Haul
HaulYeojin took off her helmet and shook her head, strands of hair sticking to her sweaty forehead. In the corner of her eye she saw Haseul doing the same. She turned and gave the older girl a slight nod before pushing the helmet into Yerim's hands.
"Well, there's that!" Yeojin's booming voice echoed in the hangar. "Good job everyone, we did great, another amazing day of saving the world!" She laughed loudly, to which Haseul reacted with an eyeroll. Yerim chuckled slightly, helping the short ranger with examining her drivesuit for any kind of damage.
"And now, if you'd allow, I'll hit the hay." And with that - and a couple of finger guns here and there - Yeojin was gone. Without her presence the hangar immidiately felt emptier, with the loudest sound now being the noise of moving metal parts somewhere in the distance.
Haseul glanced at the jaeger, wincing when her eyes met the giant gash in its torso. Jinsol and her crew were already taking care of it, assessing the damage and preparing for restoration. The mechanics looked like tiny ants from where Haseul stood.
It was a tough battle, they barely won. The kaiju was the biggest one yet and they hardly managed to keep it in the miracle mile. If it wasn't for Yeojin's crazy maneuver, both of them - and thousands upon thousands of civilians - would be dead.
Haseul knew she will have to sit through a sermon about it after debriefing with some government officials who would most probably be really pissed, but right now, she couldn't care less. She nodded to Sooyoung, who helped her with her suit, grimacing upon spotting some damages - as if Haseul even knew where they came from - and headed to her quarters. If she was lucky enough, she'd manage to fall asleep before Yeojin started snoring.
The whole body of Iceberg Hopper shook at the impact. Haseul winced, but stood firmly, forcing Yeojin to do the same. At the corner of her eye she saw her step-sister's legs shaking.
"We can't do this," Yeojin hissed through gritted teeth. Haseul felt the determination radiating from the other girl's presence in her mind and shook her head violently.
"Yeojin, there's no way..." The kaiju tried to extricate from the jaeger's grip, but they held it securely by a horn on its head. The creature roared in anger and frustration, snapping its jaws in an attempt to grab any part of Iceberg Hopper.
"That's the only way, Seul." They pulled back their right arms and hit the monster right in the jaw, or at least where Haseul thought it had the jaw. It cried out in pain and finally managed to slip out of the jaeger's grasp.
"We could overheat the reactor and--"
"Too close to the city."
"The last time--"
"Would you rather have all those people die, Seul?"
"I--"
"Would you?!"
"Listen..." Haseul felt her muscles shake. This clash was going for too long now, she could tell Yeojin was exhausted as well. They needed to end it, quick. ", let's do this."
Yeojin would've beamed if she wasn't busy clenching her teeth.
The kaiju finally snapped out of it and was charging right at them again, water splashing all around, a heavy thump with every step, as if it believed that brute force was the only way of getting through to the city.
Haseul and Yeojin moved as one, perfectly synchronized.
Iceberg Hopper crouched in the water and braced for the collision.
It's been a week and Haseul still had the same nightmare every night, over and over again. She still saw the massive body, a pile of pure muscle running straight at her. She felt Yeojin's desperation. She felt her own body almost giving up. She felt scared. Terrified.
It wasn't the first time they were facing off against a kaiju bigger than their jaeger, but for the first time Haseul felt like their lives were actually on the line. For the first time she felt what she was - just a puny human, stuck inside a piece of metal, pretending she could do something, as if the monster she was fighthing couldn't just crush her under its paw.
She knew Yeojin had the same nightmares - or, at least, she knew her sister was also waking up every night, leaving their room to go to the kitchen and either cook or devour whatever she could find in the pantry.
Yeojin was coping in her very own way and Haseul understood that, so she never went looking for her when she woke up alone in their room, panting and frightened, in the middle of the night. Sometimes she heard her rummaging in the mess hall when she passed by on her way to the training rooms. Other times she'd saw her sneaking away with a couple of plates in her hands, probably to feed some other late night owls.
Haseul, on the other hand, preferred simple and trusted methods of avoiding reliving the missions in her dreams - like exhausting herself until she couldn't move a finger. She locked herself in one of many training rooms, just her and the equipment she hated during her first days after enlistment and later grew to appreciate after the nightmares started and couldn't be held at bay by simply popping a pill of five. It was calming here; the sound hitting a training dummy over and over forming a steady rhythm helping her clear her mind. When she came back to her room, she was usually too tired to dream of anything at all and it was just as good as it could get.
That night the room wasn't empty.
Haseul stopped dead in her tracks when she saw a girl, just a little taller than her, dressed in a trainee gym gear, practicing high kicks on a kicking bag. She watched, brows furrowed and hand clenched tight on her duffel bag's strap, not saying a word. After what felt like an endless internal battle, Haseul stepped into the room, deliberately dragging her feet just to make some noise and get the girl's attention.
"Ah!" A surprised noise left the stranger's mouth as she turned around to face the door. Haseul could now see the wispy bangs plastered to her sweaty forehead and clear surprise in her brown eyes.
"I didn't expect anyone to come here at this time," the girl said, bowing quickly, sloppily. Haseul bowed her head back and dropped her bag on the floor as the girl continued, "I was just practicing here because the fightmaster said my high kicks aren't good enough still and I didn't think that anyone else might want to use this room." A sheepish smile appeared on her face. "I can go if you want to train alone, of course." Without waiting for the answer, she grabbed her towel and water bottle, ready to leave, but Haseul raised her hand, shaking her head.
"No need to. The gym is big enough for both of us." Haseul gestured vaguely torwards the far end of the room and the dummy standing there. "And don't worry about your kicks. Heejin just goes hard on every rookie she sees." She offered a small smirk to which the girl responded with a bright smile that turned her eyes into half moons.
They stayed silent after that, training on their own, Haseul so lost in the rhythm of her hits and swings she didn't pay any attention to her surroundings. When she finally shook out of the trance, all sweaty and exhausted, the girl was gone, like she was never there. The only thing left after her was a note scribbled on what looked like a receipt so old the letters that were printed there faded away.
see you around! And a doodle of a penguin.
Haseul threw the note in her duffel bag.
It was easy for Haseul to convince herself the girl she met once in the training room was just another dream. It wouldn't be the first time she saw someone who wasn't there. She had her fair share of ghosts haunting her, but that girl didn't look like anyone she's ever known and for a moment Haseul couldn't help but wonder if she was visited by a spirit of a civilian she couldn't save.
Which was, to say the least, concerning.
And then she stumbled upon her again.
That night Haseul woke up, this time because of Yeojin screaming in her sleep. Relying only on muscle memory, she ran up to her sister's bed in two steps. The smaller girl was thrashing in her bedsheets, her face all scrunched up. Haseul pinned her down without any problem - Yeojin's body was almost worringly spindly. Upon feeling the force holding her down, Yeojin's eyes snapped open, as if she was ready to fight. (She was, Haseul reminded herself, that's the stuff they taught us during the bootcamp.)
"Nightmares?" Haseul muttered, stepping back. Yeojin nodded and sat up.
"How do you feel about ramen for you and fried chicken and cheese sandwiches for me at," she glanced at the clock on her bedside table, "2 AM?"
Haseul sighed, letting her shoulders relax. They wouldn't be able to sleep anyway. "Sounds as good as anything else."
They went to the mess hall, yawning and rubbing the sleep away from their eyes on the way there. The shatterdome definitely wasn't asleep despite the hour, quite the opposite; Haseul nodded at Jinsol who was slipping out of one of the rooms, her glasses tilted and hair a mess. The mechanic, though startled, greeted her back before briskly walking away.
There were dull thuds coming from one of the training rooms they passed by; apparently someone else had trouble sleeping tonight. The sound of metal scrapping against metal could be heard from the distance - probably the mechanic team working on upgrading one of the jaegers or repairing another. The shatterdome never truly slept and in a sense it was both a blessing and a curse.
The kitchen was empty, as expected. The lights, by Yeojin, flickered with a buzz before settleing, but the younger of the rangers didn't seem to need them, moving swiftly through the cupboards and the pantry and collecting the ingridients she needed. Haseul resolved to standing on the sidelines, watching her sister with curiosity and suppressing yawns from time to time. Yeojin was a better cook out of the two of them, always has been, so there was no point in trying to bother her or attempting to help.
Her sleepy mind wandered to the girl she'd encountered a few days ago. The note was still in her duffel bag, crumpled, but definitely not forgotten. She even fished it out from there a couple of times, just to make sure the piece of paper was real and the whole meeting wasn't just a dream. See you around! Haseul sighed. Yes, she'd love that, but the girl decided to sign the note with a goddamn doodle instead of a name or at least a letter. Even if Haseul wanted to make an effort to actually see the girl again, she wouldn't even know who exactly was she looking for. Not that she had anyone to ask about the girl in the first place.
"I could use another pair of hands here." Yeojin's voice broke through the mist of exhaustion embracing Haseul's brain, making her head jerk up. Well, if she directly asked for it... Haseul approached the counter and grabbed the chopped up ingredients the younger girl has prepared to put them in a pot. They continued to work in silence, perfectly in sync with each other, as if they were piloting Iceberg Hopper, not making an impromptu midnight snack, though this time Yeojin was the one in charge.
They were almost done with their meal, when they heard the mess hall door open. Haseul's head shot up.
Yeojin's eyes were still glued to the noodles she was putting in bowls, but she must have heard the creaky sound the door made. "In the kitchen," she called out, earning a pointed gaze from the older girl.
The sound of the steps - bare feet on bare concrete floor, Haseul noted, not the most comfortable combination - grew closer and before they knew it, a head popped up in the doorframe.
"What are you cooking?"
It was a girl - the girl - with the same wispy bangs sticking to her sweaty forehead and an unfaltering smile on her lips. The same one that Haseul has met several days earlier in the training room. She looked uncertain, waiting for an answer. Haseul offered her a small smile.
"Ramen and fried chicken sandwiches with cheese," Yeojin answered, unbothered, as if it was the most natural thing in the world that random people showed up in the kitchen at 2 am. "Want some?"
The girl nodded eagerly. "Yes, please." She stepped inside, still smiling. "I'm Jiwoo, Kim Jiwoo," she said once she got closer to the counter.
The younger ranger hummed at that. "The name's Im Yeojin, and this grumpy goober here is Jo Haseul."
"Oh, I know," Jiwoo giggled, "you guys are always all over the news. It's hard not to know you, but you a lot look less intimidating without your suits on!"
Haseul suddenly became hyperaware of the fact that her pajamas consisted of a very army-approved black tee with the PPDC logo coupled with a very not-army-approved pair of neon green shorts. She didn't even throw on a hoodie when they left their quarters.
Yeojin, on the other hand, was completly unfazed - as per usual. "Oh, then you haven't seen Haseul in her training mode. She can be scary even in sweatpants."
"She did." Haseul muttered, pretending to be extremely occupied with picking out bread slices for their sandwiches.
"Did she now?" Yeojin seemed genuinely surprised. "You never told me..."
As if sensing how messy the conversation between the pilots was becoming, Jiwoo spoke up again. "I didn't expect anyone here at this hour!" She slid onto a stool and propped her head on her palm. Haseul tried - and failed - put a bowl of ramen in front of her without looking at her for too long. Jiwoo shot her a quick "thank you!" alongside a smile too bright for this hour.
"You should get used to people moping around at the weirdest hours," said Yeojin, putting a hellish amount of mayonnaise on top of cheese on her sandwich, "with most rangers having troubles sleeping and at least half of the staff not being able to tell the time." She smirked, waving her hand. A knife slipped out of her grip and Haseul caught it before it hit the ground without even looking at it.
Jiwoo stared with her eyes wide open and her lips in a shape of a perfect 'o'. She muttered a quiet 'wow'.
Haseul noticed that and offered a weary smile. "Side effects of drifting together," she chuckled, shrugging.
"Now, how much mayo do you want?" Yeojin spoke again, absolutely unaffected by that little showcase.
"None," Haseul growled. She slammed the knife on the counter.
"Excuse you, I was asking our guest," snarled Yeojin, throwing her sister a look before turning to Jiwoo with a sweet smile.
"Just a little bit, please," the girl said.
Yeojin's smile evolved into a proud one. "I see you're a man of culture as well." And with that, she plopped a spoonful of mayonaisse onto a piece of bread. Haseul stared with disbelief and slight terror as her sister handed Jiwoo a plate with a sandwich on it. Her eyes grew even wider as the girl took a bite and hummed, showing Yeojin a thumbs-up.
"Heathens, both of you," she muttered, which earned her Yeojin's elbow smashed between her ribs and a hearty laugh from Jiwoo. She did her best to ignore the flip her heart did upon hearing the sound and focus on her ramen.
Kim Jiwoo became a fixture in Haseul's life in the weirdest ways possible.
Some nights, when both of them couldn't sleep, they'd meet in the same training room, exchanging quick bows or nods and not talking to each other at all. Haseul sneaked some glances here and there as Jiwoo practiced her shots and sometimes caught the girl staring as she beat the hell out of a punching bag in the corner of the training room. They came to a silent agreement not to talk about those instances.
Sometimes Jiwoo would wave at Haseul all the way across the mess hall or a hangar, and on the rare occasions when she wasn't surrounded by a group of other trainees, she'd even come by and say hi - which didn't happen a lot. Jiwoo seemed to make friends quickly and succesfully, apparently instantly knowing how to push someone's buttons; the ablility Haseul has never truly mastered.
Other days, they'd see each other during yet another public gathering - like the official assembly regarding the heroic battle they had to fight just a month ago. During this one, Haseul and Yeojin - South Korea's incredible siblings, the teenage wonders, the poster children of the Pan Pacific Defense Corps' cause - were sitting on the stage, dressed in their formal attire, while the trainees and other rangers sat in the rows of chairs below, behind government officials and press.
She found Jiwoo - not without a trouble, as all of the recruits were wearing the same kind of uniform, a sea of uninterested eyed and khaki jackets. But even then, Jiwoo stood out in a way, always wearing a smile. She was already looking at her, which made Haseul's heart skip the tiniest beat. Yeojin must have noticed, because she knocked their knees together and tsked under her breath.
Haseul still could feel Jiwoo's eyes on her when yet another diplomat was shaking her glove-clad hand, but never managed to actually look back at the girl, blinded by strong lights and camera flashes.
When they were finally allowed to go back to their seats after receiving yet another decoration they would be able to put on their shelves to collect dust, a general dressed from head to toe in the most expensive uniform started talking about how brave the Iceberg Hopper crew was and how proud he was of them - which was bull. Haseul remembered clearly he was the most furious when she was debriefing after that fight, his rage so evident his face turned beet red. If Yeojin had seen him then, she'd make a joke about popping a vein or something along the lines.
And now there he was, spilling praise and compliments, as if everything was perfectly planned from the very beginning, not just a last resort idea that Yeojin came up with in a moment of wild desperation.
It all made Haseul sick in her stomach; she clenched her jaw to prevent herself from screaming on the top of her lungs. Jiwoo was still smiling.
Somewhere along the way they became friends - or at least something more than acquaintances - mostly because Jiwoo really had a way with people and Haseul didn't try to stop her from becoming closer to her. There was no point in it, anyway; Jiwoo has already conquered Yeojin's heart the moment they met, so Haseul could at least try gaining a friend instead of isolating herself again.
Something felt weird about this - almost wrong, Haseul realized, as she, Jiwoo, Yeojin, and a couple of recruits from the latest batch were sitting by a table in the mess hall. She wasn't used to that, to just chatting with people, and at some points it was glaring - like when she tried telling a funny story and used her debriefing speech patterns before she realized what she was doing. Jiwoo still laughed despite a poorly delivered punchline and Haseul was grateful.
The people sitting around her were joking, with Yeojin obviously leading the way with her ridiculous anecdotes from her rookie days in the shatterdome - which, by extent, were also Haseul's rookie days, so all of their embarrasing past was now out in the open in front of people she barely knew. She didn't really know if she minded it that much.
"You did what to Hyunjin?" A girl - what was her name, Chaewon? - gasped, pulling Haseul out of her thoughts.
"I punched her!" Yeojin almost bounced in her chair. "I just went up to her and punched her!"
"You didn't," Haseul stated matter-of-factly. "She had enough of you so she pushed you. You fell on your and were moping about it for a week."
Another girl, this time a black-haired one, nodded. "Moping sounds more like you, Yeojin," she said with a stern face, earning a slap on the arm from Chaewon and a hiss, "Hyejoo!"
But Haseul's attention was focused on Jiwoo, who was giggling, trying to cover with her hand, her eyes looking like crescent moons.
Later that day, when Yeojin was already snoring genlty in her bed, Haseul was staring at the ceiling, uneasiness gnawing at her heart. She realized two things.
-
Jiwoo's eyes when she was laughing were the most beautiful thing she has ever seen and she could stare at her for the eternity.
-
She was developing feelings for someone - something she swore herself not to do, because it meant she'll end up losing that person one way or another. And it scared her to the core.
Jiwoo slammed a tray on the mess hall table right in front of Haseul. "Me and Jungeun are getting a jaeger."
"Jungeun?" Haseul racked her brain but couldn't put a face to the name. Particularly now, when she has just been just distracted from her meal.
"Kim Jungeun," clarified Jiwoo, but seeing Haseul's still confused face, she went on. "A little bit shorter than me, obviously dyed blonde hair with darker roots, walks like she owns the place and could kick your without breaking a sweat. Well, not yours, you would probably take her down in a no time but you know..." Jiwoo waved her hand.
Haseul's eyebrows went up. "And you're drift compatible with her?" A trace of a smirk danced on Haseul's lips.
"Don't laugh!" Jiwoo pouted.
"Sorry, it's just difficult to imagine two less similar people than the two of you."
"I could say the same about you and Yeojin," Jiwoo retorted, huffing sligtly, at which Haseul nodded. She grabbed a piece of something vaguely vegetable-ish from her bowl and, after examining it throughfully, she ended up putting it on her tray. "That's fair."
"Anyway." The look of absolute despair was back on Jiwoo's face and as much as Haseul didn't feel good seeing it, it made the younger girl look adorable. And the thought of that made Haseul want to run away. "We're supposed to name it and we have no idea how to go about it."
Haseul took a large bite of her noodles before speaking up, "Can't you just talk about it?"
"We tried!" The whine Jiwoo let out made some shatterdome staff members sitting in the far corner of the hall turn around. "But she won't listen to me! At all! She insists on something cool and menacing. As if the kaiju could read or even cared." Jiwoo scoffed, puffing up her cheeks, and Haseul caught herself fighting a smile.
"And what do you want to call her?"
"As far as I'm concerned, we could just refer to it by its serial number." Jiwoo rolled her eyes.
"That wouldn't sound good in a news report," said Haseul, shrugging. "And I'm not sure if they even give them serial numbers."
Jiwoo groaned at that, but didn't say anything more for a while. Haseul tried to focus on her meal again, but she found it hard in the girl's presence. She was digging in her bowl mindlessly, nursing the thought of just standing up and walking away. Jiwoo's voice tore her away her from her thoughts.
"What about Iceberg Hopper?"
"What about him?" The question was unexpected, to say the least, and the pilot was taken aback.
"The name, how did you decide on it?"
"It was Yeojin's idea," said Haseul as if that explained everything. It didn't, because Jiwoo blinked in confusion, making the older girl furrow her brows. "I thought everyone had heard that story. Didn't she tell you?" But Jiwoo shook her head, so Haseul straightened her back and took a deep breath. "Yeojin really likes frogs."
Jiwoo blinked. And then blinked again. And then once more, for a good measure. "That's it?"
"Well, she likes snails more, but I didn't want to let her name a literal war machine after a pet she had when she was fifteen."
"I thought the "hopper" part came from those ridiculous legs," said Jiwoo, still stumped.
"Oh, no, those came later, courtesy of Jinsol and her crew." Haseul waved her hand.
"And the "iceberg"...?"
"Our parents took us to Iceland once, before everything went to . Nothing more."
Jiwoo frowned. There was something Haseul wasnt telling her, but for now she chose to let it go. Instead, she covered her face wit her hands and whined.
"Come on. You're smart, you'll figure it out." Haseul reached across the table and gave her an awkward pat on the shoulder. She stood up and grabbed her tray with a half-eaten bowl of noodles. "I have to go, but I'll see you around."
With that, she turned around and walked away, pretending not to feel the weight of Jiwoo's gaze on her back and the heat of a blush sprawling on her cheeks and neck.
"So... I was wondering," Jiwoo said one night during their training sessions, "is there a reason why you never work out with a sparring partner?"
Haseul stopped mid-punch. "Other than no one being around at this hour?"
Jiwoo shifted her weight from one leg to the other. "Well, I'm here."
"A-ah, uh... I never really sparred from anyone else than Yeojin. No one could match me." Haseul pushed back some stray tresses that slipped out from her ponytail.
"Oh. Okay." The other girl pouted slightly and made a half-hearted high kick at her training dummy.
"Why?"
"Like I said, I was just wondering," Jiwoo shrugged.
The cogwheels in Haseul's head started spinning and finally clicked. She smirked. "Jiwoo, did you want to spar with me?"
"Maybe." Another unenthusiastic hit.
Haseul walked up to a rack and picked two short staffs. She tossed one to Jiwoo.
"Wait, really?"
Haseul nodded and charged forward, not giving the other girl enough time to even think about preparing for the swing.
If there was one thing they could both conclude from this short sparring, it was that they deifinitely weren't compatible. Their hits were ill-timed, dodges uneven, and it seemed like they would come out of this with more bruises than they initially expected.
But it was also fun - probably the most fun Haseul has had since enlisting all those years ago. Her limbs and ribs were sore from all the blows she didn't block, but her cheeks were hurting from smiling the most she had in a long time.
Jiwoo seemed to have a lot of fun as well, giggling almost every time she swung her staff, even if it didn't reach its target. Haseul was more experienced and it was showing, but Jiwoo didn't let that discourage her and the ranger was impressed by the girl's will to keep going.
After a while they managed to find some sort of rhythm and fall into it, even if it wasn't as perfect as with their drift partners. For every blow there was a counterblow, a sidestep, a dodge. It turned into a chaotic kind of dance and both girls were enjoying it more than they'd like to admit.
Haseul made a lunge, attempting to make the trainee trip over her staff, and she almost succeeded. On her way down Jiwoo somehow managed to grab the ranger's arm, making her lose her balance as well. Before Haseul could react, she found herself lying on top of Jiwoo, with almost no space between them. She felt Jiwoo's breath on her own slightly parted lips, she saw a spark in Jiwoo's wide open eyes. For a moment everything was still, even her heart, as she didn't dare to move, highly aware of the fact that it'd take only a slight tilt of her chin to kiss Jiwoo right there and then.
So she did the thing she did the best in situations like this.
She scrambled to her feet, sputtering apologies and not looking Jiwoo in the eyes. She tossed her staff away, as if it burned her, and grabbed her bag, refusing to hear anything Jiwoo was saying - when she finally spoke, because for an awfully long while she was dead silent, as if someone took her voice away. Haseul heard something along the lines of "it's okay" and "please, wait", but she didn't want to wait for what she assumed was inevitable heartbreak. She hurried out of the training room, hoped that by the morning she would forget about whatever just happened.
She didn't.
"Haseul, what the !" Yeojin spluttered, ripping off her helmet and throwing it to the side. Her breath was erratic. Yerim hurried to catch the helmet, with Sooyoung on her heels, both of them ready to give the younger ranger a piece of their mind.
Haseul was trying to catch a breath in between coughs. She didn't say anything. Even if she had something to say, she couldn't.
They have been called in today for a test run of sorts - Jinsol made a few upgrades for Iceberg Hopper after their last drop, just in case they were to use the same technique again. A routine thing, really.
Until they didn't drift.
One second everything was going great - they were standing on their assigned places, the spinal clamps connected, the relay gel filling their helmets. A familiar sensation of being overwashed by each other's memories and feelings. Everything was going great.
And then Haseul chased the rabbit. And before she managed to snap out of it, push away the memory of Jiwoo and her from that one night, the handshake failed to connect.
"What the !" repeated Yeojin. She shuffled over to Haseul, almost tripping over her own feet in anger. She pushed her sister's chest, hard, and the older girl stumbled back, barely staying upwards. Her whole body shook from the failed attempt.
"Why! Why, for 's sake!" Yeojin's wail echoed in the drivesuit room, her voice breaking in the middle of the curse. "Why the didn't we drift! We always drift! Always!"
Through a mist covering her eyes, Haseul noticed tears pooling in Yeojin's own. The younger girl balled up her hands and pushed Haseul again, this time lighter, as the initial rage was fizzling out. But it was just enough to send Haseul down.
The younger girl stood over her, anger seeping from every inch of her small body. Haseul opened to say something, but at the same moment Yeojin's eyes went wide as she recalled the memory her sister chased. It was blurred and she saw it only for a brief moment, but she recognized what she had witnessed.
"Oh my god, it's her, isn't she? It's her." Yeojin let out a strangled chuckle. "I can't ing believe it. I can't believe you're choosing her over me."
"Yeojin, I..." Haseul started weakly, sitting up, casting her glance away. She couldn't bear to hold her sister's gaze, the look of utter betrayal all over her face and tears now flowing freely from her eyes.
Yeojin didn't answer. She let out a choked sob and her heel. Haseul watched her stomp out of the room, Yerim right behind her, presumably chasing the young pilot down to collect her drivesuit. From the side Haseul heard Sooyoung tsk.
They didn't talk for what felt like ages, though Haseul knew it's been only hours. Twenty, to be exact, which was the longest they went without exchanging a word in years.
And it was impressive, considering they shared a very small, very cramped room. Or maybe they used to share - Haseul wasn't entirely sure, because Yeojin didn't spend the night in her bunk and something in her brain kept telling her that she lost the last family member she's had in the process of trying to lose as little people as possible.
Extreme, she knew. But she also knew Yeojin and her moods and how stubborn she could be when she decided to hate or avoid someone. There was no point in chasing after her - she'd come around, though more likely later than sooner.
That's exactly why Haseul was surprised to see Yeojin sitting on her bunk when she came back from a - very lonely - training session. The younger girl was motionless, her eyes glued to the shelf with all the orders and trophies they accumulated during their service.
"Talk to her." Yeojin's eyes were tired, as if she didn't sleep last night.
Haseul blinked rapidly. "What."
"I said talk to her." The younger ranger's voice was as flat as a pancake. She didn't move nor look at the older girl.
"What happened with 'choosing her over me' and the tantrum you threw?" Haseul didn't want to mock Yeojin - at least not now - but she couldn't help the tone of her voice when she spoke. And, well, she was genuinely curious what changed Yeojin's mind.
"I talked with... people. With Vivi." Haseul briefly recalled the timid scientist who nowadays spent most of her time in her lab, despite once being a ranger herself. Yeojin didn't wait for her to confirm she knew who Vivi was, still going on. "About a lot of things. She helped me understand. You two need to talk. As soon as possible." Yeojin sighed. I understood some things, and... It's a hazard, Seul." A weak shrug. "Avoiding it, I mean. Not dealing with it. We might have to pilot Iceberg Hopper again any second now and you know what happens if we don't drift."
She knew. She knew the younger girl was right, but the perspective of talking to Jiwoo - about feelings, of all things - made her even more scared than fighting alien monsters coming out of the ocean. She'd rather fight a kaiju with her bare hands than actually confront her. Damn, kaiju were much easier to find - she had troubles finding Jiwoo in the shatterdome after that one night and actually was starting to believe that the whole situation was just a trauma-induced fever dream she was living ever since that one drop.
Taking her sister's silence for hesitation, Yeojin hopped off her bunk to pat Haseul's arm with a weak smile on her face. "It's just another way of saving the world, you know?"
It was easier said than done.
Jiwoo was impossible to catch, like a ghost Haseul had mistaken her for all those weeks ago. Even her friends didn't know where she was - or they didn't want to tell Haseul, which the ranger understood, even if the possibility of that made her feel like screaming on the top of her lungs.
A thought started settling into Haseul's mind - maybe if she didn't want to talk to her then she shouldn't even try. Maybe it was for the best. Maybe it was some twisted kind of karma. But a flash of Yeojin's face after the failed drift was enough to keep Haseul going. She had to settle this or die trying.
After several days of this wicked game of cat and mouse, Haseul noticed Jiwoo heading out of the drivesuit room and simply followed her until she was sure no one could interrupt them. Only then she sped up and caught up with the girl.
"Jiwoo," she said, as friendly as she could with a lump in and sweaty palms. She even managed to put on a small smile and prayed it didn't look like a wince. "I-I wanted to talk with you."
"About what?" Jiwoo's voice was cold as ice - or at least that was one of the possible things she was going for, but it wasn't supported by the slightest pout on her face. Haseul forced herself to focus on Jiwoo's eyes instead of her lips.
"About what happened that night. When we sparred and fell and I r-ran away." The lump in Haseul's throat was growing bigger and bigger with each syllable.
"I think you made everything pretty clear," Jiwoo said, turning around, ready to walk away. Haseul grabbed her wrist before she could make a single step.
"I didn't, I-I ed everything up, Jiwoo, everything." A part of the ranger's mind almost pitied how close to tears she sounded at that very moment. "I ran because I was scared of what I'm feeling for you, I was scared that if I said it out loud or acted on it, I would lose you, because that's just what happens when I care about someone."
Jiwoo looked her in the eyes. "You're not scared now?"
"I'm scared as . But that doesn't change the fact that I like you a lot, Kim Jiwoo. Hell, even more than a lot, I-I think I love you."
As soon as she said that, she was ready to run again. She was glad she didn't, however, because Jiwoo moved closer and Haseul noticed a spark in her dark eyes before she closed the distance between them - almost hurriedly, as if Jiwoo could change her mind any second.
And Jiwoo's lips were a bit chapped and their teeth clicked against each other and Haseul still had only a vague idea of what all of that meant. But Jiwoo was sweet and warm - so warm - and she kissed her back, making Haseul's brain short-circut, so all of those little imperfections hardly even mattered.
They separated for a brief moment - mostly because Jiwoo was grinning and made everything a little difficult - and that was when they heard someone else sigh deeply.
"Get a room," grumbled Hyunjin, passing by with a scowl on her face. Haseul didn't mind, because it made Jiwoo giggle like a schoolgirl, and she'd do everything to hear that as often as possible.
"So what does that make us?" Haseul asked later, when they were sitting on her bunk in her quarters.
"Whatever you want us to be," Jiwoo answered, shrugging, and leaned closer for yet another kiss. Haseul gladly complied.
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