{ chapter one

“Mom, Dad! Sehun and I are going down to the beach!”

Jongin leaps over the front gate and grabs his beach bag from Sehun’s outstretched hands, grinning with excitement as his mother calls overprotective demands through the ajar front door.

“We’ll be back by dark!”

Most of the time, Jongin hates living so far away from the city because of the bothersome distances he’s forced to travel to get to school and see his friends – but the rush of adrenaline from knowing he’s only minutes away from the ocean makes it worth the isolation.

He doesn’t see Sehun often when school break comes around, since neither of them want to pay expensive public transport fees, and Jongin doesn’t have the motivation to ride his bike back and forth to the city every day. But when he does have the opportunity to meet with his friends, he always insists that they go to the beach.

Jongin loves the ocean. He’s not the strongest swimmer and he never goes out too far in fear of what’s past the shoreline, but insteads spends hours gazing out into the waters, admiring the lapping waves and bubbly sea foam, letting his thoughts drift with the salty breeze.

But it’s always so much better when he’s not alone.

“Dude, slow down,” Sehun pants, unable to keep up with his best friend as they run down to the beach. “We have all day, Jongin, slow the hell down—”

“I’m gonna—beat you to it!” Jongin gasps, hoisting the heavy bag further up his shoulders and forcing his legs to run faster.

The sunshine is bright and warm and welcomes Jongin as he ploughs through the hot concrete streets, the smell of sea salt creeping into the air, sand trickling into the cracks in the pavement and slowly turning into clumps and small mounds. He skids as he reaches the stairs and races down them, careful not to trip, and throws his bag to the ground when his shoes finally hit the sand.

Sehun comes trudging down the stairs, sweating and breathing hard, as Jongin kicks off his trainers and pulls his shirt over his head. The sound of crashing waves is cooling his hot skin already.

“Told you I’d beat you,” Jongin laughs, clapping Sehun on the shoulder. “As I always do.”

“Screw—you.”

Jongin looks out across the pristine white sand as Sehun undresses, tempted by the cool washing water. There are people down the other end of the beach where the sand is softer and the waves are calmer, but they’ve entered Jongin’s favourite tail-end of the beach where barely anybody swims because of the nearby cliff-faces and rocky shelves.

“I can’t wait,” Jongin breathes.

“You’ve been coming here every day since school ended, you brat,” Sehun scoffs, stretching his arms out to the side and letting the sun kiss his skin. Jongin rolls his eyes and grabs his friend’s wrist, pulling him towards the water.

“Don’t even bother with the tanning. You’ll never get to my level.”

* * *

“Hey, Jongin, do you believe in mermaids?” Sehun queries, picking the sesame seeds off the crust of his sandwich. Jongin raises his eyebrows, puzzled, and tilts his head in thought.

“Well, do you?”

“I asked first.”

Jongin nibbles at a slice of tomato, shrugging in defeat when his mind can’t come to a conclusion.

“I don’t know. I guess so? Anything’s possible, I suppose.”

Sehun smiles sarcastically. “Fair enough. I just wanted to know how much of a gay princess you really were. You seem like the kind of person to believe in that crap.”

Jongin leans back and kicks Sehun angrily, throwing his tomato slice at his friend when Sehun continues to laugh.

“There’s nothing gay about mermaids,” Jongin scoffs, smiling as Sehun cringes and picks the slimy tomato off his bare shoulder.

“Great. Organic tanning lotion. Thanks.”

Jongin finally laughs, and puts down his lunch to lie on his towel and enjoy the gorgeous sun. After a few minutes, Sehun stops eating to do the same.

As they lay together side by side, Jongin’s thoughts continue to process Sehun’s random question. He’s never bothered to think too hard about what lives in the deep oceans that he’ll never visit, since they’re physically unreachable, and he’s pretty much only interested in the waters he swims in every day. But what if there really is human life out past the beach?

“You’re still thinking about mermaids, aren’t you, princess?”

“Shut up, Sehun.”

* * *

Once Jongin has coated Sehun’s back in after-burn lotion and made sure he’s safely on the bus back home, he showers the sea salt out of him and retires to bed early, exhausted from the long day. The last thing he sees before he drifts off to sleep are scaly tails and human arms, shadowed by long, flowing hair and the deepest, darkest waters.

* * *

“Mom, I’m going down to—”

“—the beach,” his mother finishes. “Be back by dark, honey.”

Jongin smiles, dashing into the kitchen to peck his mother on the cheek, before bolting out the front door and running off towards his haven. He’s ditched his shoes and the footpath is hot on his bare feet, but he’s not weighed down by any belongings aside from his towel, so it takes him little time to reach the cool waters.

The moment he reaches the beach he runs into the water, not bothering to take his shirt off, relieved by the embrace of the waves. There’s a few more people populating his end of the beach today, but he’s not bothered by their presence, already lost in his own world under the bright summer sunshine.

The sun moves across the sky and when Jongin finally walks back up onto the sand, his fingertips are shrivelled and his ears and nose are filled with salty water. The beach is now empty and the blue sky is a shade darker than it was when he arrived, the air cool and unwelcoming, but Jongin simply throws a towel around his shoulders and shakes the moisture from his hair.

He doesn’t have a watch and his phone is at home, but Jongin knows he still has a little more time left until dark, so he walks parallel to the ocean while drying his hair, digging his feet into the wet sand and making indents along the shore.

At the edge of the beach, hidden by rows of bushes at the base of a small cliff face, is a small area of rock shelves that’s partially submerged when the tide is high. Jongin knows he’s forbidden to go there, because the water is deep and the waves can get violent, but he always visits when he’s alone despite the uncharacteristic disobedience he’s careful his mother doesn’t find out about. He never truly feels alone on the wide expanse of the open beach – but his private haven among the rock pools always fulfils his craving for a comforting sense of solitude.

The waves have roughened slightly and the lower shelves are damp from the sea foam, but Jongin doesn’t mind, laying out his towel in the fading sunshine and sitting down on a dry, flat rock.

A few minutes pass and Jongin has almost drifted off to sleep with his head lolled to one side when a voice jolts him back into wake.

“I don’t think you should be sleeping here.”

Jongin blinks in surprise and tried to locate the owner of the voice, but there’s nobody standing around him, and he can't hear anybody walking away over the crashing waves.

“I’m down here.”

Jongin looks towards the waves lapping at the rock shelf, and stares in disbelief at the smiling face staring up at him. He has no idea how the boy before him appeared so silently, but what really bothers him is how strange the intruder looks. His pale complexion glows against the dark rocks and his long, tawny hair clings to his face and neck, saturated with salt water. The sun has lowered but there’s a sparkle in the stranger’s inquisitive eyes that compliments his curious smile and leaves Jongin speechless.

“What’s your name?” the stranger asks, slicking back his wet hair, seemingly amused at his ability to dumbfound the other.

“Uh—Jongin. When did you—when did you get here?”

“Lovely name. I’m Taemin. I just got here a minute ago.”

They fall into silence and Jongin scrutinises the boy before him, still slightly bewildered at his unlikely appearance. His bare shoulders and upper torso are visible but the rest of his body is submerged, and somehow he seems to float effortlessly in the water despite the rough waves surrounding him.

“Do you come here often?” Taemin queries, and Jongin is once again thrown.

“Yeah,” he responds, “every day. Do you?”

Taemin shrugs dismissively. “Not every day. But often enough.”

After a few more awkward moments of silently staring at one another, Jongin finally notices how dark the sky has become, and he quickly gets to his feet, startling Taemin.

“Sorry, I have to, um, get home, it’s kind of—late, um…”

Jongin fumbles as he picks up his towel, still damp and heavy, and takes one last look at Taemin before turning away and running back home. Strings of questions run through his mind that he desperately wants answered, but he forces himself to forget the strange confrontation, weirdly shaken. There was something off about Taemin that he just can’t seem to put his finger on.

His parents are dubious as he returns home puffing and closed off, but they allow him to disappear off to bed – a fruitless effort, since he finds himself tossing and turning all through the night, unable to sleep.

* * *

Jongin doesn’t encounter Taemin for at least another week, and they meet once more at the rock shelves in the late afternoon. Jongin has just returned from a race to beat the ice cream truck, managing to catch it right before it left, and he’s rewarding himself to the cool sweetness when Taemin’s voice breaks the silence around him.

“Hi, Jongin.”

Alarmed, Jongin jolts at the intrusion, but relaxes once he sees Taemin’s face in the exact spot he’d been last time, his torso bobbing with the gentle current around him. Immediately Jongin flushes red, embarrassed that he was caught eating ice cream with childishly colourful sprinkles on top.

“Uh—hi. How long have you—?”

“Just got here.”

Jongin looks back and forth between Taemin’s amused expression and his ice cream, which is beginning to melt over the cone, before he shyly offering Taemin some of his dessert, outstretching his arm.

Taemin laughs, eyeing the ice cream suspiciously. “What is it?”

Jongin is taken aback, and is left stunned, ice cream still extended out towards the boy so effortlessly buoyant in the water. He waits for Taemin to laugh and dismiss his weird comment, but he doesn’t – instead, he stares up at Jongin with genuine interest, waiting for his response.

“It’s…ice cream.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Taemin doesn’t move to take the cone, so Jongin sheepishly pulls back, ignoring the vanilla trickling over his fingers.

If Jongin had given more thought to Taemin’s unawareness of what ice cream was, he would have felt much more inclined to ask his mysterious ‘friend’ some questions, but his thoughts are filled predominantly with apprehension over his social inabilities, and he instead preoccupies himself with ways to break the tension between them. Taemin makes no move to quiz Jongin any further, seemingly content with the quiet between them, but Jongin can’t bear the atmosphere.

“You should probably eat that before it turns to liquid.”

Abash, Jongin quickly shakes off the melted ice cream from his fingers that he normally would have away, and continues to eat in a much more mannerly fashion than before. He doesn’t think twice about Taemin’s strange wording, already too perplexed by Taemin’s peculiar persona to notice.

“So, Jongin, do you live nearby?”

Jongin frowns slightly, meeting eyes with Taemin. He doesn’t look anything more than inquisitive, and Jongin can’t see any hidden intentions in his words, although he can’t shake the suspicion cloaking his ability to open up to the other.

“Yes. Very close by. Do you?”

Taemin, again, smiles mysteriously in response. “You could say that.”

Jongin stares. Taemin waits.

A particularly strong wave bumps Taemin into the rock shelf, taking him slightly off guard, and Jongin tilts his head in wonder.

“Why don’t you sit on the rocks? You’ll get cold in the water.”

“The water is always warm up here.”

Jongin exhales, almost frustrated, but doesn’t persist. He knows the water temperature drops significantly in the afternoon – he’s had a lifetime of experience to know.

Jongin nibbles on his cone, thinking it useless to query Taemin any further if he’s only going to be met with enigmatic responses, and decides he’s had enough with the interference of his private time for the day.

“I’d better head home.”

Taemin nods in understanding and agrees that he, also, should be heading home, but doesn’t make a move to exit the water. Jongin pauses as he gets to his feet, waiting.

“Well, aren’t you coming?”

Taemin’s stoic smile remains on his face, and he responds with a casual, “oh, I’m going the other way” to dismiss him. Jongin studies Taemin’s unreadable expression, knowing there is no ‘other way’, and that the rock shelves end at the ocean, but finally gives up and walks away when Taemin remains in the water. He turns after a few steps to look back, but Taemin only chuckles smugly at him, still in the same position as before.

“Something wrong?”

Jongin scowls, and continues on until he’s sure Taemin can’t see him – and he remains there, waiting, listening. All that fills the air is the sound of the ocean.

After a few moments Jongin quietly creeps back, trying to catch Taemin walking off – but to his astoundment, the shelves are abandoned, and Taemin has disappeared.

✏ [ a/n ] GODDAMNIT. IT'S FINALLY HERE. THE FIRST CHAPTER. I'M SORRY IT'S SO TERRIBLE BUT DAYUM GIRL LOOK AT THAT WORD COUNT??? AND THE CHAPTERS ONLY GET LONGER SO WOOT WOOT LETS A CELEBRATE!!!!1!11 ok this is very fast-paced and weird but i hope u guys like it nonetheless and .....and like.....i mean u all probs know what the big PLOT TWISTS and stuff are gonna be anyway but whatever there's more interesting + unexpected stuff coming and if u didnt get it im tryin to describe taemin's hair as like lucifer style u know light brown and long??? idk ??? IDK THANKS FOR UR COMMENTS AND UPVOTES AND SUBS LOVE U ALL AND PLEASE COMMENT LMAO OK BEDTIME FOR ME IT'S MIDNIGHT BYE

word count: 2355