WHO ARE YOU?|ATEEZ FANFIC (In Editing Progress)

Chapter 12|A morning at sea

The first night on the Illusion went better for some than for others. While Yunho was sleeping peacefully in his lookout, after he had finally fetched a pillow and blanket because the winds were a bit chilly, San and Wooyoung were still lying on the floor in the captain’s cabin, discreetly cuddling each other with Wooyoung wrapping an arm around San’s slim waist and snuggling his face into the crouch of his neck, and the others had made themselves comfortable in hammocks, Mingi was lying awake on the floor under deck, snuggled up in his blanket, feeling ill from the wavy dance of the ship. He had hoped that he would get used to it by night, but every time he closed his eyes and the ship leaned from left to right and back, he felt like he was going to vomit, which kept him from sleeping. He felt his stomach aching and growling, rolled onto the side and tightly wrapped his arms around his body, but no matter what he wouldn’t feel better. When he finally couldn’t hold back anymore, quickly got up on his feet stumbling, ran towards the ladder and quickly climbed up. Seonghwa, who was woken up by Mingis sudden movements, raised his head in confusion and looked after him.

“Mingi?” He asked quietly, but Mingi didn’t hear him. He climbed out of the trapdoor and arrived in the captains cabin, were Wooyoung was snuggling up to San, who was hardly able to cuddle properly with his hurt arm, so all he did was leaning his head closer to Wooyoung. Mingi rushed out of the cabin and on deck, not noticing that Seonghwa was following him, leaned over the railing and relieved his stomach. Seonghwa stood in the doorway to the cabin and looked at Mingi worriedly. He walked up to Mingi from behind and cleared his throat, announcing his presence as to not scare Mingi, but the younger one was to busy throwing up to even care. Tears rolled down his cheeks and he sobbed, when Seonghwa gently put a hand on his back and rubbed it up and down.

“It’s okay.” He said reassuringly. Mingi sobbed hard. He felt worn out and disgusting. When Seonghwa noticed, that Mingi was done he went to grab a pack of tissues from one of the hygiene backpacks in the cabin, came back and handed a tissue to Mingi to clean himself.

“Here.” Mingi turned his head slightly, just enough to look at the tissue in Seonghwa’s hand, then he grabbed it with shaky hands and wiped his mouth, before he turned around and sat down on the barrels next to him. Seonghwa sat down next to him and kept on rubbing his back. They sat there like that for some time. While Mingi tried to calm his stomach and relax, Seonghwa kept his eyes open and observed the surroundings. His greatest fear at that moment was that the Halateez would sneak up on them while they were all asleep and helpless. What would stop them from taking a boat and sailing the few hundred meters across the water to attack the boys? They seemed really serious about wanting the boys dead, so some water shouldn’t be a hindrance to them. After a little more than half an hour, Seonghwa sighed quietly and looked back at Mingi. His face was pale and he had his head rested on the railing. Smiling warmly, Seonghwa brushed some of the black and blue strands from his face.

“You should try and get some sleep, Mingi.” He said, but Mingi shook his head.

“I can’t.” He raised his head from the railing and rubbed his face with his hands. He was so tired, but he knew that if he lay down he would feel sick again. Seonghwa smiled encouragingly at Mingi.

“Try. If it doesn’t work again, I’ll stay awake with you okay?” He suggested. Mingi hesitated and looked at Seonghwa. He was looking at him so softly, with a gentle expression and a loving smile on his lips. That he was really willing to stay up with him, if he couldn’t sleepy really touched Mingi. Seonghwa was just tired as him, but he still suggested that to him. Frustrated, Mingi let out a deep sigh and then nodded.

“Fine… I’ll try.” With that, Seonghwa helped Mingi go back inside. A little dizzy on his legs, Mingi needed Seonghwa’s support while walking and he even held his hand while climbing down the ladder to the under deck. Seonghwa then followed him and offered him his hammock. It took a little persuasion to convince Mingi that the hammock would balance out the ship’s rocking on the waves and help him with his nausea, but then Mingi gave in and climbed inside the hammock. He rolled together in the comfortable sack, snuggled his face into the pillow and let Seonghwa wrap him um in the thick blanket. Once Mingi was snuggled up and surrounded by warmth, Seonghwa wished him goodnight and then retreated to the last free hammock to sleep. At first it felt weird for Mingi to lay in the hammock. His stomach was still angry with him and at first Mingi thought he’d have to get up again, but after a little while his stomach finally relaxed and Mingi breathed a sigh of relief. He closed his eyes and tried to think about nothing, before he finally was able to drift into a peaceful dream.

When the next morning arrived and Hongjoong and Yeosang were the first to climb out of their hammocks to go on deck and get the ship moving again, they had not expected that their actually good mood would be spoiled the moment they stepped out of the captain’s cabin. It was not the weather, the cool breeze that made Yunho shiver in his sleep even under the thick blanket in his lookout, nor the fact that a seagull had made itself comfortable on one of the backpacks full of food, of all things, the one that contained breakfast. No. What really pissed the two boys off so early in the morning was the anchor, the chain of which had apparently been extremely rusty, which is why it had broken off overnight. Without the anchor, the ship had gone with the waves and instead of about four hundred meters, they were barely a hundred meters from the beach. The current had pulled them backwards, thus ruining about an hour’s journey.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.” Hongjoong said in an annoyed manner when he climbed up the stairs and looked at the beach.

“We’re almost all the way back at the beach!” Yeosang sighed and rubbed his sleepy eyes.

“Maybe we should have put a night shift after all.” He said and Hongjoong nodded, pissed by the fact, that he knew something bad would happen if he went to bed, but he let himself be persuaded. Annoyed, he went to the steering wheel and fished the small key out of his trouser pocket.

“There’s no point now. We have to catch up again, otherwise we’ll never get over there.” With that, he put the key in the ignition and started the engine. Yunho, jolted awake by the sound of the engine, jumped up and, wrapped in his blanket, looked down from the lookout when he too noticed the illusion’s decline in distance to the beach.

“Didn’t we stop the ship a little further away than this?” He asked, really pulling Hongjoongs patience, but he kept as calm as he could and just nodded a little passive aggressively.

“But just a little.” He said with obvious sarcasm in his voice. Yeosang smiled somewhat amusedly and went back to the door of the captain’s cabin, opened it and entered. The first thing he saw when he entered was San and Wooyoung sitting next to each other on the floor, San sleepily rubbing his eyes while Wooyoung carefully removed the new bandage, he had carefully put on San’s Arm after taking the pressure bandage off just before everyone had gone to bed last night. The new bandage didn’t look so new at all though. The wound had bled slightly again during the night, but it was not serious enough to cause concern. As Wooyoung carefully unwrapped the bandage, which required San to hold his arm slightly up, San repeatedly winced in pain and whimpered.

“Everything okay here?” Yeosang asked when he entered and walked towards the two boys.

“We’ll see in just a second.” Wooyoung answered. Concentration was on his face and especially with the last piece of bandage that was slightly stuck to San’s wound with blood, he tried to be as careful as possible to avoid causing San unnecessary pain. San still hissed when Wooyoung carefully pulled of the last bit of the bandage and pulled a face.

“Ouch.” He whimpered and Wooyoung put on a soft caring smile.

“I’m sorry. It’ll probably hurt for a while.” He said and leaned closer to look at the wound. Yeosang shook himself when he looked at the scene.

“We’re you a doctor in another life or why can you look at that so easily?” He asked, making Wooyoung chuckle.

“It’s not that I enjoy the view.” He answered and reached out for the first aid kit by the backpacks, but he couldn’t reach it from where he was sitting.

“Yeosang, could you give me the kit?” Yeosang didn’t hesitate, went to the backpacks and grabbed the kit before bringing it to Wooyoung. He sat down right next to him and gently patted Sans knee.

“You really took one for the team, bro.” He said and San nodded.

“Nothing special. I just got stabbed.” He joked and while Yeosang giggled and thought it was funny, Wooyoung rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“You know that you could’ve died, right?” Wooyoung asked seriously and San looked at him with soft warm eyes.

“But I didn’t. My pretty boy saved me.” A little flustered, Wooyoung paused his action of looking for the disinfectant in the first aid kit, but quickly shook his head and continued searching.

“Idiot.” He said, hiding the fact that his cheeks had turned red. Yeosang just smiled and shook his head.

“How long do you think it’ll need to heal?” Yeosang then asked and Wooyoung shrugged cluelessly.

“Not sure.” He answered.

“We don’t have anything to sew up the wound so I don’t know if it’ll take much longer or not. Put it’s actually looking pretty good, so I’m guessing a few weeks to fully heal, but you should be able to use your arm better in a few days.” San nodded and sighed.

“And all this just for a purple Island.” Wooyoung shocked his head.

“Do we really think the Island is gonna be purple, because it was purple on the map?” He asked and Yeosang laughed.

“No, definitely not. There are no purple Islands.” While Yeosang said that, Wooyoung took of the cap of the disinfectant and then looked at San with pity. He just sighed in frustration.

“Let me guess. That will hurt like shit.” He said and Wooyoung nodded.

“Sorry. I’ll be quick.” He then shook the disinfectant vigorously once again before holding it at a distance from the wound and pressing the button. When the cool liquid touched the wound, San flinched, but the coldness of the liquid wasn’t even the worst part. Then it started to burn on the sensitive wound and San whimpered quietly.

“Ouch…” He whined, when Wooyoung gently patted his head and smiled at him.

“It’s already over.” He said, but San shook his head and continued to sulk.

“Nope. Still hurts…” The two boys ignored him, when Wooyoung turned around to look at Yeosang and before he could even say anything, Yeosang took a guess.

“You need new bandages?” He asked, taking a look at the empty little first aid kit and Wooyoung nodded happily. While the two continued to care for the injured man, the other boys gradually crawled out from the lower deck after the engine had woken them up too. Seonghwa was the last to finally pull himself out of the hammock and wearily stumbled onto the deck when he noticed the confusingly short distance to the beach and went to Hongjoong.

“Did you go backwards?” He asked and Hongjoong sighed deeply, before he shook his head and pointed to the broken anchor.

“Our anchor broke and the waves brought us back to the beach.” He explained and Seonghwa mouthed a soft ‘ah’

“Great.”
While Hongjoong steered the ship back out onto the water, Seonghwa started preparing breakfast. In order not to waste the meat they had brought with them, Seonghwa decided to set up the grill now, with Mingi helping him. In order to get to the meat, however, they first had to scare the seagull away, which was easier said than done. The animal found the backpack really comfortable and did not understand why it was flying away, but when Mingi suddenly started making strange screeching crowing noises and wildly waved his arms to scare the seagull, he succeeded in doing that and the bird fluttered away in fright. A little embarrassed but proud of himself, Mingi grabbed the backpack and took out the meat.

“Thanks.” Seonghwa said, a little traumatized by Mingis performance, but he didn’t hold on to it for long and quickly started unpacking the meat and putting it on the grill. It was the delicious smell that lured Yeosang, San and Wooyoung out of the cabin and into the sunlight. San was still not quite recovered from his blood loss, with made him dizzy while walking, so Wooyoung kept on holding his hand, leading him towards Seonghwa and the grill, where they both sat down and relaxed, I healing the smell of their breakfast. While the meat was cooking on the grill, all the boys slowly gathered together, except for Jongho, who wanted to relieve Hongjoong at the wheel so he could eat straight away. When the first piece of meat was already cooked through with a delicious brown crust but not always juicy, Seonghwa took a plate and placed the meat on it, then held it out to San. A little confused as to why he was the first to get something, San looked at Seonghwa but said nothing, thanked him for the food and took the plate. To make it easier for him to eat the meat, Wooyoung took a knife and fork and cut the meat into small pieces for San, while Seonghwa gave the others some food as well.

“Thank you for the food.” Hongjoong said gratefully, when Seonghwa handed him his plate, when they started eating. In order not to miss Jongho, Yeosang grabbed his plate and a plate for Jongho and ran up the stairs to Jongho, put the plates on the railing and occasionally gave Jongho a bite from his plate, feeding him with a fork while Jongho held on to the steering wheel.

“Mmh!” Seonghwa made a pleased sound, when he tried the meat.

“It’s good!” He said and joyfully continued the food. After all the stress they had yesterday and this morning, they really deserved this breakfast. When everyone had finished their meal, Yunho volunteered to cleaning the dishes and took everything to the platform by the bow of the ship, sat down and washed the plates and cutlery in the freshly filled bucket of water. Hongjoong went back to the upper deck and approached Jongho.

“I can get back behind the wheel.” He said, but only got a judgy side eye from Jongho.

“You’ve been steering all morning.and yesterday the whole day. Take a nap or something. I’ll steer.” Jongho pushed Hongjoong away from the wheel and ignored his grim face. When he concentrated on steering again, Jongho shook his head.

This fucking workaholic.

He thought. When Hongjoong realized that Jongho wouldn’t let him take the helm, he rolled his eyes and reluctantly walked back down the steps from the upper deck, letting the younger boy steer. He accepted it, but he didn’t like having to give up the steering wheel. It had been his idea to board the Illusion and follow the map, so he felt he should be the one to guide the group across the lake. When he wasn’t at the helm, he also felt so useless. There was nothing to do on board except steer and maybe keep an eye out, but Yunho had internalized that job already after moving into the lookout, so Hongjoongs help wasn’t needed with that too. Frustrated, Hongjoong stepped inside the captains cabin and went to the desk, where he sat down and leaned back on the chair. A deep sigh left his lips and he closed his eyes. After all this time, he was so used to being in charge of leading the group and keeping them safe, that it was hard for him to just relax and leave this responsibility to someone else. He had been the leader of the group for three weeks now and had never really stopped being the leader. Even at the beach, where they had lived peacefully for two weeks, he was in charge and always looked out for the safety of the others. As soon as they moved into the house, Hongjoong didn’t hesitate for a second and decided he would sleep in the living room, near the front door. The reason for this was not that he didn’t feel comfortable in bed with Seonghwa, or because he thought the couch would be more comfortable. Bullshit. He still had back pain from sleeping on the couch. No. The only reason why he slept on the couch, was because he knew his sleep wasn’t deep, so when anything or anyone moved inside the house, he’d hear it and could be alarmed immediately in case of an emergency. If it was Mingi snoring the whole night, Yunho stepping out of the room to go to the toilet in the middle of the night while still half asleep, or Yeosang coming down the stairs for a morning walk. Hongjoong had heard it all. He had also been the one the younger group members came for permission, if they wanted to go out on their own. It felt weird for Hongjoong, that they even considered asking him for permission, because who was he to give them permission for anything? He wasn’t their father or anything and not even the oldest of the group. He just guessed, that the boys trusted him so much by now, that they thought he’d know if it was to dangerous to go out or not. What also gave him a strange feeling in the stomach about the whole leadership over the group thing was that he himself had no idea what he was doing. Every time he made a discussion for the group, he always questioned it. Even in this moment, he sat there nervously tapping his finger on the desk, not sure if it was really the right thing to leave the beach. Maybe the Halateez didn’t attack them just because they wanted to in this moment. What if they actually didn’t want the boys to leave the town? It had been somewhat peaceful between them and the Halateez while they stayed in the little beach house, but the moment Hongjoong decided they’d leave, suddenly the Halateez attacked and San got badly hurt. Was it his fault? Frustrated, Hongjoong took a deep breath, when suddenly the door to the cabin opened and Wooyoung stepped inside.

“There you are.” He said, when he saw Hongjoong sitting by the desk. He smiled and looked at Wooyoung.

“Did you look for me?” He asked and Wooyoung immediately nodded and grabbed the first aid kit.
“I wanted to check on your hand. I didn’t yesterday.” Sighing, Hongjoong nodded and pulled back the second chair standing by the desk, for Wooyoung to sit on. Wooyoung walked over to join Hongjoong at the desk, put the first aid kit on the desk and gently took Hongjoong’s Hand. While he unwrapped the bandage, Hongjoong looked outside the window and watched the Illusion slowly distancing itself from the beach more and more. The further they got away from the beach, the more the thought grew in Hongjoong’s mind that maybe it was the wrong decision and that they should go back. He sighed, without even really noticing it, and Wooyoung looked up in concern.

“Everything okay?” He asked, drawing Hongjoong’s attention again. He turned his head, looking at Wooyoung and tilting his head, resting on his right hand after putting his elbow on the table.

“I don’t know, to be honest. I’m not sure, if my decision was right.” Hongjoong answered honestly. Wooyoung questionly raised an eyebrow, as he took of the used bandage and threw it into the bin in the corner of the room.

“How so?” He took a look at Hongjoongs Hand, while still keeping his ears open for Hongjoong. Hongjoong’s hand actually didn’t look bad after another whole day in a bandage and Wooyoung actually thought it was about time to take the bandages off. Creams and air would take care of the rest of the healing. His knuckles were still slightly covered in scabs, and Wooyoung was afraid that without a bandage, Hongjoong would be tempted to scratch the scabs off because of how annoyingly placed they were and probably because they’d itch a lot while healing, but he had to end ure it if he didn’t want any more scarring than already. The scar was really big. It covered his whole hand, his palm not as badly as the back of his hand, but it almost reach up to his wrist and Wooyoung was pretty sure, that the red color maybe would go down a little, but the slight pinkish tint would always stay. While he waited patiently for Hongjoong to answer his question, he took a wound healing cream and opened it.

“Don’t you think it’s weird, that the Halateez attacked us the moment we decided to board the Illusion?” Hongjoong answered with a question and Wooyoung shrugged.

“Honestly, I didn’t expect anything else.” He said. Hongjoong paused and frowned.

“Really?” Wooyoung nodded, put some of the crème on his fingers and gently rubbed it on the worst spots in Hongjoongs hand.

“Yeah.” He said.

“I’ve always felt like they were never far away and it was honestly just a matter of time until they’d attack us.”

“Hmm.” Hongjoong again looked outside of the window and thought.

“That’s true.” When Wooyoung was done putting cream on Hongjoongs knuckles and a really bad scar on the back of his hand, he put the cream away and looked at Hongjoong.

“Do you remember, when Yeosang and I stepped out on the second day at the beach?” Wooyoung asked. Hongjoong looked at him and answered his question with a soft nod.

“We went on a walk for almost an hour to talk. I don’t know if it was because I saved him, at least that’s what he always says, or because he felt bad for fighting so much with me, but Yeosang took me with him for a walk to apologise and we talked for a long while about everything we could.” A soft smile grew on Wooyoungs face as he remembered that day. It was the first time Yeosang had opened up to Yeosang about how he felt and Wooyoung had felt really touched, listening to Yeosangs words. On that day, they decided to forget about the last couple of days and start all over again and it was also the day Wooyoung’s friendship with Yeosang as it was now had started. But that wasn’t the only thing that happened that day. The smile on Wooyoungs face dropped and he looked down.

“I don’t know if it was my imagination, because I became paranoid of my surroundings or if I really did see him, but when I was walking back with Yeosang, I saw a black shadow following us.” Hongjoong looked at Wooyoung, slightly shocked.

“Why.. why didn’t you tell us?” He asked and Wooyoung shook his head.

“I considered telling you. But honestly, I didn’t know if I really saw him or not and we were finally at peace, at least a little. I didn’t destroy that by spreading fear of getting followed by the Halateez.” Understanding, Hongjoong nodded and lowered his eyes, before he sighed and rubbed his face.

“So you’re telling me, you made this decision not because you knew what was gonna happen or if he was really there, but because you thought it was the right thing for the good of the group?” Hongjoong said and Wooyoung nodded. Then he smiled encouragingly at Hongjoong and put a hand on his shoulder.

“And every decision you’ve ever made came from the same motivation.” Unsure, Hongjoong looked at Wooyoung.

“I don’t know…” Wooyoung chuckled quietly and sighed.

“When you make a decision, what do you think in that moment? When you decided we should go on the Illusion and follow the map to the weird purple island, did you decide that way because you felt like it or because you actually thought it would be the best for us?” Hongjoong hesitated. Wooyoung actually hit the nail on the head. Every time Hongjoong made a decision, he did it because he was convinced that it was the best for all of them.

“But, what if one of my decisions turns out to be wrong and someone gets hurt because of it? San-“

“San did not get hurt because you decided it. The Halateez hurt him. And if you make a decision for the group, because you think it is the best for us, then we trust you. And even if the decision turns out to be wrong, at least you made it thinking it would be.” For a moment, Hongjoong was silent and just looked at Wooyoung. He was usually so goofy and unserious that Hongjoong hadn’t expected this side of him. He knew how to use words and how to cheer others up. When Hongjoong finally smiled again, Wooyoung grinned proudly and stood up.

“Besides, you don’t make the decisions about us alone,” he added, packing up the first aid kit.

“You tell us what we should do, and we trust you, so we decide to follow you. Our decision, not yours.” Hongjoong chuckled quietly, when suddenly the door opened again and Yunho came in.

“There you are.” He said, which gave Hongjoong a slight déjà vu of when Wooyoung came in just now.

“Were you looking for us?” Wooyoung asked and Yunho nodded.

“Seonghwa was actually wondering where you are, Wooyoung.” He said, then turned to Hongjoong.

“And I thought you were already in dreamland riding unicorns.” Annoyed Hongjoong rolled his eyes and whined.

“Oh come on. Please spare me. I did sleep tonight.” Wooyoung looked at Hongjoong with a judging face and put his hands on his hips.

“How long?” He asked, but Hongjoong just shrugged.

“I don’t know. I didn’t look on the clock, because I slept.”

“At least go and lay down a little.” Yunho scolded Hongjoong, before he grabbed Wooyoung by the wrist and walked out of the room with him.

“Fine!” Hongjoong called after them, before the door was closed behind them and Hongjoong sighed frustrated.

“Kids.”