"A mirror reflects a man's face, but what he is really like is shown by the kind of friends he chooses."

Proverbs 27:19

I tried to turn around but my body didn’t fully cooperate with me so I turned just half way. The woman behind me giggled and helped me turn around.

I was greeted by a sweet face. She had a round face with big brown eyes and showed me a sweet toothless smile. I was happy that she wasn’t angry with me for ‘falling’ into her tank because it kind of felt like I was invading her home.

I couldn’t help but let my eyes wander to her body though. And indeed this girl was also ‘blessed’ with a tail with fins. Though her tail had a different shade of brown than mine, my tail color was rusty while this girl’s tail had the color of chocolate – just like her nails and hair.

Her tail had a different form though, my fin on the end of the tail had some kind of split in it, like you would see on every image that was made of a mermaid. Her tail on the other hand had no split in it, nor did she had a fin on the back of her thighs, her fins were just above her knees on each side and they had an opaque bluish color, making her fins rather difficult to see.

“Maybe you can look into my eyes when you’re done looking at my body.”

My face flushed in embarrassment, I was kind of used to the feeling that people weren’t focusing on me and that was why I had taken my sweet time of looking at this girl. “S-sorry.” I mumbled in a low voice.  

“That’s alright, I know that you haven’t seen anyone like me before – except yourself.” I nodded but kept quiet, there wasn’t anything I could say about that because it had been true. She was the first person who I had met that had the same tail that I had now.

I didn’t know where to look anymore and I heard another low chuckle coming from the girl. “Maybe we should give each other our names, that would make everything more easy.” I shyly nodded but still didn’t say a word, I began wondering though why this girl was still talking so easily with me if she was the only one in this tank. I quickly looked around us, I had assumed from the beginning that this girl was the only one in this tank but there could be more.

“My name is Jung Jessica,” she introduced herself and I immediately looked at her again, “The only resident of this tank.” She held out her hand and gave a jerk with her tail so that she stayed above the water with her head.

“Lee Donghae.” I shyly told her and to my surprise without stuttering.

“East-sea?” She asked while raised eyebrows and I nodded. “Hmm, how fitting.”

I bit my lip, I didn’t want to know about the fact that this maybe wasn’t such a coincidence as I first thought. I couldn’t help but think that maybe… just maybe my parents had had this in their mind for already a long time.

“Let’s talk about something else…” Jessica suggested and she put up a thinking face. I had to bite my lip even harder not to chuckle. It seemed like she was just a normal girl, like she wasn’t sad at all and to my delight, it made me a bit less sad too.

“Oh, I know, you’re not a good swimmer yet, right?” She asked me and I nodded, my face even flushed a bit more because of my embarrassment.

She probably saw it as she immediately tried to make me feel better: “Don’t worry, at first I was like a fish out the water too when I got my tail. I’ll help you to get better with swimming.”

Jessica grabbed my hand and pulled me forward, suddenly she submerged and because her tight grip on my hand, I had no choice to follow her. I was scared for a second when I felt the water closing itself above my head but to my surprise, I kept breathing just not with my nose but with my gills.

Jessica swam away from the side of the glass tank towards the ground. She had to avoid several underwater plants and rocks that were planted under the water. Then she turned towards our right and swam to the corner of our tank. There was a big rock in the corner with a hole in it.

“That’s my little home, a nest.” I stared at her, almost opening my mouth in surprise. I didn’t understand how she was able to talk under water. I had tried to talk under water when I was little every time I sat in the bathtub and back then I wasn’t able to understand myself so why did I understand Jessica then?

Jessica had seen my confusion. “You’re wondering how I can talk underwater and why you can understand me right?”

I nodded, appreciating that she could read me so easily. “Sound travels with the use of air but water doesn’t carry sounds as well as air does that’s why we need to have more sensitive ears to understand each other,” She touched my ears and I immediately blushed, not really used to girls or just people in general to touch me, “which is why we hav