Mermaid.

chương 5

Seul
Walking isn't as easy as he thought. Without the water balancing his body, Seul flails and stumbles hopelessly as his feet touch the sand for the first time. He never knew that his body could feel this heavy, and, as he tries to walk on the sand, the whole weight is shifted to his leg, making it harder to carry everything and move ahead.
He presses on, regardless, clutching tighter to the contract in his hand. He doesn't have a choice now. The moment he was blinded by the enchanting light around his tails, he knew that he'd been stepped - figuratively and literally - too deep into this madness.
The waves are quivering around his ankles, the wind in his hair, and the sea squirms as if trying to hold onto him, one last time before Seul walks out of it and enters the world of humans. Seul quickened his pace, leaving the water behind. It pains him a bit, seeing himself leaving it with that little hesitation, but time isn't on his side, and he doesn't want to give that wicked woman any chance to make him dissipate.
As soon as his feet come into contact with the shore where the sea cannot reach, Seul turns around to stare at the ocean, almost instinctively. He feels a pang of pain, flashing but vivid, in his heart. He knows that it's silly. This is just another adventure. He will leave his home for a few days, then go back to it when the time comes. There's no need to act so dramatic, there's no reason for the abrupt nostalgia.
"God grief, young man," a sudden exclamation rings behind him, cutting through his thoughts and making Seul turn. There he is, standing on the sand, facing the first human to talk to him, probably also the first he ever talks to. An old lady in her forties. "What are you even doing here?"
Seul opens his mouth and tries to speak, and that's when the problem hits him in waves.
He can't find his voice.
Seul clears his throat, trying to talk again. There's nothing stuck, nothing is blocking his airway, and yet there's no sound coming from him. He can't speak. He can't make any sound with his mouth. Words are piling up in his head, and for some reason that Seul knows but refuses to believe in, they find no way out.
"Poor young man," the old lady sighs as she receives no answer from Seul. It looks like she can't get the situation he's in, "you're lost, aren't you?"
Seul's about to shake his head, but he pauses, and then reluctantly nods. He is, indeed, lost, although he doubts that it's a state of physical condition like the old lady thinks. His loss is more like a state of mind, where he thinks that he might have been played, although he can't think of how.
"Come here, young man," the old lady waves him over, "I'll get you some clothes first, alright?"
Seul stumbles over, haphazardly getting used to the act of walking with his feet. It doesn't feel right, it isn't painful or uncomfortable, but he has a very terrible feeling of having his tail split into halves to make the legs, and now he's dragging his whole body on the leftovers of his broken tail. It's baseless and horrific, and yet Seul can't get it out of his head.
The old lady throws him a piece of cloth and directs him on how to cover the lower part of the body, and while Seul still doesn't figure out why they have to do it, he can't have any say. It's her world and he's only a visitor, and also he can't talk.
He follows the old lady to a tattered cart, probably as old as the owner herself. It stands quite a long way offshore, it takes quite a walk. It helps Seul adjust to his new body parts, however, and after a while of enjoying the sand sinking under his feet, the fading sunlight dancing directly on his skin, and the thrilling absence of the constant worries about getting killed by human air, Seul can finally relax and let himself wander off with the new experience.
The old lady points at the cart and signals Seul to step in, then jumps at the front of it. She urges the donkey to move ahead, carrying Seul with her. Seul blinks and lets his gaze shoot at his surroundings. To his left is the ocean, his home, with the roaming waves and the unbound wind. To his right is a lot of changes in scenery.
Here's what he thought to be a vastness of sand and dunes, with the weeds that stand taller, sturdier, stronger than any seaweed he's seen. Then there's a wall that he should have seen coming were he not so busy observing the dunes and the sturdy weeds. Seul's caught by surprise as the wall shows up to his side, his eyes glint with excitement. The castle is where more humans live, ones of royal blood, ones like the man in his painting, and hopefully the drowning man, if luck's on Seul's side and they're the same person.
He'd dreamt of it before, but never in his life had he dreamt of being this close to the castle, almost as if it was within reach. Seul stretches his arms in an attempt to feel, yearning to figure out if humans use the same material as merpeople to build their places. His hands fling into thin air, leading to a bitter smile. The wall is huge and close but isn't enough for him to touch.
Still, to Seul, it's already an achievement. He's always been far enough to have a full view of the castle, and now his sight is limited by the wall. He can't even see the higher windows, the roofs, the bizarre tower that's always so much lower than others, and the flying flags on the top of them that he knows to be there like the palm of his hand. He's so close that his gaze is obstructed.
Seul looks at the sea again, realizing that he can see more of it now. It's interesting how the tables turned, what used to be his home is now a foreign region, and what only exists in his wildest dreams becomes a part of his reality. He smiles at himself, at the sand that sinks under the cart, at the tall wall, the soft wind, the wordless song of the sea, and the cluster of rocks, the fateful spot where he saved the life of a human that fueled up all of his restrained desire.
The excitement, all of a sudden, dies down quickly as Seul's reminded of the reason behind their encounter, also the cause of the hardship he's stuck in. He looks at the paper in his grip, feeling anger building up layer by layer. Seul never agreed on losing his voice and he'd read the contract enough to not miss such important information, and yet he's unable to talk.
Seul may not know a lot about witching, but he guesses it has more to do with logic than the whimsical play of magic in this case, and Seul knows logic. He knows for a fact that the mad witch couldn't harm him or take his voice before (or else she would have just done it without going through so many steps). The only way for her to do it is for Seul to sign the contract and agree with everything written in it.
He flips the paper again, reading every word, in the right way and upside down, under the sun and with shades. Whatever he does, nothing else comes up. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, thinking of the time when he checked the contract under the sea. Seul had done everything he could to find the concealed terms, and he didn't find any. But there has to be, and the proof of it is the absence of his voice.

Shinichirou
He's running out of the castle. He doesn't know if it happens to be a very special day when all of the servants are ignoring his presence and roaming, or if it's the wicked magical contract actually taking effect. But Shinichirou was sprinting out of his room, through his door, rampaging on the hallway, down the stars, and throughout the process, nobody ever batted an eye.
He doesn't think much about it. If it is due to the contract, it means his signature worked and his clock is ticking, and he shouldn't waste any more seconds of this precious hour on not going for his heart's call. If it, somehow, isn't because of the contract, then it is completely impossible, the time has probably changed, and Shinichirou shouldn't even exist.
The fact that he can still breathe, hear his breathing, feel his heartbeats, and run like a maniac in the path of the garden means that Shinichirou is still a part of this world. The impossible didn't happen, so the only probable way is that the contract's worked, also his dumbest idea's starting to effect. Shinichirou doesn't know how hard he'd have to suffer the consequences. He only has an hour to find his savior.
Shinichirou reaches the ancient oak. Despite the ticking clock, he decides to pause a bit. The wind is rustling through the leaves, like a gentle call for his deafening inner screams, and the sound of the ocean can be heard from afar, behind the wall. Shinichirou stares up at the edge of it, imagining every brick falling apart. If his mind can crack a sturdy object, the wall shouldn't have been standing there now. It's the only thing that keeps Shinichirou apart from the one he's dying to see.

He gulps, washing away the lump of worry in his throat, tasting the savory air mingling with the bitterness of his excitement in the process. The last barrier of his mind is gone, and Shinichirou is approaching the oak now. He climbs on it as he did a few days ago, enjoying the whispering of the wood under his hands and feet, making his way through the leaves. He stops at the furthest branch, in the direction of the sea, then turns to look at his castle one more time.

There's a surge of unnamed emotion emerges from inside of him, making Shinichirou's heart jump at the sight of the looming towers, the silent walls, the intimidating windows that resemble the glowing eyes of predators in the dark, the leftovers of the Eastern tower that stands lower than the others, the mossy roofs and the quiet flags on the tops of them. He doesn't know why, but there's a pinch of sadness flaring among his agitation.

Shinichirou blinks at the thought, then turns away with determination. Something about the castle lets him know that if he looks at it any longer, he may change his mind and decide to stay inside, and that's the last thing he ever wants. He's lived his life inside those walls, full of regret and disdain, and now he has a chance to add a really good memory to it. He can't flush it down that easily. He won't.

Pulling himself together, Shinichirou takes a deep breath and jumps off from the branch. His feet land on the soft sand with a rustle, his body stumbles ahead, his eyes open wide and become alert, ready to look for any sign of movement on the coast, over the sand, among the cluster of rocks, or under the sea.
There isn't any, but an old lady with her donkey cart, probably the very same lady Shinichirou's seen before. She's going faster as she sees Shinichirou on the sand, this time a bit harder as she's got a passenger at the back of her cart. She seems to avoid him, and Shinichirou doesn't bother to give her a second glance. He's busy, and he has no time to care about random bypassers.