Work Text:
Wei Wei:
I always forget something on full moon nights.
A towel. The lock. My dignity.
Tonight, it’s the bathroom door.
Chi Cheng is supposed to be in Shanghai. Three days. Two nights. Enough time for me to do what I’ve done every month since I turned eighteen—shed, bleed, endure, clean up, pretend.
The water is already running when the ache starts in my legs. It creeps up slowly, like guilt. Like the memory of my grandmother’s voice telling me this is the price we pay for prosperity.
A rich cornfield.
A desperate prayer.
A water goddess who never gives without taking.
My knees buckle. I grip the edge of the tub as my skin tightens, then splits—not violently, but insistently. Like it wants to be left behind.
I bite down on my wrist to keep quiet.
Scales bloom along my calves, cool and iridescent. My legs fuse, bones reshaping, tail forming with a wet, humiliating sound. It always feels obscene, being reduced to something mythological in a modern apartment with beige tiles and bad plumbing.
I hate that Chi Cheng doesn’t know.
I hate that I can’t tell him.
Marriage would break the curse. A proper one. With papers and witnesses and the goddess appeased.
But China doesn’t allow that.
And the goddess doesn’t care about love.
By the time I slide into the tub, my tail is fully formed—blue-silver, powerful, beautiful in a way that makes my chest hurt. I shed the old skin carefully, like I was taught, laying it out as an offering.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. To the goddess. To Chi Cheng. To myself.
Then—
“Dabao?”
His voice hits me like ice water.
Chi Cheng:
I wasn’t supposed to be home until tomorrow.
But my meeting ended early and I missed him. So I took the earlier flight,
Simple as that. No grand suspicion. No dramatic intuition.
But I‘d noticed things, though. I’m not stupid.
Once a month, Wei Wei disappears for hours. Always at night. Always unreachable. He comes back pale, exhausted, sore in places he refuses to explain. He jokes it off—migraine, food poisoning, bad luck—but I track schedules for a living.
Patterns don’t lie.
Full moon. Every time.
I never thought he was cheating. Not really. But fear doesn’t need logic. It just needs silence.
So when I walk into our apartment and hear water running, when the bathroom door is open just enough—
I push it wider.
And my world fractures.
Wei Wei is in the bathtub, eyes wide with terror, hair plastered to his face. His body is bare, vulnerable—and where his legs should be, there is a tail.
A fucking tail.
Scales catch the light like shattered glass.
For a second, I think I’ve finally lost my mind.
Then he flinches.
Wei Wei:
I knew this moment would come. I just didn’t think it would hurt this much.
“Don’t,” I say, voice breaking. “Please don’t look at me like that.”
He stays silent. Is he horrified? Disgusted?
“I wanted to tell you,” I rush on. “I swear. I just—every full moon—I change. It’s a family curse. A goddess. A deal for land and wealth and—”
I spiral and my laugh comes out hysterical. “I know how insane it sounds.”
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak.
The silence is worse than yelling.
I try to hide my tail in the bathtub, unsuccessful but he isn’t staring at it.
He stares at the thin red smears on the tiles. At the pink clouding the bathwater. At the darker stain near the drain where I didn’t clean fast enough before the ache forced me under.
My blood, all over the place.
His face changes instantly.
“Wei Wei,” he says, voice suddenly raw. “You’re bleeding.”
He moves fast then—too fast for shock, driven by something like terror. He’s kneeling beside the tub before I can stop him, hands hovering uselessly like he doesn’t know where he’s allowed to touch.
“What happened?” he demands. “Did you fall? Did it—did it hurt you?”
I shake my head quickly. “No. No, it’s—Chi Cheng, it’s okay.”
“It doesn’t look okay,” he snaps, fear bleeding through the edge in his voice.
“There’s blood in the water.”
I swallow, forcing myself to breathe evenly. “It’s the shedding. I… I waited too long this time. When I don’t do it regularly, some parts tear. Just a little.”
His jaw tightens. “You’re telling me this is normal?”
“For me,” I say softly. “It looks worse than it is. I promise.”
Chi Cheng:
I don’t believe promises when there’s blood involved.
“Let me see,” I say immediately.
Suowei hesitates. Of course he does. He always tries to carry things alone.
“Wei Wei,” I say more gently. “Please.”
He nods.
I roll up my sleeves and slide my hands into the water, careful, deliberate. I start where the blood is most visible—his hips, his tail—checking for open wounds, torn skin, anything that looks wrong.
My touch is clinical. Controlled.
At first.
“Does this hurt?” I ask, fingers brushing a faintly reddened patch near the base of his tail.
He inhales sharply. “N—not pain. Just… sensitive.”
I frown, adjusting my touch, moving slower. My hands travel upward, searching—along his thighs, his hips, the sides of his torso where scales thin into skin.
Every time I touch him, he reacts.
A shiver. A hitch of breath. A sound he tries to swallow.
“Here?” I murmur, thumb grazing the edge of his ribs.
He arches despite himself.
That’s when it clicks.
I still my hands.
“…Wei Wei.”
His face is flushed now, eyes dark, lips parted like he’s embarrassed by his own body.
“You can’t know,” he whispers. “When I change, everything is closer to the surface. Nerves. Sensations. It’s not just pain that gets stronger.”
Oh.
Wei Wei:
I didn’t mean for it to happen like this.
His hands were warm. Careful. Concerned. And my body—traitor that it is—responded before my mind could catch up.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur, mortified. “I know this isn’t—”
“Make room.”
I didn’t expect him to say this.
It’s not a question.
The bathtub is already too small for my tail, water lapping dangerously close to the edge, but I shift anyway—heart hammering, heat curling low in my stomach. The moment Chi Cheng steps in behind me, the water rises, warmth pressing against my skin from every direction.
From him.
He settles carefully, chest to my back, legs bracketing my tail like it belongs there. I inhale sharply when his hands rest on my shoulders—not grabbing, not dominating. Just there.
“Relax,” he murmurs.
His fingers move slowly, exploring like he’s memorizing me. Not just the tail—never just that.
“This happens every month?” he asks.
“Yes,” I gasp when he traces the faint shimmer at my upper arms, where scales fade into skin.
“I could change anytime, but on the full moon I need to. If I don’t, it gets really painful.”
When his thumb brushes my elbow, I flinch.
“Here too?” he notes softly. “Sensitive?”
I nod, breath hitching. “They don’t usually… stay there this long.”
He hums thoughtfully and keeps going.
His touch finds my hands next. He laces our fingers together, then gently spreads them, brushing over the thin, fragile skin between. I gasp before I can stop myself.
“Chi Cheng—”
“Hey,” he whispers. “Tell me if it’s too much.”
It isn’t.
He kisses my shoulder.
It’s everything.
I shift instinctively closer into him, tail sliding along the porcelain, water sloshing dangerously high again. The tub was never meant for two people—especially not when one of them isn’t entirely human.
He embraces me fully from behind.
The contact is electrifying. His warmth bleeding into places that are already too aware. I inhale sharply when his hands settle on my waist, thumbs brushing the faint line of scales along my sides.
Not claiming.
Learning.
“These also weren’t here before,” he murmurs.
“They will fade again” I whisper. “Around the ribs. Elbows too.”
He tests that theory, fingers gliding up over my ribs until I jolt. My head tips back against his shoulder without permission.
“Very Sensitive,” he notes quietly.
Everywhere he touches, feels like a confession dragged out of me.
“You okay?” he asks, low and steady.
I nod, dizzy. “Don’t stop.”
Chi Cheng:
He reacts to every touch like his body is wired straight to his nerves. He is normally already sensitive but this transformation makes him high alert.
Small Scales dust his cheeks, subtle but unmistakable, catching the light when he turns his head.
Wei Wei startles when I touch his face gently, but he doesn’t pull away.
“You’re an idiot,” I murmur.
“A beautiful, stupid idiot.”
A breathy, broken laugh escapes him.
“I was scared,” he admits. “If we could marry, it would stop. But we can’t. And I didn’t want you to feel trapped with someone cursed.”
I lean in, forehead resting against his. “You don’t get to decide that for me.”
My hand slides lower—not possessive, not rushed. Just grounding. He shivers, tail flicking instinctively, more water sloshing over the edge.
Cheeky thought, wildly inappropriate timing: So that’s new, the thing with the tail. Interesting.
His ears are different too—elongated, fin-like, delicate. Beautiful.
I forget myself.
My fingers slide up, brushing the edge of one ear—
Wei Wei arches back into me with a sharp sound that goes straight through my chest.
“Oh,” I say quietly. “I forgot.”
“You didn’t,” he breathes. “You just… underestimated it.”
I smile against his shoulder and do it again, slower this time. He shudders, tail flicking hard enough to send water again over the tub. I start to enjoy this way too much.
“So,” I murmur, lips close to his ear now, “how does sex even work for a mermaid?”
I feel him freeze.
Then squirm.
Wei Wei:
My face is on fire.
“Chi Cheng,” I say, mortified. “That is not—”
He laughs softly, warmth and amusement vibrating through his chest behind me. “I’m serious. Educational curiosity.”
I swallow. “Water creatures are… different.”
“How different?”
I hesitate, then force the words out. “When I am aroused enough… the scales open up—for, you know.”
His grip tightens at my waist. Way too interested.
“…Are you saying they’re opening like a flower?” he asks curiously.
“I’m just saying evolution is creative,” I mutter, unsure whether I should laugh or run. I wish I could run.
Silence.
Then—“Can I see?”
I groan, dropping my face into my hands. “You’re impossible.”
“Impossible really wants to see it!”
Chi Cheng:
He turns in the water, embarrassed but glowing, eyes dark, breath uneven. When I kiss him this time, it’s not gentle. It’s curious. Heated. Hungry in a way that still feels reverent.
My hands explore him again—over scales, over skin that trembles under my touch. He makes sounds he tries to swallow, fails beautifully at.
The tub is definitely too small now.
Water sloshes. Knees knock. Everything is warm and slick and intimate and very distracting.
I lick his right nipple when he whispers, “There… now,” and when I look, I see how the scales under his bellybutton fade slowly, making room for more hot flesh.
My finger find him, and his whole body falls onto me. That’s the moment I realize this is the worst position for this—and also the worst place. But I don’t want to leave the water. Maybe it’s important for him. Maybe his new form needs it right now.
So I turn us around. I am lying on my back; he is lying on top of me, facing the ceiling.
“What are yo—” he tries to protest.
“Logistics,” I interrupt, biting his ear. “This way it’s more comfortable for you.”
He gasps at my ear nibbling.
“I… but I… I can’t touch you like this.”
“Don’t worry.” My lips find his neck. “Tonight is your night.”
I suck a red mark onto his skin.
God, he is so deliciously sensitive—maybe I will come undone just by eating him up.
We lie there for some time, bathwater still warm around us, floating innocently around our heated bodies. I pinch him, I stroke him, I bite him. He lets me pleasure him for a while until he turns in my arms and kisses me.
The kiss is raw and devastating, heat building until everything feels too small, too close, too charged to hold. He unbuckles me, presses himself against my flesh, and coils his tail around my leg. I can’t breathe fully because we are now half underwater, but his lips fill me with air and dizziness.
I don’t know what to do with all these new sensations. I only know that I am enjoying this far too much.
Wei Wei:
Heat. Water. More heat.
All I can think of is how much more of him I can taste, smell, and devour. All my feelings are taut like a thin thread, and when Chi Cheng grabs my scaly hips hard and presses himself against me, I can’t hold myself together—and it seems neither can he.
We come.
Later—much later—I rest my forehead against his, both of us breathing hard, the water cooling around us.
“I definitely did not expect this,” he says, voice rough, “when I booked the earlier flight.”
I laugh softly, dazed and glowing.
“Neither did I,” I admit.
Our eyes lock, and I want to kiss him again, but there is something burning inside my chest. Something that wants to be acknowledged.
“Are you really okay with me being like this?” I ask, pointing theatrically at my tail.
One of his hands catches my restless fingers and presses them against his chest.
“You’re still Wei Wei,” he says. “Just… wetter.”
Then he splashes water at me.
We are at war.
For the next ten minutes, I try to drown him, and he just can’t stop laughing.
The bathroom is completely destroyed. I don’t even want to imagine how disgusting it will be to clean all this up.
But life is beautiful, despite being cursed.
❤