⊰ ＦＯＲＴＹ ＦＯＵＲ ⊱

THE PLAN

I felt strange that day. I was grumpy and irritable, and I wasn't able to sit still - I had to keep moving to battle the restlessness that plagued me. I was sweating more than usual while I did the typical chores to help pull my weight around the ship, and I would randomly get hit by a wave of dizziness here and there.

On any other day I would've questioned if I was getting ill, but I knew exactly what was causing my symptoms. I was making myself sick with all the worry and anxiety I had about Jimin and his secrets.

We were on our way to the place I grew up, and I couldn't have been more conflicted. Attempting to understand why Jimin would need to go there only left me more confused and desperate for answers. 

After he had announced his destination, he walked off before any of us could question him, his eyes catching onto mine briefly as he disappeared. He continued to avoid me for the remainder of the day.

Why is he being so elusive? And what could he possibly be planning to do once we get there?

The only connection he had to that place was my father, but he was dead. I didn't want to entertain any other ideas just to be disappointed, so I started wondering how close that orphanage was that Jimin grew up in. Perhaps he had never travelled very far, and asking to go to my hometown was just a way for him to revisit his past. Maybe he wanted to track down Jack, the boy who had started the fire.

Whatever it was that he needed to do, I couldn't help but feel nervous about it. Especially since it was possible that whatever he was planning would be the cause of him leaving for good. I felt like I knew less than ever before, which is why my gut twisted in anticipation and flurried with butterflies when Jimin finally came to me in the evening. 

I could tell by the way his eyes glinted nervously that he was going to tell me everything, like he'd promised.

"I'm sorry about last night," he said quietly after I'd led him into my bedroom.

"I know, Jimin," I sighed. "I just am having a hard time trying to understand you." 

"Do you regret it?" His tone was hushed, afraid of my reply. 

I sat down on the bed before looking back up at him. I found his eyes and my heart ached at the fragility in them. "I don't regret kissing you. But I won't let anything else happen between us until you can let me in." 

"You probably won't want anything to happen with us after I tell you everything," he whispered, moving to slowly sit down beside me. His face was so expressive, so fearful, and it did nothing to put my mind at ease. I hated seeing him so worked up, and like a contagious disease his nerves infected me, putting me even further on edge.

"Don't say that. Just tell me and let me decide for myself what to think," I said as gently as I could manage. He watched me carefully, taking my hands in his. 

"Let me explain everything before you jump to any conclusions, please," he desperately said. 

A frown made its way on my face and knots curled in my stomach. All of the suspicion I had tried to bury away came bursting through the surface, jolting me with the same painful theory I kept pushing away.

"Jimin. Tell me what you've been hiding," I pressed, though every fiber in me wanted to run away, to avoid whatever he was about to reveal.

He swallowed and let go of my hands as he stood up, beginning to pace back and forth across the room while he tugged at his hair. Finally, he turned back to me, taking a deep breath before speaking.

"The curse made me only care about myself in the beginning. I didn't care about anyone else. I didn't care if I hurt someone...I was selfish. I'm so sorry, Katherine," His voice wavered, "But when I did start to give a damn, I made a plan."

"A plan for what?" I asked hoarsely, still trying to come up with other explanations as to what was happening. My subconscious was prepared - it had known for a long time. But the rest of me was scrambling to find excuses, anything that would be easier to swallow than the fact that Jimin had let something so terrible happen to me.

But before he could continue, someone knocked on the door. Jimin frowned as I got up to answer it. Namjoon was there, his eyes wide and panicked as he looked at me. He opened his mouth, about to speak to me when suddenly he caught sight of Jimin, then fury overtook his features, eyes shining in anger as his nostrils flared and his jaw clenched. 

"Kat, I need to talk to you. Now," Namjoon said firmly, still watching Jimin. 

"We were in the middle of something-" Jimin started, only to be cut off by the pirate.

"I just need a minute. You can wait," he said coldly, then he latched onto my wrist and pulled me outside with him, closing the door behind us. He started tugging me along with him despite my protests, and when we made it onto the main deck I felt adrenaline coursing through my veins.

Everyone was gathered together, waiting for Namjoon to arrive with me in tow. The entire crew was there, and they all stared at me with the same expression Namjoon had; fear and panic and rage.

"What the hell is going on?" I asked, raising my voice in worry.

"I did what you wanted. I finally found out more about how the curse works. He's been tricking you, Kat. He's been tricking us all, and you can't be left alone with him," Namjoon said quickly. 

"What are you talking about?"

My question hung in the air, only to be ignored as Namjoon nodded towards the others. I watched with a racing heart as the pirates avoided my gazes, all of them brushing past me and heading back down towards my bedroom. 

"What are you doing?" I asked loudly, reaching out to grab one of them, only to be pulled back by my wrist. I turned around to see Dawon behind me, her eyes full of sympathy. 

"I'm sorry, Kat. Just wait out here with me, okay?" she spoke gently like she was afraid I would break any second. I shook my head.

"Tell me what's happening," I demanded, "Otherwise I'm going after them."

She stared at me, her mouth opening and closing as words failed her. I gritted my teeth and yanked my arm out of her grasp, immediately turning to head after the group of males. I still didn't understand what was going on, but I knew from the look in their eyes that they were not planning on doing anything kind to Jimin.

"Wait, wait!" Dawon yelled after me, grabbing my upper arm. I huffed and faced her again, resisting the urge to punch her and get her off of me. 

"Tell me. Now," I said forcefully. She gulped.

"Namjoon found all of us and told us what he learned from that book of his. He said... He said when a siren takes blood from a human instead of kissing them underwater, it still works the same way, only slower. Every time Jimin has taken some of your blood, more of the curse was transferred over to you. He's been using you to become human, and he's been letting you take on the curse in his place. You're going to be a siren soon if we don't figure out a way to stop it," Dawon spurted, her words rushing out like a crushing storm. 

I stared at her, unmoving as I processed what she said. Chills shot down my spine at the thought of becoming a siren, of being held captive by the blackness of the sea. Nausea chewed away at my gut but somehow my mind was still. 

Part of me had always suspected it. I never wanted to consciously think about it because I was a fool who wanted to believe that Jimin cared, that he actually felt something for me and that he wasn't just using me as a means to escape the curse. I still wanted to believe that I meant more to him than that, but it was so difficult to fight off the feelings of anger and betrayal that crept into my soul.

Suddenly my mind was bombarded with flashbacks, clues that I had ignored for Jimin's sake. 

Feeling so energetic and strong after that night when he'd bitten me and fought with Yoongi.

Only being able to think about Jimin's guilt that night at the inn during the storm.

Jimin trying to stop me from jumping into the ocean and swimming with the others.

The guys acting strange and flirting with me after I sang to them.

I could have - no, should have - known from the start. But instead I fell for the siren's allure and deception.

"But when I did start to give a damn, I made a plan." Jimin's words replayed in my head. I wanted so badly to believe that he had a way out of this, but if he did, why wouldn't he have done it already? If he cared about me at all, he wouldn't have let this drag on, right? He wouldn't have continued to stand by while the curse slowly wrapped its grimy fingers around my throat.

"What are they going to do to him?" I asked Dawon stiffly, holding myself back from expressing the turmoil inside me.

"After Namjoon told us what was happening, Yoongi sent him to get you to make sure you were out of the way so they could grab Jimin and take him to the brig," she answered slowly, still seeming afraid that I could break down at any second.

I didn't bother responding as I turned around and ran after them, my heart pounding in my ears. I stopped short as I found them coming out of my room. Jimin was facing away from me, the heels of his boots digging into the wood as Jungkook and Yoongi dragged him along by his arms. The rest of the men were surrounding him on all sides, ensuring that he couldn't run off. Jimin thrashed against their hold, his body twisting as he tried to escape.

"Let me go! You can't do this! You don't know anything!" he yelled furiously as he tried to yank his arms free. He attempted to kick his feet out and hit one of them, but Taehyung immediately moved to grab his legs so that he was lifted off the ground completely. 

I watched in shocked silence as they brushed past me, carrying a writhing Jimin with them across deck and towards the brig. 

I finally snapped myself out of my frozen state at the scene unfolding before me. I was scared and furious with Jimin, but my chest was tearing in two at the sight of him being dragged against his will towards the same cage we'd kept him in at the very beginning.

"Wait," I croaked, moving to catch back up with them. My voice was drowned out by Jimin's shouts of protest, so I yelled out above him. "Wait! Stop it!" but still, I was ignored. "What is this going to solve?" I shouted, grabbing Jin's shoulder so he would stop to look at me. 

"He can't be trusted, Kat. We have to lock him up so we can get answers out of him and figure out how to save you," Jin said, looking as hurt as I was feeling. Then he caught up with the rest of them again, and I followed wordlessly, finally realizing that I couldn't keep defending Jimin. 

He would have to defend himself.

~

I winced as the pirates shoved Jimin into the cell, pushing him forward and making him stumble.

"You don't have to be so rough," I muttered as I watched Yoongi close the barred door and lock it. 

"You can't seriously be worried about how rough we're being after what he's done to you," Namjoon spat as he glared at Jimin. 

I didn't know how to reply so I stayed quiet, letting my gaze fall on Jimin who was standing close to the bars. Our eyes met and he looked at me pleadingly, silently begging for me to not give up on him. I looked away, blinking back hot tears.

"Like I said, you guys don't know everything," Jimin stated in annoyance. 

"We know enough," Yoongi retorted. 

"And how does locking me up help this situation?" Jimin asked.

"It gives us the opportunity to get answers out of you. To keep you from taking any more of Kat's blood. And it gives us time to figure out what we need to do to fix this," Hoseok spoke up, his voice low in anger. Jimin stared at him silently for a moment, then glanced over at me again.

"Locking me up just makes it impossible for this to be fixed. You can't save her without me." 

"I'll see about that. I'm sure a little more translating will give me the solution we need to keep her human," Namjoon commented, "If we don't need you to help her, you can bet we're sending you overboard right away."

Jimin sighed, "Don't waste your time trying to figure out what that book says. I know how to help her, and if you just let me talk to her I can explain everything." 

"You really think we'd leave her alone with you now? There's no way-" Jin started, but I interrupted him.

"I want to talk to him alone. He's not going to explain everything unless it's just me he's speaking to," I stated evenly. All the men turned to frown at me, but I returned their gazes with my own determined one. 

"He lied to you this entire time, Kat. What makes you think he will suddenly tell the truth now?" Jin questioned.

"He was trying to tell me everything when you guys pulled me away. Look, I'm not trying to defend him and I'm not trusting him. But I do want to speak with him so I can try to figure things out. He's locked up and he can't do anything to me, so please just give me a little time with him," I requested.

"I really don't think-" Taehyung was cut off as Namjoon elbowed him. 

"Look, I don't like it either, but if she thinks she can get answers out of him, we should let her try. It's her choice if she wants to talk to him right now. Let's just stay outside so we can run in if she needs us," Joon suggested, looking to Yoongi for a response one way or the other.

Yoongi sighed and nodded, turning to me seriously, "The second he does or says anything you don't like, you come get us."

"Okay," I agreed.

Hoseok let out a disappointed scoff at our decision, then in the blink of an eye he spun around and reached his arm out between the bars, his hand grabbing Jimin's shirt and roughly pulling him closer so that he could look directly at him, their noses only separated by the cell itself. 

"If you do anything or say anything else that even comes close to harming her, I will fucking kill you," Hoseok growled menacingly. Surprisingly, Jimin remained unfazed, even when Hoseok abruptly pushed him back and let go of his shirt.

I waited as the men hesitantly left the room, each of them sending me concerned glances as they went by.

"Katherine," Jimin said softly the moment they were gone. I shut my eyes, taking a deep breath.

"How could you?" I couldn't keep the pain out of my voice, but I managed to shift my tone into something colder and less emotional, "I don't understand how this happened. I need an explanation."

Don't show weakness. Don't let him see your pain. Get your answers and be done with it.

"I wasn't myself when we first met. When you guys captured me, I was fully siren. I didn't have any capability of feeling remorse or compassion. All that mattered to me was escaping the curse and doing whatever I needed to in order for that to happen. I knew I could only use you since I had tried kissing you once before, and I knew since we were not in the water that I had to use the blood tactic. Kissing you was just part of putting you under my influence. It was your blood that started the whole process which gave me my legs and slowly transferred the curse from me to you," he explained carefully.

"So you knew from the very beginning that I would eventually become a siren," I stated. Jimin searched my gaze, his brows pulled together as he tried to connect with me somehow, to find the part of me that cared for him. I was quickly trying to bury that part, too afraid of the intense heartbreak I would feel if I did let it come to the surface.

"I did," he replied quietly.

"The time you bit me and Yoongi started a fight with you. You said you did that to piss him off and get between us-"

"I did it because you were injured. That cut you had was inflamed and I knew it was close to getting infected. I took some of your blood because I knew having a little more of the curse put on you would help you heal," he explained. 

"When we were at the inn, I asked you about your story, of what made you guilty-" I was cut off again.

"I asked why you wanted to know and you told me it was bothering you and it was all you could think about. That was because the storm brought out your ability to sense guilt and to be drawn towards it, like me and those other sirens were during the night that we swarmed the ship," Jimin said.

"And when you tried to stop me from swimming that one time, it was because you knew it might give me a tail?" I questioned. 

"I didn't know if it would or not, but I didn't want to take the risk. I don't think you were far enough along for it to do much, but it might've sped up the process a little bit." 

"You keep acting like you did all these things because you care about me, but how do I know you didn't just do them to protect yourself? You could have just wanted to buy yourself time so that none of us would find out what you were doing," I accused.

"I did care about you. I do care about you. In the very beginning, I didn't worry about what would happen to you, but like I was trying to tell you before Namjoon came, the second I started to care about you I made a plan," Jimin said urgently. He walked closer to me, placing his hands on the bars. I took a step away from the cell, not having the power to look at him so directly.

"And when exactly did you start to actually give a damn?" 

He shook his head, tears welling up as he spoke,"It grew little by little each day. I admired you right off the bat, seeing how you could stand up for yourself, how you didn't back down when I challenged you. I saw how kind you were when you went out of your way to give me a place to sleep. You always treated me like an actual person, not just some monster. And the more time I spent with you, the more I fell for you. I don't know when it happened exactly, but I knew I had been in love with you for a while when I saw Booth stab you-" 

"Stop," I breathed out, feeling my resolve breaking down. I couldn't bear to hear him talk about how much he supposedly loved me. "I was stupid to trust you. How could you possibly love me if you've been letting this happen? If you made a plan why would you not have done it already to help me?"

"I was never going to let you get to the point that you would turn. That's why I tried to keep you from going in the water and why I stopped taking your blood as much as I could. I've been trying to buy enough time to make it back to your hometown," Jimin explained.

"Why do you have to go to my hometown?" I asked.

He let out a small breath, capturing my gaze and holding it carefully as he proceeded. "That was the last place I ever saw him." 

I froze, caught off guard by the unexpected statement. "Saw who?" My father?

"Jihyun. My little brother," Jimin whispered. I blinked at him, trying to mask my surprise.

"You had a brother?" I asked quietly. He nodded, his eyes glazing over as he went somewhere else, probably revisiting an old memory.

"He's not my blood, but he's the closest thing I ever had to family. He was the smallest boy in the orphanage. He was weaker than the rest, frail and breakable. I always felt a responsibility as the oldest to take care of the other kids as much as I could, but with him it was different. He grew attached to me right away, and he stuck to me like glue. I started sharing my food with him, giving him the only blanket I had... I cared about him more than anything, and it started to feel like the only reason I was even alive was to protect him," Jimin paused, his eyes clicking back to reality for a second, meeting mine as they flashed with a deep sadness. "Nothing else mattered."

"What happened to him?" I asked in a whisper.

"After the fire, I brought him with me. I wasn't going to let anyone take him to another orphanage. I didn't trust that he would be taken care of properly. I told you how I kept searching for jobs to earn enough money to survive. I didn't just need to feed myself, I had to feed Jihyun, too. That's why it was so important, and that's why I was so grateful to your father when he gave me a chance. I never accepted his offer to have dinner with your family because I knew Jihyun was waiting for me to get back to him every night. I was afraid if I told anyone about him, they'd try to put him back in the system and I'd never see him again," Jimin's voice came out weakly. I could tell how painful it was for him to speak about this little boy that meant so much to him.

He continued, "I don't know if your dad ever told your mother, but he let me sleep in the shop every night since he knew I had nowhere else to go. He set up a little cot in the attic, and I snuck Jihyun in with me that first night. He stayed up there during the days while I worked and at night I would share whatever food your dad gave me or whatever I was able to buy. Any day your father didn't work or he gave me a day off, I'd sneak Jihyun out with me and we'd walk around town. I did what I could to make sure he stayed healthy. He counted on me for survival and safety and I counted on him for purpose and happiness."

"He was lucky to have you there to take care of him." I commented, though I instantly regretted it. I had to stop showing emotion. I had to be tough on him and not let him see that I still cared, but it was so difficult. My heart still felt for him and it wasn't just going to stop even if I wished it would.

"I was lucky to have him," Jimin replied seriously, his jaw ticking as something suddenly crossed his mind. "But then that day came when your father fell and I jumped after him. The day I became a siren," he said distastefully, grimacing.

The realization hit me. "You couldn't come back to him."

Jimin shook his head, leaning forward to rest his forehead on the bars. He shut his eyes as he spoke, "He counted on me to be there every single night. To protect him and care for him and comfort him. I was always there. But then I wasn't," anger dripped off his tone. I knew he was somehow blaming himself.

"I still have this image in my mind of Jihyun staying up all night, waiting for me to get back. I see him growing more and more worried. More scared. He probably started wondering if I was okay. He must've felt so terrified when morning came and I still wasn't there. I see his face, his eyes red and his cheeks wet from how much he cried. He was alone, and the only family he had abandoned him. I failed him," Jimin choked out, leaning back and looking at me. 

My heart shattered at the sheer agony displayed on his face. He looked exactly how he had pictured Jihyun to look. Red, puffy eyes and tear-stained cheeks. 

"You couldn't possibly have known that you wouldn't be able to come back for him."

"But he doesn't know that. He probably thinks I left him on purpose, just like his parents did. He probably thinks I saw him as a burden. He must have felt so betrayed," Jimin forced out, "That's why I have to go back there. I have to find out if he's okay. I have to know that he's alright. Maybe I can explain myself to him..." he paused, sighing shakily. "I just need enough time to see him, then I'll be ready to stop the curse from taking you."

I stared at him wordlessly for a moment, letting what he said sink in. He claimed he wasn't going to let me become a siren, but he hadn't stopped it yet because he wanted to check on his brother first. I remembered how he said he couldn't stay, and suddenly it all came together - why he had waited this long and needed to go find Jihyun before he could save me. The only reason he wouldn't be able to go see him after he helped me was because he wouldn't physically be able to anymore. 

I felt like sick to my stomach as I voiced my conclusion, hating that he had already decided what needed to be done. "Your plan... you're going to swap places with me. You're going to let the curse take you again so that I can stay human, aren't you?"

He looked at me with his teary eyes, broken but relieved at the same time.

"Yes."

• • •

Author's Note

Some beautiful fanart that I received while I was gone (please only leave positive comments):

Hey lovelies! Thank you for waiting patiently for my return. Unfortunately I have been struggling a bit with my health, but I've been making progress and feeling a lot better than I was. Your thoughts and prayers are appreciated ♡

On another note, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. What are your thoughts on Jimin knowing that Kat was turning siren this entire time? What do you think Kat should do about it?

You also found out why Jimin wants to go back to her hometown. Were you surprised to learn about his little brother?

And about Jimin's plan to save Kat... how are you feeling? Do you want to see him sacrifice himself for her? Or are you hoping that they find a different solution? 

Thank you for sticking around. I appreciate you all so much. Stay healthy and smile :)

-Hoseokiiss

September 1, 2019