Walking in the Darkness || Yeosang (A Treasure Tale)

The Party

For the first time, Yeosang would actually rather be at school.

Instead he stood, still as a statue, while a seamstress poked and prodded him to take his measurements for the suit she was hired to make him.

Not his idea. Yeseul's.

She flashed a charming smile at him from where she oversaw everything in a parlour armchair, reading through responses to her invitations, and sipping from her thoroughly sugared tea.

When the seamstress finally retreated to write down the measurements, Yeosang released the breath he had been holding and asked if he could be excused yet.

"No, I'm afraid you'll need to hang around until later when we can review dance steps because even if you did learn, I'm sure you never used it," she said matter-of-factly while the seamstress brought out some fabrics for her to inspect. "Do what you like until then, but no horseback riding. You'll get dirty or injure yourself, so stay inside."

Which left reading as the only option. And Yeosang had just the book in mind.

His father's memoirs picked up with the Black Crow's second expedition east and it was after a brief stay in Coral Harbour that whispers of pirate havens made their way onto the page. They came into port at a neutral island with no military presence after setting sail from the newly constructed fortress and the action had Yeosang on the edge of his seat.

They flee before us like guilty men, but this isn't the pirate haven we've been told about. If enemy ships come here, it can only be for repairs and restocking, judging from how sparse the docks were on our arrival. The Admiral has cornered a shopkeeper into spilling the rumours of what lies to the east and even as I write them, I wonder how prepared we are to face down what— or who— awaits us.

The door opening shocked Yeosang out of his concentration and he clutched the book tight to his chest.

It was Yeseul, hurrying over to her vanity and rifling through various shades of rouge. "Didn't I confiscate that book?" She asked distractedly.

"Well," he shot back. "Seeing as how I'm forbidden from riding—"

"Fine," she said on her way out. "Just don't let Father find out you've been reading it."

A warning that made Yeosang delve all the more excitedly into the pages.

I trust his words even though he gave them in return for his life. After a great deal of warning about hiring in the markets and mutinies and independently run island dictatorships, he uttered a name; Geobugi. The central pirate haven in the area with eyewitness accounts of some of the pirates on our list. Jinyoung, Minho, Donghyuck, Ren... And the Dread Pirate Eden.

By the time the cherry trees were in bloom, the ball was a day away and Yeosang was reading the horrible account of the Black Crow's sound thrashing as blossoms gently fell to the grass beside him.

It gave Yeosang pause to consider the violence that was dealt, the death his father had witnessed that day. Pirates did not take kindly to interference and the Navy's prodding had cost them in lives.

In that moment he hated Eden, but he harboured a secret grudge against Admiral Kim as well. After all, it was his idea to pursue them to Geobugi, and like cornered animals they had struck back ferociously. Still, they deserved to die for their crimes.

Father and Admiral Kim had Eden in custody now, bringing them to the location of his ship and crew if Yeosang had overheard correctly on the night he left. This was their chance for revenge, for the lost soldiers of the Black Crow to not have died in vain.