A/N: not really inspired by any song in particular but was listening to way back home (version with Conor Maynard) when writing.
Y/N POV
'Another day...' I sigh, thinking to myself as I listen to my professor drone on about the importance of Staphylococcus aureus in microbiology, 'as if I didn't know that from my review of the weekly material last night.'
Placing my head on my left hand, l look out the lecture hall to see the beautiful May sunshine shining through the glass windows.
The sunlight got me thinking about the times I spent on the beach close to my home as a kid, always frolicking in the summer sunlight, and meeting a friend of mine. I remember she was always swimming at the seaside. I used to spend lots of time having fun with her, swimming in the sea, looking for interesting looking seashells, and just telling her a lot about my daily life. But weirdly enough, she found many trivial things to be unbelievably fascinating. We spent the full day talking about cooking, or well, more like me explaining the concept of cooking to her.
As I try to remember more details about this friend, there was one thing that puzzled me: I recall that she had a fishtail instead of legs?
"I must be daydreaming..." I whisper to myself, "There's no way I was friends with a mermaid, they don't exist in real life..." I must be mixing up my reality and my dreams, cause mermaids don't exist in real life, right?
As class ended in the late afternoon for me, and there was a while before dinner, I decided to take a walk down memory lane and go to the seaside where I spent most of my childhood.
Sitting down at the pier, I couldn't help but reminisce a memory from my childhood with that friend of mine.
(flashback)
"Hey Y/N!"
"Hey Danielle!" I greet my friend as I jogged towards the pier, where she was already in the water waiting for me. "I hope I didn't keep you waiting long!"
"It's okay! It doesn't take me long to get here anyways!" she says, smiling brightly at me. "So where should we go explore today?" she asks me, looking expectedly at me.
"I heard from my grandparents that there's an old cave where pirates used to hide in the old times, let's try and find it!"
"It's on! Try to catch up!"
"It's not fair that you have a tail and I have two legs. I can't swim as fast as you!"
(Present)
"Again, why do I remember that she has a tail? That can't be right?" I mutter to myself as I take a sip of my strawberry smoothie. Hearing my ringtone from my phone, I look down to see that my sister's calling, to which I pick up
"Hello?" her voice barely audible as the sound of the sea surrounds me.
"Yes Minji what do you want?"
"Just want to know when you're coming home! I need to cook dinner for the both of us, you know." I hear her closing something, which I assume was the fridge.
"I'll be back around the usual time. You need me to pick up anything later?"
She didn't immediately reply, taking a few seconds before responding.
"Nothing I can think of right now, I'll let you know if there's anything I need."
"See you later then."
"See ya."
Just as I was about to hang up, I remembered something that I wanted to ask her,
"Minji?"
"What?"
"Do you remember if I had a friend called Danielle in the past?"
A moment of silence followed after that.
"I think you did, but you said that she left to study abroad or something?"
"Did I?" I exclaim, surprised.
"You did. If there's nothing else you want to ask I'll hang up for now. See ya later at home little brother."
"See ya sis."
"Weird...Am I losing my marbles?" I try to rack my brain, not realizing that now I'm not alone.
"Do you need help? I couldn't help but hear that you might have lost something?" A girl's voice sounds next to me.
"Not unless you can help me find my memo-" I stop mid-sentence, as I have just laid eyes upon the most gorgeous lady that I've ever met.
Her auburn hair shines in the summer sunshine. She is dressed in a simple t-shirt and denim overalls. She sits down next to me, her Crocs hanging off the pier as well. Oddly enough, as the wind blows against her hair, it fills the surrounding air with the scent of sand and salt, like the beach that I used to frequent during my childhood.
"It's okay, I know how annoying it is to forget something," she says, smiling brightly at me. "If you want, you can share what you're thinking about with me."
"Well, I'm thinking about a childhood friend of mine," I say, unsure why I was telling a total stranger about my thoughts. There was just something about this girl next to me, that I couldn't exactly put my finger on, that made me feel at ease with her. "I seem to remember something about her that didn't make sense."
"What do you remember about your friend?"
I smile at her question, "I remember spending many days at the beach with her, swimming, exploring, and also talking about life." I smile fondly at those memories, "She left to study abroad though..."
"It's nice to know that you have nice memories with her," she says, looking at me with her bright brown eyes, "but is that all?"
"There is something, but it sounds kinda dumb." I admit, sheepishly.
"Let's hear it though, I'm sure it's not that silly," she says reassuringly.
"Well...I think I used to believe that she was a mermaid?" Having said that out loud, I scoff at myself. "I somehow distinctly remember that she had a fishtail, rather than legs."
As she is about to respond to me, I receive a call from my friend Sullyoon, who was asking me about what happened in class, due to her being sick.
And when I finish the call, the girl looks at my phone in amazement.
"What is that?" she asked with genuine curiosity.
"This?" I indicate my phone, "This is a mobile phone " I say, perplexed.
"I thought mobile phones had buttons? Yours doesn't have any buttons at all," she says in awe.
'Why would someone not know about a phone?' I thought to myself.
"Uh, I don't mean to be rude... but how do you find this interesting? Everyone uses a mobile phone like this nowadays." I say, turning to face her.
As I say this, I turn to look at her, and as I see her face, something floated to the surface of my mind.
The memories that I recalled during the day suddenly became as clear as day: I see myself as a kid, swimming in the sea with Danielle, but this time around, I can clearly see her face, and I realized that the girl sitting next to me, was her, but I clearly remember that she had a fishtail!
"Danielle? Is it you?" I ask, tentatively, afraid that I was making a fool of myself.
Turning to face me, she smiled even wider.
"I thought you had forgotten about me, Y/N!" She then jumped to hug me, nearly knocking over my strawberry smoothie. "It's been so long!"
"Wait, so you really are a mermaid?" I ask, with genuine curiosity lacing my voice. Because the last I checked, she had two legs instead of one tail.
"Yeah, I am silly," she says. And out of the blue, she pinches me on the arm.
"Ouch! What was that for, Danielle?" I exclaim.
"I'm sorry!" she says, "I thought that's how humans distinguish reality and imagination..."
"It's okay," I quickly reassure her, as those bright eyes of hers threaten to tear up. "I just wasn't expecting it at all."
Then I decided to ask the biggest question of all.
"Danielle, how do you have legs instead of a tail now? Did you have to trade them with a witch or something?"
"What? No!" she says, shaking her head, "Mermaids can turn their tail into legs when they reach adulthood, that's how I got my legs now!"
"I thought you were happy in the sea, though?" I ask, "I mean, your family's there, and you lived there all your life."
"Well...you've always painted an image of how life on land is so interesting, so I wanted to come and experience it!"
I could've sworn that I heard her say something underneath her breath, but I didn't push it in order not to be rude.
"Uh question, can you be on land as long as you want?" I ask.
"Basically, but I need to go back to the sea once in a while otherwise my heart would dry up."
'That sounds morbid...' I think to myself, not wanting to say it out loud to the happy girl next to me.
"So... what are your plans now, Danielle?" I ask her, "What do you plan to do now that you can come on land?"
"Well..." she starts, tilting her head slightly, "I was actually hoping that you could help me with that. I only know you so, would you help me with getting to know living on land?"
"Of course!" I say without a second thought, "Although I need to work around my schedule because I'm in school and all. But I will show you what it's like to live on land!"
"Thank you!" she says a little too loudly as she launches herself to hug me again. Only this time, I was prepared for it and returned the hug as well.
"Can I see you tomorrow, Y/N?" Danielle asks, hopefully. "I want to see more of your world!"
"Sure, I'm free all day tomorrow, I'll show you around where I live!" I say, just as I realized a hitch in the plans.
"Danielle, where are you going for the night?" I ask.
"Actually I'm going to go back to the sea for tonight, I'll see you tomorrow!
"Sure," I say, "but don't you need an outfit for tomorrow?"
"We mermaids can manipulate water, so I can just dry my outfit tomorrow when I get out of the water." She explains to me.
"Ohhhh!" I say, amazed. "So I guess I'll see you tomorrow morning where we first met?"
"Where we first met it is! See you tomorrow Y/N!"
Then she kissed me on the cheek, before diving back into the ocean, leaving me on the pier.
As I watched her silhouette disappear into the blue sea, I subconsciously place my hand where she kissed me.
Legends say that when a mermaid kisses a human, it means that they are in love with said human, making me wonder if it just occurred to me in real life. But now I have something to look forward to: spending time with my childhood best friend who was actually a mermaid!
A/N: venturing into the fantasy side of things, I will be working on a bit of a prequel-sequel follow up story.
shout out to drn_160 for fleshing out the idea and helping me out with it!