o34

Upside-Down

Jinqiong did not sleep.

It shouldn’t have been surprising given that she had just woken up, but the lingering effects of the alcohol and whatever had just happened between her and Jongdae was enough to snap remaining sense of sanity and she sat miserably in her cabin for another hour or so, staring at the ceiling and wondering what sort of trap she had just dug for herself. It was one thing to snap back at Jongdae’s provocations. But to kiss him because he’d challenged her—he knew very well that she hadn’t done so just to prove a point. Both of them did.

Which then lead the question of what they were exactly, which Jinqiong did not want to continue to think about. If she forced herself, she could pretend that there was nothing different compared to before, when he hadn’t kissed her. If Jongdae wanted some sort of reaction from her, then he wouldn’t get one. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of that, either.

Not satisfaction, a small voice corrected. Jongdae had been genuine. Even if he could lie, she would’ve been able to tell that he had meant every word. The problem lay with her, as it always had, and despite everything he had said, she couldn’t bring herself to think about it too long. Because she was leaving, which meant nothing had changed.

She barely had the time to sort out any thoughts before a knock sounded on her door.

Not Jongdae’s, she deduced. Jongdae didn’t knock so… harshly. Which meant it wasn’t Hei either, because Hei knocked on the door like it was going to break. Which left two options: Baekhyun or Junmyeon, and Jinqiong had a feeling that Junmeyon wouldn’t knock on her door like he had a personal grudge with it.

She didn’t even have time to get to her feet before the door swung open, and Byun Baekhyun stood there, arms folded and face utterly unamused.

Jinqiong raised an eyebrow in his direction despite everything. At least it was Byun Baekhyun, one person she could content being harsh with without having to hurt anyone’s feelings. She sometimes wondered if the feeling between her and Baekhyun were mutual. She could snap at him all she liked and wouldn’t feel a bit of guilt about it.

“You have a shift right now,” he said shortly. “Seeing you’ve already missed one because you were too busy drinking, it might be considerate not to leave Junmyeon out there to do it alone.”

Jinqiong gave him a mocking salute. “Yes, captain.”

Baekhyun fixed flinty eyes on her. “Remember,” he said in a low voice, “that if you’re not pulling your weight here, then I can easily find a better solution for all of us.”

“I’m sure Song Hei would love that.”

His features tightened at the mention of her name. “Still using her to get what you want?”

She inclined her head at him. “I figure you’ve sorted everything out after what happened with your father?”

Baekhyun’s eyes flashed, lips tightening, and Jinqiong wondered if she had pushed too far. She didn’t know what was too far anymore, not after what had happened. But at least Byun Baekhyun was one person in the crew who wouldn’t care if she had kissed Kim Jongdae. It was better than she could say for herself.

“Go to your shift,” he finally said. “And if I find you too drunk to go to one, then you can pull triple next time to make up for it. You’ve already been spared the harder shifts. It’s mostly daytime in Hell’s Gate, so there’ll be no monsters to deal with. Get going.”

He his heel and left. Jinqiong slid her daggers into the sheaths tied to her thighs, listening to Byun Baekhyun’s footsteps retreat.

She exhaled through her nose, turning towards the thin, wooden wall that separated her cabin and Jongdae’s, where he would be, no doubt, hunched over his desk and looking at those scribbled notes again.

How had he expected it to work? To start some sort of relationship on top of the strange, everyday thing they had? What did he even expect of her? There seemed so little, given that even if things went the way Jongdae imagined—however that was—that she could offer. Apart from anger and defensiveness and an attitude.

Kim Jongdae, she decided pointedly, for all he claimed his clairvoyant powers could do, was an idiot. And she was an even bigger one.

***

Hei slept like a rock after she and Baekhyun had finished their shift, and apparently he did too, because when she woke up, she was still curled against his chest, tucked neatly against him with his chin resting on top of her head. Legs tangled, she tried to ease herself away slightly, only for Baekhyun to mumble a protest and tighten his grip.

Hei laughed breathlessly. “Again?” she asked.

“You’ve got to be used to it by now,” he replied, voice rough from sleep.

“How do you manage to wake up at the slightest of movements?”

Baekhyun considered the question. Then, “Magic.”

He tightened his grip on her, buried his head into her hair and went back to sleep.

Deeming it pointless to attempt to talk to him, Hei closed her eyes too. They were supposed to leave the fourth sector before Baekhyun’s next shift, which meant in the next nine or so hours. None of them had an idea what the sector would bring, and while they had managed to attribute some of the sectors to the family leaders, it none had any more ideas.

The first sector had been Lee, the second Byun. The third Chanyeol claimed was his father, given that the Park family leader’s power had been rumoured to be telekinesis. No one had any idea for the rest of them, leaving Hei to wonder just what power it was that her father possessed. The one with the monsters? The sector of darkness? Whatever horrors the sixth sector would bring? She had no clue. Their current sector was fitting, at least.

Another half an hour past and Baekhyun remained asleep, though she was restless enough to attempt to untangle herself from him and move out discreetly. It didn’t work.

“What time is it?” Baekhyun rasped, pushing himself up enough to prop on his elbows. He blinked, rubbing a hand over his face, and frowned. “I didn’t miss my shift, did I?”

Hei sat up too. “You rarely sleep for nine hours.”

He frowned. “Point taken. I suppose they’ll tell me when to go since Luhan’s the one before us now.”

After Junmyeon and Jinqiong’s shift had been changed when Jongdae had informed them that Jinqiong was too drunk to do anything. Junmyeon volunteered to go on his own, but Baekhyun didn’t trust him with the shadow monsters, especially after Kyungsoo had gotten injured, and rescheduled everything. Hei wondered just how much Jongdae and Jinqiong had figured out (it had been nearly a day, after all), or if they’d had no progress. She hadn’t seen Jinqiong since the last time they had talked, and Hei was partially too frightened to see her again. She hadn’t told Baekhyun (knowing him, he’d give her hell for it too), and Jongdae had been too preoccupied.

He leaned over her. “Let’s just stay here.”

Hei frowned at him, about to protest, but Baekhyun half dragged her down with him and she relented. The lanterns were still flickering, the ward against the shadow monsters, although they were supposed to be out of the sector at any time, so she supposed the lights would be useless soon. As much as the sector had been better than most, she couldn’t help but feel glad to leave the empty, malevolent darkness.

“I think,” Hei said to Baekhyun after he had settled down under the blankets again, “that this sector might be my father’s.”

His eyebrows drew together, looking towards her. “Your father?” he echoed.

She’d never seen him. Song Huiqing, the Byun family leader had called him. She never managed to figure out if that had been his true name or a stolen name, from a stolen face and stolen power. Part of her could understand why Baekhyun had been so adamant in chasing his father for so many years, because part of her wanted to meet her own just once. Even if he had locked her up, assigned Miyeon to spy on her, to violate her mind and lock her in that basement, even if he would’ve probably killed her when she reached twenty.

“I don’t know,” she told him. “I just… I just feel it.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “It might be,” he said, “Actually, that might make sense. We crashed into Luhan’s father when we left Regiis, and he summoned something—I don’t know what it was, but it might’ve corresponded to the fifth sector. Which means your father is either the fourth or the sixth.”

Strange to think that the sector, the small section of her father’s power, was the closest she’d ever gotten to him. Hei brushed the thought off. It didn’t matter, not anymore.

As if Baekhyun could sense her mood, he touched her shoulder. “Don’t think too much about it,” he encouraged. “We’ll be out soon, at any rate.”

“It was an easier sector compared to the rest,” Hei replied. “Does Jongdae have any idea what the sixth sector will be like?”

A shake of his head, and then Baekhyun’s hand, resting between their bodies, slid under her shirt—his shirt, really—the fabric hitching up before his hand came to rest on her abdomen. His palm was warm, touch light, and Hei relaxed immediately. “What did Yuxuan say? Six weeks?” 

“Six and a half now, if you really want to be precise. We wouldn’t even know if it weren’t for her.”

Baekhyun smiled, expression softening. “Once we get out of here, you deserve a break.”

“So do you.”

“Both of us,” he said, “where do you want to go?”

They lapsed into conversation about where she wanted to go, and Hei suggested Aesta before Baekhyun made a face and said that there was virtually nothing to do on there. Then it went from Vasileia (a joke, but it was shot down immediately) to Hua (to see Seungwan and the flowers), then Xiyuan (which they both thought weren’t bad ideas) until Hei began listing off the places she knew Baekhyun hated and he told her it was about time they got up for his shift.

A little while later, both of them were up, changed, and washed up. Baekhyun insisted that she wear a coat so she wouldn’t get sick, didn’t wear one himself, and they headed up to the helm after a quick breakfast.

The skies were grey when they went outside, not black, which was a relief. Still, the lanterns they had were still lit, all of them keen to have whatever ward possible against the monsters.

Jongdae was sitting on the deck with his legs crossed, studying the map that he was holding as he talked to Luhan and Yixing. He raised an eyebrow when he saw Baekhyun and her.

“You’re fifteen minutes early,” Jongdae said.

Hei frowned back. “You look a lot better.”

Jongdae looked down at himself before realizing she was most likely talking about his face and he couldn’t see himself. “Oh?” he asked. “I slept for a couple of hours. I feel awake enough to pull a couple more all-nighters.”

Luhan groaned. “I don’t know how Jinqiong manages to get him to sleep,” he grumbled, and one glance at him told her that he didn’t know what had happened. Jongdae carefully averted his gaze from hers. “Anyway, Baekhyun, we’ll pass the shift onto you soon. We’re going to cross into the sixth sector at any moment, and I checked on Kyungsoo a couple of hours. He’s still in the infirmary, but I don’t know if it’s to stay with Yuxuan or if he’s still injured from that monster. He’ll be up here for the next shift.”

Hei leaned forward. “What’s with Kyungsoo and Yuxuan?”

Luhan heaved a dramatic sigh just as Yixing said, “Yuxuan likes Kyungsoo but Kyungsoo doesn’t like her.”

Luhan gestured at Yixing. “That’s basically it,” he muttered, then shook his head. “I don’t know about Kyungsoo. He looks like he’ll pluck out my eyeballs if I ask him and knowing him, you don’t know, but… he was there with me when I got Yuxuan away from our family a couple months ago. She’s been with him ever since because I’ve been too busy to always check on her. Kyungsoo’s fond of her, but I don’t know if he reciprocates the same feelings.”

Yuxuan spent most of her time in the cabin, fiddling with her medical supplies and brewing whatever poultices she deemed necessary and helpful, so she hadn’t seen the girl much, nor had she seen her interact with Kyungsoo. She did know that Yuxuan had the habit of mentioning Kyungsoo a little too much to be discreet, but she didn’t know what she would get out of the girl. She made a mental note to ask her later when she went to Yuxuan for the daily dose of the medicine.

“Kyungsoo shows some emotion around her,” Baekhyun was saying. “I’ll place my bet on the fact that he perhaps likes her too.”

Luhan gave him an exasperated look. “May I remind you that you were still an to Hei even though you liked her?”

Baekhyun flicked his wrist at him, and Luhan was shoved back by a small bout of wind. He gave Baekhyun a vulgar gesture before pointing to Jongin. “You can take our shift right now,” he said. “I’m dead tired. I’ll go sleep. I’ll tell Kyungsoo to get up here and then you two can have fun with the sixth sector.”

Before Luhan could leave, Hei tapped him on the arm. “Any progress on the gem?”

He glanced towards her, lips pressed in a thin line before he shook his head. “I’m trying to figure something out,” he said, “but nothing’s worked yet. We’ll see.”

***

Baekhyun refused to have her on the helm with them, given that Kyungsoo was there, so after she stood there with him for a couple minutes after everyone left, Hei went to Jongdae’s cabin instead, hoping to find out a bit more about Lee Taeyong (and along the way to see what was going on with him and Jinqiong, given that he looked much better and she figured they must have sorted something out).

When she arrived at Jongdae’s cabin, the ship had already passed into the sixth sector. Hei wasn’t sure how she knew, but there seemed to be a flicker of something that was different, a small part of her that had been tied to the fourth sector that was unravelled as soon as they slipped into another one.

Her father’s sector. A father she had never heard, never seen, never met. She supposed that he wasn’t supposed to mean anything to her.

Voices, hushed and muffled by the wooden door, floated from Jongdae’s cabin. After a couple moments of listening, Hei managed to deduce that it was Jinqiong and Jongdae, and the fact that Jinqiong was in his cabin probably meant something had at least worked between them. Knowing Jinqiong, it was probably some temporary compromise, or at least that was as far as she’d admit, but at least they were getting somewhere. Jinqiong deserved it, and so did Jongdae. She just hoped that they’d be able to unravel whatever fragile thing between them.

Not wanting to interrupt, Hei headed straight for Yuxuan’s cabin instead. The door was slightly ajar, and the girl was sitting near the shelf, crushing something in a small bowl. She looked up when Hei stepped inside, then beamed at her like she was excited to see her. Hei figured that if half the crew were like Yuxuan, they’d chase away all of Hell’s Gate’s dangers by smiles alone.

“Kyungsoo said we’re in the sixth sector now,” she said, sitting down on one of the chairs.

Kyungsoo. She wanted to ask Yuxuan about Kyungsoo. “We are,” she agreed. “I’m, uh, here for the medicine.”

Yuxuan nodded. Beside the bowl she was currently working with, she had already set something aside—the greenish liquid she had Hei drink once a day to contend with the nausea—and she handed it to her.

It didn’t taste the best, but Hei gagged it down in one gulp, the liquid cool and slippery when it slid down . It was a mixture of herbs, she supposed, but herbs that tasted like dirt. It was awful.

Yuxuan looked slightly amused to see her struggling to finish it. “The best medicine tastes the worst,” she said seriously. “That’s what I told gege. He still doesn’t take his medicine sometimes.”

Hei winced. “Can’t blame him. How is Kyungsoo, by the way?”

She swore Yuxuan literally perked up at the mention of Kyungsoo, and she took it as an invitation to launch into a full on description of the state of the wound he had received on the shadow monster. Hei listened, at some point quite aghast at the damage one monster bite had managed to inflict on him, but Yuxuan had healed it well enough to drive whatever sickness it had been away. He had been weak for a while from the aftermath (Yuxuan called it shadow-disease, and Hei figured that the one thing all of them lacked was creativity), but she had deemed him fit enough to help Baekhyun on the helm.

“What’s with Kyungsoo?” Hei asked, then rephrased, “What’s with you and Kyungsoo?”

Yuxuan’s blinked at the question. “Kyungsoo?” she echoed, then shifted her weight. “I… like him?”

She nearly choked at the straightforwardness. Yuxuan looked slightly worried. “Is something wrong?”

Hei managed to shake her head. “No. It’s just—I don’t know, everyone I’ve come into contact with has been awfully reluctant in admitting their feelings. Myself included.”

Yuxuan leaned forward to work on her medicine again. “He knows,” she replied. “I told him a couple of days ago.”