It took almost a fortnight to return where Tao was familiar. He didn’t realise how far he’d travelled following ships along their courses. He relied on his senses to find his way, carrying the man he’d pitied on his shoulders the whole way. It took a few days for the man with flaxen hair to open his eyes, really worrying Tao, only a weak smile as Tao inspected him over his shoulder heartening him.

Early on into the journey, while the other was still unconscious, something happened to Tao. Something he was quite glad the other wasn’t present for.

“So, this is Tao, the mysterious mer with cloth on his back and a prick in his tail.”

He’d had his head down for a day, not paying all too much attention to the sea creatures passing him by as he swam. Swirling around, halting with a powerful flick of his tail, he found himself a few meters away from a strange looking mer, with a long tail and folded arms, and a sly smirk upon his dull teal-tinted lips. His hair was dark, but shined midnight blue; one eye was black, the other was red. He was no ordinary mer, not with the spines on his tail or the coal coloured veins under his ashen skin. His gills were blackened, the colour seeping like ink into the flesh of his neck. His hair was jagged, just like Tao’s. His body was riddled with scars. Just like Tao’s.

“How do you know my name?” He demanded, despite how the creature alarmed him.

The other’s smile grew. His teeth were sharp, a little jagged, and pearly white. “Mers talk, indeed they do. One hears a thing or two, here and there. I guess you can hear mine too- Sehun, it is.”

The way the other spoke irked Tao. His voice was confident and bold, unlike the softly spoken Lay.

“I heard about you because you’re special,” Sehun carried on, drawing slightly closer. Tao frowned as Sehun eyed the blond on his back, and he felt the grip he had on the unconscious mer’s forearms tighten protectively. “You never let go of the above. Not like the others. They forget what was done to them, where they come from- they forget who they are. But not you. You’re special.”

Bemused, Tao leaned backwards more and more as the other got closer and closer. “What do you want?” Tao snapped, not liking how strangely he was behaving, or how intensely he would stare into Tao’s eyes with his own mismatched pair.

“No, Tao, I’m here because of what you want.”

His frown deepened. “How could you possibly know what I want?” He asked, guarding his expression as he inspected the other more closely. His face was handsome, with sharp features and a small mouth. Sehun was only a few feet away from him now, softening his expression from the wiley one of before.

“Because I’ve wanted it too. You see, I was just like you once.” Tao shifted uncomfortably, hoisting the dead weight on his back into a more comfortable position over his shoulders. Sehun wasn’t hiding the way he observed Tao, not a line of expression on his face while Tao’s was wrinkled with wariness. “I had everything taken away from me. My dignity, my pride, my life- all gone, in the blink of an eye. And instead of resting in peace, I got to dwell about it for an eternity, surrounded by fools who didn’t seem to care they were trapped in the mutilated body of a halfling fish.”

Tao’s heart thumped harder as the other’s tone became bitter and heated. Their faces were so close together, he could see how the blood red in the other’s iris pulsated, as if it had infected the eye like a venom that pumped still in his rotten veins. The sight rendered him speechless.

“The life they lead is pathetic! They’re so blind, they’ll even doom others to this hell rather than let them pass on in peace! They do nothing to right the wrongs which landed them here in the first place. Well, Tao, I know your story, and I’m offering you a chance to do something, something the others never could. They sold their souls to the devil to be happy down here, don’t you see? They should be angry, like us, that their lives were ripped from them.”

Sehun suddenly gripped Tao’s face on both sides, locking him in fierce eye contact. “Don’t you ever feel like you’re a ghost? Like you have to settle your grievance before you can pass on?” He hissed. “Don’t you wonder where those traitors are… who else they’ve killed?”

Tao, until now, had slowly been in under the other’s spell. Yes, was the answer- he’d dwelled on nothing else for a very long time; wondering if he could ever exact his revenge. But then he thought of Chen… and how deeply betrayed he felt. He wondered if that’s how Lay would feel if he could see Tao now. He snapped out of it and knocked the creature hard away from him with his tail.

Sehun had until then carefully held an expression of concern and passion for Tao; however, when rejected, he began to show his true colours. “You little brat! I’ve watched you howl with hatred all this time, and you have the absolute gall to reject me when I come with the answer to all your problems?”

Tao swallowed around a lump in his throat. He knew who he was talking to. This was indeed no ordinary mer- this was a siren.

“Who murdered you in cold blood? Pirates. Who terrorize the sea with no consequence? Pirates. Who killed your little friend? Pirates!” He shrieked, pointing wildly at the mer on Tao’s back. “If you joined me, we could rid the ocean of such filth! You could finally taste vengeance, the sweet nectars of revenge! Tell me, did you die in vain?”

“I died!” Tao finally burst out with a volume that paled the siren’s. They both stared each other down with narrowed eyes and heaving chests. “I died! I can’t go back to the way I was! Do you think your path will ever make me happy again? Revenge-driven vigilantism is never going to fill the lost void in my heart.”

Tao didn’t know where that came from, or why he told a menacing stranger something that came from so deep within him.

“As if ignoring your true self will help,” He replied darkly. “When you finally see the truth, and let the power of that monster locked inside you free- Don’t come crawling back to me to siphon the poison for you, because Gods know that your kind of evil will kill you!”

“My kind?”

“Yes, you vile, twisted little maggot of desperation. A storm rages inside of you that could rock the seven seas! It’s broken every shard of good within you, and you’re right- you’ll never be the same again. Because guess what, princey, your soul was corrupted the moment you were struck dead, because evil taints everything it touches, and it touched you.”

-----

The exhausted blond, after waking without a clue of Tao’s agitated mind, slept and recovered a lot upon Tao’s shoulders, slinking his arms around his saviour’s neck. When he was awake and felt strong enough, he tried to swim with Tao and get used to his new tail, but Tao wouldn’t let go of him, shooting him a stern look of warning- for every time the man tried to swim himself, it filled Tao with concern.

It seemed for that short while, Tao forgot the worries of his own while he was so absorbed with another’s. With this man on his back, there was no room for a daemon’s burdens.

Neither talked. Tao found it almost irksome how calm the new mer was; not questioning where they were going, what he was, who he is. Glancing over his shoulder, he could see how serene his expression was, as if he had not a care in the world, sweetly blinking back at him before curiously squinting into the glassy waters; marvelling the way light refracted in the waves above and dissipated into the depths below. The man craned his neck, feeling the water’s current as if wind against his cheeks and ruffling through his hair. Tao slipped upwards into a warm stream, letting it carry them.

Tao could feel the man’s hair tickle his neck every time he turned to see a shoal of fish pass by. One time, a shark swiftly passed them, and a moment of panic had him gripping Tao’s shoulders with pinching fingers. He was so endlessly curious about this new world around him. Tao wondered how he could be this way after what happened to him and his crew.

Eventually, the two came across the shipwreck which had once drawn Tao in so mesmerisingly. Tao was pleased to find it; it was a solemn landmark which told him they were less than a day’s travel from Lay. That mer was the only thing which Tao knew to return to. However, as he diligently swam past the swollen body of the galleon, he felt the atmosphere change. His companion’s arms tensed around his shoulders. Tao cast his gaze down to catch the man tracing the tender flesh where he was once bound at the wrists with tentative fingers. With the ship’s great shadow looming, Tao halted a moment to check on the blond. He was staring hard at the sundered ship, a look of conflict straining his features.

“What’s wrong?” Tao asked, finally breaking the long-held silence.

The other finally tore his eyes away from the dull grey ghost of a galleon and searched Tao’s face for the umpteenth time.

“This isn’t heaven?”

The question deeply shocked Tao. How could the other have possibly thought a place like this could be heaven? A place of great and terrible creatures, delicate light and immense darkness; a place Tao had resented ever since he realised…

He realised…

He suddenly understood what the other was going through as they stared each other dead in the eyes. He was in another world, that was true; he, like Tao, must have thought he was dead and being taken across worlds by his guide. Tao let his expression of surprise purse into a gentle confirmation. He watched with sad eyes as the mer couldn’t figure out where to look or how to feel. He turned so the two were facing each other, and made an attempt to distract the other from his growing existential crisis. He lowered a hand and slapped their silver tail playfully. “You’re alive,” he warmly smiled.

“Ow!” Was hardly the reaction Tao was going for, much less further provocation of abject horror. “That hurt!”

“I’m sor-”

“But e-everything was so beautiful! All these mysterious creatures I’d never seen before. The way light so magnificently rippled through the air! I’m not breathing air in my lungs, how can you say I’m alive when I should most definitely be dead? Are you going to tell me also that you’re not my angel?”

The mer had drifted a little backwards from Tao, stretching his heart with the distance. He wasn’t sure how to handle the questions being flown at him, for to him they were quite absurd.

“You thought I was an angel?”

He asked gently, a warmth swelling within him. His expression was touched with melancholy.

That was what seemed to bring the other down to earth a little. “Well, yes. When I first saw you, I knew I was drowning, and somehow you still calmed me. You looked so troubled… I thought you must be my angel, who didn’t want to see pass on like this.” He was still frowning, looking so confused as he explained his own logic.

Tao knew this moment wasn’t about him, but the warmth that flooded him was overwhelming. “An angel, with all these scars and scales?” He asked again, looking down at himself. His shirt didn’t cover all the damage done to him before, and where he’d been stabbed were gaping holes in the fabric. He didn’t know what his face looked like anymore, but he knew his nose had been broken, and wasn’t the same smooth bridge and gentle hook it used to be. There was nothing angelic about him. He’d always seen himself as a monster.

“Well, a truly selfless guardian takes the blow for themselves. Knowing the scrapes I’ve gotten out of before, I knew my angel would look quite tough.” A small smile quirked at the corner of his lips. However, with the news Tao was not in fact his angel quickly turned dark once again. “But if you’re really not my angel, what on earth happened to you?”

This man had just been murdered in cold blood- discovered he was trapped underwater for the rest of his days- and he was concerned about what happened to Tao. He was turning out to be a real enigma for the mer to figure out. “We all came to the sea because our lives above had come to an end. I saw what happened to your ship… Your crew… I have quite a similar story. But I guess they beat me up a bit first, and half my crew wasn’t murdered.” He half mumbled the last part, not really wishing to rub salt in wounds so fresh for the other.

The blond looked down at his spindly fingers, rubbing his sore wrists. He didn’t appear to have any more questions, although Tao didn’t like how his serene expression was replaced with a pained one.

Eventually, Tao took the other’s forearm and gave it a light squeeze. Whenever their eyes met, he felt like he was seeing further inside the dazzling depths. “Let’s go.” He mouthed, mustering a smile. It wasn’t his speciality, discussing the way he died.

Although he tried, Tao didn’t let the other swim for himself, yet again taking him upon his back. “Are you sure?” Was the only response, murmured into his ear, surprising him.

“What?” He glanced over his shoulder to see the other softly smiling.

“That you’re not my angel. You don’t need to carry me like this.”

Tao preferred not to answer; he figured the other would manage to get his way, when actually, Tao wanted to carry him, maybe not entirely because of the other’s current health status. He made sure not to look back. Maybe part of that was the pink tint to his cheeks.

-----

When Tao knew he was borderlining where the other mers he knew lived, he became hesitant. Deep down he knew this would happen when he arrived, but he had decided to come to that when it happened; and now, here they were, at the ocean bed, not close enough to yet see the collection of underwater caves or in fact any mers, but close enough to set Tao on edge, faltering in his path, wondering exactly what he should do.

He’d been honest with himself since seeing the ship- he wasn’t all that concerned with the other mers, and what they think. If anything, arriving with someone he’d saved upon his back would garner the same reaction as if he were carrying a chest full of exquisite jewellery. Surprise, delight. Any rumours stewing in the pot this last month of his absence would be washed away. Perhaps they’d feel guilty for doubting him. But who knows, he concluded.

No, it wasn’t them he was worried about. He was nervous to see Lay again. He hadn’t thought about what to say, if anything- and now they were this close, it was all flooding through his mind at once at a thousand knots per second.

Thinking back on it, it’s not like he said much. Yes, he accused Lay of not knowing his true self, despite all the time he’d spent vulnerable with the other. It wasn’t so much what he said, as how he said it; it was the shock in Lay’s expression, the way Tao so angrily left him, as if he’d done something wrong; how the last thing Tao said to Lay was in angst and self pity. It was all that, combined with disappearing, and leaving all unresolved for an entire month, while their last talk was about how close Tao was to snapping and morphing into something nefarious and wicked.

This time it was his companion’s turn to speak up. “What’s wrong?” He asked, feeling the hesitation in Tao and the faltering in his movements. They came to a stop as Tao continued to stare into the distance.

“We’re almost there.”

“You mean we were actually going somewhere?”

“What kind of a question is that?” Tao asked, finally looking round, when the other grinned playfully. Tao released a sigh, a small smile rising. When did he become so unwaveringly serious? “Yeah, I brought you to the only place I know with others… like us.”

The other paused for a moment, before asking something that had been on his mind for a while, not really caring whether it was connected to the previous statement or not. “What’s your name? I would call you my guardian angel, but you didn’t really take to that,” He beamed a beautiful smile.

“My… My name is Tao.” He replied with a small voice.

“Tao…” The blond seemed to thoughtfully test the word on his tongue. “My name is Kris.”

Tao mimicked him and repeated the name, finding his lips naturally curved into a smile at the conclusion of the word. “I like it.” He unthinkingly blurted.

Kris chuckled, the vibrations tickling Tao’s back.

Somehow, he didn’t feel as worried any more.