They were currently sitting in a small room that was part of the boat, only having a rather comfortable looking brown couch, an armchair next to the couch and a small table. The Light in the room was dim, almost orange, giving a cozy atmosphere together with the already diminishing light of the afternoon, the once blue sky giving way to purple and red, Orange sun slowly disappearing.

Baekhyun, now wearing too big sweatpants which had to be rolled up so they didn´t hang past his ankles, as well as the shirt Chanyeol had given him, was huddled up on the couch, knees drawn together and up to his chest, blanket over his shoulders as his hands were warmed by a cup of hot chocolate he held, lightly resting it on his knees and sipping on it every now and then.

Chanyeol was sitting on the armchair, watching the petite male and patiently waiting for him to start explain. He had a supply of clothes on the boat for emergency cases (The reason why Baekhyun had pants now) and had put on another shirt, himself not minding his displayed abs and chest but not wanting the other to be uncomfortable.

His arms were crossed, though his posture was relaxed.

Baekhyun cleared his throat.

Shyly looking up from the cup of cocoa he found that Chanyeols gaze was already on him, causing his cheeks to redden as he started to speak.

“Why are you so calm about this? I mean you asked for an explanation but you don´t seem particularly… bothered or even surprised by it. Why?”

Chanyeol chuckled, deep voice resonating through the small room before replying “To say I wasn´t surprised would be a lie. Of course I was – Mermaids are, after all, nothing but a Fairy Tale. Well, at least that´s what everyone says. But my grandpa always told me he encountered one. He told me the story every night when I was younger. Of course I grew up and started thinking of it as a sort of hallucination, fantasies of an old lonely man. Although I guess some part of me wanted it to be true, wanted him to not just be some crazy old man, so I´m actually glad about your appearance. Though you still haven´t explained anything.”

Baekhyun bit his lip, looking away for a short moment, before looking into the tallers eyes again, heaving a deep breath. “I´m not too sure where to start. I mean you´re the first person to ever have seen me in such a state. I´m not a mermaid – at least, at least I don´t think I am.”

Chanyeol raised an eyebrow at that, not able to hide the slight mocking in his tone as he said “You pretty much looked like one. And if you´re not a mermaid, then what are you? Do you always grow a fishtail when there´s water?”

Baekhyun giggled slightly at that, a sound which made Chanyeol smile unconsciously.

“I don´t know how to exactly explain it, but every time I… become a mermaid it gets weaker. I wasn´t always able to… “transform” into that. But when I was fourteen, I think, it just kinda happened. I was scared at first – scared I was hallucinating or an abomination or something like that. But I was also excited – and the excitement grew, so slowly I overcame my fear and started embracing this gift. I started writing a diary, sort of, something in which I wrote everything about it down, just because I was so in wonder about it that I couldn’t bear the thought of it only being a dream, only something in my mind, and I needed something to reassure myself.  Everything was great and so fantastic that it´s still hard to wrap my mind around it. But then, then it started… getting weaker, so to say. I seemed to slowly lose the abilities I had. I only found out about it because one day I managed to dumbly injure myself and fall uncon