“Okay. That’s the last of them. They should be here with the van in a few minutes,” Kai sighed as he lowered the phone from his ear, and he glanced down at the unconscious mermaid whose hand was still clutching his own. Even though she was sleeping, she looked like she was in so much pain; her eyebrows were furrowed, and she shone with perspiration. Occasionally, she murmured something that he couldn’t make out, or would cry out and squirm. Poor Mi-young. For the last ten minutes he had been rounding up the search party for the girl, and had conveniently left out the girl's “condition.” After all, how could he reasonably explain it?

He and D.O. had attempted to move Mi-young out of the water, but as soon as they had grabbed her and lifted her up she had begun screaming and writhing, and so they had hastily flopped her back in the surf. Kai didn’t like it; the water was cold, and the girl was shivering terribly, but there was nothing he could do but drape his jacket over her and hope it was enough to keep her from falling ill.

“I think we should call Baekhyun,” D.O. frowned as he watched Mi-young jerk and whisper something. A crease appeared in her forehead as she shifted in the sand, and she whimpered as the fish hooks dug into her. “We told him we'd call if we found her, right?”

“Do you think he'll be okay, seeing her like this?” Kai fretted. Baekhyun had been such a mess. They all knew he was head-over-heels for the girl, though he wouldn’t admit it; the last thing Kai wanted to do was put him through more hell. “If we can somehow get this net off and these hooks out…”

“We aren’t going to do that without making it worse,” D.O. asserted, and Kai slumped his shoulders. His friend was right. Unsure how to feel, he quickly dialed Baekhyun’s number as raised the phone to his ear. Don’t worry, Mi-young. It’ll be over soon…

Baekhyun snorted as his phone started ringing, and as his hand snapped for the end table beside the couch, he cursed as his clumsy hand knocked it off the table. After the chat with Grandma Lee, Chanyeol and Baekhyun had nothing to do but return to the house and wait. They had drifted off, and Baekhyun’s dreams had been dark, tainted with nightmarish scenarios all involving the girl's suffering. He slid over the side of the couch, fumbling for his phone, and he managed to answer right before the call missed.

“Hello?” he cried breathlessly. He hadn’t even bothered to check who the caller was, and with his current luck, it could be a solicitor. Thankfully, it was Kai's voice on the other end of the line, and he was so relieved for a moment that he slipped all the way off the couch and lay on his belly on the floor. “Did you find her? Is she okay? Please tell me you found her,” he panted.

“Yes, yes, we found her, but… She’s in bad shape,” Kai admitted slowly, and Baekhyun's face fell. His mind just went blank, rather than racing with hellish images, and he just waited for him to continue, holding his breath. “Um… She tried to go home,” he told him carefully. They know, he realized, but in that moment he found that he didn’t care. He didn’t care, he didn’t care, all he cared about was her. “She’s not good, man. She’s all wrapped up in a net, and I can’t even count how many fish hooks are in her… We can’t even move her, she’s in so much pain. I’ve got the guys on their way, and We’re gonna try to get her in the van, but…”

“No. No, stay there,” Baekhyun ordered firmly. He jumped to his feet, and in his effort to reach his bedroom he knocked poor Chanyeol out of his chair, making him cry out and look around wildly. Chanyeol ignored him, stalking down the hallway and shoving this bedroom door open to begin trading apart the room in search of his bookbag. The damned thing was harder to find than usual, and he cursed as he emptied out drawers and threw the covers off his bed and flung things to the side until he finally found it, sitting in plain sight. He swung it over his shoulder and marched out of the room, right past a still dazed Chanyeol and out into the night. “Try and get her out of the water if you can, but that’s it,” he told Kai as he stomped briskly across the sidewalk. Vaguely, he heard Chanyeol running after him and shouting his name. “Don’t try and move her any more until I get there.” After Kai acknowledged the command, he hung up, and took off into a run.

Baekhyun was surprisingly calm as he dashed through the neighborhood, illuminated only by the weak moonlight and the fluorescent streetlamps. Perhaps it was the cold night air cooling his blood, or perhaps he was just so in shock that his body had abandoned all emotion completely, leaving him feeling just… cold. He rubbed his hands together as he turned the corner, and the boardwalk loomed far away on the distance, and beyond… Mi-young. At the thought of her, lying in pain on the beach embedded with fish hooks, he quickened his pace. He didn’t stop even when he began wheezing, he didn’t stop even when his legs screamed in protest, he didn’t stop even when his vision grew foggy. He kept going, down the sidewalk, onto the boardwalk, over the thick sand, until then he was at her side. The sight of her sent him back to reality, and the despair and guilt hit him so hard he actual stumbled back and landed on his behind in the sand.

“Mi-young,” he whispered. They had gotten her out of the water, but she was still drenched, shuddering and teeth chattering. The half-torn fishing net was wound so tightly around her that she was fighting for breath, and one of her arms was pinned to her side uncomfortably. She was covered in scratches, and blood, and sand, and Baekhyun just knew that she had been through hell and back. The rest of the idols were gathered around her, looking a mixture of concerned and confused. I’ll aaddress that later. Now, I have to help her, he thought firmly.

“Oh, God,” Chanyeol puffed as he came jogging up behind him. “Is she gonna be okay, Baekhyun?”

“She will be,” Baekhyun promised, and he hastily ped the bookbag, rifling through it until he found a well-sized knife. Swinging the blade out with his teeth, he scorched close to her and began slicing through the thick cords of the net. It was delicate work, as the net was so hopelessly twisted and ripped that sometimes he would pull on a section and wrap it tighter around her, making her groan and cough. He tossed bits of rope to the side as he methodically cut open the weighted net, slowly working the girl free. When he pulled it away from her chest, she abruptly gasped for breath and began coughing, rolling onto her side as she breathed in deeply in and out. When she turned back, he was elated to see that she was finally conscious, and gazing up at him with sorrowful, pain-filled blue eyes.

“Baekhyun,” she whispered weakly. Baekhyun ripped away the rest of the net, leaning over her as she flopped back onto her back, too weak to sit up. He gently ran his fingers down the side of her face, and she winced when he brushed over a deep scratch. “Baekhyun… I… Ow…!” she gasped.

“Shh, don’t talk,” he told her softly. Despite the worry she had put him through, and the sorry state she was in, he could not help but smile sat the sound of her beautiful voice and the sight of her gorgeous sea-blue eyes. “Don’t talk,” he repeated firmly as she opened to speak. She obediently closed it, and then she began weeping, crystal tears glittering in the moonlight as they rolled down her cheeks. “No, no, don’t cry, I’m not mad, I’m not mad,” he soothed her, because every hiccup made her spasm in pain. Mi-young looked like she tangled with an entire fleet of fishing boats, as pieces of line and fish hooks were sticking out of her all over the place, some of them so deep he couldn’t even see them anymore. “I’m gonna get you as good as new, okay?” he told her gently, her hair. It wasn’t soft and full like usual, but sticky with sweat and salt water and sand. I did this to her, he thought guiltily.

“It hurts so much,” she whimpered.

“I know,” he murmured back, pulling away from her to up-end his bag into the sand and begin shuffling through the contents that spilled out. Unfortunately, there was no delicate way to remove fish hooks. He was about to put Mi-young through unimaginable pain, but he had to; he simply could leave her like this. He grabbed a pair of pliers, and as soon as he looked back down at her, she went white as a sheet and tried to scoot away.

“Baekhyun… No, please, not that!” she begged, and then she fell roughly back in the sand, legs kicking as the fiery pain bloomed across her body. Baekhyun firmly put a hand on her chest to hold her down. I have to, I have to, he told himself.

“Help me,” he demanded the eleven boys watching with wide eyes, and Chanyeol and Luhan scrambled into the sand to pin her arms and legs. She started crying, really hard this time, and for a moment Baekhyun hesitated. No. You have to! He screamed at himself, and before he could change his mind he gripped one of the fish hooks with the pliers and began slowly pulling it free. Mi-young cried out, squeezing her eyes shut and squirming as he pulled it free. Baekhyun tried to shut himself off to her wails as he moved on to the next one, but he couldn’t. You have to, you have to, he repeated, even as the tears filled his eyes. You have to, because this is your fault. She’s suffering because of you. You have to fix this.

Once he had gotten most of the easy ones free, now he had the task of tackling the tricky ones. He already had a pile of ten or twelve hooks beside him, some dark with the mermaid’s blood. She was sniffling miserably, and Baekhyun could actually feel his heart breaking; his chest had gone tight again, like he couldn’t breathe. “You’re doing so well,” he told Mi-young softly, leaning down to press his forehead to hers and her tear-stained cheeks. “Just a few more, okay? Just a few more,” he soothed her gently, and she nodded as she swallowed her protests.

“Please, get it over with,” she begged him quietly. Do it, Baekhyun! He told himself as he sat up, and he took a deep breath before digging the pliers into one of the deep wounds, grabbing the fish hook and twisting it free. She screamed, and it was the most terrible sound he had ever heard, far worse than the time he had made her cry. Gritting his teeth as he worked the hook loose, he tried not to look at her, but he couldn’t help it, and he wished he hadn’t. She looked like she was in so much agony that he almost stopped right there, but he couldn’t, he had to do it. He wrenched that one free and flung it into the sand, staining it red, and moved on to the last one. It was by far the worst, a large hook embedded deep into her side, and when he grabbed it with the pliers and began pulled she began to buck so wildly that he had to straddle her and hold her down.

You did this, you did this, you did this! His anger at himself fueled his strength, and before he knew it he had pulled it free and had flung the pliers aside, and was pulling the exhausted mermaid into his arms, straddling her still. He wound his fingers into her hair as he propped her chin on his shoulder, and he just held her gently, afraid that if he did any more she was just break in his arms.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” he whispered repeatedly. He didn’t know if she was even conscious; he didn’t care, even as the blood started leaking onto his short, dying it dark black. “Mi-young, can you hear me?” he whispered as he pressed a kiss into her hair. He didn’t care that they were all looking at him, he didn’t care if they knew about her, all he wanted was for her to be all right, and for her to forgive him for everything.

He didn’t get an answer, though. Mi-young had fallen unconscious again, and her head lolled unresponsively as he pulled back to cup her face in his hands. He used his thumbs to wipe away the tears and the sand, and then he broke inside, and just leaned his forehead against hers as he began crying.

“Baekhyun. Baekhyun, we have to go, she’s bleeding a lot,” he heard Luhan’s voice far in the distance, but all he could focus on was her. Mi-young, I did this to you, I’m sorry, please be okay. Please, please, please. Then he was walking, moving stiffly through the sand as he carried the girl's limp body in his arms, and with every step he felt a new fissure appear in his heart. Somehow they ended up in the car, and he just held the girl in his lap, her hair and whispering to her even though she could not hear him. Then they were in the house, and he was sitting across from his closed bedroom door, sensing and feeling nothing. He vaguely recalled Chanyeol running to Grandma Lee's, giving her some fabricated story to prompt her to come over and stitch Mi-young wound shut, and the old woman was in there now. Someone had draped a blanket over him, but he couldn’t even feel the soft fabric as he ran his fingertips over it.

All he could feel was shame.

It’s all your fault. You drove her away. You drove her away, and it’s your fault she’s in there, bleeding and hurt, and you don’t deserve her, you don’t, you don’t…

As he rose to leave, not even sure where he would go, the bedroom door swung open and the little old lady was there. Baekhyun blinked as he tried to register what she was saying.

“She’s awake now,” the old woman said softly. “She wants to see you.” Dumbly, Baekhyun nodded, and he shuffled into the room. Mi-young was lying in the bed, propped up and covered from head to toe in Band-Aids. She smiled at him, and it wasn’t an obligatory smile or one of pity, it was a genuine smile, and it sobered him up immediately. He rushed to her bedside, taking one of her hands in his own.

“Mi-young! Are you okay? How do you feel?” he babbled. She giggled at him, and Baekhyun didn’t think he had heard any sound that made him so happy. She’s okay. She’s really okay.

“I’m fine, thanks to you and Grandma Lee,” she said softly. She then cast her gaze to her lap, and the sad look in her eyes returned. “Baekhyun… I’m so sorry,” she murmured miserably, and she looked up at him tearfully. “It’s my fau-"

Baekhyun wasn’t sure why, but that moment just seemed like the best time to kiss her.