The scraping of metal against floor runs through her spine like a shiver. Woo Hee curls herself into the small gap inside the kitchen cabinet and watches the shoes of the man walk past. Squeak - squawk, protest his rain drenched shoes and the rod he drags through the floor continue to sing its rusty anthem.

Next to her ear water drips from the pipeline that supplies water to the kitchen faucet, the air she breathe is moldy. She closes her eyes and bites her lip, willing herself into a forced calmness - breathing slow so that the noise of leaking water masks each shudder of exhale. This man is deranged - this man could kill her. And the irony is that it isn’t she he is looking for.

The sound of scraping metal dies away and Woo Hee waits another minute before fumbling over her mobile. She had put it on silent mode earlier when she was driving and it was still thankfully silent she notes as her eyes take in the several missed calls from Beak Ah on her screen, he might be calling to tell her that he is not home yet, as they had previously agreed to meet. But that is something she is already aware of - for she was the one who found the maniac outside snooping around in the empty house.

One ring could have given her away had fate not intervened.

It is difficult with trembling hands, but she manages to type the text “Don’t come home -” and the sudden flood of light in her dingy space takes her by surprise. Missing the beat in which she could have pressed ‘send’ Woo Hee drops the mobile and it clutters on the dump tiles. The light is cut off when the man crouches down to her level, his smile a flash - sharp as a blade.

“Hello, little mouse!” He says, his tone singsong.

**

There is a perpetual fog hanging over his mind between thoughts and memories, real and fake - shapeless emotions keep swirling in thick masses. The fog has voices. They talk to him in the gaps between his thoughts - friends that keeps him from feeling lonely. Most of the times the voices - the misty voices talk about her. About when he first saw her - was that so many years ago? He is not certain - but she used to be a bony little girl then - a tiny fairy. He closes his eyes and reminisces her rising from the water, dark rivulets of hair plastered over her face - holding out a hand for him to take.

He was fourteen then and he was old enough to know she came from her water world just to save his life - when he was drowning. He knew how that story goes, the little mermaid who saves the prince. He forgets all about the broken branch that had landed him on the stream - or the bird’s nest he went to explore. Until that moment when he sat his eyes on her, he believed he had been banished because Omma did not love him anymore.

But after he is saved by his mermaid he thinks of that very little. He does love Omma. Even when it is hard to love her. Especially when he sees her only a handful times and even then she talks too much about that other boy - the one she assures him she does not love - then again why would she need him to behave like him if she does not think he is better?

He hates that boy. Foggy voices hate him too. In the dark hours of night when he misses Omma so much, they talk of scary things they would do to that other boy if they get their hands on him - if they could get away with it. But he likes to think of his mermaid more - his voices like that too.

She befriends him easily at first, but isn’t amused at his efforts to please her. Especially not when she finds exactly how he had been bringing colourful feathers for her collection. He had been too careless to leave blood on them - forgotten how girls don’t like blood.

“Brute -” tears brim in her eyes as she stumbles back, the feathers cascading around her. “How could you?”

It is the last he sees of her for a while, for the woman who calls herself her mother, takes her away. He knows it is not true - for she is a mermaid who came to land just for him, but she doesn’t even wave him goodbye as the woman pushes her inside the car.

He doesn’t forget her, nor do the foggy voices. Few years later, he sees her again. Her hair is longer, her face prettier - but sad. To his elation he catches bits and pieces of conversation that say she is there to stay, something about that woman - her mother - passing away. But he is no longer allowed to see her, orders that does little to keep him away. He knows that his mermaid would not forget him so quickly. But he waits for her to find him first. It is an elaborate game of hide and seek he is convinced, where he watches her from his hiding places and she pretends not to notice him.

They give him medicines that makes the foggy voices sleep. The silence drives him crazy and he trashes things in his little dingy room to create some noise instead.

Wook is the only person who understands - who hates silence as much as he does. He brings him crayons, pencils and paper. He begins to draw. He has quite a talent to it, says Wook with a proud brotherly pat. He takes some to show their Omma, but doesn’t answer him when he asks when he can see her. Even the fact that he sees Wook, often enough as for that matter - is to be kept secret. He doesn’t understand why.

His room has shrunken into a cell, he complains - complains a lot when he finds out that she is gone again. He hates that Myung Hee who has taken her away this time. He draws her face with incarnate details that takes Wook by surprise. It is after one very violent outburst that his brother asks if he likes to shift to where Myung Hee lives? Of cause he would have to play a disguise - be the boy who tends to the lady’s orchids and never show his face to either of the girls. His brother explains it is kind of a game - he was to wait and see if they are able to guess who he is - if not he wins. He beams at the suggestion and he wants to win. So he watches her but never approaches either of them.

At nights he hears her sing. Sometimes from a window left open, he sees her pacing the length of her room, mobile tucked into her ear. He wonders who is lucky enough to have his mermaid calling him so late at night, but he is too far to hear the conversation. Instead he watches her, his eyes greedily caressing her face, when she leans on the balcony and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, smiling at something being said a hand clasped over her mouth. The lights inside her room filters through folds of her dress, hinting shades of soft curves within. He imagines touching her - her supple skin under his palms - his name on her lips, it is a dream that he cherishes.

Warmth fills him when he watches her smiling, and he wants to keep seeing that. It is no surprise it freezes him over when he sees her crying one day - it was not his intention when he follows her to some place with dangling pretty paper lanterns. But she comes running, tears draining down her face. It is cold outside and she stands beside a fountain that is playing merrily ignorant of her distress. Of cause water might calm her. But he wants to be the one to make her smile - before she decides to go back to her water world.

He is allowed to only take a step when somebody else calls her name. He retreats into shadows and watches. It is the other boy and hatred boils inside him. She is struggling against his hold when he tries to hug her - he wants to crush his head then and there - with the foggy voices egging him on, but he watches as she goes limp, as she allows him to touch her, their conversation beyond his ears.

Jealousy takes him down a bitter wave, when she kisses him - when her eyes flutter closer under the ministrations of his mouth. He tries but fails to draw his eyes away from the scene, as he watches his hands roam over her body - caressing her just the way he imagined doing so many times.

His veins are on fire, his nails dig into his flesh. He makes a move to reach her, wrench her out of that boy’s filthy embrace, tell her that she is making a mistake in recognizing them - that he is deceiving her, but fate intervenes again.  

**

He watches blood dripping down the holes punctured into his palm and drain down his fingers, with a detached expression. He feels no pain as he continue to watch, the foggy voices murmuring in the background. It hurt far worse to watch her with another man - smiling at him, laughing with him. She was his mermaid after all.

A hiss escapes his mouth when Wook cleans the wound with a syringe of antiseptic, he closes his eyes and think of sweeter things - of her sweet scent, smooth skin - and his foggy voices sigh in contentment.

His eyes snap open in time to see Wook’s mouth twitch in annoyance. He knows the darkness in his eyes, greed - this man too - this brother of his - wants his mermaid. His eyes narrow, he had known it for a while now, but Wook is a fool if he thinks he would let it happen. His mermaid was his - heart, body, soul - flesh, blood and bones - his only. He would possess her in ways no other man would - soon - a smile stretches across his lips - very soon. She had been teasing him for a long time, pretending to sleep whenever he went to see her.

“What was it?” Wook repeats his question.

“A dog,” he answers absentmindedly. “Blasted animal.”

“And you didn’t find it?” The annoyance - the condemning tone, irks him. He doesn’t answer, instead behind his closed eyes he imagines her just the way he had seen her a while back, with sun and sand and the rippling water caressing her. Her eyes alight with her smile. He is starting to forget how her warmth felt like - it feels like ages since he last saw her. It is easy to imagine that smile was for him, although the foggy voices never forget.

“So…” she used to mutter in her sleep. Always the name of that bastard.

“And there was a girl?”

“She was noisy -” he mumbles, annoyed now that Wook kept asking questions.

“But you didn’t kill her did you?”

“The damned dog got me…” he repeats. “Filthy animal. Then the men came.”

“Did they see you?”

It was Wook who told him it didn't matter if anyone sees him. It was Wook who told him that the house would be empty and he just had to pretend to be that - So - get in there find that damn thing and get out. And now he was asking stupid questions frustrating him. 

“When is she coming?” He pops the question, need burns inside him. He wants her. He wants her now. Wook had promised him, this was the last thing he had to do.

“She will come.”

No. Not sufficient. His good arm slides down, between the cushions to where he hid the weapon. The cold steel feels like power under his skin. He looks back into Wook’s eyes.

“When?”

“Soon.”

His eyes are slits, his breath comes out short.

“Did you call her?”

Something shifts in Wook’s eyes and his fingers swathe around the weapon.

“You didn’t call her.”

“I will -”

He pulls out the weapon, swiftly, rests it between his brother’s brows. As if the steel is an extension to his arm he feels the moment Wook goes rigid.

“You said if that man dies she won’t be able to leave,” he says slowly, recalling each word. It is hard to do, with the foggy voices blocking his own thoughts, and he knots his brows in concentration. “You said we can’t kill that bastard until she comes - you said I can’t crush his head.”

It angers him when Wook talks in between.

“Where did you get that?”

“It’s yours is it not?” He chuckles at Wook’s surprise. “Why did you bring it? Is it to kill him? Or is it to kill me?”

“Jun - ah…” He calls him that name, the name they want him to remember but forget. They had always wanted him to act like another.

“She is my mermaid - then why are you marrying her?”

“You know why - keep that down Jun - ah…”

“Because I don’t exist?” He breathes out. “But I exist. I’m real - as real as this gun. As real as its bullets.”

“Jun - ah.”

“You want her!” His foggy voices accuse, he hears the sound escape his lips, many voices at once. “But I won’t give you - she is mine! Mine! My mermaid!” He closes his eyes and thinks how that bastard had touched her. “I had to cut everywhere he touched her -” he says slowly, guiltily. “It hurt her. Sh - she cried! I’d have to do it again if you touch her - is that what you want?”

“No! Jun - ah! She is yours - yours okay? Once she realizes which one of you is real - she will come to you.”

“She will?” He lowers the barrel a little, his voice hopeful.

“Of cause - of cause.”

“Will she kiss me?”

“Of cause!”

“Will she -”

“Anything Jun - ah, she will be completely yours to play with.”

Wook misses a beat and his eyes narrow again. He thinks of her as if she is a toy. His mermaid - his precious - how dare he!

“Call her then,” he says, willing himself to be calm. The foggy voices are shaking in rage but he reins them in a bit longer. “Prove it to me. Call her now.”

“Listen - Jun -ah.”

“Call her - or I’ll shoot you!”

**

“It was him!” Woo Hee clutches the blanket around her, her teeth clattering, her eyes squeezed shut. She leans against Baek Ah who has an arm wrapped around her shoulders and a shiver passes down her spine anew. “I saw him with my own eyes. It was Hwang So.”

Yo wipes a hand over his face, leaving it a moment longer to rest on his eyes, the darkness blissful against the burning orbs. He knows something is wrong, knows it in every fiber of his body - but with those words the girl had taken away his chance to dig into the matter.

He sighs and puts a hand on the table for balance, before looking at the man who was his brother’s manager for so many years now - the man who was the original target of the attack. Baek Ah has his lips pressed into a line, his jaw clenched and eyes cold. Yo sees no hope there.

The CSI sweep the scene around them, picking up fibers, fragments of broken glass and dusting for finger prints. There is blood splattered on the carpet.

“Are you injured Miss Kim?” Yo asks after a pause.

She shakes her head slowly, still shaking. He can see a bruise blooming under her eye, across her cheek. But there is no blood.

“It was Princess -” she says. “Princess bit him when he was trying to -” She closes her eyes. “He dragged me by the hair and tried to knock me against the wall, Princess jumped on him - she had somehow broken her lash.”

Something flickers in Baek Ah’s eyes when they meet Yo’s.

“But…” he says and bites his lip. “Princess would never bite him - he is her owner. So Hyung trained her himself.”