I can't die, I have to bring Ihnkyang back to Sanghoon.

That's what Seokjin said to himself as he stared at the man, even though neither of them had recovered from their surprise.

Now that he knew, he could see, behind his beard and hair, the features of the teenager he had been. In Seokjin's mind, this face matched that of Sanghoon, and the other members of their gang, decimated by the wakos during their attack on Saengson.

One of his last memory of Ihnkyang was the moment when, while he and Jungkook were trying to escape through a window, the boy had clung to his legs but ended up falling several meters below, taking Seokjin's pants with him. Who could have predicted at that moment that this would be one of their last carefree moments?

And the last time Seokjin saw Ihnkyang alive was when he came to look for Jungkook and that he and Sanghoon attacked him before fleeing in front of the wakos. It seemed like an eternity ago. They were all so young back then...

And for fifteen years, he had thought Ihnkyang was dead. Seokjin wanted to tell Sanghoon so badly that his friend was still alive! Sanghoon was the only one of his men who was likely to have escaped death since he was not on the ship when the Little Admiral was attacked but he wondered if he should tell Ihnkyang about it. After all, even if he wanted to believe it, he wasn't sure if Sanghoon had made it back to Eobu alive and Ihnkyang  had suffered so much... What if Seokjin hurts him even more with false hopes?

On the other hand, he absolutely needed an ally if he wanted any hope of getting out alive.

"I thought you were dead, that's what Sanghoon said," he finally said. "He said all the people missing in Saengson must have been among the bodies that were dumped in a mass grave. He always thought that your body was there, as well as that of the rest of your friends, and he never stopped going to pay his respects there."

"Is Sanghoon alive?" Ihnkyang whispered, full of emotions.

For a moment, behind this gaunt-looking man, Seokjin saw before him the fiery teenager he had been, when he was proudly running through the streets of Saengson with the rest of his gang. Seokjin had almost forgotten how inseparable he and Sanghoon were back then. A bit like him and Jungkook.

"Yes, he managed to survive," he told him, pushing back his memories of Jungkook. "He and I became soldiers in the Joseon Navy, and he became my vice admiral when I became an admiral. He wanted to avenge you and the others. He has never forgotten you."

"Where is he now?" the former street urchin asked eagerly.

"I don't know," Seokjin said honestly. "We were separated in Dengzhou, where I was captured. I'm sure he returned to Eobu to warn my father and they are now scouring the seas looking for me."

I hope so anyway, he added mentally.

"It's absolutely crazy..." Ihnkyang said in a trembling voice. "I thought I was now alone in the world and that I was going to end my life like this, erased from everyone's memory."

"That's not the case," Seokjin assured him. "There's someone you need to go back to."

"I... I want to see Sanghoon again but I'm afraid to make up my mind: I was always convinced that I wouldn't be able to leave this ship alive. Hoping has become something terrifying."

Fear and hope fought a duel in his tear-stained eyes and Seokjin looked at him with pity.

"I understand. I don't want to give you too much hope either. If you want to have even a chance to see Sanghoon again, I'm not going to lie to you, you're going to have to be ready to put your life on the line. It's your decision, but I wouldn't be against having an ally."

Ihnkyang nodded, staring into space, as if he thought he was dreaming. Then, finally, he smiled, revealing spoiled teeth that must have caused him terrible pain. Seokjin shivered when he thought about the tooth puller, Kazuki, and wondered if he had chosen to ignore the Joseon man's teeth to better let him suffer.

"You know what, little admiral?" Ihnkyang said. "If Sanghoon is your friend now, then I will trust you and follow your plans."

"I'm not a little admiral anymore, I'm an actual admiral," Seokjin grumbled, smiling despite everything, grateful that the other trusted him, even though he didn't yet have any plans to share with him.

"Fifteen years have passed, but for me, we saw each other yesterday for the last time, so you will remain the little admiral until you prove to me that you have become a real soldier," Ihnkyang replied.

"You mean when I'll save you?" Seokjin said with a grin, thinking that back then, Ihnkyang would never have asked him such a thing proud as he was. And also because he was much stronger and more reckless than him.

"Yeah. You have to understand me: for the moment, when I look at you, I remember a little shit incapable of defending himself. It was always Jungkook who saved you from bad situations."

He was reliving his memories but he stopped when he noticed that Seokjin's face had darkened when he talked about Jungkook.

"You brought me some incredible news today, little admiral, so I'm going to return the favor," he told Seokjin. "You need to know that Jungkook is not dead. He's alive, but he's a-" 

"Wako," Seokjin cut him off sharply.

"You already knew that?" Ihnkyang was surprised.

"I crossed his path, he calls himself Wakaï now. He was the one who attacked my ship in my absence and  captured me. I only found out afterwards that it was him. I ran away, looking for a way back to Joseon, wanting to put the most miles between Jungkook and me but I was captured again, by his father this time."

"You flee even after recognizing him?" Ihnkyang wondered with a frown.

"Well, yeah?" Seokjin said. "Why do you look surprised?"

"I find it weird, that's all. The only memory I have of you is that of a kid always stuck to Jungkook or always looking for him. It was always for him that you came to Saengson and it was also for him that you returned there the night the pirates came, so it's weird to see you today talking about him like your enemy after the two of you were so close."

"He was a wako from the beginning, it was because of him that the pirates came to Eobu and killed everyone! I find it even weirder that I don't feel hatred in your voice when you talk about him," Seokjin retorted. "It's because of him that your life was what it was for fifteen years, don't you realize?"

"What I remember above all is that it is thanks to him that I am still alive," Ihnkyang replied.

"Eh?" Seokjin said, his eyes widening.

"During that hellish night, fifteen years ago, Jungkook saved my life. And not only mine."

Stunned, Seokjin begged him to expand on his story. Ihnkyand agreed, visibly eager to finally tell his story to someone.

"Do you remember that I chased you with Sanghoon that night when you were looking for Jungkook? After that, we fled to escape the pirates but we were forced to split up and I was alone when I saw the wakos kill other guys from our gang so I was sure they were going to kill everyone, including me.

At one point I found myself with some of them but then wakos appeared from all sides, as if they had finally decided to return to the docks and leave. Except we were in their way. We were this close to surviving!" Ihnkyang said, bringing his thumb closer to his index finger. "But we were going to die. That's when I heard Jungkook's voice yelling at them to stop. He was perched on the shoulder of a colossal pirate."

"Was it Yusuke?" Seokjin guessed, shuddering at the thought that this monster had been found right above him when he was just a dying child and could have finished him off with a single kick.

Ihnkyang nodded.

"I would have been terrified of him if I hadn't been so shocked to see Jungkook ordering him and the others. All the pirates wanted to finish their job by killing us, they were bloodthirsty, but Jungkok stopped them. He told them that we were resourceful guys and that we would be useful. Yusuke then ordered the others to take us away alive. I then understood that Jungkook was someone important to them and that they had come to get him.

At the time, I failed to be grateful, I blamed him, I was sure that everything that had happened, that all the deaths that night, were his fault and I wanted to confront him during the sea crossing to Japan. But all he did during that time was cry."

"H-he cried?" Seokjin repeated, troubled.

"Yeah, a lot. If the circumstances had been different, I would have made fun of him. He was devastated and kept screaming your name, saying it was his fault you were dead. He was nothing like the monster I thought was responsible of our misfortunes."

Seokjin despite himself felt his throat tighten at the image but fought back a wave of sorrow that tried to break through his eyes. He shouldn't give in. The little boy who had experienced this was no longer a little boy, he was a man and a wako.

"When he returned to his home," Ihnkyang continued, pulling Seokjin from his thoughts, "he was mistreated, as his father wanted him to become a strong wako who hated Joseon, not a friend of Joseon. He was therefore forbidden to speak to us and if we were seen talking to him, we were violently punished, all to prevent him from ceasing to be friends with Joseon boys.

And if Jungkook had the misfortune of talking about you, Kaïto would punish him too : he wanted to erase you from his memory. But I don't think he managed to instill that in his son because Jungkook violently rebelled against him.

Some time after his return, he saved a young samurai from death and he started to spent all his time with him. His father couln't opposed to it, after all, he was Japanese and a member of the warrior class, and he was the only one who managed to channel all of Jungkook's rage against his father and his crew.

As for me, I thought Jungkook had replaced you with that little samurai. But I quickly realized that I was wrong : he didn't laugh and play with him like he did with you. He was morose and was only practicing the martial and meditative arts of the samurai all day and probably also at night. He ended up no longer expressing any emotion, and to no longer resemble at all the boy I had known in Saengson.

Before he became independent from his father, we sailed together some time and he was fair to me unlike his father's crew. He even offered me to join his crew early on, promising that my life would be better. I don't know why he was so generous to me when he and I had never been friends. Maybe he wanted to mend his ways? Or maybe I reminded him of the life he had led in Joseon and which he missed?

In any case, his father formally forbade it, refusing to allow a Joseon to be part of his crew and threatening to kill me if he persisted. So I remained aboard the Red Emperor as Jungkook took possession of his legacy, a ship he called The Red Princess, and formed his own crew. And as his father had forbidden him, obviously the first men he recruited were Mings and Joseons.

I haven't seen Jungkook since, because he runs away from his father's crew like the plague. Kaïto's crew talks about Jungkook's crew with contempt all the time because it is multi-ethnic and they don't behave exactly like the rest of the wakos during their raids. Other wako crews generally avoid The Red Princess as they are known to attack other wako crews.

I don't want to get ahead of myself, I'm not that perceptive, but I think it was his friendship with you that pushed him to not be like the other wakos." Ihnkyang said befor finally stop in his story, waiting for Seokjin's reaction who had not interrupted him once.

In fact, Seokjin was fighting with himself right now and he was having a hard time forcing his throat to unclench to be able to speak. Ihnkyang's story had devastated him. He hadn't for a second been able to imagine that Jungkook could have suffered to this extent.

Or rather, he had refused to accept it, when Jungkook had told him how much he had suffered from the loss of his friend - who was none other than himself. Worse, he had minimized his suffering under the pretext that he was a wako.

"Have you forgiven him despite what your life has become over the past fifteen years?" he asked Ihnkyang slowly, with a trembling voice, when he was certain that it would not trigger his tears.

"Yes, I forgave him a long time ago. Even if he was a Japanese infiltrator and hid his identity to everyone, he had nothing to do with Eobu's attack. He was just a kid who was struggling juste like us to survive in Saengson and he had probably run away from these wakos who were his family because he wanted to be different from them. That's what I think."

"However, he too has become a wako in the end, like his father!" Seokjin cried.

"Just like you became an admiral like your father, after spending your childhood shouting from the rooftops that you would never become a soldier," Ihnkyang reminded him. "We cannot escape our destiny. Besides, I heard the others said that you are nicknamed the 'Wakos Slayer' and that you enjoy killing pirates, so are you in the best position to blame him for becoming a killer? I killed too," he added, "I became a person I didn't want to be but I had no choice. Are you going to kill me for this?"

Seokjin blinked, as if some of these thoughts were finally clearing up, because Ihnkyang's words were familiar to him. Jungkook had tried to talk to him. He had tried to extinguish his hatred within himself, the night he realized who he was, seeing the scar on his stomach.

"Why do you hate wakos?" Jungkook had asked him that night. "Aren't you the Wakos Slayer? You are a murderer who sails the seas just like us but you try so hard to believe that you are different than us."

"I'm different!" Seokjin had replied with anger "I kill to rid these seas of pirates. I kill for..."

"For revenge."

"It's different, I don't kill for fun and I don't torture."

"Your reputation precedes you. All the survivors you let escape say the same thing: you are a man who kills wakos with pleasure, and the men you command are the same as you."

"Were. You killed them all, don't you remember? We decided together to hunt pirates, it was our life's mission."

"Why?"

"Because the wakos took away the people we hold dear to our hearts!" Seokjin had cried out in a howl of rage. "Innocent people who were guilty of nothing other than being in the path of these damn looters, rapists and murderers!"

"Who are you trying to avenge, Admiral?"

"No one."

"Who have you lost under the sword of the wakos? Your father? Your mother?"

"None."

"A girl then?"

"No!" Seokjin got angry. Why was he trying to dig into his past like this?

"Then maybe... a boy?"

"Shut up, you know nothing!"

"Then tell me. Who was this boy to you?"

"I won't tell you shit!"

"Was it someone who left you for dead?" the pirate had insisted, moving forward even further and touching the tip of his finger to the scar on Seokjin's stomach who immediately backed away.

"No!" Seokjin had yelled, whose angry eyes filled with tears, while above the ship, lightning flashed and thunder rumbled. "I'm the one who abandoned him! It is because of my weakness, my cowardice that he died! And even if I rid all the seas of this globe of the pirates who inhabit them, it would not be enough because he would still be dead!"

Seokjin's throat tightened again when he finally understood. At this point, Jungkook was already begging for forgiveness. Worse, he had tried to ease his pain and remorse, by claiming that what had happened was his fault, not Seokjin's. And in return, far from trying to understand him and appease his remorse in turn, by granting him his forgiveness, Seokjin had treated him like his enemy and had pushed him away without any consideration.

Wasn't it for Jungkook that he himself had taken this path of revenge, this path strewn with death? And now he hated Jungkook for having done the same thing? For wanting to avenge him because he had been his precious friend? Jungkook truly loved him, he had saved him, preventing Yusuke and Takeshi from killing him. It was only thanks to him that he was able to live and become the wako slayer. And in return, he pushed Jungkook away and promised to kill him as soon as he saw him again.

No longer able to stand it, Seokjin broke down and cried, oblivious to the fact that Ihnkyang was looking at him with pity.

"So, despite what you said, you're still a whiny kid who needs his friend," he said without any malice, in a tone of observation.

Seokjin ignored his remark and let his sorrow express itself without holding it back. He had missed Jungkook - his friend - terribly and now, he desperately wanted to see him...

When he managed to calm down, he said to Ihnkyang:

"I'll take you back to your friend, and I'll find mine."

He was going to see Jungkook again, and he would apologize for pushing him away, beg him to forgive him. He would tell him that he no longer needed to seek revenge. He wanted to take him away from this path of hatred that they had both embarked on. He had to protect him again, like before. And like Jungkook had protected him infinitely more.

"You're confident, and that's great, but have you seen your situation?" Ihnkyang replied lucidly, indicating the chains that held Seokjin's weakened body. "How are you going to escape and find him?"

"I don't know how I'm going to do it, I just know I'm going to do it," Seokjin said with a confident smile. "After all, when I look for him, I always find him."

The live concert starts in an hour. What time is it where you live? ^^