Jaehyo is considered very adventurous, for a merman.

His people are a mostly sedentary lot, choosing one place to settle and raise future generations until they are forced out by outside influence. Colonies form and stake their familial claim on a portion of reef, rarely leaving the safety of their pods.

Jaehyo is the ‘black shark’ of the Ahn colony.

He is excitable and flighty, and prone to sneaking out of his trench late at night to watch the bio-luminescent jellyfish greedily gobble up any passing fish small enough to wrap in their glowing tentacles.

His school’s elders disapprove greatly of him and his reckless behavior, but he doesn’t mind their snide prattling. The old hagfish just need something to talk about other than the warmth of the southern currents this time of year, and he is the easiest target.

He tries to understand. He is a part of the lionfish pod, after all, notorious for their gossip.

No better than those chatterbox dolphins, really.

~~~

Noon is Jaehyo’s favorite time of day.

At noon, the tide is high enough that he can swim freely through the tide pools, admiring the tiny little creatures that call it home.

There is a particular seahorse he had really wanted to revisit, as he had been heavily pregnant upon his last trip. Jaehyo really wanted to see those little babies.

Swimming up to the little puddle he had seen him at last, Jaehyo searches through the waving kelp, probing the bright orange polyps of the fist-sized brain coral with gentle fingers, totally focused on his task.

So focused, in fact, that he doesn’t feel the minute vibrations in the pleasantly warm water around him, doesn’t sense the threat of approach, until it’s nearly too late.

It’s at the last second that he notices that the hermit crabs have retreated into their shells and he moray eels are slinking back into the chilly caverns, needle-point teeth on full display.

Jaehyo panics and shimmies down the reef a few feet, scrapping maroon scales from his elbows as he cowers behind a sea fan.

It’s a human.

A human male by the looks of it, clad only in some strange brightly colored garment that clings to the stalk-like appendages he uses for walking, legs his mother had once told him.

His skin is pale like the scales on Jaehyo’s belly, though some areas are burned a dark pink from the sun, nearly matching the color of the stripes layered on Jaehyo’s tail.

He is wading through the shallows, small feet sinking into the sandy clay as he struggles through it. There is something in his hands, broad and square-shaped, creamy white and fluttering in the sea breeze. Jaehyo thinks he’s pulled soggier, less compact versions of this from the surface before.

Paper, he believes it’s called.

Humans etch patterns onto it with what Jaehyo assumes is some kind of land-squid ink.

The human makes his way through several more feet of foul-smelling sea foam before clambering onto a boulder, startling a laugh out of Jaehyo at his awkward, clumsy movements.

He sits down of the edge and lets his legs dangle into the water. He sets the paper on his knees and pulls out thin reed that looks to be full of the strange ink.

As he starts his etching, oddly blunt teeth digging into his bottom lip, Jaehyo’s attention is drawn to his feet. Swinging gently, churning tiny bubbles into the water around them, Jaehyo hesitantly swims closer, his curiosity getting the better of him.

His toes are wiggling independently of his legs, pulling another bubbly laugh from Jaehyo. They were cute in a way, like the fat pink worms Jaehyo sometimes pulled from the tips of viciously curved hooks to spite the cruel humans who used them.

Jaehyo inexplicably found himself hoping that this human never engaged in such a barbaric practice.

He was close enough to touch those little toes now, tail pressed down flat against the rock to remain hidden. Near hypnotized by the strange sight before him, Jaehyo reached out and grabbed one.

It wiggled in his grasp but did not pull away, and it was with confidence that Jaehyo wrapped his other hand around the frail-looking joint between the foot and the leg, the ankle. 

The human’s legs stopped their moving.

Jaehyo, feeling deprived and annoyed because of it, poked his head above the surface, intent on giving this human a piece of his mind.

His mouth snaps shut as he meets the eyes of the other.

This human’s face is very handsome by merperson standards. Fine features, dark hair, a mouth the color of the shiny side of a seashell.

He was beautiful.

Jaehyo was embarrassed by this beautiful human’s puzzled stare, feeling relieved when those onyx eyes slid of of his face and behind him. To his tail.

Jaehyo felt his confidence return when the human’s eyes widened dramatically along with his mouth, expression that of utter shock.

Jaehyo was no humble little baitfish. 

Jaehyo was just a gorgeous as this human, if not more so, in his own highly esteemed opinion. And his most beautiful portion, he knew, was his tail.

The lionfish were an elegant, ornamental breed, categorized by their bright, eye-catching coloring and the beautiful silk-like appearance of their gilded spines.

As the human continued to stare, slack-jawed, Jaehyo continued to preen, his ego inflating like a puffers swim bladder.

He spread his spines to their fullest length, fanning them out and allowing the surface current to bring them to sway delicately in the warm water. He slapped the surface with his tail fin, knowing full well how handsomely his pale scales shone in the sunlight.

Lionfish were not known for their modesty.

Then the human starts whispering something, in this sweet little melodic voice, and Jaehyo leans closer to hear.

“Pterois Volitans.” His whisper is reverent, awed, and while Jaehyo doesn’t have any clue what that means, he decides to take it as a compliment.

He leans his chin on the upper part of the human’s leg, the thigh, and flutters his eyelashes prettily, like the Squirrelfish pod women taught him when they visited last year.

The human gulps, cheeks reddening in what Jaehyo knew was a blush.

Fascinating.