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seungcheol is five when he meets a siren on the shores of the beach where he lives.
it's early afternoon and seungcheol is playing on the cliffs, waiting eagerly for his father's return from the sea. it's a gray day, the clouds hanging above dark and foreboding, hinting at the storm that is surely coming. the sea is restless when seungcheol looks upon it, waves high and violent as they crash against the sea. despite this, seungcheol isn't scared. he was born and raised by the sea, has spent all his life with one foot in the water.
but at five years old seungcheol's little body is no match for the strong waves of an agitated sea, and one ill-timed jump between rocks results in seungcheol falling, head first, into the dark, cold water.
he tries to scream as he falls, but the noise is swallowed by the roaring waves, and when his head goes under all he can feel is the salty water choking him.
he thrashes in the push and pull of the waves, desperately trying to figure out which way is up, narrowly avoiding the sharp edges of the cliffs around him.
it feels like he's under water for hours, days, years. his lungs are aching in his chest, his brain growing foggier as he’s pulled deeper into the dark of the restless water. his last conscious thought is of his parents, of how much he loves them, and how badly he wishes he was with them.
when he comes to the first thing he registers is the cold, closely followed by the feeling of hard rock under his back. he furrows his brows, face twitching as droplets of water land heavily on his skin.
seungcheol forces one eye open, and despite his blurry vision he can clearly make out the face of a boy above him, tendrils of long blonde hair framing wide, brown eyes and upturned, worried brows.
"hello," he rasps out, his mother's reminder to always be polite echoing in the back of his head."i'm seungcheol."
when the boy's lips spread in a wide smile his teeth are pearly white and sharp. it's the prettiest thing seungcheol's seen in his five years on earth.
the pretty boy above him looks him over quickly, and that's when seungcheol realises that the blonde is almost lying on him, upper body propped up on his elbows in an awkward position in order to align their faces.
the blonde has his mouth open, ready to speak, when seungcheol hears the frantic call of his mother in the distance on the other side of the cliff they're perched on. his mother's voice seems to scare his saviour, for he scrambles out of seungcheol's field of vision.
as seungcheol hurries to sit up, ready to call out and reassure his blonde boy, he sees pale skin that fades into soft lavender scales that glitter beautifully even in the gray of the raging storm.
"wha-" is all he manages to choke out, a dumb look on his face when making eye contact with the boy, the siren.
he must look silly, he thinks as he stares, for the siren let's out a happy giggle, and in the next second he slips into the thrashing sea, disappearing out of sight.
that night seungcheol eagerly tells his parents of the siren who saved him as they scold him for being careless, his mother swaddling him in layer after layer of blankets.
seungcheol returns to the cliffs by his house every day after his almost-drowning, eyes trained on the sea trying to catch a glimpse of his siren saviour.
a week passes with no sign of the siren, then a month, then two months. when autumn approaches seungcheol begins wondering if it has all been a dream.
but then one day he appears.
seungcheol is trudging his way down the cliffs dejectedly, the months without a trace of his siren having slowly crushed his hope of seeing the boy again, making him almost ready to give up his search. but as he jumps down the last rock at the edge of the cliff he sees something in the corner of his eye. he turns his head, gut clenched in excitement, and takes in the soft lavender scales of his siren. he was real, seungcheol hadn't dreamt it all up.
his siren can't see him from where he is, and all seungcheol can see is the long tail hanging off of the edge of the rock pool, but the sight is unmistakable, he’d know that shade of lavender anywhere, has seen it so many times in his dreams.
he sticks his head around the wall of the rock pool, wide smile on his face, and speaks to his siren once more.
"you're real!" it comes out as a delighted laugh and the sudden laugh makes the siren jump where he’s resting, the hands that had been idly combing through his long locks freezing. his siren looks toward him, startled, but it lasts only for a split second before
"seungcheol!" the other boy offers as greeting, a happy smile on his own face that showcases the many sharp teeth in his mouth. his hands leave the wet tangles of his hair, and when seungcheol looks at them more closely he sees a thin film of webbing running between jeonghan’s fingers. the sight makes seungcheol’s breath stutter in wonder and amazement, and if it wasn’t for fear of making his siren uncomfortable, he’d ask to take a closer look.
"you remember my name," he states, chubby cheeks pulled up in a grin.
"of course i do," the blonde says with a laugh."i have a good memory."
"what's your name?" seungcheol asks, sitting down on the edge of the rock pool, bare feet submerged in the warm water of the pool.
"jeonghan." the blonde offers distractedly, too busy using his arms to scoot himself closer to where seungcheol was sitting, his tail sliding heavy over the rock as he moves. seungcheol so badly wants to try feeling the pretty scales, but he thinks asking jeonghan might make him seem rude or like he thinks his new friend is something weird, so he keeps his hands to himself, fiddling with his fingers in his lap.
"where have you been?" he finally asks when jeonghan has moved closer, now sitting close enough in the water that seungcheol’s shin is almost brushing the lavender scales of his tail.
jeonghan pouts at the question, skinny arms coming up to cross in front of his chest.
"one of my sisters caught me saving you, so i was forbidden from swimming to the surface."
seungcheol cocks his head to the side where he sits, face confused.”your sister thinks saving me was a bad thing?”
“mm,” jeonghan confirms, hands coming down to run to and fro in the water absentmindedly.”humans are dangerous,” seungcheol wrinkles his nose as jeonghan says this. all the stories he’d been told had taught him that jeonghan was the dangerous one, with his sharp teeth and siren song that could ensnare even the strongest of men.”they have wicked hearts that long to possess the children of the sea.” jeonghan says the words like he’s reciting something he’s heard many times before, an indifference to his tone that makes seungcheol frown.
he huffs, affronted by jeonghan’s casual insult of his species.
“well sirens have an insatiable hunger for human flesh,” he states with a kick in the water, splashing jeonghan who giggles at his moody behaviour.”so you’re the dangerous one.”
“if i’m the dangerous one, why aren’t you running away from me?” the siren challenges.
“because you’re small.” the boy states confidently.”and sirens are only dangerous when they sing.”
“you’re small too,” jeonghan points out, but he doesn’t refute seungcheol’s second statement.
seungcheol hums, idly kicking his feet in the warm water.”do you wanna play with me?”
“sure.”
they grow up together like this. merfolk and human, joined in a friendship that is forbidden, sharing a bond that should be impossible. jeonghan comes up to the surface each day, and they spend their days in the shallow waters by seungcheol’s village, playing and talking, growing ever closer as the seasons change. jeonghan sings to seungcheol in a language he doesn’t know the words to, but that tugs at something deep in his chest, making his heart swell with a happiness he only feels when he’s with his best friend. jeonghan’s song doesn’t enchant him the way the stories have told seungcheol they would, doesn’t make him want to follow jeonghan into the depths until he drowns, and jeonghan promises him that his singing will never hurt him.
when seungcheol grows old enough to follow his father out to sea to fish, jeonghan is there, keeping faithful watch over his human, making sure that he makes it home from each journey safe. seungcheol brings his siren gifts from the human world, makes crowns out of flowers that jeonghan loathes to part with each time he has to return to the depths. one day he brings him an iron rose, intricately made on a chain thin and delicate. jeonghan fastens it around his waist and wears it with pride, runs his fingers over it each night in his cave, thoughts helplessly drawn to seungcheol and his big, kind eyes. they share their worlds with each other, tell stories of their cultures and their family, the things they’ve seen and the things they’ve yet to witness.
seungcheol is known to his village as the strange boy in love with the sea, and no matter how hard his peers try, no one manages to steal his heart away from the water that holds it captive. seungcheol has long since given up on trying to convince his village of the existence of his siren, the task of proving jeonghan’s actuality made all the harder by the siren’s adamant distrust of any human that isn’t seungcheol.
jeonghan no longer hides where he goes each day. he tunes out his sisters’ pleading for him to give up on his hopeless love for the human boy, and ignores his parents’ condemnations of the world above the water’s surface.
each day his longing grows stronger. he dreams not only of his human, but of the world he inhabits. he longs to see the mountains seungcheol have told him about, wants to explore vast forests and see cities so dense and full of life they look like coral reefs. the sea is not enough for him, the world he’d been born into has grown too small and too dark for him to feel content.
but jeonghan stays put, can swallow his longing as long as he has seungcheol, as long as he gets to escape to their rock pool and listen to seungcheol tell him stories of the world he’s so curious about.
they share their first kiss on the night of seungcheol’s sixteenth birthday. he is finally of age, ready to take over the fishing in place of his father who has grown too old for the arduous work, and while some would think it unfair that seungcheol would forever be confined to a destiny he hasn’t chosen himself, seungcheol cannot wait.
just as jeonghan longs for his human, seungcheol longs for his siren.
he wears a necklace of lavender scales around his neck, hidden under his shirt, out of sight of prying eyes. he loves to be at sea, wants nothing more than to pack up and head out to sea, to travel the world with jeonghan and explore every nook and cranny of the earth.
they’re sitting in their rock pool, the same one from so many years ago, jeonghan’s tail glistening in the moonlight where it hangs over the edge, now so long it touches the sea below them. the siren has his head on his human’s shoulder, their hands clasped between them as jeonghan sings quietly into the night.
“jeonghan.” the siren stops his singing, his eyes on his human in an instant, waiting for him to continue speaking. but no more words leave seungcheol’s mouth, he simply gazes at his siren. drinks in the way his eyes sparkle in the moonlight, the pretty pink of his lips and the way his long hair makes a dewy frame around his face.
jeonghan is the one to lean in, but seungcheol is not far behind. their lips meet in a gentle touch, a chaste press of skin against skin, unhurried and patient. they pull away for a second, but seungcheol doesn’t let them get far before he joins their lips again, one, two, three quick pecks.
the innocence of the kiss seems to make jeonghan impatient, for he huffs and grabs seungcheol by the back of his neck and pulls him back to him. when their lips meet this time it is eager and insistent. their lips work together hungrily
seungcheol moves to lick his way into his siren’s waiting mouth, but is met with the unpleasant sensation of sharp teeth. he pulls away with a wince, the taste of blood flooding his taste buds. jeonghan has a horrified look on his face, a hand coming up to cover his mouth.
“i’m so sorry,” jeonghan’s face has turned an intense shade of red behind his hand, and he’s refusing to meet seungcheol’s eyes.
seungcheol laughs heartily at jeonghan’s embarrassed state.
”no worries, hannie,” he reassures, too excited about their kiss to bother with the slight sting of his nicked tongue.”but would you mind kissing it better?”
his question makes the flush on jeonghan’s face deepen, but he also laughs and swats seungcheol’s shoulder with gentle hand, so seungcheol considers it a good mood.
“i’d say it’s only fair,” jeonghan agrees before leaning in to kiss him once more.
that night jeonghan returns to the sea with great reluctance, and he stops multiple times on his descent, gut telling him to return up to the surface to stay with his beloved.
seungcheol falls asleep with a smile on his face and a flush to his cheeks.
the day after seungcheol’s sixteenth birthday, jeonghan disappears.
seungcheol waits for him, endlessly. every day at sea he searches for him, his work now merely an excuse to leave the shore in hopes of catching a glimpse of the siren he yearns for. his ageing parents notice something is wrong, but he brushes their worries off, determined to carry the weight of his loss on his own.
seungcheol waits for weeks, months, years.
in the third year after jeonghan leaves him, his father dies. the grief takes his mother not long after, and after that seungcheol is truly alone in the world.
with his parents gone, seungcheol leaves his village. he packs up his belongings onto his meagre fishing boat and sets out to sea, determined to find the siren who slipped through his fingers so many years ago, wherever he may be in the world.
his search is fruitless. he visits cities made of marble where they worship the roar of an ever-burning fire, he explores coves and fjords inhabited by the most wondrous creatures, and he spends moonlit nights alone on still oceans, conversing with the stars. he witnesses some of the many wonders of the world, and he is at times happy. he makes friends, finds people he grows close enough with to call family, but they all see the weight he carries, the heavy hope of being reunited with the one he longs for that keeps him from moving on.
a few years into his travels he sells his boat, it is worn out but loyal, and it hurts to part with it, but he exchanges the little fishing vessel for the grand sails of a pirate ship. the crew is small but tight knit, and with them he continues his quest.
ten years into his search, thirteen into his wait, seungcheol returns home.
when he sets foot on the shores where he grew up he is older, more jaded, and a man of many stories. he is broad shouldered and handsome, but he carries a sadness in his eyes so heavy it makes the people who gaze upon him flinch.
when the villagers ask he can't explain what it is that has brought him back, doesn’t know how to put into words the pull in his gut that forced him to make his way home. all he knows is that something has called for him, has summoned him back to the place where everything began, just in time for his twenty-ninth birthday.
the second morning back in his childhood home, seungcheol wakes with a start. the sound of song echoes in the distance, a sound so lovely and enchanting it must be of a siren, but seungcheol does not make to move. he knows how this plays out, has suffered through the tricks his vain hope plays on his heart, making him hear things that aren't there, countless times before.
he shuts his eyes again, tries to tune out the melodic voice, when suddenly the tunes are cut off, replaced by the desperate, shrill scream of a name.
his name.
seungcheol’s eyes shoot open, because this is new. he has heard the ghost of singing, the faint echo of a tinkling laugh, but never this, never his name spoken this clearly.
he's up and out through the door in an instant, not bothering with shoes or proper clothes in his haste to find the source of the voice.
when he makes it to the beach he stumbles, collapses onto his knees in the sand, breath leaving his lungs in a painful gasp because there he is.
jeonghan, older, leaner, soaking wet and standing unsteadily on two pale, slender legs. it has been over a decade, but seungcheol could never forget the eyes he's gazed into countless times, the voice he's heard sing endlessly, the lips he's only kissed once, but has longed for every day for thirteen long, lonely years.
jeonghan chokes out his name again and starts moving forward, but he barely makes it a few steps before his legs give out and he falls to the ground like a newborn deer.
seungcheol scrambles to move from his own place in the sand, hurries to the side of the man he has searched ceaselessly for and scoops him into his arms, no plan of ever letting go.
"jeonghan." he doesn't know what to say, can't compel his lips to form any word that isn't the name of his love, over and over again.
"i'm sorry," jeonghan pleads with him, hands around seungcheol's shoulders, barely managing to keep himself up right."i am so sorry, seungcheol, i never meant for it to go like this."
"what are you talking about?" he can't quite focus on jeonghan's words, too busy taking in his face in front of him and the sound of his voice. his heart is hammering in his chest, alive in a way it hasn't been since jeonghan first left his side.
"my family tried to shackle me to the ocean floor with magic," jeonghan clutches him tighter, eyes wide and full of emotion. seungcheol lets his own arms wind tighter around him, a vain attempt at soothing the desperation of the siren in his arms."they wanted to keep me away from you, from the human world, but i got away,"
"i escaped to the cave of a sea witch, and i begged and pleaded with him to grant me the means to join your world." something heavy forms in seungcheol’s stomach as his love speaks, and when he runs his hands up and down jeonghan’s sides, he’s not sure if it’s to soothe himself or his siren. "he agreed," his love swallows before he continues,
"but the price was thirteen years."
“oh, jeonghan,” seungcheol sighs, heart heavy at the deal jeonghan had struck.”you shouldn’t have–”
“i had to,” jeonghan insists, voice firm, making no room for argument.”i would have given the sea witch anything he asked for, to be here, to be free, with you.”
jeonghan pushes himself up on his weak legs to join their lips together. it’s graceless and a little painful when they collide, but seungcheol has never experienced anything as good since the first time they kissed. they are one, two souls sharing a breath, heartbeats in sync, beating to their very own rhythm.
when they part, it is with matching breathless laughs.
“i wasn’t allowed to leave the sea witch’s cave while in his service,” jeonghan whispers into the morning air, one arm raised over seungcheol’s shoulder to bask in the warm rays of the summer sun.”i haven’t seen the sun in thirteen years.”
“i haven’t either,” the words leave seungcheol’s mouth before he can stop them, the meaning landing heavily between them, like a rock sinking to the ocean floor. guilt washes over jeonghan’s features.
“i’m so sorry,” he repeats.”can you ever forgive me?”
“there is nothing to forgive.” seungcheol asserts. it is the truth, jeonghan had nothing to apologise for. the thirteen years he’s spent alone have been painful, but who was he to keep jeonghan from joining the world he’d yearned for for as long as seungcheol had known him?”you’re here now.”
“i am,” jeonghan agrees, wide smile on his face, and when his lips spread to reveal pretty, white teeth, seungcheol realises they’re no longer sharp.”what do you think of my new legs?”
“i love them,” he says honestly, grinning as he sways them back and forth, reveling in jeonghan clinging to him even tighter to keep his legs from giving out.”they suit you very well.”
“thank you,” jeonghan nods, pleased at the compliment.”they took me thirteen years to get, and there are no take-backs, so we better make use of them.”
seungcheol laughs happily, leaning forward to rub their noses softly together.
”we will,” it’s a promise of something greater than immediately obvious, a vow to stay by each other’s side, to go into this vast world together.”i have so much to show you, jeonghan.”