The silence is awkward.

Baekhyun digs toes into the sand that’s accumulated at the bottom of their boat from one too many escapades on and off the water. It’s dirty, more mud than anything else. A piece of dried seaweed clings to his big toe. He can’t get it off without looking really inelegant and… what was that word Sehun used on him earlier? Oh yes, delicate.

“I’m not… delicate,” he repeats, even now.

The merman—Baekhyun’s still a little stunned he’s sitting in a boat with a merman—hasn’t looked him in the eye for the last twenty minutes. Baekhyun’s watch is waterproof. Good thing too, else it might not have survived his extremely indecorous dunking in the salt pool. Baekhyun is still in mourning for his sneakers though, purely because he insists on being annoyed and that’s the least thing he can complain about. He checks his watch for the tenth time this minute. What was he supposed to be doing? Getting acquainted?

A merman though. He’s sitting in a boat with a merman. Even more, the merman has a name, Sehun, and he speaks Baekhyun’s language.

Of all the crazy, mind-boggling things in this world, Baekhyun is sitting with a merman. In a boat. On a tiny island in a basically hidden atoll in the loneliest corner of the Pacific Ocean where merfolk have not only been discovered by humans and studied by them, but in fact the relationship is reciprocal.

“S-so…”

Baekhyun tries not to stutter. He shouldn’t be afraid. Sehun is completely harmless according to Jongdae, but he is now quite alone with this otherwise impossible being, and he also managed to start their relationship off rather well (that whole stupid ‘mermaid’ thing). Also, Sehun, if he had legs would probably stand taller than Baekhyun. His tail fin is kind of massive, and the scales are pearly blue and absolutely gorgeous, but they also look sharp. One wrong flip with Baekhyun in the wrong place, and Sehun could probably split his body in two. At the very least, there would be blood loss.

The merman sighs, a great huffing sigh as he stares at the early morning sun. He’s angled away from Baekhyun, only his back visible, his ample lower appendage perched on the small ledge on the back of the motor boat. He beats his great tail fin gently against the surface of the water. Ripples form in his wake. Baekhyun wonders idly if that isn’t a distress signal for a… social emergency.

“So, you were going to tell me about… about your kind?” Baekhyun tries again.

About twenty meters away on one of the unused, more dilapidated piers, Tao sits on a folding chair with shades and a book. He piloted the small boat out here. Now he waits. For what, Baekhyun doesn’t know. For him and Sehun to resolve their differences and declare each other as BFFs? This whole operation is a waste of time. Somewhere, somebody made a mistake, and Baekhyun will get himself fired before he even begins… What will happen to his contract now? Will Jongdae rip it up and send him back on the next boat? Will they kill him instead because this secret is just too precious to let loose in the world? Will Baekhyun ever see his home again? Maybe they’ll just give him tons of money to keep his mouth shut? That wouldn’t be a terrible thing to happen—

“I’m supposed to, yeah.” When the merman speaks, it’s with great deliberation. As if he’s weighing every word to make sure it’s the correct one. “I… guess, I just don’t know where to start.”

Baekhyun gulps. “Maybe we could start at the beginning.”

“The beginning?”

Sehun cranes his neck around, his profile now caught in the cascading sunlight.

“Yeah. As in, pretend yesterday didn’t happen. Introduce ourselves on our own terms.”

“Our own terms?”

Baekhyun stands up. The boat immediately rocks to one side, and Baekhyun freezes, unsure about this whole balance thing. He really needs to develop some sea legs, and quick, if he’s going to be spending so much time on small boats. His legs wobble. Sehun smirks, but he doesn’t say anything ornery. In fact, he lifts himself with his well-honed muscular arms and angles sideways, the better to look at him.

Baekhyun holds out a hand. “I’m Baekhyun.” Byun Baekhyun, hello, and I’m totally terrified of you and this whole island experiment, but hey, why not give it a go. Of course, the only thing he says is his name while offering up a smile big enough to mask his unease.

The merman seems to consider this for a moment. First, his glassy eyes scan Baekhyun’s face while Baekhyun tries not to blush. Next, Sehun returns his gaze to the outstretched, offering hand.

His handshake is a bit weak. And clammy. It’s skin, but it’s different. Less porous, not as texturous as a dolphin’s. (Baekhyun should probably never tell Sehun that he thought of the merman in the same breath as a dolphin.)

But it’s an earnest gesture, that handshake. “Sehun.”

“You were born with that name?”

“No.” The merman inclines his head, as if Baekhyun asked something dumb. “Merfolk don’t speak your language. I could not articulate what my name sounds like out of water, and you would not understand it underwater.”

“I see.” So, the merfolk’s names have probably been chosen for them so that men can communicate.

In profile, Sehun looks so handsome. His upper body is strong, his shoulders are broad and his chest well-formed. He wears a necklace tied with something stringy of unknown origin. The setting nests between the merman’s collarbones, a great light blue stone resting in the midst of a dozen small white pearls, and below those, three stunning blue-green pearls of almost flawless quality. If Baekhyun saw this necklace at a jeweler’s shop, it would probably be worth more than the biggest mansion he could afford. And yet here it is, worn like a stray ornament around the neck of a seafaring merman.

Sehun catches him looking. He runs a hand over the necklace, half-obscuring it from Baekhyun’s view. It’s a defensive, but mostly curious expression. Baekhyun looks up instead. The sight of all those pearls against the backdrop of Sehun’s tanned chest is a sight to beheld. And still it cannot compare with the merman’s other features. Namely, his magically sculpted face, and his hair.

It’s bright blue with a half dozen other shades mixed in. Baekhyun would suspect the work of a whacked-up hair stylist, except there’s no way such artificial colors would ever survive in the saltwater and sun. Which means it’s natural, and absolutely mesmerizing. Baekhyun’s own black hair, fried from too much hair dye in his youth, is quite boring in return.

But Sehun catches his awe here too. The hand not already covering his necklace goes up to his hair too. He runs his fingers through it and looks at Baekhyun in confusion.

Belatedly, Baekhyun realizes something. Sehun is embarrassed. He thinks Baekhyun is staring at him because he’s an exotic creature worth staring at. And goes a long way to relieving Baekhyun’s fears, because not only does the mermen look suddenly not intimidating, it’s because Sehun, stripped down of his imposing aura is just stunning. Baekhyun is mesmerized, but it’s not because he’s a merman. It’s because he’s beautiful.

“I love your hair,” he blurts out.

If that was a pick-up line at a club, somebody would probably have already slapped Baekhyun by now. He immediately blushes and clasps a hand over his rebellious mouth.

“My… what? Why?”

“It’s just… really, really nice. I love the colors.”

Excellent socializing indeed, but now his watery grave has been dug.

“You… like my hair,” Sehun duly repeats.

“Yup.”

“I thought you’d think I was weird.”

Baekhyun his head, half thinking that this thing, whatever it is, could work after all. “Well, maybe you are, but I don’t know you well enough yet to decide.”

The merman stares at him. Then he smiles. Then he looks away, and a small sound like a single laugh falls from his lips. He lowers both hands away from his body and resettles himself on the ledge of the boat, regaining confidence.

Baekhyun may have blustered his way through this second official introduction, but it seems like it’ll work out still. Maybe there was something to those personality tests after all. He could see them becoming friends. They could work together. Lots of time and boating and maybe swimming and—

“You have a lot to learn, Baekhyun,” the merman startles him out of his silent, congratulatory preening, “but I think you’ll do.”

Baekhyun’s smile hesitates for a moment. Then he lets it all pour out. And for half a second, he imagines that maybe… just maybe… it’s the merman’s turn to wince and look away from a smile too blinding to handle.

Baekhyun hangs on for dear life to the steering wheel. Salt water sprays up up from all around, his hair is standing full on end. A few seagulls flock in their wake but can’t keep up with the speed of the boat.

“What are you doing?! Turn! Turn now! Woooo!! You’re doing great!” Tao shouts.

Baekhyun screams. Tao, his boating mentor, looks otherwise extremely calm, despite his evident joy and amusement.

Baekhyun really can’t captain a boat too well, a flaw in his schooling which the corporation has decided needs fixing as soon as possible.

“You call that great? I nearly flipped the boat!” Baekhyun shrieks. His hands are pale white from gripping the wheel, and his breath is coming out in short . None of that seems to bother Tao.

“And if you had, we’d have learned then how to straighten it in open water! Sounds fun, yeah?”

It’s been a week since they started lessons. Baekhyun would gladly lay a punch on Tao’s perfect face because he’s possibly the worst— read : least-confidence inspiring—teacher ever.

“Maybe we could have started with a rowboat?!”

Tao doesn’t bother giving an answer. He lets Baekhyun slow the craft and shift into a lower gear until they’re gliding along at a moderate pace, far from the reefs because Baekhyun knows he’s not ready for that.

A shadow comes up alongside in their wake, roughly the size of a human. Baekhyun tosses it a quick glance before staring straight ahead again. If he wrecks this boat in the presence of the merman, Sehun is never going to let him live it down.

Every day he comes out to watch. It’s kind of nerve-wracking. Sometimes he circles the boat, keeping well away from Baekhyun’s practicing and trouble-shooting. A wise decision seeing as how Baekhyun couldn’t even properly start the thing for a couple days. Somedays, he’d sit at the back of the boat while Tao went through the manual, citing all the bells and whistles on the boat with Baekhyun repeating them back. A few times, Tao left them alone in between lessons so they could… chat more. It usually ended with Baekhyun saying something embarrassing that caused the merman to either blush, or huff and slip back off into the water with an enormous splash. There was that time, Baekhyun remembers with a wince, where he spent too long staring at Sehun’s and groin wondering just how things worked down there…

And he never even got around to asking directly.

Sehun surfaces now, his body undulating through the waves, head kept mostly under the water, staying just ahead of the boat. Baekhyun grows more confident in his abilities to keep the boat moving in a straight line. It allows him to spend more time watching the merman in his peripheral vision. The way he swims, it’s magnificent. If only he had time to stand on a rock in the middle of the ocean and watch, undistracted, as Sehun flits in and out of the water… It’s mesmerizing.

“Eyes on the ocean,” Tao reminds him lazily.

Baekhyun blanches. “Helpful tip. Since there’s literally nothing but ocean to look at…”

After another half hour, and a lot of help from Tao, he brings the boat alongside the dock. The pier isn’t the same one in which Baekhyun first arrived on the island. This one is more hidden, obscured in the shade of a dozen palm trees and natural cove formation of the island. It’s rockier along the shore here. It’s where they built the hidden canal and underwater tunnel that leads into the salt pool of the facility, the mermen’s secret entrance. Baekhyun jumps out of the boat to tie it down, and his eyes scan the water looking for signs of Sehun. The merman has been in and out of their range this whole time. As Tao makes the small leap to the dock, both turn and look. Sehun’s blue hair emerges from under the water, hooded eyes peering up at Baekhyun with a bored expression.

“All yours,” says Tao. “I’ll be inside. No taking the boat out for a joyride without me! Although, Sehun can technically sail it better than you right now.”

Baekhyun stares at the man’s back. “Right!” he shouts with a haughty, disbelieving tone.

He turns and watches the dock. There’s a small rope ladder on the opposite side. Sehun climbs it easily, slithering up by virtue of his upper body strength alone. He makes it look easy. Baekhyun would never be able to do that without the help of his legs. He sighs, ever amazed, and goes to join the merman.

“Can I sit?” he asks.

Sehun twists midair on the dock and maneuvers his tail around so that he too is sitting. He grunts. Baekhyun thinks it’s an affirming sort of grunt, so he scrambles down beside him.

His legs and Sehun’s fin both dangle in the air.

“How was sailing? Was I better today?”

Sehun barely peeps sideways across the bridge of his nose. His lips scrunch up like he’s about to say no, but then he smirks. And chuckles. “Better… yes. But still not great.”

“Hey, it’s only been a week! Most people would practice for much longer than me, and they have more qualified instructors.”

“You don’t like Tao?” Sehun peers over his shoulder in the direction Tao last was seen. They’re all alone now.

“I…” Baekhyun falters. “It’s not that… it’s just…”

His mind wanders to one of Tao’s many droll statements about boating. For example, the time he told him when handling a boat, the most important thing to remember is safety. Said on the first day while taking a light snooze as Baekhyun screamed in terror and nearly ran them ashore.

Sehun is still smirking.

Over the last few days they have talked occasionally. Their conversations are still a bit stilted, and sometimes they fall into silence. Baekhyun would happily prattle away, but it does eventually start annoying the merman.

“You… you think it’s easy to manage a boat?” he resorts to instead. “And Tao is such an expert, as he’s always going on about it! It’s intimidating!”

“It’s not that hard.”

“It is! You wouldn’t… wait, do you?”

“Do I what?” The merman looks at him so cheekily, Baekhyun isn’t sure Sehun if is just messing with his head, or if he’s actually gloating.

“Can you sail?”

“Why would I learn to sail? I can swim anywhere, remember?” Sehun’s smirk grows wider still.

“Yes, but.. But, but Tao said…”

“So?”

Baekhyun shuts his mouth so hard his teeth click together. “Everybody’s always picking on me…”

He’s about to complain more, or else start accusing Sehun of blatantly trying to confuse him. Except the merman drops his smirk and smiles instead. It’s a glorious smile, one that Baekhyun might easily fall right into and disappear forever… He rubs his shoulder, fingers turning over the pin-prick mark of the needle that Yifan make him sit down earlier today and suffer through all over again. At least this time, Sehun’s gaze doesn’t make Baekhyun get woozy, and he’s in no danger of passing out.

(“Do you remember those old siren legends?”

“Yes,” Baekhyun had answered. “Wait, they’re true?”

“Well, there’s definitely a touch of truth in them. Here, sit still. I’ll make this quick.” And painful, apparently.)

That’s another amazing thing about this. The legends are true. Sirens and merpeople do exist, and Baekhyun has met them. Hard to remember that only a week ago he’d been clueless, and now he’s on a first name teasing basis with one of the most beautiful specimens to ever grace the waters.

“Can you come out with me tomorrow?” Sehun asks.

Baekhyun has to shake his head and realize he’s being asked a question. “What? Swim?”

“Yes. You can swim, yes? Underwater?”

“Do you mean scuba diving?”

“That’s what you call it, yes. With all the funny goggles and the air tank?”

“It’s not funny looking,” Baekhyun protests, even if he knows Sehun is right. “Just us? I suppose I can ask… although I don’t think I’m allowed...”

For the past week, Baekhyun has only practiced sailing and when he’s not doing that, he’s inside learning about the company operations and reviewing everything he learned in school. He knows the other divers go out all the time on various expeditions, but he wasn’t given the same clearance. Not until he’d built up enough rapport with his merman would he trusted to actually swim with them.

“Ask Jongin to come if you are scared.”

“I’m not scared.”

Again, the merman smirks. “I bet you’ll look funny under the water. All your kind does.”

Before Baekhyun has time to come up with a stunning retort, Sehun’s head turns sharply towards the water. He’s not alarmed, but Baekhyun follows his gaze. Two more dark shadows are pulling up from the depths of the water. Did Sehun hear them, sense them from so far away? Baekhyun’s skin tingles. More mermen? Would they be mermaids this time?

He clears his throat. Sehun holds his hand out. It catches on Baekhyun’s upper arm but Baekhyun’s first reaction is to flinch. He wasn’t expecting the contact, and truthfully Baekhyun is still getting used to the feel of Sehun’s skin. The merman quickly withdraws it, and for a split second before two strange figures emerge from the water, he looks wounded.

However, it’s hard to focus on that when they’ve been joined by two mermen. Each pokes his head out of the water, wading stationary while they stare at Sehun. Then they look at Baekhyun. One of them hums. The sound verberates across the little cove, like birds chirping but in a deeper, more otherworldly sound.

Sehun ‘says’ something back. He looks upset.

“What. What is it?” Baekhyun asks.

“It’s nothing.”

“Nothing? But, they came all the way here. Do they always come here?”

Baekhyun hasn’t actually met any of the merfolk other than Sehun. He knows the corporation works with only a few at a time, but surely there has to be more? Sehun is obviously semi-adapted to the human kind but he’s never had a ‘partner’ before Baekhyun came.

“Want to meet them?” Sehun asks.

Baekhyun nods.

The two merman appear to disagree.

“We didn’t come to see him…” says one with disdainful annoyance. His purplish hair swirls around his forehead, and his eyes are large and round. Baekhyun stares distractedly into the merman’s pupils, which are more fishlike than Sehun’s. The merman stares back, blinking several times as a challenge. His skin is also paler than Sehun’s. Both of theirs are, although the second one looks friendlier. He has white blondish hair, almost gray though he’s anything but old.

Sehun responds to them in his way, and Baekhyun has never felt more decidedly like an outsider, an intruder, than he does now.

“This one is Kyungsoo,” Sehun says, pointing to the purple-haired merman. “And that’s Joonmyun.”

"Baekhyun throws them a little wave, smiling. Neither smile back, although Joonmyun does give him a measuring headnod. Then he goes back to pleading with Sehun in their language.

“They… they need me to go back right now. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

Sehun starts to slip off the pier.

“Wait!” Baekhyun shouts. However he’s now only talking to the sea. The two merman immediately sink below the surface and dart away. Sehun splashes after them. After a few paces, all three of them dip so far below the water that Baekhyun can no longer see their outlines.

He waits, mildly bored for another half an hour, kicking his legs up and down on the pier. Wondering why they retreated so quickly. Wondering what it’s like to be them. Tomorrow, if Sehun actually does come back like he said, he’ll get a small chance to find out.

There’s a small walkway the runs along the canal. He follows it now and lets himself through one of the facility’s outer doors. That’s how he finds himself beside the salt pool, alone, watching as it laps at the rim. There’s an even keel to the motion that’s in one part soothing, one part a reminder that all lurks beneath the ocean is a mystery, and a non-fully explored mystery at that, however close the brains behind CJJ Corp. think they’ve mastered it. It’s why they hired him after all. Byun Baekhyun, a nobody with a degree but an excellent personality chart in conjunction with a merman. So that Baekhyun can forge for them an alliance and get Sehun to… what? Divulge more secrets?

What am I even doing here… he asks absolutely no one.

And since he’s got nothing else scheduled to do until the evening, he returns to his room.

Baekhyun can’t say he’s gotten used to his the tiny little half-cubicle of a bedroom that’s been assigned to him. The bed is okay, and he doesn’t feel so claustrophobic with shutters open. The view, as he’d hoped on Day 1 has become again something to appreciate. But still it weighs heavily upon him, the size of the room, and the sheer loneliness he feels from having it all to himself.

He knows everyone on the island now by name and association. They meet up frequently in the small dining area several times a day, and there’s also some elbowing being done in the men’s communal shower stalls. He’s on casual speaking terms with just about everyone, but so far he’s without a true friend. During the day everyone is busy with their work, and since Baekhyun has little to do with the operations of the facility, other than Tao and sometimes Jongin, he doesn’t see any of them for long.

In the evenings, the employees tend to gather in smaller groups, finding recreation as they can. Last night Baekhyun was invited to a barbecue and volleyball match. Two nights before, half the team crowded into Jackson’s tiny bedroom to watch a movie on his laptop. And still, Baekhyun hasn’t found his niche.

At home, at school, Baekhyun was always the center of attention. He never planned it that way of course, that’s just how it was. Him and his loud mouth and the people who found him humorous, the girls who thought he was cute and adorable and the guys who cozied up to him because, well, Baekhyun had all the girls.

He even dated one of them. He was on high heaven, basking in all the light. Never realizing there were cracks in his own facade, doubts, confusion, crushing self-worthlessness when he realized just how flippant so many of his ‘friendships’ were. When one by one, they abandoned him for one, giant, enormous mistake.

He’s never been quite the same since then. Not since Sungjong. Not since Baekhyun, on a crazy, stupid, stupid stupid whim, tried to confess.

He hadn’t even broken up with his girlfriend at the time. Seriously, how bad could Baekhyun have made it?

It’s no wonder he’s still second-guessing himself, even now, even a whole world away. The island is his escape, but it’s also an empty slate, filled with strangers who don’t know him and don’t know why he’s here. They don’t know what he’s running away from, and they specifically don’t know that half the reason he’s running is to get away from himself.

Baekhyun and his stupid big mouth, and his stupid emotions that overtake everything else and cause such chaos. Is it any wonder he’s been more close-lipped here in his first week of work than in any stage of his life so far?

All these new people, these new potential friends who, several months ago, Baekhyun could have taken to in a heartbeat.

They work in three basic teams. There are the merfolk experts, scientists and socialists like Jongin, Chanyeol, Soojung and Baekhyun. Probably Yixing too, although Baekhyun rarely sees the man to be absolutely sure what he does. Then there are the people who mainly work the pharmaceutical angle like Minseok, Lu Han, Yifan, and Wendy. The rest, Baekhyun hasn’t exactly figured out what they do. Jackson and Tao seems to work the odd jobs, doubling as technicians and maintenance. Amber works as Jongdae’s personal assistance working in administration.

And everyone’s so nice, so cordial, so genuinely happy to have another smiling face to greet each day, despite the fact they’re already a bit cramped and that’s one more mouth to feed and one more to squeeze onto the limited dining room benches.

Everyone has a shift working in the kitchen, which means meals tend to be tasteless affairs of dubious quality and also dead repetitive. Basically, they eat a lot of rice, and by the end of the week, everyone starts looking hopefully towards the ocean for Minho and Kibum to return with some ‘fresh’ two-day old produce, meat, bread, and and whatever else the mysterious boat captain and his first mate trek back and forth to the mainland.

Baekhyun wonders if they even know the truth about the Blue Pearl Atoll. Somehow, he doubts it. CJJ. Corp is staffed by a lot of long-time veterans, producing hardly any turnover, Jongdae proudly admits ‘to minimize the risk of exposure’. The people who work on the island are, with the exception of Baekhyun and Jongin, in their thirties and forties. Those who have ‘retired’ now work in one of the mainland facilities overseeing the production line and keeping their secrets intact.

All letters, should Baekhyun like to write one, must be screened. He penned a quick ‘mom I’m alive’ letter and handed the unsealed envelope to Jongdae. His boss smiled at him a little too broadly. Maybe it’s a good thing he’s not trying to maintain any more long distance relationships. He’d die rather than hand a love letter over to Jongdae before it could be packed onto Minho’s boat.

His room is quiet when Baekhyun enters it. Technically, he shares the room with Lu Han on the other side of the divider, but the analyst is rarely ever in it. Baekhyun asked Jongin once where he sleeps. He got a vague answer about Lu Han usually crashing where he works, which is coincidentally where Minseok works and sleeps down by the salt pool.

Jongin shares his other wall. He’s a quiet and considerate neighbor, ever friendly, not unlike Baekhyun himself, and since they’re about the same age, Baekhyun isn’t so scared to talk to him. Everyone else is at least five years older, or more.

He taps on his room door now.

A few moments later, Jongin’s face appears.

“Hey, Baekhyun. Something up?” he asks, not fully opening the door.

“Uhh,” Baekhyun hesitates. “Not really. I guess no. Just, looking for something to do since… I was spending time with Sehun and he… suddenly returned early.”

“He did?” Jongin’s eyebrows rise and he holds open the door wider. “Come in. Come in, sorry.”

Jongin’s room isn’t as sparse as Baekhyun’s. He has more clothes lying about the floor, and there are several pictures in small frames littering the top of his dresser drawers, a stack of books underneath his bedside table. Baekhyun should probably ask if he can borrow some. He has absolutely nothing to read.

“Wanna sit?” Jongin points to his unmade bed. After a period of quiet reflection, he clears his throat and quickly walks over to straighten the top blanket.

“Thanks,” says Baekhyun, sitting delicately on the mattress because he knows these bedsprings tend to sink a lot. Jongin’s bed is apparently no different than Baekhyun’s.

The other man waits quietly for Baekhyun to continue, speaking wildly of how their relationship relies more on work than on man-to-man friendship itself.

“I met two other mermen today though?”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Uhm, what were their names. Kyungsoo and… Joonmyun?”

“Oh, right,” Jongin says, like he already knows them. Of course he probably would.

“Do you see them often?”

He shakes his head. “Not too frequently. Especially not Kyungsoo. He’s a little less friendly than Joonmyun, although he’s put in a lot of effort to learn our language.”

“He spoke it kind of well.”

“Yeah, he’s better than Joonmyun. More confident.”

“Who taught them Korean?”

Jongin looks sheepishly proud. “Me? Kind of? And Yixing helped since he’s been around longer than me.”

“Did you teach Sehun too?”

“Yeah, pretty much. He’s a fast learner though. How do you like him? Sorry I haven’t been around much this week to help you out.”

“That’s alright,” Baekhyun laughs. “Been so busy with Tao learning how not to steer a motorboat.”

He gets distracted by a picture of Jongin sitting on a beach, probably one on of the smaller islands here, his hand around Yixing’s waist, both of them smiling cheek-to-cheek. They look like a couple. There’s another picture with them too just a few frames over. Tao is in the frame as well, but he stands a few feet away from the happy couple with a scowl on his face, arms crossed and shades covering his eyes like he doesn’t want to be there. Unlike Jongin and Yixing who are once again, hugging each other close. Baekhyun remembers them from his first day when he thought it was odd they were so touchy, especially Yixing. Since then though he’s seen the man once or twice.

Are they a couple? Baekhyun’s made some incorrect assumptions about people before, and he’s hesitant to voice them in words. The burn, the humiliation was too real. Either way, and even if they are only really close friends, it must be nice, he thinks, to get marooned in a place like this with someone you like so much. It only makes him feel lonelier.

“So, Sehun…” Jongin prompts again. He pulls out a chair Baekhyun wasn’t aware existed and sits backwards on it. A pile of clothes, either clean or dirty, lands on the floor beside it.

“He’s…” Baekhyun hesitates. “Nice, I suppose. I don’t know how to really put it. I guess I figured we’d hit it off better by now, but it’s kind of awkward.”

Jongin shrugs. “Sehun’s kind of a loner. Takes a while for him to warm up to people, although if you’ve seen him a lot this week, that bodes well.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, when I was supposed to be working with him, he’d promise a rendezvous time and place then just fail to make it. It used to piss off Yixing a lot. Sehun just didn’t want to see anyone, merfolk or humans. Takes off by himself a lot. No one sees him for weeks at a time.”

“Where does he go?”

“Dunno. The ocean’s pretty vast. A merman who wants to lose himself can very easily do it.”

“So you’re saying I shouldn’t be surprised if some day Sehun just doesn’t show up?”

“I’m saying I’m surprised he hasn’t done that already. He must like you. Uhmmm. Keep up the good work?” Jongin laughs.

Baekhyun stares at his fingers and stifles a grin. “Thanks, I guess?”

He wants to ask more questions. Like what he’s supposed to be doing exactly. Is he only supposed to spend each day cultivating a friendship with a merman? Is there a goal? What happens then? Do people ever get out of their contracts and leave this place, and is there a reason they’d actually want to?

There’s a whole pattern of life here on the atoll that Baekhyun hasn’t discovered yet. But it’s only been a week. Time enough to settle in and find his place.

Jongin stifles a yawn, and even though it’s barely evening, he’s looking at his bed like he wants to take a nap. Baekhyun feels like an intruder. He stands up, and Jongin looks remotely alarmed but he doesn’t try to make him stay.

“Oh right,” says Baekhyun at the doorway. “Sehun asked if I would swim with him tomorrow. I said I wasn’t given clearance yet and that I would ask you what to do. Should I talk to Jongdae or…?

Jongin shakes his head. “Nah, I’ll talk to him for you. It should be okay. So, sometime in the morning?”

“Yeah.”

Before he leaves the room for good, he begs Jongin to lend him a book. It’s a historical novel about pirates and the cover features a mermaid. Somehow, nothing could be more fitting. He laughs, then spends the rest of his evening immersed in the cheesy fantasy.

Jongin meets Baekhyun the next morning by the salt pool.

“Here, help me carry the tanks.” He and Baekhyun lug their dive gear and tanks towards the back door entrance. Yifan comes out of his clinic to watch them pass but doesn’t offer a hand. He’s a strange fellow, Baekhyun thinks, not for the first time. He has to wonder what his backstory is and why a guy with as few social skills as him would voluntarily travel to such a remote part of the world.

“Helpful, isn’t he,” Jongin remarks sardonically while he kicks open the door. They hurtle through it, and Baekhyun drops a few bags. At least he doesn’t drop the oxygen cylinders on his foot. Each one weighs nearly 14kg, and Baekhyun’s water shoes aren’t terribly protective against something like that.

Yixing is waiting down the by the boat. He wears loose fitting trunks and no shoes, a pair of shades which rest in his sun-bleached fading mauve hair.

“You’re not diving?” Baekhyun asks.

For a half second, Yixing looks surprised by the question. Then he glances at Jongin, and the two exchange a look Baekhyun doesn’t recognize.

“No. I don’t need that stuff today.”

Maybe he’s going to stay with the boat.

“Come on,” says Jongin. “We should get a move on. Baekhyun, do you want to drive?”

“Nah, had enough of that yesterday. I’ll let you do the honors.”  

Not a few minutes later, Baekhyun wishes he had taken the helm. Jongin has obviously done this before, but his skills are shakier than Baekhyun's ever experienced.

"I... I think you may need to adjust the bow..." he suggests uncertainly while the ship bobs up and down. Baekhyun is officially seasick. Yixing doesn't look affected, but he also holds on tightly to the side of the boat with a broad smile on his face that masks his amusement.

"Isn't there.. a.. a..." he fishes for the right word Tao told him, "a toggle or something to... I don't know, not make us feel like we're dying?"

Perhaps the wind and the salt spray is too loud, but Jongin never responds. Baekhyun continues to hang on for dear life and prays he doesn't fly out of the boat before he actually intends to. The dive gear shifts and rolls along the deck. His heart rate is pumping. He'd ask where they were actually going, or how Jongin knows where Sehun wanted them to meet, but he's never given the opportunity. They sail right through the center of the atoll. Pearl Island lays behind them. A few smaller island chains hang out to the right, but Jongin is steering them along a different course.

"Here we come," says Yixing finally. Baekhyun sits up straight and begs his stomach to settle. A small island, about half the size of Pearl Island lays before them. It's less rugged, just as green. Baekhyun notes the off-colored water several meters from their starboard side which marks the position of a reef. Jongin slows the craft and sails through the deeper water towards a small pier-less harbor.

"This is it?" says Baekhyun.

Jongin nods. "There's nowhere to dock here. We'll set an anchor and swim ashore. That cool with you?"

"Uhhm, sure, why not."  It's not like they have a choice.

He and Jongin divide their gear. Oxygen cylinder, which Baekhyun needs help putting on, jacket, mask, and snorkel. He holds his diving fins in his hand, waiting until the last minute.

"Ready?" says Jongin. "Long step into the water. After you."

"But, what about Yixing?" The man offers Baekhyun his arm while he balances on one foot at a time, slipping on the kickers.

"I'll join you later probably." The man winks and Baekhyun shrugs his shoulders.

Entering the water is always his least favorite thing. The ocean is warm here, not cold enough to warrant a wet suit, but it's still colder than air temperature. Baekhyun secures his mask protectively around his nose before sidling up to the edge of the boat. One long step, legs tightly straight, and the next step he lands in the water.

His vision goes under, bubbles pulsing around his body. His skin prickles at the chill as he drops like a rock. Then he remembers what he's doing, and that Jongin is waiting for him to move. He kicks, body rocketing towards the surface where he adjusts buoyancy to where he floats. Then he swims farther from the boat. Another splash behind indicates Jongin is in the water.

"Shore! Let's go!" he shouts. They move their snorkels into position and start swimming.

It's absolutely gorgeous. Fifteen meters of clear blue crystal water drag below them. The reef is still on their right, and Baekhyun dearly wants to explore it. All this time here and he hasn't yet been allowed a peek. He follows Jongin now though. Business is business, and this is far from a vacation. Somewhere, Sehun is waiting.

'What do you mean he doesn't know you're a merman?' Sehun is incredulous. He's been swimming through the reefs examining the populations there out of pure, lonely, boredom waiting for the others to arrive.

Yixing giggles playfully, the sound echoing through the water.

'I don't know how I just know he doesn't'

'That's impossible he met you before'

'Maybe your boy is just that dumb'

'What did he even think you're doing here today then?'

'Who knows maybe he just thinks I like to hang out with Jongin'

There's truth in that, Sehun muses silently. He surfaces in the harbor and spins around to get his bearings. Baekhyun and the other human have just climbed onto the shore. Baekhyun carries his fins in his hand now, breathing wildly and looking perhaps he just swallowed half the ocean. Jongin makes it look effortless of course.

Out of water, Yixing bobs beside him and uses his voice. Air bubbles flow from his throat while his body acclimates. "I think, we should play a prank on them?"

"A prank?" Sehun coughs until he too can use his voice in the human way. It's a skill most of the merfolk don't practice enough, or indeed, even find a use for. Only him and Yixing and half a dozen other mermen, maybe a couple females.

"Well, maybe not a prank. But at least we could… oh yes, we should. It would be fun," says Yixing. He gives Sehun a once over, elbowing him in the ribs while he laughs. "Besides, has he ever seen you ? I bet he'd like it."

Sehun tosses his head. His blueish bangs fall wetly across his forehead. He dips back into the ocean and resurfaces so they fall directly towards the back of his head. Yixing doesn't bother fixing his own pinkish locks.

"Why would he care? Out of water, we share the same parts."

"Sehun, oh Sehun," Yixing clucks appreciatively, "humans are a very complicated lot. Besides, I've seen how he looks at you."

"How?"

"Oh, I don't know. Let's just say I've been lurking around watching you two together."

"Secretly?"

"Of course, why not?"

Sehun sighs. "Figures you would."

It makes him uncomfortable. Just what has Yixing seen? Sehun and Baekhyun's awkward attempts at conversation? The shy looks the human casts his way, or the intent stares Sehun gives him when he thinks the other isn't looking?

"Shall we go now? Can I tell you my plan?"

"You're the expert in this," Sehun defers.

"Of course I am. Just look at how Jongin comes when I all but snap my fingers. I'm an expert in flirtation."

"Who says I want to flirt? And when have you ever snapped your fingers?"

Yixing lifts a hand and tries to snap, but his fingers refuse to do it. They're wet and they rub together without producing the necessary friction for sound. He tries it again and again, then the other hand again and again like he can't believe his fingers won't cooperate.

"Damnit, I did it once... guess that's something else I should practice."

"Can you just tell me your plan so we can get this over with?" Sehun whines. Baekhyun and Jongin have become pinpricks on the sand, and if he's being totally honest with himself, Sehun really wants to see Baekhyun again. Especially since the human hasn't realized what exactly Sehun can do.