SSS 2012: For lucentic (Part 1/2)
For: lucentic
From: Your Secret Santa
Title: We used to look at the stars and confess our dreams
Pairing: Minho/Key
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Merman!Key, Merman!Taemin, Merman!Onew, coarse language
Authors’ Notes: I hope that I followed as many of the wishes that you wanted into this fanfic. There was a lot of plots circling inside my head whilst writing this and inspiration struck way too late. Happy Holidays!
Once upon a time there was a city that sat near the sea.
There were cliffs that dipped into the ocean and that had eroded from years of the waves attacking its sides. It was bright and sunny days mostly and the rays of the sun licked the wrinkled sea, the light to the darkness of the deep, cold grave below. When it was cold enough whales would appear and when it was warm enough, dolphins would jump out of the sea’s grasp.
On the cliffs sat a small town. It was principally fisherman and their humble wives that lived in this town because of the large amount of fish just a few kilometers offshore. The men’s arms were sunburnt or tanned from the hours on the ships and their hands were knotted and bloodied and scarred from the work with nets and knives all of their lives.
It is one late autumn afternoon, just before the fishermen are about to drive back home to the shore, when an experienced fisherman named Jung Yunho sees something in the distance. He isn’t one-hundred-percent sure what it is, and so drives his boat closer and closer, until he sees something on a rock that juts out of the ocean. At first it looks like a woman sunbathing in the crisp air, but then he realizes that it’s a man with a fish tail.
When the mermen and mermaids are discovered, their sleepy fishing town turns into a buzz. A mayor is changed from a jolly man to a dictator that builds his house on the biggest and the most dangerous cliff so that he can oversee the mermaids and mermen that sheepishly peek their heads out of the sea. Only some brave few have ever gone down to the beach, where the port sits.
The dictator has only seen three: the one that Jung Yunho found and has now at his house as a ‘pet’ of sorts, a curious mermaid, and the King.
The King is old but wise, and his kindness outshines any of his people. And so that’s why the dictator hates him the most; he is the opposite of him. They only meet a few times but even if the King wants to make lasting ties between the sea people and the earth people, but the dictator is far too jealous of the merman, and sends a full attack against the merman people.
Both sides fight valiantly, with many heroes from both sides of the war, but it is finally the humans with their guns and their explosives that destroy the merman people. In the end the humans travel by submarine to the King’s palace and shoot missiles, until it finally crumbles. The Queen dies and in a selfish act of revenge, the King swims up to the shore and attacks the humans with his most powerful weapon-a Trident. He died with seven bullets in his body; his Trident was taken.
The remainders of the mermaids and merman were banned from the shores of the now bloody city. They were to stay one-hundred kilometers away from their shores, and if they did not follow these rules, they would be shot. In response, the first daughter of the King said that they would destroy any ship that would enter their region would be destroyed and the crew drowned.
The royal family led the merman people away. No one knew if they had died eventually, but they remained silent, and soon the idea of half-man, half-fish creatures just became a fable.
-
Minho had never lived a sheltered life.
His father was a fisherman, like many of the other fathers in the small fishing village. Minho prided himself with having a strong, powerful and good-looking father that always came home with energy even after a long day of work. Mr. Choi would often get up early in the morning, way before Minho would even think of getting up, to go fish. Many days he would not return for a week, sometimes two weeks, and come home with a boatload full of fish and a cold. But Mr. Choi’s smile never left his face.
One morning, Mr. Choi leaves for the ships, like any other day, hours before Minho gets up and gets ready to go to school. Kim Jonghyun, a boy that goes to the same school as him, stops by his house and they walk together to school.
Jonghyun’s father also works a fisherman, and Minho has seen Mr. Kim many times at their house after a long fishing trip. Compared to his father, Mr. Kim looks tired and old, with bags under his eyes and wrinkles on his face. Jonghyun likes to comment about all the scars that his father has, but Minho finds it just gross and ugly.
“How long do you think this trip will be?” Minho asks when they’re just a few steps away from the school. He always asks this question whenever his father disappears, because Jonghyun knows everything because he’s a year older and his father tells him everything. Jonghyun stops and looks up at the sky before nodding.
“Three days! I heard that some guy is retiring, so they won’t be out for that long,” Jonghyun explains. He shrugs at Minho’s smile before running into the school’s gates. Minho runs after him. He stops at the gates.
It’s said that the town made these gates when the great war was finished. The school was the infirmary during the war, and so it was the only off-limits area in the town. The crest on the gates is of two narwhals crossed-the symbol of the city since the beginning. There was a rumor that when the humans were almost defeated and the mermaids had almost reached the shore, that a bunch of the sea creatures pushed the mermaids and mermen away. They were led by the city’s symbol-the narwhal.
It’s these gates that Minho always stops and stares at every morning. He remembers the first day of year one when his father carried him on his shoulders up to these gates. This is where Mr. Choi went to school, and his father went to this school too, and this is when his mommy and his daddy met each other. His father only got a high school education-that was why Minho was going to stay in school for as long as he possibly could so that he could get a better life.
His father always looks up to these gates. There’s a reason-all the roads lead to the school; they always have. And even when the dirt roads turned to asphalt and feet turned to wheels, all the roads lead to the school. Everything pointed to the school, the center of it all.
-
When Minho returns from school three days later he sees his mother crying. His mother doesn’t cry though. Nine-year Minho is sure of this. The only time he saw his mother cry was when he was really little and she had locked herself in her room.
It’s different this time. She’s out in the open and vulnerable.
Minho runs over to her, resting his hands on her shoulders, his stomach on her back and his chin near her cheeks. “What’s wrong ma? What’s wrong?” She cries harder. Her body shakes uncontrollably even if Minho tries to keep her still. He feels useless.
His grandmother arrives at six and scoops Minho and puts him to bed. He’s told that he doesn’t have to go to school tomorrow.
-
Nine years later
Minho is on a fishing boat. It’s something that he’s been doing since he was sixteen, when he dropped out of school.
Jonghyun still looks down at him when they cross the street because of this. Jonghyun is now the main librarian in the city because he had gone to school for the all four years of school. They rarely talk anymore but Minho wouldn’t want to talk to him anyways. Jonghyun has always had it better than Minho. Jonghyun didn’t have to make any rash decisions in his life; Minho makes them every day.
When Minho is nine years old, he learns that his father and most of their ship were brutally murdered. Jonghyun’s father was the only one that survived-he stabbed and fought himself free before he could be dragged to the depths. When Jonghyun’s father returned home the first home he went to was Minho’s.
Everyone shook their heads with disappointment when they heard the story. People didn’t need to ask the cause of their deaths; it was obvious to anyone that knew some brief history on their city would know that it was the mermaids. They must have forgotten about the boundaries or maybe the fish lead them across the line. The mermen guards must have seen the boat, counted to ten, and started attacking them.
There were gifts and flowers and hugs for the next few months. People asked if he was ok and gave out their help and their hands but Minho never accepted them. He just smiled politely and told them matter-of-factly that they’ll be fine, and that they shouldn’t worry. Two weeks after Mr. Choi’s death, his mother starts working full-time at the fishing plant the next town over. She returns home every night with bags underneath her eyes.
Minho hates to see this look in her eyes every night-he hates how she has to go to sleep right when she gets home. He tries doing a lot of the chores and he tries making dinner so that she won’t have that many problems but in the end, he just feels useless. He promises her that when he’s sixteen, he’ll drop out of school and start working to get them more revenue, until his mother can retire.
His mother and his heart are against this decision, but he knows that it had to be done. If it wasn’t done she would be working herself to the bone. He wants to go through all of high school and get a higher paying job but he tells himself that he cannot spend another night feeling useless.
Minho has never lived a sheltered life. He knows ships from his father and in a couple days he understands the layout of the fishing boats. He doesn’t interact well with the older fishing men but they don’t try to make a conversation with him either; he works. He is the one that takes the long trips because he doesn’t want to, nor does he need to, go home for a very long time. After nine years his mother is finally getting better.
He believes work is the best way to push away the evil thoughts that dare to creep in and invade his thoughts. There are mornings where the last thing he wants to do is get up, but he knows he has no other choice. If he leaves for four days he doesn’t think about his family or friends for four days. But when he settles in his bed at home after the four days and tries to sleep, his mother’s cooking in his belly, his father’s laugh and his mother’s eye-smile creep in and he cannot sleep.
He works ten times harder.
-
It’s a five day trip and Minho smells the sea air and lets it circulate in his lungs. He spreads out his arms. It smells of salt, of the sea and of fish, and this is the smell that clings to him. They are on their way home now and Minho can almost feel the warmth of his mother’s arms when she’ll hug him.
“Have you seen them?” one of the seniors, Kim Youngwoon asks, a cigarette between his lips and a cut running down to his chin. Minho nods; he doesn’t need to ask what ‘them’ is. Not that many people call them by their full names anymore. It’s ‘them’ or ‘the creatures’. They don’t deserve a pretty name; they don’t deserve to be called man.
“There have been more,” Minho comments. He knows how to be blunt and quick now.
“I think something’s coming,” Youngwoon predicts, rubbing his chin. He must have shaved it before the trip but now it grows back slowly, and Minho can hear the distinct sound of his thumb moving against the short hairs. “Maybe even a new war.” Minho’s eyes open and Youngwoon nods.
“A war is a bit drastic, isn’t it?” Minho asks.
“Humanity is drastic,” Youngwoon replies, throwing his cigarette onto the ground and smashing it with his rubber boots. “Just remember-if you see one, kill one.” Minho nods and Youngwoon turns around, his hands in his pockets. The wind blows his hair around.
-
“What in the world are you thinking?” Taemin asks and checks his nails. He lies down on the sand and stretches out his arms and his tail so that his fins at the bottom stretch out before shrinking back in when he settles back down. His scales shine golden yellow and match his current brown locks. With a face like Adonis and dancing as graceful as a swan’s, Taemin was chased by many mermaids. The only thing they didn’t know was that he’s a brat.
Kibum knows this all too well.
“A lot more than you,” Kibum replies, swimming around the sunken ship that he now has claimed his secret hiding spot. Well, not so secret after the golden-tailed merman had followed him one day (undoubtedly the worst day of his life). Besides the pesky Taemin going there whenever Kibum wants some time to himself, it’s wonderful and filled with secrets that once upon a time, Kibum had been able to keep to himself. Not anymore.
“Hey! That’s mean your highness,” Taemin complains, “You shouldn’t be using such a foul tongue to your subjects.” He flips his chestnut hair so that it falls softly down on his cheek like the seaweed that blows back and forth with the soft current.
“And my subjects shouldn’t follow me around everywhere, but you got that one covered.” Kibum swims into the hull of the ship and pulls out one of his most prized items-a compass that he had found in the debris. Or that’s what Jinki told him it was when he had asked him what it was. It doesn’t work anymore because of the amount of time spent underwater but he doesn’t mind, spending his hours looking at the dials and the needle that will always point at southwest.
He returns out to where Taemin is impatiently waiting. Though he pretends like he doesn’t mind being so far away from the big city, it’s obvious that he does by the way he fidgets and swims about whenever he follows Kibum to his favourite hiding spot. A city boy through and through, it showed by the way he turned his head back, half-expecting a bunch of guards to arrive. Kibum already knows they won’t, this place is so far away from the castle it takes thirty minutes to swim out here, and Woohyun, the head of the guards, would never force them to go looking for him.
“Can we go home now?” Taemin drawls, running his fingers through his hair and letting it swim around his head. He kicks his tail and a little bit of sand moves up. “Maybe you just need to rest a little while and realize what you’re thinking of doing is completely and utterly foolish and that staying home is probably the best.”
Kibum sighs. Some people would never understand.
“It is land, an area that us merman have never been able to reach in centuries! If you don’t find the idea of exploring and leaving this dull, desolate place behind then you must be mad! Taemin, I doubt you’ll ever understand the wonderfulness of the outside world,” Kibum explains. Taemin rolls his eyes.
“You’re the mad one, Prince Kibum! You’ve got everything and yet you want more? You have so many friends and attendants and you are the only son of the Queen! That makes you the only heir! What happens if you get killed on land because you are a damn merman, by the way, and someone else who isn’t as awesome as you will take your place? You have to think of these things.” Taemin huffs and pulls at Kibum’s hand, pulling him home. Kibum sighs and sets down his belongings and follows Taemin back home, who seems much happier to be closer to the city.
“One day,” Kibum whispers under his breath when he reaches the castle gates. Woohyun shakes his head when Taemin knocks on the large, stone doors, and Kibum and he share a small smile. Woohyun will keep his secret. It’s nice to have people who think alike.
-
This idea stemmed in him when he was young. He heard learned of the large war that separated them from the humans and was told to hate them, and so for a very long time he despised the humans and wished to stay in his room and only go out when he needed to. Kibum was a prince though and was pulled out to talk to other kids and his mother’s friends. Everyone would always smile down at him-he was a promising future.
He was the first son in a very long time. After the Queen had ran away at the end of the war, she had had a daughter, and then her daughter had a daughter, and the cycle continued for two more generations until Kibum was born. Everyone saw this a sign, and so they watched him ever-so closely to make sure that he wasn’t turning evil or that he was doing any wrong things. He would be a strong leader.
He had many friends that he became close with at a very young age. His first friend was the scholar’s son, Lee Jinki, who had a pretty, pale green tale and messy, brown hair. He giggled often and was extremely clumsy, but he was always really knowledgeable about the humans and their customs from what his father told him. Jinki was the one that knew Kibum’s obsession with going further in the most, and pushed him forwards silently.
Woohyun, who was the head of the guards, would also too learn that he had a thing with running away when one day he saw Kibum swimming away in the night and stopped him. Kibum had to order him not to tell his mother and let him go out whenever he pleases. Woohyun automatically hates this idea but must let the Prince do whatever he pleases, and keeps his secret. Though Woohyun never admitted it, he was more accepting of the necessary escapes than Taemin, the bratty Lord’s son.
Kibum had decided that his life-long dream would be to go on shore somehow, and find a way to return the compass to the man that had previously owned it. He felt every time that he held it in his palms a secret touch, like he was being connected to someone close to him somehow, maybe even to his destiny. He would run his fingers over the alien letters and wonder what they meant. What the humans were saying with this instrument.
His nineteenth birthday is coming up soon and he knows that now is the time that he needs to go on his expedition before it is too late. He knows that when he turns nineteen these things will be too hard for him to do and he will not have enough time with all the new responsibilities that will be dumped upon him. He sighs and settles down into his pillows that night and settles a perfect date to go out and swim to shore-two nights from now, three days from his birthday.
-
“Your birthday is coming up,” his mother announces when they sit at the breakfast table the next morning-one day until the day. Breakfast is soggy and Kibum pushes it around on his plate until servants eventually take it away. He has never been a breakfast person anyways and his mother understands this when she sets her cutlery down.
“Yes, I do believe it is,” he replies dryly, brushing some of his bangs out of his eyes. He thinks that it may be time to get it cut soon, with how they flop down onto his face when he’s swimming, and he doesn’t want to tie it up in a ponytail like mermaids. He doesn’t want to be like Taemin at the slightest.
“And what would you like for your birthday? You can have anything my son,” she asks with a polite smile that makes Kibum slightly sick. Yes, of course he loves his mother. But sometimes he wasn’t sure if the smile that he received from her was any different from the one she addressed the city with, or if it was a warm one just for him, because the both were cold and unreadable.
“To touch the shore.”
This answer wasn’t very new. Since he was thirteen he had been giving the same answer to the question but anyways got simpler things like a new charm or a seahorse that he could ride or more books so that he could study the humans from a faraway distance. Her smile disappears at his answer and he isn’t surprised, pushing himself out of his seat at the table and heading off to his room. He stops at the doorframe and his mother stares at him.
“I know the answer is no, it’s ok.” She sighs and crumples in her seat, her black hair flowing down to her milky white skin. She’s a pretty swan with trimmed feathers.
-
“You’re crazy,” is all Taemin says about Kibum’s plan to escape tomorrow night. Kibum rolls his eyes and digs the compass out of the ship. He doubts he’ll be able to go to the ship tomorrow so he will bring the compass with him.
“You’re stupid,” Kibum replies.
“No seriously you are crazy. You will get killed. Didn’t you her about history in that fancy teaching of yours? If you even cross a meter past their boarders they will shoot you and you will be killed and I will not be there to help you, ok? You will die and I hope that then you will realize your dumb mistake!” Taemin’s fuming and his eyes bright.
“I will be fine, ok? And if you would just shut up about it, ok? I just told you because I knew that you were probably going to follow me like always.” Kibum slips the compass into his little satchel and buries some of his prized possessions in the sand to make sure that no traveler will notice it. “I will be home by sunrise. If I am not by noon, then you can sound the alarms and tell my mother. Until then, you must remain quiet!”
Taemin sighs, “Fine, your highness.”
“Thank you Taemin-ah,” Kibum chirps with a smile. “And anyways, I will be telling Woohyun too so you can run to him if I really am lost forever.” He winks and Taemin runs his fingers through his hair.
“You are such an idiot, your highness.”
“Someone has to be the idiot. Change doesn’t typically happen without the idiot.”
-
“You should have told me earlier, I could have planned more,” Woohyun sighs, looking around in his small office. “I am not even on duty tonight unless an emergency happens. This is supposed to be my day off! You know I suck at lying-how am I supposed to lie to my men and say that I just want to stay out for the night when I have been talking about my day off for the past six weeks?”
“I will give you more days off if you do, please,” Kibum begs, his hands on Woohyun’s shoulders and shaking him madly. The red-tailed merman pushes Kibum off of him and readjusts his short, black hair.
“I-I don’t know how I am supposed to do this, seriously.” He swims around to his desk and grabs his belt, strapping it around his waist and checking his sword. He looks back up at the pink-tailed Kibum and snarls. “Three weeks off every year or I will spill your secret out to everyone.”
“Yep~!” Kibum swims up and hugs him. He’s about to plant a kiss on his cheek when the door is kicked open and a purple-tailed and green-tailed pair enter the office-Howon and Dongwoo if Kibum remembers the guards’ names well enough-with wide eyes and pale faces.
“A human boat has entered the region and they are shooting at us! Woohyun-ah, help!” The green-tailed one, Dongwoo, screams. Woohyun swallows and swims past them out to the walls. There are lights above the water and Woohyun growls.
“Wake up Sunggyu-hyung and get him down here! And contact Junyoung and wake up his battalion. Tell Sunggyu to get the others and start fighting, and tell Junyoung to clear the people just in case!” Woohyun orders and grabs onto Howon’s arm. “No merman blood shall be spilt tonight!”
Suddenly the water lights up with flashes from the human’s guns and Kibum sees the fire from their weapons. The walls are still very far away from the castle and the townspeople, but Kibum can only imagine the dead warriors that protect the barriers. The castle was far away from the line that divided the humans from the mermen. If this was by accident, they would have received enough time to turn around and drive back home. No, this was an attack.
“Swine,” Kibum growls underneath his breath. He grabs onto Woohyun’s belt and fishes out his sword from its sheath. He swims upwards and ignores Woohyun’s complaints.
It is a fisherman’s boat, Kibum knows this. He can see the hooks used to kill fish and the nets that trail behind that have been pulled up. It has a big propeller and he dodges its fins to reach the top of the waves.
The air hits his face and he bobs in the water for a few seconds. A gun’s end is pointed in his direction and he ducks down when it fires. He remembers the day that Jinki explained to him in full detail the war between the merman and the humans-and explained the guns that they used to split open their fins so that they couldn’t swim away, and would then collect the scales or the tail for show.
“Ah!” Kibum screams when he gets back above the water. “Get away from our land or I will kill you!” He has not touched on his human-speak in a while and it sounds raw underneath the rain and the night that hits his face.
The gunman stares down at him with a degrading look. “You killed everything I had! You are destroying our lives! I will eradicate the problem before we have to face it again!” He pulls his gun back up and points it at Kibum, who swims back underneath the water and resurfaces underneath the man’s feet.
He swipes his arm so that the man falls blindly to the ground. Kibum pulls his sword up and is about to stab the man’s chest when a scream resounds and he sees many more gunmen run down towards him. Kibum growls and throws the sword at one of them, hitting his chest. He steals the man’s gun and tries his best to keep it above the water, kicking his tail furiously.
“Stand back vile humans! Or I will shoot you!” He is not sure if he conjugated the human-speak properly but the men’s faces change enough so he thinks he did is best. “Turn your ship around or the ship will hit the bottom of the ocean!” The men nod and swallow, dropping their guns and running back to the various parts of the ship. They all look tired and they are wearing loose clothing. The last one turns around and picks up a small object from the bottom of the boat, one that Kibum cannot see well, and turns back to look at Kibum.
It is a young face compared to the old men that man the ship or the gunman that crawls back slowly, trying to get away. He has shoulder-length brown hair and large, brown eyes that seem to seep into Kibum’s soul. His heart starts beating fast against his chest as the man watches him. He walks over to the hit man and pulls out Woohyun’s sword. He walks on the wet floor up to Kibum. He dips the sword into the water and they watch the blood seep from the blade into the dark, somber waves.
“You people,” mumbles the young man and he is about to hand the pink-tailed merman the sword when he crumples to the ground. In his back is a merman arrow, barely in his back, but still enough to paralyse him. Kibum screams and drops the gun into the ocean and pulls himself onto the boat. The rainwater keeps him wet enough to pull the arrow out of the young man’s back. The boat has started to move again and Kibum shrieks.
He slips out of the ship, but the man grabs onto his tail and looks at him with sleepy eyes. “Please, help,” he groans, his eyelids half-open and his mouth letting the rainwater in. Kibum swats him away and he falls back into the water, but the man crawls forwards, trying his best to grab onto Kibum once more. Kibum swims away, and so the man pushes himself off of the boat. He lands into the water with a splash and doesn’t float.
Kibum dives down underneath the water with a gasp and catches the heavy man as he descends down. He swims back up to the air with difficulty to try to keep the man alive.
“Are you ok?” Kibum asks over the rain and now thunder. The man groans in response.
Kibum sighs and starts swimming after the boat, now far away from the castle. He pushes himself to go faster, his satchel hitting his side with every powerful kick. The man is heavy and he has trouble kicking sometimes and keeping is head out of the water but he tries with all of his might. He closes his eyes and screams out for help, for the people to wait, but the boat has distanced itself far away now so that he cannot get his voice across. He just makes sure to follow the ship as blindly as possible.
This man will come out alive.
next
From: Your Secret Santa
Title: We used to look at the stars and confess our dreams
Pairing: Minho/Key
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Merman!Key, Merman!Taemin, Merman!Onew, coarse language
Authors’ Notes: I hope that I followed as many of the wishes that you wanted into this fanfic. There was a lot of plots circling inside my head whilst writing this and inspiration struck way too late. Happy Holidays!
Once upon a time there was a city that sat near the sea.
There were cliffs that dipped into the ocean and that had eroded from years of the waves attacking its sides. It was bright and sunny days mostly and the rays of the sun licked the wrinkled sea, the light to the darkness of the deep, cold grave below. When it was cold enough whales would appear and when it was warm enough, dolphins would jump out of the sea’s grasp.
On the cliffs sat a small town. It was principally fisherman and their humble wives that lived in this town because of the large amount of fish just a few kilometers offshore. The men’s arms were sunburnt or tanned from the hours on the ships and their hands were knotted and bloodied and scarred from the work with nets and knives all of their lives.
It is one late autumn afternoon, just before the fishermen are about to drive back home to the shore, when an experienced fisherman named Jung Yunho sees something in the distance. He isn’t one-hundred-percent sure what it is, and so drives his boat closer and closer, until he sees something on a rock that juts out of the ocean. At first it looks like a woman sunbathing in the crisp air, but then he realizes that it’s a man with a fish tail.
When the mermen and mermaids are discovered, their sleepy fishing town turns into a buzz. A mayor is changed from a jolly man to a dictator that builds his house on the biggest and the most dangerous cliff so that he can oversee the mermaids and mermen that sheepishly peek their heads out of the sea. Only some brave few have ever gone down to the beach, where the port sits.
The dictator has only seen three: the one that Jung Yunho found and has now at his house as a ‘pet’ of sorts, a curious mermaid, and the King.
The King is old but wise, and his kindness outshines any of his people. And so that’s why the dictator hates him the most; he is the opposite of him. They only meet a few times but even if the King wants to make lasting ties between the sea people and the earth people, but the dictator is far too jealous of the merman, and sends a full attack against the merman people.
Both sides fight valiantly, with many heroes from both sides of the war, but it is finally the humans with their guns and their explosives that destroy the merman people. In the end the humans travel by submarine to the King’s palace and shoot missiles, until it finally crumbles. The Queen dies and in a selfish act of revenge, the King swims up to the shore and attacks the humans with his most powerful weapon-a Trident. He died with seven bullets in his body; his Trident was taken.
The remainders of the mermaids and merman were banned from the shores of the now bloody city. They were to stay one-hundred kilometers away from their shores, and if they did not follow these rules, they would be shot. In response, the first daughter of the King said that they would destroy any ship that would enter their region would be destroyed and the crew drowned.
The royal family led the merman people away. No one knew if they had died eventually, but they remained silent, and soon the idea of half-man, half-fish creatures just became a fable.
-
Minho had never lived a sheltered life.
His father was a fisherman, like many of the other fathers in the small fishing village. Minho prided himself with having a strong, powerful and good-looking father that always came home with energy even after a long day of work. Mr. Choi would often get up early in the morning, way before Minho would even think of getting up, to go fish. Many days he would not return for a week, sometimes two weeks, and come home with a boatload full of fish and a cold. But Mr. Choi’s smile never left his face.
One morning, Mr. Choi leaves for the ships, like any other day, hours before Minho gets up and gets ready to go to school. Kim Jonghyun, a boy that goes to the same school as him, stops by his house and they walk together to school.
Jonghyun’s father also works a fisherman, and Minho has seen Mr. Kim many times at their house after a long fishing trip. Compared to his father, Mr. Kim looks tired and old, with bags under his eyes and wrinkles on his face. Jonghyun likes to comment about all the scars that his father has, but Minho finds it just gross and ugly.
“How long do you think this trip will be?” Minho asks when they’re just a few steps away from the school. He always asks this question whenever his father disappears, because Jonghyun knows everything because he’s a year older and his father tells him everything. Jonghyun stops and looks up at the sky before nodding.
“Three days! I heard that some guy is retiring, so they won’t be out for that long,” Jonghyun explains. He shrugs at Minho’s smile before running into the school’s gates. Minho runs after him. He stops at the gates.
It’s said that the town made these gates when the great war was finished. The school was the infirmary during the war, and so it was the only off-limits area in the town. The crest on the gates is of two narwhals crossed-the symbol of the city since the beginning. There was a rumor that when the humans were almost defeated and the mermaids had almost reached the shore, that a bunch of the sea creatures pushed the mermaids and mermen away. They were led by the city’s symbol-the narwhal.
It’s these gates that Minho always stops and stares at every morning. He remembers the first day of year one when his father carried him on his shoulders up to these gates. This is where Mr. Choi went to school, and his father went to this school too, and this is when his mommy and his daddy met each other. His father only got a high school education-that was why Minho was going to stay in school for as long as he possibly could so that he could get a better life.
His father always looks up to these gates. There’s a reason-all the roads lead to the school; they always have. And even when the dirt roads turned to asphalt and feet turned to wheels, all the roads lead to the school. Everything pointed to the school, the center of it all.
-
When Minho returns from school three days later he sees his mother crying. His mother doesn’t cry though. Nine-year Minho is sure of this. The only time he saw his mother cry was when he was really little and she had locked herself in her room.
It’s different this time. She’s out in the open and vulnerable.
Minho runs over to her, resting his hands on her shoulders, his stomach on her back and his chin near her cheeks. “What’s wrong ma? What’s wrong?” She cries harder. Her body shakes uncontrollably even if Minho tries to keep her still. He feels useless.
His grandmother arrives at six and scoops Minho and puts him to bed. He’s told that he doesn’t have to go to school tomorrow.
-
Nine years later
Minho is on a fishing boat. It’s something that he’s been doing since he was sixteen, when he dropped out of school.
Jonghyun still looks down at him when they cross the street because of this. Jonghyun is now the main librarian in the city because he had gone to school for the all four years of school. They rarely talk anymore but Minho wouldn’t want to talk to him anyways. Jonghyun has always had it better than Minho. Jonghyun didn’t have to make any rash decisions in his life; Minho makes them every day.
When Minho is nine years old, he learns that his father and most of their ship were brutally murdered. Jonghyun’s father was the only one that survived-he stabbed and fought himself free before he could be dragged to the depths. When Jonghyun’s father returned home the first home he went to was Minho’s.
Everyone shook their heads with disappointment when they heard the story. People didn’t need to ask the cause of their deaths; it was obvious to anyone that knew some brief history on their city would know that it was the mermaids. They must have forgotten about the boundaries or maybe the fish lead them across the line. The mermen guards must have seen the boat, counted to ten, and started attacking them.
There were gifts and flowers and hugs for the next few months. People asked if he was ok and gave out their help and their hands but Minho never accepted them. He just smiled politely and told them matter-of-factly that they’ll be fine, and that they shouldn’t worry. Two weeks after Mr. Choi’s death, his mother starts working full-time at the fishing plant the next town over. She returns home every night with bags underneath her eyes.
Minho hates to see this look in her eyes every night-he hates how she has to go to sleep right when she gets home. He tries doing a lot of the chores and he tries making dinner so that she won’t have that many problems but in the end, he just feels useless. He promises her that when he’s sixteen, he’ll drop out of school and start working to get them more revenue, until his mother can retire.
His mother and his heart are against this decision, but he knows that it had to be done. If it wasn’t done she would be working herself to the bone. He wants to go through all of high school and get a higher paying job but he tells himself that he cannot spend another night feeling useless.
Minho has never lived a sheltered life. He knows ships from his father and in a couple days he understands the layout of the fishing boats. He doesn’t interact well with the older fishing men but they don’t try to make a conversation with him either; he works. He is the one that takes the long trips because he doesn’t want to, nor does he need to, go home for a very long time. After nine years his mother is finally getting better.
He believes work is the best way to push away the evil thoughts that dare to creep in and invade his thoughts. There are mornings where the last thing he wants to do is get up, but he knows he has no other choice. If he leaves for four days he doesn’t think about his family or friends for four days. But when he settles in his bed at home after the four days and tries to sleep, his mother’s cooking in his belly, his father’s laugh and his mother’s eye-smile creep in and he cannot sleep.
He works ten times harder.
-
It’s a five day trip and Minho smells the sea air and lets it circulate in his lungs. He spreads out his arms. It smells of salt, of the sea and of fish, and this is the smell that clings to him. They are on their way home now and Minho can almost feel the warmth of his mother’s arms when she’ll hug him.
“Have you seen them?” one of the seniors, Kim Youngwoon asks, a cigarette between his lips and a cut running down to his chin. Minho nods; he doesn’t need to ask what ‘them’ is. Not that many people call them by their full names anymore. It’s ‘them’ or ‘the creatures’. They don’t deserve a pretty name; they don’t deserve to be called man.
“There have been more,” Minho comments. He knows how to be blunt and quick now.
“I think something’s coming,” Youngwoon predicts, rubbing his chin. He must have shaved it before the trip but now it grows back slowly, and Minho can hear the distinct sound of his thumb moving against the short hairs. “Maybe even a new war.” Minho’s eyes open and Youngwoon nods.
“A war is a bit drastic, isn’t it?” Minho asks.
“Humanity is drastic,” Youngwoon replies, throwing his cigarette onto the ground and smashing it with his rubber boots. “Just remember-if you see one, kill one.” Minho nods and Youngwoon turns around, his hands in his pockets. The wind blows his hair around.
-
“What in the world are you thinking?” Taemin asks and checks his nails. He lies down on the sand and stretches out his arms and his tail so that his fins at the bottom stretch out before shrinking back in when he settles back down. His scales shine golden yellow and match his current brown locks. With a face like Adonis and dancing as graceful as a swan’s, Taemin was chased by many mermaids. The only thing they didn’t know was that he’s a brat.
Kibum knows this all too well.
“A lot more than you,” Kibum replies, swimming around the sunken ship that he now has claimed his secret hiding spot. Well, not so secret after the golden-tailed merman had followed him one day (undoubtedly the worst day of his life). Besides the pesky Taemin going there whenever Kibum wants some time to himself, it’s wonderful and filled with secrets that once upon a time, Kibum had been able to keep to himself. Not anymore.
“Hey! That’s mean your highness,” Taemin complains, “You shouldn’t be using such a foul tongue to your subjects.” He flips his chestnut hair so that it falls softly down on his cheek like the seaweed that blows back and forth with the soft current.
“And my subjects shouldn’t follow me around everywhere, but you got that one covered.” Kibum swims into the hull of the ship and pulls out one of his most prized items-a compass that he had found in the debris. Or that’s what Jinki told him it was when he had asked him what it was. It doesn’t work anymore because of the amount of time spent underwater but he doesn’t mind, spending his hours looking at the dials and the needle that will always point at southwest.
He returns out to where Taemin is impatiently waiting. Though he pretends like he doesn’t mind being so far away from the big city, it’s obvious that he does by the way he fidgets and swims about whenever he follows Kibum to his favourite hiding spot. A city boy through and through, it showed by the way he turned his head back, half-expecting a bunch of guards to arrive. Kibum already knows they won’t, this place is so far away from the castle it takes thirty minutes to swim out here, and Woohyun, the head of the guards, would never force them to go looking for him.
“Can we go home now?” Taemin drawls, running his fingers through his hair and letting it swim around his head. He kicks his tail and a little bit of sand moves up. “Maybe you just need to rest a little while and realize what you’re thinking of doing is completely and utterly foolish and that staying home is probably the best.”
Kibum sighs. Some people would never understand.
“It is land, an area that us merman have never been able to reach in centuries! If you don’t find the idea of exploring and leaving this dull, desolate place behind then you must be mad! Taemin, I doubt you’ll ever understand the wonderfulness of the outside world,” Kibum explains. Taemin rolls his eyes.
“You’re the mad one, Prince Kibum! You’ve got everything and yet you want more? You have so many friends and attendants and you are the only son of the Queen! That makes you the only heir! What happens if you get killed on land because you are a damn merman, by the way, and someone else who isn’t as awesome as you will take your place? You have to think of these things.” Taemin huffs and pulls at Kibum’s hand, pulling him home. Kibum sighs and sets down his belongings and follows Taemin back home, who seems much happier to be closer to the city.
“One day,” Kibum whispers under his breath when he reaches the castle gates. Woohyun shakes his head when Taemin knocks on the large, stone doors, and Kibum and he share a small smile. Woohyun will keep his secret. It’s nice to have people who think alike.
-
This idea stemmed in him when he was young. He heard learned of the large war that separated them from the humans and was told to hate them, and so for a very long time he despised the humans and wished to stay in his room and only go out when he needed to. Kibum was a prince though and was pulled out to talk to other kids and his mother’s friends. Everyone would always smile down at him-he was a promising future.
He was the first son in a very long time. After the Queen had ran away at the end of the war, she had had a daughter, and then her daughter had a daughter, and the cycle continued for two more generations until Kibum was born. Everyone saw this a sign, and so they watched him ever-so closely to make sure that he wasn’t turning evil or that he was doing any wrong things. He would be a strong leader.
He had many friends that he became close with at a very young age. His first friend was the scholar’s son, Lee Jinki, who had a pretty, pale green tale and messy, brown hair. He giggled often and was extremely clumsy, but he was always really knowledgeable about the humans and their customs from what his father told him. Jinki was the one that knew Kibum’s obsession with going further in the most, and pushed him forwards silently.
Woohyun, who was the head of the guards, would also too learn that he had a thing with running away when one day he saw Kibum swimming away in the night and stopped him. Kibum had to order him not to tell his mother and let him go out whenever he pleases. Woohyun automatically hates this idea but must let the Prince do whatever he pleases, and keeps his secret. Though Woohyun never admitted it, he was more accepting of the necessary escapes than Taemin, the bratty Lord’s son.
Kibum had decided that his life-long dream would be to go on shore somehow, and find a way to return the compass to the man that had previously owned it. He felt every time that he held it in his palms a secret touch, like he was being connected to someone close to him somehow, maybe even to his destiny. He would run his fingers over the alien letters and wonder what they meant. What the humans were saying with this instrument.
His nineteenth birthday is coming up soon and he knows that now is the time that he needs to go on his expedition before it is too late. He knows that when he turns nineteen these things will be too hard for him to do and he will not have enough time with all the new responsibilities that will be dumped upon him. He sighs and settles down into his pillows that night and settles a perfect date to go out and swim to shore-two nights from now, three days from his birthday.
-
“Your birthday is coming up,” his mother announces when they sit at the breakfast table the next morning-one day until the day. Breakfast is soggy and Kibum pushes it around on his plate until servants eventually take it away. He has never been a breakfast person anyways and his mother understands this when she sets her cutlery down.
“Yes, I do believe it is,” he replies dryly, brushing some of his bangs out of his eyes. He thinks that it may be time to get it cut soon, with how they flop down onto his face when he’s swimming, and he doesn’t want to tie it up in a ponytail like mermaids. He doesn’t want to be like Taemin at the slightest.
“And what would you like for your birthday? You can have anything my son,” she asks with a polite smile that makes Kibum slightly sick. Yes, of course he loves his mother. But sometimes he wasn’t sure if the smile that he received from her was any different from the one she addressed the city with, or if it was a warm one just for him, because the both were cold and unreadable.
“To touch the shore.”
This answer wasn’t very new. Since he was thirteen he had been giving the same answer to the question but anyways got simpler things like a new charm or a seahorse that he could ride or more books so that he could study the humans from a faraway distance. Her smile disappears at his answer and he isn’t surprised, pushing himself out of his seat at the table and heading off to his room. He stops at the doorframe and his mother stares at him.
“I know the answer is no, it’s ok.” She sighs and crumples in her seat, her black hair flowing down to her milky white skin. She’s a pretty swan with trimmed feathers.
-
“You’re crazy,” is all Taemin says about Kibum’s plan to escape tomorrow night. Kibum rolls his eyes and digs the compass out of the ship. He doubts he’ll be able to go to the ship tomorrow so he will bring the compass with him.
“You’re stupid,” Kibum replies.
“No seriously you are crazy. You will get killed. Didn’t you her about history in that fancy teaching of yours? If you even cross a meter past their boarders they will shoot you and you will be killed and I will not be there to help you, ok? You will die and I hope that then you will realize your dumb mistake!” Taemin’s fuming and his eyes bright.
“I will be fine, ok? And if you would just shut up about it, ok? I just told you because I knew that you were probably going to follow me like always.” Kibum slips the compass into his little satchel and buries some of his prized possessions in the sand to make sure that no traveler will notice it. “I will be home by sunrise. If I am not by noon, then you can sound the alarms and tell my mother. Until then, you must remain quiet!”
Taemin sighs, “Fine, your highness.”
“Thank you Taemin-ah,” Kibum chirps with a smile. “And anyways, I will be telling Woohyun too so you can run to him if I really am lost forever.” He winks and Taemin runs his fingers through his hair.
“You are such an idiot, your highness.”
“Someone has to be the idiot. Change doesn’t typically happen without the idiot.”
-
“You should have told me earlier, I could have planned more,” Woohyun sighs, looking around in his small office. “I am not even on duty tonight unless an emergency happens. This is supposed to be my day off! You know I suck at lying-how am I supposed to lie to my men and say that I just want to stay out for the night when I have been talking about my day off for the past six weeks?”
“I will give you more days off if you do, please,” Kibum begs, his hands on Woohyun’s shoulders and shaking him madly. The red-tailed merman pushes Kibum off of him and readjusts his short, black hair.
“I-I don’t know how I am supposed to do this, seriously.” He swims around to his desk and grabs his belt, strapping it around his waist and checking his sword. He looks back up at the pink-tailed Kibum and snarls. “Three weeks off every year or I will spill your secret out to everyone.”
“Yep~!” Kibum swims up and hugs him. He’s about to plant a kiss on his cheek when the door is kicked open and a purple-tailed and green-tailed pair enter the office-Howon and Dongwoo if Kibum remembers the guards’ names well enough-with wide eyes and pale faces.
“A human boat has entered the region and they are shooting at us! Woohyun-ah, help!” The green-tailed one, Dongwoo, screams. Woohyun swallows and swims past them out to the walls. There are lights above the water and Woohyun growls.
“Wake up Sunggyu-hyung and get him down here! And contact Junyoung and wake up his battalion. Tell Sunggyu to get the others and start fighting, and tell Junyoung to clear the people just in case!” Woohyun orders and grabs onto Howon’s arm. “No merman blood shall be spilt tonight!”
Suddenly the water lights up with flashes from the human’s guns and Kibum sees the fire from their weapons. The walls are still very far away from the castle and the townspeople, but Kibum can only imagine the dead warriors that protect the barriers. The castle was far away from the line that divided the humans from the mermen. If this was by accident, they would have received enough time to turn around and drive back home. No, this was an attack.
“Swine,” Kibum growls underneath his breath. He grabs onto Woohyun’s belt and fishes out his sword from its sheath. He swims upwards and ignores Woohyun’s complaints.
It is a fisherman’s boat, Kibum knows this. He can see the hooks used to kill fish and the nets that trail behind that have been pulled up. It has a big propeller and he dodges its fins to reach the top of the waves.
The air hits his face and he bobs in the water for a few seconds. A gun’s end is pointed in his direction and he ducks down when it fires. He remembers the day that Jinki explained to him in full detail the war between the merman and the humans-and explained the guns that they used to split open their fins so that they couldn’t swim away, and would then collect the scales or the tail for show.
“Ah!” Kibum screams when he gets back above the water. “Get away from our land or I will kill you!” He has not touched on his human-speak in a while and it sounds raw underneath the rain and the night that hits his face.
The gunman stares down at him with a degrading look. “You killed everything I had! You are destroying our lives! I will eradicate the problem before we have to face it again!” He pulls his gun back up and points it at Kibum, who swims back underneath the water and resurfaces underneath the man’s feet.
He swipes his arm so that the man falls blindly to the ground. Kibum pulls his sword up and is about to stab the man’s chest when a scream resounds and he sees many more gunmen run down towards him. Kibum growls and throws the sword at one of them, hitting his chest. He steals the man’s gun and tries his best to keep it above the water, kicking his tail furiously.
“Stand back vile humans! Or I will shoot you!” He is not sure if he conjugated the human-speak properly but the men’s faces change enough so he thinks he did is best. “Turn your ship around or the ship will hit the bottom of the ocean!” The men nod and swallow, dropping their guns and running back to the various parts of the ship. They all look tired and they are wearing loose clothing. The last one turns around and picks up a small object from the bottom of the boat, one that Kibum cannot see well, and turns back to look at Kibum.
It is a young face compared to the old men that man the ship or the gunman that crawls back slowly, trying to get away. He has shoulder-length brown hair and large, brown eyes that seem to seep into Kibum’s soul. His heart starts beating fast against his chest as the man watches him. He walks over to the hit man and pulls out Woohyun’s sword. He walks on the wet floor up to Kibum. He dips the sword into the water and they watch the blood seep from the blade into the dark, somber waves.
“You people,” mumbles the young man and he is about to hand the pink-tailed merman the sword when he crumples to the ground. In his back is a merman arrow, barely in his back, but still enough to paralyse him. Kibum screams and drops the gun into the ocean and pulls himself onto the boat. The rainwater keeps him wet enough to pull the arrow out of the young man’s back. The boat has started to move again and Kibum shrieks.
He slips out of the ship, but the man grabs onto his tail and looks at him with sleepy eyes. “Please, help,” he groans, his eyelids half-open and his mouth letting the rainwater in. Kibum swats him away and he falls back into the water, but the man crawls forwards, trying his best to grab onto Kibum once more. Kibum swims away, and so the man pushes himself off of the boat. He lands into the water with a splash and doesn’t float.
Kibum dives down underneath the water with a gasp and catches the heavy man as he descends down. He swims back up to the air with difficulty to try to keep the man alive.
“Are you ok?” Kibum asks over the rain and now thunder. The man groans in response.
Kibum sighs and starts swimming after the boat, now far away from the castle. He pushes himself to go faster, his satchel hitting his side with every powerful kick. The man is heavy and he has trouble kicking sometimes and keeping is head out of the water but he tries with all of his might. He closes his eyes and screams out for help, for the people to wait, but the boat has distanced itself far away now so that he cannot get his voice across. He just makes sure to follow the ship as blindly as possible.
This man will come out alive.
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