swimming in your drowning deep - ajir, thusly - 如意芳霏 (2024)

Chapter 1: prelude

Chapter Text

There once was a young prince who wished he could be a fish.

He already had the makings of one: he was the best swimmer his age in the kingdom of Shengyuan, he had a tail that could rival the most beautiful of guppies, and he often preferred the company of fish to his fellow merfolk.

The fish didn’t have any expectations of him. They did not remind him every day that he was a descendant of the Zhong dynasty, which had been ruling the underwater kingdom for 500 years. The fish spent their days swimming, eating seaweed, and not mourning a mother they had lost at the tender age of ten. The fish probably couldn’t think at all, and, to Zhong Wumei, that sounded like they got a better deal.

There once was a different young prince who did not wish that he could be a fish, but who would’ve probably agreed with the first prince that they had a much nicer life than humans.

The fish weren’t cursed with bad luck. They did not have to fight wars, or train to fight wars, or get sent hundreds of li away from their families to possibly die in said wars. They could end up on someone’s dinner plate, yes, but such was the circle of life. Xu Jin, at the tender age of twelve, had many deep thoughts about humankind’s ordeal and he would’ve gladly traded places with the unthinking fish.

Alas, the second prince did not know the first one; this young, he didn’t even know there was such a thing as the merfolk kingdom, stretching far and wide underneath the ship that had once sealed his fate.

And the first prince didn’t know the second one; he didn’t even know humans could have thoughts as evolved as his own, forbidden as he was from ever interacting with them.

Neither of them knew they would one day stop envying the fish. The two of them were, in all honesty, never supposed to meet.

But fate could be as fickle as an ocean swell.

The events that led to this story were not a stack of shells: they could not be lined up neatly, one atop the other, with a perfectly lustrous scallop presiding over the rest. They were rather like sand, or seaweed. Tangled and numerous, nobody could count them except perhaps a fisherman with a tallying hobby.

The very beginning could be traced back to Shengyuan’s second ruling dynasty, when an altercation between merfolk and a crew of bandits led to an unfortunate scaling incident. The resultant decree was justified; it went without saying that the two species couldn’t walk foot to foot. Since then, the merfolk had avoided the humans, and the humans had forgotten the merfolk.

But many other things happened, after, to tangle the currents of time into allowing the present moment. Like Zhong Wumei’s early orphanhood, sentencing him to a childhood of a very particular strain of loneliness and a lifelong rebellious streak. Or Xu Jin’s early banishment, sentencing him to a decade of very dangerous servitude and a deep-seated hunger for trust.

One way or another, this very story started being written with a ship sailing north on a grey afternoon.

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

The ocean was rowdy that day, manifesting its animosity the closer Wumei swam to the ship. Thunderous waves but the sky was clear; Wumei didn’t care for the ocean’s opinion under usual circ*mstances, and he definitely didn’t care for its opinion when he had a goal—one that necessitated getting closer to the ship.

There was a man there.

Correction, there were many men there, way too many for Wumei’s liking since they kept obscuring his view. Of the one man that he wanted to see, standing at the bow of the ship, the most regal and beautiful human Wumei had ever seen.

He hadn’t seen many, that was true—he’d only developed an interest in human-watching that same week. But the man who caused the development was clearly remarkable. Out of all of them, only he made Wumei appreciate the perplexity that were legs: they made his lithe body stand tall, back straight, a tantalising curve beneath the obnoxious human clothes.

It was unfair that a man could be so beautiful. It was even more unfair that he was joined by one of the ugliest men Wumei had ever seen, whose mouth wouldn’t stop flapping. The poor beautiful man didn’t deserve such terrible company. He looked appropriately aggrieved. Wumei imagined all the things he could be saying to the beautiful man instead.

If I had legs, you’d sweep me off my feet. I got lungs and gills and you still took my breath away. You must be a good swimmer, because you’ve been swimming—

“Are you stupid?!”

Jiang Xuanyu was—thankfully—not criticising the quality of Wumei’s flirting; that was between him and the imaginary beautiful man he’d been carrying in his head for the better part of the week. Jiang Xuanyu had, however, learned about the crush in Wumei’s moment of weakness. He thought talking about crushes was a normal thing between friends—resolved past romantic feelings aside—but Jiang Xuanyu obviously drew the line at human crushes.

One possible explanation was that said past romantic feelings were not as resolved as Wumei had thought they were. Another, easier one, was to believe that Jiang Xuanyu—the nonconformist to dwarf all other nonconformists—was too chicken to associate with humans.

So, Wumei decided to blame it on good old xenophobia. “You’ve got to get over your fear of legs,” he turned, splashing Jiang Xuanyu’s face, “Look at him then tell me I’m stupid.”

Jiang Xuanyu did, blinking water out of his eyes. “You’re stupid,” he said, unconvinced.

“Some friend you are,” Wumei said and dove underwater. For dramatic effect only—the fish genes let Jiang Xuanyu scold him there just the same.

Wumei would end up dissected on some crazed physician’s table. His scales would get sewn into the human emperor’s robes as celebration of his bloodthirst. Worse, all merfolk would be in danger in the ensuing wide scale hunt, and yadda yadda Wumei’s dick would cause an apocalypse.

“Are you done?”

“You’re still swimming closer to the ship so—no, I’m not done!”

“You don’t have to follow me.” Wumei swung his tail in the merfolk equivalent of a shrug. He sped up, resurfacing to find himself close enough to the human man to see the exquisite bone structure—emphasised by the tight set of the man’s jaw, evidently fighting very hard not to throw his terrible companion overboard.

“Xiao Zhong Zhong!” Jiang Xuanyu hissed like a timid viperfish. He grabbed Wumei by the shoulder, shaking it. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

Wumei was trying to see what colour the beautiful man’s eyes were, as his first priority. There was also the matter of the fight he’d had with his brother, Emperor Zhong of the Great Underwater Empire of Shengyuan and the Seven Surrounding Seas. Arranged marriage was a subject too touchy for someone like Wumei, who detested being told what to do. And despite Wen Ruyu’s sterling reputation—she could swim gracefully like a jellyfish and had a perfect childbearing pelvis—Wumei would much rather marry a shark if it was of his own volition.

Or a beautiful human. Like the one who was standing on the ship above, his beautiful face looking beautifully conflicted and—staring right at Wumei.

sh*t.

Several things happened in quick succession: Wumei’s jaw dropping, the beautiful man’s eyes widening, his companion’s and Jiang Xuanyu’s shouts blending into one, and the ocean hammering against the hull of the ship with increasing strength. One moment, Wumei still thought this was just harmless gawking. The next, everyone on the ship was looking in his direction, brandishing an array of weapons that made him feel seasick.

Jiang Xuanyu grabbed him by the wrist and pulled.

“This is a ship, not a cradle! Are you all asleep?” the ugly man yelled, storming towards his crew. “Get them! Now!”

Between his shrill voice and his crew’s aim, the former was more vicious. The arrows got swallowed by the waves, the lone cannonball giving a boost to their escape. Despite Jiang Xuanyu’s grip, it was Wumei leading the way; he wasn’t known as the best swimmer in Shengyuan for splashing about.

“Stop the charge! We don’t want to kill them!”

A voice cut through the commotion. It gave Wumei pause. Deep but melodic, with an authoritative gravity that hinted it could only belong to one person. Even his voice was beautiful—and dangerous. Wumei’s hesitation, a single look behind his shoulder to see if he was right, was enough for a net to wrap around him from above, trapping him in a heap of trashing fins and arms.

“Get them both! Whose orders are you under?”

“Have you gone mad?”

The voices above him weakened as the waves grew more vicious, breaking against the ship in their own attack. Wumei didn’t care for the ocean’s opinion, but sometimes, the ocean cared for his; it never ended well.

Jiang Xuanyu swam a few paces before realising he was swimming alone. At once, he turned to tear at the net from the outside, doing a poor job of masking his fear. Wumei’s own fear came secondary. There was discomfort, and then anger, and it grew as he saw an arrow graze Jiang Xuanyu’s shoulder and his blood curled around Wumei’s own arms like another snare.

His heartbeat sped up, his tail started thrumming, and though he knew the signals all too well, this was the first time in Wumei’s life that he welcomed the sensation. The stretch in his limbs, the tightness in his jaw as his form morphed into something that went beyond him: anger personified, a creature from deep below the sea that turned the water into a vortex and summoned thunder and lightning like they were on its permanent call.

Zhong Wumei was born a prince, a merman, and a monster. Never had he accepted that with such ease.

He yielded to it, letting the instincts take over. The net was torn, the ship was swinging wildly in the waves. Jiang Xuanyu was screaming at him, the ugly man was screaming at him, and the beautiful man was screaming at the ugly man who shoved a knife into the beautiful man’s stomach and caused him to fall into the ocean. The rain beat down on Wumei’s face and an arrow grazed his tail and once the monster took over, Wumei couldn’t see anything else.

Chapter 3

Chapter Text

The Wumei from a few hours ago would’ve been overjoyed to find that the beautiful man looked even more beautiful from up close. Unfortunately, the Wumei now could only focus on his stab wound.

“You’re not dying here,” he grumbled, the man’s stomach gushing blood the entire time Wumei carried him along the waves. He was the first thing Wumei saw when he woke from his episode—the only thing, amid some junk. The ship was nowhere to be seen. Jiang Xuanyu was gone.

“You can’t die,” Wumei repeated, hauling the man towards the closest island. “I need your help.”

It was tiny but ideal for what Wumei needed: a place in the middle of nowhere, mostly flat, with a cave and a freshwater lake. He could hide a human there. He could save the human there.

And he did. Hopefully.

He lay spread-eagle on the sand inside the cave, the wound on his stomach covered with improvised bandages made of his own trousers, a handful of reeds holding them in place. The cloth hid Wumei’s rough needlework; he had never needed to darn clothes, and merfolk were not big into embroidery. Not that Wumei was much good at weaving or stone-carving either. That was besides the point since the beautiful human man was still breathing under Wumei as he inspected his face, the scars that stretched down his chest, and—most curious of all—his two long legs, splayed so that only his feet were touching the water.

They were… odd.

Wumei had to take the man’s shoes off in order to tear up the trousers, and was shocked by what he found. An array of hidden weapons, first, but those were easy to steal and confiscate. The feet took longer to evaluate: resembling hands, somewhat deformed, objectively grotesque. Wumei found them tolerable since they belonged to the beautiful man. They stretched into his strong calves and even stronger thighs, Wumei’s own hands hovering as he reminded himself this was not an interactive lesson on human anatomy. The reminder spoke in Xiao Jing’s voice, which made him think of Jiang Xuanyu.

“sh*t, sh*t, sh*t.”

In the wake of the disaster, Wumei thought he did alright. Having patched the man up, he’d gained a valuable bargaining chip. Jiang Xuanyu was alive—the captors wanted him alive. Or the beautiful man had wanted him alive, and Wumei wasn’t sure how worthwhile he’d be as a hostage if the ugly man had been so eager to throw him overboard. But whoever he was, the man lying underneath him remained Wumei’s best chance of figuring out Jiang Xuanyu’s whereabouts. That, and he really wasn’t tough on the eyes, now that he was no longer in the process of becoming a corpse bled dry.

His complexion was still pale but starting to turn warmer in the cheeks. A few strands of his bound hair—it looked as long as Wumei’s—had come loose, stuck to the side of his face. Wumei was reaching out to brush them off, a simple courtesy, when the beautiful man’s eyes opened. Wumei froze.

Just like his voice had caused Wumei’s brain to break and let himself get caught, the man’s eyes seemed to have a similar power. Though they were still, half-lidded as he regained his consciousness, they worked like a spell—a vortex drawing Wumei in with a force that made him shiver.

He jolted and pushed himself back up, reaching up for the sharp seashell he’d prepared to hold under the man’s throat as he extracted information. He couldn’t do that, Wumei knew already, but he still stretched his hand out in a defensive stroke and pushed the man down by the shoulder.

“Who—”

The man was blinking slowly. Despite the injury, Wumei could tell there was some unspent strength in his body, his muscles taut. He wasn’t moving. He looked from Wumei’s face, downwards, and then recognition dawned in his eyes as he let out a pained breath. “It’s you.”

Wumei held his tongue, flashing the shell in the glint of the morning sun.

He could understand the man just fine, but he refused to give that up so quickly. Humans—like merfolk—were more likely to share their secrets if they didn’t realise they were doing it. And this human was unlikely to know that, in addition to anatomy, Wumei’d had private lessons on the abhorrent thing that was the human speech.

“What happened?”

The human speech didn’t sound quite as terrible in the beautiful man’s voice. Wumei’s grimace didn’t budge. He shot the shell a pointed look, then aimed it at the man’s bandaged midriff. Following his gaze, the man drew in a breath. His hand lifted towards the wound and Wumei smacked it down against the sand, almost hissing.

“Did you do that?” The man didn’t sound accusatory. His tone grew more confident as he continued speaking: “You did. You saved me in the storm, when Xu Mao stabbed me.” Wumei almost had time to grin with some smugness. Almost. “You caused the storm.”

And you wanted to kill us, Wumei bit down. Just barely.

Instead, he gave an angry huff, dropped the shell, and turned to swim off. Letting the beautiful man think he’d leave him stranded and injured on a deserted island—that would teach him. Several tail-strides from the shore, Wumei mentally smacked himself. So much for pretending not to understand.

When he returned to the cave, the man was sleeping again. Wumei was glad for it. He set up a fire, roasted a fish over it, and even brought a bunch of coconuts—not easy to get, Wumei had to bribe a seagull to help him. It was all so that the human man could heal faster, Wumei kept telling himself, but something about the human man watching Wumei take care of him left a sour taste in his mouth. It was the man’s own shipmates who had abducted Wumei’s best friend. Jiang Xuanyu was in danger, fin knows where, while Wumei was tending to a human man’s water intake. He was wasting time.

As if he could read Wumei’s mind—humans couldn’t do that, Wumei knew—the beautiful man clutched at Wumei’s wrist the next time he gained consciousness. His face was drawn, eyes severe, like he was waking up from a nightmare.

“Don’t go after your friend,” he said, urgently, making Wumei do a double take. He freed his wrist but the human kept staring at him. “They’ll be expecting you. Xu Mao is probably counting on luring you in.”

Wumei wanted to snort. Like he couldn’t hold his own against a bunch of humans, like he would let himself get trapped so easily, like he—

“I will help you,” the man said, and Wumei pursed his lips.

He couldn’t swim off to save Jiang Xuanyu on his own, no matter how tempting the prospect sounded. Facing off against the ugly man would be a swim in the gulf compared to Zhong Shili’s moral posturing, but his brother was the Emperor. He could provide reinforcements. Stop Wumei from summoning another storm.

Maybe he already knew.

The thought didn’t make Wumei feel any better, so he just shifted to retrieve one of the coconuts, deposited it by the man’s shoulder—as threateningly as he could manage—and retreated to sulk outside the cave.

Chapter 4

Chapter by thusly

Chapter Text

The beautiful man’s name was Xu Jin, and he was almost as stubborn as Wumei himself.

Less than a day since the incident that had left him washed away, wounded, a hostage of an intimidating merman, and he was already trying to sit up. Worse, returning to his cave spot with a fresh catch of fish, Wumei saw him crawling on the sand like a graceful snail. No man laid on his back with a badly sewn-up hole in his stomach had any business looking so graceful. Wumei threw a fish at him to signal his arrival, and Xu Jin actually caught it before it could hit his thigh.

“Raw fish for breakfast?” he had the guts to joke, and Wumei didn’t react with a glare like he wanted to, still hoping he could somehow play the part of a monolingual sea creature.

“Thank you,” Xu Jin amended, while Wumei demonstratively gnawed on his own fish. There was the campfire near Xu Jin’s resting spot—well, his previous resting spot, seeing as he’d crawled away from it—and Wumei would reignite it in good time. Once Xu Jin worked for it and started crawling back. “Not for the fish.”

Maybe he wouldn’t reignite it after all.

“For saving me after we attacked you.”

Wumei felt a piercing pain in his chest and his stomach swooped. He set the half-eaten fish down.

“I am sorry.” Xu Jin’s voice seemed to travel to him from inside a whole different cave, separated by several layers of rocky walls. Before Wumei could scoff and wow Xu Jin with a clever nonverbal retort, his serious gaze pinned Wumei back to reality. “We were not meant to attack you. We were definitely not going to kill you.”

Wumei scoffed then, despite the sparkling eyes still trained on him. Sincere, beautiful, apologetic—none of that mattered when Xu Jin’s crewmates decidedly had murder on their agenda and Wumei could only hope against hope that Jiang Xuanyu could wait for him a little longer. He really had to speak to Zhong Shili and—

“I know that you don’t trust me—”

Wumei bit his lip, just short of an affirmative.

“—but Xu Mao was not acting on official orders. Here’s your proof of that.” Xu Jin pointed at his stomach. As if his murder attempt proved anything but that the other man—Xu Mao—was someone who couldn’t appreciate true beauty.

“I promise I will speak to the Emperor on your behalf. As soon as possible.”

Much good that would do, if Jiang Xuanyu was already dead. Wumei shook his head to clear away the intrusive thought. Shook it again so he would blur the sight of Xu Jin’s concerned face.

Though Xu Jin wasn’t too preoccupied with his injuries, treating the stab wound like it was a coral scratch, no man could heal from it fast enough to be addressing an Emperor within a week or less. If—and it was a big if—the Emperor would even be willing to hear him out, Xu Jin couldn’t crawl to him. He couldn’t swim to him. Each passing hour was already a gamble.

Angry at himself for approaching the ship in the first place, and angry at Xu Jin’s offensive sincerity, Wumei slashed the sea with his tail and watched Xu Jin’s face get sprayed with salty water.

“Hey!”

Wumei swam away, making it almost ten whole tail-strides before he felt guilty about getting Xu Jin’s bandages wet. He would not redress the wound now that Xu Jin was conscious; if Xu Jin could drag his limp body around on his elbows, he could take care of it himself. It had already felt inappropriate, stripping the beautiful human when he was just a barely breathing sack of meat and lean muscle. Knocking Xu Jin out with a rock was also out of the question; because Wumei didn’t want to bruise his pretty face, among other other more rational reasons.

The bandages would dry up by the fire, Wumei concluded, and so he returned to reignite it, roasted an unlucky swordfish over it, and only then swam off with another menacing slash of his tail. A safe distance away from the bandages and Xu Jin’s infuriating… everything.

Chapter 5

Chapter Text

Xu Jin didn’t talk a lot.

Compared to Wumei’s blabbermouth friends, he was a downright mute. That made it all the more difficult to ignore his calculated asides and curious questions, trying to lure Wumei into an illusion of a budding friendship.

They were not a scholar’s questions—probing merfolk anthropology or their cultural differences—nor were they the awkward small talk of a nervous man left at the mercy of an enemy. Where Wumei expected ‘How come you can breathe in and out of water?’ he got ‘Why did you come so close to the ship that day?’, and where the Xu Jin in his head annoyed him with ‘Isn’t it weird, eating fish?’, the real one posed a far bigger challenge with ‘Are you really going to tend to me until I’m healed?’

Imaginary Wumei shot him down with a stern no, the real one only shifted his gaze and contemplated whether introducing himself as a brother of the merfolk kingdom’s ruler counted as a threat.

Xu Jin was smart.

A frankly foul injustice, given that he was already beautiful and strong and looking impossibly not-funny as he dragged himself out of the cave and onto the beach while Wumei hissed non-verbal warnings at him. It should’ve looked pathetic—he couldn’t bend in the waist, for shark’s sake—but the only one Wumei felt pity for was himself, watching Xu Jin free his hair to wash it in the afternoon sunshine.

“You’re not a doctor,” Xu Jin said, casually, as he wrung his hair out. It sent droplets sliding down his wrists, wetting the dirty undershirt he’d (regrettably) started wearing again. “And you’re definitely not a cook.” Wumei frowned at his teasing tone. “A soldier?” Xu Jin tried, and whatever muscle twitched on Wumei’s face, it made him shake his head. “Something else then. Maybe you’re a prince.”

A shot in the dark, but Xu Jin’s face lit up with the dawning realisation. “You are a prince?”

Wumei dived into the shallow water by the beach, scratching his hip on the pebbles. It was too late. Xu Jin got his answer and he found a way to communicate with Wumei without the latter needing to say a single human word: it was enough for Xu Jin to keep guessing at his thoughts, and Wumei’s face would betray him no matter how hard he wanted to fashion it into an emotionless mask.

“Your father is the king—” Xu Jin would say, later, and correct himself upon some sign Wumei couldn’t identify. “Your mother?” Before he could explode, Xu Jin rushed on. “Your brother, I see.”

“How old are you? Twenty?” Wumei didn’t bother stifling his offended grimace; as if he was a child! “Twenty-five? We’re almost the same age.”

“Does your brother know you’re here?” It was the worst possible time for Xu Jin to ask.

Before sunset, Wumei couldn’t pretend that the bandages were clean anymore. He’d found a piece of cloth floating on the waves a few tail-strides away from the island, dried it, and threw it unceremoniously at Xu Jin with a pointed glance at his abdomen. Just as Xu Jin took his shirt off and attempted to unwind the previous bandage,Wumei clicked his tongue and batted his hands away. It brought him disconcertingly close to Xu Jin. So close that reading his face was even easier than before.

“He must be looking for you.”

Without a doubt.

Zhong Shili must’ve heard about the attack; there were few creatures more gossipy than seahorses, and if Wumei wasn’t around to bribe them, they wouldn’t hesitate tattling. Truly, Wumei feared to imagine what his brother was currently up to. Gathering intel? Scrounging the seas? Preparing for war?

It was idiotic to keep hiding from him, but facing him would end terribly. Wumei would have to get married to Wen Ruyu, there would be no leeway. Jin Chen, his brother’s favourite sibling—they weren’t even related—would probably convince Zhong Shili that Wumei had to be the one to move to his new wife’s home. He’d rarely see his friends.

But then…

“I apologise for what happened, on behalf of Dayu,” Xu Jin said, making Wumei jolt backwards. Xu Jin’s hand caught his wrist. “My father sent us on the mission to explore, not attack. We were coming in peace.”

And ended up shooting arrows and cannonballs into the ocean like the savages that humans were. Wumei jerked again and Xu Jin let his wrist go. Instead of retreating, Wumei resolved to ignore any part of him that wasn’t the rust coloured bandage he was removing.

“I don’t blame you for not believing me.”

Xu Jin’s skin was warm beneath his touch, but not scarily so. Not inflamed, the wound glistened an angry shade of red in the setting sun but the stitches held. Xu Jin drew in a low breath when Wumei pulled at one side of the gash, softly.

“But I need to stop Xu Mao’s plan before either side escalates,” Xu Jin kept talking, voice quieter but no less insistent. “Find your friend before—”

Cleaning the wound with saltwater, Wumei expected some perverse satisfaction as the pain stole Xu Jin’s words away. Instead, he immediately felt a stab of guilt. He dabbed the water off and reached for the new bandage. “Before it’s too late.”

It wasn’t anything he hadn’t imagined before: Jiang Xuanyu speared on Dayu’s imperial swords, his best friend strung out to dry in the sun like a common tilapia. If Wumei tightened the cloth a little less gently than he intended, it was only fair. “And how do you intend to do that?”

The words fell out of him, easily, and he only realised in the ensuing silence. Panicked, he gazed up to see Xu Jin looking at him with such a stupid smile it made his breath catch.

Ridiculous.

“I’m Xu Jin,” he said. Did he think Wumei was stupid on top of being easily manipulated by his handsome face? “Prince Su, the fourth prince of Dayu.”

“You…” Wumei’s mouth fell open. Now, he didn’t know what to say. He was stupid.

Nothing but that smile in response. Wumei realised he’d let his hand rest over Xu Jin’s hip bone; Xu Jin was looking at it.

Wumei snatched it back, trying to put on the air of a gratified kidnapper. “I’m Zhong Wumei,” he said, making himself sound like a fool with a crush. Good grief.

“Wait, don’t swim off—”

Too late, Wumei already swam towards the waves, back turned to Xu Jin’s slouching form. Naturally, he needed to stay away longer this time—to demonstrate his point. The best swimmer in all of Shengyuan, he swam enough laps around the little island that the waves whirled into the air like a temporary fountain. It was dark by the time he surfaced, his head still heavy with thoughts.

It wasn’t wrong to hold a beautiful wounded prince captive on a deserted island, it just wasn’t right either. Wumei felt justified doing it under the guise of revenge. He’d never taken a hostage, but he could bargain his fins off at Shengjing’s blackwater markets; he would patch Xu Jin up, lure him into a false sense of comfort, then threaten his life in an ostentatious live theatre for Dayu’s richest and most powerful—and Xu Jin was a prince, what were the odds!

But, with Wumei’s game being up, talking became too easy. And the more they talked, the more impossible that plan became. Because either Xu Jin was the most convincing evil schemer acting to f*ck Wumei over, or he was—well, a decent person.

“I won’t swim away, you know,” he said, when Wumei brought him another fish to eat and proceeded to watch guard until there was nothing but the bones. Wumei’s eyes were drooping. “You should sleep.”

“I’m not tired,” Wumei lied, and then nudged his elbows closer, deciding to prove it. “What do you remember, exactly? From the—storm?”

Xu Jin looked at him for a while, silent, like he was evaluating what kind of answer Wumei wanted. “The storm destroyed the main mast. A few men fell overboard.”

He skipped over Xu Mao opening fire, over Wumei getting trapped in the net. He seemed to read Wumei well, which in turn made Wumei uneasy. “How did they get Lao—my friend?”

“They used him as a shield,” Xu Jin said, smartly side-stepping Wumei’s true question. The monster had no friends. It wouldn’t have hesitated to throw Jiang Xuanyu to the crocs in its rage—just like it shouldn’t have let the ship go. The monster only listened to its base instincts, thriving on Wumei’s fear of thunder, defying his own desires to—

“He must’ve said something to you, before they took him. It made the storm stop.”

Wumei blinked. He’d had many disastrous episodes when the rage in him boiled over. They were out of his control. Words couldn’t make him stop.

But Xu Jin didn’t look like he was making it up, and Wumei thought he could also read him pretty well by now. He shook his head, deflating: “I think I am too tired.”

“You should sleep,” Xu Jin repeated. He dug the tip of his boot where the fishbones lay in a pile. “Thanks for the food.”

“I don’t have to bring you any if you don’t want—”

“No, I mean it!” Xu Jin cut him off, just a tinge amused. “You’re acting far nicer than I would be, if I were in your shoes.”

“I don’t wear shoes.”

Xu Jin’s smile bloomed into a proper laugh, making his cheeks round. His eyes turned into crescents and when they widened again, the fire reflected something almost fond-like. The sight was staggering. Wumei must’ve been really very tired, because stupid handsome Xu Jin should've stopped looking handsome the moment his men attacked a pair of friendly mermen.

He stifled a groan at his own idiocy, making it look like—he’d had ample practice—it was Xu Jin’s idiocy bringing him to the puff of annoyance. He waded deeper into the sea, leaving the island behind, intending to find a warm current to sleep in.

He almost yelped when something touched his tail.

“Thank oceans! I was starting to think you drowned!”

Chapter 6

Chapter Text

Lin Luojing swung at him with her tail, mostly for show. Her voice dripped with exasperation. Her face spelled relief.

“Xiao Jing?”

“Not injured, not amnesiac, and yet… What were you thinking? Disappearing without a word? After what happened?”

Wumei looked to his right, unintentionally: Xu Jin appeared to be resting on the beach, facing away from the sea. With his back turned like that, Wumei’s mind flashed with questions of whether he was inviting an attack. Before he realised, Lin Luojing was now looking in the same direction, her mouth opening into an O big enough to catch a school of sprats.

“Oh my god, is that—”

Wumei pulled her down under, the stream of her words dissolving into bubbles before she caught her breath. “Don’t yell.”

“What do you mean, don’t yell?”

“Keep your voice normal,” he clarified.

“No thank you, there is nothing normal about this!” Despite her fighting words, there was little anger to Lin Luojing’s demeanour. Curiosity was dwarfing it, and Wumei knew that the only thing keeping her from approaching the man on the shore was the sheer shock of having found him there. “Who is he? What—was he on the ship? Is he the missing prince? Wumei, did you abduct Prince Su?”

It was Wumei’s turn to reel at the speed of her revelations, while Lin Luojing’s confusion morphed into glee. She clapped her hands, an unshakeable habit that had no underwater function, and her powder-pink tail fluttered excitedly. “You did, didn’t you? And you’ll trade him for Jiang-ge! That’s a great plan—could’ve shared it, you know, but great nevertheless. How did—”

She really could speak ten strokes a second, and Wumei couldn’t swipe at her in annoyance. But he also couldn’t let his fondness manifest in a smile. “Where is Lao Jiang?”

“You don’t know?” Xiao Jing squinted.

“How would I?”

“Is your prince withholding information?” She co*cked her head. “Just wait, I’ll threaten to tie his pretty head to an anchor and that’ll get his tongue swimming in no time.”

“He’s injured.” Wrong thing to say. Though it stopped Xiao Jing in her tracks, already shifting towards the island, her mouth immediately stretched into an O big enough it could house a small octopus. “No! No way!”

“He got stabbed.”

“It’s him! The prince you’ve been sneaking off to—” She kicked off with an excited upwards flick, and though Wumei was the fastest swimmer in Shengyuan, he still had trouble chasing Lin Luojing when curiosity caught her fins in a flush. By the time he surfaced, she was already hovering over Xu Jin like he was a part of the Precious Stones Exhibit at the Imperial Museum.

Injured, Xu Jin could’ve fought her off with a single kick. Instead he let his arms fall by his head, a universal gesture of capitulation that made Wumei’s heart clench. As the distance between Lin Luojing’s intent eyes and Xu Jin’s tense face got smaller, Wumei knocked her sideways, clicking his tongue. “I thought staring was rude,” he said in merfolk speech.

She rubbed at her arm with false affront, her response understandable to Xu Jin too. “You’re one to talk, your highness.”

“I just fixed him up,” Wumei pointed at the wrap around Xu Jin’s middle, “don’t ruin my handiwork.”

“Oh, your handiwork, is it? I can’t believe it’s him. So long I’ve been waiting to see him and this is how—”

“Shut it!”

Xu Jin kept his arms where they were but he shifted his head from side to side, following their back and forth. Too bad, Wumei wouldn’t let this conversation continue. He couldn’t believe he had to be the rational one in the situation; he, who had been acting irrationally since the very start of this shipwreck.

“This is my friend, Lin Luojing,” he said as a quick aside—Xu Jin nodding and fixing his gaze somewhere around Xiao Jing’s forehead—and then he turned to said friend. “Where is Jiang Xuanyu? Has brother found him? Is he okay?”

Lin Luojing’s smile soured.

He was alive.

Okay was not an applicable term, since Jiang Xuanyu was being kept hostage to Dayu’s least capable, most cunning princely brethren.

“Nobody actually managed to see where he is right now,” Lin Luojing said, “we just got word from—uh, the intelligence services.” Fish, in other words. Though Wumei had felt a lot of kinship with the lot when he was young, they were not his preferred source of information. Lin Luojing went on: “They’re keeping him in a cave near the capital. Very small. There’s barely any water and he’s chained like a—like a—” A sob cut her off, her words turning to a whisper. “But they haven’t tortured him.”

Yet, Wumei wanted to spit out but he hesitated at the sight of Lin Luojing’s tears. Xu Jin beat him to speaking, still addressing Lin Luojing’s hairline: “I’m afraid my brother isn’t known for his patience.” After a breath, he added: “Or wit.”

Lin Luojing scowled at him. “Are you saying Jiang Xuanyu is in danger?”

“Of course he is.”

She turned scowl at Wumei. “I don’t know if I like your prince, actually.”

Xu Jin ignored the comment. “But since you got away—” he also looked at Wumei “—he can’t really do anything to your friend.”

“What do you mean?” Wumei snarled.

“I thought the reason Xu Mao wanted to go on this mission was to ingratiate himself with the Emperor. He’s always wanted authority, but now I see it’s worse than that. He wants to be seen as a saviour,” Xu Jin paused, like he was waiting for his words to slot into the appropriate place. “What do you think my father will do, hearing I got killed by mermen?”

“You didn’t!”

“The Emperor doesn’t know that,” Xu Jin’s voice was bitter but calm, “and if Xu Mao tells him that’s what happened, why wouldn’t he believe it?”

“So you’re saying your brother wants to incite war,” Wumei said, with none of the same calmness.

“I think my brother wants to incite war so that he can stop it. And, luckily or not, your friend is too good of a symbol for him to kill.”

Symbol, the word echoed in Wumei’s mind, turning more and more cynical. Xu Jin’s cryptic psychoanalysis held no guarantees for them, he could just as well be part of his brother’s plan. A stabbing could be staged. A prince could be sacrificed. “Are you saying he’ll force Jiang Xuanyu to follow his orders?” he asked, expression pinched.

“No, I don’t think—”

“Jiang Xuanyu is not a coward! Whatever your brother tries to beat out of him, he won’t break.”

“I’m not suggesting that,” Xu Jin said. In the face of Wumei and Lin Luojing’s joint outrage, he remained composed.

“Then what are you suggesting?” Lin Luojing asked.

“That there’s a problem with his plan and he doesn’t know it yet.”

Wumei met his gaze, blinked, and the sudden understanding made his tail twitch. “You didn’t die.”

“I didn’t die.”

Xu Jin’s quiet smile had no right to make Wumei feel like he’d solved a problem nobody else could—the problem remained and his anxiety grew. But Wumei’s distrust also grew weaker with each hour of the sleepless night they spent coming up with a plan. Doubtful, first, as to how the plan could ever benefit Xu Jin—Wumei’s hostage—he’d brushed the concern off with an easy: “Whatever Xu Mao wants is the exact opposite of what my kingdom needs.” A lie, perhaps, or an obfuscation; there were other things Wumei learned about the human prince in the course of the night that ebbed at his suspicions.

Number one, Xu Jin was a soldier. He grew up away from the court—though he kept the reasons to himself—and served most of his life in his father’s army. He came back on the man’s orders, to consider a marriage—this had Wumei clawing an elbow-deep pit into the sand—which he rejected and got saddled with a reconnaissance mission instead.

“Rumours of mythical creatures,” Xu Jin said, and shared a look with Wumei that seemed almost conspiratory, “who lure fishermen out to sea and steal people’s children.” He didn’t believe that, Wumei could tell, but still hesitated at Xu Jin’s ensuing: “Obviously, you don’t do that. You just abduct foreign princes and—”

“Hey!”

“—mend their wounds for leisure.”

Lin Luojing turned her nose up as he spoke, cackling. “Oh, it’s like that.”

Wumei ignored her. She didn’t have many reasons to laugh, he wanted to scold. When it came to their rescue plans, there was a lot that hinged upon trusting Xu Jin completely. Wumei worried he needed someone else to be impartial.

“My brother enjoys having power. That’s why he’ll keep your friend around, for the Emperor to remember he was the one who captured the enemy.” When Wumei opened his mouth to object, Xu Jin sped up: “He’s likely using my own men to guard the cave. Exploiting their loyalty. Xu Mao will love having them serve him when he was the one who killed me.”

That was the longest string of sentences Wumei had heard from Xu Jin in one go. Until the next moment, when he started explaining how getting a message to his men would mean getting a message to his father, and the logistics thereof. They required transferring Jiang Xuanyu under their direct guard, outside of Xu Mao’s control. Reassuring the Emperor that Xu Jin was simply fulfilling his mission, a cultural exchange with friendly merfolk who had definitely not tried to kill him.

“And when I speak to him in person, I’ll explain what happened that day,” Xu Jin said, and Wumei knew this was unwise. “And that you were not the ones who meant us harm.”

“What if you don’t?” Wumei said, a final attempt, channelling his most intimidating self. The one that would hold a sharpened seashell to Prince Su’s neck, the one he’d lost somewhere the first time he felt Xu Jin’s chest undulate under his palm. “What if you betray us, your highness?”

“War breaks out,” Xu Jin said, no-nonsense. “A war neither of us stands to benefit from.”

Wumei closed his eyes: it was the only way he could think, if even for a second. Surely, Xu Jin’s reasoning was foul, or naive, and it would lead them all into a storm greater than Wumei could summon. Xu Jin didn’t want the message to include details of the storm, fearing that—without him present—Xu Mao could wrangle his way out of the accusation. He claimed that returning—fully healed—would inspire even more gratitude towards the merfolk. He promised he would help—and Wumei wanted to believe it—but what good was a stranger’s promise?

When Wumei opened his eyes, he saw Lin Luojing looking at him with quiet determination, and Xu Jin, his beautiful face pale in the moonlight, still wearing that stupid hint of a smile.

“If this fails—” Wumei said slowly “—I will stab you right where your brother had.”

Xu Jin nodded. “Deal.”

He extended his palm out, like he was letting a flying fish land on it. Wumei’s brows furrowed. Lin Luojing cleared her throat, covering her lips as she muttered: “Handshake.”

Oh, right. Humans did that.

Wumei gingerly put his hand into Xu Jin’s and watched his lips curl into a real smile. He swung their hands up and down, twice, then held Wumei’s fingers for a moment longer before letting go.

It struck Wumei as an absurdly intimate gesture for something as simple as agreement; but there would likely be no other humans whose hands he’d have to shake, and if this was the only thing he would ever get from Prince Su, Wumei supposed it wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

His heart agreed, drumming madly against his ribcage.

Chapter 7

Chapter Text

They all slept on the beach that night; Xu Jin by another campfire they’d set up, Wumei and Lin Luojing further down in the shallows.

“Do you think he’s telling the truth?” Wumei asked, on his back and facing the stars.

“I do,” Lin Luojing said. “We’ve got no real way of snatching Jiang-ge from the cave ourselves. You’d have to be sardine-sized to get anywhere near.”

The image of transforming himself into a tiny metallic fish almost made Wumei laugh; when he changed form, it worked the opposite way. He became bigger, angrier, out of control. Perhaps that would be a—

“Don’t even think about that,” Lin Luojing snapped, as if she could hear his thoughts.

“What, did Lao Jiang teach you to read minds?”

She didn’t rise to the bait. “You’re not using your powers like that, Wumei. It’s dangerous.”

“Exactly.”

“No.” Lin Luojing, not budging, shuffled onto her elbow to pin Wumei down against the sand with her stare. “It’s already bad. I’m not losing you both.”

What could Wumei say to that? He refocused on the cloudy sky, failing to see the constellations.

Astronomy was curiously popular with merfolk, and Wumei could never make any sense of it. It was more practical to observe the sea—its temperature, tides and currents, wind waves and drifts—than the unchanging canvas above. A regal and elevating pursuit, Wumei’s brother used to say, but Wumei thought astronomy was just an unacknowledged attempt at human mimicry. How hypocritical.

Wumei shuddered at the memory of Zhong Shili; talking to him would be an important part of their plan to preserve peace but Wumei would be on his own for the task. He should’ve warned them. Zhong Shili was unlikely to believe him—and they needed him to believe Wumei’s lies.

“I see why you were so obsessed with him, you know.”

Xiao Jing’s teasing tone made Wumei squeeze his eyes shut, to avoid the smirk she was no doubt aiming at him. “Shut up.”

“Very handsome. Very polite. A little awkward, but him being a prince makes up for that,” she tallied, while Wumei’s mind conjured up images of Xu Jin being handsome, polite, and endearingly awkward. “I wish the circ*mstances were nicer, but you should definitely spread your net and—” Xiao Jing coughed, stopping herself at the turn of phrase. Without looking at her, Wumei could practically see her mind scrambling to take it back. “I mean, you should get to know him better. Now you’ve got the chance.”

Wumei scoffed before he turned on his side, facing away from her. “Goodnight, Xiao Jing.”

“I don’t—you—” Her frustration bore holes into Wumei’s back but she refrained from jostling his shoulder. “Goodnight.”

Xiao Jing soon started snoring, a sound like rocks breaking the ocean surface. It wasn’t Wumei’s first time hearing it but he still got caught off guard, bidding goodbye to the idea of his own sleep. Not that he was counting on it. There were far too many scenarios playing on his closed eyelids, and very little static.

Xu Jin was a stupid crush to entertain, something Wumei had only allowed himself because of its impossibility. The beautiful man on the ship was supposed to be just that—a human-shaped personification of Wumei’s rebellion, someone he could sigh and moon over. He couldn’t be more; because Xu Jin was a hostage-cum-political conspirator and there was a Wen Ruyu waiting for Wumei to come back to start their wedding preparations. And Xu Jin was human. A creature that could barely swim, had two legs to run off on, and a whole other world Wumei had no access to.

He was also struggling to sleep.

Wumei could see him tossing and turning and then giving up, sitting by the fire. Maybe regretting all the schemes he’d helped them weave. Maybe weaving more. Wumei suppressed the urge to go join him and commiserate about the plight of the sleepless.

By dawn, Wumei had barely slept, Xu Jin hadn’t fared much better, and they didn’t talk about it. Xiao Jing took one look at them and left to find breakfast.

“Fish,” she announced proudly, presenting her catch to Xu Jin. Wumei rolled his eyes. He’s from an enemy kingdom, he didn’t say. Not even when Xiao Jing swung her arms with a flourish, beaming: “And crayfish.”

Trying to score good points from the beautiful human, her care didn’t extend to peeling them. There was no point to battle with the prep, most merfolk just ate them whole. Like Wumei, who now spent ages trying to clean a single specimen. Xu Jin looked ready to laugh as he watched him struggle. Wumei felt ready to throw the crayfish at his face—maybe scarring it would break the enchantment Wumei’d been put under.

“You took my knife,” Xu Jin said instead of laughing.

“Of course, you were a hostage.” Wumei snapped a whole crayfish head off by accident. “Are.”

Xu Jin nodded, his amusem*nt aimed at the poor disfigured creature in Wumei’s hands. “I could’ve helped.”

Wumei snorted. As if he was taking his chance, arming Xu Jin up against them. As if he had not already taken his chance, trusting Xu Jin’s rescue plan. Mad at himself, past and present, he stabbed his finger on a claw and threw the crayfish into the sand, retreating to snatch the knife he had hidden under a rock on the other side of the island—with Xu Jin’s other things.

It was unfair how swiftly Xu Jin’s fingers worked once he got his knife back.

A soldier, he was supposed to be agile in a way whales were, overwhelming in sheer size and strength like all the merfolk soldiers guarding Shengjing. But Xu Jin’s hands were deft, and soon Lin Luojing settled next to Wumei with a charmed smile that mirrored his own. Wumei immediately made his face stony.

“These are so much better than raw.” Xiao Jing muffled a satisfied moan once they started eating. “Why do we even eat them raw? It’s heaven and hell.”

“That would be because of the whole underwater situation,” Wumei said, guarded with his own appreciation of the food. “Sea and fire don’t mix.”

Xiao Jing swung her tail at him. “And who made this fire? Not the injured man, that’s for sure.”

“Desperate times, desperate measures.”

“You don’t have to worry about me,” Xu Jin said. He was eating the least of them. Wumei threw another crayfish at him, offended by his lack of self-preservation. All those hard-sewn stitches, all the hair he’d probably lose from stress. “I can take care of it. Start to—”

“What, walk? Even I have higher chances of doing that.”

Xu Jin swallowed something down with the grilled meat. Grimacing, he looked the most annoyed Wumei had seen him. The grumpiness made his features look somehow softer, which was even more ridiculous. Wumei had seen him on the ship. Xu Jin—beautiful, wounded, harmless—was a dangerous man.

“I’ll see you there,” Lin Luojing said, once they finished eating and she was getting ready to leave. “For moral support.”

They’d agreed that she would return to Shengjing first, to start spreading the rumours Wumei would come to confirm. No abductions, no attacks. Though some fish had finked on that early—Jin Chen himself pursuing the lead, Lin Luojing claimed—Wumei would use his terrible reputation to his advantage.

“My brother is more likely to believe I lied about getting a human hostage,” Wumei had explained to Xu Jin, bluntly, “than believe I actually found a human hostage.”

The rumours they wanted to present as truth—that Wumei had swum away with Jiang Xuanyu, the two of them planning to elope to save Wumei from his arranged marriage—would be far more to Zhong Shili’s tastes.

Xu Jin had been quiet, listening to their scheming. Arranged in a half-reclining half-sitting position against a boulder, legs extended into the sea, he seemed almost disapproving. Like he had any right to judge! Wumei already felt terrible about Jiang Xuanyu. Unfortunately, however, acknowledging Jiang Xuanyu’s past and resolved romantic feelings was the surest way to convince his brother Wumei was not in fact harbouring a human criminal on an island. Rumours were best fought with rumours. Jiang Xuanyu would understand, as would Zhong Shili. Later.

“I’ll see you there,” Wumei said to Lin Luojing, in the same voice he would promise not to eat fish for breakfast again. Lin Luojing didn’t call him out on it.

“Prince Su,” she turned to Xu Jin, attempting a threatening frown but softening at once, “make sure to heal fast, we’ll need you. And don’t do anything stupid.”

Xu Jin’s face jumped but his offence was fleeting. He shook his head. “Of course.”

Lin Luojing nodded hers. Then she made an ostentatious water pirouette and dove into the ocean, disappearing with one last water-hurling wave.

Wumei cleared his throat. Just two of them again, he felt there was more tension in the air now than there had been before Xiao Jing’s arrival. Maybe it was the crayfish that didn’t agree with his stomach. Maybe he needed to go for a swim. There was no good reason for his insides to flip when Xu Jin looked at him with a smile, tilting his jaw at the spot where Xiao Jing’s pink tail swirled its swan song.

“I like your friend,” he said, light, making the flips inside Wumei turn into something nauseating. “She seems to know a lot about us—humans.”

She had tried to show off all morning, Wumei acknowledged with a scoff. ‘Etiquette of polite dining,’ she spoke with her teeth clenched when Wumei spit out a piece of crayfish shell. ‘Something flew into my eye,’ she claimed when Xu Jin asked if there was something wrong with her, Xiao Jing’s eyes misty as he admitted his military past.

“She used to be human,” Wumei said with a shrug that had no hopes of appearing careless.

“Pardon?”

“Got turned into a mermaid.” He repeated it, convinced the more he shrugged, the more believable it would be. “She used to be a princess in some far off kingdom. Got caught in a bad storm and someone saved her by turning her. Don’t ask me for details.”

Xu Jin didn’t, though it was clear he was dying to. “Did she teach you the language?” he asked instead.

“She helped.” The more he shrugged, the more Wumei was starting to get an itch in his side. He forced himself to stop.

“That was nice of her.”

“Ha?”

“To teach you,” Xu Jin said, eyes jumping to where he was playing with a flat rock, polished to perfection.

Ugh. Wumei snatched it from his hand and rose on his arms, pushing himself off the shore. “She’s got three boyfriends already,” he said, avoiding Xu Jin’s face. He didn’t want to see his disappointment, thank you very much. Wumei’s stomach had already given him enough warning signs. “Don’t think she’s looking for another one.”

“Oh. That’s not—”

Once submerged in the cool water, Wumei didn’t hear what Xu Jin had to say. He needed to cool his head in a cold current somewhere. A strong one that could wash all these stupid thoughts away.

Chapter 8

Chapter Text

He could search far and wide, there was no current ice-cold enough to clear Wumei’s frazzled mind.

It was one thing to deal with the overwhelming guilt of leaving his best friend at the mercy of a human who must’ve been a long-lost relative of a giant cymothoid isopod. Another to be incurring the wrath of his brother, Emperor Zhong of the Great Underwater Empire of Shengyuan and the Seven Surrounding Seas. And yet another, swimming back to face him.

“It went okay,” Wumei told Xu Jin after his return.

Either he was really convincing (no), or Xu Jin could read the truth of his face and was empathetic enough not to comment (yes).

Zhong Shili was relieved to see him for about the time it took an orca to swallow a pea puffer. “This is disgraceful!” he pronounced, even before Wumei had a chance to deny the rumours of a human attack. “What are you expecting me to say?” he asked, once Wumei got the information through.

His brother fell for the plot. Easily.

Since the idea came from Wumei himself and depended on Zhong Shili’s low opinion of him, it shouldn’t have stung. Since Zhong Shili was the one trying to push him into unhappy matrimony, the fake rebellious comeback should’ve pleased Wumei. But he bolted the first chance he got: leaving behind his brother (so angry he wasn’t even looking at Wumei), Jin Chen (successfully flipping him off on the way out, human-style), and even poor Zhang Ji, his bodyguard (who could never match Wumei’s speed, bless his scales).

“You think he’ll come looking for you?” Xu Jin asked, after giving Wumei some space to calm down, swimming off his excess energy.

“He will try.” Wumei shrugged. “But as long as we stay here and pay off the seahorses…”

They’d earned limited time.

It was limited from the very start, and yet, Wumei used it to moon over Xu Jin and coddle him like a child when the man could very well crawl on his own. He would use it, further, to follow Xu Jin’s ridiculous plan. Could it really keep Jiang Xuanyu safe? It would’ve been much easier, requiting his previously unresolved romantic feelings and eloping to hide from Wen Ruyu. No humans in the equation, no attacks, no Xu Jin watching him thoughtfully from across the fire.

“I don’t want to mislead you,” he spoke when he saw Wumei looking back, “this plan is far from infallible.”

Wumei’s eyes narrowed. “Why are you saying that now?”

“To reassure you.”

“You’re doing the opposite.”

“I suppose.” Xu Jin laughed at that, a muted self-deprecating chuckle. “What I’m trying to say is, I trust my men. They are very capable. As long as my message gets to them, they’ll do everything in their power to make sure your friend is safe.”

“I sure hope so,” Wumei said, scowling back into the fire, unblinking, until his eyes started blurring. That was all there was to it. Xu Jin didn’t think so.

“I saw him trying to save you,” he said, with an awkward edge to his voice, like he was expecting Wumei to shoot his words down. “He seems like a great friend.”

“He is.” Wumei wanted to leave it at that. No explanation necessary, tales of Jiang Xuanyu’s good deeds and constant support should not be required for him to deserve saving. “We grew up together,” he said anyway, and then the words just kept flowing.

He told Xu Jin about the time Jiang Xuanyu and him tried to build an underwater tunnel at age seven. The trouble they got into, after they went for a swim and got so lost they had to bribe a pair of turtles to lead them back. How they met a mermaid with the strangest accent—Xiao Jing—who’d infiltrated the Royal Aquatics Troupe to get into the palace.

“She was completely off-beat the whole performance,” Wumei said, recalling it with a reluctant smile. “Lao Jiang saved her by claiming it was a comedy skit.”

He kept expecting Xu Jin to interrupt him, to ask questions. Why did they need the tunnel when, combined, they had more toys than half the kingdom? How did the turtles know the way? What do merfolk aquatics look like? It would be fair for him to ask, too; if Xu Jin was feigning his trip was one of cultural exchange, the more he could tell his father about the merfolk, the more believable it would be.

But Xu Jin didn’t ask anything.

“I hope to meet him under better circ*mstances,” he said, and the sincerity was too much for Wumei to bear. He faked a few yawns—merfolk never yawned—and then went to fake sleep. It only came before dawn.

Regardless, the next few days were not too terrible.

Xu Jin was healing well. So well, in fact, that he’d started standing up—a little longer each time—leaning on a giant tree branch that Wumei originally intended to throw into the fire. He still had that ugly wound, even if Wumei was no longer permitted to see it. Xu Jin had started washing himself in the cave, alone. Which was for the best. But the pain of standing up must’ve been equal to the pain of a midsize shark gnawing on Wumei’s tail—which had happened once, and he still had nightmares occasionally—and Xu Jin persisted. He even started walking.

His legs alone were a cause for crisis. Because Wumei found them strangely attractive, yes, but also because each time he saw the muscles twitch in Xu Jin’s shapely calves, he was reminded of how much they had swimming on a human.

Xiao Jing returned to bring news of their manufactured rumours (spreading well), other organic rumours (Wumei had died and the merman visiting Shengjing was just a decoy, among others), and a bunch of filched human items (for Xu Jin’s comfort).

“This is not how you treat a hostage,” Wumei said when she whipped up a woven blanket, mostly to be contrary.

“It’s how you treat a foreign delegate,” Xiao Jing said, and continued showing off other snatched treasures.

There was also ink and parchment, and they sent off a letter penned by Xu Jin himself, along with the royal seal Wumei had taken from him with his weapons and coin pouch.

“I thought I’d lost this,” Xu Jin said, weighing the jade seal in his hand. No angry fit about having it stolen in the first place, no questions as to where—and why—Wumei had kept it. He let Xiao Jing read the letter out loud; it was addressed to some Wu Baiqi, except Xu Jin had referred to him as Xiao Bai, which had Wumei crunching his teeth like there was sand stuck between them. Xu Jin misread his irritation: “I can teach you some of the basics if you want.”

“I don’t see the point,” Wumei said.

But Xiao Jing, being the traitor that she was, left them with enough parchment and ink that his defences crumbled easily. A literacy exchange would sweeten the eventual truce proceedings. And Xu Jin was a good teacher.

“Wumei… What does your name mean?” he asked one evening, idly, watching Wumei trace the characters of a short poem he’d written.

“No sleep.” The answer tumbled out of Wumei far too quickly. His finger twitched at the realisation, and then again, at the sight of Xu Jin’s bewilderment.

“Why would your parents call you that?”

“Why wouldn’t they?” Wumei paused, turning the last character into a big inkblot. “It’s a poetic name.”

“It is… very unique.” Xu Jin nodded diplomatically. He didn’t linger on his confusion, smoothing out a new piece of parchment across a rock, holding it close to the fire. “This is how we’d write it,” he said, wetting the brush to write the elegant strokes of two characters. He made it look so easy. Still, comparing them to the previous poem, Wumei could see that his name had been written more carefully. His name, how silly.

He took the parchment, cautious not to smudge the ink. His stomach did that stupid thing it had taken to doing lately. Maybe he had a bug. “How do you write yours?” he asked.

Xu Jin hesitated, about to reach for a fresh sheet, but Wumei returned the one he was holding. Less than three blinks and there was another pair of characters underneath, the brushstrokes more hurried, like Xu Jin had written them thousands of times before. Because he had.

“What does yours mean?” Wumei asked, forgetting himself and dabbing the tip of his index finger in the black.

“Honourable. Xu is the family name. Most people call me Prince Su.”

“Noted, Prince Su.” Wumei rolled his eyes, wiping the dark smudge on the sand.

“No, don’t.” He paused, but Xu Jin wasn’t even looking at his scouring attempts. “Call me that.”

Wumei raised an eyebrow. Prince Su, the name did sound too prim. It reminded him of all the people calling him Prince Yuanzheng, when admonishing him for not behaving like a prince should. Xu Jin’s insistence, however, had Wumei wanting to swim in the opposite direction just to be stubborn.

“Now, now, Prince Su. Teach me this,” he pointed at his own name again, thankfully dry, “so I can sign my name when the peace talks start.”

And Xu Jin did.

Wumei leant over the parchment, copying the strokes with a frown from the effort, and Xu Jin guided his hand when he went in the wrong direction, and patiently showed him more words to learn, and half the night passed like that, with neither of them bothering to feign sleep, and neither struggling once they finally invited it in.

Chapter 9

Chapter Text

It was an absurd idea, a merman learning to write with ink that would get washed off the moment he returned to his native territory. A skill Wumei would never use, they had inkgrams down there for convenience. A waste of time.

But then he would explain to Xu Jin how the merfolk used carvings instead, and even teach him some basic symbols. And Xu Jin would talk to him about human architecture and marine ropework and a myriad other boring things that he somehow made sound interesting. And with each—the flimsy excuse of cross-culture education waning, genuine fascination growing—Wumei would get more troubled.

“I don’t know why I even bothered with you!”

Wumei was yelling, elbows dug into the pebbly shallows, watching as Xu Jin traipsed around the beach—without the giant branch. From his vantage point, Wumei could stare at his annoying legs and even more annoying backside, which was a good thing. He could also glare and shout to no avail, Xu Jin chuckling as he continued to stretch his limits, hacking a coconut off a tree and moving ever further inland towards the jungle, where Wumei’s words couldn't reach him anymore.

“Fine, go! Reopen your wound, get attacked by snakes, fall into a ditch somewhere, see if I—”

His complaints went down his throat. Literally, as Wumei was forced to swallow a splash of salty water, a wave he’d failed to anticipate picking his body up and depositing him on the shore like he weighed no more than a piece of litter. He found himself staring at the sun, groaning. When he lifted his head, the distance from the water made his groans resemble a whale’s mating call.

“Why do I even bother?” he repeated under his breath, flipping himself onto his stomach.

His crawling, Wumei had it on good authority—his, but also Jiang Xuanyu’s, who’d been there to see Wumei drunk off coconut liquor for the first time—looked nothing like that of a graceful snail. A dying pufferfish, if his expression was to be taken into account, or a struggling eel, if his long tail was the main focus. Either way, it was nothing he wanted Xu Jin to witness on a good day. And today was already not a good day.

“Could’ve been betting on turtle racing. Hanging out in the Entertainment Caves,” he muttered. Wumei always found turtle racing tedious and there was no way he’d go to the Caves without Jiang Xuanyu. He shook his head. “Could’ve been sleeping. Somewhere comfortable and quiet and—hey!”

A flailing fish looked no better than a crawling fish, but flailing, at least, Wumei could throw some punches. He tried to, aiming at Xu Jin’s jugular, but Xu Jin held him firmly. He lifted Wumei up in his arms like he was the weight of an air bubble, carrying him like there was no gash in danger of reopening on his lower abdomen.

“Put me down!”

“I’m helping you.”

“I can do it myself!”

“I’m sure you can,” Xu Jin said. Without a hint of sarcasm, the horror, he had the gall to smile at Wumei’s frown.

He’d cultivated that frown so carefully. So arduously. Wumei wanted to trash a little more in protest but… Xu Jin did just start walking without a stick and one of them needed to be rational. Wumei closed his eyes, holding his breath. He relaxed. “You’re so stupid, Prince Su.”

Xu Jin just chuckled.

It was unnerving, being able to feel the sound. It was just a chest, for shark’s sake, he’d seen a lifetime worth of them. Even Xu Jin’s, before human modesty won over his ailment. Wumei had even touched it, there was no reason for his heart to beat so fast. When he felt his own arms break out in gooseflesh, Wumei opened his eyes and immediately shut them again with a groan. No way. This couldn’t be happening…

“Your tail…”

They were near the water now, Wumei could hear Xu Jin’s legs splashing with each step. Xu Jin’s surprise should’ve made his anger rise. Instead, Wumei knew he was changing colour all over—his f*cking tail lighting up like a traitor, his skin turning pink from shoulders to ears. At long last, Xu Jin lowered him into the lapping waves, getting his own sleeves wet in the process. Not swimming off like a rational merman would, Wumei stayed in place, opening his eyes to find Xu Jin looking at his tail with a disarming smile.

“It gets that way,” Wumei said, voice unnervingly high, “when I am annoyed.”

“Ah. This is the first time you’re annoyed with me.” Xu Jin nodded. “I see.”

He did not look like he saw anything except the green shimmer that still dotted Wumei’s tail, a fluorescent wave of light as Wumei set his tail moving. He rather wished the water was more muddy. Or that his heart stopped beating so wildly.

“Stop staring,” Wumei said, trying to convey the threat of hitting Xu Jin with his tail if he didn’t do so. He must’ve failed; Xu Jin lowered his eyes but continued smiling while Wumei’s tail continued twinkling turquoise.

He splashed Xu Jin in the face, stole a glance at his stomach—not bleeding or looking otherwise compromised—and dived away. Betrayed by his own body again, it was getting old.

Perhaps Wumei should’ve been grateful, a colourful tail was less concerning than the form he truly took when angered. That was a monster, a creature out of his control. This, in comparison, was cause for nothing but schoolboy embarrassment. He’d seen tails light up for less. He had his tail light up for less, in the early onset of puberty, when algae brushing near his nether regions was enough to make him feel like an overgrown anglerfish, attracting not prey but the stares of everyone around.

It hadn’t happened in years.

Wumei thought he’d grown mature enough for it not to be a concern anymore. He’d had crushes that didn’t make his tail light up. He’d become the person who made fun of others flaunting their sentiments so obviously. More out of envy than real indignation, but, really, now was the worst time to be prodding his own insecurities. He still looked like he got attacked by glow-in-the-dark plankton.

Xu Jin could never find out what it meant, Wumei resolved, and continued to sulk underwater until the last of the sun's embers dimmed above the water surface.

Xu Jin didn’t mention the tail when he returned, thank oceans.

He waved at Wumei from the coastline, announced he’d made dinner, and pouted something terrible when Wumei lied about having eaten already. Upon allowing he could eat some more, Wumei was presented with things he’d never seen, much less tasted before. A mash of something purple, charred bananas with coconut milk that Xu Jin had made himself, and rabbit meat, all served on banana leaves.

“Trying to poison me?” Wumei said, after a taste of the meat made him queasy. He was halfway through his food at that point, and his question was but a facetious jab.

“Yes, I never want to leave this island,” Xu Jin said, and shook his head in the same breath. “Sorry, I would’ve just made fish if I knew—”

“Next time.”

It shouldn’t have been so easy to promise a next time, and Wumei shouldn’t have touched the food. But he finished it—all but the rabbit—and lounged in the shallows for hours, talking to Xu Jin about all the ways merfolk society was superior to humans, hanging on Xu Jin’s explanations of how a compass worked and descriptions of something he called tea.

“You’re amazingly calm about all of this,” Wumei said at some point, sizing Xu Jin up. “One would think you’re on a holiday.”

Xu Jin chuckled. “I sort of am.”

“You’re trapped on an island with a hostile merman.”

Wumei’s exaggerated frown only made him smile wider. “Scary as you are,” Xu Jin said, mock-frowning in response, “this is the first time in a long while that I can just—be.”

Be myself, Wumei filled in and nodded emphatically. He supposed human princes had it similar—dealing with court politics and gossip, fielding questions and accusations and everyone’s presupposed ideas of what they should stand for. We’re not that different, he wanted to say. He couldn’t find a way to say it without sounding like a teenager copying the interests of his crush.

“...been afraid of coming back, to be honest.” Xu Jin was still talking, and Wumei proverbially slapped himself. “I prefer this.”

“Sorry?”

“I know it sounds ungrateful.” Xu Jin shifted his eyes away. “But I haven’t lived there for years. I grew up at the border. Different rules apply there.”

Slowly catching up to the meaning of his words, Wumei’s gills worked as he drew in a breath the wrong way. “How old were you?” He cleared his throat. “When you got sent to the border.”

“Twelve.”

“Why?”

He’d grown used to Xu Jin’s laughter. The hollowness of it, now, chilled Wumei with how odd it was. “I’ve brought Dayu some bad luck,” Xu Jin said, slowly, like he was testing his voice. It held, and he continued. “Just before I was sent away, I accompanied the Empress on her travels. We were on a ship heading north when we hit something—a reef, they later said. Everyone died.”

Though he spoke with practised detachment, Xu Jin’s hands shook as he put them on his knees, balling them into fists. Wumei was stuck for a reply that didn’t sound cheap. “Except you,” he said at last and cursed himself immediately.

“Except me.” Xu Jin nodded. “They didn’t need a jinx at court, everyone was up in arms about it. So my father sent me away. He was protecting me.”

He made it sound like he believed it. Wumei just barely held back a snort. “By making you a soldier?”

“Father gave me a chance to prove myself.” Xu Jin unfolded his hands again, studying them briefly in the moonlight. “I did, so he let me come back. And now I’m here.”

“Sorry.”

“No. Like I said”—Xu Jin smiled again, the biggest smile Wumei had seen him wear and one that made his heart skip three beats at the very least—“I prefer this.”

Saying goodnight, Xu Jin patted his tail before retreating to his sleeping spot. It lit up like fireworks—which Wumei had seen before, but never under such a name—and Xu Jin grinned, looking far too pleased.

Wumei was too stunned to even splash him.

Chapter 10

Chapter Text

The next day, Xiao Jing stopped by—bringing with her the latest news from Shengyuan, a fish dispatch from Dayu, and a heavy human suitcase.

“Your brother is big mad,” she said offhandedly, chewing on some of the coconut-banana mash Xu Jin had whipped up for her on the fly. Wumei refused to eat any of it to make a point. What point, he wasn’t entirely sure, but it grew heavier in his gut the more he saw Xu Jin smiling at Xiao Jing.

“Your man sends this,” she said, even more offhandedly, fishing a clamshell out of a waist pocket—an invention she made Jiang Xuanyu popularise all across Shengyuan—and opening it to reveal a rolled up letter. The fact that Xu Jin’s man was now in on the plan and expediting the next stage made Wumei feel relieved. The fact that Xiao Jing kept calling him Xu Jin’s man made Wumei feel like he was getting closer to recognising what his point was.

“My arms almost fell off,” Xiao Jing said, looking at the suitcase and flexing her biceps to make her point.

Full of parchment, ink, and even some short books, Xiao Jing claimed the delivery was essential for Wumei’s literacy. Padded in several pairs of trousers and robes, she described these as essential for Xu Jin’s comfort. Once they saw him try a light blue set—tight across the chest, sleeves so short Xu Jin elected to roll them up to his elbows, and trousers clinging to him like a second skin—Xiao Jing giggled and leant closer to Wumei. “Essential for your viewing pleasure.”

Xiao Jing didn’t join Wumei when he tried to get her on his side, to scold Xu Jin for neglecting his convalescence. For that, Wumei refused to say proper goodbye to her, and Xiao Jing exchanged a few warm words with Xu Jin that made Wumei’s previously unidentifiable point very clear: he was jealous.

(He knew this already.)

One time, when Wumei snapped at Xiao Jing because she kept asking him questions about his dead mother, he was told that his emotional intelligence was below that of a common fish. Later, Xiao Jing clarified what she really meant was that it was below that of a bottlenose dolphin. Wumei, at the time trying to apologise, did not remind her that dolphins weren’t fish. He comforted himself with this thought, now, as he proceeded to sulk the rest of the day away.

Dolphins were majestic big brained creatures. Being stupider than them meant nothing. No way was Wumei worse than a common fish.

He still hadn't recovered from his annoyance by the evening, though Xu Jin tried to cheer him up by teaching him to skip stones. It was easy, good for fiending off curious fish, and great for Wumei’s anger issues. Then it started raining, and no amount of stone skipping could save Wumei’s mood after the winds picked up.

The first storm since their island hideaway began, Xu Jin went back to the cave for shelter. Stubbornly staying in his sleeping spot by the coastline, Wumei couldn’t see him.

Which was fine.

Wumei could easily fall asleep without looking at Xu Jin every second moment. Xu Jin didn’t snore, but Wumei was fine telling himself that he did and that the distance was sparing him. The sharp rocks in the cave were uncomfortable. The water was too shallow. This new arrangement was actually so fine that Wumei turned the opposite way from the cave, eyes shut tight, focused on the sound of waves breaking at the shore and their gentle caress as they ran over his tail.

All was great until Wumei heard the first thunder crash, and then he almost jumped two tail-lengths.

There weren’t many things he feared, or so he liked to think. One was the thought of ending up alone, a fear squashed so deep inside his heart he basically pretended it didn’t exist. He’d piled a range of smaller fears over it, like sand hiding a sharp blade: cliques of hammerhead sharks, synchronised swimming, narrow and dark gorges. Thunderstorms.

Usually, he could hide from them if he swam deep enough that the sky was just a shadow. The comfort of his gilded cage, storms were unnecessary past trauma as long as he stayed where he was supposed to. But Wumei didn’t work that way. And there was nowhere to hide here.

His form wasn’t changing, but Wumei could practically feel the telltale pull. The swelling in his ribs and lungs, claws sprouting from his fingers, his mind turning black with panic as he started losing control. Thunder couldn’t make him into a monster, Wumei knew. But when he turned into a monster, the thunder would always come. He’d go wild and the storm would grow and it would rumble and it would take—

“Hey, Wumei. Breathe. You’re alright.”

The words made him want to snort, he clearly wasn’t alright. But the voice made Wumei’s breathing slow.

“It’s alright, just breathe.”

There were hands on Wumei’s shoulders, and the voice seemed a great distance away but also close, like the words were whispered right into Wumei’s ear. He put a face to them. Its features lit up with a bolt of thunder and Wumei jolted, but the hands held him down and the face above his stayed in place.

Xu Jin’s hair was completely wet, the rain was coming down in a steady pulse. It was warm. Stupidly, Wumei wondered if he’d started crying in his terror and hoped the rain hid it well. Then the thunder growled again and he could feel himself tremble.

He couldn’t move, even if he wanted to swim away. He didn’t really. Xu Jin held his gaze, serious but gentle in the way he kept repeating the same words. Breathe. You’re fine. Each time Wumei got close to believing it, the storm would make itself known again, and he was stuck at its mercy: lying on his back, watching the lightning cut the sky into zigzagged fragments, Xu Jin’s face an unlikely constellation in the middle that Wumei tried his hardest to focus on. To read.

He was never good at making sense of the stars, and likewise, he wasn’t sure what to make of Xu Jin’s expression. It wasn’t irritation, nor anger. Not smugness at seeing Wumei so vulnerable. Maybe concern, but Wumei was in no state to be reaching such foolish conclusions.

“It’s calming down,” Xu Jin said, after a time Wumei couldn’t estimate. It’d been no brief shower, but the sky was still dark. Xu Jin looked up with the slightest hint of a smile. His hands remained steady on Wumei’s shoulders. “Almost gone.”

It kept raining, but he was right. The storm was retreating, the waves slowly calming.

Xu Jin was soaked from head to toe, looking like a drowned rat—except ridiculously beautiful even then. On the other hand, Wumei felt like a drowned rat, outside and in. There was sand in his hair. In his mouth. He spit it out, rising to an elbow, and almost whined at the loss of Xu Jin’s touch.

“You’ll get sick.” Wumei’s voice was soft, trying to make it say what he couldn’t.

“You’ll take care of me.” Xu Jin shrugged. His voice was equally soft, not matching the flippancy. “Can’t lose a hostage.”

Wumei knew he should take his leave to compose himself. Wash the grit off, the tears that might’ve not been visible but he felt the drying tracks pulling at his skin. But he still couldn’t move, worn out like he’d swum a long-distance race and his insides were bruised. He managed to hoist himself up enough to sit, facing the ocean. He breathed. Waited.

Xu Jin did the same, though he wasn’t looking in the same direction. He must’ve had many questions. “Why are you scared of thunderstorms?” for starters. “What’s wrong with you?” a question worth all the riches.

“I need to get changed,” he said, not asking at all.

There was a thank you sitting heavy on Wumei’s tongue but he missed his chance, humming as Xu Jin stood up to leave. He looked at his departing silhouette, thinking it might be easier to thank him now. In a low voice that could be drowned out by the waves. But that wasn’t fair. It was too late now, and Wumei was stupid.

He turned on his side again, facing the sea. Same position as his previous sulking, like the thunderstorm hadn’t happened at all. This time, perhaps he could sleep—once his body eased up on the adrenaline, letting his muscles relax. He hadn’t closed his eyes yet when something blocked his view.

“Don’t,” Wumei said, not very firmly. “You’ll really get sick.”

Xu Jin ignored him, setting down his pillow, the upper part of his body wrapped in the scratchy blanket Xiao Jing had procured. He was smiling, dismissive, head level with Wumei’s on the sand while his legs faced the other way.

“The sand is wet.”

“It’s wet everywhere.”

“The tide will drench you.”

“I’ve had worse wake up calls.”

With Xu Jin’s army upbringing, Wumei could believe that easily. He still tried to protest more, pronouncing all his arduous nursing a waste of time if Xu Jin wanted to go by the way of a common cold, but Xu Jin ignored him completely. He actually knew the constellations, pointing up towards the ones he could see between the clouds. Half of them had names that Wumei couldn’t match to anything he’d seen. Xu Jin’s words, gradually, made the stars glint behind Wumei’s shut eyes, luring him to sleep.

He woke at dawn.

The tide had just reached three-quarters up his tail and the very first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was Xu Jin. He was lying sideways, curved, an upside down reflection of Wumei himself. There was sand on his brows, his hair dry but strands stuck to his forehead. In his sleep daze, Wumei almost reached out to brush them off.

“sh*t.” Hand outstretched, he caught himself just before Xu Jin opened his eyes.

“Morning.”

His smile was offensively beautiful even at this angle. He was also too close. Wumei got mesmerised watching his blinks, the way he slowly woke up with each, his smile not wavering.

They must’ve stared at each other for a while, the water now lapped at Wumei’s waist. He took a deep breath.

“Thank you,” he said, stubbornly holding Xu Jin’s gaze, “for last night.”

“It was no problem, don’t—”

“I hate thunderstorms. Always have.”

“They can be terrifying.”

“I lost my mother in one.” There, a confession Wumei held in the deepest crevices of his heart, washed out of him without any resistance. “I don’t remember much. We were out and playing—I was just a kid. The sky was clear and then it wasn’t.” He paused, blinking at last. “After the storm, nobody could find her.”

Xu Jin’s breath grew slower, more deliberate. “I’m sorry. That must’ve been terrible on you.”

There were many times Wumei had heard similar words. Sorry about your loss, and deepest condolences. He’d grown allergic to the fake sympathies, the way people would parrot the words first upon seeing him, then launch into whatever they were actually planning to say. They were being polite and whispering behind his back. Another episode, and who knows what really caused the storm.

Wumei didn’t snap at Xu Jin. He didn’t shrug and say it was all in the past. Still studying Xu Jin’s eyes, finding them nothing but earnest, he nodded.

“Thank you,” Xu Jin said, a few breaths later. “For telling me that.”

At a loss for what to say, Wumei was spared. The shape of Xu Jin’s face grew into a shadow, and then he loomed closer, and then something bumped against Wumei’s forehead, the softest knock.

Xu Jin stood up, dusting sand off his too-small robes. He smiled, like he hadn’t just sent Wumei’s whole world spinning. “I’ll catch something for breakfast,” he said, merrily galloping out of Wumei’s field of vision on his stupidly muscled legs.

Wumei touched his forehead and barely stopped himself from cursing, his damning tail all lit up again. sh*t.

Chapter 11

Chapter Text

There could’ve been many explanations as to why Xu Jin—the fourth prince of Dayu and handsomest man Wumei had seen in his life—decided to touch foreheads with him on that fateful morning.

One, it could’ve been an accident. Caused by a sudden rush of blood to Xu Jin’s head, resulting in an equally sudden loss of balance. Xu Jin was a soldier, yes, but he’d also recently suffered a bad injury, and perhaps he’d slept fitfully. Such sudden vertigo might’ve even been common in all humans, Wumei had no way to know. No big deal.

Two, it could’ve been a show of support between two friends. Wumei and Jiang Xuanyu had touched foreheads before. Sure, Jiang Xuanyu had been harbouring his unresolved romantic feelings at the time, but Wumei hadn’t known that and he still didn’t see anything wrong about it. Perhaps forehead touches were the human equivalent of a tail slap, like handshakes were their equivalent of a swirled curtsy. Two brothers acknowledging each other. Two casual acquaintances expressing they stood—metaphorically—on equal ground. No reason to dwell on it.

Three, it could’ve been the reason Wumei wanted it to be.

The reason, a thought enough to have his fail flickering at any point of the day. The second most intimate thing—the first being rather obvious—a merman could do. A touch of tender affection that made Wumei and his peers feign retching the first time they’d discussed it. He had blurry memories of his parents doing it. His brother had touched foreheads with the Empress in a glorious ceremony, witnessed by crowds of royal subjects. No denying the significance.

But, Xu Jin was human.

It was unlikely he knew about explanation three, and that Wumei spent the ensuing few days losing his mind over it. Which must’ve been why he kept doing it. Infuriatingly, impossibly, repeatedly—he kept touching Wumei’s forehead with his own and setting the spiral off anew. Like Wumei didn’t already have enough issues.

In all fairness, it was Wumei who initiated the second time, and not completely consciously. It just happened. A flash of a terrible decision. Probably because he still couldn’t believe that the first time had been real.

“Here.”

The same morning as the first forehead touch, Xu Jin returned with fish, wilted looking greens, and one of Xiao Jing’s newest additions to his collection of pilfered creature comforts: chopsticks. Wumei’s first time seeing them, he thought they were some primitive human weapons. Now, he grabbed them with resignation.

“This is a useless skill,” Wumei grumbled as he failed to pick up the embarrassingly long greenery.

“You said it was easy,” Xu Jin reminded him.

He had said that. Wumei bit his lip so hard he almost forgot to bite into the leaf when he finally got it close to his mouth.

“See, you've improved already.” Xu Jin's smirk was as obnoxious as it was blinding. He was teasing, obviously, long done with his own meal. He also hovered very close to Wumei; probably to drive the shame home and see Wumei flush.

Joke was on him, though, because the moment he swallowed, Wumei smashed their foreheads together.

It was a defensive move, really. Nothing romantic about it. And Wumei swam off right away, not giving Xu Jin any time to see his flustered face. Because Xu Jin was human, and it meant nothing to him. And that must’ve been why he kept doing it.

A brief forehead knock when Wumei came back from his restless sprint around the island, almost laughing. A softer touch when Wumei scolded him the next day for being reckless, trying to spar with the coconut trees and call it exercise. An almost lingering caress that evening, when Wumei did a little flip trick to impress him and Xu Jin maintained that he would join him for a swim the following morning.

And he did, ignoring all protests.

Wumei expected him to be a clumsy swimmer, a cross between a newborn sea lion and an adult frogfish. Alas, Xu Jin could swim.

It’d be unfair to compare him to Wumei himself—he was the fastest swimmer in his kingdom—but Xu Jin wasn’t too slow. Wumei didn’t feel bored keeping his pace. The view was a pleasant distraction, yes, but Wumei was a merman of certain standards. If Xu Jin couldn’t swim, Wumei maintained, he could’ve been the handsomest man in the world and Wumei’s crush would not survive it.

Which would’ve been for the best, really, but Xu Jin could swim.

“See? You’re getting winded,” Wumei said with indignation as thin as sea lettuce. “You’ll get your wound infected. No hostage exchange. War and terror.”

Xu Jin splashed water into his face. “I don’t think so.”

He sped up, almost catching up to Wumei as he rubbed the water from his eyes. Almost, Wumei was still the sea creature out of the two of them. He swam under Xu Jin’s arm when he tried to clap him on the shoulder, and turned around him in concentric circles until Xu Jin’s head spun and he started laughing.

“Stop! Now I’m getting nauseous.”

“I told you so.” Wumei didn’t stop spinning.

“It’s your fault.”

“I see. I only saved you, healed you, fed you—ah.”

Xu Jin broke his pattern by charging from the opposite direction, face to face just for a breath before he pressed his forehead against Wumei’s again. It made Wumei feel nauseous, in the best way. He instinctively closed his eyes and waited for Xu Jin to push off in the opposite direction. But he only laughed again, a sparkling sound that travelled right to Wumei’s tail, the turquoise glow visible even behind his shut eyes. Xu Jin laughed some more.

He must’ve found it funny.

“Fine, you win,” Wumei grumbled, and, with the newly granted permission to unleash his full mermaid speed—granted to himself by himself alone—he left Xu Jin behind before he could chuckle again.

There were no more forehead touch attempts before Xiao Jing’s arrival that evening. She could immediately tell something was up.

“Did a jellyfish get caught in your hair?”

“What?”

“You look out of it.”

Wumei, a little unfairly, kept his voice dry: “I’m holding a human prince hostage on an island in the middle of nowhere, lying to my brother, the Emperor of—”

“Okay, I get it.”

“—and my best friend was captured by the ugliest, stupidest man I’ve ever—”

“Down, boy! I get it.”

Xu Jin was not a witness to that particular exchange, happy as he was playing with a broken compass Xiao Jing had brought him for fixing. Xiao Jing, however, was witness to the moment when he fixed it, ran to show them, and patted Wumei’s tail in glee—causing it to sparkle like a goddamn firefly squid.

“My, my, my, what have we here.” She tapped her fingers together, her mouth wobbling. Eyes trained on Wumei’s tail, there was no question what she was reacting to.

A corner of Xu Jin’s mouth also wobbled, lifting as he spoke: “He’s annoyed.”

Xiao Jing nodded. “He sure is.”

“Anyway, this is what I was telling you about…” Xu Jin stuck the compass under Wumei’s upturned face, not bothered in the slightest.

Annoyance was a losing game. For years, it had served Wumei well—as a prince, the Emperor’s brother, it was enough to look at someone like he wanted them to wither on the spot and they usually let up. He could frown and sulk and yell his way out of most problems. But whatever curse this island was under, Wumei’s skills had no effect here. So he didn’t try.

Xiao Jing held onto her news until she had a full belly, unbuttoning her pocket belt ostentatiously. “You want the bad ones or the good ones first?”

“Bad ones,” Wumei said without hesitation.

“Jin Chen is doing his best to find you and Lao Jiang.”

“That dumbsuck.” Wumei spit out some fishbones for emphasis. “Brother should’ve banished him the first time he tried to plot a rebellion.”

Xu Jin raised an eyebrow. “He did?”

“No conclusive evidence”—Xiao Jing jumped in before Wumei could unleash a torrent of Jin Chen’s wrongdoings against the crown—“anyway, you can curse him later. I got something for you.”

Expecting a letter, Wumei almost choked on another fishbone when the thing that landed in front of him turned out to be a stone plaque with familiar hand-carving. Please stay safe, the symbols spelled out, and, I love you both. No bones in his throat, Wumei felt his eyes warm. “This is—”

“Yeah.” Xiao Jing was not holding back her tears, wiping them off with a loud huff. “He’s fine.”

Xu Jin looked between them. He stayed silent for a long time, letting them have a whole conversation without using any words. He only asked for clarifications later, and smiled with as much relief as Wumei felt: his father had heard them out and transferred Jiang Xuanyu into more comfortable merman lodgings, his men had heeded his orders and started gathering evidence to use against Xu Jin’s ugly evil brother.

“Your man says you should be expecting a letter someday soon,” Xiao Jing finished her report, making Wumei scoff.

Then she assured Wumei that—while Zhong Shili was growing more annoyed by the day—he still seemed to believe Wumei was off doing unspeakable things with his best friend. Xu Jin excused himself at that, collecting firewood. He penned another letter to his soldier friend—and his father by proxy—letting them know he was recuperating well and looking forward to seeing them soon. Xiao Jing promised to find new boots for him.

“I think I saw a piranha on my way here, I’d feel much better if you could see me off,” she said, already tugging Wumei by the elbow. He didn’t know what a piranha was, but, judging by Xu Jin’s reaction, her excuse was ridiculous.

They swam side by side for a moment, Wumei expecting a thorough questioning and getting only silence. Xiao Jing’s strategies were masterful. He was the one who broke, groaning towards the starry sky.

“He touched my forehead.”

“Huh?”

“Xu Jin,” Wumei barked, and though they were a good distance away from the shore, he lowered his voice. “Several times. With his forehead.”

“Oh.”

The confession didn’t seem to take Xiao Jing by surprise. She dove under the water, not needing to beckon Wumei to follow. His words continued in a torrent of bubbles: “I don’t know what it means. I mean, I don’t think he knows what it means. But it could mean a lot of things. Like—”

“Slow down,” Xiao Jing slapped his shoulder, and then his tail. “See? Boring old green. I think you know exactly what it means.”

“This is so stupid.”

Swimming closer to the seabed, Wumei lay himself flat on the sand, impersonating a three-pointed starfish. While he dug a crater with his nose, Xiao Jing sat down next to him, combing a hand through his hair. It was meant to calm him down.

It did, a little.

“It’s pretty stupid,” she said, causing him to lurch. “The timing is terrible. Dating a human would be inconvenient. And he’s a prince, so the political implications are not negligible. You’d have to compromise a lot. Sacrifice some of what you’ve always taken for granted. It could be rough.”

At the rate he was going, Wumei could hide himself in the nose-dug crater within an hour or two. Xiao Jing tightened her hand into a fist, holding him back. “But who could blame you? He is dreamy.” Her voice going soft, she sighed wistfully. “It’s very romantic when you think about it. And I don’t think you’re cut out for a normal relationship anyway. No offence.”

“Offence taken.”

“Shush, I’m giving you a pep talk!” She pulled Wumei’s head from side to side, then finally let go, reaching for his hand instead. She squeezed it. “You’re the stubbornest man I know—sharks, you’re more stubborn than a tigerfish.”

“Hey!”

“Better looking, too, but that’s beside the point.”

Wumei glared at her. “What is your point? You’ve swung it around like a drunk fisherman.”

“My point is”—Xiao Jing sucked in an air bubble, very slowly—“that you can do anything you set your mind to.”

When Xiao Jing first turned up in Shengjing and befriended Jiang Xuanyu, Wumei gave her a lot of trouble. Found her entitled, rowdy, ungraceful—like him, in so many ways, he thought she could only be bad news. Instead, he found someone who’d support him no matter the stupid idea—even falling for a human.

Still, his answering smile was a touch condescending. “I don’t think I can force someone to like me.”

“Forcing? Are you for flipping real?”

Xiao Jing was that kind of a friend: willing to swim by you and listen and brush your hair, but also punch you the next second, looking angry enough to drown a fish. Wumei defensively batted her away, groaning. Xiao Jing followed him until they surfaced, threatening to pull his hair out.

“—to give your brain a break, maybe all the hair is too heavy!”

In the end, she didn’t bother. She just clicked her tongue, seeing Wumei turn his eyes towards the beach, his tail lighting up right away at the sight of Xu Jin.

“There’s a way to find out if he likes you,” she said, giving as patronising as she got, “if you want to check.”

Chapter 12

Chapter Text

Wumei dismissed Xiao Jing’s advice as soon as he got it.

He returned to the beach, made up an unconvincing excuse for having to escort her, and masked it with more unconvincing interest in the fixed compass. It was just a twitchy arrow behind some glass and Wumei found it very mundane. Xu Jin looked very happy to have Wumei holding it, however, so he mustered up some unconvincing enthusiasm to boot.

The next day, he did not think about Xiao Jing’s advice—that is, each time he thought about it, he quickly reminded himself not to think about it, so the two events cancelled each other out. When he and Xu Jin went swimming again, for example. When Xu Jin explained human chess to him. When Xu Jin touched foreheads with him, again, after thanking Wumei for making lunch.

That last one was a close call—what with Xu Jin’s face itself being so close—but Wumei chased the thought away. He had bigger fish to fry—as the morbid human saying went—and their time was running out. Xu Jin would be gone soon. He’d have Lao Jiang back.

“Now you’re just letting me win!”

It was another morning, another mock-swimming race. Xu Jin was right, but Wumei was not doing it consciously. He just got so busy not thinking about Xiao Jing’s advice that he let Xu Jin get a headstart. It disappeared quickly; Xu Jin turned to frown at him, paddling in one spot.

“It’s never going to be a fair race.” Wumei shrugged.

“You don’t seem the type to mind.”

“Excuse me?” He swung his tail at Xu Jin’s legs with no real fighting intent. “I care about fairness. A great deal.”

“Maybe you should swim with your eyes closed.”

Wumei rolled them instead. “I don’t think that will help you much. I have a tail, Prince Su.” A jokey comment it was meant to be, he immediately felt a pang of sadness at the implication. With a tail, Wumei would have more luck pursuing a romantic relationship with a fish. Not a beautiful human man with—

“We can’t exactly race on land,” Xu Jin said, and buoy, didn’t that just make it all worse.

Wumei’s face fell. Xu Jin must’ve noticed. He got closer, laying a hand on Wumei’s shoulder. He wasn’t even touching his tail and the darned thing was already glowing. “We could spar.”

“Do you want to drown?”

“Now you’re just underestimating me.”

Xu Jin was clearly trying to make him feel better, face unnecessarily animated and making Wumei feel worse by the moment. He let Xu Jin jostle him a little, then swung his tail out again. Xu Jin dodged.

“See? I’m a warrior. Ocean can’t break me.”

You almost died not so long ago, Wumei didn’t say. He had no plans to fight Xu Jin, playfully or otherwise, but just like thinking about Xiao Jing’s advice equaled his persistent not thinking about it, avoiding Xu Jin’s attacks surely counted as avoiding his stupid game. Especially when Wumei dunked him under the water. And splashed more water into his face while Xu Jin was still sputtering. And laughed, surprising even himself, when Xu Jin turned out to be ticklish.

“Stop! This is not fair!”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Wumei said, and continued not to think about the muscles he could feel contracting under his palms with each tickle, the scars on Xu Jin’s ribs, or the way his nose scrunched up in the attack.

“Fine.”

Just like that, Xu Jin dove underwater. Not very deep, and not very far from Wumei’s hands, he stilled below the surface. The few strands of hair that had come loose from his bun were hovering by his forehead, his cheeks rounded as he held his breath. Wumei swam to be eye-level with him, shaking his head.

“What are you trying to do?”

Obviously, Xu Jin couldn’t answer. He smiled. The most beautiful man Wumei had ever seen and here he was, acting like a child. It should’ve been annoying; Wumei had never felt such an urge to scoop him up.

Except perhaps that time Xu Jin had been bleeding out, but those were very different circ*mstances.

“You really want to drown?”

Xu Jin let out a small bubble of air. He continued paddling in the same spot, avoiding the water pressure pushing him upwards. Wumei feigned another tickle attack, stopping his hands short of brushing Xu Jin’s sides. “What are you trying to prove?”

Humans were not made for this—the ocean. They were meant to float on the waves, to swim short distances with their head above the surface. Xu Jin was going against his baser instincts for the sake of some stupid game. Wumei watched him do it for another few flaps of his tail, and then he went against his instincts too.

Kissing, Xiao Jing had called it. A press of mouth against mouth, just like the merfolk did with their foreheads, but something Xu Jin would understand. Wumei had not allowed himself to think about it…

So he had, naturally, envisioned the way he could do this about a thousand different ways: while watching the sunset, or huddling Xu Jin’s shoulders in his scratchy blanket, or upside down where they’d taken to sleeping in the same spots as the night of the thunder. With his eyes closed or staring. A fleeting brush of lips, or something that would have Wumei wading deeper into unknown waters. Never like this.

Xu Jin’s mouth opened at the first touch, a string of bubbles floating up. His eyes were wide open. Not scared, Wumei thought, but he immediately regretted his own boldness. He could swim away. He was fast. Xu Jin couldn’t follow him deeper down, and if he stayed away long enough, perhaps Xu Jin wouldn’t—

He got caught in place before he could move, Xu Jin’s arms winding around his neck.

The pressure on his lips grew softer, disappeared, then returned before he could blink. Xu Jin’s eyes closed just as their foreheads touched, and Wumei’s did, too, just after seeing his tail flicker brighter than any constellation.

“It’s not about sharing air,” Xiao Jing had said about kissing—and Wumei could see why.

Of the two, he was the one who could breathe underwater; with Xu Jin pressed so close, his lips catching on Wumei’s own, opening and closing as more air bubbles rushed to the surface, Wumei felt breathless. Like he forgot how his lungs and gills worked, a wonder that his heart could keep going. Like he could drown there, happily.

But he wouldn’t let Xu Jin drown.

Still wound together, they broke the water surface with a loud splash. It was mostly Wumei keeping them afloat—Xu Jin held onto him, forehead to forehead, mouths separated when he drew in a sharp breath and then kissed Wumei again, smiling.

Kissing in plain air was somewhat odder. Better, because there was more weight to Xu Jin’s touch. Wumei could feel exactly how soft his lips were, hear his rapid breathing and the soft noise he made when they broke apart. More difficult, because it brought to fore the real issue—that Wumei had no idea what he was doing.

“Wait, wait.”

Xu Jin brushed a hand down his neck—he’d had it in Wumei’s hair, and Wumei immediately bemoaned the loss—to press back against his shoulder. Stopping, Wumei’s heart dropped all the way to the bottom of the ocean.

He should’ve continued not thinking about kissing Xu Jin, because now that he’d done it, he could never stop thinking about it again. And if Xu Jin hated it, then Wumei would spend the rest of his life—

“Like this.”

Xu Jin’s fingers came to cradle his face, angled it, a slight pressure below his jaw as Xu Jin pulled him back in. Heady, like before, but not with the same stiffness. Xu Jin took charge of the kiss and Wumei was grateful to let him. It was effort enough to keep them both upright—with Xu Jin’s encouraging hums, and his scent, more intense than it could be underwater, and the tickle of his forehead, still hovering near his own.

They didn’t drown.

Not a negligible feat, given how most of Wumei’s merman capacities left his body the moment he decided to engage in the ancient human practice of kissing. He could understand the appeal. His skills still needed work.

“We don’t do this,” Wumei said, perfunctorily, a while later. “Merfolk don’t kiss.”

When they had made it back to the shore, Wumei attempted to act casual, Xu Jin laughed him off, and then they did some more horizontal kissing on solid ground. For a while, Wumei surmised, because the sun was starting to dip towards the horizon. With Xu Jin’s head pillowed on his chest, he couldn’t have cared less.

Xu Jin hummed. “I thought so.”

Was he that terrible at it? Wumei twitched in discontent, but Xu Jin patted him back onto the sand with another teasing peck and Wumei immediately forgot about his hurt pride. It was embarrassing; once again, he couldn’t have cared less.

“When we want to, uh, show affection,” he said, feeling the blood rush to his face, “we do… something else.”

Xu Jin sat up, which immediately had Wumei grumbling. Xu Jin shut him up by cupping his cheek again, and he leaned down to brush their foreheads together. “This?”

“You knew?!” Wumei sputtered. He rose to one elbow, hissing when the motion made their heads knock together.

“I suspected.” Xu Jin looked amused. Facing the island while Wumei faced the sea, he leaned back on his palms, not taking his eyes off of Wumei’s disgruntled frown. “I could tell it meant something, after the first time. You looked so flustered.”

“Ah.” Wumei’s chest deflated. His frown didn’t ease, though he felt warm all over. “Why did you do it?”

Xu Jin bit his lip. “I don’t know.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

He shrugged. “I thought if I kept doing it, it’d be clear.”

“That’s bold of you.” Wumei said, remembering all the times Xu Jin had initiated a forehead touch, so casual about it he left Wumei feeling stupider than a sunfish. “What if I didn’t like you?”

He could blame human ignorance, Wumei supposed, just like he himself had planned to claim kissing was a traditional merfolk custom for expressing friendship if need be. But Xu Jin didn’t cite an excuse. His face grew pink as he put his hand on Wumei’s tail, softly brushing the glowing scales. “This never happened when Xiao Jing touched you,” he said, almost bashful. “A useful indicator.”

Wumei wanted to frown some more, but he could only roll his eyes. He wanted to flip Xu Jin on his back and kiss him senseless in the name of practice, but despite Xu Jin’s blasé attitude, Wumei was still too conscious of his old injury. He wanted to swim around the island in circles of joy, tell all the seahorses that Prince Su of Dayu, the most wonderful man Wumei had ever met—human or not—liked him, and watch on with glee as the news spread all around the Great Underwater Empire of Shengyuan and the Seven Surrounding Seas.

But he couldn't do that.

He sat up before the realisation made him maudlin, and pressed his forehead against Xu Jin’s. “Just to get an actual word in,” he said, sappy like a teenaged herring and refusing to feel bad about it, “I do like you.”

“I like you too.”

Xu Jin had no bioluminescent tail to tattle on him but Wumei was learning to read him just as easily. His mouth stretched, his breath hitched, and he tugged on a strand of Wumei’s hair. He wasn’t lying, and neither was his body.

In his life, Wumei had won several whirlpool races, escaped a killer whale, and fought an angry crustacean mob or two. Surging up to kiss Xu Jin again was, without a doubt, more thrilling than all of that.

Chapter 13

Chapter Text

It would’ve been a lie to claim nothing changed after the kiss.

There were a lot more kisses, for one, a trend Wumei found most agreeable. The human custom held some appeal from the start—kissing Xu Jin meant kissing Xu Jin, after all—but Wumei soon realised he’d set his expectations too low. Kissing was great, and humans were brilliant for thinking it up.

Other things seemed to continue the same as before, but, below surface, they’d shifted. Sleeping now always meant sleeping like that night of the thunderstorm—except on the mornings when Wumei woke up to Xu Jin wrapped around his back, sleeping soundly, not caring about the water lapping at his thighs. Swimming races now meant little swimming and a lot less racing. Sharing meals followed the same basic pattern, they took turns and talked. But where before they’d have discussed ordinary topics—Wumei’s hobby of seashell gambling or Xu Jin’s hobby of heartwrenching poetry—now, every word seemed charged with meaning.

“It would be impossible for me to learn your language, wouldn’t it?” Xu Jin asked, one dinner or another.

“Yeah.”

Wumei was not certain about this, but shooting the possibility down right away felt like a good idea. Xu Jin nodded, contradicting himself: “But Xiao Jing learned.”

“She literally grew gills.”

“Yeah,” Xu Jin echoed. Even without the tail, Wumei could see his mood dim.

“Why would you want to?” he rolled his eyes. “Am I that bad at speaking the human way?”

“No.” Xu Jin smiled, not rising to the bait. “But your brother can’t speak our language. You mentioned it before.”

Wumei could tell himself Xu Jin was just thinking of the inevitable diplomatic talks, once he was safely back in his kingdom and Wumei was back to fighting his arranged marriage. Or that he wanted to apologise to Zhong Shili, in person, for stealing Wumei away for such a long time. But there was a part of him that hoped—like a flicker of fire that he kept between his palms, stubbornly pretending he could dive into the water and keep it safe—that Xu Jin was thinking of something else.

And Xu Jin kept giving the fire more life.

“My father’s summer residence is by the seaside. There’s a bay there, with sand as white as the clouds. It’s where I learned to swim,” he would say, his eyes sparkling. “I buried a treasure there when I was seven.”

“We should go look for it,” Wumei thought but didn’t say, “when this is over.”

“My father hasn’t been at sea for years. Since the Empress died,” Xu Jin would confess with an insouciant shrug. “But my mother travels a lot. She used to tell me stories about different islands, of beautiful mountains and rainbow-coloured birds. I was very young. Maybe I remember them all wrong.”

“I’d love to meet her,” Wumei couldn’t admit, “and listen to her stories.”

“I’m glad I met you,” Xu Jin would take his breath away, lying under the starlit sky and looking upwards. Until he wasn’t, the full force of his earnest gaze more stunning than the sky, than Wumei’s tail, than any fireworks. “I know that’s a horrible thing to say. I think about your friend every day. But I’m grateful our paths crossed.”

Wumei couldn’t ignore the hopeful fire that time. “Lao Jiang will be fine,” he said, sounding more sure than he felt. “You promised, right?”

It was an unfair thing to ask. Not something Wumei would hold him to, if the worst came to pass—or so he hoped, he didn’t really allow himself to think about it.

Still, Xu Jin didn’t waver.

“I did.”

“So, he’ll come back. And we won’t have to feel guilty.”

Wumei wanted to believe that, just like he wanted to believe that this could go on forever. But the one thing that stayed the same—before the kiss and after it—was the uncompromising flow of time. Xu Jin was almost completely healed, the scar on his stomach a nasty but harmless reminder of how much time had already passed. Wumei started carving marks inside the cave—after his return from Shengyuan—and they’d already grown into double digits. Not long before Zhong Shili went off the deep end.

It was stupidly easy, forgetting that their island getaway would be over soon. It was so easy to pretend the world could wait for them. Like tidal waves waiting to happen, however, Wumei should’ve known there were already slabs of rock moving underneath them while he and Xu Jin enjoyed the newfound closeness.

“I see you got your tail out of your—”

“Hello to you too, Xiao Jing!” Wumei’s greeting, though aggressive in volume, was a cheerful thing. He and Xu Jin were sitting hip to hip, working on his calligraphy skills. Improving steadily, Wumei was ready to hold the parchment up to Xiao Jing’s nose and preen.

“I’m glad you figured things out.” She considered them, then settled her gaze on Wumei’s glowing tail. Under normal circ*mstances she’d giggle like a dolphin, but her amusem*nt was muted. “I guess this is how it’s always going to look, now?”

Xu Jin cleared his throat but didn’t move. He put his inkbrush down. “Did something happen?”

“Why would something happen?” Xiao Jing kept a little distance, studying her own fingers under the water. Her voice was too high.

“Because you’re acting more suspicious than the time Jiang Xuanyu’s seadragon died,” Wumei said, and added, leaning towards Xu Jin: “It was a pet.”

Xiao Jing giggled now, a low and forced sound that had Xu Jin frowning. “Miss Lin,” he said, though he’d taken to calling her Xiao Jing with ease, “please tell us if there’s something wrong.”

And, of course, it worked like a charm.

Xiao Jing looked up at the name, momentarily pleased, plainly troubled. She sighed as she swum a little closer, almost splashing the scroll with Wumei’s copied characters. Not the right time, he bit back his shout of outrage. He moved the scroll away from the water.

“I got a message,” Xiao Jing said, looking at one then the other in turn.

“A message?”

“From Jiang Xuanyu.”

“Please be more specific.” Wumei had no patience to be plucking information from her like pearls from a greedy oyster.

Xiao Jing listened, but the object she took out of her waist pocket was not a stone slab, but another shell-encased letter. She unfurled the paper to reveal several rows of human script. Wumei only recognised a few of the characters.

Lao Jiang suspected their communication could get intercepted, Xiao Jing read aloud after the initial greetings. He’d become aware of new information relating to his capture. “I had the unfortunate honour of being visited by Prince Cheng,” she paused, silently waiting for Xu Jin’s nod to confirm Jiang Xuanyu was referring to his brother, “and had a chance to use my powers.”

“Powers?” Xu Jin asked.

“Later,” Wumei said.

Little by little, the letter patched together Jiang Xuanyu’s suspicions. His captor was planning another attack on the merfolk, one meant to provoke Zhong Shili into action. Not only that. He had a helper amongst them.

“It has to be that son of a porpoise,” Wumei tightened his fist around the inkbrush, snapping it in two, “Jin Chen.”

Xu Jin unwound his fingers gently and took the remnants of the brush away. His composure was enviable. “Are you sure this letter is genuine?”

“I got it from your man,” Xiao Jing said, but she quickly amended: “Your other man.”

Wumei got stuck halfway between shooting daggers at her and blushing. Xu Jin’s composure remained steady. “Then we must act.”

He was right, naturally. If Jin Chen and Xu Mao managed to stage another attack, Zhong Shili would realise the truth about Jiang Xuanyu. He’d realise Wumei had been lying to him. Worse, he would take it as intentional provocation from the humans and retaliate.

Their plans had been incredibly stupid, Wumei realised. Fanciful and dangerous, no point to them except delaying the inevitable. He’d had a lot of bad plans in his lifetime—parading himself in front of a human ship, for starters—but thinking he could play house with a beautiful prince on a deserted island came out on top.

“—a lot of rumours floating about. A lot of contradictory rumours. Different seahorse factions each have a different take and the intelligence service,” Xiao Jing paused where she was still speaking, shaking her head, “let’s just say they’re being very tight-lipped.”

“Fish don’t have lips,” Wumei muttered.

Xiao Jing ignored him. Escalating unrest in the Fourth Sea, a group of mermaids narrowly avoiding a Dayu ship by some cliffs in the Sixth, and the discovery of Dayu military arrows in an outlying settlement.

“But that’s all talk,” Xu Jin said, with conviction Wumei suddenly found jarring. “There’d be witnesses otherwise.”

“The witnesses are fish, Xu Jin,” Xiao Jing said, with a desperate laugh. “They’ll say anything if you promise them food.”

“If Dayu was engaging, we’d have heard from Xiao Bai.”

“It’s nice that you trust your Xiao Bai so much,” Wumei said. Tone sharp, he hated his words the moment they left his lips; he saw no way of backtracking.

“I do. I don’t have a reason not to.”

“Remember how we met?” Wumei said, suppressing a wince. “Sorry if I have a bit of trouble, trusting humans.”

Hurt flashed across Xu Jin’s face but he quickly hid it under a layer of calm. “I’m human.”

“You’re not…”

Wumei felt filled to bursting with his emotions: jealousy, anger, fear, and now guilt. He accidentally tipped over the ink bottle, and got stuck watching the black rivulets flow into the ocean. No more calligraphy lessons. The stupid thought made his eyes sting.

Xiao Jing’s mouth, already set in a firm line, fell when she looked at Wumei’s tail and saw no sign of the previous flickers. “It’ll be fine. You just need to talk to your brother.”

She was right, and Wumei snapped: “Why didn’t you tell us sooner?”

“Excuse me?”

“About the rumours. You should’ve told us as soon as you heard.”

“Oh?” Xiao Jing raised an eyebrow at his scowl. “Maybe because I’ve been busy playing messenger? Avoiding your brother’s men who kept trying to question me about your whereabouts? Trying to get news about my imprisoned friend?” She paused, pointing her finger at Wumei in a way that shouldn’t have been terrifying, but made his flesh sting. “All the while knowing my other friend is off falling in love with a human man who could soon turn to be his enemy?”

“Xiao Jing…”

“Don’t be ungrateful,” Xiao Jing said, though the anger in her had mostly faded into distress. “I know this isn’t easy on you, but it sure as whales hasn’t been easy on me, either.”

Wumei’s tail curled, coiling like it was preparing for a vicious attack. Instead, he hung his head. His words were a little more than the persistent hum of waves behind them. “Sorry.”

“What was that?” Xiao Jing asked, pointed.

“I’m sorry.”

“Darn right.”

There was nothing they could do about it at this point, they agreed. A collective lie because there was a very obvious thing Wumei should do—should’ve done a long time ago. He loathed the weight that’d settled on his shoulders. Starting the day with Xu Jin’s head pillowed on his chest, the same place now ached with the fear of having to leave this all behind.

Wumei couldn’t look at him.

Chapter 14

Chapter Text

Jumping at the excuse to see Xiao Jing off—for her safety—Wumei stayed away from the island well into the night. He thought he was doing them both a favour. That Xu Jin would appreciate the distance. They’d have to get used to it, after all, the distance between a human and a merman couldn’t be measured in length.

“Don’t be stupid,” Xiao Jing had told him before she left, and Wumei nodded.

He wouldn’t be, he’d tell Xu Jin in no uncertain words: that their paths would part the moment they managed to expose the coup, no further obligations. He’d never meet Xu Jin’s mother, or help him find whatever the ocean absolved of his childhood treasure. There would be no more kissing because merfolk didn’t kiss, and Wumei was terrible at it anyway.

That was the smart thing to do.

Emboldening himself for the talk all the way back to the island, Wumei was ready to wake Xu Jin and lay the truth out. His resolve weakened as he found the beach empty. Flickers of light coming from the cave almost had him turning back, but Xu Jin wasn’t inside. When Wumei found him—settled on a boulder jutting out in the middle of the sea, rigidly upright and awake—it dealt a terrible blow to Wumei’s confidence that he could do this.

“Hey,” Xu Jin greeted him when Wumei swung himself on the boulder, his tail dangling in the sea.

“Hey,” Wumei said, flashing him a feeble smile. He still couldn’t look at Xu Jin, he found. Once he did, there’d be no looking away, and there’d be no swift and firm resolution, and there’d be even more eventual heartbreak. He cleared his throat. “What are you doing here?”

“Couldn’t sleep.” Xu Jin shrugged.

His clothes were damp but not wet. He must’ve been sitting in the same spot for a while. Wumei didn’t allow himself to wonder why he’d swum there in the first place. “You’ll catch a cold,” he said.

“Hm.” Xu Jin shifted closer on the rock, making Wumei flinch. “Are you alright?”

The very opposite, but now that he was back, Wumei’s tongue seemed to have disappeared like he was a sea urchin. He nodded and stared at the moonlight dancing on the waves, swinging his tail against the rock as he considered his words.

“You asked about Jiang Xuanyu’s powers,” he said, proud of successfully diverting his own stream of thoughts.

“I did.”

“He can read minds. Through touch.” The admission should’ve been shocking enough to make Xu Jin splutter. He hummed thoughtfully, waiting for Wumei to elaborate. “I wasn’t sure if it’d work on humans, but, obviously, it does. He probably had a chance to—verify your brother’s intentions.”

“I see.”

“I can’t do it, don’t worry,” Wumei rushed to say, fearing the news would send Xu Jin into a tailspin.

Tail or no tail, Xu Jin only hummed. “I know.” Wumei shot him a confused look, foiled by his own instincts—though Xu Jin’s face was solemn, his eyes were smiling. “The forehead touches,” he explained, holding Wumei’s gaze.

Wumei felt like he got hit in the face by a whale blow. He shook himself off. “Most merfolk develop powers when they reach puberty. Some are hereditary, some are completely random. There hasn’t been much research into it, we just take it as fact,” he said, factual. He wasn’t sure how to interpret Xu Jin’s continuing silence. “I should’ve mentioned it earlier, I suppose. It’s an important bit of merfolk… anthropology.”

“I understand why you wouldn’t.”

Xu Jin’s empathy made Wumei’s tail blink awake. He quickly righted the situation. “Anyway, my powers are not as useful as Lao Jiang’s.” He winced, adding on: “They’re pretty horrible, actually. You got to see them already.”

“Ah.”

More empathy, so instead of perceiving it, Wumei swung his tail back and forth against the rock, hard enough for it to hurt. The pain was negligible. Xu Jin’s hand settling on top of his green scales to make him stop—not so much.

“The day we met—”

“Yes.” Wumei nodded, more forcefully than he needed to. “I don’t know if I’d call them powers, to be honest. It’s not like I’m in control when it happens. Maybe if I didn’t have anger issues,” he said with a biting chuckle. “But I do, so that’s that. Some merfolk can make their voice stretch across the seas, others can turn rocks into precious stones. I turn into a monster.”

“Hey.”

He ignored Xu Jin’s admonishment. It was nice of him to try, but there was no denying it. If Xu Jin hadn’t been Xu Jin, perhaps he wouldn’t even be alive anymore. Spending all this time on the island with a more disagreeable, less compassionate human might’ve spun Wumei into another episode. Like his rage, they were untameable.

The best reason why he had to stop having delusions of a future with Xu Jin, if all the other ones hadn’t been good enough.

“You saved me that day.” Xu Jin’s voice made him jerk, so that he almost plunged himself into water. “Far from a monster.”

“You didn’t see the worst of it,” Wumei said, and decided to jump in of his own volition. The cold water had no effect on cooling him down. He had no intention of swimming off.

“I saw enough.”

“Then you were lucky, Prince Su.”

Xu Jin shuffled closer to the edge of the boulder. “I was. I’ve told you as much.”

Wumei’s scoff was clumsy, he ended up splashing water into his own nose. “Do you not understand? I’m giving you an out,” he said, almost repeating the same mistake when lowering his face to avoid Xu Jin’s eyes. “It’s best we stop this now. Before things get out of control.”

Before I get too attached, he didn’t even try to say because he’d be making a joke out of himself. He was too attached already, that was the problem.

“What do you mean?” Xu Jin asked. Like, in addition to being the most handsome and charming man Wumei had ever met, he wasn’t also the smartest.

“Sooner or later, you’ll realise—” Wumei shook his head, switching focus. “You’ll disappear and I won’t see you again. How do you think I’ll take it? How do you think I’ll deal?” He attempted to keep his tone light, indifferent, a joke he could pop with some fake laughter.

Xu Jin was having none of it. “Do you think I’d do that?” he asked, lying down on his stomach, bracing himself on his arms.

Wumei would love to believe that he wouldn’t, but the rough of it was that Xu Jin was human, Wumei was half-fish, and the two species had spent hundreds of years ignoring each other’s existence for the sake of peace. That, and there was the issue of the peace being jeopardised, of Wumei being a freak who could summon thunderstorms, and how well did they really know each other, at the end of it all?

“I wouldn’t,” Xu Jin said. He was trying very hard to make Wumei look back at him, and he finally succeeded by nudging Wumei’s chin up. “I won’t. I mean it.”

It was tempting to laugh into his face and nurse his regrets later. To contemplate all the ways this could go wrong—the absurd uncertainty of a human promise, the old and worn merfolk axiom of human touch being the touch of death—and for Wumei to clinch this by claiming Xu Jin was just his little act of rebellion, one he’d soon outgrow. Tempting, in the way flames beckoned onlookers to reach in for a caress. Alluring self-destruction, but impossible.

“I’ll hold you to it,” Wumei said, surprising himself with a small but real smile. He could feel it wobble. “I swear I will.”

“Good.”

“That’s the last warning. I won’t let you run away.”

“Good,” Xu Jin repeated, touching Wumei’s nose with his own. “Please don’t swim away.”

=

Wumei’s first mistake was returning to talk to Xu Jin at all—he could pretend to be strong all he wanted, in Xu Jin’s presence his defences eroded like a cliff by the sea. His second mistake was acting like Xu Jin would cower at the threat of his monstrous form—he knew Xu Jin, well enough that such a threat was laughable. His third and most lethal mistake was looking up—and the last dredges of his resolve disappeared when Xu Jin brushed his face with his hand, then nose, then forehead.

They spent the whole night on the boulder. Arms slung over it, faces close enough that they could touch at any moment, Wumei told Xu Jin about the first time he remembered transforming into his savage form. The rumours about his mother’s death, growing up with everyone regarding him like he could explode at a moment’s notice.

“What’s that expression you have—walking on eggshells?” Wumei asked, trying to diffuse the heaviness of Xu Jin’s gaze. It was too tender.

“Xiao Jing seems like a great teacher,” Xu Jin said, frowning a little before letting the mood shift. “Maybe she could help me after all. With your language.”

“She can be very determined.”

He told Xu Jin about the weeks she spent trying to gain a mermaid power of her own, convinced she could learn to sing like a siren. He quickly dispelled the notion of sirens existing. He demonstrated, even more quickly, how he could definitely not be a siren even if they existed.

By dawn they were both sleeping on the boulder, Wumei’s tailfin in the ocean and the rest of him draped over Xu Jin like a meaty blanket. Xu Jin was the one who woke up first, his fingers running through Wumei’s hair when Wumei’s own eyes opened.

There were too many issues for them to sort out, still. This kind of waking up—slow, warm, together—would not become the norm anytime soon. That was why Wumei let himself bask in it, slow to uncurl himself from Xu Jin’s chest, demanding to be woken up with kisses. It was what he deserved—and didn’t—for the emotional imbalance of the previous day. For all that was to come.

But they had less time than Wumei expected.

At one point, he was still kissing Xu Jin, proud of his improving skills. Then he looked up and froze, spotting a ship on the horizon.

Chapter 15

Chapter Text

The vessel was not too grand: a well-kept wooden trading ship with one mast. A cog, Wumei recalled, from when Xu Jin had tried to teach him the terminology with appropriate sketches. Wumei thought it was far too involved, but then, he had spent years of school learning about the different types of marine sand.

Xu Jin was tense beside him, watching the ship dock; they’d swum into the cave, once the shock wore off and they realised the boulder was about the most conspicuous place they could be. Xu Jin’s unease grew tenfold when two robed figures descended a wooden platform onto the beach. Wumei had seen him wear that same expression once. On the day they met, listening to Xu Mao’s squidsh*t.

“Do you know them?” Wumei asked, earning a stilted nod in return and nothing else. “Who—”

“You don’t need to hide, Prince Su!” the shorter man shouted, looking from one side of the beach to the other. He wore his hair loose, unlike most human men Wumei had seen, and his robes were voluminous and not at all sand-appropriate. He didn’t seem to mind, flapping them from side to side as he paced around. The man at his back was the one who lifted the fabric up, keeping it from gathering more sand. “Why are you hiding, Little Nephew? We’ve come to rescue you!”

Having never met the men in his life, based on Xu Jin’s sour grimace, Wumei immediately thought hiding further in the cave would be a good idea. Somewhere along the line, he’d put his arm in front of Xu Jin like a very inefficient shield. He only realised when Xu Jin squeezed his wrist, pulled it down, and shifted a few steps forward.

“Stay here,” he said, voice firm.

“What are you—”

“He’s harmless,” Xu Jin said, the closest to co*cky Wumei had heard him sound. Then he grew serious. “To me, that is. You need to stay here.”

He didn’t wait for Wumei’s nod, suggesting he knew the promise would be futile. As soon as Xu Jin walked out of the cave, Wumei had dived in to follow the path of his footsteps underwater. Surfacing near a boulder, he got there just in time to see the men advance towards Xu Jin. Peculiar, Wumei felt like he was watching a gentoo penguin and his shadow.

“What are you doing here?” was Xu Jin’s greeting, so cold Wumei’s eyebrows jumped.

“Is that how you greet your uncle and saviour?” Not receiving a response, the man huffed, pointing one flappy sleeve towards the cog and almost hitting his servant in the shoulder. “We’re here to take you home.”

Xu Jin nodded. “Sorry to have inconvenienced you, uncle. You’ve made the journey needlessly.”

The man—Xu Jin’s uncle, apparently, though Wumei suspected on handsomeness alone that the family ties were thin—laughed, a staccato ha ha ha sound that didn’t break through Xu Jin’s scowl. The next words, however, gave him a start.

“Is your prolonged stay with the merman prince so educational? Are you never planning to come back?”

Xu Jin’s eyes didn’t flinch towards Wumei, but Wumei must have made a sound. The pair of men turned to stare right at him. Exchanging a few words, they tried to advance towards him, only for Xu Jin to block their way. The guy who wasn’t the uncle—servant, bodyguard, a very submissive partner?—tried to fight Xu Jin’s hand off where it was gripping his uncle’s wrist. The uncle rolled his eyes and looked up, waving at Wumei.

“So it is, Zhong Wumei in the flesh! Or should I say in the scales?”

Wumei had heard of Xu Ping, he realised later. The infamous uncle Xu Jin had mentioned in passing, who almost had him assassinated years ago. “Drowned,” Xu Jin had confessed with an incredulous laugh, like he’d almost drowned so many times he no longer considered it a real danger. In light of the memory, of course, Wumei calculated that the men were not harmless.

That was why he kept a dagger—the one he’d stolen from Xu Jin—in his palm the whole time they talked on the beach.

“This would’ve been much more comfortable on the boat,” Xu Ping lamented, weakly, sipping on a cup of tea. He swallowed and looked at Wumei with palpable pity. “But I understand there are certain—limitations.”

Wen Xing—his bodyguard, if Xu Ping could be believed—had brought a chest with a portable tea-making kit. Cups, packets of herbs, a simple heater, along with sweets that neither Wumei nor Xu Jin touched. They’d settled on the beach in a parody of a familial visit. Wumei had the blade on full display and Xu Jin sat on the sand with his back so straight it gave Wumei pain by proxy.

“How did you find me?” Xu Jin asked.

“It was very easy.” Xu Ping flicked his nose towards the ocean. “The fish can talk if you can listen.”

Wumei narrowed his gaze, clutching the dagger. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He had his suspicions, very well substantiated. Imagining underground caves of captured merfolk blackmailed for information, the ensuing story left him both shocked and wary.

“Our dear Emperor was very magnanimous, sending me to recuperate by the sea,” Xu Ping said.

“You mean sending you into house arrest.”

“Technicalities.” Xu Ping made another offer of the lotus-shaped tea cakes, and bit two down at their refusal. “The rest has been very beneficial but a man gets bored, if you know what I mean. I had to find ways to entertain myself.”

“Such as?”

“We’ve made a little trading agreement,” Xu Ping admitted, smiling like he was talking about growing sugar kelp from scratch. He looked at Wumei. “With some of your people.”

Blackwater artefacts exchanged for human goods, some art, some weapons. A fledgling operation that had managed to escape the authorities, Wumei could almost believe it. But the implication—that the merchants could communicate with Xu Ping—made him feel uneasy. Until Wen Xing cleared his throat.

“I can talk to fish,” he admitted at Xu Ping’s encouraging nod. “We’ve been using them as middlemen.” The last word didn’t sit well with him. He grimaced. “I mean—”

“How?”

Unease forgotten in rapid excitement, Wumei leaned forward, causing Wen Xing to grab the hilt of his sword. Wumei laughed. He wouldn’t kill the man, that much he knew. The new implication—that humans could learn their language—was too alluring. He wasn’t given a proper explanation, however, Xu Jin cutting Wen Xing off before he could get into the technicalities of voice modulation and phoneme differentiation.

“So you’ve bribed some fish to find me,” Xu Jin said. He learned underwater politics very quickly.

“To save you,” Xu Ping corrected.

“To save me,” Xu Jin allowed, “and no doubt deliver me back to my father, earning yourself some necessary goodwill.”

“I do like being on my brother’s good side” —Xu Ping set the plate down, nodding— “but do not fear for my comfort, Xu Jin. I’m very happy with my living situation. It’s not the accolades from the capital I’m after.”

“Then what?” Wumei jumped in. Xu Ping’s way of speaking was starting to drive him crazy. He considered himself pretty well-versed on human riddles, thanks to Xiao Jing, but he drew a line before the conversation could descend into incomprehensible territory.

“Good question, Prince Yuanzheng.” Pronounced with such emphasis, Wumei immediately felt like his scales were peeling off his body. “The fish told me I’m not the only one bribing them, lately. Interesting that a man of your status seems to be reliant on tactics like that, just to evade your brother.”

Wumei calculated the distance it would take for him to strike Xu Ping’s thigh with the dagger. Furthest from the man, it’d be easier to flick his servant. He decided a good old sand spray to impair their vision would do, and a tail slash to get Xu Jin into the water, before things got heated. Perhaps even—

“What do you want?” Xu Jin stopped him, tapping the hand that was gripping the dagger.

“As I said, I’m very happy with my present living situation. I do not wish to make any changes, if you catch my drift,” Xu Ping said, looking towards the ocean again.

At that, Wumei laughed. “Is that all?”

“Why the distrust?”

“Seems too simple to be true.”

“I’m not a greedy man, no matter what my nephew’s told you.”

“Then you can rest assured, you’re free to trade however much you like,” Wumei said, sheathing the dagger and slipping it back where he’d originally found it—into Xu Jin’s boot. He still had an oyster shard he could use if he’d read Xu Ping wrong. But the man only grinned, embarrassingly victorious for such a short verbal sparring attempt. “Under two conditions.”

“Oh?” Xu Ping paused, another cake on the way to his mouth.

“One, you will not put my people into jeopardy,” Wumei said, with feigned ease. Anything else would be unthinkable, it meant to say.

“Why would I shoot myself in the foot?”

“Two,” Wumei continued, and forced himself not to look away from Xu Ping’s face, “you’ll apologise to your nephew.”

More laughter, even more triumphant than before. Wumei felt a hand at his back and instinctively clenched his fist, hoping his tail wasn’t flashing too obviously. Or that, if it was, the other men would read it as a warning.

“Wumei—” Xu Jin tried to say something.

“Is that all?” Xu Ping chewed on the cake with delight. Nodding, he brushed crumbs off his hands and folded them in a crisp bow. Looking at Xu Jin, the smirk had migrated from his face to his voice. “I apologise for all the harm I’ve caused you, Jin’er. Let’s drown the hatchet.”

His voice carried a hint of flippancy that Wumei didn’t like. Xu Jin, likewise, snorted. Neither man tried to shake hands; such a promise would definitely deserve a swirled curtsy on Xu Ping’s side and an agreeing tail flip on Xu Jin’s, were they normal. But they weren’t—they were human, and not too close at that. The important thing was that Xu Jin sat a little more relaxed, and he squeezed Wumei’s hand underwater, a gesture which Wumei, now a human expert, chose to interpret as warm gratitude.

The two men didn’t leave right away.

When Xu Jin refused Xu Ping’s invitation to board the cog, he just shrugged. With the day winding swiftly into night, they’d decided—or Xu Ping decided, because Wen Xing just went along with everything, dutifully removing sand from his master’s robes—to wait until the morning for their departure.

“The sea is a scary mistress at night,” Xu Ping said.

“His mother died at sea,” Xu Jin explained, once the intruders had left to have food on their boat.

Wumei didn’t ask for more details. He refused to let the information change his perception of Xu Jin’s uncle as being anything but an opportunistic annoyance. A nosey one at that, for Xu Ping reappeared on the beach when Xiao Jing stopped by, immediately terrified at the sight of the ship.

“Are you leaving?” was the first thing she asked, aimed at Xu Jin with an alarmed edge.

“I’ve heard about you!” was the first thing she yelled, aimed at Xu Ping when he came by to spy on them. Or, per his version, stumble upon them accidentally when he came to invite Xu Jin into the comfort of a sea-rocked bed chamber.

He and Xiao Jing had a lot to talk about—fish-bribing techniques, blackwater trade, and the current rumour-mill, which Wumei tried to tune out, and Xu Ping seemed to be concerningly attuned to. Wen Xing performed a fish poem for everyone, on Xiao Jing’s bidding. They drank some more tea, which she claimed reminded her of home, and then she made up a bunch of lies about where home was, to Xu Ping’s amazement. “A princess,” she said, and proceeded to make up an imaginary kingdom in so much detail he looked to believe her.

“You said he was a scholar?” Wumei asked under his breath.

Xu Jin rolled his eyes. “He’s a handful, that’s what he is.”

Xiao Jing, in the meantime, seemed to think he’d make a great business partner. “It’s good to have connections.”

Wumei, who’d taken her aside from the human party, rolled his eyes. “I don’t think you should associate with men of his ilk.”

“I’ll definitely take that advice from you,” Xiao Jing said with a saccharine smile.

Wumei decided to let her have this one. There were more important matters imminent, like how he and Xu Jin had agreed to go see Zhong Shili, a five step plan that involved stealing a dinghy from Xu Ping’s cog.

“I need you to get something for me,” Wumei said, and Xiao Jing’s gills immediately fluttered.

Once she left, Wumei thought that would be that. Xu Ping and his bodyguard would be just a short episode of their island adventure, never to be seen again, only to be heard about when Xiao Jing used them to get herself human garments and jewellery. He and his right-hand-man would leave the next morning, after awkward parting waves from across a long ocean stretch. Then he and Xu Jin would have to deal with the mess of stopping an impending conflict. And then they’d have to say goodbye. At least for a while.

Wumei was spared the heartbreak of that, however.

The next morning, someone else found their island.

*

Chapter 16

Chapter Text

Jiang Xuanyu was fine.

He kept reiterating this as Wumei and Xiao Jing kept fussing over him, and as the humans observed from a safe distance away. He was thinner, but that was to be expected. His hair was longer, but that wasn’t a bad thing. The issue was that he had bruises still fading across his torso and scarred wrists. From being shackled, Wumei knew, and the anger rose in him like a sweeping wave, wanting to swallow all who'd hurt his friend and then himself. For believing that Xu Jin's father could be like his son. For allowing it to happen.

“We don’t have time for this!” Jiang Xuanyu yelled over the others’ voices.

They were close to the beach; Xiao Jing had returned in the morning and they’d just been about to wave the insincere goodbyes Wumei envisioned when she shrieked, spotting a figure on the waves. Cutting Xu Ping off mid sentence—“I must commend your hospitality and”—Wumei only shared a fast glance with Xu Jin before he threw himself into the water, swimming against the waves.

“You’re hurt. Let’s get you settled—”

“Xiao Zhong Zhong! Listen to me!”

The nickname was a small grace; hearing it, Wumei’s guilt was forced to take a step back, reassured for a little while that Jiang Xuanyu didn’t hate him. Yet. Xiao Jing was the one who kept going, fussing over Jiang Xuanyu’s tail and inspecting it for tears.

“Did you escape? Did Zhong Shili send someone after you? Did you—”

“I got away and swam all the way here to save you all, so please listen to me,” Jiang Xuanyu said. His temper had always been mild. Even now, he managed to break through the questions only raising his voice by a decibel or two. “They know you’re here. On the island. You and,” he paused, pointing towards the beach, “Prince Su. They’re on the way.”

Wumei’s stomach flopped. He knew before asking. “Who is?”

“Xu Mao.” Jiang Xuanyu’s upper lip curled with disdain. He only did that when dealing with court lackeys, semi-annually sent to inspect his accounts. “And a troop of soldiers, so you all better—”

“How did he find out?”

“I’m guessing that guy.” Jiang Xuanyu pointed at the beach again, a little more precise, aiming at Xu Ping. “Not very secretive about his plans. Xu Mao heard he was on the prince’s trail.”

Ten different insults battled it out in Wumei’s throat, only to fade into hapless bubbles. He and Xiao Jing exchanged a glance. “How did you get away?” she asked.

“Later—we really don’t have much time.” Jiang Xuanyu waved her off with his tail.

His face seemed strangely flushed, which Wumei interpreted as anger. He nodded, tugging on Xiao Jing’s wrist. There was no doubt that Jiang Xuanyu was telling the truth. They had to figure out a plan.

“So you’re the infamous prisoner! What brings you here?”

Xu Ping was no better at not asking questions—disembarked and animated—but Jiang Xuanyu was great at ignoring them. Xu Jin understood the severity of the situation immediately. Wumei watched the understanding dawn on his face pretty much the moment they made eye contact.

“You got any weapons on that cog?” Xu Jin asked.

“I sell them not keep them,” Xu Ping said, mock-offended when, really, he should’ve been apologising for his short-sightedness. Wumei wondered if it really was a sneaky spy who’d delivered the plan to Xu Mao—like Jiang Xuanyu hinted—or if Xu Jin’s uncle orchestrated the whole thing on purpose. He almost grabbed his oyster blade again.

“A rescue mission didn’t seem like it—”

“Got it,” Xu Jin cut him off. He turned to Wumei, authoritative but with a softer furrow between his brows. “You and your friends need to leave.”

“That’s not happening,” Wumei said.

Xu Jin immediately looked more troubled. “I’m not asking.” He looked at Jiang Xuanyu, making a clear point. “He needs a doctor and some rest, and all of you need to get as far away from here as possible. Whatever my brother wants, he’s not going to—”

“He wants to kill you,” Jiang Xuanyu said, grimacing at his own straightforwardness.

“Yes, I presumed.” Xu Jin seemed to appreciate it. “And since he’d failed the first time, and now you escaped, he’ll be all too happy to take everyone else as collateral damage.”

He was speaking to all of them, his clear voice carrying over the sand like that of a general. He’d been one. A soldier first, only then a son, Wumei remembered and his heart constricted.

“I’m not leaving you here to fight an army alone,” he said, flipping further up-beach. Xu Jin was leaving a strategic distance between them, like he couldn’t risk getting too close to Wumei. Like he was scared of him, in some strange devastating way Wumei didn’t want to unpack.

“He’s not bringing a real army. That’d be guaranteed to make father suspicious.”

“You know he’s not the brightest.”

“He’s also not the most popular.” Xu Jin sighed heavily, like the conversation was draining him. So be it, Wumei thought, if he could drain all of his arguments away. “He only commands a few patrols and he can’t risk bringing them all.”

“That doesn’t mean—”

“Stop, both of you!” Jiang Xuanyu looked between them with a bemused tilt to his head, but he shook it off, refocusing with a frown. “Xiao Zhong Zhong, let’s go. Now.”

Wumei tried to look to the others for sympathy but only found torn expressions and eyes drifting sideways. Xu Ping looked like he was already picturing himself on his boat, sailing away with the wind. Wen Xing’s expression was unreadable. Xiao Jing, the most likely to understand the gravity of the situation, looked conflicted. She was the one who spoke up, voice strained: “Wumei, if you die here, it won’t help anyone.”

She was right. If Xu Mao managed to kill them both, Wumei would be playing right into his hands. War would be inevitable. So would be the ensuing peace talks, carefully mediated by those who’d caused it in the first place.

But leaving Xu Jin behind—

“Fine.” Wumei nodded, finally turning his back to him. He had no doubts Xu Jin was a capable soldier, that he could fight his way through a hundred men and come out victorious. He could see no sign of Xu Jin’s injury, the ugly scar hiding beneath his too-tight stolen robes. But he had not saved Xu Jin from death once, only to see him go the same way. “Fine, we’ll go.

*

Chapter 17

Chapter Text

The plan was laughable. No, worse, there barely was a plan, try as Xu Jin might to pretend otherwise.

Xu Ping’s cog left first, in a shower of excuses that were mostly sound but still had Wumei feeling sour. Xu Ping was not a fighter. With his one and a half bodyguard—half, because the other man was just a sailor who got drunk on the way to the island and still couldn’t stand upright—Xu Jin said his entourage would stand in the way. More importantly, someone needed to let the Emperor know if Xu Mao’s assassination attempt was successful.

Nobody mentioned that part out loud, but Wumei wasn’t stupid.

Xu Jin got his weapons ready—sword, dagger, bladed fan—like these could stand a chance against a single cannonball. He wouldn’t hide, though there were some perfectly good spots on the island for him to do so. Chiefly because his stupid righteous ass couldn’t bear the thought of not facing his cowardly brother. Also, because his stupid righteous ass wanted to buy the rest of them time.

Again, nobody had to say that for Wumei to understand.

He and his friends were supposed to deliver the news of everything that had happened in the past weeks to Zhong Shili. Wumei would get put into house arrest, probably have all his privileges revoked for a time—or a longer time. There’d be little chance for him to make it back to the island and get himself into harm’s way, Xu Jin knew. A perfect plan.

If only Wumei was stupid.

“I guess that’s that,” he said, watching three ships materialise on the horizon.

“Wumei.” Xu Jin crouched down, catching his wrist. There was a warning in his eyes as well as a plea.

A swooper flanked by two combat junks, Wumei found it hard to tear his gaze away from the horizon. There was no time for goodbyes, and the best time to leave had already passed. Still, Xu Jin looked at him with unspoken tenderness, a goodbye so potent it made Wumei angry. How dare Xu Jin just let him leave? How confident, to think a few warm words were all that was needed, that there would be a chance for more?

Wumei squeezed his eyes shut, holding back tears. His anger was impossible to act on.

“You’re not dying here,” he said, making it clear he wouldn’t stand for any protests, questions, or reassurances. Xu Jin, the idiot, opened his mouth like he didn’t care—but Wumei stole his breath, pressing their foreheads together. A crushing, painful touch which he could blame the tears on. He turned around without saying more.

Goodbyes weren’t necessary, because Wumei wasn’t leaving.

Xiao Jing was the first to catch on, keeping by Wumei’s side as they dived underwater. He wasn’t trying to sell the performance. No conflicted glances behind his shoulder, no lip gnawing. Jiang Xuanyu seemed to notice Xiao Jing’s nervousness first, and Wumei’s odd resolve second. It was fine. Whatever questions they’d have, he wouldn’t answer. Whatever arguments, he’d ignore. Wumei just needed to get them as far away as possible.

“It’s so good to see you,” he said to Jiang Xuanyu, without looking at him. “How did you get away?”

“I had… help.”

“Did someone from Shengyuan find—”

“No. It was one of the guards.” Jiang Xuanyu’s voice jumped oddly, which Wumei would’ve focused on at another time. He’d have called out the twitch in his friend’s eyebrows, and watched his tail closely for any suspicious gleams. He left that to Xiao Jing, now. There’d be time, if things went to plan.

His plan.

“Speaking of help, I wouldn’t have thought Jin Chen had it in him. Colluding with humans, plotting insurrection,” Wumei said, keeping his voice flippant, “he’s been working hard.”

The man had long been a thorn in Wumei’s side. Swimming around Shengjing like he owned the place, acting self-important, arranging marriages for people above his station; on nine out of ten occasions, Zhong Shili would take his side. It made Wumei smile, a bitter flash of teeth, imagining the man in prison.

“When you get there, you need to go straight to my brother,” he told Xiao Jing, because she must’ve known this was coming and was less likely to ask questions. “Tell him everything. Tell him you didn’t know until today. Get him to send reinforcements.”

She did understand, shaking her head like she refused to. “You can’t do this. It’s too dangerous!”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You can’t control it!”

“I don’t need to.”

Jiang Xuanyu understood fast after that, adding to the heated shouts. They were not as effective underwater, Wumei thought, the ocean seemed to make everything calmer. For now. The illusion before the storm, Wumei would set it raging soon enough.

“I’m sorry about what happened,” he said, to both and to neither. Usually, apologies made his skin crawl because they hurt his pride. This one hurt because it did nothing to lessen his guilt. “We don’t have time. Lao Jiang—” he shook Jiang Xuanyu’s hand off “—please.”

And Jiang Xuanyu, bless him, nodded.

“You’re not off the hook,” he said, draping his arm over Xiao Jing’s shoulders instead, gently holding her in place. “I have many questions.”

“So do I.”

“Good.”

Wumei nodded, too, and then he swam.

He was the fastest swimmer in all of Shengyuan, something he’d always been proud of. He couldn’t be the smartest, or the most handsome, or the most popular, so he’d always made his best to ensure he was the fastest. But the title always came with a sting. He was the fastest merfolk swimmer. Best of his kind, but not as fast as sailfish, or bonefish, or even some darned tuna. He knew, because he’d tried to race them before and it only ended in disappointment and angry fits that invigorated the Shengyuan rumour mill.

Racing back towards the island, Wumei could outswim them all.

The reassurances he’d left for Jiang Xuanyu and Xiao Jing were mostly lies. He’d also been lying to himself, however, so that should’ve absolved him. Wumei had no real idea of how this would go. He would transform, of that he had no doubt. Where, when, how, and whether he’d ever have a chance to know the outcome—those were questions he’d left for a later point.

He still didn’t know, surfacing near the familiar cave. He immediately stopped worrying about it.

One man against three ships of soldiers, Xu Jin’s confidence was well-substantiated. The beach was littered with bodies, the two smaller ships with no men on board. All the fighting was concentrated on the biggest one, tens of soldiers focused on a single target.

Xu Jin moved fast. Little more than a blur, he cut down men as quickly as they approached him, not letting himself get cornered. There was an ease and straightforwardness to Xu Jin’s fighting that Wumei would’ve appreciated, even admired, in an opponent. In a man he’d come to save, Wumei had no time to pay it attention.

Xu Mao was on the same ship. He was standing at the bow, surrounded by several bodyguards, watching the fighting with a smug grin. He didn’t even have a weapon. That was the first thing that made Wumei’s anger rise.

Xu Jin was wearing one of the robes Xiao Jing got for him—cream-coloured and too short on his wrists. No armour, unlike his assailants. So bright Wumei could see exactly where the blood was turning the robes pink—on his shoulder, on his thigh. He was fighting for his life and doing it well, but he was not invincible. That was the second thing.

“Just give it up, di!” Xu Mao yelled over the clash of swords. “What do you even have to fight for? The father who’d wanted you dead since you were a child? The country that’s not even your home? Or is it for the monsters themselves? I don’t see them helping you.”

That was the third.

Wumei felt the burning sensation spread from his tail up. A flare in his fingertips, an itchy sting at the sides of his face. His bones were rearranging, fangs coming in, vision turning darker as his eyes blackened. He grit his teeth, watching as the clouds gathered and the waves grew.

The biggest monster of them all, Wumei only had a hazy memory of the first time he’d turned. Still a child, he remembered the moment before—his mother’s terrified face—and the moment after—his mother’s face, still just as terrified. He never wanted to see Xu Jin looking at him like that. Thankfully, he was too far away to see Xu Jin’s expression; by the time Wumei reached the ship, he’d be a different creature altogether, not in possession of his senses.

With the first roll of thunder, he saw the men aboard hesitate. In a flash of lightning, he saw one of them attack Xu Jin from the back. He dodged, but Wumei cried out—and Xu Jin looked at him.

That was the last thing he saw before the monster took over.

A slumber full of terrors, he’d called it once. Sleep without rest, there were snatches of times Wumei could almost open his eyes and gaze at the destruction he was wrecking, but otherwise, he just heard it. From very far away, the sound of waves and human screams, mounting in the moments he got to witness: waving his arm to summon a wave that swept five men off the ship, tail flipping against the hull and denting it, breaking it. More darkness, and then the thunder struck the main mast, which fell onto another group of men. More darkness, and the ship was gone, broken up wreckage floating in the stormy whirlpool.

There was a man underneath him, Wumei’s claws stuck into his hips and held him down as he trashed. He was familiar but not. His face made Wumei furious, which was the familiar part.

“Wumei!”

The next time he surfaced above the monster, he was the one trashing, alone amid the rubble. Wumei wanted to move, but the monster wouldn’t. It knew there were still men around, could feel the thrum of their blood, travelling in a crazed rhythm through the sea.

One was closer than the rest, swimming towards him. A human man, like the ones who’d got Wumei into this state. He wanted to get rid of them. They made him angry. Like this man, swimming towards him.

“Wumei, please.”

The monster wanted to break the man's spine as he swam closer. It could do so with a single well-aimed twist of Wumei’s tail. But it only shook, a harmless twitch as something intangible held it back. The monster wasn’t used to obstructions and it tried again, fighting against the odd impulse it had found within itself. No, within Wumei, who didn’t want to kill the man.

The monster wouldn’t let him gain the upper hand. Trying to restrain it only made it angrier, and there was no hope for the man Wumei was gripping, not since the moment he—

“It’s me,” the voice said. The other man.

He was coming closer still, swimming into Wumei’s tail-range like he put no value on his own life. All the more reason to snap it out of him, the monster thought. It groaned the next moment, a pain spreading through its head like something was pounding it. Making the thoughts drift, air bubbles floating on the waves and impossible to bring back.

“Please, Wumei.” The man was reaching a hand towards him. Inefficiently paddling water, barely keeping afloat as the tall waves kept washing over him. But he kept his eyes open, gazing at the monster. “Come back to me.”

The monster had no capacity for laughter. It shook its head in amusem*nt, something it was allowed to do, but no more than that—it couldn’t snap the man’s neck and it couldn’t catch him in its claws. It wanted to, but Wumei didn’t, and the monster couldn’t rule over him. Trying only made it weaker.

It refused to retreat without a fight, though, and Wumei groaned like the thunder overhead. He slammed his tail into his own back and the wave that lifted Xu Jin took him along as well, as the monster retreated like a nightmare and all that was left was dreamless sleep.

Chapter 18

Chapter Text

He woke up in the cave.

Moved his fingertips to no pain. Opened his eyes to little light. There was sand in his mouth and scratches that pulled uncomfortably at his chest but didn’t ache, not really. Perhaps it was the relief of waking up that dulled them. He couldn’t recall the reason why he was expecting pain. Maybe it was all a dream…

Then he heard a sound next to him, and found the same eyes he’d left behind, before Wumei let the storm take him.

“You’re awake.”

Xu Jin grabbed his hand, shifting closer. His robes got wet in the motion, or perhaps he’d been sitting in the pool all this time. Cream robes with splatters of soft pink, bleeding into red. Not a dream, Wumei realised, and he sat up so quickly he almost smashed his head into Xu Jin’s.

“Easy, don’t—”

The hug cut Xu Jin’s voice off, Wumei’s arms wrapping around his back like a vice. There were waves lapping at his tail, even but powerful. Debris kept knocking into the walls of the cave, wood against stone. The little he could see of the sky outside was still a deep stormy blue.

Wumei dug his fingers deeper into Xu Jin’s back, not mindful of his sharp nails. It had been such a risk. All of it. And the relief—

“You’re okay,” Wumei said, leaning back to catch Xu Jin’s face between his palms.

“I am.”

He inspected it for scabs or grazes and found it miraculously unmarred. That wouldn’t be the case for the rest of him. He’d fought so many men, faced off against the monster… Very slowly, Wumei made his way to Xu Jin’s eyes.

He could deal with Xu Jin’s anger, and with his scolding, and with his confusion, but Wumei couldn’t deal with his fear. It was the smallest risk he’d taken all day, after putting Xu Jin’s life on the line, inviting the monster to become him. Yet, it inspired the most fear in Wumei himself: being known for all he was, all the terrible parts of him.

“Why did you do that?” Xu Jin asked, voice taut like a string before snapping.

“I had to,” Wumei said, burrowing his forehead against Xu Jin’s shoulder. Perhaps the shock hadn’t worn off yet, delaying the fear. Wumei didn’t want to watch as it took hold. “I couldn’t leave you.”

“You lied to me.”

“I didn’t.” He’d kept some facts to himself, which wasn’t the same. By the strength of Xu Jin’s grip on his waist, Wumei could tell he didn’t see it the same way.

“Did you know what would happen?”

There it was, the dawning understanding.

Wumei wanted to curl up like a shrimp; then he could be small enough to fit into the palm of Xu Jin’s hand, a soft floppy thing Xu Jin could do with as he pleased. Not that Wumei thought Xu Jin would harm him. That was the problem. The monster was a part of him, anything but a harmless shrimp. Too strong a creature to be trifled with and too scary a creature to be loved.

“I didn’t want to harm you. I didn’t think I would.” Wumei had hoped he wouldn’t. Another part of the risk, but one he undertook knowing that staying away would harm Xu Jin just the same. “I really didn’t—”

“That’s not what I mean. You could’ve died.”

“You saw me.” Wumei chuckled, unbidden. “Twice now, you saw what I turn into. It wasn’t me who was in danger.”

“You said you would leave,” Xu Jin said, like that was the real problem, the one thing he was stuck on. An indirect promise that Wumei made sure never to give, never in such words. He couldn’t promise something he had no intention of fulfilling.

Wumei shrugged. “You said you wouldn’t hide.”

He finally straightened up, the shrimp plan had fallen through. The only thing he could turn into was a bloodthirsty beast. One who would not be scared of looking into a human’s eyes, so he forced himself to do it again, facing the consequences. There was still no fear to be seen, but Xu Jin looked like he was holding back tears. He shook them off, wiping them into his sleeve. His hand came to rest on Wumei’s nape.

“I don’t beg for things often, you should know that about me,” Xu Jin said, with a fierce edge that told Wumei it was no exaggeration. He didn’t have to beg for things, because what he wanted, he would try to get. Perhaps that explained the lack of fear, Xu Jin was a man who’d seen so many horrors, had fought his way through so many obstacles, that a nary monster couldn’t terrify him properly. Not fear but acceptance that Wumei was not who he’d thought—

“But please, please, don’t ever do something so stupid again.”

The voice in Wumei’s head fell silent as Xu Jin brought his forehead close. So gently it was almost unbearable, a soft grip on the back of Wumei’s head, the other palm caressing his waist. It made Wumei go soft. Curl his back like he was an overgrown shrimp after all, unpeeled, a soft underbelly and an even softer heart. All in Xu Jin’s hands.

He stayed there, unmoving, as the relief spread through his body.

The storm had wound down, there was no more rain. They’d both survived it, bodies and minds intact. Xu Jin didn’t hate him. Xu Jin held him. Xu Jin kissed him. In the span of a day, everything had changed, and nothing had.

Soon, it would have to.

To Wumei’s chagrin, there was a whole world—two whole worlds, and perhaps the fish cared, too—waiting for them to emerge from the cave. He took a breath so deep he felt like his lungs and gills both shook with it, and then another. With the third one, he pulled away.

Chapter 19

Chapter Text

Xu Ping’s cog was docked in the exact same spot as before, a mighty provocation in the face of three ships’ worth of debris floating about.

“I couldn’t stand to leave!” Xu Ping claimed, but he’d only returned once the battle was over. To watch its aftershocks, or to fraternise with whoever came out of it as the winner—Wumei wasn’t allowed to question him. They needed him, as much as Wumei hated it. His ship was Xu Jin’s best option for leaving.

(He didn’t want Xu Jin to leave.)

“What do you mean, he’s alive?!”

There was another man on the cog, with a face so puffy and body so tightly wrapped in rope that Wumei couldn’t recognise him from below deck. Xu Mao, who nearly drowned—who Wumei had nearly drowned, on purpose—was still taking shallow breaths, unconscious.

“I’ll let father deal with him,” Xu Jin said, none too pleased.

“He tried to kill you. He’s yours to deal with.”

“He’s the best evidence of his own crimes.”

Wumei was doubtful. If he’d beaten up Jin Chen, accused him of a crime, and brought him up to Zhong Shili for questioning, chances were Wumei would end up punished—one way or another. But Xu Jin could keep his head cool in the face of false accusations. Perhaps that was the decisive factor.

(Thinking of Jin Chen made Wumei wince, because he would also have to leave.)

There wasn’t much on the island that Xu Jin needed to pack. Wumei thought he wouldn’t take anything, really, but Xu Jin surprised everyone by asking for a little more time, “to get my belongings.” Xu Ping rolled his eyes. Wumei swam with him, grateful to get more time alone. He had one more scary task ahead, before all his scary tasks undersea.

Although he’d worn them indiscriminately on the island, Xu Jin didn’t take most of the robes Xiao Jing brought him, only two he deemed most comfortable. The robes Wumei had ripped off of him, way back when, Xu Jin held up with a twist to his mouth. He didn’t want them. Wumei snatched them, stupidly, like there was something sentimental to torn cloth, like he’d earned it by saving Xu Jin’s life. And when he rolled the robes up, Xu Jin kept smiling.

He took the compass—to keep his uncle in check—and some of the cutlery—refusing to touch anything Xu Ping could use to poison him. Wumei splashed him for the terrible joke, and thought again of proposing that he could just swim Xu Jin all the way to his father. Humans rode animals all the time. Anyone else suggesting merfolk were akin to horses or donkeys would have Wumei slapping them with his tail, but the thought of Xu Jin mounting him… It just made Wumei blush. He held back from saying anything.

The ink scribbles, Xu Jin paused at, brushing a thumb over the most recent of Wumei’s haphazard characters. They were uneven, the parchment damp and rippled. Xu Jin folded it up, tucking it into his layers. It made Wumei blush even harder. When he excused himself, circling into their cave and back, he found Xu Jin writing.

“What are you doing?” he asked though it was plain.

He thought he'd spilled the last of their ink into the ocean, when the doubts kicked in. But here Xu Jin was, closing another ink bottle and waving the parchment back and forth, drying it.

“For you,” he said, unfairly mischievous in the face of their impending doom. It settled Wumei’s nerves a little. “Study material. I’ll ask you to recite it when we meet.”

Wumei huffed, looking at the sentences. He recognised a few of the characters—so much more elegant and uniform than anything Wumei had tried to produce—but not nearly enough to grasp the meaning. Xu Jin should’ve continued to look smug, giving him such a polished riddle. He looked shy.

“Is that a promise?” Wumei asked, grinning with enough smugness for the both of them. To cover up the way his heart was flapping like a trapped fish. Xu Jin nodded, firmly, and the earnestness was too much to deal with. Wumei dried his hand on Xu Jin’s calf, took the parchment, and carefully folded it. “Difficult homework like this, are you saying we’ll meet again in five years?”

“Not at all, I know you’re a quick learner,” Xu Jin said. The teasing had eased his fluster, now he leaned forward and kissed Wumei as if to prove a point. He smiled, leaving only a breath of space between them. “Especially when you’re motivated.”

Many of Wumei’s teachers would agree with the assessment. Instead of admitting it, Wumei grumbled some more about unreasonable treatment and unfair human expectations. All extremely weak complaints that he only used to buy himself time, to reach for the clamshell he’d retrieved from the cave.

“I’ve got something for you, too,” he said, holding it between his palms like an offering.

Demure and pious, he should’ve kept his eyes low, handed it over to Xu Jin like it was his own heart and there was no longer anything at stake for Wumei. But it was his heart, in a sense, and he couldn’t hand it over without seeing Xu Jin’s reaction. Would he even realise? He was bound to. But, like the forehead touch, there were merfolk customs that would elude Xu Jin, like many human fancies defied Wumei’s comprehension.

“Is this…?” Xu Jin’s voice faded as he nudged the clamshell open, not taking it entirely. Spotting the pearl inside, his mouth fell open.

Ah. He was the most clever of humans after all—Wumei was very convinced of this, irrespectively of the fact that Xu Jin was the one human he’d spent any substantial time with.

“This,” Wumei said, forcing Xu Jin to close his fingers over the shell, covering them with his own palms, “is a promise.”

He’d asked Xiao Jing to retrieve it—another favour he’d have to repay at some point, she’d accumulated a lifetime's worth of them. A piece of valuable heritage, no doubt, the pearl was big and gleaming, worth a fortune, a symbol of royal opulence Wumei would’ve thrown away in some of his teenage fits when all he wanted was to be a fish.

But the pearl used to be his mother’s, and he couldn’t stand the thought of leaving it behind.

“Do you” —Wumei spoke again when Xu Jin just kept staring at the pearl, almost without blinking— “not want it?”

It had been a few days since Wumei decided he wanted to give it to Xu Jin, enough time for him to imagine all the ways it could go. Xu Jin accepting, thinking the pearl a precious trinket, one he’d keep for a while to remind him of his island adventure and then sell off when it started to bring guilt. Xu Jin not realising what the pearl really meant, keeping it, and then gifting it to whatever princess or prince he’d end up marrying, a treasure from one conquest to another. Or Xu Jin not even taking the pearl, making gentle excuses to scold Wumei for being so soft, so trustful.

For the worst scenarios, Wumei also imagined his own reaction: raging storms and a quest for revenge, a broken heart and cursing the entire human race. Xu Jin, most of all, for being so beautiful and so kind and so easy to imagine spending a life with—when it was supposed to be anything but easy. If Xu Jin rejected him, after everything, Wumei had the stupid thought that he’d be angry enough to fight him on the spot.

He’d had a lot of stupid ideas in his life but that one might’ve been the most idiotic.

Looking at Xu Jin’s lowered face, Wumei could never fight him. He’d give him the pearl, and maybe he’d break his own heart, but that was that. It was Xu Jin’s now, whatever he decided to do with it.

“I do.”

Xu Jin’s words travelled a long while before they reached Wumei’s ears, giving him a full-body tremble. “You do? Do you know what I—”

“Of course I do.”

Any doubts of whether Xu Jin knew what he was saying vanished in the face of his smile. He must’ve gathered, from how embarrassingly transparent Wumei had been about this all. From how his voice shook—it really wasn’t supposed to shake, he’d practised this!—and how he hung on each twitch of Xu Jin’s face, waiting for a rejection that didn’t come.

“Thank you,” Xu Jin said, closing the shell. Wumei could understand his language just fine, which he found a blessing, but perhaps even if he’d never had the luck of being Xiao Jing’s pupil, they would’ve come to this same spot. Xu Jin’s fingers were gentle and intentional, like when he peeled the crayfish, like when he wrote out whatever secret message Wumei would no doubt lose sleep over. They said what his words confirmed. “I’ll keep it safe.”

The pearl didn’t join all the other things in his shoulder pouch. Instead, it went to keep Wumei’s terrible writing company, right by Xu Jin’s heart. There was nothing else for him to pack, and they both had to leave before Zhong Shili’s men got there. The cog on the beach rocked from side to side, like how Wumei’s old teacher used to wag his tail when he was impatient.

He wouldn’t be doing it with anyone anytime soon, Wumei knew, and by the virtue of that, he decided they had enough time for one more kiss. Xu Jin laughed into it, toppled onto his back in the sand, hands resting feebly on Wumei’s waist. He agreed, though.

That was their goodbye, and they didn’t say anything else.

Chapter 20

Chapter Text

“You are both pathetic,” Xiao Jing ruled. “It’s been less than a month!”

Her hand landed on Wumei’s shoulder like a claw, making him stop in place. Her other hand found the same purchase on Jiang Xuanyu’s shoulder. “If I knew mermen could pine this hard over humans, I’d never have changed form.”

“But you make a beautiful mermaid,” Jiang Xuanyu said, quick on the uptake.

“Not like it was up to you,” Wumei said, rolling his eyes.

“You’re forgiven, pine away.” Xiao Jing linked her arms with Jiang Xuanyu, swimming him towards the door. At Wumei, left swirling the water by his own coral bed, she raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “You need to improve your manners, or I’ll encourage Prince Su to leave you pining forever.”

Wumei huffed. He knew she didn’t mean it, but he saw his friends off with a very-not-princelike tail swish that had Zhang Ji blushing. His bodyguard wouldn’t rat on Wumei to his brother, thankfully. Even though he’d become more of Wumei’s prison guard since his return to Shengyuan, Zhang Ji was still his servant, loyal to the fishbone.

And it wasn’t really house arrest.

Wumei was permitted out on daily swims around the capital, watched by Zhong Shili’s men and hundreds of his non-merfolk spies. He was allowed to drink, and meet his friends, and parade around the palace as much as he wanted to. Wumei just couldn’t leave.

He didn’t love it—it was a rather terrible thank you for the service he’d provided the Great Underwater Empire of Shengyuan and the Seven Surrounding Seas. Wumei prevented a war from happening. He found a traitor amongst the Emperor’s closest ranks and neutralised Jin Chen’s threats. He’d studied humans—or, a particular human—so closely he could now hold lectures on their kind.

(He actually tried that, once, and got pulled off the university stage by Jiang Xuanyu for reasons he couldn’t comprehend to this day. His lecture was too detailed, apparently, and also, not objective enough.)

But no, Wumei got house arrest for his efforts. Plus an annulment of the stupid arranged marriage, but that was never supposed to have happened in the first place, Jin Chen just wanted him trapped in Beiyu as a househusband. Once a week, Zhong Shili let him go above the water to the nearest island, but he always sent a five-merfolk troop with Wumei, and how could he focus on his reading practice when he was being watched by those brutes.

(He also got a fancy title of Zhong Wumei, the Harbinger of Peace, but what was he even supposed to do with that mouthful?)

Despite the terrible company, Wumei had been making good progress with the poem Xu Jin left with him. At first, he felt quite proud just realising that it was a poem, about two lines in. Now, he had three quarters of the thing translated, and recited it—gaps and all—in his head each night before he went to sleep.

(It’d be more effective to also recite it each morning after waking up, but Wumei usually had other things on his mind then. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, Xiao Jing had taught him. She had not mentioned how it would make him more horny than a unicornfish. She was probably right not to disclose that part, Wumei didn’t want to discuss it. He just needed to find a way to deal with it.

Preferably, with Xu Jin in tow.)

“What do you mean, you won’t read it for me?” Wumei sputtered, just a day after returning to Shengyuan. He showed the poem to Xiao Jing, saw her shiver from head to tailfin and pronounce in a squeaky voice: “It was your homework, I’m not helping you cheat!”

“You can also read human calligraphy,” he said, reporting the unfair treatment to Jiang Xuanyu. “Something you’d never bothered to share…”

“Something you’d never bothered to notice,” Jiang Xuanyu said, and he read the poem with a small smile, obviously touched. Wumei had him this close to translating the damn thing, but when Jiang Xuanyu heard it was from Xu Jin, he took Xiao Jing’s side. “If you can’t read his poems, how could you spend a lifetime with him?”

It was gentle ribbing, all things considered. Not like at the very start, when Wumei admitted he’d developed very deep and very sincere feelings for a human prince while Jiang Xuanyu was being held captive by his emperor father.

“Did he put a spell on you? Are you ill?” Jiang Xuanyu had asked, then, genuinely concerned.

“I could ask you the same thing.” Wumei scoffed, grateful to have acquired counter-ammunition in advance. “What about your Xiao Bai?”

“Don’t call him that.”

Jiang Xuanyu didn’t—at least, not in Wumei’s company. It was always “Wu Baiqi, that idiot” with the stupidest smitten smile that made Wumei feel like he was looking into a mirror. He wasn’t even mad. Wumei would have to thank the man if—when—he met him. A Dayu guard though he was, Jiang Xuanyu maintained he’d never hurt him, tried several times to have him released, and even got himself injured to let Jiang Xuanyu escape.

He’d recounted the whole story of his capture, and Wumei traded it for his story of cohabitating on a deserted island, and Xiao Jing listened to them, ending with a sigh. “So romantic. Why do these exciting things never happen to me?”

Wumei, competitive by nature, could admit that Jiang Xuanyu’s anecdotes had a more dramatic flavour. He’d award himself more points for tenderness. Such debates were irrelevant, however, seeing as Jiang Xuanyu was not under house arrest and he could see Wu Baiqi whenever he wanted. Which meant he was away a lot, something Wumei wasn’t used to. Which also meant he could bring Wumei news from Dayu, something Wumei was so grateful for he was willing to forget the entirety of the made-up contest.

If only Jiang Xuanyu could bring him word from Xu Jin himself.

“This arrived for you,” Xiao Jing told him one morning, after Wumei had—again—failed to convince Zhong Shili of how useful he could be, roaming free. She had a small chest in her hands, and dangled the key in front of Wumei’s eyes like a piece of seaweed. “For your studies.”

She’d done the same thing before, so Wumei’s excitement at this time was appropriate to the contents of her delivery. Before, he was expecting the chest was from Xu Jin. He found a bunch of books from Xu Jin’s uncle instead, and Xiao Jing had shot down his disappointment with a long-suffering: “I paid for it all out of my own pocket and this is the thanks I get?”

So, Xu Ping’s blackwater trade was continuing just fine. Wumei’s learning was also continuing fine; his friends were a lot more willing to translate passages from the books for him. And that was fine, Wumei decided once he could decipher most of the poem. Those lines were better left for him alone. Just like Wumei’s pearl was only for Xu Jin.

“You gave him what?” Jiang Xuanyu asked, the first time Wumei brought it up. Xiao Jing, the traitor, left them to talk it out—pretending she spotted a dolphin when those hadn’t been allowed to enter Shengjing since the great catfish robbery ten years ago.

“I gave him the pearl,” Wumei repeated, enunciating each word though he knew Jiang Xuanyu had no problems with his hearing.

“Xiao Zhong Zhong—you—what—really?”

He’d discussed it with Jiang Xuanyu before, when they were younger. How he doubted he’d ever give the pearl to someone, how it might be cursed, how his heart was a piece of stone not worthy of such a lustrous embodiment… It was selfish, Jiang Xuanyu’s past unresolved romantic feelings and all.

Now, Wumei felt it was important to share the news.

“What can I say?” Jiang Xuanyu nodded, as he seemed to evaluate something on Wumei’s face. “I hope he realises what it means.”

Wumei nodded, too. “He does.”

He often reassured himself with the memory of Xu Jin on that last day: tucking the pearl where he was the most vulnerable, eyes not straying as he promised the goodbye would be only temporary. On the good days, the memory was enough. On the bad days—which were directly multiplying with the time that had passed—Wumei was a horror.

He realised this. Swimming from place to place, wondering whether Xu Jin had changed his mind, whether he’d learned the poem for no reason, whether he’d have to ask Jiang Xuanyu to ask Wu Baiqi to fight his own master.

“Please be serious,” Xiao Jing would say, threatening to leave in a whirlwind, always staying long enough to see Wumei’s anxiety calmed.

“You gave him the pearl,” Jiang Xuanyu would shrug, nonchalance piled over his concern, “so you must trust him, right?”

And Wumei did.

But he was also getting to see very clearly why a merfolk-human relationship was not an everyday thing, hundreds of years of mutual fear aside. Wumei could long, and pine, and escape his brother’s laughable confinement measures, the ocean had no real walls. But Xu Jin could easily remain just a memory—wonderful, cursed, and unreachable.

“If anyone can learn to walk on fins out of spite, it’s you,” Xiao Jing told him, the one time Wumei’s misery got so bad he tried to write a poem of his own. Good friend that she was, she immediately disposed of it and tucked him into bed. Then she flicked him right in the middle of his forehead. “Xu Jin knows that. Stop worrying.”

Wumei tried. Almost every night he dreamt of the island.

*

Chapter 21

Chapter Text

“You know the greater ocean population is still scandalised by your behaviour?” Zhong Shili asked him, on another morning when he’d summoned Wumei to court.

He’d been doing it more and more frequently, conducting his boring meetings while forcing Wumei to sit in the corner and observe, a punishment fit for making Wumei’s mind go wild with scenarios of what Xu Jin could be doing at the exact same time.

His brother’s tone was authoritative but Wumei just barely resisted rolling his eyes. The greater ocean population was either entertained by or ignorant of his behaviour, and Zhong Shili was only scandalised because, in the context of a brother’s secrecy, an Emperor ought to be.

“I’ve been reflecting on my behaviour,” Wumei said, eyes cast down. It was no lie, his reflections just weren’t something he could share with Zhong Shili unless he wanted his house arrest prolonged. The important thing was that Wumei hadn’t tried to flee again. He’d apologised already.

“Good.”

It was nearing midday, the Serpentine Hall empty except for them and two of Zhong Shili’s advisors. The older was drilling holes in Wumei’s tail, the younger—by one or two white streaks in his hair—ignoring him altogether. Wumei knew most of the unfavourable reports on his behaviour had been delivered by them, and duly emphasised.

“I got word from them,” Zhong Shili said, the strain in his voice immediately making Wumei’s tail flip in excitement. Them could only refer to—“The Emperor is inviting me for a formal meeting, to discuss the final conditions of the treaty.”

They’d been communicating, Wumei knew. It came as a slight surprise that Zhong Shili—who’d only ever denounced humans as a sub-primitive tribe of aggressors—had advisors who could speak the language. It came as an insult that Zhong Shili—after hearing most of what Wumei had done for the cause—completely excluded him from the arrangements. Wumei’s intel only came from Jiang Xuanyu, Xiao Jing, and the fish. All of it amounted to ‘steady progress, no further details’.

“That is good news,” Wumei said, trying to keep his tone measured and failing. “Do you have a date? Where are you meeting? Are you going to—”

“I haven’t agreed yet,” Zhong Shili said.

“Why?”

It was hard not to sound disapproving: nothing about the facts spoke in favour of Zhong Shili withholding his confirmation. Shengyuan was a strong Empire, but it didn’t have the resources to fight a human war. It didn’t have reasons, either, with Jin Chen convicted for planning a coup, and both Wumei and Jiang Xuanyu safely returned to their homeland. Yes, the two kingdoms had had an unsavoury history. But so did Shengyuan and the Great Underwater Kingdom of Beiyu and the Three Surrounding Seas, and they’d managed to overcome their differences. Beiyu had even ceded one of their Seas to Shengyuan, under no violent threat!

“The Emperor is asking to meet in two weeks’ time, near the Emerald Trench. We would go over the treaty once more and sign it, ceremonially, with witnesses from both kingdoms,” Zhong Shili interrupted his thoughts. “He’s bringing his advisors and his son.”

He was clearly expecting Wumei’s reaction—raising an unimpressed eyebrow at the way Wumei’s mouth fell open, his tail lighting up. “Which son?”

“Prince Su.”

“Oh.”

A simple confirmation, yet Wumei felt like he’d been swept up in some deluge. Any attempts at calming himself were futile. There was no helping it, Wumei’s tail was flickering to the beat of his heart. “I shall go with you then.”

“Who says?”

Zhong Shili exchanged a look with one of his servants, and Wumei continued to pretend there was nothing giving up how he felt about this update. “I do. I’ve spent a long time with him—I know him, brother.” He racked his brain for better arguments. “If things go wrong, there’s no doubt I can steer them back in the direction you want. I understand the language—no, I understand how humans use it. And I—”

“Yes, you’ve spent a long time with him.” Zhong Shili said, unimpressed. “Without my permission.”

“That’s not the point now,” Wumei barked out. He bit his lip. “With all due respect, brother, the treaty is more important.”

“A good reason why I shouldn’t let someone as impulsive as you threaten it.”

Wumei drew in a breath, instinctively inhaling a stream of water. He let it out with a wince. “I won’t.”

“Hm.”

“I swear, I won’t.”

Zhong Shili harrumphed and swam back to his throne, sitting on it gingerly. He seemed like he was challenging Wumei to push him further and lock the proverbial door with his own temper. That’s why Wumei inhaled more water and held his breath.

“Good then,” Zhong Shili said. “I already sent an inkgram with the plans to your residence. Please don’t make me regret this.”

Wumei felt an urge to slap Zhong Shili’s palm—Xiao Jing had taught him the universal human gesture for gratefulness—in a high five. He resisted. The swirled curtsy might’ve been a little excessive—something a guppy would use when making an address to the Emperor and not his own brother—but less provocative.

Zhong Shili already squirmed in discomfort at the sight and tilted his head towards the exit. “Go.”

*

Chapter 22

Chapter Text

The ocean was calm that day, barely a wave as Wumei and his brother’s party made their way to the meeting spot. For once, Wumei valued its obvious approval. He hoped Zhong Shili saw it the same way—the ocean had been witness to how well a merman and a human could coexist, and it was giving its testimony.

“You know the ocean isn’t sentient,” Jiang Xuanyu said. Swimming by Wumei’s side, their tails had brushed. Wumei was thankful his friend couldn't hear the thoughts from approximately two minutes ago, when he was imagining how he’d greet Xu Jin if there was nobody else around.

“We worship it like it is,” Wumei said. “I’ll listen to it when it’s convenient.”

“You’re such a heretic, Xiao Zhong Zhong,” Jiang Xuanyu said, smiling.

“Always have been.”

The meeting place suggested by Emperor Jiahe was a small island surrounded by an expanse of water where no ships could lie in wait. There was only one ship when they arrived, a large imperial junk with yellow sails that had carried the human delegation. It was docked by the rocky shore, and, seeing it, Wumei’s heart rate picked up. He led the way to the curious cave nearby, one that extended underwater in such a way that the humans could stand almost eye-level to the water surface, separated by a thin wall of stone. It got flooded most mornings, Zhong Shili’s reports remarked, but at this particular time of the day, the spot would be ideal for both parties.

“Prince Su is very smart,” Wumei said, the first time he heard about the cave, and also now, as it started gaining more dimensions in front of them. There was no doubt that the idea came from Xu Jin. Subtly brilliant, putting both emperors at ease with neither towering above the other. Considerate of their differences but signalling they were not insurmountable.

It was not always a bad thing to have a human tower over you, Wumei thought and smirked, but that was for later. When the peace was arranged, he could be more frank about his affections—not just relying on his tail to signal them without Wumei’s permission.

“sh*t,” Wumei breathed, the moment he saw Xu Jin. Thankfully incomprehensible to his brother, the two human-speaking advisors shot Wumei a scandalised look. He couldn’t be bothered. It had been a while.

Memories could degrade, or they could intensify, and Wumei did fear—just a little—that his memories of Xu Jin had been coloured by his former emotional state. If the water’s red, you should be in bed, the merfolk saying went. But one look now was enough to calm him. In a sense—Wumei thought his heart would skip out of his mouth, that was how wildly it was beating.

“Calm down, your highness,” Jiang Xuanyu said, obviously tickled by the sight of Wumei’s glowing tail.

So would be Xu Jin—was, he was already close enough for Wumei to see his smile—and that made it glow even brighter. It was a good thing; glowing tails had been scientifically proven to be more attractive. Not that Wumei wanted to attract Emperor Jiahe—squid forbid—but it wouldn’t hurt to show that Wumei was a good-looking match. If his son’s beloved had to have a tail, it better be a nice tail, right?

Swimming closer to the rocky wall that separated the humans, Wumei could barely contain himself from jumping over it. Xu Jin was there. Beautiful in robes that were perfectly fitted to his figure, tall and lean, with a healthy complexion and that damned smile—

“Thank you for accepting our invitation,” Xu Jin said, addressing Wumei but sweeping his gaze around the rest of the merfolk delegation. He bowed, as did the other humans, all except the Emperor.

Wumei expected an older version of Xu Jin. He now remembered the Emperor’s genes had made Xu Mao, and the expectation was far-fetched. Xu Jin was the most beautiful human man—from the ones Wumei had met, and the ones he hadn’t—there was no competition.

Both sides moved on to exchanging empty courtesies, which Wumei listened to one ear in, one ear out; his brother had brought the advisors for this, and Wumei had been rather discouraged from speaking anyway. Xu Jin, likewise, kept quiet by his father’s side. His face was more impassive than Wumei had ever seen it, perhaps since the first day on the boat. His eyes betrayed all. It was near impossible for Wumei not to swim the last few paces and reach for him.

Later, Xu Jin mouthed, reading Wumei’s face as easily as he had his. Immediately, he went back to looking reserved. Jiang Xuanyu chuckled, muttering something about not being needed here. Which was untrue, but Wumei didn’t need to correct him.

His presence was a necessity, a reminder of why they were here in the first place. He’d been a glorified prisoner, far more than Xu Jin had ever been a hostage. And Wu Baiqi was part of Xu Jin’s entourage, so Wumei figured Jiang Xuanyu would’ve been happy to come along, even if he wasn’t an all-important figurehead.

“That him?” Wumei flicked his nose at one of the men behind Xu Jin. It was a superfluous question, the guy had not taken his eyes off Jiang Xuanyu since they arrived.

“Yeah.”

“Hm.”

He was good-looking, Wumei supposed. On the scale of human attractiveness, Wu Baiqi would find a cushy place somewhere in the middle: many vacant spots behind Xu Jin, several spots ahead of Xu Mao. Wumei had pictured him bulkier for some reason, like a warrior from old merfolk tales. The man in the cave seemed harmless in comparison, and, more importantly, completely charmed by Jiang Xuanyu. Wumei could only hope he had more control over his own face.

“Now, let us look the terms over once again, shall we?” Emperor Jiahe said, one of his men handing him an important-looking document. It was in a wooden case, decorated with a beaded gold string, and everyone held it like they were afraid the paper could crumble at a wrong touch.

Written in human characters, Emperor Jiahe read it out condition after condition, leaving time for Zhong Shili’s men to translate. “There shall be embassies established between the two kingdoms,” and, “any disputes arising shall be resolved through peaceful means.” Wumei forced himself to focus. He’d much rather keep trying to make Xu Jin’s slight smile grow—especially once they reached condition thirty-one and Emperor Jiahe unfolded the parchment to reveal they were only halfway through.

“Can you check, saya?” Zhong Shili asked once they were done with the final point.

Little brother, he hadn’t used the term in years. There was no need to use it for show, none of the humans understood. Even more incredulously, he was motioning Wumei towards the treaty with an expectant gaze.

“Sorry?”

“You know I cannot read it.”

Neither could Wumei. There was a slight difference between reading the pulp novels Xiao Jing got for him and official documents—nevermind one as important as this. But Jiang Xuanyu caught his panicked glance and joined Wumei in making a swirled curtsy before the Emperor, then carefully stretching the parchment up towards the light. Wumei could understand about every third sentence; Jiang Xuanyu filled in the rest.

Reaching item seventy, Wumei nodded. “Everything is in order.”

His relief must’ve been very visible—Xu Jin’s grin split his face before he caught himself and trimmed it back to peace-negotiation-acceptable norms. Wumei didn’t bother. He was smiling like a loon while Zhong Shili had his advisors bring out a stone plaque—their equivalent of the document, same content efficiently condensed into ten points—and almost jumped like a dolphin when Emperor Jiahe addressed him.

“You are Emperor Zhong’s younger brother, I presume.”

“I am.”

Xu Jin lowered his gaze when Wumei seeked it, confused. Emperor Jiahe cleared his throat. “We are glad to see both parties satisfied with the standing treaty. At the same time, we have another proposition to discuss.”

Something about the Emperor’s manner suggested that the ‘we’ referred only to him, and the ‘discuss’ was unlikely. Xu Jin still looked flustered. Zhong Shili’s advisors hastened to translate in a whisper, wary.

“Your kingdom is familiar with the concept of political marriages, is that correct?”

“Of course.” Wumei almost scoffed. Treaty or no treaty, there was obviously a long way to go with the condescension. He bit his tongue. Surely, Emperor Jiahe was not suggesting—

“—we’d like you to consider it.”

“Excuse me?”

“If you took him as husband, the future of both kingdoms would be more secure.”

The Emperor was blunt, and yet, Wumei sputtered. “You mean Xu Jin?”

The man in question looked almost like his old self—having dealt with the worst of his fluster and shedding the dispassionate mask, Xu Jin’s cheeks were pink and his smile was untameable. The water around Wumei turned such a bright shade of turquoise it was almost blinding.

“Prince Su, yes,” Emperor Jiahe said, watching with something that could’ve been amusem*nt just as it could’ve been disapproval.

“I—” Wumei opened his mouth and promptly closed it, like a fish on land. Amazing impression he must’ve been making on the Emperor. Worse still, Xu Jin’s smile wobbled at the edges with Wumei’s hesitation. All because the yes had sprung into Wumei’s throat so quickly it had incapacitated his vocal chords. “I’d be honoured,” he finally pushed out, hurrying to repair the blunder with a smile of his own.

Zhong Shili cleared his throat before any relief could settle in.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” His tone was authoritative enough that all eyes turned to him, even before one of his advisors translated the words somewhat more meekly. Emperor Jiahe blinked. Xu Jin’s jaw tightened.

Wumei swam to Zhong Shili, so eager he bumped into his hip. The advisors clicked their tongues in tandem. “Brother—”

“Political marriages are one thing, but marriages with humans are another. No offence, your highness.”

“—hear me out.”

“As a gesture, perhaps it can do. But the practicalities are nigh impossible,” Zhong Shili spoke over him, towards the Emperor. Wumei knew that, in truth, his brother was speaking to him. “Where would the couple live? One or the other would have to make a compromise, and I don’t think my brother—”

“Please.”

Wumei tugged on his elbow, which finally made him pause. The advisors and Zhong Shili’s bodyguards swam closer. He dismissed them with a sigh, letting Wumei pull him aside. His face was hard to read, but Wumei could tell he was conflicted.

“Let me do it,” Wumei said without delay.

Zhong Shili’s face hardened further. “Don’t be rash. Weren’t you against marriage, not so long ago?”

“That was different.”

“Indeed. In this case, we’ve already reached an agreement,” he pointed towards the stone plaque and its paper counterpart, “There is no need to go this far.”

“It’s not that,” Wumei said, squaring his shoulders. “I didn’t want to marry Wen Ruyu. But Prince Su…”

Wumei let his voice trail off, and Zhong Shili visibly fought to keep his blinks even and impartial. He didn’t manage. After about three, he reached a hand to the bridge of his nose, massaging it like Wumei’s words had given him a headache. “You really want to marry him?”

“I do,” Wumei said, eyes straying towards the onlookers. Emperor Jiahe was talking to his own advisors, probably concerned. Jiang Xuanyu was also concerned, but raising his arm towards Wumei in a supportive signal. Xu Jin’s concern, though there must’ve been much of it, was hidden behind his reassuring nod. “I really do,” Wumei repeated.

Zhong Shili sighed.

He launched into a short lecture on human versus merfolk differences, completely needless. Different culture, different way of life, different values. Wumei knew all that, and Zhong Shili knew there’d be no changing his mind. As a last ditch attempt, he reminded Wumei that if the marriage failed, so could the peace. Wumei resisted rolling his eyes.

Over the past weeks, he’d considered it all. How marrying a human would require constant give and take, how he’d have to adapt and yield and go against his very nature. Were it a hypothetical situation, them playing one of Xiao Jing’s drinking games and Wumei being asked to consider marrying a human stranger, he’d laugh it off. But Xu Jin was no stranger, and Wumei felt more certain about this than his own swimming skills.

“It won’t fail,” he said.

“Very well.” Zhong Shili turned around, and nudged Wumei ahead with his own tail. “You can let them know.”

Chapter 23

Chapter Text

The rest of the meeting passed in a rush.

Emperor Jiahe seemed relieved by Wumei’s decision, but—unlike with the treaty—he didn’t linger on the details. There’d be time for that, Wumei guessed, and he was grateful for it. The urge to throw himself at Xu Jin had been present since the moment Wumei saw him, but by now, it was growing painful. His tail was mad with it. Xu Jin kept flexing his palm like he was struggling with the same problem.

“We shall see each other soon,” Emperor Jiahe said to Wumei, in his slew of parting words.

He extended one more apology to Jiang Xuanyu and thanked Wumei’s brother, magnanimously waving away Zhong Shili’s own courtesies. After that, he and his men turned towards the cave exit. Wumei’s gills flipped in panic, but after whispering something to his father, Xu Jin didn’t follow along with the rest. Instead, he came closer to the water. The only thing that stopped Wumei from pouncing was Jiang Xuanyu, who somehow got to Xu Jin first.

“Nice to finally meet you, Prince Su,” he said, leisurely in a clear provocation. His puffed-up smile was all for Wumei, and Wumei’s elbow jab was all for Jiang Xuanyu.

“You too, Jiang-gongzi.”

Xu Jin kept his composure, like usual. His posture was more relaxed than moments ago when surrounded by royal guards. Only one of them remained, and as Wu Baiqi joined them at Xu Jin’s side and Jiang Xuanyu’s tail shined neon orange, Wumei almost laughed. Then he almost groaned, watching as Jiang Xuanyu prolonged Xu Jin’s handshake with a considering tilt to his head.

“Interesting,” he muttered. His self-satisfied smile grew as his eyes found Wumei again. “You have a lot on your mind, your highness.”

“Lao Jiang!” Wumei shoved him away. Not too aggressively—not by their standards—but the motion made Wu Baiqi open his mouth and close it, inspiring a furrow between his brows. Wumei took it as a chance to introduce himself, too. Just briefly.

Despite his own curiosity and Jiang Xuanyu's ‘background check’—he’d referred to it as such before coming, Wumei thinking it was just a joke—Wumei’s mouth set into a thin line. There would certainly be a better time for this. There’d been no real proposal yet, so they’d need to follow proper engagement protocol, check off a boring to-do list that had nothing to do with the marriage itself. Everyone could sense his impatience.

Thankfully, they also seemed to respect it.

Wumei’s brother and his entourage had left without a word, a near miracle. Jiang Xuanyu and Wu Baiqi reached the same conclusion, also without a word, disappearing together.

That left Xu Jin.

He’d moved a while ago, leaving the concave floor of the cave in favour of a patch of rocks that extended into the water. Crouching down, he was just opening his mouth to speak when Wumei flung himself in his direction, flattening Xu Jin against the stone. He oofed at the punch to his stomach, breath stuttering, but did not hesitate to wrap his arms around Wumei’s back.

“Finally,” Wumei said.

“I—”

“No talking.”

He didn’t care about the hypocrisy. A merman on a mission, he had a three-step plan for this. Three and a half, perhaps, he could cross off hugging Xu Jin to within an inch of his life, getting his beautiful robes completely wet. Next up, he pressed their foreheads together: long, like he’d imagined for all those weeks apart, painful, so he knew it was more than just a daydream.

“I missed you,” Xu Jin said.

“No talking,” Wumei repeated, but instead of trying to glare Xu Jin into submission, he moved on to step two.

He’d had no one to practise kissing with, so the first brush of their lips made Wumei feel like he was learning it anew. However, it didn’t take long to fall back into the motions. The warmth of Xu Jin’s mouth and the touch of his tongue—Wumei quickly had his memory refreshed, matching Xu Jin’s rhythm perfectly. He cupped Xu Jin’s cheeks while Xu Jin held onto his waist, thighs falling open to accommodate Wumei’s tail. It was basically an invitation, and a very dangerous one with all the other daydreams Wumei had been grappling with.

“I missed you, too,” Wumei said, pausing for breath. He held Xu Jin’s face up, studying it for any changes. There were none.

“I’m so glad—”

“No talking!” Wumei said with a scowl that crumbled immediately—he pushed himself up on one elbow, still gazing at Xu Jin’s damp face. His cheeks were pink. Wumei brushed his thumb over one, then pinched it. “I have some questions.” Xu Jin did as well, but he held his tongue. The best of men. Wumei’s attempts at a stern tone were doomed from the beginning. “Where were you? What were you doing? Why didn’t you write? Did you not think to send a note through your men? Your uncle?”

Xu Jin winced. The apology in his eyes was surely making its way towards his mouth, so Wumei covered it with a palm. He lowered his face, trying to appear intimidating. Just slightly. He was mostly schooling Xu Jin for the heck of it.

“Does time pass differently in the human world? Did you not think I could find a dashing merman prince and ditch you before you returned?” Xu Jin’s eyes were amused, so the intimidation was clearly failing. “Were you so convinced you could just turn up, proposing marriage, and I’d agree to it?”

At that point, Wumei let his hand drop, inhaling to signal Xu Jin was free to talk. But Xu Jin stayed silent. He clutched at his collar, pushing it aside to expose his neck. Wumei almost laughed, calling him out for cheap distraction tactics, but thankfully the scoff was delayed by a jolt of warmth in his stomach. By the time Wumei pacified it, Xu Jin was holding his hand up—something small dangling between their faces.

A more serious fire lit up Wumei’s gut, looking at the pendant: a simple silver chain holding up his gleaming pearl.

“I was pretty sure,” Xu Jin said.

Smug son of a porpoise, Wumei accepted his defeat and went in for another kiss. It was like a language of its own. He was quite miffed that the humans came up with it. It didn’t matter, because none of them were privileged enough to do this—kiss Xu Jin.

He was the one who pulled away, this time. “I believe,” Xu Jin said, not the least bit aloof as he hid the pearl back inside his inner robes, “I’ve left something with you, too.”

Wumei wanted to feign ignorance; in competition with his need to show off, it didn’t stand a chance. He cleared his throat, extending both arms so he could focus his efforts on the poem and not get further distracted by the glint in Xu Jin’s eyes.

Tomorrow, I will wake without you
and wonder at how wrong it feels;
the sky without a star, the sea without a shore,
a ship without a destination.
I will wake without your touch and wonder:
how long I had been sailing adrift
without the pull of your tide;
how painful is the distance growing
without the shine of your constellations;
how empty does the day feel
without hearing your voice.
I will wake alone,
but I will still see you everywhere,
the curve of your smile,
the crease of your frown,
and I will count down the days,
the sum of all tomorrows,
and then I will wake again,
with you by my side.

The words rolled off his tongue easily, all the daily repetition paying its due. Wumei could almost make it through without his eyes growing misty. Almost, but he still took it as a win. The first time he understood the poem in its entirety, he nearly broke out of his house arrest and hired a famous trumpetfish PI to help him locate Xu Jin, legs or no legs.

“Not bad,” Xu Jin said, obviously choked up. Before Wumei could demand better praise—he deserved it, he’d had to read so much subpar human smut as part of Xiao Jing’s curriculum—Xu Jin continued. “The poem, that is. You are…” He brushed a strand of Wumei’s hair from his brow, leaning up to touch the same spot with his forehead. “Amazing.”

Whatever praise Wumei had been imagining, this was better. He hummed into the touch, closing his eyes as he embarked on a mission to completely trample Xu Jin with more kisses. Xu Jin—hands back on Wumei’s waist, lips pliant—was very responsive to the efforts. So much so it took Wumei a few minutes to catch up onto the fact that Xu Jin’s amazing had sounded—

“Wait, what.” Wumei stared Xu Jin down while his brain paths rerouted. “Say that again?”

Xu Jin smirked. “What, amazing?”

There it was. Wumei shook his head.

“Maybe I should be more clear. You’re also—” Xu Jin continued, the smugness tempered with a hint of coyness, “—brilliant. Beautiful. Lovely.”

The pronunciation was clumsy, accenting all the syllables, with too-big bursts of breath. But there was no question about it—Xu Jin was trying to speak the merfolk tongue, and mostly succeeding.

Wumei could feel himself gaping. “How?”

“Found a teacher.” Xu Jin shrugged. “I don’t know much. I just learned some basics. Mostly to surprise you.”

“Hm.” A surprise though it was, it shouldn’t have been. Xu Jin had given him enough hints that it would come to this, and enough evidence that he was a man of his word. Wumei’s fondness surged, and so, he shook his head with a huff. “I can’t believe you’d try to upstage me like this.”

Xu Jin, seeing right through him, laughed and kissed away any further complaints.

Time seemed to have slowed while they were in the cave, but it didn’t stop. While Xu Jin’s father and his advisors sailed off on the imperial junk, they’d left behind a small ship, and two of Xu Jin’s trusted men. They introduced themselves—by way of barging into the cave, asking Xu Jin if he were hungry, and backtracking with a yelp—as Xu Jin’s personal bodyguard and physician. Wumei had heard much about them, which made him mind the interruption a little less.

Wu Baiqi had disappeared someplace, correctly counting on Xu Jin not searching for him anytime soon. They took up the offer of food, after delaying it until their stomachs growled. Xu Jin’s absence got explained when Wumei drilled his men about it around the fire; partly by him counting on Wu Baiqi to convey messages the man had obviously failed to—something Jiang Xuanyu would definitely hear about—and partly by his responsibilities outside the Dayu capital.

“Tying up loose ends,” Xu Jin called it, and Wumei rolled his eyes, exaggerating the horrors of his lengthy house arrest.

“I’ll make it up to you,” Xu Jin said.

“You better,” Wumei agreed, and they retreated back into the cave without giving any other explanation.

The water had turned cool and, lapping at Xu Jin’s legs, it made him shiver. He refused to move, insisting Wumei would keep him warm just fine.

“Is this what it’s going to be like,” Wumei asked, mock-frowning, “years of having to fuss over you, telling you not to catch a cold?”

Xu Jin nodded, very serious apart from his twitching mouth. “Yes. This is the last chance to change your mind. Think wisely.”

Another heavy sigh, Wumei didn’t dignify the silly words with a response.

He pushed Xu Jin further from the water, then wrapped arms around his middle. Pressed against his back, Wumei brushed his nose against Xu Jin’s nape, feeling him shiver again. For a moment, he cursed himself for giving in so easily. Irresponsibly. But his own body always ran warmer when not underwater and, this close, Wumei felt hot all over. He closed his eyes when Xu Jin melted into his hold, reassured.

Some problems, Wumei could think his way out of. Others, he could solve by forcing a solution. After his swimming skills—the second thing he was most proud of—came his determination. Life had a way of carrying trouble onwards in a constant tide, and Wumei knew there’d be many problems afoot. But he held the first thing he was most proud of in his arms.

With Xu Jin by his side—the most handsome, silly, capable, his—Wumei had no doubt they’d steer their way out of every ripple.

*