Her fingers are slender, white and long, they fit against his, in oddly comforting ways. The closer they are - the further his thoughts wonder and the more distant she feels when their shoulders brush. Like stars - he thinks fleetingly - he had traced them countless times, trying to appease the raging voices - together yet universes apart. 

He wishes love was blind as people say. He wishes he was blind to her anguish. 

It takes only weeks, he reminds himself, weeks and her skin would renew itself - weeks and every last cell that man had touched would be gone. Looking at her eyes, glistening in the streetlights he realizes how foolish a thought that was. The voices rage at his own incapability and Jun tries to swallow them down - he thinks of stars again - of stars and the man who taught him stories they tell - anything but the diabolical schemes that the voices whisper caressing against the welts on his soul - anything but her - he promises them - anything but that. 

She stops abruptly - at a random place, in a deserted sidewalk. 

“Oh she is still there -” she says with a faint smile, her eyes leaving a trail for him to follow - to a stall where a graying old woman sells ice cream. She hurries over and he follows. In the distance paper lanterns dangle and the scent of caramel waft in the air. The old woman greets her with the same enthusiasm that leaves him bristled - the entire evening spent retracing their old haunts, leaving him a little more than ruffled. 

So many memories - he thinks - he despairs - so many moments stolen from him. 

“Isn’t it too cold for that?” He asks, wishing desperately to drag her away, the look in her eyes prickles him as if she could see past his facade. He looks away quickly, before her gaze throttles him. 

“You should’ve learned after all these years -” the old woman admonishes him with a chuckle as she hands her a cone with an extra scoop of cookie cream. “She’s not going to listen.”

She walks away aimlessly - he wonders if her lips are cold - if they taste sweet from the ice cream or bitter from words she withholds. It seems too heavy a burden to carry - that he finds he could follow no more. 

“Do you remember the time when I -”

“I don’t.” He cuts her off abruptly and her feet stops on the cobblestones. Every word she had spoken all evening - they had scalded his soul. He tries to shut them out of his conscious, instead of imagining each time she had held the hand of another - each stolen kiss - each shared laugh. “I don’t.” Because it was not me. Have you ever - didn’t you truly ever - realize that?

Instead he walks up to her and allows himself a scrap of her warmth, a fragment of a moment when he rests his palms on her shoulders. He wishes she stops with her act, with each calculated stab she takes at his soul. She knows. He knows that she knows and he no longer dares hearing it from her lips. 

She fidgets away from his touch and instead offers him the rest of her ice cream. Mercy - she has none for him. 

“When I brought you here,” her voice is distant, laced with a smile. “That misplaced bet and everything leading to it - I really wanted you to -” she pauses and inhales deep, lights shift in her eyes. “I wanted you to kiss me. I thought you would if I planned it well enough. I was meticulous like that.”

And she still is - he realizes. Meticulous - patient enough to wait without batting an eyelid as he crumbled under her well versed blows. The urge overtakes him - he wants to hurt her. 

“He is not coming back.” 

Her eyes widen, her lips tremble. He allows himself a gulp of air - laced with poison as he watches the first tear trickle free of her restrains. 

“So?”

“How long have you known?” He asks her patiently, trying to keep the voices at bay. “When were you going to tell me?”

She says nothing - the shadows of rustling leaves overhead blurs her expression. He doesn’t wait - all he wants is to return the pain she had caused him the entire evening. 

“It doesn’t matter. You will never see him again. He is never going to find the message you left for him - in the beach - under the rocks - I’ve seen you there.”

She gasps harshly, a hand curling into a fist - the hand where his ring gleams, rather mockingly. 

“Forget him - Ha Jin - ah.”
She gasps again, clawing at her throat - looking at him with accusing eyes. 

“Is he -” her voice shatters. “- is he gone?”

“Yes.” 

“You are lying!”

“Does it matter? He will if he is not now. He is not going to return.”

He reaches for her again, a little concerned and pats her hair gently. 

“There is nothing for him to return for. Everything that should have been mine - I’ve taken them back. There is no need for the replacement.” He speaks the words of his mother - speaks them with a faith of his own. But his throat runs dry at the resentment in her eyes when their gazes collide. 

“I love him,” she tells him, silently, but sharply. “Him - not you.” After everything I’ve said - she thinks silently, for all I’ve done - have you yet not realized that.  

“He is me - I am him.” He holds into the illusion of his own existence, unyielding. 

“You are not!” Her calm tumbles in the end and her voice rises. “You’re not what he is to me!”

He brush his knuckles against her pale cheek, taking advantage of her agitation that she does not step away from his touch. He yearns to touch her - in ways she denies him - in ways he had seen her allow So countless times. 

“I love you just the same…” He assures her. “No - I love you more.”

His mermaid - he refuses to let her go. She could hurt him - break him - push him away - but he refuses to let her go. Even if she was deceived by his look alike - tainted by him - even if she thinks she is in love with him - she was his - Jun’s - his one and only. But he knows - he sees it in her eyes - her time on land is coming to an end. She is trying to leave him - she is yearning to leave him. And he fears that.

It seems his fears have somehow materialized themselves for he cannot find her anymore. He presses through curious guests who wants to know why the OCT people where there - who wishes to talk about his untimely retirement - but among them - she is nowhere to be found. 

Instead - he finds his mother. 

“Where is she?” He pants, gripped by his sudden fear. “Where is Ha Jin?”

She holds him by elbow, her lips pressed into a line. There is a grim look in her eyes that makes him swallow. 

“Omma -”

“Baby - why didn’t you tell me?”

“What did you do with her?”

“Oh look at you - still worried about her - and keeping secrets from your Omma!”

“Where - is - she?”

“She’ll come back -” her tone is brisk, the same way she used to promise him visits and instead made him swallow more mind numbing pills and she pats his head. “Omma will look after her.”

“Please - Omma…”

Her eyes flash, her nails dig into his arm. In the darkened corner where they stand, he sees the shadows that swim her gaze. 

“You fool - you blind, fool -” she murmurs. “One more slip - do you realize what she was going to do?”

“Omma - I”

She exhales hard, seething, burning. Yoo Myung Sung never thanks the fates, but perhaps just this once she comes very close to. Jun - blinded by his innocence - living in his fairy tale - would have cost her far too dearly. It was her own fault too - she realizes just a tad bit late. She should have read between the lines. It took a little too perfectly timed OCT to open her eyes. Blood - they wanted Jun’s blood. 

She is under no illusions. This is Yo’s doing. If she is not gravely mistaken the sample would never go for drug testing. Instead they are waving a silk trap for her baby who is wrapping himself like a damn toddler! 

Well - she thinks - without a shard of remorse - it won’t be the first time. 

“It doesn’t matter - I don’t mind - he deceived her - Omma - it’s his fault. Mermaid - Ha Jin - wouldn’t -” He fumbles over his words and she sees red. 

Perhaps the girl had played the game a little better than she had anticipated, played on Jun’s faith, preyed on his love. Well - she would pay for it as well. 

“And you were going to accept it?”

She bunches a fist full of his collar and shakes him unable to help herself. 

“You fool! Can’t you see - that’s exactly what she wanted - she was going to push for a DNA!” 

“It’s not her fault,” he says stubbornly and she pushes him away, exhausted by his childishness. By how far gone he is. 

“We are leaving -” she commands. “You’d behave if you wish to see her again.”

She leaves him in the darkness to a whirl of foggy voices and Jun clasps his palms over his ears. Ha Jin’s words from the day before - replaying in his head, a loop he cannot pull himself free from. 

“I love him, him - not you.” 

“He is me - I am him.” 

“You are not! You’re not what he is to me!” 

“I love you just the same… No - I love you more.”

He recoils at the look she had given him, at the loathing - distaste and pity. 

“I’m pregnant.” Bluntly, she snaps at his lifeline. “You will never be the father of my child. No -” She pulls away, fury burning in her eyes. “I won’t let you!”

It takes him a moment to gather himself - a moment in which distance grows between them. But he chases after her and holds her back. His arms forming a cage that she cannot escape from. He buries his face in her hair, breathing her soothing scent - trying to calm the voices that drown his thoughts. 

“Oh Mermaid!” He wants to kill So - slowly - tortuously. For daring to steal such joy from him. It should have been his child - his - not So’s - the family he would have cherished. He still would - it was his mermaid’s baby after all. 

Her frame shudders with suppressed sobs and he holds her tighter against him, stroking her hair, whispering in her ear.

“It’s okay - I love you. I love you. I love you.”

Finally, he thinks, he understands why she had been pushing him away. It is silly of her - to think that he would hold her at fault for not realizing who was her true love at first. No, they did look alike - he had always known mermaid was mistaken. For a moment back then - listening to all the hurtful reminisces of theirs - he had been doubtful of her love. But now he knows, she was too afraid to return to him and she is simply trying to push him away - to punish herself for no fault of hers. Everything she had said - everything - is a lie. 

He consoles himself, and hugs her tighter. It doesn’t matter - at all.