Work Text:
Junhui has always had a penchant for pretty things.
The siren moves like a blooming ink drop, every minuscule movement leaving a trail of silken bubbles that follow her as she glides through the water. They shimmer like spider silk in the faint rays of afternoon sunlight, drawing in the townsfolk like flies. Whispers fill the wharf, breathless admirers gazing in awe at every inch of the siren’s body, their hungry eyes following the trail of pearls on her bare arms to where they pool in her collarbones.
Bone-white and adorned with perfectly polished pearls that sparkle with every turn of her head, the gag hugging the siren’s cheekbones is a cruel caricature, and Junhui’s stomach lurches with visceral revulsion at the grotesque parody of her beauty.
Abrupt, like a droplet freezing just before its fall to the ground, the siren stops, suspended in the water as though preserved in amber. Her gaze draws a straight line from the tank all the way to the back of the crowd, fixed intently on Junhui’s eyes. The crowd goes pin-drop silent; all Junhui can hear is her own breathing, steady and calm despite the chaotic rhythm of her heart hammering against her ribs.
Were she a sailor, the siren wouldn’t need her songs to lure Junhui to her death.
Her eyes, deeper and darker than the abyss itself, would be enough to ensnare her, body and soul.
A loud clang echoes through the wharf, and Junhui flinches as though struck. The showman’s face is red with rage as he bangs on the tank with enough force to send water spilling over the edge, and the siren is quick to obey his unspoken commands, returning to her underwater ballet as though she’d never stopped.
Junhui lets out a shaky breath, gnawing at her bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. She can feel dozens of eyes lingering on her, gossipy murmurs swelling like the waves as they crash against the docks.
It is a sound she has long learned to ignore.
The siren doesn’t look at her again. She makes a point of not looking in Junhui’s direction as she dances, her hair billowing around her body in dark, velvety ribbons that caress the glistening silver scales on her tail.
She is pretty enough to make Junhui’s hands shake with want.
—
It is easier than Junhui expects to find where the showman keeps his most prized possessions.
The wharf is deserted, the townspeople seeking shelter from the raging storm in the comfort of their beds and the revelry of taverns, and it is even easier for Junhui to pick the lock that bolts the shed shut and slip inside, moving with the stealth of a wraith in the night.
Damp wood and rusty metal fill her lungs as she closes the door behind her. Moonlight streams in through cracks in the shed’s roof, illuminating cobwebbed corners and casting silhouettes of old crates and dusty trunks filled to bursting with gold and gems.
Junhui could steal it all.
Just a few trunks and she’d never have to sleep in the cold fishmonger’s again. A few gold coins to the sailors and she’d be crossing the ocean, leaving the stench of gutted fish behind for somewhere sunny and warm.
But she’s never had much of a taste for jewels.
Waves rise and fall on every wall of the shed, a hypnotic shadow play carefully orchestrated by water, glass, and moonlight. In the corner, the siren floats unsleeping in her tank, idly chewing on fish bones as she stares at the refractions, reaching out as if to run her fingers through the ripples of light. Her eyes flit to Junhui the moment she steps closer, her expression unwavering before her lips split into a broad grin, revealing rows of glimmering, knife-sharp teeth.
“I had a feeling you’d come.”
Low and rumbling like the tide, hoarse without seawater to whet her throat, the siren’s voice is more intoxicating than the strongest rum the sailors could get their hands on, enough to turn Junhui’s knees to jelly.
It makes her sway where she stands, as though on a ship in the middle of a hurricane, completely disoriented even though her feet are firmly planted on the ground.
“Why did you stop when you saw me?” She blurts out, her own voice sounding painfully thin compared to the way the siren’s words envelop her from head to toe.
Slow, like a viper measuring its prey, the siren’s eyes scan up and down Junhui’s body, following the muscles and veins on her bare, damp arms from her shoulders all the way down to her fingertips.
“You’re very pretty,” she says, sharp teeth glinting in the moonlight.
It may simply be the siren’s voice, wrapping around her limbs like puppet strings, leaving her too weak to resist its pull, but Junhui doesn’t waste any more precious seconds. She finds the heaviest chest she can lift and hurls it at the tank, the siren’s laughter mingling with the sound of broken glass crunching beneath her boots. Adrenaline surges through her veins as she holds the siren’s body close to her chest, smooth, cool skin chilling her to the bone.
The rain is relentless, pounding down on Junhui’s shoulders as if to crush her under its sheer weight. Still, she is grateful for its cover, shielding her from prying eyes as she sprints to the small pier behind the fishmonger’s, biting her lip hard to concentrate on her feet hitting the ground instead of the siren’s weight in her arms.
Her chin is hooked over Junhui’s shoulder, arms wrapped tightly around her neck to trace small seashells onto the muscle with her fingertips, and Junhui has to do everything in her power to keep from shuddering.
Junhui skids to a halt at the edge of the pier, the old wooden planks so slick under the downpour that she barely manages to catch herself before plunging into the depths. Breathless, her heart pounding so hard she sees black dots in the corners of her vision, she drops to her knees, lowering the siren into the turbulent water. With nothing more than a flick of her tail, the siren disappears beneath the waves, leaving Jun drenched, teeth sunken into her lower lip as she stares into the abyss like a churchgoer before the cross.
It isn’t long before the siren resurfaces, colour in her cheeks, moving with a newfound strength. She lifts herself halfway onto the pier, stopping mere inches from Junhui’s face.
“What’s your name?” The siren asks, leaning in close enough that Junhui doesn’t dare breathe.
“Junhui,” she whispers, traitorous eyes flitting down to the siren’s lips.
“Mm. You’re bleeding, Junhui.”
With a hand on her shoulder to keep her steady, the siren licks beads of blood from Junhui’s lips, careful and delicate, savouring every drop that coats her tongue like a fine wine. She hums at the taste, pressing closer and closer until her hand slips on the slick planks, and Junhui has to lurch forward to wrap an arm around her waist before she falls back into the sea, bringing their faces close enough that she can feel the siren’s cold, shallow breaths fan across her cheeks.
The siren smiles, sharp teeth nipping playfully at Junhui’s trembling lips for a moment, teasing and tormenting before licking into her mouth, kissing her slowly, sinfully, until all Junhui can taste is salt and iron and all she can smell is sugar and brine.
“I’m so hungry, darling.”
—
It is only right that Junhui starts with the showman.
She is no stranger to butchery, the artful task now little more than a simple routine, a quiet rhythm that she’s played so many times she doesn’t think the smell of blood and decay will ever leave her skin.
The showman’s lifeless form offers a tantalizing challenge.
With a practiced hand, Junhui kneels beside the showman’s body, the flickering light from the one torch she dares light casting eerie shadows across her shop. She reaches for her knife, the steel gleaming in the dimness, its edge honed with careful precision. Her fingers dance along his torso, tracing the contours of muscle and bone, searching for a line just below his rib cage and when she finds it, she plunges the knife into his flesh with all the strength she can muster.
As with all bigger fish, the first cut is the hardest, but she soon settles into a rhythm. The smell of blood soon fills the shop, mixing with the scent of the sea and the stink of fish guts to create a stench so overwhelmingly pungent that it takes all of Junhui’s restraint not to retch into the showman’s eviscerated body.
It takes little more than an hour until the showman is nothing more than neat fillets of meat and a pile of discarded viscera and bone that Junhui plans to burn.
But that is a task for the evening.
Junhui steps outside with a thick cut of meat in hand, squeezing her eyes shut against the stinging dawn air. She kneels at the edge of the pier, washing her bloody hands in icy sea water, finally calm after hours of churning in the seemingly endless storm. The siren—Minghao, she’s learned—appears in moments, a voracious gleam in her eyes.
“That’s human blood,” she says, eyeing the meat in Junhui’s hands, still fresh, still dripping with blood.
“You said you were hungry.” Junhui shrugs, choking on her own breath as Minghao eyes her with desire sinful enough to make her flush from head to toe. “And I didn’t want the showman to cause a fuss.”
She could tell Minghao how she cut up the showman with more care than she’s shown her craft in years, just for her. She could show her the bones, scraped clean of even the tiniest morsel of meat. She could demonstrate the level of mastery that made her a household name in this small fishing town.
She leaves it all out. It feels too much like bragging.
Minghao goes as sharp as Junhui’s favourite knife and as ravenous as a wolf. She snatches the meat from Junhui’s hands, teeth tearing into raw, bloody flesh until her fingers and lips are slick with it. Pupils blown wide, she brings Junhui’s hands to her mouth, licking the blood from each of her fingers until there’s not a drop left to consume.
“What a treat your pretty hands have prepared for me,” she whispers, grabbing Junhui by the collar and kissing her hard enough to intoxicate her, leaving her so dizzy she can barely keep herself from falling into the sea.
Junhui can taste the showman’s blood on Minghao’s tongue as she licks into her mouth, iron dripping down her throat and making her fingers tremble around Minghao’s waist.
“Thank you, darling,” murmurs Minghao, lips brushing against Junhui’s before she pulls away, beaming up at her with radiance enough to rival the sun and all her stars.
And Junhui would peel the skin from her own arms if it meant Minghao would smile at her like that again.
The showman only lasts them two weeks. After weeks of being fed little more than small fish and scraps of beef and pork, Minghao grows stronger, her appetite swelling and swelling with no sign of slowing.
Junhui expected to feel guilt, shame, some hesitation at least. But after the first few sailors, it becomes remarkably easy. Easy enough for Junhui to kill the very fisherman who gave her the fishmonger’s, dragging her knife across his throat without so much as blinking.
A muttered ‘sorry’ as she rips out his liver is the only act of mourning she offers him.
Business at the fishmonger’s dwindles. Whispers permeate the streets like a thick fog, the townspeople refusing to look Junhui in the eye; in mere months, she has gone from household name to chilling urban legend, the monster that parents check for under their children’s beds.
Their fear is so palpable that she can almost taste it. They would have hung her after the first kill if she wasn’t so careful, and Junhui doesn’t need to hear the whispers to know that many of them want to do it anyway.
But they have no proof.
The poor, righteous souls.
Junhui starts asking Minghao to pick out her meals, content to to sit on the pier for hours, gutting fish and feeding Minghao the scraps as she swims in a lazy, quiet loop, carefully picking out her perfect meal amongst the hustle and bustle of townspeople going about their daily business. She examines each and every one of them thoroughly, her eyes dark and hooded as they rake over their bodies from head to toe, her tongue playing at the corners of her lips.
Jealousy simmers deep in Junhui’s guts, making her uncharacteristically clumsy. Her knife starts slipping from her grasp more and more often as she watches Minghao stare, slicing across her palm and cutting a gash deep enough her blood drips into the sea.
Every time, Minghao tuts, lifting herself up with a hand on Junhui’s thigh to take her hand and lick away the blood.
“Careful, darling,” she’d say, kissing the pad of Junhui’s thumb. “Your hands are too pretty to be ruined by silly accidents.”
Eventually, they run out of people to kill.
The evening is uncannily silent, ships bobbing in the tide with no one to man them. Junhui watches the sunset on the beach, cold waves lapping at her legs as the wind whips her hair across her face. Her fingers tangle in Minghao’s hair, combing through the strands as she licks Junhui’s knife clean of the final few drops of blood it has spilt.
“We could take a ship,” says Junhui. “One of the nicer ones. We don’t even have to go through the trouble of finding a different town. The sea is crawling with sailors and pirates for you to devour.”
“My pretty little Junnie,” croons Minghao, sitting up and planting a gentle kiss on Junhui’s jaw. “So willing to condemn yourself to a life of endless storms, just to keep my belly warm.”
Smiling gently, Minghao brings the knife to Junhui’s face and traces down the slope of her nose, the blade barely kissing her skin as it glides over her lips and continues all the way down the column of her throat, making her breath stutter when she swallows.
“It’s about time I fed you, darling.”
With little more than a gasp against Junhui’s lips, Minghao drives the knife deep into her own flesh. She is clumsy, her hands shaking around the knife’s handle, but she makes up for it in resolve, sawing and carving away at her skin until she pulls out a small slice of meat.
Blood gushes from her side, staining the white sand beneath them a deep crimson. Instinctively, Junhui clamps her hand over the wound, feeling Minghao’s blood surge between her fingers with every erratic heartbeat.
Minghao puts the piece of flesh between her teeth, her thumb prying Junhui’s lips apart as she leans in, her shuddering breath warm and sweet on her face. Honey floods Junhui’s mouth as Minghao presses her lips to hers, the flesh sweet and heady on her tongue, so ambrosial that a single small bite is enough to leave her addicted. She swallows, and Minghao kisses her even harder, teeth nipping at her lips as she whines into her mouth with sheer satisfied bliss.
She kisses down her face to mouth at her throat, sucking and biting at the delicate cover of skin protecting her arteries, and Junhui clamps a hand over the back of Minghao’s neck, holding her firmly in place.
Her breath hitches, every inch of her body tensed and shaking, but when she speaks, her voice is low and steady.
“Bite, my love.”