Baekhyun is seriously lagging behind, and they're not even halfway across the beach yet. He's barefoot, and the sand is hot beneath his toes. He almost tosses his fins because they're weighing him down, but nothing's as heavy as the tank still strapped to his back.

"Where.... are we... going?" he huffs.

Jongin turns and walks backwards across the sand, smiling as he does. "Not far, just towards the rocks over there. That's where Sehun will be."

"And how do you know that?" Baekhyun petulantly asks.

"Because... because, mermen always like that spot. Trust me, I know."

That makes no sense, but Baekhyun's in no mood to argue. Sehun never told him where to meet. He just said 'tomorrow' and 'bring Jongin' which, he supposes means it's possible Jongin does this all time since he is the expert here. It doesn't help the ache in his back though.

"You can take it off if you want."

"Huh?"

"The tank," says Jongin. He's already unstrapping himself. "Here, we can leave them here and walk over to the rocks without the burden."

"I thought we were supposed to go diving?"

"Later perhaps."

Another thing that doesn't make sense, but Baekhyun refuses to argue if it means giving his body a break. They stash their gear next to each other, then Baekhyun follows Jongin as the man begins to hop across the rocks that begin randomly at the edge of the beach and jut out towards the water.

It's slow going, especially since the rocks grow larger and larger, and the steps aren't quite as easy to maneuver the further out they go. It reminds Baekhyun of some manmade piers, except the whole thing looks a lot more natural. The surface of the rocks grow slimier as they walk, wet from the salt spray, certain kinds of seaweed and grasses growing in the crevices. But finally Jongin deems them far enough out.

"We can sit here and wait," he says.

It's high-tide already. The ocean has nowhere else to go except down, which means they have forever to wait. Baekhyun remembers the rule about merfolk not being exactly time-driven, not the way humans are. He shades his eyes with one hand, wishing he still had his sunglasses, but he left them on the boat. The boat looks tiny from here, but it bobs innocently in the water halfway out from the harbor. He can't believe they swam that far.

"I don't see Yixing."

"Oh?" Jongin doesn't sound alarmed. "Maybe he jumped out for a quick swim."

Baekhyun wants to ask him more questions. Like, why is Jongin out here working for CJJ? What sends a young man of his age out to this remote part of the world, and why is he content to stay out here? It can't be because of Yixing, although perhaps that's why he stays. But Baekhyun's mind is teeming with questions. What's his backstory, what else does he do? Does he have a family at home he's forsaken, like Baekhyun has with his. Why does he read epic adventure pirate novels when that book was clearly lame and had no idea what real mermen were like?

"Is it time yet?" he asks instead. He didn't bring his watch. They're going old school out here today and judging by the sun, by which Baekhyun estimates it's not even ten o'clock in the morning.

The sun beats down harshly against his skin. He's wearing SPF 90, but how much has the saltwater already from his skin. Baekhyun's going to be so brown by the end of the day. He's already glowing a healthier shade darker than he's ever been in his life, and that’s just from all the sailing.

"Probably not long," Jongin answers.

They don't have to wait long. Baekhyun is mesmerized by the waves. They crash against the outermost boulders with uneven regularity. All other sound is drowned out, although the occasional sea gull barks above their heads, melding in with the wind.

Then he hears that weird, inhuman humming. Jongin sits up as well. They watch eagerly as with the next wave, a pair of hands stretch up over the ridge of the furthermost rock. The next thing Baekhyun sees is the blue of Sehun's hair. He catches him smiling in eager anticipation, a most unbidden action which he quickly stifles the second Jongin catches his gaze.

"Sehun!" He stands up on wobbly feet, preparing to hop the few remaining rocks to where Sehun is clinging on. The waves rock again, then another pair of hands join next to Sehun's, and Yixing’s face appears.

Baekhyun immediately freezes. "What..."

Yixing hoists himself onto the rock, arm muscles pulsing with great strength as he lifts himself, fully above the boulder.

"How.... did you get there?" Baekhyun pants, eyes wide open in shock. Yixing's embarrasses him, even as he wonders how on earth Yixing managed to sneak up to their waiting spot beside the merman whom Baekhyun has almost forgotten. Then Sehun too, using the next wave as a boost, lifts himself, twist mid-air mid-water, and lands seated beside the other man. Baekhyun gasps aloud, a pair of also buttocks on full display as the two.... mermen?!... slither backwards from the water's edge onto a flatter portion of rock.

Legs, he has legs. Sehun, has legs.

Just behind Baekhyun, Jongin laughs.

"What... h-how... what the ...." Baekhyun utters, screw decent vocabulary. "You have legs!!"

Sehun twists his body once more, and damnit, he not only has legs, he has toes and feet, and shins, and knees, and thighs, and a small-for-now actual man-shaped nestled between said thighs.

Now Baekhyun could have sworn that just yesterday Sehun was a merman. With the lower body of a fish, and scales, ing scales, but today he looks fully human.

"That's... that's not possible."

It's Yixing's turn to laugh. Baekhyun watches in horror as the man- no, merman- twists his body until he rests on his knees. Then he pushes himself to his feet, wobbling slightly for just a brief moment.

"Two 'human' looking beings show up on a beach, and you're saying we're impossible? Haven't you ever seen a merman before?" Yixing teases. "Or didn't you realize, that was what you were looking at all along?"

Yixing, is a merman. Hold everything, Yixing is a merman. And now Baekhyun realizes what Jongin's job is, and who his partner is. It's Yixing, a merman. A shapeshifting merman, and that too is exactly what Sehun is. What he must be.

"I don't... how," Baekhyun reiterates stupidly.

"You've heard that some merman were special, right?" Jongin answers for him. "Not all of them can do this. In fact, most can't... but Yixing, and Sehun, were chosen among their tribe to meet with us because they alone among their generation can transform like this..."

"You turn into humans," Baekhyun stutters.

"We, take on the appearance of humans," Sehun answers. He speaks seriously, but his face is flushed bright red, and he doesn't appear to have the same confidence as Yixing does about his body. Not that he has anything to be ashamed of, Baekhyun notes with some distress. He's feeling decidedly unmanly right now, and that's with him still standing in front of two creatures who are the least things from human that a creature can get.

He sits down, practically collapsing on his own two feet. It's a good thing they left the heavy oxygen tanks back on the beach.

"I..."

Yixing laughs some more. Sehun at least looks upset at Baekhyun's uneasiness.

"I'm sorry. I should have told you."

"No... no..." Baekhyun tries to say.

"You know what," Jongin says suddenly. "I think Yixing and I will... let you two have some time together." He pats Baekhyun on the shoulder and then shakes his head in the direction of the beach. Baekhyun doesn't even want to consider what Jongin could possibly have planned for himself and a merman on legs. For that matter, Baekhyun doesn't know what to do with Sehun either.

He sputters inaudibly, watching Jongin depart, diverting his eyes from Yixing's rear end.

"Baekhyun?" A worried sounding voice draws his attention back to his own problem at hand. Sehun is squatting at the edge of the rock, his lower lip between his jaw, bare legs folded up and angled to cover his crotch. He's embarrassed, the poor merman.

"What? I'm fine. I'm fine. I just, was surprised. But, all that makes perfect sense. Perfect sense," he lies.

It's evident Sehun doesn't believe him either.

"I... I'm not sure what to do now."

"Do?" asks Baekhyun. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that I make you uncomfortable. Should I get back in the water, would that make you feel better?"

"You.... you thought..."

Sehun thought Baekhyun was just some kind of prude. And okay, perhaps he is. The last man he saw was by accident and it happened in a locker room after one particularly sweaty day of college tennis. It wasn't even a guy he was crushing on. The guy was big and hairy and had large equipment down under. He caught Baekhyun staring, and Baekhyun has never run from a room so fast in his entire life.

This is not that situation. A million things have changed. For one, Sehun isn't human. That right there alone should set the tone for Baekhyun's thoughts. If only he hadn't been vaguely curious for days about the feel of the merman's toned chest,  and maybe his shoulders, and his shoulder blades and maybe even the curvature of his fish-bodied hips.

Not a single scale remains.

"How... how can you do that?" He changes tactics mid-thought. It's infinitely safer to wonder about the science of the whole transformation.

"Become like this?" asks Sehun, with a curious tilt to his head. "Honestly, I don't know. I just can."

Baekhyun stares at his feet. They aren't webbed, not in the slightest. The boy before him is fully human. Thin ankles and under-defined calves. His thighs are little meatier, but not as full as Baekhyun's. And from this angle, there's no telling the exact shape of Sehun's derriere. Baekhyun isn't even sure he wants to find out. Well, maybe.

"But you've been able to do this forever?"

"Not forever. But for a while at least. Yixing... he, he helped me."

"So this is how you blend in... amazing," Baekhyun softly exclaims.

"Excuse me?"

They look suddenly into each other's eyes, the crouched merman, the fallen over, slumped human. Both of them men, and if that's all Baekhyun is supposed to learn from this experience, he thinks it's a pretty damn good lesson. They have the same core, the same root, a gene in common, and perhaps something magical beyond that. It's insanely incredible. Not only do merpeople exist, but they can take on the exact shape of the human species and theoretically blend right into their world.

No wonder they've remained in the world known only through myths and legends. How many of the merfolk might be hiding in the midst of their unassuming enemies? How many can do what Sehun and Yixing can and obscure their very beings? How special is this island chain, and the first men who discovered it? How did they find the merfolk, or rather... why did the merfolk allow themselves to be found. If he’d met Sehun on the street somewhere, Baekhyun would never have known. In fact, he did meet Yixing, and never had a clue.

“Amazing,” he utters softly.

Sehun leans in closer to hear. “What?”

“Nothing. Nothing, sorry.”

"Do you, still want to swim?" he asks Sehun. Maybe if they get in the water he'll be less distracted. Less because of Sehun's , but also because his thoughts are going in a million directions at once.

He's friends with a merman.

A week to digest this, and it suddenly feels fresh once again. How many people have had the privilege of swimming with a merman?

Dolphins are so overrated.

It's strange that Sehun is fascinated by Baekhyun's scuba equipment. He laughs when Baekhyun can barely pick up the cylinder. He makes himself helpful—while actually causing more work—as Baekhyun straps the device around his back and chest. He does carry Baekhyun's fins over to the water's edge, which actually is kind of useful.

They leave Jongin's gear right where the other man left it. He and Yixing are nowhere to be seen which is, interesting.

"Don't laugh."

Sehun does laugh. He pokes fun at Baekhyun's face mask, and the attached mouthpiece and snorkel which will hang loosely in the air until they start to descend.

"It's just, funny."

"It isn't. Have you ever used one of these before?" Baekhyun pouts. "I should teach you and you can try it in your human form, and then you'll realize it's no laughing matter. Just, extremely handy."

"Handy?"

“Useful," Baekhyun amends.

"Is it..." Sehun guffaws. His human legs twitch as they make their way through the shallow waves, but don't change. Not until they're wading waist high, and even then Sehun walks with his toes along the wet sand, watching Baekhyun as they tread into the ocean side by side.

"Ready?" asks Baekhyun.

The merman hands him his fins, which Baekhyun shoves onto his feet. Then the merman takes a shallow dive into the water. At first, two feet kick against the waves. Then his whole body descends under the next wave, and when he emerges, one strong tail fin kicks out through the breakers.

It’s the first time he’s ever seen the merman from underwater. Dashing through the waves, yes, on shore in a seated position, yes. But beneath the surface, Baekhyun has never felt so incredibly out of place. And Sehun has never seemed so at home.

He follows the merman’s lead. Shallowly at first, they swim into deeper waters. Baekhyun floats near the surface most of the way, snorkeling as he skims out to the bay. Sehun’s powerful fish body stays just below him. And he’s fascinating of course. The deep blues of his scales reflect with every stray beam of sunlight, a thousand shades of colors everywhere and all at once, and they in turn reflect upon his skin. Out of water, Sehun’s upper body looks fully human, but in the depths where he belongs, there could be no mistaking his alien body.

Baekhyun watches the muscles along his back writhe and torque. Rippling lower muscles, an arching spine, strong shoulder blades that lead up to his neck where the gils have opened up, ocean water pulsing through.

He rolls over in the water, belly up and through Baekhyun’s headgear, their eyes catch and hold.

It’s too late to look away, to pretend he wasn’t staring, absolutely transfixed. He might even be blushing, but with the saltwater upon his cheeks instead, there’s no way Sehun would know. And besides, he finds he doesn’t exactly care. Sehun is beautiful, and he should know it. His lips twitch, the beginnings of a smile he hopes Sehun can see.

The merman returns it, undulating on his back mere meters below. And before they reach their destination, he angles upwards, swimming closer to Baekhyun, until he’s right below him. Gaze still still fixed, Sehun reaches up with one hand and slowly grazes Baekhyun’s shoulder and collarbone.

Baekhyun startles, missing a kick, almost flailing in the water. But Sehun just pulls away, deeper, and smirks. Then he twists and dives away, soaring towards the reef which Baekhyun now sees ahead.

For a minute, he has to surface, and breathe. And shake the water from his ears and the pressure from his ears, and the rapid fire breathing of his chest.

Calm, Baekhyun, slow down, Baekhyun. Breathe easy, breathe regularly. That’s how we breathe underwater, Baekhyun.

Attaching the regulator to his mouth once more, he thinks perhaps this swimming with a merman thing isn’t quite such a safe idea. But for all that, Baekhyun begins to descend.

The clock above Park Chanyeol's office door reads just after 7pm. Baekhyun stands before it, his fist ready to knock, his stomach all in tatters, because he's just had the most exhilarating day ever!

"Come in?" booms a deep voice.

Baekhyun turns the knob and pokes his face meekly into the brightly lit room. It's larger than he expected. Three sides of the room are rimmed with bookshelves, the fourth is a wall length window not unlike Baekhyun's bedroom. Park Chanyeol is sitting with his back to the window in an overlarge arm chair with a laptop resting precariously against his folded, bent knees.

He smiles and gently lowers them to the ground as Baekhyun steps into his office.

"Baekhyun! I wondered when you would get around to visiting me here."

"I've... I've been kind of busy this week."

That's not a lie. In between biology review exams and boating lessons, and learning that Sehun is a freaking human-transforming merman, a visit to the library of the company's expert anthropologist hasn't been exactly at the forefront of Baekhyun's daily plans. So what that Jongdae told him days ago he should probably drop by. After today's revelations, Baekhyun decided he would make no more excuses.

"I bet you have. Here, come in, please. It's a little... messy, I apologize."

Chanyeol stands up, towering over Baekhyun by no meek advantage. A few weeks ago it might have intimidated Baekhyun, but today he swam with a merman and is ready to take on the world.

"I learned something interesting today," he confesses.

The other man points towards a secondary seat. This one is actually facing a desk that looks out towards the sunset. Apparently it isn't used as much more than a secondary place for storing books and folders and binders and another computer with an old-fashioned sleep screen featuring a picture of Chanyeol and a few of the other guys standing on a beach with their arms around each other posing for the camera. Baekhyun recognizes Jongin and Yixing, Jackson and Jongdae.

"Yifan took that." Chanyeol grunts happily, following Baekhyun's gaze.

"Oh?" Baekhyun has nothing to add to that.

"So what did you learn today? Let me guess, wait! If you haven't figured it out already I don't want to spoil it for you!"

"You mean that mermen can suddenly grow legs?"

Chanyeol grins. "That's the ticket. It's incredible right? I'm totally fascinated by it, but I don't have the background in biology that guys like Yifan or Lu Han have. I don't insist on understanding how it happens. Uhm, you know what I do here right?"

"Company historian, or something like that?" Baekhyun takes a seat and rest his palms restlessly against his thighs. Half of the bookshelves on the wall boast titles about ancient myths and sea legends. Some are old with bindings wearing thin, primary sources of pirate diaries and journals and various other collections of mythology. There's a whole volume about sea monsters. Baekhyun wonders if merman are actually listed in there somewhere or if they're too legendary to actually make the pages of such scientific bibliographies.

"I study the merfolk, their history, society, and culture. And... I compile that data into hidden archives that will unfortunately never see the light of the published world. Too great a secret, and I'm under contract on pain of death, like you. It's a great dilemma," says the man like he's never had a stressful moment in his entire life. He continues to smile, one foot perched on the cushion of his chair and knee up in the air. He rests his arm on it and his chin on his arm, still smiling. It's a bit unnerving.

"That's got to be kind of hard for a scholar..."

"Kind of. But then, there are perks. I get to meet with actual merpeople and they tell me things that no one else in the world will ever know. And that, to be honest, is the coolest part of this job."

"I'm beginning to understand that," Baekhyun admits.

"How is Sehun?" Chanyeol asks.

Another interesting question. "Good? He's good."

"You're getting along well? You know, I've always wanted to spend more time with him, but he's really elusive. Doesn't hang out with humans well, imparts half of his tales through Yixing, who's way better adapted, but... and maybe Jongin knows more than he tells, but I swear! I swear Yixing tells us only snippets of what he wants us to know. There are still so many mysteries. So many fascinating gaps in how the merfolk operate that we just don't know, and I'm positive they do that on purpose. They don't trust us 100%, you realize that right? Can't say I blame them. Do you know, that out of everyone here today... only Jongdae can say he's talked with a mermaid?!"

"Is... that right?"

“Of course he might be lying. Mermaids keep themselves scarce for some reason. That’s Soojung’s main role here actually. She’s trying to draw them out, get them to talk or open up, anything. Who knows if she’s been successful or not. It’s all very shush shush, but I can’t wait until she succeeds. Imagine, getting to talk to a mermaid?!”

“As opposed to just talking to a merman?”

“It’s a completely different thing, Baekhyun.”

“Is it.”

Chanyeol talks a lot. It's vaguely exhausting, but on the other hand, after the day he just had with Sehun, Baekhyun is kind of starved for details on what the merfolk are like. More and more he wishes he had come to see Chanyeol sooner, although there's no guarantee he wouldn't have had his head talked off before now. Chanyeol’s kind of an anomaly around here, Baekhyun has come to find out. Late 30s, but he acts so young, and whenever  he stops in the hall or the dining area to talk, he treats Baekhyun not as if Baekhyun were new, but like he’s always been around. Even if their conversations have never delved very deep.

"Sometimes I think he's just making it up. But then, he's assistant director and... well, he probably knows more than us." Chanyeol sighs, generally unconcerned that the world won't easily divulge all its secrets personally to him.

But he brings up something else Baekhyun has been wondering about.

"Where... is the actual director?"

He doesn't even know his or her name...

"Hong Kong," says Chanyeol without missing a bit. "He comes and goes. Actually he's gone more often than not. They don't trust the rest of us to visit the mainland so much. Only a few people get to travel home often."

"You've haven't been home since you got here?"

"Ohhh, once. But to be honest, it's not a huge draw. I mean, this is basically paradise out here and I can study something no one else has ever gotten to study. Why give that up?"

“So… once you get here, you can never go back?” This job is starting to sound more and more like Baekhyun signed a slave contract.

Chanyeol laughs. “It’s not that rigid. But you’ll notice one thing about all the people who are here… most of us, if you dig back far enough, don’t really want to be anywhere else… for whatever reason."

Baekhyun hums. He remembers that part of his interview. ‘Would you be okay living in a remote island location, why or why not?’ And then the informal, ‘So, Baekhyun, what are you running away from?’ that confused and incited his emotions during the e-mail contact between interviews and paperwork. It’s intriguing though, that Baekhyun was not only hand-picked because of his apparent compatibility to the personality of an otherwise prickly merman, but also because he had no desire to live in ‘the other world’.

He stays for almost an hour, and while it's not exactly the most exhilarating way to learn things from Chanyeol's mouth, Baekhyun still soaks in a lot. Namely about the merfolk and how they live. He knows that they swim in families called tribes, or clans, and there are many loosely related clans. Sehun and Yixing belong to the same one, the most mature of their generation who are allowed by their elders to meet and work alongside the humans.

"We discovered this island, you know, right?" Chanyeol interrupts his own narrative.

"I... heard something about that, once, from Soojung?"

It all sounds very romantic. In the early 1940s a group of Korean sailors were blown off course and landed in the atoll. Mysteriously, magically - Chanyeol has no real explanation - they met with and discovered mermen. Or were discovered by them. Or were saved by them, the history is shadowy and fishy. "No pun- okay, well maybe a slight pun intended."

However it happened, they recognized the importance of their find, and the nature of the secrecy they would have to employ. Several of their numbers remained while half the group returned home working in and between all the wars to consolidate their discovery. Within a few decades they and their associates had developed what would become the Cheongjinju Corporation, ostensibly an operation working on a license to develop medicinal plants from tropical climates, and they were sly enough to never reveal their actual coordinates on any official documentation.

"It was quite easy really. I mean, look around." Chanyeol looks about his office as if that is enough evidence. "The distance, the isolation. Who would even know we're here, and who if they flew by in a plane would suspect something other than what we claim? To anyone who's looking, this looks like a remote resort slash bio-economic research facility. All the paperwork in the world couldn't lead anyone back to the merpeople themselves. Digitally, we’re absolutely silent. It's faultless."

Baekhyun hums, thinking how yes, it's faultless as long as no one ever tells.

"First and foremost this is a pharmaceutical outreach community. We study things few people are studying. And no one knows that our actual source doesn't come from divers. It comes from the creatures of the ocean themselves and what they bring to us…"

“What about the pearls?” Baekhyun interrupts.

“The blue-green pearls? An additional moneymaker and it lends credence to the tale that we’re a diversified company subgroup with various fields of interest. You know, there’s also a strange, rare breed of lizard that lives on several of the islands here, but… nobody actually cares.”

The anthropologist’s tooth-rich smile is both daunting and self-deprecating. Baekhyun tosses his head and chuckles a little.

“Very sophisticated, this secret,” he says.

“Oh yes. And aside from the the people here and the director, not a single employee in any of the three Seoul, Hong Kong, or Shanghai branches knows or understands exactly how we procure what we do. Except for those few who were trained here first. By the way, did I mention I’m also a licensed psychiatrist? In case, you know, the mental stress of… anything ever gets to you.”

So Chanyeol is their shrink just like Yifan, a vet, is their medical practitioner? Lovely. Oh, and let’s not forget Soojung’s needles.

The interview concludes while Baekhyun is in the middle of a yawn, listening duly to the possible-but-not-confirmed migratory patterns of mer-clans, when Chanyeol stands up. His eyes sparkle. "I’m sorry, this is boring. Oh, but I bet I know what would interest you. Come on, follow me!"

Following him happens to take them back pool-side and to the door of another set of office blocks Baekhyun has never actually stepped foot in: it's Minseok's lab, and never once was Baekhyun invited by the scientist to actually come in.

In fact, Minseok himself is kind of elusive, more so than Yixing, who Baekhyun no w understands has an excuse for... not being on the island. Because he's a merman... But Minseok lives and works in his office, and most of the time he doesn't even come out for food. Lu Han, more often than not, does the fetching for him. He's an assistant of sorts, although to what, Baekhyun has no idea.

He gathers he's about to find out.

They knock, and Chanyeol bounces lightly on his feet. The door opens, and instead of either Minseok or Lu Han it's actually Yixing. Baekhyun hasn't seen the merman since he took off with Jongin earlier that day.

(Jongin had returned to the boat alone, and the two of them sailed back to Pearl Island without either of the mermen.)

"Oh, it's you," says the merman happily to Chanyeol. He then nods pleasantly at Baekhyun and steps out of the doorway, beckoning them in with a loud, "Visitors for you, Minseok!"

"Come on." Chanyeol ushers Baekhyun into the room first.

It's darker down here. There are no outside windows, and even though the overhead lights are bright, shadows hang about the room. At least several adjourning rooms lay off to either side. Luhan is sitting behind a computer desk, reclining in a spinning chair. Beside him, on the desk, sits Minseok.

Baekhyun has the strange feeling that they were interrupting something.

"Chanyeol, and uhm... oh, hang on... Baekhyun, right?" says Lu Han, more convivial than the other, sullen man.

"I've been filling Baekhyun in about... well, things," starts Chanyeol. "Actually, I was wondering if you could show him that thing you've been working on."

Apparently, a lot of 'things' get worked on here.

Minseok’s eyebrows shoot straight upwards. He gives Baekhyun the once over and clucks his tongue. Baekhyun expects the suggestion to be shot down immediately due to his… unsuitability? However, the scientist hums a moment later and looks at Lu Han. The other man nods.

“I suppose I could.”

“Uhh, thank you,” says Baekhyun.

“We haven’t been introduced properly. Kim Minseok. I direct most of the research of… merfolk acquired materials. Lu Han is my assistant. He’s a chemist, as well as one of our main analysts.”

Baekhyun shakes both of their hands like it’s the first time they’ve met, which it practically is.

“Come over here,” says Minseok after a moment, motioning to a darker adjacent room.

Chanyeol joins Lu Han on the desk while Baekhyun follows Minseok. He squints his eyes and blinks a couple times, trying to focus in the near blackness. A glass tank contraption sits on a small table, no bigger than an average family size fish tank. It’s what’s inside that makes the difference. Lit by fluorescent lightbulbs, the tank is lined with layer after layer of plastic shelving, small square-shaped holes in which rest dozens of tiny, multicolored fluorescent scales.

“Are those…?” Baekhyun’s jaw drops, stunned.

“Mermen scales, yes. Humans have always whispered about the magical properties of the merfolk, though of course they no longer believe the legends.”

“Magical?”

Minseok hums softly. “Not magical, not by that definition. But they have certain… properties that aren’t found anywhere else in nature. Extremely useful for medicines, like the ones we produce.”

Baekhyun stares at them. Blues and greens and pinks, purple, some so iridescent they appear to channel every color the rainbow and then some. The most stunning are the scales that reflect the purest, unblemished white.

“But.. but… how can you use these like that?”

A question Minseok was evidently waiting for.

“Merpeople shed scales like humans shed hair. They molt, they grow out of some. We don’t harvest these like you might be thinking. They bring these to us. As you see, it’s a very delicate balance of trust. The scales are limited, and we make the most of that without demanding more.”

That barely answers Baekhyun’s every question. He wants to know what they do with them, how they’re processed, how they’re used, how they’re shipped.

“But don’t the plants you send these to wonder what they are and where you get them from?”

“They don’t. That’s part of what we do here, breaking down the compounds to something less innocuous. And just in case, there are few people at each of the mainland corporations who oversee their arrival delivery and… potential cover-up.

“We can never let the world know just what we have…”

Minseok ushers Baekhyun out before he has a chance to ask further questions, but in truth, Baekhyun can’t remember how to use his voice. He’s too stunned. Too in awe of the layers of complexity that keep adding up.

Chanyeol beams at him from his perch on the desk. Lu Han stands up hesitantly, waiting.

“Well?”

Baekhyun blubbers incoherent thoughts and then shuts up.

“Thought you’d be impressed,” says Chanyeol.

Impressed is just barely covering it, Baekhyun thinks.

Terrified, actually, is the word he’d probably go for. So many secrets, so many cover-ups, so much potential for this to operation to become deadly, and all Baekhyun can think about is Sehun and Yixing and the two other mermen he met the other day and all the other mermen and mermaids he’s never met but knows live under the surface of this ocean, somewhere deep.

But are they deep enough?

What would happen if someone greedier than CJJ Corp. learned about this secret? And is the corporation even that safe?

He wishes in some way that he’d never come here never gotten embroiled in the schemes of this little facility in a hidden corner of the world. But then he thinks of Sehun, and his beautiful smile, and maybe it’s just a little bit worth it.

The door shuts with a solemn finality. Minseok doesn't react, but he looks tired. His body wobbles, an old tremor he exhibits around strangers and newcomers, human or merman alike. Lu Han get up from the chair and walks slowly towards him. He slides his arms around the man's waist and invites Minseok to rest his head along the crook of his neck.

Minseok sighs deeply and relaxes.

"That wasn't so bad?" says Lu Han with a small smile.

Minseok mirrors it. "No. You're right. It's just strange that I still get... nervous."

"I understand."

The chemist returns to the room they were showing Baekhyun and begins turning out the lights. Minseok follows him, a gentle hand upon his shoulder to draw comfort to himself.

Lu Han grins and resists turning around until he's cleaned up his workspace. Their conversation earlier with Yixing still resonates in his ears, a troubling predicament that only a few seem to grasp. Indeed, no one else outside the mermen and now them know of its existence.

"We should get to sleep earlier tonight," Lu Han suggests, still with his back towards Minseok.

"Why?"

"Aren't you tired? My head is splitting."

"Because of Chanyeol and Baekhyun?" He laughs.

Lu Han does too, even though they both know Minseok doesn't mean them.

"Yixing is going out tomorrow. Are you sure you..."

"I'm sure," Minseok quickly interrupts. Then he changes the subject back to the new kid. "That boy, Baekhyun. What do you think about him?"

Lu Han hums. "I don't know him yet. But I've heard Sehun seems to like him. And you've always held a lot of esteem for Sehun's opinions of people."

"That's only partially true. He's not exactly fond of you," Minseok jokes. It's a private one and only the three of them together would understand it.

"You obviously haven't let that bother you," Lu Han returns. His work put away, he stands with his back to Minseok, waiting for the man to initiate another hug.

Minseok's smaller body is unnaturally cold against his back. Lu Han fears he may be getting sick again and vows to make him rest more this week.

"Let's go for a nighttime walk," Minseok suggests instead. His nose tickles Lu Han's collarbones, and he yips when a pair of cold, moist lips attack his throat. Minseok never fights fair... Lu Han turns around and finds himself caged against the desk and Minseok's lips still kissing up his jaw line, kissing him chastely for a few soft, silent seconds. And just when Lu Han is ready to perhaps forget sleep or walking, or Yixing's words of trouble; just when he's ready to throw all that to the wind and instead grind his hips against the other man and maybe moan his approval, Minseok departs and gives them space.

His eyes are shuddered, but not in pleasure. In fear.

"Lu Han, I don't like this... If, If Sulli really hasn't been seen in three weeks, she could be halfway across the world by now. She could have gone-"

"We don't know that yet, Minseok. We don't know where she is. The ocean's vast, you heard Yixing say it himself that they're not even sure. It's completely possible she took off on a whim and will be be back anytime—"

They continue to interrupt each other. "Mermaids... don't take off on whims, Lu Han. They would never! It doesn't make sense unless... unless what Kyungsoo said is true, and what Joonmyun saw is true..."

Lu Han sighs. They're not going to do anything fun tonight if Minseok keeps up this line of thought. But again, he gets how it might be serious. A mermaid of this clan disappearing is a new insight, especially because Yixing is coming to them directly. Which means he's worried, because the others are worried. Even Sehun is worried. And a worried clan of merfolk with direct ties to the human world bodes badly for everyone involved.

"We don't... we don't know yet, okay?"

Minseok doesn't look like he wants to give it up. But he sighs too and melts again into Lu Han's embrace, not kissing this time but just, leaning there. Lu Han winds his arms back around the smaller man's back and waits for the moment to pass.

Too much, too much is happening this week, and now this.

"Still want to go on a walk tonight? Or we could take the boat and—"

"Walk? Who wants to go outside when the bedroom is right there?" Minseok whimpers. He catches himself, chuckling at his own whiny tone, and Lu Han pulls back to kiss him lightly on the cheek.

"Anything you want, baby. Anything you want."