A Tale of A Dolphin

I got a request from Natalie aka doobsy to write a fic about her and Jun Su. So here it is! ^^p Aren't I a great friend? ^^

Characters:
Jun Su (TVXQ)
Chang Min (TVXQ)
Natalie
Xing
Xiah and Micky the dolphins ^^,


“Kamsahamnida!” Natalie bowed as the last visitor left.

“Natalie,” Xing called as she waved. “Come help me with the gate.”

The two of them struggled to close the gates of the marine park. They were the only two left to close up the gates. The rest of the staff were inside either cleaning or packing up the equipment used for the day. When they finally got the gate closed, they started walking towards the tanks. It was their turn to feed dolphins and clean the tanks today.

“Don’t you love dolphins?” Natalie asked Xing.

“Hmm… yea…” Xing yawned. ‘I’ve gotta stop staying up past 2am,’ Xing thought as she walked alongside Natalie.

“Xing!” someone called out and she turned to see who it was. It was Chang Min, their colleague. Xing had a huge crush on Chang Min, but had never confessed it to him.

“Hi, Chang Min,” she waved nervously.

“Are you leaving yet?” he asked. “Want me to walk you to the bus stop?”

“Erm… yea! Sure!” Xing replied.

“Xing!” Natalie hissed, “We’re supposed to…” and Xing covered Natalie’s mouth before she could continued.

“Can you wait for me outside? I’ll be just a sec,” Xing smiled to Chang Min.

“Okay,” Chang Min said and walked off, turning back once to look at them with a puzzled expression.

“Xing!” Natalie whispered urgently at her since Chang Min was still near. “You’re supposed to clean the dolphin tank with me.”

“Natalie… please cover for me this once. It’s Chang Min! Chang Min wants to walk me home!!!” Xing squealed.

Natalie rolled her eyes and sighed, “Fine! You owe me.”

“Thank you! Thank you! I love you,” Xing bounced up and down and as she hugged Natalie.

Xing and Natalie were both students from the National University of Singapore (NUS), majoring in Marine Biology and were working in a marine park in Korea as part of their apprenticeship program. They’d practically won a lottery when they were chosen because only a select few would have the opportunity to go overseas for their training. Most of their fellow course mates either went to a turtle sanctuary on the East coast of Malaysia or to the aquariums on Sentosa Island, which was in Singapore.

The sky had started to turn dark as Natalie started brushing the sides of the dolphin tank with the special sponge attached to a pole. As she did, the two dolphins in the tank swam towards her and started bumping on the pole.

“Xiah! Micky! Stop that!” Natalie laughed as they continued to harass her. As she tried to move away from the dolphins, she slipped and fell into the tank. She panicked as she fell, so it was useless even though she was a trained swimmer. She was in such a shock that she kept flailing her arms and she sank deeper and deeper. ‘This is it, I’m drowning,” she thought as she closed her eyes. Most of the other staff were too far away. They probably wouldn’t notice what had happened to her until it was too late. She slowly slipped into unconsciousness and was totally unaware that Xiah, the dolphin was swimming towards her.

‘Oh no!’ Xiah thought as he swam towards Natalie. He swam under her and pushed her up with his nose to get her to the surface of the tank. ‘Come on, Xiah. Hurry!’ he told himself as he used all his energy to push her up to the surface. As soon as they reached the surface, a bright glow of light surrounded Xiah and a wave of water, from nowhere, washed the both of them onto the side of the pool. Xiah was knocked out as he hit the ground.

Sometime later, Xiah opened his eyes and looked around. ‘That’s funny,’ he thought. His vision wasn’t blurry like it always was. He turned around and saw that he was lying beside the tank. ‘I’m out of the tank? Omigod! I’m going to die!’ he thought as he sat up quickly. Then he realized that something was very wrong with his body. He looked down to check out his flippers and what he saw made him scream in shock. He had legs! Human legs! The kind he always saw on those humans through the glass of his tank. He held up his fins. They’d turned into human hands. What has happened?

“Mmm…” he heard someone groan from beside him. ‘Natalie!’ he remembered and he crawled towards her.

“Na… Nat… Natalie,” he managed to say. It felt weird to be speaking like a human, but somehow, he managed to say the words that formed in his head. He nudged Natalie and called her name again, “Natalie.”

She started coughing out the water she’d swallowed and her eyes fluttered open weakly as she looked at him. He felt his heart skip a beat. Was this how it felt to look at a human out of the water?

“Natalie,” he called out again. He liked the way this name rolled off his tongue.

“Hmm?” Natalie answered and her eyes started to widen. She sat up quickly and stared at him. “Who are you? How did you get in here?”

“It’s me, Xiah!” he said.

“Xiah?” she repeated, trying to recall. The name was oddly familiar.

“The dolphin,” he said.

“The dolphin?” she repeated after him.

“Yes.”

“You expect me to believe you? How can a dolphin be a human?”

“Look in the tank. How many dolphins do you see?”

She looked out at the tank and sure enough, she saw only Micky, swimming around.

“Omigod!! Where did Xiah go?” she exclaimed.

“Don’t!” he said as he covered her mouth with his hands. Her mouth felt warm against his palm. “I swear that I’m telling you the truth. Please don’t alert the other humans.”

She stared at him and tried to make sense of what he was saying. Could he really be Xiah the dolphin? This was a little too weird for her to accept.

“If you’re Xiah the dolphin, tell me, what is it that you always do to tease your trainer?”

“When he asks me to twirl, I’d flip over and splash him,” he smiled. “I think twirling is so gay.”

“Omigod!” Natalie exclaimed as her jaw dropped open. He really was Xiah the dolphin. Only a staff would know that, because even though Xiah fooled around during training, he’d always perform perfectly during each show.

“You believe me now?” he asked earnestly.

“Yes I do,” she said.

Just then, the lights of the park went off. Only a single fluorescent light was left on by the tank.

“Are they leaving without me? Oh no!” she exclaimed.

“Please don’t go,” he said. “I’ll be alone here without you. I feel so lost now. What am I going to do about this?”

“This?”

“I’m no longer a dolphin,” he said. “What do I do?”

“I really don’t know. Do you remember how it happened?”

“I remember pushing you to the surface. And there was this huge wave that washed us onto the ground, here, and I was knocked out.”

“Wave? How can there be a wave? This is a tank.”

“Beats me,” he shrugged. “Please stay,” he pleaded.

She looked at him and for the first time, she realized that he was pretty good looking as a human. He was cute. He had spiky, black hair and was dressed in a white, fitting Adidas shirt and he had on a pair of faded, grey jeans. He sure had a round butt for a dolphin, let alone a normal guy.

“Alright,” she sighed.

“Thank you,” he smiled at her and she felt herself melting. He has a beautiful smile as a human. But even has a dolphin, she’d always found him charismatic.

They sat by the tank and let their legs hang over the edge. Micky swam over and nudged Xiah’s legs. Xiah made a series clicks and whistles at Micky and Micky sort of nodded.

“What did you tell him?” Natalie asked.

“I was just telling him that I’ll be back to join him soon, I hope.”

“Don’t be sad. I’m sure things will get back to normal soon,” Natalie said.

“But how?” Xiah asked.

“I dunno. I just think they will,” she said and Xiah sighed.

“How long do you intend to work for this park?” Xiah asked her.

“I leave in another week,” she smiled sadly.

“Bummer,” he replied.

“Yea… hey! I have a question. Do the both of you feel lonely without any female dolphins?”

“Haha! Sometimes.”

“I heard them talking about bringing in a few soon.”

“Really? That would be fun!” he smiled.

“Do dolphins kiss?” she asked him.

“Kiss? What's kiss?” he asked, looking very puzzled.

“You know… when your mouth touches another person’s,”

“Ooh! I’ve seen some people do that through the tank. Haha!”

“So do you?”

“We touch our noses, but we don’t do that tongue thingie I see those humans do,” he giggled.

“Hey! Let’s go for a swim,” Natalie said.

“Okay! Last one’s a smelly tuna!” Xiah shouted as he jumped into the tank. Micky swam alongside them as they swam leisurely underwater and broke up to the surface. When they did, Micky sprayed them with a mouthful of water.

“Eww,” Natalie laughed she looked up and she saw Xiah staring at her. What was he thinking? They looked at each other as they continued to thread the water, then Xiah reached out his hand and pulled Natalie over. She could feel the heat of his breath as their faces got nearer and nearer and finally, their lips met. His lips were warm and moist and he didn’t taste fishy at all. Suddenly, she started coughing and she opened her eyes. She was no longer in the tank, she was lying on the ground and someone had their mouth on hers. She stared at the face before her, and it was a familiar face of a guy. He pulled away.

“Thank god you’re awake,” he said.

“Xiah?” she said in a confused tone. He was looking at her with a puzzled expression.

“Xiah? Who’s Xiah?” he said.

“Aren’t you Xiah, the dolphin?” she said.

“No. Do I look like a dolphin to you? I was passing by during my watch, well not my watch exactly, I'm covering for my uncle, and I heard the dolphins making this huge racket, then I saw you lying on top of one of the dolphins near the edge of the tank. So I jumped in and pulled you out.”

“You pulled me out?”

“Yea… and I administered CPR on you.”

“CPR? But…” now she was really confused. He looked exactly like Xiah. The Xiah who’d talked to her just a moment ago, the Xiah who’s kissed her a moment ago. Was it all a dream?

“Yes, CPR,” he smiled.

She turned and looked towards the tank, sure enough, Xiah and Micky were still swimming around in it. So it was all a dream. But it had seemed so real. She turned to her rescuer and smiled.

“So what’s your name?” she asked.

“Jun Su, my name’s Jun Su,” and he smiled, just as he had in her dream. Drops of water dripped from his spiky hair and his shirt clung to his body like a second skin. He looked so hot.

“I’m Natalie,” she smiled back and when she looked over at Xiah, she could’ve sworn that he winked at her.