Kyungsoo throws another handful of seed onto the ground, humming a pretty tune to himself. The breeze is light today, the sea sending its whispers to the shore who, as always, replies in silence. The chickens at his feet peck at the seed until it’s gone, and Kyungsoo tosses his last handful out. Brushing his hands on his worn jeans, Kyungsoo makes his way back up toward the shack he calls home. He breathes in one last lungful of the briny ocean air before stepping foot into his home, greeted by his scraggly pet cat, Junma. He pats her on the head, knowing she’ll be expecting a treat, but Kyungsoo has nothing for her. She lets out a small mewl, trailing on Kyungsoo’s heels as he throws off his boots by the door and heads into the kitchen. He might throw her a piece of fish if there’s leftovers tonight.

    It rains that night. The wind is so strong, Kyungsoo isn’t sure whether it’s water from the sky or ocean waves hitting the side of his house. He hunkers down in his bedroom, only a step away from his kitchen and living space, under the two blankets he owns and a grumpy Junma who got caught outside at the beginning of the storm. Kyungsoo had toweled her off at the door, not needing anymore damage to his already tattered floors. She hadn’t liked that almost as much as she didn’t like the rain.

    The thunder shakes the whole house, but Kyungsoo doesn’t mind. Really, he likes the rain. The sea brings the most beautiful storms; Kyungsoo just wishes he had a better window to see them through. The singular one he has in his bedroom is made of frail sea glass. Kyungsoo supposes the only reason it hasn’t broken yet is because of how much abuse it took from the sea itself before he had found it on the beach years ago, when he found this house, and crafted into a window that looks perpetually frosted over.

    But Kyungsoo loves his window, loves where it came from, so he’s never had the heart to replace it.

    The next morning is an adventure, needless to say. Junma refuses to put a paw out the door, but Kyungsoo throws on his boots and trudges through the mud the previous day’s storm has created. The chickens aren’t too keen on the mud either, and they especially don’t seem to want to eat off of it.

    Kyungsoo sighs, herding them back into their coop and spreading their feed out there. “Fickle little things...” After squishing his way through the path he’s made over the past two years, Kyungsoo arrives at the edge of a cliff. His house is about 50 meters away from the cliff, on the peak of a small hill, his chicken coop able to be reached in about five steps. Kyungsoo stands on the precipice, looking down at the jagged rocks and crags below, battered constantly by the angry waves of the sea.

    The sun is bright today, and Kyungsoo can spot the sea glass winking at him from the soft sands of the shore, a stark contrast from the rocks just to the left. The ocean twinkles in the bright rays of the morning, and Kyungsoo watches as a large ship slowly moves by, painted against the background of a bright morning horizon. Kyungsoo sighs again and turns back toward his house. He has a long day ahead of him.

~

“Jongin, stay here. I have to take your sister out for a bit. Look after the house, okay?”

Jongin grumbles to himself, but tells his father, yes, he’ll look after their “house.” If it can be called that.

Jongin would never say it out loud, but this place doesn’t feel like home. Not really. Sure, it’s beautiful and magnificent and grand, but Jongin doesn’t want that. He appreciates all the work that goes into keeping this place immaculate, but he doesn’t feel like he belongs. His sisters float around, each with six oysters attached to their beautiful tails to show off their status, even though everyone knows who they are. The whole kingdom knows the royal family, knows that the king is a widower with four lovely daughters and one very handsome son. So Jongin doesn’t see the point in having those annoying oysters clamped on his tail all the time if there’s no need. He likes his tail just fine. It might be plain to some, a solid, shimmering kelly green (the color of seaweed, his father says), but Jongin likes it.

Jongin wanders around the castle, maneuvering his way through the tallest seaweed that reaches through the open arches of the hallway, patting the occasional fish as it swims by. He travels to the end of the hall, leading out into the open sea, an unknown world. He knows the kingdom like the back of his tail fin but, being only seventeen, is not allowed outside of it. All of his sisters are older than him, however, and have told him of the places beyond the kingdom. There’s a world above the ocean, with different animals and things called “humans.” Jongin has heard of them before; his mother had told him stories about the world above the sea, about these so-called humans, and about all the wonders it holds. Ever since, Jongin has wanted to see it.

But he is only seventeen, and in the royal family, one must be eighteen to finally venture up to the surface of the water and beyond the kingdom. His birthday isn’t for another full moon, and there’s an itching under Jongin’s skin like no other for the moon to come and go as fast as it possibly can.

~

    There’s really no excuse for skipping on his meeting with Chanyeol in town, but Kyungsoo doesn’t particularly feel like dealing with the eccentric, red-headed fruit stand man right now. Plus, all his favorite fruits are out of season.

    Instead, Kyungsoo chooses to scour the beach for some more sea glass. He has a pretty collection piling up on the dresser in his bedroom, but he’s had an unspoken urge to look for some lately. The sand is still damp from last week’s storm, making shivers run up Kyungsoo’s spine. The strong winds, cool sea spray, and moist sand against his bare feet, along with the chilly atmosphere of winter, make for a pretty miserable glass-collecting experience. But Kyungsoo does it anyway. He tells himself he’s looking for more green, but all the pieces he ends up picking out are the almost clear color that makes up the pane of his window in the bedroom.

    Kyungsoo’s pockets are heavy when he returns to his home, and so is his heart. He doesn’t know why, though. The sea has always given him a feeling of sadness, the dark, unknown waves not very enticing to him.

    His father was a sailor, and very disappointed by Kyungsoo’s aversion to the sea. Kyungsoo’s mother, however, was encouraging of whatever her son wanted to do. And when he was younger, that was to sing. Kyungsoo sang all the time. His mother always told him a happy child was a child that sang.

    Kyungsoo stopped singing when he was fifteen. His mother already gone by that age, Kyungsoo would only hum and maybe let a few words slip out every once in a while. So when he heard that his father had died at the mercy of the sea on a voyage back home, his vocal chords refused to work anymore. His friend Jongdae, one of the King’s most valued bards, had told him that it was a mind thing. He could sing, he just didn’t want to.

    Kyungsoo begs to differ. He wishes that was the case, but he really can’t sing. Every time he tries, his throat closes up and his tongue feels like cotton in his mouth. It’s an awful feeling, not being able to do what you love most. Kyungsoo just wishes he could be happy again.

~

    The moon is almost full again. Jongin can barely tell through the dark waters that make his view of the moon hazy, but he can still see the slowly swelling jewel in the sky, giving the slightest light to the deep ocean floor. Jongin spends his nights staring at the big white thing in his sky and thinks about how all those humans above him are looking at the same thing, just not through the frosted glass of the ocean.

    “You should be getting some sleep, shouldn’t you?” Jongin’s father’s voice is deep and resounding, yet still quiet when he approaches his son from behind, a strong hand on his shoulder.

    “I’m not tired,” Jongin says, ignoring the way his father removes his hand. He probably sounds too harsh for the day before his eighteenth birthday, when his father will officially crown him prince. Jongin thinks there’s really no point, considering he is the one and only son of his father, the only one capable of being prince. But the coronation is to proceed anyway, a grand event that the whole kingdom attends. Jongin’s already seen four other ones, one for each of his sisters. His won’t be any different.

    His father nods, his adorned crown sparkling in the blue of the water, the light of the moon.

~

    The moon is bright tonight, Kyungsoo notes. Tomorrow it will be full. Tomorrow it’s his birthday.

    He won’t celebrate with anyone. He might get a bouquet of flowers from Minseok, the town florist and Kyungsoo’s friend from when they were boys in school. But he’ll probably just spend it indoors, maybe treat himself and buy a new book from the bookstore in town. He’ll have to see if he can afford it first.

~

    Jongin dozed off about an hour after his father left, when the water was particularly cold, thinking about sparkling jewels and bright moons.

    He wakes up to a bustling kingdom, every fish in the sea it seems moving about to prepare for his coronation later that day. The sun is barely up; Jongin can see it flickering through the rough waves above. He yawns a few times and runs fingers through his inky black hair (his mother had always told him it was the color of obsidian, a stone found only in the hottest places on land) before going to see his father.

    The king is deciding between red or blue stones when Jongin swims up. “Would you like to go now, when the sun is rising?” He asks, not looking away from the stones, both in colors that Jongin doesn’t even like.

    Jongin doesn’t even have to ask to know what his father is talking about. He doesn’t give an answer either, and darts away to the place he’s dreamed of forever, since his mother started telling him stories of things called birds, explaining that they’re like fish, just a little different.

    The water progressively gets warmer as Jongin swims upward, eyes set on the sun he’s only ever seen from beneath the waves.

    When Jongin reaches the surface, he stops just short of breaking the waves. He stills, letting his heart catch up with his head. He takes a few deep breaths, just to try and slow his heart rate, but the adrenaline pumping through his system won’t let his pulse relent. Finally, Jongin pushes himself just that much more farther up, breaking the surface of the water and breathing air for the first time. His lungs adapt immediately, but that’s not what Jongin’s thinking about at the moment.

    He’s too caught up in the way the sun is rising, so much brighter and clearer than it is underneath the surface of the ocean. The colors are more vibrant than the orange and yellow coral that surrounds the castle, and the fading blue above the sun is lighter and softer than any fish that Jongin’s ever seen swim through the kingdom. When the sun becomes too bright to continue looking at, Jongin decides he wants to see everything he’s been dreaming of since he was little -- land. He turns to his right and sees a large mass covered in green, like the color of his tail. Just before that, though, he sees something much more familiar: sand. Of course there’s sand at the bottom of the ocean, but the feeling of dry sand on Jongin’s hands is something completely new. It sticks. Jongin frowns and swishes his hand in the water to wash it away. From his perch on a fairly large rock not too far from the coast, Jongin can only see a giant cliff that blocks his view of anything else.

    So he begins swimming to his left until he sees something besides sand and rock. Eventually he finds that green he saw from so far away when he first breathed air. But it’s too far away to touch.

    Jongin sighs, frowning at the lush green substance that he can’t touch. He swims until just the tip of his tail fin is in the water, and all he can reach is still sand. The feeling of the dry, grainy sediment against his skin is horrible, and Jongin decides if he were ever a human, he would never touch the stuff. He dives back into the water to wash the sand off, then comes back up to a strange noise. On a small rock an arm’s length away is a strange creature Jongin’s never seen before. It has a small white body, with thin, orange sticks as legs. Its lips (or what Jongin supposes are lips) are the same color as its legs, and looks sharp to the touch. When Jongin reaches out to touch the animal (Jongin’s pretty sure it’s an animal), it makes a loud, screeching sound that has Jongin recoiling faster than he could ever move underwater. Jongin frowns. This must be a bird. He thought they would be more friendly, like the fish Jongin is surrounded by at home. Instead, they sound more like his eldest sister that one time she got a jellyfish stuck in her hair.

    Jongin shakes off the experience and continues his way down the beach. He spends the rest of the evening watching the town bustle about, seeming almost as busy as the kingdom right about now, during the preparations for his coronation. The sun is setting, and Jongin tries to focus on that, how beautiful and similar it is to the way it rose this morning, but all he can think about is the coronation that he has to attend shortly. His. The whole kingdom will be gathered just to see him crowned prince, and to eat. But mostly eat.

    Jongin considers staying up here the whole night, but he knows that his father with be furious with him, and will either send someone out to look for him or just push the coronation back and say it was because an emergency had occurred (the kingdom never knows what really goes on in the castle anyway). It’s really not worth it.

    But just as Jongin’s about to dive back down underwater, he sees something so entrancing that he couldn’t possibly look away, even if he did want to attend his coronation.

    It’s a human, which Jongin has seen plenty of as of today, but this one is different. This one isn’t chattering away, too busy to notice anything around him, worrying over what they’ll eat tonight or wear tomorrow. This one walks to the edge of the precipice Jongin had started on, sits down with his feet dangling over, and just watches.

    He watches the sun go down until the only light available is the bright, full moon.

    And Jongin watches him. There’s a sag to his shoulders, and even with the distance, Jongin can see the sadness in his eyes. Then, strangely, Jongin sees something he didn’t even know was possible.

    The boy sitting on the ledge curls in on himself, his knees pulled up to his chin, arms wrapped around his legs. Then there’s something falling from his eyes, something that looks like water.

    “Crying...” Jongin whispers, immediately clapping a hand over his mouth in fear of being heard.

    The human’s head whips around in Jongin’s direction, but doesn’t seem to spot him. Jongin figures the human’s reaction would be a bit more surprised if it had seen him.

    Jongin’s never seen anyone cry before, and rightly so. Mer-people can’t cry, but Jongin’s mother had told him that humans could; Jongin’s never seen a human until this day, and so he’s never seen anyone cry before. Jongin’s mother told him that humans cry when they’re sad, but only very sad.

    There have been times when Jongin’s wished he had the ability to cry, some way to express his feeling of such sadness and hurt other than the aching in his heart. Like the day his father told he and his sisters of their mother’s death. There had been pain on his face, in his chest, but no way to truly express it.

    Jongin is jealous of the crying man. And maybe just a little bit fascinated.

~

    As expected, Kyungsoo receives a pretty bouquet of flowers from Minseok in the evening. He tips the delivery boy the measly amount he can afford, thanking him and wishing him a good night. He cuts the tips of the stems of the flowers off, dropping them into a pot of water he keeps on his windowsill, where the sunlight filters through during the day.

    He didn’t get a chance to drop by the bookstore today to get a new book, but he figures it’s okay; he’ll just re-read one of his favorites (again).

    It’s a fairly warm night for the middle of winter, so Kyungsoo decides to spend it outside. He perches himself on the edge of his cliff, paying no mind to the mud that will stain his clothes. They were bound to get dirty anyway. The ocean is unusually calm, reflecting the sunset beautifully. There’s no choppy waves to blur the image of the extended sun on the dark waters, and these are the times Kyungsoo wishes he could keep that image forever, tuck it into one of his old books.

    He sits and watches until the sun is completely gone, the moon once again full. Another birthday passed, alone. Kyungsoo pulls his knees under his chin and gazes at the water. Somewhere under there are his father’s bones, settled in the sand of the ocean, in the midst of a shipwrecked vessel. His mother’s bones are probably gone by now, disintegrated and mixed with the sand.

    Kyungsoo feels something wet drip onto his bare feet, but he doesn’t try to wipe the tears away. He’s found it doesn’t really do anything, just makes his eyes puffier in the morning. So he just sits, lets the water in his eyes blur his vision, making the circular moon seem more like a splash of paint on a black canvas. He wonders if this is the way his father last saw the moon, blurred and bright. Does it look the same under water?

    Just then, Kyungsoo hears something from the water, but when he looks in the direction which the sound came from, there’s nothing there. Kyungsoo wipes his eyes once and looks again, but still there’s nothing there but a few ripples between the rocks near the shore. It must have been a bird or a stray stone.

    Kyungsoo draws in a deep breath, holds it for a moment, then lets the air whoosh from his lungs, joining the sea breeze as it passes through his hair. “I should get to bed,” he mutters to himself. “There’s nothing interesting in the sea tonight anyway.”

~

    Jongin watches as the man gets up and trudges away until he’s out of sight. He comes out from behind the rock he’s been hiding behind and takes one last glance at the blazing city above the sea. The lights twinkle brighter than the stars in the sky, and Jongin wishes he could go see them up close for himself.

    But this is only but a dream.

    Jongin returns to the kingdom, welcomed by a worried attendant and a crown of lilies and pearls.

    Eight oysters make their way over, clamping down on Jongin’s tail with a bit too much bite than he’d like. “That hurt,” he frowns at the sea creatures, but of course they do not reply.

    Nevertheless, Jongin is ushered into the main hall of the castle, overwhelmed by the amount of fish and mer-people that showed up to his coronation. The party has already begun, the feast over, and Jongin is told that his father covered for him by saying he was nervous.

    As the night goes on, the music slows, and the food begins to run out.

    The ceremony commences and goes on without incident. Jongin is crowned, proclaimed prince of the kingdom, and presented before the people for a few moments before the festivities presume.

    Jongin is dancing with one of the girls that his father favors as a partner for him (though Jongin has no interest in such things) when he hears a few girls dancing around him chattering about something that catches his attention.

    “Everyone’s here tonight!” One girl with the prettiest red hair Jongin’s ever seen exclaims to her friend who is twirling around her.

    “Well, not everyone,” the friend, a blond with crystal blue eyes, replies with a smug look on her face as she rights herself with her dance partner.

    “What do you mean? I thought everyone was invited. And who wouldn’t attend?” The red-head asks, switching dance partners with her blond friend as the cheerful music continues.

    “Of course the sea witch isn’t here! She isn’t invited to anything, especially not the coronation of royalty. She probably wouldn’t show up anyway.”

    Jongin almost stops short at the mention of the sea witch. He’s always been taught that the sea witch is a horrid, monstrous being that will eat your soul if you as much as step foot into her territory. He may be able to go anywhere in the sea he wishes now, but one place he is forbidden to go is the sea witch’s bog. It’s a terribly dark place where the moon and sun never reach, surrounded by a frightening forest and eels that will choke you as if you were a simple plaything. Jongin may be eighteen now, but he’s still terrified of anything having to do with the sea witch.

    He excuses himself from his dance partner and swims away, not a bit worried that he doesn’t leave with a formal farewell to his guests. His father can just lie for him again.

    Over the next few weeks, Jongin returns to the surface of the water in the same exact spot he did the first time he spotted the man on the ledge. Most of the time, the man isn’t there when Jongin visits, but every once in a while, the man will be there, humming a quiet tune to himself while he feeds another type of animal that Jongin’s never seen before (it looks sort of like the bird that squawked at Jongin before, just fatter) or walking along the beach collecting sea glass. Those are the times when Jongin has to hide himself especially well, since the man is so close to the water rather than high up on the solid earth. Sometimes Jongin will find sea glass before it hits the dry sand of the shore, color it in the prettiest and rarest of colors, and toss it up on the shore for the man to find another day. He can only hope the next time he comes back he’ll be able to see the man’s reaction when he finds a piece of glass that is orange rather than clear.

    When Jongin isn’t visiting the world above the sea, he’s sitting in the garden of the palace, swishing his tail through the seagrass and anemones that color it. Sometimes he’ll pick the bright red flowers that grow there, producing a whirlpool in the middle of his palm, the flower kept there by the tiny whirlwind of water Jongin controls. He supposes this might be one of the things he would miss if he ever could live as a human. But he also thinks it would be worth it. To be able to walk on legs, feel sand between his toes instead of just in his hands, to be able to bask in the sunlight as long as he wishes. To run with birds instead of swim with fish. All of these things Jongin would trade, especially if it meant he got to see that man again. Maybe even speak to him.

    “Brother, you really should dine with us tonight,” Jongin’s eldest sister says to him one day as she sits in front of some reflective glass, brushing through her dark hair with something the humans call a “fork.” Apparently they eat with them.

    Jongin just grunts in response. He has no interest in the idle conversation that takes place at his family’s dinner table.

    His sister sighs. “What’s gotten into you lately? It’s like you never want to be around us anymore.”

    “Maybe because I don’t,” Jongin mumbles under his breath.

    “Well, whatever it is, I do wish you’d share it with someone. Maybe they could help,” His sister flutters away, but not before kissing the top of his head.

    It makes Jongin’s heart hurt, and he thinks of how the man had cried the first time Jongin had seen him. And Jongin feels like crying, but he can’t, and that makes his pain even worse. He really does love his family, loves the fish and underwater animals he sees and plays with every day, loves the kingdom as a whole, but there’s something about the water that makes Jongin’s skin itch with the need to get out, to experience something new and fresh.

    He touches the place on his head that his sister had kissed and swears he’ll remember it for as long as he lives.

~

    Every day Kyungsoo sweeps more fallen petals off his windowsill into the rubbish bin. His flowers are wilting.

~

    It’s particularly bright in the ocean the day Jongin decides to wander away. Well, it’s not really wandering considering he knows exactly where he’s going. Of course he doesn’t tell anyone, because if anyone knew, they’d do everything in their power to stop him.

    After spending the past two days in the palace’s grand library, Jongin discovered the truth about the sea witch. She wasn’t some hideous monster that lurked in a dank cave and ate mer-people when they dared passed, but rather she was a quite beautiful mermaid with a long tail that separated into eight long tentacles at the end. Her hair was as white as the moon, her skin a beautiful alabaster that contrasted deeply with her endless black eyes. She doesn’t eat mer-people, either. Her pets, however, do.

    Jongin slammed the book shut after that sentence. If he continued to read any more, he would never muster up the courage to go through with his plan.

    The water around the sea witch’s dwelling is dark, much unlike the rest of the sea today. The trees that surround it seem to move of their own accord, as if they were alive instead of swaying with the currents of the water. The bare branches look as if they have fingers, ready to grab at anything that moves past them. Jongin stands at the entrance of the forest that leads to the sea witch, the treacherous waters around him swirling precariously, his hair caught up in the current. He makes his way carefully through the forest, every once in a while spotting the remains of a human. One of the things Jongin does know about humans is that they can only breathe air. Their lungs don’t adapt like mer-people’s, and they die if they are submerged in the water too long. Jongin’s mother used to tell him stories of unfortunate seamen who drifted to the bottom of the ocean, their dead and lifeless eyes too much to look at for too long. The bodies were always carried away toward the sea witch’s home, whether by the currents or the sea witch no one has ever been sure.

    Eventually there is an opening in the forest, and a large structure of what Jongin realizes are bones comes into view. It is the sea witch’s dwelling. On the very top of what can barely be considered a house, Jongin spots the skeleton of a young-looking mermaid. He considers turning back now, before he ends up just like that girl.

    But there’s no chance of that now, not when a gentle yet spine-tingling voice comes from behind Jongin, riding on the underwater waves of the dark forest. “You poor, unfortunate thing,” the sea witch coos. “I know why you’re here. And it is so sad, so very, very sad to see someone as beautiful,” she runs a delicate hand adorned with sharp nails along the side of Jongin’s jaw, who is scared into silence and stillness. “and lovely as you coming to me for help.”

    Jongin swallows hard, trying to keep himself from shaking. He has to do this.

    “But I suppose with a life so tragic as yours, with the awful people you are surrounded with, you must have no choice but to come to someone like me,” The sea witch’s voice is full of sarcasm, dripping with guile, a smug smile on her red lips. “So I will help you. You wish to be a human, and have those horrible things they call legs to walk on. You no longer want to be of the fish, but rather breathe air and walk,” The smile on the sea witch’s lips is dangerous, and Jongin knows that he won’t be coming out of this deal unharmed.

    Jongin nods, his throat unable to produce words.

    “I see. I can make you human, give you legs to walk on. But for a price, and a very pretty one at that,” As she is speaking, the sea witch begins to throw a medley of things into her cauldron, potions and plants and animals that Jongin would rather not know about. “ You must drink this potion tomorrow at sunrise. You will be human then, and you have three days to make that boy you have been pining after fall in love with you.”

Jongin wrings his hands behind his back. Fall in love? The only people he’s ever seen in love were his parents, and that was only for such a short time when Jongin was very young.

“And since you don’t seem to use it much anyway, I will require your voice as payment.”

    “But--” Jongin protests at this, finally finding his voice.

    “Oh, so now you have use for it?” The sea with cackles, her sharp teeth poking out behind her ruby red lips.

    “How am I supposed to make someone fall in love with me if I can’t even speak to them?” Jongin asks, a raw desperation and regret bubbling in his throat.

    The sea witch just laughs again, the noise grating in Jongin’s ears. “Well, just look at you! You’re beautiful, so graceful and charming. Surely this will be enough. You have to work with what you are given, child,” The sea witch circles Jongin as she speaks, looking him up and down as if he were a dinner option at a buffet.

    “Oh, and one more thing.”

    “Yes?” Jongin is almost afraid to ask, but he feels like he has to use his voice as much as possible before it is taken away.

    “When you walk on your graceful little feet, it will feel as if you’re walking on broken sea glass. You will still be as graceful as a swan, but there will be payment for it, and no rest as long as you are on your feet. You shall have your wish, but suffering will be the price.”

    Jongin is hesitant for a moment, but then he thinks of the land, of the birds, and of the man he watches every day. “Okay, I’ll do it.”

    The sea witch throws in one last ingredient, something that smells wretched and certainly not consumable. “Such a pretty child,” she sighs. “It’s a pity you haven’t found happiness here. But so it is, and so it shall be.” The sea witch bottles up her potion into a black vial, handing it to Jongin and sending him on his way.

    “Remember, three days! If you do not succeed, you will be turned into the foam of the ocean and never live as a human nor a fish again!”

    Jongin swims faster than he ever remembers, maybe even faster than he did to reach the surface of the water, out of the sea witch’s presence and into a brighter, more familiar ocean.

~

    Kyungsoo can’t sleep. He doesn’t know why, but he has a strange feeling in his gut. There’s a light rain outside, accompanied by a few cracks of thunder and the occasional lightning strike out on the open sea, but otherwise it’s a normal night in his little house by the sea.

    He threw the last of his birthday flowers away today, washed the pot he put them in and put it into storage. He found a few pieces of amber sea glass on the beach today and added it to his growing collection that is slowly piling up on his dresser. He probably needs to go through it and separate it by color; maybe he could have another window made. Maybe even a small stained glass looking piece.

    Junma doesn’t seem to like the atmosphere either. She’s curled up on the bed beside Kyungsoo, as usual, but every once in a while the hairs on her back will stand up, like when a wild dog from the town tries to invade the chicken coop.

    “What’s wrong, girl?” Kyungsoo asks, even though he knows he won’t get an answer from her.

    She responds by flattening her ears, her tail jerking back and forth rather than swishing in graceful movements like it usually does.

    Kyungsoo sighs. “I know, I can feel it, too. There’s something weird in the air.”

    Junma mewls in agreement.

    “Maybe it’s the sea.”

~

    By the time Jongin makes it back to the castle, everyone is already asleep. The ocean is dark everywhere, and only the nocturnal fish are about, searching for food. Jongin decides it’s best to leave without any word, otherwise he wouldn’t make it out of the ocean before his father was after him.

    Jongin swims around the castle silently, careful not to wake anyone. He considers saying goodbye to at least his sisters, then thinks better of it. As much as he would like to hear their voices one last time, he knows they would tell the king as soon as Jongin was out of earshot. Plus, he doesn’t think he could bare to see them; he might feel like crying again (even though he isn’t able) and even change his mind. He can’t, though! He’s already given up too much to turn back now.

    As the next best thing, Jongin ventures into the palace garden, picking four flowers -- one for each of his sisters. Jongin stares at the garden, at the glass ceiling of the palace, at the grand entrance to the main hall, and that ache returns to his heart. That feeling that makes him wish he could cry.

    Jongin touches the spot on his head where his sister had kissed him just the week before and begins his journey upward.

    He finds a hidden spot on the beach to settle, where the tide reaches far enough to keep his tail wet. He can see the first few streaks of yellow making their way through the dim blue of the sky above the black water on the horizon. The sun will be completely up in less than five minutes.

    Jongin holds the vial of potion the sea witch gave him in front of him, so that the barely-there sun shines right through it. For all the ingredients she tossed in her cauldron, Jongin expected the concoction to be an ugly grey or black color rather than the clear liquid he now holds in his hands.

    Four minutes.

    Jongin rolls the vial between his palms, flicks his tail every now and then. He gazes at it for a long while, thinking that it looks like washed up seaweed from the ocean. And Jongin supposes that he could very well be just that: something born in and of the sea that has washed up on shore to stay there until someone finds and makes use of him or is returned to the sea by the waves, no longer needed.

    Three minutes.

    The bird that Jongin first saw when he explored the shore for the first time squawks from the air, then lands on a nearby rock. Of course it might not be the same bird, but it looks the same. Jongin stares at it, then back at the water. Two worlds sitting right in front of him, and he must choose one. He doesn’t know what will happen if he doesn’t drink the potion, doesn’t go through with becoming a human, but he can’t imagine it’s any better than the pain he’ll have to deal with if he does drink it. The bird screeches one more time before flying off towards town.

    Two minutes.

    Jongin pulls on the top of the vial, the cap coming off with a quiet pop. He swirls the potion around and makes a face at the scent that wafts up through the breeze; it may not look dangerous, but it sure does smell like it. The last bit of hesitation runs through Jongin’s system before tapering off into an uneasy feeling in his gut.

    One minute.

    It’s now or never. Jongin has sixty seconds to decide where he wants to take his chances. Try life as a human, with pain and suffering but lacking a voice, and make a man he’s never met before fall in love with him? Or toss the potion aside, returning to the sea, and face the sea witch’s wrath? Jongin swallows hard, grasping the vial in his hand tightly.

    The sky is blazing orange and yellow, hints of the prettiest pink behind some of the clouds. He can practically see the sun moving, rising faster and faster like the bile in his throat.

    The sky is radiant when Jongin knocks back the rancid liquid, letting it push down the bile in his throat along with any regrets or hesitations he may have had left lingering in the back of his mind.

    The pain that shoots through Jongin’s tail is like none he’s ever felt before. The pinpricks he’d felt left by the clams just the other day, the day of his coronation, seem like absolutely nothing compared to the searing pain ripping through his body right now. There is no blood, but Jongin can feel the agony as if his tail were being cut in two. He falters onto his back, throwing his arms over his face and trying to focus on something, anything besides the pain. Eventually, it’s too much, and he can feel the world spinning, the dizziness overwhelming before he passes out.

~

    The bright, yellow, ever-present sun filters through Kyungsoo’s sea glass window, penetrating his eyelids and making his vision burn orange rather than black. He stretches lazily, copying Junma who has just stirred on the pillow beside him. It’s early; the sun has only been up for about an hour now.

    Kyungsoo slips out of bed, hopping across the cold floors to his bathroom that has a rug in it. His feet ache a bit from how cold it is in his house. Maybe he should invest in a pair of slippers.

    After freshening up for the morning, Kyungsoo throws on his boots and is out the door (after feeding Junma leftovers, of course). He gathers the feed by the side of the house and calls the chickens out, spreading their breakfast out on the ground since it’s not muddy anymore and they’ll actually eat off of it.

    The sun is still shining bright when Kyungsoo is done with his short list of morning chores, so he decides it’s a good time to look for sea glass. He found a pretty amber piece last time; maybe he’ll get lucky and find something green this time.

    Tossing his boots on the grass near the shore, Kyungsoo decides to go barefoot on the beach today. The sun has been out long enough to warm the sand up to the perfect walking temperature. Not too hot, not too cold. It feels good between Kyungsoo’s toes, and he wiggles them around a bit before beginning his search.

    Halfway down the beach, Kyungsoo finds much more than sea glass.

~

    Jongin opens his eyes, head throbbing and lower body pulsing with a dull pain. He grasps for something around him, but instead of his hand swishing through water, it moves much quicker and he smacks it on something hard.

    “Ouch, that’s gotta hurt. You okay?” A voice startles Jongin, coming from somewhere close.

    He whips his head around, too fast for his eyes to handle, and becomes dizzy all over again. He brings a hand up to his temples, massaging them slowly, hoping to regain some sense of balance.

    “Careful there. Just rest for a bit, yeah?”

    Jongin opens his eyes, and notices that the sand beneath him feels significantly softer than he ever remembers it being. When he grasps it with his hands, however, it doesn’t sift through his fingers like it should. It’s solid, soft, and when Jongin looks down, it’s not sand he’s lying on. It a bed, with a fabric he’s never seen or felt before. This is fabric, right? He’s felt similar things when his father has brought back clothing of drowned seamen from his expeditions.

    Jongin nods, because that’s universal, right?

    When he finally realizes the rest of his surroundings, the urge to sit up is unbearable. But Jongin knows if he does, he might just make himself sick again.

    He’s on land, above the water, and the man he adores is standing a stone’s throw away from him. Instead of throwing himself off the bed, Jongin throws the soft fabric covering him off of his body, revealing what he has come to know as legs.

    He has legs. They ache on the inside a little, where it had felt like his tail was splitting in two (which it very well might have), but Jongin doesn’t mind that at all right now. He wiggles his toes (he has toes!) and twists his ankles round a few times before tentatively bending his knees.

    There’s a small laugh from across the room, where the man is doing something or other in front of some machine Jongin’s never seen or heard of before.

    Right. Jongin is supposed to be human. He is supposed to have had legs for the past eighteen years of his life, and they should be nothing to marvel over right now. (At least not while he’s being watched.)

    Jongin gives a sheepish smile and covers his new legs back up.

    “Hungry?” The man holds out a pan (this Jongin does recognize, from some of the larger ships that have sunk) with a--

    Jongin shakes his head so hard he makes himself dizzy again.

    “What? Don’t like fish? You must not be from around here. Seafood is all we eat in a port town,” The man casually puts the pan back on the contraption that seems to radiate heat. “Well, I guess I can find something else for you to eat around here...” he mumbles, rummaging through cabinets and drawers.

    Jongin sighs and gives the man a grateful smile. He’s starving.

~~~~~~~~

so the spacing, font, and indentations are poop on here OTL i hope you forgive me ;;;;;

HAPPY SUPER LATE VALENTINE'S DAY TO FAYE, WHO IS THE BEST VALENTINE I COULD HAVE ASKED FOR /HUGS YOU

hopefully the next part will be up tomorrow ;u;