“I wish I could stay in Seoul. Nothing ever happens here.”

“I know… You’ve told me that many times.”

Taehyung pressed his lips together into a thin line and handed the cream conch to Seokjin. Uikyu, the old town of fishing and pretty much nothing else. He would give anything to have a taste of life in any of the major cities.

The older then gave it a thorough once over before placing it into the cardboard box he had brought along. “How much is this again?” he asked.

Taehyung stared at the slightly pink, glossy surface of the conch. He replied without much hesitation, “16 000 Won.” Gently, he picked up another conch and held it up for Seokjin to see. The pastel violet fanned from its ridges as sunlight fell on it. “Maybe you’d like this better? It’s the same price.”

Readjusting his glasses with his fingers, Seokjin stared at the second shell with eyes sparkling with interest. “How do you find all these conches? They’re always so pretty,” he admitted. “I need to decorate the new house anyway. I’ll take this one too.”

Taehyung shrugged and passed it to the older with two hands, “I just find them. Maybe I have an eye for beauty.” “Mm that must be why you met me,” Seokjin self-declared with a wink as he put the conch down beside the first. Taehyung stared at the male with an unamused expression, “Ha ha.”

“Come on you need to admit that I’m handsome.”

“Hyung I’m pretty sure I will meet somebody who is more handsome than you.”

Seokjin tutted as he walked around the shop, head tilting upwards to see the items that were placed on the upper shelves, “The only time another person can be more handsome than me is when you are in love with that person. When you do find that person, please call me I’d love to go to your wedding.”

Sometimes, Taehyung didn’t know what Seokjin wanted to do with him. But he did know he just wanted to flaunt his ego and try to get him to start dating.

He could try but Taehyung simply wasn’t interested. Especially when he was living in this coastal town where there was a lack of people his age.

Taehyung sat himself down on a wooden bar stool beside his worktable and turned his head to look out of the balcony on the opposite end of the shop. He could hear people laughing as they strolled on the beach but that was it. It’s so quiet today, he thought. For once, it’s quiet on a Sunday.

Suddenly, the ground beneath them began trembling and Seokjin let out an unbecoming yelp when the assortment of shells fell from above, shattering on impact with the floor. Taehyung stood up in a second of panic, only to remember the earthquake warning the radio had issued earlier this morning.

As quickly as it had come, the shaking stopped.

Seokjin inched away from the broken shells, face significantly paler than a few moments before. He stared at Taehyung with wide eyes before asking, “What the hell?” Taehyung shuffled forward and bent down to poke at the pieces. A twinge of sadness pricked at his chest after realising that the broken shells were the burgundy spotted ones that he had picked in Busan.

He replied with a shrug, “Earthquake. It happens pretty often. This place being close to Japan and all.” At his explanation, the older slowly unfroze from his stance and squatted down beside Taehyung to take a closer look at the broken pieces. “These must have been Calico scallop shells. Pity that they’re broken,” he commented, eyes fixed on the shattered pieces.

Taehyung turned his head to give Seokjin a look of admiration. They weren’t easy to distinguish even in their natural forms, much less broken states.

“What are they called again?”

“Calico scallop shells.”

“Cool,” he said, then asked, “Hyung when are you coming back?”

After ruffling through Taehyung’s hair, he stood up and gathered the box in his arms. “August, the pups would be born by then,” he told Taehyung before pressing a few crisp notes in his hands. Taehyung pouted sadly and Seokjin laughed, “I’m not going away forever. It’s just two months.” With that, Seokjin walked towards the door and left the shop.

Taehyung watched Seokjin’s figure grow small along the pavement leading to the town centre, then blankly focused on the numerous seashell wind chimes that hung at the top of the doorway. In those few wind chimes alone, he could tell that were more than ten types of shells. There were curly ones, red striped ones and many cream coloured ones.

If only he knew how to name them all.

His fingers clasped onto a small fragment of the broken shell and Taehyung brought it up to his eyes. Its jagged edges caught the sunlight as it shone through the balcony. “You Calicos were so pretty. Damn you earthquake,” he scolded.

 

------

 

Time passed by without Taehyung noticing and many customers later, Uikyu basked in the darkness of a starless night. After the last tourists had retreated to the town centre where the hotels were, Taehyung ate a quick meal of rice and vegetables before cleaning up the shop.

The number of shells sold had to be taken into account together with the day’s earnings as well, so Taehyung busied himself into doing just that. While at his seat beside his worktable, he kept an eye on the sea tide outside. It was pretty difficult since the only light shining on the sea was the moon and the lamp posts but he still managed.

His spirits lifted just a little along with the sea breeze that blew into the shop and he quickened his writing pace, looking forward to the nightly walk. After a few minutes of scribbling, he snapped the notebook shut by its spine before pulling on a beanie and dashing out of the back door.

The salty air and wind met with Taehyung’s skin the instant he stepped foot on the beach. As he approached the coast, he took time to savour the transition of dry, soft sand between his toes to the colder, coarse sand near where the waves touched the shore.

Nothing passed through his mind while he strolled down the beach.

Eyes now accustomed to the darkness of the night, he mindlessly took in the sight of the coast. It stretched for some few hundreds of meters with what would have been golden white sand lining the beach. Contrary to the beaches in countries with warmer climates, no palm trees grew on the beach. Instead, rocks of different sizes piled up at the back of the coastline.

Everything was the same as the day before, as for the countless nights Taehyung had strolled on this beach since he could walk. In a town like this, nothing ever changed. He stopped walking and bent down to pick up a starfish from the sand.

Smiling gently, he asked it softly, “How did you get so far up shore?” It was difficult to make out what colour the starfish was, but he could tell it was a generic rust coloured one. “Have a safe trip home,” he said, then threw it back into the ocean.

That was when Taehyung noticed something amiss in the scenery of the coast at the corner of his eyes. A few meters down, something shaped suspiciously like a body had rolled onto the sand.

Curious and a little apprehensive, he walked towards the subject to get a closer glimpse. As he approached it, he noticed the outlines of male facial features and his very apparent lifelessness. When Taehyung got even closer and squinted, he stopped short of wanting to jump into the ocean to drown himself.

Holy .

Stunned, he stood rooted to the ground for the longest time he could remember. I am definitely dreaming, he thought. Maybe I’m dead. Mermaids don’t ing exist, Kim Taehyung. They don’t. They just don’t.

A wretched curiosity passed over his mind and he softly padded over to the figure lying on the sand. The sight of the silvery scaled lower body etched into his brain intensely in his unconsciousness, threatening to burn out all the remaining pieces of scientific logicality.

As the waves lapped up and down the shoreline, the translucent, multiple layered fin ends of the tail bobbed along with the motion. Dark, long hair lay matted around the creature’s head. Taehyung inched even closer without daring to breathe. , what is this sorcery?

His eyes trailed upwards from the tail to the human part of the thing. The male’s lower torso and arms were dotted with fish scales, webbed skin stretched between his fingers which had some vicious looking long, sharp nails and his face—Taehyung felt his throat go dry. His face had scabs of multiple scars that were still bleeding.

It was only then that Taehyung noticed the raw wound that had opened on the male’s right side and the red stains on the sand beneath his head. Right about now, he was ready to turn around, go back to bed and sleep to pretend everything was a dream, but if the male were injured…

It would be cruel to leave him in the cold to bleed. Even worse, other people could find him in the morning and only god knew what would become of him.

Taehyung let loose a long breath he had been holding before looking at the male’s face again. Despite the scars, he somehow could tell that he was young, probably around his age. To think that somebody this young had so many scars on his body sent a shiver down his back. For a moment, Taehyung was thankful that he lived on land even though it was in a small damned town called Uikyu.

Suddenly, the male opened his eyes with a painful rasp of air. His dark eyes bore right into Taehyung’s and Taehyung let out a scream before stumbling backwards, then falling on his . He watched in a mixture of shock and horror as the male’s tail began to take the shape of legs. Without warning, the male reached out and wrapped a clawed hand around Taehyung’s neck.

Fear ran amok in his body and he let out another scream but the male tightened the grip, cutting off the sound. Taehyung could feel the nails digging into his flesh. He could feel drops of liquid dribbling down his skin. He trembled while staring into the male’s eyes. Even in the dark, he could see the anger swirling in them.

Taehyung stopped trembling for a second.

And fear.

And confusion. Like a trapped animal.

The male let out another rasp for air that sounded like metal scraping against metal and it chilled the blood in Taehyung’s veins. With sudden pain flashing in the male’s eyes, his grip on Taehyung’s neck loosened and Taehyung took the chance to inhale deeply.

It took another second before the grip tightened. This time, it was tighter than before and black spots danced in Taehyung’s vision. he was going to die. He wanted to pry the male’s hand away but his body had frozen. . He didn’t want to die before getting out of this place.

In his blurry periphery, Taehyung noticed the scales of the tail shedding away and more pain swirled with all the other emotions pooling in the male’s eyes. Maybe I can…

“You’re scared,” he began experimentally. Good, he could at least speak coherently. He should do it before the black spots took over completely and he would be in whatever afterlife awaited. He didn’t even know if the male could understand him but  he didn’t want to die. “And angry because you’re not at home, wherever you came from.”

The grip hadn’t loosened.

“I-I can understand. I was scared once. When my mother died, I was so scared. My father brought me here after that and I was angry too. It’s scary when you’re in a new place.”

For some reason, Taehyung kept talking. Why he was saying such personal things to a creature out of a fairy tale book he didn’t know. If he was going to die, he might as well start ranting. He never did that before, and emotional things could touch people better… Right?

Right?

Taehyung continued with renewed effort, “Then when I realised I couldn’t change anything, I kind of accepted it. I thought, maybe new places meant new things. I grew to love seashells, you know those things oysters live in. Even though living here most times, I guess the beach isn’t that bad either.”

As if on cue, the male loosened the grip just the smallest amount and the glare in the male’s eyes dimmed.

“I-If you let me go, I promise I’ll help you,” he probed cautiously, trying to turn his voice in a more soothing tone. “You need to turn- Whatever that you’re doing. It’s painful. I-I’ll be here.”

Very slowly, Taehyung found the strength to raise his hand to hold onto the back of the male’s own one and prompted him to let go by pulling forward together with a comforting squeeze.

After a suffocating moment, the male released his grip and Taehyung collapsed onto the sand, taking in deep breaths of relief all the while careful to not let go of the other’s cold hand.

The male squeezed Taehyung’s hand tightly with a jerk and contorted his face in pain as the last pieces of scale fell away. Three openings on the side of his neck Taehyung never noticed before closed as if an invisible force were sewing them up.

A few shaky breaths escaped from the other’s lips before his entire body went limp and his eyes fluttered close. It’s over, I can go, Taehyung thought and swallowed down the saliva in his parched mouth. But no I can’t just leave him here. Those illegal dealers will find him somehow.

Sighing, he got onto his feet shakily and gained back his sense of balance before bending down to scoop up the now human form into his arms. He nearly toppled backwards when the male weighed much lighter than what he expected.

This was a cause for concern.

And oh, the coldness of his skin.

Taehyung thought his own skin could have been frost bitten as he carried the male back to his house. No human could be this cold and live to tell the tale. He cast a worried glance at the unconscious male while pushing open the door to his shop with his back.

Fervently hoping that he had made the right choice, Taehyung ran up the flights of stairs, two steps at a time towards the spare room.

 

------

 

When the natural alarm clock in Taehyung woke him up the next morning, he could have sworn by the incessant yet everyday crashing of waves against the beach and the loud calling of seagulls that everything was still the same. The only thing that hinted the unusual was the boy sleeping on the spare bed.

Very slowly, Taehyung lifted his head from the side of the mattress where he had fallen asleep last night. He stretched out his legs on the wooden floor in an attempt to get rid of the numbness in them, then turned his attention back to the boy.

The memories quickly rushed in and Taehyung heaved another long sigh. Right. Injured. Needs bandaging. Noticing the bowl of water and rolls of cloth that lay beside him, he assumed he must have fallen asleep while doing so.

He half-blankly assessed the condition of the wounds again before picking up the washcloth from the bowl. Although the male’s side wounds were still looking red and raw, they had stopped bleeding. Just as he touched the cloth to the wound, he realised with a start that the male was buck save for the blanket that he the sense to drape over his lower body last night.

With the sun’s rays shining down directly onto the male from the window above the bed, Taehyung could now see the muscles bulging out slightly from his arms and abdomen. Hastily reminding himself that he wasn’t here to lust after a mermaid, he proceeded to press the cloth onto the wounds ever so slightly.

After a few minutes, the beige coloured cloth had been stained red and Taehyung scrubbed it in the bowl to rinse the blood away. Just how did he get injured? he wondered listlessly before getting on his knees again to clean the cuts on the male’s face.

The cloth left droplets of water in its wake as Taehyung softly dragged it across the male’s cheeks. The light seemed to bring out the faint white scars on his skin even more— Curiously, Taehyung ran a bare finger over the ridge of one that made its mark near his nose.

It’s so long. Holy .

And there’s one… Two… Three…

One here. Another there… Oh my god this one is really close to his eye.

Increasingly intrigued by the scars, Taehyung skimmed his fingers over to the scar on the male’s brow bone. Without any prior warning, the other bolted to grab hold of his wrist before he could touch the skin again and Taehyung yelped at the sudden move.

Oh my god shucks.

He tried prying the male’s hand away but it was to no avail. The grip was beginning to make his wrist lose all feeling. Amidst the hassle to get away, Taehyung could feel a set of eyes boring into his face and he turned his head ever so slowly towards the male, only realising then that his fingers were a hair’s diameter away from the male’s face.

The male glared pointedly at him without blinking, as if he were questioning Taehyung: What the hell are you doing?

In the face of that unspoken question and the lingering fact that his hand felt just about as disconnected from his arm as his brain from his body, Taehyung let out a sheepish, yet awkward laughter and grinned wide enough to show his front row of teeth. The other didn’t seem to be impressed by Taehyung’s actions since he narrowed his eyes noticeably, pale lids covering those unsettling ebony orbs of his.

This guy is scary as .

The two times they had shared physical contact, he had tried to cut off Taehyung’s blood supply. Talk about anger management issues. Taehyung hoped the next time wouldn’t end with him being dead. Without looking away, he furtively touched the wood of the floor with his free hand.

“Um. You can let go. I won’t try to kill you,” he offered while attempting to pull his arm away with a sudden jerk. However, the male kept his strong grip on Taehyung’s wrist. Taehyung at this point could feel the impatience brewing in him when he also noticed the way the male’s brows furrowed together slightly at his words questioningly.

Great. He had had forgotten that he couldn’t understand Korean.

This called for old measures. Taehyung hadn’t used them since he had left high school where jerks were strolling along the school corridors looking for people to hook up with. But since he needed to open the shop in an hour…

In high school, he had joined the Drama Club and to be honest, the time spent there was a waste of his effort in making the stage props because of the ty plays the teachers chose for the students to act out. He was never one of the actors and all his time was dedicated to arranging the sets and making of props but he did listen in on the line reading sessions.

And it so happened that despite the poor choices of plays, some lines were excellent conversations that would carry well in the nineteenth century and naturally, Taehyung memorised them.

“Don’t you find blood interesting?” he began, cocking his head. He made sure that the smile slid from his face completely before letting a cold, mocking expression take over. “The way it slides over metal, the way it slid over the blade as I stabbed her from behind.”

The male’s stare wavered the moment Taehyung widened his smile. Good, let’s keep this up without screwing it over. There was a reason why Taehyung wasn’t casted as an actor in the club. Suddenly, his mind blanked out and he was left staring at the male with the psychotic smile that wasn’t him. Okay what did Ye Im do last time?

Oh right. The scare.

With that, Taehyung propelled his body forward in a sudden motion until his own face was a mere centimetre away from the other’s face. The male’s eyes flew open in alarm at the move as expected before Taehyung felt the blood rushing back into his nearly dead hand as the grip disappeared.

He nearly wanted to frown upon feeling the cold dispersing from the male’s cheeks but the need to escape preceded over any care and concern.

Hurriedly pushing himself away from the bed, Taehyung picked the bowl up from the ground and dropped the cloth into it in one smooth glide. The male continued staring at him with eyes as round as golf balls, pretty much shook.

“Ha!” Taehyung taunted, sticking out his tongue at the other and he swore that a ‘what the actual ’ look passed onto the male’s face. But he simply skipped out of the room in a jiffy and shut the door behind him before he could observe anything else.

Once outside on the corridor, he let loose a long breath of relief, one hand absentmindedly massaging his poor other manhandled wrist. The feeling still hadn’t entirely returned to his arm.

Taehyung turned back to look at the closed door with pursed lips. What the hell had he gotten himself into? One whole truck load of trouble, probably. He then began making his way downstairs while delving in his thoughts.

I couldn’t have left him there. It’s too dangerous. He shuddered at the memory of the masked men armed with short blades cornering a few of his former classmates.

It wasn’t an unknown fact that illegal activities took place in Uikyu. In fact, all residents knew that when the night fell on the peaceful town, there would be illegal laundering taking place at the streets and beach.

It was perfect—a coastal town where contraband items could be shipped in and out of Korea without raising any attention from security personnel. Those were usually located at the coasts of larger cities like Busan.

When Taehyung reached the kitchen on the second floor, he in a long breath and went about washing up as per usual after dumping the bowl in the sink. Outside, the first chatter of tourists could be heard.

For the first time in years, he hoped for a perfectly normal day to unfold.

 

------

 

The hours passed by uneventfully as the sun rose higher and higher into the sky and Taehyung received customers with polite smiles and nods until the calm had to be broken by a few thuds that echoed from above.

Taehyung froze in the midst of wrapping up a dreamcatcher while the middle aged lady in front of the counter asked almost immediately, “What was that?” “Uh—” Oh my god I totally forgot about him. “—I think it’s my books. I forgot to… close the window this morning and the wind here is strong sooooooo.”

The lady seemed to buy the badly spun explanation. After neutralising his expression, he then continued to fold the paper carefully around the dreamcatcher. Please don’t make any more noise. Please.

Oh what if he’s out of the room?

He nearly cut himself on the paper cutter at the disturbing thought and hastened his pace to cover any evidence of his stumble. Fortunately, the lady was busy tapping away at her phone.

Then a conspicuous thud against the ceiling could be heard, followed by a loud crash of what sounded like household items. Or more specifically, a shelf. Puzzled, the lady looked up from the screen and Taehyung gave her a nonchalant shrug, followed by a smile.

“It always happens.”

Really? What the heck is he doing?

Taehyung swiftly tied the package with a white string before handing it towards the lady who shot him a look of suspicion. After paying and leaving the shop, Taehyung stripped off the smile from his cheeks and shut the front door loudly. He made sure to flip over the ‘OPEN’ sign to the ‘CLOSED. WILL BE BACK SOON’ side.

With that done, he ascended the stairs near the entrance with light footsteps, not wanting to raise the merboy’s attention. Taehyung turned the handle of the spare room’s door as quietly as he could. For some reason, his fingers lingered on the handle, dreading to open the door.

I swear I’m going to treat Jimin to lunch when he comes back if merboy tries to attack me again.

Taehyung crept into the room through the crevice he had pushed open, then scanned the space before him. When he saw no person on the bed or in the room, he couldn’t help but step into the room after throwing the door wide open.

What in the world—

If it were not for the quick reaction his old lessons in taekwondo instilled in him, Taehyung might have not noticed the shadow swinging at him from the corner. Instincts made him raise his forearm in front of his face and he nearly yelled in pain when the object landed on his arm.

Sure enough, it was the boy.

Taehyung didn’t have enough time to nurse the blooming bruise before the boy raised the stick and it forward sharply at his neck. Swallowing his initial shock, Taehyung swiftly cupped both hands around the offensive end of the stick in time to prevent it from doing real damage.

“This needs to stop,” he scowled. He then roughly jerked the stick with all his might, knowing the male’s strong grip. To his surprise, the stick fell loose from the other’s hand and he quickly threw it onto the floor.

It was as if the heavens suddenly had plenty of ideas of how to surprise and torture Taehyung for the male fell forward immediately, letting out an almost fearful gasp as he did so. Taehyung widened his eyes and rushed forward to catch him by the arm.

Hold up don’t look at his .

Okay I’m not looking.

He felt the boy tense up under his hold. Slowly albeit cautiously, Taehyung adjusted between the boy’s weight and his own sense of balance before tugging the other a little in the direction of the bed.

The male gave him an apprehensive stare and Taehyung sighed internally. After shifting his grip up from the other’s wrist to the upper arm to make it more stable, he led the boy back to the bed.

For a mere two meters, it was a hell of a journey.

The boy tripped thrice and nearly fell once while making the tiniest steps. His vice like grip on Taehyung’s arm made the experience more excruciating than it should have been. Taehyung heard the boy make a short growl of frustration at his second trip, which was the only thing he’d heard from him.

Once settled, Taehyung carefully draped the earlier discarded blanket on the other’s shoulders, then said seriously, jabbing a finger towards the bed, “Don’t move. I won’t be always here to save you when you fall.” The boy lifted stormy his eyes at him before his lips curved into a grouchy pout, almost replying in a way of sorts.

Huh. His years practicing reading play scripts with the proper tone and pronunciations must have paid off.

Taehyung shied away from the bed in the direction of the door as he continued to fix a watchful look on the boy. In the full impact of noon sun, the other’s scars seemed to take on greater emphasis with the enhanced shadows from the scabs.

He took great interest in the scar that ran near his right eye.

Shuddering internally, he wondered, What the hell happens down there? After all, they said that mankind only discovered 10% of the oceans’ secrets. Who knew what other mind warping things it contained?

Maybe the boy could tell him.

Taehyung scoffed at his own thought a second later. The chances of the boy talking to him was close to zero even if he knew how to speak. The boy would have to stop trying to kill him first.

It seemed like the boy had his own thoughts as Taehyung met his gaze unconsciously. They held it for a good minute, then Taehyung managed a half-hearted smile and shut the door behind him.

The chiming of the wind chimes below floated up the stairs breezily amidst the background hum of human conversation outside the house and he took his time to bathe in the mundane atmosphere while heading downstairs towards the living room.

It wasn’t much, the living room. One television that belonged back in 2010, a humongous beige coloured shaggy carpet that Jimin brought back from one of his city hauls (Taehyung’s birthday present) that filled the space after the dining area on the right ended and a low coffee table in the centre.

There weren’t any sofas – just many assorted cushions, beanbags and foldable mattresses. Jimin never quite agreed with Taehyung on this arrangement; sofas belong in the living room! he had said many times.

Taehyung sat his down onto a beanbag before stretching out his arm for his phone that lay on the coffee table. The time flashed ’12.57PM’. He would have to open the shop in thirty minutes.

It felt too normal for everything that had occurred in the past twelve hours, really.

Hence in hopes of making the maelstrom of thoughts in his skull calm down, Taehyung clicked the first contact on his speed dial.

Big Bang’s Bang Bang Bang immediately started playing in the buzzing, low quality nature of phone connecting dials and Taehyung had half a mind to ask Jimin to change the song. Let’s not fall in love was a better and less harmful option to the ears in his opinion.

Finally, the call picked up.

“Jimin. Do mermaids exist?”

Taehyung could feel and hear the stunned silence all the way from whichever hotel Jimin holed up at in Seoul. He couldn’t blame Jimin to be honest.

“Um,” there was a shuffling sound at the other end, like Jimin shoving off the blankets from his body. “They don’t exist. I’ve been to the abalone farm so many times if there were I would have seen them?”

“Ah.”

“Are you okay? Are you thinking about your parents again?”

The question struck his attention as quick as a lightning bolt and Taehyung blinked a few times, perusing through reasons why Jimin came to that conclusion. O-Oh. Because he was talking weird.

After letting his body completely submerge in the bean bag, Taehyung let out a chuckle, “Nah. I watched The Little Mermaid again last night and was wondering if people like that could exist. I mean, wouldn’t that be damn cool? How do they even breathe?”

“You’re weird as .”

“I know. You write that on my Christmas card every year.”

“You know you gave me a mini heart attack just now! You never asked these kind of questions for six months straight and I was so damn happy?”

“I thought it was five months,” Taehyung replied while looking at and wiggling his toes. Must be interesting to have a tail. Jimin insisted stubbornly, “Six. The last time you asked if swans are really faithful to their partners.

They’re always about your parents. This time mermaids? Oh god I thought it was because your mother—”

Jimin’s rambling cut off abruptly and Taehyung could imagine his friend cupping his mouth with his hand, eyes going regretful and wide. Taehyung stopped wiggling his toes, then told the other in a mock serious tone, “You’re going to die when you come back.”

“Oh my god I didn’t mean to bring it up! Please don’t put sand in my shoes again,” the other male frantically pleaded. Taehyung snorted in reply, “Dude that was when I was twelve and couldn’t handle emotional setbacks. But you owe me a meal.”

“Whaaaaaaat well okay. My parents have lot of profit from this round’s harvest.”

“Wait hold up,” Taehyung cut in, suddenly remembering his swear from earlier, “I’ll treat you instead. For being such a good friend. And standing by my . Love you a lot bro.”

Silence.

“You better tell me what’s up when I get back. In fact, I’m tempted to drive back to Uikyu right now.”

“Haha like you’ll leave your sisters alone in Seoul. See you in three days, Chim. And please change your dial tone.”

“What the did you insult Big Bang—”

When Taehyung cut the call off, he was already expecting Jimin to come flying at him through the open window. Fanboys weren’t something a normal human could deal with.

He smiled at the screen of his phone, snorting a little at soft ball of anger that was Jimin but it faded away as only one thing took precedence in his mind – the merboy.

 

------

 

Five dreamcatchers, two wind chimes and plenty of seashells sold. Taehyung grinned at the earnings for the day that sat on the counter. Today’s business was better than usual.

In front on the wall, the clock ticked six in the evening and he walked over to the door to lock it shut. And he was done for the day.

While shutting the cash in the cash drawer, Taehyung ran over his choices for dinner. The fridge was stocked with fresh abalone and some herring, courtesy of Jimin’s mother before they had left for Seoul. Should he fry the herring again?

Taehyung made a face at the idea and turned around to ascend the stairs. Boring. Steam? With tomatoes and onions. That sounded more appealing.

While rummaging through the refrigerator, he remembered the boy with a start. It had been too many hours since last night and only god knew when he had his last meal. He had to eat also, right?

Taehyung hit his forehead against the edge of the open fridge door resignedly before staring upwards into the cold mist and frozen meat in the small, white space. He then pulled out the full container of abalone out along with all his remaining sanity.

He began to pry the shells open after taking a knife out from the cutlery drawer.

After half an hour, Taehyung found himself back at the spare room with a plate of steamed abalone, some still shelled abalone and a larger bowl of rice in case the boy wanted to eat it. It was only when he closed the door behind him that the boy sat up on the bed from his sleeping position.

He put down the plate and bowl on the floor before returning to the door to flick on the ceiling lights. Like a curious child, the boy immediately snapped his head towards the light and Taehyung for once thought he was a normal person.

No baring of teeth, no death grip.

Please don’t kill me.

The boy looked at Taehyung when he sat himself down beside him, sure to leave a respectable gap. “So um,” he started, “Are you hungry?” Picking the plate from the floor, he then laid it on the space between them.

Something resembling recognition flickered in the other’s eyes and Taehyung watched as he stretched a finger out to poke at one of the slices. But the boy hesitated suddenly. He drew back his hand quickly, as if afraid.

Surprised, Taehyung reached out for his own slice, then plopped it into his mouth, to show that the salmon was not poisoned if that was what the boy was worried about.

However, the other still watched him wearily. It was at Taehyung’s third slice and apparent coolness about the situation that he hooked up a piece with his long nails before biting into it. Which reminded Taehyung that the boy had a lot to learn about hygiene.

The boy swallowed the meat and went for a second one instantly. After gobbling up three, he wrapped his fingers around a fresh unopened abalone. Taehyung looked on with slow, shocked chewing as the other split open the shell deftly with a short tensing of his biceps.

Within a second, he was busy scraping out the flesh into his mouth.

Taehyung didn’t know what to say, so he went back to stuffing his mouth, alternating between rice and cooked abalone. It was just too weird to have a stranger who is a mer sitting with you for a meal. In addition, he never had people with him during meals except Jimin after Grandmother passed away.

They spent the next few minutes in silence due to their eating— Well Taehyung was hungry too. He had missed lunch entirely. Then for some unchecked reason that must have passed his head, he gestured to the abalone shells with his chopsticks, “Jeonbuk.”

The boy gave him a blank stare and Taehyung reiterated his sentence, “Jeonbuk. They’re called jeonbuk.” When the mer simply turned his head back to the shells, Taehyung eyed his own bowl of rice which had lost their steam.

Suddenly, merboy stiffened his back. He clutched the empty shells in his hands in a dagger like poise as he backed away from the window behind them, lips curling upwards. Stunned, Taehyung could only watch.

The other lifted his head as if sniffing the air, then shot away from the bed entirely with a soft snarl, only to trip over his feet and fall onto the floor. “Hey hey what’s wrong?” Taehyung asked quickly, once he had gotten over the animalistic expression on merboy’s face. He cast a glance outside and the sight of the empty beach greeted him.

He had almost expected monsters to be lumbering along the beach at the way merboy had reacted but there was just the ordinary waves rolling onto sand.

After placing the bowl on the bed, Taehyung pushed himself off it to squat down beside merboy to help him up. However, merboy bared his rows of sharp incisors at him just as the tip of the abalone shell touched his throat.

Tilting his head backwards, he gulped very slowly. It hadn’t occurred to him that abalone shells were this sharp. If this occurrence hadn’t taken place three times in a time span of less than twenty four hours, Taehyung was sure his scream would make his neighbours think that a murder had taken place.

Merboy blinked his eyes and recognition flashed in his eyes as though he had been in a trance before. Huh. Then very slowly, merboy drew his hand back as his eyes returned to normalcy from the narrow slits they had been.

Taehyung held out his arm again and this time, merboy took it. But as Taehyung guided him to his feet, then to the bed, merboy squeezed his arm tightly. Upon cocking his head questioningly, merboy flitted his eyes to outside the window and shook his head.

Taehyung dismissed the objection and tugged at the other’s arm, only to be stalled again by merboy. The shake of his head seemed more urgent and his eyes darkened. Really? But there’s nothing, he thought.

Staring back at him, Taehyung considered his choices since it wouldn’t be anytime soon that merboy would be convinced to stay in this room. There was only the living room and his own room left. As much as he was tempted to leave merboy in the living area, it was too risky in case merboy found a way to clamber down the stairs to the shop. But in his room…

Call it cruel but Taehyung would like to have the choice to lock merboy up in case things happened. But still, it was his room. The place where he kept his precious shells and fish tank amidst other belongings. Heck, merboy could even have a reverse effect when he sees fish in a tank.

“Okay,” he said, relenting.

 

------

 

It was ten minutes past midnight when everything settled down into a monotonous lull at last. Taehyung knew merboy wasn’t asleep and instead was sitting on the floor mattress, picking at the strange things the human had asked him to put over his body.

No matter though. It still allowed Taehyung to slip downstairs to his shop to continue carving out the shells into little flutes. He was at his fifth flute when a gentle breeze blew into the shop, making him realise there were beads of sweat on his forehead as they left a cooling sensation after evaporating in the wind.

Usually, the constant draughts of wind would have cooled down the shop but tonight seemed like one of those unusual nights. Well, the day had been quite unusual. Nevertheless, the cool wind called to Taehyung.

Placing the knife down, he pulled on the beanie that he had left on the work table before skipping lightly to the back door. As he stood just outside on the sand, he wondered what merboy was doing exactly two storeys above.

Had he fallen asleep? Or was he too wary to sleep? What did Merpeople even do?

Taehyung refocused his eyes on the expanse of sea and sand before him. For all that had happened, he was thankful that they were always the same. It was as if whichever godly being had heard his complains about life here being too mundane, then decided to grant his wish.

Somehow, he wanted to forget everything and continue life the way it was but screw it—the ball had started rolling. Might as well roll with it. Jimin would.

Then at the corner of his eyes, Taehyung spotted a dark shadow floating on the waters where the lamp posts ended. It was a worn out fishing boat and had dropped anchor a few meters away from the shore. As he inspected it further, he realised there were multiple footprints on the wet sand. The imprints being crisp and clear, he could too, tell that they were still largely fresh.

This wasn’t a stray fishing vessel that a farm hadn’t tied down properly.

Images of merboy’s earlier display of ferocity crossed Taehyung’s mind immediately and the gusts of sea breeze no longer felt welcome as goose bumps raised on his nape. After pulling his beanie down to recover the lost warmth, he gave the vicinity a last look and slipped back through the door.

It didn’t come as much of a surprise when Taehyung found merboy still sitting and awake and quiet, listening to the whispering winds after he stepped into the room, ready to bury himself in the warmth of his blankets.