TSAIWOKI Chapter 2

Chapter 2

It was with a relieved sigh that Blake slouched down into the seat of his slightly rundown Toyota. Teaching wasn’t necessarily a hard job, it was just that Blake hated the part where he actually had to teach. The students could be infuriating at times as well, but Blake felt drained every time he stood up to talk. Years of doing this hadn’t resolved the issue in the slightest, much to Blake’s dismay. The only other part he hated was the lack of free time that his job provided. He taught class, went home to grade all the leftover papers, and then started the cycle again. It was frankly exhausting, but it was a crucial part of a student’s education.

It was for that reason that the drive to and from the school was one of the better parts of the day. He could just sit and focus on the road. He didn’t have to be in the spotlight teaching and he wasn’t checking essays. He was just existing and driving down a road. It a calming thing to do.

Absentminded he turned the radio on. By pure happenstance he happened to listen to the news rather then music, not that he minded. It was really just a background sound to keep him fully awake. The bursts of rhythmic ordered sound would keep him awake. The dull monotone of a newscaster spoke out, detailing the robbery of two separate gun stores, one of which was wiped clean and the other one was missing a single pistol. Disturbingly, there was also a shooting at a political rally further in the city. The incident was ultimately put down by a few civilians and police forces, but twelve were shot, four of whom died. It was truly a sad world when shootings happened because your ideas differed, a small corner of Blake’s mind commented. Some people are too dull to realize that shooting people either silences their voice or makes it louder. These people must never have heard that what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger. These thoughts drifted out of his mind as Blake focused on the road, forgetting the info as soon as he processed it. It simply wasn’t relevant to a teacher like him.

Eventually, Blake pulled up to his apartment. It wasn’t the best, being slightly rundown, and the area was one where you definitely didn’t want to be out at night without a weapon. Regardless, it was his home. A glance around the darkening parking lot revealed that his roommate wasn’t yet back. Odd but not unusual, sometimes work kept Danny late into the night. Danny was the only reason Blake actually had the run down apartment in the first place.

Happy to be home, Blake walked into his first floor apartment. He collapsed on the couch, happy to be home in the cramped, one bedroom household. It wasn’t the nicest place and the counter was somewhat overflowing with dishes, but it was home and it worked. Sometime later, Blake managed to peel himself off the couch and grabbed his work folder. Turning his laptop on, he got to work, spreading his papers over the couch and grading their physical and digital copies. He worked himself in a rhythm, methodically switching from digital to physical and clearing his backlog out paper by paper. It was a slow, tedious process, but it was his responsibility.

His phone beeped, making Blake jump slightly in his seat. He pulled it out and stared at the text he got from Danny, hoping he wasn’t understating what he texted. The man had an enormous penchant for understatements.

Blake sighed and stood from the couch, making sure not to disturb the stacks of papers around him. He scrounged around on the shelves before pulling out a first aid kit, which he left open on the messy table. It was a standard procedure at this point. Danny would text in workplace injuries and Blake would pull the medicine kit out and get everything ready.

Blake settled back into the rhythm of checking over papers and sorting them to their proper piles. It was a simple mindless task, but he did it with a singleminded focus. He could easily get absorbed into work like this without much effort. Only things like loud noises or other people would really break him out of his trance.

Another thing that would break him out of his work groove would be his roommate, Danny, happening to walk in unannounced and slump down on the couch next to him. Blake shifted some papers out of the bigger man’s way as Danny pulled a small ice pack from the kit and pressed it to his forehead. An ugly purple bruise sat on the center of it, framed by his black hair.

Danny’s last name was Miano and a casual observer would be right to assume he had some Mediterranean heritage from his tanned skin. Danny wasn’t rippling with muscles like a person like a stereotypical bodybuilder, but he was clearly a fit and athletic person. His job as a bodyguard was the main reason Blake could actually afford the apartment. Danny paid the rent and utilities while Blake handled food and other expenses.

Blake spared a sidelong glance at his roommate, who was being unusually quiet tonight. He let the room sit in silence for a while, drifting back into the rhythm of work to ignore the steadily growing silence. A few long minutes passed before Danny dropped the ice pack into the medicine kit. The quiet sound of the impact shattered the silence and caused Blake to shift uncomfortably. He sighed and turned to his roommate, whose lips were still turned up in the ghost of a smile. It was as if he had been smiling for so long he forgot how to stop. “You alright Danny? You seem a bit on edge tonight. Who was your employer this time?”

Danny’s smile grew, but it seemed hollow and fake, as if more out of habit than anything else. “The usual radical politician whose own party sometimes hates him, nothing new really. Seems to be a lot of radicals out there of all colors these days. Makes you wonder if they’ll have to invent new colors for some of these guys. Some of them are legitimately insane and not in a fun way. I think this week’s policy was to inject everyone with super-genes or some overboard idea like that. Next week he’ll be saying that all superwhatevers need to die. That’s just how the game works for these guys I guess.”

Blake sighed at Danny’s evasion of the question but didn’t push for more. He wanted to know what the problem was, but had no intentions of pushing Danny for more if he truly didn’t want to talk about it. “Yeah, there’s a lot of nutjobs running around these days it seems. You can’t really do much about it except keep them out of office. I think we still have leftovers in the fridge.”

Danny simply nodded but made no move to get up. He simply crossed his arms and stared off at the wall in thought. Blake decided to resign himself to work for the night and continue working through his pile of papers. He admittedly had a massive backlog to sort through due to distractions that had come up over the past few days. He could probably clear most of it, if not all of it, out if he worked through the night. So stuck in his mindless pattern as he was, he failed to notice the envelope he had found earlier that day laying neatly on top of the stack of papers that had yet to be graded.

Unlike Blake, Danny was not so focused on his task to ignore the letter. His eyes drifted downward and his lips turned up in a genuine smile as he snatched up the letter. The sudden movement alerted Blake, who stared wide eyed with surprise at the letter he had forgotten. As he reached for it, Danny casually raised the letter above his head, abusing his height to the fullest. An utterly insufferable grin that spoke of occasionally malicious mischief spread across his face.

“What’s this, another love letter from a student? Your really breaking my cousin’s heart, you know?” Danny’s voice took on its usual confident and borderline arrogant tone as he spoke, filling Blake with a little bit of relief. The relief was soon replaced by tingles of embarrassment. Blake shook his head and coughed before reaching out for the letter, which his roommate somehow managed to keep a few hairs lengths away.

“I never asked for her to be into me! Do you know how awkward it was when she kept trying to turn detentions into dates?”

“Nope. Thank God for the small miracles. I’m not the type of person to be into my own cousin, sorry to burst your little bubble,” Danny let out a light, calming laugh that could easily set a person at ease.

Blake grumbled under his breath and resigned himself to this teasing abuse. “Stop putting words in my mouth. You can keep your fantasies to yourself, just give me back the letter.”

With a laugh, Danny leaned back to avoid another attempt to reclaim the letter and got up. His smirk grew somewhat larger as he slyly stood by the apartment’s small window. He inched his letter holding hand closer to the window tauntingly, “Testy, testy. Yeesh. Maybe I’m on the right track after all professor. What’s in this thing anyways?” Danny slid his hand out the window, wiggling the letter in the open air outside the apartment.

Impatience filled Blake’s voice as he approached his tormentor, “Its not some weird affair or whatever you think it is. I don’t exactly know what is in there. It was left behind in some textbook after class today. The book didn’t have a name in it so I don’t know who it’s from. Now can you please give it back.” He didn’t exactly mind these sorts of antics, but they were a bit tiresome, especially when he still had work left to do.

Danny nodded and opened his mouth to respond, but instead of the letter being handed back to Blake three events happened. The first was that pounding, a scream that was cut short, and a loud thud could be heard through the ceiling. The second was that Danny reflexively tried to reach for a gun he didn’t have on him with his right hand. His wrist slammed into the side of the window and Danny winced. The last event was that when Danny winced in pain his grip on the letter loosened. The letter fell and laid resting on the ground and out of the reach of both the residents of the apartment. A breeze just so happened to blow in and swoop the mysterious letter away. Blake stared absolutely dumbfounded out the window at what just happened. His mind lamented the loss of the answer to a mystery. So frozen was he that Danny had to cough loudly to get Blake’s attention. Blake noticed the jovial bodyguard’s ghostly smile was back and that a gun was resting on his hip. Danny uttered a single word, “Upstairs,” and left the room.

Overwhelmed by curiosity and concern, Blake rushed after him. He glanced around nervously at shadows, as if a killer might jump out at him from one. Silently the duo walked up the stairs to the second level, but froze as they heard footsteps running towards them. Cautiously, Blake backed away from the staircase while Danny moved further up the stairs. As the footsteps started to near the staircase, they stopped for a few long moments. Just as suddenly as they stopped, they started back up again, this time moving in an opposite direction. Erring on the side of caution, Danny slowly opened the door and saw only a brief hint of a black cloaked figure sprint into the opposite staircase.

Slowly, Danny moved out of the doorway, gun drawn in case any trouble occurred. His footsteps were lighter then a person would have expected the to be, nearly silent in the dead quiet hallway. To Blake they seemed like thunderclaps however. He nervously followed his braver roommate up into the hall while his hand brushed his hair around in a nervous gesture. The two edged towards the only open door in the hallway and slowly, Danny peeked inside, not wanting to alert anyone who might still be in the room of his presence.

For an inordinately long amount of time Danny stood still, staring at whatever lay beyond the doorway. He stood as if transfixed by the sight that lay beyond the doorway. What worried Blake even more was the lack of a smile or any sort of expression on Danny’s face. His trademark perpetual smile was replaced for a dead neutral face. Nervously, Blake approached and peered around Danny for a glimpse at the sight he was seeing. He only saw a glimpse, for seconds after seeing it, Blake shut his eyes tight and wished he had never peeked.

Inside lay a corpse, a knife shoved through its throat. A small puddle of blood was forming around it, flowing from the neck wound.