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San gasped loudly as he opened his eyes to warm sunlight. Immediately, he regretted this, because there was saltwater and sand in his mouth — so he leaned over (which was painful, by the way) and coughed violently, so much so that he thought he might have been coughing up one of his lungs. Or his stomach. Alas, none of his internal organs fell out of his mouth. Just ocean water and a little bit of sand and blood. He was grateful he didn’t swallow anything gross, like seaweed or something. Or a shrimp.
San hated shrimp more than anything else. Probably just because he had a shellfish allergy and didn’t want to get anywhere near those evil little creatures. Good thing he didn’t swallow one— because he would probably die!
It felt horrible, though. Super bad. He’d have to make sure that Jongho didn’t…
San suddenly registered that his brother was nowhere to be seen.
“For fuck’s sake, I take him out fishing with me one time and I lose him!” he muttered to himself as he looked around at his surroundings, and it dawned on him that he had absolutely no idea where he was. Oh great. Not only does he lose his brother, but he’s on some beach that he’s never seen in his life. Great.
He was laying on a beach, that much was certain, but other than that he was clueless. There were no signs of the storm that knocked him off of his boat and into the ocean (oh christ, he hoped his boat was okay — he’d probably spontaneously combust if anything happened to the boat. It was a fucking rental!), so that was great. Well, it would have been great if he knew where he was. He could’ve been back at the dock they’d left from, for all he knew. He wasn’t really familiar with the place as he’d only been there a couple of times before.
Fuck. He really needed to get up and look for Jongho. Or his phone. Both would be ideal, but he’d really settle for just finding one or the other
San winced in pain as he tried to pull himself up from the ground— yeah, that wasn’t going to be happening anytime soon. He supposed he probably got thrown around a lot in the storm like a pathetic little ragdoll. Or something. Regardless, he was suffering from some intense back pain that even a massage from Yeosang couldn’t cure. Then again, Yeosang could probably snap him in half at this point, so maybe that would relieve his pain…
San didn’t think about it any longer, and drifted back to sleep. He’d figure it all out after he took a nice nap (and he hopes no crabs try to bite him in his sleep! His friend Hyunjin had a traumatic experience with a crab at the aquarium and San does not want to end up the same).
When he came to again, there was a wet hand caressing his face and a voice in the distance. Oh thank god, he was being rescued. San opened his eyes further and his breath got caught in his throat as he looked up at the person caressing his cheek. Ignoring how weird that action was for someone that San had never met in his life — the person was stunning, like a god or something, and made San feel a little bit embarrassed for how pathetic he probably looked. I mean, it’s not like you could blame him, he did just get thrown from his boat and washed up on some beach. So it was perfectly understandable that he looked like shit.
Unlike the person above him, though, who looked like a mix of a K-pop idol and a modernized Tumblr depiction of a mythological figure. They had bright red hair that was probably fake (but San didn’t care), and the most captivating black eyes that San had ever seen— if he ignored the fact that his eyes were actually entirely black with no whites to them at all. He looked further down and regretted it because oh dear lord have mercy, they were shirtless. Who rescues someone stranded on a beach and decides to just take their shirt off? This guy, apparently.
“Oh, you’re awake,” the person spoke suddenly, smiling down at him, and San realizes that he has very much been staring.
“Yeah, I, uh… Where are we?” San asked, his voice still rough from coughing up ocean water, “and thank you for finding me, I thought there was no one else here.”
“Oh, I don’t actually know where we are,” the stranger laughed awkwardly, leaning back, “I just brought you to the nearest land that I could find since you looked like you were drowning out there.”
“Wait, you… How did you find me? Were you out during the storm as well?” San asked.
“I mean, I’m almost always out swimming. Usually, I try not to go out during a storm, but I didn’t know there was going to be one. Ugh, I should’ve listened to Mingi when he said that he can sense the weather.”
San raised an eyebrow. “You go out swimming in the ocean?”
The man returned a confused look. “Yes? I live in the ocean?”
Oh, San is having a totally normal one today. Of course, this guy would live in the ocean, like a fucking mermaid (merman?) or something. With the way his day is going, he might as well be meeting a merman.
“So you’re a merman then?” San asked, matter-of-factly, “that’s cool, mermen are cool. Didn’t know you were real, but that’s cool.”
“Huh? No, I’m not a merman,” the stranger responded, looking almost offended, “I’m a shrimp hybrid.”
It took San a minute. “You’re a… shrimp hybrid.”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“Yes! Have you not looked at my body the entire time we’ve been talking? I literally have a shrimp body!”
San rolled his eyes, this guy had to be kidding with him. Then he looked down. Sure enough, this stranger did not have legs. Well, he did, but they were tiny (like shrimp legs) and attached to his tail. A shrimp tail? That didn’t sound right in San’s mind, but that’s what it was. A bright red shrimp tail. With little shrimp legs. San was going to go insane.
And, simultaneously, he decided he hated shrimp a little bit less now.
“When I picture mermaids in my mind, they usually have a fish tail— not shrimp,” San responded, “and how can you be a shrimp? Aren’t they supposed to be tiny? And I thought shrimp were grey, your tail is red-”
“Ugh, I’m not a mermaid! I mean, they are real, but I’m not one of them,” the man groaned, “and I’m not a shrimp either, I’m a shrimp-human hybrid. Half human, half shrimp. Surely that can’t be that hard to understand.”
It was, actually, quite hard for San to understand. A merperson is one thing, but a shrimp-person? He must have been hallucinating. Yeah, definitely hallucinating. This was nothing but a hallucination caused by his near-death experience and the fact that he was panicking. Yeah.
He must have been really hallucinating now, because he swore he heard Jongho’s voice yelling for him.
“SAN! WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?”
Nope, that was definitely Jongho, and definitely not a hallucination. San sprung to his feet and looked around, to see his brother running towards him — looking both pissed off and relieved.
“I’m actually going to kill you,” Jongho said, pointing at him, “you said the weather was going to be good! You said we’d only be out for two hours!”
“Well I don’t control the fucking weather, do I?” San frowned, “the important thing is that we’re not dead. We have this shrimp guy to thank for that.”
“A shrimp guy?”
“Yeah! He’s right…” San turned around to point at the shrimp merman, but he was nowhere to be seen. Oh god. Maybe he really was hallucinating that whole thing. That’d make the most sense, wouldn’t it? Merpeople weren’t real, and half-shrimp half-human people were even less real.
“Ah, never mind that, I think I was hallucinating… Do you have your phone on you?”
Jongho pulled his phone (which was in one of those waterproof phone holder things) out of his jacket pocket, looking at San tiredly. “You’re lucky I held onto this thing. And you’re lucky this thing is waterproof so my phone isn’t broken. I’m guessing you lost yours?”
“I don’t wanna talk about it.”
“Yeah, of course you don’t,” the younger sighed, dialing a number on his phone and listening to it ring.
“Are you calling the coast guard or something?”
“What? No, I’m calling Yeosang, he’s probably freaking out right now since we haven’t come back to the island,” Jongho said and, as if on cue, Yeosang picked up.
Jongho’s phone wasn’t on speaker, but San could still hear their friend yelling through the phone. “WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU GUYS GO AND WHERE IS THE RENTAL BOAT?”
—
“No, Hongjoong, I’m not fucking kidding— he was the cutest human I’ve ever seen.”
“You’ve seen, like, a total of four humans in your lifetime.”
“Okay, and? He’s still the cutest.”
“I’m just saying the standards are kind of low.”
Seonghwa had the very strong urge to smack his oyster hybrid friend, but he was only about a foot tall and the lightest of smacks could probably send him flying across the ocean floor— stupid little oyster shell and all.
“I want to see him again, but I don’t even know his name,” Seonghwa groaned, his shrimp legs flailing around aimlessly, “is that pathetic of me?”
“I think you know the answer to that question.”
Seonghwa scoffed and turned around so as not to face the other man anymore. He really would smack him halfway across the Pacific Ocean if he said one more stupid thing. The shrimp-man hadn’t met many humans in his life so, when he saw one fall into the water while he was out swimming during the storm the other day, he had to take that chance and save him. He’d heard from reliable sources that humans couldn’t actually breathe underwater, which seemed hard to believe, but it turned out to be true. Who knew?
And it was just his luck that the human turned out to be hot. Ugh.
Unfortunately, though, Hongjoong was right (for once!). It was a little bit pathetic for Seonghwa to spend so long thinking about some random ass human who may or may not even remember him— not to mention the fact that Seonghwa doesn’t even know his damn name.
But, if his memory served correctly (and it usually did, some shrimp are very intelligent— he gets that from his mother, who’s more shrimp than human), he and that guy had a moment on that beach. Call him delusional, but Seonghwa had a feeling that silly blonde human wanted to see him again as well.
—
“If I see one more shrimp, I’m actually going to vomit.”
“Geez, just say you don’t want any of my cooking like a normal person. This is coming out of my paycheck, y’know.”
San and Jongho sat at a table with some of their mutual friends at the tiny sushi restaurant where Yeosang worked alongside some guy named Seungmin— who apparently sells crystals of the non-meth-related variety. It was their go-to place to eat since Yeosang could get them a sickening amount of discounts for the already cheap food, but San could hardly even look at seafood after the incident the other day. Let alone eat it. Jongho, on the other hand, didn’t seem too fazed as he stuffed another piece of salmon into his mouth.
How he can eat fish after almost drowning is incredible to San.
“It’s normal to say it if you almost died and then hallucinated a hot redhead shrimp merman saving you,” San sighed, looking sadly into his bowl of shrimp-fried rice that he absolutely was not going to be eating. And not just because of his allergy (is Yeosang trying to kill him?). He feels vaguely bad about not eating the food that Yeosang is literally offering him for Free, but he was still a little traumatized. Sue him.
He takes that thought back quickly because he thinks that, given the opportunity, Yeosang actually would sue him.
“I think you’re overreacting a bit, San,” Jongho said bluntly, “we lived, and I was able to call Yeosang to come and get us off that island. It could’ve been a lot worse.”
“That’s your opinion,” San sighed, wishing internally that his brother had just left him on that island with the shrimp guy.
Jongho just rolled his eyes and took another bite of his sushi, looking at Yeosang concernedly as there was a distinct teeth-against-something-hard sound that definitely did not come from chewing on rice and raw fish. Jongho looked even more concerned when he took a napkin and spat out a piece of… was that fucking rose quartz?
“Oh, sorry about that. I always keep some crystals on me but they do tend to fall out of my pockets,” Seungmin laughed nervously as he walked up to their table, “you can have that one for free, though. Rose quartz is associated with love, you know. Fun fact.”
Jongho looked disgusted as he handed the spit-covered crystal to Yeosang, but San thought that Seungmin’s Fun Crystal Fact was nice.
For some reason, San could not stop his brain from thinking about that guy ever since that day. He sure wasn’t in love, but he was definitely obsessed. He was about 93.5% convinced that Hot Shrimp Man That Saved Him was a water-in-lungs-induced dream, and yet… there was something about the memory of talking to him and his hand gently caressing San’s face…
Plus, why would his brain make up something like that? It seems a little weird— though, given San’s porn-watching history, he can’t really blame his subconscious for making up scenarios like that. Even if he is horribly allergic to shellfish.
He decided to go back to his dorm (he hopes that Juyeon isn’t there so he can scream and cry into his pillow!) early, leaving Jongho and Yeosang to eat potentially sexy sea creatures by themselves.
—
“I want to live on land so bad.”
Hongjoong and Mingi sighed in sync— as they always do. They were weirdly compatible for two hybrids who could not possibly be any more different, notably in size. Hongjoong was the smallest person Seonghwa knew, meanwhile Mingi towered over everyone in the room. Both of Mingi’s parents were Japanese spider crabs, so he inherited his height from both of them. Seriously, the length of Mingi’s (crab) legs should be considered a crime.
He didn’t like to think about the fact that his parents and all of his siblings were normal spider crabs whereas he had somehow ended up as a human-crab hybrid. His mother blamed it on “those damn humans and their pollution, making our son look like that”. His father just wanted a divorce.
“You do not want to live on land,” Hongjoong said firmly, crossing his arms (yes, he has arms. Unlike his mother, who is just an ordinary oyster. Let’s not talk about how hid dad is a normal human who decided to fuck an oyster), “how do you think you’re going to walk around? Your legs are only good for swimming.”
“Also? Hello? It’s dangerous as fuck?” Mingi added, “they literally eat things like us up there! I have this friend, Seungmin, who’s half merman— and he went up to live with humans and found out that they eat crabs. CRABS! I think I know where my aunt disappeared to now.”
“Your aunt is living in the Atlantic ocean with her newest sugar daddy, we all know that,” Seonghwa said, rolling his eyes, “and it’s not like we don’t also eat fish!”
Mingi scoffed. “I only eat fish that are already dead, so it’s fine.”
“It is not fine. Like, at all,” Hongjoong sighed. His vegan heart shattered every time he had a meal with his friends— who often ate fish. Even if Mingi preferred fish of the dead-for-a-week variety. “At least you’re not Seonghwa. I’ve literally seen him eating other shrimp.”
“It’s a cultural thing, I already told you that you wouldn’t get it!”
A good ten minutes of justifying cannibalism later, and Seonghwa was this close to kicking Mingi and Hongjoong out of his house. Alas, they still had yet to help him with his I Want To Get Railed By A Human problem, so he didn’t. Yet.
“Why can’t you just eat algae like a normal person?”
“Because that is not normal? On god, I will get you to eat a fish someday, and you will like it-”
“NOT IF ITS DECAYING!”
“Can you guys shut the fuck up and get back onto the topic of my human predicament?” Seonghwa snapped before falling dramatically backward onto his couch, “do you think it’d actually be possible for me to go on land?”
“How desperate are you to get laid?” Hongjoong asked.
“Extremely. Fucking. Desperate.”
“Okay then,” the oyster hybrid said with a sigh, “I think I might know a guy.”
Seonghwa bounced back up in a millisecond. “Really? If you’re messing with me, Kim Hongjoong, I will kill you.”
“That’s hot,” Mingi muttered from where he was hovering in the corner, raiding Seonghwa’s kitchen cabinets, “anyway, Joong, since when did you ‘know a guy’ for anything? The only guys you know are me, Seonghwa, and your dealer.”
“Mingi you are my dealer.”
“Oh, right. You only know two people then.”
Hongjoong rolled his eyes. “I really do know a guy, though. Granted, I don’t know much about this particular occupation of his, but I know he’s a witch.”
“Witches aren’t real,” Seonghwa said, ignoring the irony in that statement with being a literal human-shrimp hybrid himself, “right, Mingi?”
“Oh, no, they’re definitely real.”
“Mingi..”
“Thank you!” Hongjoong shouted, “now that that’s been decided, I’ll give you Wooyoung’s address and y-”
Seonghwa tilted his head in confusion. “Wooyoung?”
“The witch.”
“Ah, right.”
“And, for personal reasons,” Hongjoong said as he wrote down directions on Seonghwa’s arm, “please, for the love of god, do not mention me.”
—
Seonghwa swam nervously into the cave, unsure of whether or not he was in the right place. Put simply, Hongjoong kind of sucked ass when it came to giving directions— so Seonghwa didn’t have much confidence in the first place. Especially now that he’d found himself in a part of the ocean that he swore he’d never seen before, part of him wanted to turn back and forget all about that human guy who looked exceptionally cute covered in sand.
“Hey, you!” a voice called from somewhere deep inside the cave, “yeah you, shrimp fucker!” …Shrimp Fucker? “What are you doing just floating there, swim down already!”
Well, Seonghwa wasn’t going to just ignore such a friendly invitation. Even if they did call him a shrimp fucker— which was factually incorrect, as Seonghwa has never fucked a shrimp in his life!
He swam further down, past cave walls covered top to bottom with various posters of humans, in various states of destruction due to the water. Seonghwa doesn’t know what a ‘BTS’ or ‘TXT’ is, but there’s a lot of posters here of them, and he’s only vaguely concerned by it. Eventually, he reached a bigger area of the cave, where a white-haired stingray hybrid guy was lounging on a comfortable-looking rock.
“What’s up?” the stingray man (was this Wooyoung?) asked, looking up at Seonghwa, “don’t just swim there staring at me like a weirdo. What do you want? And hurry up, I may not look like it but I’m a very busy man.”
“Uh… are you Wooyoung?” Seonghwa asked, and the man nodded, “I- well, I came here because… I don’t actually know you- my friend, Hongjoong said-”
“Oh my god, Hongjoong?” Wooyoung shouted, jumping to his feet (er, fins, in this case?), “that fucking asshole! Do you uh… happen to have any reason why he hasn’t been back here in months? If he has good reasoning, I might not electrocute him next time I see him- wait, no, he’d probably like that. Nevermind. Nevermind.”
Seonghwa briefly thought back to the time that Hongjoong casually told him and Mingi that he’d hooked up with a stingray. Seonghwa now wishes he could wipe that conversation from his memory. Along with all the other memories, while he’s at it.
And he doesn’t even want to think about how sex between those two would work.
If there’s one thing that Seonghwa wanted to know less about, it was his friends’ sex lives. Though he really had no choice because some of them (Hongjoong) were serious oversharers. Just because he’s Hongjoong’s best friend, does not mean that he needs to know that the guy cums pearls.
Do not even get him started on Yunho.
“Sorry, I don’t… I don’t know anything about that,” Seonghwa says with apparent disgust, “I suppose I could ask him later, but-”
“Ah, you can just forget about it. I know where he lives, I’ll stop playing hard to get and find him later,” Wooyoung sighed, ignoring Seonghwa’s concerned expression, “what do you want? Seriously, spill already.”
“There’s this human-”
“Oh, Christ.”
“What, I didn’t even get to say anything yet!”
“Somehow, I feel like I already know where this is going. I get, like, ten of these requests a week,” Wooyoung groaned, opening a drawer and sifting through the contents, “you want to become a human so you can go on land and fuck some human, right?”
“Yeah, how did you know?”
“Lucky guess,” Wooyoung muttered as he found what he was looking for— a sheet of paper that was as long as Seonghwa’s tail, “here’s the contract. You don’t really need to read it, just sign it and I can get to work.”
“Uh…” Seonghwa hesitated as he was handed both the contract and a pen. He’s pretty sure he caught a glimpse of a clause in the contract about what will happen if Seonghwa gets mauled to death by dogs. Seonghwa didn’t know what a dog was, but he was too scared to find out. “There must be something I have to give you in return for this, right?”
“Oh yeah, did I not mention that part?” Wooyoung said innocently, pointing to the bottom of the contract, “basically, you have to get your human to kiss a shrimp— a real one, not yourself— within 2 days of meeting him. Or else I’ll steal your soul and keep it in my soul jar forever. And then I’ll kill you. Does that sound fair?”
Seonghwa thought about it for a second before answering, “yeah, totally!” and signing the contract.
“Great!” Wooyoung said as he snatched the contract and went back to lay on his rock, “contact me in nine to ten business weeks and I’ll get back to you. Goodbye.”
What.
Seonghwa scoffed, looking down at the alleged witch (who didn’t actually seem to be that much of a witch). How could he possibly be so busy that he can’t get Seonghwa onto land Right Fucking Now? Wooyoung be damned, Seonghwa was getting his ass (and hopefully all his other body parts too!) on land one way or another.
“Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing?!” Wooyoung shouted as the shrimp hybrid started knocking glasses and jars over, even opening up the cabinets to knock more shit over.
“Well, there has to be a spell to turn me human in here somewhere,” Seonghwa huffed in annoyance as he opened up another cabinet, one full of various skulls, “definitely nothing in there. Do you have like… a spellbook or something? Surely you have one.” He rummaged through a random drawer as he spoke, throwing the contents directly at Wooyoung. If he couldn’t get the witch to help him in a civil way, he may as well try the approach of Pissing Him The Fuck Off.
“Okay! Okay, fucking FINE! Just so you stop messing with all my shit,” Wooyoung shouted, swimming over to Seonghwa and pointing threateningly at him, “and if I ever see you again after this, I am feeding you to some other shrimp hybrid. Ugh. I am so going to have hate sex with Hongjoong for sending you here.”
Seonghwa physically cringed. “I did not need to know that.”
“Yeah? Well, fuck you,” Wooyoung snapped, grabbing an unbroken potion from a shelf and yeeting it in Seonghwa’s general direction, “have fun swimming up to the surface with human legs! Now get out of my cave.”
I wonder what he said that for? Seonghwa thought to himself, looking down at his legs. Oh no.
—
Juyeon had been in the dorm much too often for San’s liking. Yeah, he also lived there and paid tuition just as much as San did, but did he really have to like… sleep there and stuff? Can’t he sleep in the dining hall or something? Roommates seriously were not San’s thing. He really needed to get his own place…
Ha ha fucking HA. With what money?
He was spending all this money on getting a marine biology degree— and for what? It wasn’t like there are many benefits to being a marine biologist, anyway.
“Ugh,” San thought, wisely.
He really just needed some alone time after yesterday’s rose-quartz-in-the-sushi dinner that he still hadn’t entirely recovered from. He swears that his social battery doesn’t usually take this much time to recharge, but he couldn’t stand the sight of anyone’s faces all day. He was currently walking around the public beach at 3 in the morning, which might not have been the smartest idea because he had to wake up for a class at 7, but at least he was alone.
At least he thought he was.
“Hey! HEY! Sir, can you help me? Please?”
“Jesus Christ Almighty,” San groaned, avoiding even looking in the direction of that voice, “can’t you see I’m having a moment right now? I’m much too angst-ridden to help you with your problem right now, fucko. So just… leave, okay?”
He hoped that the person would get the message and leave so San wouldn’t have to use any of the truly creative insults that he’d learned from Yeosang over the years.
“I can’t leave, I don’t know how to walk!”
“Well that’s a damn shame, but what am I supposed to do about that?” San sighed as he turned around to see…
Ain’t no fucking way.
“HOT SHRIMP GUY?”
“Hot?” the shrimp guy, who was actually no longer a shrimp as far as San could tell, said with a tilt of his head, “I’m so flattered. But, y’know, I think I’d be even more hot if you helped me get the fuck up. I just got these legs, like, an hour ago and I haven’t figured out how to use them.”
“Oh yeah, of course,” San replied like this was a normal situation, running over to help the former-shrimp man, “I suppose this means you’re not a hallucination… wait. You’re not a hallucination, are you?”
“I don’t think I am?”
“Okay, good enough for me,” San shrugged and helped the guy to his feet (whilst trying his hardest to ignore the fact that he was completely nude. Not that he hasn’t helped a naked guy walk home before. Hyunjin could get a little bit weird when he’s wasted), “by the way, do you have a name? Or do I have to, like, make one up for you?”
“Of course I have a name, what the hell? It’s Seonghwa. And you are?”
“Choi San.”
—
“Choi San…”
“Kang Yeosang.”
“San.”
“Yeosang,” San sighed, “are we going to do this forever, or are you going to let me in?”
“I’ll let you in once you explain why you’re bringing a half-naked stranger into my apartment at 5 in the fucking morning,” Yeosang said tiredly, gesturing towards Seonghwa— who was at least wearing San’s hoodie wrapped around his waist now, “no offense, dude.”
“Oh, none taken.”
“Why are you even awake this early, if not to let your friends and weird, possibly shrimp-like strangers crash on your couch?” San asked, pushing Yeosang aside and shoving Seonghwa through the door. The man immediately fell flat on his face, but San could really care less. “By the way, I snuck in earlier too. You’re out of that coffee that I like.”
“Wh- you can’t just…” Yeosang tried to protest, but it was too late. San and Seonghwa had already taken residence on the couch. “You know what? I’m fine with this. I actually do not care. San, give me your student ID, I’m going to stay at your dorm.”
“What? Nah, I don’t even have that thing on me. Go to my parents’ house, you and Jongho can have a sleepover or something.”
“I hate you so fucking much. I’m going to kill you, you know.”
“I know you will,” San smiled as Yeosang grabbed his keys and shoes and skedaddled. San wondered for a moment what possessed him that made him use the word ‘skedaddle’ in his internal monologue, but he let it slide just this once. He glanced over at Seonghwa, who was looking around Yeosang’s apartment in awe. He sure hopes the rats don’t decide to come out from wherever they’re hiding!
Though, considering that Seonghwa had been living in the ocean up until this moment, he’d probably like to see a rat.
Speaking of which…
“So… How did you get human legs?” San asked, looking at said legs (dis)respectfully, “is it like how mermaids have legs when they’ve been out of the water for a certain amount of time? There’s this really bad Australian show called H2O and I-”
“For the last time, I’m not a mermaid. I. Am. A. Shrimp. Hybrid,” Seonghwa groaned as he sat up, “which reminds me, where’s the closest place we can find a shrimp? It’s a life or death situation.”
“Umm, aren’t you-”
“No, I don’t count,” Seonghwa sighed, “I think we need a normal, live shrimp for this.”
San looked at the taller man in confusion as he kicked his new legs aimlessly. “What do we need a… do you need it to get your shrimp body back or something? You just got here, you can’t go back into the ocean!”
“Wh- no, it’s not like that at all. But if we don’t find a shrimp as soon as possible, I will die and that stupid stingray Wooyoung will steal my soul and keep it as a souvenir.”
“That… sounds bad,” San said hesitantly, and Seonghwa nodded. In all honesty, San was very lost. The shrimp man who wasn’t much of a shrimp completely avoided his question when he asked how he got human-ized in the first place, so that wasn’t helpful. And he doesn’t really want to know who this Wooyoung person is, but he doesn’t want them to steal Seonghwa’s soul so he supposed he had to help.
“Alright, you can steal some of Yeosang’s clothes if you want, come on,” San sighed as he stood up, grabbing Seonghwa’s hand.
The redhead hesitated. “Where are we going?”
“The aquarium, where else?”
—
“I hope you know that if I get fired for this, I’ll never forgive you,” Hyunjin sighed as he unlocked one of the back doors to the aquarium, looking at San tiredly, “seriously. I hate this job more than anything else but I need the money.”
“Yeah, whatever,” San shrugged as a wobbly-legged Seonghwa walked past the two of them, “we won’t get caught but, if we do, I’ll blame the whole thing on Changmin.”
Hyunjin seemed to think about it for a moment. “I do dislike Changmin…”
“Right! So just go home and do not worry about it. And do not ask me any questions if there’s any missing shrimp tomorrow.”
“M-missing shrimp? What are y-”
“Okay, bye Hyunjin!” San said with a grin that felt only vaguely evil, and slammed the door loudly in his friend’s face, “so we just need to find a shrimp, right? I’ve only been to this aquarium a handful of times, so I can’t promise we’ll find them immediately, but-”
“OH MY GOD!”
“WHAT?”
“I THINK THAT’S MINGI’S DAD!” Seonghwa shouted in horror, running over to one of the tanks which had a variety of crabs in it, while San wondered who the hell ‘Mingi’ was, “he told me that his dad disappeared a while ago while he and his mother were trying to get a divorce. MR. SONG, CAN YOU HEAR ME? IT’S ME, SEONGHWA!”
Okay. San started to think that it may have not been the wisest of choices to bring Seonghwa to the aquarium. But he allegedly needed a live shrimp for something, and San thought this would be the easiest place to find one. As long as they could avoid getting caught by whoever is working the night shift, that is. Seonghwa wasn’t really helping much in that department.
“Who’s Mingi?” San asked the shrimp hybrid, who was currently trying to communicate with one of the aquarium’s Japanese spider crabs.
“Oh, he’s one of my friends— a spider crab hybrid,” Seonghwa smiled, “and this is his father. Apparently, he really likes it here! And he discovered that he’s actually gay. I’m not going to share this new information with Mingi. Or his mother.”
“Yeah, probably best to keep that between you and… Mr. Song,” San said, gesturing to the crab who seemed to be waving at the two of them, “we still need to find where they keep the shrimp so… do you wanna tell me about what it's like being a hybrid?”
“It’s not too bad, I guess,” Seonghwa started as they walked down the illuminated hall aimlessly (San didn’t know where to find a map and they were both completely oblivious of the signs on the wall that said which animals were in which direction), “it seems better than being a human. From what I hear, being human sucks ass.”
“It definitely does.”
“Right. Anyway, I got lucky and am the type of hybrid who can live comfortably in a place that isn’t sketchy as hell. My friend Yunho, an anglerfish hybrid… not so much,” Seonghwa sighed as they passed by a tank full of seahorses who seemed very excited to see him, “he lives in the middle of god damn nowhere in the darkest part of the ocean. I never visit him but, to be honest, I think he’s like. Gone.”
“...Gone?”
“Gone. He said he was going to go visit his girlfriend and then just never came back. Apparently he, like, fused into her or something like that. So they’re just one in the same now. I don’t know. I’m not an anglerfish so I really don’t know how it works,” Seonghwa shrugged, “and I honestly wish I knew less! But now that he’s gone our entire friend group is gay gay homosexual gay. He was our token straight guy.”
He was a little too nonchalant about his friend’s unfortunate (or would it be considered fortunate?) situation for San’s taste. But questionable morals never stopped him from making out with someone! If things went well and they didn't get arrested, that was going to be San’s next move.
“You’re gay,” San said and he only realized that he said it after he said it. He meant it to be more like a question, like ‘oh, you’re also gay? That’s so fun and quirky we should kiss about it ha ha’ but instead it came out sounding like he was just deciding that Seonghwa was gay.
“Extremely gay,” Seonghwa responded bluntly, “this is a really big aquarium. How long will it take to find the shrimp?”
San thanked the lord above (and also Satan. Shout out to my best friend Lucifer) that Seonghwa changed the subject because if they had to continue the conversation about being gay he might have just jumped into the shark tank. “I have no idea. What do you even need the shrimp for, anyways? If not to get your shrimp body back.”
“Well, here’s the thing about that,” Seonghwa laughed nervously, making San feel more endangered than he already was, “the witch I made a deal with to be able to go on land told me that, if I didn’t get you to kiss a shrimp within two days, he’d steal my soul. And also kill me. I thought that those would be the same thing but I don’t actually think they are. So I really really hope you’re open-minded to kissing sea creatures because-”
“I have a shellfish allergy.”
“You what.”
“I know it sucks, but I really do have one,” San sighed dramatically. He wasn’t entirely sure if just kissing one would cause an allergic reaction, but he’d rather not find out the hard way. “Is there another way we can-”
“Probably not.”
“So you just… die, then?”
“Yeah, I suppose,” Seonghwa said sadly, gazing into the tank full of shrimp (wait, when did they finally find the damn shrimp?), “which sucks because… well, obviously dying will kind of suck, but mostly because I probably won’t get to do a lot of the things I wanted to do on land.”
San put his arm around Seonghwa’s shoulder, fully intending to be comforting but he felt kinda sorta creepy. Whatever. “Well, what were some of the things you wanted to do?”
“Suck your dick, first of all-”
San was initially going to scream at the shrimp man in both surprise and arousal but, unfortunately, he did not get the opportunity to as someone walked into the room, shining a flashlight directly in their faces. This was probably not a good sign.
“Hey, what are you two doing here? You don’t look like employees,” the security guard asked, looking at them suspiciously.
Now San wasn’t even aware that aquariums had security. He kind of just assumed that the fish could guard themselves, you know? Apparently, this was false, because there was an aquarium security guard standing directly in front of them.
Aquarium security guard… What a stupid ass job to have.
“Well, I’m studying marine biology,” San said, hoping that it would give him some sort of authority in this particular building. Not that he actually knew anything about marine biology at all. He really didn’t. “and this is my friend, who used to be a shrimp, but that’s neither here nor there. We’re here for uh… personal and completely legal reasons, so if you could just leave-”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you two are really doing in here but I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” the guard sighed pathetically. San could probably kill him and dump the body in one of the tanks if he really wanted to, but he also didn’t want to be the reason that Hyunjin got fired. He was seriously debating it, though.
“So… what are we supposed to do about this?” Seonghwa whispered in a panic. He couldn’t go to human jail… he just couldn’t! Not like it would matter much since San refused to kiss a stupid little shrimp and therefore he would be dying in two days— but he definitely did not want to spend those two days in jail. He could spend those two days in a tank at the aquarium. Or something.
San just shrugged helplessly. He definitely wasn’t going to keep them out of prison for sneaking into an aquarium— wait, is that even a crime? Are they even committing a crime right now?
Whatever. Luckily for them, Seonghwa had a black belt in shrimp martial arts. He’s never actually utilized these skills before, but it seemed like he had no choice (he absolutely did. They could probably just run really fast in the opposite direction).
Seonghwa sighed dramatically, stepping in front of San. “I hoped it wouldn’t have to come to this, but I’m afraid I have to resort to violence.”
“Seonghwa what-”
“Don’t worry San, I’ve got this, I’m professionally trained in the art of shrimp-jutsu,” Seonghwa said, channeling all of his energy into regaining his shrimp abilities, “It’s shrimpin time”