Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jisung rises before the sun does.

He still smells like chlorine, and now his sheets will too. His skin feels dry from the pool, and soft from Minho’s touches. He smiles into his pillow, wishing he could reach over and pull Minho close. Kiss him silly and wash away the chlorine smell with his naturally salty one.

But Minho is down the stairs, out the door, and at the bottom of the pool. And Jisung is wide awake at 4:30 in the morning, the joy in his body at war with the sadness in his head. 

The difference between one year and three hundred and sixty-four days, and two years is only twenty-four hours, but that’s the entire lifespan of an adult mayfly. Hatching without working mouthparts so they either starve or stop something else from starving. Jisung got eaten. The predator not the ocean, but its actions. Lived and died in the same day, going to bed himself and waking up different.

It feels to him like today should be harder. Like he shouldn’t be allowed to smile, or that any feeling other than despair is a betrayal to his parents who can no longer feel at all. Survivor’s guilt is what he talks about in therapy. It’s almost worse knowing your problems and not having the means to fix them. The first step to healing is acknowledging you need to, but some of the worst known diseases don’t have cures or remedies.

Every day is hard, but today is the day he can let it be.

Jisung steps into the shower, numb enough to pinch his skin, but aware enough to wince at the pain. He rubs soap over his stomach and legs, hissing when he bends over and feels how sore his ass is. He blushes to no one, heating up enough to fog the glass without the scorching water.

Last night was a dream. So perfect that Jisung feels guilty he doesn’t feel worse. His emotions clash inside of him, stuck between the joy of being in love and the reality of knowing what it is to lose it. Grief like the tide, washing up and skating over his feet before retreating. A knife in the side just barely missing his organs but one inch from fatality. He’s one step from slipping and impaling himself all the way through.

When the water turns off, Jisung shivers. Swiping his arm across the fogged mirror just to see if his outside appearance has changed like his inside one. He almost expects to see a lightning scar scorching down the length of his torso, but there are only bruises in the shape of fingers, as purple as the nails on the hands that made them.

 It’s going to be in the high nineties today, humidity thick and heavy in the air, but Jisung puts on a hoodie anyway. He needs to feel like he’s being held from all sides, nowhere that the sun can find his skin and burn it.

His mom used to burn. They’d retreat from the beach with her wincing in pain, rubbing her shoulders that had turned lobster red despite copious amounts of sunscreen. Jisung and his dad would laugh, sporting their deep tans. Kissed by the sun while his mom was slapped by it. His dad would rub aloe vera into her skin as they ate dinner by the TV. Watching Survivor or the evening news or some random game show, yelling answers to trivia at the screen.

Jisung no longer yells at the screen. He no longer has answers. Now in the final stage of his life as a mayfly, only vestigial mouthparts, no way to swallow his pain because he can’t even chew it. He just sits in it and lets it consume him. Death happened to his parents and grief happened to him, and he can’t decide which fate is worse.

Both permanent, both encompassing, but only one is felt. Jisung feels it heavy today, a reverse placebo. His back bends under the weight, his feet dragging as he walks down the stairs. He passes by the patio doors and sees the smallest flash of bright blue in the navy morning. Another thing gained is just another thing to lose. Minho and Jisung are reaching the adult stage of the mayfly lifecycle. Minho will be swallowed by the ocean and Jisung will starve on his own regrets. Minho’s tail swishes under the surface, pool lights refracting, and Jisung hopes he’s having a good dream.

The heat is already starting to set in when Jisung slides into his sandals and walks out the door, humidity creeping up and preparing to suffocate. Jisung leaves the top on the jeep. He doesn’t roll down the windows and he doesn’t play any music. He doesn’t feel much like singing or like feeling, two things music always makes him do. About halfway through his drive, it starts to sprinkle. The droplets pang on his window, but he doesn’t turn on the wipers. He’s crying anyway, nothing to brush them away so he lets them slide down his cheeks and under the curve of his jaw, staining his skin.

Sometimes Jisung wishes that he would have suffered some bodily consequence in the accident. A nasty scar or a lost limb, something to physically display the hurt that no one can seem to grasp. People can imagine what it’s like to live without an arm, hold one behind their back and pretend they don’t have that usage. They cannot simulate Jisung’s loss. There is no way to understand it or explain it. No analogies that encompass it, no way to describe what it is to want something without any means of ever having it. You can learn to live without a limb, but some things can never be learned no matter how long you stare at the facts and try to make sense of them. You cannot conjure phantom people.

The sun is just starting to settle into place when Jisung kills the engine and exits the car. The air is sticky from the moisture and the heat, condensation clinging to the gravestones in the cemetery. Jisung inhales deeply and pulls his hood over his head, stuffing his hands into his pockets. His shoulders ache with the effort of holding himself upright, his knees ready to buckle. He wonders if this is what it felt like for Minho when he first got his land legs. He smiles to himself and wipes it away quickly, feeling guilty.

He’s only been here once before, on the day of the funeral. It’s all a blur in his mind, clinging to Hyunjin the whole time so that he didn’t have to worry about falling over. If he wasn’t holding him, Jisung would have followed them into the ground. 

They said it was a beautiful service, the people who were there who Jisung can’t remember. He thinks that’s an oxymoron. The living spend too much time trying to make death peaceful and kind because they want to believe that for themselves, too. Jisung’s therapist calls him a cynic; he thinks he’s more of a romantic, there just isn’t any romance in dying. 

He doesn’t remember where they are buried. He’ll have to wander aimlessly, soaking in the names and dates and fixating on the length of a life. What even is a lifetime? How can something be measured if there is no consistency with the variables? Someday, if he’s granted the mercy, Jisung’s life will stretch past where his parents’ ended. Two distinct lifetimes: before and after.

Damp dirt finds its way into Jisung’s sandals and in between his toes. He hasn’t moved since abandoning the jeep, the ground threatening to swallow him. Let him mingle with the bones until he’s nothing but a skeleton too. He inhales deep, turns to look at the grave closest to him, and exhales in the form of a laugh.

His parents’ names stare back at him. Engraved side by side, Jihoon & Eunju Han. Lives too short. The surface of the stone is still shiny, not yet eroded with time or wear. The sun is sitting low in the sky, a tender pink reaching across the cemetery. A color too soft for a place like this. Jisung can faintly see his reflection in the gray marble, barely opaque, like he’s just as much of a memory as his family is.

“Hi,” Jisung squeaks. He tightens the drawstrings of  his hood up and shoves his hands further into his pockets, trying to make this as private as possible. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, he doesn’t know how this is supposed to work. What do you say to people who can’t hear you? Who have physical bodies six feet away, but in the wrong direction? This is the closest Jisung has been to his parents in two years and he’s never felt further away.

Minho would know what to say. Would spin some sentence from thoughts no one else has ever had. He would take Jisung’s pain and pull it like cookie dough, bake it into something sweet and gentle, but still capable of burning your tongue. He would understand that there isn’t really anything to say, so just say anything at all.

Jisung eases himself down to sit crosslegged in the grass. Morning dew clings to the blades and tickles the bare skin of his legs, wetting the hems of his shorts. Goosebumps rise across his skin, and despite the still-comfortable heat, he feels a chill. 

When he was a kid, scared of whatever lurked under his bed, he used to cuddle up in between his parents and play with his mother’s hair. Twisting the strands around his fingers and looping it around his palms. It was calming. Her hair was as soft as she was, his father snoring quietly over his shoulder. Their silent language translatable even through sleep, through the tangle of Jisung’s chubby little fingers in his mom’s hair. Now, Jisung digs his slender fingers into the grass. It breaks off in brittle chunks, but it will have to do.

“The shop isn’t doing very well,” Jisung starts, and is then unable to stop. Nothing to say, so he says everything. “Chan is doing his best to keep everything afloat, but I’m worried about it. And Jeongin says he’s fine doing all the surf lessons, but he’s barely ever out of the water now. I took Bbama to the vet not too long ago and he’s healthy, but I have to monitor his hips since he’s getting older. You’d never be able to tell, though.” Jisung laughs through his nose and pulls a blade of grass in two, fibers hanging. “Hyunjin lives with me now. He’s a pain in a Hyunjin way, and I’m happy to have him around. It’s nice that someone else is in the house.”

Jisung starts pulling up grass in fistfuls, roots dangling and dirt falling over his ankles. His face is tight with the effort of keeping it even. And for who? No one here but Jisung and the dead, and he doesn’t believe in ghosts. “I don’t surf anymore, but I want to. And I might be moving to California if I can get it together, but I’m still not sure. The house is kind of falling apart, but you know – you knew that.”

A deep inhale, a breeze goes by and it almost sounds like his dad’s laugh. Airy where Jisung’s is hearty. They always complemented each other like that. “I met a real merman – not metaphorically, but like, a fishtail and everything, and I think —” he pauses and smiles to himself. “I am in love with him. You would like him.” It is nice that he can’t hear how ridiculous he knows his mom would think that sounds. But she would be unsurprised, even given the circumstances, he knows that. “I think that’s everything. You haven’t missed much.” Jisung shrugs and finishes quietly, dirt coating the creases of his hands and digging under his fingernails. A ring of grass in a circle around him, soon to be just as dead as what it covers.

Jisung sits and waits for the response that can’t come. His chin wobbles and his eyes burn. He pulls his lips between his teeth and flares his nostrils, moving his face in any way that isn’t tears. He doesn’t want to cry in front of them. He wants to be strong for them, like they always were for him.

There’s only one thing to say, so Jisung says it. The words are quiet and as delicate as the grass in his hands. Said through his teeth and a rock in his throat. “I miss you.”

A simple admittance, but enough to break him open. Just that. Just loss and sadness and pain. Just dead, nothing after. Nothing to say back because there truly is nothing else. Sometimes you catch lightning in a bottle and sometimes the glass shatters on impact. Jisung caught all the shards in his face. Just blood. Just tears. Just him as he is now. Still Jisung like always, for better and for worse, but different. Like his colors faded just enough to change hue, but in a way that isn’t noticeable to the naked eye.

Tears stream hot down Jisung’s cheeks and catch in the seam of his lips. Salty. Does Minho cry freshwater? Does he cry at all? Will he cry once today and tomorrow are over and he has to slip back under the waves? Can Jisung’s body handle another loss, or would his bones bow and snap under the weight of trying to hold himself upright?

Jisung cries until his body runs out of tears to produce and he just hiccups through small sobs. He curls up on his side and lays in the grass, feeling it scratch the meat of his cheek and poke the inside of his ear. He wishes he had ripped it all up. Just another layer between him and what he wants the most.

When Jisung was just a toddler, he used to lay in his mom’s lap as the storms blew through. She would count the seconds between each strike of lightning and boom of thunder. Jisung is no longer scared of storms, but he’s scared of what comes after. 

There is no storm now, and this is as close as Jisung can ever be to his family ever again. So he closes his eyes, counts the seconds and waits for something to happen. Nothing does.

⋆.ೃ࿔*:𓇼⋆.ೃ࿔*:⋆

A soft nudge to his ribs jolts Jisung awake. 

He rolls over to his knees, pushing himself up with his hands. His entire right side is damp, and likely dyed green from the grass. His eyes feel swollen and his heart heavy. The sun is higher in the sky, and he has no idea how long he was out for.

Jisung looks up and sits down, hugging his knees to his chest. He’s expecting to see an angry person informing him that his time for mourning is over. Instead, he’s greeted by Minho’s concerned face. His blue-nailed fingers wrapped around a bouquet of flowers. 

“Hyunjin said you’d probably be here,” Minho says quietly. He sits down next to Jisung and twirls the stems of the bouquet between his palms. A petal falls and flits to the ground, blowing away in a breeze as soft as Minho’s presence. “He told me you might want to be alone but I kept bothering him until he drove me here.” 

Jisung smiles and rubs at his eye with the fat of his palm, squeezing Minho’s thigh with his other. “I’ve been alone long enough. I’m happy you’re here.” A small joy in a pool of sadness. Enough to strike and light something on fire.

Minho brushes his thumb along Jisung’s jaw, hesitating for a moment before leaning in and giving him a small peck. Jisung leans into it, chasing more, not realizing it was already gone. 

  Pink dusts Minho’s cheeks when he pulls away. He smiles shyly and presents the flowers. “Hyunjin also said you do this? Leave flowers for your dead?”

Jisung nods, feeling his chin wobble enough that he knows he’ll start crying if he tries to speak. He watches Minho place the flowers in front of the grave and run his fingers over the engraving. Tracing each word like he wants to commit it to memory, like he will somehow know the people buried here by this monument alone. 

Today is a reminder of the worst day of Jisung’s life. The last day of it, in a sense. Minho is a reminder that the days keep passing, and there is beauty to be found in all of them.

“Thank you,” Jisung says, thick and garbled. “I appreciate it.”

“I want to be here for you, Jisung,” Minho says softly. “Just tell me how.”

“Just like this.” Jisung takes Minho’s hand in both of his, and cradles it to his chest. Letting Minho feel the thrum of his heart underneath his ribs, keeping it in place. Jisung shifts to lay his head in Minho’s lap, wrapping his arm across his thighs. There is a faint smattering of scales by his knee, and Jisung taps them with the pad of his finger, iridescent and pearly blue.

They just sit like that while the time passes. The sun getting higher and hotter, until it must be late morning. Minho adjusts his legs once, grumbling under his breath about how tails don’t fall asleep, but not pushing Jisung away. His hands card through Jisung’s hair, and he can’t help but wonder if it was this calming for his mom when he used to do that same to her.

“How are you feeling?” Minho asks, tucking a long strand of Jisung’s hair behind his ear.

Jisung bites his lip and kneads it with his teeth, trying to funnel his feelings into something concise. He can’t figure out up from down. Doesn’t know his thumbs from his ankles. He pushes himself off of Minho’s lap and sits up, hugging his knees and tucking his chin into the space they make. He wants to be as small as possible. Tiny enough to fit into any nook or cranny. Find a hole in the ground and let himself sit under the surface just to know what it’s like. 

“Lost,” he says eventually, voice as small as he wants to be. “Like I let too much time pass and now I can’t find my way back to where I was. It’s like I can’t belong anywhere.”

Minho looks at him and nods, eyebrows furrowing in a show of concern and understanding. He lets out a slow breath. “We don’t do flowers,” he says. 

Jisung nods in return, like this is a completely normal turn in the conversation because for them, it is. “What do you do?”

Minho picks at his fingers and inhales, his chest rising with the force of his breath. “When a merperson dies, we bring their body to a rift outside of the kingdom and float them down to the bottom. It’s tradition to leave a shell at the edge of it to honor them, but it’s… different. There are miles of shells stretched in both directions, for all the merfolk who have passed, but there are no names, nothing to remember them . This,” Minho points to the headstone, underlines the words ‘loving mother and father’ with his finger. “Is different. It shows they belong to you, Jisung. That you belong to them. Do you know how special that is? To belong to something like that?” Jisung can see tears gathering in the corners of Minho’s eyes, sparkling like sea glass. “To belong to someone?”

Belong. In the here and now. Jisung’s world is different, but his past is the same. Untainted and perfectly preserved in time. No one can ever take that from him.

“Yeah,” Jisung breathes. “I was really lucky.” And he was. Lucky to have had what he had, blessed to have experienced it. 

“No, Jisung,” Minho shakes his head, “you are lucky. You’ll never stop belonging to them. Never.” He breathes in slowly and out slower. “I think I understand love now, what it means to have it.”

Jisung opens his mouth, his tongue dry. This whole time he had only thought of things ending. Who he was and who he is now, only before and after, not willing to accept that there are more things that are the same than there are things that are different. Lightning burns scars into skin, but it also burns glass out of sand. It just depends on where it chooses to strike.

There is no way to bottle lightning. No way to control it. All you can do is wait for it to hit, assess the damage, and respond. Sometimes destructive and sometimes beautiful, but always unpredictable. Just like love. Not something to understand, but to know. Something as complex as brain chemicals and heartbeats, but as simple as nails painted purple.

Lightning had struck Jisung once in the bones, and once in the heart. A terrible thing had happened. Jisung can sit with that, and roll it over his fingers, and ponder the why, but there isn’t one.

Bad things happen. Bad things rot at your insides and try to stop you from growing back together. Bad things happen and they hurt. Why? Because they do. It happened to Jisung and now he will live with it, because that’s the only option he has. Because good things happen too. Good things are happening right now. Good things are on the verge of ending.

“You’re right.” Jisung smiles and then chokes, swiping the back of his hand over his eyes. “I just miss them,” I miss you and you aren’t even gone yet. He laughs humorlessly, wet and dry at the same time. “Sometimes, I wish that you were right about love not being real. I think everything would hurt a lot less.”

Minho smiles. “But then what’s the point of anything?”

Jisung surges forward and captures Minho in a quick kiss, stupidly embarrassed to be doing it in front of his parents regardless of the capacity.

Jisung will always belong here, to his family, but he doesn’t know if he belongs to Jisung anymore. He wants to. He wants to dive into the ocean and find himself buried in the sand, breathe air back into his lungs and let him live not as he did, but as he does.

Minho kisses Jisung again. Harder and softer all at once. He pulls away in surprise, a tear tracing the curve of his cheek.

“I’m leaking,” Minho laughs, looking startled. He touches the wet spot, looks at his hand and taps his finger on his tongue, laughing harder. “Tastes like home.”

“Yeah, that just happens sometimes,” Jisung giggles, his own tears falling. “When you feel a lot.”

“I feel a lot right now,” Minho says and takes Jisung’s hand in his, his nails almost iridescent. The color indistinguishable.

Jisung pulls him towards him and wraps him in an embrace, feeling his tears against his neck. “Me too.”

“Good things or bad things?” Minho whispers into the crook of his shoulder. His words vibrate against Jisung’s skin, touching him to the bone. 

Minho’s nails say that pain is blue, but so is the ocean and the sky and cotton candy ice cream. Blueberry pie and Jisung’s favorite pair of jeans and his beloved jeep. The sky before and after it has rained, sucking on a raspberry jawbreaker and getting blue on your tongue and in your blood. Minho’s tail and his hair in the sun. Yellow reflecting off of the obsidian and coming back cerulean.

Grief is a funny thing; full of contradictions and abnormalities. A terrible inside joke. It’s not growing out of, but settling back into yourself. Recognizing that there are now empty spaces and nothing to fill them with. Coming to terms with that being okay. Being lighter and denser all at once and adjusting to your new weight. Carrying something so heavy, that you have no choice but to become stronger because of it.

The final stage of grief is not accepting the thing that happened to you, it’s accepting that you will be different because of it.

“Good and bad.” Jisung smiles and he cries. “I feel both.”

“I think I’m learning how to do the same,” Minho smiles and cups Jisung’s jaw, running his thumb down the skin of his cheek and wiping love into it. Jisung wonders how Minho ever could have lost faith in love when he is the shape of it. Or maybe, love is shaped like him. 

Jisung wipes his eyes one last time and rises to his feet. His legs feel heavy from the blood rushing back down, slight pins and needles in his feet. He reaches down to Minho and pulls him up with him. 

“Let’s go home,” Jisung smiles and it feels real. He hopes his parents can see him. “I feel a lot better now.”

Maybe better isn’t the right word. Jisung will never be better, not really, but he feels content. Solidified in himself and his own grief. A new understanding of how to operate within it and around it. Giving himself a grace he’s never thought himself worthy of being granted. 

“Jisung?” Minho says, almost shyly. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone, swipes a few times. “I was actually wondering if maybe we could go here?”

He turns the phone and Jisung bursts out laughing, loud and bright. A google search for ‘aquariums near me,’ the Daytona aquarium at the top of the list. Minho keeps smiling sheepishly, a peach blush on the tips of his ears and down his neck.

“Yeah, we can do that.” He doesn’t ask why. He doesn’t have to with Minho. He has no fears or worries, he trusts in him completely. If that’s what Minho wants, then Jisung will give it to him because he wants to give him everything in these last few days they have.

Minho grins, and then surprises Jisung by turning back to face the headstone. He bends his body in a deep bow, closing his eyes. “It was nice to meet you,” he says to the stone and Jisung’s heart breaks all over again, new tears forming when he thought there weren’t any left. But there will always be tears, and he’s glad for that, because that means there is always something worth crying for.

“Your son is one of the only people I’ve ever met, but I know he’s the best there is. And the cutest. I’m sure he has you to thank for that.” Minho glances at Jisung and winks, and Jisung starts laughing again, salt running into his mouth. Minho turns back to the grave, his voice so quiet that Jisung has to strain to hear it. “I know you miss him. I will, too. Thank you for loving him.”

“You know they can’t hear you, right?” Jisung teases when Minho turns back to him, lacing their fingers together and trying to keep his voice even. He swings their arms up to the sky as they walk.

Minho scoffs. “You met a merman, but you don’t believe in ghosts?”

Jisung believes in ghosts in a sad way. In the form of spaces left empty and clothes left unworn. Closets full of nail polish with all the pigment sunk to the bottom of the bottle. Empty pools devoid of snarky mermen and a fridge lacking fresh ingredients. Maybe that’s the difference between him and Minho; Jisung believes in ghosts as an absence and Minho believes in them as a presence.

“Can’t say I do,” Jisung shakes his head and opens the passenger side door, allowing Minho to crawl inside. Jisung hangs in the open door, one arm draped over the top of it and one on his hip.

“You’ll come around when you hear about the ghost crab that haunts my room.”

“Does he play the bongos?”

“Spectacularly.”

“Then I could be convinced.” Jisung grins and shuts the door, winding around to his side and plopping into the driver’s seat. He rolls down the windows and cranks the radio, a breezy pop song sounding sickly sweet through the speakers. It’s about half an hour to Daytona Beach. Jisung doesn’t bother putting it into the GPS, if he gets lost, oh well. He’ll find it eventually. And he won’t be alone.

“You kinda met my family,” Jisung shrugs. “Now let me kinda meet yours.”

Minho laughs, harmonizing with the speakers. “We’re moving pretty fast by human standards,” he narrows his eyes teasingly, swings his legs up to rest on the dashboard like he’s had them his whole life. The sun frames him in a near-perfect outline, light peeking through the strands of his hair and the dips of his body.

Jisung shifts the jeep into reverse, barely looking over his shoulder because he can never seem to take his eyes too far from Minho. Like he’ll disappear faster if he isn’t able to see him, whisked away on the branches of a hurricane, gone as quickly as he came. Hopefully he doesn’t run over a grave. He’ll believe in ghosts then.
“And by merfolk standards?” Jisung questions, easing his way onto the road and turning in the direction of Daytona. 

Minho’s smile splits his face open. “We should have been betrothed yesterday.”

Jisung laughs, his face burning red and his stomach twirling in nervous knots. Tight enough to cast and catch a whole school of fish in. 

There is no laughter from Minho. Only the soft swipe of his smile and his eyes that never seem to leave Jisung either, his nails betraying him by flashing a muted lilac. 

Jisung feels good things and bad things. No specifics. Just feels. Just whatever this is. Shaped like love and filled in with loss. Grief. Balancing on the board and having it ripped out from underneath you. Belonging to something and severing it all at once. Hanging on the edge of the abyss and hoping someone will leave a shell distinct enough to remember what it felt like to feel it. 

If Jisung were to hold it to his ear, he wouldn’t hear the ocean, he would hear the sound of Minho beside him, humming to a song he’s never heard like he can predict every note. Not a single one is correct, but he sounds beautiful anyway. The Disney movie did have some accuracies.

Jisung decides this is his favorite song, whatever this is.

⋆.ೃ࿔*:𓇼⋆.ೃ࿔*:⋆

When he was around seven, Jisung’s parents took him to an aquarium for the first time. It was smaller than this one, with the fish seemingly swimming in the same endless circles. Their eyes bulged and their lips puckered, bubbles floating to the top of the tank.

One parent held each of his hands as they walked up to one of the fishtanks. Jisung peered inside and made direct eye contact with one of the fish. Its image overlaying over his own warped reflection. The fish looked at him, burbling, and Jisung proceeded to burst into tears.

“What’s wrong sweetie?” His mom asked in the car and Jisung wailed, soaking the front of her shirt with his tears. She sat in the backseat while his dad kept glancing over his shoulder, checking in like he always did.

“Why did they take them out of the sea?” he cried as he gripped his mom’s shirt in his sweaty palms and thought about all the fish trapped to only be viewed.

He may have just watched Finding Nemo one too many times, or he was an empath. Jisung likes to think two things can be true.

Like how fish can thrive in both the wild and an aquarium. They aren’t remarkably bright, they likely don’t know the difference. And two things can be true like Jisung loving the water and fearing it. Minho living in it, but still walking around the blue-tinted space, eyes wide with wonder, tracking every movement like a cat to a laser.

Jisung will have to remember to ask Minho about how he plays with his catfish. There are a lot of things he wants to ask Minho that he never will. Both out of a lack of courage and a lack of time.

“Sungie,” Minho calls sweetly, head tilting over his shoulder, his lip curled in a way that Jisung knows means trouble. Half of his face is blue, the print of water swirling over the skin of his smiling cheek. He points to a puffer fish just as it expands. “That one’s you.”

Jisung sighs and puffs out his cheeks for Minho’s entertainment, earning a giggle and a poke in return. 

“That’s you,” Jisung claps back, surveying the tank and pointing to a blob fish. It’s actually the exact opposite of Minho; bulbous and deflated where Minho is all sharp angles and soft edges, but Jisung is a fighter even if he knows he’ll never win.

He never had a chance at Minho. And Minho never had a chance at him. Fighting their feelings and the weights the world had placed on them both, only to come out to a draw, weapons thrown aside and forgotten.

Minho snorts and points to the creature’s elongated nose. “Maybe from the waist down.”

Jisung groans and rakes his fingers down his face, hiding his smile. He quickly turns his head, seeing if anyone under the age of eighteen is in earshot. “You have got to stop talking about your dick in public spaces.”

“But I’ll only have it for a few more days,” Minho pouts, pursing his lips. He smirks and winks in his Minho way — meaning he closes both eyes. “We can talk about it later in private.”

Jisung grumbles nonsense under his breath and shoves Minho’s shoulder, heat creeping up his neck and down his front. He forces his thoughts to shift to something that doesn’t involve Minho’s naked body; he can’t pop a boner in the aquarium before noon, it feels wrong on every level.

Minho leaves Jisung with a red face and a squeeze to his hand, making his way to some of the smaller tanks and pressing his nose to the glass. This all must be a bit uncanny for him; the life he views as normal on display. Jisung wonders if merfolk have museums full of human skulls. It feels just morbid enough to be true.

“Do you miss the ocean?” Jisung asks stupidly, unsure of what else to say as they watch a pair of seadragons tangle together as they float along.

Minho pauses and bites the inside of his cheek, spite almost visible on his face. “I don’t know,” he says eventually with a shrug. “I do, but I also don’t. I don’t know, it’s hard to explain.”

Jisung nods. The seadragons separate and come back together almost immediately. He can barely tell where one begins and the other ends. “I understand.”

“Do you miss it?” Minho fires back, eyebrow quirked knowingly. 

Jisung doesn’t even have to think. “Yes.” He misses the rush of the ocean below him, the feel of complete control and yet none at all. He misses the feeling of washing salt out of his hair only to put it right back in. He misses crashing just as much as he misses catching a successful wave, because at least it put Jisung in the water, a place he always felt he belonged.

But how much of it is habit and how much is need? Jisung is a creature of repetition, always stepping into the same footprints. But the tide had come higher than he expected and washed them all away, and now he can’t tell what things he does because he wants to and what he does just because he’s always done it. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe there’s no difference at all.

Minho faces Jisung and smiles, his hands behind his back so Jisung can’t read the color of his feelings. He doesn’t think he needs their assistance. “It’s kind of funny, isn’t it? I couldn’t wait to get out of the ocean, and you can’t wait to get back in.”

Funny, or painful? Would Jisung want the ocean if Minho wasn’t in it? Would Minho crave the land if Jisung didn’t walk it? What pieces of them belong where? Before Jisung can formulate a response, Minho is already shifting gears, raking his eyes over the area, his ears perking up like a metal detector on the beach.

”Oh! Look!” Minho says suddenly, grabbing Jisung by the wrist and dragging him to a tank on the other side of the room. In the darkest corner, an octopus lazes, tentacles puckered to the glass in angled swirls. 

Minho crouches down and presses his hand to the glass. The animal’s arm clenches like he’s trying to take it. Minho’s eyes soften, his shoulders relaxing, his nails turning baby pink. Jisung feels like he’s bearing witness to something he isn’t supposed to see; private and personal. But maybe that’s exactly why Minho wants him to see it, letting Jisung in like Jisung did for him. Sliding the knife of their lives along the other’s seam and finding the pearl underneath the gore.

“I once tried to run away with an octopus,” Minho says quietly. He traces the line of one of the tentacles with his finger, and the octopus begins to do the same to him. Moving in sync from across the glass.

Jisung crouches down next to Minho and hugs his knees. “Forbidden love affair?” He jokes.

Minho gives him a look and turns his focus back to his new friend. “Well, I was four, so no.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Just the usual,” Minho shrugs. “I felt sad and floated up to the surface, watched the families on the beach and decided I wanted a new one. I always liked octopi, so I wrapped one’s tentacle around my wrist and tried to let it take me home with it.”

The eyes of the octopus shift to Jisung, like he’s also trying to communicate the story. “Did you get very far?”

Minho grins, but it doesn't reach his eyes. Instead landing somewhere in the trenches of his smile and weighing it down. “A few meters at most. I don’t think the octopus was crazy about having a hitchhiker.”

Jisung frowns, heart clenching and releasing. Or maybe just beating. “How many times have you tried to run from it?” Can Jisung ever get out of here? Is California a possibility, or will he snag on seaweed, be released and float down to the bottom of the abyss?

“From what?”

“I guess that’s what I’m asking you.” Will he run from Jisung, or be pulled away in the vice grip of a tentacle, no letting go of him this time.

“I’ve never tried to run from anything, Sung,” Minho shakes his head and drops his hand, the octopus immediately following suit and retreating into a small crevice. “I’m running to something.”

“To what?”

“I don’t think I ever really knew.”

Jisung’s voice catches in his throat, something sticky lodged in it that he can’t quite place. “I hope you find it.”

When Minho finally looks at him, his eyes are wet and his nails are blue. Blue is the color of a warm blueberry muffin, but it is also the color of a body run cold. Nothing is ever just one thing, no easy answers or methods. Just trapezing through it from the lightest to darkest hues. Just braving the storm and letting it swallow you when it needs to. Just living. Just because you have to, and because you want to. Nothing is ever one thing. Hardly ever only two.

Jisung isn’t just the old Jisung or the new one; he’s both at the same time. The before and after melted into one present. Before and after surfing, before and after the accident, before and after Minho. Different because of the things he has lived through, growing and contracting all at once until he finds his fit.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jisung sees the outline of a tentacle, reaching to the glass again, calling Minho home. Minho doesn’t spare it a glance. “I did,” he whispers, and reaches out to cradle Jisung’s cheek in his palm. 

No words come to Jisung, so he rests his hand over Minho’s and nestles into the touch, hoping Minho can know everything through the feel of his skin alone. Minho must not know what else to say either. What else is there? Love came and will leave and Jisung will once again be different because something happened out of his control. 

Minho wipes at his eyes and smiles, his nails remaining blue. “Come on, let’s go pet the stingrays.” He smirks and stands, reaching his hand out to Jisung. “And then I need to show you how well I really know dolphin.”

“I’ll meet you at the tide pool,” Jisung says with a soft smile, giving Minho’s hand a quick squeeze. He tilts his head towards the octopus tank. “I wanna talk to this guy for a second.”

“Forbidden love affair?”

“Just call me Romeo.”

Minho grins. “I don’t know what that means.”

“I’ll tell you later,” Jisung ensures with a wave of his hand, but Minho is already digging his phone out of his pocket as he walks away with a smile. 

Minho only looks back once more before he gets to the tide pool a mere ten feet away. Like he’s scared Jisung will be gone if he takes his eyes off of him. So used to watching him, that he doesn’t know how not to. 

Will he keep watching Jisung when he returns to the ocean? Or will he be too busy being married and ruling a kingdom and mourning the thing he couldn’t have? Jisung will be sitting on the beach, learning how to be different this time. Feeling the sand cool between his toes, and his heart cool between his ribs, searching for the eyes that had grown so familiar. 

There is no difference between being separated by death and by the ocean; both too deep for Jisung to ever reach, no matter how far he digs or swims.

The octopus crawls out of his crevice, sunset-colored arms inching slowly towards where Jisung sits. He thinks he understands the draw that young Minho felt. The octopus looks at him with wise eyes, like he has all the answers to Jisung’s unanswerable questions. 

“How did you ever let him go?” Jisung asks, biting back tears and putting his hand to the glass. He doesn’t know how he has any left to cry today. He’s so lucky to have things to cry for and hates that he has to cry for them. Love is a double edged sword; serving to block fatal blows, but also slicing you on the impact.

There is no answer from the octopus. No movement to press its tentacles to the glass in a comforting gesture like it did for Minho. It only retreats back into the crevice until Jisung can no longer see it, swallowed by the dark.

Jisung knows there must not be an answer. Sometimes things just happen. He doesn’t know who he’ll be after Minho leaves. He wishes he didn’t have to find out. He had fallen into the habit of loving him, and he doesn’t think he’ll ever let out enough air to surface.

⋆.ೃ࿔*:𓇼⋆.ೃ࿔*:⋆

It’s closing time when Jisung and Minho finally make the move to leave – not by choice. Minho had waltzed Jisung around from exhibit to exhibit, teaching him dolphin and pointing to at least ten different animals and claiming they looked like Jisung (most of them did), and Jisung pointed out even more animals he said looked like Minho (absolutely none of them did), but Minho smiled anyway, and told Jisung he was cute.

After an employee started walking behind them five minutes to close, they got the hint and begrudgingly made their way to the door, Minho waving at all the creatures on their exit. 

“It was nice to meet your family,” Jisung smiles and shields his eyes, the sun shocking them after growing accustomed to the dim lighting of the aquarium. “At least, kinda.”

“Trust me, this is as close as you want to get,” Minho snorts and smiles wistfully. “I’d do anything to have my own tank in there. Someone always feeding me, cute boys coming to visit.”

Jisung scoffs and shoves Minho’s shoulder. “I better be the only cute boy coming to visit.”

“Hmm, possessive much?” Minho grins and leans against the side of the jeep. His eyes crinkle in the sunlight. He tries to look cool, but the blush on his neck and ears gives him away. The purple on his nails not doing him any favors. Jisung thinks it’s fitting that the color of Minho’s love is the mixture of his happy and sad.

“You’re one to talk,” Jisung smiles, stepping further into Minho’s orbit until one hand is on his hip and the other is pressed to the window of the jeep. Minho’s eyes shift to Jisung’s lips and back again. Wanting and waiting. “I thought you were going to eat that tour guide alive for talking to me about seaweed.”

“She should’ve known that’s my job.” Minho pouts and grabs the tassels of Jisung’s hoodie, pulling him flush to his chest with a little yelp.

Minho’s hands wind around Jisung’s waist, Jisung’s find their way to Minho’s chest and neck. They slot together like perfect pieces, jagged like lightning and soft like wind.

“Is it still my job to teach you how to kiss?” Jisung says barely above a whisper, his breath ghosting over the plush of Minho’s lips. He doesn’t need to count. He wants the thunder to surprise him.

There’s nothing to count. The storm is directly on top of him. Minho is pulling Jisung to his mouth, locking him in a kiss so gentle, Jisung wonders how he feels it all. But he feels everything with Minho, deep and wide, far-reaching and all encompassing. Salt on his tongue and in his blood. Kissing Minho feels like crashing back to shore. Catching the wave or maybe missing it completely, just happy to be along for the ride. Just Jisung as he is and he was and just Minho the same. Just them in the here and now, no thoughts about the beginning or ending of anything. Just allowing the love to win so they can pretend it doesn't have to lose.

A hum comes from Minho’s throat and Jisung presses closer, slipping his hand into Minho’s hair and causing him to whine. The grip around Jisung’s waist tightens and they melt further into each other, and Jisung understands the science behind fulgurites. Lightning can’t be bottled, but it can be fossilized. Immortalized into this moment of Jisung’s memories he’ll keep clasped tight like a shell in the palm of his hand. 

So many memories that Jisung doesn’t know how much room he has for moments, or if he’ll be cursed forever to only have things in the past tense. Jisung was lucky, and he is lucky now, and maybe not for the same reasons. 

But he has this moment right now and he’s seizing it. In the way his hands tangle further into Minho’s hair. In the way their lips move together like it’s what they were made for. In the way he feels the sun beat on the back of his neck. He hopes that for once, he does burn, and that Minho’s handprints will be etched into his skin in fiery red. Until they fade, like everything eventually always does.

Someone lays on their horn. Minho pulls away and laughs. Jisung’s stomach growls something fierce and they both laugh harder.

“I have more recipes I want to try,” Minho giggles. “I’ll cook for you.”

“No,” Jisung shakes his head with a grin and gives Minho one more peck. The merman’s eyelids flutter shut like he’s begging for more, so Jisung gives him another. He isn’t going to deny either of them what they want most. “Dinners on me.” He pouts and slides his hand through Minho’s hair one more time before separating their bodies and tangling their hands. “I’m a cute boy who can feed you.”

“Chicken nuggets?” Minho raises an eyebrow and grins.

“Not just any chicken nuggets,” Jisung tsks. “The best ones.”

⋆.ೃ࿔*:𓇼⋆.ೃ࿔*:⋆

“Holy fuck,” Minho says and shoves the rest of the chicken nugget in his mouth. A play piled with them sits at the center of the kitchen table, fries and Frostys around them in a feast fit for the royalty Minho is. Jisung, Hyunjin, and Minho shovel the food into their mouths like animals — and of course, Bbama gets more than a few stray fries.

Minho’s nails turn fuschia and he bites off the end of a handful of fries. “I’m going to marry Wendy.”

“I thought you didn’t like women,” Hyunjin scoffs and takes a bite of a chocolate frosty, face pinching with brain freeze.

“This is bigger than gender and sexual attraction,” Minho insists. “This is purely spiritual.”

Jisung sighs and dunks a nugget into a packet of honey mustard. “Do I have to fight a little girl with pigtails?”

“I don’t like your odds, Sung,” Hyunjin shakes his head. “She’s got moxy.”

“I hope you choke,” Jisung narrows his eyes and throws a fry at Hyunjin. It bounces off his nose and into his frosty.

“Thanks,” Hyunjin shrugs and scoops up the ice cream with it. Jisung thinks he may have just proven Hyunjin’s point. 

“I wanna try that,” Minho declares, recreating the frosty-fry combo. His pupils blow wide as he chews. “Yeah, Sungie, you aren’t allowed to fight her, sorry.”

Jisung smiles and feeds Minho another fry. “I’ll take my chances.”

“Ew,” Hyunjin scrunches his face and stands up, tossing his cup into the trash. “I’m going to Changbin’s. Have fun with whatever gay shit you do in the pool.”

“We kiss,” Minho needlessly clarifies, not because he thinks he needs to, but because he’s a little shit. “And touch each other’s penises.”

“Physically I am here, but mentally I have already walked out the door,” Hyunjin deadpans. “Please don’t speak to me or perceive me in any way.”

Jisung looks aimlessly around the room and then to Minho. “Do you hear an annoying buzzing noise?”

“Mmm, yeah,” Minho nods and tilts the Frosty cup up and down his throat. Jisung shamelessly watches the muscles of his neck as he swallows. “We should go do gay shit in the pool to get away from it.”

“Gladly.”

“I literally hate you,” Hyunjin says in a way that suggests the opposite. “If you need a condom, there are some in my room. We don’t need surfer-merperson hybrid babies running around.”

“Mermen can’t carry children,” Minho frowns.

Hyunjin hangs halfway out the door and grins wickedly. “I wasn’t worried about you.”

“Stop making mpreg jokes and leave,” Jisung laughs. 

Minho’s frown deepens. “What’s mpreg?”

“Have fun with that,” Hyunjin deadpans and walks out the door.

The lock clicks and Minho turns to Jisung expectantly.

“I’ll let you google that one yourself,” Jisung grumbles. He doesn’t think he wants to get into the intricacies of fanfiction with Minho on one of their last nights together. Some gay shit will stay out of the pool.

Tonight, Jisung strips down to his boxers and slides into the water with Minho. There’s still a chill that goes up his spine that he can’t attribute to the temperature, but he feels good. At ease. Like the old version of himself and the new version have finally gotten acquainted, wary and trusting of each other at the same time. 

Minho sighs in relief when his legs give way to his tail. A reminder to Jisung that this isn’t his natural state; that as much as Minho and Jisung may feel like they belong to the same story, they come from different points of view. 

“So what’s on for tonight?” Minho swims by as Jisung hangs over the edge of the pool, setting the iPad up and navigating through his streaming apps. Minho swims by again, Jisung feeling the smooth brush of his scales against the back of his leg. “More Oshi No Ko ? I kinda like how fucked up it is.”

“This is a lot less fucked up,” Jisung promises, pausing the screen before the opening credits can start. Minho props his elbow on the pool deck and snuggles up to Jisung’s side, his tail curling around Jisung’s thighs and pulling him closer. Jisung turns to look at him and Minho pecks his nose with a giggle. Doing gay shit in the pool is awesome.

“It’s actually my favorite movie,” Jisung says, a blush burning up his neck for reasons he can’t place. This somehow feels more vulnerable than Minho joining him at the cemetery. Letting him into something that encapsulates Jisung as a whole, from front to back and start to finish.

Minho’s arms tighten around Jisung’s waist. “I love it already.”

When Jisung looks down, Minho’s nails are purple. He hopes that the deafening thrum in his chest travels down to where Minho’s hands lay, and that he can tell Jisung is purple all the way through.

A comfortable quiet nestles around them and binds them together. Minho wound around Jisung’s body like twine, his head tucked into his shoulder. Jisung’s arms aching from where they balance his body on the poolside, but it’s worth it. 

The silence is cut open by the opening notes of Howl’s Moving Castle , and Jisung falls into his safest place. From how they’re positioned, Jisung can’t watch Minho’s reactions, but he feels every one. The scrunch of his smile against Jisung’s neck, the rumble of a quiet laugh through his belly, hums of approval or shock or fear reverberating into Jisung’s skin. A conversation between only their bodies. A language that Jisung hasn’t studied, but learned anyway. Another language that will be dead in little more than a day.

By the forty-minute mark, Jisung’s body is pruning and he climbs up over the side of the pool to lay on his stomach. Minho whines at the separation, but smiles in satisfaction when Jisung takes his hand. Jisung briefly wonders if there are any cat shelters nearby; he thinks Minho needs to meet more of his kind.

Throughout the movie Minho is quiet as always, only speaking to matter-of-factly declare that Seungmin is Calcifer and focusing back in before Jisung can reply (he agrees). At the end of the movie, when Sophie tells Howl that a heart is a heavy burden, Minho squeezes Jisung’s hand tighter, and doesn’t let up until the credits roll.

“So, what did you think?” Jisung says with a nervous laugh, feeling like he just laid his soul bare.

“I loved it,” Minho’s voice is sweet, his smile sweeter. “I love you.”

Jisung doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to hearing that and he supposes he doesn’t have to. Jisung had come into the habit of losing people. Never leaving, but left. Stuck in the same place while everyone moves around him, never by choice but by obligation.

“I love you, too,” he says. He tries to stop his eyes from welling, but the tears fall anyway.

“You’re leaking,” Minho observes, swiping away a tear and rubbing it into Jisung’s cheek. Putting the feelings back into him so he can save them for later. Minho lifts himself up to sit on the side of the deck, Jisung shifting to sit beside him. The same way they were when they kissed for the second time, which was the first time they did without excuses. Jisung can’t believe that was only a few days ago, that his life has since shifted in a way that most people’s don’t in fifty years.

Minho points to the top of the screen as the clock flips to midnight. “You got through today, Sungie. I hope it was a little easier than you thought it’d be.”

The day is over but Jisung still feels the pain all the same. Every day is hard, and every day is easy. There’s no consistency, no pattern to follow, no habits to worry about breaking. It’s only the same sadness, so familiar that it starts to grow comfortable and dull where the blade was once sharp. Not a stabbing pain, but a throbbing one. A wound that never quite closed so you adapted to it. 

But the day is done. Another year has passed. At least Jisung can put a numerical value to his suffering and healing.

“It was really hard,” Jisung admits, nodding and wiping his eyes. “But I got through it. Thank you for being there for me, I couldn’t have done it without you.”

Minho shakes his head and takes both of Jisung’s hands in his. Chlorine mixing with the salt of Jisung’s body. “You did it on your own, Jisung. You didn’t need me for anything, I was just glad to be here with you.”

“No,” Jisung squeezes his eyes shut, inhales deeply and exhales slowly. “I kept thinking I had to do everything alone, so I pushed everyone away.” Even himself; splitting into distinct halves so that different would be an easier pill to swallow. A heart is a heavy burden, especially when you carry it yourself. “You didn’t let me be alone, and that’s what I needed. I needed you , Minho. So, thank you.”

Minho’s mouth gapes slightly. His tail swings slowly through the water and pushes some over the side of the pool, misting over Jisung. “I needed you, too.” He says finally.

Jisung doesn’t need him to specify when; he knows they feel the same. They needed each other always. Minho needed Jisung in the form of watching him from afar, and Jisung needed his gaze even when he didn’t know what it was. They needed each other to pick up all the fallen debris, and build back what had been lost. The same materials, but a new structure. Not storm proof in the way it would never fall over, but in the way there would always be someone to put it back together. They need each other, but they can’t.

“You have to leave soon,” Jisung says. A statement, not a question. 

Minho nods. “I do.”

Jisung may belong to something, but he only belongs to places he can no longer go. Everyone is always leaving. His parents, Minho, even Hyunjin and the rest of his friends to an extent; moving to the next stages of their life while Jisung remains stagnant. Maybe it’s time that he’s the thing that leaves. 

“I think I have to leave soon, too.”

Minho furrows his brow. “What are you—”

From inside, the door slams open. “Jisung!” Hyunjin calls and pads his way to the pool. “Are you still being gay in the pool? I tried to call you but—”

“Hey!” Changbin says cheerily, stepping out onto the patio. “What are you guys— what the fuck?” Changbin’s eyes dart to Minho’s tail, to Jisung and Hyunjin’s panicked and sheepish faces, back to the tail, and finally to the sky as he passes out, thankfully not landing too hard on the concrete.

Hyunjin scratches the back of his neck and kneels down next to his boyfriend, lifting his arm and watching it flop back down. “Well, that could have gone better.” 

Minho sighs and slips back into the pool, lounging on his back with his hands folded over his stomach. Jisung follows him, lounging in the opposite direction so they make two perfect opposites. Facing polar directions from the same point. Cursed to stretch infinitely in one direction and away from the other.

Jisung wonders how far he’d have to travel to meet back in the middle. He has a funny feeling the waves would stop him from ever finding out.

Changbin shoots back up with a gasp. “What the fuck?” he says before catching sight of Minho in the pool and passing out again. It’s going to be a long night. Jisung doesn’t care as long as it stretches the time he has.

⋆.ೃ࿔*:𓇼⋆.ೃ࿔*:⋆

Sand rides up into Jisung’s shorts, sticking to his legs and in the creases of his hands, the harsh sun baking it into his follicles. The board is familiar underneath him — even from this high up the beach, no chance of a droplet of water reaching either of them. The last thing Minho needs is to turn in the middle of a late-afternoon rush while Jisung uselessly tries to teach him about surfing.

Changbin glances over at them from the lifeguard stand, Hyunjin not too far away in a beach chair, pretending to read a book when he’s really just checking in on everyone like a worried mother.

After passing out two more times last night, they were finally able to explain the existence of mermaids to Changbin and what it is that Minho is actually doing here. The whole time, he looked green as seaweed, and Jisung swears he keeps seeing him look far out into the ocean like he’s trying to spot a tail or two.

The morning had been lazy. Jisung brewed coffee while Minho made cinnamon rolls from scratch. Neither one of them wanted to acknowledge this was their last full day together, so they didn’t. Minho doesn’t bring up their conversation from yesterday, and Jisung is grateful. He’s still making a decision, but his heart is telling him that it’s time to let go of this place. That if he’s going to be alone, then he should start over completely. A new life long overdue. 

Jisung straddles his board, knees buried in the sand. “Okay, now show me your stance,” he prompts Minho. Minho moves to sit on the board, legs curled elegantly beside him. 

“Not quite,” Jisung frowns. “First step is you should be standing.”

Minho blinks at him. “I wouldn’t have legs to stand on. This is as good as it would get,” he gestures to his lower half and wiggles his feet as if they were his fin.

Jisung pouts and slumps his body, spine curving. He musters up his whiniest voice. “I guess there’s no point in teaching a merman to surf.”

“It would be nice to float like this,” Minho assures, wiggling his legs more aggressively. “Get some sun.”

Minho’s tank top slides slightly down his arm and Jisung reaches out to adjust it, rubbing his thumb along his skin. “Maybe I’ll come out here when you go back. Bring an extra board and we can float together.”

It’s an impossible dream. One that implies that Jisung will still be here and Minho will be able to surface as he desires and the world wouldn’t be watching them. It can’t happen, but Jisung likes to dream. He’s always lived all or nothing, and this time around, nothing is the only option. 

“That would be nice,” Minho says, taking Jisung’s hand. It’s wistful, hypothetical. A pipe dream stored in a bottle and cracked by lightning. Fossils can only preserve something that’s already been lost, and Jisung can feel the sediment slipping into the gaps between his and Minho’s fingers.

This moment will die and be buried. It will harden and compact under the pressure of its memory. Someday, maybe in a future that Jisung can’t yet picture, he’ll have the courage to unearth it, and hold it in his hands, and smile at what it was to be different, but not as different as he will be. It will be a ghost, an absence of something good and the presence of its loss. 

Grief is a fickle thing, but Jisung knows it well. There is no getting through it, but he will carry it under his arm, and he will be proud of never putting it down. He will carry everything he’s ever lost, because what is the point of adjusting to the weight only to let it go? What is the point of being struck by lightning if you don’t have the evidence to prove it?

Jisung will forever be a phantom grip around Minho’s wrist. He believes he is stronger than any octopus. Minho wouldn’t give up that easily anyway. They’re both fighters.

Minho squeezes Jisung’s hand a little tighter and releases with an easy smile. “Can I bury you in the sand? I always thought it looked fun.”

A sharp laugh burst from Jisung’s lungs. “Sure. Why not?”

Minho starts at Jisung’s toes, tickling the bottom of his feet and scooping sand on him until only the tips of his nails peek out. Minho’s nails blaze as violet as the sky at dusk. Proof that Minho’s mission was a failure, and that Jisung and Hyunjin’s was a success — even if it wasn’t in a way they expected.

Love is real, and it’s sitting right in front of both of them.

“What do you think your matchmakers would say if they could see us?” Jisung asks, picking up a fistful of sand and letting it fall out of his hand. 

Minho snorts and continues packing sand onto Jisung’s legs. “They’d say, ‘well, that’s unfortunate.’”

The sun angles itself so it hits Jisung directly in the eyes. He shields himself with his hand and lets Minho start working up to his knees. “And your parents?”

Minho sighs and sits back on his heels, gripping his fist into the hems of his shorts. He looks up at Jisung. “They’d say ‘I told you so.’ That since I fell in love once, it can happen again, and that the matchmakers must have done something right.”

“There’s no getting out of this, is there?” Hope still twitches on the edge of Jisung’s doubts. Like when he laid in his hospital bed and kept waiting for his parents to come into the room. For the hidden camera to reveal itself and admit that it was all some sick joke of the human-kind, not the nature-kind.

They never walked in. Jisung only walked out.

“There never was,” Minho pulls his lips tight, returning to coating Jisung’s body in sand. “They were always going to pull me back home, no matter what happened up here. I guess it’s like some really sad wedding present, letting me pretend to have the freedom I always wanted before I’m trapped for life.”

Jisung’s voice is small. Miniscule enough to crawl inside of a shell and wait for someone to pick him up and listen. “So this is it then.”

“I was wrong about love,” Minho gently packs the dirt around Jisung’s calf, circling his skin in a way that makes him shiver. “And I have to own that, I guess. Duty, or whatever.”

“Since when do you care about duty?”

Minho sits back on his heels, visibly frustrated not with Jisung, but with the situation. “Since I don’t really have a choice.”

A beat passes. A gull cries above them. Changbin whistles loudly and shouts at some kid. Jisung doesn’t hear anything. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“That I love you. That you love me.”

Minho’s nails flash red to blue to purple. “You never have to be sorry for that.”

Quiet shrouds them again, even as the sounds around them seem to only get louder. Minho has made it up to Jisung’s thighs, traversing his hands on him a lot more than is necessary. It makes Jisung want to laugh and cry.

“I won’t,” Jisung blurts out, heart aching and head pounding from the weight of the sun. Minho looks at him curiously.

“Fall in love again,” Jisung clarifies. “I won’t do it.” For the sake of both of them. Because Minho doesn’t have a choice. Because an ugly, selfish part of Jisung doesn’t want Minho to either.

Minho’s mouth parts, his eyes going soft and his nails shifting somewhere between indigo and violet. A new point in the rainbow. He grips Jisung’s knee over the sand and smiles the best he can. “You will, Sungie. You deserve it.” He laughs under his breath. “Even if I would want to eat whoever it is alive if I saw them.”

“You deserve it, too.”

“Who knows?” Minho shrugs. “Maybe I will go back and fall in love with my match.”

Jisung’s lip twitches.

Minho grins. “There’s the jealousy I wanted. Now, stay still. You’re ruining my work.”

Jisung is covered up to his torso when Hyunjin comes bounding over, kicking up sand behind him and eliciting some colorful language from the patrons in his crossfire. “Minho!” he calls. “I need your help with something.”

They look up at him expectantly, Minho slapping another pile of wet sand onto Jisung’s stomach.                               

Hyunjin looks at Minho and aggressively blinks, jutting his chin. 

“Uh, yeah?” Minho questions, eyebrows furrowing.

Suddenly, Hyunjin collapses onto one knee, letting out a howl that has Changbin rising out of his seat to find the source. When he sees it’s Hyunjin, he sits back down. The boy who cried wolf.

“Ow, my leg,” Hyunjin whines. It's a voice Jisung knows all too well; the operation get-Changbin-to-notice-him voice. But that’s definitely not needed anymore — evident from the hickey blooming over Hyunjin’s collar. “Minho can you help me to the shop?”

“Yeah,” Minho starts raking sand off of Jisung. “Just let me get Jisung out and we’ll—”

“ Just you,” Hyunjin clarifies through his teeth.

Minho’s eyes go wide in realization and he starts piling sand back on. “Coming!”

“What’s going on?” Jisung questions. Minho throws sand violently enough that it lands in Jisung’s mouth, causing him to spit and cough. “Minho, please, I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”

“Stay,” Minho scrambles to his feet and sternly points a finger at Jisung, raising his brows.

Jisung puts his hands up in surrender. “Staying.”

“I’ll meet you at the house at seven!” Hyunjin yells over his shoulder. Jisung watches as Minho and Hyunjin trek up the beach, Hyunjin’s distinct giggle ringing on the wind, his limp noticeably absent. 

The thrum in Jisung’s chest is warm and steady. He feels purple from his blood to his skin, love coursing through him like electricity waiting to blow. If Jisung is going to lose Minho, he’s going to do it spectacularly. He’s going to do it in a way that is as soft and kind as the love he has been given, and what he has given in return. In a way that’s small, but is distinctly Minho and Jisung in its shape. And maybe that’s something that can’t be small at all.

Sand falls back to the beach as Jisung emerges from it. His skin is sunkissed and dirtied. He feels different and completely himself. Two things can be true. He checks his watch, five o’clock. He has time. Jisung smiles to himself and all the things he loves, and gets to work.

⋆.ೃ࿔*:𓇼⋆.ೃ࿔*:⋆

Shells clink together in the makeshift sack Jisung made out of his tank top. Sand still sits on his skin from his shoulders to his toes; he’ll need to shower, but he needs to get this done first. He drops the shells on the kitchen table, Bbama hopping up onto a chair to sniff it out, losing interest when he realizes it isn’t edible.

Jisung opens the cabinet to the right of the fridge — the one his parents used to store everything that didn’t fit anywhere else. The clutter cabinet his mom would call it, laughing as she threw her craft project of the week into its depths. Jisung weeds through pens and paints, pipe cleaner, felt, and clay, until he finds a hand drill, pliers, and what looks to be some decently strong elastic. Bless his mom and her eclectic hobbies, no matter how much his dad pretended to be annoyed at them.

He builds a makeshift station at the table, carefully arranging and rearranging the shells until they're in a pattern he thinks Minho would like, which is no pattern at all. Completely random and mismatched, like they had naturally fallen this way on the beach. Using a piece of wire, he carefully etches two letters into one of the shells; M + J. This suits them much better than the side of a tree. Jisung carefully drills small holes into each of the shells, anxious to keep them intact, and loops the elastic through them, tying it off and admiring his handiwork with a smile.

It’s far from perfect; the shells are different sizes and the bracelet doesn’t even sit that comfortable against his wrist, but it’s perfect. The bracelet’s match is ninety percent completed when Hyunjin bursts through the front door. He doesn’t seem to enter any space normally; a sense of urgency to everything he does, yet a calming presence to him. All people are contradictions.

Hyunjin stills in the doorway, eyes raking Jisung up and down and then narrowing. “You’re dirty.”

Jisung pauses his work and looks up at the clock. Six fifty-five. Shit. Two more shells and a quick knot and Jisung is scrambling up the stairs to get ready for — he doesn’t know what but he knows it’s important to Minho, so it’s important to him.

“And put on something nice!” Hyunjin calls up to him. “Minho has one more date to go on.”

Jisung nearly topples on the next step, but his smile sits unwavering.

⋆.ೃ࿔*:𓇼⋆.ೃ࿔*:⋆

This is how the animals in the aquarium must feel, Jisung thinks to himself. Hyunjin studies Jisung’s outfit when he comes back downstairs, placing his hand over his mouth and chin as he circles him. Jisung had put on a silky black shirt and black pants belted at the waist, his hair styled out of his face and small hoops in his ears. He thinks he cleaned up pretty nicely considering he did it in about ten minutes.

“Hmm,” Hyunjin hums, circling back around to Jisung’s front. He reaches out and undoes Jisung’s top two buttons, revealing a sliver of honey skin and the edge of his tattoo. “There,” Hyunjin smiles. “Perfect.”

Jisung is led past the jeep, and straight to the path to the beach. Maybe he should have chosen different attire. His dress shoes aren’t exactly made for this terrain. Hyunjin makes a sharp turn before they reach the bank, walking through the light bramble that leads to the cove.

The sun is flirting with the idea of setting, its light getting warmer in color and cooler in temperature. The waves are still, idly swishing along the jagged edges of the rocks, the sound they make is quiet and white. The scene is perfect; this place that Jisung loves, and this person he loves in the middle of it.

Minho stands, moving his hands like he’s unsure of what to do with them. He’s dressed similarly to Jisung, black pants and a white button down, his smile is small and sincere. Two blankets cover the sand below him, a spread of desserts and a charcuterie board arranged carefully around a small basket and a candle that looks dangerously close to tipping over. A large pot sits on a trivet, steam wafting from the sides of the lid. 

Changbin appears from behind a palm, two wine glasses twined in one hand, and an open bottle of merlot in the other. “Table for two?” He grins, handing them each a glass and filling them generously.

“I have a good feeling about this one,” Minho says, lip curling, bringing the rim of the glass to his mouth and sipping slowly. His eyes gleam in his mischief and maybe tears and maybe everything else. “I don’t think you seem like an asshole.”

Jisung takes a step forward, leaning into Minho until his nose hovers above his neck. He can feel the warm brush of his breath. “I don’t smell bad, do I?”

“Mmm, citrus-y.” Minho presses a kiss to Jisung’s neck and steps back to look at him. He smirks, winks with both eyes. Jisung is obsessed with him. “And I don’t think you have a small dick either.”

“Okay!” Hyunjin says, clapping his hands, dragging Changbin with him through the trees. “You kids have fun. We’re going to Chilis.”

Minho takes Jisung’s hand and leads him to the blankets, sitting on his knees and pulling two bowls and a ladle from the basket. “Sit,” he instructs and Jisung obliges.

The smell that comes from the pot when Minho lifts the lid hits Jisung like a truck. Familiar and comforting. “Is that—”

“Kimchi-jjigae,” Minho proudly hands him a bowl filled to the brim. Jisung brings a spoonful to his lips and blows, moaning at the taste and letting the hot broth burn his tongue, the spice sitting on the roof of his mouth. 

“This is what Seungmin has been helping me with,” Minho serves himself and sits cross-legged. He doesn’t take a bite, instead watching Jisung slowly spoon stew into his mouth. “His mom had a recipe that I’ve been messing around with and making my own.” He rubs the back of his neck nervously. “I know it’s not your mom’s, but—”

“It’s perfect,” Jisung stops him, placing a hand on top of Minho’s. He feels his sinuses burn and his eyes get wet from both the gesture and the chili powder. He takes another bite and then another, Minho still smiling at him. “This is so good, Minho, what the fuck . You should be a chef.”

Minho shrugs and takes a small bite of his own bowl. “Not many ways to prepare seaweed.”

Jisung’s smile falters. “I guess not.”

Hot stew on a hot day shouldn’t be this perfect of a combo, but sometimes two things fit together in ways you would never expect. Like bubbles and Ben & Jerry’s, french fries and Frostys, mermen and anime. Someone who thought their life was over, just going through the motions, finding something in themselves that cracked the world open again.

They eat quietly, laugh under their breaths and speak in hushed tones like the ocean will overhear them. Minho tells Jisung about all his favorite things in the human world (iPads, FM radio, Jisung’s ass, and croutons top the list). “And you’re pretty alright, too,” he adds with a laugh, shoving Jisung’s shoulder. And he tells him about all his favorite things at home, too (his catfish, the elaborate parties, and, to Jisung’s amusement, Minho admits that he does really like seaweed with a grumble). There’s a strange expression on his face like he has one foot in the water and one on land, and he’s just waiting to see which way his weight falls. 

The bowls run dry and Minho packs them up. Jisung feels so full he might explode, but Minho keeps shoving cookies in his mouth, and who is he to deny the best cookies he’s ever had? Or the way that Minho looks at him, his smile so warm it’s like it was baked into his expression.

“I have something for you,” Jisung says in between bites. He must have stray crumbs on his mouth because Minho giggles and brushes his thumb across Jisung’s lips, lightly pressing the tip of it into the seam of his mouth. Jisung thanks his genetics that his blushes aren’t usually noticeable.

The shells have been digging into his skin through his pocket. A sharp reminder of the goodbye that’s on the horizon. 

“Close your eyes and hold out your hand,” Jisung instructs. Minho shifts his stance and sits up straighter, a smile creeping across his mouth as he follows suit. Jisung takes his wrist and slides the bracelet onto it, arranging the shells so they lay nicely. “There.”

Minho opens his eyes and immediately pulls his wrist to his face, turning it slowly. His smile widens and Jisung wants to slip inside of it. “It’s beautiful.” His fingers catch on one of the shells and his face softens. His fingers brush along it and Jisung knows he’s found their initials. 

“I have one, too,” Jisung says, slipping his own bracelet on and showing it off shyly. “We match.”

“I love it, Jisung.” Minho leans over and quickly pecks Jisung’s lips, going back to admiring his gift. He looks back up at him with a smile. “I’m never taking it off.”

“Do merfolk use wedding bands?” Jisung inquires, scooting closer.

“Why are you asking?” Minho tilts his head.

“Just wondering.”

“No.”

“Good.”

Minho throws his head back and laughs. He looks like he’s swallowing the sunset. Like he is the key to daylight and all its warmth. “I have another thing for you.” He starts moving their dishes out of the way, shoving everything off to the side to sit in the sand.

“Not fair,” Jisung pouts. “I only brought you one gift.”

“You wearing that shirt counts as your second one,” Minho assures and reaches into the little basket before shoving that off, too. He smiles and holds up his hand, revealing a Ziplock bag of nail polish. “I’ll give you nails to match.”

When Jisung is concentrating on something, he’ll inadvertently stick his tongue out the side of his mouth; when Minho is concentrating, he gets a small divot between his brows. Jisung watches the spot deepen as he paints Jisung’s nails, resisting the urge to reach out and smooth the crease just for an excuse to touch. It’s messy, black polish running up Jisung’s nail beds and staining his fingertips, but he knows he’ll feel sad when it chips. 

“What does black mean?” Jisung asks when Minho finishes, blowing across Jisung’s hands to dry them in a way that tickles his skin, making him shiver.

“Nothing,” Minho shrugs. “I just think it looks good on you.”

“Thanks,” Jisung laughs. “I think purple looks good on you.”

“So do I,” Minho smiles. He hands the black vial to Jisung and lays his hands flat on the blanket. “Okay, now do me.”

“You want black?” Jisung furrows his brows and takes the vial, dipping the brush in a few times and wiping the excess off on the side. 

Minho nods. “I don’t need to be told what I’m feeling. I just want to feel it, good or bad.”

“What do you feel now?” Jisung asks, sliding the brush along Minho’s thumbnail.

He grins. “I feel both.”

Jisung gets it in a way that can’t be explained with words, but he knows Minho understands. Only good things for now, and bad at knowing they’ll be ending soon.

⋆.ೃ࿔*:𓇼⋆.ೃ࿔*:⋆

The sky paints itself black, too. Jisung wonders what it’s feeling. 

Minho and Jisung lay side by side on one blanket, the other pulled up over their legs, hands intertwined underneath like they’re hiding from something not even they know of. Their shoes had been discarded, their pants rolled up like Jisung will follow Minho into the ocean when the time comes. The stars glimmer above them, the waves crash softly against the rocks of the cove. Everything is peaceful and small. Something that only they get to know. 

The hours are ticking down. The last time Jisung checked his phone, it was nine, and that was at least half an hour ago. At midnight, Minho’s week will be up, and everything will be over.

A merman in his pool. Everything unexpected and yet completely comfortable. A piece of Jisung’s story that finally came into fruition. Two stanzas of the same poem merging into something beautiful. 

Even epic poems have an end, passed down solely through oral tradition, getting lost in translation as the years go on. The language between them is one that Jisung thinks he’ll never forget. As innate to him as his mother tongue with his parents. The language of love in a different form.

Jisung turns his head and expects to see Minho in profile, but he’s looking right back at him. Into him, never through him. “I don’t want you to go,” Jisung whispers, caught off guard in more ways than one.

“I don’t want to either,” Minho squeezes his hand before letting go, rolling over onto his stomach and looking down at Jisung.

Jisung drags a hand through Minho’s hair, settling on his cheek. A last ditch effort to hold him in place, but Minho is not a thing that can be held down, only held on to. “Then stay.”

“I wish I could,” Minho smiles and swipes his finger on the tip of Jisung’s nose. “But I have to go. I belong in the sea.”

In it. Not to it. Jisung knows Minho said that intentionally, that he’s well aware of the fact that Jisung will catch every small detail and piece it into a bigger whole. The cards are out of their hands. It's not about what they want to happen, it’s about what’s happening. Sometimes things just happen, and it’s not because you let them, but because there’s no way to stop them.

There’s still the wish. Jisung knows that he could wish for Minho to stay, but he wouldn’t take his autonomy from him like that. Free him from the net only to put him in a tank. He wouldn’t be any better, and the last thing he ever wants is for Minho to resent him.

Jisung plants his hand firmly on Minho’s jaw, pulling him closer until the only thing between them is the words Jisung wants to say. “Where do you belong right now?”

“Here,” Minho says against his lips, eyes fluttering shut. “To you.”

“Not to me,” Jisung shakes his head. Minho will only ever belong to Minho, and Jisung will only ever belong to Jisung. The one place they will never have to worry about losing is themselves. But this thing between them, the togetherness of it, is fragile. They belong to it all the same. Jisung kisses him, soft and hard all at once. When they separate, Minho is looking at him like he hangs the stars in the sky. Like he pulls the tide and pushes it back out. “We belong to each other,” he whispers.

“To each other.” Minho agrees, and presses his lips softly to Jisung’s. The kiss deepens almost instantly, everything they want to say manifesting physically. Minho’s hand runs down Jisung's shirt, slipping past the open buttons and gripping his chest. Jisung’s back arches and he moans into the kiss, pulling Minho deeper.

Minho’s tongue slides into Jisung’s mouth and he swings his leg over his hips, straddling him, wasting no time in grinding down where they’re both already half-hard. Jisung gasps, hips bucking up on instinct.

“Want you,” Minho murmurs, kissing from Jisung’s mouth to his jaw.

“Here?” Jisung giggles, shivering as Minho mouths down his neck. “What if someone walks by?”

“They won’t,” Minho says, sitting up to look down at Jisung. The moonlight bounces off his skin, making him glow the same blue as his tail. He smiles. “Hyunjin put up a sign.”

“That says what? ‘Sex: Do Not Enter?’” Jisung laughs again. He wouldn’t put it past Hyunjin or Minho. They’re a bit of a dangerous duo.

“‘Shark Infested Waters,’” Minho says simply and leans down to capture Jisung’s lips, smiling into the kiss so much that it’s almost all teeth. And then it is all teeth when he shifts his head and bites right into Jisung’s shoulder.

“Hey!” Jisung startles, throwing his head back and laughing in surprise. “What the hell was that?”

Minho scrapes his teeth along Jisung’s jugular. Jisung would let him rip him right open, tear his throat out like a creature of the deep. He would let Minho consume him if that’s what he wanted. And that’s how Jisung knows he loves him; because he would give him everything even if this is the last time he has anything to give.

“Sharks,” Minho pulls back to meet Jisung’s eyes and shrugs. He giggles into the next kiss, the flutter of his breath salty on Jisung’s lip. “You should have read the sign.”

“I’m glad I didn’t.” With a firm hand on Minho’s thigh and a rush of adrenaline, Jisung flips them over, slotting himself between Minho’s legs. For a second they don’t even kiss, they just look at each other. Minho pushes Jisung’s hair off his face, letting his fingers linger on the skin of his cheek.

“I love you, Jisung.” Minho says like it's the easiest thing in the world to admit. Not an admittance at all, but a declaration. Something he wears proudly. A week ago, Minho didn’t even believe in love and now he breathes it into the hollow of Jisung’s throat like it’s the only thing he’s ever known. 

Minho has ripped Jisung open, snagged the fabric of his being and stitched himself into it. He has struck him over and over again until Jisung’s body is nothing but Lichtenberg figures, all of them spelling out their initials like Jisung had etched into the bounty of the ocean. Something that can never be washed away by the tide. Something that is happening and has already happened, and Jisung is different because of it. Changed just as much by love as he has been by grief. Lightning is always accompanied by thunder.

He devours Minho whole, tasting the salt from his skin and the ocean behind them. He feels sand ride up under the hems of his pants, grainy and rigid against his skin. Minho wraps his arms around Jisung’s neck and somehow pulls him closer, pushing his tongue into the wet of his mouth, moaning and sending vibrations down to Jisung’s stomach.

Jisung rolls his hips down into Minho’s, both of them fully hard now. There’s something about knowing that someone could ignore the sign that excites Jisung a little bit. The idea that someone could walk in on this moment and see two hearts belong together, beating off-rhythm, Jisung’s caving while Minho’s expands and vice versa.

It could make you happy , Hyunjin had said. Wanting Minho, loving him. Jisung had a vendetta against happiness, determined to not feel it if his family couldn’t. But they also can’t feel sad, or angry, or disappointed, or miss him in the same way Jisung misses them, and that isn’t his fault. He’s allowed to feel. He’s allowed to have good things, and he’s allowed to be a good thing to someone else.

Minho’s hands trail down Jisung’s sides, black nails digging into the flesh of his waist. Every color combined into one dark void. Black is emptiness, but it’s also the night sky littered with stars that canopies above them. The center of Minho’s eyes that crinkle when Jisung says something cute or stupid. A screen when it turns off and Minho catches Jisung staring at him through the reflection, and Jisung catches him staring right back. The back of Jisung’s eyelids when he wipes out on a wave, just to run right back into it. Jisung’s hair that Minho’s fingers are tangling into. His nails that each strand is winding around, hoping he gets tangled in it like seagrass, anchoring Jisung to the ocean floor.

Just that. Just this. Just them. Just the storm and its chaser. Just the ocean and its surfer. Just love and its keeper.

“I tried it,” Minho says breathlessly, Jisung’s teeth on his jaw. He can play shark, too.

“Tried what?” Jisung nips on Minho’s bottom lip, taking it into his mouth and drawing him into another deep kiss.

Minho pushes him away with a hand on his chest and a peck to the cheek. “Fingers in my ass,” he says bluntly. “I liked it.”

“Oh,” Jisung’s voice cracks. He can feel heat creeping up his neck and pooling in his already aching dick. He clears his throat, nervous. “You— you wanna try?”

“I want you,” Minho nods, cupping Jisung’s cheek. He glides his thumb from the corner of Jisung’s eye to the corner of his mouth and back, drawing little circles into his cheekbone. His eyes are soft but determined, the stars reflecting in them, or maybe the sky has always been reflecting his eyes. “It’s now or never.”

Because never is fast approaching. Because in a few hours Minho will be gone. Because Jisung probably will be too.

Another kiss and Jisung’s nerves are buzzing, like a swarm of wasps has entered his bloodstream and are trying to fight their way out. He presses down into Minho’s hip again and Minho starts fumbling with his belt, fingers just barely skirting along the outline of his cock. Jisung moans deep and then goes cold.

He lifts his head and frowns. “We don’t have a condom. Or lube.”

Minho smiles and shifts his body. His thigh connects between Jisung’s thighs and he bites back a pathetic whine. Minho reaches into his back pocket and presents Jisung with a condom and a little packet of lube, his grin viscous, but his blush giving him away. 

“Hyunjin helped with that, too.”

Jisung is going to cut his own pay and give Hyunjin a one-hundred percent raise. Maybe he’ll even give him the deed to his house. Get him an all-expense paid trip to Europe. His wish is his command.

In Jisung’s stupor, Minho flips them around again, a puff of sand billowing behind him.  He wastes no time settling himself into Jisung’s lap and reconnecting their lips. He pulls Jisung’s belt free, undoing the button and zipper with one swift hand, and slides his hand right to where Jisung needs him the most.

“Fuck,” Jisung gasps, back arching into the touch. Minho smiles against his cheek and strokes Jisung over his boxers, eventually pushing his hand past the elastic and gripping him fully.

“For never having a dick,” Jisung breathes, voice hitching as Minho starts stroking him faster, precum beading out of his tip and sliding down his length. “You’re pretty good with them.”

“I’m naturally talented,” Minho smiles. He sits up and undoes his own pants, temporarily climbing off of Jisung to remove the clothing from both of them. He unbuttons his shirt, letting it lay open before doing the same to Jisung. The silky material pools at his sides like water, slipping off one shoulder.

“Beautiful,” Minho whispers, squeezing Jisung’s chest in both hands. He leans forward and takes a nipple into his mouth. Jisung keens and arches, feeling a match light in his belly and his blood is gasoline, everything burning through.

Jisung wants to spread to Minho like a wildfire. Another push, another laugh, more sand dangerously close to places it shouldn’t be, and Jisung is on top of Minho again. He kneads the flesh of his thighs, watching Minho’s eyes flutter shut, his hips bucking, his cock red and leaking. A divet between his brows in concentration and pleasure and want.

Minho spreads his legs slightly, bending them at the knees. An invitation. Jisung’s hands shake as he drags his fingers down to his cock, tugging on it a few times with ragged breaths falling past Minho lips. Minho lifts his hips and Jisung takes the hint to move lower, a finger trailing down his perineum, brushing lightly over his rim. Jisung looks down, watching it flutter around his touch. Minho keens.

Like Minho, Jisung has watched his fair share of porn. And, like Minho, there are a lot of things he wants to try. A lot of things he wants to try with Minho specifically, things that are staring him right in the face and making his mouth water.  

“Can I try something?” Jisung asks sweetly, finger circling Minho’s entrance. 

Minho’s eyes narrow. “I’m saying yes because I trust you. Don’t make me regret it.”

He won’t. Jisung pushes Minho’s thighs up and lowers his own body into the sand, leaning down and licking a stripe right over Minho’s entrance.

“Oh, fuck,” Minho gasps. Jisung hears the dull thud of Minho’s head falling back against the blankets. His hips rise and grind into Jisung’s face, encouraging him. Jisung does it again, lapping over Minho over and over again, refusing to give him a break.

Minho’s calves fall down to rest against Jisung’s back, his thighs caging him in and cutting off his air supply. Jisung shifts his eyes to look up at Minho and moans, silently begging him to squeeze him tighter. He can’t believe he’s discovered both an exhibitionism and an asphyxiation kink all in one night. 

The look on Minho’s face will print itself to Jisung’s memory; the moonlight etching into him, his skin glowing with it. His hair is mussed and tangled, brows turned and lips parted. Eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks from where he looks down at Jisung. He throws his head back and arches, pushing himself further into Jisung so that he can start to pry his tongue inside.

They fit here; Minho around Jisung and over him. His thighs sticking to Jisung’s neck with sweat, soft and desperate pants falling off his breath like shooting stars.

“This is crazy,” Minho laughs, his voice wet. “I love having legs. And an ass. I love having you.”

The sounds of Jisung’s tongue and Minho’s moans are wet and filthy. Jisung eases his tongue in and out of Minho, doing his best to keep his eyes open and on Minho’s body. He wraps his arms around Minho’s thighs and pushes in further, working harder, the muscles of his jaw straining. Jisung is also very happy that Minho has legs and an ass. He thinks he might worship them actually.

He could eat Minho forever, bring him to the edge and back again just like this. Sliding his muscle around Minho’s rim. Taking all of him. But Jisung also really, really wants to be inside of Minho — as nervous as the idea makes him.

Jisung groans against Minho’s rim and pulls away, Minho pouting at him immediately. “Give me the lube,” Jisung asks simply.

Minho stops pouting and brings his legs down, handing over the little packet without complaint. Jisung tears it open with his teeth and drips some over his fingers. His hands shake as he brings a finger to Minho’s rim, massaging the muscle slightly, Minho gasping at the light pressure. 

Last time, he gave Minho the reins, and even though it was a new experience for both of them, Jisung found some comfort in knowing that if anyone would be hurting, it would be him. He doesn’t want to hurt Minho anymore than he already has. He only wants him to feel Jisung’s love from the center of his chest to the way his toes curl as Jisung hesitantly pushes the tip of his finger inside.

To Jisung’s shock, his finger glides in easily, slipping into the first knuckle, Minho whining and bucking into the feeling. At his obvious confusion, Minho smirks. “When I said I tried it, I meant today.”

This time, when Jisung kisses Minho, he doesn’t think he tastes like salt. He thinks he tastes like Minho. That everything salty has him to thank for the way it burns tongues and makes faces pinch. Minho moans into his mouth, winding his arms around Jisung’s neck. Jisung pushes his finger all the way in, gasping like he’s the one being touched. Slowly, he pumps it in and out, trying to gauge Minho’s feelings by the pressure of his lips on his, the way his tongue moves in his mouth. 

“More,” Minho huffs, soft and pretty and kind. Something in Jisung shatters.

Minho breaks the kiss and buries his head into Jisung’s shoulder. Jisung’s pace becomes relentless, fucking Minho with his finger and then two, curling them and causing Minho to cry out in a way that would cause Jisung to recoil if he didn’t know any better.

“I was wondering where that was,” Minho’s laugh turns into a whimper as Jisung continues to massage the bundle of nerves inside of him, hitting it hard on every thrust. Minho’s arms become limp and drape down to Jisung’s shoulders, allowing him to free himself and retake his place between Minho’s thighs. He licks lightly against Minho’s rim, slowing his fingers before easing a third one in along with his tongue. He winds his free hand up and around, taking Minho’s cock in his fist and stroking it in time with his fingers. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Minho babbles, hissing and rolling his hips against Jisung’s face. “Fuck, Jisung, that’s so good.”

Jisung hums in acknowledgement, feeling his own eyes roll into the back of his head. He ruts uselessly against the blanket below him, the rough texture doing more harm than good, but he’s begging for the release. The sea air coats his skin in a thin layer of salt, a breeze brushes over his bare body and causes him to shiver.

“I’m ready,” Minho whines, literally throwing the condom at Jisung’s head. Jisung laughs and pulls his fingers from Minho, sitting up on his knees. He picks up the foil packet with still-shaking hands, trying to calm his nerves as he opens it and slides it over his length. 

He’s so pent up, that he thinks he might come from that tiny bit of contact alone, and then again when he looks down at Minho. His pupils are blown, his arms thrown back over his head. His smile is sly on his lips and Jisung knows exactly how that specific variation of it will taste; like want and kindness and love.

For the first time in a long time, Jisung lets himself pretend that storm season has passed. That this false calm is a reality. That he and Minho will have this moment and thousands of others. That if he drained the sea, the shells on the ocean floor would all spell out their initials, something made by nature and not the careful drag of Jisung’s hand against it. 

Jisung is a fighter, but there are a few battles he can’t win. He was never going to win against Minho, no matter how small his hands are. How can you fight when your opponent is lacing his fingers into yours? How do you fight when he sits up to kiss you, languid, soft, and silky. How do you fight when he grabs you by the hip and silently flips you over, never once breaking the connection between you.

Storms may no longer scare Jisung, but he thinks their absence might. A ghost of a storm. A hint of a hurricane without any of the wind, only a quiet laugh against sun-chapped lips and eager hands on sun-worn skin. 

“I wanna be close to you,” Minho murmurs, grinding his ass down onto Jisung’s cock, his own aching length smearing precum on Jisung’s stomach. “As close as possible.”

“You have me,” Jisung whispers, sitting up to rest their foreheads against each other, Jisung’s cock nestling in the cleft of Minho’s ass, both of them gasping. Jisung bows his legs slightly, Minho wrapping his around Jisung’s waist and his arms around his neck.

Jisung digs one hand into the meat of Minho’s thigh, easing him up slightly, and takes his own cock in his other hand, bringing it to Minho’s entrance and pushing lightly against it. Minho moans wantonly and starts pressing harder against the intrusion until the head pops in, and then half of Jisung’s length almost immediately. 

“Oh, shit,” Jisung hisses. His limbs feel limp and rigid at the same time. He feels something bubble and burst in the center of his stomach, his blood fizzling, heat licking up every inch of him as Minho swallows him. There are absolutely sharks in these waters. 

Slowly, almost painfully, Minho drops down inch by inch, until he’s fully seated in Jisung’s lap, collapsing his head onto his shoulder. He tightens his limbs around his body until Jisung is trapped in a vice grip in every way he can be. 

“Okay?” Jisung squeaks, rubbing little circles into the small of Minho’s back. 

“Yeah,” Minho breathes into Jisung’s shoulder. “You’re a lot bigger than my fingers.”

Jisung laughs, causing Minho to shift above him, and he whimpers. “Minho,” he starts, and Minho rolls his hip experimentally, cutting him off. “Minho,” he tries again, “I might actually die, this feels so good.”

Minho picks his hips up and drops back down, white hot pleasure electrocuting his every fiber. He feels like he needs to run into the ocean just to stop himself from turning to nothing but ash.

“No dying until I come,” Minho moans, building a hard and fast rhythm. His ass slams down on Jisung’s hips, the lewd sound of skin on skin echoing through the night. It’s dirty and dangerous and Jisung is savoring every second of it. He lets Minho take the lead again, lets him guide their bodies together, lets Minho grip his fingers into his hair and pull tight enough to break skin.

“So you’re just using me, huh?” Jisung teases.

Minho slows his movements, switching to a slow roll, and kisses Jisung’s jaw. His cheek. His nose. His lips. Jisung counts the seconds between every one, waiting for lightning to strike once, twice, three times. It hits dead on to the heart every time.

“No,” Minho says against Jisung’s lips, kissing the word more than saying it. “Loving you.”

Melding like one being, melting into each other and drinking down every drop. Nothing but skin and hot breath and heated words. Sweat sliding between their stomachs, the blankets bunching up around their waists. Jisung can feel every hair on his arms stand on end. He drags his tongue along Minho’s bottom lip, griping his hips and guiding his movements. 

Jisung pulls Minho closer and closer until the only way to close the distance is to crawl inside of each other. His cock pulses inside of Minho’s tight heat, and Minho is right, Jisung absolutely cannot die without making Minho feel good first. He has his priorities.

“I want to love you, too,” Jisung confesses.

Minho giggles. “You are.”

In a swift movement, Jisung flips them over again, half in the sand, the top blanket completely abandoned. He grabs Minho’s hips, lifting him slightly. His hands still shake, he’s nervous about being good, about being enough for Minho. But looking down at him, seeing how his lips part in a sly smile, how his eyes squeeze shut, how his neck cranes up to the sky like he wants to swallow the stars.

Jisung would pull all of them down for him if that's what he wanted, but he knows that right now, all Minho wants is this. 

“Do it Jisung,” Minho taunts, smiling like he’s up to something. Because even like this, laid out for Jisung in the moonlight, Minho still finds a way to surprise him. “Love me.”

Jisung loves him by pulling broken moans from Minho’s throat, gripping his hips enough to bruise. He drives into him slow, but hard, rolling his hips strategically, chasing Minho’s pleasure more than his own.

Minho writhes in the sand, back bowing, clipped moans falling endlessly from his lips. On a particularly hard thrust, Jisung knows he must have hit Minho’s prostate dead on. Minho cries out in a way that makes Jisung wonder if someone will ignore the sign and run in on him. The thought makes his cock twitch inside of Minho, encouraging him to move faster.

“Fuck, that’s so good,” Minho cries. “You’re doing so good Jisung. You’re so good.” He’s babbling, losing himself in it, and Jisung is losing himself in him. Jisung lets go of his grip on Minho in one hand and reaches for his cock, stroking him in time with his thrust. 

One more cry, one more long drawl of Jisung’s name, and Minho is spilling onto his stomach and into Jisung’s hand. His mouth opens in a silent scream, his neck bent in a way he’ll feel for days, Jisung’s fingerprints etched into the skin of his hips so deep, he hopes they’ll be imprinted into Minho’s scales. His own arms are spread above his head like wings, fists clenched, and even in the dark, past the black polish, Jisung knows Minho’s nails are purple. They’re both purple to the bone. Sad and happy and in love.

“Can I come?” Jisung whimpers, not realizing he needed the permission until he asked for it. Minho looks dazed, his cock twitching again in interest. 

“You can come, baby,” Minho says, saccharine and deadly, and Jisung is exploding.

White flashes behind his eyes, waves crashing on the floor, the tide inching up and taking him under. He feels his muscles spasm, his stomach contract, his toes curl and his shoulders tense, spilling into the condom harder than he’s ever come before. 

Jisung doesn’t even realize he’s collapsed until he opens his eyes and sees he’s plastered to Minho’s chest, inhaling salt and the smell of sex.

“Oh good, you’re alive,” Minho rasps, kissing the top of Jisung’s head.

“Barely,” Jisung quips back. “You’re right; assholes are lethal.”

With a groan and a kiss, Jisung rolls off of Minho and reaches for one of the blankets, wiping Minho clean and throwing it to the side. He’ll have to thank the blanket for its worthy sacrifice when he inevitably has to throw it away. He discards the condom in their trash bag. Hopefully no unexpecting animals try to dig in it.

“What time is it?” They caught their bearings and threw their boxers back on, draped the good blanket over their bodies. Minho’s voice is timid. Afraid. The aftermath of the storm is the scariest part; when you have to assess the damage and see what was lost.

They both look up at the sky, laying side by side just as they were before, as if no time has passed at all.

“I don’t know,” Jisung responds, and he doesn’t want to.

“You haven’t used your wish.” Minho turns his head to face Jisung, eyes unreadable.

“Nothing to wish for,” Jisung smiles.

Minho scoffs, but his blush is visible even in the dark. “Seriously.”

Jisung shrugs. Minho rolls to rest on his side, propping himself up on his elbow. “You could wish for almost anything,” Minho chides. “You could wish to never have to clean your pool again. Or for a merman to never fall into it again.”

“Hmm sounds like jealousy,” Jisung smirks, but it falls quickly. He shrugs again. “I don’t think I’ll have to clean my pool much anymore.” 

At Minho’s confused glance, he breathes in deep, unsure of why he’s scared to admit he’s leaving if Minho is too. “I got a job offer to teach surfing in California,” Jisung says quickly. “I think I’m going to take it.”

“Oh,” Minho says and then falls into silence. Jisung watches him, trying to gauge his expression. The line of his mouth is hard, unwavering, until it flips into a sad smile. “The Pacific. I guess we won’t be floating together.” It’s not a hopeful hypothetical or a pipe dream. It’s a definitive. An acknowledgement of an ending they still aren’t acknowledging.

“I guess not,” Jisung barely breathes the words, like not speaking them will keep them from happening. Part of him wonders if Minho wants Jisung to wish him to stay, but Minho said it himself; he belongs in the sea. This, like all things, was built to end. 

How interesting it is that humans build things with the intention of them being temporary. Only hoping that they won’t be alive to see their finality in practice.

“Think about your wish,” Minho says and lays his head on Jisung’s chest, nestling into him, trying to bury himself underneath his ribs. He’s already there. Jisung will always carry him there, where he belongs. All the things Jisung has ever belonged to and everything that has ever belonged to him, trapped in something the size of his fist.

Maybe a fist isn’t a proper measurement, not when Jisung sees how small Minho’s looks balled against Jisung’s stomach. Minho’s heart is bigger than all of him, spilling out of his ears and through the gaps in his smile.

“I will,” Jisung says. He tries, he really does, but sleep embraces him before he has an answer. His subconscious saving him from the thought and the loss. A coward. Jisung has no fight left in him.

⋆.ೃ࿔*:𓇼⋆.ೃ࿔*:⋆

The wind breaks so hard against Jisung’s skin, he feels like when he looks down at himself, he’ll only be muscle over bone.

The trees whip, the blankets that were abandoned in the sand now sticking to their trunks and waving like mercy flags. Tupperware and the remnants of Jisung and Minho’s picnic scatter across the bank, running into the brush like they’re looking for cover.

Jisung shields his eyes against the wind, his silk shirt billowing in a cloud around his body. The sky is a deep green, like the storm is trying to hide itself in the darkness. There’s a flash and Jisung sees lightning crack the sky open, thunder following before the light has even faded, and through the hole falls rain.

It comes down fast and hard, soaking Jisung to the bone almost immediately. Does rain turn Minho? Does he need to get to the pool? Jisung turns, expecting to see Minho by his side, but there’s nothing. Not even a divet in the sand where his body rested. Not a mark or trace of him ever existing at all.

“Minho!” Jisung calls uselessly, his voice being pushed right back into his mouth by the wind. Jisung struggles to stand, curling his toes into the sand below him and desperately searching for purchase. He has to hunch his back and walk with his head first in order to push through the wind without being taken like the bramble that whips past him.

“Minho!” He calls again, this time towards the ocean. It must be past midnight. Minho must be gone. But then why the storm? This isn’t natural; it feels like anger and betrayal and familial wrath. The same storm that blew Minho into Jisung’s life attempting to blow him out of it.

But that would have to mean that Minho didn’t go, that he’s— a slap in the water. One that Jisung shouldn’t even hear, not with the way the waves thrash and slam against the jagged rocks, but he does. He squints through the rain and distance, needing to rest his hand on the ground in order to keep his body from folding over, and he can see the tint of bright blue in the darkness.

Minho, gripping on to a buoy that rocks violently, looking for something. Looking for Jisung. Going against nature herself to find him, the ocean trying to swallow him up.

Ninety percent of the ocean remains a mystery. Things that can’t even be imagined lurking down in the deep. Not because they are too terrifying or bloodthirsty or cruel, but because the world does not have the space to hold all that Minho is. He could only exist in the vastest part of the planet. Minho has never felt like he’s belonged to anything because nothing has ever been brave enough to contain him, and the things that have tried, he has broken out of.

Jisung would never attempt to box him in, he would never stick him to one thing. The reason Minho has never felt like he’s belonged to anything is because he belongs to everything. Because he’s never let himself be changed by the things that have happened to him. And Jisung would never ask Minho to make himself smaller in order to fit in.

Lightning can’t be bottled, but it can be chased. And Jisung will regret it for the rest of his life if he doesn’t at least try to chase it down. Jisung regrets a lot of things, has a lot of things he would have done differently if he had the chance. He has a chance here, he doesn’t want to waste it. Things happen, bad and good, and there isn’t anything you can do about any of it.

Jisung is sick of things just happening to him. For once, he wants to be the thing that happens.

Against the wind, Jisung sprints up the bank and down the path. The gate to his patio has already flown off the hinges. Another expense that Jisung will find a way to pay for. He’s going to find a way to everything. He has to. He’s different, but also the same, and Jisung doesn’t think that adding new parts to yourself means sacrificing the old ones. It means getting older, wiser, a little dumber too, maybe. Growing and changing and staying the same. Being Jisung as he is and as he was, because at the core, it’s all the same. 

Grieving and loving aren’t so different. A ghost is both an absence and a presence, but Jisung doesn’t want to have to grieve Minho when he can love him in full capacity.

Just love. Just wanting and having the ability to take it. Just growing up and out and in. Just watching the lightning and not needing to count, knowing that the thunder will still hit regardless and you will still have to suffer the consequences. Just being willing to do the work that comes with that. Just Jisung. Just living.

Thunder explodes into Jisung’s eardrums. He didn’t even see the lightning. He didn’t even notice he wasn’t looking for it, too determined to get what he came here for. Jisung runs into the shed, grabs his board, and rushes back to the cove.

He doesn’t pause, doesn’t think, barely even breathes. Just runs full speed into the water, smacking his board onto the water and his body on top of it, paddling with one thing on his mind: Minho.

Salt water fills Jisung’s mouth, coating his tongue and teeth and tumbling down his throat. The waves thrash around him, attempting to tip him and pull him under, but Jisung knows the water. He knows its secrets and evils and goods. A true neutral; something Jisung blamed because there was nothing else to point a finger at.

Jisung is going to miss his parents forever. There’s no denying that or moving on or pretending he’s okay. But grief doesn’t always have to mean pain. It can mean memories and habits that you never break, not because you can’t but because you don’t want to. Jisung will always be in the habit of missing them, but he wouldn’t want it any other way. How lucky is he to have had things to cry for and to miss? People who meant so much that their meaning will never be lost. A place to belong even in their absence, because they’re always with Jisung, never leaving his mind or his side.

He belongs here, as much as he belongs anywhere. And he wants Minho to belong anywhere he wants too.

Jisung slices his arms through the downpour and the typhoon in the making. Carving his place through it, parting the sea to get to where he needs to be, letting the waves carry him like they also know where he’s going. 

The buoy gets closer and closer, and Minho with it. Even from here, Jisung can see the divet between his eyes, his heart drawn on his face, his soft curves and jagged corners. Even the sweetest animals have sharp teeth, and Minho has used his to bite Jisung open in the kindest way. To remind him that he lives and bleeds, that even after all that has happened, his blood is still red and not blue.

A rough jolt of water pushes Jisung into Minho’s view. He sees the way Minho’s eyes widen with joy and panic, and he frantically reaches his arm out, still a few feet between them.

Jisung didn’t want to take the choice away from Minho. Didn’t want to wish him into a new bottle when he’s spent his entire life making sure his was never capped. Maybe The Little Mermaid isn’t an accurate depiction of what it’s like to live under water, but maybe some other movies still have some merit. Jisung knows what he’s going to wish for. He just needs to make it.

“What the hell are you doing!” Minho cries over the storm. He strains against the wind and the pull of his body, fist gripped tightly around the buoy as he attempts to close the last few inches of distance. Jisung leans all the way over his board, fingertips nearly touching Minho’s. Another push from the ocean — Jisung wants to believe it’s helping — and their fingers connect, joints intertwining and Minho is pulling Jisung to the buoy. Both of them have an iron grip on the board and metal bars.

“What the hell are you doing?” Jisung shouts back. 

“I’m running away,” Minho yells. “I can’t do it. I can’t go back and get married, Jisung, not when I know you’re out here. Not when I know love is real. I can’t do it. That’s me, but what the fuck are you doing, Jisung?”

Jisung crawls his hand from Minho’s fingers to his forearm, up his bicep and to his shoulder until his hand is gripped around the back of Minho’s neck. “I’m running to something.”

Minho’s head cocks, his hair a hurricane around his face. His eyes squint against the wind. “You didn’t wish for me to stay,” his voice cracks and Jisung’s heart breaks. “I thought —”

“Can I give you my wish?”

Minho blinks. “What?”

“I didn’t want to take the choice from you,” Jisung yells. “I didn’t want to keep you trapped. My wish is to give you my wish, so you can do whatever you want. Can I do that?”

And that could mean staying with Jisung and that could mean something else. Jisung just wants Minho to be happy, wherever and however he may do that. Good or bad, Minho deserves to feel. He deserves to be his own self. Nothing is ever just one thing. No one belongs to just one place. 

Jisung belongs wherever his people are, and his people are here. He doesn’t need to run away or start over, he needs to rebuild right where he is. He belongs wherever he decides he does, and so does Minho.

“That’s your wish?” Minho confirms like he doesn’t really believe it. Jisung nods. The waves become more violent, but they hold steadfast on to each other. “Really?”

Jisung nods.

“Granted.” Minho closes the little distance between them, catching Jisung in a kiss and not letting him go. His lips press against Jisung’s soft and hard. The waves start to ease up, the wind slows to a quiet whistle. The earth goes quiet and still. Jisung pulls away and opens his eyes, surveying around him. No obvious signs of damage, but if there is something to clean up, he’ll do it.

“What happened?” His voice is hoarse from shouting, relearning how to speak normally. No need to relearn the language between him and Minho; that’s something he’ll never lose.

Minho grins. “I made my wish.”

“What did you wish for?”

“To do anything I want.” Always straight to the point, no need to elaborate, Jisung thinks they’ll have plenty of time for elaboration later.

Jisung cackles, a sharp sound in the new quiet. “What do you want to do now?”

Minho answers in their language. By kissing Jisung hard and spilling everything he wants to say down his throat.

Jisung understands every word.

⋆.ೃ࿔*:𓇼⋆.ೃ࿔*:⋆

Jisung turns down the job.

“Are you sure?” The girl asks frantically on the phone, her sales pitch locked and loaded to go. “We really think you’d fit in well here, Jisung.”

Jisung looks out the window of the patio doors. Minho lounges at the end of the pool, arms propped up behind him on the deck, tail swirling in front of him. Hyunjin and Changbin sit in the deck chairs, laughing as the rest of their friends wade in the pool and stare, slackjawed at what’s in front of them.

Felix looks to ask Minho something and at his nod, he and Chan both reach out to touch Minho’s tail, the gasps visible on their faces. Seungmin and Jeongin sit on the pool deck, hands so close to touching but not quite. Seungmin looks like he already knew about Minho, and Jeongin looks like Seungmin told him. Typical.

Jisung is going to start teaching surf lessons again. He’s going to hire Minho on as their account manager, and they're going to start working towards getting all the paperwork and licenses for Minho to run a food truck on the property, because that’s what Minho wants to do and he can do whatever he wants. He’s free and so is Jisung. They ran to each other and now they’re never letting go.

“I’m sure,” Jisung says into the phone. He makes eye contact with Minho and he waves, Minho’s smile beaming like sunlight. “I’m right where I belong.”

⋆.ೃ࿔*:𓇼⋆.ೃ࿔*:⋆

“This is nice,” Minho says to Jisung and the sky. 

They’re both laying in the cove with their backs on two of Jisung’s boards, staring up at the stars. Just floating. No urgency or worries or cares.

“It is,” Jisung agrees. He reaches his hand across the space between them and takes Minho’s in his. Their nails are both painted black, shell bracelets jingling. Jisung feels so much, a cacophony of all things and he wouldn’t want it any other way.

“There’s supposed to be a storm tomorrow,” Minho says. He turns to look at Jisung with sparkling eyes and Jisung doesn't feel like there’s any reason to look up at the sky any more.

“A bad one?” He asks.

“Pretty bad,” Minho confirms. “A tropical storm.”

Jisung squeezes Minho’s hand and Minho squeezes his in return. They both smile because they can’t seem to do anything else in each other’s presence. Jisung isn’t scared of storms or their aftermath. He isn’t sure what he’s scared of anymore, but he knows that no matter what, there is always someone there to count the seconds between the lightning and the thunder. Lichtenberg scars coming together, their initials etched across their skin. Fossilized lightning, not captured, but preserved.

Things just happen sometimes, like how Jisung and Minho happened to each other.

“We’ll brave it.”

Minho’s smile is like lightning. Jisung pulls his hand hard and fast, causing them both to roll off their boards, Minho’s laughter like thunder. They kiss in the eye of the storm. Jisung can’t wait to know what happens next, but for now he’s happy to have what’s happening now.

Good and bad. All of it.