Apparently, mercy isn't in the cards for me. I think about my own mark, the five gray flowers waiting to bloom, and the pen in my hand begins to move again.
I surrender to the undertow...
The words flow more easily now, each line building on the last as the song begins to take shape. I write about darkness and depth, about the choice to stop fighting and embrace the fall. About hands reaching for the surface even as you sink, not because you want to escape but because the gesture is instinctive, a last remnant of the self-preservation you're choosing to abandon.
The afternoon light shifts as I work, the sun moving across the sky and changing the quality of illumination that falls through my window. I barely notice. When I'm in the creative flow, time becomes irrelevant, measured only by the filling of pages and the ache in my writing hand. This is my version of meditation, my escape from the anxieties and complications of the real world. Here, there are only words and emotions, rhythm and meaning.
The song is taking shape, something dark and consuming, exactly what Jihoon wanted. But as I write, I realize it's becoming something else too. Something personal in a way I didn't intend.
It's not just about SIREN anymore. It's about me. About my fear, my resistance, my desperate desire to stay above water even as the current pulls at my legs.
It's about my mother, and the choice she made, and the price she paid.
You found me in the spaces between heartbeats, in the silence where fear lives...
The line appears on the page before I consciously think it, and I stare at it with a mixture of surprise and recognition. It's more vulnerable than what I usually write, more personal. But something about it feels right for this song, for SIREN's sound. They've never been afraid of emotional honesty.
Maybe this project requires me to be braver too.
Eventually, my phone buzzes with a new message, pulling me out of the creative trance. I blink, surprised to find that several hours have passed—the light through the window is golden now, late afternoon rather than the bright midday sun I remember from my walk to the studio. My neck aches from being bent over my notebook, and my hand cramps slightly as I reach for my phone.
The screen displays a message from Jeni, and despite everything—despite the exhaustion and the anxiety and the lingering unease about what my future might hold—I find myself smiling.
Jeni: Hey birthday girl! Want to catch up tomorrow morning at our usual spot? I'm craving our talks and some fresh air. Plus, I'm DYING to see your mark. Tell me you'll show me. Please? Pretty please? See you at our favorite café!
The message is so quintessentially Jeni—enthusiastic and demanding and affectionate all at once—that I feel some of the tension in my shoulders ease. Jeni has been my best friend since university, one of the few people who knew me before my songs started climbing charts. She's a constant in a life that often feels anything but, and the prospect of seeing her tomorrow morning feels like a lifeline thrown to someone who didn't even realize they were drowning.
She doesn't know about my mother, not the whole truth. I've told her bits and pieces over the years, enough for her to understand that my parents' relationship was complicated and that my mother died young. I've never told her about the broken bond, the scar, the slow fading. It felt too personal, too painful, too tied to fears I wasn't ready to voice.
Tomorrow, I might have to tell her everything. Because if I'm going to face this situation—if I'm going to navigate the possibility that SIREN are my soulmates—I need someone in my corner who understands why the idea terrifies me so much.
I type back quickly:Yes, definitely. Tomorrow morning sounds perfect. See you at our favorite café! And yes, I'll show you. Prepare yourself.
Her response is immediate:I'LL CLEAR MY ENTIRE SCHEDULE.
I smile despite myself and set the phone down, leaning back in my chair. The studio around me has taken on the golden glow of approaching sunset, the light streaming through the window painting everything in shades of amber and honey. My notebook sits open on the desk before me, pages now covered with messy handwriting—verses and phrases and fragments of ideas that might eventually coalesce into the song SIREN needs.
It's not finished. Not even close. But the foundation is there, the emotional core that will support everything else I build around it. The themes of surrender and depth, of being pulled under and choosing not to fight. There's vulnerability in the lyrics, but also power—the kind of strength that comes from accepting your fate rather than raging against it.
Is that what I need to do? Accept my fate instead of fighting it?
My mother fought. She fought so hard that she tore herself apart, choosing destruction over submission. And in the end, the fighting killed her just as surely as the bond would have.
But I'm not my mother. I don't have to make her choices.
Do I?
I think about the five flowers on my mark, still gray, still waiting. About SIREN, five alphas somewhere in this city, probably at their dorm or in a practice room, completely unaware that their fated omega might be sitting in a studio a few miles away, writing lyrics about drowning in their voices.
What would happen if I just... let it happen? If I stopped running, stopped hiding, stopped fighting the pull that's been tugging at me since I first heard their music years ago?
Would I drown, like my mother feared? Would the bonds consume me, erase me, leave nothing behind but an echo of who I used to be?
Or would I find something else on the other side of the surrender? Something worth the risk?
I don't know. I can't know, not without taking the leap. And that's what terrifies me most—the uncertainty, the lack of control, the knowledge that once the bonds trigger, there's no going back.
My mother made her choice and paid the price. Now it's my turn to choose.
