Sounds were always more muted in the bunker after midnight, the air thick and sweet from spilled rice wine. Circuitry ticked quietly through its cycles, and the lights had been turned low; with all five of them crowded inside, the usual chill had long since disappeared.
Someone had broken into the stash earlier. Minjae, most likely. The row of empty bottles along his console wasn't exactly helping his case.
Kairo sagged deep in his chair, limbs loose and head tipped back against the rest. The same four bars looped through his rig again, wavering whenever the code caught and slipped. Every time it stuttered, cups lifted, heads tipped back and laughter followed half a beat later.
Coincidentally, the sound stuttered often.
On the floor, Minjae had given up entirely on verticality. He lay on his back with one arm flung over his face and the other gripping the neck of a bottle, feeding half-formed lyrics into his sleeve. Most of the words were too muffled to make out. Rayne remained nearby, bare feet tucked close and long limbs folded with careful symmetry. His attention moved between them, particularly whenever one of them laughed. Soahn's filaments shimmered gold, moving gently with his breathing. Over the last hour or so, he’d gone pleasantly glassy-eyed and seemed perfectly content to remain that way. In the far corner, Onyx had claimed distance as a strategy, back against the wall and arms folded. The effect was undermined every few seconds by another hiccup he refused to acknowledge.
“OK,” Kairo said, spinning around in his chair so fast the wires tangled around him. “Serious question…”
Minjae groaned. “That’s never true when you say it.”
“No, no, listen. If we had to pick English names — like real ones, for interviews or whatever — what would we pick?”
For a second, everyone appeared to take the question seriously. Then they all started laughing.
Kairo rolled his eyes and waited them out.
“What makes you think anyone would want to interview us?” Soahn said with a residual giggle.
“Oh come on, it’s only a matter of time,” Kairo said, trying to pick apart the cable monster that had him trapped. “I mean, what if we were all, like… accountants or baristas or something. Normal people.”
“I am normal,” Minjae said, and burped.
Onyx shook his head, another hiccup forcing its way through a second later. He pressed his lips together like that might stop the next one.
Soahn, quietly amused, said, “You’ve really thought about this before, Kairo?”
“Of course I have,” Kairo said. “And it’s Kian, actually. That’s what I’d be. Spelled fancy, pronounced cool. Short and efficient.”
“Short and efficient?” Minjae said, dragging his arm off his face just long enough to squint up at him. “So… a USB stick.”
“You’ve got the short part right,” Onyx muttered, before another hiccup turned unexpectedly into a snort of laughter.
“Kian.” Minjae rolled onto his side, reaching blindly for another bottle and managing, after a moment of fumbling, to get it open. “You sound like an IKEA Nu-Form product line. Comes with two screws missing and an existential crisis.”
Rayne’s gaze moved between them, following the rhythm of the exchange, and while he barely moved, his shoulders had lost their usual careful tension.
“All right, Kian from IKEA Nu-Form,” Minjae said, propping himself up on his elbows. “If you’ve thought so much about it, go ahead. Hit us with your genius.”
Kairo rubbed his hands together, eyes bright. “OK. Starting easy. Minjae… you’d be Mark.”
Minjae blinked. “Mark?”
“Yeah. Just Mark. Like, dependable, deprec— deceptively chaotic. Probably late to everything, but somehow still gets promoted.”
“That’s… weirdly accurate,” Soahn murmured, and Minjae threw a pillow at him without looking, the motion lazy but well-aimed.
“See? I’m good at this!” Kairo said triumphantly.
Onyx let out a slow breath that might have been a sigh if it hadn’t hitched halfway through. “This is what happens when you give him alcohol.”
Kairo pointed at him next, arm cutting through the dim light. “And you’d be… Reece. Definitely Reece. The guy who says he’s not coming to the party but shows up anyway, wearing black and looking like he is the party. A really scary, dangerous party.”
Minjae raised his cup from the floor. “Cheers to that.”
Onyx didn't answer, though the corner of his mouth twitched.
Kairo spun back around to Rayne, chair creaking under the motion. “Now you’re tricky.”
“I’m flattered.”
“No, I mean it’s impossible. You don’t look like anyone. You’re too… Rayne.”
“So… Rayne, then.”
“Fine. But if you ever had to fake an ID, you’d go by, like… Gabriel or something angelic. You just would.”
Rayne tilted his head. “Gabriel,” he echoed softly. “I’ve been called worse.”
Soahn chuckled. “It suits you.”
Kairo turned to him next, finger raised in mock ceremony. “And you. You’d be Noah.”
Soahn blinked. “Noah?”
“Yeah. Feels right, doesn’t it? Quiet. Kind. Carries too much on his shoulders but still builds the boat anyway.”
For a long time, nobody said anything.
Then Minjae let out a low whistle. “Damn, that was poetic.”
Kairo grinned, leaning back as far as his tangled wires would allow. “I’m a lyrical genius.”
“You’re a sentimental drunk.”
“Semantics.”
That set them all off again, even Onyx.