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yoonia · 3 years ago

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The Forsaken [M] ● kth

➬ Title | The Forsaken

➬ Summary | In order to save your people from the danger of drought and hunger, your father had sent you out on a mission across the ocean to find the heart of nature that could bring back the prosperity which your land had long lost. As the Chief’s daughter, you took the mission as your responsibility, even if you had to let the man that vexes you the most join you in your journey, even if you had to ignore the Elders’ warnings about the dangers and all the vicious monsters lying in wait.

↳ Pairings | Taehyung x reader (feat. Namjoon)

↳ Genre | Siren!Taehyung, Smut, Mystery, Slight Horror

↳ Ratings & Warnings | +18 / M for Mature; friend-zoned Namjoon, slight body horror, drowning scene, a lot of kissing, breast play, fingering (female receiving), oral sex (female receiving; with implied biting), clit play, big cock Taehyung, minor hand job, biting, rough sex, riding, biting/marking, begging, unprotected sex, public sex (sort of), multiple orgasms, implied impregnation, violence/fighting scene, manhandling (not by Taehyung lol), Taehyung might seems a bit sketchy but he is just a misguided sweetheart.

↳ Word count | 22k words ;-; (I’m sorry)

↳ Cross-post | AO3

↳ The story continues — The Forsaken II: Tears of the Sea

➬ Author’s Note | Written as a commission for @jhopeismyonlyhope | I’m sorry that this took forever and that I’ve made so many changes in the original idea because I wanted to make the scene work and to only release the final product when I’m pleased with it. Thank you so much for commissioning me. I hope you’ll enjoy the story. | ps. this is very loosely based on the movie Moana, with only a few factors from the movie taken as inspiration.

There is nothing beyond our reefs but storms and rough seas, evils and monsters roaming the world where humans are not welcome.

Growing up, you have grown used to hearing those words coming from the Elders. Oftentimes recited precisely word for word, other times enchanted in different prose and rhymes. But each time the words are declared for the tribe to take heed of, it would always be done with the same purpose; to prevent the young generation from having any thought of ever leaving the island to explore the world outside.

You remember being a young girl, standing at the edge of the cliff overlooking the ocean, dreaming of being out there to explore the rest of the world and thinking that the words of the Elders had been nothing but a part of folktales specifically taught to scare little children. As a teenager, you had often rebelled against the Elders and their beliefs, defying them by making a vow to one day leave the island and explore the world, to travel across the ocean and witness all the wonderful things that the world has to offer.

But as time continued to pass, those dreams and the passion that you had when you were younger slowly began to wane, and you have simply stopped defying the beliefs that had always been rooted in the villagers’ minds by the Elders for years.

You cannot exactly remember when you had stopped dreaming or when the last time you let yourself be swept away by your imagination to picture yourself going on an adventure, and you cannot remember what exactly had happened to you which had gotten you to settle down and become this person who would only follow everything that the Elders had taught you.

And yet the biggest joke of all would be the fact that you would have not been here, navigating the small boat across the ocean and going miles away from your home island, tempting fate with barely a full sail and its old wooden mast that feels too heavy for your untrained hands to handle, if not for following one of the Elders’ propositions of tracing and finding resources on a neighbouring island to bring home and rescue your home island from dying. Never once would you have thought that Elder Mai’s words and the people’s needs would bring back your forgotten dreams, to give you the old courage that you had once lost to once again defy the Elders’ will and your father’s warnings to finally set sail across the ocean in search for salvation.

As your small boat continues plowing through the intense waves, you let your mind wander back home, reminding yourself of the reason why you are here today, racing through the wilderness and fighting against the ocean that seems so unwelcoming. You think about the people back home—your people—who are now fighting against all the trials of life that the Gods are sending to your tribe.

The intense drought that your land had suffered which then led to famine, the plague that was not only harming the land and its inhabitants—the farm animals and the plants that your people had grown—but also the children and older folks, and multiple other challenges known to mankind had all come to your home, threatening to send your whole tribe into extinction.

As the Chief of your tribe, your father had done all that he could to turn things around. From breaking through the forest to open fresh grounds and expand the farmlands when the harvest kept on failing for an entire year, then he went on to seek help from the shamans to pray for miracles and the cure from the Gods. It was when all efforts had been left futile when he sought advice from the Elders. While the other Elders had remained adamant in keeping the tribe from leaving the island, Elder Mai had other plans in mind. She was the only one who remembered your vision of stepping out of the island to seek new possibilities and hope, and that was when she finally revealed the secrets of life that everyone had once denied.

“The Fountain of Life—” she had said when she slipped into your chamber one night to speak to you, mentioning a miracle mentioned in the fables that you had once read as a child, “—was not just a folktale. It truly existed.” While you were left speechless, unable to believe that she was trying to tell you, she went on to reveal where it was located, before she told you about the existence of the tribe’s distant relatives that were living on an island not too far in the distance, guarding the magical fountain against any possible threat. “Seek help from our relatives, and bring back a piece of the fountain for us to survive.”

It had been too many years for the tribe to ever venture out of the island or to navigate any ship or boat, and the only one who would dare enough to do so—despite the lack of training—would be you, the only person in the tribe who had always been so daring when it comes to overcoming any challenges.

You felt only pride when you were given the responsibility and the chance to save your tribe, even if you had to do it while sneaking around the other Elders’ backs and denying your father’s request of handing the task to someone else. There was no way that you would hand this mission over and let go of the only chance you could ever have to venture out into the world, even if you had known it wouldn’t be easy.

You had left your homeland with your heart filled with hope; for your people, for the future, for finding the answers that you had desperately wanted to seek. But now that you are out here, sailing across the ocean with your eyes searching throughout the horizon and the wind crashing against your face, you finally realise that there is nothing luxurious in the adventure that you had always dreamed of.

The reefs had been menacing, as they had gotten in the way of your departure, keeping you from venturing further away from the island until you managed to slip free. The waves have been completely unforgiving, vile and cruel in their mission to bring you under, constantly fighting you in almost every advances you have made since you left home. Even now, when the waves seem to have settled down some, you still cannot find it in you to loosen up when the calmness feels more like a taunt than relief.

You had yet to encounter the monsters that the Elders had been chanting about in their prayers throughout your journey so far, but the storm that had come crashing onto you without any warning last night had felt like a message from the Gods, urging you to return home instead of going any further. And though you have survived the night of fighting against the storm, it is obvious that the storm had been the reason why you find yourself in this predicament, floating aimlessly in the middle of the wide ocean with your destination still nowhere in sight.

“Still no sign of land?”

The deep voice that had been silent for a while now suddenly speaks, startling you enough to the point that you are an inch away from falling overboard. Closing your eyes briefly, you try to calm yourself before turning around to respond. Standing under the sails to control the boat is your one and only travel companion, Kim Namjoon, your childhood friend and a tribe mate who had been appointed to join you in this journey.

As the only daughter of the Chief, there was no way that your father would have let you leave on your own without any guards following you to keep you safe. With only one boat in existence among the tribe’s possession and one that was much too small to carry an entire army of tribe members, your father had assigned two guards to join you on your journey. And it was impossible for you to refuse when the only way he would ever let you go was to agree on his terms. Yet, on the morning of your departure, only one of them had turned up. And you weren’t completely surprised when you found that the man your father had entrusted your safety to was Namjoon, as he was one of the strongest warriors to ever exist in the tribe.

You have nothing against him, really. Except probably for the fact that he is a man who has always been more capable of showing the entire tribe his strength as a magnificent warrior, whereas you would always be seen as a female tribe member who would have a completely different responsibility waiting for you in the future. The kind of responsibility which would not include fighting or doing any kind of hard labour that would build up your muscles the same way he has, and definitely does not involve sailing across the ocean by yourself.

You should be pleased—or perhaps relieved—to have him with you on this journey. Instead, you find it hard to accept his company when he ends up becoming the one acting as the captain of the small boat, and by proxy, it also means that he becomes the one to lead this mission.

But at least you wouldn’t have to deal with this on your own, the inner voice speaking inside your head gently reminds you, bringing back the memory of the massive storm hitting you last night and how he had assisted you in keeping the boat from sinking under the giant waves.

“No, not yet,” you answer him as you open your eyes again, sighing deeply while accepting the fact that no matter how much it annoys you to have your father forcing your hand to take him on this mission, you cannot deny that his presence had been the reason why you are still sailing safely on the surface instead of landing somewhere deep in the ocean floor. You turn away from him to continue your search for any sign of land before shaking your head. “Are you sure we’re heading the right way?”

Namjoon looks over to the compass he has before him. “Both the map and the compass that Elder Mai had provided for us are showing it right. I’m only following their guidance.”

You squint your eyes to see better before lifting the binoculars you have in hand to look far ahead. Namjoon must have sensed your busy mind at work without being able to look at your face, because he suddenly asks you, “What are you thinking?”

Lowering your binoculars, you take a seat while releasing a defeated sigh. “I wonder if—” Gnawing at your lips, you are not too sure if your mind is making any sense. But seeing the lack of judgement in Namjoon’s eyes, you still voice your thoughts anyway, while hoping that he wouldn’t belittle you and your suspicions. “What if the storm had put us out of course and we’re heading the wrong direction?”

A frown appears on Namjoon’s face. But he seems to be considering the possibility as he falls silent. “Could be,” he says as he squints his eyes to look ahead. “I’m beginning to wonder about this too. Elder Mai said that the island was close enough that it would have only taken us a week or two to reach even in the worst weather, but we’ve been out here for a few weeks and passed many sunrises and there is still no sign of our destination come to sight.”

And just like that, your heart falls to your stomach. “What should we do if we’re truly lost?” You always hate feeling so helpless, and you hate it more when you have to show it to someone else. But there really is no point in hiding your feelings when you are left stranded in the middle of the ocean with no direction to follow.

With the food supply already growing scarce back home, you and Namjoon had departed with limited food and medicine to carry with you. Add that to the fact that this journey shouldn’t have taken more than it should, not this long, and you know that the rations would never be enough to support you before starvation settles in.

Under the flowing sails, Namjoon looks up at the clear sky as he thinks deeply about his options before he finally answers you with, “Let’s see where the wind is taking us. If there is still no hope in sight on next sunrise, then we have no other choice but to turn around and trace our way back.”

You look away from him to hide the disappointment that is no doubt written all over your face. If there is something else about you that everyone had known so well is that you are not a quitter. You hate quitting, especially when you have already set up your mind to achieve something worthy. And this time, it feels even worse when you think about how your people are depending on you to be successful and to bring home a new hope.

But still, you have to admit that Namjoon is right. There is no point in going further when the hope of success appears to be slim. No point in sacrificing yourselves in uncertainty when you may have been more useful being back home and staying alive to help your father and the Elders.

For the rest of the day, as the day is coming to another end with the sun slowly lowering down on the horizon, the journey continues in silence. No words are being exchanged as you remain in your spot, looking ahead to search for any sign of land, while Namjoon stays focused on navigating the boat through the rushing waves.

Neither of you knows what is waiting for you beyond the horizon, or if you would ever reach your destination at the end of your journey. But at least both of you still share the same goal as you carry on, to not give up until the very end, using every bit of last hope you still have to go on.

But most important of all, to survive.

You hear the splash as your body hits the water.

For a moment, your senses simply become numb, muddled under the murky water that you are slowly submerging into. You can hear nothing, feel nothing, and your mind is completely void of any thoughts as you continue to dive deeper. There is no other choice for you but to give in to the pull while you take a moment to process what is actually happening. You can barely feel any fear when the shock feels too much.

Why am I in the water?

You open your eyes and begin to wonder just as the realisation sinks in. Once you get over the confusion and shock, you struggle to swim and look around to find your boat, trying to understand what is happening to you. Yet the water is too dark for you to see anything, giving nothing away as you search for clues while your body continues to submerge deeper.

Had the boat tumble over? You wonder, though you quickly realise that you should have been surrounded by wreckage it that had happened, and you would be seeing Namjoon with you if he had fallen as well.

Your limbs feel incredibly heavy when you try to move them around, but you do it anyway, forcing yourself to swim before you would drown too deep and too far from the surface. And yet the more you try, the more you feel as if there is something restricting your movements. The water feels so thick around you, binding you in place while making it hard for you to see which way is up or down. Kicking your legs wildly, you try to use the momentum to push yourself up to the surface, only to realise that instead of moving up, you are being pulled down, going further into the deepest part of the ocean and away from the surface that you are trying so hard to reach.

Suddenly, a foreign sound catches your attention. It sounds faint, so you stop trying to struggle against the pull to search for it. It comes to you as a hum at first, a murmur, until the sound slowly turns into a melody. Soon, you realise that you are listening to a song, as if there is someone singing right in the depth of the ocean, serenading to you.

You wonder where it might be coming from when you look around only to see nothing but darkness. There is no way it is coming from down under, right? You ask yourself this as you continue the struggle to swim up before you would be running out of breath.

But it seems you are already too late. A constricting pain hits you right in the chest. The need to breathe grows so strongly that panic begins to set in.

In your head, you are screaming for help, begging for Namjoon to somehow realise that you had gone under if he is still up there. In reality, you are suffocating, and your body has yet to start moving. No matter how much effort you have put into pulling yourself up to safety, you are still nowhere near the surface. You can barely see your hands as you try to reach up as the water just keeps getting darker as you look up.

Again, you try to force swimming upward, fighting against the pull when you start seeing bubbles of air emerging around you. You keep kicking your legs until you feel something brushing against your shin to make you stop. That is when you finally see them. Right down below, spread beneath you on the ocean floor is a plane of seaweed waving along with the undercurrent. In your eyes, they appear like hands trying to reach out to you, reaching high enough until they are brushing against your ankle as if they are fingers tracing your skin, ready to grab you and pull you down to join them.

Giving one last kick, you give one last effort to escape them, only to have them wrapped around your ankle instead. The bubbles coming out of your mouth grows thick as you scream, yet you have no more strength left to fight it when the grip around your ankle tightens, pulling you down, down, down, taking you all the way into the darkness below.

Until you are suddenly pulled out of it with a jolt.

You open your eyes with a gasp. Your whole body is still fighting and kicking as you come awake, almost enough to knock Namjoon over when he is only trying to calm you down. He tries again when he hears you crying in panic, holding you down by the shoulders no matter how much you are still struggling against him.

“Stop it! It’s me!” he starts shouting when you still have yet to notice him. Then he tries again, shaking you lightly until you finally snap out of it. It is only then when you finally realise that you are no longer in the water. Blinking your eyes rapidly to take in your new surroundings, you find yourself lying on the rocking boat, and that Namjoon is there holding you up.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. You were dreaming,” he gently whispers to you as he sits back. Except that the moment he releases you, your eyes widen in panic.

“What—”

“Easy…take a deep breath and sit up,” he calmly says. He seems hesitant for a moment, not knowing what to do to help when you are still shaking and appear to be in a shock. In the end, he only gives you some space while staying close, giving you a chance to let reality sink in.

“I’m okay,” you murmur as you lay back against the side of the boat, though you are saying the words more to yourself than to Namjoon. It was just a dream. None of it was real.

Even if it felt like it was.

Looking around you, the dark sky filled with stars welcomes you. The night has fallen deep while you were asleep, even though you cannot even remember falling asleep. The only thing you know is that you had wanted to take a quick break after staring out across the ocean for so long and decided to lie down under the tarp that you had set up at the back of the boat as a place to rest.

When Namjoon says nothing for a few seconds, you look up at him only to find him staring at you with a funny look. “What? What is it?” you ask him while silently hoping that he wouldn’t ask anything about your dream. There is no way you can explain it. Especially not when you are still feeling the dread that had been a part of the dream.

He stares at you a moment longer before shaking his head. “Nothing, it’s just—” he says while still looking unsure about it. “I thought—” He clenches his jaw for a moment while looking contemplative about his answer. And then, finally, he releases a sigh and turns to you to ask, “Were you singing earlier?”

His question surprises you. “What? When?”

“I’m not sure,” he says, once again shaking his head. “You know what? Never mind.” He turns away and releases a deep breath, as if he is ready to let it go. Only that he changes his mind at the last minute, speaking with a gentle voice as if he is thinking loudly to himself when he says, “I just thought that I heard you sing, that’s why I went under the tarp to check on you.”

A dubious laugh escapes you. “Me? Singing?” you ask him with a nervous chuckle, though shivers run through you when you remember the humming voice that you heard earlier in your dream. “I—I wasn’t. I mean, obviously, I wouldn’t be singing when I was sleeping. Right?”

Namjoon says nothing at first, and yet the look in his eyes is hard to read as he keeps looking at you. “Right,” he says, nodding briefly before walking away. “Must be my imagination.”

Just when you start to feel like losing hope, a ray of light comes in your way at the break of dawn.

You never got around to going back to sleep after recovering from the bad dream, nor had Namjoon ever slipped under the tarp to take a break when his curiosity took over his mind for the rest of the night. Thankfully, there was no other storm happening in the night. In fact, the ocean was still, the wind had been steady, keeping your boat on the same course. It was during that serene moment in the night when Namjoon finally confessed,

“I heard the singing too during the storm.”

You have heard of stories about how sailors or adventurers would encounter hallucinations while being out in the sea for too long. The Elders may deny it all they want, but you have read about them in the old books that had been hidden in the temples; stories of tribes travelling across the ocean, conquering both water and lands, along with all the tales that had followed the sailors which were later turned into folktales.

You had wondered at some point if what Namjoon heard had been the same as the voice in your dream, but you stopped thinking about it further when you hated to be reminded of your stupid dream. And you have no chance to think about it again when the sky is slowly growing bright with the sun peeking on the horizon. You can barely think of anything at all when Namjoon suddenly straightens up and pulls at the sail while pointing ahead.

“Is that land I see?”

There is nothing straight ahead but a thick layer of fog covering the horizon when you look. And yet, even before Namjoon had said anything, you had felt its existence. Namjoon continues to guide the boat to remain in its course. Then, as you continue to get closer, the fog begins to part, revealing the island that has been hidden in the dark.

“Is that the island that Elder Mai talked about?” you ask Namjoon as hope begins to bloom. Your heartbeat is racing with anticipation and relief at the sight of land. But then as the fog continues to spread away, giving you a clearer view of it, you realise that there is really nothing visible on the island but a dense forest covering most of its surface. On its coast, only a small patch of beach is seen, while the rest of the area is nothing but a ridge of jagged rocks and massive reefs where the waves keep crashing into.

Even from the distance, you can tell that there is no trace of human touch. The forest looks wild and untamed, while the boulders shielding the island looks unwelcoming.

“It looks deserted,” Namjoon murmurs from behind you, voicing the doubt that you keep trying to bury deep inside. Instead of agreeing with him, you force yourself to remain hopeful. You refuse to give up when you are finally getting somewhere. You just can’t. Because you just simply cannot accept failure.

“I guess we won’t know for sure until we take a closer look, right?”

Namjoon shows no expression even if he heard you. But then he looks up at the island ahead and nods. “I’ll pull up at the beach and we can begin scouting through the area. I just hope the tribe living in this land wouldn’t start shooting daggers or arrows at us,” he says, much to your relief, and he begins to control the sail to steer the boat towards the small patch of sand appearing between the reefs. “Better buckle up, those waves around the reefs aren’t looking too friendly.”

And he is absolutely right.

It takes an amount of effort to bring the boat to land right on the beach. The waves keep pushing the boat away from the island even before it got anywhere close to the coast. It may have taken hours before you finally make it, though it would have never happened if only you and Namjoon didn’t work together to control the boat.

“We can set up camp here. I’ll go scouring the area and see if we can find any trace of people living here.”

Once the boat has been parked safely on the sand, you walk to the edge of the forest which isn’t that far away from the coast. It only takes a few steps to reach the nearest trees. As you look deep into the forest, your whole body shivers in fear when you can only see darkness waiting beyond the massive trees, low branches and thick foliage obstructing your eyesight everywhere you look.

Taking a step backwards, you glance towards the spot by the beach where Namjoon had pointed as a place to set up camp, and you cannot help but voice out your fear.

“What if there’s no one here? What should we do?”

Namjoon takes another look around before answering. “I guess we can find something else that might be useful to bring home. Food, supplies, water,” he says while looking around, listing out the things that he could possibly gather before leaving this place and continuing the journey. “At least we can rest here for a day before we take off again if there really is nobody here.”

Hugging yourself as you take in your surrounding, you feel disappointed at the thought of leaving completely empty-handed. But looking far into the forest, any hope of ever finding anyone out there seems slim. You look up at the sky, noticing how it looks so gloomy and dark as the sun seems to be hiding someplace else.

That’s odd, you wonder as you are sure that time had passed long enough and it is supposed to be noon already. The sun is supposed to be up high above your head, but the sky is painted in an odd-looking shade of grey, making the forest look even darker and gloomy. Something is definitely off about this place, but you cannot point a finger at what it is.

“I’ll take care of the camp. You can go look around,” you immediately suggest to Namjoon, unwilling to waste any more time being out here without knowing anything. At the very least, the sooner he starts tracking through the forest, the sooner he would return before it gets darker.

“You sure?” he asks you, though he doesn’t seem to mind. The moment you nod, Namjoon picks up the sack that he had prepared to gather the goods and holds up his dagger to protect himself. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

Someone is singing.

You weren’t quite sure about it when you first heard the voice, thinking that it was merely the sound of the wind. It had started faint at first, so you weren’t even sure if you actually heard it and had not been imagining it. But the more you listen to it, the more you are convinced that what you are hearing now is a tune being sung by a deep, unfamiliar voice. It sounds so different to the voice singing in your dream. It feels less ominous and somewhat tempting, urging you to get closer. And the voice seems to be coming from somewhere on the other side of this beach.

Before you have a chance to question it, you already find yourself walking away from your makeshift camp. Your legs are moving on their own accord, taking you down the deserted beach towards the lines of massive rocks on the side of the island. You have no idea what makes you decide to begin your search and find the source. You are not even completely sure if the singing voice is real or if you are somehow dreaming again.

Would it be possible that seasickness and dehydration are giving you the same hallucination that Namjoon had while in the sea?

As you continue wondering about it, you realise that you have walked far enough that you nearly lose sight of your boat, getting much closer to the edge of the patch of white sand and the rocky cliff.

The further you walk, the more you are starting to feel as if you are in a daze. The faint singing voice grows clearer, and yet you feel as if you are floating, your body feels light even when your steps are still firm. Instead of stopping and staying away from the rocks, you just keep on walking, going forward until you find yourself standing right where the sand ends and the rocks begin to rise.

You contemplate on going further as you keep on listening to the voice. Then you look ahead and catch a sight of something appearing from right beyond the rocks, drawing your curiosity further.

Right there, right at the foot of the cliff, the rocky wall opens up to a cavern. A small path appears starting from the beach where you are currently standing, passing between the rocks, leading you straight into the cavern’s mouth. As you stand there with the strong breeze from the ocean smacking you right in the face and the waves crashing against the rocks around you, the singing voice sounds even clearer, and it sounds even more beautiful now that you seem to have reached much closer to its source.

Looking over your shoulder, you notice just how far away you had strayed. It had been quite some time since the last time you saw any sign of Namjoon after he ventured into the forest. As you wonder if Namjoon has returned and noticed that you are gone, the song from the cavern changes its tune.

The tune feels somber, yet seductive and mesmerising at the same time, even if you still cannot hear clearly what the song is about. The only thing you know is that the sound is luring you to its source, beckoning you to come and find it.

Curious, and unable to ignore the pull coming from the beautiful voice serenading you from the depth of the cavern, you decide that Namjoon can wait, and you slowly make your way down the path between the rocks and enter the cave.

You have no idea what to expect as you walk past the entrance. A few steps into the cavern and you begin to feel as if you had just stepped into a completely different dimension to what you had just walked in from. The one thing that surprises you is to find that instead of stepping into pitch darkness, you are instead surrounded by light. The entrance tunnel is supposed to be darker than the world outside, yet the walls are glowing as if they are covered in dark crystals instead of plain rocks. The dull light from the grey sun follows you through the mouth of the cavern, its lights are reflected against the walls, giving you enough luminosity to allow you to see where you are heading to.

You continue walking, getting deeper into the long tunnel with the singing voice accompanying you. While the lights from outside begin to subside, the crystals continue to light up the way for you, though it seems more like you have the voice guiding your way instead. Deeper and deeper into the cavern you go, until the tunnel brings you to another space which seems to be the heart of the cavern. It opens up to some sort of a hidden chamber, with a small void appearing on the ceiling to allow another light from outside to shine through. Though that source of light is not the one reflected across the walls around you in shades of crystal blue, lighting up the room in a completely different way than the darker tunnel you had just gone through.

Taking a few steps closer towards the center, you are astounded to find a small lake spread right in the depth of the cave. The water is clear, and they are glowing like crystals, making the entire space look brighter than it should. It seems as if there is a source of light hidden deep underwater or if the water had somehow gathered the lights from outside to lighten up the room. It feels magical to be there, while the glowing light is soothing you and making you feel warm at the same time even if you can feel a hint of fear clenching tightly in your chest. Even the air around you feels different. As if everything is vibrating, pulsing, and it simply feels like the cave and everything inside it are alive, and the bright-looking lake is the heart where the magic seems to be coming from.

But the magical looking lake and conspicuous cavern are not the only ones that manage to catch your attention, as you turn to look at the tall boulder standing right on the edge of the lake and find a figure sitting right on top of it. Perched on the massive rock is a man, with his skin pale and glowing under the reflecting light coming from the water, wearing nothing else but a tunic top matched with a pair of thin silky pants which makes him look as if he is part of the cavern, blending in with his surroundings while becoming the focal point of this place at the same time.

And he appears to be the one who has been singing this entire time.

And he continues to sing his tune, still unaware of your presence. He keeps his eyes looking straight at the glowing water as he sings, serenading the same solemn tune which had been luring you all the way here to find him.

There is something in his voice that draws you in. Something enthralling, like an enchantment beckoning you to get closer and reach out to him. You have felt it since the first time you heard his voice and it only gets even stronger now that you are closer, watching him from a close distance.

There is also a shuddering feeling that comes at the back of your mind, telling you to be careful while warning you to run. The warning signs in your head doesn't last long, however, as they keep growing gradually faint while the beautiful voice coming from the mystery being sitting on the boulder seems to be winning. His voice continues to lure you, like an invisible thread pulling at your heart like you had never once experienced before and it is stopping you from running.

You give in to the magic vibrating in this place and the pull coming from his voice that you don’t realise how you have been moving so close, not until your feet suddenly sink into the sand surrounding the magical-looking lake. Wet sand. And your mind snaps out of the trance with a jolt, only to find yourself standing right at the foot of the boulder where he is, only an arm’s reach away from him.

Your presence seems to alert him then, as he stops singing. Immediately, your body reacts, as if you are craving to hear his voice again. It reminds you of the drought that you felt back home, when your body weakens without his voice and you are desperate to hear him sing to bring your body back to life.

You keep your eyes on him and say nothing as he slowly turns. His movement is careful, wary, while his mesmerising eyes show you no fear, only curiosity. He tilts his head as he finds you standing there while looking back at him with wide eyes, while he is not even showing you any hint of surprise or bashfulness for having some stranger watching him singing, as if there is nothing wrong about him doing so inside an unearthly cave. Instead of looking annoyed of having you intruding on his space, his smile is warm and welcoming as he sits back and says,

“Hello.”

His deep voice surprises you that it draws a gasp from the depth of your throat. Oddly enough, even the simple greeting had come with a rhythm flowing in each syllable, and you almost laugh at how it makes your insides tingle with something warm. A feeling that is just as comfortable as a warm blanket, something that you had missed the most as it reminds you of home.

“Hi,” you shyly answer him, choosing to remain standing right where you are instead of getting any closer to get to him, even if the urge to do so keeps getting stronger.

He remains sitting on the top of the boulder where he was, making no sign to move away from it, though he keeps his eyes locked on you. There is no question in his gaze, but you can see something mischievous glowing from his eyes as he keeps staring at you, his face looking as if he holds a deep secret and he is silently challenging you to draw it out of him and reveal them all to you.

You use this moment to take in the sight of him. Under the glowing crystal blue light illuminating the entire cavern, he looks gorgeous, quite almost in an ethereal way. With sharp lines on his cheeks and jawline, thick pouty lips that look teasing and endearing at the same time as he gives you a knowing smirk. His silky hair looks damp, as if he had taken a dip into the lake at some point and he is letting each wet strand fall over his face. The curly strands of his hair appear to be glowing, as they seem to reflect the lights shining out of the water, making you itch with the need to run your fingers through them.

You shake your head, surprised to find yourself even thinking about touching him and to feel an urge so strong to reach out when you don’t even have any idea who he is.

“I—I’m sorry for bothering you,” you begin to speak, clenching your hands to your sides as you do so just to stop yourself from getting too close. “I, uh—we got lost, my friend and I, and we were stranded here on this island. We were searching around to find anyone who might be living here or if there is any place that we can use to shelter in,” you explain, almost blabbering nervously. “And, uh—and then I heard you singing from the beach. You have a beautiful voice. Do you live here on this island?”

The mysterious man hums softly for a moment, thinking deeply as if you had just given him a challenging quiz instead of a simple question. “You may say that,” he finally says, his voice so smooth as silk and almost melodic, as if his speech is a part of the song he has been singing to himself. “Did you say that you heard my voice?”

You nod, and his smile widens. “Ah, I see,” he says. He tilts his head, studying you closely with amusement dancing in his eyes. “I can tell that you’ve come from far away.”

His words catch you off guard, yet you are quick to remember that ever since you arrived on this island, you had not seen any sign of people residing anywhere around the beach or at the edge of the forest. Even from the distance, this island had seemed inhabitable, which became the reason why both you and Namjoon had been sceptical about finding any tribe that might be related to yours to seek help from. And yet, here he is, appearing right before your eyes to show you that there is someone actually living in this place, and you wonder if there are other people hiding somewhere else the same way he did.

You have a ton of questions brewing inside your head, and you have no idea where to start. But when you notice that he is not trying to make any conversation, you decide to try and gain more information from him. “What is this place? Where are your people?”

The ethereal looking man before you simply smiles at you, his eyes appear to glow just as brightly as the lake behind him when he asks you in return, “My people?”

His question and the tone of his voice makes you frown. “Yes. Your people. Your tribe, your family, are they around here somewhere? Maybe closer to the cave instead of the forest?” you keep asking him, though the doubt lingering in your mind only gets stronger as seconds pass by and he has yet to give you an answer. Realising that you might sound pushy, you immediately apologise, “I’m sorry. It’s just that I’ve seen no sign of people from the beach earlier, and I was just wondering if you can tell me more about this place.”

The mysterious man only hums. “My people. My family. Hmm—” he stops, while your heart slowly drops when it doesn't seem like you are going to get the answer that you need. As if he can read your mind, he gives you a remorseful smile and finally admits, “I’m sorry, but to tell you the truth, it has been a long time since I’ve met anyone on this island.”

“Oh, right,” is the only thing that you can say to him when your disappointment grows inside you. Looking down on your feet, you try to hide the tears that are threatening to fall.

Does that mean there is really no salvation for your tribe? Do you really want to try again and continue your search for the island that Elder Mai had promised to be the saviour you need? What if the island and the tribe she had talked about never existed and the other Elders had been right? What if the Fountain of Life is not real?

You are too lost in your thoughts that you don’t notice it when he finally moves. Not until you hear him landing on the sand nearby, leaving the tall boulder where he was sitting on so he can get closer to you. You keep your head down even as you feel him coming to you, even as you feel his warmth radiating close. The shame that you feel for failing your people feels too heavy and you refuse to look up to meet his eyes.

“Hey, are you okay?” he gently asks you when you still refuse to look up. He gives you a moment before he reaches out, gently touching your chin so he can guide your face up to meet his eyes. “Hello there,” he says, smiling softly. “Is there something wrong?”

Your voice gets caught in your throat and your shame only grows stronger. You hate to appear weak, just as much as you hate admitting failure. But what other choice do you have when all hope seems to be lost?

“Everything is wrong. Everything is a mess,” you finally say to him in a desperate voice. You should be surprised to find that you are allowing yourself to be vulnerable in front of a stranger. Funny enough, you already feel like you have been completely exposed to him the moment he laid eyes on you that it is not too hard for you to open up and let the truth comes out.

“Want to talk about it?” he asks you, only to have you chuckling bitterly.

“I don’t know how you can help,” you say to him, before quickly adding, “I don’t know how anyone can. It’s too complicated.”

The man only shrugs. “I can listen while you share your story. Some might say that I’m a good listener.”

Once again, his words and the odd way he speaks makes you frown curiously. “I thought you said that you have no one else here.”

Instead of explaining himself, he only smiles and says, “I did say that, didn’t I?”

There is something in the way he says it which probably should have sent all the red flags waving to warn you about him, but there is also an odd feeling of comfort the more you listen to him speak, just like how you felt when he was singing his tune. You should be asking for more, but the thought of talking about the non-existent people on this land would probably stress you out further and you really have no need to be reminded of your failure.

Just when you are trying to decide what to do, you start feeling lightheaded, your body starts swaying as the exhaustion that you had tried so hard to ignore comes washing over you. He quickly reaches out when he notices this and catches you before you fall.

“You look exhausted. Have you had any rest after your journey here?” he asks you, while you shake your head.

“No, I was setting up camp for us to sleep before I came here—” you start to speak, only to feel parched all of a sudden, and you realise that your throat is dry. It has been a while since you have had any water or food, you realise, understanding why your body seems to be giving up.

“Why don’t you sit down with me?” he offers, though he already begins guiding you to rest on top of one of the nearest boulders which has a flat surface on top, just quite comfortable enough for you to sit on. He leaves you there for a moment, leaning down to find an empty seashell. You watch him as he takes his time cleaning it from any kind of debris, before he uses it to gather some water from the sparkling lake.

“Here you go, drink this,” he offers you as he returns to join you. “The water here is clean and fresh, and you’ll find that it has some healing component in it that may help you feel stronger.”

You want to ask him more about the lake, something in your mind keeps telling you that you should, but your head feels too dizzy that you can barely think of anything to say. Taking the water from him, you drink it slowly, and you soon find that he was right. With each sip of the water, you feel more invigorated, as if there is a new life being breathed into you. Interestingly enough, there is no salty taste in the water. Not even the slightest of what seawater should taste like. The water is fresh, and while tasteless, it doesn’t leave any weird aftertaste on your palate, just like the freshwater that you used to find in the mountains. Though it does fix your thirst while making you want more at the same time.

“That is lovely, thank you,” you tell him once you are done, while your mind already starts to wonder if it would be possible to bring this water home. But then you stop the wishful thinking that you realise that no matter how much you try, it would be impossible for you to help the entire tribe or even the rest of your land with it.

Not unless you can take the entire lake home with you.

You laugh at yourself at this silly thought and look up to him with gratitude. “You’re right, I feel better already,” you tell him then before asking, “So—what’s your story? How did you end up here?”

He smiles as he sits right next to you. “You want to hear my story? At least tell me your name first,” he says while partly teasing you.

Chuckling to yourself, you immediately give him your name. “My name is _____. What’s yours?”

Instead of answering you right away, he looks out towards the lake one more time, though his gaze seems a bit lonely and wistful when he speaks again. “I am mostly known with the name Tae,” he says. “It’s Taehyung.”

“Taehyung,” you murmur softly, letting his name roll on your tongue. There is an odd glint in his eyes when he hears your voice saying his name, as if hearing it pleases him most. Meanwhile, your body reacts oddly to it, a shudder runs through your body just as you are beginning to feel extremely tired. So tired that you can barely keep your eyes open, and you cannot stop it when you fall against his side. “I’m so tired.”

“Close your eyes and rest for a minute. Don’t worry, I’ll keep you safe.”

His gentle voice is the last thing you hear before you finally give in, and you are immediately taken deep into the darkness of your slumber, taken away where you feel no fear, no worries, and without the responsibility of bringing salvation back to your people weighing on your shoulders.

You feel disoriented when you come awake a while later. Enough to make you question just what is actually happening to you and where you actually are.

The first thing that comes to you is the sound of his voice, gentle and beautiful as he serenades a solemn tune that only brings you comfort and warmth, all the feelings that may seem odd for you to experience in this kind of situation. The next things you notice and hear are the sound of running water trickling against some rocks, the faint sound of waves crashing against the reefs, and the crushing sound of wet sand.

Right before you open your eyes, you breathe in the scent of the salty water from the sea, letting you know that you are not too far from the ocean outside. You begin to wonder if the lake is connected to the ocean somehow, though you doubt it with how crystal clear it looks and how it seems different to the body of water which had been surrounding you since you left home. Once you are wide awake, you remain still for a moment, taking in all of the odd events that you are experiencing while looking around the cavern, finding some parts that had not caught your eyes before.

Taehyung stops singing once he notices that you are awake. A bright smile appears on his face when he looks at you, though the longing in his eyes seems to persist.

“How are you feeling?”

“I feel—weird,” you answer him as you stretch out, shaking off all the soreness that you had felt before and realising that most of it is all gone now. Sitting up on the flat rock that you had fallen asleep on, you look around while feeling confused. “How did I manage to fall asleep? Did you drug me or something?”

Taehyung’s eyes grow wide before he laughs. “Not a chance. The healing components in the water are supposed to restore your body and strength by giving what your body needs the most. Perhaps it was telling you that you needed sleep, forcing your body to give it to you right away so it would cure you out of your exhaustion,” he explains this as he takes a seat right next to you.

The more you hear about the water, the more amused you become. “Well, I have to admit that it’s probably the best sleep I’ve ever had before and it helped. Thank you,” you tell him as you shift around to get more comfortable. “How long have I been asleep?”

“Not long enough,” he says, shrugging. “That was quite a short while, actually. I was expecting you to sleep a bit longer with how tired you’d seemed. Are you feeling better?”

“I feel much better, actually,” you say to him while feeling shy. You still cannot believe that you had actually fallen asleep with a stranger staying close by. You have no idea how much time had passed, but you want to believe him when he said that you had not been asleep long when you look up to the void on top of the cave, seeing the grey sunlight slipping in to let you know that it has yet passed daytime. All of a sudden, you remember Namjoon who had left to scout the area. He had promised you that he wouldn’t be gone for a long time, just enough to find any traces of tribes or any sign of people living on the island. You figure that he would have gone back by now to rest or give you an update, so you begin to push yourself off the rock to leave. “I should probably get back before my friend returns to the camp spot and notices that I am missing.”

Taehyung makes no move to stop you, and yet his words do the job for him when he says, “You shouldn’t worry too much about him.”

You look up to him curiously. “Have I said anything about my friend?” you ask him. “How did you know that I have a male friend with me?”

Even as you are looking straight at him, Taehyung’s expression gives nothing away. “I didn’t, but you just confirmed it for me,” he says as his lips curl to an odd smile, drawing a scoff right out of you when you feel tricked into giving your own information away.

“Oh, you’re sneaky.”

He only grins in return. “I thought that it was the only way that I could get to hear your story,” he says. “But I mean it when I say there is no rush. He would be able to find you if he’s back.”

Even if you feel a bit doubtful about it, you just want to trust him so badly that you push the thought of going back to Namjoon away, far away to the back of your mind. The last thing you need now is to be reminded of your duties and the possibility of your failures. You want to relish on the serene feeling that you have been getting right here with Taehyung, hidden away inside the magical cave where your problems don’t exist, where your tribe is no longer at the forefront of your concern. For once, you want to be selfish, to enjoy the moment of being yourself and putting yourself first above all others.

Taehyung must have sensed this, because his smile seems to grow wider when he asks, “So, are you ready to talk? Share your problems with me. I may not be able to solve them for you, but at least you can get them out of your chest.”

“I don’t know where to start,” you finally say to him. Various thoughts and doubts keep running inside your head as you wonder just how much you can share with him. While it sounds too much to dump all of your troubles to a stranger, perhaps he would be the only one in the world who wouldn’t be judging you for what you are feeling about all of this.

“Let’s start by telling me where you came from,” Taehyung says, looking at you with an encouraging smile. “What do you say, stranger?”

You had been right to expect that it would be easy to confide in him.

And he had not been lying when he said that he could be a good listener. The moment you begin to talk, it feels like you have your truth sucked right out of you, leaving nothing behind even if you weren’t planning to tell him everything.

Starting from where you and Namjoon had come from—

“…an island that isn’t so far from here, about southwest—or maybe further south? I can’t really tell. I think the sudden storm on sea that happened briefly on our second night had knocked us out of our course…”

About your tribe—

“…our people had lived in that island for generations, I don’t have any idea how long, but that land is the only place we’ve ever known…”

About why you left—

“…everything had only been getting gradually worse. We have no idea how much longer we would be able to survive, and since there was nothing back home that could give us the salvation we needed, the only option left was to search for it somewhere else…”

And about why you were chosen—

“…I thought I could prove to the Elders that they were wrong. There are still a lot more out there, places to explore, things to learn, land to cover. Tales can be a part of history written down in textbooks for people to find and that our people could not be the only ones trying to survive…”

The more you talk to him, the more you find comfort. You can feel it not only in his presence, but also in his alluring way of speaking to you and drawing out the truth from you that you find no trouble in being honest to him about everything. Even about the little secrets that you have kept from your own family for years.

“…being the only daughter of the tribe’s Chief isn’t really what they have all made it to be. My whole life had been written for me since I was born, and while people might look at me as someone who would someday hold some kind of high-level authority, the truth is that I have been living a life with so many boundaries.”

Taehyung smiles knowingly. “And that’s what you want to show people. That you can do more than what they had expected of you.”

“Exactly,” you admit to him, feeling relieved that he understands, before you reveal another secret that you have been trying so hard to hide. “But I’m also scared shitless. I have no idea what I’m doing, and honestly, if only I hadn’t left with Namjoon, I probably wouldn’t have survived my first night. And I resented him for joining me at first, since I know that he would take all the spotlight and the credit if we should ever make it back with everything that we had promised to bring back home.”

“I totally understand if you’re worried about your effort and struggles not being appreciated,” he says, nodding to himself before asking, “And this Namjoon of yours. Perhaps there is another reason why your father wanted him to go with you? Maybe he is the one chosen for you by your family and tribe?”

You immediately start laughing. The thought of Namjoon becoming someone that your father would choose to be your future spouse when he had become more like a brother just sounds incredibly silly. “Oh, Gods. Absolutely not! He is a childhood friend, and from what I heard, he is betrothed to one of the Elders’ daughters.” You look at him as you explain this and you are surprised to find his wariness turning into relief. “No, it’s nothing like that. It’s just that he is one of the only few people my father trusts, and one of the strongest, so it made sense that he was specifically chosen to guard my safety.”

“I see,” Taehyung says with a wide smile that lingers, enough to bring the flutters in your chest to spread wildly. Clearing your throat, you look away to hide the flush that may have come to your face before he can see it.

“So what’s your story? Who are you? How did you get here? Do you live on this island?”

“I’ve answered your question before. I can’t exactly remember how I got here or why I was here, but this is the only place I’ve known almost all of my life. It’s been a long time since I’ve met anyone else,” Taehyung calmly says, avoiding to talk about himself further. He does, however, explain more about this cave when you ask him to.

“This place has been around for as long as I can remember. It’s the only place I feel safe, so I spend most of my time hanging out here. The water comes from inland, not the ocean, which is why it isn’t fishy or salty. It might have come all the way down from the only mountain that exists on this island, and they usually rise a bit on the night of the full moon.”

As the conversation continues fluidly, you find yourself slowly leaning into him a bit more. Getting closer as you are getting more comfortable with him being near. The more you hear him speak, the more you are drawn to him, just like earlier when he is singing to you, his voice sounds so soothing that you compare it with being wrapped in a blanket, warm and safe.

“Do you think—there are others living in the forest?” you ask him after a while. “When was the last time you’ve ventured through the island?”

“I can’t really say,” Taehyung answers while looking away. You probably should have wondered about why he is being so secretive about where he had come from, always avoiding the topic when you try to bring it up. You also don’t find it weird that he rarely talks more about the forest when he talks about the island each time you ask, no matter how curious you are about it. Thinking about the island and the thick foliage that had shown you nothing when you came, a pinch of worry grows tight within you.

“What if we’re stranded in this place forever?” you find yourself asking him, not only because you are beginning to feel like there is something terribly wrong about this place, but also wonder if you would survive another journey across the ocean with its storm and unpredictable waves.

“Would that be a bad thing?” he asks you, distracting you from your thoughts while your heart jumps when you realise how much closer to you he had gotten. “You have me. I can keep you safe and there would be nothing else for you to worry about. No more storms, no hunger or drought, no one to doubt you of what you can do. I can protect you, spoil you with everything you need.”

His words shouldn’t make you feel good, or hopeful, or make you feel giddy with happiness or joy. You shouldn’t want to accept his offer, to simply give in and stop trying to figure out how to get out of here and find your way back home. You shouldn’t want more, and you really shouldn’t feel the urge to pull him even closer.

“Sing for me again,” you whisper to him as you lean in towards him, meeting him halfway before he can slide any closer. He looks at you, silently studying your face before asking,

“You want to listen to me sing? Are you sure?”

Once again, he gives you a question that makes you feel curious, confused, making you feel as if there is something that he is not telling you. But being close to him like this seems to muddle your brain a little, making it hard for you to think clearly or to consider the possibility that something is wrong with you asking him to sing for you or to be craving for his beautiful voice.

“How can I not? Your voice is beautiful. I’ve never heard anyone who can sing so beautifully as you could. And your voice makes me feel calm,” you tell him just as he reaches up, tucking away a stray hair that has fallen down to your face, while your whole body shudders when you feel his touch.

Then his other hand comes up, touching your elbow lightly just as you are swaying on the edge of your seat. A spark appears right where he is touching you. It feels foreign, and yet amazing at the same time, when it lights up every nerve ending while sending a rush of pleasure down your body in a way that you had never felt before.

You find yourself leaning to his touch to feel more, to relish in the wonderful feeling that he is giving you. But, much to your dismay, Taehyung pulls his hand away the moment he notices that you are safe from falling over the boulder.

“Alright then. I’ll sing for you if that makes you feel good,�� he says, giving you a smile before he begins to sing. The melody coming out of his lips feels just as smooth as wine and just as intoxicating. And just like how you felt earlier when you drank from the lake, your body reacts the same way, when everything inside you feels as if they are coming alive to the sound of his voice.

He stops when you are swaying slowly to his tune, and he watches you with an amused glint in his eyes as if he had been expecting to see this reaction coming from you.

“So beautiful,” you whisper, murmuring softly while your head feels light, and he reaches out to wrap his arm around you, pulling you close to his side.

With a smile on his face and a dark gaze in his eyes, Taehyung leans closer to you until your lips are mere inches apart. “You are beautiful.”

You have no idea who makes the first move, but one moment you blink and your lips are meeting each other the next, joining one another in a gentle kiss. For a moment, you simply sit there, taking your time to wait until everything sinks in. The touch of his lips feels ghostly and fleeting but lovely at the same time. You can feel that he is holding back, ready to stop anytime you push him away. Feeling his hesitance, you press against him and return his kiss before giving him a chance to stop.

The moment he feels you reciprocating by kissing him back, Taehyung becomes even more brazen. His kiss grows deeper, while he tugs you closer to him until you are pressing your palms to his chest.

His hands come up to your face as his lips begin to press harder against yours, as his body comes so close until you feel his chest pressed to your breasts. Your hands come up and fist on his thin tunic, grabbing on the silky fabric until it strains between your fingers while his tongue gives a slow lick across your bottom lip, seeking entrance. You grant it with a soft moan, opening your mouth while the feeling of pleasure pools in your core.

His tongue sweeps into your mouth in one swift move, slowly circling yours as if he is savouring the taste of you, savouring the moment your tongues are tangled together. Another moan escapes from your throat and you feel him smiling against your lips before his kiss turns hungrier, taking everything that you are willing to give him. And you simply give it all. You tilt your head, needing more of him, and your tongues swirl around each other’s while your bodies try to get even closer.

You only come apart once the need to breathe for air comes between you. Yet, even then, his lips never once leave you. Instead of pulling away, he moves his lips down to your neck, licking and biting there as you run your fingers through his curly hair, finding the strands still a bit damp even when the rest of him is mostly dry. He kisses up your neck and continues to trace along your jawline with his sinful lips, before he slowly makes his way back to your lips, devouring them gently before his kiss grows firmer with each stroke of his mouth against yours.

Just as you are returning his touches with the same fervour, slowly giving in to the building desire rising inside your body, one of your feet falls from the boulder you are perched on and touches the water.

With a gasp, you pull back from him, your eyes opening in horror when you notice that the surface of the water from the lake seems to be rising. And it is rising fast. “Taehyung! Oh, no—”

“It’s okay. Come up here,” he huskily whispers as his arms find your waist, wrapping them around you before he easily lifts you up as if you are lightweight.

Instead of simply helping you to rise up right beside him, he picks you up and gently takes you in his arms as he climbs back up the rocks. He continues to carry you away from the edge of the lake, not stopping until he reaches a platform made of stone only a few steps away. The platform is high enough from the ground, and it is located at quite a safe distance from the rising water, allowing you to breathe a sigh of relief as he gently lays you down right next to him. Still recovering from the fright that the rising body of water has given you, followed by the relief of finding a safe spot to avoid drowning, you fail to notice that he had taken you further away from the tunnel leading to your exit.

“Are you alright?” he asks you, turning your attention away from your surroundings to look at him.

“I’m fine now,” you answer him with a relieved sigh, before chuckling nervously. “But how are we going to get out of this place?”

Looking at him, you don’t find any bit of concern in his eyes at your predicament. Instead, he simply remains calm as he holds you close and helps you to sit with him on top of the platform, facing away from the rising water. “I have my ways,” he says while keeping his hands on your waist. “Do you want to leave?”

Keeping your eyes locked on his, you question him in return, “Would you come with me if I do?”

Suddenly, for the first time ever, a deep fear grips the insides of your chest when you look at his face and imagine him saying no. You really cannot explain or understand this feeling. Why would you feel so terrified of having to let him go? Why does it seem so hard for you to be apart from him when you barely even know him?

Despite not knowing the answer, you reach out to him anyway, pulling him to you before he can say anything and starts kissing his lips to steal his words the same way he had done it to you before.

“You surely are one tempting little creature,” he whispers against your lips as he breaks away from the kiss, though he still keeps you in his embrace, his lips remain ghosting over yours while the electrifying sparks that he had ignited through his touch before continue vibrating in the air around you.

Your mind is hazy with all of the emotions and the odd feelings he is bringing to your body that you feel as if you are dreaming. Or perhaps you are somehow drunk, because you suddenly feel like you are imagining things when the crystal blue lights gleaming inside the cavern seem to shift, moving and pulsing together with the racing beat of your heart and the vibration you feel emerging between your bodies.

“What are you doing to me?” you find yourself asking him, genuinely curious to know why you feel such a strong need to touch him and to continue kissing him.

Pulling back, Taehyung only answers you with, “I’ve done nothing. This is all you.” His eyes are wide, both his gaze and his voice show you that he is just as curious as you are, but he also shows no sign of denying it when he gently touches your skin.

His lips find yours again as he slowly pushes you back until you are lying down on the flat surface of the platform. He quickly moves to join you, hovering on top of you to quickly start touching you through your thin blouse and kissing your lips again with the kind of gentleness that has your body melting into him, only to have your kisses losing their fervour when the nagging voice in your head refuses to shut up.

“Is there something wrong?” he asks as he slowly breaks away from the kiss, as if he can sense your hesitation. Though you quickly shake your head to deny it.

“No, nothing is wrong. I was just wondering—”

“About what?”

“If I’m dreaming,” you finally confess to him before biting your lips. His eyes follow the way you have your bottom lip tugged under your teeth, his worries appearing so clearly in his eyes as if he is half expecting to see you hurting yourself that he gently touches your lip so you can let go. Then he quickly replaces it with a kiss, tracing the spot which you had bitten with the gentle strokes of his mouth to take the pain away.

As your breathing grows ragged with the intensity of his kiss, he pulls back and lowers his lips to your throat. “Does this feel like something that would only happen in a dream?” he asks you as he brushes his lips right at the nape of your neck, before he starts going lower, tracing the column of your throat to find your pulse and press a kiss right over it.

“Can’t you feel this?” he asks as he nips at the skin, making you shudder at the delightful way he is teasing you. Then he goes lower, down your throat, finding your collarbone where he kisses and licks at your skin. “Or this?” he asks again without stopping his kisses, though you can barely process any response when the touch of his lips only makes you feel high, your mind becoming too hazy to think clearly while your body cannot resist the pleasure rushing down to your core.

Once again, as your head begins to spin, you begin to question everything. Using the very last bit of your consciousness that is still left, you wonder if you are truly have been enchanted by his strong presence. Because what you are feeling now is overwhelming. You have never felt a desire so strong that you simply feel no urge to stop it, only to feel more.

When he finds your lips once more to capture you into another kiss, his hands find their way down to the hem of your blouse and slip inside. An electrifying jolt rises inside your body when the tip of his fingers come grazing across your skin. It sends pulses rushing so intensely between your legs, while at the same time, snapping your mind into attention. Right in that fleeting moment when your hazy mind is cleared, a memory comes rushing through you to make you stay still while feeling a rush of chill running down your spine.

You remember sneaking into the temples back home, finding the library where the old textbooks are being kept safe. You have always loved getting lost in those books, reading through the stories; both from those of the folktales that the Elders have spoken about so much to the history between Earth and the people of the tribe. Once, you had slipped between the racks to find the ones that had been hidden, the books which talked about the monsters and creatures which the Elders had always warned you about.

The sight of Taehyung singing by the lake when you found him earlier comes flashing in your mind. How his beautiful voice had lured you into searching for him, and how his gentle voice makes your chest feel warm, every part of it reminds you of a certain character that you had seen in the old folktales that you had once read through them.

The sea creatures which have the ability to lure their victim by seducing them with their beautiful voice.

Pulling back from the kiss, you look up to study his face closely. While his face seems like it had been perfectly carved like a piece of artwork with how beautiful he looks, you still refuse to believe that he is something else other than a wonderfully good looking man with an alluring voice. You take a moment to study his face, trying to look for anything that might seem unusual, only to find all the best features that a man could ever have.

His sharp nose, defined jawline, everything that had caught your eyes the first time you saw him still makes you swoon and it is simply hard for you to find anything wrong with any of it. You reach up, pulling at his curly hair to make him look at you. The touch draws out a grin on his face, and you breathe a sigh of relief when you see his human teeth instead of sharp-looking teeth that might be able to hurt you.

Pulling him down to you slowly, you kiss him briefly on the lips before trailing down to his neck, making sure that you are kissing his soft skin instead of finding gills hiding under his long hair. A sharp gasp comes out of his lips when you nip at his skin, teasing him the same way he did to you. He pulls away once you let him go, though not without letting the tips of your fingers touch his skin. You can feel his body shuddering against yours, letting you know that he is feeling the same sparks rushing through his body from your touch.

Looking deep into his eyes, you find the only thing that you find peculiar but nothing that makes you want to run away. His eyes are glowing as he looks at you, reflecting the crystal blue gleam coming from the bright lake and the cavern walls around you. As he leans back in once again, you feel him nudging your legs apart while sliding one of his legs between your thighs. There is no need for you to confirm that he does have his legs pressing down against yours instead of anything resembling a fishtail, much like what the old books you found years ago had depicted.

Just then, once your body grows lax beneath him, Taehyung presses his lips right at yours once again, though his kisses immediately grow more urgent as he trails them down your neck, coming a bit firmer against your skin as he finds your pulse to feel the way your blood is rushing through your body the more your heartbeat is racing faster under his touch.

“Stop me,” he grunts desperately as he buries his face at the nape of your neck, as if the move can help hold him back from losing control.

“What?”

He pulls back to look at you, showing you his vulnerability for the first time when you catch the sight of his agony in his gaze. “Stop me from going further if you don’t want this,” he repeats himself, sounding broken all of a sudden as if stopping now would hurt him. Perhaps just as much as it would hurt you.

While his lips are no longer keeping contact with your skin, you can still feel the connection through his fingers that are still running circles on your bare waist as he had somehow managed to push your blouse further upward while you were lost in his kiss.

Perhaps you actually have gotten yourself enchanted, lost in the magical spell that may either be coming from him or from this odd place that seems like a part of a fairy tale. Because no matter how peculiar this situation may seem, and even if you had never done such a thing with someone that you had just met, you find that you really don’t want to stop whatever is about to happen.

“How much further do you want to go?” you find yourself asking him beyond the rapid pounding of your heartbeat, suddenly feeling self-aware of how vulnerable you currently are with his body pinning you down and your emotions coming out to the surface, along with the wanton desire that seems to be struggling to be let loose.

“Anywhere you want me to,” he says to you with a gentle voice, while the touch he is giving you softens a notch to ease your worries. He looks at you pleadingly when he adds, “I just got to have you, beautiful. I want to make you feel good. I want to show you that I can make you happy.”

And just like that, all of your fears that keep getting in the way are silenced, placed all the way back in your mind while your needs come forward to make themselves known. “I don’t want to stop.”

Your words become the permission that he needs to continue his advances, allowing him to take the chance and let himself give in to his own needs. The moment he devours your lips with his burning hunger, your body lights up, the sparks that have been vibrating between you feel like fireworks erupting around you. Though the only thing that matters at this point is the way your body comes alive, when a wave of pleasure washes over you as he slips his tongue into your mouth at the same time he presses his thigh against your covered center.

The sound of fabric ripping apart is the first thing you hear before you feel his top falling apart. You don’t even realise that you have been gripping it tightly, and yet you must have pulled it between your fingers when he pushes you over the edge, causing you to put more force than you had ever intended to. Chuckling softly, Taehyung pulls back to slide his torn top off of his body, tossing it away over the platform and out of sight. He props himself on his hands as he hovers above you, looking down at your face with astonishment written all over his face while your eyes find his bare chest more alluring.

He reaches down and swiftly removes your blouse, leaving you only with the thin fabric you wear covering your breasts. But as he lowers himself and presses his lips on the top of your mound, the thin fabric no longer seems relevant when you can still feel his wet kiss, bringing heat down on your sensitive skin while making your nipples grow hard under the thin cover from the way he is playing his mouth over the covered buds.

While he continues to pleasure you, using his mouth and tongue on one breast while his hand works on the other, he runs his free hand down, finding the waistband of your pants to give it a pull. Your muddled brain can only process one thing at a time as they all happen together at once; the sinful way he is playing with your mounds, the way your hand expertly unties your pants before slipping inside through the waistband to find the source of your heat.

You gasp into the kiss when you feel his fingers tracing down your panties, stopping only once he is met with your pubic bone. He gives you a teasing touch, rubbing across your skin in circles without daring to go lower to touch your folds, but the teases are enough to bring the pulsing needs inside your core to increase, to throb so intensely that your body moves on its own, gyrating your hips against his thigh which is still resting right there between your legs to keep them apart.

“Are you sure that you want me to continue?” he asks you again, making sure that you know what you are doing and what you really want. His question is enough to show that he has been nothing but genuine, that he wouldn’t push too much unless you want the same thing as he does.

“Taehyung, please—” you cry out to him while moving your hips again. This time, instead of chasing the friction that you might be able to gain by pressing your covered core against his thigh, you move your hips to guide him to lower his fingers, to help him find where your sweet desire had come pooling so rapidly between your folds.

Seeing how desperate you are getting, Taehyung moves his hand lower, giving you what you want as he slips his fingers down at your folds. He gently pries them open, finding your soaking center before he moves his fingers to find your clit. Each touch he gives you earns a cry of pleasure coming out of your lips, while the slick sound of your arousal coating his fingers becomes the sinful tune that only heightens up your wanton needs, pushing you to roll your hips to the same rhythm as the fingers moving up and down your slit.

“Tell me if this is what you want,” he whispers to you with his lips brushing over yours and his fingers dancing up and down between your folds, touching your pulsing entrance with the tip of a finger while his thumb returns to your clit. You can feel him nudging his finger in, slowly, stopping just as he buries himself all the way to a knuckle, and your hips are moving upward to press into his hand, though he is quick to stop you with a kiss, saying, “Beautiful, tell me what you want.”

“Yes,” you moan softly, writhing back against his touch, trying to take him deeper. You feel like you are on fire, wanton and dirty and unable to stop. Whatever he is doing is only making it worse, and yet he is the only one who can release you from this dark and sinful desire running through your body. “Please, Taehyung. I want you so badly.”

Your words snap him right into action. With one swift move, he pulls his hand out of your pants before capturing the waistband and begins pulling it down before you even have a chance to protest. With flurry movements that you can barely catch with your hazy eyes, Taehyung pulls your pants down your legs, taking your undergarment along with them and tugging your sandals off, then continues to free your breasts from their cover until you are laid bare for him to marvel on.

“Beautiful,” he muses as he takes you in. Then he tugs his own pants down, finding no trouble stripping himself bare when he had remained barefoot and exposed under his clothes.

As he stands before you, standing in his naked glory, you let your gaze run down his body to take him in. If the sight of his bare chest had sent warmth pooling on your cheeks, the sight of his manhood makes your whole body burn with need, and the warmth that you feel begins to travel down south, pooling deep inside your core. His cock looks so rigid, hard from the tip to the base with its head swelling almost red as it bobs against his V line when he moves. The width makes you swallow hard, as you imagine him stretching you wide, and your core pulses as you wonder if he would fit inside you.

You clench your hands to your sides when the urge to reach out and touch him comes over you. With a knowing grin on his face and a gaze filled with hunger in his eyes, Taehyung places his hands on your knees before prying them open gently. The desire in his eyes seems to be dancing together with the gleam reflecting from the body of water around you as he looks down, marvelling at the sight of your glistening folds.

“So, so beautiful,” you barely hear him murmur, too distracted by the intense pulsing rising between your legs now that you are exposed. The cold breeze falling on your wet pussy helps intensify the sensation you feel rising inside you, but it is his gaze that draws your attention the most. The way he is watching you makes it hard for you to breathe, so dark and intense that you feel it on your skin, like an invisible touch when he runs his perusal gaze down your body.

He let go one knee to reach out to your center, parting your pussy with questing fingers and moving his thumb in circles around your clit. His eyes continue to roam up and down your body as he traces his fingers between your folds, teasing you, examining your reaction the entire time he is doing so. You bite your lip and look down your body, watching his wrist move as he guides his fingers to move back and forth at your slit, probing with gentle pressures without entering you. Your skin flushes at the sensation you are feeling, though your eyes remain hazy, as if the pleasure he is giving you makes it hard for you to focus.

“Are you still questioning if you are dreaming?” you hear him asking you without ever stopping, though you are beginning to feel him pressing right at your entrance, teasing you of what he can give you. “Should I show you how real this is?”

The lightheaded feeling is still there, your mind swirling high even if you no longer question whether or not you are drunk or dreaming. But it does seem so hard to believe that the beautiful man kneeling down right before you is actually touching you in all places that nobody had ever touched. And that he seems to truly want you. Being desired is a wonderful thing, you realise, and you want him to show you everything that he can give you.

“Yes,” you breathe out. And then you begin to move, grinding against his palm while forcing his fingers to move deeper inside you. You feel him dipping his fingers in, just a bit deeper, and yet it still isn’t enough. You want him going as deep as he can get. He watches you for a moment, his gaze dark and hungry as it stops right on your heaving chest, watching your breasts rising and falling and moving slightly as you rock into his hand. When you see him biting his lips, you realise that he wants to make you beg, to show him that you want this and not only because he is the one leading you on to finally come to this point.

“Please, Taehyung,” you finally beg him, desperate to feel him, to have him make you feel good. You lean back and prop your hands on the platform, giving him a clear view of your body as you try to fuck his hand. “Please, show me. I want you.”

His jaw goes tight for a second before a smile comes to his face. He drags you closer, forcing your legs to stretch wide as he gently pushes his fingers into your pussy, spreading your pulsing walls apart. He hums his approval when you cry out at his touch, then he groans softly when you pulse and clench around him, as if your body wants to keep his hand buried inside you. He keeps his eyes on you when he begins moving his hand, in and out, just like he would with his cock. The slow slide of his fingers into you feels obscene, yet at the same time, it feels so right, when the pads of his fingers brush against your walls with each stroke. In and out he rouses your body like a plaything for him to do with as he pleases.

You stretch your arms over your head, writhing almost mindlessly against his touch with how close you are to coming, and he only has his fingers getting you there. “Are you close, beautiful? I feel you clenching around me,” he says, just seconds after your muscles contracted briefly around him. It takes you a moment to answer, not knowing how to explain what you are feeling and what he is doing to your body exactly. But you nod once you feel it happening again, letting him know that you are so close to going over the edge.

“Had anyone ever made you feel this way?” he asks, the words coming from him as if they are being dragged right out of him with how rough he sounds. It doesn’t take much for you to shake your head, with the lack of experience you have had in the past with men. Nobody would mess with the Chief’s daughter, after all.

Well, except for that one boy who once dared to try and failed to show you what a man can do with your body.

“No. Never.”

“Such a shame,” he says with a tsk-ing sound on this tongue. “Not a single fucking time?”

Once again, you shake your head. “No,” you whimper when he pushes his fingers as deep as he can, forcing your pussy to pulse with its impending climax. “Not once.”

He hums his disapproval before saying, “I guess we better rectify that, don’t you agree?”

The sound of his low grunt is the only warning that you get before he leans down and his mouth is suddenly on you. He pushes his fingers in right as he captures your clit with his sinful lips, licking and sucking you with so much fervour that for a second, your brain goes numb. But it sure feels good. So good, even, that you can barely breathe. You barely have the chance to enjoy it or to make it last before you are orgasming all so suddenly, your toes curling and your back bowing over the platform. It barely registers to you even as you reach down, grabbing his hair and then grinding your pussy against his face, milking every last bit of pleasure that you can get from his wicked tongue. And he just keeps on giving it to you, sending you from one orgasm to another without so much of a break.

Just when everything feels a bit too much, you feel him shifting between your legs, moving his body closer, and your body tense. As ready you are to fuck him, you really don’t want to rush things, not wanting this moment to end too soon. And like an answer to your silent prayers, he keeps his mouth on you, giving your pussy slow, thorough kisses while his hands remain on your legs to keep them apart. He seems to be taking his time, as if he has all the time in the world to be giving you pleasure and he is enjoying himself doing so.

Slowly, you begin to relax, relishing the small spasms of your climax that are still running wild up and down your body. Your mind unwinding slowly under the ministrations his tongue is giving you and the pressure of his fingers against your thighs, holding you open for him and binding you in place. “Gods, that feels good,” you whisper to him when he drags the flat of his tongue over your clit.

“Stay with me, right here,” he whispers against your pussy, making you twitch.

“What?”

“Stay with me,” he says, watching you closely. “I’ll satisfy your needs and make you happy.”

Your mind is muddled with the pleasure he is giving you when his mouth returns to do its work. The nagging fear of failure, the responsibility waiting for you back home which you have no desire to revisit, and the desire to forget everything and live for yourself come pushing forward from the back of your mind. Mixed in with the drunken state of your mind which seems to linger ever since you entered this cave to meet him, the words just come spilling out of your mouth, “I would if I could. I want to. I’d rather stay with you—”

—rather than to go back and face all the bad things happening in the world.

Your eyes open to him when he stops, a grin appears on his face. “Good,” he says, and then his mouth is on you again, resuming his action to fuck you with his slow tongue.

Just when you had thought that it would be impossible for you to come again, he coaxes your pleasure to its peak, easing you back to the cutting edge of your climax. Quicker than any sane mind could imagine, you are sent whimpering and writhing as you roll your hips to grind against his mouth, chasing the edge. “Oh my fucking—why does that feel so good?”

“Because I know what you need,” he groans between each lap of his tongue. “And I have all the time in my life and all the patience we would ever need to make it happen, to show you all the pleasure in the world that I can give you.”

“Don’t stop,” you beg him as you continue rolling your hips, pushing yourself to the edge until you are finally slipping into the precipice, suspended between one lick to the next, and then you are free-falling down the other side. You come so hard that a shriek escapes your lips, your thighs clamp down around his head until he slips his hand to wedge them wide open again. He continues his assault until your bones turn to putty and you collapse against him, begging and pleading him breathlessly, “No more. Oh god, no more.”

His low and dark chuckle seems to promise you no mercy, and yet he stops anyway, sitting back while dragging his thumb over your nether lips and parting you as if he still cannot get enough of looking at your most sensitive part. “I will remember this moment,” he murmurs, earning your gasp. You are amazed not only by his words, but also by the way he is saying it, all while he has your wetness coating his mouth and chin. At this angle, he looks like a savage, with all that mess that he doesn’t bother cleaning up as he continues to stroke his fingers gently into your pussy.

“I want to remember this too,” you whisper back, keeping the sight of him in your memory while letting your body remember all the wicked things he is doing to you.

Taehyung smiles as he hears you. “Are you sure you want to stop now?”

Instead of giving him an answer, you prop yourself up on your elbow and reach out to wrap your hand around his girth, stroking him gently until he groans and bucks his hips into your hand. “No, but I want you inside me.”

He pulls out his hand from your pussy, making you whimper at the loss of touch. Yet the sight of him shuddering under your touch gives you a different kind of pleasure. It makes you believe that you also enjoy making him feel good, and you can do this for a long time if he would let you. The size of his girth makes it impossible for you to fully wrap your palm around him that you end up using both hands to do it, stroking him slowly and gently until you feel him twitching against your palm. Before you can give him more, Taehyung clasps at your wrists and pulls your hands away.

“I need to be inside you,” he groans, while his cock bobs along with every word he says.

“Yes,” you can barely say the words. “Please fuck me, Taehyung.”

He wastes no more time after hearing you speak and captures your lips, kissing you deeply and letting you taste yourself from his mouth and tongue. With his hand still wrapped around your wrists, he gently guides you to lie back, and he follows you right after with his mouth still peppering messy kisses on yours as he refuses to come apart from you.

Coming down on you, his body immediately blankets yours. His mouth finds your breasts, sucking, licking and biting your nipples until you are thrashing around beneath him. As your body continues to move, your legs come apart and spread around him, allowing him to settle down in between. You open your eyes to meet his gaze, finding the unspoken question in his glowing eyes which you answer with a quick nod, and then he is slowly sliding inside you, his cock slipping between your walls which give a few intense pulses as they give in to his wide girth. You cannot catch your breath, cannot do anything but watch his thick cock disappearing inside you, shivering as the tip notches at your depth.

He begins moving, keeping his pace slow and steady even if he wants nothing more but to pound into you. The first few strokes feel pretty uncomfortable. Even if you are wet and ready enough, he is much too big, too hard, and a bit too long that it takes a few hard strokes into you before you are fully adjusted to him. The moment your pussy gives in, he begins moving faster, increasing his pace little by little until he is buried deep and each thrust knocks the air right out of your chest.

His lips move up your chest, to your neck, finding your ear where he nibbles for a moment before he continues to move until he finds your mouth. He swallows your moans as you start kissing as if your lives depend on it. As if he is the one giving you the oxygen to breathe.

He moves his tongue in and out of your mouth, pumping it quite at the same pace as his cock, making it feel as if you can feel him everywhere. Every inch of your body pulses for him. Your pleasure is rising higher, your muscles are coiling tighter, and he makes everything feel more intense with each relentless pound of his cock inside your depth. You barely notice it when he lifts your legs higher, making you open yourself wider when he guides your legs to wrap around his waist, allowing him to push harder, reach deeper, until everything around you spins as you are taken to a new height.

He keeps on pushing in, moving in and out of you, increasing his pace until he is pounding into you rapidly that everything around you becomes nothing but a blurry image of a cave. He keeps repeating his thrusts with equal force until your whole body quakes beneath him as the waves of your orgasm comes engulfing you. Your muscles are pulsing tightly around him as you move closer to your release. But then the voice inside your head returns, questioning the surrealness happening at this moment, and of how much pleasure he is giving you and how much you can take.

“Fuck, beautiful, I’m going to come. Come with me, together,” he hisses through gritted teeth, increasing the speed of his movements, letting his groin brush against your clit with every stroke he is giving you.

“Not yet,” you refuse him with a moan as you push against his chest and use the grip you have on his waist with your shaking legs still wrapped around him to flip your bodies around until he is the one lying down and you are sitting on his lap, still keeping his cock buried deep inside your pussy.

Taehyung looks surprised at your action, but the shock wears off rather quickly and he simply lies back, letting you make this choice and decide your next move. Any of part of this situation may have never crossed your mind when you entered the cave today, when you only came in to search for the beautiful creature singing for you instead of riding the aforementioned being the way you are now. And yet, somehow, through all the hazy reasoning that had placed you on this path, you are beginning to believe that you are meant to be here, to enjoy this moment and this pleasure.

To find him.

Adjusting your position, you feel his girth brushing and shifting against your throbbing walls, earning a soft cry leaving your lips. Once you find the perfect angle to allow him to move easily, you press your hands down on his chest, using it as leverage as you bring yourself up, far enough until you feel the tip of his cock lodged between your entrance. You let gravity takes over as you sink slowly back down his cock, somehow going further than you had risen until you feel your buttocks resting on his lap, as if he had yet to bury himself all the way down to the base when you feel him going further.

He feels so big and so deep that you are left panting and writhing as you move on his cock. “That feels so good,” you cry out, while his hands move up to your hips, helping you fight your way to slide up and down his length while taking all of his width inside you.

“Yes, that’s it, beautiful. Take it all,” Taehyung groans breathlessly, relishing on the perfect way your walls are engulfing him. And then he is moving his hips to meet each of your thrusts, ramming his cock inside you each time you come down, knocking your breath out with every single pump. Your breast shakes with the force of your fucking. Your nipples have become so hard that they hurt, so you reach up to grab them, easing your palms against each hard nub to make yourself feel good.

With a gentle hand, Taehyung pries your hand away from one breast as he sits up, capturing the hard tip with his mouth while he guides your hand down, making you touch your clit and pressing down while he continues to guide you up and down his length, moving faster and faster until there is no stopping it when all the different sensation coming and happening to you at once sends you right over the edge.

His mouth moves away from your breast with his hand taking its place. He swallows your gasp with a kiss, before he moves his mouth down your neck, finding where your neck and shoulder meet to press his mouth. You feel his teeth grazing on your skin, before a sharp pain comes stabbing you when he bites, hard enough to inflict a wound on your skin. With a cry, you writhe on top of him to fight him off. Yet for some odd reason, your body pulses, and the pain subsides into pleasure, igniting the one rising from the depth of your core until it becomes the only thing you can feel as he keeps pumping his cock into you.

And then you are finally there, exploding into an intense orgasm and thrashing around on his lap, arching your back and crying out his name. With each intense pulse of your orgasm, you are taking him there with you until he too explodes inside you with a deep grunt. The last thing you hear is his deep grunt, sounding more like a low growl when he fills you up with his cum, before you succumb into the darkness that your climax is sending you into.

Content. Sated. Enamoured.

Those are the feelings that come over you when you are slowly awakened to his singing voice, serenading softly to your ear. Both the sound of his voice and the trickling sound of water feel so soothing that you let yourself get swayed for a while longer, keeping your eyes closed to savour the feeling still running through your body. It won’t be for another while until you come awake once more, slowly opening your eyes this time to take in your surroundings and marvelling at the magical place one last time.

At some time while you were too busy getting frisky to notice your surroundings, the water from the lake had stopped rising. But you are quick to realise that the body of water is still quite high even as time had passed by, leaving only the tall boulders spread around you and the platform where you are lying on standing tall above the surface, and only a small patch of sand left around the opening of the dark tunnel leading to your way out.

Right beside you, Taehyung has his eyes closed, though the soft hums coming from deep inside his throat lets you know that he is awake. He has his arm around you, keeping you to his side while you rest your head on his chest and your palm brushing against his bare stomach.

“I really don’t want to move,” you whisper to him, making him stop singing and smile. Seeing him so relaxed like this makes you smile as well, even if he cannot see it. After all that heated lovemaking and fucking, you feel not only the calm and sated feeling in your body, but also a delicate warmth fluttering in your chest. It is something that you had never felt before. Not with all the boys or men who had tried to court you in the past.

“Why would you need to move?” you hear him asking, still with a smile on his face and with his eyes closed.

“You don’t really expect us to keep lying down here in this cave, do you?”

Taehyung chuckles and opens his eyes to say, “There’s nothing wrong with that as long as we’re together.”

Chuckling at his silliness, you turn away from him and roll your eyes. Against your better judgement, you look around one more time, your gaze falling on the small void on top of the cave this time to notice that there is no change happening in the sunlight which had made its way into the cavern. Still murky grey, still dull, still no change even after you had fallen asleep a few times, and even after the few more times he had taken you in between just to keep you in the state of being putty and foggy.

Even without knowing the time, it is not hard to tell that hours and hours have passed since the time you came into this cave.

“Isn’t it supposed to be dark already?” you question this after wondering why it is yet to turn nightfall when it should have been. While your body begins to tense at the realisation, Taehyung remains lax beside you.

“Time doesn’t move when you are inside this cave. It stops still, no matter what,” he says so nonchalantly without any expression on his face.

You laugh it off, thinking that he is joking with you. Except that the moment you look at him, you see no sign of humour in his eyes, not even a smile on his face to show you that he is only messing with your head.

“You’re joking, right?” you ask him, trying to make sure that he is only playing with you. But then a chill grip comes into your chest when he only furrows his brows at you curiously and chuckles softly.

“Why would I be joking?”

The grip in your chest tightens with fear when you realise that he is being serious, and you immediately jump to your feet, staggering a little when the sudden movement makes you feel a bit dizzy. But you manage to balance yourself on your two legs that had turned soft like jelly, swaying for a moment before rushing to find your clothes.

Taehyung has only been watching you while you rush to gather your belongings, but then he grows more alert the moment he notices you dressing up. “What are you doing?”

“I—I’m sorry, but I have to go back,” you nervously answer him while looking away. Suddenly, the red flags and the warning signs that you had constantly ignored are flashing through your mind, making it hard for you to overlook them this time. This cave, the odd-looking water that had the same effect as either the strongest wine or Elder Morri’s remedy, and him—how his voice seems to make your mind go fuzzy whether when he is singing or talking, when everything about him seems to be synchronised with the cave that always looks like it is breathing, not to mention the sparks you feel when he touches you.

How can you be so stupid?

“What?” he asks you urgently as he jumps to his feet and rushes to your side. His eyes have grown wide while he was watching you put your clothes back on and he is now looking more alarmed when he realises what you were saying to him. “What are you talking about?”

With a deep exhale of breath, you turn to look at him. “I’m not sure how much time has passed, and I know without a doubt that Namjoon is looking for me. I don’t want to make him worry,” you say to him in the most even-tempered manner possible, only to not alarm him further or to show how panicked you are on the inside as you think about Namjoon.

Is he even still out there?

How much time has actually passed since you were gone?

Something about you mentioning Namjoon’s name seems to make Taehyung snap. In place of his shock comes rage, and you watch with wide eyes when he grits his teeth as he gets angrier by the minute. “I told you not to worry about him,” he says while seething in anger. His voice lowers that it comes out nearly as a growl, while his whole body is beginning to vibrate.

“I know, but I can’t. He’s my friend,” you try to tell him, feeling incredibly guilty all of a sudden for even thinking about Namjoon or to think about stepping away. But you shouldn’t feel guilty. You should feel wary of the possibility that you have been deceived.

Why are you not angry? And why are you feeling so much pain just thinking about leaving him?

“I’ll come back to find you. I promise,” you find yourself saying, before a lightbulb moment comes crossing your mind. “No, wait. Why don’t you come with me? We can go together, get out of this place.”

As if he cannot hear you, Taehyung’s frown only grows deeper. “You’re leaving? You—you can’t,” he says while shaking his head frantically. “Why are you leaving?” He says this roughly with almost a shout, before he begins rambling to himself while he is still shaking his head, “I don’t understand, why is it not working with you?”

The grip of fear in your chest only tightens as you watch him go on like this. He has yet to pull his clothes on, still bare to your eyes with his skin glowing from the bright lake, but the sight only instils more fear within you when he looks not only savage and intimidating in his height and form while looking like he is completely out of it. “Taehyung? Come on, you’re scaring me. What are you talking about?”

“You said you wanted to stay with me, right here. You’re supposed to stay,” he keeps on rambling for a moment before turning back to you again, shouting at you, “You promised me!”

“I—” your words simply fail you as you flinch at his outburst. “I said that I would stay if I could, but—” It takes quite an effort for you to find the right words to say, before you finally tell the truth, “But that’s unrealistic. I have to go back. My people are waiting for me. For us. Namjoon is waiting for me right now.”

At this, he begins shaking his head again, faster and growing more frantic as he mumbles. “No, no, no—”

The pain that you see in his eyes hurts you so badly that you want nothing more but to reach out and hold him to ease his worries. The emotions are so conflicting that your head spins. “Come with us. Please? Come on, Taehyung,” you nervously say while offering your shaking hand for him to take. But as he looks at you again, it is clear that he is too lost in his frantic mind, still looking so aghast and in disbelief. You almost believe that you even catch a few growls slipping out of his throat.

“I can’t leave. You can’t leave,” he keeps rambling on and on, repeating these words while soft growls come out of his rumbling chest.

Reaching out shakily, you gently touch his elbow to get him to look at you so you can help calm him. “Taehyung—”

Instead of calming down, he only snaps.

The moment he lashes out, as he loses control of his anger, everything about him shifts. His eyes are no longer dark, turning golden yellow with irises forming like those belonging to wild animals. His ears sprout with sharp points growing at the tops. But what surprises you the most is the sight of his skin at the sides of his neck which rips open into gills and his teeth sharpening, changing their form as he shouts with a deep, animalistic voice,

“You promised to stay!”

The sudden changes of his facial features and the sound coming out of his mouth are both so horrific, so unexpected that you scream in horror. In your shock, you step away from him, afraid that he might hurt you, only to have your feet slipping over the edge of the platform and sending you tumbling into the water below.

The splash of water follows your fall. Despite being an averagely good swimmer, the shock you had just experienced still feels so great that you find yourself unable to fight it when you go under, drowning deeper, losing your breath almost immediately as you came down while screaming.

Another, and yet bigger splash follows you behind, and Taehyung appears right before you. His gills are moving and pumping as he breathes underwater, his skin is glowing like tiny diamonds spread all over his body. He moves so fast as he wraps his arm around you and begins to pull you up to the surface that you only catch a glimpse of his lower body, moving swiftly and gracefully in the water as he swims towards the shallow water with you still in his hold. He pushes you gently away once you are up, finding yourself no longer drowning but laying on top of the sand.

Breathing heavily, you crawl away from the edge of the lake, doing your best to keep yourself together before you turn around to him again. The moment you do, finally seeing his full form now that you are an arm’s length away while Taehyung remains in the shallow water, a gasp is caught in your throat when you see that his legs had changed form, showing you a long fishtail with his scales painted in multiple shades of green. His scales also appear in small blotches, spread unevenly on the small side of his face, a part of his upper chest and arms, all in the same colours. Fins had grown on his lower arms, though you didn’t feel any of them when he held you against him as he pulled you up from the deep water.

When you look into his eyes, despite the fact that his irises are now different, you can see that he is hurting. You can see nothing but regret and sadness in his gaze when he returns yours. “______,” he calls your name with a deep voice that sounds distorted, no longer speaking with the same melodic voice that you had come to love. Still keeping his tails in the water, Taehyung reaches out to touch your face, whispering your name in a desperate plea, “_______, please.”

Slowly, you find yourself leaning into him, before he looks over your shoulder, eyes widening in shock and anger as he shrieks. Once again, you jump backwards while screaming in fear, afraid to get hurt, and that is when you feel something flashing by, flying over your head and landing on his tail.

Taehyung shrieks in pain and jumps back into the water, but not before giving you a sight of an arrow pierced into his scales.

“_______! Stay back!”

Everything becomes a blur at that point as Namjoon appears out of nowhere, shooting a couple more arrows into the water while aiming at Taehyung. Most of them miss him only by mere inches, before Taehyung, in his full siren form, leaps out of the water the moment Namjoon steps into the shallow water to put himself between you and this terrifying-looking creature you had known as Taehyung. Tossing his bow and arrow to the side, Namjoon pulls out his dagger and jumps into the water to follow Taehyung as the siren submerges into the deeper water.

You begin crying, screaming, all while feeling hopeless because you have no idea how to help or how to stop the fight. But most of all, you fear for Taehyung’s safety as you watch Namjoon’s relentless attack coming to him in rage. You scream out their names, wishing they would stop, hoping that Namjoon would hear you and stop trying to hurt the siren.

The sight of blood seeping through his tail and his glowing skin that you see each time he comes to the surface hurts you on the inside. No matter how terrified he had made you feel, the last thing you ever want is for him to get hurt. For either of them to get hurt.

The fight lasts only for another couple of minutes which almost seem like hours before you feel everything around you shifting. Just like how you had felt the cave pulsing together with Taehyung’s voice and the sound of your heartbeat, as Taehyung’s rage grows more and more feral, as Namjoon’s attack grows more frantic, the cave pulses wildly, the crystals on the walls begin reflecting the lights more frantically, before the lake finally moves, rising and crashing against the rocks.

“Namjoon!” you call out to your friend as a massive wave rises from the deeper side of the cave, from the part of the lake which had been the darkest. Namjoon looks up with a curse flying out of his mouth and he pushes forward, slamming his whole body into Taehyung until the siren is sent flying into the bottom of the waves.

“We have to go, now!” Namjoon shouts at you as he turns around, taking you by the waist and lifting you up from the ground before he starts carrying out of the cavern. Lifted in his arms, you look over his shoulders with horror as you watch the wave rising so high it reaches to the ceiling. Right below it, Taehyung looks at you one last time with a sad smile and a pained look in his eyes before he turns away, letting the wave engulf him and taking him down with it as it settles to calm.

The sight of the siren disappearing in the water becomes the last thing you see before you lose any sight of the hidden chamber as Namjoon carries you further away from it, taking you back towards the world outside.

It had not only been a day when you disappeared inside that cave.

Once Namjoon managed to take you back on the boat, he tucked you under the tarp and began to set sail to leave the island before you could snap out of your shock and stop him. He waited until you were calmed before he finally told you his side of the story.

It was only an hour before the sunset when Namjoon came out of the forest, when the woods had become too dark for him to be able to track down anything. But he returned to an empty camp, with you nowhere to be found. No trace or tracks left behind for him to give him a hint as to where you might have gone to—even if you had insisted that you had seen your own tracks on the sand before entering the cave. He had tried to trace down the small patch of beach, yet even when he had stumbled upon the rocky cliff and ventured around it, he didn’t see any sign of the entrance leading to the cavern as the water from the ocean had risen to cover the path leading to it. He had given up looking for you when night came, hoping that you would return on your own, only to wake up with you still gone. Hours and hours he spent the next day to find you, all while trying to find any tracks of a tribe that may be living in the area, and he found neither one. Though he did manage to gather some supplies to bring on the next journey across the ocean.

It wasn’t until the next dawn when he finally found out where you were. He was making his makeshift bow and arrows with the dry branches he had collected the day before when he heard you screaming. The sound sent him on alert, and he brought his weapons to follow the source of your screaming until he finally found the cavern’s mouth and followed the path inside.

The first thing he saw was the devilish creature trying to touch you while you were in fright, and the first instinct that came to him was to protect you from the monster.

He felt no remorse for attacking Taehyung, knowing that it was his duty to keep you from harm. “You know what he was, don’t you? You know what he was intending to do with you,” Namjoon had said while the boat calmly sailed through the night, trying to make you see sense while you kept on sulking at him for hurting your friend.

Namjoon would never be able to understand. Because he could never understand what you felt when Taehyung got hurt. How the pain inflicted on Taehyung’s body sent the same pain through yours. And when he looked at you with so much pain and heartbreak, it had broken your soul into pieces at the same time. It still hurts so bad that you have no idea how you are going to live with a big hole growing inside your chest that appeared since the moment Taehyung vanished into the water.

But Namjoon was also right. You know what Taehyung was. He was the same creature that you had feared he would be. You had known when he got so upset the moment he realised that his magic didn’t work on you. It never did, you realise now, when you were still fully conscious and sober when you were making love to him. And then your suspicions were confirmed when you saw his true self.

A siren. The creature who had lured you with his voice. And he was trying to make you join him in his world when he kept you in that cave.

“Is that what I think it is?” Namjoon’s voice snaps you out of your thoughts, and you look up to see what he is currently pointing at. Right ahead of you, appearing out of nowhere as if it had just risen from the horizon is the sight of land. You raise your binoculars to take a better look just as the boat continues to sail closer, until you can finally see its coast—the long spread of beach covered in white sand—and then the well-maintained forest at its center, accompanied by the sight of smokes appearing on various sights on the land, the sign of houses and its fireplaces and burning stoves.

The closer you get, the better you see. A group of people emerge from the trees, carrying spears and bows and arrows as they all anticipate your arrival. You quickly lower your binocular and turn to Namjoon. “Our tribe’s flag. Where is it?”

“Under the tarp.”

You quickly rush to find it, raising it high above your head just when you think the people might be able to see it, and start waving it side to side to show them that you are friendly. The moment they recognise the tribe’s sign, all the intimidating men starts lowering their weapons, and you begin to see them shouting at each other to prepare for your arrival. Just then, an old woman comes to them, a tribe's Elder who looks familiar. A little younger, and yet she resembles perfectly well to Elder Mai. So much that they could look like twins if you compare them together. The woman smiles at you from afar, while you find it hard to return it even as relief comes to your chest.

“It’s them. We’re finally here. We’ve found them,” you murmur softly as Namjoon continues to steer the boat towards the island, while your mind travels further away.

Back to the cursed island where you were stranded on. Back to the magical cavern and its healing lake that you had thought to be the Fountain of Life—it wasn’t, Namjoon had said, convincing you over and over until you finally believed him. Back to the middle of the ocean just last night, when you could faintly hear a deep voice serenading to you as you took over the sail while Namjoon was asleep. Back to where you left your heart and soul, even as you continue to sail away while carrying a new hope, a new life, in search of the salvation that you had promised your people, the same salvation which is now waving at you from only a few meters away.

You keep your eyes on the island ahead of you as the boat approaches them carefully, while you silently send your gratitude and relief to the Gods for leading you here. You greet the Elder with a forced smile as you arrive, while you press your palm on your flat stomach, right where your biggest secret lies.

↳ The story continues — The Forsaken II: Tears of the Sea

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