Steel Your Eyes To Hide Your Heart

(this chapter is v late—i was without internet for two days, and i also rewrote 1/2 of this chapter about 3 times—and for that, i do apologize. still, it finally is here, so ty for reading! i know that some of the korean romanized here is hard to translate, so if u r ever curious about what it says, let me know and i can tell you :3 )

(EDITED)(Note to readers: Some chapters ahead may not be in line with the new edits.)

"...Truong and Zoe Davenport from Avaldi's elite racing team, Corvus, progress to Class I status following the Padmore Eval from this morning. They announced their achievement on Instagram, and received quite the wave of support in response. Although it leaves many questioning their fellow rookie teammate..."

"Obviously they had to become Class I, they couldn't very well stay at the bottom, not with Red Diamond coming up. I say good riddance! That in itself is a proof to their status. But why the hell this other kid—Yun, yeah?—is content in Class III, let alone Stirling, you know, that's beyond me, I can't begin to think of..."

"...questioning Yun's intention, if 'Class III Stirling' is simply a publicity stunt of his or Corvus's, if it's a political protest of some kind, no one truly knows, I myself am very confused as to why..."

"...of the Eval, and they were perfectly fine in progressing from III to I, and they have not even made as many waves as Yun has. It's certainly a spark for controversy, definitely a question of the validity of the Eval. I'm doubting a lot just from this rookie college racer, he's really making people question lycan ranking..."

"I don't appreciate the disrespect. Stirlings are always at the bottom, and if his goal is to make some sort of political statement with it, then I'm not impressed, I think he's caused major issues for his team, for his pack, I mean, I think it's selfish to be honest..."

"As Red Diamond's next four rounds approach, tensions heat up between both packs and racing teams as the victory money is soon to be announced. There are rumors this will stand as the largest victory to be won yet, and it puts fans on the edge of their seats as the first match approaches..."

_______________

"Echo.

"Echo.

"Echo.

"Yun."

I open my eyes. I see eyes. Blue things, gaping things, silver at the center, green at the edges. Round at the top, sharp at the edges. Pupil. Iris. Sclera. Aqueous.

"It's an echo," I tell it.

There's a laugh. "Hey," it says. "There's an echo in here."

"Where?"

"Here."

A face appears with the eyes. It smiles. It opens its mouth, a wide jaw, fangs made for tearing, tongue made for licking bones clean.

I close my eyes. I scream. There is no sound. There is a gurgle, a sputter, a wet cough. Teeth is in my throat. Teeth are going right through it. And—

I spit out my tongue, but it's pink water and blue algae. My hands are on white tile. There's pressure on my lungs, a hand inside my ribcage, wringing out the water of my insides. My knees bruise on the hard granite, the skin peeling off to reveal the patella, where black scratches appear on the bone. I wheeze out something even I cannot make out.

There's blood from my throat, a gash torn through my esophagus, veins spilling out, tendons ripped to shreds. I reach to hold it but I hold my stomach instead, gagging on the iron taste. Drops of it slide down into my bleeding guts. They taste like seawater. A hand finds my throat, wraps fingers around me to stem the blood.

"There's an echo," someone says. I turn around, drop my hand to the tile, feel the granite light up with heat. "Echo. Echo."

Water is in the grout, turning it a rotted brown, a disgusting green and gray. I scream. I groan. My cough is blood-spotted and watery, staining silver where it splashes. The hand yanks my head back.

"Echo," I say back.

"That's good," Kane says.

His chest is on my spine, hips up against me, one hand around my throat and the other on top of my own. He's punching breath and bloody water out of me. The heat isn't in the tile but in my chest. I keel, groan, moan, sputter in the rising dirty sea around us. My lungs leak blood into my stomach.

"It hurts," I gasp.

"Do something about it," Kane says. He digs his nail into my throat. "Go on."

"Stop."

"Stop?"

"Stop."

"Hey," he says. "There's an—"

I'm at sea. The sea is pigment, uncured resin, thick and unswimmable. I watch it. I sigh. I raise my hands over my head, feel hands slide over my shoulders and drag me under.

"Yun," Elias says, speaking through the sea's viscous waters. "Open your eyes."

I do. His eyes are circles of flat black, simple as two twin dots. I try to swim. I cannot swim.

"Yun," Elias says. "Yun. Please. Please, I cannot see. You can see. Can you see me?"

"No," I lie. "I can't help you."

"I can't see." He reaches up, tears off the black dot. A gaping socket, void of an eye, stares back at me. "I can't see and you don't even care. You don't even fucking care. Hey. Can you give a fuck? Banhyang. Nun. Neoui ssangdungi." Elias laughs. Laughs and laughs. "Banhyang?"

"Stop," I tell him, holding my palms over my eyes. "Stop. Stop. Stop."

"Listen to your older brother," Elias screams. "Hey. Banhyang. Why don't you ever listen?"

I reach out. I rip out the last black dot. There is the same green, blue, silver eye, the same gaping stare, the same—

Kane licks a stripe from my hip to my stomach. I say, "Don't talk while you fuck."

Kane pushes fangs into the spot above my liver. I cry blood-filled droplets. He wipes his mouth where acid-bubbling beryllium leaks out from his tongue. He licks his lips. He looks as he always has.

"I didn't say anything," he tells me. "You're hearing things. You're seeing things."

"Stop," I plead. "Stop, stop, stop."

"Maybe it's an echo," he tells me. He pushes his thumb into the wound. Acid spills out through the puncture wounds, soaking the tile and the skin of his hand. I watch it burn the flesh right off. "You're so fucking paranoid."

"Do you love anything?" I say.

"Why ask?" he snaps, and reaches right into me with cruel fingers, scrapes the acid off my insides. I think I'm screaming. I think Elias is screaming. I wouldn't know the difference. I wouldn't know if it was me or an echo. "You wouldn't know if I was lying."

He kisses me. He tears my lip off. He's a black hound, a white wolf, a hungry crow. I tear my fingernails off and reach into the grout, lift up the tiles one by one trying to get away. Eyes sit under. Blinking, waiting, watching. Eyes and eyes and eyes and eyes.

I push my hand into them. I sink through like reaching into molten iron. I take a breath.

"Are you afraid of me?" Kane whispers. A hotel bed is under my bare skin, cotton and down, blue as three AM. He lifts my leg, mouths at the skin of my thigh, smiles with blood on his lips. "Good, just like that. You're good, you feel so good. Breathe. It feels better when you breathe."

"Stop," I say into the ruined grout, all the eyes exposed from under the tile, staring at me with a wicked gaze, a terrifying knowing in their irises. Everything is slick with seawater and blood. "Stopstopstop."

"Stop stopping." Kane grabs my wrists, plunges them through the eyes, my body halfway into the abyss of their stares.

I look up. Elias smiles right back down at me. He holds my chin, brushes thumbs under my eyes, presses his forehead to mine.

"Do you know the key game?" he asks. "Okay, I can play the key game."

I open my mouth to yell.

But a hand wraps around my throat and drags me through the eyes before I ever have the chance.

I feel the teeth of a key slice through my trachea, the snap of bone, and the last—

____________________

We were to leave on a Friday.

I had wasted little breath upon waking up and finding Kane still beside me.

He frowned, blinked in the seven AM light. He pushed dregs of black hair from his face. Kane wrapped his arms around my waist and said, "Nightmare?"

I shook my head. "No," I lied. "Just a weird dream."

He hummed. He said, "Was I there?"

I felt my stomach coil at that, a wave of nausea hit me from the beryllium scar upwards. I shook my head. "No," I said. "I don't remember it."

Kane seemed to hear the fear in those words. He was quiet for a long, long time, the sun breaching the windows' barriers, breaking in like an unsolicited guest, an unwarranted intruder.

He said, "Want to help me make breakfast?"

I closed my eyes. I felt the timer tick above my head, the digits dwindling, the seconds breaking into fragments. The final hour of the match was beginning.

I said, "Yes."

_____________________

"Terrible habit. You kids learn such terrible habits these days just for the sake of looks."

I looked up. Li bumbled down from the steps, pulling off her visor and tossing it elsewhere into the storage boxes that had arrived with fresh non-fresh foods, preservatives wafting up from their plastic packaging.

I dropped the cigarette and ground it out beneath my sneaker. "Sorry."

"Why? You already did it," she scoffed. "If you were really sorry about it, you would look me in the eye."

I shrugged at that. I crouched down to hug my knees, blowing out the smoke of nicotine and of the chilly February that surrounded the Splinter. Li sat down beside me, sighing to herself as she did so. I was seventeen at the time, bitter at the edges, fearful at the sweet center. My hands were scratched by scalpels, shrapnel, the school's race track.

Li said, "Look at those hands! Where are you going before and after shifts, huh?" Li scoffed, taking my hand to bring up to her face. The flowers on her wrists and knuckles pulsed, shifted, lit up with a faint, candle-like glow. "You are racing too much."

"No such thing, ma'am," I told her, pulling my hands back to my chest. "Not enough. I'm a sub, anyway."

Li waved me off. "I bet you do that on purpose. Just to cut hours."

"You're smart, Li."

"You are predictable," she said. "And stupid."

"Yeah," I agreed.

"Yun." She clicked her tongue. "You hurt yourself too well."

I frowned at her. Li flicked her wrists and withdrew a pack of menthols from my back pocket, taking one for herself to light with the tip of her finger and a crackle in the air. She didn't raise it to her mouth, but rather held it suspended in the air, hovering over her palm.

"I'm all right, Li," I assured. "I only get myself into necessary trouble."

"I doubt that," she said. "You come here, all those bruises, that terrible smell." She waved a hand over her nose. "Like death. You're too young to smell so dead."

"Thank you?"

"Ya, listen here," she commanded. "I may be old as dirt—"

"That old?"

"—but I've got plenty of smarts you don't, and I know you're doing things you shouldn't," she said, jabbing her finger at me. "Geunde, I know you got to."

"Where's this going?"

"I say do what you have to," she said, and took the cigarette into her mouth. "But don't be what you have to do. Kids? Ah, you live too short of time to know better! Still, you should know." She let the cigarette glide over towards me. I plucked it from the electrified air. "Do what you have to, Echo. Then come back home, and be Echo again."

Li must have been old as dirt, as time, must have seen a thousand years behind and beyond us, must have lived a thousand lives other than the one she lived now, to have known me inside and out so quickly, with such ease. To have relayed my greatest fear, my most coveted dream, back to me over nothing but a cold night and a cigarette.

Come back home.

Was that where Echo was? Waiting at home?

"Why are you telling me this?" I asked.

Li shrugged. "Don't know," she muttered, then in soft Korean, "You looked like you needed a little light."

Home, I thought to myself.

In a kinder world, I'd live to see the day I found it, with Echo waiting patiently for me on the steps.

I took a drag of the cigarette. I said, "Thank you."

Li smiled sadly at me.

"Don't thank me," she murmured.

____________________

"I cannot pack all this."

I gestured at Kane's "gifts" that he'd accrued behind my back throughout the weeks we'd been in Korea, ranging from clothes to trinkets to snacks and onward. Kane frowned. "Sunhee bought you a suitcase."

"She what?"

"She took one look at your duffel," Kane explained. "It's downstairs."

I sighed. "You're kidding."

He shrugged. "It'll be nice to take some stuff back."

"How big do you think my closet is?"

Kane ruffled my hair. "Big enough. Come on, grab them."

I had readily avoided any and all unsafe topics since the morning before, and so far, it had fared well for me considering Kane didn't seem very keen on talking about anything in that realm either. Red Diamond was an incoming comet in our atmosphere, growing closer and realer by the minute. We had yet to hear from Coach about what our first match would entail, but it didn't take a genius to know that with Kane sick, it'd be a shitstorm either way.

Still, for now, I focused on closing up the boxes and stuffing them into my duffel as if they'd fit.

"Hey."

I looked over. Kane closed the door behind him, a turquoise box in his hand. He slid it across the bed towards me.

"Yakgwa," he said. "Take it."

I blinked. I said, "You got all this?"

He shrugged. "You wanted it."

My heart was a bruise, a sore bite. To want. To have.

I placed the box inside my duffel, and zipped the bag closed.

Sunhee pushed the suitcase towards me. A pitch black, leather thing, with Kitty White stamped right on the corner in sewn thread.

"Where?" was all I could ask.

Sunhee waved me off. "I know my sources." She gathered up the last of the clothes and goods. "Here. I'll help you pack."

Miss Wang hadn't returned from her business leave and likely wouldn't until the coming months. Nami and Gao hustled back and forth in an attempt to get everything in place for our afternoon flight. Korea burned in a slow flame, the first day of September blowing out the embers with a gust.

Sunhee zipped the bag closed with a huff and patted the top. "All right. This should be good to go. Do you want to take anything else?"

I didn't answer, mostly because I didn't know how. I sat beside the suitcase, a bit confused on what to do with it. I'd never had a suitcase. I'd never owned enough to need one.

Sunhee must have seen some sort of look in my eyes because she sat beside me a second later. Her brown eyes were a kind of earnestness. She said, "Isn't it unique?"

I glanced at her. "Why?"

Sunhee blinked, seemingly caught off-guard by the question. After a beat, she laughed, and shrugged. "Why not?" she returned. "You needed one anyway. Trying to travel for three weeks with that tiny duffle. Psh! Amateur!" She patted my head. "Call it a gift, yeah?"

I just stared. I got to my feet and helped her pack up all of the things, one by one, until the suitcase could barely close. Sunhee sat atop it as I wrenched the zipper around, laughing merrily to herself.

"Echo," she told me, then in English, "You crack me up."

I patted the suitcase's top. "Right back at you, noona."

Her laugh added years to my lifespan.

Nami knocked on the doorframe, clearing her throat. She said, "We should begin to get going and packing up, Miss Wang."

"Nami, you're no fun, you didn't even compliment the suitcase!"

Nami gave her a knowing look and turned on her heel. "We will start loading the car."

Sunhee waved her off as she went. She bent down towards me. "Nami favors Kane, you know. She wants you two to leave quickly before she gets sad."

I smiled. "Better get going."

Sunhee only allowed me a few milliseconds of walking away before she was wrenching me into her, the hug fierce and fervent and full of an urgent warmth.

"Remember, Echo," she said. "You are always welcome back here, no matter what. Tell me you understand."

I hesitated. Then, wound my arms tightly around her. "I understand."

Sunhee eased at that. She pinched my nose and spun on her heel, brushing herself off. "Come on. Let's grab your captain."

September bloomed in golds and greens, surrounding us in a wave of salt and cool winds. I breathed it in deep.

Maybe a part of me feared I wouldn't be getting it again.

Nami was the last person to say goodbye.

I readied our carry-ons and turned my head towards the gate, the stewardesses ushering people inside to board. Kane beckoned for me to follow.

"Mister Echo."

I glanced behind me.

Nami stood with her hands behind her back, not in any particularly innocuous stance. Still, her face was serious. She said, quietly so no one but us could hear, "I do expect you to be with us next year."

I raised a brow. "Nami. You sound like you'll miss me."

Nami huffed at that. "It seems more like Miss Wang will miss you," she said, glancing behind her at a particularly teary-eyed Sunhee. "It will be good for Mister Wang if you return, anyhow."

"Oh?"

Nami didn't elaborate. "We will see you next year, Mister Echo."

I wanted badly to believe her, to tell her I would see her again, I would see all of them again. That I could guarantee it so well, you could bet on it.

But I couldn't.

"Thank you," I tried, glancing at her, then Sunhee. "Thank you, for everything."

They only smiled.

I waved them goodbye for good.

When I sat beside Kane on the plane, Korea now reduced to nothing but a picture in a window and an ironclad airport. My heart was a ring-laden fist, a sandbag, a hammer to my ribs.

Kane said, "Did you have fun?"

I turned to him. I said, "Yes."

Kane took my hand in his, fingers slotting together. Sorrow was a bottomless pit in my stomach. Greed was deeper.

"Thank you," I said. "For taking me."

Kane stared at me for a long, long moment.

He pressed his lips to my knuckles. "Thank you," he said. "For coming with."

Neither of us dared to ask if there would be a next time.

Time ticked.

Ticked.

Ticked.

___________________

12:03 PM - Unknown Number

look who's back! and all the way from korea itself! you know, you could have let me know you were taking a trip back to the motherland. u have to send pics!

or show me them in person, i need a visit from you ghostie!

it's been too long

don't you think?

__________________

The world was asleep when Kane and I returned.

It was two AM in Los Angeles, rendering Corvus sound asleep and the city's life dim with exhaustion. Neither of us were keen on unpacking, shoving the bags into Kane's room without much care and stripping off our airport clothes to slide into clean cotton shirts and shorts. September was defenseless against California's final uppercut of summer, a sucker punch that knocked out the supposed-autumn September was allegedly supposed to bring. Boom. Pow! K.O.

Kane flopped down onto the bed, sighing. He turned into the pillow, but opened the blankets for me to come inside. When I didn't, he cracked open an eye and said, "Ya. You blind?"

"Partially," I quipped, and he gave me an unamused look. I tugged at the collar of my shirt. "I'm gonna sleep in my room tonight. Too hot to sleep with someone."

Kane frowned, but closed the blankets and turned onto his side. "All right," he murmured. "Don't be late to practice tomorrow, though. We get up at eight."

I clenched my fingers around my phone. "I promise," I said. "Get some rest."

He hummed. He waved me goodbye, and I took that as my leave, heading straight for the door connecting to my room. I checked the time.

Everything up to it. It was my fault. I had to try.

"Eight AM," I muttered to myself, as I closed the door, as I shoved the Janchi phone under the mattress and took the flip phone instead, as I unearthed the gun and boots from under my mattress. "Just make it to eight."

The flip phone rang alive. I checked the screen, cursed at the message. Ghostsearch. I.GHOST. Ghost this and ghost that. A ghost talking to a ghost talking to a ghost.

You are not no one.

The world was asleep.

But I had never really been a part of the world anyway.

I turned my back to Corvus, and headed downstairs for the Bengals.

JJ stood against a Drachmann motorcycle. He pulled down his mask at my appearance, and cocked a brow at me. He said, "Hey, kid. You're fucked."

I shoved the gun into my jacket's inside pocket.

"Don't have to tell me twice," I promised. "Where are the bodies?"

JJ tapped the bike, a pitch black beast with ironclad jaws and talons for the road. With it, Korea fled like a madman, taking all its treasures with it, the sweetness of summer fading like melting honey.

I sighed. "Fuck me."

August left me in the dust, with September's jaws wide open for devouring.

No one ever knew where the Blue Rooms were, you just knew if you were unlucky enough to be in one.

I'd never been able to figure out exactly where the Bengals' central location was, as I either worked in their hideouts, or if I was needed in a Blue Room, given a blindfold with a hazy dust for sake of discretion. I didn't know its exact contents, I just knew that whatever it was, it unregulated you enough to leave you with a shitty headache, shittier coordination, and a blue glaze over your vision for a few minutes thereafter. Context, I suppose.

I rubbed at my temples. I reached blindly for something, anything, around me to hold onto. I found something like a cart and pushed myself to my feet, wobbling on my weak knees. The fluorescent light was a hazy, white beam from above, glowering down at the steel table below, at my unsteady and blue vision. The air reeked of iron. Stank with antiseptic. Pungent with death.

It was terribly familiar.

I pushed my hair from my eyes. JJ and D stood at the double-locked steel door, a cigarette halfway to demise being passed between them. I thumped on my chest to get the breath back into my lungs.

"Get this over with," I wheezed.

JJ hummed at that. He said, "You gotta talk to Mercy first. She'll tell you the order."

"Where is she then?"

"I think winning has made you more impatient." JJ turned on his heel, undoing the locks and bolt with his back to me. I briefly considered taking a scalpel right to the vertebral discs in his spine. "She also said something about needing to talk to you."

I sighed. "Great."

The door opened.

Mercy stood smiling, clad in blazing, emerald green from head to toe, her skirt skin-tight and her heels sky-high. Her dark fingers glazed across her hair, trailing green in its wake, before disappearing back to a lifeless black. She headed right for me, murder in between her razor-sharp teeth.

"Ghost," she said. "Welcome back."

I said, "Where are the bodies?"

"Oh, so eager!" she exclaimed. "What for? They're dead. Where are they going?"

"I'm here for the bodies, and then I'm leaving," I said. "So where are they?"

Mercy wagged her finger mockingly at me. "No, no. Not so fast. We haven't even chatted. Didn't you miss me?"

"Not one bit," I snapped.

Mercy's smile was ice. "You know, Ghostie, me taking you in is a privilege," she sang. "No one told me to take that chance on you, to make that choice. I'm just a sweetheart! A sucker for the youth." She patted my head. "So why you went and plopped yourself right into the heart of the very place that could end your life with a blink of the eye, I'll never know."

"I didn't go to Seoul."

Mercy sank her fingers into my hair and yanked hard. My head snapped back, right into the steel table, the thud making my ears and temples ring like bells. Mercy laughed to the aching melody.

"Am I a fool? A foil foiled by your clever plan? Hey. Ghost." She tightened her grip and I sank my nails into her wrist, wriggling in her grasp. She didn't wince, not even when I drew blood. Her pitch black eyes swallowed me into nothingness. "I know every step your stupid feet prod. Do you think going overseas gives you any protection? Do you think going to Korea will give you any protection? Am I deaf? Blind? Dumb? A vegetable, perhaps. Are you?"

"I didn't lie," I gritted.

"A lie of omission, then. A lie is a lie is a lie." Mercy sank her nail into my brow, and I groaned when the skin split, blood trickling over my eye. "I thought you were trying to live. Now, it seems you're actively recruiting Death to your front door. Is this a joke to you? Start laughing, hon."

"Nothing happened," I hissed. "No one recognized me."

Mercy lifted my head and slammed it right back onto the table. I cried out when the edge of the steel table struck the back of my neck, the skin tearing on impact. My vision blinked in and out. I tasted metal where I'd bit down on my lip.

"You are an insult to common sense if you think I care about keeping your head," she hissed, smile extinct. "You take care of your own head, Ghostie. You're all grown up! But putting our hands down for you is not in the deal."

"No one saw me," I breathed.

"You're an idiot," she snarled. "I should have cut your tongue out when your father shipped you off to die."

"You lost the chance to kill me," I snapped. "Reap the fucking consequences."

She slammed her fist into my chin. I went tumbling down onto the concrete. The world was a prismatic emptiness.

"What did I tell you about that word?" Mercy yanked my chin towards her. "You're right, Ghostie. I made my choice. I reap what I sow." She dropped my head. "And so will you." The click of her heels echoed away from me. "You have had your fun, I hope! Time is ticking fast, after all." Mercy glanced at me from the doorway, a wicked glare in her eyes. "It'd be quite a shame to slip up now in the final countdown, don't you think?"

She disappeared around the corner, blood dripping from my mouth. I hauled myself to my feet. The world spun and spun and spun.

JJ said, "I'll bring the first one in."

It took everything in my power not to scream to high Hell.

When he laid the corpse out in front of me, I tried to imagine cutting through Korea's coastal waters, the white waves, the singing breeze. I tried to smell sea salt and fresh odeng, not the decayed flesh or pungent blood. I tried and tried and tried.

I wiped a blood stain from my cheek. D said, "Did you at least have fun?"

I let the red scalpel clatter onto the tray. I watched him seal up the heart and lungs, the light catching the dead veins, the useless arteries.

Honey sat on my tongue as I said, "Yes."

I. Own. You.

I cut open the second body from chest to groin, and bid Busan a permanent goodbye.

I pushed open Kane's door. Moonlight was pale and ashen on the floor. I walked like a broken shadow. My body ached from Mercy's blows, my vision still hazy and temples pulsating with the aftermath. If guilt was a black hole, I was halfway through spaghettification.

Still, I walked.

I made it all of a step over the threshold before Kane said, voice still laden with sleep, "Echo?"

I stiffened to a stop. I glanced at the bed.

Kane was halfway to sitting up, squinting in my general direction. He frowned, rubbed at his eye. "Wae geurae?" he murmured, and my chest nearly collapsed in on itself. "Agmong?'"

Nightmare. A hundred. A thousand. All real. None to wake up from. Only ones to live through.

I swallowed, and said in a shallow voice, "Can I sleep with you tonight?"

Kane stared at me for a few moments, seemingly deciphering why. When he drew something up, he scooted to the side and opened the blankets. "Get in," he said.

Relief was an anvil in my stomach. I had changed my clothes, had scrubbed my skin raw, but the scent of iron couldn't leave my nose. I wondered if he could smell the corpses under my fingernails, the guilt wafting up from my skeleton where it had embedded itself for years.

Kane pushed the hair from my face, then paused. His thumb found my brow, where a bandage had been hastily placed. He pulled away to look at me, eyes wide open now. He brushed his fingers over my bruised cheek, the cut against the line of my mouth. "Museun ilyiya?" he breathed. I wanted to tell him to stop the Korean. To never speak it again. To forget it all and Korea itself. "Echo." He said it like eko.

I shook my head. "Forget it."

"Where were you?"

I shook my head again. I lifted my hands, cupped his jaw, pulled his face towards mine to kiss him like that'd do anything for me but make my whole chest ache. When he didn't kiss me back, I kissed him harder, felt the pressure of his teeth. His lips parted, probably just to ask, but I didn't let him.

Kane held my chin and pulled away. "Echo."

I said, "Can we not talk?"

"Why?"

"Can't."

"Can't talk?"

"Not to you." I closed my eyes. "I'm sorry."

"Echo."

"I'm sorry."

"Just stop." He stared at me, standing somewhere between confusion and sadness. "What's wrong?"

I wanted so badly to confess every last secret and lie I'd holed up in my chest, to spill it out, to let him hate me and walk away. I wanted it to end. I wanted it all to end, at the very same time that I wanted to hold on tighter than I ever had before.

"I just missed you," I whispered.

Kane stared at me for a long, long moment. My eyes felt hot, my lungs hotter, like Hell had made its way into my organs. Maybe it had. Maybe I was already there.

Finally, Kane let out a sigh. His face looked conflicted, somewhere between frustration and remorse. "Why?" he murmured, cruelly soft. "I'm right here."

I reap what I sow.

And so will you.

______________

Weeks apart left Corvus itching for conversation. Per my character, I had to ruin it.

"French jail, have you ever been in French jail?" Zahir rehashed. "I don't even know how we got to France. I thought we were meeting Zoe and Rosie. It was a fever dream. I swear it. French jail has free croissants. What the hell, man."

"It was amazing," Diego said through a mouthful of oatmeal. "It was worth stealing that mime's hat."

"That was a school boy," Zoe said. "He was crying."

Diego paused. "Why'd he have that makeup on?"

"He was British. He was just pale."

Diego swiveled his head to Zahir. "I thought it was weird the mime was making noise."

"I can't take you anywhere," Zahir deduced. "I can't let you take me anywhere. You can't go anywhere. You can't go. I'm putting an ankle monitor on you."

Diego waggled his eyebrows. "Trying to chain me up, corazón?"

"Please. Spare me." Rosalie held up her hands between the two. She scooped a spoonful of brown sugar onto her bowl of oats. "You think it's funny until you're the one bribing a French police officer with Duolingo French and stale croissants."

"Oh, those were yours."

Zoe smiled at the rest of Corvus. "So, yes. A very fun trip."

Kenzo said, "Clearly."

"Yeah," Wynter muttered. "Clearly." She took a sip of her coffee and turned around at my approach. "All right, Yun, regale us with the wonders of—what the fuck happened to your face?"

Corvus all looked towards me at that—thank you, Wynter. I stared back like a raccoon caught red-handed. I cleared my throat.

"This," I said, "looks a lot worse than it is."

Kenzo took a bite of his oatmeal, nonchalant. He said, "Your lip is bleeding."

"Thanks, man," I deadpanned. "I got that."

Wynter slammed her coffee on the counter. "Team meeting," she said. "Team meeting right now."

"Echo," Meredith breathed, rushing over towards me. "Echo, what happened?"

"Nothing," I promised. I headed for the fridge to grab an orange. "I slipped."

"Bullshit," Diego said. "Onto whose fist?"

"I just slipped," I sighed. "How were your vacations?"

"You've gotta be kidding." Zahir looked me up and down, frowning at my face. "Come on, man. Who was it?"

"No one," I promised. "I slipped."

"Yun." Rosalie snagged my shoulder. "You either tell us who this is, or I swear to God—"

"Then swear," I sighed. I slid out of her grasp and headed for my room. I picked at the peel of the orange, saw the dried red blood that got stuck from under my fingernail. I grimaced, my stomach churning. "Don't worry about me."

"This isn't just about you," Rosalie tried. "This is about the team, too."

"It's not."

"It is, too. Tell us who did that to you."

"It's not like that."

"Then what's it like?"

"This has nothing to do with you. It won't, I promise."

"That's not what we're saying," Diego said.

"It doesn't involve you."

"No," a new voice said. "It doesn't."

Kane's door closed behind him. A black scar had made its way up towards his ear. He faced Corvus, shadows clinging beneath his eyes. A certain exhaustion dripped from him that had never appeared before. When I looked at his eyes, a thin, liquidated silver sheen had made its way over his scleras, and was slowly creeping into his irises. I took a step back.

Rosalie clenched her jaw. "You can't seriously think about letting this go."

Kane walked past me without regard. "If he doesn't want us to do anything about it, we won't."

"King." Diego gaped at him. "Say 'sike', man."

Zoe and Wynter glanced at each other. "But," Zoe said cautiously, "if this is in light of what happened recently, then we should talk to Coach."

"And what?" Kenzo muttered. "She's a coach, not the president."

"Not helping," Wynter snapped.

"King," Diego urged. "You, of all people, can't be serious about letting this go."

The kitchen went deathly quiet. Meredith elbowed Diego hard. He winced, either at his words or her jab. He cleared his throat.

"Ah, I just meant—since you're the leader, since...you—"

"Since I've got experience in getting beat?" Kane snapped, and all of Corvus flinched, along with me.

Kenzo frowned at him, half-disappointed and half-curious. Kane grabbed an apple. He snagged a knife from the block and tapped his rings on the counter until he found the cutting board.

"I'm sorry," Diego tried.

Kane ignored him. "It's what he wants," he said curtly. He said, likely to me, "See Ramos. Just don't be late to practice. We leave tomorrow at seven AM." He glanced about at Corvus. "First Red is in Washington."

"King," Meredith tried.

I had an urge to touch my lips, feel the warmth there that had lingered from the night before. But it all just tasted like regret. Like a reaping of what I'd sown.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Don't be," Kane muttered.

"You're angry," I said, switching to Korean.

Diego slumped. "Damn it. Are they talking shit about me?"

"I would," Rosalie muttered, eyeing him.

"I'm frustrated," Kane replied, looking down at me. "Which isn't the same thing."

I glanced towards my door. "Then can we talk?"

Kane chewed his lip. "No," he muttered. "I'll say something I'll regret."

I glanced at Kenzo, who, although looked disinterested in what we were saying, I knew could understand it nonetheless. Still, I'd lost enough of my cards that I no longer cared for what Kenzo had left to dig up on me.

The worst thing that could happen to me is someone like you.

"I'm sorry about last night," I tried. "I shouldn't have come in."

"That's not what I'm talking about," Kane said. He rubbed at his eyes, like just talking made him tired. Korea was eons from me. Light years. Millenia. "If I didn't want you there, I would've told you so."

"It's not what you think happened."

"Stop," Kane snapped, and even if Corvus didn't know what he'd said, they certainly seemed interested in how he said it. Kane's eyes on me were raw at the edges, pained at the center. "I get it, and I won't ask, and I won't make you talk, but just stop saying apologies for things you won't change." He sighed, rubbing at his temples. "You told me to pick whether I trusted you or not, but you need to pick whether you want to be honest or not. And if you don't, then you have to stop acting like you will be."

"Kane—"

"Let's not talk."

"Please," I tried, and my voice was more jagged than I wanted.

Kane must have heard some sort of plea in my voice, because he set the knife down and leaned over the counter to stare me down. "I trust you with secrets," Kane said, expression dark. "But, I don't trust your secrets. That is where I am. That is where I can be. And I don't want you to pretend like I could be somewhere else." He shook his head. "Let me meet you halfway."

It was curt, a plain confession, but hefty like a loaded gun. A stark, white-lined reminder that for all the walls I'd broken between Kane and I, there would always be some that I could never be rid of. There would always be a consequence, and never a reason why.

I reap what I sow.

And so will you.

A king beside a ghost. It was worse than a joke. It was an utter mockery.

I searched for something, anything, that closed such a distance.

"You'll be the first I tell," I promised. "You'll be the first I tell everything to."

Neither of us dared acknowledge the fragility of that oath.

But I'd made many bets in my lifetime before, made more deals, made many more secrets.

Maybe a promise wasn't a bad way to go out.

(ty for reading. this chapter is very short, and very all over the place, i wrote this in, like, 10 different headspaces and ended up rearranging like half the next chapters bc of how lost i got in writing it, so if it sounds very off-beat at some places, please have mercy D: i promise next chapter has a better focus! ty for 4k reads, you all make my heart fond, i am eternally grateful for u being here, and so is the little star above! )