blue roses

I was pretty shocked to see Kong show up on time, but I didn’t say anything about it - Miss Tomoe was there, and she’d probably made a point of escorting her. No...Guess I should say Miss Tomoe dropped her off, like an obliging older sister. Or an overenthusiastic young mother, getting her little girl to play with the other kids for the first time. She smiled her bright, understanding smile – edged that night with a little bit of mischief – as she urged Kong forward, closer to me. ...It was definitely more like a mother. Couldn’t tell offhand if Kong really wanted to be here, but it seemed like Mommy Tomoe knew what was best.

Really hoped it wasn’t just for my sake.

They’d spent a lot of time deciding what Kong should wear, though. Or at least, Miss Tomoe had. Kong herself looked completely out of place. Wouldn’t look at me. Probably embarrassed about how...clean she was. Like she’d slept. Showered. Hadn’t been drinking, or even smoking, for at least the past few hours. It made her look younger. Cuter. Like an ordinary girl. I felt like kind of a pervert after a couple of seconds, but it wasn’t like...wasn’t like this was a booty call or something. She shooed Miss Tomoe away as she leaned in one last time to fuss with the collar on her jacket, and after the blonde left, she mumbled something to me and held out her hand. Turned bright red, too.

“...Don’t let go. Not for a second.”

...It was cool out, that night. Not freezing, but colder than we usually got in Santa Destroy. Cold enough for little snowflakes to fall from the sky, glittering in the city lights like a thousand tiny stars. I could feel them melt against my skin, tiny prickles of chill and water that dissolved instantly. Looking back, we left a trail of empty space in our wake, as she tugged me along with her small, slender hand.

That night, the whole world was gray. Everything except for her, anyway. Kong. ...Murderface.

She told me that was normal. It was normal not to feel even the wind. Normal not to hear anything but our own soft steps on the pavement. Normal to feel like we were the only ones in the world, even as we slipped through crowds of frozen salarymen. ...Asked her if it was normal to hold onto a girl’s hand for this long, and she just huffed out that soft little noise and ignored the question.

The universe in black and white. Murderface’s World. It reflected her perfectly. Solemn. Quiet. Mysterious and harsh, but...sure. It felt grounded and real, more real than it did in color. ...Didn’t tell her any of that, either. Would have been weird. Even weirder than being dragged down the street by my hand.  If I did tell her, she probably would have thought it was stupid. And it would have shattered this peaceful, all-consuming silence, something I felt like she didn’t want to do.

 ...I sped up a little, and even though she looked away, I caught her blushing. Guess I...might have been, too. But all I had to do was pull my scarf up over my face. ...Just a little cold, Kong.

I didn’t know where we were going. Took about fifteen minutes of being pulled down Mitakhiara’s motionless streets before I thought to ask, and when I did, Kong slowed to a stop. ...She didn’t think about it, when she came here. It was just...her place. A place for her to come to be alone. To get away from the bullshit. I sort of...hoped I knew what she meant. That she wanted to share it. …Didn’t say that either, though. I just told her that I sort of understood. Used to be the same way when I’d dream. Long, aimless walks to nowhere. Fuck the destination, the journey was the whole thing. Something softened in her expression, and I shot her a smile.

...She didn’t see it, thanks to the scarf, and I felt really stupid after a moment. Like she could read my mind, though, she laughed a little bit anyway.

“I...” She stumbled over her words a little, like she wasn’t accustomed to them. “I’m glad you get it.” ...It was something rare. A moment of honesty, without the shell. The fear and distrust. ...Like the black and white world around us, it was an endless moment without all the bullshit.

---

...Do you like hurting people?

“What?” Couldn’t help but laugh at the look she gave me. It seemed like it’d be completely natural to Kong, but…guess she wasn’t the kind of person who thought about things like that. I repeated the question, and she made a face like I’d just sprouted a frog head.

“No. I shoot people to help save the orphanage where I grew up.” Knew it. She was lying about the amnesia the whole time.

She slipped a cigarette in her mouth, shaking her head at my shitty joke. I fumbled for the lighter in my pocket, then lit it for her. ...We had to keep holding hands, after all. She had a way of talking without taking her cigarette out – like an old pro, the hero of a detective movie - and as she responded, she passed one my way. Wanted to know why I asked.

...It was kind of stupid, but it was the first thing the old Warmaster – Miss Marigold – asked me, when I met her. ...It took me a couple of days to come up with an answer. Next time I saw her after that, I tried to stab her in the stomach. She just crushed my knife into powder. Wasn’t even worried, or angry. Kind of looked like she’d stepped in something, if I had to put a word to it. She told me I didn’t like it enough, if that was all it took to stop me. Then she got to work on beating it into me.

“...So? Do you like hurting people enough now?”

I don’t come when I stab someone in the throat. ...But it’s kind of become an art. I’m proud of it. I enjoy it. It’s what I do.

She repeated ‘an art’ to herself, with a hint of a smile, and nodded just slightly. Wasn’t that different for a Vindicare, at the end of the day. Not like I didn’t know that, but back home, we made a pretty big deal out of it. It’d only become more of a joke with the new Warmaster, Mary...Totally Awesome Sweet Alabama Liquid Snake, the Vindicare Prima. At least, among the few people that could say it and get away with it. …I rattled off a couple of my favorites.

‘Callidus don’t remember how to cry. Eversors never knew. But it doesn’t matter; Vindicares do it enough for all of us.’

‘How many Vindicares does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Nobody knows – they won’t get closer than twenty-one feet.’

…Alright, that second one was pretty bad. But it was a great way to piss them off. They always got pretty eager to prove you wrong. And when they tried to take a swing…Try punching an Eversor once, see what happens. Callidus, at least in the Eighth, weren’t a whole lot nicer about it, either.

Kong looked annoyed. Maybe even angry. ...Didn’t seem much happier when I told her she was one of the good ones. I scrambled to add ‘Like Miss Tomoe’ on the end, and it seemed to help.

A couple of quiet minutes passed, with both of us finishing our cigarettes and blowing the smoke into the air, trying to freeze it into patterns. I put mine out on the concrete next to me before I spoke again, about the second question the Warmaster asked me.

Do you like flowers? Do you understand them?

…Guess it was two, but they were asked together. Every time, together.

“...You’re making that up.” She flicked her cigarette butt over the side of the building. ...It froze mid-flight, naturally. ...I told her that no, that was one of the other things she’d ask us. That was the one she asked us the most, the most important one. Usually after trying to kill us with flowers.

It didn’t help us understand them, but it did make Annie start cutting every flower she saw in half. So that was pretty funny.

...She still didn’t seem to care. Not that I blamed her. It took...it took me a while to care at all, too. To understand it at all. ...Didn’t say that, though I started to, a few times. While we sat there.

...Blue roses. I broke the silence again. Every night with Kong, I broke the silence more times than the rest of my life combined. Kind of a nice feeling. Neither of us…really had to talk, with the other there. It was always a choice. Always important.

“What?”

I fumbled with my Japanese for a minute. I’d become one of the more fluid speakers in the Officio – along with V and Annie, and nobody was sure about Nakajima – but it was...it needed to be said right. ...Needed to be worded in a way someone like...someone like Murderface would understand. Without it sounding completely stupid.

Blue roses were the first flower I came to understand. ...They’re my favorite. Symbols of mystery and impossible dreams. Just by existing, they prove that…that they’re not really impossible.

...Nope. Still stupid. My cheeks burned red, and I tried to distract myself by fiddling with my skirt.

...Kong stared at me for a minute, like she couldn’t believe what I’d just said. Her jaw worked a little, and at first, I thought she was just going to say ‘what?’ again. ...In the end, she just squeezed my hand, staring down at the frozen world below. ...Her expression had gone soft again, and after thinking about it for a second, I leaned over and pressed my lips against her cheek. Just for a second.

Just to thank her for not laughing.

---

The last thing I remembered from that night was the smell of her hair, along with the feel of her face buried in my neck. We weren’t drunk this time, just...happy to be together. I guess. I was happy. She...seemed to be. It was a little cold to be lying around, but she wasn’t. Even with cold concrete at my back, it was the warmest I’d felt in...a long time.

---

I didn’t dream, which made waking up even more jarring than it usually was. There was a heavy weight on my body, lighter than Kong, but apparently balancing on my torso. Whatever it was was poking my cheek, clearly unaware of how rare it was for me to sleep without screaming myself awake. Or dying. …Maybe that’s what it thought happened. It breathed heavily onto my face, leaving a scent of sugar and something I couldn’t quite identify.

“Wendyyy...” A small, soft whimper, from whatever was poking me. At length, I finally opened my eyes, only to see two blood-red coals in the midst of a universe of darkness. It was Lily, her face so close to mine that her bunny hood swallowed the entirety of my vision. ...It took a second to process, then gently took hold of her midsection and lifted her off of me, mumbling out a few words of greeting to the little squirt.

It was the earliest part of the morning, with the whole world cast in a blue-gray glow, and for a moment I groggily wondered if I was still frozen in time. ...That wasn’t possible, though. Not without Kong, wherever she went.

“Wendyyy...we hafta get ready for the festivaaal...” Lily pouted under her hood. She was trying not to be a brat, I could tell, but we’d stayed a few extra days in Japan just so we could all go together. Dorothy and Annie went out of their way to pick out yukata for everyone and everything. Seemed like Lily was jumping the gun, though. Probably made a mistake in telling her about how good festival food was supposed to be; we’d end up getting there hours early if she got any more impatient. …If you could be early for a festival. Wasn’t really sure.

Not like I wasn’t kind of excited, myself. But it would have been nice to… ...Ah, whatever. Not her kind of thing anyway. I scraped myself up off the roof and stretched, trying to blink the light from my eyes. Had to remember to thank the kid later. She probably snuck off to sniff me out like this, and she’d transformed to do it. Probably even used a little magic.

As we headed down off the building and back toward our hotel, I noticed something sticking out of one of Lily’s big, baggy sleeves. A little hint of blue. Asked her about it, and she gave me a wide-eyed look, like I’d caught her sneaking cookies again. She evaded the question a bit, but I managed to convince her I wasn’t going to be mad, and asked her to show it to me. It wasn't as big a deal as she was making it out to be; probably just found a little treasure somewhere. When she held it up, though, my breath caught in my throat.

...It was a blue rose. She said it was next to me. Found it before she woke me up.

...Motherfucker.