Taekook || Siren!AU / Mermaid!AU / Deaf!AU
The Pacific Ocean holds secrets beneath its waters. Secrets like sirens, hunters that lure their prey into the deep with their Voices. But when a diving accident renders Jeon Jungkook deaf, Kim Taehyung fin...
Welcome to the next chapter! In case you didn't see my announcement, I'm posting this early because I have an exam at 10:30 and I don't want to be late if I try to post at 11am as usual.
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Jungkook musters some courage.
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Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,
'Twas sad as sad could be;
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea!
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'
Silence is an alien planet devoid of life. It exists as a huge black hole in the middle of everything - the largest elephant in the room possible - invisible but impossible to ignore. This planet is coated in a dust-blown desert with frozen nights and scorching days, and there's no water, no oasis, no reprieve from this hell. No one really knows exactly what it means to live in true silence, not unless they become deaf after a life of sound, and perhaps not even those born without hearing know the truth of the place they've called home since birth. Surely they've adapted to this world of brown and orange sand, but those who crashland have to learn to fend for themselves or be swallowed by the dust. They learn one truth that exists above all others: noise is a constant - even when the room is absolutely quiet, do you not hear the oscillation of a fan? Your own pulse?
True silence is a sickening thing.
The storm lasted long into the night, but the next morning brought fine enough weather for Jin and Namjoon to make their way back in time for the former's shift. It was found with great disappointment that Taehyung wasn't staying in the same hotel in which Jin worked and with even greater disappointment that the boy didn't want to just stay with them in their house, though it made sense, of course - they'd only known each other for a short time, why would he want to live with them for his duration on the island? But where exactly he was staying was still in question - it was his favorite hobby to change the subject whenever that particular query arose.
The damp air was saturated with the scent of wet soil and salt when Jungkook and Jimin finally dragged themselves outside. It was cool, but not so much so that they needed to wear anything more than long-sleeves, so Jimin raided the younger's closet for his attire (which was always hilarious because Jungkook loved baggy clothes and Jimin was practically a dwarf). The cuffs of the black sweater he'd found hung well past his fingertips, so whenever he moved to sign something, he made a huge ordeal of pushing the sleeves up his forearms only for them to fall back down again mere seconds later.
