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Taehyung’s first impression of the island was through the hazy mist of saltwater spray hitting him in the face, splashing over the sides of the little speedboat powering through the aquamarine waters. The engine spluttered loudly, the sound cutting through an otherwise peaceful and picturesque scene. The cloudless blue sky above allowed the sun to shine hot and bright as it rose steadily, creating blinding reflections in the vast landscape of slow-rolling ocean waves. 

   They — to say, Taehyung and the two others aboard — were fortunate for this forgiving weather, he felt, for the captain’s assurances that it was a sturdy old thing did not ease the flutter of nerves Taehyung felt whenever the boat shuddered ominously over the swelling of heavier waves. He’d never considered himself particularly prone to seasickness, but he certainly felt the price of the more conventional, albeit less frequent, boat back to the mainland becoming more enticing with every subsequent bump of the speedboat. 

   Alternatives to travel were few and far between, as it stood, for his destination was merely an indistinct spec of an island on a map, all too easy to overlook, its name unfamiliar to most. Even Taehyung hadn’t known what or where it was when he had been assigned to research the aquatic flora and fauna residing there, hoping for a new discovery to bring back to the humble marine lab he worked for in Seoul. Such an opportunity for his career — and as a result, the boost in recognition and funding for the lab if he was successful — was impossible to pass up on, the included island getaway aside. He’d been waiting for an opportunity like this one for as long as he’d been interested in the field of marine research, determined to prove that five long years spent poring over conservation acts and regulations and writing extensive essays on marine toxicology were worth the sleepless nights and stress-induced headaches.

   It felt worth it already, he thought, comparing the sun warming his skin and the sea breeze ruffling his hair to the cramped, stuffy dorm room he’d written his dissertation in, his only source of light being that of his laptop. If he could withstand those years of university (and it admittedly did feel quite dire at times), he could manage a short, somewhat nauseating, boat ride to an island that hopefully held a groundbreaking discovery. If he thought hard enough about it, he could even feel a flicker of forgiveness towards the seawater mottling the pages of the notebook clutched tightly in his hand, smudging the ink on his scrawled notations and diagrams depicting different corals, algae and fish for quick identification; he’d been told access to the internet was sparse across the whole island, and in the few places it was accessible, it was slow and unreliably inconsistent. Taehyung felt there was a sort of charm in doing things in a more traditional way, even at the cost of missing out on Jimin’s enthralling Instagram updates. 

   Traditional though travelling by boat may be, Taehyung was extremely relieved when it came to a spluttering stop along the edge of a short, creaking wooden dock seemingly held together by lengths of rope that likely predated Taehyung by several decades. It felt more sturdy than the boat had, at the very least, when Taehyung stepped shakily onto it and heaved his luggage up with him.

   “Taehyung-nim?”

   He had just been bowing to the captain with a stream of thanks for the effectual ride from the mainland when his attention was called towards the end of the dock. A woman with dark hair covered by a sun hat and a chaperon-esque branded shirt was waving him over from where the aged wood became obscured by gleaming, golden sand, her smile wide and welcoming. As Taehyung got closer, his bright Gudetama suitcase thunking loudly and embarrassingly over every plank, he saw that she couldn’t be much older than he was, her face alight with bubbly excitement.

   “Oh, I’m so glad you made it here safely!” Perhaps it was only projecting, or a trick of the lustrous sun, but Taehyung swore he saw her eyes flicker momentarily to the boat he’d arrived on. “I’m Yongsun – I’m here to help you find your way around and tell you anything you need to know! We don’t get many researchers interested in the island so we’d like to help make things as smooth as possible for you! Before any of that, though, you might want to change; you’re going to overheat wearing that!”

  So, at Yongsun’s insistence, they made their way to the opposing end of the beach (and since she’d mentioned it, Taehyung came to realise just how exhausting the heat was proving, each step weighing him down like lead) for the compact bathroom stalls that seemed just as old as the dock. After an extremely cramped change of clothes, where Taehyung tried fruitlessly to keep sand from finding its way into the suitcase he’d squeezed in the stall with him, he returned for Yongsun’s approval.

   “Much better! You could pass for a local now,” she winked, clasping her hands together after looking him up and down. Though Taehyung laughed disbelievingly, he could admit that he certainly looked better suited for the part when he’d glimpsed his reflection in the dusty mirror; an oversized tank with a logo faded to time plastered across the front, falling down to his upper thigh. Beneath that, a pair of shorts that stopped just before his mid-thigh, leaving his long legs bare below them. His sandy blond hair was already beginning to kink from the splashes of water on the way to the island drying in the heat. He supposed he probably did look more local in comparison to the long-sleeved shirt and trousers he’d arrived in, though that didn’t keep him from brushing off Yongsun’s generous compliment with a wave of his hand and a bashful look away towards the horizon of which he’d came.

Firstly (rather, secondly, to the detour made for his change of clothes) Taehyung was shown to the place he’d be staying for the handful of weeks he was allotted to stay for. Thirty minutes’ walk from the beach was a village, tightly packed and sparsely populated at the base of grassy hills. The little cluster of buildings were made up of stone walls with colourful, panelled metal roofs, the houses connected by trodden dirt paths weaving between them. People were traversing these paths, some carrying resources, some on their way to or from the field of crops that Taehyung could see further up the hillside, some simply visiting one another. The smell of fish braising came thickly from one of the buildings, steam billowing from the open windows, reminding Taehyung that he hadn’t eaten since the rushed excuse for breakfast he’d hurried through before his flight in the very early hours that morning..

   The longing must have been evident on his face, as Yongsun promised they’d get something to eat after he’d deposited his luggage in the humble and traditional house he would be occupying. It was unalike to any modern hotel, but mixed old and new seamlessly between the aged architecture and the amenities provided for him. He didn’t linger for too long beyond the short tour he was given, eager to eat and get a scope of the places he would be conducting his research, figuring he would have the time to appreciate and become familiar with the space over the coming days. He could already see himself spending much time at the desk tucked in the corner to record his findings in the notebook Jimin had gifted him before he left, decorated with a cute pink octopus surrounded by a school of colourful fish, its speech bubble sporting an encouraging ‘Fighting!’ He hoped it didn’t make him seem any less of a professional scientist here to make detrimental steps in the world of marine biology.

“So,” said Yongsun, once they were seated in the local café a short while after, a generous serving of braised galchi stew each steaming in front of them, “where will it be first for your research?”

   Taehyung had been caught slightly off guard, a piece of green onion sliding from his chopsticks and landing limply in his rice. He swallowed the mouthful he had, tilting his head in thought. Where was he going to start? Ideally, there would be more researchers than just him but, as mentioned, the lab he worked for wasn’t sizable by any means – apparently, even getting him here alone had been a difficult agreement to make with the governance of the island. He had limited amounts of equipment by design; clearly, some pretty firm rules had been put in place to allow any research to be conducted here, including his absolute word that he would not disrupt the island’s makeup. He had to preserve almost everything, only allowed to take samples that were unequivocally essential or otherwise relevant. Apparently, he could go to Yongsun for any arrangements he needed in regards to venturing into waters that required more precaution, but he wasn’t going to be doing anything like that until he was sure of what he was looking for.

   “I think I’m going to go back down to the beach,” he pondered aloud. Where else could he start? “There really isn’t much recent documentation about the marine life here so I’d like to see what I’m working with. I’ll be looking for common fish species and plants — anything at all.” 

   “Well…” Yongsun hummed thoughtfully over her food. “I’m not sure about the fish but some people talk about seeing sharks nearby lately.”

   “Sharks?” Taehyung asked, wide eyes snapping up from where he’d committed to the task of scooping the onion back out of his rice. He’d done as much research as he could with the limited data available to him and there was certainly no mention of sharks. That would be significant: many sharks were endangered, and sharks that occupied the water near an island like this would at the very least need to be known. “I didn’t hear anything about a shark population here.”

   Yongsun’s face lit up, apparently delighted to share what she knew. “It’s only been alleged sightings so far. There’s not any proof and — well, as far as I know, there hasn’t been a decrease in fish or anything. But you’d know better than me.” She regarded him curiously while she ate some more of her stew, as though trying to gauge something. Taehyung stared back at her until she lowered her chopsticks and looked around conspicuously and leaned in, the blond mirroring the behaviour unintentionally. “Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was, you know.”

   “What do you mean?” 

   Still yet, Yongsun leaned closer, dropping her voice so lowly that Taehyung had to strain to hear her over the sound of sizzling food coming from the kitchen and the distant chatter of the community outside. He was utterly puzzled as to why they were being so secretive about this conversation. They were the only ones in the café, the owner and cook having disappeared into the back after serving their food and ensuring they had everything they wanted.  “It’s just… the island’s special, you see. Why do you think there’s so little known about it, even just over the water, on the mainland?”

   She wasn’t making much sense to Taehyung, who was both thoroughly confused and wondering if he should be skeptical by now. She seemed serious about what she was saying, and had been knowledgeable on all things island-related thus far, appearing everything she should for an authentic tour guide. Come to think of it, he hadn’t second-guessed it enough to ask for any form of identification when he arrived…

   Seemingly enthused by his furrowed eyebrows and slightly agape mouth, she plunged on. “There’s a lot of local stories and history about the island’s connection to the ocean. It’s always attracted a huge variety of sea life, things that you wouldn’t expect to find because of habitat or climate conditions; but they thrive here. People always report things that shouldn’t be able to exist here — should be impossible to exist. Some people think we’re blessed by ancient spirits or that the island itself is magical somehow.” She grinned broadly at how Taehyung’s mild skepticism had morphed quickly back into interest. Then, all at once, she waved her hand and leaned back in her seat dramatically, quite pleased with herself. “But those are just folktales and local legends. I’m sure that’s not of much use to you as a scientist.”

   Taehyung blinked. “Right,” he said, sitting back in his seat, too, upon realising just how far forward he had been leaning. He mentally cursed himself for the likelihood of him seeming foolish — gullible, even — for giving anything that wasn’t based in science a second thought. He also realised he hadn’t touched his food at all for the duration of her explanation, looking down at his cutlassfish as though it had been a conspirator in this. “Still, it’s— it’s good to know. You know, how precious the ocean is to the people here. I’ll be cautious to treat everything with care.”

   “I know you will,” Yongsun smiled fondly, where Taehyung had been expecting her to laugh at him outright. “Magical or not, though, I was serious about those sightings. If you’re interested in checking it out, they most often seem to come from the west side of the island. There’s a much more secluded beach over that way, we don’t even tell the few tourists we have about it. It’s not too long of a walk from here. Just be careful of the rocks in the water — we’ve had more accidents related to them than any kind of shark.”

The sun was reaching its peak by the time Taehyung found the beach in question.

   Yongsun had been right in that it wasn’t a long walk from the village, but had neglected to mention that it was far off the beaten track. There were no roads or signs for Taehyung to follow, so he’d simply kept the sea on his left as he followed the curve of the island, struggling slightly over the lush hills and thicker patches of trees and plantlife. He figured that if he became lost, he’d eventually end up looping right the way back around — the island wasn’t very big, after all — but it thankfully didn’t come to that and he found his way using the negligible hints of life he happened upon. Fading footprints in the patches of dry dirt, branches of trees that had been fashioned into makeshift hiking aids and abandoned along the way, even a length of cloth tied around the trunk of a tree that pointed Taehyung in the right direction, whether that had been its intent or not. 

   Short of a walk as it had been, the open sky had been unforgivingly hot and Taehyung was extremely relieved to at last spy a stretch of sand behind a thick fleet of trees. He made his way downwards towards it, following how the grass and dirt sloped into sand, hastening to cross the narrow breadth of scorching beach to stand in the slow-rolling waves and soothe his burning feet. As he basked in the relief of cool waters, he scanned the area in front of him, noting how the beach lacked symmetry; where it had come down naturally on one side, the sea cut it short on the other, curling inwards to the land to form a barricade between the beach and an overgrown cliffside that stretched out towards the southern horizon. As Yongsun had warned, jagged rocks protruded from the water beneath this cliffside, leaving dark shadows to stretch far over the sand forebodingly. 

   The water sloshed around his calves as Taehyung made his way along the shore, carefully stepping over the colourful array of shells and clumps of seaweed that had washed up, making careful mental notes about what he was seeing for later. There was relief in the lack of anything man-made, something he found promising for the health of the ecosystems he was here to document, but he tried not to diagnose anything too conclusively based on the findings of a small, out of the way beach. The sand under his feet became steadily more populated by stone the further he walked, amplifying in size until he was standing on smooth, slippery rocks near the edge of the walkable beach. He craned his neck to look up at the cliffside, tracking the curves and contours of it to deduct how far the water would reach at high tides – as he did so, he followed the circumference of the cliff, splashing into the shallow water at the base. Now standing in deeper waters, where it was coming up to his thighs, he had an angle he couldn’t have seen before; the cliff fell away as suddenly as it started and he saw how the water rushed into the space behind it without any sign of a second beach.

   His first mistake was probably forsaking more practical clothes to be wearing while stumbling over slippery rocks in the shallows of unfamiliar water. His second was sheer, morbid curiosity and intrigue paired with a lack of patience to fetch Yongsun for more appropriate means of traversing said unfamiliar water.

   He wasn’t completely unaware of the danger he was putting himself in when he took the first step away from where he’d been hugging the edge of the sand for an easy escape. His arms spread outwards, lifted over the gradually-deepening water, to keep his balance while he squinted downwards to choose the most stable-looking rocks to stand on, making slow progress across the gap. Miraculously, he made it to the crags reaching above water level nearer to the cliff base through a convoluted game of hop-scotch over the rocks, clambering from the water onto the stone to continue his way around.

   If he wasn’t already panting from the effort it had taken to get there, his breath would have been stolen away by his discovery; protruding from the side of the cliff, right above where he was gripping onto the rocks to keep from skewering himself on the collection of smaller, sharper rocks below, was a naturally-formed arch. Beyond that, the land seemed to wreathe inwards, allowing the water to pool into an oval: a cove, partially exposed to the blistering sun, partially cutting into the cliff encircling it, leaving parts of crystalline water shrouded in shadow. Cascades of glittering blue fell from the gaps in the foliage that poured over the sides of the rock; moss, vines and branches drooping with the vast effort it took to shoulder the burden of thick leaves coating them. These waterfalls poured onto the pieces of remaining rock forming the base of the scarp but that was the extent of any feasible land. There must be shallows, at least, nearer to that base or else in the shadowed areas, and only a handful more of jagged rocks to climb over between here and there. Glancing back at the way he’d came, Taehyung decided it would be a foolish miss on his part to turn his back on an undiscovered cove and whatever life it was teeming with.

   His third mistake was becoming too overeager and forgetting to heed Yongsun’s warning about the very rocks he was scaling in his haste. Roughly two thirds of the way into the cove, he allowed his eyes and mind to drift, miscalculating his step onto the next pointed rock. His foot slipped against the wet surface. He scrambled to make up for it by clawing to keep hold, stretched amidst the two rocks he’d been crossing between but it was too late. His weight had been balanced on the foot that had slipped, his leg going with it. It took seconds at most, but it felt like an eternity that his leg – and by extension, the whole right side of his body – dropped, dragging across the rough stone as it went. The sharp foothold he’d been aiming for sliced into his thigh, tearing the skin open in a long, sawtoothed wound that spilled over with blood. Quickly having redistributed his weight to his other leg, he pulled with all of his upper body strength, little as that was, to bring himself back to balance and wrench his now-bleeding leg back up. Saltwater flooded into the cut, burning it and igniting a fierce pain that had Taehyung’s eyes stinging with tears. Even with blood running down his leg, he hardly had the time to be stationary, considering he was still clinging to the side of a rock in the middle of the water – he had to keep moving.

   He made a great effort to keep himself from further injury, working his way through the rocks until he could safely lower himself into the water and tred to the base of the cliff, where he could at last hike himself up. Dripping in a gross mix of his own sweat and seawater, his tank sticking uncomfortably to his back, he seated himself to take the pressure off of his leg and catch his breath, taking the chance to inspect the injury. The bleeding had lessened a little, though the water apparently hadn’t been enough to keep it from staining his thigh in streaks of red, and he was fortunate that it wasn’t very deep – it would scar over within a week or so, he expected. Regardless, he couldn’t leave it uncovered and bleeding for the entire way back to the village, heaving a sigh with the realisation that his options were slim in regards to dressings. It was as he straightened up, fingers curling around the hem of his tank, that he noticed an unnatural movement in his peripherals, a large and dark shadow flitting by. 

   There was something in the water. 

   Taehyung startled, sliding slightly down the rock, which made him hiss in pain as the wound was disturbed. His head snapped around, scanning the environment, but it remained equally as tranquill and idyllic as it had begun. Where previously he could feel the mist of the waterfalls on his skin and could hear how it splashed off of the rocks, he was now acutely aware of the way the hairs on the back of his neck had risen. A dull thrum seemed to reverberate through the water, the way the cove was closed in all around seeming to echo the vibrations, though Taehyung was unable to discern whether or not it only existed in his head. Suddenly, the beautiful scenery wasn’t inspiring peace but a looming feeling of unease, like every leaf or branch was camouflaging something more sinister. 

   Something cold closed around his ankle. Before any thought of freeing himself from the grasp had even replaced the shock in Taehyung’s mind, he’d been yanked downwards, his nails clawing uselessly against the rock for any kind of purchase. A second hand splayed over his hip, pinning it against the rock to prevent him from slipping into the water and subsequently bringing all his movements to a halt. 

   Had he lost so much blood that he was hallucinating?

   It could almost pass as a human being for a precious few moments. It had light, greyish skin with a translucent quality to it, the unnatural smoothness broken by numerous nicks and scars haphazardly littering the creature. Across its broad shoulders and curling around the sides of its bare torso were deeper grey stripes, seeming to exist several layers beneath the skin. Its features were handsome and sharp, framed by the black hair that fell wildly to the base of its neck, perhaps it was even pretty if not for the ravenous hunger evident in its black, hooded eyes. Taehyung was immobilised by this gaze, shivering in spite of the sweat coating his back and how his skin was prickling beneath the heat of the sun, his heart clattering against his ribcage and flooding his head with the sound of his blood thrumming through it. 

   Something warm and wet was pressing against his thigh and he realised belatedly that it was licking him. Its tongue, from a mouth filled with serrated, blade-like teeth, was following the line of blood coating his leg. It traced upwards, its steely grip keeping Taehyung’s leg firmly in place, pointed nails digging into his hip, making its way in towards his inner thigh and the gash there. Taehyung had been holding his breath, afraid to even breathe, but his throat rumbled with a pained whimper as its tongue flattened over the wound, wetting it with its saliva and spreading the saltwater already there. The chilling sensation of gut-wrenching fear was jarringly contrasted by the grounding warmth its tongue provided, gliding over his thigh smoothly, undeterred by the goosebumps prickling the surface.

   It lapped noisily — greedily — at his blood until the pain had dulled and its pale lips were stained red, straining its neck to reach all that there was. All Taehyung could do was stare and try to comprehend what he was seeing, trying to kick his brain into any kind of action beyond merely dragging his eyes over its appearance. With its eyes temporarily closed, eliminating the hungry look in them, it could easily become something pleasant to lay look upon. Aside from its peculiar striped skin (not to mention its crazed behaviour), it had all the features expected of a human; thick eyebrows that were furrowed in concentration, delicate eyelashes casting shadows on its soft cheeks, a sloping nose with a very slight outwards curve that it was breathing heavily through, even a subtle dip of a cupid’s bow above a thin upper lip. As Taehyung’s eyes dragged down, over its sharp jaw and muscular neck, he noticed with a poorly-concealed gasp that the ridges and slits in its neck were gills, flared with apparent delectation; they folded down as soon as the sound had left him, all of its movements ceasing. The weight against his hip lifted in an instant, as did the vice grip around his ankle, effectively dropping him and allowing him to slide down the slippery stone.

   In his sudden scramble for balance once more, Taehyung didn’t even see it go, only able to hear the force of its push away from the rock and a splash of water — by the time he was securely seated further up the rock, all he saw of it was the sharp end of an arrow-shaped tail dipping beneath the surface, disturbing the water with a quick, heavy beat from side-to-side. 

Taehyung didn’t sleep that night.

   He’d remained in the cove for as long as he dared to while the sun still touched it, staring into the deceptively innocent waters as though awaiting the creature to return. Over and over, he’d run his hands through his soaked hair, pressing against his scalp in search of any evidence of a bump or blood, any sign that might indicate he was concussed or had otherwise hit his head, anything that could keep him from confronting the insane notion that what had happened was real. For all of the journey back his mind had been completely blank, too stunned to begin to theorise, simply allowing his feet to drag him back to the village as though it was a path he walked daily. Part of him wanted to repress the memory of the creature’s tongue pressing against his skin, of its edacious ebon eyes boring into his, so convincingly human, of the way his stomach had dropped only to tug with something the longer he allowed the creature access to his blood. He wanted to pretend that nothing at all had happened beyond his slip on the rocks… but other than it being a disservice to the research he was here to do, it simply wasn’t Taehyung to let such a thing go.

   When he’d returned late in the evening, his tank tied tightly around his upper thigh, visibly shaken and sweating though the sun was low and the air was cooling, he forewent his accommodations, including any change of clothes or first aid, to make an immediate stop to the town hall. There was a small library and archive there and he intended to scope out anything at all that might give him some form of logical explanation for his encounter. There were only so many conclusions he could draw, still not entirely convinced he was of his right mind, desperate for something to disprove the nagging thought echoing in the back of his brain.

   People always report things that shouldn’t be able to exist here — should be impossible to exist. 

   What he found was wholly unhelpful as far as proving him wrong went. The assistant in the town hall had been reluctant to allow him access to the minimal information they had, relenting only when he mentioned — in a slightly shorter, more irritated way than he’d ever normally allow himself — that he could go and return with Yongsun, who had assured him there would be as much cooperation and transparency regarding documentation as he needed. If he’d opted to visit sooner, before making any rash decisions to visit unknown locations without equipment or people to help him, he may wonder why what he was shown was so restricted, may have written it off as more of those local legends Yongsun had told him earlier. 

   He couldn’t perish the sinking feeling that there was truth and familiarity within the brittle, aged pages of the books he was still turning by the time dawn was approaching. 

The majority of the next day was dedicated to thorough rereadings of the books he’d borrowed from the concerned assistant of the town hall when she’d found him still seated in the library that morning. He tried to do his due diligence as a scientist to go through every single one of his own notes, irrelevant as some of them felt to the situation, scanning through various forms of toxic coral, stings from octopus that might cause visions or hallucinogenic fish, still not entirely willing to rule out delirium. The closest thing he found was a type of porgy found in south-western Europe and the south and west coasts of Africa that caused hallucinations when consumed and as far as he knew, the braised galchi he’d eaten with Yongsun had been just that: galchi. 

   There was nothing else exact. Pieces of various descriptions were vague enough that Taehyung could warp them to fit his experience if he tried, though that was far from a scientific conclusion. The longer he scanned his stinging, tired eyes over the pages, the more it seemed that the only way there would exist documentation of this would be something written by him. And he wasn’t even sure of what he’d seen.

This would be his fourth mistake, he thought, in the event that anyone was counting, as he stepped into the shallows and looked up at the overgrown cliffside once again. It was later in the day than it had been when he’d first been here, the sun stinking steadily behind the cliff, giving it a backlight and covering the beach in shadow, making it all the more intimidating. This was all kinds of foolish, the threat of a potentially mythical being aside: to return only two days after injuring himself on the jagged rocks, equally as unequipped and equally as alone, intent on finding his way back into the cove without the help of a sun glowing in the center of the sky to guide his steps safely. Discoveries, Taehyung reasoned, upon a convincing mental image of Jimin’s mortified expression at what he was doing, were not made from the safety of a low-lit room and written directly into pink octopus-themed notebooks. That could occur during the documentation phase, he added mentally, feeling slightly guilty for forsaking Jimin’s gift.

   It was this determination (read: foolishness and unrestrained stubbornness) that made traversing over the water go without a hitch. It seemed to all happen much faster this time, with him reaching the impressive natural archway in no time at all, amazed to find the cove sitting as beautiful and unsuspectingly as it had two days prior. The low position of the sun made the reflections over the still water glitter at an angle and the surrounding cliff faces tower much more ominously. He might not have entirely learnt his lesson regarding putting himself in danger without second thought, but the blond had the sense to not fall for the serene innocence of his environment for a second time, keeping his attention firmly on where he was standing and his destination.

   Nothing seemed to stir as he made it to the flattened rocks he’d sat upon previously. He crouched there for some time, staring out into the water, willing it to ripple with movement or cloud with kicked-up substrate. Every shadow captured his attention, keen to not be caught off guard a second time, though they mostly turned out to be low-hanging vines and loose leaves dropping into the water. He waited and waited there, knowing that discoveries were also not made instantaneously; he needed patience. For something as big as the thing he was hoping to find once more, he could have patience. An hour of patience passed, then two. By three and a half hours, the sun had dropped quite a lot lower, so much that if he waited too much longer it would become unignorable in the dangers it posed for crossing back over to the beach, though the warmth persisted enough that his choice to shed his tank somewhere in the second hour was yet to become an inconvenience.

   A frown pulled at his lips as he looked over the cove once again, sure he could illustrate it by memory by that point, finding nothing out of place or irregular. He would have to try again tomorrow — he could truly spend the whole trip making visits to this cove in the hopes of finding the creature once again, but he’d have to explain his lack of findings to the lab if he did so. 

   How could he possibly justify that he hadn’t documented any of the local fauna, known or not, because he’d spent all of his time chasing mermaids?

   “I would have thought I’d scared you away.”

   It felt like all Taehyung did was slip on the rocks by this point, though he would argue that on this occasion it deserved to be excused. Once again he was catching himself with open palms scrabbling at the rock, as he hastened to turn towards the rough voice that had sounded from behind him. It was impossible to make anything out clearly in the shadowed cave, though he squinted through the dark desperately, leaning forward to get as close as he could without falling into the water. He retracted his arm as fast as he’d put it down to balance himself, wincing in pain and momentarily losing focus to see how he’d grazed the soft skin of his palms and his blood was beading at the surface of the cuts, doubtlessly during his effort to keep from sliding. 

   “You are careless.”

   The voice was much closer this time, and Taehyung looked down to see the very same creature he’d found previously was posed casually in the shallows, regarding him lazily. From this distance, Taehyung had a better view of it in its entirety — it was much bigger than he’d registered at all, the muscles in its biceps flexing beneath the strange translucent skin from where it was holding itself up, its long and pointed fingers curled around the smaller, loose rocks underneath the platform Taehyung was seated upon. 

   Much more startling than its toned body, Taehyung’s eyes dragged downwards, struggling at first to make it out through the billows in the water. Taehyung had seen mermaids depicted in pictures before — beautiful sea nymphs with long, flowing hair, pointed ears and lush lips, with colourful tails and jewellery glittering over their fair skin. He’d seen concepts of nightmarish sirens with green-hued, dappled skin pulled taut over skeletal bodies and distorted faces with jaws that detached to open their great maws for prey. The creature in front of him was neither of those things: it had elements of the ethereal beauty of the former, and the frightening disposition and aura of danger of the latter. Where there should be human legs attached to sharp-cut hips, there was instead the thick grey trunk of its tail, trailing endlessly further into the water, twice the length of its torso. Several fins protruded from the sides of the tail where it eventually narrowed into an inverted chevron shape, the higher of the two points longer and sharper than the lower and clefted close to the middle, as though a small piece had been taken out of it. 

   All of the talk of sharks on the island became clear all at once.

   “You’re real,” was what left Taehyung’s mouth after several delayed moments of staring, all of the blood that had been rushing in his head a few days ago seeming to have departed to leave him feeling faint. The merman merely raised an eyebrow, looking at him with a type of unconcerned curiosity, like this was not worldbreaking news in the slightest. 

   “I am.”

   “I— I’ve been here, I’ve been waiting for you. I didn’t think you— really existed.” 

   “I know,” he said simply, tilting his head at Taehyung, seemingly increasingly more fascinated by him. “I have been watching you. I could smell your blood.”

   This took a moment to register for Taehyung before he stumbled backwards slightly, putting an amount of distance between him and the merman. This amused the creature, it seemed, for his mouth broke into a wide, sharp smile, his nose crinkling slightly, though Taehyung couldn’t imagine what was so funny about the evident horror on his face.

   “I was beginning to wonder if you would find the sense to leave before sundown. I was surprised you came back at all. You’re a curious little thing.”

   His voice had a low, natural rasp to it, fittingly considering his vocal chords had likely been subject to a large amount of salt water. Taehyung also noticed the slightest hint of a lisp, where his tongue struggled to form the words around his sizable teeth. His drawling accent was similar to that of the island people’s, if not slightly more exaggerated, like he did not know any other way of speaking.

   “I’m— a researcher. I wanted to see — well, you — again… to— to be certain.”

   “To be certain,” the merman echoed simply, his huge tail flicking from one side to the next in the water. “Okay. And as a ‘researcher’, what does your being certain entail?”

   It was unclear what the merman’s intentions were, for the hint of amusement underlying his tone was not lost on Taehyung, who couldn’t shake the feeling that talking to him didn’t necessarily equate to being safe or exempt from the serrated teeth lining his mouth. Keeping him talking was about all he could do, however, and beneath the obvious fear was that intrigue to learn about what – who – had become that all-important discovery he’d set out to find. “Well, I— I’d ask you questions. If you’d let me. About you and— your species. Nobody knows anything about you.”

   The merman considered him once again and Taehyung noticed that, when he wasn’t between his legs and licking up all of his blood, his eyes were much wider, with an almost doe-like quality to them. His face looked young as a result of it, boyish in a way, helped by the more playful flicker behind his expression. Finally, he took the pressure off of his arms, sinking down into the water and into a more relaxed position. “You may ask.”

   This came as an obvious surprise. Even as he’d been explaining it, Taehyung knew it had been a hopeless case, one he wished he’d somehow anticipated enough to tackle when it came to it. Adrenaline was running thick through his veins to keep him from freezing up again, and it was likely this that motivated him to carefully lift himself down onto a lower part of the rock to be closer, his eyes never leaving the merman’s curious stare for a sign that this was the wrong move. When no such sign came, he seated himself there, swallowing thickly as he noticed how the merman’s eyes flitted to the cut adorning his inner thigh, a hint of that previously seen hunger flashing behind the dark irises.

   Taehyung tried several times to speak again, the words getting caught roughly in his throat. His deep voice came out several pitches higher than usual, strained with trepidation, clumsy as the words fell from his lips. “I’m Taehyung. Do you have a name?”

   “Jeongguk.”

   “Jeongguk,” Taehyung repeated, exhaling a soundless sigh. The merman having a name humanised him some and, more than that, could begin to build the foundation of confidence between the two of them. “Please forgive me, Jeongguk – what… are you?”

   Jeongguk did laugh this time, a throaty barking kind of laughter that kept the hairs on Taehyung’s neck erected, Jeongguk’s gills once more flaring intriguingly. Taehyung was most curious about those – his anatomy in general – but he felt it would be rude to ask such invasive questions so suddenly, especially not knowing just how much information he was willing to part with beyond his name. 

   “I think your kind call me an Ineo – a ‘human fish’. I don’t think I am either.”

   There was a hint of bitterness to the way he’d translated the word, like he didn’t think of himself so demeaningly.

   “I agree,” Taehyung hummed thoughtfully after a few moments, both eager to be on the merman’s good side and noting the key differences between Jeongguk and the Ineo he had read about extensively over the past couple of days. The merman’s willingness to answer him, and lack of offence at being asked at all, eased the doubts in his mind slightly. “I think you more closely resemble a shark, actually.”

   “Do I?” Jeongguk grinned once more, and once again Taehyung’s attention was brought to his powerful tail flicking, seemingly absentmindedly, in the water. “Does that not scare you, little one? I have always known your kind to be very flighty at the mere mention of sharks in the water. Are you not worried I’ll have a change of heart and decide to bite you instead of heeding your questions? You do have such sweet blood…”

   Taehyung swallowed the sudden collection of saliva that had risen in the back of his throat, watching how Jeongguk inhaled deeply, his eyes falling closed and his vast chest swelling with it like he had never known any better scent. His tail flicked sharply and involuntarily, as though every instinct in him demanded he move to seek out the aforementioned sweet blood that had stained his tongue only a few days prior. There was a very deliberate and perceptible effort on Jeongguk’s part to compose himself, the stripes beneath the skin of his shoulders warping as he rolled them back, then relaxed once again. As he exhaled deeply, the ghost of a smirk haunting his pale lips, those wide roguish eyes finding Taehyung’s as soon as they opened with the same gaze that made Taehyung feel so very vulnerable.

   “Well… I thought maybe…” Taehyung trailed off with a desire to keep from giving the merman any further ideas about having that change of heart. “But… no. I think that if you wanted to – um – bite me, you’d have done it when I was first here. A couple of days ago.”

   “It would have been so easy,” Jeongguk agreed airily, allowing for another cold shiver to curl its way around Taehyung’s spine from the base of his neck and weave delicately between each individual vertebrae. “You were so pretty and helpless… Even if you hadn’t done the work of incapacitating yourself for me, I could so easily have overpowered you, little one. You human beings are so fragile, after all…”

   Taehyung’s breath lodged high in his throat, only a strangled hiss of air finding its way from his lips, due to the same cold hand that had kept him in place days prior wrapped around his ankle once more, the sharp claws pressing down into the soft skin of his calf enough to prick without breaking through. It was a testament to how inhumanly strong the merman was that he gave Taehyung’s leg a single, languid tug and it dislodged him entirely, bringing him even closer to the water he was occupying. Jeongguk stared into his face with amusement, as though awaiting a reaction, only to continue on before Taehyung could give one.

   “Don’t you have more questions, pretty?”

   In a strange, sudden switch of sensations, a rush of warmth swelled where the chill had reached the tail of Taehyung’s spine, rising steadily to heat the path the way it had come. Pink rose to Taehyung’s cheeks, something different than the flush of exertion that had existed there previously, however much an indignant part of him wanted to withhold any flustered response to the merman’s attempts at playing with him. He’d come too far into this for his dignity to disappear at Jeongguk’s expense.

   “Why did you leave that day?” he finally managed to ask, having been avoiding Jeongguk’s face until that moment, where he mustered the courage to look once more. 

   “I would never have shown myself at all to a human but I couldn’t pass on a chance to taste your blood when you were right there, presenting yourself to me.” He inhaled again, his claws tightening around Taehyung’s calf. “Your blood is too enticing. If I had indulged myself any longer, I fear the restraint I’m exhibiting right now would never have prevailed. I’d have eaten you alive, pretty.”

   The heat licked ever higher in Taehyung’s system.

   “T-Then– if you never show yourself to humans, why come back today? Why let me ask you questions? This is going to be a world-changing discovery for humans when I write about it…”

   Jeongguk shrugged, lowering his head until his chin rested against the rock near Taehyung’s foot. He looked exceptionally innocent, staring up at him this way, if not for how his eyes made a habit of dragging down Taehyung’s body, over his bare legs again and again. When his eyes lingered for a second longer on the cut on his thigh, Taehyung’s heart began to beat faster with the memory of his tongue lapping at the skin. He could have sworn Jeongguk’s mouth twitched.

   “I suppose I did have a change of heart, after all.”

   Whyever that was, Jeongguk didn’t elaborate. He seemed much more invested in how much closer he could become without leaving the water, his grip lessening on Taehyung’s calf to display the depressions of where his claws had been indenting the surface. A dull ache followed this as blood rushed to fill the area that had had a limited supply throughout the duration of his hold. Jeongguk inched closer, lifting his head from the rock before lowering closer to Taehyung, so close that the ends of his hair dragged against his shin. He found Taehyung’s gaze while his lips pressed against his ankle in a feather-light kiss. His tongue followed, licking a line up from the ankle to the inside his calf, over the aching area. When all Taehyung did was keep his breath sitting high in his lungs, as though holding smoke there instead, Jeongguk was encouraged to pull himself higher.

   He began with another gentle kiss to Taehyung’s knee. It was like déjà vu, watching him drag his tongue upwards, into Taehyung’s inner thigh, only the icy terror paralysing him previously was now something shamefully burning hot, gathering in his stomach and bubbling there. Jeongguk kept from touching the cut directly, dotting kisses around the irritated area instead to ignite sensitive pangs around the sore skin. He took another deep breath precisely over the cut, humming in a pleased and gratified way on the exhale – Taehyung’s breath followed by example, finally escaping his lungs, stuttering and ragged. The sound didn’t trigger the shark’s flight on this occasion; if anything, he was incentivised by it, by the way Taehyung could hear his tail lash against the water and see how his gills dilated in a flutter.

   As though to prove he could practice the restraint he mentioned earlier, Jeongguk left the area alone, then, peering up at him with a cute furrow of his brows and the traces of a pout on his lips. “Your questions, little one?” 

   Taehyung had already forgotten every single thing he could possibly ask a merman. For the sake of his research, as wild as it was to now realise that posing questions to a merman was a genuine branch of that research, he should ask about the environment, the ecosystems and the island. He should ask about Jeongguk’s diet, about his one-of-a-kind perspective of the ocean through eyes that no scientist would ever have, of the social elements or whether more merpeople like him resided in the ocean, just out of sight of prying eyes the same way he had been in this cove. However, all that Taehyung could find to ask was of much less import and held much more of a personal interest, no matter how he mentally tried to frame it otherwise.

   “How… How do you – um – reproduce? Is there… others like you?”

   That same barking laughter drowned out the noise of rushing waterfalls and the currents created by Jeongguk’s tail, which Taehyung had noticed had become increasingly more agitated. As he laughed, he straightened himself up, shadowing Taehyung even with the vast majority of him still submerged in the water, which he returned to in a swift movement that retracted all of the touch from Taehyung’s skin. Despite his confusion and apprehension, something in Taehyung wanted to protest this.

   “Is that where your mind is?” Jeongguk teased, his face lit up with an indiscernible emotion, crossed somewhere between fondness, amusement and impishness. The same vibrations Taehyung had felt before their first encounter rumbled throughout the air again. “As this is all for your research, would you like to find out, pretty?”

   There was water in Taehyung’s lungs before he could even answer, for the shark had used his remarkable speed to pull him under. He struggled against the downward current it generated, his arms flailing to gain buoyancy, his legs making weak kicks against the arm that had wrapped around the entirety of both of his thighs. He surfaced again in seconds, spluttering and grasping for the rock to hold onto – only for his eyes to open, blinking the burning saltwater out of them, to find himself much too far from it. Jeongguk had pulled him out into water deeper than the shallows they’d been conversing in, and was in fact holding him afloat, subduing his struggling by scooping him effortlessly into his arms, one beneath his knees and one against the small of his back to prop him up. Taehyung’s arms sought out stability in his shoulders, balancing himself with a strong grip on the striped skin. 

   As much as he wanted it to be, the heat inside of him wasn’t anger or even mild annoyance at the split-second he thought he was drowning. He was once again awestruck with their close proximity, able to feel the roughness of Jeongguk’s skin under his hands and see the slight translucency up close. More than that, he now knew the full extent of their difference in size: Taehyung wasn’t a small man by any means, standing nearly six feet tall, and he’d been working out lately to add some bulk to his shoulders, yet he was barely comparable in size to the merman in height or mass. The heat that had been simmering beneath his skin soldered threateningly close to combustion, making the sudden plunge into the cooler water go completely unnoticed. 

   “Have you no sense of self-preservation?” Jeongguk asked mockingly, manhandling Taehyung to face him directly. He ducked his head into Taehyung’s neck, nosing into the crook of it to take another deep inhale of his scent — the scent of his blood, Taehyung realised belatedly. Jeongguk licked the spot he’d been nosing at, a low grunt sounding from the base of his throat (Taehyung could feel it), leaving the skin sticky with saliva. Then, very slowly, he grazed his teeth along the base of his neck, downwards towards the column of his throat and collarbones. Taehyung’s breath hitched, and then he held it entirely, scared that his breath would force the sharp points of Jeongguk’s teeth to pierce. The shark pressed a kiss at the very bottom of his throat, sheathing his teeth for the moment, where Taehyung took the chance to breathe out. “You wandered so willingly into my territory. I even let you go after allowing you to see me, even though that has no benefit to me. But you came back, alone again, unprotected. You’ve been letting me play with you, taste you. You’re not even deterred by how simply I could harm you — you even seem to like it. I have to wonder if this was not your plan the whole time, my prey.”

   Taehyung shook his head vehemently, his blond hair unsticking from his forehead and sending droplets of water flying in all directions. He muttered something about ‘my research’, earning yet another loud, barking laugh. 

   “Are you still under the impression that I’ll be letting you expose me to the world? I thought you were a smart one, pretty.” His teeth did nick at Taehyung’s neck this time, his tongue flattening against it immediately after to catch the tiny drop of blood before it could fall too far. Another sound thrummed in his throat, the pair of them jostling in the water where his tail had made a quick and sudden beat beneath the waves. Jeongguk all but wrenched himself away from Taehyung’s neck a few moments after his tongue had greedily massaged around the scrape, trying to coax more blood from it. One of his clawed hands tilted Taehyung’s head up by his chin so their eyes could meet. When he talked, it was with much strain. 

   “I will give you one final chance to leave, little one. If you have no interest in this, I will take you back to the beach and you can conduct the rest of your research far from this cove, far from me. If you do want this, tell me now. Make your decision wisely because there is very little that will keep me from your blood if you agree.” He studied Taehyung’s startled, wide-eyed expression. “But I promise I won’t hurt you in any way you won’t enjoy, beautiful. I thought you were interested in knowing how I breed, hm?” 

   It was so much to process all at once. It wasn’t as though Jeongguk had deceived him in any way; he’d been very obviously and graciously up front about what he was, wasting no time on pretenses about his nature. And though he’d claimed to have had that ‘change of heart’, Taehyung had been skeptical about any of his plans to document this particular part of the island coming to fruition. He worked in the field so he knew exactly the types of people his kind of research reached and affected — he knew that more people would be interested in Jeongguk in ways harmful to him, scientists who would do anything to experiment on him or otherwise kill him entirely to inspect his genetic markup. People would flood the island for a glimpse of the merman or the habitat he resided in, careless to the damage they’d do in the process. Jeongguk’s entire existence would be changed forever, polluted by watchful eyes and traps set to ensnare him for capture, and he would never again know the peace of the cove that Taehyung had felt instantaneously on his arrival. He would go down in history as the first ever mermaid captured — experimented on, studied with scrutiny, watched and tested like a wild animal, kept captive in a tank or a cage, exposed to the selfish human world who would pretend that this was necessary for development. The more he thought about it, the more Taehyung felt that the world was managing perfectly fine without the knowledge of Jeongguk’s existence. 

   Beyond all of that, his pretending that his interest this whole time, especially later into their encounter, was entirely scientific was laughable. He had the option now to turn his back on it and never find out further information that would exclusively for him, to never tend to the flames burning his insides and be left forever to wonder and yearn for whatever it was that drew him to Jeongguk so violently that he would even consider this at all. There was something irresistibly intriguing about giving himself up to what was, at its core, an apex predator. Discoveries, he reasoned, were not made without the potential threat of drowning or otherwise being cannibalised by a merman. 

   When he at last nodded his head, his cheeks burning a deep shade of crimson, Jeongguk shook his, which pushed his long hair back. There was an uncharacteristic seriousness in his expression, completely smothering the animalistic and hungry one from only minutes ago. Even the air of mischief had evaporated.

   “In words, pretty.” 

   He held Taehyung’s head steady to force him to look into his eyes. “I want to stay,” he said shakily, his voice wavering but determined in every word. He fought the lump in his throat so his hesitation didn’t read as unwillingness. “I want to— to find out.”

   “Aren’t you cute?”

   Several things happened in quick succession from there. Jeongguk’s expression melted back into one of smug contentedness, bordering on devious. Taehyung’s lower back was rammed into a rock with a dull, wet thud and the pained groan resulting from it was muffled by Jeongguk’s mouth crashing into his own. His teeth snagged against Taehyung’s lips but for the most part Taehyung remained unscathed, letting Jeongguk lead the kiss as to not move too unpredictably. Jeongguk’s tongue was soon pressing into his mouth, spreading the tangy, metallic taste of his own blood onto Taehyung’s tongue. In an effort to reiterate just how willing he was, since he still felt his affirmation had been weak, Taehyung chased Jeongguk’s tongue with his own, thick strings of saliva stretching between them and dripping down their chins in tinted pink hues where the various nicks on his lips had welled with blood. 

   This slight taste of his blood had Jeongguk giving a growl unlike any animal Taehyung had ever heard, marine or not. Even though he had been pressing so heavily into the kiss that Taehyung could feel the coolness of the rock against his nape, Jeongguk pulled away to dive right into his neck. He kissed and lapped at the skin messily before sinking his teeth into the tanned flesh, opening a wide wound that spilled with blood. Taehyung cried out in pain, both from the teeth lacerating the soft skin of his neck and the slosh of seawater that flooded into it thereafter, his hands clawing at Jeongguk’s shoulders; Jeongguk adjusted this position for this to press him more firmly into the rock, minimising the bobbing motion created by Taehyung treading water to instead hold him up by his thighs, each movement of his tail calculated to keep them both above water. 

   Once securely in place, Jeongguk closed his mouth completely around the bite, committed to finally having unrestrained access to Taehyung’s sweet, delectable blood. It would seem his spit had some kind of numbing quality to it, for after a few wet presses of his tongue, the agonising pain subsided significantly, letting Jeongguk enjoy every pulse of blood pouring onto his tongue with every heavy beat of Taehyung’s heart. He made no effort to be clean or quiet about it, groaning openly against Taehyung’s neck and missing some of the blood that trickled down his shoulder and collarbone, letting it blend into the water and tint it red. He made another much smaller bite nearby, just under Taehyung’s collar, treating it to the same treatment of his tongue. The angle was awkward considering he was working with the more vertical plane of Taehyung’s chest yet he still sealed his lips around the bite to suck the blood from it, yet another moan vibrating from his throat — his mouth, occupied as it was, curved with half of a smile when he heard and felt an equally rough, deep moan tumble from Taehyung’s pretty mouth. He remained there for a few seconds, relishing in the hot blood inundating his mouth, before he swallowed it thickly, feeling the warmth of it spread throughout his cold body as soon as it began to rush down his throat. 

   He could have spent hours there, gulping down full mouthfuls of Taehyung’s blood, more cloying than the watery, cold blood of any marine creature he’d hunted. However, the poor, sweet thing was already shaking, struggling to keep himself above water even with Jeongguk’s help. And hadn’t he been so pliant already, though he likely had no idea of the intensity he’d signed up for? Jeongguk had to exercise a small amount of care, else it would be all too easy to drain him of his blood and energy or become carried away and end up breaking his bones under the pressure of his grip if he indulged his mad thirst too liberally.

   “Good boy,” he rasped into his skin where he was in the process of pulling himself away, only giving into the impulse for a few quick strokes of his tongue. “You really do like the pain, don’t you? Do you like bleeding for me?” 

   There was an incredibly satisfying look in Taehyung’s eyes, sparkling and helpless and fringed with tears that clumped his long eyelashes together. More satisfying than that, his neck already looked a smattered mess of blood and wound, his golden skin punctured and streaked with trails of red that were now making wisps in the water after reaching the end of their journey down his heaving chest. There was no response for a moment, and Jeongguk fretted that he’d misread those little stutters and moans in Taehyung’s breath for something that wasn’t there. Then, Taehyung nodded, the beautiful rich brown of his eyes disappearing behind the lids while he inclined his head away, clearly somewhat embarrassed. How cute.

   Jeongguk lifted his hand to push the sandy hair away from Taehyung’s face, particular not to hurt him with his claws but instead scratch them lightly over the skin. He caressed Taehyung’s cheek this way, following down the curve of his body, over his shaking chest and soft stomach, flattening his palm against his crotch, where he found that Taehyung was unmistakably hard in the cute little shorts he was wearing, which were so soaked through that they clung tightly around his dick.

   “Oh,” Jeongguk teased, as though this was any kind of surprise. He dragged his nail over the shaft of it, not applying any pressure as to not hurt him. “You’re hard, sweet thing. We haven’t even done anything yet.” 

   A spark of defiance and defensiveness crossed Taehyung’s face, alerting Jeongguk to something he’d already suspected: Taehyung wasn’t going to be completely docile. He had some shred of bravery and fight in him waiting for the right moment to arise. Jeongguk liked this kind of challenge. The cute little furrow of his brows, the way he bit into his bloodied bottom lip and looked at him with those cute eyes dilated and expectant, was all too irresistible.

   “Well— are you not… hard, too?” Admittedly, Taehyung was slightly nervous for the answer. Up until then, he hadn’t even known if being hard was the correct response to the whole thing, whether Jeongguk’s questions about him staying and hurting him in ways he’d enjoy were somehow misinterpreted. Taehyung may not have even been completely surprised if he had misunderstood it all: who got hard while being mauled by someone who was half-shark? Could Jeongguk even get hard? Taehyung had presumed the species of shark he most closely resembled was a tiger shark, basing off of the many stripes littering his body and tail, and their mating involved penetration, he knew. Was it different for Jeongguk? 

   “I am,” Jeongguk replied simply, displaying his set of serrulate teeth with another wide smile. “Would you like to see?”

   Taehyung looked as though he hadn’t expected this as an answer, but nonetheless there was no mistaking the haste behind how he nodded his head.

   It took a few moments to situate himself comfortably to show Taehyung, hiking him further up the rock and balancing him there with his hand. He had to curl his tail forwards, where it naturally sat pointing downwards if not a little behind him. To best use this position to his advantage, he let the current push him towards the rock until he could press his tail against it for balance. Taehyung yelped as he let go of him, dropping only a little into the water before he came into contact with the solid, firm muscle of Jeongguk’s tail, forced to straddle it where Jeongguk’s knees may have been if he were human. Jeongguk leaned back until his hips were inclined upwards, positioning them in a way that brought their crotches close together. 

   When Taehyung looked down, it was to gasp loudly. On the front side of his tail and between the flat pelvic fins framing it were two huge, snaking cocks protruding from a slit side by side, deep grey in colour and curving upwards towards his navel. They were nearly entirely smooth and incredibly thick all the way through to the top, even where they narrowed inwards to form tips of no defined shape, curved as though there was an amount of flexibility in them. As he stared down at them, one twitched noticeably, the head brushing against his lower abdomen. 

   “There’s two,” Taehyung said dimly, which he felt was deserving of his degree being stripped from him alone for stating such incredibly obvious facts. He blamed it on the sheer amount of blood that had rushed downwards, filling out his own cock to full in his shorts, mildly uncomfortable due to the way the material was compressed by the water. 

   “Yes, pretty, there’s two,” Jeongguk hummed, a kind of mock patience in his tone that made Taehyung’s ears burn. “Isn’t that what you expected? You’ll be able to take them both, won’t you?”

   “Both?” Taehyung squeaked, disbelief contorting his face. “In-Inside me?”

   “Unless that’s not what you want.”

   “I do,” Taehyung blurted before he could stop himself, tone bordering on desperate, like the option was being pried from his unwilling hands. “But they’re — you’re — so big, they won’t fit.”

   “They’ll fit,” Jeongguk contradicted without much further explanation as to how. “We’ll make them fit, little one, don’t worry.”

   Taehyung moaned weakly, his legs squeezing around Jeongguk’s tail as his dick throbbed with the words. Jeongguk took notice of this, straightening himself somewhat. His hands found Taehyung’s small waist, lifting him enough to snap the button open on the front of his shorts with a flick of his sharp nail and shove them down his legs, no matter how roughly they dragged and stuck to his skin. With one hand wrapping around nearly the entirety of Taehyung’s thigh, Jeongguk made quick work of his underwear, too, wasting no time in baring Taehyung to him. It should have been mortifying to see how the merman cooed upon seeing his dick peeking out of the water, his eyes widening before filling with clear amusement and delight. 

   “Look at this pretty little thing,” he smirked, engulfing the entirety of it in his palm, closing his hand into a loose fist so the head was barely visible in the gap at the top when Taehyung’s hips made an involuntary push upwards. “You’re all smooth down here, Taehyung. Is this something you do often, sweet thing? Do you show people your cute cock and how you get so hard from nothing at all? I’ve definitely never met anyone like you.”

   Taehyung wasn’t sure if Jeongguk was just insanely perceptive and able to pick up on things before Taehyung had even known he was reacting to them or getting incredibly lucky with his guesses. Taehyung’s fascination with Jeongguk’s size was not missed, able to feel how his dick had pulsed at the mention of how cute and little it was. Thankfully, Jeongguk’s notice of this allowed him to grace Taehyung with his touch, the both of them watching how it struggled to reach above Jeongguk’s fingers curled around it, his hand completely covering it and providing something warm for Taehyung to rut into, the drag of skin-on-skin slightly uncomfortable without any lubricant but the water to ease it.

   “Look at you. Have you not had anything to fuck this cute cock into for a while, or are you just so desperate for any form of pleasure that anything will do?” he asked cruelly, squeezing his hand very gently around Taehyung’s cock, making his mouth drop open with a moan. He found a rhythm of gently moving his hand up and down over Taehyung’s cock, the smaller chasing the feel of Jeongguk’s rough skin on every downstroke while he watched how his dick became completely obscured in Jeongguk’s hold, over and over again. “I could tear you apart. I could ruin your fragile little body, tear the skin from your bones if I wanted to. And you’re hard. Isn’t that curious, prey?” 

   Gaining an idea from how little Taehyung’s cock did for filling his hand, Jeongguk adjusted their position once more until he could level his hips with Taehyung’s own. They knocked together a little awkwardly in the disturbed water before Jeongguk gave a nudge of his hips to slide both of his cocks against Taehyung’s, twice the size each and barely warm to touch, glistening with the water rolling off of them. Taehyung’s hips jumped needily, rubbing his cock against both of Jeongguk’s with a pitiful moan, frustrated by how the water restricted him from grinding against him entirely. “Do you see how small and useless your cock is right now? You couldn’t breed anything with this thing, could you, Taehyung?” When all Taehyung did was whimper, Jeongguk hoisted him higher up. “No, I think you’re supposed to be bred instead. A pretty thing like you is made to be taking as much cock as you can fit in your greedy holes.”

   Taehyung’s body came to a shuddering halt in its movement, for Jeongguk had released his cock and was instead gathering his legs in one hand, crowding him right up against the rock while he lifted them. He glanced down to see how Taehyung’s hole looked for him, equally as hairless and the same deep, pretty pink his cock was, twitching as it was exposed. 

   “Is that it, beautiful?” he asked gently without expecting much of an answer, running a long, clawed finger over the muscle, wetting it with the water. “Have you ever been bred good before? I could do it for you if you’ll let me. I can stretch you open on my cocks nice and slow, one at a time so you can feel exactly what you’ve been missing. It’ll be a tight fit, but I think we can manage, don’t you?” 

   This time, he waited for an answer. It took Taehyung several moments to realise this. “Y-Yes— yes, Jeongguk. They’ll fit.” 

   An amused exhale left Jeongguk at that, He growled something to the tone of ‘cute’, lifting Taehyung without hindrance onto the rock, which suddenly felt extremely cold against his scorching skin. Once again he lifted Taehyung’s legs, bending him nearly in half, until his ankles were level with his shoulders. He encouraged him to wrap his arms around his thighs here, exposing himself completely to Jeongguk. Naturally, Taehyung did so without so much as a second thought, spreading himself open right there to show Jeongguk his hole, noting how painfully empty it felt since the promise of being filled had been brought up.

   “Can you hold yourself like that?” Jeongguk asked him, waiting for his shy nod before releasing his hold on his legs, as much as the sight of Jeongguk towering over him, both ankles collected in just one of his palms had made the heat burn deliciously in his gut. “Good boy. I have to say, you’re the most obedient prey I’ve ever had.” When that scandaled look for defiance made its reappearance with a scoff, Jeongguk tilted his head and raised his eyebrow at Taehyung. “Don’t look at me like that. You cannot say it isn’t true when you’re presenting yourself to me this way. Or do you show yourself to everyone like this? I wouldn’t be surprised; it took nothing at all to get you to show off your little cock to me, your pretty hole. You’re so willing to give yourself up when I could so easily break you.” 

   “Please,” was what left Taehyung’s mouth next, a thick glob of precum rolling down his sensitive cockhead where it was squished against his belly. “Please — break me.”

   “You don’t know what you’re saying,” Jeongguk tutted fondly, splaying a hand over Taehyung’s ass to spread him wider, returning to stroke over his hole with one single finger in a repeated up and down motion. “I thought you would have had more dignity than this. Considering this is for your research and all.” He lowered himself down, kissing down Taehyung’s open thighs as he went, until he could press a kiss to Taehyung’s hole directly, making him jump. He whimpered, his legs tensing with the thought of Jeongguk eating him out with that long, eager tongue, his dangerous teeth so close to somewhere so intimate, imagining how deeply he could reach to make everything wet and messy and still make Taehyung feel full. 

   He got half of his wish in Jeongguk gathering saliva in his mouth, letting it collect into a thick string and cling to his lips until it became too heavy and it broke, landing with a wet smack against Taehyung’s hole, which clenched around nothing as he gasped. It was only seconds later that his mouth, still a mess of cuts and dried blood, parted with a stuttered gasp, for Jeongguk had at last pushed the very end of his finger beyond the first ring of muscle after massaging his own saliva into it to get it shining with spit. 

   “I know,” his voice had dropped to a sympathetic whisper, hissing similarly to the long since tuned-out rushing water. He flexed his finger just barely. “But we have to get you stretched for me to have any chance of breeding this hole. I don’t want this to tear you open, you’ll need to stay nice and tight to keep my cum inside and make sure it takes.”

   Taehyung had intended to reply with something more than the constant little gasps and moans that took occupancy in his throat, likely a question about what Jeongguk even meant by that, but it was lost the moment Jeongguk’s finger was plunged in to the second knuckle, then the third in quick succession. Jeongguk soothed the pain of the intrusion by kissing down his thigh, towards his hole, which he paused to lave over with his tongue. A second guttural growl vibrated from his throat, directly against Taehyung’s twitching hole, making him moan. But the sensation was gone as quickly as it had been there, the shark making a path with his tongue upwards, over Taehyung’s sensitive balls that sat tight and heavy to the base of his now steadily-leaking cock.

   “Trust me, pretty, I’d love to fuck you with my tongue. I can already imagine those sweet, choked sounds from you. I could reach much further than you’ve ever had in you, you know? But not now. Not today. I don’t trust myself to taste you that way without losing myself completely.” 

   Apparently, he could trust himself enough to return to spit over Taehyung’s sensitive hole as he worked a second, long and equally thick finger inside. There was the low squelch of his spit spilling from Taehyung’s hole as he withdrew his fingers to the tip and pushed them back inside quickly, stretching Taehyung’s walls with quick pumps of his fingers and occasionally spreading them wider, where he would watch how his spit would dribble into his hole, then, even feeding it into it directly from his mouth. 

   By the third finger, tears were burning behind Taehyung’s eyes. Jeongguk had to have noticed this because he attached his mouth to the base of Taehyung’s cock, flattening his tongue to the cleft of his balls. He was kind to be cautious with his teeth, using only his lips and tongue to suckle at the sensitive skin, each audible suck earning him a long moan that sang its approval. It took a few tries but finding Taehyung’s prostate was quick once he began searching for it, the rapid pumps of his fingers slowing into a small, circular grinding motion against the gland, pleased by the unfiltered keening sounds it elicited, along with the extremely endearing way that Taehyung’s back would push off of the rock with nowhere to go with how he was folded in on himself, leaving him to twitch and convulse with the pleasure wracking his body.

   Taehyung’s first orgasm took them both by surprise. He made the sweetest, longest mewl as he came, his interlocked fingers white with the effort to keep holding himself in position obediently throughout the duration. His cock jerked against his stomach, releasing long ribbons of cum that each lessened the tight knot that had built in his stomach, relieving him of some of the heat there. As he had cum with minimal touch to his cock, there was a slight strain to it that amplified the feeling, making it pulse pitifully several beats after the last of his cum had landed over his stomach.

   “Greedy,” Jeongguk hummed fondly, leaving his fingers pressed as deeply as they’d go to keep Taehyung grounded through his sudden orgasm. There was benevolence in the way he let Taehyung’s lungs cycle through some much-needed air before resuming fucking him with his fingers as though he hadn’t cum at all. “You came from having your hole fucked loose on my fingers? This little cock really is useless, huh? Do you think you’re ready for one of mine, little one? Can you tell me?”

   With the way Taehyung could barely hear anything over the dull thrumming in his head, he felt it was exceptionally cruel to ask him to form any kind of thought, much less have it cooperate enough with his mouth to speak it. When nothing left his mouth after several long seconds, a strangled yelp broke the silence, as Jeongguk had wrapped his hand around his cock and was stimulating the sensitive underside with a rubbing motion just underneath the flushed head. A few more drops of cum pushed out, dribbling down and wetting his thumb, but he merely used this as lubricant to keep stroking Taehyung’s cock into oversensitivity, ignorant to his pained whines.

   The haze in Taehyung’s mind cleared enough to recall what had been asked of him. Slowly, he raised his head from where it had been resting on the rocks, feeling all kinds of exposed — small — when he found Jeongguk was already staring at him unblinkingly, wolfishly, hungrily.

   “You– your cocks– want them inside…” he slurred dumbly over his words, his hips making an involuntary jerk upwards when Jeongguk’s thumb pressed to the slit of his cock, digging into it in a way that bordered on painful and enticed even more creamy cum to spill out, as much as he was quickly running out of it. Taehyung keened once more, his voice wet and spurred into continuing. “Please– hole’s so empty, need you inside, I can’t--” 

   Jeongguk took pity on him, but not without a particularly cruel squeeze to his spent cock before releasing it. Taehyung didn’t think his limbs would work well enough to support his own weight but that didn’t matter much, for Jeongguk lifted him effortlessly from the rock, situating his legs to wrap around his waist and his arms to grapple at his shoulders from behind. Taehyung moaned weakly as the heated head of one of Jeongguk’s cocks was guided to his hole, rubbing against it. Taehyung realised far too late that the shine he’d noticed coating the shafts earlier was not merely the residual water but a sticky, thick kind of substance. This natural lubricant made it so that there was an audibly wet squelch of the tip sliding into Taehyung’s hole, which prickled with the stretch of something wider than even three of Jeongguk’s fingers. 

   His hands clawed at Jeongguk’s shoulders as he was lowered onto his cock, slipping against the damp skin. Somewhere in the middle of Jeongguk’s back, between his shoulder blades, he found a deformed, bony ridge of what he could only assume was once a dorsal fin evolutionarily. For some reason, this made him groan, a reminder of Jeongguk’s status as something inhuman, like the strong tail and pair of cocks wasn’t enough. He curled his fingers around this malformation for balance, the breath squeezed from his lungs the further down he was brought onto Jeongguk’s cock. It reached so deeply inside of him, he swore he could feel it in his abdomen, stretching him so wide he knew the shape would be imprinted into him, impossible to forget or replicate. 

   “I knew you were made to take me,” Jeongguk rasped close to his ear, his teeth finding the cartilage and biting down on it. The water rushed around them as his tail sliced through it, propelling them backwards, removing the rock as an option for Taehyung to lean against. All he had now were Jeongguk’s hands covering an expanse of skin between his ass and hips, pressing into the flesh there and holding him down on his cock firmly. “I knew as soon as I saw you stumble your way into my home, so naïvely unaware of what you were walking into. You were too pretty to ignore, too sweet to resist. The easiest prey to ever lay itself in front of me for the taking.” 

   “T-Take me–” Taehyung hiccupped over a moan, voice cracking through his words. Jeongguk was lifting him slowly, shushing him as he did so, his cock sliding quickly from his hole, leaving it clenching around the remaining girth desperately. All at once, he released his hold to have gravity pull Taehyung back down on it, making them both groan.

   “Is this enough for you, sweet thing? A big, thick cock to fuck the thought out of you? How was I ever supposed to keep myself from having you?”

   But it wasn’t enough for Taehyung. Even seated fully upon one, feeling it pushing against his walls to fit inside, Taehyung was all too aware of the second of Jeongguk’s cocks, pressing against his ass, equally as substantial in size and girth, twitching each time Taehyung was brought down on the first. His hole fluttered and clenched desperately, like he could draw in it by this alone, whining when this didn’t accomplish anything beyond reminding him of how much more full he could be.

   “It’s not enough?” Jeongguk was fast to catch on, his laugh filling the air again, albeit with a slight breathlessness to it. “You really are curious, Taehyung. I hadn’t thought you to be a slut at first, but it seems you keep proving me wrong, no? Poor thing, you must never be satisfied. I bet you go stuffing that little cock into any hole you can but you want nothing more than something much better filling you up. There’s no way a pathetic man could satiate this greedy little hole — no, a sweet little thing like you is only meant to be prey to something like me, something that can fill this hole just the way you need, the way it’s supposed to be.” 

   He withdrew from Taehyung’s neck, easing him up until his cock had nearly slid from his hole entirely. The amusement clear on Jeongguk’s face would be annoying if Taehyung wasn’t so delirious and needy to have his hole full once again, as much as he wished to prove his cruel words wrong. He buried his face into Jeongguk’s neck, closing his mouth around the rough skin to muffle the filthy sob he gave when Jeongguk lined up the blunt head of his second cock to his hole, a mix of unabashed need and sensitivity. Before he could rethink the way this was going to go, if he could even take it, Jeongguk was easing both of his cocks in, slow and deliberate to let Taehyung both adjust naturally and feel every single inch press inside, slick and easy in how they dragged against his walls.

   Jeongguk pulled him back when he was halfway in, pushing the wet hair from his face once again and seemingly searching for some kind of sign that this was anything but pleasurable. When no such sign was found, he smirked, pushing his hips upwards to close the distance further, the dull stretch burning Taehyung inside out, splitting him open. The feeling of Jeongguk reaching his abdomen was more than something phantom this time and he looked down to see with a choked moan that Jeongguk’s cocks were leaving an imprint in his lower stomach, rising steadily as he sank. He felt dizzy, deranged, overheating and frantic, positive his vision blurred white when he was sheathed completely on both cocks, his ass meeting Jeongguk’s tail. He could feel the flex of it with each movement.

   “That’s it, squeeze nice and tight on them, let me open you up,” came Jeongguk’s drawl, more distant and distracted than he had been due to how snugly Taehyung’s hole was wrapping around the thickness of both of his cocks. His eyes followed Taehyung’s downwards, grunting at the sight he found, the human’s soft tummy bulging. It made something primal flash behind his eyes. “Look at that. Like you’ve been knocked up already. I think we can get you to swell much more than that with some pups in you. You’re so small, pretty, you’re going to look so full with all my cum filling you up.” 

   Before he could comprehend what was happening, a second heavy orgasm shocked Taehyung’s body in its entirety, his cock twitching repeatedly between them, spurting thick ropes of cum that splashed onto their stomachs and got picked up by the water, mixing into it. Tremors seized his entire being, writhing and thrashing uselessly against Jeongguk in an effort to expel any amount of the pain and pleasure mixing in his system, before he fell weightlessly against the merman, tears tumbling down his cheeks and legs squeezing pitifully around him like he was trying to close himself off from the oversensitivity. He had been taken by such surprise by this that he didn’t even have opportunity to dispute what was being said to him.

   “Poor thing,” the shark simpered, claws digging harshly into the fat of Taehyung’s ass. There was no movement but the water rocking them for a second, nudging Jeongguk’s cocks deeper into him, brushing against his prostate once after the next. Then, Jeongguk lifted Taehyung once more – at first, Taehyung griped, as much as he could in his delirium, not ready to lose the fullness and burning heat he felt post-orgasm. Instead of dropping him down and letting gravity do the work, Jeongguk yanked Taehyung down onto his cocks this instance, shoving the entirety of each monstrous cock into his swollen hole and laughing when Taehyung’s cries faded into oversensitive sobs. “You have no control of your body, do you, little one? You can’t help how much you need your slutty hole filled to the brim, how your body craves it more than you can understand. You’re all stretched out on my cocks and you’re still tight and clenching around me like you can’t stand the thought of being empty. Your pretty little cock is still hard because you have no control over it, do you? Pain and pleasure are the very same thing for you, it’s demented, beautiful. I haven’t even shown you what you wanted, and you’ve still soiled me with your cum twice now, all from this insatiable need to be full.” 

   He was, of course, right. Even now, with his limbs weighing him down and all the energy sucked from his body, Taehyung couldn’t bear the idea of Jeongguk pulling out when he was finally, finally, so full. But Jeongguk didn’t need him to be much more responsive than the squeeze he gave to his dorsal and the smallest dip of his head during what he assumed to be a pause to check on his wellbeing. 

   Right in the middle of the cove, in the dying light of the day, Jeongguk did the work of lifting and dropping Taehyung on his cocks, meeting him in a messy, open-mouthed kiss that renewed the flow of blood from Taehyung’s mouth, dripping down their chins. Taehyung moaned wet and brokenly, a fuzziness beginning to cloud his brain, only able to chase the pleasure Jeongguk was all to happy to provide in a mix of powerful thrusts and pulling him down against the current, abusing his prostate as there was simply no way to avoid it with how unfathomably full he was.

  “Fuck,” Jeongguk grunted at last, his composure seeming to waver, his previously steady thrusts growing sloppy. Taehyung’s hole was dripping with what little spit remained from being stretched open, the natural sticky lubricant provided by Jeongguk’s cocks, and traces of what he could only assume was some kind of equivalent to precum. “I’m going to breed you, do you know that, little one? I’m going to keep you here on my cocks – just like this – and pump you full of my cum over and over until it takes.”

   The pulse of arousal revitalised Taehyung somewhat, though still not enough to retrieve him from where he was mouthing at Jeongguk’s neck, right beneath his splayed gills, his tongue finding them with trepidation to feel how it made Jeongguk’s giant frame shudder. “It’s not – possible. I can’t– I can’t get pregnant–” he slurred, admittedly probably not entirely there in the moment. Biological restraints aside, his body couldn’t take that much; it would break him. 

   “Oh, you will,” Jeongguk promised simply in his gravelly voice, panting with exertion and forcing his hips to piston faster against Taehyung’s, likely bruising his tender golden skin with the force behind each thrust. “I’m going to fuck a litter into you. Would you like that, pretty?”

   Taehyung only wailed, painfully and rapidly approaching a third orgasm.

   “Answer me, beautiful. Are you going to let me knock you up? Be a good breeding bitch for me?” His thrusts became increasingly more intense jabs of his hips, the water around them rippling and crashing with the effort it took his lashing tail to keep them from sinking without losing pace.

   Taehyung’s third orgasm came then, grasping and twisting his body with the sensation without much actual cum at all, though his cock made the effort with its ceaseless pulsing, dribbling a pitiful amount of white over him. Taehyung would be gasping for air even without the water in his lungs, repeatedly nodding his head and affirming yes, yes, yes, that Jeongguk could knock him up, could get him pregnant, whatever he wanted, no matter the impossibilities. By now, Taehyung was really doubting such things as impossibilities at all. Rather, he would be, if he had the capacity of thinking. 

   They both shivered with the final few thrusts it took to get Jeongguk to cum, wherein he pushed in as deeply as he feasibly could and then some, nails scraping deep red valleys into the undersides of Taehyung’s thighs and ass, his teeth tearing into the skin of Taehyung’s neck. As if he hadn’t already been so, so full, Taehyung was subject to Jeongguk’s cum spilling into him, too quick for him to change his mind if he even wanted to. It was endless and violent, overwhelming his hole with the sticky substance, staining his insides, claiming him, all while Jeongguk held him steady, praising him for taking it so well, telling him how there was no chance the cum wouldn’t take and how he’d swell so beautifully with his pups. The resulting all-too-soon dry orgasm had Taehyung’s vision blurring and consciousness fleeting, slumping into Jeongguk because he had been right; he didn’t have control of his own body: Jeongguk did. 

   And though he’d made many mistakes over the course of the past few days, he had the distinct feeling that trusting the merman with his oversensitive, dead-weighted body, cum dripping steadily from his swollen hole, was not one of them.

   There was something in the water.

   It was holding Taehyung’s waist gently; lovingly. It was kissing his lips repeatedly and caressing his sore skin with open palms and soothing his bloodied wounds with a soft, wet tongue. 

   It was calling him pretty, beautiful, sweet thing, little one, and promising him he could rest for as long as he needed, that he’d ensure no harm would ever come to him as long as he resided in his arms.