Until We Become Untethered (The Forever Pirates) #3

Seonghwa 

Hongjoong followed after me as I headed back to the ship, getting as far away from Aviana as I could. I felt like she had an iron grip around my lungs, and the farther away from her I was, the easier I could breathe. 

"Seonghwa- SEONGHWA!" Hongjoong shouted after me, grabbing me by the arm and forcing me to stop. 

"What?" I spat at him, my breathing so irregular that I thought I'd be sent into a panic attack. 

"Tell me w'at happened in t'ere. W'at'd she tell ye?" He asked, becoming more gentle in his tone, his eye worried but firm. 

I scoffed, ripping my arm from his hold. "Are you asking me to trust you? You? Of all people? What she told me is none of your goddamn business." 

His gentleness vanished and was replaced by a hard stare. "No, I don't expect ye t' trust me. I expect ye t' do right by my crew." 

"Your crew?" 

"Aye! My crew!" He snapped, his hand enclosed on my shoulder, his finger digging painfully deep into my collarbone. "Ye gave t'em back t' me! And ye have damning information about t'e safety of t'em." 

"When have you ever cared about the safety-"

"Since always! I may have not executed it right, but I have always cared about t'e safety of my crew. Ye brought t'e fuckin' witch back in my life, and she will ruin everyt'in, so ye will tell me w'at she told ye." He changed the roles as now I was the one being slammed into a wall so painful I felt my back ache. 

"She wants me, okay?" I felt sick even as I said the words, even as confusion washed over me. "I don't... she saw the future. And whatever she saw aligns with me. You and her daughter and everyone else was just a pawn to whatever the fuck she wants. She doesn't...she wanted me to know. Me trying to kill you? She wanted that. She wanted MM to tell me what she did, she wanted me to break your curse, she planned this." 

"W'at- Why-" 

"Because I would've never forgiven myself!" I shoved him off me, he only budged because he wanted to. "I planned to kill you and then join you in hell, I never planned for any of this shit! I knew the moment I killed you, I wouldn't be able to survive it and she was planning on that. Me killing you was supposed to the the final straw for me. I would've never gotten over it." 

He stared at me, his lips thinning. "But ye didn't kill me." 

"Because you'd rather suffer through your curse and your rotted brain before..." I cleared my throat, folding my arms. "She didn't expect you to do that. She doesn't know you as well as she thinks she does, and well, she underestimated you. She thought you'd pick being loved over everything considering your history." 

He stared at me in complete seriousness, more than he had ever held with me. "Seonghwa, I love my crew, whet'er t'ey give a shit about me or not. T'e trut' of t'e matter be...I am very very comfortable not bein' loved. I have spent my entire existence bein' hated, bein' t'e villian in everyone's story. I have accepted t'at. I have accepted bein' hated so deeply by everyone around me, even before ye came on our ship...why do ye t'ink t'ey weren't nearly as angry as ye were? Because deep down...everybody expected t'at even wit'out proof. I am not tellin' ye t'is for pity, or even for sympathy...I do not care. I am simply tellin' ye...t'at I do not need t' ever be cared or loved for. Ye were t'e first person who ever actually tried. I do t'e hard shit, and I do it wit'out planning on forgiveness of ot'ers. She was wrong. Dead wrong. I don't need love. I am perfectly content in my..." His words got caught in his throat as he cleared it, discomfort apparent on his features.