The next morning, Ava was early again into the space shuttle kitchens.
So was Min Yoongi.
Yoongi nursed an empty mug of coffee and stood staring down at the gurgling coffee pot that was buzzing up his morning brew. At the sound of Ava's pattering feet, he turned his pale-faced frown in her direction. His eyes didn't even look like they were open.
Ava stifled a yawn against the back of her hand. "...Ugh. I even got up early to avoid your presence."
"Same." Yoongi turned back to staring through slitted eyes at the gurgling coffee pot.
Ava frowned and started forward, trying to walk past Yoongi and get to the cabinets where the coffee mugs were resting. He didn't move—merely stood still as a statue without turning to look at her.
Ava tried to push Yoongi out of her way...but he was surprisingly sturdy. He gave a subtle grunt, a sign of his effort to remain standing still.
"Really? We're doing this?" Ava asked.
"You started it," Yoongi grumbled.
"ExcUSE me?!"
Yoongi's nose scrunched together disapprovingly at the sound of Ava's raised volume. "Shhhh. My eyes aren't awake enough yet for loud noises."
Ava pressed a finger, hard, into Yoongi's chest and her nose was suddenly inches from Min Yoongi's.
His eyes were open now.
She said through gritted teeth, "You're not allowed to... to do the things you did to me yesterday morning, Min Yoongi, and then turn around and be a complete asshole like nothing even happened. No. I won't have it."
He was ready to throw his mug at the wall. "Well excUSE me, miss 'I'm not your anything.' I was just taking a fucking hint. Why can't you?"
The timer buzzed. The coffee was done brewing.
Through her glare and her speechless frown, Ava leaned forward until her lightly freckled nose was almost brushing Yoongi's pale one—then she violently jerked the coffee mug from his hands. Ava turned, poured coffee into the mug and then replaced the pot with a heavy clanking. Then she stormed from the kitchens in her flopping slippers without turning around to look in Yoongi's direction.
He let out a low, irritated growl as his lip curled and he watched her go. Stop it, Yoongi. Stop looking at... Dammit.
It was hard to say which of them was feeling more angry and foolish that morning.
__
Jeon Jungkook woke up with someone else's knuckle flopped into his left eye. He plucked the hand up and shoved it aside, grumbling to himself. He sat up and wiped the tiredness from his face, shoving the covers aside.
Kim Taehyung's soft sleep-breathing didn't even falter. Jungkook gave a single airy laugh as he looked over at the sight of Tae's drooling mouth, and at the stuffed heart-animal tucked under Tae's drooling chin.
"Looks like he was able to sleep okay for once. Good."
Jungkook got up and made his way from that suite and into the main hallway. When he stepped outside, he was surprised to see Ava making angry, hurried strides down the circular corridor in his direction.
She had a hot mug of coffee and a death glare for the ages.
"Uh... are you alright, Ava?"
Ava stopped dead in her tracks. She took in a sharp breath, then let it out just as sharply.
"Riddle me this, Jeon Jungkook. How is it that no matter the dimension, the century, the circumstances, WHAT HAVE YOU... how is it that men never cease to be so absolutely infuriating? Riddle. Me. This."
"Uh...." What is she talking about?
Ava sipped pointedly at her coffee.
"You can't. Because it is this great unsolved mystery of the universe. Ages from now, they'll still be asking this fundamental question of existence, and all the women from all of time will be rolling in our graves saying, I KNOW RIGHT."
"If this is about any man in particular, maybe you should try talking to them?"
Ava rolled her eyes. "Like that's ever helped me in the past."
"If not that... then how have you handled these things in the past?"
Ava's green eyes became slits. Which then became crinkled at the edges from her pleased grin.
She stepped forward and pressed her hot mug into Jungkook's chest in such a way that, as a default reaction, his hands reached forward and he took the mug.
Then she slipped one finger up along the side of Jungkook's neck, traced down the line of his jaw, and slipped her fingertip up his chin to rest on his lips that looked about to form a question.
Jungkook's eyes went wide. He froze, a snake successfully charmed.
Ava leaned in, grabbed Jungkook by the collar of his loose pajama shirt with both hands, and pulled him into a firm, full kiss.
He was too stunned to respond.
Then she kissed him again, and this time Jungkook's shock melted into blind surrender. His mind was blank. It was as if will and sensation were being plucked up and devoured by Ava, and he had no say in the matter whatsoever.
Then her lips found the skin of his jaw, her soft breath tickled along his cheek, his ear... and Jungkook shuddered as she whispered, "Like this."
Then Jungkook felt Ava's hands slip around the coffee mug that she'd put in his hands. She pulled it from his stunned fingers and took a sip, grinning in fiendish satisfaction as she looked up at the dumbstruck look on Jeon Jungkook's face.
My work here is done.
"If round two suits your style, you know where to find me." Ava winked.
Then, her former fury abated, Ava walked down that hallway like it was an haute couture runway and she was center stage.
Jungkook gaped after her, words and sanity utterly lost to him.
As Ava walked, pleased with her successful charms, a biting voice still rose up inside of her that said, But I liked the way Yoongi... Then she shook her head, telling herself to forget just what it was that she liked so much. Because Min Yoongi was never going to happen.
The door just behind Jeon Jungkook opened, and out poked the sleepy eyes and messy silver hair of Kim Taehyung. He was smiling as if sleeping and waking inside the most blissful of dreams.
Tae's crackly voice said, "Good morning Kookie."
Jungkook turned his dumbstruck face in Tae's direction.
"Why do you look like you just got assigned to desk duty for life or something?" Tae chuckled, dark and rich.
Jungkook blinked hard. "I need a cup of coffee." Then he stalked in silence down the hallway towards the kitchens. Tae watched him go, shrugged his shoulders, and disappeared back inside their suite.
Whenever Jeon Jungkook opened the door to the kitchens and saw Min Yoongi slumped over a bowl of porridge and a steaming mug, recognition clicked into place.
She likes Min Yoongi.
Jungkook pulled some cold eggs from the cooling units and started preparing to cook up a protein-infused breakfast. At the sound of clanking pots and utensils, Yoongi gave a low growl.
"What's eating you?" Jungkook asked casually.
"None of your fucking business." Yoongi spooned mush into his mouth.
Jungkook busied himself with cracking a few eggs, letting the sizzle and smell rise up to greet him. But his shock at Ava had only shifted into steep curiosity, and he couldn't help himself.
"Is this...related to a girl, perhaps?"
Yoongi's features froze into place. His small eyes grew even smaller and bore like fiery coals into Jungkook's skin.
Jungkook followed quickly with, "Not that anyone said anything or whatever, I just... I couldn't help but notice... "
Yoongi got up from the barstool with his cup of coffee in hand. He didn't even bother with his bowl. The brooding tech specialist turned and shuffled out of the kitchen in angry silence, still wearing his silk pajamas and house slippers.
He's into her, too.
Jungkook thought to himself what Yoongi might do if he found out that Ava'd happened to plant a mack or two his way. He sighed.
"Well shit."
__
Shae didn't remember falling asleep again in Hoseok's bed, but when she woke up to that citrus and cinnamon smell the groggy memories of the day before came back floodlight clear.
She rolled carefully out of his bed, her feet padding delicately into the floor. But when she looked over to where Hoseok had been lying up against the wall, a pile of blankets on carpet, there was no one inside of them.
"Huh."
She looked innocently around the spotlessly clean suite. It looked far more homey and lived-in than the room she and Ava had been sharing. She realized that this had been...his home...for a while now, and she softened at the realization.
Shae rose and walked across the room, drawn to a black and white photograph that was propped up on a dresser. She could pick out the younger, innocent, fresh faces of Chimin, Joon, Jungkook, Taehyung, Seokjin, Yoongi, and Hoseok. She smiled.
"So cute."
"I know I am, thank you."
Shae jumped at the sound of Hoseok's voice just over her shoulder. She spun around, and there he stood in naught but his baggy gym pants with a toothbrush sticking out of the side of his mouth.
Shae flushed at the nearness of his bare chest. He saw the flush, the direction of her eyes, and he gave a messy-yet-satisfied grin coated in white foam.
"It's real. You can touch it if you want."
"E-excuse me?"
"These muscles. They're real."
"I don't think I've ever heard something so nauseatingly self-confident in my entire life."
Hoseok walked into his bathroom, spit out his froth, and his voice echoed out at her, "Your eyes said you wanted to." He walked out of the bathroom, wiping his mouth with a towel. "I thought it'd be polite to give you permission."
Shae cleared her throat. "There will be no touching of any kind, Jung Hoseok." She crossed one forearm over the other in an X pattern in his direction.
"No?" He stepped closer to her and snapped the towel over his bare shoulder with a loud THWACK.
Shae's eyes grew wide. Her breath froze in her throat.
Hoseok stopped in his tracks. "Hey, I'm just teasing Shae. Honestly, you look like you're about to have a heart attack."
"It's not funny, Hobi. You're bigger than me. It's not...it's not funny."
Hoseok felt a warmth in his gut, that she'd used his nickname in such a soft little breath...and in realizing the vulnerable implication of her words. Memories of Shae in that too-short black dress, at the merciless hands of a drugged Kim Namjoon monster that he had created flickered through his mind.
"Shae, look at me."
Shae's nervously averted eyes looked up into his earnest small eyes that hid beneath that shaggy sheath of red hair.
"You don't need to be afraid of me, Shae. I may tease, but it's only to tease. I know healthy limits, okay?"
"Okay."
He balled one hand into a fist. Then, his face screwed up in childish determination, he moved that fist in slow-motion in a mock-swing, until the knuckles touched feather-soft against Shae's cheek. He followed through and let his hands slip to his sides.
She smiled shyly at the playful gesture.
"You're so weird, Jung Hoseok."
His earnest, too-wide grin glistened with pride. "I know."
--
The Library of Mirth Expedition shuttle was very small. The tense atmosphere suspended between Kim Namjoon, Kim Seokjin and Lilith only made it even feel even smaller.
Chimin was the happy-go-lucky pilot with his earbuds popped in and his hands on the steering wheel as he piloted them on their way through warp speed. He hummed the upbeat tune playing in his ears with a pleased expression as his toe bobbed along in time.
No one knew where they were going except for Chimin—who seemed so familiar with the path ahead that he didn't even reference his navigation system once.
There was a singular circular table just behind the main pilot and copilot chairs. On one side of this cockpit space, in micro-furniture fashion, was a kitchen sink and hidden cabinets tucked into one wall. A shower-sized bathroom was hidden in the opposite wall. Short metal ladders were built into the far back corner of both the left and right walls. At the top of each ladder were two human-sized lengthwise cabinets: sleeping pods.
Inside one of them, Kim Seokjin was snoring loud enough that Lilith and Joon could hear him from inside the cockpit. Under different circumstances, Lilith might be giggling under her breath at Jin and his nuances. But today she was too busy eating thin vegetable slices bite-by-heavy bite and staring pointedly at Kim Namjoon.
The two of them were sitting in swivel chairs propped around the small, circular table. Joon had a hardback notebook open on his lap and a pen in his hand, scribbling away.
"Writing your last will and testament?" Lilith asked bitterly.
"Good guess. No." Joon kept writing, not looking up from the page. His teardrop dark eyes squinted in concentration.
"Hmph." Lilith snapped her teeth noisily into another veggie stick.
"I'm not going to burst into flames, no matter how much you visualize it," Joon murmured without looking up.
"Unfortunately."
Joon sighed and snapped his notebook shut. He tossed it onto the table and clicked the pen so the metal retracted. "Just say it. I know you wish you could kill me where I stand. I know you've thought through taking this pen and driving it into my neck at least a few times. So, goddammit, just say it."
"Say what? Tell you that you're gonna get what's coming to you? Tell you that death is what you deserve, you asshole?"
Joon reached across the table and set his pen pointedly down on top of the table in front of Lilith. He stood up.
"I can't take it back. You can either murder me where I stand, or you can deal with it some other way."
Joon walked towards the ladder into the left wall and started up it towards the sleeping pod. "Writing helps."
"Writing what?"
Joon pressed a button and the sleep pod door swung open. He started to climb the small rungs, his long limbs scrunched and clumsy. "What I did. In vivid detail. What you saw, how you felt, how it still makes you feel. Write it down. Remember it. Grieve it. Then maybe you'll finally be able to let it go."
Joon swung himself into the sleep pod. "Or not. Your choice."
He pressed a button over his head and the pod door slid shut, closing him inside of it.
Lilith growled, "And just let you off the hook? You'd like that, wouldn't you?"
She plucked up the notebook he'd left on the countertop, shameless, and flipped it open to the first page with a scoff.
Then she froze.
What... what is this?
As she read each line, a strange mixture of anger and sadness churned inside of her.
The first notebook page was covered in names. Some of them she recognized, and some of them she'd never encountered before. Lilith flipped the page.
More names.
Each name was written on a single line in heavy, dark ink, as if each name had been written and then re-written over in heavy strokes...the way someone re-writes something again and again because they are thinking or concentrating or distracted.
She flipped the page again.
Again.
The very last page, at the very end of the page, there were two names written in mad black scrawl that leaped out and grabbed her by the throat. At the sight of them, her anger and sorrow rose up in the form of a primal growl.
"You bastard."
Lilith read the last two names, Opal and Jackson, again and again.
My friends.
As Lilith fumed, the realization struck her that these must all be the names of people that had died at Kim Namjoon's hands.
More names than she could count.
And he had remembered every single one.
Lilith slammed the notebook shut and gripped it too-tightly in her hands.
What, do you want, Namjoon, my pity? My sympathy? Do you want me to believe the fallacy that somehow you feel SORRY for what you've done? Because I don't give a shit. Even if you got on your damn knees and begged for forgiveness and confessed all the sins you've ever regretted, I wouldn't give a shit.
Lilith tossed the book onto the circular table, lest she snap it in half in her hands.
You can feel as sorry as you want. It doesn't change what you have done. It doesn't change what's coming to you.
Lilith thought this with earnest ferocity... but for the first time, she felt her bitter anger at Kim Namjoon waver.