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chimcess · 2 months ago

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⮞ Chapter Two: Last Exodus Pairing: Jungkook x Reader (ft. Taehyung x Reader, Jungkook x OC) Other Tags: Convict!Jungkook, Escaped Prisoner!Jungkook, Piolet!Reader, Captain!Reader, Holyman!Namjoon Genre: Sci-Fi, Action, Adventure, Thriller, Suspense, Strangers to Enemies to ???, Slow Burn, LOTS of Angst, Light Fluff, Eventual Smut, Third Person POV, 18+ Only Word Count: 18.9k+ Summary: When a deep space transporter crash-lands on a barren planet illuminated by three relentless suns, survival becomes the only priority for the stranded passengers, including resourceful pilot Y/N Y/L/N, mystic Namjoon Kim, lawman Taemin Lee, and enigmatic convict Jungkook Jeon. As they scour the hostile terrain for supplies and a way to escape, Y/N uncovers a terrifying truth: every 22 years, the planet is plunged into total darkness during an eclipse, awakening swarms of ravenous, flesh-eating creatures. Forced into a fragile alliance, the survivors must face not only the deadly predators but also their own mistrust and secrets. For Y/N, the growing tension with Jungkook—both a threat and a reluctant ally—raises the stakes even higher, as the battle to escape becomes one for survival against the darkness both around them and within themselves. Warnings: Strong Language, Side Character Death, Main Character Death, Aliens, Vicious Carnivorous Aliens, Violence, Blood, Jungkook is a huge prick, Cocky too, Talks About Past Characters Dying, Trauma Bonding, Bickering, Arguing, If Kook is a prick then Lee is a dick, Child Death, Graphic Death Scenes, Sexual Tension, Y/N is just trying her best, Jaded Characters, Religious Themes (I mean no harm and do not want to offend anyone), Bad Character Choices, Peter is Iconic (and a dumb ass), Surviving, Sexual Tension, Alcohol Consumption, Aliens killing more people, SUSPENSE, ANGST, Lee is genuinely the WORST person here, and he's in competition with a murderer so, I love how much of a jerk JK is, let me know if I missed anything... A/N: We are so back. I love writing high fantasy/sci-fi and this has been a treat for me. I hope you're enjoying everything so far! Thanks so much for taking the time out of your day to read my too-much gene come to life.

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The group moved across the barren landscape, their figures cutting stark silhouettes against the twin suns. Heat shimmered off the cracked earth, warping the horizon into something dreamlike, something deceptive.

Y/N led the way, her stride relentless, her jaw tight. She wasn’t in the mood for theories. She wanted proof. Hard, undeniable proof.

Lee followed, a few paces behind, his shotgun slung over his shoulder in that lazy way of his. But his glances—sharp, quick, too frequent— betrayed his nerves.

“I know what happened,” Lee said, his voice dripping with cynicism. “He snapped. Went off on Daku. Buried him somewhere else. Now he’s sitting back, watching us run in circles like idiots.”

“Let’s just be sure,” Y/N cut in, her tone sharp as a blade.

Lee scoffed. “I am sure.” He picked up his pace until he was walking beside her. “Murders aside, Jungkook’s got one skill—being a world-class bastard. He lives for this. Keeping you scared. Keeping you guessing. And you’re playing right into—”

Y/N stopped so abruptly, Lee nearly walked into her.

“We’re gonna find the body,” she snapped, turning to face him, her eyes burning with resolve. “Christ, you’re a cop. Why am I the one telling you this?” She exhaled sharply. “We have to go down and look.”

Lee’s smirk faltered. For the first time, she saw something almost like concern in his face.

“Hey,” he said, dropping his voice. He reached for her arm, gripping it just enough to make her stop. “Being ballsy with your life now doesn’t change what came before. It’s just stupid.”

Y/N met his eyes, her gaze unwavering. “Thanks for the tip, Lee,” she said coolly, shaking off his grip. “Now get out of my way.”

He let her go.

The grave gaped open, its jagged edges crumbling slightly as she approached. A damp, metallic tang seeped from the darkness below, curling in the back of her throat.

Y/N knelt, fastening the chain to her web belt, testing the tension. Above her, the others formed a loose circle, their faces pinched with concern.

She looked up one last time.

The sunlight behind them cast them in silhouette, but the brightness felt wrong. Oppressive. A silent warning.

Y/N exhaled sharply and lowered herself into the pit.

The grave swallowed her whole.

The air inside was thick, moist, pressing against her skin like a second layer of flesh. The heat above was suffocating, but this? This was worse.

Darkness closed in, broken only by the faint light filtering from above. Y/N adjusted her grip on the chain, her breath steady but shallow. Her boots scuffed against the tunnel floor, loose dirt shifting beneath her.

Her fingers brushed the walls.

She yanked her hand back.

The lining of the tunnel wasn’t just earth. It was fibrous, damp— something between plant matter and flesh.

Her stomach turned, but she pressed forward.

Jungkook was probably sitting back in the ship, laughing his ass off, knowing he’d manipulated her into crawling into this.

The thought lasted right up until she entered a chamber.

The space yawned open, a vaulted cavern stretching high above her. Light seeped through fissures in the rock, not illuminating, but distorting. The shadows moved.

Something shifted along the walls.

Y/N went still.

She knelt, sweeping her hand through the dirt. Something cold met her fingertips.

Daku’s handlight.

It was half-buried, scratched and smeared. She flicked the switch. Nothing. Broken. Like everything else.

She tossed it aside, adjusting her headlamp. The beam cut through the gloom, revealing more of the chamber’s unnatural structure.

Then, she saw them.

Bones.

Old, yellowed, cracked and splintered. They littered the chamber floor, scattered like discarded leftovers. Some were hollowed out. Others bore deep grooves—teeth marks.

Y/N’s stomach lurched.

The walls of the cavern twisted upward, forming a jagged funnel stretching toward the surface. The spires.

She whispered, almost in awe: “They’re hollow.”

The realization barely settled before she heard it.

Click-click.

Y/N’s breath caught.

Click-click-click.

Her headlamp swung toward the sound, the beam trembling slightly. Something moved.

Just beyond the light.

A shadow unfurled, slow and deliberate.

Cold, primal fear rushed through her veins. She started backing up—slow, measured steps.

Her hand brushed against something solid.

A boot.

Relief surged—until she looked. Daku’s boot. And part of him was still inside it.

Her mind snapped into perfect clarity.

Jungkook’s voice, amused, mocking—"Metallic taste, you know. Copper. Bit of peppermint schnapps.”

The air was thick with it. The smell. The taste. Her stomach flipped.

Clickity-clickity-clickity.

The sound multiplied. From everywhere. A cacophony of tiny knives tapping against stone. The shadows burst into motion. The walls moved. The entire chamber pulsed.

The chain jerked.

Y/N wasn’t alone.

She turned to run.

The sound multiplied, filling the chamber like a cacophony of tiny knives tapping against stone.

Click-click. Click-click-click.

Fast. Too fast. Shadows burst into motion, circling the perimeter with quick, predatory movements. The air thickened, a buzzing hum vibrating through the cavern like the thrumming of unseen wings.

Y/N’s breath came in short, ragged bursts. She had seconds. Maybe less.

She spun, her headlamp swinging wildly, but the shadows only taunted her, slithering just beyond the reach of her light.

Then, the ground moved beneath her. No—it wasn’t the ground. The bones. They were shifting. Something was underneath them. Something big. The first claw burst from the pile of remains like a blade through soft flesh.

Y/N didn’t scream. Not yet. Not until she saw the eyes.

A dozen pairs, glowing like smoldering embers, blinking in unison from the darkness.

Then she screamed.

"PULL ME UP!"

Her voice ripped through the cavern, raw and desperate, bouncing off the walls in an echo that seemed to stretch too long.

The chain jerked above her, but it wasn’t moving fast enough.

They were coming.

Click-click-click.

Shadows poured from the walls. Tiny, winged things, their translucent bodies sleek and armored, their razor-thin mandibles snapping open and shut. And they were fast.

Y/N kicked back, scrambling to reach the chain as one of the creatures dove for her.

Too late.

A flash of pale wings. A piercing pain exploded in her arm, right above her elbow. Its jaws sank in. Y/N screamed again, more anger than fear this time, and ripped the thing away. It took flesh with it. Hot, wet blood slid down her arm.

She barely registered the pain before another one latched onto her calf.

No. No. No.

She reached for her knife, but the chain yanked upward, nearly dislocating her shoulder. They were pulling her up. She slashed wildly, her blade connecting with something soft, and the creature on her leg let go. She didn’t look down. She couldn’t.

She was almost there—

Something hissed below her. A deep, guttural sound, too big to belong to the flying things.

Oh, God.

The eyes in the dark blinked again. And then they moved.

Y/N felt it in her bones before she saw it—the heaving shift of something massive, something crawling toward her, something not supposed to exist.

The air turned putrid, thick with the smell of rot and metal. The thing in the dark exhaled, and the cavern walls trembled. It was rising. Coming for her.

"FASTER!"

Her scream hit the surface before she did.

She burst from the grave, thrown onto the dirt like a fish yanked from black water. The hands that caught her weren’t gentle. Namjoon and Lee hauled her back, her body skidding across the packed earth, her lungs fighting for air.

Her ears were ringing. She was shaking. But she was out.

She grabbed Namjoon’s collar, pulling him close, her voice a broken rasp:

"Seal it. Now."

Lee didn’t argue. He threw the tarp over the grave, slammed the largest crates on top, his hands moving like he already knew what was coming.

Y/N’s breath hitched as she twisted, her headlamp still on. For a split second, she saw it. A flash of something huge, slick, white. Jaws full of too many teeth. Pale wings.

And then the cavern swallowed itself whole. The sound vanished. The ground stilled. Silence. Just the wind, blowing soft, unbothered, as if the world beneath them hadn’t just tried to devour her whole.

Y/N lay sprawled in the dirt, her chest heaving, lungs raw from screaming, her body still vibrating from the adrenaline dump. Every nerve felt fried, every muscle quivering as if trying to shake loose from her bones. Her heart pounded against her ribs, hard enough that she half-expected it to break through. The taste of copper and sweat coated her tongue, and when she swallowed, it burned like she’d just drunk fire.

Above her, the sky stretched in an endless, indifferent expanse, the twin suns beginning their slow descent. The heat still pressed down on her, but she barely noticed it. Not after that.

Not after what she had seen.

Namjoon was the first to move. He dropped to his knees beside her, his breath ragged but steady, his hands hovering over her shoulders as if unsure whether to touch her or just make sure she was still breathing. His dark eyes, usually so measured, so careful, were wide with a fear he hadn’t quite shaken.

"You're okay," he said, though his voice wavered slightly. It wasn’t reassuring—it was a hopeful guess.

Y/N blinked up at him, her vision unfocused, her brain still clawing its way back to reality. The world was spinning slightly, a delayed aftershock of fear and exhaustion.

"Am I?" she rasped. Her voice barely made it past her cracked lips.

Namjoon didn’t answer.

The weight of what had just happened hung thick in the air, suffocating them both.

A few feet away, Lee crouched, his shotgun resting across his lap. His usual cocky smirk was nowhere to be found. His knuckles were white around the stock of his weapon, his expression caught somewhere between disbelief and reluctant fear.

"What the hell was that?" he muttered, more to himself than to anyone else. His gaze flickered toward the grave, still gaping, its jagged edges casting fractured shadows in the fading light.

Y/N shuddered.

It wasn’t just a grave anymore. It was a door. To what, she didn’t know. But something had been waiting behind it. Something that had taken Daku.

"It wasn’t Jungkook," she said suddenly, her voice shaking but firm. She forced herself upright, her body protesting the movement. Every inch of her screamed hurt, but she pushed through it.

Lee’s eyes snapped to her, sharp and skeptical.

"Oh yeah?" he drawled. "Then what was it?"

The words felt poisonous in her throat, but she had to say them.

"I don’t know."

Bindi stepped forward, her face pale, her arms trembling at her sides. The way her hands clenched and unclenched told Y/N she was barely holding it together.

"Then where is he?" Bindi demanded, her voice cracking. "Where’s Daku?"

Y/N swallowed hard. She didn’t want to say it. Didn’t want to admit what she’d seen—or rather, what she hadn’t.

The clicking sounds. The inhuman movements. The way the shadows had crawled across the walls like they were alive. She could still feel it, still hear the whispering hush of brittle wings against the cavern walls.

Her throat tightened. Her hands felt empty without her knife.

"I don’t know," she whispered, hating the way her voice broke. "It’s not... It’s not human. It’s something else."

Bindi's hands flew to her mouth, a muffled sob escaping. Namjoon stepped in beside her, murmuring something too soft to hear, but it didn’t seem to help. Bindi shook her head, tears carving streaks through the grime on her face.

"Something else," Lee echoed. Disbelieving. Not quite mocking, but close. He stood, slinging his shotgun over his shoulder in one smooth motion. "Great. That’s helpful."

Y/N’s fear flashed into anger.

"It got Daku," she snapped, her voice hoarse, raw. "It almost got me. So unless you want to end up in pieces like he did, maybe don’t go poking at it."

Lee's eyes narrowed, but he didn’t argue. For once, he had nothing to say.

Namjoon broke the silence, his voice calm but firm, "We need to get out of here. Back to the ship. Now."

Bindi looked like she wanted to argue, her grief twisting into defiance, but she caught something in Namjoon’s expression.

He wasn’t suggesting—he was commanding.

She nodded, reluctantly, wiping her tears away with shaking hands. Y/N cast one last glance at the grave, its dark, gaping mouth now a silent reminder of the nightmare beneath.

Then—

A sound. Faint. Almost like a whisper through the earth.

Click-click-click.

Y/N’s stomach lurched.

She took a step back, but the sound was already gone. Had it even been there? Or had she imagined it?

The others were already moving. She followed.

The suns had dipped lower, the sky bleeding into shades of red and deep gold. The air cooled, but Y/N could still feel the heat clinging to her skin, mixing with the sweat drying against her back. Every step felt wrong. Like something was watching.

No one spoke. Not Bindi. Not Lee. Even Namjoon, the one who always had a plan, a course of action, was silent. Y/N clenched her fists, the dirt beneath her nails grounding her.

She focused on that. The pressure of her own fingers digging into her palms. The rhythm of her boots hitting the dirt. The distant hum of the wind shifting across the landscape.

It wasn’t enough.

The questions swirled, relentless, circling her like scavengers. What had she seen? What had she barely escaped? And, most terrifying of all—

Was it done with them yet?

The settlement roiled with motion, a frantic, desperate energy thrumming through the air. Voices clashed, rising sharp and panicked over the clatter of salvaged supplies. Hands seized anything and everything—scraps that once held no value now deemed indispensable. Oxygen canisters. Bottles of liquor. An umbrella missing half its ribs. A battered copy of the Koran, its pages thin and worn from time and touch, was bundled up with the same reverence as a lifeline.

Leo hesitated, breath caught in his throat as his gaze drifted to the hills. There was something about the way the light slanted against them. Something wrong. The jagged spires stretched high, their peaks curling like skeletal fingers grasping at the last embers of the sun. Shadows twisted at their base, too deep, too consuming, like the land itself was caving inward. His skin prickled. He couldn’t shake the sensation that those hills were watching him back.

“Keep moving, kid!”

Bindi’s voice cut through the air, snapping him out of it. She was already straining under the weight of a supply crate, sweat streaking through the dust caked on her face.

Leo gave a quick nod, swallowing the unease as he bent to grab another bundle. The ship was nearly stripped bare.

Y/N and Namjoon wrestled with a heavy power cell, their bodies straining as they fought against rusted bolts and time itself. The thing gave way with a violent lurch, sending them both stumbling as it crashed onto the deck with a deafening clang. The sound echoed, hollow and final, through the gutted remains of the ship.

Namjoon straightened first, rolling his shoulders, dragging the back of his hand across his forehead. Sweat and grease smeared over his temple, but his eyes were already locked on the single cell they’d managed to pull free.

“That’s it?” His voice was edged with doubt.

“For now.” Y/N exhaled sharply, though exhaustion seeped into her words.

They needed at least two. Three, if they wanted any chance beyond sheer dumb luck. But time was a currency they no longer had. She pressed her hands into the small of her back, stretching against the deep-set ache in her spine. Her gaze flickered past Namjoon, past the ship, toward the horizon.

The feeling was there again. A slow, crawling awareness, like something was pressing against the edges of her mind, watching, waiting.

“We don’t have time to get picky.” Her voice was quieter now, more to herself than to him. “We survive on this.”

Namjoon studied her for a beat, something unreadable flickering across his face before he nodded. That was the thing about them—words weren’t always necessary. The understanding was silent, steady. They’d figure it out. They always did.

Together, they hefted the power cell onto a sled, their movements mechanical, efficient, but tense.

The spires loomed in the distance. Silent. Motionless. But not empty.

Their long shadows crawled over the barren land, their peaks carved black against the burnt-orange sky. A presence hummed in the air, thick and suffocating, like the land itself was bracing. Y/N felt it settle deep in her gut, a sick, gnawing certainty—

They weren’t the only ones preparing.

The chains rattled, a dull metallic whisper swallowed by the dry wind. Jungkook sat still, slumped just enough to feign exhaustion, his wrists resting limply in his lap. The angry red welts beneath the iron stood out against his sweat-slicked skin, but his posture was loose, deceptively relaxed. His hair, damp and tangled, hung in front of his face, masking his expression. He wasn’t broken. He wasn’t even tired.

He was waiting.

The sun baked the cracked dirt beneath him, heat rising in shimmering waves, but he remained unmoved, the picture of effortless patience. He had all the time in the world.

A shadow loomed. He didn’t bother looking up.

"Found something worse than me, huh?” His voice, rough from disuse, carried a dry amusement, the kind that slithered under the skin, just sharp enough to make you second-guess whether he was joking or simply waiting for the moment to rip you apart.

Lee stepped closer, shotgun cradled against his chest, grip deceptively casual. But Jungkook saw the tension, the twitch in his fingers against the stock, the weight of unspoken violence hovering between them.

“We’re moving,” Lee said, as if that explained anything. "And I’m just wondering if I shouldn’t lighten the load right now.”

Jungkook finally tilted his head up, dark eyes gleaming behind the fractured glass of his goggles. His lips curled, slow and measured, into something that wasn’t quite a smile.

The air thickened, the kind of silence that pressed against the ribs, waiting for the inevitable snap.

The shotgun rose.

The hammer cocked.

From the corner of his vision, Y/N tensed, but she didn’t speak. She didn’t interfere. Not yet.

Jungkook’s smirk widened, sharp as a blade. “Woof, woof.”

The blast split the air.

Iron exploded, smoking fragments clattering across the dirt. The chains shattered.

Jungkook’s arms fell forward, unbound at last. He flexed his fingers, watching with quiet satisfaction as blood rushed back into them, warming flesh that had been starved of movement for far too long.

Lee leaned in, voice just above a whisper, breath hot against Jungkook’s ear. “Want you to remember this moment,” he murmured. “The way it could’ve gone—and didn’t.”

Jungkook turned his head, slow, deliberate, his grin curling at the edges. He liked this game.

“Say that again,” he murmured, soft, almost coaxing, but his gaze was a different story. There was nothing gentle in the way he looked at Lee. Nothing human.

Lee didn’t flinch. “Help us get off this rock,” he said, tightening his grip on the shotgun. “No chains. No shivs. You work with us, and we all get out of here alive.”

Jungkook arched a brow, considering. “And what’s in it for me?”

Lee’s jaw ticked. “Truth is, I want to be free of you as much as you want to be free of me. But right now?” He glanced at the wasteland stretching beyond them. “Neither of us has that option.”

Jungkook inhaled deeply, rolling his shoulders now that he was unburdened. He weighed the odds, measured the numbers, calculated the likelihood of survival.

And then, just for a second, his eyes flickered to Y/N.

Not trust. Not exactly. But something close enough to make him hesitate.

The grin widened, razor-sharp. “You’d cut me loose, Boss?” he drawled, feigning mock disbelief.

Lee shrugged, extending a hand—not an offer, not a truce. Just an inevitability. “Only if we both get out of this alive.”

Jungkook stared at it. Nobody breathed.

Then, with the kind of speed that defied logic, he moved.

In one fluid motion, he ripped the shotgun from Lee’s grip, flipping it in his hands with a practiced ease that made it clear he could have done it blindfolded. The barrel swung up, aimed squarely at Lee’s chest.

Click.

The safety flicked off.

Jungkook’s smirk never wavered. “Want you to remember this moment,” he said, throwing Lee’s words back at him, reshaping them into something entirely his own.

He pumped the shotgun.

Ejected the spent shell.

Then—deliberately, almost lazily—he spat a handful of blue shells onto the ground at Lee’s feet.

With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the shotgun aside. It hit the dirt, useless, forgotten.

And then, without a word, he turned and walked away. Loose. Confident. Untouchable.

Like he’d never been shackled. Like he’d never been caught.

Y/N exhaled, pulse hammering in her throat.

She had been waiting for Jungkook to be released.

But watching him now, watching the way he moved—like nothing had changed, like he was just slipping back into the skin that had always been his—she realized something that made her stomach twist.

She trusted Jungkook more than she trusted Lee.

And that terrified her most of all.

The horizon was a violent masterpiece, an ever-shifting war of light painted by three merciless suns. The blue sun dipped lower, casting its eerie glow across the scorched desert, while the yellow and red giants stretched their fingers of fire over the barren wasteland. The sky bled color, deep purples and burnt golds tangled together in something both breathtaking and apocalyptic.

Against this surreal backdrop, the survivors pressed forward—a ragged procession of exhaustion and desperation, their hope worn thin, stretched past the point of breaking.

Y/N and Namjoon moved as one, their shoulders braced beneath the crushing weight of the power cell, their steps synchronized out of necessity rather than intent. Each footfall was a reminder of the stakes. There was no second plan. No backup. This was it. If they failed, the desert would take them, piece by piece.

But even their burden paled in comparison to the one Jungkook carried.

He was no longer the feral thing that had hunted them in the dark. No longer the prisoner bound in chains. Now, he was something in between, something undefined, something dangerous in its own right. A beast of burden, pulling a makeshift sled behind him, piled high with scavenged supplies, jury-rigged tech, and the last scraps of survival they had left. His chains were gone, but freedom—true freedom—was an illusion. The weight on his shoulders hadn’t lessened. It had simply changed shape.

Trailing alongside Lee, Peter tilted the neck of a half-empty wine bottle toward Jungkook, his expression laced with disbelief and something dangerously close to amusement.

“So, just like that?” he drawled. “You wave your little wand, and he’s one of us now?”

Lee snorted, shotgun slung casually over one shoulder, but the way his fingers flexed on the stock said he wasn’t relaxed. Not really.

“Didn’t say that,” Lee muttered. “But this way, I don’t have to worry about waking up with him standing over me with something sharp.”

Namjoon turned his head just enough to glance back, his voice measured, diplomatic. “Perhaps we owe Mr. Jungkook some amends.”

Bindi let out a sharp laugh, shaking her head. “Right. Because now’s the perfect time for an apology tour. Let’s all line up and beg for forgiveness. That’ll fix everything.”

“At the very least,” Namjoon insisted, “he should have oxygen.”

Lee waved a dismissive hand. “He’s happy just being vertical. Leave him be.”

Behind them, Leo shifted hesitantly before speaking, his voice tentative. “So… can I talk to him now?”

“No,” Lee and Bindi snapped in unison.

Leo deflated immediately, shrinking back in silence, eyes dropping to the ground.

Peter, unfazed by the tension, let the wine bottle slip from his fingers, watching as it tumbled toward the dirt.

Jungkook caught it mid-stride, smooth as a pickpocket, never breaking pace.

Peter didn’t notice until it was too late. “Hey—”

Jungkook twisted the cap off in one effortless flick and took a slow, deliberate sip, his head tilting back just enough to make a point. He handed the bottle back without a glance, without a word, without even acknowledging Peter’s indignation.

Peter gaped, then swore under his breath. “If I owned Hell and this planet, I’d rent this out and live in Hell.”

The ground beneath them shifted, narrowing into a canyon, jagged spires of rock rising around them. The golden light caught the edges, casting long, uneven shadows like serrated teeth lining the pathway.

The silence thickened.

Y/N felt it first.

A ripple in the air. The electric prickle of something shifting just out of reach.

Clickity-click.

The sound was faint, barely there.

“What is it?” Namjoon asked, his voice low.

Y/N’s eyes swept the canyon walls, her breath shallow as she strained to hear it again.

Silence.

Then—

Clickity-click-click.

Closer this time.

Her stomach dropped. Her hand shot to her knife, fingers curling around the hilt.

The sound came again, to her right.

Click-click-clickity.

It was coming from—

She exhaled sharply, shoulders loosening as she rolled her eyes, tension bleeding from her body.

“It’s his beads,” she muttered, flicking her chin toward Yeonjun’s belt.

The prayer beads clacked softly as he walked, oblivious to the panic they’d caused.

Namjoon let out a slow breath, shaking his head. Lee smirked, tossing her a knowing look. “Jumpin’ at shadows already, princess?”

Y/N ignored him.

She wasn’t jumping at shadows.

She was jumping at what lived in them.

The suns bled into the horizon, dragging streaks of orange and violet through the sky as the settlement came into view. The ruins sprawled before them—rusted shipping containers, skeletal structures collapsed under years of neglect, the remnants of a place that had long since lost the battle against the elements.

Peter wrinkled his nose, eyes sweeping over the decay with unimpressed detachment. “Usually, I can appreciate antiques,” he mused. “But this is hardly a collector’s dream.”

Y/N ignored him. Her gaze locked onto the skiff. Their way out.

The wreck sat hunched on its battered landing struts, its fabric wings in tatters, its hull pitted with corrosion. It looked more corpse than vehicle, and yet, it was their last chance. She and Namjoon muscled the power cell toward it, their grunts of exertion the only sound in the hush of the dying settlement.

Lee circled the skiff, his scowl deepening. “Ratty-ass thing.” He gave one of its struts a sharp kick, as if that would somehow restore it to working order.

“Nothing we can’t fix,” Y/N ground out, angling the cell into place. “So long as the electrical adapts.”

Bindi crossed her arms, skeptical. “Not a star-jumper. Won’t get us far.”

Jungkook had been silent until now, leaning against a rusted container, arms folded, watching. When he finally spoke, his voice was calm. Too calm.

“Doesn’t need to be.”

The group turned to him.

His expression didn’t shift, but there was something in his gaze—calculated, knowing. Like he’d already mapped their escape before they even set foot in this place.

“We use this to get back up to the Sol-Track Shipping Lanes,” he said. “Stick out a thumb.” Then, after a beat, he glanced at Y/N, something unreadable flickering in his eyes. “Right?”

She hesitated. His reasoning was sound. That didn’t mean she trusted him.

Her gaze flicked to Lee.

A convict. A cop.

And somehow, she trusted one more than the other.

“Little help here?” she snapped, shattering the moment.

Together, they shoved the power cell into the skiff’s empty housing, the metal groaning under the weight. Jungkook moved to follow, but Lee stepped into his path.

“Check those containers,” Lee said, his voice clipped, his stance rigid. “See what we can patch the wings with.”

For a fraction of a second, something dark passed through Jungkook’s gaze. A flash of something that coiled beneath his skin like a wire pulled too tight.

But he didn’t argue.

Without a word, he turned and stalked toward the scattered remnants of the settlement.

The suns continued their descent, stretching long, jagged shadows across the ground.

And somewhere, deep in the canyon beyond, something clicked.

The settlement stirred, the quiet murmur of movement threading through the thickening twilight. The survivors worked with purpose, though the weight of the unknown pressed against them like an iron yoke.

At the edge of the ruins, the Chrislams moved in solemn reverence, their hands steady, precise, as they repaired the moisture-recovery unit. Every twist of a wrench, every careful turn of a valve, was an offering. Their voices wove through the air in a soft, murmured hymn, a thread of devotion stitched into the fabric of the evening.

For them, this was not just survival.

It was proof.

That they had not been abandoned.

That this planet had not swallowed them whole.

The power cell clicked into place with a sharp, mechanical snap. A low hum pulsed through the battered skiff, its ancient circuits shuddering back to life. The cockpit’s displays stuttered, blinking sluggishly as though dragging themselves out of a years-long coma. One by one, the dashboard lights steadied into a dim, uneven glow—proof that the thing wasn’t entirely dead yet.

Y/N wiped the back of her hand across her forehead, smearing sweat and grime into a single, indistinguishable streak. “Okay,” she muttered, leaning back to inspect her work. “That should buy us enough juice for a systems check. But we’ll need more cells if we actually want to get this thing off the ground.”

Lee stood in the skiff’s doorway, shotgun slung over his back, his stance casual but his eyes never still, constantly scanning the dark corners of the settlement. He snorted. “How many more?”

Y/N ran the numbers, a rapid-fire equation of weight, energy output, and sheer impossible odds. “Fifteen six-gig cells here, ninety gigs total. The other ship uses twenty-gig cells, so…” She exhaled sharply, tapping her fingers against the hull, calculating. “Five. We need five more.”

Lee let out a slow, unimpressed whistle. “Twenty-five kilos each, huh?” His voice was dry, laced with something dangerously close to amusement. “Great. Let me guess—you want me to haul ‘em myself?”

Bindi scoffed, wiping her hands on her torn pants. She jerked her chin toward the rusting skeleton of a sand-cat vehicle half-buried at the edge of the settlement. The sun had bleached its frame white, but the treads and chassis still looked intact.

“Old sand-cat out there might still have some life in her,” she said. “I’ll see if I can get it up and chuggin’.”

Lee gave a curt nod. “Do it. And if you need an extra hand, tap our problem child.”

Y/N barely looked up from the power cell’s console. “Where’s Jungkook?”

Lee shrugged. “No clue. Doesn’t matter to me.”

Jungkook moved through the dead town like a shadow, his stride unhurried, his presence an unwelcome interruption in the unnatural silence.

The settlement was a graveyard. A place abandoned in a hurry.

Overturned chairs, scattered belongings, rusted-out tools lying in the dirt where hands had once gripped them with purpose. Dead gardens, their vines clawing through cracked pavement, creeping back over what had been taken from them.

The silence wasn’t empty.

It was full.

Full of whispers. Of memories. Of lives that had been lived and then erased, leaving nothing but footprints fading beneath the shifting dust.

Behind him, Leo and Soobin trailed at a careful distance, their movements hesitant, their curiosity gnawing at them like hungry animals. They whispered—low, uncertain—but Jungkook didn’t acknowledge them. If he heard, he gave no sign.

At the far edge of the settlement, the Chrislams gathered around the moisture-recovery unit, their faces tight with something between anticipation and disbelief.

A single bead of water formed at the base of the pipette, clinging for a moment before finally dropping into the waiting cup below.

Tongues fought for it.

Another drop. Then another.

A slow, uneven trickle began, and a breathless murmur rippled through the gathered crowd.

Not a celebration.

A prayer answered.

A few meters away, Peter was humming. Some jaunty, ridiculous tune that felt wholly out of place in the crumbling remains of the world. His fingers moved carefully, unwrapping crystal goblets—absurd in the face of their circumstances, but somehow perfectly in character. He had claimed a long, dust-covered refectory table, brushing off the grime and rearranging mining scraps into makeshift centerpieces.

He even found a faded Christmas garland tangled in an old storage container, shook off the dust, and strung it across the table with an unnecessary flourish.

“If we’re dying out here,” Peter mused, adjusting a vase filled with broken drill bits, “we might as well die with a bit of class.”

The bridge was unnervingly silent, the kind of quiet that felt like an inhale before a scream. Outside, chaos churned—voices rising, metal groaning, the slow unraveling of control—but in here, nothing moved. Nothing but her.

Y/N worked quickly, hands steady even as her mind spun. The main console’s housing face came loose with a soft, mechanical click, revealing the smooth crystal core of Captain Marshall’s log. It was nestled there like a relic, untouched, waiting.

She plucked it from its slot, the surface cool against her palm.

Then she turned it over, and her stomach twisted.

The blood was dried, flaked brown, but unmistakable. A smear of it streaked across her fingers, sinking into the lines of her skin like it belonged there.

Her breath hitched. “Fuck.”

The log disappeared into her back pocket, shoved deep, as if that could undo what she had seen. Her hand trembled. She scrubbed it against her thigh, hard enough to sting, but the stain remained. The more she rubbed, the more it felt like the blood was seeping inward, like it wasn’t just on her skin but under it.

A memory hit.

Red pooling across the dirt, too bright under the glare of the suns. The metallic tang of it thick in the air. The hole she had crawled into. The boot she had found there. Daku’s boot. He had been tall. Serious. Steadfast. And now? Now, he was nothing.

Just a smudge on her hand.

She didn’t hear Jungkook until he was right beside her. By then, it was too late to steel herself. He crouched in front of her, his shadow stretching long under the merciless light of the three suns. His movements were easy, unhurried, as if this brutal, dying world bent to his will.

“It won’t come off that easily.” His voice was quiet, edged with something unreadable—not a warning, not a threat, but something closer. Something dangerous in its softness.

Y/N’s head snapped up, her breath shallow. Their eyes met. For a second—just a second—she faltered.

Jungkook was always a storm, something violent waiting to happen. But in this moment, in the stifling heat and unnatural stillness, there was no trace of chaos in him. Just watchfulness. Just something steady, patient. Not just looking. Seeing. His hand reached for hers before she could react, fingers warm and sure as he turned her palm upward.

“Let go of my hand,” she snapped, yanking against his grip.

He didn’t.

His thumb traced over the dried blood, slow and deliberate, his brow furrowing slightly. His breath was even, unbothered, like he had all the time in the world to unravel her. Then, he blew across her palm, a whisper of air stirring the dust. Her fingers twitched before she could stop them. He noticed. Something flickered across his face—amusement, curiosity. Or maybe something else.

“It’s not yours.” His gaze lifted, sharp as a blade.

The words landed like a brand, sinking deep beneath her skin. Before she could jerk away, he licked his thumb and pressed it against the stain. Heat. A sudden, shocking warmth against her palm, slow and deliberate. Her pulse stuttered.

“Damn it, Jungkook,” she hissed. “Stop—”

His grin curled, wicked and unrepentant. “Relax.” His thumb moved in steady, patient strokes. “I’ll get it off.”

She wanted to shove him away. Wanted to snap, to curse, to remind him that he was insufferable, impossible, unbearable— but her body refused to listen. Because his touch wasn’t cruel. It was precise.

His thumb traced the lines of her palm, lingering over the tiny creases, his fingers moving with a familiarity that made her stomach twist. Around them, the camp hummed on—Namjoon’s low voice, Bindi’s grief-tinged frustration, the Chrislams murmuring over the water unit. But all of it felt distant. Because there was only this. Only him.

Jungkook’s smirk faded as his thumb stilled. His head tilted, his gaze sweeping over her face, searching. She looked different in this light—lips parted slightly, stray strands of hair curling against her temple, the sun catching gold in her lashes. And for the first time in a long time, he felt off-balance. Not in a fight. Not in a hunt. But here—with her. Unarmed. Vulnerable. And it made no damn sense.

“There.” His voice had gone quieter. “No more blood.”

The spell shattered. Y/N yanked her hand back like his touch had burned her. The loss of contact sent a jolt through her, sharp and immediate. Her fingers curled into a fist. Her pulse was too fast. Too loud.

“Fuck,” she muttered, voice tight, body tense with something she couldn’t name.

Jungkook rocked back on his heels, his smirk sliding back into place—but it was different now. A little too forced. A little too knowing.

“Bit public for my tastes,” he said smoothly. “But if you’re game—”

She shoved him. Hard.

He swayed, balance shifting for half a breath before he caught himself. For the briefest moment, she saw real surprise flicker in his expression—before he laughed. A rich, unbothered sound. Like he wasn’t fazed in the slightest. But something in his eyes had changed. Something raw. And neither of them knew what to do with it.

Y/N took a step back, still glaring, still trying to breathe normally.

Jungkook didn’t move. He just stood there, loose and unreadable, but his gaze wasn’t. And then he smirked. Not the usual lazy, cocky kind he wore like armor, but something slower, something that settled deep, like he had just seen something she hadn’t meant to show. Like he knew.

Y/N’s pulse slammed against her ribs. She clenched her jaw, willed herself to speak, to move, to do anything except stand there and let him see her like this. Jungkook stayed exactly where he was, hands easy at his sides, head tilted just enough to catch the light, casting sharp shadows along his jaw. The goggles hid his eyes, but she could feel them on her, cataloging every breath, every tiny shift in her stance.

It was infuriating.

The ship groaned, its metal bones adjusting to the temperature drop outside. Night was closing in, and with it, things they weren’t ready for. She should have walked away. Should have focused on the job, ignored the heat still crawling up her spine, the phantom weight of his touch lingering against her skin.

Instead—

“You’re an asshole.” The words tumbled out, sharp but breathless.

Jungkook chuckled, slow and lazy, his tongue running over his bottom lip. “And yet, here we are.”

Her fingers twitched. A reckless part of her wanted to swing, wipe that smugness clean off his face. But another part—one she refused to acknowledge—was still caught in the moment before, in the press of his thumb against her palm, in the softness of his voice when he had murmured no more blood.

She exhaled hard through her nose, forcing herself to let it go. “We need to finish the systems check,” she muttered, stepping past him, her shoulder barely grazing his as she moved.

Jungkook didn’t stop her.

But he didn’t step away, either.

Instead, just as she reached the console, his voice followed, a quiet hum beneath the ship’s reviving power. “You didn’t flinch.”

Her fingers hesitated over the controls.

His tone was unreadable, but something about it sent a slow chill through her. “What?”

“When I touched you.”

She turned, her glare sharp. “I told you to let go.”

He nodded, considering, then tilted his head, voice maddeningly calm. “Yeah. But you didn’t flinch.”

Y/N’s breath hitched.

Because he was right.

She had pulled away after, once her mind had caught up, once the moment had settled in. But in that instant? When his fingers had curled around hers, when his thumb had pressed slow and certain against her skin—

She hadn’t flinched.

And that unsettled her more than anything.

Jungkook knew it, too. It was written all over his face.

She turned back to the console, jaw tight, forcing herself to focus. Behind her, she heard the quiet rasp of his boots against the metal as he finally moved, finally put space between them.

But the weight of his presence lingered.

And she hated that she felt it.

“JUNGKOOK?”

The shout cut through the air.

Lee.

Sharp. Hunting. Demanding.

Jungkook’s expression shifted instantly. His shoulders tensed, that easy confidence sharpening into something colder, something lethal. Without hesitation, he pressed a finger to his lips—a silent command—before slipping into the ship’s shadows. Effortless. Like he’d never been there at all.

Y/N hesitated, then nodded once. Oddly, it felt natural to trust him in this. Even though she had no reason to. Even though she wasn’t sure she ever should.

Lee rounded the corner, his bloodshot eyes narrowing the second they landed on her. He looked wired, his movements too quick, his fingers twitching like they wanted to be wrapped around a trigger.

“You seen Jungkook?”

Y/N tilted her head, brushing stray strands of hair from her face. “He was around a few minutes ago.” Her voice was neutral, careful.

Lee squinted, eyes dragging over her a little too long. “What’re you doing just sitting out here in the hot sun?”

Y/N’s expression sharpened. “Enjoying the peace and quiet.”

The words were a warning. Lee either missed it or ignored it. Somewhere, hidden in the dark, Jungkook smirked. She wasn’t playing along. Not with Lee. But with him? With Jungkook? She already had. And neither of them knew how deep they’d fallen in already.

Jungkook, tucked just beyond sight, grinned. Lee was floundering, barely keeping up with the sharp barbs in Y/N’s voice. It was tempting to stay, to see just how thoroughly she would dismantle the man. She had a way of cutting straight through the bullshit, and Jungkook would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy watching it.

But there were more pressing matters.

He slid his goggles up to his forehead, forcing himself to push thoughts of her aside. She had already distracted him enough, and he couldn’t afford to lose focus now. Something about this planet had been gnawing at him since they’d crashed.

It wasn’t just the oppressive brightness of the three suns, or the eerie silence that stretched between the gusts of wind. It was something deeper. Something wrong.

Jungkook scanned the horizon, wishing for the impossible. If the suns would just set, he could orient himself—trace the constellations, find a way off this rock. But that didn’t seem likely. Not here.

Instead, he turned his attention to the ground, to the faint clicking noises that had been scratching at his senses since they’d landed.

The wrong kind of quiet.

He moved carefully, his footsteps soundless, his breath even. He didn’t know what he was looking for yet. But he knew it wasn’t far.

On the outskirts of the settlement, where the land cracked and the wind carried whispers of what once was, Jungkook crouched in the dirt. His fingers sifted through a scatter of forgotten relics—discarded, broken, yet still clinging to the ghosts of their past lives. A pair of fractured eyeglasses, a rusted flashlight, the battered frame of a child’s tin robot.

Leo and Soobin lingered a few steps behind, silent observers in the fading twilight.

“What’s he doing?” Soobin’s voice barely disturbed the hush.

“Being weird,” Leo muttered, but he, too, remained rooted in place.

Jungkook’s hand hovered over the tin robot’s solar panel, the remnants of its once-bright paint dulled by time and filth. With a swipe of his sleeve, he cleared the grime. A stuttering whir broke the silence, and the robot jolted to life, its joints creaking in protest.

Static crackled through a tiny, corroded speaker. The voice that emerged was distorted, broken, yet eerily resolute:

"...to all intruders. I am the guardian of this land. I will protect my masters at all costs. Death to all intruders..."

Jungkook smirked, watching as the tinny proclamation faltered, fading into silence. But his amusement didn’t reach his eyes. His gaze shifted, drawn to the looming structure beyond the debris.

A building. It stood tall and defiant, its windowless facade riddled with rust, its heavy metal doors sealed tight beneath a corroded lock. He stepped closer, dragging his sleeve across a weathered sign bolted beside the entrance.

CORING ROOM.

Something shifted behind the glass. A flicker of movement.

Jungkook stilled. His breath shallowed. His muscles coiled. He squinted into the dimness, searching. But whatever had stirred was gone. The silence inside felt too thick, too absolute. Jungkook hated that kind of quiet.

“Missin’ the party.”

Lee’s voice cut through the stillness, a tether yanking him back to the present. There was a warning threaded in his tone. A reminder.

Jungkook exhaled sharply. With a muttered curse, he upended a rusted trash bin, sending its contents scattering across the ground.

“Missin’ the party,” he echoed, voice laced with mockery. “C’mon.”

Leo and Soobin hesitated. Their gazes lingered on the coring room, the secrets it swallowed whole. Then, wordlessly, they turned to follow.

But Soobin lagged behind. His pulse tapped against his ribs as he stared at the building’s darkened glass. The window was streaked with dust, but something about it set his teeth on edge. A shiver crawled up his spine, slow and deliberate. Curiosity won out.

One glance over his shoulder—once, twice—confirmed that no one was watching. He moved forward, drawn in by something nameless, something wrong. The door was ajar. Just enough for him to slip inside. He hesitated.

Then he stepped into the dark.

The main room of the settlement was dimly lit, its air thick with dust and unspoken tension. The Chrislams sat in a tight circle, handling their crystal goblets with the kind of care reserved for sacred relics. Each drop of cloudy, sediment-laden water felt like a fragile victory, stolen from the clutches of an unforgiving world.

Namjoon’s voice rose in solemn prayer, threading through the silence like a beacon.

“For this, our gift of drink, we give thanks in the name of our Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and to our Lord, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and to His father, Allah the Compassionate and the Merciful.”

The survivors listened in silence, their weariness momentarily replaced by something hovering between respect and reverence. Even Peter, the ever-cynical bastard, muttered under his breath, “Strangest religion I’ve ever seen…” But for once, there was no venom behind the words.

Goblets passed from hand to hand, each survivor taking a slow, measured sip. Jungkook received the last glass, thick with grit and unfiltered debris. Without hesitation, he tilted it back, drinking deep. His throat bobbed as he swallowed, the moment stretching long enough for someone to say something—a joke, a jab, a challenge.

No one did. Instead, they drank slowly, savoring the water like it was a rare vintage. The silence in the room spoke louder than words.

Peter finally broke the quiet, raising his goblet with a wry smile. “Perhaps we should toast our hosts. Who were these people, anyway? Miners?”

Bindi’s eyes swept the room, taking in the scattered remnants of lives abandoned mid-motion. “Looks like geologists,” she murmured. “Advance team, moving from rock to rock, probably surveying for resources.”

Y/N’s head snapped up, her gaze locking onto Bindi’s. “What makes you say that?”

Bindi shrugged, gesturing vaguely around the room. “The equipment. Field packs, sample cases. That storage unit back there? It’s filled with core samples. If they were miners, we’d be seeing drills, not rock collections.”

Y/N’s stomach coiled tight, the pieces falling into place in a way she didn’t like. The skiff they found… it was at least forty years old. She ran through every geological mission she could recall in the past few decades. Helion research teams. Corporate-funded surveyors. Independent prospectors. There had been plenty, but none that immediately fit.

Unless—

Her breath caught.

Unless it was one of those missions. The kind no one talked about. The kind that never made it to public records. Things like the Nexus missions.

She knew those more than most because she had been part of three different Nexus missions. Her mind raced as she thought of the possibilities. The planet didn’t match the usual colonization efforts, but sending geologists over a different type of crew would mean it was a resource operation—a good gauge to see the value of a planet otherwise unlikely to gain any real traction as a colony due to the weather and conditions.

They couldn’t have known what lived here at the time, or the creatures did not pose any real threat. Still, that did not explain the abandoned equipment. There were only five human-funded missions that ended badly that she could recall, and only two of them matched the description of this world.

The only thing she could hope for was that she was wrong.

Y/N forced her voice into neutrality, not wanting to show her hand just yet. “Could’ve been anything,” she muttered, wiping the sweat from her brow. “Geologists, miners, explorers. Doesn’t matter now, does it?”

Bindi frowned, sensing something unspoken, but didn’t press.

Lee grunted, rubbing a hand over his jaw. “Musta crapped out here, huh?”

A beat of silence.

“But why did they leave their ship?”

The question came from Leo, cutting through the fragile stillness. His voice was quiet. But the tremor in it betrayed him. Nobody answered. The question lingered in the air like a ghost, heavy and unwelcome.

Y/N swallowed hard, glancing toward the skiff, its battered frame silhouetted against the dying light. Her gut twisted. She had a terrible feeling. The kind that usually turned out right. But she wasn’t ready to say it out loud. Not yet. Because if she did, it would mean they were already too late.

Outside, something stirred.

The coring room—unnoticed by those inside—began to wake up.

A solar panel tilted upward, catching the harsh light of the twin suns. Metal joints groaned, storm shutters on the roof creaking open like the exhalation of something long-dormant. Deep inside, old ventilation systems whined as they adjusted to the change. Machines hissed, sluggish but waking.

Something clicked. Something shifted.

Soobin stood frozen inside the coring room, his breath shallow, his heart pounding against his ribs like a warning drum.

The first sound had startled him—the metal shifting, the machinery adjusting—but it was the next one that rooted him to the spot.

A soft, skittering shuffle. It was faint. Barely there. But instinct wrapped its icy fingers around his spine. Soobin didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.

Because some part of him—some deep, animal part of his brain that still remembered the old fears from when humanity huddled in caves—was already screaming.

You are not alone.

The main room of the settlement felt smaller than before, as if the walls were closing in, pressing against the survivors with the weight of unspoken fears. The conversation continued, but the unease was growing.

“Well, just a skiff,” Lee said, shrugging in response to Leo’s earlier question. “Disposable, really.”

Peter, ever the cynic, swirled the last of his water as if it were a glass of fine scotch. “Like an emergency life-raft?”

“Sure,” Bindi agreed, her voice casual, too casual. “Coulda had a proper drop-ship take them off-planet. Long gone by now.”

Peter raised his goblet in mock cheer, his smirk returning. “A toast to their ghosts, then—”

A new voice cut through the air like a blade.

“They didn’t leave.”

The room froze.

Jungkook leaned forward, his dark eyes gleaming, the weight of his words settling over them like a curse no one wanted to name. “Whatever got Daku got them.”

His tone was flat, certain, unshakable. “They’re all dead.”

Silence swallowed the room whole. The words hung there, clawing at their nerves, too terrible to dismiss. No one moved. No one breathed. The idea had been spoken aloud. And now, it couldn’t be taken back.

Jungkook’s voice lowered, but the intensity remained razor-sharp. “What, you don’t really think they left with their clothes still on the lines?” His gaze cut through them, demanding they face the truth. “Photos still on the walls? Equipment still powered up?”

He let the question hang. “C’mon. You don’t walk away from a settlement like this unless something’s coming for you.”

Bindi’s jaw tightened, her hands curling into fists. “Maybe they had weight limits,” she snapped. Denial. Pure and desperate. “You don’t know.”

Jungkook didn’t flinch. “I know you don’t uncrate your emergency ship unless there’s a fucking emergency.”

The words landed like a blade to the throat. No one argued.

Lee exhaled sharply, frustration edging into his voice. “Rag it, Jungkook,” he growled. “Nobody wants your theories—”

But Y/N leaned forward, her expression grim, her voice dead calm. “So what happened? Where are they, then?”

She silently agreed with Jungkook, though she kept it to herself. She admired his boldness, the way he spoke without hesitation, without concern for how his words landed. He didn’t sugarcoat, didn’t try to make things easier. She wished she could be more like that, less careful, less afraid of shattering hope.

Her question landed like a hammer. The silence that followed was suffocating. Because no one wanted to answer. Because the answer wasn’t one they wanted to accept.

Namjoon was the first to break. His voice was quiet, but insistent.

“Has anyone seen the young one? Soobin?”

A new kind of silence settled over them. A silence that hissed. That slithered. That felt like something pressing against their chests, waiting to squeeze.

Heads turned. Eyes searched. No one saw him.

Jungkook’s expression didn’t change—didn’t even flicker—but something sharpened in his gaze. His posture shifted, muscles coiling beneath his skin. He spoke slowly, each word deliberate.

“Has anyone checked the coring room?”

The air grew colder, despite the relentless heat of the three suns outside.

Y/N’s stomach turned to stone. And then, somewhere in the distance—

Clickity-click.

The sound wasn’t the beads this time.

The coring room was too quiet. The kind of silence that wasn’t empty, but full—waiting.

Grooooooan.

The storm shutters inched open, metal scraping against metal in a slow, tortured protest. The sound echoed through the chamber, rattling rusted beams, disturbing the dust that clung to the air like a ghost. A sliver of alien sunlight sliced through the dark, pooling across the cracked concrete floor.

It revealed just enough. Just enough to see that the room was not empty.

Soobin’s breath hitched. The air smelled wrong. Faintly metallic, faintly organic—something sickly, something rotting. His muscles locked, every nerve on edge.

Above him, the rafters stretched high into the dark. And something hung from them. His stomach lurched. Nests.

Bulging, fibrous masses clung to the ceiling, webbed together with thick, sinewy strands. They weren’t abandoned. They pulsed—faint, rhythmic, as if something inside them was breathing.

Click. Click.

The sound was soft. Claws against metal. A faint, deliberate skittering. Above him. Soobin didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.

The noise multiplied. Spreading. Growing. Closing in.

His pulse hammered against his ribs. The narrow gap in the shutters—the sliver of daylight he’d squeezed through to get in—was his only way out.

Move.

Boots scuffing against the floor, he bolted for the light. His fingers stretched toward it, desperate—

Something shifted in the rafters. He glanced up. His breath died in his throat. The light had caught something. Something inside the nests. The fibers weren’t just woven strands of plant matter. They were glistening. Wet from the inside. And moving.

CRACK.

The nest erupted. A seam split down the middle, splitting like overripe fruit. And from inside— the swarm. A mass of writhing bodies, too many legs, too many claws, too many mouths.

The screeching hit him like a physical force. High-pitched. Layered. Crawling into his skull, filling every space between thought and fear. Soobin stumbled, his lungs locking, the instinct to run slamming into his chest. But the swarm had already seen him. And it was hungry.

The scream tore through the thick, humid air—raw, desperate, a sound so sharp it felt like it could cut.

Namjoon’s head snapped up.

For a second—just a second—everything else disappeared. The murmuring voices. The shifting bodies. The low hum of the failing generators. Gone. Only the scream remained.

Soobin. The name formed in his mind like a bullet in a chamber.

He didn’t say it—he breathed it. An exhale of dread. And then he was moving. Not thinking. Just running. Boots pounding against the dirt, lungs burning, heart slamming against his ribs.

Nothing else mattered. Not the others shouting after him. Not the sudden scramble of bodies trying to keep up. Not even the cold, creeping terror twisting around his spine, sinking its claws into his skin. Because he knew.

He knew before he even reached the coring room. Knew that the scream wasn’t just fear. It was a warning.

The nests, once silent and pulsing like dormant sentinels, began to rupture. One after another, they tore open with sickening, wet tears that echoed through the air. The sound was visceral—like overripe fruit, splitting under unseen pressure, spilling its dark contents into the dim, suffocating chamber.

A jagged, screeching noise filled the room, like knives dragged against stone. Sleek, winged horrors poured from the ruptured shells, their chitinous bodies glistening in the faint light. The reflection of their obsidian skin danced across the walls, catching every sliver of light that dared to pierce the gloom. Their wings churned the air, beating in frantic rhythm, an unnerving metallic hum that sank deep into the bones—a vibration that spoke of death.

Their talons, curved like fire-tipped scythes, slashed through the air with a terrifying precision. The darkness seemed to pulse with their frantic movement, the sharp sound of claws cutting through the dust and decay filling every corner of the chamber.

Soobin’s breath hitched, the overwhelming sense of dread crashing over him like a tidal wave. The exit, his only hope, was gone. The sliver of daylight, the promise of escape, had been obliterated, swallowed whole by the writhing, slashing black tide.

And then the swarm descended.

A flurry of wings, claws, and screeches filled the room, overwhelming his senses, suffocating him in a sea of terror. Soobin stumbled, his body moving on instinct, panic clawing at his ribs. Every muscle screamed at him to run, to survive. His mind raced for a way out—anything, anywhere.

But before he could think, one of the creatures dove toward him, its talons flashing like a streak of death. The pain was instant—a burning sting across his side that tore through him like a knife. He barely registered it, the world narrowing to a single thought: escape.

To the left—a door. A storage room.

He lunged, ignoring the sting, the weakness in his legs, the pounding in his chest. He ran with everything he had, the screeching swarm closing in behind him. Their claws scraped the air, reaching for him, and he pushed harder, slamming into the door with all his remaining strength. The door swung open and he hurled himself inside.

The second it clicked shut behind him, he collapsed, his body crashing against the shelves. Dust billowed up around him as his chest heaved, gasping for air. The creatures outside battered the door, their talons scraping across the metal like nails on a coffin lid. Each strike sent a shiver down his spine, the reality of his situation sinking in with brutal clarity.

His hands trembled as he fumbled for the bolt, his fingers slick with blood as he pressed them to his side. He slammed the bolt home, the creaking sound of rusted metal locking him into the room with a finality that echoed in his bones. Silence followed. Almost.

His breath was ragged, his pulse pounding in his ears. The blood—warm and slick—seeped through his fingers. It wasn’t deep, but it burned, as though the wound itself was alive, feeding on him. Poison? Infection? He didn’t know. Not yet. It didn’t matter.

He sucked in a breath and forced his vision to clear, blinking against the dizziness that threatened to take over. The room was dark, the shadows pooling thick in every corner, stretching across the forgotten shelves. The air was stale, thick with the weight of time and neglect. He couldn’t focus on that now. He had to find a way out.

His eyes scanned the clutter—boxes, long-forgotten tools, shattered glass. Anything. He needed a weapon. He needed something—anything—to give him a fighting chance.

Because this? This was just borrowed time.

The survivors ran, their boots hammering against the cracked earth, sending plumes of dust spiraling into the air as they sprinted through the settlement. Breath came fast, shallow, their bodies pushed to the edge of exhaustion. The air was thick with panic, vibrating with the frantic pulse of their flight, the sound of their desperation weaving into an unbearable rhythm beneath the oppressive glare of the twin suns.

Behind them, Jungkook didn’t move.

He stood by the water goblets, fingers idly tracing the rim of one as he drained the last, murky remnants in a single swallow. His silvered eyes flickered, watching the chaos unfold with a calm that was almost predatory—detached, observing, as if the terror around him were nothing more than an inconvenient distraction.

The supply room door exploded outward.

With a scream of tortured metal, it was torn from its frame, sending a tremor through the coring room. Namjoon surged forward, shoving past Lee, his heart pounding in his chest, his face drained of color. There was something about the way his skin had gone pale, the way his pulse seemed to freeze in his veins, that twisted the air into a suffocating knot of dread.

“Soobin?”

The name fell from his lips, a whisper of desperation, half prayer, half fear.

A rustling sound echoed from inside—soft, uncertain.

Soobin?

Namjoon’s pulse thundered in his ears, drowning out everything but the rising terror. He reached for the handle of the supply room door, his fingers trembling. The world inside was chaos.

Wet, fibrous husks split apart, spilling out a writhing, living storm of pale, winged horrors. The swarm burst from the shadows, their bodies gleaming like polished obsidian, their talons flashing like serrated razors catching the last fragments of light. They screamed, a sound that pierced the air, alien and unholy, like something crawling beneath the skin. The creatures poured into the room, their wings slicing through the dust-choked light, moving with an unnerving precision, as if their every movement had been calculated, predatory.

Namjoon stumbled back, gasping—but then his eyes locked onto something.

The thing that tumbled to the ground. A bloodied, shredded heap of flesh and bone.

Once, it had been Soobin.

Namjoon froze.

The sight stole the breath from his lungs—the torn limbs, the vacant brown eyes staring into nothingness, the way his body had been hollowed out, broken, like the creatures had made a home inside him before deciding to leave. The swarm had claimed him.

A sound clawed its way from Namjoon’s throat—grief, raw and staggering, choking him as he dropped to his knees beside the mangled remains of the boy. His hands shook violently as he reached out, fingertips brushing the cold, lifeless skin. Soobin had been young. Too young. He had whispered prayers, had laughed, had been here. And now he was nothing but remains, scattered across the floor like discarded refuse.

Behind him, Lee and Y/N inched forward, drawn by the silence that had followed the chaos. Their eyes flicked downward, following the trail to the open coring shaft. The bones, littered along its jagged walls, were picked clean, stripped bare. A graveyard, hidden beneath their very feet, had remained undisturbed all this time.

Under the pale blue sunrise, the Chrislams gathered, their voices weaving solemn, whispered prayers for the dead. Peter and Leo stood among them, their heads bowed in respectful silence.

Jungkook lingered at the edge of the settlement, his back turned, his eyes fixed on the horizon—as if waiting. But for what, no one knew.

Bindi broke first.

“Why the hell was the door chained up?” she demanded, her fists clenched, voice cracking with fury. “Why would they lock themselves in like that?”

Lee’s expression was unreadable, his eyes dark with something like frustration or maybe grief. He exhaled sharply. “Not sure,” he muttered, but his voice was edged with something harder. “But I’ll tell you this—the Chrislams better not be out there diggin’ another grave.”

Jungkook’s voice sliced through the tension, cutting across the conversation like a blade.

“It wasn’t about graves.”

All eyes turned toward him.

He stood leaning against the doorframe, his silvered eyes glinting in the dim light. His posture was relaxed, but there was an edge to him now, something sharper, knowing—a quiet threat beneath his calm exterior.

He took a slow step forward, his gaze flicking between the group.

“The other buildings weren’t secure,” he said flatly, his voice a quiet certainty. “So they ran here. Heaviest doors. Thought they’d be safe inside, but…” His gaze shifted toward the coring shaft, toward the bones that littered the space. He gestured with a slow flick of his wrist. “Someone forgot to lock the back door.”

Bindi’s jaw tightened, her breath catching in her throat as she followed his gaze.

To the evidence of the dead.

Her voice was barely a whisper, thick with the weight of grief and a fury that clung to her every word. "So that's what came of me, Daku. And you saw it. You was right there."

Jungkook nodded, a small, deliberate movement. He didn’t look away from her, his expression unreadable.

Bindi’s anger flared, her trembling hands clenched into fists at her sides. Her words hit like a hammer, the accusation sharp and biting. "You were tryin' to kill him too."

It wasn’t a question. It was a truth she was forcing him to face.

Jungkook didn’t flinch. Didn’t deny it. Instead, he shrugged—a slow, calculated motion, as if weighing her anger and finding it lacking.

"Just wanted his O-2," he said, his voice flat, the words hanging in the air between them like a challenge.

There was no apology. No remorse. Only cold, unvarnished truth.

Then, after a beat, he added, "Though I noticed he tried to ghost me first."

A smirk played across his lips—razor-sharp, unrepentant.

Bindi’s expression faltered, just for a moment. Because she knew. Because he was right. Soobin had tried to avoid them all. Tried to slip away before anyone could get close enough.

The silence stretched, thick and taut like a wire pulled too tight, waiting for the snap.

Without a word, Bindi reached up and pulled off her breather. She held it out to him.

"Take it."

Jungkook’s silvered eyes narrowed, studying her with a calculating gaze. "What, it’s broken?"

She shook her head. "Startin’ to acclimate, anyhow."

Her voice softened, as if the harshness that had defined their conversation up to that point had somehow dulled. "Take it."

For a long moment, Jungkook hesitated, his gaze flicking between the breather and her steady hands. Then, with a sharp breath, he accepted it. He held it to his face, inhaling deeply, his chest rising as the oxygen filled his lungs.

Across the room, Lee scowled. His arms were crossed tight, his expression unreadable, but the disapproval in his posture was unmistakable. He didn’t say anything—didn’t need to—but it sat heavy in the air like a weight they were all too familiar with.

No one acknowledged it.

Y/N didn’t even notice. She had drifted toward a metal counter, her fingers brushing absently over the rows of coring samples lined up neatly in glass containers. Each sample had a date etched into its side, preserving a history in stone, a silent record of time passed.

Her eyes flicked over the samples, reading each number carefully, until she stopped.

Her stomach dropped.

"Sixty years ago," she murmured, almost to herself.

Lee’s head snapped toward her. "What?"

"These samples," she said, her voice tight. She pointed. "The last one’s from sixty years ago. This month."

Bindi frowned, uneasy. "Yeah? What’s special about that?"

Y/N didn’t answer right away. She hovered over the glass, her fingers still, her mind spinning, calculating the pieces of the puzzle before she could stop herself.

She had known. The skiff. The design. The outdated, forgotten metalwork that had felt both familiar and wrong. It wasn’t eleven years old. No. It was almost sixty-three. It had been updated a few times, yes, but she now realized what she’d missed. The wires were made of copper.

And then it hit her.

A single word formed in her mind, cold and stark, a death sentence wrapped in syllables.

Hades.

M6-117. The failed colony. The graveyard of Aguerra Prime’s last great ships. And the birthplace of the creatures that had torn it all apart.

The blood drained from her face as the realization slammed into her chest.

The eclipse.

The darkness here wasn’t just a few hours of nightfall. It wasn’t a half-day cycle, not some minor inconvenience they could wait out.

It would last for three days.

Three days in which this planet would become a breeding ground for nightmares.

And they wouldn’t have that long.

Her breath shallow, Y/N’s mind raced through the calculations, faster than she could stop them, faster than she could control them. The truth came crashing through her, each piece falling into place with a sickening clarity.

This place would be swarmed.

The bioraptors wouldn’t wait. They wouldn’t wait for the sun to rise again. They would come the moment the last sliver of light disappeared. And once they did, they wouldn’t stop. Not until everything was consumed.

Y/N turned sharply toward the group, her heart pounding in her chest. Her voice, barely above a whisper, trembled as she spoke.

“The planet…” She swallowed, fighting to keep her composure, “…it goes dark.”

The words hung in the air like a death sentence, thick with the weight of the truth. The silence that followed was suffocating, pressing in on them from every side. It was as if the very room had turned cold with the realization of what she’d just said.

Lee stared at her, his face unreadable, though his eyes seemed to flicker with disbelief—or perhaps with the refusal to understand.

“Are you fuckin’ kidding me?” His voice was hoarse, raw, as if the concept itself was too monstrous to grasp.

Bindi went still, her breath catching in her throat. She wasn’t sure if she had heard her right, but the dread that crept up her spine told her otherwise.

Namjoon’s fingers curled into tight fists, the knuckles whitening as his body tensed, his mind racing to catch up with the horror of the revelation.

Peter let out a slow breath, his usual sarcasm nowhere to be found. His face had gone pale, the sharp edge of his humor dulled by the gravity of the situation.

Jungkook, still leaning against the wall, tilted his head slightly, studying her with those unreadable silvered eyes.

And then, a smirk.

"Not afraid of the dark, are you?" His voice was low, almost teasing, but there was a sharpness to it that didn’t belong.

The settlement hummed with nervous energy, the kind that thrummed beneath the skin, palpable in the tense air. People moved frantically through the dusty yard, scrambling to prepare for whatever was coming. There was no time to waste, no room for hesitation. Y/N crossed the yard with wide, purposeful strides, boots kicking up small clouds of dirt with each step. Her mind raced ahead of her body, her thoughts colliding in a jumble as she muttered to herself.

“…need those cells from the crash ship. Shit, still gotta check the hull, patch the wings—”

Before she could take another step, Lee was in her path, blocking her way with that familiar, steady presence. His voice, calm but firm, sliced through the air like a sharp blade.

“Let’s wait on the power cells,” he said, his tone leaving no room for argument, though he fully expected one.

Y/N came to a halt, her eyes flashing with disbelief. She shot him an incredulous look, her frustration bubbling over. “Wait for what? Until it’s so dark we can’t even find our way back to—”

Lee interrupted her, his gaze unwavering. “We don’t know when it’s going to happen. So let’s not—”

“Get the fucking cells over here, Lee,” she snapped, her voice tight with irritation. “What’s the discussion?”

For a moment, Lee said nothing. He studied her, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly as he seemed to weigh his response. Then, with a slight tilt of his head, he asked, “Ever tell you how Jungkook escaped?”

The sharp edge of Y/N’s anger dulled immediately, replaced by confusion. She froze, her brows furrowing. “No,” she replied cautiously, unsure of where this was heading.

Lee crossed his arms, the shift in his stance giving nothing away. “Do you want to know?”

Y/N hesitated, her fingers brushing nervously against her thighs as she tried to suppress a growing unease. “Depends,” she muttered, a sigh escaping her lips. “Is it important?”

Lee didn’t answer right away. Instead, he turned, his pace unhurried as he walked toward the skiff. Over his shoulder, he threw her a glance. “Come on. It’s not a short story.”

The interior of the skiff was dim, the air thick and stifling, heavy with the hum of the systems. Y/N leaned against the bulkhead, arms crossed tightly over her chest, trying to contain the swirling questions in her mind. Lee paced slowly in front of her, his hands clasped behind his back, his eyes distant as if recalling something buried deep within.

“Jungkook’s story starts at Ribald S Correctional Institute,” Lee began, his voice low, measured. “Hell of a place—high walls, razor wire, guards who shoot first and ask questions never. He didn’t last three years there before he made his move. Overpowered a guard, took his uniform, and shot two more, along with the pilot of the only space freighter on the planet. He was gone before anyone knew what was happening. Left bodies behind like they were breadcrumbs.”

Y/N shifted uncomfortably, but she didn’t interrupt. Her eyes followed Lee’s every movement, her mind trying to piece together the strange, dangerous man she thought she knew.

“The Company slapped a million-credit bounty on his head,” Lee continued, his voice turning colder. “And every bounty hunter, mercenary, and wannabe tough guy with a blaster went after him. He didn’t just escape them—he killed them. One after another. Every death added to his list, and that list grew fast. You know what they called him? A serial killer. A damn sociopath. Psychological evaluations said he was irredeemable, nothing but violence wrapped in flesh. And I believe it.”

Lee paused, his gaze hardening as he leaned in, the weight of his words sinking deeper. Y/N’s pulse quickened, her body tightening as the truth began to unfold.

“Ribald wasn’t the only place,” Lee went on, his voice growing more intense. “He broke out of Hubble Bay, Tangiers, some place called Psychological Restraint Station Q9—you name it, he’s escaped it. Killed guards, medics, other prisoners—hell, he even killed people who tried to help him. Once, during a war, he joined up with a mercenary outfit. Five hundred men in that unit, and guess how many made it off the planet alive? One. Him. The rumor is he killed most of his own men to save his own skin.”

Y/N swallowed hard, the weight of Lee’s words settling heavily in her stomach.

“And then there was Slam City,” Lee continued, his voice dropping lower, colder. “Ursa Luna Penal Facility. Maximum security, the kind of place people don’t walk out of. He was brought in cryosleep, but when they woke him up to prove he was alive, he killed one of the mercs who delivered him and stole the other’s gear. Used it to bribe his way through the facility. It took him less than half a day to break out, leaving a trail of bodies behind him. And when I say bodies, I mean everyone. Guards, prisoners, anyone in his way.”

Y/N let out a shaky breath, her fingers tightening into fists at her sides. “And no one stopped him?”

“Oh, plenty tried,” Lee replied, a bitter smile twisting at the edges of his lips. “Every time they caught him, he’d find a way to escape. He escaped Butcher Bay, one of the most secure prisons in the galaxy, by working the system. Stabbed me in the ribs once, damn near killed me. Then there was the Dark Athena, a merc ship. He slaughtered most of the crew—some of them were drones, sure, but a lot of them weren’t. Killed them all the same. There was a little girl onboard, Raye. Rumor is he helped her, but who knows why? Maybe he’s got some twisted code, maybe not. Either way, he left a pile of corpses in his wake.”

Y/N’s voice dropped, quieter now, almost hesitant. “You said he can pilot?”

Lee’s expression hardened, his gaze like granite. “Damn right he can. Jungkook’s not just some thug with a gun. He’s hijacked ships, stolen freighters right out from under their crews, outmaneuvered entire squads of mercenaries in space battles, and made it look easy. You put him in a cockpit, and he’ll turn that ship into a weapon faster than you can blink. Ex-Military. Ranger from Sigma 3. Smart fucker, I’ll give him that.”

Y/N furrowed her brow, her lips pressing into a thin line. The weight of Lee’s words hung heavy in the air, but a flicker of something else sparked in her. A hope. She wasn’t blind to Jungkook’s past—hell, she knew the kind of man he was. But it wasn’t lost on her that, despite his history, he’d been nothing but helpful to them. He’d risked his life more than once. And maybe… maybe that was worth something.

“Okay,” she said slowly, a hint of uncertainty in her voice as she pieced something together in her mind. “Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe I can use him—use that—to help with—”

Lee cut her off, his voice like a knife. “He kills the pilot he steals from, Y/N.”

The flicker of hope died instantly, snuffed out by the coldness in his words. Y/N felt the blood drain from her face, her stomach churning. A shiver crept up her spine, and for a moment, she thought she might actually feel sick.

“You said we were going to trust him now,” she said, her voice lowering, almost accusing. “You said there was a deal.”

“That’s what I said,” Lee replied, his tone measured. But the way he looked at her—the steady, unyielding gaze—spoke volumes. He didn’t expect her to like it, but he didn’t care, either.

Y/N’s jaw tightened, a spark of anger flaring behind her eyes. She wasn’t about to back down. “This is a dangerous game you’re playing, Lee.”

Lee shrugged, unbothered, his tone turning as matter-of-fact as if he were describing the weather. “May’ve noticed chains don’t work on this guy. Prisons don’t either. The only way we’re truly safe is if he believes he’s going free. But the moment he stops believin’—”

“You mean,” Y/N interjected sharply, her voice tinged with disbelief, “if he figures out you’re going to royally fuck him over?”

“—we need a fail-safe,” Lee finished, ignoring her jab completely, his gaze unflinching. His words carried the weight of absolute conviction. “Bring the cells over at the last possible minute. When the wings are patched, when we’re fueled, when we’re ready to launch. Not a second before.”

Y/N stared at him, her eyes narrowing as she studied his face. She didn’t find any flicker of doubt, any hesitation. It was all cold calculation. She hated it.

“You know,” she said softly, the words slipping out before she could stop them, “he hasn’t harmed any of us. Not once. As far as I can tell, he hasn’t even lied to us. Just stick to the deal, Lee. Let him go if that’s what it takes to keep the peace.”

Lee shook his head slowly, his expression darkening like a storm cloud gathering on the horizon. “He’s a murderer,” he said, his voice low, filled with finality. “The law says he’s gotta do his bid. What kind of lawman would I be if I let him walk?”

Y/N sighed, her shoulders slumping as she turned away from him, frustration etched into her features. “We’re dancing on razor blades here, Lee. Every step you take just makes it worse.”

Lee’s jaw tightened. His words became even colder, sharper. “I won’t give him the chance to grab another ship—or to slash another pilot’s throat.” His words landed with the finality of a verdict, his stance unyielding, like the rocks surrounding the settlement.

Y/N didn’t respond right away. She stared at him, her expression unreadable. Finally, her voice, when it came, was quiet, but laced with a warning that cut deeper than any shouted words.

“Careful, Lee. You’re playing god with a devil who doesn’t miss a chance to prove he’s smarter than everyone else. Just hope you’ve got it all figured out before he does.”

Without waiting for a response, she turned and left the skiff, her footsteps fading into the distance, leaving Lee standing there, unmoved but not entirely certain. His hand rested lightly on the weapon at his side, as if he wasn’t fully convinced his plan would hold.

The sun hung low in the sky, casting the settlement in fiery hues of orange and deep blue. The day’s heat lingered in the air, thick and suffocating, as shadows stretched long and sharp across the cracked earth. A faint hum of repairs blended with the buzz of insects, creating a low, constant undertone to the scene. The atmosphere was heavy with more than just the oppressive heat—it was the unspoken tension that clung to everything, to every person, like dust that couldn’t be shaken off.

Y/N wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand, smearing grit and heat across her skin. It seemed to stick to her no matter how many times she wiped it away, the dust, the weight, the burn of it all pressing down like a constant reminder that there was no escape here. She glanced toward the skiff, where Jungkook was setting up a makeshift field table. His movements were slow, deliberate, like he had all the time in the world. He was a study of unhurried confidence, every motion drawing the eye without effort.

And damn it, she couldn’t stop herself from looking.

He wore his miner’s goggles, the thick black lenses reflecting the dying light of the sun, making his face unreadable—yet no less striking. His sharp jawline, the way his lips curved with a silent smirk—there was something about him that didn’t belong in this world. His presence, his beauty, it felt out of place among the grime and the chaos. But it was more than just his face. It was the way he moved—fluid, deliberate—like every gesture was calculated to leave an impression.

Her gaze lingered, unwillingly drawn to the strength in his shoulders, the calloused hands that knew how to handle a blade as easily as they handled tools. She hated how easily her thoughts strayed, how attractive she found him even in the middle of all this dirt and sweat. Maybe especially then. It infuriated her.

And Jungkook wasn’t helping. He thrived on attention, basked in it like it was air. He knew exactly how to command a room without saying a word, and he’d caught her watching him before—dark eyes glinting with a mixture of amusement and something far more dangerous.

Now, as he straightened from the table, blade in hand, he glanced her way, and she felt the weight of his gaze even through the black lenses of his goggles.

“You’re gonna overheat staring like that, Frenchie,” he teased, his voice smooth and cool, laced with that same edge that both irritated and captivated her.

Y/N scowled, her jaw tightening. She hated that damn nickname. He’d picked it up after overhearing Captain Marshall call her that, a name she’d liked—until Jungkook twisted it, turned it into something that made her skin prickle.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she shot back, pretending to refocus her attention on the monitors inside the skiff.

But of course, she couldn’t stop the awareness of him as he moved closer, the scent of sweat and sun-warmed leather trailing behind him like an unfairly appealing cloud. Damn him.

Jungkook leaned casually against the skiff’s hatch, spinning the blade idly between his fingers. “You always this charming when you’re working, or is it just me?”

“It’s just you,” she muttered, keeping her eyes fixed on the screen, but the words came out sharper than she intended.

He chuckled, low and rich, a sound that sent an unwelcome shiver racing down her spine. “I’ll take it as a compliment.”

Y/N clenched her jaw, trying to focus on the task at hand. The hull integrity test was inching closer to completion, the numbers climbing steadily—but her thoughts were scattered, tripping over the presence of the man who refused to let her focus. His proximity didn’t help. His presence was maddening, impossible to ignore.

“You know,” Jungkook said, his voice softer now, almost catching her off guard, “you’re damn smart. Resourceful, too. I’d trust you to fix just about anything.”

Her fingers faltered for a second, just a brief hesitation that betrayed her. She hated the way his words snuck under her skin. “Thanks,” she muttered, keeping her eyes locked firmly on the screen.

“And you smell nice,” he added, the teasing lilt unmistakable. “Even covered in sweat and blood.”

Y/N’s head snapped up, her glare immediately locking onto him. “You’re unbelievable.”

Jungkook grinned, clearly entertained, and straightened up from his casual perch. “What? Can’t a guy give a compliment?”

She stepped closer, her irritation outweighing her better judgment. “If you’re done being a nuisance, maybe you could actually contribute to the mission.”

His smirk deepened, his eyes sweeping over her before settling on her face, as though he were reading her every thought. “Careful, Frenchie. You’re starting to sound like you might actually enjoy having me around.”

“I’d enjoy it more if you kept your mouth shut,” she snapped back, but her pulse betrayed her, quickening under his gaze, her body betraying the sharp edge of her words.

Jungkook leaned in slightly, his voice dropping low and smug. “You keep telling yourself that.”

Before Y/N could respond, the sound of boots crunching on the dirt broke the tension between them. Lee approached, his blond hair tinged red from the dust swirling in the air. His face was as unreadable as ever, but Y/N couldn’t miss the way his gaze lingered on them—just long enough for her to catch the subtle tension in his jaw, the way his eyes flicked between her and Jungkook.

She had noticed it before—the way his eyes followed her, burning into her skin as she moved through the space, a constant weight she couldn't shake. But confronting it would only make things worse. The tension within the team was already fraying, edges ready to snap, and adding more fractures wasn’t going to help anyone. Still, today was different. Jungkook’s movements were off—less sure, more erratic. His hands shook faintly as they worked. Y/N’s stomach twisted with concern. This planet, with its oppressive atmosphere and constant pressure shifts, wasn’t a place for humans to thrive, and the toll it was taking on him, despite his attempts to hide it, was beginning to show.

Jungkook noticed too. He didn’t address Lee right away, but when his gaze finally landed on him, it was with unnerving precision—an almost predatory focus that made Y/N uneasy. A slow smirk spread across his face, sharp and mocking. “Bad sign, shakin’ like that in this heat,” he drawled, his voice smooth but biting.

Lee stiffened, his jaw tightening at the remark, but he didn’t respond. Instead, he brushed past Jungkook, his focus now set firmly on something else.

The Chrislams arrived then, carrying a roll of Vectran. Their quiet voices mingled with the low hum of the skiff’s systems as they conferred about their next steps. Namjoon patted his side absently, searching for a knife.

“I’ll cut,” Jungkook offered, his voice calm but firm. With a fluid motion, a blade appeared in his hand, as though it had materialized from thin air. He handled it with precision, his fingers steady and confident as the blade sliced through the Vectran, its gleaming edge catching the dim light for a fleeting moment.

He passed the trimmed pieces to Yeonjun, who moved with a swift, graceful agility, scaling the wing struts of the skiff with the ease of someone who belonged in the air. Yeonjun delivered the material to Namjoon, who worked silently, his focus unwavering as he stitched the Vectran with meticulous care. For a moment, everything fell quiet, suspended in the weight of their work.

Yeonjun paused, his gaze shifting toward the horizon. The low-hanging sun cast long, eerie shadows across the barren landscape, and the air seemed to hold its breath. But the horizon remained still—quiet, for now.

Inside the skiff, Y/N exhaled, trying to refocus her mind on the monitors in front of her. The hull integrity test was nearly done, the numbers climbing steadily, but her thoughts kept straying, clinging to something she couldn’t quite shake. Jungkook’s presence. It lingered behind her like an invisible shadow.

The air inside the skiff was cooler, quieter—but Y/N felt anything but calm. Her fingers moved over the controls with methodical efficiency, scanning the gauges, but her mind churned, caught in the storm of unfinished business.

“Looks like we’re a few shy,” Jungkook’s voice cut through the silence, smooth and confident, slicing through the tension that had built up between them.

Y/N spun around, her pulse skipping in her chest. Jungkook stood near the depleted battery bay, Namjoon’s blade still twirling effortlessly between his fingers. His posture was relaxed, but the sharpness in his gaze, the way he was looking at her, made her blood run cold.

“Power cells,” he said, his tone light but probing.

“They’re coming,” she replied, her voice steadier than her nerves would suggest.

Jungkook tilted his head, a subtle smirk tugging at his lips. “Strange,” he mused, eyes flicking briefly to the controls. “Not doin’ a run-up on the main drive yet. Strange… unless Lee told you the particulars of my escape.”

Her breath caught in her throat, but she forced her face into neutral. “I got the long-and-ugly version,” she said, the words clipped, terse.

Jungkook stepped closer, unhurried but deliberate, the faintest tension in his movements. His voice dropped to a soft, dangerous murmur. “So you’re worried about a repeat performance?”

Y/N’s chest tightened. “It crossed our minds,” she bit back, her pulse quickening, her words sharper than she intended.

Jungkook’s smirk widened, but his tone shifted, softening into something almost tender. “I didn’t ask what crossed Lee’s mind. I asked what you think.”

Y/N squared her shoulders, fighting to keep her composure, but something in his eyes made her feel uncomfortably exposed. “You scare me,” she admitted, the words slipping out before she could stop them. “Happy now? Can I get back to work?”

She turned sharply, focusing all her attention back on the monitor, but the tremor in her fingers betrayed her, just enough to make her feel vulnerable.

Jungkook didn’t let up. He moved closer, his voice quieter, dropping into a dangerous intimacy. “You think Lee’s the kind of man to keep his word? Think I can trust him to cut me loose?”

Y/N hesitated, her gaze flicking to him despite herself. “Why? What’d you hear?”

A deep smirk stretched across Jungkook’s face, slow and deliberate. “Oh, nothing much. Just a thought. If it were treachery, he’d have done me by now. But I’m worth more alive, you see. Twice as much, in fact.”

The words hit hard, and Y/N’s stomach tightened. But she recovered quickly, her voice cold and sharp. “Save the mind games, Jungkook. We’re not gonna turn on each other, no matter how hard you try.”

Jungkook chuckled—a low, dark sound that sent a shiver down her spine. He leaned in just enough that she could feel his warmth, the proximity almost unbearable. His voice dropped to a whisper, each word deliberate, a quiet warning against her resolve. “I don’t know what’s gonna happen when the lights go out, Frenchie. But once the dyin’ starts, this psycho family of ours is gonna tear itself apart. You better figure out who’s standing behind you when it does.”

The monitor beeped sharply: HULL INTEGRITY—100%.

The hatch hissed open, letting in a cool rush of air, breaking the heavy tension. Jungkook straightened, his smirk returning to its usual infuriating curve.

“Oh,” he said, glancing over his shoulder with dark amusement, “ask him about those shakes. And why your buddy screamed like that before he died.”

And with that, he was gone, slipping out of the skiff like smoke, leaving her standing there, heart pounding and frustration simmering. Y/N forced her eyes back to the monitor, but her thoughts lingered on his parting words, the heat of his breath still lingering in the air. She hated how attractive she found him, how easy it was to fall into his rhythm, his dangerous charm.

And she hated even more that he probably knew it.

The box of red-metal shotgun shells sat on the table, gleaming faintly under the dim light of the cabin, a silent testament to the secrets they held. Lee’s hands moved methodically, his calloused fingers selecting one from the neatly arranged row. With a small twist and a quick snap, he cracked it open, revealing a tiny glass ampule hidden within the casing. The amber liquid inside caught the light for just a moment before he slid it into the barrel of a syringe. The hiss of the plunger followed, and he pressed the needle against the eager vein in his arm. For a fraction of a second, his muscles tensed, his body rejecting the foreign substance—but then, the drug took hold. His expression smoothed into something unreadable, the tension melting away.

“Who are you? Really?”

The voice startled him, pulling him from the haze of the drug’s effect. Lee’s head snapped up, his dark eyes meeting hers. Y/N stood in the doorway, arms crossed, her gaze sharp and unyielding. There was a new edge to her—something colder, more dangerous than the familiar tension between them.

“You’re not a real cop, are you?” she pressed, her tone sharp, accusatory, as she stepped inside without waiting for an invitation.

Lee remained silent, his eyes betraying nothing. He set the syringe down on the table, the sharp clink echoing between them.

“Just some mercenary who goes around talking about the law like—”

“I never said I was,” Lee interrupted, his voice calm, but laced with a warning that hung heavy in the air.

Y/N didn’t miss a beat. “And you never said you were a merc, either.” Her eyes flicked to the paraphernalia scattered across the table, and without hesitation, she began rummaging through his belongings. Her movements were bold, almost daring him to stop her.

It didn’t take long. She pulled out a stash of the red-metal shells, each one unmistakably designed to conceal a dark secret. Holding one up, she turned it over in her fingers, studying it with a piercing gaze.

“You have a little caffeine in the morning, I have a little morphine. So what?” Lee’s voice was flippant, the tone almost dismissive as he leaned casually against the wall.

Her lips curled into a humorless smirk. “And here you’ve got two mornings every day. Wow, were you born lucky?”

“It’s not a problem unless you make it one,” he shot back, narrowing his eyes as the tension simmered between them.

Her expression darkened, and her voice snapped out, like a whip cracking through the air. “You made it a problem when you let Shields die like that. When you had enough drugs in your stash to knock out a fucking mule team.”

Lee straightened, his casual facade slipping away, replaced by a defensive edge. “Shields was already dead,” he snapped, his tone sharper now. “His brain just hadn’t caught up to it yet.”

The words hit her like a slap. Y/N froze, her grip tightening on the shell in her hand, the metal pressing into her skin as her knuckles whitened. “Anything else we should know about you, Lee? Christ, here I am letting you play games with our lives when—”

Before she could finish, he moved, his hands grabbing hers with a firm, unyielding grip. He pulled her hands to his back, forcing her fingers against the jagged, uneven scar that stretched beside his spine.

“My first run-in with Jungkook,” Lee said quietly, his voice a low growl. “Went for the sweet spot and missed. They had to leave a piece of the shiv in there. Couldn’t risk taking it out without paralyzing me. I can feel it sometimes, pressing against the cord.” He released her hands, stepping back with a hardness in his gaze that matched the stone-like resolve in his posture. “So maybe the care and feeding of my nerve endings is my business.”

Y/N’s hand hovered in mid-air for a moment, then dropped to her side. Her gaze remained fixed on him, her voice trembling with restrained emotion. “You could’ve helped.”

The accusation hung heavy between them, sharper than any blade.

“And you didn’t.”

Outside, a voice broke the charged silence, calling urgently, “Captain! Captain!”

Lee’s lips curled into a faint, bitter smirk, and his voice dropped low, mocking. “Yeah, well,” he said, “look to thine own ass first. Right, Captain?”

The words stung more than she wanted to admit, the bitterness cutting deep. But Y/N didn’t give him the satisfaction of a reaction. Without a word, she turned on her heel and walked out, her steps quick and purposeful, leaving the weight of their conversation to linger in the cabin behind her.

Behind her, Lee leaned back against the wall, watching her retreating form with a hard expression. The smirk faded, leaving something heavier in its place. He ran a hand through his hair, exhaling sharply. The ampule was empty now, the drug’s effects wearing off, but the weight of what had just been said hung in the air, heavier than any substance he’d ever injected.

There was more to the story, more that he hadn’t shared. A deal made before takeoff, a decision that had led them off course, straight into the hands of their attackers. The memory of the deal he had struck with Shields, taking a back road to move Jungkook under cover of darkness, still tasted bitter in his mouth. They hadn’t been hit by accident. They’d been led there.

Lee had kept that part to himself. But maybe it was time to admit it. He wasn’t sure if Y/N was ready for the truth. But the way she’d looked at him—cold and accusatory—suggested she might already have figured it out. Still, the thought of telling her made his stomach tighten. The truth was a dangerous thing, and some pieces were better left buried.

Outside, the group stood scattered across the clearing, their faces tilted upward, eyes wide, mouths slightly open in silent awe. The air around them felt thick, charged with an almost unnatural stillness. The faint rustle of the wind seemed to pause, holding its breath, as if reluctant to disturb the moment. The universe, it seemed, had gone quiet—waiting.

“What do my eyes see?” Peter’s voice trembled, fragile and filled with wonder, as though afraid to break the spell that had fallen over them.

“It’s starting,” Y/N replied softly, her words barely more than a breath, the reality of the moment sinking into her bones.

Above them, an ethereal arch of light began to stretch across the twilight sky. It shimmered, ghostly and delicate, like a phantom river gliding across the heavens. It started as a mere glimmer on the distant horizon, but even as they watched, it grew, expanding outward with deliberate grace. The light painted the two suns in soft shades of lavender and gold, casting a surreal glow that seemed to fight against the encroaching darkness creeping from the opposite side of the horizon. The juxtaposition of light and shadow created an almost sacred atmosphere, as though the heavens themselves were about to reveal their secrets.

The group stood frozen, entranced, their minds suspended in the beauty of it all. It was as if time itself had taken a breath and held it, letting the moment linger. But then, as if on cue, Bindi’s voice sliced through the trance, cutting through the reverence like a knife.

“If we need anything from the crash site,” she said, her tone brisk and unyielding, “I suggest we move. That sand-cat’s solar.”

Her words ignited a spark of urgency in the group. The serene silence that had enveloped the settlement shattered, replaced by a rush of movement and purpose. People scrambled to grab supplies—water containers, solar lanterns, climbing gear, weapons. There was no time for hesitation now.

Bindi was already at the sand-cat, her movements precise and practiced as she cranked the engine to life. The vehicle roared to life, its solar panels straining to catch the last rays of the fading light. “Now or never, folks!” she barked, her voice carrying above the sudden flurry of activity as the others piled aboard, their hands eager and hearts racing.

“Let’s get those cells!” Y/N shouted, her voice sharp, commanding, cutting through the chaos like a blade.

The sand-cat lurched forward, kicking up a cloud of dust as it sped toward the wreck site. Jungkook leapt onto the rear bed with ease, his body moving with an effortless grace that made the jump seem like child’s play. Peter and Leo sprinted after the vehicle, boots pounding against the packed dirt. They reached the back just as the sand-cat hit a bump, hauling themselves aboard with a mix of desperation and adrenaline.

“We stay together!” Bindi called, her voice like iron, grounding them in the midst of the rush.

Lee emerged from the settlement’s private quarters, a shotgun slung over his shoulder and a pouch of red-metal shells strapped to his hip. His boots pounded against the ground as he sprinted toward the departing vehicle. The sand-cat veered past the settlement’s incinerator, and Jungkook reached out, his smirk sly and confident, hauling Lee aboard with a single, fluid motion.

“Don’t wanna miss this,” Jungkook said, his teasing tone laced with something darker, something that lingered beneath the surface.

Lee shot him a sidelong glance, his expression unreadable, but he said nothing. He gripped the railing as the sand-cat accelerated, the wind whipping around them.

“Look!” Leo cried, his voice breaking with awe.

The sand-cat crested a ridge, and the horizon stretched wide before them. A massive planet began to rise, its curvature vast and unimaginable. Its surface shimmered with swirling hues of green and silver, like the very earth itself was alive. The planet’s colossal rings spread across the sky, glowing with an eerie luminescence, their edges jagged with the glittering remnants of ancient collisions. The sheer scale of it all—this cosmic behemoth—was enough to make the two suns below seem small and insignificant, their light swallowed by the immensity of the rising planet. Its presence cast a heavy shadow over the land, threatening to swallow them whole.

The sand-cat plunged into a canyon, the roar of its engine reverberating off the jagged walls. The bones of a massive creature littered the path, ribcages arching overhead like grotesque monuments to a long-dead past. The roll cage scraped against them with an ear-splitting screech as they barreled through, the noise amplified by the canyon walls.

The wrecked ship came into view, its once-proud hull now a crumpled husk against the canyon floor. The group sprang into action as the sand-cat skidded to a halt, the urgency of their mission pushing them forward. Bindi barked orders, her voice clear and firm, cutting through the growing darkness around them.

Peter paused for a moment, his feet rooted to the ground as he turned back toward the sky. The planet loomed higher now, its rings casting shifting shadows across the desert floor. The sheer scale of it all was staggering, its presence so overwhelming that it seemed to consume the entire world. The planet wasn’t just rising—it was swallowing the sky, the suns, and perhaps them along with it.

“Peter, move!” Y/N’s voice cut through his thoughts, snapping him out of his daze.

With a final, reluctant glance at the celestial titan above, Peter turned and joined the others. His pulse raced, and as he caught up with the group, he could feel the weight of what was coming. Above them, the arch of light began to ripple, as if alive, its movement almost sentient. The shadows deepened around them, and the air grew thick with the anticipation of something monumental on the horizon.

Whatever was coming next, they had precious little time to prepare.

Inside the battery bay, the air was thick with the sharp tang of ozone, a heavy scent of burnt metal mingling with the faint, acrid smell of aging wiring. Dim emergency lights flickered weakly, casting long shadows that seemed to stretch across the cramped space. Towering rows of depleted power cells loomed in silence, their massive forms resembling sentinels guarding a forgotten realm. The room was cold, the only sound the soft hum of the failing lights and the metallic scrape of Lee's boots as he worked.

Lee gritted his teeth, his jaw clenched against the weight of the first power cell. It resisted him, the massive cylinder a stubborn and unwieldy thing. Age and neglect had conspired against him, its weight pulling him off balance with each strained tug. His muscles screamed as he wrestled it free from its docking cradle, finally yanking it loose with a forceful jerk. The sudden shift nearly sent him tumbling backward, but he regained his footing, dragging the cumbersome unit across the deck. His boots scraped against the scuffed metal floor, the sound an irritating reminder of just how much work was left to do.

Beads of sweat dotted his forehead, running down his face and disappearing into the collar of his worn jumpsuit. His arms trembled with the effort, and his breath came in short, ragged bursts, but he pressed on. There was no time to waste. Each step was a battle, but he couldn’t afford to stop. Not now.

Behind him, a sound broke through his concentration—confident footsteps. Lee glanced over his shoulder, just in time to see Jungkook effortlessly hoist a second power cell onto his shoulder, his movements smooth and practiced. The younger man carried it like a feather, his lithe frame betraying the surprising strength that lay beneath. To Lee, it seemed almost like mockery, the ease with which Jungkook handled the massive weight. The cell, which was easily a hundred pounds, rested against Jungkook’s shoulder like a sack of grain, the young man’s posture impeccable, like a man who’d done this a thousand times before.

As Jungkook passed, he flashed a grin that was all teeth, his eyes twinkling with amusement. "Try to keep up, old man," he teased, the words light, but the challenge hanging in the air. His tone was mocking, and beneath the humor, there was something sharp—something dare Lee to respond.

Lee’s scowl deepened, the jab landing harder than he wanted to admit. He adjusted his grip on the cumbersome power cell, its bulk weighing him down with each dragging step. The scrape of metal on metal echoed in his ears as he made his way toward the loading ramp, his body aching from the strain. Jungkook’s effortless pace only fueled the fire in his chest. He wasn’t going to be outdone, not by a cocky kid.

Ahead, Jungkook moved with ease, his steps light as he descended the ramp, the power cell balanced with casual precision on his shoulder. He hopped the last step, landing with a controlled bounce before setting the cell down onto the sand-cat with a resounding thud. He glanced back at Lee, one eyebrow raised, a silent dare in his expression.

“Need a hand?” Jungkook’s voice was laced with mock sincerity, his lips curling in that infuriating smile.

“Don’t push your luck,” Lee growled, teeth gritted as he made his way up the ramp, finally catching up. His arms burned from the strain, but he refused to stop. Not with the eclipse looming, not with everything on the line.

Bindi’s voice cut through the air, sharp and commanding, as she expertly maneuvered the sand-cat into position. The vehicle’s treads kicked up plumes of dust as it came to a halt, the grinding sound of metal on rock a steady reminder of their dwindling time. She parked just far enough to give the team room to work, the scrap-metal sled trailing behind, its battered frame a makeshift lifeline. The Chrislams were already at work, their hands moving in practiced synchrony as they lashed the sled securely to the sand-cat’s rear with frayed ropes and makeshift clamps. Every motion was swift, efficient, driven by necessity—and the growing urgency in their eyes.

Jungkook didn’t hesitate. With a grunt, he hoisted the power cell from his shoulder and dropped it onto the sled with a resounding clang. The metal groaned beneath the weight, but it held firm. Lee wasn’t far behind, dragging his own cell with grim determination etched into every line of his face. He shoved it into place beside Jungkook’s, their movements synchronized by the same unspoken understanding: this was a race against time, against the impending darkness, and against each other.

Overhead, the yellow sun began to dim, its light swallowed by the planet’s encroaching rings. The sky shifted into a strange, eerie twilight, casting long, distorted shadows across the crash site. The last remnants of daylight seemed to be fading into something far darker, the air growing thicker, heavier. The sudden gloom was accompanied by a faint, high-pitched whine—a sound that crawled under the skin and made the hairs on the back of their necks stand on end. It started low but steadily grew louder, a vibration that seemed to pulse in the air itself, like a warning from something ancient and waiting.

“Keep moving! Don’t stop!” Y/N’s voice rang out, sharp and urgent, cutting through the tension. Fear laced her words, but there was something about her command that only made her more forceful, more determined.

Most of the team obeyed without question, their hands moving faster, breaths coming in short, panicked bursts. But Peter, ever the curious one, faltered. His gaze drifted to the jagged spires rising in the distance. He squinted, his curiosity sparking even in the midst of the growing chaos. He didn’t notice the way his body stiffened, the hairs on his arms rising as the air seemed to pulse with something alive.

“Peter, now is not the time!” Bindi’s voice was a whip-crack of authority, cutting through the tension like a blade.

The yellow sun was gone, swallowed entirely by the planet’s vast rings. Its twin—the red sun—followed moments later, plunging the world into an oppressive darkness that felt almost sentient, like it was pressing down on them, suffocating them. The whine crescendoed into a keening wail, a sound that rattled the bones and sent panic rippling through the group. And then, like some sleeping giant disturbed, the spires began to stir.

Taglist: @fancypeacepersona @ssbb-22 @mar-lo-pap @sathom013 @kimyishin @ttanniett @sweetvoidstuff @keiarajm @sathom013 @miniesjams32

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1982grapejuiceblues · 1 month ago

Text

The Mistake II

Official Masterlist | Series Masterlist | Part 1 here

The Wrong Pitch Part 2

Summary:

They weren’t supposed to see each other again. But when they do, everything they tried to walk away from is still there — unspoken, unresolved. This is what happens after the silence. When one person reaches out. When the other hesitates. And when two people try to move on from a moment that never really ended.

A/N: Thank you so much for all the love on part 1! I've wanted to post my little story for so long and I'm so glad that I'm finally doing it! I hope you guys love this one as much as the last. Be on the look out for more to come from these two! <3

Warnings:

• Emotional vulnerability and self-doubt

• Delayed communication / left-on-read anxiety

• Fear of rejection / avoidance of intimacy

• Mentions of overthinking, perfectionism, and emotional burnout

• A lot of yearning

• A lot of silence

• A lot of almosts

Word Count: 7.3k

────── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──────

12:06 p.m. — Milk & Honey Café

The door jingled.

Not in the casual, background way it usually did — not for either of them.

Y/N stepped in just as Harry stepped back, like the weight of her presence knocked the air out of him slightly. She wasn’t rushing this time. She wasn’t apologizing. And she wasn’t late.

He looked exactly the same.

Black jumper. Curls a bit messier than yesterday. Notebook in hand. Like he’d walked straight out of the memory.

She blinked. “Hi.”

“Hi,” he echoed. His voice was lower than she remembered, like he hadn’t spoken yet today and she was the first word.

They stood in the entryway, just… looking at each other. Two people blinking at something that shouldn’t be happening, but is.

Then, without planning it, without even talking about it, they both turned and drifted toward the same booth.

Same seats. Same angle of sunlight. Same quiet hum of music in the background.

Like no time had passed. And somehow, like too much had.

12:08 p.m.

He sat first this time.

She set her bag down. Smoothed her sleeve. Glanced at the coffee cup already on the table and raised a brow.

“Back for round two?”

Harry shrugged, smiling gently. “Didn’t feel finished.”

She blinked. That one sentence landed harder than it should’ve.

“Did you…” she started, then hesitated. “Come here hoping I’d be here?”

He met her gaze evenly. “I came here hoping I’d want to stay, even if you weren’t.”

Y/N exhaled slowly. “That’s a very emotionally intelligent answer.”

“I’m a professional,” he said, mouth twitching into a smirk.

She laughed — short and genuine — and suddenly the air between them softened.

12:14 p.m.

“I thought about you,” she said, then immediately winced. “Sorry, that was blunt.”

“I’m glad,” Harry said, steady. “I thought about you too.”

There was something about the way he said it. Not eager. Not shy. Just honest. Like he wasn’t scared of the truth if she wasn’t.

Y/N fiddled with the edge of a napkin. “It felt weird, yesterday. How easy it was to talk to you.”

“Yeah,” Harry said. “It really did.”

They fell into a comfortable silence — the kind that stretched, not sagged. They weren’t rushing this. Maybe because it had already rushed them once, and now they wanted to take their time.

“I didn’t ask what you were doing here,” she said eventually.

“You didn’t,” he agreed.

She tilted her head. “So?”

“I write here sometimes,” he said. “Well — I procrastinate here. Scribble a sentence. Drink a flat white. Lie to myself about how productive I’m being.”

“You had me convinced.”

“That’s because you assumed I was a tortured genius.”

She smiled. “I assumed you were Brody.”

“And now you’ve met the real Brody.”

She groaned. “Don’t remind me.”

He grinned. “Still think I looked like him?”

“You’re much less pretentious.”

Harry raised a brow. “You said I looked broody.”

“Broody is fine. Pretentious is a red flag.”

“Duly noted.”

12:24 p.m.

The conversation drifted after that. They ordered coffee. She got a croissant she didn’t really want. He asked her about literary agents (“Is it actually like You’ve Got Mail, or have I romanticized your entire industry?”), and she asked him about speechwriting.

They talked about books. About weird client requests. About the time he had to ghostwrite a breakup text for a guy who wanted to end things “with grace but also dominance.”

They laughed. A lot.

But underneath all of it, something deeper simmered. A current neither of them acknowledged yet. The sense that they’d already skipped a few steps — and weren’t entirely sure what came next.

Y/N glanced at him as he stirred sugar into his second cup. “You’re good at this.”

“At what?”

“Making things feel like they’re supposed to happen.”

Harry looked at her for a long beat.

Then said, quietly, “You’re good at staying even when you want to bolt.”

She stared at him.

And for a second, something unspoken hovered in the air between them.

And neither of them moved to break it.

12:42 p.m.

Y/N tucked one leg beneath her in the booth and watched him trace the rim of his cup with his thumb.

She wasn’t sure when they’d stopped pretending this was casual.

Maybe it was somewhere between his second coffee and her third laugh. Maybe it was the way his eyes never drifted to his phone, or the way he kept asking her questions like he was cataloguing her for safekeeping.

Or maybe it was that moment — five minutes ago — when they both stopped talking for a beat too long, and didn’t fill the silence.

And still, it hadn’t felt awkward.

Just… full.

“Can I ask you something?” she said.

He looked up. “You’ve been asking me things all morning.”

“This one’s more personal.”

He didn’t move. “Go ahead.”

Y/N hesitated, then leaned back a little, fingers still wrapped around her mug.

“Why didn’t you stay yesterday?”

Harry blinked.

She didn’t say it accusingly. It wasn’t a complaint. Just a quiet inquiry — like she was asking about a weather pattern. Something she couldn’t control but maybe understood.

He exhaled. “I don’t know.”

Y/N waited.

“I think…” he said slowly, “I told myself it was nothing. And that it was easier to leave nothing than risk it becoming something.”

Her eyes didn’t move from his.

“But then I walked away,” he added, “and it didn’t feel like nothing anymore.”

Y/N's lips parted slightly, like she wanted to say something. But she didn’t.

Just nodded once.

“I thought about coming back,” she said. “But I didn’t want to be wrong.”

“You weren’t.”

She looked at him.

He meant it.

He didn’t say it to be nice. Or clever. Or to score points.

He just meant it.

12:54 p.m.

Harry stared at the half-empty cup between them, then said, “I almost left before you sat down.”

“What?”

“That first morning. I was going to pack up and head out. I didn’t even want to be there. But I stayed. Just… couldn’t get myself to move.”

Y/N felt her throat tighten. “Why?”

He shrugged a little. “Couldn’t tell you. But if I had left, we never would’ve had this conversation.”

She gave a half-smile. “Sliding doors.”

“Sliding coffee shops.”

She laughed. He smiled at the sound.

Then, softer: “I keep thinking about how random it was. How weirdly easy it was to talk to you. Like we skipped the part where people pretend they’re not afraid of being seen.”

He said it so plainly. Like it wasn’t terrifying.

Y/N swallowed. “That’s a hard thing to come back from.”

Harry tilted his head. “Coming back’s the good part, isn’t it?”

1:08 p.m.

They sat with it — the kind of openness that usually came hours, days, weeks into knowing someone. But here it was. Laid out in front of them. All their almosts and maybes and unsaids, crowding the small space between their coffee cups.

“I’m scared,” she said suddenly, softly.

Harry didn’t flinch. “Of what?”

“That this feels like a beginning and I don’t know the rules.”

He considered that.

Then, with the smallest smile: “What if we don’t need any?”

She let out a shaky breath. “That’s worse.”

“Why?”

“Because it means we’re making them up as we go.”

Harry leaned forward slightly. “Maybe that’s the point.”

Their eyes locked.

Something clicked — not loudly, but firmly. Like a door closing gently behind them.

And neither of them moved.

1:17 p.m.

They didn’t leave.

They could have. The booth was getting uncomfortable. Their mugs were long empty. The lunch crowd was starting to creep in, soft chatter and clinking cutlery replacing the calm from earlier.

But they stayed.

Because the table between them wasn’t a table anymore.

It was a line.

Thin. Invisible. Teetering.

And neither of them wanted to be the first to cross it — but neither wanted to leave it untouched.

Y/N traced the edge of her saucer with a fingertip, eyes flicking up to find Harry already looking at her.

Again.

She smirked. “Do you always stare like that?”

He didn’t even pretend to look away. “Only when I’m trying to remember something.”

“Remember what?”

“What this felt like.”

Her throat went tight. Too tight. She blinked and looked down, heart thudding a little too hard.

“Don’t do that,” she murmured.

“Do what?”

“Say things that sound like lines when you probably mean them.”

Harry tilted his head. “Would it be better if I didn’t mean them?”

She looked up.

Their eyes locked.

Held.

Neither smiled.

1:24 p.m.

He didn’t mean to reach for her hand.

Not fully. Not directly.

He just shifted, and the back of his hand brushed hers — so lightly it could’ve been an accident, if they’d both decided to lie.

They didn’t.

Y/N stilled.

Harry froze.

But neither pulled away.

Instead, she slowly turned her hand over, and their fingers didn’t interlace, but hovered — barely touching. Close enough to feel the tremble. Far enough to pretend it didn’t mean anything.

It did.

This is dangerous,

she thought.

This is inevitable,

he thought.

1:32 p.m.

“Tell me something real,” she said.

Harry didn’t hesitate.

“I haven’t written anything for myself in over a year.”

She blinked. “You’re a writer.”

“I’m a ghostwriter. For weddings. Toasts. Breakups. Anniversaries. Apologies. Everyone else’s feelings.”

“And yours?”

“Buried.”

Her lips parted, breath caught between a response and a reaction.

“I tried,” he said. “I started something. But it never sounded like me.”

“What did it sound like?”

“Noise.”

Y/N exhaled. “You should try again.”

Harry looked at her. Really looked.

“You think I’d sound like myself now?”

She nodded. “You do when you’re with me.”

The silence that followed wasn’t heavy — it was reverent.

And somewhere inside it, they both understood that something had shifted.

1:46 p.m.

“I should get back soon,” she said, finally.

“Me too,” he replied, even though he had nowhere urgent to be.

But neither of them moved.

“I don’t want to lose this,” she said.

“You won’t.”

“That’s a risky promise.”

“I’m not making promises,” Harry said. “I’m asking for something.”

“What?”

“More.”

She swallowed. “More what?”

“Time. Space. Pages. Whatever this is.”

He held her gaze, unflinching.

“Okay,” she whispered. “More.”

And that was it.

The beginning that came after the almost.

The moment that wasn’t a mistake.

2:03 p.m. — Outside Milk & Honey

The door swung shut behind them with a familiar chime, but this time, it felt different.

Not final.

Not like last time.

This wasn’t an exit — it was an intermission.

They walked side by side without speaking at first. Not because there was nothing to say, but because the silence between them had changed. It had weight now. Warmth. Like it was doing its own kind of talking.

The city moved around them, ordinary and indifferent — buses rolling past, people on their phones, a teenager speed-walking while eating a wrap. But none of it touched the air between them.

Harry’s hands stayed in his pockets.

Y/N’s stayed tucked into her coat sleeves.

But their shoulders… stayed close.

Close enough to notice.

Close enough to feel the presence of something blooming.

“Are you going to write today?” she asked eventually.

He glanced over. “I already did.”

Her brows lifted. “What’d you write?”

“A sentence,” he said.

“That’s it?”

He nodded. “But it’s mine.”

She smiled. “That’s the most romantic thing anyone’s said to me all year.”

“Tragic,” he deadpanned.

“Deeply.”

They both laughed. But it faded slower this time. Left something tender in its place.

2:12 p.m. — The Corner Where They’ll Split

They stopped without saying it.

Y/N turned slightly, toeing the edge of the pavement, the next step already pulling her toward a different direction. She didn’t take it yet.

“This is where I pretend I wasn’t hoping you’d ask for my number yesterday,” she said.

Harry smiled, slow and sure. “This is where I pretend I haven’t already written your name in my notes five times.”

She bit her lip to stop herself from grinning.

He pulled out his phone. “Do you want mine first, or—”

She gently took it from his hand. Typed her number. Then added:

Y/N (the mistake you’re glad happened)

He blinked.

“You don’t have to save it like that,” she said quickly. “That was a joke.”

“I’m going to,” he said.

There was a pause.

The kind that asked if this was it. The kind that teetered on the edge of more.

“I’m really glad I sat at the wrong table,” she said softly.

“I’m really glad you stayed,” he said.

“I almost didn’t.”

“I almost left before you got there.”

They both smiled. Quiet, a little stunned by the timing.

She took a step back.

And so did he.

But neither turned around right away.

“See you soon?” she asked.

He didn’t answer right away. Just looked at her like she was a sentence he wanted to memorize.

Then said, “You will.”

Thursday — 5:02 p.m. — Y/N’s Office

The day after was normal.

Annoyingly normal.

Emails. Coffee. More emails. Brody had replied to her notes with a twelve-line rant about “editorial overreach” and a screenshot of a Tweet he liked that said “plot is a prison.” She hadn’t even opened it fully. She just sighed, closed the tab, and reached for her phone.

No new messages.

Not from Harry, anyway.

And that — that — was what threw her.

She didn’t want to be the kind of person who expected immediate follow-up. Who got spun out over someone not texting within 24 hours of an emotionally seismic coffee. But there was something… missing.

Or rather, not missing.

Present.

Lingering.

Every time her phone buzzed, her heart skipped before her logic caught up.

It was never him.

And that stung in a way she couldn’t name.

They’d shared something. They had.

So why did she feel like she was the only one still holding it?

5:18 p.m. — Harry's Flat

Harry hadn’t written back because he didn’t know what to say.

He’d saved her number. Immediately. He’d read her contact name — “the mistake you’re glad happened” — at least twelve times.

And he’d started a text. Four, actually.

But none of them said what he wanted.

Hey, want to meet up again?

Too casual.

Still thinking about yesterday.

Too intense.

Do you want to come with me to this gallery thing Saturday?

Too forward.

I don’t know what this is, but I want to keep finding out.

Too much.

So he didn’t send anything.

Which, ironically, said way more than any of those messages would have.

6:01 p.m.

She told herself not to care.

She’d had intense connections before. She’d felt things quickly, built them up too fast. Maybe that’s all this was.

A spark. A moment. An almost.

But it didn’t feel like almost when it was happening. It felt like something had cracked open — and now, the silence was echoing through the space it left behind.

Her phone buzzed.

She grabbed it.

Not him.

Of course.

She dropped it onto her desk with more force than necessary and muttered, “Coward.”

Then she picked it back up, opened her messages, and stared at the empty thread.

Just send something.

Make it simple. Make it light.

Don’t give him the satisfaction of thinking you’re waiting.

She typed:

Hey. Hope your ghostwriting’s going better than Brody’s editing.

Paused.

Deleted it.

Typed:

Coffee again soon?

Paused.

Deleted it.

Typed:

I keep replaying that moment where we almost held hands.

Paused.

Deleted it.

Threw her phone across the desk and buried her face in her hands.

6:29 p.m.

Harry opened her contact one more time and just stared at her name.

He hadn’t meant for it to get this loud in his head.

He thought giving it a day would help. Give them space. Give him time to figure out what he actually wanted to say.

But all it had done was make the silence louder.

He typed:

You’re still in my head.

Paused.

Backspaced.

Typed:

I can’t stop thinking about what you said. About skipping the pretending.

Paused.

Backspaced.

Typed:

Are you free this weekend?

He stared at it.

Didn’t send it.

Closed his phone.

Ran both hands down his face like that might shake it off.

It didn’t.

Friday — 8:07 a.m. — Y/N’s Flat

The second her alarm went off, she grabbed her phone.

Still nothing.

She stared at the screen in disbelief. Not anger. Not quite sadness.

Just… hollow confusion.

She wasn’t even sure what she wanted from him. A check-in? A joke? Something small and dumb that reminded her it wasn’t in her head?

Because that’s what she was afraid of most — that it was.

That all the energy in that booth, all the sparks and almost-touches and “more,” had only felt real on her side.

She opened Notes again.

Typed:

You asked for more.

Then you disappeared.

Deleted it.

Typed:

I don’t like silence when it comes from someone who made me feel seen.

Deleted it.

Typed:

I shouldn’t be the first to reach out.

Stared at that one.

Didn’t delete it.

But didn’t send it, either.

9:12 a.m. — Harry’s Flat

He’d stared at her number for ten minutes.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the way she looked at him right before she walked away — like she wanted to stay but didn’t know if she was allowed to.

He was afraid if he reached out now, it’d feel forced. Like too much time had passed.

But not reaching out felt worse.

So he opened the thread. Typed:

Morning. Hope your week wasn’t a complete disaster.

Paused.

Then added:

I’ve rewritten this message six times, so I’m just going to send it.

I keep thinking about that moment at the café.

The almost.

Do you want to finish it?

He stared at the message for five full seconds.

Then hit send.

Immediately regretted it.

Put his phone face down and left the room.

9:14 a.m. - Y/N's Office

She saw the message come in before the notification lit up her phone.

She didn’t open it.

Her breath hitched just from seeing his name.

She waited a minute — because she was stubborn, and scared, and still not sure what she wanted.

Then she unlocked her phone.

And read it.

The almost.

Do you want to finish it?

She stared at it for a long time.

Then did something she didn’t expect.

She closed the app.

And didn’t reply.

Not yet.

Because right now, she didn’t want to fall into something that might vanish again.

She needed him to mean it.

And she needed a minute.

Friday — 9:48 a.m.

Ten minutes.

Then fifteen.

Then thirty.

No reply.

Harry checked his phone more times than he was proud of. Each time, his chest pulled tighter.

Maybe she was busy.

Maybe she needed time.

Maybe she was playing it cool. Or maybe she didn’t feel it the same way.

He told himself it was fine. Told himself not everyone replies immediately. It’s not personal.

But it felt personal.

It felt like a conversation left hanging in mid-air.

And he didn’t know how to breathe through that.

10:31 a.m.

She reread the message six times.

Do you want to finish it?

God, she did.

But also?

She didn’t know what “it” was.

And she wasn’t ready to find out that maybe he didn’t either.

Something in her felt wobbly. Raw.

She wasn’t in the mood for almosts anymore.

And what if he wasn’t serious?

What if this was just another soft-spoken moment from a man who knew how to say the right thing but didn’t know how to follow through?

She’d been there before.

And she didn’t want to do it again.

Not with him.

Not when it had felt real.

So she waited.

Let the message sit there.

Didn’t reply.

Didn’t delete it.

Just… froze.

1:14 p.m.

He was pacing now.

Not a lot. Not fast. Just that quiet, agitated kind of pacing that looks like moving but feels like unraveling.

He’d sent one message.

That was it.

It wasn’t a declaration. Wasn’t a plea. Just a truth. A door half-open.

And she hadn’t walked through it.

It was fine.

But he’d opened something soft, and the silence was starting to bruise.

1:37 p.m.

She opened the message again.

Still no response from her.

Her own.

She typed:

I want to.

Paused.

Typed:

I’m not sure yet.

Paused.

Typed:

I don’t want to be something you forget when it’s inconvenient.

Stared.

Deleted it.

Locked her phone.

Rubbed her forehead with both hands.

Whispered to herself, “Get it together.”

But she couldn’t.

Not yet.

3:12 p.m.

Harry gave up checking his phone.

Not because he didn’t care — because he cared too much.

Because every time the screen lit up and it wasn’t her, it made his chest tighten.

And every time it didn’t light up at all, it felt worse.

He set it face down on the table, walked to the window, leaned his forehead against the cool glass.

He wasn’t mad. He wasn’t even disappointed.

He was… quiet. Inside.

Because something had shifted.

He’d put his heart in a sentence and hit send. And now it was floating out there, alone.

And that hurt more than he wanted to admit.

3:49 p.m.

She felt like a coward.

Not because she hadn’t responded — but because she didn’t know how to.

She wanted to reply. Desperately. But she wanted to be sure. Of him. Of herself. Of whatever this was trying to be.

And the more she sat with it, the more unsure she became.

It would be easier if he hadn’t said anything at all.

But he had.

And she’d asked for a man who could say what he meant.

And now she was… freezing.

She hated that.

She hated the tightness in her chest and the way the message just sat there like it was waiting for her to become braver.

She didn’t feel brave.

She just felt tired.

4:07 p.m. - Outside Harry's Flat

He went for a walk.

Not because he wanted to — but because the flat felt like it was closing in on him.

He didn’t go anywhere in particular. Just wandered. Hands deep in his pockets. Head low. Letting the afternoon stretch out ahead of him like a question with no ending.

I shouldn’t have sent it.

I should’ve waited.

I should’ve known better.

It looped in his head, quiet and cruel.

He walked past Milk & Honey.

Didn’t go in.

Didn’t even slow down.

He didn’t want to see the table empty again.

He didn’t want to hope.

4:33 p.m.

She finally opened the message again.

Reread it slowly.

The almost.

Do you want to finish it?

She closed her eyes.

Imagined what it would feel like to say yes.

To let it happen.

To go back to that booth and sit with him again and not be afraid.

She smiled.

Soft. Small. Sad.

Then whispered, “God, I wish I could.”

But she didn’t type it.

Didn’t send anything.

Not yet.

6:08 p.m. — Y/N’s Flat

She got home and didn’t even take off her coat.

Just dropped her bag, kicked off her shoes, and stood in the middle of the living room like she didn’t recognize her own space.

Everything looked the same.

But everything felt different.

She walked into the kitchen, opened the fridge, closed it again.

Sat on the couch.

Checked her phone.

Still him. Still there.

Still unread. Still waiting.

The silence now felt like a choice — hers.

And it was louder than anything she could’ve said.

6:39 p.m. — Harry’s Flat

He didn’t turn on the lights.

The flat was dark now, grey-blue with early dusk, but he sat on the floor beside his sofa, back pressed against it, phone in his lap.

He’d stopped opening the thread.

He already knew what it said.

He also knew what it didn’t.

No “yes.”

No “no.”

Just a space where a heartbeat used to be.

He rested his head back and whispered to no one, “I thought she felt it too.”

And the part that hurt was — she had.

7:21 p.m.

She lay on her side, staring at the wall. The phone buzzed once — a group chat. She ignored it.

She should say something.

Anything.

But now it had been almost twelve hours.

And every second that passed made it harder.

You waited too long.

He’s probably writing you off already.

Maybe you made it all up.

She flipped over and grabbed the pillow beside her.

Buried her face in it and exhaled hard.

“God, what am I doing?”

She didn’t have an answer.

Only the ache.

8:03 p.m.

He wrote a sentence in his notebook.

Then crossed it out.

Wrote another.

Crossed that one out too.

He wasn’t trying to write anymore. He was just trying to feel normal.

But nothing felt right when the thread sat open and silent. When the thing he almost believed in didn’t echo back.

He thought maybe he’d go out. Distract himself.

He didn’t.

He sat there.

And missed her.

Quietly.

Fully.

Without permission.

9:17 p.m. — Y/N’s Notes App

I think I messed it up.

I think I waited too long.

I think I wanted him to prove something.

And now I don’t know what there is left to say.

9:32 p.m.

She locked her phone.

Turned off the light.

Lay in bed and whispered:

“Please still mean it.”

But she didn’t send anything.

Not yet.

Saturday — 8:14 a.m. — Y/N’s Flat

She woke up with guilt in her throat.

Thick and bitter. Not the kind that made you cry — the kind that made you still.

It had been nearly 24 hours.

She should’ve answered.

She wanted to. But wanting wasn’t enough when you were afraid.

And now?

Now she wasn’t even sure if the door was still open.

She sat up. Reached for her phone.

It was still there.

The almost.

Do you want to finish it?

Her chest squeezed.

She tapped into the message.

She stared at it.

And then — slowly — she started typing.

I haven’t been fair.

I got scared.

I thought if I said yes, it would be real.

And if it was real, you could leave.

And if you left, I’d feel stupid for believing in something that started with a mistake.

She paused.

Then added:

But it didn’t feel like a mistake.

It felt like the first thing that made sense in a long time.

Her thumb hovered.

She shook her head.

Closed the app.

Opened it again.

Reread the message.

And this time?

She hit send.

8:17 a.m. — Harry’s Flat

His phone buzzed on the bedside table.

He didn’t look at it right away — didn’t want to get his hopes up again. But when he finally reached for it, groggy and resigned, the screen said one thing:

Y/N.

His heart stopped.

He opened it.

Read it once.

Then again.

Then sat up, the blanket falling off his shoulders as the words actually landed.

But it didn’t feel like a mistake. It felt like the first thing that made sense in a long time.

He didn’t smile.

He exhaled.

Hard.

Like something had been sitting on his chest for a day and finally lifted.

Then he typed:

Thank you for saying that.

I was scared too.

Still am.

But I’d rather be scared with you than wonder if we missed it.

He sent it before he could overthink it.

And for the first time in 24 hours, the ache eased.

Just a little.

Saturday — 10:02 a.m. — Milk & Honey

It wasn’t planned.

No set time. No “see you then.”

Just a message.

Then another.

Then:

Are you there now? Her.

Just sat down. Him.

Okay. On my way. Her.

And now they were sitting across from each other again — same booth. Same light.

But nothing felt the same.

Not because anything was wrong.

Because everything had changed.

They both looked at each other like they were seeing the other for the first time — not because they hadn’t before, but because now they knew what it meant.

The silence was comfortable.

Then Harry smiled, soft and a little tired. “Hi.”

Y/N let out a breath that sounded like relief. “Hi.”

It didn’t matter that they’d already said it.

It felt different now.

Like an apology and a beginning at the same time.

10:09 a.m.

She wrapped her hands around her cup, not drinking. Just holding.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

“You don’t have to be.”

“I am, though.”

He nodded. Let the words settle.

“I got in my own head,” she added. “Told myself too many things before you had the chance to say anything at all.”

“I was afraid to follow up,” he admitted. “Didn’t want to come on too strong.”

“We’re a mess,” she said, almost smiling.

“A very self-aware mess,” he said.

She laughed then. A real one. It cracked the last of the tension.

“I’m glad you came,” he said.

“I almost didn’t.”

“I know.”

“I’m glad I did.”

They both sat with that — the weight of what didn’t happen and the miracle of what still could.

10:24 a.m.

“You said something in your message,” Harry said after a while, “about it feeling real.”

Y/N nodded.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

He looked down for a second. Then back at her.

“Do you think we’re writing the same story?”

She froze. In the best way.

Because she knew exactly what he meant.

They hadn’t even kissed.

Hadn’t crossed any physical line.

But this — this — felt like a page they were both holding from opposite ends.

She answered without flinching. “I hope so.”

He smiled. This time it reached his eyes.

“Then let’s not skip ahead.”

“No fast-forwards,” she agreed.

“Just… next lines.”

They didn’t rush the coffee.

Didn’t talk about the future.

Didn’t fill every silence.

But when she reached for the sugar, her fingers brushed his.

And this time?

They didn’t pull away.

10:37 a.m.

Y/N didn’t mean to stay.

She told herself she was just stopping by. Just answering the message. Just giving closure to something that had hung between them too long.

But then he looked at her like she’d come back from war.

Like she was something brave and beautiful and unrepeatable.

And she knew.

She wasn’t going anywhere.

They hadn’t touched — not really. Not beyond the brush of fingers and the echo of a maybe.

But she could feel it.

Underneath the quiet.

Beneath the coffee and soft laughter.

A current.

They were building something.

They were staying.

11:12 a.m.

Harry was the first to shift.

He pushed his mug aside, leaned forward, arms resting on the table, gaze soft but searching.

“Can I ask something?”

Y/N smiled, small. “You ask a lot of things.”

He tilted his head. “You keep answering.”

She gave a half shrug. “Fair.”

He looked down for a second, then back up.

“What would’ve happened if you sat at the right table that day?”

She blinked. “What?”

He kept his voice low. Steady. Like he wasn’t trying to shake her, just… hold something up to the light.

“If you hadn’t sat across from me,” he said, “what would your day have looked like?”

Y/N thought about it.

Really thought.

She pictured Brody’s frown, the rushed notes, the cold espresso, the tension headache. She pictured the way she would’ve walked home — alone, unaffected, unchanged.

Then she said, “I probably wouldn’t remember it.”

Harry nodded.

Then he said, “I think about that a lot.”

11:24 a.m.

They talked more. About small things.

Weird facts.

Favorite cities.

Songs they listened to on trains.

The last time they cried (her: at a commercial involving a dog and a deployed soldier, him: rereading the final page of A Little Life, again).

It wasn’t a first date.

It wasn’t a catch-up.

It wasn’t even anything definable.

It was… staying.

Choosing not to leave.

12:03 p.m. — Soft Shift

Y/N said, “I don’t usually do this.”

Harry said, “Me either.”

She said, “I mean it.”

He said, “I do too.”

She stared at her cup.

Then said, barely above a whisper, “I feel safe with you.”

Harry’s heart clenched.

He didn’t make it dramatic. Didn’t say anything flowery.

He just nodded and said:

“I’ve been waiting for that to matter to someone.”

12:44 p.m.

They ordered lunch without deciding to.

She moved her bag to the floor like she wasn’t going anywhere for a while. He peeled off his jumper like he was settling in. They shared a pastry. Argued about whether almond croissants were superior (they were, he insisted; she refused to concede).

And somewhere between that and a second refill, the tension shifted.

They weren’t circling anymore.

They were sitting inside it.

Comfortable. Unafraid.

1:26 p.m.

Harry said something funny — not even that funny — and Y/N laughed.

Not just politely.

Not softly.

Really, really laughed.

Head back, mouth open, eyes squeezed shut kind of laugh.

And when she looked up, he was already staring.

Not in a weird way.

In a ruined way.

Like, God help me, I’m already gone.

And she knew.

Because the feeling hit her back just as hard.

1:49 p.m.

The café was louder now.

No longer quiet and cozy. The lunch crowd had arrived — the kind of people who linger in scarves and say things like “I’ll just have the oat cortado” like it’s a spell.

But Harry and Y/N were still in the corner. Still in their booth. Still orbiting each other like the world hadn’t turned since they sat down.

Y/N pulled the sleeve of her jumper over her wrist. “It’s getting noisy.”

“Want to leave?” Harry asked, like it wasn’t the most loaded question of the day.

She looked up.

He held her gaze.

It wasn’t a throwaway offer.

Not just “let’s leave the café.”

It was:

Let’s not let this end here.

Let’s keep going.

Let’s see where this leads.

She swallowed. “Where would we go?”

He smiled — small, almost sheepish. “My place is close.”

She blinked.

Not because she didn’t trust him.

Not because she thought he meant something he didn’t.

But because of how gentle it was.

He wasn’t asking her to cross a line.

He was asking if she wanted to keep the conversation going without the noise. Without the crowd.

Just them.

Still them.

“Okay,” she said softly.

And that was it.

2:12 p.m. — Harry’s Flat

It was clean.

Not neat — lived in. Books stacked two deep on shelves and record sleeves leaning against the wall. A candle flickered faintly near the windowsill. Soft jazz hummed from a speaker in the corner.

It was warm in a way that felt like him.

She stepped inside, quiet at first.

Harry closed the door behind her, slow, careful. Like he didn’t want the sound to startle whatever they’d built between them.

“Shoes off?” she asked.

“If you want.”

She did.

She walked into his space like she’d been invited into something private — not just his flat, but his mind. His rhythm.

Harry watched her. Let her move without narrating.

It wasn’t awkward.

It was… unspoken understanding.

2:18 p.m.

They sat on the couch, side by side, still talking, still orbiting.

She pointed to a photo on his shelf — two kids holding a plastic trophy, one clearly him. “Is that a bowl cut?”

“Tragically, yes.”

“Please tell me there’s a matching yearbook photo.”

“There is,” he groaned. “And I will never show you.”

“You say that now.”

Harry grinned.

Their knees touched lightly.

Neither pulled away.

2:41 p.m.

They weren’t talking as much now.

But the silence wasn’t heavy. Just… warm. Easy. The kind that happened between two people who didn’t need to prove they belonged in the same room.

Y/N curled her legs beneath her. Harry stretched his arm along the back of the couch — not touching her, but close.

So close.

Her head tilted slightly toward his shoulder.

Not resting.

Just… near.

It was nothing.

It was everything.

3:03 p.m.

They were still on the couch.

The conversation had drifted. Now it was music. The soft kind — jazz, low and layered — the sort that fills a space without taking it over.

Y/N’s head had slowly, almost imperceptibly, leaned closer to Harry’s shoulder.

She hadn’t meant to.

She just… settled there.

And he didn’t move.

Didn’t breathe too hard.

Didn’t dare speak.

Because this — this exact second — was the most delicate thing he’d ever held.

And he wasn’t even touching her.

She could feel the heat of his arm beside hers.

Could feel the tension in the air.

Not anxious. Not unsure.

Just… alive.

Her hand rested lightly against her leg, fingers grazing the hem of her jeans.

His hand was just inches away.

If she moved even slightly, they’d touch.

She didn’t.

But she didn’t pull away either.

Harry turned his head slowly. Looked at her.

Y/N felt the gaze before she met it.

When she did — God.

Her breath caught.

He wasn’t smiling.

Wasn’t trying to charm her.

Just looking at her like she was the kind of sentence he didn’t want to rush through.

She felt it in her spine.

She turned slightly toward him.

Just a few degrees.

Their faces… closer now.

Not close enough to kiss.

But close enough to consider it.

His voice, when it came, was low. Careful.

“Y/N.”

She blinked. “Yeah?”

He hesitated.

Her eyes were wide. Her lips slightly parted. The moment hanging between them like a held breath.

Then he said, quietly:

“I’m not going to do anything unless you want me to.”

She didn’t move for a second.

Then:

“I know.”

Her voice was steady.

Small. But sure.

And still… neither of them moved.

3:19 p.m.

The moment passed.

Not with regret.

With reverence.

They pulled back just enough to breathe again, but stayed close. Still curled on opposite ends of the couch, knees almost touching, tension replaced with something even quieter.

Something like trust.

Y/N picked up a small, leather-bound notebook from the edge of the coffee table. “This yours?”

Harry blinked. “Yeah. Old one.”

She ran her fingers along the edges. “Can I—?”

He didn’t answer right away.

That book hadn’t been opened in months. Maybe longer. It wasn’t the kind of thing he usually shared — not with clients, not with friends, not with people who might ask questions he wasn’t ready to answer.

But he nodded.

“Yeah. Go ahead.”

She opened to a random page. Read silently.

He watched her — every flick of her eyes, every small inhale, every tilt of her head.

Then she said, voice soft, “This one’s about me.”

Harry didn’t flinch. “Yeah.”

She looked up.

He held her gaze.

“You wrote this the first day,” she said.

He nodded.

“I hadn’t even left yet.”

“I know.”

Her lips parted. “You were already writing about me.”

“I couldn’t not.”

There was a silence after that. Heavy, but not uncomfortable.

She closed the book slowly and held it in her lap.

“I haven’t written anything in years,” she admitted.

Harry tilted his head. “You used to?”

“Poetry. Short stuff. Before I started working with other people’s stories all the time. Eventually I just… forgot how to listen to myself.”

“That’s not true,” he said, without hesitation.

She blinked. “You don’t even know what I used to sound like.”

“I know what you sound like now.”

Y/N’s throat tightened.

She didn’t have a response for that.

So she did the only thing that felt natural.

She reached out — not for his hand, not for his face — but for the notebook.

Opened to a blank page.

And handed it to him.

“Can I tell you something?” she asked.

“Always,” he said.

She looked down at her hands. Picked at the seam of her sleeve. Didn’t say anything for a beat.

Then:

“I’m used to being the person who listens. Not the one who talks.

Most people just… fill the silence and move on.

I think I forgot what it feels like to actually say something and have someone wait.

And today—

I don’t know.

It felt like there was space for me to be a person instead of a function.

And I didn’t realize how much I missed that until it happened.”

She exhaled through her nose.

Didn’t look up right away.

Harry didn’t rush to fill the space. He let it exist.

Then, gently:

“You’re allowed to take up space, Y/N.

Not just here. Everywhere.”

And she believed him.

Because he said it like he wasn’t trying to reassure her —

He said it like it was just a fact.

5:48 p.m.

They hadn’t moved much.

The day had slowed into honey — warm and viscous, stretching without asking for anything in return.

No big moments.

No kiss.

No grand declarations.

Just stillness. Shared space.

A kind of quiet neither of them had been able to find anywhere else.

Eventually, Y/N looked at the clock.

Her smile wilted slightly. “I should go.”

Harry nodded, like he’d already prepared for that truth. “Yeah.”

But he didn’t move.

Neither did she.

They stayed on the couch another few minutes — the kind of minutes that say: this mattered. This wasn’t nothing.

6:02 p.m. — The Walk Back

They walked together.

Not touching.

Just next to each other, shoulder to shoulder, their pace slow enough to mean something. The air was cooler now, the late-afternoon kind that feels like it could turn into evening if you blink too slowly.

“Thank you for today,” Y/N said.

“You don’t have to thank me.”

“I do,” she said, glancing up at him. “You made space. For everything.”

Harry looked over.

“You filled it,” he said.

She exhaled — not like she was relieved. Like she was feeling something too big to name.

6:19 p.m. — Outside Her Building

They stopped at the edge of her steps.

The quiet wrapped around them like a held breath.

She turned to him, hands in her pockets. “I’ll text you.”

“You don’t have to wait this time,” he said.

She smiled. “I won’t.”