A Touching Of Lips (BoyxBoy)

Chapter 9. Turtle.

I sat with Ming in the small cafeteria by the entrance to the aquarium, both of us drinking pomegranate juices. I found it interesting that we preferred the same drink and had almost similar tastes in food.

I had been given a full tour of the aquarium and we were now waiting for the car to take us back to college. It had just dawned on me how close to death again I had been earlier. I was a little angry that I had not been told how dangerous the visit to the inner sanctum was, and had been given a choice to decline from going, and I told Ming this.

He put me straight quite bluntly. "Don't forget you would be dead already if Pond hadn't saved you. He did ask you if you were willing to help him before he told you everything. You did agree."

"I agreed, yes, to help him, not to put myself in danger of being killed. I think I should have been told just how dangerous it was going to be." I thought about what I had heard in the inner sanctum when they asked Pond if Pang should be eliminated and a shudder went down my spine.

"If I hadn't agreed to help him would I have been killed?" I asked Ming.

"Not necessarily," he answered, maintaining a serious face. "That usually is a last resort, but my guess is Pond was pretty sure you would agree when he saved you. He's quite different from any Merman that I have met before. He certainly has contacts in high places."

"Can a Merman wipe your memory easily?"

"Why do you ask that?" Ming answered looking puzzled.

"When I was up in the inner sanctum, I heard him say he could make Pang forget the things I've told her about what I saw that day."

"Really? That's interesting." Ming replied with a surprised look on his face. "Only certain Merman can do that out of the water. Are you sure he said he could do this, or did he say he would get someone else to do it?"

"He said he could. Definitely." I answered.

"Boy, oh boy! I know the mission he is on is very important, but learning that about him puts a different aspect on things. Are you allowed to tell me what happened to you in the inner sanctum, though?"

"Yes. Pond said I was to say nothing to anyone apart from you."

Ming smiled. "That means he totally trusts me. I'm pleased about that, but I don't think we should talk here. Wait until we get back and then tell me everything you can remember."

On the way back in the car Ming told me all about his life and how he had become involved with the MerPeople.

His family had been on a boat trip in the South China Sea when he was eight years old. He had been playing hide and seek on deck with his older sister one evening, while his parents had been dancing in one of the bars.

He had tripped, and had fallen overboard and no one had noticed. He had swam towards the lights on the coast in the distance, but had become tired and had stopped swimming. He was struggling to tread water and began to drift downwards.

He said he remembered seeing a fishy female figure, his words not mine, swimming towards him as he lost consciousness and remembered nothing more until he awoke back at the surface with her supporting him.

She swam with him so that he could place his hands on a large turtle that suddenly appeared close by. He said he was told not to say what he had seen or he would die an agonising death. A frightening thing for any young child to be told.

Luckily a small fishing boat had picked him up shortly after that, and the story of the turtle saving the boy made headline news around the world.

The owners of the Marine Aquarium were so moved by the story that they offered Ming and his family a free tour of the aquarium.