“You dyed their hair purple?”
DJ looks at the three with slight disappointment. Adderall and Fuego shoot each other knowing glances, but Ikimono can’t help but just stare at DJ.
“Just the tips,” Fuego says, “Not their entire head.”
“Yes, I see that,” DJ replies, pinching the bridge of their shout, “With god-knows-how-old dye from a spray can.”
“Yes,” Adderall replies, “We were gonna do Sebastian’s, but Sunshine yelled at us.”
DJ sighs. “So Sunshine yelled at you and you still went through with it?”
“He didn’t yell at us this time,” Fuego adds.
“Because Sunshine didn’t see you do it.”
“Don’t you tell us it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission?”
“Adderall, I tell you that when we’re on a job and there’s either lives on the line or good money at stake. Not when you decide to use the new party member as a guinea pig for hair dye.”
Fuego pats Ikimono on the shoulder. “I think they look good.”
“That’s not my point at all.”
Juniper idly kicks her legs while she sits upon the chest. “Do they like it though?”
DJ gives Juniper a tired glare, then returns their gaze to the other three. “Ikimono?”
Ikimono looks at DJ, then at Adderall and Fuego. Sunshine is going to be livid when he sees them. Then again, if he already yelled at the two, they probably wouldn’t be the one in trouble. And the purple does look nice from where they see it in the corners of their eyes. If Sebastian was right about the purple in their eyes, it would compliment their eyes, and their scarf too. Maybe with the purple by their face, Sunshine would actually look them in the eyes.
“I do,” Ikimono says.
Tanoshii to omotte, they think to themselves.
DJ breaths a heavy sigh. “Alright. Alright. If you two get Ikimono in trouble, you’re getting it.”
DJ reaches for the door of the closet. For how big the space inside is, it’s shockingly easy to find one’s way back to the door. Or at least, it’s easy for them. Maybe the others have more trouble finding their way.
“How did you even remember where the door was?” Juniper asks, as if on queue.
The question almost startles DJ. “Oh, you know, precognition, good sense of direction.”
They turn the knob, but just as they pull the door inwards, they’re met with Sunshine pushing the door open to their side. DJ holds their stare with Sunshine, but notices him sharply pull away from the knob as soon as he notices them. DJ wants to smile.
He nervously laughs. “Oh, didn’t see you there, my apologies so! I take it you here are all good to go.”
“Yes,” DJ nods.
Sunshine practically shoves Sebastian and Peony back into the group. Peony takes the bag of costumes from Juniper, then looks back at Sunshine and scowls. Sebastian walks behind DJ and hunches his shoulders.
“Now, how about I take you all up and show you to the tent?” He continues, “I figure that will make our time better spent.”
Sunshine motions for them all to go out into the hallway. They file out obediently, one after another, until Sunshine notices Ikimono in the line. He pulls Ikimono to the side, looks him up and down, then calls over the others in a huff.
He grumbles. “You kids test my patience, but I suppose it’s your nature. I mean, what did I expect with a bunch of teenagers?”
“I’m 27,” DJ mumbles.
“Teenagers, grown-ups, you’re both youthfully foolish. It’s not till you hit 50 you stop being so ghoulish. But that’s not the point, what’s the meaning of this? Which of you insolent worms had a run of your wits?”
Ikimono looks at the crowd, stone faced. The others look at each other in confusion and dread. Especially Adderall and Fuego. Ikimono glances at the pair and suddenly gets an awful idea.
They point towards Adderall and Fuego. “DJ did it.”
DJ’s face drops. Fuego fights a snicker.
DJ sputters. “What? Me? Ikimono, I-”
They look at Ikimono, then at Sunshine. He’s livid.
“I did, didn’t I?”
Sunshine rushes over to DJ and grabs them by the wrist. DJ almost steps back, but holds firm in their stance.
He growls. “I should’ve known sooner from your clever remarks that you’d be more trouble than insolent thoughts.”
DJ’s breathing is practically silent. “Let go of my wrist.”
“I can do what I want here, thank you very much, and your actions have brought me to a punishing touch.”
“Genuinely, Sunshine, let go of my wrist. You’re gonna burn yourself.”
“Don’t you know old bones don’t burn? Apparently there’s much you haven’t learned.”
“Yeah, but they leave grid patterns.”
A sharp look of confusion crawls across Sunshine’s face. He takes his hand away from DJ’s wrist, and sure enough, he finds his fingers to be slightly cracked. He looks up from his hand and shoots DJ a glare of contempt.
“Kind of poetic, huh?” DJ says, evading his stare. “I guess one could say you’ve cracked under pressure.”
The others look at DJ and nervously laugh. Ikimono looks on in bewilderment.
“You know what, though?” They continue, “It’s not fair that I hurt you like that, especially without any warning. I’m sorry, Sunshine. Let me get you patched up.”
They pull a golden hoop from their ear and press it between their hands. When they feel the hissing of molten gold between their fingers, they quickly take Sunshine’s cracked hand and hold it over the liquid. He hardly has time to so much as wince before the metal weaves into his bones and mends his wound. When DJ releases his hand, he rips it away in anger before catching the faint glimmer of light in the corner of his eye. He examines his hand.
“Do you like it?” DJ asks, “Peony taught me that trick a while ago. We were investigating a manor to try and solve a family curse where all the daughters died young. The curse isn’t important. What matters is I knocked over one of the bone china dolls and had to fix it before their one daughter came back, and I remembered that in Japan, when you break something, you fix it with gold. It’s to make the thing unique, add to its history. Anyway, I figure if bone china can be mended with gold, so can bone.”
Sunshine doesn’t reply.
“Sorry again about your hand, I should’ve warned you that my skin gets really hot like that.”
Sunshine nods. “Alright then, if that’s done, then let's get to the show. I don’t think there's anything left down here you’d want to know.”
As Sunshine takes the lead of the group, DJ falls behind to walk beside Ikimono.
“Are you mad at me?” Ikimono asks.
“No, not really,” DJ replies, “A little frazzled about Sunshine, though.”
“Thank you for protecting me.”
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
“Hey, no problem. You’re my friend, that’s what friends do.”
They continue their walk in silence for a while. When they finally reach the shelved hallways, Ikimono finds a whisper in their throat.
“Can I tell you a secret?” They mutter.
“Hm?”
“He’s afraid of you.”
A little grin cracks in the corners of DJ’s mouth, and a little puff of smoke escapes from their snout. A low laugh rises from their chest. For a moment, Ikimono finds themselves nearly intimidated by them. When DJ pats them on the back, the fear dissolves.
“I know.”
…
Ikimono hasn’t left DJ’s side since their exchange in the hallways. In fleeting moments, they worry about being too clingy or annoying, but every time they open their mouth to ask, DJ silently answers with a nod or the wave of their hand. It’s nice to feel so accepted, so wanted.
Wanted? Ikimono thinks, Maybe.
The best part of the deal is that Sunshine hasn’t so much as looked at them for hours. He’s looked at DJ, of course, with a glare that would murder anyone, but never at them. DJ’s taking it all like a champ, too. He glares at them, and DJ just nods. If he tries getting up close, DJ pulls Ikimono a little closer under their wing. If he flashes a claw, DJ flashes their teeth. It’s a very effective defense.
Sunshine’s not the only thing they’ve got to worry about, though. Their innards still ache from the hot metal, now cooled to a slight scald in their stomach. They wonder how Fuego’s hand is holding up, especially after they got dye in the open wound. They really ought to change the dressings now, but if Sunshine caught a glimpse of the hole in vens hand, it’d be worse. They wonder if Sunshine would be less mad if he knew about the armlet. At least that could be played off as an accident.
“Hey, little buddy?”
They snap up from their idle stare at the chest they’re sitting on top of. That’s right, they’re backstage in the tent. It takes them a minute to notice the puppets in their hands.
“Yeah?” They ask.
“Just checking in. You spaced out there for a minute.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I do that sometimes too, you know.”
DJ taps their claws against the handle of their sword. They’re leaned against a large box painted to resemble a target. Something about that feels ironic, but Ikimono can’t quite put a finger on it.
DJ suddenly mutters. “Is he always like that?”
“Who, Sunshine?”
“Yeah. Is he always like that?”
Ikimono stares at DJ, then takes a couple glances to the left and right. When they return their stare, DJ finds them more perturbed than before.
“Does the raven who hunts with wolves find meat?” They whisper.
“Ah,” DJ nods. “So it finds its prey?”
“However dead or rotten it may be.”
“But perhaps the question is whether or not its beak still hurts when it rends the flesh.”
“It hurts. Badly, it hurts.”
“And the prey cannot escape, can it not?”
“No. It’s doomed to its fate.”
“As Prometheus to the eagles?”
“As Sisyphus to the stone.”
“Ah, but can we imagine Sisyphus happy, at least?”
“No. There is no happiness on a neverending uphill.”
“What binds Sisyphus to his hill?”
“For want of a story, the library burns.”
“For want of a library, the kingdom goes mad?”
“Yes.”
DJ flicks their tail in thought. “A kingdom down the rabbit hole, hm?”
“Far past the grasp of time and yet forever trapped at 4 o’clock.”
DJ nods. “No wonder you fear the queen of hearts.”
The two lean back against the boxes. They sit in silence for a long while.
“You’re not going to die here, Ikimono.”
“Do you think I was looking for it?”
“No, but I’m not leaving you behind. There’s something about you that doesn’t lend itself to being leave-behind-able.”
“What do you mean?”
A sudden crash rings out in the tent. DJ jumps from their recline and catches Ikimono as they stumble on the chest.
“I’ll tell you later. Remind me.”
Almost instinctively, DJ tucks Ikimono under their arm and runs over to the source of the clamor. The warmth of DJ’s arm is a comfort against their chest.
Juniper lies in a heap on the floor, surrounded by ribbons and colorful props. Right beside her are the knocked over remnants of a wooden crate. Tiny weevils crawl out from the maw of the box. The others, and even some of the performers, all gather around her.
“Juniper?” Peony asks.
“I’m good,” Juniper groans, “I was reaching up to grab down a couple hoops and I fell.”
“You’re Juniper?”
The new voice rises over the air like a cloud on a rainy day. A tall, slender china doll walks over to the circle and kneels down beside Juniper.
Juniper suddenly blushes pink. “Yeah, I’m Juniper.”
The doll holds a hand out to Juniper, her fingers clinking as they bend. “I’m Maryelle. I heard you’ll be my dancing partner.”
Maryelle helps Juniper to her feet. Juniper can’t take her eyes off of her glimmering face.
“Well,” She says, “It’s nice to meet you.”
“It’s nice to meet you too,” Maryelle beams, “Here, let me help you clean up some of this.”
Maryelle leans over and starts picking up some of the ribbons on the ground. Juniper looks on for a moment, her thoughts nearly incoherent.
“No, no, I made this mess, I’ll clean it,” She sputters.
“Let me help you, dear. You just fell, after all.”
Juniper feels like she’s going to fall again. She gets down on her knees and starts picking up the props alongside Maryelle.
Maryelle, Maryelle, She thinks, What a sweet name to roll off the tongue.
In Juniper’s mind, everything about her feels sweet. How easy her face is to the eye, how lovely her blonde yarn hair falls over her shoulder, how bright the blue of her dress is. She had only heard her voice for a moment, and she was already enamored with it. She has fallen, she knows, and it will be terribly long before she rises again.
The others start to return to their former conversations. DJ, only just now realizing their hold on Ikimono, tries to set them down. Ikimono doesn’t want to be let go. They shrug, then hold them ever so slightly closer.
“Is she going to be alright?” Ikimono asks.
“Yeah,” DJ grins, “She’s just having a lesbian moment. We’ll pick on her later.”
There is a slight pause. DJ frantically stumbles over their words.
“Wait, no, not that we’re picking on her for liking girls. We’re picking on her for falling that fast for one. We’re picking on her for simping. She does it a lot.”
“A lot?” Ikimono asks, “How?”
“Beats me. She just likes girls, I guess.”
“Do you like girls?”
DJ pauses. “Me?”
Ikimono nods.
“Oh. Not really. Girls are nice, they’re good friends, they’ll kick your ass when you least expect them, but I don’t like-like girls.”
“Boys?”
“Eh. Boys are alright, I guess. I don’t like them much either.”
“Do you like anyone?”
“Well, let me put it like this. If you’re Sisyphus, I’m Prometheus. It might be the same eagles eating my liver, but they don’t remember coming back. Wouldn’t it be stupid of me to love the eagles? Not like I would, but wouldn’t it?”
“No.”
DJ blinks. “No?”
“No.”
The confidence in Ikimono’s finality is startling. They want to protest it, but they know Ikimono wouldn’t understand. Or do they?
DJ nervously laughs. “Alright, then. Guess I’m finally starting to lose it, huh?”
“You’re not.”
DJ looks back down in surprise.
Ikimono, they think, I see the spark of life in your eyes and I just want to ask you, can you hear me? Can you hear me? And if you can, tell me, I’m not crazy, right? I’m not crazy for being stuck here, right? Everything I remember is true, right? I can tell them, can’t it? Everything that’s happened has happened, hasn’t it? Please, Ikimono, tell me.
The lights in the tent dim. The blue stars in DJ’s eyes and the purple crosses in Ikimono’s cast faint glows around their faces. On the other sides of the tents are the colors of their friends. The air drops to a chill.
I’m not evil, am I, Ikimono?
DJ looks back down at Ikimono. They figure it’s no use. Their thoughts die away into calm lucidity once more. Maybe they’re crazy after all. It’s not like anyone can hear them. They’re just thoughts. Thoughts running amuck in a tired mind.
When DJ looks away down into the hall, the lights start to flicker again. The hazy smell of staleness wafts as a sudden commotion rings from the back of the hall. The green and black curtains almost echo the sound. They put Ikimono down and grab their sword. With heavy steps, they follow the sound like a soldier to war.
Ikimono doesn’t chase after them like they want to. They still stare off into the distance, watching DJ slowly fade but never disappear. They pick up their puppets off the chest, still keeping their eyes focused on the fire burning on their tail and around their eye. The smell of ash lingers on their cardigan where their arm held around their waist. They wonder if they ought to be afraid of them.
The others whisper around them. Even with the lit halos of their eyes, it’s hard to tell where anyone is. And with them all about to start heading into the show, it will only be harder.
Oh, DJ, They think, You’re not evil at all.