o46

Sister

Hei’s eyes stung, but she didn’t let herself stop as she stumbled through the smoke to where Jungwoo was. The ship had gotten unbearably hot and every part of her ached already, but she forced herself to move. The metal bands around her wrists had gotten heated after the fire, and while she gathered the chains around to make sure they didn’t come in more contact with the flames, the metal was already scorching, and it burned into the wounds that were already there.

Whatever Junsu had done to her to control her left her with a splitting headache. Or maybe it was fighting back his power that had been worse, she wasn’t sure. Whatever it was, it had drained almost all of her energy and left her feeling completely violated. Just the thought that she had picked up Jinqiong’s dagger and nearly slit her own throat made her want to throw up. If her stomach hadn’t felt gnawingly empty, she might’ve. It was probably only a hint of whatever horror Baekhyun had gone through when his father controlled him, and all of a sudden, his reaction made a lot more sense.

Instead, Hei fixed her gaze on Jungwoo. The crash of wood behind her told her that Jinqiong was following, if not destroying everything in their path.

Jungwoo was half-buried under a part of the ceiling that had collapsed. By the time Hei reached him she had resorted to covering and nose with a sleeve, barely able to breath through the smoke. While Jinqiong had shielded her from the worst of the blast, there was so much more that had happened the last couple of days that had taken a huge toll—one that Hei could feel—on her. It would’ve been bad in any condition, and she was pregnant and for some reason, kneeling next to Jungwoo, the fear truly kicked in. What if—just what if—

Jungwoo coughed weakly. He lay on his stomach, both of his legs caught under wooden boards. Thankfully, it seemed to just be planks and not the actual support beams, although either way, he was unmoving. It could’ve been because it was too heavy, or because he was too badly wounded to even try. Neither option was good news.

“Jungwoo,” Hei said. She breathed in a lungful of smoke and burst into a fit of coughing. Her eyes watered, and the room seemed to simmer in front of her. “Jungwoo, can you hear me?”

The boy gave a weak moan of pain. Hei turned his head as gently as she could so he was facing her.

“Jungwoo,” she repeated, then flinched at the sight.

It was a miracle he was still alive. The blast from Luhan’s potion had obviously done its damage to him, because a side of his face was horribly burnt, along with the side she supposed the explosion had come from when he was on the ground. A pile of blood pooled beneath him. If Junsu’s wound didn’t kill him, then the smoke and the burns surely would. Even if Junsu was miraculously too injured to move, she wasn’t sure Jungwoo would make it.

A crash behind her, and Jinqiong came into view. She knelt down next to Hei.

“We need to get the planks off him,” Jinqiong said. If she noticed the burns, she didn’t say anything. “Then we’ll figure something out.”

“He’s bleeding too much,” Hei croaked. Trembling, she reached out to pick up Jungwoo’s hand to check his pulse. He stirred weakly when she touched him, but there was no other response.

Her eyes burned, and Hei was fairly sure that it didn’t fully have to do with the smoke. It wasn’t fine, because Jungwoo had made the choice to help them, but it wasn’t supposed to end like this. She had genuinely wished that he could’ve met Jongdae and Junmyeon, could’ve gotten to know the rest of the crew. Maybe he would have spoken to Baekhyun about what it was like carrying such a deep grudge for so many years. Perhaps she had given him the offer to win him over, but Jungwoo deserved that much, and it wasn’t fair that he was hurt and bleeding out.

Something suspiciously close to a sob escaped her, and Hei wiped at her eyes angrily. It just made them hurt more, the ash burning. Her shoulder hurt from the movement. Her wrists were too heavy because of the chains. Everything had ended in shambles.

“Hei,” Jinqiong snapped. “Help me get the planks off him. We don’t know how much time we have until either Junsu comes back or this ship burns us alive. Come on. If you want to save him, move.”

Jinqiong’s tone was, like usual, impatient, but something about the brusque way of speaking snapped some sort of urgency back into place. Hei nodded and raised her head slightly so she could meet Jinqiong’s eyes.

Grey-black ash was smudged over her face as well, and while Hei was pretty sure she was still sweating—the fires had gotten smaller, but they still cackled, and the ship was nearly unbearably hot—they were all covered by too much ash to tell. Jinqiong’s mouth was set in a thin line, determination in the tired gaze.

“Grab one end of the bottom plank,” Jinqiong instructed. “I think I can see the exit. We get these things off him, then we get out of the ship. Then we see if we can get him any help from Yuxuan. Don’t even think about whether or not he’s bleeding too much. We’ll worry about that when the time comes. We can’t do anything about it.”

Somewhere close by, there was an ear splitting crack that was followed by a crash. Hei flinched, but it didn’t seem close enough for her to have to worry about it just yet, so she moved to the other side. Jinqiong gave her a nod before gesturing. “On the count of three,” she said.

Hei gripped the plank. The wood had started to splintered (parts of it that hadn’t been burnt, at least) and it was one more injury to the rest of them, but she ignored the pain. “One,” Jinqiong said.

Another crash. Hei tried to ignore, but there was the very real threat of Junsu in addition to the collapsing ship. “Two,” Jinqiong said.

This time the crash sounded much closer by. Hei turned to the side, and through the haze, one of the boards on the ground seemed to move.

“Jinqiong—” she tried. 

“Three,” Jinqiong shouted, and Hei turned her attention back to the task at hand and heaved the plank as hard as she could manage.

Pain flared up her shoulders—both of them—immediately. While the bandages from Jungwoo had helped, it wasn’t nearly enough to return even a fraction of the usual movement she would’ve been capable of, and straining it so much hurt. Still, another loud crash sounded as the pile of wood crashed back, a pile of black ash rising in its wake. Jungwoo groaned.

The moment he was freed, Hei scrambled to kneel down next to the boy. (Or perhaps her leg gave out then; she wasn’t sure). “Jungwoo,” she whispered hoarsely.

Jinqiong didn’t join them. She stood still, alert, and Hei wondered if her sister had also seen what she had at her count of two. Junsu was there somewhere, and he definitely wasn’t going to let them leave without a fight.

“I’m going to turn you over,” she decided, hoping that Jungwoo was lucid enough to hear her. She reached for a hand—this one slick with his blood, she realized with horror—and squeezed it. “It might hurt, but it’s the best bet we have to bandage the wound. It’s too risky to move you otherwise.”

“Stop talking to him and do it,” Jinqiong commanded sharply. “By the time you get him to answer, we’ll be burnt crisp here. Just flip him over and bandage.”

It seemed to be an awfully cruel thing to do, but there was no more options. Gritting her teeth, she braced an arm underneath his shoulders and another around his stomach and pushed him over so he was on his back. The burns on his face stretched down to his neck, much of his black robes charred as well.

Jungwoo was apparently still conscious enough to feel most of the movement. He gave a hoarse shout of pain, voice breaking. Hei flinched again. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I just need to—oh my God.”

At the same time, Jinqiong let out a string of curses that probably would’ve impressed Baekhyun. A wave of panic rose and refused to recede, and Hei was almost too exhausted to bring herself to look up to know just what her sister was swearing about. Still, she ripped her eyes away from the slash across Jungwoo’s chest to see Junsu, covered in ashes like them, crawling his way out of the destruction.

Any normal person would’ve been crushed to death. Perhaps it was his armour, or perhaps it was the fact that Junsu wasn’t a normal person, but whatever it was, he had survived. And despite being crushed under half the ceiling and a beam, he looked like he was in better shape than any of them.

Jinqiong glanced back at her. “We need to leave,” she said. “He’s not going to make it. The ship will probably sink soon.”

Hei looked at Jungwoo. His eyes were closed, breathing but barely, a trail of red running from his mouth. Jinqiong was right. It didn’t matter if she bandaged the wound; the only way he could live was if Yuxuan were there, right at that moment. Definitely not trapped inside a burning ship with Byun Junsu blocking their way to the exit. The only thing they could give him was a quick death, and even that…

Junsu took a shaky step towards them. He was limping, Hei realized, which meant that he hadn’t survived the explosion unscathed. It was something, even if it wasn’t much. “I’ll kill all of you,” he snarled. His broadsword seemed to be gone, but the barbed whip dragged behind him. “I’ll make sure you watch, Song Jinqiong, when your precious sister dies in the worst way you can imagine—”

“Jinqiong,” Hei broke in. “Do you think you can distract him? If I can turn back time on Jungwoo, he can fight as well. We might be able to make it if we all fight him. Just… I just need a bit of time.”

Jinqiong looked back down at her for a moment, lips pressed together. Hei could almost hear her response—it wasn’t worth it, that she couldn’t do it, that she barely had enough energy left to sustain a time-stop for thirty seconds—but Jinqiong only gave her a grim smile before waving her hand in a dismissive gesture.  “You have sixty seconds,” she said. “I’ll keep him busy.”

Hei took a deep breath. “Alright.”

She had barely finished the sentence before Jinqiong turned away, facing Junsu. It took all of Hei’s willpower to look back at Jungwoo.

His breathing was so shallow that she wasn’t sure if she could hear it anymore. The crackling of the flames had died down—perhaps it was the ice that was keeping the ship in place, the only reason it hadn’t sunk yet—or some other miracle. Hei reached for Jungwoo’s hand.

There was the screech of metal against metal behind her, and Hei didn’t dare turn back. There wasn’t much of her power left, really—only embers, diminished by exhaustion and Junsu’s own power, but it was enough to rewind time on him. It had to be enough. She had to be able to do it.

Her own hands were shaking. There was too much going on for Hei to discern whether or not Jungwoo was still alive, and she pulled at the panic and fear and all the awful feelings that had built the last couple days and just how much she wanted it to work, because it had to.

Six months of trying, and time had never again rewound for her. Baekhyun had been the first and the last. There had never been a reason too, and Hei had given up trying in favor of improving other aspects of her power. But now, such a similar but different situation, and she had to again. Because Kim Jungwoo deserved a second chance. Because he had made the right choice, because she had promised him and it wasn’t fair if he couldn’t even experience any of it. Because he deserved much more.

It wasn’t desperation this time, but determination. Everything in the background faded—Hei remembered hoping that Jinqiong was holding out fine, but thoughts and sounds and sight all faded into the buzzing of her power.

Then it began to work. The burn marks disappeared from his face first, smoothing back into unscarred skin. The dark circle of blood became smaller and smaller until it was gone altogether, the long gash Junsu had left in his clothing knitting itself back together. Her vision tunnelled, body barely managing to sustain the stress, and then she heard it: the miraculous, wonderful sound of him drawing a breath.

Like some sort of trigger, everything about her surroundings seemed to shift back into normal. It hadn’t been a full time stop, but like every time she used her power, there was the feeling of everything crashing back—sound, colours, even the pressure of air—and Hei nearly collapsed.

The hand gripping hers, previously slack, tightened. Jungwoo sat up abruptly. Turning back time on him had apparently wiped clean all traces of ash on his face as well, given that he was the only person in the room who