pirate king (pirate!au) ➵ ateez ✔️

confrontation

Hongjoong stares, eyes wide and lips parted. Kill the... kill the sea goddess?

"Kill a god?" Yeosang repeats, so incredulously that his voice wavers. "Did I just hear that right? You want to kill the sea goddess?"

"Do the gods even exist?" Wooyoung mumbles under his breath, trying to put two and two together. The expression on his face is doubtful, suspicious. "That's it. This voodoo stuff is a bunch of bull. San's sorcery hands are the most I can deal with."

His father doesn't reply, merely staring straight at Hongjoong with his head held high. Eyes unrelenting, burning with determination, he almost feels the urge to take a step back in response. "You're going to kill the sea goddess. How?"

His father's hand reaches down in response, beginning to pull something from his belt. At the sight of a metallic gleam, Wooyoung and Yeosang react instantly, the gunner yanking his shotgun from his back to aim it squarely at the man while Yeosang ducks behind him for protection.

"Don't shoot!" Hongjoong's voice is harsh, and Wooyoung's finger stills on the trigger. He's trembling for reasons he himself doesn't understand, hands barely able to grip and hold the gun steady. Everything about the man before them throws him off, from how normal he appears to the way he can declare such outrageous things without the slightest change in expression. Does he really believe that he can kill a god?

"Don't worry. This blade can't hurt you." Hongjoong's father unsheathes the blde at his belt fully to reveal a shining black dagger, the handle curved and carved with elaborately twisting designs reminiscent of surging waves and the ebbing tides. "It's a sacred relic I tracked down, crafted by witches in the ancient times. I don't know what their purpose was in making this," he holds it up, and even in the blinding afternoon sun the black metal seems to swallow the very light that glances off it, "but it's worked on all mythical creatures I've encountered."

"You're not," Wooyoung snarls, teeth practically bared, "getting that anywhere near Chin Hae! What are you, some kind of monster?" The thought of you even being hurt, by that terrifying blade no less, scares him worse than if the blade were to be used on him instead. He won't let anything happen to you, he can't-

"Call me all the names you wish." The commander lifts a shoulder in dismissal, mismatched eyes clear, not wavering in the least. "I knew what I was getting myself into the second I set this plan into motion. And I can assure you," his gaze narrows as he looks down at the gun in Wooyoung's hands, "that your weapons will do nothing against me."

An icy cold sensation trickles down the back of Wooyoung's nexk, and he finds himself swallowing involuntarily as he tightens his grip on his shotgun. "So what?" He retorts, as harshly as he can muster. "That isn't going to stop me from trying."

"Wooyoung."

Wooyoung's mouth clamps shut the second Hongjoong speaks, voice hard and eyes lost in thought. Hongjoong can't help but feel like there's something that his father has not yet revealed, something that would connect all the dots to reveal his father's true intentions. Something so large that he just can't see it yet. He's still looking at individual stars, but he needs to see the entire constellations to read the night skies, just like his father had taught him to navigate the seas.

"One more thing." Hongjoong says slowly, fingers curling around the handle of his blade. This question will link everything together, from his father's intentions to the very reason he's standing here right now, facing down his own parent with a sword in hand. He thinks he knows the answer already, but he wants to hear it spoken out loud in confirmation. "Tell me. What does any of this have to do with Chin Hae?"