“Korean”
“Chinese”
“English”

Part Two:
“I’ve Got The Madness…I’ve Got Cabin Fever!”
AKA “Floating Psycho Ward”

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“Come on,” Hankyung insisted, tugging at Henry wrist. “I promise the rest of the crew is quite sane compared to everyone else.”

‘Compared to everyone else’ did not sit well with Henry, but he figured he’d have to face the rest of the crazies at some point and so he let himself be dragged along. Hankyung led him down a flight of stairs that deposited them in a long hallway, at the end of which a door opened into what looked like the galley.

“These rooms,” Hankyung said, gesturing around them, “Are all bulkheads- bedrooms. We have seven in total, but Eeteuk sleeps in the room that you woke up in and Kyuhyun pretty much sleeps below deck with his equipment. Donghae rooms with Eunhyuk, Ryeowook with Siwon, Shindong’s with Yesung, Sungmin and Kibum, I’m with Heechul, and Kangin and Zhou Mi each have their own rooms. ” He paused and took a deep breath, a thoughtful look on his face. “I guess you’ll be sharing with Mi, since your Korean isn’t that good and quite frankly nobody wants to share with Kangin. He snores louder than a foghorn. So does Kyuhyun, but that’s not important right now.”

Henry cast a suspicious gaze around the hallway. “This boat seems pretty big,” he said slowly. “You said it’s Eeteuk’s, right? How did he afford it?”

Hankyung looked thoughtful. “Well, he didn’t have this particular boat at first,” he explained. “He inherited this super fancy, super obnoxious yacht from his grandfather. The thing was so over the top that you could hardly take it out in the water- it went really slow and always seemed ready to sink because it was so heavy.”

“So what happened to it?” Henry asked, intrigued by the endless stories.

“Once we all got this treasure hunting idea in our heads, Eeteuk sold the yacht and got a bunch of money from it. He used it to buy this old fishing boat and renovate it. He also got a lot of the equipment we use today.”

Henry blinked in surprise- it must have been worth quite a lot of money. “How’d you come with the name ‘Super Junior?’”

“The boat came with that name, actually,” Hankyung said with a shrug. “Heechul said it fit because he was such a super guy and the rest of us younger people- ‘Junior’s’- should be honored that he would grace us with his presence. Kibum said that it was pretty ironic, too- since ‘Super’ means big, and ‘Junior’ means small, and we were a large group of young people. But anyway, everyone liked the name so we just kept it in the end.”

With that, Hankyung opened one of the doors and led Henry inside. It was pretty messy- it looked like a clothing store had exploded in the room. The floor was littered with shoes, ties, scarves, shirts and boxes and shopping bags. The walls were covered in pictures that seemed to have been torn from magazines, as well as photographs. There were two beds- Henry assumed that the one covered in black and purple bedding was Zhou Mi’s.

“Erm…I’ll tell Mi that he needs to clean up,” Hankyung said sheepishly.

Despite the mess, the second bed was spotless, and in fact the disorder seemed confined to only one side of the room. Henry wondered if it had always been that way or if his new roommate had figured out that he would be staying there.

“Alright then,” Hankyung said briskly. “Let’s see. You already met Eeteuk, Kangin, Kibum, Heechul, Donghae, Kyuhyun, Siwon and Sungmin. And of course me,” he said, ticking the people off on his fingers. “So all that’s left is Shindong, Eunhyuk, Zhou Mi, Yesung and Ryeowook…I know Ryeowook’s in the galley, so I guess we’ll start there.”

And with that Hankyung marched out the door, Henry hurrying along behind him.

“So, it seems like with so many of you, you wouldn’t get along all that well.” Henry said as they walked. “And after what I saw just now…well how do you all not kill each other?”

“It’s a very long story,” Hankyung said as they walked into the galley.

“What’s a long story?”

Henry found himself taken aback by the striking features of the boy in front of him. He wondered if all the people on board were exceedingly handsome.

“Oh! Ryeowook, you understood me!” Hankyung said brightly. “Your Chinese has really improved!”

The boy grinned widely and was about to respond when he caught sight of Henry.

“Aish!” he cried. “This poor thing looks like death! He’s so pale and….when was the last time somebody gave him something to eat?!”

Henry gave Hankyung a confused look as Ryeowook hurried off.

“He wants to feed you,” Hankyung explained. Henry’s stomach growled and he was suddenly very glad that the first new person he was meeting could also cook.

Ryeowook came rushing back, ushering the two of them over to a table. He deposited two bowls of soup in front of them before taking a seat on the opposite side of the table, directly across from Henry.

“I just created that- you’re the first people who get to try it,” he told them.

Henry took a wary spoonful of the creation.

“Well?!” Ryeowook said anxiously.

“It’s amazing,” Henry told him, already taking more.

“Henry just asked me how we keep from committing murder on the ship,” Hankyung said. Ryeowook gave him a puzzled look and Hankyung repeated himself in Korean. Ryeowook burst into laughter.

“It’s a lot harder than you can even begin to imagine,” Hankyung said. “What you saw on deck is basically an everyday occurrence around here. We fight all the time and some people are still awkward with each other even after three years together. However, once we get on the trail of some kind of history, the bickering goes down quite a bit because everyone’s so excited to go looking for it.”

“Of course, when we do fight it can get pretty bad,” Ryeowook put in.

“Oh, he knows that,” Hankyung said with a wave of his hand. “He just watched Kyuhyun throw Donghae overboard.”

Ryeowook gave Hankyung a scandalized look and whacked him on the head repeatedly with a wooden spoon. “How can you say that so casually?!” He yelped, punctuating every word with another swat. Hankyung threw his hands over his head and tried to deflect the worst blows. Henry sat frozen in his seat, spoon halfway to his mouth and not sure if he should get involved or pretend nothing was happening.

“Is Donghae alright?” Ryeowook asked, finally stopping the abuse.

“Aish, yes! Donghae is the best swimmer among us, why would he not be alright?” Hankyung asked grumpily. Ryeowook ignored him and stood up, knocking his chair over in the process.

“I’m going to go and make sure that Kyuhyun didn’t kill Donghae and Eunhyuk didn’t kill Kyuhyun,” Ryeowook informed them crossly and slammed the door on his way out.

The slam of the door snapped Henry back to reality and he continued to devour his food, deciding to avoid eye contact. Hankyung rubbed at the spot on his head that Ryeowook clobbered and muttered under his breath in a mixture of Korean and Chinese that Henry doesn’t even bother to try to comprehend.

Neither of them spoke again until Henry had eaten the last of his soup, at which point Hankyung stood up and stretched.

“Okay, since we’ve managed to piss off Ryeowook I suppose we can consider our work here done-” (this seemed an unfair statement to Henry, since he hadn’t actually done anything to Ryeowook) “-and while we’re being annoying I might as well introduce you to Zhou Mi, since he’ll probably be with Kyuhyun.”

Hankyung must have noticed the way Henry was eyeing his leftovers because he shoved the half-full bowl over to Henry without complaint.

“Walk and eat,” he commanded even as Henry thanked him. “We’ve got places to go.”

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The thing about tracking down a historical artifact- any historical artifact- is that it is never where it is supposed to be. However this holds especially true for those things that are found in the ocean, because over time the ocean currents move things around and so they could very well be anywhere from fifty feet to twenty miles away from the original site of the sink. The hardest part about locating “treasure” in the ocean was not actually diving for it or bringing it up, but tracking the damn thing down. With a starting coordinate one could calculate if/how far a wreck might have moved over the years, but first you needed to figure out what the ocean currents had been doing in that time.

And this was Kyuhyun’s main job, because he was the only one who knew how to work the complicated equipment that they used to track their targets. Admittedly, he had help from Siwon- the history buff- who could help him pinpoint where a wreck would have happened, but after that he was basically on his own.

Right now they were tracking a fairly recent wreck- meaning it had happened in the last one hundred years. A trade ship had been rumored to be carrying some ancient coins, which the sailors had stolen from some kind of tribe…Kyuhyun really didn’t know all the details, all he knew was that there was possibly one million won worth of treasure in the ocean and he needed to find it. Sadly, he was having a bit of trouble configuring the coordinates, as there had been several hurricanes and large storms in the area of the wreckage and it was sure to have carried the artifacts a long way.

Kyuhyun sighed heavily, running his fingers through his already messy hair. Beside him, Zhou Mi winced and his fingers twitched. Kyuhyun knew he was just dying to straighten his hair, but Mi was smart enough to know that if he tried Kyuhyun would bite his hand off.

“Is there any way I can help you?” Mi asked for the tenth time in the last hour. Kyuhyun couldn’t help but grin at the helpless whine in Mi’s voice, he always found the man’s willingness to help- even when he had no idea what to do- an endearing quality, and it never failed to keep Mi in his good graces.

“It’s alright,” Kyuhyun said yet again, patting Mi’s arm gently. “I promise if I need your help I’ll ask for it.”

Zhou Mi sighed and slumped down in his seat, resting his head on his arms. “But you never ask for help, Kui Xian,” he pouted. “You’re going to stress yourself out too much and you’ll get wrinkles and grey hair and…”

Kyuhyun tuned out Mi’s rambling, leaning closer to his laptop and squinting at the readouts for the currents in the last twenty years. They had been getting steadily more irregular as global warming increased, and he sighed again, thinking that it was highly unlikely that all of the missing coins would be within even a twenty mile radius of each other. They’d be lucky to find just one at this rate, and he considered telling Eetuek and Siwon that the venture was almost pointless.

At this point the door opened and bright light spilled into the room. Kyuhyun was caught off guard and covered his eyes, hissing in pain as the light made contact with his eyes.

“ing hell, could you warn a person?!” He yelped as he searched blindly for his sunglasses. Zhou Mi leapt into action, snatching them off the desk and pushing them onto Kyuhyun’s face.

“You are a life saver,” he said, giving Mi a grateful pat on the head. That was another reason he kept Zhou Mi around; no matter how long the man spent in Kyuhyun’s dark “laboratory” as Donghae called it, he never seemed to be bothered by sudden exposure to light.

Once his eyes started functioning normally again, Kyuhyun turned his wrathful gaze upon the intruders. He expected to find Donghae, Eunhyuk or Heechul- the main banes of his existence, only to discover a sheepish Hankyung and a fearful Henry.

“Oh, it’s only you,” he said dismissively, if still a little miffed about the intrusion. “Shut the door, will you? The light is killing my vampire eyes.”

Hankyung let the door slam behind them and at once the room dimmed, lit only by the three large computer screens that were scattered through the room.

“Whoa,” Henry breathed, taking in what little he could. It was quite an impressive sight, as not only were their computers, radar equipment and a dozen or so maps, but also scuba gear, metal detectors and under water camera’s.

His time to wonder was limited though, as Zhou Mi had realized that this boy was the newest addition to their crew and bounded over at once to say hello, AKA glomp Henry so hard that the poor boy nearly fell over.

“Hi there! I’m Zhou Mi,” he said upon releasing Henry and grabbed the boy’s hand, shaking it enthusiastically. “Welcome aboard the Super Junior! You’re going to be staying in my room, right? I thought so, as soon as Donghae fished you out of the ocean I cleaned it up for you! I know it’s still very messy, but I’ll work on it later. So where…”

Kyuhyun snuck up behind Mi and placed a hand over his mouth while gently prying his hand off of a shell-shocked Henry’s wrist.

“Slow down there, Mimi,” Kyuhyun said firmly. “You’re going to give the child a heart attack.”

Henry bristled immediately and gave Kyuhyun an offended look. “I’m not a child, I’m eighteen!”

“Really?” Zhou Mi gasped. “Oh wow, I would have pegged you for a lot younger, you’re so cute!”

Henry looked positively devastated and Kyuhyun choked on a laugh.

Hankyung chose that moment to intervene, stepping between Zhou Mi and Henry before either of them could say anything else.

“Anyway,” he said quickly. “Yes, Mi, Henry will be staying in your room, but only for a few weeks, as we’re dropping him off in Shanghai when we restock.”

It was almost comical how quickly Zhou Mi’s mood changed- he went from cloud nine to the bottom of the ocean in .00987 seconds.

“You mean you aren’t staying with us permanently?” Mi asked in a heartbroken tone. Henry was taken aback; how could someone he’d met literally three minutes ago be so attached already? Kyuhyun stepped in before he had a chance to reply, though.

“Of course he’s leaving, Mi!” Kyuhyun said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Who in their right mind would want to live on a boat with us? We’re a bunch of crazies, don’t you know? Hell, I don’t want to live with us.”

“You want to live with me, though…right, Kui Xian?” Mi said hopefully, and even in the dim lighting Henry could see how big his eyes got.

Kyuhyun faltered and shrugged. “I suppose if I had to pick one person who bothered me least it would be you.”

“Hey, what about me?!” Hankyung asked in outraged tone as Zhou Mi clapped his hands and jumped around with glee. “When have I ever bothered you?”

“You’re bothering me now,” Kyuhyun said, his annoyed tone back again. “Henry met Mimi, now take yourselves and get out- I have historical artifacts to locate.”

“You’re only just now looking for them?” Hankyung asked, surprised. “I thought you said you knew where they were.”

Kyuhyun gave Hankyung a look that would stop a rampaging elephant in its tracks. Henry took several steps away from him and wound up hiding behind Zhou Mi, who by this point had stopped jumping for joy and wrapped his arms protectively around the smaller boy.

“I said I had a general idea,” Kyuhyun said icily, and you could almost hear the frost forming on the walls around them, and though once again Henry couldn’t understand the words, he could understand the tone. “And I might have been able to locate them sooner if certain people hadn’t thought it funny to blare horribly inappropriate soundtracks over the PA System-”

“I think you and Henry should leave now,” Zhou Mi interrupted, shoving Henry into Hankyung and pushing them both out the door. “See you at dinner, Henry!” Mi called as he slammed the door behind them.

“Well, that could have been worse,” Hankyung said as he straightened his shirt. Henry nodded dumbly, wondering exactly what “worse” would look like and deciding that he really hoped he never found out.

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Shindong and Eunhyuk turned out to be in the same place- what Hankyung introduced as the Super Junior’s engine room, which was really more like a closet. And it was freaking hot in there. Luckily, Henry didn’t stay in the engine room for too long, as everyone agreed that it was much too cramped for a proper greeting, so they all shuffled out (Henry swore he saw a screw fall out of a pipe at one point, which Shindong then stuffed in his pocket. He sincerely hoped that it wasn’t a terribly important screw).

It also turned out that neither man spoke Chinese, and so Hankyung turned into a translator. Remembering what Hankyung had said about Shindong being the one who spotted him in the ocean, Henry realized that he definitely owed the man his eternal gratitude.

“How do you say ‘thank you’ in Korean?” Henry whispered. Hankyung realized at once where this was going and replied in an equally low voice.

Henry turned to Shindong and bowed. “Kamsahamnida,” he said reverently, reminding himself to thank Donghae later as well, as he hadn’t really had the proper chance. His train of thought was lost though, as Shindong suddenly swept him into a bear hug while squealing something in Korean, which of course Henry had no chance of understanding. Shindong seemed happy though, so Henry figured he’d done something right. Hankyung finally stopped Shindong from crushing him after a few minutes and told Henry that Shindong thought he was adorable and should beware, because Shindong’s surprise hugs were even more notorious than Zhou Mi’s.

Apparently feeling left out, Eunhyuk choose this moment to interrupt, pulling on Hankyung’s sleeve and pointing at Henry enthusiastically. All Henry understood of the sentence was “Johnny Depp.”

“Um, Eunhyuk wants to know if you know Johnny Depp,” Hankyung said with a roll of his eyes. “He seems to think that because you speak English, you would have a personal relationship with the man.”

“I don’t know him personally,” Henry said, speaking to Eunhyuk even though he knew he couldn’t understand, “But I love the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.”

Apparently Eunhyuk got the gist because he began to hum the theme from the movie and pretended to stab at Shindong with a wrench. For a few moments the two had a mock pirate fight, which ended when Eunhyuk suddenly pulled the wrench from Shindong’s hand with an outraged cry of “No good!” and handed it to Henry instead.

Henry took the wrench, eyeing Hankyung in confusion.

“He wants you to spar with him,” he explained. “But it’s probably not a good idea, I mean you’re still very-”

Henry struck a fighting stance. “En Guard!” he cried before taking a jab at his opponent’s arm.

The fight was very playful, and honestly the most fun Henry had had in quite a long time. Hankyung got over his initial disapproval and became a score keeper, and Shindong turned into a cheerleader, calling out Henry’s name and “Hwaiting!” several times. Eunhyuk eventually turned to Shindong- probably to demand who’s side he was on- and lost a point because Henry jabbed him in the arm.

The mock-fight ended when Eeteuk came running down the hall and snatched the wrenches away, glaring at Eunhyuk all the while. Eunhyuk seemed to be trying to blame the whole thing on Hankyung, which Eeteuk wasn’t buying, and Henry decided to distract Eeteuk before anyone got in trouble.

“Hey, isn’t there one other person I have to meet?” He asked loudly. Eeteuk paused mid rant to give Hankyung a confused look and Eunhyuk chose that moment to scurry away, throwing Henry a grateful glance as he passed.

“Yesung,” Hankyung clarified, “And actually you’re going to meet him now, since as Eeteuk was just saying it’s time for dinner.”

Henry made sure to pay close attention to his surroundings as they walked back to the galley, as the ship was bigger than he’d thought and he really didn’t want to get lost during his stay. Luckily there seemed to be something different about each hallway and corner and door on the ship, and it wasn’t hard to remember which landmark would lead him to where he wanted to go.

There were already about eight people gathered in the galley when they arrived, and even though only half the crew was present it was impossibly loud. Hankyung noticed Henry’s wince and patted his shoulder apologetically.

“We tend to get very loud when we’re all together, especially in a small room like this,” he informed Henry (although the room wasn’t really that small by itself, but fill it with fifteen young men and it suddenly turned into a closet). “You’ll get used to it after a while.”

Henry nodded, though he couldn’t help but notice that everyone seemed to be treating him as though he was intending to stay on the ship permanently. It was just in the way they spoke to him- like they were trying to get him to understand the most important things about each one of them, because he would need to know who they were.

His train of thought was interrupted when the Reese’s boy- Sungmin- came running over, tugging another boy with him. Henry assumed this was Yesung, as he didn’t remember seeing him at all yet. His meeting with Yesung was short, though- all Henry got was the man’s name before he was shuffled into a seat and a plate of food was put in front of him.

Zhou Mi plopped down dejectedly in the seat across from Henry and Hankyung gave him a sympathetic look.

“I take it Kyuhyun isn’t coming?” he asked.

Zhou Mi sighed. “He said he’d only be a few more minutes,” he said hopefully.

“What are you talking about down there?” Heechul called from the other end of the table. “Are you talking about me?”

“The world does not revolve around you, sailor,” Donghae scolded, raising his plastic sword threateningly. Eunhyuk copied the motion, glowering at Heechul.

“Okay, calm down,” Siwon said nervously, his eyes flitting between a murderous looking Heechul and the mischievous pair of pirate wannabes. “Let’s not fight here, yeah?”

“I never back down from a fight,” Donghae warned. Siwon looked around for a distraction and his eyes landed on Henry.

“So Henry,” he called, and Henry jumped- not realizing that the man spoke Chinese. “Who are you rooming with?”

Mi’s hand flew into the air, almost knocking over a glass of water in the process. “Oh, me! He’s rooming with me!” He said excitedly, bouncing in his seat.

Yesung gave Eeteuk a wary look. “Is that a good idea?” he asked. “I would think that the kid would go nuts after a few weeks.”

“Yeah, maybe he’d be better off with someone else,” Shindong said. “Not that you are a difficult person, Mi,” he added quickly, noticing Mi’s smile falter, “It’s just…he seems kind of mellow and you’re very…”

“Not mellow,” Sungmin offered.

“But he and Kyuhyun are kind of off balance, and they get along well,” Ryeowook threw in (at this point Henry gave up trying to follow the conversation and just focused on his food). “Maybe they’d be alright.”

“There’s no room anywhere else on the ship,” Eeteuk huffed, “So there’s no point in discussing it.”

“The point was moot to begin with anyway,” Hankyung said, “Because Henry wasn’t planning to stay onboard permanently from the start.”

Silence fell and Henry looked up to see thirteen people staring at him.

“Uh…” he said intelligently. “What happened?”

“You’re not staying?” Donghae asked incredulously (Henry made a note to find out just how many of these guys could speak Chinese).

“Apparently we’re a bunch of crazies and nobody in their right mind wants to live with us,” Zhou Mi said seriously.

“Who told you that?” Eunhyuk asked indignantly.

“Yeah, we’re not crazy!” Donghae shouted vehemently, jabbing his sword into the air. “I sense mutiny afoot!”

“Obviously it was Kyuhyun,” Eeteuk said, rolling his eyes. “Don’t let him bother you, Mi, he doesn’t mean anything by it.”

“We’re the coolest people in the world,” Heechul said icily. “What’s so important that he has to get back to and doesn’t want to live with us?”

“Not everyone thinks that living on a ship with fourteen other people indefinitely is fun, Chul,” Kangin said brusquely. “Especially when one of them is you.”

Heechul stood up and Siwon grabbed his arms, trying to hold him back.

“Oh you’ve done it now, Raccoon-boy!” He shouted as the door went flying open and very harried looking Kyuhyun rushed in.

“Siwon,” he gasped, running over to where Siwon was sitting and completely disregarding the chaos he’d just walked in on. He threw a map down on the table and jabbed his finger at. “You’re sure these are the right coordinates?”

The whole room had gone silent except for the soft sounds of chewing. Siwon looked the map over.

“Yeah, that’s right,” he said after a minute.

Kyuhyun pumped his fist into the air in victory. “YES!” He shouted, and everyone jumped.

“What’s going on? Why are you celebrating?” Zhou Mi asked, getting to his feet. Kyuhyun gave the crew a wide smile and everyone seemed to be holding their breath.

“I got it,” he said smugly. “I have the coordinates for the treasure.” 

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Part three to be posted on Thursday :)