Catch-22, chapter 11

Catch-22

   

Welcome to another chapter!  First I must apologize for the utter lateness of this one, which is entirely due to laziness on the part of yours truly (Loren), which I have no excuse for.  So feel free to beat me with sticks if chapter 12 doesn’t go up precisely a week from now, lol.

No Chinese glossary for this chapter, but if you see a word you don’t know, please let me assure you it will be explained in time ;)

 

Ch. 11.  A journey of a thousand miles…

“Supervisor!”

In the Science Department, all the researchers in the lab left their stations to rush to the Supervisor’s side, none of them knowing quite what to do. It was Johnny that shouldered his way to the front of the crowd, yelling for them to give the Supervisor some space. Tapp was already on his way to find a medic.

“Supervisor Reever?” Johnny asked, sounding a little nervous as he knelt down next to the other man. It had gotten harder and harder to talk to their old lab buddy over the years, but right now it really couldn’t be helped. “Are you okay? What happened?”

“I-I…” Reever began, blinking his tired, bloodshot eyes. He pressed his palm against his forehead and looked down at all the papers he had dropped when he fell, at the little collection of broken glass that had moments ago been a bottle of whiskey. He lifted his arm and felt it sting, watched his own blood run down it to drip into the little amber pool of alcohol. “I felt… dizzy, I think. I don’t know. Maybe I slipped or…”

“Do you feel sick? Should we get you to the clinic or–”

“I…” Reever frowned, staring down at his arm to watch it bleed. Cuts were supposed to hurt, weren’t they? “I don’t really feel… anything at all.”

“…okay, Supervisor. We’re, um, going to take you to the clinic now. Can you stand? Supervisor…? Supervisor?”

But Reever wasn’t really listening. All he could do was watch his arm continue to bleed.

- – -

Not too long after their awakening, once Komui was dressed again (Cross had to help him a little) and coherent enough to walk around, they set out away from Komui’s hometown at a very leisurely pace to return to the city they’d left the day before.  Komui was exhausted from the ordeal and needed to rest frequently; Cross would take him aside to sit together under the shade of a tree or against the back of a hill, and pet his hair and point out the wispy clouds overhead, or the wildflowers, or the birds chirping.

Komui got a little hungry, and there were some moon cakes in his bag, so he ate them without much thought.

He still ached in bad places, though he couldn’t feel it very well, the sensation seeming almost entirely detached from his body; he had a vague sense that something very, very bad had happened, but when he tried to think about it too hard the only things that would come to him were the feelings — terror and pain and anger and hurt oh god it hurt so bad and he would have to curl up a little and stare at the ground as the tears came, and zhu ren would pick him up and kiss him and pet him and cradle him until they went away again.

……No, that was right.

He wasn’t allowed to say Cross, after all.  He remembered.

After they had been resting in a small in-between village for a short while, Cross looked across the street into a store’s window where he could see the face of a clock. A quiet, rather contented sigh left his lips and he gave Komui’s hand a little squeeze, turning his gaze onto the preciously absent man.

“Little Bird,” he called gently, reaching out to stroke Komui’s cheek to draw his attention. “Are you ready to go on? The next ship leaves in the morning and there’s a long way to go yet.” Pausing then, he offered Komui a fond little smile. “I’ll carry you if you’d like.”

“…Um.”

Komui just looked up at him for a moment, curled fingers rising toward his lips uncertainly, and then at last shook his head a little.  Zhu ren shouldn’t carry him, it would just make him tired too.  Komui picked up his bag and rose from their seat a moment later to show that he was ready to go.

And hadn’t… he said something about…

“…A ship?” Komui murmured, head turning slightly at an angle in a slightly perplexed pose.  He blinked down at Cross blankly.

“Mm, we’re going back,” Cross sighed, speaking as though this fact greatly displeased him. Still, he put his arm around Komui’s shoulders and offered him a reassuring smile. “But don’t worry, Little Bird. I won’t leave you.”

Going back?

….going back.

To Headquarters, some part of his mind supplied.

Zhu ren hated Headquarters.  And he… left Komui alone there.

But not this time.  He’d said so, just now.  Not this time.

…there was something else he knew about Headquarters.  Something… there were…  there were—  People.  That was it.

For a moment, he just stared down toward the ground a little; he could sort of…  think of…

His eyes widened a little.

“……Linali?  …  Reever?” he mumbled to himself, a vague expression of wonder flitting across his face as he looked back up to blink at the buildings of the town.  They were…  he knew who they were, he was sure he did.  He definitely…

…Maybe zhu ren would let him see the people.  That would be…

For no reason he could understand, a shiver passed through his body.

That would be… nice.

“Mmhm,” Cross confirmed with a slight nod. “They’re both still there to the best of my knowledge, but let’s not think about them right now. Let’s just have a nice, quiet trip home, okay, Little Bird?”

His hand twitched a little. He’d just called the Headquarters ‘home’. This happy, mellow feeling had to go. It was beginning to change him in all the worst ways.

“We’ll be spending the night in the port town we first arrived in,” he continued after a short lapse into silence. “It’s a long trip back to Europe, so we should savor our last night in China, don’t you agree?”

Home?  Was Headquarters home?

Was– was home….

Home was…

…there was a cold, tight, bad kind of feeling inside his chest, maybe somewhere around where his heart was, and Komui decided he should think about something else.

Zhu ren had said…

“I…  yes,” he agreed quietly, blinking up at Cross with a slow nod.  He would miss China, he thought.  China was…

Was…

…it was where he’d lived with zhu ren.  It was terribly important.

He reached for the other man’s hand almost shyly, blinking down at it as he held it in both his own.

It felt… nice to be with zhu ren.  Safe.

“Good boy,” Cross murmured, leaning over to kiss Komui rather possessively. It wasn’t really that he was much of an exhibitionist as much as kissing in the middle of a somewhat busy town was something Komui would have positively had a fit over before. The little reminders of how very much Komui was absolutely his now, well, those made all the difference in the quality of Cross’s day lately.

He smiled and greeted a woman gaping at them from across the way brightly in Chinese as he pulled back from the kiss and then led Komui on. They had a long way to go yet.

- – -

The ship ride back to Europe was nearly as uneventful as the ride to China had been, but Cross made sure Komui spent a great deal more time in his lap and in his bed. They acted like an almost normal, almost happy, and very nearly almost healthy couple for the majority of the journey. Cross would feed Komui little bites of breakfast in bed, talk to him about nothing at all and strictly confidential Order business and back to nothing at all, would share wine with him and spend entire afternoons simply stroking his hair. The trip back passed by much faster that way.

And one day they were back, as though they had never gone, sailing up the little channel that led to the elevator which would save them from climbing up the sheer face of a cliff. Once inside the elevator, Cross leaned back against a wall and sighed.

“Komui,” he called, sounding distinctly unhappy. “Come here. I need to talk to you.”

Komui, who had been standing near the elevator doors watching the rock wall pass by through the windows, turned to move to Cross’s side with a faintly curious expression.

“Once we get to the top, you have to go to the infirmary. I won’t be going with you,” Cross informed impassively, arms folded over his chest. “Linali’s been hurt. She’s probably still in intensive care. You remember where that is?”

“…Hurt?”

Komui’s eyes grew very wide.

Swallowing, one curled-up hand creeping up toward his mouth in distress, he glanced away with a furrowed brow.  Linali…  His Li Li was…

….intensive care.  That was… was definitely bad.  Up the stairs, past three doors, exit to the right, watch out for the swinging cabinet, turn left, end of the hall.  And.  Bad.

“…I remember,” he murmured, looking up at Cross again with that same wide-eyed expression.

“What… happened?”

“She took down a level three Akuma all by herself,” Cross shrugged. “Apparently she made it a point to be at Headquarters as little as possible. She was bound to pick up a bad mission eventually, and she did.”

….Linali.

All of a sudden Komui was very afraid, and he latched onto Cross’s arm without much conscious thought, staring down at their shoes and listening to the elevator hum.

Cross let him hold on until the elevator came to a stop before he gently but firmly shook the other off.

“Go to her,” he sighed, shaking his head. “I’ll be in my room. Drinking, if you’d like to join me after. And no one knows we’re back, so try not to give any of your old friends heart attacks, okay? Or do. I really can’t be bothered.” Hands firmly in his pockets, Cross stepped out of the elevator and seemingly disappeared into thin air, but he had a way of doing that at Headquarters. Something to do with years and years upon years of practice. The Head Generals were probably already looking for him. God damnit.

Komui stared after him for a few moments, feeling a little lost; but he knew where he needed to go.  He needed to see Linali.

Turning around, he headed off toward the medical wing stairs, feeling vaguely grateful that he still remembered where everything was.  It felt like such a long time ago…

- – -

“I’m not going to give you any more whiskey, Reever!”

“God damnit, Jerry!” Reever swore, pressing the palm of his hand against his forehead. His head hurt, ached the same dull throb that never really left him. It made it hard to work, hard to function, hard to think– But that was the point, really. To make it hard to think. It’d been at least three hours since his last drink. His mind was clearing, those goddamned thoughts were returning. Rain. Rain and kissing and a promise and his bare right wrist and waking up to nothing at all and time was clearing, the chronological order of things sorting themselves for him again. He could remember that Komui hadn’t been here yesterday, that they hadn’t worked on a project together on the kitchen floor he was standing on for at least three years now. He could remember that he had been alone in the rain last week and stared at the sky until he was sober, then curled up in his room and drank until all the rain was inside his head and he could stare up at it some more. Everything was making sense again and there was such a profound sense of reality and Reever hated it all.

“If you don’t give me a drink, I’ll just drag myself into town and get a case of it for myself so just save me the fucking trouble!”

“You’ve gone through three bottles since the week began,” Jerry sighed, shaking his head. “You’ve been drinking more and more since you had that little fall in the lab and I really don’t see how more alcohol is going to help your coordination.”

“It’s not about my coordination!” Reever snapped, shouldering past Jerry to where the alcohol was stored. “I don’t sign up for labs anymore, okay? I’ve got five hours of paperwork to look forward to ahead and then at least another three of filing and I won’t be able to do any of it if I don’t get a drink!”

“Reever, you’re killing yourself!”

“So what?” Reever growled with an irritated roll of his eyes. “So is everyone else! And funny thing, I’m not dead yet and still I keep writing up all those casualty reports for all those kids who don’t drink. So what do you want me to do, Jerry?” He came back with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and two tucked under his arms. He didn’t want to have this conversation with Jerry again for at least the next two days.

“Should I give up drinking? Send myself out to the Akuma, save myself some misery?”

When Jerry didn’t answer, Reever laughed a short, almost mocking sort of laugh and left the kitchen.

The first thing he did was drop off the spare bottles to his office, crack open the bottle he had left, and began self-medicating to get rid of all those nasty thoughts clawing around in his head. About a year and a half ago he had dispensed with the need for glasses altogether. This way, there was less to accidentally knock over and break, less to forget to wash, less to deal with. Because God knew Reever already had more than he could really handle to deal with as it was.

Or maybe He didn’t. Reever had long since become convinced that God was blind.

Knowing he probably wouldn’t see outside his office for the rest of the day once he started on his papers, Reever decided to visit Linali since most of her friends were out on their own missions and she was probably lonely. Still rather enthusiastically nursing his brand new bottle of whiskey, he slowly made his way to the infirmary. There was really no need to hurry. He was shit for company when he wasn’t properly drunk. He’d tried it once, and all he’d managed to do was sit at her bedside and cry.

Linali, being one of their too-few and precious Exorcists, had been given her own private room in the intensive care wing.  The door generally remained closed to keep the environment within as sterile as possible, but most of its top half opened into a window, so passing doctors and nurses could easily look in on the patient inside as they passed.  If Linali had woken up, there was a curtain she could have pulled across to give herself a little more privacy, but, well… she hadn’t woken up.

As Reever came closer down the hallway, he could hear a quiet, gentle murmur of unintelligible Chinese.

That voice… almost sounded familiar. Reever was hearing things again. He obviously hadn’t had enough to drink yet, so he stopped outside the door to have a little more whiskey. A little meaning he drank the stuff like water, because liver poisoning was a very small price to pay to not hear voices in his head anymore. That was a sign of being crazy, right? Hearing voices? But Reever was still there enough to know that voices meant he could possibly be crazy, which was supposed to mean that he wasn’t.

He really didn’t know what to think anymore, which was why he normally made a strong point not to.

Little bits of the conversation managed to translate themselves out of Chinese because no matter how hard Reever tried or how many brain cells he killed off with his drinking, he could never quite get his brain to stop working. Something about Linali’s hair being short. Something about sharing. Hair? Maybe Reever had already had enough to drink after all. Sighing, he finally gave and let himself in, and promptly realized that Linali seemed to have a visitor.

Reever blinked.

He looked down at his bottle of whiskey like it was somehow at fault.

He looked back up.

“K–”

He tried to say Komui’s name. Tried hard. But he’d gotten so used to cutting himself off from even thinking the name that all he managed was a strange little choking sound.

Komui Li looked over his shoulder.

In that moment, he felt indefinably… better, in a way he could not have explained.  Zhu ren wasn’t here and his sister wasn’t waking up, and might not wake up anytime soon according to her medical report…  but somehow, seeing that face made a little puzzle piece click into place in his head, one that had been missing for a long time, long before…  …he couldn’t really remember, but, a long time indeed.

He blinked at Reever a little uncertainly for a moment before turning around in his seat, and doing the only thing that felt natural: he gave the other man a quiet, gentle smile.

“…Hi.”

Reever had thought about today for a very, very long time. He had thought about it every morning he couldn’t bring himself to crawl out of bed. He thought about it every night he was sober enough to fall asleep rather than pass out. He thought about it every time he put on his uniform in the morning, a uniform that wasn’t really his because it didn’t fit as well as it should have, because it wasn’t made to his measurements like the one he had hiding under his bed. He thought about it when he was in the shower and when he was having a food break. He thought about it every time he looked down at the absent bracelet on his arm. He had thought about it for a very, very long time.

What he would feel when he saw Komui again. What he would say. What he would do. He knew he’d feel sad. And relieved. Maybe a little delirious, like he was living a beautiful dream. He was sure he would be happy, sure he’d feel overwhelmed and he would reach out and hold Komui and welcome him home and have a nice, long cry and put away the whiskey forever.

He never expected to stand numbly in the doorway and stare. Stare at Komui’s little smile like nothing was wrong and nothing had happened. Stare at the only thing in the world that could have really brought Komui back, at Linali lying so peacefully in her coma. He stared at how different Komui looked and how different everything was and–

He didn’t understand why his first reaction was to feel angry. He didn’t know why, but he felt it, felt his grip on the neck of his bottle of whiskey tighten, felt all of his muscles tense and felt a sort of heat flood to the back of his neck. He didn’t even know what he could possibly be angry about. Everything should have been fine. Better than fine. But it wasn’t.

“You’re back,” Reever choked out, staying where he was by the door. “We didn’t get a notice.”

“I suppose he probably didn’t send one,” Komui murmured, eyes drifting thoughtfully to the floor for a moment, head tilted slightly to the side as he stood from his seat.  Zhu ren hated Headquarters, after all.  He was very sure about that.  “We probably wouldn’t be here, except…”

His gaze turned back toward Linali for a moment.  Then moved back up to Reever’s face, a little uncertain.  The other man’s expression was…

It took him a moment to sort through, thoughts a little scattered and off-track, but…  he didn’t think he could remember another time when Reever had ever looked at him like that.

When zhu ren looked like that, Komui… what did he do?

Hid.

“…I missed you,” he murmured, because he had; it came out a little timidly.

Reever’s gaze flicked down to Komui’s wrists and found them both startlingly bare. He glanced down at his own wrists, then back up again. Another long swig of whiskey found its way into Reever’s mouth. At this rate he would be dead before there was enough alcohol in him to sufficiently cope with this situation.

“Good to know,” he answered, unable to help the bitterness that slipped into his voice. It seemed the only two moods Reever could manage these days were ‘bitter’ and ‘angry’. Occasionally there was ‘distraught’, but only when he found himself accidentally sober. “I’d tell you I missed you too, but you don’t really need to hear me say it, do you? Your eyes look like they still work.”

The cold feeling in Komui’s stomach had come back.

He had a horrible feeling that this was…  this was all wrong.  Not just because, well, he did have eyes and it was wrong but — there was something—

….Happy.

He’d made Reever very… un…  happy.  The when and the what and the where was a little mixed up in his head but he remembered…  Reever had… cried.  He’d looked so, so very sad and– there had been a night — in the rain–

Reever, you ass, came one completely lucid thought bubbling up out of his brain, you were supposed to try to be happy.

He didn’t want Reever to be sad.  This was all Komui’s fault.  As usual.  From the sound of his voice, Reever knew it was Komui’s fault too.

His arms slowly drew around his middle.  He glanced back toward Linali’s sweetly unconscious face for a second, then his gaze turned on the floor.

“Should I– I mean…”  He chanced a glance up at the other man’s face.  Still glaring.

“…I can go back downstairs,” he said quietly.  The puzzle piece that had fit so neatly before was wavering a little in its spot.

Maybe he’d been wrong.

“No, it’s fine,” Reever muttered, rubbing his temples. “You’re her brother. Stay with her. I’ve got work anyway.” He tugged a little uncomfortably at the collar of his coat, shaking his head.

“You know how it goes. Or maybe you don’t anymore. Been three years after all. But maybe you don’t realize that either.”

Komui blinked once, gaze still trailing the floor as he turned around to plop wearily back into his seat.

“It was a long time, three years.”

He pulled his legs against him to curl up on the chair, wrapping his arms around his knees, looking off with a faraway gaze at nothing in particular as he thought back.  Three years.  It felt more like…  five billion, four hundred eighty-two thousand, six hundred fifty five.  Point two.

…Or so.

“We went all the way up and down China,” he murmured, sounding almost contemplative.  “Zhu ren and me and… nobody else.  …And Akuma.”

Something bothered Reever about what Komui had just said. The Chinese that he had used in place of Cross’s name. He’d fallen out of the habit of carrying his dictionary around, but– Zhu ren. Where had he heard that before? He committed it to memory the best he could to look up later. Because something. Something. Was not-okay with it.

“China?” he asked instead without really thinking about it. It was reflex, making small talk while being entirely checked out. He relied on it these days to convince people that he was, for the most part, okay. Which he wasn’t. But he could pretend.

Komui nodded slowly.  Looking up at Reever, the slightly less foreboding expression on the man’s face, he cast about his memory for something else to say — parts of it were mixed up and fuzzy and made his head hurt a little, parts blurred and dim with routine; it had been such a long time…

“We found Suman,” he said quietly as he recalled it.

“Suman…?” Now there was a name that hadn’t even crossed Reever’s mind for the last three or so years, not since Komui left. And somehow he couldn’t even bring himself to feel bad that one of their own had gone MIA and he hadn’t spared Suman a single thought. If nothing else, though, it managed to firmly catch Reever’s attention. “Dead, I’m assuming?”

“Togaochi.”

Komui blinked at the other man expressionlessly.  It didn’t really occur to him to wonder why Reever didn’t know.

“He betrayed us all.”

The word made Reever stiffen, sent an ice-cold chill down his spine. He instinctively glanced over at Linali, at her wrists, and felt a minor anxiety attack hit him full on in the chest. It took him a moment to recover, to get his head working right to speak again.

“But– The only documented cases we have are of when Innocence is put into non-Compatible people. Suman was an Exorcist, so why…?”

There was a faint, if grim, echo of Komui’s usual lecturing tone when he spoke again, the subject recalling old mannerisms to his scattered memory.

“Any Exorcist who has betrayed God, or his Church, can become Togaochi.  Suman sold the lives of a hundred forty-eight comrades to the Noahs, trying to save his own.”

Komui paused for a moment, swallowing.  That day… was still vivid.

“Zhu ren killed him before he could do much damage,” he added in a murmur, leaning his chin against the top of one knee.

“He–“

Why hadn’t Reever seen it before? It was all there. The call from Suman’s Golem, his subsequent disappearance. It wasn’t uncommon for agents to ask about the whereabouts of their comrades, but why hadn’t the sheer quantity of the information Suman asked for tipped him off? He had the records, reports of transcripts for the day. It was all there and he’d just… missed it. Because he was too busy wallowing in his own problems, too busy drinking, too busy doing all the things that needed the least doing in his job.

“I–… I’ll write a report once… once I get back to the office,” he managed, drawing in deep breaths. Deep breaths. It was okay. It was–

–blood running down their faces. Sightless eyes. That one couldn’t hear. That one was screaming but there wasn’t any sound. That one was just a little girl. That one had trusted them.

Whiskey sloshed out of the bottle in Reever’s hands as he tried to bring it to his lips despite the violent shaking of his hands. His eyes were already watering and he hadn’t even had any yet.

Togaochi.

Komui glanced back toward Linali for a moment, took her in once more.  The dark circles under her eyes.  Her pretty, shorn hair.  The little white lines still visible across her wrists.

…the day he’d first come to this castle, to this infirmary.  That was vivid too.

Then he looked back at Reever, watched the other man’s hands shake, blank-gazed; watched his face.

This was… wrong.  Reever…  he shouldn’t look like that.  Shouldn’t ever look like that.  Komui hadn’t been around for the Togaochi, but he remembered the files — he remembered the pictures and–

Looking at Reever like that made his breath catch in his throat somehow; filled him with a terrible shivering tension of–  of–  not-right.

Komui rose from his seat again at that thought, sad, the tiniest bit hesitant as he stepped forward, without much thinking about it; closed his hand around Reever’s to steady it; wrapped his other arm around the man’s side loosely, leaned his chin against Reever’s shoulder.

It seemed like what he ought to do.

Reever didn’t exactly respond to the hug, but he did lower his hand holding the whiskey back to his side. No way to take a drink with Komui standing against him like that anyway.

“Let’s… let’s not talk about this in front of Linali, okay?” he whispered, voice as unsteady as the rest of him. “We might give her… bad dreams.”

And then, suddenly, everything felt okay again.

Normal.

The two of them, complete messes, worrying about Linali.

That was the life Reever was used to, had once had, missed, wanted back. Unthinkingly, he dropped his whiskey to wrap his arms around Komui in turn, burying his face against the other man’s shoulder. He didn’t even pay attention when his bottle hit the ground and clattered to its side, spilling its contents onto the floor.

“You’re an old man now, aren’t you, Komui?” he managed weakly, voice muffled against Komui’s neck. “Thirty-two going on thirty-three, right?”

“…am I?” Komui murmured, twining his other arm around Reever’s back.  “I suppose you’re right…”  He’d stopped really keeping track of the time after a while; it had been too depressing.

“…But thirty-two’s not old,” he concluded matter-of-factly.  Because… he wasn’t old.  He ignored the smell of the alcohol as it spread over the floor, the scent that lingered on Reever’s body; he’d gotten used to it over the years, living with Cross.

“I guess not,” Reever relented. “I’m twenty-nine now. And sorry I ever called you old when you were here. But what I wouldn’t give to be Allen, you know? Bet you he won’t even notice when he starts sprouting white hairs.” He didn’t really know what he was talking about. Just…

“He got really tall. Linali too, even though you can’t really… tell right now. Well. Not really tall. Kanda’s still taller, but… taller than before. And…” Reever closed his eyes, shaking his head.

“Nothing’s changed here, really. Nothing’s changed but… everything’s really different. You were holding this place together before. Who knew?”

That… seemed a very strange thing to say.  When zhu ren had…  Zhu ren had most certainly told him…

“You don’t have to be polite,” Komui replied quietly, smiling.  Zhu ren knew.  And Reever knew too, knew how awful he had been, how he’d done everything wrong.  He wasn’t fit for anything so important.  Zhu ren knew that.

“Polite?” Reever blinked, stepping back. He gave Komui a puzzled sort of frown, scratching his rather unshaven cheek. “Since when’ve you known me to be all that polite, Su–” He coughed a little, shaking his head to himself.

“…Komui?”

“I know I was a terrible excuse for a Supervisor,” Komui said, the smile turning apologetic as Reever stepped away from him.  It only seemed right to say it — he was sure zhu ren would have wanted him to.  “Sorry for… being a bother.”

“What… what are you saying?” Reever’s eyes widened. Even in his hazy, alcohol-soaked mind, he could hear the complete lack of… Komui in those words. Those weren’t Komui’s words, weren’t his thoughts. Komui knew he was a genius. Reminded them of it every day. Komui knew what he knew and knew they knew that he always pulled through for them. Everything else, all the slacking and whatnot, it was really just… what kept life interesting around here. Which they’d had none of for the last three years. For the Science Department, at least, Headquarters was just a place to work. They’d stopped being a family shortly after Komui left.

“When the–… when the hell did you decide you were a bad Supervisor? It’s not like–” Reever actually paused to laugh in disbelief, in self-mockery, shoving his toe into the side of the dropped whiskey bottle.

“Look at me, Komui. Just look at me. I drink a fifth of vodka for breakfast. My team is afraid to talk to me. It’s not like I’m doing a spectacular job myself. They miss you, you know that? They talk about how things were better here before you left. And, I–”

‘–I love spending all day looking for you and dragging you into your office. I love doing paperwork with you on the floor of Jerry’s kitchen. I love all of it.’

Reever took another step back, voice quiet.

“…you’ve forgotten.”

Komui blinked at him for a moment, at the horror in his voice.  Glanced down contemplatively, tilted his head to the side a little.  The thick black bangs shifted.

“I remember,” he murmured back, shaking his head slightly, a faint dreamy quality to his voice.  “How could I not remember?”  He folded his arms one over the other across his chest, hugging his elbows; paused for another moment or three with his brow furrowed in thought.  It made his head hurt a little and — there were badthings in there but he definitely–

“It kind of all… doesn’t all go together right, but.”  He blinked thoughtfully at the floor tiles.

Reever had to remind himself again. Deep breaths. Nice, deep breaths. He could run like a little girl to his office and drink everything in all his alcohol stashes later. That would be very difficult if he was to forget to breathe and die here. He was fairly certain souls couldn’t get drunk. Deep breaths.

He reached out, grabbed Komui by the shoulders.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, nice and calmly. He could do nice and calm. Sometimes he got it mixed up with yelling and screaming, which was why his team didn’t much like to talk to him anymore, but usually he could manage nice and calm when he tried. “What happened to you, Komui? And… and how can you say you’re a bad Supervisor if you remember? And– What did he do to you?”

Do you really think that will save you, Little Bird?

A shudder went through Komui’s body as he glanced down again.

He thought of the ginkgo tree and whether Linali remembered it.  Zhu ren and his brocade dragon and his — promise.

The house.

The gaping old hole, all covered over with misshapen blobs of plaster and still wide open underneath them.

“He made me,” Komui mumbled to Reever’s chest, with a single faint little laugh, all breath; feeling like he’d just gotten some joke, and it was a very bad one.

“Like he made me before.”

“Like what…?” Even if Reever hadn’t just consumed enough alcohol to poison half the Science Department, he still wouldn’t have understood what Komui was trying to say to him. He lacked the kind of twisted imagination required. “Before like–” All of the sudden Reever’s head was hurting again, much worse than before. The little laugh that had left Komui’s lips was still making Reever’s blood run cold.

“He hurt you.” It wasn’t a question, more an observation. The voice Reever used was soft, tight. Strained. And… off somehow. It carried a distinctly un-Reever-like undertone to it.

Komui just looked up at him, expressionlessly, not finding the words required a response.  Zhu ren was zhu ren.  Komui belonged to him; he would do as zhu ren pleased, endure what zhu ren pleased.  It was good to make zhu ren happy.  Because…  when he wasn’t, that was…  was bad.  It was…

He shivered a little again.

“Stay with Linali a little longer, Komui,” Reever instructed in a quiet, very calm and terribly nice voice. “Won’t you? She gets lonely. I have to go run a few little errands, but I’ll come back later with dinner. Does that sound good?”

Reever had the distinct feeling that he had barely touched the tip of the iceberg that was the damage done to Komui over the years, but all of that could wait. He had a few favors to ask for first.

Komui blinked at him again for a moment, seeming to shake off his thoughts of before; expression faintly confused, he nodded.

“I meant to stay anyway,” he said softly, looking back at her.

“I’ll be back,” Reever promised. He lingered slightly at the door. “You still like the same foods, right…? Mm, forget I said anything. I’ll bring you something Australian to try. I don’t think Jerry’s heart can take any surprises today.” And with that he left, stopping only to ask a nurse to find someone to clean up the mess on the floor. Then he straightened his coat, ran his fingers through his hair, and made his way to the passage that led to the Head Generals’ chamber.

Komui watched him go silently, and then turned to rummage through his bag for a moment, plucking something out before he returned to Linali’s bedside.  He slowly slid the bracelet over his wrist as he sat down.

“I never showed you what Reever gave me, did I?” he murmured, turning his gaze on her sleeping face again.

“This is our secret…”

- – -

They owed him and they knew it. Every last one of them owed him and all of them knew it. The lot of them had screwed up in the most embarrassing, unforgivable way possible. It was simple, really. They’d overruled his decision not to issue the new barrier-projectors the Science Department had been working on for the past few months. He had come before them, shown them the calculations, the charts, told them that none of it added up properly. He told them the Science Department needed more funds, needed more time. The Head Generals told him they didn’t have any, told him he was a sloppy drunk who couldn’t string together a coherent sentence most days, forget make sense of the research the rest of his team had done. He tried to explain to them that the new barriers, while theoretically stronger, would burn out in a matter of hours and that there was a 14% decay rate for the energy source that would make the boxes useless if carried unused for more than a few days anyway. They didn’t listen, they had the new boxes ordered, they had them issued.

And eighty-two Finders were dead before the week was out, before they recalled all of the faulty barrier projectors. So they knew. And Reever knew. And Reever had come and thrown the calculations and casualty reports at the floor of their shiny little meeting room and poured out a bottle of whiskey over them and then lit the whole mess on fire. Then left. The Head Generals had let him get away with it because, well, they had screwed up and they knew it.

So they owed him a favor, and when he came to them with it they whispered amongst themselves. It wasn’t an unreasonable request, really. They tried to please General Cross as much as possible because he was so difficult and hard to get ahold of, but it wasn’t impossible to twist his arm now and again. And it was true, the mission did need doing.

“Granted,” one of them finally sighed. “We will send General Cross Marian to survey Edo effective tomorrow morning.”

And suddenly, Reever was happy. He excused himself, showered, changed into his old lab clothes for the sake of nostalgia, and found his way to the kitchen, hands completely free of alcohol.

“Jerry!” he called, “Sorry ’bout earlier, mate. Just been having a bum day, I guess. Hey, you don’t think you could be convinced to make me some of my ma’s meat pies, now could ya?”

For a moment, Jerry looked as though he’d seen a ghost.

When Reever came back to the hospital room Komui was, to his great relief, still inside.  The former Supervisor was seated next to Linali’s bed in the same chair as before, looking rather animated as he alternated between talking to her and doodling on a pad of paper in his lap.  A slightly odd one-sided discussion was underway as Reever opened the door.

“–so if we say the function of x has a value of five, you can see that the angle of the plane will change in parallel to — Oh — Reever.”

“Don’t let me interrupt your sister’s math lesson,” Reever excused himself, even managing a smile as he stepped in with something inside what looked rather like a cake box. “I brought dinner. And coffee. It’s supposed to be meat pie, but I forgot when I gave Jerry my Ma’s old recipe that she always made enough to feed our family and half the rest of the village too. I just always assumed it was only huge in my boyhood memories… Anyway.” He opened the cake box to reveal a pie that was about three times the size of his head and at least six inches deep.

“Smells good, anyway. Guess it might be too much to hope that Linali’ll wake up in time to help us?”

“Ooh.”  Komui looked down into the box appreciatively for a moment, before glancing back at Linali, sighing a little.

And then he blinked.

“…Wait.  Did you say… coffee?”

“Oh yes. Jerry’s special blend. And I’m sure it’s not spiked because I asked for it. Had to help him put his eyes back in their sockets first, but I’m pretty sure he made the stuff he’s been saving because he’s trying to get me addicted to something that’ll attack a major organ that’s not my liver,” Reever mused, nodding slowly. “That being my heart. Maybe he’s secretly trying to kill me, come to think of it…” He held out a mug to Komui as he pondered this.

….and there were the sparkles.

“Oh, coffee~~~  I missed yoooooooooou~~~”

Komui accepted the divine nectar with all proper reverence, twirled his chair around for sheer happy, and came just short of actually hugging the mug to his chest.  Holding it under his nose to appreciate the sweet scent of oh the caffeine, he took a careful sip and sighed blissfully.

“My first cup in three years.”

“…really? No wonder you’re–” Nuts, he was going to say, but it was then that he noticed the familiar dark blue band around Komui’s wrist. He reached out to touch it with a puzzled expression before his hand went to the dark purple one that remained on his own arm.

“I… swear that wasn’t there before.”

Komui blinked at him confusedly for a second, and then glanced down at his own wrist.

“Oh.  That.”  He shook his head a little, taking another sip of coffee.

“It was in my bag.  I don’t wear it very much…  we’re always traveling and…  It could break.”

The thought sent a little shiver down his spine that he didn’t understand, so he drank some more coffee and paused a moment and attempted to ignore it.

“…I wanted to show Linali.”

“Ah, well,” Reever began, rubbing the back of his neck. He was smiling a little. “She already knew about it, sort of. We talked about it once, back…” The smile was gone and Reever looked troubled again. Guilty, even.

“…when we still talked.”

Komui’s head tilted to one side as he furrowed his brow at the other man a little, quizzical.

“Don’t you talk?”

He glanced over at his sleeping sister again.

“…You came to see her.”

“It’s easier to see her when she’s not…” Reever sighed heavily, shaking his head. Oh, the regrets. About everything. He had been petty and shortsighted and self centered and thought the world revolved around him and his miseries. He had pushed Linali away because she cared too much and didn’t like that he was drinking and looked so damn much like her brother that it hurt to even look at her. And then one day she’d started listening, started signing up for missions the moment they were available. She’d even hidden her paper trail. Not a single one of her dispatch notices or mission reports had gone through Reever’s desk. When she’d showed up half dead a few weeks ago, he hadn’t even realized she was on a mission. Which he would have, had he ever been sober for any length of time or bothered stepping out of his office to see how she was doing. He was a crap big brother. Every time she was left in just his care, things like this happened. Every single time.

“…reminding me how much I missed you,” he finished anyway, despite how deeply ashamed those words made him feel. “I didn’t take very good care of her while you were gone, Komui. I– I’m… sorry. I did a shit job of everything while you were gone.”

You can’t have done worse than me, Komui did not say, because it had upset Reever the last time and Reever… Reever should be happy.  Even the look on his face now just wasn’t right, that guilty shameful look.  It was…  just…  bad.

“Well.  It’s a busy job.”  He smiled a little as he took another sip of coffee.  He guessed they should really eat the food before it got cold…  “Supervising and being a big brother.”  Linali wasn’t hurt because of Reever anyway.  She’d been… she’d been on a mission.  That was what happened on missions.  You sent people out and they got hurt.  Or you sent people out without proper warning of an ambush and they died in piles.

The smile stayed on his face, a little unnatural, as he fell silent, continuing to nurse his coffee.

“It’s true,” Reever sighed, then seemed to cheer a little that at least Komui didn’t blame him. The new Supervisor offered the former Supervisor a slightly awkward smile of his own. “And poor me with no dedicated Head Officer to keep me in line.”

“Do you just do everything by yourself?”  Komui blinked at him incredulously.  He couldn’t fathom the idea of ever having done the job by his lonesome without Reever around…  but that was only to clean up after his constant irresponsibleness, so maybe it was just him.  Reever wasn’t bad like Komui.

“Yeah, but it’s my own damn fault,” he sighed, shrugging as he finally lifted the pie out of the box and began serving it for lack of anything better to do. “Johnny and Tapp tried to help. I guess I didn’t really let them.”

“Well…”

Reever looked… unhappy again.

“Maybe you should,” Komui said with a frown as he set down his mug to accept a piece of pie.

“Like hell,” Reever frowned as he handed over the first slice, shaking his head. “I’ll have you know I’m giving you your job back as soon as you’re up to it because, well. The coat doesn’t fit right. Because it’s yours.”

Komui looked at him for a moment.  Looked down toward the plate he was holding.

“…I.  Don’t think we’re staying,” he said in a murmur, blinking slowly down at his lap.  “Zhu ren doesn’t like Headquarters.”

“You’re not going with him,” Reever insisted firmly. “You’re not an Exorcist. You’re not a Finder. You’re one of us. And we pride ourselves in drinking coffee, making paper airplanes, and not leaving the Headquarters. In fact, you almost look tan, Komui. That really won’t do. We Scientists are known for our ‘never-see-the-light-of-day’ complexion, you know.”

Komui simply stared at the other man with wide eyes for several moments longer.

“Not… going with him?” he said in a small voice, shaky and patently disbelieving.

“No.” Reever’s gaze grew a little dark then, eyes narrowing. He quietly set his own slice of pie down before his hands had a chance to hold the plate a little too tightly. “You’re not. You’re never leaving with him again.”

Komui glanced downward slowly again, bangs hanging over his eyes, to watch his hands tremble in his lap for a little while.

He felt… sheer joy at the thought, away at last, completely alone, separated from his zhu ren, his master, his owner, the man who had created him, shaped him, made him into his own creature, knew him, loved him, controlled him –

The pain was so exquisite it felt almost physical.  Zhu ren had said — said he’d never leave Komui alone again — so it couldn’t really be — he wasn’t — possibly–

free now?–

He put a hand over his mouth and… tried to breathe around the… pain and the happiness and the pain.

He couldn’t believe it.  It wasn’t so easy.

“He’ll come to take me,” he whispered into his hand, trying not to shake too much.  Looked down at the food and…  wasn’t very hungry, really, all of a sudden, and set it down next to his mug of coffee.  Hugged himself around the waist, still bent over in the seat. “He always does.  He doesn’t give his things away.”

“No, he won’t.” Reever said this with absolute certainty, almost conviction. His appetite wasn’t affected in the least because for once since as long as he could remember, gloriously, he wasn’t worried about a thing. And he wasn’t even drunk.

“You don’t belong to him, and he’s not taking you away again. I made this mistake once, Komui.” He reached out to very lightly rest his hand on Komui’s shoulder, trying to reassure him. “Komui, look at me, okay?” he requested quietly. “Look at me. It’s Reever, yes? We’re scientists, aren’t we? We learn from our mistakes. We make very, very many of them, but we learn from every single one. And I made this mistake already. Never again.”

Komui looked at his earnest face, and didn’t know whether to be deliriously happy or to curl up in the corner and rock or to sit there and stare and do nothing until Cross came back for him.  He settled for taking a deep breath and beginning to cry with the sheer overwhelmingness of it all, sliding out of the chair to curl up on the floor beneath, futilely brushing long bangs out of his tear-streaked face as he looked away.

“…Komui?” Reever’s voice was an interesting blend of concerned and wary as he watched Komui– What had Cross done to him? Reever felt his hand twitch the way it always did when he wanted a drink that wasn’t on hand, took in a deep, shuddering breath to help make it pass. It would pass. It always did. It just came back later hurting worse. He stood from his seat and knelt down in front of Komui, trying to see if the other was actually crying.

“Is… something wrong? You–” No. Reever wouldn’t let that thought continue. If for any reason Komui wanted to go with Cross, it wouldn’t be because that was what made Komui happy. It would be because of whatever conditioning and brainwashing and whatever the hell else Cross liked to do to people in his spare time that Komui had endured the past three years.

Komui’s head shot up to meet Reever’s gaze for a moment, startled by his closeness; bangs sticking to his face with the tears.  He curled in on himself a little more as he looked away again.

“Zh…  Zhu ren…”  His voice was an unsteady mumble.  “If he…  If he goes away, then he — I–  What do–”

He paused to whimper for a moment as a violent shudder wracked his body.  Then, after a moment, he was still.

“He took… everything…”  Komui stared at the floor, his upset fading away into an unnatural blankness with disturbing speed.

“Everything…  He won’t give it back.”

“Everything–” Reever’s brow furrowed, his expression growing increasingly troubled. “What does that mean, Komui? I don’t understand. What did he take? What’s ‘everything’? K…Komui?” The way Komui calmed, the stillness, the emptiness, the complete lack of personality. Reever’s hand twitched again, closing around something he didn’t have. He swallowed. The children they used in the experiments that led to the Togaochi. Toward the end, before the Innocence finally devoured what little was left of them… that was what Komui reminded him of. As though Cross had eaten away at Komui’s personality until this was all that was left. Reever sucked in a breath, held it.

“Please,” he forced out, hands clenched into fists at his sides. Long nails bit into his palms. “Talk to me, Komui.”

“Everything… In here…”

Komui’s voice was a mumble, still staring off expressionlessly, clutching at the fabric of his shirt in the center of his breast as he sat up a little.

“He took it…”

His eyes slowly turned up to meet Reever’s, filled with a terrible, inorexable loneliness.

“It belongs to him…  I can’t get out any more,” he murmured blankly.

“Komui, you…” Reever found himself at a loss for words. As Chief Supervisor, it was practically a job requirement to feel helpless ninety percent of the time, but this was worse than anything he was used to. Because Reever was still a selfish man, and still would rather save Komui from ever feeling this way over saving the lives of anyone who worked around or below him. But there was nothing he could do and he didn’t even begin to understand what was really going on besides, didn’t know what Cross had done to Komui, didn’t know… anything, really. So he did the only thing he could. He reached out and very slowly pulled Komui into his arms. He closed his eyes, held Komui’s head to his chest, tried to ignore the tears stinging at his eyes.

“I love you, Komui,” he whispered because there was nothing else he could think to say, because it was still true, because it was all he could think about.

And he was so, so goddamned thirsty.

Komui didn’t know what to do or think or feel in that moment; was too overwhelmed for words with relief and pain and despair, with guilt even, for letting Reever touch him when he knew zhu ren might not–

But emptiness made it bearable somehow, so he clung to that, the little hole inside his chest where his heart used to be until zhu ren took it and made it his; and he stretched his arms around Reever’s waist slowly, leaned his face against the other man’s shirt, and thought about… absolutely nothing at all.

It was then, while holding Komui in his arms, that Reever came to realize today was really not much different from yesterday. He’d thought, for a moment, that he’d finally managed to escape his little personal hell but… no, today was no different from yesterday. If it had to be something, something different from yesterday, then all it was was worse. Komui was right here, right here in his arms. He was warm and solid and real, but it didn’t really seem to matter. He was right here, but he was still a million miles away.

Reever choked a little on the thought. He had never been a particularly philosophical man, much preferring reliable, definite mathematical answers, but… He couldn’t help but wonder where Komui was and why it was better than being here, with him. Then he stopped wondering, because he had been too miserable too long to even humor the idea of being good enough, of being important enough, of being worthwhile enough to make Komui stay against whatever it was Cross could or might have done. Reever simply lacked the sense of self-worth to entertain the notion.

Closing his eyes, he clutched tightly onto Komui and very quietly broke down for the first time in three years, for the first time since that day they had stood in the rain and made each other promises neither of them could keep.

….Reever was crying.

Something about that made the spot around the hole in Komui’s chest ache, so he curled up and held on just a little tighter.  Simply stared down at Reever’s shirt, listened to his unsteady breaths for a long while, until the sobbing finally slowed and the other man quieted at last.

And when Reever was finally too exhausted to cry anymore and everything stopped hurting and simply went back to aching as it always did, he slowly detached himself from Komui and stood. He stepped away. It would have been harder, he imagined, if Komui was actually in the room with him. But the other, aside from holding on to Reever in a way that may or may not have been instinct, was still distressingly vacant.

“I have to go do some things for a while, Komui,” Reever sighed, eyes looking anywhere but where Komui was. “You’ll watch Linali while I’m gone, right? You won’t leave her side?”

Komui nodded slowly, turning a little in his place on the floor to look toward Linali’s bed again.

- – -

Not too long after Reever left, someone else joined Komui in Linali’s hospital room.

Cross stepped in and, without a word, all but collapsed into the vacant chair Reever had been using, for once looking completely exhausted. Weary, almost. He sighed a heavy sigh before he turned his gaze on Komui and gestured for the other to come sit in his lap.

“Little Bird,” he called softly, “we need to have a talk.”

“…Zhu ren.”

A prickle of distress escaped back into consciousness and of a sudden Komui found himself upset again, worried, confused.  It was a different kind of upset than he’d felt before, away from zhu ren — he quickly rose to go and settle himself in the other man’s lap, looking up at Cross’s expression with wide eyes, almost afraid to say anything.

“I’m leaving.” Cross’s voice was blank, calm. A little irritated, perhaps, but for the most part he spoke as though he had no opinion on the matter at all. This was just how he was when something happened that made him angry enough to provoke him into violence. As long as he closed himself off until he was gone, he wouldn’t do anything he might come to regret. The situation was very delicate as it was, and there were so very many things that had to go right before everything could be okay again. He had to go to Edo, he had to finish his mission, he had to survive the mission, and he had to come back before anyone but him fixed his boy again. That would be a tragedy, were someone to mend Komui while Cross was gone, because it was something Cross wanted to do for himself.

If someone fixed Komui, Cross would simply have to break him again, and Cross so hated starting over.

“I don’t know how long I’ll be gone,” he continued, shaking his head, “but I will come back as soon as the mission is over. I’ll take Timcampy so if you… don’t do it unless you have to, okay? I hate taking calls when I’m away.”

Komui just kept staring at him.

Something was hurting terribly again; a stab of anxiety sent his heart and his breath racing as he covered his mouth with the back of one curled-up hand, looking very, very lost indeed.

Oh god — Reever — had he been right?

Zhu ren was going to, to go away and then Komui– he was–

“…I can’t come with you?” he said in a very small, slightly terrified voice.

“No,” Cross sighed, voice a little softer as he reached up to stroke Komui’s hair. “They’re sending me to Japan. It’s… dangerous there. There are many, many level three Akuma. I don’t–” Want to see you hurt like that again. Though he paused a moment to clear his throat, he looked distinctly strained as he did so. And the throat-clearing sounded suspiciously as though prompted by Cross choking on his words.

“…don’t want you to get killed. So you have to stay here.”

Looking about as overwhelmed as he felt, Komui shifted around to curl up against Cross’s chest, hunched over a little with the top of his head resting against the other man’s cheek.  He wrung his hands in his lap and whimpered a little and tried not to panic.

Without zhu ren, he — what was a Komui?  Zhu ren had all the pieces and if he went away — if he was gone then Komui — what was he — what did he do?  If zhu ren didn’t have him then — then who would?  Would he even work if zhu ren wasn’t there?  Or would he have to curl up in the corner like a puppet with its strings cut and wait until zhu ren came back to pick him up and string him again?

“You’ll really… really… for sure… come back, right…?” he asked, shakily.

“I’ll come back,” Cross promised easily. Because he always did. And as long as he wanted to, he always would. “Spend this last night with me, Little Bird. I leave in the morning.” A moment of silence passed between them as Cross ran out of things to say, but really, there wasn’t much use for words between them because Cross knew Komui inside and out.

And Komui, well. He didn’t really need to know anything at all.

“Oh. Komui, don’t cut your hair while I’m gone, okay? I like it this way. Don’t change at all. I want you to be exactly the same when I come back. Understand?”

Komui shifted his head a little to look up at the other man, expression slightly confused, but nodded easily.  Of course he didn’t really want to change.  Or cut his hair.  He wanted to make zhu ren happy.

“I understand,” he said, to make completely sure zhu ren knew, and snuggled against the man’s chest again; feeling scared still but slightly reassured.

When zhu ren said something it was almost always true.  So he would definitely come back.  He wouldn’t leave Komui alone to be… to be free.

His breath caught in his throat for a moment and, not really understanding why, he clutched at zhu ren’s shirt and tried to go back to being calm again.

“Something the matter?” Cross asked lightly, still contentedly toying with Komui’s hair. “Do you want me to leave Maria with you?”

Komui shook his head slowly, concentrating on the comforting, soothing feeling of zhu ren’s hand against his hair.

“Zhu ren should take Maria.  So she can protect you and you’ll come back safe,” he murmured.

“…come, Little Bird,” Cross abruptly smiled, scooping Komui into his arms before he stood from his seat. “Let’s let your sister rest and go back to my room. I want to be thorough with my goodbyes since I’ll be away a while.”

And for the most part, that was true. A few details were missing, such as how deeply and completely Cross felt his attachment to Komui just then. It was a very… child-like thing to say, but the meaning held. That Cross should take Maria so that she could protect him, ensuring his safe return. It was concern no one else in all of the Order showed him. The Head Generals told him not to die, occasionally, because it would be next to impossible to replace him. That wasn’t really concern. That was self-interest. Allen had long since convinced himself that his master would never die because that would be just too easy. It felt… nice. To know that someone would worry about him, no matter how much he didn’t need worrying over.

But for the most part, what he said was true. He wanted to have all of Komui one last time before he left, and whether he wanted it for no greater reason than his own physical pleasure or whether he wanted to hold what was utterly his and show the boy all the beauty that Cross’s dark little world could hold because Komui found new ways to steal his breath away, day after day after year after year… well — who was keeping score?

Komui just gave him a small, slightly vacant smile, and wrapped his arms around Cross’s neck with a quiet relieved sigh.

“Good night, Linali,” he whispered as they turned toward the door.

- – -

Reever had meant to go back.

Really, he had.

Wanted to stay by Komui all night, make sure Cross didn’t try anything.

Wanted to hold him and tell him everything was going to be okay, somehow.

Wanted to bring him more coffee, see that smile again.

He had meant to go back.

The current Chief Supervisor was passed out on the floor of his office, somewhere between a mostly empty bottle of whiskey and a pile of Chinese-English dictionaries.

One was still open, its pages wrinkled with water damage that looked suspiciously like tears.

An entry was messily circled.

主人 [zhǔ rén]
master; host; lord; owner