×Hongjoong's Pov×
What is he doing.....
I squinted open my eyes as I silently watched the taller figure slip on a pair of shoes, along with my coat before picking up the lantern from the wall and quietly sneaking out of the room.
I didn't think much of it at first, but then I thought for a moment as I looked out of the window. It was the middle of the night, where would he be going...
It's still dark... Where's he off to? Did he hear something? See something?"
Almost immediately, I sat up and tiredly climbed out of bed to follow him. I could see the light moving under the door from the lantern on the other side.
I wasn't sure where he was going or what he was up to, but I decided to follow him just to see.
I mean, it's 2 in the morning.... who's awake at 2am....
I watched the light disappear from under the door as I opened it quietly before stepping outside. I could see the light down the small wooden staircase below deck as I waited for a few seconds before following.
why is he coming down here.....
As I expected, he disappeared into the other boy's room at the end of the hallway and closed the door behind him.
The hallway was now completely dark as I carefully made my way over to the door to see what was going on, I could see the light from under the door as I quietly pushed it open a little.
I could hear a couple of voices inside as I listened closely to see who's it was, and what they were discussing...
"So..... Before I tell you all..... you must not speak a word of this to him.... do you understand?"
Is he going to tell them...?
"I will warn you all..... it is not pleasant what I am going to tell you...."
"We understand..... if you need to stop.... we understand...."
"Thank you, wooyoung"
"So.... what is it you want to tell us?"
"Well, to be nice i will go a little further back.... I will tell you how the two of us met which is a more pleasant start to the story..... but don't worry, its all relevant...."
"We don't mind, we actually wanted to know how you two met for a while"
".... It all started in Aurora, where I lived with my parents, sister, brother in law and niece.... I was around twenty two years old."
I stood there in silence as I listened to what he was saying, I knew immediately what he was telling them about...
I can remember it all, from when I first met him to the present day. It was all there. All the times I had seen him around Aurora and in Halazia, before speaking to him that day and everything either of us said.
I refused to forget any of it.
There are things that I will never forget. Like the first time I ever saw him, standing alone on the beach at night, drawing shapes in the sand with a stick.
I remember standing watching him for a while as I was curious why he was out late alone, even when I should have been going back to the ship I stayed.
There was something oddly fascinating watching him there. It seemed like he was just oblivious to everything around him as he continued to draw a small flower in the sand.
I wanted to stay there, I couldn't bring myself to move away. There was something about him, and I couldn't understand what it was.
Even after seeing him many more times, the feeling never left. It just made itself clearer.
The first few times I saw him was at night when i would go for a walk, and I started to think that maybe he wasn't real. That he was part of my imagination. How would someone so beautiful exist? Was I going crazy from being alone all this time.
But he was infact real.
I still remember the day at his parents' bar, when his sister caught me staring at him....
Part of me was embarrassed, but i just couldn't look away from him....
I tried not to stare at him, but I kept feeling as though someone was watching me while i was there...
And every time I looked, he was looking at me, he was always smiling....
I remember the first time I was able to speak to him after many failed attempts where he would disappear before I had even gotten the chance.
One of the first things I did was try to find what he likes, we had spoken more and more over time, and I realised it would be more difficult than I thought.
I tried for a while to see what kind of things he liked.... it didn't take long to figure out he liked small decorative things and pretty pieces of jewelry.
Things like seashells that were in pretty colours, the large clusters of wisteria and roses in front of the bakery window on the main street.
And jewelery, particularly the small delicate type. Mainly things with pearls or thin golden charms.
After a while, I was lucky, and I found something that he loved.
It was a pearl hairclip, it was small, rose gold with small pearls in the shape of cherry blossom flowers...
It was perfect...
I had seen him looking at it that day, I saw how much he loved it and how his eyes lit up as he looked at it with a smile on his face. I could see his smile quickly drop as the woman told him the price of it.
It felt wrong to see him so sad.
So once he left, I bought it for him before anyone else would be able to get it.
Yes, it was expensive for something so small. But if it made him smile even just for a few minutes, then it was worth it.
I wanted to see what he thought when he saw it, I wanted to see if he liked it as much as when he first saw it.
But once I handed it to him, I forgot all about it. I was too busy enjoying his company for the next two hours. It was only when I was back on the ship when we left that I remembered it....
I could hear him shouting for me as we left. As soon as i heard him shout my name, something clicked.....
He stood there holding the gift in his hands, not knowing it was for him. I remember how confused he looked when I told him it was for him, how that expression switched into surprise when I mentioned his birthday.
I just happened to remember it at the perfect moment, I remembered hearing the kid talking about his birthday as they left and made sure to do my best to remember it.
I wished I could've seen his face when he opened it, to see if he smiled or not. If he liked it or hated it. But I was able to get my answer when I returned one day and saw him wearing it pinned into his hair.
That day, I learned a few things about him.
Mainly about why I never saw him with anyone else, that he had nobody else other than his family. No friends, not for the past ten years..
At that point, I knew I could and would never leave him alone. He didn't deserve to just be abandoned and forgotten by people he had been friends with, nobody deserved that.....
Especially not him....
Because that's what we were....
And as his friend, I made a promise to always be there, to always come back to Aurora and see him so he wouldn't be alone.
I was at Aurora so often it started to feel like more of a home than Fantasia ever did, I suppose that was because Aurora had something that Fantasia didn't.
Him.
That was why Aurora felt like home, because he felt home.
So it hurt whenever I had to leave, i hated telling him when I would be leaving for a trip. He would always look sad no matter how hard he tried not to show it.
And he really tried....
When I told him I would be gone for just over two months for a trip, he didn't speak or look at me. He just silently nodded his head in acceptance.
Every time I left, I promised I would return and come find him to surprise him. I didn't know how he felt about it at the time, but part of me knew there was something else happening between us.
I didn't know what to do with myself when he wasn't around, especially when I was on a trip with my crew. If something interesting were to happen, then he would be the first I told, but he was never there.
Sure, Jooyeon, jiwoong, renjun, and Woorim were there. But they weren't friends to me like he was, we weren't close..
They were just..... there....
If anything, I began to realise how bad they all were after being with him. Especially on the two month trip at the end of our 'friendship' if you could even call it that..
They had found out where I would always disappear off to, who I would always go and find to talk to. Who I would spend my time with and who I was always waiting to see.
And they hated it.
They had always had their suspicions about him from the moment they first met him....
They started to hate him, and they had never bothered to try to like him..... Always saying things when they thought I couldn't hear, saying things that made me want to rip their heads off.
Everything they said about him was wrong and a lie... But it began to worry me. They would make threats about him when they were together....
It was always Jooyeon that started it...
He hated him the most...
It all led to one argument, we weren't supposed to be leaving for another week...
But I lost it at him, he said everything and more to my face. All of the horrific things he was 'going to do to him' and how he wanted to bring him pain.
He said he would break his fingers one by one, slice his neck open, and watch him bleed to death....
He threatened to bash his head in with rocks and slice his face from ear to ear...
It was terrifying to hear him say it all once he started, he'd never stop....
He threatened all of that just for him existing....
I never thought they would ever do these things. The thing about them was that they were usually all talk. The kind of pirates that were all bark with no bite...
I didn't take it lightly, whether they were drunk or sober, joking or serious. He was threatening the person I cared deeply about, an innocent person who he had barely even spoken to.
And I had enough with him, I remember hearing him say how i'll regret ever meeting him. That I'll never see him smile again, that he'll die because of me.
That he'll die a slow and agonising death at my hands.....
I don't remember much else after that of what he said, I just remember attacking him....
I screamed at him as I pinned him to the floor while punching him over and over....
I didn't bother to see what happened after that, I just left straight away before he could do anything back.
It felt good to get back at him for how he and the others had been behaving, but I didn't realise at the time how badly I fucked up that day.
I did exactly what he'd expected me to do, he wanted me to retaliate....
To give him a reason to strike back....
I shouldn't have taken the long way back to the ship and given him the shorter route so he would get there before me.
I should have checked the ship before leaving so that I could've caught them hiding below deck.
I shouldn't have just left straight away.
They managed to come with me all the way back to Aurora, and it was because of my own stupidity. If I'd just checked, then all of what was to come could've been avoided.
I know that all of this was my fault...
When I managed to get back to Aurora, I didn't go to see him straight away like I wanted to....
I should have just gone to see him, but I didnt....
I ignored the feeling that told me to go find him the moment I stepped off the ship....
I gave them an opportunity to find him instead....
It was dark, Nobody would notice them..
Nobody questioned them at all....
Why would they....
There wasn't many people around because of the weather, I had never seen Aurora look like this.
It was wrong.
It felt like a ghost town, completely abandoned.....
It was awful, it was dark, cold, windy and miserable.
All things that Aurora never was....
I thought it was weird, I thought something was wrong.
And it was...
The whole time I was walking around it didn't feel normal....
I knew something was wrong on my way back to the ship, it was deathly quiet, no birds or even a stray cat around.
There was always something.... someone.... anything...
There was nothing, until there was something.
The first thing I heard was a high pitched shriek towards the trees, I was stupid enough to believe it was a fox at first...
Then there was a second....
It sounded much different to the first...
I thought it might have been a cat getting into a fight, or an animal getting attacked...
It sounded like an animal..... or something.... in pain.....
I paid it no mind until I heard footsteps in that direction, they were very faint at first. They were almost completely drowned out by the wind and the rain.
It took me a few seconds to hear them properly as i looked around before hearing a wailing sound..
There was a child running down the street.....
To say I was confused was an understatement, why would a child be all alone in this weather at this time?
However, the closer the child got the more familiar they became.
It was his niece..
She was running with her hands covering her ears while screaming, every couple of seconds she kept turning around to look behind only to cry even louder.
The last time she turned around there was another loud noise from the trees, another shrieking sound. But this one didn't sound like a fox, it sounded like a person.
Something was happening..
Something was very.... very wrong...
She was terrified, it was like something was chasing behind her from how fast she was running. Either she was running from something or running to something...
I didn't know at first...
The moment she spotted me she started crying even louder as she turned to run to me instead of down the street, she practically threw herself at me as I did my best to figure out what was happening and calm her down.
She kept saying something until I realised she had been saying 'home' over and over again, I immediately understood and picked her up to rush her back home.
I didn't know why she was out in this weather, alone at this time of the evening.
But I knew something wasn't right.
The moment I got her home her grandmother was confused and surprised seeing us both together, after a few seconds her expression changed as she looked at the door behind me expectantly....
She shouted to Someone upstairs that I assumed was the girls mother before turning to ask me a question....
As soon as I heard her speak I felt sick.
"Where's Seonghwa?"
She seemed to realise something was wrong by my face as I was terrified, I hadn't seen him at all.
There was no sign of him, he was always with her...
Why wasn't he with her....
Neither of us knew why he wasn't with her until she spoke.
"Bad people..!"
As soon as his mother heard that, she called up the stairs. This time to her husband as she grabbed her coat and one of the lanterns hanging on the counter. He ran down the stairs almost immediately and followed closely behind her towards me.
He looked like he was about to kill someone just with his expression.....
I could barely tell what she had said as my brain was in full panic thinking of everything that could have happened.
Yet nothing would have prepared me for what actually happened...
They had told me to search by the ships incase he was there, that he might have seen my ship arrive....
so without thinking too much I did as they said....
I must have only been looking there for a few minutes....
Then I realised...
She came from the street with the path to the hills, he must have been with her...
I quickly abandoned searching the port and ran as fast as I could down the street, taking a few shortcuts on the way, until I reached the familiar wooden gate by the cobblestone wall.
Maybe he was just staying behind....
Maybe all of this panic was for nothing....
He could have just gotten distracted....
And then I heard a scream.
I knew the voice straight away, it was his mother....
They had only left their home a few minutes ago and they had already seen something, they said they would go up to the hill to check first since thats where they usually went.....
And within a minute, I would see it too as I made my way over to them in a hurry.
From that day on it would be burned into my memory...
I remember everything I felt when I saw what they found.
I felt sick.... nauseous, horrified, furious and heartbroken....
They found him...
I thought he was dead when I saw him. There was blood all over him. He wasn't moving, it didn't look like he was even breathing.
I couldn't move, I just stared at him in horror as his parents were hysterical beside him. They didn't know what to do, Nobody knew what to do....
I was only after a few seconds that his mother quickly pushed her husband up from the floor while saying the same things over and over.
'Go to sangyeon'
'Tell him!'
'Go! now!'
'Just go now!'
'Go to sangyeon!'
He immediately ran past me to go and do as she said, his face was red from crying as he passed me. The moment he left, she was frantically calling me over to help her.
But I didn't move...
It was only when she shouted to me that I snapped out of it.
I could feel the desperation in her voice...
'He's going to die if we don't do something now!'
I didn't think he was even alive. The whole time, I thought I was staring at his dead body.
But when I looked closer, he was moving... breathing.... he was still alive... somehow....
I didn't know how he was still alive with those injuries...
There were so many on him.....
But he was alive somehow, and he wouldn't have much longer if we just left him there bleeding to death.
Once I heard his mother speak again, I looked at her for a moment. There were tears streaming down her face. Blood and mud were beginning to stain her hands and her dress.
She was a mess.
She looked desperate and distressed as she knelt down beside him, covering some of the bigger wounds on his body.
She panicked and tied her scarf around his neck as blood continued to drip from the cut onto the floor. There was only a second where she stopped to look at the rest of him before turning to speak to me.
'You need to bring him with me. You need to lift him'
The thought of moving him terrified me, one wrong move, and he would die. But I had to do it....
She didn't move as I stepped closer and held my breath as I picked him up from the floor as carefully and gently as I could. There was a second where he made a sound of pain as we both froze in panic. Blood dripped out of his mouth as he choked on his breath before going silent again.
'Go! We need to go!'
Almost immediately, she started to rush back down the path as I followed closely behind her. I had never been so scared in my life. If we didn't get him help quick enough, he would die.
It was terrifying to know he was already dying in my arms. I could feel the blood dripping onto my hands onto the ground, soaking through onto my shirt and coat...
I didn't know how he would ever survive this, if he would even survive.... How someone would be able to help him like this seemed impossible....
We were practically racing with death....
A race where we were walking and the grim reaper was sprinting.... getting closer by the second...
I didn't know if we would be able to get him help in time or if we would watch him die. the second seemed the most likely as she raced ahead through the streets before stopping at the only building with lights on.
The door swung open as his father stood in the doorway with someone else beside him. The man I assumed to be sangyeon looked horrified as I approached them.
He already looked stressed and sleep deprived, but he became paler by the second...
I didn't realise that this would be the last time I would be able to see him....
He took him out of my hands before I could even do anything, I wasn't able to say or do anything....
I didn't realise why he took him so quickly....
I didn't understand why he hadn't made a sound when Sangyeon took him...
I didn't realise he was dead when sangyeon took him inside....
It was his parents who spoke first while I just stood staring at the closed door. I could tell they were both worried sick. They looked terrified as they spoke, no matter how hard they tried to look okay.
His father was in pieces, I had only ever seen the man with a smile unless it was a serious situation... but now he was broken. His eyes were dull and lifeless as he stood staring at his blood covered hands in horror.
His mother was heartbroken, she looked terrified as she tried to hold it together. She had been the only sane one for the entire thing, without her the outcome may have not been the same...
I had never seen her look so scared before, but she looked as if she had been through hell and back...
She had....
But she was the one that helped us have some hope, she was the one who reached her arms out to make sure I was okay....
She didn't have to do that.... I was just someone her son knew.... But she somehow knew what to do.
She knew what to do when I broke down crying in shock as everything began to set in....
What if he never recovers....
'He'll be okay'
I might never see him again...
'He'll help him'
He might die tonight....
'He's going to be okay'
It seemed like they were trying to convince themselves as they repeated it a few times....
I felt sick, numb, scared and broken.
I didn't know what to do with myself, I just stood there...
His mother stayed by my side, gently patting my arms with an attempt of a smile as his father stood behind her looking slightly less horrified than before....
I don't even remember much of what I did for the hours that he was there, all I know is that I ended up back on the ship completely alone in my cabin.
I broke down again....
I remember sitting on the floor of the cabin sobbing for what felt like hours, the image of what I had seen was repeating in my head over and over.
The screaming....
It was all taunting me...
Something it still does to this day...
Everytime I closed my eyes for just a second I saw it all again....
All the blood....
The wounds....
Sometimes, when I look at his face, the image of the blood flashes in front of me.
But nothing is as bad as the real thing. That was the worst...
It was all I thought about for hours, just thinking about all of the blood made me sick. Something that would never usually bother me if it were anyone else's blood, but knowing it was his scared me.
The clothes that were covered in his blood, I couldn't look at them... I threw them out... I couldn't bring myself to be near them again...
I didn't get to see him for over a day, it felt like weeks. I didn't know who sangyeon was or what he was doing, I hadn't heard anything in many hours and it was killing me.
I just kept wondering, why him...
And who did it.... who would do this....
At the time I didn't know...
I had no idea if he was even alive or not.
For all I knew at the time, he could have died the moment the door shut.
I had no idea that he was dead before we even got to Sangyeons home....
But a day later, I could hear his father's voice from the other side of the cabin door. It didn't feel real, it felt like some kind of dream....
'He's alive!'
'He's okay!'
I could've cried, I felt so relieved. Just knowing he was okay made everything worth it again.
I practically threw myself up off of the floor and rushed out to go and see them. They were standing there waiting for me to go with them to see him.
They could have just gone to see him alone, but they chose to tell me instead. They let me see him first... I told them they needed to see him first, but they insisted.
His father said something that I still remember perfectly over a year later.
'He needs to see you more than us... Sangyeon said he kept saying your name.....'
I just stared at them, I didn't believe them...
Why would he say my name and not theirs..... They're his family.... I'm just what he called an clingy, over determined pirate....
I wanted to know why, but when I got to see him, he was fast asleep. There was something oddly scary about it.
He looked so tired and pale. There was still blood dried into his long hair as it stuck in different directions. There was a bandage tied tightly around his neck, barely visible from under the blanket.
Small patches of dried blood were still in areas like his lips, his hands, and around his neck. There were also a few cuts around his hands and face, as well as some bruises that were starting to show along his arms and on his hands.
Yet he still looked so peaceful...
I didn't know how Sangyeon had done it, but he'd saved his life.. He was alive in front of me...
He was alive and breathing...
He was going to be okay....
I didn't want to wake him, he needed to rest and recover from everything. So I just sat in silence by his side watching him.
I knew things would be very different from then on, I couldn't bring myself to leave his side.
This had all been my fault...
The least I could do is protect him since I failed miserably to do so before...
I also knew he would take a while to heal and get better...
I didn't realise just how long it would take and just how badly his injuries would have affected him...
Sangyeon told us everything about his injuries....
Everything that happened from the moment the door shut.....
That was when he told us why he was so quick to get him inside, that he could tell just from looking at him that he was either about to die....
Or in this case, that he was dead....
I didn't know what kind of witchcraft the man used to bring him back, but I will be forever grateful for that and everything else he did.....
There were obvious injuries such as the scrapes and bruises on his body that were not quite as serious. There were some more hidden injuries, a large gash on the back of his head, a few broken fingers, both wrists were broken, and a cracked rib.
The worst of the injuries were internal, mostly from the continuous stab wounds that caused internal bleeding......
He had lost a dangerous amount of blood from it all..... one of the blades had come dangerously close to his heart, missing it by only a few millimetres....
There was a lot of damage to his throat from the wound that sliced there as well as damage from screaming for a long time, he likely wouldn't be able to speak for a while until his throat recovered.
It was horrible to listen to sangyeon list all of his injuries.... I wanted to throw up....
After all of that, he would still be suffering for a long time afterwards....
Sangyeon said he would need to rest for a long while, over a month of bedrest and little movement..... he would have to be extremely careful in the future not to exhaust himself or push himself too much in case his body couldn't cope or keep up with it...
It was just over a few hours before he eventually woke up properly and we were finally able to see that he was okay.
He had already started to recover physically as the first couple of days passed.
Most of the smaller injuries like bruises, scrapes, and smaller cuts had either fully healed or almost healed.
However, mentally, he was scarred. Every noise or movement was met with fear and paranoia. It completely traumatised him for a very long time...
The worst thing was the darkness...
The room he was in at Sangyeon's home was always light, and the candles in the room were never blown out. The one-time sangyeon did blow out the candle so he could get some sleep it terrified him. He tried to tell sangyeon to light it up again, but nothing came out since he couldnt speak. He was in a dark room alone that wasnt his, so he panicked and started sobbing.
I couldn't figure out what was wrong when he started to cry, he was freaking out. It wasn't until I lit one of the candles that he calmed down, and it all clicked in my head.
The dark terrified him because it had been dark when they attacked him....
Before that, he never had a problem with it, but afterwards it was the complete opposite....
The fear of darkness still hasn't gone. After all this time, it's very slowly gotten better.... But sometimes there will have to be something there, a lantern or a candle will usually calm his nerves and help him relax again....
Something about the darkness, the shadows, it plays tricks on his mind and taunts him.....
Slowly, he was able to move about as more of his body healed over time...
It was over two weeks before he was able to speak again. Just hearing his voice again made my heart break.
It sounded so faint and so painful......
The day he was able to speak properly was the day his parents got to speak to him about something important.....
They had spoken to me about it before then, and I knew it was something that needed to be done....
They told him that he could no longer stay in Aurora, that it was no longer safe for him....
He seemed to be scared by that, and what it implied. But began to relax as they told him where he would be going, that they weren't just going to throw him out of their home....
That he would stay with me on the ship far from Aurora....
Where he would be safe....
It was around two weeks after that day that he was able to leave sangyeons home and come with me onto the ship...
Sangyeon hadn't minded him being there, infact said himself that he had enjoyed his company on the days his husband wasn't around....
Even sangyeon was sad to see him leave that day, knowing it would most likely be the last time he saw him....
I made a promise to them that at some point, we would return, but only when he was fully healed and ready to come back....
At the time, I had no idea how long that would be. It could have been weeks, months, or years...
I didn't know if he would ever be fully healed....
But eventually, he did heal, after months of suffering and difficulty....
The first two weeks were the hardest. He was always either sleeping or just sitting there in some weird trance...
But it wasn't like he would be sat there, minding his own business, peacefully looking out into the ocean....
I could tell he was thinking about it constantly. Every time he would start staring off somewhere, I could see his expression change....
There was nothing to take his mind off of it, no matter how hard I tried...
It destroyed him for a while...
He was suffering physically and mentally.....
He was still in a lot of pain, his broken bones still ached, his wounds were still sore....
He was healing so slowly.... I knew I should be glad he was getting better, but it was painfully slow....
I just wanted him to be better, to see him actually smiling again and moving around without being in agony....
There were some days and nights that were better than others, days where he wasn't in as much pain as he walked around the ship, and nights where everything looked to be healing well as he was sleeping peacefully....
But there were others where he would wake up to bandages soaked through with blood, shooting pains through his body. Other times where he would wake up screaming in fear, thinking that it was happening again and that he was going to die.....
That was the worst....
Luckily though, his injuries did heal completely, and the nightmares got less and less over time....
It took about three or four months for him to heal completely.....
About one month after he came on the ship we had to bring in extra help....
If it were up to me, I would never have brought someone else on....
It was his idea, He said it was too much for me to do alone. That I needed help before I dropped down dead from exhaustion.
I didn't want to trust others again, I did not want new people on the ship or anywhere near him.
How would I know they weren't with Jooyeon? Sent out to track him down and kill him for good this time....
It was something i spoke to Changmin about when we stopped at cassiopeia.
He was one of the only people I trusted still....
He said he knew two people that I could bring with us to help....
At the time, I was very against it, but over time, I began to trust the boys....
They never did anything to make me distrust them. In a way, they helped me to be a little bit more open to bringing more people....
And he liked them....
There were multiple times when I would see the three of them sitting on the deck at night looking at the stars.....
It always gave me a weird feeling in my chest, a strange warm feeling.... seeing them laying there talking about the stars in the sky....
Even though they didn't know what was wrong with him, why he was never really present, especially in the beginning....
They didn't know what had happened, and we both wanted to keep it that way...
We made sure there was no evidence of what happened for them to find, no reason for questions to arise...
The moment we first met them, and then later when they joined us on the ship, he made sure that any scars from his injuries were hidden completely...
He even started wearing a thick piece of ribbon around his neck, tied neatly into a small bow at the side....
It never looked odd, on anyone else it would be strange and out of place, but he always managed to look stunning....
They didn't push it too much. They did make a few jokes, which they were quickly scolded for, but nothing cruel or questioning.....
They always helped him whenever he needed it. That was when I knew I could trust them...
I am grateful for them, all of them....
It took me an annoying amount of time to realise it, but I am....
It wouldn't be the same without all of them here....
•
"Was it him that found you? You said something was moving you?"
I lightly pushed the door open a little more to look inside at what they were doing.
"No.... It was my parents that found me...... that was why I heard their voices.... everything was actually happening.... as for moving me..... that was Hongjoong..... he said he had to carry me all the way back..... I feel bad because I know he would have been terrified..... he had to carry me when I was bleeding to death.... he probably thought I was dead at one point...."
"Ye were dead at one point....."
As soon as I spoke from the doorway, all of them looked over in my direction.
I hadn't meant to say it as loud as it came out. I only meant to say it quietly to myself....
They all seemed surprised that I was there as a few looked at each other before looking back at me.
"I-I thought you were asleep?"
"I was..... but I woke up as ye left...."
It went completely silent as the two of us stared at each other, waiting for the other to speak first.
He did.
"I'm so sor-"
"No."
I quickly interrupted him as he began to apologise. I could see his eyes go wide as he stared at me.
"Are you mad...?"
"Mad? Why would I be mad at ye?"
"Because.... I told them everything...."
"No. No, I'm not mad at ye..... never..... They needed to know sometime soon..... it was a matter of when....."
"So..... you don't mind them knowing?"
"No, they needed to.... it's just something I don't like talkin' about.... and i know ye hate it too......"
Once again, it was quiet as he looked down and slowly nodded his head before speaking to the other boys.
"We'll finish this another time..."
The six of them looked around at each other before nodding their heads as Seonghwa stood up.
Without saying anything else, he walked past me and out of the room to return to our cabin. The rest of the boys sat in silence for a moment, staring at me expectantly.
"Get some sleep...."
I gave them a short nod before turning around to leave, only to stop as I heard wooyoung speak.
"Wait!"
Wooyoung jumped up as I turned around and looked at them. Before I could even respond, he threw his arms around me and hugged me as tightly as he could.
"Oi-"
"Oh shush! You need this, captain!"
After a few seconds, he let go and smiled at me. There was something about the smile that seemed sad....
Maybe it was the tears that were still pooled in his eyes, or the redness on his cheeks and tip of his nose...
"We know what you're thinking, captain. It wasn't your fault. None of it was. Just know that."
"I-"
"Nope! We don't wanna hear it. We're right. It wasn't either of your faults..... Now, go find hyung!"
I wasn't given a chance to speak as he laughed to himself while he pushed me out of the cabin before closing the door, in my face...
Not wanting to spend the whole night debating to myself while staring at a wooden door, I turned away from the door and began slowly making my way back above deck...
It wasn't long before I stopped in front of the door to my cabin, I could see a light shining through the gap at the bottom of the door before I slowly pushed it open.
Inside, it was quiet. Only faint creaking and splashing sounds were audible.
The oldest was sat, perched on the edge of the bed, while staring at the floor for a while until I quietly walked over to sit beside him.
I could see just by how he was sitting that there was a lot going through his mind at the moment...
"What's goin' through yer mind, hm?"
He let out a short sigh before leaning to rest his head against my shoulder.
"Everything..... it's all just so..... odd to me."
"What's odd?"
"Well.... the main thing is that I was.... dead..... that whole thing that I experienced was death..... I know what it feels like, looks like, and sounds like.... yet I am still alive again.... I didn't know that I was dead.. I mean, I thought I was dead or at least dying..... but I didn't know i was actually dead.... it feels.... odd... I can't describe how I feel knowing that's what was happening at that time.... I don't know whether to feel scared that I came so close.... or slightly comforted to know that it isn't a horrifying thing...."
It was completely silent for a few minutes as I listened to him speak.
"I can't imagine how it was for ye.... to know that ye got that close to bein' gone forever.... I suppose ye have the benefit of knowin' exactly what it's like and all that for the future... but....."
"... but what?"
"That'd better be a day..... that I never see..... That'd better be a day that doesn't come for many, many years....."
"It'll come one day, Joong..... I've cheated death once before, I doubt I would get away with a second time..... I'm not a cat, unfortunately.."
"Sometimes..... I wish ye could live forever....."
"And outlive you? Absolutely not.! I wouldnt- "
"And who says I didn't want to live forever too? Why would i pass on the chance to be with ye for the rest of time...."
There was a comfortable silence between us as we sat for a few minutes.
We both knew there would be a day in the future where we would be separated for good, a day that we never knew the time of.....
We weren't immortal. We knew we would die any day.
It was something that never used to bother me. The thought of dying one day was something that i had no control over, so i shouldnt pay it any mind.
There used to be nobody for me to stick around for, to fight for and survive for...
Now, though, it was different...
There were people in my life....
A new crew, real friends, people who I care for and who care for me, and someone that I will love forever..
Now, there's something to fight for...
"Come on.... We'd better get some sleep before the sun comes up..... I'm sure the boys don't want a sleepy captain."
There was a smile back on his face as he shuffled over to the other side of the bed before laying down. I looked at him for a moment before slowly nodding my head and laying down on the bed beside him.
The faint creaking of the ship and splashing of the ocean were soon replaced by the quiet sound of breathing and light snoring from the other side of the bed as I lay in silence.
I stayed there for a while, just watching how peaceful he looked as he slept. He seemed relaxed and calm....
Just being near him was relaxing and calming. Something about being there laying beside him while he was asleep or just laying beside him to talk at night or in the morning was oddly comforting....
Knowing that he was right there as the last thing I see at night and the first thing in the morning was something that was reassuring and it was something I loved...
After a short while, I felt my eyes slowly closing as the room got darker before they closed completely. As I began to fall asleep, I felt an arm sleepily land over my stomach and a leg wrap over my own..
I could feel a smile forming on my face as I soon fell asleep....
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This chaper was supposed to be out a while ago, but I had a whole lot of problems from wattpad erasing all my drafts (got em back😅) to it glitching out repeatedly.
Plus once I pass 5k words the whole thing goes a little twitchy 😅
There's probably a few mistakes in it too, I'll get to them, don't worry 🫡
Not sure when the next one will be out, hopefully soon. Can't make any promises on when because I'm really busy at the moment with work and other things.
ALSO!
Important Question!
So I have two endings written for this book right now, and I wanna know if you'd rather see the good ending first or the bad ending? Mainly because I like them both and can't decide which to publish, so I'm releasing both 😅
Let me know, good ending or bad ending first?