Heatwave

Category B: Highly Commended (2025) Monash Short Story Writing Competition
Author: Lynn Hyun

Arche squinted at the borescope screen, practised fingers investigating further within the tangled abominations that were the veins of The Pelican.

His hands came to a stuttering halt, and Arche just stared incredulously at the screen. Heat corrosion?

The rocketeer grimaced. Some bumbling idiot must have come up with this brilliant idea—risking the lives of quite literally everyone on the spaceship. He supposed anything was amusing to the crew if it inconvenienced him.

Sighing, he slinked towards his toolbox. The wires would need to be replaced entirely.

Arche was never destined to be in the limelight, but he kept the spaceship running as its resident recluse. He was a part of The Pelican—only through its painstakingly maintained inner workings and mechanisms.

The soft scuffling of work boots echoed throughout the halls, undeniably heading towards the engine room.

Arche decisively started rummaging through his toolbox, willing his hands to not falter.

Someone stepped into the room and stilled, seemingly assessing the situation. The room felt weighted, but artificial gravity didn’t seem to be the cause.

“You’ve been here for a while”, the voice said hesitantly, cutting into the tense silence of the room. “It must get, uh, stuffy.” Why have you been avoiding me?

They were evidently out of breath. They must have ditched something important to come here.

“Oh, you know how it is. Heat corrosion miraculously happens, and it needs fixing,” Arche pushed a dry tone, huffing. “We all have our duties.” Aren’t you busy being Expedition Leader? Go away. 

There’s a guilty pause. Success.

“I’m sure they didn’t mean any harm.” A determined edge laced their tone. I’ll do something about it.

Arche located the wire cutters and hummed noncommittally.

They recovered admirably and encroached further into the room.

“Another mission’s come in. It’s going to be a long one.” They shuffled quietly. I want to see you before I go.

“I see.” Arche acknowledged neutrally. Leave.

“Do you?” The voice came from much closer behind than anticipated.

Arche looked up and immediately regretted it.

Rafael looked somewhat rumpled. His unruly chestnut curls hadn’t been combed, and his field uniform was wrinkled and dishevelled with dirt. Even his identifying badge was askew, but his bright celadon eyes were unwavering on Arche’s.

Arche quickly averted his eyes, swallowing nervously.

He was back. It suddenly felt like he’d been living in a solar eclipse, and Rafael’s return was the return of the sun.

Arche shouldn’t have looked. He should have kept away. He sighed and resisted the urge to rub at his temples.

His efforts had likely been futile anyway. Rafael was inevitable: who could hide from the sun?

His eyes flicked back onto Rafael.

Rafael’s eyes immediately captured his again, and he felt seen. Strangely exposed and stripped bare—the sun’s radiance always brought everything to light. Arche indulgently allowed himself to be pinned by his gaze, captivated by the perceiving lustre.

The brightness must be well-meaning if it came from the only crewmember who seemed to tolerate him.

This time, Rafael looked away, and the room suddenly felt inexplicably dim.

“Everything between us feels strange, lately.” The man finally murmured, eyes downcast, his hands coming together to clasp nervously at his front.

An uncharacteristic show of vulnerability—for someone who didn’t truly know Rafael.

Rafael had always been more sensitive and soft-spoken than most. But he’d pushed these ‘undesirable’ qualities away to become the determined, assertive leader that The Pelican needed. Arche had never found them undesirable.

“How so?” Arche asked softly, trying to avoid spooking the other.

“I...” Rafael trailed off, as if trying to find the right words.

Arche waited and amusedly observed how the furrow between his eyebrows grew deeper as the silence stretched on.

“I don’t know, it just is.” Rafael finished lamely, letting out a small huff of frustration.

Something possessed Arche to step closer into Rafael’s space.

“It doesn’t have to be,” Arche murmured, prompting Rafael to look up.

The brush of their lips was a soft, chaste thing.

For its brevity, the momentary contact felt like a small luminous supernova bursting across his lips: sudden, yet wondrous.

It was so brief that if they wanted to, they could pretend it had never happened. As the other leaned in again, Arche found that he certainly didn’t want to.

Suddenly, Rafael drew back, face stricken. Arche froze, horrified.

Oh.

The ‘Expedition Leader’ badge glinted mockingly in the muted lights of the engine room.

Neither said a word, not daring to break the fragile stasis of silence that fell upon them. No words were exchanged, but a mutual resignation was achieved regardless.

Rafael opened his mouth to speak, but a high-pitched ping from his comms pierced through the air first.

Duty calls. It was so depressingly hopeless that Arche wanted to scream.

Instead, he stepped away without a word and turned back towards the corroded wiring, wire cutters in hand.

“Arche, I...” Rafael rasped, clearly conflicted and deeply pained.

The sun was going to leave. It was going to dip away and doom him to the deplorable depths of darkness in its absence.

How could the sun be so cruel?

He quirked a small, bitter smile when the sound of Rafael’s hurried footsteps inevitably faded into the distance. The sun’s warmth was always alluring from a distance but could burn irreparably if someone got too close.

The rocketeer snipped away the last of the affected wire.

Some things just couldn’t be salvaged—sometimes they just needed to be cut out completely.

He stared at the gap that the wire removal had left behind. It didn’t look pretty. He began to crimp the edges of the snipped wires.

And life would need to continue with what was left behind.

Perhaps the lone rocketeer should’ve persisted in hiding away, despite its ineffectiveness. Maybe the beloved walls of his spaceship would have better shielded him from the horrors of the sun.

The sun was nothing exceptional, anyway.

Just another dwindling star in outer space.