The Year ‘35, 4th Month, 18th Day

– Fei Cui, Jae-dyn

Old Man Peng’s Pub, The Red District

7:21 PM

“Pig,” one of the thugs spat at him, legs kicking as he was carted away. Chet hazily recalled his name— Lestari.

“Back at’cha,” Naomi grinned, waltzing nearby and giving the man a harsh kick to the shin. He crumbled with a howl. One of the younger Enforcers lifted up his massive camera and snapped a photo.

Chet grimaced, and took a swig of his flask. “You seem to be in a good mood.”

“Ah, the man o’ the hour!” Naomi lifted her hands in the air in a show of surprise, squealing with glee. “Everyone, you’re looking at this district's next Lieutenant!”

A smattering of laughter echoed through the derelict remains of the runner’s den. The bar was ransacked, and a few officers were lounging by the blood-smeared seats, sharing a quick drink before the reporters could swarm onto the scene.

No deaths, at least. The damn kid had been right about that. Everyone within was a pen-pushing beancounter, surrounded by kids so flushed with alcohol they could hardly keep it down. The only men of value were that traitor— Chin Hae’s men; but they surrendered easily enough after a few prods.

Chet didn’t smile. Instead, he looked pointedly at one of the Enforcers as he wrangled one of the kids away. The little idiot was being smart about it, lips curled in a sneer. There was a beat before the Enforcer hurled his fist back, and smacked the boy across the face.

Blood spattered onto the kid’s lip, footing giving out as he crumpled to the floor.

“You better,” Naomi tugged at him, pulling Chet’s ear down to her level, “fucking explain to me how you found one of Banzai’s most coveted runner dens while drunk out of your damn mind.”

“Besides having half a brain?” Chet drawled, and gestured at the carnage around them. Someone was already at their third shot of bitter spirits, everyone jeering them on.

At the back of the room, that kid was sobbing. His face was bludgeoned and raw, a smear of black shoe polish etched from his teeth to his forehead. One Enforcer was kicking his face in while the other was holding both his legs down, tearing away at his set of boots. They were a fine leather.

Naomi looked him up and down. “You’re hustling me.”

Chet took another swig.

She snatched his flask and pointed a finger at him with the same hand. “Chet Lahn— you’re hiding somethin’ from me!”

Chet took two massive strides, and promptly collapsed against the counter. Naomi was on him in seconds, patting at his shoulder and jostling his side. “Xian above, how much have you had to drink?”

“I thought…” Chet mumbled, clutching at his skull. Everyone was hooting, and the sound of flesh beating against flesh rattled his mind with every impact. He felt bile graze the back of his molars, but he was able to swallow it all down in time.

“What was that?” Naomi called out to him, pulling a hand to her ear.

“Damn it all, Naomi—” his hands were shaking as he gripped the counter.

I found him, Chet wanted to say, but the words refused to leave the junction of his throat. There was something that tugged at him, like metal wire tightening around his neck. Naomi knew all there was to him, simply out of the virtue of her position; and even then Chet regarded her comforts worth more than anyone’s.

“Did…” Naomi said, her face uncharacteristically serious. “Did you find him?”

This was another one of her comforts. She read Chet as easily as she breathed.

Chet took a shuddering breath. The kid had stopped crying. He wondered, chest so tight he thought his spine had been spun into a knot, whether he was dead.

“No.” Chet whispered.

Her eyes narrowed. “Then…”

“I got an anonymous tip about this place, if that’s what you’re wondering.” This was not quite a lie.

Naomi sighed heavily, “Lahn, you—”

All of a sudden, a breach of static assaulted Chet’s mind. He managed to hide the ensuing flinch that ran through him by shifting in his seat, but the words flooded into his head without prompt.

The dawning ease he had begun to feel after lying to Naomi was quickly smothered by the trembling that overtook him. His hands grew clammy, and his mind fell into a fog, as though his thoughts were tripping all over themselves.

‘Where are you?’

Chet turned to Naomi languidly. “I need the bathroom.”

“Chet!” Naomi yelled after him as he muttered some excuse about the alcohol finally getting to him.

Chet burst out of the door, slipping into the quiet hallway. There were evidence cards littered all over the place, and there were still a few other Enforcers posted by the front entrance; the bolts and locks of which had been broken apart.

‘I thought I told you this channel was one-way.’ Chet replied, simply thinking of the words aloud in his mind. He knew his recipient would understand him easily enough. Chet had forged many mental communication channels before.

Another wave of anxiety rippled through him, and Chet frowned to himself. ‘What’s going on? You told me you were meeting up with Chin Hae. Can my men and I fall in?’

Still no response. ‘Kizuna?’

‘Did you arrest them? Everyone in the runner’s den.’ the boy’s voice resounded eerily throughout his skull. The way his voice echoed and ebbed made some part of Chet’s chest pang. Strange.

‘Yes.’ Chet was already pulling out his pistol and counting his rounds. He could smell trouble. ‘Everything was as you said.’

‘So, you trust me.’

There was a false confidence in the boy’s tone. Chet frowned. ‘What happened with Chin Hae, kid?’

A long silence followed, and it was only when Chet felt another jolt run through him, did he realize that the channel had been cut.

Naomi bursted into the hallway, making him jump. “Chet! Here you are… you weren’t in the bathroom like you said. What in Xian’s name is going—”

“I need your keys.”

“For my Ichika?” she asked incredulously.

“No, dumbass.” Chet held back the urge to roll his eyes. She loved her stupid motorcar like it was her own child. “I need the ones for the cruiser.”

“Where are you headed?”

Chet thought on his feet. “I just got a report that something went down in the wet markets.”

“I’ll drive.” Naomi had a fire in her eyes. “You’re too drunk.”

“I am not, Lieutenant.” Chet said, no-nonsense. “You need to be here to take care of this scene.”

“You only ever talk like this when you’re stressed out of your goddamn mind.” Naomi pointed out, scrunching her face up sourly— but nonetheless tossed him the keys. “You’re telling me everything once you get back to the precinct. Got it?”

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

But Chet was already rounding away, as if he had never heard her.

----------------------------------------

Kizuna’s heartbeat was resonating in the narrow alleyway as he raced forward. Echoes of Enforcer voices pursued him, the clatter of their footsteps wandering into his skull. It made it difficult to concentrate, and though he knew he needed to focus and reinstate his connection to Chet— he couldn’t.

‘Sunren’, he managed to whisper in his head. Quiet, pathetic. If the Enforcer had heard this or not, Kizuna wasn’t sure. It didn’t help that the man had pushed the channel to be so solitary; for communication between them to be stunted if Chet didn’t begin it himself.

The gunshot had looked deep. And Kizuna, in all his foolishness, in all his rationality; had left him to bleed.

Sunren had wanted to save him, wanted to run away with him. And here Kizuna was, leaving him behind to save his own sorry skin.

Kizuna couldn’t stand the thought. He retched as he ran, vision growing blurry.

His shins were burning, and his shoes skidded against the cobblestone ground as he turned a sharp corner down the alley and was faced with a tall, metal fence.

It stood imposingly before him. Kizuna had never scaled anything of this height before, but the Enforcers had still not given up their chase of him.

‘Sunren’, he thought, repeating the name to himself as though it were a prayer. Very few had faced Kizuna, wishing to save him. Perhaps because Kizuna himself didn’t want it; would rather just wallow in what he believed he deserved, what was afforded to him.

Suddenly, the memory of Sunren looking up at him with a bleeding side had melted away, replaced by the faces of men, women, and children. People Kizuna had shelved and stored away in some hidden corner of his mind, where everything was rotten and smelled of corpses.

Their screams rung like klaxons in his dreams. And like wraiths, they haunted him. In every child he saw running past him in the streets, in the women who ventured into the markets early in the morning to buy vegetables, and in the men who charted past him with ruddy hands and tired eyes.

He saw them in his eyes, as deathly and empty as theirs had been.

Kizuna deserved this life because of what he had done to them. How he stood there and let that man enter— let him kill all of them before his very eyes.

He had been a fool to let Shen in that day.

And he was being a fool right now, as he pulled himself to the other side of the wire wall. His heart was thumping unevenly in his chest, his wounds stretching and tearing themselves apart as he bolted onward.

Molten gold was streaming past the gauze wrapped around his arms as he rounded past another corner, nicking himself in the elbow on a stray shard of glass as he grasped at one edge of a low window, pulling himself over and dropping onto filthy, abandoned flooring.

He could still hear the Enforcers, pattering around. Why were they searching so ardently? Perhaps they were aware that it was Triad business. After all, Chin Hae was quite renowned. Kizuna’s throat grew tight at the thought of them finding Sunren— would they shoot him?

Kizuna’s breath hitched as he pushed himself off the floor, jogging to the building’s back door. It was latched shut with a flimsy lock.

‘Are you down Hefong Street?’ a voice tittered into his head.

‘In some abandoned building,’ Kizuna replied, ramming into the door. His shoulder clicked at the impact, but he carried on, until at last the hinge gave way, and before he knew it he was strewn across the streetside again.

With a groan, he raised his head and finally caught sight of an Enforcer cruiser slowing to a stop a few blocks away. Kizuna shielded his arm with a sleeve, hoping to hide the blood from view as he bolted over to it.

Kizuna wrenched the backseat open when he reached the motorcar, and hurled himself into the seat as he yelled, “Drive!”

”Whoa, whoa,” Chet said, reaching out a hand to steady him. Kizuna flinched away violently, which the man didn’t comment on; though he did retract his arm as they shot off down the road. “What happened out there?”

The Enforcer looked as imposing as he always did. The expanse of his shoulders took up the entire head of the driver’s seat, and his hands were heavy where they had touched Kizuna. There was a permanent furrow in his brow, exacerbated only by the hair primly slicked backwards, with little strands flying from his cheap hair gel and fanning his face.

It made the stench of alcohol on his breath, the slight flush in his cheeks, and the dreary gaze in his eyes even more prominent.

”I heard a gunshot,” Chet said, keeping his gaze on the road as he stepped on the gas. “I swear to Xian; if an Enforcer was shot, then—”

”We didn’t shoot anybody,” Kizuna spat, hands trembling as he grasped at his seat’s leather. “It was my partner. He... he was shot by Chin Hae. I told you about our trader, remember? He betrayed the Triads.”

“I was supposed to arrest him after you finished your transaction with him,” Chet leveled. “What the hell happened?”

Kizuna was nearly hysterical. “I just said! He shot Sunren. A-And now he’s bleeding out, he’s—”

“For Xian’s sake!” Chet thundered, his voice booming within the vehicle’s walls. “Get a hold of yourself!”

Kizuna jumped, so ardently he hadn’t even noticed that he had drawn his knees to his chest, and had ducked into his hands.

Chet looked at him for one lingering moment through the cruiser’s rear-view mirror, and then sighed. He spoke gruffly. “Don’t whine. I hate that. Just speak properly.”

“He… he…” Kizuna started, praying that tears didn’t fall from his eyes. He had never shown weakness quite like this when with the other members of the Triads. But with the Enforcer, it came naturally. Came with the practice of years upon years.

He swallowed thickly, and began again. “We need to go back. Someone innocent was shot. Chin Hae… he thought that Sunren was Shen.”

This was what piqued Chet’s attention. “He was after Shen?”

“Not him specifically. He mentioned someone— the Prince, he called him.”

Chet stared ahead, jaw slack.

“Do you know him?” Kizuna pressed. It wouldn’t be long for this person— the Prince, to find out that Sunren had never been Shen.

Kizuna could hazard a guess as to who his next target could be.

“No,” Chet replied.

“You don’t know him?”

“No, I’m not going back for your partner. I wrangled enough just trying to get you out.” Lahn pinched the space between his brows.

“Your friend will probably be fine, the Enforcers will take him to the hospital.” Chet carried on to say, “Both him and Chin Hae are probably gonna be brought to court for assault, nothing more— they’ll be out after a few months. If your friend’s any smarter than the other Triad scum, he’ll know to keep his mouth shut.”

“He is,” Kizuna frowned. “Don’t you dare talk about him that way.”

“He got shot.” Chet leveled blankly.

“He saved me! It was a smart move on his part, he…” Kizuna faltered, just when he was about to call himself the Beast’s Blessing. He began again. “He knew exactly what to say to keep me from being hurt.”

Lahn gripped the steering wheel. “Guess you’re not as sharp as him, then.”

Kizuna pouted defiantly, voice muddled when he spoke, “I could have handled it.”

“You told me the transaction would take twenty minutes. But look at this mess, you runt.”

He murmured sourly, “Don’t call me that.”

Lahn continued prattling on, uncaring. He was glaring at Kizuna’s reflection in the rear-view mirror as he said, “This was all a waste of time. I trusted you to be my informant as long as you help me catch the Triad members— and for what?”

“Come now, Enforcer.” Kizuna leered, leaning his forehead against the car’s window. “The only one in the Militia who’s stupid enough to trust me is you.”

Soon enough they were entering Jae-dyn’s highways and were driving down Main Street, through the crossroads, near the Transit’s massive railways smelling of soot and coal, past the packed high-rise apartments that stretched to the skyline; with balconies adorned with clotheslines, walls old and marred, and facing the massive public courtyards below. It was then that their car took a turn to the left, towards the Militia’s local office—

“Head down,” Lahn ordered. Kizuna complied without any more preamble, ducking away from the window’s view.

There was a brisk, lively sort of silence in the air about them. Something that pulled for either one of them to speak. A ringing in the air, strange and foreign, yet familiar all the same. Surely, that was for Kizuna alone. It was him alone who openly regarded this sight, and swallowed down the idiotic words that rose within him.

“Why did you spare me?” Kizuna prompted.

What he really meant was: Why did you believe me?

The Enforcer fell silent, keeping his eyes fixated on the road. That was a well-enough sign that he had grown tired of the conversation. But still, it was obvious that there was a question that flattened itself against Lahn’s tongue, one that wouldn’t go away. Like the residual blood from biting one’s cheek, how it would never dissipate no matter how many cups of water you downed, stinging at the precipice of your jaw.

“You’re a child.”

That was all he said, as if that was that.

Kizuna snickered. “You have a soft spot for kids?”

“I’m capable of common sense. A child could never do what Shen had done during the Red Light District Massacre.”

The globes of Chet’s eyes turned to him, just then. They shone a brilliant blue in the light. The exact same shade as Kizuna’s right eye, buried under cotton gauze for no one to see. The man continued. “And… you seemed to wish him dead just as much as I do.”

The man leaned close, the cruiser slowing to a stop as he pulled himself across Kizuna’s chest. He gripped at the door, pushing it open for the boy. Just as he did so, his eyes wandered to Kizuna’s elbow, which he was still clutching.

Chet asked coldly, “Did you injure yourself?”

It was only here that Kizuna was able to pry himself away, tone harsh. “If you can afford me pity, at least strengthen our channels.”

“You know that would mean forging a Pact, right?” the Enforcer said, deadpan. “I’m not quite willing to bare my Core to you.”

“So be it,” Kizuna spared, stepping from the car.

When Kizuna drew the car’s door open, ready to begin the long trek back home, Chet finally said, “Don’t report to the Triads tomorrow. I won’t be available.”

“Quite the social life, don’t you?” Kizuna teased with a slight smile.

Chet sighed, and then, as if prodding for sympathy, “I have to take care of my brother. I had to leave him all alone tonight… he must be furious with me. I can meet up with you on Moon’s Day.”

Kizuna's lip trembled, as if he were about to sob. Of course, Chet wouldn’t know that.

He couldn’t see beneath the gauze.

“I had family matters to deal with today, as well.” Kizuna said softly. “Moon’s Day it is, then.”