Chasing Freedom - Chapter 7
Title: Chasing Freedom, Chapter 7, Siwon/Eunhyuk
Length: 2888 words
Author: shieldkitten
Rating: PG-13
Summary: How will Hyukjae adjust to working aboard a ship? Is it really as easy as he thinks? Will there be rites of initiation that are as kinky as they are deeply traumatic? One wonders!
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8
Hyukjae would not regret his decision. No, he would not, not even if Chaegum snored, or if hammocks were honestly the least comfortable sort of bedding in the world, or if his hands were getting blistered from all the knots Henry had rather enthusiastically tried to teach him. He had already managed to entangle himself thrice, and had needed Zhoumi’s assistance in extracting himself each time.
At least, he thought as he straightened, arching his back and wincing at the aches in muscles he had not known existed, he seemed to be getting his sea legs. He hadn’t thrown up once since his first night in a hammock, and he could now almost walk the entire length of the corridors without stumbling if the water was particularly still. Since the Sapphire Pearl - no, the Seafarer - had left the Halifax port a week prior, Siwon had set him a wide variety of tasks to ‘facilitate his training’ and enable him to ‘find his niche’. Thus far, he had learnt to handle the bowline, the fore braces, the tack ropes, the tack pole, the priors, the clue lines and the gordings, to reef, raise and lower the sail, to mount and tighten the shroud, to set the downhauling of the parrel, to pump the bilge water and to swab the decks.
It was rather to his horror that Hyukjae had discovered that his niche appeared to be to swab the decks. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that among all the things at which he failed abysmally to accomplish without error, swabbing the decks was the task at which he failed the least. If his mother could see him now, Hyukjae thought, running the mop head over a stubborn spot on the deck where Henry had decided would be the perfect place to kill and gut the fishes Hangeng had fished, she would probably demand that he marry any Tom, Dick and Harry off of the street.
He thought of home often. He thought of it again, with the sun beating down on his tired back, head swimming with childhood memories painted sinister with the new knowledge that Sungmin had betrayed him. He thought of Donghae, and wondered if the letter he had dispatched at Halifax had reached his younger brother. It had been full of warnings and regrets - Donghae had tried to tell him that morning before they read out their father’s will, but Hyukjae had defended Sungmin. Hyukjae had been the naïve one after all, the fool, as always.
Tears slipped down his cheeks, pooling at his chin only to drip and join the salt spray on the wooden planks, and Hyukjae brushed hastily at his cheeks, resolving yet again to concentrate on his work, and not his past. This was to be a fresh start for him, after all, a voyage where he learnt to be independent, and then China where he would have to be independent. China, which was so very big and so very full of people who spoke so very little English and thought of foreigners as ghosts and devils, and oh, was he crying again, honestly, was he not simply a disgrace? No wonder Sungmin had been so glad to be rid of him - he might cry all over the money and soil it.
With a sob Hyukjae dropped the mop and turned to return to his hammock where he had stashed his handkerchiefs, slipping almost immediately on the soapy floor. With a yelp he felt his feet leave solid ground, and he scrunched up his face, preparing for the inevitable shock of pain on his already bruised bottom. It never came. Instead, he felt strong arms wrap around his waist and a firm chest against his back.
“Oh,” he said stupidly, blinking up at Siwon’s face.
“This is becoming rather a habit of yours, Mr. Lee,” Siwon said, setting Hyukjae upright. His hands lingered rather a moment too long at Hyukjae’s waist, and his gaze rather a moment too long on Hyukjae’s face, and Hyukjae was surprised to feel disappointment when Siwon finally bent to retrieve the mop.
“Here,” Siwon said, holding out his handkerchief, S emblazoned in beautiful gold leaf embroidery upon its edge. Hyukjae blushed and shook his head, using his sleeves instead to wipe at his face.
“It’s very beautiful,” Hyukjae said in explanation. “I don’t want to soil it.”
“Is it?” Siwon ran his fingers over the embroidery. “It was a gift from my mother. She was always so adept at fine embroidery.”
“Was?” Hyukjae asked, taking the mop from Siwon.
“She passed when I was nine.”
“Oh.” Hyukjae worried at a splinter in the mop handle with his thumbnail, then added, although it had never made him feel better all the times people had had it at his father’s funeral, “I’m sorry.”
Siwon gave him a small smile, or perhaps it was not a smile for him at all, and returned the handkerchief to his pocket, taking a deep breath as if to shake off the past. Hyukjae wished he could do the same.
“I think we can check ‘swabbing the decks’ off the list of things you’re allowed to do on this ship,” Siwon said, smiling a smile now that was definitely not for Hyukjae, but rather at his expense, and Hyukjae thought it was rather unfair that the smile should be so breathtaking that he couldn’t even feel offended.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, instead of gawking with his mouth open. “It’s just that I am rather unused to all of this.”
“Hard work?” Siwon asked.
“Well, yes,” Hyukjae said with some embarrassment. “But I assure you, I do mean to learn,” he added at the pursing of Siwon’s lips. “I said I would work on your ship, and I will. I just need some time to adjust.”
Perhaps it was his imagination, but the expression on Siwon’s face seemed to grow less hard, less disapproving, and there was perhaps a hint of empathy in those fierce eyes. Removing his coat, he handed it to Hyukjae, who caught at it and watched speechlessly as Siwon undid his collar and rolled up his sleeves.
“Everyone has to begin somewhere,” he said taking the mop from Hyukjae and dipping it into the bucket. “I swabbed decks for a time as well.”
Hyukjae was torn between taking the mop from Siwon, for it seemed so ludicrous that the Captain should be doing his chore in his stead, and simply standing there, staring at Siwon’s arms as he flexed his muscles, moving purposefully, looking for all the world like Adonis reborn into a life of skilful mopping.
“Captain,” he said finally, swallowing hard when his voice cracked. “Please, let me.”
“I mean no offence, Mr. Lee, but really, I do this work quicker.”
And better, Hyukjae thought, watching Siwon again before shaking himself out of his daze. “But Captain, a man of your stature…”
“Stature?” Siwon leaned against the mop handle and ran a hand through his hair. Hyukjae’s fingers itched to wipe at the sweat glistening at Siwon’s hairline. “What sort of stature have I? A runaway, a thief…”
“A… a freedom fighter!” Hyukjae blurted out. Siwon threw his head back and laughed, and Hyukjae could only scratch at the back of his head, feeling flustered and rather useless, and jumped when Siwon pulled at the collar of his shirt, exposing more of his skin.
“Captain!” he exclaimed, alarmed by the sudden movement.
“How did you get this?” Siwon asked softly, the tone of his voice a contrast to the hard clamping of his hand on the curve of Hyukjae’s shoulder. His thumb held Hyukjae’s collar open, revealing a small dark bruise against Hyukjae’s collarbone. Hyukjae blushed and tried to readjust his clothing, but Siwon’s hold was strong.
“Well?” he asked when Hyukjae was not forthcoming with an answer.
Hyukjae wondered how it was possible that his face could grow any warmer. He thought wildly of dunking his head in the bucket to cool off. “It was… That is to say…” He glanced helplessly around and found nothing that could distract Siwon from this line conversation, not even, say, Cthulhu, rising from the depths. “My initiation?”
“Initiation?” Siwon echoed, sounding rather less aware of such a thing than Hyukjae supposed the man whom Zhoumi had said founded the procedure would be expected to sound.
“Ah,” he said, in a rare moment of understanding.
“Ah,” he repeated, feeling his ears now turn red at the memory of Zhoumi’s lips moving over his skin.
“What is it?” Siwon asked, letting go off Hyukjae’s collar. Hyukjae noted again, the disappointment at the loss of contact, but he also noted that Zhoumi had now lied to him twice that he knew of, and he ought to never trust the man ever again.
“Nothing,” he said quickly, holding his collar closed in his hand. “Please excuse me, Captain, I have a Chinese man to yell at.”
Zhoumi laughed for much too long when Hyukjae attempted to yell at him. He had intended to be forceful and firm, and yet, it had come off as more of that helpless spluttering at which he so excelled.
“You told me! Rite of initiation! That everyone…!” he spluttered, pointing accusingly at Zhoumi.
“I also told you this ship was taking passengers,” Zhoumi said, face split in that wicked grin of his.
“You,” Hyukjae said furiously, “are a… a… You!”
Zhoumi stood up, towering over Hyukjae again, and Hyukjae fell silent. It had been just like this, him taking a step back for every step forward that Zhoumi had taken, until he had had his back pressed against the wall, and Zhoumi had dipped his head down, holding Hyukjae still as he…
“Don’t deny your enjoyment of it,” Zhoumi said in a low voice, planting one hand on the wall by Hyukjae’s head.
“I deny it,” Hyukjae said, even as his pulse quickened. Zhoumi smiled and smoothly slid a hand up Hyukjae’s arm, making him close his eyes and exhale a shaky breath. He tilted his head in anticipation, feeling Zhoumi’s breath on his neck, but Zhoumi merely chuckled and stepped back, smirking as he sank back into his chair and clasped his hands behind his head.
“Liar,” he said knowingly.
“It takes one to know one,” Hyukjae retorted, and fled.
He did not spend the next few days avoiding Zhoumi. It was not strictly his intention, after all, to be absent from any room when Zhoumi so happened to inhabit it. If his presence happened to be required elsewhere then it was hardly his fault for meeting that requirement. It helped that Siwon had taken it upon himself to give Hyukjae some personal training in the running of the ship. Siwon was very patient, unlike, say, Seungjun, who sometimes muttered to himself about being paid too little to baby-sit, and very gentlemanly, unlike a certain man Hyukjae was not avoiding, and very verbose, unlike Hangeng, whose patience and gentlemanliness was rather overshadowed by the fact that he preferred to show Hyukjae the ropes without actually explaining what the ropes were meant to do.
“Watch out for the-” Siwon snatched Hyukjae out of harm’s way as an axle swung low and nearly knocked him on the head. Hyukjae stared up at Henry, who was staring anxiously down at them from the masthead.
“Sorry!” he called down. “My hands were shaking!”
“Put on your coat!” Siwon called back.
“But it’s new!” Henry protested.
Siwon shook his head and turned to Hyukjae. “Are you all right?”
“I think I’m still alive,” Hyukjae said, patting his head to make sure. “Thank you, again.”
Siwon laughed and released Hyukjae’s hand. “You are remarkably ill-fortuned.”
Hyukjae smiled ruefully, resuming the mending of the leech sail under Siwon’s close supervision. “My mother always said it was because I was born under the morning star. It makes for clumsy people.”
“Do you believe in astrology?” Siwon asked, stilling Hyukjae’s hand and pointing to a tangled stitch Hyukjae would have to untangle before continuing.
“No. At least…” Hyukjae shook his head. “Our earth would look as a star to someone standing on distant Mars or Venus, and it is hardly a mystical place. Why would any other star be different?”
“You believe in life on other planets?” Siwon asked, raising his eyebrows. Hyukjae chuckled.
“My younger brother is persuasive.”
Siwon smiled. “Your face brightens when you speak of him. You must be close.”
“Did you have siblings?” Hyukjae asked quickly, before the tears could well up in his eyes again.
“None blood-related,” Siwon said. “But I think of Hangeng as my brother.”
Hyukjae concentrated on pushing his needle through the sail cloth, tips of his ears pink as he spoke. “I think you are very noble, to do so much for him, for everyone on this ship. Few men would do what you have done, or given up as much to do it.”
When he looked up at Siwon after a period of silence, thinking that he had said something wrong to warrant it, Siwon was gazing pensively out over the water, eyes on the distant horizon. Hyukjae was reminded again of the figure of Adonis, chiseled from marble, so cold in its stillness. Not wanting to intrude on Siwon’s moment of introspection, he returned to his work, tying off a knot and picking up a small knife to cut the thread.
“Be careful,” Siwon said suddenly, startling Hyukjae into cutting his finger. He gasped, squeezing the cut closed as Junsu had once done for him after he cut himself trying to shear the hedges for Yoochun, gritting his teeth against the sharp sting of pain.
“Yours was truly an unlucky star,” Siwon sighed, pulling his handkerchief from his pocket.
“Don’t,” Hyukjae said, holding his hand out of reach, “it’s the handkerchief your mother gave you.”
Siwon blinked, then pursed his lips and tugged forcefully at Hyukjae’s arm, holding up his finger and inspecting the cut. Hyukjae winced as Siwon pressed his thumbnail into the skin, and fresh blood flowed.
“It’s deep,” he said. “Hangeng will have to give you stitches.”
“Stitches,” Hyukjae repeated, turning pale. Gently, Siwon wrapped his handkerchief around Hyukjae’s finger and tied it off with a knot.
“It’s just a handkerchief,” Siwon said, before Hyukjae could make any further protests. “I hold the memories of my mother in my heart, not my pocket. Now go get your stitches.”
“The sail…” Hyukjae said weakly, hoping to delay the inevitable.
“I will finish it, go on.” Siwon nodded his head encouragingly. Hyukjae grimaced at him and left to find Hangeng.
Zhoumi finally cornered him that evening as he lay in his hammock and nursed his bandaged finger.
“I heard you were injured,” he said, squatting by the hammock. Giving him a baleful look, Hyukjae held up his finger for inspection. “Will you live?”
Hyukjae stuck out his tongue and tried to roll over, which was a rather impossible move to make lying in a hammock, and he only succeeded in swinging dizzily from left to right. As the world and Zhoumi swayed above him, he could see Zhoumi fighting to keep down a laugh.
“I hate these hammocks,” Hyukjae announced.
“Then you’ll be pleased to know the Captain is giving you back your cabin,” Zhoumi said, helping him out of the netting. “He says there is enough leftover of the money you gave him to pay the rent till we reach China.”
“Oh,” Hyukjae said, and hid his smile by bending to pack his things into his traveling chest.
“Five hundred dollars,” Zhoumi sighed. “In gold, too. If you had told me about it, I could have helped you spend it more wisely.”
“You’re a swindler, Zhoumi,” Hyukjae informed him, even as Zhoumi heaved Hyukjae’s chest up on his shoulder for the third time since they’d met.
“I’ve only lied to you twice. Well, three times, but they’re hardly worth counting, really,” Zhoumi said dismissively.
“So you say,” Hyukjae said, folding his arms. Zhoumi paused in the middle of the corridor, giving him a long, searching look. Then he tilted his head and gave Hyukjae a coy smile.
“Won’t you forgive me for it? I didn’t mean you any harm.”
Hyukjae felt his resolve faltering. “I’ll forgive you when you apologise.”
“Then, good sir,” Zhoumi said with a sweeping bow, dropping Hyukjae’s chest by the side of his bed as he did so and catching one of Hyukjae’s hands in his. “I apologise most profusely. I apologise most fervently. I apologise most perfervidly-”
“That’s not a word,” Hyukjae laughed, pulling his hand back self-consciously.
“I assure you it is,” Zhoumi said. “Oh dear, oh dear. How ever will you learn a new language if you haven’t mastered your own? Tell me Eunhyuk, do you speak English?”
He asked the last question slowly, dragging out each syllable, and Hyukjae laughed again, sinking onto his bed and shaking his head. Zhoumi grinned.
“Am I forgiven?” he asked, as though confident of the answer. Hyukjae nodded, smiling.
“I would ask you to promise never to lie to me again, but I don’t know if I could trust you to be honest about it.”
Zhoumi chuckled. “You make me sound like a rascal.”
“Aren’t you?” Hyukjae called after him as he left the room, still laughing.
In the next chapter they sail into the Arctic Circle, full of cold and unchartered waters. What will they find in the blank space of the maps?
Length: 2888 words
Author: shieldkitten
Rating: PG-13
Summary: How will Hyukjae adjust to working aboard a ship? Is it really as easy as he thinks? Will there be rites of initiation that are as kinky as they are deeply traumatic? One wonders!
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8
Hyukjae would not regret his decision. No, he would not, not even if Chaegum snored, or if hammocks were honestly the least comfortable sort of bedding in the world, or if his hands were getting blistered from all the knots Henry had rather enthusiastically tried to teach him. He had already managed to entangle himself thrice, and had needed Zhoumi’s assistance in extracting himself each time.
At least, he thought as he straightened, arching his back and wincing at the aches in muscles he had not known existed, he seemed to be getting his sea legs. He hadn’t thrown up once since his first night in a hammock, and he could now almost walk the entire length of the corridors without stumbling if the water was particularly still. Since the Sapphire Pearl - no, the Seafarer - had left the Halifax port a week prior, Siwon had set him a wide variety of tasks to ‘facilitate his training’ and enable him to ‘find his niche’. Thus far, he had learnt to handle the bowline, the fore braces, the tack ropes, the tack pole, the priors, the clue lines and the gordings, to reef, raise and lower the sail, to mount and tighten the shroud, to set the downhauling of the parrel, to pump the bilge water and to swab the decks.
It was rather to his horror that Hyukjae had discovered that his niche appeared to be to swab the decks. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that among all the things at which he failed abysmally to accomplish without error, swabbing the decks was the task at which he failed the least. If his mother could see him now, Hyukjae thought, running the mop head over a stubborn spot on the deck where Henry had decided would be the perfect place to kill and gut the fishes Hangeng had fished, she would probably demand that he marry any Tom, Dick and Harry off of the street.
He thought of home often. He thought of it again, with the sun beating down on his tired back, head swimming with childhood memories painted sinister with the new knowledge that Sungmin had betrayed him. He thought of Donghae, and wondered if the letter he had dispatched at Halifax had reached his younger brother. It had been full of warnings and regrets - Donghae had tried to tell him that morning before they read out their father’s will, but Hyukjae had defended Sungmin. Hyukjae had been the naïve one after all, the fool, as always.
Tears slipped down his cheeks, pooling at his chin only to drip and join the salt spray on the wooden planks, and Hyukjae brushed hastily at his cheeks, resolving yet again to concentrate on his work, and not his past. This was to be a fresh start for him, after all, a voyage where he learnt to be independent, and then China where he would have to be independent. China, which was so very big and so very full of people who spoke so very little English and thought of foreigners as ghosts and devils, and oh, was he crying again, honestly, was he not simply a disgrace? No wonder Sungmin had been so glad to be rid of him - he might cry all over the money and soil it.
With a sob Hyukjae dropped the mop and turned to return to his hammock where he had stashed his handkerchiefs, slipping almost immediately on the soapy floor. With a yelp he felt his feet leave solid ground, and he scrunched up his face, preparing for the inevitable shock of pain on his already bruised bottom. It never came. Instead, he felt strong arms wrap around his waist and a firm chest against his back.
“Oh,” he said stupidly, blinking up at Siwon’s face.
“This is becoming rather a habit of yours, Mr. Lee,” Siwon said, setting Hyukjae upright. His hands lingered rather a moment too long at Hyukjae’s waist, and his gaze rather a moment too long on Hyukjae’s face, and Hyukjae was surprised to feel disappointment when Siwon finally bent to retrieve the mop.
“Here,” Siwon said, holding out his handkerchief, S emblazoned in beautiful gold leaf embroidery upon its edge. Hyukjae blushed and shook his head, using his sleeves instead to wipe at his face.
“It’s very beautiful,” Hyukjae said in explanation. “I don’t want to soil it.”
“Is it?” Siwon ran his fingers over the embroidery. “It was a gift from my mother. She was always so adept at fine embroidery.”
“Was?” Hyukjae asked, taking the mop from Siwon.
“She passed when I was nine.”
“Oh.” Hyukjae worried at a splinter in the mop handle with his thumbnail, then added, although it had never made him feel better all the times people had had it at his father’s funeral, “I’m sorry.”
Siwon gave him a small smile, or perhaps it was not a smile for him at all, and returned the handkerchief to his pocket, taking a deep breath as if to shake off the past. Hyukjae wished he could do the same.
“I think we can check ‘swabbing the decks’ off the list of things you’re allowed to do on this ship,” Siwon said, smiling a smile now that was definitely not for Hyukjae, but rather at his expense, and Hyukjae thought it was rather unfair that the smile should be so breathtaking that he couldn’t even feel offended.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, instead of gawking with his mouth open. “It’s just that I am rather unused to all of this.”
“Hard work?” Siwon asked.
“Well, yes,” Hyukjae said with some embarrassment. “But I assure you, I do mean to learn,” he added at the pursing of Siwon’s lips. “I said I would work on your ship, and I will. I just need some time to adjust.”
Perhaps it was his imagination, but the expression on Siwon’s face seemed to grow less hard, less disapproving, and there was perhaps a hint of empathy in those fierce eyes. Removing his coat, he handed it to Hyukjae, who caught at it and watched speechlessly as Siwon undid his collar and rolled up his sleeves.
“Everyone has to begin somewhere,” he said taking the mop from Hyukjae and dipping it into the bucket. “I swabbed decks for a time as well.”
Hyukjae was torn between taking the mop from Siwon, for it seemed so ludicrous that the Captain should be doing his chore in his stead, and simply standing there, staring at Siwon’s arms as he flexed his muscles, moving purposefully, looking for all the world like Adonis reborn into a life of skilful mopping.
“Captain,” he said finally, swallowing hard when his voice cracked. “Please, let me.”
“I mean no offence, Mr. Lee, but really, I do this work quicker.”
And better, Hyukjae thought, watching Siwon again before shaking himself out of his daze. “But Captain, a man of your stature…”
“Stature?” Siwon leaned against the mop handle and ran a hand through his hair. Hyukjae’s fingers itched to wipe at the sweat glistening at Siwon’s hairline. “What sort of stature have I? A runaway, a thief…”
“A… a freedom fighter!” Hyukjae blurted out. Siwon threw his head back and laughed, and Hyukjae could only scratch at the back of his head, feeling flustered and rather useless, and jumped when Siwon pulled at the collar of his shirt, exposing more of his skin.
“Captain!” he exclaimed, alarmed by the sudden movement.
“How did you get this?” Siwon asked softly, the tone of his voice a contrast to the hard clamping of his hand on the curve of Hyukjae’s shoulder. His thumb held Hyukjae’s collar open, revealing a small dark bruise against Hyukjae’s collarbone. Hyukjae blushed and tried to readjust his clothing, but Siwon’s hold was strong.
“Well?” he asked when Hyukjae was not forthcoming with an answer.
Hyukjae wondered how it was possible that his face could grow any warmer. He thought wildly of dunking his head in the bucket to cool off. “It was… That is to say…” He glanced helplessly around and found nothing that could distract Siwon from this line conversation, not even, say, Cthulhu, rising from the depths. “My initiation?”
“Initiation?” Siwon echoed, sounding rather less aware of such a thing than Hyukjae supposed the man whom Zhoumi had said founded the procedure would be expected to sound.
“Ah,” he said, in a rare moment of understanding.
“Ah,” he repeated, feeling his ears now turn red at the memory of Zhoumi’s lips moving over his skin.
“What is it?” Siwon asked, letting go off Hyukjae’s collar. Hyukjae noted again, the disappointment at the loss of contact, but he also noted that Zhoumi had now lied to him twice that he knew of, and he ought to never trust the man ever again.
“Nothing,” he said quickly, holding his collar closed in his hand. “Please excuse me, Captain, I have a Chinese man to yell at.”
Zhoumi laughed for much too long when Hyukjae attempted to yell at him. He had intended to be forceful and firm, and yet, it had come off as more of that helpless spluttering at which he so excelled.
“You told me! Rite of initiation! That everyone…!” he spluttered, pointing accusingly at Zhoumi.
“I also told you this ship was taking passengers,” Zhoumi said, face split in that wicked grin of his.
“You,” Hyukjae said furiously, “are a… a… You!”
Zhoumi stood up, towering over Hyukjae again, and Hyukjae fell silent. It had been just like this, him taking a step back for every step forward that Zhoumi had taken, until he had had his back pressed against the wall, and Zhoumi had dipped his head down, holding Hyukjae still as he…
“Don’t deny your enjoyment of it,” Zhoumi said in a low voice, planting one hand on the wall by Hyukjae’s head.
“I deny it,” Hyukjae said, even as his pulse quickened. Zhoumi smiled and smoothly slid a hand up Hyukjae’s arm, making him close his eyes and exhale a shaky breath. He tilted his head in anticipation, feeling Zhoumi’s breath on his neck, but Zhoumi merely chuckled and stepped back, smirking as he sank back into his chair and clasped his hands behind his head.
“Liar,” he said knowingly.
“It takes one to know one,” Hyukjae retorted, and fled.
He did not spend the next few days avoiding Zhoumi. It was not strictly his intention, after all, to be absent from any room when Zhoumi so happened to inhabit it. If his presence happened to be required elsewhere then it was hardly his fault for meeting that requirement. It helped that Siwon had taken it upon himself to give Hyukjae some personal training in the running of the ship. Siwon was very patient, unlike, say, Seungjun, who sometimes muttered to himself about being paid too little to baby-sit, and very gentlemanly, unlike a certain man Hyukjae was not avoiding, and very verbose, unlike Hangeng, whose patience and gentlemanliness was rather overshadowed by the fact that he preferred to show Hyukjae the ropes without actually explaining what the ropes were meant to do.
“Watch out for the-” Siwon snatched Hyukjae out of harm’s way as an axle swung low and nearly knocked him on the head. Hyukjae stared up at Henry, who was staring anxiously down at them from the masthead.
“Sorry!” he called down. “My hands were shaking!”
“Put on your coat!” Siwon called back.
“But it’s new!” Henry protested.
Siwon shook his head and turned to Hyukjae. “Are you all right?”
“I think I’m still alive,” Hyukjae said, patting his head to make sure. “Thank you, again.”
Siwon laughed and released Hyukjae’s hand. “You are remarkably ill-fortuned.”
Hyukjae smiled ruefully, resuming the mending of the leech sail under Siwon’s close supervision. “My mother always said it was because I was born under the morning star. It makes for clumsy people.”
“Do you believe in astrology?” Siwon asked, stilling Hyukjae’s hand and pointing to a tangled stitch Hyukjae would have to untangle before continuing.
“No. At least…” Hyukjae shook his head. “Our earth would look as a star to someone standing on distant Mars or Venus, and it is hardly a mystical place. Why would any other star be different?”
“You believe in life on other planets?” Siwon asked, raising his eyebrows. Hyukjae chuckled.
“My younger brother is persuasive.”
Siwon smiled. “Your face brightens when you speak of him. You must be close.”
“Did you have siblings?” Hyukjae asked quickly, before the tears could well up in his eyes again.
“None blood-related,” Siwon said. “But I think of Hangeng as my brother.”
Hyukjae concentrated on pushing his needle through the sail cloth, tips of his ears pink as he spoke. “I think you are very noble, to do so much for him, for everyone on this ship. Few men would do what you have done, or given up as much to do it.”
When he looked up at Siwon after a period of silence, thinking that he had said something wrong to warrant it, Siwon was gazing pensively out over the water, eyes on the distant horizon. Hyukjae was reminded again of the figure of Adonis, chiseled from marble, so cold in its stillness. Not wanting to intrude on Siwon’s moment of introspection, he returned to his work, tying off a knot and picking up a small knife to cut the thread.
“Be careful,” Siwon said suddenly, startling Hyukjae into cutting his finger. He gasped, squeezing the cut closed as Junsu had once done for him after he cut himself trying to shear the hedges for Yoochun, gritting his teeth against the sharp sting of pain.
“Yours was truly an unlucky star,” Siwon sighed, pulling his handkerchief from his pocket.
“Don’t,” Hyukjae said, holding his hand out of reach, “it’s the handkerchief your mother gave you.”
Siwon blinked, then pursed his lips and tugged forcefully at Hyukjae’s arm, holding up his finger and inspecting the cut. Hyukjae winced as Siwon pressed his thumbnail into the skin, and fresh blood flowed.
“It’s deep,” he said. “Hangeng will have to give you stitches.”
“Stitches,” Hyukjae repeated, turning pale. Gently, Siwon wrapped his handkerchief around Hyukjae’s finger and tied it off with a knot.
“It’s just a handkerchief,” Siwon said, before Hyukjae could make any further protests. “I hold the memories of my mother in my heart, not my pocket. Now go get your stitches.”
“The sail…” Hyukjae said weakly, hoping to delay the inevitable.
“I will finish it, go on.” Siwon nodded his head encouragingly. Hyukjae grimaced at him and left to find Hangeng.
Zhoumi finally cornered him that evening as he lay in his hammock and nursed his bandaged finger.
“I heard you were injured,” he said, squatting by the hammock. Giving him a baleful look, Hyukjae held up his finger for inspection. “Will you live?”
Hyukjae stuck out his tongue and tried to roll over, which was a rather impossible move to make lying in a hammock, and he only succeeded in swinging dizzily from left to right. As the world and Zhoumi swayed above him, he could see Zhoumi fighting to keep down a laugh.
“I hate these hammocks,” Hyukjae announced.
“Then you’ll be pleased to know the Captain is giving you back your cabin,” Zhoumi said, helping him out of the netting. “He says there is enough leftover of the money you gave him to pay the rent till we reach China.”
“Oh,” Hyukjae said, and hid his smile by bending to pack his things into his traveling chest.
“Five hundred dollars,” Zhoumi sighed. “In gold, too. If you had told me about it, I could have helped you spend it more wisely.”
“You’re a swindler, Zhoumi,” Hyukjae informed him, even as Zhoumi heaved Hyukjae’s chest up on his shoulder for the third time since they’d met.
“I’ve only lied to you twice. Well, three times, but they’re hardly worth counting, really,” Zhoumi said dismissively.
“So you say,” Hyukjae said, folding his arms. Zhoumi paused in the middle of the corridor, giving him a long, searching look. Then he tilted his head and gave Hyukjae a coy smile.
“Won’t you forgive me for it? I didn’t mean you any harm.”
Hyukjae felt his resolve faltering. “I’ll forgive you when you apologise.”
“Then, good sir,” Zhoumi said with a sweeping bow, dropping Hyukjae’s chest by the side of his bed as he did so and catching one of Hyukjae’s hands in his. “I apologise most profusely. I apologise most fervently. I apologise most perfervidly-”
“That’s not a word,” Hyukjae laughed, pulling his hand back self-consciously.
“I assure you it is,” Zhoumi said. “Oh dear, oh dear. How ever will you learn a new language if you haven’t mastered your own? Tell me Eunhyuk, do you speak English?”
He asked the last question slowly, dragging out each syllable, and Hyukjae laughed again, sinking onto his bed and shaking his head. Zhoumi grinned.
“Am I forgiven?” he asked, as though confident of the answer. Hyukjae nodded, smiling.
“I would ask you to promise never to lie to me again, but I don’t know if I could trust you to be honest about it.”
Zhoumi chuckled. “You make me sound like a rascal.”
“Aren’t you?” Hyukjae called after him as he left the room, still laughing.
In the next chapter they sail into the Arctic Circle, full of cold and unchartered waters. What will they find in the blank space of the maps?