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It would be the second of November, a cold day, the autumn wind would embrace the lands with a vice-like grip that would only tighten with time, and the sun would rise just enough to kiss the horizon and color the skies shades of faded pink and orange. Soft stripes of light would filter through the mountains and trees and light the village with a pale yellow glow that had only ever hovered near at the break of dawn when only the birds were awake. The clock would strike four in the morning, and Park Woojin would be brought into the world with a kick, and he would squeal into the quiet morning air with a vigor that would make his mother chuckle and his father shine with pride.
The town’s midwife would lift him into his father’s arms and exclaim a happy, “It’s a boy!”, and from that moment on, the villagers would murmur and nod and say Woojin would grow up to be a great ship captain like his father.
The autumn air would drop and winter would come around harsher than ever, and time would drag on until it’d make way for the rise of spring, and the elders would continue to murmur that he’d been brought into the world to sail the seas, and Woojin would hear it so often that he too, would grow to believe it.
Years would pass, and Woojin’s mother’s middle would begin to protrude, and little Woojin would notice it one day, and he’d cry and run to the town clinic in a panic and shriek of a monster growing inside of his mother’s stomach. It would take a roll of sugar candy and a bout of sweet talking on his mother’s part to coax the young boy out from under the old physician’s desk.
Months would pass and Woojin’s mother’s stomach would return to normal, but then there would be a screaming infant in their home, and little Woojin would shriek again and tell his father to get rid of it, to throw it into the ocean and let the fish take care of it.
(It never does get disposed of).
Like before, time would pull Woojin along and he’d let it, blundering after it like he would follow his mother at the day market, one hand on the back of her skirt and another poking at the treats lined along the vendor displays, and soon enough, Woojin would learn to accept it as his little sister. Woojin would come to know it as Yerim, an eternal friend who was fated to be beside him for as long as they both may walk this earth.
Yerim would grow to be a ball of fiery energy that would rival Woojin himself. Her laughter and shrill voice would bounce off the walls of their cabin, and though better than silence, Woojin would grow irritated and slap her upside the head to get her to quiet down. But Yerim would only grow louder, and at times, Woojin would wonder out loud where the stork had found her; a wild thing, she was.
The world would continue to spin on its axis, and we would come to the peak of it all: the here and now.
⎈
Woojin is twenty years old.
Yerim is years younger.
It’s odd though, Woojin thinks, how at times, Yerim seems so much older than him.
Yerim is still an uncontrollable force, a ball of pure energy, that is true, and Woojin reckons it’ll always remain true, but she’s mature, wise beyond her years. It comes to Woojin’s attention when he finds himself seeking her out for advice, for guidance regarding things she shouldn’t understand yet. She’s just a kid, after all, and kids know nothing.
That’s wrong though, Woojin thinks. Yerim is a kid, and she knows lots of things.
She’s got a good eye for detail. Yerim can point out the constellations, and not only that, but she knows their respective stories and thousand year old legends like the back of her hand. Woojin thinks she may even know more about the stars than their father.
It’s on a humid summer evening that Woojin takes Yerim out to the forest. It’s the safe part just along the edge of the towering evergreens, an open field where the wild boars don’t wander into.
The two siblings lay side by side with an old linen cloth under them. Woojin claims it’s so the mud doesn’t stain his trousers, but they both know it’s more so to protect Yerim’s sensitive skin from the scratchy twigs and leaves.
It’s quiet now at this time, the village gone quiet as town shops and vendors close, men returning home from a long day of work, mothers tending to their families, children off the streets.
The two are quiet for some time, basking in the calm ambiance of the night until Yerim grows tired of the silence.
“Have you heard of the sirens?” Yerim asks, and she’s speaking to Woojin, but her gaze is locked on the night sky above. Her eyes flicker about, no doubt tracing each and every constellation known to her.
Woojin folds an arm behind his head and stretches the other for Yerim to use as a pillow. He whistles a tune, one their father taught him long ago, before Yerim was born. He scoffs, “Sirens?”
Yerim nods, and her hair tickles Woojin’s forearm. “Yeah.”
Woojin stares up at the moon, the ball of light hanging over them like a lantern, and he grunts, “Mermaids?”
Yerim clucks her tongue, and Woojin snickers when he realizes just how similar Yerim and their mother are. Yerim looks over at him, wide eyes narrowed to glare at him. “I said sirens, idiot.”
“I know what you said, brat.” Woojin rolls his eyes, lips pursing in thought. “No. I don’t what those are.”
“Do you live your life with your ears closed?” Yerim muses, lips drawn into a grimace that almost makes her look offended, voice tilted into that judgmental tone of hers. “How is it possible to be so ignorant at your age?”
Woojin tsks at the insult, and he pokes at Yerim’s temple. “So mean to your favorite brother.”
“You’re my only brother.”
Woojin laughs, and he nods. Yerim was always one to turn his words against him. “You got me there, Rim. Now tell me about the pretty mermaids.”
“They’re sirens, Wooj.” Yerim sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose, and the sight of a child looking so resigned makes Woojin cackle. “Get cozy, big brother. I’m going to tell you all about them.”
⎈
“The sirens don’t have a home. They swim through the seas like lost souls, forever wandering.”
⎈
Woojin’s fascination with water began when he was four years old.
His first memory is of his mother bathing him on a hot summer day. Woojin doesn’t know how he knows it was hot and a summer day, but he would swear on his life that it was.
Since birth, his mother used a big wooden basin to bathe him in, and if Woojin looks hard enough, he’s sure he could find it in the small shed behind their cabin.
Details aside, his mother would pour scalding water into the basin, and Woojin would sit beside it in nothing but his trousers while it cooled to a comfortable lukewarm. He would watch the steam rise from the water, and he would softly wave it away until it faded into thin air.
It fascinated him, the many shapes of water; ice, snow, the roaring current of the river, the trickle of stray droplets down the window pane, the rolling waves of the ocean.
While Woojin long aged out of being bathed, he never did lose that fascination. It stayed with him over the years along with a wanderlust that refused to fade no matter how many stories of tragedy and danger his father told him of. Woojin’s father had certainly seen many things on his travels; things that no one should ever bear witness to, but Woojin also knows that his father has seen wonderful, beautiful things.
Woojin decides he’d rather see the world for what it truly is, beautiful like in Woojin's fantasies or ugly in its truth, just once, even if it is his first and last time.
Woojin’s father looks to understand that fact too, for he finally allows Woojin to accompany him on a voyage.
A journey to the south.
⎈
“Cunning creatures, they are. As clever as they are beautiful. Some say they can move the oceans to their will, that it is the sirens who move the waves and paint the sky gray.“
⎈
Woojin is alone out on the deck. His father is still in his quarters and the others are bustling about the ship, making routine checks to assure all is in order.
It is only mid day, but the skies are colored gray, and Woojin stretches his sore limbs as he listens for the booming roll of thunder.
The loud cracks of thunder resonate through the sky, and without an end or a beginning, the thunder fades into oblivion.
Woojin waits for minutes, but he hears nothing.
It’s silent.
The calm before the storm.
The clouds are dark, darker than any Woojin has ever seen, and it unnerves him. Woojin’s palms grow damp with sweat and his eyes flicker about, from the daunting clouds to the rolling waves, to calculate just how much time they have until mother nature exerts her prowess over them.
⎈
“It’s a bad omen, you know, in the forthcoming of a storm, for a single seagull to perch atop the sails.”
⎈
“A bad omen... ” Woojin thinks over Yerim’s words, mumbling to himself as he stares up at the clouds.
Woojin scoffs, and he nearly scolds himself for believing his younger sister’s stories for even a moment. Yerim has always been one for the theatrics, and Woojin has always been susceptible to his younger sister’s extravagant tales.
Meaning to return to his quarters, Woojin huffs, and he contemplates delivering the warning of a storm to his father when he hears a high pitched squawk that stops him in his tracks.
The world grows still, dead silent as if allowing Woojin the absolute agony of connecting the dots on his own time in peace.
What he feels though, is the opposite of serenity. Dread making a cozy home within him, Woojin tenses, shoulders rigid and jaw locked tight enough to make his teeth ache.
Woojin looks up at the sails.
He’s not sure what he had expected, but Woojin does know that he had hoped for a pelican, a crow, for crying out loud, a rooster would have sufficed, anything but a damn seagull.
But alas, the world had conspired against him, and Yerim’s voice takes a dark turn as it replays in his mind.
A lone gull peers down at him; head cocked to the side and beady eyes staring back at his.
It’s almost as though it is challenging him, mocking him.
⎈
Woojin straightens, “What does it mean? The omen.”
“It means they are coming. ”
⎈
Woojin blames the cool ocean breeze for the shiver that racks up his spine.
The gull joins the motions of the wind, haughty in its take off, and Woojin scoffs.
All the tension leaves Woojin’s body as he watches the bird become a mere dot in the distance. He had grown anxious over nothing, and hot warmth prickles at his cheeks and colors it red, embarrassed at how he had overreacted.
It’s just a coincidence if anything.
Seagulls are common, as common as the salt in the ocean, and it’s not rare for one to rest its wings on a passing ship.
Woojin shakes his head to dispel any further thoughts, and he moves to make his way to his father’s quarters before the storm can draw nearer.
⎈
Woojin arches a brow, “Coming to do what?”
“To create chaos. Sirens love destruction. A shipwreck is just that.”
⎈
Woojin doesn’t know how long it had taken him to warn his father of the oncoming storm; or how long it had taken for the storm to actually come; or how long it had taken for the storm to rain down on them like Heaven itself wanted to collapse onto Earth.
It happened like the sunrise, teasing ever so slowly behind the horizon, inch by inch at the pace of a snail, and yet, it almost felt like it had always been there, too quick for the eyes to catch and for the mind to comprehend.
The storm had crept up on them and pounced before they could even tighten the sails.
The sky looked near black, the color of ashes, or at least that’s what Woojin could make out through the torrent of fat water droplets. The wind howled like the wolves outside the village, and for a brief moment in time, Woojin had brought himself to believe that the wind was singing a song for them, singing them to a deep sleep, singing them to an eternal rest in the soft soil of the earth.
Wind and rain whipped at Woojin’s skin like a hundred piercing needles and his clothes clung to him like second skin. He was drenched and shivering, and the cold was sinking into his bones, but his first instinct wasn’t to seek warmth or shelter from the rain—it was to survive.
Woojin had heard stories upon stories of shipwrecks and sailors stranded at sea, and a kind of determination filled his heart as they rose from his memories and wandered through his mind; a will to be the one tale that didn’t end in tragedy, a desire to be the one to tell his own story.
Shoving past the panicked ship crew, Woojin made a beeline for the bridge of the ship, rushing with urgency when his father came into view.
Woojin shouted over the deafening noise of the rain and booming thunder, eyes frantic as he locks stares with his father, waving his hands. “Father! What are we going to do!?”
After glancing at him once, Woojin's father’s eyes remained on the sea, knuckles gone white as he grips at the stained oak of the ship’s wheel. “I’m going to man this ship. You, Woojin ah, my brave son. You are going to jump.”
Woojin’s lips part, brows drawn together in confusion. He has to shout over the booming of thunder and the rapid thud of rain, “Me? What? Father, what are you saying?”
For a split second in time, Woojin’s father looks over at him, and when their eyes lock, they share a look that Woojin will never forget, a snapshot of time that will brand itself into the side of Woojin's mind for an eternity. Woojin’s father looks back out over the ocean. “This boat is going to sink, and I will go down with it. You are going to live. You are going to go back home to your mother and Yerim. Do you understand me?”
Woojin’s face is wet, but he doesn’t know if it’s from the rain or from his tears. With an urgency of a falling comet, for the first time in his life, Woojin says: "I love you, Father."
"I love you too, my son." Woojin's father, who looks so much older under the pouring rain, wisdom in his eyes, smile lines sharing his years of youth, holds Woojin's face for a moment, rough thumb wiping away his tears, and smiles. "Pass your mother and sister my love, and take care of them."
With one sweeping glance at the angry clouds and the roaring waves, Woojin nods and moves toward the edge of the deck, looking over the railing to stare directly at the water below.
Woojin doesn’t look back.
It’s easier this way.
He jumps.
Woojin is floating, suspended in the air for a moment that stretches on for a millennium, and he stretches his arms like a bird ready for flight.
It’s almost like he’s falling from the clouds, falling from Heaven.
The water breaks, and it splashes, and with the hold of the Devil, it takes Woojin under.
For minutes, or seconds, or a moment, all Woojin knows is cold.
It’s cold.
It’s so, so cold.
Woojin swims to the surface, and he looks on at the scene from a tragedy, completely soulless as the heavens force him to watch as his father’s ship crash into something below the water—an iceberg maybe—, to watch as the unconquerable body of oak and iron is picked apart by the rough waters, to watch as desperate cries are shouted into the air, to watch as shipmates jump from the deck, to watch as the sails vanish beneath the waves and with them, his father.
The waves pluck him from the scene long before he can watch the water smooth, before he can watch the clouds recede.
It’s so cold.
You are going to live.
I will live.
You are going to go back home to your mother and Yerim.
I will go back home.
Woojin forces his eyes open.
Do you understand me?
I do, Father.
Woojin kicks at the water.
It’s so cold.
I’m kind of tired, Father.
The water holds Woojin down, his legs are like deadweights and his arms don’t have the strength to fight the water.
I will rest for just a moment.
And then.
Woojin’s lungs burn.
He can’t breathe.
Woojin's eyes fall closed.
And then I will live.
Woojin lets the rolling waves take him with them, lets them drag him under, lets them hold him captive.
⎈
“The sirens lure the sailors in with their songs.”
Woojin snorts, “Songs?”
“Not so much song.” Yerim cocks her head to the side, a thoughtful look on her young face. “A calling.”
“What does it sound like?”
“The strings of a harp, the tinkle of a piano, the whistle of the wind, who knows. Those who hear it don’t live long enough to tell the tale.”
⎈
A song.
Slips in and out of consciousness, moments of nothing.
Woojin can hear a song.
There aren’t words to the song, none that Woojin understands, but it’s a song, he knows it is. It has loops and crescendos, and a melody, and it makes its way into his mind.
It’s hard to describe the song in words, but it’s nice.
It reminds Woojin of the sea.
It reminds Woojin of water.
It reminds Woojin of life.
Woojin tears his eyes open.
It’s cold.
He’s still floating, still sinking, taken by the waves, like Odysseus by Calypso.
It’s faint now, but Woojin can hear the song if he strains his senses.
It teases him, seducing him into a trap, like a coy woman curling her dainty finger at a man she found worthy of her attention.
Woojin follows the luring of song like a fish baited by a hook, he kicks his legs and beats his arms.
There’s movement beside him; a ripple of water, a shadow.
Woojin looks over just as the shadow moves again out of sight.
There it is again.
He spots a tail, a fish tail.
For a moment Woojin thinks it’s a shark, or maybe a big tuna, but then he spots a hand, a human hand, or at least what resembles one; five elegant fingers.
Woojin pales.
No human could possibly be near him.
The shadow, the creature appears before him then.
Woojin opens his mouth to scream, but he doesn’t last long enough to even choke on the water filling his lungs.
It’s cold.
It’s dark.
Woojin blacks out.
⎈
“Sirens don’t talk either.” Yerim adds as an afterthought.
Woojin grimaces. “Why?”
Yerim whistles in thought, the same looping melody that defined Woojin's childhood. “They don’t have to.”
⎈
It’s cold.
Woojin startles, sucking in a choked breath when he rises. Woojin leans over and he heaves the water from his lungs, coughing and spluttering until bile begins to mix with the saltwater and his throat burns from the acidity.
He breathes in mouthfuls of air once he’s done dry heaving and curling into himself from the pain of his insides constricting. Woojin lets his eyes fall closed again, body and mind exhausted all the same.
Woojin shivers when a draft of wind blows near and he hugs himself to preserve warmth, movements stiff and mechanical as if his body had gone on auto pilot, doing all it can to save itself while his mind wanders elsewhere.
A shadow looms over, blocking the sun from reaching Woojin’s cold skin, and Woojin’s brows draw together, annoyed at the sudden disturbance.
It takes a moment for Woojin to process what the disturbance actually means, and it takes another moment for Woojin to pry open his eyes, alarm in the shape of red flags taking over his mind. Woojin tenses when he finally takes note of his surroundings, not a familiar thing in a mile long range, and he blanches at the fact that he isn’t alone.
Woojin lolls his head to the side and his eyes flicker up by natural instinct.
He nearly forgets how to breathe.
The disturbance, or the source of the disturbance, is a boy.
The most beautiful boy Woojin has ever laid eyes on; big brown eyes, sharp nose, full lips, tousled brown locks all working in perfect harmony.
Woojin’s eyes wander.
Around the boy’s neck is a string of seashells, a small, bright orange conch shell rests snugly where his collar bones meet. The boy’s torso is bare and against his will, Woojin’s face blooms with warmth.
Woojin’s eyes continue on their journey south, tracing the boy before him.
Oh.
Pretty boy also has a mermaid tail.
Woojin looks from the iridescent turquoise scales, to the big fish tail, to the boy’s face, to the scales, and back.
Boy from waist up.
Fish from waist down.
A mermaid.
A merman?
Yerim’s voice rings.
“They’re sirens, Wooj.”
A siren.
Woojin coughs.
Nice.
Woojin props himself up on his elbows, and he watches the boy—the siren. Woojin studies him; his hands, his fish tail, his eyes, his breathing, as the boy—the siren, Woojin's mind corrects again—stares back.
Woojin cocks his head to the side. “What’s your name?”
If the boy heard Woojin and understood the question, he doesn’t show it. The boy doesn’t say a word and his lips don’t move an inch, and Woojin doesn’t know how, but he just knows.
It’s odd and hard to explain, near impossible to even begin to understand, but Woojin can hear him.
He can hear the boy’s voice and the looping timbre of it; soft and soothing, like the timid waves of the afternoon tide, and it embraces Woojin’s very being and lulls him to a sweet state of serenity.
Jihoon.
Woojin stares at the boy. “Your name is Jihoon?”
The boy nods and he doesn’t smile, but his brow quirks just the slightest, and to Woojin, it almost seems like a challenge, how his dark eyes shine with such mirth and mischief.
⎈
Woojin leans in, intrigued despite himself, asking a genuine question, “What else can the mermaids do?”
His little sister groans. “They’re sirens.”
“Yeah that’s what I said.”
Yerim rolls her eyes, but she ponders the question, and she nods after a moment. “Heal. They can save your life if they so desire.”
⎈
The boy’s, the siren’s, Jihoon’s fingers graze ever so slightly along the ridges of Woojin’s knuckles, and his touch lingers far after he’s retracted his hand. Hot, rushing warmth flows outward from the place Jihoon touched, climbing the length of Woojin’s arm and breaking into his shoulder and chest, walking along the tightropes of his nerves and arteries.
The warmth soothes the ache in Woojin’s body, and it takes the pain away, like medicine, like a cure, like he’s been healed.
Woojin’s eyes widen and he looks up to stare at the boy.
(Woojin’s father had once said that it was important for Woojin to study the stars, for if he knew the constellations, he’d always be able to find his way home. Now though, as the boy’s dark eyes shine and glitter and hold the night sky in their clutch, Woojin begins to wonder why his father hadn’t warned him of how it easy it was to get lost in the stars.)
Neither of them mumble a word.
Neither of them move.
Woojin lays on the rock, and Jihoon stays beside him, not touching, but not far enough.
Time ticks on, and Jihoon holds his gaze, and Woojin finds himself wanting to lose himself in the boy’s eyes.
Woojin swallows.
“Well, thank you then, Jihoon. You saved my life.”
⎈
Woojin grins, “That’s nice of them.”
“All they do is kill, though.”
Woojin’s smile falters. “Oh.”
⎈
Woojin moves to sit up properly, elbows growing sore after holding up all of his body weight.
If what Yerim said is correct, then Woojin is in a bit of trouble.
Though Woojin is still a little skeptical (he’s yet to come to terms with the fact that he’s within an arm’s reach of a boy with a fish tail), so far Yerim's little story is hauntingly precise, like a fairytale, or a nightmare, come true, and Woojin doesn’t want to take any chances.
It’s odd though, how while for the most part, Yerim’s story has come to life, one part of the story is wrong.
Woojin is alive.
For now, a voice in his head echoes.
The siren didn’t end his life, on the contrary, really.
Jihoon saved his life.
Woojin doesn’t know what to think of it all just yet, but he does know that for now, he’s out of death’s hold.
The siren hasn’t initiated conversation, or well, communication, with Woojin at all, and though it's a relief, for the most part, the siren’s silence and watchful eye unnerve Woojin to no end.
Woojin chances a glance at the siren, breathing a sigh of relief when he notices the siren’s eyes focused elsewhere. Woojin fakes a cough, scratching his nape. “Uh… So… Do you by chance have… friends?” Woojin makes a wild hand gesture at the siren’s entire being. “Are there more like you?”
The siren’s brow arches and he cocks his head to the side, lips quirking up at the corner into a tiny smirk that is far too smug to be innocent.
Woojin swallows.
The boy shrugs.
Again, the siren’s lips don’t move and he doesn’t make a sound, but Woojin can hear him, can hear the faint highs and lows of his voice.
If you are asking me if your friends are alive…
Woojin's breath hitches.
No. They are not.
"And my father?" Woojin knows the answer more than anyone, but something in him forces him to ask, for mourning, for closure maybe, for an end to the pressure in his heart.
Jihoon's eyes soften.
I'm sorry.
Woojin nods.
⎈
“What if they fall in love?”
Yerim turns to look at Woojin. “Who?”
Woojin looks away, face burning. “The siren and the sailor.”
“Have you gone mad?” Yerim scoffs. “You go on and on about how I’m too old for fairytales, but here you are making a love story out of it.”
“It could happen!” Woojin whines, nose scrunched. “Love is odd.”
Yerim snorts, “You say that as if you know a thing about love.”
“I know enough." Woojin argues, smiling at the thought of the pretty girl at the market. "10 coins if I can prove you wrong. A siren and a sailor can fall in love.”
Yerim snorts and she rolls her eyes. “Just how do you think you can prove that?”
Woojin shrugs and he clenches his fist in determination. “I’m your big brother. I’ll find a way.”
Yerim snickers, a mix of exasperation and humor, and Woojin almost flicks her on the forehead at how smug she sounds, so sure that she’s right. Yerim grins. “10 coins it is.”
“Love or not, all odds are against them.” Yerim tacks on, and Woojin follows her finger as she points at the stars above them. “They’re from opposite stars. Fated to be apart. Love cannot fight the order of the sky.”
⎈
It’s all too easy to lose track of time when he’s with Jihoon.
It’s so simple to be with Jihoon, to have nothing to worry about other than which rock looks the most comfortable to nap on and if the tides will rise high enough to splash him from atop the hulking stone.
Jihoon takes a hold of his hand and the siren traces circles onto the back of his palm, touch lulling him into that same serene calm Woojin descended into when he first met the beautiful siren.
At first Woojin didn’t pay much mind to Jihoon. He was too relaxed to think about what could be running through Jihoon’s pretty little head; it always hurt to try to look into Jihoon’s mind and pick apart his thought processes, the siren was far too hard to read. It’s only when Woojin realizes Jihoon has been too quiet that he moves to face him.
Woojin holds Jihoon’s face with his free hand, thumb tracing patterns into the siren’s cheek.
Though Woojin tries to force Jihoon to look at him, the siren avoids his eyes, opting to look out over the ocean.
For a moment, Woojin thinks it’s just the reflection of the water creating an illusion but then it dawns on him that Jihoon’s eyes are glassy with tears.
Woojin panics and brings Jihoon closer to him, hold on him tightening with more urgency than ever. “Jihoon. What’s wrong?”
By the time Jihoon finally looks into his eyes, the pooled tears have begun to stream down the siren’s face, creating tear tracks across flushed cheeks.
The look on Jihoon’s face is one that Woojin will remember in this life and the next.
Jihoon’s eyes hold none of the mischief and joyous light they once did; stripped of their bright gleam and replaced by a forlorn sorrow that Woojin wouldn’t wish upon his worst enemy. Jihoon looks devastated and Woojin can’t help but think that he’s the cause of Jihoon’s suffering. Jihoon chokes on a sob and Woojin rubs at his back, whispering sweet nothings into his skin until the siren’s breathing evens.
Woojin wipes at the stray tears that stain Jihoon’s face, gentle and loving in his motions, and he presses a soft kiss to his forehead. “Jihoon, my love, please say something.”
As if scalded, Jihoon moves away then, dodging Woojin’s hands when he tries to touch him.
The siren holds his gaze and he presses his lips into a thin line.
You should go home.
Home.
Woojin means to question Jihoon. Woojin is about to ask Jihoon why he suddenly wants Woojin to go home; to leave him behind, to put an end to whatever it is they have going on, but Jihoon doesn’t give him the chance.
You have to go home.
Ah.
Jihoon was never going to give him a choice.
Woojin doesn’t have a say in what is about to happen.
He’s going home.
Jihoon will make sure of that whether he likes it or not.
Woojin understands.
It’s easier this way.
Woojin nods, smile gentle. “Okay. I will. I will do whatever you want.”
Jihoon collapses in on himself then, shoulders hunched and head in his hands, and Woojin has to bite his tongue lest he try to talk Jihoon out of forcing him to go home.
It’s easier this way.
It has to be.
Woojin squares his shoulders and holds his arms out, breathing heavy to drown out the noise of his heart breaking into a hundred pieces. “Come here so I can hold you one last time. And then." Woojin breathes out a shaky sigh. "Then I will go.”
The ethereal siren before him hesitates for a moment, hands twitching, and Woojin watches as he wrestles with himself in a one man battle, before deciding to indulge in what comfort Woojin could press into his skin.
Jihoon moves towards him and allows Woojin to gather him to his chest. Jihoon melts into his embrace, molding to the planes and edges of Woojin's body, and Woojin wonders to himself why they couldn’t just stay like this forever, why the heavens were dead set on drawing two souls together only to tear them apart.
Jihoon’s tears have ceased, but his eyes are just as sad, and Woojin aches to take the pain away; to hold him close for as long as he may live and protect him from hurt, but he can’t.
Yerim was right.
Love cannot fight the order of the sky.
Woojin is the first to let go.
Jihoon strokes Woojin’s face, and the siren’s eyes linger on his features, tracing the slope of his eyes, the radiance of his smile, committing his face to memory like how Woojin had done with his.
The siren drops his hand and Woojin looks on in wonder as Jihoon’s lips curl into a heartbreakingly beautiful smile.
Before you go, won't you stay a moment and listen to my song?
Woojin grins.
"Of course."
Jihoon sings. He doesn’t move his lips nor make a sound, but Woojin knows it is him singing.
The loops, the crescendos, the highs and the lows.
It is Jihoon’s song.
Woojin’s eyes fall closed.
He lets the song take him, lets it drag him under, lets it hold him captive.
I love you.
“I love you too.”
Woojin doesn't feel the cold.
It’s warm.
It’s bright.
Woojin blacks out.
⎈
Woojin snorts and glances at Yerim. “Don’t you think you’re a bit too young to already have lost hope in love?”
Yerim holds her head high, crossing her arms and pinning Woojin with a deadpan stare. “Don’t you think you’re a bit too old to still believe that we will all have happy endings?”
⎈
“Maybe you really did manage to get a siren to fall in love with you." Yerim says, wonder wide in her eyes. "Maybe they saved your life.”
Woojin chokes on his cider, coughing as it goes down the wrong piper, and he points at himself. “Me?”
Yerim clicks her tongue as she pounds on Woojin’s back, scolding him like a mother hen—she's older now, a year had passed from the time he sailed off to the day he floated back to shore, but she's the same, not burned out by the loss of her father and the days without word of her brother, and for that, Woojin thanks the heavens. “You’re right, there is no way someone, let alone a beautiful siren, would fall in love with you.”
“Hey!”
Yerim snickers and she holds out her hand, palm up. “10 coins, brother. Don’t think I forgot about our bet.”
Woojin groans, rolling his eyes, but he reaches into his pocket anyway, pressing the coins into his sister’s palm with a scowl. “You are an absolute demon.”
Just above Yerim’s girlish laughter is another’s laughter, melodic and bright.
Woojin looks away from his sister, eyes flickering to the patron sat at the stool on the other side of Yerim.
Woojin cocks his head to the side, trying to match the face to a name. To no avail, Woojin cocks a brow, sure that this is the first time he's seen the male around. From appearances alone, he can’t be far from Woojin’s age and surely Woojin would know of him if he was from the village.
Before Woojin can get a word out, Yerim is already turning in her stool to face the stranger.
Yerim's voice lightens up and Woojin sighs, knowing what's going to come out of her mouth.
“Have you heard of the sirens?”
“No.” the stranger smiles at Yerim, eyes kind, and there is something about him that makes Woojin look twice; something about him that lures Woojin in and holds him captive. “I’m afraid I haven’t.”
Yerim shakes her head and braces a long sigh. “Hopeless… All of you.”
It’s odd and inexplicable, but in some way, the stranger reminds Woojin of the sea.
“Don’t mind her, she’s just gotten it into her pretty little head that mermaids are real.” Woojin snickers when Yerim sticks out her tongue at him, hopping off of her stool after losing interest in the conversation, and he looks back at the boy.
Woojin moves closer, propping his elbows onto the counter and holding his face up with his hands. “Have you come from a land far away? I’m afraid I don’t recognize your face.”
The corner of the boy’s lips rise into a lopsided grin and he nods, “You could say that.”
The boy blinks, and it couldn't have lasted longer than a second, but it looks like it happened in slow motion.
Something in Woojin awakens and a story begins.
Woojin watches as the stars in his eyes die for a moment only to shine again with the force of a million supernovas in the next.
“What’s your name?”
Woojin doesn't know how, or why, but it's almost as though the boy's name is something Woojin knows, as though it echoes, bouncing off the walls of his heart and etching itself into the side of his mind.
The stranger's eyes light up. “My name is Jihoon.”
Woojin stares at the boy, mind slowing down, working through the ages and searching for a time and place that matches the beating of his heart. “Your name is Jihoon?”
The stranger finally holds Woojin’s gaze, and for a moment, Woojin is certain that he knows him, that he has met him before, in this lifetime or in the ones that have come before. The more Woojin looks at him, Jihoon, the faster the fire in Woojin’s heart burns.
Woojin's mind races to slot the porcelain shards of time together, to draw bridges from one idea to another, to place incoherent words to scratched out faces.
It makes Woojin’s head ache.
It hasn’t been long since he washed up on the shores of his village, all but clinging to his life as he danced along the tight rope of life and death, body limp and draped precariously on a makeshift raft.
He had lost track of time, but Yerim said he was gone for a year, that news of the shipwreck had reached their village nine months ago.
Woojin doesn’t remember what happened and his mind is still hazy with the consequences of exhaustion and hypothermia—the cold, the uncertainty, the hunger, the thirst, the fear.
The last year is as clear as day, apparent in the way his throat closes up at the faint sound of rolling thunder, and yet, it is a rip in time.
A year of his life that will always remain a black space in his mind.
A time and place that makes no difference, and yet, makes all the difference in the world.
The others, his father, they are still missing, and they will probably forever be missing, but he lived, and he is back home.
His mother, how happy she was to hold her son again, how it had crushed her heart to learn that the love her life did not have the same luck, had assured him that it will all go away with time; the confusion, the shock, the grief.
It’s simpler not to think about what happened.
It’s simpler not to remember.
Woojin shakes the thoughts away.
The boy hides a grin behind his hand, and the action makes Woojin want to ask him what he found to be so humorous, but the almost conspiratorial look the other directs at him makes his mouth go dry.
Jihoon draws his syllables out deliberately slow when he repeats, “Yes. My name is Jihoon.”
Woojin snorts at the odd action, but he decides that one day, maybe, God willing, he will discover what secrets and stories dance behind that sly grin of Jihoon’s.
“Well, it’s nice to meet you then, Jihoon." Woojin sticks out a hand. "I’m Woojin.”
The boy, Jihoon, takes his hand.
The two share a glance, and Jihoon smiles. “I promise, Woojin, the pleasure is all mine.”
It’s easier to look forward into the horizon and dive into the roaring waves head first.
It’s easier to fill in the black with dots of white—to stare into the night sky and point out the stars.
It's easier this way.