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atinytokki · 3 years

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My Way

v. Social Graces

It became clear very quickly that the problem was not Hongjoong’s stealth skill.

For some reason, he didn’t care to disguise himself from the Song family’s younger son. He seemed to be around his age, and selfishly Hongjoong crafted this fantasy, wishing they could be brothers, that he could become part of this new family and fit right back in to his old home, escaping the Hall and all its pressures.

And then one day the boy yelled at him and told him to leave.

Hongjoong’s objective shifted from investigating the imposters to rescuing Mother’s diary once he’d gone home and had a good cry.

If the boy hated him that much, he wouldn’t have to see him again. As soon as Hongjoong retrieved the book, he’d be out of the newcomer’s hair.

It had been too much to hope for anyway.

It was technically Aunt Sohee’s fault that Hongjoong was caught in his old bedroom with the diary, mid-escape. She had forced him to practice for even longer than usual during the daily piano lesson, and he hadn’t been able to make off with the book before the boy returned from school.

During the chase that ensued, Hongjoong’s mind went blank. Again, he was conflicted about the stranger. Why was he chasing him all the way back into town? Why did he care enough to read the diary and try to reconcile things?

Hesitantly and against his better judgment, Hongjoong allowed the boy Mingi to befriend him while they sat and looked out at the ocean. There was a simple genuineness in the way he expressed his concern that didn’t annoy Hongjoong the way his cousins did.

He seemed a little absorbed in his own thoughts, but at least he was unattached to this town and all the memories it trapped. He wouldn’t try to talk about Hongjoong’s parents or plan his future for him.

Spending time with Mingi after that first real conversation was always a chance to live in the moment. It was just them, the cliffs, and the beach. They could talk about whatever they wanted, they could be whatever they wanted.

It was more uncomfortable when Bosung joined them, neither certain how to proceed with their frayed friendship, but Mingi sensed it and stopped arranging picnics for three.

Playing with Mingi was an escape.

But it was an escape Hongjoong rarely managed to indulge in thanks to the oppressive schedule of Jangwon Hall.

Mining, farming, even teaching the younger boys all while acting the part of a gentleman but never being treated as one behind closed doors.

Hongjoong was actually quite good at it, smiling graciously and showcasing all his charming talents, but it wasn’t anything he particularly enjoyed. His eyes were completely empty, and no one was the wiser.

Day after day, week after week, he cycled between his different selves. He blinked and somehow it was the day before his thirteenth birthday. He’d gone months without his parents, and he’d practically become a different person.

The Jangwon staff didn’t go easy on him. They saw their opportunity and took advantage of his situation, so instead of spending time with Mingi and enjoying the precious moments when he could just be himself, Hongjoong was fulfilling a litany of tasks, the last of which being a trip to the market, shopping for the cook.

The Song family’s stall used to be the fish stall where Hongjoong’s parents sold their catches, but they didn’t know about him and Hongjoong preferred to keep it that way, so he skipped over them quietly and went to a neighbouring food vendor to purchase what he needed.

At least the cook had given him money to buy the ingredients.

“Ah, the youngest son of the youngest son doing what he can to live up to his family name,” the shop owner chuckled on seeing him. “Working odd jobs for spare change?”

“No one pays me for my labour,” Hongjoong snorted as he added a bag of flour to his basket. “It seems it is my duty nonetheless.”

Hongjoong’s feelings toward his relatives were well known in Panhang. It seemed he was the gossip of the town, even after the onset of autumn.

“Well,” the man shrugged as he received and counted the money. “The Navy is offering quite the generous ransom for certain pirates nowadays. You could set yourself up nicely.”

He moved to pass out a flyer with the pirate’s drawing on it, but Hongjoong waved it away. “If mining was hard work, pirate-hunting must be suicide.”

“Very well then,” the owner laughed, handing him his change instead. “Have a relaxing evening.”

Hongjoong dropped his smile the moment he was out of the man’s sight. He still had to meet Cousin Seyong at the stables.

Field inspection was far from relaxing, but it was the final event on the agenda and at the very least Hongjoong could tune everything out and gaze across the land, getting lost in his head among the golden ginkgo trees and following flocks of birds as they journeyed south in pursuit of the warmer breezes.

“Hongjoong? What do you make of the chestnut harvest?”

Seyong was holding out a handful of chestnuts to him in a feeble attempt to include him in the conversation, so Hongjoong took them and popped one into his mouth.

Once he’d given the farmer an approving smile, the adults moved on to the farmhouse to deal with a pay dispute and Hongjoong dropped the rest of the nuts into the bucket.

He wasn’t hungry enough to scavenge someone else’s food today.

“We have a surprise for you tomorrow,” Cousin Seyong told him on the ride back home. Hongjoong looked up from where he played with a few strands of hay in the back of the cart and tried to read his guardian’s face.

“A birthday surprise?”

Seyong nodded and Hongjoong wondered if he should let himself feel excited. It was quite unexpected that any of his relatives at Jangwon would even remember his birthday, much less prepare a gift for the occasion.

“We’ll have a nice dinner with the family—” Regretfully, Hongjoong knew he meant the whole family. “— and we’ll give it to you before cake and tea. It’ll be quite the celebration.”

He was grinning back at him deviously, and Hongjoong was inclined to trust that rare smile, so he nodded and moved up to the front bench to sit next to his cousin.

They watched the sun set ahead of them and urged on the pony to bring them home, while Hongjoong rested his head on Seyong’s shoulder. It was nice to feel appreciated once in awhile.

Mercifully, he was not required to cook his own birthday food and so Hongjoong carved out some time the next day just before supper and went to the beach, hoping to see Mingi. And indeed, the younger boy came and went, excited and nervous about the new girl at school, begging Hongjoong to teach him to sail.

When their time ran out, Hongjoong left with a gloomy cloud over him, but why should he expect anything else?

It wasn’t as if he’d told Mingi it was his birthday.

While all twenty currently present family members ate the dinner feast and chatted clamorously, Hongjoong pulled out his Mother’s diary and managed to skim the final pages before being tapped on the shoulder by Aunt Ajung and reprimanded for it.

“When you are in company, you must not begin reading to yourself. Don’t you remember your etiquette?” He winced and slipped the book back down into his lap before it was confiscated, and made a mental note to hide it somewhere in case any of his aunts suddenly decided to clean out his things.

“And what else?” She hissed as he began to slouch in his chair petulantly.

“Tidiness in dress and habits,” he sighed. So he had no choice but to sit through everyone else’s conversations for the rest of the hour.

They may be celebrating for him but they certainly weren’t celebrating with him.

Finally, Uncle Ryeowook tapped his spoon against his glass and gave Cousin Seyong the floor.

Hongjoong held his breath.

“It is with great excitement that Yujung and I can announce...” He cleared this throat dramatically and winked in Hongjoong’s direction. “We’re expecting a child!”

The table erupted in congratulations but Hongjoong was frozen to his chair.

After so much pressure to produce an heir, Yujung had finally given in. Hongjoong couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Surprise!” Seyong tried again, tilting his head in confusion when Hongjoong didn’t seem to react favourably. “You’re getting a new cousin!”

“But...”

But he didn’t want another cousin. What would become of him now?

“Aw, look at him!” Aunt Sohee cooed, pinching his cheek even as he tried to flinch away. “He’s speechless!”

Seyong took it as his cue to say more about the whole ordeal and rested a gentle hand on the shoulder of his wife.

“Yujung dreamed the child was a boy, so we hope you’ll be like brothers to each other. And if her dream turns out to be false, I’m sure you’ll love your new sister nonetheless.”

The rest of the table laughed at his meagre jest and, having never seen Cousin Seyong this happy, Hongjoong was tempted to smile and give them what they clearly wanted— his approval— but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

He already had Mingi, and Mingi was all he needed now.

Hongjoong hung his head for shame.

He would never have the guts to tell Mingi he was his whole world.

“Just the news we needed to ease the pain of poor Hohyun and Eunha’s passing,” Aunt Minkyung insisted and Hongjoong shut his ears.

He couldn’t listen to them talk about his parents again. He couldn’t sit here amidst all this sickening ostentation while every word was a poisoned arrow shot into his future before it could go anywhere.

Yujung could see his panic beginning. “Shall we retire for tea and cake?”

Like a blur, the festivities moved to the main parlour and Hongjoong thought he was off the hook for a moment but Aunt Sohee urged him to show off the new piece he was learning and to say no would be disrespectful.

For once, the room fell silent with everyone’s attention on him.

It was so quiet, he could easily pretend he was the only one there, so he let the world fade away and played the first tune that came to him on the piano. There was no need to showcase a practiced song when he could floor them with just one.

He effortlessly bent the keys to his will, and with the flowing cadence of the song, he knew he had every listener enraptured, trapped in the beautiful melody he was crafting.

It echoed around him when the song decrescendoed to a stop. And then the room erupted into awed clapping that grated on his ears.

A tear dripped onto the piano. Hongjoong scrubbed at it with his sleeve, several keys playing underneath his fist, a dissonant cord echoing through the parlour.

Aunt Sohee guided him away and into a chair while cake was served, taking him by the shoulders and embracing him excitedly.

“You must play it at the midwinter ball, Hongjoong, you must. The world will fall in love with you.”

And even though he’d rather not, he nodded along and finished his food, grateful to be excused early.

His mind was a cacophonous mess full of thoughts that rang in his ears.

Seyong and Yujung.

The stipulation was that they were to be his primary caretakers until they had children of their own.

Until.

And Hongjoong simply didn’t believe there was room for both of them. It was hard enough now, being passed off to someone else would be starting the process all over again.

He buried himself in his blankets and cried until the tears ran out and Yujung had come in to rub his back and mutter soothing words.

“I don’t want there to be a baby,” Hongjoong cried, nudging her away. “You said you’d love me and take care of me, and now I’ll have to go back to Uncle Ryeowook and Aunt Minkyung. Is it because I run off to the beach sometimes? Is that why you’re doing this to me?”

Yujung’s eyes lowered to the mug she clutched and she relinquished it to the bedside table. Other than a clock and his mother’s diary, it was empty. So was much of his room. It still didn’t really feel like his.

“You didn’t finish your tea.”

Hongjoong didn’t take the mug. He didn’t even meet her eyes. They were probably guilty and sad and he didn’t feel bad for her. He didn’t.

He wanted to be selfish just this once.

“You know we never wanted to replace your parents,” she finally explained softly. “And our child won’t replace you or your brother.”

Her eyes flitted over to Mother’s diary as she said it. She was referring to Hyunseok, who she must’ve known before he died.

But Hongjoong didn’t know him as anything other than a phantom that haunted his mother, and he didn’t know this new baby at all.

He felt caught in between them, invisible and unwanted and incapable of living up to either of them.

Why did he even want to? He had the beach, he had Mingi...

“Your mother loved you,” Yujung sighed, hesitantly running fingers through his hair as soon as he let her. “I know how much she loved you, we were good friends. I love you too, Hongjoong. And that will never change. I know it’s not what you hoped for, but this baby is not a replacement. Only an addition.”

Her words resounded through Hongjoong’s head with every pound of the pickaxe on stone the next day in the mines.

His mother loved him. She had been terrified for him, anxious he would one day leave her like Hyunseok had. And she and Father had drowned instead, so her horrible fear hadn’t come true.

Needing some air, Hongjoong checked that no one was looking and dropped his pickaxe.

There was a secret path he had made over his many mining days in the last few months, and when no one was looking Hongjoong rolled the rock out of the way and entered the cave.

It faced the sea, and it was so far south that none of the other children played in it. It was the perfect place to hide Mother’s diary, where his aunts couldn’t steal it and he wouldn’t be tempted to dwell on it.

And while he wandered through the next couple of weeks, it stayed at the back of his mind. He would check on it from time to time, and one day he decided to write his own entry in it, when playing the piano wasn’t enough to channel his emotions.

As he returned the book to its place that afternoon, something caught his eye. It looked like a gun hidden behind another rock a few feet away and Hongjoong couldn’t help but pick it up and inspect it.

The weapon was heavy but sleek and exciting, and even though he had no idea what he was doing, something sparked inside as he pretended to shoot the wall with it.

A startled yell came from the mouth of the cave and Hongjoong turned to see the stranger from before staring at him. He waved the gun in greeting.

“This yours?”

“Um— no,” the man scoffed. “But I wouldn’t touch that if I were you.”

“Why do you have a gun?” Hongjoong stood and began moving closer. It had been hidden here in the cave, clearly it belonged to the man.

“Why are you touching it?” The stranger shot back.

“Why are you hiding in a cave?” Hongjoong kept pushing, ignoring the man’s questions.

“Why did you come looking?”

“I didn’t come looking,” Hongjoong finally answered, rolling his eyes. “I told you, I grew up on this beach.”

There was a brief pause before Hongjoong sighed and motioned to the diary with the hand holding the gun. “I hid something here a few weeks ago.”

“Stop— stop swinging that around, you’ll hurt yourself!”

“You sound like my Aunt Minkyung,” Hongjoong spat.

“I take it that’s not a good thing,” the man muttered under his breath.

Hongjoong continued to fiddle with the weapon, accidentally flicking off the safety and smirking at the way the man panicked.

“Hey! Hey, that’s enough,” the stranger snapped, growing in volume. “Listen, boy—”

“Hongjoong.”

“Listen, Hongjoong. I can see that you’ve got a rebellious streak, but I’m going to need you to hand it over.”

“Not until you tell me who you are.”

He wanted to know what business this man had wandering the coastline and fishing a bleeding boy out of the water.

Instead of launching into his life story, the tidal stranger pulled a paper out of his bag.

It was the wanted poster for a notorious pirate, and his face was illustrated on it.

The Dread Pirate Eden.

Hongjoong paled and the weapon slipped through his fingers. This was already more than he bargained for.

“You... You’re a-a—”

“A pirate,” Eden cut him off. “Yes, I am.”

He said it so nonchalantly.

Not only was he a pirate, he was a pirate that dragged Hongjoong out of the shallows and taken him to the lighthouse keeper.

“So why did you save me,” he asked in a near whisper. “That morning after the storm when I washed up with a head wound? You could’ve let me bleed to death.”

In fact, for awhile, Hongjoong had wished he did.

Eden sighed and turned to look up the beach where the incident had taken place. He didn’t seem very dreadful just now.

“... I don’t know.”

So he didn’t deny it.

He had done a very human thing for one who was supposed to be a filthy reprobate.

Careful to keep his distance, Hongjoong handed over the gun. The shop vendor’s offer was far from his mind now that he knew a real pirate.

Of course, the man snatched it and turned to walk away, probably for the last time.

“You were holding it wrong anyway,” Eden threw over his shoulder, unable to resist the temptation.

That sounded like a challenge, and Hongjoong didn’t know why, but he felt the need to accept it.

He sprinted in front of the man on a whim and blocked his path, pointing at the weapon where it was holstered. “Teach me!”

Eden narrowed his eyes. “I don’t think that’s wise.”

“I promise I won’t tell!” Hongjoong pleaded, suddenly looking younger than he had at the beginning of the conversation.

Eden scoffed and took a step back. “You have no use for a weapon.”

“That’s not true! What if there’s an emergency?” Hongjoong skipped alongside him while Eden resumed walking. “What if there’s a scarier pirate who shows up here one day?”

Appealing to his newly discovered humanity was the best trick Hongjoong had up his sleeve.

“What, you don’t think I’m scary?” Eden scoffed, trying to move on. He should honestly just stop talking to the boy, but again he couldn’t resist snapping back.

“No, not really.” Hongjoong laughed, but without any trace of a lie in his eyes.

That brought Eden to a stop.

“Well, I’ve killed people, so you ought to be frightened,” he said sternly, hoping to shake the child off.

“Please,” Hongjoong begged, grabbing his arm and pulling it. “Please teach me how to use it. I’ll be careful.”

Eden should have pushed the boy away and removed himself. He should have vowed never to see him again.

But he looked between Hongjoong and the gun and had to admit he was right.

It may come in handy. And if he taught him all the proper safety measures...

“Are you sure you feel safe about all this?” Eden asked, not breaking face for even a moment.

“Of course!” Hongjoong insisted. “This is the safest I could possibly be, you’re teaching me self-defense.”

“I’ve blown up towns, what’s to stop me from killing you? I mean, are you really willing to trust me that easily?” Eden pulled away and crossed his arms. It was a question Hongjoong already seemed to have the answer for.

“You wouldn’t hurt me, you saved my life,” he reminded him calmly. “I can see it in your eyes and I’ve been told I’m a pretty good judge of character. Besides, think of it this way. I could reveal you as a pirate and get you executed. But I won’t. And you could kill me, an innocent bystander, for discovering your secret. But you won’t. So now we have leverage over each other, don’t we?”

Eden stared at him a moment longer.

He was really being unravelled by a thirteen year old.

“You are one troublesome hothead, I hope you know that.”

A slow smile spread on the boy’s face. For all intents and purposes, that was a yes. He finally had something to look forward to. And— dare he say it— a new brother he could rely on.

“Same time and place tomorrow.”

...

A/N: Just by way of reminder, from this point on the chapters go hand in hand with Mingi’s spinoff, The Windy Road, because they happen more or less simultaneously and act as a prequel to the entire series. You don’t need to read both to understand either of them, but it certainly helps. Drop likes and comments if you’d like and have a pleasant evening :)

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