Can't Believe it's a Human

Life

There weren’t many things Heeseung could state with absolute confidence, but one of them was that he was tired. He’d had a really long morning, professors being contradictory and unreasonable, he could not deal with any more nonsense for the day. With no more classes left for the day, Heeseung could feel relieved that his day was essentially over. That was, of course, if he didn’t count meeting his friends at the library to study; though calling what they did ‘study’ was far from its actual definition. To be fair, calling the place a library was also a bit of a stretch, so Heeseung could say they were using all terms lightly. It was a place, with tables and books, but it lacked all the rules a normal library would have.

“Ah! Heeseung!” Heeseung could cry. He knew exactly who was calling him and what for, but he really didn’t want to deal with that for the day. 

It was rude to ignore your friends, though. “Jimin-noona, hi,” he tried hard to smile. He didn’t hate her or anything, they were pretty good friends, but he knew what she was going to ask and he had no energy left in him. 

“Now don’t look at me like that,” she complained lightly. 

“Yes, I’m meeting the others, and yes, Riki’ll be there… he’s been gushing about a documentary since like four in the morning,” Heeseung answered the questions Jimin hadn’t yet asked.

“Oh my god, he saw it too! This is great!” She squealed in excitement, though she toned it down almost immediately as she gathered the attention of some passersby. “Come, come, we can’t be late for this,” she grabbed Heeseung by the arm and pulled him to walk faster. Heeseung didn’t complain, but he wondered what the point of hurrying was, they hadn’t even agreed on a time to meet.

Another statement Heeseung could make with absolute certainty: Mermaids weren’t real. He did not believe in them and he found the whole obsession —because that’s what it was, an obsession— Jimin and Riki shared over them quite useless and a little worrying. It was fine to joke about it or playfully discuss them, but they took mermaids, or merpeople as they called them, very seriously. To the point that Heeseung had been subjected to an hour-long rant over why he was wrong for not believing in their existence. 

If he took into consideration how cheery Jimin was being, and how annoying Riki had been since four in the morning, he could conclude, without a doubt, that the documentary was on mermaids. Which meant, if Heeseung could be allowed the assumption, that he’d have to listen to them talking about these fictional creatures for at least two hours straight. So much for not having to deal with any more nonsense for the day.

It wasn’t that bad, he was just exaggerating a bit. He wasn’t an asshole, and they obviously had a lot of fun with it, so it was nice to see how animatedly they talked. Truthfully, he was a little jealous, he wished he could be that passionate about something too. That wasn’t the issue. The problem was that they behave like he was personally insulting them when he voiced his opinion. Seriously, whenever they talked to him, or anyone else for that matter, it sounded like they were trying to convert them into their religion. Heeseung was convinced it wasn’t healthy. 

On the bright side, he wouldn’t be alone with them. Jungwon and Sunoo would also be there, and much like him they seemed uncomfortable with the level of enthusiasm the other two displayed about mermaids. Heeseung still remembered the first time Sunoo had admitted to believing in mermaids, too. The horror in his face after Riki had dragged him for a full night of immersive learning about everything relating to mermaids. Never did Sunoo mention mermaids in Riki’s presence ever again. He was not making that mistake twice. Sunoo seemed a lot more casual about mermaids than Riki or Jimin. Like he had fun with the idea, but didn’t care to go into it any deeper. He didn’t want to prove their existence to everyone else on the planet.