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Yangyang buys his first fish on his sixteenth birthday after he gives his parents the slip in the international marketplace. He’s always liked fish, but to the best of his knowledge, a living fish hasn’t been seen since the dawn of the twenty-fifth century. It’s 3121 right now but there is a fish right there in front of him, a pretty little goldfish blubbing along in its water orb with not a care in the world or a single thought that is not simply being a fish.
He has always liked fish. He’s seen the models of them in museums, the synthetic fish in synthetic aquariums, and hours upon hours of nature documentaries from the twenty-first century on his phone.
He’d thought that all organic fish were extinct, never to be seen again unless they were modded in a lab or androids designed to be surveillance drones.
But this little fish in its little ord is simply a fish. The only special thing about it is that it lives at all.
It’s the first organic pet he’s seen in a very long time.
Yangyang knows that he has to have it. This living, breathing fish is probably one of the most beautiful things he has ever seen.
There is a boy behind the counter with bright pink hair and equally pink ear fin mods that flutter slightly as a fish floats around his head in a little orb. It looks like a betta fish. It’s beautiful– he’s beautiful, with his sparkling eyes that seem too natural to be mods. He’s never seen anyone with eyes that bright before.
Some people are still just born naturally beautiful.
“Hey,” Yangyang says softly, his birthday money burning a hole in his pocket, “how much for the goldfish?”
The boy smiles like the sun after rainclouds clear. “It’s fifty! It’s a little expensive but it’s probably one of the last of its kind, so…”
Yangyang checks his wallet. There is three hundred in cash there and his father’s credit card tucked in one of the pockets. He could use digital cash, too, so it doesn’t matter in the least. He’s getting that fish. “How much for everything it needs? I’ll take it all.
It ends up being around one-twenty for all of it, which is perfectly fine with Yangyang. “Can you let me know when you get more?” He wants to tell the pretty boy about how much he loves fish, he really does, because clearly he loves them too with his Oceania mods, but he is shy.
The boy, whose nametag reads ‘Taeyong Lee’ beams at him and sticks his arm out to Yangyang. “Of course! Here, give me a scan.”
Yangyang holds his new friend in his left hand and his holo-phone in his right to scan the rose-shaped code shifting prettily on Taeyong’s wrist in an imaginary breeze.
Lee Taeyong. Korean. Twenty-years-old. Cancer; July 1st. Single .
Yangyang is too young to get his QR modded, he did just get it a year ago, but Taeyong smiles as he scans it anyway.
Liu Yangyang. Taiwanese. Sixteen years old. Libra; October 20th. Single .
“Oh! Happy birthday, Yangyang!” Taeyong is so kind.
“Thanks,” he whispers and smiles shyly as his father calls for him over the noise of the crowd. “I’ll see you around!”
Yangyang does not consider the Ranchu goldish to be a birthday gift since he bought it himself but it is the best thing that he brings home that day.
🐠
His father watches Yangyang set up his new friend’s tank fondly, only getting up to help when he sees his son truly struggling. This is for Yangyang. Yangyang wants to do it for himself and he understands that well. “So, it’s not an android? Completely organic?”
Yangyang bobs his head excitedly. “Nope! It’s entirely organic! It doesn't even scan .” His father does just that to see for himself and hums in idle curiosity. “I’m gonna name him Sriracha.”
His father snorts. “Hello, Sriracha.”
It is Yangyang’s birthday; he doesn’t question what use the fish has to him, what value it provides to the household. He wonders, of course, but he’s seen how entranced his son has been with the ocean since he was little.
It is simply a fish. It makes him smile.
That is all that it needs to do.
🐠
Yangyang buys himself new fish whenever he can.
He’s twenty when he buys his twenty-fifth fish from Taeyong. The lovely ear frills that characterize him are purple now and the iridescent scales on his throat and shoulders look absolutely enchanting in the pink light of his booth. He’s got pearls by his eyes, too. He looks like a mermaid.
Yangyang wants to be like him.
“You have no idea how many people I had to go through to get a pure betta for you,” Taeyong says but he is not saying it unkindly. He’s so fond of Yangyang that hunting down a fish for him is not a real issue.
Yangyang smiles down at the red rose petal betta doing grumpy little laps in its equally little bubble. It looks like Renjun; he’s going to name it Renjun.
Taeyong has gills now. He might as well be a mermaid.
Yangyang holds grumpy little Renjun in his palms and wonders. “Hey, Yong? Did they hurt? The gills, I mean.”
Taeyong tilts his head and runs his fingers over his lovely gills. “Only a little. Are you in the market for some?”
“You could say that.”
Oceania mods are not a favorite of the trend casters. It’s a way for people to reach back to the days when the oceans were alive and thriving and there are millions of mods available.
But it is, at the end of the day, a fad mod, and the general public hated fad mods because they were risky and often outrageously expensive.
Rising rock star and model Nakamoto Yuta had octopus tentacles grafted onto his back to an insane amount of public criticism but he looked so cool . Yangyang’s favorite response Yuta gave to the press was “if my lovers aren't complaining, why are you?” He’s never admired anyone more in his life.
“I can give you my doc’s information if you’re interested? She’s great, I had a great time with her, and she has great overall reviews!”
Yangyang has great insurance through his job at his father’s nanotech–the very things that all mods are made out of–and is still under his parents’ insurance. He could get any doctor he wanted but Taeyong and his mods are so beautiful. He trusts him and his judgment. “Yeah, that sounds good.” Scanning Dr. Bae’s code, it’s a butterfly and one of the prettiest codes he’s ever seen, makes his heart beat fast with excitement.
He makes his appointment the next day and lays on his belly to watch little betta fish Renjun investigate his new home.
The gentle noises of Yangyang’s fish tanks lull him into a gentle, but deep sleep and he dreams about finally being able to breathe like them.
🐠
The first breath Yangyang takes with his new lungs and gills burns something awful but he feels real and alive like the fish he cares for. He can’t touch them but if he takes a deep enough breath, he can feel the skin fluttering just a little.
It’s the coolest fucking thing he’s ever experienced.
Renjun sits at his bedside once he’s allowed to go back home, one hand gently stroking through his hair and the other resting within Yangyang’s loose grip. He’s comforting but Yangyang knows that he’s not looking at him; his eyes are on the wall of fish and the lavender lights illuminating the room.
“Chenle thinks they’re stupid,” Yangyang rasps out and closes his eyes when Renjun pets over his hair soothingly. “But they ground me, you know?”
Renjun’s lips quirk up but Yangyang’s eyes are still closed. “The fish, eternally swimming, ground you?” He teases but his hand doesn’t stop stroking through his hair. “They’re so delicate, right? The wrong water temperature, the wrong PH level, and…”
Yangyang nods and opens his eyes. “And they die. We’re not that delicate anymore, people, I mean.” Renjun still doesn’t look at him. Yangyang wants Renjun to look at him.
“Where do you get them?” he asks and finally, finally looks down at Yangyang. He recognizes the smile curling his lips as the same one that lit up his face when he first saw Sriracha floating in his little bubble.
“I’ll give you their code if you want it.” The smile Renjun gives him is for him , not for the fish on the wall.
His lungs hurt.
🐠
Renjun gets his first fish with Yangyang a month later when he’s all healed up. Taeyong smiles kingly at them both but Yangyang does not have the heart to tell him that it’s not like that at all even as Renjun smiles back at him.
Yangyang scratches at his gills.
There are little green balls in a deep bowl over Taeyong’s shoulder, just barely visible around the fish that swims constantly around Taeyong’s pretty head. Yangyang is fascinated by them, even if he doesn’t know what they are. He doesn’t ask what they are but his curiosity doesn’t escape Taeyong’s attention; he turns around and brings the bowl down to the table between them.
“What are they?” Renjun asks, holding a bubble with a black Ranchu goldfish close to his chest. He’s never had a problem asking questions. Yangyang’s grateful for that. “It looks like...moss?”
Taeyong beams at him before fishing one of the little green balls out to cup it in his hands. “That’s because they are! They’re called marimo moss balls and if cared for properly, they can outlive the people who love them.”
“Even now?” Yangyang asks softly and resolutely does not look at Renjun when his head tilts curiously in his direction.
“Even now,” Taeyong replies and slips the moss ball back with its friends.
Yangyang’s gills fan out as he smiles wide. “I’ll take two.’
His marimo collection grows quickly.
Yangyang wants something capable of outliving him because he loves them so much. It’s probably a cry for help.
Donghyuck sends him the code to a new therapist that he’s started seeing with more than a dozen heart emojis. He means well, but Yangyang deletes it and gently swishes one of the marimo balls in its jar so it spins around for him.
It makes him smile.
Therapy wouldn’t hurt but he doesn’t want to try it.
🐠
When his phone rings, his holo-tv is already playing the news. He’s not surprised that his mother is calling but his mother doesn’t call.
“Yangyang, your father–”
Yangyang is watching the news. His father’s lab was hacked by Pre-Rev radicals–it’s ridiculous, Yangyang thinks, because they are against the modern technology but use it anyway–who turned the lab’s artificial intelligence against the scientists there.
It’s just dumb luck that Yangyang had gotten a sinus infection and didn’t go to work. Dumb fucking luck.
One of the only unmodded parts of his father’s body was his very human heart. His android assistant knew this. It was the only thing outside of the family that did.
Yangyang stares at Stinker, his blue half-moon betta fish that was his nineteenth birthday gift from his father, and blinks as his eyes burn.
“–come home, honey… Please, come home.”
“Ma–” He feels so guilty. He shouldn’t, but he does.
“I know, honey. I know the fish need you, but please…”
Yangyang calls Taeyong, who readily agrees to come feed and watch the fish. Renjun messages him that he’ll come when Taeyong can’t.
When Taeyong comes over, he hugs Yangyang tightly and warns him that when he cries, his lungs will burn.
Yangyang does not tell him that he already knows that.
🐠
Yangyang has a deep bowl of a tub in his apartment that reminds him of an out-of-date fish tank. He fills it up just enough that his displacement wouldn’t send the water splashing onto his floor and slips some of his goldfish into the water–none of his tropicals and especially none of his bettas, they wouldn’t survive it–and climbs into the water with them.
Breathing underwater with so much ease reminds Yangyang that he is no longer wholly human. He opens his eyes slowly and Sriracha swims right up to his face until he settles between Yangyang’s eyes.
Surprisingly, crying underwater doesn’t hurt as much as it does when he does it in the open air.
Yangyang wishes he had been born a fish. Fish don’t have the capacity to grieve. They are simply fish.
He holds his breath until his lungs burn and his gills open in surprise as Sriracha bumps into his nose. He scares all of the fish off to the sides of the tub as he sits up, coughing to clear his throat but he feels a little more alive.
California, a fatter goldfish, settles into the cup of Yangyang’s hands and he cries again with how much he loves them.
“I got a security dog!” Chenle’s text is announced with his excited voice and Yangyang turns his head to see the attached image. The dog is clearly robotic, probably from the lab Yangyang’s mother is now in charge of, but it’s cute. A bichon model, he thinks. “Her eyes shoot lasers .”
Lasers. A dog with laser eyes.
Technology is a wild thing.
Yangyang’s fish are simply fish. So are Taeyong’s. So are Renjun’s.
The robot will outlive Chenle but not because he loves it–it will outlive him because it is its job to outlive him.
Yangyang sets his fish back into their tanks, reacts to the texts with a heart, and goes to sleep.
🐠
It is common for most people to get their first mods the same year as their eighteenth birthday. Some people get them later if their parents are willing to sign the release forms or if they have enough money to get them illegally.
Or, in much rarer circumstances, if the mods are meant to hide medical procedures.
Despite centuries of altering human DNA, they are still not invincible.
🐠
Yukhei is not born perfect.
He’s born beautiful, but these are not the same thing. His mother rubs this in as often as she can as if it is his fault he is not the model son she wanted and was modded to hell for.
Yukhei begins to lose his vision with a vengeance around the winter solstice the year of his eighth birthday. He could never really see very well but when his vision begins to fade in earnest, there are not many options for them to pursue.
It’s the thirty-first century, people simply don’t go blind anymore–especially not children.
His mother is determined to ignore it and pretend that he is perfect. She fights with his father about it.
Yukhei is legally blind by the time he celebrates his twelfth birthday. They have even fewer options than they did when he was eight years old. Legally, Yukhei is too young to have mods, even with the signed release waivers, but his mother is determined for him to be fixed now. Her altered genes were not enough to make her perfect and thus her son is not perfect. She failed in that, but she refuses to fail again.
She threatens to sue a doctor.
Yukhei goes in to get entirely new eyes two months after his twelfth birthday party.
His doctor is kind, but Yukhei can tell that he pities him.
“You can pick a mod if you like, or your eyes can still be brown when we’re done,” Doctor Zhang offers kindly with one hand resting comfortingly on Yukhei’s shoulder. “I know it’s hard for you to see, but these will be your new eyes. You deserve to pick out what they’ll look like.”
Yukhei pushes his thick glasses up his nose and looks over the selection of mods as his doctor explains them to him in a way that he understands. He doesn’t feel babied as he draws his fingers over what Doctor Zhang calls the “heaven” model.
They reflect the mood of their owners and everything that they look at. There would be stars, literal stars , in Yukhei’s eyes.
“These ones, please,” he says softly before offering the table of examples back to his doctor. “I want to sparkle…” Maybe his mother wouldn’t hate him as much if he sparkled.
“Oh, Yukhei,” Doctor Zhang sighs and holds his scared patient a little closer, “you already do.”
Doctor Zhang holds his hand as he goes under because his mother is at a modeling job and his father is busy at the office. Yukhei doesn’t feel quite as alone as he did before.
🐠
Yukhei’s new eyes open up to see a hologram video of the ocean on the ceiling with a giant oceanic manta ray swimming leisurely across the blue expanse. Only a few people know how much he loves the ocean and specifically manta rays. His parents are not of that number, but his surgeon is.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Doctor Zhang says and takes Yukhei’s hand. “I thought you might like to see your favorite animal with your shiny new eyes.”
Yukhei nods slowly, tears pooling in his eyes as he watches the manta ray spin to eat whatever small organisms it was sucking into its mouth. It’s so beautiful. The tears don’t blur his vision anymore, a show of how unnatural they really are, but Yukhei can see . He can finally see .
“They’re HD,” Yukhei whispers and draws a loud laugh from his doctor. “That’s so cool .”
They’re probably the best money can buy.
Anything to make Yukhei as perfect as his mother expected him to be born as.
What Yukhei is afraid to tell his parents is that his new eyes won’t be enough to make him as perfect as they want. He probably won’t be able to hear them argue with each other over whose fault his imperfections are when they find out.
They stopped being truly human long before Yukhei was born but his flaws, his very human flaws, force them to acknowledge his humanity and theirs in turn.
They hate it.
They probably hate Yukhei, too.
🐠
Doctor Zhang gives him hearing aids that can pass as headphone implants when he turns fourteen and they do their job well. His mother hates them, but Yukhei has come to realize that despite how pretty and jovial she is, she hates almost everything.
He doesn’t mind them. He tells her this time and time again.
But it doesn’t matter. She can’t stand them.
“He’s sixteen ! He’s going to be bullied.”
He’s had them for two years. He has not once been bullied because no one realizes that they’re hearing aids and simply ignore them. She did not listen to him and he does not expect her to listen to his father, either.
“He is too young to get another mod, Mei! Maybe if you hadn’t had so many when you were pregnant he would be fine !”
Yukhei never knew that his mother had gotten modded when she was pregnant, though he supposes that should have been obvious. There are so many risks that go with that, they’re broadcasted in almost every ad for mods on buildings and the tv.
“But he’s beautiful, isn’t he?”
Yukhei turns off his hearing aids and orders himself a book–a real book, a paper book–to pass the time as his favorite nature documentary is projected on the walls. The screaming pauses for Yukhei’s father to bring him his book and kiss his head but Yukhei assumes it starts right back up once he’s out of the room.
He falls asleep with his book on his chest and sharks swimming around his room.
His mother comes in once he’s fast asleep and takes his book off of his chest to rest it page down on the nightstand. She touches his hair, his cheeks, his nose, and admires all of the work that her mods did for him.
Her son is beautiful. She did what she had to in order for him to be beautiful; the fact that he had come out beautiful and broken has nothing to do with her.
She kisses him on his forehead before taking her suitcase and leaving without a word.
When Yukhei wakes up, he does not miss her.
🐠
“Are you coming to dinner?” Hendery is right by Yukhei’s left ear, his better ear, and Yukhei is grateful for him. He guessed about Yukhei’s hearing and had held it close to his chest ever since.
He’s the best friend that Yukhei could ask for.
“Nah, I have an appointment after school.” The buzz around their lunch table turns to him faster than his sparkling eyes can blink. Every question blurs together in white noise but he knows what they’re trying to ask him anyway. “Just some ‘happy graduation!’ mods! Nothing too serious.”
Yukhei can’t hear Ryujin–she’s on his right side and three people down from him–but he sees her lips form a curious ‘doesn’t he already have so many? What more does he need ?’ She’s not trying to be mean, she’s just curious.
Curious and wrong, unfortunately.
Yukhei only has the one mod, the one that makes his eyes glitter and reflect and glow , but he is still objectively perfect. His skin is clear when most of his classmates apply short-term topical mods to address their acne, he’s taller than average, he’s told his perfect smile can light up a room.
All of the things his mother wanted for him when he was safe in her belly.
Yukhei just wants to hear. That’s all. It’s the second thing his mother couldn’t give him. The third is love.
“What are you getting?” Yuqi is so pretty and she is so kind. She always laughs when Yukhei’s eyes turn extra starry when he looks over at her. He’s grateful she never asks about it because he’s not sure he can handle the embarrassment of admitting his crush on her. “A cos-mod? I think Flora is back in fashion.” It is. Flowers and mushrooms and little butterflies are all the rage now but Yukhei does not want a Flora mod.
He just wants to hear.
“I’m not sure yet,” he lies instead of admitting his little flaws to the table, smiling softly at her. She got a cos-mod as an early birthday present and Yukhei allows himself to get lost in the pretty bubbles that float around her head like a halo. “You’ll see it tomorrow~”
The table erupts in a loud “booo!” and several projected tomato emojis but Yuqi is smiling at him and he is smiling back and he’s okay, for now.
He wonders what her voice will sound like when he can hear her properly. He wonders what Hendery’s will sound like.
He’s excited to find out.
🐠
Yukhei settles on pointed ears that make him look a bit like the elves that were popular in movies centuries back and perfectly hide the permanent implants that have fixed his hearing. There is the faintest of lights near the point of each ear, but they will fade with time.
All mod markers do.
Doctor Zhang even puts all of his piercings back where they belong in his ears. He’s himself again–more himself than he’s ever been with perfect vision and perfect hearing.
“Are these HD, too?” Doctor Zhang laughs and the sound is so nice and crisp in his new ears. He can hear the loud traffic outside and the distant bark of an excited dog.
“Yeah, definitely. Thank you again, Doc, I mean it.” He’s waved off but Yukhei can’t help but crush his doctor into a tight hug.
He hears Doctor Zhang’s fond sigh as he’s hugged just as tightly. “You’re welcome, Yukhei. You’re so welcome.”
It’s odd, to be closer to his mod surgeon than his own parents.
🐠
Yukhei’s mother is back home when he lets himself into the apartment and he’s not surprised to see a generously poured drink in his father’s hand. He’s probably been drinking a while. Yukhei does not blame him.
“My baby,” her voice is so soft and Yukhei wishes that he couldn’t hear her as crystal clear as he can. He wishes he couldn’t hear her at all. “Oh, look at how handsome you are!”
Yukhei allows himself to smile at her, she’s still his mother, after all, but it’s not terribly large. “Hi, mom.” She cups his face, the perfect face that she had worked so hard for, and Yukhei leans into her hands just a little. “I’m really tired, you know? I’m gonna go shower and then head to bed but are you coming to the graduation tomorrow?”
His mother blinks and turns her head to his father, who takes a long sip of his drink. “He graduates tomorrow?” she asks like a woman used to her son not being able to hear her sharp words. She forgot he can hear her now and he counts to five, tightening his hand on the strap of his bag.
“I do,” he whispers before his father can respond, stepping away from her soft hands and sharp nails. “You can come if you want. Or don’t, if you don’t want to. Goodnight, dad. Mom.”
As he walks away, he hears his father’s ‘goodnight, Yukhei’, and his mother hiss “why didn’t you tell me?”
She knew about his surgery but not his graduation.
His mother is a mystery.
🐠
She comes to the graduation because she has never once cared if someone didn’t want her somewhere. She comes because she wants to whisper with pride about how perfect her son is– Don’t you see him there? Yes, the tall one, with the pretty ears and those lovely, sparkling eyes .
Yukhei ignores her when she waves. Hendery squeezes his hand.
He’s such a good friend.
🐠
With their graduation hats tossed in the air and high school far behind them, Yuqi stands on her toes to trace the shell of Yukhei’s new ear. Her nails catch lightly on his helix piercing with an audible click and he can hear the gentle scrape of her skin against his own. He shivers to a laughed apology and Yukhei hears it all crystal clear.
He can’t help but laugh, too.
“Meet me at the afterparty?” Hendery asks when Yuqi slips her hand into the crook of Yukhei’s arm. He’s got a smile on his lips and Yukhei bumps their fists together when Yuqi agrees with a chirp. They watch Hendery worm his way into the car with Mark and Dejun before Yukhei walks Yuqi to his own car so they can drive to the afterparty, too.
They have no intention of making it here in time. Yuqi climbs into his lap to kiss him after he pulls into a dark alleyway, drawing him into her with her breathy little sighs and barely-there moans. It’s magical, she’s magical, and Yukhei knows that he can replay each one of her noises forever as his hands slide up the back of her shirt.
She’s so soft. Her sounds are so beautiful.
Yuqi settles against his chest and Yukhei can hear her heart and breath match up with his own.
“Yukhei,” her voice is so soft that he knows he wouldn’t be able to hear it before last night, “I like you a lot, you know?”
He nods a little and strokes his hand over her loose hair. “I like you a lot, too.” The ‘but’ lingers heavily at the end of their sentences. This will be all there is for them, Yukhei will stay in the city in the fall and Yuqi will be going across the country. Travel is far easier now, but they are friends. Good friends.
That remains unsaid and they kiss one last time before Yuqi sits back in the passenger’s seat and Yukhei drives the rest of the way to the afterparty.
Hendery fist bumps him again once they arrive and his laugh, while lovely, is hollow.
Yukhei can’t linger on that, though, because he can finally, finally hear all of the sounds of the party around him. He’s been to many during his high school career but this. This is all he’s ever wanted.
As they dance together, Huang and Huang under the stars, Yukhei finally feels normal.
He finally feels human .
🐠
Yangyang is not a robot.
He’s not . He knows he’s not . He helps make robots.
That doesn’t stop him from feeling like one.
“You need to get out, Yangyang,” Renjun’s voice is kind as they walk through a park with his new boyfriend, Sungchan. Sungchan has Flora mods that Yangyang helped develop specifically for him and the massive deer antlers look incredible in the pale pink sunlight. He’s beautiful. Born beautiful and only made more beautiful by mods.
Renjun deserves someone beautiful. Not someone like Yangyang who has an out-of-fashion mod that no one really cares for anymore.
“I’m out right now,” Yangyang points out. Sungchan and Renjun both give him a look that feels an awful lot like pity. “What? I am . I am outside, with both of you, and we are in a park.”
Sungchan flicks one of his deer ears and it’s unfairly cute. Yangyang kicks a rock. “Yeah, but that’s because we dragged you out of the apartment. You don’t really like the park.”
But Renjun and Sungchan do. So Yangyang walks along the familiar paths with them without complaining and watches a man with so many mods that he doesn’t even seem human anymore feed the artificial ducks. “I like the park.”
“No, you don’t.”
Yangyang sighs at Renjun and shoves his hands in his pockets as he looks at the sun where it shines above their heads. It whites out his vision. It wouldn’t white out a robot’s.
That’s a good sign for his humanity.
“We can go somewhere you really like?” Sungchan suggests with all of the kindness of a man who doesn’t know that he’s stolen the boy Yangyang’s been in love with for most of his life. But Sungchan is genuinely so nice that Yangyang cannot find it within himself to hate him. “Like, the aquarium! Do you want to go to the aquarium?”
Yangyang lowers his head from the sky and turns his attention back to the man feeding the ducks. He looks kind of what people a thousand years prior would have imagined a cyborg to be. He does want to go to the aquarium. He just wants to go alone.
He shakes his head and smiles at them, taking his hands out of his pockets to link arms with both of them. They’re warm and real and Yangyang wonders if he feels the same way to them.
“Let’s go to the museum, though,” he says before either of them can feel real pity or sadness for him.
Maybe he should go see Donghyuck’s therapist.
Or, he could go to the aquarium.
🐠
While pet fish do exist in the world, and most notably in Yangyang’s apartment, the world’s oceans are empty. No form of marine life has been found within any body of water for hundreds of years.
Yangyang thinks it’s actually kind of insane how humanity and their technological revolutions managed to kill things in the oceans that they couldn’t even see. Yangyang has to admit that some of the things that were discovered were absolutely horrifying and otherworldly but still, he’d like it if they were still alive.
But, there are still synthetic aquariums and partially synthetic zoos. There are more natural land animals in the world and zoos need less animatronics to function as a real attraction.
Sometimes, instead of wishing he’d been born as a fish, Yangyang wishes that he’d been born in a time when there we still fish in the world’s oceans.
So he goes to the aquarium to pretend.
The fish robots behind the glass are far bigger than any of the little fish in Yangyang’s apartment. They move with the same natural grace as some of his fish–no one could call Sriracha graceful–but there are faint lights on their bellies that give their unnatural nature away.
They don’t live. They simply go through motions that mimic life.
They are only different from Yangyang in that they have programming to default on. Yangyang might feel like a robot but he isn’t one of them.
An octopus creeps around on the floor of the exhibit. Yangyang wishes that he was able to get into the tank and swim with the creatures, to be able to finally give his gills a real purpose.
He fans his gills before taking a seat on a bench to watch sharks, fish, and manta rays swim overhead. He knows that they’re fake but that artificiality doesn’t make them any less beautiful. Yangyang takes a deep breath and his gills flash again. A little girl notices but doesn’t say anything.
A boy comes to sit beside him but faces the opposite way as he tilts his head back to watch a shark swim by.
His ears have been fashioned into points and decorated from tip to lobe with lovely gold earrings, but Yangyang is most entranced by the fist-sized gold hoops that dangle down from his lobes. They sit in comfortable silence for a while before the boy finally speaks, though his eyes never stray far from the fish. A giant oceanic manta ray cars a shadow over the assembled crowd to a chorus of awed gasps.
Yangyang and the stranger both smile.
“I wish I could see an actual manta ray,” the stranger says with a cadence so comforting that Yangyang can’t help but look over at him, “you know? I think it’d be cool to actually swim with something that big. They’re practically harmless.”
It would be cool, but Yangyang knows all too well that there are no more animals in the black oceans.
He wishes that there were, though, if only to give this stranger a sense of the joy that Yangyang feels when he sees his little fish in their little tanks simply existing.
He wonders if manta rays have scales. Would they feel like Yangyang’s fish? Would they feel like sandpaper? Or would they feel like wet leather? Or maybe they would feel a little closer to human skin.
The stranger’s hand is mere inches away from his own. Yangyang has avoided holding hands since Renjun and Sungchan started dating. He can’t remember the last time he’d felt skin against his own.
Renjun’s left hand, the one that Yangyang typically held tightly in his own, is made of synth skin to cover up a burn he got in a silly kitchen accident. It’s close to human skin but there’s something about it that is not quite there. He has no idea if this stranger has the same.
Yangyang does not touch his hand.
“It would be cool,” he agrees softly and draws a surprisingly bright smile from the stranger’s lips.
His eyes are just as bright. Yangyang thinks a better word might be ‘luminous’ and, yeah. That sounds about right. The stranger looks away and Yangyang is left looking at his sharp jawline, the soft curve of his lips, the light bounce to his dark brown hair.
He’s so perfect that Yangyang thinks that he must have every subtle cos-mod on the market right now. There’s no other explanation for how beautiful he is.
But when Yangyang takes a closer look at him, there is only one tiny light on his body–in the tip of his ear, right behind a forward helix piercing with a tight daisy chain huggie in it.
He’s...natural. Mostly. Probably around 90% unmodded. Natural.
Much like Yangyang himself.
It’s kind of unnerving, actually. Yangyang wonders if the skin would scrape like sandpaper if their hands met. Is that what skin feels like when it meets skin? Yangyang knows that his hand kind of slips right over Renjun’s if his best friend isn’t prepared to hold his hand.
The stranger looks over at him and Yangyang is pulled out of his thoughts to marvel at those luminous eyes and the way they actually change color. When a fish swims by, Yangyang can actually see it in the handsome stranger’s eyes.
It is the most beautiful mod Yangyang has ever seen and he’s seen quite a few in his lab. Yangyang is still too afraid to touch his hand.
“Do you...know a lot about manta rays?” he asks after he gathers courage he didn’t know he needed. He needed to start talking to more people outside of his coworkers and Renjun and Sungchan.
The stranger’s eyes light up like the midsummer fireworks that celebrate the success of the Technological Revolution. They’re so expressive that Yangyang forgets to listen to his sweet facts and endless knowledge about the two types of manta ray: the giant oceanic manta ray that’s still making its rounds above their heads and the reef manta ray, which is a few rooms back in the aquarium’s reef exhibit.
He knows so much. Renjun and Taeyong don’t know nearly as much about fish or any other aquatic life.
This boy might just be the closest Yangyang has ever come to a true kindred spirit in this world where nothing makes sense to him but the fish he knows still live. So Yangyang sits, listens, and admires this stranger and the depths that hide within him like the deep dark sea.
Time passes around them without either of them noticing. New crowds “ooh” and “ahh” over the giant manta ray’s great shadow until the crowds begin to thin.
None of the AI that Yangyang works with or has seen sound as comforting as this stranger as he talks about the ocean and what he knows of their mysteries.
Robots don’t have passion–this stranger has it in excess.
There is an announcement about the exhibit closing in fifteen minutes. They both ignore it.
“That can’t use seawater, you know. Even the purified kind at the artificial beaches,” the stranger notes as the manta ray makes another pass over their heads.
Yangyang blinks at him, turning to rest one leg on the bench where they sit. “Huh? Why not? They’re meant to be saltwater fish.” When the stranger gestures to the glass, Yangyang swings around the rest of the way to face the same direction.
“The animatronics do poorly in the salinity of seawater. People figured it out way before the Revolution, though. With some shark movie back in the...1970s? I think? It’s funny, though, how we still haven’t figured out how to get around that little problem.”
It is. There are robots who can collect teeth like the tooth fairy and humans still don’t know how to make robots work in saltwater. It’s enough to make him giggle but he has another little fact to share. “ Jaws , the shark movie is Jaws .”
The stranger absolutely beams. “Yes! Jaws! I used to watch that movie so much as a kid that I could quote it.” Yangyang, too. His father would sit and watch it with him every time.
There is movement at the corner of the stranger’s pretty eye and Yangyang sees the security bot making the rounds to make sure that no one lingers in the exhibit and asking those who do to leave.
The animatronics need to be cleaned.
Yangyang doesn’t want to leave.
He needs to feed his living fish.
Yangyang doesn’t want to leave.
Yangyang doesn’t– his next words tumble out of his mouth before he can even think about stopping them. “Have you ever seen a real fish?” He feels stupid for a brief moment but then the stranger blinks and resets his eyes to a sparkling brown.
“No? There aren’t any left to see…” There aren’t any manta rays left to see but Yangyang can hear the hope in the light lilt of his voice.
Yangyang shakes his head and smiles. The little robot is finally making its way over to them. “There are. I have some–they’re little ones!–if you’d like to see them.” His ears are burning. He feels painfully human. “I mean–”
The stranger’s eyes and smile sparkle and Yangyang feels his breath leave him in a rush as the stranger cuts in with a breathless and excited, “ yes , please! I’d love to see them.”
They get up and walk past the robot, which bids them a polite ‘Goodbye! Have a nice day!’, but Yangyang pays it no mind. He still does not take the stranger’s hand, just hopes that he is curious enough to follow Yangyang home.
Only Renjun and Taeyong have been inside his little fishy sanctuary–even Sungchan hasn’t been approved yet–but opening it up to this stranger just feels...right.
Organic, even.
The stranger walks just out of Yangyang’s reach as if he knows Yangyang is too afraid to reach out and hold his hand to make sure he’s real and wants to keep it from happening as an accident. It kind of makes Yangyang feel bad but the silent understanding is nice.
“Where did you get them?” the stranger asks as they step into the elevator that shoots them up to Yangyang’s apartment. Yangyang’s ears pop. He can’t tell if the stranger’s do, too.
“The marketplace–the downtown one.” The stranger makes a surprised noise. “They’re not illegal; just really rare so they’re a little more expensive.”
Yangyang’s door is old-fashioned with an antique keypad and actual, tangible key and he knows that he looks a little dumb as he fumbles with it. He’s kind of glad that the handsome stranger doesn’t know that he’s got a job in tech. He’d probably laugh at him.
He’d be right to, of course.
“Do you like old things?” he asks softly, lips curled into a smile as he steps into the warm, pink light of Yangyang’s apartment. “A Pre-Rev enthusiast?”
Being a Pre-Rev enthusiast is considered to be a hindrance to the progress of the technological age. Yangyang shrugs and drops his bag by the door. “Depends on what type of Pre-Rev thing we’re talking about. It’s hard to hack doors from the twenty-first-century doors.” Not impossible, but hard.
The stranger seems to hear his thoughts and smirks at him. “I guess. You can still shove it, though.”
“You’ve got me there.” Yangyang’s ears are burning again. “Uh, make yourself at home?”
It’s odd, having a total stranger making himself at home in Yangyang’s apartment. Their shoes rest together by Yangyang’s door in a little domestic show as he follows Yangyang lead to his room.
He has to remind himself that he can’t just steal glances into the stranger’s eyes and take in the cotton candy sparkles that reflect the lights throughout Yangyang’s apartment.
Yangyang is quiet as he opens the door to his most private sanctuary with his bed and his precious fish.
“Um, tada…~” he’s too awkward. The stranger is going to laugh at him. The stranger is going to leave–
The stranger’s magical eyes are filled with sparkles and fireworks again.
Yangyang realizes that he’s delighted.
“Do they have names?” he asks after admiring the fish in comfortable silence. Yangyang opens his mouth to answer before noticing how the lights in the tanks dance in his eyes and over his skin. His real skin because in this concentrated light, he can see the few blemishes he has. There’s a tiny cut by his eye, a nick on his chin.
The stranger is real .
“Yeah, some of them.” He points to Sriracha, who is nearing eight years old but is still as healthy as he was the day Yangyang bought him from Taeyong. “That’s Sriracha. He’s my oldest fish!”
“Sriracha?”
Yangyang smiles. “He’s spicy .” The stranger’s laugh is so, so nice.
The stranger’s finger trails over the glass of Stinker’s tank and Yangyang is happy to share his name, too.
Stinker, because that’s what Yangyang’s father used to call him as a kid whenever he did something mischievous.
Yangyang shows him how he plays with his fish, petting over their scales, and laughing as they mouth at the tips of his fingers and soaks up the stranger’s warm laugh.
It is the lightest Yangyang has felt in months, maybe even years. He has the knowledge to share and a willing listener and it is so easy to fall into a rhythm with this stranger, answering every question he’s asked about his little friends.
He hasn’t smiled this much in months.
Yangyang sits a little closer to him as he talks about each and every one of his little prides and joys, his little marimo balls, and reaches over to grab one of the jars to show it off. The stranger reaches for it at the same time and after hours spent together, their hands finally meet.
It does not feel like sandpaper.
The stranger feels real and human and that feeling reminds Yangyang that he’s real and human, too. He’s not sure how long they sit there in relative silence with their hands curled together around a glass jar with a little moss ball inside of it and only the sounds of Yangyang’s bubbling fish tanks and lo-fi radio station as their comforting noise.
They simply are, much like Yangyang’s fish simply are, sitting thigh to thigh and arm and arm with only the fish and fish facts between them.
They don’t even know each other’s names.
But the stranger does have to go home eventually. When he pulls himself up with a low sigh, his eyes are a brown ocean filled with the ghosts of little fish swimming within them.
He’s the most beautiful thing Yangyang has ever seen.
“This was nice–”
Yangyang doesn’t mean to cut him off, he’s just so excited. “It was–uh, my name is Yangyang. I feel like I should have said that sooner…”
The stranger is startled but smiles so warm and fond at Yangyang that his heart feels like it’s beating right out of his chest. “We definitely should have. But I’m Yukhei. It’s really nice to meet you, Yangyang.”
“It’s really nice to meet you, too, Yukhei.”
Yukhei is a really nice name. No wonder he shines so brightly.
Yangyang walks Yukhei to the door quietly, the burbling of the fish and the music fading away with every step and the silence makes Yangyang anxious. He picks at his nails, watches Yukhei pull his shoes back on, and wishes that he could sit and talk with him longer.
They move to speak at the same time before both of them filter off into shy laughs. Yangyang gestures to Yukhei’s warm smile with a very human jerk of his hand. “No, you go ahead.”
“We should do this again sometime,” Yukhei says, his beautiful smile never once fading.
“Yeah,” Yangyang nods. He’s smiling, too, wide enough that it hurts, “Yeah. Yes, we should. Give me a scan?”
Yukhei’s holo-phone is nice and gives a pleasant beep as he scans Yangyang’s QR. It’s in the shape of a betta fish now. He calls it Stinker, too.
Liu Yangyang. Taiwanese. Twenty-four years old. Libra, October 20th. Single.
Yukhei’s QR is in the shape of a sleeping bear. It’s strangely fitting.
Wong Yukhei, Lucas Wong, Huang Xuxi. Chinese. Twenty-five years old. Aquarius, January 25th. Single.
“Hey, Yangyang?”
“Yeah?” Their eyes meet and Yangyang is surprised to see himself reflected in those beautiful eyes.
“Happy birthday.”
Huh. Yangyang didn’t even realize. “Thanks… Thanks for spending it with me, too.” Yukhei gives him one last bright smile before he finally leaves, taking his light with him.
But when the door closes, Yangyang doesn’t feel as empty as he thought he would.
His holo chimes and he sees that Yukhei has sent him a gif of a manta ray. He smiles all the way back to his room.
Maybe being human isn’t so bad, after all.