Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

po looked up at the full moon glowing bright in the sky, his feet sinking into the still-warm sand on the pattaya beach as he walked against the shoreline. today’s my last day here before i go to back to bangkok and start my new job. might as well spend my last full moon here at the moon pool. he thinks, striding into the waves, disappearing under them as he transforms. 

he feels the bubbly feeling of his tail growing and begins swimming to the moon pool. it’s been a while since i’ve spent the full moon here, he muses as he zooms through the water. he takes in the sight of the fish swimming around him and admiring the vibrant coral on the sea floor. swimming through the water is a experience he will never get tired of.  

once he arrives the moon is shining through the opening in the top of the cove. he lays down and floats in the pool, soaking in the glow of the moon as it shines bright into the pool. spending the full moon in the moon pool has always been one of his favorite feelings. laying in the water and feeling the buzzing feeling of the moon’s magic is just an indescribable airy feeling that he can’t feel anywhere else, especially in the suffocating environment that awaits him on land. 

he’s laying in the pool when he suddenly hears the yelling of five boys. he quickly submerges himself back under the water, leaving his head above the water and looks up at the boys as they appeared from apparently nowhere. they fall into the pool and are immediately scrambling to stay afloat. the boys see him and po quickly realizes he needs to swim away, and fast.

po darts away, not without seeing the moon pool’s magic beginning to transform the boys, trusting that they’ll be safe under the full moon’s power. 

they should be able to handle it, right? 

⋆.ೃ࿔*:𓇼⋆.ೃ࿔*:⋆

a few days earlier…

“...and here are your winners from Dream2Mars, thame, jun, dylan, pepper, and nano!” the host announced. 

the five boys are waving at the crowd, still sniffling from the overwhelming emotion after winning the show. all of their long days and nights of training have finally paid off. the other contestants are congratulating them as well. 

later that night they all get an email from oner. seems like they don’t get any rest after over a year of training, thame remarks. it mentions them leaving for a beach trip in a few days, after they get to visit their families. the trip is for the members to get a little closer together before they fully dive into training more and preparing for their debut. 

⋆.ೃ࿔*:𓇼⋆.ೃ࿔*:⋆

when they arrive at the villa the production team tells them they can settle in one of the massive rooms where there should be five beds already set up for them and once they’re all settled in to come back down so they can film the first episode of the minishow to introduce the members. 

once they’ve dropped their bags off and headed back down, the team instructs them on how they’re gonna intro the show and then they begin filming. 

“...and thank you to aqua villas pattaya for trusting us to stay here!” pepper says, chuckling to hint at some future mischief. 

⋆.ೃ࿔*:𓇼⋆.ೃ࿔*:⋆

over the next few days they go around pattaya, filming various activities such as going to the market or going to the pool and splashing around together. on their last night they decide to sneak out after the crew has gone to sleep and explore the beach more. 

the moon was glowing in the sky, giving enough light for them to see without flashlights as they climb through the rocks. as they continue, they stumble upon a cluster of rocks that seems oddly like a doorway. they walk up to the door and see a glowing whirlpool symbol. 

“what the hell is that?” jun says. 

“i have no idea but i think we should head back to the villa, we’ve already been out for a few hours and we have an early morning tomorrow,” pepper, the voice of reason, responds. 

“i’m gonna touch it,” nano, the youngest and voice of chaos, announces. 

“no! don’t-!” pepper exclaims. 

suddenly it’s like the ground disappeared underneath them and they’re all screaming as they fall into the dark and then they splash into water. 

they’re all struggling as they try to stay afloat when they spot someone else on the other side of the pool. 

thame meets his eyes. wow he’s really pretty…wait is that a tail?

before he could say anything the mysterious mermaid vanished into the water and left the five of them in the pool alone. 

once they were finally treading water and not actively drowning, thame says “did you guys see that guy that was just in here?”

“i thought i saw someone but i assumed it was one you guys and i was still panicking,” pepper responds. 

“well i’m pretty sure he was a mermaid or something cause i saw him leave and he had a tail,” thame explains. 

“oh my god what? a mermaid and i didn’t see? i knew there was a legend of mermaids here and i was hoping to see one!” nano whines.

“aw it’s okay little one…wait do you guys feel weird too?” jun asks. 

“now that you mention it it feels like my entire body is…sparkling?” thame mentions. 

“yea me too…wait where’s my shirt?” dylan says. 

their shirts began to magically vanish as their legs began to fuse together and transform into long, shining tails and then everything goes dark.

Chapter Text

⋆.ೃ࿔*:𓇼⋆.ೃ࿔*:⋆

they wake up the next morning on the beach, laying in the dry sand. thame is the first to wake up and then realizes that the sun is already up, meaning they’re very late for their trip back. thame quickly rushes to wake the others up and they run back to the villa. 

when they arrive back at the villa the staff are frantically running around trying to find them.

“you guys have ten minutes to pack your stuff up and come up with an excuse as to where you guys were last night,” one of the staff members sighs, exasperated. 

the boys began packing their stuff. “what the hell happened last night?” jun asks while packing. 

“i honestly don’t know, last thing i remember was falling into that pool,” thame responds. 

pepper sighs, “we can figure that out later for now let’s pack as fast as we can the staff is already pissed.”

“alright, but we have to talk about it on the way back because something about last night feels definitely feels wrong,” says jun. 

they scramble into the car, sand still stuck to their bodies feeling gross from the lack of shower or even washing their face. in the van they’re told they’re heading to their new group home to freshen up. 

⋆.ೃ࿔*:𓇼⋆.ೃ࿔*:⋆

the crew drops them off at their new group house and all the stuff they packed with their parents has been brought over and put into their respective rooms. 

they decide to unpack some of their clothes so they can shower before fully unpacking into their new home together. nano calls the shower first, leaving the other four to try and make a meal with the groceries left by their crew. 

jun is cooking some eggs on the stove when they suddenly hear a thud from the bathroom. pepper, dylan, and thame quickly rush over to the bathroom to check on nano while jun is attempting to turn off the stove, lest he burn the eggs, to follow behind them.

pepper knocks on the door, “you okay in there nano?”

“uh guys, i think you want to come in to see this,” nano responds, sounding slightly worried. 

pepper slowly opens the door to find nano on the ground with a giant fish tail. everyone slowly takes in the sight before all hell breaks loose. 

“what the fuck, like seriously are you guys all seeing this too,” thame chokes out. 

“WHY DO I HAVE A FISH TAIL I WAS JUST TRYING TO SHOWER!!” nano yells out, borderline sobbing. 

pepper, freaking out as well, tries to calm everyone down. “okay so we all agree something happened in that cave last night right?”

“agreed,” dylan finally chimes in. “you guys also saw that other guy in there too right? could’ve sworn he also had a tail like that.” 

“right and if nano also has a tail that means the same thing probably happened to us,” pepper sighs. “we haven’t even debuted yet and we're already dealing with some weird shit.”

to lighten the mood a little, nano lifts himself toward the bath faucet and turns it on. he then gets his hands wet and then begins splashing the others. “time to test that theory!” he squeals. 

one by one the members join him on the ground, their shirts seemingly magically disappearing as their tails appear. 

“okay so part of the magic is making us shirtless apparently,” jun says, flexing his abs slightly.

“now that we’ve figured out that we all apparently became half fish last night, how are we gonna get back to normal?” thame says.

“wait wait i’ve got this trust me i’ve consumed enough h2o in my days to know how we get out of this!” nano exclaims while attempting to maneuver himself to the towel that was sitting on the counter and he begins rubbing his tail with it. 

“i’m not even gonna try to understand what that means,” pepper sighs, “but i’ll trust you for now.”

“thank you p’per! okay so p’thame just grab that towel that’s behind you and start drying your tail off like this,” nano explains. 

thame reaches for the towel and also begins drying himself off while nano does the same. eventually nano’s tail begin’s sparkling and he’s back in his clothes. he hands the towel off to the other members and they begin doing the same, returning to normal. 

they all head back to the kitchen in silence, all thinking over what this means for them and their barely begun idol careers. finally when they reach the kitchen nano pipes up, “guys what do you think this means for us as idols? we can’t touch water without going all fish apparently.” 

pepper sighs, rubbing his hands over his face, “i don’t know, but for now we should probably just make breakfast and then try to figure everything out.”

while jun finished up breakfast in the kitchen with the help of dylan, the other three members began setting the table. they all sat and ate, discussing what they all remembered from that night and figuring out how they’re going to deal with this along with their rising idol careers. 

“well i guess the biggest question is,” dylan starts, “how the flying fuck are we going to shower?”

“hey watch your language dylan,” pepper sighs. “but seriously we can’t just not shower we’re public figures now.”

“i guess we just trial and error all of this,” nano says. “in the show they just go to the ocean for a swim to ‘shower’ which i frankly thought was a little weird but also we don’t have access to a beach here,” he continues, wrinkling his nose a little in disgust. 

⋆.ೃ࿔*:𓇼⋆.ೃ࿔*:⋆

flash forward about a few months. mars is slowly getting into a rhythm where they’re balancing their mermaid side along with their rising idol careers as the begin approaching their debut. 

they eventually figured out the whole showering thing; they can shower and not transform, however by the end of the day they would have to figure out a way to get to a pool to swim a little otherwise they’d all faint as they painfully found out one time (that is a story for another time young reader). they had an agreement with the local pool: they sweet talked the managers to get access to the pool after it closed and fortunately the place didn’t have cameras set up for the pool so their secret was kept safe. 

they also discovered that they have powers, though they can’t use them much outside of the pool. they haven’t been able to figure out why but they come in handy sometimes especially when they need to dry off after swimming.

⋆.ೃ࿔*:𓇼⋆.ೃ࿔*:⋆

po had been working for oner for the past few months, doing various projects involving editing and directing for their many other artists. it was during one of these projects he spotted the boys from the pool that night. oh they’re the new oner group? i have to figure out how to talk to them more to see if they’ve been able to keep the secret.

he was called into pemika’s office one day. he walked in, feeling nervous in the office of the ceo, but then she turned around with a soft smile to comfort him, as if sensing his nervousness. “hello po, we would like to assign an official director for our new group, mars,” pemika stated. “i’ve been looking at your work and you are the perfect fit for this task. from today you will be assigned to get to know the group and plan and produce content for them.”

dang what did i do in my past life to get this luck. “got it, khun pemika,” po responds, keeping his tone even. “what is my first task?”

“the boys will be coming here in a few minutes for you to meet them,” she responds. “you’ll be able to introduce yourself to them and then later you can go and visit their group house to talk with them about content.”

“got it, thank you so much for the opportunity khun pemika,” po said gratefully.

“of course, po. you’ve been working hard for the past few months and it definitely hasn’t gone unnoticed,” she smiles. 

they sit in silence for a few moments before there is a knock on the door. “come on in, mars,” pemika says. 

the five boys po’s been wanting to meet face to face walk into the room. he watches as their eyes meet him and it’s almost comical how their eyes subtly widen in sync in recognition. huh i guess they did see me and they definitely recognize me. “okay guys, this is po, your new content director,” pemika says, gesturing to po. 

the boys are still standing there dumbfounded at meeting the person they saw that night. “hi mars, i’m excited to get to know you guys and begin working to make content for you,” po says, with a small wave.

mars stares for a little longer before thame pipes up, “nice to meet you po, my name is thame and we’re also excited to get to know you.” thame then gestures to the other members, having them introduce themselves one by one. 

“hi! i’m nano!” nano says cheerfully, ever the ball of energy. 

“hello po, i’m pepper,” pepper says calmly, a sharp contrast to nano. 

“hey po i’m excited for you to work closely with you,” jun smirks, obviously flirting. 

“hey i’m dylan,” dylan adds, quietly. 

“okay mars, you can go back to practice while po goes back to work and tonight i’m going to send him over to your group house to talk about content with you guys,” pemika says, dismissing everyone to their own tasks. 

⋆.ೃ࿔*:𓇼⋆.ೃ࿔*:⋆

later in the evening mars meets up with po before their daily swim. before po arrives, they sit down in the living room to discuss. 

“po is definitely the guy from the cave,” nano says. “he was that mermaid we saw.”

“he is, we have to ask him about it,” thame says. 

“we’ve finally found him, and he’s cute for sure,” jun says, smugly.

pepper sighs, “jun, be serious. he’s the only other person we know is a mermaid, maybe he can help us.”

“i guess you’re right,” jun says. 

shortly after, they hear a knock on the door, signaling po’s arrival. thame walks over to the door and opens it and leads po over to the living room where the others are sitting. 

thame sits down, signaling po to sit down as well. “okay po before we begin talking about content we all wanted to ask you something,” he begins. 

“we know you saw us that night in pattaya, and we saw you,” pepper slowly continues. 

“and we want to know if you also have a fish tail,” dylan finishes, bluntly.

“okay that was quick, but yes i’m also a mermaid,” po says, slightly nodding his head. 

“AND YOU’VE BEEN AT ONER THIS WHOLE TIME KNOWING?” nano yells, mildly scaring po. 

“nano calm down,” pepper says, grabbing nano’s shoulder signaling him to cool off. “i assume you’ve also kept it a tight secret like us for however many years you’ve also been one,” pepper says, nodding at po. 

“i was changed as a kid so yeah it’s been a while of keeping it a close secret. i’ve told basically no one except you guys and my best friend baifern,” po says, glancing between the five of them. 

“as much as i would like to continue talking about this, we do have to get actual work done with him here,” thame says. “but after we’re done here would you like to join us at the pool for a swim?”

“that sounds good,” po replies. “alright let’s begin. what kind of presence would you guys like to have with you content?” 

they spend the next few hours around the dining table under the warm light from the lamp above them, discussing content with po. though he seemed a few years older than them, conversation flowed easily as they discussed strategy, with jun and nano cracking jokes throughout to keep the energy very light.

⋆.ೃ࿔*:𓇼⋆.ೃ࿔*:⋆

“so why do you guys come here daily? i don’t normally need to swim daily,” po asks once they arrive at the pool. 

thame, closing and locking the door behind them responds, “we had an incident a while ago where we all fainted after not swimming for a few days so we just decided to try going for a swim daily.” 

“huh? that’s never happened to me before…” po exclaims before trailing off. 

“my running theory is it has something to do with when we don’t transform while showering,” pepper says. “on account for the whole fainting thing along with only having our powers while we’re swimming.”

“oh wow i’ve never been able to figure out how to touch water without transforming, that’s quite interesting,” po says, surprised. “i always just take baths.”

“unfortunately our group house doesn’t have a bathtub, and even then we aren’t granted the luxury of taking our time in the morning with our packed schedules,” thame says, glancing over at po.

they put their bags down before jumping in. jun and nano sprint down before cannonballing into the pool while thame, dylan, and pepper slip in down the stairs. po watches before slowly slipping down the steps as well.

he watches as the mars boys begin playing with the water they’re watching in awe at what they can do. they swirl it around in the air testing freezing it and melting it with their magic. 

“you guys really aren’t used to the powers huh,” he says while swirliing some water up the length of his hand, snaking it down his arm until it reaches his shoulders. 

“we can only really use them here,” dylan says. “even then it somehow feels…wrong in the pool.”

“i’m kinda sad about that i love feeling like a mermaid girl from that show,” nano frowns while creating a ball of water to play with in the air. 

“wait dylan what do you mean it feels wrong?” po questions. 

“you guys feel it too right? something about the chlorine or something just doesn’t feel right, but it works enough so we can swim and recharge in a way,” dylan responds, looking at everyone else. 

“yeah, but it’s what we can do for now while we can’t go for beach trip for a while,” thame sighs. 

“oner might be nicer than most other companies but even they aren’t above making sure we make them plenty of money before we’re granted a vacation,” jun adds. 

“nothing we can do now,” dylan says. 

they spend a few more hours swimming in the chemically soaked water along with playing around sometimes before eventually hopping out and drying off. 

“po do you want to come with us every day?” thame asks as they’re heading out. 

“i don’t know if i’d be able to get much work done, but i can try to join you guys as often as i can,” po replies before holding out his phone. “here add your numbers so i can make a group chat so we can talk easily, especially during work.”

thame was added to the group

pepper was added to the group

dylan was added to the group

jun was added to the group

nano was added to the group

nano changed the group photo 

nano named the group “five little mermaids 🧜🏼‍♀️”

dylan:

really nano?

jun: 

don’t be such a poop dylan

i love it nano ♥️

nano:

i knew SOMEONE would appreciate my genius

luv u too bby 🫶

dylan:

kind of defeats the point of our secret

what if someone snoops on our lock screen 

nano:

oh you're right dylan

hang on

nano changed the group name to "five little NOT mermaids 🧜🏼‍♀️"

nano:

there now no one will know!

dylan:

that does not help

we'll revisit this later

po:

is this how it normally is?

pepper:

oh you have no idea

thame: 

pepper probably doesn’t get paid enough to deal with the chaos that’s nano and jun

pepper:

oi thame don’t act like you’re innocent either you’re just as bad

thame: 

:(

p’per why would you mention it in front of p’po 😭

pepper: 

you were literally crying with jun and nano over our takeout having bell peppers last night

dylan:

and you were sulking the entire time while we ate

thame: 

not you too dylan :(

po:

wait aren’t you guys all in the same room

can't you just talk directly to each other

dylan:

yes

nano: 

yes but this is more fun

you should see thame pouting at his phone right now

[photo]

po:

he really is frowning at you guys exposing him 😭

okay guys it’s getting late i’ll let you all sleep now

good night 🌚

thame:

good night p'po!

nano:

good night p'po!

dylan:

good night, po. 

pepper:

good night, p'po.

hope oner doesn't force you to overwork yourself with our content

jun:

good night, po! 

yeah make sure to stop by or shoot us a text if you want to grab lunch or something 

po:

will do :)

Chapter Text

the next few years are a whirlwind of chaos for both mars and po. mars immediately shoots up into fame right from their debut for both their individual talent as well as their stunning performances as a whole. po is always hard at work making sure their content is the best he can produce and ensuring the boys are always comfortable with whatever they are filming. he shuffles them through various concept shoots like it’s no big deal, giving them both bold and sweet styles in order to showcase that they can pull off any concept. 

they’re also still balancing their other side between all of this as well. overall, it was going well, with the only real hiccup being rare minor accidents in the office with a poor intern not paying attention and po having to sprint to the bathroom to avoid being caught. or in mars' case, someone missing their mouth while trying to drink water and then falling on the ground ten seconds later in the practice room.

one of the hardest days of the year was always songkran. the boys had figured out how they didn’t have to transform every time water touched them, but they learned early on too much of trying to hold it in doesn’t bode well. songkran was their learning experience. while performing on stage and water was being splashed everywhere as they tried their best to avoid as much as they could without drawing too much attention, but they couldn’t be completely dry, much to their discomfort. 

for their first songkran, the second they stepped off the stage they all but sprinted to the pool to swim and shed off the awful feeling. that still didn’t get the feeling away, so they had to take the next few days off and pay the pool managers extra to let them stay the whole day. by the second and third years they planned ahead and took the few days after songkran off to run away to the moon pool in pattaya to rest and recharge. 

let’s have a glimpse of the group chat before the first songkran however…

the five little NOT mermaids 🧜🏼‍♀️

nano: 

P’PO HELP WE JUST HAD THE WORST REALIZATION

P’PO

P’PO

P’PO

po:

nano chill i’m here what’s up

nano:

KSNFAWFIAWJFUAE

AWEFKFIAAEFEAWI

thame:

okay i’m taking over here

songkran is coming up 

and we have a performance as well

and you know how performances go during…

po:

oh shit

well you guys have that mysterious ability to not transform every time you touch water

i still find that so weird by the way that would’ve saved me so much

but anyways

i assume one normal swim session won’t be enough after being soaked all day?

pepper: 

that’s what i was thinking too

maybe we can get the pool for longer

but we barely got the managers to give it to us every night

po:

i’ll handle it

i have a plan involving yapper baifern and some money

if this bribe is a lot i’m going to need some idol money support

pepper:

don’t worry we’ll be happy to help there

we would help you right now but they have us locked up in the recording studio today :/

jun:

if we order food do you think they’ll let us leave for like two seconds to grab it

p’po do you want anything we’re ordering ramen

nano:

hey why aren’t you asking me :( 

dylan:

you’re sitting right next to us nano

we’re literally talking about our orders right now

nano:

it’s different when we text here though 

p’po loves being included in our convos even if he’s not here

right p’po??

po:

yes little pumpkin

nano:

i’m never living the bright orange hair down aren’t i 

jun: 

never carrot head

nano:

HEY

it’s cute when po does it but i’m smacking you for that come here

thame:

nano is literally chasing jun around the studio rn...

[video]

our producer hates us 

po:

😭

you guys are such chaos

jun:

hey we’re just keeping it real 

po:

but anyways guys i’ll handle the bribe tomorrow

bye bye you guys should get back to work

i still have some more stuff to do too

and get me some pork ramen, extra spicy!

jun:

alright will do 🫡

bye!

thame:

byeeee p’po!! 👋

⋆.ೃ࿔*:𓇼⋆.ೃ࿔*:⋆

mars had been going strong for the past four years, their secret staying safe between them, and po. baifern also eventually was looped in, especially when she was their secret eyes on their social media presence. she was able to get all the inside scoop to make sure nobody really caught on. there was a few close calls with threads their fans would make as jokes about their frequent beach trips and if they could possibly be mermaids but overall it’s been smooth. 

the mars support team

baifern:

i’m sorry to bother you guys but i need to come over to the house and show you all something

pepper:

p’baifern what’s wrong? 

jun:

yea baifern what’s happening?

baifern:

there’s this thread on twitter right now

[link] 

i’ve reported it to try to take it down but it’s gaining traction

thame:

shit are those pictures of us in our tails?

AND P’PO??

oh we have to fix this right now

baifern:

that’s why i’m on my way

we need to see the social media reception to this to figure out how to deal with it

baifern rushes to the group house, barely knocking before the door is swung open and she’s rushed inside by jun and thame. the other members are scattered around the living room staring at their phones and tapping intently to get as many posts as they can taken down.

she sits right in the middle of the circle they’ve made. “this is not good, these pictures pretty much get your faces and everything. if we try to deny it, that’s basically admitting the pictures are real. if we ignore it, fans are just going to spiral and realize the truth faster than we think.”

“we can’t tell the truth for sure,” pepper sighs. “how’s getting the original post taken down looking like?”

“i’ve gone through a few of my burner accounts and reported it for fake imagery, i assume you guys have also tried the same thing, but it seems like it keeps coming back,” baifern responds, looking around at the boys. 

“this is more than just our secret being out, our privacy was straight up violated,” dylan huffs, angrily. 

“i agree,” jun says, nodding at dylan. “those pictures were somehow taken at the pool, we make sure there were no windows or anything. that person somehow broke in. this isn’t just our secret getting out this a threat to our safety now.”

“do you think oner will help us handle this? how do we explain it to them?” nano asks. 

thame’s phone suddenly rings. “guys it’s khun pemika, should i answer it?”

“YES!” they all yell in unison. as thame answers it, jun reaches over to hit the speaker button so they can all listen. 

“hello khun pemika, you’re on speaker with the rest of mars,” thame says, trying to keep his tone even. “i assume you’ve seen the pictures of us circulating on social media?” 

“hello thame, hello mars. yes i’ve been told there are some rumors circulating around social media that you guys are,” she pauses for a second before continuing. “mermaids? what’s this all about?” she asks, sounding genuinely perplexed

should we tell her they’re fake? thame mouths. the others hesitantly nod. 

“those pictures are completely fake, i’m assuming ai generated. we were deciding on if we should make an individual statement or wait until we spoke with you guys about an official statement," pepper chimes in. 

“we’ll make the statement for you guys, but these pictures look awfully realistic. our tech team is saying that the references couldn’t have been from any pictures of you on the internet, that they would have to have been taken by the fan themselves when you guys were swimming at the very least” pemika says, worry laced in her tone. “we’re worried for your safety as this stalker behavior is not tolerated. we can try to have some extra security sent to the house to keep you guys safe outside of events.”

“i don’t know if we need that for now, but thank you for the worry,” thame says, thinking about how they would explain the mermaid secret to additional security. “we should be okay this seems like a one-off occurrence.” 

“the statement will be sent tomorrow. as for extra security, i’ll get more at your events to prevent fans from taking pictures when prohibited to prevent any more sasaeng behavior,” pemika says, unable to completely leave mars without any extra safety. 

“thank you so much khun pemika,” jun says. “we’ll rest for now but we’ll be ready to post tomorrow.” 

thame hangs up the phone and before they can breathe for a second baifern quickly turns her phone around. “they keep posting more pictures!” she exclaims, terrified. “i don’t know how far the statement tomorrow will go.”

“this creepy account keeps describing how they’re going to ‘kidnap mars and cut them open to figure out their secrets’ this is so weird now,” she continues, reading from her phone

“this was exactly what we were afraid of if our secret got out early on but now that we’re celebrities, i don’t know what to think,” pepper says, glancing at the other members. “these could just be empty threats but if they’re real, they can’t do anything in public without hundreds of fans seeing.”

“but they’ve also proven that they want to get us when we’re not performing, when we lower our guards slightly to breathe,” dylan adds.

“let’s talk about this more with oner tomorrow,” thame sighs. “come on p’po let’s go to sleep,” he says grabbing po’s hand and going to his room. the others soon follow and baifern leaves to return back to her apartment. 

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oner entertainment would like to formally address the pictures circulating on social media regarding our artists mars along with threats to our artists’ safety. all of the images are completely fake and have been created using photo editing. we will be conducting a thorough investigation with out team to discover the sources of these images as well as continuing our promise of safety being our top concern for mars. continued production and sharing of these falsified pictures as well as continuing to post threats to our artist’s safety will result in major legal action being taken against users. 

all of the members reposted the announcement along with po as well as baifern through the fanbase account. in her post she made sure to leave a message to make sure the lie is fully sealed: “please stop making up these rumors about our boys, you claim to be fans and yet make these fake images and speculate something crazy along with these dangerous threats to their lives. #STANDWITHmars”.

over the next few days they keep close and don’t stray far from each other. they mutually decide to avoid the pool to see if they can shake off the stalkers. they avoid hanging out too much outside of oner and their group home as well. 

“should we talk with khun pemika about moving out of this house? maybe we can find a place that’s more private?” jun proposes, three days into their forced isolation. 

“that’s not a bad idea, but a new place is expensive. do you think they’ll move you guys after all this time?” po asks. 

“it won’t hurt to ask,” thame answers. “it seems like she’s genuinely worried for our safety though so maybe she might help us.”

“do you think we can find a private place with a pool?” nano asks, excitedly. 

“a private pool would be nice,” dylan chimes in. “maybe we can fill it with actual saltwater instead of awful chlorine in the community pool.”

“for now, let’s figure out how to escape to pattaya for this full moon in three days, i think we all need the full moon’s power after these past few days,” po mentions, much to the relief to the other members. "also swimming in the actual ocean would help as well since you guys haven't been to the pool in a while, i assume along with the stress you guys aren't feeling too well."

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Chapter Text

oner grants their request for a new group home. they were even willing to comply with mars’ requests for a place with a private indoor pool, shocking both mars and po. they decided to celebrate their first day in the house with a little pool party, of many more to come now that they didn’t have to worry about sneaking around at night. 

jun and pepper cook in the kitchen while thame and po lounge in chairs by the pool and dylan and nano swim. well dylan was trying to swim peacefully, however with the bright chaos that was nano, peace was never an option. nano kept trying to chase dylan around in the pool to play tag, and dylan kept trying to swim away which only further fueled nano’s playful energy. eventually dylan had enough of this weird tag they were unintentionally playing. 

“ai nano stop!” he exclaims, stopping his swimming to halt nano. 

“you’re no fun p’dylan,” nano pouts, trying to give the biggest kitten eyes to dylan to sway him. “we finally have our own pool i’m just trying to celebrate.” 

suddenly nano has an idea. he uses his powers to gather some water in the air and then sends it splashing at dylan. dylan is silent for a minute, looking at the water and nano like it personally offended him. well what the hell might as well just let loose he thinks before launching a counterattack against nano. 

“p’dylan what the heck! oh it’s on!” nano squeals, and then they’re having a full on splash fight in the pool coupled with some mermaid magic of sneak attacks and slightly frozen water. 

jun and pepper finish up the food and bring it out to set it down. they walk out and see the chaos in the pool. jun is personally shocked that his boyfriend, the grumpy and ever stoic dylan in front of everyone else, is splashing around in the pool and playing with their youngest member, matching his energy. the side of dylan that even he hadn’t seen, and dylan is the softest he ever is whenever he’s alone with jun. he couldn’t help himself before he ran and jumped in, water bubbling around him as his legs transformed into his shimmering blue-green tail, and joins in on dylan and nano playing around. 

pepper, smiling at the lighter mood after the stress of last week for them, slips into the pool as well, making a ball of water before throwing it at nano, laughing at the younger’s startled “hey!”.

thame and po are in their own love bubble by the time the others are in the pool. they’re engaged in deep conversation while the others begin scheming to bully the two lovebirds. nano launches their plan, gathering a swirl of water and slowly snakes it toward the pair. 

before the water gets to them po looks up and before the others can say anything he takes the water and shoots it back at the other four in the pool. they scatter to avoid it, laughing loudly along the way. 

“okay okay we’re coming in too,” po laughs, before grabbing thame’s hand as they join the others in the pool. 

mars and po let loose and just enjoy their new freedom to fully be free in their tails, momentarily forgetting the troubles that await them outside. 

they swim around and play in the pool for about another hour, being able to freely enjoy their powers, mars still never fully getting over having them. 

they decide to enjoy the food that pepper and jun made. they sit around the table on the patio outside of the indoor pool, talking and laughing as they eat. after they’re done eating, cleaning tasks are delegated to the others who didn’t cook while jun and pepper returned to the pool to rest a little longer. 

dylan and nano were on dish duty (not a good idea btw). dylan, wearing massive blue dish gloves that spanned halfway up his arms, is rinsing the dishes while nano, wearing similar gloves in green, is loading up the dishwasher. thame and po, locked up in their lovebird world, are responsible for packing away any leftovers and sweeping up the kitchen. 

as expected, the second the last dish was loaded, nano couldn’t help not bother dylan and causing chaos. he uses the opening before dylan was about to turn the faucet off and uses his powers to splash water on dylan yet again. they fall back into their magical splash fight again until they can’t hold off the transformation anymore and fall to the ground, belly laughing on the way down. 

“if getting into a salt water pool is what we needed to break grumpy dylan out of his shell we would’ve done it so much sooner,” thame says, watching the two mermaids rolling on the ground in laughter and pure joy. 

“now that we basically have 24/7 access to a pool i’m assuming our powers might get a little stronger too,” pepper hypothesizes, ever the thinker. 

“you guys can’t turn invisible right? that's the only power i haven’t seen you all use,” po replies, looking at the five mars members. 

“hang on,” nano says, quietly. “YOU CAN GO INVISIBLE!?” he shouts, startling poor po. 

“yeah, like this,” po says, raising his hand up before curling it into his chest and disappearing. he quickly reappears, as five pairs of eyes widen and five jaws drop in unison. 

“why did we never know you could do that?” jun asks. 

“it never came up i guess,” po shrugs. “how else did you guys think i delt with transforming in the office? bathroom wasn’t exactly empty most of the time.”

“how many accidents even happened while you were working?” thame questions. 

“there is an alarming amount of liquid spilled on people when working in an office,” po says pointedly. “i’ve had some poor interns who run into me while trying to make it to a meeting, but i’ve also been personally attacked by my own water bottle when opening it. you would think by now i could avoid all of this with my powers but no i just have to escape and hide.”

“wow p’po now i see why you’re so jealous of when we don’t transform every time we touch water,” jun says, looking at po. 

“it would at least make my morning routine faster, still have to take a whole bath even if i’m running late,” po says, rolling his eyes. 

“considering this house still doesn’t have a tub, i feel like our swims are about to become a lot more frequent, especially with how they’ve changed grumply dylan,” thame says, smirking over at dylan. 

“say all you want but that chlorine made me feel absolutely disgusting, but also i guess that was really why i was always in a bad mood,” dylan muses. “now i just feel…lighter i guess. more free maybe?”

“aww my baby is finally showing his soft side to everyone else,” jun gushes. 

dylan uses his powers to quickly turn on the tap before splashing some water at jun. “not too soft,” he grumbles. jun, not expecting the surprise attack, flops to the ground transforming into his tail, unable to stop it. he joins dylan and nano who’ve just committed to laying on the floor in their tails while they’ve been talking.

they all eventually decide to transform back and get ready to go to bed. thame heads home with po to po’s apartment while jun, dylan, pepper, and nano decide to head to their new rooms. they had to sacrifice unfortunately had to sacrifice the luxury their own rooms with this new house, so jun and dylan were given one of the rooms while thame, pepper, and nano were in the other room. nano felt this sacrifice the greatest, he had less space to display his ever growing collection of his special shoes, though thame and pepper let their youngest member have most of the space in the room.

Chapter Text

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it was supposed to be a normal day, mars rehearsals during the day and then at night they would have dinner with po at their house and hang out. but, trouble has been quiet since the photo leak from a few months ago so the boys got a little too comfortable and relaxed. 

the night was just settling in, the remnant deep purple of the sunset still present in the sky behind the full moon. mars and po were walking out of the oner building, on their way to back to mars’ group home to spend the full moon together, though not at the moon pool this time. they decide to stop by a noodle stall, tucked away a little further from the building, to grab some food before they head home. 

while they’re walking, they hear some rustling behind them, almost like there’s another group of footsteps behind them. when they turn around to see where the sound is coming from it’s too late and their attackers quickly knock them unconscious using that moment of realization.

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po is the first one to slowly wake up. he groans and tries to move his stiff arms, but can’t. he quickly looks down and sees them strapped down along onto the metal table he’s laying on as well. he tries to sit up a little only to find his chest has been strapped down as well. what the fuck is happening??

“thame?” he calls out, trying to lift his head slightly, neck stiff from being on the metal table for an unknown amount of time. “what’s going on?” he asks, voice full of fear. 

he hears some groaning around the room and realizes that the other mars members are also strapped to tables around the room. 

they all realized they were trapped in a dark, cold room. the air smelled mildly of mold while the ceiling was clear and there was a window on one of the walls. they all tried shouting for help when they finally fully took in their surroundings to no avail. instead, through the window, a woman complete in a lab coat appeared, with a wicked grin on their face. behind the figure, a few people in lab coats also appeared, looking coldly at the boys. 

“we had to see for ourselves if the star idols and their precious director were really hiding a secret,” the woman said, smirking evilly. 

“what do you guys want with us?” thame shoots back, angrily. 

“it’s simple," she says, with a hint of giddiness in her tone, “either you guys just tell us what you’re hiding and then we’ll cut into you guys or we’ll just cut into you guys, no talking at all. your choice”

“what could we possibly be hiding? we’re idols; our whole lives are public,” jun scoffs. 

“oh don’t worry i think i can figure it out soon enough,” the scientist responds, before giving a slight nod to a dark corner of the room. 

within seconds the boys were doused with water from people hidden in the shadows, unable to stop themselves from transforming. “huh mermaids? well now what would your precious fans say about that? hiding such a huge secret?” she says, walking into the room, with the posse of other scientists behind her. 

they begin laying our their tools to begin their work. while mars and po are thrashing against the restraints to try to get their arms free to use their powers, they all approach their bodies with needles and scalpels, ready to take samples of whatever they need to study these magical stars. 

“you guys take a lot of beach trips for an idol group, i wonder if your company knows that you’re just hiding a big problem for them to deal with,” the woman says. 

she talks a lot, are all of these other people fucking mute or something? dylan thinks, still fighting against the restraints and the scientist currently trying to take a sample of his blood. “touch me and you’ll regret it,” he growls, startling the guy but he quickly recovers and continues his efforts. 

“sedate them! if they’re going to be too much trouble might as well knock them out while we do our work,” the lady they assume is the leader calls out.

before they can get the needles into their arms, wind suddenly rushes through the room, blowing the scientists away from mars and po. the full moon is high in the sky, shining through the clear ceiling. mars suddenly breaks free from their restraints, transformed back into their legs, their gazes as they look at the scientists scattered around the room blank but angry, in a full moon charged trance. po watches the five of them standing stiffly as clouds begin to form in the sky, covering the full moon. thame walks over and releases po as well, eyes still blank as he works on the restraints. 

thame walks back over to the others and before po can gather some water to use his powers, thame, pepper, and nano raise their hands up and the wind picks back up again inside the lab, this time sending the scientists right through the window they walked out from behind. dylan raises his hand up and lightning shatters through the glass ceiling before jun raises his hand and another strike of lightning hits, this time striking right in front of the cowering scientists. 

the wind picks up the sharp tools and glass scattered along the floor and swirls them around the scientists. po, not under the same trance mars is in, watches in fear as the wind storm attacks the scientists before they all crumple to the ground. mars looks back at po before saying, “let’s go back home, po”. po follows, recognizing the signs of a full moon trance that he also experienced back when he first got his powers, though he doesn’t remember his being this…destructive. 

po tries to break them out of the trance a few times before giving up, deciding it was better they didn’t know exactly what they just did. they find their phones and exit the building. before they walk away, jun and dylan summon more lightning to catch parts of the building on fire. 

they walk home in silence, mars still in their full moon hypnosis state while po realizes he can’t converse with them while they’re like this. when they finally step through the front door of their house, mars collapses, leaving po sighing in the middle. 

i’m going to have to explain to these boys how they killed those people tonight…

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mars wakes up, groaning again, but this time they’re all piled on the floor at their front door. thame looks up and sees po already in the kitchen, making breakfast. “p’po! what happened why are we on the floor?” he asks, slowly stretching and standing up. 

thame walks over to po who’s working away in the kitchen. he reaches his hand up to touch po’s face but before he can the front door bursts open and a sudden gust of wind flies through, scattering the papers on the table and ruffling everyone’s hair, including po’s. 

he looks down at his hand and quickly retracts it, causing the wind to stop. “did i just do that?” he says, his eyes widening. 

by now all of the other mars members are up and standing around the kitchen and around po. “the last thing i remember is those scientists trying to sedate us,” dylan explains. “how did we get home?”

po pauses for a few seconds before sighing. “i’ll just show you,” he says, grabbing the remote to turn on the news. 

an illegal laboratory was found on fire last night on the outskirts of the city. there were no witnesses nearby, the fire only being discovered by a drunk passerby late in the night. firefighters have contained the fire and are currently determining the cause of the fire, though preliminary investigation shows the lab was trashed by a mysterious windstorm and there are various burn marks from lightning scattered throughout the building. the bodies of eight people were found, covered in cuts, no information on their identities as of right now. this is channel seven with your news and stay tuned for more updates on this ongoing investigation.

realization slowly dawns in pepper’s eyes. “did we do that p’po?” pepper asks softly, though he already had a feeling of what po was going to say. 

po nods. “yes, you guys fell under the full moon’s hypnotic powers for the first time and attacked the scientists and destroyed the lab. it seems like you guys got new powers from that as well.”

“before you guys say anything, just remember it wasn’t you attacking those scientists; the full moon put you guys under it’s influence and you guys were forced to attack because those people had us strapped down to the table,” po explains. 

“OH MY GOD WE KILLED PEOPLE WE’RE MURDERERS!!” nano cries out. 

“oi nano! not so loud we kinda fainted after a freaky moon spell last night i don’t know about you guys but i’m dizzy as hell right now,” dylan says. 

“nano’s right though, we actually killed people last night,” jun says, looking down at his hands. “and we don’t remember a single thing.” 

“those people were trying to cut us open and were probably going to kill us first! we can’t think too much about it now,” dylan cuts in, looking at jun. 

“i know babe but…” he trails off, reaching his hand out to grab dylan’s arm. before he can touch his arm, there’s suddenly a loud boom of thunder and there’s a crack of lightning across the sky. 

“what the hell? there’s no clouds outside how is there a thunderstorm?” dylan says, looking out of the window.

“that’s yours and dylan’s new power, lightning, i guess,” po explains. “thame, pepper, and nano controlled the windstorm last night while you and dylan were causing the lightning strikes.” 

“what the…” dylan starts. “why can’t we control these like our other powers? they’re surging so randomly…”

“you guys aren’t the only ones with fun new powers,” po says flatly before reaching his hand toward an empty cup on the table. it pushes away from his hand, not letting him grab it. 

he looks back up at mars. “turns out now i can move things other than water i guess. i was doing some googling and found some weird looking website that mentioned the kind of full moon we had yesterday is some sort of special ones for mermaids. the magic of this one specifically is like a booster shot for mermaids, especially those on land. i don’t know how true that sketchy website was but it sounds kind of true.” 

“po how are you so calm right now i’m still freaking out right now and…” nano says, starting to pace around the room and lift his hands up to convey his apprehension at the moment. at the raise of his hands, wind starts to gust into the room, blowing some of the post-it’s they had stuck to the whiteboard off and they start swirling around him. 

“hey nano, it’s okay, it’s gonna be okay,” po says, approaching nano and grabbing his shoulders to try and calm him down. “okay deep breaths let’s go, in two three, and out two three…” he repeats this a few times before nano finally calms down, stopping the random mini tornado he was causing inside the house. 

“but to answer your question, i’ve experienced the trance before and i did something to some people that i don’t remember,” po explains. “baifern was with me and she remembers how intensely aggressive i was in that state, so different from how i normally am. she doesn’t bring it up much but i know i scared her a lot that day.”

“did you kill someone? because i feel like we’re on a whole different level of how bad this was if you didn’t kill someone,” nano shoots back. 

po lets out a long, deep sigh before responding. “yes i did kill someone and i severely injured some other people as well. the scariest part was not remembering a single moment of it happening, just waking up at home. thankfully baifern was with me and she made sure i got home safely otherwise i don’t even want to know what else i would’ve done in that trance,” he shudders at the thought.

“should we tell oner that we need a break? i think we all need some time to calm down and recover from that,” pepper says, looking around at his other members and po. “even if we don’t remember it we still were fucking kidnapped i definitely need some downtime after that.” 

“agreed, me and p’per will go to oner try and figure out how to get some time off, in the meantime jun, dylan, nano, and p’po, you guys can stay home and try to calm down a little, especially you, nano,” thame strategizes. 

“i’m coming with you guys,” po says, walking up to join pepper and thame who are standing together. 

with that thame, pepper, and po walked off oner while jun, dylan, and nano stayed at home, forced to be alone with their swirling emotions of whatever happened last night. 

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oner entertainment would like to announce that our artists mars will be taking a short break from any idol related activities. all of the members have mutually agreed to part ways for a few months for their own personal reasons. we ask that everyone respect the privacy of our artists during this time, and we wish mars well on this hiatus. 

after some major convincing and full bullshitting from pepper and thame, they were finally able to convince oner to grant them the time off. 

with this time off, mars and po head off to aqua villas pattaya, where the mermaid adventure all began, to rest and fully understand all of their new powers.