Long Journey || ATEEZ

Take Me Home

"What do we do?" Hongjoong asked hollowly as he stared blankly at his first mate. "Seungho's dead." He paused. "Poison? Who would've thought of that?" The captain chuckled, albeit a little derangedly, before he broke down, slumped onto his chair and buried his face in his hands. "What do we do?"

The question rang out into the hollow silence like a poison.

Seonghwa moved forwards and put a hand on the captain's shoulder.

"Deal with Saren first," the first mate said firmly. Though he felt the captain's pain, somebody here had to be the cool, level-headed one here. Two whimpering, emotional wrecks were not what the crew needed.

"But what are we meant to do with him? He's a traitor – and a murderer on top of that: we've got to do something!"

"We could kill him," Seonghwa said quietly.

Hongjoong looked up.

"But—"

"I could do the honours," Seonghwa said, already reaching for his gun and making to head out. "You know I'm used to this kind of thing."

Hongjoong bit his lip.

"No," he said firmly, getting up and putting a hand on Seonghwa's shoulder. "You shouldn't. Especially not you, of all people."

"Why not?" Seonghwa protested, his voice practically a hiss. "I'm the best suited person to this. I used to be an assassin: I'm used to death. It doesn't faze me anymore."

"No, Seonghwa, I don't want you doing this," Hongjoong insisted. "I know how much you hated that life. You never said it whilst we were in Taerrya, but it was obvious."

Seonghwa's shoulders slumped. Why wouldn't Hongjoong let him do this for him? He'd said it – he was used to killing (though he hated to admit); he didn't mind whether Saren lived or died, he couldn't care less. All Seonghwa was trying to do was try to lift a weight off Hongjoong's shoulders – why wasn't he letting him?

"And besides," the captain said, turning away. "It makes me feel like Cezanne—it makes me feel like Big Grey. I don't want to be playing around with other people's lives like they do, and did." Hongjoong shivered.

"Then what do you propose we do?" Seonghwa asked, albeit a little coldly, raising an eyebrow and crossing his arms.

"I—" Hongjoong sighed. "I don't know. This isn't right – none of this is right! Seungho didn't deserve to die, Soni, Yua and Ben didn't deserve to die, Subin didn't deserve to die! I don't want to kill him, Seonghwa, but at the same time, I really think we should...What do I do?" Hongjoong looked up at his first mate, his eyes filled with anguish.

At the captain's utterly hopeless expression, what pieces of petty bitter resentment that had been festering in Seonghwa's mind vanished, leaving a wave of overpowering pity for his friend – and a hollow guilt.

Seonghwa leaned forward and pulled Hongjoong into a hug.

"I—I'm scared, Seonghwa," Hongjoong sobbed, burying his face in his first mate's shoulder. "I don't know what to do. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't even know if I'm doing the right thing."

"Hongjoong, I—"

"Don't just blindly tell me I'm doing fine, that I'm doing great, Seonghwa. I'm not, I'm clearly not." Hongjoong sobbed again. "So many people are dead. And it's all my fault – I should've been a better captain."

"You're not, Hongjoong," Seonghwa said, fighting back tears himself. Hongjoong had always been a bright, untouchable light to the first mate. He was always smiling, always the one to comfort the tortured little assassin-boy from Taerrya. Always there, always so sure, always so firm. Captain Hongjoong was an unbreakable pillar of charisma and confidence, but now he was crumbling down, crashing to the floor like the fall of a mighty giant, leaving behind a scared, doubtful boy swept up by his ambitions and lost to a world of stone hearts and cold-edged apathy.