Chapter Text
“Today’s the day we catch a mermaid,” Hoseok grinned wide and turned the ship’s wheel East.
The morning sun streaked his black hair with gold. It felt all too familiar, like the day couldn’t begin until the young captain declared his intent to capture the creature. A mermaid: something he’d never been able to catch even a glimpse of.
“M’sure it is, Seokie,” the older responded, a joyless smile forming at the dumb hope in his best friend’s voice. Hoseok wanted it so badly; Yoongi could see the desperation growing in his friend’s heart with every day that passed. His poor, ignorant best friend, hunting for the very creature that had been under his nose since he was born.
Hoseok can’t know. He won’t understand.
A sigh fell from his lips, and blended with the rush of the sea. Yoongi could never help him.
- twenty one years prior-
“Cap’n Jung! We’re bringin’ the chest up!” The men shouted from the rowboat. The captain beamed down at them, hands clutching the side of the ship in excitement. They had killed a mermaid, and a tough one at that, for this loot; it better have been worth the work.
“What’re you stallin’ for then? Bring it up!” Yoonjin’s voice boomed, and the ropes heaved the chest up.
She hated that she hadn’t been down with the others when they’d killed the bastard thing, but circumstance damned her to idly staying aboard. Despite her inactivity, Yoonjin’s heart pounded as the chest thudded onto the deck. It wasn’t locked, the latch done up but not secured. Finfolk tended to be stingy with their prizes; this chest wasn’t even padlocked.
Odd.
The contents were… not what the captain had expected, to say the least. She had imagined golden circlets, elaborate combs studded with jewels, miles of strung pearls, anything other than what they found. The chest held an entirely different sort of valuable. Years later, the captain would realise that no amount of shiny metals could’ve changed her life as much as the contents of this particular chest.
A baby boy, with the tail of a fish and huge, knowing eyes, lay inside. Whoever had laid him there had nestled him in swathes of silk, green and blue and aquamarine. A golden amulet and deep water shells lay next to him. Despite the rough waters they’d pulled him from, he didn’t fuss, only blinked into the bright sunlight of the deck.
Her heart dropped into the pit of her stomach like a stone in the sea. A tanned hand rested on the curve of her stomach, whether from nausea or instinct she wasn’t sure. The mermaid her men had just fought off, had just killed, was a mother. The reality came crashing down like a monsoon.
She retched violently over the side of the ship.
Captain Jung’s pirates, being decent and logical on the whole, had lifted the baby from his cradle, and placed him in a washtub from the waist down. From what the pirates knew of finfolk, it was dangerous to let their tails dry out. They seemed to be testing his swimming ability, holding him under the arms to see if he responded to the water. He flipped his tail clumsily, but didn’t seem to be able to hold his body weight up. The sight made Yoonjin’s heart wrench.
On the bow of the ship, she began steering them back towards the coast.
- a few days later-
“What kind of spell are we lookin’ for, Cap’n?” Hyunwoo asked as the small band made their way ashore. They had left most of the others on the ship, to keep the villagers from mistaking them for a raiding party.
“Somethin’ to give him legs for longer than our mere herbs can,” she muttered, clutching the baby tighter to her chest. She had been adamant against bringing him ashore in the washtub, as that was sure to turn a few heads. Instead, they’d found an old recipe for an herbal concoction, meant to give finfolk legs for small windows of time. It had a few annoying drawbacks: the tail would reappear whenever the boy touched water, and that the herbs were quite hard to come by when you lived at sea. It just needed to work until they hashed out a deal with the witch.
Hala’s house was right in the center of Soksan, despite her disagreeable reputation, at the corner of two streets. Yoonjin braced herself, motioning for all but two of the pirates to stand guard outside. She pushed the door open slowly, her breath catching. The usually quiet baby babbled against her chest. The witch sat at a table, her hunched back to the doorframe,
“Yoonjin, it’s been a winter or two since I’ve laid eyes on you,” the old woman croaked from her workbench. The captain flinched; Hala’s uncanny ability to recognise a person always left Yoonjin’s stomach unsettled.
She shuffled forward slightly, cradling the baby closer to her. The witch finally turned away from the elixir she’d been preparing.
“Who’s child have you snatched up?” The old woman inquired, eyebrow quirked up. Her near-blind eyes scanned the pirate, lingering on the prominent curve in her abdomen.
“One of the finfolk’s,” she breathed, looking down into the boy’s deep green eyes, so trusting and innocent. Yoonjin’s chest grew tight at the thought, how they’d orphaned the child she held in her arms.
monster.
“We need a spell.”
Hala pulled back the cloth he’d been swaddled in, exposing a tiny tuft of sea green hair. A dry chuckle erupted from her chest as she took in the sight of the infant.
“What’ve you got for me to put the charm on?” Hala questioned, and began pulling brightly colored vials from her shelves. Yoonjin couldn’t quite keep up with the old woman.
“I- Why do you need- what’re you on about?” The captain sputtered, sure she’d missed an important part of this conversation.
“You wanna give the boy legs, don’t ya?” She explained, striking a fire underneath in the grate. “The easiest way is to put the spell on an object, a talisman.”
The pirate was only idle for a second, before reaching into the pouch at her waist. In the chest, along with the child, was a golden amulet. The dainty pendant was shaped like a clam shell, with a saltwater pearl nestled inside. Her slender fingers held it up in front of Hala’s aged eyes. Carefully, the witch began measuring and combining potions, instructing Yoonjin to fetch her spellbooks. The new mother requested she throw in a bit of protection. Hala rolled her eyes, but did as Yoonjin asked.
“The amulet will keep him human, even in water, so long as he wears it. But, how will you feed him, Yoonjin?”
The pirate was struck dumb, once again. She hadn’t stopped to consider the diet of infant finfolk.
“I hadn’t really thought that far, Hala,” she admitted shamefully. The baby grabbed at her braid, and she realised just how many aspects of this she’d forgotten to consider.
“You’re going to give birth in a few months and you never thought about how you’d feed a child?”
“I dunno,” she muttered, freeing her hair from the boy’s chubby fingers. “I knew I’d nurse my own, but I never accounted for an extra.”
At that, Hala left the cauldron and began searching her sagging bookshelves. Old fingers skimmed the dusty spines before landing on a dark green volume. She skimmed it, clearly finding what she was looking for towards the back of the text.
“You gave me an idea,” she muttered, still searching the lines for the information she sought. “Ah! It says here ‘finfolk have digestive systems similar to that of a human, only more suited to a marine diet.’ He can eat just like a human child.” She snapped the volume closed, laid it on the workbench.
I can’t feed him yet, regardless of what he eats , Yoonjin thought, still not quite on the same page as the old woman. She couldn't nurse if she hadn’t yet given birth, right? Hala sensed her confusion, and opened her mouth to scold the captain, no doubt.
“Have him suckle every few hours, it’ll make your milk start early,” Hala advised. She was Soksan’s best midwife, in addition to being a witch. Her chastisement of Yoonjin’s parenting skills made her cheeks burn scarlet. She felt like the worst mother in the world already.
While they had waited for the spell to brew, Hala filled Yoonjin’s head with knowledge of how to take care of an infant, as she clearly lacked in that field. It was during their discussion that they came upon yet another issue.
“What’s his name?” Hala asked in passing, and received no answer. The witch pinched the bridge of her nose in exasperation. Yoonjin provided her with the shells from the trunk, which were engraved with runes. She wanted to respect his birth mother’s decision on a name, but the runes bore little resemblance to any human script. She had no way to read them without Hala’s help.
After scouring three dusty volumes, they had deciphered the crude marks.
Min, a family name, was all they could glean from the shells. It was another dead end. Yoonjin felt hopeless, like she had already failed the child sleeping in her arms.
Hala suggested Yoongi , a clever name to resemble Yoonjin’s own.
“Yoongi.” She tested the syllables on her tongue. The baby boy already had her heart, so it only fit that he should have part of her name, too.
Yoongi, the little treasure she’d pulled from the waves. Her baby, with his seagreen hair and clever eyes.
She looped the charmed amulet around his neck. His sea-green hair faded to black, the color masked by the magic of the amulet. Perhaps he could live normally, until he was old enough to understand.
Min Yoongi, son of the sea.
***
True to Hala’s advice, after a few tries, Yoonjin could nurse Yoongi as if he were her own. His face grew softer and rosier with every day that passed. She slept with him cuddled close to her chest, more for her comfort than his. The captain fell more in love with the child than she had thought possible.
The crew adored the boy, almost as much as the captain herself. They constantly bickered over who got to watch over him while the captain attended to important matters. She never had to wonder where Yoongi was; the infant could always be found in the middle of a gaggle of pirates. Without shame, they cooed over him and took turns nestling him in their arms. Childcare was never an issue when she had a ship full of pirates jumping at the chance to play babysitter.
***
By the end of June, Yoonjin found herself nearly immobilized by the child growing in her belly. She often had to leave the important jobs to Doyun, her first mate, and retire to her chambers. Yoongi often slept on her chest during particularly bad contractions or pains, blissfully unaware that his presence soothed her heart. Each day was another day closer to going into labor, and everything set the young mother on edge. The baby turned over near the end of the month, causing Yoonjin to panic and call in the midwife, who explained the situation as calmly as she could. As the day crept closer, the captain realised how terrified she was to give birth.
July had only just begun when her contractions started happening more regularly, usually once or twice a day. Fear lodged itself in her throat and refused to budge. Maybe she wouldn’t be so afraid if the baby’s father was still here, but there wasn’t much to be done for that now.
She made her way towards the bow of the ship, hoping the view of the open sea would calm the anxieties festering inside her heart. The walking had seemed a good idea at first, but with every step the pain in her back increased. A new kind of pain rippled through her body, and the panic set in again. One of the men caught her arm before she hit the deck and shouted for somebody to fetch Jieun, the midwife. The contractions were coming every couple of minutes; it wasn’t a false alarm this time.
Yoonjin’s chambers had been transformed into an infirmary by the time they got the captain into her bed. Yoongi slept soundly in his bassinet, despite the movement of so many people into the room. Yoonjin ordered he be taken away somewhere peaceful and safe, and assigned Doyun to the task. She kissed the top of his head before they whisked him away.
***
Eleven hours later, and after much screaming from various pirates, including Yoonjin, she held her newest son in her arms. Hoseok, named after his late father, was healthy and perfect and worth every bit of strife his mother had endured for the last nine months. Her heart was so full of love for her sons that it almost dulled the pain of losing her lover. Both of them had been unplanned, but they gave her life an unexpected sense of purpose. Yoongi and Hoseok, the beloved sons of a pirate captain. Yoongi and Hoseok, her babies.
***
Hoseok had been crying for an hour, almost non-stop, and Yoonjin was at her wit’s end. She had fed him, changed him, and walked endless circles in a desperate attempt to soothe him. She wasn’t even aware that someone a week old could make so much noise. The screaming was keeping the crew awake, and to top it all off, Yoongi’s bottom needed changing.
She laid her crying son in Yoongi’s crib while she changed the other boy. His cries quieted, or she’d finally begun to lose hearing. Either way, it was a noticeable change and Yoonjin was grateful. Once she had fed and changed her older son, she experimentally laid them next to each other. Hoseok quieted, and the two fell asleep not long after. Tears of joy threatened to well up in the exhausted mother’s eyes.
From then on, the boys slept like that whenever one of them, usually Hoseok, wouldn’t quiet, and it never failed. Two tufts of black hair and a glistening amulet, tucked in soundly.
Inseparable
.