In contrast to what Jongin had been expecting, Kyungsoo’s quarters were surprisingly plain. He had only chanced a peek inside the captain’s quarters on his former ship, but from what he remembered they had been strikingly opulent and filled with all manner of treasures and possessions.

He wondered how many of them had boarded the pirate ship with him.

Kyungsoo’s own quarters looked a lot like the rest of the ship, all wooden planks and boards with only a few more items on display and a handsome wooden desk in the corner of the room. Above it was a painting of a beautiful woman, who Jongin felt was scrutinising him as he sat down on the bed. The woman’s thickly lined eyes seemed to follow you around the room, but it didn’t appear to bother Kyungsoo, who was wordlessly getting ready for bed on the other side of the room.

All Jongin owned were the clothes he wore, but sleeping in them was normal at sea, he supposed. Even the captain himself simply removed his more ornate clothing – coat, boots, overshirt and such – before taking a seat on the bed beside Jongin. Jongin knew he shouldn’t have stared, but it was difficult not to when there was little else in the room to look at save for the woman on the wall.

“Jongin.”

Jongin was so caught off guard he could barely respond.

“Jongin.” The captain said again, but Jongin could only nod, no words coming out. This was the first time he had really been alone with the captain since their wordless encounter in the lower decks of Jongin’s last ship; what was he supposed to say? ‘So why didn’t you kill me back there exactly?’ no. ‘What’s the story of those scars?’ definitely not. ‘Why are you sitting so close to me?’ maybe, but the words just refused to form on his tongue. Kyungsoo’s hand was on the side of his face again, just as it had been the first time they bumped into each other.

Despite Minseok insisting Kyungsoo was good to his men, Jongin didn’t feel safe just yet.

“You may have already noticed, Jongin, but I am a man who pursues what he wants.” Jongin swallowed hard, not quite sure what the captain was getting at but still feeling hideously uncomfortable. Was Kyungsoo going to hurt him? He couldn’t recall if the door had been locked or not, but the side of the bed he was on was furthest from the door anyway. If he was being threatened, escape wouldn’t be easy, especially in the middle of the ocean like this. There was something odd about how Kyungsoo kept using his name, expression blank and unreadable as ever and voice composed as though he were reciting a grocery list. A thumb over Jongin’s cheek. “But also one who knows to choose his battles.”

The portrait of the glamorous young woman continued to stare at Jongin from over Kyungsoo’s shoulder, but he barely noticed, unable to move his gaze from the pirate captain’s face. It was like wherever on Jongin’s face the captain touched went numb, the boy frozen in fear.

“I want to kiss you, Jongin. I give you to the count of ten to refuse me.”

Kyungsoo began to count as Jongin’s thoughts scrambled. He hadn’t really been following Kyungsoo’s tangent to begin with and was completely baffled. By the slowly changing expression on Kyungsoo’s face, his eyes gradually widening while the gaps between each number grew and grew, he was just as confused as Jongin was. By the time he reached ten, Jongin had barely breathed, let alone said a word to refuse him. He didn’t quite close his mouth properly at ten, instead looking at Jongin curiously.

“Is this because you fear me? What I might do to you if you refuse?” His hand never left Jongin’s face. The younger boy gave no answer, not even a gesture as he remained frozen in place like a deer in headlights, but Kyungsoo continued. “You are on my ship now; you are one of my men. I am good to my crew.” His words didn’t reassure Jongin much, but it was still nice for him to say them. “You have the right to refuse. Now, I will give you until fifty to say no to me.”

He began to count again, slowly. Jongin’s thoughts hurried to catch up – this was Kyungsoo, the dreaded pirate captain with a rumoured body count higher than Jongin’s age. He had invaded Jongin’s former ship, wounded the captain, bound the crew, stolen their goods. There was still blood on his hands.

And now he wanted to kiss Jongin.

The captain passed twenty, twenty five, and Jongin still made no response. Was he paralysed by fear? He was breathing again, but still found nothing in him to say no to Kyungsoo. Words danced across his tongue, entertaining the thought of coming out, but none of them were ‘no’. He didn’t particularly want to kiss the pirate, but what with everything else that had happened that day, refusing just wasn’t a priority anymore. He wasn’t dead, he wasn’t in danger, it was as though his body had just given up on fighting anything that wasn’t going to hurt him.

The captain reached fifty, looking possibly the most expressive Jongin had ever seen him. He looked quite surprised. “You’re a funny one, aren’t you…?”

He pressed his mouth to Jongin’s then, fingers trailing from Jongin’s cheek down his neck. Although the younger boy made no move to respond, it didn’t seem to bother Kyungsoo at all, kissing him firmly before pulling away. Having resumed his usual blank face, he moved to extinguish the small lamp that had remained lit by the bed.

“Goodnight, Jongin.”

The captain made no more sound after that, though it was a long time before the telltale sounds of steady breathing indicated to Jongin that Kyungsoo was asleep. He lay awake for a long time in the unfamiliar bed, staring up at the ceiling although all he could see was total darkness. It had been a long, very strange day. This time yesterday he had been half asleep in the hold of his former ship, facing a long but uneventful day of mopping decks and being given orders. Now he was in a bed; a bed belonging to the most dangerous pirate on all the seven seas, the pirate who had asked to kiss him for some reason. He briefly wondered if the captain sleeping beside him had a habit of doing things like this.

“Kyungsoo’s never brought a person from another ship before…He’s brought back all kinds of treasures, weapons, curiosities, but never a person. I wonder what made him do that…”

He hadn’t been sure whether or not to believe Minseok earlier, but the strange way the rest of the crew reacted to him made him feel like it was true, especially the quartermaster’s shocked face when Kyungsoo insisted Jongin slept in his quarters. There was apparently no precedent for this and Jongin didn’t know whether to be relieved or terrified by that fact. Captain Kyungsoo was the most mysterious individual Jongin had ever encountered in his life, like a locked door holding thousands of secrets. What were they looking for out here? Why were they only targeting Sapphire Country ships? Why had Jongin been taken on board like this? How long had Kyungsoo been out here for? How old even was he, aside from ‘older than Jongin’?

Was every night going to be like this?

Breathing falling into the same rhythm as the veritable Pandora’s Box of mysteries beside him, Jongin fell into a fitful sleep.