Chapter Text
Part I: from the mouth of the storm (2/2)
Felix's head was pounding when he finally awoke, bundled in blankets. Sunlight streamed through the room across his face, marking the dawn as finally having arrived, clouds still dotting the mosaic of sky peeking through the windows.
He groaned, sitting up, and while pain spiked behind his eyes he was relieved that his entire body didn’t feel like it was on fire anymore. He was on the couch in their living room, catching the figure in the kitchen’s attention as he rubbed at his head. “Minho-hyung? What happened?” he called, cringing at how scratchy his voice was.
“He’s up– one second,” Minho said into the phone that was by his ear, making Felix tilt his head at him in confusion as Minho crossed the room. Then, perching on the arm of the couch, he held out his phone, insisting Felix take it.
Confused, Felix acquiesced, holding it up to his ear. “Hello?”
“Lee Yongbok, what were you THINKING, going into the water during a thunderstorm?” his mother demanded, fury laced with worry potent enough to make Felix’s heart twist. Felix’s eyes flickered over to Minho, who was fixing him with a fitting I Warned You expression across his face amidst the relief, and Felix felt sick to his stomach.
“I– I don’t know, Mom,” he tried, flailing, head pounding as he tried to make sense of everything. “I really have no idea what came over me.”
He did, somewhere deep within him, know that it was the water, the ocean calling to him, and he still remembered the elation and the freedom he felt as he amidst the waves despite how fleeting it may have been.
Something pulled me down, then... someone pulled me out? Did I imagine that?
His mother continued on her spiral of admonition, her rant not truly furious despite the way her emotions ran high enough that she switched between Korean and English to capture her true feelings as she fought for the right words, as he knew she had the same heart as him: a deep well of kindness, but easy to get lost in.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, but she sighed.
“I’m just relieved you’re safe, baby,” she said, and he knew the shape of her tired smile from the sound of her voice alone. “If it weren’t for Hyunjin and Jeongin– oh, god, I don’t want to think about it.”
Wasn’t there somebody else?
“I’m sorry,” he repeated, unable to find anything else adequate enough to fill the gaping hole of hurt his actions caused, moon-struck or not.
…No, not moon-struck; she merely observed.
Truthfully, he’d never really believed the stories about the sea, but stayed away from it nonetheless, just in case. He’s never been afraid of the ocean even when told he should be, and something last night took hold of that wild, carefully-guarded desire and dragged him feet-first into the one realm he couldn’t possibly survive in.
“Oh, Hyung, you’re actually awake!” came another voice, and both Felix and Minho looked over to see an exhausted– but elated– Jeongin rounding the stairs to traipse into the living room. “How are you feeling?”
“Like sh*t,” Felix answered truthfully, making his mother laugh.
Jeongin rolled his eyes, but there was a smile on his lips as he reached out to place his hand on Felix’s forehead. “I’d be concerned if you didn’t, even with my magic,” he said, humming to himself absently as placed his fingers to Felix’s pulse with a faint thrum of magic glowing gold in his eyes. It was comforting as always, not that Felix was usually a common recipient of either of the witches’ assistance– bandaids and Tylenol were usually good enough for him– but he appreciated it nonetheless.
“How’s Hyunjin?” Minho asked, finally speaking up for the first time since he’d given the phone to Felix. Panic flashed in Felix’s chest at the words, expecting the worst as he whipped his head toward Jeongin– Did something else happen?!– but Jeongin only sighed, waving him off.
“He finally fell asleep once the rain eased up; he’s in bed now,” he explained, nodding up toward the ceiling. “I called Seungmin to let him know we were here, considering what happened.”
“Um, If you don’t mind my asking, Jeongin-ah, what exactly did happen?” Felix’s mother broke in,
Hesitantly, Jeongin caught Felix’s eye, gauging his reaction, taking a deep breath when Felix nodded his consent. Go ahead, he insisted, I want to know too.
Jeongin sat on the old coffee table and crossed his arms, fingers drumming against his skin. “Decompression sickness,” he said flatly.
Felix knit his eyebrows. “Sorry?”
Jeongin shrugged. “Decompression sickness: it’s what happens when you dive too deep and rise too quickly, and it’s ultimately what nearly killed you last night.”
“Really? And here I thought the whole drowning thing would’ve been the worst part,” Minho drawled, voice thick with the sarcasm he only used when he was genuinely anxious.
“Maybe start from the beginning?” the voice from the phone requested, and Felix winced as two pairs of expectant eyes turned to him, stomach twisting in guilt.
So Felix, with a deep breath, started, describing how in the beginning he just wanted to get a good shot of the scene the storm was painting amidst the waves and the moonlight, but found himself stumbling on his thoughts the minute he tried to explain what on earth possessed him the second he set his camera down.
The words weren't adequate enough to capture his all-consuming need to get in the water, to feel the surge and pull of the storm in his very bones, nor the existentialist desire to swim down as deep as he could and become one with the silence.
It wasn't a desire to die, but the exact opposite: he'd never felt more alive in those few moments–
Until he was pulled completely under.
He described the feeling of the force around his ankle and was horrified to discover there was a bruise to match it, breath catching as he remembered the monstrous mouth that opened in front of him before he tore himself free. Whether the thrall of the water or The Town, by the time Felix shook himself out of it he was far too deep, Jeongin taking over to go into further detail about the decompression sickness.
“I don't know how you managed to get that far down that you ended up actually susceptible to it, but you're lucky it wasn't worse,” Jeongin said, frowning.
“How did you get him out?” Felix’s mother asked, the inquiry making Jeongin’s expression twist into something dark that startled Felix.
“I didn't,” Jeongin replied, edged and flat, drawing Minho’s attention. Minho stretched out a hand to place it on his brother’s arm, concerned, and Jeongin sighed.
Felix, on the other hand, scoured his memory and the fragments of conversation and touch until a faint recollection came to him like a breath. “There was someone in the water,” he said, voice quiet, “someone who helped me onto shore…?”
“A mermaid,” a light voice fluttered from across the room, earning three heads turning toward him. It was Hyunjin, freshly-woken but otherwise bright as he nodded toward Felix. “He's the one who rescued you.”
“Jin!” Felix cheered, moving to stand so he could wrap his friend in a relieved hug, but Hyunjin laughed, waving him off, and Felix settled back down in his blankets.
“Don’t force yourself up on my account, angel,” Hyunjin insisted as he made his way across the room.
“I'm still convinced he's the one who pulled Lix-hyung under in the first place,” Jeongin bristled, faltering when Hyunjin dropped an airy kiss in his hair as he passed him before settling onto the couch beside Felix. Instantly, Felix wrapped his arms around Hyunjin, pouring as much gratitude as he could into the hug as he remembered Hyunjin carried him home.
Hyunjin leaned into Felix’s touch with a hum, rubbing his back. “He wouldn't,” he corrected, this directed at Jeongin. “I don't know what he was doing there last night, but I do know he isn't the type to do something like that.”
“So you knew who he was the whole time?” Jeongin continued, undeterred, and Hyunjin sighed. Felix peeked over at Minho and was relieved to see someone just as confused as he was, his mother much the same in the buzzing silence from the phone. “Does that have something to do with the way you just bolted out of the house with no explanation, then?”
There was a messy mix of hurt and confusion over Jeongin's face, a private offense that made Hyunjin wince; Felix turned to him, nudging him. “Tell us what happened?”
It was framed not as a question, but a suggestion, a way to soothe the rising bubbles of both confusion and upset alike.
“A wise suggestion,” Felix’s mother chimed in with a smile in her voice. “You boys take care of yourselves first okay? I have to go, unfortunately, but I'm only a call away if you need me!”
“Thank you, Lee-eomma,” Hyunjin said shyly, and she laughed.
“No need for that, darling. And Minho-yah, thank you for calling!”
Snitch, Felix mouthed sarcastically at Minho, who looked pleased at the praise as well as Felix’s reaction. Minho winked obnoxiously, making Felix laugh as he wished her another goodbye before ending the call.
As he shuffled his phone back into his pocket, he nudged Hyunjin once again, looking pointedly between him and Jeongin. “What happened last night?” he asked again, reaching around Hyunjin to smack at Minho before he said something along the lines of an innuendo.
( Eomma ✨
(10:35)
Please take care of yourself, okay? Don’t push your recovery.
Eomma ✨
(10:35)
And if you ever find that boy who saved you, give him my sincere gratitude. )
Hyunjin chewed on his lip, not sure where to start, so he let Jeongin take the lead. Apparently, despite all the calming teas on hand, Hyunjin wouldn't settle last night, high-strung with an anxiety he couldn't name. It wouldn't make itself evident until after they'd all gotten to sleep, when right at the crux of the storm– a bare hour or so after they'd gone to bed– Hyunjin suddenly sat bolt upright between them, staring numbly at the wall, unresponsive even when they shook him.
As it turned out, Felix’s savior belonged to a very small pod of mermaids that Hyunjin encountered two years ago when delighted mermaid song caught his ear. While they only meant to explore and have fun, Hyunjin had to run to find the source before the locals found them first, terrified of what would happen should the two overlap. After explaining the magic of the water in The Town, the pod was startled to discover that they themselves were also drawn in by the thrall of whatever slumbered in the land.
(“Holy sh*t, they really do spoon you to sleep?”
“Not the point!”)
Hyunjin took over then as he recalled the dredges of his memory, remembering that the only thing he knew was that Felix was in danger and that he needed to find him before the water took him completely. Unfortunately, in his fervor to actually achieve that goal, he left Seungmin half awake and Jeongin frantically chasing after him as Hyunjin elected to sprint down to the water without a single word.
“So, here's my question,” Minho started and Hyunjin fell quiet, picking at the seams of the blanket. “Was the water warning you about itself, or about this mysterious mermaid?”
Hyunjin sighed, bracing himself for another insistence of the boy's innocence, but Felix was the one who answered. “It wasn't him who pulled me down,” he replied, the words echoing in the hollowness of his chest, a rolling, sepulchral toll of certainty he couldn't identify. He knit his eyebrows at his own words, finding himself rubbing at the spot on his chest where a hand pressed magic into his skin.
He saved me.
Minho raised an eyebrow. “Alright, Prince Eric,” he deadpanned, grinning as Felix spluttered before turning to Hyunjin. “How well do you know him?”
“What he said,” Jeongin echoed, gesturing toward Minho. “If you know him well enough that you're certain he didn't try to hurt Felix-hyung, how come we don't know him?”
Felix, now leaned back against Hyunjin's shoulder again, peeked up at him as he folded and sifted through his memories, careful as he always was before he chose to speak. “I chose not to tell anyone about them for their safety,” he eventually said, and Felix blinked.
Safety?
“There's more of them?!” Jeongin blurted, and Hyunjin winced.
“I promised them they could still visit, but they couldn't come on land to explore,” Hyunjin explained, a bit melancholy. “I'm really sorry I didn't introduce you to them. I… I hope you understand.”
(While Felix wasn't there to witness it, Hyunjin's birth as a halfling with the sea in his blood wasn't taken well by the older members of The Town. When his mother died, there was almost no one who came to mourn her, the cold shoulder eventually leading to his father taking Hyunjin away to travel. Nowadays, with The Town calling him home, he didn't let the old folk who squinted and stared at him detract from the bright smiles of his friends or the bubbly kids he taught to take colors and form them into shapes and stories.)
Felix squeezed Hyunjin’s arm, a silent show of understanding. “Think you could introduce them to us now?” he suggested, and Hyunjin snorted.
“If they actually stick around this time; they never really stay anywhere for long, and the storm might’ve scared them off.”
Felix’s face fell, the curiosity to see the face of the one who saved him still humming uneasily behind his breastbone; he worried at his lip.
“Spit it out before you sh*t yourself,” Minho called, and Felix blew a raspberry.
“I… just wanted to thank him,” he admitted, strangely abashed. “What’s his name?” It was Hyunjin’s turn to raise an eyebrow, and Felix kicked himself.
Another quirk of The Town that Felix– as someone without magic– still struggled to understand the concept of names and power. He knew the old wives’ tale about faeries stealing your name (and thus your soul) should you offer it up foolishly, but in truth the name itself was tied to the core of magic and self; offering someone else's name without their consent was a dangerous slight.
Felix withered. “Sorry,” he mumbled, but Hyunjin fondly jostled him with a little laugh.
“No worries; besides, if I told you then how would you be able to ask him for it yourself?”
“Hyunjin,” Minho warned, overlaid with Jeongin’s similar admonishment; Felix cringed.
“I won't go in again, I promise,” Felix said, but something in him twisted like a lie. The itch was still there, as he'd always felt it for as long as he could remember, but it wasn't as unbearable as it was last night. “I just want to thank him properly, that’s all.”
“Uh-huh,” Minho drawled, disbelieving. “And here you were making fun of me for– and I quote– wanting to jump the moon, you salt-f*cker.”
Felix, aghast, let out a gasp as he sat up. “I just wanna be polite, you ass! Not f*ck him!” he retorted, his bluntness making Hyunjin choke, and Minho cracked a grin.
“Don't bother, Hyung; insults fuel him,” Jeongin drawled, and Felix rolled his eyes as Minho stuck his tongue out at him.
“You and your manners,” Hyunjin teased, next on board, and Felix smacked him. “Oh, don't worry: you and a certain someone are bound to get along swimmingly considering he's the same way.”
“Swimmingly’?” Felix parroted, deadpan, and Hyunjin blinked. Then, he laughed, a bright burst of sound by Felix’s ear that made his headache throb but didn’t detract from his own bubbling amusem*nt.
“I didn't even mean to make a pun!” Hyunjin wheezed, falling against Felix in a peal of giggles.
(Minho shot Jeongin a glance as he spotted his brother's ridiculously endeared expression. This one? Really? his silent smirk seemed to say; Jeongin kicked him.)
With the air in the room much lighter than when Felix had woken (as well as few stubborn pings of a text alert from Hyunjin’s phone belonging to the chat name ♡ Bread Boys♡ that flashed across the screen, making Felix smile), Jeongin did one more check up to make sure Felix wasn’t about to keel over the minute he left. As Minho padded into the kitchen for the pitcher of water, Jeongin explained that he’d used his magic (and an intense amount of concentration) to effectively pop all of the bubbles lingering in Felix’s skin and joints to reverse the decompression sickness. Both Felix and Hyunjin– who’d looked up from his phone in horror– went a wonderful shade of green at Jeongin’s description, making him laugh.
Felix promised to take it easy and stay inside for the next few days, Minho promised to make sure he stayed inside for the next few days, and Jeongin poked the spot between Felix’s eyes with a blip of magic to calm the headache behind them before turning to head back home. Hyunjin, of course, offered (read: insisted) on walking Jeongin home, and Jeongin begrudgingly allowed him to tag along; they went upstairs to retrieve Jeongin’s things, bickering.
As Felix watched them go, Minho alighted beside him once again, pushing a mug of cold water into his hands. “Promise me something?” he asked, voice gentle in his sobriety.
Felix tilted his head. “Yeah?”
Minho tapped at his mug, satisfied when Felix obediently took a sip. “Be careful,” he said, simple but damning all at once. It was as though he knew he couldn’t tell Felix to stay away from the water or his curiosity, the same fruitlessness in telling a flower not to bloom or a bird not to sing.
Felix sighed, nodding, the coolness of the water spreading through his chest in an unintentional echo of the night before. “I promise.”
(That was the thing about being human, though; promises were creatures of their own fortitude and flesh no matter how hard their owners may try to keep them.)
Minho said nothing as he slid from the arm of the sofa to sit beside Felix before plopping his head on Felix’s shoulder and shutting his eyes. Felix let him, humming in appreciation and let the peace of the house wash over them both.
◦ 𓆝 ｡𓆟 ⋆ 𓆞 ◦ 𓆝
Felix kept his word (lest he face the wrath of two witches and an unhinged faerie housemate), texting Nayeon to let him know what happened in the simplest of words (she’d called him two minutes later with a hearty ‘what the f*ck, Felix?!’ before immediately changing the schedule and promising him lunch the next time he came in) before settling into the beginning of another movie marathon with Minho, this one about vampires.
As the movies droned on, though, his mind kept drifting to the sea, the storm, and opalescent pearls, shining against the backdrop of the rain. He’d also dug into his camera roll (miraculously saved from the storm with the help of technology and a little magic) to flick back through the photos he did manage to get:
Dark birds soaring over a murky maelstrom of gray and blue like dots of ink; lightning twisting through the clouds to dance with the moonbeams as the waves crashed against each other in their desperation to reach their curling fingers toward the moon– a perfect demonstration of creation born from destruction, a masterpiece of the infinitesimal moments of nature's unrestrained heartbeats impossibly caught on film.
While beautiful– as both Hyunjin and Minho reassured, fawning over them despite criticizing his methods– they offered nothing even close to the feeling he remembered as lightning crashed against the waves, or the feeling of unfamiliar magic sweeping through him in an effort to save his life.
That was the other thing Felix kept thinking of, unable to help himself– his savior; the mysterious mermaid who sought to pull him out of the water instead of the other way around, with the kind voice and the calming touch. His curiosity was a rampant thing, and he knew he needed to meet this stranger just once to quell the lingering pull of it before he did something even more stupid.
(He’d get his chance sooner than he realized.)
On his last day of rest when he’d been officially allowed to leave the house, the first place he went was down to the tidepools. Perhaps not his wisest idea, but he never prided himself on his critical thinking skills.
(Minho squinted at him from the kitchen table as Felix rifled for his keys, but ultimately said nothing after Felix gave him a sheepish smile.)
It was sunny today: lovely streamers of light twirling through the bouncy clouds in ribbons of color brought a smile to his face. His trip down the winding stone stairs showed him the damage of the storm, however, chunks and slices he didn't remember being missing before now forcing him to watch his bare feet as he made his way down the steps.
It was high tide, but calm, the water a soft ebb and flow across the pools as opposed to the ravenous, crushing waves that stretched claws and hands across the stone to grab at ankles and feet. The sunlight flickered and sparkled over the pools like diamonds, watercolor and soft, and Felix just wanted to sit and watch for hours.
That overwhelming urge to fling himself into the sea was gone, replaced with twinkling delight and humming contentment.
As he picked and wandered his way across the edges of the sloping pools he sang to himself, a silly little ditty to accompany the waves as they lapped at his feet and splashed onto his shins with a giggle that matched the gulls and his own. He crouched down by one of the larger pools to peer into the tiny microcosm of color, spotting tiny anemones and even a colorful starfish residing within the temporary haven that he reached out to gently poke; it didn't move much, but he smiled nonetheless.
It was then that something in the corner of his eye made him turn, eyebrows knitting; a splash, both of color and sound.
His stomach twisted, but he wasn't sure if it was fear or anticipation.
“Hello?” he tried calling, voice level and careful as he pushed up from his spot. “Is someone there?”
Silence. He frowned.
“I'm not going to hurt you,” he continued, stepping precariously across the pool toward the direction of the sound and the presence he could sense. “I only want to see you, that's all.”
Determined to reach the other side, Felix braced himself and jumped, wincing as his feet smacked against the stone with a sting. There was nothing but the slippery edge of the pool he was standing on keeping him from falling in, but curiosity drowned out his thundering heartbeat as he took another step forward–
And lost his balance as his heel caught a patch of slick seaweed.
He choked on a yelp as he tried to catch himself, eyes shutting to brace himself for impact, but a splash as something surged from the water and the feeling of hands pushing against his leg and his hip shoved him away from the water with enough force to right himself.
He caught his balance and sat himself down, heart racing, and a high, bubbly giggle broke out around him. “You really need to be careful before you hurt yourself again.”
Felix's head whipped around toward the source to see a face smiling up at him: a boy, not much older than he was, had his arms folded on the edge as he leaned forward on them. Felix’s water-logged memory had nothing on the reality before him in sun-kissed color, and he couldn't help the way his eyes widened in shock.
The boy was beautiful, dark hair curling around his ears as the sun dried it, warm brown eyes sparkling with mirth at Felix's extremely unsubtle once-over. His skin seemed to shimmer, and Felix traced the lines of the sparkling, baby-pink scales down his neck to the gills that resided there. The baby-pink didn't stop there, matching the ear fins flared with amusem*nt at Felix's gaping, as well as the patches that sparkled down his crossed arms.
His very… muscular arms.
Felix swallowed thickly, and the mermaid caught it with another bubble of a laugh. “Are you alright?” the boy asked, and Felix snapped back into focus, nodding feverishly.
“Just startled; nearly ate sh*t there for a second,” Felix admitted, embarrassed as he pulled his knees up to his chest. He rested his chin on them, still taking in the sight of the boy before him.
He'd seen Hyunjin at his most mermaid-y, but it really had nothing on a full-blooded mermaid quite literally sitting right in front of him. He didn't often see any of the other locals without their glamours on, so he, in all of his humanity, couldn't help but stare at the trails of pale pink that disturbed the water as the boy tread water with what obviously had to be a tail.
You know– mermaid, and all that.
Get a grip, Felix.
He cleared his throat. “Are you the one who saved me?” he asked, drumming his fingers on his skin.
The boy nodded, and gratitude burst through Felix’s chest, soft as a moon jelly. “I don't know what you were thinking, diving that deep,” the boy said, frowning. “I was really worried that you weren't gonna make it for a moment there.”
“But I'm alright,” Felix placated, smiling. “So– thank you, truly, for risking your life.”
The boy knit his eyebrows. “The only one who was in any danger was you,” he corrected, and Felix floundered.
“I– well, I mean, it was pretty rough that night, and you could've gotten hurt! The tidepools are sharp and the waves were kinda nasty–”
A hand reached up to catch his wrist, stopping him dead in his rant. Felix jumped, heart hammering, and the boy only smiled, toothy and colorful. There was a thin line of a scar at the outer corner of his eye, Felix only noticing it as his smile bunched the deep, shiny gash that disappeared into his hairline. “Everything ended up okay, didn't it? No need to run yourself in circles,” the boy said gently, lightly patting Felix's wrist before retracting his hand.
Felix felt extraordinarily stupid, bumbling like a proper fool. His ears were definitely pink, and the boy was kind for not pointing them out. He blew out a breath at himself. “Sorry,” he mumbled, but the boy shook his head.
“Don't be,” he scolded, “you went through a lot.”
Felix pressed his lips into a line, shoulders slumping. “You're too nice,” he complained, and the boy snorted.
“You're definitely a strange one,” he laughed, and Felix rolled his eyes.
“Takes one to know one,” he immediately retorted, cracking into a grin when the boy faux-gasped. He laughed, and held out his hand. “I’m Felix.”
“I know,” the boy reminded him with a hum as he reached out to accept his hand; Felix wasn't sure if he was imagining the tingle under his skin or not. “It's very nice to meet you when you're not dying, Felix; my name's Changbin.”
Changbin!
Felix's heart soared as a name settled in to match the memory, finalizing it in concrete; not an angel, just a very kind soul.
Felix's smile was blinding, squeezing Changbin's hand once more before releasing it. As Changbin pulled his hand back to tuck it back under his chin again, Felix caught sight of more of the same hair-thin scars like the one by his eye winding across his arm, nestled between other smaller scars and freckles across the swell of skin; his curiosity reared its obnoxious head once again. He forced his eyes back to Changbin’s face. “It’s a pleasure, um–”
He faltered, not knowing how exactly to address him.
Was he older? Younger?
Did he even want to be called by his name?
Did mermaids even have honorifics…?
Changbin must've caught sight of the panic flickering across Felix’s face as he giggled again. “Just ‘Changbin’ is fine,” he insisted, and Felix’s shoulders eased, awkwardness passing.
So, of course, Felix’s deviousness decided to make itself known instead. “Alright, Just Changbin,” he teased, and Changbin clicked his tongue. Then, he sent a splash of water up at Felix in admonition, making Felix shriek with laughter even as he shook out his wet hair.
“You really are just as cheeky as Hyunjin warned me,” Changbin mused, an unreadable amusem*nt flickering over his face. “I should've known, being human and all that.”
Felix stuck his tongue out at him, and Changbin laughed again. Felix sighed, a happy, useless little flutter of sound as he shuffled his legs until they were crossed beneath him. “So, you really do know Hyunjin, then?” He leaned back on his hands with a little lilt in his smile, teasing.
Changbin shrugged, easily matching Felix's energy. “Maybe a little; depends on what he told you.”
Felix rolled his eyes. “Barely anything, if I'm honest, considering he was worried about getting you guys into trouble,” he explained, and Changbin's face fell.
“Yeah, he did mention a thing or two about how the locals here wouldn’t take too kindly to us,” he said, chewing on his cheek. “To be honest, I don’t even know why we keep coming back considering Chan hates going ashore in the first place, but–” He shrugged, a helpless little thing.
Felix tilted his head, questions upon questions swirling to the surface of his mind. “Chan?” he parroted, starting with the easiest query.
Changbin blinked, before realization lit up in his eyes. “Oh, yeah– Chan’s the eldest, and kinda the unofficial leader of the pod; age before beauty, y’know.” Felix didn’t get the joke as Changbin snickered at himself, but the way delight colored his face was incredibly endearing. Changbin finished his laugh with a little sigh before readjusting himself, leaning his head further to the side so he could peer up at Felix with just one eye. “He’s had his run-ins with humans before, and it doesn’t really help that Sung– that’s our other member– practically needs to be on a leash if he doesn’t want to stick his little grubby fingers into places they really have no business being.”
Felix couldn’t help it–the clear adoration of his podmates, the way he so clearly and intentionally spoke without mincing a word, the annoyed, fond way he scrunched his nose as he talked– it all made Felix buckle down with an uncontrollable burst of laughter, unbridled and unchecked, forcing him to clap a hand to his mouth from the force of it.
“I’m so sorry, I just–” another bubble of a laugh cut him off– “will you tell me more about them?”
Changbin arched an eyebrow, perplexed but amused nonetheless. “You’re telling me you have nothing better to do than listen to me talk about my annoying friends?”
“Mm-hm. I’ve got nothing planned.”
“You really are a strange one.”
“Hey, you already said that!”
“It felt like something that needed to be reiterated.”
Felix blew a lock of hair out of his face, flat with a faux huff; Changbin grinned, a tiny, upside-down, toothy thing like a pleased cat.
Then, he just… talked, and Felix was more than happy to listen.
He never went too in-depth about things, Felix noticed, always surface level– we travel a lot, but never why; I’ve been with them for years, but nothing about his family– but nonetheless interesting, not minding as Felix interjected with a question here or there. After a while, Felix almost forgot he was sitting on the edge of the tidepools underneath the summer sun as the cool wind blew around him, face to face with a mermaid who saved his life a few days ago, finding himself startlingly at ease in Changbin’s presence.
(A dangerous thing, he quietly admitted to himself.)
By hour two of their conversation, Felix had his feet soaking in the water to cool down while Changbin did the exact opposite, laying back against one of the rock shelves exposed by the lowering tide to sun himself. While not entirely out of the water, Felix was able to see where the skin at his hips gave way to scales and translucent fins, shimmering in the light as he stretched his arms over his head with a satisfied groan. Curiously, there was also a thinly braid cord slung around his waist, where delicate little discs of what Felix could only guess were other scales– one a deep crimson and another a shining pirate-gold– interspersed between pretty little shells. The lazy tide tugged at the cord, making the shells strung on it clink like tiny bells against the rocks; Felix was stupidly charmed.
They were sitting in a peaceful, basking silence when Changbin’s eyes suddenly flew open, sitting up in abrupt panic. Felix, not hearing anything, frowned, looking around. “Is something wrong?” he asked, peering at Changbin.
Changbin only sighed, shaking his head. “No, it’s okay; just Chan looking for me,” he explained as he rolled his neck.
Felix knit his eyebrows. “I… don’t hear anything?”
“You wouldn’t,” Changbin said, wincing as his scales scraped uncomfortably against the stone as he slipped back into the water; he resurfaced with a little splutter, rubbing at his eye. “sh*t, that’s colder than I thought– anyway, I gotta go.” Felix was startled to find himself so blue at the prospect of Changbin leaving, and it must’ve shown on his face in some capacity for Changbin to fix him with a soft, understanding, (and slightly teasing) smile. “You’ll come talk with me again, won’t you?”
For some reason, the request made Felix blush, earning him another of Changbin’s bubbly giggles as Felix fought to regain his composure. “I– um, yeah, of course; I didn’t think you’d come back,” he spluttered; Changbin’s clear amusem*nt was not helping his case, face burning. “Thank you for talking with me. And saving me; that too.”
This time, Changbin’s smile was softer, a line of genuine happiness that echoed in Felix’s bones like a whale call. “It was nothing, Felix.”
(He liked saying Felix’s name, Felix noticed, as if testing how it fit between his teeth, on the curve of his lips; Felix… wasn’t sure what it meant.)
Felix shuffled forward, emboldened by the need to touch as he reached out to place a hand on Changbin’s shoulder. “I’m serious– thank you,” he repeated, pouring as much gratitude as he could into those two words. He may not have mermaid thrall or charmspeak or… any kind of magic, really, but he did have one thing: a stubborn, beating, human heart.
Changbin blinked, startled for a moment, before he caught Felix’s wrist with his other hand, gently circling it. “I’m just glad I got to meet you,” he said, simple and lightweight, but the air had gone from Felix’s lungs. “Though maybe a more… peaceful meeting would’ve been better?”
Felix laughed. “Yeah, maybe,” he agreed, pulling his hand back to tuck it into his lap, feet swinging in the water. “Oh– is it okay if I tell Minho-hyung? About you, I mean.”
Changbin scrunched his nose, trying to recall something. “That’s your other roommate, right? The bug one?”
Felix snorted, painful and caught off-guard. “I– sorry?”
Changbin grinned. “I’m working with Hyunjin-speak here, my bad– he’s a faerie, right? Big black wings, obsessed with cats, cooks for you guys when you f*cked up the stove?”
Endeared by Hyunjin’s second-hand recounting of their friend, Felix nodded. “Yeah, that sounds like our Minho-hyung,” he laughed.
“Well then, by all means: go ahead and gossip about me,” Changbin teased, eyes sparkling when Felix’s mouth dropped in mortified incredulity. “Oh, and you should, ah, maybe tell him to keep an extra eye out when he’s on his morning walks; you didn’t hear that from me, though.”
“I– you– hang on, what are you talking about?!” Felix choked, but Changbin was already pushing away from the stone toward the open water. “Changbin!”
Another rich, sugar-sweet laugh rolled across the water until it mixed with the sea salt and the sunlight. “Till next time, Felix!” he called with a happy flutter of his fingers before he dived, gone in a spray of water and a flash of his pearl-pink tail as it disappeared below the surface.
Gob-smacked and a bit dizzy, Felix stared at the water where Changbin was ten seconds ago, turning the conversation over in his mind like a drunken top.
Then–
“‘Next time’,” he echoed, summoning an idiotically crooked smile across his lips. Giddiness bubbled behind his ribs like soda, practically the same pink as the ones he spent admiring the sparkle of the past few hours, and he felt as if he could float away.
He pulled his feet from the water and clumsily stumbled back toward the stairs, face aching from the force of his smile as he hurried back home to tell Minho and Hyunjin about the brilliantly charming boy as soon as possible.
◦ 𓆝 ｡𓆟 ⋆ 𓆞 ◦ 𓆝
Pushing the door open with a bit too much force than was really necessary, Felix shuttled himself in, the force of a thousand suns in his smile, as he wheeled into the tiny kitchen. Minho, who was currently blinking at him like a startled cat from the commotion, took in the sight of Felix’s joy (and general sea-salt soaked appearance) before a knowing smile curled across his lips. “I take it your trip to the tidepools was, ah, fruitful?” he drawled, expecting Felix to fluster.
Instead, Felix plopped down at the table with a delighted giggle like a neon sunrise, propping his chin in his hands as he leaned forward. “His name is Changbin, and he’s pink,” Felix said stupidly, teeth creeping out of his poorly-contained smile.
Minho stared at him, eyebrow raising. “He’s… pink,” he repeated, slow like teasing taffy.
Felix faltered, dropping his hands. “Ah– wait, he said I could tell you about him, so don’t get mad at me this time!” he insisted, completely steamrolling over Minho’s point; Minho took a long, pointed sip of his water.
He let Felix babble uselessly on, and Felix was practically bursting at the seams with affection for both the story he told and the way Minho leaned in to give his full attention even when Felix went off on three different tangents as intangible and inconsequential as sea foam.
Their chatter was interrupted as the sound of the door squeaking open echoed through the tiny foyer, accompanied by a cheerful call of “I have coffee!” that had the both of them turning expectantly toward the door. “Or, well, not coffee for you, Lix, but still caffeine!”
Hyunjin shuffled into the kitchen balancing an armful of drinks, tongue peeking out from his lips as he struggled to drop his keys in the bowl without dropping anything; Felix immediately stood with a laugh, reaching out to help him. “Thanks, Jin-ah,” he hummed as Hyunjin pushed a cup of something large and bubbly into his hands.
Hyunjin, after handing over Minho’s americano, squinted at Felix, searching for something, before he broke into a wide smile. “Finally met him, did you?”
Felix's smile faltered in confusion. “Huh? Met who?”
Hyunjin smiled at him, knowingly sipping at his coffee. “Your mermaid, angel; your smile is practically glowing.”
Oh, god, I'm in trouble.
Felix flushed, and Hyunjin laughed, chasing him back to his seat at the table. Then, after tugging out a chair of his own and taking a seat, Hyunjin crossed his legs, patted the table, and met Felix's pink-cheeked expression with a cheshire grin back-lit by an equally-amused Minho sitting beside him. “Alright– spill.”
Felix rolled his eyes, sat back down, and began once again, recollection like lazy sunlight pouring across a puddle after a rainy day.
◦ 𓆝 ｡𓆟 ⋆ 𓆞 ◦ 𓆝
Despite the intensity of what Felix lovingly called ‘The Storm Incident’, he recovered well, no worse for wear under the expert care of Jeongin, Seungmin, and his two meddling housemates.
Even after making a full recovery, though, Felix found himself inexplicably drawn to the tidepools, camera in hand, and it didn't take long for him to realize it wasn't so much as the place that drew him there, but the person he met beside them.
Changbin was wonderful company, Hyunjin and Minho's teasing aside, and Felix was always happy to meet new people and chatter their ears off. He told Changbin stories about his family outside of the Starfish House, his experience with photography, his favorite songs, a weird dream he had here and there, and Changbin listened. He, in turn, gave Felix stories of his own adventures and travels, as well as plenty of anecdotes about the other two mermaids he traveled with that Felix came to understand were his brothers in all but blood:
Chan, electric with the vivacity of his heart and love, bore an intense enjoyment for exploration within caves and shelves, but a hesitance for humans;
And Jisung, apparently so bubbly and curious about the earth-bound world that it often got him into trouble, collecting trinkets upon knick-knacks and often fashioning them into gifts.
A small, tight-knit trio with time and scars between them.
There was also no doubt that they truly were Changbin’s family from the way he pulled a ridiculous face when Felix expressed his interest in meeting them.
“Those two? Really?”
“Of course! They’re important to you, aren’t they? Why would I NOT want to meet them?”
(Changbin ended up clearing his throat before awkwardly shifting the topic, but Felix wasn’t upset, instead giggling.)
Currently, it was an evening where Felix had speedily handed off his shift to Dahyun (ignoring her suspicious squint) and made his way to the tidepools after a quick stop by the house, delighted to discover a familiar face already waiting for him. He waved, calling out to Changbin, and Changbin picked his head up from where he’d been laying it on his arms to smile up at him.
“Sorry I’m late; Hyunjin was telling me about his day,” Felix explained as he plopped down on his usual stony outcrop to set his bag beside him. “You weren’t waiting too long, were you?”
Changbin shrugged. “I was just napping, so it’s no big deal,” he said, peering at the bag. “What’d you bring?”
Grinning, Felix rifled around until he retrieved the camera he’d brought: an older, digital thing, well-loved and simple, still in remarkable condition from when his mother gave it to him over a decade ago for his birthday. “I was telling you about my old collages the other day, yeah? So I figured hey, why not just bring the whole thing? and, well, here we go!” he replied, showing off the camera with a flourish and making the old charms attached to it jingle and sparkle. It was well-worn, a panel of dark, sage green paint chipping away under years of fingerprints and nature, the engraving of his initials smoothed by time. He thumbed over them, nostalgia painting his smile as the faded gold paint within the engraving winked up at him.
“Can I see?”
Felix looked up, blinking out of his memories to see Changbin looking up at him with curiosity in his eyes; warm, genuine, quiet. Felix nodded, smile bright as he handed it over. “It’s not waterproof like my other one, so be careful,” he said, a bit lame. Changbin wasn’t stupid and Felix knew that, but Changbin was so invested in Felix’s hobby that it tripped him up, tying his sensibilities into ribbons and his tongue into clumsy knots as every proper word he knew went out the damn window.
Ugh, I’m an idiot.
For the next half an hour or so, Felix rattled through the differences between digital and DSLR cameras, interspersed with sidebars and memories interwoven between his jargon. A wave of recollection rushed forth with every brush of an old scar on the surface of it or a click of the camera roll as blurry photos of old vacations and happy memories bubbled to the surface, starting the cycle anew.
In this tiny camera, Felix could watch the growth of his heart and passion, could o see when he decided on storytelling through the lens of a camera and the pin-point, pin drop moment he realized that life is meant to be remembered, a beautiful thing he was given the chance to experience alongside his passion to capture it in a medium that barely came close to the trueness of being alive.
(He'd had this conversation with Hyunjin before, leaned against the wall of Hyunjin’s room to keep him company while he painted. Where Felix preferred the wide-lens and the symphony of massive landscapes coupled together in a snap of a shutter, Hyunjin excelled at the tiny moments in between: a kiss between lovers, a flower as it wilted– or, even more amazingly, as it bloomed– or the sun just as it melted into the horizon line.
“If I don't create, how can I thank the sun for shining? Or these flowers for granting me their last final moments? How do I thank life for giving me the chance to relive a tiny flicker of a memory I so dearly adored living?”
Felix was silent in shock, and spent the next few weeks thinking about Hyunjin’s words.)
While Changbin was in the middle of trying to kill Felix– he had the camera up to his eye, lens fixed on the horizon, and when Felix asked what he was doing he offered up a simple “I wanted to see the world the way you do” as if it didn’t make Felix’s heart squeeze– Felix ended up pulling out the sandwich he’d hastily made before leaving the house, munching on it aimlessly as Changbin fiddled with the camera.
“Do you usually take photos of the ocean?” Changbin asked as he carefully handed back the camera.
Felix hummed, thinking as he chewed. “It’s what I’ve always lived near, so I kinda just end up gravitating toward it no matter what,” he settled on as he tucked it away in his bag. “Currently, though, I’m actually working on a big collection focusing on the moon for my mentor.”
Changbin tilted his head. “What about her?”
Felix knit his eyebrows. “What, my mentor? She’s really nice, and she’s actually how I ended up here in the first place–”
Changbin laughed, a bright bubble of sound. “No, no, I’m sorry, I should’ve been more specific– not that I have anything against your mentor–” his eyes were wide, hands open in surrender as if he’d deeply insulted Felix (he hadn’t) – “but I actually meant the moon.”
“Oh!” Felix burst out, another wave of inquisitiveness crashing over him. “You refer to it as a woman?”
Changbin weighed his hands with a faint noise of contemplation. “Kind of? Those who live in the sea all have a story or two about their connection between the moon and the water, and in the end we all essentially settled on her as… almost a mother figure, I guess?” He rubbed at his head, a bit abashed by his sudden tirade. “I– sorry, I’m not really the best at describing things like that: that’s usually Chan’s forte.”
Felix, however, paid no attention to his apology, pausing from his sandwich to stare at Changbin with awe sparkling in his eyes. “So the moon is the mother of the ocean,” he breathed, the concept and the life of it settling under his skin like a flame. “The waves don’t ebb and flow without her, so then the creatures and the magic within it would cease to flourish!”
Changbin only watched him, fondness curled at his lips as Felix spoke. “I suppose that’s one way of looking at it,” he hummed, smile widening as his acknowledgement made Felix beam.
“That’s probably why the storm a week ago was so bad! The moon was full that day, so alllll the magic here in the water was like– amped to a hundred, which is why I just had to come down and get a few good shots–!”
Changbin’s eyes went wide. “Hang on, hang on, are you telling me the reason you nearly drowned was because you wanted pictures of the thing that very easily could’ve torn you apart?” he blurted, concern stark across his features.
Felix winced. “Um, maybe?”
Changbin dragged his hands down his face with a sound halfway between a groan and an incredulous laugh. “You’re such a strange creature,” he mumbled, impossibly fond, Felix barely catching it over the hush of the waves against the stones.
Before Felix could properly retort (his ears were burning), a sudden disruption of the water as something emerged from the surface made him choke on his sandwich, his eyes huge.
“I knew it!” a victorious voice cried, and Changbin went dangerously pale, ear fins flattening in shock. “I told Channie that the only place you’d give a sh*t enough to go to on your own was these tidepools, but noooo, he didn’t believe me! Well guess what– I was right, you loser!” The rant finished with a huff and a displeased raspberry, Felix staring in shock with his sandwich halfway to his mouth.
It was another mermaid, sparkling in honey-gold scales that shimmered across his sun-kissed skin, creasing by his eyes as he pouted at Changbin with a haughty sniff in the same shade as the sun-catcher-esque ear fins flared dramatically alongside his rant. Another cord like the one Changbin wore hung around his neck, more scales and– was that a tooth? – bobbing on the surface of that water as the boy stared Changbin down, and Felix recognized one of them as the same shimmering pink of Changbin’a scales.
This boy had to be younger than Changbin, if the bubbling youth and air of a pestering little brother were any indication, which mean he had to be–
“Jisung, I will kill you,” Changbin, hissed with all the unsteady venom of someone truly mortified.
Jisung, as it was, opened his eyes to stare at Changbin, lips parting to say something probably inflammatory, but froze in his proverbial tracks when his eyes flicked upward to finally take sight of Felix. Then, he stared, eyes round and doeish for a good five seconds before he finally said something. “Holy f*ck, you’re the one Bin saved during the storm, aren’t you?”
Felix only nodded, slow and unsure, and Jisung beamed.
“Oh my god, I can’t believe you actually found your human again!” Jisung exploded, reaching over to smack at Changbin, who was blubbering some form of he’s not my human, shut up! while fending off Jisung’s attack. Jisung turned back to Felix with those same bright brown eyes filled with wonder, reaching out his hand. “Hi, I’m Jisung! It’s nice to finally meet you, considering Changbin doesn’t shut the hell up about y– ow!”
Changbin, trying to regain a fraction of his pride, summoned tiny orbs of sea water from the surface to pelt at Jisung, making him pout again as he pulled back his hand to rub at his stinging ear. “What are you doing here?” Changbin demanded, his embarrassment making him seem sterner than he actually was.
“I was looking for you– duh,” Jisung retorted, sticking his tongue out at him. Changbin rolled his eyes, a smile already creeping back into his face. “Didn’t know if you’d swam off and got stuck in a net or somethin’.”
Changbin deflated at that, a flash of something harrowing darkening his features; a memory, Felix guessed, and not one Changbin wanted to relive. Felix cleared his throat, setting down his sandwich. “It’s nice to meet you, Jisung,” he started, reaching out a hand with a smile. “My name’s Felix.”
Jisung lit up– literally, startling Felix as sparkles of orange light traced patterns across his cheeks and down his arms like little starbursts. In the few instances were Changbin did stay late enough for the sun to set completely, Felix saw him glow as well, stripes and spots of violet flickering across his skin that Felix vaguely remembered seeing the night of the storm as well, but Jisung’s glow was a different creature entirely, electric as the heart on his sleeve.
“That’s a cool name!” he chirped as he grabbed Felix’s hand, squeezing it with a bit too much fervor. “You’re really handsome, too, which someone neglected to mention,” he added, eyes sliding toward Changbin mischievously.
Felix– a bit embarrassed– giggled out a thank you as Changbin swatted at Jisung. “Before you say anything else, do you know who Felix’s one roommate is?” Changbin threatened cheerfully as Jisung pulled his hand back.
Jisung stared at him. “I dunno; who?”
Changbin sighed dramatically, an over-the-top impression of lovesickness as he leaned his arms on the rock and batted his eyelashes. “He’s this totally gorgeous dude who I absolutely do not stalk in the mornings when he goes on a walk, and he’s got this super hot back tattoo that I may or may not want to–”
Jisung shrieked, face a catastrophe of a raging blush and flickering orange lights as he shoved Changbin under the surface, interrupting his apparent recitation from past-Jisung. Felix was in stitches, laugh loud and hard and downright aching as he smacked at the rock in his hysteria.
(“You know, I swear I get the feeling sometimes that I’m being watched.”
“Are you sure it isn’t just the ocean, Hyung?”
“The ocean changes with every wave, Lix-ah; unless it’s decidedly to suddenly consistently watch me every day at sunrise, I don’t think that’s it.”)
“Are you the one who’s been bothering Minho-hyung?” Felix laughed, twisting back into a wheeze at Jisung’s utterly scandalized look at the sound of his voice.
“I’m– I’m not bothering him, I’m just– just–”
“Stalking him,” Changbin filled in, cracking another grin when Jisung whaled on him again.
“No!” he wailed, utterly horrified, and Felix was ready to throw up from how hard he was laughing. “No, hey, listen–”
“I’m listening.”
“Shut up, Bin, I wasn’t talking to you! Anyway; the last time we came here like, last year, I think? I happened to get up early because some turtle got lost and woke me up to ask for help to get out of the sandbar, so I swam out, got him free, and when I happened to break the surface, bam! Hot man with a pretty voice. Who, er, is your roommate. Um, I’m so sorry, I’ll shut up now.”
Where Changbin spoke like a subtle current, quiet but commanding when his focus was on a topic at hand, Jisung was like a waterfall, a torrent of color and volume punctuated by his waving gestures and expressive features as he talked without thinking. It reminded Felix of himself, really, finding Jisung’s presence warming.
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell him,” Felix placated, and Jisung sighed in relief. “However, he’s already commented that he’s sensed someone watching him and he definitely isn’t stupid, so I recommend you watch out.”
Jisung went somehow green and pink simultaneously, and Felix giggled. Then, trying to gain some semblance of his pride back, he cleared his throat, attempting to look as casual as possible. “So, his name is Minho?” he asked, and Felix sighed a laugh.
“Yang Minho, born in ‘98- ish, a Scorpio, really likes cats, can't stand heights, and has been my roommate for two years,” Felix cheerfully supplied, taking another bite of his sandwich to disguise his sh*t-eating grin as Jisung started choking and Changbin shoved at his shoulder with a cackle. “Anything else?”
“Um–” His voice cracked, and Changbin snickered.
“Some mermaid you are; come on, where's your charisma?” he teased, easily dodging the jet of water Jisung sent his way.
“Not everyone can be like you, saving pretty boys from death,” Jisung grumbled, and Changbin laughed a high, awkward giggle.
“Getting Minho-hyung in the water would be a feat,” Felix interrupted, intently ignoring the pretty boy comment for his own sanity. “Soggy wings aside, you guys probably know about the whole ‘ocean scary!’ thing around here.”
Changbin sighed, nodding, but Jisung tilted his head, blinking in confusion. “What d’you mean, wings? Isn't he human like you?”
Changbin swatted him in the head, light but loving. “If you actually listened when Hyunjin spoke, you'd know what he meant,” he chided. “After all, you're the one who watches him all the time; why don't you dig around in that big brain of yours and think for a second?”
Jisung squinted, contemplated, and then looked over at Felix. Felix snorted, then mouthed ‘fae’ at him, and Jisung's face lit up in remembrance. “Oh, sh*t, you're right– he's the one Hyunjin called ‘evil bug’, isn't he?”
Changbin raised an eyebrow. “Considering how he talked about Felix, what do you think?”
Jisung pursed his lips, and Changbin snorted.
“Do I even want to know how he described me?” Felix deadpanned.
Changbin opened his mouth to reply, most likely something to change the subject if the awkward, embarrassed expression fluttering over his face was any indication, but Jisung beat him to it. “‘Freckled like stars with a smile full of sunshine,” he replied, his own smile just as bright. “He also said your wonder and curiosity were equal parts endearing as they were concerning.”
Adoration burst through Felix's chest, unable to decide if he was flattered or (mildly) insulted at being called ‘concerning’.
…Then again, considering his actions last week, maybe Hyunjin had a point.
“You're telling me you could remember that but not that Minho is fae?”
“It's not like he said outright that he was!”
“What part of ‘Changeling Brother’ did you miss? Or were you too busy just imagining him to use your brain properly?”
“Oh, f*ck off, Ariel.”
“Excuse me?”
“I know you heard me.”
“Oh, I did, but you're hardly one to call me Ariel, you lung-fish.”
“You–!”
The two began to tussle, all hands and fins and splashes of water, and Felix couldn’t help his laughter. He hoped he'd get to meet Chan at some point and see all three brothers together, affection unhinged and unbridled.
Eventually, Changbin emerged victorious as some twist of his magic tugged Jisung under the surface with a yelp and a gargled swear. Changbin pressed his lips together with a sigh that meant he was trying not to laugh, but his eyes gave him away. “I'm sorry about him,” he huffed, but Felix only waved it away with a grin. It was then that Jisung reemerged, only his scowling eyes and his irritated ear fins visible above the surface as he glared at Changbin– who innocently shrugged– and Felix was a fit of giggles all over again.
Jisung fully emerged with a harrumph and a mumbled insult of something Felix didn't catch (but Changbin apparently did, sticking out his tongue), attention redirected as his eyes narrowed in on sandwich in Felix's hand. “What're you eating?”
Felix knit his eyebrows, looking at his sad excuse of a mostly eaten post-work snack. “A sandwich?”
“I got that– what kind?” Jisung pressed, making Changbin roll his eyes.
Felix, however, wasn't following. “Ham…?”
Jisung gasped with delight, making Felix blink. “Can I have some? I'm starving,” he pleaded, clapping his hands together.
“That's his food, you thief!” Changbin scolded, flapping a hand pointedly at Felix as Felix shoved the last of it in his mouth. Jisung deflated with a whine, and Felix snorted around his pitiful mouthful of bread as he shoved his hand into his bag–
–and pulled out the other half of his sandwich.
“I was gonna save it for later anyway, but you're welcome to it if you really want it,” Felix insisted, holding it out to him.
Practically incandescent in his joy, Jisung launched out of the water onto the edge of the tidepool, wriggling around until he was comfortably sat right next to Felix. “Watch your spines,” Changbin warned as Jisung got settled, and Jisung huffed.
“I'm not two, Bin, jeez,” he complained as he stretched his arms over his head.
Now directly in the sun, Jisung shined, all gold and orange lights and ochre highlights through his brown hair. The ‘spines’ referred to the feathery fins at his hips, reminding Felix almost of a lionfish, but he wasn't worried about being stung even when Jisung cozied himself at his side. Out of the water, Felix was able to peer at Jisung’s tail in silent appreciation; Changbin noticed and shook his head with a quiet laugh.
Out of everything, though, Jisung's smile was the brightest as he accepted his food, lights like fireflies spinning down his arms and across the backs of his hands as he did.
(Huh. I guess it makes sense that people who swim a lot would have muscular arms, but still–)
“Man, I f*cking love ham,” he said as he chowed down, and Felix snorted.
“Alright, Ponyo,” he teased, grinning when Jisung turned to him with wide eyes.
“You like Ponyo too? I thought it was so cute, especially with all of the little sea creatures I’ve never seen before!” Jisung immediately blurted, startling Felix with his fervor, unimpeded by his meal as he talked around it; it was endearing as it was impressive, really. “As The Wind Rises definitely made me tear up a little bit, but my favorite—” he shook the sandwich at Felix in punctuation– “hands down, no questions asked, Howl’s Moving Castle. Ugh, perfection!” He made a silly ‘OK’ sign and shook it with emphasis, his sandwich momentarily forgotten amidst his rant.
“There he goes again,” Felix heard Changbin mumble as he situated himself on Felix’s opposite site, pulling himself out of the water enough to lean on the ledge and rest his head on his crossed arms, tail quietly swishing behind him like a comforting metronome. Even though half of his smile was mushed under his arms, Felix could still see the way it lifted into his eyes.
Felix cataloged the sight for a moment before turning back to Jisung, who was still lost in his thoughts (and his ham), peacefully swaying to a silent rhythm. “Are you telling me you know what Studio Ghibli is?” he asked, genuinely surprised.
Jisung nodded emphatically. “Of course I do! Those were some of my favorite movies to watch when I got the chance,” he explained, expression bright. “Disney movies, too! It’s fun singing the songs with Channie and Bin,” he added, leaning around Felix to grin– all teeth and mirth– at Changbin. Changbin only rolled his eyes, the smile even harder to hide now.
Endearment bloomed through Felix’s chest as he leaned back on his hands, eyes on the quickly-darkening skyline now that the sun was nearly set. “I’d love to have a movie night with you three some day,” he hummed, more an absent dream than an outright request, but it caught the two mermaids off guard nonetheless. “I don’t know how you guys do it, but if there ever comes a time that you do come ashore, I’m sure we’d be happy to have you at the Starfish House.”
There was power to Felix’s words, even as gentle and simple as they were, the breeze picking them up and curling them away across the quiet water. In a town of wordsmiths and loopholes like faeries and dragons, Felix knew better than to outwardly extend invitations, but at this moment, though he'd only just met them, something in him trusted Changbin and Jisung.
(The ocean within him sang, for like calls to like, kindness to kindness.)
“Careful: with a request like that you’ll find a whiny mermaid with a penchant for stealing your snacks in your house,” Changbin warned, Jisung immediately launching into a heated defense that had Felix throwing his head back with a laugh.
(He didn’t know why, nor what happened, but Felix knew getting Chan– the trusted, unseen friend he’d yet to meet– to come ashore was a nigh-impossible task; what trust he had broken between humans and the earth was none of Felix’s business, but that didn’t mean it didn’t bother him any less.)
As the sun slipped completely below the horizon line and inky nighttime crept in, the three of them continued to talk, sandwiches long-finished and cameras stowed away. Jisung caught sight of it for a moment and asked Felix about it, who was more than happy to re-describe his hobby, and Jisung easily reciprocated by telling him about his love of collecting.
(The cords of shells and scales were Jisung’s creations, apparently, mementos of each other as well as the sandbar shark who let him help her remove a particularly stubborn and painful tooth and insisted he take it as a thank you, a reminder of his kindness.)
The breeze was picking up as the night tide began to swell in, coupled by the twinkling constellations peeking through gauzy clouds that echoed the warming glow of spiraling spots and stripes across Changbin and Jisung alike: cool violet and neon orange, enchanting and spell-binding as it curled around their skin. As Felix fought to tie his hair back while Jisung and Changbin raced to identify as many constellations as they could, a distant, swelling hum of a familiar voice began to drift down from above the cliff as footsteps descended the stone stairs.
Confused, Felix turned, not noticing how his companions utterly froze. He smiled when a familiar burst of lavender faerie-fire crackled into life as the distant hum stopped in favor of words. “Lix-ah, are you down here?” Minho called, the makeshift torch of light illuminating his shape as he descended.
Silently, Jisung slid into the water with barely a sound, his disappearance so sudden that it startled Felix. Changbin picked his head up as the orange glow slowly faded out of sight, shaking his head with a laugh but otherwise making no other motion to flee; a tangle of anxiety Felix hadn’t known was in his chest loosened. He tipped his head back in the direction of the stairs. “I’m over here, Hyung!” he shouted back, eyes dropping to Changbin with a quiet smile, asking consent; Changbin propped his chin in his hand, waiting, a little curious smirk on his lips. The sight made Felix’s heart flutter as a helpless laugh escaped his lips even as featherlight footsteps sounded Minho’s arrival. “I have someone you’d like to meet.”
“And who would that be that’s had you out here for hours, hm?” Minho teased, tone rhetorical as he carefully hopped his way across the tidepools, the tiny flame hovering above his palm barely flickering. “sh*t, it’s slippery, what the hell!”
“Be careful!” Felix called, moving to help Minho, but Minho sucked in a breath, focused, and jumped to where Felix was, Felix catching him by the pant leg to keep him from slipping.
“Thanks,” Minho wheezed, looking down at his feet to scrape the algae off of his shoe. “Anyway– who am I meeting? I do believe it’s long overdue.” His head was tilted, eyes falling from Felix’s face to the figure beside him, patient and knowing.
(From behind one of the jutting rocks where the waves crashed just over Minho’s shoulder, Felix spotted a familiar orange glow and curious brown eyes, watching.)
Changbin waved at Minho with his free hand, eyes sparkling (and skin literally following suit, the action sending bursts of color down his arm). “Nice to put a name to a face, finally; I’m Changbin,” he greeted, grinning when Minho huffed an amused laugh.
“Likewise,” he replied, and Felix knew he meant it. “I probably could’ve guessed, however, considering that– while I don’t exactly know many– you’re the only pink mermaid I’ve ever come across that makes my housemate go all gooey.”
And– yeah, Felix knew he meant that part just as much. Damn faerie.
“Hyung,” Felix hissed, embarrassed as Changbin turned to him in curiosity, but all that seemed to do was fuel Minho’s laughter, the little ball of fire above his palm flickering in turn.
“What? I’m only telling the truth,” Minho wheedled, smile devious.
“That’s the problem,” Felix tacked on, but saying it aloud only worsened Minho’s caught-canary grin.
A cool hand patted Felix’s knee, and he nearly jumped sky high as his head whipped around to goggle at Changbin, who quietly retracted his hand to regard Minho. “Well, I hate to interrupt, but– Minho it was, right? – surely you didn’t come all this way just to see me, I take it?” he smoothly intervened, casual and airy; Felix could f*cking kiss him in gratitude.
“And how would you know if I was, hm?” Minho started, clearly enjoying the ping-pong, but Felix cut him off before either of them got carried away.
“We doing something for dinner?” he redirected, shivering a bit as the cool wind brushed over him, kissing goosebumps over his arms; Changbin frowned, but didn’t comment.
Minho blinked, point lost, before he regained his thought. “Oh, yes, you’re right; Seungmin’s currently being supervised in our kitchen, and I figured I should come get you as quickly as I could before my absence allowed a fire to break out.” While deadpan, it was still affectionate, happy to take the piss out of Seungmin any day of the week whether he heard it or not.
Felix, already gathering his bag, cringed. “You mean ‘another’ fire,” he corrected, and Minho’s eyes went unfocused as he lost himself in some horrid memory.
Meanwhile, Changbin barked a laugh, bright against the dark. “Seungmin… that’s one of Hyunjin’s witches, yeah?” Felix nodded, a fond smile stretching at his lips at the epithet. “Is that the fox one, or the puppy?”
The smile turned to an incredulous laugh. “Oh god, he’s so far gone– Seungmin is the puppy, I suppose; blond, artificer-witch, usually setting sh*t on fire,” Felix described as he pushed himself up to stand, groaning as his back complained. “Jeongin would be this one’s–” he jabbed a thumb backward at Minho– “younger brother, and he also sets sh*t on fire, but usually it’s with his mind and whatever weird plants he’s working with.”
“Noted,” Changbin giggled, smile infectious. Felix pretended he didn’t see Minho loudly rolling his eyes out of the corner of his eye.
“Sorry to spirit him away, but I’m sure you’ll end up winding up here again anyway,” Minho intercepted as he slung Felix’s back over his shoulder and his free arm through Felix’s, mindful of his flame. “And… one more thing before I go.”
Felix had a bad feeling about this.
Changbin quirked an eyebrow. “And what would that be?”
Very, very slowly, Minho’s eyes shifted over his shoulder to where the golden glow was, barely a flicker to Felix’s human eyes, but to Minho it must’ve made all the difference as a slow-pulled smirk of amusem*nt tugged at his lips. “Don’t you know the stories about moths and open flames? They’re rather… distracting to us,” he mused, and it was Felix’s turn to gape as the little orange-golden streaks bled through the lilac background of the faerie fire poised above his fingers. “I promise I don’t bite, if that’s a message you need to pass along.”
Slowly, like the sky waking up, Changbin’s smile crept into a mischievous masterpiece, eyes shining silver in the lowlight; Felix should never have let him and Minho meet. “I’d be more than happy to,” he promised, and Minho nodded in satisfaction.
“Good to hear. We’ll be taking our leave now, then,” he chirped, casual as if he hadn't just enacted a plan to possibly flay Jisung alive through embarrassment alone as he began to tug Felix back home. “Bye bye!”
“Bye, Changbin! Thanks for talking with me again!” Felix called as he haphazardly waved at him, yelping as Minho nearly pulled him into the water as a hidden dip in the stones made him trip. “And thank Jisung for me too when you see him!” he added on, lacing the name with intent and smirking when Minho’s eyes skipped to him.
Changbin waved his goodbyes with a wide smile before diving back under the water, and Felix let out a breath.
“You’re hopeless,” Minho cheerfully commented as he gently shuttled Felix before him up the stairs.
Felix laughed, looking over his shoulder. “Please, after what you just pulled?” he retorted, and Minho innocently spread his hands. “Just be gentle, alright?”
Minho snorted. “What, do you expect me to make sashimi out of him?”
“Something like that.”
Minho swatted him in the shoulder, making him snicker.
“But hey, as love-struck as you may be–”
“I am not ‘love-struck’, he’s just kind!”
“Uh-huh. Anyway–” Felix kissed his teeth at Minho– “I don’t think either of us have any ground considering we live with the uber disaster himself.”
“...Just because you’re right doesn’t mean you have to say it.”
“You’re smiling.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t funny .”
The two were giggling like school girls as they stepped off the final stretch of stairs, wandering through the knee-high meadow of soft, wispy dune grass that encircled their house, each brush against his open palms like a comforting call of welcome home! as the breeze rushed through them. Felix paused, turning just to stare across the grass out at the quiet, inky ocean and the stars reflected within it like silver-spun embroidery, and he took a deep breath, wanting to imprint the smell of the sea and the feeling bubbling within his chest into the fabric of his very bones and lungs so he wouldn’t forget it.
“Something on your mind?” Minho asked, voice a quiet hush like the meadow grass.
It reminded Felix of the night of the storm when they'd had a similar conversation, undermined by the deep pull of the tide whispering to him to jump in; he couldn't blame Minho's trepidation.
This time, however, the sky and his mind were clear, and there was only nostalgia, a little heart-flutter of delight as soft as sea foam.
Felix nodded, turning away from the water. “All good; let’s go home; I'm starving.”
Minho laughed and let Felix lead the way, his little light illuminating their shadows in ivory-gold and soft purple the whole way back.
◦ 𓆝 ｡𓆟 ⋆ 𓆞 ◦ 𓆝
Felix was off from work today.
The past few days he’d been working late shifts, leaving him half-conscious by the time he came home and waking up late in the afternoon with barely enough energy to haul himself out of bed to shower. As always, he found himself drawn to the sea during work, eyes on the windows as he completed his orders. It hadn’t gone unnoticed by his coworkers–Dahyun notably called him out for drifting off.
(When he realized exactly why his eyes kept tracking back to the sea just as Nayeon asked if something was on his mind, he’d gone a similar shade of red of the watermelon sorbet he was scooping (it was supposed to be lemon). Nayeon then squinted at him, his blush, and his horrendous inability to keep things secret, and smiled, dangerous and ecstatic.)
On the brighter side of things, Felix did have a secret weapon for passing a message along to said sea that Felix couldn’t stop thinking of, making sure no one thought he suddenly died or didn’t want to visit anymore, and it came in the form of one particularly cheeky and meddlesome roommate.
On the first morning of Felix’s string of shifts, he was enjoying the sunshine shining through the windows and the sound of the TV rambling in the living room while he sat at the kitchen table chatting peacefully with Hyunjin. While nothing of substance, the conversation and company were comforting as Hyunjin cooked himself some congee and scolded Felix for stealing his ingredients. Just before eleven, however, the door creaked open, announcing Minho’s return from his morning walk, but Felix and Hyunjin stared at each other in confusion considering he usually left at sunrise.
“Did something happen, Hyung?” Hyunjin called as Minho came around the corner to drop his keys off, but Felix narrowed his eyes at the satisfied grin curling at his lips like a clever songbird.
Oh, don’t tell me–
“Just a little side-tracked is all, nothing bad,” he mused as he leaned against the wall, crossing his arms as his eyes fell to Felix. “Just encountered a little mermaid who didn’t know that siren song doesn’t work too well on the fae,” he added, grin splitting into a smile as Felix clapped a hand to his face.
“Oh, Jisung,” Felix groaned, and Minho burst into laughter.
“I was nice, I promise!” Minho insisted, face lit with a kind of joy Felix didn’t usually see so potently. “It was cute, though, when he realized I had no intention of coming into the water to say hello.”
“That… sounds like him,” Hyunjin laughed as he turned off the burner. “I am curious though– why was he trying to charm you in the first place?”
“Poor taste,” Felix teased, hiding his smirk in his juice when Minho whipped toward him, faux-insulted.
“Excuse you, waterlogged,” Minho threw back, “I’m apparently important enough to charm even if it didn’t work out!”
“I just don’t think that’s the flex you want it to be,” Hyunjin intervened dryly, and Felix choked on his water.
With Minho regularly (Felix assumed) having morning chats with Jisung, Felix entrusted him with the task of passing on his message as he prepared himself for his work week. Now, though, it was morning on a free day, the sun streaming across his bedroom and the breeze peacefully ruffling the silky drapes as it crept in through one of the windows he’d cracked. He took a deep breath, at ease, and just watched the world outside his window for a moment, knees drawn up under his blanket so he could rest his arms on them.
It was earlier than usual, so maybe he’d take a long walk through The Town before visiting the tidepools, camera in hand just in case he spotted something new. If he made it there and he was the only one, he could visit the cave nearby, hoping to catch a glimpse of the sunbeams through the craggy walls once more.
It was these thoughts that accompanied him as he slid out of bed to pad into the hallway waving a sleepy hello to Hyunjin as he passed (his bedroom door was open, Hyunjin just as taken with the lovely morning if the way he was perched in front of an easel and his windows were any indication) to take a shower. He played his favorite music on low and sang along, the warm water and the simple joy of relaxation bubbling through his chest.
It was silly, being so excited to talk with someone he’d only known for what… a little less than two weeks? Even so, friends were friends, and Felix was a firm believer in serendipity regardless of how, well, unorthodox it was.
I hope he isn’t upset with me, he thought to himself as he called a goodbye to Hyunjin as he reached for the door, shouting up the stairs to text him in case he wanted Felix to pick up something for him, but he shook away the worry as the door squeaked shut behind him. He’ll understand… I think.
He followed that train of thought as well as the winding path through the woods, greeting the rustling trees and the humming insects as his wandering took hold of his feet. Tiny faeries chittered and giggled around him, and he knew he had them to blame as he deviated from the path; they were harmless, though, as he respected the boundaries of their lands and knew the tricks and games they liked to play (perks of a faerie roommate). He played their echo game of whistling notes, laughing as he caught their notes and repeated them back in perfect harmony, and they eventually rewarded him with a wash of flowers blooming through the strands of his hair.
As he reached up to admire the morning glory he saw out of the corner of his eye, his feet returned to the path, freed from his harmless side-trek. Thanking them in words meant an unwitting contract of service, so in lieu of that he simply whistled a new song back toward the woods as he set back down the mountain toward the main part of The Town; the wind and the trees hummed the same song as he passed by, and he couldn’t help but smile.
Not many people were out this early, but he still said hello to the few locals he did pass by (a little boy stared in awe at the flowers woven through his hair, and Felix offered him a tiny dahlia he found by his ear, much to the boy’s delight). The silence was calming, his own feet taking him somewhere he didn’t know, but he let himself walk as his thoughts kept curling back in themselves like lazily crashing waves stained in silky, opalescent pink and a curving smile colored in a bubbly laugh.
(He was no good at keeping his heart under wraps, and he knew that what he felt, he felt hard; whether it was a weakness or a strength he wasn’t sure, but he held no lukewarm emotions at all.)
The sun falling across the Center was a lovely sight, homecoming and heartwarming as it caught in windows and awnings and spilled across the cobblestone, so he stopped to take a few photos despite the shaking heads and the smiles he always got; that silly Lee Boy and his camera, photographing things he sees every day, he knew they were thinking, but they were wrong:
The places and the buildings were the same, but the moment in time was always different, the sun and the clouds and the people painted against them always changed, a new memory to stow away. Like the sea, each crashing wave brought about something fresh, his eyes never landing on the same version of The Town twice.
(He was a romantic at heart, and that in turn was what made him kind.)
With his fill for the day, he stopped by the cafe for something to eat– “Why are you here on your day off? Go home!” Nayeon laughed– he began his trek back up the western mountain as he munched on a wrap, his walk back up the stairs completely different from when he’d descended. Instead of going home, though, he elected to cross the clearing and hop down the curving stairs until the familiar tidepools greeted him with splashes echoing across the stone; the sound brought a little thrill of anticipation that curled in his stomach as he jumped down the last step, camera in hand.
Changbin was not at the tidepools.
Fine, alright, it was early, but they weren’t empty, Felix freezing like a deer in headlights.
Another mermaid was currently leaned across one of the lips of the tidepools to poke at the creatures currently residing within them, tiny transparencies of jellyfish and anemones that seemed to bring a smile to his face. Deep-red scales and a lazily swaying tail spread like blood across the stones greeted Felix, contrasted by the low hum of a light-hearted song the mermaid was singing as he continued to play in the pool. The scales across his neck and dotting his face were a sharp contrast to his pale skin, ear fins a burst of color against a shock of warm blond hair. Scars of all kinds twined down his muscular arms and chest, and he seemed older, quieter than Jisung and Changbin, a silent weight balanced upon his shoulders Felix couldn’t possibly name.
This must be Chan, Felix realized, and he was struck with the urge to turn around and leave him be.
“You don’t need to hide; I’m not here to hurt you,” a gentle voice rang out, and Felix’s blood went cold.
He saw me?!
The mermaid– Chan, hopefully– looked up from the pool, tucking his arm under himself where he was propped up; his tail flicked, patient and waiting, like a bowstring. His magic felt different than the other two, focused and polished, and Felix cursed his curiosity. He swallowed the bite of his wrap he was mid-chew and stepped out into the sunlight, dipping his head in greeting. Chan smiled– close-lipped, polite but cautious– and waved him forward, a flash of a bracelet around his wrist catching Felix’s attention; pink and gold scales shone in the sun, and Felix’s heart warmed in familiarity.
Quietly, Felix stepped over the tidepools and settled himself across from Chan, split by the pool Chan was peering into a few moments ago. Chan stared at him for a moment, gaze not gouging but searching for something Felix didn’t know. Despite it, Felix didn’t find himself uneasy or even frightened, but rather… nervous, like meeting an important member of a family he didn’t dare to disappoint. “You’re Felix, I take it?” Felix nodded, and Chan laughed. “I already said I’m not going to hurt you, you know, so there’s no need to be so anxious,” he scolded, his laugh lifting his lips enough to expose dimples and genuine warmth.
Felix opened his mouth, prepared to say something intelligent and probably explanatory, but instead his hot-headed and impulsive curiosity and took the reigns as he blurted out something far less impressive:
“I– I’m so sorry, this may sound completely stupid, but are you– are you Australian?”
Chan blinked, visibly taken aback, but thankfully not insulted.
In the little bit that he’d spoken, Felix thought he caught the curling edges of a familiar accent curving around the edges of Chan’s Korean, warm and overexposed in a way that reminded him of home and childhood, and his stupid mouth decided to act on that inquiry before his brain could think it through.
Chan was silent for a moment, still surprised, but then he laughed, throwing his head back in a great buffet of laughter that brought a smile to Felix’s face as tiny spots of bright red bioluminescence sparked across Chan’s scales and around his eyes. “I– yeah, I suppose in human terms I am,” Chan explained, breathing out a tiny hiccup of a final giggle before continuing. “My family lives off the southern coast in a tiny reef, and I grew up wandering around Sydney on the few occasions I went ashore.”
Felix’s smile was almost aching as he scooched forward in his excitement, the exhilaration of finding a kindred soul making him lightheaded with incredulity. “I’m from Sydney too!” he near-shouted, pointing to himself with stars in his eyes as he shifted into English, and he knew he’d made the right choice when Chan perked up, ear fins and all at the sound of it. “I can’t believe it– I haven’t spoken to anyone else from back home apart from my family in years!”
“I admit I was a bit curious because of your name,” Chan laughed, his comforting, familiar accent in Felix's native language bringing Felix’s smile surging forward ten-fold. Something in Chan's face shifted, opening like a spread of butterfly wings, and while Felix wasn't sure what exactly it was, he knew it was a good thing. “It's lovely to meet you, Felix.”
“You too, ah–” Felix paused, scratching at his cheek. “I assume you’re Chan, yeah? Is it alright if I call you that?”
Chan hummed another laugh, leaning into the bowl of his palm. “You can call me Chris if you'd like; that's what my family calls me,” he said, and Felix beamed.
He's entrusted me with not just one, but two of his names– does that mean I've done well?
“Well then, Chris,” Felix started, reaching out a hand, “the pleasure is all mine! Changbin and Jisung never stop talking about you.” It was mired in fondness, pooling over like airy seafoam, not going unnoticed by Chan.
“Do I even want to know what they told you?” Chan deadpanned, but his teeth were still peeking through his smile.
Felix laughed. “Well, they called you a nag–”
“Hey!”
“Stubborn–”
“...Okay, yeah.”
“And occasionally ‘old’ – Chan pressed his lips into a flat, unimpressed line with a huff– “but, what they didn't say was much louder.”
Chan raised an eyebrow. “Uh- huh,” he drawled, playful but disbelieving.
Felix's smile spread like saltwater taffy, sparkling in the morning sun. “You’re really important to them,” he said, sincerity in every word. “You’re like… their anchor, almost.”
Chan blinked, startled, and then shyly smiled to himself, a hand over his burgeoning, helpless grin, touched.
They really do love each other, huh, Felix thought to himself, tugging his legs under himself and tucking his hands in his lap with a little hum. It was then that another thought popped into his head, and he pursed his lips in an inquisitive bow. “Speaking of, where are Changbin and Jisung? Surely they would’ve noticed you coming here.
Chan shrugged. “I sent them hunting because neither of them could sit still,” he said, a tiny, devious smile that could almost be mistaken for innocence flickering across his lips. “If I just so happened to suggest making it a competition then…my bad.” He spread his hands in a show of deference, and when Felix burst out laughing his deviousness turned to toothy adoration.
“Yeah, that sounds like them,” Felix snickered, a fond little sigh escaping his lips before it settled back into sobriety. “You're… not upset about them coming here, are you? Because it's my fault, not theirs, considering my idiot ass tried to–”
“Stop, stop, it’s okay!” Chan laughed out, waving a placating hand at Felix. “You make it sound like I'm their father, jeez; we’re all adults and they can do what they like, but that doesn't mean I don't worry about them at the same time.”
Felix's face fell. “We’re not bad people here, you know,” he mumbled, and Chan sighed.
“Why do you think I came up here?”
Felix blinked at him. “To scope me out?”
“I– okay, well, when you put it like that it sounds bad,” Chan complained, and Felix giggled despite himself. “My point was that I've met Hyunjin and heard him talk at length about not just you, but the others here too, specifically the ones Changbin and Jisung have suddenly been talking and talking about.”
Felix flushed, picking at his pant seam, and Chan continued, leaning forward enough to catch Felix's eye with a gentle, knowing smile.
“I wanted to meet the person that Changbin risked his life to save.”
Like being pierced by an arrow fletched with sunlight– burning, scorching, direct, flame-starting– Felix clapped a hand to his mouth, eyes wide. Chan's expression was expectant, understanding, finally finding whatever he was searching for the minute his eyes fell on Felix’s face.
Felix's eyes fell to the rock. “I'm no one that important,” he said, quiet against the hush of the water.
“I think Changbin would disagree,” Chan corrected; Felix's heart squeezed. “You know, something Hyunjin mentioned to us stuck with me.”
“Hm?”
Chan pulled himself up to properly sit, exposing even more scars that told stories Felix couldn't possibly fathom. Along with those scars, however, were also little decorative chains draped across his back and over his shoulders, highlighting them with sparkles of scales and pearls; Jisung's work, surely, meant to accentuate, not conceal. “The three of us never stay in one place for very long, so when Hyunjin told us that the water and the creatures within it were feared in The Town, you'd think we'd stay away, yeah?”
Felix knit his eyebrows. “I– I guess? What's your point?”
Chan smiled. “This is our third time visiting,” he said, and Felix blinked. “Something calls us here, and I'm wondering if that very same thing is what called Changbin out here that very same night.”
Now, while he wasn't as bad as Hyunjin who devoured and relished in the literature and lore of soulmates and destiny until it bled from his every action, Felix was a firm believer of destiny– both as a path, as well as a malleable masterpiece between his hands. This, what Chan was suggesting, sounded much less like safe serendipity and more like spiritual intervention–
Predestined.
Felix shook the silly thought from his head, trying to banish the blush from his skin. “I– no, I'm sure that's not it,” he refused, a wispy, helpless laugh escaping his lips. “I was just lucky, that's all.”
Chan arched an eyebrow, a surprisingly loud gesture for being silent. Then, he let out a breath and shook his head, dimples reappearing with another tiny smile that held a secret Felix couldn't discern. “Then maybe something knew you needed a little bit of luck,” he said simply, but Felix felt like he was on fire.
If I don't stop blushing I'll turn into a stupid, gooey jellyfish, he bemoaned, mortified at his transparency, his silly, hopeful heart lost to the whims of the water.
Felix clapped his hands to his cheeks and shook his head aggressively, the action making Chan laugh. “You alright there?” he teased, and Felix (attempted) to scowl at him, but it bore no heat and only served to worsen Chan’s laughter.
Thankfully, before Chan could continue his probing, a familiar face broke the surface of the water to squint accusingly at Chan, eyes narrowed. “I should’ve known you were up to something,” Changbin huffed, ignoring Chan’s wide grin in favor of hauling himself out of the water to perch on the ledge. He crossed his arms over his chest with a tiny curl of a smile, and Felix wanted to combust as his eyes helplessly fell to the swell of his biceps. “After all, I know for a fact that you’d rather cut your tail fins off than touch that cave with a ten-foot pole; here for a shovel talk then, huh?”
(Felix loudly choked, giggling out of sheer, overwhelmed embarrassment when Changbin f*cking winked at him.)
Chan rolled his eyes with a lazy raspberry as Changbin scrubbed a hand through his wave-mussed hair, and Felix recovered from his momentary lapse of sanity to knit his eyebrows. “What cave?” he asked, tilting his head. The only one he knew of was the split in the cliff rock behind him that had happily sliced his knee open, but aside from a small pool inside the cave there was no access from the sea.
Changbin frowned. “At the base of the cliffs underwater,” he said, gesturing vaguely over Chan’s shoulder. “I thought you’d remember, considering that’s where I found you.”
Felix gaped at him at an utter loss for words. “Huh? What are you talking about?” he blurted, memory fuzzy. The only thing he remembered from that night (aside from Changbin, that is) was something latching onto his ankle and the massive maw of teeth that literally scared the breath out of him. Considering he was out of his mind from whatever got into him that night as well as nearly dying, Felix wasn’t too keen on trusting his memory, nor delving into it any deeper than he needed to.
Changbin’s concerned face said otherwise, eyes darkening with worry and confusion. As he opened his mouth to continue, however, a hand shot out of the water to yank on one of Changbin’s tail fins, making him yelp and whip around with a swear. “What the hell, Sung?” he complained as Jisung surfaced with a heatless pout.
“You left me behind, asshole!” Jisung whined as propped his arms on the ledge. His expression brightened for a moment when he spotted Felix, waving at him cheerily and grinning from ear to ear as Felix waved back before Changbin’s derisive snort drew his attention away.
“You said you wanted to race, dummy,” Changbin corrected, swatting him in the shoulder with a fin. ‘Not my fault you got lost!”
(Felix subtly pulled his phone from his pocket, swiping open his phone to send off a quick hey guess who’s here >;)))))) message before tucking it away with a muted smile.)
“I didn’t get lost,” Jisung spluttered, aghast, which meant he absolutely did. “I just… took the scenic route.”
“Was this before or after you lost the hunting challenge?”
“I didn’t lose, we tied!”
“You let that last fish get away!”
“I did not!”
“Did too!”
Chan leaned around Changbin’s shoulder to give Felix a pointed look as they continued to bicker. Felix burst into laughter, halting the argument as Changbin’s eyes swung over to him. “Sorry, sorry, I– ha!– it’s nothing,” he snickered, covering his mouth. “You three together are just exactly what I pictured.”
Somehow, all three of them gave him a near-identical expression of confusion, forcing Felix to swallow back another laugh.
Chan sighed, fond. “Before you two go at it again–” Jisung stuck his tongue out at him from where he had his chin resting on his crossed arms– “did you guys actually manage to get us anything to eat?”
Jisung’s head popped up, eyes bright. “We did! Found a whole shoal of squid when we dove deep enough, but we had to compete with some dolphins that tracked them too,” he explained, before scrunching his nose. “f*ckers.”
Felix wheezed at the bluntness of it, shoulders starting to shake when Jisung kept on going to describe how he’d gotten into a tussle with a pair of dolphins who tore the net he was using and forced him to lose a chunk of his squid catch. As he rambled, Changbin shuffled aside to let Jisung take his spot, now scooching closer to Felix as Chan happily entertained Jisung’s rant. “He kept those dolphins good and distracted while I went ahead and picked up the escapees,” Changbin said, voice lowering as he leaned in. “I let him have a few extras for his pride.”
“How kind of you,” Felix teased, swatting at Changbin’s shoulder with a grin.
Changbin winked again before it settled back into something more serious as he chewed on his cheek with something almost like vulnerability perched on his features.“Chan wasn’t too hard on you, was he?” he mumbled, lighthearted but sober. Felix, however, was more focused on how the sunlight sparkled through Changbin’s hair, already starting to dry under the heat to reveal curls he dangerously wanted to try running his hands through.
Focus before you prove Minho-hyung right!
Felix cleared his throat, dragging his eyes back to Changbin’s face. “He was perfectly lovely, I’ll have you know,” he replied, leaning back on his hands. “No need to worry; you make it sound like he was going to eat me.”
Changbin snorted. “You never know with him,” he said dryly, making Felix snicker. “If I’m honest, though, I wasn’t too worried; you’re both kind-hearted people.”
Felix bit back a flattered smile, the edges of it still curling at the corners of his lips. “And Australian.”
Changbin let out an exasperated sigh, shaking his head with a fond grin. “Yeah, okay, that too,” he laughed, and Felix’s smile broke free, exposing teeth and crinkling his eyes into crescents.
“Oi, moonjellies, we’re still here, you know!”
Felix and Changbin whipped away from each other toward the heckling voice, spotting the source of it– Jisung, who’d happily flopped over into Chan’s lap midway through his petulant rant– paired with a knowing Chan staring the two down. Felix glanced sidelong at Changbin, mouthing a confused ‘moonjellies?’ to him, but Changbin waved him off; his ears were pink. “You know, if you guys stick around you might be able to properly meet the others,” he redirected, now looking directly at Jisung.
Chan, on the other hand, looked delighted by the prospect. “I did want to see this faerie you keep bringing up, Jisung,” he commented, poking the mermaid in question in the cheek and giggling when Jisung scrunched his nose.
“He’s the spawn of evil, actually, so I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Jisung argued, blowing out a dramatic sigh, but he was fidgeting with his hands, tugging at the line of his necklace. Felix, hearing a faint crunch of a shoe on stone and remembering the text he sent, swallowed back a guilty– but ultimately unapologetic– expression as a familiar voice rang across the pools.
“Aw, is that how you really think about me, Jisungie? I’m flattered,” Minho called, gracefully stepping across the tidepools to wander his way over to where the rest of them were huddled.
Jisung sat up so quickly that Chan had to catch him by the arm to keep him from slipping into the water, before Chan soundly dropped both hands on Jisung’s shoulders to prevent him from escaping entirely as Minho happily bounced over with mirth in his smile. “You– that wasn’t a compliment,” Jisung spluttered, trying and failing to get out of Chan’s grip, which made Minho smirk as he crossed the last of the pools to plop down directly in front of him.
(“You sneak,” Changbin muttered, bumping his shoulder into Felix’s with a faint smile; Felix only shrugged, the picture of innocence.)
Minho titled his head. “I didn’t know you decided how I accepted compliments,” he mused, a twinkle in his eye as Jisung puffed out his cheeks petulantly.
“Stop being cute,” Jisung groused, an unfortunate choice of words as Minho’s eyebrow raised into his hairline.
“Oh, so now you think I’m cute? That’s rich coming from you ,” Minho hummed, his smirk giving way to a genuine smile of toothy adoration as Jisung went red enough to rival Chan’s scales.
Felix knew what Minho’s charmspeak sounded like, recognized the familiar silver-vine curl and the buzz of suggestion that came with it, but there was none of that at play; just Jisung’s easy-to-bruise heart and the Minho’s particular brand of unyielding teasing that came from the inability to lie.
“What–? I– shut up!” Jisung wailed, clapping his hands to his face with a shriek as frantic, uncoordinated sparks of gold chased his blush. Chan patted him on the shoulder with an empathetic nod, and Jisung muttered something under his breath that made him snort.
“Hyung, what did I say about being gentle?” Felix scolded, but he was no less of a culprit from the way his cheeks were aching from his smile.
Minho, slowly turning to meet his eye, just pointedly looked from Felix, to Changbin, and then back again, his eyebrow returning to his hairline; Felix pressed his lips into a thin, displeased line. Changbin only laughed his high, bubbly laugh, and Felix felt as if he’d swallowed an entire glass of champagne.
“Anyway! Introductions,” Minho cheerily started, clapping his hands in time to his unsubtle segue. “Hello, mister mystery mermaid; I think you already know who I am,” he said, grinning when Jisung pouted at him in complaint.
“Ah, Minho, you’re precisely as colorful as I’ve heard,” Chan chirped, matching Minho’s cheekiness with his own as he dipped his head into a bow. “Name’s Chan. Do what you will with it, but please, nothing too outrageous.”
That startled a bright, clear laugh out of Minho as he leaned his chin into his palm, odd eyes wicked in the sunlight. “No promises, Chan,” he replied; Felix rolled his eyes at the display. “So, what brings the three of you here this lovely morning, hm?”
Chan pointed at Felix, Changbin pointed at Chan, and Jisung pointed at Changbin.
“...That was meant to be rhetorical, but I appreciate the honesty.”
Felix cackled, palm stinging from the way he smacked it against the rock.
Despite the bombastic start, the five of them somehow settled into a colorful but much more coherent conversation as the morning sun lapped into the afternoon and slowly shifted across the tidepools. It was startlingly easy to sink into it all, a comfortable ebb and flow of chatter that eased from small talk to actual conversation like the passing clouds. As the realization settled, Felix blinked, leaning up from where he, at some point after Changbin returned to the water after getting uncomfortably dry (he hadn’t gone far, still within arm’s reach by the edge of the ledge), settled against Minho’s shoulder. “I have an idea,” he blurted, unintentionally derailing a conversation about sushi of all things as they all turned to look at him.
“What’s up?” Jisung chirped, batting away one of the water bubbles Changbin was currently annoying him with and sending it back over to smack Changbin in the cheek; he spluttered, and Jisung giggled.
“It’s a holiday for The Town tomorrow, so none of us here will be working; did you guys want to have, I dunno, a picnic or something?” Felix suggested, a bit hesitant.
Jisung looked like he was going to explode and Changbin lit up in violet and pink, and the hesitancy simmered down. “Only if you get Hyunjin to bring his other friends down here too! I’ve been wanting to meet them!” Jisung insisted, and Minho snorted.
“My brother’s an idiot and so is his husband, and it’s entirely Hyunjin’s fault,” he deadpanned, rolling his eyes at Felix’s scolding jostle.
“Hyunjin’s been skimping on his time with us, so it’s the least he can do if he comes and hangs with us,” Changbin added, the lopsided curl of his lips revealing the sarcasm. “I’m down if you guys are! Not as if I have anything else to do considering all the squid I caught.”
Jisung gasped, offended. “Excuse you,” he retorted, punctuating the last word with a bubble of his own as it zipped across the surface toward Changbin. Changbin dodged it, stuck his tongue out at Jisung, and dove with a laugh as Jisung charged after him; they both disappeared with a rowdy splash.
As Minho watched them go with a snort, Felix turned back to Chan, hesitance bubbling back up. “Do you want to join us? You don’t have to if being up here for so long would make you anxious.”
Chan waved him off. “And miss meeting people important to you? I wouldn’t dream of it.” The smile that stretched across Felix’s face was not only blinding, but contagious as well, infecting both Chan as well as Minho from the sheer force of Felix’s genuinity.
The bubble burst when Changbin resurfaced, face taut with worry and ear fins flat. Instantly, Chan turned to him, smile falling. “Bin, what’s wrong?
Changbin took a breath, eyes flickering toward Felix and Minho. “You guys don't use boats at all, right?”
Minho scrunched his nose. “f*ck no,” he replied, blunt, “why?”
Felix’s stomach turned at the way Changbin's gaze shifted back to Chan, expression dark and uneasy as they shared a heavy moment of realization. “We heard a boat just now, and from the sound of it they're only a few miles out,” Changbin explained, chewing on his cheek. “Jisung's scoping it out now.”
Chan clicked his tongue. “By himself?”
“He swam off before I could stop him!”
Chan rubbed at his face. “f*ck– okay, we need go find him before he gets himself caught,” he huffed, trying to disguise the way his voice wobbled before pushing off of the ledge to join Changbin in the water. He waved a hasty goodbye before diving in a spray of glittering red and crystallized water drops, swallowed by the sunlight.
Felix and Minho blinked at each other in confusion before Felix shuffled forward until he was leaning directly over the water in his urgency. “Changbin, wait– what's going on?” he called, thankfully catching him before he followed Chan. “What boat?”
Changbin turned, and Felix momentarily regretted his current position as Changbin was now inches from his face. “It's nothing you need to worry about–”
“You don't get to decide that,” Felix cut off, concern blunting his tongue as he frowned. “Tell me what's happening?”
“Lix-ah, let him go,” Minho tried, voice warning but gentle, but Felix ignored him, eyes firmly on Changbin.
(Human tenacity was truly a formidable force.)
“Tomorrow,” Changbin promised, effectively halting the impending shipwreck of Felix’s anxiety as he lifted a hand from the water to gently pat Felix’s cheek; sparks burst under the touch. “I'll come early, okay?” This part was quieter, out of Minho's ear shot, calm and insistent.
(This close, Felix could see gold swimming in the deep brown of Changbin's irises, accompanied by the trust pooling within them, and he wanted to drown.)
Felix nodded, unable to form an adequate response, and Changbin smiled. Then, he patted Felix's cheek one more time before pulling away, disappearing beneath the water once more. He sat back on his heels to stare dumbly at the water, fingertips ghosting across his cheek, and Minho, having seen everything, sighed deeply. “There's nothing we can do for them right now,” he reminded, light and understanding. “Hyunjin's done at work in a bit, so why don't we go meet him and get some lunch?”
He was right, but it didn't do anything to lessen Felix's worry, always so briar-tangled in it when it came to those he cared about.
(That thought in itself also worried Felix, considering he'd only met Changbin barely two weeks ago, Jisung and Chan even later. Fate was a funny thing, and she was offering him a challenge he wasn't sure he'd be strong enough to accept.)
Felix let out a sigh, shuffling up from his spot; high tide was coming. “Okay,” he agreed, turning to see Minho holding out his hand to him.
“I'll pay,” Minho hummed, happily squeezing Felix's hand in his as he led him toward the stairs. “That way I can bully you about how bad your crush is getting and I won't feel bad.”
“Hyung!” Felix choked, and Minho broke into a laugh. Felix kissed his teeth. “Fine, but all I have to say to that is that it takes one–” he paused as he hopped over the edge of a pool to another plateau of rock– “to know one.”
As Minho sealed his lips into a thin line his ears went pink, and Felix knew he'd won. “No comment,” Minho muttered, and it was Felix's turn to giggle. His stoicism melted quickly enough, a smile joining Felix's laughter as the two of them left the tidepools behind.
(Lingering worry still loitered in their rib cages, but Felix squeezed Minho's hand in gratitude, banishing it for just a moment.)
◦ 𓆝 ｡𓆟 ⋆ 𓆞 ◦ 𓆝
“You smell of salt,” Dahyun happily (and very bluntly) pointed out when Felix approached the counter of the cafe with Minho in tow, her head tilting as she knit her eyebrows at him.
“I took a walk,” Felix replied, shrugging, then proceeding to elbow Minho when he snorted. “Anyway, what do you want, Hyung?”
Minho smiled, thin and devious. “Whatever the most tedious thing on the menu is,” he said, fluttering his fingers in a cheeky wave at the other employee on the opposite end of the counter. The lamia at the other end blew a friendly raspberry at him before disappearing into the back in a blur of silver hair.
(Lamias and Fae had a long-standing grudge– something to do with who was the most prideful and beautiful– but Minho and Xiaojun were on mostly friendly terms. More specifically, Minho enjoyed poking fun at him and playing pranks here and there, and Xiaojun peacefully took it in stride by sneaking food dye into his purchases with a charm that kept the color permanent for much longer than it should’ve; all good fun, really.)
“I’ll get that Redbull-Americano ready for you, then,” Dahyun promised with a wink.
“No, do not– Noona, put the can down!” Felix cried, reaching over with a hysterical laugh as Dahyun made a dramatic show of stealing Xiaojun’s freshly-opened drink and lifting the hatch of the water intake on the espresso machine. Minho snickered to himself as he opened his buzzing phone to see a text from Hyunjin, informing the two of them that he’d be over in a few minutes.
“I’ll have two normal iced americanos, actually, and whatever Lix-ah would like as well,” Minho interjected when Dahyun started chugging the drink.
“Noona!” Xiaojun complained as he reemerged from the back, expression forlorn. “Again?”
“I’ll get those out for you in a second,” Dahyun replied, handing the empty can to Xiaojun and ignoring his huff as he elegantly crushed it without a word. “On the house.”
“What happened to treating us?” Felix teased after he’d selected a milk tea and let himself be ushered to one of the comfy booths in the back of the cafe.
Minho rolled his eyes as he plopped down, Felix following suit. “Didn’t I promise food?”
“Touché,” Felix laughed, head turned as the sound of the bell chimed, announcing Hyunjin’s presence as he waved to them. Felix’s smile was wide as Hyunjin bumbled over, tired but bright-eyed as he plopped down next to Felix with a sigh, wisps of hair escaping the confines of his ponytail matching the streaks and spots of marker scattered over his hands.
“So– what’d I miss?”
Felix, taking a deep breath, launched into his story, Minho standing to retrieve the already-finished drinks.
◦ 𓆝 ｡𓆟 ⋆ 𓆞 ◦ 𓆝
An hour or so later, still at the cafe:
THE TOWNIES ™
[5/5 online]
lampf*cker
(15:15)
alright hoes
lampf*cker
(15:15)
who wants to have a picnic
Seungmin ™
(15:15)
bitch don’t call me a hoe
lampf*cker
(15:15)
oh but seungmin
lampf*cker
(15:16)
as the unlucky hoe who answered first of all people
lampf*cker
(15:16)
that seems like all the more reason I SHOULD
Seungmin ™
(15:16)
Jesus Christ why am i friends with you
lampf*cker
(15:16)
occupational hazard
mushroom lord
(15:16)
@Seungmin ™ Don't invoke that name in this godless place
lampf*cker
(15:16)
party pisser
mushroom lord
(15:16)
Please just say party pooper like a normal f*cking person
lampf*cker
(15:17)
absolutely not it makes you mad
mushroom lord
(15:17)
jesus christ
Seungmin ™
(15:17)
I–
urlocalcryptid
(15:17))
So did you guys wanna have a picnic with us or not?
urlocalcryptid
(15:17))
We figured since it’s founding day we could do something fun!
Seungmin ™
(15:17)
I am immensely suspicious of this
MERde
(15:17)
Well NOW whos the party pooper >:(
lampf*cker
(15:17)
*pisser
mushroom lord
(15:17)
Shut up
Seungmin ™
(15:17)
Please shut up
MERde
(15:18)
stfu
urlocalcryptid
(15:18)
Holy sh*t it’s contagious
lampf*cker
(15:18)
like an std
urlocalcryptid
(15:18)
Hyung please
MERde
(15:18)
Once again i am pretending i cannot read :)
MERde
(15:18)
ANYWAY!! Innie Minnie they wanna to introduce you to their fish bfs 😌
mushroom lord
(15:18)
Oh ?
urlocalcryptid
(15:18)
HHYUNHJIN
MERde
(15:18)
And also chan
Seungmin ™
(15:19)
Who the f*ck is chan
mushroom lord
(15:19)
More importantly who tf is ‘hhyunhjin’
urlocalcryptid
(15:19)
Oh my god i can’t win
mushroom lord
(15:19)
No you cannot mr bronze :)
Seungmin ™
(15:19)
OH sh*t
urlocalcryptid
(15:19)
HEY >:(((((
MERde
(15:19)
Well if youre that curious you can just ask chan tomorrow! And also about minho-hyung and lixs recent love of long walks on the beachfiuerorfh erd
Seungmin ™
(15:19)
?????
urlocalcryptid
(15:19))
Disregarding that!
mushroom lord
(15:19)
Lmfao
urlocalcryptid
(15:09))
Do you guys want to meet the rest of the pod? Its the one Changbin’s a part of
mushroom lord
(15:19)
Ohhh i see what’s happening here
mushroom lord
(15:19)
Glad to know he has a proper name now hyung 😏
mushroom lord
(15:19)
I’ve however just been calling him ‘suspicious meaty mermaid’ in my head
lampf*cker
(15:19)
LMFAO?
Seungmin ™
(15:19)
And also out loud
MERde
(15:20)
JEONGIN PLEASE
urlocalcryptid
(15:20)
MEATY??????
lampf*cker
(15:20)
like you don't agree?
lampf*cker
(15:20)
you literally looked like you were ten seconds away from taking a bite out of his arm
urlocalcryptid
(15:19)
SAYS YOU??? FONDGAZER 9000???
lampf*cker
(15:20)
HUH
Seungmin ™
(15:20)
I’m detecting the faint scent of hypocrisy here but I could be wrong
MERde
(15:20)
No no youre 1000% right
MERde
(15:20)
Theyre now verbally arguing about who was thirsting harder?
MERde
(15:20)
Damn i wish id been there this morning it sounds like it was a treat
mushroom lord
(15:20)
I'm loving how no one’s correcting the ‘suspicious’ part
MERde
(15:20)
Oh please Changbins got a heart like a jellyfish hes harmless
MERde
(15:20)
His muscles are only for decoration
MERde
(15:21)
Now Chan though? 😳
mushroom lord
(15:21)
… so CHAN’S actually the suspicious one here
Seungmin ™
(15:21)
Seconded
MERde
(15:21)
🤦♀️
MERde
(15:21)
So do you guys want to join us or not
mushroom lord
(15:21)
And third wheel? Gross
Seungmin ™
(15:21)
Wouldn’t it be fifth wheeling though
MERde
(15:21)
Does it really count as third/fifth wheeling if you come preinstalled w a partner
Seungmin ™
(15:21)
I guess?
Seungmin ™
(15:21)
Looks like you're safe then hyunie
MERde
(15:21)
Oh my god im NOT dating chan
Seungmin ™
(15:21)
….
mushroom lord
(15:21)
Guess we’re counting on you to keep US company hyung :)
MERde
(15:22)
Trust me, those four are going to be MUCH more interesting than me
Seungmin ™
(15:22)
Auhujfnejlg
mushroom lord
(15:22)
I cant keep doing this
MERde
(15:22)
???
Seungmin ™
(15:22)
So what time tomorrow??
MERde
(15:22)
Im not sure theyre still arguing
MERde
(15:22)
When theyre done being idiot horny bastards ill let you guys know
mushroom lord
(15:22)
Okie dokie
Seungmin ™
(15:22)
You guys arent in public are you
MERde
(15:22)
We most definitely are
MERde
(15:22)
[picture.img]
mushroom lord
(15:22)
LMFAO NOONA IN THE BG??
Seungmin ™
(15:22)
why is felix gesturing with a lettuce wrap
mushroom lord
(15:22)
Why not
Seungmin ™
(15:22)
🙄
lampf*cker
(15:22)
you guys do know we can just scroll up right
mushroom lord
(15:23)
Duh that’s the funny part
urlocalcryptid
(15:23)
JIN WHY DID YOU TAKE THAT PICTURE
urlocalcryptid
(15:23))
I LOOK LIKE IM ABOUT TO MURDER HIM
mushroom lord
(15:23)
You should’ve
lampf*cker
(15:23)
you bitch i thought you loved me
mushroom lord
(15:23)
This is a one way relationship
lampf*cker
(15:23)
man i cant believe youre in two of those now
urlocalcryptid
(15:23)
OOP–
Seungmin ™
(15:23)
So
Seungmin ™
(15:23)
For the second time
Seungmin ™
(15:23)
What time tomorrow
urlocalcryptid
(15:24)
I dunno lunchish?
Seungmin ™
(15:24)
Lix i dont know how to break it to you but you eat at 3pm
Seungmin ™
(15:24)
That is NOT lunch
urlocalcryptid
(15:24)
Maybe it is for me!!!!! You dont know my life!!!!
Seungmin ™
(15:24)
The problem here is that I actually kinda do
MERde
(15:24)
Alright we keep getting distracted
MERde
(15:24)
How about we call when we get back that should be easier
lampf*cker
(15:24)
If you missed them that much just go see them
MERde
(15:24)
Shut
MERde
(15:24)
We’ll call you two when we're done eating kay?
lampf*cker
(15:24)
simp
MERde
(15:24)
Pot, kettle
MERde
(15:24)
Brb!!
lampf*cker
(15:24)
toodleoo
urlocalcryptid
(15:25)
Im boutta f*ck this wrap up you guys arent even ready
THE TOWNIES ™
[2/5 online]
Seungmin ™
(15:25)
Well
Seungmin ™
(15:25)
This is going to be interesting
mushroom lord
(15:25)
Oh yah
mushroom lord
(15:25)
I can't wait
Seungmin ™
(15:25)
You chaotic thing
mushroom lord
(15:25)
;]
◦ 𓆝 ｡𓆟 ⋆ 𓆞 ◦ 𓆝
It was beginning to feel as if Felix spent more time by the seaside than he did in his own house.
He quickly banished the thought and paused halfway down the stone stairs, star-struck by the sight he saw before him: it was windy that morning, the sunlight streaming and fading between the curling sea of clouds reflecting over the frothy waves crashing against each other in the peaceful hubbub of the tide. From this high up, Felix was offered a landscape of watercolor and clay to raise his camera to, seeking to capture it all with the same prayer that film would be as faithful to the eye he always had when looking through the lens.
His camera shifted for a moment when he looked down toward the plain of familiar tidepools sparkling golden and silver in the sun as pearls of foam scattered across them with every passing wave, breath catching as he found Changbin, waiting as promised. He was lost in a moment to himself as he happily laid across the edge of the pool, one hand tucked under his head as he toyed with the creatures in the tidepool by raising little bubbles of floating starfish and jellies and poking at them with a grin before setting them back down with the same amount of care. He was radiant, Felix thought, but not because of the way the sun shone over his skin or highlighted the dips of his scales as he stretched his fins behind him like a suncatcher, but because of the way he smiled. It was soft, and kind, and a glowing kind of gentleness that pulled at Felix’s heart like a marionette.
Beautiful.
His finger pressed down on the shutter.
(Then a few more times for posterity.)
His foot shifted as unintentionally swayed in his spot, crunching under his weight. Changbin’s head whipped up at the sound of it, eyes wide in alarm before they settled into relief at the sight of Felix and his camera. “Wouldn’t the view be better down here?” Changbin called with a wave, smile curling at the edges with his teasing.
Felix forced himself to set the camera down despite the way his fingers twitched. He huffed, but his lips were spreading into a lazy smile as he hopped down the rest of the stairs. “I’m surprised you came,” he said as he toed off his shoes and teetered across the pools, giggling at the feeling of the cool waves rushing over his feet as he finally reached Changbin. “Is Jisung alright?”
Changbin sighed, but nodded, watching Felix as he sat down in a dry spot beside him, shielding his eyes from the sun. “He’s fine; just a bit spooked,” he said, face shifting. “All of us are, really.”
Felix sucked on his lip, not wanting to be pushy but still worried in his heart of briar-tangled hearts. “You…” he hesitated, taking a breath. “You said you’d explain what happened.” He fidgeted, hoping he wasn’t crossing a line.
Thankfully, Changbin didn’t seem too ruffled as he rolled onto his back, folding his arms under his head and leaning back to peer up at Felix. “I did,” he hummed, amusem*nt flickering over his face. “You can ask what you’d like, you know.”
Felix blew out a huff as he settled his elbows on his crossed legs, plopping his chin in his palms. “I didn’t want to be rude.”
“If you were, I just wouldn’t answer you.”
“...Alright.”
Changbin giggled, tail flicking in time to his amusem*nt, and Felix shook his head with a muted laugh. This close, the image of the pink pearl amongst the tidepools was sharper, showing him a boy close to his own age dazzled with youth and light alike as Changbin shut his eyes to bask in the sun for a moment. Scars glowed pale against his skin, paired with smatterings of scales that shifted with each passing breath. Felix grew up with the stories of beautiful mermaids, entranced by the colorful, alluring women who used their beauty to enchant and perhaps punish, but the real deal had absolutely nothing on Changbin, just a hair's breadth away to touch and behold.
He was a mosaic of life and color, and Felix, not for the first time, wished he could paint.
“What are you thinking about over there that's got you so quiet?”
Tinged in a laugh, Changbin’s words were like soda, bubbling with caffeine.
Felix resisted the urge to touch.
“Nothing, really,” he said instead, tilting his head as a devious curl slid into his smile amidst the bubble burst of courage. “Just thinking about how pretty you are.”
That got Changbin’s attention, eyes flying open in time to the startled violet streaks across his arms. The reaction made Felix smile, teeth and all as Changbin craned his head backwards to squint at Felix. “That’s a new one,” Changbin laughed out, a bit wobbly as he tried to hide how flustered he was, but his flicking tail gave him away like a cat.
Felix frowned. “That’s a shame,” he said, genuine, “you should hear it more often.”
This time he wasn’t meaning to flirt, to be cheeky, but his tongue took a cue from his heart and let the words out before he could stop them. Horrified, Felix stared at a patch of rock, mentally berating himself for what just came out of his mouth.
Changbin, surprisingly, only huffed a laugh despite his cheeks being rosy. “I’d say the same for you, pretty,” he said, meeting Felix’s eyes with a dangerously serious look amidst his teasing. “From where you’re sitting it looks like you’re glowing.”
Felix’s face was on fire. Oh, I can’t do this.
“I–” he coughed, incredibly unsubtle, and Changbin outright laughed this time– “um, thank you?”
“You’re very welcome,” Changbin replied, sitting up and stretching his arms over his head with a groan before turning to face Felix; his face softened into a deadly genuinity. “I mean it, though.”
Felix cleared his throat, effectively off-balance, but he found he didn’t hate the feeling. “So– um– were you going to tell me about the boat thing, or should I annoy someone else about it?”
Changbin grinned, all teeth and teasing. “As if you could,” he pointed out, and Felix rolled his eyes. “About the boat, though: what do you know about one called The Leviathan?”
Felix blinked, parsing. “It… sounds familiar, I think; why?”
Changbin took a long, deep breath, the sound of it making Felix wary as the bubbly atmosphere faded away with the ebb of the tide. “It’s a small sailing boat that belongs to a pack of poachers,” Changbin explained, voice dripping with disdain. “Humans, the lot of them, and stubborn at that.”
A faint burst of recognition lit up behind Felix’s eyes as a logo fell into place: big looping black letters, marred with a deep, nasty gash through the first few. Changbin caught the reaction, eyes widening with curiosity as Felix lifted his head. “Kinda dingy, with a big nasty slice on the side of it?”
Changbin laughed, a dry sound. “Yeah, that’s the one,” he said, the darkness in his tone making Felix’s stomach twist. “Chan’s the one who did that, actually.”
Felix’s eyes went wide as saucers. “The– holy sh*t, the mark, you mean?” he blurted, earning a wry smile. “You know the poachers?”
“Sort of; more like they know us.” Changbin’s silence was heavy, and Felix filled in the gaps with a sickening shift in his chest.
While they called themselves ‘explorers of the peculiar’, Changbin was correct in calling them ‘poachers’, searching for fame in the form of hunting and selling pieces of the mythological for fame and money. For the past few years they'd had their sights set on Changbin and the others after an unfortunate incident where a late-night excursion on land ended up with the poachers getting an exclusive show of human-to-mermaid transformation magic. Now, with that tiny mistake fanning the flame of human stubbornness and greed, the crew was doggedly determined to get their hands on a ‘real-live magical creature’ no matter the cost.
Several fishing and harpoon attempts and many ripped nets and skin later, the pod finally managed to shake them a few months ago. Now, the pod never stayed in one place too long, vigilant, fake eyes open just in case, but they'd been safe for a while.
Until yesterday, it seemed.
Despite himself, Felix bit back a wave of guilt, knowing if it weren't for him they would've been able to keep moving.
“That group is definitely trouble,” Felix agreed with a little disheartened sigh. “During the warmer months a few of the ahjummas from another town up the coast will visit us to trade and sell their harvests, and multiple times I've seen The Leviathan heckling them to the point that they leave.”
Changbin scrunched his nose in disbelief. “Seriously?”
Felix nodded, picking the stone. “That's why I recognized the name; they're always peddling their ‘wares’ and trying to gain access to The Town because they figured out there's magic here, but I haven't seen them for a while.” He groaned, flicking a rock into the water. “I'm sorry, I– I should've mentioned something sooner, and now I've put you in danger just by asking you to come talk to me.”
A light hand on his ankle made him look up, seeing Changbin shaking his head. “Don’t do that to yourself,” he scolded, stern but soft. “You didn’t make me do anything, do you understand? I like coming to see you.” His expression was halfway between a genuine frown and a petulant pout, and Felix’s insides felt like they’d been blended.
“Still,” Felix mumbled, eyes back on the stone as he picked at his nails, interrupted from his sulk when a bubble of water burst against the tip of his nose, cool and startling.
“You're overthinking it,” Changbin scolded with a smile as Felix rubbed at his nose, blinking. “You’re as bad as Jisung at this rate.”
Felix clicked his tongue, nudging Changbin's hand with his foot and a crooked smile. “Don't insult Jisung like that,” he snickered, and Changbin rolled his eyes.
“You're impossible.”
“ You're the one who just said you like seeing me.”
Felix's amusem*nt was in the line of his raised eyebrow and the tilt of his lips as Changbin blushed, a messy thing that blotched at his cheeks like poppy petals; messy, lovely.
He wanted to see it again.
So he spent the next hour doing what he did best with Changbin: talking, explaining the plans for the picnic later that afternoon (Minho cooked, Felix baked, and Hyunjin kept Seungmin and Jeongin out of the kitchen) as well as his adventures at work and why he hadn't been down to the water for so long. Changbin, as Felix really should've expected, wasn't upset in the slightest by Felix's absence (“You mean you didn't miss me?” “No, I meant I don't resent you for having other things to do!”) and went exploring with Jisung and Chan. As he talked about the caves and the few ship wrecks caught on the rocks and planes beneath The Town, Felix's curiosity turned to nausea, curling and uneasy in the afterimage of aching lungs and bones.
Changbin stopped speaking, tilting his head. “What's wrong?”
Instantly, Felix shook his head. “Nothing– sorry.”
Changbin raised an eyebrow before gently wiggling his hand, currently caught between Felix's own. During the conversation Felix shuffled to sit directly beside Changbin, one foot tucked under his leg while the other toed at the water. Absently, though, he started picking at his nails, an old and only mildly destructive habit, and Changbin dropped one of his own hands atop Felix's without breaking from the conversation. Instead of stopping, Felix instead turned his attention to Changbin's hand, tracing absent circles along the skin and scales and scars and watching as the faint violet of Changbin’a magic followed the touch, illuminating the path of Felix's fingers.
(Changbin said nothing, content to let him continue, warmed by the touch.)
Felix flushed, releasing Changbin’s. “Sorry,” he repeated, and Changbin sighed as he pulled his hand back, but not without lightly patting Felix’s shoulder on the way.
“You don't need to apologize,” Changbin hummed, “is something on your mind?” Felix chewed on his lip, the action making Changbin frown before he spoke again. “It has to do with the storm, doesn’t it?”
Felix blinked, eyes wide in shock. “I– how…?”
Changbin nodded toward the water. “You keep looking back out toward the cliffs,” he said, a small, understanding smile perched on his lips.
Felix sighed, chest heavy. “Am I really that easy to read?”
Changbin laughed. “You wear your heart on your sleeve, that's all,” he corrected, bumping his shoulder against Felix's. “Nothing wrong with that.”
Felix blew a raspberry, a bit off-put by his own embarrassment. His shoulders slumped as he gnawed on his thoughts for a moment, and Changbin let him sit in silence with his thoughts for a moment. “How much do you remember from that night?” Felix eventually asked, curiosity and anxiety hand-in-hand as he spoke. He was picking at his nails again.
Changbin let out a careful breath. “Not much, actually,” he confessed, surprising Felix enough that his head popped up. “The moon affects us as well so I have no doubt she was at play, but before I found you the only thing I remember is something like a voice in a dream waking me up and telling me to go, and before I knew it I saw you by the cave mouth, sinking down toward the bottom.” He shrugged, clearly trying to dispel the way the memory made him shiver.
Felix shelved the beginning part for a moment as he narrowed in on the second half of his sentence. “I don’t know if it was the same thing that compelled me in the first place, but when I was actually in the water something grabbed my leg and pulled me down,” he started, kicking out the ankle in question.
Changbin’s eyes went round in horror. “Oh my god, you don’t think I did that, do you?” he blurted, and Felix wasn’t sure if it was an accusation or a theory. Either way, Felix knew he was wrong, certain down to the bone.
Felix shook his head. “Not unless you happen to have invisibility in your mermaid repertoire,” he joked, trying to ease the tension. Changbin snorted, and he counted it as a victory. “What’s been bothering me is that I have no idea what or where I ended up, but you keep bringing up a cave of some sort; what do you mean?
Changbin tilted his head. “There’s this cave at the base of the cliffs right, but the mouth of it is a bit hard to reach,” he said, vaguely gesturing over Felix’s shoulder at the water. “You didn’t know?”
Felix stared at him pointedly, waiting, and Changbin clicked his tongue.
“Ah, right; my bad.”
Felix rolled his eyes, good-humored, but his anxiety hadn't yet abated. “You were talking about how you three have never ventured there, but you still know about it– why? Is there something there that repels you, but compels me? Why did I end up there? Why me? And what the hell was that big–” he paused in his panicked rambling to reenact the massive maw his scattered memory provided him– “monster thing that tried to eat me?”
Hands dropped onto his shoulders, skin warm; his mouth clicked shut. “I don’t know,” Changbin replied, his simplicity like ice water to the face. “What I do know, though, is that whatever is in that cave radiates old magic that makes my skin buzz, so we try not to go near it.”
Felix took a breath, trying to steady his stampeding heart; unfortunately, the hands on him weren’t helping. The thought he’d been chip-chip-chipping away at during the conversation rose to his tongue, a haphazard soap-stone figure of a theory held in his shaky hands. “Do you think there’s something in there that was calling us to it intentionally?”
Shock flashed across Changbin’s face. “Felix, it nearly killed you,” he said bluntly, as if Felix had forgotten the feeling of icy water burning through his lungs as unhinged joy turned to unbridled panic. “It could’ve been a trick of the water like your local legends have, or even the moon messing with you!”
Felix scrunched his nose, temper flaring like a dull ache. “You were there too, and you don’t know why; you said it yourself!”
“I– I don’t know, but I’m from the sea and you are not; it was probably just a coincidence!”
“How do you know for certain?”
“I never said I did, but like I did say, it’s probably nothing.”
“So if I go and check that cave I won’t find anything?”
Changbin goggled at him, flabbergasted. “And how in the hell do you plan on getting there, huh? Never mind the fact that there’s at least four reasons why that’s a horrible idea.”
Felix crossed his arms, challenging; Changbin raised his chin, matching him, but he wasn’t deterred. “And what exactly would those four reasons be, hm?”
Changbin flattened his lips into a thin, unamused line. “You can’t swim that far down, you have no idea where the cave even is, and Hyunjin and Minho would skin me.” Each point was a tick of the finger and a stern, stubborn look, but Felix raised an eyebrow.
“That’s only three.”
“Hyunjin and Minho are each one specific point.”
“Okay, fine, I see what you mean,” he admitted, and Changbin breathed a sigh of relief; Felix clicked his tongue. “But– I still want to explore the cave,” he pressed, stubborn, and Changbin groaned.
“God, you humans and your tenacity,” Changbin complained as he rubbed at his face, making Felix snort. “How would you even get there without a.) getting caught or b.) getting sick?”
Felix narrowed his eyes at him, curious. “So your problem isn’t so much about the fact that I want to go in the first place, but my methods?” he asked, testing the waters.
Changbin sighed, and Felix knew he’d caught him. “I’ll admit, I’m curious as well,” Changbin confessed, and Felix laughed at him, pointing an accusatory finger at him; Changbin caught it, pulled his hand forward, and intertwined their fingers together in punishment. Felix, sufficiently silenced, pinked, eyes staring at their hands in shock. Changbin’s ear fins glowed a faint violet, but he cleared his throat and continued, pretending not to notice. “However, I don’t want you getting yourself hurt because of something that could turn out to be nothing.”
Felix shrugged despite the way his heart beat wildly behind his ribs. “I’d get to do it with you; that’s not nothing.”
Changbin choked on his spit. “I– that’s not what I meant,” he coughed, turning away when Felix’s bubbly smile leaned in close to him. “I don’t want you getting in trouble, that’s all, and I mean that both physically and socially.”
Felix squeezed Changbin’s fingers, a selfish request on the tip of his tongue as well as in the palm of his hand. “What if you help me, then?”
Changbin’s fingers twitched. “What are you asking?”
Felix started to chew on his cheek again, but Changbin curled his other hand around their interwoven fingers; he stopped, looking back over at Changbin. “I don’t know if there’s magic or something you could use to help, but–” he caught his breath, shame bursting in his chest like rotten fruit as he realized he was probably pushing too far. He shook his head, shutting his eyes. “Never mind; it’s stupid.”
The silence was crushing, filled only with the gentle rush of water across the stones and the distant gulls. Guilt crawled under Felix’s skin, sticky and pointed, turning to ice when Changbin replied.
“It’s not stupid.”
Felix huffed. “You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”
Changbin leaned around him until Felix was forced to meet his eye, making him jump along with his heartbeat. “If your curiosity is as insatiable as it seems,then no, I don’t think it’s stupid if I can help you lay it to rest,” he insisted, marblesque in his certainty in comparison to Felix’s clumsy soapstone. “I’d ask if you’re really comfortable about going back into the water, but, well.” He nodded toward Felix’s feet, which were both draped over the edge of the tidepool, shin-deep in the water as he kicked anxious circles under the surface.
Sheepishly, Felix grinned at him. “You’re serious, huh?” he asked, smile fading at the fond huff of admonition as Changbin squeezed his fingers.
“I have my own questions,” Changbin said, which only worsened that worrisome curiosity lurking under Felix’s skin. “So then, mister explorer, did you have a certain time you’d like to attempt this mission?”
Felix looked around, figuring it was early enough before their planned picnic and clear enough with no sign of rain or storms to impede them. “How about now?”
Changbin slowly blinked at him. “Right now?”
Felix shrugged. “Why not? No time like the present, right?” he said as he wiggled his hand out of Changbin’s and pulled his feet from the water to stand, stretching his arms over his head with a little groan before retrieving his phone from his pocket. “I mean, it is daytime, so hopefully there’s not going to be any sharks or things like that out to get me unless that big thing that tried to eat me the night of the storm shows back up again.”
Changbin was rolling his eyes as he slid back into the water. “It probably wasn’t a shark, considering the only ones I’ve ever seen around here are the occasional white-tip,” he said, eyes on Felix as Felix tugged his shirt over his head. Felix heard Changbin clear his throat and Felix bit back a smile as he folded his shirt to set it on a rock where it wouldn’t get soaked. “Sung always says they’re pretty nice, and I’ve personally never had any bad interactions with them.”
Felix paused in the middle of unbuttoning his pants to point at Changbin, another thought popping into place. “That’s something else I’ve been meaning to ask about: can you guys, like speak fish?”
Changbin tore his eyes away from where he was confusedly staring at Felix’s fly to reply. “I– well, yeah; it’s just another language, like turtles or smaller fish or even Korean– some birds, too, if you ask Chan– but– what are you doing?”
Felix paused from where he was stepping out of his shorts, frowning. “I don’t wanna get my clothes wet,” he said, left in nothing but his rubber duckie-print boxers to swim in as he folded his pants. “I don’t really want to spend the picnic all soggy, y’know?”
Changbin was visibly torn between gawking and questioning, which resulted in him squinting at Felix with enough force that Felix couldn’t help but laugh. “Okay, I get that, but couldn’t, I dunno, Minho or someone dry them with magic?” he asked, slow and only a touch judgemental.
Felix scrunched his nose. “I’d like to have clothes afterward, thank you very much,” he replied, and Changbin snorted, knowing of Seungmin’s pyromania and Minho’s inability to keep a flame properly focused before it got too excited.
“Alright, you got me there,” he ceded, sarcastically holding his hands up in surrender. “I like your ducks, by the way.”
Felix beamed. “Thank you! They’re my favorite, which is kinda a weird thing to say because, like, who usually says they have a favorite pair of underwear, yeah? But I think they’re comfy, and–” Changbin’s eyebrow was raised, and a terribly endeared smile was slowly tugging at the corners of his lips; Felix stopped, neck suddenly on fire, and cleared his throat. “So, um, what’s the plan to get me underwater?”
Changbin laughed. “Well, unless you want me to pull you under, I suggest you just come in yourself,” he teased, amusem*nt bright in the scattered sparks of purple light reflecting within his scales that creased by his smile.
Felix stuck his tongue out at him and plopped back down by the edge of the pool after arranging his stuff in a neat pile out of reach of the water, shivering as it touched his skin once again. “I meant the breathing part,” he corrected, staring at his reflection in the waves. “I can hold my breath for a good while, but something tells me that won’t be enough.”
Changbin stared at him for a moment, regarding him as he pored over something mentally, but the scrutiny brought heat back to Felix’s neck. “I think I have an idea, but it’s a bit weird,” he said, shuffling closer to Felix to rest a hand on his knee.
Felix’s stupid, selfish mouth took hold of his tongue once again as a laugh tinged in rose and honey painted his lips. “Don’t tell me you have to kiss me or something,” he teased, a sarcastic smile perched on his face.
(He should’ve known better than to flirt with a creature of charm.)
Emboldened by the sarcasm, Changbin lightly patted Felix’s leg just enough so Felix– still sitting on the edge– spread his knees, making space for Changbin to slot easily between them. Then, as Felix short-circuited, he planted his hands on Felix’s thighs and pushed himself up out of the water until he was eye-level with Felix; Changbin’s chin tipped up with a satisfied smirk as Felix’s cheeks burned. “Why? Changbin challenged, voice so low it was practically a purr, “are you asking me to?”
A smirk curled into a grin backlit by violet as Felix’s mind went blank at the sight of a very attractive man currently incredibly close to his lips.
(And, well….other places.)
Changbin’s hands weren’t even shaking despite the way he was bracing himself out of the water, and Felix knew he’d met his match as Changbin’s eyebrow inched up when Felix’s eyes fell helplessly to his lips, his arms, and then back up to his eyes.
Caught you, hook, line, and sinker.
Felix wondered what would happen if he passed out right then and there as Changbin laughed, the sound like ambrosia poured directly into his bloodstream.
Thankfully, Changbin didn’t give him a chance to answer as he shifted his weight, dropping one hand to lean his forearm across Felix’s lap as he lifted his other hand. “Take a deep breath for me,” he instructed, fingers glowing in shimmering violet. Nodding dumbly, Felix complied, breath a bit crooked but still solid as he sucked it in. As he did, Changbin brought his hand to Felix’s chest, fingertips carefully sliding out until his palm was flat against Felix’s sternum.
All Felix could think of was the night they met, where he had nothing but a gentle voice and cooling fingers against his skin as Changbin asked him to breathe, to step back from the edge of death and return to the friends watching on, terrified.
(A ‘coincidence’? No way.)
Violet curled in a dreamy glow around Changbin’s irises as a cool shift behind Felix’s ribcage made Felix scrunch his eyebrows. It wasn’t painful, but definitely not comfortable either. Changbin hummed to himself as he started to draw his hand away. “Now, hold it,” he said, sliding off of Felix’s lap until he was back in the water. He held out his hand, imploring but hesitant, the water curling around him, reflecting the gold of the sun across his skin.
Unlike that night of the storm where the waves sang and beckoned to him like the call of the underworld, Felix was faced with nothing but the breath in his chest and the fractals of sunlight flickering in Changbin’s eyes as he silently waited, a question– not a command– in his expression:
Do you trust me?
This time, with giddiness like melting wax and feathers of excitement brushing against the breath trapped between his lungs, he willingly reached out toward temptation, sealing his hand in Changbin’s and sliding beneath the water.
In the daylight the water wasn’t as bone-chilling, but the voice of reason fostered by The Town to stay out of the water made his lungs shake with guilt, eyes screwed shut. Changbin’s hand, still holding his, gingerly curled until Felix’s fingers were tight in his grasp. “Are you alright?”
Clear as a bell, Felix could hear Changbin’s voice under the water, but it wasn’t quite the same sound he was used to; this was filtered, crystallized, focused, like light through a snowflake. Felix cracked an eye open to squint at him, only for his eyes to widen in awe as he saw what a mermaid looked like in his own realm:
He gasped as his eyes swept over Changbin in delighted awe at the way the shifting light marbled by the surface illuminated his opalescence, and it wasn’t until Changbin laughed– bright and clear under the water, somehow everywhere at once and curling by his ears– that he realized he’d stopped holding his breath.
“Feeling okay?” Changbin asked, reaching out to tap at Felix’s chest.
And– yeah, he was, miraculously breathing as if he were still sitting on that rock just above the surface, but Felix’s brain was so overrun with the rush of traversing into the forbidden and the potency of Changbin’s beauty turned ethereal by the waves that the only thing that came out of of his mouth was a bubbly chirp in the shape of a smile: “Look at you– you’re so pretty! ” he blurted, as genuine as every breath he took.
Changbin tried to hide his smile, curving into his upside down crescent as he fought it, but the sparkles of violet refracting through his scales gave him away. “You already said that,” he huffed, embarrassed but pleased, releasing Felix’s hand to tip his head toward the cliffs. “Down this way; let me know if your ears start to hurt.”
Felix was still staring, smile aching as he just looked at Changbin. He was being an idiot and he knew it, but the flustered and flattered expression on Changbin’s face was just as lovely as everything else about him. Changbin rolled his eyes and started to dive, forcing Felix to clumsily follow after him as best as he could without a tail. Felix was fascinated by Changbin’s, all pinks and warm silvers that shifted as he moved, fins like gossamer that flowed unlike anything possible out of the water ,making Felix’s fingers itch.
They look… soft? I wonder if they are; what would they feel like?
…I’m losing my mind.
Changbin, a few feet below him, turned around and paused, the action making both his hair and the chain around his waist float around him, and he smiled as Felix’s eyes tracked to them. “Something on your mind? You seem… distracted.”
Felix choked, coming to a much more inelegant stop than Changbin did as he kicked to a halt. Changbin raised an eyebrow, waiting, and Felix had a feeling Changbin already knew where Felix’s train of thought was going from the way his lips were curling into a smirk. “I– sorry,” he bumbled, rubbing awkwardly at his arms; his hair floated in unruly golden strands around his face like jellyfish tentacles. “I just– y’know– haven’t really seen a mermaid underwater before.”
Changbin smoothly rose to Felix’s level until Felix was eye-to-eye with Changbin’s knowingness. “You can just ask, you know,” he said, light as he chased down some of Felix’s runaway strands of hair to tuck behind one of his ears. The smile on Changbin’s lips was small, but enough to let Felix know that yeah, maybe he was being a bit more transparent than he realized. Mortified, Felix blew out a raspberry, which underwater turned into a torrent of bubbles that made him jump as they left his lips. Changbin giggled, and Felix’s heart did somersaults. “Here,” Changbin hummed, and curled himself around Felix until he was swathed in scales, fins flaring like open fans all for Felix’s eyes. “Go ahead; I don’t mind.”
If I wasn’t under the effects of anti-drowning magic right now I think I’d die.
Like jewels, the scales were smooth under Felix’s fingers as he lightly traced down Changbin’s hip, intrigued by the fins there as they flicked, almost like he was ticklish. Felix narrowed his eyes playfully at him when Changbin stuck his tongue out at him, but otherwise showed no signs of discomfort. There were spots like scars between dulled scales toward the end of his tail where the violet stripes didn’t pass through, turning into thin, spider-webbing lines across the thinness of his pale pink fins that, yes, really were soft, almost fragile enough to tear under Felix’s clumsy fingers.
Instead, as Changbin tilted his head down at Felix, Felix only hid his face behind Changbin’s gossamer fins and grinned up at him through them, eyes scrunched from the force of his silly smile. Gently, Changbin tugged his fins from Felix’s grasp and lightly swatted him in the cheek, making the both of them laugh like idiots.
They continued their journey downward, Felix desperately wishing he had a camera on him to capture how the earth gave way to the hills and slopes of the sandbar and skittering shoals of fish dotting the gray and green landscape in spots of color before they darted away. The two of them were the largest creatures down there, but it was still bursting with life that Felix could barely catalog before the entire scene shifted, sunlight shattering and pooling across the sand far below in a mosaic of life. He felt at peace here, a quiet passerby, and Felix wondered what he had to be afraid of like the old ladies warned and warned and warned up on the surface.
They were a good distance down the line of the cliffs when Felix’s ears started to ache from the pressure, but a frown, a careful cupping of his ears, and a murmured spell doused in purple later and the pain vanished, leaving behind only a grateful smile and a playful wink before Changbin dived once again. “You’re keeping up with me better than I expected,” Changbin commented as he slowed, the mouth of a cave a few below them.
Felix huffed. “I wasn’t on the swim team for ten years for nothing,” he retorted, but it wasn’t truly bladed as he came to join Changbin’s side, catching Changbin’s arm to keep himself from floating away. “Is that it down there?”
Changbin nodded. “Can you feel the magic?”
Felix wasn’t sure if that’s what it was, but the lingering ache deep within his bones that he didn’t even know was possible spoke of something ancient, a primordial, polarizing that told him to either fight or flee. It was titanic, but in the sense of majresty and enormity, the mouth of a shadowed cave nestled at the base of the cliffs.
Memory flickered through Felix like a flare, but fear was banished under the hand of fascination.
Without another word, Felix set off toward the cave, ignoring Changbin’s squawk of confusion as he kicked down toward the cave’s opening. Changbin quickly followed, alighting behind Felix as he paused by the entrance to illuminate the space with his stripes of light. As he did, Felix’s eyes went wide as it revealed straggling, fang-like shapes protruding from the ceiling and the floor of the cave itself, too smooth and shaped to be stone, but too weathered and separated to be bone.
Truly, it did look like the mouth of a ferocious beast, but Felix, even under Changbin’s light, wasn’t able to tell if it was a skeleton of a long-lost leviathan or a cave with fangs sharpened by time and water; he wanted to laugh.
“Going in?”
Felix turned to meet Changbin’s eye, grinned, and swam directly into the mouth of the beast.
Past the teeth and the bones of a curving, spine-like throat, the cave and its sloping walls led him upward until he saw a shimmering pool of the water’s surface above him. Knitting his eyebrows, he swam upwards, shadow shaded in purple from Changbin’s light until his face broke through the water. Gasping in a breath of air was a bit strange given whatever magic Changbin left behind his sternum, but the vague discomfort faded as he took in the sight of the cave the small pool of water gave way to.
Or rather, the shrine.
The walls were painted in symbols and murals that Felix was stumbling out of the water in his haste to observe, carvings and ropes twisted around the bone-like formations throughout the room. Even Changbin stared up in amazement, his luminescence the only source of light in the dark room as it crept across the walls and caught in the cracks. The room was peaceful but powerful, echoing with an energy far older than either of them that sank into Felix’s skin like the soothing song of some unknown language. Felix wasn’t sure who’d been the first to find the cave and drape it in wards and other humming signs of human fragility and devotion, but from the weathering across the talismans and the frayed, braided ropes draped across the ceilings it was clear that no human had stepped foot within the shrine for many, many, many years.
Felix had no idea what was deified and worshiped here, but whatever it was sang down to his very bones as his fingers gingerly brushed against the painted wall, making him gasp. It felt like soaring, carried across the crest of a magnificent wave as voices and prayers of spirits long gone passed through him to spill through the room like the tide. He was so small in this moment, a tiny speck of sunlight reflected across the scales of the guide who’d brought him here, but while he was merely an ephemeral guest amidst the holy shrine he felt welcomed in a rush of relief; the shrine breathed a hello and a goodnight all at once.
“I think this is what I was meant to see,” Felix whispered, not confident enough to raise his voice any louder as he spun around to take in the sight of the room. The water lapped against the stone of the pool, echoing against the walls.
“For what?” Changbin dared to ask, eyeing the murals anxiously. “And why you, a human?”
Felix took a step forward, meaning to investigate, but the cave held him steady in a pulse of warning. Don’t stray too far, it seemed to chide, making him frown as he stepped back toward Changbin. He tilted his head, trying to decipher the tangle of feelings between his ribs as he turned back to face his companion, who wore worry and apprehension across his features. He was missing something, like a secret just out of sight, but he shook the thought away. “I’m not sure,” he admitted, voice softening, “but I think whatever resides in here wants me to find something..”
(Almost, almost, the walls hushed, but Felix didn’t catch it.)
“And how were you supposed to do that without me being here?” Changbin pointed out, making Felix twist his lips in frustrated agreement. “This space is… god, it’s ancient, and definitely powerful, but almost…” He floundered for a word, unable to capture the enormity of the space they resided in.
The shrine breathed again in one deep, calming pulse, and Felix watched as the relics shivered and shook with the action. Understanding clicked into place, a small laugh slipping from his lungs. “It’s a heart,” he said, spinning in a circle as a wash of confirmation crashed over him. Changbin preemptively reached a hand out to keep Felix from slipping, bare feet on the wet ground as he whipped back toward Changbin with delight in his eyes. “Changbin, don’t you see? This is the heart of The Town!”
His joy was not greed-based or that of a crazed devotee, but just a small, wonder-struck sunspot warming the cold corners of the shrine with the genuinity of his heart; the walls did not cave in, nor did the water rise, patient and calm. Even while deep within the center of the most powerful place in the entirety of The Town, Felix’s eyes were only on Changbin–
And Changbin watched the sun, warmed to the bone at the sight of his smile.
(Closer, closer, the walls murmured.)
“Beautiful,” Changbin replied, and the shrine laughed, knowing the words weren’t directed toward it.
Felix beamed. “Isn’t it?” he chirped, grinning as another breath of magic rolled across his skin. “Thank you for bringing me here,” he said, meeting Changbin’s eye, before tipping his head back up to the craggy, boney ceiling. “And to whatever resides here, thank you for entrusting us with your beauty.”
Energy like a rippling laugh echoed across the walls, and Felix’s smile was golden.
Eventually, Felix chose to sit back down beside Changbin and bask in the peace of the room, only disturbed by the sound of their occasional hums and quiet conversation passed between them when Felix’s curiosity popped back into being. “By the way,” he started, gesturing to a nearby mural where a wall of oceanic creatures merged together into a mosaic of color and sound, “you were talking about speaking to different creatures and how Chan likes to speak to birds; what about you?”
Changbin snorted, readjusting where he was leaning on the crumbly ledge of the pool. “I was going to tell you, but then you decided to get naked for some reason.”
Felix’s jaw dropped in mock offense, Changbin’s grin already creeping across his lips. “I already told you– I didn’t want my clothes to get soggy!” he complained, poking Changbin in the shoulder. Changbin giggled, but it turned to a wince as he suddenly pushed away from the ledge to examine his arms; angry and irritated from the sharp, uneven stone, Felix frowned. “Are you okay? It didn’t cut you, did it?”
“Mn, I don’t think so, but it’s kinda scratchy,” Changbin said, rubbing at the sore spots with a huff.
Felix was moving before his brain could catch up. “Here,” he started, uncrossing one of the legs folded underneath him to stretch it into the pool, allowing Changbin free access to his thigh, “you can rest here, if you want.”
Changbin blinked at the offered spot for a moment, and Felix contemplated drowning himself for being an idiot. Then, Changbin quietly swam over, catching Felix’s eye for a brief moment of consent before folding his arms atop Felix’s leg and resting his head on them. The weight was comforting, almost soothing, and Felix couldn’t keep the smile flickering across his face as Changbin sighed to himself. After a moment of Felix watching Changbin shut his eyes and quietly tread water, Changbin spoke up, voice a buzz against Felix’s skin. “Whales.”
Felix knit his eyebrows, already having forgotten his own earlier inquiry. “Sorry?”
Changbin huffed a laugh, not opening his eyes. “You asked me which creature in the sea Ispeak to– it’s whales,” he repeated, smile pulling at his lips; Felix wanted to card a hand through his soft, dark curls, but refrained for his own sanity. “It’s not often that I come across them, but when I do they always have the best stories to tell; They're the best story-tellers in the ocean, really.” His words were soft with honesty and introspection, endearing and warm all the same.
“Do they sing for you?” Felix asked, wondering if whale song was different for mermaids.
Changbin cracked an eye open, shining with amusem*nt. “They only sing for themselves,” he corrected, fingers tapping against Felix’s leg. “They do occasionally allow for a duet here and there.”
Felix was struck with the image of Changbin beside an old, lovely whale, singing a song for him to share as gratitude for listening to her tale, or perhaps a young mother and her calf singing home to the rest of her pod now that they were en-route home. It filled him with a sense of joy and something close to melancholy, knowing it was an experience he’d never personally get to live, and a tiny tug of selfishness pulled at him. “Do you remember any of the songs?” he asked, quiet and a bit guilty.
Changbin lifted his head to meet Felix’s eyes, amusem*nt softening his features. “You need to get better at asking for things outright,” he teased, but his smile didn’t fade in the slightest, instead brightening when Felix flushed. “I’ll sing for you, but afterward we’re going back, okay?”
“You’re not planning on using any fancy mermaid magic to compel me, are you?” Felix joked, leaning back on his hands with a sigh.
Changbin snorted, settling his head back down. “Why would I when I have you right where I’d like you?” he hummed, shoulders shaking with a laugh when Felix’s breath caught on a squeak.
“Don’t make me push you in.”
“You wouldn’t,” Changbin happily countered as he shut his eyes, and Felix knew he’d lost.
Then, Changbin took a breath and began to sing, and Felix realized he was not just lost, but ruined, a shipwreck taken by the waves.
Changbin’s voice was higher than Felix expected, softer, rounder, each unfamiliar syllable perfectly placed between his teeth as the melody soared from his lips to echo around the cave. Felix didn’t need to understand the words to know it was a song about joy and freedom, curling through his hair like a buffeting breeze on the edge of a cliff dappled by the scent of the sea. It was golden, it was blue, it was warm, taking Felix by the hand as he too shut his eyes to let it sweep him away.
Like the strings of a harp, the music reverberated across the tenderness strung through the bones of his ribs, and everything in Felix was alight. He wanted to harmonize with him, to surrender to the free-fall of song, but settled for letting it wash over him instead.
(If this is what mermaid song sounds like without the charm, I don’t think I’d be able to survive the full thing.)
As the final notes rang out and faded into the shrine walls, Felix slowly opened his eyes, breath catching as he realized spots of the walls were glowing, light catching in the shapes and the eyes of the creatures and talismans painted against the walls like dotted constellations. Felix gently shook Changbin’s shoulder until his eyes opened, pointing up at the ceiling until Changbin, too, was gazing up at the lights in awe.
(Like an offering, the cave digested the song, grateful for its first taste of light in so many years.)
“That was beautiful,” Felix breathed as the lights began to dim, cheeks aching from his smile. “Where did you learn that song from?”
Changbin’s face fell, surprising Felix. Changbin chewed on his lip as his eyes fell to the sandy floor, a heaviness laying across his shoulders. “An old blue whale singing his final song,” he replied, words so quiet Felix almost missed them. “He’d been harpooned, and even though he escaped it… wasn’t enough to keep his injuries from claiming him.”
Felix’s eyes stung, horrified. Such a beautiful, joyful song came from a creature on the brink of death?
Changbin traced shapes in the sand, fins occasionally breaking the surface as he tread water, but he said nothing else. “I’m so sorry,” Felix whispered, reaching out to rub at Changbin’s back in a poor facsimile of comfort. “I’m sure he was grateful for the company in the final moments at the very least.”
Changbin huffed, a tired sound, but a faint smile ticked at his lips. “Maybe so,” he mumbled, relaxing into Felix’s touch.
“No one deserves to be alone during a time like that,” Felix continued, voice quiet. “His song is a testament to the happiness you brought to him; don’t let it haunt you.”
Changbin turned his head to look up at Felix, something unreadable in his expression. “You’re a curious thing, aren’t you?” he hummed, not elaborating when Felix blinked up at him. “Don’t ever change, Felix.”
“I don’t plan to?” Felix replied, a bit lost as Changbin pulled himself off of Felix’s lap to stretch his arms over his head with a groan.
“Glad to hear it,” Changbin said, that down-turned smile returning to his face. “Now, shall we get going? I do believe we have a picnic to attend, and I don’t really think they’d appreciate me bringing you back wet and naked.”
Felix went a horrendous shade of fuschia. “Don’t phrase it like that!” he complained, making Changbin laugh as he lifted a hand to press it against Felix’s chest like he had earlier.
“I’m right and you know it; now take a deep breath in before I drag you out by your feet.”
“Changbin!”
The shrine was filled with the candy-coated mixture of their laughter as Changbin relit the charm in Felix’s chest and urged him to follow, dipping back below the surface. Still holding his breath, Felix turned to look over his shoulder at the cave one more time with a quiet smile, whispering a silent prayer of gratitude once more before he slipped into the water with barely a splash.
The walls hummed and glowed in farewell, lights winking out slowly as the two departed, content with its offerings to return to its long, familiar slumber; the magic dimmed like a shut eye, powerful and still once more.
(Quietly, a boat motor sputtered into life, trailing into the distance, unseen and unheard.)
◦ 𓆝 ｡𓆟 ⋆ 𓆞 ◦ 𓆝
After an impromptu game of tag that ended with Felix losing Changbin by swimming through a shoal of shimmering minnows (the shine of the sunlight threw off Changbin, overwhelmed by the colors), Felix resurfaced by the familiar edge of the tidepools with a laugh on his lips as he steadied himself on the stones.
The laughter quickly died as six pairs of incredulous eyes rounded on him, making him freeze.
Oh, f*ck– we were gone for that long?!
“See, I told you he was fine,” came Jisung's voice from where he was lying across one of the rocks, this directed toward Hyunjin, who was already barreling toward Felix.
“And how was I supposed to know that when his stuff was just sitting in a pile?” Hyunjin retorted, ignoring Jisung’s eye roll.
Changbin popped out of the surface just as Hyunjin approached, startling Hyunjin so badly he shrieked. “Oh, sh*t– uh, hi, Hyunjin,” Changbin blurted, flicking a panicked look back toward Felix.
“Okay– what the hell, you two?!” Hyunjin shouted as he whipped his eyes between both of them, face mottled with worry-stained fury. “And you–” he pointed at Felix, who cringed– “out of the water, now! Come on, come on!”
“Okay, okay, I’m coming– ow!”
“Jesus, Hyunjin, he’s your friend, not your catch of the day; be gentle,” Seungmin scolded as Hyunjin sloshed over toward the pool to snatch Felix under the arm, yanking a bit too hard hard in his haste. Felix winced, but allowed Hyunjin to manhandle him out of the water. The sea water brought scales to the surface of Hyunjin’s skin with each brush of sea foam, paired with the panicked flutter of Hyunjin’s eyes as he looked Felix over.
“What were you thinking?” Hyunjin whispered as Minho stumbled over, towel in hand. “Where did you even go?”
“That’s what I’d like to know,” Chan chimed in as he surfaced beside Changbin, face taut. “I searched and searched, but nothing; where’d you disappear to?”
Felix and Changbin shared a cautious, sheepish expression, interrupted as the towel in Minho’s hands dropped over Felix’s head as Minho started ruffling his hair in an attempt to dry it off. Felix spluttered, trying to bat Minho’s hands away, but Minho clicked his tongue in admonishment and doubled down. “Answer the man before I force it out of you,” he threatened, voice a light, but deadly hum despite the way he gently dried Felix off. Felix bowed his head, knowing Minho wasn’t one to challenge in the face of threats.
Silence bubbled over the group before Jisung spoke up again, head lifting in realization. “You didn’t go to that cave, did you?” he asked, pinpoint like pinpricks of rain across a puddle, but the deluge it started was nothing but cacophonous.
“Changbin!” Chan admonished, eyes wide in horror as his ears fins flattened. “What were you thinking?”
(“This sounds familiar,” Jeongin mumbled, nudging Seungmin from his spot beside him.)
“It’s my fault, I dragged him into it–”
“What? No, Changbin, stop that, I was the one who wanted to go–”
“You wouldn’t have even made it if I didn’t help you!”
“I was the one who suggested we go today, though!”
“Felix, you knew better,” Minho cut in, eyes flashing with concern. “It’s the middle of the day–”
“And you could’ve gotten yourselves killed,” Chan added over Changbin’s head, turning back to him. “Wasn’t one night of death-defying exploration already enough? What if The Leviathan saw you? What if you got trapped?”
“Clearly they didn’t–”
“Jisung, hush!”
The squabble continued, Hyunjin and Minho fawning over Felix as they dried him and checked for injuries while Chan looked over Changbin with his hands on his shoulders as he searched for wounds, chatter upon chatter crossing across the tidepools until it overwhelmed the amount of water crashing over the stones. If it continued, the chaos threatened to reach a shouting point and draw even further unwanted attention. Jeongin looked over at Seungmin, tipping his head toward the noise with a huff of a tired sigh before he sat up from his spot nestled against Seungmin’s side to let out a breath. “Enough,” Jeongin called, voice ringing and clear as he raised it just enough to silence the chatter. It wasn’t often he used his magic to command, surging like a white-water river as he crossed his arms and fixed the bickering boys with a thin smile, but in this instance he was undeniable, unavoidable, a true testament to a seasoned witch.
Then, like a switch flipped, the river’s rush ebbed as he gestured to the baskets and blankets before him. “Don’t we have a picnic to get to? I’m hungry, and every time I tried to eat something I got smacked by a certain someone,” he complained, flopping back against Seungmin as he glared at his brother. Minho stuck his tongue at him, making Jeongin flash him a wide, toothy grin.
The tension eased, Felix returning to his pile of sun-warmed clothes and tugging them back on. Changbin joined him as he pulled himself out of the water to perch on the edge, stretching his arms over his head. Minho allowed it, squinting at Changbin before he spread the blanket back out before the circle of assorted edible offerings and Hyunjin plopped back down beside Jeongin and Seungmin. Changbin glanced at Felix– apologetic, sighing when Felix waved him off– and caught Jeongin’s eye across the tidepool plateau. “If I had to hazard a guess, I’m assuming you’re Jeongin–” Jeongin smirked, eyes sparkling in mirth– “and you’re Seungmin?”
Seungmin snorted. “What gave it away?” he drawled, as if he weren’t currently plastered against Jeongin and tugging at Hyunjin to him in an effort to get him to lean back and relax.
Changbin raised an eyebrow. “I had a fifty-fifty shot, considering you weren’t actively setting something on fire, so I guess I just got lucky,” he joked, smile wide as Seungmin happily flipped him off. Jeongin cackled at him, wincing when Seungmin pinched the soft skin at the back of his arm and subsequently pouting when Hyunjin joined in on the laughter.
“So,” Felix called, settling peacefully on the rocks with his heart full of bubbles, “where should we start?”
The answer, as it turned out, were the tiny sandwiches Minho painstakingly made the day before (Jisung was ecstatic at the sight of them, launching onto the rocks in an attempt to snatch one of the ham ones even when Chan hollered at him for nearly catching him with his spines) as hunger joined everyone in harmony. With introductions and further apologies out of the way, the eight of them took turns at the foothold of conversion as stories and jokes were passed between them like wine.
Felix had his knees tucked to his chest and his ear turned toward the waves, Changbin happily munching on his sandwiches beside him. Chan was lying on his stomach with his own meal with his tail shading him from the sun as it arched over his head, currently debating with Minho about what kind of storms were more annoying (“Summer has thunderstorms and typhoons!” “Okay, but winter is cold, and the snow kills everything!” “What about after it melts?”). Despite being so invested in the conversation, Minho seemed perfectly content despite the mermaid leaning across his lap to sneak chips from Minho’s stash (arms crossed over Minho’s legs, Jisung quietly crunched on the chips with a happy flutter of his tail as it trailed across the surface of the water) and Felix making pointed looks in Minho’s general direction that Minho definitively ignored as he lazily dropped a hand on Jisung’s back.
Mid-chip, Jisung was cooing in awe as Jeongin extended a hand toward him to reveal a thin, glowing band around his ring finger that appeared with a hush of an incantation, matching the one on Seungmin’s hand as he wiggled it in greeting. They were detailing their tiny wedding to the curious mermaids as Minho happily pitched in (“Jeongin-ah cried and so did Felix, and once they started crying so did Seungmin, and from then on it was just a sh*t-show.” “Hyung, I have pictures of you hugging Jeonginnie while sobbing; do you need me to pull them out?” “Oh– f*ck off, Hyunjin.”), but Felix and Changbin had their curious eyes on Hyunjin: laying back across both of the witches, head leaned back up to peer at them while attempting to hide his melancholy. More telling, however, was how Seungmin was rubbing small circles into Hyunjin’s arm as he spoke, Jeongin similarly starting to braid through the hair strewn across his lap as he lowered his hand.
Changbin’s eyes slid to Felix with a knowing smirk, eyebrow slowly raising as he restrained a messy smile. Felix nodded, and the smile broke free, making Felix laugh boisterously at the sight.
“What are you two laughing at?” Hyunjin called, accusatory. Jeongin swatted him in the arm with a snort, making Hyunjin pout up at him.
“Oh, jeez, it’s hopeless,” Felix mumbled to himself as he scooted forward toward his brownie tie, already mostly demolished by Jisung and Minho the second Hyunjin cracked the lid. “Changbin, you want one?”
“Sure; you made ‘em, right?” Felix nodded, and Changbin grinned. “Say less.”
“Now who’s hopeless?” Hyunjin taunted, but it was outweighed by the light-hearted smile etched across his face. Felix ignored him, scooted back over to Changbin, and handed him one of the brownies before biting into his own; he bit back a smile at the sheer delight that crossed Changbin’s face as he took a bite.
The conversation shifted once again, another moment lost into the hours of the day, and soon the food was gone, personal space was all but claimed, and the sun began to turn to amber as the day faded into the evening.
Currently, Jisung was detailing his last excursion ashore in Australia during a visit to Chan’s family and how he was ‘banned’ for a good while (a unanimous decision by Changbin and Chan) after he’d gotten a bit too rowdy after they’d gone to see a movie. Three drinks in and he was a menace, bright and chatty, which soon led to him being shepherded away from the main city and back toward the water after he started loudly singing with a touch too much siren-song and drawing way too much attention.
“How you didn’t manage to stick yourself growing your spines back in is a mystery to me,” Changbin commented, making Jisung pout as he folded the spiny fins back against his side to keep from pricking Minho.
“I mean– even if I did, it’s not like the poison would work on me!”
“No, but you’d’ve bled all over the place and cried even more.”
“I did not cry!”
“You did,” Chan butt in, smiling from where he was leaning back against the stone, arms behind his head. “You’re lucky it was only those kids who saw us.”
Jisung wilted, melting into a sad little heap. “I already said I’m sorry,” he replied, but he perked up again when Minho ran a comforting hand down his back with a teasing little smirk.
(Felix squinted at Minho, who only blew a raspberry back at him.)
“Oh, I know, but they still talked, someone ended up making a show about you, and here we are,” Chan added, and Felix snorted his drink, wondering if it was the exact TV program he thought it was. “That’s the last time I let you drink in public.”
(If Felix happened to watch every episode as they aired, no one needed to know.)
Jisung groaned, one big lamenting sigh as he dramatically rolled onto his back to drape an arm over his face. “But they didn’t even get the color of my scales right!” he whined, tail flashing in complaint, and Felix burst out laughing.
“That’s really your only issue with that?” Felix asked, giggling when an upside-down Jisung cracked open an eye to smile at him, eyes crinkling under the force of his big, gummy smile.
“I’m very proud of them, excuse you,” Jisung fired back, but both of them were too giggly to be serious. “They bring out my eyes!”
“They sure do,” Minho drawled, leaning over him to stare down at him, and Jisung squeaked at the sight of Minho– haloed by his unglamoured wings– lording over him with a feline grin.
“I should never have let them meet,” Changbin mumbled to Felix, but it was mired in a laugh as Jisung abruptly sat up to chase Minho away with bright red cheeks and his skin sparking with bursts of flustered orange.
Felix nudged him, “Why not? I think it's sweet,” he hummed, and Changbin rolled his eyes.
“It’s like watching my brother flirt– or, well, be flirted with, actually,” Changbin corrected, gesturing to Jeongin, where a similar expression of fraternal (but playful) disgust was perched on his face.
Felix still firmly enjoyed the burgeoning crush fluttering between Minho and Jisung, overjoyed that someone deigned Minho with enough of their time to get to know him. Despite his charm and general oddity, Felix came to learn that Minho was actually severely introverted, and chose to hide behind aloofness to hide the fact that he often times was quite lonely; Jisung, in such a short amount of time, brought out colors and expressions Felix didn’t even know Minho owned, and for that, Felix was incredibly grateful to the stubborn mermaid.
However, somewhere behind his breastbone, Felix knew it wouldn’t last.
After all, the pod never stayed put in one place for long, and they’d already remained in The Town– a place that feared the sea– for much longer than they originally intended. Not all good things lasted, and Felix had a feeling this moment here and now would soon fade into a happy moment he’d rifle through once in a blue moon, smiling at the second- hand feeling of the delighted butterflies sweeping through his lungs.
“Hey, you guys; did you wanna take a picture before it gets too dark?”
The group fell silent as they turned to him, surprised by the suggestion. Even he was startled as the words left his mouth, but he didn’t regret them as he tugged his phone out of his pants to wave it.
Hyunjin spoke up first, eyes bright with delight. “Yes, yes! Come on, you think we can all squish together in frame?”
“If you don’t end up falling in, that is,” Jeongin muttered, snickering when Hyunjin flicked him.
Felix laughed, then gestured for everyone to shuffle together at the edge of the tidepool’s ledge. Chan slid beside Minho and Jisung, smirking as he pushed Jisung a little too close against Minho’s side (Minho didn’t mind, curling a hand around his waist to accommodate the shift), while Felix waved at Changbin to come sit beside him. Changbin fondly rolled his eyes as he acquiesced, claiming his spot before Seungmin threatened to shove Hyunjin into the water from how he kept trying to wiggle out of the space where he and Jeongin shuffled Hyunjin between them.
“Can you get a good shot like this, Hyungie?” Jeongin called to Felix as he gripped the back of Hyunjin’s shirt to keep him from fleeing; Hyunjin huffed, admitting defeat, and leaned his head against Seungmin’s shoulder to squint up at Felix’s phone.
Felix grinned. “I think so– don’t be shy, everyone, pile in!” Shuffling and complaints and the occasional splash later, and everyone smiled wide, bright and alive.
Felix’s finger pressed down on the photo button, and the moment was captured forever.
(Eight boys: three mermaids, one faerie, one halfling, two witches, and a human, all lined up together on the edge of the tidepools with feet and tails happily in the water as the cliffs stretched high behind them, the roof of a tiny, familiar house peeking over the edge. The sun was setting, caught in their smiles, and in the instance of that heartbeat when the photo was taken, eight bright faces colored with delight filled the space of the photo, undeniably happy.)
“Did it turn out well?”
“Let me see, let me see!”
“Sung, ow, that was my hand–!”
Felix handed his phone over to the grabby mermaid, who lit up as he zoomed in on the photo. Chan leaned over Jisung’s shoulder to get a look, laughing when Minho lightly scowled at him for the displacement from Jisung’s side.
As everyone circled around the photo (Hyunjin immediately sent it to himself), Changbin leaned his chin on Felix’s shoulder, both of them watching the commotion from the side.
Or so Felix thought, until a cool hand gently traced a shape on Felix’s cheekbone.
He jumped, looking over at Changbin in confusion. Changbin gave him a sheepishly look, retracting his hand. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have,” he said, a bit awkward. “It’s just– well, ever since I let you touch my scales, I was curious about these.” He swept a hand across Felix’s jaw, featherlight and reverent.
Changbin surely could feel the blush under his fingers, but Felix didn’t want him to stop. “My freckles?” he instead blurted dumbly, rewarded with a confirmatory smile. “They’re just beauty marks; I don’t care much for them.”
“You should; they’re pretty,” Changbin hummed, voice low enough just for Felix as an echo of their earlier conversation washed back over him. Changbin raised his other hand to Felix’s shell-shocked face, eyes bright with request and gentle hesitation. “May I?”
Only if you want to make my dreams for the rest of my life, Felix forced himself not to say, instead just nodding clumsily. With utmost care, Changbin acquiesced, both hands cupping Felix’s face, cool skin tracing lines of constellations across Felix’s face with unfettered awe sparkling across his face.
“They really are like stars,” Changbin breathed, and Felix felt like a supernova under his gaze.
“Oi, get a room!” Jisung crowed, and Felix jumped.
Changbin, without removing his hands from Felix’s face, scowled at Jisung as he leaned around Felix. “Says the one caught in a fae trap?” he deadpanned, referring to how Minho ended up ensnaring Jisung to keep him from slipping off the edge and decided not to release him.
Chan gestured at Jisung and laughed, full-bodied, the sound only worsening as Jisung pathetically scowled at him with all the venom of a defanged snake.
Changbin, on the other hand, patted Felix’s cheeks with a tiny smile before releasing his face, eyes sparkling. “Thank you for indulging me,” he giggled, as if Felix’s brain wasn’t cataloging the touch at the speed of light.
“Yeah,” Felix replied, voice cracking, Changbin only smiling as Felix cleared his throat.
(It was indulgence in the purest form, and, like the greedy human he was, Felix allowed himself to soak in it, knowing his time was surely running out.)
It wasn’t long until the sun dipped below the horizon line and the moon brought about the mermaids’ goodbyes, disappearing beneath the waves after multiple promises to meet up again. Even so, Felix’s heart felt a touch heavy, foreboding tugging at his heartstrings in a rhythm he couldn’t possibly fathom.
A half-asleep Hyunjin was being hauled into Seungmin’s arms as he attempted to grumble out a complaint, but Jeongin only patted him on the head and told him to hush before he tranquilized him entirely. Soon, they too bid their goodbyes, fading up the stairs as Jeongin and Seungmin took Hyunjin home, a peaceful bubble following them. Now, only Minho and Felix stood at the tidepools where the tide was beginning to rise, the spray soaking the cuffs of their pants as it climbed higher and higher. “Lix-ah, we need to go home,” Minho urged, fingers light on his arm. “You’ll see them again.”
Felix sighed, eyes still on the waves. “I know,” he said, but there was a lift of uncertainty to his voice, one that Minho caught as he frowned.
Minho didn’t comment on it, only taking Felix by the arm and pulling him from the edge. “Let’s go,” he whispered, and Felix went, nodding, but mind buzzing with the memory of whale song, constellations under skin, and the story of a leviathan hunting down a set of brothers.
Like always, he worried, but as his fingers squeezed around his phone– around the photo, the memory, the happiness– the ache abated for just a moment, disappearing into the evening, moon-stained breeze.
◦ 𓆝 ｡𓆟 ⋆ 𓆞 ◦ 𓆝
urlocalcryptid
(22:03)
[picture.img]
Eomma ✨
(22:03)
Aw, look at you guys!
Eomma ✨
(22:03)
You look so happy! Which one is Changbin?
Eomma ✨
(22:03)
Never mind, that’s the pink boy next to you, right?
urlocalcryptid
(22:03)
Yeah that’s him :3
Eomma ✨
(22:03)
Oh, he’s handsome!
Eomma ✨
(22:04)
You have a good eye.
urlocalcryptid
(22:04)
I–
urlocalcryptid
(22:04)
…yeah… he is…
Eomma ✨
(22:04)
You two look lovely together!
urlocalcryptid
(22:04)
Um agdvjyfhkgs
urlocalcryptid
(22:04)
Thanks ;;;;
Eomma ✨
(22:04)
I mean it!!
urlocalcryptid
(22:05)
I know you do!!!! Which is worse!!!
urlocalcryptid
(22:05)
Anyway!!!
Eomma ✨
(22:05)
😉
urlocalcryptid
(22:05)
We went on an adventure together right before this picture!
Eomma ✨
(22:05)
Nothing too dangerous, I hope?
urlocalcryptid
(22:05)
No no, nothing like that omg
urlocalcryptid
(22:05)
Just some swimming that’s all
urlocalcryptid
(22:05)
Explored a cave nearby!
Eomma ✨
(22:05)
Hmm… anything interesting happen in that cave?
urlocalcryptid
(22:06)
Eomma please omg no 😳
Eomma ✨
(22:06)
Sorry, I had to ask! 🤭
Eomma ✨
(22:06)
Anyway! Did you all have a good picnic?
urlocalcryptid
(22:06)
We did!!! Im so glad everyone got to meet up!
urlocalcryptid
(22:06)
We were out there for a good while lmao
Eomma ✨
(22:06)
Good! That means you lost track of time ^-^
Eomma ✨
(22:06)
How long are they going to be in the area?
urlocalcryptid
(22:06)
I’m not sure
urlocalcryptid
(22:06)
Not much longer I think tho
urlocalcryptid
(22:06)
They dont usually stay too long
Eomma ✨
(22:06)
That’s a shame. I haven’t seen you smile around someone like that in a long time.
Eomma ✨
(22:07)
Cherish the time you have with them while you can.
urlocalcryptid
(22:07)
I plan to don’t worry
Eomma ✨
(22:07)
You’re allowed to be sad, you know.
urlocalcryptid
(22:07)
I know :(
Eomma ✨
(22:07)
😢
Eomma ✨
(22:07)
When’s the next full moon?A few weeks away?
urlocalcryptid
(22:07)
Mmhm
urlocalcryptid
(22:07)
why?
Eomma ✨
(22:07)
I have the strangest feeling that something’s going to happen.
Eomma ✨
(22:07)
Make sure you don’t take any late-night swims again, alright?
urlocalcryptid
(22:07)
I won’t i promise!!
Eomma ✨
(22:07)
Don’t be so sure; you’re in the company of magic.
Eomma ✨
(22:07)
Take care of yourself, okay?
urlocalcryptid
(22:08)
?
Eomma ✨
(22:08)
I don’t know, baby, but I just have this feeling. Maybe I’m just being paranoid.
Eomma ✨
(22:08)
It’s late now; get some rest.
Eomma ✨
(22:08)
And if there are any, hm… updates about Changbin, don’t hesitate to let me know. ;)
urlocalcryptid
(22:08)
EOMMA
Eomma ✨
(22:08)
Sweet dreams!
urlocalcryptid
(22:08)
[blushing.gif]
Eomma ✨
(22:09)
I’ll talk to you tomorrow!
urlocalcryptid
(22:09)
Sleep well 💛
Eomma ✨
(22:09)
😙
Felix, with a heaviness in his chest, set his phone down on his nightstand and curled into himself, mind spinning in circles. There’s always tomorrow.
But how many ‘tomorrows’ are left?
The full moon drew closer, and so did the invisible departure date of Changbin and his pod.
Felix shut his eyes and fell into an almost-dreamless sleep, haunted by pearlescence and moonbeams, and the feeling of Changbin’s fingers on his skin and the way he smiled with his whole face on the occasions he allowed it to truly shine.
This time, though, when the butterflies fluttered into his chest, an uneasy guilt seeped into him, dreading an ending he knew had to be coming–
After all, didn’t everything come to an end?
(He didn’t sleep well that night.)
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