Chapter Five: Torn

“But, hyung, you don’t have to make the questions.”

Jiyong’s advice had been ringing in Seunghyun’s ears for the past few hours, refusing to leave his befuddled mind. After Jiyong left, Seunghyun found that, no matter how exhausted or sleep-deprived he was, no amount of rest could compensate for the gears chugging tirelessly in his head.

To put it simply, he was at a lost.

It wasn’t like he cared for the mermaid. Or perhaps he did, since he had an affinity for underdogs.

This went beyond sympathy, however.

The memory of the mermaid’s distressed features as she huddled deep into the corner of her tank taunted Seunghyun behind his eyelids. He could see her shoulders shaking, tears that he didn’t think was possible to shed underwater endlessly flowing down her majestic face.

If – and only if – Jiyong was right, and that mermaid possessed powers beyond imagination . . . why hadn’t she tried to escape?

“Ughhhh,” Seunghyun grumbled, pushing off his quilt as he headed for the shower. “Stupid Jiyong and his conspiracy theories.”

In spite of this, Seunghyun couldn’t help but feel a tinge of doubt.

What if Jiyong was right?

All afternoon, Seunghyun pondered over the little bit of information Jiyong had fed to him. It was like that nagging little voice at the back of your mind who wouldn’t go away no matter what you did.

Seunghyun took to playing around with his beloved Bearbricks collection, desperately finding an outlet to relieve his overworked mind.

Just as his head lulled and his body slumped over his couch, a pounding on his door immediately woke him up. “Jiyong, I swear to god if it’s you–” He cursed, striding over to his door and opening it savagely to reveal an equally exhausted maknae clutching his laptop pathetically.

“Seungri?”

“Can I stay over here tonight, hyung? My place was overrun by reporters.” The maknae sighed, shoulders drooping.

Seunghyun rubbed his face with his hands, opening the door wider for the maknae to clamber in. “Touch my toys, and you die.”

“Okay.”

Afterwards, it became silent, which was unlike Seungri.

Seunghyun tried to get the maknae to talk to him; he hadn’t seen Seungri since the discovery. He knew Seungri loved attention and chased after fame like how a child chases after a stray bubble. He knew Seungri enjoyed being the centre of attention, everyone doting on him as they showered him with praises and cheers.

So it came as a shock to Seunghyun when Seungri resigned from the team, refusing to contact neither Teddy nor him.

He didn’t even respond when they’d forced Chaerin to call him.

“Okay, you know what, I can’t deal with this.” Seunghyun exclaimed, sitting down in front of Seungri who had been furiously working on his laptop. “What the hell is going on with you?”

“Nothing, hyung.” The maknae shrugged nonchalantly.

Seunghyun growled, snatching away his laptop and ignoring his protest. “You tell me what your problem is, or I swear to loving god, I will break your laptop to pieces.”

He watched as Seungri resigned himself to his inquisition. “It’s just . . . seeing that mermaid in that tank . . . it bothers me. Doesn’t it bother you, hyung? She’s not meant to be there, and god knows what your colleagues plan to do to her. I’ve seen the blueprints, and they’re all terrible. I’m not going to be on board when they start testing her.”

“How did you–”

“I’m a genius, hyung, don’t you remember?”

“That’s classified information.” Seunghyun frowned.

“Information that shouldn’t even be allowed.” Seungri glared back. “Don’t tell me you’re going to be one of those testing her, too.”

“And if I was?”

“Then you wouldn’t be my friend.” Seungri leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. “Hyung, she’s a being. She may not be human but she has emotions as well. I’ve never regretted capturing her more than anything in my entire life, and I don’t think any action I take next could possibly make up for my mistake.”

Seunghyun sighed, handing Seungri the laptop. “There’s nothing I can do, maknae-ah. It’s the orders given to me.”

“You know what,” Seungri stood up suddenly, shutting his laptop down as he faced Seunghyun’s impassive self. “I don’t think I’ll stay here after all. Sorry for the intrusion, hyung.”

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

“I’d rather be swarmed by an army of bloodthirsty reporters than to be in the presence of a would-be murderer.”

OoOoOo

After leaving his hyung’s apartment, Seungri wandered about the streets of Seoul for a while. He had his hood up, elbows clutching tightly onto his laptop, and shades on – all of which he hoped would obscure him from the public’s watchful eye.

He hated having to fight with Seunghyun but he was left with no choice. There was no way he could sit aside and aid the team in torturing the poor mermaid.

It just felt morally wrong, and surely any being in the right sense of mind would agree with him.

Regardless of what had happened before, Seungri now found himself homeless.

His watch stated it would be 1 AM soon, and he was sure he’d have to sleep in the park.

“I’m a millionaire, yet I don’t even have spare change to rent out a room at an inn.” Seungri grumbled to himself, kicking one of the pebbles along the roadside. He sighed when he heard his phone ringing for the umpteenth time, refusing to answer it because he’d have to face the wrath of Seunghyun.

Half an hour later, Seungri was tucked away at the corner of a twenty-four hour provision shop, manned by a sleeping owner and inhabited by no one but his lonesome self.

“At least it’s better than nothing.” Seungri muttered, opening his laptop. He watched as it came to life, checking on its battery first before anything else.

Two more hours till it dies, Seungri thought, I can still do this. 

And with that, the maknae began working through the numerous sound-clips he recorded from the mermaid’s tank, tirelessly attempting to decipher what she had been saying.

OoOoOo

“Jiyong, has Seungri called you?” Seunghyun paced about the lab, biting his already brittle nails.

“No, why?”

“We had an argument last night after he crashed at my place.”

“Why was he there in the first place?”

“Long story,” Seunghyun sighed, stretching his aching back. “Just . . . call me, okay? If you hear from him.”

“What is this, someone actually cares for our maknae?”

“Shut up,” Seunghyun growled. “God knows what happened to him – you know how stupid he can be.”

“I’m on it, I’m on it. Calm your .”

“–”

The line went dead before Seunghyun could complete his sentence, leaving him annoyed and completely frustrated with the way things turned out.

He hadn’t planned to fight with Seungri, at least, not over sensitive issues like this. Seunghyun knew what he was about to do was risky and could threaten his character as a righteous person.

“What’s up with you and Seungri?” Teddy asked, barging into the lab with fresh sheets of data. Seunghyun didn’t have to glance at them to know they were about their most prized possession.

Seunghyun cracked his knuckles, choosing to sit down on his desk as he played around with a manila envelope. “Hyung . . . all these examinations we’re about to do with the mermaid–”

“021,” Teddy interrupted. “Her experiment number is 021.”

“What the ?” He threw his head aback at the preposterous news. “Hyung, it’s not right to give a being a ing code! It’s insulting! It’s like numbering off cattle that’s about to be slaughtered!”

Teddy sighed. “Orders are orders, Seunghyun. I can’t just ignore them, not when they’re given to me personally by your father.”

“Screw what my father says!” Seunghyun cried, throwing his hands up in exasperation at his superior. “What we’re doing, or what we’re about to do, is something that shouldn’t ever be done! We’re about to cut open a living, breathing person! You’re just going to sit back and think that it’s okay to do that?”

“She is not a ing person, she’s a damn amphibian or whatever the hell she is unless we study her from inside out!” Teddy roared, pulling Seunghyun up by the lapels of his lab coat. “And I know it’s morally wrong and questionable to my sanity to agree to this but what do you do when you’re forced into a ing corner by the whole nation and the government?! I was left with no choice, no other option but the one I’m taking now!

“What we’re doing is final. If you don’t want to be there when we knock her out, fine. But I’m counting on you to be there when we start looking her through.”

OoOoOo

Seunghyun’s stomach emptied itself of its contents after Teddy’s outburst. Of course, he’d run to the nearest rest room and barfed up his lunch, all the while thinking of cutting the beautiful creature up.

He would have to see blood, her blood, stain his hands.

Seunghyun didn’t want that – more than anything, he wanted to protect the mermaid as much as he could.

Seungri was right; he would be a murderer by the time the clock struck midnight. He would have bear witness to what would be an unjustified murder of an innocent being, who had such unfortunate luck.

Stumbling over to the room where the mermaid was held, Seunghyun noticed that the rest of his colleagues were gone, and that the only person present in the dark place was him.

His eyes made contact with the mermaid’s unreadable, ghostly ones. Quietly approaching her, he sat directly in front of the tank, placing his hand against the cold glass.

Seunghyun sighed, leaning his forehead against the glass, his breath forcing a faux fog to settle over it.

“I’m sorry.”

OoOoOo

Bom couldn’t tell what the human wanted with her.

She sat still, as she always had when she was surrounded by them, but this time, her heart told her to move just a little bit closer to where this human male sat in front of her beyond the barrier.

His hand still leaned onto her confined quarters, and Bom could very well see the devastation on his face, marring his handsome features.

Bom’s own hand itched to rub the frown away from his face, and she knew her thoughts were going in an extremely dangerous direction.

She had noticed this human, of course, for he stood out among the others who only wore curiosity and hunger in their eyes. Bom watched them as they altered between pride and wonder, and she resented them all the more for it.

But she had seen this man, and his eyes had been nothing but sorrowful, as if he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Bom decided that she liked him best out of all the humans, because he stared at her like she was an equal to his being.

Swimming closer to him, Bom folded her tail so she would sit in front of the male. Leaning her hand against his behind the cold glass, Bom waited patiently for the man to lift his head up.

When he finally did, he was startled aback by her closeness, which was understandable because Bom had been unresponsive to any form of interaction before. When he got over the initial shock, he moved closer, pressing his hand harder against her tank.

“Can you hear me? Do you understand what I’m saying?” He said, voice muffled, but still clear.

“Yes,” Bom replied, frowning slightly when the male didn’t respond.

“Please answer me if you can understand me,” the male continued to talk, eyes alight and sparkling with sudden fire.

Frightened by his excitement, Bom swam away from him, curling into her corner. “I can understand you,” she pleaded, “please get me out of here.”

“Dammit, who was I kidding?” The human grumbled. “She can’t talk, you idiot.”

“No, please, I can!” Bom cried, close to tears once more. “Please get me out of here, please!”

“You’re such an idiot, Seunghyun, such a ing idiot!” The man started to walk away, turning his back on her.

Bom screamed, the culmination of her fear and hope pouring into her shriek. “No, please! Don’t leave me, please! They will kill me!”

But the man continued to walk away, leaving Bom to spiral into an abyss filled with hopelessness and despair.

OoOoOo

Miles away, back in his revamped, more secure home, Seungri keyed in ‘enter’ on his most recent work, feeling exhaustion pouring into every ounce of his overworked body.

Please let this be it.

“–please!” A shrill voice rang out, a voice so beautiful that Seungri could only stare at his laptop in awe. “They will kill me!”      

A/N: Although it was belatedly posted, I wrote this chapter in celebration for Big Bang's comeback (!!!) Thank you for all the subscriptions and comments - they really do brighten up my day :) Hope you enjoyed this!