She's born in a coastal city, to star-crossed lovers, but that's where it stops sounding like a fairy tale. Her mother's family had other plans for their daughter, and while abortion was out of the question, they weren't above sending the infant away, along with her father as soon as she was born. She doesn't know much of the details, it was a sore subject for her father, and his happiness trumped her suffocating curiosity. She stopped asking the day her questions brought him to a tearful rage. She was five.

She grows up in another town, further up the coast and enjoys a safe life with her father, who works on the ocean, bringing up crabs and other shellfish. They don't speak much to each other, both of them finding it hard to come up with pleasantries and small talk. The one thing the small girl wants to talk about more than anything is off limits, so their conversations run a little on the shallow side, but they love each other dearly.

In school, she isn't much good at anything - often sentenced to extra work just so she can keep up with the other kids. This means longer days at school and less time skirting around topics with her father, so it works, even though she misses dinner with him most days. Fridays, her teachers are more lenient and she's home from school around 5 pm instead of 7, depending on the bus. It's nice. She likes fridays.

Not much changes in her life, until that one fateful day. She's turning 19 and her father has decided to (aka finally caved in and) let her celebrate her birthday with some friends. She's been raised by the sea, she knows how dangerous it can be, she's heard all her father's tales - she's been out on the ocean with him more times than she can count and she trusts the waves and the weather. She's not the most gifted swimmer, she's never needed to be, because she's always played it safe out on the water. Why would tonight be different?

She and a handful of friends rent a boat, pack their bags and prepare for a night out to sea, a night to remember. The breeze is gentle, the sky is darkening, but showing off with a blanket of stars and the brightest moon Hweji has ever seen. Their party is beautiful, they sing all the songs they know, they dance and joke, and label themselves rebels as they raise their glasses to the sky and drink. Hweji is so careful, gently and subtly mothering her friends into not going overboard with the drinking, inappropriate and ironic pun not intended. They baby her and make promises they have no intentions to keep, and while a part of her is worried, she yields and takes no action.

The magic of the evening takes a blow as a dumb, derivative game of chicken goes horribly awry. Jonghwan goes overboard and the group of friends stare and shout in horror. Attempts to throw a rope at him fails and Hweji comes to a realisation. She's had the least to drink, so it's up to her. She pries off her shoes and looks into the dark, shining water. She takes a deep breath, hesitates, then jumps in and the impact alone knocks the breath from her lungs. Her chest instantly hurts and she struggles to stay afloat while she's simultaneously looking for Jonghwan. Whenever her head comes above water, she can hear the faint cries of her friends, shouting for her with direction to go but she is dizzy and can't see Jonghwan anywhere. She attempts to swim off to her left, which is the direction she keeps hearing and after a few exhausting strokes, she feels her arm hit another arm. It's Jonghwan and she grabs onto him and tries to locate the boat. She can hear their friends calling, and she tries to swim back while holding onto her friend but he's an even worse swimmer.

She feels sick as the sea water imposes itself on her and she tries to spit it out, but it's no good. Stubbornly holding on to her friend, she feels something against her arm. It's the rope her friends cast out before and she gives it to Jonghwan, telling him to hold on to it, no matter that. She calls out a few times, for their friends, and she can hear them respond in the distance but she can't see them. Her body is tiring fast and it feels like weights are pulling her down. She calls for Jonghwan, but a wave silences her and she sinks, struggling to resurface. She calls out again when she thinks she's above water, but instead takes in water again. Then, she feels the strangest sensation of panic, but it's warm. She's no longer fighting against a wet darkness, but everything is soft and warm and even though she struggles to breathe, she feels a lightheadedness that isn't entirely unpleasant.

When she wakes up, she's not sure where she is. The room is bright and the noise outside the window sounds foreign. Eventually, a nurse comes in and looks happy to see the girl is awake.

She doesn't know how she got there, and her skin feels itchy, but the following day, the nurse turns on the television in the room and the news is on. A girl has gone missing at sea, and they fear the worst since no body has been recovered. The news anchor goes on, the story told from witness accounts, her friends point of view. Jonghwan survived. Hweji smiles. Suddenly, she finds herself gasping. She tries to regain control of her breathing but it's like the air does nothing. The monitors beside her start to go off and the nurse comes running in. She calls for more help but nobody can figure out what is happening to Hweji and it's only by accident that another nurse knocks over a bottle of water that stood on the bedside table and her vitals normalise, briefly. They decide to put her on a saline drip and keep bottles of water near her.

A few days go by and finally news has reached her father that a girl found at sea is recuperating at a hospital a few towns over. He finds her and they embrace tearfully. He has brought with him cards and flowers and messages from her friends and for a few moments, everything seems back to normal - except they aren't. Hweji has news to share with her father.

She pours some water in her palm and already, her skin breaks into shining scales, but it doesn't stop there. She rubs the water onto the coloumn of her neck and her father nearly falls off the chair when he sees his daughter's skin rip open. He shouts for a nurse and Hweji tries to calm him down, explaining that it's not dangerous, it's just gills, but her father is going into a panic and she watches him sadly, resigned.

After she was discharged, she chose to not return to Gunsan, and she left Gimje, headed for Seoul. Stepping off the bus with nothing but a simple denim bag and a few thousand won to her name, she takes a long sip of water and looks at the map and pamphlet in her hands.

She came to a place where there were others like her, and she decided to start anew - and changed her legal name from Do Hweji to Do Jihae. With the help from the people at Safe Havens, she's managed to find a little bit of normalcy, though she wrestles with daily bouts of guilt for not feeling as homesick as she feels she should. The feeling that she might accidentally allow herself to feel happy here, and belong somewhere makes her feel incredibly ungrateful and she struggles with letting herself enjoy her new life here. The staff helped her get a job at the COEX Aquarium, as school would be out of the question for the time being. She would like to get a degree at some point, when she's fully settled, and has better control over her mutation.

On the Safe Haven grounds, she's been granted housing with a custom indoor salt-water pool, as salt water has the best conditions for her skin. Fresh water or chlorine water is all right, but not for more than a few hours, tops.