Archive of Our Own ^beta

"Let me go," the ensnared thing snarls.

From his vantage point on the boat, Yeonjun takes stock of his latest catch. Silky-fine hair, drenched and pathetic white-blonde in the sun. Shapely nose. Shining lips, drawn over deadly, razor-sharp teeth.

Unsettlingly human eyes.

Except for the color. The irises are silver, pale and steely. And the pupils.

The pupils are slits.

(Yeonjun doesn't like the look of this one.)

The net is still bobbing, thrashing with the weight of dozens of fish, and the boat thrashes right along with it, shaking like a thing possessed. The creature's sharp fingers cling to the side of the net, white-knuckled in their fury. From his bird's-eye view, Yeonjun can see a massive, pearlescent tail submerged in the water. Near-translucent wide fins, delicately iridescent rays. Strikingly pretty.

Breathtakingly valuable.

Just as Yeonjun's hand closes around the handle of his knife, the creature’s eyes flash.

In the span of a single second pale claws cut through thick rope like fragile thread, the entire net spasming as fish pour out into freedom. The boat jolts harshly, jerking with the force of a hundred flipping bodies. And one last glint of furious eyes and then the mermaid itself is gone, a flash of scales one second, only darkness the next.

Yeonjun stands on his boat, rocking with the waves, and stares at the sunlight rippling on the water until it burns.

Rumor says the world’s greatest mermaid hunter has only half a face.

Many have heard of him, of course. Just about everyone in the kingdom has. Even as a passing legend, a myth, a scary story to put bad children to sleep at night. Don’t swim out too far. He’ll catch you.

But the only ones who have seen him are the wealthy, the nobles with enough jewels to fill whole castle halls. They’re the only ones in need of his services, more often than not.

They call him the Hunter.

He ventures farther, darker, deeper than any other fisherman. He ensnares without doubt, he kills without regret. His freshest catches go for twice their weight in gold. Most of the scales that decorate kings’ tables, queens’ necklaces, apothecary shelves, are his trophies.

He has a blood-soaked job, and he has never made a mistake.

Hardly anyone knows what he looks like, but the stories spread like weeds, inescapable, roots tangling underground for miles. He only has half a face, they say. One eye, half a mouth. Some even think he’s only half a person; in paintings, his right half is always shrouded in black shadow. Like a dark, bleeding ghost, wandering at sea, slitting mermaid throats in the dead of night.

Such stories would be wrong.

(Mostly.)

The richest of his clients, at the very least, might tell you that he’s no ghost. They’ve seen him before, on the fringes of their most elaborate feasts, at their gates with a carriage full of treasures, darkening their palace floors with his presence. They could tell you that he’s not a ghost but a man, snakelike and dangerous, with slender features and rugged, seaspray-beaten black hair. A young man, with calloused fingers, an arrogant stance, and an overwhelming stormy look in his eyes.

— his eye.

Not even the richest of men could tell you that the Hunter has more than half a face.

And no one could tell you if the Hunter has a name, if he was christened, if he was born to a mother— or if he simply appeared one day, masked and armed, blood on his hands and fins at his feet. Not a soul could tell you where he came from, who he is, whether or not he sleeps at night. He has many names, whispered just behind his back. Mer-killer. Scale scraper. Tailbutcher.

They call him many things. “Human” is not one of them.

But the Hunter could tell you, if you were to ask, that he is human. He has a human body, and human hands, and if you cut him open he bleeds out gushing red, just like anybody else. He might even take up a knife and show you.

But does any of that mean he has a human heart?

The Hunter could tell you that he has a name, and a body, and even both halves of his face, even if one is perennially buried beneath a mask. He might tell you that he has a home, and a mother, and a father, even if they are both long dead.

But he has fought, and captured, and killed, and butchered, and sold;

— and after all these long, long years, not even the Hunter could tell you if he has a human heart.

At least, for years, he hasn't heard it beating.

When Yeonjun first opens the Queen's order, inscribed neatly on vellum like any other he receives, he nearly tosses it into the fire.

Yeonjun's heard of the Pearl, of course; nearly everyone has. A mythical mermaid, outrageously valuable, that no one has been able to capture for the past two hundred years. Hell, no one has even seen the beast in the last century. For all Yeonjun knows, it could be dead.

But when he picks up the enclosed picture, a small painting that fluttered gently to the ground when he flung it, his heart stops.

The merman, sitting pretty as if for a commissioned portrait, looks disgustingly familiar. White-blonde hair, shining over silver eyes. An angled nose, enchanting smile. Razor-sharp teeth.

Pearlescent tail and translucent fins, shining with all the luster an artist's brush can give them.

Yeonjun stares at the image, studying the minute details still burned into his own memory. The elegant bump on the nose bridge, the alluringly creased eyelids, the beauty marks on the nose and cheek and neck. Sculpted shoulders, delicate lips, strong jaw.

Omniscient silver eyes.

As much as Yeonjun wants to tear up the picture on the spot and burn it to a crisp, something stops him. Something makes him place it on his desk, carefully, with fingers clenched hard enough to shake.

The Pearl's painted eyes stare at him, pitying, mocking.

Watching.

And Yeonjun can only stare back, hands curled into fists, breathing slowly and hoping that soon, any second now, he’ll stop seeing nothing but red.

By the time he drafts his response, scribbling harshly on his finest paper, his fingernails have cut his palms deep enough for him to sign in blood. It would turn a simple reply into an unbreakable vow, an oath punishable by death.

Yes, your majesty. I will capture the Pearl.

Sign in blood he does.

For the next three days, there is no sun.

There is water and waves and wind, just as there always has been, but there is a thick, thick cover of clouds, and the sea is dull and dark. Yeonjun stands on his boat, hair tangling in the breeze, for hours.

For three days, he catches nothing but fish.

His boat is barely big enough to pace about on, deck and tiny cabin and all. The screeching of gulls, the creaking of wood, the rush of waves; it's a wonder he isn’t yet insane.

(He wonders how it was ever a good idea, all those months ago, bringing a first mate on board. There’s barely room to walk without stepping on his own feet.)

The number of fish he nets is obscene. Mostly fish for eating, but there are some he doesn’t recognize, others that he knows would go for hundreds. He tosses them all back, frustration building slowly in his insides. He's not the Fisherman. He's the Hunter.

(But nothing he catches has a pearlescent, shimmering tail or silver eyes.)

Occasionally he sees a flash of white in the water, some kind of silvery shine, and adrenaline floods through his entire body. Sometimes he shoots at it. Sometimes he actually hits the thing, whatever it is, blood billowing out in watery plumes. A piece of fabric, a large fish. A reflection of the clouds on the water.

(Sometimes he thinks that he must be going insane, after all.)

Three days of fish, and clouds, and waves, and fish, and gulls, and wood, and blood on his hands and in the water and fish eyes, staring blankly, round and watery and shallow black. Hundreds and hundreds of fish and their eyes and their blood and scales that aren't the right color, not even the right shape, never the right size, not ever, ever him—

… it. The Pearl is a beast, not a man.

Beast, not a man. Beast not a man beast not a man not human never human…

The third day, Yeonjun breaks.

The sound of his mask hitting the deck is heavy and piercing, screaming of potential damage, but Yeonjun doesn't have the presence of mind to care. His frantic motions rock the boat, his hands tangled deep in his messy hair as he breathes, heavily, harshly, fighting frustration turning to anger turning to rage. The sea sloshes. When he closes his eyes he sees fish, more fish, their eyes silvery the wrong way, the wrong color, mocking—

"I didn't know you were a warrior."

Yeonjun’s entire body jerks towards the velvet voice.

Hovering just above the water, perfectly still amidst the waves, is the face that haunts Yeonjun’s dreams. That smug-sweet sharp smile, the elegant jaw. Those eyes.

Those horrible, godawful eyes.

Yeonjun's hands are normally steady, but today, when they take hold of his gun and aim it at the Pearl’s forehead, they tremble.

"Your face." The merman seems to pay it no mind, gliding closer, cutting through the waves like a deity. Its eyes glitter with something strangely unlike malice. “War marks."

Instinctively, Yeonjun runs a frantic hand over his cheek. The right side of his face feels the same as it always has, hollowed and unyielding, mangled with raised scars. His right eye is gone, eyelid sewn shut. His right ear is still deaf and useless.

"Sure," Yeonjun breathes, pulling the trigger.

Before the bullet can so much as hit the water the Pearl is already gone, without even a splash. Yeonjun nearly curses, finger still tight on the trigger, body frozen in place by his pounding heartbeat and sheer adrenaline.

Then claws are dragging slowly along the other side of his boat, harsh lines scratching deep into the wood.

"Warriors are supposed to be celebrated," the Pearl says, eyes soft, slit pupils wide and innocuous. A faded rope burn, from Yeonjun’s own net, no doubt, still darkens the side of its neck. "I’ve never seen one who had to kill to live."

"Shut up," Yeonjun hisses, hands wrapped tightly around his revolver.

A smirk creeps onto the merman’s face. “How much do they pay you?” It grabs onto the side of Yeonjun’s boat, shifting the whole vessel as it props its elbows against the edge. Its eyes sparkle. “How much am I worth?”

Yeonjun’s aim must be off the second time he pulls the trigger, because the bullet only shatters the Pearl’s cheek.

Blood sprays. Flecks of red splash onto Yeonjun’s own face, splattering his skin, a tiny fragment of gore landing near his bad eye. The recoil goes down Yeonjun’s arms, into his shoulders, down his spine, into his feet. It forcibly rocks the entire boat.

When the vessel has stopped shaking, the Pearl puts a hand to its face. Gently, it assesses the bloody mess of flesh and bone. It closes its eyes, with an exhale almost of exasperation.

By the time its hand leaves its face its cheek is whole again, porcelain skin intact over shapely bone, marred only by drips and sprays of gore.

The Pearl reaches out, slowly, and drops a bloodied bullet on the deck with a clatter.

"That wasn't very nice," it whispers.

Yeonjun nearly drops his gun.

The thing nonchalantly shakes its hand, drops of red spreading into the water below. Infuriatingly, the blood on its face doesn't detract a whit from its elegant features. It only accentuates them, like jewelry, like the glowing arrogance of a martyred saint.

Deep inside, Yeonjun feels a desperate urge to kill.

"Are you looking for this?" From behind its back, the Pearl produces a knife. Yeonjun's hand goes immediately to the sheath at his hip. Empty.

The thing laughs. “Little tricks like this really shouldn't get you,” it teases, bloody eyes crinkling. In one quick motion it drags the knife along its own hand, cutting open flesh, bathing the gleaming metal dark red. Like planting a flag, it stabs the bloody blade deep into the wood of Yeonjun's boat.

"A trophy, for you.” The creature's eyes glint. "Hunter."

And in the next second the empty sea is rocking quietly, serene, as if the Pearl were never there at all.

There are three stories about the Hunter.

There should really be more, of course. Small fleeting tales, made up on the fly; stories told around a fire, jokes cracked over a round of liquor. The Hunter has a thousand lives, a thousand faces, a thousand feats of plunder and slaughter and gore carried out through spoken words. Few of them are true, maybe none at all. Perhaps the Hunter never existed.

But he did. And out of thousands of stories there are three, at least, that hold a grain of truth.

The first is about the Hunter's first and last first mate.

Not long ago, not far away, there was a young man, no more than a boy. This boy wished, with all his heart, to sail the seven seas.

He wished, more than anything, to hunt mermaids.

And more than anything he wished for glory, to be the hero of stories and secrets and legends, to hunt and plunder and grow wealthy with gold and jewels. He wanted, more than anything, to be like the Hunter.

One day, this boy met a man with half a face.

 

The Hunter works alone. Anyone who knows about the Hunter knows this. The boy knew it, too, but that didn’t stop him from trying. He begged the Hunter with so much conviction, so much desperation, that the man had no choice.

And days later the boy found himself on board a small fishing ship, far out at sea, sailing with the Hunter.

 

It was not glorious. It was not fearsome or awe-inspiring or beautiful. It was bloody and heartwrenching, gruesome and dark. The boy could hardly stand the rocking of the waves, the sharp knife in his hand, the gore in the water. The Hunter’s hand was swift, his aim was true. The boy could only stand and watch as fins were stripped from bodies, claws were torn from skin, scales were scattered across the deck.

By the time his first day had come to a close, the boy never wanted to step foot on a boat again.

But as they approached the shore, craft heavy and hands red, a siren song pierced the air. The Hunter was prepared, but the boy was not. Entranced by blue scales, sharp teeth, and a crystal voice, he stumbled toward the edge.

By the time the Hunter had so much as turned around the young man was gone, lost somewhere at sea, only a plume of blood spreading in the water to mark his place.

Or so the story goes.

Today, Yeonjun does not see the Pearl until it is right in front of him.

A full week after the Pearl had borrowed Yeonjun's knife, the side of Yeonjun’s boat still bears claw marks and a deep, bloody scar. The bullet that caved in the Pearl’s face rests against Yeonjun's skin in his pocket. Atop his boat, Yeonjun gazes at the sun with his good eye, iris burning, staring and staring until it hurts.

When he looks down, the Pearl is staring back.

With almost instantaneous murderous instinct, Yeonjun unholsters his gun and fires.

The Pearl stays put this time, almost politely, the shot passing cleanly through its forehead and out the back of its skull. This time it hovers patiently as the flesh starts to weave itself back together, bone growing and skin knitting beneath the messy gore, repulsive and mesmerizing all at once.

Yeonjun finds himself unable to look away.

Eyes lazily half-lidded, the Pearl looks back into the sea, reaching nonchalantly into the depths. By the time it produces the bullet from the water, most of the blood has been washed clean.

The Pearl looks up, eyes narrowed dreamily, and locks gazes with Yeonjun.

“Come here,” it whispers.

And against Yeonjun’s will, his feet start lurching toward the edge, closer and closer to the creature in the water. His mind spins, panic slowly rising in his throat. Mermaid magic is very strong, strong enough to kill. Strong enough to kill that kid named Beomgyu he’d once brought on board. He remembers all the warnings: slit-pupiled eyes flashing vibrant, a melodic voice, a siren song. Nothing except death around the corner.

But only when he’s face to face with the Pearl does he register that its eyes are the same as always, silver and insistent, with no trace of magic at all.

The Pearl reaches out, calmly, and presses the bullet into Yeonjun’s empty palm like a gift.

The metal is strikingly cold, made even more so by the saltwater and blood drying on its outside. The merman’s skin pressed against his own is cold, too, wet and ever so nearly human, smooth and covered in infinitesimal scales.

(It feels… soothing.)

Suddenly, the Pearl grabs hold of Yeonjun’s wrist and pulls him closer.

If Yeonjun nearly stumbles to his death, he doesn't show it. Instead, he simply hovers where the Pearl has him, their faces a mere foot apart, his free hand still glued to its place on his gun. From here he can observe every delicate mole on the Pearl’s perfect skin, watch the white hair drying strand by strand in the sun, count the pale blonde lashes that line the merman’s exquisite eyes.

For a moment, Yeonjun feels exactly as if he is face to face with Death.

“Fancy seeing you again,” the Pearl breathes at last, enigmatic smirk gracing its face, fingertips pressing firmly into Yeonjun’s wrist. “Hunter.”

“And you,” Yeonjun grits through his teeth, straining in vain to extricate himself from the merman’s grasp. No use. His other hand tightens on his gun. “Pearl.”

Without letting go, the Pearl reaches for Yeonjun’s hip. In a flash, it grabs the revolver and tosses it all the way to the far side of the ship, metal skidding audibly across the wooden planks.

“Don’t waste your bullets,” the Pearl whispers, eyes inscrutable, stern yet seductive, leaning ever closer to Yeonjun’s face. “Save them for someone else.”

For a moment, Yeonjun is filled with rage so great he cannot breathe. The creature before him is so close, so vulnerable, so goddamn infuriating, and all he can do is stand here and hold its fucking hand like a helpless damsel. Why can’t he move? Where is his knife? If only he could—

But something in the Pearl's eyes takes away his breath. Something in those silvery irises is mischievous, sweet, ever so nearly human.

For the first time, Yeonjun almost believes that mermaids might be able to feel.

“So?” the Pearl teases again, smirk drawn across those perfect lips, eyes boring into Yeonjun’s soul. “How much am I worth?”

More than my life, Yeonjun almost breathes.

"Nothing," he forces out instead. His mind is completely blank, his pulse pounding in his ears. For a moment, all he can think about is how horribly breathless his voice sounds. "Nothing at all."

"Is that so? I’m glad to hear it.” The Pearl's smile softens into something charming, amused. It reaches up to gently stroke Yeonjun's exposed cheek, and Yeonjun finds himself frozen in place. "Hunter."

The smile grows devious. "Or should I say, Choi Yeonjun."

Before Yeonjun can move, the Pearl presses its lips to his hand, gently, gentlemanly, like a knight would to a lady-in-waiting.

Then it turns tail and disappears, without a splash, descending swiftly into the depths.

Yeonjun spends an entire night sleepless.

Visions of the Pearl refuse to leave him. The feeling of gentle, scaly fingers against his face; the bullet shattering skull and brains and landing softly in his palm right after. The way he had been close, they had been so, so close, and yet he had been unable to move, to hurt, to cut the Pearl's head off in one clean swipe. The way he had been unable to do his job.

For the first time in a decade, he had been unable to kill.

And the Pearl had taunted him. A mermaid of all things, a simple, spiteful sea-witch with no love in its heart— no matter how powerful, how valuable, still a beast, a creature— it had played with him like a toy, like some kind of pet in a cage. Yeonjun still hears its words echoing around the inside of his head, feels its cold hand tight around his wrist.

That arrogant voice, those sultry eyes...

And when the dawn comes, the Hunter is out on the water, gun loaded, mask on his face, wielding his sharpest knives.

When the Pearl appears, almost as if on schedule, the Hunter strikes.

He does not hold back. His knives are swift, his aim is true. He does not make mistakes. And yet the Pearl is even faster, parrying with inhuman speed, tiny nicks and cuts opening and healing every second. Sparks fly, metal against iridescent claw, smoldering on the wood of Yeonjun’s boat. A blade breaks, spinning through the air before landing unceremoniously on deck. Every little wound inflicted on the Pearl makes Yeonjun see red, but the merman is almost careful, as if trying not to hurt him back. The very thought makes Yeonjun want to explode.

Just as Yeonjun manages to stab the Pearl deep in the shoulder, it grabs his hand and bites just hard enough to draw blood.

Yeonjun snatches his hand and his knife back, with the sickening squelch of flesh and grinding of metal against bone, but something seems to be happening. Something terrifying. Something he cannot seem to stop.

The Pearl’s skin is changing as he watches, infinitesimal scales turning dull; its claws retreat, becoming elegant, well-kept nails much like his own. Its silver eyes swirl into a dark, warm brown.

And as the Pearl pulls itself up into his boat, slender arms flexing with the exertion, Yeonjun sees that its tail is gone. In its place are human legs.

The Pearl clutches its— his— shoulder, blood still seeping through a shallow wound. His hair looks more natural somehow, almost flaxen rather than white, bleached dry by the sun. His eyes smile at Yeonjun, any traces of guile gone, replaced by simple sweetness.

This time, Yeonjun does drop his gun.

—

The Pearl’s name is Kai.

Or that’s what he tells Yeonjun, rather, as he bandages his shoulder with a corner of a sail. He'd made Yeonjun lend him his spare set of clothes, too. It’s a miracle that they fit; the Pearl— no, Kai— has shoulders that look like they go on for miles.

“It’s really different, in my language,” he explains, with some kind of sheepish clarification in his voice. “Longer, and pronounced differently. But Kai is close enough.”

And Kai has bowlegs. Kai is taller than Yeonjun is, almost unfairly so; Kai has warm brown eyes and beauty marks scattered across his face like dust. Kai has an elegant nose, straight teeth, and slender, pretty hands. The same hands that gripped Yeonjun’s wrist, that threw his gun across the deck and pressed a bloodied bullet into the heart of his palm. But now they’re warm, and soft, and they have lines and prints and veins running just under the skin, like green and blue maps of somewhere far away.

Kai asks if they can go on land, and Yeonjun finds himself unable to refuse.

It would be dangerous, of course; the Hunter and the Pearl, mask and all, strolling about in the open like it’s a normal Sunday afternoon. But Kai taps Yeonjun gently on the forehead, like teasing a kitten, and suddenly something feels different. Something like magic seems to settle into Yeonjun’s very being. Light, playful. Like he’s barely there at all.

When they walk into the square, no heads even turn.

Yeonjun’s never been here in the day, or at night, even, not when there’s so many people about. He's heard of the market, of course; some of his own wares even end up here, passed through dozens of hands before they reach the common people.

Glancing around, he spies a shimmering pendant at one stall, looking for all the world like a fragment of mermaid scale. Studying its violet shine, he’s struck with the idea that if he thinks hard enough, he might remember which slaughtered beast it came from.

Kai tugs gently at his sleeve, pulling him over to one stall or another, and the thought slips right from his mind.

It's been ten years since he was out in the open like this, in the thronging crowds, the blue sky above and the cobblestones at his feet. Colorful flags wave in the air. Vendors shout as they hawk their wares, words mixing in the vibrant hum of life.

Yeonjun's always thought he didn't need anything like this, not anymore. But now, for the first time in a while, he feels alive.

"Excuse me," Kai says to a vendor, hovering at a stall selling gems and jewelry. "Are these real peridot?"

"Yes! They're-" Suddenly, the vendor's eyes look glassy, his voice becoming dazed. Not once does he even glance at the masked man just inches from Kai's shoulder. "Fake. Stained glass."

With a little smirk, Kai turns away from the stall, bringing Yeonjun on with him to the next good thing.

They spend a morning and an afternoon at the market, time flying past as if nothing else exists. They browse among the stalls, examining trinkets and fabric, nicking fruit and bread and liquor as they go. Not once does a single person ask them to pay. Yeonjun finds himself querying about an ink pen or a whetstone, and each time the seller looks right at him like nothing is wrong, like he couldn't kill them on the spot if he tried, as if he isn't missing half his face.

(With the way Kai looks at him, you'd never think anything was wrong with his face at all.)

By the time they're back on the water the sun is nearly down, hovering above the horizon in its oranges and purples, shimmering across the gentle waves like a watercolor painting. Yeonjun's head is still spinning from all the sights, his good ear still ringing with the echoes of lively human noise. The water is quiet, calm, like home. Soothing.

Sitting next to him, Kai motions for Yeonjun to hold out his hand. When he does, Kai presses a ring into his palm, a little gold thing with a shining chartreuse gem in the center.

"Stained glass," Kai grins, gazing at Yeonjun with some kind of vigilant softness. "Just like the seller said."

Yeonjun stares at the band. He doesn't have to try it on to see that it would fit perfectly, snug against his skin, as if it was there when he was born.

Thank you, he nearly says, for the first time in what feels like a lifetime, and his thoughts are so incredibly mixed up that he does not know exactly what he is thankful for.

Slowly, Kai reaches for Yeonjun's mask. When Yeonjun doesn’t resist, he unties it, tenderly pulling it away like uncovering a fragile treasure.

Barely brushing his skin, Kai's fingers trace Yeonjun’s burns, his raised suture scars, the thin, mangled line of his cheekbone. Leaning closer, he peers at Yeonjun's face, studying it like an astronomer studies the stars. For a second, Yeonjun feels his whole life story being told under Kai's fingertips.

When their lips connect, it feels like the most natural thing in the world.

Kai tastes like the sea, like the spray that ends up on Yeonjun's chapped lips in a strong breeze. His hands are gentle on Yeonjun's face, even as Yeonjun kisses him even more roughly, like a battle he is desperate to win. The way Kai holds him, like he might blow away in the wind, lights some kind of fire in his chest. Whether it's indignation or fury or something else altogether, he'll never know.

When they part for air, Kai meets Yeonjun's gaze, his breathing shallow.

“Kill me.”

Kai’s voice is even. For all the world, it doesn't sound like a taunt, or more than half a joke.

It sounds like he means it.

(Yeonjun's grip on the front of Kai's shirt tightens.)

Wordless, Kai reaches for Yeonjun’s knife. He slips it from its sheath, gently placing it into Yeonjun’s hand as if swearing some kind of oath.

Suddenly, Yeonjun remembers the letter. The tiny picture, the queen's handwriting, the rage. The blood vow he had signed in the heat of the moment. Yes, your majesty. I will bring you the Pearl's head or I will lose my life.

Yeonjun's hand clenches hard enough to shake his whole arm. The blade nearly inches closer to Kai's neck.

It is the Hunter's job to kill, and the Hunter does not make mistakes.

Abruptly, as if wrenching back control from some unseen force, Yeonjun stabs the knife deep into the wood of his boat.

It quivers there, exactly like it did when Kai did the same thing, when the Pearl's blood ran down its gleaming blade. The impact rocks the boat, and the two of them rock with it. The water sloshes quietly.

Yeonjun's head spins, his heart palpitating in his chest, his breath coming out in feeble pants. But even as he struggles to regain his composure, even as his stomach threatens to leave his body through his mouth, something deep, deep inside of him makes a choice. A huge choice, a dangerous one. A mistake, maybe, and one he will not be able to take back.

It is a good thing the Hunter does not make mistakes.

The second story is an uncommon one.

Most people prefer other theories, more grandiose and thrilling ones, with dragons or demons or duels to the death. This story has none of those things. It was whispered only by the ones who knew everything: the village gossips, the old women. It was passed down to vacant-eyed children and adults who did not care.

It is too close to the truth, and the truth rarely sells.

This story is about how the Hunter became half a man.

Legend says the Hunter was born somewhere far away, miles from the ocean, in a land of rolling green hills and houses of wood. Some say his parents died when he was young; some say he grew up like any other child, in any other home. Some even say that when he was born, he was cursed with an ugly mark marring half his face, like the mask of a monster.

Some of these things are true. Some are not. No one, spare the Hunter himself, would know.

What is true is that when war broke out, the Hunter, like any other boy, was sent to fight.

Legend says that the war was long. The fighting was brutal. The blood flowed like water, the water turned to blood. The Hunter and his comrades spent day after day in fields and trenches, barely sleeping, shooting and stabbing and killing and being killed, fighting tooth and nail as pawns in a game so large they could not even see its squares. Thousands died; thousands more lived to regret it. They ate scrawny wild game and drank diseased water and huddled to themselves, night after night, waiting for it to end. For it all to end. The war, themselves. Anything.

Legend says one day, an explosive blew off half the Hunter’s face.

What happened afterwards does not matter. Some say the explosion destroyed half his soul; made him into a monster, into someone who kills for fun and sells the parts. Others say he simply disappeared. All anyone knows is that years later, he appeared in a quiet seaside town, hands bloody, holding a mermaid slaughtered whole. 

The rest is history.

Or so the story goes.

Drinking human blood means gaining human form.

At least this is what Yeonjun learns, after Kai’s legs had returned to shimmering tail and his brown irises had become shining silver, his merman’s body smoothly slipping overboard with one last sorrowful look.

“The more blood, the longer it lasts,” Kai had said. His eyes were painfully apologetic. “But I didn’t want to hurt you.”

I didn’t want to hurt you.

What a stupid idea, Yeonjun had thought, rocking with the waves, watching Kai’s white hair change colors in the sunset.

—

The days pass differently now. They’re calmer, almost longer. For the first time in a decade, Yeonjun feels something like peace. His nets cast shallow, his hunts return only fish. He leaves his gun at home.

(Instead, he finds himself packing an extra set of clothes.)

As it turns out, the shoulders of his shirts are a little too narrow on Kai. The legs of his pants end just too high above Kai’s ankles. And his shoes are a tight squeeze, grimy black boots looking almost ridiculous at the end of Kai’s pretty bowed legs. Analyzing Kai as he struggles to slip on a belt, Yeonjun runs a few numbers in his head. The next day, he sends a letter to the tailor.

“Silk?” Kai groans a week later, holding up the fabric. Delicate ruffles spill from the collar and sleeves. The trousers are of similarly fine material, the leather shoes polished spotless. “This must have cost a fortune.”

A fortune made off of your dead brethren, Yeonjun nearly says.

(He doesn’t speak it out loud, but even so, he suspects that Kai hears it anyway.)

The days pass differently, now that Kai is here. One prick of Yeonjun's finger means deep brown eyes, long talks, trips around the square. Slowly, they get to know each other. 

Yeonjun’d convinced himself mermaids didn't have feelings; now he’s starting to change his mind. But maybe, Kai is simply an exception. A breathtaking one; empathetic, charming, deeply, soulfully sentimental.

(The Hunter and the Pearl, sitting together in a little boat. Isn't that strange?)

Or maybe, just maybe, Yeonjun had been wrong all along.

Kai tells Yeonjun things about himself. Where he’s from, about his life. He describes his best friend Taehyun, a 90-year-old little thing with blue scales and pointy teeth. "You should know him, he-"

"... ate my first mate," Yeonjun growls, slowly.

Kai looks away, chocolate eyes crinkling with something like mirth. “… I’m sure the boy was delicious."

Yeonjun finds himself telling Kai about a friend, too, one he'd had long ago. He finds himself talking for a long, long time. 

It hurts. He'd wanted to forget, but something about Kai helps him remember. Something about Kai makes him want to bleed himself dry, to spill his guts, to give all of himself away. To cut himself open and lay everything out in the sun, for Kai to pore over like sacred texts, until both of them lose track of where he ends and where Kai begins.

(And that hurts, too.)

As they sit in the silence at the end of his words, another sun setting across the shining waves, Kai looks at Yeonjun, his brown eyes fathoms deep with some kind of untold sorrow. When he speaks, he is not jealous, or hurtful, or arrogant; only concerned, only gentle. His voice is clear and beautiful and hides nothing, like crystal glass, like still air in the spring.

"Did you love him?"

The sun slips just beneath the horizon. The sky turns violet, orange, red.

Sitting there, Yeonjun stares out at the water for a long, long time.

"I don't know."

The following are the records of the ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ Infantry, ▇▇th Unit.

Pvt. Choi Soobin:

Birth: Dec. 5, ▇▇▇▇

Height: 6 ft 1 in

Hair: Black

Eyes: Brown

Discharge: Honorable

Killed in the line of action on ▇▇ ▇▇, ▇▇▇▇. Note sent to bereaved family. Rites arranged. To be buried ▇▇ ▇▇, ▇▇▇▇.

Status: Deceased

-End page 57-

Pvt. Choi Yeonjun:

Birth: Sept. 13, ▇▇▇▇

Height: 5 ft 11 in

Hair: Black

Eyes: Brown

Discharge: Dishonorable

Severely injured on ▇▇ ▇▇, ▇▇▇▇ while attempting to protect another soldier. Treated immediately. Disappeared the following day; did not report again.

Status: Unknown

Not even the sun burns as much as it used to.

Yeonjun stands on his boat, like he always does, and the glare of sunlight on the water feels less like punishment and more like a kiss. The rocking of the waves, gentler than anything, feels more like a caress than a shove.

Nothing hurts as much as it used to. Not the spray of the sea on his dry skin, not the sparks of the fireplace on his bare forearms. Least of all the cracked and peeling scabs in the center of his palm, little crescent-shaped marks, reminding him of the vow he'd cast away. The bounty he'd placed on his own head.

Nothing hurts anymore, and for someone like Yeonjun, it means nothing feels like very much at all.

The hurt had kept him going. Anger and bloodlust, expert killing and skinning and butchering skills he’d never wanted to learn and then relished having to use. And guilt, the heavy, dreadful knot in his chest that he had never bothered to unravel, because every time he touched it his fingers would bleed. It simply sat, festering, until it had eaten all the way through his insides.

So what did he do about it? He killed, and he killed. He bathed himself in blood just to feel the heat on his skin.

But if the creatures he killed couldn’t feel, then perhaps the Hunter feels even less.

(What does he deserve to feel, anyway?)

Before Yeonjun knows it, the toes of his boots are perched at the boat's edge.

Perhaps, he’ll simply take a dip. In chilled near-autumn weather, far from shore, fully clothed. And what if he never comes back up?

What if he breathes in seawater until his lungs cease to function, if his bones are gnawed clean, if he disappears? What will happen?

(“Nothing. Nothing at all.”)

Before he knows it, Yeonjun's feet leave the edge.

But before his face can so much as hit the water strong arms are wrapping around his waist, holding him deathly tight, squeezing almost hard enough to crack ribs in a desperate bid to keep him in place. Yeonjun struggles fiercely for a second until he recognizes Kai's white hair, the merman’s sharp teeth gritted in effort, silver eyes shimmering with—

Tears?

Cursing and gasping for air, Yeonjun continues to squirm in Kai's grasp. But Kai manages to hold him perfectly still, with inhuman strength, keeping Yeonjun’s head far above water. His silver eyes plead silently, screaming some kind of pain, some quiet grief. Yeonjun can't tell if the wetness streaking down Kai's cheeks is ocean or something else.

"Let me go," Yeonjun shouts.

"You can't swim!" Kai cries out at the same time, almost unconsciously loud, like a desperate prayer.

Yeonjun freezes.

"You can't swim," Kai gasps again, voice petering out, and suddenly Yeonjun realizes he can feel Kai's ribs against his own body as the mermaid takes in heaving breaths. Whether they're from exhaustion, anxiety, desperation, he'll never be able to tell.

Kai opens his mouth as if he has more to say — as if to berate Yeonjun, to plead with him, to ask him why. But no words come out.

Instead, he slowly buries his face in Yeonjun's shoulder.

As Kai's frame shakes and what are blatantly, unmistakably tears seep into Yeonjun's shirt, Yeonjun haltingly lifts his free hand and nestles it in Kai's hair. The strong arms around his waist, looser now to let him breathe, still show no signs of letting go. Below them, a beautiful pale tail labors to keep them both afloat. Yeonjun finds himself thinking bitterly about the time he'd calculated just how much that tail was worth.

And now, it seems that if he were gone, Kai would— miss him.

He'd never thought about that, not even once. That if he up and disappeared one day, somebody might wonder where he went.

(And now that it’s right in front of him, he knows that he doesn't deserve it.)

“It’s fine,” Yeonjun finds himself croaking after a while, frog in his throat, like he’s only just learned how to breathe. “I’m fine. No dying today.”

With the way Kai’s arms tighten against his back, it’s clear the merman doesn’t believe him.

So instead, Yeonjun closes his eyes and tips forward until his face meets the top of Kai’s head. He presses his lips against Kai’s forehead, breathing in the scent of the sea that perfumes Kai’s skin.

They stay like that for a long time, Kai holding Yeonjun close, Yeonjun hesitantly wrapping both arms around Kai’s shoulders. A light breeze sends shivers down Yeonjun’s chilled spine. Kai’s face nestles deeper into Yeonjun’s shoulder like an apology.

When Yeonjun returns to his hut that night, ocean water and mermaid tears drying on his skin, the feeling of Kai’s arms against his back lingers like a ghost.

The Hunter’s Mask, c. ▇▇▇

Black waxed fabric and leather over steel frame

Worn by the legendary mermaid hunter of the small seaside kingdom ▇▇▇▇▇. Legend has it that the mask covered grotesque scars that marred half the Hunter’s face. The mask shows expert craftsmanship and innovative design, no doubt the result of endless trial and error.

The perfectly flush contours of the inside surface reveal things about the shape of the Hunter’s face, like his missing right eye and partially collapsed cheekbone. The hardy outside nevertheless shows wear, scratches and water damage left by the passage of time.

Few other objects exist to prove that the Hunter ever existed.

The salve stings a little as Kai applies it, and Yeonjun can’t help but tell him so.

“That just means it’s working,” Kai shushes him, continuing to gently massage the substance onto Yeonjun's face. “It’d work even better if I bled in it a little. Your crackpot human medicine is onto something.”

They float out at sea, Yeonjun half-sitting half-lying on the deck of his boat, Kai with his elbows propped up against the edge. Yeonjun’s slumped posture makes it so Kai can reach his face, even while half underwater; it’s also doing a number on his spine, but it’s a little too late to say that now. Especially since the balm, a pulpy mixture of magic sea grass and supposed secret ingredients, is covering half his mouth.

“Hold still,” Kai whispers, still getting every nook and cranny, staring at Yeonjun’s cheek like it’s a life-or-death task. “It’s already working. I can see it.”

And though he hates to admit it, Yeonjun can feel it, too. His skin seems to be getting softer, his hollowed-out cheek becoming more full. Even his skeleton seems to be somehow responding to the stuff, his cheekbone tingling fiercely in his face.

It feels… wonderful.

After a long time, at least a few hours, Kai laboriously peels off the remaining dried mask of plant fiber. Hesitantly, Yeonjun peers overboard. When he catches sight of his reflection, he can hardly believe what he sees.

His scars are gone. Well, not completely; that would be impossible. Both he and Kai know that full well. But they're hardly what they were before, their harsh lines and deep discoloration reduced to no more than that of a brief scuffle. His cheek is more shapely now, his skin elastic once more. It’s like Kai gave him back the missing half of his face.

Looking at the merman’s expectant face in the water, Yeonjun feels the strong, irrational urge to launch himself overboard for an embrace.

“Thank you,” he chokes out, instead. Then he looks down at the mask in his hand, its structure precise and unyielding, and some kind of bittersweet regret hits him.

“I don’t think this will fit anymore,” Yeonjun murmurs, gently tossing the mask across the deck, its heavy frame bouncing and skidding far away. He watches it slide like watching a bird leave its nest.

“You won’t need it,” Kai says, tenderly.

And whether or not Yeonjun understands what he means, he finds himself believing it to be true.

As it turns out, it means that Kai has more gifts for him.

A lazy afternoon of quiet mermaid song, and now his right ear can hear once more. A different concoction, and now his eyebrow and eyelashes show signs of growing back. Seagrass balm for the scars on his neck, his shoulder, his upper arm.

But arguably the biggest one comes last, after days of recovery, after an enchanted kiss that had sent Yeonjun to sleep and then hours of arduous surgical precision and then lots and lots of bandages, all around his head, that he only gets to take off now.

Kai watches patiently as Yeonjun unravels them, piece by piece, the last strips fluttering to the deck. Slowly, slowly, as if scarcely knowing what will happen, Yeonjun opens his eye.

— his eyes.

For the first time in ten years, Yeonjun’s right eye flutters open.

The light is bright, almost too bright. The signals sent to his brain are staggering, almost shifting him off balance. But instead he holds on tight and peers into the water, into his reflection, taking in what he sees.

His face looks nearly symmetrical now. For a second, he’s transported back to when he was young, a couple frown lines and half a face of scars ago, in a grassy land far away. He never thought he’d see himself like this again.

The eye adjusts quickly, vision sharper than his left one, focusing and unfocusing almost on its own. And as he peers downwards Yeonjun sees that the iris is a pale, lovely green, glittering chartreuse, like the color of perfectly stained glass.

“I thought it would suit you,” Kai offers, from his spot on the side. “And it does. It’s beautiful.”

Beautiful.

As Yeonjun peers into his new-old face, the visage he’s gotten back after so many years, the tears finally start to fill his eyes. Through the blur he catches sight of Kai’s face, the merman’s expression smiling yet worried, anxious yet calm, always, always radiant.

“… Beautiful,” Yeonjun whispers.

The next few days are peaceful, too peaceful.

Every morning, Yeonjun wakes up with one more eye than he should. He washes a face that hurts less than it has in ten years. He reaches out, by force of habit, to put on his mask, before slowly retracting his hand.

When he sails out on the water, the person he wants to see is always there.

The day that they walk together on the beach, barefoot like children, Yeonjun should have known something was wrong. The sunset is muted, pinks and purples dusting across a dim sky. It's still beautiful, of course. Yeonjun can’t imagine a sunset not being beautiful.

But there, under the dusty sky, are helmeted men waiting for him.

In one flash of his mind's eye, Yeonjun sees all the letters he'd gotten from the queen. Ten of them altogether, each more threatening than the last. The final one told him that he was on death row. He’d not been surprised; it was a blood vow he'd broken, after all.

(Yeonjun had tossed every last letter into the fire.)

Now Kai is murmuring his name, softly, glancing between strangers' faces with calm, wary stealth. The men's helmets bear the royal insignia; their faces are equal parts hostile and elated, no doubt thinking of the huge, glistening bounty on Yeonjun's head. The fact that they recognize him without his mask is almost flattering.

Even as his instincts fight to take over, Yeonjun's hand creeps toward the sheath at his hip. He may not have his gun, but he'll be damned if he doesn't have his knife.

One glisten of exposed metal from him, and suddenly the men are lunging forward, their own blades drawn, out for blood.

When the fight breaks out, Yeonjun moves faster than the Queen’s guards can. His hand is swift, his aim is true. His new eye is an unexpected blessing, catching movement from angles he thought impossible, working to block shots that would have ended his life. The Hunter is fast, the Hunter is ruthless. He does not make mistakes.

And as it turns out, neither does Kai. His motions are fluid, graceful, deathly accurate. Yeonjun watches him bring down far more men with his bare hands than Yeonjun can with a blade.

(The difference is that Kai's victims are knocked unconscious, while Yeonjun's may never wake up again.)

The skirmish lasts a long time; there are more guards to get through than he bargained for. More than once Yeonjun sustains a wound, a slash to the forearm or side, minor cuts that nonetheless stain his clothes and drip dark red down his skin. And more than once, Kai takes a blow that was meant for him. The sight of weapons in Kai's flesh makes Yeonjun want to vomit, to bleed, to cut off his own head.

But when Kai glances at Yeonjun, their eyes locking in the midst of the chaos, his gaze says that seeing Yeonjun hurt makes him want to die.

By the time Yeonjun stabs the last man through the heart, pulling the knife out with a sickening sound, they're both covered in blood. What blood is whose is anyone's guess. They meet each other's eyes, fighting to catch their breath, and Yeonjun cannot help but think Kai would look beautiful holding a blade.

Then Kai is taking his hand, their sticky red fingers intertwining, and they’re off as fast as their bare feet will take them, laughing breathlessly like scared children, sprinting across the beach.

—

Yeonjun’s house is more of a hut, a tiny seaside shack, but it’s always been big enough for him.

It’s a little small for two, of course, but there’s still enough space, what with a fireplace and a dirt floor and a bed, stiff and worn, tucked into a corner. It's no mansion, nothing like the huge manors that he could buy with the fortune he's earned, but it's lived in. It's his.

(His desk, pushed to the side, still bears the tiny, painted picture of the Pearl.)

As Yeonjun lights a fire, Kai stands before one of the walls, gazing at the weapons mounted on the stone. The light cuts through the gloom, illuminating the sharp planes of Kai's face. His fingers trace the barrel of an unfamiliar rifle.

“Is this from the military?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Yeonjun finishes stripping off his bloody shirt, dumping it into a bucket of water as cold as he can get it. “Take off your clothes.”

“So direct.” Kai turns his head slightly, mischievous smirk in his eyes.

Yeonjun strides over and grabs onto Kai’s shirt himself, firmly undoing the expensive mother-of-pearl buttons and sliding the silk from Kai’s broad shoulders. The fabric goes right into the bucket alongside his own, blood already staining the water red.

Taking hold of Kai’s shoulders again, Yeonjun inspects the wounds littering the merman’s skin. Nicks here and there, scattered like flower petals, more like decoration than gore. Nothing that would require stitches. Except for a rather deep one on his side, its bloody edges raw and angry.

Yeonjun watches the wound closing right before his eyes, ever so slowly, and for the first time he finds himself thanking god that Kai isn’t human.

“You should worry about yourself.” Kai takes hold of Yeonjun’s elbow, tracing the cuts with his gaze. Yeonjun can almost see him remembering exactly who inflicted which one, when, how. The simmering resentment in his eyes is new. “Some of these need bandaging.”

“Not right now.” Yeonjun pulls his arm from Kai’s gentle grasp, pretending not to feel the sharp ache it causes in his flesh. “After the wash.”

But Kai grabs onto his wrist instead, pressing his lips against Yeonjun’s fingers, his palm, the back of his hand. Every injury he touches tingles fiercely, their edges beginning to knit together, the smaller ones almost disappearing. Kai leaves pecks on Yeonjun’s forearm, the inside of his elbow, his shoulder, and finally on his lips, lingering for just a second too long, just a little too tender.

Yeonjun wraps a hand around the back of Kai’s neck and kisses him again, hard, as if trying to eat him alive.

By the time their clothes are drying in front of the fireplace, flames gently crackling into the night, it seems that Yeonjun’s bed might be big enough for two.

[Twelve years ago]

The soldier next to Yeonjun smiles, almost hesitantly, and Yeonjun finds himself smiling back.

The rifle strapped to each of their backs looks somehow out of place on this boy’s tall, scrawny body, as if it should be somewhere else, anywhere else. His hands are large, too, but in the kind, honest way, hands for building homes and holding birds and not beating or stealing or murder. His face is young and handsome, but when he smiles he looks like a child.

(Deep inside, Yeonjun’s soul screams to send him home.)

The second night in the trenches, huddled against the cold and the wetness in the mud and earth and air, the soldier asks Yeonjun’s name. His eyes are shy, his smile naive and hesitant and something more hurting than gleeful. His long fingers fidget on his gun like it’s a toy.

Yeonjun, Yeonjun says, and the other soldier nods, quickly, as if he knew it all along.

His name is Soobin, as it turns out, Choi Soobin. Yeonjun jokes that they must have been cousins, maybe, in another life. They find out that Yeonjun is just over a year older; suddenly, Soobin seems like a child. He asks, almost sheepishly, if he can call Yeonjun hyung.

Yeonjun agrees, and he becomes Yeonjun-hyung for the next two years.

The war is long; the war is painful. Side-by-side, they shoot innocent men and eat hard, moldy bread and drink out of bloodied puddles like animals, waiting, almost, to die. Soobin gets even taller somehow, fat melting off of his cheeks and softness leaving his hands. Yeonjun watches the light go out of his eyes.

(Every night he prays that somehow, they can send Soobin home.)

When the grenade explodes, Yeonjun does not think twice about throwing himself in the way.

Soobin has a family, a mother and a father and brother and sister and dog, all hoping to see him again, praying for him to come back. Yeonjun’s parents are dead. Yeonjun is the heir to a beautiful house and a lovely garden with no one left in them. Soobin is the only person Yeonjun has left in this world, and he’ll be damned if the boy doesn’t make it out alive.

So when he wakes up bloodied and stitched and bandaged and Soobin isn’t there to sit with him and smile and say hyung, Yeonjun damns himself all the way to hell.

At first it hurts too much for him to move, his lost eye aching and half his head ringing with a deaf ear’s phantom pain. His cheek is sewn together, the bones crudely set with metal bits. When he sits himself up, jerking like a drunk puppet, he can hardly see through the tears clouding his eye.

But by the time night falls he’s gone, leaving a bloody pillow and missing rolls of bandages in his wake, his badge left on the ground for filth.

Yeonjun finds himself changing into the only civilian clothes he still owns. He treks for hours, wearing out the soles of his sturdy boots. At night, he burns his bloody uniform for warmth. He finds his way to the train station, where eight strangers lift a large, closed casket, and watches them send Soobin home.

When he makes his own way back, watching the rolling green hills pass out the train window, the only thing he feels is numb.

His empty house is full of dust and cobwebs, his garden overgrown with vines and weeds and wild, wild flowers. Yeonjun tidies up the best he can, what with one eye and half a face and an arm full of ghosts. When he walks into town, placing his deed onto the wealthy man’s desk, he feels eyes staring at the bandages enveloping his head like a mask.

The house changes hands nevertheless, and as soon as he can Yeonjun is on a train again, to somewhere far away, somewhere he can forget everything and start anew. Somewhere with no grass or mud or trenches, somewhere he can forget his own name and his mistakes and the boy who once shared the surname Choi. Somewhere, maybe, with a sea view.

Somewhere, he hopes, with nice sunsets.

—

“Listen to me,” Kai whispers, reaching up to hold Yeonjun’s face, wiping away tears with the pad of his thumb. His dark eyes tell Yeonjun that he knows everything. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Yeonjun squeezes his eyes shut. The tears land on Kai’s pale collarbones, delicate like little diamonds. When the words leave his mouth, neither of them acknowledge that he’s lying.

“I know.”

Yeonjun wakes up alone in the morning.

The stream of light through his narrow window hits his eyes, golden sunlight bathing his room. Dead embers lie cold and black in the fireplace.

When he sits up, he notices a fine golden chain around his neck.

At its bottom is a real, full mermaid scale, iridescent, glowing with pearly, lustrous shine. As Yeonjun takes hold of it, the material translucent against his fingers, he realizes the edges are sanded to be smooth instead of sharp. The colors up close are more stunning than he could have ever imagined: ivory, gold, tints of blue, peachy and rosy pinks. Violet.

Like sunset.

Suddenly, the thought makes him want to weep.

After a long while, Yeonjun swings himself out of bed. He sets away the laundry from last night, neatly folding the outfit Kai had left behind, taking stock of the torn parts that he might have to mend later. He pulls on a fresh set of clothes.

As he does up the last button on his clean shirt, necklace snug against his chest beneath the fabric, a horrifically loud knock comes at his door.

This time, Yeonjun does not grab his gun. He doesn't even reach for his knife. Instead he stands there and lets them break down the door, with force that shatters wood and shakes walls, that sends splinters into the air and dust into his eyes. He stands there unmoving as they batter the hinges off the frame, and as he glances for a second to the side he glimpses, with a sudden wave of amusement, Kai’s autograph on his picture of the Pearl.

When the Queen’s men grab him by the arms and force his hands into heavy shackles, he does not resist. They manhandle him, a strange mixture of aggressive and afraid, as if he’ll kill them all like last time. But Yeonjun does not fight back. He stands pliant and almost unsteady on his feet, like a rag doll, unmoving until his captors drag him away. His hands are empty, his wrists are cold. A gold chain lies thin and secret around his neck.

When he passes through the broken doorway of his home he is not Yeonjun, but the Hunter.

And in two days, he will be put to death.

The cell is cold and drafty.

And wet, too, dampness slicking the dark stone, algae and mold growing in the cracks. A fresh, salty breeze caresses Yeonjun’s face.

The Queen has made the mistake of giving him a prison overlooking the ocean, blue sky above and blue waves below, so high up that the jumping fish look no larger than ants. Still shackled to the wall, Yeonjun leans out of the window and lets the wind sting his eyes.

Two days pass as quick as anything, two days of sea breeze and dank stone and the sound of tides, of gulls cawing and sun glittering on waves. Yeonjun watches two sunsets come and go, but neither can compare to the pendant nestled against his chest.

(When he falls asleep it is against the wall, cold and shivering, waiting for that same sun to rise again.)

Two days without food or water and Yeonjun feels himself growing slightly faint, feels the familiar pains that he might have felt a decade ago, when he sat in a hole in the ground miles away from the sea. His eyes are a little blurry, his arms slightly weak. The shackles fall a little bit looser on his wrists than before.

He wonders if the Queen was really too busy to have him executed yesterday, or even the day before that, right there in his home. Maybe it is to be a public spectacle. And what a spectacle it will be: the Hunter himself, without his mask! And soon, without his head!

After two days, to the minute like clockwork, the men come for him again.

The door of his cell unlocks with a violent sound of cogs and metal, the heavy wood creaking on its hinges. There are fewer men this time, less of a battalion and more of a unit. As if he might be less dangerous this time.

(Though the wary looks on their faces scream that, maybe, he’ll find a way to kill them too.)

Yeonjun does not move this time, either. He stands in his cell like some sort of rooted statue, gaunt and damp, looking at them with emptiness in his eyes. If this is his last day alive, he doesn’t want to go down fighting, clawing and snarling like a rabid dog. He wants to go with dignity, prideful until the bitter end. He wants to take his final breath with the last fucked-up pieces of what he can call honor.

But as soon as the men even step towards him, a singing voice rings out in his ear.

Just one ear; the right one, that had been completely deaf until only so long ago. It hadn't been completely fixed after Kai’s remedy, sounds still muffled and distant. But now it hears clear as day, a lovely siren song, twisting and turning melodies in a language that he does not recognize. The singer’s voice is beautiful, like swaying flowers, like angels’ tears. Yeonjun can see now, how such a voice might lead men to their deaths; it sounds like the most beautiful voice in the world.

But it isn’t asking him to fall to his death, to give himself up to the men who want to cut his head off. No. Quite the opposite.

It wants him to live.

As Yeonjun backs slowly towards the wall, trying to grapple with words in a language he's never heard but that his brain somehow understands, the men approach him slowly, as if he’ll lunge at them like an animal. One glance at their faces tells Yeonjun that they have no idea of the secret, terrible message ringing through half his head.

The mermaid’s voice is silken, the prettiest thing he’s ever heard, but the words are illogical, impossible. If Yeonjun were less composed, he might even say they were fucking insane. As his back hits the wall, the Queen’s men now only a few long steps away, his mind screams.

Slowly, Yeonjun turns his head to look out the window, trying to hide the panic in his chest. He stares down at where the sun shines on the water a hundred feet below.

Kai’s voice feels like a touch, like gentle fingers against his arm. Against his face, holding him so he listens to what the merman has to say. Deathly serious, as real and beautiful as the spring air.

Do you trust me?

No, Yeonjun wants to scream, to cry through chattering teeth. You’re fucking crazy. This is fucking crazy.

But the real answer is in his head, clear as day, before he can even realize it.

With my life.

And as soon as the thought leaves his head a piercing note fills his ear, making him wince and half his head ring. On his wrists, his shackles pop open.

Then jump.

The men seem alarmed, their eyes wide as Yeonjun’s metal restraints fall to the ground. The sound makes them all flinch, Yeonjun included, his heartbeat running jittery-fast in his ears.

One last glance at his captors, and he slowly fumbles for the windowsill. He pulls himself up onto it, his hands shaking, his legs trembling as his feet clamber for purchase.

Below him the water spreads like the earth itself, horizon to horizon, sea to shining sea. The drop down is far, much further than he bargained for. He will not live. He will not make it out of this alive. The water below him right now is the only thing he can see, perhaps the last thing he will ever see.

Do you trust me?

Yeonjun closes his eyes.

With my life.

The second he is told to, he jumps.

The third story is about the Hunter’s end.

You could call it the Hunter’s death; you could call it the Hunter’s disappearance. He may have fled with no way but down, with nothing awaiting him but death, but the truth is no one knows for certain what happened to him that cold, clear morning. Not even the men who watched him fall, or the Queen who was to execute him in the next hour. Certainly not the fish he must have landed among, sinking in a cold November sea.

No one, spare the Hunter himself, could tell you.

It certainly looked like a death; the Hunter jumped ten stories with nothing but water below, with no way to have lived. The guards who were in the room clambered to the window to see his last traces but were greeted with nothing but sunlit sea.

But the Hunter’s legacy lived on, in the strangest of ways. People whispered more about his passing than his life, about the fact that in the last days before his death, there were finally people who had seen his face. The Queen was sent letters, dozens of them, asking what had happened. More than one artist was compelled to revise their portrait of the Hunter. His right eye, they were told, was green.

But with the Hunter gone many more rose in an attempt to take his place, brash, arrogant young men, wannabe mermaid catchers with big guns and sharp knives. They went out to sea with chests puffed, dreaming of gold and glory. Who knows what valuable creatures they might conquer? Hell, if legend was true, they might even catch the beast the Hunter couldn’t: the Pearl.

But nearly every single one of them disappeared at sea, one after another, their bodies and their vessels gone without a trace. Not one mermaid was caught for ten years after the Hunter disappeared.

(The few hunters who survived, maimed and delirious, recalled a tail the color of peridot.)

And so the kingdom lived on, mermaid scales slowly disappearing from the apothecaries, secondhand markets, royals’ chests. Time passed; hundreds of years went by. Seas rose, wars were waged. Borders changed.

Soon the world of the Hunter was no more, and the Hunter himself was only a legend. A myth, a scary story to send children to sleep at night. Don't go out too far. He'll catch you.

No one, not a single soul, could tell you that he truly existed.

Or so the story goes.

“… and that concludes our tour!”

Before the docent’s voice can finish fading people are already preparing to leave, tourists packing away their cameras, tired mothers holding fidgeting children’s hands. As the guide continues to advertise the various parts of the museum, gesturing enthusiastically towards the gift shop, a very young boy raises his hand.

The docent sees it. “Yes?”

The kid lowers his hand. “So was the Hunter real?”

Something softens in the docent’s gaze before he smiles, bright and sanitized, like he likely does every other tour. “Well, nothing here in the museum can say for sure, but between you and me,” he winks, “I like to think he was.”

“But how come you know so much about the Hunter?" The kid leans forward, head tilted upwards in curiosity. "Did he tell you himself?"

The docent leans down slightly. His fluffy blonde bangs wisp softly across his forehead, and his brown eyes sparkle with some kind of warmth. His nose is strong and elegant. When he smiles, revealing his straight white teeth, his many moles shift like stars in the night sky.

"Why, he did."