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“This is it!” Shal said brightly from his seat at the computer, “It says here that a dummy corporation for the Nostrade family owns that building you were in.”
He and the others had just rescued Uvo from the mafia members, and the chain user, who had him tied up in some dark, autopsy room. They’d bound him to a metal table and filled his body with enough tranquilizers to kill a lesser man. After all that, and a ribbing from Shal and the rest of their friends, Uvo was eager to get his revenge on the asshole who captured him. Shalnark, dutiful as ever, offered to help in the ways he knew how. He had a bad feeling about the whole situation, but it was easier to give Uvo the tools to succeed than to try and stop him. Uvogin stood behind him now, reading over his shoulder.
“Alright then, do you think you can track down a list of all the buildings in this area the Nostrade family own?” he asked, crouched slightly to accommodate for the low ceilings.
“Sure can!” Shalnark said without taking his eyes off the computer screen. It was hard to look at Uvo, but harder still to ignore him. They hadn’t been alone like this in years. Shalnark had avoided him, time and time again. Uvogin deserved to be happy with Nobunaga and Shalnark did nothing but complicate things for them both. Uvo was eager to argue the contrary, but it was for the best. The distance between them was to protect Uvogin, and Shalnark had been resolute in that decision. However, it was easier to keep that promise to himself, and to Uvogin, when he had a task at hand. “I can also see if anyone has checked into a hotel using the Nostrade name lately.”
He stopped typing when the sound of a door opening never came. Shalnark looked toward the door, shoulders tense. There was the man who rented the apartment lying motionlessly on the ground, but nothing stirred in the entrance hall or the apartment’s galley kitchen.
“Something wrong?” Uvo asked, watching him. Shalnark didn’t look at him, and instead turned his attention back to the computer.
“No,” he said, trying to fill his voice with lightness, but falling flat, “I guess I just thought Franklin was coming. With more beer.”
“Sometimes he does,” Uvo said from the edges of his peripheral, “Keep talkin’, Shal.”
“Yeah, okay,” Shal said. He suddenly felt as if he’d come down with a bad cold, and his entire head was filled with cotton balls. He looked at Uvo, finally, and Uvo looked at him with steady eyes. Uvogin had always been a rock when the tide was turbulent. “...what was I going to say?”
Uvo smiled at him, endlessly patient, “You were gonna say some shit about a hunter’s license.”
Shal’s lips twitched into a smile. “And…you were going to tell me that you didn’t need it. You’d just steal whatever you wanted.”
He laughed, small and uncertain, and looked back at his hands above the keyboard. They were shaking slightly. “Why do I know that?”
“Because you know me, Shal,” Uvogin said. The distance between them was palpable.
“No,” Shal said, shaking his head. His body was trembling now, but he felt so disconnected from it anyways. Was it anxiety, he wondered, trilling through his veins like so many bees? With focus, he could make it stop, but focus was becoming increasingly difficult. “That’s not it. This has happened before.”
“Has it?” Uvo asked, solemn now. His tone was no longer conversational. Shal blinked, the threat of tears began to prick at the corners of his eyes. This tightness in his throat became solid concrete. Cold wind blew in through the open window and goose flesh sprouted across Shalnark’s skin.
The silence continued. The blue of the computer screen lit up Shalnark’s face.
“Do we have to keep going?” Shalnark asked. His voice wavered now, but he still struggled to keep his composure. “Can we stay here a little longer?”
Uvo sat back onto the bed in the room with a heavy thud. It shuttered under his weight, but remained intact. Shalnark was surprised the whole floor didn’t shake under the power of Uvogin. There was humor in his voice when he finally responded. “We can hang out here as long as you want, Shal.”
“Do you know what happens next?” Shal asked. He couldn’t say it out loud. In a few lines of dialogue, Uvogin would kiss him for the last time, Shalnark would push him away like a kindergartener afraid of cooties, and Uvo would disappear out of the window, never to be seen again. His teeth ached in his mouth. Uvo didn’t answer him.
“I should have gone with you,” Shalnark said finally. His voice was wet and sticky with grief, but there were no leaks in the dam yet. “Can we do that? Can I go with you?”
“Damn, Shal, are you gonna cry?” came his thunderous voice from behind him. Shalnark couldn’t bear the pity that tainted the bigger man’s tone. “I can’t remember the last time you cried.”
“Shut up, Uvo, I asked you a question,” Shalnark snapped. He couldn’t stop trembling. “Can we change it? Can we change what happens next?”
“Nah,” he said plainly. Shalnark’s body was raked with the threat of a sob. “It’s over now, for both of us. We can’t change the past.”
Shalnark could hardly remember what happened before this scene. Not the rescue mission, which came to him like the playback of CCTV footage, but what brought him to this place with Uvogin. That was covered in white noise and buzzed uncomfortably in his ears. He could remember a flash of movement and then darkness. He swallowed hard and tried to shake away the thought. It didn’t matter.
“I should have gone with you,” he said, but his voice was dead now. The strength had been sapped from his body, and he had lost any energy to emote, let alone mask those emotions.
“Shal, stop it,” he said, voice stern. “I went how I wanted to go. I took that risk every time I raised my fists.”
“I should have gone with you, Uvogin,” he said, staring down at his hands with empty eyes, “You died because I couldn’t protect you. I couldn’t protect you because I couldn’t bring myself to even care about you.”
He could feel the bubble of anger in his chest swell and burst. He never let himself feel anything, but when they forced their way through his walls, they tasted like bile in his mouth. Each breath felt ragged and raw, scraping against his lungs like razor blades. Uvogin was standing now.
“Why didn’t I tell you?” he said. There was a desperation in his voice like a sun beneath the bedrock. “I was so worried about you, and I couldn’t even tell you.”
“Shal,” Uvogin’s voice barely registered. Tears sprung forth. The trembling of his body never stopped. Uvogin settled a large hand on his shoulder.
“I never even said it out loud,” he said softly as Uvo spun the office chair to look at him. Shalnark looked up at him, finally. His face was gentle. Uvogin was endlessly patient. The same in death as he was in life. He took Shalnark’s face in his massive hands and wiped his tears with his thumbs.
“I knew, Shal,” he said, just as quiet, “Come on. I knew.”
Shalnark’s face contorted in pain and he hid it away in Uvo’s chest. Trembling turned to sobs.
“I should have told you,” he managed, gasping between sobs and struggling to breathe.
“It’s alright, Shalnark. I knew.”