Chapter 2

Yongguk sat on his front porch with a beer in his hand and a lit cigarette between his fingers. The summer nights on the island were much cooler than the days were. It was nice to take a break from the blistering heat and from sweating just for stepping outside. He brought the cigarette up to his mouth and inhaled the toxic smoke. He coughed as the smoke filled his lungs. He knew that it probably wasn't a good idea for him to smoke after almost drowning a few hours earlier but he needed the taste of nicotine.

The rest of day had been a blur for him. He had been stuck in a daze after what had happened. He didn't remember walking back to his house or showering and changing into dry clothes. He couldn't even remember if he had eaten anything for dinner. He barely remembered taking a beer from the fridge and bringing it and his laptop out to the porch with him. If it wasn't for the mosquito that tried to feast off of him, he would still be in his daze.

He took a swig of his beer. He looked out at the ocean in front of him. The water was barely visible in the night. The moonlight reflected off of the water giving Yongguk a small view of the sea. He stared, hoping to see a silver-blue tail sticking out of the water. He needed some kind, any kind of sign that what he saw was real; that he didn't hallucinate the beautiful male with a tail.

He placed the cigarette in between his lips and opened his laptop. He opened up an new search window and typed men with tails. He quickly corrected it to half person half fish when the first result didn't bring him anything. He scrolled down the page and stopped when something caught his eye. Merman.

He clicked the link and it took him to a page with an illustration of a beautiful half-man, half-fish that reminded him of the one that had saved him earlier that day, only this one had long brown hair and an orange tail. He read the description underneath the picture.

A merman is a mythical creature with it's upper half a human male and the lower half, a fish-like tail with scales and fins. The most notable and well known merman could be found in Greek Mythology, Triton, son of Poseidon and Amphitrite.

Yongguk blinked a couple of times. “Greek mythology...” He opened a new tab on his browser and searched merman sightings. He scrolled through page and page to find something on a merman sighting. Mostly everything he saw were guys dressing up as mermen for fun or men with blue green hair. Nothing about actual merman.

Yongguk was sure what he saw, who he saw was real. It was a real merman. How else would he have been saved from drowning? He had stayed a while at the shore looking out to see if he could see the merman again. There was no way an actual human could hold their breath underneath the water for that long, let alone swim in the strong rip current. There was only one way to straighten this all out – he needed to go back to the sea and find him.

******

Yongguk sat on the soft sand staring out at the sea. He had spent most of his time the night before researching mermen and mermaids. He went through different stories and legends about the mythical sea creatures. Not one site had some kind of information – fact that mers were real. No sightings of mers existed. With all the sightings of Bigfoot, The Lock Nest Monster and Yeti, Yongguk would have thought that there would be people looking for mers but no one was. Even the people that dressed up as mermaids and mermen and would swim in the water with artificially working tails, didn't believe that they were real.

Yongguk was certain that mers existed. He had convinced himself that there was no way he was making it up.

He had barely slept the night before thinking of the way merman's tail sparkled in the light. He need to see the merman again. It took everything he had to not come out to the cove in the middle of the night. He had forced himself to sleep at least a little bit but once the sun was up, he was out of his house and back on the shore.

“Where are you? I know you're real.” Yongguk murmured as he scanned the water for any sign of the merman.

He was determined to stay in the spot he was in all day if he had to. He would come here everyday if it would give him a chance to see the merman again. But he didn't want to wait around for the merman, he was going find him. He took off his shirt and sandals and walked back to the waters that had tried to take his life the day before. He should have been scared a bit to go back into the water but this was the only thing that he could think of at the moment. There would be no reason for the merman to come to shore so Yongguk would have to go to him. But how far Yongguk had to go, he didn't know.

He waded his way through the water until to was high enough for him to swim further out to sea. Part of Yongguk wanted to stay close to the shore, in water that was calm and wouldn't pull him under but another part of him wanted to go out further. He wanted to go out as far as his body could take him without caring about the energy he would need to get back to the shore. How would he get back if that happened? Would he end up drowning again?

He didn't know if he was crazy enough to try something like that. Could drowning again make the merman come back to save him? What if he didn't? As much as he wanted to see the merman, Yongguk didn't want to die. What about his little brother Youngjae? There was no way that he could leave his little brother alone. There was still too much for him to do that he couldn't allow himself to drown.

Yongguk stopped swimming and let himself float a bit. Something caught his attention a few feet from where he was floating. Yongguk's eyes widened when he realized that it was a swarm of jellyfish. He turned to swim back to the shore but was stung by one of the jellyfishes in the process. He cried out in pain. He tried to get away when another one stung his arm. More jellyfishes were getting closer and closer to him and Yongguk knew that if he didn't swim he would be stung by all of them and would end up drowning because of it.

Despite the pain that was running through his leg and arm, Yongguk swam as fast as he could to get away. A hand grabbed his, startling him. The merman's head popped out of the water.

“Hold on to me.” The merman said in a deep raspy voice that Yongguk hadn't expected to hear.

Yongguk nodded. He linked one of his hands with the merman's while the free hand, grabbed onto the merman's wrist. He almost retracted his hand from the merman's wrist when he felt a fin on the forearm. He moved his grip on the merman's forearm so that he wouldn't crush the fin. He inhaled a deep breath and held it as the merman submerged them both into the water. Yongguk shut his eyes to avoid getting salt water in them. He only opened them once again when he felt them reemerge from the water.

Yongguk wiped the salt water from his eyes. He looked around and noticed that they were nowhere near the cove Yongguk originally swam from. The merman had swam them closer to the shore but closer to a cave on the other side of the island. Yongguk had never been to this side of the island, even after all the time he spent there.

The beautiful merman looked back at him with a scowl on his face. “Why were you out here again?” The merman asked.

“I-” Yongguk blinked a couple of times. He still wasn't sure what he was seeing in front of him was real. He could have very well be unconsciousness right now, sinking to the bottom of the ocean thanks to the jellyfish stings he suffered. The merman could be his brain trying to distract him from the fact that he was going to drown any second. “I wanted to make sure you were real.”

The merman tilted his head to the side, confused at what he had said. “Of course I'm real.” The merman flinched back when Yongguk's fingers lightly grazed his cheek.

“You are real.” Yongguk murmured, mesmerized by the creature in front of him. His other hand came up to touch the merman's ear. The merman's ear was shaped like a fin; a gradient of silver to light blue scales covered most of the fin-like ear.

The merman swatted away Yongguk's hands from his face. “Stop touching my face.”

Yongguk's eyes widened when he noticed something different about the merman's hands. He grabbed one of the merman's hands and brought it to his face to examine it. Sheer silver-blue webbing connected the merman's fingers together. The merman snatched his hand back from Yongguk's hold. With a flick of this tail, the merman moved away from Yongguk.

Yongguk could see the fear in the merman's face. If he didn't do anything right now, the merman would submerge back into the water and leave Yongguk at a part of the island he wasn't familiar with.

“Wait, don't leave. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have touched you without permission.” Yongguk said realizing the mistake he had made. “I won't do that ever again. I was just mesmerized by you. It's not everyday that you see a merman. You're actually only supposed to exist in stories.”

Yongguk let out an agonizing hiss when the jellyfish stings made themselves known. He clenched his arm, raising out of the water to see the rash on his arm. The merman's eyes widened at the sight. Forgetting about the invasion of privacy he received from Yongguk, the merman swam back to him. He grabbed Yongguk's arm so that he could take a better look at it.

“Those evil things.” The merman said, his beautiful face full of concern. The merman let go of Yongguk's arm and submerged himself back in the water.

“Hey! Where'd you go?” Yongguk called out for the merman. “Don't leave me out here like this! I can't get back to shore myself like this!”

He turned and looked at the direction of the shore. It wasn't too far. He could have easily made it to shore without a problem if he didn't have the jellyfish stings on his arm and leg. The venom from the jellyfish pulsated throughout the wound. The pain was making it hard for Yongguk to swim.

The merman appeared from the beneath the water, his back to Yongguk. “Hold on to me.” He said.

Yongguk placed his hands on the merman's shoulders and allowed the sea creature to take him into the cave of the island. The water soon shallowed once they got into the cave. The merman stopped, popping his head out of the water.

“Are you able to get up there?” The merman pointed to the rocky edge of the cave.

“Yeah, I should be able to.” Yongguk said. He let go of the merman and swam to the edge. He pulled himself out of the water and situated himself on the rocky surface so that the stung leg was now completely out of the water.

The merman swam to the edge. “Does it hurt?” He asked.

“It more stings than anything.” Yongguk responded as he looked over the sting on the back of his leg.

Yongguk watched as the merman pulled himself out of the water and situated himself next to him on the rocky surface. With the merman sitting next to him, Yongguk got a better look at the sea creature. The merman was breathtaking. He was more beautiful than anything Yongguk had ever seen. His skin was fair like porcelain without a mark to be seen. He got a better look at the fin that came out from his forearm. Just like the merman's ears, the color of the scales were a gradient from silver to light blue and were scattered around the area the fin protruded from. Yongguk also got a better look at the merman's tail.

The merman's tail started just right about where the natural human hip would start. The same gradient pattern that followed the merman's fins, where present on his tail. The center of the merman's tail was silver, its gradient out to light blue on the sides and bottom of the tail. A darker shade of blue ran along the bottom sides of the tail. Two fins protruded out of the upper half of the tail, flowing along with the curved shape of the tail. The fluke of the tail was larger than what Yongguk remembered. It fanned out almost twice as wide as the merman. The blue gradient carried on down the fluke, getting slightly dark it went.

Yongguk could tell that the merman's tail was strong. It had to be for the merman to swim through the ocean with ease. Yongguk wondered just how fast the merman could swim. He was pulled out of his thoughts when the merman spoke.

“This should help.” The merman opened his hands to reveal a plant that Yongguk had never seen before. Yongguk concluded that the plant must have been from the ocean floor since it didn't seem like something that was found on land.

The merman pulled apart the bulb of the plant, allowing the white liquid from inside to spill out. The merman grabbed some of the liquid and spread it over the rash on Yongguk's arm and leg. The pain instantly subsided.

“Thank you. The stinging is gone.” Yongguk flashed his gummy smile at the merman. “By the way, my name is Yongguk.”

Some of the fear that the merman had not too long ago was washed away when he looked at the gummy smile. The land creature didn't seem to be as frightening as the merman thought.

“I'm...Himchan.” The merman said, smiling back at Yongguk.

Yongguk could swear that it was the most beautiful smile he had ever seen.

And they meet! (´▽`ʃƪ)♡

Don't expect the next chapter anytime soon.  I actually ended up writing the first chapter a couple months ago and it took my beta a while to edit it.  And by the time she was able to edit the first chapter the second one was already finished.  So that's why the first two chapters got updated so quickly.  I haven't even started the third chapter yet.  I have another fic I need to update first then I can get to this one.

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Til next time lovelies~