“Ahoy, this is your captain speaking,” a muddle, rugged voice blasted out of the speakers around the corners of every hall or deck, in english, “Welcome to the Elizabeth Marié, named as the lady of the sea from the 1860s.” 

The members gasp in awe, as they entered the open sky deck, amazed by the vast sea and the luxury of the cruise. “It’s the sea!” Luhan squealed, in a manner that he would forever deny being girly, and ran straight to the railings, followed by Minseok, Jongdae and Yixing. Chanyeol reached for his camera that he had specifically brought for the trip. Well, not exactly a trip but they take what they can get.

Tao had lagged behind the group, watching the SM staff members scout around the cruise, setting up their equipment for the shot. 

Yifan noticed Tao’s glance that flickered to almost everywhere on the cruise, unknowing that he was actually assessing the environment and commented, “Are you nervous?” 

“Hmm?” Tao hummed in confusion, missing Yifan’s question as he snapped from his assessment. 

“Wow, that much huh?” Yifan smiled, watching the younger adorably tilt his head to the confusion, “The photoshoot, it must be your first one.” 

“Of course,” Tao nodded, unfocused, his attention still with the staff members. 

You see, it had been around two weeks since they had been confirmed for a debut as a team of twelve. An uncommonly quiet and peaceful, if not tense, two weeks. Tao and Baekhyun have been strung on edge every single day of those weeks, waiting for the bomb to drop. What with the USB stolen and no confirmation of the thief, they had been very wary of everything. 

No wonder that it came as a surprise when Lee Soo Man penciled a shoot for their jacket album, and also profile, for their upcoming debut and promotions. And on top of that, being done on a ship no less, an antique one. 

Baekhyun and Chanyeol wondered around in awe, or at least in Baekhyun’s case a fake awe, along with the rest of the members. Luhan and Kyungsoo pointed out at things, asking what they were and their uses, while Joonmyeon and Yixing do their best to provide them with answers as they’re most intellectually informed in the group. 

“The prestigious Elizabeth Marié, named after the first daughter of the renowned and highborn Charles Maisonné, the duke and sailor of the 18th century, was a steamboat cruise made specifically for royalty to travel between borders in 1864,” Minseok announced from the back of the group in front of Tao and Yifan, “It was known to have survived a storm in the rocky lands of Babylon, making it the first steamboat cruise to ever do so.” 

Everyone stated at Minseok in surprise, before he flashed a cheeky smile that rounded his fluffy cheeks and held up a pamphlet, “At least, that’s what’s written here.” 

Scoffing at the elder’s antics, they wandered around the deck in the spare time they were allowed whilst the crew scouted out and set up equipment. Chanyeol had taken the liberty to take pictures of the members in their own impromptu pre-photoshoot photoshoot – to which Baekhyun teased his ‘friend’ for being redundant – until Jongin had shouted for them to all take a group picture, and that it has to include Chanyeol as well. 

“Excuse me,” Chanyeol reached out to a worker, a foreignor wearing a stained blue jumpsuit, “Can you please take a picture for us?” 

Even though it was an British Steamboat, the crew was mostly Korean, and even those who were not Korean knew the language well. 

“I’m sorry, but I’m really in a hurry,” He replied hastily with a weird accent in his Korean, wishing to take off but Chanyeol flashed his puppy eyes and shaggy hair with an added please, before the man relented, albeit not due to the temptation the taller had offered. 

The worker seemed ready to bolt when he had given back Chanyeol’s camera to him when Luhan, bless him, pried to ask more question, being the curious soul he was, “Mister, what do you do here?” 

“I’m the coal digger,” He spewed out in a rush, trying to get away as quick as possible, but Tao’s eyebrows flew to his hairline with the answer. “I feed the coal to the incinerator of the engines so the steamboat could work.” 

Everyone’s eyes widened in recognition, immediately looking at the three large pipes in black with red stripes. Sehun gasped, “Those things actually work?” 

“Well of course it does, it’s the engines to power this bad boy,” The worker smiled convincingly. 

Tao once again frowned at the man’s answer, he eyed the the man’s work clothes, the stains and coating of white residue by his sleeves and his torso. He side eyed his brother before asking to the man, “So you work with coals?” 

“Yes.” The man swiftly answered, then promptly excusing himself, “Now please excuse me, I really do have to go.” 

They apologized for taking the worker’s time and watching him scurry down the staff’s stairs. Tao glared after him, while the others went back to their stance of admiring the ship they were in. Baekhyun, noticing his younger brother’s odd behavior, stepped away from Chanyeol’s side to attend to him. 

“Hey, you alright?” The elder questioned the younger, following his line of sight down the stairs. 

“He’s lying.” Tao answered short. 

Baekhyun’s brows raised, “The worker?” To which Tao gave another short answer in the form of a nonverbal nod. “What do you mean he’s lying?” 

“He’s not a coal digger,” Tao explained, still frowning at the empty staircase the said liar disappeared into seconds ago. 

Baekhyun’s eyebrows frowned even deeper, “And why would you say that?” 

“Because this ship does not have a steam engine,” Tao sighed wearily, looking at the steam pipes offendingly, “Those are just there for decorations.” 

Baekhyun couldn’t help but be confused at this point, what was his younger brother going on about? “Tao, this is a steamboat, it would be safe to assume it runs on steam engines.” 

Tao stared at his brother incredulously, “Didn’t you hear Minseok hyung?” Baekhyun cocked his brows, not getting the point. “The storm, the ship survived the storm. But that’s not completely true, it got wrecked badly in the maintenance side although no passengers were harmed. 

“So they repaired the cruise and remodeled it so that it has a motor engine like most ships these days,” Tao informed his now frowning brother. 

“White residue,” Baekhyun mentioned at the top of his head, “He worked with coal, but he had white residue on his clothes.” 

“They’re more pale yellow, but yes. That was also a point that I wanted to make.” The younger wanted to make a move to follow the worker down, but his brother held him in place. 

“Tao.” Baekhyun reprimanded him, his message clear in his voice. Do not meddle with things that need not be meddled with. Do not draw attention to themselves. Blend in. That was what the Company has told them. 

“Hyung.” Tao took Baekhyun’s tone on himself and stared his brother dead in the eyes. For they knew each other like the back of their hands, Tao knew they were both curious but cautious. 

An unanonymous decision was made to follow where this leads, but when Tao and Baekhyun were about to take off the sky deck when two hands grabbed them. 

“Come on, we need to go,” Yifan pulled at Tao’s arms by his elbow, Chanyeol being a lot more brave holding Baekhyun’s hands. 

The brothers shared a look of desperation, but followed anyways. They’ll have time after the shoot. 

~

The shoot turned out to be divided in groups, according to their division for sure, and they had taken pictures of the members individually. They had finished with the group shots first, luckily. For that reason, it was simple for Baekhyun and Tao to sneak out the shoot in the pretense of wanting to cruise around the cruise. Hah. 

It was around the time Sehun was doing his shoot at the dining cart and the other members were either monitoring him or grabbing a snack or two – waiting – when the siblings made their excuse to leave the premises. 

Tao quickly headed for the sky deck once they were safely out of the cabin, Baekhyun right on his tail. The two went to the staircase leading downwards that the worker had previously entered. 

They completely ignored the employee’s only sign and proceeded to the rusted red door. “After you,” Baekhyun mocked, holding the door open once he saw the dimly lit spiral staircase.

Tao merely glared at his brother, obeying his order to go in first. The door closed behind Baekhyun and they stopped for a second, looking at each other, then continued their path down. There was another door at the end of the staircase, and Tao waited for his brother to reach him before opening the door together. 

“Well, you were right about the motor engines.” Baekhyun commented, trying to lighten up the dingy smell of rust and oil. Tao coughed in response, also due to the smoky air exhaust that was let out in concession to when the gears moved. 

The younger of the two brought his sleeves to his nose, trying to block out the smoke in vain, “Doesn’t make me feel better.” 

“Now that we’ve proven he’s lying, what do we do?” Baekhyun asked, tinkering around with the control monitor to the engines, figuring out how the motors work. “According to this, there are no coals used to power anything, oh and huge amounts of fossil fuel, obviously.” 

Baekhyun sighed, checking the levels of the fuel and the big tank that laid on the side of the engine room – knowing perfectly where the waste would go – , “Can’t imagine what wonders Lil Ol’ Elizabeth does to pollution.” 

The younger scoffed at his brother’s sarcasm, disappearing behind the big pipe lines snaking around the place and the tanks, “Dare you try saying that ten times fast.” 

“Lil Ol’ Elizabeth, Lil Lol Lizabeth, Lilol Lizbuth, Lilellolizbth,” Baekhyun stopped with a grimace, in a breath as he did so, displeased at falling for his brother’s trick. He pressed a button to release exhaust by the engine Tao was near to, and the smoke hit the younger square in the face. 

“Loser.” Tao snarked lamely, wiping the soot from his face with little success, leaving behind a trail of black soot across his cheeks. 

His prankster of a brother gave him a bright cheeky smile, plopping into one of the steel wheel chair, in response. He rubbed his hands together and started when he found an online computer, “Hello mama.” Hacking into the servers in record time, he browsed through the files of the employees before pulling up the layout construction of the ship. 

“Baekhyung!” Tao hollered from the far-side left of the room, “There’s a door here with a passcode.” 

“A passcode? Why would they need one here of all places?” Baekhyun memorized the outline of the map in his brain, being exceptionally good with his trained photographic memory, “There’s no record of any security measures in the design map.” 

The elder scurried over to his younger brother, weaving through the maze of pipes. He inspected the small device planted to the wall on the right of the metal door. “Huh,” He muttered out, following the cables of the device connected to an open cut at the mainline frame of wires along the cruise’s walls. “This is installed recently, and unofficially.” 

“The worker?” Tao offered and Baekhyun nodded with a, “Probably yeah.” 

The shorter went ahead and pried open the cover of the device with a sharp metal scrap he found lying on one of the tables. The cover revealed a couple of wires connected to parts and pieces of the device, Baekhyun cut open red and blue wires with the metal scrap, getting rid off the rubber layer, then connected it by twisting the copper wires together. With a last action of cutting open the green wire and twisting the copper hairs, he directed it to the twisted blue and red wires – making the open copper hairs touch – and the device sparked at the touch but soon provided a green light as the door clicked. 

“Sometimes, you gotta do it old school,” Baekhyun smirked, opening the door with such sass, flipping his invisible long hair that Tao dodged to play along. 

Baekhyun trudged along forward, not minding the floor as he walked. Sad to say, he had to pay the consequences of not being more wary as the second his brother caught up to him, he let out an unmanly scream as he toppled down. 

“WOAH.” He screeched, missing the step that leaded to the adequately lower ground. He kneeled in the fall, letting his hands come in front of him to balance himself. Only then did he notice that the lower ground was flooded with a slippery yellow liquid, and now he was covered in said substance up to his knees and sleeves.

Tao stepped down carefully from the dry platform into the submerged floor, the substance going up to his ankles, “I’m going on a limp here and say this is not supposed to be here.” 

Baekhyun gave him a dead stare. Tao chose to ignore his brother, going ahead while the latter tried to squeeze himself off the liquid as best as he could, grumbling to himself. The younger went deeper in the hollow room, to which it opened up to a bigger dome space. It was quite hard not to notice the big enough cylindrical tube to take the whole room that ran through the middle of the dome, straight from one wall into the other, and it seemed to be the cause of the leak.

“Hyung,” Tao struggled opening the hatch of the tube, “Come on, a little help here.” 

Baekhyun gave up crumpling his clothes and simply took off his cardigan, seeing his brother try to open the hatch, “Oh and what? Go take a dip in that thing?” 

Tao didn’t answer, choosing to stray to the side to pick up one of the jaded pipes left lying there. Baekhyun let his jaw drop in shock, “What? No!” 

“We don’t even know what this is? This could be poisonous and you wanna go diving in the thing?” Baekhyun yammered on, waving around his arms where the sleeves have been coated by the ‘thing’, “It could kill you!” 

Tao gave one last strength on the pipe to where he had stuck the jaded edge on the hatch and placed his weight on the other side of the pipe, like a crowbar, before it opened with a creak and a puff of exhaust. “Well, let’s find out.” 

Having no other options but to join his brother, Baekhyun walked on over to Tao, grumbling while looking at his cardigan and knees in distaste, “Doesn’t matter if we live anyway, the stylist is gonna flip her and kill us instead.” 

Tao stripped off his ripped black denim jeans, but kept his boxer-briefs on. He urged his brother to do the same, to which Baekhyun relented to. The younger was only wearing a henley with stripes to copy a sailor’s uniform, so he figured he could keep the clothes on. Baekhyun on the other hand, had only his button down left, to which he was forced to keep on. 

“We’re actually doing this,” Baekhyun narrated off to no one in particular, watching his brother jump into the big pipe through the open hatch. The hatch was along the top of the pipe, ranging wide so the pipe opened like a boat, big enough to fit at least seven people in it while standing.

The liquid went up until Tao’s waist so his shirt didn’t get soiled. He walked around a bit, as the open hatch allowed him to. And that was when his foot nudged something cold, “Hyung. There’s something in here.” 

Tao bent down to submerge himself in the liquid, sending a small apology to his stylist in his head, and closed his eyes shut. His hands roamed around blindly until it grasps a glass cylindrical tube. 

Baekhyun dipped himself in the liquid slowly, protesting a mile a minute. He got his bearings together and waded over to Tao, just when he fished out the tube in display. Baekhyun took it in his hands when Tao dived back in to look for more.

“Is this what I think it is?” Baekhyun asked, taken aback, turning the tube in his hand. In it was a pale yellow substance that builded up on one side like a rock, and the rest of the space was filled with the same liquid that they were submerged in. 

Tao popped back to the air, wiping his eyes, and in his hands were more of the cylindrical tubes. He looked at them, then at his brother, “You can’t be serious.” 

“Only one way to know,” Baekhyun took a breath, his eyes raking the place until he found a puddle of water at the base of the dome that was barely far enough, but Baekhyun took the chance anyway. 

The elder opened the tube with a hard twist of the hand at the white sealed cap, and dumped out all the liquid. “Hyung!” Tao panicked but Baekhyun just gave him one of his stares before the substance came tumbling to his hands, and he quickly submerged it in the liquid they were in. He picked out a small speck from the pale yellow solid quite easily to which he commented on, “Easily cut.” 

Tao gulped when he saw his brother raise it out to the air and the substance harden to a solid. He was almost sure he knew what it was, but his brother needed more proof to be certain so Baekhyun took the small solid in his fist and raised it. 

“Wait hyu-,” Tao started, however drowned by Baekhyun’s shout, “possibly a FIRE IN THE HOLE.” 

They both duck for cover when the rock hit the water at the far side of the dome. It exploded. A big one. The force of it shook the pipes but did not do much damage. And that was only but a grain of the substance. 

Both of them peeked out of the liquid in precaution. Baekhyun was the first one to straighten himself, bringing a hand to his head, “Wow. Okay, that is definitely Magnesium.” 

Tao could only hang his mouth open in the air, unable to process his brother’s reckless thinking. 

“Well then this must be some sort of oil,” Baekhyun commented, cupping a hand full of the oily liquid, going over the edge to read the labels on the pipes and read out, “Ah. Fossil fuel.” 

The shorter doubled back, dropping the liquid back with a splash, “Fossil fuel?! They flooded the place with fossil fuel?! A place with a broiler next door! They must be suicidal, or really dumb.” 

Tao finally got his words, or rather actions, as he slapped his brother at the back of the head. His brother ducked his head at the pain, clutching it with a protest. Tao simply reprimanded him, “And you threw magnesium at a water causing an explosion in a room filled with fossil fuel? When we are covered in fossil fuel.” 

Baekhyun stopped and had the decency to look sheepish, flashing a nervous smile and went to put the substance back in the tube. Tao dropped the scolding and tried to collect all of the remaining tubes. 

“Hey, should we ask the obvious question here or leave it alone?” Baekhyun asked, helping his brother contain all the tubes in his arms. Tao continued letting his hands roam around, stretching his neck out to keep his face above the fuel to breathe and replied in monotone, “You mean why would they be transporting magnesium through cruise in open water?” 

“Well yes,” Baekhyun commented, readjusting his hold on the tubes, “And why the worker would want to steal them.” 

“I’m not sure that foreign worker is just a worker anymore,” Tao stated before going down to dive once more. Baekhyun waited for his brother, counting the tubes in his hand. 

Tao dove back up with a rush of breath but this time he wasn’t carrying more tubes, it was a metal briefcase. Baekhyun raised his eyebrows, nearly dropping his load, “That’s new.” 

“Found this in the deeper corners of the pipe, right before the bar gate that filters the fuel through that wall,” Tao huffed, clearly out of breath. He steadied the case on the open hatch, thankfully it didn’t have a password to open it. The space was fitted with a black foam that had rectangular holes in it, ten of them. 

Baekhyun dropped the load at the hatch too, reaching out for the case, “Wait,” He murmured, with one tube in his hand he fitted them in the case, “Perfect match.” 

Tao began filling the case with the tubes, stopping short when he and Baekhyun noticed something out of place. 

There were ten spaces and only nine tubes.

One of them was gone. 

~

Needless to say that the stylist was pissed to see them, she was actually furious, like raging bull on steroids in a rodeo furious. She took one look at them and she almost fainted, but her body opted to scream and shriek at the two instead. At the very least, Baekhyun and Tao did look guilty.

“The worker’s got one of the tubes,” Baekhyun whispered to him, “We need to find him before he does something stupid.” 

Tao leaned close to Baekhyun in the dressing room, “How much damage could one tube do?” 

“That much could level off an entire country side if dropped in a lake.” Baekhyun gritted out, fitting himself in the new cardigan, which was tighter than the last one. 

Baekhyun was whisked away for his individual shoot before Tao could ask him more, but by the looks of the warning Baekhyun gave him, he knew his brother was giving him the ‘be careful’ look. And that was the only confirmation Tao needed to rush out again. 

~

Tao is not as good as his brother when it comes to finding leads, action was more of his thing. He wasn’t bad at it, he just wasn’t as good. So all he could hope to do when finding a worker he only saw once, was to go to a place he knew the worker was in. The pier was most likely the best choice. 

The pier at the back had no security camera’s guarding it, because the place was off limits to passengers and wasn’t anything that held of any importance. It was more pipe lines and panels for air filtration. Which is exactly where someone with something to hide will go. 

Tao popped open the hatch of the vent and scrambled out of it. He quickly placed it back to its place and went searching for the worker. 

Which wasn’t really hard as he was standing right in front of him, as if he was waiting. 

“I was wondering when you’d show up,” The worker crossed his arms as he leaned on one of the bigger panels as he spoke in english, his blonde hair disheveled by the wind.

Tao patted himself down, unaffected by the man, replying in perfect english, “Really? Then you must why I’m here.” He smiled to him before turning his smile down to something a bit more sinister, “Now give me the tube.” 

The foreigner smiled back and challenged him by pulling out the tube from his back pocket, “This?” He dangled it from his hands, “I’m going to say no thank you.”

“What are you planning to do with it?” Tao asked, getting his stance ready for a sudden fight, if necessary. 

“None of your business,” The older man sneered, “But rest assured, it’s got nothing to do with this cruise or the passengers.” 

Tao clicked his tongue once, tilting his head to the side and back, “Pretty daring of you, stealing Magnesium in the vast seas, trapped in a metal floating coffin.” 

The foreigner took a step forward, to which Tao steeled his arms, ready for an attack but the expression on the former looked weird, confused even. “You think I stole this?” 

Tao’s slight drop of his mouth and widening of his eyes were all the foreigner needed to confirm his suspicion, and he laughed, shook his head and smiled, “Well, this just gets better and better.” 

With that the foreigner lunged forward, taking a jab at Tao. He was surprised by the information and was panicking in his mind to somehow get the information to Baekhyun that he did not have time to dodge, so he got hit in the gut. 

Tao doubled back in pain, his necklace by the stylist broke and scattered around the wooden floors. He moved to action quickly by turning back and swinging his legs to plant a roundhouse kick at the blonde’s face. The blonde trembled back a few paces, spitting blood from his mouth. He quickly found his footing and charged for Tao, trapping him at the railings of the cruise. 

Tao brought his knees up to greet the foreigner’s lil foreigner, then proceeded to bring his knees up to his chest when the latter backed up in pain. Without giving the blonde time to recover, Tao lunged out both his legs in mid air, pushing his weight out on the blonde square middle in the chest, whilst holding himself up on the bars of the railing. 

The foreigner must have felt the overpowering strength which is Tao and underestimated him too much. By this point he was going to lose, so he held his hands towards the younger, palm forward, “Stop.” He reached to his pocket and pulled out the tube in his hands, “I’ll break this, I swear.” 

Tao immediately stopped in his tracks, planning out his best move to the new situation. If he did any sudden attacks, the foreigner will either drop the tube or throw it in shock. Worst case scenario is that if it does break, or worse gets thrown, the Magnesium particles could get in contact with the sea water and if that happens then- 

“Attention all passengers, as we pass the coral island, we will abruptly make a hard turn, please hold on and stay seated, and enjoy the ride smoothly in the Elizabeth Marié.” 

The cruise took a turn to the right, so sudden and strong that the entire cruise shook. The wind blasted in that exact moment that the foreigner lost his balance and flew backwards. His grip on the tube was loosened. The tube fell out of his grasp and out to the open. Out to the sea. 

Tao did not think as he reached out and jumped over the railings. If this falls in the ocean, there will be a huge explosion. The Cruise, the passengers, the team, Baekhyun, they’ll all die or sink in this distance. 

The younger flew in midair, his hands outstretched as far as humanely possible. His fingers grasped the cold hard glass of the tube. He could throw it back. But if he missed. Tao took a gamble. He held it close to his chest. The lid pressed tightly by his palm. 

Then.

He.

Fell.

AUTHORS NOTE
Longest chapter ever. This was around 4,500 words, and that is my apology for not updating last week. Hopefully you’ll like it just as much as I loved writing it. The format’s a bit different but that’s because I wrote this in my phone and I don’t know I cant edit in my phone so forgive Jaylor (my phone). 

I’m going to set this story to have two seasons, or two parts I guess, but I’m not telling how many chapters in each so it keeps y’all on edge :) 

Please comment and subscribeee~~ I really do need my energy and luuvvv T^T