Masters of the Sea

024

Hye Ra was starting to hate the sensation of being immersed in water.

At the count of three, she found herself being yanked backwards, tumbling straight into the river behind her. Water overcame all her senses, a flurry of bubbles enveloping her as she sank further and further downward. When her eyes finally acclimatised to the feeling of being underwater, she realised that this particular river held far more secrets than she had originally anticipated. Beside her, still holding on to her arm, Seokga was already starting to swim toward what looked to be a tunnel located right beneath the waterfall.

"Where are we going?" she wanted to ask, but her words came out as a garbled mess and a smattering of more bubbles.

Seokga didn't know where they were going, but if walking around in circles above ground wasn't the way out, then he was definitely open to looking into dark, mysterious tunnels underwater. Besides, if they were to resurface again, they would only bump into the orbs again and he sure as hell didn't want his hundreds of years worth of memories to be erased into naught. Dragging her along, he swam towards the mouth of the tunnel, peering in thoughtfully for a second before deciding to press on with the venture.

As the duo swam through the mouth of the tunnel, the light from the water's surface began to slowly fade away, leaving them in darkness. Strangely enough, the walls of the tunnel seemed to reflect enough light into their eyes for them to be able to vaguely see the way. Peering closer at the rock walls, Hye Ra observed curiously that there were tiny shiny flecks in the stone that seemed to be giving off light. She had gone beyond the point of rationalising this world that she was in. After all, she was stuck in an enclosed environment at the bottom of the actual ocean where the sun shone and walking in straight lines brought you in circles. Logic had long been thrown out of the window.

Barely two seconds later, she instinctively opened her mouth to take a gulp of air, only to ingest a mouthful of water instead.

The realisation started to stir panic within her. Her survival instincts told her that the only way was to resurface, but that would mean turning around and heading back up where danger still lurked. Looking forwards, she couldn't see where the tunnel ended—if it didn't have an end, then she would likely drown right here and now.

Seokga only realised that something was amiss when his chest started clenching again. It was the one sensation he hated most in the world, because it meant that Hye Ra was in some sort of life-threatening situation and they were bothgoing to die. Turning towards her, he was appalled to find that her face was starting to turn some odd shade of blue and she was struggling to free herself from his grip so that she could swim back out of the tunnel and to the surface.

Ah dang, humans can't breathe underwater. How inconvenient, he thought to himself ruefully. The clenching of his chest was getting worse by the second, and his burden of a heart felt like it was being crushed by the weight of a thousand boulders. Making a split second decision, he didn't let Hye Ra go. Instead, he yanked her closer to him and in one fell swoop, he planted his lips directly upon hers.

Hye Ra's eyes widened in alarm when she realised what he had just done and her hands waved about frantically in the water just to try to get herself away from him. To her surprise though, a sudden gush of air rushed into her lungs and her heartbeat started returning to normal once more. Pulling himself away, Seokga frowned and pointed to the direction ahead, signalling that they should continue moving forwards and not back.

Swimming obediently behind him, Hye Ra thanked the gods that it was dark enough in the tunnel to disguise the flush in her cheeks. She had definitely not seen that coming, for her first "kiss" to have come from someone like Seokga. Looking at his silhouette swimming ahead, she could tell that he wasn't the least bit perturbed by what he had just did.