Silence.

My favorite sound.

Min Yoongi slumped back into the central pilot's chair of the ship's control room, sipping his coffee with groggy elegance. He had pulled the cotton sleeping mask from his forehead and swapped the bathrobe and pajamas for a posh green sweater, khaki pants, and black loafers.

A small yellow light flickered on the raised panel next to his seat, a notification, distracting Yoongi from the bliss of empty thought.

There go Chim and Company, off to find the River Styx.

Yoongi gave a sigh.

This place was feeling a little overcrowded for my taste, anyway. Perhaps now I'll get some goddamn peace and quiet before we make it to base camp.

"YOOOOOOONGIIIIIIIII!"

Or perhaps the fuck not.

Jung Hoseok bounced into the room, fed and happy it seemed, right up to Yoongi's chair. Hoseok fake-massaged Yoongi's shoulders for a moment, pinched Yoongi's right earlobe ("OUCH!"), and then bounded over to plop into the chair next to Yoongi's.

Yoongi oozed disappointment. "Can I help you?"

Hoseok asked, a bright whine in his voice, "What are you doing in here all by your lonesome?"

Yoongi's small eyes said it all. "Enjoying what my life would be like without you in it."

"Awww, c'mon!" Hoseok feign-kicked his leg towards Yoongi's chair and into the side of his seat.

Yoongi was completely unaffected.

Hoseok whined on, "Yoongiiiiiiii."

"The fuck, man. What?

Hoseok sat up a bit straighter in his chair and lost the dopey glow about his face. "We should talk about what exactly we're going to do with everyone, once we get back to base camp."

Yoongi gave a grunt. "You just wanna know if you can have Kookie join your special ops team."

"YES. I DO, I REALLY DO, PLEASE LET ME RECRUIT HIM."

"Hoe, that's up to him. If he wants to join your team he can, you know that's how we roll around here."

"I told you not the call me that." Hoseok's voice was a childish whine.

Yoongi ignored him. "Ask him. See what he says. But he probably won't want to be far from wherever we station Shae."

Hoseok tilted his head to one side like a dog. "Why do you say that?"

Yoongi swished his mug of coffee like it was an expensive glass of Chardonnay. "I know things."

Hoseok rolled his eyes so slowly, they were in danger of getting stuck in the back of his head. "Yeah, like how to lose at cards."

Yoongi stopped swishing his coffee mug.

"And how to be an asshole."

Small black eyes bore into the side of Hoseok's smirking profile.

"And how to be single AF."

At this... Yoongi lept from his chair, Hoseok lept up in tandem... and the sound of the red-headed combat specialist's high pitched screams echoed from the control room all the way through the entire ship, for all the crew to hear.

__

Kim Taehyung knew that there was still a lot of cloudiness hanging over everyone on their ship. He also knew that, now that Joon was gone, it was far likelier to dissipate—with the right push.

So, Tae found himself halfway fallen into one of the storage units beneath the floor of the main hallway, the grate tossed to one side. He was grunting and groaning as he sorted his way through random bags and boxes, in his quest for fun.

"Excuse me."

Tae jerked in surprise--hitting his head on the edge of the unit and wincing.

"You're getting those out of order."

Tae crawled his upper half up out of the grate and offered a twinkling smile as a peace offering up to the small young man with the pink hair who was glaring down at him through a set of round wire-rimmed glasses.

"Oh! Hello, Woozi! I was just looking for something. Maybe you can help me!"

"Maybe I can." Woozi said this in a tone of voice that said he'd much rather not.

"I was trying to see I you guys had a TwistUp mat."

"We don't exactly throw raves on the daily around here," Woozi answered bluntly. "So no. We don't." What the hell does he think this is? A party cruise shuttle?

Tae lost a hint of the sparkle in his eyes. "Oh. Because I wanted to throw a TwistUp tourney to try and... you know, lighten the mood around here."

Woozi's face said he thought that was the worst idea in the history of mankind. However, he answered, "With the right programming and computer equipment, anything is possible."

"But I didn't want to ask Yoongi. I wanted it to be a surprise."

"Oh, I wasn't referring to Suga-nim." Woozi jutted his chin out a little as he crossed his small arms. "I can do it."

"Really?!" Tae lept to his feet in excitement and leaned down as if to wrap Woozi in a happy hug—but Woozi's look of disgust at the beginning of such a gesture made Tae pause just in time. "Uh. Thank you."

"No problem." Why am I saying yes to this idiocy?

Tae leaned over the grate and started moving boxes and bags around in the order he thought they had started out in.

Woozi glared at the back of Tae's head. That's not how that goes. Ugh, I'm gonna have to come back and fix it when he leaves. The struggles of youth...

Tae hummed happily to himself.

This guy is gonna give me an aneurysm.

Once the deed was done, Tae shoved the grate over the storage unit, the smacked his hands together a few times to free them of dust.

"You know, Woozi, you seemed kinda scary when I met you this morning."

Woozi looked blankly up at Tae.

"And you still kinda are. But you're also nice, too. Kinda like Min Yoongi!" Tae beamed, his hands on his hips in proud satisfaction at having made this deduction.

"I am NOT like Suga-nim."

Tae giggled.

"I'm not."

"Whatever you say." He's totally like Yoongi. He even kinda looks like him...

"Can I help you?" Woozi was frowning up at the way that Tae was studying his face with a smirk.

"Nope! Nope. Just, y'know, lemme know when you sort out the TwistUp program. I'm gonna go scour the kitchens and see what we have that'd pass for party drinks in there."

Woozi's dark eyes flickered with mischief. "Well, I know where Suga-nim keeps his drink stash. So if that's what you're lookin' for...."

Tae's smile grew even wider. "I really didn't expect you to be the perfect party planning partner, Woozi, but this is shaping up to be a beautiful party-planner friendship."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves. You could be some psychotic crazy person, for all I know, and I don't have the emotional energy for needy people in my life."

"Funny you should say that because...."

"That wasn't an invitation to divulge your dark past to me, man. I really don't care."

"Oh. Ok."

Woozi turned on his heels and started on his own way. "I'll go start on that programming. It shouldn't take long." He gave a lazy farewell wave with the back of his hand.

Tae didn't even register the rudeness of the gesture from someone who looked so much younger than him. He was too excited. "Thank you!!!"

__

A few hours later, and Kim Taehyung waltzed into the control room with his narrow chest puffed out in pride, and a white towel tossed over one of his shoulders. He wore a flowing grey dress shirt and glittering golden pants, his most delicate golden rimmed glasses, and his silvery hair was crimped out to the sides just-so.

At his dapper dress, several heads turned towards the strikingly good-looking young man.

Tae cleared his throat in the doorway, and several more turned...until Kim Taehyung had the attention of all the control room's occupants, including Yoongi, Hoseok, Ava, Shae and Jungkook.

"I've come to announce that, for those looking for a bit of diversion for the afternoon, a TwistUp tournament is officially being hosted and all are welcome to attend. Courtesy of Woozi and myself."

Tae gave a gallant bow, keeping his face stern, but when he came up from the bow he was laughing.

"There will be booze." He covered his chuckle with one hand and daintily plucked at the towl on his shoulder. "That's why I've got this. Drink orders my way, and I'll make 'em good and tight. Or however you prefer 'em." Tae winked.

Ava was the first to react, jumping to her feet in enthusiasm. "I have no idea what you just said, except for the drinks part. And I, for one, could use a distraction. Sign me up."

Taehyung gave a grandiose bow. "I live to serve!"

So Taehyung, Ava, Shae and Jungkook started to head from the room with a couple of other crew members in tow, Tae leading the way towards the room that had been set up to host the game.

As the last of them left the room, Yoongi suddenly jerked straight up in his chair, as if he'd been electrocuted. "If they're making mixed drinks... then that means...."

Yoongi lept up and through the doorway in a flash.

"I didn't think Yoong was such a big fan of TwistUp, but I guess I was wrong." Hoseok got casually up from his chair to follow everyone out.

Yoongi was racing on ahead, muttered under his breath as he ran, "If they've touched my booze box..."

--

TwistUp: don't bring your pride or you're sure to die.

The game was fully underway now. A crazy light-up pattern was being projected up from the floor in bright, neon lights. The lights formed colored boxy shapes arranged left-to-right, and up-and-down in a set pattern.

It turned out that TwistUp was a kind of dexterity-memory game. Each round, a new color was added to the pattern. Each round, you had to find a new place on the 'mat' to place a hand or foot while keeping to the set color pattern—all without letting any other part of the body drop to the floor than your hands and feet.

Sometimes with hilarious results.

"Oh god," Ava said in her most affronted voice.

"Hey, that's a great view, thank you very much. I work out."

"Pshhh."

Hoseok wiggled his butt with a sadistic giggle, which was now propping up into Ava's face a result of his last move—but she couldn't adjust her stance to find freedom until her own turn rolled around.

Tae announced excitedly from his own pretzel-of-limbs stance in one corner of the mat, "Spin the wheel, Woozi! It's Yoongi's turn!"

"Spare me." Yoongi moaned. He was the most far-stretched on the board, with a hand on the top left of the mat, and an opposite foot stretching flat across the board and in-between Ava and Hoseok's awkward tangle.

Woozi clicked a button. A programmed spinner sped through its dial. Then the resulting color flickered. "The next additional color is green. Go!"

Yoongi muttered the color sequence to himself as he went. "Yellow." He moved his far hand. "Purple....green....yellow, red, yellow, red, and..." ("WHAT NOT COOL MAN!") "...green."

Yoongi had pivoted between Hoseok and Ava—and he may have brushed his shoulder against Ava's while giving a more than accidental hip-thrust into Hoseok's side—sending the redhead sprawling to the ground.

Yoongi's body was in a V shape now, his hands flat in front of him and feet comfortably close by.

"I'll get you next time for this," Hoseok said through a dark frown that had been smushed straight into the floor.

Yoongi just gave a gummy upside-down grin back, along with a raspy laugh.

Shae was already seated on the sidelines, sitting with her legs folded and nursing a honey-colored drink. The third round had done her not-so-coordinated self in.

Shae couldn't stop giggling at Hoseok's frown, or the way he faux-pathetically crawled his way across the floor only to lay down with a dramatic sigh onto his back right next to where she sat.

The noisy game played on.

Shae, still giggling down at Hoseok's melodrama, said, "Nice work out there, Mr. Combat Specialist."

"Are you... are you teasing me, Miss Shae?" There was both threat and amusement in Hoseok's voice.

"I would never stoop so low. I mean... because you're on the floor." She giggled at her own lame joke.

Hoseok shot up. One of his arms braced into the floor, flat, just behind Shae's frame. He leaned in with that threatening amusement still in his face and his voice. "Is that so? Well. Allow me to bridge the gap then."

Shae half-feigned breathlessness for a moment. Then—elbowed Hoseok hard in the rib, making him jerk backward with a playful groan. Shae laughed delightedly and took another swig of her honey-colored drink.

"Is that whiskey?" Hoseok asked.

"I thought it was some Era wine." Shae tipped the glass towards Hoseok. He took a sip.

"Oh, honey. That ain't wine."

Shae gave a dopey shrug and reached for the glass—but Hoseok grinned mischievously and held it up and out of her reach. She kept reaching, and he kept wedging his shoulder between her and the glass. Shae couldn't help but laugh, instead of a proper protest.

"Careful, Shae, or you're gonna..." Hoseok may have let himself slip on purpose as Shae pushed with a fresh peal of giggles into his shoulder, "...fall."

He'd managed to save the drink from spilling—as he tipped back into the hard floor, and Shae fell into his chest, hand's first. The two of them were too busy laughing to realize at first... and perhaps Shae was too tipsy to realize at all. But then Hoseok did.

He sobered up very fast.

"Ahem, Shae. Perhaps you shouldn't...."

Shae leaned a little closer, a dark smirk scrunching into her blue eyes. Her eyes that were paralyzing--and Jung Hoseok became so transfixed that he couldn't breathe.

In a smirk and a flourish, Shae snatched her glass from his hand. Then she pushed against his chest and righted herself, taking a satisfied sip of her drink as she looked out again towards the mat where the silly TwistUp tournament played on.

Hoseok still lay back on the floor, dumbstruck, as he turned his head to watch Shae. To watch her lovely profile and her unguarded, earnest smile pour out over the others in the room. To tune into the warmth of her perfectly uninhibited laugh as she watched Jungkook 'accidentally' kick Taehyung in the butt—sending Tae falling forward, his cheek smashing into the floor.

"KOOKIE!"

"HEHEHEHE...."

For the rest of the game, Hoseok was quiet.