Prince of Flour

22. Anger unleashed

Even if Seonghwa was aware that he had probably ensured his own death by Hongjoong's hands by now, he was still glad that he had made that decision.

Because it took Hongjoong not even a day to act.

It was the middle of the night when the enemy crew was busy somewhere else, probably eating or sleeping. Seonghwa's double had kissed him goodnight already, promising to decide whether or not to leave some lasting scars on him by tomorrow.

And Hongjoong never waited until tomorrow.

Seonghwa had no idea how he did it but somewhen around midnight he looked up from the bloodied floor he was laying on and his Captain was standing in the open door of his cell, looking like a nightmare come to life.

It was impossible to know how angry he was, sweat and dried blood obscuring his expression but his steps were powerful and carried the same fierceness Seonghwa knew from him as he came closer.

Seonghwa actually rolled around a bit more awake, his body immediately keenly aware of the threat the other man was radiating. Seonghwa knew he was not really hurt. And now that his brain was distracted it also stopped sending hurt signals to his body.

"Hongjoong.", he whispered quietly, not wanting to alarm the clones. Hongjoong crouched down next to him, fisting one hand into his hair to roughly pull his head up.

Seonghwa froze for a second, actually not aware if this was the right one but the look in his eyes was pure fire, not icy coldness like his clone' ones were.

"Repeat it."

Helpless, Seonghwa found his eyes, searching and then freezing when he finally knew.

He did wake up Hongjoong indeed but he also was going to lose his life for this. So he took this last chance to speak, babbling out everything he wanted the other man to know.

"I lied to you. I am no prince. I'm sorry about this. If you need to kill me, then-"

"Seonghwa."

His lips shut, worriedly searching Hongjoong's eyes.

"Ye be no prince for ye be a pirate. An eye for an eye, matey. I will get ye out of here." With that he stepped away again, starting to put out the many lanterns illuminating the corridor. A weak call was heared from Wooyoung's cell further down the corridor.

Seonghwa was laying astonished for another second but then me managed to get up, weakly stumbling after Hongjoong. He was malnourished, that was for sure. But he would be able to help.

"What is your plan?"

"Shadows are where light is. We will use the help of darkness."

Seonghwa's brain took uncomfortably long to understand those words but when he finally did realization dawned upon him much too quickly.

The missing shadows. They had to be their missing shadows. That part of their souls they lost? Those. Of course then. Seonghwa only ever saw them when there was light.

"There's not too much time. We will flee to a friend of mine living close by. Hopefully we can put enough distance between us and them." Hongjoong wrenched open the door to Yeosang's cell, hauling the man out.

The look in his widened eyes was haunted, his gaze constantly wavering and skittering around. Seonghwa gently pulled him close to his side, assuring both of them that this was by no means real and that Yeosang had to concentrate for now.

Seonghwa also did. He could worry about Hongjoong killing him later.

Also, why did he call him a pirate? He could not have impossibly forgiven him this easily, right?