The Shapes of a Heart
There was once a mermaid who longed for the world above the sea. Unable to resist her curiosity about humans, she would sometimes hide herself away and watch the female haenyeo divers at work.
The haenyeo always traveled in pairs, yet for some reason, one lone diver was always to be seen off by herself, gathering abalone far from the others.
When the wind grew strange and fierce, the other divers withdrew early, and the loner belatedly realized she had been left alone in the water. She flailed in confusion.
“So? Did you go up to that haenyeo? Did you speak to her?”
“She appeared to be in danger of being swept away by the waves, so I rescued her.”
“As expected...! And then you fell in love at first sight!”
Won Hasin’s eyes sparkled as though he were listening to the plot of a romance drama.
Every evening, while he watched dramas and assembled a new robot, he seemed to be getting more and more interested in the tragic love story of a mermaid.
“The haenyeo screamed at me, but the language of land and the language of the sea were different, so I could not understand a single word. Still, she seemed frightened.”
“Oh....”
The lone haenyeo continued to be left behind. The mermaid thought the diver simply stayed late because she was poor at diving and gathered little, so every day he brought her armfuls of abalone.
It did not take long before the haenyeo, who had once been terrified, began to wait for the moments when she was left alone.
The lonely diver wanted to talk to the mermaid, and the mermaid sang for her in an effort to comfort the sad-looking girl.
They could not understand many words, but by the time they had come to recognize and understand each other’s names, they had fallen in love.
“The Sea Witch said that once a mermaid kisses her other half for the first time, their emotions become connected.”
“Connected?”
“If one is happy, the other shares that happiness even when they are far apart. If one is sad, the other feels the same sadness.”
“What the.... Is that like telepathy? A psychic phenomenon? Superpowers?”
Won Hasin looked utterly incredulous, as though none of it made any sense.
“I do not know either, but that is what I have been told.”
As a species now nearly extinct, Neoul had no way of knowing whether the Sea Witch’s words were true or false, so he merely shrugged.
“And this is the decisive reason mermaids and humans cannot be together.”
“Huh? Why?”
“Because mermaids and humans have different capacities for holding emotion.”
“Capacity for holding emotion? Hisss.... That sounds kind of profound....”
“For example, like this.”
Neoul went to the kitchen and brought back a small coffee cup and a large noodle bowl, the kind usually used for ramyeon.
“Every creature in the world is said to have its own vessel, and the size and shape of that vessel differ. If the vessel that holds human emotion is usually about the size of this small cup, then the vessel that holds a mermaid’s emotion is something this large.”
“What is this? Why do I feel weirdly offended....”
As far as Won Hasin knew, being called small was negative. It meant one lacked the capacity to bear great things.
But that was not at all what Neoul meant.
“Imagine emotion as water, and imagine pouring more and more of it in here.”
Neoul lifted the coffee cup.
“This cup must be emptied in advance, or else allowed to overflow naturally. If you force it not to spill, it will eventually crack and break.”
This time he set the cup down and picked up the noodle bowl.
“But this can hold much more water. Of course, this vessel, too, will eventually break if it is not emptied someday.”
The visual, easy-to-follow explanation made Won Hasin narrow his eyes and stroke his chin as he muttered,
“So when humans’ emotions go on too long, their mental state breaks and they end up with a psychotic disorder, but mermaids can hold out longer. Something like that?”
“Pardon?”
“No, no. Interesting theory. So?”
“So.... What if we did this?”
Neoul held up both the coffee cup and the noodle bowl.
“If we poured the water that had filled the large vessel into the small cup and packed it in tight?”
“It’d break.”
“Yes. That is correct.”
Neoul added, “In fact, the Sea Witch compared a mermaid’s vessel of emotion to an even larger jar than this. She said it was no different from pouring the water from a jar into a small rice bowl.”
The mermaid who loved the lone haenyeo never gave away a kiss. But the haenyeo, waiting for the moment when the mermaid would close his eyes to sing, stole one then and there.
At that instant, the mermaid’s floodlike emotions poured into the area around the haenyeo’s heart.
The sadness, joy, gloom, delight, happiness, resentment, anxiety, affection, desire, and love the mermaid had never discarded, instead pressing them deep into his heart and holding them there.
All those emotions came crashing down upon the lone haenyeo’s small, fragile vessel, until at last they shattered it to pieces.
“The lone haenyeo went mad and kept throwing herself into the sea, and the mermaid kept hauling her back out of the water. But in the end....”
“In the end, she died. She would not have been holding her breath every time she jumped in.”
“Yes. That is correct.”
Won Hasin clicked his tongue and shook his head. Then, wearing a sour, uncomfortable expression, he asked, “There’s no next episode? The rabbit got reincarnated, so did they at least get reincarnated?”
“That, I do not know.”
“Ugh! I hate sad endings. Absolutely hate them. All lovers in this world ought to be happy! Isn’t this world already served enough tragedy with Shakespeare’s four great tragedies? Right?”
Won Hasin flung himself onto the sofa, burying his head in it and thrashing around in misery. Then he froze for a moment and asked, sounding puzzled, “Anyway, how did we even get onto this topic?”
“I was saying that I have no chance whatsoever of ever dating a human. There is only one mermaid under heaven and earth, so I will never meet another mermaid, either.”
“Oh, right.”
“Besides, I am busy enough merely thinking about debuting and finding the rabbit. I have no need to go around creating scandal.”
“That’s very admirable. So, want to join our company as an artist?”
“No.”
“How cold! At least pretend to think about it!”
“Hmm....”
Neoul pretended to think for exactly one second, then answered, “Still no. If you wish to negotiate, bring me conditions I might find appealing.”
With that, he slipped back into his room.
Won Hasin clenched his fist in irritation.
Damn it. The only thing that guy would find appealing is a rabbit.
Should I find the rabbit first and secure it myself?
But he had no idea how to find one, and just thinking about it made him tired and daunted. He was already busy enough working during the day and indulging his hobbies at night; this felt like someone had dumped one more chore on top of his head.
And if he went storming around asking, “Are you the rabbit?” and spooked it into hiding even more, that might only interfere with Neoul’s plan.
Too many cooks spoil the broth. If there are too many hunters, where on earth is the rabbit supposed to run?
After agonizing over it, Won Hasin shook his head until it ached.
Forget it.
“Hmph! Fine! Be that way! I’m mad too!”
He shouted so Neoul could hear, then sprawled on the sofa and complained to himself.
“Do you know how many people want to join our company?”
Was the whole world just that one guy? The world was huge, and there were plenty of talented people in it!
Neoul’s talent was certainly good enough to hate losing, but he was someone who might return to the sea at any time. Even if they drew up a contract, if he vanished back into the ocean, there would be no way to find him again.
If someone wanted to hide for all they were worth on land, they’d be hard enough to find. How was anyone supposed to track him down in a sea more than twice as vast?
You can’t exactly haul a mermaid up in a net like seafood.
Even if he ordered Secretary Song to go fishing all day long, would that guy bite on bait just because they’d gone to Dragon Palace? They’d come back empty-handed, then catch mackerel, slice it into sashimi, boil a pot of jjukkumi ramyeon, and head home. Huh. That actually sounded delicious.
In any case, rather than taking on that kind of uncertainty and danger, it was better to nurture the trainees they already had instead of chasing after someone like him.
Won Hasin decided to stop wasting time and turned back to his paperwork.
* * *
Not long after Neoul went into his room, Yeo Do-bin came over with a laptop. Unlike before, he was wearing glasses.
“Listen.”
Yeo Do-bin handed Neoul an earbud and tapped the space bar.
♩— ♩♪ ♬—
An emotional piano line unfolded at a slow tempo. Beginning with the piano, drums, bass, and maracas all clung to the ear.
Neoul’s hum was layered over the accompaniment, as though drifting from somewhere far out at sea. Since this was not a formal recording but a rough file pulled from a smartphone, there was noise mixed into it, but it was still perfectly listenable.
[Someday—
I hear someone’s gentle voice
And where I follow that sound
Only an empty conch shell remains
Swaying quietly in the waves]
The accompaniment Yeo Do-bin had made was soft, yet empty and distant. It felt like a sea wind blowing from far away through the mist of a dark night.
Once the melody and accompaniment fused into harmony, they evoked a vast, richly layered image that had not been present when there had only been voice and melody standing alone.
Neoul listened in a daze. It was a short song, and before long it ended. Neoul removed the earbud and set it down.
“So? How is it?”
Yeo Do-bin watched him nervously, like a trainee waiting for the judges’ assessment on a survival show.
Neoul said, “It is interesting.”
“Huh?”
“Surely the melody and my voice are exactly the same, yet it sounds far more mysterious and new. It feels as if something more... stirs the heart and gives it completion.”
“T-That’s a good thing, right...?”
“Of course. May I listen once more?”
“Oh, yes! Of course!”
Yeo Do-bin could not hide his joy. With a delighted expression, he played the song again.
Listening a second time, Neoul grew curious about the sounds of the land instruments, which were unlike those played by the musicians of Dragon Palace.
“What instruments are these? It is not just one instrument, yet did you play all of them yourself?”
“Ah, some of them were samples I made before, and some are virtual instruments. The overall completeness is a little... um, mi-home? Mi-hop? Ah, lacking! Right? A little lacking?”
This was lacking?
“If I’d worked at home, it would’ve been better, but when I came to Korea I could only bring my laptop....”
Yeo Do-bin said this while closing the laptop after the playback ended and gathering it up.
“So this isn’t the final version...! I just wanted to ask what you thought if I aimed for this kind of feeling, get some feedback on whether it’s okay, and then polish it more later.”
Neoul thought hard, unable to tell where in the song he had just heard the lack Yeo Do-bin spoke of.
Could the quality really still improve from here?
Neoul raised one eyebrow.
“I thought it was more than sufficient.”
“Oh...! Thank you! I’m relieved!”
Yeo Do-bin looked genuinely happy and relieved. Yet even then, it was obvious from his expression that he had no intention of abandoning the idea of refining the track further.
Neoul understood.
So this is what it means to be a perfectionist!
He had thought Yeo Do-bin’s personality was completely different, but it turned out he was of the same kind as Baek Yuri.
Only, Baek Yuri never hesitates to tell others what he thinks if it helps him win a competition.
He is the sort who pushes forward with what he believes to be right, and his perfectionism is not limited to himself; it extends to the entire team.
Every member has to do well for the stage to be perfect, and only then can they somehow win.
By contrast, Yeo Do-bin was easily swayed by the team atmosphere and had trouble speaking up, but... with things he did alone, he seemed to pursue perfection with stubborn conviction.
Neoul remembered that Yeo Do-bin had taken a fair amount of abuse online after the first team battle broadcast. Moreover, he had nearly been eliminated and had only survived thanks to the lifeline Neoul had thrown him.
And yet he did not seem nearly as downcast as expected.
Neoul suddenly wondered whether Yeo Do-bin had looked at the comments.
“Yeo Do-bin. After the first team battle aired, did you search your own name on the internet?”
“Ah.... You saw it too. Well, I mean.... Yeah. I don’t think there’s a single participant who hasn’t searched themselves at least once....”
Yeo Do-bin scratched his cheek awkwardly.
“Hmm.... It’s true that I wasn’t smart enough. If people hate me, I guess there’s nothing I can do about it. Thanks to you, I got to stand onstage one more time, and I genuinely enjoyed that. So I’m okay. I don’t mind.”
He was calmer and more composed than expected.
Yeo Do-bin said with conviction, “I just need to keep working hard and show them I can do better. Then people’s opinions about me will naturally change.”
So there was no problem. All good.
But after a moment, Yeo Do-bin’s lips moved as if he were about to say something, then he lowered his gaze and frowned.
His sharp eyes quickly grew downcast.
“Still... it made me unhappy that the people cheering for me were upset instead.... I didn’t like that.”