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Shorter first held a gun when he was six, his fingers barely surrounding the grip. In his memory, somebody—some family member that he probably chose to forget—is telling him its parts, better than the teacher at the local kindergarten teaching six year olds the English alphabet.
Muzzle;
Barrel;
Rear sight; front sight;
Magazine; magazine release;
Grip;
Trigger.
Nobody taught him to first place his finger on the trigger guard, to switch the safety when it's safe, when—
—well, everybody always taught him to always pull the trigger first. Shorter understands that.
(He made sure Sing wouldn’t hold a gun before he reached ten
He made sure Sing knows not to just always pull the trigger to solve a problem).
Pulse rate 98, blood pressure 80 to 150.
Eiji is crying somewhere to his right.
Eiji—
Ash.
“Shorter! Stay with me.”
Brain waves altering. Pulse still rising.
In his memory, Nadia always patches his wounds up. She would scold him as she tends to him with gentle hands, giving him a pat in the arm when he's 'all good' that rivals those he receives in a fight.
But she was always there for him, and him for her in return. There was nothing else to expect. She was one of the best this life ever gave him; he would disappoint sometimes, hurt, be a general pain in the ass and she would still be there with her perpetually thin eyebrows and infinite well of patience that is sometimes not so infinite when it comes to him.
Every time, Nadia always make him promise not to get into a fight he can’t handle. Then she would take his jacket from him and put it in the laundry to wash the blood off, she would go to the kitchen and cook him his favorite food.
(Nadia knows he doesn’t fight unless he absolutely needs to.)
“Now take a good look at this face.”
Eiji. It’s just Eiji—
Everything hurts.
It’s not Eiji.
It’s Eiji.
It’s not—
“This is ‘fear’ you’re feeling.”
It’s no–
It is.
He got his first gunshot wound before his fifteenth birthday.
His first thought was that he was expecting this to happen much earlier but with much less blood, the second was that he can’t let Sing see him like this.
Blood kept gushing out from the wound in his right side as he keeps on touching it, he thinks his kidney might have gotten shot but that’s just probably him overthinking. He’s limping a bit, intensely aware of two of his men guarding his back. The gun in his right hand feels heavy, heavier than it used to, heavier than it should be. The knife in his pocket dirtied with blood that wasn’t his.
But his men are safe as they could get, his sister too, and Sing and his brothers.
He finally got the bullet out from his wound, holding it out against the light of Chang Dai’s back door, he scrutinizes the tiny thing that could cause so much pain and end lives.
Nadia would be so pissed at him again.
“This is what’s causing your fear. If you don’t kill him, you’ll suffer from indescribable anguish.”
Crying. Someone’s crying.
Shorter landed himself in juvie a month before his seventeenth birthday, but that’s okay because he made himself a promise not to kill anyone before his eighteenth.
Not that his promise made sense, not that killing before his eighteenth would make a difference.
For him it would, somehow. He might not be able to tell or know it yet, but it will.
He looks up as he thinks of what he’s going to write to Nadia.
Dear Sis, Shorter began, sticking his tongue out as he tries to sort his chicken scrawl so Nadia will not have a hard time deciphering his message.
Thank you for your letter and all the snacks. Don’t come visit me, after all, because its a pretty rough place. I’ll be out of here in two months anyway. Don’t worry about me, okay? I’m fine.
I'm fine.
“Shorter, remember him?”
Ei—
“Stay away!”
The new kid on block A wasn’t the rabbit among wolves, he was the wolf among the rabbits.
With an intensity as bright as the burning sun on a hot, summer day.
And he looks exactly like the angel on the Christmas card Nadia sent him, the one he jerks off to.
“I don’t like how you work.” Shorter had said, without knowing why and if it will get through. Not all kids learn, but this boy before him just might, “Don’t play games like this, you won’t be any different from them.”
Pain in the ass, melon-head jerk.
Well, Shorter doesn’t think Ash was wrong on that one, but he likes to think his point still stands.
Ash.
His knife-work is sloppy like this.
“No, Shorter!”
There’s a new kid in block A—
“Shorter, please wake up.”
“Your hair. Did it fall off or did you shave it off?”
“Shorter!”
Melon-head jerk.
“So, listen.” Ash began, and Shorter is coming to realize not to indulge that glint in his eyes. “I’m keeping this— your angel.”
“ What?! ”
“It’s a sin to jack off to this, you know!” Ash laughs, waving the picture in front of Shorter as he walks backwards towards the cell.
He’s getting out of juvie. Two whole months have passed since he met Ash and the first time he saw him laugh — he was cute, and child-like, angelic.
(His best friend, with his green eyes that lights up when he smiles).
(His best friend, with his green eyes tearing up in pain).
"Ash. I can’t— I can’t anymore. Set me free.”