#the two times the sunbaes were talking about jihyun dying they did not use the word die | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

chaseatinydream · 3 years

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pirate king (13) || atz

“Master!” You burst into the sickbay, eyes brimming over with tears as you desperately search for that head of green hair that has grown so familiar to you. You ignore the stunned faces of some of the pirates who are getting their wounds treating, the concerned glances that some give you, only to see Seonghwa standing there with a basket of dirty cloths in his arms and a startled look on his face at the commotion.

Then he sees the tears tracks winding down your face and his expression melts into one of horrified concern, he puts the basket down and moves to reach for you.

You simply throw yourself into his arms without waiting for him and sob into his chest, openly weeping in full view of all the pirates in the sickbay. The cook staggers back a couple of steps from the force of your embrace, but manages to upright himself before the two of you go bowling over onto the floor.

Seonghwa is warm. He always has been. Gentle, kind, compassionate and tender-hearted. And you’ve never been so grateful for a man like him. He lets you cry, hands softly winding in your hair, a little confused as to why it’s suddenly several inches shorter and out of its usual braid. You hear Jongho’s heavy footsteps behind you on the wooden floor, and his face must say something because Seonghwa’s body stiffens, his embrace around you tightening just a little as he folds you into his arms.

“What did you do, Jongho?”

Seonghwa’s voice is deliberately neutral. He trusts Jongho, of course. But the last person you were with was indeed the young battlemaster and he knows Jongho is terribly awkward with new people. He wouldn’t be surprised if Jongho had said something silly on accident and ended up causing you to get upset.

But Jongho merely exhales uncomfortably, looking down at his boots. “We should talk about this in private.” His voice holds no room for argument.

Seonghwa frowns a little at this apparent need for privacy, long fingers gently stroking through your hair as your warm tears soak into his shirt sleeves. “Jihyun, help me call San and tell him to come to his room immediately.”

A tall pirate nods, rising to his feet. “Of course, Seonghwa-sunbae.” He moves off quickly, disappearing from sight. Seonghwa then puts an arm around your shoulders, sweetly ushering you into the backroom where you’ve been sleeping for the past couple of weeks and sits you down on San’s bed, wiping the tears from your eyes with a tender hand. Jongho follows behind, shutting the door firmly behind you.

You feel weak, boneless, as the words run through your mind again and again on repeat.

“You will never find what you so desperately seek as long as you live.”

You reach out a hand. Seonghwa looks puzzled for a moment, but you think the experience must have at least made you and Jongho closer somehow, because he understands immediately and clasps your hands gently, almost timidly in his, as if afraid that you might break if he uses too much force.

Jongho probably could crush a man’s skull with his bare hands, but he cradles your hand like it’s a newborn baby chick.

“Just before you get the wrong idea, hyung, I didn’t do anything.” The young battlemaster says firmly, but there is guilt lingering in his voice. You know it’s not because he did anything to you, but because he regrets making you visit the fortune teller in the first place.

Seonghwa frowns in confusion as he moves to light the lamp in the room. “Then why is s-” He coughs lightly as the smoke from the lamp gets into his eyes and nose. “Why is he so upset, Jongho?”

You curl up on San’s bed, wrapping your arms around yourself as if that can stop you from falling apart.

The maknae opens his mouth to explain, but then San enters the room.

His face is smoothed over, carefully blank, but you can feel the pulse of his energy spiking erratically, feeling more like a burning stove rather than a warm radiance. Jongho and Seonghwa must both feel it as well, because they both stiffen minutely.

“Hyung, we need to talk-” Jongho begins to say, but San ignores him and makes a beeline straight for you, sitting next to you on the bed and patting his lap.

“Here.”

You don’t decline the invitation, laying your head in his lap and curling up beneath the sheets like you do every time you get nightmares. You press your nose against his side, and immediately the smell of him fills your lungs. Green tea, honey, and floral notes of ylang ylang and lavender mixed with the odd herb he’s been experimenting with combine to create a scent that is uniquely his, one that never fails to calm you down even in the fiercest of storms.

His hand comes to rest in your hair, carding through the strands gently.

Only when he’s sure that you’re no longer in hysterics and on the verge of a panic attack does he turn to Jongho with sharp piercing eyes.

“So, would you mind explaining to me why my apprentice is in this state?”

You feel bad for Jongho, having to endure all this questioning by himself when he technically was only trying to help you and encourage you, but San shushes you the second you open your mouth.

“I want to hear this from him.” His eyes don’t leave the young battlemaster.

“Well, do you guys remember the first time I came to Tortuga, I visited a fortune teller?” Jongho asks slowly. His hyungs exchange looks, and then Seonghwa nods hesitantly.

“Why?”

“I brought him to visit the fortune teller.” Jongho mutters quietly, his voice small. You realise that even though Jongho may be the strongest, best fighter on board, he still submits himself to the authority of his older brothers. “And the fortune teller said some things…”

San’s eyes narrow as his fingers continue to brush through your hair. Seonghwa seats himself at San’s work table to listen to what Jongho has to say.

“She something about a jar of clay… and some secret that would ruin our trust in her...” Jongho mutters, shaking his head.

San’s fingers freeze in your hair.

“I mean… The secret that stowaway’s actually a woman isn’t quite secret, am I right?”

A terrified squeak leaves your mouth, momentarily pulling you out of your daze. You jerk up, staring at Jongho with wide eyes and your mouth hanging open in horror. Seonghwa shrugs in response to the maknae’s words.

“I did find out rather recently, so I suppose it’s no longer secret within us three then.”

You gulp. San stiffens slightly, but then you can feel his muscles relaxing next to you. “How did you find out, hyung?”

“When she hugged me earlier.” Seonghwa replies easily, much to your shock. Then he pauses, glancing at you hesitantly. “I could feel her… ah, chest through her clothes. I apologise deeply for any inappropriate actions I might have done under the impression you were a man.”

Your cheeks catch aflame as you stare at the cook in a mixture of both horror and embarrassment, your mouth opening and closing like a dying fish. Jongho’s nose scrunches up at his words.

“That’s gross, hyung.”

Seonghwa sputters incoherently at his dongsaeng’s words, looking like a rapidly reddening tomato. “Well, excuse me for not knowing she was a woman! How about you say how you figured it out?”

Jongho halts in all action immediately, jaw working furiously. His own cheeks have started turning apple red, and he looks away to the side, mumbling under his breath.

“When the fortune teller grabbed her shirt, I saw-”

You bury your face in a pillow to hide your embarrassment and scream. At this point, you don’t know what you are. Confused, shocked, mortified, everything. All you know you want to do is to crawl into a hole in the ground and slowly rot away, but then you then you remember you’re at sea in a ship and there is no hole in the ground for you to die in.

To your surprise, however, Jongho and Seonghwa don’t seem to be very affected by the fact that you are a woman. Jongho continues rambling on in spite of your mounting embarrassment.

“-her chest, okay? Well, not really her chest, but the bindings around her chest and I kind of guessed-”

“Okay, okay, we get it!” San covers your ears frantically before you can hear any more. “Let’s get back to the fortune teller bit. Jongho, do you remember everything she said?”

“Pretty much.” The young battlemaster turns to Seonghwa. “Hyung, do you think you could help me write it down before I forget?’

The cook picks up one of the stray quills on San’s worktable, pulling over a piece of blank paper. “Alright.”

Taking a deep breath, Jongho begins to recite the words from memory.

“Oh nameless one, child of the sea, you’re missing something very important to you.”

“Stowaway doesn’t have a name, so it does seem accurate.” Seonghwa mutters grimly, San nodding in agreement. The two of them are completely focused, intent on figuring out what the cryptic words of the fortune teller mean.

The sight warms you immensely despite the daze you’re in.

“And she is a pirate now, so the part of her being a child of the sea fits.” San adds, leaning his head on your shoulder. You shrug.

“She’s an amnesiac, so she’s missing her memories. We’ve solved the first bit. That’s good.” Jongho glances at the page as Seonghwa scribbles down their interpretation of the fortune teller’s words.

A frown tugs at his lips as he continues. “The secret you keep will ruin the trust you built. That’s the bit about her being a woman, isn’t it?”

Seas, it was weird hearing Jongho referring to you as her instead of he.

“I don’t see anything else that could be it.” San mutters thoughtfully, but Seonghwa cuts in.

“She could hear the voice of the sea monster that was chasing us the other time.”

Jongho’s jaw hits the ground. “You could do what?”

It almost amuses you how the young battlemaster is more shocked at the fact you could hear the sea monster’s voice as compared to the fact that you are a woman.

“Yeah.” You mumble under your breath, but Jongho’s eyes are huge with awe.

“That’s so cool!” For a moment, Jongho looks like the eighteen year old boy he is, still young, excitable, not quite a man yet, but he quickly catches himself and clears his throat. “Well, moving on. To pass the trial, one must cross into death and awaken into life. The biggest obstacle to overcome is yourself.”

He glances around at all of you. “That sounds cryptic and completely unhelpful. And I have absolutely no idea what it means.”

“What trial do you think the fortune teller could be talking about?” San scratches at his hair, frowning as he racks his mind. Seonghwa shrugs, just as confused.

“Well then. I suppose we could just leave this here for now.” Jongho mutters, shaking his head in disappointment. “A jewel resting in a jar of clay. That was when she went bat shit crazy and started shaking our stowaway here, demanding to know who’d made her.”

“Who made her?” Seonghwa questions, looking utterly bewildered as he jots them down. You feel your skin crawl at the words again. There seems to be some sort of significance to it that you can feel, something your mind screams at you to remember, but you can’t.

“She referred to stowaway as a ‘vessel that has only existed for a moon’, whatever the hell that meant.” Jongho supplies helpfully, and you feel San stiffen beside you.

Seonghwa looks equally uncomfortable as he glances at you. “A moon?” He repeats, hesitantly. You don’t know what the fortune teller was indicating when she said you had supposedly existed for a moon, but you don’t think she was referring to the silvery orb in the sky.

Your master frowns. “What I guess the fortune teller was referring to was a moon cycle. A vessel that has existed for a moon cycle.”

“Yes,” Seonghwa begins to argue, gesturing at you. “But how can she only have existed for one moon cycle?”

The two stare at each other for a while, both having some sort of internal battle as to what it could be. You tap Jongho’s arm frantically.

“How long is a moon cycle?”

At your question, Jongho swallows uncomfortably and looks away from you. “A little over twenty eight days.”

You feel like someone has just slapped you across the face.

Twenty eight days?

Your face must be a real sight, because San and Seonghwa immediately rush to comfort you.

“It could just mean that you’ve been without your memory for that long.”

“Yes! I mean, you can’t be that young. Don’t worry about it. It must be interpretation.”

You nod your head absentmindedly, still in some sort of daze. “Right.” Seonghwa gives Jongho a chastening look for revealing something that affected you so much. The young battlemaster mumbles an apology under his breath.

Then San sighs, rubbing his temples. “Honestly, we should ask Yeosang for help with this. No one on this ship is as good with cryptic nonsense, long, complicated words and obscure references as he.”

Jongho nods agreement. “Sometimes I don’t even understand what hyung is saying.”

You nod slowly. To be honest with yourself, you don’t really know what you’d do without these people by your side. Even Jongho, who you’ve just begun to talk to today, has been nothing but infinitely kind and helpful to you. You almost want to slap your past self for being such a fool, for even thinking he could have a bad bone in him.

“Thank you.” Your words come out a little choked with emotion, but the three of them accept it all the same. San doesn’t say anything, but just pats your head as usual.

Seonghwa beams at you gently. “It’s no problem, stowaway. You’re part of the family now. We’d do anything in our power to help you.”

Jongho looks at you seriously. “Wait… but we forgot one last thing. The sea witch.”

Sea witch.

Seonghwa flinches while San shudders, shoulders curling inwards. You frown at the two of them, a little unnerved by their reactions towards the word. The sea witch can’t be very terrifying, can she? Magic tended to be nothing more than the arcane, and from what Jongho has told you, only rare people like San are able to use this inner energy to their benefit.

“What is it?”

“The sea witch.” San echoes, drumming his fingers on his thigh absentmindedly. “We should probably ask Yeosangie more about this before you start to get any ideas, but if the myths are true… the sea witch is a being of immense power that lives on an island that only people in great desperation can find, surrounded by the sirens who serve her.”

“I read the legend of her when I was a child.” Seonghwa turns to you with a mixed look of both pity and worry. “The sea witch bargains with many beings, both supernatural and mortal, to make a deal. In the story I read, she gave a mermaid legs to be with the man she loved but took her voice.”

A deal.

Jongho meets your gaze, both your eyes drawn to the same object, the tiny crystal hanging at the end of your necklace.

The symbol of your bargain with the sea witch.

A headache starts throbbing at your temples, and you furiously rub at them, trying to ease the pain. Seonghwa notices almost at once and rises to his feet.

“We should let him-” He corrects himself. “-her rest.” San and Jongho nod agreement as they both rise to their feet.

“We’ll talk about this another day, apprentice.” San murmurs softly to you as you lie back on his bed, pulling the covers up to your nose. “We’ll talk to Yeosangie about this first, alright? He has a lot of books in Hongjoongie-hyung’s cabin, I’m sure we’ll find something.”

“Ok.” Your voice is small, and San gives you a warm smile before leaving the room, Jongho behind him.

But only Seonghwa lingers in the room for a moment, looking conflicted once more.

“What’s wrong, hyung?”

The cook looks at you for a long, silent moment before he speaks.

“You should tell the crew you’re a woman soon.”

Your chest seizes up. Yes, you know that Seonghwa and Jongho didn’t especially mind that you were one, and neither did they begrudge you for keeping this secret, but you knew not everyone would be this understanding.

“Especially captain.”

You swallow nervously.

“I will.”

Seonghwa manages a last, weak smile at you before turning to leave. As you lie under the covers, you wonder what might happen if Hongjoong did take the fact that you were a woman badly.

What if he left you in some town like he’d promised to do the last time?

No. No. You couldn’t have that. Not when you’d just started finding constructive clues to your past, not when you’d just started gaining family.

You needed to wait. Not now. You couldn’t tell them now.

The secret you keep will ruin the trust you built.

It was a decision you would later come to regret.

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