From Where the Silence Echoes

-3- A Concerto for the Wayward

The ship turned course more quickly than he thought it would, heading straight for him in what felt like an instant. He stretched towards the heavens, his eyes lazily tracking the ship on its way to certain doom. It didn't seem as if it was even thinking about trying to prevent the inevitable, which left the siren to wonder if the crew onboard were even any semblance of competent. As it collided directly into the rocks with a deafeaning crunch, a small smile instinctively trained itself onto his face, making Jotaro feel terrible about this whole scheme. It was sickening to him that he even remotely derived pleasure from the tragedy, and thoughts of Kakyoin ravaged his mind in an instant. The painter would be disappointed beyond measure if he found out; but the damage was done, and there was nothing that Jotaro could do to interfere.

Eerily, the vessel went down almost silently, save for the grinding and twisting of metal and the occasional splash of either people or parts of it falling into the water. The ship tipped forward, sending those foolish enough to be on the top deck sliding towards the rocky outcrop.

For a second, Jotaro swore he could see flashes of cherry red hair amongst the swelling crowd of people, causing a sickening feeling to sink into the pit of his stomach.

'It couldn't be him.' Jotaro's mind scrambled to think of an explanation as to why the love of his life seemed to be going down with the sinking ship. 'It's just someone that looks like him. There's no way.'

But unmistakeably, Kakyoin's voice rang out clearly among the myriad of cries for help, never breaking the even pitch it had even in the face of certain death. The painter was trying to save himself in any way possible, but his efforts were for naught; eventually, his white-knuckled grip on a loose beam of wood faltered. With a pitiful scream, Kakyoin fell into the merciless sea, his arms windmilling despairingly.

Jotaro could feel hot tears welling up in his eyes, and in a moment of panic, he prepared himself to dive into the water, determined to save the painter from a certain demise; however, the moment he tipped forward, Kakyoin burst out of the water with a gasp, struggling to keep afloat in the midst of the oppressing waves. The siren hesitated for just a moment, but still took the plunge into the wine dark ocean.

When he resurfaced, Kakyoin had disappeared. Jotaro looked around warily, his panic increasing with every second without the painter in his sight. He could see a current moving against the waves, a red head surfacing at the crest of it every so often. With a sigh of relief, the siren swam after it, thankful that Kakyoin was even some semblance of okay.

Surprisingly, the painter was easily outstripping Jotaro despite his clumsy swimming. Eventually, the siren had lost all his stamina in his desperate bid to catch up; and yet Kakyoin was still pulling through at the same speed, seemingly either unaffected by fatigue or too pumped full of adrenaline to care. As much as the siren wanted to rest his tired body, he knew that the moment he stopped swimming would be the moment that Kakyoin would be thrust into explicit danger.

His previously unperturbed swim was suddenly interrupted by the feeling of two pairs of hands dragging him underneath the waves. Jotaro struggled against them, but they proved to be too powerful to fight against.

The hands belonged to his mother and grandfather, which made him angry beyond measure. The fact that they were smiling only served to frustrate him more. 

"You did so well, Jotaro!" his mother joyfully drew him into a tight hug. "Even if your form was a little sloppy, you did-"

"Let me go, dammit! I can still-" he struggled against her, his voice just barely staying even despite his volume. "I can still save him!"

"Save who?" his grandfather tilted his head confusedly. "What are you on about, Jotaro?"

The siren wrestled himself from his mother's grasp, and tore through the water, just barely holding back the tears prickling at the corners of his eyes. He could care less about how his family felt. The thing that mattered most to him at the moment was the safety of the love of his life. Jotaro burst above the waves; but there was no trace of Kakyoin anywhere. The only thing in sight was the shoreline where the pair usually met. He gave it a quick once over, and he let out a sight of semi-relief. The painter was lying face down on the white sand a little ways away from their pier, his breathing worryingly shallow yet still present nonetheless. 

'Thank God...' Jotaro thought to himself. 'He's okay...'

As much as the siren wanted to assist his lover, there was only so much he could do from the water. Thunder began to rumble overhead, which only served to limit his options more. Rain began to come down in sheets, causing Jotaro's anxiousness to skyrocket to almost impossibly high levels. Kakyoin was already on the brink of death; and the rain would simply make his survival all the more difficult. 

To make matters worse, a cloaked figure had seemingly come out of nowhere, prompting Jotaro to hide himself behind some nearby rocks. The figure was struggling to keep themselves steady in the face of the stormy winds, and they had a sort of stride about them that suggested that they were looking for something. They instead happened across the painter's dilapidated form. Jotaro knotted his brow at this, slightly bristling at how close this random stranger was getting. For all he knew, their intentions were nothing short of malicious.

The person knelt next to Kakyoin, shaking him gently. When he didn't rouse, they slung him over their shoulder and continued back along the way they came, not bothering to try to keep themselves hidden anymore. The hood of their cloak blew off in the wind, and the last thing that Jotaro saw before they disappeared into the distance was a set of golden earrings and dark, coarse hair.