#jongkitty

“Well, my eyes feel different.” Jonghyun replied. “And in a good way, I think? I mean, they’ve never felt like this before. I’m getting the feeling that maybe there’s finally been some success – or if not, some progress.”

Kibum’s gaze softened as Jonghyun spoke, feeling like he could cry any moment. He was so proud of Jonghyun, how brave and honest he always was, how he’d endured so much for so long and still somehow maintained a smile through it all. There was no need to speculate that if he had been in Jonghyun’s position he’d be a total mess by this stage.

So, Kibum took a deep breath and steeled himself, beginning to unwrap the bandages from around Jonghyun’s head. “I just hope you know, even if this hasn’t worked. I hope it has, but if it hasn’t, I’ll follow you to the next treatment. Whenever it’s available.”

Jonghyun smiled, the kind that left him feeling lightheaded. “You’re too good to me, Kibummie.”

With a flush to his cheeks, Kibum continued his work, carefully removing each layer of fabric until he could see the colour of Jonghyun’s dark hair through the white. Taking in another breath, he let the bandage loosen on it’s own so it fell from Jonghyun’s head, pooling on his shoulders. Over his eyes was a stack of gauze, which Jonghyun reached up to remove himself as Kibum put the bandages aside.

The finally item out of the way, Kibum could see the bruising around Jonghyun’s eyes, the side effect of having a surgery, and how Jonghyun’s eyelashes seemed stuck together, his eyelids shaking as he tried to open them. “Be careful, Jjong.” He warned, watching as Jonghyun continued to try and open his eyes, ever so slowly prying them apart.

For the first time, Kibum could clearly see the colour of his irises, a rich, deep shade of brown. He watched as Jonghyun blinked experimentally, eyebrows furrowing, lips pursed, until suddenly he looked up, as if staring at Kibum’s body on the way, until their gazes met and in that moment, he knew.

Jonghyun could see.

His fiancé was on his feet in an instant, smile broad as he cupped Kibum’s face, tears brimming in his eyes. “Kibum… you’re so beautiful.” He whispered. “I can’t believe that all this time I’ve spent not seeing this face. How come you were single for so long before me met? How could no one else approach you? I’m so confused, Kibum!”

Kibum stared in stunned silence for a very long moment. What was it with Jonghyun and managing his priorities? “Jjong… you can finally see, for the first time in your life, and you’re more concerned about why I wasn’t dating someone else when we met?”

“Kibum.” Jonghyun greeted, swallowing thickly as he watched Kibum close the door behind the soldiers and locked it. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Well, I just came back from the capital city and seeing as you couldn’t come with me I missed you. Would you expect anything less?” Kibum asked, walking to Jonghyun’s desk and dragging a finger along the curved edge, stepping closer to Jonghyun. “And I’ve heard that you’re pretty tense these days, haven’t even slept or taken off that armour. I think I need to change that.”

 …………………………………………………

 The desk was cleared in moments, Kibum beginning to remove Jonghyun’s heavy armour and then the light cotton under clothes piece by piece until he could easily force Jonghyun onto his back on the desktop, teasing Jonghyun’s skin with kisses, wet licks and cool breaths of air. Tingles rippled down Jonghyun’s spine, his fingers gripping the edge of the desk so hard his knuckles turned white.

He should have known it was a bad idea to fall into the trap the Prince had set for him all those months ago, the kind that left him writhing and literally begging for more. It was humiliating in only one way: that he was the commander of the Prince’s army and he was supposed to be a figurehead of authority over the soldiers. If they knew that the Prince took him most every week and left him writhing on the bed or his own desk they would never see him the same way again. He gasped, lips trailing down his left hip bone and then the right, fingers massaging into his trembling thighs.

“Just relax, Jonghyun. I’ll help you feel much better.” Kibum assured him, looking up with a sinful kind or stare under thick eyelashes. “Let me take care of you.”

Kibum tried his best to ignore their attitude, because he felt like he deserved it, but he wished they could at least get along, just so he wouldn’t feel as bad as he already did.

The worst part of it was that this wasn’t the only exhibit in the world, but it was the biggest and the most coveted. It held the largest collection and variety of mystical creatures to date. They had a unicorn, a centaur, a shape shifter and even a hybrid, but the most prized item of his family’s collection was a creature no one had ever captured before. A living, breathing, mermaid.

Or rather, a merman, seeing as it was male.

No other collection in the world had managed to capture a mermaid and keep it alive long enough to get it back to their exhibit. Mermaids were smart and more likely to kill themselves than be subject to the torture and torment of life in a glass tank. The heartless part of it all though, was that the mermaid his father had captured had been pregnant and hadn’t wanted to die, her child too precious to sacrifice. She had died giving birth, but the young infant survived and had known nothing about live in the real ocean.

And now, Kibum was to be in charge of feeding the merman, as the previous keeper had been dragged in by the creature and drowned.

“It’s good that you decided to drop out of school, Kibum.” His father said to him, clapping a hand on his shoulder as he handed him the bucket of raw fish. “Keeping family in the business was always what I wanted.”

Kibum barely offered his father a smile. What he had been unable to admit was that he hadn’t wanted to drop out of school, but he had no choice. The guilt and humiliation of it was had been too hard to accept as it was, but he couldn’t let his father know, it would be a million times worse than helping at the exhibit.

“Now, just remember not to let him get a hold of you. You’ll never get out if he drags you in.” The man told him before leaving Kibum to it.

The glass tank was cylindrical and went from the floor to the ceiling, filled with water, some plant life growing taller than Kibum, coral and rocks at the bottom. To one side was a rock carved down to create a slightly curved surface – were the poor creature was currently reclined, looking bored and utterly disinterested in the seaweed he was fiddling with in his webbed hands.

The merman himself had always taken his breath away. Not only was he a marvel to their world, but he was handsome even to human eyes – some might even say he was pretty. Skin only a little tanned, hair as silvery as his fins, eyes shining and golden in colour. He had translucent red, orange and gold fish scales on most of his body, thinning out up his torso and shoulders, but thicker down his tail and arms, fins semi-transparent and large, flowing in the movement of the water created by a pump and filter that worked to keep the water clean. His ears were pointed, fins lining the skin, scales up the sides of his neck, three gills that always pulsed as he breathed.

Seeing him again after so long, Kibum felt his heart clench, guilt crashing upon him harder than before. It had been years since they had last seen one another, though they had never really talked. To Kibum, the merman – named Jonghyun – had been his closest friend and the only creature in the exhibit that didn’t blame him for his family’s wrong doings. Jonghyun knew his heart, but Kibum hadn’t known his as well as he had thought and he knew he had broken what little trust Jonghyun had had left.

He wanted nothing more than to get away from there immediately, so he quickly rushed to the staff only door nearby and climbed the stairs that led to the platform above Jonghyun’s tank. Due to a previous escape attempt, the tank now had a grate covering the top, which basically meant there was a hole in the floor of the room which had a grate and then about half a metre down was the surface of the water. There was a gate there with a lock, which Kibum opened and dumped the fish into the tank.

Kibum watched as Jonghyun looked up, noticing his breakfast being served and lazily rose from his place, swimming towards the fish and beginning to feed. With his bottom lip trembling, he lay on the floor, arms folded at the edge of the tank, admiring how sharp teeth tore into the fish with little regard for being polite.

Then Jonghyun looked up and Kibum gasped, jumping up from his spot and quickly locking the gate before rushing from the room.

He heard the splash as Jonghyun came to the surface and his name being called in the same exotic accent he remembered and adored so well.

He ignored both.

 ………………………

 It became a torture feeding Jonghyun three times a day, every day. While he had gained the trust of some of the other creatures due to his kind treatment, nothing could make up for the pain he felt each time he had to hear Jonghyun call for him, or see the way he would wait for him to come and would float at the surface when Kibum threw in the fish.

“Kibum.”

“Wait, please!”

“Bummie!”

He could barely stand it. The voice, the stare, the words. It killed him inside. It made him want to die and forget about this damned life he couldn’t escape no matter how hard he had tried.

Then one day, Jonghyun’s words made him stop at the door on his way out, freezing on the spot, eyes wide. “You’re so selfish!” Jonghyun shouted. “If you are really so sorry for what you have done, the least you can do is acknowledge me when I talk to you!”

It was the last straw for Kibum, so much so that he slammed the door shut and his feet hit heavily on the floor as he went back to the tank. “Do you think this is fucking easy for me?!” He cried, staring down at Jonghyun, fighting back tears of frustration. “Coming here every day to feed you like you’re some animal and knowing there is nothing I can do to stop it? Yes, I left you here. I ran away for a better life, because it was easier than accepting that I was helpless. And now I’m forced to come back and every reason I had for leaving is screaming louder than words in my head and I can’t escape it.” He sobbed, collapsing to his knees at the edge of the tank, fingers gripping on the grate, head hung low with eyes scrunched shut. “And I’m sorry, I’m sorry that I can’t bring myself to even pretend like nothing changed between us because I know how awful I was to you and – ”

The tips of fingers touched his knuckles. He gasped, eyes flashing open, tears falling as he met Jonghyun’s gaze, the merman using his tail to keep his whole torso above the water with little effort at all. “Kibum… don’t hate yourself for the life you were born into.” He whispered. “We were both born to this, I know nothing of my mother or the ocean, and I know that escaping here isn’t an option for me. I could never survive out there. But Kibum, seeing you escape was the most joyous day of my life.”

Kibum blinked, confused. “What?”

“You were free of this horrible place, free to do as you pleased. Just like you had always dreamed. It saddened me to see that you had come back. Tell me, why?” Jonghyun quizzed, head tilted to the side. “What made you return?”

“I-I… I was in a club at university where we would organise rallies to free mystical beings from their captivity, perform peaceful protests, things like that. But one day… one day there was an article in the newspaper and it had a photo of my family and the photo they used had me in it.” Kibum sobbed. “Until then no one had known who my family was… I had to leave. If I stayed…” He shuddered. “I don’t know what might have happened. And I had nowhere else to go but home so…”

“I’m sorry, Bum.” Jonghyun whispered.

“Jonghyun… If I asked you, would you do a favour for me?” Kibum muttered.

“Anything.”

“Pull me into your tank.” Kibum pleaded, unlocking the gate and pulling it open, the metal clanking as the hinge took it one-eighty degrees so it was lying against the grate. “Drown me.”

Jonghyun dropped, his tail losing the momentum it had built up to keep him there, his torso going back into the water. The stunned look of horror and sorrow upon his face said enough. “Anything, but that.” He hissed and dove beneath the surface.

“Wait! Jonghyun please!” He screamed, slamming his fists painfully against the edge of the metal grate, the rattle sending vibrations through the water. “Please.” He sobbed, gripping the grate and shaking it, though it barely moved. “I don’t know what to do.”

It felt like an eternity he knelt by the tank, his fingers sore as his grip remained around the metal grate, crying openly so tears leaked down to the water below. Breathing was difficult, almost as if he was really drowning, his chest clenching in pain as he fought for every breath, murmuring Jonghyun’s name over and over again.

A sudden splash from below him made him look up. Jonghyun held a hand towards him, eyes red with tears he couldn’t shed. Though he didn’t know what Jonghyun planned to do, and nor did he care, Kibum kicked off his boots as he turned to sit on the edge of the tank, pushing off so he fell into Jonghyun’s waiting arms. It was so different to the last time he’d been held in these arms, they were stronger, firmer, warmer, somehow. He shamelessly clung to Jonghyun’s shoulders, burying his face into a strong shoulder as Jonghyun’s arms tightened further around him.

“I missed holding you like this.” Jonghyun whispered, his lips touching Kibum’s ear, skin lightly brushing skin. “It has been so long.”

“Too long.” Kibum corrected him softly, unable to help kissing along Jonghyun’s collarbone.

Jonghyun shuddered, using his webbed hand to angle Kibum’s face up to look at his own. “Do you trust me?” He asked softly, eyes flashing down to Kibum’s lips as he spoke.

He nodded, shifting closer. “Yes.”

Lips met his, gently at first, and then harder and harder until he was gasping for air around Jonghyun’s feverish movements. And then it ended just as fast as it had begun. He was about to protest when Jonghyun kissed the tip of his nose just like he used to. “Take a deep breath, Kibummie. Don’t worry, I’ll look after you.”

Doing as he was told, Kibum gasped in the deepest breath he could before Jonghyun’s lips were over his again, only they remained still as the merman began to pull him beneath the surface.

For a moment, panic sparked in his mind, but then he remembered that Jonghyun was looking after him, holding him so firmly and protectively. Jonghyun would never let anything happen to him, he knew that for sure now.

The longer he was under the water, the more concerned he became, feeling his lungs screaming for more air – until Jonghyun guided his mouth open and breathed out. Fresh oxygen filled his lungs and Kibum sighed, realising what Jonghyun was doing. Holding tighter to Jonghyun, he hummed when he felt fingers moving up to his hair, gripping even with the webbing in the way. Jonghyun’s tail then curled around his legs from below the knees, pressing him even closer. Kibum almost forgot to breathe, only doing so when Jonghyun forced another breath into Kibum’s mouth.

Making sure Kibum took one more breath, Jonghyun reluctantly let the kiss end, smiling warmly as he brushing floating hair from Kibum’s face, tenderly cupping his cheek. “I love you.” He mouthed.

Then he laughed, watching as Kibum tried to return the words, only to forget that he couldn’t breathe underwater. Gripping Kibum under the armpits, he swam back to the surface, holding Kibum safely above the water as he gasped and coughed for air.

The moment he was fine again, Kibum pushed his lips to Jonghyun’s, fingers in silvery hair. “I love you.” He breathed, letting the words mumble against Jonghyun’s mouth. “Never forget that. Please. No matter what happens.”

“I won’t.” Jonghyun vowed, holding Kibum’s chin and kissing him again. “You should go before someone notices you’re in here.”

Kibum looked up to the edge of the tank and frowned. “If I can get out of here.”