---

Around an hour later, a delivery person drops off their food at the door and a freshly-showered Baekhyun takes the food from their hands with a Thanks before closing the door behind himself and setting the food down on the small coffee table in front of the couch.

Kyungsoo and Jongin are already seated together at the couch as he comes over with the food and after Baekhyun opens the bag and takes out the containers, Kyungsoo helps him with sorting out whose food is whose. When Kyungsoo sets down Jongin's food in front of him, Jongin give the cutest grin and says Thank you and Kyungsoo tries not to ing swoon. Then, he sits down with his own food and Baekhyun sits on the other side of him with his food before the three of them dig into their meals.

While Kyungsoo and Baekhyun use their own hands and chopsticks to eat, Jongin practically inhales his fish as he brings it up to his face and gnaws on it like a grizzly bear would gnaw on a deer antler. Kyungsoo can't help but pause his own eating to watch Jongin eat, and dramatically turns to Baekhyun when Jongin chews on the fish bones for a bit before swallowing the entire fish skeleton whole. Baekhyun cackles at his expression and that causes Jongin to pause his eating as he looks over at the two of them and lets out a curious hum.

"Jongin, I-I never thought I'd have to ask anyone this but, can I see the inside of your mouth real quick please?" Kyungsoo asks him while adjusting his glasses.

Jongin furrows his eyebrows in confusion at that. "Um, sure alright? Though...how so?"

"Like this," Kyungsoo replies before opening his own mouth wide.

Jongin's eyes widen at that and his cheeks raise before his eyes flit from Kyungsoo's open mouth to his eyes and back and suddenly Kyungsoo realizes how this must ing look right now. So, while blushing himself he closes back his mouth and is about to tell Jongin Nevermind when Jongin does the same thing and opens his mouth wide.

And besides the fact that Jongin's mouth can open pretty ing wide and could probably take in a whole fist...there are also two sharp molars set sideways in his mouth between what would be the normal set of teeth! Kyungsoo's mouth drops open a bit as he stares and takes in the sight of the extra teeth, and he can feel Baekhyun leaning on him a bit as the latter lets out a Woah.

Jongin then closes back his mouth and reaches for his food again just as Baekhyun says, Holy , I've got so much to ask ya about now!

Jongin chuckles at that. "Hehe, anything in particular?"

"Yeah! Okay, first how deep in the ocean didya live? Like bottom? Middle part? Top?"

Kyungsoo side-eyes him, wondering if there's somehow any ual innuendos in those questions, but Jongin just purses his lips as he thinks about it. "...I suppose it was more towards the surface because um we'd still have the brightest light shine down on our homes. Though, my birthplace is still deep enough that no human has ever reached it and lived."

"...Why not?" Baekhyun asks, eyes flitting to Kyungsoo's for a quick second. "'Cause of the pressure, right?"

"Oh, well I'm not quite sure myself. Although, that does sound fairly correct because I've heard tales of certain humans with things covering their faces swimming too far down and then...hm."

None of them say anything for a moment as he frowns and Jongin goes back to eating his food before Kyungsoo asks him if he's seen any humans before today.

Surprisingly, Jongin shakes his head. "No, I've only heard tales from my family about the looks of humans and how we probably had a common ancestor...But you, Kyungsoo--" He softly smiles. "--um you were the first human that I've ever seen with my own eyes. And I thought to myself, if every human is as beautiful as you then I may just want to stay on land forever hehe."

Kyungsoo's lips part and unpart as he doesn't know how to respond to that and Baekhyun just leans over to high-five Jongin--causing Jongin to flinch and lean back with wider eyes.

"Oh , my bad!" Baekhyun replies. "I just--um, up here in our culture we do this--" He high-fives his own hand. "--like as a way of sayin' nice!"

"O-oh," Jongin replies before leaning forward to high-five him properly.

And Baekhyun grins. "Yeah haha, basically that was a smooth- pick-up line and so if ya wanna date Soo-soo in the future, I definitely give my stamp of approv--"

Kyungsoo lightly swats Baekhyun's cheek at that while blushing fiercely and Baekhyun just laughs and dramatically coos over his red ears. Kyungsoo then chances a glance at Jongin and feels those damn butterflies appear in his stomach when he notices that Jongin moved just a bit closer to him. There's barely even a gap of space between them now and if he leaned over even a little bit, they'd be bumping arms.

He kinda wants to ask Jongin if everything's alright as he sees the latter pouting again, though thing is, when he looks up at Jongin's eyes, Jongin quickly looks away with his cheeks raised again. All of their food's finished by now as they sit there in a short silence before Kyungsoo turns back to Baekhyun and asks, So, um...how was work?

"Ahh, work was fine. Same ol', same ol'. But hey we got a whole- merman with us! I still got so much to ask ya, Jongin!"

Jongin blinks at that and says Alright before Baekhyun asks if he can speak in his birth-language to them. Kyungsoo then speaks up for him first as he tells Baekhyun about Jongin's necklace and its magic and whatnot.

"Huh, so only if ya lift it off? So, if ya do that then put it back on, we'll be able to communicate again then, right?" Baekhyun asks him.

Jongin nods his head.

"Then, can ya do that real quick, please?" Baekhyun begs, pouting dramatically. "I wanna hear how ya sound without it for like just a second."

Jongin then looks at Kyungsoo who shrugs. And so with that, Jongin looks down at his own chest for a second as he lifts the bottom of his necklace up and then over his head. And as soon as the necklace is off of him, he speaks and though his tone sounds the same, the words obviously just sound like gibberish to the two of them.

Baekhyun then asks Jongin if he can understand them at all, to which Kyungsoo lightly swats his arm for the dumb question and Jongin just tilts his head in confusion. Then, surprisingly Baekhyun smirks and says Good before he looks at Kyungsoo and says I think he likes ya, Soo-soo~

Kyungsoo sputters and looks from Jongin to Baekhyun and back before shaking his head. "Nah, nah, there's no--"

"Bruh, he literally just said you're the most beautiful person he's ever seen and he'd stay on land for your --I literally don't know how else he could make it clearer."

Kyungsoo then looks back at Jongin whose eyes crinkle at the eye contact before Jongin puts back on his necklace and tells them that their language sounds very strange yet wondrous to him. Kyungsoo basically tells Jongin likewise before Baekhyun interrupts them by asking Jongin if his necklace helps him speak with any creature.

And Kyungsoo groans at that. "Ugh, I already told ya about the necklace, Baekhyunnie. Were you not listening to me earlier?"

"Um, I'm sorry, it's not like I was in shock over discoverin' that mer-people are in' real or anythin'."

Kyungsoo rolls his eyes. "Fine, I'll give ya that."

"Anyways, so Jongin, so I have a little Betta fish--um, basically a fish from freshwater--named Myongie in my room and so like, if we went to his lil' tank and --would ya be able to communicate with him?"