His eyes were shut tightly, expecting the pain that didn't come. He slowly opened his eyes. The angry man's hand was stopped by another trader. He was tall, almost a head taller than he was, and looked to be around his age. What puzzled the young prince the most however, was that bizarre curl hanging on the right side of his head that seemed to have… a face? He spoke to the angry man rapidly in unfamiliar words. The angry man seemed to protest, but after he said something else he went quiet and let go, shuffling back to his stand mumbling. The prince relaxed after he was released from that scary man and turned to thank the stranger who helped him, only to be snatched by the wrist and pulled towards the docks. Was he going to kidnap him? The prince had heard stories about civilians disappearing after visits from foreigners. There were rumours that they were chopped up into pieces and turned into soup, their bones used for medicine. He never believed those rumours though. They couldn't be true. Right? The foreigner had not said a word to him yet and he seemed to be pulling him towards a large trade ship with bright yellow sails, which clashed with the white and red sails of other boats. Maybe he didn't speak his language either. He didn't try to communicate with him just yet though, to prevent any misunderstandings. He just hoped this guy was nice.
The large ship was busy with crew workers, carrying goods in and out of the ship, hollering to each other from either end. The foreign trader dragged the prince into the interior of the ship, leading him down the wooden hallways and into a room that seemed to be his sleeping quarters, judging by the cot and personal items he saw. The man motioned towards the cot. "Sit down over there." Not wanting to disobey, the prince sat down on the bed and watched the stranger dig through his storage chests for something. Seeing that he could speak his language and finding it appropriate to start a conversation, he decided to talk.
"Thank you very much for saving me."
"Hm?" The young man turned his head to look at him and grinned. "Oh, it's no problem. It's only natural for me to save someone in trouble."
"Is this your ship?" the prince asked.
"Nah, I wish. It's my older brother Yao's. But someday I'm going to have a ship like this, maybe bigger! That is unless I join the army first." The man continued to search through his things as he spoke. He didn't seem so bad, not like the other man.
"You speak my language very well."
"Huh? Oh, well, when you go travelling a lot and sail to different places, you pick up a few things, you know?" He said enthusiastically. It almost seemed like he was gloating. "I've been travelling since I was a kid, so it's gotta happen right? I mean, my brothers can speak different languages too, but I'm the best." Yes, he was gloating.
The prince studied the stranger for a few moments, taking in his appearance to try to figure out who this was. The young man wore silk robes, which may have hinted that he was wealthy. He was tall, pale, had short dark hair, and from what he'd briefly seen before, he had bright brown eyes. Not to mention that curl. It was odd looking at a foreigner for so long.
The young stranger must have must have noticed the long silence, because he turned to look at him again right when he was still staring at him. Their eyes met for a few moments before the prince quickly averted his eyes, embarrassed. The young man laughed and approached him, placing his hand on the prince's arm. He immediately jerked at the touch, causing the other to pull back a bit.
"Whoa, calm down there! I'm just going to bandage your cuts." He pulled back the prince's sleeve, revealing a few wounds he'd received from the broken vases.
"Oh."
He laughed again. "Don't worry, I'm not going to attack you or anything. I personally think guys like that give us foreigners a bad name." He made a face of realization before speaking again. "Speaking of names, I forgot to introduce myself! My name's Yong Soo! What's yours?"
The prince hesitated for a moment, worried that giving his name would reveal his identity. But he was a foreigner. Then again, that doesn't mean that he wouldn't know of a prince. A series of thoughts ran through his head. He had decided. "My name is…" he threw some nervous glances to the side. "Guinto."
"Guinto? Cool! I'm gonna call you Guin!" said Yong Soo with a big grin.
The prince was taken aback a bit by the sudden nickname, but accepted it. He watched as Yong Soo took out a few bandages and applied them to his cuts. He apparently had a bruise at the back of his neck as well, but he couldn't help but laugh and pull away when Yong Soo tried to apply medicine to it.
"Get back here! That bruise is going to get darker if we don't put medicine on it!" He laughed as he dipped his fingers in the greenish fluid he called "medicine". He reached for Guinto's neck again, but was again met with struggling. "No! It tickles! Stop that! It smells weird!" Guinto laughed and dodged once more, trying to escape his gooey fingers. Yong Soo, determined to somehow get the medicine on him, made a lunge towards the prince, however instead of getting it on his neck, his fingers missed and ended up smearing the medicine on Guinto's cheek. He pulled away, attempting to wipe the green substance off his face, only for it to stick to his sleeve.
"Oh gross!" he exclaimed.
"Ha! See, that's what happens when you struggle!" Yong Soo teased with his slimey fingers.
Guinto grinned mischievously for a moment, but before he could retaliate, he dipped his fingers in the jar of medicine and smeared it across Yong Soo's forehead. "Ha! Not so great now, is it?" said the prince, sticking his tongue out at the other man.
"Aw, gross!" said Yong Soo, trying to wipe the goo off his face just as Guinto was before. He scooped a chunk of medicine, flinging it at the prince. Soon, all formalities were lost, and the two were in a full out slime-throwing fight, green goo coating them both as they wrestled each other on the cot. In a swoop of his leg, Yong Soo managed to trip the other, making him collapse on top of the trader. He used this chance flip both of them over so that he was on top and hovering over Guinto. Now that he was in control, he could finally finish what he had to do. Yong Soo plunged his fingers into the jar of green goo, and gently massaged the prince's bruise, using his other hand to keep the other from struggling. Guinto was laughing uncontrollably as he did so, attracting some attention from the people outside.
"What is all the noise in there?" Yong Soo's younger brother as well as his older brother were outside the door to his dorm. There was loud laughter coming from inside. There seemed to be someone else in there with Yong Soo. "I will check." The older brother reached for the door, sliding it open, revealing his younger brother, currently on top of a native, both covered in medicine. The two whipped their heads towards the sound of the opening door and stared at the two brothers in the doorway. The four stood in an awkward silence for a few moments, before the oldest spoke.
"Have we… interrupted anything?"
Yong Soo chuckled nervously. "No, not really…"
More silence. Guinto's face was slowly reddening more and more from embarrassment.
"You guys look pretty comfortable."
"Xiao Chun!"
"What? They do. Look." The younger brother pointed towards the duo on the cot. Yong Soo was straddling and hovering over Guinto, his hand resting his collarbone. The two didn't notice what position they were in until Xiao Chun had pointed it out. They stared at each other for a moment, taking in what they were doing, until they jolted and quickly retreated to either side of the small bed. The prince hurriedly stood up from the cot and attempted to straighten out his clothes.
"U-um, I think I'll leave now." Guinto said as he headed for the door "Thank you for the help, Yong Soo."
"H-hey wait a minute, Guin! You can't leave like that!" Yong Soo followed behind, and pointed at Guinto's clothes, greens stains and smears covering his cotton shirt.
"Huh? Oh, it's alright. I'll wash them at home." He chuckled lightly, trying squeeze past Yong Soo's brothers, who didn't seem to want to budge. The older one excused himself as he grabbed Guinto, inspecting his stained clothing.
"No. We can't let you walk out of our ship like this because of our brother's carelessness." He finally said after a few minutes. Guinto was going to protest, but didn't get the chance because Yong Soo's brothers had grabbed both of his wrists and dragged him down the hall, deeper into the interior of the ship, with Yong Soo himself close behind.
"Where are we g-going?" asked Guinto nervously. Really, he was being dragged everywhere today.
"You should wash up before you head outside. It's not dignifying for you to walk covered in medicine in public." replied the older brother. He stopped abruptly and turned to Guinto, bowing lightly. " Forgive me, I haven't introduced myself yet. My name is Kiku."
The prince stepped back and bowed as well. "O-oh, m-my name is-"
"Guinto! His name is Guinto!" Yong Soo interrupted, patting the prince on the back rather roughly. "I call him Guin though. But you can't cause that's my nickname for him."
"Guinto? What a weird name." Xiao Chun said as he stared at the prince with his poker face and blank brown eyes. He kind of scared him. "I'm Xiao Chun. You probably know that already. "
Guinto nodded, a nervous smile playing on his face. The three young men continued to lead the prince down the halls, when they finally arrived at a certain door. It looked like any other door. Guinto didn't know what they were going to do. That was, until they shoved him and Yong Soo inside. It looked like some sort of public bath. There were two wooden bath tubs large enough to fit two people on either side, with buckets and stools scattered around. A shelve of bottles hung at the back of the room. Guinto pondered on what he was supposed to do. The fact that he was supposed to bathe was obvious, but where was he supposed to start? The buckets? The stools? The tubs? He'd only ever bathed outside under a small waterfall in a secluded area of the river. Secluded. Meaning alone. He glanced over to Yong Soo, who was already undoing his robes.
"U-uh, what are you doing?" Guinto asked nervously.
Yong Soo turned to the red-faced man, apparently unfazed by the fact that he was now half naked. "What do you think I'm doing? I'm taking a bath." He looked at Guinto questioningly. "…You do know how to take a bath… right?"
"Of course I know how to take a bath!" he fumed. "I'm just not familiar with this kind of bathing! W-where am I supposed to start?"
"Well, you have to undress first."
Guinto blushed three shades darker before reluctantly undressing himself, making sure he was turned away so the trader couldn't see all of him.
"You know, if you're so uncomfortable being naked in front of me, you can use this." Yong Soo tossed a piece of cloth, to which Guinto hastily accepted and wrapped around his waist. He laughed. "You've never been to a public bath? Or bathed with others in a river or something?"
The prince shook his head vigorously. "Only by myself. No one else."
He laughed again. Guinto began to take off the bandages that were previously applied.
"Ah, and we just put those on too." Yong Soo sighed. He walked over to Guinto and began to inspect his cuts, lightly tracing his fingers over them, making the other blush and stiffen. "Well, they stopped bleeding so that's okay." He smiled and continued undressing until he was only in his birthday suit. He motioned Guinto over to the stools.
"We're just here to wash the medicine off, so ignore the tubs. Look, just sit on the stool here, and use the bucket and detergents to wash yourself." Yong Soo explained, doing exactly as he'd said. Guinto, now pretty sure of what he was doing, sat down on a stool and scooped the hot water from the tub using the bucket, and began to rinse himself. He had to say, it felt pretty good.
"Why are you sitting all the way over there?" asked a very whiny voice.
Guinto sighed and turned around to look at Yong Soo's pouting face. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, you're sitting on the other side of the room." Yong Soo pointed at him, who was indeed sitting across the room next to the small window. His eyes grew large and watered with tears. "Do you really hate me that much?"
"I-I never said that, it's just that-"
"Do you like being near the window?"
"No I-"
"Yeah, it's a nice view isn't it?"
"You're not listening to me, I-"
"Oh, I know!"
And before he knew it, Yong Soo was sitting comfortably on his stool beside him less than two feet apart, humming happily as he lathered himself with soap. Guinto cast a few glares at the trader before averting his eyes somewhere else, seeing that he was naked. He didn't know how Yong Soo could be so comfortable bathing next to someone he'd never met before. Unlike him, who was stark naked, Guinto had wrapped himself tightly with the cloth he was given. Turning away from his bath buddy, he too began to scrub himself with soaps, starting from the head and down, making sure to be gentle with his cuts. The so called "detergent" smelled like herbs and green tea, a scent Guinto had taken a liking to. As he washed his "vital regions", he couldn't help but notice that there was an extra pair of hands on his back. He slowly turned his head, only to meet Yong Soo's big brown eyes. He screamed and fell off his stool.
"What? What's wrong?" he asked, genuine curiosity in his eyes.
"What… what's wrong? What's wrong? What's wrong is that you're… you're…" Guinto's cheeks reddened for the tenth time, unable to finish his sentence from embarrassment.
"What? I'm just helping you wash your back." Yong Soo said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"Wash… my back… wha- AH!" He jolted as Yong Soo continued what he was doing before, gently dragging the soapy cloth across his back. The trader firmly held Guinto's shoulder, preventing him from squirming or struggling.
"Geez, you are way too jumpy." He sighed. "You act like I'm going to molest you or something." Guinto felt his face heat up. Yong Soo definitely had a thing for embarrassing him. He relaxed, allowing the other to continue washing his back. He wondered how his family would react if they found out that he had bathed with a stranger he'd met an hour ago. And a foreigner at that. They'd probably bury him alive and burn the soil he was buried with. He panicked at the thought. He'd keep this as a secret. Yong Soo did save him after all.
"There! Done! You can rinse yourself off now." Yong Soo stood up from behind him and walked back over to the stool beside him.
Guinto grabbed the bucket, scooped more water, and poured it on himself, washing away the suds down into the drain below. He sighed softly as he felt the filth leave his body. But his peace was ended of course, because his new friend wanted him to return the favor.
"Now it's my turn!" Yong Soo tossed a soapy cloth to the prince. He turned on his stool, facing away from Guinto and pointed at his back.
Well this was going to be interesting.
