We're designed to live (4/4)
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As a protector of the forest, he was a shapeshifter. He could look human if need be, if keeping the trees and the animals safe asked that of him. As Abada, his senses were heightened, his feet were quick but backwards, his horns and whip gave him a threatening aura that often clashed with the gentleness of his very being. It was not just his duty, he did love the Nature he worked for, Her creations and Her beauty. It all came in many different forms that never ceased to amaze him, thus he always found new reasons to keep doing everything he could so that his forest would remain intact.
The forest was not really his, but Hers. That didn’t change the way he felt about the flowers, the birds, the felines, the rodents and the bugs. It didn’t bother him that he was confined to an invisible border, that he could only leave if he was on duty.
That was until he heard the most beautiful sound he had heard. A voice in a song. His glowing eyes looked for the source every time he heard it. The music reached him like the sound of waves being carried through the wind, but he only discovered that when he allowed himself to listen. He needed to hear first to be able to see. The music would enchant him and take him to its origin.
He was not aware of his feet walking over the sand. Here, there were no fallen leaves, no tiny branches or sticks that would snap under his steps. The only sound was that of the sea, and the voice calling him through notes that stirred his soul.
Abada was not supposed to be in the ocean. He would rot if he did that, for he was made like the trees. The salty water was harmful to his bluish skin. Despite feeling like he was in a dream, he was still careful enough to make his way through the rocks that were spread all over the shore, rocks that resisted the force of the water regardless of the erosion they suffered. The waves rose and crashed against them, hitting and wearing them away through a long period of time, yet there they stood. Abada appreciated their resilience. It inspired him to keep walking even though the water that splashed against the rocks ended up touching the sole of his bare feet. Had he been in human form, he could be wearing shoes. He didn’t like shoes, though. He had always loved to feel the earth and all its peculiarities through his hardened skin.
The music got a little louder. Abada stopped walking when his green eyes fell over the creature whose voice had been lulling him for days and days.
She looked human, but he quickly realized his mistake. Humans did not have tails instead of legs. He doubted any human could sound like that. But she had long brown hair that cascaded down her chest and her back in waves, just like the ocean. Her skin was shiny like a delicate pearl, though not as pale as that. She was a creature of the water yet she was on the rocks, singing. Beautiful. She was as beautiful as her voice, her tail shining under the sunlight. Emerald green. Like the eyes that basked in the sight before him.
“A mermaid,” Abada heard himself say, but he regretted that as soon as the music stopped. There was a splash and she disappeared. He stood there, spellbound.
She appeared again a moment later, her head poking out of the water. He decided to stand still and quiet, though he felt unable to move even if he tried. The mermaid stared at him, through him, into him. Her eyes were the color of the thickest trunks, the strong ones whose trees endured the sun, the rain, the storms and the changes of the earth.
This was not one of the creatures he should protect. She was beyond his limits, but she didn’t look like she needed protection. However, he wanted to protect her. He could not understand that sudden need to take her in his arms, but it was more than just protection. Abada was feeling what humans did when presented with the personification of beauty, the most subjective beauty, the most enthralling one.
He was in love. With a mermaid. What he felt was a dangerous, forbidden pull that would take him to the shore no matter what Nature did to try and stop him. He could shapeshift into a human. He could try to share that power with her. Love was capable of impossible things.
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Abada and the mermaid. That was almost inconceivable, but Hwasa couldn’t make herself doubt him. His wife had tried to go back to the ocean and found herself unable to swim. A human could no longer do what a mermaid did, nor could Chansung protect her from what other humans could do. She had been robbed of life long before she accidentally took her own. Hwasa understood that too well.
She didn’t know if it was Abada or Chansung who committed the murders. They were one but they were not the same. Yet there he was, telling her that story, his voice breaking and his eyes watering until he could no longer speak. Hwasa felt herself aching as if the pain was hers, but this time it didn’t simply move her. It made her move. She approached him cautiously, and Chansung just stared as her hand touched his face.
"Your eyes," Hwasa mumbled, her voice as light as her fingers on his left cheek. She might be seeing things, but the skin under hers was real. He was surprisingly cold, but she didn't withdraw her hand. She was as fascinated as she was scared, but the thrill that run up her spine tipped the scale. "They're..."
She didn't know how to describe it, but they were sparkling and green. They had been brown and watery until a few seconds ago, but now they looked the color of tree leaves in the rain, the pupils dilating until the white almost disappeared. Chansung nodded at her. He didn't need that to be put into words, since he probably knew what was happening.
Hwasa felt her pulse quickening. Perhaps she should run, but would she be able to escape him? She wasn't his usual target, but he might still try to kill her so nobody else would know. She wasn't going to tell anyone, but--
"You're safe," he whispered. She believed him, she couldn't explain it but she trusted her gut on this. It was just one more of the inexplicable things that had drawn her to him. She had already made her decision anyway, the crown on her hair the proof of what she felt.
Hwasa touched his hair, feeling the scars on his forehead, hidden under the long fringe. The horns that would never be there, for he was human. He was human. She needed that to be true. She touched his eyelids when he closed them, and his cheeks again. His face strained with different emotions, his low sigh carrying too much sadness with it. She realized he was not as cold anymore, but she didn't know if the warmth came from him or her.
"Who are you?" she wondered aloud, though she did not expect an answer. He stared at her through moss-colored eyes that were tinged with brown, like a soaking trunk struck down during a storm.
"I cannot be myself anymore," he said, and it sounded like this was something he still had to accept. It wasn't the answer that Hwasa wanted, but it was the one that he could give her. He held her wrists for a moment in which he seemed about to push her away, but then his grip loosened and his fingers lingered on her skin. They were cold at first, but they also turned warm as they touched. A fleeting look of amazement passed over his features, but then the lightest frown appeared and his eyes were the color of a zelkova tree trunk. "Why are you still here?"
Hwasa smiled briefly at him. "Because I want to."
Chansung's lips parted in a question that didn't get past his lips. Hwasa kissed him first. He tasted of green tea and rain, cool and refreshening. She felt her whole body awakening as if she had been energized. Kissing him was like walking barefoot on wet grass while breathing in pure air.
"Chansung," her voice was barely audible, but his eyes were on her lips and he should know. She wanted-- she wanted to kiss him again and she wanted more than this, like she hadn't wanted ever since-- she believed she wouldn't be able to feel like this anymore. Yet there she was, waiting, looking for some mirrored expectation in his eyes.
His hands were still around her wrists. They slid up her arms slowly, making her shiver, then again when he leaned in-- but he didn’t kiss her. He looked at her lips and into her eyes till she felt slightly nervous. He had kissed her back, but that might have been just--
His lips brushed against hers. It was so soft and gentle, so-- tentative, as if he was not sure about what he was doing. Hwasa might have laughed if she wasn’t so tense. She wanted this. She wanted him. For the first time since what felt like a lifetime ago, she was initiating something. She had thought he wanted the same, but--
“I don’t wanna hurt you,” Chansung said, but he didn’t move away from her. She felt that thrill again-- her mind knew of the risks, but that same mind had made a decision, and her body was backing it up.
Hwasa freed her wrists easily as she put her hands on his shoulders to use them for support. Chansung watched, pupils dilating but colors unchanged as she straddled him. His skin was warm where she touched him, and she could feel his pulse under her fingers. He was as much there as she was. At that moment he was Chansung and he wanted her. She could feel it seeping from his body to hers, just like the air shifting between and around them, their breaths mingled as she leaned in closer and closer.
“I want this.” The words left her lips to touch his mouth. She felt powerful as she said that, as though it was the final push in order to bring them together.
Chansung pulled her flush against him as they kissed again, no hesitance this time. His hands were firm but gentle, enveloping her in heat wherever she touched her. Hwasa wrapped herself around him, fighting for more warmth and finding it again and again. The warmth promised her safety, he couldn’t hurt her and she didn’t think she could hurt herself.
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The shore was empty.
He walked and walked and walked but he didn’t find the rocks where his mermaid should be. Even when he decided to approach different groups of rocks and told himself he might at least try and see what was up there, he didn’t find anything. No blood trail, no hair, no patch of skin. No sight of her. No smells. No music to guide him.
The sun shone above his head but there was nothing to see: just his own footsteps, a trail he walked over again and again. He was moving in circles. He got dizzy from the heat and his mind started coming up with visions to compensate for any sounds that jumbled up together-- waves crashing around the rocks, birds flying overhead, trees swaying in the breeze, sticks and leaves crackling under the weight of a paw. Had that forest always been there? Maybe in another life, maybe when he could still be called the protector--
There was laughter, and it came from the forest behind him. He turned around to try and see through the trunks and branches, but his eyes could only take him so far. He took a step forward, and found no resistance. Another step, and the invisible wall between him and the forest didn’t stop him. He had been banned. He should not be able to be among those trees. Yet they seemed to be calling for him-- the branches and leaves moved with the wind until they seemed to be pulling him by the hand, pushing at his back, willing him to enter.
Now it was his feet that made the earth complain through snapping sounds. Now it was his own laugh-- amazed, bewildered, uncertain-- that bubbled in his throat till it escaped his lips and echoed around him.
Abada.
The wind seemed to stop. Just as suddenly, he couldn’t breathe. There was a branch circling around his throat and pulling him against a tree, thicker branches that coiled around his ankles and twisted into knots around his wrists. The forest was turning against him.
Abada.
That voice was not his mermaid, nor was it the forest. It was not really the forest turning against him either, but it being used to hurt him.
You used to be wise. It came as a whisper against his ear, as soft as the air itself. The voice was in the wind, but it was not the wind. When he struggled to try and look around him, the branches tightened around his lips. He coughed and discovered he still breathed, if only because the branch around his throat loosened a little. That had been a warning.
You still smell like us... but there’s the stink of humanity in you. Death. You’re overstepping boundaries. He felt a cold touch on his cheek, the sharpness of what could be nails about to make him bleed. We should kill you now so you won’t cause any more trouble, but your soul is so weak... it won’t be long.
He wanted to protest-- he wanted to ask-- where was his mermaid? why was his soul getting weak?
You were made to protect, not to kill. You don’t get to choose who lives or who dies. That’s for me. That’s for the gods. They’re watching you.
“Where were they when I needed--”
One who plays god doesn’t get to ask for god’s help.
An unbearable pain shot through him. He felt like he was about to break apart. He shouldn’t have spoken, he shouldn’t have questioned the nature of things. Nature.
He coughed and coughed once the branches loosened and recoiled, gone. As he felt the air filling his lungs again, he fell to the ground, strengthless. He could swear he felt a pitiful kick at his side, but he was distracted by the color of his skin. His hands and arms on the ground. Not blue, but-- beige? Pale. Pinkish fingertips that told him he was alive. If he was not awake, he was no longer Abada. His eyes wouldn’t be tinged with the green of the forest anymore.
He had been banned and damned a second time.
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Taecyeon stared at the list of names related to the cases, or the one big case that seemed to encompass everything else. There was one name that kept calling his attention, but he didn’t know why. That meant he had to dig it; it was exactly that kind of inquiry that helped him find more clues that might eventually lead him to another suspect.
“Sojin, give me everything you can find on Hwang Fei Fei, please.” He heard her typing the name on the computer keyboard, clicking on things, and more typing. He held the phone to his ear as he waited, but he didn’t have to wait long.
“Sending you the file right now, Taec.”
He thanked her, hung up and opened the file on his phone. Wang Fei Fei was her maiden name before she married a flower shop owner called Hwang Chansung. The names were so similar, but he didn’t marvel on that. The flower shop was more important, as well as the reason why she was in the system.
She was one of Kim Doyeon’s boyfriend’s victims. The last one. She had come to the police against her husband’s will, who had refused to testimony in her favor. He had confirmed the rape in questioning but he was too unstable after that. The evidences had been enough to condemn Mister Kim, but apparently the conviction of the criminal had not been enough for the victim. Fei had killed herself in a suspicious drowning whose only eye witness was her husband. He had been called in for questioning again, and freed of charges.
The flower shop had been closed for a couple of months, but when he called Sojin again to dig it up, they found out it was supposed to reopen that day. Taecyeon asked if they sold the lotus flower, but Sojin couldn’t be sure of that now that The Garden Fairy was just coming back to business. He would go there in person if need be.
He asked Minho to compare Hwang Chansung’s prints to the one on the lotus they had found in Ahn Hyejin’s house. Meanwhile, he asked Jomi to check up on Hyejin’s whereabouts.
Jomi sounded anxious when she called him back a minute later. “She left her friend’s house this morning. Miss Jung doesn’t know where she went, but she thinks she’s at--” Taecyeon heard another voice on the line, probably Jung Wheein’s. “It’s a flower shop, The Garden Fairy. Don’t you think that’s a little--”
“Suspicious, yes. Keep an eye on her friend in case Hyejin comes back.”
He called Chief Mun to let him in on his recent discoveries. Eric told him to have Kim Doyeon come to the police station, since she might be able to recognize Hwang Chansung.
“What about her boyfriend? Wouldn’t he be a more reliable witness?”
“He’s dead,” Junghyuk said after a pause. “The prison warden just called to inform me. He said the wounds festered through the night.”
Taecyeon couldn’t pretend to be sad or sorry for the guy. “Wouldn’t Kim Doyeon be going there right now?”
“I asked the warden not to tell her yet. We need to be completely sure of the C.O.D. first. His body is being taken to the lab as we speak.”
“Sir? Do you think this Hwang Chansung could be the vigilante?”
Chief Mun was silent for a while. “Don’t jump to conclusions before you talk to Miss Kim. I’ll go to the flower shop now and see what we can find there.”
“Yes, sir.”
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Chief Mun took off his tie, but kept his gun with him, hidden under his suit. The badge was in his back pocket in case he needed to show it, but he was hoping that wouldn’t be necessary. He hadn’t talked to Hyejin while she was in custody, so she might not know who he was and he had to use that to his advantage. Chansung might recognize him, though he hadn’t been responsible for his wife’s case back then.
He had to trust that being Eric would be enough of a facade as he entered the flower shop. The door was open. A purple and green wind chime hung at the entrance, swaying in the cool morning breeze, making a soft musical sound that was almost magical. He turned his attention to the many different flowers displayed on the tabletops; he could recognize most of them because of his job, but he saw no lotus anywhere. That alone was no proof of innocence, since that flower was so popular in their country. If the shop was not selling it, it didn’t mean Hwang Chansung couldn’t have access to it.
“Good morning.” Eric turned to see Hyejin walking his way, stopping behind the tabletop closest to where he was. “Can I help you?” She smiled politely at him, no signs of recognition in her face.
Eric coughed, reciting the little speech he had rehearsed while he was still in the car. “I’m looking for... I’m sorry, I keep forgetting how to call them. The arrangements we give as condolences to people who have lost a loved one.”
Hyejin’s smile shook slightly, and she seemed unsure of whether to look serious because of what he said or to keep the image of a friendly shop assistant who knew exactly what he needed. “You mean a wreath of flowers?” she asked, her voice mild and her smile still there, though it was a small and tentative one.
“Yes, that’s it,” he smiled back at her, trying his best to look grateful and a little embarrassed. Chief Mun wouldn’t lose his composure easily and he would know exactly what he was looking for. He was not much different as Eric, but with work came the need to act a certain way when the situation asked for it. “Do you sell those?”
Her gaze dropped aside as she shook her head. “I’m sorry, we have just re-opened and... we’re still reorganizing our stock and everything. But I could call one of our partners and see what we can do for you?”
Eric waved his hand in what was supposed to be a polite dismissal. “Thanks, but that won’t be necessary. Do you have any other thing I could use? I mean, any other flowers that fit this-- situation...?”
Hyejin frowned briefly, for a second later her eyes lit up. “If you’ll wait just a moment here, sir, I’ll see what we have in our garden?”
He nodded, and watched her leave through the back door. His phone buzzed just as he tried to look for signs that there was any cat living in that place.
“It’s not him,” Taecyeon’s voice told him through the phone. He sounded like he didn’t want to believe that himself, his tone begrudging, the sigh that followed one of unacceptable defeat.
Chief Mun kept his voice quiet as he asked, “Kim Doyeon?”
“She didn’t recognize him. Said his features were different, the eyes, the forehead, even the height didn’t match...” Taecyeon’s frustration was obvious. “And the prints didn’t match either. It was someone else, sir. Some really smartass who’s not in the system.”
Junghyuk held back his own frustration, his voice calm despite the fact that they had reached another dead end. “Ok. I think we should still watch these two just in case.”
“I could have said the very same, sir. Something about this just doesn’t feel right.”
He hung up after Taecyeon assured him he would keep digging.
Chief Mun left the shop before Hyejin returned, a white lotus flower cradled in her hands.
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Extra notes:
The title is a reference to Wilco’s On and on and on. I listened to that a lot while I wrote it, and the lyrics are also connected to the story. That's also the song Wooyoung sings while Minjun plays the piano.
The song that Hwasa performed on her solo is mentioned but not directly, so here it is. Also, during Lady Marmalade, she sang Christina Aguilera’s part. If you’ve seen Mamamoo/Hwasa performing, I hope you’ll know why. ;)
Abada is based on one of the Turkic mythological creatures found here.
In Chinese, Fei can mean "fly, flit, winged, swift." in English it is derived from the name Faye; it can mean Fairy or Faith. The Garden Fairy is named after her.
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