Chapter Text
Mermaids are pretty, and so are humans.
Humans are beautiful creatures. They may appear different from us and others may call them ugly, hideous, and revolting, but that’s far from the truth. Humans, in their own skins and nature, are just as beautiful as our kind. It’s because, in our world, different kinds of beauty exist, nothing is absolute, there are no fixed truths in how we encapsulate beauty.
But there’s one thing far greater, mightier than all things combined.
It’s the beauty of love. Love is beautiful, boundless in nature, vaster than the great ocean, intangible yet palpable; transcendental. Do you know what makes it so precious?
It has the power to make everything around you beautiful. Love is beautiful because it creates beauty in its purest form.
And you are a product of love, my child. That’s why, in my eyes, you will never become unsightly.
Taehyun, you are—
—ugly.
That’s what he is in the eyes of the other merfolks, all because his appearance is an oddity amongst the other mermaids and mermen. Being a child of a human and a mermaid, his appearance is closer to how a human looks. Having been cursed with an unblemished human’s skin, there are no lovely scales marking his upper body, his teeth not sharp enough, fancy fin ears non-existent, and with a larynx suitable more for humans, it prevents him from communicating with other merfolks. All those traits combined and he’s nothing more than a mute freak of nature.
With the deeply-rooted hatred merfolks harbors against humans, it’s no surprise that they detest him not only for his appearance but his existence as a whole. He’s the living proof of betrayal; the sin his mother committed the very moment she abandons her tails in exchange for a pair of legs, simply to satiate her desire to be with her human lover.
Taehyun understands the stares thrown his way; it encompasses nothing but disgust and disdain. He’s been subjected to it his whole life, only exacerbating when they forcefully ripped his mother away from him, never to be seen again.
That’s already years ago and Taehyun has long forgotten the voice of his mother along with the words she’s spoken, borrowed from the language of the humans. All that he’s left with is his name and the accentuated longing for the warmth no one but his mother can offer.
Over the years, Taehyun thinks he’s developed an immunity to the unjust treatment he's receiving from the others. Clearly, that’s not the case. Because if he has learned to endure and accept the faults they've defined him with then he wouldn’t be here breaking under the pressure of constant ostracization, he wouldn’t be where he is right now, swimming away from the place he never belonged in, finally putting a plan that's long been overdue into action.
In the middle of the annual gathering of their shoal, Taehyun slips away. He swims away, far and further, never once glancing back, partially in fear of getting caught but mostly from his own distaste of the place he hails from.
Taehyun swims and swims with only the thoughts of getting away driving him forward. He knows if they catch him, it’ll be over for him. They distrust him enough as it is and with the act of escaping, he’s voluntarily violating their rule of never going above the surface; a rule that his mother broke once, it's exactly what cost her life. And her son is no different from her, going against the same rule for different reasons.
If his mother did it in the name of love, the complete opposite applies to Taehyun.
He doesn’t have the tiniest idea where he is or how far he is from his shoal, he just needs to keep going, letting the single-minded pulse of adrenaline push him. Perhaps, this isn’t his most clever idea; he’s clueless as to what to do once he reaches the surface, he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to act around humans, and he hasn’t even touched upon the glaring issue yet, the existence of his tail.
But he’s way past worrying about those things already. He’ll just have to deal with it once he’s there.
Taehyun swims; moves along with the flow of the water and fights against the current of his life. He swims until the exhaustion catches up to him, he swims until he can clearly see the coast.
So near, he’s so close.
Then he sees it; the frantic struggling form of a human before the fight in them slowly gets drain out by the oppressive nature of water. It’s the very first person Taehyun has ever laid eyes on and they’re dying.
It registers to him that, no, humans can’t breathe underwater as they do. If they stay submerged in water for a long period of time, they will perish.
Taehyun isn’t about to let the first human he ever encountered die on his watch. That’s setting a bad omen for himself and frankly, he’s had his full serving of bad things happen in his life already.
That’s how he finds himself dragging a limp body as he swims towards the shore. He emerges from the water and moves to the land, body almost giving up from exhaustion and the added weight he’s carrying. It doesn’t help that he has to drag his tail on dry land in order to position the unmoving body of the person on the ground.
Fortunately for him, there are no other humans around the area to see them. Surrounded in pitch black, a gleaming pearl high up the sky catches the mermaid’s attention. Its luminous image reflects on the water, and around it is even smaller dots of white. At that moment, Taehyun’s mind went blank, completely enchanted by the foreign sight in front of him.
He’s too immersed in the sight that he nearly forgets the human he’s supposed to be saving.
Taehyun jolts, remembering the situation he’s in. He returns his attention to the unconscious person lying on the ground. Now that he’s closer, Taehyun can recognize the human as a boy; strands of his black hair sticking to his forehead from wetness, his eyes are tightly closed with thick eyelashes touching his cheeks. The blue light emanating from the floating pearl above them shines on his face, making his soft features more prominent and captivating.
For humans, he’s the pinnacle of visual flawlessness but Taehyun doesn’t know that. If you ask any of his aquatic “friends”, they’ll most likely retch just from the sight of this man.
Frankly, Taehyun has no idea what he’s supposed to do here. He’s aware humans need air to live but what exactly should he be doing in this situation? Although he has a solution in mind, Taehyun isn’t completely sure of its reliability.
He heard it from the other merfolks so many times before; a mermaid’s kiss can save a human’s life. Miracles are found in the kiss of a mermaid and for humans, it’s something akin to a deity's blessing. But with the aversion of merfolks to humans, the chances of receiving a magical kiss from a mermaid are close to none.
He has no other idea in mind so he may as well give it a shot.
Taehyun cups the boy’s face, his touch as light as a butterfly’s kiss. He frees his mind of other thoughts and slowly leans down. As he presses his lips against the human’s soft ones, Taehyun feels his body fill up with something indescribable. Strange energy warms up his cold body and Taehyun finds elation in it. His weariness slips away with each passing second. Taehyun loves the sensation, starves for it.
Then it hit him. He’s supposed to be saving the human, why does it seem more like he’s sucking the life force out of him???
He pulls away with a start, the prospect of accidentally cutting the human’s life short instead of prolonging it gnawing at him.
The human lays still on the sand and for a moment Taehyun is already contemplating jumping back into the water, and just forget all of this happened in the first place. That’s exactly when he sees the first sign of life from the boy.
The human’s eyes flutter open with water still clinging to his lashes. He stares up at the mermaid with unfocused eyes. He then raises a hand weakly before pressing it against Taehyun’s cheek.
He opens his mouth, and with a language both familiar and unfamiliar to Taehyun, he utters a single word.
“Pretty.”
The human closes his eyes again.