It had been just two days into the voyage when the ship came to a stop.

Jongin hadn’t noticed at first, being busy with his mopping duties below deck. He was tired from getting little sleep the night before, and the repetitive motions of the mop on the floorboards led him to space out quite a bit as he worked. He didn’t feel the boat slowing to a stop, nor did he hear the thuds of unfamiliar footsteps on the top deck.

What he couldn’t miss, however, was the first scream.

Jongin’s blood ran cold at the sound, and he dropped his mop, covering his mouth to stifle a gasp. Damn. The mop didn’t exactly fall quietly. Where could he go? Where should he run? Was there even anywhere to run to? He’d barely been on this ship a few days and still had no bearings in the maze-like network of identical wooden corridors below deck. The yells of his crewmates and the shouted instructions of an unfamiliar voice were coming from all sides by now, and it was all Jongin could do not to faint on the spot. He pressed his back to the wall, bringing the mop closer to him with his foot to pick it up.

He silently prayed to not be seen.

Spare me. He thought over and over again, the mantra keeping his breathing steady. Spare me. Breathe in. Spare me. Breathe out. Spare me. Breathe in. Spare me. Breathe out. Spare me. Breathe in.

“Spare us!” Jongin almost choked – that was his captain. He clutched his mop close to his chest and kept praying. Hoping.

Please. Please. Please. Please. Please.

His mantra was no longer in time with his breaths, nor his heartbeat. He realised too late that as the voices from the upper decks were silenced, that he was thinking in time with the footsteps drawing closer and closer down the hallway.

Please.

The footsteps were hard, sharp. They clicked slightly – heeled boots, by the sound of it, perhaps with steel caps. The boots of someone Jongin didn’t want to be faced with in a dark, narrow corridor like this.

Please.

He’d joined the ship for a better life. Wasn’t eighteen too young to die?

The clicking came closer.

Jongin closed his eyes. Please.

Closer.

Closer.

The clicking stopped.

When Jongin finally opened his eyes again, there was a man stood in front of him with an unreadable expression. He was surprisingly young-looking, perhaps around Jongin’s age, though compensating in years what he lacked in height. His hair was black, like his eyes – large eyes, scanning Jongin from head to toe a few times before resting on his face. What little light made it into the corridor reflected from those eyes, from his earrings, from the buttons on his coat, from the buckles on his boots. Perhaps if Jongin were in any other situation, he would have taken more time to study the man’s face as he was Jongin’s, and maybe even found him quite handsome, if not a little beyond his years. Right now, however, he was all too focused on the sword the man held in his right hand.

A little blood tainted the blade; and the man in front of Jongin didn’t appear to be wounded.

Pirate.

This was it. Jongin was going to die here, in this hallway, as an unknown swabbing boy with little more than a mop to his name. His eyes remained trained on the other man’s sword – how was he going to die? Would he be stabbed? Cut to pieces? Would his killer be merciful or drag it out? Jongin bit his lip, hard enough to draw blood as he thought about his father. He’d see him again soon. His life flashed before his eyes on the plane of the intruder’s sword and he focused on memories of his father – being told he was a good boy, a clever boy, one who would go great places in life. His father would always say those words while ruffling Jongin’s hair. He could practically feel it now.

Except right now he could feel a hand on one side of his face. That wasn’t anything he remembered from his childhood. Tearing his eyes away from the sword, Jongin realised the hand on his cheek belonged to the man before him; weapon lowered, eyes not leaving Jongin’s face.

Jongin waited.

He waited for the man to raise his sword again and to kill him while he was distracted. He waited for the man to throw him to the floor and attack while he was immobile. He waited for something, anything. But nothing came. The man continued to lightly Jongin’s cheek, watching him closely.

Another thud from the upper deck caused the intruder to look away from Jongin for the first time, eyes to the ceiling. His hand dropped onto Jongin’s shoulder, then down to his own side.

Here it comes.

Whatever Jongin thought was coming never came, however, and the main simply edged past him and continued down the hall, boots clicking as he walked. His sword was raised again.

Once he was out of sight, Jongin collapsed to the floor, hiding his face in his hands. Too close.

He stayed where he was for a long time, listening to the shouts, the crashes, the thump-thump-thumping of rushing feet and heavy boots. Down the hall he saw other men he didn’t recognise running to and fro, carrying things, wielding swords. And yet in it all he never once saw a member of his own crew. A lump formed in his throat when he thought about what may have happened to the rest of them.

No. Perhaps they were alive. Maybe the captain was making negotiations on the top deck right now! They may not have treated him well, but Jongin had faith in his superiors. After all, they were superior for a reason, weren’t they? Using his mop to keep himself steady, Jongin slowly, quietly made his way through the labyrinth that was the area below deck, ducking into cupboards and small rooms whenever he heard a sound.

The entire way, he didn’t see a single soul. His own crew or otherwise.

When he found himself close to the top deck, he tried his best to hide in the doorway, peering out. The crew were all there, all fifty-odd men, alive by the looks of things, though all with their wrists bound, on their knees on the deck. His captain was at the front of the group, at the feet of a man Jongin had seen before.

Feet wearing low heeled boots that clicked when the wearer walked.

“Is this everyone?” The man, apparently the captain of the pirates, surveyed Jongin’s crew, sword drawn. Jongin could see a cut on his captain’s leg – that explained the blood on the other captain’s sword. “Looks like our business is almost done on this vessel. As soon as we’ve taken what we fancy.”

“How dare you vermin invade this ship?!” Jongin’s captain roared, spitting angrily at the pirate’s feet. “This ship belongs to the king of the Sapphire Country, and you dare waltz on board and take what you like?! Lawless sea rats like you will be wiped out one day, I swear it!”

The pirate captain’s expression darkened, and he adjusted his grip on his sword. Taking a step closer to Jongin’s captain, he raised the weapon, then quickly kicked the bound man hard in the stomach while he was distracted by the blade. Jongin’s captain fell on his side with a wheeze.

“I rarely cause unnecessary harm to my hostages.” The pirate spat on Jongin’s captain in retaliation, hitting him square in the face. “But if you’re going to be so rude, I may be forced to make an example out of one of you. The only question is who to choose…” He walked along the group again, running his fingers down the length of his sword. “The ship’s cook, perhaps? Or the navigator, to scupper your chances of making it back…” He stopped when he reached the captain once more, tapping the boards by the man’s head with the tip of his sword. “No, I think the captain himself would make the most impact, don’t you?”

Jongin’s captain suddenly changed his tune. “No! No, please, spare my life! Spare all of us! We are only loyal servants of our king! You pirates understand loyalty, don’t you? Please!” Looking around in desperation, his eyes met Jongin’s, the younger’s hiding place not being quite as effective as he hoped. “The swabbing boy! Grab him, someone!”

Before Jongin could move a muscle, two of the men at the back of the group, wrists still tied, managed to stand up and make their way towards him. They each seized one of Jongin’s arms and brought him out onto the deck, throwing him to the floor in front of the pirate captain. The friction against the boards grazed Jongin’s knees.

“Take him! He’s all yours, do whatever you want to him! Cut off his hands, throw him overboard, you name it, you can do it! Just please, spare the rest of our lives! The boy’s all yours!”

“Take him! Spare us!” The rest of the crew echoed.

Jongin had nothing to say. What could he say? All he could do was look up at the pirate captain, helplessly at his mercy. He hadn’t expected the pirate to be looking right back at him, that strange, blank expression on his face again, like it was below deck. Jongin didn’t expect to be spared a second time, not with an audience like this – more than fifty of his own crew and a handful of other pirates, to boot.

The pirate scowled, but not at Jongin. Hauling the swabbing boy up by the wrist, he waved his sword at the remainder of the crew. “What disgusting excuse for a crew are you?! To throw your own crew member down like meat to the wolves, this is what you call loyalty? You sicken me.” He yanked Jongin behind him, grip still tight around his wrist. “I’ll take your boy, but that’s not your punishment. Now you’ve just made me angry…”

“Captain.” Two young men with a frightening number of earrings between them paused by the pirate captain. From where Jongin was looking, they appeared to have more metal than actual ear.

“Jongdae, Sehun, go back below deck. Remember the chest we decided to leave behind? We’re not leaving it now.” The two men vanished, and the captain pointed his sword in the direction of another pirate; an incredibly tall man with bright orange curls and a somewhat unsettling smile. “Chanyeol, mark their sails. The whole ocean deserves to know of their cowardice.”

“Yes sir!”

Jongin remained rooted to the spot while the pirates followed their orders, quite unable to feel his hand anymore as the captain held onto his wrist so tightly. They stayed in front of Jongin’s crew, the captain holding his sword to their faces to keep them in line. The string of small throwing knives clearly strapped to the pirate’s thigh kept even the crew members in the very back in their places. Jongin didn’t look at any of them. He instead watched the red-headed pirate as he set about painting the sails in a blood red paint.

COWARDS.

Enormous letters across every single sapphire-blue sail, over and over again. The pirate captain seemed to admire his shipmate’s work as a small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. The two men who had disappeared below deck returned with a small chest Jongin had never seen before, as well as a large pile of blue fabric.

“Found their spare sails, captain. Should we destroy them?”

The pirate captain looked thoughtful. “Don’t waste them. We’ll find a use for them.” The men nodded and made their way across the makeshift board bridge to their own ship, with the red-headed pirate following suit once his work on the sails was done. Walking over to Jongin’s captain one last time, the pirate captain stamped hard on his leg. Jongin winced at the cracking sound that followed. “The real vermin here is not me.” The pirate hissed, following up with a swift kick in the face for good measure. Jongin couldn’t watch. “Good luck getting back to shore in your ropes.”

He was led across the board bridge wordlessly, away from the ship he had boarded back home and onto a deck covered in barrels, boxes and crates. The captain took up the boards and the pirate ship began to move away, and Jongin swallowed hard as he realised he was on a strange boat in a strange ocean with no idea what was going to happen to him. The red marks around his wrist reminded him of that very well.

“They should be honoured.” One of the pirates on the ship Jongin would now be calling home picked up one of the large crates with a grin. “Not everyone has the privilege of having their ship swept clean by the famous pirate captain Kyungsoo, do they?”

Pirate Captain Kyungsoo. Jongin’s former shipmates hadn’t told him much, but he knew that name. A young but ruthless pirate who targeted ships from Jongin’s homeland of the Sapphire Country. Nobody knew his exact body count, but what everyone knew well enough was that he wasn’t afraid to kill to get what he wanted.

Kyungsoo’s grip on Jongin’s wrist tightened as he pulled him over to a cluster of barrels.

Jongin wasn’t dead, but how long he would stay that way had yet to be determined.