among the stars / hyungwonho

09

They take Hyungwon to the planet of apple orchards for his birthday. This planet is in the season where it is only ever night, which lasts for an average of three to four cycles. When the sun returns the people here have a celebration. Leaning carelessly in a high branch of one of the oldest trees, Hyungwon nibbles on an apple, juice trickling out the corner of his mouth. Hoseok watches while trying not to watch and Kihyun is busy trying to find a page in a book be brought with him, mumbling to himself about how he was certain that he had dogeared it but apparently not.

"So it's a sun festival?" Hyungwon asks, munching still.

"Er no," Kihyun gives up and rests the book face down on his knee, craning his neck to look back and up at Hyungwon from his considerably lower (and safer) branch. "It's uh, more like. For both. They believe that the night and the day were once people like us. Then a war came and they were forbidden, but the night threatened to kill himself," Kihyun pauses, hands tightening in his lap. "Ah...anyway, the day told him that would make her sad, that even if they couldn't be together forever, maybe 'sometimes' was better than nothing."

Hyungwon frowns from his branch. "Like that myth about spring and winter?"

The smile Kihyun shoots him is wide, warm, and home. "How'd you know about that?"

"Hoseok told me."

Hoseok sputters something about not remembering. Kihyun snorts and Hyungwon sighs to hide his sadness.

"Something like that. Except, in this case, there's no kidnapping. The day and the night had it better maybe. The night said I'll send messages to you through your stars, and the day said, I'll keep them warm. The festival is to celebrate their reuniting every year."

Humming thoughtfully, Hyungwon lapses into silence for so long that it appears all three of them have drifted off into their own thoughts.

"Can we go? I know we're too late this year but...next year?"

Hoseok and Kihyun open their mouths to answer (yes, of course, definitely) when Hyungwon scanner beeps urgently.

"Someone's at our ship," he curses a little then curses a lot as Hyungwon jumps down to the ground in a crouch. "Shit! Don't do that. What if you hurt yourself?" Hoseok has scrambled down with less athleticism but a paradoxical grace; Kihyun is there too, a hand outreached to Hyungwon who just stands upright, brow arched.

"I know my limits," he says and it's so quiet, so not exactly like how they're used to Hyungwon being that it stops them both cold. He takes off without them, which doesn't last long because they fall into step behind him like some kind of too-natural reaction, but the calm, self-possessed look in his eyes stays with them.

***

[LOG: 36 - Date: 25738.1 - DESTINATION: HOONII]

Kihyun and Hyungwon sit in front of the camera. Hyungwon is sick therefore they do this log without him.

"So," Kihyun says opening the log.

"It's been a while since it was just two."

"Yeah, it's actually kinda weird," Kihyun admits.

***

It was, in hindsight, not their best plan. the job: acquire (read: steal) some already ill-gotten tech from a little-known planet not too far from the raining planet. the plan: sneak in, steal, leave. Maybe they got too comfortable, their last handful of jobs having gone so smoothly it's almost as if they didn't happen at all save for the numbers in their credit accounts. They had read up on it and Hoseok had gotten tons of available information on surveillance about things as mundane as the weather and as unlikely as planet implosion. Hyungwon had just gotten over some kind of cold/fever mess that had Kihyun and Hoseok taking turns wiping his brow, changing his bedclothes, and all in all just making sure he was as comfortable as he could be. Hyungwon had a sense of self enough to tell them he was fine, to which at one point Kihyun gave him a sharper stare than usual and said, "let us do this. that's an order."

Hyungwon, hazy with fever, let down some of his guard and said with a raspy soft voice, "...sorry."

Hoseok laid a cold hand against his burning forehead and said, "we know."

Healed enough, they'd gone into the plan together with every intention of it being quite seamless.

What actually happens: an obstacle course of lasers and a language they cannot communicate in, technology that jams their own which means the auto-translator is a lost cause, and the requested items in hand as they run through city streets that look for all the world like they are made of glass. They aren't, and as proven by the less than friendly fire, it's sturdy, some unknown material Hoseok would love to get a sample of if they had the time but they don't. they're hitting another long stretch offering no convenient turns or drops when jungkook slips.

He's dizzy, not better after all.

Hoseok doesn't think. He just turns and runs back, grabs at his hands and pulls him up as Kihyun notices and runs back too -- Kihyun who runs, makes a series of inarticulate sounds and grabs both of their hands in his.

It's enough to stop their pursuers still as statues.

Which makes the whole thing very odd.

The three space orphans have no less than fifty odd artillery aimed at them but the looks on the natives' faces cross the borders of language, looks that scream just one universally understood thing: oh my god.

They can't help but stare back at them, all wide-eyed as Hyungwon's hand twists in Hoseok's, both still encompassed by Kihyun's as Hyungwon whispers, "what just happened?"

***

"Married?!"

The word echoes through the ship as Hoseok stares at Hyungwon who stares at the floor.

Kihyun says, "well, on that planet. Apparently."

The sound of Hoseok walking away is followed by the door sliding shut but Hyungwon doesn't move at all. Eventually, Kihyun peers over at him from his chair, tired but not without sympathy.

Talk about a long day.

"Look, Hoseok didn't mean it like that. Sometimes he'll do things without thinking about others. Just get some rest."

And even though they both know how unlikely that is, Hyungwon nods and goes to his own quarters; lies awake and stares up at the ceiling he himself painted not long after moving in. It's an inaccurate map of sorts, slowly being filled with all the places they have been. Certain ones have stars next to them that appear more for aesthetic than science but the truth is they exist somewhere in-between.