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For the first year of his life in the tower, Minhyung was angry.
His nails bled raw from scratching against the walls, knuckles torn from beating the door angrily each day. He would go for days without food, hurling bowls of slop against the bars of the cell door being the only form of protest he could think of. How he never threw himself from the tower’s balcony, Minhyung had no idea. Perhaps he was a coward, too afraid to shatter his bones on the ground before death. Perhaps it was simply gut instinct, certain that something better would come, if he simply waited.
And then he saw him.
A flash of blue scales first- the sun winked at Minhyung as the fins disappeared below the waves and Minhyung leapt up from the balcony floor to strain over the marble rail, eyes peeled for another glimpse.
Minutes passed and Minhyung began to slouch in disappointment. At the point of surrender, a head popped up from the sea, followed by glistening, tanned shoulders, and gold hair plastered downward. Something rested by his ear that Minhyung could not quite make out, a vivid yellow.
Minhyung shrieked.
‘A siren?’
Minhyung called to him, but the boy could not hear him, and stared instead, perplexed.
A flock of birds flew over the tower and Minhyung thought nothing of it at first, until the boy reached upward, plucking the yellow object from behind his ear and offering it to the first bird to take it. The bird closed its beak and took off, and as it drew near, Minhyung realised it was coming to see him.
‘Hello,’ Minhyung greeted uselessly, for he had become used to making conversation with animals and plants, ‘for me?’
From the bird’s beak dropped a flower, yellow petals damp across Minhyung’s palm. A sunflower, he recognised from travel long ago, the kind of bright flora not native to this city.
‘Wait!’ Minhyung flailed after the bird; he had wanted to write a letter, to say thank you, or-
As if reading his mind, the siren’s shoulders shook with laughter, shaking his head with unmistakable mirth lit across his beautiful features.
‘Of course, you fool, Minhyung,’ Minhyung chided himself.
Of what use to a siren would a letter from a human be?
So he smiled instead, with the kind of genuine warmth Minhyung had almost forgotten he had inside of him, hands gripping the crumbling marble without worry. His lips stretched wide and he began to laugh, and down in the ocean, the boy laughed with him.
*
It’s him again.
That boy in the park- that beautiful boy in the park, golden-haired and skin glowing as if the very sun had kissed him soundly, as besotted by him as Mark is, all the way up from his office on the fifth floor of the law firm he’s worked at the past year.
Mark has never met this boy, never seen him anywhere but through his office window, where he has a perfect view of the way the boy throws his entire being into his laughter and into the sunflower patch he always picnics beside, joined by two friends- a blonde and brunette whose constant PDA leads Mark to wonder how on earth he stomachs it. God knows Mark has to leave the room whenever Ten or Taeyong approach Johnny during their lunch breaks, unable to bear the unending flirtation.
Mark had never been a particularly patient person, he could admit with ease.
He’s young, fresh out of law school and lucky to be employed. Plenty of his classmates are still struggling to get hired, but that’s how life has always been for Mark: a breeze, if he’s honest. Not that he doesn’t put in the work- because he does, don’t get him wrong, but things always just… fall into place. Mark wouldn’t deny it either- how could he when it had taken Johnny two years to be accepted into this very firm, when he had undeniably better grades and arguably far more charisma?
And yet, Mark has always been unlucky in love. Can he call it love? He’s never come close, and not for lack of options either. Mark is handsome, he knows so, and he knows he’s funny and kind-hearted, because everybody tells him so, shocked when he answers no, I’m not dating, and no, I’m not looking for a relationship.
Because Mark is not looking, not at all.
None of his friends really understand it- not Taeyong, he’s too romantic, and not Ten, who falls in love with someone new every week in his own way, and certainly not Johnny, though the three do their best to convince him they do. Mark doesn’t understand himself either. Johnny teases him on the days he catches Mark staring at the boy, and although Mark has never worked up the nerve to go down and speak to him, he simply can’t let him go either.
It’s a calling from inside him- he doesn’t want to say his soul, because that would be cheesy, but… something like that, some kind of magnetic pull. A song that comes to him when sleep takes him away each night, sung by the golden boy who sits by the sunflower patch in the park.
Mark calls him Sunflower.
*
‘Maybe it’s time to find a new crush, Hyuck.’
If Jeno’s puppy eyes didn’t so sweetly accompany his words, Donghyuck would laser him with the most lethal death glare in his arsenal. Instead, he sets loose on Jaemin, who barks out his usual raucous laughter and remains absolutely unbothered by Donghyuck’s orders to be silent.
‘I know I can win him over,’ Donghyuck tosses his head, and his curls bounce along the wind. ‘No one can resist me, I just need an in!’
Jaemin scoffs, only collecting himself when Jeno elbows him gently.
‘You’ve been saying that for a dreadfully long time, Hyuck,’ Jeno smiles sympathetically, and Donghyuck would snap out a reply if he weren’t lulled into the comfort that rolls in waves off of Jeno’s entire being.
Jaemin begins to wriggle frantically around on their picnic blanket, having lost sight of the perceived threat (a caterpillar) and Donghyuck rolls his eyes while Jeno patiently smooths the blanket flat and directs Jaemin to rest his head on Jeno’s knee, carding his hand through the surprisingly soft hair Jaemin continues to bleach.
They’ve been together since their first year of university, the three of them, meeting in the same music theory class and becoming fast friends. And Jaemin and Jeno have been together since their second year, just the two of them, after Jaemin pined over Jeno until one day Donghyuck couldn’t take it anymore and told him Jeno liked him too.
Donghyuck has never been a third wheel in their friendship. Partially because nobody could make him a third wheel if they tried, but mostly because Donghyuck feels like half of his heart is lost in the ocean, and whenever the young lawyer with sparkling eyes and a nose scrunched with laughter passes by him each day Donghyuck feels positively buoyant.
The law firm’s back windows overlook the small park of Donghyuck’s university, which is more of a flower garden that gives way to the beach behind it. He loves the beach, loves living on campus and leaving his bedroom windows open each night to fall asleep to the sound of waves crashing against the shoreline. Donghyuck grew up in a countryside town, and while he didn’t hate it, he’d always felt drawn to the ocean, and then to his friends, and now to the lawyer he’s never said a single word to.
So yes, he’s had this crush for a dreadfully long time.
But Donghyuck can’t help it; he doesn’t want anyone else.
‘One hundred and sixty-three days,’ Donghyuck mumbles.
‘Huh?’
‘One hundred and sixty-three days,’ he repeats, and somehow it’s a sigh that tumbles out instead of annoyance. ‘I’ve seen him for one hundred and sixty-three days and we’ve never once made eye contact. I’ve tried to pass by the doors of his law firm, waited in the car park, fuck- I even threw myself to the ground by the water fountain to see if he’d notice me. But he’s always too busy looking at the sun.’ Donghyuck frowns. ‘He doesn’t even wear sunglasses.’
‘That’s…. unique,’ Jeno eyes Donghyuck concernedly, while Jaemin snorts, ‘that’s just weird. And painful.’
Well, that’s one way to put it.
*
Minhyung waited out on the balcony for the siren every day.
Some days he waited hours, some days the siren never came at all. The weather in all its aggression could not stop him- no matter the cost to his physical health or state of mind, Minhyung would wait. He would develop a cold during the rainy days, lying out along the stone floor in only his thin white tunic to soak to the bone as the storms thundered on. On the sunnier days Minhyung succumbed to inevitable heat stroke; with nothing else to do, Minhyung began to stare at the sun, endlessly.
He began to see the sun as another world. After years of studying and inventing all the things he could, the world became smaller to him, there were only two destinations Minhyung cared for. The walls of Minhyung’s cell were dark and grey, but he had tired of it. He wanted gold: the rays of the sun or the sunflowers in the siren’s hair- he wanted to see more, a whole patch like he’d seen in the books in the old libraries he’d once remained in for days on end.
Minhyung’s favourite days began in the first weeks of summer. A beehive was forming in the balcony’s corner, and the buzz of the bees dancing along the wall’s twisted honeysuckle provided a sense of companionship to him. But more importantly, the siren wore sunflowers in his hair whenever he returned from wherever he went, and would sing for the birds to fly down from Minhyung’s balcony, pulling the petals from his dampened curls to be sent back up as little gifts for Minhyung.
It was one of these days that Minhyung’s brain began to whirr once more. Wax dripped slowly down the walls below the beehive, and he dipped his fingers in it, too focused on thoughts of the siren to bother with the bees zipping by. Minhyung had seen monsters before- used his mind to defeat them, his inventions to assist others to bring them to their knees- and he was here in this tower for that very reason: upsetting the king one too many times, helping a girl’s lover defeat the minotaur in the maze for reasons Minhyung could no longer recall.
The siren was a different kind of monster. The beautiful sort that Minhyung had never had the pleasure of meeting before, and now that he had he was greedy, longing pulsing through to the tips of his outstretched fingers where they reach out to the siren splashing in the waves below. In his earlier years Minhyung would have warned himself to steer clear of a siren, blocked his ears with wax to ward off the siren song that entranced many a man to his death.
But Minhyung had lost himself to the siren at first sight, song be damned.
He turned away from the sun to at the sound of the siren’s laughter, blinking away spots as the birds flew back to him with the usual sunflower gift at the ready. Minhyung reached up as the flower falls, but a lost feather caught his fingers on the sticky beeswax, and he startled as the wax and feathers and petals mingled together in his grasp.
Then he gasped and clapped, exuberant, for reasons the siren could not possibly know, yet he cheered with Minhyung anyway, flicking his tail up and down as if to dance.
It was the start of something wonderful, something that had been far too vacant from Minhyung’s mind for far too long:
The stirrings of a brilliant idea.
*
‘At this rate you should just resign yourself to loving the man from afar,’ Jaemin shrugs as he struggles with the massive umbrella he insists upon bringing every time they go to the beach after class. Jeno assists him dutifully, neither of them bothering to ask for Donghyuck’s help when he’s mid-rant.
Donghyuck adjusts his shades and kicks one leg over the other from his place on the towel, watching a horde of small children follow their mother through the foam across the sand. He shakes his head.
‘I’m a firm believer in having my cake and eating it too. You know this.’
With a final huff, Jaemin slams the umbrella in place and unfurls a second towel for himself and Jeno, who tears open the banana milk packaging eagerly and proceeds to hand both his friends a carton, while Jaemin arranges the cupcakes he baked earlier onto a plastic plate. Fridays were a lunch-free day for the three of them. Unless the weather was bad, they followed a set routine: study in the park, attending a three hour lecture and then relaxing either at the beach or a nearby café, and later a large dinner to make up for lunch.
Unlike most things, Donghyuck never tired of the patterns, nor his friends. The three anchored each other, connected in a way he’d never had with any classmates back in his home town. Without them, Donghyuck isn’t entirely sure he’d survive the stress of university and pining over a stranger.
As Jeno once pointed out, Donghyuck is rather fragile deep down. It’s okay to burn bright, Jeno told him after a particularly disappointing exam result Donghyuck had given his all too, but don’t burn out entirely. You have to take care of yourself or you’ll have no way to keep yourself afloat during the hard times.
Out of all the advice his friends had given him, Donghyuck likes to think that was the most impactful on his long-term character. If nothing else, Donghyuck has perseverance.
He snatches one of Jaemin’s beloved red velvet cupcakes and bites into it gently, savouring the icing first and then the cake, closing his eyes as Jeno and Jaemin begin to bicker over who lost their shared game console two days ago.
Donghyuck tries to keep his expression neutral, knowing well and good the console is still under his bed. It’s unlike him to stay up playing games all night, but his dreams have scared him the past few nights, and the comforts of Jeno and Jaemin’s animal crossing islands are the perfect antidote to fitful sleep.
A gust of wind sends sand flying into Donghyuck’s face and he frowns, shades slipping down his nose as he shelters his half-eaten cupcake underneath his singlet and the same roar of the ocean that haunts his dreams draws nearer with the incoming tide.
*
The human had become occupied by something other than Haechan of late, something out of the siren’s vision that seemed to be a secret, or a surprise. Haechan despised both. He hated to wait for anything; he both tired of things easily while remaining adamant that nobody tire of him. His friends annoyed him far too often for his liking, thus Haechan travelled often, both for a change of scenery and to bring ships to the seafloor when he was feeling particularly bored.
He couldn’t quite pinpoint his fascination with the strange human in the tower. Haechan knew that if he wanted, he could sing just right, so perfectly that the human would fall right over the rail to his death- yet Haechan did not revel in the idea as much as he normally would. At first, he considered that this was due to his vanity, and the knowledge that no matter where he disappeared to and for how long, the transfixed human would wait out on his balcony just for a glimpse of the siren in the sea.
Astonishingly as time passed by, Haechan gradually admitted to himself that he held a strange desire to see the human’s face too. Not only for his selfish reasons, but something deeper, something sirens do not feel, certainly not for weak human men imprisoned for stupid human reasons.
Haechan’s heart that once only beat to keep him alive had betrayed him.
He hoped that something would take the human away before he became too attached; he hoped that nothing would take the human away because he wanted him so badly he felt he couldn’t live without him.
As Haechan looked up into the bright eyes of the human waving down at him, he felt an unexplainable tightness in his chest and cried out, clutching at his throat when air abandoned him. The chains of truth tightened round his heart to bring him to tears: be it the human’s tower or Haechan’s ocean, the invisible prison wall was drawn between them.
The earth between the skyline and sea level was not made for the two of them.
*
‘Are you okay?’
Johnny’s eyes are filled with concern as he looks over at Mark, who slumps further in his chair, hands clamped over his ears and forehead leant against the cool oak wood of his desk. Johnny always looks at him this way lately, though Mark cannot fault him for it. His sleep has worsened of late, to the point that it is no longer unusual for Mark to arrive at work on less than two hours of sleep. The dreams have lost their original gold and shifted to something of a darker nature- a fall into deep blue waves that leave Mark bolting upright in his bed and gasping for air.
Really, he just wants to get it over with. The nightmares plague his mind at work in a way that leaves him unable to focus. Mark has had to leave a meeting more than once now, and if it weren’t for Ten’s skill of calming down clients while Taeyong and Johnny take on part of Mark’s workload- off the record- Mark is certain he would have been fired weeks back.
Rather than endless time on the brink of death, Mark would rather the dream just drown him. Only, he didn’t quite know how to go about it. It’s easy to dream of the fear of death, the pain of it- but what of the resolution?
Mark has no idea what comes next.
‘I think… I think I need to go down to the beach,’ Mark says slowly, rising from his seat. He casts his blazer over the back of his chair and rises, eyes fixed on the trees obscuring his view of the ocean from the office window.
Johnny’s brows knit, gaze following Mark’s line of vision. ‘Now? Are you sure you don’t wanna go tomorrow? I heard the weather is better, plus it’s a Saturday so you won’t have your suit on… we can go together- Mark?’
But Mark is already gone, headed for the elevator to take him down to sea level.
*
Wings.
Minhyung had made them, finally, after months of melding it all together- wax, feathers, dreams, longing- and now he was going to leave the tower.
He turned away from his cell, with its concrete floor and flat hay mattress, the untouched pile of slop he’d been served that morning, and the markings along his wall to measure time: nearly two years since he’d been imprisoned…. And one hundred and sixty-three days since he first laid eyes on the siren; he had counted every single day.
Through a hole in his tunic was the last sunflower the siren had given him two days earlier, crumpled and dark and a source of hope to him, even now, as every flower before it. Minhyung wouldn’t miss it, though he’d come to accept that in its own way, the tower had given him a reason to truly live, to know what it was to want something so bad he was willing to change his entire life for it.
So Minhyung leapt from the balcony, eyes fixed on the sun, rising higher and higher on the winds to the golden freedom he’d dreamed of for so long. He flew so high that he began to sweat, yet he didn’t stop- he couldn’t, he was free, free to go anywhere- and then he realised it was not sweat but hot wax that dripped down his back, and his wings could no longer beat because he was falling- gone too high-
And then the sea rose to meet him, its spray dampening his wings and pulling him under the waves.
Minhyung flailed, at first. There was a pounding in his ears, and he couldn’t determine whether it was his thundering heartbeat or the thrum of the sea. He kicked and threw his arms, frustration and fear coursing through him as he tried to tear the thick wings from his back.
The water was so cold not even the sun’s rays shining down do much to help Minhyung. He continued to thrash- slower as the chill set into his bones and he could barely keep his eyes open. And then he saw him: the siren, close enough at last to see the tiny fins along his arms and the way his tail moved beneath the ocean and most of all his eyes, bright and otherworldly, boring into Minhyung’s own.
Minhyung’s frozen fingers struggled toward his chest, and he pulled the siren’s gift from his tunic, let the dying sunflower slip from his fingers, not bothering to watch it go as his Sunflower hurtled toward him, blue scales flashing every time his lashes fluttered.
The bird and the siren, wings and a tail- neither a human nor a bird belonged to the sea, Minhyung knew this… and yet he had tried, and the siren was still trying, speeding toward him with a fear so different from the beautiful arrogance and laughter that Minhyung had grown accustomed to, and for a brief moment, Minhyung considered fighting a little longer.
But then he came to understand that which he had always known: that in this lifetime, the two could not be together. He smiled at the siren and closed his eyes, giving into the weight of the wings dragging him further down.
We will find each other in another life, Minhyung promised himself, and the siren, I’ll live a thousand times over until I meet you again.
His reason to live was his reason to die, and he’d make them both count.
One day.
*
‘Isn’t that the lawyer?’
Donghyuck, who had been on the verge of falling asleep right there on the sand, bolts upright.
‘What? Where?’
He snaps his head to where Jaemin is pointing, to the figure clad in work pants and a shirt sans jacket and shoes, disappearing down the path for a moment- sending a terrifying, unexplainable feeling through Donghyuck- before reappearing past the shore-wall and in the shallows.
All Donghyuck feels is dread.
His heart races as he leaps up, dropping his second carton of banana milk on the towel to Jeno’s dismay as drops splash out, and with his friends shouts calling after him, Donghyuck sprints across the beach in a way that ought to rival his old high school races.
Ocean, boy, black hair, sunflower, drowning, gone-
The ghosts of his dreams scream inside his head, driving him faster toward the lawyer, chest tight with fear and pain and exertion, and when he leaps into the water all Donghyuck can see is white clothing beneath the surface, one second a shirt, the next a tunic, and in his confusion all he can do is plunge his hands into the water, grasping for purchase and using all his strength to haul the man upright.
‘What are you doing?!’
He shrieks the words, uncaring as to whether he freaks the lawyer out and destroys all chances of ever speaking to him again, because Donghyuck is positively rattled, and part of him is inclined to believe he is still back on his towel stuck in his nightmares, but an equally stunned gaze meets his own, eyes so haunted Donghyuck can almost see himself inside of them.
‘It’s you, Sunflower, it’s you,’ the lawyer gasps, eyes wide and fearless and shining, and Donghyuck wants to slap him, but he’s too focused on tearing the wings from the man’s back, palms sliding frantically over the shoulder blades beneath the soaking shirt in search of wax, of feathers, of a memory-
The lone sunflower rose to the surface, leaving behind the sinking shadow of tangled human limbs and white wings to fall deep into depths of the ocean, and although it was the fastest Haechan’s tail had ever propelled him through the sea, it wasn’t enough; he drew the man into his arms as the dead-weight feathers fell away, screaming into the abyss as the man’s eyes closed, a blissful smile upon his lips.
And then, moments later, the siren died too of a broken heart.
‘No wings,’ the words are strangled, a sob ripped from Donghyuck’s throat. No wings, this time, no tower, no tail, no- no drowning. He stands still, trembling as more memories join the last, a lifetime of pain and pleasure and love and everything in between, a life lived with another name as another creature, and yet still entirely his very own.
A life sacrificed to find the same man in another time.
Tears stream down Donghyuck’s face, and this time it is the lawyer who draws him close, rests his chin upon the crown of Donghyuck’s head to let his damp curls tickle against his skin. Donghyuck hiccups, once, twice, closes his eyes to allow the pads of the lawyer’s thumbs circling through his soaked shirt to bring a sense of calm. ‘You fool.’
The lawyer laughs then, and so does Donghyuck, moments later.
‘My name is Mark.’
‘Mark,’ he repeats, a small smile shadowing his lips. ‘Mark.’
He turns and splashes through the shallows to the concrete wall that blocks the tide from rising too high up the shoreline, hearing Mark follow while he pulls himself onto the wall and makes himself comfortable.
Donghyuck takes Mark’s hand to assist him up. He glances behind them back to the red-striped umbrella his friends remain under. Jaemin’s laughter echoes across the beach as he leans across Jeno’s chest to flutter kisses against his boyfriend’s chest, pouting as Jeno pretends to swat him away.
Their love is an oblivious love, a carefree one. Donghyuck wants more than to taste it; he wants it all.
He turns back to Mark, who makes no move save the smile tugging at his lips as Donghyuck’s eyes rove all over him: Mark’s black hair that whips into his wonderfully sparkling eyes, Mark’s sharp cheekbones and even sharper jaw that somehow manage not to disrupt his softly sweet aura.
And then Donghyuck kisses Mark, impulsively, unsure if he’s waited one hundred and sixty-three days or one hundred and sixty-three centuries, and he simply must be selfish; surely, oh, surely he’s waited long enough?
Mark deepens the kiss instantly. He brings his hands to cup the roundness of Donghyuck’s cheeks, and then his jaw, fingers lightly resting there until they draw apart.
‘Donghyuck,’ Donghyuck manages, not even snarling when Mark laughs at the way his chest heaves, ‘my name is Donghyuck.’
They watch one other, silent as their breath slows in time with each other.
Over the ocean, soft pink and ivory clouds streak across the peach sky, painting a lullaby together with the orange sun bleeding into the horizon. The breeze is warm against Donghyuck’s cheeks, yet he can’t help but shiver when the weight of Mark’s stare lands on him.
‘I see you almost every day,’ Mark breaks the silence. He appears somewhat sheepish at admitting so. ‘I sound like a stalker, but… I was so drawn to you. It felt like I knew you. And then the longer you were around, I began to have these dreams- nightmares, I thought- every night- me in a tower and you down in the sea, me flying to the sun….’
‘Too high,’ Donghyuck murmurs in awe, ‘you shouldn’t have flown so high.’
Mark’s lips twitch. ‘I fell down to you much faster though.’
Donghyuck does slap him. ‘How is this a laughing matter? You drowned in my arms! And I don’t even know how long I had to be alone until today.’
He begins to cry again, and Mark hastily sobers himself up, taking Donghyuck’s hands in his.
‘Don’t cry, darling Sunflower.’
The name only makes Donghyuck cry harder, memories flooding back to him filled with sunflowers and waves and a tower too high for him to reach, and without thinking he turns to his friends, wondering how on earth to tell them everything.
He finds them staring back at him, Jeno bug-eyed and curious, and Jaemin with his trademark sly grin that made Donghyuck swear to find out later what exactly Jaemin was whispering in Jeno’s ear. Then the two begin to laugh, and Donghyuck is helpless to evade joining in.
He throws his head back with the force of his laughter, leaving Mark with no choice but to join in too.
‘I guess I have some things to explain,’ Donghyuck muses, considering ways to explain that wouldn’t have his friends immediately organising to send him to an institution. ‘They’ll insist on seeing a therapist over this.’
‘Wait, that doesn’t sound like a good-’
‘Relax, Mark. I’m not a complete idiot.’
‘Oh, thank Jesus.’
‘You’re the idiot between us- ouch!’
Donghyuck struggles out of Mark’s grasp, twisting his face away to avoid Mark’s light slaps that turn into a rain of soft kisses as soon as he manages to capture Donghyuck completely. There’s a pause as Donghyuck tilts his face upwards, expression serious.
‘You’re not going to do anything moronic in this lifetime, right?’
‘Wh- no! I can actually swim well in this lifetime,’ Mark grins, shaking his head when Donghyuck glares at him. With a sigh, he drops a kiss between the golden curls tumbling over his Sunflower’s forehead. ‘I have you now, for real. There’s no reason for me to chase the sun when I have my very own by my side.’
‘Don’t ever,’ Donghyuck kisses him once more, whispers insistently, ‘chase anything but me.’
Mark’s eyes glow with an emotion Donghyuck can’t put into words, but he knows he wants to see it every day, every minute, every waking moment, wants to learn everything there is to know about Mark and wants Mark to want the same about him.
Hearts full to the point of overflowing, they lean together once more, Donghyuck’s head against Mark’s shoulder, and Mark’s on his, their fingers threaded tight, content to live an earthly love, safe between the sun and the sea.