You should have listened to your parents when they warned you not to stray too close to the shore.

But how could you resist? The sea, with its shimmering waves and salty whispers, called to you like a lullaby only you could hear. And when you met him—with silvered hair that clung to his skin like threads of moonlight, eyes deep as the ocean trench—you thought, perhaps disobedience is worth it.

“Oh, you’re fun!” Jisung chirped, grinning wide, his sharp canines glinting like pearls. “Not like the others. They always run. They always scream.” His webbed fingers curled around your wrist, gentle for now.

How foolish, to think those wide, pleading eyes were anything but bait.

He was so different from the stories—the monstrous sirens with their scales slick with blood, their voices dripping with venom. But Jisung only ever laughed, splashing water at your feet, humming songs that coiled around your heart like ivy.

You thought yourself special. Chosen.

But the tide had a way of creeping up unnoticed.

"You'll stay with me, won't you?" His grip tightened, his tail flicking beneath the water, stirring up sand. "Forever?"

And it was then, when his voice curled sweetly around the word, that you realized—this was not a request.

The sea was never kind. It only pretended to be.