“It was a little disconcerting, really,” Joonmyun sighed as he held up Kyungsoo’s coat, not exactly showing it to Jongin but not really talking to himself, either. “Seeing this coat so bloody. The cleaners have done an excellent job with it in such a short time.”

“Hn.” Jongin shook his head a little. He didn’t want to remember the sight so soon – it still haunted him sometimes, the extent of Kyungsoo’s concealed injuries from back then.

It was just the two of them, in Joonmyun’s bedroom just before the dawn. While the ship was being loaded up with supplies, Jongin and Joonmyun had busied themselves upstairs for now, Joonmyun with Kyungsoo’s coat and the portrait of the captain’s mother; Jongin with organising his own treasures.

His treasures, in his treasure box. Each item, tiny and in some cases insignificant as they may have been, was invaluable to him, all holding precious memories.

The necklace, his first earned spoil, remained around his neck for now. The dainty handkerchief favour from the Amethyst princess, the glass bottle from the night they landed at the coast, safely stowed away. His newest treasure, a rainbow of threads looping around his wrist, never left his arm.

“I still remember the day I bought this for him; shortly after I met him, when I found out he’d recently come of age.” With a sad smile, Joonmyun began folding the coat neatly, as if he had all the time in the world. “When are you classed as an adult in Sapphire Country? It’s sixteen, here.”

“Eighteen.” He didn’t even have to think. It had been a pretty unceremonious occasion for Jongin, personally, as he had to leave the orphanage as quickly as possible once the day finally came.

Joonmyun was quiet for a little while, continuing to fold the coat and humming softly in thought. “That actually puts you and your captain as closer in age than you might have thought. I don’t know if that surprises you at all.” He clucked his tongue a little. “Perhaps not, after all, you’ve seen Kyungsoo…rather vulnerable.”

Jongin coughed awkwardly, but gave no response.

Perhaps sensing Jongin’s discomfort, Joonmyun didn’t press further but instead changed the subject back. “Is there any tradition for coming of age in Sapphire Country? Most Opal youths are gifted with jewellery on their sixteenth birthday, but Kyungsoo wouldn’t accept any. He’s never really been interested in any…” finished with the coat, he moved to take the portrait of Kyungsoo’s mother out from its hiding place under the bed. He studied it a while. “…most jewellery.”

“I don’t know much about girls, but boys receive watches. It’s meant to symbolise becoming a man, somehow. Even though we were poor, my father tried to save money towards getting me one in future, but that didn’t exactly work out.” Jongin laughed a little, turning his attention back to his treasure box.

He brushed his fingertips over the colourful feathers adorning the set of tiny daggers, sitting innocently in the box next to the bottle and the handkerchief.

Picking one of the blades out of the box, he lightly the purple and blue feather, before pocketing it quietly.

Flicking his gaze back up to where Joonmyun was standing, over by the bed, Jongin realised that the older man had been watching. The same sad smile, the corners of his mouth turned up, but his eyes wavering, just a bit.

Joonmyun crouched beside Jongin, and held his arm out beside the younger’s.

“Jongin…when you come back, I think silver would match best with your earrings, don’t you?”

The chilly morning breeze stung Jongin’s cheeks just a little, as though the summer were kissing him its last goodbyes before autumn truly set in. The sun wasn’t up, not yet, and it hung almost lazily in the violet sky. Behind him, Emerald sails rippled quietly in the wind, itching for the next part of their adventure to begin.

There were no tiny figures on the sand today, and instead Jongin watched as the remainder of the crew said their farewells to Joonmyun and Yixing. Zitao and Baekhyun, the medics, were laughing and hugging. Chanyeol leaned against Yifan as the pair checked over the ship for damages one last time. Kyungsoo, his coat fluttering behind him a little, spoke with Joonmyun and Minseok in hushed tones. Jongin couldn’t hear what they were saying.

He could, however, hear Jongdae and Yixing.

“If I didn’t have my responsibility to my patients here, I’d be on that ship in a heartbeat, you know.” Jongin knew he shouldn’t have listened in, not on a private conversation, but he couldn’t help himself. They were close enough to the Siren, there on the shore, and between Yifan and Chanyeol’s bickering, he listened anyway.

“This could be it. I’ll be back before you know it, and then I’ll never have to leave your side again. I promised you that.”

Jongin looked away moments before the pair’s lips touched, and he quickly busied himself with ferrying food supplies from the deck to the galley. Navigating the narrow hallways, every tap of his foot and every beat of his pulse hammered it further home that this was no aimless wander, like the voyages before; this was a pursuit, a chase, a hunt.

And quite possibly, the end.

Despite Kyungsoo’s assurance, Jongin wasn’t quite ready to accept that it was coming. He knew he should be excited – the possibility of a stable future, with someone he cared for, it was more than he could dream of, and right within his reach. But life on the Siren had become his everything, it was all he knew.

He took a detour then, from the galley down to the Captain’s quarters. Of course, it was his quarters too, by now, but he still felt a hint of hesitation as he pushed open the door, like a naughty child sneaking out without permission.

The desk, the bed, the portrait on the wall, everything was in its place.

Flopping onto the bed, Jongin closed his eyes with a sigh.

He was in his place.

Jongin lay like that for a while, gazing up at the ceiling and thinking about absolutely everything and absolutely nothing at the same time. As the minutes ticked by, he became gradually more aware of an uncomfortable, sharp poking sensation on one of his thighs.

Ah. The dagger.

That could have been nasty. He sat up with a little stretch of his arms, before carefully putting the dagger into a place of its own; the bedside drawer. He gave the feathers a last, fond with his fingertips before closing the drawer.

The sunlight through the room’s tiny window darkened briefly, a sudden caw from outside as a seagull flapped alongside the Siren. The caws of the gulls and the sounds of waves splashing playfully up the sides of the ship – for how much longer would he get to listen to this?

“Has anyone seen Jongin?” Minseok’s concerned voice from above deck. “He’s not left the dock, has he?”

He scrambled to his feet then, hurrying out of the Captain’s quarters without hesitation. Now wasn’t the time for daydreaming; they had places to be.

“So. Mermaids.”

The waters were calm and the horizon was clear, though the gradually darkening sky – despite it being barely noon – carried the threat of rainfall to come. After taking inventory in the galley and hold with Minseok, Jongin had found himself on the deck with Sehun and Luhan. With the ship on course for now, there was little to do but watch as the sky clouded over, pointing out shapes as they passed. The other two had gotten distracted a while ago, however.

“Are a load of garbage, honestly. They can’t be real.”

“No way! They have to be real! Just because you’ve never seen one doesn’t mean they don’t exist, Sehun!”

Jongin didn’t join in with the navigators’ bickering, instead quietly watching the clouds. He was fairly sure he saw a sea urchin in one cloud, and perhaps a pair of trousers in another.

“Even if they did exist, how would you know? You don’t strike me as the kind of man who would be affected by mermaid song, anyway.”

“Sehun!”

That one looks exactly like a fish. It’s uncanny. Jongin poked his tongue out in concentration as he searched for more shapes.

“I’m just telling it like it is.”

“I bet you don’t believe in the kraken either.”

“Nope.”

Is that one a dog? His focus was broken by the sudden fluttering of paper somewhere to his right, as Luhan swatted the younger navigator with the map they were supposed to be using. Deciding to leave the pair to their…whatever they were doing, Jongin stood up and made to go back below deck.

His feet led him past the quarters of the rest of the crew. From the sound of things, as he passed, Chanyeol, Baekhyun, Zitao and Yifan were playing some kind of card game inside. Yifan’s grumbled curses made it clear that he wasn’t doing very well, whatever the game was.

It struck Jongin that, for all the time he had spent on the Calling Siren, he had never actually been inside the general quarters. He could go in now, he supposed, but it was really already out of the question – his feet were way ahead of his thoughts, and he continued down the halls, through the maze, before reaching the kitchen, of all places. The whistling from inside, in time with the steady chop-chop-chopping sounds, meant Minseok was already making a start on dinner. Come to think of it, he hadn’t had a chance to see the quartermaster in private for a long time.

After a few gentle knocks, Jongin let himself inside.

“I thought it might be you,” Minseok’s attention never left the vegetables in front of him, but he smiled just a little bit as he spoke, waiting until the door closed behind Jongin before continuing, “nobody else ever bothers to knock, you know. You’re a nice boy.”

“Do you need a hand with those?” Jongin’s time onboard had led to him developing quite the varied skill set, which now included chopping carrots with at least a third of the efficiency that Minseok did. Minseok placed another knife and a few carrots on the countertop beside him in lieu of an answer, and Jongin quickly got to work, soon falling into pace with the older pirate.

They worked quietly for a while, chopping various vegetables for the stew that awaited the crew later on. It was a wonderful thing, Jongin thought, that they managed to eat so well for the first week or so on the water. The galley was small but efficiently run, with vegetables, salted meat and hardtack kept almost religiously in their places and stocks topped up every time they engaged another vessel. The luxury of fruit, too, was anything but taken for granted as Minseok admitted to keeping whatever fruit stores they may have in the hold in order to keep it away from the cookpot fire. ‘Keeps it from spoiling quite so fast’ he had said.

An approving hum from Jongin’s side. “You’ve gotten good, you know. Perhaps when we return to the Opal Coast for the last time, you’ll be the competition for my old job.”

Jongin chuckled as he set to work dicing a potato. “No, no, don’t worry about that. I’m thinking of…other plans.” Perhaps the captain’s little invitation should stay a secret for now; they didn’t need the whole ship gossiping about them any more than they probably already were. “I’ve learned a lot since I was brought here – swordplay, hand-to-hand, a little woodworking, how to change sails, constellations from Sehun and Luhan…” Love went unsaid. “And chopping vegetables, apparently.”

“I know that feeling,” Minseok laughed, but his hands remained steady. “In our earlier days, when the crew was smaller, we sometimes seized the chickens kept on other ships for our meat supplies – I hadn’t exactly planned on learning how to properly butcher and prepare the birds, but I suppose it’ll be a useful skill.” He pulled a face. “It makes me almost glad that as the crew grew larger it became more practical to keep salted meat stocks instead of trying to maintain the live ones. All that salt is still more appetizing than having to deal with the whole process, from bird to boil.”

“You seem to cut up people just fine.” Jongin mumbled, not really intending for Minseok to hear him. The quartermaster snorted beside him, those steady hands wavering this time.

“Comes with the job. When there’s a job to be done, you do it no matter how unpleasant it may be. There’s a reason I’m the second in command on here.” He took out a sweet potato this time, and set about cutting it just as the others had been. Not really looking at his work, he tipped his head back with a sigh. “I’m barely the same man I was when I left the coast for the first time, all those years ago. You’re barely the same, and you’ve been here for what, half a year or so?” Jongin nodded with a grin. “I’m not sure how I feel about it. Me, I mean – I’m glad you’ve settled with us now, it’s nice to not have to lie to you anymore.”

Jongin didn’t actually ask Minseok about these ‘lies’, but the indignant little noise he made and the way his hand slipped to cut his potato at a strange angle gave him away anyway.

“Oh, you know, about the captain, about what we knew. We don’t really know the whole story, but we know enough. His mother was killed, and we’re hunting the killer so Kyungsoo can have his revenge and take back what was stolen from him. We know that much.” He poked his tongue out in thought. “He’s very keen on his privacy, Kyungsoo, so we didn’t want to give much away at the beginning. I believe he told you the story himself?” Another nod. “Nice. Nobody’s had that honour since Luhan joined, if I remember correctly. We told Sehun ourselves when the captain allowed us to, and the new pair found out last night. They had to know eventually. The Siren’s story is coming to an end…” Another sigh. The sweet potato was diced neatly now, and he swept it into a bowl with the rest of the chopped vegetable to put in the cookpot later. “Do you know something?”

After all this time, Jongin honestly didn’t know anything when people asked him that. With no real reply to give him, Jongin just hummed and pretended to cut the already tiny bits of carrot into even smaller pieces, waiting for Minseok to continue.

“...aside from Kyungsoo, I’m the only one to have seen the Siren the whole way through, from the very beginning.” He smiled again then, fond, almost wistful. “We were so young.”

“You’re still young. You can’t be older than what, twenty five?”

“We were really young.” The smile faded somewhat. “With the engagements and such, there was a bit of a…difficulty curve. Kyungsoo had an impressive amount of confidence, even when we started out, and had no problems intimidating the enemy into submission until we were strong enough to overpower them ourselves. He was rather rough around the edges, quick to draw his sword, yes.” Jongin couldn’t imagine that, even thinking back to the cold, intimidating figure Kyungsoo cut on the day they met. “Kids like you and Sehun, you’ve been thrown into the fray as it is now with no chance to ease in, and look what’s happened to you.” With his free hand, he patted Jongin’s scarred cheek lightly. “Not even mentioning poor Chanyeol. He and Baekhyun have to sleep in my quarters this time around, as Chanyeol’s phantom pains would keep everyone awake in the general quarters.” Another sigh. “I’m so sorry.”

Jongin just shrugged. “I mean, it beats being homeless back in Sapphire Country. I can handle a few scrapes.”

“You’ve been cut to ribbons, from what Zitao tells me.” His eyes were sad, but he turned his attention back to the vegetables anyway. “He’s surprised there’s any blood left in you.”

“Wounds heal. They always heal.”

There was silence, then, as Minseok went to set a fire going underneath the cookpot. The crackling flames and the soft splash of the vegetables being tipped into the pot were comforting, a little bit like coming home. A small amount of meat, taken from the salt barrels and prepared by Minseok before Jongin had come in, joined the vegetables in the water.

In the glowing firelight, Jongin could see the smile once again returning to Minseok’s lips.

“They really do, don’t they…?” He chuckled and poked at the fire, smile widening as it flared out. “That captain of ours was a broken boy, and then a broken man. I feel like at last, he’s starting to piece back together. Don’t you?”

Jongin excused himself from the galley, the prep work all finished, and decided he needed to go for a long, quiet walk around the upper deck.

Although dinner was as rowdy as always, Jongin couldn’t help but notice something was wrong.

Jongdae, usually the life of the room, ate his meal in near silence, as if there was nobody else around him. He had brushed off Luhan’s concerns for his health, and Minseok had spent the entire meal watching Jongdae with a worried expression. The medic never acknowledged him, and while the others continued their merry chatter (Yifan’s a dirty cheater!!) an uncomfortable atmosphere settled on their side of the table.

He decided to seek Jongdae out after dinner, and it actually ended up being easier to find him than expected.

All he had to do was follow the singing.

Jongin knew that song by now; a love song, written by Jongdae himself, for Yixing. His chest ached a little as he followed the music – the lyrics were tender, but the vocals were wavering, strained.

It sounded almost like crying. The most musical crying Jongin had ever heard, but crying nonetheless.

He found Jongdae in the lookout, watching the stars as he sang as though by gazing up at those same stars Yixing would hear him somehow.

“Jongdae?”

“Hn?” The singing came to an abrupt stop, and Jongdae turned to face him. “Oh, hello.”

“Are you alright?”

The hesitation in Jongdae’s expression was almost heartbreaking. “Yes.”

“Are you lying?”

“…yes.”

“It’s okay to miss him.” The wind whooshed in agreement, and Jongin settled properly by the older man’s side. “It’s natural, after all, you love him.”

A quiet snicker. “Look at our ship’s little baby, talking about love.” He ruffled Jongin’s hair affectionately, and Jongin didn’t mind, not when Jongdae was finally smiling.

There was something Jongin couldn’t help but notice, though. A something different when Jongdae brought his hand through Jongin’s hair.

Metal.

“What’s that?” He didn’t reach out to Jongdae as he would to Kyungsoo, but Jongdae seemed to know what Jongin meant anyway, and held his hand – left hand - out for the younger to see. His fingers fanned out under the moonlight, and something on the fourth finger glinted white.

“This…” He looked away again, gazing into the infinity above them and raising his hand as if to touch the stars themselves.

“This is my promise to return to the Opal Coast alive.”