Soon after, the two men started kissing.
And not just a quick kiss. No, it went on... for two to three full minutes.
Kaya blinked. Once. Twice. Still happening.
Finally, the black-haired man turned around—and his eyes landed on her. Gone was the playful "Honey" voice. His whole aura shifted. He wasn’t cool anymore. Not relaxed. Now, he was giving her the look.
That look people give when they’ve already decided you’re the enemy, and they’re just figuring out where to bury your body.
His eyes scanned her, head to toe. Then, with the same icy gaze still on her, he turned to the Master, voice suddenly soft and sweet, like he hadn’t just been glaring daggers a second ago.
"Honey... who is she?" he asked, his tone almost trembling. "You took another concubine?"
He threw his arms around the Master dramatically, hugging him like he was on the verge of tears.
"How could you do this to me?"
But while he was clinging to the Master like a lovesick fool, his eyes stayed locked on Kaya, sharp and threatening, like he wanted to rip her apart then and there.
Kaya really wanted to raise her hands and clap—just once—like please, calm down, dramatic sea daddy. She wanted to say out loud, "My dear sir, I am not here to steal your golden fish."
But she couldn’t say any of that.
Because she was still tied.
So instead, she just looked back at him. Calm. Unbothered. Eyes level. No fear.
Everyone around them stared at her in shock.
The audacity. The nerve. A lone outsider—a human woman—daring to stare back at their Master’s partner like that? In his presence?
Gasp. Gasp. Gasp.
But Kaya? She only knew one thing.
Inside, she felt cold. Not just because she was sitting in freezing seawater with her entire body soaked and her clothes clinging to her skin—no. This cold was different. It crawled under her skin. A strange chill that didn’t make her shiver, didn’t make her sick... it just sat there.
Strangely, she didn’t feel weak. She didn’t feel dizzy. She didn’t even feel uncomfortable. It was all... quiet. Like something had numbed her nerves.
And don’t even talk about her companions.
Those useless idiots were still lying there beside her.
The snake? Completely out. Tied up neatly, like she had always done with him when he got too annoying. Sleeping like a log.
The sparrow? Wrapped up like a fish roll. Also asleep.
The only one who wasn’t tied up was the rabbit—seriously, Cutie. The irony? These people didn’t bother restraining the bulkiest of them all. They tied everyone else, like they forgot—or just refused to acknowledge—that this rabbit can transform into a human way larger than Kaya, bulkier than any of them. Like, really? Who were they fooling?
Flat on his back. Out cold. Not even twitching.
Not one of them was awake. Not one.
They were in cold water. Fully drenched. Tied up. Floating in an underwater court full of merfolk.
And they were peacefully asleep?
What the hell kind of dreamland had they slipped into?
Kaya just stared at them, deadpan. She was surrounded by sleeping idiots, soaked in freezing water, and being silently accused of stealing someone’s sea boyfriend.
They were all completely drenched. In freezing water.
Yet not one of them stirred.
Not even a blink.
What the hell kind of sleep were they in?
Smack
Out of nowhere, the Master slapped the man beside him.
Hard.
The sound echoed through the water like a whip crack. The man’s head snapped to the side from the force, and for a few seconds, everything went still.
Five—maybe six—clear slap marks bloomed across his cheek.
And yet... when he turned back around, there was a smile on his face.
Not an angry smile. Not a forced one. Just a weird, creepy, too-happy kind of smile.
He was trembling slightly, eyes soft and shimmering, lips curled up like he’d just received a bouquet of roses instead of a full-force slap to the face.
Kaya stared at him, completely horrified.
What. The. Hell.
Why was he smiling after that?
Was this... some kind of roleplay? A sadist-masochist drama? BDSM? A messed-up fantasy scene playing out in front of her like she was stuck in someone else’s fanfiction?
Her skin crawled.
Every inch of her felt secondhand embarrassment and nausea. Cringiness surged up through her chest. She seriously considered throwing up, just to break the mood.
All she wanted was some damn salt.
Just some clean, pure seawater so she could extract salt from it.
Sure, she knew how to make salt. She wasn’t an idiot. You evaporate seawater, you get salt.
But the problem?
The salt turns gray. That’s because of all the impurities mixed in—sand, algae, whatever else is floating in it. She couldn’t risk using that.
Could she dip a cloth in and squeeze it out? Sure. But her current clothes were already soaked, definitely not clean enough for the job, and she had no spare cotton to use.
And more importantly—hygiene.
She wasn’t about to make salt filled with unknown bacteria or some sea parasite. Just because you boiled it didn’t mean everything was dead. Some microbes could survive heat. She wasn’t about to gamble on salt-seasoned infection.
So yeah, she had come here for their help.
Because these people—these mermaids or fishmen or sea beastmen, or whatever they were—clearly lived in the sea, but could shift into human form. That meant her theory was probably right:
If they could turn human... they probably drank water. Which meant they had to know where the cleaner water flowed. Maybe where the salt didn’t mix so thick. Maybe a current, a cave, a spring.
If anyone could lead her to the safest seawater for salt making—it was them.
And she had a plan.
She wasn’t here to beg. She had already thought of what to offer in return.
She just hadn’t expected to sit through underwater slap kink drama first.