Chapter 266: Limped

I opened my eyes.

Ceiling.

That was the first thing I see.

Familiar ceiling— the wood grain of it, the lamp hook, the slight water stain near the corner from the storm.

I knew this ceiling.

I'd looked at it for approximately one minute before falling asleep yesterday… well… you could say I have a good memory if I actually try. I can even memories a one book with just one turn.

I tried to move.

...Nothing.

The signal going out and not coming back.

I tried my feet. My arms. Turning my head.

Each attempt produced the specific sensation of a body that had done something very large and was currently having a polite but firm conversation with me about consequences.

The hell is happening... Argh. Everything hurts. Is this the penalty? This is… actually, yea it's kinda balance… I almost sliced a whole storm with that skill…

Then: What would happen if I got more time to stack it…?

I opened my mouth. That worked, at least. A little.

"I'm hungry."

Something moved at my stomach level.

I looked down— which took effort, that worked —and found a head.

Dark hair. Pressed against my torso, apparently used as a pillow.

It stirred, shifted, then shot upright.

"Op— oppa?! No! Si Hon?! You're awake?!?!" Alex stood on the bed beside me, both hands flying to her face, then flew off her face to gesture at nothing. "YEEEEES—"

She's going to wake the whole ship… maybe, I don't even know If it's morning or night.

She descended from whatever height her enthusiasm had taken her to and leaned over me, face close, cheeks slightly pink from sleep. "Ahhhh, oppa. You don't know how worried we were."

Then she climbed the bed, crawled toward me and lay down on my torso.

The full weight of her, sideways across my chest, cheek against my shirt, looking up at my face with enormous eyes. "You've been asleep for three straight days."

Three days.

Wait what? 3?

"G-get off," I managed.

She raised one eyebrow. Both of us aware of the same information simultaneously.

"Then push me," she said. "Ohohoho. You can't, can you."

No. I genuinely cannot. My arms are noodles.

"Fuck— please— can't breathe…" with 5 blink.

She was off immediately. "Oh! Sorry, sorry— I was just teasing you, I didn't think— are you really that weak right now?"

"Yes," I said.

She covered her mouth. Grabbed my face. Shook my shoulder— gently, or gently by her standards —and then jumped up and ran a small circle in the room because apparently that was the appropriate response to three days of worry resolving itself.

"Still!!! You're AWAKE!!! I'm so glad, I'm so glad—"

She cried, I realized, looking at her.

"What time," I said.

"Morning. Don't know exactly." She stopped running and stood there, chest still going with the expelled relief of it. "And before you ask— yes, I know what you're thinking."

I'm thinking several things.

"You're thinking about Jisoo."

...One of several things.

"They didn't believe her," Alex said, sitting down on the edge of the bed, the energy dropping slightly into something more serious. "About the Temporal Lock. The tentacles. For some reason… erm, she somehow can't use it?! so." She spread her hands. "They're verifying her today. It took two days to get to today because the whole ship was in pieces."

Two days of repairs.

Three days asleep.

Jisoo in verification.

Then a window appeared, floating at eye level, which required exactly zero effort from me to read:

「[Recovery Status: Miserable.]」

I hate this system. A pause. I love this system.

"How walk," I said.

Alex's face went somewhere between sorry and extremely pleased with herself.

She stood, went to the corner of the room, and returned with something she was holding in a very specific way— the way you held something when you were about to reveal it and wanted the reveal to land.

"Tadaaa," she said.

A wheelchair.

Wow.

"I found it! Someone left it in a storage room. It was under a tarp."

Great.

"It's a little rusty."

Of course it is.

"But the wheels work! I tested them!"

Cool… ಠ⁠_⁠ಠ

"Let's go," I said.

Because what else was I going to say.

She moved me in pieces.

My arm— careful, setting it in the rest. The other arm.

My legs, lifted and placed.

My head tilted at the end and she fixed that too, fingers gentle at my jaw, adjusting until it was straight.

"Comfortable?"

No.

I blinked once.

"Great! That's a yes!"

MF, That was not a yes.

She pushed me out into the corridor, and the ship opened up around me— closer to everything, the walls more present, the doors larger.

The crew we passed in the hall gave me various looks.

I would glare back, but I can't turn my head.

Onto the main deck.

The aftermath was visible everywhere and equally visible that two days of work had been applied to it— new sections of railing replacing what the tentacles had taken, hull patches that were clearly recent, equipment repositioned from wherever the battle had thrown it.

The crew had put the ship back together.

Looking at the scope of what they'd fixed made the scope of what the fight had been real in a different way than I'd processed while it was happening.

People looked at me as Alex pushed me through.

I can hear them. Super hearing passive— I forgot I have it until situations like this.

"That's him."

"The one who killed the Leviathan?"

"He looks dead."

"He is alive."

"Barely."

I am aware of this, thank you.

A girl appeared beside the wheelchair— white hair, yellow eyes, a crew jacket with the collar up, walking at our pace to match us.

I recognized her as one of the deck crew from the battle.

She was looking at me with an expression that was conducting some kind of assessment.

"He's not joking about the sea commanders thing," she said, apparently to the girl beside her. "That swing— I'm serious for sure if he gets into a fight with the seven commander he will be toe to toe with them, easy."

"Oh please," a girl told her.

She was unfazed. "I mean it. He's strong as—" she paused. "Also, I'm not joking about the other thing either. When we were changing his shirt—" a very brief pause "—oh my. My. He's not too bulky, not too thin, he's more of a—" a blush.

"Iella." Alex's voice, from behind me, sharp and specific.

"What?"

"I will push this wheelchair off the deck."

"I'm just saying—"

"I will do it."

I am choosing to have zero thoughts about any of this conversation.

Zero.

I am blinking exactly three times and moving on.

***

The deck was kind of beautiful at this hour, if beautiful was the right word— which it was, in the way things were beautiful when they were also wrong.

The morning existed somewhere behind the fog, producing a pale blurry glow that reached the ship diffused and directionless, not coming from anywhere specific, just present.

Rain fell across the wet deck in its soft continuous rhythm, the ship moving through the water underneath all of it, the world beyond the railings grey and indistinct.

A circle of crew had formed near the center deck.

Alex pushed me toward it and people shifted— not dramatically, not parting like a formal thing, just the natural adjustment of a crowd knowing that someone needed to get through.

She found the gap and pushed me into it, and the circle opened up around us, and I could see.

Fragments first, the wheelchair height giving me a different sightline than standing: Boots on wet deck, spread in the wide stance of people who were ready for something.

Weapons nearby but not raised.

Kaia's jacket— she was standing, which meant she'd recovered. That's good.

Jisoo, in the center of the circle.

And around Kaia's hands: a faint golden glow, steady, not the full output from nights ago but present.

Testing output.

"HEY."

Kaia's voice, directed toward the gap where Alex had pushed me through.

Her eyes found me immediately— then the wheelchair —then me again, looking disappointed cus it looked like she had expected me to arrive differently.

The sword she was holding was planted in the deck, both hands on the hilt, the blade between her and Jisoo.

"Kiddo." The word landed on Jisoo. "Your companion— or boyfriend—"

"He's not my boyfriend," Jisoo said, fast and flat.

"—is impressive, yes. But that doesn't mean you get a free invitation on my ship." Kaia tilted her head. "Don't you think verification applies to you too?"

Jisoo was quiet for a moment.

Then she looked away from Kaia, away from the crowd, somewhere slightly sideways, and said something.

Quietly.

The normal ambient noise of rain on deck, crew breathing, water against the hull— that would have swallowed it for anyone else.

My super hearing passive caught every word.

"He's not my boyfriend… but I own him," she said.

…

I'm going to stay very still and have no thoughts about that.

Zero thoughts.

None.

Alex leaned down from behind the wheelchair, close to my ear. "To think morning Jisoo would be this... erm."

I blinked twice.

"How did you hear what she said?"

"Guessed. Duh," she leaned over to my ears. ' have your memories.'