Part 2

A/N: PLEASE CHECK THE TAGS BEFORE YOU CONTINUE, I ADDED NEW ONES!!! Not sure if it's enough to rate it but. There is violence happening here.

Jimin doesn't come to look for Jeongguk again.

Things have officially become awkward between them and he knows he wouldn't stand that uncomfortable atmosphere for longer than one heartbeat so he decided to not even try. Because yes, he is a coward.

But mind you, that's how he survived so long. Many of his bolder friends are long since dead because they took risks not serious enough or were too trusting. Jimin doesn't want to end like them, no matter how much more painful the feeling of loneliness can sometimes be. Like now.

He tries to distract himself from the Jeongguk-shaped hole in his chest - which is stupid to begin with as they've known each other for what, a few weeks? - by going to the Blue hole.

But when he is there, life thrumming around him as mers are placing their bets and watching another stupid human diving past the point of return, he can't help but remember the look of shock and disgust on Jeongguk's face when he told the human about their sport. Without placing a single bet he swims back home, dread rushing through his veins instead of excitement and adrenaline.

Next, he visits his old home, pays a visit to the elders and asks for advice. They tell him what he already knows, that he needs to distract himself until he forgets, and that by the mother of whales he please won't be that dumb ever again.

That's how he ends up helping out wherever he can, growing and nourishing seaweed in the public gardens, cleaning the old temple and putting down offerings for the first mer, babysitting little mers of a remarkably big family whose mom used to be close friends with his own parents and doing everything to not think much. It doesn't work half as good as he hoped. Everytime he swims up to the water surface at night to watch the stars, Jimin ends up imagining that a head pops up above him and asks him about his wellbeings. Which of course never happens. The elders are anything but delighted by him breaching the surface that often.

A few weeks later send him away so he doesn't endanger all of them with accidentally revealing their location to some fisherman, tell him to do some deep thinking.

Begrudgingly, Jimin obeys and returns to his own cave. The next day he is off to the maelstrom and throws away everything human he could find in his cave, most importantly that stupid chessboard. When he comes back home, the space looks more empty and daunting than ever.

Asking an old mermaid closeby to look out for his cave for a while he goes off to search for sharks.

After a few days of travelling and watching from a distance he finds a group of young sharks that seems to fit his requirements. He strikes a deal with them to help with different things that actually require hands and fine motor skills, like cracking mussels or peeling crabs out of their shells - these sharks are just big curious babies who want to try and taste everything. In return, they play fetch with him, help him train and push his boundaries, strengthen his tail. It's exhausting to no end, every part of Jimin's body aching and the young sharks get into their headspace more than once, jaws snapping loudly behind him and razor-sharp teeth only a hairbreadth away from his fins.

But, it's good. Jimin packs muscles, his abdomen ripped and tail smooth and strong. And most importantly, he can't think like that. With adrenaline filling him up most of the day and exhaustion hitting him like a diving gull the rest of the time he is completely preoccupied. He doesn't even get the chance to drift off into a dream as deep sleep claims him within a heartbeat.

Weeks fly by and Jimin wholly gives himself to the intense training. Somewhen another mer joins them, some Sungwoon guy with dark hair and beautiful dark red tail that ends in orange fins, looking like flames dancing underwater. To make it short, he looks stunning. Jimin quickly learns that he is kind too and the both of them click on the spot with being almost the same age and having similar personalities.

The sharks don't mind a new set of helpful hands so Sungwoon is easily accepted in their temporary group. From then on training gets even more draining. The both mers challenge each other, wrestle with each other and test their abilities in every possible way, sometimes even joining up and turning things around, hunting the sharks together.

Jimin doesn't even know how many miles they make a day, barely keeping tabs where he is.

And during the time he keeps training himself to exhaustion, the tides slowly shift. He is not the only one to notice, if the daring flicks of Sungwoon's red fins against his and the lingering looks are any indication. Equinox is coming closer.

But before Jimin can decide whether or not to take the mer up on the offer, their group tears apart, everbody frantically swimming of in another direction to not ever be seen again.

It happens mid-training, Jimin and Sungwoon racing away from the sharks hot on their fins, when the water begins to feel... strange. A little bit like those undersea boats he's seen once from a safe distance but not really. It's different. More powerful. There is an incredibly strong push and pull shaking them, announcing the apporach of something huge.

And huge it is. When their group manages to round a coral reef, they are met with the sight of a giant sea dragon smoothly gliding through the ocean. Colorful translucent fins curling languidly and causing mighty waves in their wake, the heavily scaled pearl-colored body glistening like patches of light as it winds through the water.

Jimin is still staring at the horns covered with barnacles, at those incredibly deep, old and wise eyes that seem to hold the answer to all questions when Sungwoon flicks his fin straight in Jimin's face and whisper-shouts at him to get the away.

It takes more willpower than Jimin will ever admit to shake out of that stupor but somehow he finally manages, and then he bolts. He swims as fast as he can, pushing and pushing until he can barely remember his own name and now all the hard training comes in handy. For hours he swims, feels the water body changing more than once until he collapses on top of a coral reef.

Damn. He's seen a sea dragon. Gosh. Now ing what?

Despite being positive the sea dragon didn't follow him - the adrenaline is still pumping, making him think irrational - he decides to go for the only person he knows that could hold a candle to a real sea dragon. Because it's common knowledge that these holy beasts have exactly two moods: they can either be serene and the embodiment of knowledge and wisdom, giving you the best life-changing advices and the time of your life - or they are hungry and on the hunt. And there is literally no way to tell which of those two it is.

On his way to Yoongi, Jimin thinks that in a way he lucked out big time.

Seing and surviving a mer dryad was already rare enough but to meet a sea dragon was being close to a miracle. There were only three or so of them still alive and most of the time they were hidden in some incredibly deep gorge, sleeping or whatever it is they do there. Jimin supposes that one day he can tell his stories to his children and impress them big time. Well, if he ever starts a family at all, that is.

He clicks his tongue in irritation and whips his tail stronger, faster. A family. He'd have to set aside his preferences and bond with a mermaid, staying together for the rest of his life. Mers are loyal and true to their partners, afterall. A female. As if.

This is stupid.

"So in fact, you have been dumb as always," Yoongi summarizes the past two hours of Jimin's whining.

The mer scrunches his nose. "Well thank you very much, aren't you being sweet again."

"I don't need to be sweet, I'm a dryad."

Jimin rubs over his neck, flesh still stinging and crusted blood caking it in a few places. He'd been really close to getting strangled as greeting this time. "Yeah, I can vouch for that."

"Told you you are stupid for coming back here."

"How about an apology for once," the mer snaps.

"I'm a dryad, I don't need to apologize."

"That has literally nothing to do with each other, it's just being rude, what even?!"

The dryad sighs deeply and turns around, locking his otherworldly, completely black eyes with Jimin.

"What do you want to hear from me, huh? I usually eat the likes of you at first sight. You coming back to me again and again is just one big stupidity itself. I don't understand why you are doing that."

Jimin's 'Because I like you, you ' gets stuck in his throat as a deafening sound cuts through the forest. His head whips from side to side as he tries to locate the foreign noise and it's only then he notices the complete lack of other sounds. The usual melody of the forest, of the animals living in it is gone, leaving eerie silence that's destroyed by the obnoxiously loud tear and splinter of wood, by the roar of engines and by human shouts.

His whole body is trembling when he can make out three big monsters that are painted in gaudy orange and he doesn't know what to do, he has to-

"Jimin."

Yoongi's hands on his shoulders are steady but cold.

"I want you to get out of here and never look back."

The mer gasps. "What?! No! I won't leave you alone here, I will help you-"

"Jimin. What could you possibly do, huh?"

There is something like remorse pressing down on the dryad's shoulders and in that ver moment Jimin realizes that he's been so wrong. Wrong, thinking he wasn't important to Yoongi. He's been a stupid fool to ever assume the dryad didn't care.

Even the more a reason to stay and fight. But Yoongi is right, what could he do? He is powerless. Doesn't speak the language of power like sirens do, doesn't control a whole pond the way Yoongi does, doesn't hold some ancient form of magic in every single scale like a sea dragon. All he can do is swim fast. God, he hates being so weak.

"But still, I can't just- I can't just leave you behind like that."

Because that's how things will go. With the dryad unable to leave his pond, bound to it to whatever end, there is no escape for Yoongi. All the dryad can do is fight and hope.

The roaring of engines is so close by now it makes Jimin's ears ring.

Yoongi clutches his face and yells over the noise, "GO! And don't come back! I promise I will be alright!"

"NO!"

The dryad's face twists in agony and then he flings out a hand, ropes of seaweed latching onto the mer, violently pulling him down and away, away, deeper into the tunnel, away, through the whole thing, spitting him out in the main river and then weaving to a tight wall of green, blocking Jimin's only way back.

"No, no, no, no no no, NO," he sobs, clawing at the green, pushing against it, pulling at some strands. In the distance he hears a furious snarl and then yelling. He pulls harder, screaming at the seaweed while tears bubble out of his eyes.

When he pops up his head the next time, the yelling has turned frantic. Jimin's heart breaks as he hears Yoongi fighting his battle all alone, a battle against what and why he doesn't even know.

There are shouts behind him and he turns around to some bulky human pointing at him. Jimin dives back down and hurries to get away from there.

The agonized long screech ringing over the machines is audible for miles, wiping Jimin's head empty and leaving him numb.

It takes Jimin three days to muster the courage and go back. He reasons with himself that as Yoongi obviously broke his promise, he can do that too and anyway he didn't make promises in the first place. Not like the dryad who was telling him he will be alright. That's the most awful lie Jimin ever heard in his whole life.

His tail beats get frantic when he reaches the entry to the underwater tunnel and sees it wide open, the former tight curtain of seaweed slumped to a sad heap on the ground.

Before he even enters the tunnel he is hit with the sickening taste of iron hanging heavy in the water. With a hand clamped over his mouth he makes through the tunnel, swimming through whole clouds of blood. In the pond, all water is still colored deep red and as Jimin breaches the surface, the substance sticks to him, covering his skin in red liquid, drenching his silver hair coppery.

A drop of diluted blood falls from the tip of a strand onto his face. Jimin vomits on the nearest rock.

A few minutes later, or maybe it's hours, he brings himself to look around. There is no trace from Yoongi. The dryad is nowhere to be seen, not even a chunk of him. Just blood. Boold everywhere.

Jimin can't even start thinking what the humans are probably doing to him right now. But with that daunting amount of blood there is no way his friend is still alive. Maybe they are studying his torn corpse now and doing experiments on it. Studying him in sick fascination the way they like to do with everything new they find. Running tests on his dead friend, abusing something close to a god and finding entertainment in it.

Jimin vomits again.

He feels as if his body is too small, like he must burst through his skin, everything pressing down on him, encaging him, making breathing difficult. His lungs hack up and he wheezes, hands squeezing around a root until it splinters, until he can see clearly again. He needs to get away from here.

Jimin casts a last view around, looks at the strange metal machine that's rammed into the middle of the pond and making noise, at the tubes leading away, at the earth surrounding the pond where century-old trees used to stand, at the metal wall built around it in a fair distance.

Mourning all the things that are lost forever, Jimin leaves the pond, the tunnel, the river, the sea that used to lead to his best friend.

Then, numbness overtakes his mind.

He makes for one of the deep trenches and dives down, until all he can see, feel and taste is darkness. The monsters lurking down there don't scare him anymore. Nothing scares him anymore. In fact, he has completely shut off from emotions. For several days he stays there, floating in the black deep in a state of utter detachement.

Jimin doesn't know if what made him go back was a mere dream, a mirage, or if he indeed met a second sea dragon, twinkling in the darkness and nudging him up and out of the trench with its snout, sending waves of comforting warmth through him. But as Jimin goes back up, he finds he can almost think straight again.

After that, it doesn't even seem that much like a wonder anymore as he almost gets toppled over by Sungwoon.

The mer is ecstatic to see him again and immediately starts to ramble away until he notices Jimin's unusual stillness.

"Hey, are you alright?"

Jimin doesn't bother smiling with the answer being so obvious. And his friend seems to get it. But no matter what he says, Jimin can't bring himself to tell him. It's like the words get stuck in his throat everytime he even thinks about it and then there are new tears pricking in the corners of his eyes.

After the seventeenth 'What happened', he asks back: "Do you know what's the biggest fear, the worst thing to witness?"

Sungwoon shuts up and gives him a puzzled look.

Jimin just goes on. He feels himself locking up in his headspace again but he doesn't fight it, just lets it happen. His voice sounds both dull and too light in his own ears. All wrong.

"I think the greatest terror is watching something you love fall apart until nothing is left anymore. Not a single bit. And there is nothing you can do about it, just stand by and watch and listen and scream and cry but it makes no difference. And afterwards nothing is the way it was before."

The other mer doesn't say anything to that as there is nothing that could possibly said. He just grabs Jimin's wrist and pulls him with him, until they reach a cave where he pulls Jimin into a tight hug and then curls around him protectively. Both mers sink to the ground like that, in a bundle of tails and limbs and while Sungwoon holds Jimin tight and soon drifts off into soft snores, the silver-haired mer doesn't close his eyes. He blankly stares into nothingness, keeps staring until sunlight filters through the water again and Sungwoon stirs around him.

It continues like that for only a few days, with Jimin refusing to do anything. One morning then, Sungwoon has an idea.

"If you can't talk about it, then there are other ways to let it out. Have you ever heard about the soul artists?"

Of course he has. Everybody knows the soul artists.

They are mers who went to learn the language of power from the sirens and use it to help other merpeople. And what Sungwoon is hinting at now, must be the soul inking. When there is something weighing down onto a mer and crushing him until he is unable to talk about it, the soul artists can use the language of power to learn what happened without the mer opening his mouth once. And then they ink the story on the mer's skin in mer writing. It is supposed to be some kind of therapy. Some say it saved their life, some say it didn't change a thing. It's different to each case, Jimin supposes.

When he slowly nods, Sungwoon grabs his wrist again and shoots off.

"Great! Because we are going to see one."

The Inking is and is not how Jimin imagined it to be.

He'd imagined it to entail more empathic looks and soothing words and less, well, pain. Hours pass with him pressed down onto a large rock, screaming his lungs out and jerking violently while the soul artist - a beautiful mermaid with long flowing gold hair and a creamy-white tail - etches the patterns onto his right side and across his rips. His voice has long since left him and by now no more than pathetic wheezes comes out while he fights the black spots that blur the rims of his vision.

The mermaid slaps his tail and clicks her tongue, interrupting her chant.

"Stop being so dramatic. What did you think, that this would be going to be a nice little afternoon swim?"

Jimin tries to glare at her but ultimately fails at turning his head around. He can see Sungwoon pacing in front of the cave's entry. The soul artist didn't allow him in. Jimin watches the unsteady flicker of his friend's orange-red fins and after a while falls into a trance, watching the fins dancing like flames while the soul artists pierces skin and soul and memory, weaving a unique pattern to the rhythm of her foreign words.

After what feels like an eternity, the needle is put away with a clank and no more new pain is added. The cave falls silent.

"There, you are done."

The mer groans and tries to push up in a sitting position. As he finds he can't, Jimin settles for ungracefully flopping down the rock with a full-body twist. He lands at the freshly tattoed side and curses loudly.

Behind him, the mermaid tuts while storing away her utensils.

"Stop being such a baby and leave me alone already. I've had enough company to last a decade with you two fools."

Sungwoon rushes inside the cave and pulls a by now fuming Jimin up and out before he does something very stupid. After swimming a few reefs, he nudges the mer's intact side.

"How do you feel?"

Jimin groans. "I don't know. All I feel is pain, I can't tell anything else really. The did that damn woman do to me?!" He touches the shimmering lines covering his side tentatively. Strange enough, there is no blood, no reddened skin. The glistening dark blue swirls and lines look like they've ever been there. It just hurts like a b*tch. He flinches, hisses, drops his hand.

"Maybe it will take effect on me mentally once the physical pain went away."

The pain however, never fades.

And soon enough Jimin comes to the realization that maybe the pain itself is the therapy. Well, he wishes he woul've known better than doing this stupid Inking thing. His side constantly burns and he is oversensitive to each slight touch. Sungwoon keeps apologizing but it doesn't really make things better.

It also takes Jimin a solid three weeks to realize that the slightly older mer doesn't make a move on him anymore because somehow when he'd been in that deep trench with the sea dragon, equinox has already passed. Well. That explains the slowly dropping temperatures. Fits his mood though. He just wonders how it's possible to miss the own body transforming twice. Must've been some kind of weird dragon effect too, maybe. Yeah. That's gonna be it.

Once Jimin actively notices how he doesn't even question it, he thinks that his lack of concern might be concerning itself.

After some contemplation, he decides to go to some tropical waters for a while, to try and chill out a bit for once. Take a vacation from life. Sungwoon however has different plans and so they part ways once again.

It's been a while since Jimin went to the lukewarm shallow waters that are filled with blaringly colorful reefs and the weirdest animals. But once he arrives, he is immediately greeted by a group of local mers and invited into their cave like a long-lost brother.

One of the girls keeps praising his beautiful tail and his tattoo and Jimin can't help but smile. It feels nice to belong, even if it's not real. It's all just fake, played, a part of the local mers' manners and customs and never really meant honestly but still it is nice to at least pretend. So Jimin willingly falls into the web of sweet lies and promises of nothing, lukewarm as the water here.

He is just on a little sightseeing trip with the girl that praised him earlier - he still can't remember her name, god, why is he so terrible with names? - and the both of them round a reef, the girl pointing at a giant pink shell, when out of literally nowhere there falls a shadow onto them and in the next moment a spear pierces her tail.

She shrieks and claws at it, blood already flowing out and Jimin rushes to her side to help pull it out but more spears shoot down, a rope fastened to each of them. One hits home into Jimin's lower tail. He cries out. Three more sink deep into the mermaid's body. After a few agonizing seconds, Jimin manages to pull free with a powerful flick of his tail. The girl however is not so lucky.

And again there is nothing Jimin can do, all the other mers already leaving hastily as the blood saturates the water more and more. And sure enough, a sleek gray figure cuts through the water in a fair distance, aiming straight for them. The girl's screams turn frantic and Jimin thinks he is hearing not one but two mers dying. Thinks it sounds just like Yoongi all over again. For a moment he can't breathe, can't move, can't think.

Before Jimin can start to properly panik, the mermaid is dragged out of the water on countless ropes and hoisted on a wooden boat of the native humans. Jimin vaguely remembers then. At his first visit the mers had told him horror stories about the humans who live on these islands hunting for them and sacrificing them to some ancient god every now and then, tying the mers to an altar and slowly killing them. It sounded like a story to tell misbehaving kids back then. Only now Jimin figures that the mers must've been dead serious the whole time.

Why they still want to live here, with danger that imminent, is totally beyond him.

A sharp loud snap remembers him of his very own death threat. The shark has gotten close, so close to where he is still lingering. Him, by now the only wounded mer that's left, with the girl gone and probably to be sacrificed on some island.

Injuries are bad. A heavily bleeding injury is the most common death sentence for a mer - or for any sea creature, as it is. Jimin's head blanks. There is only white noise. The jaw snaps again, the sound deafening to Jimin.

And then he bolts.

Through whatever miracle Jimin managed to reach a cave, no more than a hole above water in a coastal cliff, old and gray and unruly, with countless holes just like his own refugee dotting the stone wall. He'd needed two tries to jump out of the water and into one of the holes, high enough for the shark to not reach him.

And now he lays there, slumped to a sad puddle and his wounds.

He thinks about the girl whose name he never learned. About the other mers who were too affraid to help. About Yoongi. The human that had pointed at him. About Jeongguk. About his dad, when he'd long ago come back home crying and telling him his mother wouldn't come back. About the elders that told him the reason for it many years later.

Bile rises up his throat and he gulps, gulps it down until it comes back twice as strong. He twistes to the side and vomits on the grould.

Humans. It's all their fault, everything their fault, and the fault of mers like him who are stupid enough to think well of them.

Jimin doesn't like humans.

He decides he'd liked them for far too long now. But no more. Not with what they do. How can he possibly like those monsters?

The ground of the cave is unsteady, stalagmitic columns everywhere, rock rising and falling in irregular patterns. Jimin spots a tiny rock growing out of the ground that resembles the Queen of Jeongguk's chess game. He punches it off and throws it out into the unforgiving sea beneath him.

A small cave in the side of some cliff is by far not the best place to rest and heal but Jimin somehow manages.

The bleeding has stopped two nights ago, leaving behind a dull throb. For the first time Jimin gets to witness the crazy strong healing powers of a mer first-hand.

Some mers refuse to believe in them alltogether. Because usually, before they can even get a chance to start working, the injured mer is already shark food.

But now it comes in hand, and Jimin is thankful that they obviously do indeed have some kind of super-healing power. Otherwise he probably wouldn't be able to use his tail ever again once the wound gets infected. Granted he doesn't know much about how wounds work. He is a little shameful in admitting to himself that most mers don't know much about healing.

Jealousy for the human's knowledge on their body surges but blows out like a candle once he remembers how they probably gained that knowledge. Once he imagines people getting cut open alive just for fun, for looking into the body. Because that's how humans are - curious to no end, even beyond death. So maybe being a mer is still better. Maybe it's still better to not have that knowledge and cherish every single member of the community.

The thought is calming in a disturbing way. Jimin wonders if he should be worried about his mental health. Figures, there is probably not much to save anymore anyway.

He spends a few more days in his hole, dipping his tail in some dirty puddle next to him every now and then and only when there is not a scratch to be seen anymore, jumps back into the water.

When he comes back home, the old mermaid that was supposed to look after his cave is gone and the heads of three morays peek out of his cave's entry

'Anhedonia' is what the elders diagnose him with as soon as he comes back to his old home, now robbed of his own cave and once more at a loss what to do. Anhedonia - the loss of interest and enjoyment in everything you once liked, the feeling of not caring anymore. And Jimin guesses they are right. Nowadays he is just... drifting. Deep down he is glad his parents are both dead and don't need to see him like that.

When he tells about his two dragon encounters, the elders gawp at him comically. And when he adds the detail with the gorge, one of them blanches, eyes almost popping out.

"Jimin..." Her voice is shaking. "No mer I heard of has ever dived that deep. It's a miracle you survived, let alone stayed there for days."

Jimin shrugs. "Maybe the weeks of training have been coming into handy then."

"I don't think that's all there is to it. I am not sure what to make out of all this."

The elders start to banter how this could be physically possible, one of them questioning Jimin's reliability, then forgetting about his existence alltogether. At some point the young mer leaves unnoticed and swims off, not much wiser than before.

He is almost out of town, wanting to search for a new cave, when he sees another mer swimming higher and higher in some distance. Instincts kick in, newly rewokened fear drenching his bones cold and Jimin shoots up, tail beating fast to catch up with the other mer. He gets a hold of her wrist just before the young mermaid can breach the surface.

"What do you think you're doing?!"

The girl blinks at him, flustered, confused. "Wha- It's okay, I just want to take a look."

"But that's dangerous! There are humans up there." Jimin has a strange sense of nostalgia washing over him and for a split-second he wonders when he began to sound like his parents, like his elders, like the other townfolks. Wonders how he could take such a 180 degree turn in a short time. And when the girl scowls up at him, fight gleaming in her eyes, he can clearly see himself in her. Suddenly Jimin feels old. Like a grandpa. If this situation wouldn't be serious he might have snorted.

"It's not dangerous. It's not like they harm us on sight. Most of them don't even know we exist."

Oh dear, you have no idea. You are so wrong, Jimin wants to say but instead settles for "And it should stay that way."

The girl tries to wrench her wrist out of his grip. "What is even your problem? I just want to see. To learn a bit more. Humans can't possibly be as bad as everybody says."

Jimin courses under his breath. Being curious was in a mer's nature, it was part of them. Since the first merman had only gotten to know the original mermaid out of pure curiosity, that trait has been passed down to all born mers ever since. It's the main reason so many get killed by humans, because they underestimate the imminent danger and are being too noisey. Curiosity killed the cat, Jeongguk once said. More like, curiosity killed the mer.

And Jimin gets it. He really does. The older mer knows he is acting like a coward and contradicting the at least previous fifty years of his life. Almost he can hear Yoongi scoff into his ear. He lets go of the mermaid's wrist with a last warning 'But be careful. They must not see you' and then heads back to inform the elders so other mers will be on the watch and ready to help in case something happens to the young mermaid.

What he doesn not expect however, is the wary look he gets from his elders.

"Park Jimin, as proven multiple times you are a bad influence for our community," the eldest mer rasps in his long beard, the white hair floating like seaweed. "We haved discussed this for years now but this, this shows you really pose a danger for us. You going up to the surface encourages youngers to follow your lead and now you willingly let a mer go without stopping her as it would've been your duty. We can't sit and watch this any longer. Park Jimin, you are hereby permanently banished out of your home. You are not allowed to ever come back and bring more danger and misfortune to this place. Our decision is final. Farewell, child of the sea. I hope we never meet again."

The other elders nod grimly.

And Jimin? Jimin is too dumbfounded to even say goodbye. Banned from his home. Huh. This sounds too ridicculous to be true. But sure enough, when he leaves the great hall, other mers retreat and hide away at his mere presence. The mermaid that used to be so close with his mum pulls her kids closer when he passes her cave and refuses to meet his gaze.

Wow. Jimin doesn't know what to think, what to feel. Never in his wildest dreams would he have thought this could happen to him. Is this what he gets for helping out in the community for so many years? For grooming the public gardens, babysitting little mers, cleaning up the ground from anything human, patrolling day and night at their borders, moving out and into his own cave to not bother anyone with his quirks, researching on human behavior at every chance so they learn more about them, can protect themselves better? Is this what he gets?

His limbs turn into lead as his head is still filled with mush. This can't be true. He can't possibly have so much bad luck within a single year. It must be a bad dream, and tomorrow when he wakes up, he is floating in the pond and Yoongi is sticking a finger in is ear to wake him up, grumbling about Jimin falling asleep on him. Yeah. This, all of this is not true. He just needs to wake up.

With slow fin beats he heads to an old abandoned shipwreck for the night.

It's nasty, slimy algae covering every part of it and some electric eels living in there so only desperate mers use it, and only ever as temporary stay.

Well. He is desperate. Desperate enough to enter the dirty thing.

Jimin rolls in on the slimy ground, wooden planks creaking and breaking beneath him, a dirty dust cloud emerging and making him cough. After the dirt has settled on him and he hissed at an approaching eel, flicking his tail until it swam away, the mer drifts off, lost in thought.

One sentence the careless mermaid said keeps replaying in his head. 'Humans can't possibly be as bad as everybody says.' He wants to scream and shout and rip his hair out because yes, yes humans can be just as bad and even worse. They are horrible. By now, twenty-one of his friends and family members have died through human hands. There is nothing worse than humans, nothing more dangerous for any living being.

But then Jeongguk's stupid face pops up in his head, seems to float in the murky water in front of him. Jeongguk who listened to his strange request and taught him a game he didn't know how to play himself. Who did not try anything funny on him. Who, as far as Jimin knows, never told him on anybody. And who literally had no reason to stay as long as he did, as Jimin realizes months too late now. Whatever it had been Jeongguk used to do on the ship, he didn't have to. It was not for work, he was not on a run. Just for fun. He didn't have a real reason to be on the sea for that long at all.

A sudden burst of energy and stubborness spreads in his body. He should go. Go now. Why should he keep to rules of not meeting humans from a group of old cranky bastards who didn't ever thank him for his hard work and are ready to cast him off that easily? No. Maybe he really should go back to the surface, now more than ever.

And maybe the tragic death of his old friend justifies some of his actions but if Jimin is being very honest with himself, then Jeongguk never did anything wrong. The only thing he'd done was refusing a kiss.

Maybe Jimin has been too rash with his decisions.

Besides, he is really bad at holding grudges. And what else does he have to loose now, really? With all his old friends dead or worse, his cave stolen and his hometown throwing him out there is nothing left that holds him here.

The only question is how he is supposed to find Jeongguk.

Jimin's fear of not finding Jeongguk turns out to be justified for four straight days.

Four days he patrols the area where they used to meet up, swims a bit closer to the city even and then back, honing his fins in on the slightest vibrations and current shifts in the water. What might sound adventurous in reality means nothing more than that the mer floats through the water close to the surface and stares holes in the air while his fins twitch every now and then. He is back at drifting, side still stinging where his tattoo burns relentlessly, but this time he is drifting with a purpose. It's a better kind of drifting than before.

Then at the fourth day he feels a vehicle approaching, movement of the stirred up water similar to a certain boat he knows.

Still Jimin dives under and comes back up in a safe distance far behind it. Just to make sure. The boat soon turns around and heads in his direction. Jimin stays where he is and waits, watching. The burst of energy he expected stays out this time, he just passively floats on the spot. No matter what Jeongguk will and won't do, he is still human. And humans are cruel. He learned that bit of truth the hard way more than once.

A strong wave of nausea threatens to hit him when he thinks of the impaled mermaid's body and his eyes twitch shut at a phantom scream sounding in his eyes, a sound he only ever heard once from his best friend.

Before the emotions can overwhelm him and drag him back down he shoves them far away and shuts them out. It's better to feel nothing than too much sometimes. And he doesn't want to break down in front of Jeongguk. Or in front of anybody.

So when the boat changes course slightly, directly aiming at him and a familiar head pops over the reiling, Jimin stays silent. Merely lifts his head in greetings.

"Jimin! There you are, I've been looking for you forever, what happened, where-"

The excited ramble cuts off and Jimin can tell exactly in which moment the human must notice his empty eyes. His utter lack of response. His stillness, a stark contrast to his former behavior.

Where his own eyes are dead, Jeongguk's are with life, expressive as always, now overflowing with concern, confusion, insecurity.

"What in the world happened to you," the human breathes.

Well, seems Jeongguk has to find that answer by himself because at this point Jimin doesnt know anymore either.

Jimin kind of wants to curse his sh*tty memory. Now more than ever.

He is not quite sure how it happens exactly but at some point Jimin meekly asked Jeongguk if he so much as happened to know a nice safe cave far away that was unoccupied for him to live in.

The human had gotten this really weird expression he didn't quite know to read and then before he could comprehend anything, strong large hands were grabbing him at the armpits and pulling, heaving him onto the boat in one mighty swoop. And then after Jeongguk had scrambled free from under him they had set off at breakneck speed, to the shore. Jimin thinks he's called the human all kinds of profanities the closer they got to human civilization, to him being seen, to danger. The latter had barely listened, stuffed him in his own leather jacket - Jimin was positively drowning in it - and wrapped a huge fuzzy blanket all around his tail.

What had followed was the walk of shame. Jimin had no other name for it. With the human picking him up and carrying him what he called 'bridal style' all the way from the boat to an impressive house that seemed to be his home. Jimin's whole head had been flaming red during the walk, his arms scrambling for purchase around Jeongguk's back and his whole body trembling as they passed humans, humans everywhere, so many of them, and they were staring, they were looking at him-

At some point he must've fainted because there are some gaps in his memory.

Anyway, by some miracle they made it. And now here he is, a fully grown merman stuffed in a tiny tub-thing, tail folded twice to fit in and water splashing over with the slightest movement. Jimin gives the human the silent treatment, staring up accusingly for at least ten minutes, trying his very hardest to express his distaste for the whole disaster of a situation.

Leave it to dense Jeongguk to not get anything.

As always.

"What? Why are you looking like that? Do I have something on my face?"

The mer huffs and crosses his arms, droplets of water spraying everywhere. "You know, this is not what I meant when I said 'cave'."

"Well you needed a place to go, didn't you?"

"But this is not a cave!"

"And your point is?"

"My point..." Jimin guffawks. "This is not a cave. I only do caves."

"Yes yes, I heard you the first time. And I am working on the cave thing okay, but it will take a few days. And it might get quite loud."

Jimin sinks further into the tub until only his eyes are above water. "Fantastic," he murmurs, bubbles forming at his mouth. The he goes completely underwater, dismissing Jeongguk.

He doesn't talk to the human for the rest of the week and opts for staring at the different shampoo bottles, trying to teach himself reading the human language and giving up when he notices there are various different languages printed on the tags.

At the end of the sixth day the horrible noises finally stop. Jimin hears numerous men talking and then leaving as loudly as they came one day after Jimin's arrival. A few minutes later the lock in the bathroom door clicks and Jeongguk comes in, armed with a familiar fuzzy blanket.

He carries Jimin down the stairs and some more, through different rooms Jimin doesn't know the purpose of and into a big, really big room - that holds an entire pond.

Jimin gasps. It's incredible. The pond seems to be almost as big as Yoongi's, made of rough gray stone, but more irregular in its form. And it's deep. Through the clear water Jimin can see an opening in the wall, it almost looks like - Jeongguk carries him down a few stairs leading straight into the pond, clothes on and all and then just drops the mer into the water, Jimin immediately shooting down to that hole - a cave! He squeaks. A whole underwater cave. It's bare except for some sand covering the ground but Jimin loves it nonetheless.

The mer shoots up and pulls Jeongguk down into the water completely as he crushes him in a tight hug.

"Thank you."

He doesn't even remember when the numbness left him but he suspects that somehow it must be Jeongguk's fault.

"Thank you," Jimin rasps again.

The human only squeezes his hips in answer.

The mer lets go and goes off to explore what he supposes is his new pond.

Once he is done, Jeongguk calls him over where he sits on the rim, legs dangling in the water and lots of book-ish things next to him.

"I didn't know what you like so I thought you might to want to choose your uhm, interior, by yourself."

Jimin raises an eyebrow. "My what?"

"I don't know, okay?! But look, I brought many journals and ads of pet shops and stuff like that and, yeah." He points at the mass of the book-ish things.

Jimin hoists himself up next to him and grabs the first of those things. The paper is horribly flimsy and before he knows it, the first few pages are shredded. He mumbles an apology, then takes a closer look. "Wait, so they... they sell... sea stuff?"

"Yes, they... well I just thought you might want to choose your favorite algae or something for your cave or, uhm..."

The mer snorts. Favorite algae. What even?

But after a few minutes he seems to get the hang out of journals and like this they spend the next hours crouched over countless advertisements, Jimin pointing at stuff he likes or that reminds him of his home. He tries to tell Jeongguk a bit about the different plants and animals but as expected it is a lost cause.

The room doesn't have windows so he can't really tell but it must be evening when Jeongguk gets up to fetch something to eat. He comes back with two big bowls of rice and meat and two sets of sticks. 'Chopsticks', he calls them, demonstrating Jimin how to hold them and use them.

The mer doesn't get it and just uses his hands, as usual. Jeonguk watches him barf down the whole meal with something like pain on his face. Jimin just his fingers and grins at him.

Once they are both done, Jeongguk scurries away to bring the bowls back to wherever he got them from.

Jimin uses the chance to dip his head under, floating right beneath the surface with lazy fin movement and just taking everything in. Breathes in the water, that is so much cleaner, tastes so different from what he is used to and it's only now he realizes how badly polluted his home waters must be, now as he tastes the difference to clean, crystal-clear water. It makes his eyes burn when he thinks of his home, of how bad all the things humans do must be for the sea, of how he didn't even notice anymore. The picture of the elders pops up in his head, of the nasty glares as they banned him. And then of all the other merfolks he knows.

And it's like a current shift. From one blink to another the stone-made pond seems too dark, too small, too cold. The tattoo on his side burns while the cave walls get closer, creeping up on him.

Jimin comes up gasping heavily and looks around, frantic jerks of his head making his vision swim. A wave of cold swaps through him, full-body-shudder wrecking him. The walls of the room are too solid, too close, letting on nothing of what's behind. Jimin feels like being pressed into a box, body too big, skin taunt and room so, so small. And for the first time since he left the sea, heavy doubts settle in him if this really was the right decision. He already misses his home, the sea, and everything it means. Its wasteness, all the other creatures, the dangers and wonders it holds, the never-ending movements of the tides, the variety. The promise of freedom on his tongue.

His heart beats as if it wants to get out of its confinements too, skull throbbing to the rhythm. Jimin flinches at the loud echoing sounds of his own harsh breathing. It's the only sound in the room - his breathing and the deeafening sound of his own heartbeat. He closes his eyes and for a second he thinks he can hear a familiar faint scream.

Jeongguk's heavy footsteps announce his return way before the human enters the room again. Jimin braces his hands on the pond's edge, rough stone cutting into his palms, and tries to get his breath under control. He doesn't want to seem ungrateful.

When Jeongguk comes up at him with their chessboard, wide grin plastered all over his face, the mer stretches his lips into a smile. His skull is still thobbing, his tattoo searing him from inside-out. But the younger looks so happy and eager Jimin doesn't say a word about it.

They play chess for the next few hours and soon enough Jimin forgets his little panic attack or whatever it had been. He even giggles at the way Jeongguk flails his arms like a fish out of water, mumbling some nonsense before retreating hastily with a shouted 'Good night'. Jimin thinks that might have been a hug, might have been a goodnight-kiss but he isn't too sure. This is new territory for the both of them.

And then the cold creeps back in full-force.

Once Jeongguk is gone, Jimin feels more lonely than ever. , vulnerable. Overwhelmed, as sounds from the neighborhood hit him from all sides, reminding him of the dangerous closeness to many humans. He doesn't belong here. Shouldn't be here. Maybe he is a big fool for trusting Jeongguk so much, for trusting him with his life.

The lone mer sends a prayer to the mother of whales and then slowly, so slowly sinks down to the ground of his pond. Floats into the man-made cave and curls into a tight ball, hands clasping over his ears. He wishes he could turn off his ears. Or his brain. But, Jimin thinks, as sleep finally claims him, he needs to get used to all this now. To what he supposes is his new home.

Even if he already came to hate it within the first few hours.

In another room Jeongguk lays awake, wondering how the hell he is supposed to maintain for a merman and keep him hidden. And how he ended up in this situation to begin with.

He doesn't know how things are going to develop from here-on. But one thing is for sure: his life will never be dull again. Not now, not when he has a merman - when he has Jimin - living in his basement.

Jeongguk just hopes he won't mess up.

A/N: ...Ooookay this chapter turned out way more depressing than I planned. My bad ahahaha ^^;

I hope you still like it a bit.

Tell me what you think?

Comments keep me alive, so please share your thoughts with me ^^ might get me to write faster.