down where it's wetter | KOOKV

it's music to me

if you don't know or don't remember what a pacific geoduck looks like, please go search it up. You won't regret it. You need to know it before reading this chapter.

♆

The boys were now sitting on Jeongguk's bed. Taehyung glanced around the room curiously, trying to take everything in. There were a lot of figures on the shelves, most of them were of a faceless man with red and gold armour.

"That's Iron Man, my favourite person in this whole wide world." Jeongguk took one of the models to let Taehyung have a close look, a proud look on his face. Taehyung inspected the faceless man in front of him. "What does this man do?"

"Well, he protects those who need them, and saves the world."

"Well, that's very noble of him. Is he a knight?" Taehyung eyed the figure with great interest, poking the arc reactor in the chest. Tony Stark's voice could be heard in the room. I am Iron Man.

Taehyung seemed to take an interest in most things in the room, including the bed. He couldn't believe the humans slept like this, it's not like they don't have beds under the sea, but they're made of hard cold rocks and the currents would make it impossible to stay completely still when they sleep.

"Can you teach me how to sleep on this bed, Ggukkie?" Taehyung has bounced on the edge of Jeongguk's bed, the spring under the bed making squeaky sounds.

"Sure, but not now. No sleeping on ends until you shower."

"What's a shower?"

"Oh. Right. You guys don't need it underwater. It's basically pouring water over yourself then you clean your sweat and wash away your odour. Humans usually shower every day. To stay clean and hygienic." Jeongguk explained to Taehyung patiently, while Taehyung nodded dutifully, trying to memorise as much as he could.

"I thought you guys come up to shore, how come you don't know about shower and cars?" Taehyung had told him that merpeople could come up to the shore for a month when they were 21, and there should have been a lot of knowledge gained in the past years, but surprisingly Taehyung seems to know very little about the human race.

"Well- if that's your way to call me stupid and naïve, go ahead," Taehyung roller his eyes at Jeongguk, who responded by snorting, "But we do learn about humans. The scholars and princes of my forefathers came up here to record and learn the human way of speaking, hierarchy, formal speech etc. We have adopted a lot of your customs in our culture. But... other trivial things, like technology, transportation or... corn, we don't learn about it. Just a few lucky ones who are granted the chance to come up will have the opportunity to try them. And once we go back, we don't talk about it. I don't know why it's like an unspoken rule."

"Well. I don't know what to say it if you have any trivial things you want to ask me, fire away."

"I've never seen the fire before, can you show me?"

"Shower first, okay?"

When Jeongguk and Taehyung were crammed into his tiny bathroom, Jeongguk had to give Taehyung a lecture on why humans wore clothes and why it was important. Taehyung didn't seem to get the note so soon, as he kept arguing that his body is beautiful and should be shown to the world proudly. It's not like Jeongguk would voice our his agreement, he'd be too embarrassed to do that.

"Taehyung, you need to take off the sweatpants or it'll stick to your body when it's wet. It's really uncomfortable." Jeongguk tried to make Taehyung undress on his own, but sadly, Taehyung's balance is yet to be at the level where he could stand on one leg without stumbling on the floor.