"THANK YOU JIMIN, FOR HELPING ME
BE A LITTLE LESS LONELY."
• • •
THE SHORE WAS A GRACEFUL arc of sand, glittering under Australia's summer sun, a place for a placid ocean to lap. The waves rolled in with a soothing sound, the salty water a brief flurry of sand. Every few meters or so lay a shell, a treasure of the aquatic world just out of reach, and the footprints Chaeyoung left behind were soon erased.
There is a silence in her soul, an emptiness if you will.
She supposes she should be used to living in the rehabilitation center by now, but she wakes up everyday still thinking she's dreaming. The whole ordeal feels unreal with the always-smiling nurses, spotless and perfectly white rooms reeking of antiseptic, endless hallways, and the same tired routine every single day for the whole year she'd been here.
Other than Chaeyoung, the only other patients admitted were a young girl, merely 12 years-old who had been diagnosed with cancer and a middle-aged, partly balding schizophrenic man.
The nurse had come in earlier that morning and told her that since she had exhibited "exceptional behavior" for the entire year she was there, Chaeyoung had earned "Outdoor privelages" which basically meant she was allowed to walk along the beach outside the building, which was also fenced around in case she tried to escape.
The only way out would be to drown herself in the Ocean trying to swim to freedom, she muses dryly. Still, it was better than being trapped in her "room" having nothing better to do than watch Dr. Phil, the only available channel they had.
The small, wet pebbles that lined the beach sparkled in the light of the waning sun. The water had slowed and was almost still, small waves occasionally hitting the beach with little force. Chaeyoung reached down to pick one up, running her thumb over its smooth surface. It was perfectly round, with no sharp edges or jagged curves. She swung her arm back and flicked her wrist, watching the small pebble skip across the surface of the sea.
She collapsed on the sand, next to a large boulder that broke every waved that crashed against it. Chaeyoung didn't understand how the very rehab center that was suppose to bring her peace of mind was making her lose it.
Suddenly, she felt a sharp pain in her left arm and felt something small make contact. "Ow!" she exclaimed, her eyes roving the ground to see what projectile had hit her. She spots it, a few inches away laying at her feet, still wet and coated with sand, it was the pebble she had thrown into the ocean.
"What the hell?" she whispered. It felt like someone had thrown it back at her, but that wasn't possible, no one else was down here let alone hiding in the sea.
Although, maybe it was the little girl trying to play with her, which was strange because she wasn't allowed to be outside.
"Sooji?" Chaeyoung called, to no response other than the rushing of the ocean. "Sooji sweetie, is that you? Are you hiding?"
"Sooji's not here."
Chaeyoung screamed, startled, dropping the rock and whipping her head to the huge boulder at the seashore.
No one was there.
Now she was really getting freaked out. "Wh – who's there? Who said that?"
A tuft of pastel pink hair appeared from the other side of the jagged boulder and slowly rose to reveal a...boy?
Chaeyoung gasped and hastily scrambled to her feet and looked around frantically. Were there any guards down here? Could any of the nurses see what was happening through the windows? Who the hell was this guy and what was he doing here? How did he even get inside the facility?
"Who," she whispered in a strangled voice, "who even – how the fuck – did you get in here? What were you doing in the sea spying on me?"
The boy looked to be about her age and other than the bright pink hair that seemed perfectly dry despite the rest of his shirtless body being wet and the peculiar seashell necklace he wore, the kid looked rather normal. Handsome, she noted offhandedly, but a normal, healthy guy.
"You can call me Jimin," he told her. His voice sounded strangely raspy as if didn't use it much and he was staring at Chaeyoung like he'd never seen anything like her in his entire life.
"Are you a new patient or something? Are you – " she gasped suddenly, "Are you a cast away?"
Jimin laughed and it was a musical sound. He shook his head.
Chaeyoung stepped closer to the rocks and paused when she saw Jimin shrink back under. He seemed to be hiding something as she saw him leaning his lower body away from her view.
"What are you doing?" she questioned sharply, immediately suspicious. She ran around the other side of the boulder quickly before Jimin could do anything to hide his – his – his tail.
Where his legs should have been was instead a four-foot long tail, decorated with multicolored iridescent scales glistening several kaleidoscopic colors; royal purple, electric blue, glittering silver and brilliant yellow. It was magical.
"You're a – a mermaid?" Chaeyoung stumbled backwards in fear. "H-how the hell – ?"
"Am I hallucinating again?" she raised a shaking hand to her forehead as if to stop it's spinning, "Is that it, do I need to take my meds?"
Jimin remained silent, merely opting to observe her breakdown with heightened wariness and a hint of amusement.
"You're not real." she said firmly, more to herself than him. "You can't be, like literally you can't be – it's impossible!"
Chaeyoung shook her head as if that would make Jimin evaporate into thin air. Looking slightly hysterical, she continued to mutter frantically under her breath. "I'm probably just dreaming! Yeah! I mean, you're not even talking anymore, of course, you're just a side effect of the new medications."
"I was waiting for you to let me." he spoke dryly.
"AAHHH WHAT THE FU– ARGH" she abruptly stopped shouting when she fell backwards in her rush to get away from him.
"Be careful!" he said concerned, but she ignored him and instead demanded, "Who are you? No – no, let me rephrase, what are you?"
Jimin smiled trying to set her at ease, "I'm a merman, love."
Chaeyoung choked on her tongue, "A merman? Like from H2O?"
He looked slightly taken aback as he explained, "Erm, we just call it 'water' where I'm from or better yet the 'ocean' and occasionally the 'sea' – "
"No, I know that, I'm not stupid." she snapped impatiently. She knew she was being rude, but she couldn't help it. She was scared. "I just – it's a tv show."
Jimin perked up at this and his eyes widened in curiosity. "A what?"
H2O: Just Add Water, an Australian tv-show about mermaids and mermen that she used to watch when she was little with her sister, Alice. They used to take bubblebaths together and pretend to be the mermaids from the show, but even when she was a little, naive kid she knew mermaids didn't exist. It just doesn't work that way!
"Are you pulling my leg, mate? 'Cause let me tell you it's not funny anymore – "
"I'm nowhere near your leg!"
"I'm telling you, stop joking around or I'll tell the authorities. Take off the fake tail and beat it."
"Excuse me? Fake tail? " Jimin repeated, his mouth dropping open in affront. "My tail is 100% authentic, I assure you and I didn't put my life on the line to save all those drowning sailors to earn all my colors for you to just dismiss them as fake!"
Jimin seems to have taken her threat as a personal insult to his character, she noted. What did he mean saving drowning sailors? Didn't mermaids always drown the sailors in the stories?
"Earn your 'colors'?" she asked instead, confused. He nodded his head, "Mermen are born with plain grey scales, you see. With every act of chivalry, daring and courage we get to earn our 'colors' and decorate our scales. I'm going to have the most colorful tail of any mermen, it's my mission."
Chaeyoung was shocked to say the least. His story seemed so intricate and he looked like he really believed what he was saying, but – but how?
Jimin sighed, seeing her skeptical expression. "I'm a real merman," he told her earnestly, "I know you think we're just fantasies and whatnot, but that's what we want you to believe."
"Fantasies – ? The – you – want us to belie – huh?"
"You know, humans were described as a lot smarter in our stories."
Chaeyoung stared at him blankly. "Am I dead? Is this hell?"
"What?" he said, shock coloring his voice. "I just – why do you insist on being a nonbeliever?"
"Because – because – because I – you..." she stuttered mindlessly before trailing off defeated.
"Come here." Jimin said. Then added, his voice gentle, "Please."
Chaeyoung inches forward to the supposed merman slowly until she's just a foot away from him. He holds out one of his toned arms towards her, boring his eyes into hers, willing her to believe.
Hesitantly, she lifted her own skinny arm and reaches for his outstretched palm. Tentatively, as if she was afraid her hand would pass right through his, she makes contact with his damp palm and flinches involuntarily. His hand is cold, but surprisingly soft as if his skin had been weathered down of all its callouses and turned smooth like the surface of a stone.
His fingers, she noticed, were tiny and chubby not quite matching his veiny arms and bulging biceps, as they curled between the spaces of her own.
She also noted how his hand was shaking, like he was nervous, and she realizes this is probably his first time actually meeting a human.
Chaeyoung was holding hands with a merman. It didn't get crazier than this.
"You feel pretty real," she informed him, swallowing thickly.
He cracked an ironic smile, "I should hope so."
Now that she was closer to him, she could have a better look at his face. He had two perfectly normal brown eyebrows atop two perfectly normal, friendly eyes. His eyelashes casted shadows on his high cheekbones and the tiny crystals of salt water that clung to them shimmered every time he blinked. He had a sloping, perfectly centered nose and rosy plump lips to match. He smelled like fresh sea breezes, the salty ocean waves and – oddly enough – tropical fruit.
"You look pretty real too," she whispered as his eyes gazed intently at her as well.
"You look pretty."
Chaeyoung felt her cheeks heat up as she untangled their hands. "What?"
"I said you look pretty," Jimin repeated, apparently oblivious to her very obviously flustered appearance.
"You can't just say things like that," she scolded him, embarrassed.
"Why not?" His eyebrows furrowed, "Are compliments not allowed in human culture?"
Are compliments not allowed in –
"No!" she replied louder than necessary, "Of course, they are. Just – I don't know – just don't compliment me."
Jimin cocked his head to the side and stared at her funnily, "Okay. If that's what you want."
Chaeyoung didn't know what to say, she had too many questions! Was there just one mermaid kingdom or did they have states and countries and different governments like they did? What did they eat? Did they have any special water powers? How were they born? How did they have sex?
"I – I don't know what to ask first!" she chuckled softly, "Tell me...tell me everything."
And so he did. They sat there talking for hours on end, telling each other the wonders of their worlds. She learned about how some powerful mermaids could control storms, that they could communicate with all aquatic life and that Atlantis was just a prank someone had played on the humans 5000 years ago.
In turn, she told him about how humans didn't have magic, but they made up for it with technology like airplanes, phones and McDonald's ice-cream machines that always seem to be conveniently broken.
"Oh, you'd love ice-cream! It's like heaven in a cone," she told him excitedly, "I'll make sure to bring you some next time the nurses serve some."
Jimin's smile that had been ever-present as she spoke flickered at her final statement.
"Chaeyoung, I...I won't be coming back," he told her sadly.
The 19-year old's jaw dropped. "What? No!" she cried anguished. "You have to come back! We've only just become friends and – and I have so many more questions!"
Jimin watched her with a bittersweet smile on his face like he was memorizing every inch of her face.
"Believe me, Chaeyoung. I want to come back. But I can't – it's my curse."
Chaeyoung spluttered, "You're cursed? You never mentioned you were cursed!"
"It's not just me, all mermen and mermaids are. We're cursed to be alone, you see. Poseidon – you know Poseidon right?"
Poseidon, the mythical – well apparently real – god of the Sea, Earthquakes and Storms. She nodded quickly and he continued.
"Well, he got angry at us merpeople for our unruliness and barbarity. They used to cause shipwrecks and cyclones and all sorts of messes that he'd have to clean up, so one day he just wiped all their memory clean. No recollection of they're history, culture or people, we had to start from scratch, but we all knew one thing for sure."
"What?" Chaeyoung asked breathlessly, captivated with his story.
"That we were meant to live alone, forever. Merpeople can't so much as touch each other, or else we turn into seafoam. We're also immortal so we don't have to worry about dying out naurally, but we can be hunted to extinction – which is why we shouldn't be seen by humans."
"B-but you touched my hand, didn't you? And you seem perfectly fine!"
Jimin grabbed her hand in his hand again as he explained, "We can touch humans as much as we'd like, just not merpeople. The curse of us being able to come into physical contact with humans though, is that we can never meet the same human twice."
Chaeyoung's hand tightened around Jimin's subconsciously. "You're kidding," she deadpanned.
He sighed frustrated, "I really, really wish I was. I don't want to leave you, Chaeyoung-ah but I have to. And when I do, that'll be the last time you'll ever see me."
For the first time in a long time, she realized that she didn't feel monotonous anymore. She no longer felt empty as if she were just wasting away. She was no longer numb, but actually feeling.
So when she started to cry, she also started to laugh. Jimin was staring at her like she was crazy, and maybe she was, but she didn't care.
Chaeyoung had finally felt something after meeting him. She felt scared when she saw him. She felt curious and excited when she believed him. She felt happy and warm when she spoke with him. And now she felt horribly upset that she'd have to let him go.
It was a beautiful, she thought, but it was also a tragedy.
"So if you – leave now, we'll ne – ver see each other a– gain?" she hiccuped through her tears.
Jimin reached out and his smooth thumbs wiped away her stream of tears. He nodded solemnly looking just as heartbroken as Chaeyoung felt.
"Never is such a long time though," she bit her lip.
Then he did something that surprised her. His hands reached behind his neck to where he unhooked his seashell necklace and pulled it off.
"For you," he said, "to always remember me, and always remember this was real and not a side effect of your new medications."
Chaeyoung laughed and it felt nice to do so again. She leant forward and swept her long, black hair up and held it while Jimin fastened his gift around her swanlike neck.
When he pulled back, they were only inches apart. He moistened his plump lips and shyly asked, "May I – may I kiss you?"
She was still for a few seconds before she nodded her head slightly and her eyes fluttered closed as he came closer.
When his lips met hers, the world itself ceased to exist. It was slow and soft, comforting in ways that words would never be. His hand rested below her ear, his thumb caressing her cheek as their breaths mingled. She ran her fingers through his hair, pulling him closer until there was no space left between them and she could feel the beating of his heart against her chest. They are bound in a kiss that is so tender the sun should stop on its axis and take note of their pain. His mouth moved against hers like she was the finest thing he'll ever taste and she felt warmth seep it's way through every vein in her body.
He pulled away first and the moment was over. They were of two completely separate worlds, but for one cosmic moment, they were together. For one magical, inexplicably brief moment, they were each other's anchors.
"I'll never forget you," he promises and she believes him.
"Enough clichés, fishboy," Chaeyoung smiles radiantly, and gently pushes him away from her with the hand stilled pressed against his bare chest. "You need to go home."
Jimin rolls his eyes at her new nickname for him, and shoots her one last glorious grin before diving beneath the blue waves.
She waits and watches, as her chest constricts painfully. He resurfaces a couple meters deeper in the sea – and in an extravagant display of skill – flips like a dolphin before disappearing under the ocean for good.
Chaeyoung feels a block form in her throat from holding back tears, but she beams as she stares out at the line where the sky meets the sea.
Goodbye, my friend. I'll miss you.
"Thank you Jimin, for making me feel again." she whispers, fingers toying with her seashell necklace, "Thank you Jimin, for helping me be a little less lonely."
• • •
[2964 words | 12.29.19]
behold! my last oneshot of this decade haha
merman-jimin looks like in the media btw
imagine the sweat is water. pls vote + comment