Work Text:
The calming sounds of the water splashing up against the terrain was the only sound playing in Jhin’s ears. The artist painted delicately; he had finished the sketch for this piece yesterday, so it was now time to get some colour into the work. The scenery was just as perfect as it was the day before. The leaves gently flowing onto the water made a wonderful finishing touch, and he made sure to add it into his piece. The ripples the water made as nature poked it, the sparkle of the sun against the water, the breeze pushing the blades of grass; all of it was mesmerizing. It was nice here and there to sit and absorb what Mother Nature has to offer.
Jhin was a regular at this location, so much as he basically claimed it as his own. No one was ever around, which was nice for him. He enjoyed his time alone, especially when creating art. Lately, however, he has been hearing some singing in the distance. The voice was immaculate.
Like clockwork, the voice began. With a grin, Jhin places down his brush, wipes his hands of any paint that may be there, and picks up his instrument.
“One, two, three, four,” Jhin whispers to himself, bringing the bow up. At four, he begins to play along with her voice, quietly humming along to her beautiful voice.
In his opinion, they made a wonderful duo. As he continued to play, the voice became louder, more passionate. ‘She can hear me,’ he thought to himself, and grins again. Jhin closes his eyes, continuing to slide his bow against the strings. He could not understand what the lady was saying, but that didn’t stop him from singing along. It wasn’t words, but hums that went to her beat, with occasional whistling.
Jhin was the jack of all trades when it came to art and music. To him, he believed his singing was quite nice. He had lots of self taught practice, and has written his own music. He wondered if someday he could initiate their music together, and show her his own work.
The passion from the two of them seemed to go on forever. Jhin is normally alone while creating his art, so this was quite a lovely change of pace. Days went by, meeting in the same spot, creating an orchestra together. Some days, Jhin would arrive a little earlier than usual, so he would be able to start. Opposed to different times, Jhin would immediately start playing his violin instead of working on his art piece. He would get back to it eventually, he’d think to himself. This was a little more important to him at this moment, anyways.
One day was different from the rest. It started off as usual, Jhin walking over to his spot with his violin, art supplies, and a blanket to sit on. He lays the cloth down gently, then takes a seat. God forbid he stain his pants green from the grass. Jhin closes his eyes, and begins to play his instrument. A moment goes by— Jhin doesn’t hear her voice when he was supposed to. It confused him. He stops, puts down his violin, and opens his eyes. His gaze was met with bright and intense eyes. The woman before him was in the water, wet arms resting on the earth to keep herself up. She was a mermaid, a Vastaya.
Jhin jumps when he sees her, dropping the violin in the grass, and lets out a loud ‘ah’. He pants, hands behind him to hold him up from falling. All he does is stare, eyes wide. The mermaid floats there, eyes looking and soaking in the image of this human. She tilts her head slightly, as if she trying to comprehend what Jhin was. She was the first to speak.
“I’m Nami.” She reaches out a hand— Nami knew a small bit about humans, so she extended her hand for the other to take. Jhin looks at it, seeing it dripping wet. Nami eyed Jhin’s questionable expression, and assumed he wasn’t going to. She lowered her hand, then cleared her throat.
“Are you the music player?” Nami asks, and looks over at Jhin’s instrument. “How do you use it?”
Jhin sits up fully and composes himself, as if she didn’t just scare the shit out of him. With her assumption that he was the violinist, he made his own assumption that she was the one he duo’d with this whole time. Jhin looks down at his instrument for a moment before he crosses his legs, then brings the violin up to his chin. “This—” he begins, placing the bow on the strings. “— is a violin.” He plays one note for her, then speaks again. “It is one of my favourite instruments. Let me show you.”
The artist begins to play once more, continuing where he was from this morning. By the look of Nami’s expression, he could tell that she was convinced he was the man she was creating music with. The mermaid leans forward, hands bracing herself against the ground, staring in awe. She had heard string instruments before, more often underwater than above, though. Hearing the glorious sound right in front of her opposed to hearing it from far away was much nicer. Nami smiles as she watches.
“What’s your name?” She asks abruptly, causing Jhin to stop. Being interrupted in the middle of a piece was a pet peeve. He was annoyed, catching himself from scowling, and pushed it off. He opened his eyes and looked at her, then lowered the violin.
“Jhin,” he responds. He places his violin back down onto the grass, then takes another look at her. This time, he was paying full attention to how she looked. He took the time to look at her face, starting with her bright red eyes, then down to her abdomen. Her scales and skin glistened from the sunlight hitting the water on her body. Her colours were absolutely gorgeous; the shining green with slight hints of blue in the sunlight, and the almost golden yellow of her stomach and chest. Since Jhin had never seen a merperson in front of him before, he had strong urges to see how Nami felt against his fingers. Her inhuman hair was so interesting to him, he needed to know how it felt.
After a moment of silence and staring, Nami speaks up, causing Jhin to jump back into reality.
“You paint?” She asks, looking at the half finished canvas beside him, on top of the easel lying in the grass. Jhin glances over to his art piece. “Yes,” he responds. Jhin definitely had a way with words; however, it was slightly awkward talking with her. He hasn’t spoken to someone casually in a very long time, nor has he had anyone treat him with the respect he would like.
“Lemme see!” Nami claps, splashing slightly in excitement. It kind of startled Jhin. He hesitates for a moment, staring at her with a side eye, then looks at his painting on the ground. He picks it up, turns it, and holds it up for her to see.
“Wow,” she speaks in awe. “It looks like I’m looking at the real thing!”
Jhin can’t help but grin at the ego fuelling she was doing. He turns to look at it a bit himself, then places it back down on the ground.
“Will you draw me?” She asked, seeing that Jhin had his sketchbook with him. Despite artists typically not liking this question, he can’t help but agree. Nami did look like a work of art, he thought, so he complies. Jhin picks up his sketchbook, turns to a blank page, and grabs his pencil.
“Lean on your elbows,” Jhin practically demands. Nami quickly drops down onto her elbows, and leans against the earth, staring at Jhin. “Rest your chin on your palm,” he instructs, and Nami complies. She rests her chin on her right palm, and rests her other arm horizontally, fingertips dipping into the water in front of her.
Jhin extends his left arm beside him, and points his finger. “Look here,” he says, and Nami moves her head at a ¾ view in Jhin’s perspective. Her face stayed stoic, but didn’t hide the excitement in her eyes. “Stay there,” he whispers, leaning closer to his sketchbook. “Perfection.”
Jhin was slightly intimidating to Nami, so she didn’t move a single muscle. She didn’t want to annoy her first human friend. It was a comfortable position, so Nami had no issue– she could be like this for hours.
Half an hour goes by, and Jhin has a nice, detailed sketch. He takes a moment to do some shading, glancing up at her every now and then. He darkens the line art, then stops, letting go of the breath he didn’t realize he was holding. He looks at the sketch for a moment, then tells himself this was a piece he was definitely going to finish. He lifts and turns the sketchbook over to Nami– she turns to look, and immediately smiles, eyes growing wide.
“I love it!” She exclaims, almost jumping out of the water to get a closer look. Water splashes slightly, and a droplet goes on the paper. Nami barely notices.
“It’s so beautiful,” she says, voice softer than before. She looks away from the sketch and looks at Jhin with a wide grin. “Thank you.” She felt like she needed to repay him, but how? She assumed currency was different between the two of them.
“Stay here.”
Nami turns and swims away, tail splashing water onto the grass as she begins to swim. Soon she is gone, and Jhin ponders about what she could be up to. Jhin looks back down at the drawing he did; there was something about her, but he hadn’t a clue what. That’s what he told himself, anyways. He would never admit feelings for anyone in front of someone, and especially himself. He had no time for those emotions, so he would bat them away as soon as he felt something. The first thing that came to mind was to crumple it and run away, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. All he could do was stare at it.
“Jhin!”
Once again, the mermaid startles him. He fumbles with his book, and it drops down beside him after hitting his thigh. He exhales.
“Hello,” he greets after a heavy sigh. The mermaid giggles, and leans forward onto the ground again. “C’mere! I have something to show you.”
Jhin was reluctant, but moved closer to her anyway. What was the worst that could happen? He kneels down in front of her, inches away from her body. Nami pulls out a necklace, and hands it over to Jhin. He takes it, and looks at the jewelry. The chain was thin and gold– the gold held something down at the bottom of the chain. It looked to be a human tooth, a molar to be exact. The gold wrapped around one of the roots, so it would dangle upside down.
“Did you make this?” he asks, looking up at her, and extending his hand to give it back to her. Nami nods.
“I did make it,” she says, and looks down at his hand holding the necklace. She takes his hand with both of hers, and pushes it towards him. “It’s for you,” she assures. “I brought it for you to keep.”
Jhin keeps still as the mermaid's wet hands clasped onto his own. His first instinct was to pull away and wipe his hands, but he stayed. It was a very kind gesture, and Jhin didn’t know how to show appreciation. He doesn’t remember ever being gifted something before, especially something handmade.
“Here,” she speaks, breaking the silence. She takes the necklace from his hand and leans in, wrapping her arms delicately around him as she clasped the necklace shut. The tooth sat in the middle of his chest once the chain relaxed against his neck. Jhin looks down at it after Nami pulls away. “Do you like it?” She watches his face. He was a mystery to her; shes never met a man like him. Jhin chuckles as he looks at it, taking hold of the tooth in his palm.
“It is a beautiful piece,” he says, looking up at her face instead of the necklace. “Is this a real tooth, by chance?”
Nami nods. “It is a human tooth,” she explains. “I am not a fighter, but…” She shrugs sheepishly, but continues without hesitation. She inhales, then exhales sharply. “I’m not proud of it, but I took it from a human attacking my tribe. My father, he was about to be attacked— I had no choice but to fight and kill the man. It was my first kill, so I wanted to treasure it in a way. Is that weird?”
“You created art with your kill,” he says, grinning. “That’s wonderful, my dear. It’s beautiful.”
Nami was frazzled at first, but getting a good reaction from Jhin made her feel better. It still felt wrong, but he made it feel like it was okay. She blushes, then smiles. “It’s okay, I guess,” she speaks. “It looks weird, it’s not symmetrical-“
“Symmetry is so boring.” Jhin winks at her. “Don’t worry about that. I will treasure this.”
Nami couldn’t help but feel herself become closer to him. It made her heart race— infatuated with a human? She had never experienced that. Her tribe would be very disappointed, she thought, but brushed it off. Surely it wasn’t that bad, was it?
After looking for quite some time, Jhin slips the necklace under his top to keep it protected. He gave his chest a gentle pat, then looked at Nami. He was much closer to her, now seeing the details of her skin. She sparkled in the light, her scales iridescent and practically glowing under the sun. His eyes focused on her scales, taking in the detail, as if scanning to remember it while he finished the sketch of her. His eyes started at her collarbone, gliding across to her shoulder, watching her colour change from a golden yellow to emerald green. He examined the frills near her shoulders, noticing how unique she looked. His eyes go down her body, pausing a little longer than he would have liked to at her breasts, and continued down her abdomen. Her body looked like a flower, the frills blooming from her body like petals. His eyes go back up her midsection and land on her face. She looked so smooth compared to the scales on her body. He badly wanted to put his hands on her to rub down her body and onto her face, cupping her cheeks, running his thumb along her jawline, moving to her lower lip, swiping the pad of his thumb across her lip. It took everything out of him to stay still, preventing himself from gripping her jaw and pulling her in for a rough kiss.
It was very obvious to Nami that Jhin was staring. His eyes were so intense; it was as if he was eyeing up his prey. It made her heart race but it also gave her goosebumps. She can’t help but smile as she stared back. She as well took the time to examine his features. He had a slender face, sunken cheeks, dark eyes. Very sharp jaw. She pushed herself up higher with her hands planted firmly on the ground, her face just inches away from his. She tilted her head, teasing Jhin purposely, and also giving him an invitation. ‘Come and kiss me,’ she thought, giving him a look, batting her lashes. As if Jhin read her mind, he closed the gap between them with his lips. He closed his eyes and pushed himself closer to her, his hand coming up to cup her cheek. He touched her body with his other hand, allowing his hands to do what they craved. He felt along her body, careful not to move his hand opposite to her scales. Her mouth tasted salty, kind of metallic. Her lips felt like kissing a human, just a bit more… wet. It was a taste he hasn’t had in a kiss, and it made him hungry for more.
Their lips part. Jhin takes a shaky gasp of air, feeling lightheaded from holding his breath. He went in for more but Nami’s finger against his lips stopped him.
“I need to go now,” she says. Her family was waiting on her to return. She was supposed to be on some foraging quest, to bring home food or supplies. If she was late coming back, surely there would be questions. “My tribe is expecting me.” She moves her finger away from his mouth, then cupped his cheek, rubbing his cheekbone with her thumb. She can’t help but smile as she stared at Jhin. He looked like he was just getting into it, with his reddened lips and the obvious hunger in his eyes. She felt bad leaving him high and dry, especially knowing that she wanted to stay, curious to know how far they would go.
“I see.” Jhin straightens his back and clears his throat, feeling slight embarrassment from his pursuit. Nami chuckles and gives his lips one last peck before she dips herself under the water to hydrate herself. She quickly comes back up for a proper goodbye.
“I will see you tomorrow, yes?”
Jhin cracks a slight grin. “I will be here waiting for you.”
Nami giggles from excitement.
“Bye, Jhin.” She blew a kiss, then disappeared into the depths of the water.