Chapter Text
Kim Seungmin was a bright and handsome young man. He worked as a marine biologist for a big company in his coastal city, and he loved the freedom that his job gave him, being able to take his small motorboat out to sea every day to do research on the field.
As a child, he was always fascinated by the ocean and the strange and wonderful forms of life that where hidden underneath its surface. It then wasn’t a big surprise for his family when Seungmin worked extra hard in school to be able to skip two years and enter university early, obtaining his master’s degree in marine biology while at the same time being offered a job in one of the biggest companies of the country.
He was one of the youngest people working there, and as such he didn’t have that many colleagues he was close to. But Seungmin was never a boy that had that many friends to start with, preferring to stay in his own world of research and discovery rather than having to go out and have social interactions with others.
One of the people he truly did like though was his boss. Mina was a gentle soul and she always encouraged his different projects, allowing him to go out every day to work directly in the ocean instead of confining him to the labs, and for that he was infinitely grateful to her.
Another thing that Seungmin liked, apart from his work and his boss, was his style. He always put extra care in keeping up with his “dandy boy” image, pulling off a clean and elegant look effortlessly, even after a full day of diving.
That’s why he was currently putting away his clothes carefully into the storage compartment of his company-rented motorboat. He folded his white shorts and light pink polo, not wanting them to get soaked and crusted in salt water. He slipped into his neoprene diving suit, having chosen the one that stopped mid-thigh and went down to his elbows for today, since his diving site was not that deep, and the water was relatively warm on this summer day.
He had gotten the approval the day before from his boss for his newest project: diving to the famous fishing boat shipwreck that laid about 5km from shore.
Every local person knew about this wreck, as it was not that far away from a well-known beach and lots of curious adventurers had taken their chance to discover some hidden treasure in the wreck, or just wanted to visit the place to take cool underwater pictures.
A few years ago, the government had forbidden anyone from approaching the wreck within a 2km radius and had completely banned any diving from taking place inside of it, as the boat was slowly but surely wasting away, becoming unstable and dangerous. Coast guards patrolled the area often and a high fine was sent to anyone who dared to defy the government decree.
However, Seungmin managed to get a special access to the wreck, with the help of his boss and the company of course. He wanted to study the impact of the degradation of the ship on the surrounding environment, living and otherwise. His research, once completed, would serve as a base for the officials to decide if they need to take action into dismantling and removing the wreck, or if it was better to let nature run its course.
That’s why he was there today, having anchored his own boat a mere 20m away from the wreck and looking down at the looming shadow of the quite impressive fishing boat underneath the water. It was one of the bigger models, and there were many nooks and crannies which Seungmin had no doubt hosted all kinds of marine organism.
Since he had to be extra careful during his dives to not make the decaying structure of the boat even more unstable, he knew this project would probably take him at least all summer. He was fine with this though, as it gave him a concrete task to do on the field, and there was nothing that he liked more than spending his whole day under the water.
The pink-haired boy made sure his anchor was properly fixed and set up his diver flag, which would indicate to anyone passing by that he was underwater. Shouldering his dive tank after having checked all of his equipment, Seungmin made sure to also grab his camera before sitting on the side of his boat and letting himself fall overboard, straight into the inviting water.
As he hit the surface and then slowly sank lower, he relished in the silence that always accompanied his dives. Seungmin was a very accomplished diver, and as soon as he deemed himself skillful enough, he had quickly taken to do solo dives, preferring those to the buddy-system that is usually implemented. Solo dives just allowed him to properly focus on his environment, and it was much easier to take pictures of the fauna if there was no other bumbling divers swimming clumsily around and making all the fishes swim away.
A touch of color caught his attention as the bubbles around him dissipated, and he realized that he had forgotten to take off the bandana that he usually tied around his neck. It went with his whole dandy aesthetic, and he wore it so often that he didn’t even feel it anymore, hence now diving with the pink handkerchief still wrapped around his throat.
With a shrug, he decided that it would be too much trouble to get back to the boat and remove it. Anyways, it was already wet now, so he would just look more dapper than normal for this dive.
Letting himself sink farther down, he flipped around to be facing the wreck, and swam lazily up to the deck, his flippers propelling him easily forward. The highest part of the ship was at around 15m deep, while the bottom of the hull rested on a sandbank some 30m below. Seungmin made sure to take a picture of the entire wreck before going closer, swimming around the hull and deck to see what kind of life forms had settled there.
With no big surprises, he found mostly clams, mussels and algae. Some small fishes were happily eating around at the moss-covered iron railings, and a school of butterflyfishes swam through an opening in the deck, disappearing in a few flicks of their tails.
Smiling at the peaceful scenery in front of him, Seungmin took some notes into his waterproof notebook, accompanying them with a few more photos. He was here today to scope out the wreck, observe everything he could and then make a plan for the rest of his research, depending on his findings.
Making his way carefully over the deck, Seungmin eyed the hole through which the butterflyfishes just came out, judging its size. Deciding that it was big enough for him to fit through, the boy swam inside slowly, taking extra precautions to not let his flippers accidentally bang on the metal structure now surrounding him. It felt a bit claustrophobic inside, but the light from the torch fixed to his wrist helped Seungmin to relax slightly.
There was a lot of movements down there; fishes passing him left and right and algae moving in the gentle current, creating a whole new ecosystem hidden inside of the metal giant, and the scientist in him was absolutely ecstatic about the chance to study all of it.
Keeping his movements slow and cautious, Seungmin toured around the ship’s hold, identifying at least four different rooms in which he took quick pictures and notes for future references. However, a sudden rattling made him look up from his notebook, turning around to look down the hallway he was currently into. There was a high chance that something had shifted because of the current, or that a fish had bumped into something, but it still was a quite loud noise.
Deciding to investigate, Seungmin pointed his flashlight straight in front of him and took his dive knife firmly in hand, just in case. There was always the possibility that there was another diver around, but the chances were pretty slim since he had seen no other ship on his way over. Furthermore, the coast guards usually did a pretty good job at keeping curious bystanders away from this place.
Making his way to the end of the hall completely, he saw another room that he hadn’t mapped out yet. The big metal door was halfway open, just enough for him to squeeze through with his dive tank. Something did seem to keep it blocked from opening wider though, and it wasn’t just rusty hinges. Peeking inside the room, Seungmin saw what looked like a massive metal shelf having fallen over and lodged behind the door, making it impossible to open said door fully.
This was obviously what had caused the noise just now, as a cloud of sediment and murky water was floating in the room, a testament to the disturbance that had taken place. The biologist couldn’t however figure for the life of him what had happened to make the shelf fall like this, as it would require a hefty push to move it around.
His answer came in the form of a big scaly tail. From his position, Seungmin could only see the wide and wispy caudal fin, colored a soft cream and peach, and the start of the actual tail, where the scales turned a brighter orange the higher up they got, some of them glinting like molten gold in the light pouring from Seungmin’s torch.
Of course, the diver’s first instinct was to back off, because even if he couldn’t see much of the animal, the size of that fin told him just how big it actually was. Still, he couldn’t deny his natural inner curiosity. Seungmin was a researcher for a reason, and that was because he loved to discover new things. And he could confidently say that whatever kind of fish was behind that door, it was absolutely going to be one of his greatest discoveries. In all of his years studying, both in books and on the field, he had never encountered such a weird combination of size, color and type of caudal fin. There was just no fish he could remember that fit all of those criteria perfectly. So, either he was going to discover a new species altogether, or he was going to document a mutation that has occurred in the local marine life, possibly due to the presence of the shipwreck.
No matter how he looked at it, Seungmin could only see a win-win situation here. With his new-found determination, he swam again towards the room, this time slipping inside of it. It took him some time to get situated, since he had to do some pretty acrobatic twisting around to not get his tank or flippers stuck anywhere in the crowded space. It also didn’t help that the fish had seen him approaching and was now furiously flapping his tail around, sending murky, sediment-filled clouds all over the place.
Seungmin got scared for a moment that in the confusion, the fish would be able to escape through the door without him having the time to take a proper picture of it. However, that theory quickly dissolved as he noticed that the trashing tail was in fact trapped under the metal shelving.
Understanding that now would be his best shot at getting that priceless photo, Seungmin swam over the shelf, camera in hand, waiting for the water to settle down. It did after a few more seconds, the fish having apparently stopped struggling. Except that this was no fish that appeared in front of the biologist, as the sediment clouds settled back down to the floor.
Seungmin gasped so hard he actually choked a bit and had to regulate his breathing again, not wanting to run out of air at this precise moment.
In front of him, curled up behind the rusty old door and with its tail trapped under the shelf, was a boy. Well, since he had a tail attached to his lower body, it couldn’t really be a boy, but he sure looked like one. His honey brown hair, tan skin, deep brown eyes and general upper torso looked entirely normal, if you excluded some anomalies such as the three deep slices on each side of his torso and the orange scales that were littered around his navel, collarbones, shoulders and cheekbones. As soon as you passed the pelvis and hips though, the fiery orange scales started and formed an elegantly long but still powerful-looking tail, the muscles obviously rippling through the whole appendage as it shifted minutely to try and dislodge itself from its stuck position. The caudal fin looked delicate enough to be easily ripped, but Seungmin had a feeling that it was actually sturdier than it seemed, just like the dorsal fin that started at the boy’s lower back and went down to about halfway of his tail.
Now, all of those observations were instinctively and strategically taken in by the diver’s scientific side of the brain, being used to having to classify different types of marine lifeforms in the blink of an eye. But his conscious mind was a whole other deal, as it tried to grasp onto what it was actually seeing.
A merboy.
At least, that’s what he thought he could call it?
What he couldn’t figure out (not taking into account how the merboy’s existence was possible and what repercussions his discovery would have), was just why the boy looked so… frightened.
He was curled up as far as his trapped tail would allow, arms around his chest as he looked at Seungmin with big black eyes filled with terror, his shoulders shaking almost as if he was sobbing.
Frowning, the biologist looked down at himself and realized that not only was he shining his light directly at the youngster and pointing his camera at him, he also still had his knife in his hand. Kicking himself internally, Seungmin put his knife and camera away, and turned his lamp so it wouldn’t shine directly into the boy’s eyes anymore. The human knew he had probably no chance at communicating with the distressed merboy, as even if they happened to speak the same language, Seungmin couldn’t exactly talk underwater. He also didn’t expect the boy to know how to read, so his notebook was also useless.
Resorting to using some general hand signs instead, he approached the cornered creature slowly, his hands up with the palms facing outwards, wanting to appear non-threatening. It didn’t exactly work out though, since as soon as he got a bit too close, the boy started hissing at him. Except that, while his sharp teeth were bared and his nose was scrunched, just like how a cat would look like while on the defensive, the noise that rumbled out of the merboy’s chest sounded more like a low trill than anything else.
Seungmin frowned, understanding that there was no way he would get closer to the boy. He decided instead on fixing the problem in front of him, since he was always good at that, and it would hopefully help his mind process the situation better if he was doing something helpful and logic.
He turned his back to the creature – which was admittedly not his best idea ever – and put his hands on the metal shelf, while placing his feet against the nearby wall. Then, with as much strength as he could muster, he pushed against the furniture, making it move slowly but surely. He heard a whimper behind him, but the merboy seemed to have found some strength back, wriggling his tail once more to slip it out from under the metal. With a few more effort on both boys’ parts, the younger one managed to finally get free.
If Seungmin had managed to smile around the regulator in his mouth, he would have. He turned back to check on the merboy behind him, only to have concern grow inside of him once more. The brown-haired youngster had only curled up more onto himself, tail now firmly tucked in between his arms as he was nursing what seemed to be a nasty cut right at the base of it. At least he wasn’t growling angrily at the diver anymore, but he still didn’t look like he could just go back from where he came in this state.
Remembering the handkerchief still tied around his neck, Seungmin knew just what he had to do. Untying the bandana, he approached the injured boy carefully, presenting the piece of cloth to him. When all he got in return was a confused face paired with scared eyes, the biologist allowed himself to lay almost completely down, letting the weight of his equipment sink him to the floor.
From that position, he brought his hands closer to the boy’s tail, feeling more than hearing him produce a scared high-pitched noise, but he didn’t pay it any mind. Dragging this longer would only serve to agitate the poor creature more, so he took his bandana and, with deft fingers, managed to tie it around the cut, hopefully helping to stem the flow of blood.
Lifting his head to see if he had maybe tied it too tight and hurt the youngster, he was met with wide surprised black eyes. The merboy reached down for his tail, fingers touching the material of the handkerchief curiously. He didn’t seem as frightened now, guarded sure, but not terrified like before.
He let out a curious sounding noise, tilting his head while looking at Seungmin. The diver couldn’t really respond but decided to do the diving sign for “ok”, by forming a circle with his index touching his thumb. The boy adorably followed his lead, replicating the sign with his own fingers. The human internally cooed at such cuteness, unable to deny that despite the situation and the fact that the boy in front of him should logically not exist, he was simply adorable.
The brown-haired boy suddenly jerked to the side, head tilting as if he was listening to something. He then sent what seemed to be a sad look towards Seungmin, but mere seconds later he was pushing himself off the floor with muscular arms and swam away so fast that the biologist didn’t even manage to turn in time to see him twist over the metal shelf and turn sharply to exit out of the room.
Seungmin stayed there for a few more moments, brain still scrambling with everything that had just happened. He was definitely in shock of his discovery and realized too late that he never managed to take a picture of the boy. Maybe it was for the best though?
Knowing that his oxygen reserves were running low by now, Seungmin forced himself to make his way out of the wreck and back to his boat, scanning the water around him all the while to try and spot the merboy one more time. He had no such luck however and, as he let himself float at the surface next to his boat, the only proof he had that what just happened was real, was the missing weight of the handkerchief that was normally tied around his neck.