“Kevin, I know how you're feeling, but if I tell you anything, you'll storm there and do something stupid,” Dongho shook his head.

“So you do know what that M means! Please,” Kevin would have knelt on his knees, if he hadn't been caught by Hoon and Kiseop from either side.

“You've been following me for the whole day! Okay. Step one, calm down. Step two, we'll all think thoroughly what we are going to do. Then I'll tell you what that means.”

Kevin sighed and headed outside.

“Where are you going?”

“To work on step one,” was the response.

“Keep an eye on him, you two.” Kiseop and Hoon nodded and followed Kevin, trying to talk some sense to him.

“What's going on?” a new voice asked him.

“Long story,” Dongho shrugged, facing Namjung. She just nodded and stayed quiet for a while.

“I think I should leave soon,” Namjung spoke out.

“Eh? So quick?” Dongho was a bit surprised.

“The sooner the better...”

“But... but... I think you should postpone it a bit.”

“Huh? Why?”

Dongho was trying to come up with something reasonable. “You need to prepare more... Look! You've been living in a palace for your whole life. You're gonna be awkward if you don't prepare. I have a suggestion. You should ask the boys, they have been living here, close to normal people, for years. I'm pretty sure Soohyun has nothing better to do now,” he went on as he pushed the princess into the living room, where by chance the oblivious boy was seated on the couch.

Namjung pondered for a while, but then took a seat next to him.

“Umm...”

“Y-yes, my prin- ehm... Namjung-ssi?”

“I was wondering... I mean, you have lived here for many years, haven't you? And... you probably met a lot of ordinary people.. So, you might know a lot, well, if that is the case, I need... I mean, I would like to know more about it... if you have time to tell me... well, if not, then...”

“I... I have time,” Soohyun smiled nervously. “But what would you like to know?”

“Umm... anything... Something about the life in the ordinary towns... I... don't know for sure.”

Dongho, who was watching the awkward scene secretly, facepalmed. We don't have that much time... alright, I'll leave them for now. I did enough today! Now, I need to handle my own issues.

As AJ grew attached to Shinmi, he seemed to care less and less whether it was forbidden love or what anyone, let alone his father, would say. Of course he wouldn't go around shouting it out to the world, but his brain stopped all these thoughts and just concentrated on the fairy herself. At times he became quite careless. Like this time, when he was practicing his swordfighting and accidentally cut his palm.

“Aish,” he sighed at his inattention and ended his practice. He went back to the main ship, aiming for some place with clean water. But he forgot his initial intention when he spotted Shinmi on the way there. She was with some other fairies, but it was pretty easy to get rid of them. They were his servants after all. Shinmi had thought she would have received an order too, but she found herself to be the only one left. She wanted to ask whether her young master had an order, but she noticed the blood trickling down his hand.

“What happened to your hand, young master?”

“Oh? Oh, that's just...” he was a bit embarrassed to say that he was so careless to do this to himself.

“So that's why I'm the only one who didn't get an order...” she mumbled. “Open your hand.” It hadn't occurred to AJ that Shinmi could heal his cut, but he just got a perfect excuse, so he played along and stretched out his arm, opening his hand. It was a piece of cake for Shinmi to heal this cut since it was not that big and serious. She however was completely oblivious to what she did to the pirate in front of her.

Her hand was almost toughing his, she was standing quite close and not moving, attentively healing his hand, and by the time she was done, AJ had an urge to hug her to show her how much he cared. Before he knew it he was stretching out the other arm as well and leaning in, but unfortunately – or fortunately – before he could even touch her shoulder, he heard someone's steps. He realized what he was doing and that there were people passing by, so he quickly put his arms down and composed himself. Did she notice what I was about to do? He quickly glanced at her and saw her confused expression and widened eyes. Shinmi took a step back just to regain her comfort zone, and looked at AJ as if asking for approval to leave, now that her job's been done. He could only nod and let her go.

What was I thinking? He was angry at himself. He freaked the timid fairy out. Would she realize his feelings because of this? He really hoped she wouldn't, since he had a feeling she would grow uncomfortable with him if she found out. More than after this.

Dongho came back to the lost boys' headquarters to find Kevin calmed down, discussing some plan with the others, and Namjung still there, but fairly bored since no one had explained the situation properly to her and she didn't have the energy to follow up with their discussion.

He set the few heavy objects he was carrying down and went up to the boys, signaling to Namjung to come too.

“Okay, it's time to get it settled now. Namjung, you have no idea what's happening, so you need to be informed. In a very shortened version, Kevin's sister was kidnapped many years ago by the pirates and he now found out where she could be. So, we are going to help him now. You are all going, right?” Soohyun, Hoon and Kiseop nodded.

“I don't need you to get involved, just tell me where it is!” Kevin protested.

“You're not going to succeed alone. And I owe you anyway, remember?”

“Is there anything I can do?” Namjung asked, a bit worried.

“No. You'll stay here and wait for us.”

“I also have some powers, I could go with you-”

“No!” Everyone looked at Soohyun, who strongly disagreed. “It's dangerous...” he stated, looking down.

“Right. You'll stay here,” Dongho said. “Kevin... I hope you understand that she might have been sold to someone else or...” he didn't continue the sentence, not wanting to hurt him. “But if she is there, how will you recognize her? You were both children when she was kidnapped.”

“I'll recognize her... I'm sure... I know it doesn't sound that persuasive, but I'm sure I'll feel it.”

“Okay. So, here's what we're going to do...”

Eli forgot the whole incident and worked hard on improving his various skills needed in combat and managing ships in general. But since he had a temporary feeling like he was going crazy because of it, he decided to take a break. His father didn't like him going to the inns in the dock, but he did sneak out secretly from time to time. It was like the only thing in which he didn't listen to his father and there was no harm done, right? So he just went out as usual.

As soon as he entered the inn, he noticed a few pirates that worked for them. They were one of the oldest staff and his father's closest advisors. He hesitated whether he should go to another inn, but was too lazy to change place. He was careful not to be noticed by them and sat alone at a small table nearby, making sure he can't be seen from their position. I wonder what they could be talking about in their free time in the inn, he thought with an amused smile.

“When is the Captain going to strike? I heard that damn Mordney's already making his plans.”

“I believe it should be soon? Not sure what happened to the old plan. I heard his son was in charge of it.”

The Vast Plains..

“Yeah, something went wrong there supposedly. I wonder if that kid was saying the truth or just making excuses...”

They sure have a big mouth...

“I don't think so. He's otherwise blindly doing anything Captain tells him to do. He doesn't have enough of his own opinions to even question anything.”

“Right, he's a perfect son, hahaha,” one of them said, followed by laughter of all the others. Are they praising me or criticizing me? Eli frowned.

“If he found out the truth, what would happen to their perfect father-son relationship?”

“Shut up, we're not supposed to talk about that anywhere, remember. Even walls have ears, especially in inns.”

The truth? What truth? What are they talking about? Damn, I can't even ask anyone since I eavesdropped in the inn... But, there's no way father would keep something from me. Right. They are just a couple of pirates getting drunk in the inn. Right.

Since the patrols on flagpole would see them from afar, the boys anchored their boat nearby and swam under the water, using Kiseop's potion which allowed them to breathe under water. As Hoon pointed out, this guy had a potion for everything. The pirates' crew had many ships; they decided to start with the main one, since it was the most probable place where Kevin's sister could be. But it meant they would have to be extra careful. After all, the Captain was residing on this ship! They picked a side of the ship and since it was big, Kevin flied up and hypnotized the pirates who were nearby to sleep. He needed to be quiet since they didn't want to be noticed.

Kevin and Dongho then got everyone on board. And the search began. They were really careful, not opening any door randomly. They saw their chance when they spotted a fairy, a middle aged woman, carrying some food. When she saw them, she almost creamed, but they were able to silence her and drag her into a safe area.

“We're friends,” Hoon ensured her.

“Why are you here? What are you – you are a fairy?!” she exclaimed when she noticed Kevin.

“I am... Ahjumma, please help us... My sister has been kidnapped as a child and it was this crew – I'm searching for my sister. I need to find her, please...”

“Oh, kid... I know your pain. But you shouldn't be here... if you guys get caught here, oh, it would be terrible...”

“We know what we're risking, please help us?”

“You're a good kid. You know, I'm risking with you to do this, but I'll help you. I'll go ahead of you and you just need to watch me from afar. I'll stop for three seconds in front of the cabins that belong to fairies. That's how you'll know where to search. Okay?”

“Thank you, ahjumma. Thank you so much!” Kevin was almost kneeling again.

The woman showed them the fairies' cabins. Kevin was getting nervous. In one of these cabins, there could be his little sister...

“Let's try one door...” Kiseop suggested.

“What if there are different fairies and we just freak them out and get the whole ship's attention on us?” Soohyun didn't like the idea of searching door by door.

“We don't have a better way to do it. Quick, we have no time,” Dongho said.

They opened one of the door and found two young female fairies inside. They gestured for them to be quiet, while the fairies were totally shocked and didn't know what to do.

“Please stay quiet, we're friends... right, Kevin? Kevin?”

Kevin didn't respond because he was looking into one of the fairies' eyes. And he had the feeling as if he was looking into his own eyes.

“Kevin? Kevin-o-oppa?”

But suddenly the door went open.

Bwahahaha, bwahaha! I'm leaving you with many questions in the end of this chapter! I'll try to update soon, since the end here's so open.

And omg, why was writing the awkward scene so... awkward? Lol.

@BluePhoenix *winks* Lol, I won't spoil, no no no... Thanks for comment :)

@kpopfanluv Thank you :)

@Grey_Storm Haha, I love long comments :D You even commented that you're missing updates! Thanks so much :)