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[only within quotation marks, aka dialogue] korean, english
"one more week," elliott told himself in the mirror. "a week, and you can meet tori again."
a meeting with his therapist was long overdue. not all mentally ill people were angsty teens who hated anything and everything that could help them, and elliott was one of them. the second he realized he wasn't being himself anymore, he went straight to yui and asked to get a professional to take a look.
baby steps, tori's voice rang in his head.
"baby steps," he repeated and splashed some ice cold water on his face before grabbing his packed bag and heading out to the bus.
the event/challenge was a day at sea. elliott was quite happy with this, because his parents used to take him and his sisters on their yacht from calais in france to dover, england, quite a lot. the water just made him happy, as it brought back memories from when he was a kid.
"you have probably guessed it already, but we're going to be fishing today!" cheered jeong as she appeared with sungho, both wearing life vests with a tiny carp pinned over their chest.
"this is like my boong-shin outfit!" realized jisung and happily donned the inflated jacket when they were handed out to the boys. he also skipped over to help elliott figure out the straps on his, even though the french boy was working smoothly.
"let your hyung help," chided jisung as he proceeded to mess up the whole thing and kneeled in shame as his bandmates laughed at him.
but his sulking didn't last long as elliott quickly fixed the jacket and bear-hugged jisung from the back, the dfference in height large enough for him to rest his chin comfortably atop jisung's head while swaying from side to side.
the god of caucasian carps was delighted that the awkward atmosphere that had been present since elliott opened up about the accident seemed to have disappeared. he gladly leaned back into the taller's chest and let elliott rock them in a strange but peaceful slow dance while the large fishing boat they were on navigated the waters to whatever spot was best.
"okay, take a rod each!" instructed sungho and jae tossed two to elliott and jisung b̶e̶c̶a̶u̶s̶e̶ h̶e̶ i̶s̶ a̶n̶d̶ w̶i̶l̶l̶ a̶l̶w̶a̶y̶s̶ b̶e̶ a̶n̶ a̶n̶g̶e̶l̶ a̶s̶ w̶e̶l̶l̶ a̶s̶ a̶u̶t̶h̶o̶r̶'s̶ f̶a̶v̶o̶r̶i̶t̶e̶ c̶h̶a̶r̶a̶c̶t̶e̶r̶.
"thanks," called elliott as he let go of jisung and began to mess around with his newly acquired toy. having never even thought of fishing before in his life, he was easily the most useless one abroad the boat.
"let the god of caucasian carps teach -"
"there will be four teams of three!" interrupted jeong as she read from her phone. "these teams have been decided beforehand. the stray kids' members fishing results from the finding s.k.z. gods show played a role in deciding who's with who. we put the ones who did best with the ones who lacked skill!"
sungho joined in, using that annoyingly dramatic announcer voice:
"team a is han, who caught the mirror and caucasian carp, with jeongin, who caught only one! zane from deck will join them.
"team b will have felix, who caught the first carp and has natural talent. his teammates are hyunjin, who didn't do particularly good nor bad, and elliott, who has zero experience!
"team c - bang chan who did okay, with changbin who didn't catch a single fish. the boy from deck who will join them is kira, who used to go fishing with his grandfather in his childhood.
"and lastly, team d. seungmin and lee know, both who caught quite a lot of fish but not the right one to get the title of boong-shin, with j.j. of deck."
they dispersed and felix and hyunjin learned the hard way that elliott was the worst fisher on earth. he had no problem learning how to operate the equipment, but the second he pulled a fish out of the water and saw it flailing about, he couldn't do it anymore.
"it's got a huge pointy thing stuck in its mouth and it can't breathe," he had panicked, right before taking out the hook and tossing the creature back into the sea. "i can't do this to a living thing."
obviously they weren't going to kill their catches - they would instead be putting the fish in their own containers filled with water to be released when done counting. even so, elliott still felt horrible.
of course, that tainted hyunjin's thoughts as well so now felix was stuck with two kids preaching about sea creature rights. hyunjin's loud and dramatic self paired with whatever it was that made elliott so easy to agree with was lethal, so felix also gave in and joined the protest.
"shut up and fish, ariel," yelled zane from where he was waiting with jisung and jeongin.
everyone was stunned when elliott listened right away and picked up his rod. they hadn't expected him to do as instructed, because zane was always laid back and didn't really seem like the type to be taken very seriously. but then again, stray kids had never actually seen the leader ask his members to do anything at all before that.
what shocked everyone even more - including the boys from deck this time - was that, as soon as elliott had tossed the bait in the water, every single fish that had been hanging around swarmed it. he caught one after the other, every new catch making him feel even more guilty but he continued anyways.
the others used the bait from his bucket, but still there wasn't any change in how the fish seemed to like elliott more than them.
"how?" demanded the god of sanity as he looked back and forth between his empty container and elliott's, which had about a dozen already.
"i didn't call him ariel for nothing," laughed zane before keeping down his rod and sitting down. "no point trying now," he told jeongin, who then also decided to not bother anymore and joined zane.
so the fishing trip came to an end with team b winning the day's challenge. elliott's hidden talent was discovered, and he made sure all the caught fish were released safely.
