Long Journey || ATEEZ

One Day At A Time

There was some sort of barrier between the members of ATEEZ and the rest of the crew. Perhaps it was the close bond that the eight original pirates held, or it was the mutual bond that the seventeen of the prisoner ship shared, their reliance on each other born from the suffering they had experienced together. Either way, the two parties kept to themselves as they prepared for the ship's leave.

All of this changed when they set off on their journey, and hit the seas.

At first ATEEZ had been doing all the heavy work – working the sails, making sure the ship was in tip-top condition for the journey – and all the rest of the crew had been doing was moving last-minute crates or cleaning the deck. Trivial jobs. They had no experience working on a ship, had no knowledge of how one worked. Most of them had never even been on one before – or had ever seen the sea.

But, of course, one way or another, they'd have to find a way to be useful.

And thankfully, Hongjoong had already prepared for that.

"We'll be teaching the new crew members how to operate the ship and how to fight, starting from today," the captain announced one day, well over a week into their journey.

"Sounds good," Yunho commented, always agreeable.

"We do have extra weapons in the ship's hold, right?" Jongho asked.

"Yeah, we do," Yeosang said, who had inspected their cargo the last night, making sure nothing was broken, the food was in tip-top condition, and stowaways were not present. "Unless somebody came in and stole them this morning or something, but I doubt that."

"Awesome, we can start off by letting them choose a weapon to wield," Hongjoong said cheerfully. "San, Wooyoung – can you guys get them?"

"Of course, hyungnim!" San smiled, and beckoned for his friend to follow.

The first thing San and Wooyoung heard as they opened the door to the weaponry was a shuffling noise, which abruptly stopped as the two pirates stepped into the room.

"Hello?" San called out uncertainly, before exchanging looks with his holin friend. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a shoot of neon-orange disappear behind one of the towers of crates – which, looking back on it, had been stored pretty impractically; they'd go tumbling the moment the ship hit any sort of rough waters.

"Hey," Wooyoung whispered to the demon. "I think we have a stowaway – but let's pretend we didn't notice. Give them the element of surprise."

"Sounds good," San nodded, then louder, so the stowaway could hear, "So we just need to take all the weapons above deck, right?"

"Think so," Wooyoung replied.

"I'll take these crates, then," San said, moving deliberately to the stack he had seen the stowaway – of which he had a suspicion as to who it was – disappear behind.

"Why do we have so many weapons anyway," Wooyoung muttered, half to himself.

San shrugged as he prepared himself to catch the stowaway, pretending to inspect the contents of the crates. He couldn't help but think they should most likely organise the entire room, but that was something for a later date; catching this stowaway was what was important now.

"Once we start getting into real fights, we'll definitely lose weapons and stuff," the demon suggested. "And once they're in the water, they'll be hard to get back."

"True," the holin nodded. He winked at San, and the demon grinned back. Time to expose whoever it was that had been hiding.

In a pink flash the crates had been blown across the room, its contents jingling merrily as they narrowly missed Wooyoung's head.