rapture of the deep ; seodo

★ chapter 3 ★

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"Oh hey, Geonhak! What's up? You look like you've seen a ghost." Keonhee waved at him as joyous as ever and put his phone screen-first down on the table.

Oh, if you knew, Geonhak thought as he pulled one of the bar chairs back - right next to where Keonhee had taken a seat - and plonked himself down on it right after.

Geonhak had hoped to find Keonhee at the seaside café because he was in desperate need of someone to talk to about what he had seen, as the memory was a dicey, itchy reminder in the back of his mind, and he was uncertain whether he would be so sure of himself if he went back home and decided to sleep on it for a night.

And of course, Keonhee was there because Keonhee was never elsewhere - he liked to specify that it was the most enjoyable and convenient place for him to be, as for starters, the café permitted to bring in takeout from other diners around as well as store-bought food to savour it there, their smoothies and iced coffee were heavenly, the waffles edible, it was situated an incredible half a kilometre distance nearer to the dive centre than his own apartment - oh and for finals, Hwanwoong was working there and Keonhee happened to have a huge crush on him (which, admittedly, had taken Geonhak a while to figure out.)

And so, Geonhak told Keonhee about the incident that had happened to him earlier that day - all while leaving out small (huge) details that might freak him out, obviously.

As much as Geonhak had tried to steer his thoughts far away from his encounter at forty-plus meters, navigating the boat back to the port in an involuntary silence turned out not to be the finest occupation and distraction to keep unwanted thoughts away.

Out of the two of them, Geonhak was the only one with a boating license, and although Hyungu had pressed to stay put for a little longer and recover from the shock - both for his and Geonhak's sake, - the swaying of the boat had made Geonhak sick to the stomach and for the first time, not knowing what swam, crawled, existed under the boat's hull had slowly caused him to lose his cool.

It wasn't like they had lingered in silence at will: the engine of their basic bowrider was droning in ear-splitting loudness and undoubtedly past its prime, making talking to each other either impossible or highly damaging to the throat. However, neither the noisy engine nor the vicious wind that was clashing around his ears had managed to stop his thoughts from spiralling.

What was it that he had seen? He had to acknowledge that the creature had looked an awful lot like what his childhood memories associated with the portrayal of mermaids and sirens in fiction.

Mermaid. Geonhak had tried the notion out on his tongue, pursing his lips against the wind in silence; Hyungu had his back turned towards him as he was sitting on one of the benches in the bow. Siren.

Geonhak had felt like a complete fool; linking an innocent childhood fantasy to something as grotesque as the very vivid spectacle of glossy scales seemingly sewed into pale skin and gills that waved alongside paper-thin fins with each breath, and it was so wrong that these fins emerged from bare skin. Piercing icicles clawed over his spine, and Geonhak shook his head and shoulders to slacken his tense position, careful not to jostle the steering wheel in his cold hands.

Geonhak had been too caught up in the fish-like abnormalities that had appeared so displaced on a manlike upper body to pay attention to their face - halfway covered and hidden by the boulder, Geonhak hadn't been able to see past the curve of what was supposed to be hips in a human being, but he guessed that the sturdy mosaic of cyan scales that perfectly melted into the crook of its waist elongated further and ended in a caudal fin like any fishtail did.