Chapter Text
Yugyeom hummed, taking a deep breath in so he could smell the ocean only a few feet away. His toes dug in the sand a little as he walked, shoes in his hand so they wouldn’t get dirty or drenched. He had one headphone in the ear that was facing away from the ocean and he was murmuring lyrics quietly.
Yugyeom missed doing this; he missed walking along the shore. He’d been so busy with classes and work, and he had never felt so relieved when school ended just a few days ago and led to the beginning of his summer vacation.
Yugyeom lived pretty close to the shore, in a small house he rented with his roommates BamBam and Youngjae, and the college they attended wasn’t too far away either. Yugyeom and Youngjae both owned cars, and BamBam would often borrow whichever was available and pay for gas whenever it was needed in return.
The beach they lived by wasn’t very popular. It was known for harsh waves and rocks scattering the beaches, and fast winds and bad rain, but Yugyeom wouldn’t want to change a thing. It kept the place quiet, and it really wasn’t that bad anyway.
Yugyeom sighed in delight, pushing his hair back from his face to let the rays of the setting sun wash over him. He slowed his walking for a moment to take it in, just the smell and the sound and the feel under his feet.
Eventually Yugyeom prompted himself into moving, knowing BamBam and Youngjae would be annoyed if he came back too late.
A new song began to play through Yugyeom’s earbud, something a little more soothing than the previous one, and he let his body move a little with it as he walked. He took some complicated steps, smooth and methodical, letting the dulcet voice lull him into a trance of comfort and serenity.
He didn’t realize he’d closed his eyes until he opened them and he once again slowed to a stop. There was a pretty good sized pile of rocks he was coming up on, half in the water and half out. He’d have to go around them on the beach, but before he could turn, something caught his eye.
Yugyeom pulled out his earbud and tucked them away in his pocket. He stayed quiet for a moment, listening, then shuffled closer to what he had seen; swirling red stained the water and the sand.
The closer he got, the more he realized it looked like blood, and Yugyeom was never known to shy away when he got curious about something, especially with nobody around to see him. He hurried up the beach to get around the rocks and when he rounded the corner he felt himself almost tumbling to a stop.
A man was sprawled on the ground, tucked right next to the rocks. He was rather pale, but not paler than Yugyeom, and had dark hair, but the exact color wasn’t visible in the dimming light. It wasn’t any of those things that caught Yugyeom’s attention, though. Instead, it was the dark blue tail attached to the man from his hips down; his pale skin blended with lighter scales, which quickly darkened to the navy blue of the rest of his tail.
Yugyeom audibly gasped, which made the man—or could Yugyeom not call it that? Merman? Yugyeom shook his head. Yugyeom’s gasp made the man turn his head with a move that made Yugyeom’s neck ache when he thought about it. The creature—no, just merman—made an odd noise, and reeled back. He hissed, his sharp canines glinting dangerously, and Yugyeom took a couple steps back.
Yugyeom wondered why the merman, seemingly wanting to get into the water, didn’t do so, and then he remembered the red in the water. With a quick glance over the man, he saw a lot of things he didn’t like. For instance, the colorful bruising and the cuts littering his torso. But more than that, when he looked back to the tail, he noticed something long sticking out of it, a sharpened metal arrowhead at its tip.
“You got harpooned?” Yugyeom asked incredulously, taking one step forward. The merman practically screeched, using its hands to scramble back, but it was clearly in pain and struggling to move at all.
“Away!” the merman ordered, though it’s tone was a little raspy and dry, and it sounded a little unnatural. He tried pushing himself back again, toward the ocean, but suddenly his tail flailed and he used his arms and hands to desperately grab at the rocks near him and pull himself up from the water. He was panting a little, and he had this look in his eyes Yugyeom didn’t like; he seemed lost and scared, but he was doing his best to hide it.
Yugyeom set his shoes down and raised his hands in surrender to show he didn’t have anything to harm the man.
“You need help, but I don’t think you can swim like that, with that thing in your tail,” Yugyeom said, and took a tentative step closer.
“Stop,” the merman snapped, and so Yugyeom did.
“I’m Yugyeom,” he offered, “I can help you, please. You’re hurt and you’re bleeding really bad. You have a chunk from your tail missing and you look injured in other places. Please, I would just like to help you. Look, I’ve got a friend, his name is Youngjae, and he’s a medical student. A while ago he bought a lot of medical supplies when they were learning about treatments in his class. He forced me to learn how to wrap a bandage, I can help you until you heal.”
The merman angrily slapped his tail against the wet sand, a loud smack ringing through the air, trying to get Yugyeom to back off. Sure, it startled Yugyeom, but what again pushed him to get a little bit closer was the look of pain in the beached merman’s eyes.
“Look, I get that you’re scared right now, but you have a metal rod immobilizing you, and my guess is that if you try to go wherever home is, you’re going to bleed out before you get there. If you stay on this beach, will your friends and family find you first, or will it be someone else? I can guarantee someone will find you, just like I did, and I honestly don’t believe they’d help, okay? Let me help you, please.”
The merman let Yugyeom get closer.
“I promise I won’t hurt you. If I can take you home, it’s not far, I can help clean your wound in a much safer environment. Do you understand?” The man nodded.
“Can you trust me? Just for a little while?”
The man, though clearly hesitant, finally nodded.
“Okay, this is going to hurt you. Any movement is going to hurt, and if you don’t struggle it’s going to hurt a lot less.” The man nodded again.
Yugyeom crouched down next to the merman. He slowly pushed his hands under him, digging into the sand, and using all the strength in his legs, he lifted the man from the ground. He was a lot heavier than Yugyeom expected, and after a moment of consideration he figured it was because his tail was made almost completely of muscle. He did his best not to jostle the man, but it was difficult when he squirmed. Yugyeom struggled to get to his car, struggled even more to get his keys from his pocket, but eventually he managed to unlock the car and get the merman to pull open the backseat door. He set the man in the backseat, wincing at the water seeping into the cloth and the blood dripping everywhere, but Yugyeom figured this wasn’t the time to think about that. He helped the guy sit up so his whole tail would fit and then climbed into the driver seat.
“Okay, this might be loud, and you’ll probably be jostled some as I get home. It’s not a long drive, but please try to do your best not to move and I’ll do my best to keep the car steady.” He turned on the car, not missing the way the man seemed to startle. He turned the radio off and kicked into reverse, then backed out of his spot. He began to drive home, taking turns slowly and being more cautious than he’d ever been in his life.
A few minutes later, Yugyeom arrived home, opening and then driving into the garage. He parked the car and turned it off, but before he could pick the man up and take him inside he needed to know if BamBam or Youngjae was around.
The house was two levels. There was a main floor level, which had the kitchen and a small connected dining space, a small mud room that was connected to the garage, a half bathroom, living room, and a master bedroom with an en suite bathroom BamBam and Youngjae shared. As the house was located on a hill, there was a half basement which was situated on lower ground and not cut into the earth, and was therefore half the size of the upper floor. Downstairs housed Yugyeom’s room, a small living room that hardly anyone spent time in, a full bathroom, and a small laundry room with a corresponding closet.
As long as Yugyeom made it to the stairs with nobody seeing him, which hopefully wouldn’t pose too much of a challenge as the stairs were only about ten feet from the mud room entrance, he could get Jinyoung into the bath in his bathroom. His roommates rarely went downstairs, unless it was to do laundry, and even that was something they didn’t do too often.
“I’m going to be right back. I have to make sure the people I live with won’t see you. Do you understand?” Yugyeom asked earnestly.
The merman nodded and watched Yugyeom disappear inside. After a quick scan around, Yugyeom deemed it safe. He returned to the car and helped the merman slide out. With difficulty, he shut the car door and carried him inside. He stumbled to the stairs, hurrying down to the bathroom. He gingerly set the man down, his tail a little too long for the bath, and started running the water.
“Cold? Hot?” Yugyeom asked, putting the man’s hand under the running water.
“Warmer,” he said, so Yugyeom turned it up. The temperature adjustments continued until Yugyeom got it right. He ran upstairs and then came back down with a salt container and dumped some into the water.
“That’s probably fine,” Yugyeom muttered. He dug around in the cabinet, pulling out some hydrogen peroxide and bandages. He knew he’d need to pull out the harpoon, but he wasn’t an expert on injuries. He couldn’t tell anybody what was happening, doing so could endanger the life of the merman he’d found.
“You…” the merman said, and Yugyeom whipped around to look at him, the items he’d grabbed in hand. He shut the bathroom door with his leg, left the medicine cabinet open, and kneeled next to the bath.
“Yes?”
“Yugyeom?”
“Yeah, I’m Yugyeom. Do you have a name?” Yugyeom asked.
The man made a series of clicks and whistles, something that reminded Yugyeom of the way a dolphin speaks, but then the merman took a breath of air.
“In your language… Jin… young,” he sounded out. “I’m Jin-young. Jinyoung.”
“Jinyoung,” Yugyeom repeated. “Nice to meet you. Okay, I’m going to have to pull out the harpoon. I’m not an expert on injuries, but four hands is better than two, and especially because you shouldn’t be trying to patch yourself up alone. I’m going to try to clean the area a bit, pull out the harpoon, and then I’m going to try to stop the bleeding by bandaging your tail. In order to do this, you need to keep it out of the water. Is that okay? Will that hurt you?”
“Won’t hurt. Just keep in water,” Jinyoung strained.
Yugyeom nodded. “I’m going to clean your wound as much as I can without removing the harpoon. It may sting, alright?”
Jinyoung nodded. Yugyeom poured the hydrogen peroxide over his tail and the merman yelped, grabbing onto the bath tub in surprise.
“Sorry,” Yugyeom rushed. He continued to clean up the wound, grabbing a rag and covering it with soap and warm water in order to clean out the sand and dirt stuck in the wound. It wasn’t as bad as Yugyeom had initially thought. Although it was all the way through his tail, it was near the side and wasn’t through the middle. If Yugyeom were to compare it to human anatomy, he guessed it would be about where a human's calves would be. The harpoon wasn’t that large in diameter, nor was it extremely long, so Yugyeom guessed if he managed to cut through the rope connected to the end, he could cleanly pull it out without catching any more of the tissue of the tail.
“Okay, I need scissors, or something sharp. There should be some in the next room over. I’ll be back.”
Jinyoung nodded, looking a bit paler than before, but Yugyeom had to trust he’d be alright. He still seemed wary and a bit scared, but most likely felt like he had no choice but to go along with what Yugyeom was doing.
Yugyeom rushed to the laundry room, looking around for random supplies. He needed something sharp to cut the rope tied to the harpoon. He knew he wouldn’t be able to find anything to cut through the metal of the harpoon itself, so his best hope was finding something sharp enough to cut through the thick, braided rope. Maybe BamBam would have some scissors or shears from the clothes he made for his fashion design major. If he did do that, he’d need to go upstairs to his room and look.
Yugyeom didn’t find anything in the laundry room, so he decided he needed to risk it and went upstairs. He knocked on the master bedroom door and, hearing no reply, he entered. He rummaged around the fabrics BamBam had, being careful not to move anything out of place. Eventually he found a sharp pair of scissors and slipped out of the room. He froze when he saw BamBam walking through the front door of the house. He made to run down the stairs but had to stop when BamBam called his name.
“Yugyeom-ah, why are you wet?”
“I was trying to fix my shower head and it totally soaked me,” Yugyeom lied on the spot. “If you hear me making noise downstairs, it’s ‘cause I’m trying to fix it.”
“Huh. What’s with the red on your shirt? Did you try to dye your hair and spill it all over yourself again?”
“Yeah, totally what happened. Uh, I’ve gotta go fix the shower.” Yugyeom offered a weak grin and BamBam raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah, sure, Gyeom-ah.” Yugyeom gave BamBam a thumbs up and rushed down the stairs. BamBam shook his head and walked to the kitchen.
Yugyeom hurried back to the bathroom, closing the door behind him and once again kneeling down by the tub.
“One of my roommates just got home. We have to be quiet, okay? I’m going to cut the rope off and then I’ll remove the harpoon, but you have to be still. I don’t want to hurt you anymore.” Yugyeom began to cut at the rope, slowly fraying it. It took him a few minutes, but eventually he managed to cut through the last of the strands. Yugyeom threw the rope out of the way, wiping the water from his hands to make sure they were dry and coming close to Jinyoung.
“This is going to hurt, I guarantee it. You can’t scream, or my roommate will come down. I can give you something to bite on if you’d like.” Jinyoung nodded, so Yugyeom grabbed a towel and folded it, then handed it to the merman. He stuffed it into his own mouth.
“Please, you’ve gotta stay quiet. I’m going to do this as best as I can, but there’s a good portion of this harpoon in your tail. If it becomes too much, tell me. I’m going to start on the count of three.”
Yugyeom wrapped his hands around the harpoon, praying to god it would come out smooth. He cringed at the blood caked on the metal, but he steadied himself and took a deep breath.
“One, two, three,” Yugyeom counted off. He began to pull the metal out and Jinyoung screamed into the gag, blood and tissue squelching. Yugyeom continued to pull it out, trying to ignore the red seeping into the water and over the porcelain tub. He couldn’t keep his eyes from looking at the blood that ran onto the floor.
Jinyoung scraped at the tub and Yugyeom stopped pulling. Jinyoung’s whole body shuddered and Yugyeom winced as the wound gushed. Jinyoung stilled again, gripping the side of the tub, and Yugyeom began to pull once more. The metal made a noise of suction as it was finally removed from the merman’s tail and Yugyeom dropped it onto the floor. It clattered loudly, blood getting all over the ceramic tiling.
Jinyoung gasped as the towel dropped from his mouth, chest heaving. Yugyeom grabbed the hydrogen peroxide again and practically dumped the bottle over the wound. Jinyoung let out a garbled noise and hit his back against the tiled wall, but Yugyeom didn’t have time to think about it. He washed out the wound as best he could and pressed gauze against the hole facing him. He began to bandage it tightly in hopes of stopping the bleeding. He then washed off the hole on the other side of Jinyoung’s tail again to ensure it was as clean as he could get it before pressing more gauze against it and bandaging it. Yugyeom collapsed against the counter, exhausted, but he couldn’t stop just yet. The bath water and the bathroom itself was filthy, and he needed to get rid of the harpoon and the rope somehow without anybody being suspicious of him.
Yugyeom looked up to see Jinyoung was weakly leaning against the wall, eyes lidded.
“Go to sleep, you need rest. I’ll clean and replace the water. Was the salt okay?”
Jinyoung just nodded tiredly. Yugyeom offered him a smile and the merman went limp against the wall.
Yugyeom gently maneuvered around him, pulling the drain on the tub. He let it drain out completely, then ran some hot water and scrubbed at the tub with a disposable cloth. He managed to remove the blood as it hadn’t dried or set in yet. He rinsed out the tub as best he could and returned the temperature to what he recalled Jinyoung had liked. He dumped in some salt and it was then he finally looked at his own body.
His fingernails had blood stuck underneath them, congealed. His pale skin was dyed a red from the bloody water he’d drained and his hands were a touch too pink from the strain of rubbing and cleaning. His shirt had blood caked on it, all over his stomach, and his pants weren’t much better. He felt himself panic, it was so much blood, but he reminded himself that the merman was alive, he could see his chest moving up and down as he breathed. He began to shakily clean the bathroom, cleaning the blood and water splashed on the floor. He grabbed the rope and the harpoon and climbed up the stairs, overly cautious. He wrapped an old towel around them and dumped them into his trunk so he could take them to a dumpster another time and neither roommate would be the wiser.
He returned down to the bathroom, realizing he needed to shower all the blood and grime off of himself. He staggered to his room, a little dazed. He couldn’t use his own shower, but he needed to clean himself, but he couldn’t show the blood anywhere on him. Maybe BamBam wouldn’t ask.
Yugyeom picked up a towel, a clean shirt, and a pair of boxers and slowly made his way up the stairs. BamBam was sitting on the living room couch, watching a show.
“BamBam, can I use your shower? I couldn’t fix mine,” Yugyeom asked, trying to angle himself so he was behind BamBam and he wouldn’t be seen if BamBam happened to turn around.
“Yeah, sure, just try and fix your shower head by tomorrow or something,” BamBam replied. “Oh, also, Youngjae is going to be home late, he’s taking a cooking class or something like that.”
“Okay. Cool.” Yugyeom trudged to the bathroom. He mindlessly stripped his clothes and got into the steaming water. He scrubbed at his skin until it was red, not from blood, but from the rubbing. He must have washed his body twice before even processing what he was doing. He came back to himself after he’d washed his hair and washed his body one more time.
“Oh my god,” Yugyeom whispered. “Oh my god. A merman. I fucking have a harpooned merman in my tub, oh my god.” His voice cracked and he pushed his hair back from his forehead with both hands, incredulous. He laughed, not sure how to feel. He got out of the shower and dried himself off with the towel. He then got dressed and headed back down to his room. He threw his clothes into his laundry basket and returned to the bathroom. He sat down next to the tub, back bracketed against the wall so he was facing Jinyoung, and waited. He didn’t mean to fall asleep, but eventually drifted off.