Seabound-SKZ

Chapter Four

Seungmin cried for a while longer, his friends comforting him gently, Lix rubbing small circles on his back and humming a small song before Seungmin finally fell asleep in his arms. "We should have waited for him to reveal ourselves to the prince..." Changbin said softly, looking at Mins' red eyes and tear tracks, "I agree..." Minho said, "We should have stayed with him., we can't make this mistake again...on the new moon we will make sure he joins us." they all nodded as they watched their friend sleep, Jeongin, who was known in the friend group for rejecting Seungmins affection, cuddled up next to him and immediately one of Seungmins arms locked around him so that both him and Jeongin were crushed against Felix's chest, "hmmph-" Jeongin loosened his friend's arm from around his waist so he could move into a more comfortable position. The others cooed at the three youngest, making no move to help free them fro Seungmins death grip, soon, Jisung and Changbin couldn't resist joining the cuddle, Hyunjin and Minho watched them snuggle into each other and gave in almost immediately to join them, poor Felix was being crushed slightly but thought the others were too cute to bother, soon, they all fell asleep together, grouping together for warmth as the temperature under the water dropped overnight. 

Seungmin was the first to awaken, attempting to escape the pile of his friends but soon realized the grip that Felix and Changbin had on him was too tight to wriggle out of, so he lay his head back down and waited for someone else to wake up and it wasn't long before Jeongin woke up as well, attempting to push off of Seungmins chest and that was when Min realized how tight his own grip was on the younger boy, apologizing he let go, 

"Morning 'Minnie," Jeongin said, his voice still deep from sleep "Hey 'Innie," Seungmin said back, neither of them made any move to try to get up again and they just lay in comfortable silence for a while before Jeongin spoke again "I'm sorry we went without you...It was my fault that we met the prince, I'm sorry..." His voice broke a little bit at the thought of Seungmin being mad at him and Min immediately hushed him "No!" Jeongin looked surprised at the slight outburst from the older boy "I mean, No...I'm more upset because of my Gran...Not because you guys spoke to him..." He said, and that was when the others began waking up, they slowly detangled, most of them rolling back into the water, no one liked the feeling of a dry tail.  

"So..." Minho broke the silence first as they ate, a simple breakfast of leftover soup heated up over a tiny hot water geyser, the others turned their attention to him, "What are we doing today...?" he was speaking mostly talking to Seungmin, "Can we go around the beach and look for things that got washed into the water?" Seungmin asked hopefully, he had a fascination with the human objects that sometimes ended up in the shallows of the beaches, children's toys, and occasionally pieces of sunken ships that would wash up. "Sure, Min." Jisung ruffled his hair affectionately, Seungmin ducked away from his hand in mock annoyance, in reality, he did love the way Jisung would lovingly play with his hair but it made the older boy pout when he rejected his advances and they all thought it was too cute to give in straight away. 

They soon finished eating, they all put on one of the many shirts that had been left behind at Jeongins house over the past couple months since most of them were at least half deep-sea Mer and their skin wasn't meant for the sunlight, besides Felix and Jeongin who had been reef-dwellers and shallow Mers. 

They had challenged each other to a race to the shallows but soon regretted it as Jisung sped out of sight with Hyunjin on his tail, the others ended up giving in about halfway there and just let those two battle it out, Felix and Jeongin swam near the surface, drinking in the sunlight and their gorgeous tails glowing under it, the other three watched them in awe, their tails didn't quite catch sunlight like that, their scales were all dark, Seungmin with navy blue, Changbins a dark, muddled green and Minho with a beautiful dark grayish purple. it was a natural camouflage against the dark colours in the darkest parts of the ocean where they came from. Jisung and Hyunjin at this point had noticed the others weren't close behind them as they had thought and doubled back to find them, joining the three in watching the two boys play by the surface, "They're stunning..." Hyunjin transmitted in pure awe, the others agreed immediately, they loved watching these two in their natural element. as much as they always said they didn't miss the reef and the colours that came with it, the others could tell it was a lie. They reached the shallower part of the ocean pretty quickly and Seungmin dove to the sandy bottom as soon as they did to search for the trinkets he so desired. 

Seungmin had collected sea glass, a piece of driftwood with a name carved into it, and a necklace with a pearl on it, which he held for a few minutes before explaining it reminded him of his Gran. They soon swam to the surface to check how many humans were on the beach and if they could go nearer and to their shock, there was no one there, not on the pier nor in the boats on it. "I wonder why..." Changbin said, "That's why!" Felix said in a panicked pointed behind them, none of them had noticed when the sun went away, too focused on sifting the sand, but the sky was a dark, stormy gray, "We should get back to the city before that storm rolls in more." Felix said and Jeongin agreed, the two had seen enough bad storms when they lived closer to the surface to know when one was going to be back enough to rip the trees that lined the cliffs by the beach out of the ground, and this was one of those storms. Jeongin couldn't believe he hadn't noticed the change in the wind and the sun going away, he had grown used to the darkness living in the deep. it started drizzling quickly as they rounded the group back up and as they began swimming back the storm picked up, it became obvious that they were going to have to fight the waves back home, Felix, Jeongin, Jisung, and Hyunjin tried to grad the other three to help swim home but they were all weighed down by what they had collected and it was becoming difficult to move, thunder cracked overhead and they all flinched, the lightning hit a tree and it burst into flames, in the few moments they had been distracted another swell rose and sent them spinning as it crashed, they managed to hold onto each other and make it to the ocean floor to swim away, it wasn't until they were much deeper that they realized there was only six of them.