Tidal-Bore

18. Scandalous Discovery

After washing up and calming from their heated encounter, Wooyoung and San left the airlock together. Wooyoung had hooked his pinky around San's, swinging their hands between them with a merry hum. The mindless act of affection brought a smile to San's lips, and he indulged Wooyoung on their way back. Now that the moray was tended to and nobody was on their heels for their relationship, they could tuck away in the dim light of the evening and be with each other.

"Jongho and Splish Splash taught me some phrases today. I know how to say that I'm hungry, sleepy, thank you, and goodbye." Proud, Wooyoung echoed them in his mutilated Atlantean pronunciation. San beamed at him.

"You also know how to say I'm scared," he replied with a teasing smirk and Wooyoung glowered at him. He was not scared.

"Not that I will ever need to say that." Wooyoung flicked his hair back with an arrogant hand. "But if you want to hide behind me, my broad shoulders are always ready for you to sob on." With a pat of his own shoulder, he boasted, while San rolled his eyes. From time to time, his thumb brushed Wooyoung's ring as if in awe to see the other man bear it on his hand.

San asked him something but Wooyoung couldn't understand much of it. When he tilted his head, San repeated himself, slower, so Wooyoung might pick up on the words he had missed.

"Hongjoong? Oh, you're asking if Hongjoong talked to me? How do I say this? He did, in a way. He seemed quite indignant about your high social ranking and about me not understanding what was at stake. Seonghwa made it better and calmed him down. I didn't know those two were married. I must have looked like a fool." Wooyoung chuckled to himself, dropping his hands that underlined his every word with a gesture.

San hummed. It seemed Hongjoong had talked to him as well, but they had given almost the same response. They did things their way, and they wanted to relish in their moment.

San made a sacrifice Seungyoun would never have been able to make and Wooyoung couldn't believe his luck. Not only was the Atlantean medium a hundred times hotter than his ex, but he also knew chivalry.

While San answered to as much as he understood and soothed Wooyoung about their current situation, Wooyoung marvelled at him with shiny eyes. San's carved features and gorgeous tattoos were so different from any man Wooyoung could meet on the surface. Who would have known the one he would adore so much waited at the bottom of the sea?

Though their relationship was born under a bad star and not blessed by eternity, it helped Wooyoung heal. And it helped him understand he was worth more than Seungyoun's dismissal.

He was about to convey to San that he adored him enough to stand with him through thick and thin and not to submit, even if the social expectations of Atlantis restricted their bond, when a sudden tug on his hand had him halt in his tracks. San stood frozen, his head tilted as he listened, and Wooyoung held his breath so he wouldn't disturb him.

Was it the moray again? Was trouble coming their way?

Wooyoung strained to hear it, too. He didn't know what he was listening for, whether the scurrying of crab legs across the rocks mattered, or if the rushing of the ocean at the shore lured them back to their place of secret rendezvous.

Wooyoung was about to give it up and leave it to San to figure out what kept him, when a distant sound reached his ears. It was a muffled groan, and the scraping of a body across rocks.

At the same time, Wooyoung's and San's eyes widened.

"Someone is in pain," Wooyoung whispered. His mind stumbled over all the things that might have led up to this. Did someone go rogue and set out on a killing spree in the confined city? Or did an old person fall while collecting sea shells?