Offshore
Episode 23: Dusk Cascade
Jinai barely noticed the moment they crossed between the marks, but the tide of screams and bellows rolling in from the shore, and the yells and shrieks of their crew over the relay, woke her to the reality on the other side of the finish line.
“You did it, you beautiful people!” “Eat shit, Mirages!” “I knew it! I knew it!” “Those are my little stars!” Janda’s, Lujang’s, Iki’s and Telaki’s voices were a jumble in their headsets.
Jinai had expected to be thinking a thousand things in this moment, yet in her head there was perfect silence, amid the shockwaves and noise of the moment, surging over her.
At the helm, Anqien was transfixed, gaze slowly sweeping the sky and the antennas of rooftops over the spectator crowd, down to the umpire with their flip sign raised, bearing the number 1.
Jinai was first to snap out of her daze. She ran to luff the sails, then she stumbled tipsily to her teammate, and seeing them from here—her light at the end of the night, her reprieve and refuge—she began to sob.
She spun them around into a hug, laughing and crying at once. They shouted her name and threw their arms around her. There they stood, swaying and weeping, as the crowds’ voices rose in the background, over the whirr of their rivals’ yacht across the finish line.
When they pulled apart, a whole minute later, Jinai beamed and whispered, “Let’s get us back to the marina.”
Before they did, Jinai glanced over her shoulder at where Xye and Zera had landed in the harbour behind them. They were on their feet, grinning ear to ear with an arm around each other’s shoulders while they waved like monarchs to the crowd.
Zera pointed at Jinai then, and both pairs of eyes on the other boat darted to her. She gave Jinai a thumbs up while Xye flailed her arms with a yell that was just intelligible over the waves as, “Yeah! Good fucking race!”
Anqien spent two seconds gaping before they hollered back, “You did amazing!”
Across the golden water, they laughed and drifted towards their home marina.
Jinai spent the rest of her dizzy walk back with her arm around Anqien’s back. Many a time they turned to ask little questions, like, “how are you feeling?” And her replies were giddy, “like I’m still asleep.” They waved at spectators as the cameras flashed down from the docks, and turned to smile when the reporters and photographers yelled for attention.
On the jetties, uniformed ushers handed them towels while they slung their bags over their shoulders. Shoving protein bars into their mouths (they had not caught any breathing room for a meal at today’s race), they followed the officials along velvet barricaded pathways, past empty storefronts that they had seen a thousand times, to the changing rooms in the Sparkling Reef. “Once you’re done, come meet us at the stage,” said one.
Once Jinai had freshened up, hands still shaking from the race, she found a spot by the wall outside to wait. Her bag hung heavy with her saltwater-soaked wetsuit and the aches were starting to hit, but she still felt one leap from floating away. Anqien took about five minutes longer. When they showed up, their hair was completely redone, ponytail combed into the band.
“There you are,” she exclaimed, hooking her arm around theirs. They gasped as she dragged them up the black carpet—through the late afternoon warmth, the whistles and cheers, the cavalcade of camera flashes.
“So how will you spend your first day as the new NHR champion?” Anqien asked.
Jinai tapped her chin. “Prepping for the press conference and the afterparty. You know the drill.”
They chuckled. “I mean, yeah, but what would you want to do?”
Shouts of reporters beckoned in the background, but Jinai heard only her companion’s voice. “Well, I’d have a proper meal, for starters,” she said. “And I’d want some one-on-one time with you. If you were fine with that.”
“More time than we’ve already had during the race?”
She lifted her chin to laugh. “Oh, you silly,” she said, flicking their ponytail. “Time together where we’re not thinking about the next tack or gybe all the time. I want to be focusing on you alone, is that so much to ask?”
They ummed and ahhed and looking at everything but her face. “I mean, count me in,” Anqien replied. “Gods, why do you keep teasing me.”
“Well, you make it so fun,” she answered, elbowing their ribs. “And you seem to like it.”
“Guilty as charged,” they breathed—and something about the way they said it snapped her resolve.
“Hey, hey,” she said, tugging on Anqien’s elbow. The pair had stopped fifty yards from where the path ended in portable stairs. But right now she couldn’t care less about getting to the stage. “May I kiss you? Right now?”
“Uh…I…” Anqien tried in vain to form words, eyes bright as the sun.
“I mean, if you’re not sure, that’s fine, let's—”
Their stare became a glare. She felt their fingers catch her chin and tip it upward—and they smothered the rest of the sentence out with a kiss fiercer than she’d ever thought them capable of.
Jinai loved to talk big, but when Anqien kissed her, she felt her knees go weak and a bolt shoot through her chest. Amid a clamour and a surge of camera flashes, she threw her arms about their neck and reeled them in.
A small part of her fretted still—too soon? Too public? Should they have sorted their problems out first? But mostly, her mind was hazy with the sensation of their mouth pressed so eagerly to hers.
They spent half a minute furiously kissing, weeks of tension evaporating like rain on a hot pavement, and all at once there was no crowd, no cameras, no past and future, only she and they and all the adoration she no longer had to hold at bay.
Anqien was first to tear themself away, breathless and feverishly flushed. “Well.” They nodded once. “Let’s go pick up that trophy. We are. Fifty yards away.”
“And it is my absolute pleasure to present your champions of the thirty-second Niro-Helfi Race. Representing the Cloud Connectors Corporation—the crew of the Cloudlander, Liu Anqien and Jinai Rao Vailu!”
The moment the Sailing Federation’s chairperson waved Anqien and Jinai onstage was when they knew for certain that there had been no last-minute calls—disqualifications or fouls or otherwise—that had upset the result of the race.
They shared the podium with the crew of the AmaShiru Mirage—Xye and Zera, who had accepted the silver medals with the same panache as if they had been first, and the crew of the Kani-do Catcher—tears welling in their eyes when they bowed for the medals. The pair clasped each other’s hands, till Sendou began to lose their composure and the pair fell into a tearful embrace.
A beaming Sail Fed chair lifted the trophies for them. Smiling at each other and nodding once, like they had a hundred times, Jinai and Anqien synchronously accepted the polished golden cups.
Up till then, Jinai had been floating in a cloud of senseless bliss. But now, as the cold metal was pressed into her hands, she felt her feet hit the ground, and everything crashed in, all at once. The thundering applause. The years of toil. The months she’d spent alone in the dark of her apartment. Telaki, weeping with joy in the front row, and their crew, rising from their seats.
And Anqien, her hope incarnate, who clutched their trophy close and grinned right back, her own joy mirrored in their eyes.
They had always been right there. In rain and sun, in the doldrums of her grief. Sailing a thousand miles together, year after year.
A boom and a flash of colours drew their eyes to the sky, a volley of fireworks blossoming overhead. Jinai flew to hug her teammate, and hid her falling tears in their shoulder. “Where would I be without you?” she croaked, wiping her eyes on their shirt. “It couldn’t have been anyone else.”
“I should be the one saying that!” they answered in her ear, and their voice too was shaky with tears. “Have a good rest, you’ve more than earned it.”
“We both have, silly,” she replied.
“Damn,” Zera muttered from beside them, a camera flashing while they stared at each other. On their other side, the Catchers were kissing. “I can’t believe we’re fifth wheeling up here.”
Anqien and Jinai spent half an hour posing for photographs with the other winners, watching Xye kiss his medal a dozen times, answering journalists over barricades and straining at every juncture not to say too much. By then, dusk had fallen, and the floodlights over the stage had taken over illuminating their surrounds.
Festivities gave way to food. Midway through the catered dinner backstage, Telaki snatched them both into an embrace worthy of a bear. “How are you feeling, the most beautiful, amazing, unstoppable team in the world?” she exclaimed, releasing them.
“Slowly getting over the shock!” Jinai replied. She couldn’t help grinning back; their coach looked like she had won the trophy herself, rocking on her heels and toes, eyes bright under the spotlights. Anqien nodded enthusiastically, shoving the rest of their fried roll into their mouth.
“Great, great,” she said, beckoning them up the barricaded walkways and towards the parking zone. “The rest of the crew have had to head home, but they asked me to send you their biggest, hugest congratulations. You’ll get to talk to them tomorrow. At the party.” She winked. “You’re coming right?”
“Well, now we have to. Iki, Janda, and Lujang won this thing too,” Anqien said, dusting crumbs off their face. “And so did you! You’re the most brilliant, badass coach in the world.”
“Aw shucks,” Telaki chuckled.
“Seriously, you are the reason we managed this,” Jinai said, going in for another hug. It seemed like hugging was how she was reining in her tears today. “You always have the best words for us. Even when it feels like everything’s going to shit.” She laughed. “I’m sorry I ever complained you weren’t blunt enough.”
Telaki smiled. “I try to find the right words for the moment,” she replied. “If you’re not feeling great—and I know that’s where you often are—then why would I want to kick you down some more? I’m always here for you, dear. Even now that you’re…” She pulled out of the hug, but her hands continued to grasp her shoulders. “Now that you’re done with sailing for good? Are you totally set on that?”
Now there was nothing Jinai could do to hide the tears as they streamed down her cheeks. She drew her lips into a quivering line and nodded. “It seems—it seems like as good a time as any to wrap it all up,” she said, lifting the trophy and pointing at the etching of her name.
Telaki nodded thoughtfully. “Then I’m happy for you to do that,” she replied, patting Jinai on the shoulder. “You’ve been with me longer than anyone else, and I think I agree with you—even though it’s absolutely breaking my heart to say goodbye.”
“Well, it’s not goodbye,” she protested. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“You aren’t?” Telaki’s mouth slackened, as if this were the most surprising piece of news today. “Weren’t you on about how you wanted to head back to Nitajo after your piece-of-shit ex left?”
Jinai shook her head. “I think…I like this place enough to stay,” she said. Then she looked meaningfully at Anqien. “And I want to be here to keep helping the team, and whoever comes along next—”
“Oh—”
“—but mostly Anqien. I’m a little biased, but we make a good team, don’t we?”
Telaki’s mouth widened in a grin. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “That’s great news, then! By the way…what’s this I hear about you two stealing kisses all over the place this evening? The Mirage coach said they heard the Wulien Sun journalists say…”
“It was one!” Jinai shouted as her face heated up, lifting a finger for emphasis. “One kiss! Are the journos making shit up again?”
Their coach chuckled, shaking her head. She clapped a hand on each of their shoulders. “Look, I’ve spent years trying to keep the tabloid journos off your cases,” she replied, “but if you two wanna go off and get all cute and smoochy in public anyway, you go figure out how to deal with the busybodies wanting to know all about it.”
“Yeah, yeah! Thanks for your tireless work on that front,” Jinai huffed.
“I mean, I’m not your coach anymore, so take it as advice from a friend,” she said, then turned to look witheringly at Anqien, who was now running their knuckles over their lips. “But you. I’ll teach you a thing or two about managing the press yet.”
“I—I’ll do my best.”
Telaki shook her head and smirked. “I’ve talked your ears off for long enough. Go enjoy the rest of your evening together. You deserve it. We’ll meet at the presser tomorrow.”
“Sounds good, we’ll see you!” “Thanks, Telaki!”
Their coach whirled away with a wave, and they turned to each other, almost in synchrony.
“So, do you, uh, wanna head back to mine?” asked Jinai, tripping on the syllables.
Anqien let out a surprised laugh. “I was gonna ask if I could.”
YELLING
it was so hard to pick a moment to draw lol. the entire chapter is a spoiler.