Beneath the Surface

   The weight of the water had never felt so crushing.

   He lashed out with his tail, a desperate attempt to kick away, but even his wrists were already caught up in the heavy rope.

   No. No no no. He had been warned so many times, by so many people, not to stray too close to the surface. But he couldn’t help himself. He liked the clearer water and the lesser pressure and he had fallen in love long ago with the rippling, dappled view of the sky that he could enjoy from just below the surface, gliding gently along on his back.

   Now though, panic set in.

   Horrible panic.

   His serenity was lost. Every part of this corner of the ocean that he loved faded into fear. The water seemed black, suffocating though it usually brought him life. He grabbed for the blunt blade that he kept at his belt but it was designed for tangled seaweed, not rough, manmade ropes.

   He thought of home.

   He thought of family.

   And then he thought of nothing but that fact that he was trapped and that the sky had clearly clouded over because he could see nothing of the sun through the last few feet of water, and he swallowed in salt water like his very last life’s breath.

~

   ‘Ansan?’ asked Jaehyun. He was making tea, several miles offshore. This was how he liked his life best: out on the ocean, with no one but his close colleague Johnny for company. The boat rose and fell with the ebb of waves, a sensation more familiar to him than walking on land.

   He had visited the institute at Ansan several times, and it wasn’t far from Seoul where he lectured part-time. When he was out at sea on a research project, though? Well that wasn’t when he expected to get this kind of call.

   ‘Trust me, you’ll want to get back for this.’

   Jaehyun sighed. ‘Enough of the smoke and mirrors, Doyoung. Give me something.’

   ‘Classified,’ said Doyoung’s brisk voice, tinny through the radio. ‘Come to Ansan. You’ll thank me later.’

   When the radio went dead, Jaehyun tapped at the cup of cinnamon tea in his right hand, caught up in thought. This was his favourite part of the day, when he took out two cups to the deck and sat down with Johnny and checked their readings for the day and then did nothing but enjoy the sunset. There would be none of that at the stuffy development and research institute.

   He knew Doyoung though. Doyoung was a friend. And he would not have requested his presence if it wasn’t something that was worth his while, and, perhaps more importantly, in dire need of his expertise.

   Jaehyun was at the very top of his field, after all.

   That was why in situations like this, they called him first.

~

   ‘You’ll need to sign here.’

   Jaehyun gave the non-disclosure agreement a quick glance. It was the not the first that he had signed. A few months earlier, he had signed one when he had been called to Seoul about a very worrisome creature that a group of terrified divers had uncovered. In that case, it had turned out to be nothing sinister. He wondered, though, whether this one would be something similar.

   ‘Dr Jung,’ said a familiar voice, and Jaehyun looked up. ‘It’s good to see you.’

   ‘And you, sir,’ he smiled, bowing immediately. Kim Junmyeon had been Jaehyun’s lecturer at university a while before becoming the director of this illustrious institute. If he was involved personally in whatever business this was, then Jaehyun knew that it was significant.

   ‘I’m glad you could make it here on such short notice. There’s no one else I’d trust with this. Ethically or intellectually.’

   Jaehyun laughed and looked down at the contract he’d just signed his voice away on. ‘Actually I was just finishing up my study. Johnny’s doing the last of our readings. And Doyoung did make it sound important.’

   ‘Oh it’s important,’ said Junmyeon. ‘You won’t be disappointed.’

   Jaehyun was led through the main building, through a passage into the research department, and then down a long staircase that he’d never accessed before. The aura that things were a little… weird… started in the next corridor.

   There was security.

   ‘Fish giving you trouble?’ Jaehyun asked lightly, eyeing one of the men. He didn’t look like a normal security guard, either. He had an air of… severity.

   ‘It’s more about keeping people out than in,’ said Junmyeon. ‘You’ll understand why.’

   ‘Go on. Put me out of my misery.’

   Junmyeon showed one of the nearest officers his ID card, and Jaehyun fumbled for his new, freshly printed access card that he had been given at the front desk. The receptionist had taken his photo so quickly that he’d panicked and smiled like it was a family photo and now he was immortalised on the badge with a beaming smile and two deep dimples. Very professional.

   There was more security in the laboratory, but they were armed. No, these were no security guards. They were not even police. If Jaehyun were to put a name on them? Military.

   His eyes, though, were drawn straight to the tank in the middle of the room. It was several feet tall, and by the looks of it extended a little below the floor level too. The habitat was irregular, like it had been put together in a frantic rush. Jaehyun pushed past two people, then saw Doyoung out of the corner of his eye, but he didn’t look to him. His eyes were on the glass.

   It felt, for a moment, as though his heart stopped.

   ‘W-where did you find him?’ he whispered. His breathing was shallow, like he couldn’t risk inhaling too sharply in case it disturbed the poor creature. Then, though it was perhaps the last question that would usually come to mind when witnessing something extraordinary, he added: ‘Why did you bring him here?’

   ‘He got caught up in a fishing net. Obviously the fishermen didn’t know what to do. So they brought him back to shore. It’s lucky that the right people found out before they went running to the media or they’d be wanting him in a zoo display right now. The necessary cover-up would have been enormous. The institute has been registered with the authorities for many years now, as a contingency location in case of such an… emergency. He’s safe here while we figure out what to do with him.’

   Jaehyun crouched down, fingers a millimetre from the glass, as he took a moment just to look.

   ‘He’s really real,’ he whispered.

   ‘As real as you and me,’ said Junmyeon with an air of reverence in his voice.

   A merman.

   Just a couple of metres in front of him, tucked away in a corner of the tank.

   The presence of merpeople in the ocean was somewhere between a cacophony of rumour and an open secret in the research community. Jaehyun was overwhelmed, stunned, dazzled and shocked to be in the presence of a rare fairy-tale, but not so surprised that he gasped or yelled or even accused everyone else of pulling an elaborate prank.

   Two years earlier, he had been on a boat with an elderly, deeply esteemed professor of biology, who had shown him a small case-file that he had put together about a mermaid that had been discovered in the US. Jaehyun had known as he flicked through the worn pages, that it was no fantasy, no made-up story. It was only because of his own reputation, his own contribution to his field by then, that he had been permitted access to such sacred information. In its own way, it had been an invitation into the inner-circle.

   And Jaehyun had treated the invitation with the respect that it deserved: he had never spoken of it ever again. Not a word. Not even to Johnny. Now, though, it was clear that his initiation had not been forgotten; they had brought him here for a reason. He, now, was party to this knowledge because they wanted him, needed him.

   ‘I was briefed on the global situation once I become Director,’ said Junmyeon. ‘The population is… we think… very small. They seem to keep themselves deep enough, far enough out, in the ocean, that they don’t run into too many problems with our kind.’

   ‘Except for this one,’ said Jaehyun, his heart in his mouth. This poor, poor thing. Jaehyun’s stomach turned over.

   He was hunched up, but Jaehyun could still get enough of a view of him. His face could be mistaken for human, with delicate features and a floating cloud of pale, almost white hair. From the neck down, though, it would be impossible to confuse him.

   The cartoons, the drawings, did nothing to accurately reflect the physical form.  

   There was no identifiable point where he looked to turn from man to fish. If anything, his body was neither. The top half was more human, but his skin shimmered and there were rough patches where skin seemed more scale. He had slender but quite strong looking arms, the sort that could belong to a long-distance runner. For a split second, Jaehyun imagined what could be learned from a study of his musculoskeletal system, but he swallowed that thought down deep inside.

   This creature, trapped far from home, was no lab experiment.

   The tail.

   Two ventral fins, a dorsal fin. The caudal fin was large, and looked stiff – it was closer to that of a shark than that of a delicate aquarium fish. The real merman was no Disney creature. Every part of his form seemed to be architected for power, speed, control in the water.

   Jaehyun exhaled. ‘He’s beautiful. God he’s beautiful.’

   ‘I know.’

   Jaehyun looked up. Doyoung had joined them. ‘Good morning, by the way.’

   Jaehyun tore his eyes away from the merman long enough to straighten up. ‘Sorry. I was… distracted.’

   ‘Don’t worry. I nearly fainted when they brought me in.’

~

   Taeyong could not wrap himself up small enough. There was nowhere to hide.

   He thought that maybe it was drawing into evening, or night. There was no natural light in here, but a couple of the people in the room were starting to yawn. Already, it had been the longest day of his life. Even longer than yesterday and the day before. Those days had been terror, panic, and because of that they had rushed by. Today, though, had been creeping, horrible dread, the sort that made the time crawl past.

   ‘I don’t know how long we’ll be able to keep him. Current advice is tag and release – apparently that’s what the Americans are doing. The institute are hoping to get license to keep him here just a little while so that we can study him though.’

   Taeyong looked up, eyes wide, tuning back into the conversation. The voices were muffled through glass and water, but his senses were heightened. His kind possessed incredible awareness in water.

   Keep him? They wanted to keep him? His heart was pounding so hard against his chest that it was as though it wanted to break free and escape without the rest of him.

   The one that was talking was the one with the thin face and delicate hands. Dr Kim.

   Taeyong had been paying attention earlier in the day.

   ‘Tag him? Keep him? Doyoung… he’s not… he’s not a…’

   The new one.

   He’d arrived earlier today. He’d crouched down in front of the tank to inspect him. He’d looked at him with the same awe, the same reverence, that everyone else had. Beyond that, though, he’d behaved quite differently.

   Unlike everyone else, who could not stop staring at him like some sort of exhibit, he’d walked away for a while. He’d even left the room. While inside, he spent his time writing things down, and then talking to his colleagues, and then glancing Taeyong’s way for the most fleeting of seconds.

   ‘An animal?’ suggested Dr Kim. ‘What do you want to call him, Jaehyun? What are we supposed to do with him? We don’t even know how he – or it – thinks. Everything you read about merpeople fictionalises them with human intelligence. But who knows the truth?’

   ‘Us, soon, hopefully,’ Jaehyun sighed. ‘Not that I’m any kind of cognitive expert.’

   ‘You’re an everything expert, Jaehyun, why do you think they called you in?’

   Jaehyun.

   Taeyong would remember that name.

   ‘And he still hasn’t eaten anything at all?’ he asked. ‘You’ve tried everything?’

   ‘I’ve worked through a list,’ said Dr Kim. ‘He doesn’t respond to any verbal or physical cues. He runs – swims – away if we try to put something in there for him. We adapted the habitat a lot on the first day but God knows we have no idea what he likes.’

   ‘He probably just wants us to leave him alone,’ sighed Jaehyun. ‘He looks terrified.’

   They both looked his way and Taeyong turned to the side. He felt sick. He buried his face close to the glass on the opposite side of the tank.

   ‘May I spend some time alone with him?’

   There was um-ing and ah-ing around the room that took a distinctly disapproving tone.

   ‘I’m here to observe his behaviour. He’s never going to behave naturally with this many people around. He’s frightened.’

   Yes, I’m frightened, Taeyong thought, of course I’m frightened. He couldn’t cry under the water, that sort of characteristic from the more human side of his evolution only appeared when he broke the surface. But he as good as cried.

   He closed his eyes and thought about home.

   He thought about his parents, who would be sick with worry. He thought about his little brother Mark, who was probably wondering whether his big brother would ever come home. He thought about his friends who never strayed to the surface like he did, because they were sensible, they would never have found themselves in this situation.

   He thought of the treasured ocean-floor cave that he called home, with the trinkets he’d collected, both natural and from his own kind and manmade. He thought of the way that the waves rippled on his back when he floated actually on the surface of the water, feeling the fresh air on his face as the human-like part of him craved. He thought, even, of the times that he had broken all of his parents’ rules and swum close enough to the shore that he could observe the people going about their lives; he’d never been caught those times, and yet when he was far out in the ocean, close to home, that was where he had been picked up.

   He looked up when he sensed movement.

   They were doing it.

   They were clearing out.

   His heart skipped a beat.

   Not everybody left. Four of the intimidating men with their dark clothes and human weapons stayed, but Jaehyun sent them to the door with a roll of his eyes. With every person that did leave, Taeyong’s heart leapt. One less person staring at him. One less person planning experiments or whatever else was going on in their heads.

   ‘Alright,’ murmured Jaehyun, as he walked close to the glass. ‘That should be a bit quieter.’

   It was true.

   Without people everywhere, the large room was still, quiet. Even the officers by the door seemed to blend into the scenery. Jaehyun touched at a dial on the wall and the lights dimmed a little, and for the first time Taeyong could let his eyes rest from the glaring artificial light.

   Jaehyun walked up the steps to the highest part of the tank – the open top. Open to him. Not to Taeyong. There were narrow steel bars across the top where the water lapped, and a thin net like he’d be able to fit between them and escape, tail and all.

   ‘Just you and me now,’ he exhaled in a voice that Taeyong knew was intended to be gentle. He sat down, cross legged, on the platform. ‘I’m sorry everything was so chaotic.’

   Taeyong shrank away to the furthest corner. It was becoming a reflex.

   ‘I know you probably can’t understand me,’ he sighed, ‘but I promise I’m not here to hurt you. You got picked up in the right place.’

   Taeyong had given no indication yet that he could understand anything of what was being said around him. He wasn’t sure why. He thought… he thought maybe that it would be better if he did. Maybe if they knew that he could think like them, they wouldn’t treat him like an animal. But then again, maybe it would make it worse. Maybe it would make them want to study him even more. And there was a part of him that just couldn’t pluck up the courage to speak.

   If he did, then it would be a step that he couldn’t take back. There would be no returning the pearl to the oyster. And if he did, then they would expect answers. They’d talk to him. They’d demand information from him. At least now they just let him float there like a sad piece of flora.

   ‘My name is Jaehyun. Dr Jung. I’m a marine animal behaviourist. The very best, really,’ he said with a small smile. ‘I don’t usually work here but they invited me along to meet you because they know I’m the best person to take care of you. I’m no mad scientist, I swear.’

   He had a friendly face.

   The movement of the water meant that the façade rippled but Taeyong could see it. He had dark hair and warm eyes, and a lovely smile that had obviously been put on for his benefit.

   But if it was one thing that Taeyong had learned from the deep sea, it was that pretty things could not always be trusted. The luminescent creatures that lurked even deeper than where the merpeople went could be the most dazzling and the most lethal of predators.

   ‘Doyoung told me you’re not eating anything,’ sighed Jaehyun. ‘I wish you could tell me what you’d like.’

   Seagrasses. Taeyong liked seagrasses. But he hadn’t eaten anything that had been dropped into his tank. They might have done something to it. Anyway, he didn’t need to eat as often as the humans did. It was okay, even if he was starting to feel just a little dazed.

   Taeyong chewed at his lip, wishing to take a breath from all the space above.

   He could breathe quite adequately under the water, but he preferred the full oxygen of air. It was another reason he’d always toyed close to the surface.  

   ‘You know, I’ve dreamed a lot about meeting someone like you. But right now I just feel…’ Jaehyun looked down. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry that someone picked you up and brought you here. If I can get you home, then I’ll do everything in my power to make it happen. You shouldn’t be in a fish tank.’

   Taeyong flicked his tail and created a small wave that rippled all the way to where he was sat. It was like a little message.

   Jaehyun smiled, as if he understood. ‘Do you mind if I take some notes?’ he held up a small workbook. 

   Taeyong gave nothing in answer but he nudged slightly away from the wall. A couple of inches could make all the difference to investigation. There were certain things that he had only observed from afar, and books were one of them. Paper did not marry so well with water.

   ‘You’re so beautiful,’ said Jaehyun, shaking his head. ‘Man and ocean. I spend my whole life out there wanting to be a part of it, and you are. Everything about you looks like the water.’

   Taeyong couldn’t help the happier kick of his tail at that.

   Then he glared at himself. He shouldn’t be enjoying the praise of his captors and he shouldn’t be giving away his comprehension at all.

   Unbeknownst to himself, he’d already started to meander slightly towards the other end of the tank, towards him. He was drawn to his voice. The way that Taeyong could hear in water was clearer than what any human could ever make out, but he wanted to move up out of the water to hear it on his level, the way human speech was intended to be heard.

   Jaehyun wrote something in his book.

   Taeyong wanted to know what he was writing but even if he could understand their talking there was no way he’d be able to read it. He hadn’t been exposed to enough of their language written down.

   He realised, as he looked upwards, that his fear had been replaced – replaced by interest.

   An hour ago, two hours ago, he’d still been so terrified that he could hardly stay conscious. The fear had been eating away at his insides. It was as though he could only stay in such a heightened state for so long, as though the soft voice and kind words had served as an excuse for his body to slump into unnatural calm.

   He was crashing.

   That was probably dangerous. He should probably stay alert. But then what difference would it make? The only way he was getting out of here was if they let him out. Even if he could pull off a great escape from this guarded building, he could hardly swim down the street back to the sea.

   No.

   He was at their mercy.

   Humans. Humans who destroyed his ocean carelessly every day, who took and took and took and polluted and polluted and polluted. They were the ones he was relying on now.

   To distract himself from the thought, he concentrated on Jaehyun.

   The man was watching him, making steady notes.

   It made Taeyong self-conscious. Suddenly he was hyperaware of every tiny movement he was making. What did it give away about himself? About his species?

   He swallowed, and pushed up to the surface of the water, content to float no longer.

   As soon as he broke the surface, he inhaled a lungful of air and he felt the shift in his body as it adjusted.

   Jaehyun flinched back, as if startled by his speed.

   Taeyong swam back just a little. He didn’t want to scare him.

   ‘H-hey,’ Jaehyun whispered as the smile returned.

   Taeyong hooked an arm around the bars above him to keep steady. There was barely room to keep his head above the water so he hovered, chin half below the surface.

   ‘You wanna talk?’ said Jaehyun. ‘Do you wanna… show me something?’

   His voice was different, now that Taeyong was above the surface. It was softer, melodic, even gentler. Clearer, though, too, unmuffled by water.

   What he was supposed to do, Taeyong did not know. Should he speak?

   Jaehyun put down the notebook and leant forwards like that could bring them closer in level. He pointed at his chest, and then said loudly and clearly: ‘Jaehyun.’

   Well yes, he knew that.

   ‘Jaehyun,’ he repeated. Then, he extended his hand in an open gesture to Taeyong.

   Oh.

   Oh.

   Taeyong wondered whether to play dumb, but he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t sit here like an animal ready for slaughter or worse. ‘Taeyong,’ he said.

~

   ‘Three days. We can keep him for three more days,’ said Junmyeon. He was shuffling his papers on his desk in a nervous pattern; Jaehyun had never seen him lack composure so drastically.

   ‘What happens after three days?’ asked Doyoung.

   They were in one of the conference rooms at the institute, a sad-looking room that exposed a lack of funding and a lack of interest in modernisation. There was a wall-mounted monitor, but the screen was black, and a long table, too long for the small group of people around it.

   ‘We’ve been instructed to release him at the closest co-ordinates to his pick-up site. And we’re cleared to tag him.’

   Doyoung didn’t look convinced. ‘What if he can’t find his way home?’

   ‘Do you think twice about dropping sea turtles back in the water?’ remarked Junmyeon.

   Jaehyun sat up straight at that. ‘He’s not a sea turtle,’ he said quietly.

   ‘The subject is - ’

   ‘The subject’s name is Taeyong.’

   ‘That is unconfirmed, Dr Jung.’

   ‘That’s his name.’ He had told them this over and over, but they all still seemed to be dubious to believe it. They all thought that Taeyong could make any such sound, that it could be a noise of stress or hold some other meaning, or even be something that he had picked up in the lab and was parroting.

   But Jaehyun knew full well that it was his name.

   It didn’t help his cause that Taeyong didn’t really… respond… to the others. Whenever one of the other scientists experimented with his name, he blanked them completely. Even when Jaehyun tried to communicate with him in the company of others, Taeyong would just hide away in his corner again.

   It was only during the two, hour-long sessions that he had been granted per day, when they could be alone, that Taeyong ever seemed to relax.

   Taeyong was intelligent.

   One time, when Jaehyun had asked him if he could set up a camera to record them, Taeyong had not responded but he had then proceeded to blank him entirely too for the whole time that the camera was on.

   Because oh yes, Taeyong could understand him.

   He could understand everything.

   Jaehyun was certain of it.

   He didn’t know how, and he didn’t know whether Taeyong would ever tell him, but he knew.

   ‘I’ve also been given the all-clear to run some tests, subject to the agreement of Dr Moon.’

   They all turned to Taeil. Jaehyun’s head whipped around particularly fast. ‘What sort of tests?’ he said, before Taeil could even open his mouth.

   ‘Nothing invasive,’ he said quickly. ‘An MRI, maybe? And… bloods.’

   ‘Bloods are invasive,’ snapped Jaehyun. ‘No. He’s not an animal. You can’t take blood against his will.’

   ‘What he is, is for a legal team to decide,’ sighed Junmyeon. ‘But given that all of this remains classified, there’s hardly going to be a lengthy case to be had.’

   ‘I won’t allow it.’

   ‘With all due respect, Dr Jung, you are a guest in this institute.’

   Jaehyun gritted his teeth, then looked down at his papers. He closed the book in which he recorded all of Taeyong’s behaviour, and stood up. The chair scraped with unpleasant volume across the floor. ‘It’s time for my session,’ he said, as calmly as he could muster, because the last thing in the world that he wanted was to be removed from this team altogether.

~

   ‘Talk to me,’ murmured Jaehyun, voice soft. ‘Please talk to me.’

   Taeyong swam around, turning onto his back and looking up at the caging overhead, as he listened to him speak. These times when they were alone together were the only times that he really relaxed, because the weight of far too many eyes was lifted from him, and he liked to take advantage. Any moment in which his throat wasn’t sick with panic was a good one.

   ‘Taeyong… please.’

   Taeyong closed his eyes. He concentrated on the sound of his name from his lips, the soft tap of tongue against teeth. It was a relief just to hear someone say his name, to talk to him like a person instead of like an object. Jaehyun talked to him, not at him. Even if Taeyong didn’t talk back. Even now, the only word that he had given him was his name.

   Jaehyun cleared his throat and readjusted his position. ‘I know that you’re listening, so… so I’d rather you hear it from me first. They want to take you for a couple of tests. They’re not going to hurt you, they just – they just want to get a better idea of who you are.’

   Taeyong’s ears rushed. The water pressure felt heavy. The relative calm that he usually felt in Jaehyun’s presence was gone.

   Tests.

   He’d known this was coming.

   These were the horror stories that everyone told back home. This was what his parents had warned him about. When he was tiny, they had told him: ‘Taeyong, if you swim too close to the surface, the humans will catch you. They’ll take you away from us, and you’ll never, ever see us again.’

   At the time, Taeyong had known of course that they were just trying to frighten him, and that there was a reason they wanted to scare him away from the surface. The older he’d got, though, the less those words had lingered on his mind. Such a threat held less terror for a teenager than for a child, and by the time he was grown he was visiting the surface regularly.

   Now, the scare stories felt real in a way that made his eyes sting with pain again and his stomach churn.

   He would never see his parents again.

   It was as frightening at twenty-three as it would have been at six.

   They were going to cut him up. They were going to look at his insides. They were going to –

   ‘Taeyong? Taeyong, I promise I’ll go with you. I’ve already checked. They said that I can go with you. And it won’t hurt. I won’t let them do anything to you that I wouldn’t let them do to me.’

   That did nothing, nothing at all, to settle the panic.

   Taeyong kicked up to the surface so fast that Jaehyun almost fell back.

   ‘Don’t – please – please don’t let them - ’ Taeyong choked.

   The words were out before he could think about them. They ran from his lips quicker even than the water droplets fell away.

   He saw the bob of Jaehyun’s throat as he swallowed.

   There was a moment of silence.

   The lab was quiet, apart from the whirring of a machine somewhere, and the slopping of water that Taeyong had disturbed against the sides of the tank. Jaehyun seemed lost for words, which was good, because Taeyong was ready to dive back under the water in shame and hide away.

   With Jaehyun’s help, they had created a slightly better habitat for him the previous day. It even had a corner in which he could almost conceal himself, hidden by a large, organic structure, and that was where he had finally conceded to eat for the first time.

   ‘Where did you learn to speak like this?’ Jaehyun whispered eventually. ‘How did you learn to understand?’

   ‘Don’t let them chop me up!’ he cried.

   Jaehyun took a deep breath and leant closer, but Taeyong flinched back so quickly that the distance never really closed. ‘Taeyong, they aren’t going to do that. They won’t hurt you.’

   ‘Please stop them.’ He could feel tears in his eyes now.

   ‘You need to talk to them,’ Jaehyun said softly. ‘Right now they hardly believe that you’re of human intelligence. There’s only so much that I can say. I’m not in charge here. If you talk to them, they’ll have to listen.’

   ‘I can’t. I won’t.’

   ‘But - ’

   ‘Please just let me go home. I just want to go home. I’ll do anything,’ he choked out. ‘Just let me go home.’

   Jaehyun’s face looked torn with pain, which did little to help Taeyong because it could be nothing, nothing compared to the devastating fear that he had to feel – that he’d had to feel for days. ‘Three days,’ said Jaehyun, and his voice was very quiet, ‘they’ve only been given clearance to keep you for three more days.’

   Taeyong’s stomach flipped. It struck him, for a second, that Jaehyun had referred to them so calmly as they, not we. It was them, not us.

   ‘After that I’ll make sure you get home, okay?’

   Home.

   They were going to let him go home.

   It could have been a lie, a ruse, some sick attempt to get him on side, but that thought barely crossed his mind. He’d waited long enough for a slither of good news. He could cry just from the feeling of it.

   ‘Thank you,’ he mumbled.

   Suddenly, it hit him:

   He had talked.

   There could be no hiding now.

   He huddled up near the back of the tank – he always felt cold when he broke the surface here – and wrapped protective arms around himself. Well, he’d shown all his cards now, so he might as well talk. ‘What have you written about me in your book?’

   Jaehyun looked as though that was the very last question that he had expected in the entire world. He held up the water-spattered work book slowly. ‘You want me to read it to you?’

   Taeyong nodded.

   Jaehyun’s breath shook when he inhaled. He flitted between the pages quickly, sharing only a few words even though Taeyong could see that he had scrawled even in the tiniest margins on page after page after page. ‘Facial expressions – I have a list,’ he smiled. ‘Clear distinction between fear and shyness. Subject - I called you subject, then, I'm sorry - differentiates between researchers; displays positive or negative indicators.’

   Taeyong positively flushed at that. He hadn’t realised he’d been so obvious. ‘What’s an indicator?’ he whispered.

   Jaehyun laughed, a light, gentle sort of sound. ‘When you see me, your body unfurls like it’s been closed up for too long. You finally take your arms away from your body and your tail flicks out. You smile, just like a human. When you see the guards, you close up like a flower at night. I hate to see you like that.’

   Taeyong’s eyes flickered to the security that always manned the doors, even in these private moments. ‘They scare me.’

   ‘They won’t hurt you.’

   ‘What else did you write?’

   ‘Tell me where you learned our language,’ said Jaehyun, like he was owed an answer for everything that he had already said. ‘Please.’

   Taeyong couldn’t help but think that the humans didn’t deserve anything from him. But he needed to keep them on side, and Jaehyun was the only one that he was anywhere close to trusting. ‘I spend a lot of time around boats,’ he answered quietly. ‘I like listening, from just below the surface.’

   ‘You go near fishing boats? Is that how you found yourself caught up?’

   Taeyong felt a pang in his heart at the memory of his capture, at how the ropes had wrapped all around him. He still had a vivid red burn across his tail from where the rope had cut him, but he had not allowed any of the humans even close to take a look at it. It would heal. ‘No. I like small boats where people talk. Couples and friends and families. Sometimes I go right into the harbour.’

   ‘You learned language just like that?’

   He shrugged. ‘My kind pick things up easily,’ he said softly.

   Jaehyun shook his head. ‘And there my lot are, still debating whether you’re of near human intelligence.’

   ‘What else did you write?’

   He saw Jaehyun’s eyes flicker to the clock on the far wall, then back to his book. ‘Subject reacts to changes in light. Language comprehension is high level. Body language: tail. I have a list for that, too.’

   ‘You know everything about me,’ he whispered.

   ‘No, no I don’t,’ Jaehyun sighed. ‘I know almost nothing about you.’

   They both jumped and turned at the sound of movement, and Jaehyun closed his book up. Taeyong darted back under the water and slipped his way amongst the marine plants that they had given to him.

   ‘I’ll get you home, I promise,’ murmured Jaehyun, close to the surface, and then their time together was over.

   Taeyong wondered how many of his negative indicators were obvious with the arrival of the other researchers.

~

   ‘Just tell them what I told you,’ said Jaehyun gently.

   Taeyong nodded, but Jaehyun wasn’t sure whether he was listening really. It had taken him every ounce of communication that they could find across the space of the last day to convince him to speak in front of his colleagues, and it was only because of his fear that he knew he had given in. But Jaehyun knew that it would be better for him this way.

   Taeyong was terrified of being taken out of the water again.

   ‘Alright, we’re good to go,’ said Junmyeon, who had arrived with Doyoung and Taeil in tow. ‘Don’t you worry,’ he said, addressing Taeyong like one would address a child, or maybe a frightened animal. ‘This’ll take no time at all.’

   Jaehyun looked back to Taeyong and gave him what he prayed was a reassuring smile.

   ‘What we’re going to do, is - ’ he turned back to Doyoung and Taeil.

   ‘No,’ said Taeyong, and his voice was shaking.

   Since he’d begun to talk, Jaehyun had noticed a lot about his voice. It wasn’t as human as it sounded upon first listen, but it could be mistaken. There was a rough undertone to it, like he had something caught in his throat. Jaehyun wanted to know everything about how he communicated when he was under the water, how he communicated with his own kind. He wanted to know everything.

   ‘I don’t give my consent to that.’

   In the split second that followed, a pin could have echoed if it dropped.

   Junmyeon stared at him with his mouth slightly open, then turned to Jaehyun, but his head snapped back in a second. 

   ‘I don’t want you to take out my blood. I don’t want you to scan me. I don’t want to be taken out of the water until you take me home.’

   Jaehyun didn’t look at any of the other people, he just kept his eyes on Taeyong and nodded along reassuringly.

   ‘And I don’t want to talk to anyone except for him,’ Taeyong added quickly, jerking his head towards Jaehyun.

   That made him stand back in surprise. It wasn’t something that he had told him to say.

   ‘You – you - ’ Doyoung began. He looked dumbfounded.

   ‘You talk.’

   ‘Holy shit.’

   Somehow, some time in the midst of the astonishment that followed, Junmyeon managed to grab Jaehyun quite firmly by the arm and drag him away to the furthest corner of the lab, looking over and over his shoulder like they were being watched. ‘You knew this?’

   ‘I told you. I told you again and again that he could understand everything. That he introduced himself to me as Taeyong. He’s more human than he is animal, sir, by a long, long way.’

   ‘This changes everything,’ Junmyeon ran a hand through his hair. ‘The ethical implications of this are - ’

   Jaehyun leapt in for his chance. ‘If it ever got out that we ran invasive tests on an unwilling subject, a subject of human or greater intelligence, who begged us not to, then - ’

   ‘They’d burn us to the ground,’ finished Junmyeon. His face looked torn somewhere between excitement at the revelation, and disappointment at what it meant. ‘But this is our one chance…’ For a moment, the thirst for knowledge outweighed the humanity in his eyes, but then his shoulders slumped. ‘No. Of course we can’t test him now.’

   ‘We need to get him home, sir. He’s alone, he’s scared, he’s a very long way from home. All of this…’ he nodded around the lab, ‘it needs to stop.’

   Junmyeon looked down at his hands. He looked out of sorts again. ‘Even if I wanted to get him in the water by tonight, it wouldn’t be possible. They’re arranging maximum security transport, and everything has to be done without risk of notice from the public or the press. It’s going to take all the time that we’ve had allocated.’

   ‘Then please, please let’s take the microscope off him at least. Let me stay with him, talk to him alone. I promise you that I’ll get you books and books of notes just in two days, it won’t be like we’ll come away with nothing. He trusts me, he feels safe with me. He’ll talk.’

   ‘How did you make him so comfortable with you?’

   ‘I talked to him,’ said Jaehyun, wondering why on earth he was the only person, in an entire institute of scientists, who had thought to do such a thing.

~

   Taeyong was happy.

   He was happy.

   He’d forgotten what it felt like to be happy.

   There was no point, really, in swimming the length of the tank, because it took only two strokes of his tail to cover the distance, but he darted back and forth anyway, full of energy that he hadn’t felt before. He ran his fingers along the glass, enjoying the smooth texture of the unfamiliar material, and he picked up each of the little features they’d put in there for him, searching with investigative eyes to figure out if they were real or man-made.

   ‘You have no idea how good it is to see you happy.’

   Taeyong kicked up and broke the surface at the sound of Jaehyun’s voice. ‘Positive indicators? I’m going home. They’re going to take me home. And they’re not going to turn me into an experiment. Thank you Jaehyun. Thank you thank you thank you.’

   ‘You did all the work,’ Jaehyun exhaled. ‘You made them think.’

   Taeyong swam over to his side. He did this now, during their longer sessions. He wasn’t so scared to be close to him anymore, and they’d opened up the bars from the tank where Jaehyun could talk to him. ‘What do you want to know about me? I’ll tell you anything.’

   ‘How do you communicate with your own kind?’

   ‘We talk,’ Taeyong shrugged. ‘Just like you do. It’s different, in the water. The sounds are… I don’t know how to describe it. It’s not like talking I guess but it’s like language.’

   ‘Can I try to record it some time?’ asked Jaehyun, ‘before you go home? You could try talking for me.’

   ‘I don’t want to be recorded,’ Taeyong whispered.

   ‘Okay,’ he smiled. ‘Tell me about your family units.’

   ‘Well there’s me and my mum and my dad and my little brother,’ he said. ‘Everyone stays with their families. We live at home unless we ever decide to partner with someone.’

   ‘Do you mate for life?’

   Taeyong flushed. ‘That’s a personal question.’

   ‘You really are no different from us,’ Jaehyun laughed. ‘Okay, do the rest of your kind know as much about my kind as you do? Do they understand us too?’

   ‘No, no,’ Taeyong shook his head. ‘My friends always tell me that I might as well be human. I’ve always found you interesting. One of my friends Woo always says that I’m the most human merman in the water. I’m… in tune with that side of myself, I guess.’

   ‘Do you stay in one place for life? Or do you migrate?’

   ‘It depends. If circumstances change, we move. But we like to stay where we are.’

   ‘Will you be able to find your way home?’

   Taeyong let out a light laugh. ‘I’ll be fine. Trust me. I can find my way anywhere in the water.’

   Jaehyun sighed. ‘How do you do it? I’ve spent half of my career tracking sea turtles. You know they return to the same beach that they were born, every time that they lay eggs? Thousands of miles, they travel, after years. We believe they use a navigation system based on the earth’s magnetic fields.’

   ‘I love turtles,’ said Taeyong, but he didn’t say anything else. He wasn’t going to give up all of his secrets to the humans, however much he might like this one, especially when they were secrets that could potentially lead them in the direction of his family.

   ‘Me too.’

   There was a moment of quiet, during which Taeyong swam another circuit of the tank. When he returned, Jaehyun looked like he wanted to ask something important.

   ‘What is it?’ he said, cocking his head to one side.

   Jaehyun looked more than a little embarrassed. ‘Can I… you can say no! But can I touch it?’

   Taeyong’s brow lifted and he wanted to smirk. ‘Whatever could you mean?’ he said coyly.

   ‘The tail,’ Jaehyun sighed. ‘Can I?’

   Taeyong giggled. ‘I was wondering when you would ask.’

   He swivelled onto his front and moved far enough away that he could rearrange his position. His tail was not the most flexible thing in the world, not at all flimsy like that of some of the other ocean life that he came across, but his body as a whole was lithe enough that he could twist to watch as Jaehyun leant forwards and ran gentle, almost reverent fingers across the leathery surface.

   ‘Can you feel it?’ he asked.

   ‘Mmhm,’ Taeyong nodded, ‘it’s not as sensitive as this half though.’ He brushed his own hand over the smoother surface of his chest.

   ‘This reminds me of placoid scales. The others look different, though. May I?’ Jaehyun asked again, and this time Taeyong flitted back to his side and held out his hand.

   Jaehyun seemed to need a moment before taking it.

   As their fingers intertwined together, Taeyong saw up close for the first time the difference in their skin. His own was iridescent by comparison, especially where a group of prominent scales clustered around his wrist, whereas Jaehyun’s was matte – it did not interact with the light in the same way. Jaehyun’s skin was soft, much softer than any part of Taeyong’s body. It almost made him jealous.

   ‘I hope you don’t mind,’ murmured Jaehyun, as he turned over their joined hands and looked closely. His thumb grazed gently over Taeyong’s palm.

   ‘It’s okay,’ said Taeyong, but he felt a shiver through his body at the light touches.

   ‘You know, you are… quite remarkable,’ said Jaehyun.

   ‘You would say that. I bet I’m the dream specimen for someone like you!’

   Jaehyun frowned. ‘I don’t think you’re exactly a specimen, Taeyong.’

   Taeyong met his eyes, and maybe he held his gaze for a little too long because he started to feel shaky again, like he was weak somewhere in his tail and would struggle to stay afloat. He pulled his hand away and turned one more circuit to shake away the feeling.

   ‘Home soon,’ he said, when he broke the surface.

   Jaehyun gave him a smile that lit up his entire face. ‘Yes,’ he promised, ‘home soon.’

~

   ‘Are you okay?’ checked Jaehyun.

   Taeyong fidgeted. He was crammed into a tank far too small for him, but it was okay. It was okay, because he was going home. In a few more hours, he would be back in the ocean. ‘I’m fine,’ he said, keeping his head above the water. He couldn’t really stay horizontal because the transport was so small, so he stayed upright instead, tail kicking steadily at the bottom of the tank and arms reached out to touch either side.

   ‘Tell me if you get too uncomfortable.’

   ‘I’m not uncomfortable,’ he lied. He was not going to say anything, anything at all that might slow down their journey.

   They were in the back of a truck. It reminded Taeyong of when he had first been picked up and put in the back of the utility to take him to the institute; he definitely didn’t like this way of travel. Everything shook, this constant tremor that made the water splash around and his hands and head feel funny.

   ‘You can ask me more questions,’ he said, to distract himself.

   He knew that Jaehyun, whatever he might say, was sad to be letting him go. Not in the cruel way – Taeyong knew that he didn’t want to cage him – but in the sense of… longing. Longing for a wealth of information that a few days were insufficient to provide, even though Taeyong had talked through the night on two occasions to try to give Jaehyun a lifetime’s worth of knowledge.

   Not just about his kind, but about himself.

   More than once, Taeyong had even asked him questions back. He knew that Jaehyun was an only child, and that he liked to read books, and that he went into science because he wanted to help out the animals who were suffering in the oceans.

   ‘What are you most looking forward to about being home?’ Jaehyun asked quietly.

   That wasn’t what Taeyong had expected. ‘Oh… I - ’ he thought for a moment, ‘my family knowing that I’m okay. From the selfish perspective, I want to see them again right now, hold them again, all the things I miss. But the deepest desire is just for them to know I’m alright. They… they probably think I’m dead.’

   ‘I’m so sorry, Taeyong,’ Jaehyun whispered. ‘I’m so sorry this happened to you.’

   He smiled and played around with the lock on the bars overhead. ‘It’s okay. I’m going home now.’

   There were so many things that he was looking forward to, too many to tell them all to Jaehyun. He was looking forward to being able to race with Mark and his friends again, and see his own best friends. He was looking forward to the taste of his favourite seagrasses, the ones that only he knew where to find, and the feeling of open water around him. He was looking forward to returning to his own space, his home, filled with all of the precious things he had collected.

   The journey was long, and it was slow.

   Taeyong talked and talked to try to pass the time, and because he liked talking to Jaehyun.

   Soon they would be parted.

   At one point, he was moved out of the truck on a forklift and then onto a boat. That was when he knew it was real, that it wasn’t all a trick. The process was complex, and he tucked himself up into a ball and closed his eyes for most of it. It was dark outside, but he found his eyelids glowing with artificial light soon enough once he was in the inner corners of what had to be a large boat.

   Jaehyun was with him.

   Jaehyun had been with him since the day he’d first spoken aloud.

   ‘You still with me, Taeyongie?’

   Taeyong’s eyes snapped open at the term of endearment. ‘Mm,’ he hummed, feeling a little shy. ‘I feel a bit sick.’

   ‘It’s all the travel,’ murmured Jaehyun, ‘just think, you’ll be back in the ocean soon.’

   ‘Will you hold my hand again?’

   Jaehyun smiled and climbed onto the bench beside the tank so that he could take his hand. Ever since the first time, Taeyong had started to enjoy Jaehyun’s touch. It made him feel warm, and like there were butterflies in his stomach.

   Around Taeyong’s wrist, there was a metal tag. He didn’t mind it. They’d put it there a day earlier, with the promise that it wasn’t a tracker or anything similar, but that it would simply identify him if he was ever picked up by humans again. He’d told Jaehyun in private that he would break it off as soon as he found a nice big rock. Jaehyun had told him that he hoped he would.

   ‘I’m going to miss you,’ Jaehyun sighed. He rubbed his fingers reassuringly over the back of Taeyong’s hand, and down to his wrist. 

   ‘I’ll miss you too,’ he whispered. ‘What are you going to do? Once I’m back in the water?’

   ‘Well, first of all I’m going to go home and have a giant cup of tea. Then, I’m going to read everything that you’ve told me over the last few days, everything I’ve learned, and try to come to terms with it properly in my head because honestly I haven’t had time to stop and think. And then, I’m going to get back out on my boat and start studying again. My colleague Johnny will be waiting for me with all sorts of questions.’

   ‘Back to turtles?’

   ‘Yes,’ he gave him a small smile, ‘back to turtles.’

   Taeyong closed his eyes as the boat gave a lurch into action. He hated the sound of motors, any sort of machinery or cogs or power; there was none of that back home.

   ‘Here, give me a moment,’ said Jaehyun, and then his hand was gone. He was gone.

   Taeyong shrunk as much as he could to the back of the tank, though there was almost no room to move at all. He hated when Jaehyun left him alone; he was always frightened that one of the other scientists was going to come and whisk him away back to their laboratory before Jaehyun could stop them.

   He gave him a beaming smile when he saw him reappear.

   ‘I got a key,’ said Jaehyun, as he unlocked the top of the tank and lifted it up. ‘Now you can stretch out.’

   Taeyong lifted himself so that his entire torso was out of the water and rolled his neck from side to side happily, glad to at least be able to stretch. He placed his palms on the lip of the tank and then settled down to his elbows so that he could rest his chin on his crossed hands. ‘This is much better.’

   Jaehyun was standing, but he didn’t seem to mind. He leant against the tank and looked at Taeyong long and hard.

   ‘What is it?’ asked Taeyong.

   ‘Just memorising every feature,’ sighed Jaehyun. ‘I can’t believe I won’t see you again.’

   Taeyong took a deep breath. He needed to know. He needed to know how it would feel.

   He lifted himself up again and leant forwards to press a quick, soft kiss to Jaehyun’s lips. Jaehyun seemed so stunned that for a second he did not move, but before Taeyong could pull away in embarrassment, he lifted a hand to cup gently at Taeyong’s cheek, and he kissed him back.

   There was a feeling in Taeyong’s every sense, like his entire world was Jaehyun. His fingertips buzzed and his eyes closed to allow him to concentrate only on the feeling. Then, too soon, it was gone.

   Jaehyun let his hand linger for longer than his lips.

   ‘I needed to know,’ Taeyong whispered.

   ‘Know what?’ said Jaehyun, catching his eyes.

   ‘How it would feel,’ he mumbled.

   From then, everything felt different.

   Jaehyun sat down beside the tank, looking a little dazed, and he rested the side of his head against the glass as the boat rocked with the rhythm of waves. Taeyong moved back under the water and curled up near the bottom of the tank, thinking and thinking and thinking.

   Home. Jaehyun. Home. Jaehyun. Home.

   He went between the two over, and over. One that he was with, and one that he longed to see again. One that he would soon be with, and the other that he knew he would probably long for now forever.

   The journey in the boat was far longer than the journey on land, so long that Taeyong slept. For quite a while. He could sleep, these days, so long as Jaehyun was in the room with him. Jaehyun slept too, legs drawn up onto the bench and head on a bundle of his jacket.

   They talked some more as well, though not about what had happened.

   The others, the ones that Taeyong didn’t enjoy seeing, brought food for him, which he chewed diligently even though really he didn’t want to eat until he was home. He knew that he needed to build up some energy reserves, because he wasn’t sure quite how far from home they would drop him. Taeyong knew better than anyone that the ocean was a big place.

   It was after a second day, a second sleep, one closer to a doze and distinctly more fitful than the first, that the boat found a semi-stop.

   Jaehyun, who had not slept a second time, called out to him in a gentle voice. ‘Taeyong? Taeyong we’re here.’

   Taeyong’s eyes flickered open and he looked around, though of course nothing had changed from where he could see. He could feel the closeness, though, to home. It radiated through him. ‘I can go now?’

   ‘Yes,’ said Jaehyun, with that heart-breaking smile. ‘Yes, you can go now.’

   Taeyong felt a rush of joy, a rush of pain, and a rush of anticipation.

   ‘We’ll move you back up onto the deck, then they’ll lower you down.’

   ‘I don’t need lowering. I’ll take it at a jump,’ Taeyong said quickly.

   Jaehyun nodded. ‘You’re impatient, huh?’

   ‘A little.’

   There was a moment of silence.

   ‘Can we say goodbye down here?’ Taeyong asked in a quiet voice. He didn’t want the others to hear.

   ‘Yes,’ Jaehyun looked relieved, ‘yes I think that’s for the best.’

   ‘Thank you, Jaehyun,’ he whispered, leaning as far out of the tank as he could reach to take his hand. ‘Thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I don’t know where I’d be if you hadn’t come to meet me. You didn’t have to do it all… you could have… wanted to study me, like everyone else. I’m so grateful.’

   Jaehyun shook his head. ‘All I’ve done is what any good person would do. And besides, I… I care about you so much. I didn’t think I would care about you as much as – as much as I do, now.’

   Taeyong blinked away tears, hoping they would merely marry with the water on his face. ‘I’ll miss you every day.’

   ‘Don’t you even think about me,’ said Jaehyun. He lifted Taeyong’s hand to his lips and kissed his knuckles. ‘Don’t you ever think about me again. Forget humans. Stay safe. Keep yourself well away from our world – stay where we can never hurt you again. Please.’

   Taeyong knew that it was an impossibility; he knew that he would probably think about Jaehyun every day for the rest of his life. But he nodded. ‘Okay.’

   There was a rap on their cabin door, and then Dr Kim emerged, looking more than a little awkward. ‘It’s time,’ he said, with an expression that betrayed his discomfort.  

   Jaehyun nodded rapidly, as if to say that they would be there very soon. Then, he looked back at Taeyong. ‘Goodbye, Taeyongie.’

   ‘Goodbye,’ he answered, voice very small. There was so much more that he wanted to say – that he would never have time to say.

   ‘Let’s get you back in the ocean, yeah?’ said Jaehyun, and he was smiling. It was a smile that hid a multitude of things, but a smile nonetheless. He let go of Taeyong’s hand and it felt to Taeyong like losing his grip on gravity. ‘Let’s get you home.’

~

   Taeyong swam, not for the first time, like his life depended on it.

   He felt through the water rather than looked, eyes adjusting to what felt like an unfamiliar depth now. He did not sleep – he would not sleep. He did not eat. He did not stop, even when he passed a small settlement of his own kind, because he knew that meant he was close to home.

   He moved at pace, and pace meant pace because he was one of the most powerful creatures in the ocean.

   And he never looked back.

   He did not look around at all until his heart started to pound, his senses tingling with the familiarity of home, the magnetic or mystical draw that led him back to his family. Then, he started to glance around, concentrate more.

   He called out, his own language feeling strange now, a different way of speaking to how he had communicated for what felt like so long. It was only in the hope that someone would be travelling a little away from home, because he was not that close yet. No one would hear him, but his patience was gone.

   He wanted home.

   He wanted his mother.

   Only when the seamount appeared in the distance, after hours and hours and hours that dragged on his mind and his muscles, did he relax.

   Home.

   Home.

   He yelled out again, because this time he saw someone. People.

   The figures turned, two mermaids that he recognised but did not know well. They were out in the open water, well away from the mount, which meant that they were up to no good, but that did not worry Taeyong. If he had interrupted a tryst or some sort of mischief then that was insignificant right now. There were priorities to think about.

   ‘I’m home!’ he cried out, and there was a twist in his gut as the realisation hit him with a ferocious force. ‘It’s me – it’s Taeyong -’ It did not matter that they would not have known him before – they would know him now. Everyone would surely know of his disappearance.

   They looked at him. One of the girl’s faces turned to utter astonishment.

   ‘It’s – you – you - ’

   He launched himself forwards and pulled her into a crushing hug. They did not need to know each other for that either. ‘I’m home,’ he choked, ‘I’m home. Take me home.’

   ‘There have been search parties out everywhere,’ the other girl said. ‘Where have you - ’

   ‘The humans got me. They took me.’

   ‘How did you get away?’

   He didn’t want to talk about this. Not now. ‘Please take me home. Now. Let’s go. Please, please.’

   ‘I can’t believe you’re alive. Taeyong. Your parents, they – they haven’t stopped looking. They aren’t here.’

   ‘Take me home. I’ll get word out to them.’

   He was already pushing past, to be honest. He didn’t actually need them to come with him. He swam again, and he knew they were following him but he kicked on as fast as he could go.

   Everything started to come into view in detail.

   Beautiful detail.

   He’d never seen anything more beautiful.

   There were corals, of every colour, and fish of colours that he was sure did not exist above the surface. There were figures swimming in and out of the complex network of caves that they had built, familiar figures, his friends, the people he had grown up with. There were streams of bubbles where children were swishing their tails about in chaos, and then there were eyes – eyes on him.

   Every eye, in fact, turned to him.

   ‘Where’s Mark?’ he called out, to no one in particular. He ignored every question, every shout, every anything that came his way. He wanted his family now. ‘Mark. Where is Mark?’

   ‘Taeyong! Taeyong!’

   He turned and grabbed out at Donghyuck who had darted his way so fast that he’d overshot by a metre or two and had to turn. ‘Hyuckie, where is Mark? Mark.’ He repeated his name over and over like it could summon his brother to him.

   ‘I’ll take you to him!’ Donghyuck grabbed his hand and yanked him with him. ‘I can’t believe you’re alive. Everyone thought you were - ’

   ‘I know,’ he said, dreading hearing the words out loud. ‘I know.’

   Donghyuck stopped, and pulled Taeyong into a hug. ‘I thought you were - ’

   ‘I know.’

   ‘Did they take you? The humans?’

   ‘Yes,’ he whispered, ‘they did. But I’m okay. I just want to see my brother now.’

   ‘Right, yeah, of course!’ Donghyuck started to pull him along again.

   Word travelled quicker than they did, because it was Mark who emerged from a hidden cluster of stones before they found him.

   His eyes were wide, like he would not believe the rumour until he saw him right in front of him. He looked tired, horribly tired, but there was a light in his eyes. Mark was smaller than him, with a more bluish tail, but they shared a similar sheen to their scales that marked them as family. ‘Taeyong?’

   ‘It’s me,’ he said, and he took Mark’s face in his hands to press a kiss to his forehead that for once his brother didn’t wriggle away from. ‘It’s me.’

   Mark wrapped his arms around him and held him so tight that Taeyong thought he’d never let him go. That was okay. He never wanted to let go either. ‘I missed you so much. I missed you every day. Taeyong I’m sorry I never said goodbye that day, I - ’

   ‘Don’t. You have nothing to be sorry for,’ said Taeyong, though he understood that regret. He’d spent so many hours thinking about how he’d been picked up all because of disobeying his parents. ‘I’m home now. Where are mum and dad? I need to see them now.’

   ‘They’ve been out all day. They’ll get home soon. They usually search from dawn until dusk. Sometimes they go for more than one day but they said they would come home tonight. They’ve been looking for you every day, Taeyong. All of us have. They told me I had to stay home, though, in case you got back. In case. And now you’re - ’

   ‘I’m here,’ he swallowed every piece of emotion in his throat, ‘I’m here.’

   The wait, then, was as long as it had felt on the boat, or on the truck, or while he was trapped in the laboratory for those last few days. Everyone wanted to speak to him, everyone wanted to see him, everyone wanted to interrogate him. He didn’t want to answer questions yet; he didn’t want to tell anyone anything until he’d told his parents because they were the only ones who mattered now. Them and Mark.

   Mark took him home, away from the crowds, and Jungwoo and Donghyuck stood guard outside to keep everyone away.

   Taeyong trailed his fingertips along the walls of home, swimming around every corner. He touched over each nook and cranny and chip in the stone, so familiar. He pushed away memories of being surrounded only by smooth glass, and closed his eyes to live in this space instead.

   ‘Did they hurt you?’ Mark whispered.

   He hadn’t asked many questions. He, unlike everyone else, seemed to understand why his brother was keeping quiet. This one, though, had clearly been occupying his thoughts.

   Taeyong opened his eyes and looked over his shoulder. ‘No,’ he said, ‘nothing bad.’

   ‘One of the kids said they’d probably already cut you up and taken your guts out,’ said Mark, and his lip trembled.

   Taeyong shook his head and crossed back over to him. ‘They didn’t hurt me at all, I promise. They kept me in a tank, and lots of people looked at me. They wrote down lots about me. But it was all very secret. Most of the humans don’t know about us.’

   Mark stared at him with wide eyes.

   ‘One of them was very nice to me,’ said Taeyong softly. ‘They’re not all bad.’

   ‘You look all weird,’ said Mark.

   ‘What?’

   ‘Just then. You looked all weird. Your eyes went all misty.’

   ‘Oh, yeah,’ he mumbled, ‘just thinking about… stuff.’

   He wondered, as they waited, what his life would look like now. Would he have nightmares? Probably. Would he have good dreams? About Jaehyun? Probably those too. Would his parents ever let him out of their sight again? Or was he to become a prisoner all over again?

   Every thought faded when the raucous shouting started outside, indicative of someone’s arrival, because it meant only one thing:

   He was going to be held by his parents once again.

   At last.

~

   Jaehyun looked out over the water.

   It was a very still day, the boat barely rocking, and that meant he could concentrate on his sketchbook for once. He wasn’t the best artist in the world, but he’d been drawing a lot recently. He’d been drawing because he did not have photographs, and there was no one else in the world who had the image in their mind of Taeyong to create something permanent for him.

   So he would do it himself.

   ‘Tea for you,’ said Johnny, and he held out a cup to him.

   ‘Thanks.’

   ‘Drawing again?’

   ‘Mm,’ Jaehyun hummed. The sun was out, and the horizon shimmered with gold, a channel all the way across the waves to the boat.

   Johnny sat down beside him. ‘You spend a lot of time looking out over the water these days. You used to always have your nose buried in the readings instead.’

   ‘I’m keeping an eye out,’ said Jaehyun, ‘you never know what you might see.’

   It had been six weeks since he’d said goodbye to Taeyong.

   Johnny didn’t know everything – there were things Jaehyun could not share, that he would get into terrible trouble if he shared – but he knew enough. They had been friends and colleagues for a very long time, so he could recognise the signs when something wasn’t… right.

   And things weren’t right with Jaehyun. He felt like there was a void in his heart, or rather his soul, left by the absence of Taeyong. It was like Taeyong had completed him in a way that he hadn’t known he needed to be completed.

   He looked back at his sketchbook. The picture didn’t do him justice. The tail, he could always get right, because that was more… scientific; but the face? He wasn’t sure that the finest portrait artist in the world would be able to adequately portray his face, his eyes.

   ‘Hey, look,’ Johnny nudged his shoulder, and Jaehyun looked up again. ‘There’s something over there, beneath the surface. What do you think?’

   Jaehyun’s eyes shot up, but he could see nothing. ‘Trick of the light?’

   There was a pause, during which everything stilled, and then the boat gave a jolt, and his tea spilled, right over his drawing. ‘Shit,’ he cursed.

   ‘The hell?’ Johnny stood up and climbed around to the back of the boat in search of the cause.

   Jaehyun stood up too, but then he stopped.

   He heard a giggle.

   He whipped around, heart in his mouth.

   ‘Trick of the light? That’s all you think of me?’ smiled Taeyong, floating lazily on his back. He was gazing up at the sky, and the water lapped at the tail that he left flat on the surface.

   ‘Taeyong,’ he exhaled.

   His world shifted, then settled.

   ‘You asked me once, Jaehyunnie, whether my kind partner for life.’

   ‘I remember,’ he said. Part of him thought that maybe it was a dream, but the other part knew, just as it had the first time he had met him, that he was real. His heart thudded so hard that it was on the verge of breaking free.

   ‘Well,’ Taeyong turned onto his front and swam up alongside him. He jumped up far enough from the water that he could settle his elbows on the side of the boat. ‘The answer is yes. And it only takes us one kiss to know.’

   ‘It’s a good thing I like spending time out on the water,’ said Jaehyun, breathless.

   Taeyong smiled. His smile was dazzling. ‘You just bring the boat. I promise I’ll always be able to find you.’

~