From The Flames Is Rebirth (The Forever Pirates) #4

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A/N: Sorry, for the late update. I was extremely sick yesterday. I'm still not feeling good, but I'm doing better than earlier. ♡

Yeosang 

I waited until I had some sort of privacy with Jongho, as the rest of the crew docked to try and manage some supplies, despite the storm surrounding us. Supplies were scarce with how many places were now flooded and destroyed. 

I could guess why it was the goal to make it back to the siren caves, but if I was being honest, I was sick of being there. I thought when Seonghwa and I left, that would be the last time I ever saw it. Even if I doubted that hope, I still had hope. Last time wasn't anywhere near as difficult since last time I stayed on the ship the entire time, but it still got under my skin. 

Jongho helped me in the water because after spending so long not changing form, I was growing sicker and sicker. I didn't know how I got so lucky not to even have to bring it to Jongho's attention that I needed water. I never really needed to tell him anything.

I loved him, more than I ever thought I could love another person. But sometimes I couldn't help the self doubting thoughts that maybe...maybe all he felt was fake. I was a siren, after all. You can never truly know if their feelings are genuine or twisted into something else. 

He jumped in the water with me, treading the waves to stay afloat. He didn't like me ever being alone, especially if I was around strangers. And that fear was justified because time after time in my life, humans have proven to have no self-control when it came to magic. If it was anyone else, I think I would've gotten sick of the lack of privacy. I think I even got tired of being around Seonghwa for that long year. 

But after being away from him for six years while I was cut into and he was treated like a dog, I would soak up any second I got to spent time with him. It didn't matter if in the last years, I hadn't had a moment of being by myself. 

I didn't mind it before we got taken either, because Jongho was...quiet. He had his moments of chaos and mischief, but the majority of the time, he was mature and contained. He wasn't overly affectionate. In fact, most of the time, he hated affection, and any unwarranted affection wouldn't be appreciated at all. He didn't usually partake in any shenanigans that the crew would get up to, and he didn't carry any drama. 

I think we became more clingy with the other, and despite my own ability to dislike touch, I found that I craved it whenever I was around him. Amongst other things....a lot of other things. But there was something that still managed to destroy me, something nobody other than Jongho even knew. Because somehow, I managed a year by Seonghwa's side, and he never noticed. Never noticed that I was the one to last leave a body. He was so out of his mind in fear of being attacked that he never noticed me. 

It was in siren's nature. It was our greatest source of food since the start whenever we had been created. We were created to eat humans. 

I could survive off of other meat for the most part, ignore that it was just fish or chickens. It wasn't that it wasn't good, but it wasn't great. I knew I would be stronger physically if I just listened to my needs, but I had been accepted into this crew because I wasn't like the others. What would happen if they found out I was? 

Jongho knew that sirens ate humans. He knew that when we met. He, however, didn't know how serious that hunger was until the first year after we jumped off the ship. How our traveling starved us, and the longer I went without food, the more that unsatiated hunger inside me grew.  Now, ever since joining the crew, I've been gorging myself with other food to try and get rid of that hunger. What didn't work is now how we lacked rations because of the storm. The storm that was so bad I had to make sure Jongho didn't drown.