Jun crumpled the bits of peel and pith in his fist, dark eyes hard on Theo’s face as he chewed the fruit in a show of nonchalance he didn’t feel.
“If I let you go around the Crew, I need your silence. On the translations and also on—” He glanced at Theo’s throat and then back up to his eyes. “They can’t know. That we do this, sometimes.”
Theo tilted his head, swallowing down a mouthful of fruit before he had quite finished chewing. “Why not? I was given to understand that Outliers were less socially restrictive. While this kind of thing enjoyed between men is accepted back home, it is still frowned upon in certain extremely boring circles. I always thought it might be better out here. Shame to find out I was wrong.”
Jun shook his head, then walked over to hit a panel beside the desk, opening a refuse hatch and dropping the peels inside.
“It’s not that.”
Theo watched him close the hatch, memorizing its location and waiting for Jun to look back at him. “Then why must we keep our relationship a secret?”
Scowl firmly in place, Jun wiped his hands down the side of his trousers. “First, this—” He gestured between them with a flat, sharp hand. “—is not a relationship. Second, I don’t want my crew to know I do this with you. My business is my own.”
Theo nodded absently, “with you” echoing inside his head on an endless loop and the tangy fruit turning to ashes in his throat.
It wasn’t that he was especially new to being someone’s dirty little secret; he could trace that pattern all the way back to his secondary school dorm-mate, with a few scenic stops along the way for various married men and professors. It was just that he had thought this was different.
He had thought Jun was different.
Jun felt different.
But Theo was the same, and perhaps that was the problem.
He spoke more loudly, trying to drown out the sound of Jun’s voice snarling “with you” in his head. “Do we have an agreement, then? I can have free run of the ship as long as I complete my translations and keep mum on everything to do with you?”
With you. It was as if the words had been branded in the back of his mind. Inescapable. His heart ached as though there was a thorn lodged inside.
Jun was looking at him oddly, eyes scrutinizing as though trying to puzzle out something wrong with Theo’s face.
So Theo tacked a guileless grin on for good measure.
Jun nodded once, slowly, chin tilting and lifting even as his gaze remained fixed on Theo’s face. “If you step out of line, I’m hauling you back in here and welding the door shut.”
Theo suppressed a shiver at the mental image of Jun hauling him down the hallways of the ship, over his shoulder perhaps, like in those illicit novels his aunt had liked to read. He and Ari used to steal them to giggle over together in their bedroom.
“With you” finally began to fade away, only the ache left behind.
He smiled up at Jun, enjoying the way the expression on his face seemed to stop Jun in his tracks. “Excellent. We have a deal, Captain. I shall do my best to make sure that won’t be necessary.”
Jun headed toward the door, stepped out, and hesitated, leaving it open behind him. He gave Theo one final glance over his shoulder.
“We’ll see.”
Chapter Twelve
The ship was huge.
At least, it was far larger than Theo had ever traveled in before. His family had always kept small personal craft intended for jaunts across the Core.
Jun’s ship was something else entirely.
Multiple decks equipped with winding corridors and mysterious doors, rust-streaked tunnels with rickety rungs leading between the decks at seemingly random intervals.
It was dim and eerily quiet. Theo’s steps echoed off the dark metallic walls as the ceiling panels either failed to light above him or flickered to life with a petulant whine of electricity. It should have been intimidating, and perhaps it was, but Theo couldn’t be bothered to worry about ambience when he was finally free to move about.
It was an absolute delight to explore after hours and hours of staring at the same four bare walls.
The three unlocked doors Theo had come across this far had all contained stacks of storage crates, all of them sealed except for one empty one. It was equal parts disappointing and intriguing.
He assumed some of the other doors lead to other bunks. He wondered how many people were required to man a ship this size. Surely a dozen at least.
He’d only met three of the crew besides Jun, and that was when they had first arrived.
Theo had been exploring the ship all morning and had yet to encounter another living soul besides Jun.
Jun, who had personally delivered another tray for breakfast—a second green fruit along with a bowl of dehydrated grain.
The fruit had been peeled.
Theo had thoroughly enjoyed their breakfast conversation, even if Jun’s contributions had largely consisted of monosyllabic grunts before he disappeared with a stern admonishment for Theo to finish his work.
It had taken Theo less than an hour of focused translation to abandon it for the option of exploration.
He could turn the translations over in his head as he wandered anyway.
He did his best work when he wasn’t concentrating too hard on it, to a lifetime of tutors’ and professors’ consternation.
Around the bend of the next corridor there was a lift, sparse and bare the way maintenance
