Under the foam of the ocean, beneath the breaking waves and push and pull of tides, mingling among swirling currents and dancing kelp fields—much closer than humans care to imagine—live merfolk.

Merfolk like to say they mind their own business, but they’re really a curious, nosy sort. Can’t leave well enough alone even when they should know better.

That inquisitiveness touches the pearls they wear and extends to the furthest ends of the ocean, wherever those may be, and reaches between the sandy bottom they sweep with their tails and the surface where they’re taught to avoid.

Among these curious creatures, neither the most nor the least, is Chanyeol.

Chanyeol lives in a nice little valley surrounded by tall rocks where the currents are never strong, predators rarely enter, and the sunlight filters clear to the sandy floor. Everyone loves being out of their homes to enjoy the daytime. Energy peaks, then, charging them all for singing and playing until the day burns away to night.

Being a rather handsome merman, Chanyeol never has any shortage of partners, which sometimes annoys his friends. Baekhyun warns him that admiring his image in the reflecting ponds is not what they are for, and it he’s not careful, something bad will happen.

He never has a creative enough response to say what will happen, however.

So Chanyeol laughs and ignores him.

His truest pride is his tail. While his hair is a vibrant red like precious coral, his tail embodies every color of the ocean. Algae greens shimmer effortlessly into aquamarine blues and fairy wrass purples; queen conch pink and lionfish oranges shoot like lightning down his dorsal side. It’s incredibly long; he will sometimes grab the tail fin and spin roll tail over head, for no other reason than the dizziness makes him giggly. His favorite pastime is sunbathing and admiring the way the light makes his scales sparkle and shine with all the colors of the world.

When he’s a little older, a little bolder, he leaves the nice little valley more often to explore. He’s strong enough to fight the currents and knows which coral and jellyfish to avoid, which shrimp are snacks and which are spitfiring enemies, and how to determine if a shadow overhead is a predator or not.

Baekhyun a sporty, sleek-bodied merman, tags along a few times, dragging along a fingerling to impress him with adventure or terrify him into never leaving home—Chanyeol’s not sure. The poor kid barely left any room for Baekhyun to move his tail and ended up cutting himself on the spines of Baekhyun’s dorsal fin and sped home, crying about sharks.

There hasn’t been a shark in the area for years.

But the young merman didn’t know that, and there’s nothing wrong with being overcautious.

Chanyeol just laughed at him. Baekhyun called Chanyeol stupid and insulting.

Yet, they remain friends. A unit since birth. Where one goes, the other will usually follow.

Until they reached the end of the ocean.

For as long as Chanyeol can remember, there has always been a bottom. Sandy ground. He can lie on it, burrow into it, sift through it for oysters, or kick it up to murk up the water.

Clinging to a rock beside Baekhyun, Chanyeol gapes at the vast nothingness. The sand simply stops—dropping away to open water that darken to night the further they look.

The Depths.

They’ve heard about it. Elders warn everyone to not get too close, or they’ll fall. No one knows where they’ll fall… Nobody’s ever come back from the Depths to tell.

It’s a cold place, seemingly rejecting any light or warmth. Some fish swim over it with no worries, but most fish aren’t that bright.

After a few moments staring into the abyss, a feeling like many scrambling crab legs breaks out over the flesh of his arms, and he feels something pull his attention up, forcibly pushing his head back.

The surface is far away. Shadows swim overhead. Fish circle around a massive shadow that moves in a straight on, over the top of the water itself.

“I don’t like this… Let’s go back.” Baekhyun takes his arm and starts to swim home. Chanyeol challenges him to a race. They don’t talk about the strange place they saw or the enormous, inorganic creature..

Which is not to say Chanyeol stopped thinking about it. It’s an adventure. He knows just about everything there is to know about his home and its immediate surroundings. He knows the fish who have built their homes nearby; he’s familiar with the barnacles on the bones of the old whale carcass on the outskirts.

The Depths are impossible, but the surface? A total mystery. An adventure just waiting to be had. Things will appear on the ocean floor that come from humans. Sometimes even humans themselves drift down, either wrecked or thrown. They taste different. The layered accessories they wear are best torn away; they have no flavor in themselves.

His conscious mind returns to thoughts of the unknown world overhead again and again over the next few days. He doesn’t confide in anyone; the thoughts, dreams, and plans are his alone.

How to get to the surface? Humans are somewhat similar, to a degree. But he doesn’t know what he’d do if he even made it to where humans are. He doesn’t want to stick out too much.

The idea comes up unexpectedly. A of brilliance. No one can prepare a person for adventure better than a sea witch. A friend of a friend once fell for a human and went to a sea witch for advice; no one’s seen them since. They’re probably on land with their beloved, living however humans do.

There’s a popular legend about a kind human who freed four mermaids from a human’s net, and they were all lifelong friends. Human lives are very short, however; the mermaids went to a witch and each offered parts of their own lives to their human friend.

No one knows how long their combined lives lasted within the human. He may have outlived his own great grandchildren.

Chanyeol doesn’t like the story all that much.

Jongin says his sisters talk about a sea witch living in an old sunken ship—a human vessel that carries them on top of water. It’s just on the edge of the Depths, so only stupid or desperate merfolk go there.

And Chanyeol, who’s neither stupid nor desperate. He’s brave, adventurous, and bold. A poor combination for a young merman.

Without telling his friends, he swims until there’s only darkness ahead and sits beside a large fan mussel. It doesn’t flinch when he pulls a silken strand from its hold on the rock, winding it around his fingers.

There’s nothing. No ship. Nothing a ship could rest on.

Maybe it’s already fallen.

Slithering like an eel, he peers over the edge of his world. It may just be dark; there could be soft sand or rock within reach, but he just can’t see it.

Something darts from the Depths so close Chanyeol feels the bubbles from its movement over his face. They tread water, and Chanyeol gapes.

They’re a merman he’s never seen before. Not nearly as long as Chanyeol is, and his flesh and scales are strangely dark, like solid night. Woven silk covers his eyes and wraps around his neck and head. “What are you doing?”

“Looking?”

“What for?”

“A witch?” Chanyeol coils back on his tail and rubs his neck. “I-I heard a witch lives around here, and I was gonna ask them for a favor...” Even with the silk over the other’s face, Chanyeol feels as though he’s being stared at. Or through.

“What could you possibly want with a witch?”

“I want to be where the people are.”

Unexpectedly, the stranger smiles. “Would you like to play a game?”

“Like a race? A treasure hunt?” Chanyeol loves games. He’s very competitive and is used to winning.

The stranger waves a hand, pulling Chanyeol from his seat. “Follow me.”

“Okay.” Chanyeol spins onto his back and follows upside down. “But you’re not the witch, are you?” He catches the small nod and eagerly backflips to swim beside him. “Do you really know magic? Can you grant wishes? What’s your name?”

“You could say that I grant wishes, and my name is Joonmyun.”

“You’re not nearly so scary as people say.”

His companion is silent.

“They say you’re an ugly witch. I mean—your scales aren’t as gorgeous as mine, but I’ve seen worse.”

“How kind.”

Chanyeol shivers. Looking up, he can barely see the light. “Well, since you’re the witch, what I was hoping was something that would help me find out about the surface. Humans. What’s there, what it’s like to be there, who people are. It’s just so mysterious, and I—”

“We’re here.”

“Oh, wow! A real sunken ship!” Jongin’s sisters were right. “This is a treasure hunt, isn’t it?” Humans like to carry important things on their ships and are upset when they’re lost. They're often pretty, shiny things. Sometimes weird material that tangles around their fins or disintegrates entirely, leaving a shell behind. Chanyeol’s good at finding things.

“In a sense.” Joonmyun slips beside Chanyeol, into an open space that immediately widens into a wide, tall cavern covered in barnacles with kelp growing from the sand that’s spilled inside. “This ship is my home. And I can help you, but you have to pass my challenge.”

Chanyeol shrugs, surreptitiously looking around for treasure for a head start. “Sure.”

Joonmyun smiles wide. His teeth are sharp and multi-rowed. He pulls bottles and shells from an old chest and shelves, dropping them into a sort of coral basin. They don’t act as they should, being underwater, instead dropping instantly and breaking apart with thunder and lightning.

Smoke billows from the basin’s opening, moving with purpose towards Chanyeol. Scared and curious, he doesn’t swim away but cries out when his tail is covered by the turbid water. He feels it beneath his scales, within his very flesh.

Then it’s gone, recoiling with a single scale lifted from his tail. It settles on the witch’s waiting palm.

“This is a game?”

He closes his fist around the scale. “You want to visit the surface. A fish belongs in the water. Humans belong on land. Nature is nothing to play with, but once every scale is gone, you’ll have legs to walk on land with. No guarantee about their quality; no refunds or takebacks.

“If you do decide you change your mind,” he shrugs amicably, “you simply need true love’s kiss.”

Chanyeol rubs the bare spot with his palm. It’s not visibly noticeable, but he feels its loss. “You make it sound so simple.”

“It is simple, isn’t it?” The scale is enclosed in a weathered bottle with a glass stopper. It seems to twinkle weakly. “ Aren’t you adored at home?”

He is. He knows he is. Maybe nobody will notice.

The witch finishes his sorting and leaves through a gaping hole in the ship’s side. When Chanyeol follows, he doesn’t see him anywhere.

He’s disappeared.

Chanyeol goes home. He thinks he can feel the missing scale; he’s not moving as fast or as gracefully. He doesn’t tell anyone but his best friend where he’s been, claiming to have been napping and lost track of time by a reflecting pond.

Baekhyun catches Chanyeol’s full speed right in his gut and lashes his own tail fast to slow them down. “Chanyeol, what happened?”

“It’s awful! It’s completely ruined!”

“What is?”

“My tail! Obviously! Just look at it!” He points to the spot missing a scale. It’s indecipherable to Baekhyun, who pats his friend consolingly until Chanyeol explains where he’s actually been, then Baekhyun bites him.

So much for friendly compassion and sympathy.

“You went to a witch? You’re lucky you didn’t lose your life, instead of just your tail!” He pouts at the still splendid tail. “Maybe he was bluffing, because you’re an idiot, and the curse won’t take…”

Remembering the sensation of magic over his scales, Chanyeol shivers and shakes his head. “He said I could break the spell with true love’s kiss.” Hopeful eyes stare moonily, and Baekhyun grimaces.

“The things I do for you…” A peck on the cheek—and an even briefer one on the mouth—do nothing but make his friend turn a little green. “Maybe Sehun can help? Pretty sure he’s got a crush on you, at least.”

“Really?”

But it does nothing except turn Sehun lobster red. There may be color-changing magic in him, Chanyeol thinks.

The prospect of finally experiencing life on land after so long of watching from a distance or dragging himself along sandbars during low tides doesn’t seem as enthusiastic as the days go by. With every rise and fall of the sun, more of his beautiful scales strip off and follow its own strange current, easily dodging when he tries to catch them again.

He kisses everyone he can. Chases down sea turtles and salamanders and even tried kissing a crab—he nearly lost his lips.

Every few failed kisses, Chanyeol returns to Joonmyun’s dilapidated ship. The witch ignores him, for the most part, grunting or sighing as the stressed merman rattles off his recent washouts.

He never tells Chanyeol to leave, though. Chanyeol thinks he must be lonely. Being a witch is probably hard enough without living near the Depths, where any potential friends would be nervous to visit.

He entertains Chanyeol’s questions about his magic but dodges the ones about himself.

Eventually, his tail is noticeably patchy. The flesh is mottled red and sensitive. Swimming becomes more difficult; he can’t move like he used to, and even brushing against rocks forms bruises and cuts that draw tenacious predators.

He doesn’t care about exploring anymore. Humans can just stay where they are and do whatever they do; he’ll meet them when they come down for dinner. Legs can’t be worth literal pieces of himself.

For everyone’s safety, and due to his own shame, Chanyeol leaves home.

No matter how many kisses, how much professed love, nothing changes. He really is cursed.

Cursed to be ugly and alone for the rest of his life. There’s no point in living, if he can’t be beautiful, but he’s too scared to actually die.

So he goes to the only place he won’t be noticed—depths so dark, he won’t his hand in front of his face, muchless the missing features of his tail.

Ignoring the pain of moving and then the creepy crawly feeling along his arms and neck, Chanyeol swims to the Depths and immediately plunges over the edge of his world.

There’s no going back.

Breathing is harder, for some reason. His gills feel like they’re freezing. The farther he goes, the darker it gets. There’s light ahead; he keeps swimming. The light gets closer, fuzzier, darker.

Chanyeol stops swimming.

A hissing vent wakes him. It’s light again. Joonmyun is filing through shelves of old bottles. Without letting the witch know he’s awake, Chanyeol quietly watches.

He always assumed Joonmyun is blind, because of the silk. He looks at each item, however, and sets it back or throws it over his shoulder, where it catches a current and whirls into a trunk.

Stranger still, Chanyeol is struck by how handsome Joonmyun is. Without the threat of magic or cloud of haughty disinterest, Joonmyun has a rather kind, young face.

His tail is cramping, and he tries to move without upsetting the sand, but his fin catches the ire of an oyster, and he snaps upright to fling the offending mollusc away.

Joonmyun doesn’t seem at all surprised. “Finally awake. How do you feel?”

“Okay, I guess?”

“What were you doing in the Depths?”

“I’m too ashamed to be seen in public,” Chanyeol mumbles. “At least no one could see me there.”

Apparently finishing his task, Joonmyun swims to his side. “You nearly killed yourself. Your kind have no tolerance for those depths—that’s why you’re told to stay away.”

“I have nowhere else to go. Nothing has worked.” He cautiously checks for more oysters and lays on his side, grimacing at his soft tail. A new pain tingles straight down from his dorsal fin. “I really am cursed.”

“You’ve given up, then?”

“Kind of have to. There’s no one left to help me. Or even look at me.”

“Yet you stay in their company.” Joonmyun smiles mysteriously. “I will neither help you nor look at you.”

“Aren’t you going through your...stuff?”

“I can see my magic, because it’s mine. My average sight was lost a long time ago.”

“An accident?” His mom’s cousin lost an eye to a fish hook, once. They all pulled the fisherman underwater after that. His hat is still on the wall, held by the hook of a harpoon. “What happened?”

The same mysterious smile.“Retribution.” His eyes are white, like pearls, and stare at his tail. The smile falls to a frown. “I am sorry.”

“About what?”

“I should never have used this spell on you. I’m sorry. I won’t ask for forgiveness— I don’t deserve it.”

“You still have it. You’re lonely, Joonmyun, and that can do funny things.” He rubs his neck and traces the splitting grain of the shiplap. “Although I would rather have my scales, I’m happy to know you. I think you’re too kind, got hurt, and used your magic to cope.”

“I’ve enjoyed your company. If I could break my spell, I would, and just grant you human legs like you’d wanted. I was bitter and angry over my own experience.”

“Well, I’m getting legs, anyway, but...you could come with me?”

“With you, to the surface?” His gills flash open and shut; he touches the silk around his neck and plays with the ends. “Fish belong in the water,” he states.

“What happened to make someone so kind so bitter?”

“What says I’m kind?”

“You saved me. Twice, sort of. You easily could have left me to freeze and drown. You told me exactly what to do to break this curse, if I changed my mind... You’re still here instead of across the ocean.” Joonmyun wants to be a solitary shark, a fish without a school, but he’s lonely.

Chanyeol doesn’t understand that feeling, but he knows he feels best with his friends and family.

“Some turtles used to tell me stories, in passing, about the heat of the sun drying their shells and sun-baked sand sifting under their weight, making walking difficult. The breeze pushing through trees and carrying clear sounds and salt from the ocean spray. I’d wanted to know what it was like. How the sun felt different from stinking volcano vents and what it was like to just not be wet.

“It wasn’t at all what I expected. Creatures immediately took me from the water, carrying me high and far away. I couldn’t fight. I only escaped because another one attacked, trying to tear me apart, and I was dropped in the fight.

“I don’t know how far I fell—I thought my body was broken. I just drifted until I found myself in the Depths...and it felt like home.”

“But—aren’t you just hiding? From a mistake, a scary—legitimately terrifying—experience?”

“Maybe. But it’s safest for a fish to be afraid.”

Chanyeol shakes his head. “There’s way too much fun to live in constant fear. Racing, digging up oysters both for snacks and pearls, napping in sunbeams… Light does reach us, even underwater, and it’s not as dry or whatever, but it still feels pretty good to just lie in the sand and bask in it. I wish you’d let me show you.”

“How?”

“Come home with me. My home. It’s sheltered and very safe.”

“Would they even allow someone who cursed others?”

“I’ll handle them. I’m a bit of a celebrity.”

“Your nose is growing.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Human figure of speech; I read it in a book.

Chanyeol doesn’t know what a book is or how to read or what reading even means, but it can wait. He can tell Joonmyun is tempted but trying to convince himself otherwise.

“I’m used to it here. By myself.”

“You’re really no different than the rest of us. I’d bet they’d all like your magic, if you showed all the good it could do.” He swallows nervously. Joonmyun feels the stressed bubbles escaping his gills. “I want you to come with me.”

“Why?”

“Because—I’d really like you to. I really like you, and the thought of you here, alone, makes me sad.”

“I don’t think they’d want someone like me around them.”

“I do. You’re someone thoughtful, intelligent, compassionate, and proud. You’re someone worth knowing.”

“Someone who cursed you out of spite.”

“Call it a curse, but I see it as a cure, sort of. You’re the first whose curse actually worked,” some unhappy girls tried to make his hair turn into spines, once, “and the only one to make me realize that my actions have consequences I may not want to face.

“But they ultimately lead me to you. Please, Joonmyun… If for some reason it doesn’t go well, we can come back here, but I’m invested, now, and I can’t leave you alone.”

“You’re a pest.”

He’s about to agree when two very cold hand hands touch his neck and jaw. As he notices that he’s not felt pain in his tail, Joonmyun kisses his cheek.

Energy shoots through the water like a sailfish, striking the chest of scales and throwing them from their slumber. Together, they move as one and come to lie across Chanyeol’s soft flesh. There’s an itch, then nothing. His renewed tail flashes when he kicks.

“They’re back! My tail!” He spins in delight but drops sharply to look at the sea witch in confusion. “What happened? Did time run out? I still had scales to lose...” He blushes in realization. “I know I l-like you an awful lot, but do you—? Are we—?”

“Think too hard, and you’ll start to lose your scales from stress again.” Joonmyun reaches out, following Chanyeol’s wake, and catches his arms.

Although elated and feeling extra buoyant, Chanyeol sinks to the sand with a giddy laugh. “You have very pretty eyes, by the way.”

“Thanks. I’m rather attached to them.”

Chanyeol snorts a laugh and leans in to brush Joonmyun’s cheek with his lips. When he turns at the touch, Chanyeol kisses him again.

a/n: Written for Song for You. (prompt no.72 Olivia Lufkin - Liquid Skies (Japanese) "I dream of light | I dream of light It's so dark down here | It's so dark down here I'm a little scared, there is not enough of something | ちょっと怖い 何か足りない The water used to be clear | The water used to be clear)

Boy, did I struggle with this. (Mods, y'all know best. Thank you for your continued patience.) This wasn't supposed to be such a fairy tale, but it just happened that way. And then the cast. There used to be more. Didn't work out. Fished them out. Recast the line repeatedly for my other male lead: First it was Joonmyun, then Jongdae, then back to Joonmyun, then Baekhyun before I remembered that's what the prompter specifically didn't want... orz;;; He was nameless for a while before returning to Joonmyun.

I'm most disappointed in that I didn't find a way to work in "Daddy, I love him!" somewhere...

Chanyeol and his family live in the upper level of the ocean, known as the epipelagic or sunlight zone. Joonmyun's a deep dweller, living between the mesopelagic (twilight) and bathypelagic (midnight) zones. Not sure how well their relationship's gonna go... But true love conquers all, right? Maybe Joonmyun has a magical prince transformation, so rather than glowing in the dark he'll be a ray of sunshine~