Prince of Flour

16. Missing something

It was relaxing, sitting with Wooyoung like that. They seemed to talk about everything and nothing at the same time and it made Seonghwa's thoughts stray a lot, thinking again about how he could flee.

Him starting to befriend some of the pirates was no good sign. Not only did he fear his own growing attachment to them but also those enemies of theirs that did such horrible things to the crew. Seonghwa did not feel courageous enough to have a run-in with them and did not wish to feel himself get as close to the crew that he would suffer too when one of them got hurt.

Because this was only Mingi, somebody he did not have much contact with so far and who also was not that charming to him either. However, Seonghwa found himself thinking that had it been Youjin or Yeosang maybe he would feel great sorrow.

It was a dangerous game to play so naturally his sense of flight heightened, made him wonder how far from home he already was. He could probably never find that man that promised him to help again and in the end it truly did not matter. Seonghwa was not even sure whether he could truly trust him.

No, instead he had to find a way out himself, all alone. He would get Yeosang to teach him the ways of map reading and then he would flee at the next port, find himself some naval base and get home safely.

He felt sad sitting next to a smilingly chattering away Wooyoung and thinking about leaving them, but he could not wait any longer. The risk of being discovered was also growing by the day.

"Are you missing something, by the way?"

Seonghwa confusedly lifted his gaze from the clear blue of the ocean, looking confusedly at Wooyoung. He did not have much in the first place, what could he be missing?

"Don't worry, I'm not speaking about you being no virgin anymore. Did you not notice?" Wooyoung was pointing at their feet, Seonghwa still thinking about what a virgin was supposed to be as he looked down.

There were just their feet, he was wearing his shoes and pants too. What was he missing?

"Your shadow. When did you last see your shadow?"

Seonghwa blinked at that, indeed not seeing one. His first reflex was looking up into the cloudy sky, finding enough light shine through that normally a shadow would appear at his feet. But as Wooyoung said, there was none and the longer Seonghwa stared at this fail in physics the more eerie it got.

He did notice however that Wooyoung had no shadow either.

"Is this common? I have not heard of people losing their shadows before."

Wooyoung shrugged indecisively, pointing with one hand lazily down towards the deck.

"We all lost it somewhere. Nobody can tell you where or why. We believe it has to do with the crimes one commits. That your shadow is part of your soul that gets lost if you do so much bad that you can't go to heaven anymore. Or something. We all seek death in Davy Jones' Locker either way it's not as if we would care about that. But maybe it's just like that. Maybe you lose it if there's no more redemption for you."

Did Seonghwa do something horrible like that? He had no idea when he lost his shadow so the why was even more difficult to discover. It could have been gone for a long time already, he did not watch out for it that much.

"Can you get it back?"

He missed it suddenly, that shadow of his. It had accompanied him all his life and now it just disappeared like that? That was pretty upsetting.

Wooyoung was thinking for a moment, helplessly blinking up towards the skies.

"We never tried. What do you need it for either way? If it's gone, it's gone, we will not indulge in witchcraft just because of this."