(Y/N) POV:

"We need you to just listen at first. It'll sound made up and impossible and the most crafted story ever but it's our story, it's our tale." Mi-sun unnie says.

I sneak a glance nervously, eyes quickly drifting them all; trying to gauge reactions.

I see confusion and resolve settle in their eyes; see a willingness to listen.

That's good. 

But I don't know how long that willingness will stay, don't know whether that willingness will remain when they know the entire truth.

"We've known each other for longer than lifetimes. There's a reason why the three of us are so close and the three of us live together. There's a reason why we know each other's needs without speaking." Habaek oppa begins softly, voice full of emotion but strong and firm and unwavering.

"How long is lifetimes? From...from the sketches at the theatre we know (Y/N) is somehow...at least over a century." Namjoon hedges carefully.

The reminder of that disastrous end to the date flashes across my mind; searing and skin prickling as I flinch and duck back.

"We've been together for 250 years. Stuck at the same age we were turned." Habaek oppa confesses.

Pin-drop silence.

The rustling ceases, there's no words that follow and a large pregnant silence stretches out and fills the living room; stifling and suffocating.

250 years we've been this way. 250 years of being stuck as sirens, cursed to sing. 250 years to pay for the mistake of wanting to live.

250 years to pay its price.

And now 5 more years to come. Lessened only because the others had sacrificed their lives and freedom to make sure I wasn't alone, that I wasn't suffering and damned for thirty years more.

250 years of seeing the world pass by and the people we'd dare to hold close to us, to have bonds and relationships with...so consciously aware of our own immortality and of losing them, of seeing them age and fade away, lives that came and went with the tide of the waves and we remained; an unchanging constant. We were the crest of waves that reached out and touched those lives and left when their time ended. It was a viciously tormenting cycle we had been living over and over.

There's no words spoken and Habaek oppa takes that as an opportunity to keep speaking.

"We met each other...rather knew each other only very briefly before we... we got turned to this. Mi-sun was the one who drank with me and we bonded over guessing what secrets were behind fans and what and who was the talk of the small world that the ship was. And (Y/N)... she was the darling we supported and cheered on from the sidelines long before she knew. She was also the youngest lady on board, it wasn't hard to want to take care of her." He says softly, hand silently holding mine and squeezing gently, tone find and soft and reminiscent.

It never stops to surprise me how much they'd noticed about me before I even knew about them. Didn't escape me that they'd always been my glue, had always helped me out myself together every time I shattered and fell apart; broken by the merciless battering of the Ocean's waters.

"A ship." Tae breathes, voice trembling and rough. Sounding wrecked and distraught and so so horrified. 

He's put the dots together.

"You're scared of water. You lost your family on a ship, and we dragged you out onto the waters for our first date. We dragged you to the very place that started all this...." Jimin surmises, voice trembling with guilt and pain and horror.

"It was a shipwreck that brought us together. We were the only three survivors of the cruise ship that went down that night. And we've been stuck like that since...we've been unable to age and grow old and die. We've been our age for centuries." Mi-sun unnie interjects.

A shipwreck that ruined everything. Our lives had ended that night. A part of us had died when we'd pleaded to survive, a part of us had been taken by the Ocean that night. A part of us had sunk to the bottom of Her waters and lay to rest with the bodies of our families.

"Just stuck? There's no way to escape...? Do all shipwreck survivors turn...immortal?" Hobi carefully words.

I flinch. Curving back at the implication. Of the unspoken words I hear.

Is there more of you? Are there more survivors that are immortal? 

"There's three more of us if that's what you're asking. But beyond the six of us there isn't anyone else... stuck." I manage to get out, unable to drag my eyes up and away from the sight of Habaek oppa's hand still laced together with my own.

"Six. Just six in the world. And there will never be more than six." Mi-sun unnie says firmly.

Six. A wicked number because when added to the Ocean we became seven, a mighty number, a number She sustained the world and Herself with. Seven was the number of the seas, was the number in creation... seven was a wicked take on so much. Seven was through the Bible and was mentioned in countless sayings. And the Ocean always claimed the six of us fixed and kept that balance.

Six of us. And there wouldn't be more of us until our service ended. Then the cycle would repeat again for the next cursed six. And the six to follow once they left.

"Is there a...time limit? For when you'll stop unageing? Are you trapped like this? Immortal forever?" Kookie asks. He sounds so hesitant and lost and out of his depth, helplessly floundering in the very waters I'd do anything to save them from, that I'd give time and time again for them, would live trapped if it meant they were free and alive.

This question is one I can't have either unnie or oppa answer. It's a finicky answer, it's a question I don't want to wholly answer. It's a question I want to vanish.

"We have a fixed time for our existence. After five years...after five years we'll be free." I say optimistically.

Remember with a crashing wave of relief and gratitude how the others had taken my years on to their own service, had chosen to split the time with me rather than them moving on and leaving me trapped, rather than leaving me for a world where the people I loved and cherished would have aged and moved on without me.

"So five more years and we'll be free to live mortally. We'll finally be able to age and grow and change." And there's relief and excitement palpable in unnie's words.

"I'm sorry....but what are you? Immortal? Something else? Is the shipwreck itself tied to why you're stuck? Isn't there a way out?" Namjoon asks, voice full of curiosity and yet there's nothing harsh or disgusted about any word that spills past his lips and no horror.

What are you?

What am I? Can I answer that when most days I don't even know who I am?

It makes my body shudder and I feel the hand holding mine tighten, see Habaek oppa's face shutter with pain and harden. See that smooth mask try to slip into place.

How do we answer that?

How do I tell Namjoon I'm the very thing he's afraid of in mythology? How do I tell him I'm the very thing he shrinks away from? How do I say I'm a siren? And how do I keep myself together when they run?

"We're...." Mi-sun unnie begins, voice wavering. 

"When we were drowning we plead to be saved and the Ocean she... the Ocean made..." Habaek oppa adds, helpless and vulnerable and so so terrified. 

I know just as much as me they're terrified for this moment. Terrified for me because they've spent centuries looking after me and none of us know how this could go, don't know how things end up.

I brave myself, taking in a large gulp of air shaking and trembling. Someone has to do it.

The truth came about because of me. So I have to be the one to do it.

"The very things you're scared of." I say bluntly, shuffling closer to the two of them silently, thanked by the squeezing hand holding mine and another on the low of my back. A silent support and endless thanks in the light grounding gesture. It's just as hard on the two of them to say it. Just as hard to get the truth out.

The same secret, poisoned truth we've been hiding for centuries now stops, unable to push past lips easily.

I meet Namjoon's eyes, focus on them, voice trembling as it tries to go for light.

"Remember what you wrote to me inside that mythology book?" I ask.

His face flickers with thought, trying to draw memory forward.

"I said...I hope you'd enjoy it and that I find sirens scary." He carefully says.

I give a shrug, lips taut in a bitter smile.

"We're figures of myth Namjoon, we're the very things you find scary. We're sirens." I say.

I watch a series of expression flit through his face, bewilderment, confusion, uncertainty and this feeling of being so helplessly lost. Trying to process the words but somehow struggling.

"Sirens? From Greek mythology?" he asks, head tilted.

I give a small nod.

I see eyes silently flit to Habaek oppa in silent question.

We all see the question in their eyes, silently wondering how Habaek oppa is a siren.

"Sirens aren't exactly how you hear or read about in myths. They're not only women for one, nor are we half bird." Mi-sun unnie says.

"But the siren song? The deadly allure...the part about dragging people into water..." I begin, throat tight and closing up as I sit up, untangling my hand from Habaek oppa, back stiff as I straighten and head bowed.

"The part about calling people into the water, about taking lives, about the hypnotic siren song... that all is true. That all isn't myth. We are the figures of sailor's tales, we are the reasons for calm waters turning choppy, we are the reason behind disappearances." I continue, heart squeezing like a vice, lungs constricting and shuddering around nothing, body feeling strung up.

Feeling so so strung up and so close to the same feelings of panic and anxiety that had swamped me constantly in the two days that had passed. I feel my body tightening with feelings of nerves thrumming, limbs coiling up not sure whether to flee or stay as the silence turns stifling, a thick numbing chill that's colder than the Ocean's waters.

"We've taken so many lives, we've seen old and young sink through the waters, drunk on the siren's song, we've seen their faces go blank and seen them sink through. I've been that reason, I am that reason they die. I've been serving the Ocean with Habaek oppa and      Mi-sun unnie and the others for centuries." I add.

The words spill out in a venomous torrent, unable to stop saying the truth, unable to stop talking now that I've started.

Every feeling of self-hatred, anger and rage and so much pain seeps out, comes pouring out in every word and comes to wind around me. Centuries of disgust and revulsion from myself comes welling upwards, an ugly taint that smears my very life, my very existence as I speak, body curling inwards and hands digging into my arms. Pushing at the sleeves to dig nails into my forearms.

"You've...."

"But the siren song can't you just....not?"

I can't even distinguish the voices anymore, all of them mingling with the constant sounds of splashing, with the sound of screams petering into eerie silence into sounds of waters churning and bubbles of air escaping. I hear the question intertwined with the sobbing, shrieking begging pleas from those who'd managed to resist the call, crying out to live, to survive.

The question seeps through a wall of water, distant and faraway to my ears. it makes that band around my heart that keep squeezing together snap.

"We can't. I'd tear out my throat with my bare hands if I thought it would make me stop singing but we can't. We're stuck like this and I've made it worse." I say, fingers digging in, a bite of pain that filters through the heavy deadweight my body feels like.

"(Y/N)...cherub stop. (Y/N) let go." Habaek oppa's voice comes through sharp with fear and hands curling around mine to gently tug them away. My hands tighten, desperate and craving that sharp stinging to pierce through that numbness.

"(Y/N) don't hurt yourself, it's okay. We'll be okay." He promises, fingers warm they hold me.

I shake my head.

"I'm a monster. Why would they want to be with a monster? I'm a murderer, I've given thousands of lives for my cursed one, why wouldn't they run? Why wouldn't they want to get as far as they can from me?" I mumble, eyes clenching shut as the hot sting of tears makes my eyes prickle, wanting to shut away the shock and helplessness on their faces, wanting to shut away the sight of them.

"You're not. You had no choice. We have no choice but to sing. We've never had a choice." Mi-sun unnie says, hand curling around my waist.

I shake my head, fervently wishing I could undo the stitches of time, go back and tear those first meetings out of my life, to move away to another place and not Seoul. We should've never come here, I shouldn't have ever met them. I rue the day our lives began to intertwine and overlap, hate that time for when the small worlds we lived in began to merge.

"I should've died. I should've died that night. I should've sunk down with Hyun-Joonie that night. I should've died with my family, I should've gotten to him and held him. I shouldn't be alive." I spit out, breaths shuddering and wavering and the roar of screams and the crashing waves getting louder.

"(Y/N) no....sweetheart don't go down that path again. (Y/N) you know that night... you never knew that you'd be turned into a siren. (Y/N)..." Habaek oppa murmurs.

I choke on a sob, a guttural gasping sound torn out my throat, shaking as my hands clutch at myself tighter, body swaying as if floundering in those inky waters once more.

Why did I think I was ready to say?

Why did I even think that saying the truth, no matter how centuries later, would be easy?

"I hate me. I hate me." I repeat over and over, sobbing as my body caves, slumping into itself, so painfully aware that somewhere beyond that numb fog the boys are seeing me fall apart, are seeing a merciless monster crumble against her own evil.

I'm evil.

And I stained their lives when I met them.

I made things harder when I started speaking, when I started feeling, when I let myself be vulnerable and open up to them.

I ruined things just like the Ocean had said.

If I'd never known them they would be so, so untouched by all of this.

Habaek oppa's hands remain on mine, slowly trying to still tug mine away, a broken litany of my name over and over as he tries to ground me.

My hands fall away.

And I stagger to my feet, fire crawling up the line of my throat.

Tears course down my cheeks as I look at the boys. Remember the look of haunted pain in each of their eyes. Take in the way their bodies are pressed close and how alarm flits across their faces. I see their bodies tilted forward, the lines of their spines stiff.

"I shouldn't be alive. I shouldn't have met you, shouldn't have stayed. I was selfish and wanted something good after decades of being alone, of refusing to speak to others, I thought you were my happiness, I thought this was meant to be a chance to be human." I sob, hands trembling and heart raw and gaping; torn open and weeping blood.

"Walk away. Walk away from the monster, from this abnormality that I am. Cut the strings and set yourselves free. I won't blame you or resent you for wanting nothing to do with me, from wanting to put as much distance as you can from me." I say, lungs burning.

"I hate me, I want nothing to do with me, I wish I'd never gone on that cruise with my family. But I can't change that...I can't escape me. You can. So leave. Leave because you know what I am." I say, even as my heart and soul ache and mourn, weep with misery at the thought of them leaving.

But they had to know who I was.

They had to know just how damaged and broken I was.

They had to see exactly what they'd gotten entangled with.

I couldn't lead them on any more.

I couldn't let them be blind to my reality.

What they were seeing now was the tattered, torn bruised truth of myself. What they were seeing was how unhinged I was and how undeserving of them I was.

What they were seeing was the world without the rose-tint I'd put on it.

They were seeing me, ugly and broken.

Who'd want to stay after that?

HABAEK POV:

I rush forward off the couch when (Y/N)'s voice peters into a defeated silence, shoulders curving inwards, a cry of alarm tearing past my lips when her body sways, legs buckling as she crumples towards the ground.

I hear the startled cries of the boys, hear them rush forward and feel my heart shatter at her limp figure cocooned in my arms, face wet with tears and red lines marring her skin.

"Cherub... oh love." I whisper, hand brushing away her tears.

"Is she okay?" a voice asks softly, shaky and scared.

My eyes don't tear away from the sight of her, carefully holding her.

"I'll...I'm going to take her upstairs." I say, cradling her to me as I stand, her body curled towards me as I step away from them, feeling anger and hurt inch higher up my throat, vengeful words sitting on the tip of my tongue; holding them back because they didn't deserve to bear the brunt of it.

Not when they had no idea.

Not when seeing this hurting, self-hating and agonised side to (Y/N) has long since tormented me and Mi-sun. I hate seeing her like this. Hate seeing her pain drive her to exhaustion and agony time and time again. Hate seeing her get something good in life and then suffer when a twist sends her reeling, wrenches her into the past once more. Makes her think about all those thoughts we've tried so hard to help her overcome.

This time the good thing in her life is the seven of them. And yet they bring to her agony and pain because the truth is revealed.

And she believes that they'll see the warped, disfigured version of herself that she believes in, that the Ocean has wanted us to believe. 

And she believes she'll be alone.

I don't want to leave her, don't want to walk away when I set her down on my bed, looking small and vulnerable but the seven of them who wait downstairs; the seven of them alone and asking Mi-sun questions she might not be comfortable answering, not wanting to answer...that thought pushes me away from (Y/N), a kiss pressed to her temple and hurrying down.

But my heart twists when I hear the words spoken.

From Mi-sun's mouth and not there's.

"You don't know how much (Y/N)'s sacrificed for you. You have no idea how much she's had to give up for you." voice aching and imploring for reason, for them to listen.

"Like what?" and the voice that asks is shaky. So confused and scared.

It hurts that some of that fear is for (Y/N).

"She says she's a monster, she says she's taken so many lives but she's saved..." she begins, helpless and exhausted.

"Mi-sun." I cut in, stepping forward.

It wasn't our choice, it was one (Y/N) had taken, to tell. It was a decision (Y/N) had made. She'd fallen into the water and protected them with her life. She'd been locked away for three days within the Ocean to try and make her break; had come close to that snap.

It was a decision she made for the seven of them.

One she never regretted and would've lived on to carry out her sentence without hesitance.

"No Habaek! What we've given them is still a glamourised version. Why don't we tell them how it really is? Why don't we tell them that when we sing, when we cause people to drown its because we have no choice?" she snaps, voice harsh and loud.

Her eyes are filled with a fury and rage that comes from centuries of oppression. That come from constantly being on the end of a short, short tether with the Ocean.

There was a limit as to how much Mi-sun could take.

And this... this snap of (Y/N) being pushed into those poisoned thoughts once more. That was crossing the limit of how much pain she could see (Y/N) in.

"Everyone has a choice. There's always a choice." Jimin says, voice an anguished, hurting rebuke. Eyes seared with pain but also uncertain. Brows furrowed.

"Tell me Jimin. Tell me what I should do when the Ocean calls and every bit of us physically repels against us, against our own mind and we become enslaved to Her command. Tell me what choice we have when we become nothing more than mindless controlled puppets who can't even shut their mouths to stifle the song. Tell me what I should do when (Y/N) made a choice, she decided to stop singing and she's paying the cost for it still." She grits out, hands curled into fists, looking so stiff and angry, posture locked up and staring down the seven of them.

"Tell me what to do when making a choice destroys you." she echoes.

Despite the way her body is taut, I can read every single vulnerability and defensiveness in it.

He flinches back. So do the others. Namjoon's arm curls protectively around him, eyes hard as they stare at Mi-sun, a grimness to his lips even as he voices the question.

One that perhaps they dread and one I know I dread even as it comes out of his mouth.

"What choice did she make that she's paying for?"

I shake my head, trying to step forward to stop it, as if physically moving close to either side of the room will make the question fade away.

"Namjoon don't. Really don't ask a question no-one will be ready to hear an answer for." I say, voice hardened, stiffening even as my mind thrums and throbs with the endless stream of overlapping streams and snippets of conversations.

"(Y/N) said we had the right. So don't we get to hear this too?" Jin asks.

His eyes are wide and imploring and lined with red, his cheeks blotchy with tears.

"It's not something you can stand to hear. Trust me." I whisper, imploring and begging.

"Tell us. And let us decide that." Taehyung interjects.

My eyes flutter shut, trying to push back the hot angry tears that build.

"That first date with (Y/N). When she fell into the water. We told you we found her, that she made a call when she got pulled out." Mi-sun begins.

I shake my head, tears seeping out from under shut eyelids. Teeth gritting.

"Mi-sun please." I beg.

They're not ready. They're not going to be able to stand the burden.

"But the truth is?" Hoseok asks, voice forcefully steeled. I hear the anguish in it.

"The truth is she didn't make it out of the water that day. She made it out three days later, on another beach. Another shore. She made it out scratched and bruised and battered and eyes numb." Mi-sun finishes.

A coldness in her words.

And I know this is her way of keeping that pounding wave of grief from drowning her.

"Three days...why three days?" Jungkook asks. Lips trembling, teeth catching at them and gnawing.

"For three days...for three days the Ocean didn't let her out. That day we were meant to sing. That day you were meant to be the ones to sink. But (Y/N)...the choice she made that day was to not sing, she couldn't sing, she fought against what her body was commanding her to do. And she's paying that price. We were only meant to be bound for 250 years." I answer.

I watch as comprehension dawns, an icy shock to their systems, horror now truly manifesting. Nausea and pain and shock making them still.

"Those five years..." Yoongi begins.

I shake my head.

"It wasn't five. It was thirty at first. She paid for your lives with thirty years of her own. She sacrificed the chance to be with you if it meant the Ocean wouldn't harm you." Mi-sun says.

"That day (Y/N) willingly went into the waters, pushed Namjoon aside because she knew the Ocean wouldn't have let him go. That day she fell into the very thing she despises and hates just so you all could live, protected by the Ocean in return for another life sentence." I add.

I can't bear to look at them, twisting away to see Mi-sun's own eyes glassy with unshed tears. Furious at the Ocean.

And hurting even as she recounts it because the boys need to know.

"It's five because we knew if we left her, if we got freed whilst she was trapped that she wouldn't make it out of those thirty years with a will to live. We knew the thirty years was a damnation. And we couldn't be free and see her, the very person the five of us have protected, to shatter and become a living shell." I add.

My voice wavers, tears splashing against my skin, seeping through my shirt.

Even though we tried everything, even though we begged and pleaded and grovelled to the force that enslaves us... even then we couldn't protect her fully. Couldn't take (Y/N)'s pain away.

"Don't you see? We made our decision to stay because we love (Y/N). She made her decision because she loves you." Mi-sun whispers.

And with the glaring whole truth out, I feel the fragile house of cards our lives seem to constantly tiptoe in waver and shake.

And I don't know whether in the next instant if it'll all come crashing down or not.

(I AM SO SO SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG TO GET THIS CHAPTER OUT! THAT SAID I REALLY REALLY HOPE THAT THIS CHAPTER DELIVERS WITH THAT UNFOLDING OF THE TRUTH ALTHOUGH IT IS IN NO WAY LIKE SOLVED OR DONE! THERE IS SO MUCH PROCESSING AND UNDERSTANDING AND JUST SO SO SO MUCH TO HAPPEN STILL! I HOPE I DID THE SIRENS JUSTICE, HOPE IT WAS AS RAW TO READ AS IT WAS TO WRITE COS NGL... I CRIED WRITING BABY SIREN'S PART AND I CRIED SEVERAL TIMES COS SHE JUST DESERVES THE WORLD!! LET ME KNOW HOW FOUND IT AND WHETHER YOU WERE HAPPY WITH THE WAY THEY DO TALK ABOUT IT ALL AND IT COMES ABOUT!! GAHHH I AM JUST SO SO EXCITED FOR YOU GUYS TO SEE THIS!! I CANNOT WAIT TO SEE WHAT YOU ALL MADE OF THIS! TAKE CARE, ENJOY AND STAY SAFE LOVELIES!!)

Question... the first choice for a member x reader/OC book you'd read! What trope is it? What sorts stuff do you LOOK for?

Mine is.... I don't know choice wise Cos I never ever can decide!! Tropes I LOVE are alternate aus....  love love angst! Love enemies to lovers, love the slowburn stuff too!

Borahae! 💜💜💜

PurpleQueenie <3