"Ow!" Mi-young yelped as she was roughly thrown into the back of a dark black van. As she struggled to disentangle herself from the fishing net, her sodden tail making wet slapping sounds against the hard, metal floor of the van's trunk, the two men who had captured her paused to gaze at her unearthly beauty in the soft moonlight. 

"Hehe... We're gonna be so rich after this." As Mi-young slipped an arm free and began tugging at the twisted nylon, the men hurriedly went about their business, lest their catch become in a state to escape. Just as Mi-young was sitting up, the loosened net falling around her torso, the back doors slammed shut with resounding clang!s and left her cast in darkness. Her eyes struggled to adjust to the gloom, and all she could hear was the sound of her own ragged breathing and the rumble of the van engine. She cried out in alarm as the vehicle hitched and she fell forward; her chin collided with the metal floor, sending shooting pain across her jaw and up her face, and her tail uncomfortably slid beneath her. Wobbling slightly in the unsteady van, she pushed herself up and fumbled around in the dark for the van's back doors. She found the inside handle and tugged at it angrily, grunting with exertion, but her captors had secured the outside with a lock and chain. She could feel the metal clamoring as she furiously rattled it. Suddenly, there came a loud bang from the other side of the van, and she whirled around to press her back against the cold metal doors, heart slamming in her chest as the echoing noise assaulted her eardrums. "Settle down in there! Don't make us tie you up!" growled the man's voice. With a defeated whimper, Mi-young slithered forward to curl up on the van's floor, shivering as the seawater still clinging to her skin sapped the warmth from her body. All alone in the dark, she lamented the harrowing turn of events. 

"Baekhyun..." She could still see him splashing in the water, struggling to hold on to the side of the boat as blood streamed from his face, defiance burning in his eyes. Defiance. That's what had led to this, Mi-young's defiance of her own miserable fate. She should have just resolved to it, resolved to the fact that no matter how much she wanted it she and Baekhyun couldn't be together, and just gone home. Instead, she had hesitated, begged the sea for one last, fleeting moment with him; the sea had given her answer. Mi-young sniffled as she curled further into a ball. Her stringy, half-dried hair draped over her in some poor excuse for a blanket, ineffective at yielding warmth. Once again, I've messed up... This time, Baekhyun won't be there to save me. She began to cry softly, the sound of her gasping breaths bouncing around her as they reverberated off the metal walls, and she fearfully awaited the punishment the sea had dealt her. 

Mi-young was not sure how long she remained in the back of the van; exhausted from fright and crying, she had drifted off to sleep. She awoke with a start as the chains clanged against the back doors, which were then thrown open to spill the coarse moonlight over her. Bleary-eyed and confused, she tried to crawl away from her captors, but they grabbed ahold of the net and yanked her out of the van and onto the rough asphalt over a parking lot. Grunting, Mi-young thrashed in the woven fabric and rolled onto her belly to try and crawl out, having found that she had become dry and her mermaid tail had transformed back into her human legs. She screeched as a booted foot planted itself right in the small of her back, pinning her to the rough ground. "So it is true. You're human when you're all dry, huh?" sneered the man pinning her. Mi-young squirmed beneath him, struggling to get free, and he responded by harshly stomping on her again. "You sure wriggle like a fish, that's for damn sure." 

"What're we gonna do? We can't show her to the boss like this," his compatriot sighed and rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. The other snatched a water bottle off the top of the van and popped it open to turn it over and spill its contents over the mermaid. She gasped as the cold water flooded over her head, running down her face and absorbing into her thick hair, before the stream traveled down the length of her back to her bare legs. With a flash of blinding light and a tingling sensation, Mi-young's glittering blue tail once again appeared to thump limply against the asphalt. The man tossed the plastic bottle aside with a cold snicker. 

"Problem solved," he grinned before grabbing Mi-young underneath her arms and dragging her away from the van. The rough, solidified tar scratched the underside of her massive tail as it dragged over the parking lot; her glimmering, shimmery blue scales began to chip off one by one, leaving an uneven trail of teardrop-shaped pools of silvery-blue across the lot and an uncomfortable stinging pain across Mi-young's lower half. She yelped as she was roughly dragged over the raised, metal threshold of a set of double doors, and then the harsh, unforgiving concrete gave way to smooth, polished tile. The building she had been carted into was dark, with only red exit signs glowing in the crushing blackness; Mi-young squinted in the gloom to try and see just what kind of place she had been carried to. Dark, towering shapes loomed on either side of her, and the hallways were a maze of corridors; more than that, Mi-young felt a humming in her blood, a strange pulsing in her cells that was only present when she was close to a large body of water. As her eyes adjusted to the dark she began to see shapes flitting in the walls, some sluggish and huddling close to rocky-looking smudges of black, and others large, feline-like, gliding smoothly about. It was then that Mi-young realized that they were not walls at all, but gigantic tanks of water. 

The aquarium! I'm at the aquarium! She realized with a pulse of horror. Baekhyun's fear had come to fruition. Just as the horrible truth was dawning on her, the man dragged her out of the showcase room and underneath a strip of yellow tape, marking an area of construction. This area was alight with dull fluoresence emanating from the panels of lighting far above, illuminating clamoring workers constructing a tank of massive proportions. Mi-young gasped as she was tossed aside with little care, and she fumbled a bit for a second, her wet form unable to gain traction on the slick tile. A shadow fell over her as she finally managed to sit up, and she stiffened as someone's hand caught the underneath of her chin and forced her to look up in an uncomfortable position. It was a rather unremarkable-looking man, dressed in a suit and tie with well-kept hair; fair as he was, though, greed and evil intent radiated of off him as he smirked hungrily down at her, sending a shiver through the frightened mermaid. 

"My, my, she is a beauty up close, isn't she?" he purred, then grimaced as Mi-young snapped at his hand in an attempt to bite it. "A bit too wild for my taste, however." Her fear was giving way to burning rage. She slapped her tail angrily against the floor, sending a shockwave of sound across the room; the workers who had been too absorbed in their duty flinched at the sound and turned their attention to her, and were then captured by her brilliance. 

"You let me go right now!" she demanded hotly. Her captor merely snickered in amusement. 

"You are in no position to be making demands, little lady. Besides, aren't you grateful? I made this beautiful new home for you," he said as he turned to sweep an arm, gesturing to the gigantic tank. It was gargantuan, a spectacle in itself and clearly meant to display the pride of the aquarium. Its bulk towered to the ceiling, with only enough space for a catwalk, and stretched the length of the room. It had already been outfitted with a rocky grotto, and divers were currently decorating the seafloor with bags of sand and live corals, as well as glittering trinkets and other cheesy articles of treasure that the man thought a mermaid would fancy. Mi-young balled up her fists and lunged at him, striking him in the leg and making him scamper away while she fell uselessly on her face. She tossed her wavy black hair out of her face as she glared up at him acidly. 

"I am not some novelty that you can use for entertainment! I'm a living, breathing person! Have you any shame?" she snapped at him. The man gave her that same bemused smirk, looking at her not like she was a person but a thing. Mi-young realized then why humans were considered such horrible creatures; their greed and pride knew no bounds, and they held themselves above everything else living, thinking themselves the pinnacle of life. No matter how human Mi-young looked, she was not, and that meant she could be exploited freely. With the stark realization that her pleading would not help her, she sank to the floor and began to quiver. Her momentary burst of anger was washed away by another fresh wave of fright. Baekhyun, I'm scared! she thought as tears spilled from her eyes. The man crooned and crouched down beside her to sweep his hand over her cheek, and the feeling of his clod, clammy skin made her shudder and draw away. 

"Don't worry, pet. I'll treat you nice, as long as you behave. All you have to do is look pretty for the customers. Smile and wave, maybe do a few tricks for them, hmm?" he purred and patted her head, as if she were some dog who could be trained. Leaving the quivering mermaid with his weighty words, he stood back up and whistled to the workers. "What are you all gawking at? This tank is being unveiled tomorrow!" he barked before looking down at her again. "We were planning to put some sharks in here, until I stumbled across an interesting video online. Who gives a about sharks, when you have the world's first tried-and-true mermaid on display instead?" he guffawed before sliding his hands in his pockets and walking over to the tank to continue to give orders. Mi-young pulled herself into a sitting position, drawing her tail close as she continue to shake from cold and fear. Even with all these people around, she was alone, alone and helpless. Baekhyun... I hope he's okay, she found herself thinking. The last she had seen of him had been when he had slipped below the waves, barely conscious. He couldn't have drowned, could he? The thought of him being claimed by the sea frightened her much more than being an object of power and status for the aquarium owner. She would rather be entertainment for the masses for the rest of her life than Baekhyun die. She had no way of knowing that, though. She squeezed her eyes shut as she hugged herself. Baekhyun... Please be alive! she prayed. 

"Wow... She really is pretty." Mi-young opened her eyes to find that some of the workers had abandoned their posts to meander over to her, standing around her gawking. Uncomfortable under their stares, she retreated into herself, trying to make herself seem as small as possible. She cried out in alarm as one of them grabbed her tailfin and yanked it forward to run his fingers over the thin membrane, disbalancing her. As she fell on her back, her head hit the floor with a sickening crack! She reeled for a moment, seeing stars dancing in her vision, before she became aware that someone was teasing their fingers through her thick locks. 

"So soft..." 

"Don't touch me!" she growled and slapped the hand away, thrashing to yank her tail from the man's hands. She sat up, face flushed and chest heaving, as her eyes darted around like a feral animal's. "Wow, she so uncivilized. We need to teach her how to behave. She can't be acting like that to the customers," the guy tutted and shook his head. 

"She doesn't look much like a mermaid wearing this," a woman frowned and tugged at her half-dried shirt. Mi-young slithered away. She had had enough poking and prodding. This is insane! They really don't look at me like I'm human at all? she thought wildly as she scrambled backwards on her hands, dragging her heavy mass of a tail across the floor and leaving a slick trail of water. The humans all scampered after her, crooning like they were trying to soothe her, and she pressed herself against the wall in panic. She screeched as someone caught her by the upper arm, and looked up to see it was the manager again. 

"It's almost time for you to get in your tank, pet. Let's get you into something more appropriate, huh?" His smile made her blood turn to ice, and without success she tried to wrench her arm free of him. A few of the workers fell on her, tearing off her shirt and bra and exposing her completely. 

"No! Stop! Don't!" she cried, but they continued to wrestle her out of her clothes. Mi-young's breath hitched in her chest as something tight was drawn around her bust, nearly crushing her, and clasped much too tight in the back. As she pawed at it, wheezing, someone clapped jangly jewelry on her wrist. Another was tugging a brush roughly through her hair, yanking on it so hard that tears formed in the corners of her eyes again, and when they were finished they scraped the pointed end of a barrete across her scalp before fastening it into place. Her tail whipped about until someone sat down on it, and she felt her scales chipping more as it was wrapped in uncomfortable, thin wire with heavy flashing baubles. After what seemed like a lifetime, they retreated, and she was left a sweating, shivering, barely-breathing mess on the floor. "What is this thing?" she groaned as she tugged at the article around her chest. It was a gaudy thing, consisting of plastic seashells barely covering her s and pushing them up an absurd amount. 

"There, you look much more beautiful now, like a proper mermaid," the man nodded in approval. She whipped around to shoot him another acidic glare, and reeled for a moment as what little breath she had left her lungs. 

"Do you honestly believe that mermaids wear this sort of cheap, demeaning thing?" she growled when she found her voice again. He crouched down in front of her to give her that smirk, and she tried to remain vigilant this time, and not give him the satisfaction of seeing her afraid. 

"Well, when I catch more of you, I guess we'll find out, won't we?" Despite her best efforts, the chill shot through her down to her bones, and her blue eyes widened like pools of water spreading across a smooth surface. As she stared at him in shock, hanging open, he quickly latched a contraption of ropes and metal buckles around her middle. "Bring her up!" he called up to the catwalk, and before she could even think, the harness jerked her up. As it dug into the bare skin of her belly, she felt incredibly nauseous, and the sight of the floor rapidly receding didn't help. She hung in the air limply as she ascended, droplets of water spiraling down through the air to crash into the ground, and she clutched onto the ropes in fear that she might join them. A great shudder went through her body as the ropes stopped pulling, and she hung there for a moment; then, she was lurched violently to the side, and she began to pivot. She rolled aroung in the harness trying to see what was happening, but with the unsteady motion and no means to support herself, she could only hanging limply like a fish caught on a line, flapping and useless. The machine stopped once more and she swung wildly like a pendulum for a minute, groaning as she struggled not to throw up, and when she finally settled she looked down to see that she was suspended above the tank. "Drop her in!" called the distant voice of the manager, and as she was tearing at the ropes she was suddenly released and fell into open air. Her back stung as it smacked against the water, and she plunged into the tank.

Through the swirling bubbles she could see figures scurrying across the catwalk, and torrents of water spun around her as buckets of live tropical fish were dumped into the tank. They whirled around her in a tornado, fleeing to the bottom of the tank to seek shelter in the many crevices in the rock. A few giant, striped lobsters were tossed in next, and their little legs and long antennae wiggled as they sank slowly to the sandy bottom. Starfish, eels, shrimp, even a green sea turtle joined Mi-young in the tank, and it was fully populated in a matter of minutes. The mermaid had already drifted down into the grotto, swimming through its twisting rock formation to approach the glass front. The manager was standing there with his arms crossed and his eyes burning with the money he was about to make on her presence. "Magnificent," he breathed. His words were distorted through the thick glass and water, but her mermaid ears were adapted to the way sound traveled through water. "All right, boys, pack it up! We have the big opening tomorrow!" he called and turned around, ushering his workers out. Mi-young snarled and banged her fist against the glass, and he turned to wink back at her. "Sleep well." She banged against the glass tank repeatedly, even long after he was gone and the lights had been switched off. 

When her arms had finally grown too tired to continue, she allowed herself to float down to the bottom and slide into the silky sand. The fish, having become accostomed to her presence, swam around her lazily in schools. Despondent, the mermaid picked up a walking starfish and put it up against the glass; it took a moment to adhere, and then began walking up the side of the tank. Mi-young was not fool enough to think that she could jump and reach the catwalk; the human had designed the tank too cleverly. She laid out on the sandy bottom as she had done so many nights before she had come above the waves, rolling onto her back. The tank mimicked the night sea, endless blue fading into black. If she tricked herself, she would think she was home after all. 

But this was not her home, and nor was the sea. Her home was with Baekhyun. She knew that now. She raised her hand to finger the necklace floating above that godawful bra-like shirt they had given her, her fingertips traveling the sharp edges of the starfish Baekhyun had given her when they had made their trip to the aquarium for White Day. The irony was pretty damn painful. She dropped her arm, the sand particles swirling about after being thrown up by her movement before serenely settling back down, and her blue eyes gazed upward into the endless abyss of darkness. 

"I just wanted to be with him. Is that so bad?" she whispered to the water. The current, nor any of the tank's inhabitants answered. There was only the continuous hum of the machinery powering the tank and keeping it clean. She sighed and laid an arm across her eyes. She would not find sleep; she knew that. "I didn't tell him everything," she murmured to the darkness, and the salty tears leaking to her eyes mingled with the tank water. That was why she turned around, waited in the surf instead of diving below, waited for him to call after her, to call her home. One breath, one word, that was all that would have broken her fragile conviction; it did not matter then, how star-crossed they were. Mi-young wanted to traverse that ocean and wash up on the shore of his arms, even if it meant forsaking the sea forever. As long as she had his heart, she needed nothing else. 

Because of her selfishness, his selfishness, their doomed love, she had nothing at all... Yet somehow, somehow, she still managed to hold on to that fleeting hope that Baekhyun would save her, one last time. No, she didn't have nothing. She had that hope, and his heart, and that would have to carry her through whatever came next. 

Mi-young actually did end up falling asleep, most likely from sheer exhaustion. She was awoken abruptly by someone rapping angrily against the glass of the tank, and she drowsily sat up to look at the perpetrator. The manager's sneering mug greeted her. "It's almost showtime, pet." There was a sour taste in as he walked away to attend to his business, and she swam up the side of the tank as she rose into full consciousness. Her fine-tuned ears caught disturbance in the water, and she peered out the tank to see that the entrance to the room was roped off, and on the side so that people would not be able to catch a glimpse of the surprise. Even from so far away, Mi-young could hear the shambling people, their fervent excitement and impatience. With a twitch of , she dove backwards in the water to swim behind the rocky grotto, shielding her body from the view of the crowd. She wouldn't be able to hide forever, but she could ruin his grand unveiling. As she huddled against the slimy rock, a blue starfish scuttled across the sand. She could not help but smile as she picked it up and admired it. It was the same species that she had been enraptured by the day that she had been caught in the tide pool and met Baekhyun. She turned it over in her hands, half-listening as the manager gave a long-winded speech to the paying customers. She yanked the barette out of her hair, tugging at it angrily until it released her ebony strands, and tossed it into the sand to replace it with the starfish. Its many tentacle-like feet stuck to her scalp, feeling her hair as it stuck there. The water vibrated with the sound of hundreds of footsteps piling into the room, and Mi-young peered through a crack in the rock to see that the crowd had approached the front of the tank. The manager's face was turning red with embarrassment and fury. Serves you right, creep, she thought grumpily. She winced as he smacked his fist against the tank, sending an uncomfortable shockwave through the large construction. Mi-young tried to bear his repeated pounding, but it pulsed in her eardrums, and finally she could bear no more. With a dramatic flourish, she burst out from behind the rocky grotto and spun out in front of the crowd, the gaudy jewelry on her arms and tail flashing as it caught the light. The echo of hundreds of voices fell quickly into shocked awe, and their eyes followed the mermaid as she swam a circle around the tank before settling serenely at the front to gaze levelly at them. Her eyes flickered to the manager, who was grinning at her apparent obedience. 

"Behold, the first mermaid ever caught! She's one-hundred-percent real, folks; no tricks, no gimmicks. Not a girl in a suit or a fancy display of holographics, but the real thing," he crowed proudly and swelled his chest as he gestured to her. Mi-young's blue eyes swept across the crowd. They were all staring, all of them; most with awe, some with lust, others with greed. Little girls gazed like they were captured in a spell, their mothers held their hands to their mouths as they cried, and their fathers pulled off their hats to give praise to the forces above for allowing them to see such a sight. None of them were enraged. None of them pitied her; she was just an object to them, and again, Mi-young was given the painful reminder that she would never be human in the eyes of most the world. What did it mean to be human? Was it not enough that she felt things they did, happiness and sadness, anger and grief, and love? Was it not enough that she experienced their world and all its wondrous things? Was she really forever barred from being seen as such, simply because she had another form in the water? She tread water there, not listening to the manager bleat his accomplishments, while she pondered the nature of such things. Suddenly, she caught unusual movement in the corners of her eyes, and turned her head to see a group of young men come squeezing through the door and shuffling around the edge of the crowd. One of them had split off to push to the front corner of the crowd, his eyes shaded by glasses and face shielded by a cap pulled down. Cocking her head to the side, she abandoned the manager and flitted over to the corner, swimming down in front of the stranger. He grinned at her, and pulled down the shades so she could see his eyes. 

Black eyes, shining with thousands of stars, mirroring hers like the untameable sea.

"I'm here, Mi-young."