“Yixing!” Sa Rang yelled, prompting Yixing’s attention once more. When he turned back to her, his eyes were worried and panicked. Yixing cleared his throat and began searching the place for any sign of Chanyeol or Victoria. The tall, smiley boy was near a tall umbrella handing out bags of pretzels while Victoria socialized with her boyfriend. Chanyeol would be easier to reach. Yixing whipped his attention back to Sa Rang, but right then, his panic outweighed his anger.

“I gotta go,” he said simply and then fled in Chanyeol’s direction, leaving Sa Rang stunned. Yixing reached Chanyeol and pulled him aside.

“What’s up?’ Chanyeol asked, and Yixing gestured toward Lee Sunghwan. The man was gazing into the pool with the sea stars. He was dressed casually, and Chanyeol furrowed his brows at his friend. “Who is that?” he asked.

“You wouldn’t know him,” Yixing said. “But I’d know that face anywhere! He’s Lee Sunghwan! He and my dad were both offered Institute positions in the same year, that’s when my dad established his own private study.”

“So he works at the Institute of Science,” Chanyeol said, catching up. At first, he only nodded in understanding, not quite sure what Yixing was so worked up about. But then he remembered a certain mermaid that they planning on protecting from the scientific officials, and his eyes widened. “Oh,” he said. “Jinyu.”

“Exactly,” Yixing said.

“Has he seen her?” Chanyeol asked. “She looks pretty human right now; I don’t think we have too much to worry about.”

“He hasn’t seen her yet,” Yixing said. He rubbed at his wrists. He still wasn’t exactly comfortable with the idea, however. Despite her human appearance, Jinyu was naïve and clueless and was liable to reveal her secret if she wasn’t careful. And she was so rarely ever careful. “I still think we should try to get rid of him.”

“How?” Chanyeol asked. “It’s not like we can just walk up to him and ask him to leave. That’s rude and it’d be suspicious.”

“I’m thinking, I’m thinking.” Yixing tried to look through the dense crowd of people in order to keep an eye on the Institute scientist. But by the time he’d finally caught sight of him, Lee Sunghwan was walking toward the dolphin pool, straight toward a waiting Luhan and Jinyu. Yixing jumped to his feet.

“This is getting out of hand, anyway,” Yixing said to Chanyeol. “Tell everyone that the park is closing!”

“Closing?” Chanyeol said incredulously. “But this park is a gold mine!”

“But!” Yixing said, walking backwards towards Jinyu. “Just do it! Please just get everyone out as soon as possible!”

Chanyeol ruffled his hair in frustration. But the facility was, after all, Yixing’s house, and as guests, they were obligated to obey. “But how?” he asked. Yixing shrugged.

“I don’t know!” Yixing answered. “Just tell them operating hours are over, or that the dolphins need to rest. Think of something!” Chanyeol nodded begrudgingly and Yixing raced away. He reached Jinyu and Luhan just seconds before Sunghwan did, and Yixing put on a nervous smile.

“Jinyu!” he said. “You busy? I, uh, have to talk to you about something.”

Jinyu narrowed her eyes curiously at Yixing, and so did Luhan. “You okay, man?” Luhan asked. “You look… sort of breathless.”

Yixing heaved his breaths and maintained his anxious smile. “Do I?”

A shadow suddenly loomed over Yixing and he tensed, knowing that the scientist had finally reached him. He turned and faced the man and took a few steps back, placing him between Luhan and Jinyu. Lee Sunghwan looked over the three young people and locked his sight on Luhan before stretching his hand out to him.

“Luhan,” he said. “It’s quite a surprise seeing you here.”

Yixing widened his eyes, having no idea that Lee Sunghwan and Luhan were even acquainted. Luhan bowed respectfully and took the man’s hand.

“I’m good friends with the owners of this facility, actually,” he replied. “I was invited over by some friends when they decided to open it to the public.”

“Yes,” Sunghwan said. “I wasn’t aware the Zhangs’ Marine Biology Lab was open for receiving visitors. Zhang and I were recruited together, and when I heard this was happening I thought to see it myself. They’ve renovated the place quite well. And you…”

Lee Sunghwan turned his gaze onto Yixing, who pursed his lips and lamely stretched his hand out for a handshake as well. Sunghwan’s grip was dry and firm; Yixing stretched out his fingers after the handshake.

“You must be Zhang’s oldest,” Sunghwan said, maintaining a smile. “Yi… Yi Chang, wasn’t it?”

“Yixing, actually,” Yixing corrected.

“Yixing, of course,” the man answered and then took a look around the yard. “And your parents would be, where?”

Yixing bowed apologetically, trying to think of how to answer. “Not here, sir,” he answered dutifully, and he saw the man’s jaw twitch in disappointment. He seemed liable to push the matter further had he not seen Jinyu turned away and playing with the dolphins.

“I didn’t know you rehabilitated dolphins here,” Lee Sunghwan said, stepping toward Jinyu, and Yixing’s eyes widened.

“Yixing’s parents are incredible,” Luhan answered happily. “They’ve four rehabilitating turtles in another pool, too. They’re always the first line called when a marine animal is found by the beach or stranded in the shallows.”

“Indeed,” Sunghwan said. Jinyu heard the man stepping closer to her, and she looked up from petting a dolphin in time to see Mr. Lee peering into the pool beside her. He examined the dolphins closely, his eyes jerking from its tail to its nose. “Bottlenoses, aren’t they?” he asked, directing the question to Yixing without facing him.

Yixing froze. “Uh – ” In reality, Yixing had absolutely no idea.

“Spinners,” Jinyu answered quietly. All three looked at her with varying degrees of impression. Jinyu looked up at them, confused as per their wide eyes and dropped jaws. She reached forward and laid her palm across one dolphin’s nose. “Their noses are longer,” she answered gently. Sunghwan leaned forward to better inspect the size of the dolphins’ rostrums. She was right; they were longer and thinner than those of bottlenoses. He straightened out and faced the girl.

“You have a keen eye,” he complimented and Jinyu only blinked, not sure what a keen eye meant. “You must have a good relationship with the dolphins.”

Jinyu shrugged. “They do not always follow directions well,” she confessed. “But they have playful spirits.”

“That’s quite obvious,” Sunghwan said, smiling at their rapid swimming. “They must be a handful. Say, where did you rescue them again?”

“Just off the pier,” Yixing answered. “Close to the Southern tip. We thought they might have gotten confused en route to their breeding grounds.”

“No,” Jinyu answered, prompting Yixing to stare her down. “They were not confused. They were following the squid. There was a small swarm that was pushed to the shallows in the storm seven nights ago, and they could not get out.”

Sunghwan looked at Jinyu for a long time before looking back at Yixing. Yixing had no other answer to give. But he was afraid that Jinyu was coming off as little bit too insightful. Sunghwan cleared his throat.

“I wasn’t aware the squid would survive in such shallow polluted waters,” he said. Jinyu shrugged and turned back to the dolphins.

“The dolphins were there long enough to eat them before they became stuck,” she said, a dolphin across the back. “Or at least that is what they told me.”

Yixing’s face turned pale. There was yet no reaction from either Luhan or Sunghwan, and he was thankful that neither of them seemed to catch onto Jinyu’s ability to speak to the dolphins. They probably thought that she meant a fisherman or other had told her about the dolphins.

“Who told you?” Sunghwan asked. Jinyu looked up at the man and opened to answer. Yixing, in his frantic state, bolted forward and slapped his hand over before the word “dolphins” could escape. Luhan widened his eyes and Sunghwan wrinkled his brows. But before either of them could question Yixing’s strange actions, Chanyeol’s voice boomed over the crowd:

“THERE’S A FIRE!” He bellowed. “EVERYONE, GET OUT!”

A fire? Yixing, further panicked by the announcement, stuck his head up in search of the fire. There was none to be found, but nevertheless, his announcement had caused widespread panic in the hundreds of visitors; chaos ensued, screams were let out, valuables were dropped, and there was a lot of panicked running. Trash was thrown, things were knocked over, glass was broken. Then it suddenly hit him: this was the method Chanyeol chose to get everyone to exit. Effective… but definitely not without consequences.

Yixing chose to ignore Chanyeol for now and make him pay for his ridiculous escape plan later. He took his hand from Jinyu’s mouth and he glared at him angrily for his actions. But before Sunghwan could register anything, he grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her toward the house.

“Jinyu! Yixing!” Luhan yelled, and Jinyu struggled against Yixing for a bit to get one last look at Luhan, who was all but confused and slightly scared. “Where are you - ?”

Mei suddenly pushed Luhan from behind. “Go!” she yelled, playing along with Chanyeol’s fake fire announcement. “There’s a fire! You have to find an exit! Get out!”

Jinyu watched as Mei pushed him and he disappeared in the crowd of people. Something wrenched at her heart; the possibility that she might not find him again haunted her frantic thoughts. But Yixing pulled her wrist again and she fell into step behind him while the rest of the crowd panicked.

“Wait!” she yelled.

“Not now,” Yixing replied, trying to navigate through the pandemonium that was the panicked crowd.

“What about Luhan?” Jinyu tried to yell above the crowd.

“Don’t worry about him,” Yixing tried to console her. “He’ll be fine!”

“But there is a fire!” she yelled. “The dolphins!” A teenage boy ran into Jinyu, knocking her over and Yixing leapt into action, picking her up to stand upright again before she could be trampled and blocking others from tackling her again.

“There’s no fire,” he said into her ear. “Don’t worry about them; they’ll be fine! But you have to get back in the house before – ”

Before he could finish his sentence, he looked up and past Jinyu’s head to see Lee Sunghwan… walking directly toward them. Yixing wrapped his arm around Jinyu’s shoulder and tried again to guide her through the chaotic panicked crowd.

“Come on!” he said, but when he turned, he found himself blocked once more by another familiar face: Sa Rang, once again.

Her hair was looser in its braid now since she’d been running along with everyone else. At first she appeared angry once again, probably because he left her before she could properly finish yelling at him. In fact, she looked absolutely livid. But in a split second, her eyes landed on Jinyu with Yixing’s arms around her, and Sa Rang widened her eyes. Before any words were said, Yixing pushed past her without giving her the time of day. He and Jinyu raced toward the back door of the house.

“Go to the piano room,” Yixing instructed as soon as they were back in the house. Jinyu followed, making her way toward the storage room with Yixing’s piano, but she was confused.

“What is happening?” she asked while he pushed her to walk to the room faster. “If there is no fire, then I do not understand – ”

“I’ll explain it to you later,” he said. They burst through the door of the storage room and Yixing closed it behind them. Thinking quickly, he grabbed a large white sheet and threw it over the piano. He then instructed Jinyu to crawl under it and stay hidden until everything died down. Jinyu crawled under it. The space behind the sheet and under the piano was stuffy and dark and reminded her an awful lot of the witch’s cave under the sea. She could hear people’s panicked screams outside, and it became like the poor souls in the polyp garden. There were loud noises like screaming gulls outside, as well.

Yixing rushed to the window and found the unmistakable silhouette of a police cruiser. “No ing way,” he said, cursing under his breath. The police officers rushed to the door of the yard and began prompting Kyungsoo and Chanyeol with questions. Yixing groaned; he was absolutely convinced that tonight, his parents were probably going to crucify him.

Jinyu poked her head out from under the piano and sheets. “Yixing, she whispered. Yixing turned around and told he rot go back to hiding. He rushed to the door and prepared to step out and explain himself to the police. But when he opened that door, he found Lee Sunghwan at the end of the corridor, turned away. He slammed the door shut and walked back to the window. They were bolted shut.

“Damn it,” he muttered. He cracked the door open a bit, and Lee Sunghwan was now walking down the halls. Yixing closed the door. Breathless and slightly panicked, he ran to the piano and slid under the instrument as well.

“Scoot over,” he whispered to Jinyu, and she moved to make space for him under the piano. It was a bit squishy, but there was just enough space to hide them both. “Shh, be very quiet, alright?”

“Where’s Luhan?” Jinyu asked.

“I told you! He’s fine! He’s – ” his words were cut short by the sound of the door opening. He reached over and cupped his hand over Jinyu’s mouth again and didn’t let go even when she began to lightly protest. Lee Sunghwan’s heavy footsteps seemed like the slowest-moving things to ever exist in that moment.

The scientist narrowed his eyes at the house. At first glance, it seemed like a typical home with pictures of loved ones hanging on the walls and various junk food littered on the tables. But still; if there was anything he regarded himself with, it was that he was an intuitive man, and sharply so. And he could not shake the feeling that there was more here than what he saw. He thought about the odd girl from the dolphin pool; he didn’t get her name. But something about her certainly struck him as… different.

As a scientist, observations were something that he constructed rather well. And seeing that girl reminded him of certain observations he’d made before. Perhaps it was something in the deep lull of her voice or the sparkling blue of her eyes. Those definitely sounded familiar. And he wanted to know why.

The room he found himself in was a storage room; boxes were piled high on one end of the room while another was a crowded area of unused furniture. Nothing interesting at all. He supposed the real treasure would be his colleague’s lab, but it had been locked when he tried to visit it. He was about to turn and walk away after a slow turn about the room when a small scuffling noise was suddenly heard. He turned his head and fixed his gaze on a piano, covered by a large white sheet that dangled off the sides.

A curious thing, he thought. He’d no idea that anyone in the Zhang family had been musically inclined. For a split second he thought that maybe the instrument was merely kept for show. Sunghwan had played piano once, in his younger years, before science possessed his heart. But seeing the instrument now, he was suddenly seized with the urge to sit at the bench. He took quiet steps toward it, his thick-soled shoes echoing through the hardwood floors.

Yixing held his breath as the footsteps came closer and got louder. Without knowing it, his hand on Jinyu’s mouth began to pull her closer to him. The white sheet began to slide slowly, slowly off the piano and he clenched his eyes and tried to quickly think of a plan. The white slid off slower and slower until the door behind Sunghwan suddenly flew open.

“Sir?” the burly voice of a police officer called. “We’re evacuating the premises with the exception of those registered under the owner’s household. Do you live here?”

Sunghwan bowed politely. “No. I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware of the evacuation. I’ll take my leave now.” And the scientist followed the officer out of the room, taking one last glance at the piano before slamming the door shut.

Yixing counted to three before letting out his breath and taking his hands from Jinyu’s mouth. He tried to lean back onto the floor, but instead his head against the piano leg. “That was close,” he said.

“Now will you tell what is happening?”

Yixing sat up again. “That man,” he said, pointing at the door. “He’s a bad man.”

Jinyu wrinkled her brows at him. “I do not understand,” she said.

“He’s a scientist at the Institute of Science,” he explained. “That’s the Institute that gave my father his license to study here.”

“But why would they be bad?”

“For you, they’re bad, Jinyu,” he explained. “Especially that man. He’s the scientist who studies Sirenien theories. He looks for people like you.”

Jinyu was confused. “But if he is looking for me,” she asked. “Why did you make me hide?”

“Because,” he explained. “He’s not going to be nice to you like I am, or like Victoria and Kyungsoo and everyone else. He’s a scientist, he doesn’t exactly have a lot going on in the ethics department. Long story-short, he’d probably take you away, lock you up, and just use you to benefit his own research. That’s not what you want, though. You said you needed my help, didn’t you?”

Jinyu thought about the man, the scientist. He had seemed friendly enough before; she wasn’t sure what Yixing meant. But it was true that she did need some help. If the man couldn’t give it to her, then she’d rather be with Yixing, who’d been helping her for two moons now. Of all the humans, she trusted Yixing most, for now.

Yixing got up from under the piano and then extended his hand to help Jinyu get up. “Come on,” he said. “I can’t leave Kyungsoo and Chanyeol to face the cops on their own.”

Jinyu took his hand and stood up. Yixing stopped by Mei’s room on the way out to grab a pair of pants for Jinyu to wear over her one-piece suit. As soon as they walked out, Yixing began explaining himself to the cops, who’d already contacted his parents. Jinyu looked out over the deck, which was full of people just moments before.

Now, the floor was littered with wrappers and trash, broken equipment. The dolphins were safe, thankfully. But her heart sank seeing that Luhan, once again, was gone from her.