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Title: Chasing Freedom, Chapter 2, Siwon/Eunhyuk, friendship!Hankyung/Siwon
Length: 2,240 words
Author: shieldkitten
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Hyukjae is a social misfit in the affluent circles of Boston, searching for a place he belongs. Will he find it aboard the Sapphire Pearl, in the arms of a certain embittered sea captain?
Author's Note: For aconite, this is a throwback to those terrible Harlequins. The storyline is based loosely on The Charm School, by Susan Wiggs, but with so much more crack.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3
Sailors often find it difficult to re-adjust to living on land after long voyages out at sea, but Choi Siwon felt differently. Land was where he belonged, to the solid earth beneath his feet, to the grass beneath his fingers as he raked through the blades, relishing in the stillness of the ground under his feet, a respite from the never ending rocking of the decks of his ship.
The Sapphire Pearl rocked gently in its berth at the harbour, sails tucked neatly away, gleaming brilliantly in the light of the mid-day sun. Its cargo hold was empty - for now. Soon, much too soon, the wooden hull of the ship would be groaning with the weight of a shipment bound for Rio.
Hangeng shifted beside him, stretching out on the grass and resting his head on an arm. Siwon cocked an eyebrow at him, and Hangeng shrugged. Siwon found himself studying Hangeng’s features again, so similar to his own, and yet subtly different - just enough to paint him as a foreign man, incapable of ever blending into society. There was an insignia branded into the palm of Hangeng’s right hand, dead skin darkened and hardened over the years to mark him as a slave.
Siwon’s father had purchased Hangeng when Siwon was seven - something about his eyes, he had said, those twin limpid pools of quiet intelligence that were incongruous with the pallid eyes of the other children for sale. Siwon remembered the day they met as clearly as he remembered the day they left his father’s house. In the former, his father was laughing, telling Siwon ‘this is Hankyung’ as he pushed the rail-thin eleven year old Chinese boy into their lives. In the latter, his father had died, and Siwon’s uncle was announcing that they were selling the slaves with their land, Hangeng included.
“We’ll have no more use for slaves once we sell the farm,” Siwon’s uncle had said, thumb flicking over crisp notes, not even meeting Siwon’s eyes as he casually discussed the sale of Siwon’s most loyal companion. “We’ll save on the expenditure of feeding and watering them.”
“Hangeng is not just chattel,” Siwon had said, hands clenched into hard fists as he resisted the urge to sock his uncle in the jaw. He had only been sixteen, after all, and his uncle was the executer of his father’s estate until such time as Siwon came of age. “You’re not selling him.”
“I’m busy, Siwon, get out,” his uncle had said, and Siwon had left, taking his possessions and Hangeng with him.
The Choi family had been born into land for generations - Siwon’s grandfather’s grandfather had settled on the soil tinted red with clay and from it had harvested a fortune that his descendants would enjoy and add to as the years passed. Running from his past meant running to the sea, to the first ship that would take them. At first, Siwon had no direction, no idea as to how he would spend the rest of his life now that he was no longer expected to take the helm of his father’s estate. He would spend nights pacing the floor of the small cabin he shared with Hangeng, staring at the steady rise and fall of Hangeng’s chest. Would a life of uncertainty be any better than a life of slavery? The gold in Siwon’s purse had begun to give way to silver, and, before long, Hangeng had to watch as Siwon counted out copper pennies on the table.
“I can work,” Hangeng had said, in that quiet way of his. “I haven’t forgotten how.”
“We can work,” Siwon had replied, jutting out his jaw, daring Hangeng to challenge him.
His young hands had grown calloused, then coarse as he learnt to knot, to hoist sails and scrub decks clean of salt spray and excrement. If ever he had the urge to complain of exhaustion or distaste he would glance at Hangeng and square his shoulders, soldiering on. By the time he was eighteen, he could walk the masthead blindfolded, chart a course by the stars and read the weather by a low lying cloud.
He would have been content, he had thought, to carry out the rest of his life in this manner - a member of a motley crew made up of men with pasts more colourful than his own, but fate had contrived to remind him of why he had left home in the first place.
The air had been still that night, no wind to speak of, and Siwon had sat on the decks, telescope dangling from his fingers, watching the horizon. The moon had sat low in the sky, large and sallow, an omen of something - not rain, nor a storm, but something unpleasant nevertheless, and Siwon hadn’t been able to shrug off a strong sense of foreboding.
Hangeng had called down to him from his perch on the rigging, mainsail and sail tape forgotten.
“There’s something in the water,” he had said, pointing over to the aft of the ship.
It hadn’t been something, but someone, first one man clinging to a piece of flotsam, then another, and soon they were pulling women and children out of the water, crying and screaming in a foreign tongue. No one could make any sense of it till Hangeng had stepped forward, approaching a tall, thin man with sharp, cunning eyes and spoken to him in slow, halting words, rusty from disuse.
“They’re slaves,” Hangeng had said, and Siwon had felt that his voice had changed somehow, become laden with alien syllables. “They were being shipped to Boston, but there was a fire on board. The crew rowed to safety, leaving them behind to fend for themselves.”
Siwon had looked over the faces of the men, women and children sitting huddled on the deck, trembling in the chill of the night. He had seen on their faces Hangeng as he must have been in his youth, before Siwon’s father had saved him and named him Hankyung - isolation, fear and desperation etched on their features.
The man Hangeng had spoken to had dropped the edge of the cloth he gripped tightly in his hand, and Siwon had watched it unfurl, seeping water onto the wooden beams, revealing an insignia Siwon recognised as the twin of the brand on Hangeng’s right hand.
The same insignia was emblazoned on the flag of the Sapphire Pearl, an ornate C circled by a thin laurel wreath. Siwon had cared for the flag the way a captain ought to, ordering it to be lowered and stored somewhere dry in bad weather, seeing faithfully to its repair, but he would have loved nothing better than to burn it as well as the ship, and every other vessel belonging to the Cho family, each bearing hidden cargo holds fitted with shackles and chains.
“It will be high noon soon,” Hangeng said, shading his eyes from the mid-day sun.
“Come on, then,” Siwon said, getting to his feet. “We wouldn’t want to keep the good merchant waiting.”
Cho Daemyun’s office was pristine, with whitewashed doors and crystal clear panes of glass, giving his business an air of transparency and respectability. Siwon was loathe to leave Hangeng standing beside the horses tied up outside.
“Go on,” Hangeng said, scratching a beautiful chestnut mare behind the ears. “I’m fine right here.” The horse snorted and tossed her head, nuzzling Hangeng’s pocket, and he laughed, producing an apple. “I may be robbed of my lunch, however.”
Daemyun did not keep him waiting - he was early for his appointment, but the receptionist, a young, flighty looking man who seemed as though he wouldn’t understand most of the communications that passed over his desk, told him to knock and enter at the command. Daemyun was seated at his desk, pen moving purposefully over paper. Siwon was reminded of the first time he had met Daemyun in this office, how he had nearly been won over by the man’s charm and charisma, but Daemyun’s racist treatment of Hangeng had reminded Siwon of his purpose.
“Welcome back, Captain Choi,” Daemyun said, finally setting down his pen by the ink well and taking off his spectacles. “I trust you had a pleasant voyage?”
“It was no trouble, sir, the trade winds were cooperative.” Siwon wondered sometimes how he was so adept at hiding his true feelings, how he succeeded in restraining himself from lifting Daemyun off the floor by the lapels of his costly coat and swearing at him in the colourful language of his old crew. Even now, as Daemyun smiled at him, handsome face framed by closely cropped, greying hair, Siwon clenched his hands into fists behind his back, willing himself to remain rooted to the spot.
“This has been your twelfth successful voyage in my employ. I’m very pleased with you, Captain,” Daemyun said, gesturing to the seat across from his desk. Siwon declined it with a tilt of his head. “I think the time has come to entrust you with my more… precious cargo.”
Siwon tried not to look triumphant. “Sir?”
“Normally, I only trust my more senior captains with jobs of this nature, but my shipment from China has arrived rather earlier than expected, and they are all at sea at the moment. The goods are time-sensitive, and the Sapphire Pearl would have to cast off and make way for Rio in two days.”
“That won’t be a problem, sir, my crew is ever ready. Shall I begin advertising for passengers?”
“No.” Daemyun shook his head. “We can’t risk passengers stumbling on our cargo. This shipment is of a rather, shall we say, illicit nature.”
“I’m not sure what you mean, sir,” Siwon lied through his teeth, hoping the look of bewilderment on his face would be convincing enough to fool Daemyun.
“Slaves, boy.” And so it was. Daemyun intoned the words as though amused by Siwon’s guilelessness. “I assume you aren’t one of those abolitionists, so impractical in their fanatic idealism. Are we to be expected to till our own lands, I ask?”
“You assume, sir?” Siwon asked, ignoring Daemyun’s rhetoric for fear of revealing too many of his true opinions on the subject.
“My men tell me you have two of my slaves on your crew. Well, your slaves now, of course. When did you purchase them?”
“They were gifts,” Siwon said, the half-truth sitting sour on his tongue. Daemyun chuckled and got to his feet, strolling to his Jacobean style liquor cabinet, fingers trailing over an oriental filigree before he began to fix himself a drink.
“The best way to be born is with a silver spoon, I always say.” Daemyun tilted a bottle, spilling claret into a crystal glass. “Tomorrow night will be a dark moon. My men will aid in the installation of the cargo then. Your crew will be discrete, I trust?”
“They know to hold their tongues.” Siwon nodded.
“Excellent. Come, we must discuss the details before my drink addles my mind. Nothing can be allowed to go wrong.” Daemyun led him back to the desk, setting his drink down on its surface with a soft clack.
When Siwon emerged from the offices of the Cho Trading Company, Hangeng gave him a questioning look. He didn’t answer immediately, taking the moment instead to straighten his cravat. He felt soiled by the meeting, by the things he had agreed to do, whether he intended to break his word or otherwise.
“Well?” Hangeng asked, finally, when he grew tired of watching Siwon fuss with his attire.
Siwon looked at him, at the brand on his open palm and nodded. “We sail in two days.”
Hangeng closed his eyes, and closed the fingers of his right hand over his thumb, short nails brushing over his scar.
“One last voyage,” Siwon said, squeezing Hangeng’s shoulder, borrowing strength from the gesture as well as lending it.
“Captain,” Zhoumi greeted them as they boarded the ship, still as thin as the day they had pulled him out of the water. His comrades had dispersed, some choosing to stay in America to seek a better fortune, others choosing to return home to resume their lives, but Zhoumi had remained by their side, fitting almost unobtrusively into their lives. They had taught him English, which he was quick to pick up, and in return he had taught them Mandarin, reminding Hangeng of words and phrases he had forgotten, teaching Siwon anew. When Siwon and Hangeng had disembarked in Boston, taking leave of the ship where they had learnt to sail and crew, Zhoumi had followed them. It was he who had come up with a way to manoeuvre Siwon into the ranks of the Cho Trading Company, banking on Siwon’s past as the member of a family of wealth. Rich men, Zhoumi had said, flocked together like birds of the same feather, and Cho Daemyun was more likely to put a man of his own class at the helm of one of his vessels than leave him to scrub decks and pump bilge water.
“It’s done, Zhoumi,” Hangeng said in his mother tongue. “We’ve got the job.”
Zhoumi flashed them a wicked grin. “About time, too.”
“We’ll celebrate when we’re standing on the other side of the Pacific,” Siwon said, sliding a hand along the familiar rail of the Sapphire Pearl. “We have much to do in two days.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Zhoumi said, saluting.
And in the next chapter! A death turns Hyukjae's life upside down. Will the scheming seducer Jongwoon get his way? What will Hyukjae do to spare his life from this monstrousity!? Easy come easy go will you let me go BISMILAH NO, etc. etc.
Length: 2,240 words
Author: shieldkitten
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Hyukjae is a social misfit in the affluent circles of Boston, searching for a place he belongs. Will he find it aboard the Sapphire Pearl, in the arms of a certain embittered sea captain?
Author's Note: For aconite, this is a throwback to those terrible Harlequins. The storyline is based loosely on The Charm School, by Susan Wiggs, but with so much more crack.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3
Sailors often find it difficult to re-adjust to living on land after long voyages out at sea, but Choi Siwon felt differently. Land was where he belonged, to the solid earth beneath his feet, to the grass beneath his fingers as he raked through the blades, relishing in the stillness of the ground under his feet, a respite from the never ending rocking of the decks of his ship.
The Sapphire Pearl rocked gently in its berth at the harbour, sails tucked neatly away, gleaming brilliantly in the light of the mid-day sun. Its cargo hold was empty - for now. Soon, much too soon, the wooden hull of the ship would be groaning with the weight of a shipment bound for Rio.
Hangeng shifted beside him, stretching out on the grass and resting his head on an arm. Siwon cocked an eyebrow at him, and Hangeng shrugged. Siwon found himself studying Hangeng’s features again, so similar to his own, and yet subtly different - just enough to paint him as a foreign man, incapable of ever blending into society. There was an insignia branded into the palm of Hangeng’s right hand, dead skin darkened and hardened over the years to mark him as a slave.
Siwon’s father had purchased Hangeng when Siwon was seven - something about his eyes, he had said, those twin limpid pools of quiet intelligence that were incongruous with the pallid eyes of the other children for sale. Siwon remembered the day they met as clearly as he remembered the day they left his father’s house. In the former, his father was laughing, telling Siwon ‘this is Hankyung’ as he pushed the rail-thin eleven year old Chinese boy into their lives. In the latter, his father had died, and Siwon’s uncle was announcing that they were selling the slaves with their land, Hangeng included.
“We’ll have no more use for slaves once we sell the farm,” Siwon’s uncle had said, thumb flicking over crisp notes, not even meeting Siwon’s eyes as he casually discussed the sale of Siwon’s most loyal companion. “We’ll save on the expenditure of feeding and watering them.”
“Hangeng is not just chattel,” Siwon had said, hands clenched into hard fists as he resisted the urge to sock his uncle in the jaw. He had only been sixteen, after all, and his uncle was the executer of his father’s estate until such time as Siwon came of age. “You’re not selling him.”
“I’m busy, Siwon, get out,” his uncle had said, and Siwon had left, taking his possessions and Hangeng with him.
The Choi family had been born into land for generations - Siwon’s grandfather’s grandfather had settled on the soil tinted red with clay and from it had harvested a fortune that his descendants would enjoy and add to as the years passed. Running from his past meant running to the sea, to the first ship that would take them. At first, Siwon had no direction, no idea as to how he would spend the rest of his life now that he was no longer expected to take the helm of his father’s estate. He would spend nights pacing the floor of the small cabin he shared with Hangeng, staring at the steady rise and fall of Hangeng’s chest. Would a life of uncertainty be any better than a life of slavery? The gold in Siwon’s purse had begun to give way to silver, and, before long, Hangeng had to watch as Siwon counted out copper pennies on the table.
“I can work,” Hangeng had said, in that quiet way of his. “I haven’t forgotten how.”
“We can work,” Siwon had replied, jutting out his jaw, daring Hangeng to challenge him.
His young hands had grown calloused, then coarse as he learnt to knot, to hoist sails and scrub decks clean of salt spray and excrement. If ever he had the urge to complain of exhaustion or distaste he would glance at Hangeng and square his shoulders, soldiering on. By the time he was eighteen, he could walk the masthead blindfolded, chart a course by the stars and read the weather by a low lying cloud.
He would have been content, he had thought, to carry out the rest of his life in this manner - a member of a motley crew made up of men with pasts more colourful than his own, but fate had contrived to remind him of why he had left home in the first place.
The air had been still that night, no wind to speak of, and Siwon had sat on the decks, telescope dangling from his fingers, watching the horizon. The moon had sat low in the sky, large and sallow, an omen of something - not rain, nor a storm, but something unpleasant nevertheless, and Siwon hadn’t been able to shrug off a strong sense of foreboding.
Hangeng had called down to him from his perch on the rigging, mainsail and sail tape forgotten.
“There’s something in the water,” he had said, pointing over to the aft of the ship.
It hadn’t been something, but someone, first one man clinging to a piece of flotsam, then another, and soon they were pulling women and children out of the water, crying and screaming in a foreign tongue. No one could make any sense of it till Hangeng had stepped forward, approaching a tall, thin man with sharp, cunning eyes and spoken to him in slow, halting words, rusty from disuse.
“They’re slaves,” Hangeng had said, and Siwon had felt that his voice had changed somehow, become laden with alien syllables. “They were being shipped to Boston, but there was a fire on board. The crew rowed to safety, leaving them behind to fend for themselves.”
Siwon had looked over the faces of the men, women and children sitting huddled on the deck, trembling in the chill of the night. He had seen on their faces Hangeng as he must have been in his youth, before Siwon’s father had saved him and named him Hankyung - isolation, fear and desperation etched on their features.
The man Hangeng had spoken to had dropped the edge of the cloth he gripped tightly in his hand, and Siwon had watched it unfurl, seeping water onto the wooden beams, revealing an insignia Siwon recognised as the twin of the brand on Hangeng’s right hand.
The same insignia was emblazoned on the flag of the Sapphire Pearl, an ornate C circled by a thin laurel wreath. Siwon had cared for the flag the way a captain ought to, ordering it to be lowered and stored somewhere dry in bad weather, seeing faithfully to its repair, but he would have loved nothing better than to burn it as well as the ship, and every other vessel belonging to the Cho family, each bearing hidden cargo holds fitted with shackles and chains.
“It will be high noon soon,” Hangeng said, shading his eyes from the mid-day sun.
“Come on, then,” Siwon said, getting to his feet. “We wouldn’t want to keep the good merchant waiting.”
Cho Daemyun’s office was pristine, with whitewashed doors and crystal clear panes of glass, giving his business an air of transparency and respectability. Siwon was loathe to leave Hangeng standing beside the horses tied up outside.
“Go on,” Hangeng said, scratching a beautiful chestnut mare behind the ears. “I’m fine right here.” The horse snorted and tossed her head, nuzzling Hangeng’s pocket, and he laughed, producing an apple. “I may be robbed of my lunch, however.”
Daemyun did not keep him waiting - he was early for his appointment, but the receptionist, a young, flighty looking man who seemed as though he wouldn’t understand most of the communications that passed over his desk, told him to knock and enter at the command. Daemyun was seated at his desk, pen moving purposefully over paper. Siwon was reminded of the first time he had met Daemyun in this office, how he had nearly been won over by the man’s charm and charisma, but Daemyun’s racist treatment of Hangeng had reminded Siwon of his purpose.
“Welcome back, Captain Choi,” Daemyun said, finally setting down his pen by the ink well and taking off his spectacles. “I trust you had a pleasant voyage?”
“It was no trouble, sir, the trade winds were cooperative.” Siwon wondered sometimes how he was so adept at hiding his true feelings, how he succeeded in restraining himself from lifting Daemyun off the floor by the lapels of his costly coat and swearing at him in the colourful language of his old crew. Even now, as Daemyun smiled at him, handsome face framed by closely cropped, greying hair, Siwon clenched his hands into fists behind his back, willing himself to remain rooted to the spot.
“This has been your twelfth successful voyage in my employ. I’m very pleased with you, Captain,” Daemyun said, gesturing to the seat across from his desk. Siwon declined it with a tilt of his head. “I think the time has come to entrust you with my more… precious cargo.”
Siwon tried not to look triumphant. “Sir?”
“Normally, I only trust my more senior captains with jobs of this nature, but my shipment from China has arrived rather earlier than expected, and they are all at sea at the moment. The goods are time-sensitive, and the Sapphire Pearl would have to cast off and make way for Rio in two days.”
“That won’t be a problem, sir, my crew is ever ready. Shall I begin advertising for passengers?”
“No.” Daemyun shook his head. “We can’t risk passengers stumbling on our cargo. This shipment is of a rather, shall we say, illicit nature.”
“I’m not sure what you mean, sir,” Siwon lied through his teeth, hoping the look of bewilderment on his face would be convincing enough to fool Daemyun.
“Slaves, boy.” And so it was. Daemyun intoned the words as though amused by Siwon’s guilelessness. “I assume you aren’t one of those abolitionists, so impractical in their fanatic idealism. Are we to be expected to till our own lands, I ask?”
“You assume, sir?” Siwon asked, ignoring Daemyun’s rhetoric for fear of revealing too many of his true opinions on the subject.
“My men tell me you have two of my slaves on your crew. Well, your slaves now, of course. When did you purchase them?”
“They were gifts,” Siwon said, the half-truth sitting sour on his tongue. Daemyun chuckled and got to his feet, strolling to his Jacobean style liquor cabinet, fingers trailing over an oriental filigree before he began to fix himself a drink.
“The best way to be born is with a silver spoon, I always say.” Daemyun tilted a bottle, spilling claret into a crystal glass. “Tomorrow night will be a dark moon. My men will aid in the installation of the cargo then. Your crew will be discrete, I trust?”
“They know to hold their tongues.” Siwon nodded.
“Excellent. Come, we must discuss the details before my drink addles my mind. Nothing can be allowed to go wrong.” Daemyun led him back to the desk, setting his drink down on its surface with a soft clack.
When Siwon emerged from the offices of the Cho Trading Company, Hangeng gave him a questioning look. He didn’t answer immediately, taking the moment instead to straighten his cravat. He felt soiled by the meeting, by the things he had agreed to do, whether he intended to break his word or otherwise.
“Well?” Hangeng asked, finally, when he grew tired of watching Siwon fuss with his attire.
Siwon looked at him, at the brand on his open palm and nodded. “We sail in two days.”
Hangeng closed his eyes, and closed the fingers of his right hand over his thumb, short nails brushing over his scar.
“One last voyage,” Siwon said, squeezing Hangeng’s shoulder, borrowing strength from the gesture as well as lending it.
“Captain,” Zhoumi greeted them as they boarded the ship, still as thin as the day they had pulled him out of the water. His comrades had dispersed, some choosing to stay in America to seek a better fortune, others choosing to return home to resume their lives, but Zhoumi had remained by their side, fitting almost unobtrusively into their lives. They had taught him English, which he was quick to pick up, and in return he had taught them Mandarin, reminding Hangeng of words and phrases he had forgotten, teaching Siwon anew. When Siwon and Hangeng had disembarked in Boston, taking leave of the ship where they had learnt to sail and crew, Zhoumi had followed them. It was he who had come up with a way to manoeuvre Siwon into the ranks of the Cho Trading Company, banking on Siwon’s past as the member of a family of wealth. Rich men, Zhoumi had said, flocked together like birds of the same feather, and Cho Daemyun was more likely to put a man of his own class at the helm of one of his vessels than leave him to scrub decks and pump bilge water.
“It’s done, Zhoumi,” Hangeng said in his mother tongue. “We’ve got the job.”
Zhoumi flashed them a wicked grin. “About time, too.”
“We’ll celebrate when we’re standing on the other side of the Pacific,” Siwon said, sliding a hand along the familiar rail of the Sapphire Pearl. “We have much to do in two days.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Zhoumi said, saluting.
And in the next chapter! A death turns Hyukjae's life upside down. Will the scheming seducer Jongwoon get his way? What will Hyukjae do to spare his life from this monstrousity!? Easy come easy go will you let me go BISMILAH NO, etc. etc.