Swim here, swim there; that’s how she fulfills her days. She could go to the deepest part of the ocean and even to the surface, where she lays her body over the water but it still won’t cure the loneliness she feels by spending that time alone.

Even though she is the princess of her father’s kingdom, making him the King, she never felt like she had the ‘blue blood’ coursing through her veins. She was more of the adventurous type; always looking for something fun and new to discover, pushing herself away and as far as possible from her duties.

The downside though was that she was alone. She didn’t have any siblings nor any friends. Not even her fiancé is care free like her, which upsets her sometimes since he would always put up with her father, since they were both next in line for the throne, thus the reason of a future wedding.

Even though a wedding wasn’t part of her plans, especially at such a young age, it didn’t mean that she didn’t love her fiancé, because she did.

Or so she thought.

Under the water, nobody properly experienced the likes of true love. Sure the notion of love does exists, but the power that it holds between two individuals was never witnessed by the eyes of the mermaids living below the waters of around the world.

And that’s why she didn’t want to spend the rest of eternity married to someone she wasn’t head over heels for. She wanted to know true love, to experience it, to know every ups and downs of sharing the life with someone. She knew she couldn’t find it down below so she goes up above, to where the humans live and watches from far away with her sad deep purple eyes the romance they get to have while she is stuck being someone she doesn’t want to be.

“I think we should break up…”

Back in town, Jung Byunghee, aka G.O, was sitting inside a secluded part of a coffee shop where he was facing a young woman. Hearing her say those words, a mix of emotions were roaming inside of him; from relief to sadness and he couldn’t find a way to settle on simply one of these emotions.

From his cup of coffee, he looked up at the lady, asking her why.

“I just don’t feel like you care anymore… Did you even love me?”

He could see the hint of pain through her eyes, which made him want to lie to her but he knew better than to make things worse. He had to tell her the truth; it’s the least he could do.

“I’m sorry…”

She could only nod and gave the man half a smile as it spread to the side of her lips. She got up from her seat and bid a farewell to her ex-boyfriend before silently walking out of the shop and into the street.

Back to G.O, he took in a deep breath before gulping down the last sip of his coffee. He looked around and got up as he picked out from his wallet the money for the two drinks. He then walked out of the shop and made his way back to his work, where he was hoping to drown himself without feeling the little sting inside his heart; a constant reminder of his loneliness.

As he made his way back to the office, he went straight to the studio and locked himself inside, not wanting to be disturbed as he wanted to put all his focus on new music.

Hours and hours passed without him even glancing out the hallway. He was brought out of his daze by the ringing of his phone. Looking at the caller ID, he sighed and answered it.

“Yea?”

“Where are you?”

“At the studio why?”

“Oh, we all thought you were with –“

“Not anymore… it’s over.”

“Sorry…”

“Don’t be, it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Look, how about you take a break? We could all use a small vacation, don’t you think?”

“Seungho, I don’t think -”

“Yah, don’t say ‘no’ or I’ll come and get you myself. Come on, you need a break! It’s finally summer, we can go and rent a boat for the weekend and enjoy some quiet time between the five of us, what do you think?”

The boy sighed and accepted his friend’s offer before hanging up.

 Leaning back against his chair, he closed his eyes and breathed deeply as he rubbed his eyes with his fingers, not feeling motivated to do anything at all.

Crossing his arms over his chest, he looked in front of him where endless papers of lyrics and music sheets were lying around. He got up from the chair and simply piled them one by one before throwing them in the trash right next to him.

He picked up his bag and walked out of the studio as he turned off the lights and closed the door behind him, wanting to make his way back to his dorm where he would finally have time to get some sleep.

“Syrena!”

Here it goes again! My father calling me with that tone of voice just means one thing: I’m in trouble.

“Yes father?” I made my way towards the throne room and quietly floated in front of him while he was giving me a deadly glare.

“I heard that you wandered off once again! I specifically told you to stay within the kingdom’s premises! What were you doing so far away?!”

“Swimming around? What else could I be doing?”

“Syrena!”

“What?!”

“Don’t use that tone of voice with me, young lady or you’ll be grounded!”

I huffed out, completely annoyed by my father’s authority while he arced his eyebrow at me, probably judging me, of course. “You know how dangerous it is outside, why don’t you ever listen to me?”

“Dangerous? You mean the Death Valley? It’s the only place that’s dangerous father. The rest of the ocean looks pretty clean to me.”

“Syrena, sweetie, please try to understand; I’m the King and my job is to protect the people and by protecting the people there is a rule forbidding the mermaids to swim passed the limits of this very kingdom. This includes the princess.”

“Whatever…” I started swimming away just to have my father call me back. I turned around to look at him as he asked me where I was going. “I’m going to be my room! Unless it’s too dangerous to go!” I skipped and swam out on him as I made my way to my room at the top of the castle.

I went to lay across my shell bed while looking out to the other mermaids that were swimming around and having fun between them.

“I’m bored~ Why can’t I do anything around here?!!”

Getting out of my bed, I swam out of my room. Frankly, I didn’t really care about my father’s orders. They didn’t stop me before and they won’t stop me now but even though I was quiet scared of him, I did my best to be as careful as possible so I wouldn’t be caught getting out of the castle.

“He doesn’t want me out of the kingdom? Then I’ll just go up. Technically, I wouldn’t be out of the kingdom’s premises…” I smirked at myself and looked up. Taking one last look around me, I quickly swam towards the surface without even giving a second glance to see if someone saw me leave or not.

The closer I got the more my heart was beating faster; it was an exciting feeling: to reach up to the surface and get hit by some wind, to feel the air that humans breathe, to get a proper look at the sky or even at the beautiful sun that can warm my skin, if I stay long enough on the surface.

Unfortunately, though I can stay out, I still have to hide.

No human knows about our existence, well not anymore I presume.

I’ve heard so many scary stories about the contact between humans and mermaids, another rule my father set was forbidding any contact with the outside world. No mermaid is allowed close to a human, or the punishment would be big. Knowing the King, I knew that he took this rule at heart, especially after what happened to my mother…

Those same stories made me stay away from the shore. I may want to live an exciting life but I am too afraid to stand close to a human, let alone talk to one.

I finally reached up the surface and breathed out, content about my action. I looked around and noticed that I was in the middle of nowhere. There wasn’t any sign of land  anywhere and looking up at the sky, I couldn’t see those big white birds flying anywhere.

“I’m in the middle of the ocean. Great, just great. What do I do now?” I sighed and went back into the water, swimming my way back into the depth of the sea but changed the path as I distanced myself further away from my home.

“I don’t care if I get grounded, I can’t sit and do nothing…”

With a quick swim, I was far enough from the kingdom and that’s when I slowed down, taking my time to look around with the fishes swimming around me. With the sun shining brightly, it suddenly went away as a big shadow appeared over my head making me look up and as I did, the sun reappeared just seconds later.

I swam back up to the surface and slowly got my head out of the water only to see a white boat. I heard some manly laughter and saw some humans on that same boat.

“One… two, three… four and five… Five humans.” They all seemed to be having a good time, which made me quiet jealous since I was on my own.

I didn’t want to be seen so I went to hide behind some pillar rocks and carefully looked at them. I couldn’t deny they were pretty handsome for humans and even compared to some mermaids.

Tilting my head to the side while holding onto the sides of the rock, one of the five human came to my view and just for a moment, I forgot how to breathe. He was so gorgeous, I never saw someone like him. Not even my own fiancé could compare to him; he was simply stunning.

The more I looked at him, I could feel the beating of my heart accelerate out of no where and it caught me by surprise. I could feel a tingle coursing through my entire body as my breathing started to go faster as I simply stared at him while he was looking at the ocean in front of him. I could feel warmth travel through me and I knew that it wasn’t because of the sun, it was something else.

The moment he turned his head to my direction, I quickly hid with my back against the rock hoping that he didn’t see me. I still couldn’t shake off the feeling that was inside of me. It was so strange, I’ve never felt like this before.

Not even the exciting feeling I usually get from being out of the water can compare to the rush of emotions I’m in right now.

It was simply indescribable but somehow I knew what I was feeling at this moment. I’ve heard so many stories about this particular sensation that humans get to feel and I couldn’t help myself but smile as I leaned my head backwards against the rock and closed my eyes while I placed my hands over my chest, feeling the crazy heart as it kept beating rapidly against me.

“Oh my… I think I’ve fallen in love…”