Archive of Our Own ^beta

The light is blinding. Jinsol startles awake, nearly hitting her head on the top bunk. Immediately, her body shifts into overdrive—something’s not right. What time is it?

A few more blinks and the rest of her vision fades in. Her cell is still dark, and the lights are off in the hallway connecting this block of cells to the rest of the prison. Jinsol shields her eyes with one hand and bats away the flashlight pointed directly in her face. “Huh?”

She’s cut off by a harsh shhh. “Jinsol, get up. Now.”

Jinsol’s blood spikes. She knows that voice—didn’t think she’d ever hear it again. Didn’t want to hear it again. Instinctively, her fingers curl, itching to reach out and grab the intruder by the neck, dig her nails into soft skin and squeeze. “What the fuck are you doing here, Sooyoung?”

Sooyoung’s face is carefully impassive. Jinsol’s always hated not being able to read her, but the way Sooyoung closes her emotions off like this is even more infuriating. “Breaking you out. Come on, we’re going.”

“And what makes you think I wanna go anywhere with you?” Jinsol snarls, too loud. Sooyoung slaps a hand over her mouth. Jinsol wrenches it off, about to yell again when Sooyoung gives her a look. “Fine, I’ll keep it down. You have two minutes to explain why the fuck you’re here.”

Even in the low light, Jinsol can see Sooyoung’s simple eyebrow raise, smugness perfected down to a science. “I don’t need two minutes. I told you, I’m breaking you out. And we need to go now, before the guards rotate again. I’ve already bought as much time as I can.”

It’s been two years since the last time she saw Sooyoung—Jinsol clearly underestimated how much the sight of her would make Jinsol want to drive a fist straight into that perfect face. It’s funny how she thinks she can just waltz back into Jinsol’s life without consequence, as if Jinsol hasn’t spent the last two years stewing in anger and resentment and hurt. “What if I don’t wanna be broken out?” she snarks.

Sooyoung laughs once, a sharp sound that grates against Jinsol’s ears. “You wanna be stuck here?” She sweeps her arms out to gesture to the less-than-opulent living conditions—tiny bunks, tiny rooms. No privacy through metal bars. Mold growing in the toilet, and mush that Jinsol couldn’t bear to finish for last night’s dinner rotting in a bowl. Jinsol hates that she’s got a point.

“You’re the reason I’m in here to begin with,” Jinsol retorts, stifling a satisfied smile when Sooyoung’s expression shifts almost imperceptibly—whether from awkwardness or guilt, Jinsol doesn’t know and doesn’t care either—before she schools her face back into neutrality. “How’d you even get in here?”

“A magician keeps her secrets,” Sooyoung says simply. She clicks the flashlight off, letting her arms fall by her side.

If there’s one weakness Jinsol has, it’s too much pride. “Well, have fun getting out by yourself,” she says, lying back down and tugging the blanket over her body. “I’d say it was nice to see you again, Sooyoung, but it really wasn’t.”

“Are— are you kidding?” scoffs Sooyoung, but the sound borders on nervousness. Jinsol’s attention piques at the sound. “You’d seriously rather stay here than escape with me, just to be petty? What are you trying to prove, Jinsol?”

Jinsol yawns and rolls over to face the wall.

“Shit— okay, look, Jinsol, please.” Desperation bleeds openly from her voice, and it gives Jinsol pause. “Please. Just trust me.”

Jinsol refuses to turn back to look at her. “I think we both know you haven’t given me any good reason to trust you.”

“Jinsol, I can explain. I’ll explain everything. But I need you to come with me.” Sooyoung’s voice hitches a little on the last word. Jinsol rolls back over. “If I ever meant anything to you, please, trust me.”

If there’s one weakness Jinsol has, it’s pride. If there’s another, it’s Sooyoung. “Fine,” she says, dragging herself out of bed and hating Sooyoung for it, hating herself for giving into her yet again. “But betray me again, Ha Sooyoung, and you’re a dead woman.”

When a guard throws her roughly into the cold metal seat of an interrogation room and secures her wrists to the chair, Jinsol remembers a class she once took when she was still in school.

Game Theory in Economics, or something pretentious like that. She’d nodded off throughout most of the class, bored to sleep by the dull drone of her professor’s voice. There’s one lecture she’d stayed awake for, though, one concept she remembers now: the prisoner’s dilemma.

Jinsol in one interrogation room, Sooyoung presumably in another. They haven’t seen each other since they were captured—Jinsol flexes her wrists against the binds, uncomfortable with the thought.

She’d be more worried if they were just a regular pair of criminals who’d tried to pull off some sort of big heist. But Sooyoung’s her best friend, and frankly they haven’t even done anything wrong. She doesn’t even know what they’re being accused of—they’d just left Lydia from a successful trade, about to head to Mixolydia to restock on supplies, when a horde of intergalactic police ships had surrounded them and dragged them to Ionia.

No matter—whatever crime they were accused of is likely small enough that they can post bail and be out of here in a few days. After what feels like years, the interrogation finally ends and a guard brings her back to her holding cell. She doesn’t manage to catch a glimpse of Sooyoung, but that’s fine. She’ll see her soon enough, once they get out of here.

The next day, she’s rushed out of her cell and put on trial. A pair of guards chain her down to her seat, and the whole courtroom is a commotion of lawyers and officers rushing back and forth, the audience chattering loudly. In the midst of it all, she sees Sooyoung at the witness stand.

Jinsol shoots her a confused look, mouthing what the fuck is going on. Sooyoung looks away.

And then the trial starts, and Sooyoung starts talking.

Sooyoung spins a fake story about how Jinsol kidnapped her and forced her to do her evil bidding and more tall tales with a completely straight face, and the jury eats it up. Jinsol doesn’t even have the mental capacity to admire her lying skills, struck dumb with shock. She can see the minds of the jurors whirring. Sooyoung is one of the last remaining survivors from Earth, and Jinsol is not. The serial number of the ship they’d been captured on is registered on Jinsol’s home planet.

In the end, they all vote against her.

Jinsol is slapped with a sentence she doesn’t even hear the duration of, too busy drilling her eyes into Sooyoung’s head as she’s escorted out in chains. Sooyoung’s face is wiped clear of any emotion, intentionally blank. Jinsol takes a good look at that face, memorizing every detail—because if she ever sees that face again, she’s going to kill its owner.

Jinsol hadn’t really believed she was being broken out, by Sooyoung of all people, even as they were sneaking out of the cell and towards the hangar—it all felt too much like a dream. But seeing the ship tucked behind orderly rows of police jets, the one she hadn’t seen since their capture, it hits her. Sooyoung’s breaking her out of prison.

“Is it…”

“It’s not the same one,” Sooyoung is quick to answer, voice soft as Jinsol’s face falls. “That one was impounded and destroyed before I could get it back. But I went back to your home and found another one. I tried to make it look like before.”

“How?” asks Jinsol, awestruck. “They went out of production years ago.”

“Shopped around,” says Sooyoung, striding towards the ship. “Now come on, we don’t have all day.”

It’s so familiar, the action of scaling up the rungs on the side to hop into the ship. Jinsol’s body hasn’t forgotten. For a moment, she’s a teenager again, learning how to pilot her own ship with hopes and dreams of jetting off and exploring the universe.

Then the alarms start blaring, and the memory shatters.

“Shit,” curses Sooyoung, sliding into the pilot’s seat just as Jinsol pulls herself all the way in and the door hisses shut behind her. “We were supposed to have more time.”

“They were bound to find out, sooner or later.” There’s a familiar adrenaline pumping through her veins, but she’s strangely focused. “Hey, get out of the chair.”

“We don’t have time for this,” says Sooyoung.

“Get out of the chair,” Jinsol repeats. Sooyoung opens her mouth again to argue, but the look on Jinsol’s face must be enough to shut her up, because she closes her mouth and moves over to the gunner position.

Jinsol settles into the seat, the controls on the dashboard blinking back at her like old friends, and she hasn’t felt this comfortable in years. She was always Sooyoung’s getaway driver, anyways—there’s not anyone in the universe who can pilot this ship quite like her.

“Any day now,” says Sooyoung, verging on nervousness.

For the first time in years, Jinsol’s head is completely clear. “Buckle up,” she says, not waiting for Sooyoung to respond before slamming the throttle and sending them shooting off into space.

Technically, warping is illegal—something about potentially destroying the fabric of the space-time continuum, and all that. But Jinsol is already a criminal, and she’s not about to let herself be caught twice in the same ship. Once she’s sure the police jets are off their tail, she sets the ship to cruise and heads to the bathroom. She doesn’t ask Sooyoung where it is—it should still be in the same place. Sooyoung lets her go without saying a word, but Jinsol can feel her eyes following her.

Her feet bring her down the same path she’d traveled for years before this. The floorplans of these ships are all the same—they’re reliable like that. There’s comfort in knowing that even if her life has been flipped upside down in the past two years, she can still find the bathroom on her own goddamn ship.

The door slides open easily. When she flicks the lights on, she flinches at how bright it is—the busted lightbulb in the bathroom on the old ship is gone, replaced by bright LED. She pumps soap out of the bottle attached to the wall and the scent is citrus, not the lavender she’d always insisted on. So not everything is the same, after all. The old ship had been registered under Jinsol—this one is probably legally Sooyoung’s.

When she’s done, her first instinct is to go back to the cockpit, but before she can start heading back something stops her. They’re still cruising; by now, Sooyoung’s probably put in the coordinates for whatever secret destination she intends on bringing Jinsol to. Jinsol can leave her to it—it’s not like she’s privy to these kinds of master plans anymore. She turns sharply on her heel and starts walking in the other direction down the hall.

She wanders, and it’s with mild surprise that she ends up in front of the sleeping quarters. The old bedroom she and Sooyoung used to share, whispering to each other under the covers and climbing into each other’s bunks if one of them couldn’t sleep. Their first night here, after leaving Earth for the last time, Sooyoung had turned over to look at Jinsol, eyes gleaming in the dark. This is our home now.

And they’d really tried to make it one. The rest of the ship was for business, but their bedroom was for them. Jinsol had bought some laughably innocuous fairy lights from a black market on Locria, and Sooyoung hung up various trinkets they picked up on their travels. Jinsol’s heart aches suddenly at the thought of it—all gone, probably, burned up in an incinerator on Ionia.

Still, she presses the door lock, waiting for the door to open with a soft hiss. When the lights finally turn on, she expects a bare room. She expects military-grade bedding and gray walls. She expects spartan severity, not a hint of the softness of before still lingering.

She doesn’t expect the room to look almost exactly the way it did before.

Entranced, she steps inside, unable to contain the soft gasp that escapes her. The walls are the same shade of blue, painted with dye from some bird’s eggs. Fairy lights are looped around the empty bunks and pinned to the walls. On the bunk that had always been Jinsol’s sits a thick knitted quilt, folded neatly and placed at the foot of the bed. The covers of Sooyoung’s bed haven’t been made yet. The nightstand between their beds has a few photo frames on it—Jinsol steps closer, picking one up to take a look.

It’s a picture of her and Sooyoung, taken after their first successful delivery. There’s a greenish goo smeared on the side of Sooyoung’s face and Jinsol’s hair has burrs in it, but they’re beaming at the camera like they’d just won the lotto.

“I tried to make it look like before.”

Jinsol whips around so fast her neck almost cracks. Sooyoung stands in the doorway, hands behind her back. The expression on her face is nothing like Jinsol’s ever seen before—she’d almost say awkward, if for the simple fact that Sooyoung doesn’t do awkward.

Jinsol takes another look at the photo. Sooyoung shifts her weight from one foot to the other, not daring to cross the threshold. “I had someone try to save some of the stuff on the old ship before it got destroyed, but they couldn’t get everything. I had to go back to some of our old haunts to try and find replacements.”

Jinsol’s throat tightens. She holds up the photo frame. “And the picture?”

Sooyoung sticks out her thumb, and a small metal disk pops out of the flesh. Jinsol suppresses a gag at the sight. “I got this done luckily right before we got captured. They couldn’t find it on me while I was in holding. Everything’s on here.”

Jinsol looks at the picture one more time before setting it back down. She rests her hands on the nightstand, picking at her nails so she doesn’t have to look at Sooyoung. “You didn’t tell me.”

“You weren’t supposed to know.” She doesn’t have to look to know that the smile on Sooyoung’s face is bittersweet, tinged with apology. “It might have… compromised things. I didn’t want to risk it.”

“So is that all I am now?” She surprises herself at how angrily the words rip themselves out of her throat, brimming with pent-up vitriol as she pins Sooyoung with a glare. “A liability?”

“No, that’s not what I—” Sooyoung cuts herself off, and Jinsol’s never seen her flounder this badly before. Her mouth gapes open like the words have fallen right out of it. Jinsol wonders what happened to her silver-tongued best friend who could talk her way out of a cage. “No,” she says finally, firm. “Never. I just… didn’t want you to get hurt.”

“Well, it’s a little late for that,” scoffs Jinsol, looking away. Her hands curl into tight fists, nails digging into her palms.

“I’m sorry,” says Sooyoung, and Jinsol freezes.

Now that’s a phrase she hasn’t heard in years—this can’t be the real Sooyoung, can it? She never even gave Jinsol a proper apology for the time she accidentally broke her arm, just took over the bulk of her duties for a few months and indulged Jinsol’s whining more than she normally does. Because that’s what Sooyoung does—she tells half-truths, she dodges around, and if she wants to show something she does it through her actions.

“I’m sorry,” she repeats. Jinsol flinches. “I can’t explain it well, but you’ll understand soon enough.”

“Fine,” Jinsol grits out. She lets her hands unclench, slowly bringing them back down by her side. “You better not be lying to me, Ha Sooyoung.”

“I promise,” says Sooyoung. Jinsol knows better to put any stock in her promises now, though.

But she allows herself to take one more look around at the room, the sleeping quarters Sooyoung has obviously taken pains to recreate as carefully as possible. Jinsol picks up another one of the photo frames. This one is from the time the old ship’s engine had broken down and they’d crash-landed on Doria—it’s a reprint of the shitty fluoroluminescent paper that had been the only thing that worked in the camera they had at the time. Jinsol’s wearing overalls and leaning against the side of the ship, completely covered in grease. There’s a wrench in her hand, and she’s laughing so hard she can’t stand straight.

Jinsol hadn’t even known Sooyoung had taken this picture. She sets it back down.

“Thank you,” she says quietly. It means a lot—that the room still looks like this. She doesn’t trust Sooyoung with much anymore, but she trusts her to know what she’s talking about.

For the first time today, Sooyoung smiles. “Welcome home.”

Sooyoung leaves her alone for a while, to sit on the replica of her old bed and just absorb everything. Think for a while. Jinsol thinks and thinks, and then she eventually gets tired of her own thoughts and wanders back to the cockpit.

Sooyoung’s in the pilot’s seat, fingers jetting nimbly over the dashboard. Jinsol’s a little disturbed by how natural it is for her to slip into the copilot seat next to her. “You still haven’t told me where we’re going.”

“Take a look for yourself,” Sooyoung replies, leaning back in her seat. Jinsol leans forward, eyes flitting over the screen. She does a double take when she reads it and the words finally process in her head. The autopilot’s set for Dal Segno, a trading outpost in the northern regions of— “Phrygia?”

Sooyoung nods. “I guess I said ‘welcome home’ a bit too early.”

The ship is home, but Phrygia—Phrygia is really home. It’s the planet she was born on, the planet she spent fifteen years of her life on. She hasn’t been back in a few years, but her memories of the place are still so fresh, as if she’d just left yesterday. “You— I— We’re going back to Phrygia?”

Sooyoung reaches out for her hand, almost instinctively like the way she always used to, but stops just short of touching her when Jinsol flinches with her entire body. Her hand hangs in the air for a moment before she brings it back to her lap. “Brace yourself. It’s… not the same as before. It’s not what you remember. You’ll see what I couldn’t explain to you.”

Approaching planet atmosphere, the ship chimes before Jinsol can ask what the hell that means. Shields going up in three, two, one. Brace for impact.

Jinsol straps herself in, closing her eyes and riding out the impact of sluicing through the planet’s atmosphere that she’d always hated. Now, though, the way the ship jerks her around is almost welcome with how familiar it is. The engines shift around loudly, hissing into a slow descent, and Jinsol opens her eyes.

The sky is gray.

A gasp catches in her throat, the image she’d kept in her mind of Phrygia’s lilac skies effectively wiped clean. There are no clean cirrus clouds, but there’s a ton of smog—it obscures the entire windshield. When they hit a clump of smoke, it shakes the ship, sending Jinsol launching forward in her seat. The seatbelts burn against her shoulders where they pull her back from flying onto the dashboard.

“No,” she breathes, or at least she thinks she does, but the sudden sound of gunfire drowns out anything she could’ve said. A quick round of explosions sounds off, each boom growing progressively louder and ringing in her ears.

“Dammit,” Sooyoung curses, taking the ship off autopilot to manually steer instead. With a few quick taps, she pulls up a radar screen overlaid over the windshield, the outline of foreign objects quickly approaching. Well, that’s new. “I didn’t think they’d gotten this far up already.”

“Wait, what—” Jinsol tries to ask, but she’s cut off when Sooyoung gives the joystick a hard jerk to the left and sends the ship spinning. Her head slams into the back of her seat. A sharp pull up, and they’re shooting out of reach of a burst of laserfire.

“Is it any use putting up the flags,” Sooyoung mutters to herself, deftly steering them out of harm’s way with a skill Jinsol didn’t even know she had. She still doesn’t know what’s going on, and Sooyoung doesn’t seem like she’s about to offer up an explanation any time soon. “No one’s cared about neutral parties for weeks now. We wouldn’t be obvious enemies, though? But the drift would slow us down—”

“Sooyoung, what’s going on—” Jinsol tries again, but a sudden impact rocks the ship and sends her flying forward again. Even before the alarms pop up on the screen, she can already tell what’s wrong—they’ve been hit on the starboard wing. Not a critical hit, or else they’d already be spiraling down at terminal speeds, but it’ll definitely slow them down. And at this point, Jinsol doesn’t think they can afford that.

She unbuckles herself out of the seat, standing up on shaky legs. “Sooyoung, switch.”

Sooyoung grits her teeth, fingers white around where she’s gripping the joystick so hard it looks like it’s about to break off. “But—”

“Now!”

Sooyoung’s fingers fly to her restraints, fumbling with the buckles, and Jinsol realizes she’s nervous. She may have been forced to get better at flying the ship while Jinsol was out of commission and it shows, but she’s a long way from handling it with as much ease as Jinsol does. This is the difference between them—Sooyoung rose to the occasion, but Jinsol was born to fly.

And that’s why she needs to be in the pilot’s seat, right now.

Jinsol knocks Sooyoung’s hands away to unclip the buckles herself, sliding into the seat as soon as Sooyoung vacates it. It’s in the pilot’s seat that her head clears—the windshield may be fogged, but she can see the air currents in her mind’s eye, instinctively knows how to ride the thermals and marks out a path.

“Do you even know where to go?” asks Sooyoung, voice pitched with tension.

“Dal Segno, right?” says Jinsol. It’s not really a question—she could fly to Dal Segno in her sleep. “Easy.”

“What do you mean, easy—” starts Sooyoung, before cutting off into a scream as Jinsol sends them rocketing downward, weaving past gunfire and flying bombs. This may technically be Sooyoung’s ship now, but she still doesn’t know it like Jinsol does. Jinsol knows exactly what it takes to break this ship, which is why she also knows how to push it to its limits without damaging it.

“Hang on tight!” Jinsol cackles, adrenaline pumping through her veins. She’s never felt more alive. They break through the thick layer of smog, finally in the innermost layer of the atmosphere, and Jinsol fixes her sights on Dal Segno. The old trading post has developed into a fortress, walls fortified with new technology.

Out of pure reckless abandon, she casts a sideways glance at Sooyoung, whose face is paper white. “I hope you have a way to get us inside,” she says, jerking her chin towards the castle, “because I really don’t think parking outside is gonna work.”

She pulls the ship out of its sharp downward plunge, shifting gears and slamming the thrusters to send the ship barreling across the horizon towards the fortress. WIth her free hand, she readjusts the display, zooming in. There are what looks like hangar doors installed into one side. Jinsol recalibrates the ship’s trajectory as the sounds of gunfire start to catch up to them, giving the throttle one last push—a leap of faith.

Meters before they can crash into the hangar doors, Sooyoung pries a hand off the armrests of her chair and slams a button on the dashboard. The doors slide open smoothly just in time to let them in. Jinsol slams the brakes, pulling them into one last spin so fast her head feels like it’s about to explode, and brings them to a gentle hover in midair.

She lands the ship on an empty strip of land. Sooyoung lets out a sigh that turns into something that sounds like the precursor to retching noises, and Jinsol passes her an airsickness bag just in time for her to puke into it. She looks away to give her some privacy—and looks out through the windshield at the rest of the hangar. The merchant ships of a decade ago are all gone, and the building itself is mostly empty. The only ships left are all sleek machines of war.

Once Sooyoung stops sounding like she’s about to spew out her lungs, Jinsol passes her a tissue. “Thanks,” she says, wiping her mouth and throwing everything away. She presses another button, and the hatch in the back of the ship opens, a walkway shooting out and securing itself onto the ground.

Jinsol unbuckles herself out the seat, watching as Sooyoung struggles to stand up on shaky legs. Instinctively, she almost moves to wrap an arm around Sooyoung and let her lean on her as they walk out—but as soon as her mind processes the thought, her body rejects the idea, muscles locking up. She can’t move, can only watch Sooyoung curse as her knees buckle.

In the end, she offers no help. Sooyoung moves like she didn’t expect her to, heading directly towards the exit. Or as directly as she can, considering she still looks like a newborn deer.

Jinsol follows her down the walkway, a safe few meters behind. There’s someone waiting at the bottom. Jinsol squints hard at the faraway shape, but her eyesight must’ve gotten worse while she was in prison. It’s not until the person speaks that she realizes who it is. “Did you get her?”

“Sure did,” says Sooyoung, sounding a lot more confident than she did two minutes ago. Once Jinsol’s feet hit solid ground, she turns to look at the newcomer, not believing her eyes.

“Did you kidnap the Princess of Mixolydia?” she turns on Sooyoung, pinning her with a look.

“No one kidnapped anyone,” says Sooyoung, eyes shooting open in alarm, at the same time Vivi scoffs, “Bold of you to assume I’d ever let myself be kidnapped by anyone.”

“You kidnapped me,” says Jinsol, crossing her arms.

“I saved you from prison!” Sooyoung squawks.

“You extracted me from my previous environment and brought me somewhere without my consent,” Jinsol fires back. “I think that counts as kidnapping.”

“Um, hello?” Vivi cuts in, waving a hand in between them. “I’m here too? Can you two stop your lovers’ spat and pay attention to me?”

“It’s not a lovers’ spat!” says Sooyoung. For once in this entire conversation, Jinsol has to agree.

Vivi waves her off, and Jinsol takes the moment to scan her from head to toe. Gone are the silk dresses and delicate tiaras traditionally favored by the Princess of Mixolydia—the Vivi in front of her now wears a gray tracksuit, armed to the teeth with knives and blasters strapped to her legs.

It wasn’t that Vivi wasn’t armed before—she was just never so open about it. “What is Her Royal Highness doing here?” asks Jinsol, one eyebrow raised.

“Just Vivi is okay,” she says casually. “My title means little here. There are no royal guards here to behead you for addressing me incorrectly, anyways.”

At Jinsol’s expression, she lets out a laugh. “What? Do you Phrygians not understand jokes?”

“Forgive me if I’m a little on edge, Your Highness,” Jinsol drawls, voice dripping with sarcasm. “I’m a little slower than usual. Getting kidnapped makes it hard for me to process jokes.”

“I didn’t kidnap you!” Sooyoung cuts in, insistent. Neither Jinsol nor Vivi pay her any mind.

Vivi scowls. “I told you, Vivi’s fine. Anyways, we should head back inside. The others are waiting.”

“The others?” asks Jinsol, at the same time Sooyoung lets out a groan.

“Heejin better not have reconfigured my blasters while I was gone,” she huffs, marching towards the exit without a thought for the other two.

Jinsol shoots a look at Vivi. “Heejin? You’re telling me Heejin is here?”

Vivi shrugs. “She said it, not me.”

Name: Phrygia

Type of Object: Planet

Location: Alpha Quarter, Centaurus System

Atmospheric: Yes

Inhabited: Yes

Other notes: Known for its beautiful lilac skies and delicious delicacies. Tension between the two main species of inhabitants, the Dalenians and the Chabarese, has been prevalent for centuries, making this otherwise idyllic tourist spot somewhat dangerous. Travel is still encouraged, but check warnings and news before you go and do not plan for a long stay.

“I swear I didn’t touch your blasters,” a loud voice echoes into the hallway where Jinsol and Vivi are walking.

“She definitely touched them,” says another voice, quieter. “I think she broke one of them.”

“Well, I fixed it!”

“This way,” says Vivi, leading her into what must have been the main trading room before. The ceilings are high and the room is expansive. When it’s full of traders like it normally is, it doesn’t look so big, but with everything cleared to the side aside from one table in the middle, the acoustics are overbearing. Everything echoes, which means Jinsol can hear much more of Heejin and Hyunjin’s squabbling than she would like.

“‘Fixed’ is debatable,” says Hyunjin, smirking.

Heejin turns on her, pointing dramatically. “You have a smart mouth, don’t you?”

“That’s not what you said last—”

“Okay,” Sooyoung interrupts, dragging out the vowel and talking over their bickering. “That’s enough. Heejin, don’t experiment on my blasters. Hyunjin, maybe stop her next time? Aren’t you supposed to be her impulse control?”

Hyunjin shrugs. “I don’t need impulse control,” Heejin retorts.

“Yes, you do,” says Sooyoung, ready to end the discussion. She picks up a tablet and types something into it, but Jinsol’s still too far away to see. “Jungeun’s not back yet, right? Where’s Yeojin?”

“Still sleeping.”

“Still? It’s past noon!”

Heejin shrugs. “Miracle Girl needs her sleep.”

“It’s hard to tell time when the sky’s covered with smog and shit, anyways,” chimes in Hyunjin.

“What the fuck are you two doing here?” asks Jinsol, approaching the table. She casts a sideways glance at Sooyoung, but the other girl is still too busy with her tablet to offer an explanation. The last time they’d run into Heejin and Hyunjin, Jinsol had sworn she’d snipe them if she ever saw them again, so needless to say she’s not too thrilled by them being here.

“You got her,” says Hyunjin to Sooyoung, ignoring her question.

Heejin laughs, turning her cheshire grin in Jinsol’s direction. “Hey, weren’t you the one who said you’d kill us next time you saw us? Shouldn’t I have a blaster pressed to my forehead by now, blondie?”

Jinsol crosses her arms with a huff, suddenly unsettled by how unarmed she is—it’d taken Heejin’s reminder for her to realize how naked she feels with any weapons on her person, not even a knife. “I’m deciding to give you two the benefit of the doubt. We’ll see how I feel after someone explains everything to me.”

“Don’t kill them,” says Sooyoung, still occupied with her tech. Jinsol scowls—what is she even doing on there?

“Care to explain why you’re suddenly best friends with a pair of criminals, who—need I remind you—robbed us blind last time we ran into them?” she asks. “What kind of motley rebel crew are you assembling? Why the hell are two mercenaries and the princess of Mixolydia peacefully coexisting in one space?”

Heejin bursts into laughter, slamming a fist down onto the table. Hyunjin smirks. “Oh yeah, I forgot we did that.”

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten,” says Jinsol, pointing a finger at Hyunjin, then at Heejin. Eventually she can’t decide which one she’d like to point at more, so she uses both hands to point at both of them at the same time. Heejin laughs harder, and even Hyunjin’s starting to giggle a little. “We were stuck eating goo nuggets for a month after you stole our bounty. You don’t forget that kind of trauma.”

“Hey, we’re not the only criminals now, Miss Jailbreak,” says Heejin. “How was prison? Five-star meals, right?”

“We’ve… reconciled,” Sooyoung cuts in, before Jinsol can rip Heejin’s head off. She puts down the tablet, wincing at Heejin’s shrieks of laughter. “I chose to overlook their past actions against us in exchange for their talents.”

Jinsol scowls. “What talents?”

“The talent of bombing shit!” Heejin cackles.

Unfortunately, Jinsol can’t really dispute that. Heejin’s probably the most brilliant scientist-slash-technician this side of the universe, and Hyunjin once shot the wing off a butterfly from three parsecs away.

“Then what is Her Royal Highness doing here?” asks Jinsol, jerking a thumb at Vivi.

“I told you, just call me Vivi,” snaps Vivi, smacking Jinsol’s hand down. “I’m contributing resources. These two,” she points at the devil duo, “have found my help to be very useful.”

Jinsol looks at the matching expressions on all three of their faces and a chill runs down her spine. She can’t shake off the feeling that something fundamental about the universe has been irreparably damaged by the three of them meeting.

“Jungeun’s out doing recon right now,” says Sooyoung, and that Jinsol can understand. “Yeojin is… well, you know how Yeojin is.”

Jinsol nods. That doesn’t need to be explained. “What I don’t understand is how you got all of these people to willingly gather in one place and agree to work together. Is the world ending or something?” she laughs.

No one laughs with her. The four of them share a nervous glance. Jinsol doesn’t like the look of that. “Well…” says Heejin.

“It might,” finishes Sooyoung, and Jinsol really doesn’t like the finality in her tone. “You might wanna sit down for this.”

Heejin immediately pulls out a chair and sits down, and after a beat, Jinsol copies her. After they’re all seated, save for Sooyoung, who’s still standing, Sooyoung activates the screen on the table. It lights up in ripples under her palm, the blackness giving way to a stylized map. “This is what Phrygia looked like two years ago,” says Sooyoung. With another flick of her fingers, colors show up on the screen—red and blue.

Sooyoung swipes two fingers left, and the distribution of colors on the screen changes. Jinsol leans forward to get a better look. The splotches of red and blue, which had just been small and scattered in the first image, shift sizes dramatically. The screen is almost covered in red now, with only small pockets of blue near the poles. “The blue represents Dalenian territory,” says Sooyoung, with a purposeful look at Jinsol. Jinsol’s breath catches for a moment—that’s her people.

“And the red?” asks Jinsol, heart sinking. She already knows the answer.

“The Chabarese,” Sooyoung confirms. “Civil war broke out two years ago, just before we got arrested.”

“And you betrayed me and got me thrown in jail,” Jinsol tacks on.

“Before I did… that,” says Sooyoung, grimacing. “It was for a reason, though. The Dalenians were massively overpowered by the Chabarese, and many of them were either killed or taken prisoner. We’ve received word recently that the Chabarese have started experimenting on some of the prisoners, but we’re not sure exactly what they’re doing with them. We just know it’s not good.”

“There’s no guarantee I would’ve been taken, though,” argues Jinsol, but as soon as the words come out of her mouth Sooyoung slams her hands on the table, eyes piercing.

“They pulled me out of warp in the middle of empty space, just because I happened to pass Phrygia on the warp path,” says Sooyoung, staring straight at Jinsol and laying heavy emphasis on each word. “That’s neutral territory. I was stuck in holding for two weeks until they could do a body scan to prove I wasn’t Dalenian, and there were hundreds of other people crammed in a jail with me, all of them passersby who’d been sucked out of space randomly.”

“They pulled you out of warp?” says Jinsol, voice pitching sharply. Once a ship’s in warp, little but God herself can pull it out until it reaches its destination. “What the fuck kind of technology do they have?”

Sooyoung straightens up, crossing her arms with a sigh. “That’s the problem. That’s where it gets bigger than just Phrygia.”

“Just Phrygia?” repeats Jinsol, wondering what the hell could be bigger than a fucking planet-wide civil war, but Sooyoung’s already moving on. She taps the screen again, and the map fades out. A new, interstellar map pops up, dotted lines connecting various objects on the screen.

“We traced the start of the war here on Phrygia to a conflict on Locria,” says Sooyoung, and the line connecting the two planets lights up. “That’s just within this solar system, though. The war on Locria started over a special purified version of comet quintessence that was outsourced from a planet in the Kovskaivian system, but it was actually agents from the Zarmotian system that secured the transfer.” More lines light up, and the screen is starting to look like a red web of lines. “The agents were contracted by a merchant from a planet in the Bhotian system, but we checked and there’s no way that specific merchant would’ve had enough funds to hire them.”

Even more lines light up, criss-crossing over the screen, and Jinsol’s starting to see stars from how bright they are. Her head’s spinning. “Please tell me that’s it.”

“There’s more,” says Sooyoung, a hint of apology in the downturn of her lips. “It took us a really long time, but we got Hyejoo to hack into government servers and trace the funds transfer all the way to,” Sooyoung flicks two fingers apart, and the screen zooms in, “here.”

“Hyejoo too?” At this point, Jinsol wouldn’t be surprised if Sooyoung had just gathered together everyone they knew, allies and enemies alike.

Sooyoung nods. “They tried to reroute across five different planets,” more connections appear on the map, “but eventually, everything led here. A tiny planet anchored to no star, with no public leader that we know of, named Buobacaran—or BBC for short.”

“And what’s so significant about BBC?”

Apparently, the question she’d actually asked was how can things get a lot fucking scarier really fucking fast, because Sooyoung zooms out and suddenly the whole screen is awash in red, hundreds of thin red lines zipping across. Jinsol can feel the back of her eyelids burning. “It took us two years,” says Sooyoung, “but we marked every single insurgence over the past decade. Everything—every tiny riot, every little skirmish—has something to do with BBC.”

Jinsol tears her eyes away from the map to look at the people sitting around the table. No one’s smiling—even Heejin’s face is grim.

“They’ve had this plan in the works for a long time.” Sooyoung powers down the screen, and Jinsol’s eyes smart from the sudden loss of light. “And it was catalyzed by the destruction of Earth.”

Jinsol stifles a gasp, running through timelines in her head—true to what Sooyoung had said, that was just over a decade ago. The two of them had met a little before then.

Sooyoung throws her arms out in a wide sweep, gesturing at everyone sitting around the table. “So you can see why we’ve all put aside our differences to come together. We didn’t have a choice.”

“And now?”

“We take down BBC,” says Vivi, who’s been quiet this entire time. Jinsol turns to look at her—there’s a fire in her eyes that burns hotter than any star she’s ever seen. Jinsol shivers. “What else is there to do?”

Name: Buobacaran

Type of Object: Planet

Location: Unknown

Atmospheric: Unknown

Inhabited: Unconfirmed, but most likely

Other notes: Its presence was completely unknown of until the last decade, when it began appearing in whispers and rumors. No reported sightings or visitations are available, but it has gathered a great deal of momentum within the underground political and economic spheres within the past few years.

Jinsol didn’t mean to get stuck on Earth, but she’d forgotten to refuel her ship after her last trip and had to make an emergency stop. She stands outside the parked ship, cursing under her breath as she calls the fourth contact on her emergency contacts list and waits for them to pick up. Earth doesn’t have the kind of fuel she needs, so she’ll just have to wait for someone else to bring it to her.

“What are you doing here?” someone asks. Jinsol spins around, waiting for her universal translator to kick in. It’s a girl, skinny and gangly and awkward-looking—seems to be around her age.

“I ran out of fuel,” she admits. “Had to make an emergency stop.”

“Where were you going?”

Jinsol narrows her eyes—this one’s curious, isn’t she. “To Ghrigian,” she says finally, seeing no reason to lie. “I was supposed to be shipping some Locrian delicacies over, I hope they don’t spoil.”

“So you make intergalactic deliveries?” asks the girl. When Jinsol nods, the girl says. “That’s cool. What’s your name?”

“Jinsol.”

“I’m Sooyoung,” the girl returns, and Jinsol has to admit it’s a pretty-sounding name. “Hey, wanna come in for some food while you’re waiting for your fuel? My mom made kimchi jjigae. It’s really good.”

Jinsol has no idea what that is, the translator unable to process it, but she nods anyways. “Sounds good.”

Jinsol stays for a meal with Sooyoung’s family, stays overnight, and leaves the next day with her ship refueled, without a second thought. It’s not until two years later, when Earth is destroyed and Sooyoung shows up in her boiler room, that Jinsol’s hit by two things—one, massive deja vu, and two, the sudden realization that the universe makes sure all debts are eventually paid.

Vivi had made it sound so simple earlier—take down BBC, stop every solar system from imploding on itself, universe saved. It wasn’t really that simple.

Sooyoung pulls her down a different hallway than the rest of them are heading when they leave the main room, under the guise of showing her around the place. What she actually does is push Jinsol into a random supply closet as soon as they’re out of sight, cramming herself in with her and locking the door behind them. Jinsol hits a shelf with her elbow as she stumbles back, pain shooting up her arm.

“What the—”

“Shhhh,” Sooyoung interrupts, clamping a hand over Jinsol’s mouth. The closet is poorly lit—she can only make out the shine of Sooyoung’s eyes, bright in the dark. “I told the others I’d brief you separately on the plan so they didn’t have to sit through everything again. But I need to tell you something I didn’t tell them.”

“So much for all that camaraderie earlier.”

“Shut up,” says Sooyoung. The low light highlights the red flush on her cheeks, and Jinsol finds herself staring for a little too long. “It’s not that I don’t trust them, it’s just—you know what, let me just show you.”

Sooyoung takes a step back, putting a few more inches of distance between them, and the breath Jinsol didn’t know she was holding punches its way out of her lungs. Before Jinsol can ask exactly what Sooyoung wants to show her, Sooyoung holds up her right hand, palm out. A tiny disk pops out of her index finger—not the same one as her thumb, Jinsol’s addled brain notes—and this time, Jinsol doesn’t manage to suppress her flinch. She’s not sure if Sooyoung noticed in the dark—her face is as impassive as always.

“How many mods did you get?” she asks.

“Enough,” says Sooyoung. Jinsol narrows her eyes at the vague answer, but Sooyoung plows on. “There’s an upcoming gala on Berceuse coming up. The others know we’re attending to keep tabs on the other high-profile leaders that are going to be there, but I also have another mission.”

“And I’m guessing it has something to do with your new bling,” says Jinsol, wry.

“You’re so clever,” Sooyoung drawls, throwing her sarcasm back at her. “I have half of the code for the Modal key encoded on here,” she says, way too blithely considering the bombshell she’d just dropped, and taps the disk back into her index finger.

Jinsol’s jaw drops. “The Modal key?” she hisses. “Like the fucking storybook legend shit?”

First of all, she didn’t even think the Modal key was real. Like, her mother told her bedtime stories about the world ending to try and scare her into not eating so much candy so monsters wouldn’t come and eat her for being too sweet. The Modal key made brief appearances every now and then, but her mother always talked about it like it was some deus ex machina and eventually Jinsol chalked it up to an object of fantasy. World ending, throw in a cheap storytelling device, bam—world saved. The kid falls asleep, the story ends for the night, and the Modal key only returns the next time five-year-old Jinsol refuses to go to bed on time.

Second of all, she doesn’t even know what it does.

“I have no idea either,” Sooyoung confesses. “It’s all super ancient code that I couldn’t make sense of—even Hyejoo couldn’t figure it out.”

“You told Hyejoo about the Modal key?” asks Jinsol, a little too loud.

“Shhhh!” Sooyoung slaps her hand over Jinsol’s mouth again. “Of course I didn’t. I just asked her some vague questions, and she gave me a weird look and said, and I quote, “aren’t you supposed to be the dumb jock? Just leave the coding shit to me.’”

Jinsol bites back a laugh at that—Sooyoung’s not dumb, but she certainly acts like a jock sometimes. The realization of why Sooyoung hadn’t told anyone hits her, though, and she sobers up. Sooyoung has a chunk of the most valuable and sensitive information in the universe encoded on a finger drive. Jinsol can name at least five people off the top of her head who would kill to get their hands on that kind of information if they knew it existed—which is precisely the problem.

With the code stored in a body modification like that, there’s only two ways to extract it—have the holder willingly give it up, or kill her.

Considering the number of people they’ve encountered who live by the philosophy “shoot first, ask questions later,” she doubts many would have the patience to try the first option. If Jinsol had something like that in her body, she certainly wouldn’t tell anyone. Which begs the question— “Then why are you telling me this?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Sooyoung fires back.

“Didn’t you just spend this entire conversation telling me you didn’t tell anyone because you didn’t want to be killed for it?” asks Jinsol, exasperated.

“You’re my best friend!” Sooyoung bursts out. “If I can’t trust you, who else can I tell?”

Oh no. She did not just say that. She did, the unhelpful part of Jinsol’s brain chimes in.

“You— you—” she flounders, poking a finger into Sooyoung’s shoulder. “I can’t believe you!” she yells, the words ripping themselves right out of her throat. “After you betrayed me, got me locked up in maximum security interstellar prison for two years, and then came back with the bullshit excuse that you did it for my own safety—which, may I remind you, you didn’t trust me enough to tell me at the time—you have the nerve to put your goddamn life in my hands because you trust me? Because we’re best friends?”

“Are we not?” asks Sooyoung, voice small. Even in the dark, Jinsol can see her eyes shining with hurt, and two years ago she would’ve been quick to apologize and assure her that yes, they were best friends and always will be. That was two years ago, though—things are different now.

“I don’t know what your definition of friendship is, Sooyoung, but in my book best friends don’t go around betraying each other out of convenience,” Jinsol says.

“It wasn’t out of convenience!” insists Sooyoung. “I told you, I did it—”

“To protect me?” Jinsol interrupts. “Who do you think you are, my mom? You can’t just make decisions like that without fucking telling me. You were the one who said we were partners, Sooyoung—partners are supposed to tell each other things and work together. Before you got me fucking jailed,” she grits out, jaw as tense as iron, “I told you everything, because I thought we were best friends.”

Her breathing is heavy, lungs sucking up oxygen like a vacuum. She’d gotten more worked up than she’d intended to. Sooyoung falls silent, face sliding back into a neutral expression, and the sight of it sets off something in Jinsol again. She hates that Sooyoung can always do this—get her yelling and screaming in a passion, while looking wholly unaffected herself.

Sooyoung looks up, and Jinsol can only just catch a hint of hurt in her eyes before it disappears behind a wall of steel. “So am I wrong for trusting you then?” she asks, voice measured. It’s suddenly too quiet. There’s no more blood rushing in Jinsol’s ears; now all she can hear is the sounds of their breathing mixing together. “If you were in my position, you wouldn’t trust me?”

Yes, of course I would, I always will, whispers a small part of Jinsol’s brain, the one that would follow Sooyoung to the ends of the earth. The one that was so hurt when Sooyoung left her, and the one that leapt for joy when she came back. The one that still dares to hope now, still wants to believe.

Jinsol squishes it down, mercilessly shoving it under the rage boiling over in the other parts of her brain. She can’t afford to let that part of her brain win out.

“No, I wouldn’t,” she snaps, shoving past Sooyoung and letting herself out of the closet. She stomps down a random hallway, and doesn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved when she doesn’t hear Sooyoung following her.

Sooyoung lying about showing her around in favor of telling her something she didn’t want to know means that Jinsol actually doesn’t know where she’s going now. She’s been walking for ten minutes now, her initial rage-fueled march tempered down to a stroll once she gets lost in the maze of passages in Dal Segno.

Jinsol stops at a crossroads, realizing she has no idea where she is right now. She’d just kept walking and walking and walking, and she can’t even retrace her steps. In another situation, it’d be a deadly error, one she thought she’d hammered out long ago. She’d gotten distracted, though, too angry to pay attention to where she was going, and in another situation it could have cost her her life.

In this situation, though, she’s just lost.

Voices float down the hallway. Jinsol turns her head to better pick up the sound, and shrugs to herself—it’s not like she has a better plan at the moment. She follows the sound, letting it guide her around the corner and into a small kitchen.

Heejin stands at the stove, humming to herself and following along with a video on her tablet. Jinsol steps inside, taking a sniff—it smells really good, actually. “What are you making?”

“Ah!” screams Heejin, knocking a small bowl over and throwing her spatula into the air. Jinsol catches the spatula before it can hit the ground, watching Heejin hastily dust spilled salt into a trash can. “A little warning next time, maybe?” says Heejin, looking up to glare at her. “You could’ve ruined my experiment.”

Jinsol returns her stare, unimpressed. “You were cooking.”

“Like I said, my experiment.” Heejin takes the spatula back from her without a thanks, listlessly stirring the contents of her pan for a bit before turning the heat down. “Lots of important data collection going on here.”

The woman in the video keeps droning on, having escaped Heejin’s notice. “Like how to make,” Jinsol stands on her tiptoes to peek at what’s inside the pan, “fried rice?’

“Exactly,” says Heejin. “It’s very important stuff, dear blondie.”

“Stop calling me that!”

Heejin ignores her, turning the stove all the way off and taking the pan off. She scoops some fried rice onto two plates, sliding one down the counter to Jinsol. “Want some?”

Jinsol scowls at the offering. “How do I know this isn’t poisoned?” she asks, half-joking.

“I’m offended, blondie,” Heejin gasps, stuffing a spoonful of rice into her mouth. Well, that’s reassuring. “Have I ever done you wrong?”

“Yes!”

“Oh, that’s right. I forgot you threatened to kill me,” says Heejin, chewing with her mouth open. “You’ll just have to trust me, then.”

Jinsol looks from where Heejin’s enthusiastically shoving more rice into her mouth down at her own plate. The rice is a gorgeous golden color, and it smells delicious—if it really is poisoned, there are probably worse ways to go. Cautiously, she takes a bite. The flavors explode on her tongue immediately, a rich mix of spices. “Wow, this is actually really good.”

“Nice.” Heejin claps her hands together. “So in about five minutes it should kick in—”

Jinsol snaps her head up in alarm, almost choking on the rice only for Heejin to burst out laughing. “Kidding, kidding,” she wheezes. “But you should’ve seen the look on your face! You looked like a squirrel who just found out its entire winter stash of acorns just got stolen.”

Jinsol swallows. “How do you even know what squirrels are? They all went extinct when Earth got destroyed.”

“Research, duh,” says Heejin, and if her goal is to get Jinsol to try and slap her she’s already more than halfway there. “Also, Sooyoung tells really funny stories about the stupid ones that used to live in her backyard.”

Oh, right. Jinsol’s heard those stories before too—late at night, when the ship was drifting aimlessly in the middle of space and they were tucked into bed. Those nights, she could hear the longing in Sooyoung’s voice, and her sympathy was tinged with the knowledge that she was lucky. At least she could return to Phrygia, even as war-torn as it is right now. Earth is gone—Sooyoung couldn’t even go back if she tried.

“It’s good that you’re back,” says Heejin, after Jinsol falls silent. “She was kinda off-kilter without you, you know?’’

Jinsol laughs bitterly, shoving another spoonful of rice into her mouth. “I doubt it,” she says. “What do you care, anyways?”

“In case you haven’t gotten it yet,” Heejin speaks slowly, as if she’s talking to a small child. “We’re on the same side now. I’m obligated to care if I wanna stay alive, and trust me, I do.”

She has a fair point, Jinsol concedes. “I’m sure you’d be fine without me,” she says, just to argue. She doesn’t really know why.

Heejin shakes her head. “Sooyoung’s sharp, but she doesn’t have all her bases covered. No one does. But you cover them for her.”

She pauses to shovel more rice into her mouth. Jinsol wrinkles her nose at the exaggerated chewing sounds. “Like two sides of the same coin. Or,” she suddenly pulls the blasters out of the holsters at her hips and points them at Jinsol, “twin blasters.”

Jinsol takes a step back, not liking how freely Heejin’s waving those around. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“It totally makes sense,” argues Heejin. “It’s like—” she drops one arm, letting the blaster dangle at her side while she keeps the other one trained on Jinsol— “when you have just one of these babies, it’s alright. Like, it’ll save you in a pinch, but it’s not anyone’s signature weapon.

“These are designed to feed off each other.” She raises her arm again so that both blasters are upright. “They pass energy between each other. When you put them together, they’re a lot stronger. Greater than the sum of their parts. Like so,” she says, cocking them and whirling around to aim them at the wall.

“It’s okay, I don’t need a demonstration,” Jinsol says quickly, before Heejin can blow a hole in the wall.

Heejin shrugs, and in the blink of an eye the blasters are back in their holsters. “Fine, your loss. But you get what I mean, right?”

Jinsol has an idea, yeah. “Not really,” she says anyways, just to be difficult.

“Ugh, you’re so slow,” groans Heejin. “I don’t get how you and Sooyoung work together so well. But that’s exactly the point.” She looks at Jinsol, all traces of mirth wiped from her face. Her gaze is uncomfortably penetrating, thoughtful. “You two have incredible chemistry. I’ve never seen anyone as in sync as you two are, and that’s coming from me. Like, I literally grew up with Hyunjin. I bet I can practically read her mind at this point.”

Jinsol looks away, the savory rice in her mouth suddenly gone bitter. “Two years ago, sure,” she says. Now, she doesn’t know anymore.

Heejin waves her off, dismissive. “It’ll come back, you’ll see. But now you know, yeah? She was starting to go off the rails. You steady her, keep her on the path.”

“Maybe,” Jinsol says noncommittally. The little rice that’s left on her plate has started to go cold, so she shoves the last spoonful in her mouth. “Thanks for the fried rice. You’re not so bad, after all.”

“Does this mean I’m off the kill list?” asks Heejin, serious expression melting away as if it were never there in the first place. She bats her eyelashes obnoxiously, and there’s the Heejin that Jinsol knows. “You can let a little incident from three years ago be bygones, right?”

“Don’t think you’re off the hook yet,” says Jinsol, pointing at her. She drops her arm when Heejin starts pouting, though. Disgusting. “But I’ll consider it.”

“I knew you couldn’t resist my charms,” Heejin crows. “No one can. Especially Sooyoung.” She blinks, as if she’d just realized something, and Jinsol waits for her to share. “Hey, you guys better sort through your shit soon. You’re the ones going to the gala together, it’d be kinda awkward if you were still mad at each other by then.”

Jinsol drops the plate from where she’d been carrying it over to the sink—luckily, it manages to land inside without incurring any cracks. “Wait, what?”

“You didn’t know?” asks Heejin. “I thought Sooyoung told you.”

“No, she didn’t.” Jinsol rubs at her temples, feeling a headache coming on. “What the fuck are we doing at this gala, anyways?”

“Oh, shit, yeah,” says Sooyoung, once Heejin helped guide Jinsol out of the kitchen and into another lounge where the rest of them are. Yeojin’s finally awake—she waves a hand in greeting before returning to the little game console in her hands. “I forgot to mention. It’s a pretty high-profile gathering—security is gonna be really tight, so I figured it’d be safer if we just stuck with the allowed plus one instead of trying to sneak more people in.”

Outwardly, she seems completely normal, but she still won’t make eye contact with Jinsol for longer than two seconds. Jinsol’s fine with that—it’s not like she really wants to look at her right now, anyways.

“You got an invite?” she asks, shocked. She’s used to just crashing these kinds of events, not getting fancy hand-lettered cards mailed out to them.

“I was officially asked to attend as one of the last surviving dignitaries from Earth,” says Sooyoung, embarrassment rising high on her cheeks.

“Yeah, she’s like an official politician and shit,” says Heejin. “Can you believe it? Miss Diplomat slumming it with the rebels.”

“When’d that happen?” asks Jinsol, looking at Sooyoung.

“Like, last year or something. It was a quick process, it doesn’t matter.”

“Okay then,” says Jinsol, suspending her disbelief. “And you said I’m coming as your plus one? What am I then, since I’m definitely not also a surviving dignitary from Earth.”

“Ah.” Sooyoung looks away, refusing to meet her gaze. “You’re attending as my wife.”

“Your what now.”

“I figured it was more convincing than ‘friend,’ okay?” says Sooyoung, when Heejin and Yeojin start laughing. “Politicians bring their wives to important parties all the time!”

“Yeah, but she’s not actually your wife,” Hyunjin points out, before starting to giggle too. Even Vivi’s laughing. Jinsol doesn’t understand what’s so funny about this.

“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now,” Sooyoung huffs, crossing her arms. It’s kind of cute. Jinsol mentally slaps herself for that thought. “I already sent in the RSVP, so as far as anyone outside this room knows, Jinsol and I are married.”

“So where was my wedding invite, huh?” asks Heejin, red in the face.

“You guys,” whines Sooyoung, setting off the rest of them again. Yeojin’s practically rolling on the floor at this point. Jinsol’s head is still spinning from the recent news—she has to pretend to be Sooyoung’s wife. At an intergalactic gala. Where they have to figure out how to save the universe from BBC.

“When are we leaving for this gala, again?” she asks weakly, not sure if anyone can hear her over the laughter of the others.

Sooyoung does, though. “Tomorrow,” she says, before turning to yell at the others. “Hey! Stop it!”

Jinsol sits in the midst of the ruckus, numb. She has less than 24 hours to come to terms with all of the information she’s been given. It’s fine. She’s fine. Everything will be fine.

Everything is not fine.

For one, none of the others are even coming on the ship with them—something about Berceuse scanning ships before they can even land, and Heejin having broken their last working cloak machine and needing more time to fix it. It’s just Jinsol and Sooyoung, and Jinsol can’t help but think it’s a little rich of the others to throw her onto a mission immediately after being broken out of jail with the one person she can’t stand right now.

For two, Sooyoung hasn’t spoken to her once since they boarded.

Jinsol sits in the copilot’s seat, picking at her fingernails while Sooyoung gets up to go to the bathroom. The autopilot’s set for Berceuse, time of arrival estimated to be a little over twenty hours from now. She’d wanted to warp, but Sooyoung had shot that down too—with an event as important and official as this one, she didn’t want to take unnecessary (and illegal) shortcuts just for convenience. Jinsol may be a criminal, but Sooyoung’s record is still clean.

Sooyoung’s calling all the shots now. Jinsol sinks down further into her seat, making no move to acknowledge Sooyoung when she returns from the bathroom. Sooyoung pulls out a tablet and starts fiddling with it. Jinsol takes apart her blasters, cleans them, reloads them, and repeats the process several times. The rest of the day passes in uneventful silence, neither of them willing to talk to the other. Jinsol’s reminded of how well Sooyoung has always matched her stubbornness.

It’s always harder to feel the passage of time on a ship, the empty void of space doing nothing to maintain her normal circadian rhythms. At least back in prison, they’d turn the lights on and off according to a schedule. Jinsol stares out the windshield into inky blackness, the only light from faraway stars, and misses the sun on Phrygia.

“It’s getting late,” Sooyoung says finally, after they spend however many hours sitting in the cockpit. It’s the first thing either of them have said all day, excusing earlier when Jinsol had dropped her fork while eating lunch and Sooyoung had passed her a new one before she could even ask. “We should go to bed now. There’s more to do tomorrow before we land.”

Jinsol gets up from her seat, stretching out and wincing when her joints pop. “Okay.” She doesn’t ask what exactly they’re doing tomorrow—it seems Sooyoung won’t tell her until it’s convenient.

They walk down the hallway together towards the sleeping quarters, but when Jinsol steps inside the room, Sooyoung doesn’t follow. “Good night, Jinsol,” she says, about to keep walking down the hallway.

“What happened to going to bed?” asks Jinsol, before she can walk away.

“Oh.” Sooyoung stops, turning on her heel. “I was gonna sleep on the couch in the lounge.”

A huge wave of relief washes over her, releasing a tension she didn’t even know was there. Jinsol fights to contain her surprise, giving Sooyoung a simple nod in return. “Okay. Good night, Sooyoung.”

“Good night,” Sooyoung repeats. She lingers for a moment, gaze still trained on Jinsol, before she walks away.

Slowly, Jinsol lets out a breath. She hadn’t even thought about what she would’ve done if she and Sooyoung slept in the same room again like they used to. It’s simultaneously infuriating and comforting that Sooyoung still knows her before she even knows herself, had made the sacrifice before she could even ask. She’s… grateful.

Jinsol gets into a copy of her old bed, tucked in with a copy of her old blankets, and for the first time in two years she falls asleep quickly and doesn’t dream.

The next day, Jinsol wanders out of the room to the smell of something cooking in the kitchen. When she finally gets there, there’s already a plate sitting out on the counter for her. “Morning,” says Sooyoung, quietly tucking into her own meal.

Jinsol picks up the plate—it’s tomato egg rice. “Morning,” she returns. “Thanks for breakfast.”

Sooyoung waves her off, gesturing to the chair across the dining table from her. “You should sit down. There’s a lot I need to brief you on before we get to Berceuse today.”

Jinsol raises an eyebrow—so Sooyoung had decided to break yesterday’s silence on her own terms—but acquiesces. As soon as she sits down, Sooyoung starts talking. “I’m using my half of Modal key to act as a sort of sensing probe for the other half of the code. From the whispers I’ve heard floating around the galaxy, it’s embedded inside the jewelry of some high-ranking politician, but they’re unaware of it.”

“So what am I supposed to be looking out for?” asks Jinsol.

“Nothing,” says Sooyoung. At Jinsol’s confused silence, she elaborates. “I’m the only one who’ll be able to sense the other half, since I have my half embedded into my body—” She holds up her index finger again, as if to pop the disk out, but Jinsol holds her hands up to stop her.

“It’s okay,” says Jinsol, shielding her eyes. “I get it. You don’t have to demonstrate again.”

Sooyoung frowns, but she lowers her hand. “Right. Anyways, I’ll be the one on the lookout for it. You’re in charge of watching my back while I snoop around.”

Jinsol nods, finally feeling like she’s starting to find her bearings—she’s used to being the muscle in their plans. “How does that even work?” she asks. “The whole sensing thing?”

“The only material that can handle the code is a metal called Tsilanium,” explains Sooyoung. “The disk in my finger is made out of it. But it looks and acts like any normal grayish metal, so it’s incredibly difficult to detect if you don’t already have a sample of it. I reconfigured the code to let me know when it comes near other sources of Tsilanium, but it’s pretty crude, so it might take a while for me to hone in on the other half.”

Jinsol leans back in her chair, impressed. “Damn. I didn’t know you knew all that sciencey shit too.”

“I badgered Heejin and Hyejoo into teaching me,” says Sooyoung, cheeks starting to redden. “I only know the basics, but it wasn’t too hard.”

That’s still impressive, even if Jinsol hates to admit it. “So that’s what we’re actually here for,” she says. “What do the others think we’re here for?”

“Looking for any signs of BBC,” answers Sooyoong. “Which, I mean, we are still here to do. It may not be objective number one, but it’s still important. BBC’s incredibly secretive about their leadership and chain of command, but I doubt that they wouldn’t send anyone to the gala. So we’re doing a bit of recon too.”

“Alright, good old-fashioned theft with a bit of data collection,” says Jinsol, clapping her hands. She moves to get up out of her seat. “I’ll go start getting ready then.”

“Wait!” says Sooyoung. “There’s more we still have to talk about.”

Jinsol freezes halfway out of her seat, holding her plate awkwardly. “Like what?”

Sooyoung pauses, and Jinsol picks up on the sudden hesitation. Strange. “We need to get our story straight.”

“Our story?”

“Yeah,” says Sooyoung. “Like… our marriage.”

Oh, yeah. “Oh,” Jinsol repeats out loud.

Sooyoung pauses, as if waiting for her to keep talking, but when it doesn’t look like Jinsol’s about to say anything any time soon, she keeps going. “I don’t really know what to expect,” she confesses, “but I figured we better have all our bases covered, at least. Politicians can be kinda gossipy sometimes.”

“Okay, yeah,” Jinsol agrees. “What did you have in mind, then?”

“As long as we’re agreed on basic milestones, it should be okay,” says Sooyoung. “Like, when did we meet?”

This one is easy. “Ten years ago, when you hitchhiked on my ship.”

“When did we start dating?”

Jinsol squints. “Like, four years ago? That sounds alright. Do they know you threw me in jail?”

Sooyoung shakes her head. “It was under a fake name and should be classified, but I made sure to destroy any records when I broke you out. You’ll be disguised anyways.”

“Okay, four years sounds good then,” Jinsol continues. “We can say we got engaged last year and married a few months ago.”

“Who proposed?”

“Me, obviously.” When Sooyoung scoffs, Jinsol glares at her. “What? Are you saying you’d be the one to propose?”

“You don’t have a romantic bone in your body,” Sooyoung retorts. “If we were actually dating, I’d have to take matters into my own hands.”

“I can be romantic!” Jinsol argues. “Like, see, let’s say I popped the question after I took you stargazing on Mixolydia.”

Sooyoung shakes her head. “Cliché.”

“Swimming in the waterfalls on Aeolia?”

“Touristy.”

“Flower picking on Ionia.”

“Kinda underwhelming, don’t you think?”

Jinsol combs a hand through her hair, deep in thought. What kind of proposal would Sooyoung like, anyways? “I set up a scavenger hunt on the ship and made you relive all our memories together, and then asked the question in the boiler room because you originally stowed away there.”

Sooyoung tilts her head, considering. “That’s kinda cute, actually. I like that it comes full circle.”

“That’s because you’re a sucker for romantic narrative shit like that,” scoffs Jinsol, about to lean over and slug her in the shoulder before she realizes they’re starting to act a little too familiar again. She drops her hand awkwardly. “That alright then?”

Sooyoung clears her throat after a beat, breaking the silence. “Yeah, that should be fine.”

“Cool.”

“Yeah.”

Name: Berceuse

Type of Object: Planet

Location: Delta Quarter, Andromeda System

Atmospheric: Yes

Inhabited: Yes

Other notes: The political hub of the known universe, and reputed to be very welcoming to guests. Ruled by a planet-wide direct democracy system, which seems to be working well for them but appears somewhat unnecessary, as all of the planet’s citizens share the same opinion.

“You look nice,” Sooyoung says offhandedly, as the ship starts to lower itself for landing on Berceuse.

Jinsol smooths down the skirt of her dress, a simple silk gown Heejin had pulled out of nowhere and thrown at her. She feels oddly exposed, and not just because of the cut—Sooyoung hadn’t even let her strap a knife to her thigh. We’re trying to be subtle, she’d said, smacking Jinsol’s hand. If things go well, we shouldn’t need to resort to violence.

In Jinsol’s experience, things never go well. But Sooyoung said it would be a bigger risk to try and sneak weapons past security than any potential payoff if a crisis actually happened, and Jinsol can see the logic in that. She still has her fists, if worse comes to worst.

“Thanks,” she says, watching as the clouds on Berceuse’s atmosphere part and the ground starts to come into view. “You look nice, too.”

Nice is understatement—Sooyoung had stepped out of the bathroom in an elegant lace piece, and Jinsol had felt her heart literally jam into her throat. She’d spent a second too long admiring how the fit of the dress complemented Sooyoung’s frame and her brain had fried. She still hasn’t let herself look in Sooyoung’s direction since then, for fear of losing her last remaining brain cells and making an absolute idiot out of herself.

But she can feel Sooyoung’s gaze heavy on her face, and finally she turns to look at her, unable to bear its weight any longer. Sooyoung wears a contemplative expression, eyes resting on the lower half of her face before flitting up to meet her eyes. “Your markings aren’t covered completely.”

Instinctively, Jinsol reaches up to touch her face. No one at the gala was supposed to know she was Dalenian, so they could avoid setting off any potential Chabarese attendees, so she’d tried to cover up her markings—but apparently she hadn’t done it well enough. “Shit, really?” She digs around in her bag for concealer, fumbling to catch her reflection in the little mirror. Sure enough, the markings are starting to show through under the powder.

“Here, let me,” says Sooyoung, taking the concealer out of her hands before she can argue. She grabs Jinsol by the chin, tilting her face towards her. She stills, eyes lingering on Jinsol’s face, and Jinsol’s breath catches in her throat.

Sooyoung starts to apply the concealer, much more carefully and diligently than Jinsol had—while Jinsol had just scrubbed some onto her face and called it a day, Sooyoung takes care to gently dab it onto her face, slowly blending it into her skin. It’s excruciating. Sooyoung’s fingers burn where they touch her chin, searing their imprints into her skin.

“Done,” says Sooyoung, after what feels like both an eternity and five seconds. She pulls her hands away from Jinsol’s face, and Jinsol can’t decide if the feeling coursing through her is relief or longing. “Take a look.”

She hands the pocket mirror back to Jinsol, who holds it up to her face. The markings are completely covered this time, all traces of her Dalenian heritage erased. She could probably pass for an Earther at this point. “Thank you.”

Sooyoung smiles, and Jinsol’s struck by how pure it seems, no traces of any emotion but contentment in her face. For a moment, it feels like they could really just be attending a fancy ball as a couple—but then Sooyoung looks away, and the moment passes. Jinsol follows her gaze to the open windshield, watching as the ground grows closer by the second.

“You ready?” asks Sooyoung.

The engine of the ship whirrs loudly as they descend, drowning out the thoughts in Jinsol’s head. She gulps.

“As ready as I’ll ever be, I guess.”

There are already people waiting for them when the ship docks and the hatch opens, exit ramp feeding out to lead them to the ground. Security detail, Sooyoung mouths at her, before linking their arms and starting to walk down.

A pair of guards waits for them at the bottom, both dipping into deep bows once Jinsol’s feet hit solid ground. “Welcome, esteemed guests,” says one. “Please provide your invitation and proof of identity.”

“Ha Sooyoung.” Sooyoung passes over a small thumb drive, before gesturing at Jinsol. “And my wife, Ha Jinsol.”

The guard scans the drive, returning it to Sooyoung when his wrist device beeps happily. “Excellent. This way, please.”

The guards set off for the tram that’s supposed to bring them to the vast palace in the distance, Sooyoung and Jinsol following behind. “Ha Jinsol?” she hisses at Sooyoung under her breath. “Why am I taking your surname?”

“It’s how I registered you, alright?” Sooyoung hisses back. “I just thought it’d be less suspicious.”

“This entire arrangement is suspicious,” Jinsol retorts, wincing when her voice gets a little too loud. She glances quickly at the guards—luckily, it seems like they didn’t hear her. “Me? Pretending to be your wife?”

“Did you have any better ideas?” asks Sooyoung.

“Maybe I would’ve, if you’d asked me,” Jinsol counters. “Oh, but no, you planned out everything yourself while I was in fucking jail and then assumed I’d just be along for the ride.”

“Well, it’s too late to change anything now,” says Sooyoung, hand tightening the slightest bit on Jinsol’s. “So either you’re onboard or you’re not. And frankly, it’s a little late for that too.”

Jinsol bites back a curse, squeezing back aggressively in retaliation. “I’m onboard. I always am.”

Because regardless of how their plans eventually turn out, Sooyoung always masterminds their inception—and Jinsol may have not gotten to add her input this time, but she’s still the muscle. Sooyoung would be dead ten times over if it weren’t for her.

“Good,” says Sooyoung. “Sorry, we’re coming,” she calls to the guards, who are already waiting at the tram station.

Jinsol can see other gala attendees waiting at the station, but overall the ride to the palace is a quiet affair. She, Sooyoung, and their pair of guards get into a private car, and the tram soon picks up to near supersonic speeds. The windows built into the sides of the car are practically useless—Jinsol takes one look, starts to get a headache from how fast the landscape is zipping by, and focuses her attention back inside the car.

“Have a good time, dear guests,” says one of the guards, once the tram finally grinds to a halt. The palace seems even bigger up close, looming over them like a gargantuan landmass. She thinks Sooyoung returns the platitude, but she can’t be sure—she’s having enough trouble trying to get her head to stop spinning.

“Come on, dear,” says Sooyoung, tangling their hands together and shooting her a winning smile. Jinsol can faintly hear one of the guards going aww in the background. She’s going to puke. “I can’t wait for everyone to see how gorgeous you look today.”

Jinsol slaps on the biggest, fakest smile she can manage. “Oh honey, you didn’t need me for arm candy,” she laughs, trying not to wince at how grating it sounds. “You’ve already got the looks department covered on your own.”

Sooyoung laughs back, pitched awkwardly high. “My Jinsollie, such a joker,” she says to the guards, giggling, before they finally step out of the car. There’s already a queue forming in front of the main entrance—another security check—and Jinsol’s suddenly glad Sooyoung convinced her against the knife. They join the back of the line, surrounded by other guests chattering, loudly enough that anything they say should be drowned out.

“Please never talk like that again,” mutters Jinsol, letting go of Sooyoung’s hand to rub her arms. The chill running down her spine hasn’t stopped, and goosebumps are starting to raise on her skin.

“I won’t if you don’t either,” Sooyoung mumbles back, the disgust evident in her voice. Jinsol can say cheers to that.

At the entrance, the guards check them again with a full-body scanner for metal, and Jinsol’s really glad Sooyoung told her not to bring the knife. She passes, clear, but they stop Sooyoung and force her to show the drive embedded in her thumb—interestingly enough, though, the disk in her index finger passes under the radar, undetected. Nervousness flashes across Sooyoung’s face when they scan the contacts of the drive, brief enough that Jinsol’s sure only she caught it. She wonders what’s on there. Nothing that would ping security as harmful, thank god—the guards let them pass, waving them off to scan the next group of attendees.

“What was that for?” she asks, letting Sooyoung link their arms together as they head into the main room, where people have already started mingling.

“Probably checking for bomb codes, or something,” Sooyoung murmurs, her breath hot on the curve of Jinsol’s ear. Jinsol suppresses a shudder. “I don’t have anything like that on there, though, so we’re good.”

“What do you have on there, anyways?”

“Nothing important,” Sooyoung replies flippantly, but her cheeks are starting to tinge pink. Jinsol narrows her eyes—she’ll have to interrogate her later. “Come on, let’s go before we start to look like we’re loitering.”

Jinsol nods, schooling her features into her best vapid look. She’s never been good at the talking; that’s more of Sooyoung’s thing. Over the decade they’ve been friends, she’s perfected the art of looking dumb enough that people will direct the important questions to Sooyoung, leaving Jinsol to answer small talk and keep an eye out while Sooyoung’s distracted. It’s part of what makes them such good partners—Sooyoung talks, Jinsol observes.

The room is starting to fill up as more people pass security into the main hall. Jinsol catches a few glimpses of familiar faces, both old friends and people she’d really rather not see right now. She steers Sooyoung away from a rich Lydian merchant who’d wrongly accused them of swindling him a few years back, unconvinced that he might’ve forgotten about it by now. Lydian merchants have memories like elephants, and he’d definitely remember her Dalenian markings. “Who am I looking for?”

“I don’t know,” says Sooyoung, head swiveling around to look at the crowd and shooting smiles at anyone that passes by them. “We really have no prior knowledge on BBC, and my disk hasn’t started pinging yet. Just keep an ear out, see what you can pick up.”

“Okay,” says Jinsol, arm tightening around Sooyoung’s as someone rushes past her, nearly knocking into her shoulder. “Split or stay together?”

Sooyoung hesitates, and Jinsol’s surprised she didn’t already have the answer planned out. “Stay together,” she says, finally. “If things go south, it’ll be easier to get out if we’re already together.”

Jinsol wasn’t expecting that. “And how likely do you think that is?”

“Not likely,” says Sooyoung. “But it is a possibility.”

Jinsol purses her lips. “We’ve never been very lucky.” As in, things usually go wrong even when they’re not supposed to.

“We’ll just have to beat the odds this time,” Sooyoung says lightly, walking them in the direction of the refreshments table. There’s a big fountain of something that looks just a little too purple to be chocolate, bubbling softly as guests dip their skewered fruits into it. Jinsol wants to try it, but she’s stopped before they can get there when someone stops Sooyoung for a conversation. “Ah, Taeyong! How have you been?”

Jinsol tries her best to appear engaged, smiling blithely and making small talk as it comes. Sooyoung is fully immersed, though, teasing out any bits of information she can through conversation. Discreetly, Jinsol looks around, marking anyone who looks suspicious. Which… there don’t seem to be many of, to be honest. Everyone here, for the most part, is painfully similar—rich, disingenuous, and overall boring.

The night wears on, and Jinsol’s starting to feel a little worn out herself, as Sooyoung flits from social circle to circle and Jinsol makes sure to keep them out of sight of anyone who doesn’t like them. She’s starting to think this was a waste of time—she hasn’t seen anyone who even remotely looks like they might be from BBC. In the snatches of time they get in between bouts of conversation, Sooyoung whispers that no one’s pinged her disk yet, so they’re no closer to finding the other half of the Modal key either.

Frustrated, Jinsol disentangles herself from Sooyoung, tilting her head in the direction of the refreshments table when Sooyoung shoots her a puzzled look. “I wanna try the weird chocolate thing,” she says, daring Sooyoung to argue.

She barely manages to conceal her surprise when Sooyoung just shrugs. “Be careful,” she says, seriously, before she plasters on a smile again. “I heard it might’ve been spiked already,” she laughs, turning to her newest conversation partner—an ambassador from Mocarom, if Jinsol heard correctly—and coerces a laugh out of him too.

Jinsol laughs too, a little too sharply, before spinning on her heel and making a beeline for the big fountain. She skirts around more groups of people to get there, eyes skimming briefly over each one—nothing that stands out to her. Just as she finally gives up and is about to start speed walking the last five meters to the refreshments table, someone knocks into her, hard enough for her to stumble.

“Oh, sorry about that,” says the man, putting a hand on her shoulder to steady her. Jinsol gives him a quick look-over—for all intents and purposes, he seems completely normal, like an average Earther or Mixolydian. His hand is freezing cold where it touches her shoulder, though, not even a hint of warmth under his fingertips. When Jinsol looks up at his face, there is nothing behind his eyes.

Jinsol’s brain is running at a million miles an hour—something about this guy is off. “You alright?” he asks.

“Ah— yes, I’m fine,” says Jinsol, after a split-second pause. She keeps her eyes trained intently on his face—something in his eyes flickers, for just a moment, before it disappears.

“I’m very sorry about that,” he says, dipping his head, “Miss…?”

“Jinsol,” she fills in. “And you are?”

The man smiles, but there’s nothing warm about it. “Jaden,” he supplies. “I hope to see you around, Miss Jinsol.”

He nods at her, and that’s the end of the conversation. Jinsol pretends to take a few steps in her initial direction before spinning around, keeping her eyes trained on his back. He’s getting farther away—Jinsol keeps looking between him and where she’d last left Sooyoung, but her “wife” is nowhere to be seen.

Shit. “Where is she,” Jinsol mumbles to herself, walking as fast as she can without running. She keeps on the outskirts of the room, still on Jaden’s trail, when she spots Sooyoung in the middle of a dense cluster of people. She curses under her breath, weaving through the crowds of people and mumbling sorry and excuse me as she goes.

“Sooyoung!” she hisses when she finally reaches her, digging her nails into Sooyoung’s wrist. “We need to go.”

“What?” Sooyoung whispers back, as the person she’s talking to gets distracted by someone else. “I’m in the middle of—”

“Now.”

Sooyoung looks between Jinsol and the person she was talking to, shooting an apologetic smile at her when she finally catches her attention again. “Sorry, I hate to cut our conversation short, but Jinsollie’s having trouble finding the bathroom.”

“Small bladder,” Jinsol offers, smiling weakly.

Luckily the lady just waves them off with a gracious laugh. “You kids are so cute these days,” she says, winking. “Don’t spend too long in there together, alright?”

Jinsol laughs awkwardly. “Sorry to steal her away from you.”

As soon as they manage to push their way out of the clumps of guests and back onto the outskirts of the room, Jinsol breaks into a fast walk, tugging Sooyoung along with her. “Was she implying something?”

“I think so, yeah, but I don’t know what,” says Sooyoung, stumbling along. “Slow down, will you?”

“Can’t,” Jinsol replies, tersely, looking for Jaden. She almost curses again when she scans the entire room without spotting him, until she manages to catch a glimpse of him exiting into a side door. “We need to follow that guy,” she says, jerking her chin in his direction.

Sooyoung’s gaze snaps to exactly where she wants her to look, not needing Jinsol to point him out. “Him? Who’s that?”

“I don’t know,” says Jinsol, “but I bumped into him earlier and something about him isn’t right.”

“Okay,” says Sooyoung. “If you think something’s up, let’s go check it out.”

Jinsol gives the rest of the room a cursory glance, making sure no one’s looking at them, before she slips past the slightly open door. Sooyoung follows, and the two of them find themselves in a hallway, almost completely dark except for the dim lanterns spaced far apart on the wall. The sound from the main hall fades into the background, and Jinsol strains her ears for anything out of the ordinary.

Faintly, she can hear someone talking—loud enough to float down the corridor towards them, soft enough that she can’t make out any of the words. She beckons Sooyoung forward, and they creep down the hallway together, one painfully slow step at a time.

Slowly, snippets of conversation start to fade in. Jinsol holds her breath— “can’t get a reading on it, I tried—” and tiptoes closer— “don’t even know who I’m supposed to—”

She exchanges a look with Sooyoung. Are you hearing this, she mouths.

Yeah, Sooyoung mouths back, but I have no idea what it means.

“—the Modal key—”

Both of them freeze in unison. You definitely heard that, right? asks Jinsol.

Sooyoung nods. As they try to get closer, though, the voices suddenly cut off.

“... You should head back. You said no one saw you come here, right?”

Shit. Jinsol shares a panicked look with Sooyoung, and both of them start backing away slowly. There’s a rustling sound, and then footsteps—someone’s walking, quickly approaching them. Jinsol looks back at the door, a thin strip of light coming through. There’s no way they’ll be able to make it back in time without being caught. What do we do? she asks Sooyoung.

It’s a shock when the dim lamplight passes over Sooyoung’s face as they’re sneaking back and there’s none of the panic that Jinsol feels reflected on her face. “Trust me,” Sooyoung whispers—before she presses Jinsol against the wall and kisses her.

Jinsol can’t stop the small squeak of surprise that slips out of her mouth, the breath flying out of her lungs as her back hits the wall. Her heart rate accelerates to supersonic speeds, beating so loudly she’s surprised the whole palace isn’t falling apart from the sound waves. “Go along with it,” Sooyoung hisses, after she takes more than a second to react, and Jinsol’s heart stops—ah, so it’s a ploy.

Well, that’s fine. She can still play along.

Jinsol loops her arms around Sooyoung’s waist, pulling them flush against each other. Sooyoung’s lips are burning hot where they touch hers, and Jinsol starts to drown in the feeling of kissing her, anchored only by the knowledge that it isn’t real. It’s like whiplash, losing herself in the pleasant warmth of the kiss before feeling like a bucket of ice cold water’s been dumped on her when Sooyoung’s eyes keep darting to the side.

Sooyoung’s arms are like an anvil around her neck, the impossible weight of them staggering to bear. It’s a chaste kiss by normal standards, but it makes Jinsol feel like every inch of her body is on fire.

“Are they here yet,” Jinsol mumbles against Sooyoung’s lips.

“Shut up,” Sooyoung hisses, biting down on Jinsol’s bottom lip. Jinsol gasps, a shudder running through her body when Sooyoung soothes the bite with her tongue. Her head’s completely clouded over, everything in the background melting away.

It’s a cold shock when the person approaching them finally clears their throat, and Jinsol remembers what they’re here for. Jinsol and Sooyoung sprint apart, as in sync as if they’d rehearsed it. Jinsol spares a glance at Sooyoung, who looks perfectly disheveled. Jinsol’s sure she doesn’t look much better. “Ah, sorry about that,” says Sooyoung, sounding flustered. Jinsol turns to look at who “interrupted” them—it’s Jaden. So where did the other person go? “We were just trying to find somewhere… more private.”

“We got married recently,” adds Jinsol, as if that helps anything.

Jaden looks between the two of them—Jinsol’s not sure if she imagines it in the low light, but his eyes narrow just the slightest—before he smiles at them. “I understand,” he says, tone gracious. “Young newlyweds, right? You two have fun, you won’t be young forever.”

When he passes them in the hallway, he pats Jinsol’s bare shoulder again, in what she assumes is supposed to look like a friendly gesture. He lets his hand rest on her for a second too long, though, fingers tightening slightly before letting go. Jinsol suppresses a shiver—his hand is still ice-cold to the touch.

“Thank you,” says Sooyoung, still playing the part of the blushing maiden. “Sorry for, ah, the disturbance.”

“It’s quite alright,” he says. “You two should head back soon, though. It’ll end soon.”

Somehow, it doesn’t feel like he’s referring to the gala when he says it. Jinsol watches him leave from the same door they entered, waiting until he’s gone before she turns to look at Sooyoung. “That was weird, right?”

Sooyoung furrows her eyebrows, biting down on her bottom lip. Jinsol’s eyes unconsciously dart down to the swell of her mouth, mesmerized by their reddish sheen—from when Jinsol had kissed her earlier—before she catches herself staring and looks away. “That was really weird.”

“We should go back,” says Jinsol. She can feel Sooyoung’s eyes on her face, but she refuses to look back.

“Yeah,” says Sooyoung, but she doesn’t move. They’re still for another second, before Jinsol moves to cross that last stretch of hallway to the door, conscious of Sooyoung hot on her trail.

When they re-enter the main hall, Jinsol’s eyes struggle to readjust to the light. It’s starting to get late—slowly, people are moving towards the main exit in the front. She can’t see Jaden anywhere. “Let’s go.”

“Hold on,” says Sooyoung, grabbing her by the wrist before she can head for the exit. Jinsol almost jumps, shaking off Sooyoung’s grip and refusing to look at her expression when she does it. “I can feel something.”

“Wait, really?” Sooyoung’s disk had been a dud all night—Jinsol was starting to think she’d reconfigured the code incorrectly. “Finally.”

“Yeah.” Sooyoung isn’t looking at her anymore, narrowing her eyes at something far off in the distance. Jinsol lets out a breath, her chest starting to feel less tight. “This way.”

She leads Jinsol on a zigzag path around the room, stopping every now and then to recalibrate their direction. Eventually, the disk leads them to a potted plant near the front of the hall, by the exit. Jinsol keeps an eye out, making sure no one’s paying attention to them as Sooyoung drags her closer. When she looks at the plant, her eyes snag on it immediately—a ring made of a silvery material, embedded in the topsoil layer. Sooyoung points at it. “Look.”

Jinsol looks. For all intents and purposes, it looks like a completely normal ring. “You’re sure that’s it?”

“One hundred percent,” Sooyoung confirms, but doesn’t move to take it. She stares intently at it, so focused Jinsol’s worried she might burn a hole through it with her eyes. “This feels like a trap.”

“Definitely,” Jinsol agrees—there’s no way it should’ve suddenly been this easy to find, after they’d spent all night searching in vain. “What else can you do, though?”

Sooyoung bites down on her lip again. Jinsol mentally slaps herself for looking. “You’re right,” she says, finally. “We have no other choice.”

She picks up the ring with a pair of tweezers and puts it in a baggie—where she was hiding that on her all night, Jinsol has no idea. She puts the bagged ring in her pocket. “Let’s go,” she says, following the last guests out the door in confident strides.

Jinsol follows her, feeling like there are eyes on the back of her neck—but when she turns around to look, no one is there.

“So what the hell was that?” asks Jinsol, as soon as the hatch of the skip closes behind them, the airlock sliding into place.

Sooyoung strides to the front of the ship, hands skittering over the dashboard. Return to Phrygia, reads the screen, blinking. Autopilot: on. “What was what?”

“You know what I mean,” says Jinsol. “Why’d you kiss me?”

Sooyoung’s hands freeze for just a moment—so quick Jinsol thinks she might’ve imagined it were it not as abrupt as it was—before she continues typing. “Did you have a better idea?”

“You didn’t give me any time to think of one,” Jinsol says, staring at Sooyoung’s back. “All you said was trust me. Didn’t even ask.”

“What other choice did I have, Jinsol?” Sooyoung bursts out, spinning around to look Jinsol in the eye. “Ask you if you trusted me, wait for you to say no, wait for us to get caught and have to bullshit some other excuse to get us out of there? I know you’re still mad at me, Jinsol, I know it was fucked up of me to throw you in jail without telling you. And I’m sorry, okay? I know it’s not something I can just brush off. I know I hurt you. But why can’t you understand I’m trying—”

“To protect me?” Jinsol cuts her off. “You always say that, Sooyoung, but you’re not my mom. If we’re doing things together, you can’t just decide things without me. You didn’t tell me about Phrygia, you didn’t ask if I was okay with pretending to be your wife, and you didn’t ask if you could kiss me. You always just assume I’m on board for everything.”

The sound of her ragged breathing is so loud in the silence, bouncing off the walls. Sooyoung looks away. “Why are you so against kissing me, anyways?” she asks, quiet. “Do I disgust you that much?”

“What? No,” says Jinsol. “That’s not it.”

“Then why—“

“Look, I don’t know what a kiss means to you on Earth,” says Jinsol, “but on Phrygia, kisses mean a lot. They mean a lot to me. So if you think you can just—“

“You thought I was just playing around with you?” asks Sooyoung, voice still soft. There’s a hollow look in her eyes that gives Jinsol pause.

“Why else would you kiss me out of nowhere?” Jinsol replies, after a beat.

Sooyoung shakes her head and laughs, but the sound is bitter. “You’re my best friend, even if you don’t feel that way right now,” she says. “I’d never treat you so carelessly. I may not have planned it, but it wasn’t out of nowhere.” She looks Jinsol dead in the eye, and Jinsol’s shocked at the raw emotion she finds there. “I meant that kiss.”

“Sooyoung—“

“Goodnight, Jinsol,” says Sooyoung, standing up from her seat. “Sleep well. We’ll be back on Phrygia by tomorrow.”

Jinsol stays rooted in her spot as Sooyoung walks out of the cockpit and turns down the hall towards the lounge, feeling more powerless than ever.

“What did you do,” Heejin says flatly, when the minute they set foot in Dal Segno again Sooyoung walks off without even a backwards glance at Jinsol.

Jinsol watches her go. “Why do you assume it’s me?” she argues, but there’s no heat behind it.

“Because if it were her, you wouldn’t be looking like a lost baby duckling right now,” says Heejin, and yeah, she has a point. “So spill.”

“I really don’t know,” says Jinsol. “Things got kinda weird while we were away.”

Heejin snorts. “That sounds like an understatement.”

“Honestly, yeah.” It’s been twenty hours and Jinsol’s still floundering, like she’s been thrown into the middle of a pool and can’t find the walls so she can climb out.

“Well, I hope you didn’t have plans,” says Heejin, throwing an arm around Jinsol’s shoulders, “because I’m booking your agenda for the day. You, me, a shit ton of junk food and some really bad Locrian dramas. And then we can talk about what got weird if you’re feeling up to it.”

“That… sounds really good, actually,” says Jinsol. “Thanks.”

“Don’t think this makes us friends or anything,” says Heejin, pushing her out of the hangar and towards one of the lounge rooms. “This is just me trying to get off your kill list.”

“Of course,” laughs Jinsol, heart already feeling lighter. “I’d never suggest otherwise.”

“That’s fucked,” says Heejin, mouth stuffed with popcorn.

“Right?” says Jinsol, eyes glued to the screen. Currently one of the leads is dumping the other lead because he found out he was an Edrian shifter, which is honestly rude as hell. “Like dude, you still love him, does it really matter if he can grow a third eyeball in his sleep?”

“No, not that.” Heejin smacks her in the arm, smirking when Jinsol hisses in pain. “You and Sooyoung, idiot. Like, you have a lot of shit to work through.”

“Oh,” says Jinsol, digging her hand into the bowl on Heejin’s lap for another handful of popcorn.

“Don’t oh me,” Heejin clucks. “She likes you. She made that pretty clear. And I think you like her too.”

“No, I don’t,” Jinsol mumbles, but Heejin just steamrolls on.

“But,” Heejin continues, “you still have massive trust issues when it comes to her. Which honestly makes sense, considering you’ve been best friends for years and then she went and did,” Heejin waves a hand, “all that. If Hyunjin ever betrayed me like that, I’d probably stab her in the gut and leave her to bleed to death, so I think it says a lot about your friendship that Sooyoung’s still alive right now.”

That’s a violent image. “So what am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know,” says Heejin.

“You’re fucking useless,” says Jinsol, kicking her in the leg.

“Hey!” Heejin shoots her a dirty look, hugging the bowl of popcorn to her chest. “Don’t make me spill this or else there are no more snacks for both of us!”

Her scowl melts into thoughtfulness, though, and Jinsol thinks she’s quite peculiar like that—can switch between lighthearted and serious as the mood calls for it, in the blink of an eye. “To be honest, I really don’t know. Your situation was already complicated, and then Sooyoung went and made it more complicated, but she was bound to say something sooner or later. She’s left it up to you, so there’s only one question left for you to answer.”

“And what is that?” asks Jinsol.

“Do you still care about her enough to keep fighting for your friendship, or is it time for you to walk away?”

“Hey, Heejin?” says Hyunjin, sticking her head into the lounge room. They’re finishing up the last episode of the drama—the main character has finally gotten back together with his shifter boyfriend—and only then does it hit Jinsol how long they’ve been sitting and talking. “You should come and take a look at this.”

“Can it wait?” Heejin whines, sprawled out on the couch. “There’s only five minutes left to the end of this episode.”

“Not really,” says Hyunjin, already turning to leave. “It’s important.”

Jinsol pauses the drama, sharing a look with Heejin. Both of them get up at the same time, following Hyunjin out of the room and into the main hub. When they get there, Yeojin and Vivi are already discussing something quite animatedly, and Sooyoung’s crossing her arms the way she does when she’s agitated. A large holo display is pulled up, planets and other celestial objects spinning in midair. A small sphere in the lower-left corner blinks an angry red.

Jinsol’s never been great at reading maps, but something on Heejin’s face shifts as soon as she sees it. “What the hell?”

“Yeah,” says Hyunjin, grimly. “The readings popped up a few minutes ago, but none of us know what it is. I think it’s literally against the laws of physics for something to appear there that fast.”

Jinsol’s lost. “What’s going on?”

“Jinsol, when Earth got destroyed, do you remember what was left?” asks Sooyoung.

“Nothing,” answers Jinsol, puzzled. “Everything disintegrated in a matter of seconds.”

“Exactly,” says Sooyoung, snapping her fingers. “That kind of implosion, with nothing spit out from the ruins to replace what disappeared, created a vacuum in that corner of the universe. It’s been no man’s land for years.”

“Until now,” says Heejin. Her fingers fly over the console, adjusting the display and honing in on the red object. “Something suddenly appeared there out of nowhere, and instead of getting sucked into the void like it should’ve, it stabilized the area.”

“What is it?” asks Vivi. “Can you tell?”

“It looks like a planet, from the initial readings we got,” Hyunjin replies, brows furrowed. “But that’s not possible—”

“Unless it came from a different dimension,” Heejin finishes, straightening up. “I don’t know how the hell someone managed to transport an entire fucking planet from one dimension to another, but unfortunately it’s the most probable explanation we have.”

“Who would have the tech for that, though?” asks Yeojin. “I mean, if you can’t even figure it out—”

“BBC,” says Jinsol. Suddenly, all eyes are on her.

“You think the planet that suddenly appeared out of nowhere—” Heejin starts.

“—is BBC?” Hyunjin finishes.

“It makes sense,” says Sooyoung, after a pause. “It would explain why we’ve never been able to pin down its location, if it’s been jumping between dimensions this entire time.”

“So what are we supposed to do—” Yeojin starts to say, before an alarm blares and the screen flashes red, a warning signal covering the display.

Heejin clicks her tongue, keying in commands. “The surrounding area is stable,” she says, eyes honed on the screen, “but the planet itself isn’t. I give it three days or so before it jumps dimensions again, and after that I don’t know how long it’ll be until we see it again.”

Suddenly, multiple devices beep at once—the computer connected to the main display, Sooyoung’s table, several of their wristwatches. “It’s a comm,” says Heejin.

“No shit, genius,” says Yeojin, tapping a button on the computer to blow the message up on the holo display.

You’re invited! reads the message, in a shitty rainbow color scheme with comic sans font. Come celebrate the First Anniversary of the Great Victory of Buobacaran with revelling, partying and other fun! There’s a list of coordinates at the bottom, followed by a date.

“That’s two days from now,” says Sooyoung.

“What the fuck is the Great Victory of Buobacaran?” asks Jinsol.

Heejin snorts. “I don’t know, but this entire thing looks really suspicious.”

“Especially the comic sans,” Hyunjin chimes in.

“Especially the comic sans,” Heejin repeats.

Silence falls as they all take the poorly made e-vite in, the graphics on the card looking like something from a thousand years ago. It’s truly horrendous. “We’re still going through, right?” asks Yeojin.

“Yeah, probably,” says Jinsol.

Sooyoung keeps her behind, after everyone else leaves to prepare for the trip. They’re all coming this time—they’d collectively agreed they were going to need all hands on deck. Sooyoung takes out the ring they’d found at the gala from her pocket. She pops open the purple gem at the top of the band—there are two slots inside, one filled with a disk made out of the same silvery stuff as Sooyoung’s finger drive.

“So it really is the other half?” asks Jinsol.

Sooyoung nods, closing the secret hatch and putting the ring back into her pocket. “I coded the two halves together, and now I think I know why it felt like a trap when we picked it up. I think that guy we saw in the hallway left it for us. It has to do with Yeojin.”

“Yeojin?”

“There were instructions in the code, but they were super vague,” says Sooyoung. “The Modal key is some kind of weapon, but it can only be activated by a full-blooded Sryntonian. They’re extremely rare.”

“And the only one of those we know is Yeojin.”

“I think that guy knew we had her,” says Sooyoung, running a hand through her hair in frustration. “He gave us the code so she could activate it, but the problem is I have no idea how. The instructions just said you’ll know when it comes to you, which is completely useless.”

“Say Yeojin does activate this thing somehow,” says Jinsol, cautiously. “What does he hope to gain from that?”

“There’s problem number two,” Sooyoung sighs. “I still have no fucking clue what the key even does. Like, is this really supposed to be the thing that can either save or destroy the universe, or what?”

“So, if we bring Yeojin and your re-coded key, we might just be giving BBC the key to destroying the universe,” says Jinsol. It’s a grim realization.

Sooyoung pulls her hands out of her hair, mild despair written on her face. “What other choice do we have?”

“You say that a lot,” says Jinsol, but it’s calm this time, the haze of anger no longer clouding her head. Talking with Heejin helped a lot, actually. “You always have a choice. In this case, it’s whether to take a chance and risk prematurely destroying the universe, or missing the window of opportunity and prolonging its decay.”

“Another chance might come up,” says Sooyoung.

“It might,” Jinsol agrees. “It just depends on which chance you’d rather bet on.”

They leave the next day, splitting off to board separate ships. The excuse that they all mutually agree on is that they don’t have a ship big enough to take all of them, which isn’t exactly wrong but it’s not quite true either. In theory, Jinsol and Sooyoung’s ship can fit seven people just fine—in practice, Jinsol’s not sure if it’ll survive with these specific seven people on board. Vivi doesn’t trust anyone to drive her but herself, Jinsol won’t let anyone except Sooyoung or herself pilot their ship, and Heejin wants to bring her entire chemistry kit with her, and neither Jinsol nor Sooyoung like the idea of that being on their ship.

So Heejin programs the coordinates into everyone’s ships before jetting off with Hyunjin and Jungeun, and Jinsol is stuck alone with Sooyoung on a ship for the third time in two weeks.

It’s awkward again. Sooyoung won’t look at her, but Jinsol guesses that’s just what happens when you confess to meaning a kiss that you don’t know if the other person means it back. And Jinsol doesn’t know. If she means it back, that is.

So it’s still awkward. It’s always awkward with Sooyoung these days. Jinsol wonders when it’ll stop being awkward—she wants her best friend back.

The thought strikes her suddenly—it’s just like what Heejin had said. Jinsol wants Sooyoung back, wants her desperately, but the Sooyoung she wants—her best friend of over a decade, who wasn’t supposed to betray her or kiss her or mean it—that one is gone.

But Sooyoung is still here.

“I need to tell you something else,” Sooyoung says suddenly. “Because— Because I don’t like lying to you. I haven’t done it once since two years ago. I want you to trust me again, even if I don’t deserve it. So that means telling you everything.”

“What is it now,” says Jinsol, a sinking feeling in her gut.

“Two years ago,” starts Sooyoung, and Jinsol almost stops her right there, “when we were going to Mixolydia. I actually got a comm from Vivi a day before we were due to arrive there. You remember where we were supposed to go after Mixolydia, right?”

Jinsol does. “Phrygia.”

“You hadn’t been back in so long,” says Sooyoung, staring wistfully out the windshield into space. “It was supposed to be a big homecoming. I’d already asked some of your old friends to prepare a big dinner, and then I was gonna take you to the waterfall you brought me to when we first met.”

Even if she doesn’t say it, Jinsol can tell Sooyoung’s leaving something out. “And what were you gonna do when we got there?”

Sooyoung looks resolutely ahead, but her cheeks are starting to tinge pink. “I wanted to go camping. We’d pitch our tent on the riverside, and stargaze, and I’d point out all the places we’d been to and you’d let me like you didn’t know already. And… if I managed to work up the courage. I’d tell you I loved you.”

Jinsol lets out a quiet breath, wracked with nerves even though she’s not the one confessing right now, hasn’t confessed a single thing. “But that didn’t end up happening.”

Sooyoung nods. “Vivi sent me word of what was happening on Phrygia. It was really violent, and that’s only from what she could get from the outside. The whole planet had basically gone dark. I couldn’t get ahold of any of your friends, when I’d just contacted them two days before.”

“She told you,” says Jinsol. “But not me.”

“You are remarkably easy to read, Jinsol,” Sooyoung laughs weakly. She’s right—it’s part of what makes them so different. “She knew if you found out, you’d want to go back immediately. You wouldn’t be able to just sit back or run away. But the situation was already out of control. She told me to do everything I could to make sure you didn’t go back.”

“So it was lucky for you that the police ended up stopping us before then, right?”

“Not quite,” says Sooyoung, smiling sadly. “I called them on us.”

“What?” says Jinsol, startled into looking at her. Sooyoung’s already looking back.

“When we’d finished the delivery for that Lydian merchant, I found out one of his employees had packaged the return payment wrong,” she explains, every word leaving her mouth like it’s both a pain and a relief to say. “So we ended up with an extra diamond that was worth practically a fortune. It was easy enough to say you’d stolen it and then spin that into a whole villain story. It was an impulse decision born from a stroke of luck—I didn’t even have time to think, but looking back I wouldn’t have done anything differently.”

Jinsol feels drained, every word from Sooyoung like a punch in the gut. For years, she’d wondered why Sooyoung had done it, what could’ve made her best friend rat her out like that. But the weight of the knowledge is exhausting to bear—a small part of her almost wishes Sooyoung had never told her anything, and she could’ve just gone on hating her. “Why are you telling me all this?”

“I don’t know,” says Sooyoung, honest. “I just thought you should know.”

Jinsol looks at Sooyoung—really looks at her, for the first time since she’d left that horrible prison. They’re almost the same height, but Sooyoung looks so small, stripped bare of all of her walls. Only then does it hit her—for Sooyoung, who, for as long as Jinsol has known her, closes herself off like a lockbox and takes hours of Jinsol’s nagging for anything to be pried out of her, it must be incredibly hard to be this open. But she’s still trying so hard, for Jinsol.

Jinsol gulps. “So what are you going to do now?” she asks, forcing her voice to stay flat.

“I don’t know,” says Sooyoung, and the emotion behind her eyes is starting to shutter again. Jinsol makes a split-second decision.

“You listen to me, Ha Sooyoung,” she says, grabbing Sooyoung’s hand and shocking her out of her retreat. “I’ll tell you what you’re going to do. No matter what happens on BBC, no matter how long it takes, you’re going to take me back to Phrygia. We’re gonna have that big dinner, and you’re gonna take me camping, and then you’re gonna tell me you love me. I’ll wait as long as it takes.”

Sooyoung’s eyes flick between Jinsol’s face and her hand circled around Sooyoung’s wrist. “And what will you say when I do?”

“You’ll just have to find out,” says Jinsol, decisively.

It’s already busy on the planet’s surface when they land, bustling with activity. They’re not the first ones to arrive—the celebrations have already begun. They all park their ships in the same area, a grassy lot away from the main venue, except for Vivi, who stays circling just above the atmosphere in case they need to make a quick getaway. Jinsol sniffs the air—even from this far away, she can smell something sweet.

“I still don’t know what we’re here to celebrate,” says Yeojin, kicking at random clods of dirt. The sky is cloudless and bright, even without any visible sun in the sky. It’d be idyllic if it weren’t so jarring.

“Technically we’re not here to celebrate anything,” says Sooyoung. “But we can celebrate after we stop BBC from destroying the universe.”

“And how do you propose we do that, o Great and Brilliant one?” asks Heejin.

“I don’t know!” says Sooyoung, throwing her arms up into the air. “I have no fucking clue what’s going on or what BBC’s even planning. We’re playing everything by ear.”

Hey, before we do that.” Jinsol takes another sniff—it reminds her of the sugar-dusted fried dough they used to serve at carnivals back on Phrygia. “Can we get some of whatever smells so good?”

The main venue is a marketplace straight out of some fantasy novel, with rows and rows of booths with vendors hawking their wares, but everything’s complimentary. Jinsol looks out for any other landmarks, but the land stretches out empty as far as the eye can see, the only visible structures right here in the marketplace. She catches glimpses of familiar faces from the gala, wondering how they don’t find anything suspicious—but then again, she’s here too. And no one can resist the allure of setting foot on the unknown planet, Buobacaran.

They split off, wending through the marketplace on their own paths. Jinsol watches Heejin walk off, hiding bucketloads of equipment under her clothes as she looks for any signs of dimensional stretching. Hyunjin follows, toting whatever Heejin couldn’t fit in a trendy purse.

Jinsol sets off in search of the sweet-smelling stuff, Sooyoung sticking close behind her. As time passes, the marketplace seems to get even busier, the streets filling up to the point where Jinsol can’t even walk in a straight line anymore. “Did they invite everyone in the known universe?” she asks, weaving around a clump of attendees captivated by a sword-swallower.

“Seems like it,” says Sooyoung, stepping over the remains of a spilled drink on the ground. She’s dressed casually for the occasion, in a pastel blue romper and a straw hat. If it weren’t for the fact that she has her blasters strapped to each thigh in full view and Jinsol is hiding three knives under her denim jacket, it almost feels like they might be on a date.

Jinsol shakes her head before she can get any more distracted. Food first, and then saving the universe. She has her priorities in order.

“Hey,” says Sooyoung, right as they turn into the next row and Jinsol can see the booth that’s providing whatever the hell smells so good. “Hold on a sec. I’m getting a ping.”

“Again?” asks Jinsol, turning back to look at her. Sooyoung’s frowning, head swiveling in every direction like she can’t pinpoint the source. “I thought we already got both halves.”

“It’s not just the code that I get a ping from, it’s the metal,” says Sooyoung, eyebrows furrowed. “It’s probably nothing.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” says Sooyoung, but Jinsol can tell she doesn’t quite believe it herself. “Let’s just go get your food.”

“No, it’s okay,” says Jinsol, “I can get it on my own. You can follow your ping, and I’ll come find you when I’m done?”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, it’ll be fine,” says Jinsol, shooing her off when she sees the relief on Sooyoung’s face. “I’ll be right behind you.”

“Okay,” says Sooyoung, waving. “I’ll be back soon.”

Jinsol continues on to the booth, mouth watering when she sees what it is—it’s real Phrygian fried dough cake, served with a generous heaping of powdered sugar on top. She stands in the line for what feels like forever, finally rewarded with a plate, and it tastes like heaven when she bites in.

As she walks away from the front, passing by the still-growing line, she bumps into someone’s shoulder. The sorry on the tip of her tongue freezes when she looks up and sees who she bumped into.

Jaden looks back at her, expression friendly but blank, and Jinsol immediately goes on guard. “Miss Jinsol,” he says, “nice to see you again. I hope you’re having a good time so far.”

“I am, thanks,” she says, not sure what else to say.

“Where’s the wife?” he asks, and it sounds friendly enough, but there’s enough underlying curiosity to make Jinsol suspicious.

“I was just about to go looking for her.” Jinsol smiles at him, already starting to step away. “Good to catch up with you, Jaden, I’ll see you later.”

“Why would you need to go looking for her?” he asks, right as she’s about to leave. Jinsol stops, turning back to look at him. “She’s right where she needs to be.”

“What—” starts Jinsol, but then the ground beneath her suddenly tilts sideways, people falling over each other as the earth ripples with the force of an earthquake.

There’s a shrill scream over the sound of the ground rumbling, cutting through the commotion and into Jinsol’s brain. Jinsol drops her cake, breaking into a sprint. “Sooyoung!”

She runs toward the source of the scream, but the ground keeps shifting, tripping her every five seconds and almost causing her to fall flat on her face. People are screaming around her, running every which way in their panic, and Jinsol can’t tell where she’s going. “Sooyoung!” she bellows, as loudly as she can. “Sooyoung, where are you?”

Everything passes by in a blur as she runs, all of her sense both rocketed into overdrive and dulled down to nothing. Everything’s so loud, but she can’t hear anything. She loses track of everything—it’s only when she bodily slams into someone that the sensors of recognition light up in her brain.

Yeojin’s face is painted with fear, and it hits Jinsol how young she really is. She grabs her wrist, pulling her along with her without stopping. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?” asks Yeojin, voice evening out, and it’s really unfair that she’s had to adjust to constantly being in danger since she was born. Jinsol grits her teeth, pushing upstream through the crowds. “Where is everyone else?”

“I don’t know, but we need to find Sooyoung,” says Jinsol. “Quickly.”

Eventually, they break out of the chaos of the marketplace onto open fields, and it’s suddenly quiet. Too quiet. Jinsol looks ahead, and there’s a giant metal spire built into the ground. She doesn’t know how the fuck she missed that big of a structure when they were flying overhead. Her eyes flit from the crown to the base of the spire, honing in on a crumpled form lying on the ground. “Sooyoung!” she shrieks, letting go of Yeojin’s wrist to run over to her.

She slides onto the ground next to her, knees skinning in her rush. Sooyoung’s knocked out cold, face contorted in pain and one arm splayed out to the side. Jinsol picks her hand up, immediately dropping it—it’s burning.

The Tsilanium ring is on the ground next to her—it must’ve fallen out. Jinsol pokes at it out, wincing when it turns out to be just as hot. Its hatch is open, and the purple gem on top flares periodically, in time with the rings of the spire.

“What’s wrong with her?” asks Yeojin, stumbling over as the ground keeps shaking.

“I don’t know,” says Jinsol, cupping Sooyoung’s face in her hands. “Wake up, Sooyoung.” She tries slapping her on the cheek, but Sooyoung still doesn’t stir. Her forehead is starting to burn up.

Suddenly, a ray of light bursts out of the top of the spire, splitting the sky open with a crack. It’s blinding—Jinsol shields her eyes and looks away, only to see the gem on the ring flashing brightly too. Even Sooyoung’s fingertip is starting to glow. “What’s going on,” she yells, the sound getting lost as the wind starts to pick up.

“I don’t know,” Yeojin screams back. “How do we stop it?”

“You can’t,” comes a third voice. Jinsol and Yeojin both turn to look at the newcomer—it’s Jaden, pushing on towards them despite the frenzied gales of wind. “It has already been put into motion. Nothing can stop it now.”

“Can stop what?”

Jinsol’s wristwatch vibrates, an incoming call popping up on the screen. She accepts, and Heejin’s voice comes bursting through the speakers. “Where the fuck are you?”

“Outside the marketplace,” Jinsol yells into the mic, not sure if it’ll pick up the sound. “Near the big ass metal tower.”

“Well, get the fuck out of there,” Heejin yells back, voice filled with more panic than Jinsol’s ever heard from here before. “The planet’s starting to move—I think it’s trying to hop dimensions now.”

“It’s trying to what now?” Another crack resounds through the air, and the light from the spire intensifies. “Hey, are you seeing that ray of light shooting into the sky?”

“Yeah,” Heejin replies, voice breaking up from the poor connection. “Is that where you are? We’ll come extract you.”

Jinsol does some quick thinking. If they leave now, millions of people will still be stuck on the planet as it switches dimensions—not to mention they still have no idea what this beam of light does or what kind of damage it could cause. “No, it’s too dangerous, stay where you are,” she commands. “We need to stop this.”

“Jinsol, what the fuck—” Jinsol ends the call, eyes darting around the surroundings. It’s just her, Yeojin, and an unconscious Sooyoung now—and Jaden, but Jinsol doesn’t think he’s going to be of any help.

“How do we stop it?” she asks, ears filling with the shrill scream of the wind.

Yeojin picks up one of the blasters, firing it at the spire and barely managing to jump out of the way as it bounces back at her. “Well, that didn’t work.”

The ring is glowing furiously now, light coming off of it in waves. Jinsol rips off a strip of fabric from her pants and wraps her hand in it, picking up the ring with her covered hand. It still burns through the cloth, but the pain is something she can deal with. The open hatch reveals the disk already slotted inside, but one of the slots is still empty.

Sooyoung mentioned merging the code—she didn’t mention that it was still in two separate halves. It looks like both halves need to be in the ring for the Modal key to work properly—not that Jinsol has any fucking clue what it’s supposed to do. She picks up Sooyoung’s limp hand, freezing as she realizes she has no idea how to get the disk out.

“Sooyoung, wake up, please,” she begs, despairing as Sooyoung still doesn’t stir.

“Jinsol, I don’t know what’s happening, but it looks bad,” Yeojin screams. Jinsol looks up—the beam of light is starting to fan out into a vortex, and the sky is splitting apart into pieces.

“Sooyoung, please,” Jinsol screams, voice growing hoarse. “We need you— I need you to wake up, now. You trusted me to save you, now I’m trusting you to save me. To save all of us. Sooyoung,” her voice breaks, “I trust you, so please, wake up!”

There’s no magic moment where everything stills, Sooyoung’s eyes flutter open, and the universe is instantly saved. The wind is still picking up speed—the humming of the spire builds into an all-out screech. Jinsol squeezes her eyes shut, flinching as something burning hot touches her hand.

She opens her eyes—the Tsilanium disk is completely popped out of its socket, Sooyoung’s fingertip closed up like it’d never been inside there. In one fluid motion, she clicks the disk into the ring next to its twin, shutting the latch and tossing the ring at Yeojin. “Yeojin, catch!”

Yeojin catches the ring before it can fly away, cupping it in her hands. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“I have no idea,” Jinsol confesses. “It said you would just know.”

“Well, that’s fucking excellent,” Yeojin grumbles, slipping the ring on her finger. She stops when it starts glowing white, light flowing out of it in waves. “Wait, I think I got it—”

And then the light explodes out of the ring, flooding the entire sky in a scalding, blinding light. The last thing Jinsol feels before she blacks out is Sooyoung’s hand squeezing hers.

“Wake up!” is the first thing she hears, before there’s a foot slamming into the side of her head. Jinsol groans, rolling over and shielding her head with her arms.

She cracks an eye open, and the light is blinding until her eyes acclimate—it’s back to a normal level. The sky is blue again. She sits up, and suddenly Heejin’s face fills her vision. “I literally hate you,” Heejin yells at her, voice cracking. Her cheeks are stained with tear tracks. “You— I can’t believe you did that! Do you know how fucking worried I was? I thought you died!”

Jinsol smiles apologetically. “Sorry. But I’m still alive.”

Heejin crosses her arms, grumbling, “We’ll see, just try pulling something like that again.” Jinsol laughs, and the sound is more relaxed than she’s felt in a long time. The rest of her vision slowly fades back in—Yeojin, looking somewhat dazed but otherwise alright, and Hyunjin, steadying her. Vivi and Jungeun a few feet away, kicking at hunks of scrap metal. Heejin, still in her face. Jinsol’s brain is still processing, slow, but it registers that there’s someone missing.

“Where’s Sooyoung?”

“Right here,” says a voice, and Jinsol turns her head to the side—there Sooyoung sits, a few feet away, looking extremely beat up but still alive. Jinsol’s heart soars at the sight.

“Oh, thank god,” she says, crawling on her hands and knees over to Sooyoung and pulling her into a hug. Her head is spinning from moving too fast, but she couldn’t care less right now. “You’re still alive.”

“I am,” says Sooyoung, squeezing back. “And you are too. How’d you get the key to work?”

“I don’t know,” says Jinsol. “You— you were passed out, and I was trying to wake you up to get the chip out, and you still didn’t wake up but then the disk came out and—”

“Wait, really?” asks Sooyoung. “I mean, I’m glad it came out, but it wasn’t supposed to without me being awake. How’d that happen?”

Heejin walks over to slap Sooyoung on the head, scowling as Sooyoung hisses in pain. “First of all, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about the Modal key, because I’m the only one here who actually knows how Tsilanium works. It’s a highly sensitive metal, and since it’s connected to your nervous system, it react to emotions easily. So while you were still unconscious, you must’ve reacted to Jinsol in some way.”

“What’d you do?” Sooyoung asks, turning back to look at her.

“I…” Jinsol racks her head, trying to sort through the overwhelming amount of screaming going on in there to remember what actually happened. “I said I trusted you.” And the impact of those words is so overwhelming—but it’s so freeing. She feels light, like she’s coming home.

Sooyoung breaks into a grin, and the sight is beautiful. “I’m glad.”

Jinsol makes another split-second decision, not the first and surely not the last—she’s getting good at this quick thinking thing. “I changed my mind,” she declares.

“About what?” asks Sooyoung.

“When you said you were gonna tell me you loved me and asked what I was gonna say, and I said you would have to wait to find out,” says Jinsol. “I changed my mind. I’m telling you now.”

“So what’s your answer?”

Jinsol looks her dead in the eye, more serious than she’s ever been in her entire life. “I love you too,” she says, pulling Sooyoung in to seal it with a kiss, and it feels like a promise.

As it turns out, they were just side characters in the joyride of a movie that is The Adventures of Yeojin, Sryntonian Wonder Girl. That’s completely fine with Jinsol—she’s content with having her character arc finished, never to reappear on screen again.

While Yeojin and Vivi go around Restoring the Universe, and All That, Sooyoung and Jinsol go back to Phrygia. The civil war is petering out, but it still hasn’t ended, so they can’t go to the original waterfall. Sooyoung takes her to another one, farther up in the north. It’s too cold to camp outside, so they hole up in an empty cabin. Instead of watching the stars, they curl up by the fireplace, watching bad TV together.

“This isn’t what I originally planned,” Sooyoung admits, snuggling closer to Jinsol under the blanket.

“No,” Jinsol agrees, “but plans change.” She plants a kiss on Sooyoung’s cheek, sinking into her side. “As long as we have each other, I trust that things will be okay.”