calli

It would be so much easier to just hike to a Sector 4 market and buy a sleek, pre-calibrated arm for Aki. But then you’d be handing Lazarus Tech a direct line into your hideout. Vernon isn't just being a prick. He’s the one who showed you the code—the hidden "sleeper" malware Lazarus bakes into every piece of consumer tech. One wrong handshake with a corporate server and your entire crew becomes a collection of meat-puppets, their locations pinged to a tactical team before the limb is even finished calibrating. “Find me something old but still salvageable,” he’d scowled, eyes bloodshot as he pointed a soldering gun at you.  “And don’t bring me rusted junk this time. Even I can’t do anything with that,” he’d added, like you were doing this for fun and not because Aki couldn’t even hold a cup without the current joint locking halfway through. You shove off of the freighter’s hull with a quiet curse, adjusting the weight of your pack. The metal creaks under the shift, brittle with age, flakes of rust coming away against your glove. “Yeah, yeah,” you mutter to yourself. “I’ll just pull a factory-fresh elbow out of the dirt for you.” The wind drags across the flats from the rain clouds hanging over the inner city. It catches on the broken skeletons of machines and spits dust through the gaps, fine enough to slip through anything that isn’t sealed tight. Your respirator whirs again, a warning this time.  You ignore it. There’s two more warnings, and they’re usually timed to be thirty minutes apart each. There’s a second one in your pack—equally old, but it’ll run for a while if this one gives up on you. You pick your way through the wreckage. Most of what’s left out here has already been stripped down to nothing worth taking, but every now and then something gets missed. A sealed joint or a pre-Link actuator if you’re lucky.  Your boot catches on something half-buried. You crouch automatically, brushing away grit until an old generator comes into view. Vernon could use the copper coil wirings in this, you think as you dust it off and throw it into your pack. You’re about to stand up again when the scrap pile on your right begins to vibrate violently. The tremor that runs through the pile follows into your knees, the sound of metal scraping against metal being droned out by a sudden deafness. You sit still for half a second, tilting your head to listen to the wind before your chest starts to tighten because of an inexplicable force, like a heavy weight is being pushed onto you. Rising to your feet just as the sound of impact follows, punching through the air and almost bringing you down to the ground again, you look up to see a cloud of dust and smoke not much farther from you.

Well, that’s new, you think as you cough, already moving. A fresh fall means untouched, and untouched means you might actually find something Vernon won’t immediately throw back at your face in a stim-induced stupor. You trudge through at a steady pace first, and then faster once you notice that the ground's fallen through where the impact was made. Still unable to see through the cloud, you cross your fingers and hope that it's some of the debris in the planet's orbit. You'd heard that there'd been sightings of remnants of age-old spaceships dropping down to earth because of gravity.  Judging by how much smoke actually surrounds the place, you're not sure if it's all burnt or still intact. By the time you reach the small crater that's formed, the plume has mostly settled. You sigh in relief. You weren't sure if your respirator would make it through and out of that mess anyway. But the sight in front of your eyes makes you pause.

The object is rather too big to be called one. It looks something like a pod, too intact for something that just tore through the sky and slammed into the ground hard enough to shake the bones out of your legs. You slow without meaning to, boots skidding slightly at the edge of the crater as loose gravel shifts under your weight, your eyes dragging over the surface in quick, assessing passes. No scattered pieces or broken plating blown outward. The outer shell still holds shape and sits mostly upright, vents along the sides pushing out thin streams of vapor that curl and vanish into the air.

“Okay,” you breathe out, a grin pulling at your lips before you can stop it. “Okay, that’s—” That’s good. Really good.

You slide down the slope a little too fast, catching yourself against the side of the thing with your palm, the heat still trapped in the metal bleeding through your glove just enough to make you hiss under your breath. Up close, the white coating of the pod is dulled by soot but intact, scored in long, dark streaks where it burned on the way down. You drag your glove across one of them without thinking, clearing a narrow strip.

There’s writing underneath—not the heavily stamped branding you’re used to seeing on anything that comes out of the city. This is smaller and blends into the surface. Embossed in small, cleanly spaced letters are the words HERMES (I) MISSIONS.  You lean in, eyes narrowing as you try to make sense of it. The name doesn’t ring a bell. 

More markings run along the curve of the hull, broken by seams and panels you hadn’t caught from a distance. Arrows, numbers, and small blocks of text that look like instructions. Your attention shifts to the seams instead. There’s one running along the side, faint but continuous, a thin interruption in the otherwise smooth surface. You follow it with your eyes first, then with your hand, brushing away the dust until your fingers catch on the edge.

A door.

You reach for your pack without looking, flipping the latch open and pulling out the slim pry-bar Vernon built for jobs exactly like this. As you work at the door, you think about how Vernon’s going to lose his mind over this. Once you open this thing up and tell him about it, he’ll be coming here in no time to tear the place apart and take what he wants. 

You lean your weight onto the bar, forcing the gap wider bit by bit. The seal holds for a bit longer than you expect, then breaks all at once. Air rushes out of it immediately—sharp, cold, and too clean for this place, hitting your mask hard enough to make you flinch back a step. Your respirator stutters while trying to adjust to the sudden flood, the filters whining as they struggle to keep up.

You turn your head instinctively, letting it pass over you until the pressure eases enough to breathe properly again.

You push the door open the rest of the way.

The inside is untouched.

With clean, padded walls—pale and smooth with no corroded metal or dust settling into the corners—it doesn’t look like something that belongs out here at all. You’d expect something stripped down, maybe a few intact panels if you were lucky, but this is closer to a cockpit than scrap. Narrow and compact, with everything within arm’s reach of everything else. There are panels along the sides, small screens flickering on and off, thin bundles of wiring tucked and arranged neatly.

You step in, slow at first, your boots sounding muffled against the floor, eyes moving over it all in quick glances, trying to figure out what’s worth taking first and what you’re going to have to come back for once Vernon inevitably drags himself out here.

And then you see it.

Set into the center, bolted low and running along the length of the pod, there’s something that looks like a chamber. Or a pod, even. Long and enclosed, the casing curves over it like it’s meant to protect whatever’s inside.

You stop, the earlier excitement turning into caution before you force yourself to move towards it.

The casing seems to be made of glass or some clear material, but it’s fogged over, although not opaque just yet. There’s movement in the liquid inside, disturbed just enough that it doesn’t sit still, and for a second your brain tries to place it as coolant, or some kind of preservation system Vernon would spend hours ranting about.

Then the shape beneath it resolves.

A face.

You jerk back a step so fast your shoulder clips one of the panels, a dull thud echoing in the tight space.

No. No, absolutely not. 

The body—seemingly a man—doesn’t move. 

He’s submerged almost entirely in the fluid filling the chamber, his body held in place by it, and his face tilted just above the surface. His eyes are closed. There’s no visible movement beyond the faint ripple in the fluid.

You stare. 

For a second, you consider leaving—pretending you never saw this, and letting Vernon come deal with whatever the hell this is. You’ve handled a ton of things for him, but a dead body dropping out of the sky is not one of them.

Instead, you step closer.

It doesn’t feel like a good decision, but it’s the one you make anyway, your gaze dragging from his face to the side of the chamber where a small panel sits half-lit, flickering in and out like it’s running on whatever scraps of power the pod has left.

You crouch beside it, wiping a thumb across the surface.

It’s something that looks like a readout. There’s a heart rate monitor, and his pulse is slow but present. The screen also shows oxygen saturation levels, temperature and something else that might be neural activity. 

You lean back slightly, eyes flicking to him again. 

“Great,” you mutter under your breath. “So you’re alive. That’s… good for you.” 

You must’ve pressed something accidentally, because the panel suddenly displays a new message in bright red. 

ACCESS RESTRICTED.

Below it, a smaller prompt blinks at you with a row of empty boxes following it. 

ENTER AUTHORIZATION CODE.

Great. So this is locked too. 

Leaving isn’t really an option anymore, so you drop your pack to the floor and begin to rummage through and pulling out one of Vernon’s toys—a thin, flat chip slotted into a grip the size of your palm, wires branching out from it in short, flexible threads with magnetic tips at the ends. Crude-looking, but you’ve seen it crack locks that were supposed to be unbreakable.

You press the main plate against the panel and let the leads find purchase along the edges, the magnets snapping lightly into place where the casing meets the screen.

The row of empty boxes flickers once before the first digit fills in, the number changing almost immediately, then again and again, fast enough that it stops being readable and turns into a continuous blur of motion. The second box follows, then the third, each one cycling just as quickly, the entire line running through combinations at an aggressive speed.

When the final box fills, for a brief second the entire row stays fixed and just when you think it’s going to reject the code again, the screen flashes green.

ACCESS GRANTED.

The red text disappears, replaced instantly by a flood of new data that pushes the old interface aside, columns of information sliding into place faster than you can process them. 

A controlled hiss cuts through the space as the seal disengages, followed by a series of tight clicks that run along the length of the casing. The fluid inside shifts in response, a heavier movement this time, disturbed by the change in pressure as the top section begins to lift.

You pull your hand back from the panel as the casing opens and wait. But it only opens enough to break the seal and then a little more, so you push it up and out of the way, eyes locked in on the man beneath it.

For a moment, nothing happens.

The silence in the pod is heavy, thick with the sterile smell of the fluid and the dirty air from outside infiltrating the clean air inside the pod. You stay crouched, muscles coiled and ready to bolt if this turns south, watching the way the remaining liquid beads off his skin like oil.

Then, the man’s chest hitches with a jagged, desperate intake of air that sounds like a rusted hinge being forced open. His throat works, a hard swallow that looks painful, and his fingers—pale and pruned—twitch against the bottom of the chamber.

You find yourself holding your own breath as his eyes twitch before they snap open, pupils blown wide for a fraction of a second before they struggle to adjust to the light inside the pod. He inhales again, harder this time, the sound tearing out of him as his back arches slightly, the movement sending what’s left of the fluid sloshing against the sides. 

Your hand lifts anyway, hovering for a second like you’re going to grab him, then stopping short when you realise you don’t actually know what you’d do if he bolts or collapses or starts swinging. You shift your weight instead, bracing one knee against the side of the chamber, close enough to catch him if he tips the wrong way, far enough that you can still move if you have to.

“Hey—” you start, the word coming out sharper than you mean it to, more instinct than anything useful. “Don’t—just—”

He doesn’t hear you.

His head lolls forward as vomits a mouthful of the pale liquid onto the floor. The shivering sets in immediately after, violent enough that it runs through him unchecked, his shoulders hitching, teeth knocking together hard enough to be audible even over the low hum of the pod. His sopping wet clothes stick to him in all places.

You grimace before reaching for your pack again, fingers closing around the spare respirator. He already seems to be struggling and after being unaccustomed to breathing for a while, he’ll find it harder without one of these.

You yank it free, shaking it out once before stepping back in, catching him by the arm as he sways. He’s worse up close like this—skin slick with fluid and cold to the touch.

“Hold still,” you mutter, although you don’t expect him to listen as you bring the mask up and press it over his face, sealing it tight along his nose and mouth.

Your thumb finds the switch and forces it on.

The filter kicks in with a rough, uneven whirr, louder than it should be in the confined space, and for a few seconds you keep your hand there, making sure it’s actually drawing air before you let go.

He drags in a breath through it immediately, sharp and unsteady, before lifting a trembling finger to point at something behind you. You follow the direction of it automatically, your gaze flicking over your shoulder to where he’s pointing. 

There’s an orange box that’s screwed to the walls. You hesitate for half a second, then reach for it.

It opens easily enough. Inside, everything is packed tightly. Folded clothes sit stacked in clean rows along with dried packets of what seems to be food and pouches of water. You reach for the thickest fabric of them all—a towel—before shaking it out once and coming back to wrap it around the man.

He stares at it for a moment like he doesn’t quite recognise what it is, then brings it up awkwardly, pressing it against his face and then his neck. 

You step back to give him some space and take him in properly, now that the initial panic has settled. 

Other than landing from the skies, being asleep in some liquid-filled pod and looking pale and wrinkled up like a prune, there are other things—or rather, the lack of other things that makes him strange.

There’s nothing on the man. No ports, no visible implants or surgery scars or embeds under his skin. Even the usual scarring from old mods—bad installs, cheap replacements, anything—none of it is there. 

You frown slightly, your gaze lingering a second longer than it should as he drags the towel down his arms, wiping off the remaining fluid in shaky motions.

His clothes too. The ones he’s wearing right now, the ones in the box all look different from what you’ve seen before. The fabric is thinner than anything you’d trust out here, softer too, without any embedded mesh or tech woven into it. 

You glance at the man again as he swallows again, his grip tightening against the chamber walls as he steadies himself to look at you properly. 

“Th—thank you,” he manages, the words rough and dragged out of a throat that clearly isn’t ready for them yet, his breath catching halfway through as a cough follows.

His hand comes up to his face almost immediately after, fingers fumbling clumsily over the mask you’ve strapped on him, tracing the edges of it like he’s trying to understand what it is without pulling it off.

“What—what is this,” he asks, voice muffled now, the words breaking slightly as he breathes through it. “Why—”

He doesn’t finish.

Instead, he shifts, bracing one hand against the side of the chamber as if that alone is enough to get him out, his body moving on instinct more than control. For a moment it almost works. He pushes himself upright and tries to swing his legs onto the ground, sending drops of the liquid across the floor.

But his balance fails him immediately as gravity catches up. His knees buckle under him, the rest of his weight pitching forward so quickly, it would’ve sent him straight to the floor if you weren’t already close enough to catch him.

He grabs at you without meaning to, fingers tightening around your arm.

“—sorry,” he mutters quickly, his grip loosening just as abruptly. “I—just—”

He exhales hard through the mask, another cough following, less violent this time.

“…food,” he adds after a second, the word coming out slower, like he’s picking it out through the fog in his mind. “And water. Please.”

The pod is mostly quiet now.

The low hum of whatever systems are still clinging to life runs underneath everything, and the occasional rustle of the food packet breaks through the silence, but neither of you speak.

The worst of the shaking has passed. He sits with his back against the chamber’s walls, one knee drawn up slightly, the other stretched out awkwardly. The empty water pouch sits beside him.

You eye the packet, wondering if it’s the real deal or the lab grown stuff from the lower markets. It looks real enough, and you’re hungry too, but it feels wrong to ask this man about food while he sits looking like that. 

He doesn’t look at you right away.

For a while, his attention stays on smaller things—the food in his hands, the way his fingers still tremble when he lifts it, the slow way he chews, like he’s making sure his body remembers how to. Every now and then his gaze drifts, to the panels along the walls, the flickering screens and strips of light slipping through the hatch behind you.

Then to you. Like you’re the one thing in the room he hasn’t accounted for yet. His brows tighten. You can’t tell if he looks alarmed or suspicious. He glances away again, dropping his attention back to the food. Another bite. Then, like he can’t leave it alone—

“…are you part of the recovery crew?” he asks, throat finally softened by the water. 

“What?” Your brows furrow.  

“The recovery crew,” he repeats, slower this time, like it's obvious and you’re the one missing it. He gestures vaguely around the pod. “Where’s the rest of them? Has mission control been notified?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

His face twists in confusion too. Great. Neither of you knows what the other's saying.

“This,” he says, knuckles weakly tapping the side of the chamber. “The pod. We were supposed to—” He stops, jaw tightening. His gaze flicks past you, to the door, the sliver of grey sky and scrap beyond it.

“This isn’t a water landing,” he says, more to himself than to you, “We didn’t…”

His eyes lock onto you, running up and down before his lips purse.

“What are you wearing?”

The confusion deepens, tipping into disbelief. “Where did I land? Some kind of… themed zone? Convention or something? Are we at Comic Con?”

You blink at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I don’t—” He shakes his head. “I don’t know what else this is supposed to be.”

That’s enough.

You bring your wrist up, the interface flickering to life across your skin in a soft blue, thin lines of light forming a curved display just above your hand.

“Name,” you demand. “Tell me your name.”

He stares at the hologram first with widened eyes and a dropped jaw. 

“Hey!” 

“Jihoon,” he says. “Lee Jihoon.” 

You type it in and the system scans through the city’s registry faster than you can follow.

NO MATCH.

You frown and try again.

Still nothing. 

You lower your hand, the projection still hovering. Jihoon hasn’t moved, his attention still locked on your wrist. 

His eyes move from the display to your face and then back. “We didn’t have—” He stops himself.

A few seconds pass before he speaks again, more careful this time

“The time dilation. If I’m back now, it must have been…” The cogs turn visibly. “About fifteen years? Is it 2047?”

“Are you on something?” you scoff, starting to get annoyed. “if this is some sort of a stim trip, you picked a bad place to ride it out.”

The words come out sharper than you mean them to, but it feels like someone’s pulling a prank on you. 

“No, wait—” Jihoon splutters, raising a hand. “What year is it? How long has it been since the launch?”

“What launch? Lazarus hasn’t sent anything to outer space in decades.” You scowl. 

“What year is it?” He asks again. “Please.”

You exhale sharply, massaging your temple before turning back to him. “Fine,” you roll your eyes, feet tapping on the ground. “It’s 2226.”

There’s a brief pause where he looks at you like he’s waiting for you to follow that up with something else—something that makes it make sense—before a faint crease forms between his brows and his gaze drops, his tongue pressing against the inside of his cheek.

“Right,” Jihoon says after a few seconds. He nods multiple times before tilting his head up to look at you again, trying to figure out if you’re serious or just committed to whatever this is. “Okay.” 

You say nothing.

He drags a hand through his damp hair before settling it at the back of his neck. It makes him look casual enough. Maybe even awkward, if it wasn’t for the way his cheeks are hollowed with irritation.

“That’s funny,” he adds, without any real humour. “Did they tell you to say that, or—”

“They?” you cut in.

“The recovery team,” he repeats, making you groan. “Or whoever got here first. I don’t know what the plan was, but this—” he nods faintly toward you, “—this isn’t how you debrief someone coming out of hypersleep, sorry.”

You stare at him, the earlier annoyance settling back in. 

What are you going to do with him?

“Listen, I’m not pulling a fucking prank on you, or whatever,” you start, reaching for your pack. “If you don’t believe me, you can come look for yourself. Or you could stay here and be found by people who aren’t going to be as nice or patient.”

When Jihoon doesn’t move or answer right away, you continue. 

“You’re running out of time. Light drops fast out here. If we don’t move now, it isn’t going to be easy to find your way out of here,” your tone flattens out as you step closer, your eyes dropping briefly to his legs.

He follows your gaze, like he’s only just registering it again, then shifts, bracing one hand against the side of the chamber before pushing himself up.

It goes about as well as before.

He exhales sharply through his teeth, frustration flickering across his face before he tries again, slower this time, like he can force his body into remembering how to stand up or walk.

“Give it a second,” Jihoon mutters, more to himself than you. “It’s just—”

He stops, jaw tightening as he finally stands on his feet, although more than half of his body leans against the chamber. 

“I’ve been in microgravity,” he grunts out, “for—if what you say is true—a long, long time. My body needs time to get used to earth’s gravity again.”

“Are you telling me you can’t walk?” You ask, laughing in disbelief. 

“I can walk,” he says, a little too quick for it to sound convincing, shifting his weight off the side just enough to prove a point. It lasts for all of three seconds before he has to hold onto something again.

“…I can walk,” he repeats, quieter this time and less defensive. “Just not… properly.”

“Great,” you mutter, dragging a hand down your face before letting it drop back to your side.  

“It’ll come back,” he adds after a moment, more to fill the silence than anything else, his gaze flicking briefly to you before dropping again. “Muscle memory doesn’t just disappear.”

“Whatever,” you sigh, jerking your chin at the door. “I’ll help you walk. I’m going to leave, so try to change out of your clothes if you can. It’s going to get cold outside and you seem to have some in that box.”

He nods, and you take it as a sign to move. Stepping back toward the door, you reach for the respirator where he left it and hold it out to him, waiting until he actually takes it before continuing.

“Put that on before I open this,” you add, already walking to the door. “Air out there’s worse than you can imagine.”

He doesn’t argue and fumbles the mask into place, the seal sitting slightly off before he adjusts it with a clumsy press of his fingers. 

You watch for a second, making sure it’s actually running, then nod toward the box. 

Stepping out of the pod, you drag the door mostly shut behind you, leaving just enough of a gap for air to cycle through while giving him some privacy.

The temperature hits immediately.

Colder now, the sharp wind drags across the crater in uneven bursts that carry dust and grit along with it, settling into the seams of your clothes and the exposed parts of your gear.

You take a few steps up the slope, boots slipping slightly against loose gravel before finding stable ground near the edge, your eyes scanning the stretch of wreckage. Then you look back around at the distance you’d have to cover to get him out of here. 

Yeah, that’s not happening.

You bring your wrist up again, tapping the interface twice until it flickers to life, the projection stabilising quickly in the low light. The signal takes a few seconds to connect. The lines are pretty far from the Wastelands, and you try not to use them most of the time.

“Hoshi,” you say, not bothering with any greeting when it connects.

A beat of pure static.

“—you done?” his voice cuts through, rough but clear enough.

“Yeah,” you reply, shifting your weight from one foot to the other as another gust of wind pushes through. “I need a pickup now.”

“Cool. Vernon’s asking if you got everything he asked for.”

“Tell him to shut the fuck up,” you roll your eyes, glancing back toward the pod as a dull thud echoes faintly from inside, followed by the sound of something scraping against metal and what might’ve been a muffled curse. He’s the reason I’m in this mess anyway. “Oh, and bring Wonwoo. Tell him to bring his bike too.”

A pause. “Why? He says he’s busy.”

“Come on! I don’t ask for shit that’s not required, you know,” you shoot back, tone flattening.

Another pause.

Then a short exhale on the other end.

“Give us ten.”

“Sending my location, make it five,” you say, already lowering your wrist before he can argue, cutting the line clean.

“Hey?” Jihoon’s voice calls out, weak and muffled, from inside the pod. “I’m done. I’m sorry, but can you help me out here?”

You let your hand drop fully, the interface fading back into your skin as you turn toward the pod. 

“Yeah,” you call back, already stepping down the slope. “Give me a second.” 

By the time you reach the door and push it open, he’s already halfway there. As he moves, he uses one hand to drag along the wall for balance, the other catching whatever edge he can reach. It’s messy, inefficient, and stubborn in a way that makes you pause for a second at the threshold, watching him close the distance on his own instead of stepping in immediately.

He’s going to fall.

You can see it before it happens but he catches himself again, letting out an exasperated noise as he forces the correction through.

Right.

You step forward then, closing the last bit of space and catching his arm before he can argue, your grip firm enough that he doesn’t have to fight it.

The climb out isn’t graceful, but it works through slow, uneven steps, his weight leaning heavier into you than he probably realises. You don’t comment on it though, and neither does he.

By the time you reach the edge, his breathing’s picked up again. He huffs out in relief before finally looking up.

As evening sets in, the sky is a bruised gradient of violet and burnt orange, but the neon lights in the skyline almost manage to drown out the natural light. The city on the skyline, Jihoon notices, doesn’t sit against the horizon so much as cut through it—tiered and overbuilt, towers stacked into each other in ways that don’t look structurally possible, their surfaces sheathed in glass that no longer reflects the sky so much as advertises over it. 

Massive vertical panels climb the sides of buildings, cycling through ads that stutter and glitch mid-transition, faces stretching and reforming, text bleeding into symbols before snapping back into place. Entire sections of towers are wrapped in moving light, brands crawling up their surfaces. 

Thin lanes of traffic cut through the air in streams, vehicles reduced to streaks of light that thread between towers in intersecting paths, some dipping lower toward the shadowed base, others climbing higher into clearer air. 

None of it makes sense. 

Jihoon stares wordlessly, breath catching behind his mask. 

“Where are we?” He asks, a few moments later.. 

“The Wastelands,” you say, already starting forward again, forcing him to move with you. “Outside Phoenix.” 

“Phoenix,” he repeats, brows furrowing. “Like the American city?”

You glance at him, frowning. “What?”

“Phoenix, Arizona,” he means to state it, but it comes out like a question.

“No,” you sigh flatly. “Just Phoenix. We’re in Asia.”

“Asia…? How is this possible?” Jihoon mutters to himself. “If I was gone for—” He cuts himself off with a harsh exhale, before he begins to ramble, rerunning the calculations with different variables. 

“If recovery failed and I stayed in orbit… no, decay wouldn’t—two centuries is too long. Fluid degradation alone would—unless they compensated, but that would require—” his hand lifts slightly, fingers flexing like he’s trying to grab hold of the thought and keep it from slipping. “Or drift, but not at this scale. That doesn’t—”

He lets out a loud groan. “Doesn’t make sense. None of this does.”

Behind you, the low, familiar hum of an engine builds gradually under the wind, cutting through the open stretch of the Wastelands. You turn your head slightly this time, already knowing what you’re going to see.

Two bikes roll up along the ridge, the engines tuned low enough that the noise doesn’t carry far. The frames are mismatched in that way everything out here is, with reinforced plates welded over older builds, exposed wiring running along the sides where casing’s been stripped back and never replaced. Thin light strips run under the chassis instead of headlights, casting a narrow glow across the ground instead of lighting up the whole area.

They stop a few feet away. 

Hoshi swings off first, helmet coming off with him, his expression already set in something between expectation and impatience, until he looks at you and then at Jihoon, and his face falls.

“Where’s the rest of the haul?” He asks.

You nudge Jihoon lightly. “Here.”

Hoshi shoots you a look, one eyebrow cocked. “You’re joking.”

Wonwoo pulls his helmet off too, still sitting on his bike, eyes moving over Jihoon slowly, over his face, his clothes and footwear. Then, he glances at you.

“Who is he?”

“Don’t know,” you say finally, “Found him in that thing.”

Hoshi follows your line of sight to the pod, then back to Jihoon, his expression flattening further.

“That’s not helping.”

“That's all I’ve got. Nothing he says makes any sense.”

There’s a brief pause where neither of them look convinced.

Jihoon’s grip tightens on your arm slightly before he pushes off and tries to stand on his own, which he manages to do for a good few seconds before he reaches for you again. He opens his mouth to speak, but Wonwoo beats him to it.

“Why’s he holding onto you?”

“He can’t walk properly,” you sigh, using your free hand to massage your temple. “I found him in some weird sleeping pod, man. He’s apparently been in space for a long time.”

Hoshi lets out a short exhale. “You believe that?”

Jihoon exhales through the mask, sharper this time, like he’s choosing whether to argue or not.

“I’m not—” he starts, then stops, eyes scrunching closed before he corrects himself. “I’m not from here.” 

“Sure, bud. You’re from the Upper City then, huh? One of Lazarus’ stupid experiments maybe?” Hoshi laughs humorlessly.

Jihoon ignores him.

“I was part of a deep space expedition mission,” he says instead, forcing the words out. “It was called the Hermes Missions. There was a problem and we had to abandon it and return to earth. It would take a while, so we went into hypersleep, but the time dilation…” he trails off, voice cracking behind the mask.

“What is that? You keep saying it, but what does it mean?” you groan.

“In space, time doesn't work the same way,” Jihoon explains, his voice thin and strained. “To put it simply: the faster you move out there, the slower time passes for you compared to everyone else. For me, it’s only been a few years since I left. To you…” He looks at the glowing skyline, his eyes wide and hollow. 

“Listen,” he continues, glancing at the three of you. “This may be hard to digest, and it’s hard for me too. But I left earth in 2026. I was supposed to be back in around fifteen to twenty years, not—”

“Two hundred?” Hoshi shakes his head slightly like he’s already decided what to do with all of that. “Yeah, no. I’m not buying it.”

Wonwoo finally speaks again. “I don’t think he’s entirely lying though. Look at him. He doesn’t look like he’s from here.”

“That doesn’t make the rest of it true.”

“No,” Wonwoo agrees. “But it makes him a problem either way.”

“And he’s unchipped too,” you add. “Got absolutely nothing on him. Either way, I think it’s best to take him back home and then have Vernon or someone look at his pod. I didn’t recognize most of the tech, but maybe he could.”

Hoshi lets out a quiet scoff, dragging his hand down his face as he looks between you and Jihoon again, like he’s trying to decide which part of this is worse.

“You’re serious about this,” he says, more a statement than a question.

“How can we leave him here? He’s pure.”

The wind cuts through again, kicking dust up around your boots and along the sides of the bikes. For a second, no one says anything. 

Wonwoo moves first. 

He steps closer, his attention still fixed on Jihoon as he reaches out and takes some of his weight from you without asking. 

“I’m Wonwoo,” he tells Jihoon as they trudge over to his bike. “We’ll take you back to the city and you’ll probably be questioned, but it’s safer than being out here.”

Jihoon nods faintly, like the words take a second to land but he understands enough of them. 

Hoshi exhales sharply behind you. 

“Get him on,” he mutters, already turning back to his bike. “You can get on mine.”

Up close, it’s even more obvious.

No seams under the skin. No faint glow at the wrists. No embedded lines running along the neck or spine. Just unmarked skin, making him stand out more than any modification ever could.

Wonwoo notices it too, but he doesn’t comment on it.

“You need to hold tight.” He says instead.

Jihoon hesitates for half a second, then does as instructed. Wonwoo waits a beat, making sure he’s steady, then reaches back to pull his helmet on, the visor sliding down with a soft click. 

You step back, rolling your shoulders once before moving toward Hoshi’s bike.

He glances at you as you swing on behind him, one eyebrow lifting slightly.

“You better be right about this,” he says.

“I am.”

“You don’t sound convincing.”

“Hoshi, stop being a bitch about it and just drive.” you grumble. 

The engine hums louder under you as he kicks it fully to life, the vibration settling through the frame and into your leg. Ahead of you, Wonwoo’s bike shifts first, turning cleanly toward the path that cuts back through the wreckage.

Jihoon turns his head slightly, looking back at the pod and the crater, like it might still hold some answers, but he turns forward again when he finds none.

The skyline burns brighter now that the last of the light has dropped out completely, neon bleeding into the dark, stretching higher than it has any right to. 

As the bikes pull out in one smooth motion, cutting back across the ridge and into the open stretch of the Wastelands, the wind picking up immediately as they move, Jihoon wonders if there is anything that still anchors this world to his, or if it’s all truly gone.

The first turn into the city is where it starts going wrong again.

Whatever little sense of direction Jihoon had held slips the moment they leave the open stretch behind. The lights come first, sharp and immediate, cutting through his vision in painful streaks. They flare and disappear and flare again from different angles, too bright, too close, and layered over each other until he can’t look at them directly.

He tries to observe his surroundings. He really does, but the glare burns at the back of his eyes, forcing them shut halfway before he can stop it, his grip tightening instinctively as the bike moves again, faster than his body can keep up with. The turns come without warning.

The air feels wrong too. It’s thicker, warmer and every breath he pulls through his mask feels more suffocating than relieving. It tastes like burnt chemicals, a sharp contrast to the sterile air of his spaceship and the pod. 

Every time the bike leans, Jihoon feels his stomach lurch. 

By the time the roar of the engines finally dies down, Wonwoo shifts, the kickstand hitting the pavement with a sharp clack that vibrates right through Jihoon’s bones.

"We’re here," Wonwoo says, his voice flat. "Get off."

Jihoon doesn't move. He can't. His fingers are locked in a death grip around the jacket in front of him. It takes a second for his brain to send the signal to let go, and when he finally manages to swing a leg over the seat, the world tilts to the left.

His boots hit the wet asphalt, and for a moment, he thinks he’s standing. Then, the ground seems to surge upward. He barely manages to stumble two steps away from the bike before he lunges forward, hands wringing the respirator off, and retches.

He vomits a string of thin, bitter preservation fluid and bile, the sound of his own gagging echoing off the narrow alley walls.

"God," Hoshi’s voice cuts through the dark, sounding more annoyed than concerned. "He’s getting that shit everywhere."

You wince, stepping over to Jihoon and placing a firm hand on his shoulder. He’s cold—so cold it bleeds through your gloves. Up close, his skin looks like translucent parchment under the flickering red sign above you.

"Easy," you mutter, though you’re looking at the alley entrance, checking for scanners. "Just get it out. We need to move."

Jihoon doesn’t respond.

He stays bent forward, one hand braced weakly against the wall, the other hanging uselessly at his side as his stomach keeps trying to turn over on nothing.

He drags in a breath. It doesn’t help much, but it’s better than the respirator. 

Swallowing hard, Jihoon squeezes his eyes shut for a second longer before forcing them open. His head throbs, the pressure behind his eyes pulsing in time with the flickering lights.

The alley comes into focus slowly.

It’s narrow and closed in, the walls on either side rising higher than they should for how little space there is between them. Water drips somewhere above, running down along exposed wiring before disappearing into the cracks in the ground.

The move from the alley to your safehouse is a blur of dragging feet and muffled curses. Wonwoo doesn’t complain when you ask him to hold up the man again, taking on most of his weight as you try to get him past the door as quickly as possible. The door seals shut behind you with a pressurized thud that vibrates through the floorboards, cutting the city's roar down to a dull, distant thrum. 

“Take him to Vernon,” Hoshi exhales as he moves past the three of you to throw himself onto the sofa. “Let him check the guy again.”

The tone of Hoshi’s voice ticks you off, but you let it pass for now. You can see where he’s coming from, and his instructions are only logical. 

Jihoon doesn’t lift his head fully, but he sees enough.

Work surfaces line one side of the room, cluttered but not disorganised, tools laid out in a way that suggests they’ve been used recently and will be used again soon. Wires run along the walls without being hidden, bundled together in places and left exposed in others, disappearing into panels that have been opened and closed too many times to sit flush anymore. There’s a smell here too, different from outside, less sharp but just as present, something metallic and faintly burnt.

“Vernon,” you call out, not raising your voice but letting it carry.

There’s a pause.

Then the scrape of something being moved, followed by a low, irritated response from somewhere deeper in the room.

“What?”

You don’t bother answering him. Instead you signal Wonwoo to move, not checking if Vernon’s preoccupied.

“I’ve got someone for you,” you say as you walk Jihoon in.

There’s a sound, something dragged across a surface, then a dull clatter. A second later, Vernon steps into view.

Jihoon doesn’t look at him properly at first.

He’s too focused on staying upright, on getting his feet to land where they’re supposed to, on the way the floor doesn’t quite feel stable under him yet. His grip tightens against Wonwoo’s sleeve as they move. The lights inside aren’t as bright or hard to look at, but they’re still overwhelming.

“What do you want me to do?” Vernon asks, eyes trained on Jihoon. He steps closer, tilting his head to look around. “Who is this?”

“We’ll tell you later,” you shake your head, dragging Jihoon to what looks like a surgical table in the middle of the room. “Hoshi wants him cleared first. Check for everything. Biomods, chips, sleepers—specifically anything linked to Lazarus. I doubt you’ll find anything, but still.”

Vernon lets out a short, sharp huff of air that might have been a laugh if he didn’t look so frayed. He wipes his hands on a rag that’s more grease than fabric and gestures toward the table.

“Get him up,” he says. “And try not to let him bleed on the scanners if he’s got any open wounds. I just recalibrated the sensors.”

Wonwoo hoists Jihoon up, seating him on the edge of the cold alloy. It’s a sharp bite that seeps through Jihoon’s clothes and makes his spine stiffen.

Jihoon finally forces his head up.

Vernon is standing right in front of him now. He’s younger than Jihoon expected, with features that might have been soft if they weren't sharpened by the jagged energy of whatever stimulants he's running on. His hair is a washed-out, synthetic blonde, messy and catching the overhead light in a way that makes it look like spun glass. There are thin, glowing lines under the skin of his temple.

You watch as Vernon reaches for one of his devices, his fingers twitching before he flexes them once. He starts at Jihoon’s head, his touch clinical and detached as he tilts Jihoon’s chin up. He’s thorough, his fingers pressing into the soft dip behind the ears, then tracing the vertebrae at the base of the skull. 

Vernon looks for the tell-tale seams of a Lazarus link—a clean metallic chip that should be fused to the bone—first. If the man’s got it, he’s got to go. His thumb digs into the ridge at the base of Jihoon’s skull, a heavy, probing pressure that forces Jihoon’s head forward. 

Jihoon winces, the cold of the probe finally making contact with his skin. It hums in a high-pitched, irritating whine that vibrates against his teeth.

“What are you guys doing to me?” Jihoon gasps out before his eyes land on you. “You said this would be safe.”

“Keep quiet,” Vernon grunts from behind him, gaze fixed on a small monitor to his left. 

The screen shows a flat green line. Nothing.

“He’s got no link,” he lets you know, stepping away from the table before you stop him.

“Check his whole body.” 

“Well, you’re going to have to tell me something at least, before you want me doing all that,” Vernon rolls his eyes. “Maybe you can start with why he looks so clean.”

Jihoon’s eyes stay locked on yours, his chest heaving under the thin fabric of his suit. He’s a long way from the quiet safety of his pod, and being handled like a machine by a twitchy stranger wasn’t a part of the deal.

You glance at him. “Tell him.”

Jihoon lets out a sharp, jagged scoff. The annoyance is starting to burn through the exhaustion now. But if he’s going to trust what his eyes are seeing, then they deserve an explanation.

“I’m not from here,” Jihoon recites, the words sounding practiced by now. “I mean, I am from Earth, just not from this time. I was on a spaceship. A research vessel, if you’d like to call it that.”

Vernon lets out a laugh. “Right. Lazarus hasn’t sent—”

“—anyone to space in decades?” Jihoon cuts him off, his voice sharper than intended. He feels done with this already. “Yeah, I heard. I don’t know what Lazarus is. I wasn’t sent by them.”

“He says he’s from—” you start, turning to him. “Which year are you from, again?”

“2026.” Jihoon sighs. “Listen, I don’t expect you to believe me. I’m having a hard enough time believing any of this is real myself.”

Vernon scoffs, shaking his head before he looks away. “Yeah,” he says, like that answers something for him instead of raising more questions. “That would do it.” 

Jihoon frowns. “What does that mean?”

“Means you’re either the cleanest Lazarus plant I’ve ever seen,” Vernon replies, already turning away from him to grab something else off the work surface, “or you’re exactly what you’re saying you are.” 

“So just do the check, won’t you?” You ask.

“Fine,” Vernon agrees. “Have you looked into him on the NetLink?”

“Yup,” you nod. “Doesn’t exist anywhere.”

Vernon pulls a heavy, ring-shaped scanner from its housing above the table, the joints of the mechanical arm screeching in protest.

“Lie back,” he orders.

Jihoon hesitates, glancing at you with a look that’s becoming increasingly weary, before he lets Wonwoo guide his shoulders down onto the metal.

The scanner ring begins to move, a slow, methodical crawl from his head down toward his feet. For a long time, the only sound is the hum of the machine and the frantic tapping of Vernon’s fingers on a glass keyboard. The screens are a wash of blue and green, mapping out details Jihoon can’t make out clearly.

“His lungs are pristine.” Vernon mutters, his brow furrowed. “No heavy metal deposits, no carbon scarring... it’s like he’s lived in a filter.” 

The scanner reaches Jihoon’s left leg, just above the ankle, and suddenly a sharp, high-pitched ping echoes through the small room. A section of the monitor flashes a warning in amber. 

From the corner of his eye, Jihoon sees the man named Hoshi walk up too. 

Vernon taps the screen, pulling up a 3D render of Jihoon’s tibia. Bolted to the bone is a thin, slightly oxidized plate held in place by four surgical screws. “Old-school compression plate and nails. Titanium, maybe?”

“It was a fracture,” Jihoon lets out almost sheepishly. 

Hoshi leans over Vernon’s shoulder, his eyes narrowing at the skeletal image on the screen. The annoyance that had been written across his face earlier shifts into a sharp, piercing curiosity. He looks at the metal bolts and then back at Jihoon’s face.

"A fracture," Hoshi repeats, his voice lacking its previous bite. "You broke your leg and they just... put nails in it?"

"It’s what we did," Jihoon mutters, feeling exposed under their gazes.

Vernon reaches out, his gloved fingers hovering just above Jihoon’s skin where the plate is hidden underneath. He almost looks fascinated.

"It’s not even smart-alloy," Vernon whispers, tapping a key to zoom in on the screws. "No bio-syncing. No neural feedback. It’s just dead weight. How do you even walk with these?”

"I just do?" Jihoon says, but it comes out like a question, the simplicity of his own words sounding ridiculous even to him. 

Vernon straightens up, the frantic energy around him somehow amplifying. 

"Aside from that antique in his leg, there’s nothing,” he confirms, nodding toward the monitor. “No trackers, no sleepers. His blood chemistry is... well, it’s perfect. It’s actually kind of disgusting how healthy he is." 

“He’s pure,” he adds before turning to Jihoon. “More than us, too. So you weren’t just making shit up, were you?”

Vernon leans back slightly from the console, eyes still scanning over the data as if it might rearrange itself into something more useful if he stares long enough, his fingers hovering just above the interface before dropping away with a faint click against the glass. 

He turns to you. 

“So you found him in the wastelands after he—let me get this right—fell out of the sky?”

“Yes.”

“And he’s telling us he’s from two hundred years ago.”

Jihoon lets out a tired sigh. “When you say it like that, it sounds ridiculous.”

“It is ridiculous,” Vernon replies, but he sounds more interested than dismissive like he was before. “But it’s not ignorable.”

You shift from one foot to the other, folding your arms across your chest as you consider Jihoon for a second longer, like you’re deciding how much to say and how to say it without losing him halfway through. 

“Out there,” you start, nodding vaguely toward the direction you came from, “everything that still functions has already been stripped, rebuilt, repurposed, and patched together more times than it was ever designed to handle, and that’s just the machines.”

“And people?” Jihoon asks, the question coming quicker this time.

Wonwoo answers without hesitation. “Same principle.”

“You mean—what, prosthetics?” he asks, searching for a familiar concept to hold onto.

“Not just prosthetics,” Vernon cuts in, pushing himself off the console and stepping closer again, one hand gesturing vaguely toward Jihoon. “Replacements, reinforcements, integrations, whatever keeps things running. You lose something, you replace it. Something starts failing, you patch it before it takes something else down with it.”

“Organs, nerves, sensory inputs, structural support. Doesn’t matter what it is as long as it works.”

Jihoon recoils slightly, a wave of revulsion passing over his face as he looks at Vernon’s glowing temples. He swallows hard, trying to anchor himself against the insanity of this conversation.

"You keep using that word," Jihoon mutters, his voice tight. "Lazarus. What the hell is a Lazarus?" 

Hoshi lets out a quiet scoff, running his tongue along the inside of his cheek. “They’re a megacorp. They own the city, or close enough that the official wording doesn't even matter anymore. If a light switch flips, a train moves, or a hospital bed turns on, Lazarus takes a cut. If it draws power, they have their hands on the switch.” 

“The chips too,” Vernon adds absently, already half-turned back toward his console as he drags windows across the screen with quick, twitchy movements. “Lazarus Link. That’s what everyone’s carrying around in their heads.” 

Jihoon’s brows pull together faintly, his hands instinctively tracing up to the back of his bare neck.

“It interfaces with the nervous system,” Wonwoo explains before Vernon can answer in the most irritating way possible. “Originally it was marketed as medical support. Helps monitor your health, synchronising other implants and what not.”

“Cheap too,” Vernon mutters. “That’s how they got everyone.”

Jihoon’s gaze flicks between all of you slowly.

“And people just…” He hesitates. “Agreed to that?”

“At first?” Hoshi shrugs. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t they? It worked.”

“There were already biomods before the Link became standard,” Vernon adds absently. “The problem was compatibility. Different manufacturers built different hardware. Implants would reject each other, and your systems would lag trying to process the conflicting codes. Lazarus solved all of it.

“And now the problem is,” you continue, “that they’re making everyone meat-puppets now by making the Link mandatory.”

Jihoon shakes his head. “What does that mean?”

“To put it simply, they can override humans.”

Jihoon goes quiet after that. Not because he’s accepted any of it, but because there’s only so much horror a person can react to at once before it all starts flattening into numbness.

The scanner continues its low mechanical hum somewhere beside him while lines of data drift across Vernon’s monitors, casting pale blue light across the room. Jihoon stares past them without really looking, his eyes unfocused for half a second before he blinks hard and forces himself back into the conversation.

“And you people?” he asks eventually, voice rougher now. “Who exactly are you supposed to be?”

“That’s complicated.”

“Well, that’s reassuring,” Jihoon mutters.

You catch the way he presses his fingers harder into the edge of the table afterward, like he’s afraid the room might tilt again if he lets go.

Honestly, it might.

He still looks awful. The colour still hasn’t returned to his face, and his damp hair sticks unevenly against his forehead beneath the harsh overhead lighting. Even sitting still seems to take effort now, like he’s holding himself upright through sheer stubbornness.

That is, until Vernon suddenly steps forward again.

At first, Jihoon thinks he’s reaching for the scanner beside him, or maybe adjusting something on the monitor, but then Vernon catches Jihoon’s wrist in one gloved hand with surprising ease and presses something sharp into the inside of his arm before anyone fully registers what’s happening.

Jihoon jerks violently.

“What the fuck—”

Vernon lets go immediately, already stepping back again as he discards the empty injector into a nearby bin like this is perfectly normal. 

The room goes still.

“You injected him?” you snap.

Vernon shrugs before glancing at Jihoon. “You might wanna lie down.”

Jihoon stares at him in open disbelief for half a second before the sensation actually starts spreading through him.

The warmth hits first.

It isn’t painful, which somehow makes it worse. It slips through his bloodstream almost gently, slow heat curling up the inside of his arm before settling heavily behind his eyes and at the base of his skull. 

“Did you just drug me?” Jihoon rasps out, his brows pulling together as he blinks hard.

You sigh, tired. “Vern, seriously?”

“He’s exhausted and overloaded,” Vernon says, sounding almost bored now that the decision’s already been made. “I’m doing him a favour.” 

Jihoon’s thoughts begin slipping strangely against each other, the room around him softening at the edges every time he blinks. 

“You should’ve given him a heads-up, at least,” you say, “ease him into it or something.”

“I literally told him to lie down.”

“That was after you stabbed him.”

Jihoon tries to respond to that, but the words never fully form. Instead he fights the awful sensation of the room drifting sideways again.

His expression goes blank for a few seconds, like his brain has finally stopped keeping up with the rest of him, and before you realize what’s happening his entire body tips forward.

He hits the floor face-first with a heavy thud.

“I told him to lie down,” Vernon sighs, making the three of you glance at him in irritation. “Great. Now we can actually decide if we’re believing him entirely and what we’re going to tell him.”

By the time Minghao and Aki arrive, Jihoon’s already unconscious on your sofa with a fresh scrape across his cheekbone and one shoe half hanging off his foot.

Aki stops short the second she sees him.

“…that’s him?”

“The space guy, yes,” Hoshi replies from across the room. “Try not to sound so disappointed.”

“I’m not disappointed,” Aki says slowly, still staring. “I didn’t know what to expect, but it wasn’t this.”

You barely glance up from where you’re crouched beside the sofa, dragging antiseptic carefully across the scrape on Jihoon’s face while he remains entirely unresponsive to it now except for the occasional faint twitch in his brow. The bruise underneath is already beginning to darken beneath his pale skin that still looks absurdly clear under the lights.

“He hit the floor pretty hard,” Wonwoo says from somewhere behind you.

“That was because Vernon drugged him like a psycho,” you reply.

“He’s asleep now instead of having a fucking breakdown in my workspace. I take that as a win.” Vernon says distractedly as he tinkers with the prosthetic he’s put together from the parts you brought. “Aki, let me put this on.”

You press the gauze on Jihoon’s cheek. He flinches faintly when the antiseptic hits the scrape properly this time, his brows tightening for a brief second before smoothing out again immediately. 

Aki drops onto the sofa opposite to you, holding her arm out for Vernon, wires and exposed plating glinting as he reconnects something near the elbow joint in practiced moves. 

Her gaze drifts back to Jihoon.

You peel the backing off a synth-skin strip with your teeth before pressing it carefully against Jihoon’s cheekbone. Up close, the injury looks even more unfair against his face somehow, the redness standing out sharply beneath skin untouched by chemical scarring or interface seams.

“So we’re going to believe him fully?” Aki asks as Minghao drops onto the floor to sit beside you.

Vernon sticks his tongue out slightly, turning a screwdriver into the plates of her prosthetic. “You know how bad the lower orbits are now?”

Aki shrugs. “Bad enough that nobody goes up there anymore.” 

“Yeah, because everything up there’s dead.” Vernon gestures vaguely upward. “Half the satellites crashed decades ago, the rest got taken out by debris collisions. Every time something breaks apart it creates more debris, which breaks more shit apart, and now the entire atmosphere is basically wrapped in a field of metal moving fast enough to cut ships in half.” 

She grimaces faintly. “Right.” 

Vernon nods once toward Jihoon. “So unless Lazarus somehow launched a fake ancient pod through a collapsing graveyard just to trick six disconnected idiots hiding under Sector 17, I’m leaning toward him being real.” 

Then Minghao speaks.

“When we were younger,” he says slowly, still staring at Jihoon, “didn’t there used to be stories about somebody like this?”

Hoshi frowns immediately. “What, like wasteland conspiracy crap?”

“No.” Minghao’s brows furrow. “Not exactly.”

“There was some woman Lazarus wanted brought in alive,” he continues after a moment. “People used to talk about it all the time in the lower sectors. Said she talked about old Earth and missions and space stations and whatever.” 

Aki squints. “I vaguely remember people talking about some old drunk in the market levels.”

“No, it wasn’t like that,” Minghao says quietly. “People were actually scared of her.”

Hoshi snorts. “People in the lower sectors are scared of everything.”

“I’m serious.” Minghao’s tone finally pushes the room into silence.

He shifts slightly against the sofa, face set in concentration, like he’s reconstructing the memory piece by piece.

“I don’t remember where she came from, or if anyone even knew. I just remember hearing people say she’d been caught somewhere outside the city after talking about old missions and stations and coordinates and shit nobody understood.”

Wonwoo’s gaze lifts from where he’d been standing near the window.

“And Lazarus wanted her alive?”

“Yeah.” Minghao nods. “That’s why I remember it. Because it was weird. Lazarus usually just erases people.”

Aki folds her arms loosely. “You sure it wasn’t some scavenger making things up?”

“Maybe,” Minghao admits. “But there were bounty notices for her for a while.”

“What kind of notices?”

“I don’t know.” Minghao exhales. “I was a kid. But I remember people talking about how much Lazarus was paying to bring her in alive instead of dead.”

Hoshi frowns. “So she was important to them.”

You glance back toward Jihoon instinctively. 

He still hasn’t moved beyond the slow rise and fall of his breathing, one side of his face pressed deep into the worn-out sofa cushion.

Minghao turns to you. “What did you say the name of his mission was?”

“Uh,” you rack your brain. “Hermes. Some old Greek thing, I think. Why?”

“I can look into it,” he replies, glancing at Hoshi. “The chances of finding those bounty posters must be near-zero because Lazarus might’ve made sure to burn them off the planet, but it doesn’t hurt to try. We could see if they’re related.”

Everyone stays silent for a good minute or two. 

“None of this matters until he wakes up anyway.” Vernon finally gets up from the sofa with a loud sigh. “Does this mean you guys are going to tell him the truth about us?”

“Yes,” you answer immediately.

Hoshi’s head snaps toward you. “Come on!”

You look back at him flatly.

“He already knows enough to realise something’s wrong. And if he’s really disconnected like Vernon says, then hiding who we are from him doesn’t actually help anything.”

Hoshi opens his mouth again, shoulders tightening like he’s about to argue properly this time, but whatever he sees on your face makes him stop halfway through it. His jaw clenches once instead before he exhales and looks away toward the kitchen.

“Fine,” he mutters. “Whatever.”

Aki watches the exchange silently before glancing toward Jihoon again.

“He’s gonna lose his mind when he wakes up.”

“Nothing’s new,” Vernon almost laughs. “He’s done that already.”

You ignore him and reach down to pull the blanket back up where it had slipped off Jihoon’s shoulder. 

“You should check the pod soon,” you say eventually, looking toward Vernon. “If Lazarus hasn’t found it yet, that is. You might know what’s in it.”

“Yeah. I think I should wait for sometime, actually.” 

Hoshi frowns slightly. “Why? You think it’s tapped already?”

“No,” Vernon shakes his head. “I think if it’s a part of a space mission then he might have information that could be important. I wouldn’t want to go in there and fuck it up. It’s old tech after all.”

And so, you wait.

Jihoon wakes a few hours later, and before he knows it, the next two days pass too fast to be properly processed.

Every time he thinks he’s finally caught up to one revelation, somebody drops another one into his lap before the first has even settled. 

Your people who are hiding beneath the city call themselves pure, which initially makes no sense to him considering Vernon has glowing circuitry in his temples, Aki can peel the skin off half her forearm to expose the articulated mechanics underneath, and Hoshi’s spine has been reinforced so heavily that metallic plating flashes beneath the skin at the base of his neck whenever he moves the wrong way under bright lights. Even Wonwoo’s eyes aren’t fully human anymore, his left pupil occasionally catching and refocusing a few seconds too slowly.

And then there’s you.

You’re less obvious than the others until he notices the thin lines—similar to Vernon’s but fainter—disappearing behind your ear whenever you tie your hair back, delicate enough to pass for jewellery if someone wasn’t looking closely.

“That’s different,” you’d told him eventually after watching him stare at all of you in visible confusion.

“How?”

“Because none of us are linked anymore.”

That explanation somehow raises even more questions than it answers.

He learns quickly that disconnected people rarely survive long unless they know exactly how to disappear. Lazarus systems track almost everything automatically now through the Links: movement, transactions, transport access, medical scans. Most people can’t function without it because the city itself isn’t designed to work without it.

People like you exist anyway.

Hidden underneath it all in dead districts and abandoned maintenance levels and old transit routes nobody monitors properly because there’s nothing profitable left there.

Ghosts surviving inside blind spots.

“Like you,” Minghao offers, like that would make him feel any better. 

All Jihoon can think about is how nothing about any of you actually feels human in the way he understands it anymore.

He would’ve liked more time after that.

Time to sit still long enough for the panic to properly catch up to him, maybe. Time to think through the fact that every single person he has ever known is dead, that the world outside no longer functions according to rules he recognises, that corporations apparently control entire nervous systems now and people discuss it over dinner like weather.

Instead, Vernon changes his mind and decides the pod needs to become the immediate priority.

“If Lazarus finds it before we do, we’re fucked,” he says flatly the morning after, already dragging equipment apart across the workshop floor before Jihoon’s even fully awake. “So unless you want your ancient space coffin dissected by scavengers, start making a list.” 

And that becomes Jihoon’s next reality.

Sitting at the low apartment table half-dressed and still exhausted while trying to reconstruct the contents of a spacecraft from memory fast enough for people he met less than seventy-two hours ago to retrieve them before a megacorporation does.

At first, the list stays practical—medical kits, power cells, thermal blankets, atmospheric analysers, all his mission data. But soon enough, it wanders into territory he’s not sure he should go.

Jihoon thinks about the personal storage compartments in the pod. Photographs, journals, his phone which are thingsa thing they don’t seem to have anymore. There are coffee sachets tucked somewhere in the lower food drawers, sour candy and other stuff he’d carried from home. 

Things that suddenly matter more now than they ever did before because somewhere between launch and impact they went from being ordinary belongings to the only surviving pieces of an entire life nobody else on Earth remembers anymore. 

Vernon reads over the list once and immediately asks how exactly he expects them to carry all of that back through the wastelands. 

“A vehicle?” Jihoon suggests tiredly. “You don’t have cars?”

That earns an actual laugh from him.

“Yeah,” he says. “Let me just go buy one with my completely legal identity.”

Jihoon stares at him blankly.

It takes several more minutes for someone to explain that people disconnected from Lazarus systems don’t exactly get to make large purchases without immediately attracting attention from the very infrastructure that thinks they’re dead.

After that, the group descends into another argument about transport logistics while Jihoon sits there increasingly aware that he became part of this situation without really agreeing to it.

Eventually they agree on the bikes again.

“If it’s that necessary,” Hoshi mutters while looking over the list, “then we can make multiple trips.”

Jihoon doesn’t miss the way everybody’s eyes linger slightly longer on the mission data section than the rest of the page.

The disguise becomes another problem immediately afterwards. You let him know that he’d stick out like a sore thumb if he went out right now, with his jet-black hair and plain, oversized cotton clothes. 

Clean, pure, unmarked. He’s starting to get tired of hearing those words.

The suggestion of actual biomods gets shut down so quickly it almost startles everyone.

“No,” Jihoon says immediately the first time Vernon even vaguely brings it up. “Absolutely not.”

“It’d make this easier.”

“Anything but that.”

The refusal is so sharp and stubborn that he gives up entirely. Instead, they settle for imitation.

Aki makes him wear different clothes first. Layered fabrics, oversized jackets, and dark synthetic pieces stitched into the shoulders and chest to bulk out his silhouette until he stops looking so painfully out of place beside everybody else. Then come the fake external modifications—decorative plating adhered near his throat, metallic wraps around his fingers, and a hideously coloured wig that he’d only ever seen on himself through a filter while playing around with his niece.

When he walks out of the room, Hoshi doesn’t have the decency to hide his laughter. 

Jihoon ignores it though. Thinking of his niece was a bad decision. 

The memory hits him like a blow to the chest, knocking the breath out of him. He can still picture her sitting cross-legged beside him on the couch with one of those stupid face-filter apps open on his phone, laughing herself breathless every time it changed his hair into something increasingly ridiculous while he complained about looking like an unemployed SoundCloud rapper. 

But his eyes fall onto the interface opened up above your wrist and the thought falls away immediately, a strange feeling taking over him.

Vernon goes through the route for what feels like the tenth time, marking dead surveillance zones across a cracked projection screen with irritated precision. Hoshi checks weapons Jihoon still hasn’t fully gotten used to seeing lying casually across kitchen counters, while Aki sits cross-legged on the floor modifying one of the bike storage racks to carry more weight.

Jihoon mostly watches all of it happen around him with the detached feeling that his life has started moving too fast for his mind to follow.

At some point while everyone’s distracted, his gaze drifts toward you instead.

You’re crouched beside one of the bikes tightening something near the fuel line, sleeves shoved up past your elbows. His eyes flicker up to the metallic, glowing lines on your ears.

Human. Not human. 

Safe. Unsafe.

He hasn’t figured out how you manage to be both at once yet. 

“You’re not coming?” he asks eventually.

You glance up briefly. “No.”

“You’ll move faster with fewer people,” you continue. “And somebody has to stay here in case things go wrong.”

Half an hour later, Jihoon finds himself climbing onto the back of Hoshi’s bike with his heart beating so hard he can feel it in his throat.

The ride out into the Wastelands feels shorter this time. 

The city falls away behind them in layers of neon and noise, swallowed gradually by dead land and rusted wreckage stretching endlessly.

Vernon’s bike cuts ahead through the dust, headlights flashing briefly whenever the terrain shifts unevenly beneath them. The cold gets worse the farther they move from the city, sharp wind slicing through the gaps in Jihoon’s jacket until his fingers ache around the sides of the seat. 

Jihoon thinks it was hot the day he landed. Maybe the weather’s unpredictable too.

And then the crater appears again. Even from a distance, Jihoon recognises it immediately.

Something inside him tightens so fast it almost hurts.

The pod still sits half-buried where it landed, pale against the dark wasteland.

For a second nobody moves after the bikes stop.

Jihoon stares in silence as dread crawls up his spine. This is the last thing that belongs to his world, and once he’s done retrieving his things, he’s going to let these men ransack it. 

“You coming or what?” Hoshi calls out.

Jihoon blinks hard once before climbing off the bike. 

Up close, the pod looks smaller than he remembers. Smaller and more damaged too.

The heat scars along the outer shell stand out darker beneath the wasteland dust now, while sections of the hull plating have started cooling into warped shapes. Jihoon reaches out once he gets close enough, fingertips brushing across the surface fondly.

Silently, he thanks it for bringing him back alive, although he’s not sure if it’s a good thing anymore.

Hoshi helps him pull the hatch open again, and the smell of sterile air is enough to make tears prick at the corners of his eyes. For one awful second, it feels like he’s simply returned from maintenance and everything outside the hatch is still normal. Like if he turns around quickly enough he’ll hear mission chatter through the comms again or catch somebody laughing somewhere down the corridor. 

But there’s no time to stand there pretending.

Vernon’s already climbing inside behind him before the hatch has fully opened, eyes darting greedily across the walls and control systems while muttering under his breath.

“What the fuck?” he whispers once, almost reverently.

Jihoon moves before he can think too hard again.

The storage compartments come first.

He works quickly now, throwing sealed ration packs into the bags Hoshi brought. Vacuum-sealed meals disappear into dark backpacks one after another alongside emergency medical kits, thermal blankets and stacks of old power cells Vernon nearly rips out of his hands the second he sees them.

“These aren’t linked,” Vernon says, stunned, turning one over in his hands. 

Jihoon barely hears him.

His movements slow only once he reaches the lower compartment beneath the sleeping chamber. The personal stuff.

He stares at it for half a second too long before grabbing it anyway. 

The old plastic casing of his cassette player looks almost embarrassingly fragile sitting in his hands now, absurd-looking against the sharp glow of the pod systems around him. He runs his thumb once across the scratched surface before placing it carefully into one of the padded bags instead of tossing it with the rest.

His phone goes in next, a dead little brick carrying an entire lifetime inside it.

Hoshi watches him shove another handful of belongings into the bag before frowning slightly. “You seriously kept all this?”

Jihoon lets out a breath that almost becomes a laugh. “We were millions of miles from home. You gotta keep something to get you through all that loneliness.”

After that, he forces himself toward the control systems.

The monitors flicker weakly once he reactivates power, pale blue light washing back across the cockpit in uneven pulses while old diagnostic systems drag themselves awake around him.

The familiarity of it makes his chest ache. These controls he remembers. This he understands.

His fingers move automatically across interfaces while Vernon hovers close enough, practically vibrating while watching every input like he’s witnessing alien technology.

“What are you doing?” Hoshi asks eventually.

“Saving what matters.”

Jihoon slots a transparent sapphire disc carefully into the optical bay beneath the console before opening the archival systems. The pod responds sluggishly at first, old data directories unfolding across the screens in layers of telemetry, mission logs, crew recordings and navigation records stretching back years. 

There’s too much to encode onto it and he only has one disc. So he starts cutting pieces away. Research records and mission data stay. He scribbles as many of the important coordinates as he can onto a notebook, but that’s it.

Jihoon operates the pod’s laser manually, jaw tightening in concentration while microscopic lines begin etching themselves silently into the sapphire surface inside the chamber.

Permanent storage that’s untraceable and inaccessible unless someone physically holds it.

Vernon watches the process with undisguised fascination. “You’re burning the data into glass?”

“Sapphire composite,” Jihoon corrects absently.

“That’s insane.”

“Do you reckon you’d be able to build me a machine to read this?” Jihoon asks without looking away from the console. “I can help, but I can’t source materials.” 

“…Probably,” he says after a second. “Might take a little time.” 

“I’ve got time,” Jihoon mumbles. “Not like I have anyone to report to now.”

Vernon glances at him but doesn’t comment on it. 

Jihoon keeps working while it encodes.

There’s still too much left.

The crew logs pull up next across the monitor, years of recordings stacked beside one another in neat chronological rows, and suddenly the pod feels suffocatingly small again.

He stares at the directory before pulling an old tablet from beneath the console storage to transfer the files. He can keep most of it, but he realises that there will still be a few recordings that he has to give up.

Jihoon’s fingers move faster after that, selecting and deselecting folders almost desperately while the transfer bar crawls across the screen in uneven increments. Crew video logs, audio journals, and messages from Earth. Small useless clips captured during transit because they were bored and lonely and millions of miles from home. 

“This one?” Vernon asks quietly, pointing towards a file. 

The preview frame shows four crew members floating upside down near the galley ceiling with a bright, sparkling light behind them. 

Jihoon instantly recognises it as the first time they’d seen the sun in space. 

Seokmin had spent the next few hours breaking into song—Here Comes The Sun by the Beatles—because nobody could get him to shut up once he got emotional. 

If he tries hard enough, Jihoon can almost hear his clear voice singing along to the track.

Vernon notices the way his expression changes and lowers his hand from the screen without opening the file.

“Keep it?” he asks quietly.

Jihoon swallows once before nodding. Yes.

[The screen is black, but there’s laughter. 

The camera swings too fast at first, catching streaks of amber light and dark wooden walls before somebody nearly drops it onto a sticky table littered with empty glasses.

"Careful!" someone yells immediately from across the booth. "If you break that before launch day I’m actually leaving you on Earth. It was expensive."

Rain lashes softly against the windows behind them, turning the city outside into smudged streaks of colour beneath signs and passing headlights. The pub itself glows warm underneath hanging gold lights strung lazily across the ceiling, the air thick with music and overlapping conversations while terrible karaoke echoes from somewhere deeper inside the building.

The camera swings sideways again.

Jihoon’s sitting crushed between two other crew members in the booth, one arm shoved awkwardly over Seokmin’s shoulder, who laughs hard enough to spill beer onto the table.

“Man, stop it!” he complains immediately.]

Vernon gets the projector to work after spending nearly twenty minutes swearing at file formats older than anybody there besides Jihoon. The projector itself sits disassembled beside the television now with half its wiring exposed, humming loudly every few seconds like it resents being alive.

The holograph flickers softly across the apartment walls, warm gold light spilling through the dim room in a way that almost feels unnatural against the cold blue neon usually leaking through the windows. 

Hoshi and Minghao have taken over most of the sofa while Aki sits cross-legged against one of the armrests with her chin propped in her palm, and Vernon remains crouched beside the projector in case it stops working again. Wonwoo leans against the kitchen doorway further back, arms folded loosely across his chest.

Jihoon ends up on the cold floor, shoulder to shoulder with you. 

He sits with one knee pulled close to his chest, eyes fixed on the video, unsure if this is to sate him or the curiosity of the others.

[A woman behind the camera laughs quietly while panning across a massive room packed with monitors and screens, a huge screen at the front of it displaying multiple tabs of telemetry, mapping and images. 

Rows and rows of people move between terminals carrying coffee cups and stacks of paper while conversations overlap into indistinct noise.

“Say bye to the mission control room!” She murmurs. “We’ll see you soon.”]

“You had these many people working on your mission?” Vernon asks.

Jihoon barely looks away from the holograph. “More than this.”

Aki squints. “For how many people?”

“Four.” He purses his lips. “The one holding the camera is Aera. She was our Chief Systems Architect and a senior mission specialist. The men sitting beside me in the first video are Seokmin, who was our astrobiologist and physician, and Jeonghan, who was our Life-Support Systems engineer.”

The others only nod in response, and the room falls into an awkward silence.

You watch as Jihoon laughs on screen, eyes scrunched as he throws his head back in response to something Jeonghan does as they float around somewhere. It looks strange, but he looks… happy.

You break it first. “And what did you do?”

He glances at you once before his eyes flick down to the floor. 

“I was the Mission Commander,” he mumbles. “And the astrodynamicist.”

Jihoon doesn’t have to elaborate because the implication arrives on its own. 

The holograph flickers softly across the apartment walls again.

[The camera jolts violently before stabilising upside down.

Jihoon groans somewhere behind the lens.

The aircraft cabin is chaotic.

Bodies drift weightlessly through the air while loose straps and packets float toward the ceiling in slow motion. Aera crashes directly into Jeonghan hard enough that both of them spin sideways out of frame immediately afterward.

Seokmin desperately grabs one of the overhead handles while laughing so hard he can barely breathe.

“I hate this,” Jihoon says, although the look on his face suggests otherwise.]

The recordings continue unfolding one after another across the apartment while the room grows steadily quieter around them.

Mission briefings, rain against apartment windows, someone filming city traffic through a taxi windshield late at night, the crew eating takeout containers on the floor surrounded by stacks of paperwork, and Earth still ordinary enough.

At some point Hoshi gets up for water and leaves with Wonwoo. 

Then Aki disappears toward the bedrooms after nearly falling asleep against Minghao’s shoulder halfway through a recording. Vernon lingers the longest besides you, crouched near the projector absentmindedly, but eventually even he drifts away too after muttering something about checking the sapphire decryption machine.

The living room quietens once the doors close.

Jihoon doesn’t seem to notice, and if he does, he doesn’t seem to have the energy left to acknowledge it anymore.

You don’t really know what you’re supposed to do with him anymore. 

In the four days you’ve known him, every expression you’ve seen on his face has belonged to somebody overwhelmed, disoriented or grieving in ways too large to process all at once. He looks confused, guarded and exhausted all the time.

But the man sitting beside you now couldn’t be more different from the man on screen.

You wonder if calling him a ghost has really seemed to make him one, because the man on the screen is alive and the one beside you looks far from it.

Jihoon looks as pale as the day you found him, the dark circles beneath his eyes fixed in place. You can’t remember the last time you actually saw him sleep properly instead of just passing out from exhaustion somewhere for a few hours at a time.

He barely eats either.

Not your food. Not anything from here.

Every meal has come from those vacuum-sealed ration packets he dragged back from the crash site, dry preserved food he consumes more out of necessity than appetite while insisting his body still needs time to adapt to whatever people eat now.

You’re not even sure if that’s true or if he simply can’t stomach the thought of letting go of one more familiar thing yet.

And somehow, despite knowing him for less than a week, despite the fact that he technically fell out of the sky and brought enough problems with him to destroy all of your lives if Lazarus finds out, you still catch yourself watching him out of the corner of your eye wondering what the hell’s going through his head.

Slowly, you let your eyes fall back to the videos.

[Darkness fills the screen at first.

Then slowly, Earth turns into view beyond thick observation glass.

Deep blue oceans, white clouds stretching endlessly across the curve of the planet.

The only sound comes from the low mechanical hum of the ship itself somewhere behind the recording.

Then, very quietly, a voice full of awe:

“Oh.”]

It takes Jihoon a second to register that it’s also coming from beside him. 

He smiles a little despite himself. 

“It’s beautiful,” you gasp out. “Is it still like this?”

“I—” he glances at you. “I’m not sure. Maybe not.”

It’s not meant to come out so bleakly, but he doesn’t have the heart to correct himself.

For a second Jihoon can almost trick himself into believing he’s there again.

Not here beneath layers of rusted infrastructure and failing power grids and neon signs that never properly turn off, but there instead, suspended somewhere above Earth with sunlight bleeding across the observation glass while Seokmin argues with somebody in the background and Aera keeps filming things nobody else thinks are important enough to preserve.

The thought hurts too quickly to hold onto for long. He drags one hand slowly across his face before leaning back against the couch.

Footsteps cut through the silence, fast enough for the two of you to glance up immediately, just as Minghao reappears around the corner. He looks more awake than he did when he left.

“There was a woman on your mission!” he exclaims before either of you can speak. 

Jihoon’s brows pull together. “Huh?”

Minghao looks toward you instead of answering immediately, like he’s only now realising he probably should’ve led into this differently.

You straighten, glancing at Jihoon with slight concern. “Maybe this can wait until tomorrow—”

“The woman I was talking about before.” Minghao ignores you, gesturing vaguely toward the holograph still glowing across the room. “The one Lazarus wanted alive.” 

You try again anyway. “Minghao.”

“What?” he groans. “You don’t think he deserves to know?”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Aera? What about her?” Jihoon asks, holding up a palm to interrupt you guys.

Minghao steps into the room fully, hands slipping into his pockets. You throw a warning glance which he ignores again. 

This can’t possibly be the best information to give Jihoon. Not right now, at least. But the usually perceptive Minghao doesn’t seem to understand that today.

“When we were younger,” he starts, “people in the lower sectors used to talk about some woman Lazarus had been hunting for a long time. Nobody knew where she came from exactly, but there were stories about her showing up outside the city talking about missions and stations and things nobody understood properly. Like you.”

Jihoon straightens.

You suppress a sigh immediately.

“At first everybody thought she was insane,” Minghao continues, “but Lazarus apparently wanted her brought in alive, which made people start taking the stories seriously. There were bounty notices for a while.”

“Notices?”

“I don’t remember.” Minghao shakes his head. “I was a kid. I just remember hearing that Lazarus was paying absurd amounts for information on her.”

You finally cut in before this spirals any further. “Hao, we don’t even know if it’s the same person.”

“I know that,” he replies immediately. “I’m just saying—”

“Do you—” Jihoon interrupts, glancing around once he realises how loud his voice has become. “Do you know if there are any of them left? The notices. Could you find them?”

Minghao hesitates.

“I don’t know,” he admits eventually. “Lazarus wipes things constantly.” 

He leans one shoulder against the doorway, frowning the more he thinks through it. “But if there were physical posters or old bounty boards instead of just digital notices, there’s a chance something survived somewhere underneath everything else. Old markets still have abandoned walls nobody’s touched in years.”

Jihoon nods immediately, like even the possibility is enough for his brain to latch onto before logic can interfere.

“I’ll try,” Minghao says more firmly this time. “I’m not promising anything though.”

The projector crackles softly behind all of you while another recording shifts uselessly across the walls unnoticed now.

Minghao studies Jihoon for another second before speaking again, quieter now.

“I still don’t really understand why Lazarus would care so much,” he mumbles. “If that woman really was from your crew… what would they even want from her?”

Jihoon thinks for a few seconds, eyes scrunching shut. 

“I don’t know. From what you’ve told me, I don’t see what they’d get from our mission.”

“What was it, anyway?” You ask.

“In layman’s terms, we went to the edge of the solar system, right where the sun’s magnetic shield ends and deep space begins,” Jihoon explains. “The goal was to see how that boundary protects us from cosmic radiation, and to sample frozen comets out in the Kuiper Belt to see if the chemical ingredients for life existed before Earth did.” 

“We did a lot of things,” he concludes. “It would be hard for me to tell you everything, but I don’t see how Lazarus would make use of any of the data we compiled.”

“So your mission was basically scientific research.”

“Purely.”

“And none of it had anything to do with…” Minghao gestures vaguely toward the city outside. “Whatever this is.”

Jihoon lets out a tired breath through his nose. “No. Hermes was backed internationally. We weren’t military.”

Minghao lingers in the doorway another few seconds before finally pushing himself upright again with a tired sigh.

“I’ll see if I can find anything tomorrow,” he says.

Jihoon nods immediately. “Thank you.”

Minghao only waves him off before disappearing back down the hallway for real this time, leaving the apartment quiet again.

Jihoon stares ahead for a long moment without moving, elbows resting loosely against his knees while the light continues moving faintly across his face in soft colours. 

Possibility, or rather hope, is a cruel thing. He knows. 

But the thought of someone familiar is exciting. It’s comforting. 

So against all logic, he lets himself feel it. 

Time passes strangely after that. 

Nobody says it out loud, but everyone seems to collectively decide to give Jihoon space after the conversation about his crew, as though they instinctively understand that there are some things a person has to survive privately first before other people can start pulling at them again.

So for the most part, they leave him alone.

Jihoon spends most of his time beside Vernon after that, buried deep inside the workshop corner of the apartment while they work through optical storage designs together surrounded by wires, dismantled parts and sheets of calculations scattered across every available surface. Vernon seems fascinated enough that he asks questions almost half the time, content to absorb whatever Jihoon mutters absently while focused on the sapphire disc.

The rest of the time, Jihoon drifts through the space, only half-present.

He sits on the edge of the sofa, staring into the screen of his phone that he’s somehow managed to charge up. You catch him staring at photographs for long stretches when he thinks nobody’s paying attention. Sometimes the old recordings flicker silently across the walls late into the night after everybody else has gone to sleep, filling the apartment with low voices and warm colours while Jihoon sits on the floor beneath them unmoving for hours. 

He barely sleeps too. 

The hammock near the window sways at almost every hour of the night now whenever you wake up, and sometimes you’ll find him standing silently beside the blinds at dawn watching the city outside with the same unsettled expression he’s had since arriving here.

The food becomes a problem too.

At first you try not to push him about it because you understand, at least logically, why he reacts badly to most of what’s here. Modern food barely resembles what it used to anymore unless you’re rich enough to afford organic produce from upper-sector cultivators, and Jihoon already looks overwhelmed every time Hoshi cooks something synthetic enough to smell faintly off-putting under the spices.

Still, you’ve peeked at his rations and they won’t last for long.

It gets to a point where even Hoshi notices, talking to you one night with the closest thing to concern you’ve heard from him.

“This is ridiculous,” he mutters after Jihoon disappears back toward the workshop carrying another unopened ration packet. “At this point he’s basically haunting the place.”

“Hoshi,” you warn tiredly from the couch.

“No, seriously.” He gestures toward the hallway. “The guy barely talks, barely sleeps, barely eats anything from here and every time somebody mentions taking him outside he looks like we asked him to amputate a limb.”

“That’s because the fake mods make him uncomfortable,” Aki points out quietly.

“Everything makes him uncomfortable.” Hoshi complains. “I’m sick of it.”

He isn’t difficult, but he seems determined to stay frozen exactly where he is. 

He shuts down actual modifications immediately anytime Vernon even jokes about them, and he’s wary enough around the fake external ones that nobody’s pushed him into the city properly yet. 

And annoyingly enough, you understand both sides. You’ve tried to be patient. You’ve forced yourself to remember the two-hundred-year gap every time he flinches at something. But patience is a luxury that runs out faster than clean water, and yours has worn down to a thread. 

Two nights later you find Jihoon awake again.

For a moment you stand outside your bedroom, watching him stare down at the city below, shoulders hunched beneath one of Vernon’s old hoodies. 

You don’t think he notices you at first.

Or maybe he does, and neither of you says anything because this has quietly become routine now.

“You know,” you mumble eventually as you head toward the kitchen, “normal people usually attempt sleeping before sunrise.”

Jihoon glances over from the hammock. “I did sleep.”

“For what, twenty minutes?”

“A whole hour, actually.”

You snort softly despite yourself while reaching for the kettle.

The apartment’s quieter tonight than usual. Vernon finally passed out in the workshop sometime earlier, and even Hoshi’s stopped grunting about the pain through his spine. 

Behind you, the hammock creaks again. 

You lean against the counter waiting for the water to heat, studying him more carefully now that he’s not looking at you directly.

Hoshi wasn’t wrong.

Jihoon’s gotten thinner. Not dramatically, but his cheeks have started hollowing out and his face looks sharper by the day. Even the clothes Aki had found for him initially are a little too big on him now.

“Did you eat anything other than the dried meat today?” you ask. 

“Some fruit earlier.”

“Anything other than the ration packs?”

You don’t get a reply.

The silence drags on just long enough for irritation to flare low in your chest again.

“You know that isn’t normal, right?” you ask, turning around fully now. “People can’t survive off protein strips and powdered fruit forever.”

Jihoon’s gaze stays fixed outside. “It’s food.”

“Sure, but they’re emergency supplies.”

“They were designed to sustain us for years.”

“Jihoon, stop it.” You grit out. 

That finally gets his attention. He looks over slowly from the hammock, exhaustion written so heavily across his face that you almost falter.

“I’m eating enough.”

“You’re visibly losing weight.”

“I said I’m fine.”

The response comes quicker this time, flatter too, and something about it immediately grates against nerves that have already been worn raw for days now.

“Okay, well, maybe stop acting like everything here is poison then.”

Jihoon’s brows pull together. “I never said that.”

“You don’t have to.” You gesture vaguely toward him. “You barely touch anything anybody makes. You pick apart food like you expect it to kill you.”

For a second he just watches you quietly. 

“The stuff you guys bring in... I've seen the textures. It's all weird and synthetic. It’s far from actually being food. Not real.”

He has a point. You know it. You remember the days where you ate normally grown food too. But maybe it’s the four hours of sleep you’ve gotten, or the fact that you’ve spent your morning dodging Lazarus scanners to buy components for a machine that reads his stupid ancient glass, but you snap.

“The world moves on, Jihoon,” you say, pushing off the counter. "We eat what we can find, take what we can, and what won't ping a chipping team to our front door. Sorry our local cuisine isn't up to your international space mission standards, but this is what reality looks like now." 

"I didn't say—" 

"You don't get to sit here looking down your nose at this world just because it isn’t the one you came from,” you continue before he can interrupt properly, frustration finally spilling over after days of forcing it back down. “You think any of us like this? You think we enjoy eating synthetic garbage and hiding underground and pretending half our bodies belong to corporations?”

“And honestly, your crew is gone. Your mission is over. There is no recovery team coming down from the sky, Jihoon. We may have built a shit ton of tech, but a time machine isn’t one of them. You need to get used to this world, because you can’t go back.”

The second the words leave your mouth, you know you’ve gone too far, and the silence that follows is heavy and suffocating. 

You shouldn’t have said that about his crew. 

The sharpness drains out of you almost immediately, leaving behind nothing except the ugly claws of guilt creeping up your throat. He doesn’t rise to it and turns away from you, his face twisting into an unreadable expression.

“Jihoon,” you call out, softer now. 

No response.

You push a hand back through your hair roughly before exhaling hard through your nose.

“Listen, that came out wrong.”

“I’m not saying you should just magically stop caring,” you continue more carefully, “I just… You’ve been here almost two weeks and you barely sleep, barely eat, barely leave this apartment. At some point you have to actually let yourself exist here.”

You wait for him to answer. To say something equally mean to you maybe, because it would make you feel better. But Jihoon simply doesn’t. 

“...Sorry,” you mutter eventually. “That was rude.” 

Still nothing.

Rubbing your eyes tiredly, you walk out of the kitchen to head back towards your room, the tiled floor cold beneath your feet.

You pause at the door, letting out a quiet sigh before looking back. “Try to sleep.” 

Jihoon thinks about what you said for longer than he'd like.

Not because he enjoys it, but because there isn't much else to do at four in the morning besides stare through the blinds and watch the city cycle into another day.

The apartment begins waking around him eventually.

The first sign is the bathroom door opening somewhere down the hall, followed by the familiar sound of running water. A little later, somebody drops something in the kitchen. Vernon emerges briefly from the workshop looking exhausted before disappearing again. By the time the advertisements outside begin dimming, enough people have moved through the apartment that pretending to sleep would feel ridiculous.

He waits.

The bathroom door opens and closes several more times before the apartment finally settles into the familiar noise of people making breakfast, hunting for missing tools and arguing over things that probably do not matter.

Only then does he swing off his hammock.

The mirror above the sink is small, scratched in one corner and slightly warped around the edges, but it still reflects enough.

He stares at himself for a while.

His hair is longer than he normally keeps it, hanging into his eyes and curling awkwardly around the back of his neck. Stubble shadows his jaw. 

For a moment he feels irrationally irritated by it.

You had a point, whether you knew it or not, and that irritates him too. There is nothing waiting is going to accomplish. There is no version of this where he sits long enough for everything to return to normal.

Jihoon exhales slowly and reaches for the razor. 

By the time he's finished, the sink is littered with dark hairs and his jaw feels strangely bare beneath his fingertips when he runs a hand across it.

The shower comes afterwards.

He stays under the water until the bathroom fills with steam and the noise of the apartment disappears completely behind it, letting it beat against the back of his neck while he tries not to think about anything at all.

When he finally steps out again, the mirror has fogged over. He wipes part of it clear with the side of his hand and pauses.

The difference isn't dramatic, but it is enough.

His dark circles haven't gone anywhere, and neither has the hollow feeling sitting beneath his ribs. But the face looking back at him is at least familiar now.

His hair, unfortunately, is another matter entirely and without the stubble distracting from it, it somehow looks even longer than before.

Jihoon stares at it for another few seconds before dragging a towel over his head and giving up.

Ten minutes later, after changing into clean clothes and making a half-hearted attempt to flatten it back into place, he finds Minghao sitting cross-legged on the floor near the couch sorting through documents.

"Do you know how to cut hair?"

Minghao glances up.

His eyes move over Jihoon once, taking in the damp hair, the freshly shaved jaw and—judging by the slight lift of his brows—the fact that Jihoon appears to have made a genuine effort to look like a functioning human for the first time since arriving.

"I do, actually."

"You do?"

"My sister used to make me do hers." Minghao shrugs. "Then Hoshi got impatient with barbers a few years ago and that turned into my problem too."

From somewhere in the kitchen comes an immediate protest. "I can hear you."

“So you won’t butcher it?”

“No promises,” Minghao shrugs.

“Hey.”

The grin that appears suggests he's enjoying this far more than necessary.

"I'm kidding. Let’s go."

Minghao drags a chair into the bathroom and sets it inside the bathtub, cringing at the lingering stuffiness from Jihoon’s shower. The floor of the bathtub is wet too, but Jihoon tries to ignore it as he steps over the ledge to sit down.

Minghao disappears for a moment before returning with a set of clippers, a pair of scissors and a towel that has clearly seen better days. 

Jihoon clears his throat before Minghao can touch his hair. “No offence to him, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t cut my hair as short as Hoshi’s.”

"Don't worry," Minghao laughs. "Hoshi likes looking like he's about to fight someone. You don't have the face for that right now.”

He drapes the towel around his shoulders before combing a hand through Jihoon’s hair.

The first thing Jihoon notices is that he's actually paying attention. Minghao works slowly, separating sections of hair between his fingers before cutting them, occasionally stepping back to study the shape of it before continuing.

"Where'd you learn?"

"At home."

Minghao reaches for another section.

"My sister used to cut hers in the bathroom because it was cheaper than paying someone to do it. Then she got sick of cleaning up afterwards and decided I should learn instead."

Jihoon huffs quietly. "Convenient."

"For her, definitely."

Minghao works in silence after that, occasionally turning Jihoon's head with a hand against his jaw or nudging his shoulder when he needs a different angle. Dark strands continue falling onto the towel and collecting around the bottom of the bathtub.

Eventually he sets everything down and steps back, crossing his arms over his chest.

“There. You’re done.”

The towel comes off, making Jihoon cringe at the hair falling over his feet before he shakes it off and steps over the edge while Minghao starts gathering everything up behind him. 

The mirror is still faintly fogged around the edges so he wipes a clear patch into it and looks up.

The hair no longer hangs into his eyes. The sides sit neatly against his head while the top falls naturally forward, longer through the fringe and crown without looking overgrown. The back has been cut short enough that it doesn't curl against his neck anymore.

Jihoon reaches up automatically and pushes his hair back. “You—”

“Hmm?” Minghao glances towards him. 

Jihoon looks at him through the mirror. "You cut it the same way?"

He looks like he's been asked a slightly ridiculous question.

"Well, yeah,” Minghao sighs, sounding tired. “You watch those vlogs like a hundred times a day. I've seen you and your friends’ faces projected onto our living room wall enough times that I could probably draw it from memory.”

"At some point I stopped seeing you and started seeing Mission Commander Lee Jihoon from 2026," he continues in a deadpan voice.

For the first time since he’s woken from his two centuries of hypersleep, Jihoon laughs.

Outside the bathroom, the sole of your shoe squeaks against the tiles. You freeze immediately, mentally cursing the worn-out things on your feet. 

A second later, the door swings open.

Minghao steps out first with the towel bundled under one arm, stopping briefly when he notices you standing there before continuing past without much thought. 

You glance at Jihoon behind him, who has the remnants of a smile on his lips. Something shifts across his face when he notices you. Not quite embarrassment, and not quite surprise either. 

For a moment neither of you says anything. 

You break the silence. “It suits you.”

His brows furrow. “Huh?”

Awkwardly pointing at his head, you mutter, “The haircut.”

His gaze flicks briefly toward the mirror before returning to you. “Oh. Yeah, thanks.”

For a moment it looks like he might say something else.

Instead, he reaches up, runs a hand through his hair again and shakes his head lightly to himself. Then he walks past you.

The smell of shampoo follows him out into the hallway.

Maybe he’s finally made a normal morning for himself. Or at least as close to one as any of you get.

Jihoon sits on the edge of the couch while you lean over him trying to secure one of the fake mods behind his ear. 

The clasp refuses to cooperate. Every time you think you've managed to hook it properly into place, it slips loose again and forces you to start again. He doesn’t complain, however. Maybe because the outing’s for him. 

Across the room, the damaged glasses sit folded on the coffee table beside his notepad.

Vernon breaks a lot of things on the daily—cups, plates, doorknobs, and some of the things he tinkers with in his workshop. It isn’t surprising when you see the way he hoards his things in there, stacked high in piles that are navigable to only him. 

But it’s pretty inconvenient when he breaks the one thing he can’t repair. 

The man in question walks into the room, glances at the two of you and throws a guilty grimace towards Jihoon.

“You’re leaving soon, right?”

“Yes, Vern. As you can see.” You roll your eyes before turning back to Jihoon, biting your tongue in concentration.

“Jun closes early on Fridays.” 

You finally manage to secure the clasp. 

"I know."

"Just saying."

"You've mentioned it four times already.”

Jihoon’s head lifts from the notebook balanced on his knee. “Who’s that?”

“Ah,” Vernon exhales, “She’ll tell you. Sorry for that, dude. If you wanted me to fix your eyes, I probably could, but old-school glasses aren’t my thing.”

“My eyes are fine—” Jihoon starts, but the man waves him off before disappearing back into his corner, making him sigh. 

“You use them for reading, then?” you ask, brushing off your knees as you stand. 

He nods, his face disappearing beneath the wide hood of his jacket for a second. “Makes it much easier. Otherwise, my eyes start hurting.”

You tug your boots on beside the door while Jihoon studies the collection of jackets hanging from hooks nearby.

Then he reaches for the handle.

The movement catches him off guard more than he'd like.

He’s been here almost three weeks now, and he’s only been outside once—to the crash site, which barely counts. 

Most of Phoenix only exists as fragments in his mind. Things he’s managed to piece together from what he hears from Hoshi and Aki, and what half-finished explanations he gets from you and Wonwoo. 

Jihoon doesn’t know what he expects, but as he pushes the door open, he’s glad that he’s doing it on his terms.

The alley is quiet and empty apart from a few overflowing crates stacked against one wall and a maintenance drone sitting motionless in a charging dock near the far end. 

You fall into step beside him.

For a while, neither of you says anything.

The city is loud enough even from here. The distant hum of traffic bleeds between buildings while advertisements flash intermittently against the walls whenever something bright enough passes on the street beyond.

“So who are we going to?” Jihoon asks eventually. 

You step around a puddle, coming to a halt at the end of the alley where it meets the main road.

People crowd the walkways in both directions while transport vehicles glide overhead between buildings layered so densely together that he can't immediately tell where one ends and the next begins. Advertisements stretch several stories high across entire facades, shifting constantly between products, announcements and faces he doesn't recognise.

You catch his attention drifting almost immediately.

"Eyes forward."

His gaze snaps back to you.

“Wen Junhui. He’s good with lenses and stuff. Whatever you’re going to need, basically.” You tell him. “It’s a dying art, in his words. He’s stubborn and unwilling to let go of the family business, so you’re in luck. You’ll find exactly what you need.”

You start walking again before he can ask anything else, forcing him to follow. 

“See, Jihoon—the thing is, we’re not the only disconnected group in Phoenix.” 

People part around you as you move through the crowd, some carrying crates, others balancing bags slung over their shoulders. Nobody pays either of you much attention.

"There are disconnected people all over the city," you continue. "Some keep to themselves. Some don't. Jun's group over in Sector 13 is one of them that is in contact with us."

Jihoon frowns. "So, what, you just look out for each other?”

A laugh escapes you. "That’s a part of it."

The crowd thickens slightly as you merge fully onto the main walkway, forcing the two of you closer to the edge where the traffic barriers separate pedestrians from the streams of vehicles moving below.

"People trade information. Supplies. Safe places if somebody needs to disappear for a while." You shrug. "Depends on what's needed."

“And that’s what you do too?”

The question makes you glance at him. "What?"

"You and the others. What do you do when you go out?”

“It’s—” you start, throwing another look at him before the two of you get separated by a passerby. “It’s not that easy to explain.”

Jihoon cocks an eyebrow. “Can’t be as hard as mine, can it?”

You sigh, tugging on his arm to pull him closer before you lose him in the crowd. “You know just how important information can be, don’t you?”

When he nods, you continue, “Some of us didn’t disconnect simply because we wanted to disappear. Vernon and Sora—Jun’s person—spent years figuring out how to break the Link without alerting Lazarus. The solution they came up with was to ‘kill’ us.”

“What?”

“Here, I can show you,” you shrug. 

When you search your name on the interface you used on him, Jihoon doesn’t expect to see your face pop up with a bright red DECEASED banner stretching across the top of the screen. 

You shut it down as quickly as you’d brought it up. No one pays attention, but it’s best to stay safe. 

"If somebody's Link goes inactive unexpectedly, Lazarus notices. They investigate. People start asking questions. It’s easier to be dead." 

Jihoon nods again, but his brows knit together and his gaze drifts to the ground for a few seconds before he looks up at you with a slight frown.

“I don’t understand what this has to do with your job, though.”

You breathe in deeply, looking away as he almost bumps into you while trying to avoid a group of delivery bots. 

“People who officially don't exist can go places they're not supposed to. It makes it easy for us to dig around, Jihoon,” you admit. “There’s something wrong with Lazarus and their links, and every time we dig into it, we find something that doesn't make sense.”

“And what makes you think that?” Jihoon prods. “I mean, the entire concept of the link is a bit too dystopian for me, but couldn’t it simply be what it promises to be?”

“You forget that the link can override—” you pause, exhaling with slight exasperation. “This is not a conversation we should be having outside. I’ll tell you more when we go back home. We’re almost at Jun’s shop anyway.”

Jun’s shop is wedged between a repair kiosk and a noodle stall, the entrance so narrow that Jihoon would’ve missed it if it weren’t for you pointing out the sign above the door. The E in ‘Wen Optics’ flickers intermittently, and the LED glow is so dull that it looks out of place. 

You push the door open, and the small tinkle of the bell overhead takes Jihoon by surprise.

A voice calls out your name. “Is that you? Gimme a minute.”

The shop is deeper than it looked from outside.

From the street, it had seemed impossible that anything substantial could fit between two businesses crammed so tightly together, but the space stretches far beyond the narrow storefront. Shelves climb all the way to the ceiling, packed with boxes, spare lenses and equipment that looks old enough that Jihoon can identify, or at least assume what some of them are.

A thud echoes from somewhere behind him. 

Jihoon glances toward the sound just as a figure emerges from behind one of the shelves, still focused on tightening something small between his fingers. 

“Hey,” he greets Jihoon before glancing at you. “He doesn’t look as old as I was told he was.”

“Haha.” You roll your eyes. “Do your thing, please.”

The visit ends up taking less time than Jihoon expects.

The shop itself is far more interesting than the examination. Jun spends most of it complaining about Vernon while sorting through drawers full of lenses and frames. The rest passes in a blur of measurements and scans.

By the time it's over, the broken lenses have been replaced and the frames straightened enough that they sit properly on his face again.

“There,” Jun says, stepping back. “Better.”

And it is better. 

Not that it matters much. The moment the two of you step back outside, you make him take them off again before anyone notices. 

They’ll have to wait till you get home.

The rain starts just as you and Jihoon turn onto the main street leading back to Sector 17. 

At first, neither of you pay much attention to it. A few drops strike the pavement, and the ones that fall on you are a reprieve from the humid weather of the last few days. 

The vendor nearest to you mutters under his breath and starts covering his stall. Somewhere overhead, water begins dripping from the tangled mess of pipes and cables crisscrossing between the buildings.

Then the sky opens.

"Shit.” You look up instinctively.

Within seconds the street descends into chaos. 

People rush for cover as the signs blur behind sheets of rain. Water splashes over the edges of overflowing drains and races down the road in shallow streams. Across the street, a food cart owner is already dragging down metal shutters while cursing at anyone who gets in his way. 

"Come on!”

Jihoon barely gets a chance to react before you're grabbing the sleeve of his jacket and steering him across the street.

The rain is already soaking through the shoulders of your clothes by the time you reach the entrance. Water drips from your hair as you shove open the door and step inside.

The difference is immediate. Once the door closes behind Jihoon, the rain is reduced to a distant drumbeat against the windows, buried beneath overlapping voices and the low hum of music coming from somewhere deeper in the pub. 

The air is warmer too, carrying the familiar mix of alcohol, fried food and too many people packed into too small a space. Around you, half of Sector 17 seems to have had the exact same idea. Every table is occupied. Damp jackets hang over chair backs. Puddles gather beneath muddy boots near the entrance while a server weaves expertly between customers carrying a tray loaded with drinks.

You pause just inside the doorway and glance back through the window.

The rain only seems to be getting worse.

"Looks like we're staying awhile."

Jihoon follows your gaze before looking back towards the room. His eyes move slowly across the crowd, taking in the mismatched furniture. The walls are panelled with dark wood that he hasn’t seen here before, and the lighting hangs low and amber above crowded tables. Even the smell is familiar. Something fermented and slightly sour underneath the smoke. 

Jihyo spots you before you've even fully made it through the crowd. She's already pulling a glass down from the rack above the bar, mouth curving slightly as you slide into one of the stools, Jihoon following close behind you.

"Didn't think I'd see you twice in one week."

"What can I say? I seem to miss you,” you joke, throwing a grin at her.

She rolls her eyes as she sets the glass down and leans her forearms on the counter, gaze moving to Jihoon with curiosity. She's seen enough of your crew cycle through here over the years that she's stopped asking, but this is a new face.

"He’s—" you start. A friend? Or one of your crew? 

You glance at Jihoon, who raises an eyebrow, waiting. “—with me.”

"Okay," Jihyo nods and turns to pull your usual.

She slides the glass over to you before attending to somebody else at the opposite end of the counter. You wrap a hand around it before pushing it toward Jihoon first. 

"Try it before you decide what you want."

He looks at the glass. "I didn't say I wanted anything."

“You sure?” you ask, eyeing him. “Oh, you don’t drink?”

Jihoon clears his throat. “I mean, I do. But rarely.”

"So try it," you say, nudging the glass closer. "Then decide." 

He hesitates for another second before he picks it up and sips. It tastes familiar. He sets it back down and slides it toward you.

"Okay," he says.

"Okay yes, or okay you’ll have something else?"

"Okay yes." He nods toward Jihyo without looking up. "I'll have this."

You motion to her to slide another one over for you. Jihoon takes another sip and turns slightly on his stool to look at the room. Every time the door opens someone comes in looking like they've walked through a wall of water.

"Do you come here a lot?" he asks.

"Friday nights mostly. Sometimes midweek if Hoshi's being unbearable." You lean an elbow on the bar. "It's close enough to walk and far enough from the apartment that it feels like leaving."

"And the others come too?"

"Sometimes. Mostly it’s just me, or Wonwoo tags along, but he’s no fun. He'll sit here for two hours, nurse one drink and not talk to anyone.”

Jihoon sets his elbow on the bar and rests his chin briefly on his hand, looking out at the room. A group near the back has gotten louder in the last few minutes, something escalating into laughter.

"How did you all end up together?" he asks. "Your group."

“Hoshi and Wonwoo grew up in the same sector as me. We went to school together,” you hum, picking at the edge of a splinter on the counter. 

"And the others?"

"Vernon and Aki knew each other already and Minghao came with them." You drink. "The three of them showed up basically as a package. Vernon was a coworker of mine, so I knew I could trust him."

Jihoon nods. "And now you're just—"

"Yeah," you say.

He takes that as the whole answer, which it is.

"What about yours?" you ask. "Your crew." 

You expect him to lock up, ignore it maybe or just redirect the conversation. But Jihoon smiles softly, glancing down at his glass.

“We didn’t choose each other,” he scoffs lightheartedly, glancing up at you once he realises that you might not know how it works. 

"We were all selected separately," Jihoon explains. "You don't just pick your crew for something like that. There's a whole process—evaluations, compatibility assessments, months of it." He turns the glass on the counter. "By the time we actually met each other we'd already been told we were going to spend years together in a metal box millions of miles from home."

"So you had no say in it."

"None at all." He says it without any bitterness. "Aera and I got along immediately. Seokmin took about two weeks before he stopped being weirdly formal about everything." He pauses. "Jeonghan was never formal about anything, which was its own problem at first."

“But it worked out in the end. You also don’t really have a choice when the alternative is making it difficult for yourself for however many years.”

You nod slowly. 

Jihoon watches you for a second before turning back to the bar.

"Do any of you have family here?" he asks. "In Phoenix."

It comes out of nowhere but not really, you think. He's been here over three weeks and nobody's mentioned parents or siblings or anyone outside the six of them. You'd probably wonder too. 

“We do,” you sigh. “All of us. But it’s safer for them to just believe that we’re dead too.” 

Jihoon pauses, sipping from his glass before he sets it down. He looks at you from the corner of his eye. “Well, that’s bleak.”

"Little bit, but we’re used to it.”

After that the conversation stops being about anything in particular, which is how you know it's going well. You ask how someone ends up studying astrodynamics and he gives you an answer that's more interesting than you expected. Then somehow you're talking about the bar snacks Jihyo sets down between you without being asked and how the concept of it has survived two centuries. Jihoon says some things are just too good to disappear, which you think might be the most optimistic thing he's said since arriving.

At some point you notice the door has been propped open and the air coming through is cool and dry.

You glance at the windows. The rain has stopped.

He looks toward the door too, then finishes the last of his drink and sets the glass down. You leave enough on the counter and pull your jacket on and he follows you out.

The streets are quieter than usual. Water sits in puddles at the low points of the road and drips steadily from the cables strung between buildings overhead. Jihoon walks beside you with his hands in his pockets.  The building comes into view at the far end of the street. Vernon's window is lit up, which means he's still awake, which means he'll have something to say about how long you’ve been gone.

Jihoon glances at it before his attention drifts back to you.

"Did you grow up around here?" he asks casually. 

"No." You step around a puddle. "I moved here a few years ago. Upper sectors before that."

He glances at you. "Upper sectors?"

"Five, mostly." Five. Jihoon runs the number against what you told him earlier in the pub—the lower the number, the higher up you are, the better the air and the infrastructure and everything else. Five is well off. Not the top, but well off enough. He looks at you for a second, at the worn jacket and the boots that have clearly done some miles and the easy way you navigate these streets, and thinks that you don't particularly look like you grew up anywhere else. 

But then again, what would he know? "What did you do?" Jihoon questions. "For work, I mean. To afford to live there." You're at the door now. The keypad glows faintly beside it. His question catches you off-guard enough to momentarily forget what you were about to do. But you press the code in and push the door open before glancing at him. “I worked for Lazarus.”

The file sits buried in the queue that none of the higher-ups bother scrolling through, tagged under Atmospheric Anomalies and marked as auto-cleared. It would’ve stayed there indefinitely if the sweep hadn’t landed on it by pure chance this week.

Audits happen twice a year at Lazarus Tech. A random batch is pulled from Security’s cleared files, checked against the raw data to make sure nothing slipped through that shouldn’t have. Most of the time, nothing has. The system doesn’t miss much. 

This time however, an issue is found seven files in.

Atmospheric Anomalies aren’t supposed to go further than the ten desks occupied by the Aerial Security department. That’s why it makes the room go quiet the second the door opens without a knock first. 

The Director doesn’t sit in on audits. She doesn’t explain why she’s here today either, not with the way she crosses the floor and drops a single printout in front of the analyst who signed off on it three weeks back.

“Talk me through this one.”

The analyst clears his throat, glancing at the two other people seated near him like it might help, but neither of them look up from their screens. Nobody wants to be involved in this more than they already are. 

“It’s a bloom,” he says. “Thermal signatures that are very common with re-entries. We get these constantly, ma’am—from the Wastelands. There’s junk falling out of orbit every other week, and it matched the previously recorded debris catalogues, so it got cleared automatically.”

“And you are sure that it matched the records?” she questions, raising an eyebrow. 

The analyst shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “It was within variance, ma’am.”

She doesn’t say anything to that, and instead pulls up the raw footage on his monitor, turning it so the rest of the desk can see it too, and scrolls through the shots of the descent slowly enough that the silence in the room starts to feel like its own kind of pressure. 

Debris doesn’t behave like this. Everyone in Aerial Security knows what a decaying fragment looks like, the way it tumbles and sheds speed unevenly, nothing about it deliberate. 

The footage cuts off before it lands, but it’s obvious enough. 

“That is not orbital debris,” she points out, her voice as cold as the sweat beading down the analyst’s neck. “There were corrections in speed and angles as it came down. None of you thought this was worth flagging?”

“The system cleared it,” the analyst tries again, weaker this time. “It's not really built for us to be double-checking every single—” 

“It's not built for you to be careless either.” Her voice doesn't rise, but it doesn't need to. “You had a signature that didn’t match the pattern it was compared against, and instead of escalating it, you let the automatic clearance stand because it was convenient.” 

She straightens up and looks around the room properly for the first time, at the rest of the desks that have gone quiet, at the people who’ve stopped pretending to work and are just watching now. 

“I want every flagged entry from the last six months pulled and reviewed. Not run through the system again. I want actual eyes on it this time.” 

Someone near the back starts to say that footage from before would’ve cleared the last audit cycle, then thinks better of it.  “Six months,” she repeats, like she’s already annoyed at having to say it twice. “I want to know if this is the only one we missed.”

She turns back to the analyst last. “You’re done here.” He looks up properly for the first time since she walked in. “Ma’am—” She’s already pulling her wrist up, tapping through something on her own display without waiting for a response. “Clear out your desk. Someone will walk you out.” 

She’s almost at the door when she stops. “Oh, and—” she doesn’t turn all the way around, just enough that her voice carries back across the room. “I want that object identified. Whatever it was, I want to know what it is, where it came from, and where it landed exactly.”

Nobody answers right away. “Send a team to the Scraplands,” she adds. “I don’t care what it takes to get there. Find it.”

He stands over your desk with the ledger open, jabbing a thick finger at a column of numbers you checked thrice. His voice is loud enough to grate against your skull, but not loud enough to draw attention from anyone who might care.

“You counted this shipment yourself,” he insists. “Don’t pretend you didn’t.”

“I didn’t miscount,” you say quietly. “Check the crates again.”

The foreman bristles when you don’t immediately bend to his words. He snatches the ledger back, flips it open again, and jabs at the page as though repetition might wear you down. “You new ones always think you’re sharper than the work,” he grits out. “Can’t count, can’t follow instructions, but somehow you know better than the men who’ve done this for years.”

You try not to rise to it. You’ve learned that people in Ketterdam like the performance of anger more than the substance of it.

You open your mouth to respond, but a knock sounds against the doorframe. The foreman goes still and you look up.

A man stands in the doorway, one shoulder resting lightly against the frame. The light from the street behind him catches on the edges of his coat, and for a moment he almost looks carved out of a different world entirely. Handsome in a way that draws the eye without trying to—sharp lines softened by his windswept hair and an expression you can’t quite read.

“Evening,” he greets cheerfully. “Hope I’m not interrupting.”

You aren’t sure what to make of the man, but the foreman reacts as if someone far more important has arrived. His posture straightens and his mouth snaps shut. The man notices but pretends he doesn’t, eyes flicking once to the ledger, then settling on you with mild curiosity.

“Sorry,” he says, though the smile in his voice betrays no real apology. “I’m looking for someone.”

“Who?” the foreman asks.

He nods toward you. “Her.”

The foreman bristles. “She’s busy.”

He acknowledges that with a polite glance at you. “You seem to be wasting her time anyway. I’m sure two minutes wouldn’t cause a dent in your business, would it?”

That earns him a sputter making you hide a smile.

He steps inside, his gaze moving from the ledger to you with a kind of bright, curious interest. “I really do need her for a moment.”

You glance at him, uncertain. “What for?”

He opens his mouth, then pauses, like he doesn’t actually know what to say. “A conversation,” he settles on. “A very innocent, extremely short conversation. Promise.”

You narrow your eyes. “That doesn’t sound convincing.”

He brightens. “I can try again.”

“Maybe don’t,” you sigh.

He lifts both hands in surrender, amusement tugging at his mouth. “Fair enough. Let’s step outside before the man dies of indignation.”

You don’t miss the way the foreman stiffens at that, but you follow the man out anyway. The air in the corridor is cooler and easier to breathe in, and the noise of the factory dulls into a familiar backdrop of machinery and the scrape of crates on the floor. 

He walks beside you, so when he stops, you stop too.

For a moment, he simply watches you, taking you in with that same curious attention—not rude, and never lingering too long, just enough that you feel seen.

“So,” he says at last, “have you heard of Yoon Jeonghan?”

You blink. “No.”

He nods like he expected that. “The Dregs?”

Another shake of your head. “Should I have?”

His brows lift, impressed. “Most people know the names before they know the city. You’re either very new or very good at minding your own business.”

You choose not to answer that.

He rocks back on his heels, hands slipping into his coat pockets. “Either way,” he says, “you’ve managed to avoid all the right trouble. That’s impressive.”

You tilt your head. “Is this conversation supposed to make sense at some point?”

“Eventually,” he says, grinning. “I lied about this being a short conversation. You see, I like to ease people into things. Very gentle approach.”

You raise an eyebrow. He laughs under his breath, like he can’t help himself.

“Alright,” he says, tone softening as if deciding to give you something sincere. “Jeonghan runs the crew. He knows almost everyone in Ketterdam, especially newcomers. He’s very particular but makes me do all his odd jobs. So I must be here for a reason.”

Your pulse jumps. “What reason?”

“I’m not completely sure either. He’s a bit secretive, you see… but he thinks you’d fit in,” he says simply, “with us.”

“With you,” you repeat, skeptical.

“Mm.” His smile turns a touch playful. “You’d get used to me. Most people do. Eventually.”

You ignore the warmth that creeps up your neck. “You haven’t even told me your name.”

He looks delighted that you asked, bowing slightly in a theatrical manner. “The name’s Hoshi. At your service, darling.” 

“And this Jeonghan person,” you clear your throat, a bit flustered, “wants me to do what?”

Hoshi shrugs one shoulder. “Join us. Help out. Exist somewhere that isn’t a textile factory with men who look one bad day away from throwing a crate at someone.”

You fight a smile. “That’s not a job description.”

He brightens. “Is that a requirement for you? Because I can make one up. Something impressive. Dangerous. A little mysterious, if that’s your style.”

“My style?”

He leans in just a fraction, enough to make you notice but not enough to overwhelm. “You don’t exactly blend in as well as you think you do.”

Your breath catches. Surely, he wouldn’t know?

“And if I say no?” you ask, trying to sound firmer than you feel.

Hoshi’s grin curves, easy and unbothered. “Then I’ll ask again tomorrow.”

“You’re persistent,” you note.

“Only when something interests me.”

You break eye contact first, only because his gaze feels a little too perceiving for someone you’ve known for barely ten minutes. He notices but he doesn’t push.

“That’s all you came here to say?” you manage.

“For today,” he says, cheerful as ever. “Tomorrow I’ll be more compelling. Inspirational, even.”

“I doubt that.”

He presses a hand to his chest in mock offense. “You wound me.”

You snort before you can stop yourself, and his smile sharpens at the sound. A flicker of something warm slips between you, something that feels like the beginning of trouble if you’re not careful.

You straighten, reminding yourself you barely know him. “I should get back.”

“Of course.” He steps aside with a little flourish, granting you the path back toward the factory floor. “Wouldn’t want your foreman to worry.”

The joke draws another quiet laugh out of you before you can swallow it. His eyes brighten again.

“See you tomorrow?” he says, hopeful but pretending not to be.

You shake your head. “You’re assuming there will be a tomorrow.”

He grins, unable to hide it. “There will be. For me, at least. I’m annoyingly tenacious and Jeonghan probably won’t let me sleep until I’ve got you on board.”

You roll your eyes and turn around, not bothering with a response. 

The sound of his laugh follows you all the way back inside.

West Stave is louder than you expected.

You’d heard stories, of course—gamblers shouting over lost kruge, the clatter of dice spilling onto tables, music leaking out of every doorway—but seeing it is different. The noise rolls through the street like a tide, carrying the smell of cheap liquor, canal water, and too many bodies pressed too close together. Lanterns glow from crooked poles, throwing uneven light across the cobblestones, and the buildings lean onto each other.

You shouldn’t be here. You’ve told yourself that five times already. But staying in your rented room felt impossible tonight, and staying in the factory a minute after your shift ended felt even worse.

Calling the four walls that you lived in a room would be generous. With a bed that creaked when you breathed near it, a window that refused to open unless bribed with half your body weight and walls so thin you could hear the couple two rooms down fighting, you’d rather be here.

You’ve been tired in a way that sleep won’t fix. Tired of the foreman, tired of the crates, tired of pretending you aren’t barely holding the seams of your life together.

Your father’s voice has been echoing in your head for days. It creeps in when you let your guard slip for too long. You wonder where he is now.

Which is why you don’t notice him at first.

You’re focused on a street vendor’s lanterns reflecting on the river’s surface, the way it glows gold then dulls again as you pull your shawl tighter around your shoulders when a familiar voice cuts through the din with too much ease.

“Well,” Hoshi drawls, “you’re a sight I didn’t expect tonight.”

You turn.

He’s leaning against the corner post of a betting house, one ankle crossed over the other. He looks like he’s been there for a while, but you can’t really tell.

You blink, startled. “You… I thought you said you’d be at the factory the next day.”

He lifts a brow, pushing off the post almost lazily. “Ah. Yes.” A pause, then a teasing grin. “Work called, darling. I try to be dependable, but I’m only human.”

You scoff, looking away,

“And you thought about it yet?” he asks, head tilting as he tries to read more of your face than you intend to show.

You cross your arms. “Thought about what?”

Hoshi shakes his head, amused. “Joining the Dregs, of course.”

“I still don’t know what you’re offering me.”

He lifts his shoulders in a shrug. “A better life, for starters.”

You stare at him, expecting a joke, but he looks serious, all of a sudden. 

“Look,” Hoshi starts, tone softening, “the Dregs aren’t saints. We don’t pretend to be. But we take care of our own. A roof you can sleep under without worrying it’ll fall on your face. People who don’t shout every time something goes missing. A crew that actually notices when you’re gone.”

He gestures loosely at the mess of the Stave behind him. “Protection, too. This city doesn’t play fair. So we make our own rules.”

You fold your arms, partly to steady yourself. “And that’s… it?”

“No.” His smile turns wistful. “It’s also loyalty. Not the pretty kind. The real kind. If you fall behind, someone reaches back. If you get into trouble, someone pulls you out. If you’re worth having, you’re kept.”

The words hit something you’ve been ignoring for days. Weeks, maybe. The ache of being adrift with no one to answer to, no one to miss you, no one to tell you something as simple as you’re not alone.

He watches your expression change, and his own gentles even more. 

“No one asks questions here. You can start on a new page. You’ve been carrying everything on your own, it looks like.” he points out. “Can’t imagine that’s been fun.”

You look away. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know enough.” He nudges your elbow lightly, just enough to make you look at him again. “I also know you’re smarter than your job. We could use your help.”

“What help could I possible give you?”

Hoshi hums, scratching lightly at his cheek as if thinking it over for the first time. “Well… you did fix up one of ours last week.”

Your stomach dips. “I did what?”

“Chan,” he says. “Brown hair, talks too fast, has the spatial awareness of a newborn colt? He was bleeding everywhere and you handled it better than he did.”

You blink. “He asked for help.”

“He also nearly fainted,” Hoshi adds in a tone way too light for the injuries you remember on the boy. “Which he still insists was due to blood loss, not fear. Debatable, if you ask me.”

Despite yourself, you laugh—small and quick—and his smile widens like that’s all he’d been aiming for.

“I only bandaged him,” you say.

“Sure,” he replies lightly. “But you did it properly. Fast and without panicking. We could use that.”

You look away. “Anyone could’ve done that.”

Hoshi makes a sound that means ‘No, but okay. If you say so.’ He shifts his weight, hands slipping back into his coat pockets. “Point is, you helped. And we need people who help.”

“I’m not a healer,” you say, a little too quickly. You hope he doesn’t notice, or that he chalks it up to nervousness.

He nods. “Didn’t say you were. Just said you’re useful. We like useful.”

You exhale, tension slipping from your shoulders without your permission.

“Tempting, right?” Hoshi prompts, bumping his shoulder with yours. 

“Maybe. You aren’t lying, are you?”

Hoshi is clearly pleased, but tones it down. “Of course not. You can meet Jeonghan right now if you’d like.”

“Now?”

“Yes! If you’re up for a small walk, that is. He’s at the Crow Club tonight.” He snaps his fingers before pointing in the direction of the building he just named, you assume. “It’s our gambling hall, on East Stave.”

“A gambling hall?” You let out incredulously. “Why would I come with you? Why should I trust you?”

Hoshi’s grin sharpens. “Well done. That’s your first lesson learnt: you shouldn’t. Trusting strange men in alleys? Terrible habit. Gets people killed all the time.”

“That’s not exactly convincing,” you mutter.

“Mm. I’m not trying to convince you,” he replies, tilting his head. “If I wanted to force you, you’d already be walking.”

You don’t reply and let the silence sit. 

Hoshi rocks back on his heels, then straightens with a small, decisive nod. “Come on.”

When you don’t move he glances at you, one brow lifting. “Or don’t. I’ll still be here tomorrow.”

You sigh after a few seconds, pushing yourself off the post. “If this turns out to be a terrible idea—”

“It will,” he cuts in cheerfully. “But you’ll survive it.”

You shoot him a look, but fall into step beside him anyway.

Surprisingly, Hoshi doesn’t speak as much as you expected him to on the five minute walk over to the other side. You don’t know if you’re grateful for the silence or unnerved by it. 

The Crow Club, however, is exactly what you pictured it might be. Noise crashes over East Stave in uneven waves, and the air is heavy with smells of fried food and cheap alcohol. Everywhere you look, gaudy gambling dens beg for attention, but the Crow Club is different—a sleek, windowless fortress of black lacquer and crimson trim that seems to eat the light around it. 

Hoshi leads you past a barker shouting about free drinks and pushes through the heavy doors, opening up to an even louder crowd. The rattle of wooden wheels, the snap of cards, and a hundred different voices competing over the sound of clinking glass are overwhelming. Everything inside is dark wood and deep crimson, with no windows to tell you if it’s midnight or noon. 

Hoshi doesn’t pause to let you take it in, though he does slow just enough to make sure you’re still at his side, his hand hovering near your elbow without quite touching as he guides you through the press of bodies and tables. The floor is a maze of red felt, cards shuffling in practiced hands while dealers call out numbers, their movements smooth and unbroken no matter how loudly the players argue around them. Dice roll somewhere to your left with a satisfying clatter against the table, followed by a burst of groans and laughter that ripples outward before dissolving into the larger hum of the room.

A few glance up as he passes, recognition flickering across their faces before it’s tucked away again. 

He stops near the back, where a booth sits slightly raised from the rest of the floor, half-screened by carved wood and heavy drapery that softens the sound without fully cutting it off. There’s no guard, no visible barrier, and yet no one crosses into that space.

Hoshi slides into the seat first, easy and unbothered, one arm slung along the backrest before the man sitting beside him pushes it off with the top of his cane. 

You hesitate for a fraction of a second before taking the seat opposite, your back straight despite the nervousness slithering up your spine. 

The man across from you watches as you sit, his gaze moving once from your face to your hands and back again. Up close, he looks untouched by the noise of the club—with unruffled clothes and his polished demeanor. The cane that he sets down beside him is angled just so that its crow-headed handle catches the light. The curve of its beak looks sharp enough to draw blood if pressed the right way.

“So,” he rasps out, his voice making you flinch slightly, “this is the one.”

Hoshi’s teeth flash. “Told you I’d find her.”

“You took your time. I asked you more than a week ago.”

“And then you sent me to deal with the Razorgulls. Something the others could’ve handled on their own.” Hoshi mutters, rolling his eyes. 

You look at the two of them in confusion until Jeonghan’s gaze finally shifts back to you. 

“The name’s Yoon Jeonghan. I assume Hoshi told you what I’m offering.”

You nod slowly, glancing at his slender but gloved fingers that drum against the table-top. “Kind of, yeah.”

“You work in the warehouse on Third Harbour,” Jeonghan hums. “You arrived recently. No affiliations. No debts worth mentioning.” A pause, just long enough to suggest he knows more than he’s saying. “You’ve kept your head down.”

“I try mind my own business,” you reply.

Jeonghan shrugs. “Sure. Don’t know how easy that’s going to be, but you’ve survived till now, I guess.”

Hoshi lets out a small scoff, leaning back into the booth again as if he’s settling in for a show. “That’s a compliment, by the way,” he adds, glancing at you. “From him, that’s practically glowing praise.”

“You can go,” Jeonghan smiles at the man beside him, although it doesn’t look very friendly. “Your job’s done now.”

Hoshi exhales loudly, throwing a dirty look at the man beside him before pushing his hands against the table and rising.

“You’re no fun tonight,” he mutters, though there’s no bite to it.

“By your standards, I’m never fun,” Jeonghan replies, his gaze already back on you as thought Hoshi’s been set aside before he’s even left.

Hoshi shakes his head as he straightens, eyes flickering over to you. “I’ll be around.”

“You won’t be needed,” Jeonghan sighs, but you nod at him anyway, watching as he walks away, hands slipping into his pockets.

Once Hoshi is out of earshot, Jeonghan leans in, the head of his cane tucked under his chin. “Hoshi says you’re a ghost. No records at the harbor or travel papers. You didn't come through the front door of this city, and you didn't come on an official merchant cog.”

He lets a gloved finger trace the edge of the table. “People who arrive in Ketterdam without a trace are usually running from a debt or a noose. But you don’t have the look of a criminal. Something’s off.”

He taps his cane once. Thump.

“I know you’re either from Novyi Zem or Ravka, and that you got on a textile ship heading to Kerch. But why are you here?”

The question sounds almost rhetorical, but Jeonghan watches you with his eyes like two dark flints catching the red light of the club. 

Jeonghan’s eyes drop to your sleeves, then back to your face. “Ravka is desperate, no? They’re scraping the bottom of the barrel for the Second Army. You look a little old to be conscripted but…”

“I… I don't know what you're talking about,” you mumble, forcing a confused frown onto your face. You try to let your hands fidget, to look like any other frightened girl off the docks. “My father and I were supposed to get onto one of the ships heading back to Novyi Zem. I just wanted to get away from the fighting. Everyone’s running. My father and I got separated. That’s it.”

Jeonghan lets out a short, dry sound that might have been a laugh if there were any warmth in it. He leans in closer, the scent of rain and old wood clinging to him, cutting through the heavy smell of tobacco in the room.

“The confusion is a nice touch,” he rasps, his voice dropping to a low, rhythmic crawl. “But you’re not a very good liar. You don’t look like a farm girl. You did a clean job on Chan.”

“I studied,” you blurt out, the words tripping over each other as you scramble for a defense. “Back home. I was an apprentice to a medik. I know how to treat a puncture, how to stop a fever. That’s all it was with the boy. I have a knack for it, but it’s just medicine.”

The corner of his mouth twitches again. “You may have hidden yourself away your whole life, but Ketterdam’s my turf. I know about everyone who comes and goes. You can’t lie to me.”

“You’re Grisha, or half-blooded enough that the distinction doesn't matter. You hid from the Second Army because you didn't want to be a weapon, or maybe because your parents were smart enough to keep you out of a kefta.” 

“I—”

“But clearly—” He interrupts you, raising his cane. “You’ve been practicing. Not much, and without a teacher too, but enough to keep yourself alive and well, it seems.”

Jeonghan shrugs, a careless movement that suggests your life story is a bore to him. “I don’t care about your reasons. I don’t care about your King’s war. But you need to understand that Ketterdam isn't a hiding place—it’s an auction block. Without me, you’re just a valuable piece of property waiting for a slaver to chain you down with an absurd contract. With me, you’re a ghost with a paycheck and as much respect as you can gain in this city.”

He taps the table once, a final, heavy sound. “You want to keep pretending you’re a medik? Fine. But you’ll be a medik for the Dregs. If you refuse, I might just mention to the Stadwatch that there’s an unregistered Ravkan hiding in the harbors. They get a bounty. You get a cell. My life goes on either way.”

You swallow hard, the tightness in your throat making it difficult to breathe. Fear settles in the form of a cold, heavy stone in your stomach. He knows. He said the word as if it were nothing, a casual observation of the weather, but to you, it’s a death sentence you've been running from since you were old enough to understand what it meant to have these powers.

“You talk like you’re doing me a favour,” you say, your voice trembling despite your best efforts to sound defiant. “If it doesn’t make a difference to you, why waste the breath? Why bother with the recruitment speech if you really don't care?”

“I’m a businessman,” he rasps, the sound low and dangerous. “And I find that willing assets last longer than broken ones. I don't care about your soul, but I do care about my men. I have plenty of thieves and plenty of killers, but I don’t have anyone who can stitch a man back together.”

“You’re threatening me,” you say, the words coming out sharper than you intended. You lean back, trying to put distance between yourself and the cold edge of his presence. “If your intention was to make me feel safer here, it isn’t working.”

“I’m not going to coddle you and promise you everything is going to be alright. The people who smile at you and offer you kindness are the ones who will sell you while you’re sleeping. I’m telling you exactly what I want and exactly what will happen if I don’t get it.”

He tilts his head, his gaze unwavering. “You don't have to like me. You don't even have to trust me. You just have to realize that I’m probably the only one in this city who isn’t trying to put a collar on you for a profit even after knowing who you are. I’m putting you to work.”

"So," he says, his voice a low crawl. "Do we have an agreement, or can I get back to my drink and let the world find you?"

You hold his gaze for a second longer than you should, something tight and stubborn settling in your chest, before you shake your head once.

“I need time.”

Jeonghan cocks an eyebrow, looking at you over the rim of his glass. He sets it down with a loud clink and a sigh. 

“Fine. Three days.”

You nod, already pushing yourself to your feet because sitting there any longer feels like a mistake you don’t want to make twice. The drapery brushes your shoulder as you step out, and the noise of the club folds back over you, loud and careless and somehow easier to handle than the quiet you just left behind.

You don’t stop walking. Not until you’re a few steps into the crowd, not until the weight of that conversation lifts enough from your shoulders that you can breathe a little.

You glance up to see Hoshi halfway through a round at one of the tables, a loose circle of men leaning in while he flips a card between his fingers. There’s a small pile of kruge at his elbow, enough to suggest he’s been winning but just enough to keep the game interesting still.

He doesn’t look at you immediately.

You have half the mind to walk straight past him and out the door, leave him to his game and his coins and whatever else he does to fill his time, because none of this would have happened if he hadn’t decided to pull you into it.

But you stop anyway.

He’s leaning over the table, laughing at something someone says, sleeves pushed up, a few strands of hair falling into his eyes as he flicks a card between his fingers before dropping it cleanly onto the pile. 

When he finally catches sight of you, Hoshi drops the rest of the cards without a second thought, gathers the coins in front of him in one quick motion, and pushes his chair back.

“Hey—” someone protests.

“Later,” Hoshi says, already stepping away. “Don’t lose my money.”

“You’re in the middle of—”

“I know,” he cuts in, not slowing.

He reaches you in a few strides, stopping just short, close enough that you can see the slight flush across his face, the way his shirt has shifted at the collar from leaning forward.

“Well,” he says, like nothing’s happened. “Was he better at convincing you than I was?”

You don’t answer and instead turn to walk out. He follows without hesitation.

“That bad?” he asks, falling into step beside you.

“You could’ve said something,” you snap, pushing past a group near the door. “Anything. Instead you drop me in there and disappear like it’s normal.”

“I didn’t disappear,” Hoshi says easily. “I was right there.”

“That’s not the point.”

He reaches ahead to push the door open before you get there, stepping aside to let you through. Pettily, you don’t thank him.

The air outside is cooler, easier to breathe, but it doesn’t do much for the irritation still sitting in your chest.

“You left me alone with him,” you continue, turning on him once you’re a few steps out. “You knew what that would be like, didn’t you?”

“I had a feeling,” he admits.

“A feeling?” you repeat, incredulous. “He practically—” you cut yourself off, shaking your head. “He already knows everything. Or at least enough to make it sound like he does.”

Hoshi’s mouth curves slightly. 

“—And no! It’s not impressive, it’s irritating.”

Hoshi rocks back on his heels, hands slipping into his pockets as he watches you, expression softer now. “He does that a lot, but you get used to it after sometime. And you’re still here, which means you didn’t tell him to go to hell and walk out.”

“I told him I needed time.”

Hoshi lets out a low whistle. “Three days?”

You look at him sharply. “How did you—”

“He likes that number,” Hoshi cuts in, shrugging. “Long enough to feel generous, short enough that you can’t get comfortable and forget about it.”

You walk in silence for a few steps, the sounds of East Stave settling around you, the distance from the club putting just enough space between you and that booth.

“And what’s with the gloves?” you ask finally, glancing at him. “He didn’t take them off once. It must’ve been boiling in there.”

Hoshi smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Ah, they call him the bastard of the barrel, Dirtyhands. I suppose you haven’t heard the stories yet.”

“Stories?”

He nods. “There’s quite a few. My favourite is the one which say that his fingers are permanently stained with the blood of those he’s killed. Oh! People also think he has claws instead of fingers in there. Fun stuff, really.”

You frown. “None of that sounds true.”

“It isn’t,” he agrees immediately. “If anything, it’s the opposite. Which brings us to version three—he’s done enough with his hands that he’d rather not be reminded of it every time he looks down.”

You glance at him. “And you believe that?”

Hoshi considers it for a second, then shakes his head. “I don’t know why he wears them either, but I think he likes that people can’t decide which one is worse,” he says. “They spend so much time arguing about it that they forget to pay attention to what he’s actually doing.”

You let out a quiet exhale. “You guys are weird.”

That pulls out a real laugh from him. “Oh darling, wait till you meet the others.”

You had made your decision pretty soon, and very firmly too. It hadn’t even taken you all three days. You’d gone back to your room after that conversation, shut the door, checked the lock twice for good measure, and told yourself you were not—under any circumstances—getting involved with gang business, gambling halls, or handsome men. 

Handsome? What—no. Strange men, maybe.

It had felt like a good and sensible decision. So what if Jeonghan knew of your grisha blood? If he outed you, you could out him too. You weren’t sure how just Kerch’s laws were, but surely threatening, fighting, gambling and whatever else went on in that place couldn’t be entirely acceptable either. There had to be some kind of balance to it. Some kind of risk on his side as well.

The decision had held up in your mind for two days. Long enough to go to sleep with it still intact, long enough to wake up the next morning and go to work and pretend it hadn’t already started to slip.

But on the second day you’d found a piece of paper slipped under your door while you were away—a narrow strip of cheap quality, folded twice, your name written on it in handwriting you didn’t recognize. 

It had been an address to someplace called the Slat. You knew it had to have been from Jeonghan because there was no one else in this city who would have both the reason and the nerve to find you without being told where to look.

You had stood there for a while, longer than you cared to admit, turning it over between your fingers like the answer might reveal itself if you handled it enough times.

You hadn’t gone.

Not that night, and not the next morning either. You had folded it once more and tucked it away, as though reducing its size might reduce its significance, and then gone about your routine with an effort to be a little more careful.

It might have worked, if not for the third morning at the warehouse. 

The conversation had started somewhere behind you, low at first and not particularly careful, the kind of gossip that would have blended into the rest of the noise on any other day, but the words carried just far enough to hold your attention before you could decide otherwise.

“There was a group,” someone was saying, his voice pitched just low enough to suggest it mattered. “Five, maybe six of them. Staying together near the east canal, in one of those old boarding houses.”

You kept your head down, your hands moving over the crate in front of you.

“Grisha?”

“Yes. Fabrikators. I heard that they were working for someone in the Merchant Council.” 

A brief pause followed, filled with the scrape of wood and the shuffle of boots.

“Who found them?” someone asked.

“A drüskelle. Someone apparently tipped one off. The man only caught two of them, but they’ll probably look around for the rest now.”

“Only two?” another voice cut in, sharper this time. “Then the rest ran?”

“Or they’re hiding,” came the reply. “Doesn’t matter much. Once one of them’s got a lead, they don’t let it go.”

A crate thudded somewhere to your left, the sound a little too loud against the rest of the room.

“They’ll start asking around, then,” someone else said, quieter now, like the thought had only just occurred to him. “People saw them come and go. Someone always does.”

“And someone always talks,” the first man added, almost idly.

A loud chuckle followed. 

“Doesn’t take much,” the first man went on. “A name, a face, where they’ve been seen. That’s all it ever is.”

So by the time your shift ended, the decision you’d made two days ago had worn thin in your head. Which is how you find yourself taking a turn you hadn’t planned, your steps steady enough that anyone looking might think you meant to take this route all along.

The main road is louder at this hour.

It always is, but you notice it more now, the press of people and voices and movement folding in on itself until there’s barely any space left untouched by it. Lanterns hang unlit above you, waiting for evening, but the noise doesn’t need them, spilling out of doorways and open windows.

The address sits in your mind with a clarity that feels almost inconvenient now, guiding you forward without needing to be checked, each turn falling into place before you can second-guess it, until the street widens just enough for the crowd to thin and the building ahead comes into view.

The Slat looms over the narrow alley, its three stories of soot-stained brick leaning precariously against the neighboring buildings. The gabled roof is a jagged silhouette of blackened shingles, topped by a rusted iron hoist that creaks in the wind.

Your pace slows just enough to take the building in, and the few people gathered outside who don’t so much as pause their conversations when you approach, even if you feel the briefest amount of attention pass over you.

And then you see him.

Hoshi stands off to the side, half-turned toward another man, one shoulder resting loosely against the wall. His sleeves are pushed up, and in one of his hands sit a revolvers, the pearl handle catching what little light filters down the street, pale and glinting against his fingers. He spins one of them by the trigger guard in an practiced motion, the metal flashing once before settling again, like it’s something he does without thinking.

The man across from him says something that draws his eyebrows into a furrow as they speak in hushed voices. 

You walk straight up to him.

It takes him a second to notice but when he does he stills instantly, the revolver pausing mid-motion before it disappears from his hand entirely, tucked away with ease.

Hoshi’s lips pull into a smirk.

“Well,” he says, pushing himself off the wall as though the conversation he’d been having no longer matters, “I was starting to think you’d make me wait the full three days.”

The man beside him glances between the two of you, clearly mid-speech, but Hoshi doesn’t spare him more than a brief nod of acknowledgment before stepping closer, stopping just short of you, close enough that you have to tilt your chin up slightly to meet his gaze. There’s an amused look in his eyes, the seriousness from his previous conversation completely gone.

You huff softly, crossing your arms in what you hope looks like reluctance or defiance. “Were you the one who dropped off the address, or was it Jeonghan?”

He smiles, looking pleased with himself. “That was me, darling. Jeonghan doesn’t do ‘petty’ jobs like that. He did spare me some time and found the place for me. I didn’t tail you, don’t worry.”

“Well, you did slip it under the door instead of breaking in,” you sigh. 

“I can be very respectful when I want to be.”

You give him a look that says you don’t believe that for a second.

“So,” he says, quieter now, “did you make up your mind? You joining us?”

With another dramatic exhale, you nod.  

“Great! I’ll take you in then.”

His grin lingers a moment longer than it needs to, like he’s already decided this is a win worth holding onto, before he turns and pushes the door open. 

He steps aside just enough to let you pass first, one hand still braced against the wood. “Wouldn’t want you changing your mind at the threshold. That’d be embarrassing for both of us.”

You roll your eyes, but step in anyway.

The Slat is warmer than the street, the air thick with the faint smell of old wood, sweat, and something cooking somewhere deeper inside. Voices carry from different corners—overlapping, nothing quite loud enough to be called a crowd but enough to tell you that this place is always occupied.

“So,” he says after a few steps, “what scared you off your very sensible plan of never coming back?”

You glance at him. “How’d you know that?”

“I assumed. Looks like I was right,” he hums teasingly. “You don’t strike me as someone who changes her mind for no reason at all. Bit stubborn for that.”

“I just—” you pause, eyebrows furrowing. You can’t tell him the real reason because you’d out ourself. Somehow, the thought doesn’t feel too bad and telling him doesn’t feel too dangerous, but you decide to let it go for now. 

“Figured I might be safer on this side.”

“Safe is a funny choice of wording.” Hoshi glances at you. “Not much of what we do is safe, but I agree. It’s better than being out there.”

“Come on,” he adds, nudging open the door at the end of the corridor with the back of his hand, stepping aside just enough to let you through again, the same easy familiarity in the motion as before. “Let’s go make it official before you decide to change your mind and run off.”

The Slat has its own rhythm and it takes you about two weeks to learn it. 

The job of brewing the morning coffee belongs to whoever’s up first, which is usually Chan. You figure this out on your third day when you come downstairs to find him at the kitchen table with slightly stale bread and a pot of the black liquid that he offers quite cheerfully. 

You take it because refusing feels rude, especially when the boy’s looking at you with those hopeful eyes, and drink it because it turns out you need it. He's already told you three things about the building before you've finished the cup—which floorboard on the second landing will give you away if you're trying to be quiet, that Jeonghan takes his coffee without anything in it and will notice if someone's moved his cup, and that the room at the end of the hall belongs to Hoshi but he rarely sleeps in it. 

He then asks you if you know how to make pea soup, because he doesn’t, but Jun is sick. 

You don’t either, but you figure it out. Chan watches you the entire time with an expression of such transparent relief that you have to look away to keep from smiling at him. He seems to be the kind of person who wears everything on his face, and soon enough you find out from Hoshi he can be fiercely loyal to those who’ve helped him.

Which includes you, now.

By the time the soup’s done he's explained the Dime Lions unprompted—six years of bad blood with the Dregs, a territorial dispute that started over a pier. He speaks quickly and you listen while you stir.

"The Black Tips are different," Chan adds, tearing off a piece of bread. "Less organised. More likely to just… stab someone on instinct." He considers this. "Don't go near East Stave alone at night."

"I wasn't planning to."

"Good." He nods, satisfied.

The others settle around you more gradually. 

Minghao mostly keeps to himself and engages in conversation sometimes, but you can tell that he’s a bit skeptical of you. However, he accompanies you to the Apothecary District one evening and finds out that you prefer tea over coffee too, which makes you a friend.

Vernon you see mostly in passing. Seungkwan more than makes up for Vernon's silence and everyone else's combined. Junhui watches you with mild unreadable curiosity until you help heal the cut on his ear that’s been infected, after which he decides that you’re alright too.

Jeonghan you see in the corridor between the third floor rooms. His cane strikes the floorboards at intervals you start to recognize—three strikes, pause, two more, then the slight drag that only appears when he's tired.

He nods in acknowledgement when he passes, and you nod back, holding in the urge to throttle him. 

The room he's given you sits directly beside his office and the walls are thin enough to hear him at odd hours, so you learn quickly not to linger near the wall and not to mention what carries through it. 

It is strange—the moment you stop expecting to leave. You step over the creaking third stair one evening without thinking and understand somewhere mid-step that you've learned this building. You know which window gets jammed and which door locks from the inside. You know that Chan will have already made coffee if you come down before seven, that Mingyu is always up for a round of cards, and that Jeonghan’s lights stays on the latest. 

What you don't account for is Hoshi.

He has a strange way of finding you, no matter what corner of the Slat you’re in, and does so with pin drop silence. You later learn that they call him the Spider around here, purely because of his freakish agility and absolute silence.

It’s fitting.

You’re in the middle of restocking your supplies when you become aware, with a skip of your heartbeat, that you are not alone. 

Whipping your head around, you find Hoshi already leaning against the open doorframe, with his arms loosely folded and a lopsided smile. 

"Saints—" The tincture slips from your fingers. You catch it before it hits the desk but only just. "Is there a bell we can tie around your neck?" 

He lets out a loud chuckle. “A bell?”

You stare at him. He looks almost pleased, which is exactly what you should have expected, so you turn back to your supplies because the alternative is throwing something at him and you need everything on this desk. 

“I thought of knocking, if that helps,” Hoshi offers, his voice getting closer behind you. “Chan said the hinge is loose." 

Your eyes flit to the window. “Yeah, the sashes keep rattling in the wind. Won’t let me sleep at night. Chan said he’d do something about it.”

"He probably meant that he’d pass the job on to one of us. Chan can't fix a hinge." You hear him cross to the window. "Jun’s banned him from touching tools. You don’t want to know why."

"That doesn't surprise me at all," you mutter, uncorking the next bottle. 

There's the small sound of something being pulled from his coat pocket, and you glance over your shoulder to find him crouching beside the frame with a screwdriver, turning the hinge over to examine it with the focused quiet of someone who actually knows what he's doing. You turn back to your supplies. 

“Thank you,” you say, “you didn’t have to.”

Hoshi hums. “You could've just told me, by the way. Instead of Chan." 

"It wasn't urgent."

"Still." You hear the clatter of metal. "I'm the one who brought you here. If something needs fixing, you can just tell me. I'd do it for you." 

Hoshi pauses for a second, like it came out more sincere than he meant it to and he's noticed too. Then, a little more casually: "I'm kind of responsible for you being here at all, so."

"So it's guilt," you roll your eyes. 

"Absolutely," he agrees immediately. "Haunts me daily. Terribly sorry, darling.”

You snort before you can stop it, and Hoshi’s lips pull into a grin that you can’t see.

"There," Hoshi says, and opens and closes the window twice. No creak. He stays there, watching you work with the easy, unhurried attention that he gives everything. "Anything else?" 

"No."

"Sure?"

"Hoshi?"

“Yeah?”

"Go away."

He laughs—low but bright—and pushes off the wall. You hear him cross to the door and don't hear him leave, which is somehow exactly right.

You try to listen for his footsteps on the stairs anyway. 

"It's required," Jeonghan says, not looking up from his ledger. "Every member. Non-negotiable."

You'd known it was coming. You'd watched the crow and cup tattoo move through the Slat on wrists and collarbones and the curve of shoulders, had traced the ink on Hoshi’s chest with your eyes while stitching up a cut before pretended you hadn't been looking. 

Jihyo explains the rest when she finds you the following afternoon, her kit already laid out on the small table in the room off the main hall—needles, ink, a cloth, a small jar of something for after.

"It'll hurt," she says plainly. "The ribs and waist hurt the most, if you're thinking about placement. Thinner skin means less cushion. The arms are easier."

"Where do most people put it?"

"Somewhere visible." She shrugs. "It's a marker. That's the point."

You understand the point. You also understand that visible cuts both ways—protection on one side, target on the other.

"My waist," you decide, finally. 

Jihyo nods, and doesn’t ask why, which you appreciate, because the answer is still half-formed even in your own head. Something about exits, about keeping options open, about the meaning of belonging to something without being consumed by it. 

You try not to pay attention to Hoshi in the corner.

He’s been there since you came in, settled into a chair across the room with Vernon slouched in front of him, shirt pushed off one shoulder, looking profoundly unbothered while Hoshi works a touch-up along the ink at his collarbone. Vernon says something low and Hoshi snorts, and only he looks up when you and Jihyo come in. 

Jihyo talks you through the rest of it. You half-listen and watch her hands arrange the kit and try not to think about anything in particular. 

Then Chan's voice carries up from below. Jihyo. Jeonghan needs you. Vernon, you too. And the room clears faster than you can track it. Vernon's already pulling his shirt back on, Jihyo’s abandoned her equipment and is at the door with an apologetic look on her face. 

“Hoshi can do it for you,” she says. “He knows what he’s doing and won’t take too long!”

And then she's gone.

You turn around slowly.

Hoshi is already looking at you from across the room, chin resting in his palm, elbow propped on his knee. He looks completely unbothered. He looks like a man with nowhere else to be.

"Hi," he greets. 

“Hey,” you clear your throat a little awkwardly, and Hoshi thinks this is going to take a while.

He’s done this enough times that it should be simple—drag the chair over, sit, pick up the needle, and get to work. Chan fidgeted the entire time, Seungkwan yelped so much that he’d wished he could just shove the needle and sew up his mouth instead, and Vernon had fallen asleep, which Hoshi admires to this day. 

You, however. Hoshi doesn’t know what to do with you. 

He pushes the thought away and drags Jihyo’s chair over, putting on his coat of confidence again. The trick might be to not think too hard about this, Hoshi decides as he spins the needle once between his fingers. 

“I heard Jihyo tell you, but I still think I should warn you,” he says as you lie down. “It’s going to hurt quite a bit, darling. You sure you still want it there?”

“I’ll manage,” you nod, but he thinks your eyes say otherwise. “I don’t want it to be visible.”

You pull up the hem of your shirt and hold the fabric tightly before fixing your eyes on the ceiling. Hoshi eyeballs the placement, and then puts his hand flat against the curve of your waist. 

You try not to flinch at the warmth of it, and he lets out a small sound of amusement, thinking you’re just scared of the pain.

“We can stop if it hurts too much, okay? I don’t have much to do today. We have time.”

He doesn’t say much after that, barring the occasional ‘you okay?’. 

The crow starts to take shape under his needle—the sweep of the wing, the curve of the beak—and his firm grip on your waist seems to distract you from the bite of the needle. 

Hoshi is glad that you’re not looking at him because he’s not entirely sure what his face is doing. There's a small scar just below where the ink is going, faint and old. He notices it the way he notices most things about you, which is to say without meaning to and then without being able to stop.

"You're doing well," he says, because the quiet has started to feel like something he might drown in if he's not careful.

"You sound surprised.” You grimace. 

“A little bit,” he admits. “I expected you to be jumpy. But no, you’re making my job easier.”

“That’s a compliment, right?”

“Obviously.”

The corner of your mouth threatens to lift before another pull of the needle makes you suck in a quiet breath instead.

“Sorry,” Hoshi murmurs automatically.

“It’s fine.”

The two of you settle into silence again. It’s broken only by the faint scrape of the needle and the muffled sounds drifting from the rest of the building—the slam of a door, someone’s laughter echoing through the hallway before fading again. You like that the Slat never really falls quiet.

You try to keep your gaze fixed stubbornly on the ceiling. It feels easier than looking at him, but your eyes betray you anyway.

There isn’t a trace of the loud, impossible man who wandered into your warehouse, making jokes and job offers. The ever-present grin has disappeared entirely, replaced by an expression so focused that it almost softens him. His brows draw together, the thumb of his non-dominant hand pulling gently whenever he needs to stretch the skin tighter.

“Do you do this a lot?” You ask, mostly because the silence feels awkward.

“Mhm,” he hums. “Jihyo and I, we do it for the crew.”

“I did Jeonghan’s,” he adds with pride in his voice. 

It had been easier then. 

Jeonghan had sat through the whole thing without so much as a twitch, looking mildly inconvenienced more than anything. Maybe there was more, but Hoshi had been drunk, and his work on Jeonghan had probably been his sloppiest ever. 

Tattooing you, however, seems to demand an impossible amount of concentration. 

Hoshi tells himself it’s because you’re still new. Because you and Jihyo trusted him with the job, and because the crow stamped into your skin will stay there long after you’re gone too. A crooked line can be erased on paper, not on skin.

That has to be all it is.

Even so, he catches himself easing the pressure every time your breathing catches, apologising before you've even had the chance to tell him it hurts. He's not usually this careful. At least, he doesn't think he is.

He risks a glance upward and almost frowns when he sees your teeth clamping down on your lip. 

But he lowers his eyes again, dragging another careful line beneath the crow’s wing. 

“Hey,” he calls out a few minutes later.

“Hmm?”

“You can swear at me it if helps.”

“...What?”

“Or squeeze my arm. Threaten to kill me afterwards. Whatever floats your boat.”

A small laugh escapes you before you can stop it, the tension in your shoulders easing ever so slightly.

"Would that make you feel better?"

The question catches him off guard.

Hoshi blinks once before a crooked smile finally tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Probably.”

“Then I’ll think about it.” 

Once he’s done, he wipes away the excess ink with a damp cloth, careful with the angry red skin before leaning back to look at the finished design. 

"Done," he says quietly, setting the cloth aside. “Keep it clean. No scratching, even when it starts itching. Jihyo will have my head if it gets infected. I’m sure you have something in that cabinet of yours to soothe the irritation.”

You nod, carefully pulling your shirt back down. "I do."

"Good."

He begins putting away the needles one by one, slower than he usually would.

"If it starts hurting more than it should..." He pauses, glancing up at you before shrugging one shoulder as though the thought has only just occurred to him. "Or if you're not sure whether it's healing properly..."

He twirls the needle between his fingers once before setting it back into the kit.

"Just come find me."

You look at him, a little surprised.

"You?"

“Well,” he looks at you sheepishly. “Jihyo’s usually busier than I am.”

You almost laugh.

From the little you've seen these past few weeks, Hoshi seems to spend half his days running errands for Jeonghan and the other half creating more for himself. If anyone in the Slat is difficult to keep track of, it's him.

Still, you only nod. "Alright."

Jeonghan doesn't usually come on errands like this.

But today he says it's because he wants to handle the contact himself, which is true, but—in the way that most of his reasons are—also not the whole story. You don't ask. You've been here long enough to know which questions get answered and which ones get you a look that makes you wish you hadn't asked it in the first place.

The three of you leave the Slat as the evening crowds thicken along East Stave, Jeonghan a few steps ahead with his cane striking the cobblestones in that familiar rhythm, you and Hoshi falling into step behind him. Hoshi has his cards out before you've made it halfway down the street, shuffling them in a restless way that means his hands need something to do. 

“Why are you thinking so hard?” you ask.

"I'm always thinking." He cuts the deck with one hand without looking at it. "I'm a very thoughtful person."

You look at him. He doesn't quite meet your eyes.

"It's a small job," he says, after a moment. ""Someone's been skimming off a shipment that came through fifth harbour last month—Dregs shipment, which means it's Jeonghan's money." 

“You said it was a small issue,” you raise your eyebrows. 

“I said it was a small job, not a small problem,” he corrects you. "It's not going to be a big thing. The man's not stupid, I think." 

“Hoshi.”

“It’s fine,” he drags the words out. “You're just there to watch, darling. Fifth harbour is our territory and Hendrik, the little fucker, is not going to mess with it.”

"Then why in the world do you look so uneasy?"

He tucks the cards away. Pulls them back out two seconds later. "I'm not." And then, like shifting the gears when he wants to move away from something: "You look nice tonight, by the way."  

"Don't."

"It's a compliment. You're allowed to take it."

"Hoshi."

"The coat." He nods at it. "It's a good coat. I've always thought so."

You fall into silence, and Hoshi shuffles, and the evening crowd presses around you as you watch his hands move through the deck more than you watch the ground beneath your feet. 

Fifth Harbour is quieter than the rest of the waterfront, the big commercial ships docked further east, the buildings here lower and older and leaning toward each other like they might collapse any moment. The contact point is a warehouse at the far end of the pier with its doors open, orange lamplight falling out across the wet boards.

Hendrik is already inside with two of his men. Jeonghan is all numbers when the negotiation starts—debts, the shipment in question, with a side of his usual crypticism—and Hendrik has the look of someone who knows he's been caught and is deciding how much to perform repentance versus how much to push back. Jeonghan listens without expression, his gloves rubbing the crow-head on his cane.

Hoshi stands slightly to the side, cards gone now, one thumb hooked in his trouser pocket near the shimmering pearl handle of his revolver. You stand behind them both, a little hidden away and feel, for the first time since you came to the Slat, truly useless.

It’s toward the end of the dealing, when almost everything has been agreed upon and Hendrik's face has settled into a look of resignation, that Jeonghan’s mind goes elsewhere.

You see the moment it happens. His eyes move past Hendrik's shoulder toward the open warehouse doors, toward something on the pier outside, and whatever he sees seems to paralyze him. His hand tightens once on his cane and then loosens, and the whole thing lasts less than five seconds, but Hendrik sees the gap and his man on the left moves into it before you can open your mouth. 

The knife catches Jeonghan low on the left side.

What happens next is fast and not particularly clean. Jeonghan steps back and hits the man across the jaw with his cane, hard enough to put him on the floor, which would be very impressive if his hand wasn't already pressing flat against the red blooming at his side. Hoshi has the revolver out before the second man can decide what to do with himself—the shot drops him at the knee, deliberate, and the sound of it in the enclosed space leaves your ears ringing. 

Hendrik raises his hands, palms facing outward, his face instantly draining of whatever defiance he had left. The calculation is simple: his two men are down and Hoshi’s barrel is still smoking.

Jeonghan does not so much as look at the blood spreading beneath his hand.

If anything, the knife seems to have sharpened whatever edge was in him, because when Hendrik finally finds enough air to stammer out an apology, Jeonghan only watches him with the same unreadable expression he had worn throughout the negotiation while blood continues to slip steadily through the leather of his glove and gathers in big drops against the warehouse floor.

"I should kill you,” he says, so casually, you almost don’t believe the words coming out of his mouth.

Hendrik blanches, his eyes flickering to Hoshi’s revolver that is still up in the air.

"But I won't."

Hendrik opens his mouth. Closes it again.

"You've been stealing from the Dregs for the better part of a month, which tells me one of two things. Either you've grown remarkably confident, or remarkably desperate, and seeing as desperate men have an unfortunate habit of making stupid decisions, I'm inclined to believe the latter."

His gaze flits toward the men lying on the floor before returning to Hendrik.

"The shipment will be repaid with interest. Every kruge, before the week is over, and if I discover that even a single crate goes missing from another Crow shipment before the month ends, I won't be the one paying you a visit."

Hendrik nods before Jeonghan has even finished speaking.

"I understand."

Jeonghan inclines his head once. "Then we're done here."

He turns first and Hoshi backs toward the warehouse doors without lowering the revolver until Hendrik disappears entirely from view. 

You cross the floor in a hurry, taking larger steps until you reach Jeonghan who has slumped himself onto a chair in one of the corners.

Hoshi is already beside the two of you. "We should go back so she can treat you."

"No."

The answer comes so quickly that Hoshi actually blinks.

"Jeonghan?"

"Close the doors."

"They're already—"

"And lock it."

A crease appears between Hoshi's brows. “Why? You’re bleeding all over the floor, she needs to treat you.”

“She’ll do her job,” he grits out. “Just do what I fucking told you to, will you?”

Hoshi lets out a scoff before turning away, lifting the thick timber beam from where it rests against the wall and dropping it heavily into place across the warehouse doors. The dull thud echoes through the room before silence settles once more. 

You are already kneeling in front of him, your hands fumbling with the buttons of his coat as blood continues to seep between his fingers.

"We need to stop the bleeding. I need to see it."

He removes his hand and immediately, fresh blood wells from the wound, soaking through the torn fabric of his shirt and running over your fingers before you can press your own hand against it.

Your stomach turns. The knife went in deeper than you thought.

"Saints. Where am I going to find bandages from? I don’t have—"

"We don't have time for that."

You look up. "What?"

His eyes meet yours. "You heard me."

You freeze. For a fraction of a second, neither of you speaks. Then you shake your head. “No, I can’t.”

"I brought you in for this,” he almost sneers. “Don’t be a coward and just do it. You’ve hidden long enough.”

"Jeonghan, I—."

His voice is quieter now, though no less certain. “Heal it, come on.”

Your mind races through every excuse it has rehearsed over the last year, every lie that had carried you this far across the Fold, across the sea and into Ketterdam, but none of them seem to matter anymore when each passing second leaves Jeonghan that much paler than he had been a moment before. 

“If you don't stop arguing with me and start doing what I've been paying you to do since the day you walked into the Slat, I'm going to bleed to death on this warehouse floor while you stand here worrying about a secret I figured out before I even learnt your name."

You swallow. "I've spent so long making sure nobody found out."

"And you've spent that time stitching half my crew back together with linen and tinctures when you could've done it in half the time." His eyes remain fixed on yours, unwavering despite the strain beginning to creep into his voice. "You've hidden long enough. Hoshi was going to find out eventually. I'd hoped it wouldn't require me getting stabbed first."

You can feel Hoshi watching the two of you, the confusion almost tangible even without looking at him.

“Your secret will be safe with him, and you know it.”

You do know it, which is why you press your hands to his wound after a few more seconds of hesitation. Your fingers tremble. It has been so long.

So long since you've used your power for anything more than the occasional bruise when nobody was looking, so long since your father had been beside you to remind you to be careful, to keep your hands hidden whenever strangers came too close, to remember that people did not look at Grisha and see people first. 

You remember promising yourself that you would never use your abilities again unless there was absolutely no other choice. The promise suddenly feels very small.

You close your eyes and let the power answer.

Warmth blooms beneath your palms almost immediately, familiar enough that your breath catches despite yourself. It travels slowly through your hands and into the torn muscle beneath them, spreading through the wound in waves until the blood coating your fingers begins to slow down.

Jeonghan's breathing catches, his jaw tightening hard enough for the muscle to jump, but he doesn't make a sound. By the time you finally pull your hands away, only a thin pink scar remains where the knife had entered. 

You stare at your blood-covered hands for a moment longer before forcing yourself to look up. Jeonghan merely glances down at the now-healed wound, looking almost unsurprised. Hoshi, however, hasn't taken his eyes off you. Whatever question sits behind them never makes it to his mouth.

Jeonghan smooths the torn edge of his shirt back into place before pushing himself to his feet with the help of his cane, a little slower than usual but steady nonetheless. "Send Mingyu after Hendrik," he says, as though the last few minutes hadn't altered the course of the evening in the slightest. "Tell him I want this handled before sunrise."

Hoshi hesitates only a second before giving a quiet nod and disappearing through the warehouse doors.

Hoshi doesn’t sleep that night.

He sits on the edge of his bed with his cards and works through the revelation the same way he works through a losing hand—looking for the mistakes, the tells, the things he should’ve caught earlier. 

The cards move through his fingers without him thinking about it. At some point one of them catches the tip of his index finger, a thin sting rising across it, and he looks down at the beads of red welling on it for a moment before closing his hand and going back to thinking. 

He gives up on sleep a few minutes before sunrise.

Taking two steps at a time, Hoshi’s on his way up to the third floor for air when he sees you through the glass. You’re out of the narrow ledge, one hand braced against the bricks, the other reaching for the iron bars that jut from the wall above. Your left foot keeps sliding off the drainpipe. 

You haven't found the trick of it yet. 

Hoshi opens the window. 

"Left foot higher," he says, and you startle hard enough that his arm shoots out and catches your sleeve. "Easy. Easy, I've got you." 

You look at him over your shoulder. 

"Right hand higher," he continues, "I'll be right behind you."

He talks you up through the rest of it, one instruction at a time, and when you finally pull yourself onto the flat section of the roof, the city opens up below. The canals shimmer in a grey-ish silver and the lanterns still burn along East Stave. Hoshi follows and settles down beside you.

"Last night," he starts.

You go still beside him.

"I'm not going to tell anyone," he says, glancing at you. "I need you to know that first.".

"I know," you mumble quietly. "I know you won't."

Hoshi speaks up again after a few moments of silence, broken only by the gulls on the harbour. “So you’re a Corporalki?”

You swallow and nod. “Yes. Half, anyway. My mother was full-blooded. I got less.”

“Less?” he repeats, like he doesn't quite believe that word applied to what he saw tonight.

 "I can't do what a trained Corporalki can. I can't stop a heart or pull the feeling from someone's limbs. I just—" you look at your hands, "—I can close things. Knit things back together. Small wounds quickly, larger ones take more." 

"And it costs you?”

“It’s not supposed to, but I’m untrained, and I’ve spent my entire life trying not to use my powers. My bar for exertion is quite low,” you sigh, tucking your chin in as you pull your legs up to your chest.

Hoshi nods slowly. The wind comes off the water, sharp and cold, and somewhere below a cart’s wheels grind against the stone, the city beginning its morning routine. The sky has gone from grey to warmer colours—orange like a street vendor's hutspot, then bleeding into crimson. 

You reach over without planning to and take his hand, unfurling his fingers. He has a cut on one of them, thin and dried at the edges, barely anything. 

When you press your thumb to it, the warmth arrives and leaves in less than a second and when you lift your thumb the cut is gone.

He looks down at his hand, and then at you. His brows pull together, like he’s been caught off-guard, and the corners of his lips dip down. You almost giggle because of how touched he looks when he glances at you again.

“Darling, you didn’t have to do that,” he mumbles.

“I know. It’s alright.”

Your chest stutters when his hand closes around yours and he squeezes it once, warm and comforting, before he lets go. 

“That probably wasn’t how you wanted anyone to find out, was it?” He asks, rhetorically, looking at the buildings that rise in front. “So I want to give you something back.”

You sit up a bit straighter. “What?”

Hoshi clears his throat. “Well, it’s not really a secret, and not like yours in anyway. Anyone could find it out if they asked, but nobody calls me by it.” A pause. “My name, my actual name is Soonyoung.”

"Soonyoung?" you repeat, checking that you heard it right.

"Kwon Soonyoung," he confirms, with a small nod. He's looking at the buildings still, not at you. "It's not the same thing at all, I know that. It doesn't cost me anything to tell you and it's not going to get me killed, so." 

"But it's the most I have,” he continues, “you can use it, if you'd like. I'd be fine with that. You'd be the only one, actually." His mouth curves slightly, and he finally glances at you sideways. "Never particularly liked the name when I was younger, but now I think I'd like to hear someone use it."

You look at him for a moment. The sun has fully risen now, the light gold and warm across the rooftop, and his face in it is open, a little uncertain, but entirely sincere.

"Soonyoung," you say, carefully.

He looks away quickly, but a smile breaks across his face anyway. You catch it before he can hide it, and the warmth of it pulls a matching one across your own lips. 

Above Ketterdam, the sun keeps rising and you think you could stay up here a while longer. You think he could too. 

He stands over your desk with the ledger open, jabbing a thick finger at a column of numbers you checked thrice. His voice is loud enough to grate against your skull, but not loud enough to draw attention from anyone who might care.

“You counted this shipment yourself,” he insists. “Don’t pretend you didn’t.”

“I didn’t miscount,” you say quietly. “Check the crates again.”

The foreman bristles when you don’t immediately bend to his words. He snatches the ledger back, flips it open again, and jabs at the page as though repetition might wear you down. “You new ones always think you’re sharper than the work,” he grits out. “Can’t count, can’t follow instructions, but somehow you know better than the men who’ve done this for years.”

You try not to rise to it. You’ve learned that people in Ketterdam like the performance of anger more than the substance of it.

You open your mouth to respond, but a knock sounds against the doorframe. The foreman goes still and you look up.

A man stands in the doorway, one shoulder resting lightly against the frame. The light from the street behind him catches on the edges of his coat, and for a moment he almost looks carved out of a different world entirely. Handsome in a way that draws the eye without trying to—sharp lines softened by his windswept hair and an expression you can’t quite read.

“Evening,” he greets cheerfully. “Hope I’m not interrupting.”

You aren’t sure what to make of the man, but the foreman reacts as if someone far more important has arrived. His posture straightens and his mouth snaps shut. The man notices but pretends he doesn’t, eyes flicking once to the ledger, then settling on you with mild curiosity.

“Sorry,” he says, though the smile in his voice betrays no real apology. “I’m looking for someone.”

“Who?” the foreman asks.

He nods toward you. “Her.”

The foreman bristles. “She’s busy.”

He acknowledges that with a polite glance at you. “You seem to be wasting her time anyway. I’m sure two minutes wouldn’t cause a dent in your business, would it?”

That earns him a sputter making you hide a smile.

He steps inside, his gaze moving from the ledger to you with a kind of bright, curious interest. “I really do need her for a moment.”

You glance at him, uncertain. “What for?”

He opens his mouth, then pauses, like he doesn’t actually know what to say. “A conversation,” he settles on. “A very innocent, extremely short conversation. Promise.”

You narrow your eyes. “That doesn’t sound convincing.”

He brightens. “I can try again.”

“Maybe don’t,” you sigh.

He lifts both hands in surrender, amusement tugging at his mouth. “Fair enough. Let’s step outside before the man dies of indignation.”

You don’t miss the way the foreman stiffens at that, but you follow the man out anyway. The air in the corridor is cooler and easier to breathe in, and the noise of the factory dulls into a familiar backdrop of machinery and the scrape of crates on the floor. 

He walks beside you, so when he stops, you stop too.

For a moment, he simply watches you, taking you in with that same curious attention—not rude, and never lingering too long, just enough that you feel seen.

“So,” he says at last, “have you heard of Yoon Jeonghan?”

You blink. “No.”

He nods like he expected that. “The Dregs?”

Another shake of your head. “Should I have?”

His brows lift, impressed. “Most people know the names before they know the city. You’re either very new or very good at minding your own business.”

You choose not to answer that.

He rocks back on his heels, hands slipping into his coat pockets. “Either way,” he says, “you’ve managed to avoid all the right trouble. That’s impressive.”

You tilt your head. “Is this conversation supposed to make sense at some point?”

“Eventually,” he says, grinning. “I lied about this being a short conversation. You see, I like to ease people into things. Very gentle approach.”

You raise an eyebrow. He laughs under his breath, like he can’t help himself.

“Alright,” he says, tone softening as if deciding to give you something sincere. “Jeonghan runs the crew. He knows almost everyone in Ketterdam, especially newcomers. He’s very particular but makes me do all his odd jobs. So I must be here for a reason.”

Your pulse jumps. “What reason?”

“I’m not completely sure either. He’s a bit secretive, you see… but he thinks you’d fit in,” he says simply, “with us.”

“With you,” you repeat, skeptical.

“Mm.” His smile turns a touch playful. “You’d get used to me. Most people do. Eventually.”

You ignore the warmth that creeps up your neck. “You haven’t even told me your name.”

He looks delighted that you asked, bowing slightly in a theatrical manner. “The name’s Hoshi. At your service, darling.” 

“And this Jeonghan person,” you clear your throat, a bit flustered, “wants me to do what?”

Hoshi shrugs one shoulder. “Join us. Help out. Exist somewhere that isn’t a textile factory with men who look one bad day away from throwing a crate at someone.”

You fight a smile. “That’s not a job description.”

He brightens. “Is that a requirement for you? Because I can make one up. Something impressive. Dangerous. A little mysterious, if that’s your style.”

“My style?”

He leans in just a fraction, enough to make you notice but not enough to overwhelm. “You don’t exactly blend in as well as you think you do.”

Your breath catches. Surely, he wouldn’t know?

“And if I say no?” you ask, trying to sound firmer than you feel.

Hoshi’s grin curves, easy and unbothered. “Then I’ll ask again tomorrow.”

“You’re persistent,” you note.

“Only when something interests me.”

You break eye contact first, only because his gaze feels a little too perceiving for someone you’ve known for barely ten minutes. He notices but he doesn’t push.

“That’s all you came here to say?” you manage.

“For today,” he says, cheerful as ever. “Tomorrow I’ll be more compelling. Inspirational, even.”

“I doubt that.”

He presses a hand to his chest in mock offense. “You wound me.”

You snort before you can stop yourself, and his smile sharpens at the sound. A flicker of something warm slips between you, something that feels like the beginning of trouble if you’re not careful.

You straighten, reminding yourself you barely know him. “I should get back.”

“Of course.” He steps aside with a little flourish, granting you the path back toward the factory floor. “Wouldn’t want your foreman to worry.”

The joke draws another quiet laugh out of you before you can swallow it. His eyes brighten again.

“See you tomorrow?” he says, hopeful but pretending not to be.

You shake your head. “You’re assuming there will be a tomorrow.”

He grins, unable to hide it. “There will be. For me, at least. I’m annoyingly tenacious and Jeonghan probably won’t let me sleep until I’ve got you on board.”

You roll your eyes and turn around, not bothering with a response. 

The sound of his laugh follows you all the way back inside.

West Stave is louder than you expected.

You’d heard stories, of course—gamblers shouting over lost kruge, the clatter of dice spilling onto tables, music leaking out of every doorway—but seeing it is different. The noise rolls through the street like a tide, carrying the smell of cheap liquor, canal water, and too many bodies pressed too close together. Lanterns glow from crooked poles, throwing uneven light across the cobblestones, and the buildings lean onto each other.

You shouldn’t be here. You’ve told yourself that five times already. But staying in your rented room felt impossible tonight, and staying in the factory a minute after your shift ended felt even worse.

Calling the four walls that you lived in a room would be generous. With a bed that creaked when you breathed near it, a window that refused to open unless bribed with half your body weight and walls so thin you could hear the couple two rooms down fighting, you’d rather be here.

You’ve been tired in a way that sleep won’t fix. Tired of the foreman, tired of the crates, tired of pretending you aren’t barely holding the seams of your life together.

Your father’s voice has been echoing in your head for days. It creeps in when you let your guard slip for too long. You wonder where he is now.

Which is why you don’t notice him at first.

You’re focused on a street vendor’s lanterns reflecting on the river’s surface, the way it glows gold then dulls again as you pull your shawl tighter around your shoulders when a familiar voice cuts through the din with too much ease.

“Well,” Hoshi drawls, “you’re a sight I didn’t expect tonight.”

You turn.

He’s leaning against the corner post of a betting house, one ankle crossed over the other. He looks like he’s been there for a while, but you can’t really tell.

You blink, startled. “You… I thought you said you’d be at the factory the next day.”

He lifts a brow, pushing off the post almost lazily. “Ah. Yes.” A pause, then a teasing grin. “Work called, darling. I try to be dependable, but I’m only human.”

You scoff, looking away,

“And you thought about it yet?” he asks, head tilting as he tries to read more of your face than you intend to show.

You cross your arms. “Thought about what?”

Hoshi shakes his head, amused. “Joining the Dregs, of course.”

“I still don’t know what you’re offering me.”

He lifts his shoulders in a shrug. “A better life, for starters.”

You stare at him, expecting a joke, but he looks serious, all of a sudden. 

“Look,” Hoshi starts, tone softening, “the Dregs aren’t saints. We don’t pretend to be. But we take care of our own. A roof you can sleep under without worrying it’ll fall on your face. People who don’t shout every time something goes missing. A crew that actually notices when you’re gone.”

He gestures loosely at the mess of the Stave behind him. “Protection, too. This city doesn’t play fair. So we make our own rules.”

You fold your arms, partly to steady yourself. “And that’s… it?”

“No.” His smile turns wistful. “It’s also loyalty. Not the pretty kind. The real kind. If you fall behind, someone reaches back. If you get into trouble, someone pulls you out. If you’re worth having, you’re kept.”

The words hit something you’ve been ignoring for days. Weeks, maybe. The ache of being adrift with no one to answer to, no one to miss you, no one to tell you something as simple as you’re not alone.

He watches your expression change, and his own gentles even more. 

“No one asks questions here. You can start on a new page. You’ve been carrying everything on your own, it looks like.” he points out. “Can’t imagine that’s been fun.”

You look away. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know enough.” He nudges your elbow lightly, just enough to make you look at him again. “I also know you’re smarter than your job. We could use your help.”

“What help could I possible give you?”

Hoshi hums, scratching lightly at his cheek as if thinking it over for the first time. “Well… you did fix up one of ours last week.”

Your stomach dips. “I did what?”

“Chan,” he says. “Brown hair, talks too fast, has the spatial awareness of a newborn colt? He was bleeding everywhere and you handled it better than he did.”

You blink. “He asked for help.”

“He also nearly fainted,” Hoshi adds in a tone way too light for the injuries you remember on the boy. “Which he still insists was due to blood loss, not fear. Debatable, if you ask me.”

Despite yourself, you laugh—small and quick—and his smile widens like that’s all he’d been aiming for.

“I only bandaged him,” you say.

“Sure,” he replies lightly. “But you did it properly. Fast and without panicking. We could use that.”

You look away. “Anyone could’ve done that.”

Hoshi makes a sound that means ‘No, but okay. If you say so.’ He shifts his weight, hands slipping back into his coat pockets. “Point is, you helped. And we need people who help.”

“I’m not a healer,” you say, a little too quickly. You hope he doesn’t notice, or that he chalks it up to nervousness.

He nods. “Didn’t say you were. Just said you’re useful. We like useful.”

You exhale, tension slipping from your shoulders without your permission.

“Tempting, right?” Hoshi prompts, bumping his shoulder with yours. 

“Maybe. You aren’t lying, are you?”

Hoshi is clearly pleased, but tones it down. “Of course not. You can meet Jeonghan right now if you’d like.”

“Now?”

“Yes! If you’re up for a small walk, that is. He’s at the Crow Club tonight.” He snaps his fingers before pointing in the direction of the building he just named, you assume. “It’s our gambling hall, on East Stave.”

“A gambling hall?” You let out incredulously. “Why would I come with you? Why should I trust you?”

Hoshi’s grin sharpens. “Well done. That’s your first lesson learnt: you shouldn’t. Trusting strange men in alleys? Terrible habit. Gets people killed all the time.”

“That’s not exactly convincing,” you mutter.

“Mm. I’m not trying to convince you,” he replies, tilting his head. “If I wanted to force you, you’d already be walking.”

You don’t reply and let the silence sit. 

Hoshi rocks back on his heels, then straightens with a small, decisive nod. “Come on.”

When you don’t move he glances at you, one brow lifting. “Or don’t. I’ll still be here tomorrow.”

You sigh after a few seconds, pushing yourself off the post. “If this turns out to be a terrible idea—”

“It will,” he cuts in cheerfully. “But you’ll survive it.”

You shoot him a look, but fall into step beside him anyway.

Surprisingly, Hoshi doesn’t speak as much as you expected him to on the five minute walk over to the other side. You don’t know if you’re grateful for the silence or unnerved by it. 

The Crow Club, however, is exactly what you pictured it might be. Noise crashes over East Stave in uneven waves, and the air is heavy with smells of fried food and cheap alcohol. Everywhere you look, gaudy gambling dens beg for attention, but the Crow Club is different—a sleek, windowless fortress of black lacquer and crimson trim that seems to eat the light around it. 

Hoshi leads you past a barker shouting about free drinks and pushes through the heavy doors, opening up to an even louder crowd. The rattle of wooden wheels, the snap of cards, and a hundred different voices competing over the sound of clinking glass are overwhelming. Everything inside is dark wood and deep crimson, with no windows to tell you if it’s midnight or noon. 

Hoshi doesn’t pause to let you take it in, though he does slow just enough to make sure you’re still at his side, his hand hovering near your elbow without quite touching as he guides you through the press of bodies and tables. The floor is a maze of red felt, cards shuffling in practiced hands while dealers call out numbers, their movements smooth and unbroken no matter how loudly the players argue around them. Dice roll somewhere to your left with a satisfying clatter against the table, followed by a burst of groans and laughter that ripples outward before dissolving into the larger hum of the room.

A few glance up as he passes, recognition flickering across their faces before it’s tucked away again. 

He stops near the back, where a booth sits slightly raised from the rest of the floor, half-screened by carved wood and heavy drapery that softens the sound without fully cutting it off. There’s no guard, no visible barrier, and yet no one crosses into that space.

Hoshi slides into the seat first, easy and unbothered, one arm slung along the backrest before the man sitting beside him pushes it off with the top of his cane. 

You hesitate for a fraction of a second before taking the seat opposite, your back straight despite the nervousness slithering up your spine. 

The man across from you watches as you sit, his gaze moving once from your face to your hands and back again. Up close, he looks untouched by the noise of the club—with unruffled clothes and his polished demeanor. The cane that he sets down beside him is angled just so that its crow-headed handle catches the light. The curve of its beak looks sharp enough to draw blood if pressed the right way.

“So,” he rasps out, his voice making you flinch slightly, “this is the one.”

Hoshi’s teeth flash. “Told you I’d find her.”

“You took your time. I asked you more than a week ago.”

“And then you sent me to deal with the Razorgulls. Something the others could’ve handled on their own.” Hoshi mutters, rolling his eyes. 

You look at the two of them in confusion until Jeonghan’s gaze finally shifts back to you. 

“The name’s Yoon Jeonghan. I assume Hoshi told you what I’m offering.”

You nod slowly, glancing at his slender but gloved fingers that drum against the table-top. “Kind of, yeah.”

“You work in the warehouse on Third Harbour,” Jeonghan hums. “You arrived recently. No affiliations. No debts worth mentioning.” A pause, just long enough to suggest he knows more than he’s saying. “You’ve kept your head down.”

“I try mind my own business,” you reply.

Jeonghan shrugs. “Sure. Don’t know how easy that’s going to be, but you’ve survived till now, I guess.”

Hoshi lets out a small scoff, leaning back into the booth again as if he’s settling in for a show. “That’s a compliment, by the way,” he adds, glancing at you. “From him, that’s practically glowing praise.”

“You can go,” Jeonghan smiles at the man beside him, although it doesn’t look very friendly. “Your job’s done now.”

Hoshi exhales loudly, throwing a dirty look at the man beside him before pushing his hands against the table and rising.

“You’re no fun tonight,” he mutters, though there’s no bite to it.

“By your standards, I’m never fun,” Jeonghan replies, his gaze already back on you as thought Hoshi’s been set aside before he’s even left.

Hoshi shakes his head as he straightens, eyes flickering over to you. “I’ll be around.”

“You won’t be needed,” Jeonghan sighs, but you nod at him anyway, watching as he walks away, hands slipping into his pockets.

Once Hoshi is out of earshot, Jeonghan leans in, the head of his cane tucked under his chin. “Hoshi says you’re a ghost. No records at the harbor or travel papers. You didn't come through the front door of this city, and you didn't come on an official merchant cog.”

He lets a gloved finger trace the edge of the table. “People who arrive in Ketterdam without a trace are usually running from a debt or a noose. But you don’t have the look of a criminal. Something’s off.”

He taps his cane once. Thump.

“I know you’re either from Novyi Zem or Ravka, and that you got on a textile ship heading to Kerch. But why are you here?”

The question sounds almost rhetorical, but Jeonghan watches you with his eyes like two dark flints catching the red light of the club. 

Jeonghan’s eyes drop to your sleeves, then back to your face. “Ravka is desperate, no? They’re scraping the bottom of the barrel for the Second Army. You look a little old to be conscripted but…”

“I… I don't know what you're talking about,” you mumble, forcing a confused frown onto your face. You try to let your hands fidget, to look like any other frightened girl off the docks. “My father and I were supposed to get onto one of the ships heading back to Novyi Zem. I just wanted to get away from the fighting. Everyone’s running. My father and I got separated. That’s it.”

Jeonghan lets out a short, dry sound that might have been a laugh if there were any warmth in it. He leans in closer, the scent of rain and old wood clinging to him, cutting through the heavy smell of tobacco in the room.

“The confusion is a nice touch,” he rasps, his voice dropping to a low, rhythmic crawl. “But you’re not a very good liar. You don’t look like a farm girl. You did a clean job on Chan.”

“I studied,” you blurt out, the words tripping over each other as you scramble for a defense. “Back home. I was an apprentice to a medik. I know how to treat a puncture, how to stop a fever. That’s all it was with the boy. I have a knack for it, but it’s just medicine.”

The corner of his mouth twitches again. “You may have hidden yourself away your whole life, but Ketterdam’s my turf. I know about everyone who comes and goes. You can’t lie to me.”

“You’re Grisha, or half-blooded enough that the distinction doesn't matter. You hid from the Second Army because you didn't want to be a weapon, or maybe because your parents were smart enough to keep you out of a kefta.” 

“I—”

“But clearly—” He interrupts you, raising his cane. “You’ve been practicing. Not much, and without a teacher too, but enough to keep yourself alive and well, it seems.”

Jeonghan shrugs, a careless movement that suggests your life story is a bore to him. “I don’t care about your reasons. I don’t care about your King’s war. But you need to understand that Ketterdam isn't a hiding place—it’s an auction block. Without me, you’re just a valuable piece of property waiting for a slaver to chain you down with an absurd contract. With me, you’re a ghost with a paycheck and as much respect as you can gain in this city.”

He taps the table once, a final, heavy sound. “You want to keep pretending you’re a medik? Fine. But you’ll be a medik for the Dregs. If you refuse, I might just mention to the Stadwatch that there’s an unregistered Ravkan hiding in the harbors. They get a bounty. You get a cell. My life goes on either way.”

You swallow hard, the tightness in your throat making it difficult to breathe. Fear settles in the form of a cold, heavy stone in your stomach. He knows. He said the word as if it were nothing, a casual observation of the weather, but to you, it’s a death sentence you've been running from since you were old enough to understand what it meant to have these powers.

“You talk like you’re doing me a favour,” you say, your voice trembling despite your best efforts to sound defiant. “If it doesn’t make a difference to you, why waste the breath? Why bother with the recruitment speech if you really don't care?”

“I’m a businessman,” he rasps, the sound low and dangerous. “And I find that willing assets last longer than broken ones. I don't care about your soul, but I do care about my men. I have plenty of thieves and plenty of killers, but I don’t have anyone who can stitch a man back together.”

“You’re threatening me,” you say, the words coming out sharper than you intended. You lean back, trying to put distance between yourself and the cold edge of his presence. “If your intention was to make me feel safer here, it isn’t working.”

“I’m not going to coddle you and promise you everything is going to be alright. The people who smile at you and offer you kindness are the ones who will sell you while you’re sleeping. I’m telling you exactly what I want and exactly what will happen if I don’t get it.”

He tilts his head, his gaze unwavering. “You don't have to like me. You don't even have to trust me. You just have to realize that I’m probably the only one in this city who isn’t trying to put a collar on you for a profit even after knowing who you are. I’m putting you to work.”

"So," he says, his voice a low crawl. "Do we have an agreement, or can I get back to my drink and let the world find you?"

You hold his gaze for a second longer than you should, something tight and stubborn settling in your chest, before you shake your head once.

“I need time.”

Jeonghan cocks an eyebrow, looking at you over the rim of his glass. He sets it down with a loud clink and a sigh. 

“Fine. Three days.”

You nod, already pushing yourself to your feet because sitting there any longer feels like a mistake you don’t want to make twice. The drapery brushes your shoulder as you step out, and the noise of the club folds back over you, loud and careless and somehow easier to handle than the quiet you just left behind.

You don’t stop walking. Not until you’re a few steps into the crowd, not until the weight of that conversation lifts enough from your shoulders that you can breathe a little.

You glance up to see Hoshi halfway through a round at one of the tables, a loose circle of men leaning in while he flips a card between his fingers. There’s a small pile of kruge at his elbow, enough to suggest he’s been winning but just enough to keep the game interesting still.

He doesn’t look at you immediately.

You have half the mind to walk straight past him and out the door, leave him to his game and his coins and whatever else he does to fill his time, because none of this would have happened if he hadn’t decided to pull you into it.

But you stop anyway.

He’s leaning over the table, laughing at something someone says, sleeves pushed up, a few strands of hair falling into his eyes as he flicks a card between his fingers before dropping it cleanly onto the pile. 

When he finally catches sight of you, Hoshi drops the rest of the cards without a second thought, gathers the coins in front of him in one quick motion, and pushes his chair back.

“Hey—” someone protests.

“Later,” Hoshi says, already stepping away. “Don’t lose my money.”

“You’re in the middle of—”

“I know,” he cuts in, not slowing.

He reaches you in a few strides, stopping just short, close enough that you can see the slight flush across his face, the way his shirt has shifted at the collar from leaning forward.

“Well,” he says, like nothing’s happened. “Was he better at convincing you than I was?”

You don’t answer and instead turn to walk out. He follows without hesitation.

“That bad?” he asks, falling into step beside you.

“You could’ve said something,” you snap, pushing past a group near the door. “Anything. Instead you drop me in there and disappear like it’s normal.”

“I didn’t disappear,” Hoshi says easily. “I was right there.”

“That’s not the point.”

He reaches ahead to push the door open before you get there, stepping aside to let you through. Pettily, you don’t thank him.

The air outside is cooler, easier to breathe, but it doesn’t do much for the irritation still sitting in your chest.

“You left me alone with him,” you continue, turning on him once you’re a few steps out. “You knew what that would be like, didn’t you?”

“I had a feeling,” he admits.

“A feeling?” you repeat, incredulous. “He practically—” you cut yourself off, shaking your head. “He already knows everything. Or at least enough to make it sound like he does.”

Hoshi’s mouth curves slightly. 

“—And no! It’s not impressive, it’s irritating.”

Hoshi rocks back on his heels, hands slipping into his pockets as he watches you, expression softer now. “He does that a lot, but you get used to it after sometime. And you’re still here, which means you didn’t tell him to go to hell and walk out.”

“I told him I needed time.”

Hoshi lets out a low whistle. “Three days?”

You look at him sharply. “How did you—”

“He likes that number,” Hoshi cuts in, shrugging. “Long enough to feel generous, short enough that you can’t get comfortable and forget about it.”

You walk in silence for a few steps, the sounds of East Stave settling around you, the distance from the club putting just enough space between you and that booth.

“And what’s with the gloves?” you ask finally, glancing at him. “He didn’t take them off once. It must’ve been boiling in there.”

Hoshi smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Ah, they call him the bastard of the barrel, Dirtyhands. I suppose you haven’t heard the stories yet.”

“Stories?”

He nods. “There’s quite a few. My favourite is the one which say that his fingers are permanently stained with the blood of those he’s killed. Oh! People also think he has claws instead of fingers in there. Fun stuff, really.”

You frown. “None of that sounds true.”

“It isn’t,” he agrees immediately. “If anything, it’s the opposite. Which brings us to version three—he’s done enough with his hands that he’d rather not be reminded of it every time he looks down.”

You glance at him. “And you believe that?”

Hoshi considers it for a second, then shakes his head. “I don’t know why he wears them either, but I think he likes that people can’t decide which one is worse,” he says. “They spend so much time arguing about it that they forget to pay attention to what he’s actually doing.”

You let out a quiet exhale. “You guys are weird.”

That pulls out a real laugh from him. “Oh darling, wait till you meet the others.”

You had made your decision pretty soon, and very firmly too. It hadn’t even taken you all three days. You’d gone back to your room after that conversation, shut the door, checked the lock twice for good measure, and told yourself you were not—under any circumstances—getting involved with gang business, gambling halls, or handsome men. 

Handsome? What—no. Strange men, maybe.

It had felt like a good and sensible decision. So what if Jeonghan knew of your grisha blood? If he outed you, you could out him too. You weren’t sure how just Kerch’s laws were, but surely threatening, fighting, gambling and whatever else went on in that place couldn’t be entirely acceptable either. There had to be some kind of balance to it. Some kind of risk on his side as well.

The decision had held up in your mind for two days. Long enough to go to sleep with it still intact, long enough to wake up the next morning and go to work and pretend it hadn’t already started to slip.

But on the second day you’d found a piece of paper slipped under your door while you were away—a narrow strip of cheap quality, folded twice, your name written on it in handwriting you didn’t recognize. 

It had been an address to someplace called the Slat. You knew it had to have been from Jeonghan because there was no one else in this city who would have both the reason and the nerve to find you without being told where to look.

You had stood there for a while, longer than you cared to admit, turning it over between your fingers like the answer might reveal itself if you handled it enough times.

You hadn’t gone.

Not that night, and not the next morning either. You had folded it once more and tucked it away, as though reducing its size might reduce its significance, and then gone about your routine with an effort to be a little more careful.

It might have worked, if not for the third morning at the warehouse. 

The conversation had started somewhere behind you, low at first and not particularly careful, the kind of gossip that would have blended into the rest of the noise on any other day, but the words carried just far enough to hold your attention before you could decide otherwise.

“There was a group,” someone was saying, his voice pitched just low enough to suggest it mattered. “Five, maybe six of them. Staying together near the east canal, in one of those old boarding houses.”

You kept your head down, your hands moving over the crate in front of you.

“Grisha?”

“Yes. Fabrikators. I heard that they were working for someone in the Merchant Council.” 

A brief pause followed, filled with the scrape of wood and the shuffle of boots.

“Who found them?” someone asked.

“A drüskelle. Someone apparently tipped one off. The man only caught two of them, but they’ll probably look around for the rest now.”

“Only two?” another voice cut in, sharper this time. “Then the rest ran?”

“Or they’re hiding,” came the reply. “Doesn’t matter much. Once one of them’s got a lead, they don’t let it go.”

A crate thudded somewhere to your left, the sound a little too loud against the rest of the room.

“They’ll start asking around, then,” someone else said, quieter now, like the thought had only just occurred to him. “People saw them come and go. Someone always does.”

“And someone always talks,” the first man added, almost idly.

A loud chuckle followed. 

“Doesn’t take much,” the first man went on. “A name, a face, where they’ve been seen. That’s all it ever is.”

So by the time your shift ended, the decision you’d made two days ago had worn thin in your head. Which is how you find yourself taking a turn you hadn’t planned, your steps steady enough that anyone looking might think you meant to take this route all along.

The main road is louder at this hour.

It always is, but you notice it more now, the press of people and voices and movement folding in on itself until there’s barely any space left untouched by it. Lanterns hang unlit above you, waiting for evening, but the noise doesn’t need them, spilling out of doorways and open windows.

The address sits in your mind with a clarity that feels almost inconvenient now, guiding you forward without needing to be checked, each turn falling into place before you can second-guess it, until the street widens just enough for the crowd to thin and the building ahead comes into view.

The Slat looms over the narrow alley, its three stories of soot-stained brick leaning precariously against the neighboring buildings. The gabled roof is a jagged silhouette of blackened shingles, topped by a rusted iron hoist that creaks in the wind.

Your pace slows just enough to take the building in, and the few people gathered outside who don’t so much as pause their conversations when you approach, even if you feel the briefest amount of attention pass over you.

And then you see him.

Hoshi stands off to the side, half-turned toward another man, one shoulder resting loosely against the wall. His sleeves are pushed up, and in one of his hands sit a revolvers, the pearl handle catching what little light filters down the street, pale and glinting against his fingers. He spins one of them by the trigger guard in an practiced motion, the metal flashing once before settling again, like it’s something he does without thinking.

The man across from him says something that draws his eyebrows into a furrow as they speak in hushed voices. 

You walk straight up to him.

It takes him a second to notice but when he does he stills instantly, the revolver pausing mid-motion before it disappears from his hand entirely, tucked away with ease.

Hoshi’s lips pull into a smirk.

“Well,” he says, pushing himself off the wall as though the conversation he’d been having no longer matters, “I was starting to think you’d make me wait the full three days.”

The man beside him glances between the two of you, clearly mid-speech, but Hoshi doesn’t spare him more than a brief nod of acknowledgment before stepping closer, stopping just short of you, close enough that you have to tilt your chin up slightly to meet his gaze. There’s an amused look in his eyes, the seriousness from his previous conversation completely gone.

You huff softly, crossing your arms in what you hope looks like reluctance or defiance. “Were you the one who dropped off the address, or was it Jeonghan?”

He smiles, looking pleased with himself. “That was me, darling. Jeonghan doesn’t do ‘petty’ jobs like that. He did spare me some time and found the place for me. I didn’t tail you, don’t worry.”

“Well, you did slip it under the door instead of breaking in,” you sigh. 

“I can be very respectful when I want to be.”

You give him a look that says you don’t believe that for a second.

“So,” he says, quieter now, “did you make up your mind? You joining us?”

With another dramatic exhale, you nod.  

“Great! I’ll take you in then.”

His grin lingers a moment longer than it needs to, like he’s already decided this is a win worth holding onto, before he turns and pushes the door open. 

He steps aside just enough to let you pass first, one hand still braced against the wood. “Wouldn’t want you changing your mind at the threshold. That’d be embarrassing for both of us.”

You roll your eyes, but step in anyway.

The Slat is warmer than the street, the air thick with the faint smell of old wood, sweat, and something cooking somewhere deeper inside. Voices carry from different corners—overlapping, nothing quite loud enough to be called a crowd but enough to tell you that this place is always occupied.

“So,” he says after a few steps, “what scared you off your very sensible plan of never coming back?”

You glance at him. “How’d you know that?”

“I assumed. Looks like I was right,” he hums teasingly. “You don’t strike me as someone who changes her mind for no reason at all. Bit stubborn for that.”

“I just—” you pause, eyebrows furrowing. You can’t tell him the real reason because you’d out ourself. Somehow, the thought doesn’t feel too bad and telling him doesn’t feel too dangerous, but you decide to let it go for now. 

“Figured I might be safer on this side.”

“Safe is a funny choice of wording.” Hoshi glances at you. “Not much of what we do is safe, but I agree. It’s better than being out there.”

“Come on,” he adds, nudging open the door at the end of the corridor with the back of his hand, stepping aside just enough to let you through again, the same easy familiarity in the motion as before. “Let’s go make it official before you decide to change your mind and run off.”

The Slat has its own rhythm and it takes you about two weeks to learn it. 

The job of brewing the morning coffee belongs to whoever’s up first, which is usually Chan. You figure this out on your third day when you come downstairs to find him at the kitchen table with slightly stale bread and a pot of the black liquid that he offers quite cheerfully. 

You take it because refusing feels rude, especially when the boy’s looking at you with those hopeful eyes, and drink it because it turns out you need it. He's already told you three things about the building before you've finished the cup—which floorboard on the second landing will give you away if you're trying to be quiet, that Jeonghan takes his coffee without anything in it and will notice if someone's moved his cup, and that the room at the end of the hall belongs to Hoshi but he rarely sleeps in it. 

He then asks you if you know how to make pea soup, because he doesn’t, but Jun is sick. 

You don’t either, but you figure it out. Chan watches you the entire time with an expression of such transparent relief that you have to look away to keep from smiling at him. He seems to be the kind of person who wears everything on his face, and soon enough you find out from Hoshi he can be fiercely loyal to those who’ve helped him.

Which includes you, now.

By the time the soup’s done he's explained the Dime Lions unprompted—six years of bad blood with the Dregs, a territorial dispute that started over a pier. He speaks quickly and you listen while you stir.

"The Black Tips are different," Chan adds, tearing off a piece of bread. "Less organised. More likely to just… stab someone on instinct." He considers this. "Don't go near East Stave alone at night."

"I wasn't planning to."

"Good." He nods, satisfied.

The others settle around you more gradually. 

Minghao mostly keeps to himself and engages in conversation sometimes, but you can tell that he’s a bit skeptical of you. However, he accompanies you to the Apothecary District one evening and finds out that you prefer tea over coffee too, which makes you a friend.

Vernon you see mostly in passing. Seungkwan more than makes up for Vernon's silence and everyone else's combined. Junhui watches you with mild unreadable curiosity until you help heal the cut on his ear that’s been infected, after which he decides that you’re alright too.

Jeonghan you see in the corridor between the third floor rooms. His cane strikes the floorboards at intervals you start to recognize—three strikes, pause, two more, then the slight drag that only appears when he's tired.

He nods in acknowledgement when he passes, and you nod back, holding in the urge to throttle him. 

The room he's given you sits directly beside his office and the walls are thin enough to hear him at odd hours, so you learn quickly not to linger near the wall and not to mention what carries through it. 

It is strange—the moment you stop expecting to leave. You step over the creaking third stair one evening without thinking and understand somewhere mid-step that you've learned this building. You know which window gets jammed and which door locks from the inside. You know that Chan will have already made coffee if you come down before seven, that Mingyu is always up for a round of cards, and that Jeonghan’s lights stays on the latest. 

What you don't account for is Hoshi.

He has a strange way of finding you, no matter what corner of the Slat you’re in, and does so with pin drop silence. You later learn that they call him the Spider around here, purely because of his freakish agility and absolute silence.

It’s fitting.

You’re in the middle of restocking your supplies when you become aware, with a skip of your heartbeat, that you are not alone. 

Whipping your head around, you find Hoshi already leaning against the open doorframe, with his arms loosely folded and a lopsided smile. 

"Saints—" The tincture slips from your fingers. You catch it before it hits the desk but only just. "Is there a bell we can tie around your neck?" 

He lets out a loud chuckle. “A bell?”

You stare at him. He looks almost pleased, which is exactly what you should have expected, so you turn back to your supplies because the alternative is throwing something at him and you need everything on this desk. 

“I thought of knocking, if that helps,” Hoshi offers, his voice getting closer behind you. “Chan said the hinge is loose." 

Your eyes flit to the window. “Yeah, the sashes keep rattling in the wind. Won’t let me sleep at night. Chan said he’d do something about it.”

"He probably meant that he’d pass the job on to one of us. Chan can't fix a hinge." You hear him cross to the window. "Jun’s banned him from touching tools. You don’t want to know why."

"That doesn't surprise me at all," you mutter, uncorking the next bottle. 

There's the small sound of something being pulled from his coat pocket, and you glance over your shoulder to find him crouching beside the frame with a screwdriver, turning the hinge over to examine it with the focused quiet of someone who actually knows what he's doing. You turn back to your supplies. 

“Thank you,” you say, “you didn’t have to.”

Hoshi hums. “You could've just told me, by the way. Instead of Chan." 

"It wasn't urgent."

"Still." You hear the clatter of metal. "I'm the one who brought you here. If something needs fixing, you can just tell me. I'd do it for you." 

Hoshi pauses for a second, like it came out more sincere than he meant it to and he's noticed too. Then, a little more casually: "I'm kind of responsible for you being here at all, so."

"So it's guilt," you roll your eyes. 

"Absolutely," he agrees immediately. "Haunts me daily. Terribly sorry, darling.”

You snort before you can stop it, and Hoshi’s lips pull into a grin that you can’t see.

"There," Hoshi says, and opens and closes the window twice. No creak. He stays there, watching you work with the easy, unhurried attention that he gives everything. "Anything else?" 

"No."

"Sure?"

"Hoshi?"

“Yeah?”

"Go away."

He laughs—low but bright—and pushes off the wall. You hear him cross to the door and don't hear him leave, which is somehow exactly right.

You try to listen for his footsteps on the stairs anyway. 

"It's required," Jeonghan says, not looking up from his ledger. "Every member. Non-negotiable."

You'd known it was coming. You'd watched the crow and cup tattoo move through the Slat on wrists and collarbones and the curve of shoulders, had traced the ink on Hoshi’s chest with your eyes while stitching up a cut before pretended you hadn't been looking. 

Jihyo explains the rest when she finds you the following afternoon, her kit already laid out on the small table in the room off the main hall—needles, ink, a cloth, a small jar of something for after.

"It'll hurt," she says plainly. "The ribs and waist hurt the most, if you're thinking about placement. Thinner skin means less cushion. The arms are easier."

"Where do most people put it?"

"Somewhere visible." She shrugs. "It's a marker. That's the point."

You understand the point. You also understand that visible cuts both ways—protection on one side, target on the other.

"My waist," you decide, finally. 

Jihyo nods, and doesn’t ask why, which you appreciate, because the answer is still half-formed even in your own head. Something about exits, about keeping options open, about the meaning of belonging to something without being consumed by it. 

You try not to pay attention to Hoshi in the corner.

He’s been there since you came in, settled into a chair across the room with Vernon slouched in front of him, shirt pushed off one shoulder, looking profoundly unbothered while Hoshi works a touch-up along the ink at his collarbone. Vernon says something low and Hoshi snorts, and only he looks up when you and Jihyo come in. 

Jihyo talks you through the rest of it. You half-listen and watch her hands arrange the kit and try not to think about anything in particular. 

Then Chan's voice carries up from below. Jihyo. Jeonghan needs you. Vernon, you too. And the room clears faster than you can track it. Vernon's already pulling his shirt back on, Jihyo’s abandoned her equipment and is at the door with an apologetic look on her face. 

“Hoshi can do it for you,” she says. “He knows what he’s doing and won’t take too long!”

And then she's gone.

You turn around slowly.

Hoshi is already looking at you from across the room, chin resting in his palm, elbow propped on his knee. He looks completely unbothered. He looks like a man with nowhere else to be.

"Hi," he greets. 

“Hey,” you clear your throat a little awkwardly, and Hoshi thinks this is going to take a while.

He’s done this enough times that it should be simple—drag the chair over, sit, pick up the needle, and get to work. Chan fidgeted the entire time, Seungkwan yelped so much that he’d wished he could just shove the needle and sew up his mouth instead, and Vernon had fallen asleep, which Hoshi admires to this day. 

You, however. Hoshi doesn’t know what to do with you. 

He pushes the thought away and drags Jihyo’s chair over, putting on his coat of confidence again. The trick might be to not think too hard about this, Hoshi decides as he spins the needle once between his fingers. 

“I heard Jihyo tell you, but I still think I should warn you,” he says as you lie down. “It’s going to hurt quite a bit, darling. You sure you still want it there?”

“I’ll manage,” you nod, but he thinks your eyes say otherwise. “I don’t want it to be visible.”

You pull up the hem of your shirt and hold the fabric tightly before fixing your eyes on the ceiling. Hoshi eyeballs the placement, and then puts his hand flat against the curve of your waist. 

You try not to flinch at the warmth of it, and he lets out a small sound of amusement, thinking you’re just scared of the pain.

“We can stop if it hurts too much, okay? I don’t have much to do today. We have time.”

He doesn’t say much after that, barring the occasional ‘you okay?’. 

The crow starts to take shape under his needle—the sweep of the wing, the curve of the beak—and his firm grip on your waist seems to distract you from the bite of the needle. 

Hoshi is glad that you’re not looking at him because he’s not entirely sure what his face is doing. There's a small scar just below where the ink is going, faint and old. He notices it the way he notices most things about you, which is to say without meaning to and then without being able to stop.

"You're doing well," he says, because the quiet has started to feel like something he might drown in if he's not careful.

"You sound surprised.” You grimace. 

“A little bit,” he admits. “I expected you to be jumpy. But no, you’re making my job easier.”

“That’s a compliment, right?”

“Obviously.”

The corner of your mouth threatens to lift before another pull of the needle makes you suck in a quiet breath instead.

“Sorry,” Hoshi murmurs automatically.

“It’s fine.”

The two of you settle into silence again. It’s broken only by the faint scrape of the needle and the muffled sounds drifting from the rest of the building—the slam of a door, someone’s laughter echoing through the hallway before fading again. You like that the Slat never really falls quiet.

You try to keep your gaze fixed stubbornly on the ceiling. It feels easier than looking at him, but your eyes betray you anyway.

There isn’t a trace of the loud, impossible man who wandered into your warehouse, making jokes and job offers. The ever-present grin has disappeared entirely, replaced by an expression so focused that it almost softens him. His brows draw together, the thumb of his non-dominant hand pulling gently whenever he needs to stretch the skin tighter.

“Do you do this a lot?” You ask, mostly because the silence feels awkward.

“Mhm,” he hums. “Jihyo and I, we do it for the crew.”

“I did Jeonghan’s,” he adds with pride in his voice. 

It had been easier then. 

Jeonghan had sat through the whole thing without so much as a twitch, looking mildly inconvenienced more than anything. Maybe there was more, but Hoshi had been drunk, and his work on Jeonghan had probably been his sloppiest ever. 

Tattooing you, however, seems to demand an impossible amount of concentration. 

Hoshi tells himself it’s because you’re still new. Because you and Jihyo trusted him with the job, and because the crow stamped into your skin will stay there long after you’re gone too. A crooked line can be erased on paper, not on skin.

That has to be all it is.

Even so, he catches himself easing the pressure every time your breathing catches, apologising before you've even had the chance to tell him it hurts. He's not usually this careful. At least, he doesn't think he is.

He risks a glance upward and almost frowns when he sees your teeth clamping down on your lip. 

But he lowers his eyes again, dragging another careful line beneath the crow’s wing. 

“Hey,” he calls out a few minutes later.

“Hmm?”

“You can swear at me it if helps.”

“...What?”

“Or squeeze my arm. Threaten to kill me afterwards. Whatever floats your boat.”

A small laugh escapes you before you can stop it, the tension in your shoulders easing ever so slightly.

"Would that make you feel better?"

The question catches him off guard.

Hoshi blinks once before a crooked smile finally tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Probably.”

“Then I’ll think about it.” 

Once he’s done, he wipes away the excess ink with a damp cloth, careful with the angry red skin before leaning back to look at the finished design. 

"Done," he says quietly, setting the cloth aside. “Keep it clean. No scratching, even when it starts itching. Jihyo will have my head if it gets infected. I’m sure you have something in that cabinet of yours to soothe the irritation.”

You nod, carefully pulling your shirt back down. "I do."

"Good."

He begins putting away the needles one by one, slower than he usually would.

"If it starts hurting more than it should..." He pauses, glancing up at you before shrugging one shoulder as though the thought has only just occurred to him. "Or if you're not sure whether it's healing properly..."

He twirls the needle between his fingers once before setting it back into the kit.

"Just come find me."

You look at him, a little surprised.

"You?"

“Well,” he looks at you sheepishly. “Jihyo’s usually busier than I am.”

You almost laugh.

From the little you've seen these past few weeks, Hoshi seems to spend half his days running errands for Jeonghan and the other half creating more for himself. If anyone in the Slat is difficult to keep track of, it's him.

Still, you only nod. "Alright."

Jeonghan doesn't usually come on errands like this.

But today he says it's because he wants to handle the contact himself, which is true, but—in the way that most of his reasons are—also not the whole story. You don't ask. You've been here long enough to know which questions get answered and which ones get you a look that makes you wish you hadn't asked it in the first place.

The three of you leave the Slat as the evening crowds thicken along East Stave, Jeonghan a few steps ahead with his cane striking the cobblestones in that familiar rhythm, you and Hoshi falling into step behind him. Hoshi has his cards out before you've made it halfway down the street, shuffling them in a restless way that means his hands need something to do. 

“Why are you thinking so hard?” you ask.

"I'm always thinking." He cuts the deck with one hand without looking at it. "I'm a very thoughtful person."

You look at him. He doesn't quite meet your eyes.

"It's a small job," he says, after a moment. ""Someone's been skimming off a shipment that came through fifth harbour last month—Dregs shipment, which means it's Jeonghan's money." 

“You said it was a small issue,” you raise your eyebrows. 

“I said it was a small job, not a small problem,” he corrects you. "It's not going to be a big thing. The man's not stupid, I think." 

“Hoshi.”

“It’s fine,” he drags the words out. “You're just there to watch, darling. Fifth harbour is our territory and Hendrik, the little fucker, is not going to mess with it.”

"Then why in the world do you look so uneasy?"

He tucks the cards away. Pulls them back out two seconds later. "I'm not." And then, like shifting the gears when he wants to move away from something: "You look nice tonight, by the way."  

"Don't."

"It's a compliment. You're allowed to take it."

"Hoshi."

"The coat." He nods at it. "It's a good coat. I've always thought so."

You fall into silence, and Hoshi shuffles, and the evening crowd presses around you as you watch his hands move through the deck more than you watch the ground beneath your feet. 

Fifth Harbour is quieter than the rest of the waterfront, the big commercial ships docked further east, the buildings here lower and older and leaning toward each other like they might collapse any moment. The contact point is a warehouse at the far end of the pier with its doors open, orange lamplight falling out across the wet boards.

Hendrik is already inside with two of his men. Jeonghan is all numbers when the negotiation starts—debts, the shipment in question, with a side of his usual crypticism—and Hendrik has the look of someone who knows he's been caught and is deciding how much to perform repentance versus how much to push back. Jeonghan listens without expression, his gloves rubbing the crow-head on his cane.

Hoshi stands slightly to the side, cards gone now, one thumb hooked in his trouser pocket near the shimmering pearl handle of his revolver. You stand behind them both, a little hidden away and feel, for the first time since you came to the Slat, truly useless.

It’s toward the end of the dealing, when almost everything has been agreed upon and Hendrik's face has settled into a look of resignation, that Jeonghan’s mind goes elsewhere.

You see the moment it happens. His eyes move past Hendrik's shoulder toward the open warehouse doors, toward something on the pier outside, and whatever he sees seems to paralyze him. His hand tightens once on his cane and then loosens, and the whole thing lasts less than five seconds, but Hendrik sees the gap and his man on the left moves into it before you can open your mouth. 

The knife catches Jeonghan low on the left side.

What happens next is fast and not particularly clean. Jeonghan steps back and hits the man across the jaw with his cane, hard enough to put him on the floor, which would be very impressive if his hand wasn't already pressing flat against the red blooming at his side. Hoshi has the revolver out before the second man can decide what to do with himself—the shot drops him at the knee, deliberate, and the sound of it in the enclosed space leaves your ears ringing. 

Hendrik raises his hands, palms facing outward, his face instantly draining of whatever defiance he had left. The calculation is simple: his two men are down and Hoshi’s barrel is still smoking.

Jeonghan does not so much as look at the blood spreading beneath his hand.

If anything, the knife seems to have sharpened whatever edge was in him, because when Hendrik finally finds enough air to stammer out an apology, Jeonghan only watches him with the same unreadable expression he had worn throughout the negotiation while blood continues to slip steadily through the leather of his glove and gathers in big drops against the warehouse floor.

"I should kill you,” he says, so casually, you almost don’t believe the words coming out of his mouth.

Hendrik blanches, his eyes flickering to Hoshi’s revolver that is still up in the air.

"But I won't."

Hendrik opens his mouth. Closes it again.

"You've been stealing from the Dregs for the better part of a month, which tells me one of two things. Either you've grown remarkably confident, or remarkably desperate, and seeing as desperate men have an unfortunate habit of making stupid decisions, I'm inclined to believe the latter."

His gaze flits toward the men lying on the floor before returning to Hendrik.

"The shipment will be repaid with interest. Every kruge, before the week is over, and if I discover that even a single crate goes missing from another Crow shipment before the month ends, I won't be the one paying you a visit."

Hendrik nods before Jeonghan has even finished speaking.

"I understand."

Jeonghan inclines his head once. "Then we're done here."

He turns first and Hoshi backs toward the warehouse doors without lowering the revolver until Hendrik disappears entirely from view. 

You cross the floor in a hurry, taking larger steps until you reach Jeonghan who has slumped himself onto a chair in one of the corners.

Hoshi is already beside the two of you. "We should go back so she can treat you."

"No."

The answer comes so quickly that Hoshi actually blinks.

"Jeonghan?"

"Close the doors."

"They're already—"

"And lock it."

A crease appears between Hoshi's brows. “Why? You’re bleeding all over the floor, she needs to treat you.”

“She’ll do her job,” he grits out. “Just do what I fucking told you to, will you?”

Hoshi lets out a scoff before turning away, lifting the thick timber beam from where it rests against the wall and dropping it heavily into place across the warehouse doors. The dull thud echoes through the room before silence settles once more. 

You are already kneeling in front of him, your hands fumbling with the buttons of his coat as blood continues to seep between his fingers.

"We need to stop the bleeding. I need to see it."

He removes his hand and immediately, fresh blood wells from the wound, soaking through the torn fabric of his shirt and running over your fingers before you can press your own hand against it.

Your stomach turns. The knife went in deeper than you thought.

"Saints. Where am I going to find bandages from? I don’t have—"

"We don't have time for that."

You look up. "What?"

His eyes meet yours. "You heard me."

You freeze. For a fraction of a second, neither of you speaks. Then you shake your head. “No, I can’t.”

"I brought you in for this,” he almost sneers. “Don’t be a coward and just do it. You’ve hidden long enough.”

"Jeonghan, I—."

His voice is quieter now, though no less certain. “Heal it, come on.”

Your mind races through every excuse it has rehearsed over the last year, every lie that had carried you this far across the Fold, across the sea and into Ketterdam, but none of them seem to matter anymore when each passing second leaves Jeonghan that much paler than he had been a moment before. 

“If you don't stop arguing with me and start doing what I've been paying you to do since the day you walked into the Slat, I'm going to bleed to death on this warehouse floor while you stand here worrying about a secret I figured out before I even learnt your name."

You swallow. "I've spent so long making sure nobody found out."

"And you've spent that time stitching half my crew back together with linen and tinctures when you could've done it in half the time." His eyes remain fixed on yours, unwavering despite the strain beginning to creep into his voice. "You've hidden long enough. Hoshi was going to find out eventually. I'd hoped it wouldn't require me getting stabbed first."

You can feel Hoshi watching the two of you, the confusion almost tangible even without looking at him.

“Your secret will be safe with him, and you know it.”

You do know it, which is why you press your hands to his wound after a few more seconds of hesitation. Your fingers tremble. It has been so long.

So long since you've used your power for anything more than the occasional bruise when nobody was looking, so long since your father had been beside you to remind you to be careful, to keep your hands hidden whenever strangers came too close, to remember that people did not look at Grisha and see people first. 

You remember promising yourself that you would never use your abilities again unless there was absolutely no other choice. The promise suddenly feels very small.

You close your eyes and let the power answer.

Warmth blooms beneath your palms almost immediately, familiar enough that your breath catches despite yourself. It travels slowly through your hands and into the torn muscle beneath them, spreading through the wound in waves until the blood coating your fingers begins to slow down.

Jeonghan's breathing catches, his jaw tightening hard enough for the muscle to jump, but he doesn't make a sound. By the time you finally pull your hands away, only a thin pink scar remains where the knife had entered. 

You stare at your blood-covered hands for a moment longer before forcing yourself to look up. Jeonghan merely glances down at the now-healed wound, looking almost unsurprised. Hoshi, however, hasn't taken his eyes off you. Whatever question sits behind them never makes it to his mouth.

Jeonghan smooths the torn edge of his shirt back into place before pushing himself to his feet with the help of his cane, a little slower than usual but steady nonetheless. "Send Mingyu after Hendrik," he says, as though the last few minutes hadn't altered the course of the evening in the slightest. "Tell him I want this handled before sunrise."

Hoshi hesitates only a second before giving a quiet nod and disappearing through the warehouse doors.

Hoshi doesn’t sleep that night.

He sits on the edge of his bed with his cards and works through the revelation the same way he works through a losing hand—looking for the mistakes, the tells, the things he should’ve caught earlier. 

The cards move through his fingers without him thinking about it. At some point one of them catches the tip of his index finger, a thin sting rising across it, and he looks down at the beads of red welling on it for a moment before closing his hand and going back to thinking. 

He gives up on sleep a few minutes before sunrise.

Taking two steps at a time, Hoshi’s on his way up to the third floor for air when he sees you through the glass. You’re out of the narrow ledge, one hand braced against the bricks, the other reaching for the iron bars that jut from the wall above. Your left foot keeps sliding off the drainpipe. 

You haven't found the trick of it yet. 

Hoshi opens the window. 

"Left foot higher," he says, and you startle hard enough that his arm shoots out and catches your sleeve. "Easy. Easy, I've got you." 

You look at him over your shoulder. 

"Right hand higher," he continues, "I'll be right behind you."

He talks you up through the rest of it, one instruction at a time, and when you finally pull yourself onto the flat section of the roof, the city opens up below. The canals shimmer in a grey-ish silver and the lanterns still burn along East Stave. Hoshi follows and settles down beside you.

"Last night," he starts.

You go still beside him.

"I'm not going to tell anyone," he says, glancing at you. "I need you to know that first.".

"I know," you mumble quietly. "I know you won't."

Hoshi speaks up again after a few moments of silence, broken only by the gulls on the harbour. “So you’re a Corporalki?”

You swallow and nod. “Yes. Half, anyway. My mother was full-blooded. I got less.”

“Less?” he repeats, like he doesn't quite believe that word applied to what he saw tonight.

 "I can't do what a trained Corporalki can. I can't stop a heart or pull the feeling from someone's limbs. I just—" you look at your hands, "—I can close things. Knit things back together. Small wounds quickly, larger ones take more." 

"And it costs you?”

“It’s not supposed to, but I’m untrained, and I’ve spent my entire life trying not to use my powers. My bar for exertion is quite low,” you sigh, tucking your chin in as you pull your legs up to your chest.

Hoshi nods slowly. The wind comes off the water, sharp and cold, and somewhere below a cart’s wheels grind against the stone, the city beginning its morning routine. The sky has gone from grey to warmer colours—orange like a street vendor's hutspot, then bleeding into crimson. 

You reach over without planning to and take his hand, unfurling his fingers. He has a cut on one of them, thin and dried at the edges, barely anything. 

When you press your thumb to it, the warmth arrives and leaves in less than a second and when you lift your thumb the cut is gone.

He looks down at his hand, and then at you. His brows pull together, like he’s been caught off-guard, and the corners of his lips dip down. You almost giggle because of how touched he looks when he glances at you again.

“Darling, you didn’t have to do that,” he mumbles.

“I know. It’s alright.”

Your chest stutters when his hand closes around yours and he squeezes it once, warm and comforting, before he lets go. 

“That probably wasn’t how you wanted anyone to find out, was it?” He asks, rhetorically, looking at the buildings that rise in front. “So I want to give you something back.”

You sit up a bit straighter. “What?”

Hoshi clears his throat. “Well, it’s not really a secret, and not like yours in anyway. Anyone could find it out if they asked, but nobody calls me by it.” A pause. “My name, my actual name is Soonyoung.”

"Soonyoung?" you repeat, checking that you heard it right.

"Kwon Soonyoung," he confirms, with a small nod. He's looking at the buildings still, not at you. "It's not the same thing at all, I know that. It doesn't cost me anything to tell you and it's not going to get me killed, so." 

"But it's the most I have,” he continues, “you can use it, if you'd like. I'd be fine with that. You'd be the only one, actually." His mouth curves slightly, and he finally glances at you sideways. "Never particularly liked the name when I was younger, but now I think I'd like to hear someone use it."

You look at him for a moment. The sun has fully risen now, the light gold and warm across the rooftop, and his face in it is open, a little uncertain, but entirely sincere.

"Soonyoung," you say, carefully.

He looks away quickly, but a smile breaks across his face anyway. You catch it before he can hide it, and the warmth of it pulls a matching one across your own lips. 

Above Ketterdam, the sun keeps rising and you think you could stay up here a while longer. You think he could too. 

He stands over your desk with the ledger open, jabbing a thick finger at a column of numbers you checked thrice. His voice is loud enough to grate against your skull, but not loud enough to draw attention from anyone who might care.

“You counted this shipment yourself,” he insists. “Don’t pretend you didn’t.”

“I didn’t miscount,” you say quietly. “Check the crates again.”

The foreman bristles when you don’t immediately bend to his words. He snatches the ledger back, flips it open again, and jabs at the page as though repetition might wear you down. “You new ones always think you’re sharper than the work,” he grits out. “Can’t count, can’t follow instructions, but somehow you know better than the men who’ve done this for years.”

You try not to rise to it. You’ve learned that people in Ketterdam like the performance of anger more than the substance of it.

You open your mouth to respond, but a knock sounds against the doorframe. The foreman goes still and you look up.

A man stands in the doorway, one shoulder resting lightly against the frame. The light from the street behind him catches on the edges of his coat, and for a moment he almost looks carved out of a different world entirely. Handsome in a way that draws the eye without trying to—sharp lines softened by his windswept hair and an expression you can’t quite read.

“Evening,” he greets cheerfully. “Hope I’m not interrupting.”

You aren’t sure what to make of the man, but the foreman reacts as if someone far more important has arrived. His posture straightens and his mouth snaps shut. The man notices but pretends he doesn’t, eyes flicking once to the ledger, then settling on you with mild curiosity.

“Sorry,” he says, though the smile in his voice betrays no real apology. “I’m looking for someone.”

“Who?” the foreman asks.

He nods toward you. “Her.”

The foreman bristles. “She’s busy.”

He acknowledges that with a polite glance at you. “You seem to be wasting her time anyway. I’m sure two minutes wouldn’t cause a dent in your business, would it?”

That earns him a sputter making you hide a smile.

He steps inside, his gaze moving from the ledger to you with a kind of bright, curious interest. “I really do need her for a moment.”

You glance at him, uncertain. “What for?”

He opens his mouth, then pauses, like he doesn’t actually know what to say. “A conversation,” he settles on. “A very innocent, extremely short conversation. Promise.”

You narrow your eyes. “That doesn’t sound convincing.”

He brightens. “I can try again.”

“Maybe don’t,” you sigh.

He lifts both hands in surrender, amusement tugging at his mouth. “Fair enough. Let’s step outside before the man dies of indignation.”

You don’t miss the way the foreman stiffens at that, but you follow the man out anyway. The air in the corridor is cooler and easier to breathe in, and the noise of the factory dulls into a familiar backdrop of machinery and the scrape of crates on the floor. 

He walks beside you, so when he stops, you stop too.

For a moment, he simply watches you, taking you in with that same curious attention—not rude, and never lingering too long, just enough that you feel seen.

“So,” he says at last, “have you heard of Yoon Jeonghan?”

You blink. “No.”

He nods like he expected that. “The Dregs?”

Another shake of your head. “Should I have?”

His brows lift, impressed. “Most people know the names before they know the city. You’re either very new or very good at minding your own business.”

You choose not to answer that.

He rocks back on his heels, hands slipping into his coat pockets. “Either way,” he says, “you’ve managed to avoid all the right trouble. That’s impressive.”

You tilt your head. “Is this conversation supposed to make sense at some point?”

“Eventually,” he says, grinning. “I lied about this being a short conversation. You see, I like to ease people into things. Very gentle approach.”

You raise an eyebrow. He laughs under his breath, like he can’t help himself.

“Alright,” he says, tone softening as if deciding to give you something sincere. “Jeonghan runs the crew. He knows almost everyone in Ketterdam, especially newcomers. He’s very particular but makes me do all his odd jobs. So I must be here for a reason.”

Your pulse jumps. “What reason?”

“I’m not completely sure either. He’s a bit secretive, you see… but he thinks you’d fit in,” he says simply, “with us.”

“With you,” you repeat, skeptical.

“Mm.” His smile turns a touch playful. “You’d get used to me. Most people do. Eventually.”

You ignore the warmth that creeps up your neck. “You haven’t even told me your name.”

He looks delighted that you asked, bowing slightly in a theatrical manner. “The name’s Hoshi. At your service, darling.” 

“And this Jeonghan person,” you clear your throat, a bit flustered, “wants me to do what?”

Hoshi shrugs one shoulder. “Join us. Help out. Exist somewhere that isn’t a textile factory with men who look one bad day away from throwing a crate at someone.”

You fight a smile. “That’s not a job description.”

He brightens. “Is that a requirement for you? Because I can make one up. Something impressive. Dangerous. A little mysterious, if that’s your style.”

“My style?”

He leans in just a fraction, enough to make you notice but not enough to overwhelm. “You don’t exactly blend in as well as you think you do.”

Your breath catches. Surely, he wouldn’t know?

“And if I say no?” you ask, trying to sound firmer than you feel.

Hoshi’s grin curves, easy and unbothered. “Then I’ll ask again tomorrow.”

“You’re persistent,” you note.

“Only when something interests me.”

You break eye contact first, only because his gaze feels a little too perceiving for someone you’ve known for barely ten minutes. He notices but he doesn’t push.

“That’s all you came here to say?” you manage.

“For today,” he says, cheerful as ever. “Tomorrow I’ll be more compelling. Inspirational, even.”

“I doubt that.”

He presses a hand to his chest in mock offense. “You wound me.”

You snort before you can stop yourself, and his smile sharpens at the sound. A flicker of something warm slips between you, something that feels like the beginning of trouble if you’re not careful.

You straighten, reminding yourself you barely know him. “I should get back.”

“Of course.” He steps aside with a little flourish, granting you the path back toward the factory floor. “Wouldn’t want your foreman to worry.”

The joke draws another quiet laugh out of you before you can swallow it. His eyes brighten again.

“See you tomorrow?” he says, hopeful but pretending not to be.

You shake your head. “You’re assuming there will be a tomorrow.”

He grins, unable to hide it. “There will be. For me, at least. I’m annoyingly tenacious and Jeonghan probably won’t let me sleep until I’ve got you on board.”

You roll your eyes and turn around, not bothering with a response. 

The sound of his laugh follows you all the way back inside.

West Stave is louder than you expected.

You’d heard stories, of course—gamblers shouting over lost kruge, the clatter of dice spilling onto tables, music leaking out of every doorway—but seeing it is different. The noise rolls through the street like a tide, carrying the smell of cheap liquor, canal water, and too many bodies pressed too close together. Lanterns glow from crooked poles, throwing uneven light across the cobblestones, and the buildings lean onto each other.

You shouldn’t be here. You’ve told yourself that five times already. But staying in your rented room felt impossible tonight, and staying in the factory a minute after your shift ended felt even worse.

Calling the four walls that you lived in a room would be generous. With a bed that creaked when you breathed near it, a window that refused to open unless bribed with half your body weight and walls so thin you could hear the couple two rooms down fighting, you’d rather be here.

You’ve been tired in a way that sleep won’t fix. Tired of the foreman, tired of the crates, tired of pretending you aren’t barely holding the seams of your life together.

Your father’s voice has been echoing in your head for days. It creeps in when you let your guard slip for too long. You wonder where he is now.

Which is why you don’t notice him at first.

You’re focused on a street vendor’s lanterns reflecting on the river’s surface, the way it glows gold then dulls again as you pull your shawl tighter around your shoulders when a familiar voice cuts through the din with too much ease.

“Well,” Hoshi drawls, “you’re a sight I didn’t expect tonight.”

You turn.

He’s leaning against the corner post of a betting house, one ankle crossed over the other. He looks like he’s been there for a while, but you can’t really tell.

You blink, startled. “You… I thought you said you’d be at the factory the next day.”

He lifts a brow, pushing off the post almost lazily. “Ah. Yes.” A pause, then a teasing grin. “Work called, darling. I try to be dependable, but I’m only human.”

You scoff, looking away,

“And you thought about it yet?” he asks, head tilting as he tries to read more of your face than you intend to show.

You cross your arms. “Thought about what?”

Hoshi shakes his head, amused. “Joining the Dregs, of course.”

“I still don’t know what you’re offering me.”

He lifts his shoulders in a shrug. “A better life, for starters.”

You stare at him, expecting a joke, but he looks serious, all of a sudden. 

“Look,” Hoshi starts, tone softening, “the Dregs aren’t saints. We don’t pretend to be. But we take care of our own. A roof you can sleep under without worrying it’ll fall on your face. People who don’t shout every time something goes missing. A crew that actually notices when you’re gone.”

He gestures loosely at the mess of the Stave behind him. “Protection, too. This city doesn’t play fair. So we make our own rules.”

You fold your arms, partly to steady yourself. “And that’s… it?”

“No.” His smile turns wistful. “It’s also loyalty. Not the pretty kind. The real kind. If you fall behind, someone reaches back. If you get into trouble, someone pulls you out. If you’re worth having, you’re kept.”

The words hit something you’ve been ignoring for days. Weeks, maybe. The ache of being adrift with no one to answer to, no one to miss you, no one to tell you something as simple as you’re not alone.

He watches your expression change, and his own gentles even more. 

“No one asks questions here. You can start on a new page. You’ve been carrying everything on your own, it looks like.” he points out. “Can’t imagine that’s been fun.”

You look away. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know enough.” He nudges your elbow lightly, just enough to make you look at him again. “I also know you’re smarter than your job. We could use your help.”

“What help could I possible give you?”

Hoshi hums, scratching lightly at his cheek as if thinking it over for the first time. “Well… you did fix up one of ours last week.”

Your stomach dips. “I did what?”

“Chan,” he says. “Brown hair, talks too fast, has the spatial awareness of a newborn colt? He was bleeding everywhere and you handled it better than he did.”

You blink. “He asked for help.”

“He also nearly fainted,” Hoshi adds in a tone way too light for the injuries you remember on the boy. “Which he still insists was due to blood loss, not fear. Debatable, if you ask me.”

Despite yourself, you laugh—small and quick—and his smile widens like that’s all he’d been aiming for.

“I only bandaged him,” you say.

“Sure,” he replies lightly. “But you did it properly. Fast and without panicking. We could use that.”

You look away. “Anyone could’ve done that.”

Hoshi makes a sound that means ‘No, but okay. If you say so.’ He shifts his weight, hands slipping back into his coat pockets. “Point is, you helped. And we need people who help.”

“I’m not a healer,” you say, a little too quickly. You hope he doesn’t notice, or that he chalks it up to nervousness.

He nods. “Didn’t say you were. Just said you’re useful. We like useful.”

You exhale, tension slipping from your shoulders without your permission.

“Tempting, right?” Hoshi prompts, bumping his shoulder with yours. 

“Maybe. You aren’t lying, are you?”

Hoshi is clearly pleased, but tones it down. “Of course not. You can meet Jeonghan right now if you’d like.”

“Now?”

“Yes! If you’re up for a small walk, that is. He’s at the Crow Club tonight.” He snaps his fingers before pointing in the direction of the building he just named, you assume. “It’s our gambling hall, on East Stave.”

“A gambling hall?” You let out incredulously. “Why would I come with you? Why should I trust you?”

Hoshi’s grin sharpens. “Well done. That’s your first lesson learnt: you shouldn’t. Trusting strange men in alleys? Terrible habit. Gets people killed all the time.”

“That’s not exactly convincing,” you mutter.

“Mm. I’m not trying to convince you,” he replies, tilting his head. “If I wanted to force you, you’d already be walking.”

You don’t reply and let the silence sit. 

Hoshi rocks back on his heels, then straightens with a small, decisive nod. “Come on.”

When you don’t move he glances at you, one brow lifting. “Or don’t. I’ll still be here tomorrow.”

You sigh after a few seconds, pushing yourself off the post. “If this turns out to be a terrible idea—”

“It will,” he cuts in cheerfully. “But you’ll survive it.”

You shoot him a look, but fall into step beside him anyway.

Surprisingly, Hoshi doesn’t speak as much as you expected him to on the five minute walk over to the other side. You don’t know if you’re grateful for the silence or unnerved by it. 

The Crow Club, however, is exactly what you pictured it might be. Noise crashes over East Stave in uneven waves, and the air is heavy with smells of fried food and cheap alcohol. Everywhere you look, gaudy gambling dens beg for attention, but the Crow Club is different—a sleek, windowless fortress of black lacquer and crimson trim that seems to eat the light around it. 

Hoshi leads you past a barker shouting about free drinks and pushes through the heavy doors, opening up to an even louder crowd. The rattle of wooden wheels, the snap of cards, and a hundred different voices competing over the sound of clinking glass are overwhelming. Everything inside is dark wood and deep crimson, with no windows to tell you if it’s midnight or noon. 

Hoshi doesn’t pause to let you take it in, though he does slow just enough to make sure you’re still at his side, his hand hovering near your elbow without quite touching as he guides you through the press of bodies and tables. The floor is a maze of red felt, cards shuffling in practiced hands while dealers call out numbers, their movements smooth and unbroken no matter how loudly the players argue around them. Dice roll somewhere to your left with a satisfying clatter against the table, followed by a burst of groans and laughter that ripples outward before dissolving into the larger hum of the room.

A few glance up as he passes, recognition flickering across their faces before it’s tucked away again. 

He stops near the back, where a booth sits slightly raised from the rest of the floor, half-screened by carved wood and heavy drapery that softens the sound without fully cutting it off. There’s no guard, no visible barrier, and yet no one crosses into that space.

Hoshi slides into the seat first, easy and unbothered, one arm slung along the backrest before the man sitting beside him pushes it off with the top of his cane. 

You hesitate for a fraction of a second before taking the seat opposite, your back straight despite the nervousness slithering up your spine. 

The man across from you watches as you sit, his gaze moving once from your face to your hands and back again. Up close, he looks untouched by the noise of the club—with unruffled clothes and his polished demeanor. The cane that he sets down beside him is angled just so that its crow-headed handle catches the light. The curve of its beak looks sharp enough to draw blood if pressed the right way.

“So,” he rasps out, his voice making you flinch slightly, “this is the one.”

Hoshi’s teeth flash. “Told you I’d find her.”

“You took your time. I asked you more than a week ago.”

“And then you sent me to deal with the Razorgulls. Something the others could’ve handled on their own.” Hoshi mutters, rolling his eyes. 

You look at the two of them in confusion until Jeonghan’s gaze finally shifts back to you. 

“The name’s Yoon Jeonghan. I assume Hoshi told you what I’m offering.”

You nod slowly, glancing at his slender but gloved fingers that drum against the table-top. “Kind of, yeah.”

“You work in the warehouse on Third Harbour,” Jeonghan hums. “You arrived recently. No affiliations. No debts worth mentioning.” A pause, just long enough to suggest he knows more than he’s saying. “You’ve kept your head down.”

“I try mind my own business,” you reply.

Jeonghan shrugs. “Sure. Don’t know how easy that’s going to be, but you’ve survived till now, I guess.”

Hoshi lets out a small scoff, leaning back into the booth again as if he’s settling in for a show. “That’s a compliment, by the way,” he adds, glancing at you. “From him, that’s practically glowing praise.”

“You can go,” Jeonghan smiles at the man beside him, although it doesn’t look very friendly. “Your job’s done now.”

Hoshi exhales loudly, throwing a dirty look at the man beside him before pushing his hands against the table and rising.

“You’re no fun tonight,” he mutters, though there’s no bite to it.

“By your standards, I’m never fun,” Jeonghan replies, his gaze already back on you as thought Hoshi’s been set aside before he’s even left.

Hoshi shakes his head as he straightens, eyes flickering over to you. “I’ll be around.”

“You won’t be needed,” Jeonghan sighs, but you nod at him anyway, watching as he walks away, hands slipping into his pockets.

Once Hoshi is out of earshot, Jeonghan leans in, the head of his cane tucked under his chin. “Hoshi says you’re a ghost. No records at the harbor or travel papers. You didn't come through the front door of this city, and you didn't come on an official merchant cog.”

He lets a gloved finger trace the edge of the table. “People who arrive in Ketterdam without a trace are usually running from a debt or a noose. But you don’t have the look of a criminal. Something’s off.”

He taps his cane once. Thump.

“I know you’re either from Novyi Zem or Ravka, and that you got on a textile ship heading to Kerch. But why are you here?”

The question sounds almost rhetorical, but Jeonghan watches you with his eyes like two dark flints catching the red light of the club. 

Jeonghan’s eyes drop to your sleeves, then back to your face. “Ravka is desperate, no? They’re scraping the bottom of the barrel for the Second Army. You look a little old to be conscripted but…”

“I… I don't know what you're talking about,” you mumble, forcing a confused frown onto your face. You try to let your hands fidget, to look like any other frightened girl off the docks. “My father and I were supposed to get onto one of the ships heading back to Novyi Zem. I just wanted to get away from the fighting. Everyone’s running. My father and I got separated. That’s it.”

Jeonghan lets out a short, dry sound that might have been a laugh if there were any warmth in it. He leans in closer, the scent of rain and old wood clinging to him, cutting through the heavy smell of tobacco in the room.

“The confusion is a nice touch,” he rasps, his voice dropping to a low, rhythmic crawl. “But you’re not a very good liar. You don’t look like a farm girl. You did a clean job on Chan.”

“I studied,” you blurt out, the words tripping over each other as you scramble for a defense. “Back home. I was an apprentice to a medik. I know how to treat a puncture, how to stop a fever. That’s all it was with the boy. I have a knack for it, but it’s just medicine.”

The corner of his mouth twitches again. “You may have hidden yourself away your whole life, but Ketterdam’s my turf. I know about everyone who comes and goes. You can’t lie to me.”

“You’re Grisha, or half-blooded enough that the distinction doesn't matter. You hid from the Second Army because you didn't want to be a weapon, or maybe because your parents were smart enough to keep you out of a kefta.” 

“I—”

“But clearly—” He interrupts you, raising his cane. “You’ve been practicing. Not much, and without a teacher too, but enough to keep yourself alive and well, it seems.”

Jeonghan shrugs, a careless movement that suggests your life story is a bore to him. “I don’t care about your reasons. I don’t care about your King’s war. But you need to understand that Ketterdam isn't a hiding place—it’s an auction block. Without me, you’re just a valuable piece of property waiting for a slaver to chain you down with an absurd contract. With me, you’re a ghost with a paycheck and as much respect as you can gain in this city.”

He taps the table once, a final, heavy sound. “You want to keep pretending you’re a medik? Fine. But you’ll be a medik for the Dregs. If you refuse, I might just mention to the Stadwatch that there’s an unregistered Ravkan hiding in the harbors. They get a bounty. You get a cell. My life goes on either way.”

You swallow hard, the tightness in your throat making it difficult to breathe. Fear settles in the form of a cold, heavy stone in your stomach. He knows. He said the word as if it were nothing, a casual observation of the weather, but to you, it’s a death sentence you've been running from since you were old enough to understand what it meant to have these powers.

“You talk like you’re doing me a favour,” you say, your voice trembling despite your best efforts to sound defiant. “If it doesn’t make a difference to you, why waste the breath? Why bother with the recruitment speech if you really don't care?”

“I’m a businessman,” he rasps, the sound low and dangerous. “And I find that willing assets last longer than broken ones. I don't care about your soul, but I do care about my men. I have plenty of thieves and plenty of killers, but I don’t have anyone who can stitch a man back together.”

“You’re threatening me,” you say, the words coming out sharper than you intended. You lean back, trying to put distance between yourself and the cold edge of his presence. “If your intention was to make me feel safer here, it isn’t working.”

“I’m not going to coddle you and promise you everything is going to be alright. The people who smile at you and offer you kindness are the ones who will sell you while you’re sleeping. I’m telling you exactly what I want and exactly what will happen if I don’t get it.”

He tilts his head, his gaze unwavering. “You don't have to like me. You don't even have to trust me. You just have to realize that I’m probably the only one in this city who isn’t trying to put a collar on you for a profit even after knowing who you are. I’m putting you to work.”

"So," he says, his voice a low crawl. "Do we have an agreement, or can I get back to my drink and let the world find you?"

You hold his gaze for a second longer than you should, something tight and stubborn settling in your chest, before you shake your head once.

“I need time.”

Jeonghan cocks an eyebrow, looking at you over the rim of his glass. He sets it down with a loud clink and a sigh. 

“Fine. Three days.”

You nod, already pushing yourself to your feet because sitting there any longer feels like a mistake you don’t want to make twice. The drapery brushes your shoulder as you step out, and the noise of the club folds back over you, loud and careless and somehow easier to handle than the quiet you just left behind.

You don’t stop walking. Not until you’re a few steps into the crowd, not until the weight of that conversation lifts enough from your shoulders that you can breathe a little.

You glance up to see Hoshi halfway through a round at one of the tables, a loose circle of men leaning in while he flips a card between his fingers. There’s a small pile of kruge at his elbow, enough to suggest he’s been winning but just enough to keep the game interesting still.

He doesn’t look at you immediately.

You have half the mind to walk straight past him and out the door, leave him to his game and his coins and whatever else he does to fill his time, because none of this would have happened if he hadn’t decided to pull you into it.

But you stop anyway.

He’s leaning over the table, laughing at something someone says, sleeves pushed up, a few strands of hair falling into his eyes as he flicks a card between his fingers before dropping it cleanly onto the pile. 

When he finally catches sight of you, Hoshi drops the rest of the cards without a second thought, gathers the coins in front of him in one quick motion, and pushes his chair back.

“Hey—” someone protests.

“Later,” Hoshi says, already stepping away. “Don’t lose my money.”

“You’re in the middle of—”

“I know,” he cuts in, not slowing.

He reaches you in a few strides, stopping just short, close enough that you can see the slight flush across his face, the way his shirt has shifted at the collar from leaning forward.

“Well,” he says, like nothing’s happened. “Was he better at convincing you than I was?”

You don’t answer and instead turn to walk out. He follows without hesitation.

“That bad?” he asks, falling into step beside you.

“You could’ve said something,” you snap, pushing past a group near the door. “Anything. Instead you drop me in there and disappear like it’s normal.”

“I didn’t disappear,” Hoshi says easily. “I was right there.”

“That’s not the point.”

He reaches ahead to push the door open before you get there, stepping aside to let you through. Pettily, you don’t thank him.

The air outside is cooler, easier to breathe, but it doesn’t do much for the irritation still sitting in your chest.

“You left me alone with him,” you continue, turning on him once you’re a few steps out. “You knew what that would be like, didn’t you?”

“I had a feeling,” he admits.

“A feeling?” you repeat, incredulous. “He practically—” you cut yourself off, shaking your head. “He already knows everything. Or at least enough to make it sound like he does.”

Hoshi’s mouth curves slightly. 

“—And no! It’s not impressive, it’s irritating.”

Hoshi rocks back on his heels, hands slipping into his pockets as he watches you, expression softer now. “He does that a lot, but you get used to it after sometime. And you’re still here, which means you didn’t tell him to go to hell and walk out.”

“I told him I needed time.”

Hoshi lets out a low whistle. “Three days?”

You look at him sharply. “How did you—”

“He likes that number,” Hoshi cuts in, shrugging. “Long enough to feel generous, short enough that you can’t get comfortable and forget about it.”

You walk in silence for a few steps, the sounds of East Stave settling around you, the distance from the club putting just enough space between you and that booth.

“And what’s with the gloves?” you ask finally, glancing at him. “He didn’t take them off once. It must’ve been boiling in there.”

Hoshi smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Ah, they call him the bastard of the barrel, Dirtyhands. I suppose you haven’t heard the stories yet.”

“Stories?”

He nods. “There’s quite a few. My favourite is the one which say that his fingers are permanently stained with the blood of those he’s killed. Oh! People also think he has claws instead of fingers in there. Fun stuff, really.”

You frown. “None of that sounds true.”

“It isn’t,” he agrees immediately. “If anything, it’s the opposite. Which brings us to version three—he’s done enough with his hands that he’d rather not be reminded of it every time he looks down.”

You glance at him. “And you believe that?”

Hoshi considers it for a second, then shakes his head. “I don’t know why he wears them either, but I think he likes that people can’t decide which one is worse,” he says. “They spend so much time arguing about it that they forget to pay attention to what he’s actually doing.”

You let out a quiet exhale. “You guys are weird.”

That pulls out a real laugh from him. “Oh darling, wait till you meet the others.”

You had made your decision pretty soon, and very firmly too. It hadn’t even taken you all three days. You’d gone back to your room after that conversation, shut the door, checked the lock twice for good measure, and told yourself you were not—under any circumstances—getting involved with gang business, gambling halls, or handsome men. 

Handsome? What—no. Strange men, maybe.

It had felt like a good and sensible decision. So what if Jeonghan knew of your grisha blood? If he outed you, you could out him too. You weren’t sure how just Kerch’s laws were, but surely threatening, fighting, gambling and whatever else went on in that place couldn’t be entirely acceptable either. There had to be some kind of balance to it. Some kind of risk on his side as well.

The decision had held up in your mind for two days. Long enough to go to sleep with it still intact, long enough to wake up the next morning and go to work and pretend it hadn’t already started to slip.

But on the second day you’d found a piece of paper slipped under your door while you were away—a narrow strip of cheap quality, folded twice, your name written on it in handwriting you didn’t recognize. 

It had been an address to someplace called the Slat. You knew it had to have been from Jeonghan because there was no one else in this city who would have both the reason and the nerve to find you without being told where to look.

You had stood there for a while, longer than you cared to admit, turning it over between your fingers like the answer might reveal itself if you handled it enough times.

You hadn’t gone.

Not that night, and not the next morning either. You had folded it once more and tucked it away, as though reducing its size might reduce its significance, and then gone about your routine with an effort to be a little more careful.

It might have worked, if not for the third morning at the warehouse. 

The conversation had started somewhere behind you, low at first and not particularly careful, the kind of gossip that would have blended into the rest of the noise on any other day, but the words carried just far enough to hold your attention before you could decide otherwise.

“There was a group,” someone was saying, his voice pitched just low enough to suggest it mattered. “Five, maybe six of them. Staying together near the east canal, in one of those old boarding houses.”

You kept your head down, your hands moving over the crate in front of you.

“Grisha?”

“Yes. Fabrikators. I heard that they were working for someone in the Merchant Council.” 

A brief pause followed, filled with the scrape of wood and the shuffle of boots.

“Who found them?” someone asked.

“A drüskelle. Someone apparently tipped one off. The man only caught two of them, but they’ll probably look around for the rest now.”

“Only two?” another voice cut in, sharper this time. “Then the rest ran?”

“Or they’re hiding,” came the reply. “Doesn’t matter much. Once one of them’s got a lead, they don’t let it go.”

A crate thudded somewhere to your left, the sound a little too loud against the rest of the room.

“They’ll start asking around, then,” someone else said, quieter now, like the thought had only just occurred to him. “People saw them come and go. Someone always does.”

“And someone always talks,” the first man added, almost idly.

A loud chuckle followed. 

“Doesn’t take much,” the first man went on. “A name, a face, where they’ve been seen. That’s all it ever is.”

So by the time your shift ended, the decision you’d made two days ago had worn thin in your head. Which is how you find yourself taking a turn you hadn’t planned, your steps steady enough that anyone looking might think you meant to take this route all along.

The main road is louder at this hour.

It always is, but you notice it more now, the press of people and voices and movement folding in on itself until there’s barely any space left untouched by it. Lanterns hang unlit above you, waiting for evening, but the noise doesn’t need them, spilling out of doorways and open windows.

The address sits in your mind with a clarity that feels almost inconvenient now, guiding you forward without needing to be checked, each turn falling into place before you can second-guess it, until the street widens just enough for the crowd to thin and the building ahead comes into view.

The Slat looms over the narrow alley, its three stories of soot-stained brick leaning precariously against the neighboring buildings. The gabled roof is a jagged silhouette of blackened shingles, topped by a rusted iron hoist that creaks in the wind.

Your pace slows just enough to take the building in, and the few people gathered outside who don’t so much as pause their conversations when you approach, even if you feel the briefest amount of attention pass over you.

And then you see him.

Hoshi stands off to the side, half-turned toward another man, one shoulder resting loosely against the wall. His sleeves are pushed up, and in one of his hands sit a revolvers, the pearl handle catching what little light filters down the street, pale and glinting against his fingers. He spins one of them by the trigger guard in an practiced motion, the metal flashing once before settling again, like it’s something he does without thinking.

The man across from him says something that draws his eyebrows into a furrow as they speak in hushed voices. 

You walk straight up to him.

It takes him a second to notice but when he does he stills instantly, the revolver pausing mid-motion before it disappears from his hand entirely, tucked away with ease.

Hoshi’s lips pull into a smirk.

“Well,” he says, pushing himself off the wall as though the conversation he’d been having no longer matters, “I was starting to think you’d make me wait the full three days.”

The man beside him glances between the two of you, clearly mid-speech, but Hoshi doesn’t spare him more than a brief nod of acknowledgment before stepping closer, stopping just short of you, close enough that you have to tilt your chin up slightly to meet his gaze. There’s an amused look in his eyes, the seriousness from his previous conversation completely gone.

You huff softly, crossing your arms in what you hope looks like reluctance or defiance. “Were you the one who dropped off the address, or was it Jeonghan?”

He smiles, looking pleased with himself. “That was me, darling. Jeonghan doesn’t do ‘petty’ jobs like that. He did spare me some time and found the place for me. I didn’t tail you, don’t worry.”

“Well, you did slip it under the door instead of breaking in,” you sigh. 

“I can be very respectful when I want to be.”

You give him a look that says you don’t believe that for a second.

“So,” he says, quieter now, “did you make up your mind? You joining us?”

With another dramatic exhale, you nod.  

“Great! I’ll take you in then.”

His grin lingers a moment longer than it needs to, like he’s already decided this is a win worth holding onto, before he turns and pushes the door open. 

He steps aside just enough to let you pass first, one hand still braced against the wood. “Wouldn’t want you changing your mind at the threshold. That’d be embarrassing for both of us.”

You roll your eyes, but step in anyway.

The Slat is warmer than the street, the air thick with the faint smell of old wood, sweat, and something cooking somewhere deeper inside. Voices carry from different corners—overlapping, nothing quite loud enough to be called a crowd but enough to tell you that this place is always occupied.

“So,” he says after a few steps, “what scared you off your very sensible plan of never coming back?”

You glance at him. “How’d you know that?”

“I assumed. Looks like I was right,” he hums teasingly. “You don’t strike me as someone who changes her mind for no reason at all. Bit stubborn for that.”

“I just—” you pause, eyebrows furrowing. You can’t tell him the real reason because you’d out ourself. Somehow, the thought doesn’t feel too bad and telling him doesn’t feel too dangerous, but you decide to let it go for now. 

“Figured I might be safer on this side.”

“Safe is a funny choice of wording.” Hoshi glances at you. “Not much of what we do is safe, but I agree. It’s better than being out there.”

“Come on,” he adds, nudging open the door at the end of the corridor with the back of his hand, stepping aside just enough to let you through again, the same easy familiarity in the motion as before. “Let’s go make it official before you decide to change your mind and run off.”

The Slat has its own rhythm and it takes you about two weeks to learn it. 

The job of brewing the morning coffee belongs to whoever’s up first, which is usually Chan. You figure this out on your third day when you come downstairs to find him at the kitchen table with slightly stale bread and a pot of the black liquid that he offers quite cheerfully. 

You take it because refusing feels rude, especially when the boy’s looking at you with those hopeful eyes, and drink it because it turns out you need it. He's already told you three things about the building before you've finished the cup—which floorboard on the second landing will give you away if you're trying to be quiet, that Jeonghan takes his coffee without anything in it and will notice if someone's moved his cup, and that the room at the end of the hall belongs to Hoshi but he rarely sleeps in it. 

He then asks you if you know how to make pea soup, because he doesn’t, but Jun is sick. 

You don’t either, but you figure it out. Chan watches you the entire time with an expression of such transparent relief that you have to look away to keep from smiling at him. He seems to be the kind of person who wears everything on his face, and soon enough you find out from Hoshi he can be fiercely loyal to those who’ve helped him.

Which includes you, now.

By the time the soup’s done he's explained the Dime Lions unprompted—six years of bad blood with the Dregs, a territorial dispute that started over a pier. He speaks quickly and you listen while you stir.

"The Black Tips are different," Chan adds, tearing off a piece of bread. "Less organised. More likely to just… stab someone on instinct." He considers this. "Don't go near East Stave alone at night."

"I wasn't planning to."

"Good." He nods, satisfied.

The others settle around you more gradually. 

Minghao mostly keeps to himself and engages in conversation sometimes, but you can tell that he’s a bit skeptical of you. However, he accompanies you to the Apothecary District one evening and finds out that you prefer tea over coffee too, which makes you a friend.

Vernon you see mostly in passing. Seungkwan more than makes up for Vernon's silence and everyone else's combined. Junhui watches you with mild unreadable curiosity until you help heal the cut on his ear that’s been infected, after which he decides that you’re alright too.

Jeonghan you see in the corridor between the third floor rooms. His cane strikes the floorboards at intervals you start to recognize—three strikes, pause, two more, then the slight drag that only appears when he's tired.

He nods in acknowledgement when he passes, and you nod back, holding in the urge to throttle him. 

The room he's given you sits directly beside his office and the walls are thin enough to hear him at odd hours, so you learn quickly not to linger near the wall and not to mention what carries through it. 

It is strange—the moment you stop expecting to leave. You step over the creaking third stair one evening without thinking and understand somewhere mid-step that you've learned this building. You know which window gets jammed and which door locks from the inside. You know that Chan will have already made coffee if you come down before seven, that Mingyu is always up for a round of cards, and that Jeonghan’s lights stays on the latest. 

What you don't account for is Hoshi.

He has a strange way of finding you, no matter what corner of the Slat you’re in, and does so with pin drop silence. You later learn that they call him the Spider around here, purely because of his freakish agility and absolute silence.

It’s fitting.

You’re in the middle of restocking your supplies when you become aware, with a skip of your heartbeat, that you are not alone. 

Whipping your head around, you find Hoshi already leaning against the open doorframe, with his arms loosely folded and a lopsided smile. 

"Saints—" The tincture slips from your fingers. You catch it before it hits the desk but only just. "Is there a bell we can tie around your neck?" 

He lets out a loud chuckle. “A bell?”

You stare at him. He looks almost pleased, which is exactly what you should have expected, so you turn back to your supplies because the alternative is throwing something at him and you need everything on this desk. 

“I thought of knocking, if that helps,” Hoshi offers, his voice getting closer behind you. “Chan said the hinge is loose." 

Your eyes flit to the window. “Yeah, the sashes keep rattling in the wind. Won’t let me sleep at night. Chan said he’d do something about it.”

"He probably meant that he’d pass the job on to one of us. Chan can't fix a hinge." You hear him cross to the window. "Jun’s banned him from touching tools. You don’t want to know why."

"That doesn't surprise me at all," you mutter, uncorking the next bottle. 

There's the small sound of something being pulled from his coat pocket, and you glance over your shoulder to find him crouching beside the frame with a screwdriver, turning the hinge over to examine it with the focused quiet of someone who actually knows what he's doing. You turn back to your supplies. 

“Thank you,” you say, “you didn’t have to.”

Hoshi hums. “You could've just told me, by the way. Instead of Chan." 

"It wasn't urgent."

"Still." You hear the clatter of metal. "I'm the one who brought you here. If something needs fixing, you can just tell me. I'd do it for you." 

Hoshi pauses for a second, like it came out more sincere than he meant it to and he's noticed too. Then, a little more casually: "I'm kind of responsible for you being here at all, so."

"So it's guilt," you roll your eyes. 

"Absolutely," he agrees immediately. "Haunts me daily. Terribly sorry, darling.”

You snort before you can stop it, and Hoshi’s lips pull into a grin that you can’t see.

"There," Hoshi says, and opens and closes the window twice. No creak. He stays there, watching you work with the easy, unhurried attention that he gives everything. "Anything else?" 

"No."

"Sure?"

"Hoshi?"

“Yeah?”

"Go away."

He laughs—low but bright—and pushes off the wall. You hear him cross to the door and don't hear him leave, which is somehow exactly right.

You try to listen for his footsteps on the stairs anyway. 

"It's required," Jeonghan says, not looking up from his ledger. "Every member. Non-negotiable."

You'd known it was coming. You'd watched the crow and cup tattoo move through the Slat on wrists and collarbones and the curve of shoulders, had traced the ink on Hoshi’s chest with your eyes while stitching up a cut before pretended you hadn't been looking. 

Jihyo explains the rest when she finds you the following afternoon, her kit already laid out on the small table in the room off the main hall—needles, ink, a cloth, a small jar of something for after.

"It'll hurt," she says plainly. "The ribs and waist hurt the most, if you're thinking about placement. Thinner skin means less cushion. The arms are easier."

"Where do most people put it?"

"Somewhere visible." She shrugs. "It's a marker. That's the point."

You understand the point. You also understand that visible cuts both ways—protection on one side, target on the other.

"My waist," you decide, finally. 

Jihyo nods, and doesn’t ask why, which you appreciate, because the answer is still half-formed even in your own head. Something about exits, about keeping options open, about the meaning of belonging to something without being consumed by it. 

You try not to pay attention to Hoshi in the corner.

He’s been there since you came in, settled into a chair across the room with Vernon slouched in front of him, shirt pushed off one shoulder, looking profoundly unbothered while Hoshi works a touch-up along the ink at his collarbone. Vernon says something low and Hoshi snorts, and only he looks up when you and Jihyo come in. 

Jihyo talks you through the rest of it. You half-listen and watch her hands arrange the kit and try not to think about anything in particular. 

Then Chan's voice carries up from below. Jihyo. Jeonghan needs you. Vernon, you too. And the room clears faster than you can track it. Vernon's already pulling his shirt back on, Jihyo’s abandoned her equipment and is at the door with an apologetic look on her face. 

“Hoshi can do it for you,” she says. “He knows what he’s doing and won’t take too long!”

And then she's gone.

You turn around slowly.

Hoshi is already looking at you from across the room, chin resting in his palm, elbow propped on his knee. He looks completely unbothered. He looks like a man with nowhere else to be.

"Hi," he greets. 

“Hey,” you clear your throat a little awkwardly, and Hoshi thinks this is going to take a while.

He’s done this enough times that it should be simple—drag the chair over, sit, pick up the needle, and get to work. Chan fidgeted the entire time, Seungkwan yelped so much that he’d wished he could just shove the needle and sew up his mouth instead, and Vernon had fallen asleep, which Hoshi admires to this day. 

You, however. Hoshi doesn’t know what to do with you. 

He pushes the thought away and drags Jihyo’s chair over, putting on his coat of confidence again. The trick might be to not think too hard about this, Hoshi decides as he spins the needle once between his fingers. 

“I heard Jihyo tell you, but I still think I should warn you,” he says as you lie down. “It’s going to hurt quite a bit, darling. You sure you still want it there?”

“I’ll manage,” you nod, but he thinks your eyes say otherwise. “I don’t want it to be visible.”

You pull up the hem of your shirt and hold the fabric tightly before fixing your eyes on the ceiling. Hoshi eyeballs the placement, and then puts his hand flat against the curve of your waist. 

You try not to flinch at the warmth of it, and he lets out a small sound of amusement, thinking you’re just scared of the pain.

“We can stop if it hurts too much, okay? I don’t have much to do today. We have time.”

He doesn’t say much after that, barring the occasional ‘you okay?’. 

The crow starts to take shape under his needle—the sweep of the wing, the curve of the beak—and his firm grip on your waist seems to distract you from the bite of the needle. 

Hoshi is glad that you’re not looking at him because he’s not entirely sure what his face is doing. There's a small scar just below where the ink is going, faint and old. He notices it the way he notices most things about you, which is to say without meaning to and then without being able to stop.

"You're doing well," he says, because the quiet has started to feel like something he might drown in if he's not careful.

"You sound surprised.” You grimace. 

“A little bit,” he admits. “I expected you to be jumpy. But no, you’re making my job easier.”

“That’s a compliment, right?”

“Obviously.”

The corner of your mouth threatens to lift before another pull of the needle makes you suck in a quiet breath instead.

“Sorry,” Hoshi murmurs automatically.

“It’s fine.”

The two of you settle into silence again. It’s broken only by the faint scrape of the needle and the muffled sounds drifting from the rest of the building—the slam of a door, someone’s laughter echoing through the hallway before fading again. You like that the Slat never really falls quiet.

You try to keep your gaze fixed stubbornly on the ceiling. It feels easier than looking at him, but your eyes betray you anyway.

There isn’t a trace of the loud, impossible man who wandered into your warehouse, making jokes and job offers. The ever-present grin has disappeared entirely, replaced by an expression so focused that it almost softens him. His brows draw together, the thumb of his non-dominant hand pulling gently whenever he needs to stretch the skin tighter.

“Do you do this a lot?” You ask, mostly because the silence feels awkward.

“Mhm,” he hums. “Jihyo and I, we do it for the crew.”

“I did Jeonghan’s,” he adds with pride in his voice. 

It had been easier then. 

Jeonghan had sat through the whole thing without so much as a twitch, looking mildly inconvenienced more than anything. Maybe there was more, but Hoshi had been drunk, and his work on Jeonghan had probably been his sloppiest ever. 

Tattooing you, however, seems to demand an impossible amount of concentration. 

Hoshi tells himself it’s because you’re still new. Because you and Jihyo trusted him with the job, and because the crow stamped into your skin will stay there long after you’re gone too. A crooked line can be erased on paper, not on skin.

That has to be all it is.

Even so, he catches himself easing the pressure every time your breathing catches, apologising before you've even had the chance to tell him it hurts. He's not usually this careful. At least, he doesn't think he is.

He risks a glance upward and almost frowns when he sees your teeth clamping down on your lip. 

But he lowers his eyes again, dragging another careful line beneath the crow’s wing. 

“Hey,” he calls out a few minutes later.

“Hmm?”

“You can swear at me it if helps.”

“...What?”

“Or squeeze my arm. Threaten to kill me afterwards. Whatever floats your boat.”

A small laugh escapes you before you can stop it, the tension in your shoulders easing ever so slightly.

"Would that make you feel better?"

The question catches him off guard.

Hoshi blinks once before a crooked smile finally tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Probably.”

“Then I’ll think about it.” 

Once he’s done, he wipes away the excess ink with a damp cloth, careful with the angry red skin before leaning back to look at the finished design. 

"Done," he says quietly, setting the cloth aside. “Keep it clean. No scratching, even when it starts itching. Jihyo will have my head if it gets infected. I’m sure you have something in that cabinet of yours to soothe the irritation.”

You nod, carefully pulling your shirt back down. "I do."

"Good."

He begins putting away the needles one by one, slower than he usually would.

"If it starts hurting more than it should..." He pauses, glancing up at you before shrugging one shoulder as though the thought has only just occurred to him. "Or if you're not sure whether it's healing properly..."

He twirls the needle between his fingers once before setting it back into the kit.

"Just come find me."

You look at him, a little surprised.

"You?"

“Well,” he looks at you sheepishly. “Jihyo’s usually busier than I am.”

You almost laugh.

From the little you've seen these past few weeks, Hoshi seems to spend half his days running errands for Jeonghan and the other half creating more for himself. If anyone in the Slat is difficult to keep track of, it's him.

Still, you only nod. "Alright."

Jeonghan doesn't usually come on errands like this.

But today he says it's because he wants to handle the contact himself, which is true, but—in the way that most of his reasons are—also not the whole story. You don't ask. You've been here long enough to know which questions get answered and which ones get you a look that makes you wish you hadn't asked it in the first place.

The three of you leave the Slat as the evening crowds thicken along East Stave, Jeonghan a few steps ahead with his cane striking the cobblestones in that familiar rhythm, you and Hoshi falling into step behind him. Hoshi has his cards out before you've made it halfway down the street, shuffling them in a restless way that means his hands need something to do. 

“Why are you thinking so hard?” you ask.

"I'm always thinking." He cuts the deck with one hand without looking at it. "I'm a very thoughtful person."

You look at him. He doesn't quite meet your eyes.

"It's a small job," he says, after a moment. ""Someone's been skimming off a shipment that came through fifth harbour last month—Dregs shipment, which means it's Jeonghan's money." 

“You said it was a small issue,” you raise your eyebrows. 

“I said it was a small job, not a small problem,” he corrects you. "It's not going to be a big thing. The man's not stupid, I think." 

“Hoshi.”

“It’s fine,” he drags the words out. “You're just there to watch, darling. Fifth harbour is our territory and Hendrik, the little fucker, is not going to mess with it.”

"Then why in the world do you look so uneasy?"

He tucks the cards away. Pulls them back out two seconds later. "I'm not." And then, like shifting the gears when he wants to move away from something: "You look nice tonight, by the way."  

"Don't."

"It's a compliment. You're allowed to take it."

"Hoshi."

"The coat." He nods at it. "It's a good coat. I've always thought so."

You fall into silence, and Hoshi shuffles, and the evening crowd presses around you as you watch his hands move through the deck more than you watch the ground beneath your feet. 

Fifth Harbour is quieter than the rest of the waterfront, the big commercial ships docked further east, the buildings here lower and older and leaning toward each other like they might collapse any moment. The contact point is a warehouse at the far end of the pier with its doors open, orange lamplight falling out across the wet boards.

Hendrik is already inside with two of his men. Jeonghan is all numbers when the negotiation starts—debts, the shipment in question, with a side of his usual crypticism—and Hendrik has the look of someone who knows he's been caught and is deciding how much to perform repentance versus how much to push back. Jeonghan listens without expression, his gloves rubbing the crow-head on his cane.

Hoshi stands slightly to the side, cards gone now, one thumb hooked in his trouser pocket near the shimmering pearl handle of his revolver. You stand behind them both, a little hidden away and feel, for the first time since you came to the Slat, truly useless.

It’s toward the end of the dealing, when almost everything has been agreed upon and Hendrik's face has settled into a look of resignation, that Jeonghan’s mind goes elsewhere.

You see the moment it happens. His eyes move past Hendrik's shoulder toward the open warehouse doors, toward something on the pier outside, and whatever he sees seems to paralyze him. His hand tightens once on his cane and then loosens, and the whole thing lasts less than five seconds, but Hendrik sees the gap and his man on the left moves into it before you can open your mouth. 

The knife catches Jeonghan low on the left side.

What happens next is fast and not particularly clean. Jeonghan steps back and hits the man across the jaw with his cane, hard enough to put him on the floor, which would be very impressive if his hand wasn't already pressing flat against the red blooming at his side. Hoshi has the revolver out before the second man can decide what to do with himself—the shot drops him at the knee, deliberate, and the sound of it in the enclosed space leaves your ears ringing. 

Hendrik raises his hands, palms facing outward, his face instantly draining of whatever defiance he had left. The calculation is simple: his two men are down and Hoshi’s barrel is still smoking.

Jeonghan does not so much as look at the blood spreading beneath his hand.

If anything, the knife seems to have sharpened whatever edge was in him, because when Hendrik finally finds enough air to stammer out an apology, Jeonghan only watches him with the same unreadable expression he had worn throughout the negotiation while blood continues to slip steadily through the leather of his glove and gathers in big drops against the warehouse floor.

"I should kill you,” he says, so casually, you almost don’t believe the words coming out of his mouth.

Hendrik blanches, his eyes flickering to Hoshi’s revolver that is still up in the air.

"But I won't."

Hendrik opens his mouth. Closes it again.

"You've been stealing from the Dregs for the better part of a month, which tells me one of two things. Either you've grown remarkably confident, or remarkably desperate, and seeing as desperate men have an unfortunate habit of making stupid decisions, I'm inclined to believe the latter."

His gaze flits toward the men lying on the floor before returning to Hendrik.

"The shipment will be repaid with interest. Every kruge, before the week is over, and if I discover that even a single crate goes missing from another Crow shipment before the month ends, I won't be the one paying you a visit."

Hendrik nods before Jeonghan has even finished speaking.

"I understand."

Jeonghan inclines his head once. "Then we're done here."

He turns first and Hoshi backs toward the warehouse doors without lowering the revolver until Hendrik disappears entirely from view. 

You cross the floor in a hurry, taking larger steps until you reach Jeonghan who has slumped himself onto a chair in one of the corners.

Hoshi is already beside the two of you. "We should go back so she can treat you."

"No."

The answer comes so quickly that Hoshi actually blinks.

"Jeonghan?"

"Close the doors."

"They're already—"

"And lock it."

A crease appears between Hoshi's brows. “Why? You’re bleeding all over the floor, she needs to treat you.”

“She’ll do her job,” he grits out. “Just do what I fucking told you to, will you?”

Hoshi lets out a scoff before turning away, lifting the thick timber beam from where it rests against the wall and dropping it heavily into place across the warehouse doors. The dull thud echoes through the room before silence settles once more. 

You are already kneeling in front of him, your hands fumbling with the buttons of his coat as blood continues to seep between his fingers.

"We need to stop the bleeding. I need to see it."

He removes his hand and immediately, fresh blood wells from the wound, soaking through the torn fabric of his shirt and running over your fingers before you can press your own hand against it.

Your stomach turns. The knife went in deeper than you thought.

"Saints. Where am I going to find bandages from? I don’t have—"

"We don't have time for that."

You look up. "What?"

His eyes meet yours. "You heard me."

You freeze. For a fraction of a second, neither of you speaks. Then you shake your head. “No, I can’t.”

"I brought you in for this,” he almost sneers. “Don’t be a coward and just do it. You’ve hidden long enough.”

"Jeonghan, I—."

His voice is quieter now, though no less certain. “Heal it, come on.”

Your mind races through every excuse it has rehearsed over the last year, every lie that had carried you this far across the Fold, across the sea and into Ketterdam, but none of them seem to matter anymore when each passing second leaves Jeonghan that much paler than he had been a moment before. 

“If you don't stop arguing with me and start doing what I've been paying you to do since the day you walked into the Slat, I'm going to bleed to death on this warehouse floor while you stand here worrying about a secret I figured out before I even learnt your name."

You swallow. "I've spent so long making sure nobody found out."

"And you've spent that time stitching half my crew back together with linen and tinctures when you could've done it in half the time." His eyes remain fixed on yours, unwavering despite the strain beginning to creep into his voice. "You've hidden long enough. Hoshi was going to find out eventually. I'd hoped it wouldn't require me getting stabbed first."

You can feel Hoshi watching the two of you, the confusion almost tangible even without looking at him.

“Your secret will be safe with him, and you know it.”

You do know it, which is why you press your hands to his wound after a few more seconds of hesitation. Your fingers tremble. It has been so long.

So long since you've used your power for anything more than the occasional bruise when nobody was looking, so long since your father had been beside you to remind you to be careful, to keep your hands hidden whenever strangers came too close, to remember that people did not look at Grisha and see people first. 

You remember promising yourself that you would never use your abilities again unless there was absolutely no other choice. The promise suddenly feels very small.

You close your eyes and let the power answer.

Warmth blooms beneath your palms almost immediately, familiar enough that your breath catches despite yourself. It travels slowly through your hands and into the torn muscle beneath them, spreading through the wound in waves until the blood coating your fingers begins to slow down.

Jeonghan's breathing catches, his jaw tightening hard enough for the muscle to jump, but he doesn't make a sound. By the time you finally pull your hands away, only a thin pink scar remains where the knife had entered. 

You stare at your blood-covered hands for a moment longer before forcing yourself to look up. Jeonghan merely glances down at the now-healed wound, looking almost unsurprised. Hoshi, however, hasn't taken his eyes off you. Whatever question sits behind them never makes it to his mouth.

Jeonghan smooths the torn edge of his shirt back into place before pushing himself to his feet with the help of his cane, a little slower than usual but steady nonetheless. "Send Mingyu after Hendrik," he says, as though the last few minutes hadn't altered the course of the evening in the slightest. "Tell him I want this handled before sunrise."

Hoshi hesitates only a second before giving a quiet nod and disappearing through the warehouse doors.

Hoshi doesn’t sleep that night.

He sits on the edge of his bed with his cards and works through the revelation the same way he works through a losing hand—looking for the mistakes, the tells, the things he should’ve caught earlier. 

The cards move through his fingers without him thinking about it. At some point one of them catches the tip of his index finger, a thin sting rising across it, and he looks down at the beads of red welling on it for a moment before closing his hand and going back to thinking. 

He gives up on sleep a few minutes before sunrise.

Taking two steps at a time, Hoshi’s on his way up to the third floor for air when he sees you through the glass. You’re out of the narrow ledge, one hand braced against the bricks, the other reaching for the iron bars that jut from the wall above. Your left foot keeps sliding off the drainpipe. 

You haven't found the trick of it yet. 

Hoshi opens the window. 

"Left foot higher," he says, and you startle hard enough that his arm shoots out and catches your sleeve. "Easy. Easy, I've got you." 

You look at him over your shoulder. 

"Right hand higher," he continues, "I'll be right behind you."

He talks you up through the rest of it, one instruction at a time, and when you finally pull yourself onto the flat section of the roof, the city opens up below. The canals shimmer in a grey-ish silver and the lanterns still burn along East Stave. Hoshi follows and settles down beside you.

"Last night," he starts.

You go still beside him.

"I'm not going to tell anyone," he says, glancing at you. "I need you to know that first.".

"I know," you mumble quietly. "I know you won't."

Hoshi speaks up again after a few moments of silence, broken only by the gulls on the harbour. “So you’re a Corporalki?”

You swallow and nod. “Yes. Half, anyway. My mother was full-blooded. I got less.”

“Less?” he repeats, like he doesn't quite believe that word applied to what he saw tonight.

 "I can't do what a trained Corporalki can. I can't stop a heart or pull the feeling from someone's limbs. I just—" you look at your hands, "—I can close things. Knit things back together. Small wounds quickly, larger ones take more." 

"And it costs you?”

“It’s not supposed to, but I’m untrained, and I’ve spent my entire life trying not to use my powers. My bar for exertion is quite low,” you sigh, tucking your chin in as you pull your legs up to your chest.

Hoshi nods slowly. The wind comes off the water, sharp and cold, and somewhere below a cart’s wheels grind against the stone, the city beginning its morning routine. The sky has gone from grey to warmer colours—orange like a street vendor's hutspot, then bleeding into crimson. 

You reach over without planning to and take his hand, unfurling his fingers. He has a cut on one of them, thin and dried at the edges, barely anything. 

When you press your thumb to it, the warmth arrives and leaves in less than a second and when you lift your thumb the cut is gone.

He looks down at his hand, and then at you. His brows pull together, like he’s been caught off-guard, and the corners of his lips dip down. You almost giggle because of how touched he looks when he glances at you again.

“Darling, you didn’t have to do that,” he mumbles.

“I know. It’s alright.”

Your chest stutters when his hand closes around yours and he squeezes it once, warm and comforting, before he lets go. 

“That probably wasn’t how you wanted anyone to find out, was it?” He asks, rhetorically, looking at the buildings that rise in front. “So I want to give you something back.”

You sit up a bit straighter. “What?”

Hoshi clears his throat. “Well, it’s not really a secret, and not like yours in anyway. Anyone could find it out if they asked, but nobody calls me by it.” A pause. “My name, my actual name is Soonyoung.”

"Soonyoung?" you repeat, checking that you heard it right.

"Kwon Soonyoung," he confirms, with a small nod. He's looking at the buildings still, not at you. "It's not the same thing at all, I know that. It doesn't cost me anything to tell you and it's not going to get me killed, so." 

"But it's the most I have,” he continues, “you can use it, if you'd like. I'd be fine with that. You'd be the only one, actually." His mouth curves slightly, and he finally glances at you sideways. "Never particularly liked the name when I was younger, but now I think I'd like to hear someone use it."

You look at him for a moment. The sun has fully risen now, the light gold and warm across the rooftop, and his face in it is open, a little uncertain, but entirely sincere.

"Soonyoung," you say, carefully.

He looks away quickly, but a smile breaks across his face anyway. You catch it before he can hide it, and the warmth of it pulls a matching one across your own lips. 

Above Ketterdam, the sun keeps rising and you think you could stay up here a while longer. You think he could too. 

He stands over your desk with the ledger open, jabbing a thick finger at a column of numbers you checked thrice. His voice is loud enough to grate against your skull, but not loud enough to draw attention from anyone who might care.

“You counted this shipment yourself,” he insists. “Don’t pretend you didn’t.”

“I didn’t miscount,” you say quietly. “Check the crates again.”

The foreman bristles when you don’t immediately bend to his words. He snatches the ledger back, flips it open again, and jabs at the page as though repetition might wear you down. “You new ones always think you’re sharper than the work,” he grits out. “Can’t count, can’t follow instructions, but somehow you know better than the men who’ve done this for years.”

You try not to rise to it. You’ve learned that people in Ketterdam like the performance of anger more than the substance of it.

You open your mouth to respond, but a knock sounds against the doorframe. The foreman goes still and you look up.

A man stands in the doorway, one shoulder resting lightly against the frame. The light from the street behind him catches on the edges of his coat, and for a moment he almost looks carved out of a different world entirely. Handsome in a way that draws the eye without trying to—sharp lines softened by his windswept hair and an expression you can’t quite read.

“Evening,” he greets cheerfully. “Hope I’m not interrupting.”

You aren’t sure what to make of the man, but the foreman reacts as if someone far more important has arrived. His posture straightens and his mouth snaps shut. The man notices but pretends he doesn’t, eyes flicking once to the ledger, then settling on you with mild curiosity.

“Sorry,” he says, though the smile in his voice betrays no real apology. “I’m looking for someone.”

“Who?” the foreman asks.

He nods toward you. “Her.”

The foreman bristles. “She’s busy.”

He acknowledges that with a polite glance at you. “You seem to be wasting her time anyway. I’m sure two minutes wouldn’t cause a dent in your business, would it?”

That earns him a sputter making you hide a smile.

He steps inside, his gaze moving from the ledger to you with a kind of bright, curious interest. “I really do need her for a moment.”

You glance at him, uncertain. “What for?”

He opens his mouth, then pauses, like he doesn’t actually know what to say. “A conversation,” he settles on. “A very innocent, extremely short conversation. Promise.”

You narrow your eyes. “That doesn’t sound convincing.”

He brightens. “I can try again.”

“Maybe don’t,” you sigh.

He lifts both hands in surrender, amusement tugging at his mouth. “Fair enough. Let’s step outside before the man dies of indignation.”

You don’t miss the way the foreman stiffens at that, but you follow the man out anyway. The air in the corridor is cooler and easier to breathe in, and the noise of the factory dulls into a familiar backdrop of machinery and the scrape of crates on the floor. 

He walks beside you, so when he stops, you stop too.

For a moment, he simply watches you, taking you in with that same curious attention—not rude, and never lingering too long, just enough that you feel seen.

“So,” he says at last, “have you heard of Yoon Jeonghan?”

You blink. “No.”

He nods like he expected that. “The Dregs?”

Another shake of your head. “Should I have?”

His brows lift, impressed. “Most people know the names before they know the city. You’re either very new or very good at minding your own business.”

You choose not to answer that.

He rocks back on his heels, hands slipping into his coat pockets. “Either way,” he says, “you’ve managed to avoid all the right trouble. That’s impressive.”

You tilt your head. “Is this conversation supposed to make sense at some point?”

“Eventually,” he says, grinning. “I lied about this being a short conversation. You see, I like to ease people into things. Very gentle approach.”

You raise an eyebrow. He laughs under his breath, like he can’t help himself.

“Alright,” he says, tone softening as if deciding to give you something sincere. “Jeonghan runs the crew. He knows almost everyone in Ketterdam, especially newcomers. He’s very particular but makes me do all his odd jobs. So I must be here for a reason.”

Your pulse jumps. “What reason?”

“I’m not completely sure either. He’s a bit secretive, you see… but he thinks you’d fit in,” he says simply, “with us.”

“With you,” you repeat, skeptical.

“Mm.” His smile turns a touch playful. “You’d get used to me. Most people do. Eventually.”

You ignore the warmth that creeps up your neck. “You haven’t even told me your name.”

He looks delighted that you asked, bowing slightly in a theatrical manner. “The name’s Hoshi. At your service, darling.” 

“And this Jeonghan person,” you clear your throat, a bit flustered, “wants me to do what?”

Hoshi shrugs one shoulder. “Join us. Help out. Exist somewhere that isn’t a textile factory with men who look one bad day away from throwing a crate at someone.”

You fight a smile. “That’s not a job description.”

He brightens. “Is that a requirement for you? Because I can make one up. Something impressive. Dangerous. A little mysterious, if that’s your style.”

“My style?”

He leans in just a fraction, enough to make you notice but not enough to overwhelm. “You don’t exactly blend in as well as you think you do.”

Your breath catches. Surely, he wouldn’t know?

“And if I say no?” you ask, trying to sound firmer than you feel.

Hoshi’s grin curves, easy and unbothered. “Then I’ll ask again tomorrow.”

“You’re persistent,” you note.

“Only when something interests me.”

You break eye contact first, only because his gaze feels a little too perceiving for someone you’ve known for barely ten minutes. He notices but he doesn’t push.

“That’s all you came here to say?” you manage.

“For today,” he says, cheerful as ever. “Tomorrow I’ll be more compelling. Inspirational, even.”

“I doubt that.”

He presses a hand to his chest in mock offense. “You wound me.”

You snort before you can stop yourself, and his smile sharpens at the sound. A flicker of something warm slips between you, something that feels like the beginning of trouble if you’re not careful.

You straighten, reminding yourself you barely know him. “I should get back.”

“Of course.” He steps aside with a little flourish, granting you the path back toward the factory floor. “Wouldn’t want your foreman to worry.”

The joke draws another quiet laugh out of you before you can swallow it. His eyes brighten again.

“See you tomorrow?” he says, hopeful but pretending not to be.

You shake your head. “You’re assuming there will be a tomorrow.”

He grins, unable to hide it. “There will be. For me, at least. I’m annoyingly tenacious and Jeonghan probably won’t let me sleep until I’ve got you on board.”

You roll your eyes and turn around, not bothering with a response. 

The sound of his laugh follows you all the way back inside.

West Stave is louder than you expected.

You’d heard stories, of course—gamblers shouting over lost kruge, the clatter of dice spilling onto tables, music leaking out of every doorway—but seeing it is different. The noise rolls through the street like a tide, carrying the smell of cheap liquor, canal water, and too many bodies pressed too close together. Lanterns glow from crooked poles, throwing uneven light across the cobblestones, and the buildings lean onto each other.

You shouldn’t be here. You’ve told yourself that five times already. But staying in your rented room felt impossible tonight, and staying in the factory a minute after your shift ended felt even worse.

Calling the four walls that you lived in a room would be generous. With a bed that creaked when you breathed near it, a window that refused to open unless bribed with half your body weight and walls so thin you could hear the couple two rooms down fighting, you’d rather be here.

You’ve been tired in a way that sleep won’t fix. Tired of the foreman, tired of the crates, tired of pretending you aren’t barely holding the seams of your life together.

Your father’s voice has been echoing in your head for days. It creeps in when you let your guard slip for too long. You wonder where he is now.

Which is why you don’t notice him at first.

You’re focused on a street vendor’s lanterns reflecting on the river’s surface, the way it glows gold then dulls again as you pull your shawl tighter around your shoulders when a familiar voice cuts through the din with too much ease.

“Well,” Hoshi drawls, “you’re a sight I didn’t expect tonight.”

You turn.

He’s leaning against the corner post of a betting house, one ankle crossed over the other. He looks like he’s been there for a while, but you can’t really tell.

You blink, startled. “You… I thought you said you’d be at the factory the next day.”

He lifts a brow, pushing off the post almost lazily. “Ah. Yes.” A pause, then a teasing grin. “Work called, darling. I try to be dependable, but I’m only human.”

You scoff, looking away,

“And you thought about it yet?” he asks, head tilting as he tries to read more of your face than you intend to show.

You cross your arms. “Thought about what?”

Hoshi shakes his head, amused. “Joining the Dregs, of course.”

“I still don’t know what you’re offering me.”

He lifts his shoulders in a shrug. “A better life, for starters.”

You stare at him, expecting a joke, but he looks serious, all of a sudden. 

“Look,” Hoshi starts, tone softening, “the Dregs aren’t saints. We don’t pretend to be. But we take care of our own. A roof you can sleep under without worrying it’ll fall on your face. People who don’t shout every time something goes missing. A crew that actually notices when you’re gone.”

He gestures loosely at the mess of the Stave behind him. “Protection, too. This city doesn’t play fair. So we make our own rules.”

You fold your arms, partly to steady yourself. “And that’s… it?”

“No.” His smile turns wistful. “It’s also loyalty. Not the pretty kind. The real kind. If you fall behind, someone reaches back. If you get into trouble, someone pulls you out. If you’re worth having, you’re kept.”

The words hit something you’ve been ignoring for days. Weeks, maybe. The ache of being adrift with no one to answer to, no one to miss you, no one to tell you something as simple as you’re not alone.

He watches your expression change, and his own gentles even more. 

“No one asks questions here. You can start on a new page. You’ve been carrying everything on your own, it looks like.” he points out. “Can’t imagine that’s been fun.”

You look away. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know enough.” He nudges your elbow lightly, just enough to make you look at him again. “I also know you’re smarter than your job. We could use your help.”

“What help could I possible give you?”

Hoshi hums, scratching lightly at his cheek as if thinking it over for the first time. “Well… you did fix up one of ours last week.”

Your stomach dips. “I did what?”

“Chan,” he says. “Brown hair, talks too fast, has the spatial awareness of a newborn colt? He was bleeding everywhere and you handled it better than he did.”

You blink. “He asked for help.”

“He also nearly fainted,” Hoshi adds in a tone way too light for the injuries you remember on the boy. “Which he still insists was due to blood loss, not fear. Debatable, if you ask me.”

Despite yourself, you laugh—small and quick—and his smile widens like that’s all he’d been aiming for.

“I only bandaged him,” you say.

“Sure,” he replies lightly. “But you did it properly. Fast and without panicking. We could use that.”

You look away. “Anyone could’ve done that.”

Hoshi makes a sound that means ‘No, but okay. If you say so.’ He shifts his weight, hands slipping back into his coat pockets. “Point is, you helped. And we need people who help.”

“I’m not a healer,” you say, a little too quickly. You hope he doesn’t notice, or that he chalks it up to nervousness.

He nods. “Didn’t say you were. Just said you’re useful. We like useful.”

You exhale, tension slipping from your shoulders without your permission.

“Tempting, right?” Hoshi prompts, bumping his shoulder with yours. 

“Maybe. You aren’t lying, are you?”

Hoshi is clearly pleased, but tones it down. “Of course not. You can meet Jeonghan right now if you’d like.”

“Now?”

“Yes! If you’re up for a small walk, that is. He’s at the Crow Club tonight.” He snaps his fingers before pointing in the direction of the building he just named, you assume. “It’s our gambling hall, on East Stave.”

“A gambling hall?” You let out incredulously. “Why would I come with you? Why should I trust you?”

Hoshi’s grin sharpens. “Well done. That’s your first lesson learnt: you shouldn’t. Trusting strange men in alleys? Terrible habit. Gets people killed all the time.”

“That’s not exactly convincing,” you mutter.

“Mm. I’m not trying to convince you,” he replies, tilting his head. “If I wanted to force you, you’d already be walking.”

You don’t reply and let the silence sit. 

Hoshi rocks back on his heels, then straightens with a small, decisive nod. “Come on.”

When you don’t move he glances at you, one brow lifting. “Or don’t. I’ll still be here tomorrow.”

You sigh after a few seconds, pushing yourself off the post. “If this turns out to be a terrible idea—”

“It will,” he cuts in cheerfully. “But you’ll survive it.”

You shoot him a look, but fall into step beside him anyway.

Surprisingly, Hoshi doesn’t speak as much as you expected him to on the five minute walk over to the other side. You don’t know if you’re grateful for the silence or unnerved by it. 

The Crow Club, however, is exactly what you pictured it might be. Noise crashes over East Stave in uneven waves, and the air is heavy with smells of fried food and cheap alcohol. Everywhere you look, gaudy gambling dens beg for attention, but the Crow Club is different—a sleek, windowless fortress of black lacquer and crimson trim that seems to eat the light around it. 

Hoshi leads you past a barker shouting about free drinks and pushes through the heavy doors, opening up to an even louder crowd. The rattle of wooden wheels, the snap of cards, and a hundred different voices competing over the sound of clinking glass are overwhelming. Everything inside is dark wood and deep crimson, with no windows to tell you if it’s midnight or noon. 

Hoshi doesn’t pause to let you take it in, though he does slow just enough to make sure you’re still at his side, his hand hovering near your elbow without quite touching as he guides you through the press of bodies and tables. The floor is a maze of red felt, cards shuffling in practiced hands while dealers call out numbers, their movements smooth and unbroken no matter how loudly the players argue around them. Dice roll somewhere to your left with a satisfying clatter against the table, followed by a burst of groans and laughter that ripples outward before dissolving into the larger hum of the room.

A few glance up as he passes, recognition flickering across their faces before it’s tucked away again. 

He stops near the back, where a booth sits slightly raised from the rest of the floor, half-screened by carved wood and heavy drapery that softens the sound without fully cutting it off. There’s no guard, no visible barrier, and yet no one crosses into that space.

Hoshi slides into the seat first, easy and unbothered, one arm slung along the backrest before the man sitting beside him pushes it off with the top of his cane. 

You hesitate for a fraction of a second before taking the seat opposite, your back straight despite the nervousness slithering up your spine. 

The man across from you watches as you sit, his gaze moving once from your face to your hands and back again. Up close, he looks untouched by the noise of the club—with unruffled clothes and his polished demeanor. The cane that he sets down beside him is angled just so that its crow-headed handle catches the light. The curve of its beak looks sharp enough to draw blood if pressed the right way.

“So,” he rasps out, his voice making you flinch slightly, “this is the one.”

Hoshi’s teeth flash. “Told you I’d find her.”

“You took your time. I asked you more than a week ago.”

“And then you sent me to deal with the Razorgulls. Something the others could’ve handled on their own.” Hoshi mutters, rolling his eyes. 

You look at the two of them in confusion until Jeonghan’s gaze finally shifts back to you. 

“The name’s Yoon Jeonghan. I assume Hoshi told you what I’m offering.”

You nod slowly, glancing at his slender but gloved fingers that drum against the table-top. “Kind of, yeah.”

“You work in the warehouse on Third Harbour,” Jeonghan hums. “You arrived recently. No affiliations. No debts worth mentioning.” A pause, just long enough to suggest he knows more than he’s saying. “You’ve kept your head down.”

“I try mind my own business,” you reply.

Jeonghan shrugs. “Sure. Don’t know how easy that’s going to be, but you’ve survived till now, I guess.”

Hoshi lets out a small scoff, leaning back into the booth again as if he’s settling in for a show. “That’s a compliment, by the way,” he adds, glancing at you. “From him, that’s practically glowing praise.”

“You can go,” Jeonghan smiles at the man beside him, although it doesn’t look very friendly. “Your job’s done now.”

Hoshi exhales loudly, throwing a dirty look at the man beside him before pushing his hands against the table and rising.

“You’re no fun tonight,” he mutters, though there’s no bite to it.

“By your standards, I’m never fun,” Jeonghan replies, his gaze already back on you as thought Hoshi’s been set aside before he’s even left.

Hoshi shakes his head as he straightens, eyes flickering over to you. “I’ll be around.”

“You won’t be needed,” Jeonghan sighs, but you nod at him anyway, watching as he walks away, hands slipping into his pockets.

Once Hoshi is out of earshot, Jeonghan leans in, the head of his cane tucked under his chin. “Hoshi says you’re a ghost. No records at the harbor or travel papers. You didn't come through the front door of this city, and you didn't come on an official merchant cog.”

He lets a gloved finger trace the edge of the table. “People who arrive in Ketterdam without a trace are usually running from a debt or a noose. But you don’t have the look of a criminal. Something’s off.”

He taps his cane once. Thump.

“I know you’re either from Novyi Zem or Ravka, and that you got on a textile ship heading to Kerch. But why are you here?”

The question sounds almost rhetorical, but Jeonghan watches you with his eyes like two dark flints catching the red light of the club. 

Jeonghan’s eyes drop to your sleeves, then back to your face. “Ravka is desperate, no? They’re scraping the bottom of the barrel for the Second Army. You look a little old to be conscripted but…”

“I… I don't know what you're talking about,” you mumble, forcing a confused frown onto your face. You try to let your hands fidget, to look like any other frightened girl off the docks. “My father and I were supposed to get onto one of the ships heading back to Novyi Zem. I just wanted to get away from the fighting. Everyone’s running. My father and I got separated. That’s it.”

Jeonghan lets out a short, dry sound that might have been a laugh if there were any warmth in it. He leans in closer, the scent of rain and old wood clinging to him, cutting through the heavy smell of tobacco in the room.

“The confusion is a nice touch,” he rasps, his voice dropping to a low, rhythmic crawl. “But you’re not a very good liar. You don’t look like a farm girl. You did a clean job on Chan.”

“I studied,” you blurt out, the words tripping over each other as you scramble for a defense. “Back home. I was an apprentice to a medik. I know how to treat a puncture, how to stop a fever. That’s all it was with the boy. I have a knack for it, but it’s just medicine.”

The corner of his mouth twitches again. “You may have hidden yourself away your whole life, but Ketterdam’s my turf. I know about everyone who comes and goes. You can’t lie to me.”

“You’re Grisha, or half-blooded enough that the distinction doesn't matter. You hid from the Second Army because you didn't want to be a weapon, or maybe because your parents were smart enough to keep you out of a kefta.” 

“I—”

“But clearly—” He interrupts you, raising his cane. “You’ve been practicing. Not much, and without a teacher too, but enough to keep yourself alive and well, it seems.”

Jeonghan shrugs, a careless movement that suggests your life story is a bore to him. “I don’t care about your reasons. I don’t care about your King’s war. But you need to understand that Ketterdam isn't a hiding place—it’s an auction block. Without me, you’re just a valuable piece of property waiting for a slaver to chain you down with an absurd contract. With me, you’re a ghost with a paycheck and as much respect as you can gain in this city.”

He taps the table once, a final, heavy sound. “You want to keep pretending you’re a medik? Fine. But you’ll be a medik for the Dregs. If you refuse, I might just mention to the Stadwatch that there’s an unregistered Ravkan hiding in the harbors. They get a bounty. You get a cell. My life goes on either way.”

You swallow hard, the tightness in your throat making it difficult to breathe. Fear settles in the form of a cold, heavy stone in your stomach. He knows. He said the word as if it were nothing, a casual observation of the weather, but to you, it’s a death sentence you've been running from since you were old enough to understand what it meant to have these powers.

“You talk like you’re doing me a favour,” you say, your voice trembling despite your best efforts to sound defiant. “If it doesn’t make a difference to you, why waste the breath? Why bother with the recruitment speech if you really don't care?”

“I’m a businessman,” he rasps, the sound low and dangerous. “And I find that willing assets last longer than broken ones. I don't care about your soul, but I do care about my men. I have plenty of thieves and plenty of killers, but I don’t have anyone who can stitch a man back together.”

“You’re threatening me,” you say, the words coming out sharper than you intended. You lean back, trying to put distance between yourself and the cold edge of his presence. “If your intention was to make me feel safer here, it isn’t working.”

“I’m not going to coddle you and promise you everything is going to be alright. The people who smile at you and offer you kindness are the ones who will sell you while you’re sleeping. I’m telling you exactly what I want and exactly what will happen if I don’t get it.”

He tilts his head, his gaze unwavering. “You don't have to like me. You don't even have to trust me. You just have to realize that I’m probably the only one in this city who isn’t trying to put a collar on you for a profit even after knowing who you are. I’m putting you to work.”

"So," he says, his voice a low crawl. "Do we have an agreement, or can I get back to my drink and let the world find you?"

You hold his gaze for a second longer than you should, something tight and stubborn settling in your chest, before you shake your head once.

“I need time.”

Jeonghan cocks an eyebrow, looking at you over the rim of his glass. He sets it down with a loud clink and a sigh. 

“Fine. Three days.”

You nod, already pushing yourself to your feet because sitting there any longer feels like a mistake you don’t want to make twice. The drapery brushes your shoulder as you step out, and the noise of the club folds back over you, loud and careless and somehow easier to handle than the quiet you just left behind.

You don’t stop walking. Not until you’re a few steps into the crowd, not until the weight of that conversation lifts enough from your shoulders that you can breathe a little.

You glance up to see Hoshi halfway through a round at one of the tables, a loose circle of men leaning in while he flips a card between his fingers. There’s a small pile of kruge at his elbow, enough to suggest he’s been winning but just enough to keep the game interesting still.

He doesn’t look at you immediately.

You have half the mind to walk straight past him and out the door, leave him to his game and his coins and whatever else he does to fill his time, because none of this would have happened if he hadn’t decided to pull you into it.

But you stop anyway.

He’s leaning over the table, laughing at something someone says, sleeves pushed up, a few strands of hair falling into his eyes as he flicks a card between his fingers before dropping it cleanly onto the pile. 

When he finally catches sight of you, Hoshi drops the rest of the cards without a second thought, gathers the coins in front of him in one quick motion, and pushes his chair back.

“Hey—” someone protests.

“Later,” Hoshi says, already stepping away. “Don’t lose my money.”

“You’re in the middle of—”

“I know,” he cuts in, not slowing.

He reaches you in a few strides, stopping just short, close enough that you can see the slight flush across his face, the way his shirt has shifted at the collar from leaning forward.

“Well,” he says, like nothing’s happened. “Was he better at convincing you than I was?”

You don’t answer and instead turn to walk out. He follows without hesitation.

“That bad?” he asks, falling into step beside you.

“You could’ve said something,” you snap, pushing past a group near the door. “Anything. Instead you drop me in there and disappear like it’s normal.”

“I didn’t disappear,” Hoshi says easily. “I was right there.”

“That’s not the point.”

He reaches ahead to push the door open before you get there, stepping aside to let you through. Pettily, you don’t thank him.

The air outside is cooler, easier to breathe, but it doesn’t do much for the irritation still sitting in your chest.

“You left me alone with him,” you continue, turning on him once you’re a few steps out. “You knew what that would be like, didn’t you?”

“I had a feeling,” he admits.

“A feeling?” you repeat, incredulous. “He practically—” you cut yourself off, shaking your head. “He already knows everything. Or at least enough to make it sound like he does.”

Hoshi’s mouth curves slightly. 

“—And no! It’s not impressive, it’s irritating.”

Hoshi rocks back on his heels, hands slipping into his pockets as he watches you, expression softer now. “He does that a lot, but you get used to it after sometime. And you’re still here, which means you didn’t tell him to go to hell and walk out.”

“I told him I needed time.”

Hoshi lets out a low whistle. “Three days?”

You look at him sharply. “How did you—”

“He likes that number,” Hoshi cuts in, shrugging. “Long enough to feel generous, short enough that you can’t get comfortable and forget about it.”

You walk in silence for a few steps, the sounds of East Stave settling around you, the distance from the club putting just enough space between you and that booth.

“And what’s with the gloves?” you ask finally, glancing at him. “He didn’t take them off once. It must’ve been boiling in there.”

Hoshi smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Ah, they call him the bastard of the barrel, Dirtyhands. I suppose you haven’t heard the stories yet.”

“Stories?”

He nods. “There’s quite a few. My favourite is the one which say that his fingers are permanently stained with the blood of those he’s killed. Oh! People also think he has claws instead of fingers in there. Fun stuff, really.”

You frown. “None of that sounds true.”

“It isn’t,” he agrees immediately. “If anything, it’s the opposite. Which brings us to version three—he’s done enough with his hands that he’d rather not be reminded of it every time he looks down.”

You glance at him. “And you believe that?”

Hoshi considers it for a second, then shakes his head. “I don’t know why he wears them either, but I think he likes that people can’t decide which one is worse,” he says. “They spend so much time arguing about it that they forget to pay attention to what he’s actually doing.”

You let out a quiet exhale. “You guys are weird.”

That pulls out a real laugh from him. “Oh darling, wait till you meet the others.”

You had made your decision pretty soon, and very firmly too. It hadn’t even taken you all three days. You’d gone back to your room after that conversation, shut the door, checked the lock twice for good measure, and told yourself you were not—under any circumstances—getting involved with gang business, gambling halls, or handsome men. 

Handsome? What—no. Strange men, maybe.

It had felt like a good and sensible decision. So what if Jeonghan knew of your grisha blood? If he outed you, you could out him too. You weren’t sure how just Kerch’s laws were, but surely threatening, fighting, gambling and whatever else went on in that place couldn’t be entirely acceptable either. There had to be some kind of balance to it. Some kind of risk on his side as well.

The decision had held up in your mind for two days. Long enough to go to sleep with it still intact, long enough to wake up the next morning and go to work and pretend it hadn’t already started to slip.

But on the second day you’d found a piece of paper slipped under your door while you were away—a narrow strip of cheap quality, folded twice, your name written on it in handwriting you didn’t recognize. 

It had been an address to someplace called the Slat. You knew it had to have been from Jeonghan because there was no one else in this city who would have both the reason and the nerve to find you without being told where to look.

You had stood there for a while, longer than you cared to admit, turning it over between your fingers like the answer might reveal itself if you handled it enough times.

You hadn’t gone.

Not that night, and not the next morning either. You had folded it once more and tucked it away, as though reducing its size might reduce its significance, and then gone about your routine with an effort to be a little more careful.

It might have worked, if not for the third morning at the warehouse. 

The conversation had started somewhere behind you, low at first and not particularly careful, the kind of gossip that would have blended into the rest of the noise on any other day, but the words carried just far enough to hold your attention before you could decide otherwise.

“There was a group,” someone was saying, his voice pitched just low enough to suggest it mattered. “Five, maybe six of them. Staying together near the east canal, in one of those old boarding houses.”

You kept your head down, your hands moving over the crate in front of you.

“Grisha?”

“Yes. Fabrikators. I heard that they were working for someone in the Merchant Council.” 

A brief pause followed, filled with the scrape of wood and the shuffle of boots.

“Who found them?” someone asked.

“A drüskelle. Someone apparently tipped one off. The man only caught two of them, but they’ll probably look around for the rest now.”

“Only two?” another voice cut in, sharper this time. “Then the rest ran?”

“Or they’re hiding,” came the reply. “Doesn’t matter much. Once one of them’s got a lead, they don’t let it go.”

A crate thudded somewhere to your left, the sound a little too loud against the rest of the room.

“They’ll start asking around, then,” someone else said, quieter now, like the thought had only just occurred to him. “People saw them come and go. Someone always does.”

“And someone always talks,” the first man added, almost idly.

A loud chuckle followed. 

“Doesn’t take much,” the first man went on. “A name, a face, where they’ve been seen. That’s all it ever is.”

So by the time your shift ended, the decision you’d made two days ago had worn thin in your head. Which is how you find yourself taking a turn you hadn’t planned, your steps steady enough that anyone looking might think you meant to take this route all along.

The main road is louder at this hour.

It always is, but you notice it more now, the press of people and voices and movement folding in on itself until there’s barely any space left untouched by it. Lanterns hang unlit above you, waiting for evening, but the noise doesn’t need them, spilling out of doorways and open windows.

The address sits in your mind with a clarity that feels almost inconvenient now, guiding you forward without needing to be checked, each turn falling into place before you can second-guess it, until the street widens just enough for the crowd to thin and the building ahead comes into view.

The Slat looms over the narrow alley, its three stories of soot-stained brick leaning precariously against the neighboring buildings. The gabled roof is a jagged silhouette of blackened shingles, topped by a rusted iron hoist that creaks in the wind.

Your pace slows just enough to take the building in, and the few people gathered outside who don’t so much as pause their conversations when you approach, even if you feel the briefest amount of attention pass over you.

And then you see him.

Hoshi stands off to the side, half-turned toward another man, one shoulder resting loosely against the wall. His sleeves are pushed up, and in one of his hands sit a revolvers, the pearl handle catching what little light filters down the street, pale and glinting against his fingers. He spins one of them by the trigger guard in an practiced motion, the metal flashing once before settling again, like it’s something he does without thinking.

The man across from him says something that draws his eyebrows into a furrow as they speak in hushed voices. 

You walk straight up to him.

It takes him a second to notice but when he does he stills instantly, the revolver pausing mid-motion before it disappears from his hand entirely, tucked away with ease.

Hoshi’s lips pull into a smirk.

“Well,” he says, pushing himself off the wall as though the conversation he’d been having no longer matters, “I was starting to think you’d make me wait the full three days.”

The man beside him glances between the two of you, clearly mid-speech, but Hoshi doesn’t spare him more than a brief nod of acknowledgment before stepping closer, stopping just short of you, close enough that you have to tilt your chin up slightly to meet his gaze. There’s an amused look in his eyes, the seriousness from his previous conversation completely gone.

You huff softly, crossing your arms in what you hope looks like reluctance or defiance. “Were you the one who dropped off the address, or was it Jeonghan?”

He smiles, looking pleased with himself. “That was me, darling. Jeonghan doesn’t do ‘petty’ jobs like that. He did spare me some time and found the place for me. I didn’t tail you, don’t worry.”

“Well, you did slip it under the door instead of breaking in,” you sigh. 

“I can be very respectful when I want to be.”

You give him a look that says you don’t believe that for a second.

“So,” he says, quieter now, “did you make up your mind? You joining us?”

With another dramatic exhale, you nod.  

“Great! I’ll take you in then.”

His grin lingers a moment longer than it needs to, like he’s already decided this is a win worth holding onto, before he turns and pushes the door open. 

He steps aside just enough to let you pass first, one hand still braced against the wood. “Wouldn’t want you changing your mind at the threshold. That’d be embarrassing for both of us.”

You roll your eyes, but step in anyway.

The Slat is warmer than the street, the air thick with the faint smell of old wood, sweat, and something cooking somewhere deeper inside. Voices carry from different corners—overlapping, nothing quite loud enough to be called a crowd but enough to tell you that this place is always occupied.

“So,” he says after a few steps, “what scared you off your very sensible plan of never coming back?”

You glance at him. “How’d you know that?”

“I assumed. Looks like I was right,” he hums teasingly. “You don’t strike me as someone who changes her mind for no reason at all. Bit stubborn for that.”

“I just—” you pause, eyebrows furrowing. You can’t tell him the real reason because you’d out ourself. Somehow, the thought doesn’t feel too bad and telling him doesn’t feel too dangerous, but you decide to let it go for now. 

“Figured I might be safer on this side.”

“Safe is a funny choice of wording.” Hoshi glances at you. “Not much of what we do is safe, but I agree. It’s better than being out there.”

“Come on,” he adds, nudging open the door at the end of the corridor with the back of his hand, stepping aside just enough to let you through again, the same easy familiarity in the motion as before. “Let’s go make it official before you decide to change your mind and run off.”

The Slat has its own rhythm and it takes you about two weeks to learn it. 

The job of brewing the morning coffee belongs to whoever’s up first, which is usually Chan. You figure this out on your third day when you come downstairs to find him at the kitchen table with slightly stale bread and a pot of the black liquid that he offers quite cheerfully. 

You take it because refusing feels rude, especially when the boy’s looking at you with those hopeful eyes, and drink it because it turns out you need it. He's already told you three things about the building before you've finished the cup—which floorboard on the second landing will give you away if you're trying to be quiet, that Jeonghan takes his coffee without anything in it and will notice if someone's moved his cup, and that the room at the end of the hall belongs to Hoshi but he rarely sleeps in it. 

He then asks you if you know how to make pea soup, because he doesn’t, but Jun is sick. 

You don’t either, but you figure it out. Chan watches you the entire time with an expression of such transparent relief that you have to look away to keep from smiling at him. He seems to be the kind of person who wears everything on his face, and soon enough you find out from Hoshi he can be fiercely loyal to those who’ve helped him.

Which includes you, now.

By the time the soup’s done he's explained the Dime Lions unprompted—six years of bad blood with the Dregs, a territorial dispute that started over a pier. He speaks quickly and you listen while you stir.

"The Black Tips are different," Chan adds, tearing off a piece of bread. "Less organised. More likely to just… stab someone on instinct." He considers this. "Don't go near East Stave alone at night."

"I wasn't planning to."

"Good." He nods, satisfied.

The others settle around you more gradually. 

Minghao mostly keeps to himself and engages in conversation sometimes, but you can tell that he’s a bit skeptical of you. However, he accompanies you to the Apothecary District one evening and finds out that you prefer tea over coffee too, which makes you a friend.

Vernon you see mostly in passing. Seungkwan more than makes up for Vernon's silence and everyone else's combined. Junhui watches you with mild unreadable curiosity until you help heal the cut on his ear that’s been infected, after which he decides that you’re alright too.

Jeonghan you see in the corridor between the third floor rooms. His cane strikes the floorboards at intervals you start to recognize—three strikes, pause, two more, then the slight drag that only appears when he's tired.

He nods in acknowledgement when he passes, and you nod back, holding in the urge to throttle him. 

The room he's given you sits directly beside his office and the walls are thin enough to hear him at odd hours, so you learn quickly not to linger near the wall and not to mention what carries through it. 

It is strange—the moment you stop expecting to leave. You step over the creaking third stair one evening without thinking and understand somewhere mid-step that you've learned this building. You know which window gets jammed and which door locks from the inside. You know that Chan will have already made coffee if you come down before seven, that Mingyu is always up for a round of cards, and that Jeonghan’s lights stays on the latest. 

What you don't account for is Hoshi.

He has a strange way of finding you, no matter what corner of the Slat you’re in, and does so with pin drop silence. You later learn that they call him the Spider around here, purely because of his freakish agility and absolute silence.

It’s fitting.

You’re in the middle of restocking your supplies when you become aware, with a skip of your heartbeat, that you are not alone. 

Whipping your head around, you find Hoshi already leaning against the open doorframe, with his arms loosely folded and a lopsided smile. 

"Saints—" The tincture slips from your fingers. You catch it before it hits the desk but only just. "Is there a bell we can tie around your neck?" 

He lets out a loud chuckle. “A bell?”

You stare at him. He looks almost pleased, which is exactly what you should have expected, so you turn back to your supplies because the alternative is throwing something at him and you need everything on this desk. 

“I thought of knocking, if that helps,” Hoshi offers, his voice getting closer behind you. “Chan said the hinge is loose." 

Your eyes flit to the window. “Yeah, the sashes keep rattling in the wind. Won’t let me sleep at night. Chan said he’d do something about it.”

"He probably meant that he’d pass the job on to one of us. Chan can't fix a hinge." You hear him cross to the window. "Jun’s banned him from touching tools. You don’t want to know why."

"That doesn't surprise me at all," you mutter, uncorking the next bottle. 

There's the small sound of something being pulled from his coat pocket, and you glance over your shoulder to find him crouching beside the frame with a screwdriver, turning the hinge over to examine it with the focused quiet of someone who actually knows what he's doing. You turn back to your supplies. 

“Thank you,” you say, “you didn’t have to.”

Hoshi hums. “You could've just told me, by the way. Instead of Chan." 

"It wasn't urgent."

"Still." You hear the clatter of metal. "I'm the one who brought you here. If something needs fixing, you can just tell me. I'd do it for you." 

Hoshi pauses for a second, like it came out more sincere than he meant it to and he's noticed too. Then, a little more casually: "I'm kind of responsible for you being here at all, so."

"So it's guilt," you roll your eyes. 

"Absolutely," he agrees immediately. "Haunts me daily. Terribly sorry, darling.”

You snort before you can stop it, and Hoshi’s lips pull into a grin that you can’t see.

"There," Hoshi says, and opens and closes the window twice. No creak. He stays there, watching you work with the easy, unhurried attention that he gives everything. "Anything else?" 

"No."

"Sure?"

"Hoshi?"

“Yeah?”

"Go away."

He laughs—low but bright—and pushes off the wall. You hear him cross to the door and don't hear him leave, which is somehow exactly right.

You try to listen for his footsteps on the stairs anyway. 

"It's required," Jeonghan says, not looking up from his ledger. "Every member. Non-negotiable."

You'd known it was coming. You'd watched the crow and cup tattoo move through the Slat on wrists and collarbones and the curve of shoulders, had traced the ink on Hoshi’s chest with your eyes while stitching up a cut before pretended you hadn't been looking. 

Jihyo explains the rest when she finds you the following afternoon, her kit already laid out on the small table in the room off the main hall—needles, ink, a cloth, a small jar of something for after.

"It'll hurt," she says plainly. "The ribs and waist hurt the most, if you're thinking about placement. Thinner skin means less cushion. The arms are easier."

"Where do most people put it?"

"Somewhere visible." She shrugs. "It's a marker. That's the point."

You understand the point. You also understand that visible cuts both ways—protection on one side, target on the other.

"My waist," you decide, finally. 

Jihyo nods, and doesn’t ask why, which you appreciate, because the answer is still half-formed even in your own head. Something about exits, about keeping options open, about the meaning of belonging to something without being consumed by it. 

You try not to pay attention to Hoshi in the corner.

He’s been there since you came in, settled into a chair across the room with Vernon slouched in front of him, shirt pushed off one shoulder, looking profoundly unbothered while Hoshi works a touch-up along the ink at his collarbone. Vernon says something low and Hoshi snorts, and only he looks up when you and Jihyo come in. 

Jihyo talks you through the rest of it. You half-listen and watch her hands arrange the kit and try not to think about anything in particular. 

Then Chan's voice carries up from below. Jihyo. Jeonghan needs you. Vernon, you too. And the room clears faster than you can track it. Vernon's already pulling his shirt back on, Jihyo’s abandoned her equipment and is at the door with an apologetic look on her face. 

“Hoshi can do it for you,” she says. “He knows what he’s doing and won’t take too long!”

And then she's gone.

You turn around slowly.

Hoshi is already looking at you from across the room, chin resting in his palm, elbow propped on his knee. He looks completely unbothered. He looks like a man with nowhere else to be.

"Hi," he greets. 

“Hey,” you clear your throat a little awkwardly, and Hoshi thinks this is going to take a while.

He’s done this enough times that it should be simple—drag the chair over, sit, pick up the needle, and get to work. Chan fidgeted the entire time, Seungkwan yelped so much that he’d wished he could just shove the needle and sew up his mouth instead, and Vernon had fallen asleep, which Hoshi admires to this day. 

You, however. Hoshi doesn’t know what to do with you. 

He pushes the thought away and drags Jihyo’s chair over, putting on his coat of confidence again. The trick might be to not think too hard about this, Hoshi decides as he spins the needle once between his fingers. 

“I heard Jihyo tell you, but I still think I should warn you,” he says as you lie down. “It’s going to hurt quite a bit, darling. You sure you still want it there?”

“I’ll manage,” you nod, but he thinks your eyes say otherwise. “I don’t want it to be visible.”

You pull up the hem of your shirt and hold the fabric tightly before fixing your eyes on the ceiling. Hoshi eyeballs the placement, and then puts his hand flat against the curve of your waist. 

You try not to flinch at the warmth of it, and he lets out a small sound of amusement, thinking you’re just scared of the pain.

“We can stop if it hurts too much, okay? I don’t have much to do today. We have time.”

He doesn’t say much after that, barring the occasional ‘you okay?’. 

The crow starts to take shape under his needle—the sweep of the wing, the curve of the beak—and his firm grip on your waist seems to distract you from the bite of the needle. 

Hoshi is glad that you’re not looking at him because he’s not entirely sure what his face is doing. There's a small scar just below where the ink is going, faint and old. He notices it the way he notices most things about you, which is to say without meaning to and then without being able to stop.

"You're doing well," he says, because the quiet has started to feel like something he might drown in if he's not careful.

"You sound surprised.” You grimace. 

“A little bit,” he admits. “I expected you to be jumpy. But no, you’re making my job easier.”

“That’s a compliment, right?”

“Obviously.”

The corner of your mouth threatens to lift before another pull of the needle makes you suck in a quiet breath instead.

“Sorry,” Hoshi murmurs automatically.

“It’s fine.”

The two of you settle into silence again. It’s broken only by the faint scrape of the needle and the muffled sounds drifting from the rest of the building—the slam of a door, someone’s laughter echoing through the hallway before fading again. You like that the Slat never really falls quiet.

You try to keep your gaze fixed stubbornly on the ceiling. It feels easier than looking at him, but your eyes betray you anyway.

There isn’t a trace of the loud, impossible man who wandered into your warehouse, making jokes and job offers. The ever-present grin has disappeared entirely, replaced by an expression so focused that it almost softens him. His brows draw together, the thumb of his non-dominant hand pulling gently whenever he needs to stretch the skin tighter.

“Do you do this a lot?” You ask, mostly because the silence feels awkward.

“Mhm,” he hums. “Jihyo and I, we do it for the crew.”

“I did Jeonghan’s,” he adds with pride in his voice. 

It had been easier then. 

Jeonghan had sat through the whole thing without so much as a twitch, looking mildly inconvenienced more than anything. Maybe there was more, but Hoshi had been drunk, and his work on Jeonghan had probably been his sloppiest ever. 

Tattooing you, however, seems to demand an impossible amount of concentration. 

Hoshi tells himself it’s because you’re still new. Because you and Jihyo trusted him with the job, and because the crow stamped into your skin will stay there long after you’re gone too. A crooked line can be erased on paper, not on skin.

That has to be all it is.

Even so, he catches himself easing the pressure every time your breathing catches, apologising before you've even had the chance to tell him it hurts. He's not usually this careful. At least, he doesn't think he is.

He risks a glance upward and almost frowns when he sees your teeth clamping down on your lip. 

But he lowers his eyes again, dragging another careful line beneath the crow’s wing. 

“Hey,” he calls out a few minutes later.

“Hmm?”

“You can swear at me it if helps.”

“...What?”

“Or squeeze my arm. Threaten to kill me afterwards. Whatever floats your boat.”

A small laugh escapes you before you can stop it, the tension in your shoulders easing ever so slightly.

"Would that make you feel better?"

The question catches him off guard.

Hoshi blinks once before a crooked smile finally tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Probably.”

“Then I’ll think about it.” 

Once he’s done, he wipes away the excess ink with a damp cloth, careful with the angry red skin before leaning back to look at the finished design. 

"Done," he says quietly, setting the cloth aside. “Keep it clean. No scratching, even when it starts itching. Jihyo will have my head if it gets infected. I’m sure you have something in that cabinet of yours to soothe the irritation.”

You nod, carefully pulling your shirt back down. "I do."

"Good."

He begins putting away the needles one by one, slower than he usually would.

"If it starts hurting more than it should..." He pauses, glancing up at you before shrugging one shoulder as though the thought has only just occurred to him. "Or if you're not sure whether it's healing properly..."

He twirls the needle between his fingers once before setting it back into the kit.

"Just come find me."

You look at him, a little surprised.

"You?"

“Well,” he looks at you sheepishly. “Jihyo’s usually busier than I am.”

You almost laugh.

From the little you've seen these past few weeks, Hoshi seems to spend half his days running errands for Jeonghan and the other half creating more for himself. If anyone in the Slat is difficult to keep track of, it's him.

Still, you only nod. "Alright."

Jeonghan doesn't usually come on errands like this.

But today he says it's because he wants to handle the contact himself, which is true, but—in the way that most of his reasons are—also not the whole story. You don't ask. You've been here long enough to know which questions get answered and which ones get you a look that makes you wish you hadn't asked it in the first place.

The three of you leave the Slat as the evening crowds thicken along East Stave, Jeonghan a few steps ahead with his cane striking the cobblestones in that familiar rhythm, you and Hoshi falling into step behind him. Hoshi has his cards out before you've made it halfway down the street, shuffling them in a restless way that means his hands need something to do. 

“Why are you thinking so hard?” you ask.

"I'm always thinking." He cuts the deck with one hand without looking at it. "I'm a very thoughtful person."

You look at him. He doesn't quite meet your eyes.

"It's a small job," he says, after a moment. ""Someone's been skimming off a shipment that came through fifth harbour last month—Dregs shipment, which means it's Jeonghan's money." 

“You said it was a small issue,” you raise your eyebrows. 

“I said it was a small job, not a small problem,” he corrects you. "It's not going to be a big thing. The man's not stupid, I think." 

“Hoshi.”

“It’s fine,” he drags the words out. “You're just there to watch, darling. Fifth harbour is our territory and Hendrik, the little fucker, is not going to mess with it.”

"Then why in the world do you look so uneasy?"

He tucks the cards away. Pulls them back out two seconds later. "I'm not." And then, like shifting the gears when he wants to move away from something: "You look nice tonight, by the way."  

"Don't."

"It's a compliment. You're allowed to take it."

"Hoshi."

"The coat." He nods at it. "It's a good coat. I've always thought so."

You fall into silence, and Hoshi shuffles, and the evening crowd presses around you as you watch his hands move through the deck more than you watch the ground beneath your feet. 

Fifth Harbour is quieter than the rest of the waterfront, the big commercial ships docked further east, the buildings here lower and older and leaning toward each other like they might collapse any moment. The contact point is a warehouse at the far end of the pier with its doors open, orange lamplight falling out across the wet boards.

Hendrik is already inside with two of his men. Jeonghan is all numbers when the negotiation starts—debts, the shipment in question, with a side of his usual crypticism—and Hendrik has the look of someone who knows he's been caught and is deciding how much to perform repentance versus how much to push back. Jeonghan listens without expression, his gloves rubbing the crow-head on his cane.

Hoshi stands slightly to the side, cards gone now, one thumb hooked in his trouser pocket near the shimmering pearl handle of his revolver. You stand behind them both, a little hidden away and feel, for the first time since you came to the Slat, truly useless.

It’s toward the end of the dealing, when almost everything has been agreed upon and Hendrik's face has settled into a look of resignation, that Jeonghan’s mind goes elsewhere.

You see the moment it happens. His eyes move past Hendrik's shoulder toward the open warehouse doors, toward something on the pier outside, and whatever he sees seems to paralyze him. His hand tightens once on his cane and then loosens, and the whole thing lasts less than five seconds, but Hendrik sees the gap and his man on the left moves into it before you can open your mouth. 

The knife catches Jeonghan low on the left side.

What happens next is fast and not particularly clean. Jeonghan steps back and hits the man across the jaw with his cane, hard enough to put him on the floor, which would be very impressive if his hand wasn't already pressing flat against the red blooming at his side. Hoshi has the revolver out before the second man can decide what to do with himself—the shot drops him at the knee, deliberate, and the sound of it in the enclosed space leaves your ears ringing. 

Hendrik raises his hands, palms facing outward, his face instantly draining of whatever defiance he had left. The calculation is simple: his two men are down and Hoshi’s barrel is still smoking.

Jeonghan does not so much as look at the blood spreading beneath his hand.

If anything, the knife seems to have sharpened whatever edge was in him, because when Hendrik finally finds enough air to stammer out an apology, Jeonghan only watches him with the same unreadable expression he had worn throughout the negotiation while blood continues to slip steadily through the leather of his glove and gathers in big drops against the warehouse floor.

"I should kill you,” he says, so casually, you almost don’t believe the words coming out of his mouth.

Hendrik blanches, his eyes flickering to Hoshi’s revolver that is still up in the air.

"But I won't."

Hendrik opens his mouth. Closes it again.

"You've been stealing from the Dregs for the better part of a month, which tells me one of two things. Either you've grown remarkably confident, or remarkably desperate, and seeing as desperate men have an unfortunate habit of making stupid decisions, I'm inclined to believe the latter."

His gaze flits toward the men lying on the floor before returning to Hendrik.

"The shipment will be repaid with interest. Every kruge, before the week is over, and if I discover that even a single crate goes missing from another Crow shipment before the month ends, I won't be the one paying you a visit."

Hendrik nods before Jeonghan has even finished speaking.

"I understand."

Jeonghan inclines his head once. "Then we're done here."

He turns first and Hoshi backs toward the warehouse doors without lowering the revolver until Hendrik disappears entirely from view. 

You cross the floor in a hurry, taking larger steps until you reach Jeonghan who has slumped himself onto a chair in one of the corners.

Hoshi is already beside the two of you. "We should go back so she can treat you."

"No."

The answer comes so quickly that Hoshi actually blinks.

"Jeonghan?"

"Close the doors."

"They're already—"

"And lock it."

A crease appears between Hoshi's brows. “Why? You’re bleeding all over the floor, she needs to treat you.”

“She’ll do her job,” he grits out. “Just do what I fucking told you to, will you?”

Hoshi lets out a scoff before turning away, lifting the thick timber beam from where it rests against the wall and dropping it heavily into place across the warehouse doors. The dull thud echoes through the room before silence settles once more. 

You are already kneeling in front of him, your hands fumbling with the buttons of his coat as blood continues to seep between his fingers.

"We need to stop the bleeding. I need to see it."

He removes his hand and immediately, fresh blood wells from the wound, soaking through the torn fabric of his shirt and running over your fingers before you can press your own hand against it.

Your stomach turns. The knife went in deeper than you thought.

"Saints. Where am I going to find bandages from? I don’t have—"

"We don't have time for that."

You look up. "What?"

His eyes meet yours. "You heard me."

You freeze. For a fraction of a second, neither of you speaks. Then you shake your head. “No, I can’t.”

"I brought you in for this,” he almost sneers. “Don’t be a coward and just do it. You’ve hidden long enough.”

"Jeonghan, I—."

His voice is quieter now, though no less certain. “Heal it, come on.”

Your mind races through every excuse it has rehearsed over the last year, every lie that had carried you this far across the Fold, across the sea and into Ketterdam, but none of them seem to matter anymore when each passing second leaves Jeonghan that much paler than he had been a moment before. 

“If you don't stop arguing with me and start doing what I've been paying you to do since the day you walked into the Slat, I'm going to bleed to death on this warehouse floor while you stand here worrying about a secret I figured out before I even learnt your name."

You swallow. "I've spent so long making sure nobody found out."

"And you've spent that time stitching half my crew back together with linen and tinctures when you could've done it in half the time." His eyes remain fixed on yours, unwavering despite the strain beginning to creep into his voice. "You've hidden long enough. Hoshi was going to find out eventually. I'd hoped it wouldn't require me getting stabbed first."

You can feel Hoshi watching the two of you, the confusion almost tangible even without looking at him.

“Your secret will be safe with him, and you know it.”

You do know it, which is why you press your hands to his wound after a few more seconds of hesitation. Your fingers tremble. It has been so long.

So long since you've used your power for anything more than the occasional bruise when nobody was looking, so long since your father had been beside you to remind you to be careful, to keep your hands hidden whenever strangers came too close, to remember that people did not look at Grisha and see people first. 

You remember promising yourself that you would never use your abilities again unless there was absolutely no other choice. The promise suddenly feels very small.

You close your eyes and let the power answer.

Warmth blooms beneath your palms almost immediately, familiar enough that your breath catches despite yourself. It travels slowly through your hands and into the torn muscle beneath them, spreading through the wound in waves until the blood coating your fingers begins to slow down.

Jeonghan's breathing catches, his jaw tightening hard enough for the muscle to jump, but he doesn't make a sound. By the time you finally pull your hands away, only a thin pink scar remains where the knife had entered. 

You stare at your blood-covered hands for a moment longer before forcing yourself to look up. Jeonghan merely glances down at the now-healed wound, looking almost unsurprised. Hoshi, however, hasn't taken his eyes off you. Whatever question sits behind them never makes it to his mouth.

Jeonghan smooths the torn edge of his shirt back into place before pushing himself to his feet with the help of his cane, a little slower than usual but steady nonetheless. "Send Mingyu after Hendrik," he says, as though the last few minutes hadn't altered the course of the evening in the slightest. "Tell him I want this handled before sunrise."

Hoshi hesitates only a second before giving a quiet nod and disappearing through the warehouse doors.

Hoshi doesn’t sleep that night.

He sits on the edge of his bed with his cards and works through the revelation the same way he works through a losing hand—looking for the mistakes, the tells, the things he should’ve caught earlier. 

The cards move through his fingers without him thinking about it. At some point one of them catches the tip of his index finger, a thin sting rising across it, and he looks down at the beads of red welling on it for a moment before closing his hand and going back to thinking. 

He gives up on sleep a few minutes before sunrise.

Taking two steps at a time, Hoshi’s on his way up to the third floor for air when he sees you through the glass. You’re out of the narrow ledge, one hand braced against the bricks, the other reaching for the iron bars that jut from the wall above. Your left foot keeps sliding off the drainpipe. 

You haven't found the trick of it yet. 

Hoshi opens the window. 

"Left foot higher," he says, and you startle hard enough that his arm shoots out and catches your sleeve. "Easy. Easy, I've got you." 

You look at him over your shoulder. 

"Right hand higher," he continues, "I'll be right behind you."

He talks you up through the rest of it, one instruction at a time, and when you finally pull yourself onto the flat section of the roof, the city opens up below. The canals shimmer in a grey-ish silver and the lanterns still burn along East Stave. Hoshi follows and settles down beside you.

"Last night," he starts.

You go still beside him.

"I'm not going to tell anyone," he says, glancing at you. "I need you to know that first.".

"I know," you mumble quietly. "I know you won't."

Hoshi speaks up again after a few moments of silence, broken only by the gulls on the harbour. “So you’re a Corporalki?”

You swallow and nod. “Yes. Half, anyway. My mother was full-blooded. I got less.”

“Less?” he repeats, like he doesn't quite believe that word applied to what he saw tonight.

 "I can't do what a trained Corporalki can. I can't stop a heart or pull the feeling from someone's limbs. I just—" you look at your hands, "—I can close things. Knit things back together. Small wounds quickly, larger ones take more." 

"And it costs you?”

“It’s not supposed to, but I’m untrained, and I’ve spent my entire life trying not to use my powers. My bar for exertion is quite low,” you sigh, tucking your chin in as you pull your legs up to your chest.

Hoshi nods slowly. The wind comes off the water, sharp and cold, and somewhere below a cart’s wheels grind against the stone, the city beginning its morning routine. The sky has gone from grey to warmer colours—orange like a street vendor's hutspot, then bleeding into crimson. 

You reach over without planning to and take his hand, unfurling his fingers. He has a cut on one of them, thin and dried at the edges, barely anything. 

When you press your thumb to it, the warmth arrives and leaves in less than a second and when you lift your thumb the cut is gone.

He looks down at his hand, and then at you. His brows pull together, like he’s been caught off-guard, and the corners of his lips dip down. You almost giggle because of how touched he looks when he glances at you again.

“Darling, you didn’t have to do that,” he mumbles.

“I know. It’s alright.”

Your chest stutters when his hand closes around yours and he squeezes it once, warm and comforting, before he lets go. 

“That probably wasn’t how you wanted anyone to find out, was it?” He asks, rhetorically, looking at the buildings that rise in front. “So I want to give you something back.”

You sit up a bit straighter. “What?”

Hoshi clears his throat. “Well, it’s not really a secret, and not like yours in anyway. Anyone could find it out if they asked, but nobody calls me by it.” A pause. “My name, my actual name is Soonyoung.”

"Soonyoung?" you repeat, checking that you heard it right.

"Kwon Soonyoung," he confirms, with a small nod. He's looking at the buildings still, not at you. "It's not the same thing at all, I know that. It doesn't cost me anything to tell you and it's not going to get me killed, so." 

"But it's the most I have,” he continues, “you can use it, if you'd like. I'd be fine with that. You'd be the only one, actually." His mouth curves slightly, and he finally glances at you sideways. "Never particularly liked the name when I was younger, but now I think I'd like to hear someone use it."

You look at him for a moment. The sun has fully risen now, the light gold and warm across the rooftop, and his face in it is open, a little uncertain, but entirely sincere.

"Soonyoung," you say, carefully.

He looks away quickly, but a smile breaks across his face anyway. You catch it before he can hide it, and the warmth of it pulls a matching one across your own lips. 

Above Ketterdam, the sun keeps rising and you think you could stay up here a while longer. You think he could too. 

He stands over your desk with the ledger open, jabbing a thick finger at a column of numbers you checked thrice. His voice is loud enough to grate against your skull, but not loud enough to draw attention from anyone who might care.

“You counted this shipment yourself,” he insists. “Don’t pretend you didn’t.”

“I didn’t miscount,” you say quietly. “Check the crates again.”

The foreman bristles when you don’t immediately bend to his words. He snatches the ledger back, flips it open again, and jabs at the page as though repetition might wear you down. “You new ones always think you’re sharper than the work,” he grits out. “Can’t count, can’t follow instructions, but somehow you know better than the men who’ve done this for years.”

You try not to rise to it. You’ve learned that people in Ketterdam like the performance of anger more than the substance of it.

You open your mouth to respond, but a knock sounds against the doorframe. The foreman goes still and you look up.

A man stands in the doorway, one shoulder resting lightly against the frame. The light from the street behind him catches on the edges of his coat, and for a moment he almost looks carved out of a different world entirely. Handsome in a way that draws the eye without trying to—sharp lines softened by his windswept hair and an expression you can’t quite read.

“Evening,” he greets cheerfully. “Hope I’m not interrupting.”

You aren’t sure what to make of the man, but the foreman reacts as if someone far more important has arrived. His posture straightens and his mouth snaps shut. The man notices but pretends he doesn’t, eyes flicking once to the ledger, then settling on you with mild curiosity.

“Sorry,” he says, though the smile in his voice betrays no real apology. “I’m looking for someone.”

“Who?” the foreman asks.

He nods toward you. “Her.”

The foreman bristles. “She’s busy.”

He acknowledges that with a polite glance at you. “You seem to be wasting her time anyway. I’m sure two minutes wouldn’t cause a dent in your business, would it?”

That earns him a sputter making you hide a smile.

He steps inside, his gaze moving from the ledger to you with a kind of bright, curious interest. “I really do need her for a moment.”

You glance at him, uncertain. “What for?”

He opens his mouth, then pauses, like he doesn’t actually know what to say. “A conversation,” he settles on. “A very innocent, extremely short conversation. Promise.”

You narrow your eyes. “That doesn’t sound convincing.”

He brightens. “I can try again.”

“Maybe don’t,” you sigh.

He lifts both hands in surrender, amusement tugging at his mouth. “Fair enough. Let’s step outside before the man dies of indignation.”

You don’t miss the way the foreman stiffens at that, but you follow the man out anyway. The air in the corridor is cooler and easier to breathe in, and the noise of the factory dulls into a familiar backdrop of machinery and the scrape of crates on the floor. 

He walks beside you, so when he stops, you stop too.

For a moment, he simply watches you, taking you in with that same curious attention—not rude, and never lingering too long, just enough that you feel seen.

“So,” he says at last, “have you heard of Yoon Jeonghan?”

You blink. “No.”

He nods like he expected that. “The Dregs?”

Another shake of your head. “Should I have?”

His brows lift, impressed. “Most people know the names before they know the city. You’re either very new or very good at minding your own business.”

You choose not to answer that.

He rocks back on his heels, hands slipping into his coat pockets. “Either way,” he says, “you’ve managed to avoid all the right trouble. That’s impressive.”

You tilt your head. “Is this conversation supposed to make sense at some point?”

“Eventually,” he says, grinning. “I lied about this being a short conversation. You see, I like to ease people into things. Very gentle approach.”

You raise an eyebrow. He laughs under his breath, like he can’t help himself.

“Alright,” he says, tone softening as if deciding to give you something sincere. “Jeonghan runs the crew. He knows almost everyone in Ketterdam, especially newcomers. He’s very particular but makes me do all his odd jobs. So I must be here for a reason.”

Your pulse jumps. “What reason?”

“I’m not completely sure either. He’s a bit secretive, you see… but he thinks you’d fit in,” he says simply, “with us.”

“With you,” you repeat, skeptical.

“Mm.” His smile turns a touch playful. “You’d get used to me. Most people do. Eventually.”

You ignore the warmth that creeps up your neck. “You haven’t even told me your name.”

He looks delighted that you asked, bowing slightly in a theatrical manner. “The name’s Hoshi. At your service, darling.” 

“And this Jeonghan person,” you clear your throat, a bit flustered, “wants me to do what?”

Hoshi shrugs one shoulder. “Join us. Help out. Exist somewhere that isn’t a textile factory with men who look one bad day away from throwing a crate at someone.”

You fight a smile. “That’s not a job description.”

He brightens. “Is that a requirement for you? Because I can make one up. Something impressive. Dangerous. A little mysterious, if that’s your style.”

“My style?”

He leans in just a fraction, enough to make you notice but not enough to overwhelm. “You don’t exactly blend in as well as you think you do.”

Your breath catches. Surely, he wouldn’t know?

“And if I say no?” you ask, trying to sound firmer than you feel.

Hoshi’s grin curves, easy and unbothered. “Then I’ll ask again tomorrow.”

“You’re persistent,” you note.

“Only when something interests me.”

You break eye contact first, only because his gaze feels a little too perceiving for someone you’ve known for barely ten minutes. He notices but he doesn’t push.

“That’s all you came here to say?” you manage.

“For today,” he says, cheerful as ever. “Tomorrow I’ll be more compelling. Inspirational, even.”

“I doubt that.”

He presses a hand to his chest in mock offense. “You wound me.”

You snort before you can stop yourself, and his smile sharpens at the sound. A flicker of something warm slips between you, something that feels like the beginning of trouble if you’re not careful.

You straighten, reminding yourself you barely know him. “I should get back.”

“Of course.” He steps aside with a little flourish, granting you the path back toward the factory floor. “Wouldn’t want your foreman to worry.”

The joke draws another quiet laugh out of you before you can swallow it. His eyes brighten again.

“See you tomorrow?” he says, hopeful but pretending not to be.

You shake your head. “You’re assuming there will be a tomorrow.”

He grins, unable to hide it. “There will be. For me, at least. I’m annoyingly tenacious and Jeonghan probably won’t let me sleep until I’ve got you on board.”

You roll your eyes and turn around, not bothering with a response. 

The sound of his laugh follows you all the way back inside.

West Stave is louder than you expected.

You’d heard stories, of course—gamblers shouting over lost kruge, the clatter of dice spilling onto tables, music leaking out of every doorway—but seeing it is different. The noise rolls through the street like a tide, carrying the smell of cheap liquor, canal water, and too many bodies pressed too close together. Lanterns glow from crooked poles, throwing uneven light across the cobblestones, and the buildings lean onto each other.

You shouldn’t be here. You’ve told yourself that five times already. But staying in your rented room felt impossible tonight, and staying in the factory a minute after your shift ended felt even worse.

Calling the four walls that you lived in a room would be generous. With a bed that creaked when you breathed near it, a window that refused to open unless bribed with half your body weight and walls so thin you could hear the couple two rooms down fighting, you’d rather be here.

You’ve been tired in a way that sleep won’t fix. Tired of the foreman, tired of the crates, tired of pretending you aren’t barely holding the seams of your life together.

Your father’s voice has been echoing in your head for days. It creeps in when you let your guard slip for too long. You wonder where he is now.

Which is why you don’t notice him at first.

You’re focused on a street vendor’s lanterns reflecting on the river’s surface, the way it glows gold then dulls again as you pull your shawl tighter around your shoulders when a familiar voice cuts through the din with too much ease.

“Well,” Hoshi drawls, “you’re a sight I didn’t expect tonight.”

You turn.

He’s leaning against the corner post of a betting house, one ankle crossed over the other. He looks like he’s been there for a while, but you can’t really tell.

You blink, startled. “You… I thought you said you’d be at the factory the next day.”

He lifts a brow, pushing off the post almost lazily. “Ah. Yes.” A pause, then a teasing grin. “Work called, darling. I try to be dependable, but I’m only human.”

You scoff, looking away,

“And you thought about it yet?” he asks, head tilting as he tries to read more of your face than you intend to show.

You cross your arms. “Thought about what?”

Hoshi shakes his head, amused. “Joining the Dregs, of course.”

“I still don’t know what you’re offering me.”

He lifts his shoulders in a shrug. “A better life, for starters.”

You stare at him, expecting a joke, but he looks serious, all of a sudden. 

“Look,” Hoshi starts, tone softening, “the Dregs aren’t saints. We don’t pretend to be. But we take care of our own. A roof you can sleep under without worrying it’ll fall on your face. People who don’t shout every time something goes missing. A crew that actually notices when you’re gone.”

He gestures loosely at the mess of the Stave behind him. “Protection, too. This city doesn’t play fair. So we make our own rules.”

You fold your arms, partly to steady yourself. “And that’s… it?”

“No.” His smile turns wistful. “It’s also loyalty. Not the pretty kind. The real kind. If you fall behind, someone reaches back. If you get into trouble, someone pulls you out. If you’re worth having, you’re kept.”

The words hit something you’ve been ignoring for days. Weeks, maybe. The ache of being adrift with no one to answer to, no one to miss you, no one to tell you something as simple as you’re not alone.

He watches your expression change, and his own gentles even more. 

“No one asks questions here. You can start on a new page. You’ve been carrying everything on your own, it looks like.” he points out. “Can’t imagine that’s been fun.”

You look away. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know enough.” He nudges your elbow lightly, just enough to make you look at him again. “I also know you’re smarter than your job. We could use your help.”

“What help could I possible give you?”

Hoshi hums, scratching lightly at his cheek as if thinking it over for the first time. “Well… you did fix up one of ours last week.”

Your stomach dips. “I did what?”

“Chan,” he says. “Brown hair, talks too fast, has the spatial awareness of a newborn colt? He was bleeding everywhere and you handled it better than he did.”

You blink. “He asked for help.”

“He also nearly fainted,” Hoshi adds in a tone way too light for the injuries you remember on the boy. “Which he still insists was due to blood loss, not fear. Debatable, if you ask me.”

Despite yourself, you laugh—small and quick—and his smile widens like that’s all he’d been aiming for.

“I only bandaged him,” you say.

“Sure,” he replies lightly. “But you did it properly. Fast and without panicking. We could use that.”

You look away. “Anyone could’ve done that.”

Hoshi makes a sound that means ‘No, but okay. If you say so.’ He shifts his weight, hands slipping back into his coat pockets. “Point is, you helped. And we need people who help.”

“I’m not a healer,” you say, a little too quickly. You hope he doesn’t notice, or that he chalks it up to nervousness.

He nods. “Didn’t say you were. Just said you’re useful. We like useful.”

You exhale, tension slipping from your shoulders without your permission.

“Tempting, right?” Hoshi prompts, bumping his shoulder with yours. 

“Maybe. You aren’t lying, are you?”

Hoshi is clearly pleased, but tones it down. “Of course not. You can meet Jeonghan right now if you’d like.”

“Now?”

“Yes! If you’re up for a small walk, that is. He’s at the Crow Club tonight.” He snaps his fingers before pointing in the direction of the building he just named, you assume. “It’s our gambling hall, on East Stave.”

“A gambling hall?” You let out incredulously. “Why would I come with you? Why should I trust you?”

Hoshi’s grin sharpens. “Well done. That’s your first lesson learnt: you shouldn’t. Trusting strange men in alleys? Terrible habit. Gets people killed all the time.”

“That’s not exactly convincing,” you mutter.

“Mm. I’m not trying to convince you,” he replies, tilting his head. “If I wanted to force you, you’d already be walking.”

You don’t reply and let the silence sit. 

Hoshi rocks back on his heels, then straightens with a small, decisive nod. “Come on.”

When you don’t move he glances at you, one brow lifting. “Or don’t. I’ll still be here tomorrow.”

You sigh after a few seconds, pushing yourself off the post. “If this turns out to be a terrible idea—”

“It will,” he cuts in cheerfully. “But you’ll survive it.”

You shoot him a look, but fall into step beside him anyway.

Surprisingly, Hoshi doesn’t speak as much as you expected him to on the five minute walk over to the other side. You don’t know if you’re grateful for the silence or unnerved by it. 

The Crow Club, however, is exactly what you pictured it might be. Noise crashes over East Stave in uneven waves, and the air is heavy with smells of fried food and cheap alcohol. Everywhere you look, gaudy gambling dens beg for attention, but the Crow Club is different—a sleek, windowless fortress of black lacquer and crimson trim that seems to eat the light around it. 

Hoshi leads you past a barker shouting about free drinks and pushes through the heavy doors, opening up to an even louder crowd. The rattle of wooden wheels, the snap of cards, and a hundred different voices competing over the sound of clinking glass are overwhelming. Everything inside is dark wood and deep crimson, with no windows to tell you if it’s midnight or noon. 

Hoshi doesn’t pause to let you take it in, though he does slow just enough to make sure you’re still at his side, his hand hovering near your elbow without quite touching as he guides you through the press of bodies and tables. The floor is a maze of red felt, cards shuffling in practiced hands while dealers call out numbers, their movements smooth and unbroken no matter how loudly the players argue around them. Dice roll somewhere to your left with a satisfying clatter against the table, followed by a burst of groans and laughter that ripples outward before dissolving into the larger hum of the room.

A few glance up as he passes, recognition flickering across their faces before it’s tucked away again. 

He stops near the back, where a booth sits slightly raised from the rest of the floor, half-screened by carved wood and heavy drapery that softens the sound without fully cutting it off. There’s no guard, no visible barrier, and yet no one crosses into that space.

Hoshi slides into the seat first, easy and unbothered, one arm slung along the backrest before the man sitting beside him pushes it off with the top of his cane. 

You hesitate for a fraction of a second before taking the seat opposite, your back straight despite the nervousness slithering up your spine. 

The man across from you watches as you sit, his gaze moving once from your face to your hands and back again. Up close, he looks untouched by the noise of the club—with unruffled clothes and his polished demeanor. The cane that he sets down beside him is angled just so that its crow-headed handle catches the light. The curve of its beak looks sharp enough to draw blood if pressed the right way.

“So,” he rasps out, his voice making you flinch slightly, “this is the one.”

Hoshi’s teeth flash. “Told you I’d find her.”

“You took your time. I asked you more than a week ago.”

“And then you sent me to deal with the Razorgulls. Something the others could’ve handled on their own.” Hoshi mutters, rolling his eyes. 

You look at the two of them in confusion until Jeonghan’s gaze finally shifts back to you. 

“The name’s Yoon Jeonghan. I assume Hoshi told you what I’m offering.”

You nod slowly, glancing at his slender but gloved fingers that drum against the table-top. “Kind of, yeah.”

“You work in the warehouse on Third Harbour,” Jeonghan hums. “You arrived recently. No affiliations. No debts worth mentioning.” A pause, just long enough to suggest he knows more than he’s saying. “You’ve kept your head down.”