On the breakwater marched Sehun, slowly, until he reached its end and softly spoke, “I’m sorry.”

Someone below the sea clearly heard that whisper of a human. He looked up at the surface and there he saw an image of a man standing at the tip of the huge block of rock that had destroyed their home underneath. He swam to see the man clearly, and when he did, he clenched his teeth in hatred. Humans destroy the sea. Each and every one of them.

“I’m sorry,” he heard the man say again, and after seconds there were tears dropping on the waves.

Human tears that drop on the sea become little, twinkling stones, stones that were truly beautiful in a mermaid’s eyes. Kai swam to collect the droplets in his hands, and the tears kept on coming as if it wouldn’t end falling. He secured the stones in his hands and hid on the rock, closing his fists tightly to not let a single one fall. His hands glittered from the stones’ lights, and it was just too wonderful in Kai’s eyes.

But Kai remembered that those shining droplets were tears of a human. And tears meant that the man was in pain.

“I’m sorry,” Sehun kept repeating, and he spread his lips slightly with the sight of the clear sky, the sun held up high.

Kai wrinkled his brows in wondering why the man kept telling that. But the thing was that too much tears were falling at the sea and the man looked like drowning in pain.

“He needs someone,” Kai murmured.

Suddenly, the man fell on the water. Shocked, Kai hid further behind the rock, not letting the man see him. “He’ll drown,” Kai muttered, alarmed, because the man was slowly being pulled down the ocean.

Kai shook, and unknowingly he lost grip of the beautiful stones he got. He watched him sink, hesitating if he would save the man or not, because unlike the other stories he heard, this person seemed too calm, not even moving once as he was going down. It seemed he wanted it. It seemed he didn’t want to be saved.

But Kai swam and scooped his arms on him so that the man wouldn’t go any deeper. The waves got stronger that they were swept from the rock, and so Kai strived to swim up and reach the surface.

He rested the man’s head on his arm, there in the middle of the sea. They were being brought farther away by the waves, but Kai thought he should let him wake up first. He made sure that his head wouldn’t go underwater so that he may have air to breathe.

Under the afternoon sunlight, Kai saw the man’s face. It was wonderful, more wonderful than the tears that came from him.

Kai gently patted his cheek, trying to wake him up. “Mister, mister, wake up,” he whispered, but the man wasn’t following. As he continued patting him, he shook more, because mermaids were forbidden to save humans.

After minutes of trying, nothing happened. The man still had his eyes closed, not moving once despite Kai’s persistent attempt to wake him up. But when Kai felt the man’s heart, it was still beating, although too weak and too slowly. “You need air,” he said, and so he turned to the shore’s direction.

“We’ll swim to the shore. Hold on,” Kai said. He wrapped his arms around the man, and they went underwater, him moving as fast as he could.

Kai crawled upon reaching the shore. He struggled to lift the man off the waves until he finally laid him down the dry sand. Kai looked around and fortunately there were no people. For the last time he tried to shake him and let him wake up, but still, he didn’t.

Kai was already drying up. He was burning from the sun’s heat and so he swiftly crawled back to the water and regain hydration in his body. Besides, he should just swim away and never go back, for he shouldn’t even try to let a man live.

He nodded with the thought in his head. He had done enough for that man so he must leave. He couldn’t be like the other mermaids who died from saving a person.

Thus Kai swam away, not looking back, and he went deeper down the sea with the want of burying what happened beneath the rocks.

As he swam, he stumbled on the place where the shining stones dropped. There at the ocean’s bed, he saw the stones still twinkling like stars. They were too beautiful to resist, that despite Kai wanting to simply pass by it, he went back to pick one of them.

It was like a diamond underneath, a rare treasure that he could only have at this moment. Kai gazed at the stone on his hand, mesmerized with the rays of color shining from it, and when he gazed further around, it felt like he was in a small paradise in the midst of a dark ocean.

He wanted to stay at this place for a longer time. For the first time in his lone world, he had never seen this kind of beauty. He picked more stones, then scattered them away, then picked them up again and he played further to enjoy the place he was with. Maybe he should come to this place every day, or maybe he should take the droplet stones with him as he swam in the wild. But he preferred doing the former, because he didn’t actually have a home to safely keep those wonderful things.

Suddenly, Kai halted. The man popped in his head, because all these shining things came from him. This place he was enjoying was from the pain of someone.

Without thinking he swam back to the shore, fast, and when he arrived again, he saw him at the same spot where he placed him.

Kai’s heart pounded, because he remembered how weak the man’s heartbeat was, and he trembled at the thought that his heart would be too tired to beat. Kai trembled with the thought that the man would die because he did nothing.

Kai crawled towards him, and before he could dry up he swiftly ed the person’s shirt and pumped his chest hard. He pinched his nose and parted his lips, and he inhaled plenty of air to exhale it on him. He pumped his chest again and exhaled more air at him, until the man coughed and finally breathed his own air.

The mermaid’s eyes went wide when he moved. He froze, because a mermaid was not supposed to show itself to a human.

Sehun slowly opened his eyes. The bright light struck his sight, and although he was almost too weak to notice, he saw a blurred shadow casted by someone. It was the person who saved him, he thought.

In panic, Kai threw sand on Sehun’s eyes, and quickly he began creeping to the water.

Sehun weakly complained in pain but he tried to catch him, for him to at least say thanks.

Kai froze again when Sehun suddenly gripped his hand. He gulped, and his touch was something he only felt right at this moment.

Kai pulled his hand away, and Sehun was too weak to keep his grip on him. The mermaid swam away while Sehun struggled to move himself up.

Kai never felt this cold before. He hugged himself under the water, at the place where the stones where, so that at least there would be shimmering faint lights around him. He was trembling, he was feeling too weak and crumbled, and he knew the reason why.

Kai simply wished that the man would cherish his life and never attempt to drown himself again. If the man would, Kai could assure that his life was well-spent, that he gave his life to someone who would cherish it and would never throw it away under water.

Slowly, painfully, Kai waited for the last beat of his heart, because that was the price he needed to pay for touching a man’s lips with his own.

As Kai gradually lost his strength underneath, Sehun gradually gained his senses. At the shore he wandered along, in search of the person who saved him. He walked further but found no one around. He was all alone in the island, and so he wondered if that person was living under the sea.

It’s impossible, he thought, so rushed to his boat because maybe, the person hopped on to another place.

As he briskly walked on the sand, he stepped on something sharp. He raised his foot and found his sole bleeding. Then he picked the thing up and found it out to be a different kind of stone. He wrinkled his brows in confusion. The stone was perfectly shaped like a drop, and it shined like a diamond under the sunlight. It was the first time he found such at the shore.

Later he realized that maybe it was owned by his lifesaver. Maybe it fell from a necklace or something. He was convinced that his lifesaver owned that thing, so he wrapped it on a tiny cloth he stripped from his shirt and hopped on his boat to find that someone.

In the middle of the sea Sehun’s boat went, but all of a sudden he turned off its motor. He looked at the island, and there was something in his heart telling that he should go back. It felt like something was dragging him towards it. It felt like what he was searching for was just in that place. But Sehun already searched all around it and found no one. Besides, he came there all alone, and there were no other people living in that place.

He switched the engine on again, and forward he went, because he needed to find that person who, in an instant, now had his heart. Having the stone in him, Sehun affirmed to himself that he would find him soon, if not today or the next day.

And though Sehun wanted to drown deep below the sea, it would never happen again until he finds his lifesaver, the one who gave his life a life again.