You'll be leaving early on Tuesday morning next week, and the rest of the day–Wednesday D-6–is mostly spent like that: goofing around with the siren. As the hours tick by, more of your colleagues trickle in, knocking on the door to the siren's room to let you know how glad and relieved they are that you're alright.
Of course, it feels good to know that they all care about you, but you do notice that none of them really asks how Jeongguk is doing. Because he's part animal? Or part man?
Hoseok, being the angel that he is, offers to let you stay with him at his place, at least until you leave for the trip.
At first, you want to accept; it felt good to fall asleep knowing Namjoon was just a room away, but now? You miss your own bed, and besides, you don't want to risk becoming dependent on your friends like that.
Besides, playing around with Jeongguk, in that same pool of water, feels like therapy in a way, and whatever worries remain are slowly being washed away. Sure, they might return the moment you leave the room and the water dries from your body, but they're nowhere near as heavy for you to carry.
D-5, Thursday is when your previous career as a competitive swimmer and diver finally comes into play, and Jeongguk, who's deemed you utterly useless in the water, is thoroughly surprised to see you demonstrate the few tricks you still remember how to do.
Your shoulder doesn't argue with you anymore, so you feel a lot more comfortable starting to swim in the tank. Not enough to race him or anything, but enough to play around just a bit.
It's priceless, seeing his wide eyes and open mouth as you do a somewhat ugly back flip into the cold water. Re-emerging, you push your hair from your face and giggle. Finally, it's his turn to be amazed, and when he excitedly asks you to do it again and again, you do, talking through it and explaining every little step.
You'd never be able to deny him, not when you get to see his dark eyes turn every reflection into stars for you.
D-5. Friday. After eating with him, raw fish long forgotten and traded for pizza, Jeongguk begs you to watch him show off his powers, more specifically, the power contained in his tail.
These days, the water in the tank is pretty much clear, having been filtered as soon as Jeongguk felt comfortable enough. But the tarp was left covering the back, creating a dark backdrop and giving him the option to hide in the shadows.
And although the huge tank is still far too small for Jeongguk to truly gain speed in, it doesn't stop him from trying or you from watching, absolutely mesmerized, from the bottom of the tank.
With the lights in the room brighter than usual, you're able to discern much more than you're used to, and it's so... enchanting. At first, Jeongguk shows off as much as the tank allows him to. Spins, turns, and speed–he does it all. Then, he just... swims.
You have no words, barely even any thoughts in your head as you admire him in silent awe. He moves smoothly, gliding through the water, sometimes with his face down and other times toward the surface.
Most of the time, he keeps to the front of the tank where you can see him, and although he doesn't look at you, you know he moves for your eyes only.
And you can't stop watching. Jeongguk's tail is so dark, and so big, but the movements aren't necessarily. The end of it moves up and down slowly, propelling him forward and letting him glide effortlessly through the water.
The same water colors his pale skin blueish, and when he passes you once more–this time sideways and so close you feel like you could reach through the glass and touch–you see every little dip and bulge of his muscled torso.
Occasionally, he'll do a complete lap around the tank, and you watch as the big tail disappears into the darker section until he's gone.
Your eyes move by themselves, following where you think he is, and you count. One... two... three... four... five... six... seven... eight... nine... and he emerges from the dark on the other side exactly when you predicted, swimming along the glass toward you.
Subconsciously, you step forward. One small step, and then another, until you're close enough to touch. The moment his tail passes by, you do. Your palm presses against the glass, but Jeongguk has already disappeared into the dark abyss again.
Like before, your eyes follow where you think he is. One... two... three... four... but he emerges from the middle this time, nearing slowly on his back with his hand outstretched in front of him. It takes only a second or two and then you think his hand will hit the glass, but it never does. Instead, he leans back, and you watch as he dives down, his front to the glass. The scales reflect light in a silvery blue when the tail follows him down and back up, and there he is.
Jeongguk's hand meets yours from the other side. It's slightly webbed and bigger than yours, fingertips visible where yours have already ended.
Trailing up the pale forearm, your eyes reach his face. He's upright, looking down at you, but he's not as tall as he should be, so you know without looking down that he's curled the end of his tail behind him.
D-3. Saturday. The entire day consists of nothing but movies. At Jeongguk's request, you pick out some of your favorites for the two of you to watch, and since your favorite genre could simply be described as anything containing plot twists, you've compiled a few classics.
In the middle of 'The sixth sense,' Taehyung stops by. You're incredibly relieved to be able to say that he's gotten closer to the siren, even if Taehyung doesn't stay long this time. Every time he'd try to talk to you, he was harshly hushed by a very engrossed siren with a mouth full of different flavored popcorn, and so he decided to come back later.
Not only is a focused siren a very endearing one, but he's smart too. Like incredibly so. It turns out that no matter what movie you throw at him, Jeongguk predicts the plot twist for nearly all of them.
You honestly feel like he gets smarter and smarter every day, and it begs the question... how in the world did he live his life before? Just swimming laps in whatever tank he was confined in–if it was even big enough for that–and without any real mental stimulation?
D-2. Sunday. When you continue with the movies from the previous day, your phone doesn't stop buzzing where it lies on the platform. Your mother. You answer her once, only to hear her ramble on about Jin.
Yeah, Jin is nice, and you like him a lot; you just don't want to focus on him at the moment, so you quickly excuse yourself and hang up. Which was a bad idea because you angered the beast. Feeling a bit guilty, but choosing to ignore it, you decide to block her number. It's only for an hour or two, so it's fine, you tell yourself.
Still, the buzzing caught Jeongguk's attention, and when he clearly expresses his interest in the device–the very device that he saved from the bottom of the tank once–who are you to deny him?
"Be careful, alright? It can not get wet," you warn as he dries his hands on a towel you've brought to the platform.
"I wish I could have things like this," he pouts, and what do you say to that? There's no way for a siren to have a phone, unfortunately.
You remain focused on the tv, seated on the platform, and watching the movie that Jeongguk abandoned in favor of your phone. He seems very entertained by the Snapchat filters, so you figure you'll leave him to it.
Perhaps you should've given him a quick tour of the rest of the app, or at least paid attention to the low notification sound that sounds.
"Whtteff.... who is... he? Are... you.. fucki—" the speed at which you snatched your phone from Jeongguk's hand has to be superhuman.
Although it was extremely cute hearing him sound out the snap you'd received, you're not so sure you want him to read those at all.
As you inspect the screen, you realize that the message 'wtf?? who is he?? are you fucking him??' was sent in response to a picture Jeongguk sent to one of your best friends from high school.
Your heart rate accelerates as you imagine what kind of picture he accidentally sent to her. Logically, if he happened to include something he shouldn't have–like his gray, slightly webbed and scales hands–then that wouldn't have been her reply, right?
With quick fingers, you head to the saved pictures, thankful that you at least showed Jeongguk how to save the images to your phone. Fortunately, most of what he has saved are innocent pictures or videos with filters–sometimes even capturing you–but the last saved image...
It's of him. It shows him smiling, and to your horror, also his fangs.
You can only pray that your friend didn't notice them or that she just assumed they were either fake or just another filter. If not, she would've definitely mentioned them, right?
Taking a deep breath, you slowly realize that yeah, she most likely didn't think anything of them, considering what else is in the picture.
Your dear siren appears to be in a pool, black strands of wet hair framing his handsome face and dripping water down the exposed top half of his chest as he leans on his elbows.
Jeongguk looks like a regular human. Or maybe not regular, but like a human. A very attractive human man.
You breathe out a sigh of relief and hand the phone back to Jeongguk.
He looks hesitant, like he's in trouble, but all you do is explain what he accidentally did and how to avoid it happening again.
He'll never be in trouble with you; you'll never be angry with him, you know that. It's just not possible.
Or is it?