Treasure | Ateez

| 16 |

"Ira furor brevis est"

- Anger is a brief insanity

☾ ☾ ☾

Seonghwa watched her shut the door.

It took less than two seconds, the click indicating that she was inside as the bed creaked. He turned around, heading straight towards the last door, the light below indicating that the person was not sleeping while the rattle of mettle inside caused him to slow, concern dotting his vision as he opened the door. 

He should not be surprised. It was not anything new, the familiar chink of knives hitting the wooden board as the boy in front did not seem to notice the new arrival, already reaching for the next blade, running a hand across the edge, a sickening smile crossing his lips as it pricked his finger. 

The drops of red splattering the silver, like stars across a spangled sky. 

"Hongjoong" 

Seonghwa crossed across the room in large strides, grabbing the latter's hand as he met his eyes, breaking through the clouded mist that surrounded his senses, watching as the knife clattered to the floor. Carrying with it the red that made itself at home on the wood. 

Seonghwa knew that the liquid would dissipate. Evaporating into the think air of the room, breaking through the boundaries of science at the flick of the captain's hand. 

But today he did not bother, instead he stood, gazing into the pattering of raindrops as the boat tilted to the side with a groan.

 The raven haired hesitated. He knew what the girl had been doing, guilty of doing it himself once before. He knew he just report it, after all her escape meant that the crew would not get the one thing they had wanted since the moment he had bought - stolen - the ship. 

Freedom. 

Peace.

"Seonghwa" 

Hongjoong's voice cracked, revealing for a second the boy he had once been, the boy he had been forced to grow out of. Then it was gone, replaced by the commanding tone of the man he had become as he walked lightly towards the desk, pulling out pages and manuscripts, fingers shaking as he pointed in excitement, lingering at the words as his eyes sone with excitement. 

"I knew it, I knew it" It was a murmur of prayer, the repetition causing the raven haired head to spin, leaning against the table to see what the other pointed at. "I told you she would know, but I did not believe it, I told you she was it, Wonderland" 

Seonghwa's eyes widened, noticing the path traced in red, crossing across the Devil's Triangle to the large X crossed at the very edge of the mapped world. A gasp escaping his face as the locket hanging around his neck buzzed in agony, begging him to rip it off his neck, to read the words written inside for the hundredth time.

He was not knew too these shenanigans of Hongjoong's, having had to entertain them at more than one occasion. Listening from one ear, while forgetting it out the other. He was desperate, but this was something else. 

"The voice of death that leads to the key of the hearth, Its her! Can't you see? I knew it when I saw her, they live in her, they feed of her." The captain paced down the room, iron heels clacking as Seonghwa watched, slack jawed as his heart beat faster, the enormity of what he had just seen threatening to pull him in a cloud of heady emotions. "She is alive with it, they will tell her. Maybe they already have! I must-" 

"No!" Seonghwa grabbed his shirt, pulling him back as he headed for the door, a madness rising inside him as his fingers reached for the doorway. "No, Hongjoong" he softened his voice, "She doesn't know"