Can't Believe it's a Human

Boyfriend?

It wasn't Sunghoon's fault and in his defence, he did know what clothes were. But he didn't quite grasp the difference between the kind humans deemed ok to get in the water, and which ones they would try to keep dry. Well, he had an idea of what clothes were, he wasn't that clueless. Though he didn't fully get the boyfriend thing yet. Fundamentally, he understood the concept, but he didn't see how it was so different from a future mate. Obviously, they couldn't be the same, because if he compared himself and Minjeong with Jay and Jungwon, their relationships were clearly not similar at all. Though, if he were in love with Minjeong already then it would be the same. At least that's what he argued when Jay explained it, after they had left the little rocky area.

"Well... yes, I guess," Jay had to admit. "But it's not- I like Jungwon a lot, but that's not necessary between future mates; it's not even necessary between mates," Jay pointed out and Sunghoon could see what he was getting at. "It's just... I have feelings -romantic feelings- for Jungwon and he has feelings for me, and we decided we wanted to be together, so he's my boyfriend and I'm his." Sunghoon nodded as if he understood.

"Okay," Sunghoon said, expression blank.

"You'll be processing this for the next couple of days..." Jay muttered, and as tired as he looked, Sunghoon knew he was okay with that.

If he were honest, Sunghoon didn't actually think much about it. As far as he was concerned, it didn't matter. He continued to meet with Heeseung every other day and occasionally they'd all meet together. It was nice, Sunghoon got to learn more about humans and Heeseung got to learn about merpeople. Jungwon and Jay were a lot more acquainted with each other's species, thanks to how long they'd been meeting up. With every meeting, and now that Jay was completely aware of his situation with Heeseung, he felt a little worse about not telling Jake anything.

So, while he didn't really give much thought to what a boyfriend was or how it differed from a mate, he did think about telling Jake about Heeseung. He also, briefly, considered telling Minjeong, since she'd probably be affected by this in the long run. An obvious and much easier choice to talk about all of this was Wonyoung, she'd definitely understand his position, and maybe she'd be able to explain what the difference between boyfriend and mate was more clearly; Wonyoung knew a lot about humans, Sunghoon knew this as a fact.

Ultimately, he decided to talk to Heeseung about this. Sunghoon felt comfortable sharing his struggles and dilemmas with Heeseung, and Heeseung always gave him such a calm and reassuring feeling. Even if he had no advice at all, which Sunghoon doubted, he knew he'd come out of that conversation feeling better.

"It feels wrong to not tell them," Sunghoon explained to Heeseung. "But I don't think it's a good idea to do it either..."

"Jake and Minjeong?" Heeseung asked, just to make sure they were still talking about them. "They are like your friends, right? Yours and Jay's?"

"Jake's our friend, we've been friends for way too long," Sunghoon clarified. "And Minjeong is... she's my future mate..." He felt awkward telling Heeseung this, but he couldn't fully understand why.

"But she's not your friend?" Heeseung looked confused.

"I... I mean, she is? But we are not as close," Sunghoon tried to explain, though he'd been wanting mostly to show the distinction between them. "I want to tell Jake, but with Minjeong is more... I have to tell her. If we mate... she should know about this."

"If?" As much as Sunghoon had a hard time understanding human concepts, Heeseung was also struggling with merpeople concepts.

"It's not- technically it's been arranged, but either of us can back out at any point before the decided date..." this, Sunghoon thought, was information Heeseung had to have. He needed Heeseung to fully understand that this was how it worked, though he didn't know why. "If she finds someone else, or I do, we could just call it off, no one would care."