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Drabble: I'll Be Blue For You

This was a drabble challenge request, prompt was:

Spaceship captain reader x alien Hoseok + soulmates = 'I question fates decision sometimes, you know?'

Title: I'll Be Blue For You Pairing: Alien Hoseok x Space Captain Reader Words: 10,728 Warnings: Some curses, that's about

※※※

You grunt as you swing your light machete through the overgrowth, annoyed that the extreme humidity has you keeping the heat level low, which means more exertion required to hack through the thick woody vines. You could turn the power up, but it would bake you after you’ve been trekking for a full day already.

A particularly dense vine blocks your way and a single sweep of your light machete doesn’t cut through. You pull your arm back and hit it again, a third time, and there’s barely a dent. Your strikes get shorter, sharper, angrier, and you’re just about to go full crazy on this one stupid dense fucking vine when a hand slides across your shoulder.

“Allow me,” Hoseok insists, gently but firmly tugging you to the side.

“Hands off your captain,” you snap, but it sounds hollow given… everything. You allow yourself to be nudged to the side and Hoseok steps forward to place one of his hands on the vine. You pretend not to watch, to instead study the settings of your light machete, as a wave of brown and green travels up his fingers and hand and arm as if staining his skin, except his skin takes on the texture of the vine to match. The matter-mimicking travels up bare biceps and across his shoulders, down his back –across his chest and stomach you know, though you can’t see them from the angle even though he wears his vest open– even down the long tendrils that frame his face, which you thought were hair at first until you tried to tie them back with the rest of his hair and they moved.

A shudder runs up your spine recalling it. Not because you’re some baby about alien tendrils –you’ve captured aliens with far weirder traits than a couple head tendrils and camouflage skin and occasionally two extra arms that materialize and then disappear again without warning– but because the way one had wrapped around your wrist made the whole act of pulling his hair back feel suddenly too intimate. You weren’t trying to be intimate, you were trying to get all that long silvery hair out of his goddamn face so you could make sure this was the guy. He did not have the four additional eyes on his forehead that the orders had specified, but given the precedence of disappearing features with the come-and-go-as-you-please extra arms, you’d decided this was definitely still your guy. The drawing was spot on, intense stare, sharp jaw, that inhumanely perfect nose and all.

Plus he had twisted at your feet to look up at you, tendril still grasping your wrist, and said bluntly, “I am Jeon Hoseok who you are searching for. I will go with you.”

Easiest pickup you’d ever done…

Except for the whole business where your ship had been boarded by pirates while still in orbit before descent to the surface of this far out planet, almost your entire crew slaughtered, and the only way to get yourself to safety to cause a massive fire to crash your own ship down to the surface of the planet. The pirates had abandoned ship, but you had taken a vow to that hunk of metal…

“You only need ask,” Hoseok says, stepping back as the vine reluctantly pulls away from his touch. The withdrawal runs ahead of your intended path, all that dense, hostile vegetation peeling back to leave just enough space for two people to walk side by side. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think some of the trees shuffled away too –but that’s impossible. You’re sure of it, just as you’re certain the shaking feeling of the ground is a sign that giant hippodiles are waking up from their midday naps on the banks of the nearby river, not the footsteps of trees. The massive jaws and hefty bodies of hippodiles only look slow; your first mate only had time to grant them the obvious name before promptly being devoured by one.

Hence why you and Hoseok march through the forest rather than skirting the clear shores of the river.

You blink at Hoseok, then lift your watch and speak into it, “Ada, record. Day thirty-two, half past mid-day, captive has revealed he can… commune with nature?” You look questioningly at him, eager for confirmation that is indeed what you just saw. He gives a short nod. “Takes on skin surface appearance of the plant he touched, maybe partially became a plant?”

This time he shakes his head before clarifying, “Think of it as… an accent.”

“An accent,” you repeat.

He nods.

“Ada, end recording.” Your AIQ watch gives a chirp and goes silent. Despite the cracked screen and not talking back anymore, it continues to chirp and beep so you haven’t had the heart to listen to your recordings and confirm just how badly damaged it was in the crash. You’ve had Ada on your off-hand for over a decade now. A reconstruction back home would never be exactly the same, even if they were able to salvage Ada’s stat tracking from the adventures with you so far. An AIQ with data isn’t the same as an AIQ that’s lived through something, you genuinely believe that.

Hoseok holds his hand out, a gesture for you to take the lead, and you glare, unsure if he’s mocking you. Twice he’s made subtle suggestions about which direction you ought to go, despite you very intentionally not telling him where your ship is. For all you know the planet has told him where you landed and hid out for a week, repairing the damaged ship the best you could with your first mate, a cook, a medic, and two engineers –none of whom will be leaving the planet with you now. One accident after another has plagued you, really ever since you set out.

You walk in silence for a while, Hoseok just slightly behind you until you realize it would make it easy to escape so you reach around to grab his arm and drag him ahead of you. That doesn’t feel right either though because you’re the captain and he’s not supposed to know where you’re going, so side by side it will have to be.

“Do you need to rest?” Hoseok asks after a while, as if this is his expedition.

“No.”

“Do you not require nourishment?”

“Don’t you?” you counter, trying to sound sarcastic and not inquisitive because you actually don’t know. Nobody knows much about Jeon Hoseok’s kind, hence why you were sent on this ill-fated trip to pick one up, hired by a scientist waving the journal of an adventurer and spouting nonsense about regenerating cells and end of disease and fountain of youth –all the same gibberish in the stories your grandfather read to you as a child. But you aren’t here to judge, you’re here to get paid.

“Will you record my answer?”

“No.”

“Yes, I require nourishment, but I get it from the sun.”

You watch him out of the corner of your eye, then lift your wrist and say, “Ada, record. Gets his nourishment from the sun.” The recordings are a contingency plan, in case you don’t make it back with the man, maybe you can at least send the research and get partial pay.

Suddenly he lifts his wrist and says, “Ada, record. Captain is stubborn. A liar. And dehydrated.” Then he smiles at you. You didn’t even know he could smile. You haven’t seen it in the six days you’ve spent in each others company –four in his weird village suspended over the water as you tried to plan how to drag him away even though he’d said he would go willingly with you, and now on day two of trekking the fields, fords, and forests of his planet after he thwarted your kidnapping plan by knocking on the door of your stone abode and announcing he was ready to go.

There’s an inhuman perfection to the smile that pretty instantly flags him as an alien despite so much of his appearance passing for homo sapien. He might as well have done his mimic trick again, this time perfectly copying one of those face transplant ads back home that promises perfectly symmetrical features, perfectly white neat teeth, exactly the perfect lifted cheekbones his smile puts on display. The bands of sunlight sneaking through the canopy glint off those flawless teeth and add a sparkle to his eye that makes the whole thing seem… what, playful? Like he’s gently teasing rather than mocking, which would be your usual first assumption.

You’re anthromorphizing the alien.

“I’m not dehydrated,” you correct, and lift the bottle from your hip to take the last sip you have available. “See? Well hydrated.”

“Out of water is not the same as being well hydrated. You are fifty-four-percent water when you’re drinking enough,” he argued.

“Did you read that in a pamphlet somewhere?” It’s weird, hearing him give a percentage like that, like you’re a specimen in his lab.

He gives you a curious look, but instead of answering says, “There’s water just ahead. We can refill our supplies.” As if you hadn’t given that command twice a day for the entire journey so far. How dare he jump ahead and act like refilling supplies is his idea!

“I didn’t realize you were going to be a clown,” you say to avoid snapping at him. Again. More because you don’t want him learning any more about you than because you don’t think he deserves it. Stubborn, a liar, and usually 54% made of water is more than enough data for this alien to have on you.

“What’s a clown?”

“Funny.”

“You think I’m funny?” he asks and looks pleased about it. “I have much to learn about what your kind considers funny but at home people find me… encouraging and amusing.”

You’ve spotted the water and crouch to fill your bottle from the stream, though you won’t drink from it until he does first, just in case it’s a trap.

After a moment he presses, “Aren’t you going to record that?”

“That your people think you’re nice and funny?”

“Yes.”

“No. Doesn’t seem important.”

He crouches too, filling two water bottles at the same time, using all four hands which have been conveniently pulled from who knows where. His eyes are on you though, as if he doesn’t even need to watch what he’s doing.

Suddenly he laughs, a sound just as shocking as the visual of his smile, and points out, “See? I understand your humor.”

“I was serious.”

He doesn’t seem to think so and presses, “Do your people find you amusing too?”

“Definitely not.”

“Ah, then it’s good fate put us together,” he says. “You can be brave and I’ll be charming.”

You don’t ask what he means by that because it also doesn’t seem important. All that’s important is getting back to your ship, figuring out how to fly it by yourself away from this god-forsaken planet, and getting this guy off to the paying scientist so you can head home and take a nice long bath and forget alllll about this.

“Fate didn’t put us together,” you belatedly add. “I accepted a mission.”

“I mean the way you fell into my lap.”

“That wasn’t fate,” you huff. Why did he have to put it that way? “It was–” You’re about to say that freaky bird thing that ran on three legs and chased me into your camp where I tripped on that tree root and quite literally fell on top of you. But of course that doesn’t sound like the sort of plan a captain would have for capturing their target.

He’s watching you expectantly, eyes nearly unblinking they’re so focused awaiting your answer.

“Oh? What do you believe in if not Fate?” he nudges when you don’t continue.

“My well laid plan did it,” you answer. “I was looking for you, remember? And I found you. So.”

His careful watch cracks into a tight-lipped grin and then a full smile again. You’re pretty sure there were dimples along the way and also that he may be mimicking an anime character, if he has any concept of anime –maybe he does, because he hasn’t been surprised by any of your technology so far. Maybe they just didn’t keep televisions in the single building you were allowed in. Maybe they hide their televisions the same place they hide their extra arms.

“I think you’re funny,” he says as he stands. Just like that the extra arms are gone.

“Well, I’m not.”

Hoseok lifts his wrists and says to the smooth skin there, “Ada, record. She’s funny.”

“Your AIQ can’t also be named Ada,” you grumble.

“What?”

“Walk that way,” you say and nudge him back onto the path, which has started to grow over again. He seems to notice this and his eyes narrow briefly, his jaw clenches, an undeniable aura of seriousness replaces the equally undeniable aura of jokes and frivolity he had just displayed. The plants inch back out of your way and he levels a smile at you, a different smile than the one before, this one with closed lips and… dimples! You’re certain they’re there now. Aliens shouldn’t have dimples, you’re pretty sure, but you decide not to report that to Ada either, since he’s being such an ass about your note-taking. And probably that’s not the sort of thing your employer is looking to study anyway…

※※※

The next morning you wake up in a meadow with Hoseok pressed against your back, one leg slung over your hip. When you shove him away and awake, he doesn’t even have the grace to act embarrassed, just stretches and admits he misses the food from his village already and hopefully you have good things to eat on the ship.

With the cook dead and your own skills lacking, you do not.

“Ah, we may starve before we get where we’re going then, I don’t know how to cook either,” he says, as if your thought was shared outloud. He doesn’t seem genuinely worried though, just stretches and smiles up at the three suns peeking through the green spiky clouds that had you worried initially this was a planet wrapped in poison. Not poison though, just different.

It’s like a cloak has started to slip from Hoseok’s shoulders, and the slumbering snuggles and smiles and teasing of the day before are only the beginning. Several times he attempts to ask you questions about yourself –which you pointedly do not answer. He hums and maybe even sings under his breath to the beat of your footsteps –a voice which, you note, is steady and on pitch but ridiculous in someone being taken hostage even willingly. At one point he brings your attention to a very pretty insect-bird-looking creature and asks if you know what it is.

“Of course I don’t,” you snap, because you’re hot and tired and hungry and ready to be done with this hike. “You’re the one who lives on this planet.”

“I don’t know anything about those though,” he says and then laughs, actually laughs. “I don’t know anything about bug-birds.”

Your eyes narrow and you quickly point out, “There’s no way those things are called bug-birds.”

“Isn’t that what you would call them?”

You don’t like how close that is to what you already had in your mind and so instead you point out, “You seem to be enjoying yourself.”

“Getting to know you? Yes. Why wouldn’t I enjoy that?”

“You aren’t getting to know me,” you clarify, certain it’s true because you’ve given him nothing else today to record in his fake AIQ. “You’re…” My prisoner, you almost say but stop, uncomfortable saying the word outloud even if you think it to gas yourself up. Guest would be better, that’s what was written in the contract. To make payload you would retrieve the guest from this planet where he had been met and written about by the adventurer years ago. Alive, unharmed, payment on delivery. Why it needed to be this specific alien in a village of them, you sure don’t know, and what his life will be like after this, you also don’t know. You haven’t asked. You aren’t being paid to ask.

“Sure I am,” he cheerfully argues.

“I’m not answering your questions.”

“In a different way, you do.”

“In what way?”

This time Hoseok doesn’t answer, because the bird suddenly flies away and apparently it distracts him. Who can’t name what an animal is on their own planet? It’s suspicious, to say the least.

Well, but you suppose you can’t name every bird or bug on your own planet, either. He just seems like he ought to know. The village or camp or whatever they call their settlements here seemed so close to nature. You, on the other hand, are a city girl, so it’s not like you would ever claim to be an animal expert. Not that he had either but… well, is he the sort of person who knows a lot of things and will be very useful for the scientist, or is he not?

Once again you find yourself wondering why he specifically had been drawn in the notebook by that adventurer, but Jeon Hoseok gave you no answer before so you won’t stoop to asking a second time lest you seem curious. It doesn’t matter anyway. You aren’t here to learn about him. Just to get paid.

※※※

“It’s just up ahead,” you assure Hoseok.

“You must be a very good captain,” he muses.

You feel like he’s mocking you for sure this time and demand, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You sound so certain every time you say that,” he explains. “I think that’s a sign of a good leader, confidence even in the face of uncertainty.”

His words must be mocking for him to point out this is the third time you’ve said that today, but his smile seems sincere. Maybe this alien is a liar and you’re only just catching on. Maybe he has a big scheme to commandeer your ship for his own purposes and he’s just been playing along thus far to get to it, or scope your threat level, or see if there are any of your crew mates still around. Maybe he has been behind all the deaths since the beginning! You will need to be on your guard…

Fortunately, third time is the charm, and this time your ship is indeed just ahead. The plants haven’t cleared away here like they did on your path, and Hoseok seems confused why they don’t listen when he reaches up for them again. It’s left to you to hack your way through and then there she is, the STS Dionysus, in all her dented, patched up glory.

Hoseok takes a step backwards and his smile falls; returned is that heavy-browed serious stare that had dominated your interactions with him in the village.

“What’s wrong?” you ask, briefly worried he senses some threat you do not with his tentacles or something.

“All your crew is dead,” he says.

Your relief at reaching the ship evaporates like his smile. You don’t need the reminder, especially when you’re still berating yourself for having admitted it to him in the first place. You blamed the shock of all that loss in such a short period of time followed by the shock of him agreeing to go with you without a fight; it had made you temporarily lose your mind and you’d warned him that you would need to teach him to help you fly.

Now it’s like twisting the light machete in your gut, but what can you say other than, “Yes, as I told you.”

“The ship isn’t… haunted, is it?”

“Haunted?” you repeat, but there’s no mistaking that he isn’t asking as a joke. He looks completely serious and shockingly afraid as he stares at the gray hull. “Why do you ask that? Do you… sense something or…?”

“I can’t sense ghosts!”

“As in can’t right now or can’t ever–”

“I don’t know! Do you sense ghosts right now or ever?”

“Neither,” you tell him. “I don’t believe in ghosts unless you’re about to tell me you have a power that lets you see them and there’s one standing right behind me or–”

Hoseok recoils as if this might be true and you’re stunned to see the very alien who had been so self-assured and confident in the village look like he’s ready to turn tail and flee.

“....I don’t see anything,” he tells you, slowly. “I’ve never seen a ghost before. And I don’t have powers.”

“You made the plants move out of our path.”

“Everyone can do that.”

“Obviously not or I wouldn’t have worn out my arms hacking them down,” you point out.

“I thought you were getting aggression out,” he admits. “Or trying to threaten me.”

“No… look, there are no ghosts here. Only about half the crew died in the ship.”

“Then why have you been so afraid to get here?” he asks.

“I… ‘m not,” you insist. But slow, hesitant, because it’s a lie and you’re not sure how he knows. Just the question fuels that dread that’s been bubbling low in your gut, hiding beneath the hunger pangs.

Of course you’ve been afraid to get here. Getting here means putting the repairs to the test in the hopes the ship can actually make it off the ground, much less through space. Getting here means confronting the reality that not a single one of your crew is beside you for the return journey. Getting here means trusting that space will remain lonely and quiet as it should be, that another ship of pirates won’t appear from nowhere and put an end to you after all. You don’t want to die. You have so much to live for! It may not seem like it right here, right now… But you worked hard for years to get this captain job and there’s no way you’re letting one failed expedition take that from you. You must complete the job, you have to get back up there and get home and–

“Hey,” Hoseok says, hands gripping your arms and giving a firm shake before you even notice him step closer. “Hey. Captain.”

“I am the captain,” you say automatically. Your voice sounds less confident than it did when the pirates boarded your ship and demanded to speak to the captain –who they assumed could not be you.

They were right to assume that. What kind of captain were you if you got your entire crew killed on your very first expedition? That wasn’t a captain, that was a survivor, a cockroach, a pathetic coward who had failed to even go down with the ship after you’d failed time and time again to save a single person under your command.

“It was fate,” Hoseok says.

“Huh?”

“It was fate for you to be the captain,” he says. “It was fate you took this job, the pirates, the hippodile too. It was all fate, everything that led you to my city, just like it’s fate that we’ll get to where we’re meant to be after this.”

“City?” You would hardly call where he was living a city.

“My home that I left to come with you,” he clarifies, as if that’s what you’re confused about.

A twig snaps and he flinches, bringing your attention to the way his expression flits back and forth between afraid and encouraging.

“What are you afraid of?” you ask.

“A lot of things.”

“I mean right now.”

“I hear something,” he admits. “So if you’re sure there aren’t any ghosts–”

“On the ship? You hear something on the ship?”

He pauses and listens, then says, “No, it’s outside the ship… which means it’s probably–” The word he says isn’t a sound you could possibly recreate. You’re certain he didn’t even make it with his mouth, no human mouth could make that sound. When you just stare at him, confused by what seems like a complete malfunction in either speaking or hearing the language you both –strangely, now that you think about it– speak, he clarifies, “That would be bad.”

“What is that sound you just made?”

“They are not friendly,” he says by way of answering.

“Another tribe? Or another species?”

“Species,” he says. “It must not be them… we’d be dead by now.”

Your eyes go wide.

“You should have led with that,” you say, and grab his arm and drag him with little resistance towards the ship. Thanks to that, it now looks slightly less like a monument to your failures and slightly more like a chance to escape before the unpronounceable species makes a final end to your expedition.

Hoseok nearly jumps out of his skin when the door slides shut and locks behind you. You pause, but there’s no unexpected noise within the ship. Everything is exactly as you left it, and no one should be able to get in or out without the AIQ of a crew member–

You freeze, trying to recall if you remembered to disable everyone’s watches each time they died.

“Ada,” you say, lifting your watch. “Make sure all access for the STS Dionysus is disabled for anyone except myself.” You don’t have the heart to ask whether you had done it already or not. You can’t remember. You’re tired and hungry and dehydrated and tired and really trying not to see the absence of your crew in every corner as you stride through the ship in a fit of confidence. If there’s someone lurking who’s going to kill you, so be it, they better get it over with, because if not it’s time to get the hell out of here.

Hoseok follows close behind, gaze darting around but his curiosity isn’t enough to pull him from your side. Every time you briefly slow, he bumps into you. You aren’t sure if he’s still scared or just unsure about this ship, maybe both. As far as you know he’s unused to technology like this. After all he didn’t even know Ada is the name of your personal AIQ, not just a command.

Lights click on as you take a circuit of the entire ship. It’s eerie. It’s messed up to be here alone, to see the evidence of a full crew everywhere except for the crew themselves. Gradually your confident captain’s gait begins to wear off. By the time you’ve reached the command room, you feel the weight of silence dragging you back.

You reach for the first button to begin powering the engines up, but pause.

Space is up there. Pirates. Death.

“Are we waiting for something?” Hoseok asks. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Are you in a rush now?”

“I don’t like you being afraid,” he says. “I think you’ll feel better once we are off this planet… or maybe that will make it worse…?”

You pull your hand back and level a look at him, trying to watch his face carefully for any tells as you press, “What makes you think I’m afraid?” You’ve only known him for under a week, there’s no way he can read you like a book already.

He blinks at you.

“Why do you think that? I’m not.”

“Um… isn’t it obvious?” he tries.

“I’ve been told plenty of times I’m ‘hard to read’ and ‘distant,’ so no, it’s not obvious.”

“Those are signs of a good captain–”

“And what do you know about captains?” you snap. “Why do you keep telling me I’m a good captain like I’m a puppy that needs a pat on the head?”

“I– I thought you deserved to hear it–”

“Why would I deserve to hear it? What about me is the least bit good at being a captain? My entire crew is dead! I had to crash my own ship to escape pirates I failed to evade!”

“But you came to find me and here I am,” he points out, holding his hands out like this should solve everything.

“Which you said five minutes ago was all fate anyway?”

Hoseok nods eagerly and agrees, “Yes, so you shouldn’t feel bad about all the troubles. They aren’t your fault. You have the essence of a good captain anyway, that’s what I’m saying.”

“Oh, it makes me a good captain to capture an alien and turn him over to a scientist for money?” you demand before you can stop yourself. You aren’t sure why but standing here with Hoseok in your empty ship, in the command room only lit by the backup lights right now, you just want to hear him say it, to admit that you are a shit captain and a pretty shit person too. If he knows so much about you after less than a week, he should know that! If he can take on the accent of something like a plant, he can do it for you too, mimic, reflect back your failings that have led to a ship devoid of life except for this person you are going to hand over for profit.

“I question fate’s decision sometimes, too,” Hoseok admits. “All the years of waiting and wondering… when I realized the path Fate made for you to come find me, I had a moment of doubt because…” He trails off and stares out the window long enough you’re afraid he’s seen something dangerous. His face is indeed nervous when he turns back to you, as he admits, “My fate is in your hands, just as your fate has been in mine. It’s confusing to use the word ‘fate’ to talk about so many things, isn’t it? I’ve studied your language for a long time but I don’t have it all mastered yet.”

“What do you mean our fate is in each other’s hands?”

“Let’s say not fate… happiness. The future.”

“Happiness?” you repeat. You feel like he’s dragging you around in a circle, and none of it makes sense. You just wanted him to admit he’s been saying you’re a shit captain because he knows it and pities you.

He laughs suddenly and shakes his head and sighs, “I’m not very good with words, I’m not explaining it well. There’s a word in your language… soulmates.”

The word hits you like a sucker punch and you physically recoil from him. What the fuck is he doing bringing a word like that into this conversation? Talking about ghosts was less shocking.

“I don’t believe in soulmates, and I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you say. Your voice is tense. He’s going down a crazy sidepath now and you realize you’re going to be stuck in the ship with him for weeks. You’ll need to figure out how to lure him into a cell if he’s going to be a crazy person. Maybe he’ll make it easy to be glad to hand him over…

“You don’t have to believe something for it to be true.”

“Like ghosts, huh?”

Your taunt has the desired impact, and he shudders while pleading, “I hope that’s not true. But you said there aren’t ghosts and I believe you.”

“You shouldn’t believe anything I say. Like you already told your fake AIQ, I’m a liar.”

“I don’t think you’ve lied to me at all,” he counters. You rack your brain trying to find anything you’ve truly lied about but realize that actually you’ve had an annoying tendency to blurt out the truth –or, worse, for him to somehow guess the truth and you to then immediately confirm it.

“I lied if I made you think I’m a good captain,” you tried.

“It’s your first mission as captain, and besides I told you, you couldn’t have made things go differently.”

You nod and push the button to fire up the engines in case you need to start luring him towards a cell. Step one, get off the planet while you’re distracted by the crazy person on the ship from thinking about pirates potentially outside the ship.

“Right, because of fate.”

“Exactly.”

“Is fate why it feels like you can read my mind?” you ask. It’s a shot in the dark, but it does feel like that, and you suddenly wonder if he can. If he’ll confirm it. Fuck, if he can read your mind–

“I can’t read your mind,” he laughs.

“I didn’t tell you it’s my first mission as captain,” you realize.

He looks surprised by this, then sheepish, and again you have that feeling that despite your logical skepticism, that you can trust his expressions. That he’s sincere. That he couldn’t lie to you even if he tried.

“I can’t tell you how I knew that.”

“Can’t? Or won’t?”

“Can’t,” he insists. “I just did. Just like you probably know things about me without me telling you. You feel it, don’t you? You can trust me.”

There, he did it again.

“I think you’re trying to drive me crazy so you can steal my ship,” you suggest.

“Why would I want your ship without you in it?”

His words knock you sideways because your mind’s first understanding is so romantic. Quickly you dispel that, certain it’s all this crazy talk and the exhaustion and the stress and the creepy feeling that Hoseok’s question about whether the ship was haunted was in fact not entirely unwarranted.

You don’t believe in ghosts. You don’t believe in soulmates. Hell, you don’t even really believe in romance because there’s no place for it in your life. You are a captain, finally, and that’s the great romance of your life. Maybe a captain without a crew, but you have a ship and a hostage to turn over for pay, what else could you need?

“There’s a lot of buttons,” he adds, looking around the control panel. “I wouldn’t know how to fly this.”

“If it even will fly,” you mumble, forgetting yourself.

“What!?”

“You still haven’t answered my question about how you know things, specific things, about me. Don’t say fate, even if someone believes in fate that doesn’t deliver precise and specific information in the moment. It’s just how people justify the good and bad things that chance throws in their way.”

“Chance? Is that another word for fate?” It’s a clever question but he’s looking at you curiously, like it’s a genuine question. He doesn’t know the word.

“How did everyone in your village know my language if you said you studied to learn it?”

“A friend of mine taught everyone when I told him I needed to learn.”

“What friend?” you ask, as if you know a single one of his friends, as if his answer will make any difference.

“Namjoon. You would have liked him, I think, but he’s already gone.”

“Dead?” You belatedly flinch at your own blunt question. This place is making you harder than you were before and you’re not sure it’s entirely a good thing.

Hoseok looks stunned and corrects, “No no, he already found his soulmate and left!”

“Oh so this is a thing for your people, huh?”

“Yes, all of us in the First Families. Didn’t you already know that?”

“I don’t know anything about you except your face and that I need to take you to my friend,” you say, euphemisms that don’t totally contradict what you’ve told him before… you don’t think. Frankly you’ve forgotten the various shades of truth you’ve told him by now.

“Everyone in the First Family knows someday Fate will deliver their soulmate and it’s up to them to follow that soulmate to the ends of the universe, if that’s where they go. That way our people find new homes and continue on, even if…”

“Even if,” you press when he trails off. You are listening to everything he’s said, but your growing sense of unease has you checking screens and flipping more switches, powering on more of the ship. So far things seem to be holding; if you hadn’t been in the belly and brain of the ship yourself making the repairs two weeks ago, you wouldn’t know from the command center anything was wrong except where soot and smudges still cling to the walls.

“Even if the —- wipes out our entire city.”

Your hand hovers over a dial at the weight of his answer, and the incomprehensible name of this enemy, at all the questions beginning to bubble as you consider the vastness of all you do not know about Hoseok and his people. Questions gather on the tip of your tongue, but where to begin? Especially when you glance at his face and see him watching out the window, his expression undeniably sad. You don’t have to be a soulmate to see it’s sincere.

“If they’re already on this planet–”

“We establish a city, their scouts find us, their leaders and weapons follow. But they haven’t been able to wipe us out yet! Legend has it there’s a super weapon of our own that could end them and then we’d never live in fear again… I wish Jimin was here, he can tell the story better than I can.”

“A counter weapon?”

“Yes. Taehyung and Jungkook both left with their soulmates to find it… we haven’t heard from them so I don’t know…”

“And that’s what you think we’ll do now, you and I? We’re soulmates, as you said, so we’ll go and try to find this war weapon and–”

“No, I don’t think that,” he quickly corrects.

“Soulmates to you aren’t romantic or anything, it’s just–”

“It’s romantic,” he interrupts, then grins and looks bashful, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to speak over you. For some people it’s romantic to have that kind of a…” He fumbles about for the word.

“Quest?” you suggest. “Purpose?”

“Adventure,” he adds but nods at your suggestions.

“And what exactly is it you think you’re getting out of going willingly with your soulmate, if not to commandeer my ship in pursuit of this weapon to save your people?” You know your voice sounds more victorious than inquisitive because you feel like you’ve figured out his whole plan.

“Happiness. I hope we will find happiness,” he says. His cheeks ball up when he smiles like that, but he won’t look at you, like he’s too embarrassed for eye contact. “Life shouldn’t be just about survival, it should be joy. I have never lived anywhere but this planet but I don’t know how much longer my people will even stay here. I will probably never see any of them again, unless Fate makes it happen, but even my happiest day here… it’s supposed to be nothing compared to the happiness of…” He laughs again and shakes his head. “Do you need me to push buttons or pull levers to help us take off?”

“Who told you all these things about soulmates and what to expect?”

“We just know it.”

Your eyes narrow. You aren’t one just to believe things because people say them --not usually, anyway– and this sure sounds like the kind of cultural conspiracy a leader would come up with to get people to willingly do self-sacrificing things. Though, you must admit, it’s hard to quite see the long term plan of it… You’ll need to know more about Hoseok and his people to understand who in their society is the liar and why.

No. No, it’s not your job to investigate more. It’s your job to get this ship off the ground and deliver him to his purchaser.

For the first time you flinch at the bare bone truth of your job.

Ouch. When put like that, it sounds so awful. When you’d signed up for the job, you had thought of it as retrieving, not… selling. Even kidnapping sounded less morally gross for whatever reason. Like you were just rehoming a dog. He even willingly went with you! And now your entire crew has given their lives to sell a person who looks so human, who is talking about other soulmates he’s known, ones who joined with his people instead of fracturing away, and how happy they were for the rest of their lives in what you would call a pretty traditional sounding relationship: falling in love, making commitments to each other beyond Fate’s choice, having children or not, growing old together.

“What did you do in the village?” you ask because it’s a better question than do you understand I have kidnapped you in order to sell you? “Like… what were you doing with your life before you decided to walk away from everything?”

“I was a dancer.”

“A… what?” It’s about the most surprising answer he could have given, perhaps only slightly less surprising than something like I was the leader of the whole community.

“Dancing? You know what dancing is–”

“Yes I know what dancing is,” you snap. “Push that button.” He does so and you forget to warn him that it will make the ship lift and hover inches above the ground. The jolt of it is familiar to you and your legs automatically adjust. To your surprise, despite his startle, he doesn’t wind up on his ass but bends his knees and finds his balance quickly.

He laughs and looks absolutely thrilled about it as he presses, “Was that a test? I really am a dancer!”

“That was a ship lifting off, not a test. But whatever, you passed…”

He’s so delighted he claps his hands and then eagerly asks what button to push next to be helpful. To hurry you all along so you can deliver this man into the hands of a purchaser who will do who knows what with him. A morally sound scientist or a mad one? You never asked. It wasn’t your job to ask, only to deliver.

“What kind of dancing?” you ask as you check both digital screens and analog monitors just to make sure they say the same thing. There’s a low dread in the pit of your stomach, simmering beneath this conversation, because there’s a possibility the ship is not actually repaired and will explode as you try to depart, or break atmosphere, or maybe the moment you think you’re safely adrift in space. Boom.

He rattles off some words that mean nothing to you, possibly styles of dance but they could be types of sausages for all you know.

You test the throttle and the ship lurches forward, clunky at first like it’s forgotten to walk. Hoseok struggles to stay on his feet. The next time you do it is a bit smoother –maybe it’s you who has forgotten how to ease her into motion, though you’ll never admit it to Hoseok. You’d had people in command under you to do the actual flying on the way here, you were the boss in charge, but now it’s your own hands that will have to recall everything because your co-pilot now is a dancer.

“You should sit down and buckle up,” you suggest.

“Isn’t it more impressive if I stay standing?” he asks, swaying back and forth. “How fast is takeoff? What if we–” Suddenly he yells –it’s possible he shouts the unpronouncable name of his enemy because he’s looking out the window, and that would explain why he suddenly grabs your hand that’s on the thrust and jams it forward.

The ship rockets ahead, hitting several things that feel like rocks against the hull except for the hissing screaming sound they make. At least you are skilled enough at sudden turbulence to grab the safety lever above your head and keep your feet, but Hoseok goes flying away at the first bump. Your intention was to turn the ship towards the meadow and give yourself ample space to pick up momentum but Hoseok has rocketed you towards a cliff and you’ve already got too much speed to avoid it.

“Sit down!” you shout in case he can hear you, as your sheep careens over the edge in what will be fate’s quickest test of whether your repairs have been successful.

※※※

It’s an hour of hard steering and fighting with the controls before you’re finally clear of the planet’s gravitational pull. You feel the tug against your ship’s thrusters gradually ease until finally you’re adrift.

With an exhausted sigh, you select the coordinates and decide to let auto-pilot coast you for a bit. You won’t trust it all the way home because who knows where you’d actually end up if the computer has been damaged as much as you think, but for now you need to sit and breathe and maybe drink some water, replenish everything you sweat out while fighting to keep your ship from plunging below the surface of an orange ocean before it garnered enough strength to pull up.

Damn, your shoulders hurt. You see the chairs –empty– but don’t have the energy to walk to them, nor to shout for Hoseok, wherever he’s wound up. You simply sit where you are, roughly on your ass, and collapse backwards like a fool because at least he’s not here to see it.

Except your head lands on a pocket of air that groans and shifts beneath you and a moment later Hoseok the alien shimmers into view, coughing and grabbing his stomach.

“You can turn invisible?!” you cry, but it’s more of a whisper because you’re just that tired.

“Defense… mechanism… I hit my head…” he mumbles. “Did we die?”

“Obviously not, no thanks to you panicking and grabbing the controls!”

“Sorry,” he adds. His eyes are still closed, face turned up to the ceiling to show off his profile. Not even a shadow of stubble on his jaw. You start to ask if his people don’t grow facial hair but decide that’s unimportant and not a good use of your breath.

“Are you hurt?” he asks, suddenly turning his gaze to you.

It makes you realize you’re still lying on the ground like a fool, and you start to rise but he grabs your arm and suggests, “Just wait a moment.”

“Why?”

“I can’t get up yet and if you faint I won’t be able to catch you.”

“I’m not going to faint.”

“You are very dehydrated.”

“How do you know that?” you demand. And suddenly, unprompted, you kick his leg, “How do you know all these things, are you just guessing? You owe me an answer after you almost killed me in my own ship!”

“I told you I just know. Ow!”

“Just like you just know we’re soulmates?” you demand. “I don’t think you even mean soulmate, you mean free ride, but it’s not a free ride if you kill us–”

“Did we run over the —?”

“If they were there then yes, I think we did.”

“They were there,” he insists, his eyes looking even darker. He sits up suddenly. “But maybe we killed them… do you think so? I’ve never killed anything before…” He sort of sways, and you sit up to press a stabilizing hand to his arm.

It would be kind of a grand cosmic irony if you, who have spent years toughening up to approach life with the ruthless, ambitious, unsentimental edge needed to be a successful space captain, wind up with a soulmate who gets dizzy at the thought of running over his enemies with a spaceship.

“Isn’t it better if they’re dead?”

“Yes, but… yes, you’re right. If all I do with my life is stop those three from attacking my city or delivering any more intel or getting you, that’s good. That’s good.” He nods and turns to you but the fierce expression on his face is laced with uncertainty in such a way you almost laugh. You’ve seen a similar expression on him before and thought back in his village that it was a sign of toughness and independence and bravery, but you can see clearly now that while those things might be there, beneath them is softness. You wonder why you can see it now, if you’re just looking better or if he’s letting you see more.

Who is this guy who leaves his whole community behind on the promise of a soulmate who doesn’t believe in them, who sets off with nothing but a small pack, who exerts as much thought as he apparently does on tracking your hydration levels? It wasn’t like he had nothing to stay for back in that village he calls a city –he’s mentioned family, friends, dance, and speaks fondly of his people. And yet here he is, lying on the ground of your spaceship, a cut on his forehead starting to leak a strange blue fluid.

“I think you’re bleeding,” you gasp, touching his chin to turn his head.

“What color is it?”

“Um… blue? Is there more than one answer?”

“Blue is ok,” he says with a sigh. “It hurts but red is the color you have to worry about.”

“Why?”

“Well it’s really rare to survive the deep bleed.”

“You have… deep blood?”

“You don’t?”

“I mean all my blood is the same color and the same stuff it’s just… moving around the same pipes.”

“You have pipes?” he asks, head tilting.

“Veins and arteries.”

“It’s all the same stuff?” he is clearly shocked by this, then grins, “I have so much to learn about you and your body.”

“Woah, slow down there, Romeo.”

His face falls and he touches your chin too, fretting, “I think you hit your head too. My name is Jeon Hoseok, not Romeo.”

“No, I mean– it’s a story about– nevermind.”

“About love?” he guesses.

“I don’t know, depends who you ask. Maybe it’s impulsive lust that leads to death or maybe it’s innocent love that falls victim to– whatever, it doesn’t matter. We’re in space now. Might as well settle in and get your head cleaned up. I don’t know how much first aid I still have but…” You’re faster to your feet and extend a hand to help him up without thinking about it. His hand is shockingly smooth against your callused one, and strangely cool beneath your overly warm palm.

You quickly drop his hand and put some space between you, only to remember he’s hit his head and may be unstable, so you draw close again but make a point of not touching.

“How long will it take to get to your friend?” he asks without any comment whether he thinks you’re acting strangely or not.

“My friend?”

“The one you’re planning to sell me to,” he says as if it’s nothing, a smile growing on his face.

“I… look, I made it clear that–”

“Yes, you made your plans clear.”

“Then why are you smiling about it?” you ask, only to immediately answer for him, “Oh, you think Fate has other plans for us, let me guess.” You lead him away from the command room towards the galley where what little food and medical supplies you have will be waiting. At least just the two of you can make it stretch longer, surely at least until you get to a safe resupply dock.

“I think you’ll change your plans.”

“Based on what? What makes you so confident I’m not going to do exactly what I said?”

“You’re a liar,” he reminds you, the word sounding playful. He brushes at the blood dripping down his forehead with the back of his hand and only frowns briefly at it, not as bothered as you had expected him to be. “And I’m charming,” he adds, smile returning.

“Enough to charm me out of twenty-five-thousand Ceadoros?”

“Is that a lot of money I’m worth or is it embarrassingly low?”

His response has the unfortunate result of making you laugh. It’s just a short, low noise which you quickly try to cover as if it were a cough, pounding your chest.

Hoseok does not seem fooled and smiles so big his face practically becomes all teeth. The tendrils beside his face, which you realize you’re getting used to already so that you barely notice them, lift up and over his ears, sliding back like a bashful girl might. You wonder if the gesture means anything at all the same.

No, no you don’t wonder that! It is not your job to wonder, and you have no interest in wondering or learning more. You have a job to finish and 25,000 CDs to collect and probably you’re going to give every one of them away anyway to the bereaved families of your dead crewmates.

“I’m a woman of my word, but believe what you want,” you shrug. You won’t reveal that it unnerves you for him to express such confidence that you will not go through with this job. Has he picked up on your growing displeasure about it? Does he mistake you for a sentimental fool? You wouldn’t have taken the job if you weren’t certain you had the balls to follow through. The life of an alien doesn’t outrank your own need to eat. After a lifetime of scraping by, you’ll do whatever it takes to never be hungry again.

“I know.”

“Sure, you know everything about me, just like you know we’re soulmates and–”

“I know that it’ll take you longer to believe it. That’s ok. I’m patient and determined, you can learn that about me,” he beams, sitting on the bench you point him towards. “

“Uh huh.”

“I already know you’re worth it.”

You snort but don’t say anything because you don’t want to encourage him. Say what he wants, he’s not exactly being an open book, and you can’t put your finger on whether it’s intentional or not. Is he just playing at oblivious and easily distracted or is he genuinely naive and easily frightened?

It doesn’t matter.

You do have a bit of gauze and antiseptic to apply. The Computed Tomography Handheld Scanner needs to charge so you set that to it, ignoring the bad news it had delivered in its last use, and settle beside him to clean the gash.

“You aren’t dizzy, are you?” you ask him. “Head hurting? Seeing double? Sorry, I’m not much of a medic…”

“I have no deep damage,” he assures you and sounds so confident about it that maybe the CT scan isn’t needed after all. “Oh, you have a cut on your…” He doesn’t say the word but points to his own collar bone. You touch yours and feel the sting of a scrape you can’t see at this angle. Before you can even say something, he swipes a finger through the trail of his own blue blood and spreads it across your skin.

“Hey!”

“See? Soulmates.”

“No I can’t see! What did you do? It’s not safe to wipe your blood on someone else!”

“Oh it’s… you can’t see? It’s healed now. You aren’t bleeding anymore.”

“What?”

“Do you have a mirror around here? I guess it’s not as impressive if you can’t see it… here, cut your hand and I’ll show you–”

“I’m not going to cut my hand!”

“I promise it will heal right away.”

“What, your weird blue alien blood has healing properties?” you cry, but that does sound precisely why someone like that scientist would want Hoseok. “What does that have to do with soulmates?”

“It’s proof we’re soulmates,” he says, as if that says it all. It doesn’t. It couldn’t have proven anything for him before he left with you anyway, and now you can’t even be sure you had something there. Just because your skin stung doesn’t mean you were definitely injured, nor that it is gone now…

He sighs deeply, “That would have been a really cool way to prove it.”

“I’m not cutting my hand.”

“I’ll just wait until you get hurt again. Not that I hope you get hurt again! But…”

“Just sit still,” you grumble. “It’ll take us a month to get to my ‘friend’. Less if I can find a reputable repair shop before then.” You got the ship flying and not exploding, it looks like, but not exactly flying fast.

“A month,” Hoseok repeats with a nod and that serious expression on his face again. But his eyes are sparkling and you are not thrilled that, though you won’t admit it, you can read the sparkle as confidence in this man you’ve only known a week and who almost got you killed. “Oh! You have a spot here, maybe a bug bite? We can try my blood on that and see if it heals, do you have a mirror?”

“I’m not getting a mirror for something that stupid.”

“You know whether you believe or not doesn’t change whether it’s true.”

“I believe I am really going to enjoy twenty-five thousand CDs in my account.”

※※※

Your food stores are low and you’re going to need to stop soon, and neither of you can cook an edible thing between you. But perhaps that’s for the best. It means your expectations are low and you both stomach whatever comes out regardless of who’s on kitchen duty. Because you’re so low on everything, you’ve broken out the bottle of rum hidden in your captain’s quarters all this time.

No, wait, you opened it yesterday. Today you’re finishing the bottle, which should have taken more than two meals, but Hoseok is a hilarious drinker and you find him hilarious when you drink. Learning that he immediately loses control of his camouflage with the stuff was amusing enough but his propensity to enthusiastically overshare stories that are not the least bit funny since you don’t know any of the people in them, all while his skin cycles through shades of violet, red, chartreuse, gray, and everything in between means you can briefly forget the emptiness of the spaceship all the rest of the time.

No, that isn’t true. You still feel the ghosts of your crew mates. It’s still hard as shit operating the ship with only a single other person who has never flown before. But alcohol does make you admit that meals with Hoseok are terrible and inedible but quite entertaining. Last night he promised to show you some of his dance moves tonight and you’re kind of looking forward to it. Alcohol lets you admit that too.

Hoseok is in stitches and you’re having a hard time keeping your laugh subtle because now he looks like the bottom of a river even though he is also a person just sitting there, but his skin, it is just so ridiculous! You’re barely keeping yourself from reaching out to see if he actually feels sandy, bumpy with the stones and twigs strewn across his arms.

“So then Yoongi takes the bottle and breaks it but Seokjin was holding a flame and we didn’t realize it would start a fire, and Yoongi is the sort of person who doesn’t react big so when his shoes caught on fire he–”

You suddenly do a double take and interrupt, “Wait, Yoongi? You know someone named Yoongi?”

Hoseok’s mouth makes a comedic ‘O’ for a beat before he answers, “Yes. You have a friend named Yoongi too?”

“I don’t think it’s a common name,” you muse.

“No, I only know one Yoongi. So that makes two Yoongis in the universe? Or… only one?” Hoseok asks.

“How tall is your Yoongi?”

“Um… shorter than me. He has a round face.”

“And blue hair?” you ask.

“He always did like blue, but sometimes it’s black or silver,” Hoseok considers.

“I’ve only seen it be blue.”

“He curses a lot.”

“Son of a bitch, I bet it’s the same Yoongi!” you cry, then audibly gasp, “He’s an alien?!”

Hoseok’s peel of laughter echoes in the galley as he confirms, “If he’s my Yoongi, he’s just like me!”

“He doesn’t have tendrils,” you say and then, alcohol leads you to reach out, to touch one of Hoseok’s. It immediately curls around your finger and a shock runs through you. You’re not sure if it’s your own reaction or if Hoseok has in fact shocked you. The slow way it releases your finger makes the moment feel impossibly long and for a second you can only blink at him.

Is it a full minute or does it only feel that way before Hoseok reminds you, “My arms and eyes come and go too, you don’t think these are easier to hide?”

“Then why don’t you?”

“The arms and eyes freak you out, I think,” he says. “But I think you like these.”

“I’m not freaked out by anything,” you insist. And refuse to consider whether your face gets warm because of the alcohol or what he’s trying to expose in you. “If you want to have four arms and six eyes all the time, don’t let me stop you. Maybe I’ll even get used to it. Maybe those are normal things for a person to have.”

“They’re normal to me.”

“Yoongi doesn’t have those.”

“He doesn’t trust you enough to let you see the real him.”

“Well now I’m even more mad!” you cry, “Because we went through some shit together on a ship and that whole fucking time he was hiding arms and eyes from me?”

“What kind of shit did you go through together?” Hoseok asks and you aren’t sure if the flash in his eyes is jealousy or glee at the promise of a story from you this time or if you’re just very drunk.

“No, I will make him tell you. We are going right to that fucker’s place and he is going to answer for his crimes and fix our ship!” You say it and then nearly gasp with disbelief.

There it is. There’s the completely reasonable reason to delay reaching your destination, just a little. It’s not even really a delay, actually, because you might not be able to make it without stopping to visit him first! You have to do this. You aren’t putting off the inevitable, you’re just making the decision that needs to be made.

“Oh, can he do that?”

“Yes, he’s a mechanic now!”

“Oh we need a mechanic!” Hoseok cheers. “Maybe he’ll join our crew! Also what crimes?!”

But you’ve already leapt up and set off for the control cabin to change your coordinates to the place where Yoongi settled and opened a repair shop not three years ago. You hope he’s still there. Hoseok watches you do it, though he’s slower to get to the command room than you are, and unsteady on his feet. He can’t stop laughing –it sounds actually like a giggle.

“There. We’ll be there in… two days,” you announce.

“What if it really is the same Yoongi?” Hoseok muses. “All this time, you met one of my brothers already? I didn’t even know if he was still alive!”

Your eyes narrow and you wag your finger, scolding, “Don’t say it’s Fate.”

“It’s Fate! And now your friend is going to have to wait a little longer to meet me, hmmm?” He’s teasing and leans in close, that sparkle in his eyes practically blinding.

“Yes, just a small detour,” you assure him. “It’s not fate, it’s alcohol. I’ll probably regret this tomorrow and put us back on course.” You won’t.

“Fate has a lot of names…”

“And you have a lot of arms, do you have more than four arms now?!”

“No? Only four.”

“I see at least six…” you insist, leaning into the lie that you are too drunk to be held accountable for your decisions right now –decisions like a detour.

Hoseok grabs your arms to stop your own swaying, his laughter filling the command room as he does every room he moves through on the ship, “You are drunk and a liar and–”

“Don’t say it!”

“Very dehydrated,” he laughs, and slides his arm around your waist. You lean heavily against him. “Let’s drink some water. I’m kind of dehydrated too.”

“Hoseok your skin literally looks like an orange ocean right now…”

“Do you like it?”

“It’s really kind of soothing, yeah… except the ocean is blue-green on my planet.”

“I’ll go with you to see it,” he promises and sings as you walk, “I’ll be blue for you…”