News about the sudden change in the course of the Assassin’s plan had spread somehow in the days to come, apparently coming from one of the village boys that Chanyeol had bumped into during his shift. The small child, while he could’ve been lying, could not have possibly hidden the fear flashing through his wide green eyes when he gazed up at the said tall pirate, and Chanyeol had known then that the rumour flying about had come from a reliable source, yet unknown.

It still puzzled them how the news had traveled bout so quickly, but they deduced it was all due to the Assassin’s attempt at causing riot, just enough to keep his enemies engaged about his whereabouts and activities. That was what Leroy had stated during one out of their numerous meetings that didn’t seem to evoke any productivity whatsoever. They kept turning around and around in circles. It had been obvious to Baekhyun from the very start that these pirates, while they were savage and knew how to kill like they knew the back of their hands, weren’t very adept at planning and organizing a strategy that would be carried out according to their plans.

But then again, he wasn’t one to talk. After all, he’d been captured in less than a heartbeat.

The Assassin’s next target was the City bathed in Sunshine. Baekhyun had never been for it is still very far out on the coast, dancing along the edge of the ocean. But the name itself sounded much merrier than the Outsiders that they had previously met. Maybe these types of Outsiders would be welcoming and actually live up to their name.

‘We’ll take the South East winds. Use them to our advantage and we might make it there in less than two days.’ Leroy says thoughtfully.

‘Why does it take so long?’ Jongdae quipped, ‘Are you guys really pirates?’

‘No dumb dumb. We just love wasting our time doing nothing,’ Rei smiles at him with sarcasm dripping right down to her chin. Her gaze however, is narrowed and makes the said man cower with its intensity.

‘It was just a question.’ Jongdae mumbles under his breath, ‘You don’t have to take it so personally.’

Baekhyun, who is sitting on the floor of the cabin beside him, leans over to whisper, ‘Don’t worry. She’s not as intimidating as she looks.’

‘And how would you know?’ the latter raises a brow in curiosity, causing the royal soldier to shrug, ‘Trust me. Stay on this boat long enough and you realize they’re just a bunch of undisciplined kids trying to play heroes.’

‘Undisciplined kids that apparently wield weapons better than I do.’ Jongdae slouches against the wall with a sigh, ‘Heck, they probably kill better than I do.’

‘Then what were you doing with the assassin then?’ Baekhyun asks sharply, ‘You were helping him kill people.’

‘I had no choice. The Assassin isn’t just someone you can ignore. He chooses you.’

‘Chooses you?’ Baekhyun echoes, ‘for what?’

But Jongdae doesn’t tell him any more, only shakes his head before sighing again and deciding to avert his gaze, a sign that the conversation is now over. Baekhyun had known that Jongdae wouldn’t breach the blood bond boundaries. He also knows that a blood bond is much more complex than what the East Coast pirates believe it is. They are so caught up in their spirit of freedom, they are so carefree and allowed to do what they want without any obligations, that they probably have no inkling of what’s it like to vow oneself, either to the crown or anything else for that matter. A blood bond ties you, both physically and mentally to the one who has assigned it, to the one responsible. A ritual has to be carried out for it to be successful, and the supervision of knowledgeable individuals on the matter are required to assist whenever necessary. Baekhyun has heard of such things going on in the Royal kingdom itself, and though he’s never been one to do it, rumours had flown about that it takes about eight hours for the complete process and that it’s like a scar that you carry to your grave. Some kind of alchemic magic you just can’t get rid of without damaging your own physical self.

They set sail for the City bathed in Sunshine, the crew in charge of tugging and pulling at the ships’s sails as they ride along with the South East winds gliding them along the ocean’s surface, in the right direction. Baekhyun can’t help but notice the anxiety rising on Leroy’s face as they get closer and closer to their destination. As the hours go by, the captain spends more of his time cooped up in his cabin, head diligently bowed towards the map as a million strategies, plans and other thoughts keep him inside his head.

That does not mean that Rei lets him off the hook. Baekhyun may not be permanently tied to a post anymore, but she takes freedom in ordering him about to do the ship’s chores, such as cleaning the deck and spending all his free time removing dead skin off fishes that they’d caught during their voyage. It will serve as dinner for the time being, for they have been running low on supplies. Jongdae isn’t better off. Chanyeol has taken him under his wing as a faithful servant. The poor assassin has no other choice but to follow instructions, being threatened of having his head cut off whenever a rising protest would be made.

‘I don’t get it.’ Jongdae says to him once, as they sit side by side to catch their breaths. They have been running around since this morning and from the determined glint in Rei’s eyes, it doesn’t seem that she’s quite done with making them suffer.

Jongdae turns his head, it while sending Baekhyun a quizzical look, ‘Why haven’t you escaped yet?’

‘I thought about it.’ Baekhyun shakes his head, ‘It’s harder than it looks.’

The black-haired man gazes at him for a few seconds in silence, as if contemplating his words. His next words make Baekhyun almost choke on his own saliva.

‘You can’t swim.’ Jongdae, ‘That’s why you can’t escape.’

Baekhyun prefers staying quiet. He keeps his head adamantly on the sea’s horizon as his lips press together in growing embarrassment.

But instead of berating him and mocking him for his weakness, Jongdae just keeps looking at him as if he can’t quite believe it. There isn’t any negative emotion gracing his features. On the contrary, a feeling of sympathy softens Jongdae’s brown eyes, which does not help the young soldier’s confidence or self esteem.

‘There had never been a reason to learn before.’ Baekhyun then mutters softly, but loud enough for the other man to hear him while avoiding eye contact.

Jongdae leans over to place his elbows on his raised knees, ‘Fair enough. I’m not that great of a swimmer myself.’

‘And that’s supposed to make me feel better?’ Baekhyun jokingly asks, to which the latter breaks into a grin of his own, ‘Take it however you want, soldier boy.’

The said soldier groans, ‘Don’t call me that. It reminds me of her.’

‘Rei has taken a liking to you.’

Baekhyun’s eyes narrow, ‘Yeah, if bullying me constantly is a sign of affection. Sure.’

Their conversation is cut off when a sudden cry echoes throughout the ship. They both whip their heads towards the sound only to catch a glimpse of a neighbouring ship passing by. Before Baekhyun can do anything, he sees the crew of pirates jeer and launch themselves out of the boat. Rei runs past them, her ponytail almost swatting him in the face as he stumbles back. He sees her jump up, grab a hold of a nearby rope before using her body weight to swing onto the other boat and landing safely like a cat. She catches his stare from the other side, and just raises an eyebrow in question.

Baekhyun only rolls his eyes in response while he scoffs. He turns to Jongdae then, ‘What are they doing?’

‘From what it looks like,’ Jongdae muses upon noticing that the East Coast captain has also joined on to the fight, ‘We’re going on a raid.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Yeah. Basically stealing other people’s stuff. How do you think they’re all so well dressed and have food for days?’

That night, Leroy announces a gathering on the deck to celebrate the successful raid of one of the Royal fleets. The crew is buzzing, louder and more boisterous than usual as they feast on the remaining of their provisions. An assortment of frozen fish had been pulled out of their freezer before being grilled and passed around the group, while apples, pears and mangoes had been passed around until there was no more remaining in the fruit basket. Everyone is buzzing with the aftermath of their success, but Baekhyun can’t seem to join in on their happiness. He can’t help but think of the people on the boat and how innocents had died just because of some starving vagabonds in need of more money and food. His stomach twisted at the thought of the Royal Kingdom but he shook his head as he tried pushing it away. He isn’t a part of the Royal Kingdom, nor is he a special forces soldier any longer. He’s exiled, kicked out of his job by his own doing, and his hands unconsciously grip harder on the can of beer in his hands.

He takes his chance to slip away from the crowded gathering to walk along the edge of the other side of the boat, one hand gliding along the ledge’s wooden surface while he tilts his head up to look at the stars glittering over the sky. He wonders about Kyungsoo. Had they informed him of his missing brother yet? Is he going mad with worry or has he already resigned himself to the thought that his older sibling might never come back? Baekhyun can only wonder with a heavy, guilt-ridden heart. The memory of Kyungsoo’s face flashes before his very eyes and his chest tightens with emotion. If only he could get one more moment to ensure that his brother is safe, then Baekhyun can at least have a peace of mind, albeit the fact that the Royal Palace is indeed, the safest grounds one can walk on.

‘What are you doing all alone, soldier boy?’

His head snaps up at the familiar face. Rei smirks as she walks up to him, a can of beer in hand and the moonlight dancing across her face.

Baekhyun offers her a small smile of his own although it feels forced, ‘Just thinking.’

It’s almost as if she has forgotten he does not really belong here, on this boat, when she says:

‘About what? Everyone’s celebrating.’

‘It’s not really my type of celebration.’

‘Ah.’ a pause. ‘Right.’

Silence envelopes them for a while, but it’s not uncomfortable, washing away the young soldier’s worries bit by bit as he stares into pitch black and lets his eyes rest. One thing he loves about being out here is that he doesn’t have to be fancy or fake. He can stay quiet whenever he wants to, he can lose himself in his mind thoughts if he wants to, with nobody to stop him. The pirates’ presence do that to him; liberates him from any kind of obligations tied to his title.

Out here, he feels like riding the wind and basking in the salty ocean air.

‘So is that what you guys do everyday? Raid ships and sell the merchandise for money?’ he suddenly speaks up after a long bout of silence. The girl turns her head and he notices a few stray strands flying around her face, having escaped her braid. It makes her seem softer, more approachable somehow. It suits her, Baekhyun can’t help but think to himself.

‘Basically. We wouldn’t be able to afford anything otherwise,’ Rei takes a swig of her beer, and he gazes at her profile in curiosity. There are so many things he wished to ask her, so many questions scratching the back of his tongue even though he knows it’s not going to do him any good to ask her about it, for it will only bring him backlash.

She’s a mystery in itself. She’s almost like the sea; wild, untamed. She does not live by the rules, something that he had been enforced to live by all his life. They are polar opposites and yet, there is something he can’t quite pinpoint, a sort of common ground that makes him comfortable and serene in her presence.

‘Take a picture. It’ll last longer.’

Baekhyun doesn’t get the chance to look away when she turns and their gazes clash, her maroon orbs swirling with light amusement.

Baekhyun opens his mouth. Closes it again. His hand reaches up to rub his neck in embarrassment.

‘Come on, soldier boy. There’s something bugging you. I can feel it.’

He lets out a heavy sigh, the sigh of a man that seems to have a heavy weight on his shoulders, ‘I just-- I don’t understand.’

‘Understand what?’ she raises a brow.

‘Why are you being so nice to me? Why not just kill me off?’ Baekhyun spreads his hands and stares at his palms, eyes sullen and face serious, ‘I’m of no use to you, practically dead weight.’

‘Did you want us to kill you?’

‘In my position, I’m as good as dead.’

‘Want me to kill you now?’

She bursts out laughing when he throws her a startled look of surprise, quickly reaching over to punch his shoulder to show that it’s just a joke, ‘Relax, soldier. I’m not gonna do anything to you. We don’t kill out of pure desire.’

‘You killed those people carrying the merchandise.’

‘I’d like to say that they were in the way of our treasure.’

‘But you still killed them.’ his eyes flash with anger, ‘You had a choice.’

For a few beats of silence, Rei only gazes at him while her lips are pressed together. He’s hit a nerve, he knows it by the tension around her jaw, the slight crease in the middle of her brows.

When she finally decides to respond, her tone is soft and totally unlike what Baekhyun would’ve imagined her to react. ‘I have no excuse for that.’ taking another swig of her beer, she gulps down the liquid before wiping with the back of her hand, ‘I guess you wouldn’t know it feels like to live outside these Walls. People die everyday, you’d know if you lived on the streets.’

‘So you were--’

‘I came from the City of Sand.’ she interrupts him abruptly, ‘I was young when my father was taken in for question by the Royal soldiers. Special orders, they said. He never came back. I never got to know why he was taken until I stumbled across his archives.’

‘Archives?’

‘Yeah.’ takes another huge gulp. ‘My father was an Alchemist, you see. I stumbled on his research a few years after he was sentenced to die. I still don’t know whether he’s dead. I just want to know what happened to him.’

‘And what about his research? What did you do with it?’

Alchemy is something that has always intrigued the Royal Palace of Saphirica, and Baekhyun’s ears can’t help but perk up at her words.

‘Read them. Tried playing around with it. But then I realized it wasn’t going to get me anywhere. I had a frail, sickly mother, a young, hungry brother. I couldn’t just sit around trying to figure out how to scientifically trane objects. So I started stealing, small things at first. Apples, pears, any kind of food. That was what I did for a living until I got caught my one of the soldiers. He wasn’t impressed and only let me off the hook because I was just a kid.’

She is spilling her past like Baekhyun is just a close friend whom she can deliver safe information without having to worry about the nature of his status, the words flowing right out of , as easily as freshwater from a stream. He wonders briefly whether it’s just the alcohol talking, and assumes that while it might have an effect on her self-restrained emotions, Rei doesn’t seem like the reckless type, to say whatever’s on her mind or to let her guard down around just anybody.

His chest tingles with happiness at the thought.

He realizes then, that she’s still a pirate. And he’s still a soldier.

The wind suddenly howls like a giant beast and Rei shuffles closer on her own accord, stumbling right into his shoulder and sharing his warmth. Baekhyun blinks down but from the girl’s distracted expression focused on the darkness ahead, he assumes that she hasn’t realized the lack of physical distance between their bodies.

Not that he minds. She’s warm and it’s cold. It’s only for convenience’s sake, right?

‘And then met Leroy. I was trying to steal his watch, actually. He caught me in the act, the bastard. Told me that if I cleaned his ship he’d give me ten gold coins. At that time, ten gold coins could feed my entire family for a week.’ Rei shakes her head at the memory while a small smile spreads across her lips. It’s a smile that seems full of nostalgia and though the young soldier wishes to ask more about her family, he doesn’t want to prod any further for fear that she’d just retract in her shell at the realization that she’s already spilled too much of her past.

‘And that’s how you got here.’ he finishes for her before she can say anything else.

With her own sigh, she nods and finishes off her beer in one last chug. He follows suit with his own and another gap of silence stretches against the time they spend watching the clouds glide across the sky in a sea of stars.

‘Leroy saw me.’ she suddenly blurts out and catches Baekhyun’s attention.

He blinks down at her and she takes this as her chance to continue, ‘He saw me, with that man.’ Emotion chokes the back of her voice, ‘Broke into the house in broad daylight.’ He sees her knuckles, shaking and clutching onto her beer can as if its physical presence can remind her of reality, of her sanity, ‘Had his way with me. I screamed. I yelled. I cried. Nobody came. My mother was dead. He killed her. He wouldn’t tell me what they did to my brother.’

Rei is so caught up in the flashes of memory flickering past her eyelids as fresh as it had just been yesterday, that it takes her by surprise to feel a warm touch at the corner of her eye, catching the tear threatening to slip down her cheek. She stares, stunned, at Baekhyun’s hand, eyes flying up to his face.

He seems momentarily stunned by his brash movement as well, for he quickly wipes at her cheek before bringing his hand down and clearing his throat. His hand curled in a fist at his side and the other crumpled up his can. A man taking advantage of a woman had always been something disgraceful, outrageously disgusting and abusive, but to do this to a child…

He feels like punching him in the face. No matter who it is, nobody deserves to be treated that way and anger suddenly rushes through his veins at the thought, blood boiling in barely restrained disgust.

‘They caught him, eventually. Had him chained up for a while.’ she murmured, ‘And that’s when I wanted Leroy to teach me. I wanted to fight to kill.’

‘Did they know who he was?’ Baekhyun asks hesitantly, ‘that man?’

‘Yeah.’ And then she looks at him straight in the eye, ‘He was a Royal Soldier.’

Author's Note:

Hello friends!

So for some reason I can't seem to remove the 'bold' property from this chapter so I hope this wasn't too much of an eyesore to read. If it was, i'm so sorry and I'll try to fix it for the later chapters to come. BUT HEY, on the other hand, WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK OF THIS?! 

Like it? Hate it? Let me know in the comments below about Baekhyun and Rei's characters. I do love me some character development so there you have it, poor baby Rei's past and pain are exposed. 

Thank you all for reading. It is such a pleasure and honor to have peple read what I write because writing means so much to me. I love you all! 

- nutmeggu.

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