The footsteps didn't stop.
They came closer, slow and sure, like whoever was walking knew the ship's belly belonged to them the way a stage belonged to the spotlight—by right, by rehearsal, by everyone else stepping out of the way.
Zidane kept his back to the warm hull anyway. He sat loose on purpose, like he hadn't just been caught with stolen bread in his mouth and fear in his throat.
Quina sat beside him, small and still, chef hat tilted like it was attending a formal dinner instead of a shakedown.
A lantern bobbed into view.
Then the shadow behind it.
Baku.
He ducked under the low beam like he'd built the ship with his own hands, shoulders filling the corridor. The lantern's light made his grin look bigger than it should've been.
"Kid," Baku said, friendly as a punch. "You alive down here or you turn into a grease stain already?"
Zidane forced a smile so fast it almost hurt. "Good morning to you too. You come to bring me breakfast? Because wow. Character growth."
Baku laughed, loud enough to make the pipes answer with a sympathetic rattle. "Breakfast? You think I'm your mother?"
Zidane shrugged. "Never met mine. Maybe you're great at surprises."
Baku's grin didn't change, but his eyes sharpened the way they always did right before the conversation stopped being a conversation.
He glanced at Quina.
Quina glanced back, unblinking, like it was tasting Baku's presence.
"Still got your weird little… thing," Baku said.
"Companion," Zidane corrected brightly. "Emotional support… whatever."
Quina nodded solemnly. "Friend."
Baku snorted. "Friend, huh." He took one step closer, lantern swinging. The light crawled over Zidane's pockets like searching fingers. "You been eating well?"
Zidane's stomach chose that moment to growl loud enough to be heard over the engine's heartbeat.
He spread his hands. "Define 'well.' I had bread. I had—" he looked at Quina, because saying rat felt like inviting bad luck "—protein."
Quina said, proudly, "Good."
Baku's laugh turned into a cough. "Alright. Alright." He crouched, close enough that Zidane could smell cigar smoke and sweat and the kind of confidence that only came from being the guy everyone else owed something to. "Listen up. I got a job."
Zidane's grin stayed. His skin did not.
"A job," he repeated. "You mean the kind where I do the dangerous part and then you pay me with 'good experience' and a pat on the head?"
Baku clucked his tongue like Zidane was adorable. "You always gotta make it ugly."
"Life's ugly," Zidane said. "I'm just matching the tone."
Baku leaned in a little more. "This one's real. Real coin. Real food. Real—"
He paused, eyes flicking toward the ceiling, like he could see the city above them through wood and metal.
"—opportunity."
Zidane's smile tightened. "That word's always a trap."
Baku's voice dropped, warm and casual, the way you spoke when you wanted someone to relax while you were putting a rope around their throat. "Everything's a trap, kid. That's why we pick the ones that feed us."
Quina tilted its head.
Baku noticed. "It understand me?"
Zidane answered for Quina because he didn't like the way Baku's attention lingered. "It understands hunger. Same as you."
Baku's grin returned full force. "Then it's family."
The word family landed wrong.
Zidane didn't let his face show it. He didn't get that luxury.
He said, "So what's the job?"
Baku held up one thick finger like he was about to lecture on morality. "First, you don't ask questions you don't need answered."
Zidane's grin flashed. "That's my whole personality."
Baku ignored him. "Second, you do what you're told. Third—"
A new shadow slid into the lantern light.
Taller. Leaner. A grin that looked like it had been sharpened on purpose.
Marcus.
He leaned against the bulkhead like he'd been there the whole time, like the ship had grown him out of its wood as a joke.
"Aw," Marcus said, voice dripping amusement. "Look at him. He's got a pet."
Zidane's throat tried to close. He covered it with a laugh. "Marcus. Wow. Didn't know you could come down here without a mirror to flirt with."
Marcus's grin widened. "You miss me already?"
"Constantly," Zidane said. "Like a rash."
Marcus crouched without asking permission and reached toward Quina's hat like he was going to flick it off.
Quina didn't move.
It just opened its mouth a little.
Not big. Not threatening.
Just… enough teeth.
Marcus paused.
For the first time, his grin twitched into something almost thoughtful. "Huh."
Quina blinked at him and said, politely, "Man smells bad."
Baku barked a laugh.
Marcus's eyes narrowed. "It talks."
"It's rude," Zidane said quickly. "I'm trying to teach it manners."
Quina nodded solemnly. "Hungry."
Marcus leaned closer, eyes bright with the kind of cruelty that got bored easily. "Hungry, huh?" He looked back at Zidane. "You hungry too?"
Zidane kept his shrug loose. "Always."
Marcus's grin turned sweet. "Perfect."
Baku straightened, lantern swinging again. "We're wasting time."
Marcus waved him off like Baku was background noise. "Relax. Let me make sure our star is… motivated."
Zidane's jokes sped up in his mouth, tripping over each other, trying to outrun the sudden cold in his stomach. "Motivated? I'm motivated. I'm so motivated I could—"
Marcus reached into his pocket and pulled something out.
A small tin.
He popped it open with his thumb.
The smell hit first.
It was… wrong. Not rotten exactly. More like something that had tried very hard to become food and failed at the concept.
Oil. Sour herbs. Old grease. A faint chemical sweetness from stage glue.
Zidane's grin flickered.
Marcus held the tin out like a gift. Inside was a lump of paste—gray-green and shiny, like someone had mixed aether residue with expired stew and then dared the universe to object.
"Prop room special," Marcus said. "Cinna calls it 'patch paste.' Fixes cracks in the stage flats. Seals leaks. Sticks to everything."
Zidane's stomach tightened. "That's not—"
"Edible?" Marcus finished, delighted. He reached into his other pocket and flicked a coin up, catching it. The coin flashed gold in the lantern light. "Depends how bad you want this."
Baku watched with the satisfied patience of someone letting a dog be kicked to teach it where it belonged.
Zidane's mouth went dry.
He glanced at Quina.
Quina stared at the paste like it was deciding whether it counted as food or insult.
"Eat?" Quina asked, hopeful.
Zidane hissed, low. "Not you."
Marcus followed the glance and chuckled. "What, the pet's gonna eat it for you? That how you survive now? Let the frog take your humiliation?"
Zidane's smile came back, brittle. "You offering to let me keep my dignity?"
Marcus leaned in. His voice softened into something almost intimate. "Kid, you don't own dignity. You rent it. And you're behind on payments."
Then Marcus shoved the tin closer, paste wobbling.
"Eat," he said, like a command you couldn't mishear.
The engine room heat pressed against Zidane's back. The ship hummed. Somewhere above, someone laughed at a joke Zidane wasn't part of.
Zidane thought about hunger as a creature with hands.
He thought about the crystal-cell hidden under cloth in his pocket like a secret heartbeat.
He thought about how food always came with strings.
He swallowed.
"Okay," Zidane said, voice too light. "Okay. Listen. If I die, you're cleaning it up. That's in the contract."
Baku's grin widened. "That's my boy."
Zidane hated the way those words warmed something in him anyway.
He pinched off a chunk of the paste with two fingers. It clung like it didn't want to let go.
Marcus held the coin up higher, just out of reach, like dangling meat.
Zidane lifted the paste to his mouth.
The smell got worse up close.
He hesitated for half a breath.
Marcus's grin sharpened. "C'mon. Show us you're useful."
The word useful slid under Zidane's ribs and twisted.
He put the paste on his tongue.
It was thick. Oily. Bitter. It tasted like metal filings and old soup and the idea of eating something that was not meant to be eaten. It tasted like being poor in a room full of people pretending poverty was a character flaw.
Zidane gagged, eyes watering instantly.
Marcus laughed.
Baku laughed too, but his laugh was bigger, more approving, like this was a rite of passage.
Zidane forced himself to chew.
The paste stuck to his teeth.
He swallowed hard. It went down in slow, ugly lumps.
For a second, his whole world narrowed to the sensation of it sliding down his throat like a mistake.
He breathed through his nose and tasted it again anyway.
Existentially disgusting. That was the only way to describe it. Like the universe had scraped a spoon along the inside of his skull and left residue.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and smiled so wide it hurt.
"There," he said, voice hoarse. "Happy?"
Quina watched him with calm interest, then reached out and patted Zidane's knee once, like it was offering comfort in the only way it understood.
"Strong," Quina said.
Zidane's chest tightened. He covered it with a laugh that sounded like a cough. "Yeah. I'm a legend."
Marcus leaned back, satisfied. He tossed the coin from hand to hand.
Baku finally spoke again, stepping into the space Marcus had taken like this had always been his scene. "Good. Now that we're all… clear on who's doing what."
Zidane's stomach turned. He kept his grin alive because it was the only thing keeping him from shaking.
Baku said, "We got a job in Alexandria."
The word Alexandria made the air feel colder.
Zidane kept his tone light. "Alexandria. Love it. Hate it. Been there. Got almost arrested."
Baku shrugged like arrest was a weather pattern. "This one's a big play. Big audience. Big pockets. You know the type."
Marcus's grin returned. "Royal pockets."
Zidane's smile faltered for half a beat.
Baku watched it happen and leaned closer. His voice went warm again, the way it did when he wanted Zidane to stop thinking.
"You're gonna be fine," Baku said. "You're good at slipping through places you don't belong. That's what you are."
Zidane's grin came back, automatic. "Charming? Devastatingly handsome?"
Baku laughed. "Useful."
There it was again.
Useful.
Zidane nodded anyway.
Because he was hungry. Because he was trapped. Because if he said no, he'd be out in the cold air and the Mist and the world that didn't give free heat behind engine pipes.
Baku stood, lantern lifting shadows up the walls like the ship was stretching awake. "Get cleaned up. We move soon."
Marcus snapped the tin shut and pocketed it like he hadn't just fed Zidane glue.
"Try not to puke on my boots," Marcus added, cheerful.
Zidane saluted lazily. "No promises."
Baku turned to go.
Marcus followed.
Zidane stayed sitting, smiling, because standing felt like admitting something.
At the corridor mouth, Marcus paused. He looked back over his shoulder.
Zidane met his eyes and tried to make his grin playful again. Tried to make it look like this had been a bit. Like he hadn't just eaten stage paste for a coin.
Marcus's grin turned almost gentle.
Then he flicked the coin.
It arced through the lantern light, spinning, flashing gold like a tiny sun. It struck Zidane's chest with a soft thunk—not hard enough to hurt, just hard enough to say catch.
Like feeding an animal.
Zidane's hands moved on instinct. The coin slid into his palm.
It was warm from Marcus's fingers.
It stank of smoke and power.
Zidane stared at it while Marcus walked away.
Behind him, Quina leaned closer, eyes bright.
"Eat?" Quina asked, hopeful.
Zidane closed his fist around the coin until the edges bit his skin.
His grin stayed on his face anyway.
Because if you acted like you belonged somewhere—
Sometimes the world got confused and let you stay.
Sometimes it just tossed you a coin and called it mercy.