— Come closer, come and see
Come closer, come to me
Ruby Red yours can be
If you find it at the sea —
Kim watched as the boy's eyes got brighter, somehow excited as if he wasn't afraid of him anymore. Not afraid at all. It was almost as if he was jolly to see Kim. Jolly boy with jolly eyes. He reminded Kim of himself. Before. During the times when there was no phantom of a pirate. No pirate of the seas. Just Kim. A young boy with dreams.
Kim pushed himself up from the boy, looking at him with suspicious eyes. "What kind of bloody nonsense are you spitting here, matey? Who are you?"
The boy stood up, too. The sand fell off his clothes in one swift motion just like Kim and his crew fell off his ship just moments ago.
His ship.
His crew.
Kim looked around again. The ocean looked calm. Too calm. No ship around. No mist, halting their way out of the Bay of Sorrows. No Bay of Sorrows in sight.
"I'm Porchay Kittisawat," the boy started speaking.
Kim snapped his head back to the boy, his eyes darker than the pits of hell as his jaw twitched, and he bent down to his boots. There it was, a small dagger with a golden handle and the finest metal he once stole from the king of France—Louis XIV. Fun guy that was albeit a little bit naive. Kim clicked his tongue with the dagger firmly in his hand he looked up at the boy again.
The boy's eyes were wide and glistening with a strange mix of excitement and fear. Kim didn't want to play stupid games with stupid boys who foolishly weren't afraid of what they definitely should have been. "This little boy should tell me now where are the whereabouts of my ship and my crew or this little boy will be fed to the fish? What does the little boy prefer, hmm?"
"What year is it?" the boy suddenly asked.
Kim cocked his head, "are you bloody deaf? I'm asking the questions here!"
"What year is it?" The boy repeated as if Kim wasn't even asking him shit with the sharp dagger in his hand.
"Check the calendar, matey!"
"What year is it?" there it came again; the same stupid question.
"1710!" Kim groaned, squeezing the handle of the dagger even tighter.
"2023," the boy nonchalantly replied. His voice, calm and gentle, like ocean waves after a successful pirate raid.
Kim started to laugh. His shoulders and chest, going up and down in a rapid rhythm and his lips curved up into what the boy in front of him thought was a captivating smile.
But then, Kim's laugh stopped just as fast and unexpectedly as it started. His ocean-deep eyes were piercing through Chay's eyes once again. As if he wanted to force Chay to fear him. As if he was used to people fearing him. But how could Chay fear him when this was the moment he was waiting for his whole life?
The Ruby Red got into Chay's family in 1710. His great great great million times great-grandmother found it on a shore after a particularly vile storm swept the region. The necklace was untouched. Its beauty was so alluring, so captivating that it would be worse than a capital sin if she left it there for a time to bury it under the sand, for the ocean to take it back into its vast freezing waters. She couldn't possibly do that. The pearls shimmered under the warm rays of the early morning sun. The Ruby Red in the middle shone brightly, calling her name Bethy... Elizabeth...
Only when she brought it home did poor Elizabeth find out what curse she brought on her entire family. The Ruby Red cursed by the siren of the seven seas was. The Ruby Red to Kimhan, the phantom of a pirate, belonged. The siren cursed it, for she wasn't the one that Kimhan wanted to take. So the curse was cast;
Kimhan had to wed. If not the siren, then a human. If not at their times, then in the future. The Ruby Red would belong to the person who the pirate's demise would be. To the person who would always the right in him see. But for that person, Kimhan would die more than once. For that person, the torture and the gallows Kimhan would encounter more than twice. For that person, Kimhan would lose himself too many times. Kimhan didn't want to love a siren. The painless love he chose to ignore, so the human he would have and with that all the pain.
However, the curse both ways went. Whoever would find the necklace first after Kimhan's sorrowful death would be chained with the curse forever. Try to throw the necklace away, and you'll perish just days later. That was how the rule went, that was how the necklace at the Kittisawat family stayed. From child to child. From generation to generation. The owner of the necklace waited. They feared and trembled, hoping, praying it wouldn't be them who the pirate would come for. And it went well, for years, for decades. Centuries went by until a little boy heard his grandmother talking about the pirate. And the little boy scared wasn't. The little boy prayed every night for the pirate to come for him. The little boy wasn't afraid. He was curious and full of dreams, and as he grew up, the dreams got stronger, the wish for the pirate to come for him, louder.
Chay was lonely most of his life. Besides his grandmother and his pirate, there wasn't really anyone. Parents dead. Grandfather dead, too. Brother working out of the country... Chay wouldn't be missed by anyone if he disappeared. And somehow he knew his grandmother would understand...
Maybe Chay wanted to disappear.
Could the pirate take him away, or was he now stuck in the dull present with Chay, too?
The pirate was dangerous. The pirate didn't know him. But the Ruby Red hang on Chay's neck. Which meant the pirate was going to want it back.
Kim growled, "you aren't drunk, but you are definitely an idiot! 2023? Times so far away that only a fool would think that this godforsaken world will ever arrive there. 1710, that's the year of our lord, little boy."
"It's not. It seems to me that you have travelled in time. Just to come for me."
"Just to come for you?" Kim scoffed. "Travelled in time?" Kim scoffed again. With two big steps, he grabbed Chay by his neck, the sharp blade of the dagger, piercing through the tender skin of Chay's neck, the first droplet of blood staining the snow-white pearls.
Chay gasped, grabbing Kim's hand, he was breathing heavily. "Kimhan, the phantom of a pirate... That's who you are. That's your name, right?"
For a moment, Kim's strength wavered, and the dagger slid lower, almost cutting through the Ruby Red. "How do you know?"
"I was waiting for you. I know about the curse of Ruby Red. You and I, we are meant to be."
"Meant to be, you are saying," Kim whispered into Chay's ear. His fingers curled around the necklace. "This is all I need!" Kim yanked the necklace off Chay's neck.
A guttural scream left Chay's body as the pearls scattered all over the sand under their feet. And suddenly, it wasn't the sand. It was water. Dark. Cold. And deep. It was burning in Chay's lungs. It was choking out the last breath from his lips. It smelled like death. Tasted like fear. And then, there was a pair of arms around Chay's waist just before everything got consumed by pitch-black darkness.
Chay wanted to disappear...
⋆༺𓆩☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆
Dying is peaceful.
People fear it, but truly, there's nothing to fear. You fall into darkness, and that's it. The end. No more pain. No more life.
Chay slowly opened his eyes, the words of his grandfather shortly before he died, still echoing in his mind.
Dying is peaceful.
But Chay wasn't dead. He certainly didn't feel like it. He had an awful headache. His mouth was full of water he immediately spit out, and his lungs were burning as if he drank up the entire ocean, but he was alive. All that pain had to mean that he was still alive.
His hand instinctively reached for his neck. The Ruby Red, gone was. His neck felt naked with that loss. He looked around just to meet Kim's closed eyes. He was close, just a couple of inches away. And there, in his hand, the Ruby Red glistened with the droplets of the ocean, calling Chay's name.
But Chay didn't move. Didn't reach out his hand and lay his fingers on the diamond which had been in his family for over three hundred years. The diamond was Kim's, and with that, its curse. Chay kept it for as long as he could, and now it was Kim's turn to keep Chay.
Forever.
That was how the curse went after all.
Curse that couldn't be broken.
Curse that bound two souls from different times for life and for death.
With the knowledge of the curse, Chay had lived for twenty years. So now, he won't fall on his knees. Breathing deeply, his eyes danced around, stopping at the sun setting on the horizon. The ocean waves restless and dark were coming on the shore, wetting their clothes and making Chay gasp from the sudden coldness. Chay wrapped his hands around his already wet body, his eyes catching a small flame far in the land. A torch? A lamppost? Just a candle in a window? Or something entirely different? Chay didn't know, but just that brief sight of fire made him crave warmth and dry clothes.
Just then, it dawned on him. They had travelled in time. Just like Kim travelled in time to get to Chay's present. Chay travelled back in time with Kim to his present. Chay had no one, just Kim, or maybe not even him in this new hostile world. He couldn't just get up and run to his house, take a shower, put on dry clothes, and snuggle up in his bed for the rest of the night. Now, here, in the year that Chay suspected was 1710, he had no house to run to, no cosy bed to snuggle in, no shower to clean off the sand and the salt of his body. Chay had no home.
He gulped down the lump in his throat and chased away the tears, starting to prickle his eyes. He wouldn't cry. He was strong. He was ready for this. He had spent all his life hoping that one day the pirate would come for him. That he would be the one the pirate's heart would belong to. And now it happened. It came true. Chay had to face it. Even if his pirate would throw a tantrum at first. After all, Chay was now Kim's responsibility. Chay was in the freaking early 18th century because of Kim!
Kim's body twitched, his eyes under his closed eyelids slowly started moving. He was finally waking up. Thank god. Until now, it didn't even occur to Chay to check on him. Maybe he should have. Chay wanted to believe that if something like this happened to them again in the future he would fall on his knees right next to Kim and won't let go of his hand until he would be sure that Kim was alright. Chay hoped for that type of love that would consume him whole, drown him in its waves. Both of them. He knew—he was sure that was the love that was awaiting them. But the road to it was unknown and precarious. Maybe even deadly.
Before Kim opened his eyes, Chay stole many glances at his ocean-kissed face. His fluttering eyelashes which were gently tickling his skin, the bridge of a nose that looked too soft to belong to the ruthless pirate of the seas, the scar adorning the apple of his right cheek, the cupid's bow of slightly parted lips, and a couple of days old stubble that was making Chay feel weak at his knees. Kim was handsome. More than that. He looked like a dream. And his long hair, dark like a night, was asking Chay, almost begging to tangle his fingers in it, to tug it behind his ear and call him, "my captain."
Just then, Kim opened his eyes, and Chay's mouth closed.
My captain... he said it out loud.
Kim abruptly sat up, coughing from the taste of the ocean he surely felt in his lungs and his tongue. His eyes, burning with anger, looked at Chay, and then... then Kim winced. His hand was shaking, and the Ruby Red on his palm fell out on the sand, right next to Chay's feet. The skin and flesh of Kim's palm were burned. Kim's chest was heaving in an unstable rhythm up and down, up and down. And just then, Chay heard the pirate's voice again.
"What have you done?"
To be continued...
P.S. Chay doesn't even fight it 🤣 he is already down bad...