just a small cw: mentions of death penalty/experience of being on death row/execution in this chapter, so if you wish to not read it, I suggest you skip the parts after the second +++ comes in sight. enjoy reading!

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Honestly speaking, Hook was not expecting that young of a girl to have that much courage in herself to believe that her sacrifice was one right - one for her friend.

So when she jumped, without any hesitation and with the courage of one person in which he hasn't seen in years, even he fell silent.

The crewmates all gathered to watch her body fall, followed by the heavy anchor being tossed into the abyss that was the sea. Silence ensued, as they watched her body disappear into the darkness, now hidden by the clouds that passed through, as if shielding her death from everyone.

"No," Minghao breathed, being unable to believe what Gaeul had just done.

"You- you killed her!" Minghao let out a devastated scream, so uncharacteristic of what he had always been that even he himself was shocked at what he sounded like. Even the crewmates who had known him for quite a while looked surprised to see him sound like that; so sad, so vulnerable and so...devastated, that they couldn't help but flinch at his scream.

Hook rolled his eyes, "She brought this upon herself. Let this be a warning to you too, boy." He turns around and walks away, metal foot clanking against the wooden floor of the deck. He gives instructions to the crewmates to get back to tending to the ship, as if nothing had happened - as if he had not asked a girl to jump to her death.

Minghao could not believe it. He could not believe that Gaeul was gone, forever, just like that. Suddenly he remembered how foolish he had been to not convince her harder to not follow him to the shore. He remembers how foolish he had been to cozy up to her knowing fully well that being friends meant putting her in danger as well. He remembers how foolish it was to believe that everything would be okay for as long as he kept his ties with Hook a secret.

And yet, even then, he had failed to protect the one person in the world that had mattered to him the most, now that he failed to protect his own father from the hands of these pirates.

A shrill scream interrupted his thoughts.

"What was that?" Hook whips his head back, turning to all sorts of directions to find the source of that scream. The clouds had covered their sight, as if to tease. At the corner of his eye, he spots the faint glow of yellow, flying next to the shadow of an extremely familiar figure; one of which had the exact same courage taht belonged to Gaeul, and one that he hasn't seen in years.

"Hey, over here, you dumbass!"

Hook scowls at the voice, expression shifting into one that he hasn't put on in, again, years. He felt extreme hatred towards this individual, or rather, boy. The innocent spirit of being carefree without being able to grow up has irritated him to no end - all because it always went against his principles of intricacy and detailed planning.

"Peter," Hook said grimly, glaring daggers at the shadow of the boy, who was now making shadow puppets with his hands.

"That's me!" Peter agrees, taking off his hat and bowing in courtesy. "It has been a while, has it not?"

"And you are as naive as ever," Hook snaps, perhaps too harsh of a tone to use towards a boy, but well - if it weren't for Peter's eternal youth, Hook assumed that they would both be of the same age. They did, in fact, grow up together after all.

"What makes you think you could intrude my ship?" Hook points towards him with his hooked hand, almost accusingly. Peter pouts, feeling sad at the nonexistent hospitality.

"That's no way to treat your long time rival, friend."

"Who are you calling a friend?"

Peter rolls his eyes and rests both his hands behind his head, flying in such a laid back position as if he had no care in the world, "You're the same as ever. Always uptight - always angry. Where's that funny bone in your body, I wonder?"

The more the boy who never grew up talked, the more it was starting to get on the captain's nerves, "Answer me, boy. You know to be wise when you need to be." Peter looks down and sees several men with rifles in their hands; aiming right at him. He shivered in fear, and raises his hands in defeat.

"Yeah yeah, I'm just messin with ya. Fine," Peter sighs and swoops lower, the rifles following him (with more rifles pointing towards him) as he neared the ship. "Just wanted you to check this out!"

Peter dives back below the clouds until he was no longer in sight. Silence ensued once more, only to be broken by a sudden whoosh up into the sky, a gust of wind following suit, then trails of golden dust marking their path.

"Isn't that...."

"That's the girl who jumped!"

Hook's eyes widened.

And it was, indeed. Gaeul in Peter's arms, of course slightly terrified because not only was she mentally preparing herself for death, but also to be interrupted in that process and discovering that she had just been given another chance to live, thanks to a very familiar friend in green and another very familiar glowing pixie friend - both experiences were just as overwhelming.

"I just- I can't believe it," Hook sputtered, at loss for words. He could not believe that she was still alive; that anchor would have dragged her down faster than any meteor and she would have crashed into the seas before anybody else could catch her. Unless.....

"Aren't you going to ask me how she's alive?" Peter asks teasingly. Hook shouts in frustration, then immediately points at the floating boy, asking the men to fire. Peter was all laughs and smiles until he realizes, that there were more than twelve men - with rifles all pointing at him.

"I don't want to die again!" Gaeul yells through the sounds of the bullets as both of them dodged the hits through the clouds. "This is all your fault!"

"My fault?" Hoshi asks, shocked. "i just saved your ass!"

"And there was no need to provoke them like that!"

Peter grinned, "Well, it wouldn't be fun that way."

"You're literally insa-AANNEEEEEE!"

Caught off guard, Hoshi holds Gaeul by the shoulders and tugs her downwards, and both of them whooshing back into the clouds, wind hitting their faces, Peter laughing like a maniac. This was even worse than a rollercoaster ride, was what Gaeul thought to herself, and she promised she would never get on one again if, well - if she still lived by the end of this entire ordeal.

The sound of bullets being fired followed where they flew, and though Peter, the expert in flying, was quick enough to dodge them, Gaeul swore that it was a miracle that all of those bullets missed them by just a strand of hair.

"Now this is what we're gonna do," Peter says calmly, trying to be loud enough for Gaeul to hear over the sound of the wind and the bullets that were being fired. "We're gonna set their ship on fire. I'll buy more time for Hook and his men to be distracted. You try your best to save your friend from those guys. And don't worry - the Lost Boys are more capable than you think."

"You're bringing my brother into this?" Gaeul shrieks, clearly disapproving the idea. "Are you out of your mind?"

"Just trust me!"

Before Gaeul could speak any more, Peter zooms upwards back onto the ship, confident that by this time, the men had run out of most of their bullets and needed some time to reload. He and Gaeul landed swiftly on the bow of the ship, immediately being crowded by most of Hook's men.

"You know how to fight?" Peter tosses her wooden sword. Gaeul looks at him with what was the fifth look of disbelief he had given today.

"You're telling me a piece of wood is going to help?" Gaeul yells back.

Peter scrunched up his nose, offended, "Well, you need to believe it first for it to be true."

As the group of burly crewmates surrounded them, Peter pulled out his own wooden sword and began fighting not one, not two, but five of them at a time. And while Gaeul wanted to continue and stare in awe at the ridiculous capabilities of Peter Pan that she had absolutely no knowledge of before, there was another group of men that were heading in her direction now, leaving no time for her to be distracted. Gaeul knows her limits, and that she had zero knowledge of swordfighting and how to use them, so the best she could do was dodge their attacks.

It was a miracle that she was light on her feet.

Dodging five of the men was easier than expected; the ship was rocking from side to side with all that chaos, which makes it more easier for them to run into each other, toppling over one after another. Gaeul slid past them easily, taking this chance to locate Minghao at the other end of the ship, arms and legs still tied to the heavy rope. Gaeul's heart dropped seeing him in this state, but there was not much time to lose. Minghao looked up at her in disbelief, as if he still could not believe that it was really Gaeul in the flesh, as if he did not jsut witness her jump to her death minutes before chaos ensued, as if this girl standing in front of him, desperately trying to cut his ties with a bloody wooden sword was not a ghost of some sort.

"Come on, come on," Gaeul tried to quicken her pace at cutting the ties. She shut her eyes, hard, chanting to herself, "Come on come on come on! I believe in you, you stupid thing!"

"Look out!" Minghao shouts, looking at the group of men jumping towards their direction. Gaeul whips her head back, seeing what Minghao was looking at and braced for impact, until-

"I got you noona!"

As if just on time, followed by the shrill sound of what seemed like a tarzan yell; a boy swinging from a rope whooshed past them, kicking all the men square in the face. One by one toppled over, and at first Gaeul wondered how that small kick could have made these men go down, until she realized that the boy was wearing something on his foot that was literally made out of steel.

"I got you!" Chan shouts back, grinning proudly. Gaeul smiled, almost tearing up at the thought of seeing her brother. She hastily cut the ropes that tied Minghao with the time Chan had bought for her, and soon enough Minghao himself was lifting the weight of the ropes off of him.

Peter was still duelling with the men from the far end of the ship. As if his skills with his own stupid wooden sword wasn't already good enough, it was then complemented by his own mischievious tactics, jumping and flipping so that the men were all bumping into each other and flopping onto each other one by one into a tangled mess of limbs. Peter scanned the sky for something, or rather, someone, and when the faint glow of yellow caught his eye he knows that it was time.

"Gaeul!" Peter yells, voice cutting through the tension of the fight. "Get ready to jump!"

Gaeul nods, taking Minghao's hand in hers and pulling him to the edge of the ship. She remembers the plan; that they were to set this ship on fire and leave safely.

It was not until when the flames started to spread from the majestic sail that Gaeul had remembered about Minghao's father who was still in the dungeon, unaware of the chaos that was happening up here.

Even more unaware that this ship was going to be burnt down to dust.

"I need- I need to go!" Gaeul shoves the sword into her pocket and attempts to run through the crowd of men fighting, only to be pulled back by Seungkwan, who has now shifted into his life-sized form instead of his pixie one. A box of matches were in hand, and it looked like he had used almost all of them.

"Where are you going?" Seungkwan asks, gripping Gaeul's wrist tight.

"There- There are people in the dungeon!" Gaeul screams, panicked, eyes following the flames that were becoming larger, engulfing almost half of the ship they were on. "We can't leave them!"

"There is no time!" Seungkwan pulls at her wrist even harder, adamant to not let her go, and she fully understands why. Half of the ship had now been licked clean by the flames; and there was nowhere to go except down, unless they want to die at the hands of Hook, who was approaching them at this moment.

Seungkwan, obviously looking panicked, dumps a heap of pixie dust onto his friends, and tells them to jump. Gaeul shoots Minghao a look of sincere apology.

"I'm so sorry, Minghao." Gaeul begs. "I'm so sorry."

And they jump, flying downwards back to shore, the faint sound of Hook cursing profanities at them, drifting further and further away.

Part of Gaeul wished this was all only a bad dream.

+++

By the time they reached the shore, everyone was trying to catch their breath. Their bodies collapsed onto the sand, heaving and gasping for air. Minghao swore that he had never experienced such an absurd thing as flying before; heck, he never even thought about the fact that he could. Not after meeting Gaeul.

Seungkwan had told them to stay where they were and take as much time as they need to regain composure, and he left in order to help wahtever chaos was ensuing back in the sky, up where the ship was. Although he perfectly trusted Peter and the rest of the boys with their skills in combat and flying, it wouldn't hurt to go back in case they needed any support before the ship finally burst into flames.

There was a distant sound of sobbing from where Minghao lay, and as he gained composure, he realized that it was from Gaeul. He approached the girl, gently placing a hand onto her, "Hey, you're all safe now. What's wrong?"

Gaeul looked up at him with tears in her eyes. She knew that if she told him about it now, he would hate her forever. Not that Gaeul didn't want him to hate her, but she deserved it. For not being able to save the one person Minghao treasured the most.

"I'm sorry," Gaeul wails, so uncharacteristic of her, Minghao had thought, as if this was the appropriate reaction that should have been displayed when she was about to walk the plank instead of when they had just safely landed. But who was he to blame, when she had just experienced two overwhelming events of life and death in the span of an hour.

Even he himself was a bit shaken from it.

The shimmer of something caught the end of Minghao's eye. He stood up, looking at where they sat, and realized that there was something unusual about the shore. Although they had returned to exactly where Minghao was about to board Hook's ship, and exactly where he had asked Gaeul to return, he remembers that there was none of this. There was no pile of gold and treasure and pearl the last time he remembered.

And yet here they were, surrounded, by heaps and heaps of gold, pearls and treasure.

Minghao eyed the items suspiciously. Could this be a trap? What was all of these items for? Who were they for, and why were they here?

Could Hook be the one to plant all of this here for his men to collect before boarding the ship and sailing?

"Gaeul," Minghao softly says, "Look."

For a second, Gaeul remembers that they had other important matters at hand. Perhaps, if she got a hold of herself, and ran back to the castle to inform the guards that Hook and his men were at sea and if they were still able to be caught, perhaps then they would find Minghao's father - alive and unscathed, somehow? Perhaps coming home unscathed would be impossible, but being able to save him would be better than nothing at all. Gaeul wipes her tears and scrambles up, ready to make a run for the castle, only to be taken aback by the sheer amount of wealth in front of her eyes that even her legs had stopped moving without realizing.

"What.." Gaeul trails off, eyes scanning the endless treasure located right next to them. "What is all this?"

"I don't know," Minghao whispers, barely audible, as if his voice was not worthy to be spoken of in front of this heap of wealth. He lifts one piece of gold, then a tiara with a fiery red jewel on it, then followed by another string of pearls in his hand. A distant memory came to mind, bits and pieces of it coming together as he inspects more and more of the treasure in front of him, sensing the familiarity of it all.

"These are Hook's treasure," he puts down the crown he held in his hand, looking over his shoulder back at Gaeul disapprovingly.

"Why did he leave them here?" Gaeul asks, picking up the string of pearls she had just seen Minghao touch.

"I don't know," Minghao looks around, trying to see if there were any men who were waiting behind the bushes, ready to attack them as if this was some form of....trap. He waited and scanned the darkness behind the bushes, but nothing happened.

"These were the treasure Hook had stolen from the human world with my dad," Minghao says nonchalantly, pressing his lips into a thin line, unhappy with the information. "I know, because I was on that ship too."

Gaeul gave him a questioning look, but chose not to pry. Minghao notices an unfamiliar expression on her face; one that almost teetered on the edge of guilt, but he had no reason to question her about it, so he didn't.

Just then, a gruff voice cut through the silence, makign both Gaeul and Minghao jump on their feet.

"Freeze!" There were men in armor. Armor, and swords, and flags, and a torch blazing with fire, large and intimidating. More and more marched towards them, and as they approached closer, Minghao noticed something was not right.

"Those are the palace guards," Minghao informs Gaeul, eyes not leaving the hoard of men that were marching towards them. "Why are they here?"

"Freeze, you thieves!"

Gaeul and Minghao both exchanged a questioning look.

"Thieves?" Gaeul echoed the word, and she did not like the way it danced on her tongue, not one bit. "i don't understand - something must be wrong here."

"Drop that treasure," One of the commanders had ordered as soon as they arrived in front of the two friends. "Hands to the back of your heads, and knees to the ground."

Gaeul steps forward in an attempt to provide an explanation, "Wha- I don't understand. There must be some kind of misunderstanding, we were just saved from-"

The tip of a sword whipped right past them, landing inches before Gaeul's nose, "Do as I say, if you do not want to get hurt."

Gaeul and Minghao slowly dropped to their knees, placing their hands behind their heads.

"Sir please, let me explain ourselves," Gaeul pleaded, still going headstrong even with the sword in front of her face, hoping that maybe, they would still give her a chance. "There has been a misunderstanding, I'm sure of it. We are no thieves; in fact, we just escaped. We just barely managed to get out of Hook's ship and-"

"Hook's ship?" the royal guard pried, stone cold, eyes shooting daggers at Gaeul, full of hatred and resentment.

"No need to explain yourselves then," He continued, and kept his sword back into its place. "For you are the thieves that we have been looking for all this time."

+++

Time passes fairly slow in the dungeon, as Gaeul and Minghao lay next to each other on their concrete beds, meters away from each other, chained to the wall. The sunlight basked the room, sometimes in bright red, marking that it was sunset, and then it was just another cycle of Gaeul being unable to track how many days it has been for them in the dungeon.

Had it been a week? Had it been more? Was Junhui crowned King?

No, it was not too late. There was no commotion, no crowd in front of the castle, as far as Gaeul could tell from the dungeon tower they spent the rest of their days in. If it had been Junhui's coronation day, then there would have been hundreds and thousands of people gathering in front of the palace, ready to cheer for their new King. But there was no such thing.

Instead, Gaeul counted the days to which she and Minghao were to be executed.

And well, let's say that they were running out of time. Now, they only had until dawn to bask in the last glory that is their lives; in which there isn't much that they could do, except relive the moments where they last escaped Hook's ship, landed at the shore, and discovered that treasure.

As for Gaeul, she still couldn't tell Minghao the truth of what happened to his father.

But she knows, she really knows, that as the days for their upcoming death day nears, clawing at them and haunting their sleep, reminding that death was inevitable. Perhaps it wasn't, but Gaeul and Minghao were both very tired and had given up. It's not like they didn't try anything they could to escape; to ask for anybody's help. They had tried just about anything; yelling out of the tower (nobody heard their screams), trying to find a hole to crack (there were none), melting their chains in the sun (nada), and at this point there was no way to get in touch with anyone they knew. Perhaps, accepting their fate was much easier, knowing that two commoners had no power over anything the royal family says.

Besides, what proof did they have to say that neither of them were thieves?

"You okay?"

Minghao's voice snapped Gaeul out of her thoughts, and she turns to look at him. Minghao was lying down on his bed, his head turned towards her in concern. Gaeul flashes him a bitter smile, unable to reply.

"You know, that treasure we found," Minghao says thoughtfully, fingers tracing the bumpy texture of the stone cold walls. "Remember I told you that those were the treasure my dad found with Hook, right?"

Gaeul nodded.

"Well, back then, my dad was the navigator for Hook's ship," Minghao's face hardened at the memory of those days. "One of the best, really. He knew the human world like the back of his hand, and that's why Hook put so much trust in him."

"And this was when your father was still with Hook stealing treasure from the human world?"

Minghao nods.

As if reading Gaeul's mind, Minghao continues, "And well - he decided that he wanted to quit after he had me. After he met my mother." Minghao smiled at the thought, face softening into something that reminded Gaeul of love. "She was one of the most beautiful humans he came across, and treated him with kindness even if he, well, at that time treated her like a jerk. But that was the past. He realized he didn't want to leave her, so he tried to tell Hook that he wanted to quit."

Gaeul chews on her bottom lip, "I'm guessing Hook's response to that wasn't...good?"

Minghao laughs, "Of course. But my dad bailed on them anyway, and since my mom was moving away from that town, my dad figured it would be safe to move with her seeing as Hook would not be able to track them since they lost their navigator."

Minghao explained that the years were good at first, until Hook had finally caught news of where their location was and threatened his father to work with Hook again. But his father ignored the request, hoping that ignorance would make Hook give up on working with him, until his mother began to fall sick over an illness nobody knew of; spots and spots of bruises appeared on her skin and they made her incredibly sick. Feverish beyond a temperature that was normal for a human, extremely fatigued that all she could do was sit in bed for months.

It did not end well, for she had passed away when Minghao was only six.

"My father knew that her sickness was not one of the real world, but from Neverland," Minghao's face screamed hatred, balling the ends of his clothes into his fist. "They managed to sneak some sort of poisonous seaweed from the depths of the sea into her drink. Believe me, my father was not happy with that."

"But then when he returned to the ship to confront Hook - not the best move from him - he was overpowered and then forced to work with them again, with my life on the line. But my father begged them to bring me with him too, and that he would work with them as usual if they promised to leave me be on the ship, unscathed."

Gaeul listened intently, picturing the life of regular human boy who's life was taken away just like that. How difficult it would have been for a young boy like him to process that his dad was not just switching jobs, but one that did not even exist in the real world at that, taken to another completely different dimension, away from reality altogether. Living on a ship, with dangerous pirates, who had threatened the life of your own father - such an extremely unhealthy environment for a young boy.

"We escaped, once," Minghao mused, smiling to himself. "You know I mentioned we opened a bakery? Yeah, those were good days."

Gaeul only nodded, the weight of guilt only sitting heavy on her shoulders more than they already have.

"Minghao," gaeul says solemnly. "There's something I have to tell you."

Minghao looks at her for a split second, and realizes there was no smile, or lightheartedness in her tone of voice. He sits up from his lying position, assuming that whatever she was about to say was getting serious.

"But I need you to know, first and foremost," Gaeul chokes through her words, trying to swallow the massive lump in her throat, pausing before finally being able to gain her words again. "That I tried my best - I tried. But I couldn't risk my life again, nor yours. Nor any of my friends', if I did what I was about to do on that day before being stopped."

Minghao gazed at her questioningly, allowing for her to continue.

"That day, when that ship went into flames," Gaeul murmured, pain evident in her voice. "Your father was in the cell right next to me. And it- it wasn't until the ship caught on fire that I remembered that he was still there. And- and I couldn't save him, Minghao, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.."

Gaeul's tears fell, the tears that she had been holding back ever since the day they were caught and thrown into this shared cell. She didn't know what to expect from Minghao, but if he were to come to hate her for being unable to save his father, then Gaeul understood it all too well. It was fine. It was valid. It was what she deserved.

The silence brushes past them and stretches into minutes, then hours. Minghao has not said a word to her since.

The sun has set, and the room was no longer bathed in the magical vermillion it had been just minutes before; and Gaeul falls asleep after hours of sobbing herself to sleep.

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the events which happen on the ship actually happen right before chapter 25, where junhui announces to jisoo that he would no longer be human, and the part where minghao and gaeul converse in their cell. had to backtrack a bit to find out what was happening before writing this! it's been years anyway.

i find it unbelievable that im churning this out in such a short amount of time, this hasnt been proofread but i promise it will after i publish it!

hoping these events arent too rushed, i believe everyone deserves an ending after waiting for so long. thank you, and look forward for more.

- cee.