hello everyone. as you can now see, i have been serial-lying once a week. it’s not intentional i promise…. but x marks the spot will NOT conclude this chapter, but rather, next chapter. i was writing and it became too long so i decided to chop the chapter in half, so next chapter, 55, will be the final one. really sorry for all the conclusion lol it happens when u have 3 brain cells :’) but at least there’s some fluff here? i also contemplated uploading one big chapter, but i wanted to touch up more on the ending so i decided to give myself a week’s time to do so :’)

in no particular order, here’s some songs that i was reminded of when writing xmts for some characters if y'all wanna listen!

jinqiong/jongdae: the archer (taylor swift), daylight (taylor swift)

baekhyun/hei: heart (sleeping at last) 

i shall link some more next chapter :)

o54

Family

When Baekhyun finally got the cue to set her down before he suffocated her, Hei spent at least five seconds straightening out her dress, even though she was smiling as well. Jongdae whacked Baekhyun not so lightly on the back, and Baekhyun turned away again in favour of arguing with Jongdae. Hei glanced at Jinqiong instead.

Her sister was taking in their surroundings quietly as well, though her lips were pressed together. Around her, the crew was beginning to break out into chatter, too many conversations at once for Hei to focus on one. Instead, she nudged Jinqiong lightly on the side. “What’s wrong?”

Jinqiong blinked, gaze snapping to her.

“Nothing’s wrong,” she replied, a bit shortly. “I just recognize the area, that’s all.”

“Where are we?”

“Near Hua.” The response was even more clipped, then Jinqiong winced. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that we’re out, but…” Her eyes didn’t leave the horizon. They lapsed into silence, despite the boisterous chatter of the crew around them.

“Hei,” Jinqiong finally said, very slowly and very quietly.

“Yes?”

“Go with me tomorrow. Or the day after. Or—or whenever works. To Hua.”

“To… Hua?”

Jinqiong took a deep breath, and Hei thought that her sister actually looked nervous. Then she exhaled, straightened, and nodded, emotions masked once more. “Just the two of us. If we dock the ship a bit closer, it’ll probably be a twenty minute walk to the outer city.”

That sounded nice, admittedly. Besides, she had yet to properly talk to Jinqiong the last couple of days. Just the two of them, exploring the city, doing… well, whatever normal siblings could’ve done. Having a full day to talk to her sister, without the thought of danger or other distractions. Hei had to admit—she’d imagined that. She’d wished for it. But…

“Why?” Hei asked. “I mean—of course I want to. But why?”

Jinqiong gave a noncommitted shrug. “Are you coming or not?”

“I—yes, I’m coming.”

“Then that’s that. We’ll go tomorrow morning. If you want to rest another day, the day after would work as well.”

“No, tomorrow… tomorrow works.”

“Alright,” Jinqiong replied, just as nonchalantly. Then she moved forward to talk to Junmyeon, leaving Hei very much confused, staring at her sister as if doing so would help her decipher whatever that had been about.

Baekhyun and Jongdae seemed to finally have stopped bickering. Jongdae turned around, spotted her, then seemed to deem it fit to reach over and ruffle her hair. The helm was much too crowded for Hei to duck away, so she ended up glaring at him with her hair over her eyes.

“What?” he asked, grinning. “We’re out. Stop looking so glum.”

Hei brushed the strands out of her face, although she had a feeling that it was already too messed up to fix. She reached up to do the same to him, except Jongdae evaded with surprising agility despite his injuries. “Too short,” he teased, but the triumph was short-lived because Baekhyun grabbed his arm.

“Get him,” he crowed, and Hei made a swipe for Jongdae’s hair as well. He still managed to duck away, but by then Baekhyun had taken it upon himself to exact revenge. He had managed to grab Jongdae in a loose chokehold then began ruffling his hair with no little force.

Hei burst out laughing at Jongdae’s protests. Baekhyun finally let him free after a couple of seconds, though by then, his hair was sticking up in all directions, positively worse than hers.

“,” Jongdae bit at him, not even bothering to hide his smile.

“You asked for it.” Baekhyun had started to comb out the tangled parts of her hair for her. “Better think twice before you mess with my wife.”

Jongdae waved a threatening finger at them both. “I’ll get you back.”

“What, you? Don’t make me laugh.”

Jongdae thought about it. “I’ll get Song Jinqiong to get you back,” he decided.

Jinqiong, who Hei was pretty sure had been talking to Junmyeon a moment ago, popped up behind Jongdae. “I’ll do no such thing,” she told him, then returned to her previous conversation within the blink of an eye.

Baekhyun snickered. “You need to stop trying to get Jinqiong to back you up. The more you try, the less she’ll help you.”

Jongdae considered that for a couple of seconds, but apparently didn’t have an immediate rebuttal. “One day,” he told Baekhyun with a grin. “Just watch.”

***

They docked the ship a little ways away from the outskirts of Hua, nestled beneath the cliffs. It would be a difficult, if not dangerous location for most ships because of the rocks, but Baekhyun and Junmyeon eased the ship into a safe position before they let down the anchor. Hei had stayed on the deck for as long as she could, taking in the vibrancy of her surroundings, the smell of salt in the sea air, the sunset that Hei hadn’t seen in so, so long. Luhan dropped by at some point, and they chatted next to each other for a couple minutes before he was off again.

The sky was darkening when someone tapped her on her shoulder. Hei turned around, expecting Baekhyun, but it was Jongdae.

“You shouldn’t stand for such long periods of time,” he said.

“I’m fine,” she reassured him.

“You might feel fine, but you’ve been through a lot more than anybody should in Hell’s Gate, much less for someone who’s pregnant. You need to start taking care of yourself more. You know that Yuxuan said it was a miracle nothing happened to the baby after Junsu?”

Hei had heard that many times. From Yuxuan, from Baekhyun, from Jinqiong—really, she’d told herself twice as much. But it was always a terrifying reminder of the what if, one that was frightening to dwell on. Even now, thinking back was scary. Part of her struggled to figure out just how she had the guts to do what she’d done back in the central island. Hei was tempted to think she was half insane when she made the choice.

When she didn’t reply to Jongdae for a couple moments, he patted her back with his uninjured hand. “What’s past is past,” he reassured. “But you still need to take care of yourself so you can name your kid after me.”

When she looked up at him, he was grinning absolutely insufferably. Hei rolled her eyes. “What if it’s a girl?”

“Jinqiong, then. Easy.”

“I’m not going to name my daughter after my sister or my son after you! That’s just… awkward.”

“Wait, so Jinqiong gets a label, and I don’t? I’ve known you longer.”

Hei frowned. Sister was easy; it had been that title, even in the beginning, because it just was. Jongdae, on the other hand… friend? That seemed too narrow to fit him, because since the first day, his presence was always demanding and sharp and comforting all at the same time, and definitely too large for words. And when she thought about it, the fact that it wasn’t just Jinqiong leaving, it was Jongdae too—all of a sudden, she wished that he wouldn’t. Those two months when she and Baekhyun had lost contact with Jongdae had been terrible. Not knowing where he was, not knowing if he were alive, not knowing when or if she’d see him again; all of that unknowing had been awful. Hei didn’t want to repeat it.

“You don’t need a label,” Hei told him. “You guys will come back and visit soon, right? And write to us?”

He smiled, but it was less teasing than it was fond. “Missing me already?”

“I’m serious, Jongdae.”

“Well, I am too. And we’ll write. And visit. I’m sure danger won’t come within a five hundred meter radius from me with Song Jinqiong around, so you don’t have to worry about safety. I’ll also make sure I’m there in seven months, so I can be on time when I finally become a godfather.”

She couldn’t help the laugh. Jongdae grinned back, and for a while, they stood in comfortable silence. The sun dipped lower and lower, until the only thing left of it was the faint wash of red on the ocean near the horizon.

“I’ll really miss you,” Hei finally told him, because while she knew Jongdae was perfectly capable of telling without her saying it, there was something about repeating the words aloud that cemented them as fact.

He patted her head, an action that always made her feel like a child when it came from him. “I know,” he replied. “Me too.”

***

The entire crew gathered in the mess hall that night, something that Jinqiong had never experienced before. There were always at least two people missing due to shifts. The mess hall was also much more crowded than it usually was, with all thirteen of them sitting around.

Apparently there wasn’t much food left in the cellar, but Kyungsoo had made a meal with what they did have, miraculously. Dinner was loud and quite frankly overwhelming, a combination that Jinqiong usually hated. But now, out of Hell’s Gate with everybody safe and sound, the high spirits must’ve rubbed off on her because she didn’t mind the noise, no matter how boisterous.

Baekhyun, for once, wasn’t sitting with Hei. Her sister was a couple seats away, next to Taeyong and Kyungsoo, caught up in a conversation about what sort of food existed eleven hundred years ago. Jinqiong was sandwiched between Junmyeon and Chanyeol. Junmyeon gave her a wide, comfortable bubble of space so she didn’t irritate her injuries more, but Chanyeol talked with his arms and hands and she’d ducked at least thrice to avoid getting whacked in the face.

Luhan and Baekhyun, directly across from her, were mapping out the supplies they needed, and where they needed to drop people off. Jinqiong was content with slowly eating her own dinner until Baekhyun shouted her name over the noise, and she looked up in surprise.

“What?” she yelled back.

“When are you leaving?”

Jinqiong blinked once, then twice. She hadn’t thought about it much, she just knew she was, and probably soon. She didn’t want to linger too long. She wasn’t sure she was ready to, at any rate. “Soon?” she told Baekhyun.

They’d been through variations of this conversation so many times. Jinqiong could recall the first one like it had happened days before rather than months, standing outside their home in flowers and grass, under a cheerful sun. Baekhyun had been angry, indignant and wary then—perhaps rightfully so. You’re using her, like you’re using all of us. If you intend on running off again, then don’t raise her hopes.

Part of her expected the same argument again, even if things had been politely civil between the two of them the past ten days. Instead, Baekhyun only nodded thoughtfully, and returned to his conversation with Luhan.

Some age-old uncertainty rose at the fact that he didn’t say anything else. “That’s it?” Jinqiong asked, and Baekhyun raised his head again, eyebrows arched. “You’re not going to say anything about me upsetting Hei?”

He shrugged. “No.”

Jinqiong squinted at him. Baekhyun stabbed his chopstick into a piece of meat on his plate. “I trust her with you,” he said simply.

She blinked at him once, twice, waiting for some kind of catch with the sentence. But Baekhyun didn’t say anything else, only returned to eating his dinner like he’d said nothing out of the ordinary.

Jinqiong finished her own in silence, Baekhyun’s words lingering for some odd reason. They made sense, they really did—but in a way that didn’t make her exactly comfortable. Did she deserve that trust? All those times when she’d felt indignant about his words and his attitude, part of her accepted it because she knew she deserved it. Now…

She glanced at Hei once more. Her sister was laughing at something Kyungsoo had said, chin propped in her hand.

Jinqiong stood up slowly. Nobody took much notice except Junmyeon, who looked at her with the silent question, where are you going?

“Tired,” Jinqiong