Chapter Text
‘Hey, have either of you seen my Pad?’ Kun called out into the half-empty ship. The response he got was a series of clangs and various sounds seeming chaotic in nature. Doyoung emerged from one of the doorways and handed Kun his Pad. Kun sighed as he noticed how it was already on low charge and had a chunk of one of the corners missing. Kun breathed a quick thanks and hurried to attach it to its charging port.
‘Ten doesn’t know where their kit has gone, have you seen it?’ Doyoung asked as he followed Kun into his chamber. Kun ignored how he had to detach his feathers from where they had gotten caught in some metal on the wall. He can deal with that later.
‘How would I know? I haven’t even seen Ten today. You ask them where they last left it, I’m busy.’
Kun and his crew were scheduled to leave for their voyage in two star-days. Kun had tried to stress to the officials that their ship was nowhere near ready for a departure yet. But, they seemed to insist that leaving at the scheduled time was necessary for their work.
‘I swear Commander Sooman has it out for me sometimes,’ Kun grumbled to Doyoung. They were working on repairing one of the water tanks.
Doyoung let out a sound resembling a snort. ‘That’s bullshit, he literally graduated you before everyone else in your year, and let you captain a ship at age nineteen .’
‘Fine, you make a good point. However, he also just refused to postpone the departure date even though this ship is in no way ready yet. Not to mention this is his fault - old man doesn’t know how to take care of a ship at all. I do everything I can to look after this ship and keep it in good condition and as soon as I dock it and it’s in his care, it suddenly turns to shit. It’s all a mess, and I can’t find anything I need and neither can you or Ten, apparently,’ Kun rambled on. He was becoming more aggressive as he works on tightening a loose screw.
‘That’s true, I guess. Do you wanna grab a drink with Ten and I later?’ Doyoung proposed, changing the subject before Kun broke the tank.
‘No, I’m busy .’
‘Please, it’ll be like an hour tops, and it’s on me. Don’t stress yourself out, Captain.’ Doyoung hooked up a water pipe to the tank once he deemed it ready.
‘Ugh. Fine, but only one drink and you’re paying. Afterwards, I will come back here and finish sorting out the ship.’
‘No, it’s late, and it’ll be even later when we finish. You will get back, and you will go to sleep. You can work on the ship tomorrow, it’s almost ready, trust me.’
‘I hate how you can always end up convincing me.’ Kun sighed and gave the tank a steady whack to make sure it was holding up okay.
Doyoung chirped, a triumphant smile on his face. ‘It’s my pleasure. We'll be there in an hour, go home and get changed, you smell like a stale spacecraft.’
‘Thanks, I love you too, Doyoung.’ Kun quietly went to work on something else as Doyoung disappeared around the corner. He tried to ignore how he could hear a faint clanking in the vents. He really didn’t need to think about anything else that needed work doing.
It took a while to get Kun out of the ship because there was always just one more thing to work on. But eventually, he was in his apartment back on Kelnippe and taking a shower to rid himself of the grime and dirt collected from working on the ship. Doyoung was right, it was getting late. He wouldn’t have time to go back and work on the ship afterwards even if he tried. With this, he decided he would allow himself to enjoy a drink or two with his crewmates.
After throwing on some half-decent clothes, he headed out into the night. The chill of the air settled through his skin and Kun regretted not wearing a heavier jacket. Thankfully the bar wasn’t far of a walk away.
At the bar, a cheerful-looking, slightly flushed Ten greeted him. ‘Ignore them, they’ve already had two drinks. I tried to stop them!’ Doyoung had explained, turning defensive when the look on Kun’s face turned to shock. Ten’s species were horrible lightweights. Such was clearly evident with the way their speech was already starting to slur. They were also wobbling as they tried to sit upon the barstool between Kun and Doyoung. Ten’s skin should have a slight hint of blue, but it was starting to turn redder as the alcohol soaked into their system. Kun laughed at the staggering Vonan and flagged down a tired bartender to order himself a drink.
When the bartender finished mixing and handed Kun his drink, Kun had to swat away Ten’s grabby hands. ‘Please, Kunnie?’ They drawled, trying to pout at Kun. When it didn’t look like Kun was going to give in, Ten huffed. ‘Fine, I’ll ask bird boy.’ The nickname drew a ‘Hey !’ from Doyoung.
The rest of the time at the bar went by smoothly. Ten and Doyoung had retreated onto the dance floor at some point, leaving Kun at the bar to nurse his third drink of the night. There was a holographic display in one corner. It was playing some crappy show when it abruptly cut out to display a breaking news programme.
BREAKING NEWS - WANTED CRIMINAL
NOTORIOUS SPACE PIRATE AND DELINQUENT JOHNNY SUH WANTED FOLLOWING AN ATTACK ON A FEDERATION VESSEL ONLY A FEW HOURS AGO. HE WAS SIGHTED LEAVING THE VESSEL WITH A SMALLER MALE ONTO AN UNTRACEABLE SHIP WHICH VANISHED INTO WARP SPACE. IF YOU HAVE ANY FURTHER DETAILS THAT CAN HELP US CAPTURE THIS MAN PLEASE CONTACT THE FEDERATION POLICE IMMEDIATELY.
An old mugshot of the man accompanied the alert, and Kun’s grip on his glass tightened. ‘What the fuck?’ He muttered to himself as he managed to get a closer look at the man on the screen.
‘Crazy, right? The kids got some guts if he fancies going after a Fed vessel,’ a man sitting next to Kun spoke, a slight slur to his words. Kun only hummed in response, downing the last of his drink and getting up from the stool to collect his friends.
‘We need to leave,’ Kun remarked as he grabbed both Ten and Doyoung by the arms. He tried to forget how he approached them as they were grinding on each other. ‘I’ll explain later,’ he added in response to the various protests he got from the two. Doyoung had a scowl on his face whereas Ten’s eyebrows furrowed in concern.
‘Is everything,’ Ten paused to burp ‘is everything okay?’ Kun didn’t respond, only continued to drag them out of the club and outside. Once out in the fresh air, Kun allowed himself to breathe, counting to ten in his head to calm himself down.
‘You guys know how I was a refugee here from my home planet, Koliv U27, right?’ Kun let out a shuddering breath. He watched as Ten and Doyoung nodded. ‘And how I had this best friend that got taken away, separately from everyone else?’ Kun’s friends nodded again, concern growing on their faces. ‘Well, um,’ he paused, not knowing how to say it, ‘it turns out he’s, like, a wanted criminal now? And he was on the news just now for attacking a Federation ship, but he got away, and now they’re looking for him.’ Kuns’ legs shook, and he felt himself choking up. ‘I’m so- I’m sorry for dragging you guys out like this, I just-’
‘Kun, calm down,’ Doyoung spoke up, reaching a clawed hand out to rest on Kun’s shoulder as support. ‘At least now you know he’s alive, right?’
‘That’s not the- the point, oh Jupiter, Johnny what ha- what have you done?’ Kun hiccuped, the alcohol in his system finally settling in. He hadn’t even noticed the wetness on his cheeks.
‘Let’s get you home, yeah?’ Ten spoke up this time, taking one of Kun’s hands in theirs. Kun couldn’t bring himself to speak, so he only nodded and let Ten pull him to his apartment.
15 star-years earlier
Kun felt so incredibly lost. He was nine years old, separated from his family, and on a strange new planet with strange new people. Everyone looked so different from him and spoke a language he couldn’t understand. He got paired up to live with these two men- Taeyong and Taeil. They would look after him until he could look after himself. Taeil was small and soft-spoken. He was patient with Kun even though the boy was stubborn. He also tried to refuse any affection and insisted that he was fine, even if the older man wouldn’t understand him. The other man, Taeyong, was much quieter but wasn’t home very often, so Kun didn’t see him much. Taeil told him that Taeyong travels off planet-side for work a lot. But when he was back home, he was able to teach Kun Kippan as he was familiar with Kun’s native language. Despite not seeing him much, this made Kun feel more comfortable with Taeyong.
When they could sense that Kun was feeling more comfortable with them and talking to them more (with the help of Taeyong’s help with the language), they started to encourage Kun to tell them more about himself and what Koliv U27 was like.
‘Did you have many friends?’ Kun nodded at Taeil’s question. ‘Ooh, tell us about them!’ The older man beamed.
‘Umm... I had a best friend called- called Johnny, and uh, we played together a lot. We were..’ he trailed off, looking at Taeyong. ‘ How do you say that I was really close to someone? ’ Kun asked in Kol, Taeyong translated. ‘I was really close to Johnny, we were friends for a really long time, and I kinda miss him? He was strange though and sometimes he would steal things, but he was nice to me.’ Taeyong held Kuns hand, smiling at him reassuringly when the boy didn’t tug away.
‘Do you know what happened to Johnny? Was he not brought with the rest of you?’ Taeil inquired.
‘No, I don’t know what happened to him. I asked the, um, the important people in that big building here about him but they didn’t know either. Do you- do you think he’s alright?’ Kun didn’t realise he had started crying until his words began to get jumbled and Taeil had taken hold of his other hand. Taeyong had started to run his thumb over Kun’s knuckles - the gesture was calming to Kun.
‘I’m sure he’s perfectly fine and that he probably got taken to another planet. Maybe he misses you too. We could go to those people again tomorrow when you get back from school and ask them again, make them look a little harder, yeah?’ Taeyong suggested, his voice soft.
‘Yeah, we can try that,’ Kun smiled weakly. He felt silly for being upset over something like this, but at least Taeil and Taeyong were understanding.