"What's that?" Baekhyun indicated the string around Jongdae's wrist. It was a thin leather strap wrapped with a fine delicate string of something Baekhyun couldn't figure out. Dotted along the string was an assortment of beautiful natural pears, irregular shaped and coloured, their pattern broken by shells of every hue. Baekhyun had a taste for beautiful things and it caught his eye immediately.

"It's nothing. Just something I found on the beach." Jongdae said as he the strand absentmindedly. It had been three weeks since he had rescued the otherworldly creature and the precious string was all he had to make sure he remembered how real it was. He had worried he would break it or lose it so he wound it with the leather for protection and wore it on his wrist for safekeeping. The moon was waxing and looked larger every night and Jongdae knew he would be able to go and look for the merling creature soon. He had to. He wanted to return its treasure and he wanted to make sure it was safe. He had thought of nothing else.

"Damnit. Really? All the shells and stuff Chanyeol finds on the beach and fishes out of the ocean and yet you find that?" Baekhyun sighed. He hoped that Jongdae might offer it to him but he was disappointed when the man sitting opposite just turned his attention to fidgeting with the little pearls.

Jongdae was itching to tell someone about the merling. But he had to know for sure. And he knew that Baekhyun, as sweet as he was and as well as they knew each other, would be sceptical. The scepticism would turn to concern and then into an intervention with Baekhyun and Chanyeol descending upon his life with declarations about how he spent too much time on the boat, too much time out on the ocean, that he needed to meet people and become more social. He wasn't ready for that. He would defend his position once he knew for sure.

"Are you okay?" Baekhyun watched his friend with curiosity. He'd been strange for the last few weeks. Baekhyun had never known him to be so vacant and daydreamy. His eyes were always faraway and wistful and his concentration was lacking. He made a mental note to remind Chanyeol they needed to spend more time with their friend. He was alone too much, out on the boat too much,  and it wasn't doing him any good.

"I'm going for a swim." Jongdae suddenly said as he stood up from the table. "Thanks for lunch." He grabbed some notes out of his wallet, Baekhyun made a show of refusing them, and instead Jongdae dropped them into the tips jar on his way out the door. He walked along the path to his little house set back from the beach, let himself inside, and stripped off his shirt and shoes. He changed his shorts to a lighter pair just right for swimming, grabbed a towel, and headed out the door. 

Jongdae wandered along the path away from the wharve, down past the docks, and climbed down a little rock wall. Once he was on the sand he walked and walked, searching for solitude, craving the salt and the sand and the sky in silence. He tossed his shoes off, dropped his tank top onto the towel, and looked around. He was totally alone and on a whim he dropped his shorts too and quickly waded out into the azure waves crashing lightly on the sand.

When the cold water hit his skin he gasped but it was welcome. He felt refreshed instantly. He waded until the water was waist deep before diving under and swimming along the bottom for a few metres. He opened his eyes and let the sting of the salt flood in. His belly barely grazed the white sandy seabed as he swam through the clear blue water until it was deep enough so he couldn't touch the bottom. He let his body rise to the top and enjoyed the buoyancy as he floated with his eyes closed, the sun beating down on his skin, the world seemingly millions of miles away.

Jongdae had always enjoyed his own company. He was a solitary soul, happy by himself, but as he bobbed in the waves he wondered what it would be like to have someone there with him. Someone to laugh with in the sun, someone who understood him and cared for him, someone to break up the loneliness that had begun to creep into his life. He held his breath and let his body sink under the water and he imagined that person was the creature he had pulled from the ocean that night. Not the merling with the glittering scales and lithely luxurious tail. The man who had rose on unsteady legs from his bed. The man who called himself Minseok before he dropped into the water and became a fish again.

How lucky was Minseok to be a merling. How amazing, to spend your life at the bottom of the ocean, bothered by nothing but the current of the water and the distance to the surface.

"My brothers would love you..."

How many of them were there? Jongdae suddenly looked around him, under him, and off in the distance. His experience in the water had long taught him the difference between the friendly fin of a dolphin or the cutting warning of a shark. He knew to stay away from the sting of a jellyfish although he'd fallen victim a few times when he was a kid. He had never considered the idea that the splash in the waves of a glittering tail could be something other than a dolphin or a shark or even one of the huge kingfish which swam through seasonally causing every boat to hit the water. The thought that something else was out there never crossed his mind.

It had been twenty two days since he had waved goodbye to Minseok and the moon was getting bigger every night. Jongdae ducked under the water and swam back to the beach and decided that tonight he would start looking. The moon wouldn't be full for another night or two but he craved another glimpse of the beautiful creature haunting his every thought. Doing nothing was driving him crazy. He had to at least try to see him again.