Channuneo. PG. AU, Fantasy. 1643 w.

The gentle waves rocked the fishing boat to and fro, enough to lull the captain into a calm state but not enough to send him to sleep. Chansung yawned as he stretched his long arms high above his head. He loved the sea; the solitude was a welcome change from the hectic life of his fishing village. On land he lived alone in a small apartment above his shop where he sold his catch, constantly hassled by busy housewives and servants of those far richer than himself wanting a look at his wares. But at sea, there was nothing except the cool deep water and the wind that carried the familiar scent of salt. Back home he was a poor fisherman, but out here he was a king.

The night was not as dark as it had been, and Chansung could tell by the way the stars seemed to fade that day was rapidly approaching. He needed to pull in his nets before dawn and turn the boat back to shore. Working alone was hard work, but he had never been one to shy away from a tough task, even if it meant doing the work of two men by himself. The first two nets yielded nothing special: typical fish for his region, enough to fetch a good price but by no means his best catch. The last net however proved to be quite the challenge, seemingly overflowing with fish as Chansung had to strain more than usual to hoist it on board. A good haul, it is! Maybe I can buy that new waistcoat I had my eye on, he thought to himself.

But instead of a net full of fish, soon to be a new waistcoat, Chansung had a net full of man. Well, at least it was almost a man, save for the long golden fish tail that covered the lower half of his body. Now Chansung had seen many things out at sea, and caught a lot of unexpected things in his nets too, but never once had he caught an almost-man. Chansung was so shocked that he let the rope slip from his calloused hands, causing the entire net to fall to the deck and it’s contents to escape everywhere. Fish flopped back and forth, and crabs scuttled about, but all Chansung could see was the almost-man pulling himself free from the thick, heavy netting.

“You’re… you’re not human,” Chansung stuttered, still too shocked to think of much past the obvious.

“No, I am not,” the creature responded, tilting his head and giving Chansung a curious look.

“Are you a… um…” Mermaid? Merman? Chansung now found himself painfully aware of how little he knew about mystical creatures of the sea.

“Yes. Your people call us many things, but the name we have given ourselves can only be spoken in a language beyond human comprehension,” the creature said, matter-of-factly.

He flipped his fins(?) once or twice, seemingly stretching them out after being caught up for god knows how long in that pesky net. The creature seemed neither particularly upset nor frightened that he was now sitting on the deck of a boat instead of back in the water, and seemed more concerned with grabbing the fish within his reach and tossing them overboard than making his escape. Chansung took in the man’s appearance, everything from his golden tail that glistened like crushed seashells in the sand to his milky skin that glowed like the moonlight on the calm night sea. His face was handsome yet gentle, and atop his head sat a mass of curls and a crown made of pearls, smooth stones, and small shells.

“You are very beautiful,” Chansung said in spite of himself.

“I know,” the man replied with a slight smile.

“What is your name?”

“I have many names, but for you I am called Junho.”

“Junho… My name is Chansung.”

“I know that too.”

“Oh,” was all Chansung could reply, settling for the fact that there was no point in a simple fisherman like himself straining to understand how this creature could know his name already. “I’m um… sorry about the net. I had no intention of catching anything more than fish and maybe a few crabs.”

“It is not your fault. I was careless,” Junho said, grabbing another fish and tossing it over his head back into the water. “But now that you have caught me, I must grant you one wish before you return me to the sea.”

A wish? In his heart Chansung had many small wishes. He wished that he had more time to read instead of always tending to customers at his shop. He wished he could quit that fishing village and live out at sea forever. Hell, he even wished for that new waistcoat. But he didn’t know which one of those wishes he would have granted should he run across a magical wish-granting sea creature. Overall he was satisfied with his lot in life. He might have been poor but he had the sea, and really, what else could a man want? Did he really need a magical wish to make him happy?

“But I know not what to wish for,” Chansung said, sitting down beside the creature. “I have everything that I want, except for that waistcoat.”

“So you wish for the waistcoat?”

“No, no! No, I can buy the waistcoat. I guess I just never thought about what to do with a magical wish.”

Junho pressed his plump lips into a thin line while he thought.

“I myself have never met a human before, because I have never been so careless as to be caught by one,” Junho began. “But my brethren tell me that your people tend to either wish for great riches or a long life. However, on the rare occasion that a man truly has no desire for those things, he simply wishes for something that he never thought he wanted in the first place.”

“Something I never thought I wanted in the first place…” Chansung let the thought roll around in his head. He here was, sitting on a fishing boat in the middle of the sea, two good nets full of fish and one spoiled net with fish dying all over his deck, discussing how to spend one unexpected wish with a sea creature beautiful beyond his imagination.

And so it dawned on him.

“I wish for a kiss,” he blurted out, firm and resolute. “From you.”

Junho cocked his head. “Well that is a curious wish.”

“But it is something I never thought I wanted. I never imagined that I would meet a creature such as yourself, and never thought I’d be at a loss as to what to do with a magic wish. And…” Chansung said as he leaned in, feeling someone pulled by the creature, “you are very beautiful.”

“Yes,” Junho said, cupping Chansung’s face in his hands and pulling him closer, “I am very beautiful…”

They met in a kiss soft and slow, with the taste of the ocean and of the wind and of the sweet freedom that a man can only know from an honest day’s work out on the great blue seas. Chansung was quite certain that he could feel the stars on the tip of Junho’s tongue, and if there was a heaven it surely tasted as sweet as Junho’s lips. For what seemed like an eternity there was no boat, no fish slowly dying in the warming air, no wish, and no poor fishing village to return to. There was only Chansung and the man that could only be described as bliss incarnate, and worlds were born and destroyed in the space where their lips met.

Chansung pulled away first, because unlike Junho he needed air to breathe and his lungs were burning. Had he had unlimited wishes he realized he would have wished for unlimited kisses, but his one wish was gone and that was the end of that. He slowly opened his eyes, taking in the sight of a breathless Junho, a smile a bright as the new dawn playing on his lips.

“I cannot keep you?” Chansung asked, suddenly desperate for a way to keep this beautiful creature by his side forever.

“No, you cannot,” Junho replied, with a genuine hint of regret in his voice.

“So I must return you to the sea…” Chansung said, picking the creature up off of the deck. He was much lighter than he would have imagined.

“So you must,” Junho said as he ran his hand through Chansung’s wind-tossled locks.

“But will I ever see you again?”

“You may or you may not. I am like the sea itself: I cannot be contained or predicted, and I go wherever I please. I may want to see you again, but then again, I may not.”

“That answer does not satisfy me,” Chansung complained as he walked to the side of the boat and lowered Junho down into the cool water below.

“But that is the answer I have given,” Junho said with a playful smile on his lips, before pressing a chaste kiss to Chansung’s cheek and swimming off.

I will catch you again, Junho. Chansung thought.

But Chansung never did catch another creature like Junho. Then again, he never had to. He returned to the sea every night, and every time his nets were overflowing with fish, enough to keep him in all the new waistcoats his heart could desire. Before returning to shore he would lean over the side of the boat, hoping to catch a glimpse of the beautiful creature he left behind. And it was at those times that his magical sea creature would reach up and grant him another earth-shattering kiss, sending him to world he never even knew existed, before slipping back into the unknowable deep.