Chapter 29

Winsor's words made Lansi terribly frightened.

He remembered it clearly: because the cruise company was celebrating its fiftieth anniversary, they had been chosen as the "lucky passengers" on the Queen Mary. Their presence had been repeatedly promoted in the media.

There were some wealthy people aboard the Queen Mary, but most of them were simply rich—not famous. There weren't any celebrities or notable figures who could be advertised in a magazine like XX Weekly.

Still, from another angle, Lansi suspected this might all be part of a conspiracy.

Why go through so much effort? Why would the cruise company spend so much money?

If all the passengers ended up dead, how could they be called "lucky"? It would be a devastating blow to the company's reputation.

And it made sense that the truly elite wouldn't want to board a cruise filled with common rich people—it would cheapen the experience.

Lansi shook his head, trying to banish the paranoid thoughts.

"No, no. I'm overthinking this."

After calming himself down, Lansi looked back at the diary in his hands.

As he'd said before, the colleague who wrote it was sensitive, prone to suspicion, and obsessed with melancholic musings.

He also had a strong belief in government conspiracies.

As a result, much of the diary was rambling nonsense.

For example, he wrote multiple times that the world was ending and the government was conducting shady experiments in secret.

One entry even referenced "News One Two Three."

Lansi flipped through the early pages and found them completely absurd.

Eventually, he reached the part where the colleague wrote about boarding the ship with coworkers and then—

Lansi abruptly closed the diary.

"What happened?"

Winsor had been laying out the suitcase contents to dry in the sea breeze. Hearing the sudden movement, he turned to see Lansi frozen in place with a stunned expression.

He walked over, glanced at Lansi, then at the diary in his hands.

Lansi gave a nervous laugh.

"It's nothing."

He tried to hide the diary behind his back.

A few seconds later, Winsor began trying to pull the diary away from him.

"What are you doing?"

Lansi snapped back to awareness and gripped it tighter.

Winsor didn't tug again, but Lansi still yanked it back protectively.

Winsor tilted his head. "What's written in it?"

"Nothing, really."

Lansi's face was heating up. He added defensively, "You can't read anyway."

"Who said I can't?"

Winsor gave him a sharp look. "And besides, do you remember what you said in the coral reef?"

He began tallying things:

"I taught you to hunt, taught you to swim, and dragged your suitcase. And now I just want to read a diary you're holding and you won't let me?"

His tone sounded a little wounded.

Lansi didn't reply.

He really wanted to ask—was this guy really human like him?

"I'm not human," Winsor said, reading his thoughts. "And I'm definitely not some human-turned-mermaid."

While Lansi sat there speechless, Winsor calmly took the diary and began to read.

A few minutes later, his expression darkened visibly.

Lansi coughed and tried to explain.

"Well... the person's already dead. Let's just forget about it."

Winsor's expression grew colder, clearly convinced the diary contained something outrageous. He flipped through it more carefully.

I think my roommate is very cute.

So cute. They're both boys, as expected.

I think...

The last "I think" was cut off at the page's end. The next page obviously continued the thought, but Winsor didn't need to read it to know it wasn't going anywhere good.

Probably something like "I think about him all the time."

Winsor pressed the page down and looked at Lansi, speaking with forced calm:

"Did you know he had a thing for you?"

Lansi rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. "Well, I think his feelings were... tolerable."

Winsor snapped. "You call that tolerable?!"

"Huh?"

Lansi tilted his head, confused.

Winsor glared, flipped the page to expose the next entry, ready to completely destroy Lansi's defenses—

I want to be his father.

That was how the next page began.

Judging from context, it clearly meant: I want to be his dad.

Winsor fell silent.

Human relationships were so strange.

Why were they always assigning father-son roles?

"Why are you so mad?" Lansi asked. "Do you want to be my dad too?"

Sure, men often joked around like that—but did mermaids do the same?

"No, I don't."

Winsor's fury seemed to deflate, like a balloon losing air.

Lansi rested his chin in his hand and sighed.

"Honestly, being gentle isn't always a good thing. I want to find a girlfriend, but they all say I'm better as a little brother."

After being rejected a few times, Lansi gave up and focused on his career.

He used to believe that once he was successful, he'd find love.

But now, he'd become a mermaid. No girlfriend in sight—though he had made a certain mermaid friend.

Lansi sighed again. "I really want to fall in love."

He didn't even know what that felt like.

Winsor stared at him.

He suddenly had the urge to grab this dumb little fish and kiss him.

After that awkward exchange, Winsor lost interest in reading. He handed the diary back and lay down beside Lansi, pretending not to care.

Lansi shrugged and continued reading.

His tail lifted slightly as he read more.

He had never known his old roommate had such intense feelings.

Let's just call the diary's owner Colleague A.

At first, Colleague A said he wanted to be Lansi's "dad," but later, his words hinted at something more obsessive.

As the entries continued, it became obvious that Colleague A's thoughts had become deeply fixated on Lansi.

He stopped writing about anything else. The diary became a detailed log of Lansi's actions and behaviors.

It was starting to feel like a stalker's journal.

Lansi read on and felt increasingly uneasy.

Colleague A even noted how many times he bathed each day.

But nothing had seemed strange to Lansi during those days on the ship. Everything had felt normal.

Then he turned another page, and the words made his face go pale.

Someone came into our room at night.

I think they injected us with something while we slept.

My coworkers didn't believe me, and Lansi didn't believe me. But I swear something happened.

Lansi thought back. After boarding the ship, he had been sleeping deeply every night.

He assumed it was just exhaustion. But if what Colleague A said was true...

Lansi curled his tail and instinctively reached for Winsor's.

"What is it?"

Winsor opened his eyes.

Lansi set the diary aside, looked down at his tail, and asked in a dazed voice:

"I'm starting to think this tail isn't mine."

If someone had transformed him into a mermaid on purpose, was this tail even really his?

Winsor snorted with laughter, then wrapped his tail tightly around Lansi's. He rubbed against Lansi's side with deliberate affection and a teasing glint in his eye.

"Now? Does it feel like it's yours yet?"

Lansi's eyes widened at the contact.

As Winsor rubbed harder, Lansi felt the fine scales trembling. He quickly covered his tail and swatted Winsor's face with his webbed hand.

"You rogue!"

Whether the tail was his or not no longer mattered.

Winsor looked stunned for a moment, then gently pulled Lansi's hand from his face and rubbed his cheek against the webbed fingers, smiling flirtatiously.

"That's because I like you."

At that moment, Lansi could only think of one phrase—

"Beauty is a curse."

His fish tail twitched, the scales heating up so much it made his waist go weak.

It even felt like one of the scales had... opened slightly.

He'd always known Winsor was attractive. But this...

Lansi quickly turned away, pressing his cool webbed hand to his flushed face in a vain attempt to cool down.

But his tail betrayed him.

The white tail had wrapped itself tightly around the black tail beside it.

Winsor said nothing. He simply watched with a smile as Lansi twisted around, refusing to meet his eyes.

"You should be called a siren," Lansi whispered.

For the first time, he fully understood why sailors would willingly leap into the sea after hearing a siren's song.

Winsor was the real deal—a seductive siren from legend.

To resist that temptation, Lansi decided to distract himself.

"I'll go check the camera."

Without waiting for a response, he turned to leave.

But their tails were still tangled.

Lansi's upper body lunged forward, but the lower half didn't follow.

With a loud "plop," he landed face-first on the beach.

"...Ow."

Behind him, Winsor chuckled.

He propped his head on one hand and lazily said, "Your tail's still with me."

Lansi glared at him, brushing sand off his face. He tried to retract his tail.

...It didn't budge.

For some reason, Winsor had suddenly started resisting.

Lansi struggled to free his tail, but each time he moved, Winsor's tail wrapped tighter.

Eventually, Lansi found himself even closer to Winsor—and farther from the camera.

"What are you doing?!"

Now completely caught in Winsor's embrace, Lansi slapped at his tail with frustration.

Winsor affectionately stroked his open ear fins and asked softly:

"When you were with your roommate, did you sleep with him?"

Lansi hesitated, then snapped, "Of course not. We were both human."

But now that he was a mermaid, he shared a bed with Winsor every day without giving it a second thought.

If Winsor were still human... things would be different.

Winsor needed a moment to parse that logic.

So if he became human again, would that mean no more cuddles? No more sleeping together?

"Why won't you let me go?"

Lansi was panicking now. If their tails stayed entwined like this, his scales might really pop open.

He didn't want that.

Face flushed, he begged Winsor to let go.

Winsor finally relented.

As soon as he was free, Lansi slipped away like a startled fish and retreated into the sea.

He floated at a distance, glaring at Winsor.

Winsor raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

The water helped cool him down—just barely.

Something felt off.

Even soaking in the sea, Lansi's body was burning up. His heart was racing. He felt restless, like he wanted to sing, or swim, or—

Touch the scales.

But he held himself back.

He tried to focus on something else.

The sun was bright. The coconut trees were tall. Some coconuts had fallen to the ground...

Then he sniffed the air.

There was a scent—faint, warm.

It wasn't like flowers or perfume.

It reminded him of the sea. Cold, but gentle.

Lansi narrowed his eyes, half-submerged in the water.

Was the scent... coming from Winsor?

Why could he smell it now?