As I entered the Meek, the scattered scrap bordering the street turned into houses and small businesses; some were formed from the trash with nails and old, welded metal, like shirts with only patches holding them together. I looked up. Meek Alfrenil’s drill tower was visible from here, reaching through the high ceiling two hundred feet above. Several support beams stood guard, encasing the drill tower and acting as a protective barrier should the drill fall while also holding up the Andalaf Plateau.

Shun’s restaurant marquee was lit in yellow, spelling “Clafendlin Café” in sharp lettering. It wasn’t the smoggy yellow-peach of the Sachi fog but a bright vitamin-piss yellow, the same color that fills the veins of my blade and armor when activated.

I felt something tickling the lower reaches of my stomach in anticipation of seeing her again, though I’d just seen her the day before. Five years does a lot of digging between two people. You try to smile the same way you used to and maybe call on a shared joke, but it’s in the eyes, and you both spit the lie. Little betrayers, eyes.

I didn’t think it was all lost, though, regardless of the loss we shared and the years that stretched between. I needed to talk to her, but I wasn’t sure if I could.

Shun was the first person I saw as I walked into the Clafendlin Café. We locked eyes, her pools of dark brown pulling me into their depths. Her pale face was heart-shaped in the midst of her long brunette hair. She wore a white button-up shirt tucked into black leather pants. She served a drink to a large black man at the bar in an all-tweed suit with a graying tuft of hair on top of his head. There were no Sachi gems slotted into her gloves.

Shun broke eye contact first, looking down at the fat black man sitting at the bar and giving her smile to him—not the smile I know that makes her eyes dance, but still a pleasant thing. She didn’t wear the face paint so popular in the Twelve Meeks, but I enjoyed watching her wear this other mask—a server’s mask—and stood near the door for a moment to admire it.

Sachilights shone along the walls of Clafendlin Café, a yellow glow all around but for the red that lit up the bar. The customers ranged from tower workers—low-level drill programmers mainly—to yellow-faced drillers unwinding after a day operating the machines.

“I wasn’t sure you’d be back,” Shun said, handing a magenta-colored drink to a woman at the end of the bar, a few seats to my left.

I wiped at a sticky spot on the wooden counter, then knocked a knuckle against it, leaning in. “I wasn’t sure you’d still be here,” I said. “Though that Hinote guy can be a bit … much. I nearly did have to leave.”

She smiled. “He’s a passionate guy, yes.”

“He’s a zealot,” I said, looking at the many bottles behind the counter, backlit in red.

“Well, if you’re calling him a zealot, I guess I am too. We believe in the same thing, Nin.”

“And what’s that? Stickin’ it to ol’ Andy Andalaf?” I whispered as she passed by.

She didn’t look at me as she turned to the bottles and poured another drink. I saw two tears bead up in the reflection of the glass. She held two fingers up to her eyes and wiped.

“I believe,” she said as she turned to me, getting close so no one could hear.

“Shun, I’m sorry.”

“No, I want to say it. I believe that what we lost that day was because of Sachi and Andalaf. Forget about Morfran; he was, and still is, a monster. And I believe that taking down the towers is the closest thing I can get to redemption for my mistaken belief in and support of Andalaf.”

I stared at the counter for a moment, clenching my fist, wanting to tell her she was wrong. Morfran was a monster, the monster, and Andalaf was just a fat man in a suit with too much money. I refrained. Morfran was my mentor, not Shun’s. Maybe I was being selfish. I looked back up at her through a blonde strand of hair that had dangled down in front of my eye. “I know. It … it makes sense, Shun.”

She smiled at me sadly with shimmering, understanding eyes—ever-understanding, ever-patient, with me specifically.

“You could stay with us, you know. It might help you,” she said, collecting a credit from a woman sitting two seats down and returning to the bottles. “Helps me.”

“We both deal with it in our own ways, I suppose.”

Though I didn’t mind hurting Andalaf in the slightest, my fight was with Morfran.

I admired her for a moment; she was a fighter through and through. It always attracted me to her. I remembered why I was with her. And why I came back after my husband Yami died on duty.

She turned to me while she mixed a drink and smiled at me—that smile. My pace quickened, and I could hear the blood pumping in my neck.

She turned back to her work, but I could still see the side of her mouth move as she said, “However long you’re here for, Nin … I am happier for it.”

The throbbing of blood in my neck wained, and a thick knot replaced it. I swallowed. “Yeah,” is all I could muster. Turning around, she gave me the smile she gave the black man, returning to the character as she handed me a viridescent drink.

“Try it. I think you’ll like it. Hinote says it’s too bitter, but he only drinks the light stuff—though he’d probably tell you differently. Don’t tell him I said that.” With another pleasant hostess’s smile, she rushed off to talk to the cooks through a rectangular hole in the wall near the bottles of liquor and Sachi juice. Gotta stay in business. We are all dependent on it. What if Hinote’s dream—and I suppose Shun’s as well—came true? What if they destroyed every drill in Man’naka? Then the world? No Sachi—no more Sachi-juice. A whole lot of people going through withdrawals, their cars rendered useless, their weapons, and in Hinote’s case, body parts. Everything would collapse.

After some time of enjoying the bitter but good drink that Shun gave me and enjoying watching her as she worked, Kaito came in, followed maybe fifteen minutes later by Hinote and Suzume.

“You gotta do what I tell you. Shit. What do you think this is?” Hinote demanded, walking in and throwing his yellow-glowing eye attachment on the table, and rubbing the area around his empty socket.

“Hinote, I just—”

“Nah, fuck that shit,” Hinote said, throwing his hands in the air. “You just thought you was smarter than me, but that’s what fucked us! I may seem all shout and no think, but I learned—might not a been from a school like yo ass, but I learned. Got my hands on every goddamn book I could find, Suzume.” I stifled a laugh. Suzume looked in my direction and smiled. She was a pretty girl, though not my type. Her hair was dyed blue, and she favored the face paint that all the girls in the Twelve Meeks were wearing.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Hinote followed Suzume’s gaze and stared into me like he hoped I’d explode with the pressure. He looked back at her, then at me. “What?” he said. She turned away shyly.

“You’re being ridiculous,” I said, sipping at my drink.

He took a step toward me. “Ok, you Chudo fuck. Listen—”

“Daddy!” a girl’s voice sounded. I saw her jump down from the bar, a girl I hadn’t noticed before, though I was admittedly distracted by Shun. She had long blonde hair, like mine, and her skin was dark brown—not like Hinote’s. Hinote’s scowl melted as he picked her up and threw her into the air, though she must have been at least ten. “I’ve just finished The Great Northern Sachi War.”

“No way! That’s—my—girl!” He threw her up again; this time, she coughed on the way down and didn’t stop for a full minute after. He held her tight in his thickly muscled arms, patting her back softly with one hand, a worried expression on his rugged face.

The girl was Sachi-sick. Poisoned. I saw then that her skin had the telltale yellow hue—no wonder the guy was flying planes into buildings. I would have done the same—for Asahi—if I thought that would have changed things.

I turned around to ask Shun about the girl, but an excited bunch of blue hair to my right interrupted me.

“Um—hi, Nin,” Suzume said.

“Suzume,” I said, blinking and drinking before turning to her.

“Could I …? Could I look at your Sachiblade?”

“Um. What do you want to look at it for?”

“I was an engineer with Andalaf, so—”

“An engineer? Then what are you doing down here?”

She turned her face away momentarily, obscuring it with a cloud of blue hair. “I, uh—lost it. My job.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. But I’ve never touched one before. Could I?”

“Sure,” I said, reaching my right hand above my shoulder to grab the hilt. I hit the button inside my right armpit to shut off the magnet holding the blade to my back.

“I’ve always wondered how that magnet keeps from sticking to all the other metal. I mean, the Meeks are practically buried in metal scrap. I’m not gonna see you fly away toward a pile of trash, am I?”

I smiled but then noticed Shun was watching us. She turned away once she saw I’d noticed her.

“It doesn’t work like that. This is a magnet built specially for this blade. I don’t completely understand it; Nejirita up at Andalaf makes all of the shit, but there’s something unique about each blade and its magnet. It’ll stick to some metals, but not very well, at least not in the same way the blade will.”

“What if you need a new suit?”

“Well, usually, Nejirita would build a new one, but if you’re like me—ex-Chudo—then you gotta take care of your suit. Or buy one in Onfidlack, but odds are the blade won’t hold as well.”

“Why’d you leave? Were you fired like me?” she asked.

I knew she meant well, like a curious child, but I said, “That’s enough questions.” I caught Shun studying us behind brown locks. The scent memory of her hair filled my mind.

Suzume looked away, embarrassed. “Oh … I’m—I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s fine. I’m just wiped out.”

“Come on, y’all. Downstairs,” Hinote said. “All y’all other motherfuckers out. Now!” He said it to the entire restaurant. I was under the impression that Shun owned Clafendlin Café, but it looked like I was wrong. Everyone in the place seemed to understand and left quickly, the fat, graying black man giving a huff and a pained smile to Shun as he half slid, half fell off of his stool at the bar.

I heard someone say, “How soon before the sky falls?”

“How many hits to the center of the sun?” a woman answered on her way out.

Another shouted, “Fuck Andalaf!”

“Alright, alright, now get on,” Hinote said, though I could see the hint of a smile as they said it. I’d realized since coming back, that this was the Under-City way of saying ‘Fuck Andalaf.’

The people of the Meeks had grown angry.

When the last patron was out, Shun locked the door and turned the bright yellow closed sign on.

“It’s an acceptable time for us to close anyway,” Shun said to me, I assume in response to my skeptical look. I thought it was sloppy, but I wasn’t in charge. Bomb a drill, kick out the customers, light up a sign … I was there for the money, not to think—then on to the next job, and hopefully a step closer to Morfran.

Shun walked past me and gave me a small smile, her eyes dancing between mine and the bar. For the money, I reminded myself.

I followed her into the kitchen and down a set of carpeted steps. The brown carpet gave off a burnt popcorn kind of smell. The stair was dimly lit in yellow by Sachilights with old cobwebs stuck to their encasings. It reminded me of an old theatre, a place Shun and I used to go to in Meek Onfidlack when we were kids.

The basement was lit brightly, with black and white checkered flooring, a pool table, a bench attached to the wall that wrapped around the whole room, and a endorphinscreen mounted in the corner. I heard a familiar voice coming over the speakers:

“—And we are not sure who the terrorists are, but we will stop at nothing to find them and return Man’naka to its previously safe and secure state. We view this as but a blip—”

“Aint no fuckin’ terrorist but you, Andalaf,” Hinote yelled, throwing a crumpled-up piece of paper at the screen. Where did he even get the paper? Maybe he kept it on hand just for that purpose. ‘Better take a fuckin’ piece of paper with me in case I get real mad and have to crumple somethin’ up.’

I laughed out loud.

“The fuck you laughin’ at, Chudo-girl?” he said.

“Nothing, Hinote. Can I have my money now?”

“You’ll get yo damn money when I’m well ’n’ ready to give it to you. But listen. If you come with us to the next one, I’ll let you stay here tonight. I’ll throw in some extra credits.”

“I’m not interested. I told you. One job.”

“Couldn’t you at least think about it for a while?” Shun asked. I thought of Asahi. It was always there, somewhere in the background between us. My son, and shit, hers too; she was there after Yami died when Asahi was two until he turned six.

“I—Shun, I … can’t. I’m sorry.” I clenched my fists as I said it, feeling my leather gloves creak with the tension.

“I understand,” Shun said, not even a hint of melancholy in her voice. She wasn’t trying to pull me in at all. She was ever-patient, never trying to control me.

“Thank you,” I said. Hinote looked between us, mouth hanging open stupidly.

“Well, I don’t fuckin’ understand! Don’t you care about nothin’? Or are you still attached to what that suit represents?”

“I’m not attached to anything, Hinote, and if you suggest it again, I might take offense,” I said.

Hinote took a step toward me. It was like his signature move. He said, “I don’t give a fuck what—”

“Hinote, give him his money,” Shun said, stepping between us.

Hinote hesitated, his eyes wild and unwavering, then pulled out a wallet. “Don’t have no time for this anyway. We gotta strike tonight while it’s hot. And while they not expectin’ it. Here. Fifteen-hundred, as promised.”

“Thanks,” I said, taking the credits and turning away to count them. “Good working with you.”

“Bye, Nin. Um—thank you,” Daiki said, fidgeting with a bit of shirt that his large belly had untucked. “What you did back there was pretty great.”

“Yeah, man. For real. Impressive shit,” Kaito said.

“Maybe sometime you can show me how to use a Sachiblade?” Suzume said.

I gave them a small smile and turned to Shun. My eyes rested on her hair for a moment. I could smell it from there. I reached out a hand to her, and she took it and shook as we locked eyes, and then I walked back up the steps.

As I passed through the doorway to the bar area, I glimpsed the red light that lit the bottles. I grabbed one; I could use it to help me sleep after the activity, and after—

“You’ll have to pay for that,” she said from behind me. I picked up the bottle and opened it before looking at her. I took a drink. She walked over, coming within a finger’s breadth of me. I could hear my blood again. She took the bottle and drank, then smiled at me as she handed it back, some liquor still dripping down her chin.

“I don’t mind paying,” I said, pulling out the wad of credits Hinote gave me. She touched my arm, gently staying it and looking down to where she’d made the first physical contact with me in five years. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, and underneath the area where she touched my suit, there was a wild tickling sensation.

I knew I had to leave, and soon.

Her face grew serious. Her voice was soft, a whisper. “I know … it’s been hard for you. It’s been hard for me, too.” She moved her hand to mine, and I could really feel her now, at least more than before, with only leather and her thin Sachiglove separating our skin. “Please, stay with me tonight. Just tonight. Then you can go.”

I looked into her dark, swallowing eyes. She bit on her lower lip. I looked away.

“Shun …”

“Just one—night, Ningyo. For me.”

I urged myself to go, to get another job somewhere far off, to throw myself into it, but what I said was, “Ok.”