voyager heart

by edbloom, lexiconartist

Summary:

Shipwrecked on an island that doesn’t exist and narrowly escaping certain death isn’t how Jiyoon thought her journey would start.

Notes:

hello weeekly tag. finally ! ely says "enjoy, monsterfuckers !!" and I will only clarify that, alas, there is no monsterfucking in this. still a good time though ! bone apple teeth

When the people in her village told Jiyoon she shouldn’t try sailing to Shanghai by herself, and that she’d quickly be overwhelmed by the sea and die a powerless, watery death, it did nothing to weaken her resolution. In fact, it had made her want to do it more, their dissent (and sometimes belittlement) spurring her on to make the final arrangements she needed to secure a small sailboat and set out on her voyage. Her voyage.

Thinking about it still sends excited jitters through her stomach. This was Jiyoon’s journey. This was her, out at sea, finally doing what she’s always wanted to do.

Find her father’s bones.

Okay, did Jiyoon know her father was dead? No. But it’s been a long time since he last left home and everyone’s grieved for him one way or another. Plus looking for bones sounds way more epic than just looking for him.

It’s a sad thing, sure. It’s been an ache in her family’s heart for as long as he’s been gone, but this—Jiyoon in her little boat, a day out from Jeju—is the closest she’s felt to him in years. In a way, she knows he’s with her, especially here, with the ocean air sifting through her hair, birds flying overhead. Maybe he has always been with her, calling her to him (to his bones?).

Morbid or not—the thought makes her smile, comforts her. She tucks the feeling away, determined to keep it safe.

Jiyoon watches the wind brush against the sail before turning her attention to the sky—the sun began to set two hours ago leaving a dark, starless blue. Something in the air, sticky and salty, felt foreboding. She’d been so mindful in planning her route and supplies, so thorough in her preparations, but there was nothing she could have done about the storms.

No one knew had predicted the weather when Jiyoon set out for Shanghai, and a part of Jiyoon is glad for it. The people from her village that were so against her going would’ve used it against her.

Who knows, maybe it would’ve swayed her into staying.

Then again, if a storm kept her home, Jiyoon’s not sure she would’ve been deemed fit to go at all.

No, Jiyoon doesn’t have any regrets. Even when the rain comes down on her, a cacophony of droplets slamming down onto the skin of the sea, drenching Jiyoon and all of her things. Even when the winds pick up so much that it hurts, Jiyoon scrambling to tie a rope that’s come undone, sweat, rain and seawater soaking her as she concentrates. She loves every second of it; the frenzy, the adrenaline, the lulls of calm that follow. Stretches of time where the waves shrink and the clouds allow the sun to shine through, light glittering along the water.

It’s in those lulls that Jiyoon sleeps. Only a little at a time, like her father had told her when she was younger. Even a full hour can be risky, especially with a storm nearby.

“Three days,” Jiyoon mutters to herself as she peels a tangerine. She’d left Jeju with one of her crates absolutely stuffed with the fruit; an aunty she’d met had been adamant that Jiyoon had more than enough to eat for her journey.

Jiyoon loved every second of being out at sea, but she admits the sleep’s been rough. Sure, she’s practiced maintaining this kind of sleep schedule, but again, the storm changed things.

The end of her second day draws near, so hypothetically, it shouldn’t be long before she reaches Shanghai (or someplace near Shanghai). Considering this is the longest stretch she’s ever traveled by sailboat—not to mention in a storm and alone—Jiyoon’s prepared for her ‘three days’ to be little more than an ideal estimation. She might be looking at an extra day or two here. Anything more than that, and she’ll start to worry. For now, she rations her food, saving as much as she can for the prospective later.

Jiyoon throws a tangerine segment into her mouth and kicks her feet up on the seat across from her, eyeing the ropes that kept her crates in place under the benches, her chest under the one she’s currently sitting in. Next to her, the sail flutters before rounding out again, wind a little turbulent. The afternoon’s been manageable despite the grey clouds looming in closer from the South. She wraps a hand around the boat’s tiller.

Looks like another night of rough waters.

And rough waters they are, thunder rumbling loudly as another bout of storm rolls past her. Jiyoon’s not sure how long it lasts but she knows she’s glad to see it go. Exhausted, she looks up at the stars for the first time that night, watches them blink down at her, gentle, like a caress after the downpour. Her eyes droop heavy with exhaustion, and she can’t help but succumb; falling asleep with her back against the mast and feet shoved under a bench.

The light of dawn wakes her up, an immediate sign that she’s overslept.

Clearly, she needed it, and Jiyoon can’t wait for the moment she docks somewhere and gets a solid night’s rest—but she’s lucky nothing happened while she was out.

Jiyoon clicks her tongue and stands, using her hands to bend her back in a deep stretch. She groans as everything pops, shaking her arms and legs out as blood rushes to her head. One of the things Jiyoon enjoyed most about being alone at sea was all the noise she could make.

“Good morning world!” she yells, voice scratchy enough to startle her. “Woah.”

She crouches and drags her water barrel out from under the bench closest to the mast. Its contents slosh around as she carefully tilts it towards her, taking the cork out so she can drink. Jiyoon splashes a handful of it over her face, scrubs at the salt that feels permanently adhered to her skin. Bleary eyes clearer, the sun shines bright as it rises past the horizon. Seabirds squawk from a distance, their cries loud while Jiyoon goes through her mental checklist for the boat.

Mast? Hull? Holding out nicely, negligible damage. Ropes? Knots, sheets, all tied up tightly. Boon and sail? Could be turning a little smoother, but all things considered, looking good. And perhaps most importantly—she brings her map and compass out from her chest, peeking over the side of the boat to eyeball where the compass needle was pointing relative to the bow—she was still on course, headed East. As far as bare minimum goes, that’s not too bad.

Satisfied that nothing on board is in jeopardy of breaking down horribly, Jiyoon heads right over to the tangerines. The way she sees it, the fruit from Jeju will go bad before the hard bread and brined meat in her other crate will, so it’s in her best interest to eat them sooner rather than later. Does this resolution have anything to do with the way the crate has just about grown a hand and beckoned her closer, tempting her appetite ever since she woke up? Maybe. But alas, it is her utmost priority to get to Shanghai, preferably alive. So routine check-ups, especially after a sleep like that? Very important.

At least that’s what she tells herself over and over again, stomach rioting even as she peels a tangerine and plops half of it in her mouth.

The whole morning goes by without a hitch, Jiyoon spends her time checking the notes on her map and wiggling her compass to watch the needle swivel back to North. By her estimates, she should be able to make it to Shanghai tonight at the earliest, hopefully tomorrow at the latest.

She listens as fish poke and prod at the boat’s hull before losing interest and swimming away. A few even come close to jumping onboard. At noon, Jiyoon decides to pull out her guitar—a parting gift from her mother—from where it’s been near-obsessively wrapped and secured back in the stern. Fingers flutter over the strings, finding their place and pressing down. Jiyoon strums and a chord rings out, intertwining with the ocean air.

Jiyoon finds herself humming to the tune she creates, reminiscent of a short song she remembers her father singing when he did chores around the house. Her mother used to sing it to her when he left for his voyages, helped make it feel like he was still around.

The afternoon slows to a drawl, Jiyoon humming and strumming away, occasionally fiddling with the tiller and the sheet. She watches the way the sea meets to the sky—every bit as blue and expansive as each other. The true breadth of the ocean was a sight Jiyoon never thought she’d get to see for herself, bound to the paintings in the books at her town’s library. Her gaze travels, happily drifting over blue, blue, and more blue, until—

Huh.

There’s… land. Like, more or less in the middle of her projected trajectory. Jiyoon scrambles out of her seat, one hand tight on the neck of her guitar and the other digging for her telescope.

Maybe her calculations were wrong. Or, maybe her mind was messing with her because that couldn’t be Shanghai. It couldn’t!

Right?

Jiyoon fumbles when she finds the telescope, narrowly misses dropping her guitar. She sets it down then points the telescope at the landmass and looks through the lens.

...Huh?

The island—because first of all, it was an island—was nothing like Shanghai, or like any of the islands that surrounded it. That is, according to how the books and her father described them to be. Wide sprawling beaches? Busy ports with an endless stream of boats coming and going? No, this wasn’t Shanghai.

What was this island, then?

Jiyoon slides her compass off the map and holds it up, looking back and forth between the figures on paper and the island.

And, well, it’s strange.

Looking at her math and, more importantly, the map, this island... doesn’t exist.

Scrunching her nose, Jiyoon heaves a frustrated sigh, looking forlornly at her notes. It’ll be fine, Jiyoon thinks, just minor adjustments. She’ll avoid the island altogether and keep an eye out for any other surprise landmasses between now and Shanghai.

Easy, simple. She’s got this. A few tugs at the tiller and the sheets steering the mainsail, and the boat is on track to skirt the island and return to its original trajectory.

Jiyoon leans back, rechecks that everything is as it should be before she grabs her guitar again. She rolls her neck and sits still for a second, gauging how hungry she is. To her surprise: she isn’t, not really, having successfully distracted herself for the last couple of hours. Still, she tears off a corner of bread from where it sits in its box and chews it down alongside a—you guessed it!—tangerine. The sweet citrusy taste lingers as Jiyoon plucks away at a tune that mirrors the steady rhythm of the waves, more tame as they pass the island.

Speaking of, the island’s appearance is a bit deceiving.

Looking at it head on, it seems to be quite small, but going around it the island stretches, rough sand giving way to large rocks and smatterings of grass that trail off under some trees. Jiyoon’s eyebrows inch up as the rocks continue growing taller and taller, forming a small cliffside at their peak.

Jiyoon lets out a whistle, then tries to match the sound with her guitar. She doesn’t quite get it, but hey, she has nothing but time to practice out here. She’s always wanted to play like her father, who first showed her the instrument upon coming home from one of his trips. Granted, he only knew as much as the merchant he bought it from showed him in their time together, but he was good at making things up as he went. “To build something from nothing is one of your father’s greatest strengths,” her mother used to say.

When he left, he took his guitar with him. That was the last they saw of them both. Jiyoon’s honestly not sure where her mother got this one. She wonders how long she’s held onto it, knowing one day Jiyoon would go, too.

The thought sends a twinge through her chest. She purses her lips and strums listlessly, fingers fidgeting more than anything. “Go, see the world. Don’t worry about me, Jiyoon-ah. I’ll miss you like the sea misses the sand, but I’ll be okay. See the little pieces of himself your father left behind for you. He—no, Jiyoon. This again? I don’t mean his bones. How would he even—”

Jiyoon laughs, like she did then, her mother’s voice exasperated but fond. She didn’t even have to say anything, her theory having been a topic of conversation for far too long. Long enough for her mother to expect it in every desperate plea Jiyoon made for her blessing to leave home on her own.

Her cheeks still hurt from how hard she’d smiled the day she finally got it. And here she was, smooth sailing under open skies—out in the world.

Short, gentle sounds drift from her guitar where she plucks them with her fingers, accompanied by the sound of the wind rustling the island’s trees. That same wind makes her sail stutter, boon wavering under it. The sky is still clear, but there’s clouds in the distance she hadn’t noticed until then. She’ll just have to keep an eye on them.

A small sense of reluctance curls in her stomach.

“Jiyoon-ah,” she says with a slight lilt, “I know you don’t want to sail through that storm, but that doesn’t mean you won’t have to sail through it. So, eat a tangerine and sail through that storm. Did you hear that, Jiyoon-ah? You! Can! Eaaat! Yummy tangerines. Yummy tangerines, yummy tangerines. We can eaaat yummy tangerines. Yummy tangerines, yummy tangerines!” Jiyoon strums with a flourish and points at the fruit. “Thank you, Jeju!”

She bows to an invisible audience, shoulders slumping when she straightens out. Without her talking to herself, the white noise of the water becomes loud once again, waves rushing around her boat and the island—which she’s now almost reached the far end of.

The boat jostles enough for a tangerine to roll out of its crate and Jiyoon takes it as a sign. All of the tangerines heard her honoring them collectively and decided to pay her in turn. Very kind of you to sacrifice one of your own, benevolent tangerines.

She’s in the middle of picking up her snack when she stops because what the hell is that thought process, Jiyoon?

“Yummy tangerines,” she whispers with a slight frown.

Jiyoon sits and digs her nail into the tangerine, a pretty harmony accompanying her humming.

It’s when Jiyoon starts eating the tangerine and the harmony continues without her that she freezes, silent. That wasn’t her.

The voice—a voice that isn’t Jiyoon’s—sings a note, drawing it out until it’s eerie and ethereal all at once.

She looks at the island but she had been right, it’s something of a cliffside back here, jagged rocks obscuring most of what lies beyond them. Jiyoon chews, brows furrowed, and glances down when something bumps into the hull. Expecting a fish and instead met with a person’s face staring back at her, Jiyoon just about jumps out of her skin, yelling and hurling her tangerine down at it before she can think.

The girl dodges the fruit, long fingers curling over the side of the boat to pull herself up, eyes steady as they bore into Jiyoon.

“What,” she breathes, inching back as the girl rises from the water. Her ears are shaped like fins, blue and iridescent like the scales that trail along the edges of her face and down past her neck. She has some slits there, fluttering open as water slips out of them and then closing again, smooth against her skin.

Gills.

She’s… she’s—

“A mermaid?” Jiyoon says.

The girl tilts her head. One of her hands drops from the boat then returns, holding something.

“Tan...gerine?” she says, somehow making it melodic.

“Um, yeah,” says Jiyoon. She gestures at it. “Tangerine.”

“Hm,” says the girl. She folds her arms and rests her head on them, exhaling. The girl hums and it's the only sound in the world. “From Jeju,” she adds.

Whatever apprehension Jiyoon felt at first melts away as the girl speaks, her intonations compelling her closer. She crouches forward, mesmerized by the way those fingers hold the fruit, drops of water glinting on skin and scales. Her movement sparks no objection. In fact, the girl seems to welcome it, smiling slightly as Jiyoon closes the distance. It’s not like she’d gotten very far in the first place, limited by the width of the hull.

“Have… have you had one?”

Of all the things to ask, Jiyoon doesn’t know why she goes with that. She’s finding it hard to think straight as she spots a tail in the water, strong and languid, just under the surface.

The girl moves her head in a way that doesn’t seem to mean yes or no, looking briefly over her shoulder. She turns to Jiyoon with a smile, flicking her tail so the fin at the end sends water flying over them. Jiyoon ducks, laughing in disbelief. The girl—mermaid drops the tangerine and lets go of the boat, slinking out of Jiyoon’s sight.

“Wait,” she says, scrambling to look over the edge, hands perched on the same spots the mermaid’s had just occupied.

She’s still there, keeping her face afloat for Jiyoon to see. Her hair swirls around, dark like the deepest depths of the ocean. A tilt forward and Jiyoon could fall into it.

The mermaid raises a hand up to Jiyoon, palm open.

Distantly, she hears the canvas of her sail shudder, the mast creaking as the boat shifts.

A tug in her stomach leaves Jiyoon feeling like she’s forgetting something. An instinct. Like if her mother was here, she’d be shaking her head at her. “You cannot trust so easily out there. Not everyone has good intentions, Jiyoon-ah.”

The mermaid touches her fingertips to Jiyoon’s, eyes wide.

In the face of everything, the touch sparks something in Jiyoon she can’t ignore. The tug was now a pull, and it wanted her in the water now. She blinks and fits her hand to the mermaid’s, chills running up her arms when those fingers wrap around her wrist.

A pretty sigh leaves the mermaid’s mouth, the two of them sharing a smile before Jiyoon’s overboard. It happens so fast she barely has time to suck in an inhale, seawater unrelenting as it rushes up to her and swallows her whole. Opening her eyes stings, but Jiyoon isn’t missing a single second of being underwater with a mermaid, holy shit.

She almost gasps, but that’s a bad, bad idea, so Jiyoon gawks with the rest of her face instead.

If the mermaid was a sight to see above water, she was… something to behold under it. It’s like raving about a tiny fragment of a masterpiece, thinking what could possibly be better than this? then being shown the whole piece by the artist themself.

Did that even make sense? Maybe not, but neither did she. Pitch black hair fanned out around them, fins on her ears and tail splayed wide with spines, and, oh, her tail. Jiyoon could spend the rest of her days looking at that tail, and still she would marvel at it.

Faint recollections of a village elder recanting tales from the Samguk yusa flicker through her mind. A kingdom under the water. A fisherman from Busan talking about a woman that had warned them of an oncoming storm before disappearing into the sea, one too many years ago.

She’s too caught up in reconciling what she knows with reality to notice the mermaid pulling her closer until her tail presses against Jiyoon’s legs.

Jiyoon smiles at her, motions at herself and up. Bubbles of air slip out of her mouth and she clamps her lips tighter together. A faint pressure starts over her chest.

The mermaid doesn’t loosen her grip, instead she brings her other hand around to cup the back of Jiyoon’s neck which is… confusing. She wants to shy away from the touch, but finds that one unrelenting as well.

Out of the corner of her eye, something flashes white.

A sense of uneasiness comes over her. Jiyoon tries to yank herself free, but can’t. She frowns. The mermaid bends Jiyoon’s head back and to the side, her mouth so close to Jiyoon’s ear it sends goosebumps down her neck.

She begins to sing. Or hum. A weird in-between thing, that sounds like both yet also neither. Sweet and soft. It's otherworldly, muffled yet, impossibly, amplified by the sea. It completely disarms Jiyoon in a way it wouldn’t have on land, her body going slack in the mermaid’s hold.

All her apprehension and fear is drained away, Jiyoon lost in the sound. It seeps through her skull, soaks the space behind her eyes up to the brim. The tightness in her chest eases and she sighs, squinting up at the sun as it glints through the water. It seems so far away.

Something sharp drags against her jaw and it tickles, so Jiyoon cringes away from it, giggling. The hand around her wrist tightens, the one behind her neck flexing so her head lolls against her shoulder.

There, another face.

Jiyoon doesn’t throw a tangerine at it this time, empty-handed and out of her mind enough to skip the part where she finds the sudden appearance shocking.

She tries to wiggle her fingers at her new friend but can’t tell if she succeeds, limbs rather numb now that she thinks about it. Maybe that has something to do with the fuzzy edges circling her vision, everything darker than she remembers it.

The face frowns then looks up, turning to Jiyoon with a sense of… hurriedness? It opens its mouth and Jiyoon wonders if she’ll be serenaded again.

Something like a kiss is laid on her other shoulder.

A duet, perhaps?

But what comes of the mouth is not a song, nor a hum, but a shriek. A shriek so powerful it wakes Jiyoon up, fast and ugly. The innermost parts of her ears ache with it as it rings through her, shoulders tensing and teeth gritting as if locking her jaw up would keep the sound out.

She wants to cover her ears and muffle the sound but Jiyoon can’t move, the realization that she’s being drowned dawning on her just as a wave hurls her boat down at them, ripping the mermaid away from her and slamming Jiyoon down against something hard. Pain flares all throughout her body and darkness finally overtakes her, putting her to rest, ignorant to the chaos unfolding around her.

 

 

The storm roils the sea, clouds having snuck up on Jiyoon and her captors while they were… preoccupied. The worst thing you can be at times like this is unaware, and yet?

 

 

Jiyoon wakes up sore, groggy, and coughing a lung up.

It takes a while for the hacking to stop, stomach muscles tense and upset. It takes even longer to make sense of what’s happening, how she got here, why she was even asleep to begin with. The last thing she remembers… well, right now her brain feels like an egg cracked onto a plate. Bits of shell to be picked out, and all that, so, she’s not quite sure what to make of the last thing she remembers.

Even opening her eyes hurts, the sudden onslaught of light making them ache. The pain travels swiftly through her head and Jiyoon recoils. This is, of course, accompanied by another onslaught of dissent, muscles reminding her that they disagree with all this sudden movement business.

Jiyoon groans.

Can’t look, can’t flinch, can’t do anything without it taking time.

At least you’re not dead, says a little voice in her head.

She lifts her arms up to look at them, begrudgingly thinks, I guess. Outwardly, she seems to be relatively unscathed, some scratches here and there. Sand sloughs off of her arms, too wet to cling to her skin.

Jiyoon tilts her head down, sighing at the pressure in her skull that follows the movement. Water laps at her legs. She’s on… a beach.

More accurately, she’s been washed up onto a beach.

Jiyoon tastes something metallic and frowns, bringing a hand to her mouth but finding nothing. She inhales and realizes her nose is the culprit, blood dried and crusted at one of her nostrils. There’s also a long bruise forming around her wrist that she hadn’t noticed before.

Images of a thick spiny tail, opulent scales and sharp, sharp teeth flash in her mind’s eye.

Jiyoon chokes out a laugh.

“Not just rough waters, huh?” she says, patting herself down to check she’s all in one piece. Fingers on her neck, mouth on her shoulder. Jiyoon shoots straight up, screaming muscles be damned. She—they. They? Oh god.

“They were going to eat me.”

The cool tide laves at her feet and she shudders, scrambling away from the water on her elbows, fresh stings telling her she’s scraped the skin off them because—yeah, this beach? There’s not so much sand as there are boulders in various states of erosion, more… more jagged as she moves further inland.

Jagged like the island’s cliffside.

Jiyoon stands on shaky legs and spins around. She’s in a cove, only a small strait of water connecting it to the sea. The mermaids had probably taken her towards the rocks near the island’s exterior to kill her, inadvertently also bringing her to the passage that would save her when her boat came crashing down on them.

Her boat.

She blinks, the sentence rewinding and playing again in her head.

When her... boat... came crashing down... on them.

Jiyoon looks down at the spot on the sand where she’d woken up. Nearby, part of a wooden plank bobs on top of the water before being carried back out to the center of the cove. She scans the edge of the water, hoping but also not, that she’ll see—there.

“My… boat,” she says.

Not wasting a second, she scrambles towards it—feet aching (where the fuck are her boots?) and head pounding with each movement. Jiyoon feels a sick sense of dread rise through her as she gets closer—not her boat, not her boat, not her boat, she prays and prays. Water rushes around her feet as she cuts through it to reach the moored remains of her vessel, rocks merciless against her skin. She sinks to her knees when she reaches it, hands clambering to hold on to what’s left. Bow, mast, sail, sheet, planks; front half, this is just the front half, this is just the front half.

Jiyoon can feel her breathing go ragged, head snapping to search for other parts—for something, something that remotely looks like it could be from her boat. A pit settles in her stomach. Fuck.

Her chest, she needs to find her chest.

Extra clothes, papers, money, her map and compass. All of it, in that chest. In that… heavy, wooden chest. She stutters to a stop, having stood at some point. Jiyoon looks at the wreck. If only half had made it onto the beach, the damage had been done in the crash, or soon after. The crates of food, her water, her chest, her guitar—everything would’ve slipped through the cracks then.

Carried away, or sunken.

Lost to the bottom of the ocean.

Gone.

Jiyoon doubles over, screwing her eyes shut.

“Okay. Okay, okay. Think,” she says, ignoring the way her voice wants to waver with the tears building up in her throat. “Just think, Jiyoon. You’re on this island that, last you checked, doesn’t exist, but whatever. You’re here, your boat’s busted, and all of your stuff is—ha, nowhere to be seen! You’re here, you almost died, but you still might die if you don’t figure something out, so fucking think, please.”

Something bumps into her foot and her eyes fly open, thinking no fucking way.

It is not, however, either of the mermaids, back for more.

“You,” says Jiyoon, guttural.

The mostly peeled tangerine that she never got to eat sits there, unaware of everything that’s happened since they last saw each other. Jiyoon picks it up, fingers shaking against its flesh. Around her, the tide rolls tangerines onto the beach, dotting the fruit along the shore.

Irrevocably vexed by the sight, Jiyoon yells; a short, frustrated sound that erupts out of her, stunted when Jiyoon throws the tangerine at the nearest tree. It splatters against the trunk, soggy.

Misshapen.

Beaten.

“You’re not,” she heaves, “special.”

“Poor tangerine.”

Jiyoon jumps, turns around.

Now that—is a mermaid. The second one, to be specific.

“Siren, actually.”

Had she said that aloud?

“Yes.”

Jiyoon glares with all the malice she can muster.

“I don’t know what that is,” she says, eyeing the space between them.

“Well I guess you do now.”

The siren was laying in the shallow, head resting on her folded arms, a familiar picture. She flashes Jiyoon a smile. A chill runs up her spine—how hadn’t she noticed those teeth before?

“You eat people?”

The siren drags her finger through the sand, shrugging slightly.

Jiyoon follows the movement then stops herself, shaking her head. She wouldn’t be lured again. Though she can’t help but want to look. This siren sported a different color to the first, scales leaning towards white, a pretty opalescent sheen over them. Jiyoon can’t help but note how perfectly the sun shines on her tail.

Iridescent.

Enticing.

She makes sure to avoid the water entirely.

“Poor tangerine,” the siren repeats, smile seeping into her tone. Jiyoon’s mouth tastes a lot like metal again. “Poor Jiyoon-ah, too.”

“Don’t call me that,” she snaps.

“Is that not your name?”

“It’s Jiyoon.”

The siren hums. Sweet and soft.

Jiyoon remembers not being able to breathe.

“What’s the difference?”

“You tried to eat me,” she says, jaw clenched tight.

“Did I?”

“Yes! You and your friend!” says Jiyoon, jabbing a finger out past the rocks.

“But it was mostly Jimin wasn’t it?”

“I don’t care—who the fuck is Jimin?”

The siren flicks her tail in an arc, grinning pleasantly. The tide pulls up and away from the sand, dragging her scribbles with it.

“My friend, as you put it. She’s Jimin and I’m Soeun. You’re very lucky, you know, not many people come to know a siren’s name. Much less two.”

“Why are you telling me, then?”

Soeun shrugs again and Jiyoon’s eyelid twitches.

“Where is she?” she asks, glancing around for Soeun’s blue counterpart.

“Ah,” the siren says, mouth ticking up for a second. “Sulking. Caught off guard by a boat of all things? Mm.”

Jiyoon’s guard is still up, deliberately so, but all of this has just felt like a conversation. No lies, no traps. But that in and of itself could be a trap…!

“Do you still... want… me?” She shakes her head. Fuck. “To eat me, I mean.”

Soeun tucks her hair behind her ears, chuckling like Jiyoon said something funny. Her fin-shaped ears glimmer in the light.

“Sirens don’t want humans, Jiyoon,” she says, slinking further into the water. Jiyoon watches warily, stumbling slightly when she takes a step back. Just in case. “Luring, killing, eating; it’s a matter of will or won’t. Hunger and boredom are so easily confused.”

She splashes water up at her, Jiyoon ducking on instinct. When Jiyoon looks back, Soeun’s gone, a few bubbles the only sign that she’d been there at all. Could also just be seafoam. Jiyoon’s eyes linger on the spot before she droops with a sigh.

She closes her eyes.

Deep breath in.

Set your shoulders.

And go.

 

 

Jiyoon manages to pick a good handful of tangerines out of the water, dropping them in a divot she dug with her hands that she’s pretty sure sits beyond the reach of high tide. It’s when she goes to inspect the broad leaves of the island trees and gets a generous amount of rain water dumped on her by one of them that she realizes the storm might’ve saved her in more ways than one.

The water is mostly fresh which, for all accounts, makes it drinkable.

Knowing a source of food and water is nearby does a lot to abate her panic. The longer she sustains herself, the more time she has to put something together that’ll get her out of here. Shanghai shouldn’t be too far away, theoretically. Unless her notes were wrong and she was actually super, super way off, but no, Jiyoon bats those thoughts away. No, that will simply not be the case.

Trust yourself, her father always said. When you’re out in the ocean, all alone, the only one that can save you is you.

Come on, Jiyoon. Think.

With Shanghai near, there’s an off chance that she could come across another boat, a ship with a crew, maybe. But considering she hadn’t crossed paths with anyone since the first day out from Jeju and this island doesn’t exist on paper, she won’t bank on it happening now that she actually needs it.

She taps the leaf she’s been fiddling with against her chin. What to do, what to do. The leaf snaps along its stem where Jiyoon was folding it, and she squints. She folds the leaf again, parallel to the crack and semi-successfully gets a strip out of it when she separates the pieces. She looks at the boat, and the extra pieces of planks she’s managed to retrieve from the cove.

“Oh my god,” she whimpers because she really doesn’t want to, but she knows she’s going to. Try, at least. She’s going to try to do something with the leaves. Rope, or…. or some kind of sheet? To patch… to carry—? Okay, she’s not sure yet. It depends entirely on what she makes and how it holds up, but god. The idea pains her regardless.

Her only respite is that it’s late afternoon, and there are other things that require her attention before the sun goes down. Securing what little she has, for one, as well as starting a fire for the night.

Time flies as Jiyoon goes about dragging pieces of her boat further up the beach and collecting enough dry wood to get a fire going. She briefly considers looking for more viable spots for shelter on the island, like a cave or something, but two steps into the trees, in the dark, and she's turning right around. It’d be a waste to put out the fire just to try and start it somewhere else anyway.

Jiyoon clears a spot beside her fire the best she can, laying down some leaves and tucking her arms under her head. She eyes the flame and falls asleep.

While she doesn’t set herself on fire in the night, the fire does go out, mere embers and cinders left when Jiyoon wakes up a few hours later under clear deep blue skies and a plethora of twinkling stars. Exhaustion echoes deep in her bones, but her body is still attuned to sleeping in short bouts, so she has trouble going back to sleep.

Bored and cold, sleep continuing to evade her, Jiyoon gathers the spare wood, cleans off the soot left by the old flame and starts a new one. She can almost hear a village elder’s voice telling her working in the dark is bad for your eyes, Jiyoon-ah, but Jiyoon can’t think of what else to do, besides rest or despair (or both), so she goes ahead and grabs her leaves, fingers steady as they make strips and strips and more strips.

She falls asleep again without realizing a little while after that, crude braid in her hands and forehead balanced precariously on her knee. Jiyoon jolts awake and blinks at what she’s made, nodding her head a little at its length. She rolls her neck and lies down. The sky is lighter now, hints of orange preluding the sun’s arrival. She stretches her limbs, making note of what feels better and what feels the same. Falling asleep like she did, sitting up and hunched over, didn’t go far in alleviating any of her aches.

She remembers what Soeun had said, earlier—that Jiyoon was lucky to learn their names. Jiyoon supposes she’s lucky she survived them. Made it out in one piece.

“Just need a little more,” Jiyoon whispers up at the stars, watching them fade in the morning light.

A little more luck, just enough to get her off this island.

The sun breaks through the horizon and Jiyoon stands, picking up her braid that would hopefully serve as rope. She can’t find it within herself to be surprised when she sees someone already looking back at her from the water.

“Morning,” she says shortly, crouching to submerge her braid in the tide. Bits of sand clinging on to it wash away with the water, making for a rather dull but needed distraction.

Jimin just watches her, black hair obscuring anything below her neck.

The cove is pretty. Now that she isn’t immediately post-shipwreck, it’s easier to see. Jiyoon pulls at the ends of the braid, testing how easily it comes apart pulled taut.

“Not surprised to see me, human?”

Jiyoon glances at the siren.

“Soeun visited me yesterday,” she says.

Jimin huffs. “Of course she did.”

The braid holds up alright in the saltwater, but its fibers fray and stick out the longer she pulls. Jiyoon tsks. That wouldn’t do.

“What did she say?” Jimin grudgingly asks, squinting at Jiyoon.

“She said you were sulking,” Jiyoon answers, absentmindedly—more occupied with wondering what exactly she could do to make the braid stronger.

“I was not, she—Soeun—!” Jimin starts and stops, scowling.

Jiyoon has to resist the urge to smirk, slightly vindicated from having annoyed the siren, even by proxy.

Jimin turns her head so Jiyoon can’t see her face. She takes a breath and turns back, expression smooth, almost blank but not quite. “No matter. What are you doing?”

She holds up the rope, decidedly more unkempt than it’d been when she last held it up.

“Trying to figure out how I’m going to get out of here.” Her eyes flick up to meet Jimin’s. “Alive, preferably.”

The siren grins, something that dances the line between danger and amusement.

“Well, you’ve made it this far, haven’t you?”

Jiyoon narrows her eyes at Jimin, who makes a noncommittal gesture, voice lilting as she brushes off the suspicion leveled at her.

“I’m sure Soeun said something about—appetite and agendas and boredom, et cetera, et cetera. I won’t try to kill you again. Probably.”

“‘Probably,” Jiyoon parrots flatly.

Jimin wiggles her eyebrows and laughs, a melodic sound framed by the pointed ends of her teeth. A faint sensation, a memory, of that mouth on Jiyoon’s shoulder makes her shudder, blood rushing to her ears. She blatantly ignores the accompanying heat.

The siren has this knowing look about her which Jiyoon doesn’t like, so she stands and trudges off to her camp, shoddy rope in hand, knowing the next time she looks to the waters, Jimin will be long gone.

Sure enough—she’s right. Jiyoon returns her attention to her assortment of strips with a deep exhale.

 

 

Next time the sirens visit, she’s sprawled in the sand again, surrounded by even more leaves, as well as a fallen tree she’s been hacking away at with a rock for the past couple of hours. The goal was to make, yet again, more strips, this time with the longer, and hopefully sturdier, material of the tree itself, maybe even weave it into the braids she’d already made.

Jiyoon had paused her efforts when her arms threatened to fall off.

Too bothered to drag herself over to the shade, she lies there with a leaf over her face, wondering what the tan on her ankles will look like since she had to cut off some fabric from one of her pant legs to make a tie for her hair. She wiggles her toes, wondering where her boots are for the nth time.

“Jiyoon~”

She lifts the leaf enough for her to look at the water.

Soeun waves at her, eyes curving with her smile. Behind her, Jimin lingers, eyes the only part of her face above water like a crocodile.

“Good day,” she mumbles, dropping the leaf back on her face.

“Good day!” Soeun echoes.

Her enthusiasm is objectively sweet, and Jiyoon smiles despite herself. She rolls herself up so she’s sitting, legs kicked out in front of her. Her face scrunches up under the bright light of midday, leaf instantly up to shelter her poor eyes.

“What’s up,” she says drowsily.

Soeun blinks, says, “Hm?”

“Um,” Jiyoon buffers. “To what do I owe this visit…?”

“Oh. We want to show you something,” Soeun says, beaming.

Jiyoon’s eyebrows fly up, not bothering to hide her incredulity.

“Huh?”

“Come on,” Soeun needles, arms stretched out as if the closer she is to Jiyoon the more convinced she will be. Which, in this instance, does not achieve its intended effect, unfortunately. Jiyoon curls the fingers of her free hand into the sand like an anchor.

“Excuse me, if I don’t fall over myself to take up this very vague invitation, but—”

“Human,” Jimin cuts her off, “this is not a trick. If it was, it’d be an embarrassingly uninspired one, and entirely Soeun’s—ow,” she grimaces, Soeun’s elbow at her ribs, “—idea.”

“Yes, Jiyoon, I promise it is something you would like to see! You can walk alongside us, no need to get in,” says Soeun—her scowl for Jimin instantly replaced with a smile once she turns back to Jiyoon.

The emphasis on her name seems to be a counter to Jimin’s use of human, discourse shared between the sirens with very few words.

Jiyoon thinks about it for a minute, tries to calculate the probability of this being a trick, despite their claims that it isn’t. So far, keeping some distance between them has worked well, though it’s possible she’s been lulled into a false sense of security with that. Her life being subjected to the whims of two strangers—two man-eating strangers—doesn’t sit well with her, if she’s being honest, but she’s bored, she’s curious, and for some reason, she’s baselessly confident that she won’t get duped again.

Sighing, Jiyoon stands and digs a tangerine out of the sand with her foot, tossing it up into the air and catching it easily.

Soeun claps, squeals out an ooh!

Jiyoon waves her off, but her shoulders still inch up.

She’s had some practice with that move, too lazy to bend down and scoop the fruit out of the divot with her hands. The skin parts easily under her nails.

“Where to?” she asks.

Soeun grins widely and ducks underwater, hitting Jimin with her tail as she does, Jimin spluttering in her wake.

She mutters something that sounds like insufferable wretch before she goes under as well, Jiyoon keeping an eye on them as she follows. They stick close to the curve of the beach so Jiyoon can keep up, which she appreciates.

Bit by bit the tangerine goes into her mouth as she walks, mostly unaffected by the grit of the sand at this point. Like this, she can observe the sirens’ tails all without scrutiny.

It’s quite the spectacle, how the light bounces off the water and onto their scales and back into the water, angles odd and jarring. Jimin’s scales are actually more of a smokey grey, now that Jiyoon looks. The blue is a tint, the same way amethyst sits on Soeun’s calcite white. Also obvious is their strength. Even under Jimin’s spell, Jiyoon remembers making note of it. They must travel at impressive speeds, swift enough to cut through strong currents.

It made their pace now, them accommodating Jiyoon, all the more curious.

When they reach the end of the beach, Soeun gestures at Jiyoon to climb over the rocks there—in all their rough, jagged glory. Jimin’s already swimming away from her towards the strait, presumably to meet Jiyoon on the other side.

Soeun flashes Jiyoon a thumbs up and heads towards the strait as well. Jiyoon turns to the rocks. She hasn’t gone this way herself, sticking to the trees, more inland. She remembers the island’s rocky exterior, seeing it rise near the end from the comfort of her boat, then the wreck.

This doesn’t feel like the best idea.

Regardless, Jiyoon crams the rest of her tangerine into her mouth and tosses the peel over her shoulder, dusting her hands off before she climbs. It’s the shortest section of rock, but it’s still taller than her.

Up and over, Jiyoon is hit with the sound of the waves crashing against the island. Being inside the cove had shielded her from full force of it, an effective barrier from everything beyond. It’s also more slippery over here, rocks beaten smooth by the sea. Jiyoon exercises extreme care as she climbs down as much as she can, looking for the sirens.

“Over here!”

Her head snaps up at Soeun’s call, finding her a little further along the rocks.

“We can’t get right under you, it’s all—” she makes a convoluted gesture with both hands. Jiyoon can see rocks under the surface, directly below her.

“Alright. Now what?” she yells.

Soeun waves along the rocks, pointing at something past herself.

“This way! Just a little more!”

Jiyoon’s shoulders and arms groan. She hadn’t realized the climbing wouldn’t stop.

Deep breath in.

And out.

And go.

“This better not be,” she huffs, covering as much distance as she dares at a time, “you tiring me out so I fall to my death. I refuse to be easy pickings, thank you very much.”

“That’s not—”

“Humans are easy pickings regardless of how they die.”

“—Jimin.”

“What? Am I wrong?”

Soeun places both of her hands on Jimin’s head and dunks her, eyes wide as Jimin gets a hold of her arms and pulls her under too. Jiyoon snorts.

If these two actually do end up killing her...

Well.

It would reflect at least a little bit on Jiyoon, somehow, wouldn’t it?

Eventually the rocks at sea level flatten out enough for Jiyoon to drop down and shuffle forwards on her feet. The wall dips in and Soeun and Jimin pop their heads out of the water, waiting for Jiyoon to reach it. They’ve stopped at a cave in the face of the cliffside.

The opening isn’t high enough to avoid the water, a layer of it seeping in and covering the floor. Jiyoon didn’t understand why the sirens wanted to show her this. Maybe as an alternative shelter? Though it wouldn’t really work seeing as she’d likely drown once high tide came.

“Nice cave…?” Jiyoon tried.

She turned in time to see Jimin rolling her eyes.

“No, Jiyoon,” Soeun giggled, “up there!”

Jiyoon leaned back as far as she could, craning her head to see what could possibly be over the caves besides more rock.

She stops as soon as her eyes land on it, breath caught in her lungs.

No way.

“Is that—?” she heaves herself up the wall again, fingers white with tension on the bit of the cave that protrudes near the top. “My guitar?”

The instrument sat pretty on a small ledge, in one piece, relatively not much worse off than it’d been when Jiyoon saw it last.

“Holy shit.”

“I told you it’d be something you’d like to see!” Soeun says. “I would’ve gotten it, but—”

“Couldn’t reach,” Jimin says, eyes flitting up to where the guitar was perched. “Obviously.”

Soeun nods, pouting.

Jiyoon feels her mouth open and close, trying and failing to find words. She doesn’t know what she was expecting but this certainly wasn’t it. It almost feels like a kindness, them showing her this. The implication that Soeun wanted to try or did try getting Jiyoon’s guitar from the rocks.

She finds another foothold and stretches, just managing to snag the guitar by its neck and pull it closer, dropping down in front of the cave’s mouth. Her fingers smooth over the wood, feeling for cracks and dents.

“I can’t believe it,” Jiyoon says. She hugs the guitar close to her chest. “Thank you, for… showing me.”

“Can you play it, please? I didn’t get to hear that much before,” Soeun says.

Jiyoon cocks her head, confused. Before?

“From the boat,” Jimin supplies.

“Oh.”

She looks at Soeun’s clasped hands and shiny eyes, the reluctant interest from Jimin, and knows she’s going to do it. It’s not that she’s gone soft on them, no. It’s a thank you for helping her.

That’s it.

Really.

“Sure, I guess. When we get back on the beach?”

“Yes!” Soeun cheers, ears wiggling with excitement.

What the fuck? That’s adorable. Fuck.

No, not soft, not soft, not soft—

“We can swim you back if you’re too tired to climb again,” she adds.

Jiyoon stops, squinting.

Soeun holds her hands up. “Or not.”

As nice as it sounds to get back to the cove with minimum to no effort on her part, Jiyoon’s pretty sure if she accepted Soeun’s offer, the version of her mother that lives as a voice of guidance in her head would materialize solely to knock her out clean.

She looks at the way she came and sighs. Her guitar doesn’t have a strap that she can carry it with and climbing one-handed is out of the question.

Water rushes against her legs as she slowly crouches, holding the guitar out to Soeun.

“I’ll climb, but can you take this back for me?”

Soeun gasps and nods, fingers fluttering around the instrument as Jiyoon passes it to her.

“Please, um,” she starts.

“I’ll keep it safe,” Soeun says knowingly, holding the guitar up high, simultaneously sincere and exaggerated.

“Ah… thanks.”

Soeun smiles and brings one hand down, leaning back as she flicks her tail, shooting backwards in the water with the guitar still over her head. “See you there,” she says, and she’s off.

Jiyoon stands, accidentally making eye contact with Jimin and promptly turning around to start making her way back. The siren doesn’t say a word, but Jiyoon feels her linger, keeping pace with her as she shuffles sideways then climbs the rest of the way, lifting herself up and over the same spot Soeun first showed her. Only when on the other side of the rock does Jiyoon check to see if she was right, barely catching a glimpse of blue before it disappears.

Hm.

Both Soeun and Jimin are waiting for her when she arrives at her camp, Soeun proud to show her the guitar is safe and sound.

“Yes, yes, thank you, good job,” she says, carefully retrieving it from the siren’s outstretched hand.

Jiyoon situates her hold on the guitar almost instantly, fingers already at the pegs as she strums. Two of them are a little loose, so the tuning isn’t perfect, but considering it was launched out of a sailboat and onto a cliffside, Jiyoon’s happy with it.

“Any requests?” Jiyoon asks, head tilted towards her audience.

Jimin just stares, Soeun shaking her head before setting her chin on her fists, elbows in the sand. Is this real life, she wonders. It doesn’t really feel like it.

“Alright,” she breathes. “I’m not, like, extraordinary, by the way, so. Manage your expectations, please.”

Back home, the closest instrument they have to a guitar is the gayageum, but really the only similarities is that it’s stringed. The way you hold and play the two differ quite a lot, the gayageum built to produce sounds the guitar simply doesn’t. This, and Jiyoon’s skill level has made it a bit difficult to translate the music she knows into something she can play, though she came close a couple times experimenting with plucking versus strumming and a lot of trial and error. Anything else she knows is either directly from her father—songs reminiscent of a place Jiyoon’s never set foot in and some Shin Family Originals—or pieces she’s come up with when she was able to get her hands on his guitar.

So, it kind of feels like she has too much to pick from yet also nothing at all, as far as music selections go, performance jitters fumbling around in her stomach.

Jiyoon chews on her lips then stops, suddenly struck by a memory. The last thing they (Jimin, at least) heard from her was ‘yummy tangerines’.

What the hell was she thinking so hard for?

Jiyoon scrubs the hair that’s fallen out of her ponytail out of her face and blows out a breath. A simple melody pops into her head and she starts picking it out, sees Soeun and Jimin lean in out of the corner of her eye.

Usually, she sings or hums as she plays but this time she doesn’t. She just plays like she would if she were by herself, messing around to see what sounds best. It goes on for a decent amount of time, songs flowing into each other. Near what feels like the end of the tune, she strums and plucks with more power, changing the tempo before the little flourish she does to mute the strings after the last notes.

It’s silent for a beat and then Soeun’s clapping and Jimin follows, a bit more discrete since her hands don’t fully rise out of the water. Jiyoon bows.

“That was so good!” says Soeun, grinning widely, enthusiasm and curiosity loud on her face. “Where did you learn?”

The strings feel tight against Jiyoon’s fingertips as she presses down on them, a soft smile on her lips. “My father,” she says. “He brought me back the guitar from one of his voyages—and he taught me songs, too, when he visited.”

Soeun nods, watching Jiyoon play lazily.

“So you take after him?”

Jimin’s question surprises her. The siren’s indifference had led Jiyoon to believe she was only there because Soeun was.

“Yeah,” Jiyoon hums after a while. “I looked up to him a lot.” Her tone lowers. “Still do.” She remembers what she came on this voyage to do; find her father.

Or at least what’s left of him, Jiyoon thinks.

The sirens tilt their heads in question. Actually, Soeun tilts her head and pouts in question. Only a furrow appears between Jimin’s brows.

“He hasn’t been back for a long while now.”

The quiet that follows Jiyoon’s words is a bit jarring, Soeun eyes growing more serious and Jimin’s face losing some of its blankness. Jiyoon wonders, silently, if they were always this easy to read.

“It’s fine though!” she says, trying to get rid of the heavy air. “It’s why I’m here.”

A clap of thunder in the distance catches Jiyoon’s attention, makes her look up at the sky. Storm clouds roll towards them, loud echoes just barely starting to reach them. A strike of lightning lights up the sky. How hadn’t she noticed it getting dark in the first place?

“Shit,” she swears, grip on her guitar tightening as she rushes towards her camp.

Jiyoon skids to a stop, realizing she just left the sirens at the shore without saying anything. She turns towards the beach but, once again, the sirens are already gone, a whirl of seafoam left in their wake.

“Bye,” she whispers, sound lost to the wind.

 

 

There’s a crick in her neck the next morning. Jiyoon stretches her arms, up and up, feeling the way her spine straightens and pops. She’d tried to make a roof type thing last night, in addition to covering herself with leaves as a last ditch effort to not get drenched. Needless to say with all the tiny pebbles and underbrush she’d woken up to, neither methods were especially effective. She slides out of her sleep spot and shuffles down the beach to the water.

Jiyoon submerges her arms, wiping down the sand and the pebbles and the grass clinging onto her. The water washes it all away, leaving red spots and dents on her skin. Fuck it, she decides and tugs off the cut cloth she used to tie her hair with; setting it aside, Jiyoon dips her hair in the water, cupping her hands to drench the top her head thoroughly.

Good god, Jiyoon thinks as she brushes through the tangles of her hair. It all feels so stiff and rough between Jiyoon’s fingers. She’ll have to hunt for rainwater again to rinse out the salt. After combing it the best she can, she wrings the water out. Jiyoon takes her hair tie and opts to tie it on her wrist so she doesn’t lose it.

The sun is already up, bright and shiny, almost no sign of the storm from the night before except for the slight disarray on the beach. Blue skies and clear waters make for a good day. Jiyoon rolls her shoulders before trudging into the treeline again, the promise of water for a quick bath and maybe even for washing her clothes an exciting one.

And to drink, she couldn’t forget—water to drink.

It takes some time to collect enough to wash everything, but Jiyoon does her clothes first, not having had the chance to clean them in a while. She sets them to dry on the mast of her boat and retreats to wash herself more thoroughly than she had with the seawater, clothes ready to wear by the time she’s done.

Jiyoon’s standing next to the front half off her boat, three days in on the island and feeling fresher than she has in a while, when she thinks that other half isn’t coming back to me anytime soon, huh?

It’s not that she thought it would, but. Perhaps she had hoped.

The different lengths of rope she’d made lay draped over the side of the boat. Jiyoon spends a good long while trying to weave them together into a sheet of sorts, an attempt at a cover for the gaping hole that is to be the new stern. Problem is, the sheet would have to be pretty water-proof for the boat not to sink as soon as she pushes it off land. Other problem is, Jiyoon has no idea how to do that. She supposes it partly has to do with keeping the weave tight, and that is just about the only thing in her control so Jiyoon sits in the little bench that wasn’t wrecked as badly in the wreck and gets to work.

It’s truly a wonder that everything she does on this island is an arm workout.

This time it's her forearms that burn, finer movements from her hands and fingers, the pulling she has to do to keep the rope taut. Sailing on her own had built her considerable muscle mass, but being stranded on an island presented its own strenuous challenges. Plus she’d never been that good with textiles, so. There’s that.

When she gets tired of weaving, she gets up and wanders off into the shade, not eager to stay in the sun for hours on end if she didn’t have to.

(Her ankle tan had, predictably, been horrendous.)

Jiyoon stretches and picks up her guitar from the tree she leaned it up against last night, tilting it around to empty it of any water that might’ve trickled into the hole behind the strings.

Idly strumming, she walks around a bit, deciding she should probably exercise her legs, too. It’d be a shame to come out of this all lop-sided. She could go for a swim, but… it’d be too soon after her shower.

Yeah.

“Just a castaway,” she mutters, “an island lost at sea, oh.”

A little melody Jiyoon came up with in her time on the boat comes back to her and she slides it into what she’s playing now, feet taking her in wide circles on their own. Occasionally she stops to have a drink. Water from the storm that had put her here in the first place had either evaporated, or she’d used all of what had been around her camp. She hadn’t ran out necessarily, just had to go deeper into the trees each time she needed some.

“It’s been three days.” Jiyoon scrunches her nose, scratching her head to think of what she could follow that with. She plays a bit more hesitantly, every syllable uncertain as she says, “Jimin, Soeun, and me, oh.”

Jiyoon stops. One syllable too many, she thinks. Also, we’re just singing about Jimin and Soeun—out loud, by name—now? What’s that about? Are we friends? Buddies? We just trust them now? Have we forgotten they tried killing you because they were bored and/or hungry and that’s what they do?

“Okay, fair,” she says, “but—” they haven’t tried to kill me again. They keep saying they won’t. And I know that’s not necessarily something you should just take their word for, but. It’s been three days. They found and showed me my guitar. Why bother, if they want me dead?

I don’t know, maybe so you have something to entertain yourself with while you eventually just starve to death?

Her stomach grumbles.

Ha.

“That’s just,” she huffs, “annoying timing.”

Either way, she spins herself back in the direction of her camp. The two voices in Jiyoon’s head continue to squabble, slowly tuned out by Jiyoon’s strumming and her wondering how many tangerines she has left.

The trees spread out more the closer she gets to the beach and soon enough Jiyoon’s standing over her divot, fingers still at her guitar strings. Her toes wiggle into the sand, framing her field of vision.

“Just a castaway, an island lost at sea, oh. Eating tangerines, of which I have six, oh.”

She scoops out a tangerine and sighs.

Didn’t even pass as a rhyme, really.

When she looks up, Soeun and Jimin are there, almost an identical image to yesterday’s visit, right before they’d left.

Jiyoon hesitates before waving at them. Soeun returns the gesture easily.

Jimin does too, almost as an afterthought.

“Good day,” she says.

Jiyoon raises an eyebrow, replying with her own, “Good day.”

“I heard you playing,” says Soeun, stealing Jiyoon’s attention.

She looks down at the guitar.

“Oh. Really?”

Worry creeps up Jiyoon’s throat.

That doesn’t mean they heard—

“And you were singing!”

Oh god.

“Really,” she chokes the words out, coughing when she inhales some spit.

“Couldn’t make out the words though,” Jimin says, blue tail swaying behind her. When she’s not laying it on thick with the whole aloof thing, she’s more… languid. More similar to the curious stranger propped up over the hull of Jiyoon’s boat. Frightening and enticing. A recurring theme here.

“You didn’t sing yesterday,” Soeun pouts.

“I didn’t know you wanted me to,” Jiyoon says, shrugging a shoulder as she pops a tangerine tooth in her mouth. She notices Soeun watching her, tracking her hands as she tears another segment off. Her eyes go wide as Jiyoon hands it to her. “Have you tried it?”

Soeun shakes her head and reaches up to take Jiyoon’s offering.

Their fingers brush briefly.

Jiyoon ducks her head, forgetting she tied her hair up at some point so it doesn’t save her from the flush she feels rise to her face.

Get a grip.

She echoes the gesture for Jimin, tangerine significantly lighter in her hand.

Five left.

The siren stares her.

“You didn’t have any either, right?”

Jimin looks down and to the side, only holding her hand out in response. She doesn’t raise hers as much as Soeun did, Jiyoon having to step closer to make sure she doesn’t drop it into the water. Suddenly, Jimin’s hand darts out and wraps around Jiyoon’s ankle, tugging enough to send her tumbling back so she lands on her butt, and rough. Another pull and her foot is in the water and all Jiyoon can say or think is a drill of what, what, what, what—

“Thank you,” Jimin says, and she lets go of Jiyoon, her other hand holding the tangerine.

Jiyoon looks at her own hand. She hadn’t even realized she’d dropped them. She looks to her right, the guitar, too. Fuck.

“What the fuck was that,” she says, scooting away while trying to hide any signs of anything other than calm.

Maybe some confused.

As a treat.

“You’re still nervous around me,” Jimin says, sniffing the fruit.

Jiyoon blinks.

Yeah, no shit.

“So, you thought you’d just solve that by almost dragging me into the water? Because that’s worked so great for the whole nervous thing, right?”

And, okay, she can’t help but slip some heat into her words; heart still racing, sand stuck to the sweat on her palms.

Jimin just cocks her head towards Soeun, says, “See?”

Jiyoon frowns.

“What?”

Soeun provides no answers, popping out the finger that was just in her mouth.

“Are tangerines usually sour?”

What.

“Uh,” Jiyoon shakes her head, distracted by the wet imprint on her leg from Jimin’s hand. She hugs her knees close. “Not, like, sour-sour, but these are going bad. A little bit. So, we’re just not going to talk about—?”

“I think!” Soeun interjects, like she’s going to derail the conversation, but she stops short. “Jimin... is not known for having tact—” she flicks the other Siren’s arm, “—and is very comfortable not letting the rest of us know what she’s thinking at any given moment. You’ve been very forgiving, considering—well, you know. I said something about wondering how much of it was… genuine, I suppose. Not out of fear or necessity. And thus,” she gestures at Jimin before flicking her arm again, harder this time.

“Ow,” Jimin hisses, rubbing the spot indignantly then exhaling deeply under Soeun’s glare. “Whatever. Yeah.”

Jiyoon looks between the two and wiggles in her spot until her back is to them. She sighs and lies down, her head just out of reach of the tide.

“Listen,” she starts, “this is probably stupid of me but I’ve kind of grown to like you two. Actually, scratch that, I’ve grown to like Soeun. Jimin…? Jury’s still out.” Nervous butterflies erupt in Jiyoon’s stomach, only stopping when Soeun laughs. She tentatively holds her hand out for a high-five, but Soeun sniffs it instead. “Ah, no.” Jiyoon points at Soeun’s hand until the siren offers it up. Jiyoon touches their palms together. “That’s a high-five.”

“Woah.”

She looks at Jimin, sees a touch of disappointment in her face albeit upside down.

“I’m kidding,” she says. “You, too. When I don’t think you’re about to murder me.”

“Maybe you’re just no fun,” Jimin mutters, pursing her lips slightly.

“Wow, she jokes!”

“I’m very funny, thank you.”

“Jury’s still out!” Soeun crows, slamming her hand down onto Jiyoon’s.

Jiyoon wheezes out a gasp, hand flushing red from the impact.

“Oh, man,” she says. “Siren strength is—holy shit.”

For a second Soeun bends over her, concerned at the sounds Jiyoon’s making, but she smiles as soon as she sees Jiyoon is, too. “Sorry,” she says, sheepish.

She waves off Soeun’s apology, shoulders shaking against the sand as her laughter fades.

There’s a lull where no one speaks, seabirds cooing as they fly overhead, the sound of waves gushing against the shore filling the air. Some shuffling, and then someone clears their throat.

Jiyoon turns to Soeun who shakes her head and points at Jimin. She redirects her gaze, finding both of them closer than they just were. It sort of helps keep the sun out of her eyes, so she pats the sand just above her. Soeun lies down on her back like Jiyoon, Jimin staying on her elbows, fingers still fiddling with the tangerine.

“What did you mean yesterday?” she asks.

The hair over her forehead curls up as it dries, Jiyoon notices.

“Hm…?”

“When you were talking about your father. You said he’s why you’re here.”

“Ah,” says Jiyoon. “That’s more of a general ‘here’ not… this island, here. I can’t say being marooned here was ever in my plans.” She closes one eye to focus on Jimin’s face, vision slightly blurred with her being backlit. Jimin pokes her to continue, so she does. “He’s why I’m out here by myself, voyaging. He did the same, all of my life. I always wanted to be like him.”

“Where is he now?” Soeun asks.

Jiyoon blows out a breath then smiles. “Dead? Probably?”

“Oh.”

“I—really. It’s alright. I mean, we never knew for sure—he went away for one of his trips and never came back—and it’s been years. Chances are...” she waves a hand, “yeah.”

“Condolences,” Jimin murmurs.

“You don’t… thank you,” says Jiyoon. “I’m on a quest to find his bones.”

“Of course you are.”

Jiyoon grins. “Of course I am.”

“Where will you go to look for them?” Soeun asks.

“Shanghai,” she says. “That was supposed to be my first stop, anyway. Big port, bustling market. He mentioned going through there almost every trip. Figured I’d look for anyone that knew him and go from there.”

Soeun nods, eyes wide.

“Wow. You’re quite brave.”

Jiyoon picks up her guitar, idly twisting the loose peg tighter.

“Oh, um. I don’t know about that.”

“Are you kidding?” Soeun throws her hands up. “Sailing alone, figuring things out as you go, your persistence. Trust me, we’ve seen our fair share of humans. Few have the courage you’ve shown. Even less have lived to tell the tale.”

The string she’d tightened makes a high twang as Jiyoon thumbs it.

She watches the peg turn in its slot.

Lived to tell the tale.

Is that what she’s done?

“Brave, dumb, lucky. Sure. Thanks, Soeun.” Jiyoon starts picking a tune and the sirens listen. “I don’t know about you two, but I think it’s my turn to ask some questions.”

Soeun and Jimin hum at the same time, Jiyoon’s fingers stuttering over the strings before she gets a hold of herself. She takes it as a sign to go ahead.

“Is Naranda real?” she asks.

There’s a beat of silence.

“What?”

“Naranda. Kingdom under the sea? Princess Hwang-ok?”

“I don’t know what any of that is,” Jimin says.

“Damn,” Jiyoon pouts. “It’s a legend from the Samguk yusa. My father said he heard a similar story somewhere else, thought it might’ve been true. And there’s other stories about mermaids, mostly along the coasts.”

“Ugh,” Jimin groans. “Mermaids.”

“Are they real?”

“Semantics,” she says, which Jiyoon doesn’t quite understand but she leaves it, already thinking of her next question.

“What’s it like where you do live, then?”

“The ocean?” Soeun pipes up. The look on her face makes Jiyoon’s face heat up in embarrassment.

Jimin snorts at the deadpan answer, Jiyoon makes an indignant sound at their amusement.

“Is there no… place? Community?”

“If there was, it’d be frowned upon to share that information with humans, don’t you think?”

Jiyoon squints, plays some hesitant chords as she mulls that over.

“It’s dark,” Soeun supplies. “I think it’s lovely. And if you don’t, you move, try again in the next waters. I think that’s lovely, too.”

Jimin nods, finally goes to eat the tangerine in her hand. She makes a face at the taste and drops the rest into Jiyoon’s mouth. It’s a little sour, sure, but the texture is… not what it once was. Jiyoon eats it anyway.

Five left, after all.

“Have you two moved a lot? Together? Have you always been together? Ooh, yeah, what’s the story there,” she asks, brain suddenly whirring with curiosity. Belatedly she wonders if she’s overstepped.

“Moved, a fair amount. Together, for the most part,” says Jimin.

“Childhood friends,” Soeun adds.

“Among other things,” Jimin mutters.

Soeun turns her head, just an imperceptible amount.

Jimin’s smirking.

Oh.

Oh.

Jiyoon stares right into the sun, blood rushing to her ears.

“Huh,” she says, and nothing else.

Her fingers work at the guitar on their own accord, filling the silence that follows. To her left, Jimin sinks, resting her head in her arms, face turned in Soeun’s direction. They stay like that for a long time, the sun inching its way across the sky, shadows trailing behind in slow arcs on the ground. Jiyoon feels herself start to doze off a couple of times, only realizing it when she hears her music peter out.

At some point she hums a song her mother used to sing for her when she was little, though most of the words have escaped her by now so she either improvises or intonates. Soeun and Jimin don’t seem to mind. It stirs up more nostalgia than Jiyoon thought it would, so she thinks back to their conversation.

“If you did have a place,” Jiyoon starts, “you could tell me. Not saying you have to, just that you could. I mean, who am I going to tell?” She splays her arms wide. “If you haven’t noticed, there’s no one else around.”

“Doesn’t mean that’ll be the case in Shanghai. Like you said, big port, bustling market. Lots and lots of people. Unless you’re thinking of staying?” Jimin says, doubt clear on her face.

“Well, no, but—”

“Not to knock on your ability to keep secrets but this isn’t one for you to keep. Humans love stories—love legends. Knowing them, sharing them, it’s the oldest form of power. And others suffer for it. You don’t need that, Jiyoon. Make your own, if you want. Many have. It’s better that way.”

Jiyoon strums; the bluntness in Jimin’s tone leaves her slightly cowed.

“Okay, fair,” she says. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Jimin replies. “I mean it. Make your own. Write a song about us.”

“Oh, yes!” says Soeun.

“A song?”

“Yeah, you could sing about us, by name, or something more vague if that’s your style. Jimin and Soeun, creatures of the deep. Both have a nice ring to them, I think.”

“That’s… not a bad idea, actually. No time for writing something new like when you’re playing in the streets of a country you’ve never been in for extra money because you lost everything you had in a storm that left you out to dry on an island that supposedly doesn’t exist.”

“That’s the spirit,” Soeun enthuses.

Jimin laughs and Jiyoon smiles, amused.

Soeun rolls onto her side, propped up on her arm..

“Jiyoon,” she says. Her smile had dimmed, tone more serious.

“Y...es?”

“How are you getting off the island?” Soeun asks.

Jiyoon tucks her chin against her chest and points at her boat. The sirens peer past her finger. She’s not even sure if they can see the sheet she started weaving from here.

“Do you really think it’s going to work?”

There’s no bite or edge to her question but it still makes Jiyoon slump back down, head bouncing off the sand a bit harder than she intended.

“It’s all I’ve got going right now,” she says, willing her brain to not play Soeun’s question back in an endless loop to haunt her with.

Do you really think it’s going to work? Do you really think it’s—

Goddamn it.

No, Soeun. It isn’t very likely, is it?

She blows out a sigh and bonks herself over the head with her guitar.

“Hey, woah—” Soeun protests, hand quickly reaching to cover Jiyoon’s forehead.

“I don’t know if it’ll work, but I have to try, and when—if it doesn’t, I’ll try something else! And I’ll keep doing that until I get out of here or die,” says Jiyoon, like it’s nothing. Or, maybe not like nothing. More like: nothing with a tinge of panic around the edges.

Anything more than that, and Jiyoon’s fucked.

Soeun actually looks kind of distressed at Jiyoon’s answer so she amends it. “There’s probably some alternate options but I can’t think of any right now. Surprises, fun!”

It doesn’t really work, Soeun just glancing at Jimin with the same expression on her face.

“What if…” she says, eyes darting from Jimin to Jiyoon then down at the ground, “what if we were to help you?”

Jiyoon sits up completely then, guitar slipping gracelessly into her lap. She twists around to face Soeun fully.

“What?”

“We could swim you out of here,” Soeun says, wringing her hands together. “That’s also… probably partly why Jimin tried to prove your fear. She didn’t think you’d say yes.”

Jimin tips her head forward, concurring.

Waves crash into the rocks by the strait, tide sputtering out and wading into the cove. Jiyoon looks out past the small sliver of space there, to where the blue of the sea meets the sky. She thinks of her boat, of her divot of dwindling tangerines, of her uneven ankle tan. She thinks of how she got here, dazed and numb, in the hands of a pretty girl with an unrelenting grip. She thinks of her father, her mother, her guitar, everything she’s left behind and everything that lies ahead.

This could be the end.

“How...” she starts, swallows, tries again. “How would that work?”

Soeun’s face breaks out into a smile. She tries to bite it down but can’t quite, and Jiyoon is glad for it, she really is. Soeun starts talking, fast, about where they are approximately relative to Shanghai, Jiyoon making note that the storm had taken her more North than she’d anticipated.

The siren makes wild gestures in the sand like she’s trying to draw it for Jiyoon to see better but the shapes get lost in her excitement, Jimin smirking fondly and drawing her own.

They talk about hours and currents and taking turns—or is it taking breaks? Some of the details slip past her, Jiyoon greatly taken aback by how much thought Soeun and Jimin have already put into this. And she can’t help but think it’s sincere.

(What cruelty it would be, if it isn’t.)

“It’s probably best if you rest as much as you can into the evening,” says Soeun, “we’ll come by before dawn and hopefully get you there by…?”

“Mid morning,” Jimin says.

“Depending on what the traffic is like we can bring you right to the docks or a little ways down the coast. Not super far, just enough to be out of the way.”

“What do you think?”

Jiyoon scratches her head, conflicted and overwhelmed, but above all, bewildered.

“Wow,” she says.

“Wow, what?” Soeun asks, peering at Jiyoon.

“Wow, I’ll… yes. Fuck it. Maybe I’m out of my mind, but this… this is my best shot, and I… trust that you want to help me, for whatever reason. I’ll take it. And if you don’t kill me, you bet I’m writing that song.”

A hand reaches up and ruffles her hair, and then another one joins, and Jiyoon is spluttering under the attention, wriggling because she just washed her hair.

Then again, it won’t matter at all in a couple of hours, anyway.

This could be the end, she thinks. But it could just as well be a beginning.

 

 

The sirens leave soon after that, exchanging specifics of their return and insisting Jiyoon rest for the remainder of the day. She watches them swim out of the cove, tails shining under the afternoon sun, vanishing into the water with little fanfare.

Jiyoon thinks about how by tonight, she’ll be vanishing with them. It doesn’t feel real just yet.

Dragging her feet in the sand, she stands and makes her way to her boat.

Her baby.

She clambers into it and sits on the beat up bench, a lump in her throat. The tattered sail hangs limply against the mast, largely unmoved by the current breeze. Jiyoon sighs and wraps it around the mast so it doesn’t blow onto her while she naps.

Most of everything Jiyoon had back home, she’d given up for this boat. A small thing, as far as sea vessels go, but to her it had been everything; the culmination of her ambitions and hard work, the beginning she’d earned for herself. It’s bittersweet, that this was as far as it got, that it would remain only as part of her beginning. But, it was a rather spectacular beginning, if Jiyoon does say so herself.

In reality, she probably wouldn’t have kept the boat much farther past Shanghai. As much as sailing by herself had built her confidence, crossing bigger distances in that thing would’ve been too risky.

So it’s okay, really.

Maybe, this is just how the universe planned it. Maybe, this was the end her boat truly deserved.

Jiyoon shuts her brain off before she can wonder what her end will look like.

If she’s walking right into it.

No. No, no. Bad Jiyoon. No.

“I am trusting Soeun and Jimin,” she says.

Jiyoon screws her eyes shut.

“Fuck.”

 

It’s well into the evening when she wakes up—perhaps the longest she’s slept in weeks. The moon and the stars are already up in the sky, glowing a ghostly white that shines down onto the cove.

Jiyoon peeks at the shore, and finds no one there.

Yet.

No one there, yet.

She gets out of the boat, making her way to her divot. With a small smile, Jiyoon dips her foot in and flicks the closest tangerine up towards her, catching it neatly.

One last time, she thinks.

Her fingers dig into the bruised skin of the tangerine, botching it in half. Jiyoon shoves a segment of it in her mouth before wandering close to the treeline for a last drink of water. Sated, she climbs back into the boat and sits, back against the mast. She watches the stars twinkle in the sky as she eats her tangerine.

For once, Jiyoon welcomes the cold breeze of the night, not bothering to light a fire.

It wouldn’t have been burned for very long anyway.

Soeun appears first. Because she always does, Jiyoon notes, a pleasant feeling accompanies the thought. Jimin is close behind her—tail almost the same color as the dark waters.

“Jiyoon!” she calls out with a wave.

Jiyoon raises her hand to wave back before getting up. She leaves the tangerine peels by her feet as she turns to face the mast. Fingers brushing against the wood.

“Goodbye,” she whispers.

She looks a little longer, then sets her shoulders and hops out of her boat one last time. It sits proudly, even cracked in half and kind of at an angle. Jiyoon grabs her guitar and sighs, gets one long look at it before she rushes towards the sirens, ready to go.

Jimin looks at her curiously before pointing at the guitar in her hand.

“Oh. Do you mind?” Jiyoon says, stopping short.

Her hand curls around the guitar’s neck.

“Not really,” Jimin says with a shake of her head. “We were actually going to ask you if you wanted to bring it.”

“Well, I do,” she says.

“Okay. Is that all? Are you ready?” Soeun asks.

All Jiyoon can do is nod.

Soeun offers her hand and Jiyoon takes it, finding it rather cold.

Jiyoon tightens her grip, ignoring the chills that travel up her arm.

She reminds herself to trust this—trust them.

Jiyoon steps into the water and understands immediately why Soeun’s hand is so cold.

“Oh, hell,” she says.

“You’ll get used to it,” Soeun whispers, amusement in her voice.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jiyoon agrees, grimacing as she squats in the shallow.

“I’ll take your guitar,” says Jimin.

She looks at Jimin and then her guitar, offering it to her once she’s processed what she said. Of course, Jiyoon wouldn’t be carrying it. She’d probably knock it against something and lose it.

Jiyoon gives it to her, eyes stuck on it before she tears them away.

“It’ll have to go into the water,” Jimin says, sounding regretful about it.

“That’s alright,” Jiyoon says. “It’s made it this far, hasn’t it?”

Jimin’s mouth quirks up, eyes alight at the words.

She’d said the same thing about Jiyoon in her first visit after the wreck, after Jiyoon said she wanted to get out of here. Alive, preferably, she’d said.

Jimin strokes the guitar’s strings down to the bridge.

“Yes you have,” she says.

Jiyoon opens her mouth—to say something, to gawk, she’s not really sure what—but is interrupted by the rush of icy water engulfing her, knees knocking against the sand as Soeun yanks her forward.

“Fuck,” she gasps, head shooting over the water and spluttering as the chill seeps through her.

Soeun tries to muffle her laugh, somewhat apologetic as she rubs Jiyoon’s back.

“You get used to it faster like this,” she says.

Jiyoon grumbles. “Yeah, yeah.”

She wades further into the cove, Soeun and Jimin hovering at her sides. The reflection of the moon on the water stretches through the strait and out to the sea, a guiding hand from above.

“Are you ready?”

“You already asked me that,” Jiyoon breathes, water rising past her waist as she walks.

“I know,” Soeun says with a smile. “Just making sure.”

“Yeah, yes. I am. When will you…?”

Soeun wraps an arm around Jiyoon’s midsection, holding her close.

“Okay,” Jiyoon squeaks. Okay.

“Just sit back and relax. Keep your hands and feet inside the ride—” Jiyoon swats at Soeun’s shoulder and the siren grins. “We’ll start at the surface then go under for some bits. I’ll bring you up for air every minute or so, though you’ll probably be able to go for longer stretches without as we go. If you ever feel like you’re running out let me know and we’ll surface, alright?’”

Jiyoon nods, tilting her head back as the water reaches her chin. When they reach the rocks Soeun lifts her until her feet are off the ground, Jiyoon throws an arm around her shoulders for stability. Already the waves are stronger, threatening to push them against the face of the precipice.

“Hold on,” Soeun says, all the instruction Jiyoon gets to hold her breath before they’re going under.

It’s then obvious how much faster they can cut through the water like this, below rather than above.

Gills would be so very useful right now.

The pressure changes as they go back up, drenched hair momentarily blinding Jiyoon. Her hair tie sits on her wrist, knot a little precarious but holding out. She’s not sure why she’s so keen on not losing it. Maybe to save herself from cutting her other pant leg.

“It’s just going to be that, but for like… hours, isn’t it,” she says.

Soeun hums.

“How likely is it that I pass out?”

“If we take breaks and let you breathe for longer than a few minutes, not that likely.”

“Great.”

Jimin surfaces next to them, Jiyoon’s guitar safe in her hold.

“This is what happens when you don’t have gills,” she lilts.

“You know, I was just thinking that,” Jiyoon says.

“Oh?”

Jiyoon shrugs. “Makes sense.”

“Here, hold on,” Soeun says, and slips Jiyoon’s arm off of herself.

For a second Jiyoon thinks she’s going to do something about Jiyoon not having gills (like slash through her neck with her nails or some other less violent, perhaps magical, way of simulating having them), but she does not because of course she doesn’t. Instead she adjusts the arm she has around Jiyoon, moving them so Jiyoon’s back is more against her front.

“What’s happening?” Jiyoon asks, face ready to burn despite the cold.

“More secure,” Soeun quips.

Jimin smirks—Jiyoon has a healthy distaste for how good she looks when she does that—and twirls a lock of hair around her finger, miming an overexaggerated giggle.

Correction, Jiyoon has a healthy distaste for Jimin as a whole.

“Haha, okay,” she says to an oblivious Soeun.

“Off we go, then.”

And off they go, on what is essentially a long sequence of dunk Jiyoon, let Jiyoon breathe, dunk Jiyoon, let Jiyoon breathe, so on and so forth.

There’s a small part of her that’s worried about Soeun accidentally knocking her against a reef or something, but as expected, she maneuvers the both of them flawlessly. She was also right, about Jiyoon going for longer periods of time without air as they went. Jiyoon entertains herself by counting the seconds between each breach and keeping track of the longer ones.

At some point they come up and she says, “I’m getting pretty good at this,” and immediately feels lightheaded.

They take their first break then.

“You’ve held out longer than we thought you would,” Souen reassures with a pat on her head.

Jiyoon looks up slightly from where she’s practically lying on Soeun, tail flicking slowly beneath her legs, hands folded over Jiyoon’s stomach to keep her from rolling off. The close contact stopped making Jiyoon squirm a little after the island disappeared behind them. It wasn’t any less surreal though.

“Huh?” she says, dumbly.

“I said you’d go strong for the first, what, two thirds of the hour? I think that’s what I said, yeah.”

“What,” Jiyoon says plainly, affronted.

“Jimin bet twenty minutes, max, so.”

“Wow.”

She justifies to herself that Jimin definitely deserved the heated glare Jiyoon directed at her.

Jimin makes a what can you do gesture in retaliation, also floating on her back, guitar positioned on her much like Jiyoon was on Soeun.

I’m… cargo...

“What’s that?”

“Nothing,” Jiyoon says quickly. “Let’s get back to it. I want to see how long it takes for my eyes to stop stinging when I open them underwater.”

“I mean… alright.”

The answer is fifteen minutes.

Just kidding, the answer is never, probably. Jiyoon’s eyes just give up after around fifteen minutes, sitting a bit like pickled eggs in their sockets.

Her efforts are not for naught however because eventually the sun comes up and suddenly there are many more things to look at besides the deep blue abyss that is the sea before dawn. Coral reefs bustling with life, a bright myriad of colors. The water itself changes hues with the light, more teal at the surface.

Jiyoon’s pushing well past the two minute mark for how long she can hold her breath when she sees something in the distance to their left.

“Wait, wait, wait,” she says, before Soeun descends again.

“What?”

Jimin surfaces with them, head bobbing in a pool of her hair.

“Is that…?”

“A ship,” says Soeun.

“We’re getting closer,” Jimin adds.

Jiyoon blinks, a weird feeling unfurling in her chest at the idea of being close to other people.

“That means we’ll probably only see more from here, right?”

“Mhm. It’s best if we avoid them, us especially. We could leave you with them, if you want, but I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

The thought of getting out of the water is appealing, but leaving Soeun and Jimin for a crew of strangers definitely isn’t.

“No, I’ll go with you the rest of the way. Unless—unless that was you trying to get rid of me then, yeah, that’s fine—”

“No, no,” Soeun interrupts, giving her an are you kidding me look. “Sirens are very prideful, Jiyoon. If I said I can take you somewhere, I’m taking you there.”

“Plus, it smells of men,” says Jimin, wrinkling her nose.

“That it does.”

Jiyoon cracks a smile.

“You can smell men?”

“A blessing and a curse,” Soeun sighs.

“Fuck, that’s good.”

“Quite the opposite.”

She laughs fully at that, narrowly missing swallowing a mouthful of saltwater.

“Careful,” Jimin says lowly, “drowning now would make for a very ironic death.”

Jiyoon splashes her in the face, immediately regretting it when she sees a fin rise out of the water and then nothing else as her eyes remember how to sting again.

“You’ll blind her,” Soeun says, Jiyoon spluttering in her arms.

“She started it,” says Jimin, indignant.

“Oh my god.”

Jiyoon squints, says, “I’m fine.”

“Alright, well, time to switch anyway.”

Before Jiyoon can say anything, Soeun lets go of her and taken the guitar from Jimin, the other siren watching her swim in place before rounding behind her and looping her arms under Jiyoon’s armpits.

“Is this the hold you’re committing to?”

Jimin huffs in her ear, amused.

“It is now.”

Jiyoon grimaces, arms hanging at her sides, simultaneously rigid and limp.

“We’ll pass under them and go straight past,” Soeun says, “try not to fall too far behind.”

The taunt achieves its desired effect, Jimin’s arms tightening around Jiyoon, hands curling over her shoulders, conversation already forgotten.

Soeun grins and flips backwards into the water, Jiyoon bracing herself as Jimin rears up to follow.

Jimin swims a bit faster than Soeun when she had carried Jiyoon but Soeun still outpaces them, zipping ahead while they do the old up and down so Jiyoon can breathe. She can tell it irks Jimin, tail snapping harder and bouts underwater stretching longer. So far Jiyoon’s managing, appreciating the chance to outdo her personal bests.

It only becomes a problem when they go under for the last time before the ship and Soeun comes out of nowhere to stop them at the other side, waving frantically so they don’t surface. She points up and then at her eye, miming someone looking overboard. Jiyoon feels Jimin turn her head, her cheek brushing against her hair, hand gesturing at Jiyoon’s chest.

Soeun looks up and splays her free hand in front of her.

Wait.

Jiyoon fidgets, watching her swim up and over them, a steady pressure on her lungs.

When Soeun comes back she’s shaking her head, eyebrows furrowed. She exchanges a glance with Jimin then turns back to Jiyoon, Jimin nodding behind her.

Jiyoon’s in the middle of trying to relax and not think about how she’s definitely broken her record at this point but accidentally lost count when Soeun showed up. She does a pretty decent job at distracting herself because she doesn’t realize Soeun is closing in on her until her hand is cupping Jiyoon’s face.

Her gills flutter open, cheeks bubbling like she’s holding something in her mouth.

When she darts forwards and presses their lips together, thumb stroking Jiyoon’s cheek, Jiyoon’s brain short circuits. When her thumb keeps stroking, more insistent at the edge of Jiyoon’s mouth, and it feels a lot like a death sentence and a saving grace right now but she tentatively opens hers under Soeun’s, Jiyoon feels air bubbles pass between them and her brain spits out a resounding single syllable;

Oh.

Soeun pulls away and stares at Jiyoon, so Jiyoon wills herself not to do something stupid like letting her jaw go slack and losing her new air or blushing.

Parsing out the water from her air while underwater is weird, and so is the inhaling without fully inhaling but she figures it out and the pressure eases, as close to a real breath as anything. She gives Soeun the lamest thumbs up ever and gets an ambiguous little touch under her chin.

More than anything, Jiyoon’s glad she can’t see Jimin’s face.

Soeun looks up and starts moving backwards, bending her fingers so Jimin follows. Jiyoon’s not sure if that means they’re in the clear or if they’re just dashing out of there. Regardless, both sirens set off at impressive speeds, Jiyoon left to clutch at Jimin’s forearms as everything passed in a blur.

They don’t see anyone else on the water for a while after that, and they return to their previous pattern. Once the ship is a good distance away, Jimin lingers above the surface, giving Jiyoon a chance to take a proper breather.

Jiyoon does exactly that, inhaling deeply through her nose and blowing out with her mouth. Her heart picks up a couple of paces, almost belatedly.

“Um,” she says, you know, like an idiot.

“That was close,” says Soeun, treading back and forth in front of Jiyoon and Jimin.

“Yeah. Yup.”

Jimin pokes at her ribs and Jiyoon wrenches herself away.

“Can you get out of my armpits, please?”

The siren rolls her eyes but readjusts her arms anyway.

“What, nothing to say about your kiss?”

Jiyoon’s bottom eyelid twitches.

“Wh—”

“That was not a kiss,” Soeun says flatly.

She looks over at them and backtracks when she sees Jiyoon’s face.

“No, I mean. I didn’t intend it to be—but I know you’ve probably never done that so it looked like—”

“It’s—fine. I get it,” Jiyoon says. “Really.”

Jimin’s fingers drag over Jiyoon’s stomach. Over her shirt, but still.

“Are you sure?” she mumbles. “Is it really fine? Do you really get it?”

“You’re so obnoxious,” Jiyoon whines, cheeks every bit sore and red—both from the heat of the sun and the not-a-kiss-but-still-kind-of-a-kiss.

“Thank you.”

“Can we go now?” Soeun pleads. “No almost drowning Jiyoon this time.”

“Sure,” Jimin says, not bothering to ask Jiyoon if she’s ready to go, jumping straight into a dive.

Even through the water, Jiyoon swears she can hear Soeun sigh.

They swim, and for a while, about another hour, it’s just them. And then, land. In the distance, but a coast nonetheless. Jiyoon points at it but Jimin dunks her precisely in that moment. From then on, more ships continue to crop up, either on the horizon or closing in on the port next to where Jiyoon’s assuming the market is.

Shanghai.

Jiyoon has a hard time believing it’s really there—that she’s finally made it.

It gets easier when Soeun stops them, waving at them to swim close so they can see what she’s talking about.

“The main port looks really busy, but some of the docks up the coast are almost empty. We could leave you at one of those safely, instead of farther away on the beach like we thought,” she says.

“You’re right,” says Jimin, scanning the docks they’d hit before the market’s. “Which one are you thinking?”

Soeun points at a spot that’s barren of ships and Jimin nods.

“Ready?” she asks.

There’s silence, Jiyoon’s mind elsewhere and also, to be frank, not expecting the question to be directed at her.

“Jiyoon,” Jimin says, shaking her slight.

“What? Oh, yes. Wow, Jimin, asking me—?”

She sees the dunk coming from miles away, taking a rather smug inhale before they’re underwater again.

Predictable, thinks Jiyoon.

The shadows of sea vessels loom over them as they cross paths, muffled sounds growing as they swim deeper into the mix. At one point, a couple of ships pull out of the docks, creating a bit of a mess as they all try to go in different directions at the same time. They’re also right in the middle of what would otherwise be a straight pass to the docks Soeun had pointed out. Jiyoon needs to breathe though, and surfacing far enough away that being seen wouldn’t be a problem could potentially still get them seen by other ships.

Jiyoon turns to Jimin, unsurprised to see her gills going.

The fact that Jimin can still manage to look insufferably smug with her cheeks puffed out infuriates Jiyoon to no end, but she doesn’t hold on to that feeling for very long, nervous jitters rushing through her as Jimin raises a hand to her face.

It takes much less prodding this time around, for Jiyoon to open her mouth against Jimin’s, now that she knows what to expect. It’s still strange, and Jiyoon still has to devote all of her brainpower to not doing something stupid afterwards like asking for more.

Jimin’s gills flutter and she flashes Jimin a razor sharp smile, a small tug against her stomach all she gets before they’re darting forward in a deep arc below the boats to where Soeun’s waiting. She shoots them a look and they swim together all the way to the empty docks, surfacing under one near the middle, where the wood was worn down and rotting.

“And thus,” Jimin drawls, “we have arrived.”

Jiyoon pulls her hair back with her fingers, eyes wide at the smells and sounds of the market, boisterous even from a distance.

“We have,” she says.

They stay in place for a moment, Jimin letting Jiyoon tread on her own, arms snaking off of her. She nudges her to one of the supports under the dock, a ladder there Jiyoon hadn’t noticed.

Jiyoon holds onto it with one hand, staring at the sirens, racking her brain for something to say.

“This is farewell, then,” says Soeun.

She hands Jiyoon her guitar with a smile, though it doesn’t fully reach her eyes.

“I...” Jiyoon starts. “I can’t thank you enough.”

“Call it even,” Jimin says.

Jiyoon shakes her head.

“Regardless of how it started. Thank you. Never in my life did I think this is what the beginning of—” she gestures around them, “—this would look like.”

“You’ve gone soft on us Jiyoon,” Soeun says, eyes finally crescenting.

She opens her mouth then closes it, waving Soeun’s statement off with her hand.

“Are you going to cry?”

Jiyoon shakes her head furiously, blinking hard.

“I’m not,” she says, and maybe it’d be more convincing if her voice didn’t crack in the middle of it.

“We really were going to eat you,” Jimin reminds her.

“I know,” Jiyoon sniffs.

“All because Soeun bet I couldn’t get you in the water, first try,” she adds.

Jiyoon chokes on a laugh and quickly wipes a tear away, then cringes when the water on her hands gets in her eyes.

“Fuck you guys.”

“What matters is the friends we made along the way,” Soeun says, hands up. “Right?”

Jimin flicks at Soeun’s forehead and Jiyoon scrubs at her face, doing her best to regain some composure.

“Whatever. I won’t forget that Soeun, but yeah,” she says, then pouts. “I hate goodbye’s.”

Soeun reaches for the hand that isn’t holding onto the ladder, giving Jiyoon’s wrist a squeeze.

“We don’t have to say it. Perhaps we’ll meet again, even.”

“You think so?” Jiyoon asks.

“Anything can happen,” says Soeun. “You never know.”

“I’d like that.”

“Us, too.”

Jiyoon smiles.

A bell rings and all three of them turn. Main port full, it seems ships are starting to fan out, some heading right at the docks they’re treading under.

It’s time to get going.

“Until we meet again,” Jiyoon says.

She beckons Soeun and Jimin closer and they flank her. Her idea was to hug them both and scramble up the ladder before she actually starts crying, but the sirens exchange one of their silent glances and then they’re swooping in, each planting a kiss on Jiyoon’s cheeks.

Jiyoon, in the plainest words, squeals.

She squeals and loses her grip on her guitar and Soeun ducks mid-laugh to get it for her, folding Jiyoon’s fingers around its neck because she is too disarmed in her shock to do it herself.

“Until we meet again, Jiyoon,” they say at the same time.

Jiyoon waves dumbly at them as they sink into the water, scales flashing until she can’t see them at all.

And then, it’s just her.

Jiyoon clears her throat around the sudden aloneness and looks up at the ladder she’s been holding on to. Eyeing the distance between her and the dock, she tosses her guitar, landing it on her first attempt.

“Nice,” she sniffles.

She climbs up the rungs, clothes heavy as she pulls herself along. Once her elbow’s level with the wooden platform, Jiyoon plants her forearms down and heaves the rest of her body over, rolling onto her back. Her limbs are all wobbly and her head wants to throb in her skull so Jiyoon shakes as much water as she can out of her guitar then promptly lies as still as she can while her sea legs go away.

A ship pulls up to port a couple of docks away, then another on her other side, and Jiyoon knows she’ll have to move soon, but for now, she looks up at the sky—at the endless blue, untouched by even a hint of storm, and listens to the rush of water under her, nearly drowned out by the commotion of crews running around fulfilling orders barked out by their captains.

Jiyoon lies there, tired and drenched, bootless and boatless, and begins to think of a song.

 

Notes:

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