The Siren's Song

Chapter 106- mulled time

JOON POV:

"It can't be possible. It's not just me that thinks that right?" Hobi's voice is hoarse and rough and when I lift my head to look at him his face is blotchy with tears and eyes brimming with more. I watch as they trickle over and spill down, his body shaking as he tries to catch them with his sleeves, head burrowed into his hands.

"I don't know how it's possible... but we all saw it. We all saw the sketch and her name... and Habaek as patron. It's too much to ignore." I say, hands curling into my hair, clutching tightly at it.

My eyes clench shut tightly at the image of her face crumpled with distress and pain, remember her body tilting and falling, remember the anguish in her words, poisoned agony dripping from her lips in every word.

"And you heard her... you heard them. There's... I couldn't even have begun to imagine that she's been dealing with something so big, so... so much for centuries." I add.

My eyes sting and I sniffle when I hear her words curl through my mind, a haunting echo that plays over and over. Condemning me. Damning me even though there had been this raw bitterness and hatred for herself as she'd said it, eyes flickering with pity and guilt for us and not her.

"We're figures of myth Namjoon, we're the very things you find scary. We're sirens."

It felt like an eon ago when I'd handed her that book. An eon ago when I'd scrawled that message for her, when I'd made that remark.

I'd thought it was harmless, I'd thought it was a small titbit, I didn't know how those very words would haunt her, plague her.

She'd looked at me, dead in the eyes, and looked as if she expected me to recoil and turn away. She'd looked at us expectantly, waiting for us to flee.

I'd said sirens were scary.

And those words had remained with her.

They'd remained with her and made her look at me as if what she knew of me, what she believed she would get from me was nothing but disbelief and horror.

I hated myself for that comment.

"We seem to know what we're doing. We seem to think we've finally got something right... but it's clear that the date made her feel backed up into a corner, she had to open up about something she didn't want to. She hated us being there. She hated having to tell us." Jiminie says, voice thick with misery, curled against the side of the couch, hands clutching tightly at a cushion.

"We made her confront something she wasn't ready to. We... she worked herself into a panic attack because she had to tell us. She's unconscious because she was terrified of us finding out." Kookie says, voice hysterical and trembling with held back tears and when I hear a muffled sob my head darts up, eyes brimming at the sight of him scrubbing furiously at his face, lips wobbling as he glares down at the floor. His arms go to curl around himself, body folding inwards as he lets the tears drip down, trickling down cheeks and splashing against fabric and the carpet; soaking up his pain and sorrow.

I couldn't get rid of the image even if I tried.

Couldn't forget that consuming blind terrified need to get to her when I saw her legs buckle, when her body began to shake and her eyes lost focus and fluttered shut. Couldn't forget how when Habaek had cradled her, when he'd curled over her it was a gesture to protect her from us. When he'd scooped her up and left, his body had shielded hers from our sight, body stiff and tense.

I'd worked with Habaek for months. I thought I knew about him, thought I knew about (Y/N)... thought that this was a trauma I was trying to help her overcome, that the research would help her grow and heal past the pain.