Chapter Text
The sea is a bruise tonight.
Ink-black water rolls beneath the hull, each swell lifting the ship before dropping it. The wind howls through the rigging like something feral– a beast with salt-crusted teeth. Rain needles down in sheets, each droplet stinging like tiny glass shards, clinging to Minho's clothes, sliding in cold rivers down the back of his neck, pooling in the hollows of his collarbones.
He doesn't mind. Storms like this make the ocean restless– make them restless.
Perfect hunting weather.
Minho paces just aft of the main mast, boots heavy on the slick wood that gleams like seal skin in the darkness. His eyes sweep the horizon and the nets dragging below the surface, invisible but felt in the subtle resistance against the ship's movement. The crew is below deck, asleep or pretending to be. Only Jeongin's light glows faintly through the slit of the navigation room window, a jaundiced eye blinking with each wave.
Sirens are drawn to storms. Maybe it’s instinct, maybe it’s the way lightning fractures the sky like a song. Either way, their kind always stirs on nights like this. Slipping too close to boats with scales that shimmer even in darkness. Curious. Hungry. Deadly.
The nets are already deployed, lines cast wide off both sides of the ship like a spiderweb made of steel and myth, waiting to snare flesh worth its weight in gold.
Minho doesn’t need to do this. They've hauled in twelve sirens this month, which would be almost double the amount they’ve been contracted for. But six of them were too old, skin papery, fins tattered at the edges– and there wasn't enough scale. They'd thrown most back overboard, silver-green flesh bleeding silver into the midnight water, tails twitching weakly as they sank beneath the waves. Not worth the price.
Still, payment was secured. But tonight–
Wood groans behind him. Minho turns, rain sliding off his jaw.
“You should be below,” Minho says, voice tight against the wind.
Jeongin approaches with a hood half-fallen over his curls, his boots squelching with every step. A faint glow flickers from the streamlight in his hand, casting watery gold over his pale, sharp features.
He gives a weak smile, leaning over to check one of the net pulleys a few feet away. His slender fingers trace the corroded metal. "Couldn't sleep,” he replies. “Thought I'd get some air."
“The air smells like blood when we pull in a catch.”
“I know.”
The storm swallows what little sound remains. For a moment, there’s nothing else– just the groan of the ship and the slosh of dark waves against the hull, each impact sending tremors through the deck beneath their feet.
Minho studies him, arms crossed over his rain-slick jacket, droplets cascading from his eyelashes.
“You never come up when the nets are out.”
Jeongin doesn't answer right away. He leans on the railing, knuckles white against the splintered wood, looking out at the empty horizon where lightning illuminates the jagged edges of distant waves. “Yeah, well… Figured maybe if I watched more, I’d get used to it.”
“Watching doesn’t make it easier.”
Wind screams through the rigging, and the ship lists violently to starboard, sending both men staggering for a moment.
Before Jeongin can answer, the netline jerks hard– snapping taut with a violent crack that echoes across the deck. The netline nearest Jeongin whips tight with a spray of seawater, nearly ripping the pulley from its brass brace in a shower of splinters. Jeongin's fingers tremble around the streamlight, nearly dropping it as his eyes widen with primal fear.
Something’s caught.
Minho is moving before the thought finishes forming, boots pounding slick wood as the winch groans under sudden, furious strain. Over the wind and thunder, he hears it– the thrash. Seawater explodes against the hull, drenching the deck in a freezing spray. Below, foam and shadow twist together, writhing in the net, the frantic sound of muscle and serpentine tail fighting steel mesh.
“Get back,” Minho orders, his voice cutting through the storm as he lunges toward the groaning winch, fingers closing around the handle of the blade at his hip. “Jeongin, step back! Now!”
Jeongin hesitates, rain streaming down his pale face. "Is it–?"
The net splits.
And the creature– a streak of iridescent silver-blue, catching the storm’s lightning in flashes of cold fire– surges upward.
A blur of scales, limbs, and claws lunges from the tangle, slashing through the rigging like a blade. The creature heaves its torso over the railing, muscles coiled and dripping, tail thrashing with enough force to splinter wood. Its eyes catch the bright light– glowing blue ringed with black, pupils contracted to slits, inhuman, gleaming, sharp with intent.
Jeongin stumbles backward, streamlight flying from his trembling fingers. Glass shatters across the deck, sparks flaring for a heartbeat before the rain smothers them into darkness.
Minho draws his blade with a curse, steel flashing wet and bright in his grip as he closes the distance. He’s only a few strides away–
Too late.
The siren is on Jeongin.
Razor claws– curved like fishhooks and gleaming wet– rake across Jeongin's chest, shredding wool and flesh in one savage motion.
Minho is close enough to feel the spray of blood on his face.
The boy screams as he collapses against the railing, breath ripped from his lungs in a sharp, shocked gasp that bubbles with crimson at the corners of his lips. Blood spills fast, viscous and black in the fractured stormlight, soaking his shirt, spreading across it like ink in water.
“Jeongin–!”
The siren whips around. Its eyes catch what little light is left– opalescent, furious, burning with primal hatred. It snarls, revealing rows of translucent needle-like teeth, as its powerful tail drags the torn net behind it.
It strikes, and it strikes fast.
Minho goes down hard, blade skittering across the wet deck. Claws slash down, barely missing his exposed throat by a finger's width– he rolls to the side, the wood rough against his shoulder blades, and kicks out with both legs, catching the siren in the gut.
As it stumbles, Minho slashes blindly, steel biting into slick flesh with a jolt of resistance before the knife is torn from his grip.
The thing staggers but doesn’t retreat. It doesn’t vanish into the churning black water like every other siren would’ve by now. It slithers there, teeth bared in a predatory grimace, blood dripping from a gash along one side of its torso.
Minho stalks towards it, salt spray stinging his eyes, tasting copper on his tongue while his lips peel back in a grin that holds no humor, only cold promise. “Oh, you're going to regret this.”
The creature lunges again, its webbed fingers outstretched, tail whipping behind it like a deadly pendulum.
Minho meets it halfway, bracing for impact.
Their bodies slam together on rough netting. Minho’s elbow cracks against the siren’s jaw just as a set of razor-sharp claws rips through his shirt and rakes deep across his ribs. White-hot pain explodes through him. He screams in agony, swings his fist– and hammers it into the creature's temple.
The predator’s head snaps sideways, then slowly turns back, eyes blazing.
“What the fuck,” Minho spits blood in disbelief, fueled by sweet, intoxicating rage. He digs deep, uses all of his core strength, muscles burning as he wrenches their bodies, flipping and slamming the creature against the deck.
Rain-slick bodies heave against each other, lungs fighting for air. Minho tears his arm free, ripping another knife from his belt in one fluid motion, and drives it toward the siren's exposed throat with killing force–
The siren's hand clamps around his wrist, stopping the blade a hair's breadth from piercing skin.
“Enough with the foreplay, pretty thing,” Minho growls, shaking with effort. “I’m getting fucking annoyed.”
Their faces hover inches apart, muscles trembling violently.
"You hunt my kind like demons," the siren snarls behind sharp teeth, voice scraping out like something dragged across the ocean floor– deep and guttural, raw from salt and pain.
Ice-cold dread shoots down Minho's spine, freezing each vertebra until his entire back feels crystallized with shock.
In all his years of hunting, he's rarely kept a siren alive long enough to look at, let alone hear one form words. It’s always been haunting shrieks or death rattles as their gills collapse in open air. Never words. Never language shaped by a tongue he could understand, let alone one that carries such raw, intelligent hatred.
“You are demons,” he hisses. “Keep struggling, though. Keep struggling and I’ll make it fucking last. I'll carve you apart scale by fucking scale while you’re still breathing.”
The siren's tail suddenly whips around Minho's leg like a vice, scales almost slicing through his pants and into flesh. He shifts his weight– just for a split second.
A split second is all it takes.
The siren slams him back, sending them both down. Minho’s back hits the deck with bone-jarring force. Pain flares in his ribs, spreading through his torso, adrenaline quite possibly the only thing keeping him from blacking out.
From somewhere behind him, he hears the urgent slap of boots on wet wood– someone’s shouting his name, panic laced in the word, barely audible over the howling wind and his own ragged breathing.
The crew. Alerted. Charging up from below deck, their shadows stretching across the rain-slicked planks.
“Stay back!” Minho yells, voice sharp and commanding. “I’ve got it!”
There’s a brief stutter in the footfalls. A shape in the corner of his eye– Wooyoung, maybe– slows near the mast, blade half-raised, caught between instinct and order.
Another figure hovers near Jeongin’s crumpled form, a dark puddle spreading beneath him.
“Get him away from here!” Minho snaps, spitting rain and blood from his mouth. “Now!”
There’s only a second of hesitation before boots scrape the deck again– someone moves fast, leaving smeared footprints in their wake.
But no one steps in. No one interferes. The crew knows better.
He doesn’t look away. Can’t afford to. The siren is already shifting, trying to pin him again, with inhuman strength.
They roll again, a desperate grapple of limbs and fury, Minho landing on top, knife trembling between them. The cold metal of his blade is now kissing the underside of the siren's throat, pressing against flesh that shimmers with an otherworldly blue glow even in darkness.
Blood slicks between their bodies– his and the siren’s, both. The rain hisses on the steel.
The creature grips Minho's wrist and grins at him, teeth gleaming like knives. Minho's pulse hammers traitorously in his throat as their eyes lock. Heat floods his veins– rage, adrenaline, and something worse, something forbidden he mentally curses himself for. Even with blood streaking those impossibly sharp cheekbones, even with those full lips pulled back in a snarl that promises death, even with eyes burning with a wild, feral hunger that mirrors the shameful heat flooding Minho's own veins, the creature– he– is breathtaking.
“You're shaking, human,” he sneers, each word dripping with venom. “Never had your demons fight back?”
Minho grunts as he twists his arm against the creature's grip. Tendons strain. Bones grind. The siren doesn't budge. Those claws press deeper into his chest, dimpling flesh but not yet digging in.
“Can’t finish what you start?” the siren spits, face inches from Minho's. “Go on. Do it.”
Minho stares into those eyes– deep blue, bottomless as the crushing depths where light has never reached. There is hate there. Pure, unadulterated rage. But underneath it– something else. Something impossible. Something wrong.
Something that shouldn’t be there. Not in a siren. Not in a thing.
Something about those eyes makes Minho falter.
He tightens his grip on the knife. His muscles are taut, everything in him– blood, bone, memory– screaming to finish the job, to end this creature beneath him, to end this.
He should kill him. He needs to kill him.
Go on. Do it.
But his arm won’t move. It hovers, frozen in the space between decision and action. The rain drums against his back, each drop another heartbeat of hesitation. The siren's pulse flutters visibly beneath the silver edge, a fragile rhythm waiting to be silenced.
A second stretches like sea-soaked rope. Then another. His fingers have gone numb around the hilt– he can’t tell if he’s still holding it tight or not.
“Come on, Minho, just kill the thing!” a voice cuts through the storm.
The siren's fingers tighten around Minho's wrist, pushing the blade closer to his own throat. He pulls the edge closer, just enough for it to bite into his skin. A single bead of blood wells up beneath it, slides down the curve of his neck.
Minho flinches, the weight of the knife suddenly heavy in his palm.
“Do it, Minho. Kill the thing,” the siren’s voice calls, daring him, tempting him. His eyes never leave Minho's face, pupils dilating in the darkness.
A voice like ruin. A voice of nightmares. Like his father's. Or his own.
His breath comes hard, fast, fogging between them in the cold air. Salt spray coats his lips. Rain pours down and lightning splits the sky, illuminating them both in stark white for a heartbeat.
It would be so easy.
“You don’t get to choose how you die,” he mutters coldly, grip bruising around the knife handle.
The siren's mouth curls into a smile. He leans up, close enough that Minho can smell the ocean on his breath, and spits onto Minho's chest. “Neither do you.”
His eyes are locked on him, and Minho can tell he’s ready. Ready to fight again. Ready to die.
Minho throws his elbow up in a swift arc– catches the creature off balance, the impact sending a shock up his arm. He twists the knife in his hand and slams the hilt into the side of the siren’s head with brutal precision. Bone meets steel with a sickening crack.
He braces for claws that never come. The siren's eyes roll back, revealing whites like sea foam, before he goes limp instantly, collapsing into a heap of tangled limbs and glistening scales.
｡·𓈒𓏸 𓇼 𓏸𓈒·｡
Minho stands, stumbles back a step, clutching his ribs.
He doesn’t need a mirror to know he looks like hell. Blood slicks his fingers– some his, some not. He’s bleeding in pulses that make the edges of his vision dim. The gashes are deep. Deep enough to slow him, maybe enough to drop him if he doesn’t get stitched.
Behind him, footsteps– slower now, cautious. Two of his crew –Wooyoung and Changbin– appear, weapons drawn, staring between their bleeding head and the bleeding creature.
“Is it dead?” Changbin asks cautiously, eyes fixed on the crumpled figure of the siren at Minho’s feet.
Minho stares down at the unconscious siren, his chest still heaving with ragged breaths, fingers cramped and white-knuckled around the knife's hilt. The creature's iridescent scales gleam dully beneath the storm clouds, beautiful even in defeat. Blood spirals outward in thin rivulets across the rain.
“No,” he says finally. “He’s not.”
Wooyoung steps forward, frowning. “Then we finish it.”
Minho doesn't answer him. The ache in his ribs is a dull roar now, but his grip on the blood-slick handle of his blade doesn’t loosen. His fingers still twitch around it. His voice, when it comes, is hoarse from exertion, rough from pain, but clear.
“No.”
Silence. The rain thunders.
Changbin stares at him. “No?” he echoes, stunned. “What the hell do you mean, no?”
“I mean,” Minho replies, wiping a smear of blood from his mouth, “Take him below deck. Cuff him. Sedate him if you have to. I’ll deal with him later.”
Changbin looks down at the siren– barely conscious. Blood, both red and silver, stains the deck in wide, ugly strokes. The creature’s chest rises shallowly.
Then, he looks back at Minho. “It’s a siren. We don’t take them alive.”
“You do now.”
Wooyoung and Changbin exchange looks. Wooyoung steps closer, his voice quieter but more shaken. “Minho, what the fuck is this?”
Minho turns his head slowly, eyes sharp despite the blood streaking his face. “I’m sorry, Wooyoung. Did I stutter?”
Wooyoung stares at him. Swallows. “No,” he says. “I got you.”
They move reluctantly, slowly. Wooyoung hauls the injured siren, shackling his arms behind his back with iron cuffs etched in runes. The creature groans low, dazed, but doesn’t resist. His limbs twitch faintly, uncoordinated, adjusting to the changing weight of a body not built for air.
“Where’s Jeongin?” Minho asks suddenly, scanning the deck.
“Hyunjin’s got him,” Wooyoung answers without sparing a glance. “Took him to the infirmary just before we came up.”
Minho nods once, jaw tight. Good. At least something tonight hadn’t gone to shit.
The siren is lifted, awkwardly, blood dripping from his side in thin, iridescent trails. Minho’s eyes follow him.
“Get him some clothes,” Minho says, quieter now– stripped of fire, but still firm.
Wooyoung blinks. “What?”
Minho wipes the rain from his lashes with the back of one hand, exhausted and grim. “He’ll grow legs soon.”
A ripple of murmurs breaks behind him– low voices, disbelief, unease twisting at the edges of obedience. But no one argues.
They wouldn’t. Not now. Not while his voice still rings with command, and blood still drips from his ribs.
Minho turns his back on them. His boots drag slightly on the soaked deck, one heavier than the other. He favors his left side. It still screams with every step, blood warm and sticky beneath his shirt. He doesn’t get far before a quiet, rasping voice cuts through the rain behind him.
“You should’ve killed me.”
The siren stirs– barely, head tilted just enough to glare up at him through blood and wet hair. His lip curls– not in pain, but in contempt. Like even half-dead, he knows what kind of power he's lost– and who made that choice. He's slurring the words, but they're thick with venom.
Minho doesn’t flinch, doesn’t turn around. Doesn’t give him the satisfaction.
His fingers curl at his side, slick with blood and rain.
“You should’ve shut up,” he mutters and walks away.
I should’ve killed you.
The thought lands hard, lodges deep– but he doesn’t pull it out.
He just keeps walking.
｡·𓈒𓏸 𓇼 𓏸𓈒·｡