Chapter Text
Can we love nature for what it really is: predatory?
— “Landscape with Fruit Rot and Millipede”,
Richard Siken
THESE DAYS, the Shatterdome is quieter than it used to be.
Jaemin wishes it was because the world is healing. Instead, it's because it's ending — torn piece by piece, leaving it broken and bare and unbecoming, a terra-formation meant for the Kaiju. There's not a lot left to protect. Most Shatterdomes in the pan-Pacific region have closed down one by one by one, government funding dwindling as rapidly as the population. Whatever of it remains either moves inland if they can afford it, or fight for their lives in the Kaiju graveyards.
The Shanghai Shatterdome is one of the last few standing; a last ditch effort by humanity to continue to stake claim on a planet that was never theirs, a guileless hope that keeps pushing them forward to live yet another day. To go to sleep every night with a hope to see the sun again the next day.
Mark would chide him for entertaining such thoughts. Don’t think about why the world needs saving, he’d say, just that it does. And you have to.
But Mark’s not here anymore. And Jaemin’s been roaming the hallways of the Dome, a has-been, a forgotten soul, for three years now. There’s little he can do to save the world. There’s little he can do to save himself.
“Na, open up!”
It’s three am. Renjun, even with all his insane tendencies, isn’t one to break his routine unless it is something important. Jaemin clambers out of bed — he winces when he realizes he’s slept in uniform, its edges ruffled and creased, starbursts of folds across the fabric. He’s going to be in trouble if an Officer sees him like this — and pulls open the giant steel door.
“Renjun. Is everything okay?”
The look on Renjun’s face is grim. “Unprecedented signatures,” he mutters, “We need all tech in the dock immediately. We haven’t had enough time to fix up Artemis Quiver since the last attack.”
“Quiver? Donghyuck’s going in again? Shouldn’t they be sending in Jade Lily this time?”
Renjun matches Jaemin’s question with a knife-edge gaze. He’s not any happier about this. “Team drop,” he says, teeth-grit, “It’s a Type-4, maybe. Possibly even a Type-5.”
“Fuck,” Jaemin mutters, slipping into his boots and yanking the door shut behind him, “How long do we have?”
“About an hour,” Renjun says, already keying into his tablet, weaving through the familiar hallways on muscle memory, “Pick up pace. The transmitters are shot, they need to be replaced.”
Three years in limbo, and Jaemin has resigned himself to J-Tech almost entirely. His days are spent holed up in the bay running repairs on the last four Jaegers still in circulation. It’s not a bad way to sustenance post retirement, and Jaemin is one of the lucky few who actually likes working with the machines. Perhaps it’s because he’s spent such a long time being inside one, or perhaps because it’s easy to disassociate and focus on welding metal into place without letting his thoughts wander.
“I’m on it.”
EVERYTHING IS NORMAL, until it isn’t.
Jaemin stands in a corner of the LOCCENT Mission Control, eyes trained on the visual data whizzing past the screen. Artemis Quiver shouldn’t be on the field. Its plasma caster is barely held together, and one conk on the Conn Pod and the hull could be compromised. It’s a miracle they manage to get it working at the time of deployment, and Renjun insists Jaemin needs to be in the control room to make sure Donghyuck and his Drift Partner Lee Jeno didn’t push it past its limits.
It starts like it always does— a volley of “Rangers in place”, “Engage pilot to pilot connect protocol sequence”, “Initiate drop” — and within minutes, strike group Alpha is dropping Artemis and Jade at the miracle mile, the waves crashing against the now-empty Hong Kong coastline at the addition. There’s a flurry of whispers as the technicians and the Marshall oversee all that’s happening, and Jaemin feels a little out of place. He’s used to being on the other side of this.
Renjun is briefing — the Kaiju is a Type-4 heading straight for the Hong Kong Island district, one of the largest they’ve seen thus far (although that is something that they’ve been saying for each one these days. They keep coming— larger, deadlier, vengeance fuelled and driven to destroy, and Jaemin thinks it’s a matter of time until they start succeeding). It is all jagged and sharp at the edges, something akin to a creature with an exoskeleton, now dubbed rightfully as Saberskin. Artemis Quiver attacks, Jade Lily runs defense.
Except within a matter of minutes, Saberskin’s tossing Artemis Quiver across the Pacific like a tin toy.
“LOCCENT, our thrusters are shot. Movement restricted.”
Lee Jeno’s voice rings grimly across the room, uncannily calm for the devastating news it delivers. Jaemin sees the panic in the way Renjun’s shoulders hitch, straight as an arrow, and he pushes himself to his feet and across the room, taking the mic from him.
“Activate the pneumatic motors,” he says, matching the calm, “They won’t be as fast as the thrusters, but they’ll work. Try not to thrash around too much with them, the more the water gets in, the slower they work.”
“Copy that.”
Renjun snaps at Donghyuck’s voice in the speakers, something unhinged flashing across his eyes briefly before he squares himself, a quick nod towards Jaemin as he resumes his position.
“Lily, I need you to cover Artemis, switch with them. Artemis I want you receding back to port, protect the mile, do not engage in attack.”
“Renjun—”
“I said,” and this time his tone is firm, “Do not engage in attack.”
But Jaemin knows. He recognizes the worry that laces his words, the uneased timber that he cannot keep out. Donghyuck and Jeno are their best chance at preventing Saberskin from the coast. And they know it as well as everyone else.
Renjun knows it’s futile as much as Jaemin does.
"Renjun, Jeno has an idea," Donghyuck's voice on the speakers is clear, "Look, we're already close enough. Switching will take precious time and distance."
"Donghyuc—"
"Hey, we got this."
It seems like an intrusion. A moment that should not have been witnessed by anybody else but the two of them. Jaemin wants to step out, and there's a chill in the room that’s palpable, reaching down his spine to his fingertips.
But it's a mission. Every single one is. And as a Ranger, that's what comes first. Saving the world. Themselves, second.
The crash is heard first — a yell over the speakers, a "The Plasmacaster, now, Jeno" and a thunderous bang — and then the comms systems snap, cutting out their contact with Artemis.
“What? No. Fuck. Get Jisung in here, now, we need to re-establish contact with them.”
"Renjun."
There’s hushed whispers all around the room, but there’s not much that can be done from here.
"Come on, why isn't anyone doing anything?"
"Renjun."
There's distress in Renjun's eyes, like he knows something’s wrong, but he refuses to acknowledge it. Because acknowledging it would make it real. One of the technicians points out the flat graphs on his machine.
"The Kaiju signature's gone. It's dead."
There's static over the speakers, before, "Jade Lily here, we confirmed, Kaiju signature negative, it's dead."
A pause. "Artemis Quiver is down."
Everything was normal. Until it wasn't.
RANGERS DON'T GET FUNERALS.
It's hard to give them, when most times, the bodies never turn up ashore. The ocean is many things, but it is not kind. It takes, and takes, and takes, and this time, it takes away Donghyuck.
They huddle up in the small yard behind the Shatterdome — the acidity of the soil has made it impossible for anything to grow there. Instead, it receives its colour from the pictures that are placed all over the garden floor. Framed photos of loved ones, of glory days, of battle and achievement and of love. A remembrance. A toast. A goodbye.
Renjun stays all day, and Jaemin hovers. He always does.
"You don't have to stay, Nana."
The nickname spills from bloodied lips, the tremble in them audible, and Jaemin sighs, setting himself down next to his friend. Curved into himself like this, Renjun looks small. Like a gust of wind could blow him over — nothing like the confident officer in LOCCENT. And yet he fists his hands and grits his teeth, stares at Jaemin with a facade ripping at the seams.
"I'm fine."
"You're not," Jaemin says, "And that's okay."
There's little to talk about luck in a dying world, and yet Jaemin thinks he's lucky. He might be stuck in limbo, but he didn't lose Mark forever. Jaemin lost his partner, yes, but he never lost his friend. Mark still pulls up to the Shatterdome occasionally, complains about how the canteen food keeps getting worse and jokes about how he’s so used to his prosthetic leg that he could challenge them in a 200m and win (who Mark's looking out for, Jaemin doesn't know. Because Jaemin had felt his pain when Palladium Roma had burst into a million tiny pieces and thrown them into the raging sea. He'd been the one who'd clung on to Mark and pulled him back to the harbour, bones aching and heart clenched. In retrospect, perhaps Mark does it for him, after all.)
But Donghyuck is gone. He won't come back and place his heels on the dining table, which Renjun would then push off. He won't coax Jaemin into taking Renjun's control room shift for another night so he can steal him away, or brag about getting discounts at the Seoul Tiger because of his unbelievably good looks.
Permanence.
It’s inevitable, but that doesn’t mean it hurts any less.
"What're you doing here?"
There's as much venom in Renjun's words as there is animosity in the way he tenses, eyes unsheathed daggers. Jaemin turns around to look at Lee Jeno — form hunched, clutching a limp white rose in his hand.
Jaemin's vision narrows to the way his fingernails keep playing with the stalk — it's going to break off if he doesn't stop soon — eyes down, back bent at an angle that makes Jaemin wince.
Lee Jeno looks broken.
"Renjun," Jaemin murmurs quietly, "He's just here to pay his respects."
Renjun's eyes are bloodshot. "He doesn't have the right to pay respects to Donghyuck," he seethes, "Not when he's the one that killed him."
"Renjun—"
"I'm sorry," Jeno says, "I truly am, Officer Huang."
"You should be. I told you to back off. But you had an idea."
Jaemin doesn't say anything. He wraps his hands around Renjun's frame and pulls him to his feet.
"I'm going to take you back to your room, Renjun."
He doesn't let Renjun fight his way out. He doesn't offer Jeno any words to placate either. He doesn't say the words he knows would have to be said at some point or the other.
It's too new a bruise — it needs time before Jaemin pulls off the bandage on either side.
He doesn't miss the way Jeno's eyes are trained on them as they leave. He doesn't miss the tear that rolls down his cheek as he looks back down to where picture-Donghyuck is holding up his Drift School certification like he's hit gold.
Jaemin doesn't miss anything, but this is not the time to act on it.
“DO YOU THINK HE’LL GET A NEW DRIFT PARTNER?”
Jaemin sidesteps the corner of the counter before he grabs three metal trays off the stand, passing one to Jisung behind him, and putting the other two on the counter for himself and Renjun.
“It wouldn’t be surprising if they start testing him soon,” he says, “He is one of the best Rangers we’ve got. But it also depends on finding someone drift compatible.”
“Or if someone’s willing to go through COMMEX for him again.”
Unwittingly, Jaemin’s feet pull to a stop. Jisung, ever the clodhopper, walks into him and stumbles, barely catching himself before he falls headfirst. “Oh. Hyung, I’m so sorry—”
“It’s fine, Jisung-ah,” Jaemin says, pulling his lips into the best smile he can muster, “Can’t get flustered every time it’s mentioned now, can I? Look, they have vermicelli noodles today. It’s been a while.”
Jisung cocks his head at Jaemin. “You’re terrible at pretending to be fine, you know,” he says, “For all the caring you do for others, you’re shite at letting others care for you.”
Jaemin tsks. Jisung’s not wrong, per say. But it’s far easier to take care of people and be on the listening side, than have them listen to what is in your brain and wonder if they think you’re crazy. Jaemin would much rather keep his thoughts to himself than indulge.
“Look who’s talking,” he says softly, reaching forward to spoon mashed potatoes into both of the trays, “When did my baby grow up?”
Jisung garbles something incomprehensible under his breath — Jaemin thinks he hears a “I’m not a baby” — but he doesn’t push the topic further, switching into talking about what he’s been working on at the lab as they work their way down the aisle, then grimaces as Jaemin gets himself a substantial helping of coriander for his curry. He offers to help Jaemin carry the second tray, which Jaemin refuses with a “I’m perfectly capable of holding two trays!”
Most people tend to eat in their rooms or their workstations these days. Jaemin understands why, really. It’s disheartening to see their numbers dawdle and the canteen going quieter by the day, and it’s just easier to isolate and pretend like things are better than they really are. A small ray of hope, as phoney as it is.
And yet, when Jaemin’s eyes roam around the empty hall, they land on the figure dropped at the far end, posture equally as bad as he’d seen the last time, eyes trained on his tray, hands fisted on the table.
“Jisung-ah,” Jaemin says, turning to the younger boy, who stops in his tracks to look at Jaemin, “Where are you headed?”
“Oh,” Jisung says, and then fails miserably to hide the crimson that dusts his cheeks, “Chenle’s been stuck at the med bay almost all night because of the equipment failure, so I figured that, uh—”
That explains the heaped tray Jisung’s holding. Jaemin chuckles. “You need to learn some tact, Jisung-ah,” he says, and Jisung huffs.
“It’s impossible when Chenle manages to turn me into a blubbering mess every time I try. Might as well lean into this and not make a complete fool out of myself. That’s not the point. Why do you ask?”
He follows Jaemin’s eyes to Jeno’s hunched form.
“Can you drop off the tray for Renjun on your way to the med bay? And let him know I’ll swing by later?”
Jisung eyes him warily. “Are you going to do something stupid?”
It’s odd. It’s so odd hearing this from Jisung that Jaemin can’t help the laughter that bubbles through his lips. “Goodness, when did you start saying things like that? You sound like Mark hyung. Aren’t you the one doing stupid things, usually?”
Jisung tries to glare (emphasis on tries to. The baby face doesn’t really help his cause), “I get forced into stupid things,” he says indignantly, and then in a smaller voice, “It’s usually Chenle doing them.”
Jaemin grins. “Anyways, no, I’m not doing something stupid. Just figured I need to play mediator after Renjun’s blast the other day.”
Jisung nods in understanding and reaches forward to grab the tray from Jaemin’s hands (“You could’ve just given it to me earlier and saved us both the trouble,”), carefully avoiding the one with the cilantro. “Don’t push it too much though, hyung.”
“Don’t worry, I have no intention of making him worse than he is, you know.”
Jisung smiles softly, turning around to head out the exit. “I didn’t just mean him. I meant you too. Don’t forget to take your own feelings into consideration.”
“HEY. MIND IF I JOINED YOU?”
In the empty canteen, his voice ricochets off the metal walls and echoes, and Jaemin winces, making a mental note to drop the volume. It’s enough to startle Jeno, who looks up at him with wide eyes, feet pulling together almost on instinct, and his hands fall one on top of the other in his lap, back straightening.
A Ranger, through and through.
Jaemin watches the emotions swirl in his irises — alarm, questioning, recognition and then . . . surprise. The last one confuses Jaemin. He and Jeno have never had a reason to spend much time together. Apart from the times they sat at the same dinner table with Renjun and Donghyuck, or got dragged into playing cards with them whenever Donghyuck got bored, they didn’t see much of each other. Jaemin had expected him more to look wary — after all, Jaemin is Renjun’s best friend, and the last time they’d seen each other, Renjun had made it clear he wanted nothing to do with Jeno.
“I promise I’m not here to scold you, or anything.”
That snaps Jeno out of his stupor. “Oh, right. Feel free to, of course.”
Jaemin places his tray on the table and settles down opposite Jeno. The silence that stretches between them is uncomfortable, poking at Jaemin’s skin like thumbtacks pushed into a pin board. Jeno keeps his eyes trained on whatever the mixed-up abnormality he’s eating, and Jaemin bites at the bit of skin that’s on his chapped lips, until he accidentally pulls too hard and draws blood.
“Oh, shit.”
Jeno looks up again, alarmed, and Jaemin gives him a sheepish smile. “Sorry ‘bout that,”
This isn’t going as planned. Rather, Jaemin should have come here with a plan. Jeno shrugs, reaching into his pocket and drawing out a handkerchief, which he passes to Jaemin.
He’s about to look back down at his food again, and Jaemin figures he might as well say it — “Renjun doesn’t hate you, you know.”
In retrospect, that is also not something that Jaemin should’ve started a conversation with, but it would be awkward to start with any small talk given the footing they’re on currently.
If Jeno takes it the wrong way, he doesn’t show. He merely leans forward to put his elbows on the table, knocking his tray gently away for space, eyes on Jaemin the entire time.
“I understand if he does,” he says.
Jaemin shakes his head. “I’m asking you to care,” he says, “Look. Renjun’s going through a lot. It’ll be even more painful to think all of this happened without reason. He just— he needs a reason to put it on someone who’s not Donghyuck, you know. It’s easier to digest, in a way. He’s looking out for himself.”
Jeno holds his gaze. There’s something raw in it. Something open for Jaemin to see, sieve through, understand. It scares him.
“I did ask Donghyuck to listen to me. I made him use the thrusters. It was my call.”
Against his better judgement, Jaemin reaches forward to envelope Jeno’s fisted hand in both of his. It trembles under his touch, so rigidly held together that Jaemin won’t be surprised there’s blood gushing under the skin, hot as a flame.
“Jeno,” he says, quietly, quiet enough that even in the empty room, his voice doesn’t echo, “Donghyuck trusted you. And you didn’t let him down. More than anyone I know, Donghyuck wanted this. He wanted to protect the world and he’d do anything for it. He trusted your call when you said you could do that. He knew your idea would get rid of the Kaiju, and that’s always been his goal. He followed you because he trusted you. His death is not on you. It’s an occupational hazard. One that we all signed off on, to protect hundreds of thousands of innocent lives.”
There’s a storm in Jeno’s eyes, a battalion of thoughts under the surface rising rapidly, consuming and overpowering. Jaemin holds on tighter. Roots him.
“You did not cause this. You are not the reason.”
“Jaemin,” he says, and Jaemin pauses at the way Jeno says his name. In a world where you mattered no more than the next person, it’s nice to have someone who knows you for you. Makes you feel like you’re more than the number on your uniform, than the member of your pin code, than a blip on this floating rock. “Why’re you doing this? I’m fine. You don’t have to reassure me.”
“I’m not doing it out of pity, if that’s what you think,” Jaemin says, brushing his fingers softly over Jeno’s knuckles, coaxing the tension out of his tendons, making him lay his palms flat against the table before he pulls back. Jeno keeps his gaze on Jaemin, and something about it warms the back of his neck. Too pointed. Too single-sighted. He feels undressed in front of him — too emotional.
“What’re you doing it for, then?”
Jaemin tries to make light of it. “Egocentrism, for most part.” He says, lips pulling into the faintest of smiles, “Kind of like a mentor, you know. Strokes my ego.”
It does its job to break the allegorical glass sheet that Jeno had put up between them — his eyes soften and curl upwards, looking like crescents.
He looks like a Samoyed, Jaemin finds himself thinking somewhere at the back of his mind. It’s a thought he might entertain later, when he has nothing better to do. Walk down to the server room to scroll through pictures of puppies at midnight, make it seem like they’re not living in a dying world. Wear rose-tinted glasses and play house, like he’s a kindergartner again.
For now, he smiles back. “And also, because it’s not worth it. History is written to make sure it’s not repeated. I wrote it once, I don’t want it to repeat for anyone else, because it was painful and tiring.”
Jeno leans forward, rests his head on his arm. “You and Mark Lee,” he says.
Jaemin leans back now. It’s a barrage of unwanted memories rising in his mind, threatening to break his surface. He focuses on the outside. The way the metal walls curve around them. The way a draft of air makes its way through the shafts. The way it smells of the sea. His fingers, digging into the fabric of his uniform. Externalize. Don’t let them surface. Don’t go under.
“Yeah,” he says softly, “It took me a year to stop blaming myself for what happened to Mark hyung. Another to stop having nightmares about. I’ve been in limbo for three years now, all because I refused to acknowledge that war has casualties. And we are at war.”
Jeno cocks his head. His eyes are still trained on Jaemin, but he’s not looking at him. Soft focus.
“He said he was happy to have been my Drift Partner,” he says after a pregnant pause, and even if it’s quiet, it resonates around the room, “That he could never have asked for a better one. That he was grateful.”
Jeno’s crying. He’s holding himself better than Jaemin had, back in the past. A broken boy and his broken form, kneeling on the earth that absorbed his brackish tears as its own. Jeno, conversely, sits straight, rigid, the tears rolling down his eyes the only indication to his grief.
“He knew he was going to die, Jaemin,” Jeno says, “Even before we implemented the plan. Even before I asked him to pull the thrusters, he knew. I didn’t.”
It knocks the breath from Jaemin’s lungs. Oh, Lee Donghyuck.
“He’s a hero, Jeno,” he says softly, “A hero he was always meant to be. Your regret undermines his courage. Don’t cry for him. He stood for something he believed in — believe in it with him.”
“Do you?”
It’s a nail on the head, hammering through his skull, pulsating through his neurons, knocking him out cold.
Did he believe this world deserves saving?
“I hope I do one day,” Jaemin says, “I truly hope I do.”
JAEMIN HAS NIGHTMARES SOMETIMES.
They come dressed in mundane clothes through the crevices of his mind and bleed into his line of vision; clear, like water. And then he’s drowning, and the water is a wrathful cerise, pulling him under. The nightmare wraps around his ankle like seaweed, trapping him away from the surface.
The waves hit the shore in salt showers, and he can see the base of a fishing boat above him, a net thrown to him. But he can’t hold on. It slips from his grasp and his vision goes black and he can’t breathe, and he can’t think, and he’s sinking, sinking, sinking.
He never reaches the ocean floor. He remains there, the water against his eardrums, like pine needles against his bare skin. The salt spray on the shore plays like a movie across his eyelids. A dream in a dream. A pull he can’t explain. The sea: his home. His devastation.
And then the water fills his lungs, and they sag against his diaphragm. He gasps, but it only fills them faster. He’s going to die.
But he never does. He wakes in a stupor and he empties the contents of his stomach into the sink and slumps against it again, like he has each time before.
The thought buzzes inside his head.
The water isn’t Kaiju blue.
It’s red. The colour of blood. Human. The sea has come for him, not the world. And he gives, he gives, and he gives again.
A WOUND HURTS MORE ONLY WHEN YOU NOTICE IT.
It’s something that he’s realized over his years in the Shatterdome. Much like the quantum mechanics phenomenon from the Double Slit Experiment— an electron changes its behaviour in the case that it is being observed.
He sees Jeno everywhere these days. Walking through the halls, at the canteen, on the treadmill at night when Jaemin hits the gym; over and over and over. Almost like Jaemin’s eyes are meant to search for him.
Maybe that is the case. Now that he knows Jeno, his eyes find him in the crowd like they’re meant to.
He’s not the only one. Jeno meets his gaze each time too. Like he’s looked for Jaemin, and he’s found him. Corners of his lips lifted in recognition, eyes half crescents. He never lingers for too long, never initiates a conversation. But Jaemin knows they’ve become closer, in a way. An unspoken promise to have each other’s back.
“You keep staring at him, you know.”
Jaemin looks to the side at Chenle, who raises his eyebrow in response, “Am I wrong?”
Jaemin cocks his head, turns back to look at Jeno’s departing figure. “Not really. It’s a little fixation I’ve developed. I’ll get over it soon. There’s not much to do here these days, you know.”
Chenle chuckles, “Staring at people is not exactly a hobby.”
“I’m psychoanalyzing him,” Jaemin supplies, “For fun. Also, you can’t deny he’s quite pleasant to look at.”
Chenle blinks at him. “Sometimes you say these things so seriously I almost believe you.”
“I’m not lying, though?”
“You can psychoanalyze?”
“I never said I wouldn’t be wrong,” Jaemin says, and Chenle throws him a deadpan stare that makes him grin, “I only said I do it.”
“Psychoanalyze Jisung, then,” he says, “Let’s see how correct you are.”
Jaemin raises an eyebrow. “You can’t determine if I’m correct, because you can’t psychoanalyze him either.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Chenle says, and then beckons him to go on. Jaemin knows he’s up to something, but it’s nice to be indulged.
“Fine,” he says, “Extremely talented, but so dumb.”
“Accurate,” Chenle says, eyes twinkling, “Especially the dumb part. It’s adorable though, so he gets a free pass.”
“Who’s dumb?”
Jaemin looks up at Jisung as he takes a seat next to him, setting his dinner tray down. He rolls an apple over to Chenle — “You missed the apple basket at the end.”
Chenle brightens up immediately. “Oh, hell yes. They got Red Delicious this time. Thanks, Jisung-ah,”
Jaemin doesn’t miss the flush that matches the apple skin that paints itself on Jisung’s cheeks, and almost chokes on his bite of eggroll. No tact at all. But then again, Chenle seems to find it adorable. To each their own.
“Oh, you, by the way. The one who’s dumb. Love you, dumbass. Also, I need to go, I was running some sample tests, they must be done by now. See y’all later.”
Jaemin stares at the exchange as Chenle grabs his empty tray and walks away. Jisung turns to stare at him. “Did he just say ‘Love you’?”
Jaemin huffs. “He also called you dumb.”
Renjun settles down opposite them, occupying the space Chenle’s just vacated, his own tray in his hand. Jaemin smiles. It’s the first time in a few weeks that Renjun’s dragged himself out of his room of his own accord. “It’s Chenle,” he supplies, “Jisung thinks he hung the stars, being called dumb by him is probably endearing to him.”
“He uses insults as terms of endearment,” Jisung says irately, “Besides, Renjun-hyung, I think you don’t have teasing privileges when it comes to having crushes.”
It’s a bated moment — Renjun could potentially snap. It is a sore spot. But Jaemin catches the spark in Jisung’s eye. It’s deliberate. He’s pushing Renjun to come out of it and open up to them. To start moving on.
Renjun realizes it too. “Hey, I might’ve been a sap, but I did confess, didn’t I?”
The tension breaks like a knife cutting the cellophane off a sealed box. Jisung glares, but he can’t help the relieved smile on his face, and Jaemin reaches over to ruffle his hair, grinning at Renjun.
“I will one day,” Jisung mumbles.
“Yeah, what thirty years later?”
There’s hope in that sentence. Flickering and barely there, but hope. We’re going to be alive, thirty years later. We’re going to be saved. We’re going to save ourselves. It burns a fire through Jaemin’s veins.
“Can we stop talking about my love life, please? I take enough shit from Chenle, I don’t want you guys giving me hell too. Eat your sandwiches or whatever, I’m going to the bay.”
Renjun raises his eyebrows. Jisung points at the apple that sits on the table. “He forgot the apple,” he mumbles, picking it up and carefully dropping it in his pocket, before taking his tray and clearing out. Jaemin chuckles, letting the comfortable silence settle around him and Renjun as they eat.
Things seem normal again. As normal as they can be when they’re missing a person among them. Donghyuck’s absence is not a blackhole — it’s not as all-consuming. It is silently destructive. Renjun pulls himself out of his misery every once in a while, and then sees something that starts the firecracker chain to a breakdown, until he’s wheezing his gut out over the sink, Jaemin rubbing circles on his back.
Jeno doesn’t seem to be doing much better. Jaemin hasn’t missed the muffled sobs he hears from the gym shower rooms at night, or the way Jeno goes at the punching bag like his life depends on it.
Everyone deals with grief in a different way. Jaemin closes it in a casket and buries it deep, not forgotten, but away from sight.
“Hello! You’re Na Jaemin! Wait, you know that. I’m just saying I know that too. Hold up—”
Jaemin looks up at the person who wades his way through the scattered tables until he’s making his way to where Jaemin and Renjun sit, and squints, the gears in his head turning until they come up with a name.
“Liu Yangyang,” he says, “Hello.”
Bright eyed, newly done with training, graduated top of his class, does not have a Drift Partner yet.
The hours he spends in the Kwoon Combat room in the evenings mean he usually battles it out with Doyoung — one of the first Rangers, until all the Mark-1s had been lost to battle, and he’d taken over as the Fightmaster of the Hong Kong Shatterdome — and Doyoung is, for the lack of a better word, chatty. He’s the kind to dote on his students like they’re his kids, and in true parent fashion, he tells Jaemin about each one of them in acute detail as they fence, canes knocking against each other. Liu Yangyang is a constant topic of conversation — Doyoung’s best student, also his worst nightmare. (‘He’s insane, I’m telling you.’)
“You know me!” He says, enthusiasm of fresh blood gleaning across his sun-kissed face. Jaemin can’t help the small smile pulling at his lips. He reminds him, somehow, of Donghyuck. Bushy eyed and excited, ready to take on the world.
“You were looking for me?”
“Yeah! I had a few questions, actually, if you don’t mind. About Jeno Lee.”
Almost on instinct, Jaemin’s eyes snap to Renjun’s. There’s surprise in his eyes that he’s masking — admittedly very well — but Jaemin has known him for long enough to know he’s not as calm about the small nugget of information thrown at him. That someone comes to Jaemin, asking about Jeno.
He picks himself up from the table. “I need to be at LOCCENT in a few,” he offers, “I’ll see you later, Jaemin?”
Jaemin nods. The implication in his words is clear — we need to talk. He’s just grateful Renjun doesn’t seem to be blocking him out. “See you, Jun.”
He watches his form get smaller against the exit doors before he turns back to Yangyang. “I don’t really know much about Jeno, to be honest.”
Yangyang takes it as a cue to settle down in front of him and shakes his head. “That’s okay,” he says, “It’s more about if I can, you know, maybe try COMMEX to be his Drift Partner. I thought you’d know better than me.”
And even if it’s been years and really, Jaemin should’ve been over this by now, a shiver runs down his spine at the mention.
It makes sense that Yangyang comes to him — Jaemin and Donghyuck were one of the few who’d agreed to go through with COMMEX, and the only two at the Shanghai Shatterdome.
“Simplistically, the answer to can you is yes. Anyone can decide to go through with COMMEX if they so wish. But there’s other considerations to it, you know.”
Yangyang leans forward. “Do you regret it?”
Does he regret it?
He remembers the day he walked into the lab to let them mess around with his brain. It’s ironic that he does, given that the whole point of the procedure is to erase his memories. Replace them with simpler ones. Ones set up exactly for the person he would later be Drift Compatible with. A pawn, in the true sense of the word.
“It’ll take about an hour,” he remembers the lab tech rattling off, “It’s exactly like Drift training. You’ll be wearing a Drivesuit helmet, and the secondary will be connected to you in the Drift.”
“Mark?” Jaemin had asked, confused, “But we’re not Drift Compatible.” Yet.
The lab tech had looked at him with a pause, and then shaken his head. “Do you know how this procedure works?”
Jaemin had shaken his head. It was a last-minute decision — Palladium Roma needed Rangers, the world needed saving, and Mark Lee, his close friend, his comrade, the class rank one needed a Drift Partner. And Jaemin needed a reason to stay. Needless to say, he’d dived in head first, one of the first few to consent the procedure, no prior research or sentiment.
The lab tech sighed, pulling over the stool and sitting how next to where Jaemin lay on the medical chair.
“The Compatibility Memory Exchange,” — ah, so that’s what COMMEX stood for — “Works on the same DARPA neural systems on which the Drift technology is built on, but it is not the same. We merely use a secondary because the system is built so that they have access to your memories. You do not need to be Drift Compatible for it. Rather, we suggest not knowing your secondary at all, so that this process can be as unbiased as we can make it. You’ll be sedated, and we’ll be guiding your secondary through the process of manipulating your memories. There’s no pain, and you’ll wake up a different person. The new memories we overlap are already programmed into the system after running a psychoanalysis session with Mark, to make sure you two will be the most compatible once you come out of it.”
A different person. One that has been hollowed out to fit the mould of another. Very barely human. These thoughts had volleyed across Jaemin’s head like a ping pong ball stuck in a small, vacuumed space, bouncing in perpetual motion.
But the need to be here, to do something was greater than the need to be human. There’s little he’d do out in the world than hope for someone to save him.
And so, he’d merely nodded and leaned back, wincing as the lab tech pricked the sedation drip into his nerve. He had woken up an hour later, dazed and a little bit delirious.
And with no idea of why he was doing what he was doing anymore.
“I do,” he says, truthfully to Yangyang now, whose eyes widen. Jaemin continues, following up quickly for the boy’s benefit, “I don’t regret that I got to be a Ranger, that I got to be in Palladium Roma and on the field. What I regret is that I lost a part of myself that I’ll probably never get back. It’s hard to look into yourself for a reason when there’s not much to look at.”
The newfound memories are sparse. Shallow. Unreal, but now his. Mark used to sift through them in the Drift like he’d browse a magazine on a tabletop waiting for an appointment. With no meaning behind it. Like clockwork. Jaemin felt like an empty bell in the church — hollowed out and unable to do what it is meant to.
But more than that — there’s belief. You can choose to believe in many things. Jaemin chose to believe in reason. A reason that his past self seemed to have had that would make him do what he did. A reason he no longer remembers but knows was there. And so, he continued down the ragged path, until it ended in splinted muscles and handicapped partners, and an emotional burden he’d carry for a lifetime.
Jaemin doesn’t think he regrets that. He hopes his past self is proud.
He smiles at Yangyang. “Besides,” he says, “You’re missing the most important possibility.”
He raises his eyebrows.
“You could be Drift Compatible with him without having to consider COMMEX at all.”
YANGYANG IS NOT DRIFT COMPATIBLE WITH JENO.
Jaemin has the misfortune of knowing this thanks to Doyoung, who ducks his head into the canteen just as Jaemin is heading out, and grins when he spots him.
“Na!”
Jaemin is, well, suspicious. Doyoung usually never comes to find him, it’s always the other way around. “Can I help you with something?”
“You aren’t going to give me a chance to butter you up, huh?”
Jaemin chuckles. “Hyung, you know you don’t have to butter me up to ask for something.”
Doyoung reaches over to clap him on the back, and then slings his arm across Jaemin’s shoulder. The first time he’d met Doyoung, he’d stood a head shorter than him, sixteen years old and knowing nothing of being a Ranger. Now, nine years later, he stands as tall as his mentor, and Doyoung does not appreciate that.
“When did you grow up so much?” he complains, making Jaemin laugh.
“You can’t expect me to stay that young for years, hyung. Wait, are we heading to the combat room?”
Doyoung nods. “Ten took the day off today, and I need someone to help me out with the recruits.”
“New blood?”
Doyoung shakes his head. “No, just compatibility matching. Figured you could help me keep track and pick?”
Jaemin nods. “Let me send Renjun a quick text though, we were supposed to meet up, I’ll let him know you need me. I’ll see you in the combat room?”
Doyoung smiles, sending him a mock salute. “Thanks kid, I owe you one!”
Jaemin sighs in defeat but nods his head anyways. Doyoung’s never going to stop calling him kid — Jaemin sort of understands how Jisung feels now. Renjun’s reply to his text is almost immediate, and thankfully it is non-threatening, which means he hasn’t yet decided to be mad at Jaemin.
Oh, that’s alright! I can come over to Kwoon after I’m done here, and we can go back to the dormitories together then. Haven’t met Doyoung hyung in a while, might as well say hi.
Jaemin texts him an affirmation before heading down the large hallways to the service elevator to take him down to the basement, where the combat room is.
“Could you hold that?”
Jaemin looks up at Yangyang, hand reaching out to stop the doors from closing, and offers him a smile. “Combat room?”
Yangyang nods, bright eyed, as the elevator lurches and drops down. Jaemin winces. He’s never really liked this one, all rickety and loud. It almost feels like being inside a Conn Pod that’s on the verge of exploding.
“I hope you’re right, you know.”
Jaemin raises his eyebrow.
“About me being compatible with Jeno. Guess I’ll know soon enough anyways, right?”
“What do you mean?”
The elevator slams to a stop, and the doors open. Yangyang steps out first, before turning around to smile brightly at Jaemin. “He’s testing for compatibility in the combat room right now! Isn’t that why you’re here too?”
Doyoung owes him big time.
It’s not surprising that the combat room is brimming with potential Rangers lining up to take a shot with Lee Jeno. The newest graduates stand first in line, followed by several agents who’ve either been waiting for a Drift Partner, or have been in limbo for a while. Jaemin thinks he spots the sparkly eyed Osaki Shotaro somewhere in the throng, ace of the Tokyo Shatterdome, holding the highest record for drop kills among all of the Mark-3s before having his partner get injured in an accident and having to retire
Lee Jeno is one of the best Rangers they have. Undoubtedly, everyone hopes to drift with him.
“Jaemin, over here!”
Jaemin spots Doyoung up on the platform and makes his way over, letting Doyoung shove a clipboard in his hand the second he makes it next to him.
“You’ve analyzed Lee Jeno’s fighting technique before, haven’t you?”
Jaemin has. He doesn’t quite remember why anymore — he wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a side effect of COMMEX, even if it’s an interesting detail to remove from his memory — but he remembers knowing how Lee Jeno fights. It makes sense that Doyoung wants him around for this; he’d probably by able to tell Jeno’s compatibility better than Doyoung.
Jeno walks into the room just then, eyes trained to the floor. He’s switched out his usual well-ironed uniform for a cotton Dobok, his triple black belt cinching his waist. Jaemin doesn’t meant to stare, but it happens on instinct. Jeno has a fighter’s body — well-built and rugged. Unlike his usual posture, he stands spine-straight this time, and it doesn’t take a keen eye to see how symmetric he is as a person. It’s easy to tell he’s spent years honing his craft and his body to what he is today.
Doyoung coughs, and Jaemin meets his eye in defiance — it’s not like Jaemin was doing anything wrong. If Jeno notices, he doesn’t say a word, instead offering Jaemin a nod and the barest hint of a smile, before he turns back to the fighting ring.
“Right, can we clear out space? Let’s start with Yangyang.”
Yangyang gives Jeno a wide smile, offering him a cane and grabbing one for himself, “I’m a huge fan!”
Jeno gives him a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and gets in stance. Yangyang seems to get the idea, and holds out his cane, with a nod to Doyoung to say he’s ready to start.
“Alright then, let’s begin.”
Yangyang is a good fighter, but he’s no match for Jeno. Jaemin realizes this in the first thirty seconds of their tuff. They’re both aggressive, but Yangyang is also offensive, offering himself no defense, his aim being to take his opponent by surprise and not giving him time to react.
Jeno reads this much quicker than Jaemin does, matching Yangyang’s pace with ease, canes clacking over and over, until Yangyang breaks out of the hold and tries to swipe the cane at Jeno’s torso. Jeno merely bends over, sending Yangyang flying, and then hooks his leg over his ankles, bringing him scuttering to the ground, with Jeno’s cane held up against his neck.
“One-to-zero,” Jaemin reads out, marking off the square under Jeno on his clipboard. Yangyang, surprisingly, doesn’t let this deter him when he attacks again, in equal fervour, not letting Jeno breathe. But Jeno mirrors him again easily, countering each attack, and then turning it on Yangyang until he’s on his back on the floor, Jeno elbow against his Adam’s apple.
“Two-to-zero,”
The third match isn't any different either, and within the matter of seconds, Jeno has Yangyang pinned to the ground in his victory.
“Three-to-zero.” Jaemin reads out, and Doyoung sighs. Jaemin’s sure he’d secretly been rooting for his star student.
“Alright then, let’s move on.”
Yangyang isn’t a sore loser, and he nods reverently at Jeno. “It was a good fight,” he says, “Thank you.”
This time when Jeno smiles, Jaemin knows he means it.
The next few fights go about the same — Jeno somehow manages to emulate the fighting techniques of anyone who’s put in front of him, and then turn it on their head. He wins most matches three-to-zero.
Jaemin clicks his tongue. There’s something different about Jeno. He’s not working the way he typically used to. There’s some amount of restraint that Jaemin finds when he’s fighting — he’s not utilizing his own technique at all. He keeps mirroring his opponent’s, which is working, yes, because he’s a good fighter in general, but it’s not the best way to find someone who’s compatible with him, because his opponents currently have no idea of his fighting style.
The opponent that Jeno finally has trouble with is Shotaro. Jaemin watches in fascination as two of the best Rangers battle it out. Shotaro recognizes Jeno’s strategy after his first loss, and keeps changing his own every attack, managing to take Jeno by surprise and granting him two back-to-back victories.
Jaemin watches something in Jeno snap, his eyes narrowing and he bends down, cane held close against his navel, and against his own will, Jaemin finds his lips curling upwards. Finally.
Jeno attacks first this time. It’s careful and calculated, but firm, a whack directly to the abdomen that takes Shotaro by surprise immediately. He barely dodges it, but Jeno’s entirely on the offensive now, landing blows one after the other, targeting Shotaro’s core, leaving him only to defend unless he gets out of the hold. Shotaro puts up a relentless fight — as expected of Japan’s top Ranger — but at one point, Jeno has him cornered at the edge of the ring, unable to escape the hold, Jeno’s cane locked against his so he can’t move.
“Two-on-two,” Jaemin announces, and Jeno takes a step back, letting Shotaro make the first move. And then they’re battling it out again, canes against canes, but Jaemin’s focused on Jeno’s arms and feet. He knows that’s what Jeno prefers using over weapons — sheer brute strength. He’s been holding back on doing that the entire time today, but now Jaemin sees how he uses his feet for leverage, making Shotaro stumble, and then lets go of one end of the cane to use his hand as defense and getting in and landing a few punches that draw a heavy breath out of his opponent.
Shotaro doesn’t stand a chance this time, knocking over on the mat a few seconds into fight.
“Three-on-two,” Jaemin announces, and then before he can help himself, “That was a good fight.”
Many heads snap to look at him — Jeno, Doyoung, Yangyang and Shotaro in particular — and he knows he’s dug his grave. Shotaro grins. “He’s right. That was a good fight, thanks Jeno. But I don’t think we’re Drift Compatible, unfortunately.”
“Our fighting styles don’t compliment,” Jeno admits, “But it was an honour.”
Doyoung doesn’t take his eyes off Jaemin.
“Care to tell me why you were so invested in this one in particular?”
Jaemin sighs. “He’s been holding back,” he says, “I’m not sure why, but he’s not employing his usual style while fighting. He only finally started using it in these last two matches.”
Doyoung scratches at his jaw. Jaemin doesn’t exactly like that notion. He’s not a fan of Doyoung’s ideas. Most times than not, they land him in trouble.
Jaemin likes being right most times, but that is not the case currently. Doyoung reaches over to take the clipboard Jaemin’s holding from him, and then “I want you to battle it out with him.”
Jaemin pauses. “What? I wasn’t here to check Drift Compatibility, I’ve retired—”
“I don’t care,” Doyoung says, “I want to see him tap into that potential, and I have a feeling you might be able to make him do that.”
Jaemin shakes his head. “No, I won’t. You know my fighting style, you oversaw my practices with Mark.”
Doyoung cocks his head. “You used to fight differently around Mark than your usual style,” he says, “Just— just trust me on this one and do it once, please?”
Jaemin turns to look at Jeno. He’s within the earshot, so Jaemin’s sure he’s heard the conversation. He raises his eyebrows, a clear question. Should we?
There’s hesitation in Jeno’s eyes that Jaemin can’t really place. For all intents and purposes, Jeno shouldn’t care who he’s up against, since he’s just here to find someone Drift Compatible. But then he nods, walking back to give Jaemin space. Shotaro comes over to hand him his cane with a bright “Good luck!”
Well, looks like he’s doing it.
He slips out of his boots and places them outside the ring before he steps in, taking in Jeno’s terse form. He offers him a small smile. “Don’t worry,” he says, “You’re a much better fighter than I am. You’ve got nothing to be afraid of.”
Jeno shakes his head. “That’s not— never mind.”
Not what?
“Enough chitchat, take your positions.”
Jeno gets into stance immediately, body bent inwards. Attacking stance. Mentally, Jaemin can already tell he’s giving Jaemin what he wants — his original style.
Jaemin’s a defensive fighter. He sees more than he fights, maps the person in front of him, and attacks them at their weakest. It worked well with Mark, who’d spent years perfecting his craft so that his Achilles Heel was barely noticeable. They balanced each other out in fights.
“Begin.”
Fighting with Jeno is different. Unlike Mark, whose telltale signs were his body, Jeno’s only giveaways are his eyes. It’s the way he squints when he’s about to attack, calm when he’s reading and mirroring, guarded when he runs defense. He switches between them constantly, and goes back and forth with Jaemin, coaxing him to attack. Pulling at him to charge.
Mark’s never done this. He’d always let Jaemin play at his strengths, and himself played at his own. Jeno alternates. He uses his strength to attack, but then deliberately pulls defense to lure Jaemin’s impatience. And as much as Jaemin doesn’t want it to, it works. He’s agile and spindly, ducking around Jeno’s attacks, and then surging at him at his most vulnerable.
Duck beneath his arm, cross his cane, cross over his foot, yank him down.
“Zero-to-one,”
There’s a ringing silence in the crowd after Doyoung’s announcement. Jaemin just won his first match against Jeno.
Jeno doesn’t give him a second to breathe, springing back up and gaining on Jaemin within the next second, their canes clacking loudly as Jeno manages to corner Jaemin, cane against his back.
“One-to-one,”
Two can play at the game. Jaemin’s swiping his leg at Jeno’s almost immediately, making him lose his balance and topple backwards, which gives Jaemin enough time to skirt around him and grab him from the back, cane against his neck.
“One-to-two,” he murmurs this time, instead of Doyoung, “Watch me, Jeno, don’t play blind.”
Jeno mumbles something that Jaemin can’t make out, and then he’s ducking from his chokehold and dragging him down by the cane, rolling him over on the ground. Jaemin manages to spring to his feet, but it’s given Jeno an upper hand with respect to momentum, which he uses to his advantage, pushing at Jaemin again and knocking him to the ground, elbow against his ribs.
“Two-to-two,” Doyoung says, and Jeno smirks.
“Come on Na, you need keep up with me.”
“It’s not a fight,” Jaemin says, “It’s a conversation.”
Still, he’s naturally slipping out of Jeno’s grasp — it is too close for comfort, and had Jeno’s eyelashes always been that long and noticeable? — and getting to his feet, stance firm. His eyes waver for a second — a second enough for him to spot Renjun’s figure at the door. His throat goes dry.
“Jaemin, focus,”
He looks up at Jeno when he says the word, and then on instinct, his body is countering Jeno’s every attack, back-and-forth, bobbing and weaving under his arms, eyes trained on his movements, until he leaves out a space for Jaemin to attack. It’s fast, he abandons his cane and dashes, getting underneath Jeno’s arm and throwing his body weight at his torso, taking him completely by surprise.
Jeno, to his credit, does not go down without a fight, holding out his hand below his head before he hits the ground, saving himself from being knocked headfirst. Jaemin comes down with him, feet finding ground, arms on Jeno’s chest so he can’t get up again.
“Two-to-three.”
The combat room dissolves in a flurry of whispers as Jaemin scrambles up, holding out his hand for Jeno to take and get up. His fingers are clammy, and for a second, he thinks Jeno will lose his grip, but Jeno holds on firmly, his hand warm against Jaemin’s, and pulls himself up.
Jaemin doesn’t want to think of what all this means, even if he knows.
Instead, his eyes lock on Renjun’s at the door, and even from this far away, he can see the feeling of betrayal cross behind his irises. Fuck.
“Jaemin,”
Jeno’s fingers are wrapped around his wrist, almost tentatively, a way to grab his attention. It takes an effort to tear his eyes away from Renjun’s and look at Jeno. It’s hard to tell what he’s thinking — his eyes are guarded and neutral, betraying no feelings unlike during their fight.
It’s Doyoung who speaks the words that Jaemin doesn’t want to hear.
“You two. You’re Drift Compatible.”
Jaemin’s been in limbo for three years. The last thing he wants is to go back into field. Especially with Lee Jeno.
But here they are anyways.