fic: I'm no island, peninsula maybe (the siren song remix)
I'm no island, peninsula maybe (the siren song remix)
PG-13. Mark/Jr. 4751 words. AO3 archive. Written for kpop_ficmix. Remix of this untitled Little Mermaid AU drabble by markerlimes.
Underwater AU. A human boy jumps overboard, and Mark is there to save him.
This is how it goes:
It takes Mark three good days to swim to Jinhae-gu from Santa Monica, weather permitting. He usually stays for twenty-four hours, never longer than the span of two sunsets, doing lazy loops around the ruins of a marine park a safe distance away from the beach he’d left Jinyoung on. He keeps an eye on shore the entire time; sometimes he sees Jinyoung, sometimes he doesn’t. Usually he doesn’t, but Mark is - not a creature of habit, exactly, but he's found that once he starts something it's easier to finish it. Either way, careful not to let his presence develop into a nuisance and careful not to let the residual nostalgia in his chest whenever he catches sight of the coastline fester into full-out longing, Mark always makes sure to leave the sweet-salt water of Jinhae Bay after his self-allotted twenty-four hours are up.
The exception was the first time he'd visited. He’d stayed for five days, treading water and making himself sick on the taste of unfamiliar fish, desperate for a glimpse of Jinyoung. Jackson was in Hong Kong with his parents, and kept threatening to come get him if he wouldn’t stop moping. I’m coming, Mark kept swearing, and then when met with the force of Jackson’s skepticism, swore again that he meant it, really. Just give me one more day.
On the fourth day, a teenaged girl swam up to him, serpentine tail where Mark had hips and legs, maintaining a few salmon-lengths between them as she addressed him.
Hello, she said, and the voice that echoed in his head contained the adolescent hiss of a young imugi still learning to drop her sibilants. You're not from around here, are you. It wasn't a question, so Mark didn't bother treating it as one. I could smell the siren on you from Jeju-do, California boy. I wouldn't play too hard in these waters. It was mostly posturing, but her dark eyes narrowed, as if to make sure Mark understood there was a hint of threat there, too.
He didn't say anything, just wound himself a little tighter around the submerged CHANGWON MARINE PARK sign. He wasn’t here to play, but the reality would sound even more foolish. Still, he narrowed his eyes at her right back, and stayed an extra day just to be contrary.
At the end of the fifth day, the girl imugi was back, this time with three of her friends in tow. Her friends were fully grown, nothing adolescent about their tails, so thick they were easily once and a half the size of Mark’s torso. Mark had beat a hasty retreat, helped in part by Jackson, whose idea of ‘help’ was to cause a minor environmental disaster. There’s a Jinhae Bay sandbar that’s lost forever, and a colony of imugi who’d like nothing more than to pick their teeth with the scraps of Mark and Jackson’s ribs. Mark’s learned his lesson. Ever since, he makes sure to head out once the sun starts setting.
He stops by Yugyeom’s latest cave in Seoul on his way to Hong Kong, grimacing at the gaudy skulls littering the entrance that Yugyeom considered decoration. All sea witches had terrible interior decorating taste, and he conveys as much to Yugyeom, who pouts and pops an air bubble in Mark’s face.
What do you know about taste anyway, Yugyeom says, sniffing. He is arranging aluminum foil into a crown for one of his skulls. You love a human. And then quieter, though not quiet enough that Mark can’t hear it, And an ugly one, at that.
Mark ignores this, and lies back on Yugyeom’s jade bed, too luxurious by half for a young sea witch with only a handful of proper enchantments under his belt, even if Yugyeom came from the kind of lineage that inspired humans to mythology. Mark props his feet on the cave wall, looking at the green scales that begin just above his knees, hardening to the true bite of a second skin around his finned feet, and lets his mind slip to the rough tan of Jinyoung’s calves, the way sand stuck to his legs like stubborn static. Jinyoung had cut his foot on a piece of hidden sea glass, and Mark had stared at the blood trailing from it in surprise, and felt a powerful, momentary urge to dig his nail in the wound and peel Jinyoung like a fruit. But the feeling passed, and instead he'd bandaged Jinyoung up as best as he could, hands stuttering over the soft arch of Jinyoung's foot in his lap.
Aish, Yugyeom says suddenly, getting a broom to shove Mark off his bed. You’re thinking loudly about something pathetic again. Get out, get out, go bother someone else. You’re cramping my style, hyung.
Mark lets himself get shoved out, takes a second to let his body find the right direction. With Jackson’s impatience ahead of him and Yugyeom’s exasperation behind him propelling him forward, there is only one direction he can go.
~
Despite Yugyeom’s snobbery, he had some human in him, just as the rest of them, and for the most part it was something to be thankful for. Mark had friends whose bloodlines ran much purer than his, and sometimes they turned callous and feral in a way he found distasteful. Mark was made of much more benign stock - his mother’s grandfather had been full human.
That’s why you’re so soft, Jackson said when he learned this about Mark, hand sneaking out to pinch at Mark's waist. He shook his head when Mark twisted out of his grip, and let out a sigh that sent the water around Mark churning. So much wasted potential.
I’ll show you soft, Mark said, grabbing Jackson in a headlock. Not that wrestling with Jackson was much fun - Jackson chose a corporeal form out of convenience (and, Mark suspected, because it maximized his ability to be annoying) that he could dissipate at anytime. They’ve known each other since they were young, when Jackson was nothing more than a warm curious breeze from the South China Sea, and the most complex creatures Mark was capable of luring were some especially stupid clownfish.
I don't get why you let him go back if you’re just going to mope about it, Jackson says. He's swimming backwards, facing Mark. He's being lazy with his body today - there's only the faintest outline of one on top, before trailing off into the afterthought of Jackson's lower body, right now a swirling mass of immaterial. His limbs flicker with every current and school of fish that passes through him. It still makes Mark wince, no matter how many years they’ve known each other. There are some things that are hard for him to get used to, too. What is it about Jinyoung anyway? Don’t get me wrong, I liked him. But you’ve had better humans.
Although this is objectively true, it still feels a bit hypocritical coming from Jackson, who doesn’t really have any room to shame him for being soft. Jackson regarded humans with an ardent, borderline fetishistic curiosity that, though it never made the final leap into empathy, meant each new human he came across, whether he sought them out or they sought him out, was better to him than the last.
He wanted to go back, Mark says, looking away. So I took him back.
Jackson shakes his head in mock-pity. Soft. So soft.
Mark has always been impressed by how much humans did manage to get right in their fairytales and myths, though there was one fundamentally incorrect trope they insisted on repeating. What self-respecting mermaid or river nymph would ever give up tail or tongue or immortality out of love for a human? It arose from an absurdly, hilariously high opinion of themselves, considering how little they offered in both taste and mortality. Most underwater kind, save the most hideous, thanks to the human preoccupation with beauty, didn’t even need a siren’s song as bait.
Mark wasn’t lying when he told Jackson he let Jinyoung go back for the simple reason that he wanted it. Mark is a siren. Devotion is his inheritance, the one thing that comes as naturally to him as swimming. And so, when he sung his song to little effect, besides a blink of Jinyoung’s remarkably clear eyes up at Mark from where his head was nestled in Mark’s lap, Mark had felt helplessly off-kilter, suddenly aware of how much vulnerability he was capable of. "That was nice," Jinyoung had said. "Can I hear it again?" Mark hesitated, then complied.
He tried to imagine what ‘soft’ would look like, as Jackson was fond of calling him. Unbidden, the first thing that came to mind was the fruit that washed out to sea. Fruit was one of the few things they couldn’t grow underwater, and by the time it arrived, the center was often rotting and pulpy, sickly sweet to the bite. That was one thing Mark had envied Jinyoung, when he described the bright sound of biting into a crisp pear with a note of pure longing in his voice. And then for the briefest moment he’d wondered about the comforts of being human, about the pleasure that could be derived from fresh fruit and gentle arrogance.
God. That was pathetic, even in his mind. Don’t tell Jackson. Or, worse, Yugyeom.
~
This is how it ends:
"Well," Mark says, then stops. He’s no good at this, at speaking. He’s never needed to be good at this, and he’ll never need to be good at this again. Even if he intellectually understands that his attachment to Jinyoung is rooted in false sentiment, the past week has made it blossom into something just shy of genuine. "I’ll miss you," he says, watching the words leave his mouth in a stream of bubbles.
Jinyoung’s eyes crinkle in a laugh. "Wow, so serious. Don’t strain yourself on my behalf." But then, sobering, "I’ll miss you, too. This was - it was really, totally fun. So amazing. Thank you for everything."
He swims a little closer to Mark, almost upending himself when he forgets to manage his body and his legs kick out behind him. Jinyoung grew up coastal, and has been swimming since he was a child - he took to the water better than most, but still, just a week underwater wasn’t going to make his body forget the human instinct to float.
Mark grabs him around the waist, hand tangling in the cotton shirt Jinyoung still insisted on wearing, even though it barely held up underwater anymore, salt weathering it to pieces. "Jinyoung," he starts again, wanting to say something, and wanting to say it right. Unsurprisingly, he finds he doesn’t have the words for it. A human tongue, but not even a fraction of human eloquence, Mark thinks ruefully. To be fair, usually his voice alone was enough to persuade. "Take care of yourself, alright?"
Jinyoung nods, arms coming up around Mark’s shoulders. "I will," he says. "You too. I’ll never -," he starts in earnest, before hesitating.
Mark nods in encouragement, tightening his hold. Leans forward to touch his forehead to Jinyoung’s. He’s suddenly grateful that evolution cured him of the ability to cry centuries back, or else this would be really embarrassing for him. "You can say it," he says softly. "Please."
Jinyoung, still clumsy under water weight, moves his limbs with a frustrating deliberateness that he promises Mark he’d never display aboveground. Mark watches Jinyoung’s hands drift up as if in slow-motion. He touches the back of his hand to Mark’s cheek, and Mark feels every nerve ending in his body relocate to the square inch currently cozied up against Jinyoung’s hand, hot rush of blood just underneath. Jinyoung slides his hand around to the back of Mark’s neck, leaving a trail of warmth in his wake. He brings, first, his forehead to Mark’s, and then his lips to press against Mark’s cheek.
"I’ll never forget you," he says, voice rocky.
I’ll never forget you. It’s a sentiment only Mark will have to bear the cost of, but he’s grateful Jinyoung says it anyway. Although Jinyoung makes to move back, Mark presses forward, not wanting to let go. Seagrass winds around their legs, slimy and alive where it touches skin.
Jinyoung’s mouth drops to his shoulder in a gentle kiss. There’s no point in dragging this out any longer. Mark takes a deep breath, preparing himself.
Then he knocks Jinyoung out.
Jinyoung starts sinking almost immediately, before bobbing back up. Mark grabs his arms and tightens them around his neck, reaching around to haul Jinyoung’s thighs up around his waist. He’s dead weight against Mark’s back, but with his arms slung over Mark’s shoulders, Mark can feel the whole of Jinyoung’s body pressed against him, can feel the thrum of Jinyoung’s pulse in the wrist pressed against his sternum and the steady pound of Jinyoung’s heart against his back.
He swims the few feet to shore, rising out of the water with Jinyoung’s weight against his back. He takes a second to find his footing, finned feet slipping on the sand. He ends up having to half-carry, half-drag Jinyoung up the beach, trying to find somewhere to leave him that’s far enough out of reach of the water, where he’ll be found easily. With the light of moon making the white sand of the beach glow, even this late into the night, it is nowhere near as dark aboveground as it is below, and Mark stumbles a bit, unused to the oxygen, the open air, the light. Like this, Mark can understand the inclination some of his kind have for the land and its provincial charm, so conquerable humans have been making a habit out of it for centuries.
But even minutes out of water, Mark can feel the itch of gravity on his skin like an allergic reaction, the difficulty of having to breathe through his barely-used lungs making him wheeze. So he hastily lays Jinyoung out on the sand, arranging his limbs with haphazard care and cradling his head while he finds the softest patch of sand to set it on. Afterwards, Mark sits back on his knees to survey his work. In the moonlight, his eyes closed and his head lolling, Jinyoung looks properly driftwood-like, just as if he spent a week at sea being knocked around before the currents finally delivered him home.
Jinyoung, upon waking, won’t remember a thing about his time underwater, much less anything about Mark. This is the way it has to be, but Mark still feels sadness sink through him. Leaning over Jinyoung’s prone body, he presses a kiss to the underside of Jinyoung’s jaw and licks a stripe down his neck, committing the taste of Jinyoung’s skin to memory.
When his tongue reaches the hard bump at the base of Jinyoung's throat, he hesitates. But, with Yugyeom’s words echoing in the hole in his own throat, he bites. Jinyoung’s skin gives as easy as overripe fruit, and the metallic taste of his blood fills Mark’s senses.
The milky pearl he uncovers is round and perfectly formed, still warm from being housed in Jinyoung’s body. He slips it in his mouth, savoring the taste, and swallows.
~
Sirens had a very specific kind of magic - inherent, hereditary magic. Some people argued that it was generous to even call it that - after all, no one considered songbirds musicians.
But sea witches were different, their magic unchallenged. Their magic was hereditary, too, but it didn’t come with something quite as easy as birth. For example, Yugyeom was the first one in his family in four generations to be born a sea witch, and had eight tentacles instead of a lower half, despite his mermaid mother, supposedly taking after the last witching ancestor he’d had. But he was sensitive about his octopus half, and had been known in his youth to curse anyone who made fun of him for it. Sea witches were as powerful as they were creative, and although Yugyeom had terrible taste, Mark had the suspicion all this meant was that he was probably way more powerful than his bratty demeanor would have anyone believe. All in all, a good friend to have, and Mark is more than grateful for his younger self’s foresight to bring the injured Yugyeom he found drifting off the northern California shoreline back home so his sister could nurse him back to health before sending him on his way. Maybe he’s always had a bit of a soft spot for castaways.
So, of course, the first place he had brought Jinyoung was Yugyeom.
Are you sure it’s not dead? Yugyeom asks skeptically, eyeing the crude air bubble Mark had constructed for Jinyoung, currently lying on the slab of stone Yugyeom had deemed acceptable to lay the human out on.
It’s a he, Mark says, rolling his eyes. Yugyeom, look - can you help me or not?
Yugyeom huffs, gliding away by suctioning one tentacle to a marble pillar (Yugyeom’s California cave had marble pillars and junkyard tiling. Yugyeom called it avant-garde; Mark just privately wondered if Yugyeom wasn’t perhaps a little bit blind) and then pulling the rest of himself along in an oozing slither. He dips a hand in a basket of moulted scales, shuffling them. Of course I can. But it’ll cost you.
Mark is nodding already. He’d thought so. Magic was never performed for free, not even his song, which always left him with a vicious appetite afterwards. Okay. What?
Yugyeom eyes Jinyoung again. When Mark had pulled him out of the water earlier, he had been pleasantly surprised by his heft. What he’d mistaken for an adolescence from afar was obviously a teenager, just on the cusp of adulthood. And Jinyoung was good-looking too, by any standard. Round eyes (he assumed - currently, they were closed), a clear complexion despite his light tan, healthy teeth.
Are you sure it’ll be worth it? Yugyeom asks, moving closer. Now he takes Jinyoung’s arm and flips it, examining the inside of his wrist.
It’s difficult to explain to Yugyeom what it is about Jinyoung that Mark finds himself wanting to save. Maybe it’s that he’s already come this far, dragging Jinyoung behind him like dead weight for miles until he finally found Yugyeom, in the third home he tried. Maybe it was the protectiveness that had flared inside of him when the boy with a mouthful of shark teeth he’d come across offered to take the baggage off his hands, flashing a pointy, pointed smile. Mark doesn’t want for much, but the things he does want, he wants very much.
I’m sure, Mark says, running a finger down the slope of Jinyoung’s smooth throat, thrill passing through him. I’ll pay it, whatever it is.
In retrospect, Mark should’ve remembered Yugyeom had a cruel streak.
Yugyeom had popped Mark’s air bubble, then immediately fitted his mouth over Jinyoung’s. One exhale, and it looked as if Jinyoung’s body had puffed up a bit.
Enough for a week, he says, wiping his lips on the back of his hand. After that, it’s up to him.
What do you mean, it’s up to -, Mark starts to ask, but Yugyeom just beckons him over, cutting him off.
Time for payment, Yugyeom says. Two of his limbs come up to hold Mark in place, while Yugyeom sets his hands on Mark’s shoulders. His eyes narrow in concentration while he runs his hands up Mark’s torso to his face, as if Mark’s body was a riverbank, his hands dowsing rods looking for gold. Finally, he seems to settle on a spot. His thumb comes to rest on the rounded bump in Mark’s throat he’d never thought much of before, but is suddenly all too aware of. Yugyeom looks at Mark.
Last chance, he says.
Mark doesn’t trust himself to speak just now, so he nods, a barely perceptible head tilt forward.
Yugyeom almost looks like he’s sorry he has to do this. He pushes down with a sudden force, thumb digging into Mark’s throat. Mark chokes, gagging. There are black spots dancing in his vision, and his throat feels like it’s about to be torn apart, when Yugyeom takes pity on him and reaches around to smack him on the back. Mark feels his throat open up, something round and hard shooting out of it to land in Yugyeom’s waiting palm. Yugyeom removes his thumb from Mark’s throat swiftly, patting the back of his neck in a barely comforting gesture.
Sorry, Yugyeom says. Thought it’d be better to just get it over with.
But Mark is looking at what Yugyeom has in his hand. Is that -? he asks, hand flying to his throat. It’s smooth to the touch, and he only realizes now how unnatural it feels. He’d never noticed the bump before, but he certainly notes its absence now, dread rising to fill it.
Yugyeom nods, holding it up. It’s a pearl, creamy and a little bit pink. It’s your song, he says. Payment.
Numbly, Mark watches as Yugyeom glides over to where Jinyoung is laid out. He tilts Jinyoung’s head up, unexpectedly gentle, before parting his lips. Mark watches the pearl disappear into Jinyoung’s mouth, Yugyeom massaging his throat a little so it’ll go down, before settling right above his sternum.
He’ll be up shortly, Yugyeom says, patting Mark’s head. Mark just resists the urge to bite at his hand. You can stay here if you want. I’m going out.
Half an hour later, and Jinyoung is stirring. Mark watches him with caution and more than just a bit of reproach, rubbing his fingers over his throat.
"Hi," Mark says, watching him sit upright in a sudden movement. "My name is Mark. Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you." He tries to pitch his voice in a soothing low tone, digging into his body for the magic that usually comes naturally. He comes up with nothing, so he has to settle for holding his hands up like a pedestrian, trying to remember the ways others arranged their bodies to denote safety. Ridiculous. Mark supposed he’d told Yugyeom whatever it is, but he thought some things were just understood.
Jinyoung rubs his eyes, and then looks around. He looks a bit shell-shocked to find himself underwater, even more so that he’s moving with relative ease. He looks at Mark, eyes flicking down Mark’s bare torso to his scaled, finned legs and feet. It looks like he comes to some kind of decision about Mark’s trustworthiness, because he scoots to the edge of his perch, closer to Mark.
"Hi," he says, in a voice that sends twin jolts of nostalgia and attraction through Mark. His natural voice, buried deep, is pleasant enough. Mid-range and smooth as a pebble. Inoffensive. But layered on top of that is a hint of song Mark can cognitively recognize as his own, though not even the awareness is enough to keep him from turning his head to Jinyoung’s like a fish following bait. "I’m Jinyoung. Thank you for helping me."
So this is how it feels. It’s probably nowhere near as potent as when Mark uses it, Jinyoung’s human body unused to the borrowed magic. There’s something a bit discordant about his speech, his voice clashing with the hint of Mark’s. But still, enough is there that Mark can feel himself growing pliant, his earlier rage at Yugyeom’s antic dissipating with every musical word out of Jinyoung’s mouth.
"You’re welcome," Mark says, finding himself leaning forward. "It was my pleasure."
~
This is how it begins:
Mark has always enjoyed being at sea during a storm, when he’s floating face up beneath the water, just close enough to surface that he can almost feel the phantom drops of rain as they fall. The longer he stays like that, drifting aimlessly, Mark can feel his perception tilt so heavily on its axis he has a moment where he can’t remember if he’s facing sky or water. With the neon echo of lightning in his vision and the predatory rumble of rain and thunder just muffled by the water that surrounds him, Mark can feel his own insignificance impressed upon him like a stamp. With the world stretching above and below him like an indefinite manifest destiny, it is the closest he will ever come to grasping the human concept of ‘drowning.’ There’s something strangely comforting to it.
He’s floating, the hand stretched behind his head skimming the surface just enough that he can feel the reverberations from raindrops hitting the water against his skin, when he catches a flash of white out of the corner of his eye. It’s distracting enough that Mark rights himself for a proper look.
Bobbing dangerously on the unsteady waters about fifty miles away, it’s a ship. Really, just a sailboat, its whipping sails a blur of white against the stormy sky. He can see a figure in a striped shirt at the deck - dark-haired with a slender boy’s body but a man’s shoulders, patiently waiting for the rest of him to catch up. He’s leaning overboard like he’s considering jumping. Mark supposes this makes sense - this boy could stay on his doomed boat, or take his chances on the sea below. Mark knows which option he would take.
Intrigued, he paddles closer. He’s just peeked his head out of the water for an unobstructed view when a bolt of lightning hits the top of the sail. The boy starts when he turns around and sees the fire, and seems to come to a decision. He takes a few cautious steps back, finding the best possible footing on a wildly turbulent ship, before going into a running start. He executes a perfect forward dive, the taut arc of his body as it’s suspended midair lit from behind by the now-burning sail. Then he reaches the water, going in so smoothly he barely makes a splash.
Mark lets out an exhale he hadn’t realized he was holding in. Anxious despite himself, he watches, invested in this narrative and now rooting for the boy, and his relative lack of hesitation when it came to jumping. Nothing surfaces for almost a minute. What was it his dad had said again, about humans? That the extraordinary ones could last up to three minutes underwater without oxygen, but most could only handle one at most. The rain doesn't show any sign of letting up around him, and Mark is left with his own decision. He could turn around and find Jackson, forget the boy. He’s just a human, after all. The worm of guilt will squirm for a day or two, before Mark forgets - he’s led sailors to worse ends. Why should he care about a boy stupid enough to take such a delicate boat into a storm? For all he knew, this was one of those elaborate suicide plans humans were so fond of, as if their mortal lives weren’t short enough to begin with.
And yet, there had been something about that dive that Mark can’t forget. The quickness and elegance of it, and the resolution behind it. It wasn’t the dive of a boy throwing away his life - rather, of a boy bargaining his life for an opportunity to weather this storm.
Mark groans, plunging his head below the water and pushing his body forward. His mind, unbidden, runs through a directory of possibility once he reaches the boy. He’ll save the boy - and then what? Nurse him back to health, and deposit him back on shore, safe and sound? He could drag him to a buoy, tie him there to be found by the next rescue mission. Or he could bring him home like a prize, spend an afternoon with Jackson stripping the skin off his body to look at what lies underneath before selling his eyes to Yugyeom, who was always in the market for human organs, which he claimed conducted magic better. Mark could, but he already knows he won’t. There’s something fascinating about this boy he wants to keep.
Just ahead of him, there is something that looks distinctly like a pair of remarkable shoulders in a striped shirt. Relief dissolves through him.
Jackson’s right. He’s soft after all.
He reaches the boy’s sinking body, and curls a hand around his wrist, still warm to the touch. He hauls him closer, then up, bringing them both to the surface.
- thank u T&T for the beta, always.
- thank u sweet markerlimes for not having a clue (hehehehehehe) and for letting me kick around your backyard.
PG-13. Mark/Jr. 4751 words. AO3 archive. Written for kpop_ficmix. Remix of this untitled Little Mermaid AU drabble by markerlimes.
Underwater AU. A human boy jumps overboard, and Mark is there to save him.
This is how it goes:
It takes Mark three good days to swim to Jinhae-gu from Santa Monica, weather permitting. He usually stays for twenty-four hours, never longer than the span of two sunsets, doing lazy loops around the ruins of a marine park a safe distance away from the beach he’d left Jinyoung on. He keeps an eye on shore the entire time; sometimes he sees Jinyoung, sometimes he doesn’t. Usually he doesn’t, but Mark is - not a creature of habit, exactly, but he's found that once he starts something it's easier to finish it. Either way, careful not to let his presence develop into a nuisance and careful not to let the residual nostalgia in his chest whenever he catches sight of the coastline fester into full-out longing, Mark always makes sure to leave the sweet-salt water of Jinhae Bay after his self-allotted twenty-four hours are up.
The exception was the first time he'd visited. He’d stayed for five days, treading water and making himself sick on the taste of unfamiliar fish, desperate for a glimpse of Jinyoung. Jackson was in Hong Kong with his parents, and kept threatening to come get him if he wouldn’t stop moping. I’m coming, Mark kept swearing, and then when met with the force of Jackson’s skepticism, swore again that he meant it, really. Just give me one more day.
On the fourth day, a teenaged girl swam up to him, serpentine tail where Mark had hips and legs, maintaining a few salmon-lengths between them as she addressed him.
Hello, she said, and the voice that echoed in his head contained the adolescent hiss of a young imugi still learning to drop her sibilants. You're not from around here, are you. It wasn't a question, so Mark didn't bother treating it as one. I could smell the siren on you from Jeju-do, California boy. I wouldn't play too hard in these waters. It was mostly posturing, but her dark eyes narrowed, as if to make sure Mark understood there was a hint of threat there, too.
He didn't say anything, just wound himself a little tighter around the submerged CHANGWON MARINE PARK sign. He wasn’t here to play, but the reality would sound even more foolish. Still, he narrowed his eyes at her right back, and stayed an extra day just to be contrary.
At the end of the fifth day, the girl imugi was back, this time with three of her friends in tow. Her friends were fully grown, nothing adolescent about their tails, so thick they were easily once and a half the size of Mark’s torso. Mark had beat a hasty retreat, helped in part by Jackson, whose idea of ‘help’ was to cause a minor environmental disaster. There’s a Jinhae Bay sandbar that’s lost forever, and a colony of imugi who’d like nothing more than to pick their teeth with the scraps of Mark and Jackson’s ribs. Mark’s learned his lesson. Ever since, he makes sure to head out once the sun starts setting.
He stops by Yugyeom’s latest cave in Seoul on his way to Hong Kong, grimacing at the gaudy skulls littering the entrance that Yugyeom considered decoration. All sea witches had terrible interior decorating taste, and he conveys as much to Yugyeom, who pouts and pops an air bubble in Mark’s face.
What do you know about taste anyway, Yugyeom says, sniffing. He is arranging aluminum foil into a crown for one of his skulls. You love a human. And then quieter, though not quiet enough that Mark can’t hear it, And an ugly one, at that.
Mark ignores this, and lies back on Yugyeom’s jade bed, too luxurious by half for a young sea witch with only a handful of proper enchantments under his belt, even if Yugyeom came from the kind of lineage that inspired humans to mythology. Mark props his feet on the cave wall, looking at the green scales that begin just above his knees, hardening to the true bite of a second skin around his finned feet, and lets his mind slip to the rough tan of Jinyoung’s calves, the way sand stuck to his legs like stubborn static. Jinyoung had cut his foot on a piece of hidden sea glass, and Mark had stared at the blood trailing from it in surprise, and felt a powerful, momentary urge to dig his nail in the wound and peel Jinyoung like a fruit. But the feeling passed, and instead he'd bandaged Jinyoung up as best as he could, hands stuttering over the soft arch of Jinyoung's foot in his lap.
Aish, Yugyeom says suddenly, getting a broom to shove Mark off his bed. You’re thinking loudly about something pathetic again. Get out, get out, go bother someone else. You’re cramping my style, hyung.
Mark lets himself get shoved out, takes a second to let his body find the right direction. With Jackson’s impatience ahead of him and Yugyeom’s exasperation behind him propelling him forward, there is only one direction he can go.
~
Despite Yugyeom’s snobbery, he had some human in him, just as the rest of them, and for the most part it was something to be thankful for. Mark had friends whose bloodlines ran much purer than his, and sometimes they turned callous and feral in a way he found distasteful. Mark was made of much more benign stock - his mother’s grandfather had been full human.
That’s why you’re so soft, Jackson said when he learned this about Mark, hand sneaking out to pinch at Mark's waist. He shook his head when Mark twisted out of his grip, and let out a sigh that sent the water around Mark churning. So much wasted potential.
I’ll show you soft, Mark said, grabbing Jackson in a headlock. Not that wrestling with Jackson was much fun - Jackson chose a corporeal form out of convenience (and, Mark suspected, because it maximized his ability to be annoying) that he could dissipate at anytime. They’ve known each other since they were young, when Jackson was nothing more than a warm curious breeze from the South China Sea, and the most complex creatures Mark was capable of luring were some especially stupid clownfish.
I don't get why you let him go back if you’re just going to mope about it, Jackson says. He's swimming backwards, facing Mark. He's being lazy with his body today - there's only the faintest outline of one on top, before trailing off into the afterthought of Jackson's lower body, right now a swirling mass of immaterial. His limbs flicker with every current and school of fish that passes through him. It still makes Mark wince, no matter how many years they’ve known each other. There are some things that are hard for him to get used to, too. What is it about Jinyoung anyway? Don’t get me wrong, I liked him. But you’ve had better humans.
Although this is objectively true, it still feels a bit hypocritical coming from Jackson, who doesn’t really have any room to shame him for being soft. Jackson regarded humans with an ardent, borderline fetishistic curiosity that, though it never made the final leap into empathy, meant each new human he came across, whether he sought them out or they sought him out, was better to him than the last.
He wanted to go back, Mark says, looking away. So I took him back.
Jackson shakes his head in mock-pity. Soft. So soft.
Mark has always been impressed by how much humans did manage to get right in their fairytales and myths, though there was one fundamentally incorrect trope they insisted on repeating. What self-respecting mermaid or river nymph would ever give up tail or tongue or immortality out of love for a human? It arose from an absurdly, hilariously high opinion of themselves, considering how little they offered in both taste and mortality. Most underwater kind, save the most hideous, thanks to the human preoccupation with beauty, didn’t even need a siren’s song as bait.
Mark wasn’t lying when he told Jackson he let Jinyoung go back for the simple reason that he wanted it. Mark is a siren. Devotion is his inheritance, the one thing that comes as naturally to him as swimming. And so, when he sung his song to little effect, besides a blink of Jinyoung’s remarkably clear eyes up at Mark from where his head was nestled in Mark’s lap, Mark had felt helplessly off-kilter, suddenly aware of how much vulnerability he was capable of. "That was nice," Jinyoung had said. "Can I hear it again?" Mark hesitated, then complied.
He tried to imagine what ‘soft’ would look like, as Jackson was fond of calling him. Unbidden, the first thing that came to mind was the fruit that washed out to sea. Fruit was one of the few things they couldn’t grow underwater, and by the time it arrived, the center was often rotting and pulpy, sickly sweet to the bite. That was one thing Mark had envied Jinyoung, when he described the bright sound of biting into a crisp pear with a note of pure longing in his voice. And then for the briefest moment he’d wondered about the comforts of being human, about the pleasure that could be derived from fresh fruit and gentle arrogance.
God. That was pathetic, even in his mind. Don’t tell Jackson. Or, worse, Yugyeom.
~
This is how it ends:
"Well," Mark says, then stops. He’s no good at this, at speaking. He’s never needed to be good at this, and he’ll never need to be good at this again. Even if he intellectually understands that his attachment to Jinyoung is rooted in false sentiment, the past week has made it blossom into something just shy of genuine. "I’ll miss you," he says, watching the words leave his mouth in a stream of bubbles.
Jinyoung’s eyes crinkle in a laugh. "Wow, so serious. Don’t strain yourself on my behalf." But then, sobering, "I’ll miss you, too. This was - it was really, totally fun. So amazing. Thank you for everything."
He swims a little closer to Mark, almost upending himself when he forgets to manage his body and his legs kick out behind him. Jinyoung grew up coastal, and has been swimming since he was a child - he took to the water better than most, but still, just a week underwater wasn’t going to make his body forget the human instinct to float.
Mark grabs him around the waist, hand tangling in the cotton shirt Jinyoung still insisted on wearing, even though it barely held up underwater anymore, salt weathering it to pieces. "Jinyoung," he starts again, wanting to say something, and wanting to say it right. Unsurprisingly, he finds he doesn’t have the words for it. A human tongue, but not even a fraction of human eloquence, Mark thinks ruefully. To be fair, usually his voice alone was enough to persuade. "Take care of yourself, alright?"
Jinyoung nods, arms coming up around Mark’s shoulders. "I will," he says. "You too. I’ll never -," he starts in earnest, before hesitating.
Mark nods in encouragement, tightening his hold. Leans forward to touch his forehead to Jinyoung’s. He’s suddenly grateful that evolution cured him of the ability to cry centuries back, or else this would be really embarrassing for him. "You can say it," he says softly. "Please."
Jinyoung, still clumsy under water weight, moves his limbs with a frustrating deliberateness that he promises Mark he’d never display aboveground. Mark watches Jinyoung’s hands drift up as if in slow-motion. He touches the back of his hand to Mark’s cheek, and Mark feels every nerve ending in his body relocate to the square inch currently cozied up against Jinyoung’s hand, hot rush of blood just underneath. Jinyoung slides his hand around to the back of Mark’s neck, leaving a trail of warmth in his wake. He brings, first, his forehead to Mark’s, and then his lips to press against Mark’s cheek.
"I’ll never forget you," he says, voice rocky.
I’ll never forget you. It’s a sentiment only Mark will have to bear the cost of, but he’s grateful Jinyoung says it anyway. Although Jinyoung makes to move back, Mark presses forward, not wanting to let go. Seagrass winds around their legs, slimy and alive where it touches skin.
Jinyoung’s mouth drops to his shoulder in a gentle kiss. There’s no point in dragging this out any longer. Mark takes a deep breath, preparing himself.
Then he knocks Jinyoung out.
Jinyoung starts sinking almost immediately, before bobbing back up. Mark grabs his arms and tightens them around his neck, reaching around to haul Jinyoung’s thighs up around his waist. He’s dead weight against Mark’s back, but with his arms slung over Mark’s shoulders, Mark can feel the whole of Jinyoung’s body pressed against him, can feel the thrum of Jinyoung’s pulse in the wrist pressed against his sternum and the steady pound of Jinyoung’s heart against his back.
He swims the few feet to shore, rising out of the water with Jinyoung’s weight against his back. He takes a second to find his footing, finned feet slipping on the sand. He ends up having to half-carry, half-drag Jinyoung up the beach, trying to find somewhere to leave him that’s far enough out of reach of the water, where he’ll be found easily. With the light of moon making the white sand of the beach glow, even this late into the night, it is nowhere near as dark aboveground as it is below, and Mark stumbles a bit, unused to the oxygen, the open air, the light. Like this, Mark can understand the inclination some of his kind have for the land and its provincial charm, so conquerable humans have been making a habit out of it for centuries.
But even minutes out of water, Mark can feel the itch of gravity on his skin like an allergic reaction, the difficulty of having to breathe through his barely-used lungs making him wheeze. So he hastily lays Jinyoung out on the sand, arranging his limbs with haphazard care and cradling his head while he finds the softest patch of sand to set it on. Afterwards, Mark sits back on his knees to survey his work. In the moonlight, his eyes closed and his head lolling, Jinyoung looks properly driftwood-like, just as if he spent a week at sea being knocked around before the currents finally delivered him home.
Jinyoung, upon waking, won’t remember a thing about his time underwater, much less anything about Mark. This is the way it has to be, but Mark still feels sadness sink through him. Leaning over Jinyoung’s prone body, he presses a kiss to the underside of Jinyoung’s jaw and licks a stripe down his neck, committing the taste of Jinyoung’s skin to memory.
When his tongue reaches the hard bump at the base of Jinyoung's throat, he hesitates. But, with Yugyeom’s words echoing in the hole in his own throat, he bites. Jinyoung’s skin gives as easy as overripe fruit, and the metallic taste of his blood fills Mark’s senses.
The milky pearl he uncovers is round and perfectly formed, still warm from being housed in Jinyoung’s body. He slips it in his mouth, savoring the taste, and swallows.
~
Sirens had a very specific kind of magic - inherent, hereditary magic. Some people argued that it was generous to even call it that - after all, no one considered songbirds musicians.
But sea witches were different, their magic unchallenged. Their magic was hereditary, too, but it didn’t come with something quite as easy as birth. For example, Yugyeom was the first one in his family in four generations to be born a sea witch, and had eight tentacles instead of a lower half, despite his mermaid mother, supposedly taking after the last witching ancestor he’d had. But he was sensitive about his octopus half, and had been known in his youth to curse anyone who made fun of him for it. Sea witches were as powerful as they were creative, and although Yugyeom had terrible taste, Mark had the suspicion all this meant was that he was probably way more powerful than his bratty demeanor would have anyone believe. All in all, a good friend to have, and Mark is more than grateful for his younger self’s foresight to bring the injured Yugyeom he found drifting off the northern California shoreline back home so his sister could nurse him back to health before sending him on his way. Maybe he’s always had a bit of a soft spot for castaways.
So, of course, the first place he had brought Jinyoung was Yugyeom.
Are you sure it’s not dead? Yugyeom asks skeptically, eyeing the crude air bubble Mark had constructed for Jinyoung, currently lying on the slab of stone Yugyeom had deemed acceptable to lay the human out on.
It’s a he, Mark says, rolling his eyes. Yugyeom, look - can you help me or not?
Yugyeom huffs, gliding away by suctioning one tentacle to a marble pillar (Yugyeom’s California cave had marble pillars and junkyard tiling. Yugyeom called it avant-garde; Mark just privately wondered if Yugyeom wasn’t perhaps a little bit blind) and then pulling the rest of himself along in an oozing slither. He dips a hand in a basket of moulted scales, shuffling them. Of course I can. But it’ll cost you.
Mark is nodding already. He’d thought so. Magic was never performed for free, not even his song, which always left him with a vicious appetite afterwards. Okay. What?
Yugyeom eyes Jinyoung again. When Mark had pulled him out of the water earlier, he had been pleasantly surprised by his heft. What he’d mistaken for an adolescence from afar was obviously a teenager, just on the cusp of adulthood. And Jinyoung was good-looking too, by any standard. Round eyes (he assumed - currently, they were closed), a clear complexion despite his light tan, healthy teeth.
Are you sure it’ll be worth it? Yugyeom asks, moving closer. Now he takes Jinyoung’s arm and flips it, examining the inside of his wrist.
It’s difficult to explain to Yugyeom what it is about Jinyoung that Mark finds himself wanting to save. Maybe it’s that he’s already come this far, dragging Jinyoung behind him like dead weight for miles until he finally found Yugyeom, in the third home he tried. Maybe it was the protectiveness that had flared inside of him when the boy with a mouthful of shark teeth he’d come across offered to take the baggage off his hands, flashing a pointy, pointed smile. Mark doesn’t want for much, but the things he does want, he wants very much.
I’m sure, Mark says, running a finger down the slope of Jinyoung’s smooth throat, thrill passing through him. I’ll pay it, whatever it is.
In retrospect, Mark should’ve remembered Yugyeom had a cruel streak.
Yugyeom had popped Mark’s air bubble, then immediately fitted his mouth over Jinyoung’s. One exhale, and it looked as if Jinyoung’s body had puffed up a bit.
Enough for a week, he says, wiping his lips on the back of his hand. After that, it’s up to him.
What do you mean, it’s up to -, Mark starts to ask, but Yugyeom just beckons him over, cutting him off.
Time for payment, Yugyeom says. Two of his limbs come up to hold Mark in place, while Yugyeom sets his hands on Mark’s shoulders. His eyes narrow in concentration while he runs his hands up Mark’s torso to his face, as if Mark’s body was a riverbank, his hands dowsing rods looking for gold. Finally, he seems to settle on a spot. His thumb comes to rest on the rounded bump in Mark’s throat he’d never thought much of before, but is suddenly all too aware of. Yugyeom looks at Mark.
Last chance, he says.
Mark doesn’t trust himself to speak just now, so he nods, a barely perceptible head tilt forward.
Yugyeom almost looks like he’s sorry he has to do this. He pushes down with a sudden force, thumb digging into Mark’s throat. Mark chokes, gagging. There are black spots dancing in his vision, and his throat feels like it’s about to be torn apart, when Yugyeom takes pity on him and reaches around to smack him on the back. Mark feels his throat open up, something round and hard shooting out of it to land in Yugyeom’s waiting palm. Yugyeom removes his thumb from Mark’s throat swiftly, patting the back of his neck in a barely comforting gesture.
Sorry, Yugyeom says. Thought it’d be better to just get it over with.
But Mark is looking at what Yugyeom has in his hand. Is that -? he asks, hand flying to his throat. It’s smooth to the touch, and he only realizes now how unnatural it feels. He’d never noticed the bump before, but he certainly notes its absence now, dread rising to fill it.
Yugyeom nods, holding it up. It’s a pearl, creamy and a little bit pink. It’s your song, he says. Payment.
Numbly, Mark watches as Yugyeom glides over to where Jinyoung is laid out. He tilts Jinyoung’s head up, unexpectedly gentle, before parting his lips. Mark watches the pearl disappear into Jinyoung’s mouth, Yugyeom massaging his throat a little so it’ll go down, before settling right above his sternum.
He’ll be up shortly, Yugyeom says, patting Mark’s head. Mark just resists the urge to bite at his hand. You can stay here if you want. I’m going out.
Half an hour later, and Jinyoung is stirring. Mark watches him with caution and more than just a bit of reproach, rubbing his fingers over his throat.
"Hi," Mark says, watching him sit upright in a sudden movement. "My name is Mark. Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you." He tries to pitch his voice in a soothing low tone, digging into his body for the magic that usually comes naturally. He comes up with nothing, so he has to settle for holding his hands up like a pedestrian, trying to remember the ways others arranged their bodies to denote safety. Ridiculous. Mark supposed he’d told Yugyeom whatever it is, but he thought some things were just understood.
Jinyoung rubs his eyes, and then looks around. He looks a bit shell-shocked to find himself underwater, even more so that he’s moving with relative ease. He looks at Mark, eyes flicking down Mark’s bare torso to his scaled, finned legs and feet. It looks like he comes to some kind of decision about Mark’s trustworthiness, because he scoots to the edge of his perch, closer to Mark.
"Hi," he says, in a voice that sends twin jolts of nostalgia and attraction through Mark. His natural voice, buried deep, is pleasant enough. Mid-range and smooth as a pebble. Inoffensive. But layered on top of that is a hint of song Mark can cognitively recognize as his own, though not even the awareness is enough to keep him from turning his head to Jinyoung’s like a fish following bait. "I’m Jinyoung. Thank you for helping me."
So this is how it feels. It’s probably nowhere near as potent as when Mark uses it, Jinyoung’s human body unused to the borrowed magic. There’s something a bit discordant about his speech, his voice clashing with the hint of Mark’s. But still, enough is there that Mark can feel himself growing pliant, his earlier rage at Yugyeom’s antic dissipating with every musical word out of Jinyoung’s mouth.
"You’re welcome," Mark says, finding himself leaning forward. "It was my pleasure."
~
This is how it begins:
Mark has always enjoyed being at sea during a storm, when he’s floating face up beneath the water, just close enough to surface that he can almost feel the phantom drops of rain as they fall. The longer he stays like that, drifting aimlessly, Mark can feel his perception tilt so heavily on its axis he has a moment where he can’t remember if he’s facing sky or water. With the neon echo of lightning in his vision and the predatory rumble of rain and thunder just muffled by the water that surrounds him, Mark can feel his own insignificance impressed upon him like a stamp. With the world stretching above and below him like an indefinite manifest destiny, it is the closest he will ever come to grasping the human concept of ‘drowning.’ There’s something strangely comforting to it.
He’s floating, the hand stretched behind his head skimming the surface just enough that he can feel the reverberations from raindrops hitting the water against his skin, when he catches a flash of white out of the corner of his eye. It’s distracting enough that Mark rights himself for a proper look.
Bobbing dangerously on the unsteady waters about fifty miles away, it’s a ship. Really, just a sailboat, its whipping sails a blur of white against the stormy sky. He can see a figure in a striped shirt at the deck - dark-haired with a slender boy’s body but a man’s shoulders, patiently waiting for the rest of him to catch up. He’s leaning overboard like he’s considering jumping. Mark supposes this makes sense - this boy could stay on his doomed boat, or take his chances on the sea below. Mark knows which option he would take.
Intrigued, he paddles closer. He’s just peeked his head out of the water for an unobstructed view when a bolt of lightning hits the top of the sail. The boy starts when he turns around and sees the fire, and seems to come to a decision. He takes a few cautious steps back, finding the best possible footing on a wildly turbulent ship, before going into a running start. He executes a perfect forward dive, the taut arc of his body as it’s suspended midair lit from behind by the now-burning sail. Then he reaches the water, going in so smoothly he barely makes a splash.
Mark lets out an exhale he hadn’t realized he was holding in. Anxious despite himself, he watches, invested in this narrative and now rooting for the boy, and his relative lack of hesitation when it came to jumping. Nothing surfaces for almost a minute. What was it his dad had said again, about humans? That the extraordinary ones could last up to three minutes underwater without oxygen, but most could only handle one at most. The rain doesn't show any sign of letting up around him, and Mark is left with his own decision. He could turn around and find Jackson, forget the boy. He’s just a human, after all. The worm of guilt will squirm for a day or two, before Mark forgets - he’s led sailors to worse ends. Why should he care about a boy stupid enough to take such a delicate boat into a storm? For all he knew, this was one of those elaborate suicide plans humans were so fond of, as if their mortal lives weren’t short enough to begin with.
And yet, there had been something about that dive that Mark can’t forget. The quickness and elegance of it, and the resolution behind it. It wasn’t the dive of a boy throwing away his life - rather, of a boy bargaining his life for an opportunity to weather this storm.
Mark groans, plunging his head below the water and pushing his body forward. His mind, unbidden, runs through a directory of possibility once he reaches the boy. He’ll save the boy - and then what? Nurse him back to health, and deposit him back on shore, safe and sound? He could drag him to a buoy, tie him there to be found by the next rescue mission. Or he could bring him home like a prize, spend an afternoon with Jackson stripping the skin off his body to look at what lies underneath before selling his eyes to Yugyeom, who was always in the market for human organs, which he claimed conducted magic better. Mark could, but he already knows he won’t. There’s something fascinating about this boy he wants to keep.
Just ahead of him, there is something that looks distinctly like a pair of remarkable shoulders in a striped shirt. Relief dissolves through him.
Jackson’s right. He’s soft after all.
He reaches the boy’s sinking body, and curls a hand around his wrist, still warm to the touch. He hauls him closer, then up, bringing them both to the surface.
- thank u T&T for the beta, always.
- thank u sweet markerlimes for not having a clue (hehehehehehe) and for letting me kick around your backyard.