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Rumi hates port towns.
The breeze is wet; stray hairs cling to the nape of her neck, slick with sweat. The smell of salt and fish permeate all over, leaving her to crinkle her nose.
But port towns are important—for trade, for travel, for all the things that make their great kingdom great. So, naturally, Rumi ends up by the sea more often than she would like. Trouble is always afoot, and they’re who you call when there’s trouble. Demons, spirits, meddling government officials trying to pass off their wrongdoings as otherworldly forces—even the ever-dangerous sirens that lurk in the depths have yet to prove a match for them. Sirens are tricky, though; they sit somewhere along the line of otherworldly and human, luring people out to sea with their voices, sending only a single splinter of ships back.
Rumi tugs her jeogori sleeve down.
People have been going missing in this town; no one knows the cause of it—yet. That’s what they’re here for. If they’re lucky, it’s just a demon up to some shenanigans or a spirit with a grudge to be resolved. Standard fare. But—
“—Rumi, look!” Zoey cheers beside her, arm looping around hers. Rumi sucks in a deep breath through her nose; her sleeve flutters in the wind, but remains covering her arms. “Their lanterns are sooooo colorful! And creative!” She rushes to grab one, lets Rumi go. “This is a turtle!”
“Zoey,” Rumi says, wound tight, “we’re here on a mission.”
Mira looks off in the distance. “The beach is nice.” She whistles. “We should check it out.”
“We have somewhere to be after this.”
“It won’t kill them if we take a walk on the shore.”
“It might.”
Ugh. “Come on Rumi, this is one of the most scenic places we’ve been. We’ll figure out what’s causing trouble and then live a little.”
“I want to swim!” Zoey says, voice pitched high and turtle lantern in front of her face. “It’ll be fun!”
Rumi bristles. “We’re not here for fun. We’re here to save people.”
“We have a one-hundred percent success rate,” Mira says. “We’ll send whatever's causing this packing one way or another.”
Zoey puts the lantern down. “But if it’s a siren…”
“Then we make seafood.”
The top and bottom row of Rumi’s teeth grind together; her muscles bulge at her jaw.
She pushes past her friends, not giving either a glance. “I’m going to check in with the officials," she says. Her back remains perfectly straight, shoulders locked into place. “You two gather intel on the streets. See what the people are saying.”
As she walks away, she hears what’s up with her? and well, she’s always like this.
A lump—hard and heavy—forms in her throat; she tries to swallow it down. It hurts all the more.
She checks her sleeve again.
Zoey and Mira are drunk.
Not just drunk, blackout, passed out drunk. Half the village is on the floor too; the other half is attempting to sing some folk song. Rumi can’t even make out the lyrics, all slurred.
She messages her temples.
A welcome party! For the shamans who’ll save us!
She’s not so uptight to refuse a feast, but she made sure no liquor passed through her lips. They all need a clear head—even if tonight is a safe night, as the head official said.
Zoey and Mira, however, weren’t in agreement. One drink became two, two became ten, and now Zoey’s head rests upon Mira’s shoulder, snot bubble coming out of her nose. Mira’s hand holds her cup still, as if she’ll wake up and pick right back up.
Someone throws up in a corner, and Rumi takes that as her sign to leave.
Outside the hanok, the air isn’t much better. All the things she hates about the sea drift her way… but it is more preferable than being around a bunch of drunkards. Her feet start to carry her through the village; every door is shut tight. More lanterns than normal illuminate the walkways.
Cautious bunch.
The sea lies ahead, stars reflecting off the gentle waves. The moon is blacked out in the sky. No one vanishes on a new moon, she’d been told.
Rumi purses her lips together.
Suspicious, suspicious.
A pier with fishing boats docked is off to the side. As much as she doesn’t want to, Rumi walks towards it. The wood is warped but not rotted. Some parts have clearly been replaced recently, flatter, cleaner wood sticking out.
The town should be thriving, all things considered. Not dwindling in numbers with every lunar cycle.
She marches on to the edge, rests on her knees.
Her reflection stares back at her, dimmed from the lack of the moon, yet clear enough. Hair neat, clothes immaculate. A model shaman. A model citizen. If only she was always like this.
The water gurgles; a stream of water splashes her face.
Rumi truly hates port towns.
“Jinu,” she hisses through her teeth, “knock it off!” She wipes herself with her sleeve, scowling at the sea all the while.
The water rumbles some more; a man emerges from the foam, hair dark, eyes golden, scar along his face. Gills are on the side of his neck. He smiles—shark tooth poking out—and feigns innocence.
As if he’s ever innocent.
“What do you know about the missing people here?” Rumi says, cutting to the chase.
“Not even a hello or a hug?” The man—Jinu—answers. “It’s been a while, Rumi.”
“Is this your doing?”
“Wooow.”
“Or his doing?”
“Guess.”
Rumi grabs the small blade she keeps tucked away, tied around her chima. She holds it straight out, unmoving in his face.
Jinu scoffs. “What are you going to do, fillet me?”
“It’s an option.”
He tilts his head, smirks. He dashes back into the water—Rumi braces herself, head lowering as if she’s about to fight—and pops back up a moment later. He places a vial on the edge of the pier. “But then how will you get this?” he asks. His readjusts, smarmy attitude shifting to something mildly genuine, brow furrowing as his eyes roam over her. “Your scales should be showing again, right?”
Rumi tries to scoot away. Jinu lunges up, grabs her arm, tugs the sleeve down. What was hidden now shimmers: scales, incomplete and claiming more and more of her skin each day. He hums. “Been a loooooong time.”
She snatches her arm back, hugs it close to herself. “I-I’ve managed,” she huffs. “I’m getting better at keeping them under control without your help.”
“What do your friends think?”
“Just that I’m uptight.”
“And not a siren?”
“I’m—we’re shamans.”
She’s repeated that to herself a thousand, thousand times, as if saying it will make the truth go away. A child born of land and sea, of chaos and order, never quite belonging anywhere. Her problems can’t be solved like others’ can.
“And I guess you’re still not singing?”
Rumi rubs her arm.
Who knows what she would unleash if she joined in song? Zoey and Mira can sing without her.
“Shame. Your voice is the prettiest,” Jinu says, soft.
That—
—Rumi goes for the vial, holds it tight, hand surely bruising. The liquid inside is dull, lifeless. A magic spell to hide what she still struggles to.
Jinu heh-hems, proud of himself. Expecting praise. No one would suspect he’s a sorcerer of the abyss.
They met by chance years ago; a siren singing, luring ships to their doom. A group of shamans. A wave large enough to send them all tumbling overboard—and the one responsible seeing her legs morph to a tail, her body twist and turn to fit into the sea.
He hadn’t left her alone for the reminder of their stay, always popping up at the worst times. When she was about to—kill him? maim him? she doesn’t remember clearly—Jinu had offered her an elixir to hide the scales. Very alturistically—though Rumi knows there’s a catch.
There always is.
He serves the demon of the abyss, after all.
“Thank you,” Rumi says, torn between heartfelt and annoyed. She sits crisscrossed on the pier now, trying to calm her nerves.
“Happy to help,” Jinu says.
“If you want to be helpful, don’t make me come to port towns to see you. I know you can change into a human form.”
Oh? There’s a twinkle in his eyes. Jinu starts to rise out of the water properly and oh shit—
—Rumi pushes him back into the sea with a swift foot to the face.
He screeches, hits the water ungracefully, arms flopping all over.
When he pops back up, he’s glaring daggers at her. “Ow,” he says. The faintest trail of blood trickles from his nose. “I thought you wanted me on land?”
Rumi looks left, right, behind her. No one around, no one to see, but she still feels guilt resting on her shoulders. She leans down, whisper-shouts: “You can’t come up without a change of clothes!”
“What? Afraid to see everything?” Jinu’s voice is nasally as he rubs his nose.
“You can’t just be naked in town.”
“I can smell the booze from here, so…” He stops. Turns. Stares. “Wait, are you saying I can be naked so long as it’s not—”
—Rumi shoves him back under. She leaps back before he can dare pull her in with him.
Jinu rises slowly this time. She swears she sees the lines of his veins on his forehead. “Stop that.”
“Stop being weird.”
“You—”
“—anyways,” Rumi says, standing fully now with the vial clutched, “I should go. You’re clearly not going to answer my questions, so I need to investigate.”
She turns to leave, to return to land and people and everything she’s vowed to protect, but a muffled wait causes her to pause. Jinu’s mouth is buried under the water, nose resting perfectly on the dividing line. His eyes don’t quite meet hers when she reapproaches.
“You know something?” Rumi asks.
Jinu shakes his head. He points at a distant place on the shoreline. “There’s a cove over there.”
“Is that where the missing people are?”
“No. Meet me there.”
“Why?”
“I…” his hand pushes his bangs back, fidgets with the fringe. “I was thinking we could go for a swim.”
“You know I can’t.”
“No one’s around. They’re all at the party.” Jinu meets her gaze once more. Gone is the proud sorcerer, servant of evil; instead, there’s almost something shy about him. Nervous. Anxious. Like she’s his one lifeline in a storm.
Rumi bites her lip. It’s a bad idea, but… “...fine,” she sighs out.
Jinu perks up. “Really?”
“Swim on ahead, and I’ll meet you there.”
He gives a solid nod and dives under.
Rumi looks to the stars, realizes: she could just go back to town. She could lie to him. Leave him.
She starts walking.
“Stay in the water,” Rumi says, flat.
Jinu doesn’t move.
“I meant underwater.”
“Why?”
“I have to change.”
“You can just jump in, you know.”
“If my clothes are soaked, it’ll take me ages to turn back.”
“Right, right.” He doesn’t make to move.
“Jinu.”
He throws his hands up and slinks back under. Modesty safe, Rumi relaxes and begins to remove the layers of her hanbok. Her scales flicker with each movement, catching the tiniest amounts of light. Magenta, blue, yellow, green—all ugly to her. All a blight.
Would that she could be free of this.
She keeps only her chest wrap on, lest Jinu… she smacks the side of her face, tries to get rid of the vision of him ogling her.
When that doesn’t shake it, she jumps into the water.
The change is instant; lungs struggling to the burn, and then breathing feels natural once more. Gills. More scales appear, crawl over her skin. Her tail matches, flows behind her.
Panic flares up in her—bubbles in her throat—and oh she needs to get out—
—Jinu whacks her with his tail square on the head. “Sorry,” he says.
Ah. “No you’re not.”
“I could be.”
“What, distracted by my beauty?” It comes out weak, out unsure. But she uses it to focus, to try and fall back into their familiar banter and to keep her here.
Jinu freezes.
Haha—“—I know I’m attractive—”
“It’s just unusual to see you like this.” His pitch rises at the end—a squeak. “It has… it has nothing to do with you, really.”
One day he’s going to hell. “First off—”
“—anything you want to do?” he rushes out. He swims a bit further ahead, safe and out of her attack range.
Rumi’s mouth twists. “You brought me here for no reason?”
“You followed.”
“I…” …well, yes, but. But. But. Buuuuuuttttttt—“—thought you were going to do… something.”
“Like what?”
“Answer my questions?”
“Uh-huh.” Arms crossed behind his head, he lazily drifts further into the sea. Leaves the safety of the cove. “Well, while I have you here, why don’t we take a look around?”
Rumi follows him. “What’s there to see, really?” The moon isn’t out; the light of the stars can only do so much.
“There’s always something to see.” He flashes his shark teeth. “Come on.”
There’s always something dangerous about Jinu. He’s a predator, and Rumi will not become his prey. Whatever reasons he has for helping her certainly weigh less to him than his own interests, and yet—
—Rumi joins him by his side. Her hand brushes against his, smooth skin against pruned. She does not take it—not yet—but she lingers just enough. “Lead the way,” she says, as gentle as she can manage.
Jinu takes several moments to move; he jolts as if he were just awoken from a deep slumber. “Yes—”—cough—“—well, I was thinking…”
“How rare.”
“You’re not funny.” He clicks his tongue. “Let’s go look for seashells.”
“We could do that on the shore.”
“These are fresh.”
“...is that how you describe them?”
“Well, the surface makes them less valuable.”
“For what?”
“Magic.”
OK. It’s some weird deep sea sorcerer thing. “Maybe we could find a pearl,” Rumi says, trying to steer the conversation elsewhere.
“...you like them?”
“Who doesn’t?”
Hmm. “I know a place, then.”
Their journey—if anyone can call it that, really—is silent. The tides roll on above them, fish swim around them, and Rumi finds herself trying to take it in.
The world below is so much more quiet.
Were Zoey here, she’d probably find it stifling; Rumi, however, finds it… calming. Her thoughts seem to drift away. The shore is long gone, the screams and cries of those that would run in fear if they found out unable to reach her. The weight of her duty is distant. A world of just her own—her and Jinu, and wherever it is that he’s leading her.
Which could be a trap, she realizes belatedly.
He has ties to the demon of the abyss. A shaman who constantly thwarts his plans isn’t looked too kindly upon, yet Jinu—
—well, his eyes never leave her as a school of fish swarms her.
He’s honest about the strangest things. Dishonest about even stranger things.
It kills her to want to know more.
The seabed drops, slopes down, forms a bowl. “Here,” Jinu says, gesturing. “This place catches a lot of stuff from all over.”
Rumi swims. The sand clings to her hand before the current washes it away; she picks up a shell—dull on one side, yet shines like mother-of-pearl on the other.
She drops it back down. It falls slowly, no thud to be heard as it sinks back into the sand.
“Don’t want it?” Jinu asks, beside her now.
It’d be… well, she doesn’t know. “It’s not a pearl,” she says instead.
“Oh.” Jinu gestures to a small patch. “We may have luck there. Saw some oysters the other day.”
Rumi nods.
She feels around in the sand for anything odd, trying to avoid the remaining oysters. The sand is rough around her fingers, and Jinu says, “You could just look in their shells.”
“That might kill them.”
“They don’t feel pain.”
Rumi frowns. “That doesn’t… that doesn’t mean I have to do it, though.”
Do you do it like that? she wants to ask, but the fear of the answer causes her to hold her words in. Would she think less of Jinu for it? Or would she care?
Does it even matter to her at this point?
What does that say about her, then? She strayed from the proper path the moment she was born; does she need something else wrong with her?
Jinu’s hand comes next to hers, fingers splayed.
Oh.
Rumi’s pulse picks up, and she can’t say it’s just the thrill of the hunt.
They continue on, side-by-side, searching in the sand. Jinu grumbles beside her—this is taking forever, Rumi; this isn’t what I had in mind—but never resorts to cracking the oysters open. He keeps up with her pace, digs deeper with her.
It’s nice, she thinks.
Her hand brushes against something smooth and round, and she jumps in the water, bubbles forming around her. She holds the pearl up—pure white, even in the dark of the sea—triumphetly.
Jinu claps. “Wow. One pearl.”
“It’s pretty.”
“We could have had more.”
She closes one eye, holds the pearl in front of Jinu’s head. “I like this one.”
Rumi slips back on the other half of her undergarments; her legs remain covered in scales, barely able to hold form as water still cascades down her. “You can come out now,” she says.
Jinu hops on the rock next to her. He takes one look at her and quickly turns away—not in disgust like she does.
“It’ll… take a bit for me to dry completely. Your medicine would do nothing.” A flimsy justification. “But I can’t go back to the town like this…”
“...yeah,” he says, strained.
With him distracted, she takes a moment to truly see him. His tail is rough, shark like. Magenta lines mark his body. Scars mar his flesh, his fins. Deep, angry marks, never fully healed. Never attended to properly.
Why did he take up magic again?
There’s still so much to learn, but for now—“—you know—”
“—don’t,” he says, cutting her off.
The same request she always finds herself making: if he can take human form, then why not leave the sea and travel with her instead? Leave that demon’s control, join her, and—and what, exactly?
“I was just going to say,” Rumi says, “I think your fins are… cool.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
He swivels his head back around. “Your scales are… pretty.” Pretty is barely audible; the wind could carry it away.
Maybe Rumi did drink earlier. She feels hot, flushed. “Um, thanks.”
“I’ve, uh, always thought. Always thought so. They’re… different.”
“...different, huh.”
“Yeah. Never seen anything like them before…”
She pouts.
“A good different!” Jinu clarifies, hands balled into fists.
“I figured.” She runs her hands over her arms. They feel foreign to her. “Wish I didn’t have them, though.”
Were she just a normal human, her life would have been far simpler.
But her mom chased the waves, in the end.
“I…” Jinu starts. He shuts his mouth, opens it, then shuts it again. His eyes are downcast all the while. “I mean… if you… they’re what… they make you, you, Rumi.” His tongue licks his top lip.
Rumi chuckles, dry. “And I don’t fit in anywhere.”
“You fit with me.” He gasps. He stops breathing. “What I mean, is—”
—Rumi plops the pearl into his lap.
He furrows his brow.
“Keep it,” she says, praying he can hear her over the pounding of her heart. “You…” …so you know there’s another way.
“...are you sure?”
She looks him over. “I am.”
The sea had nothing to do with the disappearances; a ghost with a grudge, a town that had abundance but refused to help a poor beggar. The story turns Rumi’s stomach into knots. The three of them agree to high-tail it out of there, unable to merrymake like before.
The sea goes out of view before the next sunset. The vial from Jinu is tucked in a secret pouch.
Rumi hates port towns.
The breeze is wet; stray hairs cling to the nape of her neck, slick with sweat. The smell of salt and fish permeate all over, leaving her to crinkle her nose.
And because with each step, Jinu grows more and more distant—and Rumi wonders if next time they meet, if she’ll be forced to follow through on her empty threats, to take her blade to his throat.