Part 4

Dongwoo, on the other hand, followed her to the kitchen. "Is there anything I can help with?"

Buyong turned around quickly, slipped and fell. She had expected to hit a hard surface, but instead landed softly. When she opened her eyes, she found herself on top of Dongwoo. She quickly climbed off him and sat next to him on the floor. "Oh my... I'm so sorry! Are you okay?"

Dongwoo sat up and smiled "I'm fine. How about you?"

"I'm good" she blushed. "Now I feel like an idiot" she hung her head low.

Dongwoo started waving his hands "Don't worry about it. I'm really okay. I'm just glad you weren't hurt." Then he stood up, smiled and held his hand out. Buyong took his hand and he helped her up. "Guess we should get to making the tea" he said with a smile.

Buyong smiled back and nodded. She walked over to the stove and grabbed the kettle, filled it with water and placed it back on the stove. While the water boiled, she opened the cabinets and pulled out some trays and cups.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Dongwoo asked.

Buyong shook her head and said "Not really. We just have to wait for the water to boil."

"Oh" Dongwoo replied depressingly.

"How was your tour?"

Dongwoo lifted his head and saw her staring at him. "Huh?"

She gave a little giggle and then asked again "How was your tour? Did you enjoy it?"

"Are you kidding? I had a blast! That was the most exciting thing I've ever done!"

Buyong smiled "Really?"

"Yeah!" Dongwoo replied and then proceeded to tell her all about his tour with the shark.

Time seemed to pass by slowly as they talked, that they were surprised when the kettle began to whistle. They both got up and Dongwoo helped Buyong prepare the tea for the others. Then they grabbed the trays and brought them out to the group who were still chatting about their experiences. They handed out the cups and then returned to the kitchen to enjoy their tea together.

"Have you always been able to breathe underwater?" Dongwoo asked as he took a sip of his tea.

Buyong smiled. "Actually, my gills didn't fully develop until I was fifteen."

Dongwoo looked up in surprise. "Really? So you couldn't always breathe underwater?"

"I had always had the webbing between my fingers and toes, so I could swim very well and I enjoyed being in the water. I loved swimming" she smiled. "When I turned fifteen, I got a high fever and had difficulty breathing. My parents brought me to the hospital, but they couldn't find what was wrong with me. They told my parents that they had done all the tests they could and that they should prepare themselves for the worse if my fever did not go down."

"So what happened?"

"There was nothing that they could do for me, so they sent me home to die."

"Are you kidding? They just gave up?" Dongwoo became angry.

"It's okay, Dongwoo."

"How can that be okay? They basically said that they didn't care whether you lived or died."

"Dongwoo" she smiled serenely "they really did try everything they could to bring my fever down. They even brought in specialists from overseas to try and help. I was hospitalized for over a year before they sent me home. By that time I had become very weak from fighting the fever for so long that they believed that it was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened."

Dongwoo couldn't believe what he was hearing. "But still...to say that you are going to die like that."

"Actually, I was surprised I survived past six months. My fever was dangerously high for a very long time. I even heard the nurses talking about the fact that I should already be dead."

Dongwoo shook his head "That's just horrible."

"The day my parents brought me home, they asked me if there was anywhere I wanted to go. I told them I wanted to see the beach one last time. My father cried as he told me that we would go the next day." She smiled as she remembered the trip. "The next day, they brought me to the beach. I remember looking at the ocean and wanting to swim. I asked my father if he could bring me closer so that I could at least touch the water. I remember him carrying me to the water and placing me on the sand. The waves crashed upon the sand and inched their way towards me. The water touched my feet and instantly I felt a shock jolt me back to reality. Something told me I needed to be in the water at that moment. With all the strength I had left in me, I crawled after the receding wave. Another wave crashed upon the sand and soon I found myself floating out into the open ocean. By the time my parents noticed, I was already too far out for them to reach me" she smiled again.

Dongwoo was shocked "Were you trying..."

Buyong laughed "No, I wasn't trying to kill myself, but if that had been the end result, I wouldn't have had any regrets." She laughed a little more and then took a sip of her tea. "Actually, the water was making me feel better, so I just wanted to float around for as long as I could. Then I got stuck in an undercurrent that pulled me underwater. The current was too strong, that I had trouble surfacing. I had held my breath as long as I could, when suddenly I felt myself breathing. I opened my eyes and was shocked to find myself still underwater."

Dongwoo looked up at her and said "Underwater?"

"Yeah" she laughed.

"What happened after that?"

"I tried to figure out what was happening to me. After a little while, I realized that I was able to breathe naturally underwater and once I got the feel of the current, I was able to swim freely. I made my way to the surface and realized that I couldn't see the beach anymore. I had no way of knowing where I was, so I just picked a direction and began swimming. Thankfully, I ran into a fisherman on his way back to the harbor. He pulled me on board and asked me what I was doing all the way out there."

"What did you say?"

Buyong laughed "That I was just out for a night swim and lost my way."

"Genius!"

"Yeah, he didn't find it so funny. So I told him I was caught in an undercurrent and managed to break free and surface. I said that I was trying to find my way back to shore, but didn’t know where I was."

"Then what happened?"

"He was still a little skeptical, but he radioed the harbor and notified them that he had found a young girl in the water and that he would be arriving early in the morning. When the boat pulled up to dock, the harbor patrol, police and news crews were all there. I got off the boat and my parents ran over and gave me a big hug. Then they brought me to the hospital for a check up. The doctors were shocked that I was completely fine, when I should have been dead. My fever was gone and I felt better than I had ever felt before."

"Wow" Dongwoo said as he sipped his tea. "Did you know what had happened?"

"I had no clue until my check up. As I told you before, I've always had the webbing between fingers and toes, but not the gills. When I was younger, I had birthmark like lines where my gills appeared. Then after my experience in the ocean, I had actual slits in my skin. The doctors thought that I had been injured and were going to stitch me up, but after taking a closer look at them, they realized what they were. They were as surprised as anyone when they made 'the discovery' that I had gills" she laughed. "Of course they wanted to run all sorts of tests on me because I was so unique, but they were kind enough to keep my identity out of their findings so that I wouldn't be treated as a freak."

"Cool doctors!"

"They really are cool doctors" she smiled again. "I heard that they received some big awards recently for their discovery too."

"What kind of awards?"

"The Nobel Prize and The Lasker Award."

"The Nobel Prize? Seriously?"

"Yeah" she laughed. "Apparently my existence is ground breaking in both the medical field and in marine biology. You wouldn't believe how many doctors and scientists ask to speak with both my doctors and myself." She took another sip of her tea. "That is why my doctors kept my identity confidential. They wanted to protect me from unwanted attention and they wanted to protect their 'discovery' for being stolen" she giggled. "I don't blame them for looking after their own interests. Because, by doing that, they also protected me from being treated as a lab rat."

"And what about now?"

"What do you mean?"

"Now that everyone knows that you are unique, don't they bother you? Do they try and treat you like a lab rat?"

She laughed "I do get requests from doctors and scientists for interviews and testing occasionally, but if I don't want to do it, I can refuse. They can't force me to partake in their research."

"What if they try and confine you, or trap you?"

"In the tank?" she holds up her hands and giggles. "The sharks would be the first to attack them if they tried to capture me in here. And if they tried while I was outside the tank, all I would have to do is get to the ocean and I can swim away " she smiled brightly. "That is why I live so close to the water. I always have an escape plan. Plus my friend works for the aquarium, so she would help me if need be."

"I guess your life is no different from an idol's" Dongwoo said with a touch of melancholy.

"You don't regret becoming an idol, do you?"

"No" he replied instantly. "Wait a second, you knew?"