It was halfway through November, when the blue skies turned murky with gray clouds and the winds grew cold. The beaches were bare of crowds now that the ocean had become rough and sent a chill through anyone who tried to set foot in the salty water. 

It was also a time that college students dreaded, because it meant that their studying became more excessive by the day as finals drew near. 

After a long day of classes at university, cramming as much as possible, Mikayla found herself exhausted and overwhelmed. Without a second thought, she abandoned her friends to climb onto her bright red motorcycle, speeding away within seconds. 

She didn’t focus much as to where she was going; she just took a path that seemed to call to her. 

As she raced down the street, the wind whipping her unruly black hair around her face, she tried to just shut down her brain and enjoy the ride. 

The asphalt road Mikayla was rushing down gradually became dirt and rock under her speeding tires. She glanced around, admiring the bright green leaves that hung from the dark brown branches of the trees as she followed the lightly used trail through the forest. 

Eventually, the twisting path opened up into the wide sandy beach, the treeline dropping off suddenly and creating a barrier between the ocean and the highway. 

Mikayla came to a gritty stop, sand kicking up behind her bike as she dismounted and kicked out the stand. But before she could properly set her motorbike down on the sand, she heard something. 

No. 

Someone. 

Her head shot up as she turned on her heels, dropping her bike to the sand carelessly. Mikayla glanced around, her eyes flitting across everything she could see, but all that there was was a tall bluff of treacherous-seeming black rocks. 

But there, at the very edge, looming over the crashing sea waves, was what Mikayla thought was a ledge. She squinted, trekking away from where she had abandoned her bike to near the overhang of stone. 

Reaching a hand out, Mikayla felt the rough promontory and used it to steady herself as she tried to climb around without getting soaked with seawater. It was difficult; the waves kept crashing into the stone right below her feet, splashing her cargo jeans with droplets of salt water. 

Mikayla ignored the spray as she peered around the corner of the ridge, looking for the source of the noise she was hearing. And as she drew nearer, her hands clamped onto the slippery wet rock pressed against her back, the voice grew clearer. 

Once she had reached the very peak of the precipice, she could hear the voice loud and clear, as if that person were right beside her. And they were singing. 

“My heart is pierced by Cupid, I disdain all glittering gold…” 

Mikayla’s eyes grew wide as the angelic voice reached her ears. It felt as if she had heard music for the first time because nothing she had ever heard before could ever be compared to this. 

Suddenly filled with resolve, she tilted her head down to watch her footing and hurriedly continued around the ledge. It took another ten minutes before she reached the other side of the bluff, and what she saw stole the breath from her lungs. 

It was a cave, the overhang of stone providing shade from the sun as the tide pushed and pulled water into and out of the little alcove. But somehow, the water glimmered as if it were filled with diamonds, shining a sparkling blue-green light onto the dark, damp rock. Algae grew and hung from the ceiling and curved walls, dripping into the water below with small, echoing plop, plop, plop noises. 

But that wasn’t what had stopped Mikayla in her tracks. 

It was the man sitting on a little outcropping of rock in the center of the pool of water in the niche. 

He was lean and tanned, as if he had spent days on end in the sunlight on the beach. His hair fell in damp locks around the back of his neck, just barely gracing his shoulders, leaving the smooth curves of his shoulder blades visible to Mikayla. 

Around his head was a crown of what seemed to be seashells, pearls woven into his hair, seaweed wrapped around his waist like a belt. 

As light danced around the grotto, Mikayla’s gaze landed on the crude yet beautiful weapon strapped to the man’s hip, held onto him with the seaweed wrapped around him. It seemed to be a dagger, from far away, a sharp blade that protruded from a hilt of copper that was green along the ridges, set with some sort of glittering stones. 

But as Mikayla watched, frozen in place at the glorious sight in front of her, the man leaned his head back. As he did so, his hair fell away and brought his face into Mikayla’s line of sight. 

He had his eyes closed, a white slash of a scar that cut through the entire left side of his face and left an empty space in his eyebrow. From his ears hung several different fishhooks of various sizes, stabbed in randomly and yet so beautifully. 

“There is nothing can console me, but my jolly sailor b-” 

The man broke off abruptly as his eyes fluttered open and landed on Mikayla, standing there in a trance with her jaw slack. The strange man’s eyes shot wide open, his lashes framing the glowing turquoise of his irises in a way that Mikayla could only describe as gorgeous. 

All of a sudden, the man whipped back around and dove into the water without another moment of hesitation. That was when Mikayla saw that this wasn’t, in fact, a man at all. 

He was a… merman? 

“What… the fuck?” Mikayla breathed to herself, her eyes wide as she stared at the bubbles and ripples that the merman had left behind. 

She blinked twice before jumping into action. 

“Wait… wait!” Mikayla called out desperately, kicking off her shoes and throwing them to the little bank at the far end of the small cave where they wouldn’t get swallowed by the tides. 

And then, she impulsively jumped into the water. 

Surely it couldn’t be that deep, Mikayla thought to herself, only to find herself very, very, wrong indeed. But she didn’t scramble as she squinted her eyes open in the saltwater, holding her breath as she threw her arms out to try to pull herself forward against the current. 

She needed to find this man, species be damned. She wanted to try to call out for the man with the angel’s voice, but she knew it would be fruitless, what with her being underwater. 

Mikayla held her breath for as long as she could, but eventually her lungs gave out. She exhaled a large bubble, about to resurface to take some more oxygen when she felt a tap on his shoulder. 

She whipped around as quickly as she could while underwater and weighed down by her waterlogged clothes, and right there in front of her was– 

“You!” Mikayla tried to say, but it came out as a simple gurgle. 

The merman in front of her giggled, a sound like wind chimes and bird songs even through the water. But then he frowned, eyeing Mikayla’s drooping eyelids and weak movements. 

And then a realization crossed his face. 

The merman reached forward, taking Mikayla’s face in his hands and drawing her close to press their lips together. 

Involuntarily, Mikayla inhaled, something that immediately set off all the alarms in her head because he can’t breathe underwater! But as she reopened his eyes, fully prepared to panic, she found that… her lungs hadn’t filled with seawater. 

“H-how…?” She asked, finding that her voice actually came through even though it should just be fumbled bubbles and incoherent noise. 

The merman just giggled once more, wrapping his arms around Mikayla’s neck and slipping his scaly, cyan tail around and between Mikayla’s legs. 

“Magic!” he simply replied with a bright smile, his turquoise eyes glimmering. 

“What’s your name?” Mikayla asked, unable to stop herself. 

“I’m Beau,” the merman said. “Who’re you?” 

“I-I’m Mikayla,” Mikayla answered. 

“Hm,” the merman—Beau—hummed in reply. He tilted his head to the side before a shimmer of mischief danced across his eyes. “Wanna try something fun?” 

“S-sure,” Mikayla answered—she would never be able to say no to this angel with a tail. 

And as Beau’s smile widened, Mikayla knew it would be worth it. His tail began to disentangle them, his arms coming around to hold Mikayla to his bare, scarred torso tightly. Mikayla reciprocated, wrapping her arms tightly around Beau’s waist. 

“Hold on!” Beau said excitedly before his tail snapped behind them and propelled them out of the little alcove. 

Mikayla sucked in a gasp, her eyes widening as Beau shot them out into the ocean. 

The light blue water gradually turned a deep, dark blue as they went further out to sea. Floating past them were bits of kelp and schools of shimmering silver fish, but Mikayla barely caught a glimpse of them as they sped through the water like a torpedo. 

Hours passed as the two frolicked underwater, rushing past sealife as they stared into each other’s eyes, but it may as well have been minutes. Mikayla couldn’t get enough of this underwater angel, and the best part was that it seemed that Beau felt the exact same way.