Making out with Seungmin was a drug, and Jeongin was an addict fresh out of an ineffective rehab.

Okay, anyway, now that that comment is clear and out of the way, we can get back to the important stuff. Even with strong winds behind them, the journey to the Yellow Woods would take them three weeks traveling dead north from Levanter. Dead north. Straight north. Just. Right. Up. Upward. The Yellow Woods was the northernmost nation across the seas, built up on the top of a mountain range that used to be a prison for a Titan that disrespected the gods. The rest of the legend went something like, the Titan broke open the mountain, causing powerful magic to encase the Yellow Woods, that's why the Yellow Woods was the land of magical stuff, and the Titan is still out there somewhere, then Jeongin found out that was NOT legend and was just straight up the history of Yellow Woods. That's fucking crazy.

Not to mention, he didn't exactly realize what northernmost actually meant, until the other crew members started mentioning the frost. The snow. The glaciers. Since they were approaching winter, the north was always cold, but that meant once they actually reached the land it would be sub-zero temperatures. So. They went from the lush forests of Miroh. Then to the humid jungles of Levanter. And now, ice! Snow! Wow! When they said Yellow Woods, he assumed that would mean another forest! But no! Minimal trees, rocky mountainous terrain they would have to scale up in freezing temperatures, what the hell!!!! Don't get him wrong, Jeongin has experienced the cold winters in South Korea, but an ice field?????? Glaciers that may slow them down by another week, which may put them right into the dropped weather of winter?????? Oh my gods, his nipples were going to freeze off.

Glaciers would slow them. The winds naturally carried southern instead of northern, so they would be fighting against the weather. Not to mention the currents typically flowed east to west. That combination of fortune conditions was the reason they traveled from Miroh to Levanter so quickly. But now? If all conditions were ideal, then it was three weeks. With everything, every single little thing fighting against them, the journey miGHT TAKE THEM A FUCKING MONTH AND A HALF. SIX TO SEVEN WEEKS!!!!! That would put them into the heart of what would've been November in Jeongin's world!!! It's going to be so cold.

Well. The warning was appreciated at least. But they still had a while to go, barely a day or two outside of Levanter and more importantly:

Changbin woke up.

Pissed.

Sort of. He woke up slinging fists about being poisoned, prepared to punch whoever had done that to him, only to immediately knock back out from the physical exertion so soon after waking up. It took a few hours to get the warlock up and functioning again from his secondary nap, complete with everyone pitching in somewhere to make sure he recovered properly, dividing up the tasks to help the handful that Changbin was (Then he remembered the fact Seungmin had done all of this for him alone (He later found out he refused to let anyone else help (But subtly, he'd get anxious and picky about how they were helping so the others allowed him the ease of doing it himself)), and he wanted nothing more than to give the First Mate another long kiss as a thank you), and also the new bruise that sat directly over Jeongin's nose bridge as he got elbowed in the face. Again.

So he was scrunched into the corner of the room while he was banished to accumulate mold with his presence while Felix tended to checking on Changbin. Meanwhile Hyunjin was helping Jeongin press hard onto his nose with a spare damp rag to cut the nose bleed off before it could spill blood like a crime scene all-over the Captain's precious room. Even if the warlock profusely apologized for it, the sheer humiliation of being sent off to the corner in the Captain's chair like a misbehaving five year old was enough to make Jeongin feel a bit. You know. Bitter.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize how close you were to me, Jeongin. When my magic is recovered I'll heal you," Changbin apologize for the umpteenth time in the past ten minutes alone. Constantly trying to slip a sincere sorrow in his gaze over to Jeongin from around Felix's body, where the young prince was occupied with wiping down Changbin's arms (He wasn't sure why he was doing it, cause of the sweat build up? But the warlock probably could've done it himself so maybe it was for another reason entirely). Simply allowing Felix to run the damp rag over his biceps and bare shoulders as his gaze lowered, a wince scrunching his features together, "I'm sorry for letting this happen to me. I must've been a burden to everyone."

"Not to all of us, just Hyunjin. He was the one to sit and care for you," Felix told as he gestured back to where Jeongin and Hyunjin were cramped up together. The dragonkin propped up on his knees as he helped him with his stupid fucking bloody nose.

But the warlock went quiet.

His hands balling up into fists as a he shot a glance to Hyunjin, the dragonkin locking up as he seemed to keep as still as possible. As if playing opossum would keep him hidden from those judging eyes that found him.

A scowl underneath Changbin's breath as he checked, "Him?"

The dragonkin busied himself with checking Jeongin's nose beneath the rag, though he'd be lying if he said he didn't see the pang of hurt that snuck itself onto his gaze or the manner of the mindless action meant only to distract him from the eyes drilling into the back of his head. He wasn't sure why, but Jeongin could feel it too; The moment when the dragonkin's heart blossomed open only to be carded with shreds along the petals, when a pike was sunk through his gut and his stomach could only fall to try catching what was left, the moment that his fingers went numb from the anxiety that spiked through them. Hyunjin didn't show any of what he was feeling, he just scoffed defiantly underneath his breath, "Nice answer."

"Sorry if it hurt you," The warlock snidded in return. From over Hyunjin's shoulder, Jeongin stayed quiet as he watched Changbin turn his eyes off of the dragonkin and onto a fixed point at the end of the bed. Felix who had been trying to help him suddenly being brushed to the side as the warlock went unresponsive toward his attempts to assist him. While Hyunjin's feelings were pretty obvious to decode, Changbin's were like an unknown cipher; He saw something about them, a muddle mess of jumbled signals he couldn't quite separate, only knowing they were a cluster of negative feelings that wouldn't undo themselves andー

Wait.

Jeongin's eyebrows furrowed together.

Wait, since when could I read people's feelings?????????

But now that he thought about it, hasn't it happened a few times before? The statue in Miroh... Felix's distress... The Queen in Levanter and the sorrow inside of her chamber... Jisung and Minho on the beach, butー Stillー Thats so strange.

His thoughts were shattered apart when a certain pressure stomped atop of his chest, his own heart caving underneath the sudden constriction violently ripping his focus back to Hyunjin as the dragonkin stood up from the floor and abandoned Jeongin to continue pressing on his nose by himself. Was that pressure coming from Hyunjin? Is that truly how trapped he felt? Bundled up, tightened, like fangs digging into him to pull his muscles apart fiber by fiber. With a deep breath that no one else would've heard, Hyunjin turned to Changbin was he snarled, "You think you can hurt me? Try being an abomination of nature for your whole life. Snarky comments like yours are just irritating."

That's a lie.

Hyunjin's heart was bleeding, and Jeongin could feel it potently.

The warlock barely spared him more than a glance from the corner of his eye, his words more disbelieving and untrusting of the dragonkin's comment, "Is that really how little you think of yourself?"

As if he couldn't believe Hyunjin thought lowly of himself. Too vain, and too arrogant for his words to not be an attempt for attention and praise.

Was that what Changbin felt?

That Hyunjin was nothing more than a prideful, greedy, and gluttonous creature. That Hyunjin was nothing more than a dragon, rather than a human.

"What does it matter if it is or isn't?" Hyunjin fought with him, his fists bundling up by his sides as he looked down on Changbin. As if really was that prideful, greedy, and gluttonous dragon the warlock treated him to be. He didn't fight against those thoughts, he didn't try to prove them wrong, only fed into the assumption as he laced an arm over his gut and propped the other's ebow atop. Gently inspecting the bracelets and bangles on his wrist (Though again Jeongin had the impression he was only doing it to hide the subtly tears building up in his eyes) as he countered him, "You certainly don't act like it's wrong."

"Hyunjiー"

"You know why I wanted a kiss from you, Changbin?"

The warlock finally pulled his blank stare back to the dragonkin.

"Because every time you looked at me, you saw me with disgust in your eyes. Every time you called me dragonkin, every time you said I was an abomination, sure, it hurts," By his sides, Hyunjin's fists tightened more. Clutching down as his sharpened nails dug into the soft flesh of his palm, dredging down into the skin as if he wished to tear what little there was of his human self and rip it to shreds. As if when he finally clutched at his shirt, those hands were nothing but talons to tug the fabric apart. As if he was nothing more than a monster behind the hidden scales on his neck, "But it never hurt more than knowing I would never belong. I wanted a kiss from you, because I thought that if anyone would accept me, if anyone could, it would be this crew. It would be you! Changbin, the warlock from Miroh! An outcast, like me!"

And yet his words seemed to fall on deafened ears that couldn't bring themselves to acknowledge anything that was said. An untrusting set of eyes that simply stared down the abomination with scrutiny and suspicion dredging to his very core. The warlock didn't trust Hyunjin. He didn't trust his words, his demeanor, his manner, the bubbling of a frustration that had been carefully hidden and maintained directed toward the warlock himself, yet it seemed Changbin couldn't bring himself to truly believe his words. Maybe he thought Hyunjin was being dramatic again, overzealous, looking for a hint of sympathy to grovel with, how could he believe that Hyunjin said when Hyunjin's words were always stacked with lies.

"And you never did anything more than call me vain. A nussiance. An irritation. An abomination," Hyunjin fiddled with something on his wrist as he spat, "You're a hypocrite Seo Changbin. From the depths of my heart, I loathe you."

His hands hurried, rushing to pull a certain bracelet he was wearing off of his wrist. A golden band with designed knots ingraved into the metal, looped around the pearls and sapphires imbedded within the locking trails. It took Jeongin a second to recognize the bracelet, that one Changbin had reluctantly gave up to the dragonkin in exchange for the information about Felix in Miroh. But ruthlessly, Hyunjin tore the golden band off of him as the link holding it onto him shattered at the sudden tug, a few of the knots coming undone as they splintered across the floor of the Captain's cabin.

He balled the broken bracelet up and threw it at the warlock, not caring where it landed as he stormed out of the cabin, "I should've let that poison take your life."

The door slammed closed behind him.

Echos of his anger sinking into their shoulders as the three of them were left behind.

Gingerly, Felix had scooped down to pluck the bracelet up from the ground in the suspended quiet they couldn't quite shake off. Holding the golden links laid limply inside of his clutch. Where he delicately gripped it as if the metal would burn into his hand, as if it was made of lava and hellfire, like spite and molten greed, and Felix was too pure of a being to be infected too greatly by it's virus. Gently, he attempted to offer the bracelet to Changbin to return the jewelry to it's rightful owner. In turn, the warlock simply turned his eyes away. Glancing back to that same fixed point at the end of the bed instead of offering some semblance of an answer back. The young prince tentatively set the bracelet down on the Captain's desk before he returned to caring for the warlock with baited breath.

Meanwhile, Jeongin was more concerned elsewhere. Sure, his first issue was his bloody nose (Which seems to have stopped dumping his blood everywhere for everyone to take a piece of), but his second issue was whatever Hyunjin was feeling. Sure, Changbin had this sort of negative cluster of turmoil going on inside of him at the moment, but the dragonkin seemed so much more... Vivid? Potent? He could understand it more, he could feel where it pressed heavily into his chest as if that depression belonged to his own mind. Did that mean Hyunjin felt more strong? Did that mean the dragonkin was more... You know... Like??? Struggling??? Is that what you'd call it???

With the decision to go find Hyunjin, Jeongin triple checked with Felix that his nose stopped bleeding before discarding his bloody rag on the Captain's desk alongside the broken bracelet, before he headed off into the unknown. Not so much unknown, but still! Where did Hyunjin run off to? When he asked Minho who was busy scaling the ratlines to open the foremast, the naga said he didn't see where he went at all; When he passed by Jisung who was occupied with sewing up a ripped blanket, the selkie said he saw Hyunjin marching off but didn't see where; When he asked Seungmin, the First Mate simply sighed and said that Chan was already on the job, to let them be for a while so the Captain do what the Captain does best. Yap. Seungmin didn't say that part but it was implied. Still, he should probably, check, right?

He found Hyunjin and Chan together in a far corner of the lower storage decks; The dragonkin had wedged himself between the thin crack separating the outer walls of the galleon and the storage crates filled up to the brim with supplies, sitting uncomfortably where his rather lanky limbs had to smush themselves into a thin wedge to hide himself from any harm; The fae had somehow managed to squeeze his body into the thin strip of space beside him, though judging from the scrape marks left in the layer of dust on the planks he had to push a few of the containers to get himself in, even if his wings ended up scrunched and contorted with disturbed feathers against the wall behind them. A fog of a hazy pain flooded inside of the hold, from one of them, but he couldn't pinpoint who it was.

However, it was Hyunjin's weak voice that told, "I don't want to stay aboard."

So. It's one of those types of conversations. The conversation that happens before a big character moment in a movie, the protagonist which thinks all is lost being lifted up by their mentor! Jeongin smashed himself against the hold's ladder. Hiding against the steps to spy on them, not be caught, and get a piece of the extra dramatic movie action that was happening right underneath their noses. *Note: This is Jeongin's attempt to not let his empathy and the overwhelming sense of emotions from depressing him too greatly. His empathy usually bummed him out before. Now it was like, tenfold.

"Are you certain, hatchling?" Chan checked. Though he seemed to have an unbiased gaze to his eyes that stared at Hyunjin beside him, Jeongin couldn't help but feel there was a little more to it. Or, at the very least, he hoped there was more to it, and that the fae truly wasn't indifferent to what Hyunjin wanted.

"My mom used to call me that too. She used to tell me all sorts of lies. Like I was meant for something greater, like I was meant to be a hero, like I... I had some sort of meaning in this world," Hyunjin rambled off to him, where his arms scrunched around his tucked legs pulled tighter as his chin came to rest atop his knees. Silently bundling up into his own shell. A dragon egg shell, perhaps. Something familiar that could help him, that could keep him tucked warm and safe from all that tried to touch him as he sniffled, "But I don't have any. I'm an amalgamation of two species that hate me and an abomination at my worst. I'm a freak of nature, Chan."

"It must be difficult."

"Think so?"

"I meant, belonging to two worlds, yet being claimed by neither. That must be difficult," Chan murmured beneath his lips, his folded legs brushing into Hyunjin's as he retold a story, a legend told so long ago that even the fae couldn't rewrite those tales again, "They say dragons used to be gifts from the Gods, to protect humanity as their guardians. And the result of the bonds they had made with man, gave rise to warriors made of steel skin yet glass hearts. Warriors that could write poetry, and poets that were stronger than mountain peaks. They were the dragonkin."

Softly, the fae lifted his hand. He set it against the dragonkin's hair, tenderly brushing the strands underneath his grip as a faint smile overcame him.

"No, you are not a human. And you are not a dragon. You're not an abomination either. Child of the Gods and Son of Humanity, you are a blessing from the ancient stars and a miracle of life. The past runs inside your blood, likewise, the future."

His fingers stopped their combing, instead cupping the younger's rosy cheeks withholding back the tears swelling up.

"Dragonkin is what you are."

Before the fae pressed his hand into Hyunjin's chest. Lingering over his heart.

"But Hyunjin is who you are."

Chan stood up from the squished position they were kept, wiggling up to his feet as his hand came to land on top of Hyunjin's strands once more. The dragonkin twisting his neck into an odd angle to look up at the Captain, staring as those tears glistened up his eyes so innocently. Such delicate but powerful creatures those two could be. In a sense, the perfect match for one another's pride and wits. Perhaps that was why the Captain was so fond of him, that was why the Captain patted the top of his head softly in reassurance, "Do not allow a thing so fragile as a heart, someone's or your own, to confuse that. However with that said, you may go if you want. I will not stop you and the promise that binded you here has been severed. But if my opinions matter to you, I, along with the others, would prefer if you stayed aboard with us."

Hyunjin's head tipped down.

Before he also stood up (Jeongin made sure to hide himself elsewhere so they wouldn't spit him, but he really didn't think he should have the spotlight in this particular time, so he avoided all and every chance of mentions in this case).

His head throwing back as he complained. Wiping his tears behind his hand and marched out from his hiding spot, "But only because it's too much of a pain to fly back! You've dragged me so far out into the ocean I can't get back!"

"Alright Hyunjin," Chan's fond smile trained on the dragonkin's back as he stormed off.

"I- I mean it! It's really irritating!"

"I know, Hatchling."

They were only a day from Levanter.

But maybe even a day's journey is too much of a distance when you know you are leaving your home behind.

𓇼༝ ˚ ｡⋆ 𖠳  ᐝ  ꕀ ⋆｡ ˚ ༝𓇼

Hyunjin and Changbin are about to get a fuck ton of attention 🗣️🗣️ The Yellow Woods is 100% their section