The blade of the knife dug into Rin's throat at the same moment he heard Haru scream his name. Rin had just drawn what he was sure was his last breath when he felt a small dribble of blood trail down his collar.

I'm alive...

'Sorry about that,' Rin heard the sailor say, in a self-satisfied voice. 'I had a twitch.'

The cool point of the knife had pressed against Rin's throat whilst the blade skimmed his collar, creating a small, open slit that hadn't gone any deeper than skin. Rin opened his eyes to see Haru next to him, taking in deep breaths.

But that wasn't the only thing Rin noticed: there was water covering the surface of the rock. Although before the rock had been several centimetres above the water level of the cave, from the time Rin had closed his eyes and felt the knife against his collar-a period of less than two seconds-water had risen up from nowhere and soaked him up to his lap, swirling in a vortex around him... but he was in a cave: there wasn't any wind. Rin was pushed up-knife still against his throat- and was made to walk out of the cave onto the beach, the second sailor carrying Haru behind him. The rest of crew from Mikoshiba's former ship were gathered on the sand by an edge of the jungle. Mikoshiba rushed up to Rin.

'Matsuoka?! Is that... no?!'

Mikoshiba quickly forgot about Rin when he noticed Haru in the arms of the sailor behind him, his tail wrapped in a net. Mikoshiba's eyes glimmered as he examined Haru-mentally assessing his worth-and the sailor holding Rin hostage explained the situation. Rin was tied to a tree with some salvaged rope, Haru placed on the sand beside him.

'Are you alright?' Rin asked, even though he looked a lot worse than Haru-Rin's white sailors uniform was bloodstained from the cut on his neck, and fine trembles were still running through him at the experience of almost having his throat slit.

'Rin?'

'What is it?'

'Kiss?'

'No,' Rin managed weakly. 'Not now. The other sailors are watching us.'

'Kiss later?'

'I promise,' Rin replied, wanting to kiss Haru because-if only for a moment- it would help him wind down after everything these past few days had hurled at him, but Rin didn't want to give the other sailors an excuse to make him bleed any more.

Rin knew that Haru had probably rescued the other sailors from the tsunami in the hopes of using them as bargaining chips to get Rin to make a 'promise...' but that wasn't going to work now. Something stirred inside of Haru's eyes which frightened Rin; if his blue depths were a sea, Rin knew that a storm was coming inside of them, dark clouds fogging up his irises. Rin listened to Mikoshiba as he talked to a nearby sailor:

'...If we could sell it at an auction, it would be more than worth what we lost in that crash.'

'Captain, would you buy another ship?'

'A new ship wouldn't even scratch it-it has the financial potential to set us all for life! Catching a female siren and selling it is enough for you to live in riches without having to lift a finger, so a male one would be... ah, that thing's a money-maker. You can be sure about that!'

Something inside of Rin coiled at the way Haru had been called a: 'thing.' Momotarou made his way over to Rin and crouched down beside him.

'Iwatobi will have picked up on the fact that our ship stopped broadcasting a location around this island and sent someone to get us by now, so we should be here for two nights, max. My brother wants to keep you hostage, so as long as we get that siren you should be safe... sorry it had to come to this.'

Rin snorted.

'Less than a week ago, we ate and slept together and now you're treating me like shit..?'

'I'm sorry, Rin, but there's money involved-you know the way it works: it's every man for himself in these waters, and... right now, the rest of the crew don't like you. Ever since you joined our ship, sirens have attacked us abnormally and they think you're a bad luck omen-they think you're cursed.'

Then they got one thing right, Rin thought to himself. He tried a shot in the dark.

'Momo, you've been sailing all your life... what do you know about curses?'

'Honestly,' Momotarou stretched. 'I think it's a load of crap but I've heard rumours. They say that whenever a human with strong regrets or unfulfilled desires loses their life in these seas, a demon appears before them and offers to make a deal for a price.'

'What kind of price are we talking?' Rin asked.

'Usually your soul,' Momotarou paused. 'But it depends on what you want-demons are crafty and there's always conditions, so the person who makes the deal usually comes out just as bad as who they want to avenge-in some cases, worse.'

Rin took a moment to disentangle himself from the maze of misinformation in his head.

'Say...' he begun, slowly. 'Say that there were a bunch of women who were kidnapped as sex slaves... a-and their ship crashed and they died at sea... do you think a demon would have appeared before one of them and offered to make a deal to avenge the captain of the ship by putting a curse on all the males of his family... but the deal backfired somehow and the women ended up as sirens as a result of that deal, too?'

'Where the hell did that come from?' Momotarou laughed. 'I don't know because I think it's all superstitious bullshit, but yeah... yeah, I guess that could have happened. Any woman who'd died as a sex-slave would be sure to hate males so she'd have her soul dragged back to life based on those feelings and end up crashing ships until her spirit was freed, gathering more souls for the demon... the demon would have a pretty smooth end of the bargain. But there are about three hundred sirens estimated, so that's a pretty powerful demon... not one I'd want to meet!' Momotarou unfolded himself from the sand. 'But, like I said: superstitious bullshit. You've got a good imagination, Rin.'

Momotarou walked off and Rin turned to Haru, who'd been listening.

'My Dad was dead by the time one of those women made a deal, wasn't he?' Rin asked him. 'The hem of the ship hit the iceberg first, which was where he was steering... so, his spirit would have already passed on, which means I'll be the first male to suffer the consequences of the curse in his name. You said that when the Matsuoka bloodline becomes extinct of males at any point, the curse will end... so does that mean that when I die, the sirens trapped spirits' will be set free and any future generations of my family won't be affected?'

When Haru didn't respond, Rin spoke again:

'You know, your version of the story left out the demons, Haru.'

'Not important.' Haru replied, with a shrug.

Rin wondered about that.


The rescue ship came the next afternoon and all of the crew boarded. Rin took one last look at the sun before it dipped out of sight and he was forced down the steps, into the cargo hold. Haru's hands were bound and a second net was wrapped around his tail before he was dropped on the concrete. All of the crew bar Mikoshiba and Aiichiro-who couldn't seem to face being in the same room as Rin-gathered around Haru in a circle.

'Shit...' Rin heard one of the sailors breathe. 'It's fucking beautiful.'

Haru recoiled a little, shoulders drawing tighter as his fins pricked up at the ends-all of these Rin recognised as signs of tension.

'Leave him alone,' Rin demanded. 'He's sensitive! He doesn't like-'

The words fell on deaf ears; one of the sailors came forward and pulled on Haru's cheek.

'It was a lot prettier when we found it in the cave,' the sailor remarked. 'It's gone all bad now. The skin's dry... disgusting.'

'He's dry,' Rin yelled, angrily. 'Because he needs to be in water! He's fucking aquatic-'

'...don't touch me...' Haru said quietly-so quietly, that Rin almost missed the sound. It was like a whisper in the wind.

'It spoke!' The sailor laughed at Haru. 'Or, what?' He leaned close to Haru's face. 'What are you going to do, huh?'

There was a flash of teeth and Rin saw red spray as Haru reached into the other man's throat and bit down on it, hard. The man gave an agonised scream then went quiet, blood spilling from his neck as his body fell to the floor with wide eyes.

'No... NO-!'

Haru killed him...

Red liquid gushed onto the floor and Rin swayed, his stomach lurching as he saw flakes of the blood on Haru's pale skin, Haru's eyes looking back at him with no sorrow or remorse. Rin was about to collapse when he heard one of the sailors from the circle scream and charge forward, drawing back his fist to punch Haru when Rin grabbed his arm. Rin was shoved down onto the floor as the sailor turned his anger on him.

'You're-going to-fucking-defend it?' The sentence was punctuated by kicks. 'After what you just saw, you think that thing deserves to stay alive? I say we should sell it dead-'

'STOP IT!' Momotarou grabbed the sailors arm to hold him back. 'You're going to kill Rin... stop it! We'll shut the siren in a cage... noone else is to go near it until we reach shore.'

Haru was taken deeper into the cargo hold and curled up inside a cage that was meant for a large dog with scarcely enough room for him to sit, his spine bent over slightly. In the dark of the room, Rin could only see faint outlines: Rin had insisted on coming with Haru, a sailor keeping watch over them both by the door. There were bruises on Rin's ribs and he was a little bloody, but otherwise unharmed.

'Sorry,' Rin said. 'I'm not very good at protecting you... all I do is get beat-up.'

'Brave, Rin,' Haru replied, fingers curling around a square in the grate of the cage with what Rin made out to be a soft smile-Rin almost fell for it, but then remembered that Haru had just killed a person before his eyes.

'Haru... about what happened back there-'

'Didn't want you to see.'

'Is that what you're really like? I love you.' Rin's voice was a whisper. 'Haru, I really do, but there are so many things about you that I don't understand. What are you?' Rin looked into Haru's eyes seeking reassurance, but could only become lost in their depths.

'Human.'

'You're not human,' Rin sighed. 'Your tail is just the start of that. Wherever you go, strange things happen... water levels rise when you get upset, a tsunami hits the ship I'm on to crash it before sirens could attack it... I don't know how, but I'm starting to think that you were the one who created that wave and crashed Mikoshiba's ship because you didn't want me to go, which is why you put me on the beach away from the others. Then the other night, I saw you talking to a man with wings underneath his arms... just what the hell was he?!'

'Can't tell you... made promise to other three. Must keep existence a secret.'

'What other three?' Rin demanded. 'Nothing you say makes sense! You hide the truth then when you finally tell me, you conveniently miss out important facts... Haru... everything I've heard since I've started sailing has pointed to the fact that you're a demon. You can do things I can't explain, you want me to make a promise before you kill me which sounds suspiciously like a deal and you know about the curse on the sirens-'

'Know everything about ocean. Job.'

'So that makes you, what... a water guardian?'

'Human,' Haru repeated, with a tone of desperation in his voice that seemed to come from the heart of the ocean itself. 'Rin... just like you.'

'I don't know what you are,' Rin shook his head. 'But we're not the same.'

'Are.'

'We aren't-'

For Haru to peruse this argument wasn't like him: usually, whenever Haru had a point to make, he'd say it and if Rin didn't believe him then that was Rin's problem as Haru would lapse into silence without caring... Rin didn't know why Haru kept going so seriously with this, when it seemed like an obvious lie. He tried breaking it down slowly.

'Haru, look at your tail then my legs... we're different.'

'Tail doesn't matter. You said-'

'I said I don't dislike you for your tail,' Rin corrected. 'Not that it means you're human like I am. Maybe you were human at one point but you're not anymore... and I'm sorry for that.'

'Tail is only difference,' Haru said, firmly. 'Human soul. Same as you.'

As much as Rin wanted to believe that he and Haru were the same, he just didn't buy it: Haru was still hiding something, but... there was a look in his eyes that made it seem as if Haru really believed the words he'd said-as usual, Rin didn't know what to think. The only sounds came from the tremors and vibrations of the ship.

'Haru... you know that the members of this ship are going to auction you... and whoever buys you will use you for whatever they want. They could have you stuffed or cut open and examined-'

'Won't die,' Haru replied.

'B-but-'

'Won't die,' Haru repeated. 'So... you either.'

'I'm not gonna die,' Rin muttered, not sure how Haru could be worried about him in his position. 'I'm cursed. You still have to save my soul, remember?'

There was quiet for a few minutes and Rin's mind fell back to the night he and Haru had met, searching for clues amid his memories. Haru had pulled his arms up over the ship in the middle of the storm, turmoil and chaos, looking so peaceful and innocent- in Rin's mind, Haru had switched from male siren to demon, but now Haru said he had a human soul-so, which one of those was true... or was Haru something else entirely? Rin supposed all he could do was talk, to see if Haru unintentionally gave something away-whatever the other male was hiding, Rin was sure he had his reasons: Rin just didn't know what they were.

'Haru, that night we met... why did you come up to me on the ship?'

'Heard your name,' Haru said. 'Matsuoka... knew about curse. ...liked.'

'You liked me?' Rin laughed-he'd never expected something so simple and cute to fall from Haru's lips. 'I thought you were going to pull me into the ocean and drown me.'

'Water won't hurt you,' Haru replied. 'Likes you, too.'

'I'm, uh, glad to hear that,' Rin said, not sure if the ocean had a consciousness but not pressing the details.

'...Lonely,' Haru continued, in a depthless voice. 'Not supposed to feel... can't tell others.'

'The other three?' Rin prompted, remembering how Haru had mentioned those earlier. 'You mean that man with wings and the two other... people... you mentioned-you can't tell them how you feel?'

Haru nodded.

'Don't feel things like I do.'

'Then why are you different?' Rin asked.

'Mistake.'

...Haru...

'There isn't anything wrong with wanting company,' Rin said, not understanding what Haru was talking about but hating the sadness in his eyes. 'No matter what anyone else tells you. Haru, the other ones are wrong for not being able to feel anything-it's normal to get lonely.'

Haru shook his head.

'No place now. Not anywhere.'

'Then I'll create a place for you,' Rin replied. 'With me-and you won't ever be lonely again as long as I'm around. Haru-' Rin crawled closer to the cage. 'Kiss?'

The sailor by the door who was supposed to be watching them had fallen asleep, not that it made a difference-Rin pressed his face up to the cage to feel Haru and Haru pressed back, both of them kissing softly through a square of the metal grate. It was uncomfortable and difficult, but Rin kissed Haru as deeply as he could manage, pulling on Haru's lower lip and sucking it, feeling warmth at the seams where their mouths connected between the mesh of the cage.

As Haru closed his eyes and tucked his head into his tail to sleep, Rin hoped he could find a way to be comfortable. There was so much running through Rin's head as he listened to the restless waves outside, their splashes mirroring his own state of mind. There was the curse on the males of his family, Rin knowing that-at some point-he'd have to die in order to pay for his Father's sin and set the trapped spirits of the sirens free... then go to Hell in his Father's place, due to the curse of an anonymous demon. On top of that was the stirring sensation in his stomach that felt like paper butterflies, because Rin knew he was in love, but didn't know what he was in love with-only that it went by the name of 'Haru,' and was shrouded in arcana.