Chapter Text
It’s the sudden silence that catches Hongjoong off guard. For a few seconds, his dazed state doesn’t even recognise it, mind numbed to the world, to the echoes of death crashing above him – until it all stops.
He stays exactly as he is, back pressed into the corner between two tall wooden crates, knees pulled to his chest and palms squeezed tight over his ears to try, to no avail, to block out the noise. He removes them now, and the silence makes his ears ring unpleasantly. He moves his head slightly, to test that it works, that he’s still alive; but he doesn’t dare to stand just yet. He’s heard battles before, but never have they gone on this long or been so ruthless. At any moment, he’s been expecting a ball to come screaming through the wood to tear him to pieces.
After a few minutes of the total quiet, he stands, testing his limbs slightly to see if they still work. Stretching his arms, leaning on both legs in turn to get his blood flowing again. It’s cold down in the hold, and his joints have stiffened from sitting in one position for such a long period of time, frozen in fear.
His eyes have adjusted to the dark now, too, and even though barely any light escapes into the room, he’s lived in darkness his whole life. Still, he’s not quite bold enough to venture above deck just yet, caged here by the lingering fear that keeps his body trembling, even as he tells himself to stop.
Hongjoong is usually good at controlling his emotions, but when it comes to fights like this... all his walls fall down, and he turns into a version of himself he hates letting out. So now he fights for his control back, squeezing his hands in a routine pattern together. The familiar feeling grounds him a little and his heart rate begins to lower.
It’s at least thirty minutes later, thirty minutes of painful and pressing silence, before he finally deems it safe for him to leave his dark sanctuary in the ship’s hold. He’s got enough of a grip on himself by now to realise that it’s too quiet – even after a battle is over, there should be voices, footsteps, laughter or shouts. Any noise to show that he’s not just floating alone on a ghost ship, drifting aimlessly on the open ocean.
He climbs the stairs up to the main deck, gradually letting his eyes adjust to the growing light. Why is there nobody around? Hongjoong moves forward slowly, almost afraid of his own footsteps, disturbed by the unnatural quiet. Something isn’t right. He’s completely alone.
He steels himself before pulling the door to the main deck open, completely unsure of what to expect. It takes a second for his eyes to adjust to the light, and when they do, he has to clap a hand over his mouth.
The wooden deck is awash with blood, and as soon as the door opens it begins to leak through into the cabin, staining the floor and creeping up to soak into the soles of Hongjoong’s shoes. He takes a step back, his heart racing. There was a reason that he couldn’t hear any movement – everyone is dead.
Hongjoong is used to blood, and lots of it; still, he’s never seen this much at one time before. He forces himself to swallow before stepping beyond the safety of the cabin door, experimentally dipping the tip of his shoe first.
He’s never been afraid of death, but having the stench of it hanging so thick over the ship isn’t something that’s easy to come to terms with. He looks around him, dazed, his earlier shock wearing off as he takes in just what this will mean. A singular man, sailing a pirate ship by himself with absolutely no experience? Hongjoong is nothing more than a cook, and not a very good one at that.
He tentatively makes his way over towards the railing, where the closest body lies. He doesn’t want to look too close, and he averts his eyes as he pushes the man’s still-bleeding body between the wooden rails and into the sea below. He tries not to shudder at the red stain that smears his hand, and he wipes it quickly on the dark fabric of his trousers.
Hongjoong slowly makes his way around the deck, checking carefully to see if any of them, any at all, are left alive – and when he discovers the opposite, dragging the bodies across the wooden planks to be thrown over the side. Leaving them here does nothing but create a bigger problem.
He has no concept of how long this task takes him, but by the time the deck is clear he’s sweating despite the chill of the sea breeze. He wipes his hands one last time, unable to rid them of the sticky residue that seems to stick his fingers together. He’s tired – he’s quite small in stature and build, and most of the pirates here are double his size and triple his weight.
As Hongjoong turns around, he nearly jumps out of his skin.
A young man stands in the opposite doorway that had been closed only seconds before, the doorway to the captain’s quarters; and if it wasn’t for the shock mirrored from his own face, Hongjoong would have thought that the stress of the day was causing him to see ghosts. Even so, he takes a step back.
The strange thing is how completely untouched the man looks, even surrounded by this amount of destruction. There’s not a spot of blood on his skin or on his clothes, and he holds himself in a defensive stance, as if prepared for a fight. And he’s so well-dressed too, in a way that Hongjoong would only be able to dream about, owning only the clothes he wears now twice over. However, the newcomer seems carefully put-together; a clean white shirt, the top three buttons undone so that the collar hangs loose, exposing the top of his chest; thick green trousers, slightly faded; a black leather half-corset tied tightly to show off his slim waist , matched with wrist cuffs from the same material that reach almost to his elbows; and a bag strap over one shoulder that reaches behind his back to some sort of pouch, hidden from Hongjoong’s view. His face is clean, free from the smears of dirt and blood that Hongjoong knows his own must be covered in, and his long hair is tied back in a basic ponytail held by a single gold pin, in such a way that some still falls over his face. Surrounded by the death and destruction, he looks so untouched that he could be an apparition.
His eyes are wide as he watches Hongjoong, who can only imagine how he himself looks right now, after clearing the remains of the battle. He can feel that the blood clings to his skin.
“The blood -are you injured?” the man asks, and his voice is slightly softer than Hongjoong anticipated, filled with more concern and worry than he would expect from someone clearly of a higher rank than himself. It takes him a second to reply, his eyes are fixed on the face of the stranger and he can’t quite seem to tear them away.
“It’s not mine.” He shakes his head after a beat, letting out a slow breath as he pulls his gaze away.
They stay quiet for a few more seconds before the man speaks again. His voice is shy and unobtrusive, as if he’s not used to hearing himself talk.
“You should come inside. Get yourself cleaned up.”
Hongjoong sighs in reply, but follows his advice. The stranger moves back a little to allow him through the door and past him, never taking his eyes off Hongjoong as he walks.
“I’m sorry, I don’t think I know your name-”
“Hongjoong.” He doesn’t stop moving, doesn’t turn back, but he feels the eyes watching him right the way down the corridor.
He shuts the door to the bathroom with a little more force than usual. It’s simple, equipped only for the everyday use of a band of pirates. Hongjoong leans on the sink and stares at his own bloodstained reflection in the dusty fragment of mirror that’s been nailed haphazardly to the wall. It’s nothing more than a shard of broken glass, really, and so he can only view tiny parts of his features at any one time – his pointed nose, thin lips that turn up at the corners, smoothly rounded dark eyes. At the moment, his face is coated with a thin layer of dust from the force of the explosions in the hold, as well as a few splatters of blood that he gained while moving the bodies from the deck. His mind is reeling. Who the hell is that man? And what the hell happened to the rest of the crew?
Being nothing more than a lowly cook and cabin boy, Hongjoong holds no love for any of the rest of the crew of this ship. Love isn’t something pirates are built for. The closest form of friendship he’s ever known is the rat that lives somewhere in the floorboards under the closet that Hongjoong calls home. When he can, he saves scraps from his cooking and leaves them at the corner of the skirting. It’s always gone when he returns.
But they’ve never been too harsh on him. He’s used to the feeling of a sharp hand across the face, a raised voice in his direction – but at the end of the day, they know that it’s him who makes the food, and they save the full extent of their wrath for fighting with opponents who can actually fight back, something he’s always been grateful for.
He’s seen, more than once, a battle go badly. He’s heard, more than once, the agonised screams of young pirates who weren’t quite quick enough. But never before has he experienced or even heard of an entire crew being wiped out in this way.
Not entirely. He’s still here, and so is that... other man. He’s not a part of the usual crew, this much he knows; he’s worked on this ship for close on four months now, and he’s never even layed eyes on this strange person before. It begs a million questions, ones that he pushes from his mind for now. He’s exhausted from the day. He’ll wash up, go and fetch some food, and go to bed.
With this plan in his mind, Hongjoong reaches up to grab the raggedy flannel from its hook beside the mirror. He wets it quickly under the tap before attacking his face and arms, trying to rid himself of the residual blood that seems to have seeped into his skin. Only once his skin is rubbed red and raw does he allow himself to return the flannel, eyes already drooping. He can relax a little more now that he’s clean, at least, even though his clothes are still drenched. He keeps them on anyway, intending to change later.
Instead, he unlocks the door and makes his way down the corridor to the steps that lead down to the main belly of the ship. This is Hongjoong’s domain, down where the rats and mice scurry. The upper decks hold the important people. Down below is the space where the water drips through the boards, where the vermin live – and Hongjoong. The passenger cabin, the hold, the provisions room and, of course, Hongjoong’s closet. The closest thing he has to a home here.
At the bottom of the stairs he stops again, disconcerted. He’s faced once again with the mysterious stranger who, despite working on the ship for a third of a year, he’s never encountered before. He seems nervous.
“What are you doing down here?” Hongjoong’s voice is sharper than he perhaps intended, his temper made a little shorter than usual from the stresses of the day. The man looks so out of place, down here in the darkness, with his pressed white shirt and perfectly clean fingernails.
“I- I came down for food. I figured I could find something in the provisions room-”
“Look.” Hongjoong is tired, frustrated, and he just wants to get to bed, not be waylaid by this strange man again. “I have no idea who you are or why you’re the only other person left on this goddamn ship, but I’m not interested in making friends. Get food all you want, but stay out of my way.”
He pushes past him into the darkened room beyond. In truth, he’s fucking terrified, but he won’t let that show. Especially not to a stranger. He can tell that the other man doesn’t move from the doorway and yet he doesn’t turn back, just heads through to the passenger cabin, shutting the door forcefully for the second time this evening. With just the two of them on board, he could probably pick a nicer place to sleep – but he prefers to stick to what he knows. The closet in the back of the passenger cabin is familiar, and while it might be small for another man, Hongjoong doesn’t find it to be too uncomfortable, if he tucks his feet in. He slides the panel door back into place, and with a small thud the little light that there was filtering through the cabin is cut off, plunging him into total darkness. He likes this. He curls in on himself on the floor, his familiar raggedy rug pulled right up to his chin, as he slowly exhales and allows himself to relax, just a little. His thoughts should be disturbed, but he’s so exhausted that almost immediately, he begins to drift into a dreamless sleep.
---
When Hongjoong wakes, he’s still cloaked in that same warm, comforting darkness. For a moment, he’s purely calm, before the outcomes of yesterday come flooding back to him and he sits up with a start, banging his head against the underside of the closet shelf.
“Shit-” he stands, rubbing the top of his head gingerly. It’s nothing he hasn’t done before, but it’s still painful.
He pulls on the only clean shirt that he owns, but leaves the trousers. Who knows when he will be lucky enough to wash them again? It could be weeks, and they’re only spotted with blood rather than drenched in it, as his shirt was. He suspects that he might have to throw that out, as it was more red than white by the end of the day. Clothes are a luxury that he cannot afford, out here at sea.
He ties his boots up, face screwing slightly at how the laces are still damp. He’s had to do this in the darkness a hundred times before. If there’s one benefit to living in the lightless bowels of a ship, it’s that he’s become an expert at doing things completely blind. It took him a while to adjust, and for his first few weeks aboard the ship he was constantly covered in a multitude of bumps and bruises from a variety of unseen obstacles.
Hongjoong shuts the closet door behind him to try and preserve some of the warmth inside for later as he exits. It’s not until now that he notices just how painfully hungry he is, having skipped both lunch and dinner yesterday. His head is swimming slightly from the hunger.
However, to his irritation, upon entering the primitive excuse for a kitchen, he finds himself not to be alone once more. From never having seen the man before, he now seems to constantly be where Hongjoong wants to be. He tightens his lips in annoyance and spins on his heel, preparing to leave.
“Hey – are you not hungry?”
He turns back, fighting to keep his tone as civil as possible. The way he spoke last night was out of line, as this pirate is clearly far above his rank, and he doesn’t want to incur any sort of injury. “I told you last night, I have no intention of making friends.”
“You didn’t eat last night.” The man’s voice is one of mild concern, and Hongjoong finds himself irritated further by the fact that it sounds like he cares, because why the hell should he? “Look, I was just making some breakfast, I made you some extra just in case. If you don’t want it, that’s fine, I just thought -” he cuts himself off, shaking his head a little in confusion.
Hongjoong makes an attempt to stop his stomach rumbling, because whatever the man is cooking does smell delicious – better than anything Hongjoong has ever attempted. He concedes defeat and enters the kitchen silently, seating himself on the small chair and table in the corner. From here, under the dim glow of a flickering electric lightbulb, he can observe his companion without being watched in return, an arrangement that he rather likes. He wears the same clothes as yesterday, but with his back turned Hongjoong can now see that the strap around his shoulder holds some sort of leather case that rests just behind his hip. He wonders what could possibly be so important to him that he needs to carry it with him at all times.
They fall into a silence that doesn’t quite feel comfortable, but they let it sit anyway. Up close, he realises that the man isn’t that much older than himself – a change from the rest of the crew, who are all at least into their mid-thirties. The man before him can’t be anything over twenty-five.
After what feels like far too long for Hongjoong’s liking, he hears the clink of two plates as the stranger turns around.
“Um – I was going to eat upstairs, on the top deck. There’s nowhere to rest the plates here.” He seems a little embarrassed, though Hongjoong has no idea why he possibly should be. He simply nods, and falls into step behind him as he leaves through the hold and up the steps to the main deck. There is a small dining area beside the kitchen, but Hongjoong has no intention of eating opposite his man in such a domestic fashion.
Stepping outside for the first time since yesterday, most of the blood has seeped into the wood, dyeing it a rich maroon colour that would be quite beautiful if it wasn’t so gory. He knows that the other man notices it as well, but neither of them comment, not wanting to bring up yesterday’s ghosts. Instead, they head to the upper deck, which was free of fighting and is still relatively clean.
Hongjoong waits for the other to sit first, on the top step, before positioning himself a metre or so away. He intends for the distance to create a barrier to indicate that he doesn’t want to talk, but this evidently doesn’t work.
“Hongjoong, right?” he turns to face him, and Hongjoong takes a bite of his meal to avoid replying, just nodding his head in the hope that it will be enough to quell any conversation. Immediately, flavour explodes across his tongue – it’s far better than anything he could ever hope to have cooked. He would never dream of admitting it, but it’s delicious. Some sort of sweet rice with spices, and while it’s a little too hot and burns his tongue, he can’t seem to eat fast enough.
The man smiles, watching him, and he furrows his brows a little in return. “I’m Seonghwa.” He offers. Hongjoong does not care about his name. He only wants to know how he appeared so suddenly on a ship that hasn’t even seen land in two months.
He also doesn’t look like the sort of man who should be sitting on the damp deck. As he speaks, he’s looking about him with the wide-eyed innocence a child, something Hongjoong wouldn’t expect from someone who is so elegantly dressed.
Up close, Hongjoong can see his face better, and he can’t pretend that he isn’t just a little curious. His hair is still tied back with that gold pin, which is ornately decorated. Probably worth more than the entirety of Hongjoong’s worldly possessions five times over, but he has to begrudgingly admit in his mind that it’s beautiful. It’s engraved in some sort of spiral, with a golden emblem securing the hair in place. From what he can make out, it’s a dragon’s head, inlaid with sparkling green gems along the ridges of it’s back and with two glowing rubies for its eyes.
He also gets the chance to examine his companion – Seonghwa’s face for the first time. In comparison to the pirates he’s so used to associating with, with their tanned and weathered skin, Seonghwa is surprisingly pale, and his skin is clear of all the usual marks of sun exposure.
Spending most of his time in pitch darkness, Hongjoong knows himself to be pale, but he does benefit from the sunlit life at sea sometimes. It looks almost as if Seonghwa has never even stepped foot outside before, which begs the question that Hongjoong has asked himself hundreds of times since yesterday – is this man even a pirate at all?
As Seonghwa eats, Hongjoong continues to steal curious glances across at his companion. They sit facing the same way, so his view is only his profile, but he takes in high cheekbones, a straight nose and full lips. He’s never met a pirate close to himself in age before, and certainly not one this beautiful – but he pushes that thought away before it even fully forms. He goes back to focusing on his food before his mind can betray him even further.
Before he knows it, his bowl is empty. He sets it aside before standing quickly, hoping to escape back to the dark to try and form some semblance of a plan. Now that the shock has subsided, Hongjoong is faced with the glaring reality – they’re stuck in the middle of the ocean with little to no idea of how to sail a ship. Or at least, he has no idea. He can’t imagine that Seonghwa, with his wide-eyed childlike manner, is capable of captaining a pirate vessel.
Hongjoong sighs resignedly. “Look, we need a plan here, because at the moment, we’re pretty much screwed.”
A look of confusion spreads across Seonghwa’s face, and his lips curl in a small smile. “What do you mean? We’ve got everything right here! The sun, the sea breeze – we’re free now!”
“No, we’re completely fucked!” Hongjoong slams his hand against the railing in his frustration. He opts to gaze out across the waves rather than meet the eyes of his companion. How does he not understand? “Neither of us can sail this ship. We have no idea where we are right now, no idea how to fight, and only enough food for two months. Who knows how long it will be until we find somewhere to stop for supplies?"
He can feel, only too painfully, Seonghwa’s gaze on his back. “And you’re staring.” He adds grumpily.
“Two months are years, out here. That’s more than enough time to learn how to sail a ship.”
“You don’t understand. We need a captain, we need a navigator, we need a pilot, we need a lookout, we need a doctor – we don’t have any of those things, right now. Our lives are over, Seonghwa.” At the last word, he turns around, his anger building as he almost spits at the man behind him.
Seonghwa shakes his head minutely. His dark eyes are sparkling in the sunlight. “Our lives are just beginning, Joong.”
“Don’t call me that. You’re missing the point here. Unless we can somehow make our way to land – which I doubt – we’re completely and utterly fucked! I’m a cook, not a captain!”
“But you could be.” Seonghwa lowers his voice to a near whisper. “This is a chance, for both of us.”
“It’s a death sentence.” Hongjoong deadpans, tired of going in circles. “Look, can you steer this thing or not?”
“There are maps in the captain’s quarters.” Why does he know that? What could his role on the ship possibly have been to know the whereabouts of the maps, which were well known by the crew to be the captain’s most prized possession?
Hongjoong bites his annoyance for the man back in light of this curiosity. A map isn’t much, but it’s a start. He nods slowly, and watches as Seonghwa’s features light up in a smile. “Could you go get them? Then we’ll figure out what to do next.”
Seonghwa bends to pickup Hongjoong’s discarded bowl from the floor, stacking it on top of his own with a clatter and throwing him a haphazard salute before disappearing down the steps. “On it, Captain Joong.”
---
By the time Seonghwa has returned with the maps in hand, Hongjoong has quelled his irritation and set it aside in favour of trying to figure a way out of their situation. The thing that irks him the most is that Seonghwa seems incapable of seeing the gravity of their predicament, but he breathes deep and calms the panic threatening to bloom in his chest. He doesn’t panic – except at loud noises. They make him weak, and he hates it.
He stands by the wheel to the ship, a huge great thing that reaches almost this shoulder, although that doesn’t say much. Standing next to Seonghwa, he tries to straighten his back just a little. Just so he doesn’t feel quite so small.
The tell-tale footsteps echo up the steps again, and he blinks himself back to awareness from where he had been caught in his thoughts. Seonghwa lowers the map in his hand to the floor, smoothing the scroll of paper roll across the deck and unravel itself to reveal-
It feels like more than a map. There’s more love, more care gone into it. Each line has been drawn with such attention to detail that it hardly looks real – every rock, every cliff of the coastline drawn in exquisite detail. In the very centre, in the vast expanse of ocean, a circular compass has been sketched in black ink.
“It’s beautiful.” Hongjoong breathes, dropping onto his knees to examine it better. A pink flush creeps over Seonghwa’s cheek as he smoothes the paper down with a careful hand.
“I made it.” He says quietly.
“This? You – you made all of this? How-”
“There are seven more of them in the cabin.” He replies. “Eight in total. They cover this whole expanse of coastline, all the islands, everything. In total, just under a thousand square miles.”
“That’s incredible.” All of Hongjoong’s previous dislike for the man is briefly forgotten as he marvels over the detail laid out on the parchment beneath his knees. “Truly.”
Seonghwa lowers his head little from embarrassment. He points to a spot on the map, at what looks like complete random to Hongjoong, but his finger lands firm and sure.
“We’re here, right now. The closest port-” he traces his finger a few centimetres up the paper to the jagged edge of coastline to the North-West of their current position. In between two tall hills, Hongjoong can make out the outlines of buildings, and a small harbour that has been marked with a name that’s too small for him to read. The detail on it is astonishing.
“It should take us just over a week to get there,” Seonghwa sighs, “If we turn now. I think we’re facing North-East at the moment, but the wind is coming from the East, so it should give us a little boost in the right direction.”
Hongjoong is at a loss for words. Clearly, he’d underestimated this man before, and suddenly his carefree manner doesn’t seem naive. It seems like the sort of man who isn’t afraid, because he trusts his own skill. He has to begrudgingly admit that he admires that. The thought of voicing that, though, is absurd.
“Good.” His voice comes out a little gruff, and he clears his throat. “Let’s do that.”
---
Hongjoong spends the remainder of his morning taking stock of the supplies still left, sorting through the crates of food in the storage room and categorising them based on when they need to be eaten by. He does this once a week to plan the meals for the crew and it’s a familiar task, even though it’s a few days before he would usually do it. Anything to keep his mind busy. He’s also unsure of his role on the ship now – considering it’s just the two of them, and Seonghwa appears to be a much more gifted chef than Hongjoong could ever even hope to be. Doesn’t that now render him essentially useless?
He pushes these thoughts away, and they redirect themselves to the long list of questions that have been spinning through his mind. There’s so much to Seonghwa that he just doesn’t know, and he’s so curious. Little as he wants to build up a civil relationship between the two of them, he knows that it’s necessary if they are to safely make it to port. And after today, he has no doubts lingering about Seonghwa’s capability as a navigator. it’s clear that he’s a natural sailor, not just in his expertise but in the way that his eyes shine on the deck, the way he looks so innocent and at ease when out in the misty sea breeze, the wind brushing those loose strands of hair back from his face just a little –
Hongjoong pulls himself back together. He doesn’t want to be picturing Seonghwa in that way. He doesn’t want to be picturing Seonghwa at all. Friendships aren’t something that Hongjoong has ever experienced, and he only feels awkward around this strange new man. He’s survived this far without friends, relatives, even pleasant acquaintances, and on the whole he thinks that daring to care about someone is foolish. It will only end badly.
On the deck, the pirates often told stories as they eat their evening meal. Hongjoong would linger just beyond their circle to eat, not really interested and not really listening, but even so some of their tales wormed their way into his memory and burned there, ideas and hopes and dreams and love. Hongjoong has never understood that. Pirates can’t love. And especially not people like him.
He dejectedly throws the last bag of oats into the final crate and sits down on the lid, running his hand backwards through his hair. As soon as they arrive at port, he’ll leave. Who knows where he’ll go? He has nothing to his name except the outfit he stands in, the blood-covered clothes in the closet and the raggedy rug he’s slept under for the past four months. He could easily steal from the ship, sell the goods to make a living, but that doesn’t sit right with him. Hongjoong is many things, but he is not a thief.
He’s perfectly comfortable in his own company, often spending long hours down here in the darkness with nothing but his own thoughts for entertainment, and he settles back against the wall now to do just that. His mind is a confused muddle of questions and concerns, but he knows that realistically, nothing can be done right now. He debates going up to the deck, if only to escape the stuffy hold, but he dismisses this thought immediately. The risk of running into Seonghwa is too great. Something about that man is so completely unknown and it draws Hongjoong in more than he would like to admit. He’s always been a curious person, probably a little too much for his own good, and he finds the other man to be fascinating in every way.
He zones out, only roused from his thoughts after what – a few hours? And then only by the sound of footsteps echoing from the cabin above. He sighs, pulling himself upright, stretching his limbs a little. His body has gone stiff from the cold and lack of movement, and it feels good to get moving again.
He doesn’t want to admit that he’s been hiding down here again solely in the hope of avoiding Seonghwa’s company, and so he hovers by the door for a moment before deciding to exit up the stairs. His curiosity is getting the better of him once again, and he’s hoping that just one more interaction might bring him the answers that he’s been itching for. Even so, he can feel the reluctance weighing heavy in his bones. Everything about this man is so confusing. Hongjoong has always known himself to be at the bottom of the crew, but Seonghwa doesn’t seem to be aware of this at all – in fact, he treats him more as if he was higher in rank. He’d called him captain, hadn’t he?
He shakes his head to try and quieten the thoughts. There are so many things unknown, so much that he wishes to learn about the man upstairs, and yet he’s unwilling to be the one to initiate the conversation. Usually, nobody bothers to Hongjoong apart from when extremely necessary, even then only referring to him as boy. Seonghwa asked for his name. He’s never been asked that before.
And he had given that information so willingly. His name is something that he’s always hugged close to his chest, one thing that can’t be taken from him, one thing that’s truly his. When everything else has seemed uncertain, he’s always known exactly who he is. To divulge that precious information so easily... He doesn’t know why he did it. Something about Seonghwa makes him unsure how to act. It’s unsettling.
He heads upstairs anyway.
Even so, he feels the surge of something – resentment, maybe, at the sight of his profile out on the deck. He doesn’t seem to like staying inside, and Hongjoong can see why. He looks so much more alive out here on the deck, wind whipping through his hair, tied back so neatly, his cheeks touched with pink from the wind. He turns, seeming to sense Hongjoong’s presence, a small smile creeping across his lips.
“Good evening, captain. I’d wondered where you’d got to?”
Hongjoong gestures back down the stairs, mumbling something about rearranging the crates. “I heard you moving around up here, and-”
“You missed me?”
He feels his lips tighten. “I think that there are some things we need to discuss. Most importantly, the weather. There’ll be a storm in the next couple of days, I can feel it.”
There’s a glint in Seonghwa’s eye as he tips his head towards the steps to the upper deck, indicating for them both to sit where they ate breakfast. He waits for Hongjoong to sit first before settling himself just slightly closer than he might have preferred. He suspects that he’s done it on purpose.
“Fire away, captain.”