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Donghyuck realizes on Day 23 that he is not alone.
It’s not a welcomed thought. But his rations are disappearing faster than he’s eating them, and he can only pretend that the eyes he feels on the back of his neck are symptoms of onsetting madness for so long.
He’s on a warship light years deep in Empire territory, with no back up and no escape plan. That someone else might share this narrow space between the walls with him could not only spell a death sentence for himself, but a failure for his mission. That, above all else, is unacceptable.
So the next time Donghyuck leaves his nest of bedroll and blankets, he doubles back after fifty paces, ducks behind a large pipe, and waits.
An hour into his watch, a faint whisper of cloth on metal is the only thing that signals the other stowaway’s approach. Without his night-vision implant, Donghyuck might’ve missed the figure darting towards his backpack. But Chenle had sent him off with every edge in NCT’s arsenal, and Donghyuck began training before he could speak. If he plays this right, he might even avoid ruining his supplies with the stowaway’s blood.
Donghyuck flexes his fingers and holds his breath for the right timing. When the stowaway crouches down, he leaps out from behind the pipe and tackles them to the ground, his knees pinning their arms to their side. On his exhale, there’s an elbow jammed beneath the other’s jaw and a knife headed for their left eye.
Then—
Donghyuck’s next breath hitches in his throat. The knife stops two centimeters short.
It’s a rookie mistake to let eye contact arrest your killing momentum. But the person before him is a human boy with dark eyes and high cheekbones, and for a moment Donghyuck swears he’s looking at Mark, straight out of his fondest memories of cold sodas in the training room and stolen kisses under the light of a dying star.
But Mark is thousands of light years away in Kwangya, and Donghyuck is on a suicide mission on one of the largest warships in the Empire’s fleet.
And above all else, the mission must come first.
(But there’s a human life trembling in his hands. In his life-long preparation for the war, Donghyuck was never trained to kill a fellow human-being.)
The stowaway stammers something in what Donghyuck recognizes as Chinese. A wave of homesickness for Renjun’s lilting accent distracts him only momentarily, but it’s enough for the stowaway to wrench his wrist free and twist the knife out of his hand. The blade clatters to the ground. The boy makes no move to grab it, and neither does Donghyuck.
“Please, I won’t hurt you,” he implores, this time in English. “We’re stowaways on a ship full of Criks that want our species dead—we’re on the same side.”
His accent doesn’t match anything from Kwangya, and he gives no indication of being an alliance Citizen. He’s all charm and bluster and pretty words without substance, with a roguish mischief in the crinkle of his smile that hides a million secrets in hindsight.
He’d been stealing from Donghyuck mere moments ago. But he isn’t trying to kill Donghyuck, which—judging by the ease with which he disarmed him—wouldn’t be impossible, if he wanted to.
(Donghyuck could kill this stranger, if he wanted to. There’s another blade hidden in the folds of his sleeve, and it would only take a flick of his wrist to put his knife in this man’s head.
His wrist stays still, loosely held aloft by the stowaway’s hand.)
“Why should I believe you? Why shouldn’t I just kill you?”
He would take any reason, Donghyuck thinks. Any reason at all for companionship in the hostile cold of empty space, a galaxy between him and his home.
The stowaway smiles and trails his fingers up Donghyuck’s wrist, fluttering across his pulse point, to where his secondary knife is tucked away. “Why haven’t you?” he challenges, which is not a good reason, but a valid point anyway.
“Touché,” Donghyuck laughs. He stands and extends a hand to the only other human on this side of the Kosmo. “Nice to meet you, then. I’m Donghyuck.”
The stowaway grins, his face lighting up with the force of it, and Donghyuck notices just how young he looks—just barely old enough to be a soldier, like himself.
“My name is Kunhang.” The boy takes his proffered hand. “But you can call me Hendery.”
For the first month or so, they keep to themselves.
Donghyuck familiarizes himself with the inner workings of the IBC-23.2020 Nihilus. He intercepts every signal the Nihilus sends out, and inspects the nuclear fuel until his eyes burn.
(He composes farewell letters to each of his friends, then systematically deletes them all.)
Hendery flutters about in his periphery, crossing his path on random corners of the ship and occasionally striking up small talk. For someone trapped behind enemy lines, he’s unapologetically hilarious, so Donghyuck allows himself to enjoy his company and indulge in the aching familiarity of another human presence.
Still, their trust in their common DNA only goes so far; Donghyuck sleeps with his backpack close to his chest and a knife under his pillow. He doesn’t ask any dangerous questions, doesn’t pry into what exactly Hendery is looking for that has him crawling through every crevice of the ship, and doesn’t offer up his own findings.
They’re lockstep in a careful dance that all comes down to their mutual reluctance to kill a fellow human being. After all, there are so few of them left in the Kosmo.
Hendery falls sick around Day 80.
For an entire week, Donghyuck doesn’t see the other stowaway at all—not at his regular stakeout by the brig, nor for their periodic dinners. By the time Donghyuck gives in to his concern, it’s almost too late. He finds Hendery curled up in the center of a shallow pool of water that stinks faintly of vomit, burning up and barely responsive, his wounded staccato breathing obvious even against the hiss and crackle of the steam pipes in this area. There’s no visible injury on his body, though his clothes cling to him strangely—the room is humid and warm, but not oppressive enough to drench anyone.
He must’ve drowned, Donghyuck realizes. And even if the water didn’t kill him, his pneumonia will soon.
Donghyuck fumbles through his backpack until he finds his bottle of antibacterials. He slides one arm around Hendery’s back and pulls him up against his shoulder.
“Hendery,” he tries. “Kunhang, wake up.”
Hendery makes a keening noise, except it gets caught in his throat and tears out as a jagged cough instead. Donghyuck catches Hendery’s jaw in his hand, presses the pill between his lips, and brings his canteen up to his mouth.
“Swallow.”
Hendery takes two gulps before he’s overcome by another coughing fit, but the pill stays down. Donghyuck puts away his medkit, slings Hendery’s arm around his neck, and hauls them both to their feet. Hendery was smart to sleep here when he had nothing else to keep out the chill, but with his wet clothes and infected lungs, the dusty humidity could kill him instead.
By the time they make it back to Donghyuck’s nest near the hull, Hendery is shivering in his arms. Donghyuck pulls off his damp layers until Hendery is left in only his underclothes, and then buries him under his blankets.
Then he waits. The rest, he knows, is out of his hands.
Later he’ll learn that Hendery fell into a tank near the botany units, which is where he goes to steal his food. Born to zero-gravity, he’d never learned to swim, and had dragged himself back to his camp with lungs full of muddied water, malnourished and breathing steam carrying rust in a trade-off for warmth. He was slated to die if Donghyuck hadn’t found him when he did.
“I owe you my life,” Hendery will say, a helpless grin on his pale face as he plays with Donghyuck’s fingers.
For now, Donghyuck cards his hand through Hendery’s hair and hums an ancient lullaby as he holds vigil over Hendery’s feverish war for his life. He’s not religious, but he whispers a prayer to the passing stars anyway.
They become sort of inseparable after that.
Donghyuck intersperses his outings with risky trips to the kitchens, knowing his own rations aren’t meant to sustain two people for as long as they must. He underdoses the iodine in his water in an attempt to stretch out his reserves, and takes careful stock of his remaining supplies. After a week of sleeping fitfully on the metal floor and a stage-whispered argument, Donghyuck joins Hendery on the bedroll.
They still don’t talk about what they're doing on the ship. But Hendery sidesteps the massive elephant in their tiny room with a boyish grin, and invites Donghyuck to future trips to faraway galaxies and paradise planets. He makes casual remarks about the fatefulness of their meeting, and Donghyuck replies wryly that their convergence must’ve been written in the stars. But even though Hendery is too sincere to be joking, and Donghyuck yearns something painful under his snark, they’re both too cynical to believe in cosmic serendipity on a warship charted for genocide.
Still, it’s nice. Hendery’s gentle touch and charming humor is more than he could’ve asked for in the final months of his life, and Donghyuck silently adds another objective to his mission: get Hendery out alive.
The Nihilus makes port at Ceon-2YDY on Day 276.
Donghyuck had assumed that they'd part here, so he’d written a novel of letters in his head apologizing for his inability to join Hendery on intergalactic adventures and directing him to Kwangya if he’s ever in need of shelter. None of them make the cut, because he doesn’t have paper and he can’t send digital messages.
The morning before landing, Donghyuck kisses Hendery’s cheek while he’s asleep and whispers his goodbye into his hair. Then he leaves to locate the bridge, fully expecting an empty camp when he returns.
The Nihilus stops at Ceon for three days. Hendery is still onboard when they leave. Neither of them say anything, but suspicion stirs in the back of Donghyuck’s mind.
A week later Donghyuck finds Hendery watching the brig again, and settles quietly next to him. “So who’s in there?” he whispers casually.
Hendery flinches.
“Ceon was the last stop before military space,” Donghyuck continues. “But you didn’t leave when you had the chance. So there must be something keeping you here.”
Hendery grins cheekily. “How do you know it’s not you?” he flirts, but there’s a defensive edge to it that screams danger.
Donghyuck keeps both hands splayed before him, though they both know his knives live inside his sleeves. “No one would stay here for a stranger.”
“Then why are you still here, Donghyuck?”
“I am here,” Donghyuck whispers carefully, watching Hendery watch his hands, “to destroy the ship.”
Hendery tilts his head. He has no weapon—Donghyuck was never foolish enough to arm him—but his face is unreadable and his stance is shifting. “Well, I can’t let you do that just yet.”
Donghyuck moves slowly, his hands cautiously empty as he crowds into Hendery’s space. He brushes his fingers over Hendery’s cheek, down across his jaw, and stops on his fluttering pulse. Hendery stays still, wide eyes trained on Donghyuck’s face.
“Who do they have of yours, Kunhang?” Donghyuck murmurs softly like he’s whispering sweet nothings instead of a blade-kissed threat. “Who are you, that they’ve kept a hostage alive for you?”
“No one special,” Hendery replies, eyes flashing. “Not like you, Haechan.”
Donghyuck pauses. There’s only 16 people in the Kosmo that knows that name, and all of them are dead, dying, or safe in Kwangya—except that one name attached to an arrest order, an old friend he hoped to never see again.
“You‘re WeishenV,” Donghyuck realizes. “And Dong Sicheng is in that brig.”
Hendery clenches his jaw, which is as good as confirmation.
“Where’s the rest of your crew? Your captain?”
“Dead,” Hendery bites out, “or here, or not stupid enough to come back.”
“So you’re here instead?” Donghyuck laughs. “But you can’t rescue them alone, or you would’ve tried already. You don’t have a plan. And sooner or later they’ll realize your captain’s not coming, and then they’ll kill your crew. And then what will you do?”
If only looks could kill. “You’re crueler than I gave you credit for.”
Donghyuck bares his teeth in the terrible grin he’d learned from Jaemin. “I have no sympathy for deserters,” he sneers. But even though his knife is right near Hendery’s throat, his mind races through every contingency plan he's made in his less patriotic hours. Could I—?
Hendery’s eyes flicker to the brig. The look on his face is a perfect mirror of the feeling that simmers under Donghyuck’s skin every time he remembers Mark asking him to run away together after he was assigned to Operation Dream, or thinks about Renjun and Jaemin and Jeno alone in the belly of another warship across the Kosmo. It’s half the reason he won’t run; there’s nothing left for him back home.
But Hendery’s family is right there.
“The mission comes first,” Donghyuck says lightly, closing his eyes in resignation as his knife drops out of his hand and clatters to the floor. Then he rests his forehead against Hendery’s and breathes a promise right into his mouth. “But my objectives changed recently. Will you let me help you?”
An eternity passes, before Hendery melts in his hands. He laughs, sweet and boyish, and then kisses Donghyuck back. “Do you believe in cosmic serendipity yet?”
“Maybe,” Donghyuck concedes. Maybe star-crossed lovers.
They move on Day 336, when the Nihilus is one week out from its terminal destination.
“I’ll meet you at the escape pods,” Donghyuck reiterates. They’re crouched in the vent just outside the bridge. From there, Hendery will head towards the brig while Donghyuck opens a path for him from control. “They're close enough that I can make it even if the locks fail.”
Hendery purses his lips. “It’s so risky.”
Donghyuck tangles their fingers together. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I’m very good at what I do.”
Hendery squeezes his hand, and Donghyuck lingers in this precipice where he holds all of Hendery in his hands. Then he lets go, knowing that Hendery has already slipped through his fingers like the sands of the hourglass ticking down to Donghyuck’s ending.
“It’s showtime,” Donghyuck declares, and drops down from the ceiling onto a passing guard’s shoulders. He snaps its neck in one motion, then leaps towards the second guard.
The Crik brings up its rifle to parry his knife, so Donghyuck kicks it in the abdomen and into Hendery’s firing pistol, its spongy flesh sizzling around the plasma bullet. Donghyuck smirks at Hendery over the Crik’s shoulder, and Hendery covers him as he dances around in a twirl of blade and blood.
They make quick work of the rest. Then Donghyuck presses a metal disk against the keypad, where it beeps twice, matching up to the ship’s frequencies that Donghyuck spent months deciphering, and the doors slide open.
The thing about war, Donghyuck thinks, is that individual lives don’t matter. When they open fire into the chamber, Donghyuck doesn’t think about whether any of the crew have families, unfulfilled dreams, or a star-crossed lover. They are all simply the enemy.
Hendery finishes off the last of the crew as Donghyuck uploads the virus into the ship’s systems. Camera footage from all over the Nihilus unfolds across the glass, and the controls for every door on this ship light up on the console.
Donghyuck takes a moment to look at Hendery, in starlight instead of darkness for the first time. He takes in his dark curls tied at the nape of his neck, grown out during their stay. The irresponsible way he holds his gun, his finger loose on the trigger. The fresh splatters of blood on his cheekbones, the old scar on his top lip, the fading hickey just under his jaw. The way he looks at Donghyuck like he’s a supernova.
Then Donghyuck turns to face the bridge. “Go,” he says. “I’ll see you on the other side.”
In the glass, Hendery’s reflection grins. He leaves after a sarcastic salute.
Sicheng knows exactly what he’s doing the moment Hendery says Donghyuck’s name. He looks directly at the cameras, at Donghyuck watching through the cameras. “You won’t even say goodbye?” He has the same accent as Renjun, with the same softness Donghyuck recalls from his training days.
Hendery falters. “Goodbye?”
“Winwin,” Donghyuck’s voice whispers through the speakers. “You know the mission comes first.”
Hendery stills for a moment, and then snarls in realization. But by the time he turns towards the hallway, the doors have slid shut. “Donghyuck,” he warns. “Don’t you dare.”
“Winwin, please.”
Sicheng stares another beat at the camera, before he sighs. He makes a gesture to the two other members of their party, and they nod grimly before each taking Hendery forcibly by the arm.
“Fuck you, Sicheng, don’t you fucking dare—”
And everything goes according to plan.
“Tell the stars I’m sorry, Kunhang,” is the last thing Donghyuck says before the airlock closes behind them.
And then, alone for the first time in nearly a year, Donghyuck gets to work.
He locks every door on the ship, and shuts down the oxygen in every room other than the bridge. He activates the countdown he'd placed on the nuclear tanks. He puts the ship back online with a false report about maintenance, and assures that they’re on track to arrive at the Capitol in one week.
Then he sits back, hums an ancient lullaby about the stars, and hopes that at the very least, his supernova will be beautiful.