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ohmygirlexchange2017-08-14 11:59 am
[binnie/seunghee] F-F-F (for slime)
Title: F-F-F
Written for: slime @fouryeong
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: binnie/seunghee, others
Warnings (if applicable): references to violence, drug use, and some weird food
Word-Count: 6626
Prompt: Binnie's a Han Solo type vagabond in space. She's a bounty hunter assassin so okay that's more like Boba Fett, but anyway. She's a vigilante working to take out corrupt figures in the international space government, decreasing government. She works alone...until she's forced to take a partner in the form of Hyun Seunghee, a very unlucky baker who gets thrown in with this outlaw through a series of unfortunate events]
Author Notes: Thank you for such interesting prompts! I hope I did it some justice, and that you enjoy what I wrote.
Communication between distant star-systems can be painfully slow. It’s why most of Yoobin’s contracts are local, meaning within a dozen parsecs or however long her hunk of space-junk ship is willing to put up with. So getting a job request from one of the Federation’s fringe planets? It’s all but unheard of.
Sure, Yoobin’s reputation is pretty good, but it’s not single-handedly-blew-up-a-planet good.
(Not that she wants to be known for such a thing — Yoobin’s style is a little bit more subtle)
She hears of the job offer from the mouth of a friend, Hyejin, a decryption hobbyist gone rogue whose responsible for most of their external communication. It’s a job in Wonmin, and Yoobin’s ready to reject the job for its distance alone before the FoodReplicator finishes pouring an ambiguous porridge into her bowl.
“I know it’s far but they’ll pay you enough to get your ship fixed,” Hyejin says, finding a free spot to sit in the crowded canteen. She takes a small PADLET and swipes right to release a cloud of self-assembling photons between her and Yoobin. All Yoobin’s eyes perceive is brightness and random, while Hyejin reads it like a native tongue. “I think you might want to have a look at it, it’s an interesting case anyways.”
“Why?”
Hyejin takes time scrolling down the message, long enough for someone else to sit beside her: a fat pink mound whose fins can barely reach the synthetolene surface of the table. Yoobin, still polite despite her line of work, greets them before tapping Hyejin on the forearm with a spoon. “Stop being so elusive.”
Hyejin grumbles, because Yoobin always whines about her being too slow. “Stop, I’m reading it over.” Suspiciously, it’s only after Yoobin stops her prodding that Hyejin’s finger flies to point out a specific string in the message. “It’s not another mercenary job, for starters. It’s to stop a trade deal from happening. Looks like there’s already some shady history with these foreign contractors. It says something about bribery and —don’t laugh, ‘cause this is exactly what it says— illegal distribution of flowers.”
Yoobin feels her limbs turn cold and rigid as ice, even beneath all three layers of clothing.
“Wonmin,” Mingo, the whaleish figure beside them, muses. “That’s the only place where they have them pink oceans, isn’t it?”
In a galaxy as big as theirs, there’s only one thing Wonmin can be known for. And it’s easy to forget that that thing was just a flower on its home planet, while Yoobin was most familiar with it in the form of cold bodies curled up against alley walls.
~
Yoobin meets the buyer, senator Mihyun, in a bustling sandstone tavern, one of hundreds clustered in the centre of Wonmin’s most populous city. Mihyun apparently thinks it’s easiest to hide in a crowd. Yoobin’s not sure if she agrees, but she can acknowledge the need to exchange sensitive information verbally; digital data and secrets jotted on paper can always be seized by those looking, but technology has yet to find the ghosts of words already spoken.
Even if those words have to be repeated multiple types, over the cacophony of drunk merry-making.
“As I said, the meetings will be on the B612. Don't worry about how you'll get there, we've arranged transport for your arrival.”
"And back?"
“Not yet.” Mihyun frowns. Yoobin thinks Mihyun’s face moves a lot for a politician. “Departure's more complicated; we don't know how soon you’ll get the job done, or if you'll even manage to pull it off --"
Yoobin bristles at the senator's lack of confidence. Spending several days traveling in a musty cargohold made her feel entitled to a little more.
"For how much you're paying me, it’s getting done,” she says, tersely. Seeing surprise on Mihyun’s face, she softens her tone. “I mean, you hired me for a reason.”
Mihyun swirls a straw in the drink she thoughtlessly bought for Yoobin when they first greeted each other. A couple of small, broad-leafed flowers hold onto inside glass, resisting the current’s pull. Its syrupy smell nags at Yoobin to take a sip, but she won’t.
A lopsided grin creeps onto Mihyun’s features, appearing slightly restrained as if she was holding back giggles before a punchline.
“It’s hard finding an anarchist we can trust.”
Yoobin studies Mihyun's face and doesn't find judgment as much as she discovers defeat --
"Imagine how I feel."
--- but not without some humour.
Mihyun knocks back the rest of her pink drink and sinks into the plush chair. Yoobin feels her own shoulders relax with the fading pretence between them.
“Most people in your line of work are pretty bad at the not killing part."
"I could do that too, you know."
Mihyun's glare is starkly authoritarian. Maybe she's an alright politician after all.
Mihyun orders another round of drinks for the two of them, remembering to skip the pink stuff for the extraforeigner.
~
Yoobin ends the night with a rough sketch of the week ahead:
Multiple delegates from Mihyun’s country, Jeju, were to arrive on B612 for a week of meetings. The delegates, which were all from the ruling party, were to discuss construction permits with a non-Wonmin based construction company with a bad reputation, CUBE Construction. Mihyun didn’t want to disclose much about CUBE, but Yoobin gathers that they might be profiting from illegal side-businesses. Maybe involving pink flowers.
By post-pointing final agreements, Mihyun states that opposition parties will have enough time to consolidate the evidence against CUBE Construction to present to the federal judicial court, thus denying them their permits, and possibly future work in Wonmin.
Yoobin proposes the use of a slowly metabolizing albeit non-lethal poison to Mihyun. After about a week exposure to low-dosages, inhaled or ingested, the dosage would be enough to leave both parties partly paralyzed and bedridden, unable to finish sign the final contracts, but still in uncritical condition.
The poison in mind, (1S,2S)-distepyl-1,2-ol (common name: cupidol), is a common reactant in federation-standard engine cooling solutions. Yoobin's gotten to know it quite well, during her missions aboard ships and stations. By using a chemical found onboard, passing security checks should be a breeze.
To all this, Mihyun replies: "I don't know much about chemistry, but sure I guess."
~
Yoobin searches for a catalyst to her plan in B612’s public promenade. Like most space-stations, it was a colourful contrast against the austerity of the rest of the station. As a planet at the edge of the Federation, the station served as a hub for meetings with travellers from beyond it’s borders; Yoobin even overhears languages so distant it gives her neural-translator pause.
All of the security personnel already seem to have their hands full questioning haggard vendors about the origins of their wares, leaving Yoobin to feel confident that there’s little she could do to draw attention to herself as long as her blaster stays in its holster.
Yoobin avoids merchants and traders who, from experience, were infuriating as they rarely offer knowledge without requesting something in return. Often monetary. Without any leads, Yoobin finds herself bar-hopping through the centre of the station, lending her ear to neighbouring gossip. After hours of listening to drunken rants on liquid helium market values she finally spots something interesting walk through the tinted glass doors of PLAYGROUND, the pub she sits at.
A pair, both dressed in government uniforms identical to the dark blue-and-gold Mihyun wore, sit down at a booth in the centre of the establishment. Yoobin can immediately think of a dozen ways their chosen spot is unstrategic, concluding that they didn’t care about their privacy. Yoobin counts to thirty, ignoring the chatter from the giant blue moth to her right. Then she hops off her stool, patting her on one of her six arms, and takes the long route to the adjacent booth, separated by a helpfully opaque divider.
It’s immediately clear that the two politicians are too friendly with each other to solely stay professional — especially when Finance Minister Eunji is breaking up with that jerk from the Labour Party— but Yoobin already has her order by the time their conversation orbits back to the topic of work.
“Accepting CUBE’s bid on the proposal is bullshit. They don’t have the permits to build something like that anywhere on this planet, let alone Jeju.”
“I thought you were a fan of extraforeign investments, Hani.” Their voice lacks the energy to be officially called ‘teasing,’ but the insincerity was clear all the same.
“Arin, the Federation’s been telling us we don’t monitor our exports enough, ever since CUBE first stepped foot here.” Hani lowers their voice, suddenly aware of the need for discretion. Yoobin uses up all her attention trying to listen, forgetting to stir her drink before it hardens into sludge-y grout. “And now we’re going to let them build the grain elevators in our pink oceans?”
It occurs to Yoobin that this might be her catalyst; Mihyun mentioned the presence of dissenters in the ruling party, even gained intelligence from one she left unnamed.
“You can try bringing it up, but it’ll go through regardless, despite the rumours. What pink flowers do to other species is not our—”
She’s cut short by the arrival of a panting waiter with their food.
“We’re truly so sorry,” they say repeatedly. “So sorry. The kitchen is a very hectic place tonight.”
“Why?” Hani says. “The place is not even half-full.”
Yoobin listens to the sound of water pouring unsteadily into a glass. “A visiting chef from Jeju is borrowing one of our kitchens for the next few days, for the meetings.”
“Who’s visiting? I thought you guys usually catered?”
“Unfortunately some cross-contamination occurred during the last time we catered to extraforeigners. Who knew a bit of pink flour could make people from Weki Meki piss uncontrollably in their seats. Now they have to hire a certified triple-F chef to prepare the meals for diplomatic reasons.”
“Triple-F?”
“Flower-Flour-Free.”
“Oh, right.”
Yoobin eyes the kitchen doors. Now this was what she called a catalyst.
~
With a lead, Yoobin is able to collect information on the baker faster than a ship set to maximum warp. Afterwards, swiping a set of decently fitting government and service uniforms was simply routine.
Time is an ambiguous thing when you’re on a space-station. Yoobin manages a few hours of rest before she’s knocking on the door of a cabin door at first thing in the morning, Western Jeju Time. It was the time schedule the meetings were to going to follow.
Quickly the door slide into the wall, revealing the round face of Hyun Seunghee, looking wide-awake despite the early hour. At the sight of the uniform, she invites Yoobin into a small suite that was presumably provided for her. Unlike the small sleeping pod Yoobin rented out which lacks even a sonic shower, there’s enough room for two people to sit comfortably here.
Yoobin introduces herself as a government official without trepidation or stutter; she enjoys donning disguises. There is a grace in how she slips into replacing her speech with another’s, and in the past she’s wondered if, in another life, she could have been paid to do this without the the looming threat of landing in prison.
“They have a complex set of customs involving how food should be served, as you might know.”
Seunghee freezes abruptly, leaving her face looking like it was interrupted in the process of changing expression.
“They do?” she squeaks.
Yoobin sighs.
“As I thought, it seems no one remembered to forward you the relevant cultural information.”
Seunghee glances over at the nightstand, where her PADLET sits. “I received a lot of recipes, I could have missed—“
“No, no. It’s a terrible oversight on our part.” Yoobin smiles encouragingly and leans forward with the intent of taking as much detail about Seunghee as she can. Down in the promenade she heard of Seunghee’s reputation: an extraforeign baker residing in Jeju, who was almost single-handedly responsible for bringing triple-F cuisine, previously the domain of a small set of allergy-sufferers, to mainstream attention (if not frenzy).
With that reputation, Yoobin wasn’t expecting her to look so young, but perhaps that’s just how her species aged. The cadence of her vowels was unfamiliar, and Yoobin had a hard time placing where she was from.
“We don’t want to tarnish your good name, so I’m here to offer my assistance.” Yoobin leans back a little, and locks on to Seunghee’s nervous eyes with an unwavering stare. “As the foreign advisor sitting in on the meetings, I will be glad to serve the food to the CUBE representatives, provided you prepare everything in the kitchen.”
"Are you sure?" Seunghee asks. “You must be busy, and it’s still early, I have some time to read up --"
"It's no problem,” Yoobin insists. She extends her hand. “It’ all part of my job as a diplomat.”
Seunghee nods, shakes Yoobin’s outreached hand. Yoobin is then caught off-guard, for the first time in what she can remember, when Seunghee actually bows at her.
“Thank you so much!” Another bow, to Yoobin’s discomfort. “Is it fine to meet in the kitchen? Do you know where my kitchen is? I probably don’t know the station as well as you do, so —“
“Kitchen is fine.”
There are reagents Yoobin still needs distill and dilute in the privacy of her sleeping pod, so she has no intention of loitering. Still, she hesitates before she presses down on the door's control panel.
"You have an accent, and I can't place it."
Surprised that there is no answer from someone as frankly animated as Seunghee, Yoobin looks over her shoulder. Seunghee is starring at the floor.
"Where are you from?" Yoobin asks, cautiously.
"Earth." Seunghee sputters when she sees Yoobin’s eyes gape, "I mean, I grew up there."
"Earth," Yoobin quietly repeats. She's never been to Earth. Nor have most people, not in the last dozens of years. "How did you -- how did you end up here?"
Seunghee looks back up, her eyes focused on something far past Yoobin.
"Just some bad luck.”
~
Seunghee seems to vibrate with enthusiasm when talking about the dishes she lays onto the trolley, and that alone lets Yoobin believe she’s as good as they say. Were she to base her opinion solely on the appearance of some of the food, which was unappetizing even for her own well-travelled stomach, she might have thought different.
“It seems like they’re all about the contrast. Hot and cold, wet and dry. But not sweet and salty, strangely.”
Yoobin nods, feeling regrettably rude but not wanting to invite more conversation in the heat of the kitchen. Her uniform breathes poorly, and beneath the stolen government uniform is a stolen hospitality uniform which doesn’t fare any better in the thermoregulation department.
In the middle of her unprompted culinary lesson, Seunghee breaks to thank Yoobin again, for delivering the food and preventing an imaginary cultural offence that Yoobin conjured up while digging through the laundry bins for disguises. She hopes dearly that Seunghee will grow tired of offering her so much gratitude.
~
Back on the surface of Wonmin, senator Mihyun explained to Yoobin that non-critical repairs were often done in parallel. A single security camera in a low-traffic, non-restricted area, therefore, might be worth checking for the absence of a green light. Having looked for these early upon arrival, Yoobin already has a course, or four, laid out for the delivery route.
For this route, she “mistakenly” turns into a hallway of public offices, currently emptied out for cosmetic renovations. Security cameras here are not only turned off, but discarded completely.
Yoobin knows she can’t fake a wrong turn before every meal, but taking this route, which offers extra cover, feels justified for her first outing. She tosses off the robe, revealing the scratchy grey apron underneath, and learns how to fold it discreetly between the serviettes on the bottom tray.
Reaching her hand into her undershirt, she pulls out one of several vials filled with crystal-clear cupidol. The diffusion-syringe, she keeps in an inconspicuous pouch wrapped around her hip. Before filling the diffusion-syringe, she squints at the needle tip, judging herself for not replacing it yet. A few glassy fibres jutting out from the tip doesn’t mean it’s defective, but it’s a matter of principle for Yoobin to keep her tools in good shape.
Starting with the basket of slick-black pastry rolls Sunghee said would be their appetizer, she injects the cupidol with a steady hand. From the puncture point, a familiar fractal of fibres blossoms outwards. Without guidance, the nanofibres identify and seep into the adjacent pastries in the basket, branching into smaller and smaller fibres in order to penetrate as much solid volume as their structure allowed. If the whole process took more than a few seconds, maybe Yoobin could have had time to ask herself when something liked this stopped impressing her.
~
She’s greeted quite well, once she rolls the food trolley into the meeting room. One employee of CUBE Construction even whoops at the sight of familiar food. The politicians from Jeju, glad in familiar blue and gold, stand to greet her and offer to help set the table. Being unethical was not, as it seems, an excuse to be impolite.
One of the politicians from last night, the quieter Arin, is there. Yoobin clenches her jaw, though there’s no rational reason to be nervous; they show no sign of recognition let alone interest, and if they did, there’s nothing suspect about hospitality staff taking a drink after a shift.
She picks up a spongey sweetcake, and turns it around in her hands as if searching for an alternative purpose for it, other than to be eaten.
“Seunghee!” A Senator booms from behind. Yoobin sees the smirk on the senators face and immediately deems them to be her least favourite. “You look different today! Did you get a haircut?”
A timid laugh bubbles out of Yoobin’s throat, it may as well have been natural. “No, no, she’s already preparing for the next meal.” It was a lie with an outstanding probability of being true.
“I don’t get the fuss over triple-F myself,” says another Jeju politician, whom Yoobin labels as senator Tiny-Head. “They say it’s healthier but it never tastes as good.”
“Some of us—“ the CUBE employee drops one of several black pastries she futilely tried to hold in her tiny hands “—would rather not spend the rest of the meeting being too high to sit straight.”
“Can’t relate.” Senator Least-Favourite laughs. Then she wrinkles her nose, taking a sniff of a dish which layered raw meat in between layers of ground fruit pulp. She turns and lowers her voice to senator Tiny-Head. “I swear her stuff’s really good, when she’s cooking normal food.”
“I know, I know…”
~
It’s been two days, four deliveries, and no new information.
Yoobin acknowledges that it was naive of her to expect some confirmation in those moments, some glimpse into the seedy underbelly of CUBE she’s grown to hear more about in the murmurs of the promenade that could legitimize the job she’s doing for Mihyun. It’s a bad habit to have in this business, one she doesn’t admit to but hasn’t been able to shake off.
Yoobin rubs her eyes. It wasn’t her job to be a lawyer. The conversation overheard in the bar alone was more validation than she gets on half her missions.
A blue-gold herd sweeps by where Yoobin leans against the wall, out of either uniform. She only recognizes half the faces from the meetings, as well as the other figure from the bar that first night. There’s no unison in their steps or modulation in the volume of their laughter; they’re tipsy, at the very least. If they’re celebrating something, then maybe it means some progress was made over the contracts with CUBE. Or maybe it was something else, but it’s not her job to know.
The senator who she knows by name, Arin, who was there at PLAYGROUND, and has sat at all the meetings, looks over her shoulder and stares pointedly at Yoobin.
Yoobin looks away. Not her job.
~
Yoobin starts arriving at the kitchen earlier for her ’shift’, as conversations with Seunghee only continue to get longer.
Since Yoobin has never seen Seunghee outside these meetings —and she’s been checking — it was hard to construct what Seunghee did during her off hours. Her mind draws a blank then, when Seunghee’s cheerful morning greeting is weighed down by whatever gave her those eye bags.
“What happened?”
“Hm?” She stirs some gelatin into cold water.
Yoobin waves her hand over her own face. “You look tired.”
“Oh.” Seunghee sets the bowl aside, so the gelatin can bloom. “A lot of people have been trying to meet with me while I’m here. Things ran late last night and since they were paying for everything I would have felt rude leaving early.”
Seunghee spins on her heel, turns up the stove and fills up a new saucepan with water.
“There’s a lot of people telling me I should expand my business. Can you pass me the glucose?” —Yoobin hands her a squeeze-tube — “Thanks. First night, Pristin Property Management said they’d give me a deal, if I wanted to open a second store with them. Then last night, a cereal company says they want my image for a new brand of triple-F flour, and after telling them I’d think about it, the CEO of Twicebucks offered to buy my business over a round of drinks. “
Yoobin physically feels herself knocked into a new reference frame by the grandeur of those offers; this wasn’t the playing field Yoobin thought she played in. “That’s incredible!”
Seunghee scowls and hums like an ancient proto-computer, her words a work in progress. Her concentrated face looks dissonant compared to her relaxed movements through the kitchen. “I know! I know, it should be, but…”
For the first time, Yoobin sees her stand still at work.
“I don’t know, I’m not that good at business. If I was, I would have opened up a bakery sooner.“
There’s nothing Yoobin can do but put her hand on Seunghee’s shoulder and say “that’s fine.” Seunghee’s reasons don’t sit right with Yoobin, but there’s nothing she can ask, no advice she can offer, knowing as little about Seunghee as she does now.
And she wants to learn more about her. Not because it might help her mission (it won’t), or because it could reveal something about the pink flower drug trade (it won’t). She understands, completely, the reason behind the guilt that draws her towards Seunghee, and it’s why Yoobin has a preference working alone on the field.
“When I started,” Seunghee begins, switching back to her automated movements through the kitchen. She squeezes some blue food colouring into the gelatine mix, and leaves it unstirred. “I thought my customers would only be expats and the few Wonminians with pink flower allergy.”
Seunghee pulls a cake out of the oven where it was cooling, and places it on the counter.
“And now people are saying triple-F is supposed to be healthier and I can hardly keep up with orders!” Seunghee is almost laughing as she pours the glassy sugar-y blue mixture over the cake. “Healthy! I’m baking cakes!”
There’s no controlling the giggles that spill out Yoobin due to Seunghee’s impassioned speech. “That’s so funny, I’ve. . . I’ve never had triple-F.”
“You haven’t been trying out what’s on the trolley?” Seunghee asks. Her mouth is open so wide in fake shock, her face may as well have been a doughnut.
“That would —“ Yoobin stumbles, “that would be rude.”
“Well, since I’ve had pink flower flour before, it’s only fair you try something without it.”
“You’ve had it?”
“A few times, by accident.” With the cake done, she moves to grabbing the necessary cutlery. Yoobin assists her. “Last time was maybe two years ago. Someone must have not washed their knife before chopping up the bowl of soshiberry I ordered. All of a sudden I was under the table thinking I was the soshiberry, and I was afraid that someone was going to peel me.”
Yoobin is silent with horror.
“I was okay,” Seunghee assures her. “It was only a few crumbs so it only lasted like, ten minutes. And we didn’t have to pay for the meal!”
“I had no idea it was so bad for extraforeigners,” Yoobin says quietly.
It’s a rare lie that leaves a smear on her conscience. Because she certainly did have an idea, and she had it nearly her entire life, long before taking a job that took her to the city backwaters where it’s effects were on full-display like some circus-show.
Together, they load the last of the trolley.
“I think I’ll make you a triple-F dinner,” Seunghee says resolutely as she puts down the glassy-blue cake.
“You don’t have to—“
“I want to!” Seunghee insists. “Please, I don’t want to be roped into more business talk tonight.”
Yoobin hides her smile behind her arm, as she collects serviettes from a bottom cupboard. “As long as you let me help you.”
~
While both parties continue to look more tired with increasing dosages of cupidol, the Wonminans are especially pallid when Yoobin delivers the food that morning.
She recalls their tipsy stampede through the promenade last night, and shrugs. Strange, that they would let themselves drink so much before the meetings were all over.
~
The Jeju representatives' conditions have worsened by the afternoon. It might not be a hangover.
~
Yoobin waits for Seunghee outside her cabin as she did that morning three days ago. For the first time, she meets Seunghee without the stolen blue-gold robes. Yoobin’s only personal outfit, comprised of mostly flame-retardant fabric, looks at odds with the soft yellow of Seunghee’s sweater.
“What’s in the bag?” Seunghee asks, instead of addressing why Yoobin looks like such a ruffian.
Her blaster. Vials of high-concentration cupidol. Anti-septic cream.
“Workout clothes. For after.”
Seunghee laughs, and brings Yoobin to the kitchen’s side door. It’s metal doors are wide-set, for cargo. The scanner adjacent to the door flashes white when Seunghee presses her small palm against it, and the doors spread open.
Yoobin stands, feeling a bit like a fool, as Seunghee grabs ingredients out of the refrigerator. Aside from passing Seunghee the occasional ingredient, she can’t remember the last time she had the chance to prepare a meal with as many tools at her disposal as now. Searching for something more familiar to her, she picks up a knife.
"Wash your hands," Seunghee scolds. "And put that down, you won’t be needing that one.”
“What are we making?”
Seunghee grins, collecting the last of the ingredients. “Something from earth. Croissants”
Yoobin doesn’t know what that is, but she senses Seunghee’s excitement. She even feels it herself, a vibration that travels from the sound of those words all the way to her fingertips. Yoobin watches Seunghee write a few lines on a pad of sticky paper. When she’s handed it, she sees it’s a list of ingredients with measurements.
Yoobin feels out of her element, pouring ingredients into a measuring cup while Seunghee buzzes around her, but in a refreshing way. It was nice to experience new things without putting your life on the line.
"How are you supposed to make Terran food," Yoobin asks, "if different things grow on each planet?”
"It's the philosophy behind it," Seunghee explains. “And some things are pretty similar. I like getting creative. Did you measure the yeast yet?”
It was, and has always been, amazing to Yoobin, watching Seunghee work in the kitchen. She goes from one step as if it were as intuitive as the steps behind walking. And for an anarchist-by-trade, it was a pleasure to be under her direction. For as organic as her movements seemed, there was a logical methodology, a deep-rooted system of organization Yoobin greatly respected.
Yoobin thinks she might have her time to shine when she’s finally handed the knife, but she strikes the dough as if it were a steel rope, and it flies off the cutting board. Seunghee jumps and rushes to place her hand over Yoobin’s, to guide her.
Yoobin drops the knife.
It’s approaching; Yoobin tries to refocus over the the sound of Seunghee being startled. It’s low and uniform -- something like marching. She picks the knife back up.
"Seunghee, did you tell anyone you would be here?"
Seunghee's brows are so furrowed when she looks at Yoobin that they almost collide.
"I told the head chef,” she says, slow and unsure of Yoobin’s behaviour, “so they didn't pack away—“
It’s very loud, now.
Yoobin wraps her arm around Seunghee’s neck and hisses, “Duck down!” Seunghee is surprisingly obliging, and Yoobin’s confident she can hear the footsteps now.
“Is the station under attack?”
It’s a question directed for Yoobin-the-supposed-delegate, not Yoobin the terrorist-for-hire. Yoobin stays quiet; she feels the time for her to lie to Seunghee is reaching it’s end.
If Seunghee wanted to press further, she’s interrupted by the sound of doors opening and a booming command to search the room out.
Yoobin almost collapses onto the knife in her hand when Seunghee actually, genuinely, for some goddamn unknown reason, stands up with her hands in the air.
"It's alright officers, it's just us," Seunghee explains.
Yoobin dearly wants to bury her hands in her face, but she has to look up at Seunghee, who quickly goes pale as guns are presumably targeted at her. Yoobin feels her gut drop and fall through the floor beneath her, and if only her and Seunghee could fall through with it.
"Yoobin," Seunghee squeaks. "What's --"
Yoobin puts fingers to her lips. An officer yells “Quiet!” at the same time, coincidentally.
Seunghee lets out another startled sound, which would have been funny if the situation had been at all different.
“Hyun Seunghee, you are under suspicion," the security officer recites, “for the poisoning of several senators"
"I didn't poison—“
"You are not in position to speak, foreigner."
Yoobin risks a moment to indulge in thinking how hard she's going to punch herself later for this one oversight.
Most organic lifeforms reacted, more or less, similarity to a spectrum of substances, including poisons. But Wonminian metabolism must be fundamentally different, self-evident by how the major grain consumed by their species produced aggressively psychedelic side-effects in other species. That they might succumb more quickly to the effects of low-dosages of cupidol should have been a concern of hers.
She recalls her meeting with Mihyun, wherein she shared her plan.
"I don't know much about chemistry, but sure I guess."
Stupid, stupid.
She wishes Seunghee would stop glancing down at her so much, because eventually the soldiers would notice. Moreso, Yoobin wishes that Seunghee was a little less expressive, because her jaw drops when Yoobin pulls her blaster out of her bag.
Yoobin tries to stand up quickly enough that security isn’t able to react to Seunghee’s surprise.
"I'll kill her!" Yoobin threatens. In one hand she has the kitchen knife against Seunghee's throat, and in the arm wrapped over Seunghee’s shoulder she holds her blaster. It’s a little overkill, definitely more dramatic than her style would usually allow.
The chief of security looks at Yoobin uncertainly. “We're not here to protect her life,” he says flatly.
Though unsurprised, Yoobin does her best to look flabbergasted, and slowly starts to lower both weapons.
And as soon as they might think she’s making peace, she throws the knife.
It’s thrown at a terrible low angle, and obviously misses, bouncing off a countertop and hurting no one. But it’s enough of a wild-card move that it causes the personnel to disperse just enough to ruin their perfect formation.
Then Yoobin shoots the lights, and sends off another shot just to the side of them, causing the group to scatter off to the side. And because Yoobin believes in playing it safe, she shoots everything between them which looks like it might catch fire. At least something does, as a rancid chemical smell quickly begins to permeate the room.
She pulls Seunghee down just before shots fire overhead.
“Is there another side door?" Yoobin asks. As a professional, Yoobin’s breath is steady, but Seunghee is a bit worse for wear judging by how her finger shakes to point.
"Don't think of it this way but --"
"But what?" Seunghee gasps.
"I have to kidnap you now,” Yoobin yells, over the sound of phasers set, thankfully, to stun. "It's for your own good!"
A hanging rack of saucepans collapses behind them, and Seunghee sends Yoobin a look that says, quite clearly, that all she cares about in this moment is escaping blaster fire.
Good, Yoobin thinks. Her preservation instincts are well intact.
Yoobin grabs Seunghee’s hand tightly, so she doesn’t lose her.
~
Yoobin tries to recalibrate her mental map of the station, but falls back on instinct once they’re in in shipping corridor. With Seunghee’s hand still in hers, she prays that Seunghee is as much of a natural runner as Yoobin is, or at least becomes one.
She’s not. Her legs are slow.
It surprises Yoobin that she doesn’t hear any alarms going off, despite the fact that they were essentially two fugitives on the run. Even with her mind hazy with adrenaline, Yoobin finds the brainspace to feel disgust at that; had she been a genuine public threat, this predisposition for their image could have put people in danger.
But her disgust leaves her as quickly as it arrived. They were trying to escape, after all.
It’s a good thing Yoobin hadn’t become so prideful as to not already have some escape routes planned out, in case something goes wrong. The fastest way to the ship hangar would be through the promenade, which they were quickly nearing, even with the swarms of people. But Mihyun had proposed an alternative back on Wonmin; it would be a bit more running, but so far, Seunghee’s lungs seem pretty strong.
It might be a little less predictable, too.
The engineering arm of B612 is quiet and isolated. No one other than security cameras is there to see Yoobin swipe an all-access card to the engineering cooling chambers.
The door closes almost instantly behind them.
“Thank God, you used this passage like I told you too.”
Mihyun is leaning against a dusty cryostat, dressed in engineering clothes. She tosses Yoobin a pair of keys that manages to catch despite her heartbeat pounding in her ears. Seunghee doesn’t seem encouraged, but Yoobin can’t focus on that.
"How?" Yoobin sputters.
Mihyun winks. "I'm in the government too, remember?"
Yoobin glances up and around. All the security camera in the vicinity were blasted into bits, sharp-edged remains are on the floor. Mihyun doesn’t say anything about Seunghee’s presence at Yoobin’s side, but sends a pitiful glance all the same.
“Same ship you arrived in,” Mihyun says. “But this time you’re driving.”
Then Mihyun steps steps aside, and behind where she stood there’s an opening into a conduit. "Turn left," she says.
~
Yoobin wonders if Seunghee is starting to lose some of that self-preserving instinct, because she loudly goes "Oh my god," after Mihyun puts the grill back in behind them. Still, she follows Yoobin through the conduit. Yoobin didn’t ever think she would feel this way about Seunghee, but she feels like she’s been trailed by a bomb.
"You're being a pretty good sport about this," Yoobin tries, after a minute of crawling through the conduit. There’s scarcely enough room for Yoobin to look back at Seunghee. And she desperately wants to do that, because Seunghee has gone unnervingly silent.
Turning left, they reach an exit that opens into the hangar. Yoobin makes quick work of the grill and pushes it out into the room. There’s a delay in the sound of metal hitting the floor —enough for Yoobin to mentally calculate that they were more than a few metres above the floor. Had Yoobin not trained herself long ago to stay silent during these moments of exasperation, she would have groaned.
It’s not that much trouble for Yoobin to take the leap down. She’s learned how to land right, and her boots were able to absorb most of the shock, it’s why she bought them. The real problem was still metres above where Yoobin landed, peaking her head out of the vent.
"I'll catch you!” Yoobin says. It sounds encouraging to her ears, but,
"Why should I trust you?"
Yoobin knows she deserves all the sting in Seunghee’s response. But in the interest of time, she feels herself growing impatient.
"I'm not chasing you with a gun!"
Seunghee, lacking a formal education on the right way to fall into someone’s arms, brings both of them to the ground. Yoobin dismisses whatever bruises might form, which were a dime a dozen in her career, and stands quickly to pull Seunghee up and towards the sea-green ship. Above them, the dispatch light shines green, and Yoobin wonders if she has Mihyun to thank.
There’s no difficulty in getting inside the spacecraft. Once inside Yoobin releases Seunghee’s hand and hurries towards the cockpit. On the dashboard is a note.
Please type in these coordinates.
0.002 423.81414 -3.19
(PLEDIS COORDINATES)
-C.H. ♕
Yoobin punches in the coordinates while Seunghee vomits in the distance. Yoobin doesn’t look back until she’s calibrated some of the controls and by then Seunghee is already cleaning, mopping up her mess with the apron she donned in the kitchen.
~
Seunghee sits beside Yoobin in the co-pilot seat and looks calmly forward, at the millions of stars that turn into thin streaks as they pass them by.
"You poisoned them, didn't you?"
"Yeah.” Yoobin tries to admit it as casually as she usually would, since it’s all in her job description, but it’s hard after hearing Seunghee’s drained voice.
"Are they going to be okay?”
“Probably. They just felt the effects a couple of days before they were supposed to.”
Yoobin waits for her to ask her why she did it, as it’s blatantly written over her face, but she never does. Instead she stands up and walks towards a panel flashing ship diagnostics. She says nothing at all.
"I--" Yoobin stumbles, thinking that maybe using herself as reference was the wrong place to start. "You know about the Pink Flower drug trade, don't you?"
"Mhm."
Yoobin gets out of her own seat to approach Seunghee. She wonders how receptive she might be to a pat on the back or some other comforting gesture from her, at this point in time. Seunghee notices.
"You’re not as anti-social as I imagined mercenaries to be.”
"I'm not a mercenary.” It embarrasses Yoobin, how quickly she tries to correct her.
Seunghee looks at Yoobin, like she wanted to be skeptical, but lacked the energy to be properly so.
"An anarchist?" Yoobin continues. "A vigilante?”
As if any of that made a difference to Seunghee. Yoobin hates the silent storm that seems to be brewing in Seunghee.
"I could take you back to earth, you know," Yoobin says quietly. “If you want.”
That's when Seunghee finally breaks into tears.
AUTHORS NOTES:
I guess you can think of this as the end of Part 1? This seemed like the best place for me to end given for a few reasons, an important one being my writing speed :( The nebulous ideas I have floating in my brain all point towards a happy ending, though!
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(Anonymous) 2017-08-14 05:13 pm (UTC)(link)no subject
(Anonymous) 2017-08-14 05:19 pm (UTC)(link)The world-building with all the sci-fi components is Insane, holy moly. This is so good i'm looking forward to seeing what you end up doing with it (pls continue) :^)
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I CANNOT WAIT FOR THE NEXT PART!!!!!
that's when i finally break into metaphorical tears
(Anonymous) 2017-08-15 04:06 am (UTC)(link)i love the space missions and the chemicals and yet. i'm mihyun. i know nothing. it must take a lot of research and thought to write a piece like this, while also considering the detail in the prompt! every sentence is complicated, and i really admire it and am super thankful you wrote this! and all the action and politics scenes, too.
binnie as a ~terrorist for hire~ is life. i think it brings out the best in her, what do you call it, most prominent characteristics. like which parts of her personality fandom likes to utilize in fic lol. someone who knows stealth, has drive to complete missions and somehow, she feels like someone that's gone through pain too. not in real life tho. generally speaking, i love binnie and seung's characterization a lot!
WHAT IN THE WORLDDDDDDDDDDDDD.
i love, love, love, love, love the ending of this. those last 3 paragraphs. ("As if...") it's really. perfect. fairly certain they are my favorite part of this exchange alone. and this is my last read so i know. seunghee getting dragged into this because of yoobin, feeling betrayed, but all of this just being the catalyst, the stepping stone for something more. that's what i love, the potential. the open ending. yoobin seeing more in seunghee than a pawn to achieve her goal and making up for what she's done in the way only she can. seunghee's crying that represents everything she's held back. an opened door.
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That part from the moment Seunghee jumped (with her lack of knowledge as to how to fall into someone's arms the right way xD) till the end was nice.
Thank you for this (space!!) fic, and I really hope you get to write part 2.