TREASURE || ATEEZ

08- depths of despair

ep. eight
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"H-hello."

A sheepish smile pulls on your lips as you stare at the person who will soon be the reason of your death. Your hands are trembling and your forehead is breaking out in cold sweat, eyes widen out of fear. Your inner-self screams for you to move, but your body doesn't listen and freezes in place.

Your hand instinctively reaches into your skirt pocket to pull out Yeosang's favorite dagger, holding it out for him to take it. "D-do you w-want this back?"

One step transitions into multiple steps and the combatant is approaching you at a quick pace. At this point, your heart is pounding against your chest as you anticipate the sensation of death to be bestowed upon you. You've acknowledged the fate that is standing before you, and you close your eyes as a sign of acceptance.

But once the sound of his footsteps have disappeared, nothing happens to you.

Hesistately, you open your eyes to see him focus on his dagger as he gently closes your fingers onto it. He pushes your hand so that you now hold the weapon close to you and gives your other hand the sheath for it. "It's yours."

Your breath hitches due to his closeness.

You think that your heart would calm itself down after hearing him imply that he isn't actually going kill you, but it's racing faster than before. From the limited information that you have received from San and Yunho, it's odd for the notorious Grim Reaper of the sea to be acting this way around you, especially since you are a stranger and a woman.  You can feel the heat traveling up to your face while he unknowingly closes the distance between the two of you.

Suddenly, he stops once his eyes are locked onto something on your body and you follow his gaze to notice the moonstone necklace that is wrapped around your neck. Seeing that he has been staring at it for a while, you decide to put the dagger back into your pocket and reach behind your neck to unclip the piece of jewelry. Since he has given you one of his favorite possessions to you, maybe you should give him this.

"Here." You take one of his hands and place it into his palm. "You can have it."

At first, he backs up away from you to take a moment to look at the necklace, curiosity written in his gaze. You can't blame him, it is a beautiful piece of jewelry that also caught your eye after all.

But what he does next is what catches you off-guard.

Abruptly, he puts it on his neck and then runs to the edge of the ship, diving into the dark sea. You let out a surprised yelp and immediately rush over to the place where the male last stood and peer over the edge in search for his body in the water. You notice that you have caught the attention of the pirates in the dining room with your slightly loud shout as the muffled noises from afar suddenly got louder with the door opening.

"What is happening?!?" The voice of the Pirate king rings in the silence. He spots you leaning over the ledge of the ship's rail, and he storms toward you. "You! What are you doing?"

You look at him, fear struck in your gaze. "Yeosang just jumped off the ship and I don't see him anywhere! He should have came up to the surface to take a breath a couple of minutes ago!"

It seems that your explanation appeared to be a joke to the male because he simply laughs at you. With the stench of rum entering your nose, you take note that he must have drank a lot when you left the room and is probably drunk at this very moment.

The man approaches you and places an arm on the railing as he leans in close to you, a cunning smirk decorating his lips. "Treasure, if you wanted my attention you should have said so."

"I'm not joking!" You roughly push him away from you and continue to search for the missing pirate. "Yeosang is nowhere in sight and I think something has happened to him!"

"Calm down Hama," you hear Yunho's voice consoles. You turn around to see his figure leave the crowd to come over to you, and he pats your shoulder in a reassuring manner. "Everyone on this ship knows how to swim, no matter how rough the waves are. In fact, Yeosang is one of our best swimmers so you don't need to worry."

If that fact isn't obvious since they live in the sea.

Your gut feeling continues to persist on the idea that the combatant is in danger, and you listen to the feeling. You gently remove the quartermaster's hand from you shoulder with a small smile before you casually search for a specific item on deck, which is luckily located at the front of the forecastle deck.

You make your way to it and pick it up, the rough material irritating your soft hands. With a rope in your grasp, you return to the edge of the ship where everyone is surrounding and give one end of the rope to Yunho.

"What do you want me to do with this?" He asks you, oblivious of your actions.

You finish doing what you need with the other end of the rope and stand close to the edge, the ocean waves ready to engulf you. Having Yeosang's dagger still in your grip, you throw it onto the floor and grip the railing of the ship. "I need you to hold onto it. If you feel a tug, pull it."

"What-"

Before he can finish, you take in a large breath and muster all the courage to throw yourself overboard.

Muffled shouts can be heard from underneath the surface as you open your eyes to see only see the waters of the sea. You make sure that the rope tied around your waist is secured, and you begin swimming around to locate the pirate's figure lingering in the depths of the ocean. Your eyes sting in pain as you keep them open, exposing them to the saltiness of the ocean, and your lungs shout for you to take breath.

Fortunately, you notice a glimmer of bright white in your sight and swim toward the light. When you reach for it, you feel your body get pulled back, restricting you go any further. You inch further away from the white light, so you instinctively untie the rope from your waist and freely swim to your designated location.

Your hand almost gets a grip on the shimmering jewel until your elbow makes contact with something, which startles you, but you calm down when you immediately recognize it.

Found you.

You wrap your arm around Yeosang's body and grab the moonstone necklace that was removed from his neck before making your way to the surface.

Bringing both your heads back to the sea surface, a gasp leaves your lips and you greedily inhale all the air you can take in. Your eyes drift to the man in your grasp, who is unconscious and slightly breathing. Cheers from afar can be heard from the ship, but you pay no attention to it because all you can think of is getting the unconscious pirate back onto the ship immediately.

You search for the rope around your waist and yank it, but in the midst of the action you realize that you untied yourself when you were rescuing Yeosang since he was out of your reach at the time. Cursing under your breath, you notice how far you are from the pirate ship and fear slowly seeps into your system at the length you have to swim. Aching begins to occur in your legs as they continue kicking to keep the two of you above the surface of the sea.

You can feel yourself slowly be lowered to the ocean while each movement from underneath becomes slower and slower. You attempt to use your free arm to help you stay afloat, but it's not enough to support you and Yeosang.

C'mon, you plead to yourself. Don't give up now.

Opening your mouth, you try to shout for help as you continue to lose the strength in your limbs, but nothing comes out. Legs and arm flailing to stay afloat, but you eventually disappear into the murky waters of the ocean with no energy to return back to the ship and the last thing you see the panic faces of the crew as they watch you take your last breath.