hold me 𐦍 yeonbin

028 ᯓᡣ𐭩

At the far end of the shop, past the snakes and frogs and the humans making bargains with the shop owner, up two steps to a raised room, glass tanks filled with water line the walls and create isles. None of the fish at home are as small, though most are similar in shape and color. He recognizes some breeds like catfish and plecos, and there are some he has never encountered before.

The first fish tank to catch his eye houses two of the larger fish in the shop surrounded by snails and a crab that looks too content in captivity to be a real crab. The fish are striped black over white and painted yellow at the ends of their fins.

“That’s an angel fish. And that little guy is a crab,” Soobin says, pointing to the mindless crab crawling underneath one of the fish.

“There are no real crabs here,” Yeonjun says.

“No real snakes either, right?”

“Right.”

“That was sarcasm.”

“That wasn’t a real snake.”

“Maybe your snakes are fake.”

They’re not, and Soobin knows it. Yeonjun’s human impatience for sarcasm outweighs Yeonjun’s patience and he leaves Soobin by the angel fish to look around the isle.
                                                                       
Some of the fish cling to the glass and chew like they’re trying to eat through it. None of them display a personality or have heartbeat that Yeonjun can hear. Emotionlessness makes a prisoner easy to deal with. It must be how humans separate the ones who get to live from the ones who die. The animals with free thinking and a larger range of emotions are left to be eaten by their natural predators, while the ones who will easily comply are chosen as displays and pets.

Yeonjun loses sight of Soobin behind a row of fish tanks as the harp in his heart carries over the isle. Yeonjun doesn’t mind being alone until four more humans join them by the fish. They look somewhere between a child and an adult and their hearts ring with indifference, almost annoyance when they see Yeonjun.

He avoids the humans by ducking down to watch the fish until one of the humans stares into the tank next to him and he can hear their heart speed up.

Intrigue. Curiosity. It’s directed at Yeonjun, not the fish. 

The human’s eyes dart between the tanks and Yeonjun. He sidesteps to the next tank filled mostly with foliage, inhabited by six axolotls. Finally, an animal the right size. They look as playful as a real axolotl, just as clueless.

Anxiety. It’s an unfamiliar chord coming from the human next to him. Their hair is pulled into a knot behind their head and their hands shoved into the pockets in their coat. They move in Yeonjun’s direction every time he steps away.

“I want a turtle,” one of the humans at the end of the room says.

“Then buy it.”

“You know I don’t have that kind of money.”

Disappointment.

Money is a material item humans use to exchange for services and more desirable items. Doctors frequently talk about money. They refer to a being known as the Highest Bidder when discussing what to do with the parts they stole from Yeonjun. The Highest Bidder is someone whom every doctor lives to please in hopes one day it they will grant the doctor a sum of money equal to the objects they desire.

One doctor spoke of exchanging Yeonjun’s human teeth for a sum of money equal to that of a house. Another talked about selling his wings before the man with the fake eyes exiled them. Yeonjum never saw that doctor again.