“Oh, wow. She also uses the eating utensil for her hair?” Kihyun asks, eyes widely gazing up at Changkyun.

The human boy stares back, searching the merman’s eyes for playful deceit. “You can’t be serious. This actually happens?”

Kihyun bursts into a fit of giggles at his friend’s reaction. “No, of course not, silly. We don’t do anything to our hair, especially not dragging random scraps of metal through it,” he explains matter-of-factly. “It doesn’t tangle, so there’s no need.”

Changkyun nods and without a second thought, reaches down to the boy laying down. “It’s also very soft.” Recognizing the transfer of pink from hair to face, Changkyun smiles and chuckles to himself. He turns the page and continues reading, “‘Over the next two days at the castle, the prince taught Ariel the proper way to use a fork (not a dinglehopper, as she used to call it) and taught her to dance. She—’”

“I want to dance. You’ve done it before in a video.” The merman waves his arms around above him before letting them flop back down. “But I can’t,” he pouts and tilts his chin up, eyeing the folded pair of legs beside him. “I have no legs.”

Changkyun sighs and takes hold of one of the merman’s hands. “Do you want me to keep reading? Also, how are you going to learn if you just listen and not try to make sense of the writing on the pages?” He holds the book above Kihyun with one hand. “At least look at the pictures,” he reasons. Kihyun obliges and scoots himself up to a near-seated position. He glances at the human next to him, hesitating before inching closer and leaning into his side.

“It’s hard to sit up sometimes. I don’t think my lower half is made for that,” he whines.

“It’s okay,” Changkyun breathes, attempting to remain calm with the sudden proximity of the body suddenly between his arms and pressed against his side. He clears his throat to find enough of his voice to read. To his surprise, it is still steady and not nearly as shaky as he thought it would be. “‘She was getting worried that he wouldn’t kiss her in time, and her soul would one of Ursula’s prisoners forever.’”

Kihyun can’t help but interrupt. “They keep going on and on about a kiss. Why don’t they already kiss? Don’t they care about each other? I don’t get it.” He thinks about the kiss Changkyun put on his forehead a while before and recalls the meaning of it. Ariel’s curse seems so much more simple than his own.

“Are you mad?” Changkyun asks hesitantly.

“Of course, I am!” Kihyun huffs. “She can just break her curse if she kisses the prince, but what do I have to do? Swim back and forth many seas to talk to the Sea Witch—who is a good, kind-hearted creature! Not