Captain Lee Sungmin inhaled the air around him and breathed it out, sighing. It tasted of the ocean, moist and slightly salty. Wind whipped his hair around his face as he steered his trusty ship faster. Further. Anything to distance himself from that bloody Castilian.

The mere thought of the buoyant, hazy-eyed navy captain made him drop his glass of wine, shattering glass onto the deck. He let out a string of expletives.

“You know, you should really stop drinking so much.”

The pirate captain gave another curse before turning around to face the person the voice belonged to. And, course it had to be Eunhyuk, his first who was honestly more trouble than he was worth. Sungmin gave him an irritated look.

“Like you can talk, Hyuk. You drink more than I do.”

The platinum-haired man smirked, serving only to annoy Sungmin further. “Maybe, but at least I can hold my rum. Look, you’re already getting tipsy.”

“Am not,” the captain snapped. Eunhyuk’s voice was getting increasingly annoying. Actually scratch that, the whole world was annoying right now. In fact he fancied that maybe, right now, the state of affairs of the universe was how it was just so it could aggravate him. And it wasn’t because he was tipsy. He wasn’t bloody tipsy.

“Yeah you are,” Eunhyuk snickered. “Hey, how many fingers am I holding up?”

Sungmin swatted the offending hand away and stormed off the deck. Or, he tried to storm off the deck. He ended up not quite getting all of himself through the door and crashing into the doorframe. In response, he punched it.

“Stupid door.”

His first mate apparently found this highly entertaining and cackled in mockery as he skipped—yes, skipped—over to pull his captain off of the floor. “You’re definitely at least tipsy, if not completely drunk!”

“Shut up, Eunhyuk, or you’ll be on cleaning duty for the rest of the week.”

“Wow Minnie, your captain habits can function even when you’re drunk? That’s friggin’ hilarious!”

“EUN—“

But he never finished, because suddenly the world around him started spinning…and he fell into a deep, alcohol-induced slumber.

“Aw man, now I have to carry you to your room?” Eunhyuk looked down at him and despaired. “Maybe I can just leave him on the deck…” But after shuddering from thinking of what consequences he might get if his captain found that he had a cold when he woke up, he decided against it.

***

It was nighttime, and Sungmin found himself walking along the streets of Almeria in search for a place to stay the night; they had landing on the coast of Castile a few days back. He entered a familiar inn and was greeted with the usual loud cacophony of gruff people and raucous behavior.

He made his way towards the only mostly-empty seat in the room and sat down, only to freeze upon seeing the other occupant.

“…You,” he growled.

The other man seemed completely unaffected by his hostile greeting. “Oh, hey, Captain Lee right?” He gave a boisterous laugh. “Imagine seeing you again!”

Sungmin just glared at him. “What are you doing here?”

“Eh? Well, I was staying in Almeria for a few days, figured I’d mingle with some people—“

“You know that’s not what I mean,” he interrupted. “I want to know why navy personnel would be in the local pirate’s inn.”

Captain Kim Yesung of the Castilian navy smiled. “Well you know it’s not only pirates; there’re also thieves, smugglers, runaways…”

“Cut the crap!”

“Oh, you’re so coarse for an Albian gentleman. I just wanted to check it out, I’m not on military orders. Does that make you happy?”

“No. So are you going to arrest all these people now?”

“Are you kidding? There’s gotta be at least fifty people in this room! I deal with military issues, not criminals.”

“Then you’ve got a messed up sense of loyalty. You’re not going to try to turn me in?” he sneered.

The Castilian only took a chug out of his glass of beer and gave him a devious look. “I’m not an idiot! Not gonna to try take you out by myself. I’ve seen you fight.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Sungmin muttered under his breath.

“What was that?” Yesung said teasingly, leaning toward him.

Sungmin responded by jabbing him in the chest. It was a decidedly childish move that disgusted him even as he did it, but it hadn’t been the best day for him anyway. “I said you’re a wanker.”

“Am I now?”

It took all he had not to take out his sword and stab the stupid Castilian.

They sat in a silence that lasted for about as long as it took for fat kid to eat cake, or so Sungmin thought in his mind, before Yesung started talking again.

“You know, the first time I saw you taking out that one guy in that bar in Gibraltar, I envied you.”

The pirate threw him a look. “Well this is new, Mr. Nice Guy appreciates getting into a good fist-fight?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head and chuckling a bit, “not that. I envy the freedom you have.”

Sungmin scoffed. “Yeah? Then be a pirate and ditch the military.”

But the Castilian just smiled like he had been doing for the whole time. “I prefer not to get trouble with the law. Maybe being a pirate suits you. But I get the feeling you want more out of life.”

For some inexplicable reason, his words made anger flare up in Sungmin’s mind. What right did some military dog have to try and explain away his way of life?! Abruptly, he stood up and glared hard at the Castilian captain. “You don’t even know me,” he ground out. “So don’t think it’s any of your business.” He turned around and pushed his way out of the inn, place to stay be damned.

The next morning, as he and his crew departed for the sea, they received news that the navy had sent Captain Kim Yesung’s very ship in quick pursuit of them.

***

“I really hate him.”

Donghae’s expression didn’t change as he gave Sungmin some tonic. “Eunhyukkie or Captain Kim?”

“Both of them,” Sungmin said stubbornly.

“I understand Hyukkie, but what happened between you and Captain Kim anyway?” Donghae was handing him his coat and hat now, as Sungmin pushed himself off his bed and tried his best to ignore a pounding headache. Donghae was somewhat of a doctor for the ship, or at least the closest to a doctor that the crew had.

“Nothing.” Sungmin forcefully yanked his arms through his coat sleeves and shoved a feathered hat onto his head. Seriously, he didn’t even know why he was so angered by that ridiculous, smiley, dark-eyed idiot. “Nothing happened between me and that wanker.”

“…Okay.” Donghae was unconvinced, as anyone would be, but didn’t really care about the captain of the Castilian fleet ship either way. Sure, their own pirate ship was being pursued by them at the very moment, but Donghae’s only concern was why Sungmin wouldn’t just let him bombard the boat with cannons already. It would make things so much easier, and it wasn’t like Captain Kim would die (if his captain was even worried about that). Those nobles were like cockroaches anyway, with their lifeboats and their reinforcements. You could try to crush them all you wanted and they’d still crawl away to bite you in the rear again later. “Think we can out-sail them?”

Sungmin climbed onto the deck and looked at the horizon, Donghae following closely behind. He shook his head when he focused on the only other vessel on the sea in sight. “Pro’ly not. I’d give our ship a day or so, but then it’ll be head on encounter.”

“The Kanina’s fast,” Donghae countered. “We could try losing them.”

“So’s Kim’s Sonus. Like I said, we’ll have about a day or two ‘til they catch up, and there aren’t any landforms in our vicinity.”

The Sonus caught up quicker than even Sungmin had anticipated. The next day, Eunhyuk sounded the alarm and the pirate ship’s crew scrambled onto the deck to see a grand Castilian navy ship not fifty yards from them. The two huge ships faced each other menacingly, cannons ready to be fired.

The air was still. Sungmin could see Yesung on the bow of his ship, eyes trained onto him. He had a determined look in his eyes, unlike the air-headed expressions Sungmin had seen him wear previously.

Everything after that happened before either side really had enough time to step back and consider the situation. Blows were exchanged, but the bow and masts of both ships remained mostly intact. Then Yesung jumped onto the pirate ship to confront Sungmin, who swiftly turned to his gunman.

“We’ll take Kim as our prisoner. Unleash the big cannons.”

Donghae easily complied, and the sky above of the ocean was painted red-orange with flames and murky smoke.

Sungmin then turned and smirked easily at the sea captain, who was now trapped alone on the pirate ship. “Wrong move, hot shot,” he drawled. To his surprise—no, annoyance—the Castilian looked only resigned. Did he give up that quickly or did the idiot just not care? Annoyance quickly shifted into irritation.

“I thought you said you didn’t deal with criminals,” he spat.

All he got in response was a tired smile. “Yeah, I didn’t really understand why they decided to send me after you either. Maybe they think you guys are a threat.”

“Yo.” Eunhyuk dropped in just then (literally, from the top of the mast). “We sunk the ship. But most of the crew got away, see.” He gestured at the small lifeboats rowing away from the mass of smoking debris. Sungmin’s lips tightened into a tight line.

“Let them,” he said. “’S not like they can turn around and retaliate now.”

Eunhyuk shook his head and gave a dramatic sigh. “Aw, you’re no fun when you’re sober.”

Sungmin ignored him. “We’re taking this guy prisoner. Take him to the lower decks.” Eunhyuk immediately brightened and tied Yesung’s wrists together with a length of rope that seemed to have materialized out of nowhere. He led him down into the cabins, talking at him the whole while. Sungmin followed after them.

***

“You, know when you said lower decks, I thought you’d meant some kind of dank cell,” Yesung commented when he was introduced to his “prisoner quarters”. It was a really just a normal room, complete with a bed, desk and chair.

The lanky platinum-blond laughed. “We don’t have those. Minnie doesn’t usually keep prisoners.”

Sungmin leveled his first mate with a look and snapped at him. “You can leave now, Eunhyuk.”

Eunhyuk mock-saluted and walked out, leaving Yesung with the pirate captain. He looked closely at his new living space and sat down on the bed. It wasn’t bad at all, and he wouldn’t be surprised if the ship’s crew all lived in similar quarters.

Sungmin watched him with his ever-present glare. Yesung might have chastised him, because he was surely going to get forehead wrinkles if he kept that up, but that would be making much too light of the situation. And then the pirate spoke, in voice that Yesung knew held an element of loneliness and longing. He knew, because it was similar to his own. (He remembered pointing this out to the pirate when they had chanced upon each other in Almeria. Sungmin hadn’t taken it kindly.)

“This is where you’ll be staying,” Sungmin said monotonously. “The bathroom is over there, someone will bring you food three times a day, and there’s paper and pen in the desk if you seek to entertain yourself with writing. We won’t be landing for at least month. You’ll be here for a while.”

“You’re not going to kill me?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Just because we’re pirates doesn’t mean that all of us go around killing people when we feel like it. We’re not like you nobles.”

“Ouch. But you know, killing’s not really my thing either.”

“Oh, how brilliant. We must have so much in common then,” Sungmin rolled his eyes, throwing Yesung’s own phrase back at him. “Does that make you happy?”

“It does.”

Sungmin gave him an irritated look. “Stop talking, Captain Kim. You’re our prisoner, not a guest of honor.” He turned around and walked out, slamming and locking the door.