“It’s just a cat. You could’ve just let it die. No need for a person to die saving a cat.”
So the words came out before he even meant them.
“You were scared for the cat too, and now you’re just being difficult for no reason.”
“……”
“I saved it because it’s a cat. If it were a leaf, I wouldn’t have bothered, would I?”
And yet this wheat-colored simpleton answered as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“And I don’t die in water. That’s a real promise.”
Why that careless, simple little line of all things had made him feel a lump in his throat — Hwichan couldn’t figure it out the whole time after. It was mortifying.
“Let’s take the cat with us. If we leave it here it’ll freeze to death. I wonder if it’ll get along with the other cats if we let it loose on the island?”
Easy for him to say. The sight of him coaxing the cat like he was soothing a child felt oddly familiar, and it left Hwichan feeling strangely unsettled. The chest peeking out between the folds of his padding was pale and milky, slowly going red as it froze in the cold.
“……Pull your clothes together properly. Stop standing around looking like an idiot.”
“Okay, okay.”
After that, getting back to the island took a while. Not for any particular reason — it was just that the motorized fishing boat they’d come on was so worn out it wouldn’t start for quite some time.
Because of that, Haeshin had to shiver with his already-frozen body even longer. After several failed attempts, when the motor finally turned over again, his lips had gone blue.
Haeshin only didn’t feel the cold when he was in the water. Once he was out and just standing in the land breeze, his body cooled the same as anyone else’s. If anything, it might’ve cooled a little faster than average.
Because of that, from almost the moment the fishing boat left the dock, Haeshin was shaking, teeth knocking together. The fishing boat, with no roof or walls to block the wind, funneled the fierce sea breeze directly onto his body.
Hwichan watched him for a moment, then shrugged off his outer jacket with an air of mild annoyance and draped it over Haeshin’s shoulders.
“Your teeth are going to fall out. And there’s no dentist on the island either.”
He made sure to tack on one sour remark for good measure. At that, the flushed face beneath the mask turned toward him.
“You’re cold too.”
“I’m not cold.”
He actually was, a little. But not enough to make a show of it in front of someone soaked in seawater and chattering their teeth.
He pressed the coat draped over Haeshin down a little more firmly, for no real reason. The fabric that had been fluttering weakly clung tight to his hunched back like a shell.
Before he knew it, he’d ended up with his arm around him from the side, and the two of them were close — faces and shoulders pressed together. Haeshin said nothing, and Hwichan looked quietly down at him and thought,
Someone this frail swims in that freezing sea for an hour at a time?
The idea that someone like this ran hot — not a chance. This was already a problem with a known answer. Hwichan held the answer sheet in his hand and asked,
“Still a merman?”
Why he could only ever seem to say things twisted like this, Hwichan himself didn’t know. Maybe he was trying to confirm something.
The corners of his mouth curved up into a crooked half-smirk. Jet-black bangs tossed by the wind swept lightly across his cheek, touching and lifting off over and over again.
Haeshin, who’d been quietly watching him, didn’t answer — he just suddenly flushed red and yanked the mask covering his face up higher. Which only made the bare skin at the tip of his chin show again.
Hwichan reached over and gently tugged the edge of the mask back down himself, pressing,
“I asked if you’re a merman.”
The answer that came back was no different from a few days ago.
“It’s real. I really am a merman.”
At that insufferable answer, Hwichan let out a sigh without meaning to. It was annoying — the kind of thing that could’ve been settled with one honest “I was just messing around,” and instead it was being dragged out into something complicated. And on the other hand……
And you’re still calling yourself a merman after this?
A pointless stubbornness took hold. It felt like minding a child who insisted a wrong answer was right.
Maybe this was what it felt like when a thorn too thin and short to see caught on your fingertip. He’d figured it would just dissolve on its own, but it stubbornly clung there and kept nagging at him the whole time.
“God, this merman obsession.”
Hwichan grabbed the other’s cheek with a touch more roughness than necessary and pulled it toward his own face. The lightly pigmented eyes caught the light and looked even more transparent than usual. Maybe the color had been washed out from all that diving. From head to toe, pale and washed-out — all the deep color bled away from being soaked in saltwater for so long, that much was certain.
“Wh — why are you doing this?”
Frustrating. No hard proof, just suspicion from gut feeling alone — and that was exhausting. Even with his cheek gripped hard enough to make his lips pucker, Haeshin didn’t struggle at all, just froze in place holding Hwichan’s gaze.
Between two guys, any normal person would’ve felt annoyed — but instead his cheeks only got redder and his eyes couldn’t stay fixed in one place.
That was a little baffling to Hwichan, and he let out a dry laugh. Up close like this, the meaning of the flush spreading across that face was unmistakable.
……Wait. This guy?
How could he make it so that no more nonsense would come out of that mouth. Hwichan thought about it quietly for a moment, then — as though doing something surprisingly ordinary — he lightly grazed the pale forehead between the wheat-colored strands of hair with his fingertip, and then, timing it with the lurch of the boat in the waves, pressed his lips down onto it.
Honestly, it was spite.
Before Lee Haeshin could say a word, soft lips landed on his forehead. Warmer than it looked and not rough at all. Only, maybe because of the bluntness in his gaze, the gesture was tender but the atmosphere was more like a battlefield — a soldier delivering a confirmation kill.
With a soft, deliberate sound, the lips pulled away. Hwichan made sure to let it be heard. He felt like that made it more definitive.
“……”
“……”
It was a sudden kiss, but the sea around them was quiet. Not so much as a seagull’s cry, let alone thunder and lightning. It felt less like the East Sea close to the mainland and more like a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific. The fishing boat’s sputtering motor droned endlessly through the current.
What. Was I wrong?
Hwichan studied the other’s face closely. Haeshin’s face, which had gone briefly pale, seemed to warm slightly — then washed into a faint powder-pink, then deeper to balsam flower, and finally blazed up to a full camellia red, burning as if it might burst.
At the very least, it didn’t take asking to know this wasn’t discomfort or rejection.
Hwichan smiled, the satisfied smile of someone who’d gotten the right answer, and asked,
“Oh — are you flustered?”
“……”
“Your face is red, so something happened — whether it’s fluttering or embarrassment or whatever.”
Haeshin didn’t answer, just bit down hard on his lip.
“But there was no lightning, huh? Is it because you’re not flustered, or because you’re not actually a merman?”
Haeshin’s face was now as red as a sea squirt. Red enough that you could gently peel off his clothes and take him as sashimi on the spot.
“What on earth do you think you’re doing right now?!”
“Still going to play the merman card after that?”
“Hey! This…… it’s because the waters are different! It’s not the Samsam Island sea! If we were in Samsam Island waters, you would’ve been struck by lightning! It would’ve been on the news! Don’t ever do that again.”
“Ha, quick on your feet, aren’t you.”
Hwichan pressed his index finger against Haeshin’s forehead and pushed. The body that had flushed red to the tips of his ears and fingers trembled with heat as if it had never been cold — a fine, visible shiver. What that trembling gave away was plain as day.
This one — men work for him too. Does he know it himself?
Should he call this clueless, or call it innocent. Simple, or guileless. Or all of the above?
Either way, one thing was certain now.
Lee Haeshin was not a merman.
