Chapter Text
It’s a fine day for sailing, and they make haste away from the small island. Minho watches it grow smaller and smaller, before being swallowed by the horizon. He can’t quite tell, since he disappears from view so quickly, but he thinks the castaway stares him down the entire time they sail away. It’s expectedly insolent, and Minho is happier than ever to have the mutineer off of his ship.
His crew is sullen now, after what’s happened, but Minho’s spirits are high. It’s a new start, and he starts by asserting his authority immediately.
“Seungmin,” he barks. His navigator stands at attention as he should, staring forward. When Minho doesn’t command him immediately, his eyes shift anxiously to the side. Their eyes meet as he does this, and Seungmin’s widen in alarm and snap back forward. Minho doesn’t comment on the disrespect, though his eyes narrow. “The last location of the traitor?”
“Heading due east, captain,” Seungmin reports immediately. His posture doesn’t relax at all, knowing he runs the risk of being marooned with the captain so testy lately. “And quite quickly, too.”
“Towards the mainland?” Minho questions, an eyebrow quirking upwards. How strange. He supposes they had to turn around eventually—there’s only so much sea that leads away from the mainland.
“It would appear so, sir,” Seungmin confirms with a curt nod.
Minho glances around the vessel. The crew on deck all stand at attention, and all seem terrified to make eye contact with their captain. Just as well, Minho thinks, a crew should fear and respect their captain.
Checking the sky, it seems they’re not heading due east, but rather, northeast.
He decides to point this out to Seungmin. “And we’re heading in the same direction as them, then?” he asks.
Seungmin falters. He breaks from his salute to check the sun’s position, squint at the piece of horizon they are approaching, which shows nothing but open sea. “Uh,” he admits timidly, “we’re not heading quite due east, I think.”
Minho hums and strolls up the deck, his polished boots thumping against the swabbed deck. “I see,” he says. “I’m confused, then,” he admits, wheeling back around the look at Seungmin. The kid has paled, even under the intense sun, and his eyes are wide.
Minho can guess what he’s imagining—being pitched overboard and plummeting to the seafloor, gone and silenced forever. The ocean is cruel, Minho is cruel, but this is a royal vessel, not a ship of barbaric rogues. Minho won’t toss his own men overboard—the king wouldn’t allow such a thing. Marooning may be justifiable in certain situations, such as in his mutinous first mate’s case, but Minho has a feeling even he wouldn’t get away with tossing a wealthy merchant’s son overboard.
He continues, pretending like he doesn’t notice how afraid his navigator looks. He cocks his head, looks straight at Seungmin as he asks, “Remind me, whose job is it to set our course?”
“Um, well,” Seungmin says, fidgeting in place, unable to help himself. “I suppose it’s mine.”
“You suppose?” Minho asks. “Are you not sure of your duties?”
“I—I made a mistake, sir,” Seungmin stammers. “I sincerely apologize for the delay, it won’t happen again.”
Minho wants to inform him that it certainly won’t happen again, turn the ship around and fling Seungmin to the same island they’d just departed. He weighs his options, debating between the satisfaction of ridding his ship of incompetence and the benefits of proving to his crew that he can provide some small mercy. While he’s limboing between the two choices, a small voice, not Seungmin’s, interrupts his thoughts.
“Captain?”
It’s the helmsman, who’s snapped out of his position to timidly approach the captain. The disrespect, Minho thinks. How can he maroon the highest-ranking man on his ship and still receive such utter disrespect from his crew? He’d maroon the lot of them if he could manage to run an entire naval vessel on his own.
“What?” Minho snaps, and the helmsman shrinks back. He can’t quite remember his name, doesn’t make it a habit of fraternizing with his crew. A captain should be distant, his crew should think him above the rest of them, but he must have been stuck with the lousiest crew the kingdom has to offer.
Despite the initial flinch, the helmsman draws himself up, squares his shoulders. “It’s my fault, sir,” he informs Minho. “Seungmin told me to head due east.”
“Jeongin,” Seungmin hisses, trying to stop him, but the helmsman, Jeongin, pays him no mind. He is instead staring Minho down, and this proves that he is a fool. Brave, perhaps, but a fool nonetheless.
Minho has no problem staring right back, but Jeongin, scarcely old enough to be called a man, doesn’t back down. “Then tell me, helmsman,” Minho says calmly, “why you haven’t set our course due east?”
Jeongin turns, points to the starboard side of the ship, to the southeast. “A storm brews,” he explains. Minho squints, can just make out the signs of a few troubling clouds in the distance. “Traveling due east, we’ll likely get caught in it. Traveling to the northeast, we should mostly avoid it.”
Minho pales, looking at the distant, angry clouds. He’s been at sea long enough to know that they are the kind to turn into a true tempest, one where the rain pelts you so hard you can’t see, where the wind screams so loud you fear being blown off the ship. The waves crash onto the deck, and Minho has seen men swept out to sea by them. If there’s one thing Minho truly fears, it’s a storm—or rather, the consequences of a storm.
And then there’s another dilemma: does he do the wise thing and back down, admit that they ought to avoid the storm, or buckle down and assert his authority? His pride tells him to buckle down; his reason tells him that he wants no part of that storm.
The traitorous ship they’re pursuing is small, battered and old but agile. It can outsail Minho’s impressive but bulky ship any day, and even sailing faithfully due east, they wouldn’t have a chance to catch up until the little ship docks.
“The second the storm clears,” Minho warns Jeongin, “you’re to alter our course to best pursue our target.”
“Of course, captain,” Jeongin agrees.
Minho glances around at his crew. They all still stand at attention, but he can’t be imagining the furtive grins he sees on a few of their faces. They think he’s weak, pathetic, laughable for being wrong about the course, for not noticing the storm. His face burns, though whether from shame or anger he’s not sure—perhaps it’s some sort of sick combination of the two.
Determined to maintain some small shred of his dignity, he spits on the perfectly scrubbed, polished deck. “This ship is filthy,” he barks. “Anyone without an essential task is to scrub it until it shines.” There’s no reaction among his men; they know better than to show displeasure. The last sailor who’d rolled his eyes at Minho had been given the task of prepping the cannons and had nearly had his arm blown off as a result.
Satisfied, he commands, “At ease,” and marches down to his own quarters.
They avoid the storm, coming away with no worse than a night of pouring, freezing rain. It’s still enough to spook Minho, and he stays in his quarters during it, leaving his men to man the sails, bail the water from the deck. Still, the sound of the gale hammering against the walls of the ship had unnerved him so badly he’d not slept a wink, thinking only of the pieces of wood that separate him from the sea, that keep him from a watery grave.
His quarters are luxurious, as luxurious as a wooden room below the waves can be. They should be luxurious, Minho thinks—he’s the captain, after all, and without him, his men are nothing.
It’s not nearly so luxurious as his parents’ villa, where he’d grown up, but he’s content to at least have the nicest quarters on deck. Hyunjin’s quarters, significantly smaller, are located next to his. He’d heard a few of the higher-ranking officers argue over who should get them, now that he’s as good as dead. It’s unseemly, Minho thinks, to argue over such things, and he’d resolved the conflict by stating he’d tear down the wall that separates their two quarters to expand his own.
After all, there are no more men on board than before; in fact, there are rather fewer. His men can keep sleeping where they slept before, in their own bunks, and Minho will take charge of Hyunjin’s quarters. He’d been the one hurt by his actions, anyway, so it’s only right that he gets his quarters, he thinks.
He’s contemplating how best to distribute his furniture throughout his new, larger quarters when a knock sounds at the door.
“What?” he snaps, upset at being interrupted.
It’s the stupid helmsman again, along with his spineless navigator. “We had a concern to bring up to you, captain,” Jeongin says placidly. He steps fully into the room, even though he wasn’t invited; Seungmin trails behind him uncertainly, looking around in awe at Minho’s impressive quarters.
“You should report to your immediate superior to resolve petty conflicts,” Minho reminds him, glaring. He’s above such squabbles, bickering over rations and bunks.
“It’s about our pursuit of The Strays,” Jeongin informs him flatly, keeping his face easily neutral, not giving away any of his annoyance. Any crew who lasts long enough on Minho’s ship learns to do so.
At the name of the enemy ship, Minho’s ears perk up. “Go on,” he says, turning from his quarters and observing the two men.
Jeongin nudges Seungmin, and he stumbles forward. “Tell the captain what you told me, Seungminnie.”
Minho grimaces; he’s not one for fond, affectionate nicknames, but whatever information they may have is too important to waste time scolding Jeongin.
Seungmin fiddles his hands nervously before him, though he has sense enough to make a shaky salute. “Sir,” he begins, “I think we must finally address what has been evident for months now: our ship is too large to catch up to The Strays.”
Minho huffs. He knows, but he’s been trying to get around the fact that he’s going to have to move into an even smaller, more claustrophobic ship. “And do you have a solution to this problem?” he asks. “Shall we saw the ship in half?”
It’s a ridiculous suggestion, and Minho sees Jeongin frown at it. Seungmin, however, trembles, and Minho relishes the fear. “No, sir,” he says. “But we’re less than a fortnight’s journey from Windharbor. We can request a more suitable ship from Commander Park there. One that’s smaller, more agile.”
And less likely to hold its own against the rough waves, Minho thinks grimly. He knows Seungmin is right, though—he’d come to the same conclusion himself weeks ago. The fear had kept him from acting on it, pursuing a ship he can’t catch doggedly but pointlessly around the kingdom, wasting time.
“Very well,” Minho agrees. “Set a course for Windharbor.” His stomach fills with dread, his chest flutters at anxiety at the thought, and he imagines a great wave swallowing the new, smaller vessel easily, dragging it down to the depths of the sea.
He has to suppress a shudder as he dismisses his crew.
The sun blinds them, so they don’t see the castaway at first. They literally almost stumble over him, running along the beach, enjoying sunshine and terra firma for the first time in too long.
It’s Felix who stops in his tracks upon seeing him, forcing Jisung to slam into his back. They both fall into the sand and Jisung, upon finally noticing the castaway, springs to his feet. He pushes Felix behind him warily. Castaways are dangerous, desperate men with nothing to lose, nothing to fear but the slow death of wasting away on a deserted island.
This one is odd. He barely spares them more than a glance before he turns back to the sea, staring at the glittering waters. The sunlight that glints off of it is more than enough to blind, to literally burn the vision right out of your eyes, but this man doesn’t seem to care. He has nothing to lose, no need of his eyes for more than another day or two.
He’s haggard and grimy. His skin has burned red from the sun, though he makes no attempt to hide from it. Most surprising of all is the uniform he wears, though it’s now dirty and in tatters. Still, it’s unmistakable, the crest of the king that adorns his Royal Navy uniform.
“I thought the king was too noble and great to allow his sailors to be marooned,” Jisung says, his tone mocking. Marooning is an awful fate, saved for the lowest of the low, the most treacherous of traitors.
The castaway looks back up at them. He licks his dry lips; fresh water is near impossible to come by on such an island, but perhaps he’d managed to gather some rainwater, if the storm had also passed through here.
He seems like he might make a remark back, but looks away again before he speaks. He must not think it’s worth it; maybe it’s not, to a dying man.
Felix doesn’t understand these things, and offers, “We can take you to the next port of call. There’s food and water enough on our ship.”
Jisung wants to kick him in the shins, just a little. He knows Felix doesn’t exactly have the heart of a sailor, but it’s naïve even for him. While he’s trying to decide if he should admonish Felix or inform the castaway that he’s actually not welcome on their ship, he speaks.
“I’ll pass.” His voice is dry, raspy, and it seems he can’t speak above a whisper.
And, well, it makes Jisung a little mad. Who is this filthy castaway to refuse Felix’s kind offer, when he’s perhaps twelve hours from death? He’s always been one to let his emotions control him, so he turns to Felix and says, “He’s navy. Boss’ll wanna see him.”
“I’ve no interest in boarding your ship,” the castaway reminds him, but he’s too weak to resist when Jisung and Felix jointly drag him down the beach.
They drag him all the way below deck, where the damage to their ship is being repaired. When they toss him at Changbin’s feet, he collapses to the floor and doesn’t attempt to get up, his grimy hair covering the wooden deck.
Changbin looks down at him, then back up at Jisung and Felix. “Who’s this?”
“A castaway,” Jisung shrugs. “A navy castaway.”
Changbin frowns, looks back down at the man. He is wearing a navy uniform, he realizes, though it’s hard to recognize underneath the sand, blood, and dirt it’s covered with. “That’s rare,” he notes simply. He’s aware of Chan over his shoulder, peering curiously down at the castaway, and he turns to address him. “Why don’t you bring some water for him, Channie?” he suggests. “I’m sure he’s parched.”
Chan nods and climbs back above deck. The castaway finally raises his head, and even with the weakness contained in them, there’s a piercing hatred that’s directed straight at Changbin. It’s dark below deck, and his eyes are burned from the sun, but he glares all the same. “You’re the captain, then?” he asks. This man has nothing special about him, the castaway notes. He wears the same tattered rags as the two boys who’d found him on the beach. The only thing that’s distinctive about him is the ostentatiously large emerald he wears dangling from one ear, weighing down the lobe—plunder, likely.
Changbin shrugs, and the emerald sways with the movement. “I’m the closest thing this ship has to a captain, I s’pose.”
The castaway scoffs a laugh. He says in a low voice, scarcely audible, “That’s not what I’ve heard, Seo Changbin.”
That gets his attention, and he stoops to the castaway’s level, dangerously close to his face, sneering. He doesn’t smell great after a few days marooned, but Changbin is willing to ignore that to get answers. “How do you know my old name?” He grabs the front of his uniform, though the castaway doesn’t need to be intimidated; a stiff breeze could knock him over.
The castaway sneers right back, would spit in Changbin’s face if he had any water to spare in his body. “Hwang Hyunjin,” he introduces himself. “Former first mate of Captain Lee Minho.”
Minho. Of course it’s him, Changbin thinks, the one who’s been chasing them all over the ocean. They’d finally managed to give him the slip, only to sail headfirst into a storm—he was the one assigned to track him down, then. And hadn’t he once sworn to follow Changbin to the end of the world?
Perhaps it’s fitting. Minho is certainly determined, and definitely has the proper motivation to take Changbin down. It’s appropriate, maybe, a full-circle moment, the perfect, destructive collision of Changbin’s two lives.
Chan returns with the water, and Changbin releases the castaway. He should be grateful that the others, but especially Chan, had not heard his old name. He’s not sure if it would make a difference to him now, after all these years, but he’d rather not have to explain that part of himself.
Though the water is set right in front of Hyunjin, he ignores it, choosing instead to glare at the captain of The Strays.
“It’s not poisoned,” Chan informs him, frowning.
“Tell you what, Hyunjin,” Changbin decides, standing back up. Hyunjin’s head follows him, gazing up at him from the floor. “You’ll be our prisoner while we sail, just in case you try to do something stupid, like sink the ship. We’re on our way to Broken Tooth Bay. Once we’re there, you’re free to go, if you’d like. Hitch a ride back to the mainland, or stay there a free man, hiding from the Royal Navy.”
Hyunjin narrows his eyes. “You won’t kill me?”
“No,” Changbin says. “Though the thirst will, if you keep ignoring that water.” His eyes don’t lose their suspicion, their mistrust, but he grabs the cup and drains it at once, desperate but trying very hard not to lose even the littlest drop. Changbin smiles, pats his dirty head. “Good,” he praises. “Channie, more water for the prisoner?”
Hyunjin receives the same fare that the other scanty crew of The Strays receive, in the same amount as well. It’s stale bread and a bit of dried meat, but he eats it ravenously, finding that once the food hits his stomach, his hunger returns full force.
“Sorry we’ve nothing more nutritious to give you,” Changbin apologizes. “You’re half-starved.” Hyunjin still watches him warily, watches all four warily, but his comment seems to be genuine. “Lix, surely there’s more bread to spare?”
“Shall we starve, then?” Jisung says grumpily, crossing his arms over his chest. He’s rarely critical of Changbin, but this castaway has rubbed him the wrong way entirely.
“We should make out like kings at Broken Tooth,” Changbin informs him, grinning. “Going hungry for a day or two is well worth it for the feast to come.”
Felix smiles at Hyunjin kindly, goes to the tiny larder in search of more food. Hyunjin gulps more water, his arms trembling. Now that he’s out of the sun, he can feel the burning of his skin, which flakes away in great patches from the angry red.
“You don’t take many prisoners,” Hyunjin notes, an educated guess.
“What makes you say that?” Changbin asks, leaning back in his seat. Chan and Jisung have finished eating, and go to prepare a bath for the castaway, who desperately needs it.
“I’m not even chained.”
“Where will you go?”
It’s a fair point. The ship is beached on the island for the night. Chan and Changbin managed to finish the repairs, but they’ve been at sea too long, and figured they could wait until morning to set off again. Even if Hyunjin did decide to run, he’s weak, and any one of the crew could easily catch and restrain him.
Felix returns with another bit of bread and sets it in front of Hyunjin. He falls on it immediately, too hungry to be embarrassed by his desperation. Hunger is the best sauce, and even this stale bread tastes almost divine to him.
“Can we sleep on the beach, Binnie?” Felix asks. Hyunjin’s head snaps up—how can he be so casual with his captain? “I’m sick of the bunks.”
Surprisingly, Changbin doesn’t seem upset at the familiarity. Rather, he smiles fondly, and Hyunjin gets the feeling there’s not much he can deny Felix. “Sure,” he agrees easily. “We’ll build a fire.”
Hyunjin’s bread is gone too quickly, and this time, he’s not offered more. Instead, Chan ushers him to what is little more than a closet. It contains a large, wooden basin that’s full of steaming water and a little bar of soap.
“Changbin said to offer you these, too,” Chan says stiffly, holding out a pile of clothes. Hyunjin hesitates before he grabs them, and he doesn’t thank Chan.
He shuts the door in his face, though he’s positive he doesn’t leave. With the door shut, there’s scarcely room for him to scramble out of his ruined clothes, but he manages.
The struggle with the bath is the temperature of the water. Hyunjin’s skin is already overheated from the sunburn, and it’s torturous to lower himself into the too-warm water. Still, he grits his teeth and manages it—the grime and dirt that covers him is a bit too much for even a sailor to handle.
The water is disgustingly filthy by the time Hyunjin pulls himself out, but he himself is mostly clean. His skin is screaming, on fire, but he feels a bit better. The sunburn will go away, too, and his eyes will probably go mostly back to normal, although it’s still hard to see in the dark space.
The clothes Chan had given him are pirate clothes, little more than mismatched rags. Still, his naval uniform is all but ruined, and he’s not sure if he’s even welcome to wear it anymore after having been marooned.
He puts on the pirate clothes, a billowing white shirt, a sash around his waist, and breeches that are meant to be tied around his calf, though he doesn’t bother.
When he emerges, Chan is still there, keeping watch. He doesn’t comment when he sees Hyunjin, just jerks his head towards the ladder that leads above deck.
Hyunjin’s surprised to find that it’s dark out, the moon and all the stars barely lighting the deck. Changbin is still on board, looking out at the island, where Jisung and Felix have built a fire. They’re chasing each other, laughing and hollering.
Changbin casts a sideways glance at the two as they come up. The emerald hanging from his ear reflects the moonlight. “Channie,” he says. “Can you go make sure the kids don’t burn down the island? I wanted to talk with Hyunjin.”
And Chan’s gone, swinging over the side of the boat rather than using the gangplank. It’s not a large boat, and the sand makes a soft landing, anyway.
Changbin turns away from the beach, leaning against the bow to face Hyunjin. “Do you feel better?” he asks.
Hyunjin stays silent, staring at him stonily. Does he expect gratitude from Hyunjin? He supposes he’s been treated kinder than most prisoners. Still, it doesn’t erase the fact that he’s a prisoner, and just a few hours ago, he was fine with his fate of dying on the beach.
After a few seconds of silence, Changbin seems to realize that Hyunjin won’t answer him. He continues regardless. “Listen, I’ve treated you well, haven’t I?” He pauses, gives Hyunjin a chance to nod or confirm, but he doesn’t. “I’d appreciate if you kept my family name to yourself. The others don’t know about it.”
Hyunjin raises an eyebrow at this. They don’t know he’s part of the Seo family? That Changbin’s own family is the very core of the 1% from which they steal? He certainly doesn’t look it now. Hyunjin’s no aristocrat, at least not of the level of Seo Changbin (and really, who is, apart from the king himself?), but even he knows they would look down on the gaudy, vulgar emerald that hangs from his ear. The tatters he’s wearing, as well, but the emerald is somehow even more offensive in its lack of subtlety, the mark of a true pirate.
“Minho told you, I expect.”
Hyunjin clears his throat; it’s less painful to talk now, though it’s still raw. “Mentioned you were an old friend of his.” His face sours, suddenly, and he spits the next part. “Seemed eager enough to brag about being acquaintances with a Seo.”
Changbin laughs once, though it sounds oddly fond. He tilts his head back, looks up at the night sky. “Acquaintances,” he says incredulously. He shakes his head, as if he can’t believe it. He refocuses then, looking back at Hyunjin. “In any case, I know you don’t owe me anything but your life, but I’d appreciate it all the same. I no longer associate myself with the name of Seo.”
Hyunjin doesn’t promise him anything, doesn’t think his life nearly as valuable as the name Seo. Instead, he asks, “What’s the son of the wealthiest family in the kingdom doing as a filthy pirate?”
Changbin doesn’t seem offended, and Hyunjin doesn’t even know if he’s meant to offend him. Instead, he smiles at Hyunjin and says, “I’ll keep that to myself, thanks.” Then, without further ado, he swings his leg over the side of the boat. “Now come on, we’re all sleeping on the beach tonight.”
Hyunjin furrows his brow. “You won’t stay in your quarters?”
“My quarters?” Changbin asks with a grin, before bursting into laughter. It’s the kind of laughter that has Hyunjin smiling in response, against his will—it’s infectious. “I’m a filthy pirate, not a king.”
And like that, he’s gone, plummeting over the side of the ship into the sand below, jogging towards his crew. They seem to have settled down, seated around the fire.
Hyunjin takes the gangplank down and walks to join them.