unforgiven ➽ a Halilintar-centric fic

07 | trust me

6/3, Wednesday

When the clock hit 8, Api was shaken awake by Daun, holding a TAPOPS-issued holopad they'd brought along. Beside him, Cahaya was doing the same to Air, albeit with less grace and subtlety by yanking the blankets off him, revealing a penguin bodysuit with a little tail.

There was only one bed in each of the rooms, so they had to share. Fortunately, the beds were obviously built for adults, so there had been plenty of space to go around.

Api blinked, bleary-eyed as he looked up to the moving screen Daun was holding. He recognized the voices and faces almost immediately, but his brain refused to connect the dots while he rubbed his eyes.

"Taufan...? Gempa...?" he mumbled, scrunching his nose. "Huh?"

"Api! Did you miss us?" Taufan's voice cheered, audibly more energetic than the last he's heard from them.

Api peered into the screen. The pair had seen better days, but they were recovering slowly but surely. In the span of one day, Gempa's burnt skin was slowly recovering its color, and his eyeball had already regenerated fully. Taufan's organs were no longer exposed, instead covered by the thinnest layer of bare muscle, though his arm was still missing, leaving a stump on the shoulder.

"How is everything? Did you run into any trouble?" Gempa followed up. Daun clicked a few buttons and set the holopad onto the foot of the bed, projecting the call into the size of a TV.

Cahaya snorted, rolling his eyes.

Api took it upon himself to answer, since Air was still blinking away the remnants of his sleep and Daun had been playing video games in the ship. "The trip was fine! Hit a bit of turbulence when we came into the atmosphere, but there's nothing to be worried about."

Taufan breathed a sigh of relief, then bounced back to his bubbly self that didn't know when to shut up. "Great! How is Pulau Rintis? Do you have any plans to go sightseeing? The place is a bit on the quiet side, but you should check out the view on the harbors. Oh, have you tried Tok Aba's cocoa? Maybe I'm biased, but it's to die for! I haven't had any since I joined TAPOPS. Ahh, I miss it now."

"About that." Api grimaced.

The wind elemental tilted his head. "Hm?"

"We're not allowed to go outside the house," Daun reported, as if he were the youngest sibling telling on the oldest for sneaking snacks inside the house. "And we're not allowed to bother Tok Aba."

Api glanced towards the door. Despite knowing that Halilintar was a good distance from the house, some part of him feared that the older would barge into the room to slap Daun silly for the complaint. It was an irrational outcome, but the mental image wrestled a pitiful wheeze from his lips.

At this, both Gempa and Taufan gained a visible frown, as if this were the first they were told of this.

"Why not?" Gempa quizzed, confused. "He didn't just ground you all—did he?"

"He didn't bury us," Cahaya corrected him, but came to realization seconds after. "Oh, that's an Earth saying, isn't it?"

"There were plenty of rules," Air drawled, scratching his neck. "Me and Api asked if we could get something from a store and he shot us down."

"Huh—that doesn't sound like something Halilintar would do," Taufan muttered doubtfully.

"We're not lying!" Daun said quickly. "I broke a fuse last night and he threw me and Cahaya outside to bury some stuff."

"Never said you were!" Taufan reiterated, turning to Gempa for support. "It's just—damn. Would he? We haven't talked in years; do you think something's happened?"