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The packet is taunting Minhee, plastic window packaging glaring bright and clear under the bathroom light. The tap runs hot beside it, steam escaping upwards as the tub slowly fills. Not that it matters anymore, the packet rendered useless by its lack of bath salts.
She must have forgotten the refill at the self-checkout. She definitely bought some, right? They were on sale, too, that’s why she remembers–she didn’t have to budget for them. The stiffness of her back will just have to flare today, scars raw and angry under her shoulder blades as she takes notes in her lectures later. It’s not the end of the world, she supposes, but then again, it never is.
She finds herself saying that often.
The packet stares, still. Nothing replenishes behind the thin plastic, despite all of her willing. The steam fogs up the mirror. A door creaks, outside, muffled by the running water. Minhee sighs, wallowing in her pity as she breathes–in, out, hold–and then reaches for the faucet, switching it off and letting the sound of splashing water subside.
She’s slowly digging through the cabinets, in fruitless search, when knuckles rap against the door. There’s only one person it can be.
“Yeah, Lix?” She calls, the barest hint of frustration still underpinning her words.
Felix pokes her head through the crack of the door, luminescent freckles glowing aquamarine as her eyes catch Minhee’s. “Good morning, honey. How’s your back?”
Minhee winces. “It’s been better.”
Felix ducks away, socked footsteps padding towards the kitchen. There’s a faint rustling in what sounds like a grocery bag, she runs back towards the bathroom, holding a familiar packet.
“What about now?”
“Oh, God, are you sure you’re not heaven sent?” Minhee lets out a sigh of relief, then grasps the bag and tears it open. She scatters a handful into the still-steaming bath.
“Ironic of you to be saying.” Felix’s eyes smile as she goes to shut the door, before adding a quick, “Oh, I stopped by the bakery, there’s food on the table. Don’t leave without something,” before shuffling down the hall, again. Back to bed, Minhee presumes. Felix doesn’t even have work until that afternoon. She must have gone just for her.
She’s still waiting for the crystals to dissolve, but Minhee swears her muscles loosen with the knots on her shoulders.
Minhee’s half asleep on the couch, late into that night when the front door slams against the wall, hinges creaking with the movement. There’s a flurry of movement, then, Felix gripping the door and shutting it with almost as much force, before stalking into her room with not even a glance upwards. She didn’t even take her shoes off; if Minhee took more than five steps in with her shoes on, she’d hear it for days.
“Hello?” she calls tentatively. “Felix?"
“Going to the beach.”
“But it’s Thursday? You don’t normally-”
“Don’t care, I’m going now,” she cuts herself off with the screech of her door, uniform now exchanged for a loose-fitting muscle tank and a pair of denim shorts that look suspiciously like Minhee’s, “I’ll be in the car in five.” She disappears back into her room, but the invitation is evident, alluring.
Minhee clicks the television off and stands with a quiet groan. Doesn’t question the anger, doesn’t push the sudden desire to get out. She’ll come around.
Felix steps out from her room, again, this time with beach-bleached hair brushed out and framing her face, eyes red-rimmed.
Her irises are flickering sea-green and bone white.
Minhee doesn’t say a word. They slip through the front door, into the battered Toyota Minhee found on Facebook Marketplace some years ago, and into the night.
When Felix cracks, it’s with a tone of resignation, feet propped against the dash and wind whipping against her cheeks.
“My dad is visiting tomorrow. Sorry in advance.” The reason for soaking in the sea and all that makes her inhuman becomes crystal-clear, although Minhee never has to ask outright. Faintly, a stab of jealousy shoots up her spine. She stares ahead at the sliver of water becoming visible over the horizon. Doesn’t look at Felix–doesn’t need to, when a small hand clasps Minhee’s over the gearstick.
“We’ve been over this.” Minhee sighs. “Don’t apologise. I’ve heard worse.”
“He speaks about you like you’re going to lure him into some kind of hell.”
“Well. I could, couldn’t I?”
Felix only glares at that, unamused. “You should hear better. Think of yourself more kindly, Min.”
“I will, I promise.” It’s easy to give in. To promise.
Felix’s eyes flash white again, frustrated. “Seriously. You don’t get to be some kind of moral martyr because you did a horrible thing once and just got unlucky enough to have it displayed on your back.”
Minhee stares straight ahead, hands gripping the wheel with enough force that her knuckles stretch the skin. “I think that’s exactly what it means, Lix.”
“If you’re so morally uptight that you deserve to be leered at for the rest of your life because of one moment, what are you doing around someone like me? Sirens are inherently amoral.” Felix says, before slowing herself, an air of tense calm settling over. “You don’t deserve to be a pariah forever.”
Minhee says nothing. The car quietens, rumbling from the engine. The crunch of the gravel road is the only sound to accompany the distant crash of ocean waves.
The beach is deserted, this late in the night.
They walk in silence, trudging barefoot through the sand until they reach the dune they always settle on, shaking out the tattered towel that lives in their boot. Felix is more alive like this, Minhee notices–even before she enters the water. She wears the salt air like a second skin, skipping over the sand, tan shifting to a mystical translucent blue even as the frustration in her posture exposes her temperament.
They’re both as human as they aren’t, and yet, Minhee feels desperately mortal, clipped and at the mercy of sentience. The stumps of bone on her back ache a little more.
“Lix.” Minhee says. A hum responds. “You don’t deserve it either.”
“I knew this would strain our relationship. I chose this.”
“And your father chose to fall in love with a siren that was never going to stay. It’s hardly your fault that you don’t hide in the shame of it.”
“...No. I guess not.” The waves wash over anything else that can be said. It’s recycled, regardless. “Swim with me?”
“Not tonight; my back’s sore.” Felix winces in sympathy, running the point of her nails featherlight down Minhee’s spine, tracing circles around her scars. They flare in something other than pain. She shudders, relaxing into a touch she would have shied from years before.
Felix doesn’t push any more. She slips her shorts and tank off before running for the waves. The effect is instantaneous–her freckles, usually contained just to her face, sparkle and glow across her own body. Submerged under the moon and stars, she’s almost blinding. Felix lifts her head above the water once more, eyes settling into a seafoam shade. She waves, talons sharp and savage, before she swims away, the whisper of her song haunting in the air.
She’s always been bold, like this, Minhee knows. She doesn’t remember their first meeting, but she remembers being entranced. Swayed by a woman who embraces her nature, when she should be shunned for it. There’s an inherent danger to sirens, given their power, but there’s a danger to angels too, and those who dared to fall. The first time Felix ran the tips of her fingers down Minhee’s back and found scarred flesh stretched over jutted bones, she didn’t flinch. She didn’t ask.
Every day of their shared lives, spirited eyes meet the calm of Minhee’s own, and care for her regardless. It is brave to see an angel stripped of her honour, yet only worry if she’s eaten enough, or taken care of her back.
Minhee can be a little braver, now. Stand a little taller. She does just that, standing where the shore meets the sea, her toes buried in the sand.
“Min.” The croon of Felix’s song, once faint, reaches the surface. It is just hypnotic enough to keep her attention, but not to spur her into action–a baseline they established long ago. Minhee has no choice but to follow the sound, eyes dilated and straining to find the source in between lapping waves.
Something catches the shine of the moon, flickering for just a moment, but Minhee catches it. A pearl, a flower of the sea, cradled in the palm of translucent, slender hands. Felix is staring right at her, teeth glinting as her lips continue their serenade. If Minhee squints, she swears that Felix’s arms are outreached–sending the pearl to her, not luring her in.
Under the moonlight, and a siren’s magnetic gaze, Minhee breathes in. The stumps of severed bone on her back burn a little less.