o51

Lighter

They were on sea very soon. It was the fourth sector, and while Hei wasn’t very fond of the darkness, it was by far one of the nicer sectors in terms of danger. Or, at least the crew had managed to pull through relatively unscathed. 

From the way the map looked, they could cross through the first sector (and consequently would have to make a huge loop to avoid the second and the third), but if that went smoothly, there would be a small piece the third sector they had to cross before they would be able to reach the gates.

Of course, everything had been planned out according to the best case scenario, so, truthfully speaking, there was plenty of room for things to go wrong as well. Hei chose not to think about it.

Taeyong had shown up for dinner that day, but he hadn’t said much. Hei was surprised to learn that it was Jinqiong who had convinced him, even if the whole crew was less talkative than usual and very obviously tiptoeing around the newcomer and Taeyong just as quiet. Still, by the end of dinner, Jongin and Chanyeol had struck up some sort of conversation with Taeyong about—alcohol? He was just as bad as Jinqiong, and even joined them in drinking a glass of rum. He retired to his room long before the rest of the crew, but it was progress.

It was also pleasantly surprising that, out of all people, Jinqiong managed to get him to come up.

Jongdae had also joined them for dinner, apparently healed enough to go up the stairs. He walked with a limp and there were bandages around his neck, but other than that, he looked like he was healing nicely. Hei had heard the story of what happened from many people—Jinqiong, Baekhyun, and even Chanyeol and Kyungsoo (who had told her an absolutely ridiculous, wrong version), but Jongdae was the one person she hadn’t heard from.

When the mess hall had more or less been vacated, she slipped into the seat next to him. “So,” Hei said.

Jongdae looked at her, an eyebrow already raised. “Is this pity attention I’m getting from you? Or is Baekhyun preoccupied with something else and you need some other form of entertainment?”

Hei rolled her eyes at him. “C’mon, I haven’t seen you in days. We never really talked after everything was over.”

Jongdae shrugged. “I was stuck in bed. You were stuck in bed. Besides, I figured there was not that much to talk about.”

When Jongdae said there wasn’t much to talk about, then he meant it. Hei wondered if she should push the topic a little more—she was curious, after all, to hear from him personally—but she dropped it. Instead, she asked, “Have you talked to Taeyong yet?”

Jongdae shook his head. “Poor guy is still recovering. I know if I talk to him properly I’ll start asking questions, and I don’t think he’s ready for any of that yet. Don’t really want him tearing this ship apart if I hit the wrong nerve. Or just…” He shrugged. “I figured I’d spare him a bit before I started.”

“Before you started,” Hei echoed, then shook her head. “Sounds kind of scary.”

He grinned at her. “I’m just that intimidating,” he replied.

“That’s not what Jinqiong told me.”

“And what did Jinqiong tell me?”

Hei leaned forward slightly, resting her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands. “She did say you whacked Junsu over the head with a plank,” she admitted, “and that bought her a good couple of seconds. And apparently you stabbed him in the eye.”

Jongdae’s grin stretched across his face, and Hei thought that she was probably stoking his ego a little too much at that point. “That I did.”

“Not before he beat you up pretty badly,” she shot back, then glanced down at his hands, which rested on the table as well.

White bandage was wrapped around both of his wrists, but on his right hand, it dipped down, circling his palms and covering most of his hand. Jinqiong had told her that Junsu had stabbed him through the hand—straight through bone, which Yuxuan managed to heal—but the wound was still bad and Luhan’s sister didn’t quite have enough power left in her to heal it fully. That was how everyone ended up: partially healed, but none of them were back to full capacity. Which meant that the sector was extra dangerous. Baekhyun had been sure to assign those who could handle themselves on the deck to have longer shifts, but they were still short on manpower. Given that Taeyong was in no condition to help them, they still weren’t much better off.

Jongdae noticed her staring and tucked his hands under the table, on his lap. “I’m fine,” he said. “Seriously. You know I can’t lie.”

“How long before you can use that hand again?”

He shrugged. “It depends. But I can write with my left hand, so it doesn’t really matter that much.”

“Your writing with your right is barely legible, so if you use your left, no one will be able to read it.”

“No one is able to read it anyway.” He shot her a grin. “Anyway, how is it… with Baekhyun? And the baby?”

Her hand went to her stomach almost automatically, and Jongdae didn’t miss the motion, although he didn’t comment, just offered a small smile. There was nothing teasing in it, more genuine and serious than Hei usually anticipated from Jongdae, and for some reason, it made her slightly nervous. She was used to joking with Jongdae, but when he was serious… it felt like a completely different realm altogether. She wondered if that was how Jinqiong felt. Jongdae was overwhelming in a way she couldn’t place, even if he were joking, and she had half a mind to think that all the teasing was to make sure she wouldn’t be intimidated when he actually was serious.

“Fine,” Hei finally managed, giving him a small smile. “I think Baekhyun’s just happy everyone’s okay. Compared to what happened to Junsu, going through the sectors shouldn’t be too bad, especially since we know what the last two are.”

Jongdae pointed a warning finger at her. “Don’t speak too soon,” he cautioned. “Save it for when we get out.”

“We’ve already gone through so much,” Hei pointed out. “It’s weird, but I feel like Hell’s Gate isn’t even that intimidating anymore.”

“We still don’t know where we’ll end up. Maybe we’ll be right back at Vasileia, this time.”

“You don’t think we’ll end up at Fortuna again, do you?”

Jongdae stilled at that suggestion. “Fortuna?” he echoed.

“Yeah. Last time we turned up there, and I can’t help wonder if we’ll go there again—”

“Fortuna?” Somebody echoed behind them, and both Hei and Jongdae whirled around to see Taeyong standing at the door of the mess hall, eyes wide with—was that surprise? Confusion? She could never tell with him. Then again, she hadn’t talked to Taeyong much the past couple days, so she didn’t have much to go off by.

“Yeah,” Hei affirmed.

Taeyong scanned his surroundings, eyebrows furrowing. Finally, as if having made sure everything was safe, he headed inside and took a seat next to them—a little bit further off from her and Jongdae. “It’s gone, isn’t it?”

Hei froze. Before she could think of an answer to give him, Jongdae replied for her. “It’s gone. The Byun family—and the rest of the families, I suppose—burned it down.”

Taeyong’s gaze was unreadable. His eyes always seemed to be haunted—the expression never left his face, behind his eyes—but other than that, he didn’t show much emotion. Now, Hei scrutinized him as best she could without being obvious, but she still couldn’t pin down a guess to what he was feeling.

“I expected that,” Taeyong finally said, evenly. “I saw bits of it, actually. I wasn’t strong enough to stop them by the time it happened, but…” He shrugs. “You would be surprised how even the most painful things can grow numb in a thousand years.”

“We landed in Fortuna the last time we were in Hell’s Gate,” Hei said cautiously. “It’s how we found your book.”

For the first time she remembered, Taeyong actually straightened; perked up. “My journal?” he asked. “Do you still have it?”

Hei nodded. “It actually helped me figure out how to kill Baekhyun’s father. I wouldn’t have been able to defeat the family leader without your notes.”

Taeyong’s eyebrow went up. “You figured out from my notes alone? That’s pretty impressive.”

“It was that or nothing,” Hei admitted, then nudged Jongdae with her elbow. “Though I’m sure there’s a lot more he would like to know.”

A small smile actually crept up on Taeyong’s face, even if it were gone in a moment. “Clairvoyant,” he murmured, half to himself. “I knew one or two back… before. You were there the first time, weren’t you?”

“Yeah, and I thought you weren’t lying.” Jongdae’s eyes narrowed. “A good one, that was. You told us we already had Time’s Blade, and it was true, except not in the way we thought it was. You knew it was Hei all along, but you couldn’t say because of the curse.”

“Yes.” Taeyong looked down at his hands. “It was terrible, you know? No one, before you, ever made it into Hell’s Gate. I guess a select few powers would allow individuals to get past the guardian in the first place, much less make it through the sectors. And for me to have to lie and give you a false weapon with the knowledge that I was knowingly dooming you…” He shook his head. “The Byun family leader has always been the cruelest.”

Hei shuddered. She thought of the man that had stabbed Baekhyun through the chest and laughed, who had controlled him without an ounce of remorse and locked up one of his own sons for over fifty years. It was almost as if it were a game to him; provided some sick, twisted amusement.

Her father, she’d never met. He couldn’t have been much better, but at least… well, at least his presence had always been distant. She’d never yearned for his validation, not really. He hadn’t posed as some figure she could reach. No one had ever told her he cared about her, that she could ever be anything to him. Baekhyun, not so much.

“Yeah,” she mumbled. “At least he’s gone now. At least mostly.”

It seemed to have caught Taeyong’s attention. “Mostly?” he echoed.

“The second sector still has…a piece of him left."

Jongdae jumped in before Hei could say anything more. “We’ve been steering clear of the second sector for a while,” he told Taeyong, and if Hei didn’t know any better, she wouldn’t have caught the cautious way he treaded over the words. “We’ll be out in a couple of days time, but with the map, it’ll be fine. We won’t cross the first or the second sector.”

“The first sector was the Lee family’s?” Taeyong asked. “Or at least used to be?”

Jongdae nodded. “I assume so. Hell’s Gate wasn’t really completed or perfected back when you were alive, but it must’ve been something the family leaders had been working on, or else there wouldn’t be six sectors in the first place.”

“If Baekhyun’s father is still trapped in his sector, then is mine as well?”

Hei and Jongdae exchanged a glance. She wasn’t sure if it would be an apt point to bring into the discussion, but she didn’t want to withhold details from Taeyong when he asked for them. It didn’t seem fair to him, even though it was a hard line to tread. Being cautious about what could set him off, or sparing him from potentially unwanted pity by being truthful. Thankfully, Jongdae saved her from the pain of explanation. “There were a bunch of ghosts last time we had to cross the sector,” he said, albeit a lot more straightforward than Hei would’ve tackled it. “Unlike Baekhyun’s father, they’re not quite… well, they’re not as lucid, because they attacked Hei, thinking she was you. We don’t know what happened. Maybe something went wrong with the other family leaders. But we won’t be going back there, especially with you here as well.”

Taeyong took the information in quietly, his face set in careful impassivity. Hei found herself monitoring him for his reaction, but Taeyong barely gave any indication apart from the fact that he heard Jongdae. Finally, he nodded. “From the sound of it, Hell’s Gate sounds… well, it sounds less like a prison for me than it seems like something the family leaders made to preserve themselves in case something goes south.” He jerked his chin at Hei. “In case somebody like us destroys their spell, at least there’s something to fall back onto.”

Jongdae was beginning to frown contemplatively. “That makes a lot of sense. But… if they’re somehow preserving themselves here, does that mean there’s the possibility they’ll come back? I don’t assume the Lee family will, but Baekhyun’s father…” He snuck a glance at H