Chapter Text
“ As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.
The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea. ” —The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All of a sudden, in the fall of Jimin’s last year in grad school, he becomes the caretaker of an estate by the sea.
“Your house? Why me?” Jimin had accepted the jangly keyring containing several weirdly shaped objects his boss insisted were keys.
“I trust you.” Professor Leighton had said primly, still packing even as the taxi idled outside.
“I thought you called me here to discuss the lesson plan.” Jimin felt slightly dizzy. He can recall feeling a little sting of betrayal and maybe a twinge of excitement because he had just spent the ride over marveling at the eccentric architecture of his boss’ house.
“Oh, that old thing.” The professor huffed, waving a careless hand his direction. “Do whatever you want—it’s your class for the next year. I’m not so self-absorbed as to micromanage you from the other side of the world.”
A sabbatical, was the reason. Off to New Zealand to take a year for writing inspiration. As the Professor of Mythology and Folklore for the university, Leighton is prone to receiving large sums of money to basically dick around beautiful vacation destinations under the condition that he keep cranking out bestselling books and attracting attention to the program at the university.
He was indeed very good at that—having written ten books on the various types of sea monsters conjured in the imagination of cultures long dead. His class was extremely popular and it had been Jimin’s honor to be his TA since he came to grad school and his compositions caught Leighton’s eye.
The professor was eccentric, and notoriously mercurial and reclusive, but he and Jimin got along strangely well. Jimin found his moods relatively easy to ride through and his disjointed lectures were helped along by Jimin’s subtle edits. They weren’t particularly close by Jimin’s metrics but the professor clearly didn’t like being close with anyone, really, a confirmed bachelor and no friends Jimin had ever heard about.
And until he was left watching the manor’s owner speed away, Jimin had thought he was covering Professor Leighton’s classes: Intro to Mythos and Mystique—how ancient cultures contextualized the unknown, and Monster Fiction—understanding the sexualization of monster figures and their cultural significance.
Which he still was. But in his way, the professor and his vague personality had saddled him with being a caretaker.
Jimin sighs at the house. It’s an absolutely enormous wreck leaning off the side of a craggy cliff out in the middle of nowhere. He jiggles the keys in his hand and revolves in place to examine the dim interior.
His furnished apartment is expensive and month-to-month. The year’s break on rent would certainly help—he’s making grad student money, not bestselling Professor money. He looks at the twisty, oddly walled up interior with the Professor’s cluttered and cramped lifestyle spilling from every corner and says to himself those famous last words, “How hard could it be?”
He moves out of his apartment in the next few days and carts his meager boxes of possessions over to Leighton House in the daylight. The evening had been doing the old thing many favors. In the day the house looks to be about a thousand years old.
Jimin grows to feel more than a little bit hustled as a few days pass in the big house.
The floorboards creak, the roof leaks in three places, and the whole thing shudders and sways when the wind whips along the cliff.
More than once he wakes in the middle of the night feeling sure the whole grotesque thing is going to slide into the sea.
Leighton barks laughter into his ear when Jimin calls to tell him his house is a nightmare.
“I think you’ll come to like it, Mr. Park.” Leighton sounds a little arch and mischievous on the other end, “Good for the creative spirit, you know.”
“Yeah? This where you wrote all that cephalopod erotica you dirty old bird? In an overgrown shack?”
“Yes I did.” The professor says solemnly, “Currently the highest grossing monster erotica in the twenty-first century so I’d watch it with the sass.”
So Jimin resigns himself to grading papers in the dated kitchen and drinking his coffee on the warped porch. He’s being a tad grumpy about the whole affair; barely acknowledging the amazing view or the breathtaking scenery surrounding the house. The grounds seem to stretch on in every direction except, obviously, the sea-facing side view from the greatroom and its balcony. Jimin walks around the grounds until he gets spooked by the quiet forest but he has yet to encounter any neighbors. It feels like he’s the only person in the world.
He gets brave and heads to the edge of the cliff, fighting both natural wariness of heights and the knowledge if he plummets into the void it’s likely no one will ever know.
There’s stairs cut into the stone cliff that zigzag down to the cove below and his own boredom and curiosity has him picking his way down (very carefully) to the jagged waterfront.
Leighton (or maybe the previous owner) has built a pier that juts out into the water with a boathouse perched towards the end. It’s sort of generous to call it a boathouse; it’s more like twenty boards nailed into a pentagon, but it does theoretically cover the Professor’s boats. He has two little kayaks and a bigger sailboat. There’s a mass of sails in a lockbox but Jimin doesn’t know the first thing about sailing and doesn’t especially want to learn by himself on storm-tossed seas.
It is no hardship to sit on the edge of the pier on clear days, though; Jimin finds himself drawn there more and more, breathing in the salty air like it’s filling him up with the sea to carry around with him. The wind seems to come from every direction and ruffles his hair very cinematically, black strands whipping him in the eye.
There is a certain appeal to the place; he would admit with a gun to his head when he’s sitting on the pier gazing into the gaping maw of nature’s beauty.
Water plinks into the couple of buckets he’s surrounded himself with in the greatroom. There were too many stains of unidentifiable origin on the couch for Jimin so he dragged a rickety wicker chair in from the solarium and perches on it to grade assignments. The desk is a beautiful walnut affair but again the professor’s cavalier attitude about his possessions is clear; there’s coffee ring stains and little bubbled areas in the wood where the varnish has gotten thin. It wobbles, and with a vicious sense of vengeance Jimin uses three copies of one of the Professor’s books to prop it up.
A drop of water lands on his knee.
“This is Hell.” Jimin says dully, “I am in hell.”
The interior of the house has much, much less charm than the scenery.
At night he drags himself up the stairs to the guest suite; it had felt just a little too personal to stay in the Professor’s room.
Here he can pretend he’s staying at a bed and breakfast, forgetting the moldy old house and the dozens of rooms he hasn’t been brave enough to explore yet.
He drives to the university each weekday to teach his classes and returns down the long winding road to the house on the edge of the world. The rain sits in the back of his throat, turning him as waterlogged as the house with each passing day. At night he tosses and turns with the steady drip of rain through the ancient roof.
It’s been weeks. He hates it. He loves it.
He recites a list of grievances to his friends over lunch to their amusement and sympathy.
But he stays.
Beyond Leighton’s trust in him to look after his house; he stays. He could easily drive out there three times a week and check on things but instead he’s fully in residence, making himself at home.
Something makes him stay, through all the annoyances. There’s a pull to the ugly house, a strange magnetic draw that keeps him frowning at the water stains and worrying about the mold spots but still sleeping there every night. Still curling up to read under the old gas lamps. Still cooking in the cramped early twentieth century kitchen with the peeling wallpaper and squat, utilitarian appliances.
It’s a lifestyle; and one Jimin falls into maybe a bit too easily. His poetry notebook, untouched through most of grad school, gets cracked and scribbled in again as the weeks pass by.
He starts leaving his window cracked so he can hear the waves crash against the cliff below.
It’s the kind of place where you can believe anything can happen. That something extraordinary is just around the corner.
One Saturday night he dreams of someone singing to him from across the waves.
He wakes up on Sunday and someone is still singing.
He blinks and fluffs his dark bangs out of his face. The singing continues.
There’s no one out here? Who is singing?
He pads to the window and pushes the enormous cloudy glass all the way open. The wind whips into the bedroom, setting him shivering and his hair ruffling and the singing is even louder in the open air.
The singing keeps on while he’s brushing his teeth.
While he gets dressed and wraps himself in a warm cardigan and scarf.
While he tugs his boots on in deference to the wet fall weather.
When he finally stumbles out the door in search of the source. The longer he listens the closer he feels to crying—there’s something sorrowful and pained in the sound although there’s no words he can make it. His feet take him down the rough steps and out onto the pier. It’s a gray stormy morning and very misty but Jimin can make out a large dark mass huddled at the edge of the pier. The singing is piercing, here, and Jimin approaches, scared out of his wits of this lunatic trespassing on the pier just to sing. He has a knife on him, but he’s never realistically contemplated it’s use for self defense.
There’s a hiccup; the mass shudders, and Jimin finally gets a look at the person responsible for all the noise.
Or…well, person is still the most obvious word. But.
Jimin screams.
The…creature startles and overbalances into the water with a shriek.
Jimin runs forward to where the water is churning— he couldn’t have seen what he just thought he saw—right?
Behind him there’s a splash and water sloshes against the back of his legs and into his boots
“Agh!” Jimin twists, reacting to the cold water, and behind him is the creature. It swam under and hopped back up onto the other side; eyeing Jimin nervously with big shiny eyes.
Jimin puts a lid on freaking out and just lets himself look.
It looks like a human—mostly human shaped. Jimin’s eyes wander and he blushes. Anatomically it appears to be a human man, and an extremely naked one at that. But there’s also…
Thick pulsating tentacles creeping around the wooden planks of the pier, animate and wriggling. Some seem to be trying to make the man look bigger like maybe Jimin is a predator, some just vibing, exploring and sneaking around the area. He counts seven, no wait, eight. They’re long— twelve, thirteen feet apiece and coiling and uncoiling in their movements. Thin at the tips and fattening until they’re nearly the width of a milk carton. They seem to be sprouting from the man’s back, curling around and forward from his waist and under and between his legs to put the bulk of their mass between the tentacle man and Jimin.
Which is hilarious, that this thing would be afraid of Jimin when Jimin is certain he’s about to die. This is an octopus monster in the waters of the Pacific Northwest. The only reason you wouldn’t hear stories about octopus monsters in the year of our lord 2020 must be because all the witnesses immediately get eaten.
“You.” Jimin croaks out after several moments of tense observation and no obvious attempts to turn him into breakfast, “You were singing?”
The creature shakes long dark hair out of its face and regards him with surprisingly human expression.
“Hrm? Say—say again?” The tentacle man says haltingly, face screwed up like he’s concentrating very hard, “Say.”
“Uhm.” Jimin nearly takes a step back which would land him in the water, “The-the singing. There was —it was you?”
“Sing?” The creature trills, “Sing? Sing?” It’s winces then, pain washing across its face and the tentacles get agitated again, wrapping closer to his body. “No know sing. Hurt. Hurt.”
And then Jimin sees them, snaking across the (flat muscled holy cow very muscled) chest are two tentacles that have been badly injured. It looks like they’ve almost been ripped apart—tattered suckers and skin and dripping dark blood. Jimin fights the instinct to hurl and steps closer. The tentacles go crazy—waving around and flopping on the pier to try and keep Jimin away. The tentacle man looks like he’s about to dive off into the water again.
“Wait!” Jimin says, showing his palms and moving slowly, “Help. I want to help.” He has the realization the tentacle man is crying and the singing sound he heard was not singing at all—but sobbing.
The creature sniffs, eyes narrowing, “Help?”
Jimin nods, having forgotten entirely that this doesn’t match up with his knowledge of reality or how the world works or that he should maybe be scared of a tentacle monster. “Yeah.” He points to the hurt tentacles, “Help. Let me help.”
The creature hisses. The injured tentacles snake up towards his neck, leaving dark purple trails of blood.
“No trust. You hurt more.”
“Nah.” Jimin says. He shrugs out of his cardigan and peels his t shirt off—immediately chilled. The creature watches this with some interest. Jimin pulls out his pocket knife and starts cutting the shirt into strips long enough to be bandages. He pulls his cardigan back on to dispel the chill—cover his goose-pimpled torso. It keeps slipping off his shoulder as he saws with the knife and he curses and reaches to put it back on. He yelps as he comes in contact with something yielding and slimy. One of the tentacles had reached over and lifted the cardigan back onto his shoulder for him. Jimin’s fingers reflexively close around it and the creature moans.
Which. Was not the sound he was expecting.
The tentacle is retracted immediately and Jimin is left with a hand covered in pink goo and a butchered t-shirt.
The creature looks a little embarrassed, having pulled the tentacle back with his human hand, “A lot. Feels a lot.” It says by way of explanation. It points to the strips of t shirt. “Really? Help?”
“Yes I was serious about helping.” Jimin wipes his hand on his pants leaving a little viscous streak. “Are you going to let me?”
The creature hums and clicks, instead of answering. But a minute later the injured tentacles flop onto the pier and are pushed towards him, furling as best they can with the shredded tissue and mangled cells.
“Mm.” The tentacle man hums, sounding nervous.
“I’ll be gentle.” Jimin whispers. Tentacle man’s eyes lift up to study Jimin’s face again.
He tries to work quickly but the tentacles seem to be semi-autonomous and not very keen to hold still while he pokes around in the injury. But he does—grits his teeth against the cold and the occasional spray of a wave—and winds the fabric around the worst of the wounds.
When he runs out of scraps and the tentacles look much less like they’re about to fall apart Jimin puts his knife away and curls into his cardigan. His teeth are chattering.
“See?” He says to the tentacle man who is examining the wrappings with interest, “I help.”
Tentacle man shoots him a brilliant smile. Jimin can see that his teeth are a little pointier than Jimin’s and he has patches of iridescent scales that shimmer as his cheeks pull wide for the smile.
Jimin shivers again and the tentacle man looks concerned. “Hurt? You hurt?”
“N-no. Cold.” Jimin says, narrowing his eyes at the tentacle man’s nudity. “You’re not cold?”
Tentacle man very slowly shakes his head. He tilts back to look up the cliff and points to where the house hangs over the rocks, “You cave? You stay?”
“Y-Yeah.” Jimin says, turning back towards the pier to head back, “Don’t thank me or anything—I’m just going to go take a lot of NyQuil and attempt to stop hallucinating—“
He’s cut off by two thick tentacles winding around his torso and bearing him aloft. He screams, and wriggles, sure he’s going to be eaten now—no good deed goes unpunished—
“I take you. You help; help too.” Tentacle man seem unperturbed by his screaming, and the truth is Jimin is much warmer with the appendages curled around him. His cardigan is little more than a sodden rag at this point, bunched up around his ribs. He winces when the suckers latch on, holding him secure, and feels more than a tad ridiculous as the tentacle man climbs straight up the sheer cliff face using his tentacles with Jimin bobbing around in the air behind him.
Jimin squeezes his eyes shut and tries not to look down.
Tentacle man hurls them both onto the balcony and looks very pleased with himself when a tentacle figures out how to open the door. He walks in and sets Jimin down in the greatroom.
The tentacles peel off with a sick sucking sound and leave little red circles where they attached to his skin. Tentacle man frowns to see them, tentacle lingering and poking one of the welts, “He no say you were so break—easy to break.”
Jimin swats the tendril away, “I’m not broken! Who is he? Who are YOU?”
Tentacle man grins, and makes some kind of clicking noise.
Jimin blinks, “Is that—was that your name?”
Tentacle man frowns, considering for a long moment, “Khoo.”
“Khoo?”
“Khoo—close. Not, but close.”
“Alright Khoo. Thank you for bringing me back inside.”
“You?” A tentacle prods at Jimin’s leg, “You?”
“I’m Jimin.” Jimin answers, realizing he has definitely accepted the existence of the tentacle man if he’s introducing himself to him.
“Ji-Min?” Khoo tries it out.
Jimin nods.
Khoo smiles, “Ji-Min nice.”
Jimin tries very hard not to blush or look away.
Khoo’s tentacles are sneaking around the space, leaving little snail trails of translucent pink goo on the floor and the walls and the tables where they bump and wiggle past things. Khoo is rotating slowly taking in the house. “Cave messy.” He chides Jimin.
“It’s not mine.” Jimin mutters defensively, “I’m watching it for someone else.” Khoo appears to not be listening.
“Khoo stay.” He says decisively, and flops onto the couch.
Jimin tries very hard not to get distracted by the way his shoulders flex and bunch—heavily muscled and glistening with those patches of scales.
“Wait wait wait you can’t stay! You’re a tentacle thing and probably not even real and definitely very bad for the carpet! Out!”
Khoo looks heartbroken, then his eyebrows knit and he thumps a tentacle against the ground like a whole brat, “Khoo stay.”
“No,” Jimin stalks over to the door and points out to the balcony, “Khoo goes back.”
A tentacle reaches over and closes the door with a slam.
“Khoo stay. Scary thing out there.”
Khoo nuzzles into the couch and Jimin’s lip curls thinking about how nasty the couch is.
“Scary? What scary thing?”
Khoo huffs and holds up the t-shirt bandaged tentacles.
Realization shoots through Jimin. “The thing that did that to you? You’re scared of it?”
Khoo nods solemnly and his tentacles pull in closer to his body in that automatic defense thing.
Jimin is a very weak man.
“Fine.” He sighs, “Khoo can stay.”
Khoo’s face lights up like Christmas and he’s up off the couch to grab Jimin and pull him into a bone-crunching hug. Jimin very studiously does not notice the way Khoo feels pressed all up against him.
“But only until Khoo is better.” Jimin adds, as best he can with no air in his lungs.
Khoo has pulled back to study Jimin up and down, “Ji-Min pretty. Khoo might stay forever.”
“Forever?? Wait no—“ Jimin flounders as Khoo sets him back on the ground. Pretty, his brain says, pretty pretty pretty. “I’m only here for the year—it isn’t my house and the owner will come back and you definitely can’t be here then. He’s coming back.”
Khoo’s face clouds over. “Pretty Ji-Min has other mate? Other mate won’t share? Mate very stupid to leave pretty Ji-Min alone. Khoo is here now. Khoo fight.”
“M-mate.” Jimin feels a little wobbly. “N-no hang on not my mate I don’t have one—humans don’t have mates!”
But Khoo clearly stopped listening after Jimin said he didn’t have a mate. His tentacles are slithering happily around Jimin’s legs and waving around in the air. “No mate.” He trills. “No mate. All for Khoo.”
Jimin makes some sort of gurgling sound and backs away, realizing he’s soaking wet and covered in pink goo.
“I’m gonna. I’m gonna shower. And change.” He backs out of the greatroom, leaving the naked tentacle man on his couch.
Of course Khoo follows.
“Why?” He’s very puzzled by the bathtub and shower head. His tentacle slips into the water spray and he pulls it back, “Water outside so. Why?”
“That water is too cold for me to bathe in.” Jimin explains distractedly.
“Ahhh,” Khoo says, knowledgeably. He’s in the doorframe, all attempts to close the door on him and his tentacles were thwarted so Jimin is just getting the shower ready anyway. “Ji-Min easy to break. Easy to kill. Inside water to keep pretty Ji-Min safe.”
Jimin flushes, “I’m not THAT delicate.” He grumbles.
He has a problem. Well, besides monsters of legend following him home. He’s at the point where he needs to get undressed to get in the shower but Khoo is looming in the doorframe and the majority of the tentacles are perusing his cabinets. There’s one thinner one that’s creeping up Jimin’s leg but Khoo keeps yanking that one back with his human hands, making apologetic clicking noises.
Getting naked right now seems ill advised. Especially with all that mate talk.
“I um. Khoo I need to be alone.”
Khoo is turning a bottle of cologne over in his hands, examining it.
“Can’t leave pretty Ji-Min alone. Too easy to break. Too easy to take. Khoo protect.”
“Okay well I don’t need protection in the shower.” Jimin snaps, “Listen you, creature from the black lagoon—leave me be. Go explore the house I don’t need your protection.”
Khoo accidentally squirts himself in the face with the cologne and hacks and coughs all over the counter. He straightens up resolutely, eyes tearing up. Dignity at all times.
“No.”
“Fine.” Jimin seethes, “Have it your way you freaky fish thing.”
He drops the cardigan on the floor and peels his pants off, along with his underwear and drops them on the floor. He’s cold instantly, and sticky, so he steps into the water. Khoo’s eyes are on him and he’s pushed more into the bathroom, tentacles squeezing through the skinny door. Khoo is sort of absently clicking to himself.
Jimin crosses his arms over his chest and blinks through the spray in the silence. He’s weirdly self conscious. Sure Khoo looks freaky to him so he can only imagine how strange he looks to the tentacle monster. “What. I gave you a chance to get out.”
All at once Khoo crowds into the shower with him, most of the tentacles left on the floor and leans in to poke at Jimin’s flat stomach with his human hand. That thin tentacle is slipping up the back of his leg again and Jimin yelps and reflexively shoves Khoo away.
“Hey! What are you—get out of my shower!”
“Ji-Min small. Khoo eggs too big.” Khoo sounds disappointed for a second but then he perks up, “But maybe. Pretty Ji-Min stretch? Show Khoo. Khoo can breed? Show.”
The tentacle slips in between Jimin’s leg to poke at his ass and Jimin jumps forward away from it—right into Khoo’s arms. Khoo winds him in tightly, nuzzling into his hair as the shower cascades over them both. More tentacles come to slither across Jimin’s skin, the suckers catching and releasing with little pops as they explore his body. He feels very like the subject of some alien experiment.
“Khoo stop—oh my god” Jimin pants as the tentacle pushes at his ass again. He reaches back and yanks it away, “I said no—no breeding, no fucking eggs, I just wanted to help because you were hurt. Off. Get these things off me.”
Khoo hums from atop his hair.
He releases his arms and then one by one the tentacles pull off of him.
Jimin exhales in relief, ignoring the tiny part of him that’s flustered and worked up from the way the tentacles felt.
But finally. Khoo is listening to him.
“Right. Ji-Min right.”
Music to his ears.
Khoo steps out of the shower, water drizzling down his skin and hair dangling in his eyes. He’s grinning again.
“Khoo too eager. Ji-Min pretty and Khoo will court. Khoo has time.” He flounces out into the hallway, tentacles dripping on every surface; water splashed on the walls and the furnishings. “Khoo will work hard.”
Wait hang on.
“Did you say court?” Jimin shouts after the retreating tentacles. “Time for what??”
No answer. Of course.
He’s freshly showered, towel in his hair and new shirt and sweatpants and feeling much better when he emerges from the bathroom. Until he follows the snail trail of goo to find Khoo in his bed.
Jimin stares at the mess in horror. His bed; his sacred space has been mussed and invaded by this tentacle beast who is currently holding up a pillow in bemusement and rotating it this way and that as if hoping it’ll reveal its purpose to him.
“Out!” He yells at Khoo, and the tentacle monster startles. “My room, mine.” He points to the stairs. “Khoo sleeps on the couch.”
Khoo pouts theatrically but he goes, tentacles leaving their slippery mess everywhere and occasionally thumping into the wall as he goes downstairs. Jimin swings the door shut after the last tentacle is out of the room and heaves a sigh of relief.
“This is the weirdest fucking day.” He turns and examines the slime covered room. He drags himself to the linen closet and grabs his spare set of sheets and pillowcases. He caves and grabs a moth-eaten comforter from the professor’s room and lays down on his bed. Maybe this is all an incredibly elaborate and tactile dream.
He tosses and turns and eventually falls into fitful sleep.
He wakes up.
It’s quiet in the house.
Was it all a delusion? Has the house finally driven him mad?
He sneaks down the stairs and peek into the greatroom.
Nope, there’s definitely still a tentacle beast on the couch.
This is his life now.
Khoo trails after him as he gets ready for work.
It takes all morning to convince Khoo to stay in the house while he goes to teach his classes. The logic of, “hey I’ve been getting along just fine without a tentacle beast guarding my every move” was pretty much lost on the stubborn monster. In the end he got so agitated that Khoo finally relented and retracted the tentacles and went to sit moodily on the couch. His animate appendages were clearly as offended as he, judging by the way they smeared pink goo across all the shelves as Jimin walked away.
He didn’t have the energy to be mad about it.
He gets a giant coffee on the way to the campus and tries to focus up for the actual job he is actually doing this for. Tentacle monster aside, Jimin has never been one to half-ass or shirk responsibilities. No matter what Lovecraftian nightmares end up on his couch he is going to teach his classes with a modicum of dignity.
If his students notice he is off or manic they don’t say anything.
Jimin goes to a drugstore after work and picks up several rolls of bandages and, after a moment’s thought, some antiseptic. He isn’t sure what, if anything, the ointment will do for tentacles but it isn’t like he could ask the store attendant. It wasn’t like he could ask anyone, come to that.
He drives back to the Leighton house with his class materials tossed on the passenger seat and the bag of bandages stuffed into the footwell. He’s just turning onto the long private drive when inspiration strikes him.
The professor’s second textbook is among his class materials. Was it possible...had the professor seen something like Khoo before?
Jimin pulls off into the trees before the last bend in the driveway and parks the car. He thumbs through the textbook to the cephalopods chapter. There wasn’t much help here, a lot of the depictions the professor had in the textbook were much less humanoid than Khoo, and vague in their information. The only reference that seemed promising was the connection of tentacle monster iconography to early culture’s fear of impregnating their women by supernatural means. Jimin shook his head, what was with everyone being so sure the monsters from their nightmares wanted to fuck them?
But then last night there was Khoo prodding at his body and clicking at him and looking at him with those intense eyes and talking all that nonsense about breeding...a little shiver runs up his spine. He snaps the book shut. The textbook is frustratingly vague and neutral. He shuts his eyes and sighs.
He is still on his own.
He eases out of the foliage and finishes driving back to the big looming house. It still looks as dilapidated as ever but for some reason there is a lighter quality to the old boards, like the house is feeling less weighted down.
He snags the bag of supplies and makes the short hike to the front door and up the porch. The door creaks open before he can get to it. Jimin freezes for just a second, only to see a tentacle fall on the floor from the knob with a plop and slither back into the darkness of the house. He steps over the threshold.
“Khoo? Please god tell me that’s you and not some other creature in this fucking shack. I really can’t handle that at this time.”
“Ji-Min!” Khoo trills from the greatroom. Jimin follows the twisty entrance hallway around to see the tentacle man sprawled on the couch—still extremely naked—with the TV tuned to reruns of Friends and several gory fish skeletons scattered around him on the floor.
Jimin crunches one underfoot by accident and nearly hurls.
Khoo just beams at him.
“You didn’t die!” His vocal inflection is a little more smoothed out than before. The tentacles wave happily and the thin one snakes across the floor to curl around Jimin’s ankle.
He resists the urge to run back to the car and pretend his life is still normal. “Khoo why is there fish everywhere?”
Khoo furrows his brow, “Had to eat. Went down to—” he indicates a wide flat shape that Jimin assumes is the pier with his hands.
“Yeah I get that, I do, but uh.” He gestures to the macabre fish graveyard strewn across the carpet, “Weren’t you the one telling me my cave was messy?”
Khoo clicks and trills for a second, “You don’t have place to put.”
“I absolutely do.” Jimin stalks over to the pantry—avoiding a delicate set of picked-clean ribs set on top of a stack of books—and swings open the pantry to reveal a trash can. “No fish remains on the carpet please, I already have enough issues with your...slime.”
Khoo levers himself off the couch and comes over to inspect the pantry. As he moves, the sunlight from the balcony windows shifts across his skin and it glistens subtly, patches of scales sparking in the light. But a new, startling addition is that his skin has an all-over kind of a luminescent, pearly sheen to it.
Jimin swallows. He hadn’t been able to see that in the misty fog yesterday.
He backs himself against the wall as Khoo leans over, made shy by his otherworldliness and yeah he’ll admit it—his very chiseled, very human anatomy all on display and glowing from every angle.
Jimin likes to think of himself as a respectful person; as a person who doesn’t creep or leer at bodies no matter how objectively attractive they are. But Khoo’s defined abs down to the corded muscles in his legs and...everything in between...have him on the verge of blushing.
He’s going to spend every second of Khoo’s recovery regretting investigating the singing noise. There’s a lesson here, about sirens and the Odyssey that Jimin should really have internalized by now.
“This too small.” Khoo huffs. “Khoo eats a lot.”
“Well then fine, fling them off the cliff for all I care—but don’t leave fish entrails all over the floor.” Jimin snaps, sharper than he means to as he leans away from Khoo’s proximity,
Khoo shifts his focus to Jimin’s face and grins. Jimin jolts when the balcony door is thrown open with a bang by a stray tentacle.
Khoo starts clicking giddily and scooping up fish parts to literally fastball chuck out the door and over the edge of the balcony. Jimin stares, bewildered as the tentacles whip merrily to and fro, collecting the mess and yeeting it out into the abyss.
The carpet is cleared of fish parts in a matter of minutes.
Now if only he could do something about the goo...
Khoo is grinning—eyes sparkling— clearly having had fun with that little adventure.
In the background Ross screams at Rachel, “WE WERE ON A BREAK!”
“Uh—thank..good job.” Jimin gets out. “Just, please don’t leave dead things on the floor anymore.”
Khoo hums. He reaches a human hand over and Jimin tenses immediately. But all Khoo does is poke the plastic bag clutched in Jimin’s death grip.
“What this.”
“Oh!” Jimin hurries and opens it. “I brought, bandages. For your hurt tentacles we should—I mean my shirt was never exactly a sanitary thing you know?”
Khoo examines the rolls of bandages for a long moment and then he steps back. The two hurt tentacles come winding hesitantly around Khoo’s waist to gingerly place the tattered ends in Jimin’s hands. The t-shirt strips are soaked through with a deep purple that seems to be the color of Khoo’s blood. Jimin guides them both to sit down on the carpet and starts unwinding the soiled bandages.
The tentacles are a little more docile this time but still fidget and wiggle around like a cat’s tail when Jimin tries to hold them still. As the strips fall away Jimin can see the mangled suckers and the deep scarring that’s going to evidently form. It certainly looks better than it did the day before but there’s no doubt whatever got ahold of these was out to completely shred Khoo.
Again, Jimin shivers as he thinks about what else might be out in that misty water. If Khoo is real, what could be too incredible?
“Khoo,” he starts, while cutting long strips of the bandage from the roll.
Khoo looks up from where he’d been fixed on Jimin’s hands fiddling with his tentacles.
“Mm?”
“What was the scary thing? I mean—do you know?”
Khoo’s face darkens a little and he shakes his head, “No. Khoo not even see. Just heard big noise and then ow.” He winces in memory and his hurt tentacles twitch in Jimin’s lap. “Hard to swim, after. How Ji-Min found me...was dangerous but Khoo no like hurt.” He admits, looking a bit embarrassed.
“It sounded like singing. I thought you were singing.”
Khoo indicates the television, “Heard sing today. Humans not so good at it.”
Jimin giggles at that, can’t help it, holding the ointment tube up to his face to stifle them. Khoo’s eyes widen at his reaction and then he grins again, the clouds from remembering the scary thing that hurt him clearing from his face.
“Pretty Ji-Min.”
Jimin flushes and drops his attention back down to the tentacles. He somewhat shakily squeezes out a big glob of the antiseptic ointment and smears it across one of the wounds.
Khoo screeches, yanking the tentacles away, eyes full of betrayal, “Ji-Min WHY.” The other tentacles flip and bang and wave around, knocking into things in their agitation, “Khoo just say no like hurt.” Khoo’s eyes are shiny and to Jimin’s amazement he starts crying, that eerie singing sound rising from his throat as he cradles the tentacle.
“I-I’m sorry. It’s so…no dirt gets in there. It won’t heal if it gets infected I didn’t mean to hurt—“
“Im-in-imfected?” Khoo tries, face screwed up as his tongue trips over the new word and the singing/sobbing subsides.
Jimin resists cooing at the attempt, especially when Khoo seems so upset with him, “Yeah, uh...infection? When it gets hot and like, puffy to the touch. Maybe shiny? It can make you sick—sometimes you can die...” he trails off as Khoo’s eyes get wide with understanding,
“Imfection? Had, friend. Got hurt and no get better. That—that imfection?” Khoo says, somber, mind clearly somewhere else remembering someone else.
Another tentacle monster? Jimin can only guess.
“INfection,” Jimin corrects, teacher nature peeking through despite himself, “not im—IN. And yeah, probably, if they got feverish like um, not themselves and perspiring or whatever your equivalent is, uh like they didn’t make sense or got really weak?” He’s trying to explain based off of the similarities in their human anatomy but he’s not sure how good he’s doing. Khoo looks like he’s following along well enough though, so he can’t be that far off.
The tentacle man nods solemnly, looking down at his ragged injuries, before slowly wiggling the hurt tentacles back over to Jimin.
“Okay. Ji-Min can hurt. If...if Khoo needs it.” He says quietly and clicks to himself.
Jimin is much more careful with the other tentacle, using markedly less ointment and gets only a pained hiss this time around as Khoo bites his lips and tries not to pull away; despite his tentacles pulsing and waving like they’re upset.
“I’m sorry.” Jimin whispers again, as he tosses the tube aside and reaches for the bandages. He winds them neatly and secures them around the tentacles, feeling kind of proud of himself when he sees his handiwork. The fresh bandages go a long way to making the injury look better.
When he indicates he’s done Khoo pulls the tentacles back and looks over every inch of them, examining Jimin’s attempts. Jimin tries not to be self conscious as he packs away the bandages.
“I need to um..grade some papers so.” He unfolds and stands up from the carpet. Khoo does likewise. “I’m going to work now.” Khoo trills and clicks.
“Okay Ji-Min. Khoo behave.”
Khoo settles back onto the couch and splays, stretching like a cat and flopping so he takes up the whole thing. Jimin forces himself to look away.
He sets himself up at the professor’s desk with a stack of papers and a cup of tea. His red grading pen is perched on the warped corner of the desk. He retrieves it, relieved that it looks like the tentacle man is settling in in such a way that Jimin might be able to live his actual life around his presence.
Friends continues on from the TV. Khoo is focused on it like a laser. For about an hour the sitcom and the occasional thump from the tentacles is the only noise apart from Jimin’s pen scratches and shuffling of papers.
And just as Jimin could’ve maybe forgotten that Khoo wasn’t a normal houseguest his telltale clicks herald the arrival of this question,
“Kiss? Does Ji-Min kiss?”
Jimin freezes, head whipping up from where he’s halfway through someone’s essay about coyote husbands. “Like...do I know how to?”
Khoo nods, eyes still on the TV screen where it’s likely someone is making out to prompt this line of thinking.
“Yes.” Jimin says shortly.
“Ji-Min has kissed others?” Khoo asks. Jimin notices that the longer the monster watches TV and listens to people talking the easier time he seems to have with the language.
His suspicions about tentacle monster intelligence being equal to or greater than humans is more than confirmed at this juncture.
More to this point, he’s blushing like he’s in grade school when he answers, “Yes I have.”
Khoo’s attention finally shifts to Jimin,
“Will Ji-Min kiss Khoo?”
“Uh.” The noise is punched out of Jimin in lieu of an actual reaction. “W-why do you want to kiss? Do...others like you kiss?”
Khoo shrugs, “Not much. Humans like it more Khoo sees.”
“So...” Jimin is still comically frozen with his pen tip quivering on the page, probably leaving a big blot of red ink in the margins of this essay. “If you don’t like it...why?”
“Humans like. Ji-Min human. Khoo court human like human.” Khoo has that tone again, the one from last night and he’s looking Jimin up and down.
“O-oh. You were...serious about that.” Jimin is sure there’s more to say here but he feels so off-kilter and wrong footed.
“Khoo more sure all the time. Ji-Min—“ he screws up his face like he’s concentrating hard on the words, “—should...be...mine.”
“Y-yours?” Jimin squeaks. He finally lets the pen drop to the desk where it picks up rolling speed and clatters off the edge to the ground, loud in the thick silence. “That’s not—I mean humans don’t—we don’t mate like, like that.” He finishes lamely.
“Khoo knows.” Khoo says, seeming not at all perturbed by Jimin’s consternation. “But Cecaelia better. Ji-Min will like better.”
Jimin latches on to the new information, “Cecaelia? Is that what you’re called?”
Khoo hums affirmatively, he clicks and then thinks better of it, sussing out how to pronounce names in the difficult human language, “Joonh says humans call us that.”
Jimin’s heart is thumping now as this dreamlike experience intersects rather abruptly with his in-real-life field of study, “Joohn? They’re another—another one of you? A Cecaelia?”
Khoo furrows his brow and nods, “He came before. Met human here. Told Khoo...about humans.”
Jimin’s head is spinning. “Joohn met the professor! If he met a human here he met the professor.”
Khoo shrugs like it’s of little consequence to him.
His tentacles start casually peeling off the couch and wiggling across the floor towards Jimin, who is lost in the implications of Professor Leighton knowing about the existence of Khoo and this other creature called Joohn.
Two tentacles wind around Jimin’s legs and give a little tug, making Jimin’s chair shift on the floor and him almost slide off his seat. He yelps, clawing at the desk.
“Hey! Don’t—get those off of me—“
“Come kiss Khoo.” Khoo says, sounding a little put out that Jimin was so much more interested in Khoo’s species and genus than his propositioning.
“W-wait don’t pull me.”
“Well then come.” Khoo insists, but quits tugging with the tentacles. Khoo’s tongue flicks out to wet his lips, drawing Jimin’s attention to his mouth, “Ji-Min not want to?”
“I...” Jimin falters. Khoo looks so sweet and hopeful and if Jimin said no right now not only would it hurt Khoo’s feelings but it would also...kind of be a lie. Khoo might be a tentacle monster—a cecaelia—but he’s also the most beautiful specimen of man Jimin has ever seen. Full stop. And there’s something undeniably hypnotizing in the way he looks at Jimin. Like there’s fervor, passion, barely being restrained every time he scans Jimin from head to toe. Jimin has been persuaded to do a little kissing based on much less.
Jimin isn’t a liar. But he’s also never kissed a Cecaelia. And his hesitation exists on several levels.
He trails off into the silence and he and Khoo just stare at each other. The tentacles around his ankles tighten again and two others have wiggled their way to Jimin’s wrists, wrapping around them so casually Jimin only notices when they’re too tight to pry off. Khoo fixes him with that intense eye contact and the tentacles around him give the most gentle of pulls. Barely a suggestion. Come here, they say. Come here.
Jimin’s mind goes to Sirens again.
The thin tentacle has joined the others and wrapped all the way up to Jimin’s thigh as he sways in place, transfixed, and slowly stands up from his chair. There’s pink goo seeping into his clothes. All the tentacles pull again, gently, briefly.
Come here.
Jimin stumbles over to the couch, comes to rest between Khoo’s spread legs, looking down at his pretty pearlescent face, his glossy lips, and shiny scales.
“Does Ji-Min want a kiss?” Khoo repeats his question, softer, voice a little rougher.
Jimin feels dizzy. “Yes.” He whispers. “Yes I do.”
Khoo leans up so slowly that Jimin’s has time to go cross-eyed staring at his lips before they kiss. Khoo’s lips are cool and soft, but he presses forward, insistent, making Jimin yield to him. He kisses messily, licking into Jimin’s mouth as the tentacles wind ever tighter and Jimin’s breathing hitches up as sensation plus attraction meet and flood him with arousal. The way the tentacles hold him—the way Khoo moves his mouth against his—Jimin takes all of ten seconds of kissing to groan into the kiss and deepen it, brain spiraling off into thoughts about tentacles and their versatility as an appendage.
Khoo hums and clicks deep in the back of his throat as his tongue probes Jimin’s mouth. His human hands roam over Jimin’s chest and shoulders like he’s trying to memorize the shape of his body. Jimin feels his sharp teeth dig into his bottom lip with the barest amount of pressure. It’s enough for Jimin to feel the lick of adrenaline that says Predator, about Khoo. The tentacles holding him secure, his sharp teeth and strong body. Khoo is a hunter and apex predator—like an octopus is in its ecosystem and a human is in its own.
And if a Cecaelia is both, wouldn’t it stand to reason that a normal human, with their normal muscles and lack of size and strength, would be their prey?
Jimin squirms, suddenly afraid. He breaks the kiss and tries to pull away.
Khoo hums in confusion and locks eyes with him. This close Jimin can see how fathomless and dark they are, swirling away into the deep just like the ocean itself. He could drown in there, he could drown right here—
“Ji-Min okay? Is Khoo hurting?”
Jimin keeps struggling, finally finds his voice, hoarse and afraid, “Don’t—don’t —let me go!”
The tentacles unwind immediately, fall away from holding Jimin in place and he staggers back several steps, breathing hard.
“Did Khoo scare you?” Khoo says, in this deep rumbly voice that makes the hair stand up on the back of Jimin’s neck.
“Please don’t eat me.” Jimin says, voice thin and reedy as he puts as much furniture between him and Khoo as possible. It doesn’t really mean anything—those tentacles have shown time and again they’re strong enough to remove any obstacles but it helps Jimin feel better from a psychological point of view.
Khoo clicks, sounding irritated, “Eat? Khoo no eat.”
“I just...” Jimin puts his head in his hands, feeling lightheaded. “You just...I’m...scared of you.”
Khoo’s face softens, looking fond. “Smart Ji-Min. Maybe you could survive alone.”
Jimin scoffs, “Of course I can. I’ve been surviving alone a long time. I told you.”
“Smart and natural to be scared of Khoo. Khoo could easily kill you.” He says offhandedly, tentacles coiling and uncoiling, goo trails catching the light from the window.
“What’s stopping you?” Jimin says weakly.
Khoo flicks his eyes up and down Jimin again in that way he has, “Ji-Min nice. Helped Khoo with-with...” he’s got his concentrating face again,”...INfection.” His sharp teeth glint when he smiles, “And Ji-Min pretty. Pretty...” he does a little flourish with his human hand indicating the face area, “And Khoo wants.”
Jimin feels no less dizzy.
“Khoo...wants?”
Khoo stands up from the couch and winds his way around the furniture to get to Jimin, who feels frozen again. A tentacle reaches out for his wrist and pulls his arm to Khoo’s body. Towards his groin. Jimin balks but Khoo doesn’t let him pull away, insistently tugging his arm to trail his fingers along his—very human looking—cock, down to his—slightly less human looking—sac. It’s bulging, larger than a human’s would or could be, even compared to yesterday (Yes, Jimin had looked. Yes, he had catalogued this information.) Khoo bumps Jimin’s hand into it so he can feel the firm, round shapes, as big as a big marble, pushing out from within. Khoo is very warm down here. Jimin sort of squeaks, and when he goes to pull away this time Khoo lets him.
The Cecaelia’s voice pitches down again, “Khoo wants.”
Jimin presses himself back against the wall, “A-are those....” he swallows, “Eggs?”
Khoo nods, looking pleased that Jimin managed to piece that together.
“Y-you want to lay them...in me?” Jimin is most definitely having an out of body experience.
“Mmm.” Khoo hums, getting a bit of a glazed look in his eye, “Ji-Min perfect.” He tilts his head, and then amends, “Well, after Khoo stretches.”
Jimin might pass out, he’s nearly hyperventilating. “I don’t...stretches?”
“Eggs not ready yet,” Khoo soothes, “Plenty of time to stretch.” He clearly thinks Jimin’s anxiety is one of size as opposed to one of being a breeding vessel for a Cecaelia in the first place.
“I-I don’t think...” Jimin is edging towards the door. He swallows. “I don’t think I want that.”
Khoo pauses, considering this information.
“Why not?”
He waits for Jimin’s answer, like this is a reasonable and rational discussion of the pros and cons of being an octopus monster’s incubator.
“Because!” Jimin splutters, “That sounds like something out of my nightmares! It sounds painful, and like a good way for a human to end up dead. It sounds—“
“No pain.” Khoo is quick to correct, “No pain. Would never hurt mate, never.” The tentacles are restless, reaching out for Jimin, “Make Ji-Min feel so good. Better than ever before. Better than any human.”
“I...” Jimin says faintly, groping for the door frame. The tentacles are winding across the carpet. “I...”
Khoo seizes him one more time, suckers popping and releasing as they travel across Jimin’s body. Little tingles spread from each point of contact, a ghost of the stinging from when Khoo had carried him up the cliff.
“Think, think a little, Ji-Min.” Khoo murmurs. His human hand comes to barely trace a finger down Jimin’s cheek to his neck and down to his collarbone, feather-light. “Khoo can be patient.” He releases Jimin.
Jimin flees to his guest room and slams the door and locks it. He leans back against it, raking his hands back through his hair and sliding down to collapse on the floor.
He’s hard. This is insane.
There’s a tiny wet spot on the front of his slacks. He’s clearly been aroused for a while. If he’s honest, probably ever since Khoo asked him for a kiss. He shuts his eyes, feeling the creepy house and knowledge of octopus monsters pressing in around him oppressively. Is this all a dream? A nightmare? Why can’t he wake up? Why is he so horny and why...
...why does the thought of Khoo stretching him out and shoving those tentacles inside him sound as hot as it does scary? With the distance between them and the door, all Jimin can think about is how thick and long those tentacles are, about how big (and long, and thick, and with a pretty curve) Khoo’s human cock is.
Jimin can’t help himself, he grinds the heel of his hand down onto his erection through his slacks, panting at the pressure and the sensation. There’s little red marks from the suckers on his skin. He seizes his bottom lip between his teeth and gives in, unzipping his pants and shoving his hand in to give himself more pressure, spread the precome around and jerk himself off. It’s quick, heated, and over fast, biting down on his arm so he doesn’t moan and give himself away, cheeks flushed and shame so evident in the way he curls into himself even as he tugs at his cock and wants. He wants.
He and Khoo might not be so different.
He sneaks out to shower and back in, scared the whole time that Khoo will come around the corner, take one look at him, and know the turmoil inside him. He lays under the covers, curled up and staring into the darkness. Sleep seems like a pipe dream at this point.
He gets up and hunts through his discarded, soiled slacks for his phone and scrolls through his timelines, not really seeing anything. He responds to a message from fellow grad student Taehyung and plays a few minutes of each of his games. Nothing helps. He starts systematically clearing all notifications by archiving emails and opening voicemails. His stops over a voicemail from professor Leighton. Before he can think better of it, he calls the professor.
“Jimin? My house still driving you crazy?” The professor sounds amused, relaxed.
Jimin’s voice gets stuck in his throat. Where does he even begin?
“Jimin?” A hint of concern creeps into Leighton’s voice, “You there? Did you buttdial me?” There’s some rustling, “Wait, what time is it there? Why are you awake?”
“I—uh.” Jimin finally gets out, “Hi. Hey.”
“Hello.” Leighton chuckles, “What’s going on? Classes going okay?”
“What? Oh...y-yeah classes are all good.” He swallows. He has to try, right? He can’t keep it all to himself, right? “We’re talking about...” maybe if the professor really met a Cecaelia he can get the conversation there without actually saying it,
“Uh...cephalopods. The...ocean monsters of the Pacific. That’s where we...are.”
Leighton is silent for a long moment.
“Oh?” His voice has a thick layer of amusement under it, “Any particular reason you’re discussing them right now? That’s usually second semester.” The professor sounds slick and self-satisfied. “Perhaps the house has been...inspiring?”
Jimin sits up quickly in the bed, “So you know? You know about them?”
Leighton continues like he didn’t say anything, “Any focus in particular? Maybe the Kraken—very popular western mythos. Or wait you said Pacific? Perhaps Kanaloa? Fascinating exploration into Hawaiian culture. Or...” He does an obscene little giggle right in Jimin’s ear, “Maybe Cecaelia? Are you finding them...intriguing?”
“Oh my god.” Realization slides into place again, “You’ve seen them. Khoo was telling the truth.”
Leighton gasps, “Khoo? Who is Khoo?”
“Uh....” Jimin falters. “He’s um...”
Leighton sighs a dreamy little sigh, “Aren’t they beautiful?”
“Oh my god they’re really real. They’re real. This is insane.” Jimin squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head, “You knew about them. You knew about them and left me in your house without even warning me.”
“Would you have believed me?”
Jimin grumbles, knowing that he absolutely wouldn’t have.
Something obvious clicks into place, “Your books...oh my god your erotica....did you—“ he whispers even though no one else can hear, “Did you fuck one of them you dirty old man?”
Leighton’s tongue click is all the answer he needs.
“Oh good god. I’m house sitting for a monster fucker. This is my life now.”
“So Khoo huh? That one’s not familiar to me.” Leighton is clearly trying to steer the conversation away.
“Yeah. He said that was as close as he could get to his name. He said he knew about this house because of another one named Joohn who met—“
As soon as he said Joohn, Leighton huffed into the phone, “Oh wow so another one grew to adulthood. Joohn must’ve found an incubator.”
Jimin flushes at the reference to the incubating, like Leighton could peel back his skin and read the conversation he’d had with Khoo like an LED readout.
“D-did you fucking....incubate his eggs for him?”
“No, no,” Leighton says, sounding a little wistful, “That’s only for their mates. I was a...hmm...curiosity maybe? Wait.” He sucks in air through his teeth, “How did you know about the eggs?”
Jimin falls silent again. Stupid.
“Jimin did...did this Khoo proposition you? Wants to mate you?” Leighton sounds awed, maybe even jealous.
“What?” Jimin’s voice pitches up too high, “No, why—“
“He did, oh wow.” Leighton does a bitter little chuckle, “So pretty boys then; they have a type.”
“Wait wait hold up what are you saying?”
“Are you going to?” Leighton barrels forward.
“What?? F-fuck no—“ Jimin yelps. “—I wouldn’t—no—“
“Why not?” Leighton says in a fair imitation of Khoo himself.
Jimin waits for a beat, “You’re a fucking sicko.”
“And you don’t even know what you’re talking about. Imagine the best orgasm you’ve ever had in your life.” Leighton says earnestly.
“I’m not—we are not having this conversation—“
“—now multiply it by ten. It’s better than heroin, Jimin. Better than anything you can imagine. And if he wants to mate you? The aphrodisiac he’ll give you? You have no idea.”
Jimin is brought up short, in spite of himself, “R-really?”
“They have to lay eggs every cycle, Jimin. It hurts them if they don’t; will make them sick and weak. But without an incubator all the babies will die.” Leighton has slipped into his lecture voice, “The eggs need the human element for early development; the proximity and body heat in order to develop properly. This Khoo of yours has probably had to watch several broods hatch only to die within hours.”
Jimin feels a little pang.
“He must be so happy to have found you. He is fully grown, right? Looks like an adult man?”
Khoo’s strong arms, thick muscles, his fucking legs, “Y-yeah he’s...grown.”
Leighton gives another knowing little chuckle. “Just...don’t rule it out completely.”
“This is insane. This whole thing is insane.” Jimin chokes out. “None of this was supposed to be real.”
“Ah but better this one than the ones who want to eat us, no? Better than the monsters who thrive on human flesh, right?”
Jimin feels a cold pit drop into his belly as he remembers, “Professor....Khoo got hurt by what he called a scary thing. That’s how...I found him. His tentacles were all mangled and I patched him up. He’s staying in the house but he—“ Jimin swallows , “He’s really scared of whatever did it to him. Is there something like that in the sea here? Is there one of those monsters out there too?”
Leighton is quiet for a long moment, so long Jimin can feel his pulse in his ears.
“Maybe, Jimin. Be careful. Cecaelia shouldn’t have any predators. If they’re afraid of it it’s potentially something like a Leviathan.”
“Leviathans are real now?” Jimin squeaks.
“After what we’ve seen can we really rule it out?” Leighton points out, “Just don’t go swimming without Khoo. Listen to your instincts.”
“My instincts are saying to run the fuck away from this house and all these monsters as fast as I can get out.”
“Is that what they’re saying?” Leighton hums, “Are you sure?”
Jimin thinks about jerking off in a heap on the floor. Like he needed it. Like he couldn’t help it.
“Why did you pick me to housesit?” Jimin asks.
Leighton, “Because. I don’t like most people. But I like you. There’s something special about you; more special than getting a boring degree and covering boring classes for a boring overpaid teacher.”
“How can you tell that? How do you know?”
“Well, you met a mythical octopus monster and called me instead of the police. You approached a legendary creature and cleaned it up and offered it shelter instead of running and screaming. And you’re still in my house after the Cecaelia said he wanted to breed you. That seems fairly special to me. Get some sleep, Jimin. Think about it.”
The professor hangs up.
Jimin lays in the dark, staring at the ceiling.