Chapter 256: A naval Ship, a weird action and I'm done

"Travelers," the Chief said. "Useful ones. You might like them."

She looked at me for a moment longer. The assessment in it was direct without being rude, the look of someone who evaluated things professionally rather than casually. "How did you survive the outer water."

"Long story," I said.

"I like short ones."

ಠ_ಠ.

She turned back to the Chief. "Where's your daughter? First time she hasn't been out here waving at us before the plank was down."

The Chief sighed. "Sulking. Three days solid. She hasn't come out of the house."

Alright.

I just Looked at the ship. Looked at Jisoo.

That ship, I thought. That goes somewhere. That goes across this entire flooded region, through whatever's in the water, it can cross the distance we can't cross on foot. If they're heading west—

"Hey," I said, low, to Jisoo.

She looked at me. Already had the expression of someone who'd arrived at the same place. "I know."

"What are you two talking about," the blue-haired asked.

"Nothing. Don't worry about it." I looked at her properly. "What are you doing out here? Just traveling?"

"Crossing." She gestured outward, past the village, into the fog beyond the island. "This whole flooded region, we're going through it. All the way to—"

She turned and pointed at the far end of the fog. "There's a wall out there. In the old texts it's called the Western Boundary. We're finding it."

I looked at Jisoo.

She gripped my arm.

"Do you think," I said to the blue-haired, "that we could join your crew."

She looked at me for a long moment. The blond one had gone still. The redhead had finally stopped rotating to look at us properly.

"You sure?" the blue-haired asked. "It's not easy. There are requirements. It's not a passenger situation."

"I'm sure."

Something shifted in her expression— not softening, just settling, a decision made. She extended her hand. "We'll talk terms on deck."

I reached out and took it.

We shook hands.

"SI HON!!!!!"

The voice came from behind us, ragged with running, and I turned.

Alex. Dark hair loose and everywhere, barefoot on the platform, gasping for air with both hands on her knees and her eyes already finding me across the crowd.

She must have come straight out of the house the moment she heard— or seen, with that ability of hers, something she'd gotten from my memories that told her what this moment was.

She was looking at me. Then at the blue-haired's hand, still loosely in mine from the handshake.

"W— WAI—" She straightened up, still catching her breath, and started moving toward us.

I looked at Jisoo.

She was looking at Alex.

Frowning.

Alex hit the platform at a dead sprint and grabbed both sides of my collar and shook me. Not gently.

"SI HON!!!!!!"

I let myself be shaken for a moment, the way you let a very urgent problem announce itself before you addressed it.

My peripheral vision caught Jisoo in the same instant— one step to my left, teeth pressed together, a vein bulging at her temple that I had never seen a vein do before, her hand on my arm having gone from holding to gripping in the time it took Alex to arrive.

I moved. One hand covered both of Alex's where they were locked on my collar, not pulling, just containing. The other arm stayed exactly where Jisoo had it.

"What," I said. Neutral. Informational.

"Let me talk to you—" Alex said, and then seemed to register the atmosphere, because she looked past me at Jisoo and something in her expression recalibrated. She let go of my collar. Stepped back. Cleared her throat. "Uh. Not here."

"No," Jisoo said.

Alex looked at her fully this time. Read the situation with whatever combination of her own instincts and my copied memories she was working with.

Then she did something I didn't expect— she stepped forward, toward Jisoo specifically, and leaned in toward her ear.

Jisoo's eyes narrowed. She leaned back slightly.

"Wait, stop, I'm not—" Alex stopped herself. Adjusted. "Just. Give me a second. Okay?"

Jisoo held still. Suspicious. Every part of her that was capable of being suspicious was fully deployed.

Alex leaned in and said something. Private, quiet, the words not reaching me. Whatever they were, Jisoo's face moved through them like weather— suspicious first, then something confused, then suspicious again, then a brief period of looking like she'd been told something both unexpected and deeply interesting, and then something that was almost satisfied.

Alex pulled back. "So?"

Jisoo looked at her for a moment. "One minute," she said.

Alex's winced. "Five. Come on. Five minutes."

"Two."

"Five."

A sound came out of Jisoo that was genuinely difficult to know. Then she exhaled through her nose. "Fine. Five minutes."

She turned to me, and the sharpness in her expression softened in a way that happened quickly but wasn't sudden— the transition she made when the person she was looking at was me specifically. "Don't you dare."

"Don't I dare what."

"Nothing." She pressed her lips together. "Just. Come back. Please. Please come back, okay?"

"I'll be right there," I said, which was less than five meters away and was in fact an extremely reasonable promise to make.

I started to lift my hand toward her head— just habit, the same motion I'd made a dozen times, and stopped with it hovering somewhere above her hair.

Stopped, specifically, because yea.. Jisoo Jisoo would hear about any head-patting that occurred in this time window and would have opinions about it, and those opinions would be physical.

Jisoo noticed the mid-air hand. Looked at it. Then she reached up, took my wrist with both hands, and placed my palm against her cheek.

Held it there.

Closed her eyes for exactly one second. Then she turned her face slightly and pressed her lips against my palm— brief, completely unbothered— and rubbed her cheek against it once.

Then she let go.

I'm Si Hon.