Chapter Text
The very first time Mark heard the melody was when he woke up in the middle of the night, soaked in sweat. His naked torso met with a summer breeze, sending thousands of shivers down his spine. He grabbed the first shirt he saw and wore it, slowly making his way to the window.
He looked outside but saw nothing more than the sea and a bunch of rocks below. Mark looked to other cabins just a few meters away but their lights were turned off and no one seemed to be outside.
Mark was sure that someone was singing. He didn't know if it was a girl or a boy as the voice had a high pitch but also a bit of hoarseness when notes went lower. He also wasn't sure where were they as echo in this place was the most confusing thing. Sometimes people heard things that happened in another land across the sea.
It was a simple melody someone hummed yet it sounded so... beautiful and mesmerizing that Mark wanted to listen for more and more. He closed his eyes and gave in, repeating it in his head.
"What are you doing, babe?" Mark felt his girlfriend's arms wrap around his waist.
"Do you hear it?" Mark whispered, trying so hard to not speak over the song.
"What?" Byeol pouted and followed where Mark was looking.
"The song..."
"I don't hear anything."
Mark thought she was joking, though, her facial expressions didn't expose her for lying. Then the boy thought that maybe his girlfriend was talking over the melody so she didn't have the opportunity to listen to it yet.
"Right now," Mark shushed her. "Do you hear it?" he listened to it a bit and then tried to repeat it but Byeol cut him off with a kiss.
"Stop joking around," she told and softly dragged Mark away from the window, "or else I would really believe that you hear them singing."
"Them?" Mark's ears perked up.
"Yeah. There's a legend that this island has sirens who sing for tourists," Byeol told when they both got into bed. "I hope you're not hearing."
"Nah, that's impossible," Mark laughed. "Sirens, ghosts, witches they all don't exist."
"Don't be so sure. There might be a ghost with us in this room."
"Go to sleep, already," Mark shut up his girlfriend with a kiss. "The more you speak, the worse my fears get. Stop reading articles on the internet."
They both laughed and soon cuddled to sleep. Byeol was the first one drifting off to the dreamland while Mark had difficulty closing his eyes. He still heard the song in his head and it was going on and on, although no one was singing it anymore.
He remembered it the next day too. It was so weird how he knew every note of the song although he had never heard it playing before. Was it a classical music piece or a very common pop song he always heard whenever he went?
"Are we going or not?" Byeol whined as Mark was spending too much time picking his clothes.
"Yes, of course," Mark nodded and took the shirt he threw away just a minute ago. "Wait for me outside, I'll be ready in a minute."
"Which one of us is a woman?" Byeol barked and left the room.
Mark could let out a sigh after he was alone in the room. When his girlfriend was scolding him, it didn't help the boy to concentrate at all. Especially when he didn't feel like himself after yesterday.
Something was definitely wrong with his mind. He guessed that he didn't sleep much because of the song that kept repeating in his head, also because he and Byeol had a long expedition the day before and he didn't rest enough.
When Mark finally came out, he saw his girlfriend taking photos of seagulls. He decided to scare the seagulls away to ruin the picture but instead of hearing Byeol's laugh, he saw her glaring.
"Good job, now I have a blurry picture and one seagull has two heads."
"Like a mythology creature," Mark commented.
"Oh, there is a legend that the king of seagulls is a seagull with two heads. Maybe the picture isn't that bad."
"You know a lot about this island."
"I read tourists' books all our way here, darling."
They started from the beach that day. Walking down the seashore was the thing Mark loved the most. He actually hated boring tourist excursions as he was the kind of person who wanted to do it on his own.
"This island is known for pearls," Byeol lectured, probably quoting the books she read. "People collect them in a specific place when the sea level falls. Locals say it's fun."
"How much is one pearl?"
"I don't know," Byeol shrugged. Mark knew that she wasn't reading everything after all. "It's not like gold but sure it is worth selling."
They tried to see at least one pearl when they got to the place where people were collecting them though their skills were so bad that they didn't find anything. Mark was sure his eyes were there to blame because he walked further than other people but still hadn't noticed anything shining.
"Gosh, it's frustrating!" Mark groaned when he finally stood up from the crouching position. His legs were numb.
He looked over his shoulder, at Byeol who grouped up with other women for better work but instead began chattering, which probably had other topics than pearls.
"How high is the possibility to find pearls, sir?" Mark asked a man to his right.
"High enough if you're lucky," the man gave a proud smile, showing a bag with pearls.
"That's impossible!" Mark gasped.
"I've been doing this for years, son. Everything is possible if you have enough experience."
The man said that he was like a pro of finding pearls. He won many competitions back in the 90s which was starting to get stupid especially when he told that he has done it with his hands tied behind his back.
Perhaps Mark looked like a sad kid because the old man decided to give one pearl to the boy. Mark was really happy that he hugged the man and called for Byeol. She ran to him before bragging something to her new friends.
"Where did you get it?" she asked, jumping in excitement. "Did you find it?"
"A nice man gave me this," Mark, as an honest boy, didn't lie.
Mark turned around to see the man but saw an empty spot. Furrowing his eyebrows, he ran his eyes all across the area, getting confused when he still couldn't find him.
However, Byeol wasn't even interested in the man Mark mentioned. She only cared about the pearl itself.
"Let's sell it!"
"No! It's mine now, I can do whatever I want with it."
"We came here to find them for selling!"
"Find your own!"
"But you didn't find this one yourself! Someone gave you this."
They argued until a woman asked them to leave. Byeol was angry while Mark was happily playing with the pearl in his hands. It was so small but very symmetrical and shiny. How can he sell it? Only one wouldn't cost much but keeping it should work as a souvenir.
For dinner they ate fish - the only food locals were eating almost every day. As they both were meat fans, they didn't get sick of eating fish yet, especially when there were so many species.
"I don't understand how our neighbors are capable of sleeping with their windows closed. It's so hot here," Byeol waved in front of her face.
"Me too," Mark nodded. "Window is our only hope."
They went to bed, lying next to each other, thinking what should they do. Mark wanted to cuddle but so did Byeol. Too bad they both were sweaty and cuddling would make it a lot worse.
"Let's keep a space between us," Mark told and placed a pillow between. "Only one per hour will get the chance to go in the middle to feel the cold side and after an hour another one can take it."
"I'm in."
As a gentleman Mark let Byeol do it first. While she lay in the middle of the bed, Mark was almost at the very end. He was sure he felt her warm body even if they were separated by a pillow. This weather sucked.
Mark's time came in the middle of the night. The boy tossed over and even groaned how cold the side was. It was the only good thing about this fricking beach cabin and bed.
He was really close to stepping into the dreamland when his ears caught someone singing again.
The boy lifted his head from the pillow and gazed to the window as if that thing was the only one connecting him to the sound. And indeed, it was. The sound was coming right from the outside. This time it was a different melody yet the effect was the same. Mark was hypnotized, the sound was drawing him to go closer and that was what he did. He got out of the bed and headed straight to the window to hear the sound better.
Just as he got close enough, he started to feel dizzy, the song began repeating inside his head while Mark's eyes gazed at the sea. There he saw a black figure sitting on the rocks and singing. It was hard to understand which way the person was looking, but Mark had a feeling that they were staring at each other.
"If you don't go back to bed, I'm going to take the cold side," Byeol's sleepy voice snapped Mark back to reality.
"Uh, I'm coming," Mark withdrew from the window, his eyes slowly leaving the black figure.
Byeol and Mark had weird eye contact. Mark knew what she was about to say.
"Don't say that you're hearing the siren singing again," Byeol groaned, her voice filled with mockery. "I'm getting jealous that a bitch sings you serenade."
"Of course not," Mark shook his head and went to bed. "Sirens don't exist."
But he still heard the song which was way louder than before. Just because of that, Mark had to pretend that he fell asleep as he barely heard what Byeol was talking about.
And it made him wonder, do sirens actually exist in this place?