Zero to One || Ep. 2 of the Treasure Series || ATEEZ Pirate AU

Chapter 12: Treasure

Mingi frequently welcomed the embrace of sleep, but there was something enticing him out this time.

Light touches on his skin, gently rubbing life and pale pink colour back into him. His nose twitched in response to the mouth-watering aroma of gloriously seasoned meat drifting through the air. San's giggle sounded somewhere nearby.

"Now he's back."

Mingi screwed open his bleary eyes, which had been sealed tight, and pouted at San in confusion. Something heavy on top of him was preventing him from reaching his hand out for the food.

Seonghwa's head leaned into Mingi's peripherals next to San, shaking with amusement. "You put too many blankets on him, San." A glance down at the stack of furs and fleeces confirmed this and Mingi returned his gaze to San expectantly.

San reeled in a fake swoon before leaning in. "Don't look at me like that, Mingi. How do you feel?"

Mingi decided to let San's antics pass and opened his mouth to answer the question, but found his voice to be missing. A mutilated sound escaped and threw him into a coughing fit from its hoarseness.

Seonghwa moved in to pat his back and mutter at him to just relax before relinquishing the steaming bowl of beef stew with a spoonful aimed at Mingi's mouth. A heavenly warmth radiated through his insides as he obediently opened up and consumed his bite of food. It tickled his heart and spread a smile on his face.

Mingi was extremely thankful for the return of feeling in his limbs. Nothing had been more terrifying than the onset of numbness and resignation as the freezing water fought him and won. He had been rescued just in time.

Suddenly Mingi shifted in his blanket pile to look for Yunho.

Apart from himself and the hovering San and Seonghwa, the room was empty. "Where...?" He tried to croak out his question and San filled him in.

"Yunho's getting firewood. We're trying to warm you two back up." Mingi swallowed hard. "The others...?"

"Haven't come back yet," Seonghwa said quietly, sitting back in his chair and looking down into the bowl of stew.

"I'm sure they're fine," the voice remarked from the doorway. Yunho entered with an armful of wood and immediately dropped it upon seeing Mingi awake, eyes plate-sized and ecstatic.

"You're alright!" Yunho squeezed the younger boy in a hug, and Mingi leaned into it gratefully.

"I told you he would be!" San jabbed, picking up the forgotten wood planks and completing Yunho's job for him. Seonghwa sat up again and placed the bowl of food in Yunho's hands.

Yunho tenderly offered Mingi spoonfuls at appropriate intervals and Seonghwa threw on his coat to go back out on deck. "The mainmast needs to be finished still," he explained when San threw him a confused look. "The others could be back any minute."

He sure hoped they had fared better than Yunho and Mingi had.

...

"And that's when I discovered humans can sing siren songs too, if taught correctly."

"Very interesting, Jongho," Wooyoung piped up from the front of the line. The four adventurers were treading back through the snow toward the ship, wrinkled spellbook pages forgotten, simply following their instincts and the faint trace of salty air in the southern direction.

Jongho's spirits had lifted significantly following the return of his memories, and he'd been talking their ears off about every detail of his life that had come back to him. Some were still shrouded in the past, but simply out of the normal ageing process that leaves memories behind to make room for more. Wooyoung had thought it would be almost superhuman if Jongho's infant years were gifted to him as well, and that was hardly fair.