A/N: Things!!!!

Oh so that’s Yixing. The boy on the bed shrugged. “I was in surgery for twelve hours so they said I could have the evening off and come in a bit earlier tomorrow.” He nodded his chin at the boys standing behind Luhan. “Is there a party in there I didn’t know about?”

“Huh? No, uh…just some new guests-”

“So you’re Yixing,” Luhan wanted to punch Sehun for saying that aloud. Well, I guess we can say it to subtlety. Sehun pushed past Luhan to greet the other, took two steps into the room and tripped, falling flat on his face. “I’m SO DONE with this walking !”

Luhan’s laugh was cut short when Joonmyeon pushed forward saying, “Crown Prince, are you hurt?” He too ended up tripping and landing on top of Sehun.

“If I wasn’t hurt before, now I am.”

“I apologize for my clumsiness.” Luhan rushed forward, laughing loudly to cover their mistakes and to help them sit up. Yixing slid off the bed and began staring at Luhan as he checked Sehun to make sure he was alright. Luhan noticed and tried to appear nonchalant. “What?”

“Don’t think I didn’t hear that Lu-ge. He called him Crown Prince.”

“That was a joke!”

“I don’t think it was,” he replied matter-of-factly. He crossed his arms and began a staring contest. Sehun knew Luhan was bad at hiding things and he could already see Luhan’s knee twitching as he tried to stare back.

“Joonmyeon-hyung, I think we should tell him,” he whispered. Joonmyeon’s head whipped around to him, eyes wide. “Luhan told me about him. He’s a childhood friend.”

“But-”

“We’ve already basically told him, plus we’re putting Luhan in a difficult position.” They both glanced at the Chinese boys. One looked passive, the other was clenching his jaw and jiggling his knee.

“Alright.”

“Luhan, we’ve decided to tell him.”

“Tell me what?”

“Sehun-ah!”

“It’s my decision and Joonmyeon-hyung agrees.” Joonmyeon bowed his head briefly, but when he looked up he was surprised to see the new boy’s eyes staring at him thoughtfully. He immediately ducked his head to show respect, causing Yixing to frown in confusion.

Luhan sighed. “Okay, fine. Call Ma and make up an excuse to keep her out of the house, this is gonna take a while.”

Yixing finally stopped staring at Joonmyeon to pull out his phone and call Luhan’s mother. “Ma! It’s me, I got home early. No, you don’t have to rush! In fact, I just found out we’re out of toilet paper. And dish soap. Yeah. Oh you will? Thank you so much, I might rest a bit before dinner if that’s okay. Alright thank you! Yeah, see you soon!” He hung up. “She won’t be back for a while. So what did you want to share?”

“We’re mermaids.” Luhan smacked him upside the head. “Ouch!”

“You couldn’t have led up to it or something?”

“We don’t have time for that! Anyway I told you the first bit, do you swear on everything you hold dear to not tell a single soul about this?”

“Um…yes?”

“Okay, so this all started four years ago...” Sehun told him everything. He told him about how he met Luhan, how they kept in touch, and about how and why they were both banished. Yixing’s face was calm and curious, and he only stopped them to ask questions once or twice. (“So how did you find your way here?” “Luhan pointed out the roof of the hostel once and so I followed it here.”) He jaw dropped when he found out Sehun was framed by his cousin and he too scowled at the mention of the mermaid taboo. He also glanced at Joonmyeon to gage his reaction during the story. “…so basically we’re pretending to be from Seoul and our luggage got lost on the train and we somehow ended up here.”

“Yeah, we haven’t decided that detail yet,” Luhan threw in.

Yixing was silent. “…so yeah, that’s it.”

Yixing nodded. “…You know now that you tell me about it, it all makes sense why Luhan disappeared all day on Saturdays.”

“And why there were books in the fish tank,” Luhan added.

“Yes there’s that…I’m sorry but…is there any verifiable proof?”

The boys were silent. Sehun wasn’t surprised, he knew their story was pretty implausible (even Luhan didn’t believe him at first) but he remembered something. From under his sweatpants he pulled out the knife the guards gave him. “This is the knife they gave us before they left. They said it was to ‘aid us or end our suffering’. It’s made out of our own alloy of tough whale bone, coral, a small bit of gold, and the barb from sting rays. I don’t know the exact composition, but it’s the only thing we had when we were left on land.” He handed it over to Yixing who carefully inspected it with interest.

“Actually, I have something that could help,” Luhan said. He was searching on his phone. He clicked on the screen and then placed it on the floor for everyone to see. It was a picture of 14-year-old Sehun, floating on his back with his eyes shut. He was smiling serenely with his arms crossed behind his head and his long turquoise tail was floating just below the surface of the water. “This was the only picture I took of Sehun.”

“Ya, when did you take this?!”

“Your first winter here, when you wanted to prove to me water temperature didn’t affect you! Look at the time stamp, it says here 11^th of December 2010. Okay, so it’s not quite four years since it’s April but close enough.”

“I believe you.” Everyone stopped to stare at Yixing.

“You do,” Sehun asked.

Yixing nodded as he picked up the phone to stare closer at the picture. “The picture is obviously you…and since it’s on his phone and knowing Luhan can’t photoshop worth -”

“Hey!”

“That’s a compliment in this situation, hyung. Even though I haven’t seen it, I’ll believe you both. And now I have a question to ask.”

“What?”

“How much has Luhan told you about me?”

“Oh,” Sehun sighed in relief. “I know all about you! He told me about how you were originally neighbors and how would space out so much your grandma thought you were deaf. He also told me you’re a ing dance machine.”

Yixing laughed. “I guess he taught you how to swear, too.”

“Hey, I know a lot of stuff!”

“It’s true, he can operate a smart phone almost as well as I can.”

“Luhan-hyung, you’re the one that told me to search all of Youtube for how to videos-”

“Wait, you know about the internet and stuff?” Yixing was impressed. “I guess you learn a lot in four years.” His gaze then turned over to Joonmyeon. “So I heard a little of how you fit into this, what’s your story?”

Joonmyeon was surprised at being addressed. “Oh. Um…I’m Joonmyeon the Deformed One. I am or was the King’s aid.”

“No.”

“…I’m sorry?”

Yixing scrunched his eyebrows and bit his lip. “Is the ‘Deformed One’ bit part of your name?”

“Yes, it’s my title.”

“What?!”

Joonmyeon looked a little taken aback by the other’s surprise but quickly began explaining. “It’s because my torso and tail were misshapen, so a nickname of sorts was given to me.”

Yixing’s frown deepened. “Who would ever do something like that?”

“My father, the King,” Sehun said, raising his hand.

“Why?!”

“Please don’t think badly of him for the King’s decision, in fact the Crown Prince-I mean Sehun, was my biggest advocate for eliminating that title.”

“Couldn’t you just refuse to use the ‘title’?”

“He did. When Sehun was 11 he had a huge tantrum in front of his father and the court and flat out said he wouldn’t call me ‘Deformed One’. Unfortunately dropping a title, for instance calling the King by his first name only is a criminal offence so Sehun was severely punished.”

“Isn’t there an exception for an 11-year-old? Or better yet a Prince?”

Joonmyeon shook his head. “He was whipped two dozen times for ‘disrespect’ and ‘undermining the King’s authority’.” Luhan and Yixing’s mouths dropped open. “They made an example of him. He still has a small scar on his cheek from where the Royal Guard missed,” he said pointing out a faint mark close to Sehun’s right cheekbone. “Luckily his back healed well, but he was sore for weeks.”

“Yeah, after that I tried addressing and lobbying the senators during meetings and privately persuading my father.” He shook his head. “I tried a petition too and I checked the old law books for loopholes. My father is a stubborn bastard.”

Yixing blinked in surprise. “You must care a lot for this hyung.”

“I do. He was my only friend down there.” Joonmyeon smiled brightly at that and Yixing’s eyes softened.

He bowed to Sehun. “If I seemed harsh to you earlier, I apologize. I was just confused as to why they would call Joonmyeon something-”

“Joonmyeon the Deformed-”

“No one is going to call you that here. Ever.” Yixing’s voice was calm, but his eyes were stern and Joonmyeon nodded. “Speaking of names, do mermaids have surnames or something…?”

Sehun shook his head while Luhan leaned over to explain it to Joonmyeon. “No, mermaids are distinguished by the region you were born in…so I’ve got a long name-” Yixing snorted at this. “-but you for instance would be Yixing of Changsha in Hunan of the country of China…and it gets way complicated.”

Yixing raised his eyebrows. Luhan leaned back on his hands from explaining to Joonmyeon and blew out through his lips. Cute. Stop it brain. “I think you should be cousins.”

“What,” the two former mermaids were confused.

“Let me rephrase. I think for all logical purposes and seeing how you two are so close to each other we should pretend that you two are cousins to explain why you guys are here together.”

Yixing nodded. “I agree. For surnames we could just pick one of the most common for them-”

“I vote on being ‘Oh Sehun’.” He nodded at Luhan. “We came up with it ages ago in case a human caught us together and I needed a name.”

“Okay…so that just leaves Joonmyeon.” Yixing scooted closer to him to stare at his face and he was tempted to back up. “‘Oh Joonmyeon? Nah. Lee Joonmyeon…Kim Joonmyeon?”

“I like Kim Joonmyeon,” Luhan said, raising his hand.

“Me too,” Sehun said, mimicking his hyung.

“What do you think? It’s your name after all.”

Joonmyeon again shifted his eyes downward. “Kim Joonmyeon sounds fine.”

Luhan clapped. “Awesome, so that’s settled. Oh, I had this idea earlier and I thought I’d run it by you both. What if we said you were both raised in a church? That way we could use your lack of technological and social skills-”

“Hey, I’m sociable!”

“Sehun-ah, you don’t have any friends,” Joonmyeon said gently. There was a pause and then the other three boys burst into laughter. Joonmyeon managed a small smile and then asked Sehun, “By the way, what is a church?”

“It’s like the human version of our temples.”

“Then why don’t they call it a temple?”

“Because that implies a different religion,” Luhan explained. “Besides, some churches are still a little wary of homoual relations…”

“Ah,” Joonmyeon nodded in understanding. “So our lies would have some truth to them.”

“Exactly.”

“There’s one thing we haven’t covered that your ma will definitely ask.”

“What?”

“Why they are here. We can’t exactly say they were banished.” Everyone nodded at Yixing’s statement.

“Vacation,” Luhan suggested.

“We don’t even know enough to be tourists,” Sehun said. “Plus vacations don’t usually last six months in one spot.”

“I’d say you guys were here for school or a job, but the University here is central around the hospital…and I dunno what sort of job you could say that required you to move from Seoul.”

Joonmyeon looked up at the word hospital. “Hospital? Do the ones up here also treat all sorts of patients with any ailment?” Yixing nodded. “Then use me as your excuse.”

“Hyung, no!”

“Sehun-ah, let me finish. The only way we could justify moving away from our supposed childhood home would be for health reasons. So we’ll pretend I came to seek treatment and you are here as moral support.”

Luhan nodded. “I hate to say it Sehun-ah, but Joonmyeon is right. You could even say he came here-we’re in a city called Busan by the way-for a more relaxing environment and I dunno, better air. It would also allow Joonmyeon lots of time to ‘rest’ and he could use that time to study your notes of being human.”

“You have notes on being human,” Yixing and Joonmyeon asked in unison.

Sehun nodded. “After Luhan began teaching me more advanced human stuff, he gave me a journal so I could write down what I learned the days we met. Luhan kept one too for all the things I taught him about mermaid culture and other ocean stuff.”

Luhan nodded in confirmation and then turned to Joonmyeon. “Are you sure we could use your back as an excuse?”

“By all means, it sounds most logical.”

“Then that’s settled then. The rest we can figure out along the way and I’ll write it down in this notebook for you two to memorize,” Luhan said, showing them the notebook where he took notes.

“Hyung, we’re not quite finished. I need to get a job to pay our rent and food, I can’t freeload off your mom. Where can I go to look for jobs?”

“Normally I’d suggest an employment agency…but in your situation I wouldn’t try it. I’ll ask around, ok?” Sehun nodded. “I’m going to say you waited until Sehun graduated in April to move down here. Try to be vague on the education part if they ask, ok?”

Joonmyeon bowed his head to Sehun. “I’m sorry you have to do that for me, I’ll get a job as soon as I understand better.”

“Don’t worry about it hyung, take all the time you need.”

Luhan smiled and then said, “Well, I’m feeling a whole lot better about this, except for the fact that I still haven’t really introduced myself to Joonmyeon besides a quick ‘hi’. I’m Xi Luhan, I’m 22 and I’m going to the Busan National University to be a Perioperative Nurse…er…a nurse in the surgery room. I’ll be graduating in May and then I get to start work as at the University Hospital that’s a little ways from here. I’m originally from China, I met Sehun four years ago, and that’s basically it.” He looked over at Yixing, indicating for him to do the same.

“I’m Zhang Yixing, I’m 21 and I also go to the Busan National University, but I’m in my final year studying to be an Orthopedic Surgeon…so I work on human bones…I’ll also be finished in May and then I’ll continue working under my professor at the same Hospital as Luhan and…um…I’m also from China,” he finished lamely.

“Wow, you’re only 21 and you’re almost done studying medicine,” surprisingly it was Joonmyeon who spoke. “For us it takes years to become doctors.”

“I finished school very early.”

“It also helps that you’re a genius,” Luhan said teasingly.

“Dear gods did you even sleep,” Sehun asked. Yixing smiled, showing off that dimple again.

“I did a little…four years ago.”

Just then there was the sound of a door slam. All four boys went silent as they heard someone slip off their shoes and walk over to the base of the stairs. “Boys, I’m back!”

“We’ll be down in a minute, Ma!” He turned to the two boys. “You guys ready?” Sehun stood up with a hand from Luhan and he was about to help Joonmyeon when he saw that Yixing was already helping him up. Sehun and Luhan exchanged smirks as Yixing said, “I’ll help you down the stairs,” as he held onto the other’s shoulder and elbow and led him out of the room.

“Do you want me to hold you like that too,” Luhan asked wiggling his eyebrows.

Hell YES. “Aish, this hyung. Just give me your arm so I can balance.” He gripped onto Luhan’s bicep and they slowly made their way out of the room. “Sehun-ah?” Sehun grunted in response. “Don’t worry. We’ll take care of you both.”

“It’s not me I’m worried about honestly, it’s Joonmyeon-hyung.”

“I have a feeling Yixing will be more than willing to help him out.”

A/N: Guys, please do comment. It helps me to find out if I'm relaying the story properly. Hope you liked it!