rapture of the deep ; seodo

✯ chapter 17 ✯

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. .⃗ . 1,2k

"Why poison?" Geonhak broke the silence, whispering the words as his chin rested on Seoho's hairline.

"Killing is messy," Seoho said, "mermaid blood attracts sharks and other sea monsters."

Geonhak supposed that he should be grateful for the time they had left, relieved that he had been spared from finding Seoho in a bloody heap on the seafloor with murky crimson fogging the space around; images that he was sure would have found their way into his worst nightmares.

Slow suffocation occurred to him as torturous and cruel regardless.

"Poison is convenient, peaceful almost. The lifeless body will sink to the bottom of the sea and disintegrate into fine sand particles," Seoho went on with a calm in his voice that Geonhak couldn't share.

Geonhak tensed against Seoho's back, feeling like the air had been sucked out of his lungs at once, and suddenly he couldn't breathe again.

"Disintegrate?" He piped, knowing damn well that he would regret having asked in the first place.

"It's part of protecting the secret, a natural precaution if you like. It's necessary that the body disappears without a trace. Imagine humans suddenly retrieving mermaid corpses from the sea; that would be a disaster."

And this is heartless, Geonhak wanted to yell because the thought of Seoho just disappearing, dissolving, fading with no mourners and no funeral following infuriated him.
Geonhak kept quiet regardless, remembering how Hyungu with his admirably calm temper had always told him not to get all worked up about things that weren't in his realm of control, because this really was as if he was screaming at a tomato plant for not growing roses - enough was slipping from his control today, and Geonhak felt another wave of desperate sadness overwhelm his every breath.

Seoho must have felt Geonhak stiffening because he let his hands run over the younger's arms until he found his hands and squeezed them. "Don't think too much."

Geonhak wanted stop his mind from racing and concentrate on the here and now, with Seoho in his arms for god-knows how much or little longer, but images of him disappearing right now weren't helping.

"How long..." Geonhak took a deep breath and cleared his throats because speaking around the lump in his windpipe was harder than expected. "How long until..."

"Two hours probably, maybe three." Seoho picked up on what Geonhak was unable to voice and shifted in his hold until he was facing the younger again. Geonhak's heart sank, suddenly hyperaware of the ragged and wet sound that Seoho made with every shaky inhale.

Seoho sighed. "Geonhak, I want you to leave."

Geonhak's eyes widened, blood running cold. "Leave?" he croaked, "Why?"

But Geonhak already had an idea why and sputtered what was going through his head before Seoho could intervene and lay on the agony even more with his considerate and caring nature.

"If this is your way of sparing and taking care of me, forget it, I'm not going anywhere."

Seoho's eyes softened, and Geonhak didn't know whether it was because he was crying again or a silent plea to stop making things harder than they already were.

Geonhak was a little selfish per se, knowing full well that he wouldn't comply and leave Seoho's side regardless of what the older was going to say - and if he would have to jump after him and into the water, then so be it.

"Geonhak... don't do this to yourself." Seoho's eyes flickered pleadingly - I don't want you to have to see me like this, - but Geonhak was not having it, shaking his head until the dull throb of exhaustion returned again, and the way suppressed hiccups drummed in his throat made him look like a stubborn child throwing a tantrum in the middle of the supermarket.

"Geonhak, please understand. I wanted to go see a friend of mine anyways. I wanted to tell him about you and ask him to come find you, so he could show and tell you all the things that I was meaning to," Seoho insisted and ended in a breathless cough, but Geonhak was keeping his iron grip around the older's hands as new tears formed in his eyes.

"But I don't want anybody else." Geonhak's voice betrayed him into sounding a weak pitch higher than usual.

The faintest flash of confusion spread over Seoho's feature, but Geonhak caught it because Seoho thinking of himself as replaceable for him had been something he had been able to read from his words of forgetting and not mattering, and how he didn't seem to understand and realise that he did matter to Geonhak - a whole fucking lot.

And, right now, Geonhak didn't care whether he was just the alien creature human to Seoho who he found interesting in the same way a scientists did with a newly-discovered species of bugs because Geonhak's chest ached with unspoken words and feelings that wouldn't disappear despite the cracked bottle, and whether Seoho considered him a human or his human didn't matter.

"Look, Seoho, this is not in the least about the mermaid thing. Shit, I would give all of this up on the spot if I knew that you'd be okay. Nobody could ever replace you," Geonhak whispered the last part, voice cracking as tears spilled over his cheeks and into the water, rings forming on the surface.

Seoho's eyes flickered with something fearful but he didn't stop Geonhak just yet.

Geonhak took a shaky breath, not knowing where the courage suddenly came from. "Seoho, I think-... I think I-..."

"Don't do this to yourself," Seoho said again, this time, sounding not only pleading but desperate, and Geonhak thought Seoho's eyes were a little water too, but since his vision was blurred regardless of how often he blinked, he couldn't be sure.

"You don't even know what I was going to say," Geonhak argued but it sounded weak, voice shaking and cracking all over.

"Just, don't," Seoho returned instead of giving a real answer but it sounded as much like an apology as it did like he really did know what Geonhak had meant to say.

"Okay," Geonhak breathed, courage suddenly seeping out of him, yet he didn't have the capacity to think or feel any of what Seoho's rejection stirred in his chest, "but don't leave, please, and don't make me leave."

Geonhak could tell that Seoho didn't like the idea of Geonhak putting himself through the entirety of Seoho's sealed karma - tormented by the mental picture of being unable to hold and comfort him once Seoho was gone for good, - but he also looked more and more on the verge of slipping away, and it wasn't just the dimming brightness in his eyes because the fading light of the sunset could be blamed for that but the shakiness of Seoho's breath and limbs and his bluing lips.

"Alright, but you can leave any time."

"I won't."
That, Geonhak was sure of.

"I know."
Seoho scrambled back into his arms, shoulders sagging under a sigh.

Geonhak twisted the mostly dried strands of Seoho's hair between his fingers and wished upon a shooting star that would grant him to wish for a miracle.

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*cough* one month later  ><
terribly sorry, i hope i can stick with updating the last few chapters more regularly from now on :(

thank you for reading and being patient with me <3