Super

22. holy mackerel

"Well, that was an epic fail," Shao said, munching on a chicken wing as she reclined dangerously low on a pilot's chair. "Can we do something like that again?"

"No, I don't think we will," Lucas muttered. He was flipping through a manual with a frown of concentration on his face, the pile of un-flipped-through files very close to slipping from his lap. "Why would we ever pursue a failed mission course again?"

"Don't ask her things like that," Taeyong said, waving his grease-coated fingers in the general direction of the girl. "It's like waving bait in front of a fish. She'll grab on to it and won't let go, and this isn't a situation where you can sell the fish in the fish market."

Ten raised his eyebrows. "Going a bit far with the analogy, Taeyong."

"Sorry."

"Did you just apologize? Is this the nice clone I'm talking to?"

Taeyong glared at him, but there was none of the old seriousness in his eyes. Kai smiled to himself as he realized the subtle change. It brought a major change to his face. He looked much more...likeable, Kai thought.

"Don't be so mean to him, you guys," Mark said with a pout. He had opted for the fries instead, and was in the process of single-handedly cleaning out the large bucket. "He literally came back to life, like, a few minutes ago."

Kai frowned. "Pretty sure that was more than just a few minutes ago, Mark."

"Maybe the out-of-body experience has made him realize a few things about being nice to people," Shao suggested.

"Like Scrooge," Kai added.

"Okay, that's enough," Baekhyun said, not turning. Kai had the vaguest idea that they were really high up in the sky and going somewhere he didn't know, but nothing beyond that. Nor was he interested in knowing. "I can see you're slowly pissing Taeyong off again, and like it or not, he almost died, so you'll have to leave him alone for some time."

"He's eating my chicken wings," Lucas pointed out. "I don't care if he just died, no one eats my chicken wings."

"I just died, Lucas," Taeyong said. "I need to restore my health."

"Oh, I'll restore your health—"

"I have to admit," Baekhyun said, grinning. "I missed this. You might not be the most professional team on the planet, but you make up for it by pretending you are."

"We stopped pretending a long time ago," Ten said, and then, as an afterthought, added, "Karen."

"Did you just call me Karen?"

"You can't call anyone Karen unless they're being offensive," Shao said, waving her drumstick at Ten. "That's a slang rule."

"He was being offensive to me."

"Not really."

"I can do whatever I want," Ten said, taking on a more defensive stance when he realized there was no hope of continuing with his previous agenda. "You can't stop me."

"All right, guys, can we focus?" Lucas snapped, having redirected his attention to the manuals a few seconds after sticking the chicken wing accusation on Taeyong. He held up one of the manuals now, face-forward, and pointed to a picture of a badly-photoshopped alien. "Look at what I found?"

"What? What is that?" Kai squinted at the manual, only to realize that it was actually one of his conspiracy theory magazines. "Oh, it's the conspiracy crap again. I swear you're getting addicted to the stuff."

"But—"

"Lucas, bro, I love you—no homo—but we've got a lot of more pressing matters to worry about than your crackpot magazines," Kai said before he could say anything. Lucas frowned, opening his mouth to counter his words. Kai noticed, and hurried to change the subject before he could say something else. "I think we should talk about what happened to Taeyong, or something cooler."