storybook!au

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i mean... wonpil makes a pretty sick pirate, tho XD

This is late, because I was rewriting it ;~; It ties together with the 'past lives' youngfeel story, which is day3 :)

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Younghyun was seven when he met Wonpil a second time. Incidentally, Wonpil was ten. Ironic, isn't it? It was thanks to a book that they met again. A book written in English, which brought them back together... Also quite ironic, Jae would say in later years.

But why an English book? There were so many great Korean books out there that could have introduced them a second time. Well, the way in which Brian came to enjoy English with his South Korean background was not unconventional. He had lapped up the English language word by word as soon as it was introduced to him in his daycare. It had a different taste from Korean – tangy, sarcastic, and less "Ah" than "Mh." For this he liked it: for its multitude of curved letters, for its short, choppy sounds, for the way the questions tilted his tongue upwards and the exclamations tilted it down towards the ground. He had always like questions more than exclamations, anyway. They helped him learn new things, and with the knowledge he gained, he felt his mind open up and the stems growing out of it reach higher and higher until they could feel the warmth of the sun.

But most of all, he loved the fact that he could read books from a different culture. He normally didn't like reading – books had always put him to sleep – but the prospect of going on adventures to foreign lands (the Caribbean, the West Coast, Texas, Toronto) made his toes tingle and his eyelids remained light for a little while. He did fall asleep from time to time, his English teacher chuckling as she placed the books that put him to sleep on the only shelf the tall boy couldn't reach. Those books she saved for later, in the hopes that the boy would return to read them someday once he learned to control his urges to doze off.

But there was one book which Brian could never seem to stop enjoying. It was a pirate book, in fact. Younghyun had found it in his second grade English teacher's classroom on the top shelf, which only he could reach in his class. He was the only tall one, and nobody liked him for it. He was a lonely boy. Just like the pirates in the book. At least he had the time to broaden his horizons and learn quickly, so quickly that he was versed beyond his years.

The teacher saw how much he liked Sunrise Turned Moonrise (he read it every day, because it was one of the only books that he could read without falling asleep, and his parents had begged him many times over to not sleep in class). So Ryujin-sansaengnim gifted it to him, with no questions attached. He had been absolutely thrilled, because English was interesting... and so was this book in particular.

At bedtime one night, Younghyun decided to fish out the book from his bookcase. He usually only read it during the day so he wouldn't get all hyped up before going to sleep. Nighttime was for sleeping, and daytime was for reading books that made him way too excited to sleep. But something about the fact that it was the night of a new moon made him curious for some reason, and he decided to delve into the depths of the book about a group of child pirates and their adventures around the coast of the Americas.

The seven-year-old was busily reading up to the last four sentences of the book (his absolute favorites, in all fairness) when his eyes began to droop. Why was he suddenly so tired? The words blurred together on the paper, so much that he got dizzy just from looking at them; but it didn't really matter much, as he knew the words by heart. "The sunrise melted into the clear morning sky, just as moonrise melts out of it on a new moon's empty night. Bright colors will soon fade in and out of the gentle blues and indigos, and the gentle wood of the mast made of two entwined fig trees will scumble the sun's bleeding reds and oranges across the heavens like acrylics on a dripping canvas..." He yawned, the book lying open on his lap as his head tilted closer and closer to it, eyes blinking shut in a tired heap of lashes. "And if you want to see it badly enough, come join the crew. It's not that hard; just look for us the sixth night of the month when the new moon doesn't shine in the sky because its glint is swallowed up by the story with no ending—"

And as the last few words got stuck in his throat, the book swallowed him, and he was drowning in a whirlpool of words and hidden moons.

Brian's eyes opened and he looked around in wonder. Was he really inside the book, or had he been drinking too much Pepsi before bed like his appa had warned him not to? But really... Everything was just as he remembered in the story. There was the familiar entwined fig-tree mast, the smooth, honey-coloured deck, the group of astonished boys gathered around him staring at him in wonder. But wait... One of them was missing!

Just then the intense smell of something astonishingly drool-inducing hit him straight in the face and left him stupefied. "What's cookin'?" he asked, his mouth already welling up with an insane amount of drool. "Could it be... Ramyun?!" His eyes grew wide at the prospect, and he turned to the smallest boy in the bunch. "Please tell me it's ramyun!"

"Ramyun," the boy happily spoke, nodding his head at having understood at least one word from the sentence that had been uttered in English. "That's the only food I can make," was the whisper in Korean, and Younghyun's ears perked up at the more familiar language.

"Yeah... He can't even make lobster. I mean, I love this kid, but why does our cook only know how to make one kind of meal?!" The tallest crew member huffed out, gently swatting the small boy with red ears upside the head.

"Jae?"

The lanky blonde looked over at Younghyun with a surprised look and got all up in his face. "I forgot you were here, damn... Who are you and where are you from?! How do you know my name?!!"

The boy backed away, his hands raising a bit in fear that Jae the pirate may do the thing he did to that one lobster he found when the crew landed just off the coast of Chile in the story. That had been a pretty questionable moment in the book, and it never failed to make Younghyun shudder. Especially now that he was being faced by said pirate, the one who had a gutting knife stored in the belt holding his tunic in place over his thin waist. "Uh... Just look for us the sixth night of the month when the new moon doesn't shine in the sky becau–"

He covered his face with quivering arms upon hearing Jae gasp. But suddenly, his arms were being tugged down by a slightly stocky boy with glinting eyes and a chipped-tooth grin. "You... You're the new crew member Wonpil promised us?!" he excitedly breathed out in Korean, a slight Busan accent evident in the way he spoke.

"Uh..."

"He doesn't know Korean probably, Sungjin; let me speak to him." Jae turned to the younger boy once more and, in English: "You never answered my question... Who are you, and where are you from?"

"I'm Younghyun... I'm from Ilsan. And that's Bob and Drum, right? Wow... they always spoke in English in my book..."

The pirate with blond hair and a red bandana was now looking at him, shocked. "Man, why you go and make me look stupid like that? I thought you couldn't speak Korean, was gonna be your interpreter and everything... Damn..."

"Sorry, hyung." Younghyun allowed his eyes to flick to the other two boys, who were looking at him with their eyes open even wider than they were in the beginning. "Is everything okay with them? Did I say something wrong?"

"I'm not Drum..." The smallest boy tugged at the well-known apron around his waist and shuffled his brown leather boots against the smooth deck. "I'm Dowoon."

The boy with the gray coat covered in brass buttons similarly grumbled, "My name is Sungjin."

"Oh."

"Don't listen to them; they're just salty they don't speak English well. Your new name is Brian," the oldest boy assertively told him. "This is Bob, this is Drum, like you said, and this... this is Onefeel. He's annoying as heck."

"Heck?" Never had Brian heard that word before. Then realization took over him and he stomped his foot in annoyance. "No! I'm not Brian! My name is Young K!!"

The boy he knew as Jae from the storybook let out a huff. "No~ You're Brian! You see, it's written all over your face! Smooth like Br-I-an." His hand rose to make a semicircle over his own face, and he stressed out again, "Br-I-an. See?"

"No..." The boy, now dubbed Brian, suddenly remembered something important. "Who's Onefeel again?"

Jae stepped to the side, revealing a boy slightly smaller than Dowoon who had been standing behind him the entire time. A smile was bubbling on the boy's cheeks, and he extended his ring-clad hand to Younghyun with a soft, "Pil at your service."

To say that Brian's eyes did not nearly fire out of his sockets like the cannonballs Drum had launched at a giant squid that one time in the Gulf of Mexico would be a total lie. "Do I... Do I know you from somewhere?"

"...Maybe?" The so-called 'Onefeel' stepped forward so he could grasp Brian's hand in his own. "I mean... You read the book, right?"

"Yeah..." Younghyun didn't draw his hand away and instead stepped closer as well. "But I know you from somewhere else~"

"Ugh... And here I thought I'd never have to deal with Youngfeel ever again," Jae muttered to himself and pulled them apart. "The ramyun's getting cold, let's go eat!"

The seven-year old's mouth began to water once more and he joyfully nodded as the older boys let out a chorus of groans. "Ramyun... When will that word finally drop out of the dictionary?" Sungjin muttered, following the rest of the boys heading toward the barrels set up in the center of the ship alongside the circular table they used for meals and card games. Sometimes they even used it for fighting other pirates they met on their adventures.

As soon as the meal began, the brown-haired pirate who seemed way too familiar for Younghyun's brain to process turned to him. "My full name's Kim Wonpil, you know? I'm still not used to being older than you, now..."

Brian nearly choked on his food. Wonpil immediately leaned over to frantically beat his back.

"Told you so," Dowoon whispered to Jae, highfiving Sungjin.

"I didn't expect him to confess at the table!" Jae exclaimed.

Once Brian got back his breath, he turned to his long-lost lover. "No way."

"No way, indeed."

"Wonpil?"

"That's hyung to you, hyung."

"Wonpil-hyung? Wh—What?"

The now-older boy laughed. "You always wanted to be reborn as a human," the brunette with the familiar feeling eased out, smoothing down Younghyun's dark hair.

"And you always wanted to be a pirate..." the now-younger boy replied, carefully tugging on the pirate's lone earing.

"Turns out we kind of got what we wanted." There was a chuckle, and then Sungjin cleared his throat.

"As much as I enjoy watching you boys get along so well, I want to know how we can all get back to the real world... I mean, we've been stuck here for quite a while."

Wonpil nodded, his hand sliding into Younghyun's. "Take us home, Younghyun."

The black-haired boy blinked in confusion. "But... But how am I meant to do that? I don't even know how I got here!"

Dowoon bit into his ramyun before slurping it into his mouth. "The last sentence of the book," he warbled out before Sungjin lifted his collar and made him leave the table for talking with his mouth full.

Younghyun remembered how hungry he was and slurped up the ramyun Wonpil was kindly extending to him. He thought it over. What was the rest of the last sentence again? 'It's not that hard; just look for us the sixth night of the month when the new moon doesn't shine in the sky because its glint is swallowed up by the story with no ending and the sunrise with no beginning but the one sparked by the words, "Take us home to the place we belong!"' "But could it really be that easy?" the boy thought out loud as soon as the last piece of ramyun had been emptied into his throat. "It's way too simple to work..."

"But didn't you get here easily? Anyway, we're all kids here: I'm twelve, Bob and Drum are eleven, Pil's ten... And you're?.."

"Seven," Wonpil supplied while feeding Younghyun another morsel.

Jae's eyes grew wide, and he continued. "See! You're seven! That's pretty dang young to be going through this kind of mess! How hard can it be to get out of here? It has to be easy so we can go back to normal, right; who would torture kids with an impossible mission like that?"

Brian's brows creased together. "I mean, I guess so...?" And he happily took another bite from the portion a grinning Wonpil was offering him. "This ramyun is so good, Dowoon-hyung!" the youngest boy slurred out once he was done.

"Glad you like it," Dowoon supplied from his standing position behind Sungjin, who was keeping him away from the table. "But can you please take us home so we have more food options? I think Jaehyung-hyung is growing a bit bitter from all the ramyun..."

"Damn right," Jae murmured. "Take us home, Young K!"

And that's exactly what Younghyun did. As soon as night was due to end, the boys gathered below the sky lacking its usual moonrays, the waves pulling at their ship, and Brian murmured the right words, all while holding Wonpil's hand. "Take us home to the place we belong!" And then the vortex of words and blossoming sunrays was spitting them back out into Younghyun's bedroom, and he was convincing his parents that the kids running around the house with random squeals of "Hyung, look! It's you! That chicken plushie, it looks just like you!!" and "Wah! There's snacks, finally!" and "I love you so much, Younghyun! I won't ever leave you again!" and "Where's the kitchen? I could use some nice McDonalds right about now..." came earlier for a sleepover and had been in the house the entire time.