o14

Flowers and Bakeries

Hei woke up the next morning before Baekhyun did. He was fast asleep, curled towards her direction, chest rising and falling rhythmically. He had finally let her bandage the wound the night before, and Hei could see the white of the bandages peeking out around his shoulder and top of his chest. Looking at it made her head hurt, and, carefully, she slipped out of bed. By the time she had found something to wear, washed up as quietly as she could and was about to head outside again, Baekhyun raised his head, mumbling something incoherently, sounding half asleep.

“Where are you going?” she finally made out.

She glanced back at him. “Seeing if anyone else is awake,” she whispered back. “Just go back to sleep.”

“Come back, then.”

Knowing very well that Baekhyun genuinely wouldn’t go back to sleep if she didn’t join him, Hei gave in with a sigh. The dress was clean, she reasoned, so, giving up, slipped back under the covers.

He seemed to curl in towards the warmth, one hand draping around her waist on habit. A little while later, his breathing had evened out again and he seemed to be fast asleep once more.

Hei was pretty sure that if she tried to get up again, Baekhyun would also wake, so she lay still. Soon after, she found herself drifting off too.

When she woke up again, it was Baekhyun who was gone, which meant that she had been sleeping deep enough to not notice that he had gotten up. A bit surprised that she had even managed to fall asleep again, Hei pushed herself up gingerly. Judging from the windows, it still seemed relatively because there didn’t seem to be even a hint of sunlight coming through the blinds and the room they were in faced the east. Or it could’ve been cloudy. Both were options.

Yawning, she made her way out of the room. The hallway was empty too, and much darker than the room itself, silent. The whole house seemed to be resting then, sleeping like most of its inhabitants. Each footstep felt loud, the wooden boards creaking underneath her feet.

Hei made it into the living room (which was connected to the kitchen) without waking anyone up, though the silence was beginning to feel a bit unnerving. She spotted Baekhyun immediately—it wasn’t hard, given he was the only person awake anyway. He was leaning against the counter, sipping a glass of water, though he looked up immediately when he saw her approaching.

“Morning,” he said. “I’m awake before everyone else. Even before Luhan. Are you proud?”

“You’re awake before me,” Hei replied. “That’s the real mystery. Why are you up so early?”

Baekhyun shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep that well,” he replied. “On the contrary, I’m surprised you did. You didn’t even stir when I got out of bed. You know I knocked over one of the metal stands by accident and you still didn’t wake up?”
 

Hei frowned. “I didn’t?”

He pointed at her. “See? Fast asleep. Want some water?”

She accepted the cup from him, sipping it gingerly. “Should we pack up, then?” she asked. “If we’re going to leave today, we probably should get ready, right?”

“Everyone else is asleep and the sun’s barely up yet. We should go outside.”

Hei whirled around. The last bit of water sloshed out of her cup, though she ignored it. “Are you insane?” she shot at Baekhyun, and, looking a bit surprised, he raised his hands in a placating gesture. “You literally got stabbed on the chest because you ran into the Lu family, and now you’re suggesting going outside?”

“To be fair, it wasn’t a stab—”

“You were still hurt!”

He set down his hands. “Hei,” Baekhyun started. “First of all, calm down. I’m fine now. Yes, it was careless, but everything’s okay now and you don’t need to freak out. Secondly, I was just suggesting… well, nothing big. Just go outside for a while because we can watch the sunrise and Xiyuan’s actually a really pretty city with all of its flowers and trees and greenery—the morning glories should be opening right now—and then we can come back later for breakfast and leave when everyone’s awake. It’s not like we’re going to do anything productive back here anyway.”

She frowned. “Oh. But still, someone might see us.”

“Not with this.” He handed her his cup of water, and Hei realized then that it wasn’t actually clear, like water, but slightly simmering on the purple side. “Luhan was experimenting with potions last night. It should hide our faces. Besides, dawn is the time where there are the least guards because they’re changing shifts, so even if there are guards, there shouldn’t be many and most are in a hurry getting back.”

Hei took the cup from him, still a bit hesitant as she peered at the liquid. “Are you okay, though?”

Baekhyun glanced down at his shirt, where the white of the bandages peeked out around his shoulder. “It’s a minor injury,” he replied. “I’ll be completely fine soon. I washed it with water this morning and it’s already healing pretty fast, so there’s nothing you need to worry about.”

Finally, she took a sip from the cup. It didn’t taste particularly different from water, perhaps a bit sweeter, but definitely not what she would expect a potion to taste like. Hei squinted at it again before downing the rest of the cup.

Baekhyun was right, though, that it would be nice to go out for a while. What she had seen of Xiyuan had been beautiful, after all, and all the greenery and flowers under a sunrise sounded even more spectacular.

She gave in. “Fine,” Hei said, turning to Baekhyun. “But if anything happens, I’m stopping time and we’re walking all the way back here. You’re not going to get injured again.”

He laughed. “Yes ma’am.”

Hei pointed a finger at him. “You better,” she warned.

***

Jinqiong slept well, surprisingly, for once. She rolled out of bed, a bit unsure if it were a good idea or if she could fit in a couple more hours of rest. The sun seemed to just have started to come up from behind the curtains, though Yuxuan was fast asleep beside her and she didn’t want to disturb the other girl.

Figuring that she had had a better rest than she normally did, she grabbed something from the change of clothing she had packed, thought twice and then left the rest of her stuff in the room. Then, sneaking out as quietly as she could, Jinqiong slipped into the hallway.

The whole house was silent. The wooden boards creaked, a little too loudly, under her feet as she moved. Flinching because of the noise all the way, she made her way downstairs where it didn’t seem as if any little noise would somehow startle everyone from sleep.

It was also empty, which wasn’t exactly unexpected, because it was pretty early. The living room had been loud the night before, but now, someone seemed to have cleaned everything up and drawn the blinds, because the cushions were placed in their respective places and every part of the room had been straightened out. For a while, she stood still, unsure of what there was to do. They’d both seen the state that Kyungsoo (and Baekhyun, briefly) had ended up in when they had gotten back, which meant that the Lu family was still actively patrolling, or, even more likely, had figured out that they were there. Neither was a good thing.

Briefly, she contemplated returning to her room, but that would most likely just wake Yuxuan up again. Just when she was about to turn to the kitchen for a glass of water, a loud crash sounded, followed by a string of profanities from a familiar voice.

Jongdae. Just her luck—out of everyone that was awake at the moment, it just had to be Jongdae.

Stil, it sounded like he’d just somehow murdered someone in the kitchen, so, grudgingly, Jinqiong pushed open the door and peered inside.

He was crouching over the floor, apparently attempting to pick up pieces of a broken plate that he had dropped while making as minimal noise as possible. He glanced up with wide eyes when he saw her, then relaxed. “I don’t suppose that sound woke you up,” he muttered.

Jinqiong surveyed the crime scene. “What are you doing?”

He frowned. “What does it look like? Trying to make breakfast.”

That didn’t make much sense, but she pointed at the corner of the room instead. “There’s a broom there,” Jinqiong told him. “You can probably sweep it up much quicker if you used that.”

Following the direction she was pointing at, he seemed to realize that he could’ve very much swept the whole mess up instead of spending God-knew-how-long picking up shards of the china and then frowned. “Oh. Well, it’s too late now.”

She snatched up the broom and dustpan. “You’re going to take forever. Move.”

To her surprise, Jongdae actually followed her instructions for once, stepping aside as she swept what was left of the debris before dumping it out. Having figured that it was useless to stand around, he resumed what he had been doing before, which was apparently making breakfast.

“What are those?” she asked as Jongdae as he turned towards the stove, nearly spilled the oil and finally managed to place the pan on.

He glanced over his shoulder. “Leftovers from last night,” he said. “Kyungsoo made dumplings while you moped around in your room.”

Jinqiong bristled. “I wasn’t—”

He rolled his eyes. “Calm down,” he said. “I was joking, though it kind of did look like you’re moping and Yuxuan told us that she didn’t know if you were angry or if you were just ‘being normal’, whatever that constitutes. Anyway, we had a bunch of them left so I’m just going to fry them. It’ll be forever until we can eat a nice, hot meal again on the ship, and Kyungsoo’s cooking is no joke.”

Long time, or never, Jinqiong thought. We could also all die. Not really a bright topic to focus on, so instead, she watched as Jongdae tossed around half the plate of dumplings into the pan. “When are we leaving?” she asked.

He barely managed to light up the stove before shaking the fire from the match. “Everyone’s asleep right now,” he replied. “Well, everyone except Baekhyun and Hei because I saw them leave the house and Baekhyun mentioned something about Xiyuan, parks and flowers. So I assume we won’t be going too soon because those two still need to get back, but it’s definitely today. Why the hurry? Didn’t Luhan manage to mask the gem’s magic?”

“Byun Junsu’s also smart, which means he could probably tell we didn’t move far from Xiyuan, or didn’t move at all,” she shot back. “Luhan managed to mask it, but we were still in Xiyuan at that time, so it doesn’t give us much of an advantage until we’re on the move.”

“Xiyuan’s a well-guarded city, and Junsu’s also smart enough not to pull something he did back in those couple of towns,” Jongdae replied levely. There was a sizzle as he dropped one more dumpling into the pan. “You saw the guards. He has to be discreet if he’s going to try to attack us here, and if he can’t track the exact house, then it won’t work. We’re fine for now, so as long as we get out without being caught and before Junsu gets here, he shouldn’t be able to follow too closely to Hell’s Gate.”

He was right (she wasn’t about to let him know that, though), but before Jinqiong could try to say anything else, Jongdae gestured at the dumplings. “Wait for about ten minutes,” he told her. “We can eat breakfast if these aren’t totally burnt by the time I finish.”

***

Jinqiong had half the mind to acknowledge the fact that she had managed to carry out a semi-decent conversation with Kim Jongdae for over ten minutes without any one of them going at the others’ throats or anything turning awkward, though by the time he’d finished with breakfast she was beginning to run out of things to say on the spot and would’ve much rather retreated to her room. It felt a bit odd talking to Jongdae without snapping back at him, but it also felt too early to start yet another argument, so Jinqiong went with what he said and pulled out plates and utensils when he brought it over to the dinner table.

The good part might’ve been the fact that the food actually tasted good, and Jinqiong hadn’t even realized how hungry she was until she started wolfing down the plate of food. Apparently not eating the previous night had taken its toll on her, even though she hadn’t exactly realized.

Jongdae ate much slower, and, despite having made the dumplings and proclaiming it to be his last “hot meal”, didn’t seem to have much of an appetite. By the time she’d finished three fourths of her plate, it hit her that Jongdae had ate a maximum of four dumplings and was poking at the fifth, looking as if the idea of food was the last thing he wanted.

Jinqiong frowned at him. “Why aren’t you eating?” she asked.

He stuffed a whole dumpling in his mouth. “It’s healthier to eat slower than fast,” he replied easily, though Jinqiong could tell that it wasn’t exactly a direct answer—he was avoiding it. As if to prove a point, he speared another one. “Also, I didn’t skip dinner last night, so I’m nowhere as hungry as you are.”

She eyed the rest of her plate. “You woke up pretty early and stole into the kitchen to make yourself dumplings, so I figured you were pretty hungry.”

As if he knew he couldn’t get away with it, Jongdae shrugged. “Don’t worry about me,” he said. Jinqiong was pretty sure he was trying to end the conversation. “I’ll finish.”

Jongdae did finish, though it must’ve been a good ten minutes after her, and the rest of breakfast became so uncharacteristically silent for him that Jinqiong was beginning to feel suffocated. When he finally cleared his plate, she snatched it up immediately. “Go pack or something,” she said. “I’ll wash it.”

He shook his head. “Just leave it here. Follow me.”

Her first reaction was to reject the request almost immediately, then realized that Jongdae wasn’t asking as much as he was telling her to. Jinqiong frowned at him. “Why?”

He gave a nonchalant shrug, though she could see his gaze flickering, still strangely distracted. “I found a balcony last night,” he replied. “And the view was very nice from it. Hei freaked out on me about Byun Baekhyun not returning soon, so I went to get some air, and stumbled across the stairs. Xiyuan’s actually quite a pretty sight.”

Jinqiong raised an eyebrow at him. “I’m not here to look at scenery, Kim Jongdae.”

He didn’t even bat an eyelash at the statement. “I know you aren’t,” he replied easily. “And neither am I. But it’s a pretty place, and I think you might like it.”

She had no idea where that assumption had come from because, from everyone in the crew, she seemed to be the least likely person to even turn a head at scenery (that seemed more to be down Song Hei’s alley, and inviting her to go up to actually look at it screamed Byun Baekhyun—definitely not Jongdae). Still, Jinqiong gave in and nodded at the staircase. “Fine,” she said. “But I’m not going to stay up there if there’s nothing. I need to pack up my stuff.”

“You brought one backpack with what, two sets of clothes maximum. I’m sure you don’t have that much to pack,” Jongdae replied, and before Jinqiong could retort, he headed for the stairs. “Try to be quiet. Most people are probably asleep still.”

I’m not the one who dropped the plate, Jinqiong wanted to say, but bit her tongue and let Jongdae lead them up.

They arrived on the second floor, presently, where all the hallways led to the bedrooms. Jongdae turned to the right, apparently expecting her to follow him, and after a couple seconds of hesitation, Jinqiong trailed after him. They passed three rooms until they were at the very end of the hallway, and Jongdae turned left to a very small door.

“Xiyuan’s green all year round,” Jongdae said as he pushed it open. The hinge gave a screech as he forced it open, then gestured at the door. “Luhan told me it would’ve been nice if he could take us around the city, except that doesn’t seem to be really possible given the circumstances and I doubt it would be a smart idea for either of us to go anywhere on our own, though you can still see most of it from the roof.”

Jinqiong frowned at him. “I thought you said balcony.”

“Both,” Jongdae replied.

That wasn’t her only question. “Why are you taking me there? It doesn’t seem to be what anyone would do if they wanted peace and quiet.”

He glanced towards her, neither of them making a move towards whatever was behind the small door. “We’ve spent over a month on the run from Junsu,” he replied in a steady voice. “And maybe you weren’t taught to do so at life, but there’s still a lot more out there to appreciate if you take a moment to look at it.”

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