The Siren's Song

Chapter 105- house of cards

(Y/N) POV:

"We need you to just listen at first. It'll sound made up and impossible and the most crafted story ever but it's our story, it's our tale." Mi-sun unnie says.

I sneak a glance nervously, eyes quickly drifting them all; trying to gauge reactions.

I see confusion and resolve settle in their eyes; see a willingness to listen.

That's good. 

But I don't know how long that willingness will stay, don't know whether that willingness will remain when they know the entire truth.

"We've known each other for longer than lifetimes. There's a reason why the three of us are so close and the three of us live together. There's a reason why we know each other's needs without speaking." Habaek oppa begins softly, voice full of emotion but strong and firm and unwavering.

"How long is lifetimes? From...from the sketches at the theatre we know (Y/N) is somehow...at least over a century." Namjoon hedges carefully.

The reminder of that disastrous end to the date flashes across my mind; searing and skin prickling as I flinch and duck back.

"We've been together for 250 years. Stuck at the same age we were turned." Habaek oppa confesses.

Pin-drop silence.

The rustling ceases, there's no words that follow and a large pregnant silence stretches out and fills the living room; stifling and suffocating.

250 years we've been this way. 250 years of being stuck as sirens, cursed to sing. 250 years to pay for the mistake of wanting to live.

250 years to pay its price.

And now 5 more years to come. Lessened only because the others had sacrificed their lives and freedom to make sure I wasn't alone, that I wasn't suffering and damned for thirty years more.

250 years of seeing the world pass by and the people we'd dare to hold close to us, to have bonds and relationships with...so consciously aware of our own immortality and of losing them, of seeing them age and fade away, lives that came and went with the tide of the waves and we remained; an unchanging constant. We were the crest of waves that reached out and touched those lives and left when their time ended. It was a viciously tormenting cycle we had been living over and over.

There's no words spoken and Habaek oppa takes that as an opportunity to keep speaking.

"We met each other...rather knew each other only very briefly before we... we got turned to this. Mi-sun was the one who drank with me and we bonded over guessing what secrets were behind fans and what and who was the talk of the small world that the ship was. And (Y/N)... she was the darling we supported and cheered on from the sidelines long before she knew. She was also the youngest lady on board, it wasn't hard to want to take care of her." He says softly, hand silently holding mine and squeezing gently, tone find and soft and reminiscent.

It never stops to surprise me how much they'd noticed about me before I even knew about them. Didn't escape me that they'd always been my glue, had always helped me out myself together every time I shattered and fell apart; broken by the merciless battering of the Ocean's waters.

"A ship." Tae breathes, voice trembling and rough. Sounding wrecked and distraught and so so horrified. 

He's put the dots together.

"You're scared of water. You lost your family on a ship, and we dragged you out onto the waters for our first date. We dragged you to the very place that started all this...." Jimin surmises, voice trembling with guilt and pain and horror.