#bttnetwork

“What, why? You’re the nicest person I know and you have a beautiful soul.”

“I just mean that you’re so good at just reaching out and finding opportunities and then using them. I’m the complete opposite and even if something I want is hanging right in front of me, I’m too scared to act.”

“Hey, hey, what’s this about, huh? Are the profs playing fair over there?”

“It’s not that. The prof leading my research section is actually really great to me. But...I told you about Lab Guy, right?”

“Yes, you did,” Jay’s tone is apprehensive as you bring up the topic of the lab assistant. “What about him? Is he being nice to you?”

“He’s been nice,” you twirl the cord of the old over-the-ear headphones laying on the desk you’re seated at. “I mean, as nice as anyone is to anyone else. Well, he was.”

“And now he’s mean? Listen, if I have to come home and kick his ass, I’ll—”

“God, no, just...listen for a second before you kick someone’s ass, okay?” Jay settles back into her chair but her lips remain pursed with suspicion. “Last week he would ask me questions, or say hi to me when I came to the lab in the morning, but he’s just...stopped.”

“Oh.”

“Just ‘oh’?”

“I don’t mean it like that,” Jay assures you. “I just mean I was worried about you and now I’m not.”

“It wasn’t anything serious.”

“Well, obviously it upsets you. What do you think changed?”

“I don’t know. I was probably just so awkward every time he talked to me that he got scared and stopped.”

“How awkward are we talking, here?”

Your mouth opens and closes for a second as you search for a reason why you weren’t as bad as she’s thinking. But if you’re being honest, you were just as bad. Probably worse.

“Sometimes I wouldn’t always have a response for him when he’d ask me things. But in my defense—”

“Oh my god,” Jay sighs before looking at your sheepish expression and combusting into a fit of laughter. “Are you scared of him or something?”

“No, I’m not. He’s super nice and really funny, and a little nerdy, but he doesn’t look like a nerd. He looks like a model, Jay. I swear if you saw him, you’d wonder if you saw him on TV once. He’s that good looking.”

Jay pulls out her phone, the picture of practiced nonchalance. “What’s his name?”

“I’m not telling you. You’re gonna look him up on my instagram and then slide into his DMs. And then I’ll die,” you explain matter-of-factly. 

“I wasn’t gonna do that,” she protests gently, but the phone leaves the camera frame. “Well, it sounds like he’s not scary. So I don’t get why you’re not taking advantage of the fact that he seems to be a good guy and he’s right there.”

You pick up the laptop and move from your rolling desk chair to the large bed in the center of the room. So she can still see you as you move around the room, you lay it on a pillow.

“I don’t know. All I’m saying is that when you get to campus in the fall, you might be disappointed in me.”

Jay sighs in the background, but your back is to her as you dig in your grandparents’ closet for a sweater to throw on. You’re glad you can’t see the way her eyes get soft and sad as she watches you stop yourself from having the things you want. It’s a look you’re actually pretty accustomed to and you hate that. But you hate the idea of rejection more and that’s why you’re always in predicaments like this one.

“You going to bed,” she finally asks when you return to face the camera again.

“Not yet,” you pick at a loose thread on the quilt your grandma knitted almost a decade ago. “I think I’m gonna take a walk on the beach first.”

“Careful. Just because it’s a small town, doesn’t mean there aren’t perverts on the beach at this hour.” You roll your eyes.

“The beach behind my grandparents’ house is private. And closed, thank you very much.”

“You’re a big girl, I know. Just text me when you get back.”

“I will. Talk soon.”

“Okay. ‘Night.” You say goodbye and then close the laptop. 

With the sweater as protection from any ocean chill that might roll onto the shore and your feet shoved into some sneakers ratty enough for the beach, you head out.

Despite the catharsis that comes with venting your insecurities to Jay, you still find that you need to take this walk. Nothing settles your nerves more than the ocean. Since you were a child, you’d always been fascinated with it in a way that would silence everything inside you so that you could take in as much of its vastness as possible. Your parents used to bring you to the beach in the summer when you were extra rowdy to calm you down before bed. It helped that the house where your mother’s parents ended up settling in was right next to the ocean. And only a ten minute bus ride away from the section of BTU campus where your lab is located. Since your grandparents were away in Rome this summer, it only made sense that you come out early before the school year to do the internship and avoid the move-in craze by being there as soon as they opened the dorms. 

But now, you’re mostly grateful for the short amount of time it takes you to descend the hill the house sits on and hop the tiny fence keeping non-residents and trespassers like yourself out at the right time. Your shoes come off almost immediately and swing from your fingers as your toes dig into the cool sand. A sigh leaves your mouth, the sound deep with content. You feel more whole than you did all day. You begin your trek across the length of the beach. Just there and back, you tell yourself. How fast you walk there and back is another story. You’re in no hurry. The moon is bright but small in the sky. Not large enough to tinge the night sky a cosmic navy, but just enough to be a white orb in the otherwise jet black above.

The sight of the moon draws you in like a wave in the tide and you find yourself being pulled towards the water. You’re only certain you’re getting closer to the water because the sand suddenly goes cold and wet under the soles of your feet and sticks between your toes. The calm you feel is so potent that you barely flinch at the sudden onslaught of water that hasn’t been warmed by the sun in a long while. A subtle deviation in the hush of the tide draws your gaze down into the water. It resembles ink because of how dark it is. Its mesmerizing in its own right, but when two small pinpricks of light blink up at you from beneath the waves, you scramble backwards. With a quickness that can only be a remnant from times when people were prey, you escape the shallow parts of the waterline. The adrenaline keeps your bare feet from protesting the task of sprinting home on hard, sharp pavement.

When you get far away enough for your human brain to take the reins again, you turn back. You squint and realize the twin lights...the eyes are still there. Two specs in the distance blinking curiously at where you once stood. The undeniable fact that you just encountered something raises the hairs on the back of your neck and on your arms. Your body is sending you signals that you may not be safe, but what’s left of the imagination you had as a child suggests that you go back. Figure this out, the little voice in the back of your mind urges

The next night comes and you find yourself waiting by the back door this time, eyes on your watch as you try to replicate the previous night’s outing. This time you don’t even bother to wear real shoes and, instead, you slip on water shoes you found in a random closet while rummaging through the house. The call to the water becomes too strong and you can’t wait any longer.  You throw the door open, and run out.

You’re not exactly sure where you saw the eyes because it was dark and there were no distinguishing rocks or divots in the sand that are still there the following night. But you try to keep the same pace and stop after the same amount of time, hoping your hasty math is correct. The continuous ebb and flow of the waves and the homogenous sand and sky don’t do much in terms of validation. This spot you’re currently in could be where you were standing the night before, but it could also be any other spot as well. Still, you have nothing but faith to go off of and stand motionless for what feels like an hour. It has to only have been a few minutes judging by your watch when you hesitantly divert your gaze from the water to the watch face. You’re about to give up when you hear the same unusual splashing as last time.

Your pulse is a hummingbird beat as the splashing gets slightly louder. Every limb locks up in fight or flight response, old buried instincts making you wish had claws to extend or perhaps a tail flicker anxiously. The lights appear, further away than before. They’re pupil-less and unnaturally bright for a night as dark as this one with no man-made lights to assist. Like that of a nocturnal animal’s.

“H-hello,” you call out. Immediately you feel stupid for trying to communicate with—

“Hello,” it calls out in response, pulling a gasp from your throat. You take a step forward, shaky with palms open in what you hope is a universal gesture of harmlessness.

“I, uh,” you try to control your stuttering as you talk into the void. The only noise being the tide. “I saw you yesterday.”

“Yes,” the voice says simply. “Runned away from here.”

“Ran away,” you correct automatically before your eyes widen. “Sorry.”

“Why ran?”

The question catches you off guard. “I...didn’t know what—who you were. I got scared.”

No response comes from the water, so you keep going and hope whatever it is hasn’t gotten bored and left.

“Are you like me? Are you, uh, human?”

“Man? We are not man,” the thing sounds as though it finds the idea humorous. You swallow thickly.

“What are you?” The following pause is long enough to be one of deep thought.

“Our people, we are one tail. Not two tails.”

“You have a tail?”

Curiosity brings you even closer to the water's edge until the water laps at the porous toes of your pool shoes. You can almost make out a pale shape connected to the lights, but you can’t see well enough to make anything else out.

“Yes. But we and man are same without tail.”

The laugh that leaves you is a bit hysterical, but you can’t help it.

“You’re a mermaid?”

“Oh. Yes. Man gives our people this name.”

“Wow, I can’t believe this,” you cup your face in childlike wonder before another, more exciting thought passes through you. “Can I see you?”

“You will not hunt us?”

“No, no. I won’t. I don’t have anything to hurt you with.”

“Make oath.”

“I promise.” You’re not sure what would be enough proof for this mermaid. “I oath?”

The mermaid sizes up your promise.  “Come.” You take a giddy step forward before the voice sounds once more. “Not now! Come with sun. Then your eyes will see.”

“Oh,” you pout a little. A quick look at your watch shows that there are still a good number of hours before sunrise and you don’t exactly want to wait now. “I’ll go to sleep here, okay? And when I wake up, you’ll be here still? Promise?”

“Yes...promise.”

“Okay. I’ll see you at sunrise.”

You put enough distance between you and the tide so you can ensure you don’t get swept away in the middle of your sleep but also not too far. Stubbornness makes you want to stay up all night lest your mermaid break their promise and swim away while you sleep. The whole night’s events seem crazy. Because they are. But they’re also just what you needed after feeling so down the night before. Truly, you wouldn’t be surprised if you woke up the next morning and everything was a dream that resulted in you sleep-walking to the beach. Even still, you’re glad you were able to have a brief distraction and take an excursion outside your own head.

When you wake, there’s barely any sun at all. There are no warm colors bathing the belly of the sky because it’s still too early yet. The light that is there is pale, a promise of sun, a precursor from behind the horizon. You sit up and brush the sand off your limbs sleepily with the sound of your watch’s alarm function going off. The memory of setting an alarm for the wee hours of the morning is faint in your brain, but it’s there. Which means you were up and conscious in the middle of the night, last night. Conscious enough to set an alarm to wake up to see the mermaid you may have discovered last night.

The reminder of the mermaid sends you upright a little faster than your still-groggy limbs would like. You tumble forward in your haste only to end up on your hands and knees in wet sand. The sand is the least of your concerns as you trudge into the icy water, searching frantically for a sign of what you still haven’t seen. When the shallow waters give away nothing, you’re desperate enough to go deeper. You wade forward until your thighs are being caressed by the tide. Shivers wrack your body now as the night spent outside in nothing but shorts, a t-shirt, and your grandfather’s sweater catches up to you.

“You awaken.”

The voice startles you and you stumble to the side just enough to lose your footing and wet the hem of your sweater. You curse to yourself before realizing that the voice sounds close. So close. You turn your head, not sure what to expect.

What you see is the top half of what looks like a man. Granted, he’d be a beautiful man, but you weren’t expecting the mermaid to look human at all. The mermaid is pale, you note. The skin on his bare torso is pale and glistens lightly with the water that beads up on its surface. His hair is dark as the water was last night, nearly black and crystalline in its shine. On the sides of his neck are three pairs of gills. They shudder lightly in the open air and if you crane your neck you can see the little filaments under the flaps, red and vivacious. Three much larger pairs lie at the base of the mermaid’s torso, just above the water level, above what should be his hip bones. The sight takes your breath away.

Just beneath the water, you can see the thick trunk of what must be his tail slightly coiled beneath him as if it’s a makeshift seat. The tail looks sturdy and powerful. Much to your surprise, there are no scales like you might see on a fish. The skin of his tail contrasts starkly with his pale skin due to its dark grey color. The tail is littered with a few scars and bumps that suggest its not at all some hyper-expensive costume piece. That’s real life wear and tear, you note. The end of the tail is a large fanning bit that resembles a whale’s tail almost perfectly in all aspects, except for size.

“You’re beautiful,” you breathe. It’s hard for your to drag your eyes off his tail, but when you finally reach his face, he looks less than pleased.

“We know this,” he crosses his arms flippantly. The gesture is surprisingly human and steals a chuckle from you. “Why you are laughing?”

“No reason. I guess I just thought mermaids were a myth.”

“What is mitt?”

“Myth,” you correct, poking your tongue between your teeth a little further than normal for emphasis. The mermaid copies you and the proper sound comes out. “It means I didn’t think there were mermaids. I thought mermaids were just a story.”

“We are not myth,” he hisses and you can see a hint of lengthened canines. “We are here forever.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

The mermaid cocks his head and narrows his dark eyes, before propelling himself back a few feet deeper in the water. You take a step forward without thinking. Salt water bleeds upward into the hem of your shorts, but you don’t mind.

“You can swim?” There’s a hint of arrogance in the faint smile on his face.

“Yes. A lot of humans can swim.”

“Oh,” his mouth drops open, eyes growing large with surprise. Whatever comment he’d planned next clearly wouldn’t apply now. “We think this is a myth for humans.”

“Fish can swim. Why wouldn’t humans swim.”

“Fish are water creatures. Humans are land creatures. Why swim if no water?”

“That’s a good question.”

“Yes, we are very smart,” Yoongi nods to himself.

“What is your name?” you realize you don’t know what to call this mermaid you spent the night outdoors for.

“You cannot say it. Humans can never speak mermaid tongue.”

“Oh.”

He watches your face closely, observing the way your face resembles that of a Mer child when told they must stop chasing bubbles or scolded about being more careful with the fish they’re teasing.

“We have little name. One humans may say. Yoongi.”

“Yoongi?”

“Yes.”

“Wow. Yoongi, I—”

Your alarm chimes on your watch, signaling that it’s time for you to wake up so you can get to the lab on time. Cursing to yourself, you pull your lip between your teeth in frustration. Of course the magic of meeting a ‘mythical’ creature couldn’t last forever. The real world was now giving you a wakeup call. And it couldn’t have been at a worse time.

The tinkling sound grabs Yoongi’s attention and he reaches out with marble white fingers, slightly clawed, to pull your wrist forward. Yoongi marvels at the watch for a brief moment before becoming more fascinated with the delicate hairs on your exposed arm. While Yoongi’s skin looked like it was the same as yours, save for the pale color, it felt different. It was a bit tougher, slightly rubbery. Unsurprisingly, Yoongi’s touch is wet and cold on you as he squeezes your upper arm experimentally.

“You are soft here. Humans are soft,” Yoongi mumbles, more to himself than to you. “And you are warm like a seabird.”

“Do you like seabirds?”

“Yes. We eat them for ritual feast.”

“I see.” You remove your arm from Yoongi’s grasp quickly before he gets any ideas with those sharp teeth. “I have to leave to go to school. Do you know school?”

“Yes,  we know school,” Yoongi rolls his eyes. “We learn human tongue in school.”

Yoongi’s admission that mermaids have systematic education involving interspecies communication makes a million more questions pop up in your head. But you don’t have the time and your internship funding will be at stake if you start to slack on your duties. As much as Yoongi interests you, you can’t sit with him at the shoreline until you’re a pruny mermaid expert.

“Can we talk tonight? I’ll come back here again.”

Yoongi purses his lips and thinks for a beat before nodding his assent.

“We will wait here at night. You give us this,” Yoongi points at your watch.

“I can’t give you this. I need this. What if I need to set an alarm or—you...don’t know what an alarm is.”

“And we don’t care for alarm. Give us the singing leech and we will wait here again. You don’t give us leech, we don’t know if we will wait.”

Yoongi drives a hard bargain for your watch despite him thinking that it’s actually just a leech with the power to sing. As you undo the fastening of your wristband, you make a plan to explain to Yoongi what the watch does and thank heavens that it’s just an old Casio you found at a thrift shop years ago. You don’t tell Yoongi that if he takes it underwater it won’t ‘sing’ anymore, but that’s the price he pays for giving you an ultimatum.

Yoongi snatches it out your open palm like you’ll take it back and smiles down at it in his clenched hand.

“You’re supposed to say ‘thank you’ when someone gives you a gift.”

“This is not gift. You pay us. Go to school now.”

With that, Yoongi pushes off the ground with his tail and lunges into the depths at an incredible speed. Part of you would love to run tests on him, but the better part of you reminds you that you don’t do experiments on new friends.

You meet up with Yoongi every day the rest of that week and the next few weeks that follow. Each time you learn about him and other mermaids and each time, Yoongi’s cadence and syntax become a little more natural. When you asked if he went to school during the day, Yoongi scoffed and said school stops at 16 mermaid years of age. Instead, Yoongi would swim to the boardwalk and eavesdrop on a group of young people who made a habit of sitting and chatting after work let out. You brought your phone to take notes from the conversations so you would retain the information a bit better. Yoongi had tried to barter for your phone during one of the earlier meetings and quickly learned that humans needed their phones to survive.

From Yoongi, you’d learned that there may actually be a great deal of merfolk walking among you. Some mermaids went on to continue studying ‘human’ studies and would go through a changing ritual around their 18th birthday to ‘split their tail’ and go on land. Usually this just meant going through college at specific institutions that had merfolk with high administrative privileges working there to get them in. But some would go to travel and study human cultures using a more ethnographic approach. Some would go just to pass as a human, but those mermaids were rare.

Yoongi also explained to you that splitting the tail didn’t have to be done through magical rite, but could happen spontaneously upon leaving the water for long enough. It occasionally happened to beached mermaids if they fell asleep in a particularly wild tide that washed them up on some shore somewhere. But they usually hopped right back in because splitting the tail was a painful and uncomfortable process.

“What’s it like,” you’d asked one night, phone light illuminating your face while you typed up what he said. The light was harsh and clashed with softer moonlight that often accompanied your meetings, but you were still charming in your excitement to hear Yoongi’s stories.

“It’s like...” Yoongi paused, still trying to gain command in human language. “It’s like your chest dried up on the inside. And then that dryness went all over the body.”

“Interesting.” The sounds of your frantic typing fill up the empty space. “What else?”

“Well, our,” Yoongi gestured to his gills when only the mer word popped up in his memory. “What do you call these?”

“Gills.”

“Our gills feel like they’re burned closed. Maybe it’s because we have to learn to breathe from our insides like you do, when the tail is split.”

“You have lungs?” Your mind raced with possibilities about the implications of having transformative anatomy before jotting it all down. At Yoongi’s confused expression, you explained what the term ‘lungs’ means.

“Yes? But we don’t use them when we have our tails. Don’t need them.”

“Wow.”

“You always say that. Wow,” Yoongi mocked you. “‘Wow, Yoongi, so amazing. Wow.’”

“So what? I’ve never met a mermaid before you.” You turned your phone off and let your eyes adjust to the nighttime darkness. When you squinted you could make out the beautifully delicate features of Yoongi’s face. “What did you think when you saw a human for the first time?”

“Mmm,” Yoongi thinks, “Felt bad. It was like someone had maimed a mermaid and left them on land to suffer as punishment for their crimes.”

The answer wasn’t what you expected but it was funny enough that you let out a snort before falling into a pile of giggles. The wet sand cushioned your fall as you slumped to the side and shook silently with laughter. Yoongi is not human, but might also be just a little bit of a weirdo.

“So, how long can you split your tail without the ritual?”

“We don’t know. If you do it without a, um, a wizard?” You approved of the word choice. “You can look like a man, but eventually, you will become s-slimed.”

“Slimed?”

“Yes, like a sea cucumber? Our skin needs water, and there is not enough in the air. So we make our own water. But its heavy and feels bad on the skin when you touch it.”

“Skin....produces...mucus...when exposed...to dry atmosphere,” you repeated the words to yourself as you typed them down. “Cool.”

“It's not just uncomfortable for the body, though. Your soul will call to the sea and the moon will drive you to tears when you see her. She will tell you to come back. If you cannot come back soon enough, she takes you back, through sadness.”

“You mean, like, you die?”

“Yes, sometimes,” Yoongi nodded solemnly.

“Human, we wish to split the tail.”

“Hold on. You want to do it?”

With all the horror stories Yoongi had given you about splitting the tail, you weren’t expecting him to ever subject himself to it willingly. But lately, Yoongi had been fed up with questions about him and other merfolk and wanted to know more about humans. You knew Yoongi had a growing interest after meeting with you so often. Sometimes you’d go for walks at night with him floating effortlessly on his back in the water near you. His gaze would sometimes drift down to your legs and bare feet, and you could tell he was curious about your appendages. About humans.

“Yes. We—I want to do it with the purpose of spending time in your nest.”

“What, like a vacation?”

Yoongi’s eyes grow wide then at the mention of a vacation. “Yes! A vacation for me!”

Vacationing was a concept you’d explained to him fairly recently during the rare period where he would be the one asking the questions. You’d explained that it was when you didn’t have any chores or work and you went away somewhere beautiful or cool or just different to have a nice time. The first time you mentioned it, he’d marveled over the concept since it wasn’t present in mer-culture. But you had no idea he was holding onto it this whole time.

“Okay. You can stay with me. But what about the whole...moon-sickness thing. I don’t want you to die at my house.”

“I will not die. You have a small ocean...a pool at your den. I will sleep there, so I can take breaks.”

Yoongi doesn’t leave you with much room for argument and you find yourself looking up the price and location of salt bags so you can maybe try and make the salinity in your pool match that of the ocean. You’re not sure how he’d do with chlorinated water, and definitely not sure how he’d do without any of the natural salt found in seawater. You find a hardware store that carries a few and heft them home after your internship a few days after Yoongi invited himself over. It takes a while and a hefty chunk from your bank account, but you figure it’s better than having Yoongi shriveling up and dying on your watch. When the day finally comes, you agree to wait until sunset and pick Yoongi up by the edge of the beach where you won’t risk being seen by beach-goers. Yoongi’s waiting for you on the sand when you get there, looking like death warmed over.

Yoongi’s skin looks so different in the dwindling daylight—not pale in an ethereal way, but in a sick way. Granted, he’s not exactly in the best of health. The dark charcoal of Yoongi’s tail has dulled and paled into something resembling the skin of a sea-bleached corpse. The tissue and muscle has thinned through, showing the legs developing underneath. They look like real human legs that someone tossed a disgusting flesh blanket over. Sweat coats his entire body despite the moderate weather of the day, and you instinctively crouch down by Yoongi’s head to wipe at the sweat and smooth the skin of his forehead.

“You’re gonna be okay. We’ll wait til you’re dry and then we can start your vacation at my house. How’s that sound?”

Yoongi groans in response, but nods.

The time passes so slowly that you begin to nod off after a while, but the feeling of a hand shaking your shoulder wakes you from your nap. When you open your eyes Yoongi is kneeling in front of you, looking healthy and human, but still beautiful in an unusual way. His hair is still dark, but it’s not quite so dark that it seems to steal the light around it. The gills are gone and replaced with smooth skin and his tail has been replaced by legs. The legs are slender and you wonder if that’s from disuse or a result of being somewhat petite in general. You’re pleasantly surprised to find that Yoongi managed to put on the oversized shirt and shorts you’d brought him to save his modesty.

The walk to your grandparents’ house is normally short, but because Yoongi’s knees locked up the second you tried to start walking, it took a while. You have Yoongi sling an arm around your shoulder and put as much of his weight on you as needed. Yoongi gets the hang of it about mid-way and you laugh quietly as he tests various speeds of locomotion across the sand. When Yoongi reaches the hill that separates the house from the beach, he takes a few grassy tumbles but pop up immediately like a gopher once he stops rolling. When he gets to the front door of the house, his neck cranes upward while attempting to take in as much of the architecture as possible.

“Your den is so large,” awe colors Yoongi’s voice and he knocks on the wood of the outside with a fist. “What kind of rock is this?”

“It’s not rock? It’s, um, made of that stuff,” you point to the tree growing by the side of the house. “It’s wood.”

“W-wood?”

“Yeah. Don’t worry about it. Let’s get you inside.”

Yoongi continues to stop and marvel at every little thing inside the house as well. Curious hands trace over throw pillows, your grandmother's knickknacks, the metal of the kitchen sink. When you get to the french windows that open to the backyard where the pool is, Yoongi almost walks into them. You guide him away with the promise of seeing the pool later so he doesn’t hurt himself. In the meantime, you spend the next few hours making random foods for him and showing how the TV works. Yoongi becomes instantly absorbed in a documentary about a group of life-long boat inhabitants from southern China on the National Geographic channel. You manage to get most of your work done because he keeps asking you to put on more ‘pictures about humans’. It’s only when the sun has started to set and Yoongi’s skin gets slimy enough that he nearly falls and dies in the kitchen that you suggest he get in the pool.

When Yoongi sees the pool for the first time, he coos.

“It’s like a tiny sea,” he shrugs off his shorts and you look away, cheeks suddenly hot. “The sea’s baby.”

“Yeah,” you laugh nervously. “It’s not like the real thing.” Yoongi splashes in, pale butt like a tiny moon lighting up the night around you.

The sound of bubbling turns your head back toward the pool and you peer over the edge, nudity be damned, to see that a nest of large bubbles has formed around Yoongi’s figure. A few minutes later they dissolve and reveal him with his original tail intact. The t-shirt he forgot to discard is sopping wet against his skin when he resurfaces.

“How was the first day of vacation?”

Yoongi grins up at you and it’s kind of adorable even with the little fangs and slit pupils.

“I am having much fun.”

“That’s good. I have to admit,” you play with the surface of the water shyly, “it’s nice having someone around.”

“Do you have no family? There is only your smell inside the den.”

“No, no, I have family.”

“Like on the TB? You have par...parents?” Yoongi carefully forms the syllables on his tongue. It’s impressive given that he just recently learned all this new vocabulary. You do correct him about the TV, though.

“Yeah, I do. This is actually the house of my parents’ parents. Well, my mom’s parents.”

“Where are they? They are old now, yes?”

“Yeah, they’re kind of old. But they’re still alive. They’re taking a vacation too. In another country. I think they’re visiting in Greece right now. They’ll be back in the fall.”

“Greece?”

“Remember we saw the Greek statues in that one documentary? The people made of rock?”

“Oh, yes.” Yoongi splashes idly for a second before pushing off the wall to swim a few laps. When he comes back, his hair is plastered to his forehead. “Do you have any peers?”

“Yeah, I do. I have a friend from here, her name is Jay. I call her sometimes.”

“That’s good. And I can be your friend so you will not be lonely anymore.”

Yoongi says it so resolutely that you want to laugh.

After the first night, you and Yoongi learn that tail splitting actually takes less time and is less painful the more it’s done. He wakes up in the morning and takes a cat nap in the sun to dry off and then wakes up in the afternoon with legs after you’ve gone to your internship. You sort of taught Yoongi how to use the landline, so you can call when you’re on your lunch break to see what he’s up to and he can call you to ask how to get to National Geographic again or ask you to bring home seaweed from the store. Because, as it turns out, mermaids enjoy seaweed just like humans do.

You also learn that the more accustomed Yoogngi gets to being two-legged, the slower his skin slimes over. With this discovery, you risk taking Yoongi out in public a few weeks into the vacation. Yoongi gawks at all the other humans that are out when you go to a seafood restaurant on a Friday night. But he quickly goes from being astonished at people to being astonished at fried fish. It becomes a weekly habit when you get your meager intern stipend. And despite his large appetite eating through your savings quicker than you’d like, you’re glad to have the company. With Jay gone, you didn’t have many people in town to talk to. It’s almost a vacation for you as well.

“Human!”

“I’m coming! And it wouldn’t kill you to use my name once in a while.”

You huff in the bathroom as you shove your leg through the only bathing suit you brought with you to your grandparents’ house. It’s a simple athletic one piece, nothing flashy or particularly cute. Lately Yoongi had been bugging you about joining him in the pool at night because he wasn’t so sure humans could actually swim. You figured it might also be because he got bored and lonely out there by himself.

“I have a question,” Yoongi says as soon as you come out onto the deck. He’s treading water with his tail idly while gesturing towards your laptop with a free hand. It sits the mandated 12 inches away from the edge of the pool because you explained in a very scary voice that you can’t have your laptop getting wet.

You sit on the edge near him and dip your legs into the water. Another documentary, this time on the Maasai people, is paused on the screen. “What’s your question?”

“Why do these TV programs not provide any information on human mating rites?”

“Mating rites? What do you mean?”

Yoongi purses his lips as he thinks of a good way to explain the concept. Little does he know, you understand what he means. You’re just hoping he’ll get frustrated and let the question drop. But he doesn’t.

“The way human babies are made. Why is this not depicted?”

“Oh, that. You mean sex. That’s probably the word you’re talking about.”

“Okay, sex. Where is sex?”

“It’s not on there because it’s not really...allowed to be on the programs?”

“Why is it not,” Yoongi blinks like that’s the stupidest thing you’ve said in a while.

“Because a lot of people—from a lot of cultures—think sex is kind of like a bad secret? And that you should try to think about it as little as possible. Only talk about it or do it when it’s necessary.”

Yoongi pauses to consider your words. You’d tried to explain before the way human cultural values vary from group to group, and he seemed to understand at a broad, basic level.

“In mermaid culture,” Yoongi pushes the laptop back so he can rest his head on his elbow in the spot, “sex is never a bad thing.”

“Really?” Despite your slight discomfort with the topic, you find yourself wanting to ask. “What are the mating rituals like for mermaids?”

“Every year, we gather in the mating sands and we start to dance. If you find someone who is doing the same dance as you, you mate with them in the sands.”

“Just like that? In the middle of the place, with everyone looking?” You clutch your cheeks with your hands.

“Yes. It is done with the others there. But they are busy with their own mating, although some may join you later.”

“Oh my god,” you mumble. “So, you pick a different person every year?”

“Usually. Some mermaids will pick the same partner every year or multiple years, but it’s not very common.”

“Don’t you miss your last partner after the year ends?”

“Hm? No. You are likely to never see them again after the mating sands.”

“So you only mate one day a year? Wow.” You wish you brought your notebook to jot down what he tells you, but you settle for pulling the computer to your lap and opening a blank document.

Yoongi snorts. “We don’t only mate once a year. That is just when mer-children are made.”

“Oh,” you face gets impossibly hotter and your next question comes out in a whisper. “What happens during the rest of the year?”

“Sex can happen anytime, anywhere, with whoever is of mature age.”

“How do you...” you glance down at Yoongi’s tail before opting to skip the logistics question.  “Nevermind.”

“What was your last human mating rite like,” Yoongi grins like you’re swapping hot gossip and peers up at you excitedly.

“I’ve never, uh, had sex before, so I can’t tell you what my last mating rite was like. But they teach you in school what the baby-making stuff is like—”

“You’ve never taken a mate?” Yoongi looks you up and down curiously. “But you are healthy and beautiful.”

“Y-you think I’m beautiful?”

He shrugs. “Yes. Why would I not?”

“Because I’m not—”. Then you stop yourself.

You realize you’re talking to someone who wasn’t raised with any human beauty standards, because he’s not human himself. It doesn’t matter to Yoongi or any other mermaid whether or not your thighs are ‘too big’ or your hair is ‘too frizzy’. Those concepts might not even make sense or exist where Yoongi’s from.

“I don’t know. I guess, I just haven’t found someone I like, yet.” Yoongi’s brows furrow, so you explain. “Humans don’t have sex quite like mermaids do. A lot of people couple off into pairs and stay together for a long time, so they only have one sex partner after a while. Sometimes until they die.”

“So you are looking for someone to stay with forever before your first mating season?”

“It doesn't have to be forever. I just want to feel comfortable with that first person. I want to know they’re kind and won’t hurt me.”

Yoongi lays a wet hand on your knee and senses the downward turn in your emotions. He mirrors your own serious look. “Do you know someone kind?”

“Well, there’s this one guy,” your cheeks raise with a smile, “He works with me in the mornings. He seems really nice and smart and funny.”

“Wonderful,” Yoongi splashes in celebration. “You will mate with him, then?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t think he would want to...do that with me.”

“Why not? You are good. You are the best human there is.”

You crack another smile. “I’m the only human you’ve met.”

“Yes, and I am fine with that because you are so good. You didn’t try to sell me to hunters or trap me in your home or eat me, like some humans have done to some mermaids.”

“Well, I promise I won’t do any of those things to you or any other mermaid I might meet in the future.”

You’re feeling a bit better with Yoongi rooming with you now. So much so that the good mood follows you to work after that night. You’re able to get up early without an alarm and find yourself taking on more side projects at the lab.

“Alright team,” the faculty member leading your research team gathers you together in the morning. “Tell me what everyone’s been up to since I left.”

The first few students raise their hands to talk about the projects they’ve been working on. When the professor asks if anyone else wants to share, you hesitate before raising your own hand.

“I’ve been working with the algae team, but I’ve also been looking into the gill anatomy of some of the fish we found in the southeast region of the observation waters. I noticed some variation in the gill filaments in the younger populations that I think could be an interesting lead.”

Lab Guy raises his hand as the professor nods.

“I’ve been looking over some of the notes entered in the log for her project, and there’s some really cool stuff in there. She’s doing really great work.”

You duck your head to hide your astonishment. Obviously the research notes that you all logged digitally into the lab’s cloud get monitored by the lab assistants. But you figured they were just checking them when things went wrong or for completion at the very least. You didn’t think that Lab Guy was thoughtfully going through your side project notes and actually enjoying them.

In what you hope is a sneaky jerk of your head, you chance a look at Lab Guy. He’s listening to the professor go over the priorities for the rest of the summer but must feel your gaze. He looks at you through the corner of his eye and offers a small smile. You return a gassy looking smile back in response while your heart pounds away.

Hours later you’re seated at the edge of your pool once more, hands covering your face to hide your furiously joyous smile.

“He just looked at me with those eyes and I just,” you sigh sweetly, “I felt like he didn’t hate me.”

“Why would be hate you?”

Yoongi is paddling around with his head out of the water just enough to let his words not be drowned out by the water. He looks a bit like a golden retriever with just the top of his inky black head moving smoothly through the pool’s surface.

“I mean, I don’t think he ever hated me. But I didn’t think he knew who I was either.”

“And you’re happy because of this?”

You laugh because you can’t contain it. “Yes.”

“That is good. But I am done talking about this lab man now.”

“Rude.” You sit up and splash a wave over Yoongi when he gets close enough with your foot. It doesn’t phase him.

“I want to see you swim, now. If you really can.”

You cross your arms defensively. “Why are you so convinced humans can’t swim?”

“Why were you so convinced mermaids didn’t exist?”

“Because I’d never seen one before,” you blurt out before realizing you’ve fallen into his trap. “Touché.”

You hop off the ledge right into the water. It’s cold due to the drop in temperature at night and you let out a little yelp. Yoongi rests his elbows casually against the wall, eyes dubious as you shuffle around the shallow end of the pool to get accustomed to the water.

You’re not the strongest swimmer, but you did have a friend who was a lifeguard back in highschool who was a few years ahead of you and she taught you a few things. You freestyle to the opposite end at a leisurely pace. Yoongi busts out into a cackle as you make your way back, causing you to stop and tread water. He notices you’ve stopped swimming, but doesn’t try hard to contain his laughter.

“What’s so funny?”

“It’s such an odd sight. Forgive me,” Yoongi continues to chuckle. “Very clumsy.”

“This is how people swim! We can’t swim like you without a tail.”

“Still, it’s funny. I cannot help laughing.”

Yoongi swims over to you easily and grabs an arm, holding it up to his face to carefully inspect it.

“You are not made to truly swim.” His splayed hand moves next to yours, and you realize his fingers are webbed. “See? This will not help you.”

“And neither will those,” Yoongi points down at your feet.

“So wha—hahaa—what are you doing?”

Yoongi grabs one of your ticklish feet and brings it up to the surface, but not without some struggle. You end up having to force yourself to float so your body can come up with the trapped foot. It’s awkward and you have to hold onto the lip of the pool for dear life as Yoongi inspects your foot.

“This is too small, you see.” He taps on the sole of your foot. “This cannot propel you through the water. And these,” he releases your foot but move further up your leg, “there is not enough muscle to compensate for your little feet.”

Yoongi’s thumbs are digging into the flesh of your thigh as he continues to talk about how humans are built completely wrong for water locomotion. His hand isn’t particularly high up your thigh but it’s also the first time you’ve really had anyone else touch you there in a non-medical context.

It doesn’t help that Yoongi seems to get closer and closer with every second as he moves up to talk more about how human anatomy makes no sense. You wish you could control your heartbeat a little better. Because despite the fact that Yoongi is your friend and, more importantly, isn’t human, he looks human if you stare at just his face. The problem is that Yoongi’s face is...very nice. Your eyes wander the planes of his jaw and the curve of his lips and eyes before clearing your throat.

“Sounds like you watched the new aquatic life show on NatGeo. Look, why don’t we—”

“How do humans do sex?”

“Really?”

“I told you,” Yoongi reminds you about his explanation of mer-people mating.

“Yes you did. But the difference is that I didn’t ask you to.”

“I am very curious,” he pouts. “And you are so uncomfortable with sex.”

Your mouth drops open. “I am not!”

“You are! You will not look at my eyes when I ask you. And you get sweaty.”

“I should have put a child block on the investigator shows,” you grumble. “What do you wanna know?”

“What does the body do?”

Your lips purse as you consider your options. You could spend too long explaining to Yoongi how genitals work, or you could just find a video to show him and hope that answers all his questions. You go with the second option.

“I’ll show you a video. But,” you poke a menacing finger in his face to show you mean business, “don’t go looking for these types of videos on my computer. The school gave me this computer for the summer. I’ll get in trouble.”

The video you pull up is the first one you find on random porn site. Throughout the video set up, you angle the computer away from Yoongi so he won’t be able to retrace your steps later.

“Here.” You scoot the computer towards him and then turn away as the sounds of the video pick up.

Yoongi’s face is nearly plastered to the screen as he watches closely, holding his chin pensively while taking in the writhing bodies and dramatic moans. The video is about 10 minutes long and you don’t think Yoongi would take kindly to you trying to speed it up to the end, so you stand in the shallow end awkwardly, water evaporating off your shoulders. With a shiver you curl up into fetal position and allow yourself to sink below the surface before buoyancy brings you up again. You bob quietly with your knees clutched to your chin until you can’t take it anymore.

“I think that’s enough,” you come over and shut your laptop. There were still a few minutes left, but you figure he must have gotten the gist. “You can’t possibly have more questions.”

“What are those things between their legs?”

“Oh my god,” you groan and kick your feet.

Yoongi peers down at your legs with open curiosity and you realize he’s like a dog with a bone. It’s clear he’s really not going to quit until he gets all his answers and you figure since he’s not even human, it's somehow not as mortifying. You sigh and grab him by the elbow to help hoist him onto the ground surrounding the pool.

“Come on.”

“What are we doing,” Yoongi clambers out, tail slapping heavily and making large puddles on the rock.

“You’ll see.”

You throw your towel at him to help speed up the transformation process and then wait the 15 minutes it takes for his legs to appear. You give Yoongi privacy as its still a very raw process, but when you finally come back out into the backyard, he’s watching the remaining few minutes of the porno with your laptop on his slender thighs.

“Are you all dry?”

“Yes,” he replaces the laptop and stand up, naked as the day any human baby is when they’re born.

Much to your surprise, there’s nothing between Yoongi’s legs. That is, nothing you recognize. Before you can become self-conscious at your boldness, you shuffle in and crouch down before him. There’s nothing that looks like a penis because his abdomen continues down towards his pelvis in a completely flat plane. When you crane your neck to peer between his legs, you only see a delicate slit, almost like what you would find on a whale. Quickly you look away and hurry back up into standing position.

“What did you find,” Yoongi asks, completely unphased by your quick appraisal.

“You’re not quite human even in this form.”

“Oh. Then you can show me yours.”

“No! Oh my god, no!”

“But you will not let me use your computer and there is no program on TV to help me learn.” His eyes are shiny and round as he pleads with you.

“I—fine, but another time. Not today.”

“But you will just say that again when not today comes.”

“You know what? Fine. Since you’re so whiny.”

“What’s whiny?”

“You right now. You hear the way your voice gets all high when I tell you no? That’s whining.”

Yoongi nods at your definition. “Then, yes, I am whiny.”

He grins when you begin to shuffle off the athletic shorts you’d been using as makeshift bathing suit bottoms. Anxiety freezes your limbs momentarily when you realize this will be the first time someone would see you naked; or semi-naked, in this case. Before your courage completely runs out, you hop back into the pool. It takes some determined wiggling because the thick, tight fabric grips your thighs like a vice once water soaks them, but you get them off. They float off into the deep end of the pool as Yoongi follows you back into the water. You wait a few minutes as the bubbles clear, and he returns to his normal form.

“I’m not standing half naked in my backyard, so this is what you get.”

“That is fine. My eyes are made for the water and the lights are on.”

You can’t argue with him about it because you already agreed and because he dives under immediately. The water slows everything down just a little. So Yoongi’s hands prying apart your legs, shifting one up onto his shoulder so its out of the way, is a slow process. There’s a creeping sensation of the tendrils of his hair tickling the sides of your legs as his face nears your center. It’s a lot. And your hands look for something to do above surface only for them to find nothing and migrate back underwater to hold onto something. Yoongi’s bare shoulder ends up being that something.

Yoongi’s head rises slowly out of the water, fangs peeking out from under his lips as he smiles widely.

“It is twisty down there! And there is some hair,” he says excitedly, like neither of you knew.

“Uh, yeah. Whoops. I forgot to mention that.”

“Were the humans in the video sick? There was no hair on them.”

“No, a lot of people just like to get rid of the hair.”

“Why?”

“Uh,” you try to think of a short answer that will sum up the aesthetic motivations behind shaving genitalia. “Because people think it's cleaner and looks nice? And otherwise you might get hair in your mouth.”

Yoongi’s eyes widen. “Humans put their mouths on each other like this? For sex?”

“Y-yes?”

“And that is more sanitary than the hair itself?”

“I don’t know! Are you done? Can I close up shop now?”

“No,” he says curtly before lowering himself back down.

Yoongi’s hands pry your thighs apart once more. This time the hands stay, thumbs on either side of you, pulling you apart to see more clearly. You grow hot with the thought that you’re more exposed than you’ve ever been. Luckily, the water and the late hour probably help hide the fact that you’re getting wet, but you have no idea what Yoongi might pick up on. A finger comes into the mix, spreading you apart, opening you up in different ways. He doesn’t seem to go near your actual entrance and for that you’re grateful because you don’t know what would happen.

As it is, you’re barely holding it together. Your chest heaves with measured breaths, trying to control your breathing so it doesn’t hitch pathetically. And your knuckles are pale with the hard tension in your hands, trying to keep yourself from encouraging or discouraging. You’re shaking with the effort it takes you to stay calm and reasonably collected. When all the poking around stops, you let out a sigh of half relief and half disappointment. You’re still gasping a bit when Yoongi emerges finally. He tilts his head at you, staring through long bangs which are dripping over his face.

“Shall I breed you?”

“Ha,” you stutter out an incredulous laugh, “That’s ridiculous. We can’t do that.”

“Why not?” He pushes closer, tail thumping against the pool floor heavily. “I won’t hurt you, and we are friends.”

“That’s exactly why we shouldn’t do it.”

“I have mated with friends a few times during the sand rut. We are still friends now. What’s the problem?”

“Well, we—you, you don’t have any junk?”

“Junk?”

“Genitalia, I mean. Remember? When you split your tail, its free real estate down there.”

“True,” he hands you back your athletic shorts, which are now just a wet rag at this point. “But I do not have this problem in my true form.”

You gulp nervously. Yoongi is an anomalous mix of aquatic and human, with the human anatomy ending right below the pelvic bone. Which means, he most likely has a fish dick. And there lies the problem.

“No, I’m sorry. But I can’t lose my virginity to a—I can’t do interspecies stuff the first time around, I’m too old-fashioned.”

Yoongi shrugs and steps out of your personal space so you can figure out what to do with your shorts. More struggling with the shorts takes place as you attempt to put the shorts on while you’re still in the pool because you’re suddenly too shy to change in front of him despite the fact that he saw and touched almost all of you. Yoongi pushes off the wall casually and begins doing his usual mini laps around the pool.

“Alright. Do you want to watch a program about the creation of boots for rain?”

“Uh, sorry. Can’t do rain boots right now.”

You run out of the backyard that night with the excuse that you had work in the morning. Granted, you always had work in the morning during the week, but you were too embarrassed to deal with his unbothered mood. A few days pass after that and you think maybe you’re in the clear, that he’s forgotten the whole exchange and has moved onto other things. Lately he’s been asking you about territorial disputes after seeing a show about the world wars. Maybe Yoongi’s onto new topics.

But you haven’t moved onto new topics. After that day, you went to the lab feeling like everyone could tell you were closer to having sex the night before than you ever had been in your life. Lab Guy tried to come over and talk to you about your side project looking at gill anatomy variation, but you could barely make eye contact. You tried, though. You tried to fake some confidence, and it worked for all of 20 seconds. But then he pinned you with some direct eye contact and an almost private looking smile and you suddenly had a vision of him giving you that same smile as he plowed into you from behind. Suddenly you were up and running to go see how your main project group members were doing. You ended up pulling later hours trying to accomplish your daily tasks without interacting with anyone for fear of picturing them fucking you.

The next few days are tough and tense both at the lab and at home. Yoongi doesn’t seem too perturbed by your skittish behavior and you can’t bring yourself to mention that night. Eventually, though, he confronts you.

“Are you frightened of me now?”

“No,” you say from your criss-cross seated position, 4 feet away from the actual pool.

“Why won’t you get in the water, then?”

“The, uh, salt is bad for my skin.”

Yoongi raises a dubious eyebrow and hoists himself up onto the ledge, fin poking out of the water in the background. He looks like a postcard.

“You are thinking about the time I asked to do sex with you.”

“No, I’m not,” your voice gets incredibly high.

“You are lying.”

“I am,” you sigh. “I’m sorry I’m being weird.”

“If you want to try it, you can tell me.”

“I mean—”

“Unless you do not find me favorable,” Yoongi shrugs.

You can’t even begin to fathom not finding Yoongi attractive. His features are sharp and pretty, and his hair falls over his face in an endearing way. There’s sinewy power in his lithe frame that you aren’t completely blind to. But you also don’t really like Yoongi in any way other than a platonic way.

“I find you very favorable,” you explain, “But you know how I am about Lab Guy and it wouldn’t feel right.”

“Little human,” he smiles, “I am not asking you to join me in the sand rut. I was merely suggesting that we do as merfolk do when they feel the urge. You are still free to be infatuated with your lab man. Though I do think he sounds undeserving.”

Gnawing on the inside of your cheek, you consider his offer. You wonder if maybe it would actually be helpful to get over the initial fear of sex. If you took all the scary mystery out of it, you figure only self-discovery and fun would be left over. Maybe it would change things for the better.

“Okay,” you sigh.

You stand up to peel off your t-shirt and yoga pants. Ever since Yoongi moved in, you’d made it a habit to change into whatever you were using as a swimsuit once you got back from the lab. But because you were behind on laundry it was a sports bra and underwear tonight. If Yoongi were a human guy from down the block, you might be more worried about the fact that your bra and underwear didn’t match or that your legs were a bit prickly.

Yoongi’s eyes are barely visible from above the waterline as they watch you enter the pool slowly. The hairs on the back of your neck stand up when you see his slitted pupils illuminated in the dark. In the back of your mind, you wonder if there was ever a time when humans were hunted by mermaids. You feel a bit like prey in Yoongi’s gaze and as he swims up to you, a fin parts the water ominously. Your heartbeat picks up in excitement.

The entrance to the pool has a small flight of steps and you wait there while Yoongi does his Jaws impression over to you. When he reaches you, he crowds you in towards the steps. Yoongi’s tail lays heavy and wide between your legs, parting them. His nose comes to caress your cheek briefly as he gets his balance against the steps with his hands pulling his weight to lay on top of you.

“I saw,” Yoongi continues to nuzzle into your cheek with his face, “in the video you showed me—the sex video—that they put their mouths together. Why is this?”

“It’s kissing. It shows affection and it feels nice.”

“Is it sanitary,” Yoongi mumbles against the corner of your mouth.

“Not really.”

“Interesting.”

You close the distance and kiss him to demonstrate what it’s supposed to be like. Yoongi goes rigid for a bit before relaxing into your touch. Reflexes take over and your arms wrap around his neck to pull him in. Yoongi releases a low rumbling sound that you try not to analyze to closely. You think he may be purring, but you’re not sure.

Time passes quickly as you kiss and let your hands wander over the planes of Yoongi’s body. All the while, the end of his tail flickers with interest and causes small splashes to fill the background noise. Without thinking, your tongue flickers out only to get pricked by one of his fangs. You whimper a bit and the sound seems to trigger something in him.

He licks into your mouth, predator instincts drawing him towards the tiny bead of blood. It’s not really a kiss as you know kisses to be, but it still causes your heart to pitter patter and your center to clench involuntarily. Yoongi’s tail starts thrashing a bit more wildly as he takes in your aroused state. Gripping you tighter, he snarls into your neck and licks a wide stripe up the column of your throat.

“I’m ready to breed you,” Yoongi maneuvers you onto your front, so you’re kneeling on one of the steps. He inhales deeply. “You smell ready.”

“What does that mean?”

You look at him over your shoulder and see that his pupils have blown out to twice their size. Your back arches on its own accord, showing Yoongi where he needs to be.

“You are ready here,” he palms roughly at your center for emphasis, hand coming away with a viscous sheen.

Yoongi moves forward so the weight of his lower body locks you under him. You feel something rugged and slick brush against the back of your thighs. It’s firm and thick as he brings your hips back against it.

“Wait, wait, wait, Yoongi. Wait.”

Yoongi’s nose comes to nudge at the nape of your neck soothingly. The rumbling sound of his sub-vocal growls help to coax you out of your panic. You trust him and under the fading anxiety, you can feel your want burning low in your gut.

“Ok, go.”

Despite it being your first time, you know the blunt pressure parting your folds is odd for different reasons than just being the first time. Yoongi’s got ridges and grows larger once he’s in at the hilt, pulsating almost to the rhythm of your own elevated heartbeat.

Once Yoongi’s certain that he’s snugly inside you, he wraps an arm around your middle and start pushing off the stairs and into the water.

“Yoongi,” your eyes widen as he goes past the area where you can stand and moves into the deep end. “I can’t breathe under water, remember? What are you doing?”

“You will see. Please trust me,” Yoongi swims you both over to a wall in the deep end. “Rest here.”

Yoongi hoists you up just enough to drape your arms onto the ledge. Yoongi stays behind you, embracing you tightly but begins pumping his hips in a way he couldn’t when he wasn’t able to use his tail for leverage. The first thrash of his hips and tail forces him deeper into you before withdrawing a bit. Meanwhile, his hands roam your body, setting off a wave of goosebumps across your skin.

It takes a while to get used to the sensation, but once your do you can barely hold yourself up as you fall apart. Something about the ridges and the pulsating of his member sends shivers to the tips of your extremities.

Yoongi mumbles some words in his native tongue intermixed with snarls that confuse your ears but you think maybe it means he’s close. Fangs scrape lightly against the skin of your shoulder and stars start forming in the corners of your vision.

“B-bite me,” the words stumble out of your mouth as Yoongi continues to thrash up into you.

“Excuse me?”

“Oh god, bite me. Please, Yoongi.” Your knuckles are practically white with tension as you grip the ledge of the pool. “Just bite me, I don’t care where.”

Yoongi chuckles. “You sound like my last sand rut partner.”

There’s no warning before white hot pain takes over you with the bite. But it’s just enough to push you over the edge and into your high. You spasm in his grip for what feels like forever, breath only coming to you in short bursts. Your lungs burn and you feel like you might pass out.

Yoongi’s climax follows soon after when your core starts convulsing, milking him. His tail wraps around your ankle, giving you only a second to take a large inhale before he’s pulling you under the surface and wrapping himself around you with inhuman strength. Yoongi’s swollen up enough with the constant pulsating so your entrance is sealed practically watertight. Then he’s coming. Thick, hot ropes shoot into you with every pulse of him.

Your fists scrabble against Yoongi under the water, reminding him that you’re running on a shallow inhale at best. He curls around you, one hand pressing reassuringly across your belly as the other grabs your chin to bring you to face him. Almost like a kiss, he presses plush lips against yours and blows into your mouth. A serene, almost drunk feeling spreads in your head and you slump against him, no longer tense. He seems to know exactly when you’re going to run out of air and continues to blow bubbles into you so you can stay underwater for a while. Eventually the bubbles get punctuated with a small kiss, like Yoongi finally got the hang of the concept. Once enough time has passed, you tap his hand and gesture to the surface.

Yoongi’s tongue feels rough outside of the water, but he assures you that letting him lap at the bite mark he left will help it close up a lot faster than the normal healing process in the skin would take. You lay in his lap, limply with your head in his neck so the mark is exposed and just bask in post-coital bliss as he takes care of you. The foggy feeling in your head that came with the bubbles you breathed in slowly clears away, leaving only the pure sleepiness that comes with a late night workout. Your knees can barely hold you up when you finally say goodnight and go to shower the salt water off your skin.

For the next few days, you’re the first person in the lab after having woken up naturally at 5 in the morning. You figure the endorphins from that night just made you a little more motivated than usual. A few of the samples you’d suspended in solution to get some chemical insight have developed and you’re looking them over when the door to the lab opens one morning with the jingle of the lock being undone.

“You’re quite the busy bee lately,” Lab Guy’s voice sounds from where he’s shrugging on his lab coat.

He looks adorable with hair still wet from a morning shower and the smell of his soap permeates the space as he comes over to his desk, which faces yours. He smiles at you and you feel like you’ve been frozen in place once more. Your expression must be one of distress because he smiles again, this time a bit apologetic, and chuckles.

“Alright, I’ll stop bothering you.”

You curse yourself for being so transparent. While it’s reassuring to think that Yoongi didn’t fuck the crush out of you, you hate that you’re so overwhelmed by Lab Guy. You’re not even sure why you’re intimidated by him. He’s never done anything to make you feel bad about yourself, you just aren’t used to having such positive interest directed towards you. If you think back on it, you wonder if this is like those moments where Jay would tell you that learning to take a compliment would do you wonders.

The night after your tryst in the pool, you had called Jay because there was no way you weren’t going to share with her the fact that you lost your virginity. She was ecstatic once she made sure that you felt okay about everything that happened. You couldn’t be as open as you wanted to be because of the whole issue of Yoongi’s existence not being known or comprehensible to most humans. Even still, you were able to gush over how pleasant it was and the fact that the person you lost it to was ‘hot in their own way’. When Jay asked about Lab Guy, you expressed that you were—remarkably enough—still ‘in like’ with him. He still gives you butterflies in your stomach, you told her. And the idea of getting to know him one-on-one outside the lab makes you giddy.

“Why don’t you try to do that,” she’d asked you in the hazy light of your ambient lamp before bed. “Get to know him, I mean.”

“Because I can’t just walk up to him. That’s crazy.”

“Who the fuck is he,” Jay scoffed. “He’s literally just some guy that you think is cute. He’s not a diplomat or, like, a saint. Why are you acting like talking to him would be some sort of smear? You’re not a smear, babe.”

You were too tired to really take her words to heart and merely signed off from the Skype call because sleep was overcoming you. Now, though, you feel like you finally get why Jay had been so frustrated listening to you. Lab Guy is cute and nice and smart. But so are you. And you’re not doing him any disservices by being interested in him. So, despite the nerves coiling in your stomach, you speak up.

“You’re not bothering me,” his head pops up from his work and you put on what you hope is a confident looking smile. “I’m just marking down the composition of some of this suspension.”

The smile he gives you back is instantly brighter and he hesitates a bit before coming over to your side.

“What did you find,” he rests his hand on your desk. You straighten your shoulders and try to appear like you’re not internally screaming at his proximity.

“Well, let me give you the background first...”

With the passing week and some change, Yoongi watches on in amusement as your aura changes completely. You come home with an easy-going contentedness and a smile that seems unfettered.

“You spoke with the lab man, correct?”

Yoongi’s got legs today, and they're criss-crossed on the ground outside the kitchen. Yoongi refuses to step inside since he nearly blew up the microwave once by leaving a metal spoon inside. You’re preparing your lunch for the next day when he questions you. It catches you by surprise, but instead of shrinking in on yourself, you give him a cheeky grin.

“Maybe,” you hum before zipping up your lunch box. “How can you tell?”

“You walk like you’ve caught a large fish.”

“That’s a nice expression. I think I’ll start using that.”

“Why did you say nothing about it?”

“I don’t want to bore you. You’re probably not really interested in hearing about him.”

“You may tell me about him, if you wish.”

“Really,” you bite your lip excitedly and he nods, “Okay.”

You both end up walking on the beach because Yoongi has been feeling the effects of being away from the ocean for so long. You’d told him that it wouldn’t be a problem to just come visit him occasionally on the beach instead of having to stay in your pool, but he declined. Probably mostly out of stubbornness. But you can see the wistful way Yoongi stares at the waterline as you chatter on about the new things going on in the lab.

“Just go in. You can come back to the house whenever you want, but stay the night tonight.”

Yoongi doesn’t wait for you to tell him twice and strips down shamelessly before running straight into the water. You follow after him slowly, allowing the waves to lap at your feet. Moments later he pops back up, gills present on his neck and tail splashing out behind him. The water is too cold to wade through, so you wave away his calls. As a compromise, he comes up to where the waves meet shore and lays on his belly while you sit. Yoongi reaches out and grabs your ankle, tugging to pull you in.

“I have a confession to make,” he smiles up at you while resting his cheek on your thigh. “I misused your computer.”

“For what?”

“To watch sex videos.”

“Yoongi,” you admonish. Your mouth drops open and you dread going back to look at the search history. You’re going to have to clear your whole cache.

“I know you are disappointed in me, but I was curious about something. If there are other ways of sex.”

You nod. “There are. I’m sure you found some of them in the videos.”

“Yes. I want to try one. Will you let me? Or are you pair-bonded with lab man already?”

“I’m not pair-bonded with him.” You kick at the sand near Yoongi’s shoulder, juvenile with infatuation. “What kind of things are you going to try?”

“It is a...surprise. Surprise, is that right?”

“Surprise is right.”

Your bite your lips in decision and decide that there’s no harm in it. “But let me kiss you first.”

“Is kissing really so pleasurable for humans? It is a strange sensation.”

“I like it,” you shuffle over on your knees and Yoongi sits up as best he can while still keeping his tail in the water. “Plus, you have a nice mouth.”

He grins and submits to your ministrations. In all honesty, Yoongi’s long, slightly pointed tongue fascinates you and turns you on a bit. Eventually he gets impatient and has you wiggle onto your stomach, sans bottoms, for your surprise. The surprise ends up being a few fingers up your ass. It takes a long while to become pleasurable; but once it does, you come 3 times from that alone and have to drag yourself up the beach so you can escape him. Yoongi pouts at you and you cackle at him once your breath comes back, letting him know that he looks like a small beached whale.

“I have an idea,” Yoongi says after when you’re simply staring up at the sky. You’re too tired to worry if you get sand in your hair.

“Is it like your little surprise?”

“I will come to your lab with you. To see what you do all day.”

“Is that safe, though? What if you start to slime up while you’re there?”

“But you know I can stay dry for several hours, longer than you are in the lab. It can work.”

“I guess I can check in with my advisor and then go after he says okay.”

“I am excited,” Yoongi claps his hands a little, a gesture that he seemed to pick up after watching enough TV.

A quick email is all it takes to bring up the idea to your advisor. You tell a small lie saying that Yoongi is a friend and prospective applicant for the school who’s uncertain of a major yet. Your advisor is open to the idea and gives his approval quickly. It’s actually surprising how easy it is to smuggle Yoongi into your lab. And as you head to the beach a few days later to pick him up, you worry that the other shoe is going to drop.

Traveling with Yoongi to the lab is interesting because even though you’ve taken him on the local boardwalk and inside a few restaurants,  he’s not at all used to being out and about. Yoongi looks small and shy on the bus you take in the morning and shuffles into your space when other passengers start to pile on with the morning work rush. You can’t help but smile at him when he wraps your hand in his and makes a low dissatisfied sound at the lack of free space.

“This is it,” you gesture to the lab doors before entering the code to get in.

Yoongi’s eyes are wide as they take in the benches and the other students puttering around. A few greet you and Yoongi, who freezes before mumbling a greeting in return. After a while, though, he relaxes. You show Yoongi your desk setup and explain to him what you’re working on. Your advisor comes around to say hello to him and you explain that Yoongi’s been abroad, skipping any identifying details. The professor welcomes him before letting you know that the morning check in will be soon.

“You can go look at the observation tanks if you want.”

“What are these,” Yoongi asks while you walk him towards the area in question.

“Those are where we keep the water and plants and animals that we study.”

As you head over, you pass by the entrance just as Lab Guy enters. He looks a little disoriented and you wonder if he forgot to set his alarm or missed his bus. His gaze is heavy on you as he takes in the way Yoongi clings to your side, following you closely and whispering to you about something. You miss the way he seems to forget that he was taking off his coat and watches your back disappear into the observation room.

Yoongi waits until the door closes before grinning at you.

“This is the observation—what are you smiling for?”

“That was the lab man, wasn’t it?”

You nod. “How did you know?”

“Your heartbeat was very noisy when he came into the lab.”

“Are you serious? You can hear my heartbeat?”

“It’s much easier for me to hear things on land,”  Yoongi shrugs. “You must get back. Your elder said that you must meet soon.”

“We’re talking about this later,” you point an accusing finger at him before you stumble out of the observation area just in time to get to the meeting before the first person begins sharing their progress.

Everyone goes around and you share your findings so far and accept a few suggestions from your advisor about where to go next in terms of your research. The meeting is brief and you all head to your respective sections to work. Yoongi reemerges from the observation room after some time and mentions going to take a walk around the buildings. You know he really wants to sit like a cat in front of the large fish tank outside of the ecology department nearby. Lab Guy isn’t subtle in the way he pretends not to be straining his ears to hear your conversation. When Yoongi leaves, you pin him with a look that tells him you know he was listening.

“Would you like a transcript of that last conversation,” you bat your lashes mockingly. Lab Guy’s cheeks bloom with embarrassment and he curls his shoulders self-deprecatingly.

“No, thanks.”

“Because you already heard everything?”

“Something like that,” he leans in over the divider separating your two desks. “Is he coming back for lunch?”

“I don’t think so,” you smile. “Why?”

“Just wondering if you were gonna eat with him or,” he trails off while closing his laptop. You get up too since the lunch break has unofficially started. “So where’s he staying currently? With...with you?”

“Yeah. Yoongi basically lives in the pool at my grandparents’ house.”

“I see,” Lab Guy walks with you to your cubby so you can fetch the food you brought from home. “But, um, where is he from? He seems a little shy.”

“Near the water,” you answer tersely. Part of you worries that maybe Lab Guy is onto Yoongi and is just trying to confirm his suspicions that he’s not human by questioning you.

“And are you guys, uh...like are you dating?”

You stop your slow stroll toward the communal eating space to look at him more clearly. Slowly, you realize that he probably doesn’t actually think Yoongi isn’t human—just a little odd. Instead, the onslaught of questions seems to be more about gaining information on you.

“No,” you eye him slowly in your periphery, “I’m single. Yoongi’s not my...yeah.”

“Oh,” Lab Guy releases a breathy chuckle that’s full of relief. “That’s cool.” He trips a little on the threshold leading to the break room.

The rest of the break consists of you eating your lunch and looking at Lab Guy every so often to find him smiling in your direction. He never meets your gaze, and looks away quickly every time you turn toward him, but always comes back once you go back to eating. It makes eating your melon slices hard because you’re trying not to spill any juice while containing your own smile.

At the end of the day, Yoongi pops up looking slightly greasy, but not in risk of revealing his skin is actually used to being submerged in water. Even still, you swab his dewy forehead to collect the pseudo-sweat before packing up. Lab Guy lingers a bit at his own station, still horrible at the art of subtle eavesdropping. Yoongi pins him with a look that startles him away from his station with an awkward little wave in your direction.

“Why do you like him,” Yoongi wrinkles his nose at Lab Guy’s retreating back. You swat lightly at his arm.

“Be nice. How was your walk? Did you go visit the fish in that big tank?”

“Yes. We had a very nice conversation.”

“You did? Can you really talk to—” he grins and suddenly you realize he’s messing with you. “Wow. Your first joke. That’s nice.”

“I fooled you,” Yoongi laughs a deep, croaking laugh that makes you chuckle to yourself as well. “I really convinced you mermaids can talk to fish.”

“Yeah, you got me.”

“What a ridiculous idea. Fish cannot talk.”

You head out through the back and agree that Yoongi will get in the water through the footpath leading to the public beach and meet you back at a spot near your house. As a way of congratulating him for being so human while at your workplace, you call up Yoongi’s favorite fish place and set up a reservation for a table later in the evening when he’ll have had some water time and some drying time.

Much to your chagrin, Yoongi doesn’t try to be as human while at the restaurant. He orders several of the whole fish items on the menu, instructing the waiter that he wants it as close to raw as possible. It comes back steamed and the waiter looks mildly concerned with the way Yoongi picks up the first whole fish with his hands and starts eating it tail-first like a piece of pizza. You lose your appetite and stick to just eating the biscuits that are complementary with the table because Yoongi is a bit too precise with the way he separates the meat from the bones. The moment you lose your cool is when Yoongi tries to coax the bones into your purse while you’re paying the bill. You had silently yanked your purse out of his reach and watched him try to covertly wrap the bones in a napkin like they’d be a good snack for later.

That night, you call Jay to talk a little bit.

“Wow,” she marvels when the call finally connects, “You called me first. Amazing.”

“Whatever,” you roll your eyes. “I just missed you too much to wait for you to call. Plus, I got up early today so I can’t be talking after 11.”

“What’d you do today?”

“Well, the person that I told you about last time came to the lab with me. And then we got dinner. It was a fun day.”

“Oh. That...sounds way more serious than I thought it was. Are you guys exclusive?”

“No, I don’t really think either of us thought that we’d end up like this when it started. I’m pretty sure we’d both say we’re just friends if anyone asked.”

“And is that what you want?”

“I...I think so?”

“It doesn’t sound like you’re all that sure.” Jay leans into the screen, a little habit of hers, to look at your face better. “I just don’t want you to get hurt because everything except the label is there.”

Something about her statement bothers you, but you’re tired and don’t want to dwell on it while you catch up. So you change the subject and find out that she’ll be back in a few weeks with several modeling jobs under her belt and an indie music video cameo. Even with her exciting story about getting roped into the music video shoot while at a gas station in the middle of nowhere, you still can’t focus 100% on everything she’s telling you. When the call ends, sleep pulls at the corners of your vision, but you still wander out to the pool.

You’re surprised to find that Yoongi still hasn’t gotten into the pool yet. He sits at the edge, looking at the minute ripples in the water’s surface. Bathed in moonlight, Yoongi’s beautiful enough to make you stand a beat in the doorway just to look at him. Jay’s words echo in your head. Did you want to try something more with Yoongi?

“Hey,” you walk over to him and sit at his side.

“Hey,” he parrots.

“What’s the matter?”

“I feel strange,” Yoongi frowns down at his reflection. “I don’t feel like myself.”

“What do you mean?”

“It is moon-sickness. At least...I think it is. I wish to stay, and live like this for longer. With you, here. But this pool is not enough. And when the night comes, I feel a pull in my chest. I want to go into the water. Deep, too far to hear your voice or see your face.” Yoongi turns to you, tears in his eyes. “I’m sorry. But I am frightened.”

“Why are you frightened,” your arm reaches out to envelop his shoulders.

“I want to keep you, and I imagine that if I did, it would be sweet.” Yoongi’s hand caresses your cheek. “But I do not think this is in my nature. I fear that I will be erased if I stay.”

“Then...you should go.”

“What about you,” he clutches at your hand. “We may never meet again.”

“We’ll have memories. And that’s better than you wasting away on shore. Infinitely better.”

Yoongi stares at you, eyes searching desperately for one last sign that maybe he could make it. That maybe he could stay if he just focused on you enough. But he can’t find whatever that would be. Or maybe his body won’t allow it. Either way, he touches his forehead to yours before standing. It takes all the strength you have to get up and silently walk him back to the beach without crying. The whole way there, Yoongi’s hand clutches yours tightly and doesn’t let go even after moving from the shore to the water. He leads you with him into the water. If the waves are beating at your bodies a little harsher than normal, you don’t care.

Your hand is finally released when bubbles start forming, signaling Yoongi’s transformation is starting. Usually you would turn away, not wanting to intrude on the moment, but tonight you don’t look away. The night obscures most of the process, but you can still see through weak moonlight. You can see the way the bubbles concentrate at Yoongi’s legs, mending the gap between them and forming sinews while the bones seem to melt away. It looks painful and gruesome, if the way he gasps is any indication. Finally the bubbles clear, leaving Yoongi the way you first found him.

“I wish you could come with me,” he says finally. You study the way his gills move organically in the water and remember how he said breathing with lungs was always a little painful. You feel sorry.

“Me too,” is all you can say. Oncoming tears burn at your throat, and you cough to hide them. “I guess this is goodbye.”

“I care for you,” Yoongi sighs. “We will meet again. I swear it.”

“Okay.”

“Truly, I mean it.”

“Alright. But if you can’t, don’t worry. I won’t forget you.”

“I won’t forget you either.”

You can’t stand there much longer, so as soon as Yoongi’s back is turned, you turn yours too and head back to the house. No sleep comes to you that night because you keep seeing the image of Yoongi’s face when you close your eyes. You call in sick the next day, not wanting to deal with overly happy labmates and do some work on your own with hefty naps intermixed. Sadly, too many days away from the lab isn’t an option for you, so you’re back after that.

“Rough night,” Lab Guy asks you mid-day. He noted the way you didn’t say anything during the morning check in. Not even chiming in to put in your vote for where to eat as a group during the final lab meeting coming up.

“My friend had to leave unexpectedly last night. I...wasn’t ready for him to go.”

Lab Guy nods, sensing that it was probably more serious than what you’re telling him. He does what he can to cheer you up the rest of the week. That means surprising you with the same bag of gummy worms that you would occasionally bring to lunch with you. The way your face brightens up as you tear open the bag makes his heart skip a beat. He’s thankful that whatever happened with your friend didn’t send you back into your shell completely.

When the lab sessions first started, he’d been instantly interested in you. Your story about how you came to love marine science was unique and there was something endearing about the way that you glided through the lab on the first day, like you were a fish in water. But every time he’d tried to talk with you, he’d get confused. You looked like you were terrified every time he came over, but would look upset when he left. Then one day you came in looking like a weight had been lifted off your shoulders and suddenly you weren’t so meek anymore.

The last day of lab comes quickly now that you’re back out of your funk. With your extra project, you’d been forced to spend extra hours in the lab. Long after most of your labmates left, you were still there every day, typing away. Normally, spending some much time locked up inside would have you feeling a bit depressed, but Lab Guy had been spending time with you. Sometimes he would stick around until you were done and then drive you to a nearby diner to get some food in you. Other times, when there was no sign of being done by dinner time, he would order food to the lab. You were truly grateful for his company. As you got closer to finishing your project, you would engage him more. Chatting while you waited for samples to go through electrophoresis, listening to the music he recommended while calculations ran. You suspected that he’d finished his project long ago and was now just sticking around to stick around. Not that you minded. The longer he stuck around, the more you learned about him. And the more you learned about him, the more you wanted to know.

“You know,” Lab Guy says as you send your final report to the cloud, “We should probably celebrate now that you’re done.”

“We will. The team’s going out to dinner tomorrow, remember?”

He nods, lips pouted out. He tries again. “Yeah, but I meant...with just me.”

“Namjoon,” your eyes widen and you look up at him to make sure he’s not joking. “Are you asking me out?”

“Yes?”

“Okay. Just checking.”

“So is that a yes?”

“I guess,” you feign nonchalance. “But what did you have in mind?”

You come out of your second lecture for the day, nearly running into Namjoon once your come out of the auditorium doors.

“Shit, sorry,” he says while grabbing your upper arms to steady you. Once you’re stable, his hands descend to lace his fingers between yours. “How was class?”

“It was good,” you sing song as he checks the hallway for passerby before backing you against the wall. “Are done for the day?” He shakes his head, nose brushing yours.

“I have another one at 5,” he mumbles against your lips before kissing you in earnest.

After several intimate minutes, you wipe your tinted chapstick off his lips and brush back the hair that had fallen into his face while kissing you. He wiggles his hand into the back pocket of your jeans before starting the familiar route to your next class. Namjoon was nothing if not a gentleman walking you to class.

“I’ll see you later,” he says. You nod knowing he’s talking about the dinner reservations he booked for the evening. It’ll be you, him, Jay, and a bunch of other close friends from lab and school to celebrate your birthday.

“Right. See you then,” a few other students in your class approach the door, and he pulls you to the side.

“Before you go, take this.” He leaves you with an envelope in your hand and a kiss on your forehead.

Namjoon retreats quickly since his next errand isn’t nearby and you smile at his distant figure before going to class. Class goes by quickly because it's one of your favorite non-biology classes and you’re excitedly wondering what else Namjoon has planned. Jay is supposed to be picking you up to go see an early movie, but she sends you a text saying that her class ended later than she planned. You figure you’ll check your mail for any family birthday cards and meet her there.

Your tiny student mailbox is full like you expected. There’s a card from your parents full of cash that you’re very grateful for, and a gift card to the movies from your grandparents. There’s also a few flyers from random campus clubs and a few credit card offers. The last envelope you pull is unexpected. There’s no stamp and the return address is from a wildlife organization. You’ve gotten letters like this before that would include a pre-printed donation card and story about how your donation would be used and what types of membership gifts you could get if you donated enough. But the envelope is oddly thin, and you hover above the nearest recycling bin while cutting into the paper.

There’s no donation card or fancy stock paper asking you to consider signing up for a credit card with a smiling dolphin on the front. It’s a letter, written in a sort of chicken scratch that makes you wonder if you signed up to be a child’s pen pal and then promptly forgot about it. But as you read it, you realize who it’s from.

My Dear Human, Today is your birthday. I realize as I write this letter now that I never asked how many years you have. I think that I am many human years older than you, though I have a similar age in my homeland. Are you having the cake with the little flames? I’ve forgotten the word for the fiery little sticks on the cake. I suppose you are wondering how this message was delivered to you. I can’t give you the full answer (because I do not know the full answer) but I believe that there is more communication between merfolk and humans than either of us knew. I miss you every day. My friends say that I may have spent too much time on land, but I do not regret it after having met you. You are my friend as well and if you were here with me now, you could take a vacation in my home. I do not have a small patch of dry land that you could lay around in, but it would be like before. I would love that. It seems that I found one other thing on land that I miss dearly. That is human civilization. I think it is fascinating, and I realize now that there is so much we mermaids do not know. So much that I didn’t know and so many things that are told wrong. And after a few months, I decided I want to be able to learn on land and teach the merfolk. I’ve spoken to a few elders here who see the value in connecting the holes between worlds. And I think that we will end up colliding one day or another. I wish to help us be ready for that day. So next year I will go see a magi (is that what you call them?) and I will do the long tail split for a few years to study in Taiwan.Do you know this place? There is a school there, one that helps my kind blend in so that we may learn among other humans. Before that, I will be studying. I am studying written language right now, and I thought I would start with yours. It is quite difficult and my hand often hurts when I have to hold the pen, but a kind human child comes to a dock near my home and teaches me in the afternoons. He is patient and says I will be ready soon, but he is helping me with this letter as I dictate it. This lovely script you see is not my own. Although it is a foreign feeling, I want to close this letter with my love and a promise that we should see one another soon. Until then, please have this keepsake. I saw in a TV program that this was how people kept the loneliness away. Please keep it. I miss you. Yoongi

Wrapped in delicate twine is a small tuft of Yoongi’s hair, dark and shiny like you remembered it. You can’t help the wide smile that stretches your lips and you tuck the small token into your pocket. Gently, so as not to undo the little bundle you imagine Yoongi spent way too much time tying.

“Hey,” Jay’s voice sounds from down the corridor leading to the student mailroom. “What’s that?”

“Just a birthday card from my parents,” you hold up the very same card. “Let’s go. I’m starving.”

“Oh my god, I’m such a shitty friend. I haven’t told you happy birthday yet, have I?”

“Nope. You haven’t.”

Shoving your hands pitifully into your pockets, you give her a dramatic pout. The hair is still there, letting you know that you didn’t dream up the card or any of your most recent summer. Jay pulls you close and smacks a kiss onto your cheek, promising you the best birthday you’ve ever had.

Much later, while Namjoon is snoring off too much dessert wine, you run your finger along some cardstock you found in your miscellaneous drawer. The last time you wrote a letter by hand was when you had to practice cursive in grade school. Now, though, you stretch the poetic muscles that lay dormant for decades to craft a note to a friend.