Maybe you fall asleep in the arms of a dream,

So beautiful, you’ll wake up crying…

-Michael Faudet-

They said, Siren is just a myth who lived between the cliffs and corals. The anomalous creatures who liked singing to outwit the imprudent ships. A siren is described as an enchanting, alluring and devastatingly intoxicating woman with long red locks stopped at its hips—a remarkable beauty that reputedly will be mesmerizing whoever has seen it. A legendary myth that never stopped to frighten out the swarms of pirates out of their wits. Some of the survived ships brought the story of a frustratingly beautiful mermaid existence on an island called Sirenum Scopuli that surrounded by the corals and high cliffs.   

The story had been developed from time to time that the anomalous creature on it was half human body—half fish’ tail. The rumors had been awakening that young man’s curiosity since the first time he heard it. A young captain who is respected by all of his enemies—a form of menacing intrepidity—even to ruthless, malignant, venomous pirates who possessed the southern sea.

“Everything’s ready, Captain!” A crew shouted from the bow of the ship.

Kang Minhyuk blinked briefly before he nodded and move on from where he stood. He then ordered his crews pulling the anchor and departed. Apparently, that young man was pretty impatience to meet the myth and verifying if she’s that beautiful just like the witnesses had seen. Some of them called it a mermaid.

An immortal being that’s always been pulling the sailors to the seabed to take their souls and annihilated. Some of the witnesses said those victims are eaten. The sirens come to two or five. It’s unclear, unconfirmed but Minhyuk has to meet with that creature. Some of the crews that he’d been worked with are his friends and the rest of them are the bondservants from a king in Poland plain.

Minhyuk looked at the oceans with a pair of his small eyes, squinting like he’s been ready to conquer everything that would be crashing them down. Only the brave ones who’d be able to sail that far. And of course, he definitely is not a coward to sail through the vast oceans that forever would be a part of God’s mystery which he admires the most.

He laughed at his narrowed mind. God? Where’s the God? He doesn’t even know him.

A sharp grin formed on his lips. Soon, he’ll meet the anomalous creature. Countervailing against the jeopardies could have been pushed his adrenalin to work ten times harder, faster and he liked it, very. There was a time when he almost died because of having a war with a mighty, sadistic pirate with body full of scorch came from Japan—the barbaric throne of the eastern sea, scramble for the spoils of the war. And see? Kang Minhyuk is still standing on his glorious ship, smiling haughtily splitting the sea, taking all the control for everything around him.

“Yya! I know that you can’t wait to meet the siren and knock her out, but you don’t need to smile all alone like this.” A voice sounds annoying from behind his back, “Crazy.” A low chuckle that came out of that man made him holding back the urge to hit that man on the head.

“You are not allowed to speak offhandedly to your Captain!”

That man shook his head mocking to Minhyuk’s words, “So, you brag about your position that is useless in front of your father? Aigoo… ckckck.” He smirked.  

“I don’t care.” Minhyuk said indifferently, “Have I been provided beautiful es in your room, Jungshin-ah?” That guy squinted, hands on his hips.

“Yeah, but apparently they are not my type.” The man named Jungshin drew a heavy breath.

“Since when did you change your type, huh? They’re just kind of your taste.”

“Since you asked me to sail today just for satisfying your unusual curiosity, Kang Minhyuk.” He worded. Lee Jungshin—the man with a pair of long legs, Kang Minhyuk’s only best friend. A best friend who went around the world with him, thousand times, shouting, laughing, and murdering together every time they got a fight with some of the trash of the treasure hunters and of course, disgusting animal party partner. 

The Captain chuckled, “What? You want that siren?”

Jungshin crossed his arms over his chest, “No, thank you. But only for this time, you hear me, Kang Minhyuk. Only for this time, I feel scared to death when you said that we’ll meet the stupid siren. And too bad, she could be my bloody assassin without me could fight her, copy that?!” Jungshin’s eyes grew rounder, frankly vocalized out his fear.

The small eyes guy laughed heartily. So annoying till Jungshin has the urge to clog his mouth with ship’s wheel. Too bad, he could only stare at the captain, grumbling inside his own mind, “Look, stupid…” Minhyuk said when his laughter faded slowly, “Don’t you like beautiful woman?”

“I like them who could entertain me, not the one who gotta kill me like I’m a small Dory and she’s freaking shark.” He muttered, so low Minhyuk couldn’t hear it.

“She’s not a shark. They said she’s a mermaid, Lee Jungshin.”

“Oh really? You haven’t seen her with your very own eyes so shut your ing mouth up, Kang Minhyuk! How if you’re hypnotized by her melodious voice and pretty face? That will be the end of your history as the most brutal pirate. You’ll appear as ‘Kang Minhyuk—the stupid pirate who died on the hand of a siren because he was too desperate after Jung Soojung’s death’ instead, what a ty news, right?” Jungshin blurted out without space.

Minhyuk’s eyes grew bigger. In one fast movement, that guy had clutched Jungshin’s shabby collar shirt, so tight till his knuckles turned white, “Don’t you dare to spell that name with your mouth or I’ll make sure that your body will be a shark’s side dish down there!”

Yes. Jung Soojung. Is a heartfelt girl who made him understand that everyone has their own reasons to survive, to live their lives equally. The only girl who made him lost directions when the sea swallowed her dead body. Minhyuk turned heartless and became the most brutal Captain ever existed in the world.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean it, okay?” Jungshin’s voice sounded squeaked because trying too hard holding back the pain that came from Minhyuk fist pressed his Adam’s apple.

The captain frowned deeply, trying to formulate Jungshin’s simple apology. They used to throw dirty jokes about es but this time, he assumed that his best friend had passed the boundaries. He got angry when the name of his girl spelled out of the other man. Kang Minhyuk has the privilege to say her name, too, only be said in his heart. Too difficult to bear with and it pained him, so much he wanna die.

His jaws tighetened, his teeth gritted lowly. The tropical wind of the sea turned his face skin reddened. Don’t forget with the emotions Jungshin had been created between them that makes his facial expressions darkened, “This is the last warning, Jungshin-ah.”

“I… get it.” The lattest said, stammering. Minhyuk’s grip loosened up slowly till it undone. He upholds his shoulders, his feet dragged backward when his emotions slowly evaporated. His breathing sounded so loud as if he’s letting his anger that built up in his lungs gone.

The sun shone brightly, so bright he might blind. The clumps of white clouds were ornamenting the blue sky. The sea breeze blows softly caressing Minhyuk’s face, a face made of the sharp lines screaming for perfection and maturity. His crews run the ship just fine and the rim was too quiet. A good day to go fishing instead of hunting for a siren.

“Tell Jungkook to speed up the ship!” Was his way to cast out Lee Jungshin softly before he lost his temper.

“Okay.” Jungshin answered shortly.

***

The sun has sunk almost an hour ago. His ship was almost reaching the mystical island he aimed for after sailing in a month. The sky should be brighter because the wind felt too hot to endure since that afternoon. But, the more they reached the cursed place, the weather turned worse. Minhyuk ordered his crews to get ready on their own positions, are being on alert if anything unwanted happens.

His face was darkened, bug-eyed, secretly brooding. His ears perked, body was all wrought-up watching the situations around them. Sirenum Scopuli is seen so quiet from his view—too quiet till he thought that he’s gone too paranoid. His long legs that covered up with a pair of shabby, dirty shoes colliding against the deck of the ship made of wooden. Slowly, anxiety got the best of him when the anomalous creature who’d known because of its enchantment wasn’t revealing its existence. 

Strong wind blows from the north. The tranquility of the sea water changed to the high tide. The waves roll up crashing down the aft of the ship. So hard it makes Minhyuk’s ship swaying. He screamed on the top of his lungs at Jungshin to keep his eyes on Jungkook who is incompetent to keep the ship in balance. The captain was quite busy waiting for the siren to appear right before his nose till he did not realize that the weather became bloody malignant and the oceans looked hideous.

Only Kang Minhyuk—the Captain who is known as an arrogant, impassive guy—didn’t realize that they’re on the edge of their lives. Some of the crews in the aft of the ship screaming in horror when—for the nth time—their ships got attacked by the high waves, turned the ship moving up and down. The other ones were holding on to the nearest pillars tightly, with legs wobbly after witnessing the huge, high waves crashed the seven-feet-tall, steep, sturdy cliff.  

It’s a blessing in disguise when they ship wasn’t sinking that very seconds because if it’s shipwrecked, right now, right here, they will definitely be the siren’s main course till their bones are impossibly discovered by people—the same insane, idiotic people who couldn’t hold their curiosity just like Kang Minhyuk. Their dead body woul