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O’Brien is the last of them. Judai started the trip with seven companions, and only O’Brien remains. It’s a journey that has been five years in the making; five years, nine cities and too many lost friends. O’Brien carries their packs, because three of Judai’s fingers are splinted from a bad run in with a group of looters and it’s the least O’Brien can do before they part ways.
The first city they had gone to, after the world had ended with so many of the coastline cities getting swallowed by the ocean, eaten by fault-lines or collapsing under the weight of sudden down-spurts and tornadoes, had been Heartland. Cold, alone, on the run from everyone — they had just been kids who thought they could make it through the apocalypse on their own, smart resourceful kids, but no one had been prepared for it — Heartland had seemed like paradise. The destruction that ate away at Domino and the cities they had fled hadn’t yet reached Heartland. The government still wielded power and tried to keep the evacuations and breakwalls to keep the ocean from closing in sturdy and leakproof.
No one really knew what happened that night, except Judai and Johan, but all of them knew what had happened afterwards. From what O’Brien had heard — and from what he had seen — Johan had somehow fallen over the edge of one of the breakwalls, the tide had come in too high and too fast and then carried him out to sea. A section of the breakwall had been torn down, Judai had gone out to try and find Johan and of course they had all followed.
It might have been coincidence, or it might have been something else, no one really knew. Except maybe Judai, but he hadn’t spoken of the night since, even over two years later. The gap in the wall shouldn’t have been enough to drown the city, but maybe Heartland hadn’t evacuated fast enough, or another seismic tremor shifted the ocean more than anyone had expected. But the end result was the same, in thirty-six hours most of Heartland was underwater.
They had moved on, Judai sure that Johan hadn’t died in the ocean and perhaps if they followed the ocean currents down the coast they would find him. They had to find him, had been the conviction. Judai had always been charismatic, always been the de facto leader and had been the one they all crowded around when Domino had started flooding.
After Heartland, they lost Fubuki in the mountains and Asuka shortly after. Manjoume in the lowlands, near Domino City of Maiami and Amon left them then, bluntly saying his destiny was elsewhere. Each loss weighed heavily on Judai, but it also seemed to add to his resolve. A twisted sense that everyone’s sacrifice would be in vain if they never found Johan, then.
When they reached the bottom of the coastline, Judai argued they should head back the way they came — back towards Heartland, back towards Domino. They would find Johan then. Jim argued with him then, asked him to let go of the guilt. It had cut Judai’s immediately reaction — I can’t forget about Johan — short. But then the looters had come, demanded their supplies and Jim had shoved at O’Brien and Judai, back the way they came, back through the narrow foothill paths and asked O’Brien to offer Judai his support as long as he could. Don’t leave a friend in a tough situation alone, had been his hypocritical parting words, before turning back to deal with the looters.
There were many things O’Brien wasn’t proud of in his life. He considered himself capable, a man of action, the person who had a ready-bag and when the first flood sirens went off in Domino he had been one of the first responders and made it out alive. But he hadn’t wanted to die, hadn’t wanted to face off against any looters who were armed when he wasn’t and couldn’t be the person who had put a hand on Judai’s shoulder and told him that grief was all right.
Months later, they’re almost to Domino’s borders again and O’Brien knows that they have to say goodbye. He’ll only go with Judai as far to the city limits and then head off on his own. Maybe he’ll backtrack down the way they came, to see if there are any hints of Johan or of Jim or even of Amon, he’s not sure. Life had been a lot simpler, before and then it had even been simple on the road — they had all wanted to survive.
“Judai,” O’Brien says, as they approach the makeshift tower with red flag that signifies one of the last cities humanity has. Domino was a large city, even after the water had eaten away at the borders. The east side of the city — there the school they had all once gone to, where Judai’s home was that much O’Brien knew — was another day travel at least, by foot. “We’re here.”
This part of Domino isn’t familiar to either of them. Even when they lived there, even before the world ended, almost no one crossed the tracks, so to speak. The flooding and time hadn’t added charm to what had once been the poorest part of Domino, but glinting in the light in the same harsh irony as it always had been was the expensive high rises that overlooked the area.
Judai looks at O’Brien with the kind of even flatness that had become the norm, before a light smile breaks through his expression. O’Brien can almost see the ocean in Judai’s eyes, even though they’re brown and he wonders if he’s doing the right thing after all.
“Thanks for coming this far with me, maybe we’ll see each other again,” Judai offers his hand.
O’Brien passes Judai’s pack over. They don’t shake heads because he worries that the cowardice and shame will be telegraphed in a simple touch.
“It’s weird how things have changed, since we’ve been gone,” Judai shoulders his pack.
“Take care, Judai,” O’Brien says.
Judai waves at him and enters the city.
* * *
Rain was always one of the most dangerous times in Domino City. In only five years since the world had ended the city had transformed itself. Some had predicted that the end of the world would mean an end to money, but somehow humanity’s roots couldn’t be removed. Greed and monetary proof of power persisted. The poorest part had flooded first, of course, and those with the money to move to higher ground and hire muscle to protect themselves created a barrier between. The rich parts were now the Tops — not too much of a difference from what the high rises had been, but now the difference was even steeper. The lower parts, flooded, constantly damp and full of disease and poverty — the Brack. When the rain came down those who lived above in the Tops could look down and think how glad they were to have money and influence in the tight times that came after the world’s end. Sometimes it rained for days, once it rained for seventeen days straight and the streets were so flooded it took a month for the still water to evaporate. Yuusei can’t help but think about that month as he gets the rig ready.
That had been the last month that Team Satisfaction had been together, before Jack and Crow had left, before Kiryuu had died. That’s when they’d designed the rig — took apart a truck and moved the engine up into the truck bed, snug behind the cabin and under cover to keep it from getting flooded. The raised suspension was meant to keep the rig out of water and the modified sides to keep the passengers (mostly) dry.
It wasn’t strictly legal, to have a vehicle like the rig, but after the ocean had swallowed up half Domino City, most of the people who lived in the Brack learned to care a lot less about legality. For those who lived in the Tops, they stayed high and dry and over time a massive network of steel and rope bridges connected the building tops. To complete building the rig, Crow had gotten a new criminal brand for his troubles — stealing the intricate wires that the engine had needed to be coaxed into life — but the officer’s outpost in their area of the Brack was more into swagger than prison, a little violence and pain went a long way. Jack and Kiryuu had sported blood blisters for days after, from the heavy lifting, from catching skin in between the maws of the gearshifts and axles. Yuusei gained (another) electrical burn that rain down his fourth finger to his wrist, but it had joined a collection of them that already scarred his hands. The four of them had felt invincible, at the time, and even more-so when the rig had roared to life for the first time. The heavy rains that could paralyze the Brack — sweep away belongings or even children, flood out entire group homes and just brought mosquitos, mud and slow creeping illness that came with still water — seemed like nothing before the rig’s tires.
They had really just been stupid kids. It's been two years since then, and Yuusei can still remember the feeling when they made their first rounds with the rig. The tepid water sloshed up against the sides but their cargo stayed dry. Crow sat on the roof of the cabin, kept an eye out for the zip boats of Security and dangling stun bombs they hung down from the bottom of the bridges. Yuusei drove, Kiryuu in the passenger seat without a map, directing him from memory and Jack had hung off the back, doing the handoffs for bundles of goods. It had always been Kiryuu's idea, to try and make something of their lives. If the Brack was rotten and waterlogged through to its bones, there was no reason why they couldn't make the best of it. It had felt like they were making a difference, with their short delivery runs and distribution of supplies. They honestly never thought they'd get caught.
Yuusei starts up the rig, shaking off the memories. It's not quite the same, to do the runs on his own, but he can't seem to break the pattern either. If he doesn't do this then there's nothing else to do. Crow's set up a nice place, under one of the lower Tops bridges and gathers kids who haven't fallen in with other groups to him. The last time Yuusei saw him, he seemed happier.
The rain starts light, tapping across the metal roof of the rig and forming a hazy mist. In a few hours, Yuusei knows, it'll intensify until everything is blanketed in walls of water. The first stop is for supplies, hidden away inside an old building that used to be a gas station, before Domino City split. Yuusei slides out of the driver's seat to gather up the plastic wrapped food stuffs, most of it canned goods though there were a few bags of beans and rice, hopefully not moldy. From under the old gas station awning he can see the highest point in the Tops, the clouds just beginning to wrap around it and obscure the bridges from view.
And that was where Jack went, supposedly. They didn't get news, in the Brack, from the Tops, but runners and thieves always carried stories with their cargo. Yuusei had heard that Jack made a name for himself, a false name, but one with power and money. He hopes Jack isn't bored and lonely, up there.
He couldn't spend too much time thinking on the past, if he wanted to make the run before the heavy rains. Yuusei counts the bundles, there's only seventeen this time. It means he'll have to go asking for trades, later in the week to replenish supplies. Usually repairs could net him a fair amount of food, sometimes even blankets or clothing. It was harder to get a good number of supplies, with just him. Even when Rally helped out gathering, which they did when they had the time, it was pretty apparent that soon there wouldn't be enough to justify any runs.
(And, he remembers, Jack left saying: there's more to the world than just this.
Crow left, saying: they deserve to be happy too.
Kiryuu left, screaming.)
"There's more than just this," Yuusei tries the words out but they feel dry, leave his throat feeling raw and swollen. It reminds him of crying, so he leaves it be and starts the rig down the already flooded roadway. It's not that Jack had been wrong, but Yuusei would have to say, there's also this. Especially in the beginnings of an early rain when the grime in the Brack got washed away and the water wasn't stagnant or tepid, just yet; everything, for a little while, would be new and full of life.
* * *
When Yuusei goes on his next run — there’s no bundles left and instead there’s Judai. His fingers are still splinted fingers and he’s picked up a stray tabby that twines between his ankles. The carefully packed and wrapped food supplies had been eaten, the blankets and other nonperishables tucked into Judai’s bag. Yuusei doesn’t get out of the rig, but he opens the door so he can get a better look at Judai — and just in case he’ll have to chase him down on foot to rescue what might be left of the bundles.
“Hey, was this your stash?” Judai calls out. His careless shrug telegraphs quite easily that it means the ‘stash’ has been eaten.
“Not just mine,” Yuusei stands, but stays on the ledge of the door to the rig, hand gripping the roof to stay balanced. “A lot of people were counting on those supplies.”
“Are you saying I owe you, now?”
“Yeah.” Yuusei shouldn’t have left the supplies, not when there were so few of them. They would have been easy enough to just keep in the rig, but he had been on autopilot and habits. Originally the bundles had been stashed there in case any of them got accosted by looters or stray Tops Security looking to make a quick buck or barter. It was all too common that someone in the Brack got the hard end of a billy club and lost their supplies because Security had too much time on their hands and somehow the Tops still managed to maintain their standard of life.
“Sorry, I don’t have anything to pay you back with, but myself.” Judai’s tone is light, but he couldn’t keep the edge out of his voice. It’s bitterness, the kind of regret that twists around into something blacker and heavier than just guilt but it sounds like fearlessness, to most people.
“Then you’ll have to pay with what you have.” Yuusei makes a quick decision and sits back into the driver’s seat of the rig. “Get in.”
“Kidnapping, in this day and age? That’s pretty exciting,” Judai doesn’t move towards the rig.
“You can work off your debt,” Yuusei says, solemnly. There’s no hint of humor in his voice or face. Yuusei grew up in this part of Domino — before it was the Brack — and his sense of responsibility to it always seems to extinguish his sense of fun. Not that there was much fun in no food and no clean water.
“Let’s see what you’ve got for me.” Judai goes around the front of the rig, keeps his eyes on Yuusei the entire time. He’s not distrustful by nature, but it wouldn’t have seemed weird if Yuusei had tried to run him over either. That was just how people were, now. He swings himself up into the passenger side, feet crunching on the old maps and wrappers left on the cabin floor. “Huh, kind of messy.”
He picks up one of the maps, most of the ink has run together or faded, leaving behind just the vague impression of streets and squiggles for buildings or large piles of debris.
“Not very useful, eh? Maybe you should invest in some new maps,” Judai turns it over in his hands, this way and that, to try and read it.
“Not much need for them, anymore.” Yuusei knows the area better than he knows his own heartbeat. The maps had been drawn by Kiryuu — made for ‘just in case’ and Yuusei hadn’t thought to ever get rid of them. He watches, from the corner of his eye, as Judai wads it up and tosses it back onto the floor. “Yuusei, by the way.”
“Just Yuusei? Yuuki Judai, but call me Judai.”
Maybe it’s because Yuusei spends so much time alone these days, or because he’d always had a knack of reading his friends moods, but there’s something in the way that Judai moves, the way his extends his hand for a handshake and the shadowing around his eyes that says more than any introduction. It could also just be that people act differently when they’ve been alone and when they’ve lost important things. Yuusei knows how he’s changed, how his friends changed and it’s all too easy to see how the world changed.
“Ready to work?” He asks, instead of saying nice to meet you. Judai looks almost taken aback, but the surprise is quickly replaced by another of those slightly shadowed smiles.
“Don’t work me too hard, it’s my first day.”
“No promises.”
They make a barter run to a woman who makes bread, first. Yuusei does a maintenance check on her oven and surprisingly, Judai has a strand of sea glass beads to trade her. Next is the salvagers, who collect plastic and clean it and dry it under the hot sun before rolling it and keeping it as dry and sanitary as possible. They wrap the bread tightly and trade an I.O.U. repair for the shoddy electrical in the salvagers’ home. By the time they trade for fuel — a length of cable from Yuusei and a small knife from Judai’s bag — it’s almost dark.
“Coming home with me, too?” Yuusei asks, when they both climb back into the rig.
“I might head out,” Judai jerks his head towards the road. “I meant to be across town by now, but you worked me to the bone and we didn’t even take a lunch break.”
“Guess I owe you a meal.”
There wasn’t any further discussion of Judai staying with Yuusei. The rig was parked with a gray tarp pulled taut over it to create the illusion of a slate wall — no one stole from Yuusei other than Security, anyway, but it was better to be safe than sorry when it came to prying eyes. He coaxes a small fire to life on the stove, tapping into a rewired electrical unit and gas line that still worked, their power sources buried deep in the earth somewhere. Some people believed that the Tops kept a secret workforce to keep their energy going and simply never shared with the rest of the world. Yuusei wasn’t sure he bought into that, but there were enough hidden power lines that with the right tools anyone could skim a bit off of them.
Dinner is simple — it’s always simple, but Yuusei always makes sure to keep it balanced. Instant noodles and stir fried black beans, served up in old wide cans that had the sharp edges worn down to smoothness. Judai can't complain, it's better than the packed rations he and O'Brien had been surviving on after a decent trade with some ex-military guys on the road. At least the stir fry was warm and even with the dim candle light, Yuusei's home seemed a bit more comfortable, with food in his stomach.
"Coffee?" Yuusei asks, after they're done eating. Judai throws him a quizzical look, somehow the offering seems out of place. As if the dingy walls and spartan atmosphere were ill-suited for an after-dinner treat.
"I haven't had coffee in a while," Judai shakes his head with a short laugh, "Where do you get yours?"
"Trade with runners from the Tops," Yuusei shrugs. He doesn't mention that his foster mother always said to put the best foot forward with guests, or that this was the last of his stash. It didn't seem to be worth saying.
"Things really changed around here, you know, I used to live in Domino — but not this side of town. It's kind of surreal to look up there and see they still have everything, like the world never ended for them." Judai's head nods up, indicating the Tops. On clear nights, the lights from their apartments, their hotels, their snug houses that still had electricity and heat could be seen.
"That hasn't changed." Even when Yuusei was younger, the electricity in Martha's home wasn't the best, neither was the heating. Sometimes it would go out for days, and in the winter they would all crowd into one room and push the blankets and mattresses together. In the summer, sometimes they took refuge and slept on the roof but even then the bright lights of the rich Tops homes could be seen, looming above them like an unfulfilled promise.
The coffee grounds are packed into the bottom disk, a little water put in the chamber below it. Yuusei's not sure if the pot he has is even the right container for it, but no one's ever complained about it before. It's too small to sit on the burner, so he balances it over the burner with a little wire rack that Crow once bent into shape to hold the pot — before they had a stove and had tried out the little pot over a fire pit at Martha's.
"Haven't got cream, just powdered milk," there's no use in saying he doesn't have sugar. It's far easier to find packaged candy than straight up sugar these days. "There's this, if you want sweetener." Yuusei offers a small bag of miniature chocolate bars. They're usually a treat for any kids he sees on his runs, or to trade, but having someone with him reminds him of being a kid. Martha used to melt candy bars into milk or water, making fake hot chocolate that always left weird residue in the bottom of the cup — nuts, soggy wafers that kind of thing.
"Going all out for me, huh?"
"The most important thing we have in this world is each other. Strangers are just people you haven't met yet," Yuusei's reply is firm. It’s a cheesy line, but one he can’t seem to let go of.
It's either his solemn tone or expression, but it strikes Judai as hilarious. He cups the coffee with both hands, accepts the powdered milk and two small chocolate bars, dropping them in to let them melt. Then he laughs — it's almost a practiced sound, low and soft and not at all like a true laugh of elation.
art by Pumpkin
Yuusei wonders what Judai's real laugh sounds like.
"Each other," Judai repeats. "Aren't you living here alone?"
“I wasn’t always,” Yuusei looks to the window and the plastic that’s been taped over it to keep the rain out. This was the most alone he’d been in his life.
“Don’t get too attached, I’m heading out tomorrow morning,” Judai stretches, leans back against the wall. “Back to where I used to live, it’s only about a day’s walk across town.”
“Ever done that walk?” Yuusei hadn’t, but the rare runner that came from the other side of Domino always brought difficult stories with them. After the flooding and the earthquakes, the center of the city had become a swampy ruin. There were paths but also broken roads and apparently a large expanse of white that might be sea salt, but it wasn’t easy to cross. “Might be better to go around.”
“I’m going straight through.”
Yuusei wasn’t one to argue with other people’s resolve.
* * *
Supplies were first. Judai had mostly trade-ables left in his pack — jewelry and trinkets that made for good barter material but bad survival material. His bag held more than it looked and they easily packed enough supplies for a week of light eating, a knife and a roll of tough thin steel wire. They were all gifts from Yuusei, things he didn’t need anymore or things he could bear to part with. Judai accepted them all, without protest or false politeness.
“You’ll want a light,” Yuusei explains, “Runners say the ground fog gets dark.”
“Gonna let me borrow a light too, Yuusei?”
“I know someone, she’s on the way out — in the direction you’re headed.”
“Sounds mysterious, are you holding out on the exciting story for me?” Judai tests the pack for heaviness and settles it at the small of his back. Yuusei shakes his head, but doesn’t elaborate. They ride the rig out to the edge of the Brack’s shallow shelf, then they have to walk — there’s a dramatic drop off where the road collapsed in on itself years ago, creating an endlessly deep pit of water and a thin crescent of concrete that moved off north, between dilapidated buildings. The water was always black, around here, still and black and deep and most people in the Brack said it was haunted. There were rumors of a young woman dressed in red who must be a witch or a ghost or a siren that would call wandering children to their graves.
The ground is soft, and even the part of the concrete that lay above the waterline gives off the feeling of being unstable. Judai pauses at the edge, to marvel at the dark water and even kicks at it, causing ripples to cascade out — they keep going, further than it seems like they should.
Yuusei walks ahead, down the curve of the narrow path to a wooden door set into the side of what used to be an apothecary before the two skyscrapers above it crumbled down and crushed the ceiling. Inside, he knows, there are rows of shelves and a sturdy ceiling. The door is newer — crafted out of old worn church pew slats and coaxed into fitting where the old door had once been. Judai follows, a slight spring to his step and reaches past Yuusei to knock on the door. His fingers don’t even touch the wood, the door is yanked open quickly and the business end of a fire poker, still red hot with heat, appears in front of them.
“Woah, woah — hey!” Judai exclaims, both hands going up defensively, but he leans forward, around the fire poker, even if he must be able to feel the heat near his face. He wants to look at her face, but her bangs cover her eyes and fall past her chin, an effective shield from his prying gaze.
“Aki,” Yuusei just says.
“What do you want?” She demands of Judai.
“We want a light, if you have one to spare.” Yuusei cuts in.
“Yuusei,” she turns to look at him and they match unblinking stares before she swings the poker down and opens the door a little wider. “Stay here.”
“She always like this?” Judai asks, and peers into Aki’s home, not quite crossing the threshold but almost.
“Not a lot of people head out this way, even fewer people bother her.” Yuusei had offered to have her come stay with him, multiple times, but she refused each time. She was convinced that she was cursed — that it had been her fault that her father’s office building had crumbled and fell into the ocean, that her mother had died when the first tsunami wave broke through the windows of their home and the fact that the water around where Aki chose to stay turned black and nothing, not even insects, would live in it. He accepts her lifestyle, tries to make sure to drop by once a month to help with repairs and work on getting her hooked into the pirated electrical grid but she refuses to move.
“Why?”
“It’s dangerous, in my black garden,” Aki returns then, her voice no less firm but the combative edge has worn off. She’s cradling two mason jars that glow oddly light blue. “Here. Don’t forget to feed them.” As soon as they accept the jars she shuts the door.
“Feed?”
“Algae lights, Aki has a way with plants.”
“Cool, so how do they work?” Judai shakes the jar and the glowing briefly intensifies before dulling out again.
“Like that. Leave the jar open at night, that’s all. This path eventually ends, but it’s in the right direction,” Yuusei points down the way, long past Aki’s house.
“See ya.” Judai heads down it without another work, one jar in his jacket pocket, the other tucked away in his bag. Yuusei doesn’t watch him go, instead he walks back down the path and back to the rig and starts it. It’s not until he meets up with Rally and Taka again, that the three of them are sitting in the back of the rig’s truck bed that he wonders if Judai will be all right.
“Why worry? Not like you knew him,” Taka points out.
“That’s probably why!” Rally exclaims. “Yuusei’s like that, but also you never know how good someone is at surviving, right? I mean, just look at you, you could totally suck at it.”
“Hey, that’s not fair at all!”
Their bickering is background noise to Yuusei, but they’re also both wrong. It’s true that he did have to wonder if he was just letting Judai wander off into the swamp to drown, but more than that he noticed the little things. Judai always put a back to his wall — at Yuusei’s place, when they made a round, at any of the bartering agreements they’d gone to. If he couldn’t put a safe spot behind him, Judai leaned into danger, framed a conversation with his daring and didn’t have any fear in his body language. There was a charisma to him that reminds Yuusei too much of Kiryuu — how easy he is to be around, how easy he can imagine following him anywhere for no good reason other than to enjoy the company. But of course, there’s the flip side to that comparison too.
He’s sure it isn’t the same, the shadows that sit just under Judai’s smile, or in the way he would go oddly silent and look into the distance. Yuusei’s certain, Judai didn’t have the same kind of darkness that Kiryuu had. But he’d given Judai Kiryuu’s old knife and wire, hadn’t he? That had been a mistake, and unfair. He knew it had been unfair, because he was trying to make up for what he’d done and how he’d lost Kiryuu and it was unfair to have done that. He sighs, softly.
“So, Yuusei, when are you going?” Rally asks, breaking into Yuusei’s thoughts.
“What?”
“Going, we both know you are. You’re either going to chase after Jack and beat some sense into him or you’re going to the other side of the city,” Taka put in. “You’re not doing anyone any good, sitting around here.”
“I hear the water never even touched the other side of the city, they still have stores and stuff!” Rally grins. “If you go that way, you can get us some really good supplies.”
“Someone has to do the runs,” Yuusei starts but Rally cuts him off.
“I can do them, Taka will drive. We know them by heart now and I have some good will built up with some of the regulars! Let me help out too,” Rally holds out a hand for the keys.
“I’ll keep an eye on Rally,” Taka nods.
“Rally — Taka — “ Yuusei presses the keys into Taka’s hand. “I won’t be gone long.”
“We’ll see you when you get back, Yuusei.”
* * *
The swamps behind where Aki lives sprawl out, the concrete path becomes slick with mud and moss. The black water remains constant, but after Judai passes the fourth hour mark, some dark blue swirls into the black. There are long silver fish, most at least as long as his forearm, that cut through the murky waters. Some of the fish have raised spined fins and others are sleek like eels, with nasty sets of jaws. He stops, crouches down by the water.
art by Jess
There’s no bottom — not like parts of the Brack where the rubble and ruins are visible through the depths and not like most of the cities that Judai had traveled through where eventually there was a broken road, the reflective paint of an old traffic line, or even the collapsed roof of a house to mark the bottom. Instead there’s darkness and blackness and a writhing swirl of silver fish. Like a massive pupil the fish expand and then contract before breaking apart and darting in different directions, leaving the water deceptively calm once again.
It would be easy to get lost, or sink forever, in the water here.
“Judai!” Yuusei jogs up to him — there’s a slight flush to his face that’s only partially hidden by the smudge of dirt on his cheeks. He must have jogged all the way down the path, his footsteps solid since it didn’t look like he’d fallen into the water. (And, if he had, would he have climbed out or just disappeared under the depths too?)
“Forget something?” Judai asks, shoves his hands — they had acquired a tremor, watching the fish, one he hadn’t even noticed himself — into his pockets. “Or did you regret giving me those supplies? No takebacks, Yuusei.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“Just inviting yourself along?” To Yuusei, with the sun slicing down through the sky like a dusky orange blade, the light that reflected in Judai’s eyes was sharp and silver. “Won’t that make it a bit of a crowded journey?”
“I’m not asking you to take responsibility for me,” Yuusei promises.
Judai laughs, he throws his head back and laughs — and it’s his real laugh. It’s big and open and it’s not entirely joyous but it wasn’t pre-planned and there’s something free in it. Yuusei stays silent the entire time, just taking in the sound the angle of Judai’s chin and the view of the pale of his throat, just perfectly framed by the collar of his jacket.
“All right.” Judai finally says. “All right, let’s travel together.”
“Let’s make good time, before the sun sets.” Yuusei offers.
“We can travel at night, too.” Judai takes the lead, walking down the path at a good pace.
There’s probably only a few more hours of daylight, unless they end up in ground fog, and then there’s no telling when the light will come back. The concrete beneath their feet shifts and slides and becomes soft silt and mud, clinging to their shoes and soaking through their socks. Judai stops to roll up his pant legs, all the way to the knee. Two scars break across his left shin, parallel and thin against his skin. Yuusei doesn’t ask about them.
The path forks and then forks again and each time they take the right branch. Judai’s shoes and socks slung over one shoulder, his bag over the other. Yuusei has a heavy backpack, and between the sound of his solid steps in the mud — accompanied by the thwock of the slick ground reluctantly releasing his feet — is the muted clinking of something metal, or glass.
Yuusei chooses to stop for the night when the sun sinks below the jagged horizon and the only light comes from the moon, the bog wisps and algae lamps Aki gave them. He places a hand on Judai’s shoulder — a silent command to take a rest for the night. They have a brief battle of wills, a quiet one where Judai’s smile doesn’t falter at all. But it’s Judai who relents, who nods and picks out a spot where the path has bowed out and created an alcove against a fallen rock. There’s not enough wood for a fire, not without burning through their supplies quite literally, so they eat the canned rations cold. Yuusei doesn’t take off his gloves even to eat and Judai thinks that the motor oil in the leather must also flavor the food.
Instead of mentioning that, though, he just says, “Should someone bother keeping watch? What do you think the likelihood of getting looted is?”
“How light of a sleeper are you?”
“I’m in the mood to chance it.” For some reason, even though the moon was rarely visible in the Brack — too much light pollution from the Tops — it shone down through the swamp air. It was a trick of the light, the confidence they both feel.
“Let’s chance it then,” Yuusei agrees.
“Good night, then.”
“Good night, Judai.”
Yuusei listens for Judai’s breathing to slow and even out. He’s struck with the idea that in the middle of the night Judai will get up and wander off — but he’s not sure if that’s worry of being left behind or of Judai’s own willfulness. He listens to Judai’s breathing go even and then go sharp and hurried, twist into panicked gulping — the sounds of a man drowning — and then even out again.
(Neither of them would be able to guess the other’s dreams.)
* * *
Someone pumps oil out of the swamp. Yuusei knows that sound by heart, the slow methodical compress of pistons and the almost inaudible burble of thick oil. The ground fog settles in the early morning and even by high noon, most of it hasn't burned away.
"Feels like we're walking to the end of the world, doesn't it?" Judai asks, he practically shouts it, and his voice doesn't even echo. Instead it's swallowed up by the fog and water and the quiet, steady pumping of oil.
"We're not alone," Yuusei comments.
"You're saying someone lives out here?" Judai gestures with his left hand. The ground fog is so thick he can almost feel the resistance against his skin. They may as well be swimming.
"Could be."
The other possibility is that someone used to live out here. There might have once been industry, or it had been a factory. Despite only five years having passed, neither Judai nor Yuusei can really remember what Domino was like before everything changed. If asked, neither would be able to say definitively if there was an oil well in the center of the city, or even offshore drilling in the ocean. When the earth groaned and shifted, offshore oil drilling could have been brought crashing inland, re-situated in the center of the city and continued to bore down into the earth and bring oil up to the surface.
"Could also not be," Judai isn't playing devil's advocate. Yuusei looks for the familiar, and Judai isn't nearly so narrow. "You see all sorts of places that haven't had people in them for a long time, when you travel."
"I'd like to think that there are."
It's at the tip of Judai's tongue — a comment about loss, or a comment about solitude not being a burden, or maybe even one about relationships not being purely motivational, supportive, positive — but his heart is already racing fast. Instead he grabs Yuusei's hand and grins.
"You can make your own enjoyment," but then he's dragging Yuusei forward, into the ground fog blindly.
(He's done this before, with reckless abandon. Twice over, at least now and each time a part of him wants to pull back but is never louder than the part of him that breathes for excitement.)
Yuusei stumbles along with Judai for one stride, two — but then he's running alongside him. Neither of them looks at the ground, they just trust that their feet will carry them on solid earth and not into the water.
It's as though the earth wants to cater to them too. The mud gives way to small ground seashells and dirt and gravel and the muted pistoning of oil drills fades. The fog doesn't lift, but the air cools, condensing the small droplets of fog into larger round wet spots that hang in the air. Salt, sea and the smell of limestone takes over from the heavy black of the swamp.
By the time their lungs are burning and they slow to a walk — simultaneously — they're walking in ankle deep clear water. The ground is broken concrete, compacted dust from the foundations of business buildings and glass that's been worn down by time. Everything is light gray, the fog, the ground, the clear water only holds grays — their shadows slightly darker gray stretches across the landscape.
“Do you think we’re lost?” Judai asks.
“With the fog it’s hard to tell.”
It could have been an urban park, once. The mangled coil of colorful pipes could have been monkey bars, before large stones erupted out of the earth and crushed them. The fog dissipates to fine mist again, leaves salt on their cheeks and in their hair and on their clothes. Everything is gray.
“We can keep moving forward,” Yuusei says with conviction. “The path has to be there.”
“And if it isn’t?” Judai isn’t concerned. There’s more than two directions, more than just forwards or backwards. Every journey has its ups and downs, getting lost is part of the process and can have its own rewards. Sometimes, living with the mistakes was just how it had to be.
“Then we turn back and try again. I’ll see you through to your destination.”
“Hey, Yuusei,” Judai keeps walking, dragging his feet and watching the ripples disturb the silt and swirl gray on gray in the water. “Why does it matter?”
“Because I’m selfish,” Yuusei says, and smiles, just barely.
Judai looks back over his shoulder at Yuusei. The salt on Yuusei’s cheeks has dried in angular patterns, leaving white jagged lines under his eyes and at the corners of his mouth and obscures his smile, mostly. Everything is gray and blue except the gold in Yuusei’s hair and the setting sun through the fog.
A new day will begin, soon.
* * *
The shallows of the limestone breaks out into salt flats.The gray bleeds into white and then there’s nothing but white cracked land that stretches so far until it runs into the harsh black lines of what must be the other side of the city.
“Hot,” Judai shields his eyes against the sun. “Might be better to travel at night.”
They linger at the edge of the salt flat for the better part of the day. The mist deadwalls against the hot air — forming a border between the two areas, it’s almost too surreal, but they’ve both seen odder things. Yuusei wrings out his socks and boots and leaves them to dry in the sun. He even takes off his gloves, revealing that both hands are covered in Lichtenberg figures, save for the puckered puncture wound scars.
“Just from fixing up trucks like the one you had?” Judai asks, leans over and without asking traces the long electrical burn that passes down Yuusei’s fourth finger to his wrist. “Looks pretty exciting.”
“Not really.”
“Nothing exciting ever happened to you?”
“Just the floods.”
Yuusei didn’t say the end of the world, didn’t call it anything but the floods. Judai tilts his head to the side, there’s something odd and wrong and refreshing about it — a whole different perspective. It’s the newness that Judai used to crave, before the world became harried and tragic and tired. New experiences, new people, the joy of discovery that had since been so buried deep in his chest under sorrow and loss.
And this is not so different from that, but if Judai looks a little harder he sees just the smallest sliver of challenge, a knife’s edge of untested determination. It’s almost a little exciting. It’s the wrong moment to bring it up, the wrong time and the wrong place, but it feels like he’s woken up again, for the first time in so long.
(Before that, when he laughed, it was like this and before then, when Manjoume challenged him to race up the mountain path, when Johan challenged him to walk along the guard rail of the breakwalls, when Asuka had refused to back down — just moments in their lives that had created something more.)
“Just the floods,” Judai repeats.
“Yeah. Anything interesting ever happen to you?” Yuusei sends the question back at him.
“This is the most exciting thing that’s happened to me in a long time,” Judai grins, and only half of his mouth is shadowed.
In the evening, they start moving. The moon is full and round and reflects off the salt. Everything is flat and covered in white — even the buildings that used to be here have been ground down, by wind, or weather or something else. There’s a pristine atmosphere, everything is too clean, the cracks in the salt beneath their feet are too straight and if they talk too loudly their voices echo and carry.
It’s so quiet that neither of them expect the looter — he must have been hiding behind one of the round, smooth pillars that may have been a statue or a car or even a person, before the salt covered it into shapelessness. The looter is dressed in light gray everything and has salt crusted into his hair and carries a short expandable police baton that rattles and clicks with every swing.
Yuusei intercepts the first swing with his forearm, the baton snapping hard against the leather of his glove. He thinks — weren’t they alone just a moment ago? It’s a short fight. It’s really not even a fight. Judai swings his pack against the looter’s side and Yuusei grabs the baton, rips it out of his hands and tosses it aside. (Crow would probably say, he’s just a kid.)
“We’re not an easy target,” Yuusei says, and jerks his chin to the west, telling the looter to go. Judai stoops and scoops up the baton, collapses it and pockets it. He makes eye contact with the looter and smiles, broad and non-threateningly. The looter — the kid, really just a kid — scrambles and runs, the light gray of his clothes blending in with the scenery quickly, disappearing into the horizon.
“Let him off easy,” Judai comments, they keep moving.
“He has a life to live too,” Yuusei murmurs, and he’s so sure that in the end, everything will be all right.
“That’s pretty naive,” Judai doesn’t hold back and he skips head of Yuusei, turning on his heel to walk backward — so they can talk face to face. “Sometimes, people’s lives get in the way of other people’s lives.”
“Is that from experience?” Yuusei sets it like a knife between them.
“Yeah, it is.” Judai doesn’t back down from it at all, he closes the distance between them, almost stepping on Yuusei’s toes. “There’s only so many things you can be.”
Unexpectedly, Yuusei places both his hands on Judai’s shoulders. He stops their forward progress and leans, creating a hug that is both grounding and stifling all at once. He’s silent for too long, and Judai shifts weight from one foot to the other.
“I’m not indecisive. This is what I can do.” The words are said slowly, softly, each one drops with precision into Judai’s ears. Yuusei tries to infuse each one with his meaning — with his belief.
Judai hears his determination, but nothing else.
* * *
The dawn bleeds into scorching sun and they decide to stop to rest. There isn’t much shade in the salt flats, but they hang up both their jackets, using a length of wire for a clothesline and create a shoddy lean-to. They haven’t come across any water in hours, and their reserve supplies are already empty. The end of the salt flats is in sight — but it has been since they started. At times the edge of the city seems so close, an illusion brought on by the flatness of the white expanse before them and at other times it seems so far away it might as well be a mirage. It’s too hot and too dry and they’re both so thirsty.
“Do you think we can drink this?” Judai shakes one of the algae lamps, before pressing his lips to the outside, catching what little condensation there was.
“Maybe,” Yuusei shrugs. He can feel the dryness all the way to the back of his throat, it’s like breathing sand. “Want to find out?”
“Not yet! We can both make it a little farther, can’t we?” The constant heat has brought a flush to Judai’s cheeks and he brushes the salt out of his hair and off his shoulders. His expression seems to buoy the moment.
“After rest.” Is the agreement.
Yuusei sprawls out in the limited shade that their strung up jackets provide. Judai flops down next to him and without any hesitation rests his head on Yuusei’s chest.
“I’m tired of getting salt in my hair,” Judai says, by way of explanation. It’s warm, with both of them laying so close to each other but Yuusei strips off his gloves and doesn’t mind it. They sleep, both too tired to be fitful.
Eventually, when it gets too hot, Judai wakes up and rolls off of Yuusei. He unscrews the lid on one of the algae lamps and wets his fingers in the water, dabbing it on the back of his neck and then on his tongue. The salt and acrid earth taste the algae imparted on the water stings on his tongue, but he doesn’t regret the decision. It’s only because Judai is awake, that they’re both not taken by surprise when the looter returns. He’s brought two others with him and they make a grab for Yuusei’s backpack and Judai’s shoulder bag that rest under the base of the lean-to.
“Yuusei!” Judai shouts the warning, and snaps the police baton out of his pocket. The algae lamp is dropped and splatters across the white salt covered earth.
Yuusei scrubs at his eyes with one hand, only just narrowly avoiding getting brained by a heavy lead pipe that one of the looters has brought along. He rolls over and pushes himself to his knees, before just lunging at one of the looters — the Brack rule of thumb, the lower you hit a standing target the more likely they were to fall over. They tumble and twist, each grappling for the other’s throats and for Yuusei that’s the entire stretch of the world, just the hot salt kicking up white dust, the looter’s hissed obscenities and the fingernails on his throat.
The looter that attacked them earlier splits after he sees Judai wielding the police baton he left behind. His friend isn’t as wary, bares his teeth at Judai and waggles the lead pipe at him — posturing intimidation.
It wasn’t a language that he’d ever spoke — even back before everything. And it wasn’t something he learned to speak, either, not when they had been running from the storm clouds and earthquakes and flooding. They had all learned to hold their own, because they had to. Looters and people just looking to reap revenge on the unfair events the world had piled on them made life difficult for everyone. Judai’s always swung hard and true, the uncomfortable truth all his companions had acknowledged. (Someone had always asked, or wished, couldn’t he hit just as hard but care a little more, feel bad a little harder, have a little more compassion?)
People were always asking for the impossible, for as much as he cared for them.
Lead pipes are slower than police batons, it’s simple physics — but for Judai it’s just instinct. He steps to the side, and twists into the next swing. The lead pipe whistles past his left ear, thuds into the salt and leaves the looter open on the upswing. It’s all too easy to snap the police baton around to the base of the skull and send the looter staggering.
One, follow up strike to the face. Two, to the front of the throat and three, to the knee.
Yuusei shoves the looter he struggled with away and watches him run off before turning and searching for Judai. He’s guilty and guiltier yet when he sees the splatter of red across the white salt and across Judai’s cheeks and dripping off the police baton.
“Judai — “
“You can’t have it both ways,” Judai says.
Yuusei doesn’t say anything else, but steps over and carefully pries the baton out of Judai’s hand. He holds Judai’s hand in both of his, rubs his thumb over Judai’s knuckles that go from white to pink and carefully soothe the tremors.
“Thank you,” Yuusei says, because he means to say I’m sorry, it’s my fault.
“Better get a move on, right? Still lots of distance to cover,” Judai unstrings his jacket from the wire and settles it over his shoulders.
“Are you okay?” Yuusei gathers their things, ties Judai’s shoulderbag to the backpack. It’s the least he can do, he thinks.
“Fine? Yuusei, I’m great.”
They walk the rest of the salt flats in silence. It takes another half a day. They drink half of the algae lamp each, swish the water through their teeth and spit the algae out into the sand. Yuusei makes Judai sit in the last rays of the sunlight and uses the last swig of water to wet his jacket sleeve and wipe the blood off of Judai’s face.
It doesn’t really change anything, just means there was one less drink for them, in the end.
* * *
The concrete greets them before any water. The salt flats merge into salt covered concrete and then into twisted asphalt. Sometime after the flooding, the asphalt had melted and swirled, leaving waves in the street and different pieces of the used-to life stuck frozen in the resolidified tar.
Many of the buildings hadn’t fallen, not like the Brack and areas around it that had been torn apart by earthquakes. Instead, this part of Domino had been covered in water — salt and seaweed lines showed up twenty stories and more on the skyscrapers and then, something else. The tang of ozone lingers in the air, and yet, the first sink they try at an old restaurant bathroom runs clear water when the tap is turned.
“It’s like nothing changed,” Judai says, drinks from the tap and then splashes the water on his face and rubs the grime off of his hands.
“Everyone’s gone,” Yuusei points out.
“Besides that, everything’s the same.”
Judai leads the way to their house, as he puts it. Yuusei follows along, just half a pace behind, because he keeps craning his head to look at the buildings. They look clean and ready, welcomingly empty. The paint has chipped on some, the front doors ripped off of others probably from the waves when the ocean broke through and across Domino. It’s all too easy to imagine people looking down from the windows at them, to think there might be kids at school or businessmen at their day job.
The biggest threat to the illusion was the road. Embedded in the asphalt was a shoe, a purse, the scrap of what might have been clothing and the ivory of what might be bone. Yuusei kept his eyes up, away from the road.
“Here it is,” Judai stops in front of a modest house with a small front yard. It’s two story, and the curtains are still drown on the second floor. “They lived here.”
“They?” Yuusei asks.
Judai holds his hand out. “Thanks for coming this far with me, I appreciate it.” It’s a clear dismissal. Yuusei takes Judai’s hand, shakes firmly and nods.
What Judai doesn’t see, as he walks up the front steps and pushes the front door open — it’s been unlocked for five years, and he knows it — is Yuusei sit down on the front lawn, and wait.
The flood water molded the carpet and warped the floorboards. Judai only barely pays any attention to the living room and kitchen, passing through them and making straight for the stairway. He knew the house better than his own childhood home. There was where he’d played hide and seek, and there was the first time he’d cut his hand — caught his fingers on a nail sticking up out of the floor boards.
The second floor hadn’t fared much better than the first. The stairs were bent and some rotted through. When Judai had been younger, each stair had seemed like a massive block, just slightly too tall and long for a child’s gait, but now he could step over two without breaking stride. First bedroom on the left.
He pauses in front of the door. This hadn’t been the goal, at first. When he had returned to Domino and after O’Brien had left Judai had only been thinking of doing something. He needed that goal, to replace — to replace finding Johan. But as he’d drawn closer and closer, it all seemed to fall into place. The sting of the ozone in the air, the soft breeze in the house that felt like sandpaper against his sunchapped face, the echoing ache that hadn’t left him in five years.
When the water had started rising, he had run here. They had huddled there in the bedroom, listened to the news on the radio and thought they’d be safe for a while. Then the sirens had gone off again and Judai had stood up, had said — Stay here, I’ll be back, don’t worry.
And then he’d never gone back. Of all the friends he’d lost, his first friend had never gotten a proper goodbye.
Judai rests his hand on the door. It’s shut, when it hadn’t been five years ago, but that could have been the wind, the water, the more quiet tremors of the earth. He doesn’t hesitate, then, and opens the door.
Sorry it took me so long.
* * *
Judai doesn’t expect Yuusei to be waiting for him, when he finally exits the house again. He spent hours inside, finding the things he left behind and making decisions. He’d never been a big believer in epiphanies, but ascending the stairs had felt like a lifetime ago. Judai stops in the doorway of the house, rests his gaze on Yuusei’s silhouette against the overgrown grass.
“Hey,” he says.
“You staying?” Yuusei asks, nods towards the house.
“No, the person who lived there — they’re long gone,” Judai’s smile doesn’t crack at all. “I just had some things to settle.”
Yuusei nods, because he knows that feeling. He can’t say he hasn’t been using the journey with Judai to try and settle some things of his own. It hasn’t worked too well, instead things just have gotten more and more muddled.
“Going back?”
“Let me show you something,” Judai offers his hand. Yuusei takes it, without hesitation. They walk further into the city, through another neighborhood and up a hill that must have been covered in grass before but has since grown ivy and wild violets. “This is the highest point in Domino.” Judai explains, when they reach the top.
The cityscape sprawls out before them. The neighborhoods where Judai lived, the salt flats and then in the very distance the Brack and the Tops. In the other direction is a large crevice, a drop off where the earth shattered, and then the ocean. His face is half turned away and Yuusei thinks he catches the reflection of the ocean in one of Judai’s eyes and the sun in the other.
art by Thayo
“There’s so much of the world out there.” (Yuusei thinks, that sounds familiar, but he can’t place it.) “We’ve all spent a long time running from things.” Judai laughs then, bumps his shoulder against Yuusei and twines their fingers together, loosely, before pulling his hand free. “That sounds really melancholy, doesn’t it. The truth is, I didn’t really know what to do.”
Yuusei turns, shifts so he can put a hand on either side of Judai on the ground and almost lean over him. They’re not breathing in synch — Yuusei’s breath hitches, tries to align with Judai’s, momentarily.
“Do you know now?”
“I know more than I did.” There’s no easy answers. There’s no easy reconciliation with the past and no simple plan for the future. Judai’s smile slopes to the side, but it isn’t weight down with loss this time. “I’ve enjoyed the time spent together, with you.”
Yuusei thinks he can still see traces of the blood smeared on Judai’s cheeks, so he reaches up and ghosts his hands against Judai’s skin. The motion unbalances them, they fall with Yuusei on top, then roll — it’s instinct, Judai won’t be trapped by anything, not anymore. Judai settles, straddles Yuusei’s hips and then leans down to rest his forehead on Yuusei’s shoulder. They’re comfortable, in the cool grass, close enough to hear each other’s heartbeat.
“I’m glad, too.” Yuusei says, quietly. He tries his hands on Judai’s shoulders, then the small of his back and finally they find Judai’s hips, thumbs rolling across the soft barely revealed strip of skin between Judai’s shirt and beltline. He can’t feel it through his gloves, but there’s a cluster of thin scars, like netting, just above Judai’s hipbone.
In truth, he wants to say, I don’t want to say goodbye, just yet.
They both lose a word, meeting in the small space between them for a kiss that’s more pressure and teeth than it is lips. Judai tracks his teeth down Yuusei’s jaw to his collarbone and all he tastes is salt and Domino’s air and the unfamiliarity of someone else’s skin. He sinks his teeth in, bites until he draws blood and a rumbling noise from Yuusei. They are both struck with the impermanence of everything around them. Yuusei whispers promises that he shouldn’t — but they were still things he believes in and Judai doesn’t hold back his laughter. It isn’t quite passionate, because Yuusei’s gloves are still on and his lips find Judai’s hair, his ear, his cheek and he thinks of the orange sun reflecting in Judai’s right eye and a police baton covered in blood. Judai bites and bites again and with each roll of his hips he isn’t answering any of Yuusei’s promises at all.
Neither of them had thought to take off their clothes, or thought much at all. The journey caught up with them, tension easing out of their bodies at different times — Judai first, and then Yuusei after. They settle, together, Judai across Yuusei, Yuusei curled slightly around him. The sun tracks across the sky, starts to sink down into the city and then into the ocean.
“Do you realize, we could go anywhere?” Judai asks.
Yuusei thinks about where they came from, the still waters of home and the heavy rains. Soon, they’ll have to move back down towards the city. Stop at a house, any of them, since they’re all empty and wash, maybe spend the night. Then they could part, or —
(There’s more to the world than just this.)
“What do you think about taking a trip to the top with me?” Yuusei asks, in response.
Judai’s answer, of course, is yes.