"What does 'mitsuyu' mean?" Hong Pyo asked, as a stampede of sailors ran down the ship's corridor, shouting the word among a string of others that Hong Pyo couldn't make out. After the sailors had vanished from sight, Hong Pyo turned to wait for a reply from the man at the mess table beside him. It was one of the men who had rescued him the night before—the short one with sharp eyes and a nose as pointy as a knife. Though he wasn't the captain, he seemed to be in charge on this ship, and he exuded power without even saying a word. Hong Pyo had heard the others referring to him as Nakahara Taiki.

"Stowaway," the man replied, his voice low and dangerous. He abruptly stood up and stalked across the galley, leaving Hong Pyo blinking for a few moments of shocked silence.

"S-stowaway?" Hong Pyo repeated, nearly knocking over his bench as he stood up and scurried after the man. The ship hit a wave and rocked to the side, and Hong Pyo painfully crashed into the wall. "Ow."

The Nakahara man, however, was much lighter on his feet, and Hong Pyo watched with some resentment as the Japanese soldier merely continued up a flight of stairs and disappeared above deck.

Hong Pyo blew out a frustrated breath and followed up the steps as well. His curiosity about the stowaway was too great to ignore. Was it a fisherman from the island? Or perhaps one of the soldiers from the fort had somehow found them and snuck on board?

The last person Hong Pyo expected to see was a middle-aged woman in a red shaman's hanbok, with several wooden pins stuck in her frizzy hair. She was neither thin nor fat—just a sturdy build that fell somewhere in-between, and she looked ready to knock over the two men who were trying to hold her down.

"I don't understand any Japanese!" she was telling one of them, while nearly pulling the other's left arm out of its socket as she tried to twist free of his grasp. "Let me go, you invading-murderers!"

A large crowd had gathered, and a few sailors were shouting either taunts or encouragement at her and the commotion she was causing.

The noise immediately died down when Nakahara Taiki stepped forward and raised a hand for silence. The only one who hadn't noticed him, however, was the woman, who was still shoving and shouting at the two men holding her. "You bastards! Let me go or I'll—I'll hex you!"

"A very serious threat, indeed," Taiki said, and for the first time Hong Pyo thought he heard a trace of amusement in the man's voice.

The shaman paused at the dark voice and looked up, and her eyes immediately widened when she saw the man in front of her.

"You're a—"

"I'd think very carefully about your next words, shaman," Taiki interrupted, his words sharp daggers that hissed through the air. "I do happen to be in charge of these men, and if you offend me, those words might be your last."

Hong Pyo could hear the clack of the woman's jaw as she immediately shut her mouth.

Taiki gave a grim smile. "A wise choice."

"What are we going to do with her?" Hong Pyo asked, and the shaman glowered upon hearing his native Korean accent.

"You traitor!" she spat at Hong Pyo. "How dare you collude with these men! You—"

"Silence, woman," Taiki snapped.

A few of the other men on the ship began shouting out a few things to Taiki then, and Hong Pyo's eyes darted to each person, trying to discern the meaning of their words by their expressions.

"What are they saying?" he demanded of Taiki, and was met with a bitter smile.

"They want me to throw her overboard," the man explained, and the shaman's face paled at his words.

"This was a complete accident," she said. "I swear. I know this looks bad, but I really have no ill intentions. Please don't kill me. I promise, I didn't mean to sneak aboard the ship—"

"Kill you?" Taiki interrupted with a cool raise of his eyebrows. "Oh, no, I don't think there will be any need for that just yet."

"You don't?" the shaman and Hong Pyo asked simultaneously.

Taiki gave a single shake of his head, and Hong Pyo noticed the slight upturn of a smirk on his lips. He was enjoying this—having all this power over a person without so much as even laying a finger on her.

"Oh no," the Taiki said. "I think you can be very...useful to us." His expression darkened to something more sinister as he nodded at the two men holding her. "Take her belowdecks and lock her in the brig for now. I'll interrogate her once we land."

"You'll bring her to Busan with us?" Hong Pyo asked. If the shaman was to be taken to the Japanese stronghold, she would be exposed to too much of the Japanese's military stronghold to ever have a hope of being released.

Taiki turned to Hong Pyo as the struggling shaman was carried past. "Yes," he answered. "And you will provide us with the plans you have."

"You don't have to worry about that," Hong Pyo said, stroking his beard. It always stuck out in odd ends at the bottom, and he hoped he could subtly smooth it together in a nice pointed tip this way. He needed to look respectable when he met the Japanese general and presented the information he had.

"It had better be useful, or you'll be no more useful than food for the birds," Taiki said.

Hong Pyo was a bit taken aback by the threat, but did his best to maintain his composure. "I told you already, the information will be very helpful," he said. "You're guaranteed victory with it. In return, I want the reward I was promised."

"It will be up to the general to decide if your offering is worth the price you demand," Taiki responded, his words clipped. The man gave Hong Pyo a final long look, dark eyes glittering dangerously, before sweeping back belowdecks after the shaman.

Hong Pyo shuddered. There was something unnatural about that man that he couldn't quite put his finger on.

When it comes to self-preservation, I've noticed there are two types of people.  It's simple really.  There are the ones who notice a threat, like the shaman does, and then there are ones who are completely oblivious to it, like Hong Pyo.

You, on the other hand, fall somewhere in the middle.  By all rights you should be screaming and running away from me and the potential for what I can do to you.  But you seem rather indifferent to the fact that I find your liver quite appetizing and are instead quite content to sit here and eat with me while I tell you about my past.

I must warn you, war isn't pretty.  Since you feel warm and well fed right now, sheltered from the storm outside, it might be difficult for you to understand, but this time in Korea's history was dark and troubled, and full of blood.  Hong Pyo was so blinded by his greed that he was willing to play a dangerous game with the Japanese, to lead them on the way he did.

His mistake was meeting Nakahara Taiki.

~*~*~*~

I'm back with another chapter!  Sorry for the wait.  Any guesses about who Taiki is and why he's so dangerous?

Thank you for reading--if you liked Moon Sun's storytelling, please click that star to give her a vote!  It's much more preferable to giving her your liver, at least.  XD