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XXIV. And kneeling at the edge of the transparent sea I shall shape for myself a new heart from salt and mud.
— Anne Carson
Shin Ryujin is heard of before she’s seen.
The Gangneung Shatterdome buzzes even at dawn. Yeji hears the whispers and picks them apart. What did she do? they ask. So young, others lament. How did she get here?
They’re like sirensong. Yeji can’t stop listening to them. Drawn, drawn, drawn. They talk about her like she’s adjacent to reality rather than in it.
Like the smell of burning air before lightning crackle.
Yeji hasn’t known a life outside the sea.
The Gangneung Shatterdome differs from all the others like this: it takes in orphans of Kaiju attacks like calloused hands wrapping a bandage around a wound, like hoarse-voiced apology. Yeji’s father was a fisherman who set out at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Her father disappeared, her mother tried to follow, and Yeji still remembers the eerie, phosphorescent, stomach-twisting blue—nothing like the deep of seafoam—that glowed around her mother’s skin before she dropped into the sand.
Three days later, the sound of home wasn’t cresting waves. The smell of home wasn’t salt and sun. It becomes grinding metal and engine oil.
But she’ll take what she can get. This Shatterdome is quieter than most—nowhere near as busy as Hong Kong, as Anchorage—so on some mornings, when the homesickness lodges in her lungs, she heads out to shore, walks far enough for her ankles to be submerged, and sometimes she can convince herself that she’s still six and nothing’s changed at all.
This is what she knows of Shin Ryujin:
Prodigious. Was the youngest Korean ranger ever when she joined the Corps at seventeen. Her parents are military but not Jaeger. Was dispatched to the Tokyo Shatterdome because of her skill, five registered kills over three years. Had lost two copilots on the way, though.
Was deemed Drift incompatible with every candidate that had tried since, and hence sent back to a smaller Shatterdome.
Yeji doesn’t blame her. Yeji wonders why she’s still in the program.
They say that sometimes your Drift partner feels closer than family. Blood thicker than seawater, the Drift thicker still. Yeji lost her family to Kaiju and couldn’t stand back up for years. But Shin Ryujin somehow remains steady and ever-pushing.
The first time Yeji sees her is on a summer afternoon. She’s having lunch in the cafeteria when an unfamiliar voice trickles in.
“ … the need isn’t immediate,” it comes, and a tray clanks noisily onto the table.
Yeji turns.
The figure looks more silhouette than person, at first. But then Yeji’s vision adjusts, and there’s a girl hunched over ten seats away from her, back curved like the shell of an oyster’s and looking just as impenetrable.
Marshal Jeon had entered with her, but at her words he nods and walks away.
It’s just the two of them left.
This girl can’t be anyone except Shin Ryujin, and Yeji doesn’t know just what exactly she was expecting, but there’s a difficulty to reconcile the whispers and the girl in front of her.
She’s slight, and her hair’s soft as it falls across her shoulders, and Yeji would have never figured she was Shin Ryujin except for that gash of pale skin that runs across her nose.
Rangers are Rangers, so of course Shin Ryujin notices that she’s being watched. Their eyes meet.
Yeji should shy away but she doesn’t. Shin Ryujin looks at her with an odd-placed curiosity; as if Yeji was behind glass. There’s a raise of her brow and a quirk of her mouth.
This sun-kissed girl has felled beasts eighty times her size, Yeji can’t help but think.
Of all of Yeji’s questions, the one that repeats itself the most is why.
Jisu lost her parents just a few months after Yeji did. They were co-pilots in the Los Angeles Shatterdome but were only dispatched there—Jisu ends up in Gangneung with Yeji.
They end up sharing a room. When you have something like that in common it doesn’t take much to adjust to each other.
After Yeji turns fifteen she hears of Newt Geiszler and buys all of his books. Drowns herself in them until she has to surface for air.
“What’s with all this?” Jisu asks, one morning. “You haven’t slept.”
Yeji runs a hand through her hair. Licks her lips. “It always felt unfair,” she tells Jisu. “If only my dad had gone out a day before none of this would have happened.”
Jisu’s face turns stony.
“Why do they do it? The Kaiju—why are they—” Yeji swallows. “Why are they here?” she whispers. “It’s the only solace I can look for.”
Jisu doesn’t answer, and Yeji can’t blame her.
She remembers one joint counselling session they had. Do you miss them? they were asked.
Of course, Jisu had answered, but that was how they were meant to die.
Yeji curls her hand into a fist. That’s where the similarities end.
There’s something about August that claws at Yeji’s heart.
She goes to the beach every morning. Meeting the sun just before it turns relentlessly unbearable. She sits on the shore, draws patterns on the sand.
“Would you mind any company?” a voice asks.
Yeji looks. It’s Shin Ryujin.
“Not at all,” Yeji says, and nods at the space beside her.
She sits beside Yeji cross-legged. Smiles at her. “I’m Ryujin,” she says.
Yeji smiles. “Hwang Yeji.”
Ryujin tilts her head. “May I ask how old …?”
Yeji laughs. “A year older than you.”
Ryujin grins. There’s a pair of dimples on each of her cheeks. “Yeji unnie,” she says.
It strikes her again. Ryujin’s younger than her. Her shirt hangs loose off her shoulders so she looks all the smaller. Yeji wonders if her back is always bowed because there’s too much weight bearing down. Maybe.
“I was taking a walk, actually, until I saw you,” Ryujin says. “It seemed nice.”
“Sitting by the water?”
“Yeah.”
“It is,” Yeji says, taking a fistful of sand. Watching it run through her fingers.
Of all her impressions of Shin Ryujin, none of them warned her for a girl who would smile and watch sunlight glimmer off the water as if the world isn’t teetering on an apocalypse. Yeji doesn’t know what to make of it.
It was always at the back of Yeji’s mind. Piloting.
Would it fill the hole in her heart? A Kaiju’s life in exchange? To see that cyan glow again, knowing she made the wound?
She’s seen Rangers up close. She’s seen what they look like after a kill. It’s never triumph. It’s never relief.
Only hollowness. Only desperation. Only exhaustion. Only the same question each and every person on earth has. Seven billion souls asking the same thing.
When will this end?
The next time she sees Ryujin is at the infirmary.
Yeji had come to ask for a paracetamol but sees Ryujin sitting on one of the beds, a medic tending to her. There’s flakes of dried blood on her cheek, and a butterfly bandage on her brow.
“Oh.” Ryujin blinks, noticing her. “Yeji unnie.”
A “Hi,” slips out of Yeji’s mouth, and—was it always this easy?
“Are you hurt anywhere?” Ryujin asks. Her mouth downturns into a pout. She tilts her head and her neck flexes, the bright, fluorescent lighting glimmering off the sweat coating her skin there. Saltwater.
Yeji swallows to alleviate the dryness of her mouth. “Just a headache,” she replies. “And you shouldn’t be asking me that.”
Ryujin gives a little half-smile. “Drift compatibility tests,” she says. “Those sticks aren’t exactly soft.”
“Ah.” Yeji shifts on her feet. “Any promising candidates?”
Ryujin only scrunches her nose.
“I’m sorry,” Yeji offers.
And then Ryujin’s expression shifts. It turns—curious? Her lips part and she makes a little intake of air. Yeji turns her gaze to the medic but he’s only wrapping up, so whatever Ryujin did wasn’t because of pain.
Yeji looks back at Ryujin. Her eyes softer than Yeji remembers them being. “Don’t be.”
She and Ryujin see each other nearly every day after that.
Mostly mornings at the beach. Yeji always arrives first and Ryujin always sits to her right. Surprise turning to habit turning to expectation.
It’s off-kilter. The more she meets Ryujin the less she can believe she’s a Ranger. Her wrists are so thin. How does she hold up the weight of a drivesuit?
There’s an insistence from Ryujin Yeji can’t figure out. Ryujin pushes like waves onto the sandbar—patient in her relentlessness. Yeji can’t figure out what Ryujin’s trying to coax from her, the unsettledness stirring at the base of her spine.
Questions flow out of her mouth and Yeji can’t pinpoint the source of her curiosity. What’s your favourite season? What’s your worst fear? Where do you want to go the most?
Yeji ignores the sand prickling at her skin and pushes her answers. Spring. Never figuring out the Kaiju. Busan.
She’s reminded of before Ryujin arrived, how Yeji couldn’t stop listening to the whispers. Here Ryujin is, the siren herself. Yeji looks at the dark of her eyes, still feeling that inexplicable call, and wonders if she can save herself from drowning.
One day, Ryujin tells her, “I never wanted to be a pilot.”
The wind blows strong that morning. Yeji has to strain so it doesn’t drown Ryujin’s words out.
She turns to face her. “What?”
“I never wanted this,” Ryujin repeats.
If there’s one thing Yeji’s learned about Ryujin it’s her stubborn forwardness. A constant push and a refusal to look back. Even now she doesn’t return Yeji’s gaze; only faces toward the water. Toward the Breach. Toward the sun ascending.
“You’re one of the best,” Yeji says.
Ryujin shrugs. “I’m good at this, sure,” she says, “doesn’t mean I ever wanted it.”
What unlocked it all? Yeji wonders. Is it because her parents have a prolific military career? Did she show aptitude for piloting at an early age?
Yeji also wonders—what would Ryujin be like outside of all this? Ryujin in school, Ryujin in a club, Ryujin receiving a confession, Ryujin riding the subway. Ryujin like the girl in front of her.
“I’m sorry,” is all Yeji can say, the lost possibilities flashing in front of her like glimpses of light in a storm.
“Don’t be,” Ryujin returns. “It isn’t your fault.”
Ryujin takes her to the training room one afternoon.
“Can you hold these up for me?”
Yeji’s handed two boxing mitts.
“I don’t know how this works,” she replies, looking to Ryujin’s hands, then to her face.
Ryujin laughs. “You just have to stand there and get used to me. You’ll figure it out.”
They fit awkward on her hands. A heavy stiffness she’s not used to.
She stands across from Ryujin, hands held up. Ryujin’s wrapped hands land light blows on the rubber pads, each thud reverberating through the empty room.
Yeji’s never seen her like this—the closest image to the beast-killer she’s renowned to be. The sharpness of her gaze and the set of her mouth. The lightness of her feet and the tension of her sinew.
The light in the room turns muted, scattered—like they’re underwater. Yeji’s breath settles as she follows Ryujin’s steps. Left, right. Ryujin’s sweat falls onto the rubber mats in drop rhythm. Like a ticking clock.
When Ryujin pauses, steps back, Yeji doesn’t know why she feels like she’s just broken through a surface to breathe.
“Think fast,” Ryujin calls, and tosses something into the air.
Yeji manages to catch it. It sits neatly in the palm of her hand. A 500 won coin, heads-up.
She turns to Ryujin, confused. “What’s this for?”
Ryujin doesn’t answer, for a while. Only looks at Yeji like she’s trying to figure something out again.
Then her expression breaks. A grin. “Get me a Sprite?”
After Ryujin’s finished the can, Yeji can’t help her curiosity.
“What are they like?”
Ryujin frowns. “Which?”
Yeji pulls it from her memory. Ryujin’s registered kills are—
“Yajirushi. Disturber.” Yeji licks her lips. “What are they—”
Did they move with purpose? Did they show intent? Did they give a clue as to why my life is—
“There isn’t really another word for them except terrifying,” Ryujin replies, her voice taking on an edge Yeji’s never heard. “I don’t even know what they look like anymore.”
They’re seated across from each other. Ryujin’s back is bowed again, a towel draped over the nape of her neck.
Yeji puts a tired hand to her knee. “Thank you,” she says.
Those two attacks had zero casualties, military or civilian.
Ryujin turns to her. Smile like a saltbreeze. “It’s my honour.”
Yeji wears a necklace with half a shark eye moon shell as a pendant. Her mother’s favourite.
It’s her birthday today.
She digs for another one at the beach. Finds one after half an hour, even in the evening dark.
It never takes her long.
She takes it to the water, and watches as the waves carry it away.
“Why do you have all those books?”
Yeji tries to not falter in her step but fails. Ryujin catches on and holds herself back. They stop.
“What?”
They’re in the training room again. Hair comes loose from Ryujin’s haphazard ponytail.
Ryujin had picked Yeji up straight from her room. Said that Marshal Jeon had told her where it is.
“The books,” Ryujin says. “On Kaiju. I thought you’d hate them.”
A question again, a blow to the heart. Yeji purses her lips. “I think that’s exactly why,” she replies. “I need answers. I’m always looking for them.”
Ryujin’s chest heaves. She regards Yeji with that curious, discerning expression again. What is she looking for?
“What do you mean?” Ryujin asks.
It’s only then Yeji realises she’d asked out loud. The air weighs heavy in her lungs. Might as well sigh it out. The gas-lamp orange of the lights watch her. “You ask a lot,” Yeji says.
Something in Ryujin’s jaw works.
Then: “I need answers, too.”
Yeji frowns and tilts her head.
Ryujin takes a deep breath and steps closer. “And I think you’re it.”
That evening they’re in the training room again, Marshal Jeon watching.
It shouldn’t be any different, but Yeji has an inkling as to what this is. The pieces starting to come together in her head.
Ryujin moves and Yeji moves with her. Inhales and exhales blurring, gazes burning. The soreness of Yeji’s arms giving way to how her body knows exactly where to be next. Ryujin’s voice saying: It’s my honour. Ryujin, Ryujin, Ryujin.
Eventually Ryujin slows down her punches and stops. She puts her hands to her hips and turns to Marshal Jeon. “What do you say?” she asks.
Marshal Jeon’s mouth sets. “We’ll retest tomorrow.”
Unwrapping her hands Ryujin says, “We kept on thinking the candidates had to be like me.”
Yeji looks up. She’d been pulling at the stray threads of her shirt.
Ryujin’s facing forward again. “So we could Drift,” she says. “They had to be like me. As good as me. On my level. Which made all the candidates feel pressured. But you—”
They face each other. Ryujin’s eyes shimmer in the low light, surface of an iridescent pearl. Something lodges in Yeji’s throat.
“We’re Drift compatible,” Ryujin sighs.
Yeji bites the inside of her cheek. Nods.
“So tomorrow we’ll start retesting with a new lens,” Ryujin says. “Get them out of their head. If you could pass the test—they can, too, right?”
Yeji swallows. “Of course.”
What does it take to be a Ranger?
Yeji stares at her ceiling. Nearly everything. A body that will bend until it breaks. Blood willing to spill. A heart that beats steady. Mind and instinct whittled to a point.
We’re Drift compatible.
Yeji doesn’t sleep until sunrise.
They’re at the beach again.
Ryujin always sits to her right. If they were in a Jaeger that’s where she would be, too.
Yeji watches her. Even with how she’s seen Ryujin move there’s still a pang in her chest. They’re just kids. Ryujin’s hair blows in the wind.
The heart of her palm itches. She tries digging her hands into the sand but it doesn’t relieve it. Sunlight casts itself on Ryujin’s face, and Yeji aches, stomach hollowing out.
“Do you ever think of piloting?” Ryujin asks.
“Sometimes,” Yeji mumbles. “I think everyone does.”
Ryujin hums.
“I don’t know if it’d be good, though.” Yeji hugs her knees to her chest. “I’d just see red if ever I had to fight a Kaiju. You know why I grew up here.”
Ryujin doesn’t reply. Only keeps her gaze trained ahead.
A seagull calls. The waves keep meeting the shore. Steady like a heartbeat.
“I think that’s why we’re compatible,” Ryujin eventually says. Voice soft.
Yeji frowns. “What do you mean?”
“I hate the Kaiju, but not as much as everyone else,” she says. “Only because I hated being forced into this life more. I was a kid.”
A want to reach out to touch the inside of Ryujin’s wrist makes itself known to Yeji. How young was she when she was told to be a beast slayer?
“But I was good at it, and I was saving lives, so I stayed,” Ryujin says. “But it’s all moot if I can’t Drift with anyone.”
“You can, though,” Yeji teases. “With someone who doesn’t know how to fight.”
“No—that’s the point. I can fight for both of us. You can—”
When Ryujin turns to face Yeji there’s a tenuousness drawn on her face.
“What do you mean?” Yeji asks.
Ryujin smiles. “Silly girl,” she says. “You’re the one who knows the Kaiju more of the two of us.”
Yeji only frowns.
“The Jaegers and the Kaiju—the same, right? The Kaiju are so big that they need two brains to function.”
Ryujin holds up her hand, the back of it facing Yeji. She clenches into a fist then relaxes back open. Slash-scars on her forearm like pale rain. “One to move,” she says.
The same hand shifts. Closes with only the index pointing out. Ryujin moves it forward until it’s on Yeji’s chest, just above her heart. Touch so gentle for a hand so strong it’s almost unbearable.
“And one to feel.”
The following week goes like this:
Yeji watches the attempts at the fight room. Candidates lined up at a wall for Ryujin to spar with in hopes for a connection. Ryujin does not hold back, her full spectrum of abilities on display. But Yeji’s learnt how to decode Ryujin’s expressions, and it seems with every person it’s only dissatisfaction.
There’s a documentary on Kennedy LaRue that Yeji’s always liked. She puts it on one evening. Every frame comes to her in a new light. The Ranger does not exist for the monster in front of them, she says, but for the city behind.
Ryujin steals a moment of time between night and day to see her. There’s a bruise on her cheek. “We’ve only done it thrice, so I don’t know if I’m allowed to miss making you a punching bag,” she tells Yeji.
She asks Jisu if she ever had thoughts on being a Ranger. “Not really,” she replies, pouting. “I think I’ve had enough Corps to last a lifetime.”
One afternoon Yeji goes to the shore. Lets her bare feet settle into the soft sand. Picks up the closest stray stick she can find. Tries to recall Ryujin’s movements and follow them. A step forward here, a strike there.
It’s the day after that Yeji’s world tilts further on its axis.
There’s a Category 1 by the coast of South Hamgyeong and Diviner Indigo goes and gets it. Handles it fairly easily, considering, but the Jaeger’s shoulder sustains some damage.
When they return to the Shatterdome a few hours later everything is neon bright blue. They’re all in the hangar. Holo screens filling Yeji’s field of vision, hazmat-donning J-Techs tending to the Jaeger, still wearing some of the Kaiju’s blood.
She spots Ryujin, meters away. Hand clenched into a fist, jaw set in frustration.
Diviner Indigo’s pilots are mother-son. They’re just within earshot, talking to an EMT.
Yeji’s familiar with the exhausted, hollowed-out look of a Ranger fresh from battle, but they ask: “And their chances?”
There were two fishing boats in the area when the Kaiju was first detected.
The EMT replies, “They’ll all be fine. None of the injuries were serious, anyway.”
The two of them laugh, and embrace, and the son pats his mother’s back. Unbridled joy even Yeji can see. It lasts for a long moment, and Yeji tears her gaze away, feeling invasive.
But an epiphany strikes her all the same. Crash through a surface. She’s been thinking about this wrong the whole time. Ryujin’s voice and Kennedy’s and Diviner Indigo’s pilots.
Would Yeji want another kid to end up like her?
Her answer isn’t Kaiju bloodthirst.
“Is there a protocol against us attempting a neural handshake?”
Ryujin’s eyes are rounded in surprise. Yeji had tracked her down just outside the fight room, fully knowing at this time of day the tests are usually finished.
“What do you—”
“I think—” Yeji purses her lips. Inhales. “I think I want to try becoming a Ranger, but—”
Ryujin’s expression is patient. Yeji only realises she’d put her hands on Ryujin’s shoulders when Ryujin places her fingers at Yeji’s elbows.
Yeji’s heart crawls to her throat.
“One Drift test shouldn’t hurt, considering,” Ryujin says.
The urgency of everything imminent, weight on their skins.
The Shatterdome’s Drift simulator is adjacent to LOCCENT, where Ryujin is speaking furiously to Marshal Jeon.
“She’ll come around if this works,” she hears Ryujin say. “You and I both know she’s our best shot. And if Indigo will take months to repair—”
There’s an advantage to Ryujin’s superstar status, Yeji realises, when Marshal Jeon closes his eyes, hangs his head, and says, “One sim. One.”
It’s a dark room, with two chairs and two helmets, wires sticking out on every inch of their surfaces.
“Been a while,” Ryujin sighs, taking a seat.
Yeji follows suit. Studies the hollow half-sphere in her hands. “I just … ?”
Ryujin laughs and nods. Puts her own helmet on. “Pretty much. Yeah.”
Not even three seconds after Yeji secures hers a voice through the loudspeaker says: Preparing for neural handshake.
Yeji feels the beginnings of it. A coldness at her fingertips. Then—
A rush of bruising air stinging in Yeji’s lungs, like she’s swallowed a storm. Images flicking, hazy and shaky and cerulean: Yeji’s first time in the Shatterdome, Jisu laughing, Ryujin at the beach. And then there’s her dad’s capsized boat, her mom in all that Kaiju Blue, and Yeji wants to scream, wants to take a step toward them—
“Unnie!” Ryujin’s voice comes. “Don’t chase the rabbit!”
Yeji feels a pull at the bottom of her stomach, a ship steering away. Then comes things unfamiliar, all blurred like they’re reflected in rippling water: a Jaeger Conn-Pod, Kodiak Island in the rain, we did well today, a wrenching sob, a TV interview—
One image distills clearly. It’s Yeji herself. Here in the Shatterdome. She can’t be older than ten. But Yeji has no recollection of this, can the Drift unlock things you never even knew—
Neural handshake confirmed.
Yeji didn’t even realise that she’d closed her eyes. She opens them and she knows Ryujin. Their breaths are the same. Their heartbeats are echoes of each other’s name. Yeji flexes her arm.
“I think I can do this,” Yeji says, a voiced thought.
“The memory of you is mine,” Ryujin says.
They’re just outside Yeji’s room. Standing at the door.
After Marshal Jeon had seen the results of their Drift simulation he said he’d have a decision on beginning Yeji’s training within a week and sent them to rest.
“What?” Yeji asks.
“My first time coming here, ten years ago,” Ryujin says, “they told me about you guys. The orphans. I went and saw you.”
Faint skip of a heartbeat.
“You were on the news a lot, when your parents—”
Ryujin throat works as she swallows.
“I thought to myself—I just couldn’t let that happen to any other kids again. So I pushed through piloting eventually,” Ryujin says, just above a whisper. “I remember you so clearly. I guess it’s why I kept coming to you when I saw you again.”
Yeji’s chest feels so full she might cry. A history that traces back to Ryujin’s purpose. Is that why Yeji also felt the pull of sirensong?
She feels like she’ll break if she says anything else, so she says, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Ryujin.”
Ryujin takes a step back. Her brow furrows, gaze intent on Yeji. Then she nods and whispers back, “See you.”
Yeji’s handed a short, thick wooden staff.
“About time you learn how Drift compatibility tests actually work,” Ryujin says.
“But we’ve already Drifted,” Yeji says.
“It’s like a knife. We have to keep it sharp,” Ryujin replies. “Otherwise it’ll be non-functional soon.”
Yeji nods and gets into a stance.
The fight room is nearly identical to the training room except for the giant logo of the Corps plastered on the wall. They’re both barefoot, this time, and Ryujin doesn’t have her hair tied.
Yeji lunges first. Ryujin, to no one’s surprise, blocks it effortlessly.
They continue. Ryujin goes easy but it’s not like Yeji is in any place to resent her for it.
It feels different. Yeji’s limbs move with a sureness that she doesn’t expect. Ryujin is somehow palpable to her, something she can grab hold of. They say that about the Drift—that you’re half in it even when you’re not.
Her words still ring in Yeji’s ears. It’s been sixteen hours and they’ve never left. Ryujin knows her. Ryujin’s known her all this time.
Ryujin delivers a flurry of moves that make Yeji lose her footing. She falls to the mats and winces, her eyes squeezing shut.
When they open she sees Ryujin bent over with an arm outstretched to help her up. Her face impossibly close.
Every exhale Ryujin makes Yeji feels at the tip of her nose. Yeji sees everything. The tremor of Ryujin’s breaths, the wariness of her eyes, the spill of her hair, the flush of her cheeks, pink scattered over that scar.
They’re too close. Yeji can’t get enough air.
“So I was in your head,” Ryujin says, and with how her breaths hit Yeji’s skin Yeji feels a stir in her veins. “And I’m thinking it wouldn’t be too much of a problem if I did this.”
Ryujin kisses her and there’s something about Ryujin doing things tenderly that makes Yeji feel like she’ll shatter into pieces.
The first time Yeji had fallen into water she remembered thinking how odd it was that she felt everything more clearly. The cold at her skin, the ache in her chest, the faint light breaking through.
Yeji feels it all. The swipe of their mouths, the dull pain in her limbs, the burn of Ryujin’s hand when it settles at her collarbone, her heart thudding in her ribcage. The thin thread tying them together, ghost memory of yesterday. She’s drowning.
They pull apart—Yeji breaks through the water line. Gasps for air.
“I feel the same,” Ryujin murmurs against her mouth, and Yeji’s ruined.
They sit and talk.
“This isn’t just—” Yeji fumbles. “Just because of the Drift?”
Ryujin laughs. “No,” she says. She tucks Yeji’s hair behind her ear. “No. I’ve—uh—wanted to. Since before the Drift.”
The contrast is almost too sweet. Ryujin has a handsome, toothy grin on her face, so different from the Ryujin who had wielded the staff just moments ago.
Yeji’s hand finds the pendant of her necklace. She fiddles with it. “Oh.”
“You couldn’t tell?”
Yeji shakes her head. “Not when we Drifted, no.”
“We need to work harder, then,” Ryujin says. “Co-pilots aren’t allowed to hide anything from each other.”
“We’re not co-pilots yet.”
“So what are we?”
Ryujin’s got a brow raised and Yeji feels the heat burst on her face, all the way to the tips of her ears.
The rest of Yeji’s days go like this:
Marshal Jeon officially designates Yeji as a cadet. Ryujin trains her with the same relentlessness she’s had toward Yeji since the beginning. Seawaves blasting a cliffrock until it takes the shape it needs it to.
They still go to the beach, only now Ryujin laces their little fingers together when they rest on the sand. Yeji will lean her head on Ryujin’s shoulder, too.
Ryujin peels away the layers of her own heart. They drop honorifics. Ryujin tells her about her own experiences as a cadet, paired always with a remark about how lucky Yeji is that Ryujin is around for her.
Yeji learns how to move better. Gets a better understanding of the muscle of her limbs, and notices an uptick in the number of times she can feel her and Ryujin are level.
Ryujin gets into a solo battle simulator. The onscreen Kaiju is tipping backward within ten minutes. Her breathing stayed even throughout.
She learns about Jaegers. How what she’s doing should translate toward the machinery.
She teaches Ryujin about the Kaiju. How to better understand them, how maybe better to defeat them.
Ryujin brings her to her room every night. Always takes her hand and kisses her just outside her door, wishes for her to sleep well. Yeji’s heart always races.
Jisu finds out, because of course she does. Doesn’t make too big of a deal out of it, only a wry smile and a nudge to her side.
They simulate a Drift again. Yeji’s still left breathless. Bares herself to Ryujin and she feels Ryujin do the same. When they move they’re one.
“I’ll show you something,” Yeji says, circling her fingers around Ryujin’s wrist.
There’s a room that Yeji rarely visits, tucked away by the staircase to the basement. It’s a long walk but she and Ryujin keep quiet, their footsteps echoing in the late night.
They arrive. Yeji twists the knob and the door creaks open. She turns on the lights.
There are only picture frames on tables, with flowers in vases that are changed every now and then. Yeji heads to one of the corners, and she feels Ryujin’s little gasp of surprise.
“Mom, Dad,” Yeji says. “This is Ryujin.”
They’re not actually there. Their bodies were too radioactive.
Ryujin steps away from Yeji and kneels. Bows with her head touching the floor, does it twice like custom. She sits on her heels afterward, and Yeji follows suit.
“I’m going to be a Ranger,” Yeji says, already feels a sting in her throat. She doesn’t fight it. “And chances are, we’ll be in the same Jaeger.”
She feels the wetness on her own cheeks. Yeji wipes it away. Saltwater, like everything she touches. Ryujin puts a hand at the base of her back, steady.
“We’re going to make sure that what happened to you will never happen again.”
Yeji takes a deep, shaken breath. Ryujin keeps her head bowed. This is what they are, hand and heart.
“Promise,” Yeji says.
After two months Yeji gets her first trial run in a Jaeger.
Ryujin’s—theirs—is Saturn Wrath. Small, light thing, like Ryujin herself. Right arm a blade, left arm filled with enough ammunition to raze the earth.
Yeji’s sure she was ready but her ears ring and her skin prickles. The drivesuit fits perfectly but she feels a crush at her chest.
Before them, the Pacific stretches wide and blue, sunlight sparkling off its surface.
“You’re making me nervous,” Ryujin says. “I can feel your heartbeat, you know.”
Yeji can only scoff.
“We’re just going for a walk,” Ryujin tells her. “Nothing to worry about.”
Her legs keep steady. The sureness from Ryujin keeping it there. This is Yeji’s first time but she’s also done it a thousand times before. Ryujin’s memory speaking to her like phantom muscle memory.
“Saturn Wrath, you are a go.”
The panic stubbornly rises again. The ocean is so vast. Yeji can feel herself start to float away, start to get lost within herself, carried away by all the unknowns.
“Unnie.” Ryujin’s voice is firm. “Stay with me.”
Yeji turns. There it is—Ryujin as a Ranger. What was once unimaginable now in front of her. There’s a resolvedness there, the drivesuit’s armor like a second skin. Her heart one with Yeji’s, but also with Saturn’s.
There she is, Yeji thinks. The anchor that’ll make sure she always comes back to shore.
“Saturn departing,” Ryujin says into the comms.
And like what Yeji was always meant to do, she steps into the sea.