-------

The sound of his 7:30 alarm going off jolts Baekhyun out of his sleep.

With a groan, he slowly gets up and moves to turn his phone's alarm off. Then, he contemplates on either getting ready for work now or sleeping in for just a few more minutes. And unsurprisingly, the latter is just way more tempting to him.

So, with a mental reminder to try and wake up in like ten minutes, Baekhyun goes back to sleep.

---

When he wakes up again, he feels a bit more well-rested and takes his time getting up before he goes to check his phone again. And like the unfunniest joke from life ever, it's now 8:30 instead of 7:30. So, with a screech, Baekhyun hurries to get ready for work; going to use the bathroom, taking a quick- shower, getting dressed, brushing his teeth--all that. And by the time he's ready, it's a quarter 'til nine, which is when he's supposed to be at work.

So, he quickly knocks on Kyungsoo's door to let him know that he's heading out only to stop before fully jogging away when he hears the sound of something hitting the floor repeatedly from inside the room.

"...Soo-soo?" he questions, going back to the door.

No answer.

So, he knocks again. Harder. "Soo-soo, mind if I come in?"

Still no answer.

"Okay...I-I'm coming in," Baekhyun says, starting to feel incredibly anxious now as he opens the door.

And what he sees leaves him both stunned and confused. Because Kyungsoo's safe and sound in his bed, fast asleep, while an unknown man's sleeping on the floor, his legs tossing and turning every now and then.

Well that explains that thumpin' noise, Baekhyun thinks.

He then thinks about work, and how he's probably gonna be late as now and so quickly calls his boss to let them know that he'll be late by like fifteen minutes or so. They laugh, unsurprised by this, and just tell him that as long as he comes in, everything's good. Baekhyun laughs too and they say their Later's before he pockets his phone again and walks further into the room.

This unknown man's hot as , and at a closer look, Baekhyun sees that the man's wearing Kyungsoo's favorite board shorts. Baekhyun then chuckles to himself, contemplating on taking a picture of this scene to tease Kyungsoo later, but instead just inwardly cheers since Kyungsoo must've obviously had with this fine- man.

So, he turns to leave the room, mentally reminding himself to tease Kyungsoo when he comes back from work, and heads out.

-------

A few hours later, Kyungsoo jolts awake and quickly moves towards the edge of the bed to see if Jongin's actually there. And he instantly feels elated to see that Jongin's still there and sleeping on the floor.

With a sigh, Kyungsoo then sits up properly and just stares at the back of Jongin's head for a second as he fully wakes up. Then, he gets up out of bed and stretches a bit, twisting his waist to and fro and whatnot, before he walks over to Jongin and bends down to his height.

While asleep, Jongin looks so peaceful and elegant, practically like he's royalty or something. Kyungsoo then wonders to himself if maybe Jongin's some long-lost mer-prince who escaped his duties to see the upper world. And so, he finds himself in this position, just watching Jongin sleep for a bit more before he gets back up, puts on his glasses, and quietly sets about starting his day.

Luckily, he'd asked for a week off of work prior to this whole discovering Jongin situation so he has one less thing to stress about. But as he goes about making some ginger lemon tea for himself and waits for the tea to brew, he starts panicking a bit as he thinks of what could happen after the week is up. How would he take care of Jongin? And how long would he have to do that as well?

Questions like that run through his mind even after he's drank his tea, taken a long shower, and gone back to his room with Jongin still asleep on the floor. While taking in deep breaths to try and stay calm, Kyungsoo cleans up a bit--switching out his old bedsheets for freshly-washed ones etc to try and distract himself.

This first official day of his vacation's supposed to be just him completely relaxing. But, a whole- merman staying with him and his for-now oblivious best friend is definitely gonna complicate things.

---

Close to noon, Jongin finally wakes up with a groan, and Kyungsoo's brought out of the webcomic that he was reading on his laptop and quickly looks down at the floor to see Jongin pushing himself up to sit and pushing his long hair away from his face.

Quickly, he sets down his laptop before he goes towards the edge of the bed and asks Jongin if he's feeling alright. Jongin flinches and turns around with wide eyes before he seems to relax at the sight of him.

"Oh! Hi again, Kyungsoo," Jongin says with a bright smile. Amazingly, his blue and yellow eyeshadow isn't smudged at all. "Yes, I slept well, and what about yourself?"

Kyungsoo's stomach flip-flops at that. "I--um yeah, somehow I slept like a baby too haha."

Jongin tilts his head curiously at that before his stomach suddenly growls out loud. And the way that his eyes widen and his cheeks raise in embarrassment causes Kyungsoo to laugh.

"Let's get ya some food, yeah?" he then says while getting up, and Jongin lets out an Alright in response as he gets up too. "Hm, though uh would you want some seaweed chips to start off with?"

"Sure! Though um, what exactly are seaweed chips anyways?" Jongin asks as he starts doing a few stretches.

And so, as if they've done this many times before, they both walk side-by-side out of his room as Kyungsoo explains about the basics of seaweed chips and leads Jongin towards the kitchen.

"Sound good?" Kyungsoo then asks as he opens the pantry cupboard to find said seaweed chips.

Jongin just nods his head with crinkled eyes and a smile. And again, Kyungsoo feels butterflies appear in his stomach at that and he soon finds the seaweed chips (hidden behind Baekhyun's ramen stash) and blushes as he hands it to Jongin and their fingers brush against each other's.

Jongin then brings the package closer to his face and begins examining it with a pout, turning it over in his hand and letting out hums every now and then. And before Kyungsoo can even ask if he needs help to open it, Jongin puts his hands at the top and rips it open with ease.

Jongin's lips then part as he pulls open the tray of seaweed chips and he grabs one before bringing it up to his nose and smelling it with closed eyes. Then, he opens back his eyes and grins before he puts the square chip in his mouth. And as soon as he does, he covers his mouth with his hand and looks down at Kyungsoo, who worriedly asks him if he's okay.

Jongin just nods his head with wide eyes before whispering, "This is the best seaweed meal that I've ever had."

And Kyungsoo can't help but chuckle with relief at that. It starts off slow but then builds up to a real, long laugh and Jongin slowly lowers his hand from his mouth to look at him with awe.

Once Kyungsoo's calmed down, he finds that Jongin's still looking at him with amazement before the latter softly smiles at the eye contact. Those damn butterflies then appear in his stomach again and Kyungsoo shyly smiles before he tells Jongin that he'll definitely buy some more seaweed chips for him to have then.

Jongin grins wide at that and says Thank you, and Kyungsoo feels like he's looking at the sun because of how beautiful and bright that smile is. And just like with the actual sun, Kyungsoo has to look away at some point, so he quickly turns back around and goes back to the pantry cupboard to rummage around for any more snacks that he could give Jongin. Which reminds him...what else would Jongin even eat?

So, he ends up turning back around to Jongin as he asks him, and blushes fiercely when he sees Jongin's eyes quickly flit up from what was probably his to his eyes, his own cheeks raised. Jongin shyly rubs the back of his own neck as he then lists off some very specific sea creatures that he likes to eat.

"So um, essentially any fish of the sea is fine. And sea vegetables like seaweed is a must-have for me too. And then just some water to drink and yes, I think I should be fine," Jongin says.

"Does the fish have to be alive or dead though?" Kyungsoo asks, adjusting his glasses a bit.

Jongin simply shrugs. "Either is fine."

"Alright, dead it is. There's no way in hell I'm watching you eat some poor little fishy while it's still wriggling around." Jongin just smiles at that. "Okay, next question, and it's probably something I should've asked you way earlier but like--how are we communicating so easily with each other right now? Is it 'cause of that necklace of yours?"

And Jongin's eyes widen at that. "How did you know?"

"Ha, let's just say I play a lot of uh...recreational activities that uh have to do with fantastical creatures and whatnot."

Jongin pouts. "Oh, o-okay." He then moves to hold the bottom of his conch-shaped necklace and lifts it up. "So, um yes this adornment I wear--it was a gift from my father before his passing...And before him, a gift from his mother, and her mother, and her father and so forth--"

"Ahh, so like a family heirloom?" Kyungsoo responds.

"I--yes--I suppose so. Um, but back to your question...So, this adornment gives its wearer the ability to translate any spoken language around it and also the opposite. So whenever you're speaking to me, I hear my birth-language while you must be hearing your current one and seeing the proper mouth movements and such."

Kyungsoo lets out another Ahh as he takes this information in.

"Yes, though so the only thing that my adornment can't do is translate everything for me. It tries--it really does--but some words just don't translate well either way."

"Oh, I definitely get what you mean by that. Us humans have this one translating system that has...very rudimentary translating abilities, so to speak. We only use it if we're desperate basically haha."

"...Yes," Jongin simply responds.

"Haha, so um...does it ever come off then--the necklace, I mean?" Kyungsoo then asks.

And Jongin shakes his head. "No, not unless I willingly lift it off of my neck. No matter the situation or circumstance, it will always stay on and can never break."

Kyungsoo whistles appreciatively at that. "That's some magic."

Jongin grins. "Yes, I know. My ancestor was the one who created it and they were said to be a most powerful magic-user. Sought for across all of the territories and ever benevolent."

There's a short lull in their conversation then as Kyungsoo mulls this over before he comes up with another question.

"...So, that necklace...you said it can translate any spoken language, right?...So does that mean you could talk to fish and plankton and all of the creatures from down below?"

"Yes, though not because of my adornment. Every merperson has the ability to communicate with another sea creature just by thinking."

Kyungsoo's jaw drops at that and his eyes widen. "Holy . You mean like telepathy?!"

Jongin ends up widening his eyes too at his exclamation and shyly nods his head. And Kyungsoo realizes that Jongin must think that he's shocked in a bad way, so he quickly assures him that it's the complete opposite.

And so, the two of them continue chatting in the kitchen for who knows how long, Jongin explaining about some more things while eating from a few packets of dried anchovies that Kyungsoo hands him and all while answering Kyungsoo's many, many questions.

---

Later, once Kyungsoo's just about to ask this one question about dolphins, Jongin's face suddenly scrunches up in pain and his hands turn into fists.

"Jongin?" Kyungsoo asks, concerned.

Jongin doesn't respond and simply looks at him with furrowed eyebrows and eyes that show that he's feeling pain somewhere.

", did you get like stabbed when ya washed ashore and I didn't notice?!" Kyungsoo asks before he quickly looks around at Jongin's body, trying to take note of any external injury.

But all he sees are the two faint scars on Jongin's buff arms (something that Jongin had already explained happened when he'd fought a swordfish this one time), and those bright, swirling tattoos on his wrists. Though, wait.

"Have your tattoos always been so bright?" he asks him.

Jongin shakily brings his hands up before his face scrunches up again, his tattoos suddenly glowing like a flickering light.

", is it a signal from someone o-or something? You're not gonna die right? , what do I do?" Kyungsoo worriedly asks.

Jongin just lets out a dry, stuttered breath.

"Is it water? A-are you dehydrated?"

Jongin closes his eyes and knits his eyebrows together before he lets out another stuttery breath and nods. So, without another thought, Kyungsoo quickly goes towards the cupboard where the cups and mugs are at, grabs a huge drink mug and turns on the tap to fill it with some water. Then, as he turns to hand it to Jongin, he remembers that Jongin's from the sea and starts worrying over whether freshwater (with some added minerals) would make things worse.

So, he quickly sets the mug down and yanks open the spice rack tray to look for some kosher salt. Then, after finding it, he dumps in a -ton