Chapter Text
Taesan doesn’t like his job, but it’s not like he has much of a choice to work. If he has food in his stomach by the end of his evening, that’s enough to keep him going. Not stable or steady. Just enough.
It’s nothing special, just a simple job of cleaning the toilets at the aquarium a ten minute drive from his apartment. It doesn’t pay well, but Taesan doesn’t need it to pay well. He needs to survive.
And barely, in between counting coins and splitting meals in half, he is, in fact, surviving.
Leehan couldn’t dream of a better career than the one he already has. He’s a marine biologist spending his days examining and appreciating the creatures he’s surrounded himself with for almost his entire life: fish.
He’s got a great house, an expensive wardrobe, and the best of all - he lives ten minutes away from the aquarium.
Fish and sea creatures are his life, and that is no exaggeration.
…
Today is a day that will change both of their lives, but it starts off like any other.
Taesan’s up bright and early, preparing for another day, working until the sun sets, all to be able to eat a pack of instant ramen that tastes like boredom and misfortune.
In the bathroom, triple checks that the shower is lowered to minimum temperature, turns it on, and is in and out within what could easily be record time. He uses a concerningly small amount of toothpaste and aims as close to the drain as possible when he spits it out so he doesn’t have to use as much water washing it away.
In the kitchen, he uses exactly the recommended serving amount on the cereal box so he can calculate when he needs to buy another. Majority of the time, he eats it dry, but today he had some spare milk left, so he had the luxury of eating regular off-brand Frosties.
Wow, what a treat. He thinks to himself, stomach still growling long after he’d finished the last spoonful.
But bills don’t pay themselves, and neither do university fees.
He graduated with a degree in music, which he’s always loved, but truth be told, it probably wasn’t the best decision when he knew he couldn’t afford any equipment.
Things will be different. When he gets a promotion. When these stupid fees are done being paid off.
Which is what he tells himself all the time, yet, in his three years of being at his job, he hasn’t had a single raise.
Still, this same hope is what props him up just enough to struggle but endure every passing day. So any time he feels like letting go, he braces himself and holds on a little bit tighter.
…
Leehan drags himself out of bed at around ten in the morning, eyebags heavy in a sense of irresponsibility rather than stress. He usually falls asleep after watching fish videos late into the night, and yesterday was no different.
He works, remotely (even though he doesn’t live far from the city), and saying marine biology pays amazingly would be a lie, though it’s decent, certainly decent enough to be able to afford aquarium tickets three times a week minimum. Having no specific work times leaves his schedule extremely flexible, so he sleeps whenever he wants to, and lets himself wake up naturally.
In the bathroom, he goes straight to the shower and spends five minutes finding the perfect temperature. He takes over thirty minutes to simply wash his body and hair, using the kind of products most people would immediately shy away from after seeing the price. When he’s done, he picks up his electric toothbrush and squeezes an excessive amount of toothpaste onto it. He has to spend thirty seconds washing it down the drain when he’s finished since there’s so much.
In the kitchen, he dumps the last quarter of the cereal into the expensive bowl his mom got for his last birthday, the type that would explode anywhere in the proximity of a dishwasher, and fills it right to the rim with milk.
He thinks about them a lot. His parents. Even though he moved out at twenty years old and hasn’t regretted a second since, the morning silence, when not occupied by cereal crunching in his mouth, reminds him of what they did to help him get to this point.
They’d paid his university fees, helped with bills when he needed it in the early days of living on his own and even paid off the majority of, what is now, his house.
He has never gotten a raise, but he’s never had to ask for one, because he knows that if he ever falls back, he has people ready to catch him.
His life is simple, comfortable, and most importantly: enough.
…
What neither of them have ever pondered on, however, is if there could ever be more.
Could there ever be something else other than dread and bills strong enough to pull Taesan underwater if he doesn’t fight to stay afloat everyday?
Could there ever be something else other than fish and family for Leehan, something that makes him feel worthy, wanted, beyond ownership or blood?
Could there ever be… someone?