The world could really be surreal sometimes. No matter how dirty and noisy human living spaces ended up being, it was impossible to destroy the beauty of nature. The mountains in the background were still as beautiful as ever in the soft glow of the afternoon and even within the oil-stenched scrapyard of Kris' cousin were signs of life, whether it was the one-eyed cat or the patches of weed between all the mismatched pieces of metal and rubber.

"What did he say? How much longer is it going to take?" Tao asked as he and Kris came back to the house and entered the porch where Lay sat and enjoyed the few moments he didn't have to spend in closed rooms.

Kris shrugged and wiped his shoes on the greasy door mat. "He says he's not sure. The damage is pretty bad."

Tao sighed. "See, that's why I told you to get a proper mechanic, rather than Henry."
Henry, another distant cousin of the Wu Family, admittedly was a genius when it was about molding metal parts and everyone would have agreed that his artwork made of old ship parts really was quite interesting, but repairing their messed up ship apparently needed a completely different level of skill. They had to get completely new electronics because no one could figure out just what it was Chen had done to them and parts of the ship were punctured in the most ridiculous ways thanks to Xiumin.
But neither Henry nor Kris wanted to admit that they either needed a new ship or a team of proper engineers. Lay really dreaded the thought of boarding that wreckage they were patching up. He was genuinely developping a fear of flying. And of dealing with refugees.

"We can't afford a proper mechanic," Kris said and went inside.

"You could just ask Uncle Vincent to help you out," Tao said meekly and probably knew that Kris would just ignore him again. It was only thanks to Tao's intervention that Kris' father had helped them to begin with. Kris himself probably would have preferred to crash and die because he hated to be in debt to others. Family bonds apparently didn't mean all that much in business.

They lost quite some money when it was Kris' father who got the main share of the profits of the slaves they sold. Kris had managed to get the Game buyers to take all the slaves but to get rid of them all at once, he had offered them in a cheap batch, so there wasn't all that much money left for them.

Lay shook his head. It really was ridiculous. He used to think that he had his power to do good but here he was, thinking of people as merchandise. The scariest thing was that he sometimes stopped caring. He literally had to remind himself every once in a while that what he did wasn't right. It was as if the world slowly poisoned him and he didn't know how to break out because he, too, was in debt. Although that probably just was another convenient excuse.

The sun was slowly setting and the world turned into a tired shade of grey but Lay didn't really feel like going back inside. The one-eyed cat meanwhile stalked a pile of scraps, probably to catch another ugly rat she would then place on the porch like a trophy.

It was then that Canlie came out and zipped up his jacket, as if he had any reason to feel cold. He smiled at Lay and said something. When he realized that Lay couldn't understand him, he pointed at himself and then at the yard and walked on the spot.

"Okay," Lay said and put up his thumb, when Canlie stalked off, a small flame soon illuminating the ground around him.

It wasn't that Canlie made him uneasy but his presence still puzzled him. Without Xiumin's intervention they probably would have sold him off like the others and Tao for example believed that it would have been for the best. But Canlie surprisingly didn't make a fuss about anything. He followed them and did his work and their biggest problem was the language barrier.
But the point was that Canlie wasn't like them. Xiumin's apathy towards other Koreans was something Lay somewhat understood but Canlie, who not only betrayed people like himself but also didn't seem to struggle, was odd.

The door opened again after a few more minutes and Xiumin came out. "Have you seen Canlie?"

"He went that way," Lay said and pointed into the general direction. He couldn't see the flame any longer but that didn't really mean much on the messy scrapyard. "Shouldn't be hard to find him."

"Thanks," Xiumin smiled and hurried off into the growing darkness in front of them.

Maybe it all really wasn't that complicated after all. All it took was a good excuse. Lay's excuse was his loyalty, Kris' his ambition to show that a great businessman didn't need a great power. Both Luhan and Tao wanted to be free from their families and Xiumin didn't have a place to go back to. Canlie's excuse probably was just as simple.