TREASURE: The Ring of the Sea.
CHAPTER NINE - Fresh Air and Bad Omens.
pairing: ot8!ateez x f!reader, pirate au
chapter warnings: cursed ring doing cursed ring things, prophetic dreams, supernatural knowledge, forced proximity, wound care, blood/wounds mention, dangerous men with control issues, protective/possessive undertones, emotional tension, morally grey pirates, weapons, knives, gunshot vision, dice tables, tavern danger, Empire spies, betrayal paranoia, power imbalance, half-trust that is absolutely not trust, “please don’t die in a shady alley” energy, Aurora accidentally becoming useful, Wooyoung being too curious for his own safety, and everyone pretending they’re not starting to care.
You’ve finished eating a short while ago, the tray has already disappeared with Jongho carrying it away in silence, and for the first time since you’ve been down here, you let yourself fall back onto the bunk with a long sigh, close your eyes, turn onto your side, the blankets barely brushing your bandaged knees, the ring pulsing softly, almost sleepy too.
You’re about to slip into sleep when the sound of footsteps in the corridor suddenly pulls you taut, like a rope yanked too quickly; the iron of the stairs, the creak of wood, then the unmistakable sound of keys jingling against the lock.
You open your eyes and sit up, your hair falling over your shoulders.
The cell door opens, the light of a lantern cuts through the dark like a golden blade, and from the shadows of the corridor he appears.
He’s different than usual, and you notice it immediately: his hair a little messier, his shirt undone by one extra button, the sleeves rolled up to his forearms, the veins barely visible as he holds the lantern in one hand and the keys in the other; but it isn’t the clothes that unsettle you. It’s his face.
He looks more tired, his gaze lost on some point he can’t quite focus on, as if his head is full of calculations, maps, words he still hasn’t decided whether he wants to say.
He stops in front of the bars, doesn’t open them, rests his arm against the central post, and watches you for a moment, as if checking that you’re truly there, that you haven’t vanished into nothing between one breath and the next.
You lift your chin by reflex.
“What is it?” you ask, your voice slightly rough with sleepiness. “Did you get lost? I can make you a map of the cells too, if you want.”
The corners of his lips move faintly, not quite a smile, but something close.
“You don’t look very asleep,” he murmurs softly.
“I was getting there,” you reply, crossing your arms over your chest. “Then someone decided to come contemplate the bars in the middle of the night. Didn’t anyone tell you that’s rude?”
Yunho lowers his gaze for a second, as if choosing his words, then sighs softly.
“You unsettled Wooyoung,” he says suddenly.
You blink, surprised by the turn of the sentence.
“Yes.” He nods, adjusting the lantern in his hand. “Since you spoke to him… he hasn’t stayed still for a second. He wants to come down here, to the cells, and have you tell him everything.”
Something moves across your face, halfway between annoyance and resigned disbelief.
“Why does that surprise me so little?” you murmur, crossing your arms. “Does he want more details for his ego or for his trouble?”
“For both, I think,” Yunho answers, and this time the shadow of a smile truly touches his eyes. “He says you ruined his sleep. He keeps repeating that ‘that princess knows more than she says’ and that he absolutely has to come talk to you.”
You lower your gaze for a moment, imagining Wooyoung fidgeting on deck like a deranged magpie simply because he can’t throw himself down here to torment you, and against your will, you feel a little sorry for him.
“So why isn’t he here, then?” you ask, looking past Yunho, almost expecting to see his smile appear anywhere.
Yunho straightens slightly, his eyes growing clearer.
“Because Seonghwa won’t allow it,” he explains simply. “He said that until we know whether the things you know are actually useful, he has no intention of turning the cells into a parlor where everyone comes down to chat with you.”
“What a shame,” you mutter, ironic. “Just when I was about to organize tea-hour shifts.”
Yunho shakes his head slightly, but he isn’t annoyed; he looks at you in silence for a few seconds, then his expression changes, becoming more serious, more focused, like when he stares at a difficult route to trace.
“Aurora,” he says, and your name, in his voice, sounds different, heavier, “I’m asking you something.”
You stiffen, automatically defensive. “That already sounds awful.”
He doesn’t catch the joke, or he moves through it as if he can’t afford to stop there.
“When we’re on land,” he continues, lowering his voice slightly, “when it’s you and me, away from the rest of the crew… I need you to cooperate.”
You look at him, eyes narrowed. “Cooperate how? Should I get arrested in an orderly manner?”
“Actually cooperate,” he replies, calm but firm. “No improvised escapes, no running toward lifeboats, no jumping into emptiness without knowing what’s underneath. If I know you won’t try to run at the first chance, I can take you where your information is needed. To the places where news passes about the Empire, about your father, about the coins. To the places where we can verify whether what the ring shows you is real.”
He pauses briefly, the silence vibrating between the bars.
“If I have to wonder every time whether you’ll stay where I leave you,” he adds, more quietly, “then the only place I’ll be able to keep you is this cell. And that’s where you’ll stay until the last wave.”
This time, you don’t have an answer ready on the tip of your tongue.
Because what he’s saying is terribly logical, and that’s exactly why it weighs on you: if you try to fool them all again, they’ll lock you down here forever; if you stop, if for a while you play on their side… you’ll be able to move, see, understand, perhaps find a real chance to decide what you truly want to do.
You look at him longer than necessary.
“Why should you care?” you ask, sharp but not as venomous as usual. “If I make a mistake, you’re the ones with the ring, aren’t you? You’re the cursed pirates. I’m only… a wrong turn.”
He doesn’t lower his gaze.
“Because I saw you,” he answers, as simply as if he were saying he saw the sky. “I saw you crying and asking to go back to your cell, not to throw yourself into the sea. I saw you fight San knowing perfectly well you couldn’t truly beat him, but you didn’t stop until your body chose for you. I saw you last night, when you spoke of the route as if it had always belonged to you.”
“You don’t seem like someone who only wants to escape,” he concludes. “You seem like someone who no longer knows which direction to run in.”
That sentence gets under your skin more than you want it to.
For a moment, you lower your gaze to the ring, which pulses faintly, as if listening.
“I won’t promise you anything,” you say softly after a moment, “but… I’ll stop throwing myself toward the first boat I see. For now.”
Yunho nods once, as if that for now truly is enough for him.
“That’s all I can ask of you tonight,” he murmurs.
He makes to turn away, then stops halfway.
“And if you dream something about the route, or Rukhar, or whatever damned thing the sea decides to show you,” he adds, eyes on yours, “don’t wait until you’re screaming. Call me first.”
An acidic answer comes naturally to you, but you hold it between your teeth. You stare at him, and for the first time, you realize he isn’t only the navigator of the Black Fever: he’s someone who, if you throw the truth at him at the right moment, might truly change the direction this ship is taking.
He catches it, gives a tired half smile, then walks away down the corridor with the lantern in hand, leaving you in the dark again.
The deck air is cool, cut by a wind that smells of salt and sleepless night; when Yunho climbs the stairs again, he closes his eyes for a moment, as if to shake off the damp smell of the cells and catch his breath before facing the wind again.
He sees them immediately.
Wooyoung is leaning against the rail, elbows on the wood, chin on his clasped hands, gaze lost in the dark sea as if somewhere out there lies an answer he still hasn’t had the courage to ask for; beside him Mingi, large and silent, keeps his eyes lowered to the black waves, with the usual air of someone thinking far more than he lets on.
As soon as Yunho steps onto the deck, Wooyoung turns, quick, his eyes shining in the dim lantern light.
“There he is,” he sighs, dramatic. “The man with the keys.”
He pushes away from the railing with a small bounce, fingers tapping nervously against the wood. “How is she?”
Yunho gives him a tired look, understanding perfectly what he means and not even needing to pretend otherwise.
“She was about to fall asleep,” he answers simply, going to lean against the railing a little farther away. “You’re not missing a show.”
Wooyoung grimaces, as if he doesn’t like that answer at all; he turns back toward the sea, but keeps speaking, his voice lower than usual, less theatrical.
“That’s not true,” he murmurs, frowning. “That one can’t fall asleep without ruining someone’s nerves first.”
Mingi smothers a laugh in his chest, without lifting his gaze.
Yunho doesn’t answer. He waits.
Wooyoung runs a hand through his hair, huffs softly, then turns three-quarters toward him, his lips curled in a smile that doesn’t truly reach his eyes.
“You know what you did to me, right?” he asks, with that half-accusing, half-confidential tone he uses only with them. “When you told Seonghwa I can’t go down to the cells.”
“I saved you from a reprimand,” Yunho replies. “You should thank me.”
“Ah,” Wooyoung huffs, spreading his arms, “you condemned me to thinking. Worse than a reprimand.”
Mingi finally lifts his gaze, curious. “Thinking about what?” he asks slowly.
Wooyoung remains silent for a moment, then wets his lips, undecided whether to spit out what’s in his head or turn it into any ordinary joke.
“What she did to me,” he says simply.
Yunho looks at him from the side. “Aurora.”
“No, the old witch from the Sangria Lighthouse,” he replies ironically, then sighs. “Of course Aurora. Who else could look at me as if she knows where I’m going before I even get there?”
He pushes away from the railing and begins pacing over a short stretch like a caged feline, his hands gesturing as he speaks.
“Captain says we need to be careful, Seonghwa says she’s a problem, San only wants to rearrange her face through duels,” he lists, shaking his head, “and then she comes in, looks at me for one second, and tells me not to set foot in a place I’ve never mentioned to any of them.”
He stops, lifts his gaze toward the sea, then toward Yunho.
“It’s not the sentence, understand?” he continues, more serious. “It’s… how she says it. As if she already knew I’d go there. As if she’d watched me do it.”
Mingi arches an eyebrow slightly. “Is that what’s bothering you?”
“No,” Wooyoung replies quickly. “What bothers me is that when she looked at me, for a moment, she didn’t seem like a prisoner. She looked…”
He stops, presses his lips together, choosing a word he doesn’t like using.
“…like one of us,” he murmurs at last. “With that same way of peering at the edge of things, as if she’s already looking for a way to screw everyone over and save herself.”
Yunho stays silent, leaning against the rail, the wind moving his hair gently; he lets him speak, because he knows it’s the only way for Wooyoung to stop turning the thought over in his head like a coin.
“And then,” Wooyoung adds, lowering his voice slightly, “the way she looked at me when you took her away from the Captain today…”
He places a hand on his chest, right in the center.
“Here,” he explains, grimacing. “As if she’d stuck a knife into me, but without actually hurting me. She looked at me as if she knew how much I like taking risks. And she told me to stay away from a place I haven’t even gone to yet. You tell me if that’s normal.”
Mingi scratches the back of his neck, puzzled. “Nothing’s normal here since she came aboard,” he comments slowly. “Not even the way she’s getting into your heads.”
Wooyoung chuckles, but the sound is shorter than usual.
“I know she’s dangerous,” he admits, lowering his gaze to the deck planks. “I know. But when she pointed at that part of the map… it wasn’t just to scare me. It felt… I don’t know… like when Yeosang says, ‘don’t drink from that bottle,’ and you find out half the crew would’ve been poisoned if you had.”
Yunho inhales softly, without taking his eyes off the horizon.
“She put the right doubt in your head,” he concludes calmly.
Wooyoung gives him a crooked look. “She put too many things in my head. That’s the problem.”
Then, more softly, almost to himself:
“When she looked at me… she didn’t look afraid of me. She looked afraid for me. And there are only two kinds of people who look at you like that: those who lie like gods… and those who have seen something we can’t see yet.”
Mingi watches him, serious, then turns his gaze to Yunho.
“And you?” he asks. “What do you see?”
Yunho stays quiet for a long moment, the sea filling the space between words.
“I see a cursed ship,” he says at last, “a ring we don’t understand, and a girl who doesn’t know which side she’s on.”
He turns toward Wooyoung, his gaze steady.
“And I see,” he adds, “that if you keep wanting to go down to her to ‘know more,’ one day she’ll answer you with something that frightens you even more.”
Wooyoung smiles crookedly, but doesn’t deny it.
“Maybe that’s exactly what I’m waiting for,” he murmurs, leaning back against the rail, his eyes returning to the sea. “Something that scares me more than the emptiness out there.”
The wind rises a little, lifting the sails, and for an instant, in the silence that follows, none of the three says anything else; each remains with his own thoughts.
You wake with a start, as if someone has pulled you out of the water, and for the first time in days, there’s no sand in your eyes, no wind in your ears, no beach tormenting you; only the damp wood beneath your back, the distant creak of the Black Fever breathing, and your own breath, which for once isn’t broken.
You feel… strangely rested.
You stretch carefully, the bandages tugging a little, but they no longer scream like they did the night of the duel, and as you run a hand through your still-messy hair, another sensation makes you freeze.
On your finger, it pulses, steady, like a heart that has decided to use yours to keep rhythm, a subtle heat spreading through your hand and then up to your wrist. It doesn’t burn, but it doesn’t leave you indifferent either. It’s like a call: wake up, pay attention, something happens today.
You have just enough time to lower your hand and grimace at the low ceiling of the cell before the door outside opens with a decisive creak, footsteps echo down the corridor, and you instinctively straighten on the bunk, your breath shortening out of habit, as it does every time someone remembers you exist.
Jongho enters the cone of light first, broad shoulders nearly filling the passage, breakfast tray in hand; behind him, slightly to the side, is Seonghwa, dressed in black from head to toe, shirt tucked with obsessive precision, unbuttoned coat falling perfectly, dark hair tied as always, and the face of someone who has just discovered he’s been sentenced to a week of shifts with someone he despises.
He looks at you through the bars with dark eyes that seem even sharper today, as if aiming a knife at you.
You ignore him with almost stubborn care, the way one ignores a thorn until it digs deeper.
Jongho clears his throat slightly, shifts his weight from one foot to the other, opens the cell with a turn of the key, and moves to enter with the tray, but Seonghwa is the first to speak, his low, cutting voice entering the cell before he does.
“The Captain,” he says, and from the tone alone you understand that whatever follows does not thrill him, “has had the magnificent idea of letting you get some fresh air today.”
For an instant, you think you misheard.
You stare at him, then at Jongho, then back at him, as if waiting for someone to burst out laughing and admit it’s a joke in poor taste.
“Fresh air,” you repeat softly, tasting the words as if they’re foreign. “Truly?”
Seonghwa’s expression doesn’t change, except for an imperceptible tightening of his jaw.
“Don’t get used to it,” he replies dryly. “It isn’t a romantic walk on deck. It’s the Captain’s order. A few hours out of the cell, watched” — he lingers on the word as if it’s a chain — “then back here.”
Jongho, beside him, lowers his gaze for an instant, almost embarrassed by his own presence; when he casts you a quick look, there is still that discreet flash you’ve begun to recognize, as if he’s silently making sure you really are all right, that you aren’t about to collapse in front of them.
Your gaze shifts from one to the other, your heart beating a little faster.
“So,” you murmur, tilting your head slightly, “today you’re granting me the privilege of remembering the sky exists.”
You bite back the smile, but a shred of sarcasm slips out anyway.
Seonghwa sighs faintly, as though every word leaving your mouth is another weight on his shoulders.
“I’d say the sky isn’t the problem,” he comments acidly. “The problem is what you might do once you set foot out of here.”
You instinctively raise an eyebrow.
“I’ve been locked in a cell for days,” you reply, crossing your arms. “If I wanted to sink the ship, believe me, I would’ve done it already.”
He holds your gaze for a moment, and you sense that beneath all that coldness he’s calculating, weighing, measuring how much of a risk you are, how much it bothers him that the Captain is giving you ground.
Jongho finally sets the tray on the bunk.
“Eat,” he says simply, his voice softer. “You’ll need the strength.”
When you finish eating, you hear the key turn again, a short, decisive creak, and Jongho reappears at the threshold of the cell; he says nothing, only tilts his head slightly toward the corridor, a silent invitation to follow him, and you stand slowly, smoothing the dress with an instinctive gesture as if you’re entering a ballroom rather than leaving a prison, then step out.
You walk one behind the other through the belly of the ship, the wood groaning beneath your steps, the glow of the lanterns drawing long shadows over the walls, and every stair you climb feels like a hammer blow against the cage that has kept you locked below; when the open air finally bursts against you, cold and salty, you almost feel as though your lungs widen more than they should, as if they had forgotten what it means to truly breathe.
The morning light forces you to narrow your eyes for a moment. The sky is clear, the sun high but not yet cruel, a white blade reflected on the sea and the dark hull of the Black Fever; the wind catches your hair immediately, lifting a few brown strands and carrying them against your cheeks, the fabric of the dress brushing your legs, and for one moment, just one, you forget everything else and simply breathe deeply, filling yourself with salt, tar, and warm wood.
Jongho remains beside you, half a step away, hands clasped behind his back like a silent shadow assigned to follow you everywhere, but he doesn’t grip you, doesn’t seize you. He simply acts as a boundary.
You immediately notice the way the deck reacts to your presence: movements slow by a beat, a couple of men glance at you from the corner of their eyes while pulling ropes, someone else hastens to look away when his gaze meets yours, as if afraid that staring too long might truly bring bad luck, just as their superstitions say.
And then, inevitably, you see them.
Toward the stern, near the helm, Hongjoong and Seonghwa stand like two dark figures against the sky, one with his hands resting casually on the rail, the other closer to the wheel, posture tense but elegant, both speaking softly as the wind slips through the folds of their coats; one glance is enough to understand they’re discussing route, wind, sea… and yet, as soon as you set foot on deck, you feel, almost physically, the way their attention shifts.
The Captain’s eyes find you immediately, following your movement as if you were a new point on the map, something to calculate and take into account; his lips hint at an almost invisible smile, but his gaze is vigilant, measured, steeped in a curiosity that has nothing light about it.
Beside him, Seonghwa is more exposed: annoyance crosses his face like a quick shadow, his eyes narrowing imperceptibly as he watches you advance across the deck, the black coat fitted over his shoulders, tied hair barely moving; he doesn’t call to you, doesn’t scold you, but his presence near the helm is a constant reminder that whatever you do up here, they are watching.
You force yourself to look away, lower your eyes for a moment to the grain of the planks beneath your feet, then let them rise again along the deck, following the dry sound of metal and powder.
Closer to the center, near the bulwarks, you see Mingi kneeling beside a cannon, his large frame bent forward, his big hands handling with surprising care small canvas bags you recognize at once: gunpowder. His face is serious, concentrated, his mouth pressed into a firm line as he checks, measures, tightens, and for a second, you’re struck by how methodical there is in a man who governs the chaos of fire.
Behind him, just one step back, Yunho leans one hip against the rail, arms crossed, gaze fixed on Mingi’s movements, as if measuring those too, fitting them into his idea of route and timing; when he lifts his eyes, they meet yours, and for an instant the noise of the deck grows muffled.
He doesn’t greet you, doesn’t make any obvious gesture, but that brief, lucid look carries with it the weight of what he told you the night before, and you feel it like an invisible hand reminding you that you’re here also because someone insisted on seeing you outside those bars.
You move slowly toward them, without hurry and without pretending otherwise, because if there is one thing you’ve understood in these days, it’s that pretending not to see has never helped you; the deck planks creak beneath your steps, Jongho remaining just behind, close enough to intervene, far enough to make you believe you have a little space.
You stop a couple of meters from Mingi and Yunho, just out of reach of the thin cloud of powder Mingi raises every time he opens a bag; you watch him for a moment, the focused profile, the large hands moving with a delicacy almost at odds with his size, then lift your chin, letting curiosity win over caution.
“May I know what you’re doing,” you ask, your voice calm, almost polite, “or should I only worry when all of this starts exploding?”
Mingi lifts his gaze to you, his dark eyes measuring you for an instant, then returning to the cannon; he answers with that typical slowness of someone in no hurry to please you.
“I’m making sure that if something has to explode,” he murmurs, fitting a bag into its compartment, “it explodes where I say.”
Yunho, leaning one hip against the rail, shifts his attention from him to you, a subtle crease crossing his lips, halfway between irony and thought.
“We’re checking the charges,” he explains, more directly. “If the wind shifts and we run into someone we don’t like, it’s better not to discover the cannons are empty.”
A bitter smile escapes you.
“How thoughtful,” you comment. “It’s reassuring to know that my… stay is accompanied by this kind of preparation.”
“Your stay is accompanied by a curse and an unstable route,” Yunho replies without malice. “Gunpowder is almost a kindness.”
Behind him, you see Jongho cross his arms over his chest, his gaze moving from you to the cannon, as if evaluating how many unpredictable variables have gathered in the same scrap of deck.
Mingi gives you a fleeting sideways glance.
“You shouldn’t be this close,” he mutters, more out of habit than true reproach. “Powder doesn’t get along with pretty dresses.”
“Nor with Imperial ships, apparently,” you reply, and for an instant you’re surprised by the way he doesn’t stiffen but instead hints at a half smile that lights his eyes just slightly.
You’re about to add something, perhaps another sharp remark, when a sound cuts the air from above, light and familiar: a whistle.
You recognize it before you even lift your head.
The melody descends from the mainmast like an invisible rope, playing among the sails, slipping between the rigging; you look up instinctively and see him, suspended halfway up, one leg hooked around a line, his torso tilted into the void with a naturalness that makes you dizzy just to look at him.
Wooyoung moves among the ropes as if they were extensions of his arms, his hands sliding surely over knots, his body swaying slightly with the wind; when he spots you on deck, he lowers his head, a smile blooming naturally on his face, almost lit by the morning.
“Princess!” he calls from above, his clear voice bouncing off the sails. “Enjoying the view down there?”
You don’t know why, but the way he says it gets under your skin.
Maybe it’s the light tone, maybe it’s the fact that, for the first time in hours, someone is calling you without the shadow of a threat, maybe it’s simply that face of his — walking trouble, hanging in the air — but your lips hint at a smile before you even realize it.
A brief smile. Small, but real.
You notice a moment later and almost grow irritated with yourself, but it’s too late: the gesture has already escaped, and Yunho notices, though he doesn’t comment, simply shifting his gaze from you to Wooyoung with an expression that says very clearly how unsurprised he is by that combination.
“Don’t distract her,” Mingi murmurs, without lifting his head, though a shadow of amusement brushes his eyes. “We’re working.”
Wooyoung laughs softly, the sound sliding down the mast like another piece of melody.
“I’m only checking that my dress still looks good,” he replies shamelessly. “And I’d say the view from up here is excellent.”
You find yourself on the verge of smiling again, with no idea why that madman climbing among the sails is able to have this effect on you, right here, right now, with the ring pulsing on your finger as if taking notes on every one of your reactions.
Wooyoung descends the ropes with a speed that almost makes your head spin, sliding from one knot to the next as if gravity were an opinion and not a law, then lets himself drop through the last stretch, landing on deck with a light, sure thud, knees barely bending, torso straightening as though it were nothing.
This time, though, it’s different.
He doesn’t come toward you with the usual catlike grin of someone who has just knocked over the milk, makes no immediate joke, no theatrical bow; he approaches slowly, boots striking the planks, his eyes for once not darting all over the deck but staying on you, fixed, attentive.
When he reaches you, he slips his hands into his trouser pockets, his shoulders a little more closed than usual, and for one absurd second, he almost seems… embarrassed.
Mingi looks at him as if someone has just replaced his friend with a badly made double, Yunho raises one eyebrow in silent confusion, and behind you, you feel Jongho stiffen, his weight shifting back onto his heels as if already preparing a no.
Wooyoung inhales softly, then speaks to you.
“Would you like a tour of the ship?” he asks, and his voice is less loud, less theatrical than usual, lower, more… real.
You stare at him, skeptical, your arms almost crossing over your chest by themselves.
“A tour,” you repeat slowly. “With you.”
He nods, hands still in his pockets, fingers moving slightly beneath the fabric, nervous.
“Since the Captain wants you in the fresh air,” he murmurs, with a touch of irony that doesn’t erase the seriousness beneath it, “you might as well know where you’re putting your feet. And…” He lowers his gaze for an instant, then returns it to you. “Let’s say I have a couple of questions.”
Behind you, Jongho takes a step forward.
“You can’t take her around the ship like she’s a cabin boy,” he objects, his voice firm but not aggressive. “She needs to stay on deck, in sight.”
Wooyoung turns slightly toward him, a slanted smile appearing on his lips.
“She’ll stay in sight,” he replies. “I’ll take her around. I’ll keep an eye on her.”
“That’s what worries me,” Yunho murmurs, low enough to be heard only by the three of you, but he doesn’t truly intervene. He only looks at you as if asking whether you actually intend to go.
You alternate your gaze between them, between Jongho’s serious face, Yunho’s perplexed one, and Wooyoung’s… strange one, a mixture of curiosity, tension, and something you can’t yet decipher; the ring on your finger pulses slowly, as if it’s interested too.
“And if I said no?” you ask, tilting your head slightly.
Wooyoung presses his lips into a grimace and lifts his shoulders in an almost childish gesture.
“I’d say it’s a shame to waste the only entertaining guide you have on board,” he replies. “The others would only give you a list of rules.” He glances at Jongho, then at Yunho. “Or currents.”
The truth is that standing still in the same spot, feeling the entire crew’s eyes on you and the fixed attention of the Captain and Quartermaster, is already weighing on you, and the idea of moving, seeing, memorizing without having to steal every detail from a distance… tempts you more than you should admit.
Jongho seems to sense it, because he takes half a step forward, the tray now far away, arms tense at his sides.
“Aurora,” he calls you back, his voice grave. “Don’t go too far from the deck.”
You don’t even have time to answer before Wooyoung, as if he has waited for the exact moment to catch you off guard, closes the distance between you in two steps; you catch his scent of salt, apple, and smoke a moment before he passes one arm under yours, linking himself to you with shameless naturalness.
You find his forearm intertwined with yours, the back of his hand brushing the fabric of your dress, his body already dragging you toward the bow.
“Perfect,” he chirps, far too cheerful to be innocent. “She just said yes.”
“I did not—” you begin, but he has already set you in motion.
Jongho moves to block him, but Wooyoung is quicker with words than with movement.
“Relax,” he throws over his shoulder, dragging you with him. “I’ll bring her back whole. At the first fu— complication,” he corrects quickly, seeing Yunho’s look, “she’ll shout your name and you can come save her, all right?”
Jongho sighs deeply, then follows at a distance, his long, heavy steps not even attempting to be discreet: he doesn’t leave you alone, doesn’t hold you back, but remains a constant presence you can feel like a shadow behind your neck.
Yunho watches you move away for a few seconds, then lowers his gaze again to the cannon with Mingi, but you feel it, that invisible thread still stretched between you, as if part of his attention continues following you even while he speaks of charges and wind.
Seonghwa’s voice reaches you from behind like a lash.
“Wooyoung! Bring her back immediately!”
The tone is sharp enough to make half the deck turn, but when someone looks for you, you and Wooyoung have already slipped into the side passage, swallowed by the shadow of the covered deck; the sound of the sea fades, the creaking of wood becomes more present, and Seonghwa’s distant fury turns into a muffled echo.
Wooyoung laughs softly, without stopping, his arm still linked with yours.
“Seonghwa loves my initiative,” he comments lightly. “He just has a… particular way of expressing it.”
“He sounded very grateful, yes,” you reply sarcastically, trying to keep pace without tripping.
“Don’t worry,” he adds, lowering his voice, “if he’d truly wanted to stop us, he would’ve sent Jongho to pick me up like dead weight and carry me back.”
Behind you, in fact, you can hear Jongho’s heavy, regular steps following at a safe distance, not close enough to hear every word, not far enough to lose sight of you.
The corridor is narrow, lanterns hanging on the walls painting gold patches across the wood panels, the planks vibrating beneath the rhythm of your steps; Wooyoung slows slightly, loosens his arm under yours but doesn’t let go completely, as if undecided whether to give you space or keep you anchored there.
“So,” he murmurs, with a tone that holds less joking and more curiosity, “where do you want to start, princess?”
“Start what?” you ask, suspicious.
He looks at you from the side, his profile lit by the trembling light, and for an instant he doesn’t smile.
“The tour,” he answers simply. “Understanding where you’ve ended up.”
You’re about to retort that you don’t need a guide, that you didn’t ask for anything, that you don’t trust him any more than you trust the others, but you stop; there is something in the way he walks slower than usual, in the way his gaze slips over you not to study you as a puzzle but to make sure you keep up, that makes you… hesitate.
“All right,” you sigh, lifting your shoulders slightly. “Show me this kingdom of yours, then.”
Wooyoung’s eyes light like lanterns at dusk, his smile returning more naturally, and though it isn’t his usual brazen grin, there is something warm in it you haven’t seen on him before.
“Excellent choice,” he murmurs. “We’ll start at the bow. It’s the best place to understand whether a ship hates you or not.”
“A ship hates you?” You raise an eyebrow, letting yourself be led as he only partly loosens his arm from yours, guiding you more with his body than with his grip, as though afraid of holding too tight or truly letting go. “I thought you were the ones mistreating her, not the other way around.”
“No one mistreats the Black Fever,” he replies at once, almost offended. “Seonghwa listens to her, Jongho would rebuild her with his teeth, and Yunho treats her like she’s the only sane thing to lay hands on in this sea.” He pauses briefly, then adds more softly, “I… simply don’t fall off.”
A half smile escapes you, brief, but he notices and seems almost reassured by it.
The corridor opens back onto the deck, and you curve toward the bow: the wind is stronger here, pushing your hair back, filling your chest with that mixed scent of salt, tar, and wet rigging; the bow cuts through the waves, and sometimes spray rises high enough to dampen the wood and your shoes, tiny cold needles against your ankles.
“Here,” Wooyoung says, slowing until he stops near the rail, “is where you come when you don’t want anyone to hear you think. The sound of the water covers voices. And if you look ahead long enough… you forget what’s chasing you from behind.”
You lean against the rail instinctively, rough wood beneath your palms, your gaze losing itself in the shifting line of the horizon.
“Do you come here often?” you ask, more curious than you’d like to sound.
“More often than Seonghwa would appreciate,” he answers with a slanted smile, then adds, lowering his voice, “especially on nights when I can’t sleep.”
Behind you, a few steps back, you hear Jongho stop, hands clasped behind his back, gaze turned toward the sea but, you’re certain, with one ear always aimed at you.
You remain in silence for a few seconds, the wind pushing at the words not yet spoken; then Wooyoung reduces the distance between you by half a step, without invading you, and looks at you from the side.
There’s something in the way he says your name, without nicknames, without princess, that makes you turn your head toward him almost despite yourself.
“What you told me yesterday, in the Captain’s cabin…” He hesitates for a moment, searching for the right word, and you realize he isn’t used to speaking without a ready joke to cover his back. “About the alley behind the Vespera.”
Your eyes grow more serious. “You remember.”
“I remember every word,” he answers, and this time there is nothing light in his voice. “And I don’t like it.”
You tighten slightly inside the dress, the wind tangling a strand of hair over your face.
“I’m not asking you to like it.”
“I know.” He lowers his gaze for a moment to the wood of the rail, tapping softly with his fingers, as if keeping the rhythm of a thought. “But when someone you’re supposed to consider a hostage tells you that a man with a scar on his left arm has been waiting for you for three months with a loaded pistol in an alley you never name out loud…” He casts you a serious, sideways look. “It’s hard to pretend it’s only a coincidence.”
“I don’t know how to explain it,” you admit, and this time there’s no challenge in your voice, only a lucid exhaustion. “I just know that… I see it. As if I’ve already been there.”
“In your dreams,” he completes softly.
You stiffen for a moment. “Who told you?”
“No one.” The corners of his lips bend into the faintest smile, sadder than amused. “But you’re a prisoner, cursed, chased by half the sea… and instead of sleeping like a rock, you wake at night screaming and look for the Captain to talk about maps. It isn’t hard to add one and one.”
You look at him for a moment, surprised by how much he is truly observing you, not only to find a crack or a weakness, but to understand.
“Are you afraid?” you ask, without taking the time to soften the question.
He doesn’t pretend not to understand.
“Yes,” he answers simply. “Not of the man in the alley.” Then he extends one finger and draws a small invisible circle in the air before him. “Of this.”
“Of me?” You raise an eyebrow, part of you trying to return to your usual irony.
“Of you knowing things you shouldn’t know,” he clarifies. “Of you speaking about the ring as if it’s…” He searches for the word, finds it. “A person.”
You lower your gaze to the circle of gold on your finger, the stone pulsing slowly, almost in response.
“You hate it, don’t you?” you murmur.
Wooyoung thinks for a second, then shakes his head.
“No,” he says softly. “I hate what it does to the ship, to the route, to Hongjoong. But it…” He indicates the ring with a nod of his chin. “I don’t understand it enough yet to hate it. Or to trust it.”
He takes a deeper breath, then turns toward you, and for the first time since you’ve known him, you see him without defenses, without the mask of lightness.
“What you told me about the Vespera…” he continues, “no one should know I go there. Not even Mingi. Hongjoong probably suspects it, but he pretends not to see. It’s the only place in that port where I can walk in without being ‘one of the Black Fever.’”
He runs a hand through his hair, his gaze slipping beyond the bow.
“It’s the place where, for a few hours, I stop being a target.”
A full silence passes between your ribs.
“And you don’t want to give that up,” you conclude softly.
Wooyoung would smile, usually. This time he doesn’t.
“I don’t like changing my habits just because someone wants me dead,” he admits. “But I don’t like the idea of getting shot in an alley either, just because I’m too proud to listen to a warning.”
You’re surprised to feel… touched.
He bites the inside of his cheek, then nods slightly.
“I trust your panic more than sailors’ fantasies,” he says. “When you spoke to me today…” He stops, looking you straight in the eyes. “You didn’t seem like someone having fun inventing traps to get rid of some random pirate.”
“You’re not some random pirate,” you answer by instinct, then immediately regret it, because you’ve just said more than you wanted.
He frowns, a nearly shy spark in his gaze.
“Don’t get used to it,” you cut him off, but you can’t stop a little heat from rising to your cheeks.
To break the moment, he pushes away from the rail and starts walking along the edge of the deck again, inviting you to follow with a nod of his head; you walk beside him, Jongho following at his steady distance, and Wooyoung resumes his “tour.”
He points out where Jongho keeps the tools for repairing the rigging, the spot where Mingi retreats when he wants to reload pistols away from prying eyes, the small staircase that leads most quickly to the sickbay — “so when Yeosang yells at me, I get there faster to be patched up and insulted more efficiently” — and the hatch that leads to the kitchens, where you know Lina is.
He talks a lot, but it isn’t his usual talking just to fill silence: every sentence he gives you feels like a small piece of something that matters to him, something that defines the ship not as a vessel, but as a home.
You listen, make your usual sharp comments, but you realize that with him, sarcasm slips out less poisonous and more… complicit, as if you’re slowly learning to separate the pirate from the boy searching for places where he can stop being a target.
After a while, once most of the deck is behind you and you’ve returned toward midship, Wooyoung stops and looks at you with that expression that says he is about to say something far too serious for his standards.
“Can I ask you something?” he asks, his voice lower.
“I thought you were already doing that,” you reply, but your tone isn’t hard.
“When you spoke to the Captain…” he continues, ignoring the joke, “when you gave him all those details about Rukhar, about places to avoid, about alleys…” He hesitates. “Why did you add that part about me?”
The question catches you off guard.
“Because—?” you stammer, then force yourself to stop, to truly think. “Because I saw it.”
“That isn’t it.” He slowly shakes his head. “If you see a thousand things… why did you choose to warn me?”
You bite the inside of your cheek, look at him, and realize that behind the curiosity there is something else: not vanity, not fear.
“Because it didn’t seem right for you to get shot in the back.”
The answer leaves you more easily than expected.
Wooyoung stares at you for one long second, so long you wonder whether you should’ve chosen another sentence; then, slowly, his smile returns, but it’s different: less open, less loud, more… fragile.
“You know,” he says softly, “that isn’t something we hear often up here.”
“That something ‘isn’t right’ for us.”
His fingers move inside his pockets, as if they need an outlet.
“Usually, if the sea takes us, if the Empire shoots us, if another pirate betrays us… it’s just ‘the fate of sea dogs.’ No one wastes time calling it unfair.”
This time, you are the one who stays silent for a few steps.
“You’re not dogs,” you say at last, with a calm that surprises even you. “You’re many things…” You search for the word. “Stubborn, ignorant, dangerous, and irritating, yes. But not dogs.”
He laughs softly, truly amused, and for a moment the weight in his eyes lightens.
“That’s the strangest declaration of affection I’ve ever received,” he comments.
“It wasn’t a declaration of affection,” you hurry to clarify.
“No, of course.” He concedes it, but the way he looks at you for an instant betrays that part of him has carved it somewhere, silently.
You stop near the base of the mainmast, the ropes rising like serpents toward the sky; Wooyoung rests his back against the wood, crosses one ankle over the other, and watches you, the wind tousling his hair.
“Aurora.” He says your name again, and this time there is something soft in the sound. “When we’re in Rukhar… if the ring shows you anything else, if you see something that concerns us, me, them…” He lifts his chin slightly toward the stern, where you know Hongjoong and Seonghwa are keeping you under watch. “Tell me. Before you tell the Captain.”
“Because I trust what makes your hand tremble,” he answers, his gaze sliding to your finger, “more than what Hongjoong will want to use as a move on his chessboard.”
You don’t know what to answer right away, because the truth is he has asked you for something enormous: to place him between you and the Captain, to admit you consider him a recipient, not only a jailer.
“We’ll see,” you murmur at last. “Depends on whether you decide to make me fall from the mast or not.”
He smiles, leaning slightly forward, enough to reduce the distance without truly invading it.
“I won’t let you fall,” he promises. “If you fall…” He leaves the sentence hanging for a second, then closes it. “We’ll fall together.”
Your heart makes a strange shift inside your chest, and you don’t know whether to call him reckless or ask why he sounds so sincere.
Before you decide, a distant voice calls his name, and he pushes away from the mast, straightening.
“The tour continues another time, princess,” he says, slipping back into a mask of lightness, but his eyes betray that new thread caught somewhere between you. “If I come back too late, Seonghwa will hang me from the mast with my own ropes.”
“That could be quite a show,” you comment.
“I know,” he replies, pleased. “But for today, I’ll settle for yours.”
He leaves you there, beneath the mainmast, with the sea in your eyes and the ring pulsing softly, while Jongho approaches again in silence, as if he hasn’t listened to anything and has listened to everything.
You lift your gaze just in time to see Wooyoung climb back up the ropes like a cat, his body bending in quick, sure movements, the wind billowing his shirt as he returns to his place above, where he seems more at home than on the wooden deck.
“Where’s the rest of your cheerful company?” you ask Jongho as he comes closer to you, arms crossed and his gaze always attentive to the deck.
“Who?” he asks, as if he hasn’t understood, but you know he’s only buying time.
“Yeosang and San,” you specify, tilting your head. “I don’t see them anywhere.”
Jongho follows your gaze, checking the deck almost by habit, then answers with that low, calm voice of his.
“Yeosang is in the sickbay,” he says. “Arranging supplies and… other things of his.” He nods faintly toward the stern. “San is practicing with his sword behind the quarterdeck. It’s better if no one bothers him.”
You understand the subtext: don’t go provoking him.
“Relax,” you huff. “I have no intention of getting skewered before we go ashore in Rukhar.”
He nods, as if the only thing that truly matters to him is that you remain whole until landfall.
You turn toward the cannon area, where Mingi is still bent over a carriage, his large hands handling gunpowder and carefully checking the mechanisms, while Yunho says something quietly to him, pointing toward the line of the horizon, as if already imagining the distances.
“Listen…” you say, turning your gaze back to Jongho. “If I sit near Mingi and watch what he’s doing… will someone shoot me?”
Jongho remains silent for a second, then raises one eyebrow slightly, as if trying to decide whether the question is serious or not.
“If you don’t touch anything,” he answers at last, “no.”
“Is that a yes?” you insist.
He sighs faintly, which for Jongho equals half a smile.
“Do what you want,” he allows. “I’ll stay close.”
You nod, satisfied, and move away, feeling his calm steps not too far behind yours, like a discreet shadow making sure you don’t fall into the sea at the first roll.
You approach Mingi and Yunho again, the light metallic sound of cannon parts settling mixing with the whisper of the sea; you sit on an empty crate right beside where Yunho stands, one hand on the carriage, his gaze turned toward the horizon as if measuring an invisible distance.
“Do you mind if I watch?” you ask, arranging your dress so it doesn’t get in the way of your bandaged legs.
Mingi lifts his gaze, studies you for a moment with that calm air he has even when handling something that could explode in everyone’s face, then nods slowly.
“As long as you don’t touch the powder,” he says, “you can watch as much as you want.”
Yunho lowers his gaze to you, a quick flash crossing it; for a second, it almost seems as though he’s checking whether you’re truly all right, not only whether you’re about to get in the way.
“Were you bored?” he asks, without irony.
“I’m always bored,” you reply, narrowing your eyes toward the cannon, “but at least this way I’ll learn why you make so much noise when you’re happy.”
Mingi lowers his gaze again, turning his back to you to adjust a lever, but you think you hear half a smile in his voice when he adds, “This is the right noise. When you hear it, you should pray it’s on our side.”
You watch him work, the way his hands move surely and precisely, as if every screw and every rope were an extension of his body; beside him, Yunho follows the movements with his gaze, every now and then indicating a detail, an angle, a different alignment.
“So,” you say after a moment, lifting your eyes toward the navigator, “you take him where he has to fire… and he decides when to make the sea tremble.”
Yunho nods softly. “Something like that.”
“And if you’re wrong, they fall into the water?” you tease him.
“If I’m wrong,” he answers without taking offense, “we may not have time for a second shot.”
He silences you with the simplicity of someone who has lived for years with the idea that one small mistake can cost everything; you remain there watching them in silence for a while, the wind circling around you, the wood creaking, the sea seeming to listen.
While Mingi fixes the last strap and moves to the opposite side of the cannon to check the alignment, Yunho bends slightly toward you, without the others noticing.
“You did well to warn him today,” he murmurs, low, alluding to Wooyoung and Rukhar. “He plays the fool, but…” His gaze lingers for a moment on the deck. “If he suddenly disappeared, the ship wouldn’t be the same.”
You tighten your hands over your knees, watching the sea ahead of the Black Fever and the way the sunlight bounces on the water.
Since they brought you back to the cell, the world has shrunk to four wooden planks, a bucket in the corner, and Jongho’s heavy footsteps arriving punctually with trays; you no longer see anyone — not Wooyoung’s curious eyes, not Seonghwa’s heavy stare, not even Yeosang has come down to check your bandages today, and that, no matter how much you refuse to admit it, leaves a strange, irritating emptiness on your skin.
The day slips by slowly and stickily. Food comes and goes with Jongho, who enters, sets the tray down, gives you at most one or two sentences, then disappears again, leaving you alone with the dull sound of the sea striking the hull and the breathing of the ship, which seems to fall asleep before you do.
When night truly falls, the lanterns in the corridor grow dimmer, the light turns golden and trembling, and the air fills with that mixed smell of dampness, iron, and old wood that you’re starting to recognize as the deep breath of the Black Fever at rest.
Tonight, beyond the bars, it’s him.
Jongho sits on a chair against the wall in front of your cell, one leg stretched out, the other bent, his arms crossed over his chest; the lantern hanging just above him draws sharp shadows across his cheekbones and the line of his jaw, the light sliding slowly over his bare forearms, full of strength and thin scars you hadn’t noticed so clearly before, always too busy staying upright in front of his stubborn calm.
For a while, you watch him in silence, sitting on the bunk with your knees drawn up to your chest, your back against the wall, your chin resting on your arms. He does nothing spectacular, doesn’t rock the chair, doesn’t toy with a knife, doesn’t whistle, doesn’t talk to himself.
Every now and then, he barely changes position, shifts his weight from one shoulder to the other, tilts his head slightly toward the side of the corridor where anyone might appear, as if his body has been used for years to keeping everything under control without letting anyone notice.
What strikes you is how little he looks at you compared to the others. The others drag their eyes over you like blades — curious, wary, irritated, fascinated. He only grants you brief, measured glances, more to make sure you’re still there and still breathing than to remind you you’re a prisoner.
“If you keep staring at me like that,” you murmur at last, your voice low so as not to disturb the ship’s half-sleep, “I’ll eventually convince myself I bore you less than the rest of the crew.”
He lifts his gaze to you slowly, as if he heard you from the first syllable but decided to answer only once you were finished. One corner of his mouth moves slightly. It isn’t a real smile, but it tastes like one.
“I’m just doing my watch,” he replies, simply, his deep voice echoing softly along the corridor.
“What an exciting life,” you huff, moving your feet and crossing your ankles. “Sitting around watching a woman eat, sleep, try to escape, and get put back in her place.”
“You forgot the part where you fight San in the middle of the deck,” he answers, with the same calm tone. “That made my life more… eventful.”
You surprise yourself by laughing softly, a strangled sound that comes out gentler than expected.
“Right.” You tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, staring at the lantern above him. “I imagine it doesn’t happen often, seeing a ‘young lady of noble blood’ almost split the ship’s fighter in two.”
You look at him better now, now that he isn’t escaping with a tray in his hand: his eyes are dark but bright, attentive, not absent; he has those large hands you’ve seen lifting crates and pulling ropes as if they were made of paper, and you think that if he wanted to, he could snap your wrist without even trying, and yet when he touched you the other day, he seemed almost afraid of doing too much.
“Doesn’t it weigh on you?” you ask, without thinking too hard. “Staying here to… watch me? When you could be up there, in the wind, with the others?”
He takes a moment before answering, lowering his gaze to his hands for a second before bringing it back to you.
“It’s an order,” he says. “And orders don’t weigh. You carry them out.”
“That sounds like something Seonghwa would say,” you reply, tilting your head to the side.
This time, the line of his mouth bends a little more, the shadow of a tired smile.
“Seonghwa gives them,” he answers. “I carry them out.”
You bite the inside of your cheek to stop yourself from admitting out loud that you like that simplicity of his; that, out of all of them, he seems the least willing to play with your fate, but the most willing to… endure you.
A few minutes pass in silence. Time stretches, the wood creaks, far away a barrel rolls lazily, someone coughs in another section of the ship; the sea strikes the hull, regular, like a heart too large.
You lie back down on the bunk, on your side, your face turned toward him, one hand beneath your cheek, the other on your chest, where you feel the ring pulsing softly as if it’s counting something you don’t know.
“Jongho,” you call, quieter this time.
“If it weren’t for the ring,” you ask, staring at the bars framing him, “do you think I’d already be dead?”
He remains still for a moment too long, then shakes his head.
“No,” he says, simply. “I think you’d already have been sold. Or traded. Or left in some port to rot under another name.”
“Very comforting,” you mutter.
“It isn’t comforting,” he agrees. “It’s the truth.”
Something tightens in your stomach, but strangely, it isn’t only fear; there’s also a small, thin gratitude that at least someone here doesn’t bother sweetening things for you.
“And instead?” you ask again, your voice blurred by exhaustion. “What am I, like this, according to you?”
He looks at you for a long time, and for a moment you feel as if he’s trying to understand whether you really want to hear his answer or whether you’re only provoking him out of habit.
“A problem,” he says at last.
You almost laugh again, more sincerely this time. “Thank you.”
“A living problem,” he adds, slowly. “And as long as you stay alive… something can always change.”
Your eyelids grow heavier, his words beginning to slip over you like warm waves; the blood pounds less loudly in your ears, exhaustion catches your ankles and climbs slowly upward.
“I don’t know if you’re threatening me or encouraging me,” you murmur, letting your eyes close.
“Neither do I,” he answers, and all you hear is the soft sound of the chair adjusting, his breathing staying there, steady.
You curl up a little more, your fingers brushing the ring, the cold wood of the bunk beneath your palm, and you slowly slide into sleep with one last clear awareness: beyond the bars, Jongho is still there, motionless, planted like a pillar.
And for the first time since you came aboard the Black Fever, the thought of falling asleep knowing someone is truly watching that door… frightens you a little less.
The dream takes you without warning, like a current grabbing your ankles and dragging you down.
You’re no longer in the cell.
The beach is gone. In its place, there’s a narrow street, badly paved, lit by lanterns hanging from rusted hooks; the air smells of rum, smoke, and sweat, and a constant murmur of voices, laughter, and curses fills the night.
You understand at once that you aren’t inside the scene. You’re at its edges, like a ghost no one sees.
In front of you, the dark wooden sign swings in the wind. One word, burned into the center: Vespera.
His voice comes from your right, warm and calm as always, and when you turn, he’s there, leaning against the wall as if he’s part of the night itself, his bare chest barely covered by his open jacket, dark hair falling into his eyes. For once, he watches you without smiling.
You look back toward the tavern, and you see him.
Wooyoung enters Vespera with that elastic, light, confident step of his; his shirt open at the chest, hair ruffled by the sea wind, mouth already bent into a smile you know far too well. He doesn’t carry his usual restlessness this time. He’s… excited, alive, almost hungry for chaos.
He makes his way between tables as if he’s known them forever, slipping past drunk sailors, tired prostitutes, merchants who talk too much; he laughs with someone you don’t recognize, claps a hand on his shoulder, and sits at a dice table with a naturalness that makes your fists tighten.
“He shouldn’t be here,” you whisper, your throat tight.
“You’re the only one who knows that,” he answers calmly.
At the table, dice clatter over sticky wood, coins move from one hand to another, someone curses because he lost, someone toasts, someone cheats. Wooyoung laughs, runs a hand through his hair, throws the dice as if even his wrist is dancing.
Across from him, a man you hadn’t noticed at first lifts his head.
His greasy hair is slicked back, his hat is battered, and his smile isn’t a smile, only a display of crooked teeth.
One of those teeth, only one, gleams gold in the lantern light.
His gaze narrows, suspicious. He looks at the dice, at Wooyoung’s hands, then at the coins. Something doesn’t add up, or perhaps it adds up too well, and he doesn’t like it.
“No…” you whisper, corrupted by a fear that doesn’t belong to you and yet devours you.
Wooyoung laughs again, wins another round, leans forward, says something you can’t hear but understand from the movement of his lips must be a provocation. His eyes shine with challenge, as always.
The man with the gold tooth stiffens his jaw.
For one instant, the entire Vespera seems to hold its breath.
The man’s hand slips beneath the table.
You don’t see the weapon, but you feel it, as if the shot is already exploding between your ribs.
“Stop him!” You turn toward the man beside you, your voice breaking. “Let me in, let me—”
He doesn’t move. His gaze is fixed on the scene, dark irises deep as a water pit.
“This isn’t your action yet,” he murmurs softly.
“Enough warning,” he says, and this time his eyes are very close to yours, so close you can see the tavern lantern reflected inside them. “Intervene when the time comes.”
Your eyes snap open, your breath still short, as if you’re finishing a run in a place that no longer exists, and for a few seconds you don’t understand where you truly are: the wooden ceiling above you sways softly, cut by a slit of light filtering in from the corridor, the smell of dampness and salt filling your nose, the bunk sinking beneath your back.
You instinctively turn toward the bars, your heart beating too fast, ready to see Jongho’s broad shadow on the chair.
The chair is empty, slightly moved, as if he rose not long ago; the lantern in the corridor is still lit, its flame low and trembling, and for one instant you have the feeling that the ship itself is still asleep, while you are already far too awake.
You sit on the bunk, legs over the edge, bare feet touching the cold wood; you press a hand to your chest and try to slow your breathing, inhaling deeply the stale air of the cell. You don’t speak, don’t call anyone. You take only that moment where you don’t have to answer, don’t have to explain, don’t have to fight.
It’s just you, your heartbeat, and the slow rocking of the Black Fever cradling you against your will.
You feel it before you even look at it, a low, stubborn rhythm, like a finger tapping against the door of your mind. You lower your gaze to your hand, and the small circle of gold seems more present than usual, as if it too has listened to the dream you carried all the way into waking.
The sentence rebounds through your head, clear:
Enough warning. Intervene when the time comes.
You rub your face with both hands, the bandages brushing slightly against your skin, and close your eyes for a moment, trying to chase away the image of Wooyoung inside Vespera, the flash of the gunshot, the blood on his white shirt.
You know it hasn’t happened yet.
You know it still has to happen.
And that awareness weighs on you like a wet cloak.
You stand slowly, your knees protesting faintly, move toward the bars, and lean out just enough to look down the empty corridor, the wooden walls, the slanted lantern light, the distant echo of footsteps on the upper deck.
It’s your seventh day on the Black Fever.
You want to talk to Wooyoung. You want to grab him by the collar, shove him against a bulkhead, and tell him: “If you set foot in Vespera, someone’s going to shoot you.”
It’s simple, clear, human.
But inside your head, that sentence keeps ringing like a taut rope that refuses to stop vibrating.
Enough warning. Intervene when the time comes.
You leave the bunk and move closer to the bars, your fingers closing around the cold iron, your forehead almost resting against it; the corridor is still half-empty, a few distant voices from the deck filtering down like a muffled echo, and for one instant there’s only you, the wood, and your heartbeat.
You want to speak to him now because you know what he’ll do later.
You know he’ll go ashore. You know the pull of a tavern full of rum, dice, and chaos will derail him from the Captain’s orders as naturally as breathing. You’ve seen it — or rather, you’ve dreamed it — but by now you know certain images aren’t simple fantasies.
If you warn him now, here, inside these walls, with Yunho secretly asking you to cooperate and Hongjoong looking at you like an enigma to be used… what changes?
Seonghwa listens, puts together “Vespera,” “Wooyoung,” “tavern,” “potential escape,” and chains him invisibly until the stop is over.
Then maybe you save him from the gunshot.
But you take away the only chance you have to truly intervene.
Because right now you’re only a prisoner talking about dreams.
There, instead — inside the Vespera, amid the smell of blood and dice — you’ll be something different: someone who was there when it happened.
You bite your lip, irritated.
Then there’s the other problem, the more concrete one: Yunho.
On land, he’ll be on you like a shadow.
Hongjoong made it clear: if you go ashore, you go under watch.
Yunho will hold you on a leash with his gaze, San will watch his own back, Seonghwa will count every breath you take from afar.
When, exactly, is the “right moment” supposed to be… if they don’t let you breathe alone even in the middle of a crowd?
You pull away from the bars and sit back down on the bunk, hands folded over your knees, the ring pulsing softly, as if it’s laughing at you.
You’ve already warned them, in a way.
You told Hongjoong about the Vespera.
Only the other half of the sentence remains.
Intervene when the time comes.
Maybe that’s the point: you won’t know beforehand.
There will be no clear signal, no one will tell you now.
It’ll be the sound of dice on the table, the flash of metal beneath the bench, Wooyoung’s gaze distracting itself for one second, the gold tooth gleaming in the lantern light.
And then you’ll have to move.
Not speak, not ask permission.
Move your body before your mind, overturn the table, shove, strike, scream, do whatever no one expects from a noble-blooded prisoner who should only stay quiet and survive.
One step at a time, you tell yourself.
To reach that “moment,” you first need to set foot in Rukhar.
To set foot in Rukhar, you need to remain useful enough not to be locked back into the dark.
To remain useful, you need to keep speaking at the right point and stay silent when you want to scream.
You clench your fists over your knees, your breathing a little steadier.
You want to talk to Wooyoung, yes.
You want to shake him and tell him the need for adrenaline can kill him faster than a cannonball.
Jongho arrives almost without a sound, as always.
You first hear the faint creak of the cell door, then his heavy but controlled step along the corridor, and when he appears in front of the bars, he has the usual tray in hand and the look of someone who has already decided not to get involved in anything.
“Good morning,” he murmurs, without emphasis, though it doesn’t sound rude.
You move away from the bunk and toward the bars, watching as he fits the key into the lock, opens it just enough to enter, and sets the tray on your lap as soon as you sit. Bread, some fruit, something that tastes like warm, salty soup. The smell reminds you how long it’s been since you truly ate slowly.
“Thanks,” you mutter, even though it costs you to admit it.
He nods slightly and, instead of leaving, stays there, leaning one shoulder against the doorframe, arms crossed, his gaze lost somewhere beyond you, as if he’s mentally counting how many things he still has to do after you.
You eat the first few bites quickly, then stop, tilting your head slightly.
There’s more noise than usual. You can hear it rumbling down from the deck like distant thunder: quick footsteps, overlapping voices, ropes running, a couple of shouts that aren’t pain but orders.
“What’s happening up there?” you ask, breaking the silence, your voice still a little rough from sleep. “It sounds like they’ve decided to dismantle the ship and rebuild her backward.”
Jongho lowers his gaze to you, thinks for a second as if deciding whether to answer, then sighs softly.
“They’re preparing for arrival in Rukhar,” he says simply.
The word slices through your stomach like a cold blade, but you force yourself to stay neutral, taking another piece of bread just to give your hands something to do.
“So quickly?” You try to sound casual, even though your stomach has already tightened. “I thought you were less efficient.”
One corner of his mouth moves faintly, almost a smile that never fully forms.
“When necessary, we move,” he replies, his gaze studying you for an instant as if trying to understand how much that news truly unsettles you. “We need supplies, and the Captain wants fresh information about the Empire. The city is already visible on the horizon.”
You freeze for a moment, spoon halfway lifted, the echo of the dream returning to your mind: Vespera, the gold tooth, the sentence that won’t stop scratching you from inside.
“Must be a big day, then,” you murmur softly, trying to mask the tension with tired sarcasm. “Supplies, spies, nervous pirates… and a prisoner rummaging through your maps.”
He only looks at you for a moment, with those dark eyes that seem to say nothing and yet register everything, then glances toward the corridor.
“Finish eating,” he says calmly. “Today will be… eventful up there. And I doubt they’ll let you stay bored for too long.”
When you finally climb onto the deck, the light hits you full-on, the wind tangles your hair, and for one moment you even forget the cell: the air smells of salt, tar, and wet canvas, men run from one side to the other like frenzied ants, sails are adjusted, ropes slide through quick hands, voices overlap in sharp orders and hurried replies.
You take barely two steps beyond the threshold, still looking toward the horizon where a dark smudge — Rukhar — is beginning to take shape, when something comes at you from the left: a thin cabin boy, hat crooked over his eyes, dragging a large coiled rope over one shoulder. He isn’t watching where he’s going, his gaze fixed on the mainmast, and you realize too late that he’s heading straight toward you.
You don’t have time to move aside.
A hand grips your waist with a decisiveness that steals your breath, fingers tightening around your side through the dress, and in one single tug you’re pulled aside; you lose your balance, your foot slips half a step, the ship rolls at that exact moment, and you end up against something solid, steady, something that doesn’t move an inch.
You collide with him harder than you’d like, your hands flying forward instinctively to grab the fabric of his shirt. Beneath your palms, you feel the heat of his body and the rigid muscles contracting to keep you steady, his deep breath vibrating against your cheek, the scent of wood, clean sweat, and a trace of smoke clinging to him from cannons and lanterns.
For one instant, you remain trapped like that, pressed against each other: you, breath suspended, heart in your throat more from the sudden shift than the closeness; him, immobile as a pillar, one hand still firm on your waist, the other raised halfway as if deciding what to do with it.
The cabin boy brushes past you running, mutters a choked “Sorry!” and disappears to the other side of the deck without even turning around.
Only then do you realize how close you are to Jongho: you feel his heartbeat, slow but stronger than usual, sense the tension in his shoulders and the way his breath catches for one second when you lift your gaze.
He lowers his eyes to you, and for the first time you truly catch him off balance: his gaze slips from your face to your hands clinging to his shirt, then back up, and you clearly see a shadow of embarrassment cross his features; he doesn’t flush visibly like Wooyoung or Yunho might, but his jaw tightens, his lips press into a thin line, and his eyes shift to the side, as if a knot in the nearest rope has suddenly become extremely interesting.
He releases your waist with controlled slowness, almost measured, as if afraid to jolt you or actually make you fall, and sets you upright with a brief but gentle gesture, leaving you space to step back half a pace.
“Careful,” he murmurs only, his voice lower than usual, slightly rough.
You realize your fingers are still hooked into his chest, pull them away quickly, and step back, trying to feign indifference while your heart hammers in your ears; you smooth your dress as if the fabric is to blame, and not the fact that you’ve just used Jongho as a human shield.
“He’s the one who wasn’t watching where he was going,” you mutter, trying to recover a scrap of dignity. “I was standing perfectly still.”
One corner of his mouth rises almost imperceptibly, as if that sentence has pulled out a smile he has no intention of truly showing you.
He simply nods, his eyes lingering on you a moment longer than necessary, then turns slightly aside, his tone returning neutral.
“Still,” he adds, turning toward the rest of the deck as if nothing happened, “stay close to me. Up here today, no one’s watching where they step, let alone who’s in front of them.”
You see them arrive as if, for one moment, the ship has decided to make itself beautiful.
Yeosang appears on deck with his usual controlled calm, the white shirt tucked into black trousers, the dark vest fitted to his torso, polished boots making almost no sound on the wood. His blond hair falls softly, slightly wavy, catching the sunlight and reflecting it back as though it has a sheen of its own; his face, cut by that beauty mark near his eye, looks even more intense as he speaks rapidly to the person walking beside him.
Beside him, Mingi seems like an intentional contrast: tall, broad-shouldered, a notebook in one hand and pen in the other, his forehead furrowed in the desperate attempt to keep up with the uninterrupted stream of words falling on him.
“Ten sacks of gauze, not eight,” Yeosang says without looking at the page. “And write it legibly. I shouldn’t have to decipher hieroglyphs when someone runs out of bandages.”
Mingi narrows his eyes at the paper, the pen scratching across the notebook.
“I’m writing legibly…” he mutters.
Beside Jongho, you can’t hold back a little laugh. It’s stronger than you are: the scene is too clear, too funny, Mingi struggling while Yeosang proceeds imperturbably, as if the whole world should keep his pace.
Yeosang lifts his gaze, just barely.
It’s a fraction of a second, but enough for his trajectory to change by half a step, as if something is pulling him toward you. He keeps walking, keeps talking, but his path shifts, and instead of passing at a safe distance, he ends up coming almost directly toward you.
“…and then opium tincture, two vials. Not four, Mingi. If you buy four, the crew will fall asleep instead of working.”
“Two…” Mingi repeats, writing it down, “but you write it, then, if you don’t like how—”
“No,” Yeosang interrupts with glacial calm, and only then does he turn toward him, stopping exactly one step from where you stand with Jongho. “You write, I check. That’s how this works. And stop pressing down as if you want to punch through the paper; it looks like the pen is begging for mercy.”
Jongho only sighs softly.
You, instead, bite your lip to keep from laughing again.
Yeosang shifts his gaze to you, as if only now truly noticing your presence — but you know that’s not true, you saw him change course. His eyes move over you in one quick, lucid instant, from your face to your dress, then calmly return to your gaze.
“I see you’re already sufficiently entertained this morning,” he comments, neutral, as if observing a clinical phenomenon.
“It’s not my fault your assistant is about to lose a fight with the alphabet,” you reply, tilting your head slightly toward Mingi’s notebook.
Mingi’s eyes widen, scandalized.
“Hey! I’m putting effort into this!”
“That’s the problem,” Yeosang murmurs, turning back to him, his tone a little sharper but not unkind. “If you put in less effort, maybe your handwriting would look like it was produced by a human being.”
You laugh softly, this time without hiding it.
Yeosang gives you a sideways glance, a flash of something — perhaps the hint of complicity — crossing his golden eyes and vanishing immediately as he returns to his composure.
“Continue,” he orders Mingi, indicating the notebook with a nod of his chin. “And don’t lose count. If you get the doses wrong, you’ll be the one explaining to San why, next time, he won’t have enough powder to bandage himself.”
Mingi swallows, starts writing again, and mutters, “One day, my handwriting will be appreciated…”
“Yes,” you comment under your breath, unable to resist, “maybe by the executioner who’ll have to read it before beheading you.”
Jongho makes a choked sound that could be a stifled laugh.
For an instant, Yeosang lowers his chin as if making an effort not to truly smile.
He turns back toward you, his eyes bright with a calm that now carries a thread of warmth.
“When I’m finished here,” he says quietly, “I’ll come check your bandages. Don’t ruin my work before then.”
“I could write it for you, if you want.”
It comes out almost without thought, with that lightness you use when you’re actually dying of curiosity.
Mingi lifts his eyes from the notebook, looking exhausted as if he has survived a battle against ink more than the Imperial navy; he stares at you for a moment, then looks at his own crooked, scratched page and sighs so deeply he seems to deflate.
“Yes,” he says simply, extending the notebook in total surrender. “Please.”
Yeosang stops, his eyes moving from you to the gunner with attentive slowness; for a moment, he says nothing, evaluating, weighing you, as if making invisible calculations inside his head. Something in his gaze lights faintly — vague satisfaction, perhaps, or the simple realization that you’re sparing him future headaches — but his face remains neutral.
“Let’s see if you can do better,” he comments, with that calm that feels more like a test than a compliment.
Mingi hands you the pen and notebook with desperate enthusiasm, almost shoving them into your hands before you can change your mind.
“It’s all yours,” he mutters, already looking around as if suddenly remembering a thousand other tasks.
“Go check the powder barrels,” Yeosang dismisses him, not even looking at him. “And this time count them. Don’t just line them up at random and hope they match the number you need.”
“I’m counting them… I’m counting…” Mingi grumbles, already walking away toward the cannons, one hand in his hair and the other still stained with ink.
And so you find yourself with the notebook tight between your fingers and the pen ready, the deck noise vibrating around you, and Yeosang’s gaze sliding over you, measuring your reaction.
“Follow me,” he says only, his tone allowing no reply but offering no threat either.
He turns and starts walking toward the bow with the same certainty as always.
Jongho gives you a short nod, as if to tell you he’s staying behind you, and you, clutching the notebook to your chest so the wind won’t rip it from your hands, fall into step beside the doctor.
The deck around you is a precise choreography: men pulling, others tying, someone pushing crates toward the hatch; the sails swell and slacken as the Black Fever adjusts her course, and on the horizon the island grows slowly, a mass of white roofs and dark awnings beginning to stand out against the sky.
Yeosang walks as if none of this can distract him, hands behind his back, his voice picking up exactly where it left off.
“Write,” he murmurs, barely turning his head in your direction. “Opium tincture, two vials. Gauze, ten sacks. Tourniquet, three. And don’t decorate the letters. This isn’t a court ball.”
You bite back a smile and lower your gaze to the page; your hand moves surely, the words flowing neat and straight, every letter in its place, and you’re almost surprised by how reassuring it is to hold something as simple as a list in the middle of pirates, curses, and dreams speaking in riddles.
“My handwriting is perfectly decipherable,” you reply without lifting your head. “I won’t give you a headache… doctor.”
Yeosang gives you a sideways glance, one eyebrow lifting slightly.
“We’ll see when I have to read it again,” he replies, but his tone is less cold than before, almost satisfied. “And don’t call me that.”
“What?” you pretend not to understand. “Doctor?”
He inhales softly, as if practicing patience.
“I’m a ship’s physician. I don’t deal in drawing rooms.”
“Fortunately,” you murmur, continuing to write.
You don’t even notice where you’re going until a low, ironic voice cuts your concentration in half.
Your head snaps up, the pen still suspended halfway through a word, and only now do you realize where you’ve ended up: right beside the helm, only a few steps from Hongjoong, who is leaning against the large wooden wheel as if it were the armrest of an armchair and not the living heart of the ship.
He stands there, one hand resting casually on one of the spokes, his body tilted slightly back, his left leg half a step forward, his coat open just enough to reveal the dark shirt beneath, the polished buckles of his boots catching the light and his dark hair slightly ruffled by the wind. He looks perfectly at ease amid the chaos, as if the whole Black Fever were a natural extension of his body.
He looks at you, eyes sliding from the notebook to your fingers, then rising to your face with a glint of amusement.
“I look away for one moment,” he continues, “and I discover you’re making lists for the medical inventory. Should I start fearing a mutiny of bandages and bottles?”
You press your lips together to avoid showing he caught you off guard, lower your gaze briefly to the notebook, then lift it straight back to him, determined not to be crushed by his irony.
“Relax,” you reply, trying to keep your tone light, “I’m not commanding the mutiny. At most, I’m fixing Mingi’s handwriting.”
Behind you, you hear Jongho hold back a sound, something between a cough and a strangled laugh; beside you, Yeosang remains in profile, gaze turned toward the horizon for an instant, as if deciding whether to intervene or ignore you both.
“His handwriting,” he corrects with surgical calm, “not his language.”
Hongjoong shifts his eyes to him, one eyebrow rising by a fraction.
“And you entrusted her with the list without asking my permission?” he asks, though his tone is more amused than reproachful.
Yeosang turns just enough to meet his gaze for a moment, hands still joined behind his back.
“You said you need men who know how to adapt,” he answers with quiet simplicity. “For now, she writes better than our gunner. I’d call that a good start.”
You feel both their gazes on you, Yeosang’s lucid assessment and the Captain’s shameless curiosity; you clear your throat and hug the notebook a little closer to your chest, as if it can serve as a shield.
“Besides,” Yeosang adds, turning back to you and speaking as though simply continuing his list, “I’m trying to make sure no one up here ruins their painstakingly stitched hands. Decent handwriting helps prevent accidents.”
“Interesting,” Hongjoong murmurs, his voice low, while his gaze lingers on your face a moment too long, as if trying to understand how much of this is spontaneous and how much is only a way to survive. “First you wrote court orders, now you write orders for morphine.”
The comment stings, but you don’t retreat.
“At least here someone actually reads them,” you reply, lifting your chin slightly, “instead of using them only to frame the corridors.”
That half smile that sometimes brushes his mouth returns, slow.
Then, with an almost imperceptible gesture, he lets go of the helm for half a breath, leans toward you, and glances at the notebook, so close you catch the faint scent of rum, tobacco, and something subtler clinging to him — salt and wind and sleepless nights.
“Our prisoner,” he concludes, raising his eyes back to yours, “is becoming useful.”
“I’m just making a list,” you answer, trying not to show how much that closeness destabilizes you.
“On the Black Fever,” he replies softly, “no one just does anything.”
Yeosang breaks that invisible line between you with his usual calm, turning toward the Captain.
“If you want to reach Rukhar with half the crew intact, we need these supplies,” he says, indicating the notebook you’re still holding. “And someone who writes in a way I’ll be able to read tomorrow morning.”
Hongjoong gives him a short nod, then looks at you one last time, as if wanting to commit to memory the image of you with that notebook in hand, the dress still a little too elegant for that deck, and the ring glinting faintly whenever your hand moves.
“Don’t make us regret keeping you out of the cell,” he murmurs, his tone both warning and challenge.
You lower your gaze again, pen ready, your heart beating harder for no clear reason, and resume writing as Yeosang continues dictating and Jongho follows a step behind you, silent.
You finish the last word with a clean stroke, the pen sliding over the page now filled with orderly lines, and for one moment you feel almost satisfied: at least something today has a clear shape.
“Done,” you murmur, blowing softly over the ink so it dries.
You’re back in the middle of the deck, far from the helm, a little closer to the mainmast; the wind pulls your hair back, the sea grumbles beneath the hull, and Yeosang stops in front of you with that composed calm of his, hands behind his back, his gaze moving down to the notebook and then up to your face.
As you do, your fingers brush.
It’s the smallest contact, an instant, barely skin against skin, but a shiver travels up your arm like a sudden, thin, precise shock; you see the same reflex in his eyes, the imperceptible stiffening of his shoulders, the millimeter of held breath betraying that he felt it too.
Yeosang takes the notebook back with a gesture perhaps a little quicker than necessary, his fingers closing firmly around the cover. He opens a random page, checks the handwriting with the air of someone assessing a clinical report, then closes it again.
“Decipherable,” he declares, the shadow of something like a compliment brushing his lips. “I’d say Mingi can stop torturing paper.”
“I could teach him to write,” you answer, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear, trying to ignore the heat still burning your fingertips. “Then you wouldn’t have to risk migraines every time he fills out an inventory.”
Behind you, Jongho stops watching the maneuvers and turns toward you.
“If you teach him…” he says softly, his voice low but clear, “maybe you could teach me too.”
You turn to him, surprised. His dark eyes look at you with a slightly shy seriousness, his broad shoulders relaxed but his gaze attentive, as if something he doesn’t often say has just slipped out.
“You?” you repeat, tilting your head slightly.
He nods, his gaze escaping toward the sea for a second, almost embarrassed.
“I can read,” he admits, “but I write… worse than Mingi.”
You almost laugh, but you don’t. You only smile, a slow smile that reflects faintly in his eyes.
“All right,” you allow, raising an eyebrow. “Where do you want the lesson, then? In the cell with me?”
You say it jokingly, your voice light, but the image is so absurd it almost makes you laugh by itself: you sitting on the bunk, him outside the bars with a notebook in hand, and between one question about the Empire and one about the wind of the Sable Arch, handwriting exercises.
Jongho’s eyes widen for an instant, caught off guard, then he lowers his chin and scratches the back of his neck, an awkward half smile breaking his severe air for a moment.
“If Seonghwa doesn’t faint at the idea,” he murmurs, “that’s fine by me.”
Beside you, Yeosang closes the notebook with a dry thud, as if that one sentence alone is enough for him to catalog the scene in a new, invisible column of his mind: stubborn patient, nighttime escape, tendency toward theft… and now writing lessons for his men.
“First, let’s make sure none of you loses an arm in Rukhar,” he comments coldly, though his eyes gleam faintly, “then we’ll think about handwriting.”
You look at him, meeting his golden gaze for a second too long.
The thought slips away from you on its own, like a rope escaping your fingers.
For some reason, you remember the look in his eyes when you warned him, that laugh dying halfway, his eyes for one instant no longer shining with simple amusement. You find yourself searching for him among the sails, on the yards, near the ropes where he usually climbs like a mad cat, and when you don’t see him anywhere, you feel a small, irritating tightening in your stomach.
Before you can stop it, the question escapes.
Your voice drops by one tone, more serious than you’d like, and you notice it before anyone else.
Yeosang looks at you from the side, barely, and even though he doesn’t say a word, you can clearly see him register the change in your expression: his eyes flick briefly over your face, then return to the notebook in his hand, but the line of his mouth grows a fraction thinner, as if he’s mentally filing that information away.
“He’s with San,” he says, his voice calm. “They’re checking the weapons before docking.”
You turn to him and huff softly.
“Ah, perfect. One who wants to tear me apart and the other who’d probably like to see me slip from a sail… an excellent combination.”
It comes out sharper than you intended, but Jongho doesn’t take offense; in fact, he lowers his gaze for a second, one corner of his mouth rising slowly, as if trying to hold back a smile and not entirely succeeding.
“Don’t underestimate them,” he murmurs, lifting his eyes back to you. “They’re good with swords. Both of them.”
“San, I know,” you reply, crossing your arms and looking toward the bow, as if remembering the sting in your hands is enough to confirm it. “I felt it on my skin.”
“Wooyoung too,” Jongho adds, with a tone that carries something almost proud. “He plays the fool, but with a blade in his hand, no one laughs anymore.”
You turn sharply toward him, surprised.
Jongho nods, serious, hands linked behind his back.
“When he isn’t hanging from a rope or throwing himself into trouble, he knows very well how to get out of it. And Yeosang…” He pauses, his gaze sliding toward the doctor. “…isn’t only good with instruments in the sickbay.”
Yeosang doesn’t really react, but the way he holds the notebook betrays the smallest stiffening, his fingers closing a little more tightly around the edge. He doesn’t look at you, continues watching the horizon, the line of Rukhar becoming more and more defined in front of the bow, but his voice comes out lower, measured.
“A physician who can’t defend himself doesn’t last long on this ship,” he says only.
In the belly of the Black Fever, the smell of oil, iron, and gunpowder is so dense it feels as if you can taste it even from a distance, as if it slips into your lungs at the mere thought, while in the weapons hold two figures occupy the space with two completely different energies.
San sits on a low stool, his torso slightly bent forward, one elbow resting on his thigh, the blade of his sword sliding slowly over the whetstone with a regular, hypnotic sound, like a metallic breath; every movement is measured, precise, his wrist steady, dark gaze fixed on the steel edge growing finer and finer, and for him, in that moment, the rest of the world simply doesn’t exist.
Wooyoung, on the other hand, is never truly still: standing in front of the long workbench, a dagger dancing between his fingers with unsettling familiarity, the handle passing from index to middle, from middle to ring finger, the blade glinting with each turn beneath the faint light of the lantern hanging from the ceiling. He twists his wrist, makes it vanish into his palm, then reappear with a quick, light gesture, as if he were born with that weapon already in his hand.
“You’ll manage to punch a hole through the table if you keep going like that,” San murmurs without looking up, his tone flat, the stone continuing its calm journey along the edge.
Wooyoung smiles, that quick, ready smile, but this time it softens a little around his eyes, as if he’s thinking about something that isn’t only a joke.
“Relax, Sannie,” he sings softly, spinning the dagger between his fingers and slipping it into a leather glove hanging nearby only to catch it again on the fly, “I’ve got excellent reasons to keep it well trained.”
San sighs, barely, that exhausted half-breath you can imagine him making every time Wooyoung opens his mouth.
That’s when you come to Wooyoung’s mind, suddenly, with your dress brushing in front of his eyes on deck and your serious gaze when you spoke to him about the Vespera, that warning that wasn’t a joke, not really, your stare piercing him as if you knew exactly where to aim. Wooyoung surprises himself by thinking of it — of you — and his smile changes slightly, becomes less theatrical, more… real.
San finally lifts his head, his face marked by that permanent shadow of suspicion he has reserved for you since the first time he saw you.
“Her who?” he asks, though he knows perfectly well.
Wooyoung spins the dagger once more, then drives it into the wood of the bench with a clean, precise strike, leaving it stuck there upright, perfectly still. His fingers remain on the handle for a moment, as if making sure it doesn’t tremble.
“Aurora,” he answers, and this time he says your name without irony, his voice lower, less sharp than usual.
San stares at him, lips stretching into a thin line.
“The prisoner,” he corrects.
“The girl,” Wooyoung replies, calm, leaning one hip against the bench and crossing his arms. “Who looks the Captain straight in the face, who broke your face with a candlestick, and who yesterday silenced the crew by talking about a place I shouldn’t go… and she’s right.”
San returns to the blade, but the way he grips the sword betrays that he’s listening to every syllable.
“People impress you quickly,” he comments, dry. “All it takes is for them to know how to talk and wave a sword.”
Wooyoung slowly shakes his head. “No.”
For an instant, he doesn’t laugh, doesn’t joke; his eyes grow serious, intense, while the sound of the sword against stone fills the space between one word and the next.
“It’s that…” He stops, searching for the words, as if he isn’t used to having to choose them instead of simply throwing them out. “She isn’t like the others we’ve seen. She doesn’t just cry. She doesn’t surrender. She’s afraid, but she uses it. She talks even when it would be better for her to stay quiet. And when she looks at me…” He stops, fingers playing with the edge of the bench. “It doesn’t feel like she’s looking at a pirate. It feels like she’s looking at… a man. One who can still decide what kind of person he wants to be.”
San watches him in silence, the sword suspended in midair for a moment.
“Are you falling in love?” he asks, his voice so neutral you can’t tell whether he’s mocking him or making a diagnosis.
Wooyoung huffs and rolls his eyes toward the ceiling as if exhausted.
He takes the dagger back, pulling it from the wood with a firm movement and spinning it again, the old Wooyoung resurfacing, though something in the way he holds it betrays that the question struck him a little.
“I’m just saying,” he continues, passing the dagger from one hand to the other, “it’s different when I talk to her. It’s not like with tavern women, who laugh if you buy them a drink and then forget your name. She remembers what I say… and I remember what she says.”
San slowly shakes his head, returning the blade to the stone with a calm gesture, but his eyes remain dark.
The answer falls like an axe blow.
“You get distracted,” San adds, without lifting his gaze. “You start thinking about what she sees when she looks at us instead of thinking about who’s coming to take us. There’ll be spies in Rukhar, disguised soldiers, people pretending not to see us. Staying alive is already complicated enough without dragging your heart into it.”
Wooyoung is silent for a moment, then lets out a soft chuckle, but this time the sound is more bitter, thinner.
“Do I look like the kind of person who falls in love and forgets where he put his dagger?”
San doesn’t answer immediately. He finishes the movement, tests the edge with his thumb, then sets the sword on the bench with a slow gesture.
“You look,” he says at last, staring straight into his eyes, “like the kind of person who laughs until someone puts a knife to your throat to get to her.”
Wooyoung remains still for an instant, the dagger frozen halfway through its turn between his fingers. Then he smiles, but it’s a different smile, shorter, tenser.
“Then,” he murmurs, sliding the blade into its sheath with a sharp motion, “I’d better stay very good with this.”
He turns toward the door, adjusts his jacket over his shoulders, his profile once again that of the usual Wooyoung who slips into trouble as easily as he slips between ropes, but as he leaves, he murmurs something San hears far too well.
“Because whether you like it or not, San… if something happens to her when I can stop it, I won’t stand still and watch.”
San follows him with his eyes, silent, then lowers his gaze back to the blade, as if wanting to sharpen that sentence too, make it thin, controllable, harmless.
The great mess hall in the belly of the Black Fever vibrates with voices, scraping chairs, plates striking greasy wood; the smell of stew, rum, and sweat fills the air like a heavy cloud, while lanterns hanging from the beams cast a warm yellow light, breaking the shadows across the men’s faces.
At the main table, slightly set apart from the others, all eight of them are there.
And this time, Hongjoong too.
The Captain sits in the center, his dark coat hanging over the back of his chair, his black shirt undone by one, two buttons beneath his throat, a glass of rum held between his long fingers; he isn’t really eating, mostly moving the food around on his plate, slowly, as if his head is too full to remember he’s hungry.
Seonghwa, to his right, eats in silence with that elegant, irritated air that seems stitched onto him: back straight, face impassive, eyes occasionally lifting toward the Captain and then drifting, distractedly, over the brothers seated lower down.
San is on the other side of the table, slightly leaning forward, his plate already half empty, jaw clenched; he cuts his meat with short, precise, almost aggressive movements, as if he’s still in the middle of a fight and not facing a piece of bread.
Mingi eats calmly, but his fingers drum restlessly against the edge of his plate while he occasionally glances toward Yeosang, seated near him, who instead tastes his meal with methodical, almost bored slowness; the doctor holds his cutlery elegantly, the sleeves of his black vest rolled up to his forearms, his gaze moving from food to glass and then, every so often, to Hongjoong.
Jongho, a little farther away, eats in silence, broad shoulders slightly curved as if trying to take up as little space as possible, but his dark eyes miss nothing happening at the table, attentive, present.
Yunho has an almost untouched plate in front of him, the fork abandoned at its edge, his chin resting on the back of his hand, his gaze lost in the void of some stubborn thought; whenever the route is mentioned, you can feel him hold his breath without even noticing.
Wooyoung tries, with a certain desperation, to lighten the air: he talks, jokes, comments on the food, complains that today’s soup tastes like “rope-washing water,” but his smile breaks every time his eyes slip, even for an instant, toward the corner where the corridor leading to the cells glows.
Hongjoong sets down his glass, the rum sliding along the glass in a slow golden trail.
“Tomorrow,” he says, and his voice immediately drops a respectful silence around the table, “Rukhar.”
Mingi stops eating. Yunho lifts his gaze, present at once.
“We’ll stop for one afternoon and one night. No more.” The Captain continues, linking his fingers on the edge of the table. “We need supplies, powder, information… and a little air won’t hurt.”
“Air,” Seonghwa repeats softly, as if tasting the word and finding it unimpressive. “And a city full of ears and eyes eager to sell our name to the highest bidder.”
Hongjoong smiles faintly, a thin cut, not reassuring at all.
“That’s why,” he replies, “we won’t parade the Black Fever around like a banner.”
“And her?” Mingi asks, his voice low but clear, his gaze finally leaving his plate. “Aurora?”
For an instant, no one speaks.
Hongjoong leans back in his chair, slowly running one finger along the rim of his glass as if following an invisible route, then sighs faintly.
“She goes down with Yunho,” he reminds them, leaving no room for doubt. “We’ve already decided.”
Half the table’s eyes shift to the navigator.
Yunho doesn’t flinch, but his fingers on the table stiffen for a second; then he nods once, composed.
“I’ll take care of her,” he says only.
Wooyoung wrinkles his nose. “What an honor,” he mutters, though his tone is more thoughtful than truly ironic.
Seonghwa, of course, disagrees.
“An honor?” he replies, sharp. “It’s a burden. An uncontrollable variable tied to the only thing we truly need. Keeping her aboard is risky enough. Taking her into a city like Rukhar…”
“That’s why,” Hongjoong interrupts, calm, “she won’t be alone. But Yunho remains her point of reference. And you,” he gives him a quick glance, “know very well why.”
Yunho lowers his eyes slightly, as if, for one instant, he sees again your tears in the corridor, your fingers tight on the cell bars, the way you spoke of the route despite everything.
“As for the others,” the Captain resumes, sitting forward, “we’ll divide into two groups.”
He sets an elbow on the table, indicating the left side with his chin.
“First group: me, Seonghwa, San, and Mingi. We’ll handle contacts, any information about the Empire, and anyone who has heard about Wonderland more than they should.”
Mingi nods at once, already mentally on the docks. San tightens his jaw, but doesn’t object; Seonghwa remains motionless, though his gaze says he would rather keep you locked below deck with three chains on you.
Hongjoong then shifts his attention to the other side of the table.
“Second group: Yeosang, Wooyoung, and Jongho. Supplies, herbs for the sickbay, powder, ropes, water… and ears wide open.”
Wooyoung huffs, but a flash of amusement crosses his eyes.
“So no taverns,” he comments.
“I didn’t say that,” Hongjoong replies, with a half smile that isn’t entirely reassuring. “I said I don’t want to see your corpse on a dice table.”
Yeosang sighs softly, as if the prospect of keeping an eye on Wooyoung is already exhausting.
“I’ll do my best to bring him back whole,” he comments, neutral.
Jongho only gives a serious nod, as if he’s just been entrusted with a heavy, precious load.
“Yunho,” the Captain concludes, turning back to him, “you stay halfway between the two groups. You move with Aurora, but you follow the route we drew for you. If anything feels wrong…” His eyes narrow slightly. “You come back aboard. Immediately.”
“Understood,” the navigator answers, his voice low but firm.
The sound of cutlery and murmurs slowly resumes, but beneath the surface that suspended feeling remains: tomorrow, the Black Fever won’t only face a new port, but the first true test of everything the ring has already whispered to you… and of how much they’re willing to believe you.
