Long Journey || ATEEZ

Traitor

"EVERYONE!" came Cezanne's charismatic voice, ringing out across the deck. Everyone immediately fell silent under its influence, whether they were ally or enemy. "WE'RE LEAVING!"

And so, those of The Catastrophe, as if they were hypnotised, paused in the middle of their fights, and trotted over to where Cezanne waited, a triumphant grin scrawled all over her face.

Hongjoong's crew gave each other confused looks, debating whether they should chase after them or not.

Hongjoong frowned at Cezanne, but the other captain merely gave him the middle finger, and waltzed across the gangplank to her own ship, and soon enough, they were off.

Wooyoung joined Hongjoong's side, a comforting arm wrapped around San, who was still sobbing into his shoulder, his face a mirror image of the captain's.

"What the fuck?"

Hongjoong had his suspicions as to why they had left so suddenly. But to chase after the ship was most certainly suicide, considering the demoralised, weakened state of his crew, and so Hongjoong sighed, watching the enemy ship disappear into the fog, leaving the ATINY in sullen silence.

Ben and Yua's corpses were discovered not long after – though thankfully not by Vi or Miyeon, who had gone below-deck as soon as the battle had ended, searching for the two teens in question. They found out soon enough.

Seungho was found on the forecastle, sobbing over a dead body – Soni's dead body – as some of the crew tried to pull the mourning elf off the body of his deceased boyfriend.

There were quite a few more corpses on the deck, but they were all of the enemy, and mostly of San's doing. Grimly, the captain and the first mate, along with a couple of the others, pushed them over the deck and they plunged into the sea.

Mopping up all the blood would have to come later, Hongjoong thought with a heavy heart as he surveyed the scene. People were weeping over the losses of their teammates, others were being rushed to the infirmary, crippled with a colourful variety of different injuries.

Then Saren came out from cowering in the corner, fury etched into his every feature, as he pointed an accusing finger at San.

"What did I tell you?!" the half-dwarf spat at the captain, completely forgetting respect (though it wasn't like he had any, anyway). "What did I tell all of you?!" he roared, turning to the rest of the crew, they looked up at the commotion, fixing the ginger with conflicted eyes. "Demons are fucking dangerous! Look what he did!" Saren said, furiously pointing at the various pools of blood and splatters over the various places on the deck. "He's a danger – he's a fucking monster!" he accused, pointing at San. "Kick him off the ship!"

Though most of the crew regarded him with cold glares, a couple – mostly the ones that had almost become San's target in his rampage – seemed to see plausibility beneath the bastard's words.

Hongjoong growled.

"Shut the fuck up, Saren," the captain warned, "before I have you thrown off this ship." He glared at the ginger, and he shivered. "That applies to all of you – if I hear any of you saying anything about San, I'm getting Yeosang to tie you to the sail-yards with his Magik, alright?"

The crew nodded grimly.

Hongjoong sighed, pinching the spot between his eyes, and turned to Wooyoung, San and Seonghwa.

"You guys go get cleaned up, I'll start mopping up the—Woah, San, are you alright?"

San's eyes were scrunched, hot, painful tears dripping from them, and his body shook with guilt.