Take Me to the Sky | BTS+

Belly of the Beast

It turned out that visiting Okie Port was like a crash course in summer vacationing.

The Noon Mool crew were dressed like beachside tourists in the middle of June, and so were plenty of other people who were bustling around the sandy space age port. It was lined with palm trees and glistened with sunshine.

It wasn't really a city, so much as a tiny floating Island in the sky. Okie Port was crammed to the brim with shuttle after shuttle, awning after dingy awning of traveling salesmen trying to make the most of their unusual wares.

There were other people and...beings...of all kinds walking the crowded rows and chatting in a range of languages and dialects. There were sounds coming out of strangers' mouths that Shae and Ava didn't know were even possible.

Chim, Ava, Shae and Jin walked casually along the sandy lanes lined with palm trees and vendors of every assortment. They avoided ferns the size of baby elephants one minute, and fellow pedestrians weighed down in burly armor and bulging muscle the next.

"Should we be worried at all?" Ava asked at one point, edging closer to Chim and feeling unsure as well as exhilarated by the salty smells and swarming bodies. Some of these random strangers looked more than capable of picking a fight if they decided to, she thought.

Chimin chuckled. "Oh, not really. Without Joon here, the odds of someone spotting us are down to like...45%."

"That sounds so high." Ava wasn't exactly soothed.

Chim laughed. "Well, if Joon were here, people would be staring at us on every corner. Without him, they only stare on every other corner."

"That could also just be that you're so good looking, Chim," Ava joked, partially trying to reassure herself by making someone giggle.

Chimin let out a wind chime laugh and sent Ava a mischievous look. "Yes, it could also just be that."

Shae thought she caught a whiff of a faint, familiar smell. She saw what she swore was a real live abuella on the upcoming corner with corn tortillas—the color of pink starbursts—warming over a stone disk. Even after eating Jin's delicious packed lunch of rolled rice and sweet pickled radish during the shuttle ride, a glorious smell much like Mexican food wafted from the old woman's cooking and made Shae's mouth water.

Jin walked up to the tan woman with flowing black hair, gave a slight bow and a friendly smile, and began making a series of gestures with his hands. Sign language. Wordless, the woman smiled, and an exchange was made.

Suddenly, Jin was shoving a small wrap that smelled like heaven into Shae and Ava's hands.

"Some street food is death. Goes down and out in the worst way. But these are glorious."

Chim giggled at the groans of satisfaction coming from Ava and Shae as they ate the heavenly tacos and continued to walk. They followed after Jin's lead while they ate, as Jin wove in and out of oncoming onlookers and seemed to know precicesly where he was going.

The four of them came to a stop outside of one of the larger of the merchant crafts. It was a towering inky black sphere shape with it's gut hanging wide open like the entrance to a dark, foreboding cave that was sure to lead to some great demise. A sign hung over the open shuttle ramp, a white plank with silvery script written over it that looked like the kind of elegant scrawl that belonged in a painting, or in a story about knights and dragons.

"Is this it?" Shae asked.

There was a sound like a growl from somewhere inside of the black, dimly lit craft, and it made Shae and Ava take a step back.

"That's the wind," Chim said, putting an encouraging hand on both ladies' shoulders and guiding them forward.

There was a sense of gothic intimidation dripping from the black spikes that framed the entrance. A hollow echo resounded from their footsteps on metal as the four of them walked up the slightly upturned ramp and into the belly of the beast.