Under the Sea | Minsung

ψTwenty-Eightψ

Amongst his strong reluctance, Minho managed to complete the research.

He never spent much time at the aquarium, not anymore. There wasn't a point to go there. He learned that the first few days he tried after the drowning accident. It was only silent up in the maintenance room. There was no cheerful laughter, or endless chatter, there was no more merman sitting on the catwalk waiting for him, there was none of that. It was simply silent in that room. He missed it. Minho missed the company that Jisung gave him, he missed being able to talk with him about whatever they wished to, he missed the days when the other didn't know. He missed when it didn't have to be so complicated, when it was him and Jisung and nothing else, no strings attached. But even in his memories, as far back as he could recall, that's all this ever was.

Minho started a friendship with Jisung for no other reason than to collect information on him, and his species. The younger knew that. Whenever Minho was around, Jisung never came out of hiding. The older never saw the merman again, and he was left with the final memories of coal black hair hiding the pain sketched on the merman's face.

There was no one to blame but himself.

But, he ever realized how dull the world was without the merman.

The sun was a little less brighter, the ocean was a little less fuller, the world was a little less colorful, the city was a little less alive.

Minho completed the last of those condemning pages at the university, attempting amongst all else to choke down every inch of guilt he felt. He could run free, explore the world, feel the sun, breath in the freshest air from any corners of this Earth, and Jisung could not. Jisung was stuck there. Jisung was trapped, in the aquarium, under the pretense that he was an attraction. He only supported that ideal. He, who was always entranced and curious about the ocean, it's animals, the great vastness of a world he didn't know and would never be able to live in, he was supporting a man who wished to destroy it.

And yet, he could do nothing. Minho was powerless. As he held the printed words upon words that he had written on Jisung, he recognized how far he had been swept away by their tide.

But I can do nothing about it.

∶∷∶

Minho placed the research on the cluttered office desk of the aquarium owner and took the envelope he was offered in return for his documents. He stepped back cautiously as his gaze dropped to the clean carpeted floors. Like everything else surrounding the owner, it too was posh. Rich. Expensive. The office screamed business with how neat it was, including the window placed in the back to overlook the ocean nearby as if he was the overload of everything that view showcased to him. Even the small catalog envelope he held in his hands seemed like the world of the higher class. Slowly, Minho opened that envelope, and checked the amount inside.

The owner leaned forward in his seat at the desk, quickly shooting a look to Chan waiting patiently at the door of the office, "Is it enough for the information you've given us?"

"It's more than enough," Minho shook his head as he closed the envelope again and shoved it into the top pocket of his waxed cotten jacket. I don't want any of it. But, he kept that thought to only the sharpest confines of his own mind and never vocalized his displeasure. That money only felt blighted. It was disgusting to even touch that payment, for no other reason than it brought back the dissatisfaction and frustrationMinho felt towards himself for not standing up to this bullshit.

It wasn't even about what he wanted anymore.

It's about Jisung.

It should always have been about Jisung.