Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Y/N.

Do you have what it takes? Do you have what it takes to conquer the oceans?

Visit the port at sunrise on the 1^st day of the fresh month to discover a world of wonders.

What the heck does that mean? You thought to yourself in your cold decrepit hallway, with the murmur of your parents’ slander in the background. You made a mental note to inspect the creepy tea-stained letter before you went to sleep so that you could find the meaning.

***

A few hours had passed, and you had finished forcing down your slimy Sunday night dinner with your parents, who longed to poison you at any opportunity they had. Slowly, you traipsed upstairs, to your tiny box room and walked in to be greeted by the mysterious letter sat on your charcoal coloured duvet. Sighing, you picked your heavy feet off the floor and prowled towards your bed, delicately picking up the letter, as though it was a bomb and read it again in your head…

Y/N.

Do you have what it takes? Do you have what it takes to conquer the oceans?

Visit the port at sunrise on the 1^st day of the fresh month to discover a world of wonders.

“Conquer the oceans?” you whispered to yourself; scratching your head as though it would help it to solve the mystery faster. “What does that mean?” After a few minutes of murmuring under your breath in confusion over the bizarre letter you held in your possession, you looked at your phone and saw that it was already the last day of the month and that this peculiar gathering was tomorrow.  

Hurriedly, you looked around your room and located the old satchel bag that you used to use for school. You snatched it out of the corner and blew the dust off. Opening it you thought to yourself how little space there was in the bag, so you just chucked a few essentials in.

***

Later that night you checked the time that the sun was due to rise. 06:43 am. You grumbled. Why was it so early? You thought, but you knew you had to go – you were too curious!

You watched the hours go by, knowing that you needed to sleep but the anticipation of the day that follows was keeping you awake. What does it mean by “Conquer the oceans?”

***

It was 06:00 am and your infuriatingly loud alarm sounded, and you hit it with force to prevent your putrid parents from waking up and kicking you out completely. They already made you pay excessive amounts of rent to stay in their home. You had just turned 21 and you didn’t even have a full-time job because they made you work around the house, and if you didn’t, they would increase your rent each month.

Weary eyed, you rolled out of bed and got changed into an oversized orange hoodie, a pair of faded blue jeans and some old white trainers that had seen better days. You ran your yellow comb, which had about 13 teeth missing, through your cropped black hair and made sure to tuck that into your brown satchel bag as you know how messy your hair gets when you go out.

Shit, you thought it’s already nearly 06:30 am. With this, you ran out of your room and down the stairs of your parents dilapidated 2-bedroom house as quietly as you could and shut the door securely.

As you were pacing through the eerie alleys that surrounded your neighbourhood, you made a mental note that your part-time job at the grocery store started at 9 am so you needed to get home and change into your uniform by then.

***

As you neared the port you checked your smartphone and you saw that it was 06: 42 am… you were just on time.

Chapter Text

As you approached the port you could hear the low infrequent chatter of a few individuals. As you neared, their chatter became clearer and you could see 7 tall individuals. They were all stood at the port, where you were instructed to meet, holding a sheet of tea-stained paper each, that resembled yours.

“Um, excuse me-” You started.

“What? What do you want?” the girl amongst them growled at you with a death-like glare.

“Uh, I’ve also got a letter like the ones you’re holding… were we all called here together?” You replied hastily, trying to avoid the evil woman’s glare and hoping that she didn’t notice that you were alone and tried to murder you with her gang of friends.

“Oh, so there’s more of us? This is strange” A short, but still taller than you, man exclaimed in shock. He looked friendly – you made sure to take a note of that.

“This makes 8 of us! Ahh, this is all so exciting!! 8 makes 1 team!! Aren’t you excited Wooyoung?” A dainty, smart-looking man chirped from beside the red-haired man as he pushed the glasses up his nose. Inaudibly, the short man with lilac hair, besides the smart-looking man, grunted.

Throughout this whole scenario, you were just stood there… shocked… they all seemed to either know each other or know someone here… were you alone? What was going on?

Suddenly, a tall dark-haired man came approached you and looked at him with fear. He was so handsome, but he was terrifying.

“Hi, I’m really sorry about all of them! Especially Yeojin… she’s not good around new people!” he explained to you. Suddenly he projected his hand out towards you, “I’m Seonghwa! What’s your name?”

“That’s okay… Don’t worry about it… I’m Y/N” You replied sheepishly to the tall handsome figure, taking his hand in yours and firmly shaking it.

“Hi Y/N, I’m Seonghwa!” he announced cheerfully. “You’re probably curious what we’re all doing here and who they are…First of all, none of us knows what’s going on either,” he laughed and continued, “So, you see the short one with cherry red hair and a friendly look on his face? That’s Hongjoong. The quiet blonde one over there,” he points to a handsome man with a very sharp jawline, “He is San. He hasn’t said much so we don’t know what’s up with him. The one stood next to San, who looks as though he had just rolled out of bed, is Wooyoung.” You nodded in agreement making sure to take a mental note of all these names that you are sure that you would forget very shortly. “The one stood next to Hongjoong with the chocolate hair is Jongho… he seems quite cold,” he whispered in your ear, making sure that he wasn’t heard by any of the others who were stood there making small talk. You were in thought, taking in all the new names, and suddenly the sound of Seonghwa’s smooth voice broke you out of your thoughts. “Her,” he paused and sighed with the most loving look in his eyes, “She is Yeojin… Ahh, I have known her for ages now… We live in the same neighbourhood. I’ve been trying to win her heart for so long now.” Seonghwa looked at this ‘Yeojin’, who had been rude to you at your first meeting, with determination in his eyes. ‘I will win her heart! I will do it!’ Seonghwa thought to himself. You were in shock that a man as kind-hearted and sweet could ever even fall for a woman like her.

“Uh, Seonghwa?” you started nervously, noticing that he had left someone out, “Who is that?” You pointed at the young man with glasses and light brown locks. He was ethereal.

“Oh him? That’s Yeosang. We think he’s going to be an annoying know-it-all…” Seonghwa chuckled. You laughed lightly in return.

The beautiful man, with the cute little glasses and a long charcoal trench coat with a matching charcoal beret, even had a pretty name. “Yeosang” You whispered to yourself, enjoying how your lips articulated this particular name, knowing that you needed to find out more about this mysterious man.

***

After introducing yourself and a while of chatting to the others, two boys scrambled around the nearby corner, looking out of breath. “STOP IT MINGI! WE’RE ALREADY LATE!” the tall blue-haired man screamed at the other.

“SHUT UP YUNHO! IT WAS YOUR FAULT! YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE BEEN-” Mingi started but was quickly cut off by the furious tapping of the older on his arm. Mingi followed Yunho’s gaze to see a random group. “Who are they?” He asked.

“How do you expect me to know you pickle?!” Yunho shouted under his breath, lightly hitting the younger around the head.

“Ahem!” Mingi cleared his throat grabbing the attention of you all. He froze under the glared of all 8 of you and continued cautiously, “Um… me and my friend Yunho were wondering if you also got the letter to meet here? Like, there’s no one else here and as we both got the letter, we assumed there would be-”

“Why does your hair look like a unicorn swallowed a rainbow and puked on your head?” Yeojin cut in harshly, giving the younger a disgusted look while reaching out to sweep a hand through his messy colourful tresses. Mingi was in shock that someone he had just met was speaking to him in such a harsh manner.

“Umm… okay, well, I’m Yunho, and this is my friend Mingi.” Yunho said boldly, puffing his masculine chest out.

“It’s really nice to meet you both! Please, come and meet the rest of the gang,” Seonghwa said warmly.

***

As time flew past, you were all getting more curious and agitated as to what you were doing. It was already 07:10 and no one had shown up to tell you anything. Some of the others had started throwing accusations at each other, saying that they had ‘deliberately called them all there to waste time’, but that theory was impossible as no one knew you.

After some time of the pathetic arguing between some of the others, especially Yeojin and Jongho, a tall slender man approached the 10 of you. He was dressed in all black. Long black trench coat. Black fedora. Black trousers. You could even spot a pair of black dress boots clicking as he walked. As this mysterious man approached you all, and you all looked at each other puzzled, your eyes caught a certain someone’s. You looked away from the cute fragile nerd with a hard blush playing across your cheeks.

‘I need to know more about him’ you thought to yourself. You were determined to discover what secrets lay beneath that nerdy, yet cute exterior.

“Kim Hongjoong,” the mysterious figure declared. Everyone’s head suddenly whipped towards the short red-haired man who held a look of fear upon his face.

‘What did this man want with Hongjoong?’ You thought to yourself. Gingerly, Hongjoong approached the figure who was holding out an envelope, like the one that you had received your creepy letter in. You glanced at all the others and even the vile Yeojin looked scared of this man.

As Hongjoong took the letter, the man bowed politely to him and departed. There was a moment after the exchange in which you all stood there, confused. Everyone wanted to know what was going on, but more importantly – what was in the letter.

“Come on Hongjoong! What is it? We all want to know!” The muscular blonde man said, breaking you all out of your thoughts. ‘San’, you briefly recalled that being his name.

Slowly Hongjoong turned to look at you all, gathering you into a small circle.

“Here it goes,” he breathed shakily, opening the envelope to find a letter but also 10 others, smaller, enveloped inside this one.

“Read it out!” Mingi said, sounding like a whining puppy eager for its food.

Hongjoong took a deep breath, took the letter out of the envelope and read clearly to the other 9:

“Dear Explorers,

You may all be curious as to why I have called the 10 of you here today. Well, I see potential in you all. You all hold something special within you that makes you unique, and different from the other members that surround you.

You’re going on a search for some hidden treasure.

The treasure will not be as obvious as it seems but I’m sure the 10 of you will be able to discover it.

Now, I know you don’t all know each other but I’m sure you will all create wonderful and meaningful relationships along the way and learn valuable life lessons as you embark on this long journey to find the treasure.

Please find enclosed your roles that you will take aboard the ship. These are important. You have been selected for the role that we think will fit you best, we hope that this will be the case and you will be able to assist the rest of your team by fulfilling your role.

Board the ship, discover your role and introduce yourself.”

You all looked at Hongjoong in confusion. He looked inside the enveloped to see the other 10 envelopes.

‘They must be our roles’ He thought to himself. Pulling out the cards from the envelope, Hongjoong read out everyone’s names and handed the corresponding people their envelopes. You looked down at yours, holding it up to the morning sun trying to see through it and get a sneak peek at what role you would be playing. Much to your dismay, it didn’t work.

“Let’s go! Let’s go and get on this boat!” Yunho concluded.

Chapter Text

“Let’s go! Let’s go and get on this boat!”

This was the start of a whole new adventure for the ten of you. Did you know them? No. Did you know what was going to happen? No. But were you excited? Yes.

Slowly the ten of you made your way across the string bridge that was dressing the gap that parted the boat and the dock. You looked down – it was quite high, and the waters looked deep and never-ending.

‘How far down does that actually go?’ you thought to yourself as you followed the enthusiastic Yunho with the chocolate haired Jongho following behind you silently.

You arrived on the boat shortly, it wasn’t that far from where you were previously stood.

You looked around you awestruck. It was like an actual pirate boat. No – it was an actual pirate boat. The outside of the boat was painted in two colours, navy and plumb, with golden yellow trims.

There were 3 large masts standing through the middle of the boat. The first and last both holding 2 large, cream coloured flags, and the middle one holding 3. You looked up at them in awe. You’ve only ever seen things like this in the movies – never in real life!

Was this all an illusion?

As you looked around the main deck, there was a large space that had a few chests placed around it, containing things like food, water and other essentials. The inside was coloured in a brighter blue colour with yellow trimmings, and it looked very empty.

‘I must make sure to sort something out about all those bare panels’ you thought to yourself. You hope you could get the others on your side to help decorate this beautiful boat, though, it would take some persuading for some of them.

As you further glanced around the boat, you noticed things, like ropes, chairs, telescopes, maps and binoculars. ‘I bet the cute nerd will like those binoculars’ you thought to yourself smiling.

“What’s in there? Let’s go and take a look!” the lanky unicorn said, pointing to a large trap door in the floor.

Powerfully, Yeojin marched towards the trap door and laced her fingers in the rope that was allowing access to it. She looked back, and there was something in her eyes that you hadn’t seen before. Fear. You could see the fear in her eyes. “Um…” she started, breaking everyone’s attention away from the dark pit that lay beneath the trap door, “can someone go in before me?” She looked around at you all sheepishly waiting for one of you to step up. Just as Seonghwa was about to open his mouth to volunteer-

“Why? Are you too scared? Aren’t you the one that was mean to Mingi and Y/N when we all first met? You should risk yourself, not one of us!” Wooyoung retaliated, glaring at the cold Yeojin.

“Well… it’s just…” she looked away shocked at the younger’s sharp words, as she looked over to the horizon with a look of shame painted across her face, “I’m really scared of the dark… and THAT,” she pointed into the black abyss, “is dark. I can’t go first.” She couldn’t look anyone in the eyes. There was something inside you that felt sorry for her. But why? She was so mean and cold…

You were stood next to Seonghwa, with Jongho on your right staying quiet – you didn’t know what was up with Jongho and why he was so quiet, but you wanted to figure it out and break him out of his shell.

All of a sudden, a thought crossed your mind. If Seonghwa loved Yeojin, he should help her and go first! Discreetly, you nudged Seonghwa looking up at his tall handsome figure, and with a small jolt of your head, you signalled for him to go and help her.

“I’ll go! I’ll go first for you Yeojin.” Seonghwa proclaimed, puffing his chest out proudly, but you could see that he was also a little worried about this. You gave him a reassuring smile as he looked back at you. He smiled and went ahead.

“Thank you so much, honestly thank you so much Seonghwa,” You heard Yeojin say quietly to Seonghwa, trying to make sure the other didn’t hear, but by the look on everyone’s face, you could tell that they had all heard the cold woman’s sincere words.

As you all followed Seonghwa into the dark and mysterious room inside of the deck, you all looked around trying to spot something. As it was early morning you could all see a few outlines of objects, but as it was below deck it was still difficult to make out what they were!

“I’ve found some matches!” one of them announced – you think it was Hongjoong, judging by the soft tone of their voice.

With a powerful strike, he lit a match and found candles stood on shelves around the edge. As he went around and lit all the candles to give you all light so you could see, you noticed a polished wooden table with 10 chairs around it and many items crowding its surface. There was a globe, crystal balls, magnifying glasses, a chalkboard, hourglasses and much more but some things that stood out to you most were a black mask and a black hat – they looked awfully out of place which worried you.

“Let’s go back outside and look at our roles,” Hongjoong stated, marching towards the rickety stairs and proceeded to climb them.

***

After a bit more looking around and chatting you all finally decided to open your envelopes and discover what roles you would take on. ‘Hongjoong would make a very good captain you thought.’

“Let’s go around and open our envelopes. Let’s say our name, our age, our birthday, a fact about yourself and then your role” Hongjoong declared. “I’ll start – My name is Kim Hongjoong, I am 21 years old, my birthday is the 7^th of November 1998, I have a passion for composing music and my role is-” he stared wide-eyed down at the piece of paper in his hand, not expecting to see what he was seeing, “I am the captain.”

Everyone stared at him in shock. “We all expected it, you are the one who has shown the most leadership abilities so far! Why are we all looking shocked?” Yeosang chirped in his sweet delicate voice.

“Yea, Yeosang’s right! You really deserve that Hongjoong!” you agreed, loving the way Yeosang’s name sounded coming from your mouth out loud properly for the first time. Everyone smiled looking at you and Yeosang, nodding their heads in agreement.

“I’ll go next,” Yeosang said from beside Hongjoong. “My name is Kang Yeosang, I am 21 years old, my birthday is the 15^th of June 1999, I may or may not have an obsession with chicken, and my role is the Sailing master,” he smiled warmly, catching your eyes and giving you a small wink which caused your heart flutter.

Going around the circle you were sat it, the blonde muscular one spoke next.

“I’m Choi San, I am 21 years old, my birthday is the 10^th of July 1999, I can be a SANshine or a SAtaN. My role is…” He looked down into his envelope taking the piece of paper into his hand and his eyes lit up. “I’m a gunner!” he proclaimed happily, looking around at the others, proud of himself.

Next to speak was Wooyoung.

“Hi, my name is Jung Wooyoung, I am 20 years old, my birthday is the 26^th of November 1999, I think I am very sexy, but I am also a medical student and my role is…” he ripped open the envelope, “I’m the surgeon! Oh my gosh… this is like a dream! I hope none of you will get hurt but this is so cool!” he giggled giddily!

“My name is Jeong Yunho,” Yunho followed, “I am 21 years old, my birthday is the 23^rd of March 1999 and I’m in Gryffindor. I have the role of Quartermaster!” He said cheerfully smiling at Hongjoong, who he knew he would be working very closely with.

“I’m Song Mingi, I’m 21-”

“But you act like a baby,” Yunho cut it.

“Shut up, you blue snow cone!” Mingi retaliated with a laugh, secretly knowing that he did act like a bay sometimes… “Anyway, I’m 21 years old despite what Yunho says, my birthday is the 9^th of August 1999, and I’m secretly an angel from heaven but I’m not supposed to tell people that… so shhh.” Mingi said quietly putting a finger up to his lips, causing you to let out a little laugh under your breath, catching the attention of a certain someone who smiled at how sweet your laugh sounded “and my role is a Boatswain!”

Then there was silence. Everyone turned to Jongho who was next. Silence. He looked in another world. Then he looked up at you all and caught you all staring at him.

“Oh um, I’m Choi Jongho, I’m 20, my birthday is the 12^th of October 2000, I really like to cook but no one eats my food,” he said sadly. He cleared his throat and continued, “and my role is – oh my gosh, I’m a cook!” he had a glimmer in his eye, you hadn’t seen him so happy since you had all met.

“Ah well, so I’m Choi Yeojin, I’m 24, I’m born 17^th October 1996, I have a passion for music and dancing, and my role is…” she looked down into her envelope. Slowly she took the piece of paper into her smooth hands, with elegantly painted nails, and looked at it wide-eyed. “I got…” she stuttered looking around at the others. She turned the paper around to show the others and said, “I’m the master gunner.”

“Well, you are a bit of a bitch so I’m sure you know how to work a gun!” Mingi said below his breath, but when she turned to him with an evil glower, he knew that she had heard. She got up and playfully hit Mingi around the head. “Oww,” Mingi whined. Yeojin smirked.

Once Seonghwa had brought himself out of his loving gaze at the beautiful Yeojin he started, “I’m Park Seonghwa, I’m 22 years old, my birthday is the 3^rd of April 1998, and I like to think I have a warm heart and am very loving. The role I got…” Seonghwa carefully opened the envelope, panicking under the hard stares of his future lover, “I’m also a cook! We’ll be working together Jongho! Ahh, I’m so excited to be able to work with you!” Seonghwa was sat there smiling brightly.

‘He has such a pretty smile’ Yeojin thought to herself while looking at Seonghwa with a slight smile on her lips.

“Y/N! It’s your turn!” Yunho looked at you with a soft smile, snapping you out of your hard concentration, trying to remember all these things about everyone.

“Yes, of course!” you chirped. “So, my name is Y/N, I’m 20, my birthday is the 31^st of October 1999, I’m not really that interesting, but I really like star gazing” You looked at your envelope, opened it and retrieved the piece of paper, “my role is also a Boatswain!”

“Ahhh We’re together Y/N!!” Mingi shouted playfully, leaning over to you ruffling your already messy tresses.

You returned with a wide smile. You were looking forward to working with Mingi, he seemed fun. Chaotic, but fun.

“This is the beginning of something so exciting everyone! Let’s work hard to do the best we can to find this treasure!” Hongjoong proclaimed proudly, smiling around at all of you, “I am really looking forward to working with you all more and learning more about you all! FIGHTING!!”

You all looked at each other and shouted together “FIGHTING!”

Chapter Text

Hi!

I hope everyone is well and healthy, I just want to update you all on the current situation... So I am getting way too much work from college and I'm really behind and am struggling to keep up. Due to this, I've not been able to do any writing recently. I can't give a certain amount of time that I will not be able to update but I don't want to leave it and you not know why! 

I'm really sorry about this, but my college work must come first.

I hope you can understand!

Holly @Hwasstars