pirate king (pirate!au) ➵ ateez ✔️

mission

Wooyoung is still rubbing at his head with a rueful smile as the two of you walk through the empty streets with the odd drunk loitering here and there. "Maybe I should have looked at where I was going."

You glance at him in concern as you fall into step with him, your footsteps matching.

"Does it hurt?" There's a red weal where the branch had hit him. Wooyoung snorts as if the answer is obvious.

"Of course it does, it's broken."

You actually stop to stare at him in horror, your heart sinking as you check his forehead over for injuries. "What?" Then you see Wooyoung giggling with a hand over his mouth and you start to wonder exactly how hard he hit his head.

"Sorry. I thought you were talking about the tree branch." He throws your sentence right back you and you give him a flat stare. Then you flick him in the forehead right on the bruise and he yelps in pain, but still can't stop the giggles falling from his mouth.

The two of you walk past a row of shop houses, and you glance in interest at their wares, peering through the glass windows. Many are selling beautiful ornaments, jewelry, and even clockwork automatons. These are things you're pretty sure you've never seen before.

Then the two of you walk past a bookshop and you read the titles through the glass window.

"Hamlet, Othello, the Tempest..." You murmur aloud to yourself and Wooyoung glances curiously at you. "Leviathan, Religio Medici... The Mermaid-"

The gunner taps you on the shoulder, snapping you out of your little reading session.

"We're here." He points at the small, dark alleyway that will lead you to the back wing of the estate. You glance around to make sure no one is following you.

As if luck is in your favour tonight, the streets are empty.

Both of you duck into the alley, blending into the shadows the best you can as you pull the black scarf over your nose to hide your face. You glance before you, the first floor of the official's building has no windows, most likely to deter intruders like you. The lowest open window is about at twice your height and opposite it, across the alleyway, are a few open windows, where you assume some of the townspeople reside.

Wooyoung presses his right ear against the stone wall, indicating for you to keep your volume down. You watch with bated breath, afraid to make a sound as you quietly undo the grappling rope around your waist. After a long moment, the gunner turns to you and shakes his head.

No guards.

You breathe a sigh of relief and pass the rope to Wooyoung, who ties the steel grappling hook to the end. He spins the weight at the end, before sending it up into one of the windows on the second floor. When he pulls, the rope goes taut.

The two of you listen for the signs of any rousing, that you might have woken someone, but all is silent.

Wooyoung scales the rope first, his years as a rigging monkey clear in the way he swarms up the grappling rope like a spider, and disappears over the ledge into the building. You pray for his safety as your grip around the rope tightens.

Then you feel two jerks on the rope.

It's safe.

You exhale nervously, wrapping your hands around the rope and pulling yourself upwards. Initially, when you'd first started learning how to move around the rigging, your arms had been weak from lack of such strenuous exercise. Yunho had just cheerfully encouraged you with his usual 'practice, practice, practice', and now, it's paying off for you.