Chapter 3

The queen was least interested when the red haired mermaid, whose name she had told was Rose, told her she wanted to show Lalisa a place she would like in the village. They had come to a village, where rose lived, her house bigger than the other humans house.

So now, they were standing in the middle of - Lalisa didn't know where, but there were a lot of trees around. Plants that reached her waist surrounded her. She knew what a tree looked like, but here she saw a lot of them in different shapes and heights and few even had colorful things on them.

Indeed, she loved the place. It was beautiful.

"This is called a farm. Humans grow different plants and fruits here to eat." Rose says touching a plant.

"Humans eat this? But this is beautiful." Rose laughs at Lalisa.

It's been two days since the attack of the sharks in the sea and she had heard about merfolk coming on land but her father and brothers still haven't come. She knows they are safe and will go to land only when they ensure that every merfolk is on land and is safe, but that can't stop her from worrying.

"Come on, there's lot more I've got to show you." Rose says excitedly holding her hand and dragging her in the direction of the biggest tree in the farm.

Lalisa had been learning to make voices like humans. Being a mermaid, it was easy for her to start understanding the language within just two days. Now all she needs to do is speak clearly. Her words come out slurred, but Rose had assured her she would learn it in no time.

She freezes when she notices a mop of blond hair wearing cream colored clothes, at a distance. That's definitely not a merman.

A human.

She remembers her hyungs telling her to stay away from humans. She did not see any human while coming to the farm. And when they were here on land, she had remained in one of the rooms in Rose's house. But now, there was this human, dancing around the farm too close to her. He was not actually close, his back was facing them and he was at least fifty feet away from them, but again, that is the closest Lalisa has been to a human in these two days. And it made her feel uncomfortable.

"What's wrong?" Rose turns to ask and notices Lalisa staring at the blonde haired man. "Jimin!" Rose yells excitedly, startling Lalisa, waving her hand like a maniac at the man Lalisa was staring. The figure turns around and smiles as soon as he notices Rose.

Lalisa looks at the mermaid as if she had lost her mind and grips the fabric of her own red colored hanbok she is wearing today.

The blonde haired man makes his way towards the two mermaids and Lalisa can't help but take a step back. There's no way she is going to disobey her hyungs after witnessing what had happened the first time she did it - her whole kind is in danger.

Rose looks back at Lalisa assuring her he was a friend.

"Hey." The man chirps as soon as he reaches close enough for Lalisa to stretch her hand out and lean a bit more towards him to slap him (She doesn't actually slap him). She doesn't try to move, watching his every move suspiciously.

He is holding something which does not at all looks like a weapon. But humans can't be trusted.

Jimin looks uncomfortable when he notices Lalisa checking him out - that's what he thinks she is doing. Although Lalisa is beautiful, he does not want any woman giving him that kind of attention. He looks at Rose trying his best to not let his smile look forced, however she notices and looks at Lalisa who in turn looks away. To Jimin, it looked as if the new girl with Rose already knew what Rose had to tell.

Little did he know, the girls were actually mermaids - the creatures he had hated since he was little, and could communicate telepathically.

"Meet Lalisa, Jimin. My cousin." Rose introduces smiling ear to ear, and Jimin can't help but get even more embarrassed, "I bought her here to show her around. I wanted to show her the most beautiful farm of this village."

Jimin laughs at this, and turns to go near the tree Rose was heading before spotting him, Rose follows him and he doesn't miss how Lalisa hesitates before following them, "Did you even try to look around at other farms Rose?" He says knowing Rose has never been to any other farms before and his is the only one she visits.

"No. But that is because I already know yours is more beautiful," She sings.

They reach the big tree and Jimin sits under it's cool shade relaxing his muscles, his mind falls in peace immediately. He places the pot full of red persimmons in front of Rose who is now sitting beside him, smiling like a hungry little kid at the persimmons.

He glances up at Lalisa who is still standing and looks like is having an internal battle. He smiles at her warmly to which she can't help but smile back and sit beside Rose.

Jimin rolls his eyes at Rose who has already started eating the fruit and haven't asked her cousin about it.

"Here," he holds the pot up so that Lalisa could take one, but she just stares at the pot in his hand and back at him.

Rose immediately takes one persimmon out of the pot placing it in Lalisa's hand on her lap, 'Humans eat this. Try it.' Rose thinks, which only Lalisa can hear and Jimin being a human can't.

All that Lalisa had eaten until now were different kinds of fish. And it feels freakish to eat something else other than fish. She musters up the courage to try it after looking at Rose, who is enjoying eating the fruit. The fruit melts into her mouth and she feels the sweet taste to be heavenly. She had never tasted something like that before in the sea. And she likes it.

Lalisa looks around her. The wind sweeps the lock of hair away from her face, making her feel oddly calm in this unknown place. The listens to the creatures on the tree chirp flying around and even sitting on the ground from time to time. She tries to make a sound like the flying creatures and it is loud enough to startle Jimin. Rose coughs on her fruit looking sheepishly at Jimin.

It's hardly been ten minutes and Jimin already finds Lalisa weird, just like how he had thought of Rose to be strange when he first met her an year ago at the shore. Later that day he also met Jackson, Roses' husband whom he found equally uncanny. Guess the whole family is strange, he thinks and smiles to himself.

They eat in perfect silence, with Jimin trying his best to control the laughter that threatens to spill from his lips whenever he notices Lalisa doing anything unnatural and stopping abruptly the moment Rose turns to look at her, as if they could read each others mind. How sweet of the two sisters to know what the other has to say just by looking at each other, Jimin thinks.

Usually, Rose would always blabber about the things going around in the village, like how her neighbours fought, or if there was any fight between any village wrestler and the soldier of the king, or how Jackson caught a lot of fishes at the sea, or how the soldiers misbehaved with the helpless people and all sorts of news. Jimin loved eating fish, so she would always come with fish for him. But today, she had got nothing for him, neither the fish, nor any news. She was quite today.

He does not question her about anything knowing she had been busy from past two days. She had told him she would be, three days ago.

"Hey Jimin-ah, where's the flying stick?" Rose asks suddenly.

"Swing. The swing." Jimin corrects her for the umpteenth time now. He had told her before it was called a swing, but she was hell bent on calling it a flying stick. He had even given up on correcting her, but he did not want even her sister to start calling it a flying stick so he had to force himself to correct her one last time.

"Where is it?" She ignores him and gets up to look around.

"I took it down yesterday." He says.

"Why?" Rose shrieks, and Lalisa gets up to move away from her.

Jimin rolls his eyes, praying his eye balls won't get stuck there by the amount of times he has to do it in presence of Rose.

He goes inside his small house which is in the middle of the farm, ignoring Rose and comes out with ropes and a board broad enough for anyone to sit comfortably on.

Lalisa watches him curiously, making sure to look away whenever he looks anywhere near her direction. She watches Jimin climb up the tree and tie the ropes on one of it's strongest branches, and then coming down to tie the other loose ends of the ropes hanging down to the board which has two holes at each of it's side.

Jimin stands beside the swing looking at his work proudly, smiling brightly at Rose. Lalisa looks at Jimin and something black behind Jimin catches her eye.

Another human.

This time, she just looks into the human-in-all black's eyes. His eyes twinkling as soon as she notices them. Even though he is far away and his figure looks as small as Jimin's little finger, Lalisa can clearly see him and his twinkling green eyes, which is not possible for a normal human.

She gets no time to protest or question Rose about the green eyed human standing far away and staring at them, when Rose excitedly makes her sit on the swing and tells her to hold the ropes at her sides tightly.

She looks confused, the green eyed man forgotten, and then she shrieks as soon as Rose pushes the swing from behind her, Jimin laughing at the side. She feels her hair flow as the wind hits her face gently, making her feel terrific. She eventually starts laughing and that is when Jimin realizes she had not uttered a word since they met and her voice was beautiful. He smiles proudly for finally making his new friend feel comfortable around him.

Lalisa lets her head hang so that she could see Rose behind her, upside down, and her hair touching the ground below. Her grip tightens around the ropes and she feels ecstatic, wanting to go higher in the air.

This feels better than what it felt like jumping in the sea where she played with her friends. She makes a mental note to bring all of her friends to Jimin's farm once they come to land and visit her.

She will definitely be visiting this piece of land often if she is staying on the land any longer.

The force of the swing lessens and she watches Jimin hanging another swing on a different branch for Rose. Rose sprints in it's direction and Lalisa pouts, but to her surprise and delight both, Jimin comes from behind her to push her swing and her laughter fills the farm again.

Meanwhile in the same village,

"Ya, hyung?" Taehyung calls out to Hoseok, riding his horse closer to Hoseoks', "How many more villages and towns do we have to inspect?"

"Five villages, three towns." Hoseok sighs and Taehyung makes a disgruntled voice, "Tired already?" Hoseok asks.

Taehyung chooses not to answer. They have been to four villages and one town already and had caught only seven men involved in murders and thefts. That wasn't something a prince should do personally but his father wanted him to learn something and he didn't even knew what. The crimes happening in this part had increased and not stopped even when they had executed one of the murderer in public as a warning for others.

They had just arrived in this village and they are supposed to take a route from between the farms. And rest in one.

Taehyung notices something red flowing and turns his head to left to see it clearly. He makes his horse stop abruptly and the soldiers behind him stop as well. He jumps down to walk near the farm.

"The farm we are supposed to stay at is not this." Hoseok says jumping down from his horse and placing a hand on Taehyung's shoulder.

"Hyung?" Taehyung turns to look at Hoseok expectantly, "Will you please take the soldiers to the farm? I will join you guys in no time."

Hoseok looks hesitant at first but lets the prince be and commands the soldiers to follow him. he glances back at Taehyung before leaving him and notices him staring at a lady in the farm they are passing by. He shakes his head chuckling and goes ahead.

Taehyung looks at the girl in red hanbok and can't help the smile that decorates his face. Although he couldn't see her properly from that distance, he could tell she is beautiful. His smile grows wider when she looks at him for a mere second. He grabs the strap of belt hanging around his horse and starts walking slowly towards her direction, watching her play on the swing. He gets close enough to make out her face clearly, her snowy white skin and rosy cheeks looking as soft as they would feel against the touch of his fingers.

Taehyung doesn't miss the slight change of color in her brown hair. But how could that be possible? He ignores it, thinking he is just seeing things.

Looks like he got something to do in his free time in this village. He laughs lightly when she laughs and suddenly thinks of himself as a fool.

The trio, other two he hadn't noticed, starts making their way in the opposite direction of his and he follows silently, walking behind them at a distance no one would suspect, with his black horse still behind him.

He realizes they are going in the direction of the market and immediately climbs up the horse taking off in the direction where they were going to stay in the village.

"Hyung! Heading to the market! Joining me?" Taehyung yells not stopping his horse and letting Hoseok know where he is going while passing from in front of the house they will be staying in for two days.

Hoseok wastes no second and jumps on his horse following Taehyung's before it disappears. They reach the market and Taehyung winks at Hoseok.

"Now what are you playing at here? You definitely never look this excited when we have to catch an outlaw," Hoseok asks.

"We need to buy clohes." Taehyung grins showing off his perfect set of teeth.

Hoseok looks down at his clothes furrowing his brows and gets no chance to ask questions when Taehyung rushes to the nearest shop dodging every human on his way. Hoseok closes his mouth that had opened to ask why they were shopping here and starts following His Excellency before he gets lost in this sea of people. He bumps into few shoulders on his way but never takes his eyes off Taehyung. They enter a small shop and Taehyung buys two pairs of everything he is buying. He asks the person if they could change their clothes there and hurries to change the moment he nods. He come out and pushes Hoseok in to get changed into the clothes he had just bought.

"Why me?" Hoseok protests.

"Just go Hyung, we don't have much time." He whisper yells and Hoseok obeys.

Few minutes later Hoseok finds himself standing behind a stall, with a poker face, selling ornaments. Not to forget, fake ones. Well of course fake. Who would sell real ones in a crowded place like this. Taehyung had paid a fortune to the actual seller to let them sell his ornaments for the time being and Hoseok still did not know why he had to do this.

"Forgive me Your Excellency, but may I know what we are doing here?" Hoseok mocks.

"Selling ornaments." Taehyung laughs and Hoseok scowls, "You will see." He adds later.

Taehyung suddenly straightens looking ahead at the girl in red hanbok he saw in the farm and smiles. Hoseok looks at her and tries his best not to slap himself.

They are going to mortify themselves, he thinks and bits his lower lip watching Taehyung doing his best to grab the girl's attention towards his ornaments. He tries not to laugh at his failed attempts.

They watch the trio looking at scarfs and the red haired girl buys a cream colored scarf and hands it over to the brown haired girl, who then covers her hair with it, much to Taehyung's disappointment.

Taehyung finally manages to grab the red haired girl's attention and she comes their way with the girl and the boy with them following.

Taehyung tries to look calm, and fails miserably as he stares at the brown haired girl. Hoseok hastily starts throwing his hands around and showing the ornaments to the trio, trying to cover up for His Excellency.

Now that she was so close to him, just four feet away, he could see her properly.

She looks at him and furrows her brow, Taehyung prays she hadn't recognized him and when she says nothing, with her jade colored eyes staring into his green ones for four long seconds and looks away, Taehyung knows she didn't recognize him. However he wished she wouldn't have looked away. He notices her looking at one of the ornaments.

He picks it up to let her see it closely and she hesitates before taking it into her hands, not letting herself touch the human.

She examines the small circle shaped ornament in her palm with a small jade colored stone on it. She hands it back to the man who had given it to her and sees a bit of disappointment in his eyes. She looks away not able to look into his eyes again. She wonders if he is also a merman, for his skin, his face, his eyes, in fact his whole self is very beautiful to be a normal human. Even a merman as alluring as him is never seen in the sea.

"You like it?" Rose asks her.

She nods her head but refuses to buy, as she doesn't even know what it is and how it is used.

She feels someones eyes on her, she already knows who, but doesn't look his way. Trying to look instead at Rose and Jimin talking with another man who Lalisa notices has got the most warm and welcoming smile she has ever seen. Rose ends up buying one ornament and Lalisa eventually looks at the green eyed man she is sure she saw at the farm, and notices a hint of smile coming back to his features making it difficult for her to tear away her gaze.

She feels Rose holding her hand and starts walking, letting Rose lead her the way.

Taehyung watches her disappear into the crowd, a hint of smile still playing on his lips.

"Don't you think you went a bit far with this one?" Hoseok asks, making their way to their horses.

The prince shakes his head, "You know me well hyung. If I am staying at the village for two or maybe even three long days, then I must do something to pass the time."

Hoseok looks unconvinced and even Taehyung knows it. He had just wanted to look at her from a bit closer. The pretext did not sound persuading enough even to his own ears.

"Did you like the market Lalisa?" Jimin asks and she just nods.

Jimin sighs, because all that Lalisa's been doing till now is nod or shake her head to anything he asks or sometimes Rose answers on her behalf. By now he would have started to believe she was a mute for he hadn't heard her laugh on the swings.

But at least she liked the market. She even seemed to enjoy watching new things that were only available in this village.

Although she had not wanted to come to such a crowded place full of humans, she also could not deny Rose and Jimin who looked excited about it. She just made sure to stay alert and near her friends.

Lalisa feels eyes on her. Not the ones that were before, childlike that had no intention to harm her. It is someone else. She knows she isn't in the sea anymore and she can't harm any human just because she wanted to. She is not supposed to use her powers unless she is in danger.

She stops dead in her tracks when she hears, 'The princess, eh?', and the voice of the thought is eerily clear and familiar. Her head snaps up in the direction of the voice that had manipulated her to take her to land, and there he is, standing with a bunch of humans, looking straight at her. He was the same merman who had taken her to the land for the first time. Her brothers have being searching the merman in the sea and here he was on the land!

His powers are nothing compared to hers and she knows he cannot harm her physically. What she is afraid of, is him being some lunatic who might have shaken hands with the shark lord, who had attacked them and might reveal to him were all the merpeople were. Well it would be no surprise if the shark lord already knows they are hiding on the land but where exactly, she hopes he has no clue.

The shark lord is cruel and won't even spare humans. She doesn't wants any more creatures to get hurt anymore. Specially her new friend, who has been nothing but kind and good to her. She gives the merman a warning glare and hopes he pulls nothing such. She will have to inform her hyungs about the merman. She makes a note to herself to tell one of the guard merman with them at Roses' house to convey the message to her brothers.

"What else do you want to show your sister?" Jimin asks smiling, "We can go to the shore."

"Um, it's quite late now. The qu - " Rose stops and covers herself fast enough for Jimin to notice, "Lalisa's mother might be waiting." She says instead.

Jimin realizes there's no one that would be waiting for him at his home and smiles sadly. He lives all alone since he was young. "Oh." Is all he says and looks away. He loves Rose and Jackson's company. He has no other friend than the duo in the village and now Lalisa, who he did not know how long was staying in the village. Rose had told him they were visiting her. "How long will you be here?" He asks and Lalisa just shrugs, indicating even she doesn't know.

"Oh, as long as I want them to stay with me." Rose says laughing and Jimin feels like if next time Lalisa doesn't speak he would have to ask if she was mute or couldn't speak and just laugh? He wonders if he is such a terrible friend to be with?

Jimin comes back home to find it empty as always and flops on his bed wondering if he would ever meet a man and have a family. Yes, a man. That could be counted as a reason for not having any friends.