On the *cough* tenth day of Christmas
my true love sent to me
ten nine more important thoughts
[Title] Shrapnel
[Fandom] Battle Royale
[Rating] PG
[Notes/Summary] Refugees from the Greater East Asian Republic have generally been through some tough times. With the Program, though, it's different.
[Link] "Everyone seems to think Shuuya and Noriko have been to hell and back."
[Title] Axioms
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] Matsuda knows what's true and what isn't. At first, anyway.
[Link] "It's easy at first."
[Title] Professional Murder Music
[Fandom] Jet Set Radio
[Rating] R for violence/torture (not graphic) and language.
[Notes/Summary] Coin survives the Rokkaku Corporation's attempt to take over the world, but that doesn't mean everything's easy.
(Me: it's 2021, I shall write my long-form JSR angst fic like it's 2000 and no one can stop me.)
White Noise
They’ve laid off him for now. They’ve thrown him into a pitch-black room that’s almost certainly a cell (he couldn’t really see where they were going, he was half-blacking out) and, okay, things are still seriously bad, but at least they’re not shaking him down for information right this second?
Use the seconds, collect your thoughts. Because things are seriously bad and they aren’t going to get much better, unless he suddenly turns into an escape artist, and he’s only good at getting out of tricky situations when he’s got his skates on and he’s outside. Being locked up in a room with what sounded like a seriously heavy door - kind of not much you can do about that. Not much you can do about a bunch of sharp-suited gangsters (or… whatever the fuck these guys are) who’ve decided you know something they want to hear about, either. Things are seriously fucking screwed -
Use the seconds. Pick out the thoughts like it’s sounds. Bass, treble. Normally you’d tell yourself to sit up and you’d start counting stuff off on your fingers but he’s not sure either of those things are possible right now. They went for his hands early on, if he thinks about it he starts freaking out, so don’t think about it. That’s just white noise, pick out what’s important -
What’s important is what’s always been important. Cube and Combo. Whatever happens - and whatever happens is not going to be good - these guys can’t get their hands on his friends. Hands again. Don’t think about it. He’s hoping like hell that seeing as he’s the one under lock and key, the one with the record collection, the gangsters-or-whatever will figure he’s gotta know the most, they’ll figure Cube and Combo are clueless. And they’ll work out something bad went down, the wholesale music destruction all over the floor of the loft’ll tip them off, they’ll see his message, they’ll get out of there. All he’s got to do is remember that when he starts saying stuff just to say stuff, he can’t point the finger (well, that’ll be tricky now) at those two.
(The broken records all over the floor, thinking about that is weird because one minute it’s like, normally it’d be the worst day of my life just to see ‘em like that but hey, you know what, it’s actually been the least worst thing about today so far, and then the next minute is like, yeah, they bust ‘em up just like that, and they’re gonna follow suit with me. Cube used to joke about was he trying to build a fort out of records but… they were his, they were him, and now they’re busted, and so will he be. People who kidnap people and have the time and tech to go to town on ‘em properly will have the time and tech to dispose of a body after.)
White noise. White noise. Listen for the melody -
Okay. Cube and Combo are the priority. Then?
Thing is, if he’d just put that record back in its sleeve and left it in another junk shop, he’d probably have already spilled his guts about it. No harm, no foul, right? Okay, there were those weird rumours about it on the message boards, but there are weird rumours about everything on the web if you know where to look. But he… he got spooked. He got stupid. He heard some dangerous people were looking for the record, and instead of letting them have it, he gave it to a pal of his who worked in the Bantam Street deli, told him to get it out of the area. Why? the guy said. Coin told him, Call it a scavenger hunt. I don’t wanna make it easy. He thinks he sounded chill enough to be believed. Get it out of the area, post it on, keep it moving, he’d said. He points these bastards in his buddy’s direction, he’s signing a bunch of people up for a world of hurt.
Shit.
So far he’s been taking the I dunno where it is, man, it was with the others, you guys must’ve picked it up, or wrecked it, I swear, please god I swear line. Give it time, and he’ll start making shit up just to get them to stop. As long as it’s useless shit, as long as it’s not pointing them to anyone else, then - then maybe -
Maybe he can make them kill him out of sheer frustration before he actually gets them on the trail of anyone else?
As a life goal, it’s not great.
Kind of all he’s got now. Strip down the sounds and end up with a basic-as-hell chord progression.
Better than nothing.
Eldritch Opera
He must have fallen asleep.
It was hours and hours of stuff he’s trying not to think about. Hours and hours of spilling his guts about so many false trails he can barely remember what the original truth was. Time went fucking weird because he kept passing out, or falling asleep, and then he’d get woken up by bursts of static, blared in from somewhere, so loud it was like being in a rainstorm, and then they’d haul him out and start the questioning up again.
It was hours and hours of that and then, somewhere along the line, it stopped being that, it started being just darkness and silence. For ages he wasn’t with it enough to register that, he was passing in and out of consciousness, or he was working really hard not to think about how much bits of him hurt (in the dark it’s worse, like you start kidding yourself the pain is an actual thing in here with you, like some kind of facehugger octopus alien tangled around you) -
There was that, and then, eventually, there was starting to think maybe they’d found the record and they weren’t even going to bother shooting him, they were just going to leave him to starve to death.
May have gone a bit crazy after that thought first occurred to him. Just a bit.
It was only after the crazy had died down that someone dumped a tray in, a cup of water and what felt like some convenience store snacks, rice balls and stuff. Then everything flipped and he was so goddamn grateful to them, he was listening to himself crying and thanking them over and over, and they must’ve got what they wanted from him because if they’d come in and asked him questions and threatened to take the food away if he didn’t tell the truth, he’d have done it, no problem.
It was hours and days and god knows how long, a few more trays of food, and he must have fallen asleep, and finally, the door rattles open and two of them come and grab him and wrench him to his feet. Standing up feels weird. Okay, it also hurts like hell, like knives through his feet, but it feels like a skill he gave up years ago.
The light hurts and more than that, it’s like it fills his entire skull up, like something seeing through everything he ever said. He’s got his eyes shut for ages, not like he can do anything about where they’re dragging him to, wherever they’re dragging him to. At some point, it feels like they’re going up in an elevator - the floating, the creaks and hums around them - which is new, which suggests this isn’t going to be more questioning. Maybe they are just going to shoot him. Well. Could be worse.
When he’s finally able to open his eyes for more than a few seconds, they’re out of the elevator, they’re in some fancy skyscraper room, floor-to-ceiling windows, minimal furniture, like the kind of place where you’d have the climactic scene in a movie about corporate espionage. Which is probably what these guys do, right? Corporate espionage and murdering people. It’s night, there’s a city spread out below them, all gleaming and glittering. Maybe they’re going to chuck him out of one of the windows. He should probably be… like… gathering his thoughts for some good last words or whatever, but he’s too - he’s too tired, like he’s been worn down to a thread. That might make dying easier. And he’d be okay if it’s falling, just like screwing up on a tricky jump only you plummet into the city lights. You black out before you hit the ground, so it’d be okay, those’d be the last thing you see. Could be worse. Could be worse. That’s the most important thing, it could always be worse. Hey, even if they do just shoot him maybe they’ll let him face the view -
One of them says to the other, “Thirty seconds.”
“You think those kids will show?”
“They’ve managed to every time so far. Not sure how no one’s managed to take them out.”
“This should take care of them, then. Doubt we’ll even need this one as leverage… may as well hang on for now, I guess.”
Coin’s brain’s moving like… like… whatever the opposite of a mile a minute is, so it’s as though he has to translate what they’ve said into Chinese and back before he can understand it. When he does, he’s not sure it was worth the effort. Kids. Leverage. If it is, if it is - like, Cube and Combo knew about these guys, they could’ve made it here, maybe, but if they do, it sounds like something bad’s about to happen and - they were meant to be safe, and the worry about them is mixing up with the whole probably-about-to-die thing, doubt we’ll even need this one, as though it’s one of them here and soon to be shoved out of a window, and there’s nothing he can do -
This weird singing noise echoes down from the sky. Like opera, but… eldritch opera? He can feel the vibrations of the sound through the floor, which suggests maybe a massive sound system somewhere, but -
Whispering voices under the song and then a beat starts up, and he gets it. This is the record. The one that’s pretty much got him killed. Actually a decent tune, shame he never got to listen to it before all of this.
The building trembles, and he hears something high above them - like a jet engine, like a tiger in the clouds - roar. And the sky - the sky is boiling with weird inky clouds, a giant Rorschach test overlaid on some seriously trippy visuals -
Guess the weird rumours were true after all. Oh, well, at least this wasn’t all for some bullshit hoax.
On the other hand, it’d have been nicer if his attempts not to break under torture had actually stopped the bad guys getting the cursed artifact.
The roaring, and the singing, and - from high above, red-orange flickers, like the sky’s on fire - maybe it is, maybe hell is opening above them -
The guys with him don’t say anything, just watch, with the inkblots and the fiery light reflected in their aviator shades. Professionals. Whenever a roar echoes out you can feel it in your bones, but they don’t even flinch. They going to kill me before or after the… razing the city to the ground starts, or whatever this is about? God, it is a seriously bad day when you even have to ask that question.
Something explodes above them, only he feels it before he sees it, the building shudders for real this time and they all actually stagger, and then the sound, hits like a giant hand about to swat you away -
One of the guys taps his earpiece, he’s shouting, what was that, or maybe Coin’s filling that dialogue in, his ears are ringing too much to actually hear. He’s not sure he can stand up much longer, to be honest. Although maybe that’s the floor shaking. Which it’s doing quite a lot. And there are a whole lot of groans and creaks all around them which are… probably not good.
“No response! The boss’s comms are down -”
“Communications Centre said - it just - the damn thing just exploded right on top of us -”
“Get out of here - leave him -”
They’ve gone, which is good, because at least they’re not going to be smacking him around any more. What’s significantly less good is the entire room’s shaking and cracks are snaking their way across the windows. Looks like I was wrong about the shooting. Looks like it’s going to be death by falling skyscraper. Is that better? He’s laughing, kind of, or maybe crying, he doesn’t actually know what face you’re meant to put on when you’re facing your imminent death. Maybe… maybe get back from the window, though. Falling’d be okay, but getting cut to ribbons by that glass would -
He’s staggering, and then he’s crawling, he thinks he can smell smoke, that’s okay, can I black out soon? Don’t think I want to be here for this, the room is enormous, like he could crawl for miles and still just be in empty blue light. The noise is louder, it’s too loud for thinking. A glass door, stuck half-open, cracked, is there no way to get away from the glass in this place? He drags himself round it, outside there’s a stairwell, he can sit here and wait to fall -
Through the screams of the building, he hears -
He hears -
“Hang in there, just -”
“We’re not gonna make it -”
“Shut up and grind -”
Hang in there -
Something to hold onto, maybe. Just a thought.
He is definitely about to pass out, he is feeling as sick and tripped-out as the building is, but at least he isn’t going out alone.
Wind Chimes
Darkness, and through the darkness, lines of light, like your eyelids half-opening. Voices, but whispering gibberish, or another language, or nothing, he can’t pin down what any of them say. He waits for more of the eerie singing to start up but there’s just the dark and the whispering.
Darkness, and lines of light, and his eyes are opening, and not to more darkness, which is - which is good, the sun’s out, he’s in some room with kind of knocked-about-looking cream-coloured walls, but there’s a window and there’s sunlight and he can hear wind chimes or something and the hum of traffic and people and nothing that sounds like a portal to hell…
Some guy in a shirt and tie standing over him, “How are you feeling? Coin, they said your name was?” Coin doesn’t know if he nodded or not - he feels exhausted, like he’s run a marathon in a spacesuit or whatever - but the guy doesn’t seem surprised, he says, “You’re probably feeling pretty woozy. You were in rough shape, and you’re still on a lot of painkillers.”
Coin sort of stammers, “Good,” because, yeah, there was pain and now he thinks about it, he can’t feel any of it, which is fantastic, but also kind of worrying because he can barely feel much.
It’s worrying, but then he kind of dozes off again, maybe because it’s easier than stressing out. When he opens his eyes again, the sun’s darker gold, it’s shifted round the room. He raises his head - okay, good, he can do that, he’s not like completely paralysed or something (wasn’t he killed in a collapsing building?) - looks round the room. A bookshelf, a glass-fronted cabinet with what looks like the contents of a pharmacy inside it, and, sitting on a chair, leaning forward and twisting his hands together, is a kid who looks about his own age and has all the hallmarks - headphones round his neck, goggles, fingerless gloves, and, oh yeah, netrium-powered skates on his feet - of someone Coin would have more expected to see hanging out in the skate park in Bantam Street.
“Um, hey,” the kid says. “So the doc says we’ve got to be chill and let you rest, but I thought maybe someone should… explain what happened?” He smiles, kind of nervously. “Although, you were kind of at the centre of it, maybe you should explain to me.”
Coin’s all yeah, comparing stories, that sounds smart, and he opens his mouth - his throat is dry - and says, “So I had this record -”
He just says it and nothing changes, there’s still just the sun and the wind chimes, but under all of that there is those rooms and one of the men in suits leaning over him, try not lying to us, it’ll hurt less, there’s blood in his mouth and pain and -
He about manages to breathe, and not to throw up, and stammer, “Hey, you know… you know what, maybe you should go first.”
The kid is looking anxiously at him but he doesn’t actually say are you having a breakdown, he nods, and says, “Right, okay, so… so I’m Beat, and… this is Tokyo-to, and… the evil CEO of the Rokkaku Corporation tried to take over the world with a cursed record, which… we think you had your hands on at one point? And we stopped him but that sort of… destroyed a skyscraper, which we were on the roof of, and while we were trying to get off the roof, we spotted you almost passed out on the stairs and… Combo basically dumped his g-blaster and hoisted you onto his shoulder instead, which I guess shows the depth of your friendship. Don’t worry,” he adds, “Garam picked up the g-blaster, he said it was a whole no true companion left behind thing. It’s fine. Combo’s fine. And, um, Cube’s fine, I should’ve told you that first, I guess? Your friends are fine.”
Coin was going to be cool about all of this, just nod and be like sweet, but he sort of didn’t count on how hearing your friends are fine was going to make him feel. Like, he hadn’t realised how much he was carrying that thought around, that maybe they wouldn’t be fine (and maybe it would be his fault) and what it would feel like if they weren’t.
“Like… really?” he manages to say. It’s not being able to breathe again, but this time it’s because he’s almost too scared to ask the question. “You’re… you’re not lying to spare my feelings because I’m on a ton of painkillers here?”
“Nope,” Beat says, and the guy sure seems good at radiating sincerity and mild-mannered chill vibes, so Coin can almost believe him. “They’ve been here - this guy and his wife patch up rudies for a living, though I don’t know how they actually make their living seeing most of us are broke, it’s probably better not to ask - Cube and Combo’ve been here for like two days and I said they should go home for a bit because they looked like they might fall asleep on their skates. If the doc’s okay with it, I’ll go fetch them. He says he won’t let all of us - I mean, us GGs, that’s my gang, there are a lot of us and we can be kind of rowdy - in at once, but I reckon he’ll be cool with two of them. If he won’t let them in now, then soon as you’re well enough, I’ll drag them down here. I mean, I say drag, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop them.”
Turns out really strong painkillers are on the same level as thinking you’ve been left to starve to death when it comes to making you cry without meaning to.
Rain Rattle
“Want to tell me what happened to you?” the doctor says, pulling up a chair. “I mean, I think I’ve deduced a fair amount from the nature of your injuries, but...”
The sun’s gone in, the windows are closed and Coin can hear the rattle of rain on them. It’s a weird sound of home - of any home, of his room as a kid, of hanging out reading magazines in the local store, of the loft in Bantam Street - like a slice of familiarity’s been blended into Japan. He still hasn’t quite got his head round being in Japan without remembering getting here. Probably doesn’t want to remember getting here. It was probably in the trunk of a black car with stolen license plates. (The rain doesn’t sound like static, it’s too soft for that, he has to keep reminding himself of this.)
This is distracting himself with pointless shit so he can pretend he didn’t hear the question. The doctor clears his throat, and Coin for sure doesn’t want to hear him say I know this must be hard for you, so he just blurts out, “I mean, no. No, actually.”
Isn’t like it isn’t hard to work out, anyway. He’s got both feet in plaster and on one of them it’s all the way up to his knee (he keeps remembering them doing that bit - some memories stick more than others, like pips in your teeth). Then his hands are strapped up and his fingernails are all black and blue and split. Doc’s already told him he thinks there’s a couple of broken ribs to contend with - the painkillers are keeping them at bay, mostly - and that’s not even getting into the guy who could, and did, shoot electricity from his fingers for some unknown reason.
“Like, I reckon you worked out the important bits,” he says.
The doctor sighs - “Okay, well, I’ve done my best. And you might as well rest up here and get over the shock - I can’t imagine your friends are living anywhere particularly fancy. But… you should know I’m no surgeon, I’ve always told the kids to go to hospital and worry about the repercussions later when it comes to anything that involves going under the knife… so I can’t promise your feet aren’t going to need a lot more work in the future. They went to town on them, huh?”
Coin would love to say something like, haha, yeah, imagining stubbing your toe, then turn that up to eleven, but he’s too busy having another extremely unpleasant flashback. When it passes, or maybe later, the doctor’s left him alone again and he’s staring at the ceiling, wondering why it is this feels more like the end of everything than literally thinking you’re about to be murdered does. Like, no way can he ever skate again, right? They even said that once or twice, as though he was stupid enough he couldn’t work it out. And, sure, okay, every skater, every rudie kind of knows sooner or later either they’ll get too old and creaky or they’ll bust themselves up too badly, but you figure that’s going to be years away. You don’t think you’ll have to be dealing with it right now. And most people, even if they do get unlucky, they don’t get this unlucky, right? Rudies break bones but mostly not all at once. He’s busted his wrist and his collarbone and a couple of fingers in the past, through falling off things, and it hurt and it was a pain to deal with for a few weeks but it wasn’t this, needing a twenty-four-seven nurse to function and feeling like you’re a collection of busted bones loosely held together with string.
Suppose all you can do is tell yourself things’ll get better, which should be a thought you can hang on to, but doesn’t seem like anything much. Or, be grateful to be alive, but that doesn’t mean much either.
Thrash Metal
The rain’s stopped by the time the doctor’s wife (who looks way too much like a housewife in a bootlegged Asian drama series to be nursing delinquents and probably smuggling drugs on the side) comes in and tells him his friends are here, if he feels up to seeing them. Time still isn’t quite lining up right, but that’s probably good, because as soon as she says it, he feels like he isn’t ready, he should be better (somehow? In some way?) before he sees them, they’re going to, to laugh at him or be mad with him or, or…
No fucking way is he going to send them away, of course, he’s still only ninety per cent sure they aren’t dead, so he nods and says it’s fine and tries to sit up a little and look like hey, welcome to my pad, just ignore the busted fingers and the medical cabinet.
The door slides open again and they’re standing there. Both of them do look exhausted, Beat was right. They stare at each other and then Cube grins shakily and says, “Um, hi?” and he smiles back at her and tries to pretend he doesn’t want to cry at seeing them.
“Are we allowed to hug you?” Cube says, as they creep into the room. “Like… you look better than - than you did, but you still don’t look great.”
Coin isn’t sure if they are allowed to hug him. The busted ribs sometimes make themselves felt, under all the drugs, but maybe he’s just kind of scared he might really lose it and end up sobbing in their arms. So he just says, “Right, I hear you lot found me and literally carried me out of a collapsing building. I mean… that was pretty awesome, just so you know.”
Cube snorts, and if she’s kind of sniffling they can both ignore it. “Damn straight it was.” She comes to sit on the bed, mock-punches his leg under the covers. “Combo gets bragging rights for eternity.”
“Maybe when I stop pinching myself it actually worked,” Combo says, taking the chair by the bed. “Thought you might be dead already, or we might just not make it out before it came down on our heads.”
“Well, I keep pinching myself you two aren’t dead, so… hurray for living in the good timeline? I… would high-five you, but, about that...” He lifts up his hands. Get it over with. Then he thinks maybe that looks like he’s asking for pity, and wants to kick himself.
Cube’s turned pale - she’s not wearing make-up except for a few smears of black round her eyes, which he suspects is leftovers - and Combo’s eyes have widened. After a bit, Cube says, “So you…” She swallows. “So you got pretty messed up.”
“So I did.” He’s almost glowering like, do not ask for details, do not, even though he’s the one who mentioned it in the first place, which makes it even more frustrating to feel like he’ll break something if they do ask. Cube takes the hint, though. She reaches over and puts a hand on his wrist instead, manages a smile: “Guess holding hands in a romantic walk under the cherry blossoms is out for the foreseeable, then.” He forces himself to smile back at her. “Seems so. As is moshing at a thrash metal concert, I think it’d turn me into paste.” She blinks back tears: “Oh, shut up, like… like you’d ever go to a thrash metal concert, you with your oh, it makes a good base, but on its own as a genre it’s like… it’s like...” Sniffing, she rubs a hand across her eyes. “Shit, I wasn’t going to do this.”
“I mean, you don’t cry easy.” He wishes he could say, s’okay, I’ve been crying for no reason for days, but it’s all stuck in his throat, in his chest, maybe caught on the broken ribs. “I’m taking it as a compliment.” Play the cool boyfriend who’s still able to crack a joke even with no working fingers.
Combo’s looking at him like he knows exactly what’s not being said, but he doesn’t call anyone out on it, just, “I was gonna leave you the g-blaster, but I figure the doctor might not like it. So Beat scrounged up a spare pair of ‘phones and a radio for you. We figured you must be missing some decent tunes.”
“And Jet Set Radio’s awesome,” Cube says. “Like, for real. Even if the DJ may be a wizard or something.”
Coin knows he should be happy about this - they’re right, the world being nothing but silence and lying in bed feeling like you got dropped off a cliff is no fun, music would make it better like nothing else would - but can they just not talk about - like I get it, it’s so freakin’ cool, knocks GRND Radio and all the stuff we used to listen to before out of the park, just like our cool new friends who are the best when I can’t even stand up -
The anger sparks up like a lit fuse and he has to take a deep breath to stop himself saying it all out loud. They’re both looking at him in bafflement and he’s baffled at himself, wasn’t this everything he dreamed of, getting to see them again? And it’s all fucked up suddenly, every other note wrong, setting his teeth on edge.
“Yeah,” he says at last. “Guess you’ll miss it when we’re back in Grind, huh?”
He didn’t even think about it, he just blurted it out like an idiot, like someone putting their foot in a hole.
They glance at each other, and Cube says, “So… about that.”
Coin finds himself staring at her with a too-cool-for-school, hit-me-with-the-revelation smile pasted on his face that he really wishes wasn’t there, before he swallows, and says, “You two want to stay put.”
“I mean… yeah, kind of,” Cube says, staring down at her hands, picking at her gloves. “Like… I miss Bantam Street, sure, but this place is really cool. While we’ve been fighting the corporate terrorists and hoping you were still alive, exploring it’s the only thing that kept me sane.”
Coin manages not to say, right, so it’s all my fucking fault, got it, it’s fine, everything is fine, whatever bullshit is going on in his head it’s not important. “Yeah? Combo, how ‘bout you?”
Combo doesn’t look away, at least. “The GGs… they’re good people, man. Like… sounds dumb and all, but I ain’t never had that many friends in one go, you know? Feelin’ like part of a gang...”
“Yeah.” Cube nods. “Like, don’t get me wrong, if we found you were back in Grind City, obviously we’d come back. Triple-C for life, you know that. But… you’re here, and we’re here, and… it feels right.”
Coin says, kind of sarcastic, “Well, for you,” because evidently maturity only gets you so far. The blood’s pounding in his ears. Thrash metal indeed.
“Okay, sure,” Cube says, frowning, “but you’ve literally only been in this room and a collapsing building, that’s hardly enough to make a judgement call.”
Which is true, and it isn’t like Coin didn’t think it’d be pretty cool to travel, isn’t like Japan wasn’t on the list, just…
Combo says, “Anyway, we ain’t… it’s as much we’re flat broke from getting here. We can’t get back, right now. ‘Less we got ourselves deported -”
“And I don’t want to draw law enforcement’s attention to us,” Cube says. “Specially not when everyone’s still asking what happened at Rokkaku HQ. We should keep our heads down. You should.”
“Don’t have much of a choice,” Coin says, and he’s trying to play it off like a joke, but not trying that hard, because he’s - because it -
I want to go home, I want to go home, I want none of this bullshit to have happened and I want to go home -
He thought that, said that a lot, when he was in the dark, when he was losing it, he’d kind of forgotten he did that until now. Could have done with not remembering it now, it’s like the dark is crawling up his spine.
“Look,” he manages to say, “I… I’m not feeling so… because I’m still wrecked, you know? Tires me out.”
Either he’s going to panic completely, or they’re going to get mad at each other and stuff will be said and if they decide to cut ties with him like they have with their old home, he will be so incredibly screwed -
Cube looks like he’s hit her - she must be tired, normally she’d give him a death glare at least - and it’s Combo who says, “Sure, man. Makes sense. Get some rest and we’ll come back. If you want us.”
“Course - course I do, dumbass,” he manages to say. Lies down again, tries to do an impression of someone tripped out on pain and painkillers rather than someone who’s sulking like a kid. He wants to say something as they reach out the door, but he figures it’d just be another sour note, so what’s the point?
Tokyo Top 40
More days. Sometimes waking up to the rattle of the rain, sometimes milky sunlight spilling across the floor. Turns out thinking you might be left to die in the darkness makes you appreciate the hell out of the glorious morning sky, you know? (There’s a lamp on the bedside table and the doctor must’ve noticed he keeps it on all night but doesn’t say anything. Maybe he figures it’s a sick-person thing? Like in hospitals they never turn the lights off, right?)
Turns out Jet Set Radio is actually pretty awesome, and sometimes he’ll kick back and listen to that for a good long while, but other times he finds himself sulking about it for no reason, so he tunes through the airwaves and settles on random j-pop or what sounds like songs for Japanese grandmothers. Even though it’s probably mainstream as hell, it’s a different mainstream and it’s good to have something to turn your brain off to. (He has to take the headphones off when he’s spinning the dial, hearing the static is… not good. Sometimes he tests it out, keeps them on, gently twists with his bruised fingers until he’s out of the Tokyo Top 40 and into no-man’s-land, but even knowing it’s coming he still finds himself feeling like his heart’s going to rip its way out of his chest.)
Cube and Combo come back, of course they do, and the three of them try to make conversation (make conversation like they’re strangers waiting for a bus, god) but it’s difficult when one of you has literally nothing to report but today I stayed in bed again and all the news the other two have is about their amazing new life. Coin’s genuinely trying not to be a dick about it, but it isn’t like he say sweet, can’t wait to get out there and bust some moves with you when he’s got that probably-needs-surgery, really-should-go-to-hospital stuff hanging over his head. (Doc agrees if he did go to hospital he’d get spotted as an extremely undocumented immigrant, and the last thing he wants is to end up back in America on his own, or in Japanese jail for being a rudie, so he’s staying put, but… yeah.)
He’s starting to feel less like he got dropped from a great height, and the sun’s out, and he’s been helped into a chair, he’s sitting by the window, listening to the radio and trying to make sense of a Japanese indie music zine Cube brought him, when the door rattles open and he looks round to see another skater kid, whom he figures must be one of the GGs. A girl, in a white minidress, with blonde hair and a determined expression.
“Okay, hi,” she says, striding towards him. “You’re sitting up and awake so I figure you’re okay for visitors, right?”
“Um. I guess? Hello, random GG?”
“My name’s Gum, but ‘random GG’ is cool.” She sits down on the bed. “Anyway, I came by because you sound like you’re in a really shitty mood right now, and I’m kind of the poster child for shitty moods, whereas everyone else is all happy-go-lucky and chill and stuff.” She frowns. “Except Slate, but he’s just permanently sarcastic, I didn’t figure that’d be helpful.”
“I mean, I didn’t ask for your opinion -”
“Well, you’re getting it, so you may as well listen. Because if I got kidnapped and dragged to some completely new city and tortured and nearly died and then survived all that and found out Beat and Tab were palling up with some new gang while I didn’t know if I’d ever skate again, I’d be pretty miserable. And I reckon it’s harder for you, if it was just the three of you before. The fact you haven’t actually bitten their heads off yet makes you a saint, in my book. Maybe it’d be better if you had, though. Then you could all have a proper shouting match and get stuff out in the open.”
Coin stares at her and he sort of wants to say I mean… yeah, that’s pretty much it and he wants to tell her to keep her nose out of his business and ask her if she thinks this is some kind of cheesy after-school special. He settles for a middle option: “You come here to get me to do that? Or… or are Cube and Combo in the other room and you’re going to pull a Jerry Springer?”
“I was tempted, but nope. The Jerry Springer thing, I mean. I’d need some guys to step in once you started throwing chairs at each other, and no one’s big enough to stop Combo, right?”
Coin laughs despite himself. Screw it. Just go with the madness. “Yeah, good point. So what are you here for? Because hate to tell you this, but you’re being a rubbish therapist.”
She grins at him: “You know it - ” before leaning forward, looking more serious - “Basically, I was thinking what I’d want if it were me. I mean, if I’m stuck here. Which I think you are.”
“Yeah, I know,” he snaps at her.
She shrugs - maybe she does kind of get how he’s feeling - and carries on, “If it were me, I probably wouldn’t want to live right on top of everyone. Specially if I couldn’t skate. I mean, it must suck enough being here, right, and people coming by? So I was thinking, we live in a garage in a busted-down industrial area, we can colonise some more rooms or buildings, you can come hang out with us as much as you want but if you find you hate our stupid faces you can go sulk in private.”
Coin sort of wants to pick holes in the idea just because she’s railroading him, but… it doesn’t actually sound so bad. He was kind of thinking if, when, he’s out of here, hanging around some other gang’s base like a weird invalid uncle was gonna suck. Be nice not to have to do that.
“Yeah?” he says, just to see what she’s going to add, not sure if he wants her to suggest something stupid or if he wants her to actually have another good idea.
“Yeah,” she says. “And, I mean, you’re into music, right? And you had this kick-ass record collection. So, there’s a bunch of indie stores here, weird ones in Kogane-cho that are probably a front for something and some in Benten-cho that are, like, almost hipster but not quite. I reckon you could talk your way into a job there. They’d probably be like, sweet, a cool American, totally fits our image. You’d have to lose the hobo beard you’re starting to get, though.” She smirks. “Go back to that look you had before. Cube’s got a pic of the three of you up on the wall. For real, though, most of the shops’ll hire sketchy people like us. Beat and Mew do shifts in the skate store and it’s so under the table it’s like…”
“A rug?”
“Exactly. And… and like maybe you could actually say to Cube and Combo, just so you know, I respect your decision to stay here, but it sucks and I hate it, also I’m fucking miserable. Then have a row and then make up and… I dunno, mostly I find that helps. Well, ‘cept when it gets me expelled from places, but I’m getting better at not doing that.”
She stares at him, looking like boom, great plan, what do you say, but she’s twisting her white-gloved fingers together, and he sees her take a nervous breath.
“Or… you know, don’t do any of that,” she says, finally. “Stay with us, or ditch us completely, or get yourself sent back home. Just please don’t tell Cube and Combo it’s because I pissed you off, because, to be honest, I’m not actually that great at - at, you know, reconciling people, and I’m kind of scared I might’ve just made things worse here.”
“But you showed up and sounded off anyway?” Coin says, and, as he’d expected, she grins: “Yeah, because tact and rules are for other people. And, for real… what happened to you really, really sucks. And apparently GGs can stand for Good Guys, so I thought I should… I dunno, do something.” She springs to her feet. “Anyway, I’m leaving now. If I have screwed things up worse I don’t want to get caught here.”
She’s hurrying to the door and Coin still doesn’t know what to think about the stuff she said but he calls, “You didn’t screw things up worse. Just so you know.”
She pauses at the doorway, sighs in relief: “Okay, good.”
“And thanks.”
Mood Music
“So I was going to say it looks nice in here,” Cube says, “but what it actually looks like is the beginnings of a record store back room. Which is your definition of ‘nice’, I guess.”
Coin holds up his hands, grins: “I gotta build back new. You knew this was coming. Lean into that sweet employee discount, you know.” The room’s not so big, so it’s basically him, a mattress, and some boxes of vinyl, but that’s not so different from Bantam Street. Except, in Bantam Street, Cube would already be right inside, sitting on the mattress and rifling through the boxes to find something she wanted to steal. Here, she’s still standing in the doorway, like a guest.
“Come on,” he says. “Come in, sit down, kick back and chill. You know Gum recommended we should have a massive screaming row?”
Cube snorts. “Gum thinks every problem can be solved by yelling at it. Or painting over it.” She steps into the room, comes and perches on the mattress next to him.
“Is she so wrong?”
Cube takes a deep breath, runs her fingers through her hair. “Dunno. Do we have a problem?”
He and Cube haven’t talked much til now, not one-on-one. Despite resenting the GGs for their very existence and the fact he’ll be beholden to them forever for saving his life, Coin’s prepared to admit they’re pretty fun to hang out with. Having people to eat with while they get you to tell them about the weirdest person who stepped through the record store door today is… it’s a good thing. Not to mention, the nights when you can’t sleep because you’re dreaming about people jumping on your hands, it’s good to be able to walk out and into a lighted room, just a staircase away, where there’s always someone up and playing pinball. They’re debating whether playing pinball counts as physical therapy for broken hands or whether it’s a bad plan. More research needed.
So he’s hanging out with Cube and Combo just like old times except there’s eight other people in the room and the two of them never invite themselves into his place.
“I dunno,” he says. “Guess… guess we should… talk about that? I mean, you have no idea how much I want to put on something really loud instead, but...”
“Yeah,” Cube says. She swallows. “Because… like, me’n’ Combo, we know it’s… it’s different. And… I still… I still feel like shit about… like, we chose to stay. I dunno if you can forgive us for that.”
“I mean… you were right. We couldn’t have got back. And...” He doesn’t exactly want to dive into this, but looks like it’s going to be a talk-about-your-feelings evening: “And even if we did, it still wouldn’t be the same. You guys tagging up a storm and me… not.” He can walk, he can even break into a fast walk-run if he has to, but his bones have definitely not knit back together the way they used to be. He could probably strap himself into his skates and roll across the forecourt, but anything more stylin’ that that, particularly anything involving jumping, seems like a great way to end up with more broken bones. Not to mention his hands are kind of creaky, which isn’t what you want when you’re trying to spray paint under pressure.
Cube looks over at him, like she wants to reach out to him but isn’t sure he won’t get mad. Which is depressing as hell, so he sort of punches her lightly on the shoulder and they manage to turn it into a hug. He feels her laugh: “This is like being twelve or whatever again, you know? Any minute now you’re going to pass me a note in class.”
“Maybe that’d be easier, maybe we should just throw notes back and forth. My handwriting’s gone to shit, though.”
“Good point.” She rests her hand over his. “I guess… well, I don’t guess. I don’t know what it’s like.”
“I mean… it sucks?” He tries to make it sound like a joke, but he sounds kind of bitter anyway. Oh, well. He’s probably entitled to be bitter. “It really sucks. But it could’ve been I fell off a roof or got hit by a truck or something. I’m… I’m all like… didn’t want it to be this soon I get taken out of the game, but...” His voice isn’t quite trembling, that’s good. “But I could’ve got unlucky in Bantam Street. That’s how things are.”
“Shouldn’t be,” Cube says. “Mortality’s dumb.”
“Says the goth chick.”
“Ha ha.” They’re kind of settling into the hug, now, it feels more like how things used to be. And it’s easier to talk about stupid awkward stuff when you’re not sitting looking into each other’s faces, which is maybe why Cube says, “You can’t sleep, sometimes, right? And… and you come down to us, and you and whoever else is being an insomniac hang out til you gotta go to work.”
“I swear to god Slate never sleeps. Guy’s awake every time I come in.” He feels her laugh, but she doesn’t say anything, so he makes himself carry on: “Nightmares are - they’re really fucking bad sometimes, if you want to know. I… dunno how to fix that, guess I just wait to get over it.”
“About… about what happened, yeah?”
“Yeah.” He can hear static in the back of his mind and he’s so damn glad the sun hasn’t set yet. Time enough to tell your super-cool thrash metal fan girlfriend (well, girl you appear to be able to cuddle with who’s holding your hand, so seems she could still be your girlfriend) you sleep with a night-light on. “It was…”
No. Not going to be able to get into that, not this time. He’s tensing and he thinks he’s kind of clinging on to her more than anything, but she’s holding him back, and actually that feels really good. You forget.
That’s a thought to hold on to. Haven’t lost everything.
“Okay,” he says, “okay, enough feelings talk for now.”
“That’s cool,” she murmurs against his throat. “I mean, I think we did pretty well. Didn’t even have a screaming row.”
“Gum’ll be so disappointed.”
She laughs. “Okay, so… want me to stay? Want me to go? Want me to stay but we get back to leaving room for Jesus? Um… want to… carry on not doing that?” She pulls back a little so they can look each other in the face. “I mean, I’m cool with… any of those things, so...”
“I mean, with the disclaimer that I’m as out of practice at making out as I am anything else… want me to find some mood music? Sexy skeleton seduction or whatever?”
She smiles.
Haven’t lost everything. You can build up from silence again.
ten nine more important thoughts
[Title] Shrapnel
[Fandom] Battle Royale
[Rating] PG
[Notes/Summary] Refugees from the Greater East Asian Republic have generally been through some tough times. With the Program, though, it's different.
[Link] "Everyone seems to think Shuuya and Noriko have been to hell and back."
[Title] Axioms
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] Matsuda knows what's true and what isn't. At first, anyway.
[Link] "It's easy at first."
[Title] Professional Murder Music
[Fandom] Jet Set Radio
[Rating] R for violence/torture (not graphic) and language.
[Notes/Summary] Coin survives the Rokkaku Corporation's attempt to take over the world, but that doesn't mean everything's easy.
(Me: it's 2021, I shall write my long-form JSR angst fic like it's 2000 and no one can stop me.)
White Noise
They’ve laid off him for now. They’ve thrown him into a pitch-black room that’s almost certainly a cell (he couldn’t really see where they were going, he was half-blacking out) and, okay, things are still seriously bad, but at least they’re not shaking him down for information right this second?
Use the seconds, collect your thoughts. Because things are seriously bad and they aren’t going to get much better, unless he suddenly turns into an escape artist, and he’s only good at getting out of tricky situations when he’s got his skates on and he’s outside. Being locked up in a room with what sounded like a seriously heavy door - kind of not much you can do about that. Not much you can do about a bunch of sharp-suited gangsters (or… whatever the fuck these guys are) who’ve decided you know something they want to hear about, either. Things are seriously fucking screwed -
Use the seconds. Pick out the thoughts like it’s sounds. Bass, treble. Normally you’d tell yourself to sit up and you’d start counting stuff off on your fingers but he’s not sure either of those things are possible right now. They went for his hands early on, if he thinks about it he starts freaking out, so don’t think about it. That’s just white noise, pick out what’s important -
What’s important is what’s always been important. Cube and Combo. Whatever happens - and whatever happens is not going to be good - these guys can’t get their hands on his friends. Hands again. Don’t think about it. He’s hoping like hell that seeing as he’s the one under lock and key, the one with the record collection, the gangsters-or-whatever will figure he’s gotta know the most, they’ll figure Cube and Combo are clueless. And they’ll work out something bad went down, the wholesale music destruction all over the floor of the loft’ll tip them off, they’ll see his message, they’ll get out of there. All he’s got to do is remember that when he starts saying stuff just to say stuff, he can’t point the finger (well, that’ll be tricky now) at those two.
(The broken records all over the floor, thinking about that is weird because one minute it’s like, normally it’d be the worst day of my life just to see ‘em like that but hey, you know what, it’s actually been the least worst thing about today so far, and then the next minute is like, yeah, they bust ‘em up just like that, and they’re gonna follow suit with me. Cube used to joke about was he trying to build a fort out of records but… they were his, they were him, and now they’re busted, and so will he be. People who kidnap people and have the time and tech to go to town on ‘em properly will have the time and tech to dispose of a body after.)
White noise. White noise. Listen for the melody -
Okay. Cube and Combo are the priority. Then?
Thing is, if he’d just put that record back in its sleeve and left it in another junk shop, he’d probably have already spilled his guts about it. No harm, no foul, right? Okay, there were those weird rumours about it on the message boards, but there are weird rumours about everything on the web if you know where to look. But he… he got spooked. He got stupid. He heard some dangerous people were looking for the record, and instead of letting them have it, he gave it to a pal of his who worked in the Bantam Street deli, told him to get it out of the area. Why? the guy said. Coin told him, Call it a scavenger hunt. I don’t wanna make it easy. He thinks he sounded chill enough to be believed. Get it out of the area, post it on, keep it moving, he’d said. He points these bastards in his buddy’s direction, he’s signing a bunch of people up for a world of hurt.
Shit.
So far he’s been taking the I dunno where it is, man, it was with the others, you guys must’ve picked it up, or wrecked it, I swear, please god I swear line. Give it time, and he’ll start making shit up just to get them to stop. As long as it’s useless shit, as long as it’s not pointing them to anyone else, then - then maybe -
Maybe he can make them kill him out of sheer frustration before he actually gets them on the trail of anyone else?
As a life goal, it’s not great.
Kind of all he’s got now. Strip down the sounds and end up with a basic-as-hell chord progression.
Better than nothing.
Eldritch Opera
He must have fallen asleep.
It was hours and hours of stuff he’s trying not to think about. Hours and hours of spilling his guts about so many false trails he can barely remember what the original truth was. Time went fucking weird because he kept passing out, or falling asleep, and then he’d get woken up by bursts of static, blared in from somewhere, so loud it was like being in a rainstorm, and then they’d haul him out and start the questioning up again.
It was hours and hours of that and then, somewhere along the line, it stopped being that, it started being just darkness and silence. For ages he wasn’t with it enough to register that, he was passing in and out of consciousness, or he was working really hard not to think about how much bits of him hurt (in the dark it’s worse, like you start kidding yourself the pain is an actual thing in here with you, like some kind of facehugger octopus alien tangled around you) -
There was that, and then, eventually, there was starting to think maybe they’d found the record and they weren’t even going to bother shooting him, they were just going to leave him to starve to death.
May have gone a bit crazy after that thought first occurred to him. Just a bit.
It was only after the crazy had died down that someone dumped a tray in, a cup of water and what felt like some convenience store snacks, rice balls and stuff. Then everything flipped and he was so goddamn grateful to them, he was listening to himself crying and thanking them over and over, and they must’ve got what they wanted from him because if they’d come in and asked him questions and threatened to take the food away if he didn’t tell the truth, he’d have done it, no problem.
It was hours and days and god knows how long, a few more trays of food, and he must have fallen asleep, and finally, the door rattles open and two of them come and grab him and wrench him to his feet. Standing up feels weird. Okay, it also hurts like hell, like knives through his feet, but it feels like a skill he gave up years ago.
The light hurts and more than that, it’s like it fills his entire skull up, like something seeing through everything he ever said. He’s got his eyes shut for ages, not like he can do anything about where they’re dragging him to, wherever they’re dragging him to. At some point, it feels like they’re going up in an elevator - the floating, the creaks and hums around them - which is new, which suggests this isn’t going to be more questioning. Maybe they are just going to shoot him. Well. Could be worse.
When he’s finally able to open his eyes for more than a few seconds, they’re out of the elevator, they’re in some fancy skyscraper room, floor-to-ceiling windows, minimal furniture, like the kind of place where you’d have the climactic scene in a movie about corporate espionage. Which is probably what these guys do, right? Corporate espionage and murdering people. It’s night, there’s a city spread out below them, all gleaming and glittering. Maybe they’re going to chuck him out of one of the windows. He should probably be… like… gathering his thoughts for some good last words or whatever, but he’s too - he’s too tired, like he’s been worn down to a thread. That might make dying easier. And he’d be okay if it’s falling, just like screwing up on a tricky jump only you plummet into the city lights. You black out before you hit the ground, so it’d be okay, those’d be the last thing you see. Could be worse. Could be worse. That’s the most important thing, it could always be worse. Hey, even if they do just shoot him maybe they’ll let him face the view -
One of them says to the other, “Thirty seconds.”
“You think those kids will show?”
“They’ve managed to every time so far. Not sure how no one’s managed to take them out.”
“This should take care of them, then. Doubt we’ll even need this one as leverage… may as well hang on for now, I guess.”
Coin’s brain’s moving like… like… whatever the opposite of a mile a minute is, so it’s as though he has to translate what they’ve said into Chinese and back before he can understand it. When he does, he’s not sure it was worth the effort. Kids. Leverage. If it is, if it is - like, Cube and Combo knew about these guys, they could’ve made it here, maybe, but if they do, it sounds like something bad’s about to happen and - they were meant to be safe, and the worry about them is mixing up with the whole probably-about-to-die thing, doubt we’ll even need this one, as though it’s one of them here and soon to be shoved out of a window, and there’s nothing he can do -
This weird singing noise echoes down from the sky. Like opera, but… eldritch opera? He can feel the vibrations of the sound through the floor, which suggests maybe a massive sound system somewhere, but -
Whispering voices under the song and then a beat starts up, and he gets it. This is the record. The one that’s pretty much got him killed. Actually a decent tune, shame he never got to listen to it before all of this.
The building trembles, and he hears something high above them - like a jet engine, like a tiger in the clouds - roar. And the sky - the sky is boiling with weird inky clouds, a giant Rorschach test overlaid on some seriously trippy visuals -
Guess the weird rumours were true after all. Oh, well, at least this wasn’t all for some bullshit hoax.
On the other hand, it’d have been nicer if his attempts not to break under torture had actually stopped the bad guys getting the cursed artifact.
The roaring, and the singing, and - from high above, red-orange flickers, like the sky’s on fire - maybe it is, maybe hell is opening above them -
The guys with him don’t say anything, just watch, with the inkblots and the fiery light reflected in their aviator shades. Professionals. Whenever a roar echoes out you can feel it in your bones, but they don’t even flinch. They going to kill me before or after the… razing the city to the ground starts, or whatever this is about? God, it is a seriously bad day when you even have to ask that question.
Something explodes above them, only he feels it before he sees it, the building shudders for real this time and they all actually stagger, and then the sound, hits like a giant hand about to swat you away -
One of the guys taps his earpiece, he’s shouting, what was that, or maybe Coin’s filling that dialogue in, his ears are ringing too much to actually hear. He’s not sure he can stand up much longer, to be honest. Although maybe that’s the floor shaking. Which it’s doing quite a lot. And there are a whole lot of groans and creaks all around them which are… probably not good.
“No response! The boss’s comms are down -”
“Communications Centre said - it just - the damn thing just exploded right on top of us -”
“Get out of here - leave him -”
They’ve gone, which is good, because at least they’re not going to be smacking him around any more. What’s significantly less good is the entire room’s shaking and cracks are snaking their way across the windows. Looks like I was wrong about the shooting. Looks like it’s going to be death by falling skyscraper. Is that better? He’s laughing, kind of, or maybe crying, he doesn’t actually know what face you’re meant to put on when you’re facing your imminent death. Maybe… maybe get back from the window, though. Falling’d be okay, but getting cut to ribbons by that glass would -
He’s staggering, and then he’s crawling, he thinks he can smell smoke, that’s okay, can I black out soon? Don’t think I want to be here for this, the room is enormous, like he could crawl for miles and still just be in empty blue light. The noise is louder, it’s too loud for thinking. A glass door, stuck half-open, cracked, is there no way to get away from the glass in this place? He drags himself round it, outside there’s a stairwell, he can sit here and wait to fall -
Through the screams of the building, he hears -
He hears -
“Hang in there, just -”
“We’re not gonna make it -”
“Shut up and grind -”
Hang in there -
Something to hold onto, maybe. Just a thought.
He is definitely about to pass out, he is feeling as sick and tripped-out as the building is, but at least he isn’t going out alone.
Wind Chimes
Darkness, and through the darkness, lines of light, like your eyelids half-opening. Voices, but whispering gibberish, or another language, or nothing, he can’t pin down what any of them say. He waits for more of the eerie singing to start up but there’s just the dark and the whispering.
Darkness, and lines of light, and his eyes are opening, and not to more darkness, which is - which is good, the sun’s out, he’s in some room with kind of knocked-about-looking cream-coloured walls, but there’s a window and there’s sunlight and he can hear wind chimes or something and the hum of traffic and people and nothing that sounds like a portal to hell…
Some guy in a shirt and tie standing over him, “How are you feeling? Coin, they said your name was?” Coin doesn’t know if he nodded or not - he feels exhausted, like he’s run a marathon in a spacesuit or whatever - but the guy doesn’t seem surprised, he says, “You’re probably feeling pretty woozy. You were in rough shape, and you’re still on a lot of painkillers.”
Coin sort of stammers, “Good,” because, yeah, there was pain and now he thinks about it, he can’t feel any of it, which is fantastic, but also kind of worrying because he can barely feel much.
It’s worrying, but then he kind of dozes off again, maybe because it’s easier than stressing out. When he opens his eyes again, the sun’s darker gold, it’s shifted round the room. He raises his head - okay, good, he can do that, he’s not like completely paralysed or something (wasn’t he killed in a collapsing building?) - looks round the room. A bookshelf, a glass-fronted cabinet with what looks like the contents of a pharmacy inside it, and, sitting on a chair, leaning forward and twisting his hands together, is a kid who looks about his own age and has all the hallmarks - headphones round his neck, goggles, fingerless gloves, and, oh yeah, netrium-powered skates on his feet - of someone Coin would have more expected to see hanging out in the skate park in Bantam Street.
“Um, hey,” the kid says. “So the doc says we’ve got to be chill and let you rest, but I thought maybe someone should… explain what happened?” He smiles, kind of nervously. “Although, you were kind of at the centre of it, maybe you should explain to me.”
Coin’s all yeah, comparing stories, that sounds smart, and he opens his mouth - his throat is dry - and says, “So I had this record -”
He just says it and nothing changes, there’s still just the sun and the wind chimes, but under all of that there is those rooms and one of the men in suits leaning over him, try not lying to us, it’ll hurt less, there’s blood in his mouth and pain and -
He about manages to breathe, and not to throw up, and stammer, “Hey, you know… you know what, maybe you should go first.”
The kid is looking anxiously at him but he doesn’t actually say are you having a breakdown, he nods, and says, “Right, okay, so… so I’m Beat, and… this is Tokyo-to, and… the evil CEO of the Rokkaku Corporation tried to take over the world with a cursed record, which… we think you had your hands on at one point? And we stopped him but that sort of… destroyed a skyscraper, which we were on the roof of, and while we were trying to get off the roof, we spotted you almost passed out on the stairs and… Combo basically dumped his g-blaster and hoisted you onto his shoulder instead, which I guess shows the depth of your friendship. Don’t worry,” he adds, “Garam picked up the g-blaster, he said it was a whole no true companion left behind thing. It’s fine. Combo’s fine. And, um, Cube’s fine, I should’ve told you that first, I guess? Your friends are fine.”
Coin was going to be cool about all of this, just nod and be like sweet, but he sort of didn’t count on how hearing your friends are fine was going to make him feel. Like, he hadn’t realised how much he was carrying that thought around, that maybe they wouldn’t be fine (and maybe it would be his fault) and what it would feel like if they weren’t.
“Like… really?” he manages to say. It’s not being able to breathe again, but this time it’s because he’s almost too scared to ask the question. “You’re… you’re not lying to spare my feelings because I’m on a ton of painkillers here?”
“Nope,” Beat says, and the guy sure seems good at radiating sincerity and mild-mannered chill vibes, so Coin can almost believe him. “They’ve been here - this guy and his wife patch up rudies for a living, though I don’t know how they actually make their living seeing most of us are broke, it’s probably better not to ask - Cube and Combo’ve been here for like two days and I said they should go home for a bit because they looked like they might fall asleep on their skates. If the doc’s okay with it, I’ll go fetch them. He says he won’t let all of us - I mean, us GGs, that’s my gang, there are a lot of us and we can be kind of rowdy - in at once, but I reckon he’ll be cool with two of them. If he won’t let them in now, then soon as you’re well enough, I’ll drag them down here. I mean, I say drag, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop them.”
Turns out really strong painkillers are on the same level as thinking you’ve been left to starve to death when it comes to making you cry without meaning to.
Rain Rattle
“Want to tell me what happened to you?” the doctor says, pulling up a chair. “I mean, I think I’ve deduced a fair amount from the nature of your injuries, but...”
The sun’s gone in, the windows are closed and Coin can hear the rattle of rain on them. It’s a weird sound of home - of any home, of his room as a kid, of hanging out reading magazines in the local store, of the loft in Bantam Street - like a slice of familiarity’s been blended into Japan. He still hasn’t quite got his head round being in Japan without remembering getting here. Probably doesn’t want to remember getting here. It was probably in the trunk of a black car with stolen license plates. (The rain doesn’t sound like static, it’s too soft for that, he has to keep reminding himself of this.)
This is distracting himself with pointless shit so he can pretend he didn’t hear the question. The doctor clears his throat, and Coin for sure doesn’t want to hear him say I know this must be hard for you, so he just blurts out, “I mean, no. No, actually.”
Isn’t like it isn’t hard to work out, anyway. He’s got both feet in plaster and on one of them it’s all the way up to his knee (he keeps remembering them doing that bit - some memories stick more than others, like pips in your teeth). Then his hands are strapped up and his fingernails are all black and blue and split. Doc’s already told him he thinks there’s a couple of broken ribs to contend with - the painkillers are keeping them at bay, mostly - and that’s not even getting into the guy who could, and did, shoot electricity from his fingers for some unknown reason.
“Like, I reckon you worked out the important bits,” he says.
The doctor sighs - “Okay, well, I’ve done my best. And you might as well rest up here and get over the shock - I can’t imagine your friends are living anywhere particularly fancy. But… you should know I’m no surgeon, I’ve always told the kids to go to hospital and worry about the repercussions later when it comes to anything that involves going under the knife… so I can’t promise your feet aren’t going to need a lot more work in the future. They went to town on them, huh?”
Coin would love to say something like, haha, yeah, imagining stubbing your toe, then turn that up to eleven, but he’s too busy having another extremely unpleasant flashback. When it passes, or maybe later, the doctor’s left him alone again and he’s staring at the ceiling, wondering why it is this feels more like the end of everything than literally thinking you’re about to be murdered does. Like, no way can he ever skate again, right? They even said that once or twice, as though he was stupid enough he couldn’t work it out. And, sure, okay, every skater, every rudie kind of knows sooner or later either they’ll get too old and creaky or they’ll bust themselves up too badly, but you figure that’s going to be years away. You don’t think you’ll have to be dealing with it right now. And most people, even if they do get unlucky, they don’t get this unlucky, right? Rudies break bones but mostly not all at once. He’s busted his wrist and his collarbone and a couple of fingers in the past, through falling off things, and it hurt and it was a pain to deal with for a few weeks but it wasn’t this, needing a twenty-four-seven nurse to function and feeling like you’re a collection of busted bones loosely held together with string.
Suppose all you can do is tell yourself things’ll get better, which should be a thought you can hang on to, but doesn’t seem like anything much. Or, be grateful to be alive, but that doesn’t mean much either.
Thrash Metal
The rain’s stopped by the time the doctor’s wife (who looks way too much like a housewife in a bootlegged Asian drama series to be nursing delinquents and probably smuggling drugs on the side) comes in and tells him his friends are here, if he feels up to seeing them. Time still isn’t quite lining up right, but that’s probably good, because as soon as she says it, he feels like he isn’t ready, he should be better (somehow? In some way?) before he sees them, they’re going to, to laugh at him or be mad with him or, or…
No fucking way is he going to send them away, of course, he’s still only ninety per cent sure they aren’t dead, so he nods and says it’s fine and tries to sit up a little and look like hey, welcome to my pad, just ignore the busted fingers and the medical cabinet.
The door slides open again and they’re standing there. Both of them do look exhausted, Beat was right. They stare at each other and then Cube grins shakily and says, “Um, hi?” and he smiles back at her and tries to pretend he doesn’t want to cry at seeing them.
“Are we allowed to hug you?” Cube says, as they creep into the room. “Like… you look better than - than you did, but you still don’t look great.”
Coin isn’t sure if they are allowed to hug him. The busted ribs sometimes make themselves felt, under all the drugs, but maybe he’s just kind of scared he might really lose it and end up sobbing in their arms. So he just says, “Right, I hear you lot found me and literally carried me out of a collapsing building. I mean… that was pretty awesome, just so you know.”
Cube snorts, and if she’s kind of sniffling they can both ignore it. “Damn straight it was.” She comes to sit on the bed, mock-punches his leg under the covers. “Combo gets bragging rights for eternity.”
“Maybe when I stop pinching myself it actually worked,” Combo says, taking the chair by the bed. “Thought you might be dead already, or we might just not make it out before it came down on our heads.”
“Well, I keep pinching myself you two aren’t dead, so… hurray for living in the good timeline? I… would high-five you, but, about that...” He lifts up his hands. Get it over with. Then he thinks maybe that looks like he’s asking for pity, and wants to kick himself.
Cube’s turned pale - she’s not wearing make-up except for a few smears of black round her eyes, which he suspects is leftovers - and Combo’s eyes have widened. After a bit, Cube says, “So you…” She swallows. “So you got pretty messed up.”
“So I did.” He’s almost glowering like, do not ask for details, do not, even though he’s the one who mentioned it in the first place, which makes it even more frustrating to feel like he’ll break something if they do ask. Cube takes the hint, though. She reaches over and puts a hand on his wrist instead, manages a smile: “Guess holding hands in a romantic walk under the cherry blossoms is out for the foreseeable, then.” He forces himself to smile back at her. “Seems so. As is moshing at a thrash metal concert, I think it’d turn me into paste.” She blinks back tears: “Oh, shut up, like… like you’d ever go to a thrash metal concert, you with your oh, it makes a good base, but on its own as a genre it’s like… it’s like...” Sniffing, she rubs a hand across her eyes. “Shit, I wasn’t going to do this.”
“I mean, you don’t cry easy.” He wishes he could say, s’okay, I’ve been crying for no reason for days, but it’s all stuck in his throat, in his chest, maybe caught on the broken ribs. “I’m taking it as a compliment.” Play the cool boyfriend who’s still able to crack a joke even with no working fingers.
Combo’s looking at him like he knows exactly what’s not being said, but he doesn’t call anyone out on it, just, “I was gonna leave you the g-blaster, but I figure the doctor might not like it. So Beat scrounged up a spare pair of ‘phones and a radio for you. We figured you must be missing some decent tunes.”
“And Jet Set Radio’s awesome,” Cube says. “Like, for real. Even if the DJ may be a wizard or something.”
Coin knows he should be happy about this - they’re right, the world being nothing but silence and lying in bed feeling like you got dropped off a cliff is no fun, music would make it better like nothing else would - but can they just not talk about - like I get it, it’s so freakin’ cool, knocks GRND Radio and all the stuff we used to listen to before out of the park, just like our cool new friends who are the best when I can’t even stand up -
The anger sparks up like a lit fuse and he has to take a deep breath to stop himself saying it all out loud. They’re both looking at him in bafflement and he’s baffled at himself, wasn’t this everything he dreamed of, getting to see them again? And it’s all fucked up suddenly, every other note wrong, setting his teeth on edge.
“Yeah,” he says at last. “Guess you’ll miss it when we’re back in Grind, huh?”
He didn’t even think about it, he just blurted it out like an idiot, like someone putting their foot in a hole.
They glance at each other, and Cube says, “So… about that.”
Coin finds himself staring at her with a too-cool-for-school, hit-me-with-the-revelation smile pasted on his face that he really wishes wasn’t there, before he swallows, and says, “You two want to stay put.”
“I mean… yeah, kind of,” Cube says, staring down at her hands, picking at her gloves. “Like… I miss Bantam Street, sure, but this place is really cool. While we’ve been fighting the corporate terrorists and hoping you were still alive, exploring it’s the only thing that kept me sane.”
Coin manages not to say, right, so it’s all my fucking fault, got it, it’s fine, everything is fine, whatever bullshit is going on in his head it’s not important. “Yeah? Combo, how ‘bout you?”
Combo doesn’t look away, at least. “The GGs… they’re good people, man. Like… sounds dumb and all, but I ain’t never had that many friends in one go, you know? Feelin’ like part of a gang...”
“Yeah.” Cube nods. “Like, don’t get me wrong, if we found you were back in Grind City, obviously we’d come back. Triple-C for life, you know that. But… you’re here, and we’re here, and… it feels right.”
Coin says, kind of sarcastic, “Well, for you,” because evidently maturity only gets you so far. The blood’s pounding in his ears. Thrash metal indeed.
“Okay, sure,” Cube says, frowning, “but you’ve literally only been in this room and a collapsing building, that’s hardly enough to make a judgement call.”
Which is true, and it isn’t like Coin didn’t think it’d be pretty cool to travel, isn’t like Japan wasn’t on the list, just…
Combo says, “Anyway, we ain’t… it’s as much we’re flat broke from getting here. We can’t get back, right now. ‘Less we got ourselves deported -”
“And I don’t want to draw law enforcement’s attention to us,” Cube says. “Specially not when everyone’s still asking what happened at Rokkaku HQ. We should keep our heads down. You should.”
“Don’t have much of a choice,” Coin says, and he’s trying to play it off like a joke, but not trying that hard, because he’s - because it -
I want to go home, I want to go home, I want none of this bullshit to have happened and I want to go home -
He thought that, said that a lot, when he was in the dark, when he was losing it, he’d kind of forgotten he did that until now. Could have done with not remembering it now, it’s like the dark is crawling up his spine.
“Look,” he manages to say, “I… I’m not feeling so… because I’m still wrecked, you know? Tires me out.”
Either he’s going to panic completely, or they’re going to get mad at each other and stuff will be said and if they decide to cut ties with him like they have with their old home, he will be so incredibly screwed -
Cube looks like he’s hit her - she must be tired, normally she’d give him a death glare at least - and it’s Combo who says, “Sure, man. Makes sense. Get some rest and we’ll come back. If you want us.”
“Course - course I do, dumbass,” he manages to say. Lies down again, tries to do an impression of someone tripped out on pain and painkillers rather than someone who’s sulking like a kid. He wants to say something as they reach out the door, but he figures it’d just be another sour note, so what’s the point?
Tokyo Top 40
More days. Sometimes waking up to the rattle of the rain, sometimes milky sunlight spilling across the floor. Turns out thinking you might be left to die in the darkness makes you appreciate the hell out of the glorious morning sky, you know? (There’s a lamp on the bedside table and the doctor must’ve noticed he keeps it on all night but doesn’t say anything. Maybe he figures it’s a sick-person thing? Like in hospitals they never turn the lights off, right?)
Turns out Jet Set Radio is actually pretty awesome, and sometimes he’ll kick back and listen to that for a good long while, but other times he finds himself sulking about it for no reason, so he tunes through the airwaves and settles on random j-pop or what sounds like songs for Japanese grandmothers. Even though it’s probably mainstream as hell, it’s a different mainstream and it’s good to have something to turn your brain off to. (He has to take the headphones off when he’s spinning the dial, hearing the static is… not good. Sometimes he tests it out, keeps them on, gently twists with his bruised fingers until he’s out of the Tokyo Top 40 and into no-man’s-land, but even knowing it’s coming he still finds himself feeling like his heart’s going to rip its way out of his chest.)
Cube and Combo come back, of course they do, and the three of them try to make conversation (make conversation like they’re strangers waiting for a bus, god) but it’s difficult when one of you has literally nothing to report but today I stayed in bed again and all the news the other two have is about their amazing new life. Coin’s genuinely trying not to be a dick about it, but it isn’t like he say sweet, can’t wait to get out there and bust some moves with you when he’s got that probably-needs-surgery, really-should-go-to-hospital stuff hanging over his head. (Doc agrees if he did go to hospital he’d get spotted as an extremely undocumented immigrant, and the last thing he wants is to end up back in America on his own, or in Japanese jail for being a rudie, so he’s staying put, but… yeah.)
He’s starting to feel less like he got dropped from a great height, and the sun’s out, and he’s been helped into a chair, he’s sitting by the window, listening to the radio and trying to make sense of a Japanese indie music zine Cube brought him, when the door rattles open and he looks round to see another skater kid, whom he figures must be one of the GGs. A girl, in a white minidress, with blonde hair and a determined expression.
“Okay, hi,” she says, striding towards him. “You’re sitting up and awake so I figure you’re okay for visitors, right?”
“Um. I guess? Hello, random GG?”
“My name’s Gum, but ‘random GG’ is cool.” She sits down on the bed. “Anyway, I came by because you sound like you’re in a really shitty mood right now, and I’m kind of the poster child for shitty moods, whereas everyone else is all happy-go-lucky and chill and stuff.” She frowns. “Except Slate, but he’s just permanently sarcastic, I didn’t figure that’d be helpful.”
“I mean, I didn’t ask for your opinion -”
“Well, you’re getting it, so you may as well listen. Because if I got kidnapped and dragged to some completely new city and tortured and nearly died and then survived all that and found out Beat and Tab were palling up with some new gang while I didn’t know if I’d ever skate again, I’d be pretty miserable. And I reckon it’s harder for you, if it was just the three of you before. The fact you haven’t actually bitten their heads off yet makes you a saint, in my book. Maybe it’d be better if you had, though. Then you could all have a proper shouting match and get stuff out in the open.”
Coin stares at her and he sort of wants to say I mean… yeah, that’s pretty much it and he wants to tell her to keep her nose out of his business and ask her if she thinks this is some kind of cheesy after-school special. He settles for a middle option: “You come here to get me to do that? Or… or are Cube and Combo in the other room and you’re going to pull a Jerry Springer?”
“I was tempted, but nope. The Jerry Springer thing, I mean. I’d need some guys to step in once you started throwing chairs at each other, and no one’s big enough to stop Combo, right?”
Coin laughs despite himself. Screw it. Just go with the madness. “Yeah, good point. So what are you here for? Because hate to tell you this, but you’re being a rubbish therapist.”
She grins at him: “You know it - ” before leaning forward, looking more serious - “Basically, I was thinking what I’d want if it were me. I mean, if I’m stuck here. Which I think you are.”
“Yeah, I know,” he snaps at her.
She shrugs - maybe she does kind of get how he’s feeling - and carries on, “If it were me, I probably wouldn’t want to live right on top of everyone. Specially if I couldn’t skate. I mean, it must suck enough being here, right, and people coming by? So I was thinking, we live in a garage in a busted-down industrial area, we can colonise some more rooms or buildings, you can come hang out with us as much as you want but if you find you hate our stupid faces you can go sulk in private.”
Coin sort of wants to pick holes in the idea just because she’s railroading him, but… it doesn’t actually sound so bad. He was kind of thinking if, when, he’s out of here, hanging around some other gang’s base like a weird invalid uncle was gonna suck. Be nice not to have to do that.
“Yeah?” he says, just to see what she’s going to add, not sure if he wants her to suggest something stupid or if he wants her to actually have another good idea.
“Yeah,” she says. “And, I mean, you’re into music, right? And you had this kick-ass record collection. So, there’s a bunch of indie stores here, weird ones in Kogane-cho that are probably a front for something and some in Benten-cho that are, like, almost hipster but not quite. I reckon you could talk your way into a job there. They’d probably be like, sweet, a cool American, totally fits our image. You’d have to lose the hobo beard you’re starting to get, though.” She smirks. “Go back to that look you had before. Cube’s got a pic of the three of you up on the wall. For real, though, most of the shops’ll hire sketchy people like us. Beat and Mew do shifts in the skate store and it’s so under the table it’s like…”
“A rug?”
“Exactly. And… and like maybe you could actually say to Cube and Combo, just so you know, I respect your decision to stay here, but it sucks and I hate it, also I’m fucking miserable. Then have a row and then make up and… I dunno, mostly I find that helps. Well, ‘cept when it gets me expelled from places, but I’m getting better at not doing that.”
She stares at him, looking like boom, great plan, what do you say, but she’s twisting her white-gloved fingers together, and he sees her take a nervous breath.
“Or… you know, don’t do any of that,” she says, finally. “Stay with us, or ditch us completely, or get yourself sent back home. Just please don’t tell Cube and Combo it’s because I pissed you off, because, to be honest, I’m not actually that great at - at, you know, reconciling people, and I’m kind of scared I might’ve just made things worse here.”
“But you showed up and sounded off anyway?” Coin says, and, as he’d expected, she grins: “Yeah, because tact and rules are for other people. And, for real… what happened to you really, really sucks. And apparently GGs can stand for Good Guys, so I thought I should… I dunno, do something.” She springs to her feet. “Anyway, I’m leaving now. If I have screwed things up worse I don’t want to get caught here.”
She’s hurrying to the door and Coin still doesn’t know what to think about the stuff she said but he calls, “You didn’t screw things up worse. Just so you know.”
She pauses at the doorway, sighs in relief: “Okay, good.”
“And thanks.”
Mood Music
“So I was going to say it looks nice in here,” Cube says, “but what it actually looks like is the beginnings of a record store back room. Which is your definition of ‘nice’, I guess.”
Coin holds up his hands, grins: “I gotta build back new. You knew this was coming. Lean into that sweet employee discount, you know.” The room’s not so big, so it’s basically him, a mattress, and some boxes of vinyl, but that’s not so different from Bantam Street. Except, in Bantam Street, Cube would already be right inside, sitting on the mattress and rifling through the boxes to find something she wanted to steal. Here, she’s still standing in the doorway, like a guest.
“Come on,” he says. “Come in, sit down, kick back and chill. You know Gum recommended we should have a massive screaming row?”
Cube snorts. “Gum thinks every problem can be solved by yelling at it. Or painting over it.” She steps into the room, comes and perches on the mattress next to him.
“Is she so wrong?”
Cube takes a deep breath, runs her fingers through her hair. “Dunno. Do we have a problem?”
He and Cube haven’t talked much til now, not one-on-one. Despite resenting the GGs for their very existence and the fact he’ll be beholden to them forever for saving his life, Coin’s prepared to admit they’re pretty fun to hang out with. Having people to eat with while they get you to tell them about the weirdest person who stepped through the record store door today is… it’s a good thing. Not to mention, the nights when you can’t sleep because you’re dreaming about people jumping on your hands, it’s good to be able to walk out and into a lighted room, just a staircase away, where there’s always someone up and playing pinball. They’re debating whether playing pinball counts as physical therapy for broken hands or whether it’s a bad plan. More research needed.
So he’s hanging out with Cube and Combo just like old times except there’s eight other people in the room and the two of them never invite themselves into his place.
“I dunno,” he says. “Guess… guess we should… talk about that? I mean, you have no idea how much I want to put on something really loud instead, but...”
“Yeah,” Cube says. She swallows. “Because… like, me’n’ Combo, we know it’s… it’s different. And… I still… I still feel like shit about… like, we chose to stay. I dunno if you can forgive us for that.”
“I mean… you were right. We couldn’t have got back. And...” He doesn’t exactly want to dive into this, but looks like it’s going to be a talk-about-your-feelings evening: “And even if we did, it still wouldn’t be the same. You guys tagging up a storm and me… not.” He can walk, he can even break into a fast walk-run if he has to, but his bones have definitely not knit back together the way they used to be. He could probably strap himself into his skates and roll across the forecourt, but anything more stylin’ that that, particularly anything involving jumping, seems like a great way to end up with more broken bones. Not to mention his hands are kind of creaky, which isn’t what you want when you’re trying to spray paint under pressure.
Cube looks over at him, like she wants to reach out to him but isn’t sure he won’t get mad. Which is depressing as hell, so he sort of punches her lightly on the shoulder and they manage to turn it into a hug. He feels her laugh: “This is like being twelve or whatever again, you know? Any minute now you’re going to pass me a note in class.”
“Maybe that’d be easier, maybe we should just throw notes back and forth. My handwriting’s gone to shit, though.”
“Good point.” She rests her hand over his. “I guess… well, I don’t guess. I don’t know what it’s like.”
“I mean… it sucks?” He tries to make it sound like a joke, but he sounds kind of bitter anyway. Oh, well. He’s probably entitled to be bitter. “It really sucks. But it could’ve been I fell off a roof or got hit by a truck or something. I’m… I’m all like… didn’t want it to be this soon I get taken out of the game, but...” His voice isn’t quite trembling, that’s good. “But I could’ve got unlucky in Bantam Street. That’s how things are.”
“Shouldn’t be,” Cube says. “Mortality’s dumb.”
“Says the goth chick.”
“Ha ha.” They’re kind of settling into the hug, now, it feels more like how things used to be. And it’s easier to talk about stupid awkward stuff when you’re not sitting looking into each other’s faces, which is maybe why Cube says, “You can’t sleep, sometimes, right? And… and you come down to us, and you and whoever else is being an insomniac hang out til you gotta go to work.”
“I swear to god Slate never sleeps. Guy’s awake every time I come in.” He feels her laugh, but she doesn’t say anything, so he makes himself carry on: “Nightmares are - they’re really fucking bad sometimes, if you want to know. I… dunno how to fix that, guess I just wait to get over it.”
“About… about what happened, yeah?”
“Yeah.” He can hear static in the back of his mind and he’s so damn glad the sun hasn’t set yet. Time enough to tell your super-cool thrash metal fan girlfriend (well, girl you appear to be able to cuddle with who’s holding your hand, so seems she could still be your girlfriend) you sleep with a night-light on. “It was…”
No. Not going to be able to get into that, not this time. He’s tensing and he thinks he’s kind of clinging on to her more than anything, but she’s holding him back, and actually that feels really good. You forget.
That’s a thought to hold on to. Haven’t lost everything.
“Okay,” he says, “okay, enough feelings talk for now.”
“That’s cool,” she murmurs against his throat. “I mean, I think we did pretty well. Didn’t even have a screaming row.”
“Gum’ll be so disappointed.”
She laughs. “Okay, so… want me to stay? Want me to go? Want me to stay but we get back to leaving room for Jesus? Um… want to… carry on not doing that?” She pulls back a little so they can look each other in the face. “I mean, I’m cool with… any of those things, so...”
“I mean, with the disclaimer that I’m as out of practice at making out as I am anything else… want me to find some mood music? Sexy skeleton seduction or whatever?”
She smiles.
Haven’t lost everything. You can build up from silence again.