Stalking Mermaids || Gongchan & Sojung
This was not stalking. One could call his persistent analysis and advancement of evolutionary studies (all in the name of science) to be a nuisance, yes, he would acknowledge those allegations. But to be correlated to such an incriminating act? Hogwash, the opinions of the peanut gallery was complete and utter hogwash, and it was from the moment that mother in her forties scrutinized him for taking polaroid’s of the circus mermaid that he vowed to never cease his research of human-aquatic anatomy. Seriously, fuck middle-aged people and their inhibited, conceited pestilence. Just the mere thought of crow’s feet could make him nauseous for days.
Gongchan grimaced, his facial language inflicted when their faces arose in his memory, and through the arch of barren branches did he tread with a thousand horrors forsaken by the rear of his heel. Sojung, it was not the name of the woman that warranted his submission to insomnia and sores of graphite, and the woman of mythology herself would be as viable alive as she would be a cadaver awaiting the incision of a scalpel. It was her outré skeletal structure that commanded his knees to the ground, inflicted minor early onset arthritis into his hands and blackened his skin with purple stains. A noose around his throat was his gaunt appendages, and the nails pressed into the skin frowns, quelling a rising cough as he peered beyond the veil of the forest to the lake of clandestine swimming. His curiosity had been enraptured by a marine shape-shifter, fixated on the process that was transfiguring bones and flesh to resemble the tail of a tropical fish.
His limbs lowered, actions decelerated and breath tangled into his bronchi, with purpose removing his backpack and prudently walking forward. The dwellers of the Cirque Du Freak were all pariahs masquerading underneath a semblance of the paranormal, but truly they were theses of biology to be chronicled, and Sojung was the finest specimen pinned to red velvet. His shoes left prints in the sand, and although he could listen for the wavelength of her mind he kept the radio on mute. “Sojung? Don’t tell me that tonight you have decided to drown yourself or abandon the waves.” Gongchan called for her in the voice of the subdued, the sounds semi-somnolent. He searched for her on the shore and below the surface, a contemplation of body temperature and its regulation piquing his interest while he shoved his fists into the protective pockets of his coat, shielding himself from the ire of winter.
