o11

Communication

The good thing was that they had practically packed up already, which meant that there wasn’t too much stuff to manage given that Luhan had given a maximum of fifteen minutes, but with what they had bought from the market, it was going to be a tight (or impossible) fit into one of the bags they from before.

Hei pointed at Baekhyun’s backpack. “How much more can you fit in there without anything breaking?”

He contemplated it thoughtfully. “Not much, and definitely not enough for me to figure out in fifteen minutes time.”

She winced. “We can just carry the bags and tell them we’re ready to go?”

“What if someone attacks you?”

“Then I’ll hit them with the backpack,” she mumbled. “It’s heavy and hard, and I think someone has snuck a candlestick with us somewhere, because I swear I saw something gold and shiny. It better not have been your idea.”

He gave her a mock-innocent expression. “Wasn’t mine.”

Shouldering her bag, Hei whacked his arm, missed completely when Baekhyun easily sidestepped out of the way, and managed a laugh. “You were all terrified when I told you that I had knocked Byun Johwan out with the candle stand,” she pointed out. “Why do you want me to use it now?”

“Because I’m not the target, and quite frankly, you’re pretty good with it. I mean, you did take out one of my family’s best men with it, and then yesterday, someone who tried to kill me. You obviously have some sort of talent.”

She pointed at the door. “Out.”

Baekhyun shook his head, but picked up his belongings as he went in the direction she’d pointed him in. “You never take my compliments.”

Following behind him, Hei tried not to laugh. They exited the room—it seemed to be mostly empty now, especially because it was daytime, and she was pretty sure everyone was already waiting in the tavern upstairs. Hei wasn’t sure if fifteen minutes had passed or not, but it was obvious both she and Baekhyun had lost track of time.

It wasn’t too big of an issue, as far as she could make out—Jongdae’s family members being there didn’t necessarily signify that they also knew about them being in Himaeri—the families still hadn’t quite recovered from Baekhyun’s father’s death, and while they weren’t quite pieced together yet, security had been doubled and it wouldn’t have been surprising if there were people patrolling a big city like Himaeri. Especially with what Baekhyun had pulled at Hong Chul’s gala.

It would’ve been another story if they knew that all of them were there and leaving would’ve been more of a hassle, but Hei hoped that it wasn’t the case. At least none of them had been recognized, and because of that, it was most likely safe to assume the guards hadn’t been actively looking for them.

As they made their way up the hall to the entrance to the tavern, Baekhyun bumped her shoulder with his. “There’s around six or so more months until Hong Chul’s next gala,” he said with a grin. “Fancy showing up again?”

Hei raised an eyebrow. “You think he’d still make it a masquerade again? There’s no way.”

“Actually, he did have one three years ago, and Luhan and I actually attended for fun. It was an… interesting experience, that one.”

“Interesting,” she echoed. “And what happened there?”

Before Baekhyun could reply, he was already pushing open the door. The rest of the crew (or the couple that were there) were practically in the same positions as they had been when Hei had left to grab her belongings, more or less waiting. Even Yoona hadn’t quite moved from sitting on the counter (she did that an awful lot, apparently), though she did hop off when she spotted them.

“That’s seventeen minutes,” Luhan said. “This is why Baekhyun’s always late.”

Baekhyun scowled at him. “Shut up. What’s the plan?”

“I thought you had one, captain,” Jongdae tacked on, grinning. “Come on, where’s the leadership? You know that’s an absolutely essential quality to being a good captain, and you’re not demonstrating that right now.”

“Leadership, my ,” Baekhyun started.

“Leave that for Hei,” Jongdae half singsonged, and he was prompted shushed by Junmyeon, who gave an apologetic wince as per usual. Hei saw Yuxuan watching the whole thing with a confused expression, and Kyungsoo, who was next to her, saying something in an inaudible tone. She hoped he wasn’t explaining what Jongdae had just said.

“We’re probably leaving right now,” Junmyeon said. “Get to the ship and go, or at least that’s the plan. We don’t know if my family has eyes on us or if they’re just patrolling the area because… well, it’s Hiameri and it wouldn’t be surprising if they stationed family members here—but if they are, they most likely are watching the docks too. So we need to hurry, and as soon as we get on the ship, we leave. It won’t be ideal sailing in broad daylight because they’ll be able to see us, but we should be able to lose them on sea if we’re fast enough.”

Baekhyun whistled. “You really do know what you’re talking about,” he said. “Damn. I’d let you be captain, but I like my cabin better than the rest. I’ll be the poster boy and you can be the brains.”

“The only thing you’re good at doing is being the poster boy,” Yoona called. Hei jumped—she’d completely forgotten the other woman—but Baekhyun, less surprised than he was offended, whirled around.

“I do so much stuff for you,” he complained. “Jongin and I nearly got killed last time.”

Yoona waved a hand. “Workplace hazards cannot be avoided,” she replied, then made a shooing motion. “Be off now. Your new captain had a plan and you better follow it, Byun Baekhyun.”

He mumbled one more unintelligible insult to her (or maybe it was directed at Jongdae, or even Junmyeon) before turning back to the group. “Alright,” Baekhyun grumbled. “What do we have planned?”

***

Jinqiong hated the plan, but there were apparently no better options.

She wasn’t too sure, really, if there was a plan. It seemed fairly simple enough, but most of it involved a lot of splitting up for reasons she hadn’t begun to figure out quite yet, and she had been put in a group with Kim Junmyeon, which she wasn’t too elated for. Junmyeon had been polite, really, but he was Jongdae’s full brother and she didn’t know what to expect from him when she couldn’t even deal with Jongdae.

Luhan had also mentioned sending messages to the rest of the crew to meet at Xiyuan, though he hadn’t mentioned how many people were going to show up. The more the better, and Jinqiong knew, but the amount of people there—eight in total—already felt like too much, and she wasn’t sure how she was going to handle it when there were even more coming.

In five more minutes, they had left. Luhan was to go with his younger sister, Kyungsoo with Jongdae, she with Junmyeon and Baekhyun and Hei together. They would separate from a group of eight to a group of four and finally to a group of two, though from experience, Jinqiong had always thought that splitting up only brought more complications and weakened the group. She could see where Junmyeon was coming from, especially when they couldn’t be sure whether or not the Kim family knew they were there, but even then, splitting up was weakening themselves. Baekhyun and Hei would be perfectly capable, as would Luhan and his sister, though she wasn’t too sure about Kyungsoo and Jongdae. In fact, as they headed out into the streets, Jinqiong was still trying to figure out why Junmyeon had gone with her instead of his younger brother that he was seemingly so protective over.

They split up from the large group first with Luhan and Yuxuan, and then a couple of streets down, turned left with Junmyeon into a much narrower road as the other two continued on the main street. At that point, Jinqiong had absolutely no idea where they were going, and she could only hope that Junmyeon had a better idea than she did.

He was quiet, and that was one thing Jinqiong decided she could appreciate.

“Hey.” Junmyeon turned slightly so he was looking at her, and Jinqiong groaned inwardly. Spoken too soon. Of course.

“Yeah?”

“How did you meet Jongdae?” He was still watching at a decently quick pace, and Jinqiong jogged to catch up with him. “He didn’t really tell me much about it and we haven’t had the time to catch up, but I deduced something about him breaking into Vasileia’s archives?”

Jinqiong gave him a shrug. “I’m not sure what he was doing,” she said. “I was actually there attempting to return the gem to where I found it, and he was there for books, though I don’t know any specifics. Byun Junsu had found me, so we kind of had to work together to get out. And I guess… that’s how it started? Now Junsu’s after the two of us.”

Junmyeon sighed, half exasperated and half fond. “He has a tendency to get into trouble. And apparently getting himself kidnapped.”

She didn’t really want to look directly at him, but, watching Junmyeon in her peripheral vision, he didn’t seem nearly as scary as he had in the beginning, or quiet, or brooding. In fact, in the couple of sentences he had spoken to her, it felt more natural than Song Hei—who always seemed too careful for Jinqiong’s preference—or Baekhyun (that was self explanatory), or even Luhan, who, despite being nice, felt like just that.

“To be fair,” Jinqiong started, “I didn’t actually kidnap him.”

“I heard he wasn’t stuffed into a box and knocked out like Byun Baekhyun did eleven months ago,” Junmyeon replied.

She hadn’t even realized that they were already beginning to near the edge of Himaeri until she looked up again. The narrow street, encased with walls on both sides, cut off into a larger, more open road, and in the not-quite-far distance were the docks of the city, ships lined. Jinqiong had no idea which one it was that they were to be taking (and quite honestly, they all looked the same to her), but Junmyeon had some idea because he took the lead, falling quiet again, as he started forward.

Then, fifteen seconds later (and completely against her own will, Jinqiong decided), she had fallen in step with Junmyeon again. “What is Hell’s Gate like?” she asked, then mentally slapped herself for the question. She couldn’t figure out why in the world she was attempting to strike a conversation with Kim Junmyeon of all people, and the concept felt foreign.

If Junmyeon noticed how out of the blue the question was or that it was obviously a forced starter for a conversation, he didn’t comment on it. “It’s taxing,” he replied. “I definitely wouldn’t return again unless I had to, but I suppose it’s unavoidable this time.”

For some reason, that brought a slight bitter sting. She was pretty sure Junmyeon wasn’t blaming her, but it felt like so, especially when Baekhyun had been so adamant in drawing the line that it was indeed her fault that they had to go back, and that responsibility for injury or even death would be solely blamed on her.

“Yeah, well.” Jinqiong kicked one of the pebbles on the path. It went skidding down. “Feel free to leave me to Byun Junsu to kill. You’d be doing Baekhyun a huge favour.”

Junmyeon glanced towards her, eyebrows furrowed. He seemed surprised at the reaction. “Why would I do that?”

Now she felt embarrassed, but Jinqiong didn’t know what else to say. It always felt wrong to be defensive around Luhan or Hei or Yuxuan, and apparently, Junmyeon was to be added to the list too. She shook her head. “Never mind.”

He was still frowning. “Why would I be doing Baekhyun a favour?”

We don’t exactly get along and he thinks I’m going to get his wife killed didn’t quite suffice for an answer, especially since it was technically the first time she’d even talked properly to Junmyeon, so Jinqiong snapped shut. “Ignore that,” she said. “Which one’s the ship we’re going to take?”

Junmyeon gave her one quizzical look that she told herself to ignore. Still, he humoured her by pointing at the docks in a direction Jinqiong had absolutely no clue where he was pointing at. “You can’t see it very well from here,” he told her. “We docked it further out because we didn’t want to have anyone notice it, but you might be able to tell when we get closer. It’s more built for speed compared to any of the other ships in Himaeri.”

Jinqiong wondered if it had a chance against Byun Junsu. From what she’d seen, the ship he had was also pretty fast, but that might’ve been mostly because she and Jongdae had spent most of the time travelling on passenger ships and those were much, much slower compared to a lot of the families’, which was most likely what Junsu had been using.

“How many people do you think we’ll be picking up in Xiyuan, then?”

He frowned. “I’m not too sure. Luhan has the specifics on that, and even he doesn’t know who’s going to show up or not, but I would say at least three more. It would be safer with more people, especially if we’re going back to Hell’s Gate.”

She’d heard so many stories of Hell’s Gate from books, from Jongdae and even a couple