Archive of Our Own ^beta

It felt weird to walk around Chinatown again and not feel threatened. Of course, there was still a lingering threat there. Yut Lung hadn’t magically gone away, but now he was no longer in cahoots with the Union Course and Blanca was gone, he posed little to no danger to Ash personally any more, especially now Eiji was out of the picture too.

Yut’s main issue had never been with Ash per se. In the beginning, he was forced to act by his brothers. Afterwards, as he got to know Ash more, it had been envy at what Ash had. They had similar tragic backgrounds, with similar levels of abuse and high expectations heaped upon them, but where Ash came out the other side with loyal friends, several good people who loved and cared about him, and eventually even a valid way out of the life he led, Yut had nobody and nowhere to go. He had ended up bitter and angry as a result, and his primary reason for hating Eiji so much was less because he found him annoying, although he did, and more because he resented that he made Ash so happy.

What he needed was his own ‘Eiji’ in his life. Sing had informed Ash last time they met that Yut had calmed down considerably since he had become his official second in command. Yut had never had any friends his own age before, and in Ash’s opinion you really couldn’t go wrong with having someone like Sing as your wingman. The kid was like a miniature Shorter; loyal and a little goofy at times, but also a good listener and a good friend, who would always be there when you needed them most. He wasn’t an ‘Eiji’, at least not to Yut Lung. Someone like Eiji was truly special, but… Shorter had been too, for different reasons, and he had kept Ash teetering on the right side of the darkness until the sun finally came over from the East and illuminated his life. Having friends, even just one of them, in a time when you need one the most, can do miracles for loneliness.

Sing said that, when he wasn’t being an obnoxious asshole, or drunk, or both, he was actually very pleasant to be around. He was generous, especially compared to his brothers, handing money and resources out like candy to the impoverished in the Chinese community, and he was apparently very naïve on how the outside world worked and what teenagers do for fun, so Sing had been educating him on the joys of video games and movies, which he would engage in with an almost childlike wonder.

Ash took his word for it that he was nice; Yut was dangerous and manipulative, like he was, but unlike Ash he had also been cruel and vindictive, and he simply could not forgive him for what he did to Eiji. He would be willing to leave him alone and let bygones be bygones provided they never purposefully met in person again. If they did ever cross paths in the future, Ash wouldn’t trust himself to act in a civil manner, and he had escaped prison again by the skin of his teeth as it was! He’d murdered enough of the Chinese mafia for one lifetime – he would rather not add another one of their number into his kill count!

Sing totally understood the sentiment – he hadn’t completely forgiven him either, but arguably Ash had done the same thing and worse to him by killing both his former boss and his half-brother, and they were still on friendly terms. Sing was just a very understanding and forgiving guy, provided the reasons behind your slights were justifiable, although sometimes his patience was a little lacking, so getting him to listen to your reasons without him flying off the handle first could be tricky.

He also may have just a tiny bit of hero worship going on, meaning Ash could get away with a few atrocities and still receive awe and respect. It was difficult to say. Maybe Ash just perceived it that way because Sing was three years younger than he was. There was definitely some level of trying to copy both Ash and Shorter in his leadership style, especially early on. He was developing his own style more as he grew into the role, and Ash had a lot of respect for him as a gang leader – he was smart and thought outside the box, he looked after his boys, and he wasn’t afraid to get his own hands dirty to spare them and bring peace.

Sing was charismatic and popular, and had continued to forge alliances with both Alex, who was now head of Ash’s old gang after he stood down (although they still referred to themselves as ‘Lynx Gang’ anyway, and they all still called Ash ‘Boss’ and Alex by name), and Cain Blood of Black Sabbath, meaning that the three biggest youth gangs in Manhattan could share certain turves, help each other out in a pinch, and wouldn’t fight each other, thus preventing a lot of trouble and unnecessary bloodshed. Their alliance also prevented other, smaller gangs from kicking off too, because they knew that to do so would invoke the retaliation of all three of the big players. Youth crime had plummeted - even more than when Ash was in charge, and he’d done an excellent job at corralling the more wayward souls into some semblance of order and peace. Alex had insisted it was his legacy that led to the current peace, as he’d initiated the alliances and inspired people to co-operate.

Then again, Ash had also been responsible for a lot of homicide just by himself… That definitely skewed the crime figures slightly while he was in charge. ‘Bloody Hallowe’en’ was probably his most infamous massacre, but it did remove Arthur and his followers from Manhattan, which by itself would settle several issues between the major gangs and bring a temporary reprieve. Other assholes and other megalomaniacs would inevitably crop up, but for now the most violent troublemakers were gone.

Chinatown had struggled with the power vacuum left after Shorter passed. Lao had been supposed to take over, being Shorter’s second as he was, but Sing took the mantle instead because Lao said he was smarter and had better judgement than him. As the Banana Fish incident got more and more complex, and Sing struggled to cope with the responsibility of leadership, some people lost faith in his ability. He had only been fifteen when he took over – the same age Ash had been when he usurped Arthur and started Lynx Gang – making him one of Manhattan’s youngest ever bosses. All of the Chinatown youth had a staunch loyalty to Shorter, and seeing Sing cavorting with his murderer and practically worshiping him had left a sour taste in their mouths. However, since Sing had told his boys the truth behind Shorter’s demise, and they’d realised they’d been all wrong about Ash being a traitor to their old boss, he’d finally had complete loyalty within his ranks, as people stopped questioning his judgement.

Shorter’s death was the reason Ash was here today too.

Sing had helped him out by revealing the hidden truths and setting the ball rolling, but he was still dreading today. In all honesty, and as cruel as it was to withhold information from this person in particular, he’d been putting off this meeting for way too long, his own anxiety and guilt keeping him at bay. However, it was time to bite the metaphorical (and maybe literal, in this case) bullet, and finally explain things to this person himself, as he had promised he would do.

Today, he was going to meet Nadia Wong, and tell her exactly how and why her brother had died.

Naturally, he was terrified. He had been in all sorts of life-threatening situations and abused by psychopaths and sex offenders alike, and they all paled in comparison to confronting one young Chinese woman. Max had commented that he’d barely touched his breakfast waffles that morning, but he had been too anxious to eat, and he was regretting not having something substantial in his stomach right now. The closer he got to the Chang Dai, the more nauseous he felt, and the more tempting it was to turn tail and chicken out.

He dipped into an alleyway between a Chinese grocery and an acupuncture clinic and threw up behind a dumpster, acrid bile burning his throat as he gagged, although it did little to settle the butterflies going crazy in his midriff. He wiped his lips on the back of his wrist, spitting the last vestiges of watery puke from his mouth, before steeling himself and walking the rest of the way to the Chang Dai, trying to ignore the palpitations in his chest and the thrill of adrenaline that left him light-headed.

Now was not the time for a panic attack! He was being ridiculous! It wasn’t like Nadia would actually hurt him! She might despise him… That would be okay, he thought. He probably deserved that, as much as it would pain him to have her hate him. But it wasn’t like his life was in danger, or that she’d go out and commit acts of revenge on someone he held dear in retaliation. She wasn’t like that. It was just a conversation – a horrible one, but nothing more sinister than talking!

Still…

He procrastinated outside the restaurant for nearly ten minutes, pacing up and down the sidewalk, pausing to hover by the door with his hand poised over the handle, then changing his mind to pace again, arms crossed and head bowed. It was a good job the Chang Dai had frosted windows, or she’d have likely seen his frantic pacing back and forth, like a captive bear in a zoo. He imagined he looked either suspicious or crazy, probably both, as he chewed at his nails and moaned unhappily to himself. Eventually, after taking a deep breath, he was able to bring himself to open the door, and step into the dim interior, his legs shaking.

The restaurant was empty, save for a few members of Sing’s gang, who were a permanent feature anyway as they used the place as a hideout and hangout, and had done since Shorter’s days. Nadia had known he was coming and the purpose behind the visit, and had closed the restaurant for the afternoon to accommodate him. The boys were playing some form of card game – five card draw poker, it looked like, a small ante of petty change piled into the middle of the table. Ash acknowledged they were there with a simple nod of his head, hoping he still looked calm and collected even though he didn’t feel it. He got a couple of lopsided smiles and a raised hand in response, and one of them stood up, placed his cards face down on the table, sauntered to the kitchen door, and leant inside.

[“Hey Nads – the Wildcat is here!”] he called into the kitchen in Cantonese.

[“I’ll be there in a minute,”] a familiar female voice replied. The boy nodded, and returned to the table with the others.

“She’s coming,” he told Ash, making eye contact before taking his seat again and picking up his cards.

“Right…”

He tried to keep his face neutral and not look as anxious as he felt. He still had a reputation to uphold, after all, but it was tough. The Chinatowners were now mostly ignoring him, but he still had the distinct sensation of being watched. Time seemed to slow down, seconds morphing into minutes and minutes into hours. He started to feel slightly dizzy, jelly legs and racing thoughts not helping matters, so he pulled out a chair on a table by himself and sat down. His butt barely touched the chipped formica before Nadia appeared, drying her hands on a dishcloth, her usual stern expression on her face. It made her look perpetually mildly annoyed, but Ash knew that wasn’t usually the case. Nadia was a very pretty lady, kind-of androgynous in appearance with her slim, boyish frame and pixie haircut, but she did tend to have a resting bitch face as her go-to neutral expression. However, when she was happy, she had the same goofy smile as her brother, and when she was actually mad… Well, you knew about it!

“Come through, Ash,” she said, waving her arm to beckon him over. “Let’s go somewhere a bit more private.”

Ash swallowed nervously, nodded, and with an uncharacteristic shyness followed her out to the back rooms, and up the stairs into the residential part of the building. This was the apartment that Shorter had grown up in. It was small; a two-bedroom affair with a living area and a bathroom, but it had been more than adequate for the brother and sister duo to live in.

They still had the old rag-rug in front of the couch, and the photos on the mantlepiece shelf of their parents and extended family. There were a couple of new ones there as well, ones that Ash had not seen before; One of Shorter laughing somewhere sunny, the dimples on his face from his beaming grin standing out starkly below his sunglasses, his head pale grey with stubble regrowth from where he’d been unable to shave for a few days, and another of Shorter throwing up a pair of V-signs with his fingers, his muscular arms draped over a cute and smiley Eiji, who was also holding up a double-peace medley and looking painfully Asian doing so, and a distinctly awkward looking Ash with a lop-sided smile and mussed-up hair, hunched slightly from the weight of his friend’s arm pressing down on his shoulders.

He remembered having that photo taken, Ibe having snapped it while they were stuck at Cape Cod. The photographer had forwarded around a dozen photos of their roadtrip to Nadia before things all went south in California. He was a little surprised that she had chosen to display a photo that had him in it as well though… There had been plenty of Shorter alone, or Shorter with Eiji. Why have one of him with his murderer?

“Sit.” Nadia pointed at the sofa, inviting him to make himself comfortable. “I’ll make some tea.”

“Thanks…”

He tentatively perched himself on the very edge of the sofa, legs jiggling, his knees bouncing up and down nervously. To keep himself distracted, he examined the photos on the mantle again, looking at all the photos of baby Shorter, then child Shorter, then teenage Shorter, usually accompanied by some family member or other. There was one of him with Sing and Lao (Sing’s mother was Shorter’s second cousin, so they were actually related, albeit distantly), and one of him cooking something in the Chang Dai kitchen, sporting that terrible mohawk he sometimes liked to grow. There was also a photo of… Was that Charlie Dickinson? He’d suspected he and Nadia might have had a thing going on for a little while – Max had a big mouth, and there had been several clues such as Charlie being seen in Chinatown a lot more than usual, and occasionally name-dropping her in conversations, but nobody had said for certain that they were an item and it had all been speculation. If Nadia was now displaying photos of him on the family shelf, then they must be getting serious.

He didn’t have time to contemplate that prospect further before Nadia reappeared with a Chinese teapot, two teacups, and a plate with four pineapple buns on it. These were similar to the ‘melon pan’ Eiji used to make sometimes, so he knew that neither of the breads contained any fruit at all, and were instead named for the rough, cookie-like crust that resembled the fruits in question.

“You always look like you’re starving,” Nadia told him as she poured tea. “So, if you don’t eat at least one of these now, I will make you take them all home with you, and more besides!”

Ash grabbed one and nibbled it a little so she could see he was at least trying to eat. It was disconcerting how normal she was acting, considering he had come here to confess his sins. She was always trying to feed him, and he suspected he was going to be taking at least six takeout boxes of leftovers back to the Glenreeds, as well as the aforementioned pineapple buns, no matter how much he ate in her presence. That is, of course, if she didn’t kick him out on his ass and scream at him to go and die in a hole somewhere… She might throw them at his head or something in that situation. He’d seen her lob dumplings at Shorter before when he’d really pissed her off.

Nadia placed one of the cups of green tea in front of him, then picked up her own, warming her hands around the ceramic as she took a seat on the battered old armchair. She sighed audibly, staring down at the tea thoughtfully.

“Sing’s already told you some of what went down, right?” Ash broke the awkward silence, fiddling with the almost perfectly round bun in his hands and finding it hard to look at her.

“He told me a little of what happened,” she said sadly. “He told me that you only did what you had to do, so before you begin giving me the details in full you should know that I don’t blame you in the slightest.”

“Oh.” He relaxed a little, knowing that she wasn’t harbouring some form of grudge, at least not yet. She may change her mind once she knew the whole story

“That’s not to say I’m not angry with you, however,” she added firmly. “You still hid the truth. I get why, and I have already forgiven you, but… Keeping me living in the dark, not knowing anything – that was cruel!”

“…Sorry.”

She waved a hand dismissively. “Water under the bridge,” she said. “I just want to know the truth from someone who was there, and not just from a third party.”

“Err… yeah. Of course.”

“So… I guess… Start from the beginning?” she prompted. “Sing could only give me the basics, and mostly what he got from Eiji is that the poor kid blames himself.”

“I swear the Japanese are masochists,” Ash said. “The only thing he did wrong was befriending someone like me, but he’s the type of guy who’d try and pet a rabid wolverine and the damn thing would probably let him! He’s a nice person, and he unfortunately got dragged into the shitshow of my life by a series of unfortunate events.”

“I know,” Nadia smiled slightly. “He was always really polite to me, which made a nice change compared to most of the Chinatown kids. Shorter really liked him too, and he was a pretty good judge of character.”

“I question that,” Ash said quietly. “He was friends with me.”

“I stand by what I said,” Nadia said stubbornly.

 “So, err, how much do you already know?”

“I know you all went on an impromptu roadtrip cross-country, that I only heard about when my idiot brother decided it might be a good idea to call me at 5am from a gas station in Rhode Island.”

“Yeah, that was pretty funny,” Ash reminisced. “The look on his face when he suddenly remembered he hadn’t told you we were skipping town! Heheh, he looked so worried! He said you’d probably beat his ass with a spatula when he got back, then he demanded we pull over somewhere with a phone. He stole all Eiji’s quarters to make the call!”

“At least he remembered,” Nadia sniffed. “Dumbass…”

“None of us had planned that trip that day,” Ash admitted. “But after I fucked up, we needed to get out of dodge fast, and it was Max’s idea that we return to… To my old neighbourhood. You saw my brother before he passed, right?”

“It wasn’t under the best of circumstances, but yes,” she nodded.

“Max and Griff were in Vietnam together, and they doped him with the same drug while he was there. He lost his mind, shot up a load of his comrades while hallucinating demons or some shit before breaking entirely. They then stuck him in a loony bin where he rotted until I dragged him out of there. I gave him to Meredith to maybe find out if there was any way of making him better, or at least improving his condition, but then I got sent down for a murder I didn’t commit. I had to send Eiji with a message to Shorter to try and protect him, because I knew he and the doctor were in danger, but seems I made a mistake sending an amateur to do a pro’s work.”

He’d never once blamed Eiji for what happened. As with many things, Ash blamed himself. He should never have gotten him involved, but he had been desperate at the time, and Eiji’s naïve but willing personality was easy to exploit. Hindsight is a beautiful and terrible thing because, if he’d taken just a little more time to calmly think about things, he might have come up with another way of getting a message out that didn’t involve an innocent photographer’s assistant. Maybe, if he hadn’t panicked, like he always did when it came to people he cared about, then he’d have realised that there was no way of Dino’s men or of Arthur ever finding out where he’d taken that sample. The doctor and Griff would have remained hidden in plain sight forever, until such a time as he was released from prison and could retrieve Griff himself once the heat on him died down. Then again, if he hadn’t asked Eiji to help him, then Eiji would never have become an integral part of his life, so maybe fate makes these things happen for a reason.

“I am sorry about your brother,” Nadia said sympathetically. “I partly blame myself for what happened there, so I guess we’re even!”

“No...No, Nads, we’re not even close! Not considering what I’ve done… What I did… Griff dying was an inevitability. If Dawson hadn’t shot him, he’d have probably choked during one of his fits, or rolled out of bed and hit his head, or just plain carked it with a heart attack before too long. In many ways, him dying was a blessing for both of us – me because I no longer had to look after him, hiding him away and worrying about him all the time, and him because he was finally out of pain after twelve years of hell.”

“Still though… Our actions probably messed everything up for everyone. Shorter had put on his stupid Chang disguise to try and scope out if Eiji was a threat or not, seeing as he’d said he knew you and neither of us recognised him, and it kind of forced his hand to say a few things he maybe shouldn’t have. I could see how reluctant he was to say anything out in public, but you’d specifically asked him to find Shorter and he’d hit a roadblock. We should have invited him out the back and told him who we were once we’d established he was actually with you and not one of Arthur’s spies, although it was blatantly obvious the moment he walked in that he wasn’t a gangbanger. It was me who blurted out where the Doctor was – we weren’t expecting him to go there himself! And we had no idea of the implications! As for Eiji… You could actually see the moment he decided to take matters into his own hands! He seems innocent and soft, and he was clearly nervous, but there’s, like, this spark in his eyes of reckless resolve, and he was determined not to fail you.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Ash sighed, smiling fondly. “I’m glad Shorter decided to follow him – things could have gone even worse!”

“Worse than your brother dying?”

“Eiji, the Doctor, and Ms. Brandish all being slaughtered would have been immeasurably worse, I think,” Ash grimaced. “Griff would have died either way. If he hadn’t made himself known by walking unaided for the first time in years and prompting Dawson to shoot him, they’d have found him in bed and either glocked him where he lay or taken him with them to experiment on. That, or he simply wouldn’t have been found, and would have either starved or choked on his own tongue or vomit, while lying in his own mess.”

Nadia blanched a little, and murmured something in Cantonese that likely equated approximately to saying ‘Jesus Christ’ as a curse in English.

“It’s not a pretty thought,” Ash murmured. “But it’s the harsh truth.”

“So… Cape Cod, right?” she swiftly changed the subject. “Shorter never said why you’d gone there – he didn’t actually tell me where you’d gone at all when he called me, as a precaution. I found out later, when I saw the photos Shunichi sent. There was a San Francisco postmark, but Shorter had put a little note in with them – he always used to write to me in Juvie the same way. He briefly said where you’d all been, and that he’d tell me all about it when he got back. It was the last letter he ever sent me.”

“Yeah, we went to the Cape first. Max was seeking the truth same as I was, and thought maybe there’d be a clue in some of Griff’s old army things, and the US military sent my Old Man his belongings home after he was discharged and committed, so we went to the place where he grew up to check.”

Nadia’s eye twitched slightly at Ash’s wording. Ash had vehemently avoided using the word ‘home’ and, while he likely grew up in the same place as his brother, he seemed to be dancing around that subject carefully. Home to Ash was, and had been for a long time, New York, and even then, for the most part the city hadn’t been the most welcoming or loving of places. It had only really been in the last few months he’d found a place he could call ‘home’ again. Maybe ‘home’ for him was less a place, and more a feeling of being content and around people who made him feel normal. Eiji and, to a lesser degree, Max, provided that feeling of normality and security that street life never could. He had started to call the Glenreed’s house ‘home’ in recent days, but it was said with a tentative confusion, as if he wasn’t quite sure if he was allowed to do that or not yet.

“We found a photo of someone of interest in a group photo from Griff’s first platoon. Most of his first team died during their first few weeks out there, so Griff was transferred into Max’s platoon early on in his service, which was when they became friends. He remained with Max and his new platoon for the rest of his term. In his old team, there had been a medical specialist. I guess he was transferred elsewhere when their first platoon was disbanded, because Max didn’t recognise him. Eiji and Shorter identified him as the man who killed him at Meredith’s place. Griff had labelled him as being called ‘Abraham Dawson’, which gave us a lead. Combined with a vague address that an investigative journalist gave me in an alleyway right before he died, we had a couple of things to go on to find out more information.”

“Wait… Hold on a minute! What investigative journalist?”

“Some contact of Max was looking into the same shit, and he found something out after posing as one of Dino’s lackeys for a while. He got hold of Dawson’s address in Cali, stole a drug sample from the lab in Dino’s complex, and tried to escape, but Dino sent some of my boys out to kill him before he could. That’s when I ran into him. I was the last person to see him alive as he tried to get away. He bumped into me on the street, passed me a drug sample, told me the address, and then died in front of me.”

“Your boys?” Nadia frowned. “I didn’t think Lynx Gang did targeted assassinations?”

“They don’t. I was mad as all hell that Dino had got them involved!” Ash growled. “Our deal was that we’d run drugs and contraband and stuff, but he wouldn’t make them kill anyone. If he really needed a kid to carry out a hit, he… He’d come to me directly. Problem is, Dino is shrewd, and he knows I’m smart and would ask questions, so he probably wanted to keep me as far away from Banana Fish as possible. So he asked two of my less loyal boys to do the dirty work instead, which was shit because not only did I need to go and remind him of our deal, which he really couldn’t care less about, but I had to let those two go because they all knew the rules! You don’t accept murder jobs!”

“Had to make an example to keep the peace, right?”

“Yeah, I scared them a little and then told them to get lost,” Ash said, crushing the pineapple roll slightly between his fingers. He took a second small bite of it, frustrated. “However, if it hadn’t been for them, I wouldn’t have found out that address. In a way, for the dead journalist at least, he ran into just the right person to pass that titbit of information over to, because the words ‘Banana Fish’ actually meant something to me. Griff had been screaming about the stuff for years – it was one of the few coherent things he could say, and I knew it was nothing to do with that Salinger story!”

“So, on the strength of that, you all decided to go to the other side of the country chasing a vague lead?”

“Pretty much,” Ash shrugged. “But we did leave a lot earlier than we were planning, because some of Dino’s goons turned up looking for… For me. We hadn’t been tailed or nothing, they just came looking for me at my Old Man’s place after hearing I’d skipped town, thinking I’d have nowhere else to go. Dino always used to threaten that he’d go after my family should I misbehave to keep me in line when I was younger. Guess he just made good on his promise that day!”

“Is your Dad…? Did they?”

“No idea,” Ash said bluntly. “They did shoot him, but we left ASAP, so maybe he lived, or maybe he bled out after we’d gone. We had to go before the local police came – Max and I had skipped bail, and Shorter and I had just killed two guys, so… Yeah, didn’t look good for us if we stuck around. He was conscious when we fled the scene, and one of his bar friends turned up after hearing gunshots, so he probably got help. It was just his shoulder as far as I could tell, so nothing too nasty. He’s a stubborn bastard as well, so I can’t imagine him dying easily. I take after him in that respect.”

“The impossible to kill part, or the stubborn bastard part?” Nadia asked, smirking slightly.

“Well, it certainly isn’t his rugged good looks!” Ash replied with a smirk of his own. “Griff got them. I just got some Irish eyes and a short temper.”

Nadia snorted with laughter at that.

“They did kill Jennifer though. That’s his girlfriend.”

Jennifer had helped Griff to raise him as a kid, babysitting him while Griffin was at school. She was less of a mother figure and more like a kind if somewhat timid aunt to him, and he regretted getting her killed. If he hadn’t dodged the bullets meant for him, she’d still be here. If he hadn’t returned to the Cape, she’d still be here. If he had never existed in the first place… She’d still be here.

“Seems a lot of innocent people died because of this drug,” Nadia said darkly.

“You don’t even know the half of it,” Ash murmured. “The road trip was fun though. Eiji was doing the whole excitable tourist thing, and Shorter was encouraging him while undergoing some form of culture shock of his own because he’d never really been out of New York before, and suddenly we’re in Kansas and it’s all fields and sky and nothing else, and all the accents are different and the air smells clean, and it was just… A really good time. We all messed around because there wasn’t a lot else to do, and Max insisted on stretching the journey out to shake anyone off our tail, so we took a really convoluted backroute and stopped at all these tourist attractions. This was both to kill time and also because, one time, Eiji wanted to see the massive ball of twine that billboard a few miles back advertised, so we paid it a visit and it wasn’t that big, and he was all pouty and disappointed, and… Why are you laughing?”

“Because I can picture the scene in my head, of this very sad Japanese tourist unimpressed by a big dumb American thing!” she giggled. “And I can see my brother being just as excited about something silly like that as well, and then acting the big macho man to hide his disappointment.”

“Heh, he went and brought us all the best damn ice cream I think I’ve ever had! The yarn ball might have been a flop, but the farm it was on had a herd of dairy cows and made their own ice cream. He said it was to cheer Eiji up, although it might have been more for himself…”

“Probably,” Nadia agreed. “He was always hungry.”

“It was fun though. There were no gangs or fighting or having to think too much. Eiji had us playing games and running around just because we could rather than because we had to.  I think the last week of his life was one of his most enjoyable, for sure.”

“That’s… Strangely comforting,” Nadia said wistfully. “I wish I could have been there, but at least he was enjoying himself with friends. There are some places where an older sister just isn’t welcome anyway, and a boys’ trip is probably one of them!”

“He spoke about you a lot, saying that you’d probably enjoy this, and that he wanted to take you on a trip like this sometime when he got back. He kept saying that he would save up some money, pay off the Lees, and then he’d take you on a fun holiday just like it one day.”

“Well, Yut Lung dropped our debt recently,” she murmured. “Maybe I should see if Charlie can get some time off and we go on a trip ourselves?”

“So, my intuition was right then,” Ash said, his tone carrying an unsurprised nuance. “You are dating a cop! I suspected you two were an item, but now it’s confirmed!”

“Ah… Erm… Yeah. We’ve been together for a while now,” she admitted, blushing slightly. “He’s a real sweetheart, and he was there for me right when I needed someone the most. He’s been really supportive, but it’s also been difficult, keeping things from him.”

“You could do a lot worse than Detective Dickinson,” Ash nodded. “You can do a hell of a lot better too, I mean, the man’s ginger! And he’s a cop! But… If he makes you happy, then it makes me happy. I think Shorter would approve too – Charlie was always sympathetic to us street kids! He’s one of the good ones. Plus, he’s friends with Max, and Max only ever befriends the best.”

“Thanks Ash…”

Anyway… California,” Ash got them back on track. “Which is the place where the shit hit the fan big time!”

Nadia refilled her teacup from the teapot. She went to top Ash’s up too, but he had barely touched his first one, so she put the pot down. She frowned a little at the mostly uneaten pineapple bun he’d done nothing but fiddle with, tearing off a few crumbs from the cookie-like crust; faking eating by moving food around was a bad habit Ash had been doing for years. She nearly warned him that he better eat it or else, but she stopped herself seeing his face, not wanting to stop the flow of conversation now he was getting to the meat of the topic.

“Our first stop in Cali – and while it doesn’t seem important, it is – was the home of Max’s ex-but-soon-to-be-remarried wife. The trip happily coincided with his son’s birthday… I dunno if he planned that, or it just happened that way, but we took a little detour to Jess’ place to let him see Michael. It was probably a good job we had Ibe with us, because Jess went postal seeing Max there, and threatened him with a shotgun. I don’t think she’d have intentionally shot him – I could see her aim was wild, so she wasn’t shooting to kill or even hurt - but she was pretty pissed off! She remembered Ibe from the first time he came to America and stayed at their place, and her attitude did a complete 180. She invited us in for coffee, Max got to hug his son, Ibe asked her to mail his and Eiji’s film reels from the trip back to Japan to save him lugging them around, and everything seemed to be going well. We left after Max dropped off a birthday present, and made our way to Dawson’s address. However, we weren’t careful enough, and there are even eyes in San Francisco that recognised us, despite us having never been there before. I guess Dino figured out that I knew the address the journalist had stolen from him, so he alerted his contacts to be on the lookout. The Lee syndicate’s western branch had been waiting for us. They tagged Jessica’s house as being vulnerable family, and they’d already set plans in motion to ensnare us.”

“The Lee clan?”

“There are reasons Lee dropped your debt, one of which is his own guilt, I think. They used him too, and I pity him for that, but… He’s still an asshole.”

“Sing never told me that part… I thought they hated the Union Course?”

“Oh, they do. They were in it for their own gain,” Ash said darkly. “You know how crime syndicates work? I scratch your back, you scratch mine, but we trust each other about as much as we’d trust a paedophile in a playground?”

“I didn’t realise Yut Lung Lee was involved at all…”

“He’s the fucking lynchpin!” Ash growled. “Although knowing Sing, and even knowing Eiji, neither of them would have said anything. Besides, Eiji was the one that told Sing, and I know for a fact that Eiji was unconscious for a lot of it, so he probably didn’t even realise what was happening or who was involved. I’ve pieced the truth together from what Ibe saw, what Eiji’s told me since, and from what I witnessed myself.”

“So even you don’t know everything?”

“I know the outcome, and I probably know the most overall,” Ash admitted. “But there are things Eiji is keeping hidden from me, and there are things that happened behind the scenes that none of us know about, and I acted purely on instinct with what seemed like the best option at the time.”

“I guess you can only work with what you know,” Nadia said sadly. “I trust your judgement.”

“I wish I did sometimes…”

“Shorter was always going on about how smart you were,” Nadia told him. “If he trusted you, then I do as well.”

“Trusting me got him killed.”

“No, trusting that our own community would keep him safe got him killed,” Nadia growled bitterly, her eyes sharp.

“Maybe…”

“Sorry, Ash. I keep distracting you,” she apologised. “You left Jessica’s place, right?”

“Oh, yeah, we went to Dawson’s place, and that’s where we first ran into Lee. He was posing as Alexis Dawson’s adopted son, Alexis being the older and non-murderous Dawson brother who owned the house. He called himself ‘Yau Si’. I guess the Lee family had planted him at the address Dino had given them to wait for us. I did suspect he wasn’t exactly who he claimed to be, because he moved too quietly and there was just something about his act that stood out as fake to me, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. To try and explain I’ll use Eiji as an example, because he’s kind of what you’d expect a normal person to be like. He clomps around when he moves with little finesse, and he doesn’t hold his breath or consciously breathe quieter than normal, like he’s sneaking around. His presence is… Maybe it’s just because it’s Eiji, but you get no sense of danger from him. But with Lee, you can feel the threat, like someone is holding a knife at your throat. He made me nervous, but Eiji and Shorter didn’t seem to be threatened by him at all, and Shorter was as astute as I am about these things, so I thought at the time maybe I was just being paranoid.”

Nadia nodded understandingly. Shorter had always had a sixth sense when it came to danger. If someone strange came into the Chang Dai, he’d instantly go on the alert around them. He had stopped three robberies and one sexual assault on her due to his danger sense, and had prevented several street brawls and potential murders while out with his gang simply by reading someone’s body language and predicting their intent. Ash seemed to share his instincts and then some, if he’d been able to sense Yut Lung Lee’s secretive danger – the young Lee was known for being youthfully weak-looking and a master of acting and disguise.

“We started searching the place,” he continued. “Initially, we didn’t find anything of interest at Dawson’s place, other than a few generic notes confirming that Banana Fish was a drug. Shorter disappeared to see a contact in San Fran Chinatown to ask if he’d seen anything or heard anything suspicious, like maybe bad batches of drugs making the rounds, or weapons being sold, or other crime syndicates being more active than usual. When he came back he was very quiet and said there was nothing suspect here that the Chinese were aware of. I think, maybe, the Lee syndicate had contacted him while he was making enquiries…”

“At this point, it really wouldn’t surprise me,” Nadia murmured. She frowned as she spat something unsavoury in Cantonese, probably cursing the Lee family.

“I know loyalty is very important to the Chinese – to any gang really, but the Asians really pride themselves on it! I think they maybe threatened him, or, more precisely, they threatened you, and he was then torn between his friendship with me and his promise to keep you safe. I think that would have been especially hard for him, and no doubt the actions he took later would eat at him inside. They told him a Lee sibling would be in touch shortly, and I suspect Yut Lung revealed himself to him soon afterwards.”

“He would have been mortified at having to choose between his friends and his kin,” Nadia admitted sadly. “He always said he would ride or die with you, so having to pick between you and me… Fuck, that would have hurt him a lot!”

“Around that time, I did something else I regret,” Ash said, a sad look in his eye. “Back then, I felt it was a necessary evil, but… Eiji has several complexes about needing to be useful to others somehow. I get the impression his home life was difficult – difficult in a different way to mine, though. Maybe more difficult in a similar way to Griff, in that he’s had to pick up some slack and make himself useful to feel validated. He said he used to compete at pole vault.”

“Wow!” Nadia sounded impressed. Most people were surprised when Eiji told them what he used to do, although suddenly a lot of things about him made sense once you knew. His stubborn resolve, for one. And his bravery in spades. You’d need both of those to even contemplate flinging yourself as high as a house roof with a flimsy piece of fibreglass. Ash was known for being hard as nails and ridiculously brave, but he wouldn’t even dream of attempting pole vaulting; it was too dangerous, even by his standards! The pole could snap, meaning you might fall and miss the crash mat, or potentially impale yourself. Even with the mat, an incorrect landing can fracture necks and spines, and being just slightly off in your jump might dump you in the pit or bounce you off the mat. You had to be ridiculously limber and fit, and it was considered the most dangerous sport on the athletics field for good reason.

“He was good enough to compete nationally and, on a couple of occasions, internationally too. He mainly did it for the prize money, I think, plus he used to do a lot of work around the home because he was the oldest sibling and his father was sick, so he had to be the man and take care of his mom and sister. He pushed himself really hard on the athletics track, but due to his own physical limitations he found it difficult to compete against people who were just that little bit taller than him, or who were better able to relax and focus, which he became increasingly worse at doing. He pushed himself too far, made a mistake one day, and his athletics career ended with a spectacular crash in which he was injured badly. He had to take some time away from the field. He was left feeling depressed and worthless, and the Japanese are really not very good at handling emotions like that. He became unable to bring himself to vault any more, and without a useful talent or skill with which to help his family with, he withdrew into himself and I imagine worried a lot of people who cared about him in the process. That’s why Ibe brought him to America with him – it was to try and inspire him, or else show him he can be useful and earn money in other ways. He had an interest in photography, so he could learn from Ibe on the job and see if he enjoyed it as a potential full-time career after college.”

“That must be why he was so determined not to fail you,” Nadia said, her eyes slightly wide with understanding. “He fears failure.”

“Exactly,” Ash nodded. “He fears it to the point of ruining himself to succeed. All most people see is this fluffy, happy, average boy, but inside he is brittle and sensitive, and there’s this constant voice in his head telling him he’s worthless. So, he’s there with us every step of the way, doing everything he can to help me out, even though there really isn’t very much he can do, but he’s doing it anyway. He vaulted that wall, he took that note for me, he put himself in danger multiple times, he stole Charlie’s car, he stuck by my side all the way across America, making us laugh and just being himself, which was enough. It was always enough. He never asked for anything in return. Nobody had ever done that for me before – not even Shorter! Even he got something out of being friends with me, even if it was unspoken, like an alliance with my gang, and a promise that I wouldn’t… Wouldn’t turn on him and his boys. Fuck… I couldn’t even keep that promise very well, and after all the favours he did for me… I really am awful.”

“No, you’re not.”

“After all the things I’ve done in my life, yes, I am! People can say I’m not until the cows come home – they’re all wrong!”

“I will die on this hill, Ash…”

“It’s not worth dying on.”

“I’ll decide that for myself. Meanwhile, you stop beating yourself up over things outside your control!” she scolded him with a dose of reality. “If Shorter were here, he’d tell you off too!”

“Heh, yeah, he probably would, wouldn’t he,” Ash sighed, defeated. He nipped another delicate little bite out of the pineapple bun before finally deciding that trying to eat right now was a lost cause. He placed the nibbled and slightly squashed bun back onto the plate in front of him, before he continued speaking again. “Everyone expects to gain something when they do me favours, but Eiji gained nothing. He didn’t have need of things like alliances, and he never asked for anything from me like money or sex. He just… Did things. And I didn’t want him to go. He wasn’t one of us though, and the ganglands are a dangerous place for people like him and Ibe. He wouldn’t go home willingly, because he was stubborn and trying to prove something to himself. So, I said some things to him I really shouldn’t have done.”

“Ash…”

“I told him that him being here was a liability. I told him he was a burden. And I told him it would be better for all of us if he left.”

“Oh Ash…”

Ash had to take a deep breath to steady himself before continuing. It would never not hurt him to remember that moment; the way the light had left Eiji’s eyes as his worst fears had been confirmed; that he was in the way and causing a problem; that his worth could only be quantified by how useful he was in a fight. He was older than Ash, and really trying his best to be useful and responsible, but consistently failed and was forever needing protection or saving. Eiji had remained stoic in front of him, and had even agreed that Ash was right, that dark voice inside him pushing its agenda and spiralling him back into a depressive slump. Even months later, no matter what Ash told him about him being amazing, in how his worth lay in his empathy, his kind heart, and in his infinite capacity to love someone like him as deeply as he did, he would still question his worth in his lowest moments and feel like he was always at fault just for existing. What had probably taken many long weeks of recovery and self-reflection had been wrecked in an instant by his sharp tongue. Ibe had run immediate damage control, telling Eiji it was actually him who wanted them to go home because of the danger, not Ash, but… Ash still heard him sobbing out on the balcony, and the despair in his quiet tears sent icy daggers straight into his heart, his chest squeezing with guilt as Eiji lamented how useless he was. The fact that those words could very well have been the last things he ever said to him… That made him feel like the biggest bastard in the world!

“I’m surprised he stayed with me after that,” Ash said quietly. “I honed in on and poked right at his worst insecurities.”

“Eiji’s a very understanding boy,” Nadia assured him. “He’s far stronger than a lot of people give him credit for. I doubt he took those words to heart as much as you’re worried he did. He knew you were just trying to keep him safe.”

“He’s too good for me, is what he is,” Ash murmured.

“I think, after the life you’ve had, you probably deserve a few good things,” Nadia said wisely.

“Yut Lung is an observant little shit, I will give him that,” Ash continued. “He’d been watching how I was around Eiji for a couple of days at this point, and I think he heard our conversation out on the balcony. He knew Eiji was my weak point, and he now knew how he could exploit it by using Shorter. He just needed to separate us somehow, and then he could make his move. He also needed to do it soon, because Eiji had agreed to go back to Japan with Ibe the following day. He must have contacted his brothers, because that evening Max received a phone call from a bunch of men who were at Jessica’s house, threatening her and Michael. He panicked, as any man would, and said he was going to go and protect his family. I agreed to come with him, which was the worst decision I could have made, seeing as I didn’t wholly trust Lee. I asked Shorter to keep an eye on the place, told Eiji and Ibe to remain at Dawson’s place because of the danger, then Max and I jumped in the truck with a shotgun taken from Dawson’s place and my pistol. We raced to Jess’ as fast as possible but, by the time we got there, there were already police taking a statement, and the men were long gone. Max asked me to take care of Michael while he consoled Jess, and I asked him what had happened, thinking Dino’s men had chased us here. He told me Asian men had raped Jess, but because she’d been on the phone when they invaded her home, the person on the other end had contacted the cops. They’d fled but it had been enough of a distraction to separate our party, and when I heard they were Chinese, I knew then and there that Eiji and Ibe were in trouble. Shorter wouldn’t be able to go against his kin, and that ‘Yau Si’ just didn’t sit right with me… When we got back, it was to find Ibe paralysed on the sofa after ingesting a herbal anaesthetic, and Eiji missing along with Lee and Shorter.”

“So my brother did betray you…” Nadia said, her expression extremely wan. “Ash… I’m so sorry!”

“You don’t need to apologise - he had no choice,” Ash told her. “It wasn’t a betrayal, not when he was forced like that. He didn’t do it willingly! I believe that with all my heart that he would never do me dirty like that unless someone had a gun to your head.”

“Still…”

“What happened to Shorter between then and me seeing him again is hazy to me, and it’s possible Sing knows more than I do. He’s heard from both Eiji and the Lee snake, both of whom were there when I wasn’t, and Eiji always clams up when I try asking him. What I do know is he tried to protect Eiji right until the end, and knowing Shorter he would have done so with a dogged and maybe even violent determination. He’d have threatened them, that is for certain. Maybe that’s why they chose to do what they did to him. He complied with their requests, but he did so maliciously, so they felt the need to punish him. Ibe told me that the last thing Shorter said to him before he left with Eiji is he would die before he let them lay a hand on him. I would trust his word on that. Needless to say though, things only went from bad to worse as the evening progressed.”

“Fuck…” Nadia whispered.

“Alexis Dawson came home. He’d fled the place, suspecting foul play, a couple of weeks prior, when several suspicious people came sniffing around. It was me using his computer that alerted him to trespassers, as I triggered some remote program he'd set up, so he came home to check that his secrets were still secure. He cured Ibe of his paralysis, and once he knew he could trust us, he showed us his secret study where he kept the most dangerous Banana Fish notes. We learnt the harsh truth about the drug, such as how they discovered it, what it does, and how it was used in Vietnam, and it was horrifying to think that my brother had been stuck hallucinating nightmares and wishing he were dead that whole time. Sing has already told you what the drug does, so I won’t go into too many details here, but it may help if you know some of the science behind it as to why I… I did what I did.”

“Sing just said it fucks up the brain,” Nadia said. “He said it makes you a zombie.”

“Almost. Banana Fish is similar to LSD, in that it causes you to hallucinate, and it gets stuck in your brain proteins by bonding to your serotonin receptors, meaning the high lasts a long time. That LSD gets stuck forevermore in your spinal fluid is an urban legend, but in some cases it can change the way your brain works, which is why there’s a lot of research into using it for mental health in a positive way. However, there are stories of people who have taken LSD, especially if they’ve taken a lot of it, who have psychosis or who still have spontaneous trips years later because of alterations to the brain, or even of people becoming ‘permafried’ and never being the same again. Scientists still don’t know exactly why this is, but generally speaking it doesn’t cause too many long-term problems, and you’ll usually flush it out your system completely in a few days. Unlike LSD however, Banana Fish is considerably more potent, and is like comparing a chihuahua to a timber wolf. While the mechanism is similar, it is a completely different beast, and will always, without fail, cause you to have a violently bad trip. It also bonds to the receptors in your brain so well that it permanently damages them, as it acts a little like a prion and causes the proteins in your receptors to not only bond with the drug, they fold around it and can no longer function. Most people die within a day of taking it, either from suicide to end the nightmares, which is the most common end, or their brains alter and die off that much that they simply forget how to breathe. The unlucky few, like my brother, end up severely disabled.”

“Why on earth would anyone make a drug that pointless?”

“Because turns out it isn’t pointless at all, when it’s used for the wrong reasons,” Ash responded with a dark tone and a dangerous glare in his eyes. “Banana Fish has several potential military purposes: Poisoning, information gathering, and assassination. Anyone who takes the drug has a window before the brain becomes overwhelmed where they are highly suggestible to literally any command given to them. They will follow that command, thinking that in doing so it will end their pain. You could tell a mother to murder her child, and she would do it, no hesitation. A captured enemy might be willing to talk about base locations, or divulge country secrets. When Griff took it, he ended up slaughtering most of his platoon after Abraham Dawson suggested to him that he shoot them all. It could prove highly successful for use in political assassination, or warfare, and Dino knows a cash cow when he finds one. Dawson had taken his notes to him, looking for funding to develop the drug further as a weapon, and Dino had seen nothing but dollar signs and potential. He was also providing funds for the government to experiment with it to use it as a solution for the criminally mentally ill. If they could figure out exactly how it affects the brain and tweak it so the recipient doesn’t die or lose any intelligence, and merely ends up an obedient little zombie, then they can ‘cure’ psychopathy, and they can use it to control intelligent people like scientists and doctors to force them to work for them. It’s already been used on dozens of violent prisoners in for life as a test – I saw them myself! They wanted to do the same to me when I was taken to their facility in New Jersey later on, stating I would be a perfect study candidate, but Dino stopped them.”

“[Holy shit…] Ash! I had no idea!” Nadia gasped. “Who knew there was such… such evil in the world…? And you call yourself a bad person?”

“That’s irrelevant to your brother though,” Ash said with a tight smile. “I’m not here to talk about my daring dos and dramatic escapes. And maybe I’m not evil, at least not in a conventional sense, but I’m not getting into heaven any time soon either. Thinking of that, I officially died there, so… In a weird way, being in that facility really, REALLY helped me out, not that I thought that at the time. ‘Dying’ and having it broadcast on national TV convinced most of my enemies I was gone and it wiped my criminal record clean in one fell swoop, which is pretty sweet!”

“I bet!”

“Getting back on track, Dino was determined to have me back under this thumb, and the easiest way to do that would be to break me mentally. Hurting me doesn’t work, so he decided to target the people I care about. He worked with the Chinese for that purpose alone. I doubt he’d have even considered an alliance if he wasn’t so obsessed with getting me back, because keeping Banana Fish to himself was in his best interests and this move was risky at best and damn right idiotic on his part at worst! Yut Lung would later learn everything, same as I did, and he took that information as well as some of the drug with him when he fled. The same group of men who had raped Jessica came to Dawson’s place, took us all prisoner in order to drag us back to New York, and set fire to Dawson’s house. Dawson’s notes were lost forever.”

“You were all brought back to New York?” Nadia frowned. “That explains how Sing witnessed it.”

“Dino locked me up with Max and Ibe in his torture chamber. He normally uses it on enemies who have especially upset him, but… I’ve been in there a few times as a kid. He’d lock me in there without food for a few days if I failed to please a client, or refused to do something he asked of me. He knows the place terrified me, which I think is one of the reasons he put us down there. He put me into a position that I wouldn’t be able to move from, both arms tied up. It’s also an ideal… Testing ground… Because it is soundproof and secure. Nobody outside can hear you scream, the doors are heavy with multiple locks, and cleaning up afterwards is easy. I’d already demanded to know where Shorter and Eiji are, and am told we’ll be reunited soon. I didn’t expect the reunion to go this way…”

Ash was very quiet for several minutes, his face a blank mask but his eyes full of hurt. He seemed to be psyching himself up to continue. He stared down at the undrunk tea and the uneaten bun on the table in front of him. Nadia didn’t rush him, and waited patiently for him to speak again, now sat on the edge of her seat in anticipation.

“They brought Shorter in first, and he looked… He didn’t look himself! They’d stripped him of his shirt and sunglasses, and he looked so… So withdrawn, and pale, like he was about to throw up or like... Like a terrified child. He looked… Nadia, he looked small. He’d always looked so big and strong to me, larger than life, but he was shaking a lot and carried himself like he was burdened with something heavy. At first, I just thought he was scared of what I was going to say, or that something bad had happened to Eiji that he knew about, but… Then I saw his eyes. They were wild, and his pupils had blown. His mannerisms mirrored Griff during his episodes, and it clicked. They’d pumped him full of Banana Fish, purely to show off the effects of the drug to a bunch of Dino’s business partners, with the double whammy that doing so was the absolute worst thing they could do to punish me. Shorter was a street kid from an impoverished family that nobody of status or power would care about, and they did that to him! Then worse... He… He apologised to me! He… Shorter, he… Fuck! Nadia, they ruined him just because he was close to me!” Ash’s voice cracked and he felt his eyes burn. “He didn’t need to apologise! He hadn’t done anything wrong – I knew that! I knew he was forced! He did everything they asked of him, and then they go and do… That… To him… And he apologises to me for it! Shit!”

He had to pause for a minute to sob a few times and wipe a few stubborn tears off his cheeks. Nadia said nothing.

“They’d planted a suggestion,” Ash squeaked finally, his voice higher than usual, hiding his eyes behind his hands. “They’d told him that Eiji was his worst fear. They’d told him he needed to kill him.”

Nadia gasped, horrified.

“Th-they brought Eiji in, dragged him in like he was just a doll, not a person, an’ the effect on Shorter was immediate. He shrieked, backing away like a tortured animal, couldn’t even stand to look at him! They’d been really close during the roadtrip, and now… You’d think Eiji was Satan, the way Shorter was acting! Arthur pulled Eiji over, untied him, handed him a knife, an’ told him to p-protect himself… Eiji has no idea what to do with a knife! He’s probably never even been in a fistfight before! Shorter already had a blade, an’ he was screamin’ and so, so fuckin’ scared of Eiji, I… Fuck…!” Ash's voice got progressively more hysterical as he continued, his usual eloquence slipping as elements of his old Cape accent pushed through.

“Ash…”

“He chased Eiji around, tryin’ to stab him… An’ Eiji can’t fight, so… So… H-he was gonna lose! Eiji was gonna die and, if Shorter survived, he was gonna be like Griff, and I couldn’t do anything but watch, an’ it was… It was…” He sobbed again, unable to describe exactly how awful it was to witness that. “I shouted at them to stop, and somethin’ musta registered in Shorter’s mind, because he stopped just for a moment, an' he turned to me, an' he asked me to kill him. He fuckin' begged me to do it! Then he caught sight of Eiji again, and continued carryin' out the compulsion to kill him. Eiji dropped his knife, and Shorter pushed him to the floor. He was on top of Eiji, pinnin' him down, an’ he was too strong for Eiji to fight him off! He was gonna… Shorter was about to… An' that’s when Arthur threw a pistol to the ground at my feet. He told me there was one bullet in there. I had to make a choice! There wasn’t time to think of other possibilities, like if there was a cure, or if maybe I could do somethin' – anythin'- else! He loosened the chains holding me, enough that I could move again, an' I… I went for the gun. I didn’t even hesitate! I snatched it up… An' I shot him. I shot him right through the heart. I murdered my best friend… Your family… I’m so sorry! I…” He lowered his hands so he could look Nadia in the eye, as he admitted his crime to her. “I shot Shorter Wong.”

If Nadia had still held any deep-seated blame towards Ash for what had happened, it was expunged in that moment. Seeing the immense pain and guilt in his eyes as he told her what he had done, hearing the strain in his voice… Here was a boy haunted by his actions and badly hurt as a result. A boy forced to kill his best friend, someone whom he loved deeply like a brother, when no other options of salvation were available for him. A boy capable of great mercy in a time of crisis, at the expense of his own moral code. It wasn’t even a case of him choosing between Eiji and Shorter; the choice was between saving Eiji, or saving neither of them.

Nadia didn’t say anything, and her expression was hard to read. She didn’t look angry, like he thought she really should be, and she wasn’t crying or hysterical either, but then she always had been a very level headed person. No doubt she’d already cried countless tears and mourned her brother’s passing several times over, and would continue to quietly do so for the rest of her life.

It occurred to Ash then that, really, he hadn’t had a chance to mourn himself. Eiji had expressed immediate grief at the scene, but Ash had instead entered a deep state of shock afterwards, where his body and mind both felt numb. He remembered crying, but not really feeling anything other than blank horror at what he’d done. Afterwards, he’d felt anger, directed mainly at Dawson, who he turned into little more than a pulpy mess with an overkill of heavy-duty ammunition. There had been a brief moment of despair, until a utilitarian calm overtook him and he worked fast to dispose of what was left of his best friend, gently but firmly chased away Sing when he confronted him at the scene without getting more Chinese blood on his hands, and then escaping to reunite with his gang and plan his next move. He’d avoided addressing the issue, pushing it aside to keep his mind sharp and his emotions steady. He’d put off talking to Nadia for months so he wouldn’t have to deal with the emotional avalanche, and he’d switch subjects when Eiji and Sing tried asking him about it.

“I cremated him,” Ash said weakly, his voice small and shaky. “After I escaped the chamber with Max and Ibe, I took a load of heavy weapons and ammunition from Dino’s weapons safe, rescued Eiji, handed him off to my boys who had broken in with the Chinatown kids, then I went looking for… For his body. I found him in a lab… They’d… They’d removed his brain to study, and… Things went black for a minute. I don’t clearly remember what happened next that well, but… I know I shot Abraham Dawson repeatedly with a machine gun. I made a real mess. I wanted to bring him home, so that… So that his family and friends could do the proper rites and stuff, but… Shorter is a lot bigger than I am, and I wouldn’t have been able to carry him alone, plus… You wouldn’t have wanted to have seen him… That way. So, I doused him in rubbing alcohol and I set his body on fire, so they couldn’t…. They wouldn’t be able to hurt him anymore…”

Nadia stood up slowly, still with that same unreadable expression. She crossed the short distance between them in two purposeful steps. Ash braced himself, certain he was about to receive a slap and be told to leave and never come back, as he looked down away from her gaze. After killing her family, he’d denied her a funeral – he deserved punishment! He was surprised when instead of hitting him, she knelt down in front of him, and pulled him into a tight hug instead.

“Thank you…” she whispered.

“W…what for?” he stuttered, not sure how to react seeing as he wasn’t expecting gratitude and affection. “You should be angry at me! I killed your brother!”

“No,” Nadia said firmly, squeezing him just that little bit tighter, her fingers curling into his shirt. “You saved him.”

“I… No… No, that is the opposite of what I did!” Ash denied vehemently. “He should never have gotten involved with my vendetta! I should have left him out of it – him and Eiji both! He’d still be here if he hadn’t tried to help me! And I didn’t save him… I fucking shot him!”

“Shorter would never have let you go up against people like Golzine alone,” Nadia reminded him. “You know that just as well as I do. You could push him away, but he’d follow you anyway. That’s what a best friend like him does, and it’s what you’d have done for him!”

“But I…”

“You pulled the trigger, yes. But you didn’t murder him,” Nadia insisted. “He was already dead when you shot him. You freed him.”

“Nadia…”

“The ones I blame are Golzine, who is now dead, and the Lee brothers. If what Sing says is true, seems Yut Lung dealt with them himself,” she said. “I can’t remain mad at Yut Lung Lee either. He is a victim just as much as any of us are. But I will not ask you to share in that forgiveness.”

“Yut Lung is a bastard…” Ash murmured, finally reciprocating the hug, gently wrapping his arms around Nadia with an awkward touch. Hugging her was distinctly different from hugging, say, Eiji, who’s hugs were intimate and chaste, maybe even a little shy or hesitant, but also earnest and meaningful, or Max, who crushed him in a fatherly way with strong arms and a feeling of safety. Nadia’s were gentle and understanding, holding him in solidarity. Up close, he could smell her peony-scented perfume, and she was thin but soft in a way Eiji wasn’t. He didn’t have a sister of his own, but he imagined if he did, their hugs would be similar to this.

“He’d thank you too, you know,” she murmured. “For what you did. If he’d hurt Eiji - or anyone else innocent for that matter - my brother would never have been able to live with himself.”

“I know…” Ash said, his face screwing up in sadness. “He was a good person. He didn’t deserve any of what happened!”

“Neither did you.”

“I loved him, Nads…” Ash huffed quietly. “He was like a brother to me… And I fucking loved him!”

“I know…”

“… I miss him… So damn much…”

“Me too.”

Ash broke down then, clawing at Nadia’s woollen jumper as he buried himself into her shoulder and wept, apologising over and over to her. She stroked his back soothingly, but she’d also started to cry, the two of them holding each other in mutual grief. Ash found it upsetting, remembering what he did and what had become of his best friend, but also cathartic to finally accept and lament his passing. It was a weight off his chest that he’d finally been able to confess to Nadia, and a pleasant relief that she wasn’t angry at him. As she held him close, Ash found himself thinking that since the Banana Fish scandal ended, he seemed to have done a lot of extensive crying onto people’s shoulders. Apparently, he had a lot of pent-up emotions to get out, and finally the safety and security to do so. Nadia held onto him long after she stopped crying herself, waiting for his tears to subside into snivels, patting him on the back lightly.

“You really should eat more,” Nadia said, changing the subject, her voice nasally from crying. “You are very thin. I feel like I could crush you if I squeeze too tight!”

Ash laughed a little, although it sounded more like a choked sob. “A lot of people tell me that,” he said, as he slid out of her grasp and scrubbed his puffy eyes dry with the back of his wrist. He pulled a rumpled tissue from his pocket and blew his nose clear.

“You barely touched that bun…” she scolded him, pointing at the nibbled bread.

“I… I was too anxious to eat,” he admitted. “Today has been… It was tough, Nads. I was scared to finally tell you everything… I’m sorry it took so long.”

“I’m not letting you leave until you at least finish it,” she said insistently. “You owe me that much!”

“Figures…”

“Why not tell me more about that roadtrip while you finish it?” she suggested, returning to her seat. She smiled at him encouragingly. “I’d like to know more about what my brother did during the happiest week of his life!”

“Sure,” Ash smiled, picking up the pineapple bun and this time finding it much easier to swallow the sweet dough.

He was there for almost four hours regaling her with tales from the roadtrip. The giant ball of string was only one cute anecdote he had. There was the time he’d woken up in a hug pile with the other two in the back of the truck, Shorter protectively spooning him and Eiji. There was the time Shorter saved Eiji from a skunk, Shorter physically lifting him up around the waist and carrying him away before he could piss the creature off and get a face full of stank (Eiji had mistaken it for a weird looking cat, and was trying to pet it – he’d never seen a skunk before, and thought it was cute). There was the game of truth or dare they’d played one evening after Max and Ibe went to bed, and the lazy weekend goofing off at the Cape, where they played games on the beach, went for a swim in the lake, and even made a kite from a plastic bag and some garden cane to kill a few hours attempting to fly it. Ash had taken them to the café where Griff used to have a part-time job, and they’d eaten the biggest bear claws Shorter had ever seen. He also took them to a local clam shack at Eiji’s insistence, because he wanted to do the tourist thing of eating the local speciality, but he hated oysters so Ash found an alternative and they’d feasted on fried seafood. Eiji had brought them all friendship bracelets at a beachfront stall, and they’d worn them for the rest of the trip (they’d only removed them when Golzine’s men had forced them to; Ash’s had been cut off when he was forced into a tuxedo, as they were ‘too scruffy’, and Eiji’s and Shorter’s had been snipped or ripped off when they’d been stripped of personal belongings – he neglected to tell Nadia that part). There was the ‘banana test’, where he’d messed with Eiji and Shorter by deep-throating bananas he’d purchased at a service station en-route to see if he could make them uncomfortable; Shorter had been very unnerved by it, but Eiji was merely confused by Ash’s apparent inability to eat a banana correctly. Riding in the truck, he told her about Max’s repetitive singing of ‘Clementine’, Ibe’s ability to fall asleep at the drop of a hat, and how Shorter would continually complain about how his lower back ached like an old man. They’d been to a drive-in movie one evening, the three of them sat on the truck roof sharing a huge bucket of popcorn while Max and Ibe were in the cab. There was the time he and Shorter had stolen chickens from a farm, like a couple of foxes in the night, and Shorter had monopolised the feet to eat. At Jessica’s, Shorter had taught Michael a silly magic trick, where he made it appear that he’d pulled the end of his thumb off his hand, and he’d taught him some Cantonese swear words. He’d also roughhoused with him and came close to dropping him on his head while dangling him upside down by his feet, causing Max to nearly have a heart attack; Michael, meanwhile, had been laughing his head off, finding the whole thing tremendous fun!

He had so many funny little stories and jokes from their cross-country drive, each one making Nadia laugh more. Periodically, she encouraged him to eat, and Ash was able to finish three of the four buns – probably the most she had ever seen him eat in one sitting. She still wrapped up the last one when it was time to leave, along with a further three buns so he could give some to the Glenreeds. As he predicted, she also foisted two takeout boxes of steamed dumplings, a dozen red bean bao, some leftover char siu pork, and some fried rice off on him too.

“Nadia, you don’t need to feed me up anymore,” Ash told her, embarrassed at her generosity as she pressed the bags of food into his arms as he stood on the rear entrance stoop. “Pops is doing that quite adequately himself!”

“I want to,” she said, not taking ‘no thanks’ for an answer. “And you’re welcome to come by at any time. Bring the Glenreeds – no charge!”

“I dread to think how much Max would pig out if you offered him free food… Unless you make it super spicy, just for him. He can’t handle heat!”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” she said with a lopsided smirk. It morphed into a smaller, sadder, and more sincere smile as she added, “Thanks… For telling me. And for being his best friend right to the very end.”

“Thanks for listening,” Ash responded with a similar wan smile. “And for understanding.”

“Take care of yourself, Ash.”

“You too, Nads…”

Despite being burdened by an excess of unhealthy Chinese food, he walked away feeling lighter and much calmer than he had done for several weeks. He returned to the Glenreed’s place feeling, not happy as such, but content. It had taken several months and a lot of heartache and misery, but with the truth known and Nadia no longer in the dark, Shorter could finally – finally – rest in peace. His legacy would live on in the hearts and minds of those who had known him. To quote Eiji’s words; his soul would always be with them.