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"<Okay... Faust, Outis, and... wait a minute.>" Dante looks around the room. "<Where's Hong Lu?>"
They're in one of the many rooms of Hong Lu's complex in Daguanyuan, and have been for the last several hours. They'd been fed breakfast some time ago and are now waiting around for some important meeting—or forum or argument or whatever—with the four families to start. Gregor had stopped paying attention a dozen important meetings ago. They've all started to blend together. It's not like he's ever called on, or asked for his opinion on anything, and at least no one stares at him anymore. He just goes along with everyone else to show support, or something. Strength in numbers, he supposes.
Perhaps there's such a thing as too much metaphorical strength, because he, along with most of his coworkers, now look around the room as if they'll find Hong Lu hovering quietly in a corner. The notable exceptions to this halfhearted search are Ryōshū, who looks bored, and Meursault, who looks blandly disengaged. Maybe that's unfair. Meursault's face is just kind of like that.
Then Meursault surprises him, and everyone else, by saying, "Hong Lu has not been seen since yesterday at 6:39 PM."
"<Huh? Really?>" Dante scratches at the back of their neck. "<Did he oversleep...?>"
"Hong Lu is hardly the sort to idle away the morn," says Yi sang, more or less echoing Gregor's thoughts. It's nearly noon.
Dante makes a wordless, pensive ticking sound. "<None of you have seen him since yesterday?>"
No one has.
"<Hmm... I guess I'll go and check on him.>"
"W. O. T.," Ryōshū says. She takes a deep drag of her cigarette before continuing. "He's dead."
Everyone, Gregor included, turns to look at her in confusion and horror. Ryōshū, as is typical, declines to elaborate.
"Whatdya mean, dead?" Heathcliff asks with alarm.
Gregor doesn't feel much of anything at all at these words. Initially, that's because his brain thinks he heard them wrong, but even once he realizes he heard correctly, it's too ludicrous to be true. It's some sort of strange joke, surely. That, or 'dead' is a new acronym that Sinclair will have to translate for them. Last night had been entirely uneventful. Hong Lu couldn't have died. What, did he trip out a window? Of course not.
"D.I.E.D.," she says, then turns to address Dante. "Clock, R. W. D."
Sinclair pipes up nervously, "'Dead Is Entirely Dead, Reverse What's Done'?!"
There's a small commotion after that. A few people (Heathcliff, Outis) think Hong Lu had gone out on his own, pissed off the wrong person, and consequently gotten himself killed for it. A few others (Ishmael, Sinclair) sarcastically suggest that person was Ryōshū. The most popular theory is that Hong Lu got himself assassinated over the ongoing powerplay in Hongyuan.
Gregor personally isn't convinced Hong Lu is dead. Not that Ryōshū would have any reason to lie; but Hong Lu's purported death is so incongruous with the rest of their morning that it's difficult to accept.
Most of the group continues to swap excited theories, though a few individuals (Yi Sang, Sinclair) express worry over Hong Lu's location (because even after being directly asked, Ryōshū had just stared them down, unblinking). After a few moments of looking pensive, Dante decides to turn back the clock.
Unlike usual, Dante doesn't clutch at their head or make any noises of pain or discomfort. After the process is over, they stand a little straighter.
"<That's strange. I didn't feel much of anything...?>"
Ryōshū rolls her eyes. "Obviously."
'Obviously'?
Gregor squints at her with the distinct feeling that he's missing something.
A moment later, just as Outis and Ishmael have spun up an argument over the best place to start looking for their missing coworker, said missing coworker strides into the room.
Hong Lu looks none the worse for wear as he smiles his usual vague, pleasant smile. He doesn't particularly look like someone who had been dead until a minute ago. His hair is smoothly tied back and his tie is nicely tied. As far as Gregor can tell, he looks the same as always.
"Good morning~" Hong Lu says cheerfully. "My apologies for being late."
Heathcliff muscles through the group to stand in front of him. "It's the afternoon. What happened, mate?"
"Hmm~ I slept in a little late, I suppose."
Heathcliff scowls, annoyed as always at Hong Lu's 'spoiled rich boy behavior'. Or at least that's what Gregor assumes, until Heathcliff says, "You think we'd fall for that? Cut the crap. What really happened?"
Hong Lu responds to this in possibly the strangest way he could have: he glances at Ryōshū. Even stranger, he looks quickly away when he doesn't manage to catch her eye.
"Hey, wait," says Gregor, the odd pieces of the morning clicking together slowly. He turns to Ryōshū. "What did you mean, 'obviously'?" She levels him a stare and takes another drag of her cigarette. "Did you kill Hong Lu?"
Gregor feels stupid the instant he says it. Of course she didn't do that. Even though Ishmael had put the idea in his head, she hadn't been serious. Gregor's overreacting and making connections that aren't there.
Ryōshū shrugs. "He asked."
What? No. What?
No, she's joking. She's joking, right? She's messing with him because of how ridiculous his accusation was. Right? The edges of Gregor's mouth curl upwards inadvertently, bracing for the punchline.
The others all turn to stare at her, speechless.
Speechless except for Heathcliff that is, who demands, "What the fuck?" which accurately sums up Gregor's feelings on the matter.
Ryōshū, entirely nonplussed, takes a drag of her cigarette. "If he wants to die, let him die."
Gregor looks at Hong Lu, expecting him to clear things up, but Hong Lu's expression is the same as it always is. Hong Lu laughs a little. It's a polite, detached sound. He doesn't sound scared or worried or stressed; he sounds the same as always.
"Thank you for obliging me, Ryōshū," Hong Lu says to Ryōshū, and the words send Gregor reeling. Hong Lu says it so lightly, like it was a small, simple favor.
Has this somehow not just been a bizarre, tasteless joke? Gregor's stomach twists nauseatingly as his brain struggles to rearrange the facts that are now laid out plainly in front of him.
The first to break the group's collective stupor is Dante. "<What do you mean you—He—>"
Faust snaps her head towards Dante and interrupts, with an air of authority and indignation. "Dante, we're going to be late,"
The flames on Dante's head flicker angrily in a rare show up upset. "<Yeah, I know, but...!>"
Faust's impassive stare remains steadfast and unflinching. Dante seems to glower back for a moment, then relents.
"<Okay. Fine. Let's get going. But we're going to talk about this later.>"
The rest of the day breezes by. Even the absurdly toxic internal politics of Hongyuan and Hong Lu's extended family can't drag Gregor's mind away from the events of that morning.
If it had really happened—and increasingly, it seems like it must have—then, how? Beyond Hong Lu asked, and Ryōshū obliged; where had they done it? With what? And lastly, the most pressing and the question Gregor wants least to ask: why?
It seems like the sort of thing Ryōshū, rather than Hong Lu, would initiate. But she'd said, He asked. So, Hong Lu had been the one to come to her, and... what? Asked if she would pretty please kill him? Imagining it proves to be impossible.
Had he gone to Ryōshū's room? Or had she gone to his? Was it... Gregor hesitates to even think it, but was it a sex thing?
Ryōshū is a fine woman, to be sure. That's never been a question. The question is, how would someone get past her abjectly terrifying nature? That's always put a damper on any potential attraction on Gregor's part. Not that she'd ever be interested in someone like him, but even so. Ryōshū would sooner stab a man than sleep with him—which, actually, does seem to be the case here.
Thinking about it in those terms, Ryōshū's involvement makes some amount of sense. She's always been enthusiastic about murder and suffering. For all Gregor knows, she could be the type who gets off on murdering her coworker.
But Hong Lu?
Hong Lu never seemed the type to get off on anything. Given what they now know about his upbringing and his jade eye, Greg can see why. Must be hard to get off when you know dear old grandma would be watching.
Holy hell, Gregor has to stop thinking about this or he'll never be able to look Hong Lu in the eyes again.
Meanwhile, Heathcliff has been doing an equally poor job at paying attention to the meeting. When they'd first arrived, he'd taken the seat next to Hong Lu straight off. Gregor doesn't think Heathcliff has taken a break from hissing angrily in the poor kid's ear all afternoon. Gregor thought a few times about intervening, but whatever Heathcliff's been saying, Hong Lu appears unbothered by it.
As guilty as he feels for thinking about it, Gregor hopes whatever is going on with Hong Lu is a sex thing. Because if it's not a sex thing, he can only assume Hong Lu had asked to die for the most straightforward reason.
By the time the LCB is no longer needed, it's nearing sundown. They make their way back to Hong Lu's quarters and once there, Dante pulls Ryōshū and Hong Lu aside.
"Glad I don't have to be part of that conversation," Ishmael mutters, watching the trio disappear into a side room.
"That's bare heartless," Heathcliff snaps. "It doesn't involve you directly, so you're chuffed to ignore it entirely, is that it?"
Ishmael sighs, but she seems to know as well as the rest of them that Heathcliff is taking this whole thing oddly to heart. He's been in an off mood all day, and it was only a matter of time before he started lashing out. "Look, I just mean I'm definitely not the one to talk to either of them about this. I don't want to make a mess of things more than they already are." She has the right of it. It's commendable of Heathcliff to care so much, but who's to say getting involved wouldn't make everything worse?
Heathcliff mutters something angrily under his breath and storms off. Ishmael mutters, "Shit," and follows after him.
Better her than Gregor.
"I wonder what Ryōshū meant," Sinclair says, wringing his hands nervously. "When she said Hong Lu had asked her to."
Gregor's fairly certain that, as per usual, Ryōshū had meant exactly what she'd said. But he doesn't like that answer any more than Sinclair will, so he pulls out a cigarette and tells Sinclair, "Dunno."
Ishmael and Heathcliff are still MIA when the trio return. Hong Lu is smiling, Ryōshū seems bored, and Dante looks ready to tear some proverbial hair out. Gregor winces in sympathy. He takes it the talk didn't go very well.
Gregor had really been banking on sex thing, but that's not the reaction of someone who just found out two employees are sleeping together.
"Hey, manager bud," Gregor says before he can think better of it. "Y'got a minute?"
"<Sure, Gregor,>" Dante says tiredly. "<What do you need?>"
Gregor stubs out his cigarette into his bulging pocket ashtray. "You mind if we..?" he says, motioning at the room Dante had just come out of.
They both step inside, and Gregor shuts the door behind them.
"How's, uh," Gregor starts, then realizes how pointless it would be to start this conversation with 'how's it going'. "How'd it go? With Ryōshū and Hong Lu."
Dante sighs and drops heavily in an ornate chair. "<I told Ryōshū not to do it again but I don't think she was even listening. And Hong Lu...>" Dante sighs again, clock head tilting towards the ceiling in frustration. "<I really thought, after everything, I finally understood him.>"
Gregor shrugs. "You can never know exactly what's going on in someone else's head."
"<...Yeah. You're right. I just, I really believed we were making progress. He was finally opening up, and I thought he was getting... better. >"
"Maybe he is," Gregor mutters.
Unfortunately, Dante hears him.
"<Huh? What do you mean?>"
Even if he wanted to, Gregor wouldn't know where to start. During the war—before it, after it, for such a long time—he was little more than a shell. How can he explain to someone like Dante that coming back to himself, that gaining any sort of real consciousness of reality, was worse than the war itself?
Sure, there's no way to know for sure what was going on in Hong Lu's head; but Gregor can make an unfortunately educated guess.
Asking someone to kill you might not be a step in the right direction, but it is a step forward. Besides, Gregor can't imagine Hong Lu from even a few weeks prior ever asking anything of anyone. That's a sort of progress on its own.
How can he explain any of that without sounding crazy? 'It's cool he's asking us for favors now'? 'He's so depressed he could die, isn't that neat'? In the end, Gregor averts his eyes and says, "Nothing."
Dante stares for long enough that Gregor starts to squirm internally. But when Dante speaks again, it's to say, "<Could you talk to him?>"
"Huh?"
Surely, Dante can't mean— "<Hong Lu.>"
Gregor grimaces and wishes he hadn't put out his cigarette. "I don't know if I'm the best person for that."
Dante is silent for another long, uncomfortable moment. "<You are.>"
And how can Gregor argue with that?
The question becomes less rhetorical the more time ticks by. The more he thinks about it, the more he'd really rather not confront a potentially suicidal kid about his feelings. What's he supposed to say? 'Chin up'? 'It's not that bad'? 'When I was your age I walked to school uphill both ways'?
There's nothing he can say that won't come off as condescending or tone-deaf, or both.
Lurking in a corner and smoking his next several cigarettes down to the filter, Gregor fails to think of any way out over the next hour. He'd decided he'd give up and go talk to Hong Lu once he'd finished his cig; which was several cigs ago, if he's being honest.
Unfortunately for all parties involved, Hong Lu approaches him first. "Dante said you wanted to talk to me?" he asks, and Gregor is stuck. No getting out of it now.
"Not exactly," Gregor says too honestly, then has to back peddle. "I mean, it's more like—" No, stop, whatever he says now can't possibly salvage that sentence. It'll be less painful for both of them if he just gets this over with. "Well. Yeah, I guess."
Gregor would prefer to blame the upcoming awkward conversation on Dante, but the only thing worse than an old man giving you unsolicited advice is that old man giving you unsolicited advice under duress. He doesn't need to humiliate both of them.
He motions for Hong Lu to follow him outside, and they step out together into the crisp night air. After their recent incident with the sweepers, being outside after sundown leaves Gregor anxious. But the unhelpful nerves aside, it's a nice night.
Gregor finds a bench and sits down on the right side so Hong Lu won't have to look at his arm. Hong Lu obediently joins him, sitting in the empty spot intended for him without a word. Gregor hopes for a moment that Hong Lu will start, but of course he doesn't.
"So," Gregor starts, feeling awkward and wrong footed. He opens his mouth to continue but he can't find the words.
He doesn't really know Hong Lu that well. Sure, they've been traveling together for a year and he's solid in a fight. But outside of that? Gregor was just as guilty as the rest of them, always thinking of Hong Lu as some spoiled, sheltered rich kid. When time had passed and hints of Hong Lu's home life and inner turmoil had started to show, Gregor hadn't bothered digging deeper. None of them had. Gregor is the wrong person for this conversation but the right person is Dante, and Dante had asked him to do it.
Scheiße. Okay.
Gregor goes to take another drag of his cigarette and is jarringly reminded he's down to the filter. He stubs the cigarette out in his pocket ashtray and pulls a new one out of his cigarette pack. He's disturbed to find that this is his last one. Hadn't this pack been full this morning? He should really cut back.
But cutting back is a problem for another time. For now, Gregor lights his last cig, takes a fortifying drag, and steels himself to get on with it already. Otherwise, he'll have to stomach this conversation without nicotine.
"Why'd you kill yourself?" Gregor asks, cringing even as the words leave his own mouth. There were a dozen more delicate ways to put that, and instead he'd gone straight for the worst one.
Hong Lu doesn't immediately respond, and Gregor can't make himself look over. He's already screwed this up. There's really no coming back from that.
Gregor tries anyway, feeling stupid as his intelligible thoughts tumble out to form unintelligible babbling. "I know I'm probably not someone you want to talk to about this sort of thing, so I'm sorry about that. If I'm making you uncomfortable you can tell me to fuck off." Gregor hopes he does, actually.He'd love to no longer be having this conversation. "I'll tell Dante that..." That, what? "...that you want to be left alone about it."
Hong Lu smiles. "You're not making me uncomfortable," he says; followed by nothing else.
The silence stretches on long enough that Gregor works up the courage to look over. Hong Lu isn't looking at him; he's looking up at the sky, and his expression is smooth and uncomplicated. Hong Lu is one of the prettiest people Gregor has ever seen up close, which is an objective fact. Glossy hair, clear skin, sculpted features. Soft hands with gentle, intentional callouses from practicing with his guandao rather than any hard labor.
Suddenly, sitting here with someone half his age and twice as pretty hits Gregor in a way that leaves him squirming. What does he think he's doing here? Why would someone like Hong Lu listen to anything an old man like Gregor has to say?
But because Dante is expecting him to see this through, Gregor fights through the overwhelming urge to apologize and retreat.
After another beat of silence, Hong Lu says, "I couldn't sleep."
Gregor studies Hong Lu's expression, looking for a lie he doesn't see. "...That's it?"
Scheiße, that's a stupid question. Of course that's not 'it'. Nobody in their right mind would decide to take 'sleep like the dead' literally.
"Yes," Hong Lu says simply.
"Decided to skip counting sheep?" Gregor asks, reflexively falling into sarcasm.
"Oh, I've heard of that," Hong Lu says, voice taking on a brighter tone. "When people can't afford high thread-count sheets, they count imaginary sheep jumping over an imaginary fence. Is that what you're referring to?"
Gregor briefly considers unpacking all that, then decides against it. "Yeah, more or less." He takes a moment to take a deep drag of his cigarette and blows the smoke out slowly, thinking carefully about his next words. "I guess what I'm asking is, doesn't that seem a little extreme to you?"
Hong Lu turns to him then, and the eye contact isn't painfully awkward like Gregor had braced for. His expression turns apologetic, and he shrugs. "I did try other things first. Nothing was working."
Gregor wonders if he means nightmares.
"How've you been doing?" he makes himself ask. "Since..." 'Since we killed your Grandma'?
Gregor takes another drag of his cigarette rather than finish that sentence.
"I'm alright," Hong Lu says with an empty smile. "Nothing lasts forever." He looks away again, back towards the sky. "Nothing should last forever." He sounds resolute and melancholy and impossibly far away.
This is the sort of moment where Gregor should give an impassioned speech about how youth isn't wasted on the young and life is worth living and time heals all wounds.
"Maybe you should get a hobby," Gregor says instead, cringing the instant the words have left his mouth. 'Sorry you're suicidal, have you considered gardening?'
"Hmm~ I'm not sure I'd know where to start," Hong Lu says, taking the faux pas as mildly as he takes everything else. Gregor supposes he should be grateful, but it mostly makes him feel worse.
"It doesn't have to be anything complicated," Gregor continues, prattling on inanely and wishing he could shut up. "Just something to keep your mind occupied. Some sort of distraction for when things get bad."
"A distraction..." Hong Lu muses, and glances over at Gregor with a piercing, unusual focus. "Like cigarettes?"
Gregor, with a lit cigarette hanging from his mouth, feels caught out. "Uh. Yeah, I guess. Not that I'd recommend that particular distraction. It's bad for your health."
"Is that why you smoke?" Hong Lu asks. "To distract yourself from thoughts you don't want to be thinking?"
Gregor's fingers twitch towards the cigarette pack in his pocket, despite the one he's already smoking.
"People smoke for a lotta reasons," he hedges.
Hong Lu hums noncommittally and lets Gregor get away with the non-answer. "I might like to try." He tilts his head, staring wide-eyed and unblinking with his big, mismatched eyes reflecting the dim lighting of the compound in a way that's almost ethereal. "Would you mind?"
"Would I mind...?" Gregor asks, unable to comprehend much of anything with Hong Lu's full attention on him.
"Sharing." Hong Lu's piercing gaze doesn't waver as he leans slightly towards Gregor. His hair cascades over his shoulder and onto his lap, swaying forward and brushing against Gregor's knee.
He shouldn't. Smoking is a bad habit, and worse for someone so young. Gregor should discourage this.
His fingers are already lifting the pack out of his pocket and thumbing it open.
"Oh," Gregor says, peering at the inside of the empty pack in dismay. The one in his mouth had been the last one. He'd known that at the time, but had somehow forgotten. "Sorry, all out. Maybe some other time."
Hong Lu hums. Then he leans in close—too close, close enough that Gregor can smell his flower-scented hair—and plucks the cigarette directly from Gregor's mouth. Stunned, Gregor can't do anything other than stare as Hong Lu brings the half-used cigarette towards his lips. His eyelids flutter closed, long lashes standing out starkly against his pale skin, and he inhales deeply.
Gregor, mesmerized, realizes a moment too late how badly this is going to go. "Woah, easy," he warns, too late to be of any use.
But Hong Lu doesn't choke. Gregor's seen a dozen kids his age cough up a lung after their first hit; but Hong Lu is completely unphased. The gap between who Gregor assumes Hong Lu to be and the man sitting next to him widens once again.
A moment later, Hong Lu pulls the cigarette out of the way and breathes the smoke back out, easy as anything. Hong Lu's eyes stay fixed on the wispy gray cloud as it dissipates into the sky, and Gregor's eyes stay fixed on him—the elegant slope of his nose, the smooth line of his jaw.
When the smoke is gone, Hong Lu's half-lidded eyes slide over to Gregor's. "Sorry, did you say something?"
"Nah," Gregor responds automatically, but his voice comes out rough and he has to clear his throat. "Nothing."
Hong Lu takes another masterful drag of Gregor's cigarette before handing it back.
"It's rather bitter, isn't it? I don't think it's the distraction for me," Hong Lu announces. A little shell-shocked, Gregor takes his cigarette and puts it back in his own mouth from sheer muscle memory before realizing how weird that might look. He tells himself there's no helping it now, even as a hot flush creeps up the back of his neck and burns at his ears.
Hong Lu stands up abruptly and announces, "I suppose I'll have to find another distraction."
Gregor chokes on his own inhale. His mind briefly races to horrifying, inappropriate places, before he cuts the train of thought short.
Hong Lu notices Gregor's agitation and misinterprets it, smiling. "Oh, don't worry, I don't plan to seek out Ryōshū tonight. I wouldn't ask her to kill me again so soon. I'd hate to be an imposition."
Gregor should tell him to stop going to Ryōshū entirely, but all he can think about are all the reasons Hong Lu won't listen.
Hong Lu is an adult. Hong Lu is his own person, and he can make his own choices. No one has the right to stop him. He's not hurting anyone, except himself. If Hong Lu wants to kill himself with the assistance of another consenting adult, who is Greg to stop him? It's not like he'll stay dead.
But perhaps what holds Gregor back the most is remembering what it was like to be in his twenties, so sure that nothing would ever change and jealous of the many dead among his comrades. They had it easy. They didn't have to get up and do it all over again the next day. Gregor had obviously never gone as far to kill himself, but he'd put a barrel in his mouth once or twice. No amount of overbearing, well-meaning advice from any of his seniors would have changed anything.
The only thing that had helped was time. Gregor needed some distance, both temporal and physical, from his waking nightmares before he could fathom a world where existing might be tolerable.
Then again... Well. It's unlikely Gregor would have taken his miserable, self-depreciating head out of his ass for long enough to be receptive to a helping hand, but... it might've been nice to have someone try.
Maybe he should try.
Does Gregor only want to believe that Hong Lu doesn't want to hear it, because of how badly he doesn't want to get involved? That would make him more than pathetic; it would make him a coward.
Still, he can't help but feel like an overbearing geezer when he makes himself say, "If it ever gets to be too much, you can always talk to someone." Then, when Hong Lu blinks vacantly at him, he clarifies. "Talk to me, I mean. If you want. Or not, I dunno, whoever."
Gregor braces for the immediate rejection he knows is coming, and he's not going to take it personally. Of course Hong Lu wouldn't want to talk to some old fogy about his problems.
But after a painfully long moment of silence, Hong Lu answers with, "Thank you. I'll think about it." And then, "Good night, Gregor."
"Yeah, g'night," Gregor mutters back, unable to look at Hong Lu.
Gregor listens to Hong Lu walk away and fiddles with his lighter rather than risk looking up too soon. It isn't until Hong Lu's footsteps become inaudible that Gregor feels his shoulders relax.
He should report back to Dante. But what should he say? Did the talk go well, or didn't it? All things considered, maybe it went as well as it could have.
Gregor wonders, briefly, fleetingly—harmlessly, he'd like to claim—if perhaps Hong Lu had disliked smoking because Gregor's brand is too heavy. Maybe he'd appreciate a menthol or a slim more. Maybe something sweeter.
No, is he insane? He can't get a nice kid like Hong Lu addicted to nicotine. Gregor should've turned him down from the start.
But as he smokes his last cigarette down to the filter, the same cigarette Hong Lu had put in his own mouth, Gregor finds himself considering it anyway.