As far as the eye can see, as far as the mind can see. It’s all blue-green ten meters under the water, growing darker by the moment, and Jongin’s mind is exploding. He signals his dive partner to level off around twelve meters, adjusts the buoyancy device on his vest and breathes long and evenly. They’re far off the island today, well away from the shore cliffs and past the coral reefs. Here the ocean floor is dark and bumpy. Jongin glances at his compass and motions for Tao to follow him.

Every time, every dive, Jongin treats it like a magical event. It’s a different world down here, literally, figuratively. Objects appear closer or larger than they are, sound comes from above when it could literally be all around. More than that, the feeling of weightlessness propels him. He could go anywhere, swim anywhere. The ocean is limitless, or at least it feels that way.

He knows it’s not that simple, but even a routine dive is exciting to Jongin. It’s another adventure, another example of humanity’s mastery of not just the land and air, but of the sea as well, and Jongin has got it all.

Yixing would laugh at him. Yixing, who needs none of these devices, who can swim in any which direction for as long as he so pleases, breathing naturally. Yixing is as unconfined as Jongin is completely trapped and helpless to the cylinder on his back, air valves and regulator between his lips, silicone fins attached to his feet. And yet down here, Jongin, despite all his humanly limitations, feels just as equal.

If you’d asked him three years ago what he was running from—the mundane world, academics and their applied sciences which were dull and uninteresting and rarely ever applied—Jongin would have scoffed and said immediately to leave him alone. No answers could suffice, because that would have implied he cared about such questions. And care he had none of, unless it was carefree. The only thing he liked was diving, and he was going to do it as long as he had funds to travel.

Then he met Kim Jongdae at a dive site in Hawaii where the older man was vacationing, and somehow things fell into place so fast Jongin had no idea life could shift that quick. They lured him in with island living and oceans as vast as the eye could see and something so glorious they couldn’t even begin to describe!

To his luck, to his amazement, they actually delivered on that promise.

After five minutes, Jongin ceases to swim. He lowers his fins and floats vertically in the water. He peers at Tao through his mask and they each check their pressure gauges before calmly twirling around, waiting.

Jongin watches as the bubbles rise from the tip of his regulator, a slow swarm of air pockets every time he exhales. He follows them for a long time as they disappear above his head into the clear blue waters. The shadow of the boat that dropped them off appears like a dot in the underwater horizon.

They shouldn’t have to wait long. Someone will surely hear them.

Instead, he signs in crude hand gestures to Tao as they attempt to describe what they ate for breakfast, and when did Tao get his new neon green snorkel with the matching mask? The water makes his hands move slowly, but Jongin touches his own head, and then points at Tao’s hair which is floating comically straight up in the water, dancing around like its own bed of sea grasses. He could be misreading the annoyed roll of his dive buddy’s eyes, but he definitely doesn’t miss the ethereal, clammy hand that appears shortly on his ankle.

There are no words to describe it. None at least, that Jongin could understand. It’s one of the beautiful things about life underwater. Words have no meaning, only sight and sounds and touch. And Yixing likes to touch.

The foot is his preferred greeting, followed by Jongin’s hand and then his shoulder. Tao moves instinctively aside to let Yixing swirl rapidly around Jongin’s body and no matter how much Jongin tries to follow him, he never can. The merman dances at a rapid pace, sending the waters spinning in a mini vortex. The momentum catches Jongin in its grips and if he could he would smile. Yixing is certainly smiling, and laughing probably, except the sounds that come from his lips are alien, more foreign that anyone who’s never heard a merman speak could possibly imagine. The sound echoes, almost ringing in Jongin’s ears, and the first time he heard it he was impossibly afraid. Now though he recognizes it; it’s the sound of mirth and delight, but mostly mischief.

Yixing clutches Jongin’s fin and tries to pull it off. Jongin kicks and swirls away. Next he tries to detach the mask, his slippery fingers faster than Jongin can stop him. Waters floods into the air mask while Jongin kicks again to get away. He lays the rubber seal part of the mask back against his face, lifts his head and eyes to the surface, and with the bottom of the mask barely pulled out, blows his nose to clear it of water.

Yixing is laughing at him again, and the sound echoes all around, practically through him, as if the water itself is vibrating. Jongin doesn’t stop to see if Tao is having a ball or not, but it won’t be the first time Yixing makes Jongin feel like a fool underwater. The merman swims and stops in front of him and for the first time today Jongin gets a good look at the most glorious, impossible creature in the world. Yixing has the head and torso of a man, mauve hair floating around a gorgeously sculpted head. Strong upper body, ribbed like a man’s and extending from there, his thick muscled arms. The only thing that distinguishes him as otherworldly are the gills on either side of his neck and shoulder blades. That and the fish tail. It’s glowing a blue-green shade of iridescence, but Jongin knows how it can change colors in the sun or in the shade, or against the reef. Every color of the rainbow and then some. And always so lovely.

He stops to admire the dark colors of the scales that run along Yixing’s slim lower body and fins and completely misses the gentle scrape of Yixing’s fingers along his cheek. The mouthpiece of his respirator is out of his mouth before Jongin can do anything about it. He exhales indignantly, bubbles streaming from his lips and is about to reach for it again when Yixing swoops in and kisses his mouth.

It takes a few moments for Jongin to recover.

In all the time he’s worked side by side with the merman, Yixing, for all his playful flirtiness, has never done that before .

He has to be coaxed by Tao to do what they came here for, to pass on the message. He does so, somehow managing to get his head back on track and sign the letters Yixing has been taught how to read. Jongin glares at him, a useless threat, but the merman stays outside of throttling distance while he listens and hums—again, with vibrations that strum through Jongin’s body.

Yixing plays with Jongin’s fingers when he’s almost through. Skin that’s not quite skin, and certainly less porous, which never fails to make Jongin lose his train of thought. He almost forgets to pass on the last message before he and Tao need to return.

Br-ing Se-hun one week to-day.

Yixing swims with them as they slowly ascend, still playful, still handsy, still humming. Only when Jongin’s head emerges into the waves, Tao beside them as they trade off their respirators for the snorkel and adjust their gear to float easily in the water does Yixing slide his fingers one last time against Jongin’s cheek before diving back into the depths of the ocean below.

Tao doesn’t talk to him until they reach the boat and are safely settled on the bow of the ship.

“So,” he says with a smirk. “I always wanted to attend a merfolk wedding. You’ll let me know when it is, right?”

Jongin throws his fin at Tao’s head. Unfortunately, he misses.