moisture— but Yoongi’s dying, there’s no time—
He presses his mouth to Yoongi’s, trying not to sob from how close he’d come to doing this underwater, how Yoongi had whispered ‘kiss me’ and Jimin’s heart lept to his chest, how foolish he’d been for forgetting even for a second that Yoongi didn’t belong underwater even more than he belonged on land.
Forcing breath into Yoongi’s lungs, pressing frantic pumps onto Yoongi’s chest, Jimin attempts to save his almost-lover. He feels his arms losing strength, dehydration drawing cracks and scars through his tail, losing his breath from the dry air his lungs aren’t used to.
“Please, Yoongi, please, please,” Jimin sobs against his lips, breaking down in the middle of pressing air to Yoongi’s mouth. “Please, wake up. Please, no, no.”
He continues to pump at Yoongi’s chest, movement erratic now from exhaustion and desperation.
“Help!” he screams frantically to the empty beach. “Please, someone, anyone, god, please, help!”
He takes Yoongi’s face in his hands desperately, pressing their lips together for another breath of air. His vision is blurring, from tears or dehydration he doesn’t know, but he can no longer move his arms on Yoongi’s chest. He can’t lift his head from Yoongi’s lips so he keeps their foreheads pressed together, a memory of an almost was that could’ve been if Jimin hadn’t been so stupid, so forgetful, so selfish.
He draws another dry, gasping breath before falling into blackness on Yoongi’s unmoving body.
Yoongi retches, turning to the side to cough out lungfuls of briny seawater. He’s halfway too delirious to register the heavy weight on his chest, but when he does, he’s stricken by the sight of Jimin unconscious over him.
His once smooth skin is flaking and dry, and his tail run through with lightning-shaped scars. Yoongi coughs again, spluttering more water as he sits up in horror.
“Jimin,” he rasps. He shoves at the boy’s shoulder, but Jimin just rolls over on his lap, hands falling limply from where they’d been pressed at Yoongi’s chest.
Realization dawns as Yoongi sees how far they’d moved from the shore. Ignoring the burning pain in his joints and pounding headache, he struggles to push Jimin back to the water’s edge.
“Fuck,” Yoongi mumbles, still nauseated. “Fuck!” He cries as he falls, overcome by vertigo.
Tears gather in his eyes even as he shoves at Jimin’s immobile body. Jimin, who’d swam all the way to the surface and dragged his body to the shore. Jimin, who’d ignored the burning in his skin from dehydration and then suffocated on the ground. Jimin, who saved Yoongi at the extent of himself.
“Fuck,” he repeats desperately, face pressed to the sand. Yoongi draws a rattling breath and squeezes his eyes shut, ignoring the tears that draw lines down his cheeks. He draws the last of his strength and shoves Jimin once, twice—
Jimin tumbles down the shore as a particularly strong wave reaches for him like it’s calling him back, enveloping him in its frothy waves; sends Jimin floating back to Yoongi’s feet, and then drags him away under its inky depths.
Yoongi falls to his back, breathing heavily, fighting the dizziness. He hears seagulls cry in the distance and wants to yell at them, tell them that he should be the one crying, that he is the one crying, to shut up and be useful and bring back Jimin safe and sound.
He opens his eyes after taking a few calming breaths, and his eyes fall to his camera and rucksack still sitting innocently on the pier.
He crawls up the dock, sweating heavily from exertion when he finally wraps his fingers around the camera and flicks back to the first picture he’d accidentally taken. It’s understandably blurry and water is covering half of his face, but it’s definitely Jimin. Even as his tail was reduced to a greyish blur, his stupid expression of shock was still captured perfectly.
Yoongi turns to face the ocean where the sun is starting to set, a sinking feeling spreading in his chest and forcing the tears to well and fall.
“Bring him back,” he whispers. “Bring him back to me.”
With a shaky hand, Yoongi reaches into the rucksack, feeling around for one familiar shell. He rolls onto his back, draws the conch to his lips, and it resonates one steady note.
Come back to me.