Chapter Text
Mingi had no idea what he was doing. If anyone were to even ask him if he had a plan, he was surely going to burst into tears. Technically, the first step of his supposed plan would be to put that lifeboat afloat. All he needed to do was turn the handle to lower it. Easy. Nothing more simple. But a lifeboat usually stays somewhat stable on the open sea when it is full, not solely occupied by one scrawny kid with only a bag and a musket.
What wasn’t helping was the huge pirate ship sinking, right next to the one he was dangling off of. A part of it was still yet to be submerged, and all it would take would be a false movement for the little boat to topple and for him to be brought into the depths with the pull of the wreck. Oh, and the armed soldiers on deck, ready to shoot at any survivors weren’t really making it any easier for him.
Some part of him was wondering if it was even worth it, risking his life like that. He could wait for them to dock back into a base and desert on land. The other didn’t want to sail for one more second amongst these people. Even if it meant killing himself in the process.
These two parts of him mixing up resulted into him frantically trying to lower the lifeboat while cursing viciously and calling himself stupid. He would probably laugh at the sight of the scene if his own life wasn’t on the line. If he hadn’t just witnessed the massacre of an entire ship full innocent people.
He had remained on board of their own ship during the fight. As a navigator’s assistant, he was glad to never have to witness the horror and gore of the field. He usually only had to be exposed to the aftermath, and the wounds of soldiers and prisoners alike was often more than he could stomach.
As soon as he had recognized the Mist on the horizon, he had been glad to just stay in the navigation cabin, safe and sound, praying that with a stroke of luck, the Drifters wouldn’t decimate the Dolus. The Mist and its crew had been called the plague of the seas, after decades of bringing horror everywhere they sailed. Being killed when it came to them was the closest thing to mercy you could get.
And they were known to be fruitful slave traders. Their superiors had known about the slaves, the entire crew had. Mingi had even been surprised when the Lieutenant Commander had dissuaded the medics from preparing beds, saying that the orders had come from the Commander himself.
And when the cannons started firing…
The screams of the prisoners had been so loud, so piercing that he could hear them through the hull. He would never forget that sound. It was still echoing in his ears and he wasn’t sure it would ever stop.
With an anguished grunt, he freed the last bit of tangled rope that had gotten stuck under the handle. It would only take a few turns for the boat to be afloat. He covered himself and his meagre sack of provisions with the burlap sacks he had earlier emptied of potatoes and torn open.
It was a long shot, but he hoped his lifeboat would be mistaken for an empty remnant of the Mist. He hated himself for it, but he waited until the ship sunk completely, not a single bubble coming up to the surface. He knew that if he hadn’t, he would have gotten pulled down and died right there. But still, the guilt felt like it had just embedded itself into his soul, burrowing a deeper hole each second. Maybe, if some miracle had let him, he could have saved some of the people still on board.
He gave a final tug to the cord and the boat slipped from its mooring, plummeting into the sea. The icy cold water splashed up, soaking him to the bone even through the sack, but he barely noticed. He was too focused on trying to keep the boat steady with the sole positioning of his body.
Finally, once the boat was stable, he waited, barely breathing, as the his old ship sailed away. For hours it seems, he waited, curled up in a ball under the sack, barely even breathing by fear the movement of his chest under the fabric would give him away. The cloth was itching his skin all over but he didn’t dare to scratch it either. Out of everything, he didn’t think this would be the most troublesome, but as it turns out, this sensation was pure hell. Or maybe it was his forced shortness of breath, or his inability to even let his leg shake to let out some of his nervousness like he usually did.
He didn’t know how long had passed when the diminishing waves and the silence were enough to let him know that he was finally out of sight. Minutes ? Hours ? His legs had fallen asleep in this uncomfortable position and he had to force his body not to take too big intakes of breath too fast. If he did, he knew it would send him into a full blown panic attack.
The light blinded him when he removed the sack from over his body. He was alone now, adrift in the ocean with only the remnants of the Mist for company. For a moment, he allowed himself to feel the relief of escape, of freedom. But it was fleeting, quickly replaced with the daunting reality of his situation.
The first words that left his mouth seemed to be drowned out by the immensity of the ocean surrounding him, “Shit.”
Where he had been acting in fear and erratic impulse moments earlier, his mind was now cruelly clear as he surveyed his surroundings. Blue. Blue as far as the eye could see. The water was so eerily calm it blended with the sky.
“No.” His hands flew to his hair, gripping so tight he might as well end up with bald spots. It was fully hitting him now “No, no, no, fuck! What were you thinking?!” He yelled at himself, the boat shaking with his frantic movements.
The Dolus was but a dot on the horizon now but even if he did manage to signal for help, he would most likely be killed for desertion. Why on earth hadn’t he just waited? Mingi was usually a pretty practical person, not the kind that would make life altering decisions on a whim, let alone life ending ones. What in the world had taken over his mind for him to do something so stupid? He had just doomed himself to a slow and painful death in the middle of the ocean, miles away from any land to his knowledge, and with no way to justify his actions. He wasn’t suicidal. He liked being alive. Sure, his entire world view had just been completely shattered only a couple of hours ago but he still very much enjoyed having a full belly, lungs filled with air and a hydrated body.
He very much liked not being fish food.
And now it was only a matter of time before his meager food supply ran low or a storm would decide to hit and he would end up like those two boys floating lifelessly on a piece of driftwood as he-wait.
Nearly toppling overboard, he launched himself to the edge of the boat, blinking furiously to make sure he wasn’t already hallucinating. He wasn’t. There were indeed two boys barely keeping themselves afloat by hanging onto broken pieces of furniture. He couldn’t tell from where he stood if they were still conscious or not but what he could make out was the way the two boys were keeping each other from drifting apart by holding each other’s chains. The image was like out of a great tragedy painting, and it broke his heart. He didn’t waste any more time pondering what it made him feel and took hold of the paddle, rowing the boat in their direction. He really hoped they were alive.
Please gods let them be alive.
He could see them much closer now. The two were extremely thin, bony even, he could see their collarbones peeking through their skin. It looked almost like they were going to pierce it. Their skin, so dry with the salt looked about to peel off. They were pale, translucent even, he was sure if he looked hard enough he would be able to see their organs.
He wasn’t sure if they were breathing or if it was the movement of the water that was creating this illusion. They didn’t seem to react to the boat approaching them, but he had to check their state regardless. He cringed as he used the paddle to poke one of them.
“You alive ?” He tried to sound confident but his voice sounded more like a squeak. If he had had the mental capacity to be embarrassed, he most likely would have felt mortified.
The boy’s eyes were open but glassy and he barely blinked at the contact. The other boy however, raised his head towards the voice, prompting his friend to slowly do the same. Both of their eyes found the navy insignia on his uniform almost instantly.
For the first time in his life, someone he was trying to help looked back at him in fear. He felt sick
“I’m not with them ! I swear !” he raised his arms to emphasize his words. He wanted to rip that insignia off. “At least, not anymore. I came to help.”
“Why the fuck should we trust you ?” One of them rasped, his voice raw from either dehydration or screaming. Maybe both. There was a lot of screaming on that ship. But now was not the time to acknowledge the damage that had most likely done to his brain. He held his hand out.
“I could try to give you a lot of reasons, but right now if you want to survive, you have no choice.” Their stare was full of distrust, but they were on the brink of death. One look at each other and they seemed to agree.
He pulled the first one to take his hand on the small boat. The boy weighed even less than what he had expected, but it at least made it easy to pull him up. His movements paused when his eyes landed on the musket he had brought with him.
Look. Mingi was usually a pretty practical guy -the more he tried to assure himself of that, the less he believed it-, but when the kid eyed the musket like it was going to grow legs and run at him, he didn’t really think. He took the the thing and threw it in the water -and regretted it the moment it splashed in.
“That was dumb. We could’ve used it.” He heard the other boy comment from the water as he helped the other on board. No shit asshole. That felt really uncalled for so he kept the quip to himself.
“Sorry. I-I just really don’t want you to think I’m like them.” he explained, his shoulders hunched as he helped the second boy up.
“What’s your name ?” The first asked.
“Mingi. I’m Song Mingi.” One of them nodded and they both collapsed on the floor of the boat.
They spent a long moment in silence, the two boys limp on the floor and Mingi staring at them. He didn’t know what to do. He was a navigator’s apprentice, not a medic. He had no knowledge whatsoever of how to assess wounds or dress them. They didn’t seem to have particularly bad wounds and though they had blood on their clothes, it didn’t seem like theirs. He fumbled through his bag and picked out some of the rations he had stored, along with a water skin.
“There. It’s not much but it’s something.” He held out the food and that seemed to capture their attention. They took them and devoured the small ration bars, he was afraid they would start choking on them. Still in silence. Only the sound of them munching on the bars and the small waves on the hull. He didn’t mind. He was afraid of any of them pointing out the obvious. That even if they had a boat, they were still going to die.
“So…” The smaller boy started. “You didn’t kill us.”
Mingi couldn’t help but flinch at his tone and words. He looked so young physically but his eyes… He’d seen hardened soldiers with years of experience with those eyes. The taller one was silent, his gaze on the floor, but he recognized the same hardness in his expression.
“I uh…” He wasn’t sure what to say without sounding stupid, “I jumped ship?”. And he did. He sounded so stupid.
“Wow, couldn’t have guessed.” He deadpanned and the other one sent him a warning glare, which he promptly ignored. Another pregnant pause. The two were pinning him down with their stare and he felt like he was drowning. They were the only people to have survived the Mist. He’s heard they kept slaves by the hundreds.
“I’m sorry.” He breathed, barely above a whisper. He feared that if he spoke any louder he’d crumble. “I thought they were gonna help, that they’d-” something was in his throat. Probably his heart. He felt like he was going to throw his heart up. “I never imagined they’d-” Or maybe it was his lunch. Most likely his lunch. He heard the screams again, so clear in his head and a sob escaped his lips. And another one. He saw their cuffs through his tears, the blood staining their skin.
He threw up his lunch.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, l’m-” He felt pathetic, mumbling his apologies like a lunatic, breaking down as if he had been the one who went through all of that. He had just hidden. Like a coward. He hadn’t tried to stop it or to rescue the people he had heard being shot down in the water. He had hid under that bag, safe in his little boat and now he was crying in front of the sole two survivors of this horror.
He’d wanted to save people. That’s why he had joined the navy. He wasn’t much of a fighter but he had a talent in navigation so he’d wanted to put it in the service of the navy. To save people. And when time came to actually make a difference he’d hidden.
“Why?” The smaller boy asked, his voice softer, more vulnerable. He’s pretty sure he heard it crack.
“I don’t know. I thought they were going to save you until I heard the cannons, I don’t understand why they would do that. It’s not our oath, we were supposed to save you.” He felt frantic, trying to explain away this abomination like a fool.
A coward and a fool.
“Why did you jump ship?”
“Huh?”
“Why did you not wait?”
That was the question he’d been asking himself since the moment the boat touched the water.
“I don’t know.”
“Bullshit.” There was no more venom in his voice, just exhaustion. He was looking at him, truly, as if the boy could see through his very soul. It was unnerving.
“I-” He hesitated “I couldn’t spend one more second on this ship, working for these people.”
“Even if you died ? Cause that seems to be where we’re headed right now.”
“Even if I died.” He was surprised by how fast and confidently he had answered. “No one disagreed. They just… did it. I wanted to die a human. I’d rather die like that than live to become like them. I just- I had to leave.”
He felt dirty, wearing that uniform. He wanted to tear it up into a thousand pieces and burn it to ashes.
“I’m Hongjoong.” The boy said. He seemed to wait before looking towards his friend in concern. He didn’t answer. His eyes that had been pinning him down earlier seemed vacant now, staring into space. He’d seen him deflate during his short monologue and he seemed completely absent now.
“Seonghwa ?” He asked softly. The boy didn’t react. “Can you hear me?” He tried to shake him gently but no response.
“I think he’s in shock.” Mingi supplied weakly. He’d seen his dad like this once. He had been a fighter unlike him. It had killed him. He still breathed, but that was it. Nothing more than an empty husk. Pirates had done this. He’d gotten captured and tortured. He had held on. For weeks he had held on, enough to make it back home after being rescued by his colleagues. But almost as soon as he’d made it back, when the danger had subsided, he’d shut down. Vacant stare, limp body. They’d said it was shock at first and it had been. It was supposed to last a few weeks at most. But after weeks, months it hadn’t improved. He’d been broken. He had never gotten his father back.
They had broken his spirit. He’d survived and fought, only for him to disappear once he was safe again. No one had pulled him out. No one had known how. His mother had fallen ill and his older brother had to work to keep them all alive and he had been too young. He still was, but he wouldn’t stand idle this time. If they were to survive, that was. And they would, he decided. Those two boys who had been subjected to horrors beyond imagination, he would make sure they survived. The boy who was hovering somewhere over his body, and the other, trying to get him back with tears threatening to spill from his eyes. He didn’t need an insignia to help people. He didn’t need one to tell him what was the right thing to do.
He’d hold on, and he’ll make sure they did too.
The first couple of days were okay. If anything, their worst enemy had been boredom. The ocean was calm, but a fresh breeze kept them cool enough not to overheat. They had a decent amount of water and rations that they went through with Hongjoong, cutting them up and calculating how long they would last with that. They took turns taking care of Seonghwa, making sure the boy ate a drank, cutting up a piece of the sack to soak it in sea water and using it to keep him cool. He learned that the two were actually older then him by a few months and he and Hongjoong tried to keep conversations going to avoid Seonghwa just sitting in silence.
At night, Hongjoong would cuddle up to him, telling him a story about a magic hourglass. Always the same story. But it would lull him to sleep easily and his face would look like that of a peaceful child. Mingi would start looking forward to hearing it too, pretending in his head that he was on an adventure, looking for that lost treasure instead of drifting aimlessly in an endless sea, waiting for his own death. Hongjoong told his story again and again, with the same conviction each time. He was bruised and battered but he pushed on, telling the story like it was a precious mantra. It became a mantra for Mingi as well, a promise of survival. But it had never been meant to last, this small truce and tentative peace in their situation. The sea had been merciful enough already.
The storm hit while they were sleeping. No one had bothered to stand guard or keep watch for a ship in the distance. They had privileged keeping each other sane by talking, and since only two of them were able to do that, they couldn’t really take turns. When the first drop of rain had hit their skin, they had mistaken it for the splash of a wave on the hull. It was already too late when it hit them full on. What could they have done anyway ? What sails could they have folded ? What shelter could they have taken ?
There was no moon.
In the pitch darkness, they could only scream and hold on for dear life as they were shoved from one side of the life boat to the other like rag dolls. Even Seonghwa had been jolted enough to grip onto a wood plank with a white knuckled grip. The three of them spent the night huddled together, at the complete mercy of a raging sea, in a roaring darkness. Daybreak would’ve been thought to be at least a small relief, but seeing the size of the waves they were facing instead of just feeling them had proven to be even more terrifying. At this point, their small sack of provisions had already gone overboard but none of them could care less in their situation. They were unlikely to survive long enough succumb to hunger or dehydration.
The storm lasted two nights and two days.
It was a miracle that the boat was still afloat. It was a miracle the three of them were still aboard. Seonghwa reacted then. When the storm subsided, and they were all able to shift into another position than the one they had stayed huddled in for days, he broke down. As soon as they weren’t sheltering him with their bodies anymore, he sobbed. It had been like a new born taking his first screaming breath. A scream of pure anguish and relief. A scream they all shared as they huddled back together and hugged each other, sobbing in disbelief that they were still alive.
“Thank you.” Were the first words uttered by Seonghwa as he held the two boys close.
Mingi looked forward to hearing the story that night, more so than the others. It meant they were not on the verge of dying. The storm was over.
What came after was a burning heat under a blazing sun. They had managed to keep hold of the water skin, but it was empty now. There were two bars of rations left from Mingi’s coat pocket that would last them a day at most. That was all there was left. That, and anger. Because they hadn’t survived that storm for nothing. Seonghwa hadn’t started talking again for nothing.
Mingi has no idea when he started getting delirious. One moment, his mind was clear, and the other, he realized that he had lost moments. In that desert of an ocean, where everything looked the same, it was hard to notice changes. He first noticed that Hongjoong had moved to the other side of the boat in the blink of an eye. Then Seonghwa who had been talking about one thing one moment, and had stopped, the other, to exhausted to keep going without Mingi noticing. Then it was the shapes. Like worms that danced in his vision. Colorful worms and fish and water, all around him, so much water. He was so thirsty. Why was he so thirsty when he was surrounded with water ? He laughed then. They were so stupid. Letting themselves go thirsty when all they needed was right there. He barely remembers fighting the other two when he tried to dip down to get a drink.
There was a peculiar cruelness in being thirsty at sea.
He stopped counting after that. He didn’t notice night falling and day breaking. He felt like he had been afloat on this little lifeboat longer than he had been alive. He let Hongjoong and Seonghwa have the last rations. In fact, he begged them to take them, begged them until they couldn’t refuse him anymore. He was crying and even his tears were to precious to be wasted at this point.
They stopped trying to keep each other sane and focused on keeping whatever was left of their strength instead.
They say that in some cases, dying is like falling asleep. Mingi never believed that until now. When he was falling asleep, he never noticed until he woke up. He was pretty sure he would notice if he was dying.
As it turns out, he didn’t. And, well he didn’t die, sure, but he came pretty close to it and he only realized it when he woke up on the floor of a way bigger ship than his meager life boat. He probably wouldn’t have woken up at all if it hadn’t been for Hongjoong’s half-rasp, half-scream. He’s pretty sure the word that brought him back to the land of the living was “mother fucker” but he would have been thankful for anything at this point.
He was too exhausted to fully take in his surroundings or even be scared of whatever was happening. He only registered a solid, more stable ground beneath him, Hongjoong’s screams as he was being dragged away, the form of Seonghwa’s body next to him and his own limp form as someone was snapping their fingers in front of his face, which he, in his delirious haze found quite rude. The world went black once more after that.
He woke up inside. He expected the sun to be blistering his skin, stretching it and cracking it with the dryness of the salt, but instead he was lying on a mattress, covered by a soft blanket, and his body hurting all over. He wasn’t sure if it was real. Whether he was dreaming or already dead or if their entire ordeal had been made up in his mind. Maybe he had fallen ill and ended up stuck in a fever dream ?Maybe the Navy hadn’t ordered the execution of hundreds of slaves, letting them drown with the ship they had sent to the bottom of the sea ?
Trying to get his bearings, he looked around him and his heart did something he didn’t think possible : it sank and soared at the same time. Sank because it had not been a fever dream. His entire life had been flipped upside down and nothing would ever be the same. Soared however, because Seonghwa was in the bed next to his, asleep, but alive and not drowning or starving. He was pale and thin, but seemingly safe. Hongjoong was on a bed further away, next to Seonghwa as well, but he was awake and sitting. The dark bags under his eyes looked worse than he remembered them if it was even possible but his eyes were wide, watching them like a hawk.
“You’re awake.” He said to Mingi and he’s pretty sure he didn’t imagine the relief in his voice. An image of Hongjoong struggling against two strangers’ hold and cursing them out flashed in his mind.
“What happened ?”
“These people picked us up on their ship, I woke up while they were lifting us up on board.” He paused. “Their sails are yellow. I don’t know what that means. I know black sails are pirates, blue and white are navy, but yellow…” His voice broke. “I didn’t know what they wanted or what they were gonna do and they tried to separate us so I fought but I was too weak, and both of you were passed out.” He was fully sobbing now. He didn’t look older through his stare anymore. He was just a terrified little kid who had gone through hell. On that life boat, even when he cried, he did so shielding Seonghwa with his body or telling them stories to soothe the three of them. During those few days at sea, Mingi had come to rely on Hongjoong somehow, as long as the boy kept telling his story and as long as screams of rage were intertwined with his cries during the storm, he knew he would keep fighting. Now he was faced with the fact that the boy was barely older than him, thrust into a situation he had never wanted. He was just scared. Scared and tired, most likely more so than him.
He didn’t hesitate to jump out of his bed and ignored the bout of vertigo that overtook him, stumbling to Hongjoong’s. He took the boy in his arms and let him cling to him, crying his heart out, his small body shaking in his hold.
It took Seonghwa one more full day to wake up. A kind nurse came by in the mean time, checking on them and feeding them a warm broth she prevented them from gulping down too fast. As it turns out, they had been rescued by spice merchants on their way to the continent. Only a few hours later and their chances of survival would have been close to none.
Mingi saw himself in the mirror for the first time since the attack that day, and he had caught up to the boys in thinness. He was just as bony and hagard as the other two.
From the moment Seonghwa woke up, they refused to be separated even for a moment. It was not just that they refused to trust anyone else than each other, they now needed each other for their souls to be complete, to remind each other that they had made it. No one could understand what they had gone through together, and though Mingi hadn’t been on the Mist, the betrayal had stung just as bad.
“I want to find it.” Hongjoong said one night as the three of them had huddled on one single bed, only a couple of days before reaching land. None of them needed to ask what he was talking about. He hadn’t told the story since they were rescued from the lifeboat but it was now weaved in their souls.
“I’m going to set sail again, on my own terms, and I’m going to find it. I’m going to make everything right.” The determination in his eyes left no place to doubt. “I’ll bring Yu-Hoon back, and I’ll make them pay ; the Drifters, the Navy, I’ll make sure they suffer for what they did.”
Seonghwa’s hand found his shoulder and squeezed it. Mingi did the same. There was no need to say anything, the same determination was set in their eyes.
They would not be scared of the ocean. They would not be scared of those who sailed it. One day, another group of kids would tell their story to fall asleep. One day another group of kids would listen to how they not only survived, but conquered their enemies, and they would hang on to that story, with the confidence that they too could do it.