The Siren's Song

Chapter 73- old wounds don't always heal

JOON POV:

The guilt doesn't ease straight away, it lingers. Like the remnants of a nightmare that seeps into consciousness, like the ebbing tide that laps gently at your feet before drifting away, leaving the remnant of its salty touch behind. It remains when we come back home, even if the solid warmth of her remains like a phantom touch, pressed against me and winding careful arms around me.

It remains even as Tae climbs into my bed and winds himself around me, spooning me and presses small kisses to the nape of my neck, tugging my shirt away to press his warm lips to my shoulder too.

"Stop thinking so hard hyung. I can hear it." He murmurs lowly, his voice vibrating against my skin as he speaks.

I sigh, hand drifting to hold onto his laced hands, feeling the steady warmth of them, he separates his interlinked hands to grab mine and trap it underneath.

"Hyung we can't erase what's happened, we can't make the clock reverse but we can help her going forward, we can help by being there for her, helping her heal and healing alongside her." he says.

He can't see my face but his words makes a small smile appear on my face.

When did Tae get so mature and so wise? When did the time come when he had to reassure his hyung, rather than require the comfort from me, from us?

"I just never want her to ever suffer again. I don't want her to speak because of a compulsion but because she wants to." I confess.

All this time working with Habaek, with doing research about the connections with trauma and selective mutism made me realise that the reason Habaek was so intent on it was because above everything, he wanted her to heal, he wanted her to overcome that trauma, to grow stronger and past it.

Which was why I threw myself into researching and reading just as much because I wanted her to heal. I wanted to hear the sweetness of her voice without her having to ever feel burdened to speak.

Which was why the screams and pleas haunted me, why in the six days that we hadn't seen her, hadn't heard from her- they echoed in my ears, they pulled me out of sleep, they kept me distracted and troubled. Why when I read her notes written to me, poured over the notes we'd exchanged- I couldn't hear anything but the agony in the tremble of her voice, hearing those same words as steeped in pain. And the pleading distressed voice was always hurt no matter how much the words changed.

It made me beg and wish for a way to turn back time, to halt the clock and stop time in that instance when she was falling backwards and tug her forward, tug her towards me.

That rather than pull me away, she'd let me fall. I could've climbed out of the water, but her trauma which I grew certain was tied to water, or a larger body of it, had pushed her to save me. Even if it meant she got swallowed up by it instead.

And seeing her. Seeing her was something I'd needed, not only craved and wanted, I needed to see her whole and healthy, I needed to see her alive, to wipe away that small niggling worry and paranoia that she hadn't made it out, that she was still captive to the waters. And when I saw her it was like the anchor that was holding me down, keeping me restrained was finally releasing its hold, was releasing all the worries and fears I'd harboured and gently nudged them out to sea.

And Tae's words help become that final nudge, that final push to free me from the chains that had wrapped around my heart and soul and constricted them until it felt like I couldn't breathe, that I could suffocate from this feeling of helplessness and grief and horror.

"She won't. Our stubborn girl won't do anything she doesn't want to. You can count on that." He says, fondness seeping into his tone, lips curved into a smile when he presses a kiss to the curve of my ear, to the skin behind it.