Long Journey || ATEEZ

Rumours And Reminiscence

In the end, the Ghost Queen ended up keeping the map, but they'd agreed upon the deal she had proposed. The rest of the pirates left, leaving only San, Wooyoung and Yeosang behind.

"Can you tell us where the salon is in your 'base'?" San asked. "Cuz Yeosang has to dye his hair and everything."

"Ah," the Ghost Queen said, after carefully placing the ancient treasure map into her drawer, and locking it. She grimaced. "That might be a bit of a problem."

"In what way?"

"We don't have a salon here in my part of town. Not one that offers hair dye, anyway."

"Whaddya mean, there's no salon that dyes hair?" Wooyoung asked.

"Well I'm sorry that the people under my protection prioritise not looking like a cat vomited a hairball onto their head rather than dyeing it fancy colours," she replied, rolling her eyes.

"Well that's hardly why Yeosang's getting his hair dyed, is it?" Wooyoung said.

"So what are we going to do? It's not like we can go out to the rest of town."

"For fuck's sake," she swore under her breath. "This is really a problem, isn't it? I can't just let the witch roam around freely about town – there's Old Man Jeremy to think about..."

"How about you just take us into town. Take us to the salon, then you can leave to do whatever it is that you do. I dunno," Yeosang shrugged. "Since by the time I've finished it should be fine cuz I dyed my hair. You said Old Man Jeremy isn't that good with faces, right? Then that's problem solved, isn't it?"

"That might work, actually," the Ghost Queen considered. She smirked. "Nice to know even scum like me can still serve a purpose," she said dramatically, placing a hand to her chest.

Wooyoung rolled his eyes. She grinned at this, and got up from her chair.

"Well, what are you three waiting for?" she asked as she headed towards the exit.

The three scrambled to follow, Wooyoung with more than a few complaints.

* * *

"I'll be seeing you around, then, my dear clients," the Ghost Queen said with another one of her casual smirks as she stood in the doorway. "Enjoy your new hair colour." And then the bell atop the door jingled as it swung closed, and the half-holin strutted off.

"Ugh, she freaks me out," the main hairdresser said, as she began pulling out her equipment. She gestured for the part-timer working with her to hand Yeosang the sheet of laminated paper with all the different hair colours they offered.

The three pirates stayed quiet.

"Why?" the part-timer asked, in an obvious dialect. It seemed he was from the countryside.

He handed over the piece of laminated paper to Yeosang, and the witch glanced at it.

"Oh, so you haven't heard the rumours?" the hairdresser asked. "That woman, everyone calls her the Ghost Queen. She's pretty well known around here – and not for the right reasons."

"Oh," the part-timer said. He nodded as Yeosang pointed at a shade of blonde, and trotted over to the hairdresser. "What'd she do?"

"She's a gangster, basically. She'll do anything for money."

That, San, Wooyoung and Yeosang could confirm.

"But that's not the worst of it," the hairdresser continued, taking the laminate from the boy, and nodding as he pointed to the colour Yeosang wanted. "Apparently – according to the rumours – she's the one behind the massacre of the witches a couple of years back. Most of them were old, weak or too young to even know what was going on. They didn't even have the chance to fight back." The hairdresser shook her head. "It was horrifying."