“Hurry, bring it ba-! Ouch! Lala! What are you doing?! That hurts!”
“Nereus, what are you doing?! Are you out of your mind?!”
I shouted as I grabbed Nereus’s hair. As I kept pulling, Nereus’s head moved back and forth according to my tugs.
Despite his cries of pain and flailing, Nereus’s arms holding onto me remained steady.
Feeling reassured, I pulled even harder.
“Letting that kids fall into the sea at night?! Are you crazy? They could die!”
“L-Lala! Do you even know how old you are?! How old are you to the point of you have to worrying about them?!”
“Does my age matter right now?!”
“Doesn’t it?!”
Nereus finally managed to pry my hands off his hair and held me tightly.
“You have to worry about the right people!”
“Ah, if I don’t worry about Caelum, who will—?!”
I shouted at the top of my lungs until I started coughing.
“Cough, cough!”
“…! Oh no. Lala, I’m sorry. Don’t yell.”
After I coughed a few more times, Nereus lowered his voice and started worrying anxiously. Meanwhile, Gerard and Dexter were getting ready to jump off the ship.
“Tell them not to jump off! How is it Gerard and Dexter’s fault that I’m sick?! They’ve taken such good care of me!”
But as soon as I shouted this, the previously noisy deck fell silent.
‘What, what’s going on? Why is it so quiet all of a sudden?’
Gerard and Dexter began to shed big tears.
‘Why are they crying? What’s happening?’
“We’ll just leave.”
“We’re trash not worth associating with. We’re just a waste of air….”
“Leave! Leave! Become fish food!”
“Boohoo! What did the fish do to deserve that?! Go die somewhere without fish!”
The previously silent ship filled with jeers again. Some even drummed on the deck with both hands. Even the stoic Isaac looked at me with a sympathetic face, covered his face with one hand, and shook his head.
I was the only one who neither understood nor accepted the situation.
“Why…?”
“Ha… Lala, you…”
Nereus sighed deeply and spoke in disbelief.
“Lala, you’re so kind. How do you plan to survive in these dangerous seas…?”
“Huh?”
“Captain, as kind and smart as Polaris is, she’ll manage… ha….”
Isaac, who was trying to defend me, couldn’t finish his sentence and also sighed deeply. Honestly, that annoyed me more.
“Oh, my child is too kind. What do I do? How will she become a pirate later? Will she end up becoming a navy officer?”
‘I’ve already been a navy officer. Besides, isn’t being a navy officer more respectable than a pirate?’
“Captain, honestly, by the world’s standards, being a navy officer is more proper.”
Isaac spoke my thoughts aloud.
“Shut up, you fool.”
“You say the darndest things in front of the child.”
“Oh! I take it back, I take it back! Lala! Forget what I just said!”
‘As if taking it back will change anything.’
“Hmm! Anyway! Lala, those people are awful scoundrels, so you don’t need to defend them!”
“But they’re family, Dad. You said that the Caelum Pirates are all family, and because we’re family, we understand each other even if we do bad things.”
“……………”
Oh, what’s this atmosphere now? The Caelum Pirates, who had been jeering at the two, all fell silent. The stillness after the earlier noise felt stark.
Breaking the silence, Nereus called out to me.
“Lala.”
“Yes.”
“You’re too kind. You’ll get taken advantage of. Be thankful you’re with us.”
His voice was so serious it was almost annoying.
Why is he like this? Just say what you mean. Before I could question him, Nereus spoke.
“Those wretched guys were supposed to take care of you but got drunk and passed out. If Titan hadn’t found you, you might have really died.”
“…………”
“Do you understand? Those guys are…”
“Throw them overboard.”
I immediately shouted at Gerard and Dexter.
“Throw them overboard right now!”
As soon as I screamed, everyone on deck clapped and cheered. Of course, I didn’t care about the reactions of the other family members.
“How old are you?! Aren’t you not even 18 yet?! Where do you get off drinking?! Drinking! You’ll ruin yourselves! Get a cold splash of water and wake up!!”
“No, Lala. That’s not the point….”
“If you drink at a young age, you’ll grow up to be stupid?! You won’t become a proper adult?! You’ll end up a hot-tempered fool like Nereus?! At least Nereus is all muscle, so he doesn’t get a beer belly. But you guys! You’ll get beer bellies!”
“…………”
“…………”
“…………”
“….…Ah.”
I finally snapped back to reality. Everyone was silent, watching Nereus’s reactions.
Nereus, who had been quietly observing, asked in a cold voice.
“Lala… did you always think I was a hot-headed fool?”
“Well, uh, um…”
“I may look like this, but I’m the first mate on this ship.”
“Yeah… that’s true.”
Despite his rough appearance and fighting skills, Nereus was indeed the first mate of this pirate ship.
‘But that has nothing to do with being smart, honestly.’
His ability to read ocean currents and navigate using the ‘Compass Stone’ was outstanding. However, his explanations were always lacking, making Isaac’s help indispensable.
‘It feels more like an animal instinct…’
Still, I felt bad for always thinking of Nereus as a hot-headed fool and was about to apologize.
“You know, Nereus…”
“Ha, forget it. I also think of you as seaweed.”
……….
“Wet seaweed.”*
What the hell?
***
In the end, Nereus and I fought.
When I first saw him healthy again, I felt an overwhelming sense of emotion, but now that feeling was completely gone.
It felt like waking up from a bad dream. We talked just like before, or rather, our conversations had become even more childish. I used to find Nereus intimidating, but now I couldn’t understand why I had ever been scared of such a childish adult.
‘Is this a good thing?’
I didn’t know. It was too ambiguous. I lay on my bed, staring blankly at the ceiling.
Gerard and Dexter didn’t end up in the sea. I figured as much. Nereus never actually threw his crew members overboard. Thinking about it now, the reason they treated me so well was because they felt guilty for leaving me sick.
‘Sigh… betrayal.’
I thought they were really kind older brothers, but they turned out to be jerks.
‘Well, I guess that’s what pirates are like.’
I quickly accepted and moved on.
‘No? I can’t accept this.’
But I reconsidered. Those damn pirates had added ‘seaweed’ to my nickname.
Even the usually stoic Isaac was struggling to hold back his laughter. His serious demeanor seemed to have disappeared.
‘Maybe I saw things differently because I was young back then…’
Growing older showed me things in a different light. I muttered to myself in frustration.
As a child, the Caelum Pirates were my world, my sky, and my sea. It was natural. Even though we weren’t blood-related, they were my family. The Caelum Pirates, without any blood ties, cared for each other deeply. Each pirate group had its own rules, and the most important rule for the Caelum Pirates was:
[Rule 1: If you have a family member by blood or law, you must quit being a pirate.]
Caelum was one of the few pirate groups with female pirates, but they treated each other like real siblings, never seeing each other as romantic interests. They even joked about being able to scrub each other’s backs while shirtless in the summer.
Before I returned, I once asked Nancy, one of the female pirates, why they didn’t actually do that. Nancy said it was because Nereus, despite his looks, was an old-fashioned stickler for rules.
‘He said that if you have something to protect, you become strong, but if it’s too precious, you become weak.’
Nereus always said that even though the Caelum Pirates were his precious family, he couldn’t allow them to make him weak.
Before my return, I thought I was Nereus’s real child. I adored him, and he openly cared for me.
So I thought I was the exception.
Until my 8th birthday.
“You know, Lala, you were picked up from a ship. It was a really luxurious cruise ship, and you were alone there.”
At first, I thought it was a joke, but it wasn’t. It was the truth. No wonder I looked round and clueless, unlike Nereus.
I cried my heart out, and for some reason, the first mate and Nereus fought around that time, with Nereus nearly getting beaten to death.
“Why tell her such useless things? It’s bad for her emotional well-being.”
Looking back on his usual words and attitude, I think he was drawing a line. No matter how much he cared for me, I was not his real child.
Even though he carried the ‘Belsomnea’ until the end, he didn’t value us enough to make himself weak. What a jerk.
I felt a lump in my throat and covered my nose with my hand.
‘Thinking about this makes me miss Nereus.’
I got up from my bed and headed to the captain’s quarters.
The night on the pirate ship was quiet, with the ship gently rocking on the calm waves.
Not seeing my slippers, I walked barefoot. The cold floor felt even colder at night.
Despite walking around the pirate ship for the first time in a while, I found the captain’s quarters, where Nereus would be, without any trouble.
‘It’s closer than I thought.’
Creak―.
“What the hell, who’s opening the door without identifying themselves…”
As the door opened, Nereus looked up from whatever he was doing at his desk, frowning deeply. When he realized it was me, his eyes widened.
Feeling awkward in the silence, I clumsily introduced myself.
“Um… Polaris Caelum?”
“Lala? What are you doing here? And do you even know what ‘identify yourself’ means?”
Who taught me that? There’s no one here with enough sense to teach me that. Nereus scrambled out of his seat and came towards me.
‘Did he forget about the fight earlier?’
He walked over in a few strides and squinted at me.
‘Did he remember?’
“You little brat.”
Despite his words, he carefully lifted me up.
“You’re walking around barefoot again, as I said before? What if you get a splinter in your foot?! If you keep doing that, Ethan will give you a really painful shot, you know? Lala, you’re afraid of shots, right?”
“No, I’m not afraid of shots.”
“Liar. I remember you crying because you didn’t want to get a shot last time.”
Nereus chuckled and took me to his desk, picked up the coat draped over the chair, and covered me with it.
“Here, you’ll catch a cold, and if you do, you’ll get a shot, so wear this properly. If you catch a cold, I’ll tell Ethan to give you a very painful shot.”
Ignoring Nereus’s mock concern, I looked at what was on the desk.
‘A nautical chart… and some notes?’
“What were you doing, Dad?”
“Curious about what your dad does?”
Since it wasn’t something to hide, I nodded. Nereus’s smile widened as if he found my interest delightful.
“I was thinking about the direction we need to go. We’re heading back to the Western Continent, but this time we’re taking a different route. If we catch the wind right, we’ll find faster currents.”
Nereus then continued explaining things that a six-year-old probably wouldn’t understand without further explanation.
Even at twenty-six, I found it difficult to fully grasp what he was saying.
I just vaguely understood terms like water speed, wind speed, and the significance of how high birds flew this morning.
“Do you want to be a navigator like Dad?”
“No, I don’t think that’s my thing.”
“Why? Even a dumb hothead can do it.”
Damn.
I guess he did hold onto that comment. I averted my eyes and mumbled.
“I’ll do something else….”
“What will you do? Be the daughter of the Caelum Pirates? You’re already doing that.”
“Yes, but I mean something else.”
“…………”
It seemed like Nereus was hurt by my words, but I hoped it was just my imagination. Being a daughter isn’t a job, after all. I didn’t want to be someone who just existed on the ship without any purpose.
‘I’m sure I can do something now.’
Feeling confident, I told Nereus.
“I’m going to be a doctor.”
“A doctor?”
“Yes, the ship’s doctor. I’ll take care of everyone when they’re sick.”
Nereus looked at me with wide eyes after hearing my admirable declaration from a six-year-old….
“Ahahahahahahahah—!!!!”
And he burst into loud laughter.
…….
What a troublesome person.
