⊰ T H I R T Y S I X ⊱
FATES INTERTWINED
"Jimin?"
"Hmm?" he hummed, chest rumbling against mine as we continued to hold each other.
"What are you planning to do once the deal is done and you're completely human?" I asked hesitantly.
"I have something I need to take care of," he responded. I could sense his discomfort and decided I shouldn't push him, especially after he had been so patient with me to open up to him about my past.
"When you get that done, will you come back?" the question came out as a whisper. I heard him sigh, his fingers weaving their way through my hair.
"I'll come back."
His answer should have comforted me, but it didn't. It felt off, and I feared that he was just telling me what I wanted to hear.
"Jimin—"
"Let's talk about something else, okay?" He slowly pulled away, grabbing my hand and bringing me with him to sit on the deck, resting our backs against the side of the ship.
"I know you don't want to talk about it," I captured his gaze, taking a deep breath. "But I just need you to know that I don't want you to leave. I know it might be selfish, but I just need you to hear that from me." We hadn't even known each other long, but already I couldn't imagine being without him.
His eyes held mine as he spoke. "I'll come back. I promise."
"Okay," I quietly said, doing my best to trust him and to ignore the nagging voice in my head that said he wasn't going to stay with me like I so hoped he would.
"So everything that happened was with your stepfather, right? Do you want to tell me about your biological dad?" Jimin asked, expertly steering my attention elsewhere like he had always managed to do. Luckily for him, talking about my father was something I wanted, even though it was painful.
"He was amazing. He did such a great job raising Anna and me. He taught us both how to stand up for ourselves and for others. He wanted to make sure we were tough," I smiled, thinking back on how he taught us things that normally weren't taught to daughters. "He hated that so many young girls were expected to just follow men's orders blindly, to never really speak up unless they were asked to do so. He refused to let his daughters be afraid to have their own opinions or individual strength."
Jimin let out a small laugh, "I think he succeeded."
I smiled briefly before continuing, "He went through a rough patch at some point though. I was still pretty young when it happened, but he started drinking a lot—too much—when the majority of his work was stolen. He made swords and different weapons for a living, and one night while he was in his shop, a bunch of men broke in and knocked him out so they could take as many weapons as they could carry.
"It was devastating for him. He spent so much time and effort on crafting each weapon to be unique and to have its own special aspect to it. He lost so much potential profit, and he blamed himself for not being strong enough to fight the thieves off, so he started drinking. But like I mentioned earlier, Anna helped him through it. She was only fifteen at the time, but somehow, she was able to get through to him more than my mom ever could."
Jimin stayed silent, watching me intently. It seemed he wasn't going to say much until I finished, so I went on.
"We were lucky. It didn't take him too long to sober up, which I'm sure was mainly because he didn't want to let us down. He hired some help so he could make up for all his stolen work. He was there day and night for almost a year straight, crafting as much as he could to try and get things back on the right track..." I trailed off, leaning my head against the wood behind me.
"But one day he never came back from work. My mom went out looking for him, but he was gone. His shop was locked up so we know he left intentionally." My voice broke, "I still don't understand what happened. It doesn't make sense that he would have left us on purpose. He loved my mom and me and Anna way too much to just disappear on us."
Jimin continued to stare at me.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" I asked, tilting my head. His brows were drawn together, lips parting open before closing again.
"What was his name?"
"Huh?"
"Your father. What was his name?" Jimin asked urgently.
"Nicholas," I answered. Jimin swallowed, once again looking at me like he couldn't decide whether he wanted to reach out to me or run away.
"I... I knew him."
"What?" There's no way.
"I knew your father, Katherine," he said, watching my reaction carefully, but I was too shocked and confused to even move.
"How?"
"I was the help he hired. After the orphanage burnt down, I had to get away... I ran off, and eventually made it to a smaller village that felt safer to me. I needed to make money for food so I went around asking people for a job. Your dad was the only one willing to pay me."
"How old were you?" I asked with a hammering heart as flashes of a young, brown-haired boy came flooding through my head.
"I think I was fourteen or fifteen," he replied, looking at me carefully, "Why?"
I remembered him. I remembered how I'd defied my mom one day, knowing she didn't want me visiting my dad at work. She always said it wasn't a good place for young girls, that I should stay away from all those weapons and the rough men that came to buy them. I was never allowed to go to his shop, but that day I decided to try anyways. And I remember peeking through the door, looking for my dad, but instead spotting a boy no more than a few years older than me. Even then, I thought to myself how beautiful he was - how he seemed to stand out from all the other boys I'd seen before. But my mom came yelling after me and dragged me back to the house before I could walk in and meet him or visit my father.
"You were the boy my dad used to talk about..." I trailed off, a whirlwind of emotions spiraling through me. "He said he tried inviting you over for dinner but you always refused."
"He's the blacksmith that taught me how to fight," Jimin stated, sending another wave of surprise through my body. "He invited me over a couple times but I was too nervous to ever go with him. He talked about his daughters - about you and Anna, I guess. But I was so used to being an orphan that the idea of being in a family's home felt too strange to me."
"How is this even possible?" I asked, running a hand through my hair, "I mean, we were so close to meeting even as children. You worked for my father. Years later, I happened to jump into the ocean at just the right time for you to see me and try to kiss me-"
"I did kiss you, it was just too brief for the curse to transfer," Jimin corrected me quietly. I bit my lip, still not over the fact that he had kissed me in the water that day and I nearly became a siren.
"Okay, so you kissed me but it didn't work. Four years later, we somehow happened to cross paths again. Out of a huge swarm of sirens, we managed to catch you and bring you into the ship, where you recognized me as the person you'd kissed before. And you knew that I could help you break the curse even out of water because we had already started the process."
"And since I never finished it with you the first time, I could only become human if I was able to find you again. You were my only hope," he added, his face serious and thoughtful.
"Jimin, how are you not more surprised? Aren't all these coincidences strange to you?"
"I don't know. I'm a little surprised about knowing your father, but I've already thought for a while now that our fates are... intertwined."
Fates intertwined.
It sounded so mystical and romantic and I wasn't sure what to think. Were our paths really destined to cross? It seemed like every time we had gotten in close proximity, we were pulled apart and the universe had to work to bring us back together again. First my father, making an unlikely decision to hire a small boy to help him with weapons. Then the ocean, pulling me towards it so Jimin could find me. Then the storm that drew the sirens to us, where we were able to capture Jimin so he could have a chance at becoming human with my help.
It was too much for me to wrap my head around in the moment, and I knew that what I was about to ask next would probably only make things even worse, but I couldn't help myself.
"You were there with him every time he went to the shop. Do you know what happened to him?" I stilled as I waited for his answer. He didn't seem surprised that I'd asked, but it was clear how much he feared telling me what he knew.
"Are you sure you want to hear it? It's going to be difficult for you," he said gently. I nodded.
"I'm sure. I need to know."
"I'll try to keep it short," he sighed, leaning his head back while he thought of the past. "Your father pressed me about my situation for months until I finally told him the whole story about the orphanage. I think he felt bad for me, because when he found out that I was living on my own, he promised he was going to teach me swordsmanship and fighting skills so I could stand up for myself if I ever ran into trouble.
"He trained me a lot, and he even took a few days off completely so he could practice with me. One day he took me out so we could spar on the hill behind his shop. He brought me up the trail that led there and we fought for hours. On the way back, we were walking down the side of the cliff when I realized I stopped hearing his footsteps behind me," he paused, shutting his eyes. "I don't know if it was intentional, if he tripped or if his heart gave out on him, but it doesn't matter. When I looked over the edge, he was already in the water."
He fell from the same cliff I jumped off of.
My chest throbbed painfully, aching with misery. I whimpered as a picture of my dad falling into the water filled my thoughts. I saw his terrified face as he realized he might never see me or Anna again, and the tears started falling. I hated that I'd been crying so much lately, but having confirmation for the first time that my father was dead - not alive like I'd always hoped - was devastating. I felt sick to my stomach knowing that he was gone, that he was taken so suddenly from this earth.
Warm hands wrapped around my waist and I was pulled into Jimin's lap where I immediately buried my face in his chest, my fists clutching his shirt tightly as I sobbed. Jimin rubbed my back comfortingly.
"I'm sorry, Katherine. I hate seeing you like this but I know you would rather have answers than never find out what happened to him," he said, his mouth moving against my hair where he was resting his head. His voice was low and soft, and hearing him so close to me was the only thing that kept me grounded.
"I went in after him. I wanted to save him and I tried to, I swear I did, but he was already gone. There were some rocks at the bottom... I was lucky, but he wasn't." Jimin whispered, tightening his hold as another broken cry left my trembling frame.
"H-how did you get back?" I choked out. He took a while to answer.
"I didn't. After I was in the water and saw that he was already gone, something grabbed me and dragged me down. That's when I was cursed," he explained quietly. I took deep breaths and tried to calm myself down, tears still falling but my cries slowly fading.
Jimin became a siren in the same place that I nearly did.
"Thank you for telling me," I whispered while growing even closer to him, sliding my hands from the front of his shirt to wrap around his back. I focused on the warmth of him, on the feeling of his solid chest and the sound of his heart beating under my ear. As long as I could reassure myself that he was here with me, I knew things would be okay, even if I was hurting.
"It's gonna be okay," he murmured softly, his sweet tone acting as medicine for my aching soul.
"Can we stay like this?" I sniffled, still clinging onto him. My cheeks were still wet but I didn't bother to dry them.
"Of course we can," he answered, running a hand over my hair soothingly.
So we remained like that, me on his lap with my face in his chest while he held me to him, his chin resting on my head while his fingers glided over my back to help me relax. We spent a long time there before he muttered something about his legs falling asleep. I was too tired to respond, only humming the okay for him to adjust.
But instead of changing positions like I thought he would, I felt my body rise as he stood up with me still clutching to him. My arms moved to encircle his neck, legs automatically wrapping around his waist as he held me up by my hips. My face nuzzled his neck as he carried me, walking us across deck and up some stairs before he finally set me down on his hammock.
My eyes fluttered open, vision blurry as I took in the soft outline of his figure standing over me. He reached down and brushed the back of his hand along my cheek. When he started to retract his hand, I lazily caught his wrist.
"Don't go," I whispered.
"Wasn't planning on it," he mumbled before he slid onto the hammock, laying beside me and pulling me into him with the two of us facing each other. I remember thinking sleepily that he appeared even more surreal under the stars, blue moonlight surrounding the outline of him like a soft halo.
My cerulean angel.
~
Thump!
"Arrg," I groaned at the harsh impact that rudely awakened me from my slumber.
Jimin rolled onto his side, also grunting in pain. We were on the floor, the makeshift hammock flattened beneath us after snapping under our weight.
"Good morning," I muttered, squinting my eyes open as I looked up. It was still dim, the early rays of dawn just barely lighting up the sky in a soft periwinkle.
"Hardly," Jimin responded in a gruff tone. I turned my head to face him.
"Thank you for last night," I said, grateful that he had stayed with me and comforted me. My heart felt even more tattered now as it struggled to let go of both Yoongi and my father, but I knew that without Jimin it would've been even more bruised and battered.
Jimin turned his head to meet my eyes, sending me a sad smile, "He was a good man."
I had the urge to reach out for his hand, but I was too afraid to make the first move. I couldn't risk another rejection after that night at the tavern where he'd walked away without kissing me. That, and it was still too soon to try starting something after just breaking things off with Yoongi.
Yes, we had just slept beside each other two nights in a row, but both times were less about romance and more about reassurance and comfort. At least, that's the guise we both had been using to stay close to each other. I truly did need consolation, but I think we both knew that our time together had meant more than that at a deeper level.
Still, I resisted, helping him tie the hammock back up before quietly excusing myself to go to my bedroom, not wanting anyone to see that we'd spent the night sleeping beside each other once again.
I spent the morning alone, resting and processing my father's death. Of course, a part of me had always known it was possible, but I'd never wanted to accept it. The confirmation was a difficult pill to swallow, though the smallest part of me was thankful to learn that he had never intentionally left us.
By early afternoon, Jin and Jungkook knocked on my door and asked if I wanted to hang out with them. It was a welcome distraction, so I agreed and we played different games with dice for hours, then we started an arm wrestling match, helping me momentarily forget about everything else. They always had this amazing ability to cheer me up, and I was so thankful to them for that even if they didn't realize how much they were actually helping me. I would cherish them and the others forever; they were my family and my home.
"Ha!" I exclaimed, smiling cheekily at Jin as soon as I slammed his arm down on the table.
"I was going easy on you, that's why," Jin said with a raised chin, a slight pout on his lips. I laughed.
"Oh of course, that's definitely why," I mused, sending a wink to Jungkook. He smiled his bunny smile then switched spots with Jin.
"You're going down, Kat," he proclaimed confidently, his doe eyes gleaming over with determination. He was probably wanting to prove himself to me since I always teased him about being the youngest.
Of course, he didn't know just how much I actually respected him and admired his strength, both physical and mental.
"We'll see," I said, resting my elbow on the table and holding my hand straight up. Jungkook easily positioned himself and connected our hands.
"Ready, set, go!' Jin shouted.
My forearm and bicep immediately flexed as I pressed against Jungkook's hand, trying to get his arm down towards the table. He barely inched lower under my strength, his arm refusing to budge.
"Kat! I need to talk to you," Yoongi hollered down at us from the top of the ladder.
"Damn it!" I yelled as Jungkook threw my arm down. "No fair, I was distracted!" I complained.
"Don't be a sore loser, Kat," Jungkook piped happily, standing up from his seat. I tsked and challenged him to a rematch before making my way to the upper deck.
When I met Yoongi's eyes, all the nerves I'd felt about his desire came rushing back to me. He looked tense, much more nervous than I was.
"I know things are weird between us right now, but that's sort of one of the reasons I want to talk to you..." he started, seemingly unsure of how to express what he wanted to say. "I need you to know something."
"Okay, what do I need to know?" I asked cautiously. The way he was looking at me made me anxious.
"I don't even know how to tell you this. I just don't want you to think that I ever meant to hurt you."
"Hurt me? Yoongi, what are you talking about?" I was beyond confused. Why was he acting like he had done something bad behind my back?
"Everything I felt for you was real, okay? I didn't mean to-"
"Jimin says we're here!" Hoseok cut Yoongi off as he shouted. Yoongi sighed, looking at me one last time before he walked off to where the others were starting to gather near the side of the ship.
I realized that everyone was looking out in the distance, so I looked over to see a tiny, bare island surrounded by many rocks jutting out of the water.
"What are we looking for?" Taehyung asked what we all were wondering.
Jimin stayed silent and so did Yoongi, both of them continuing to stare out at the quiet sea. Finally, Yoongi glanced over at Jimin.
"What do I do?" he asked almost breathlessly.
"You can't do anything. Let me," Jimin replied before moving to the very edge of the boat. I watched him carefully, completely lost on what was going on.
And then he started to sing, the sound drifting from his lips like smooth honey and sweet cream. A nearly inaudible gasp left my mouth at the sound, feeling my entire body erupt in soft tingles, goosebumps rising all over my skin. I lifted my eyes back to the sea, suddenly fearing what was about to emerge from it.
Because it finally hit me, and I knew exactly what Yoongi desired more than anything else in the world.
Before I could think any further, all eyes snapped to the ripples that moved along the surface of the water. We all leaned over the edge, watching in suspense as the shadow moved underneath the depths. The dark figure slowly inched nearer, and a glimpse of red flashed for a short second. I could hear my heartbeat in my ears as the shadow danced in the deep, almost like it was teasing us and prolonging its reveal. But finally, after deciding it had made us wait long enough, it approached the surface carefully.
And there she was.
A long, deep ruby tail that glimmered with a fiery orange undertone, sparkling as the sun finally bounced off the metallic scales. A slim and bare torso, golden and beautiful. Long, wet hair framing a carefully crafted porcelain face. And finally those dark eyes, almost ink-black as they stared up at us, full of a predatory iciness that sent shivers down my spine.
She smirked wickedly, her entire face void of any feeling other than recognition and a certain hunger.
"Yoongi," the siren purred. My eyes latched onto Yoongi's face as he stared down at her.
"Dawon."
Hearing her name didn't surprise me. Seeing her there in all her siren glory, alive, didn't surprise me. Not in comparison to the fact that Yoongi was staring down at her without a hint of shock on his face.
It was like getting stabbed all over again as a blade of betrayal pierced through me.
Yoongi knew Dawon was alive this entire time.
• • •
Author's Note:
So Jimin knew Kat's father, and Yoongi knew Dawon was alive. Ddaeng.
A lot of you guessed that Dawon had become a siren! I love reading all your theories and I always get excited when one of you picks up on the little hints and you figure things out. I hope that it's not disappointing though when you do predict what is going to happen.
How many of you knew Yoongi was aware that Dawon was alive? Let's hope he explains himself in the next chapter.
I love you all!
-Hoseokiiss
June 30, 2019