[SHINee] what has been (and what can never be) [2/2]
The summer after Jonghyun turned nineteen was the summer that everything kept silent under the surface came spilling irreversibly out.
As usual, Jonghyun dragged him all over town as soon as he arrived at the beach, but now for the first time the outer limits of town seemed to be too small for Jonghyun. He kept making noises about traveling further afield to find new things to do, but Taemin was always able to coax him back into one of their old familiar haunts.
It was as they were sitting back on the rocks where they first met that Jonghyun finally told Taemin about his new plan. He wanted to invite Taemin to come back with Jonghyun’s family at the end of the summer to the city where he lived.
“Just for a week or two,” he assured him, “I just want to show you all the places I know out there too. This place is so boring... there’s nothing to do here anymore.”
“What about the caves near the water right up the beach?” Taemin suggested, fighting down panic, “It’s been ages since we visited those.”
“Those aren’t even real caves,” complained Jonghyun, “They’re barely big enough to fit one of us.”
“But we both used to sit in them and try and scare each other,” Taemin frowned.
“Yeah, when I was like nine,” Jonghyun said.
“Okay, then what about the old playground?” said Taemin, “That was fun. We used to sit on that spinning thing and see who could make it go fastest.”
Jonghyun rolled his eyes.
“The playground?” he scoffed, “Come on, I’m not a little kid anymore. Why don’t you want to come with me? I promise it’s just for a week or so. Why are you so scared?”
“What do you mean, scared? I’m not-”
Taemin didn't know how to describe the numb paralyzing fear that the thought of meeting the new moon without his scaleskin brought on, and so he just kept pulling back, making as if to go back to the water in the hopes that Jonghyun would just let it drop. Jonghyun grabbed his arm instead, and looked for a moment like he was going to pull Taemin onto shore himself.
"Why are you so scared to go on land with me all of a sudden?" he asked.
"I'm not- it's nothing. I just don't want to," Taemin tried to pull his arm away, but Jonghyun held on.
"Then why?" he asked again, "You're not scared? I don't believe you, but fine. You just don't want to? Why not? Just tell me what the problem is!"
"I can't- I don't want to!" Taemin snapped, "Let go. I don't want to."
"Why not?"
"I just don't!"
Jonghyun dropped his arm suddenly.
"Is this some kind of stupid mermaid test?" he demanded angrily.
"What?" Taemin stopped mid-protest at that.
"Oh, come on," said Jonghyun bitterly, "I read the stories. I grew up with this stuff. You people are always making weird demands and rules and you never explain anything and then the stupid human gets to pay the price for stepping on your toes or trying to find out anything. We're just supposed to blindly go along with whatever you say, like we're your little pet humans? If you can't give me a straight answer, then I don't want any of it."
"Any of what?" Taemin asked, feeling like everything had suddenly frozen even though the summer sun was still beating down on their rocks.
"Any of this," Jonghyun gestured around to where they sat and finally to Taemin himself, "I don't want to be your pet human that you'll play with in the summer and tell things when it's amusing and convenient."
Taemin was stunned for a minute before the implications sunk in.
"Wait, what?" he gaped, "How- Is that what you think? Is that really what you think? You really think I'm the kind of person who would pretend to be friends just to play with your head? You think I would pretend for ten years?"
He stared Jonghyun, insulted and angry, and Jonghyun seemed shaken but no less angry.
"Well, what am I supposed to think when you won't even tell me anything?" Jonghyun shot back, "You just want me to smile and nod and go along with whatever you say, and then when I want to make plans that you don't like, you just get upset and clam up in a huff."
"Maybe I have a good reason not to go along with your plans because maybe you don't know what you're talking about!" Taemin snarled venomously, "Maybe I don't feel like sticking my neck out so you can parade around your mermaid friend on land like I'm some kind of freakshow!"
"A freakshow?" Jonghyun choked, "When have I ever said something like that? Stop putting words in my mouth just because you're too scared to be out of your pond for more than a couple hours. You say you've got good reasons? Well, that's just fucking great, but god forbid you should ever tell me what those reasons are!"
"Well, maybe I am scared!" Taemin yelled back, "Don't think you wouldn't be scared shitless if every hour you were on land was dangerous!"
"Dangerous how?" Jonghyun pressed.
"If I stay out of the water too long then when I go back I'll never be able to leave the water again," Taemin said, glaring at him.
"What is that even supposed to mean-" Jonghyun started to say.
"I'm trying to tell you," Taemin snapped, "You want answers and reasons? If you would shut up for a second, I'll give you your damn answers."
Jonghyun looked mutinous but kept his mouth closed, so Taemin continued.
"If I leave my scaleskin off past the new moon," he said, trying to keep his voice under control,
"Then when I put it back on again, it'll fuse permanently and I'll never be able to leave the water again."
"That's it?" Jonghyun scoffed.
Taemin wanted to slap him.
"What do you mean "it"?" he said, getting angry again, "I tell you something like that and that's all you have to say? I'm spilling secrets to you and you say "that's it?"?"
Jonghyun shrugged impatiently.
"Why not just say you didn't want to come with me and be done with it?" he crossed his arms, "That's a weak excuse. Have you looked at the moon recently? It's not like I asked you to travel halfway around the world. You really don't think I could get you back before the new moon? Nice to know you think so highly of me."
Taemin started to protest again, but Jonghyun cut him off.
"So that's it. Either you think I'm incompetent and don't trust me, or," he pronounced every word deliberately, looking Taemin dead in the eye, "Or you're a bigger coward than I thought."
Taemin stiffened.
"What did you say?" he almost whispered.
"I think you heard me," said Jonghyun obstinately.
"You know, you're right," hissed Taemin, "You don't know anything and I don't know why I bothered telling you anything. Of course a human wouldn't be able to understand."
Taemin could see the tension in Jonghyun's jaw but he kept talking as if compelled.
"I don't know why I ever thought a human could wrap its little head around anything bigger than whatever pathetic short little life you manage, crawling around up there on the ground. Why don't you just go back to living under your rock? You'll be gone before you know it and I can forget you ever existed."
He could hear Jonghyun grinding his teeth in frustration and took a certain amount of cruel satisfaction in it.
"Fine," Jonghyun spat, standing up, "Maybe a "pathetic short little life" means it doesn't take us forever to actually grow up."
He turned and stalked away. Taemin pointedly did not turn to watch him go, but instead made a point of splashing into the water as loudly as possible. If he had a door, he would have slammed it.
As he sped back down to his comforting little cave, he was already starting to regret some of the things that he had said, but he consoled himself with the knowledge that Jonghyun had crossed the line first. Jonghyun had been the one to start it and Taemin was certainly allowed some righteous indignation in this case. Maybe Jonghyun hadn’t understood just how much it had hurt to hear those things from his friend, but Taemin needed some time away to lick the wounds and try and forget. If Jonghyun cared to apologize then... well, they’d just see when the time came.
Remembering what Jonghyun had said brought the anger bubbling to the surface again. How could he possibly understand the visceral fear that knotted Taemin’s stomach and slowly shredded his chest from the inside at the thought of being caught on land and knowing that that was the last time he could ever be there? At that point, he'd have to stay as long as he could but eventually the longing for the sea would have been too overwhelming and he would have dropped whatever life he had up there to blindly dive back into the familiar water. How could Jonghyun ask him to deal with that possibility and then dismiss his fear like it was nothing? He could already feel the miserable ache in his heart just thinking about trying to resist the pull back to the ocean. And that was nothing?
Taemin fumed and raged in his cave for hours. He shoved a pile of driftwood over the door and told everyone who came by that he wanted to be alone.
He missed Jonghyun already.
The rest of the summer came and went. He never heard any call from the surface, and he never went looking for one.
~~
“Do you think the “stupid human” comment was going too far?” Taemin asked a passing angelfish in increasing desperation.
He was pacing back and forth in a coral nursery and trying to decide whether or not to try swimming up to the rocks to look around. It was the second summer since he'd seen Jonghyun and he still hadn't heard anything.
"Why couldn't he just let it go?" Taemin said, making a particularly angry turn at the end of the row, "Couldn't he see how serious it was? Throwing off your skin and going meandering around inland... That's not just something you do for fun! What if something had happened? What if we got held up somewhere and couldn't make it back in time? He didn't even think, and then had the nerve to go and call me a coward!"
Taemin sat down in a huff and glared at the fish as it nibbled the edge of a rock.
"I mean, what would you have done?" he asked, "It's not like I wasn't gonna forgive him if he asked me to... but he started it, so why should I have to apologize first?"
The fish looked at him balefully and Taemin frowned back at it.
Jinki had been by to visit the other day and had noted that Taemin’s growing inclination to talk to fish was slightly worrying.
"You could try talking to actual people," Jinki had said, wringing his hands, "You could try talking to your friends."
"I don't want to talk to you about it, okay," Taemin had replied, "You might have advice or something."
Jinki had just sighed and looked at him before leaving with a comforting pat to Taemin's shoulder.
"Maybe I did go too far..." Taemin lamented.
He started fiddling with one of the larger coral growths nervously and chewed the inside of his cheek.
"What if he hates me?" Taemin almost wailed, "It's not like it's all my fault! Maybe I shouldn't have said some of that stuff, but he was horrible to me too! I just- ... I miss talking to him. What am I supposed to do?"
The fish gave him an uninterested look before swimming around him and away without a backward glance. Taemin groaned and a coral branch broke off in his hand.
~~
By the third summer that passed without the slightest whisper from Jonghyun, Taemin had to face the possibility that he had seriously fucked up.
He hadn’t seen or heard from Jonghyun since that day, and three years was probably too long to still be waiting for the other person to apologize. Taemin prowled the walls of his cave nervously, debating back and forth in his mind, before finally deciding to venture up to the surface. He felt sick to his stomach as the top of his head finally breached the surface, but a quick glance around showed that he was completely alone.
He pulled himself up onto the rocks and sat staring at the spot numbly. This was the place they had sat three years ago and said such incredibly hateful things to each other. Taemin rested a hand on the stone next to him and tried to stop his mind from roaring so he could think. For some reason his thoughts were as loud as a howling storm without actually having any meaning. He blinked and tried to remember how old Jonghyun would be now. What did humans generally do at that age? If only he could think over all this noise.
Taemin didn’t know how much time had passed before he realized he was sitting hunched over on the rocks, hands tangled in his hair and trying uselessly to cover his ears. He shakily pushed himself upright and took a last look around. Of course there was no one there. No one had been waiting for him for a very long time. He needn’t have worried after all.
He dove back into the water and swam as far and as fast from the surface as he could and didn't stop until he found a thick forest of kelp to hide in. His mind was still reeling with the knowledge that Jonghyun hadn't been there waiting. He had written Taemin off. What if he'd written him off for good? What if he never came back? Taemin curled deeper into the kelp bed. If only he’d gone back up after that argument. If only he’d swallowed his pride and apologized first. Pride was all very well and good, but he wanted his friend back. But he’d waited too long and Jonghyun had gone. It was too late.
Or was it too late? Taemin sat up with an idea brewing in his head. What if he could find Jonghyun? What if he tracked him down and apologized? Maybe he could still fix this. He had no idea where to find Jonghyun, but just the thought of making things right again made him smile happily.
As he tracked down supplies and started to make plans, his mood faded somewhat, but he still clung to the hope that he could find his friend and take back every hurtful thing he had said. He planned to search the town nearby first of all. Taemin thought he could still remember which house Jonghyun and his family had stayed in the last time he had visited, or at least vaguely where it was. That would be a good place to start. And he could ask everyone in the area if they knew a Kim Jonghyun and where he could be found. Surely someone had to remember.
He hit a small snag in his planning when he realized he had no clothes to go around in on land, but quick inquiries around dug up at least some scraps of discarded clothing, and he figured he could make do with that until he could track down something less conspicuous to wear.
As he gathered his supplies, the only one he told anything was Jinki, and he only told him that he planned to take a quick trip up on land. Jinki just smiled and nodded and promised to look after Taemin’s home while he was gone, but Taemin thought that Jinki looked knowing and just a little bit sad, as if he had guessed what Taemin’s real reason for leaving was.
Once everything was gathered and everything was planned, Taemin set out for the surface. Ideally he would have left right as the new moon ended so as to give himself the maximum amount of time for his trip, but he ended up missing that by more than a week and a half. Cutting it closer than he wanted, but Taemin thought that Jonghyun might appreciate the little risktaking. He could laugh and say that at least he wasn’t a coward, right? And Jonghyun would laugh back and he would know that Taemin didn’t mean it with any real bitterness. The thought made him smile as he climbed out onto the rock and slipped out of his skin smoothly. The sun had just set, so he knew he didn’t have much time to get far before he stopped for the night. Taemin put on the somewhat tattered clothes he’d managed to scrounge together and wrapped the skin around his waist, tying it like a jacket. At least it helped to cover him, and hopefully no one would look too closely. He wandered towards the nearby road and started to make for the houses in the distance.
By the time he reached the town, night had fallen and Taemin realized that he had underestimated his ability to recognize the place in the dark. He wandered up and down a few roads, encountering a very few people who mostly ignored him. He tried asking a few of them if they knew a Kim Jonghyun or where they might be staying, but no one had heard of anyone by that name. Finally an elderly woman suggested that he try the rental headquarters if he was looking for someone here on vacation. The office would be closed until 9 the next morning, but they might have more information for him. She gave him directions to the building, and Taemin thanked the woman before leaving the cluster of houses to find somewhere to sleep for the night. He ended up hunkering down under some brush on the ridge above the beach and using his scaleskin as a blanket. He lay and looked up at the moon for a long while before he fell asleep.
The next morning he pulled out some of the food he had brought with him and ate it thoughtfully as he waited for the office to open. He didn’t know what he would do if they couldn’t provide him with information, but he supposed he would interrogate everyone in the area if necessary. There had to be stores of information somewhere, records of some kind, that he could find if only he looked hard enough. Taemin was determined to leave no stone unturned. If there was any chance he could track down Jonghyun, he would take it. He had about two weeks to find information, find Jonghyun, fix his friendship, and make his way back to the ocean. It was a little daunting when he stopped to think about it, and more than a little impractical, and for the first time his optimism was in serious danger of slipping. He stopped that train of thought right there though. He couldn’t afford to discourage himself now. As long as he worked as fast as he could and kept a close eye on the moon, he figured he should be fine. Taemin picked up his few supplies and all but ran to the office to be waiting when it opened.
The woman behind the counter there was reluctant to hand out information to a strange boy in ratty clothing, but Taemin assured her that he was a friend of the family simply looking for help finding a place to stay while he looked for a job.
“Our families used to hang out here a lot together when we were kids and they told me to come to them if I never needed help,” he lied sweetly, “I had to leave home suddenly and I didn’t know where else to find help.”
The woman continued to look at him suspiciously.
“Why would you come here for information?” she asked, “Doesn’t your family have information about this Kim family if you need to find them so badly?”
“I don’t- I can’t really talk to them,” Taemin gulped, hoping his attack of nerves looked like he was overwhelmed with emotion rather than scared to be caught out in a blatant lie, “I had to leave because of... family problems.”
She looked a little more sympathetic at that, and when Taemin gave a subtle sniff the look in her eyes was positively soft. She typed quickly on the keyboard and brought up what he supposed were records of past tenants onto her screen.
“Kim family, you say?” she asked, “Well, that doesn’t narrow it down much, but I’ve got one here that looks like it might be the one you’re looking for. They were regular visitors a few years back, but it seems like they haven’t been back much recently. A couple with two children... a daughter and a son. The whole family was here the year before last, but last year I think it was just their daughter who came back. A Kim Songdam? Ring any bells?”
Taemin tried to remember the name of Jonghyun’s sister, but he had never been too interested in the rest of the family. He wished now that he’d paid more attention.
“That sounds right,” he said instead, “I think that’s who I’m looking for.”
“She gave some contact information,” the woman suggested, “I can give you her phone number if you like.”
Taemin gratefully accepted and was all the way out of the building before he realized that he had no phone with which to call the number.
Taemin wandered around the town for the rest of the day, hoping that something would jog his memory or that some plan to acquire a telephone would occur to him. He decided fairly early on that stopping someone in the road and asking to use their phone would be more than a little weird and that he should probably not do that. That left him with few other options, which he lay in the grass just outside town and contemplated. He could walk into a store and beg to use their phone, but they would probably want him to buy something first and he realized belatedly that he hadn’t thought to track down human money. He could pretend to be in trouble and hope that someone would be kind enough to stop and offer to help. Taemin was sure most humans were perfectly nice, but the sheer lack of interest that most of them seemed to have for everything going on in the street as they walked by made that plan a little iffy. He could stand next to the road and try to get a ride from someone and then ask to use their phone, but he remembered lying around with Jonghyun and watching movies and tv and decided that hitchhiking, even for a short distance, was probably not the best plan either.
Taemin finally decided to try combining two of the plans. He would walk into a store and pretend to be in trouble and then ask to use their phone. It was bound to work.
This part turned out to be the easiest, since the old man behind the counter in the tiny gas station store he chose seemed mostly uninterested. He simply pointed at the phone behind him and went back to watching some sort of sports game on the tiny television next to the register.
Taemin carefully dialed the number and reached a woman whom he assumed was Jonghyun's older sister. She seemed surprised to hear from him, especially when he gave her a somewhat fictionalized version of how he and Jonghyun had met. She was more surprised than wary and from some of the things she said, Taemin guessed that Jonghyun had at least mentioned him. She didn't ask him his name, which he was thankful for. Not that he thought that the man at the counter would use it maliciously or even that he would know how to, but it was a relief not to have to go declaring something like that to the world at large.
Jonghyun's sister gave him an address to reach her at and promised to meet him as soon as he could get there, but she had to hang up then and couldn't talk any more at the moment. She even told him where to find the spare key to her apartment in case he should show up while she was out, and Taemin wondered exactly how much Jonghyun had told her to make her trust him so readily.
By playing up the pathetic "thrown out of the house with nothing but the clothes on his back" persona, Taemin was able to beg a map and directions off the shop owner. The man even threw in several wrapped sandwiches and a few bottles of water off the shelves, saying gruffly that he wouldn't have the boy starve by the roadside even if he couldn't do anything else for him. Taemin once again thanked him profusely and set off down the road in the direction he'd been shown. Supposedly the trip would take the better part of a week on foot, and since he didn't have any money, he resigned himself to walking the whole way. He hoped his legs would be up to it. It wouldn't leave him much time to spend at his destination, but he hoped that it wouldn't take long to make everything up with Jonghyun and then they could pick up where they left off and maybe -- just maybe -- everything could go back to the way it was. Taemin smiled and spent the day singing to himself under his breath as he walked.
Finding places to sleep at night was tricky at times, but he managed fairly well. There tended to be some sort of cover around and he woke early enough that he could set back out before anyone noticed a stranger sleeping on their property. Taemin figured he looked rather homeless and vagrant, so he didn't want to run into any trouble with disgruntled homeowners.
It was tiring going, especially for someone not in the habit of walking anywhere, but he couldn't allow himself to give up when everything else was lining up so perfectly. He wasn't making as good time as he would like, but he didn't think he was doing badly either. Some sections of the road were lined with houses and some were surrounded with empty land as far as he could see, so Taemin kept consulting his map. He could never quite tell if he was going the right direction, so he kept an eye on the sun and at night he made sure he could always see the North Star shining off to the side.
It was midday when he finally reached the town Jonghyun's sister lived in, and Taemin got turned around several times trying to navigate the neighborhood streets before he stumbled across the right apartment complex completely by accident. It turned out that it was almost a straight line between her apartment and the town near the shore, so he felt slightly foolish as he knocked on the door. No one answered and he remembered that Jonghyun's sister had mentioned on the phone that she might be away at work if he showed up at a certain time. He fished around in the mouth of a large frog statue to find the spare key and let himself in, setting his worn-down shoes next to the door and sitting gingerly on a chair in the corner. He pulled out the last of his sandwiches and ate it, but ended up falling asleep almost before the last bite was in his mouth.
He woke up to the sound of the door opening and looked up to see what he could only assume was Jonghyun's sister carrying in an armload of bags and shutting the door behind her. She started when she saw him sitting there, but he quickly stood up to introduce himself and she relaxed right away.
"I know I told you to walk right in," she said, "But you could have at least turned on a few lights."
Taemin looked around. It was fairly dark in the house now and he guessed that the sun had just set recently.
"Sorry," he apologized, "It was light when I got here and I guess I just fell asleep."
"You've been here that long?" she sounded surprised, "Then you must be hungry. I was just about to make dinner and I hope you'll join me."
She gestured for Taemin to follow her as she carried the bags of groceries into the kitchen and set them on the counter. He sat down at the kitchen table as she started unloading the food.
"So you're Taemin, huh?" she asked over her shoulder as she put a box of cereal on top of the refrigerator. Taemin choked on his own breath as he shivered violently.
"Y-you know my name?" he coughed, trying to catch his breath.
"Wow, he wasn't joking when he said you reacted to that," she laughed sheepishly as she handed him a glass of water.
"How much did he tell you about me?" Taemin wondered as Songdam went back to unloading groceries.
"He told me just about everything, I think," she replied, "He's never been able to keep secrets from me."
There was a pang of jealousy at that, but Taemin squashed it. Just because he himself had never told anyone much about Jonghyun didn't mean that Jonghyun couldn't tell someone he so clearly trusted about Taemin.
"So..." he ventured, "You know all about... where I'm from? What I am?"
"Well, I know you're a mermaid, if that's what you mean," she said matter-of-factly.
It was so familiar that Taemin had to laugh.
"Merman, actually," he corrected.
"Right," she grinned, "So I'd say I know a fair bit without you having to explain it to me. ... Is that your skin then?"
She pointed at the scaleskin still around his waist and made as if to touch it, but stopped herself just short.
"Yeah, it is," he said as he took it off and set it on the table, "You can go ahead and touch it if you want."
She poked at it gently and smiled.
"That's pretty cool."
"I like to think so," Taemin smiled back.
After one last interested poke at the scaleskin, Songdam went back to putting the food away until finally she stood in the middle of the kitchen, holding a package.
"I was going to make this for dinner, but..." she looked at Taemin, "I don't know-- do you eat fish?"
"I live in the ocean," he deadpanned, "No, I eat chicken."
She threw the balled-up grocery bag at his head and they both laughed.
When dinner was made and served, they both sat down to eat right there in the kitchen. Taemin realized as they ate and talked, that Jonghyun was very much like his sister in some ways. Their sense of humor was very much the same, certainly. Songdam didn't bring up Jonghyun though, and Taemin wondered if she was waiting to hear him ask first. He tried twice during dinner but choked up both times and tripped over his own words. It wasn't until the dishes were cleared away and she set a cup of tea down in front of him that he finally steeled himself to ask.
"You could probably guess why I came here," he said quietly.
She sat down across from him again with her own tea and took a sip.
"I'd guess you're here to find out where my brother is," she replied.
"Yes," Taemin kept his eyes fixed on the cup in front of him and took a deep breath, "I haven't seen him in a long time."
She fixed him with a stare before settling back in her seat with a sigh.
"He told me that you had a fight... three years ago now?" she said, "He sulked for the whole rest of the vacation after that. I think he was still sulking when he left for school. He came back with us the next year, but he spent a lot of time doing things all over town. He brought his girlfriend from school with him, so I guess they were mostly spending the summer together."
Taemin tried to tell himself that his tea was absolutely fascinating now, but he wanted to writhe in his seat with jealousy when he thought about Jonghyun bringing this strange girl to their shore town. What if he'd shown her the same rocks that Jonghyun and Taemin had sat on and talked for countless hours? What if they'd sat there together and-
Songdam shook his shoulder lightly and he realized that he'd been grinding his teeth and that his cup was shaking in his hands. She'd been saying something else, but he'd completely missed it.
"Sorry, what?" he managed.
"Taemin, are you okay?" she asked, looking worried.
"Yeah, I'm fine," he said shakily, "What did you say?"
"I said he's getting married soon," she repeated, and he had to actually set the cup down because every nerve in his body had suddenly failed.
“Oh,” he heard his mouth say with no real input from his brain, “That’s nice. I’m glad to hear he’s doing well, then.”
Songdam went into the next room and came back holding a small envelope, which she handed to him.
“He left this here with me,” she said, “I’m not sure why he thought you might come here, but he told me to make sure you got it if I ever heard from you.”
The envelope was plain white with his name on it in Jonghyun’s handwriting. Inside was a wedding invitation with a few extra words written in at the bottom.
I guess I’m an idiot, it read, Sorry.
Taemin let the invitation fall and stared blankly at the table. Well, that was it then. If Jonghyun was ready to tie himself so completely to a life on land then the idea that they could go back to their easy relationship seemed somewhat impractical. Jonghyun had moved on and built a life for himself here, and Taemin... Taemin needed to accept that things were never going to be like they were before.
“Are you going to come?” Songdam asked, and Taemin had to take a moment to process the question.
“I- I’m not sure,” he said, “I’ll have to think about it. When is it?”
“In about two weeks, actually,” she replied.
Just after the new moon. Giving him enough time to travel while still giving him a safe cushion to get back home with. Jonghyun was even arranging his wedding to make things easier for him.
“I’ll think about it,” Taemin repeated.
“Sure,” said Songdam, “Don’t worry about it. I can let Jonghyun know one way or another. Whatever you end up deciding, I’m sure he’ll understand.”
She stood up.
“You’re probably tired,” she said, “Come on, the sofa folds out. You should get some sleep.”
She set everything up for him and told him good night before retiring to her own room and closing the door with a smile.
Taemin got very little sleep that night.
By the time the first hints of grey touched the sky, Taemin had made up his mind to leave as soon as possible. As he got up and folded the sofa back into itself he noticed a small package sitting on under of the envelope containing the invitation. Inside was a note he assumed from Songdam, saying simply For the trip back. The package contained another supply of sandwiches and kimbap and a small roll of money. He wondered if his intention to leave had been that clear even last night, but he appreciated her kindness. If nothing else, this trip had assured him that he had not been wrong in choosing to befriend a human all those years ago. The help everyone had been willing to give a perfect stranger more than dispelled any ill feeling he ever could have had towards them. Still, all Taemin wanted at that moment was to go home.
Songdam was still asleep when he slipped out the door and set off down the road.
~~
At one point it began to rain, but Taemin barely noticed it as he pressed on. He stopped to eat some of his food and to sleep when he had to, but he could never stay asleep for long. All he could think about was getting back to the ocean. That was all that mattered now. He watched the moon getting thinner and thinner each night and just kept walking.
As the days passed, he tried to go further and further each day. He started eating as much as he could while walking. At one point he took some of the money that Songdam had given him and climbed onto a bus, but panicked when it took a turn away from the ocean and immediately got off.
When he realized he had maybe a week left, Taemin started walking through much of the night as well. His legs started to feel like lead, but the thought of time running out made him continue to force one foot in front of the other.
Before too much longer, sand started to peek out from beneath the grass at the roadside and he knew he couldn't be far away. He sat down then and began to eat the rest of the food he was still carrying to lighten the weight he was carrying and to make sure he wouldn’t have to stop again until he reached his destination.
The day wore on as he got closer and closer. He could already hear seagulls and the other familiar sounds of the shore. If he strained his ears, he thought he could even hear the faint crashing of waves on the shore. The number of houses around meant that he was still near the popular beach area, however, so he turned north and began to make his way closer to his own stretch of rocky shore. He passed the rental office where he had found Songdam's information and remembered how excited he had been. It felt like that was a long time ago.
The sun was setting by the time the houses began to drop away, and he could see the North Star ahead of him in the sky as he kept making his way towards home.
Night finally fell. Taemin trudged around a corner and finally saw the ocean spread out in front of him and shining with the light reflected from the moon and stars. He gave a sob and broke into a run for the last few yards to the water's edge. He quickly exchanged clothes for his familiar scaleskin, tossing the clothes blindly into a pile and flinging himself straight into the water. He floated at the surface for a moment and stared at the slim crescent of the moon and Polaris blinking above him placidly before diving down, back towards home. He found his own cave just the same as he had left it and curled up against the wall in relief. He fell asleep almost instantly.
His friends came to see him before too long, and if they noticed that he was quieter and more withdrawn than usual, they never said anything. Only Jinki looked at him sadly and put an arm around his shoulders without a word.
Taemin slowly found work to occupy his time. He visited the forges for a while, toying with the idea of learning to twist and shape silver into ornamentation for the walls of the coral halls, but the air-filled caves reminded him too much of the open air above the sea, so he stopped going before too long.
He spent several months chipping away at coral structures and statuary that some people loved to fill their gardens with, but when the nearby healer mentioned that he was looking for someone to help him tend the stores of medicinal plants and help him gather rare and useful creatures off the sea floor, Taemin left the coral gardens without a second thought.
He found permanent work with Ryeowook and was happy enough there after a time. He declined to join his friends on their occasional lighthearted trips to the surface, but otherwise continued on much as he always had.
Seasons began to pass, and he slowly picked up what he could of the life he'd had before and found new ways to fill up the hours of the day. It was better to stay busy.
~~
One day, many years later, Taemin heard the call of his name coming from the shore. It felt like a particularly crisp breeze had hit him, fathoms below where any breeze existed, and he shivered. He tried to remember exactly how long it had been since he last saw Jonghyun. Thirteen years? Fourteen? Fifteen? Too long. He remembered Jonghyun telling him about the short lives of humans. He ignored the nagging call and fell asleep under the sea that night with the sound ringing in his head.
The next day he tried to go about his business as usual, but every hour he would hear the call again. Sometimes quieter and sometimes more urgent, but always there in his mind. After the first three hours of this, he was almost ready to swim up to the surface just to strangle the man and make him shut up. He wondered with some irritation if Jonghyun had nothing better to do than to stand on a rock and shout at him all day, and the image made him laugh to himself for a moment before he caught himself.
As the day wore on, Taemin could feel himself getting more and more tired. He was tired because of the little amount of sleep he'd gotten, but even more tired with the constant call in his head wearing him down and setting him on edge. By the time it was night above the water, Taemin was almost trying to wrap his head up with seaweed to cover his ears, even though he knew it would do nothing. The call came again and Taemin groaned.
He got no sleep that night either.
On the third day, Taemin started off exhausted and only became more so once the calls started again. He didn't even leave his room, but instead lay there and scratched at a spot of the luminescent algae with a fingernail. He was constantly listening for the next time the call would come and at that point he was no longer sure if he was dreading it or looking forward to it. Either way, he was on edge just waiting for it. Sure enough, the first one came early and they continued on as the hours went by. Taemin continued scratching at the wall and drawing pointless patterns, but he could feel his resolve weakening. Nausea threatened to overwhelm him when he thought about what he might find above the water, but he couldn't resist the pull much longer. It was like the moon tugging insistently at the tides. Or, he thought with some wry realization, it was like the sea longing that would have come with shedding scaleskin for a life on land. He remembered struggling so hard against that fate, and yet here he was -- the lure of the land was just as strong as the lure to the sea he had been afraid of. Taemin saw that he had idly scratched Jonghyun's name onto the wall and let his hand fall with a sigh. Maybe it was time to stop being afraid.
Still, it was with no small amount of fear that came to the surface, though much of that was replaced with a sort of resigned sadness. Taemin could feel it sinking into him and settling over his chest and into his stomach as he looked out above the water and saw a much older man standing there where he looked for his old friend to be. The man held the hand of a small boy, as small as Jonghyun had been when they first met. One hundred years was a short time in the lives of his people, but Taemin suddenly felt very old.
"Hello," said the man, and Taemin recognized the voice, "I have someone for you to meet. This is Sora...... We just moved back."
Taemin could taste the sea in his throat and feel it behind his eyes, but he looked up at his friend anyway. The familiar eyes smiled encouragingly and comfortingly, as though half afraid Taemin would turn tail and flee, diving back down and never coming to the surface again. Part of him wanted to.
He thought of all the things he could say, all the explanations and apologies he could offer, but they seemed useless in the face of all the time that had passed between them. Probably unnecessary too, for that matter. He opened his mouth to say something, but his throat closed painfully and he just stared at the man before him, feeling helpless and hopeless and so tired.
"I brought my son to meet you," Jonghyun said, "We're staying for a long time. I'll bring my son and his son when the time comes."
Taemin wanted to scream at him not to; not to torment him with the ceaseless knowledge of a human life's span; not to remind him that one day Jonghyun himself would stop coming and only these new and unfamiliar children. He told himself that he could refuse. Or that he could accept and keep coming only so long as Jonghyun did. After Jonghyun no longer came, he could cut the line and run to the depths, carrying this hook with him. He could forget this family forever.
His eyes slid away from Jonghyun and came to rest on the boy. The child's eyes were wide, but he didn't look scared or disbelieving. He caught Taemin's eye and quickly looked away, kicking at pebbles on the ground and clinging to his father's hand awkwardly.
Taemin closed his eyes and tried not to remember.
"I thought you could tell him stories," Jonghyun said.
Memory was like a riptide, though. Hard to escape once it had you in its grip.
Taemin opened his eyes and began to talk.
______________________________________________________________________________
more notes:
- a lot of my mermaid research came from this site and long trains of wikipedia links
- the title came from this
- lucy really did have to put up with a lot of my shit...
examples: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
- ... no seriously, what genre is this even?