Chapter Text
If you asked five year-old Nayeon what she wanted to be when she grew up, she’d probably say a princess or a fighter pilot for the Apollo-Jupiter Satellite. This was before Nayeon found out that princesses were born into the job, and that little girls born to intergalactic pirates were supposed to follow in their parents’ footsteps.
Her examiner had looked her up and down at a preliminary screening and asked where her parents were. She’d barely restrained herself from telling him that they were serving life in a Deimos jail. By all accounts, she’s an orphan, having lost her parents in an unfortunate passenger jet accident that sheared off the back half of the ship where her parents were sitting. It makes for good entertainment, and some girls dig the whole gritty orphan thing, anyway. She doesn’t think about it much. Doesn’t really want to.
There are some things she can’t shake, though. It’s been a good eighteen years since she ditched her parents’ ship at age seven to hitch a ride aboard the IFS Jupiter and come aboard the Apollo-Jupiter Satellite, and only slightly less since she graduated as a fighter pilot, but there’s always that slight inkling of not belonging. There are people here who’ve spent their whole life aboard the station, people with connections and backgrounds great and grand. It’s hard not to get disillusioned with the state of things.
She chooses to think about that less, instead focusing more on the fact that she’s doing what she loves - exploring the cosmos and leading humanity’s effort to feel at home in the galaxy, beyond the remains of an irreparably irradiated Earth. No longer is she the scared little girl who hid in the back of a cargo spaceship. She’s made herself who she is, and damn anyone who tries to take that away from her.
☆
“I love what you’ve done with the place,” Nayeon snarks, running a hand along the cushioned walls. It’s leather, probably fake - Sana doesn’t get paid enough to have real bovine skin in her cabin - but Nayeon knows better than to call her out on it. She appreciates the lack of any smell, for one. “So artsy.”
“Thank you,” Sana replies, missing the obvious sarcasm. “Decaf for you?”
Once again, Nayeon knows better than to take it as a real question. Sana can and will take every opportunity to bring up that one time Nayeon asked for decaf instead of her normal brew. In her defense, she was going back to her cabin and had an important mission in the morning that she had to rest for her, so sue her. The younger girl still cries foul about Nayeon’s preferences for lazy bean water once in awhile, when she’s run out of things to say.
Not that Nayeon doesn’t appreciate her talkative nature. Half the time here is spent waiting to be called into action or briefed, and everyone gets a little tired of it eventually. Not Sana, though. Sana is probably the most excitable pilot to ever graduate in decades.
“I’m good, don’t worry.”
“Something stronger?” Sana hums, turning around to look at Nayeon. For her sake, Nayeon forces a smile - Sana is always so worried about her, always making a point to check in on her that sometimes Nayeon feels like they’re more mother and daughter than colleagues. They’re colleagues in the basest sense of the word, anyway. “I picked something up from the a starstop yesterday, the one on Phobos.”
Nayeon raises her eyebrows when Sana retrieves a bottle of pills from one of her hoodie pockets. The transparent bottle doesn’t help obscure the glowing red pills, and she wonders absently if this counts as contraband. Well, yes, technically they’re allowed to keep whatever they find on their travels as long as they don’t pose any significant threat to the station — that means no radioactive matter, or antimatter, though the second rule has never had a chance to be enforced. Something about breaking the rules of the universe and unleashing mutual annihilation.
You know, fun stuff.
“That looks… dangerous,” she observes.
Sana shrugs, popping off the safety seal, “Well, the guy who sold it to me had like, five arms and red eyes.”
Nayeon shudders. The twin moons of Mars were practically deserted after the solar flare a few decades back, what with all the electrical systems instantly flatlining and communications systems failing. But some people had stubbornly stayed, either because they didn’t think an acute amount of radiation wasn’t a big deal or because they’d grown up on the moons. Either way, with most of the settlers having died out and the rest having mutated beyond looking remotely human, most pilots choose to fly past the starstops on Phobos and Deimos when their paths require them to venture into the inner planets, stopping only at Jupiter’s starstops for their convenience stores or bathrooms.
It’s sad, really, but Nayeon would rather spare herself the nightmares. She’s impressed Sana was brave enough to do so - Sana is famously squeamish, and screamed her voice hoarse that one time Jeongyeon brought back a particularly damp sample for examination.
Sana tosses a pill into her mouth, washing it down with a swig of water. She grips the counter, takes a deep breath, and grins up at Nayeon, eyes abnormally wide.
“Try it!” Sana gushes, arms twitching at her sides.
The pill bottle is tossed to Nayeon, and Nayeon has just enough time to examine the label before Sana starts foaming at the mouth.
☆
Nayeon waits outside Sana’s ward, mostly because the ward is crammed with other patients which would really benefit from having more air to themsleves and not with Nayeon taking all of it up. Her head is in her hands — not because she’s worried, though. The orderly who’d admitted Sana had taken one look at the pill bottle Nayeon had provided him and assured Nayeon that she’d be mostly fine.
Rather, she’s wondering how she’ll explain having to be excused from another patrol shift. Jihyo is going to be harsh with her about picking up the slack and not disappearing when she doesn’t get to do exciting scouting or shipment missions, and Nayeon knows that she deserves it. She really does have to stop hanging around people who keep getting themselves admitted to the medical ward.
Sana’s doctor emerges from the ward, and Nayeon looks up.
The doctor is no one she recognizes, which is surprising, because Nayeon’s been on the station long enough to acquaint herself with it and everyone inside. She’s even friends with the pilots from the Pluto satellite, which is pretty impressive considering the amount of time it takes to transmit messages there and back. Pluto technology and communications systems are - pardon the pun - light years behind everyone else’s.
Nayeon’s eyes flick to her nametag, past the staff of Asclepius sewn onto her sleeve.
Myoui Mina.
“Doctor,” she blurts out, standing up to face her. The doctor has a stern face, but Nayeon tells herself that it won’t intimidate her. (She’ll be intimidated by how pretty she is instead.) “How’s Sana?”
Wow. She is very pretty. Nayeon is willing to bet that Jihyo knows who this woman is, and makes a mental note to ask her about Mina when Jihyo’s done roasting her for dodging patrol.
“Your friend is fine,” Mina tells her, briefly consulting the very official looking tablet in her hands before continuing, Nayeon wishes they gave that much budget to the pilots and their clunking ships, “We don’t know what’s in her system, though. We’ll run tests on the pills, but it’s nothing we’ve seen before. For now, I’m guessing a lot of caffeine and amphetamine.”
Nayeon shrinks, daunted by the four-syllable word, and Mina smiles, patting her on the back, “It’s nothing you need to worry about, Captain. You can head on to your patrol and visit her tonight.”
Nayeon’s eyes widen, “How do you-”
“Commander Park and I are friends,” Mina laughs, and this is where Nayeon decides that she’s fallen and can’t get up.
“T-Thank you,” she stutters, bowing awkwardly and backpedaling, much to Mina’s apparent amusement. Nayeon wonders if she should salute, but then remembers from boot camp that you only salute officers. Mina has no rank visible, so she decides against it for the time being. She’s left with a very contorted expression on her face, staring helplessly at the doctor and willing her to leave so her muscles work again.
“See you around, Captain Im,” Mina smiles.
Nayeon nearly cries.
☆
She taps her ID chip against the scanner, feet tapping against the floor as she thinks of how she’s going to explain this to Jihyo. Her commander is renowned for being laxer than most but still being able to reap results - something about commanding the sharpest fleet of captains to graduate in millennia. As a result, they get away with a lot, but Nayeon’s not sure it’ll work this time, not after Chaeyoung was written up by an interim commander last week for violating safety code. (She’d left a cup holder out on her ship dashboard.)
The doors slide open, granting her access to the loading bay, and she comes face to face with a very irritated Jihyo.
Nayeon finger-guns, “Jihyo-”
“ Commander, ” Jihyo growls, red in the face and visibly agitated. She looks as if she’s about to tear Nayeon into pieces for being late. It’s kind of intense, honestly.
“Commander,” Nayeon amends, grinning weakly. The commander looks unamused, fixing her with a hard glare. Nayeon gulps.
She turns, Nayeon following without question as they make their way to where Nayeon’s ship is parked, speaking at a rapid-fire pace as they weave in and out of exhausted pilots and technicians working on ship maintenance. The loading bay is abuzz with activity twenty four hours a day, with hundreds of people in it at any given time to make sure things go smoothly.
“We’re understaffed today. Captain Son and Captain Chou have the same strain of strep throat, I don’t know how it happened considering they live in different wings.”
Nayeon raises her eyebrows silently, knowing a whole lot about how Chaeyoung and Tzuyu managed to fall sick together. Jihyo is a genius by any standard, but she misses a lot.
Jihyo pauses in her tragic monologue as they pass the equipment bay, Nayeon scanning in her ID and getting her helmet and flying suit dispensed to her. “Captain Hirai is stranded on one of Jupiter’s moons and is stuck there until we can get a technician there. It’s going to take a day, a week at most to get her back.”
“So, why are you late, Captain?”
Nayeon feels bad for the younger girl sometimes - Jihyo has standards to live up to, beyond any of those that she impresses upon her fleet. It’s hard coming from a line of outstanding explorers and appearing comparably mediocre. Jihyo’s choice of career makes things even worse for her.
She’s anything but mediocre, though. They all know that. She just has to believe in herself, but it seems that she’s hellbent on doing the opposite.
“Sana ate something bad,” Nayeon half-lies, “I went to the medical wing with her.”
Jihyo rears back as if she’s been struck, eyes softening, “Is she alright?”
Nayeon tries not to smile. Her commander has always had such a soft spot for Sana, which may or may not be a result of the little “visits” Jihyo was paying Sana’s cabin for a while a few years back. Sana never admitted to it either, which Nayeon takes as an admission of guilt. She can’t think of why, though. She reckons Jihyo and Sana would look good together.
“She’s fine,” she nods seriously, deciding to focus on other things, “Do you want me to go get Momo? Dahyun should be free to fix her ship, we can be back within the day-”
“No,” Jihyo says gruffly, trying to use her Scary Commander Voice and failing miserably, “Just finish up the patrol and come back. I’ll go get Momo. Just make sure Sana’s fine.”
“Aye aye, Cap’n,” Nayeon wiggles her fingers, shooing Jihyo away from her ship as she hops in. Jihyo is still standing there, frowning at her and mouthing something that looks like I put up with way too much from you, unnie. Nayeon decides to stop by Venus to get Jihyo more of those pumice stones she likes so much. She’s heard they exfoliate well.
Jihyo walks off as Nayeon leisurely does her pre-flight checks, checking the fuel levels - they’re hovering close enough to the empty indicator that Nayeon pages a technician to help her refuel - flicking the necessary switches, making sure that the compass in her navigation panel isn’t broken this time. It’s routine for the most part, but she can’t help smiling through it. Sure, patrols are dreary and all feature Nayeon falling asleep at the wheel at least once, but she never takes them for granted. They remind her how lucky she is to be alive and here in a time like this, where she can find whizzing through the solar system at light speeds dull. Her ancestors who’d dreamt of the stars roll in their graves whenever she so as much complains about patrols.
There’s something about patrols that bring out the best in her. It feels good to look down on the colonies and muse about how she’s been tasked to ensure their safety. She might not be a cop, but her presence means that her people are being watched over, and she’s more than happy with that.
She waves to the technician when he’s done fuelling her ship, signalling to the ground crew to lower her platform. She reclines in her seat, watching the platform slowly lower, bringing her to the departure bay, where there’s even more waiting to be done. There are dozens of ships waiting to be sent out, and she puts on some soulful music as she waits for the signal from the traffic controllers.
Her PA crackles to life as another ship blasts off, and she’s startled out of her soft reverie, “ID? What is the purpose of your trip?”
“220995T, Routine patrol,” she yells back, even though the mic is sensitive enough to pick up whispers. “This is Captain Im Nayeon.”
“Oh, hey unnie!” Dahyun chirps, sounding more excited. Today must be really slow - Dahyun loves helping out in traffic control when she can, and has taken to begging the actual operators at base for a chance to talk to the pilots. Most days, she’s rejected, but today must be special. “Have a safe flight!”
Nayeon laughs, sitting back in her seat again, “Thanks, Dahyun.”
☆
Nayeon’s halfway through the asteroid belt, returning from her quick nip to Venus with a bunch of skincare products (she’d had to haggle with the one-eyed mutants on prices, and it doesn’t help that most of them were vehemently against the idea of human pilots in their presence), hair only slightly singed when her communication panel lights up.
She’s not too fazed at first, reaching across the dashboard to accept the call — she’s a little off-schedule and should’ve returned an hour or so ago, but it’s not as if it doesn’t happen all the time. It must be Jihyo, checking in on her - the commander hasn’t quite mastered the art of texting over hologram calls yet, Or maybe it’s Jeongyeon with another scientific breakthrough that uses too many words that Nayeon doesn’t want to comprehend and frankly, Jeongyeon is abusing her access to Nayeon’s communications systems-
It turns out that it’s nothing like that. Instead, it’s Sana, who grins at her from the safety of her own cockpit. Her image flickers to life in a panel that expands and projects her image, and the younger girl is grinning so wide she could pass for not having passed out earlier in the day.
Nayeon grimaces, “Sana?”
“ Unnie!” Sana beams, waving. The transmission flickers from the strain of streaming HD, and Nayeon slaps it in frustration. She’ll have to talk to Dahyun about upgrading her ship soon. “I got out early.”
“And Jihyo sent you on patrol? ” Nayeon says, aghast. She’s half a mind to go full throttle and intercept Sana’s ship. She’s flying close to Jupiter’s rings, and Nayeon could theoretically gain on her and wrangle her back to the station to rest. Either that, or she can race back to the station and chew Jihyo out for daring to send Sana on patrol given her health. As far as she’s concerned, a visit to the infirmary means that she’s sick, quick recovery or not.
“ No, I’m going to get Momo, ” Sana chirps, “I’m going to tow her back to the station. ” She holds up a hand before Nayeon can speak, “Jihyo didn’t make me do anything. I left of my own accord. ”
“And Jihyo let you?” Nayeon’s eyebrows knit together.
Sana suddenly looks very guilty, “ I may or may not have convinced her to.”
Nayeon puts her face in her hands for the second time today. Damn Jihyo for being such a softie and easily swayed by pretty girls with puppy eyes. Damn her.
Apparently Jihyo can read minds and enact revenge for mean thoughts, because she has to slam her hands back on the steering a moment later, with autopilot spontaneously giving up on navigating through the asteroid belt. She draws the ship into a sharp left to avoid the Trojan asteroids headed her way, holding her breath as the ship banks to the left. The asteroids aren’t very heavy, but they’ll cause damage if she collides into them. She would rather keep her ship in tip-top condition, thank you very much.
(Her ship will never compare to the shiny likes of Tzuyu’s, but it’s of respectable quality, and only slightly beat up. She’d argued with Dahyun for a week on whether to replace the hull after a particularly messy retrieval mission. The dents in the hull give it character.)
Thankfully, the controls are smooth enough for her to veer clear of the asteroids without incident, and she looks back at the communications screen. Sana’s taking a swig of water, oblivious to Nayeon’s navigating, and Nayeon’s pretty sure she can hear Pretty Little Liars in the background.
Sana’s first order of business she moment she was promoted to a captain was to install the best surround sound systems money could buy. She was stuck paying instalments for months, but maintains that it was the best decision she’s ever made. Her ship’s soundproof too, if that counts for anything.
“I should report you to traffic control, Minatozaki,” Nayeon snaps sourly, “Flying while impaired is a punishable offence.” She thinks, and grins savagely, “What is Dahyun going to say?”
“ ahyun’s actually here. ” The tiny engineer pops up on screen, elbowing Sana to get a good view, and waves enthusiastically, much to Nayeon’s chagrin. Her hair is sticking up in cowlicks, hands greased and toying with a spanner. Nayeon will never understand Dahyun’s propensity to get herself dirty and gross all the time, even when she doesn’t need to. She’s pretty sure some of the oil streaks are there for show.
There’s a smacking sound. She guesses it’s Sana hitting Dahyun gently and whining for Dahyun not to touch anything with her filthy hands.
Dahyun leans in deviously close, wiggling her nose, and the connection cuts out.
☆
The rest of the day is relatively routine. She flashes her headlights as she pulls into the arrival bay, powering down her ship and shutting down the systems, not bothering to look at the checklist traffic control insisted on pasting in every ship.
Then there’s more waiting, and Nayeon curses the amount of bureaucracy involved in something that is miles away from needing bureaucracy involved. But nooo, they need her flight logs, and copies of her black box recordings to be stowed away for another eternity, and a complete log of anything she brought back.
That’s not her problem, though - she just chills out in the cockpit, playing Pacman and bubble shooter games to will away the time as the technicians and engineers hurry around the loading bay and fuss about her ship.
Stepping out of the ship into the loading bay is another matter altogether - she spends this time wading through the throng of people, and has to push more than once. At this point, her scheduler reminds her that it’s time for dinner, and she dutifully follows the rest of the crowd headed to the cafeteria. Sadly, the entire world has chosen to have dinner together.
She should be used to this by now, having grown up in the station, but it’s still unpleasant, and she thinks she sees some familiar faces here and there. That flash of a white lab coat? Could be Jeongyeon, could also be a hungry scientist leaving the lab for the first time in days. It’s always hard to tell with their type.
She’s swept along by the crowd, and eventually ends up at the back of the cafeteria line. Groans when she sees the pilot menu tonight - everyone has personalized meals to ensure optimum performance. The engineers get carb-heavy pasta dishes or whatever it is they want to eat, and the pilots, the ones who actually fly the ships? They get pan-fried skinless chicken breast that might as well be seasoned with water for how flavorful it is.
Sometimes Nayeon thinks she should’ve become a technician instead. Better employment benefits, better food, better job security. (Though that last part may have to do with pilots constantly injuring themselves and putting themselves out of commission, and less to do with the nature of engineering.)
She scans her ID chip and lifts the tray of food. The warm chicken breast jiggles in greeting, and she sighs.
Jeongyeon is waiting for her at their usual spot when she leaves the queue, the scientist gesturing for Nayeon to sit down. Her eyes are wide and excited behind her Coke bottle glasses, and Nayeon groans knowingly.
“You’ll never guess what I found today,” Jeongyeon says happily, producing a few microscope slides from her shirt pocket. (She’s not in her lab coat, and Nayeon silently thanks the lab assistant that told Jeongyeon to lose it before leaving the lab.) A small leaf has been pressed in between two glass slides, the label unreadable to anyone who isn’t Jeongyeon, and Nayeon raises her eyebrows.
“I don’t speak nerd.” She doesn’t mean to be rude to Jeongyeon - okay, maybe just a little bit - but she’s tired and just wants to have her dinner in peace. Jeongyeon either doesn’t know or doesn’t care. Probably the latter.
Jeongyeon punches Nayeon’s arm, “Shut up. Anyway. Jihyo came back from a field exercise with some flowers growing on her suit and traffic control was going to get it disinfected-”
“Gross, I thought we got rid of all the Mars moss-”
“-but I was like, no guys, this is really important. And it is!” Jeongyeon beams proudly. “Turns out these flowers aren’t plants. They’re animal cells, it turns out. Caught them wriggling and everything. If this turns out to be a new species, it’ll be named after me!”
Nayeon gapes, “That’s disgusting.”
“Disgustingly amazing,” Jeongyeon sighs, collecting the slide and slotting it back into her breast pocket. She tucks into her food without further hesitation, and it’s well-appreciated quiet for a while, just the two of them as they eat. Nayeon would prefer it if Jihyo were here, but she hasn’t shown up much recently to their lunches. She supposes it’s part of growing up.
Nayeon gets a proper look at Jeongyeon between bites, and wonders if she’s lost weight, given her gaunt cheeks and thin wrists. She knows that Jeongyeon regularly skips meals to work in her lab, fulfilling the recluse nerd stereotype to the max, but she also knows that she’s smart enough not to deny herself proper nutrition.
She hopes she’s right.
Jeongyeon straightens up, “Oh yeah. I forgot,” she retrieves a large manila envelope from seemingly thin air, “Can you help me get this to Dr Myoui? It’s the analyses of the pills she wanted.”
Nayeon prides herself as being relatively easygoing, but she can’t help the stab of jealousy when Jeongyeon waves the envelope marked for Dr Myoui in her face.
Of course - the scientists on the station work closely with the medical wing, helping them run tests and identify unknown substances as and when they’re needed. This revelation shouldn’t annoy her as much as it does.
She takes it grudgingly, biting back any words, “Yeah, okay.”
Jeongyeon laughs, a knowing look in her eye.
☆
Mina looks amusingly tiny in her office when Nayeon makes her way in, shoulders small against the high-backed chair. It’s grand, almost too grand - Nayeon’s guessing that she hasn’t had time to repurpose the room from the previous inhabitant’s to her own tastes.
She knocks once, staring through the glass panel in a manner she hopes is more respectful and less creepy. You never know with doctors - the doctor who saw Nayeon for her broken arm last year told her not to make eye contact with her.
“Come in,” Mina calls, not looking up from her work. She’s focused on the same tablet Nayeon had seen her with earlier in the day, left hand propping up her chin, and Nayeon takes a moment to admire how good the doctor looks.
“Doctor,” Nayeon stutters as the door swings open, holding up the envelope dumbly, once again facing the dilemma of whether to salute or not. It’s okay not to salute if she’s holding something, right? Or is she expected to change hands to salute? She really, really wasn’t made for this business.
“H-Hi,” she squeaks.
She freezes up, and Mina looks up, laughing softly. It’s tinkling and melodic, and Nayeon feels her heart flutter.
She steels herself, reminding herself that this little crush is dumb because Mina probably considers herself light years out of Nayeon’s league. Fighter pilots are looked down by pretty much the entire medical wing. And the engineers. And the technicians. And flight control. It might be completely deserved, considering the pilots’ propensities to get themselves into scraps over stupid things regularly, but it’s never nice for someone to openly look down on them. They’re the driving force of the station, anyway.
“Captain,” she nods, reaching out for the envelope, “Is that for me?”
“Uh, yeah,” Nayeon pulls herself away from her spot, stumbling towards the teak desk, and her knees are incredibly weak. She blames the way Mina’s looking at her. There’s something about the doctor’s stare, she figures, that disarms helpless captains. That must be it. “Here.”
She’s expecting Mina to do something, anything, maybe dismiss her, or laugh at her, Nayeon really wouldn’t mind either. Maybe she’ll just go back to her work and shoo Nayeon out of her office, but something tells Nayeon that Mina isn’t that type of person.
Instead, the doctor slides the envelope in a drawer, rising from her seat and smiling at Nayeon. Nayeon thinks her head spins, and judging from the look on the doctor’s face, she prays that Mina feels the same way. She wouldn’t be looking at her if she didn’t like her, or at least find her pleasant enough to appraise, right? Nayeon hasn’t felt this way since she crushed on her flight instructor, and was that a hell of a ride.
Sana is going to laugh at her when she hears about this.
“Can I walk you back to your cabin?” she blurts out.
☆
Nayeon learns a few things about Mina in the walk to her wing.
First off, she’s not from here, which is why Nayeon has never seen her around before. Mina had laughed and gently made fun of Nayeon’s confidence that she knew everybody on the station, then conceded that the pilot was right.
Second, Mina is a transfer from the Voyager-Neptune satellite. She’d been transferred after higher-ups from the Apollo-Jupiter station sent a distress call to her satellite to request for more medical personnel. Apparently, the Voyager-Neptune satellite doesn’t see much action, its primary business being research on the Neptunian moons and their natural resources.
(“The biggest station in the solar system isn’t that well manned,” Mina notes softly before noticing Nayeon’s expression. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“No, no,” Nayeon shakes her head, “I know what you mean.”)
Third, Mina’s finding it hard to adapt to the culture aboard the Jupiter station. She shakes her head when Nayeon asks her if she’s finding it easy to cope, citing that the Jupiterian tendencies to be loud and ignorant. Nayeon opens her mouth before accepting that it’s true. It must be shocking for a born and raised Neptunian like Mina - her people are known to be relaxed, calm like the rippling waters of Neptune itself.
Nayeon can’t really relate to this shock, having traces of both whatever her parents were and the loud, boisterous personality of a Jupiterian. She doesn’t remember what it was like to acclimatize to the station. She doesn’t offer this information, though, letting Mina think that she’s always been here. It’s easier that way.
She finds herself getting over her initial awkwardness and bad habit of freezing up in front of Mina as they walk and talk, and by the time they enter Mina’s residential wing, Nayeon’s sad that it has to end so quickly. She can only hope Mina feels the same way.
☆
Mina’s cabin, as it turns out, is locked and doesn’t intend to let anyone in. Nayeon watches the doctor try five miserable times to scan her ID chips before the door locks itself and sends a message to security, informing that there was an attempted but unsuccessful break-in. Mina looks helplessly from Nayeon to the door, and then back again.
“Can you wait with me?” Mina asks quietly, looking very worried, and for good reason, too. The corridor is dark, and though Nayeon knows it’s safe, she’d rather Mina not wait outside her cabin for the estate department who might not come at all. They prefer taking warm naps in their offices than actually helping with cabin-related issues.
Nayeon makes a decision, “I don’t think you should stay out here. Do you want to come back with me to my cabin?”
Mina doesn’t respond, and Nayeon stumbles, “I mean, if you want to. I have a cabin to myself so it wouldn’t be a bother or anything. Not saying that you’d be a bother but in case you thought-”
“Thank you, Captain,” smiles the doctor, giving a short bow of her head.
Nayeon likes the way her title rolls off Mina’s tongue. She likes it very much, but she tells herself that it's more important to break the formalities between them than allow herself to listen to Mina call her captain.
“Call me Nayeon.”