The drive to the North shore of the country was about two days’ drive, and on the second day Chanyeol had to stop at a motel so they could sneak Jinyu in, help her cut herself out of her dried up tail, and then continue driving to where Luhan’s family’s second yacht was docked. When they finally reached it, they stepped out and waited at the neighboring park while the crew prepared to sail.

Jinyu sat atop a picnic table and kept her palm pressed firmly against her right kneecap. Normally, Victoria would be the one to dissect the mermaid tail, but since she wasn’t around, Jinyu had to do it herself, with Yixing and Chanyeol’s help. For the most part, it had gone accordingly and Luhan had returned from a tourist gift shop with clothes for her. But at one point, Jinyu had cut a little too deep and ended up cutting the top of her knee. The cut had opened up and started bleeding again.

“Hey,” Yixing said, jogging toward her with a bag from a nearby convenience store. He sat on the table with her and produced a pack of Band-aids from the plastic bag. He smirked a little when he pulled one out and began applying it on her knee.

“You know, I have a feeling this is going to turn into a habit of yours,” he said with a small laugh. This situation was too nostalgic; immediately he thought of Jinyu’s walking lessons, her scraped knees, her wobbly legs, how she hung onto him to keep from falling. Jinyu smiled, too, remembering how Chanyeol had tried to assist her by giving her his grandmother’s walker, and how little it helped. Jinyu lifted a hand and touched the band-aid on her knee; she hadn’t realized how much time had passed, how long it had been since she had first learned to walk. They had both come a long way since then.

“Where are the others?” Jinyu asked. Yixing pointed to the car, where Kyungsoo was yelling at Chanyeol again about some damage to the tires. Jinyu laughed; it was funny to see the shorter boy yelling at the taller one.

“Luhan is making arrangements with the captain,” Yixing said. Some paces away, Luhan was talking to a plump man in a light blue polo shirt. Jinyu watched Luhan’s movements and tried to sense what their conversation was about. Luhan and the man spoke in hushed tones, so it was difficult to know what exactly was happening.

Yixing sat beside Jinyu and watched her watching his friend, and he sighed. He thought about what Luhan said to him that day he confronted him in the mansion. Guilt began to plague his heart; Yixing supposed it was true that in one way or another, he had regarded Luhan with some air of competition. It was a vice of his, his tendency to compare himself with others.

But who was he to meddle in such affairs? Whatever this spell was that was binding Jinyu, it was much bigger than he could handle. He had to accept the fact that some things were not in his control.

“Jinyu,” he said, and she turned to face him. Jinyu smiled gently at Yixing.

“I forgot to thank you,” she said. “For rescuing me.”

Yixing blushed a little. “Of course,” he said. “You’re welcome.”

“It took some time, though,” she said with a small laugh. “I almost thought you wouldn’t come.”

“Well,” Yixing said, gravitating toward her. “I promised, didn’t I?”

Jinyu smiled at him, and Yixing’s heart eased. He was going to miss these silences; the moments where they could be quiet together and feel perfectly comfortable to listen to each other breathe and feel their heartbeats falling in step. Even with her hair cropped and her blue eyes tired, she could make his heart race. Some aspects about a person go far beyond the effects of beauteous appearances; just being near her, Yixing had to stop himself from throwing his arms around her and pulling her to his chest. But he swallowed hard and cleared his throat.

“I think I understand now,” he said slowly. “Why you couldn’t answer my feelings before.”

Jinyu’s smile faltered. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Yixing said, looking away from her. “I understand now why you couldn’t let us happen.”

“Yixing,” Jinyu said softly, but Yixing continued.

“I’ve just been thinking,” he said. “That all this time, I told you that I’d help you end this curse and promised to be by your side, and then at the first test of loyalty, I let you down. But… I know now that no matter how much I want to help you, there are some things that I have to just stay out of.”

Yixing reached out and took her hand into his. He wasn’t afraid of holding her hands anymore. He’d come to accept his feelings and he’d come to accept that… he might not be the answer to her problem, but that was okay with him now. He flipped her hand over to look at her palm, and Jinyu watched him intently.

Yixing looked up at her and gave Jinyu a reassuring smile as he slipped something into her hand. Jinyu swallowed before looking down and seeing that Yixing had put the cell phone into her palms. She took it from him and turned the screen to her face: 0-0-1.

Jinyu looked up at Yixing, but Yixing was looking in Luhan’s direction. Luhan had joined the other two boys at the car and was trying to mediate between the two angry kids. Jinyu followed Yixing’s gaze and then turned back to meet Yixing’s eyes.

“You were right about me and Luhan, you know,” Yixing said. “I… I haven’t been a good friend. I should have more faith in him.”

“You don’t give yourself enough credit,” Jinyu whispered. “You’ve been good to everyone except yourself.”

Yixing laughed a little. “You should have seen him at the lab two days ago,” Yixing said. “Jumped into the tank to save you. He can’t swim but he still jumped in to save you.”

“He might have done it for you, too,” Jinyu said. Yixing smirked.

“I’m just saying,” Yixing said. “I’ve been wrong about Luhan before. Maybe I’m not as good a judge of his feelings as I think I am. He may very well still have feelings for you.”

Jinyu widened her eyes at Yixing’s claim. But he was completely serious.

“You have today and tonight,” Yixing said, his voice breaking a little. “Maybe it’s not too late. Maybe he loves you.”

“We both know it’s too late, Yixing,” Jinyu said.

“Talk to him, then,” Yixing said. “He’ll understand.”

“He doesn’t love me – ”

“Maybe he does.”

“But what about you?” Jinyu asked, and Yixing stopped. “No matter what I do, someone gets hurt. I… I don’t want to keep hurting you.”

Yixing gulped and turned away for a moment. Deep down, he admitted that his heart swelled hearing her so concerned for him and his feelings. But he’d convinced himself already that none of what he’d said that night really mattered anymore. The days had dwindled down to one, and at this point, the only things that mattered were what he could and could not do. He could tell Jinyu to forget Luhan and come love him, but he also couldn’t let Jinyu turn to foam and die because he’d been selfish.

“You mustn’t think about my feelings,” he said. “Not anymore. Not at this point.”

“Yixing,” Jinyu said, but he turned to her.

“You only have a couple of hours left,” he said, the gravity of the situation suddenly striking him. “Stick to your original plan. I shouldn’t have meddled, I’m sorry.”

“Please don’t be – ” she said. Yixing picked up her hand again and began to run his thumbs over her knuckles.

“You know, I meant everything I said,” he said. “That night at the piano. I don’t take any of it back; they’re as true now as they were then, and my feelings haven’t change. They might never change, but that’s fine. None of that’s really important anymore. What’s important now is that you live, even if I can’t help you.”

A small sob escaped again, and Jinyu slapped a hand over to stop herself before she could cry. Yixing met her blue eyes once more and gave her a sad smile.

“I just want you to be happy,” he said. “Even if it means leaving me out of the picture.”

Jinyu could feel her heartbeat in her ears. She suddenly felt so ashamed of everything she’d put him through, how she had led him on and let him fall in love with her despite the fact that from the beginning she knew it would never work. Now, because of her, the both of them were suffering. Jinyu couldn’t bring herself to look at Yixing. Instead, she looked at Luhan, who was keeping Kyungsoo from tackling Chanyeol.

She thought about how much easier it would have been if Luhan had been the one to find her. After all, he was the reason she had taken on this endeavor in the first place. Jinyu wondered if, at this point, she regretted saving Luhan. And the truth was… no, she didn’t regret it at all. Luhan was a kind boy despite everything. And saving him was what had brought her to Yixing in the first place.

Still, how much smoother things would have been. It was supposed to be a fairy tale, one where the pretty girl met her handsome prince, and love conquered all, and the two of them fell in love and lived happily ever after. Did such things not exist in the human world?

“Just talk to him,” Yixing said. Jinyu finally forced herself to look at Yixing and he smiled again, and his smiling was killing her.

Yixing took his hand from hers and used it to pull her head towards himself, and he kissed her cheek. Jinyu closed her eyes against the kiss. Yixing had kissed her before, on the lips, but somehow this one felt so much more passionate. That’s when she realized that this was meant to be a “good luck” kiss, a fond farewell, a form of “goodbye”. And she felt immensely sad about the kiss.

With one last squeeze on her shoulder, he jumped down from the picnic bench and started to jog toward the car, where he supposed he ought to help Luhan keep the two other boys from ripping each other apart over the dent on Kyungsoo’s car.

"Is that an airplane?" Chanyeol asked. It was 5PM by the time the yacht and the crew were prepared to set out over the water. The angle of the sun's rays cast an orange glow over the ocean that made the water sparkle beautifully. Luhan wasn't exactly thrilled at being, yet again, on a yacht about a mile or two from the shore. But he had to admit that the view was breathtaking. 

"It's a sonar," Yixing said to Chanyeol, turning the laptop to the side and pointing at the screen. The four of the boys had gathered around the laptop on the shady side of the boat, discussing the topic of Lee Sunghwan's stolen, or otherwise unauthorized, technological use.

"See, that's the handling system, meant to go inside the ship," Yixing tried to explain. In reality, he was absolutely clueless in the ways of military technology.

"And that's the hydrophone array thing and, uh... I think that's the thing that goes in the water and—"

"It looks like the U.S.S Enterprise," Kyungsoo said. 

"Why is it in separate little parts?" Chanyeol asked.

"That's the exploded view," Yixing answered.

"I thought it was a sonar."

"Whatever," Yixing said, leaning back in the deck chair. "The point is, Lee Sunghwan was using this stuff to find mermaids without authorization. It's illegal."

"So, hypothetically, if this stuff was militarized, it's not meant for use... close to civilian grounds, right?" Luhan asked, feeling slightly nervous.

"Hypothetically," Yixing repeated. He stared at the sonar readings on the screen, listened to samples of sound signatures underwater; a massive collection of sounds of pain. "It's starting to make sense, then," he said.

"What does?"

"Look," Yixing said, pointing to the sonograph. "These lines correspoond to normal whale and dolphin calls. And that one is the unknown bloop signature. But once the sonar blast comes into the picture, all the lines they just... they just pretty explode, really. And that... that was what drove the whales to the shore and—"

"And beached themselves," Chanyeol finished the statement. "So the mass whale beachings, the destroyed fishing industries, that was all because of this?"

"Ah, it does make more sense," Kyungsoo said.

"Luhan," Yixing said. "That means that... your dad's lawsuit was about the devastated fisheries, right?"

"Yes?"

"Well, then this information might help him out," Yixing said. "He could argue that the oil platform was miles away from the fishing grounds, as per city codes. The damage from the oil spill was too far from the fishing beds to have anything to do with it. It was all the sonar."

Luhan stared at the screen, letting the information sink in. Yixing was right; there was a way to be acquitted from the lawsuit after all. The four of them continued to play around the laptop, searching all the files and trying to learn more of the Institute's dirty little secrets. An hour passed by and Yixing had found even more illegal activity under Sunghwan's name. He was appalled at how long this had gone on. 

Luhan, on the other hand, felt immensely guilty; after all, his money had funded all of this. What if the repercussions were traced back to him? 

Looking to his right, Luhan noticed Jinyu looking down at the water from the bow... alone. From a distance, he would have mistakenly thought that she was a boy, thanks to her new haircut. There was a weight on his chest that settled and drummed everytime he looked at her. He couldn't let another moment pass without telling her the truth. After all, much of her suffering had happened as a result of his own folly. 

"Excuse me, guys," Luhan said, although the other three were much too engrossed in the laptop to notice Luhan leave. The young man walked over to the further side of the yacht, joining Jinyu at the bow.

Jinyu looked over her shoulder and smiled politely at Luhan as he leaned against the railing beside her.

"H-Hi," he said slowly. 

"Hello," Jinyu answered.

Luhan swallowed and tried to think of a way to work up to the topic without being too forward. He had no idea where to start confessing his wrongs. 

"Your family must like sailing," Jinyu said. "You have so many boats."

Luhan laughed nervously. "I guess so," he said. "Though in actuality, you know that I'm not much of a yacht person."

Jinyu's answering smile was gentle. Luhan watched her blue eyes, memories flooding his mind of the first time he'd seen them, back when he thought he was dying. Luhan looked across the sea and let out a long breath.

"Look," he said. "I have something to tell you."

Jinyu widened her eyes and waited for him to continue. Luhan then proceeded to confess everything, telling the story from the very beginning: the wave, Jinyu's rescue, his conviction to find her, his funding of Sunghwan's practice, how he had indirectly paid for the sonar, her sister's death, all the way up to Sunghwan finding Jinyu and taking her away. 

Luhan wasn't the type of person who was entirely accustomed to humbling himself, but on that bow, he completely emptied himself, revealing everything to her. Jinyu heard his confession with mute astonishment. 

"I can't even begin to tell you how sorry I am," he said. "I just... I didn't realize that—"

"It was all you," Jinyu said quietly. Luhan caught her eyes and felt like the dirtiest traitor who'd ever lived.

"I wasn't thinking," he said. "Yes, I know, I'm a bad guy. I never should ahve trusted Sunghwan, a guy like that... nothing good could have ever happened. You... You saved my life and I repaid you by putting you through all that crap. That was never my intention, Jinyu. I just... I just had to know."

"Know what?" she asked.

Luhan sighed. "That I could still believe the evidence of my eyes," he said. "For a long time, I've been feeling trapped... in my family's superficial little fairy tale world made of sugar and money. I thought that, when I was dying, maybe I was escaping it. But when you saved me I started to think that maybe it's because there was a way out of it."

Jinyu took a deep breath and looked once more at Luhan's face. He'd always been a handsome boy, and the way the wind was hitting his hair and the sun illuminating his face, she understood all over again why he'd been her choice all those months ago. But now that she was closer, she could also see how tired he was, how much older he was becoming. And she, too, was growing. No longer a child attracted by superficial beauty, Jinyu thought that Luhan's honesty was what really made him handsome. That, and his determination to make life mean something.

"Why did you save, anyhow?" he suddenly asked, turning to her. Jinyu blushed.

"Can you believe it?" she said. "I was in love with you."

Luhan smiled. "How did you even know me?"

Jinyu hesitated. She was about to speak, but she suddenly caught Luhan looking at her, and really seeing her. They felt that comfortable connection once more, the same sort of camaraderie that had been present at the balcony on the night of the Gala. And Luhan closed his eyes and leaned into her. Jinyu clenched her eyes shut and felt her stomach twisting. But the kiss never came.

Luhan backed away suddenly, embarrassment apparent on his handsome visage.

"Look, Jinyu," he said. Jinyu's breathing was a little labored; that was too close, she thought.

"I'm sorry, again," Luhan said. "I... I realize that you like me. And the truth is, I like you, too."

Jinyu waited for him to continue. Luhan looked back at her, determination in his eyes. He knew now what he had to do; and what he had to do was put a stop to the competition, put a stop to the vicious cycle that Sa Rang had started and mend the silently crumbling bond between him the people he loved.

"But Yixing's my best friend," Luhan said. "And my best friend is in love with you. And I value that friendship too much to let a simple crush get in the way. I'm sorry."

Without another word, Luhan turned from Jinyu and walked toward the entrance into the cabin area. Jinyu watched his back as he retreated, her heart drumming hastily in her chest. Was that it? she thought. A confession and a rejection. A "no", was this really the fate that waited to conclude her spell? Jinyu closed her eyes, letting the light from her last sunset on land sink on her. And yet despite Luhan's rejection, she felt relieved. Like she was finally completely free from the constricting feelings of like and love that she had for him. She felt... free. Like she she didn't have to love him or anyone anymore, and she was free to choose.

But now, her options dwindled down to one. And it was the one option that scared her the most.

Author's Commentary: DOES ANYBODY ELSE SORELY MISS LUHAN BEING IN EXO LIKE I DO RIGHT NOW? UGH, HE WAS SO DREAMY, AND HE WAS SUCH AN ANGEL AND HE SANG SO GOOD AND HE WAS SUCH A CUTIE, AND I AM SO BITTER RIGHT NOW.