Chapter Text
Seonghwa had been eleven the first time he had seen a public execution. It was only the first death he would witness, not the last, but it would shape his future in innumerable ways.
He’d been walking home from the market after running some errands for his mother, and decided to cut through the town square as a shortcut. He was jostling his way through the crowds, noticing the unusual number of people in the area but not thinking much of it, when he heard a loud sound echoing from the front of the square. He stopped, taken aback by the sudden drum beats and turned his head, trying to discover the occasion for such ceremony. As far as he remembered from his tutor’s lectures on public events, the drums were only played for important ceremonial functions, and he did not recall that day being a holiday or public figure’s birthday. His curiosity got the better of him and he began to retrace his steps, hoping to find a better vantage point but it was difficult to maneuver his way through the sea of writhing bodies. It seemed like the square had become more crowded in the few moments since he had arrived, and Seonghwa for the life of him could not figure out what warranted such public interest.
He had just managed to shove and squirm his way to the first few rows, when he heard a voice call from the raised platform at the front of the square, “Silence.”
The voice was cold and rough and Seonghwa shuddered a little, hearing it. He raised himself onto the tips of his toes, and managed to catch a glimpse of the platform before him. It was crooked and leaning slightly to one side, surrounded on all corners by armed guards that bore the trademark white coat and blue insignia of the Royal Navy. Seonghwa recognized the emblem as it was the same one that decorated his father’s uniform.
Seonghwa squinted his eyes, raising a pale hand to block the glare of the sun. He thought he recognized the man on the platform, the one who had just spoken. He pressed a little closer, and his eyes widened as the man’s features became clear to him. It was Commander Marcus Holden, an important official in the Navy and a close, personal friend of his father. Seonghwa felt chills run down his back despite the heat of the day. He had never liked Marcus; the Royal Navy official made him uneasy. Despite his genial face and well-rehearsed words, Seonghwa felt that something darker lurked underneath. Something evil. He suppressed the sudden urge to run forward and tear the platform down before Marcus could continue speaking.
Seonghwa shook his head; he was acting ridiculous, every bit the foolish child his father often accused him of being. There was nothing to suggest that Marcus had planned anything out of the ordinary: perhaps the drums and the crowd meant a soldier was being promoted. Still Seonghwa couldn’t help the ominous feeling in the pit of his stomach. Every bone in his body was telling him that something was about to happen.
Unfortunately, he was right. Just as Seonghwa had tired of waiting, the drums began to play faster and Marcus shouted once more for silence. This time the crowd followed his command, speech softening to a murmur. There was a tense quiet in the air, an atmosphere of anticipation.
From his position on the raised platform, Marcus cleared his throat and announced in a loud voice, “Bring out the prisoner.”
Seonghwa’s heart began to beat faster. For the first time his eyes spotted the strange contraption on the far side of the platform. The structure was deceptively simple: two wooden beams nailed at perpendicular angles to each other, with a closed loop of rope hanging from the top one. It reminded Seonghwa of a similar drawing he had seen in one of his history books, and his stomach twisted with fear as he recalled what the device had been used for.
He watched, muscles tense with dread, as two more white coated officers stepped onto the platform, dragging another figure between them. Seonghwa narrowed his eyes: it was a young man, a boy really, his arms bound behind his back. He didn’t look like a criminal, at least not that Seonghwa could see. He had light brown locks that were matted with dried blood and his face looked gaunt and pale. The boy was tall, but alarmingly thin, as if he hadn’t eaten in several weeks. His arms must have hurt from being restrained in such an uncomfortable position, but he didn’t voice a single complaint, not even when the guards jostled him roughly. The two navy officials dragged the boy to the end of the platform, where the strange device was waiting. They led him to a position directly under the wooden beam, looped the cord of rope around his neck, then stepped back, turning to face the audience.
Marcus turned to the crowd as well. “You all know why we are here. This man has been found guilty of piracy,” he said, the tenor of his voice making the words resonate through the square. Marcus continued, “As our law dictates, there is only one punishment for such a crime: death.”
Seonghwa inhaled sharply; surely they wouldn’t kill someone so young, regardless of the gravity of their crime. Didn’t this boy deserve a second chance, an opportunity to fix his mistakes? He looked on, blood chilled with dread, as Marcus turned to face the boy with poorly disguised contempt.
“Do you have anything to say for yourself, pirate?” Marcus snapped, hissing the last word as if it were the worst insult he could issue. The boy remained facing forward, silent and unmoving.
Marcus’s scowl deepened, as if he had wanted to provoke the boy into a reaction, but before he could say anything else, an urgent voice called out from the crowd, “Stop! He’s innocent! My brother, he’s innocent, he didn’t do anything!”
Seonghwa, along with the rest of the people in the square, turned towards the direction of the voice. There, pushing through the crowd with impressive force for a body so small, stood a young boy, his hair coloured a radiant orange. His clothes were torn and muddied, his arms covered with bruises and cuts. He looked fragile and delicate, as if it would take only a strong gust of wind to blow him down, but he stood in front of the crowd, daring and unafraid as he yelled, “Please, stop! My brother isn’t a pirate, he’s innocent!”
The boy’s voice was high-pitched and shaking with fear, but he continued regardless. “It’s not him! My brother is innocent, please, he’s just a blacksmith’s apprentice, he didn’t do anything wrong, please, you have to believe me!”
The crowd shifted uneasily, but Marcus merely looked down at the boy, anger evident on his face. “Is that so?” he scoffed, “Do you think we will believe your lies? This boy, this scum, was seen aiding a crew of known pirates just last week, supplying them with weapons and a place to hide! Does that not prove where his allegiances lie? There is no innocence in piracy, boy! Your bastard brother is the same as every rum-swilling, useless waste of space we captured before. I’m doing the world a favour, getting rid of his kind.”
The orange haired boy screamed, an incoherent shout of grief and rage, and flung himself bodily towards the platform, as if he intended to tear it down with his bare hands. For a minute, Seonghwa thought he might succeed, such was the determination and fire he could see in the boy’s eyes.
“Guards! Restrain him!” Marcus called, his voice once again even and unaffected. The white coated officials standing at the corners of the platforms moved forward and grabbed the young boy’s arms with ease. Seonghwa twitched, wanting to run forward to protect the boy, shield him somehow, but he found his body immobile from fear.
“Hyung!” the boy yelled, desperation evident in his voice, as the guards began removing him from the square, pulling him through the silent crowd. A small part of Seonghwa was glad to see him go, if only to spare him the sorrow of what was to come.
“It’s alright, Joong-ah. I promise, everything will be alright,” the boy on the platform looked close to tears himself, but kept his voice soft and comforting, as if, even now, his only concern was the orange-haired child crying in front of him.
“Please!” the boy cried, “You promised you wouldn’t leave me! You promised…” His voice faded as he was dragged away, his orange hair disappearing from view, and a sudden silence echoed through the square.
Seonghwa felt his heart break for the second time that day, to see the love in these brothers’ eyes, knowing that it would be torn away in minutes. His vision blurred with tears, the sounds of the square fading away till all he could hear was the cries of a heart-broken child.
When Marcus next spoke, it was as if Seonghwa was hearing the words from underwater, his senses clouded and his vision swimming. He couldn’t believe that anyone could mercilessly sentence such a young boy to death, when his crimes were no more severe than helping those who crossed his path, providing them shelter and defence. Why did he have to die just because the people he had helped were pirates? What Seonghwa had been too naive then to understand, was that, in the eyes of the navy, there could be no crime more severe than piracy. It wasn’t until he was older, that he would learn about the ruthless war the crown waged to remove from the sea every ship that sailed under a pirate’s colours, and their determination to kill every man who took the pirates’ brand. He would learn of atrocities that would make his blood run cold and haunt his mind for several months, and he would grow to hate his family’s connection to the navy, the times when he benefited from the affluence of his father’s job, knowing that it came at the cost of so many lives lost.
But right now, he could only watch, uncomprehending as the lever was pulled and the noose tightened, ending the life of a boy not much older than Seonghwa himself. He wanted to turn his head, to avert his eyes from the scene that would fill his nights with a sick, all-consuming terror, but he found that he could not look away. It was like watching an accident in the making; even though the display was scarring, people couldn’t bring themselves to ignore it. He found himself rendered mute, wanting to scream out but unable to make the slightest noise. The rest of the crowd did not seem to share his paralysis as they, to Seonghwa’s utter horror, began to cheer and hurl insults at the dying boy.
Seonghwa stared in disbelief. How could anyone find satisfaction in the tragedy that was occurring? How could anyone witness the heartbreak on those brothers’ faces and still think that this death, this murder, was justified?
Seonghwa suddenly felt sick to his stomach, unable to stay in the same place as the people who cheered at the loss of life simply because one man said it was necessary. He turned and began elbowing his way through the crowd, desperate to leave this moment behind, outrun the day his innocence had been shattered.
Seonghwa ran, tears blurring his vision, out of the square and through the alleyways, not daring to stop till he reached his house. He burst in through the doors, and ran up to his room, where he collapsed on the floor by his bed, sobs wracking his body. He found his mind filled with images of tearstained cheeks and his ears ringing with the cries of an anguished child.
That was first time Seonghwa thought that perhaps, the Royal Navy was not what he had been told it was. After witnessing first hand how their cruelty could ruin lives, tear apart families, and bring an orange-haired boy to tears, Seonghwa felt horrified at the thought of becoming one of them in the future.
‘No,’ he thought to himself, with all the single-minded determination of youth. ‘I will not allow that to happen. I will die before I let myself become like that.’