They say you never know what life has in store, but the man believed his life was a little more extraordinary than most. Shipwreck, deserted island, being stranded at sea. Just those three alone made for a pretty compelling case, didn’t they.

But this ordeal at sea was finally over. The man could no longer hold on, and he threw himself into the rolling waves.

“Why did you come back?”

‘Because I thought you were actually going to die.’

And he got rescued. For the third time, by the same person.

Her face, made even more beautiful by the brush with death, radiated light even through the pouring rain. The man kept wiping the rainwater streaming down his face as he looked at her.

“What would you have done if I actually died?”

‘Who knows. Then I guess……’

She had been deep in thought, and she tilted her head.

‘I would have just left you?’

“Sorry, but I’m not a wizard who can peer into your subconscious.”

‘Either way, you can’t die yet.’

“So when can I die, then. When you give me permission?”

‘Yes.’

Yes? The man stared at her in disbelief, and she said it with complete confidence.

‘Honestly, I think I have the right. I saved your life, twice. Oh.’

She stopped mid-sentence and pressed her lips against his, then smiled faintly.

‘Three times now.’

“……”

‘Don’t die. I still don’t want you to die.’

So, as she said before, she would prefer he ask for permission first, that voice, pleasant to hear even when it scolded, drifted through his mind.

He muttered a curse under his breath. The inside of his skull felt like it was tingling. That maddening sensation traveled straight down.

‘Looks like the rain is letting up.’

Meanwhile, the rain was clearing. The fierce downpour gradually thinned to a drizzle. The man followed her gaze up to the sky and wrestled with his thoughts. Which word best described him right now, b*stard or pervert. Or maybe clueless idiot, lecher, or brainless fool would work too.

After much deliberation, he happily accepted all of them.

Here he was, barely clinging to life one moment, and now a lecher and a b*stard who could get hard underwater from just a few kisses. A pervert who got aroused by a half-human, half-creature, a brainless fool.

‘Let’s go up now. I can clean you up, but I can’t dry you off.’

No, not right now. He shook his head at the increasingly troublesome situation below, and she gave him a look that said she had no idea what was going on.

‘You like being wet?’

“Don’t say it like that.”

‘You like feeling damp?’

D*mn it. He had a hard time hearing such simple, blunt words. He bent down with the intention of diving under to cool himself off, just a moment, and then he froze mid-crouch.

‘But why does your thigh look like that?’

A small hand touched him just above his groin, which shifted around depending on his mood but usually settled to the left.

‘Why is it swollen?’

Her fingers drifted over him, already at full attention. Her curious, probing touch made him swell up, completely helpless, like she had found something fascinating to examine.

To be honest, he had expected a moment like this would come someday. A breathtaking beauty wandering around with her upper half, which looked entirely human, on full display, and it would have been a lie to say he had never had a single impure thought. There had been countless moments when he could have gotten hard.

It was only the will to survive that the unusual circumstances had stirred up, her unconventional and far-from-ordinary attitude, and his above-average reason that had delayed any unfortunate developments as long as possible.

But he could no longer hide it.

Now that she acknowledged it, his member swelled even more proudly. The heat that had gathered in his lower abdomen coiled into a tight, eager knot. The man silently chewed on a crude curse and first removed her hand from his thigh.

“Men can get like this when their life is on the line.”

‘Your p*nis gets hard when you think you’re going to die?’

Those two eyes, holding a spectrum of colors, blinked. Beyond her slightly tilted head, her raised fin caught the light and shimmered.

It seemed like this was not going to be easy to get past.

The man, Zikrat, stared at the mermaid swishing her tail above the water’s surface and let out a low, troubled groan.