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“Okay, Bladie! We’re done! I know you’re having fun moping all by yourself but it’s time to-”
Kafka is cut off by the sound of Blade laughing maniacally as a spear is plunged into his chest. The man holding the spear is gasping for breath, eyes blown wide. Blade’s hair cascades around them both, glorious and soaked with blood. He grins and pushes the spear deeper into his chest, drawing closer to the man, closer, closer, until their faces are mere inches apart. Close enough that the blood in Blade’s hair drips onto the man’s clothing.
Then Blade dramatically collapses backwards and bleeds an enormous puddle onto the sidewalk.
Silver Wolf groans. “Not again.”
“Shame,” says Kafka, as she wades through the blood delicately. This was supposed to be a vacation. A fun vacation. Though she supposes this is Blade’s way of having fun.
As the two Hunters make their way towards Blade, the spear-holder jumps. His eyes are still skittishly wide, but he doesn’t bother pointing the spear at them. As he walks away, he leaves footprints of blood. He flees from Blade’s not-dead body like he’s done it many times before.
“Bladie,” Kafka sings, kneeling beside him. “Wake u-u-up. You have to see this new coat I bought.”
Silver Wolf, on the other hand, just scoffs and nudges Blade with her foot. “This is a fucking L strategy. Git gud, noob. Die better.”
“Fuck you, Bronie,” Blade grumbles, stirring slightly. His eyes open abruptly. The mara has relinquished its hold on him. Kafka breathes a silent sigh of relief and lets the imminent listen to me evaporate off her tongue.
Silver Wolf scoffs. “Fuck you too, Yingxing.”
“Rude.” Blade sits up. He glances at the bandages on his chest and scowls. “Especially right after a Dan Heng incident. I might go bonkers again and accidentally rip your head off.”
“Pause,” Silver Wolf says quickly. “ That was Dan Heng?”
Blade raises an eyebrow. “And?”
“He’s.” Silver Wolf pauses. Blade stares at her blankly. “Well. He’s kinda. Uhh. He’s a little.” She makes a vague motion with her hand. “Y’know.”
“What?” Blade asks apprehensively.
“I didn’t know he was so pretty,” says Kafka, with an encouraging smile.
“What,” Blade repeats flatly. It is no longer a question.
“Well, if you have to go insane over someone, I’m glad you at least have good taste.”
Blade, apparently feeling all better now, scowls and wrings out his bloody hair all over her shoes.
***
“So,” says Kafka, two days later, in the Stellaron Hunters’ common space, which is essentially a regular common space except that one corner is a gaming den and one corner contains two shoe racks and a full wardrobe of black coats. (Blade’s corner is completely devoid of decoration.) She claps her hands. “Bladie. Tell us about your boyfriend.”
Blade’s eyes snap open. He’s sitting on the floor, cross-legged, so he has to look up at Kafka, who is on the couch. “My what?”
“Dan Heng,” Silver Wolf supplies, without looking up from the phone in her hands.
“Dan Heng? We’re trying to kill each other. That's about as far as it gets from being boyfriends.”
Silver Wolf’s game makes an interesting variety of spaceship-crashing-into-a-horde-of-elephants sounds. She stares at it intently.
“Is that my phone?” Blade asks.
“Nuh-uh,” Silver Wolf says. “It’s our phone.”
“Give me my phone.”
“ Our phone.”
“Give me our fucking phone, you little bastard.”
“Give me a reason to.”
“Kids, kids,” Kafka says, clicking her tongue. They both shut up. “Come on now. Give me Bladie’s phone.”
Silver Wolf hands it over with a pout. Kafka can tell that Blade tries to hide it, but he’s gloating a little. He always seems gratified when Kafka takes his side over Silver Wolf’s, mainly because his side is typically the objectively worse one. Silver Wolf may not be sane but she’s less insane than Blade. It’s a low bar.
Too bad Blade is wrong, Kafka thinks. She might feel sorry for him if he hadn’t ruined her shoes with the blood from his hair earlier. (Never mind that she has eighteen near-identical pairs.) But he did ruin her shoes, so she feels no remorse as she scrolls through Blade’s contacts.
“Oh!” Kafka grins. “This must be him. Don’t you think, darling?”
“Don’t call me that, woman,” Silver Wolf hisses, but glances over anyway, because the allure of Blade’s phone is stronger than her dislike of Kafka. As soon as she sees the contact name, her eyes widen, and a maniacal smile takes over her face. “Oh. Oh, shit.”
Because Blade’s contacts are all normal names; even Silver Wolf and Kafka are saved as “Silver Wolf” and “Kafka” respectively, capitalization and all. But there’s one contact that isn’t like the others.
Kafka hits the call icon below the contact named The Beloved and waits.
“…Hello?”
Kafka ignores the greeting and skips to the good part. “Is this Dan Heng?”
Blade’s eyebrows vanish into his hair, which is still crunchy with dried blood despite Kafka’s best efforts to shampoo it the previous night. He stands up scarily fast.
“Yes,” the person on the call, who is apparently Dan Heng, says hesitantly. “You’re… the Stellaron Hunters, right? Did you need something? Is Blade okay? Is it the mara again?”
“Hang up,” Blade hisses, trying and failing to grab the phone back from her. “I’m fine. Hang the fuck up, Kafka.”
“Oh,” Dan Heng breathes. He sounds almost relieved. “I’m glad you’re alright. Don’t forget to change your bandages every six to eight hours. More, if you’re bleeding a lot.”
In his bewilderment, Blade forgets to struggle for his phone, and instead stands there staring at nothing. All three of them are silent. Kafka holds the phone steady.
“Are you still there?”
“You stabbed him,” Silver Wolf says, tone flat. “And you want him to heal properly.”
“Yes.”
Silence.
Kafka’s grip on the phone is loose enough that Blade is finally able to snatch it back. “Block this number,” he demands. “Block it and don’t let either of them contact you again.” Then he hangs up and throws his phone across the room.
The three of them sit quietly, save for the sound of Silver Wolf’s phone (actually hers this time), for about two minutes. Then, Kafka opens her mouth.
Blade beats her to it. “Do not say anything.”
Kafka, as always, just smiles and ignores him. “I was only surprised at how much he cares for you. I thought you were at odds?”
Blade huffs. “Not Dan Heng ,” he says, like that explains anything. “It’s Dan Feng who has to pay. Dan Heng is just collateral damage.”
“‘Collateral damage’ wouldn’t have a reason to care for you.”
“What do you want me to say? That he was my lover in our past lives but we don’t know each other anymore and he’s not the same person and neither am I but the mara doesn’t know that so when it takes over I still try to kill him for something he did to me even though he’s not the one that did it and I’m not the one he did it to?”
A strange sound from Silver Wolf’s phone. Then a mechanical voice saying ‘Game Over’ , followed by Silver Wolf’s familiar groan as she reboots it.
“Wow,” Kafka drawls. “That’s one hell of a couples counseling session.”
A tiny hint of a flush creeps up Blade’s cheeks. “You knew that already. Elio told you all this shit two years ago. Leave me alone.”
“Elio didn’t tell us you have him saved as ‘The Beloved’.”
The flush worsens. “That’s a reference to the- you know what, never mind. I’m leaving.”
“Bye Yingxing,” Silver Wolf calls.
“Fuck you, Bronie.”
Kafka just laughs.
***
“You look less dead than I expected,” says Silver Wolf.
“I physically can’t die,” says Blade, as he shucks off his coat and plunks himself down on the couch. “Obviously I don’t look dead.”
“You look dead after you die. There’s just a vibe.”
Blade looks at her blankly.
“Actually,” Kafka interrupts, before either of them can pull out their given names and start wrestling on the floor again. “Silver Wolf is right. I thought there’d be more blood. You look surprisingly clean.”
Blade frowns. “Why would there be more blood? It was just Dan Heng.”
“Bladie, sweetheart,” says Kafka gently, placing a hand on his shoulder. She considers it an immense victory that he doesn’t immediately punch her for it. “Usually when you see Dan Heng you come back with fatal stab wounds. We’re just surprised.”
“I don’t want to get stabbed.”
Silver Wolf scoffs. “Could’ve fooled me.”
“Shut the fuck up, Br-”
“Okay!” Kafka claps her hands. They both, miraculously, stop talking. “Bladie, why don’t you tell us about it? We’re just excited for you. It’s great that you’re being social!”
“ Social ,” Blade says incredulously, with an almost hysterical laugh. “You know what? Whatever. Yeah. I was being social.” He shakes his head, freeing his hair from its half-ponytail. It’s strange, seeing his hair without his own blood crusted in it. “We went to a tea service. He talked so much shit about it. They didn’t have the kind of longjing he likes.”
Truthfully, when Blade said he was leaving to meet Dan Heng, Kafka thought he meant he was leaving to get killed by Dan Heng. Again. But his eyes were clear of mara and she has always found it funny that he never learns his lesson, so she let him go. She had the special blood-removing shampoo ready and everything. But a tea service? Kafka isn’t surprised very frequently, but this definitely warrants it.
Silver Wolf glances up from her laptop. “He likes tea?”
“He likes tiger spring longjing, but they had the qiantang variety instead.”
Silver Wolf closes her laptop and looks meaningfully at Kafka. Kafka clears her throat delicately and pats Blade’s shoulder. “You know him well, hm?”
“I don’t,” Blade says sharply. “The mara doesn’t know Dan Heng. Only once it does will I know him well. Only once I stop thinking he’s…”
He trails off. Silver Wolf’s eyebrows fly into her hair.
“Dan Feng was your lover, right?” asks Kafka, in the most featherlight tone she can muster. “And isn’t Dan Heng his reincarnation?”
“ Yingxing’s lover,” Blade snaps. “And Dan Heng doesn’t know anything about that. He has an even shittier memory than I do.”
“Mm,” Kafka hums noncommittally. “What can you tell me about Dan Heng?”
“He doesn’t take milk or sugar with his tea, ever,” Blade says, almost to himself. He throws his head back onto a cushion and stares at the ceiling, eyes not quite vacant but not menacing either. “He can’t stand coffee, even a latte. His favorite poet is Li Qingzhao. His favorite season is autumn because the first time he saw the sky was in autumn. He gets cold easily. He hates pillows unless they’re like rocks. He wears reading glasses. He says he can’t draw but he makes sketches of plants in a white notebook sometimes.”
Blade falls silent. His eyes have slipped closed. His breathing is peaceful, like he’s meditating.
“And what can you tell me about Dan Feng?”
Blade’s eye twitches. “Nothing. Except that he made me into this monstrosity.”
“Right,” Silver Wolf says dryly. “And which one do you think you’re in love with, again?”
Blade’s eyes fly open. “I am not in love with anyone.”
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s only so I don’t kill him on accident.”
Silver Wolf snorts. “Since when do you care about not killing people?”
That makes Blade fall silent.
“Exactly,” Silver Wolf says triumphantly.
“I’m not in love with him,” Blade repeats. He sits up. “Kafka. You don’t think I’m in love with him.”
Kafka just smiles serenely.
“Oh, fuck you,” Blade hisses. “Fuck both of you. Fuck this. I’m leaving.”
“Where?” Silver Wolf yells after him. “To go on another date with Dan Heng?”
Blade tries to flip her off, but can’t move his heavily-bandaged ring finger down enough, so he settles for slamming the door. Silver Wolf laughs and laughs.
***
Elio had told Kafka, after she picked Blade up off the side of the road, that Blade used to be the finest weaponsmith in the Xianzhou Alliance. Curious, she had asked him about it, and he had scoffed. “Only the Alliance?” he had said. “I was the best in the fucking galaxy.” Though he had sounded proud, Kafka saw sadness in his eyes. Back then, his entire left hand was immobile. He could barely even use chopsticks with his right.
Once, Blade had tried whittling something out of a half-log Kafka found. He spent weeks carving a face. He didn’t tell her who it was supposed to be. Halfway through sculpting their nose, Blade’s hand slipped and he cut off half his pinky finger. It grew back crooked. He had never tried using his hands for art since.
So when Kafka finds him sitting cross-legged with a pencil clutched tight in his hand, she stands and stares.
Blade doesn’t appear to notice her. He holds the pencil carefully, lowering it to the paper of his notebook. The bandages are off; his knuckles are white with the effort he expends to keep his hand from shaking.
Only when he lifts the pencil does Kafka ask, “What are you drawing?”
He doesn’t look up. “None of your fucking business.”
She just smiles. “It’s him, isn’t it?”
Blade only grumbles. He finally looks at her. “Which one?”
“The one you’re in love with.”
Blade rolls his eyes. Kafka doesn’t mind. She likes when his eyes aren’t red. She likes when he acts on his own, without her having to keep him sane.
“Dan Heng,” she says, just to clarify.
“I know,” he says. “Of course it’s him. Who the fuck else would I draw?”
Kafka shrugs. “Dan Feng, maybe?”
Blade huffs a dry laugh as he closes the notebook. “You know the worst part?” he breathes. “I don’t remember what he looks like anymore.” He tips his head back, staring at the ceiling. “I don’t even hate him. How can I hate someone I’ve never known?”
Kafka watches him laugh to himself, steadying his shaky breath. He refuses to look at her.
“If I draw Dan Heng,” he says finally, “I might remember him. When I lose my shit. And then we won’t have to hurt each other.”
He isn’t, Kafka thinks, making a very good case for not being in love. She tucks away this piece of information to bully him with later. “You could always draw me,” she offers. “I’d frame your drawings on the wall.”
A smile tugs at Blade’s lips. “Even if they’re terrible?”
“Even if they’re terrible.”
“Alright,” Blade says quietly. “When my hand gets better, I’ll draw you. And Silver Wolf. And Elio. And Sam. Everyone.”
Kafka smiles. They both know his promise is empty, but it’s enough for her. It’s Blade’s choice, in the end, whether he wants to let them in or not. She can wait.
***
“-Of course, you’ll receive our full cooperation for the indicated period,” Kafka is saying in her sweetest tone. It has no effect on the Express leader. Himeko remains stoic, arms crossed over her distractingly pretty chest. Kafka clears her throat. “The Stellaron Hunters will expect a certain level of compliance on your part, in return.”
Himeko stands abruptly, smoothing out her skirt. “I can’t make decisions for our crew,” she says diplomatically. “It’s up to all of us.”
“Right.” Kafka tears her eyes away from the hem of Himeko’s skirt; it seems nowhere is safe to look when it comes to Himeko. “We’re all present, so I assume now is a good time?”
“We’re not all present,” says Himeko with a slight frown. “When we say everyone votes, it means everyone votes.” She sends Kafka a pointed look.
This is how Kafka finds herself dragging Blade and Silver Wolf to the Astral Express main car, facing the five Trailblazers like they might on a battlefield. Silver Wolf is disgruntled from being dragged away from her games; Blade is on high alert. Even his hair seems on edge.
“All in favor of combining our forces for a joint mission,” Himeko says authoritatively, “put your hands out.”
Seven hands go out. Only the pink-haired girl is absent from the mix.
“Dan Heng!” she exclaims, quickly putting her hand out to match. “You told me not to agree!”
“I said nothing of the sort, March,” Dan Heng says calmly, even as March tugs on his sleeve and waves a hand in front of his face. “I only said we should consider carefully. This planet is dangerous. We ought to send as few people as possible.”
“We’ll dispatch three,” Kafka says. “Silver Wolf and I will maintain communications.”
“I’ll go,” Dan Heng says instantly. “Me, Welt, Himeko.”
“ Me , Welt, Himeko,” Blade counters, with a scoff.
Dan Heng stares at him. Kafka recalls with startling clarity the many times that Blade has come back with his spear through his chest and sadness heavy in his eyes. Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea. Sure, Blade’s in love with Dan Heng , they’ve established that, but she didn’t really consider that Dan Heng might not return his affections.
“No,” Dan Heng says sharply. “The environment is hostile. It’s dry and frigid. The sand will aggravate your wounds. I’ll go instead.”
Kafka’s worry evaporates. She can’t help the sly grin that spreads across her face.
Blade frowns with a huff. “You said it yourself: it’s frigid. Vidyadhara are cold-blooded. You’ll freeze to death. Besides, my wounds will heal themselves.”
“I survived just fine on Jarilo-VI. March, back me up.”
March takes one look at the cold fury in Blade’s eyes and says, “Yeah, but he needed a lot of insulated clothing, so, um…”
“We’ll take Blade,” says the older man with glasses, finality in his voice. This must be Welt. “It’ll be a good way to establish trust.”
Blade nods. A gesture of respect. “If I go berserk, kill me. One good strike to the throat should do it.”
Dan Heng looks at Blade like he’d give him the world and willingly watch him destroy it. Maybe even like he’d help out.
“I’ll get you the Express gear,” Himeko says, and although Blade protests that there’s no need, she hands him the customary communication devices and even the Astral Express armband with a slight smile. Kafka watches him put it on and a strange pride swells in her chest.
Soon enough, the three of them are prepared to set off. The planet outside boasts a raging sandstorm-snowstorm monstrosity, a swirling mess of icy dehydration. Kafka almost feels bad for Blade, volunteering to go into that , but his face is steady as he adjusts his communication headpiece.
“Let me help,” Dan Heng says suddenly, and reaches out to correct the headpiece. His fingers brush against Blade’s cheek.
“That’s fine.” Blade’s face is a little flushed. “…Thanks.”
“Be safe,” Dan Heng demands, his eyes firmly set.
“Alright.”
“Alright,” Dan Heng echoes. His hand lingers by the headpiece, even though it’s fixed. Then he leans in and presses his lips to Blade’s cheek. “Come back soon.”
Blade blinks several times in rapid succession. His eyes have never been more clear of mara in all the years Kafka’s known him. “You can kiss me properly when I get back,” he says, and then he vanishes from the Express doorway.
A thick silence settles into the Express as the door closes behind them. Silver Wolf makes herself busy setting up the communication devices. March and the Stellaron kid make themselves busy playing some sort of phone game. Dan Heng looks at a book without reading it.
“So,” Kafka says slowly. “Bladie, huh?”
Dan Heng sets down the book. His face is pink. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Kafka just smiles. “I’m glad you have bad taste,” she says. “He likes you too.”
“Oh.” Dan Heng picks up the book again. “I figured.”
“Bladie told me you wear reading glasses.”
Dan Heng looks startled. “I didn’t think he noticed.”
“He notices a lot of things.”
The bewilderment on his face has faded into gentle fondness by the time he retrieves his reading glasses from a table across the room. “I guess he does.”
He settles down with the book and actually reads it this time. Kafka watches him and mentally sighs about young love. Well, young-ish. She thinks Blade is about seven hundred seventy years older than her, but whatever. Same difference.
***
“Woman! Woman, wake the fuck up!”
Kafka knows it’s Silver Wolf before she even opens her eyes. “What’s up?” she asks lazily, blinking open her eyes leisurely. She stretches her arms above her head.
Silver Wolf looks about two seconds away from slapping her. “The mission , that’s what,” she hisses. “Blade- he, you know , he’s mara-whatever-the-fuck again! And he’s with the Express people! He’s going to murder them! That’s what’s fucking up!”
Oh.
Kafka throws off the covers with all her strength. They shrink into the corner in terror as she sprints through the Express hallway. It’s another two cars until she reaches the makeshift communication center Silver Wolf set up, but she tears through them as fast as possible. Shit, if Blade kills them, the Express will never trust the Hunters again, and then the script will be fucked up, and then-
Well. Kafka doesn’t feel fear, exactly, but she thinks it might be something like this.
But when she rounds the corner, someone is already at the headset. She stops in her tracks.
“Okay,” Dan Heng says softly. “Good.”
He has his back to her. Kafka wonders if he’s talking to Himeko, if they’ve already taken Blade out and are just waiting for him to stop coughing up blood. Very sensible, for them to get it over with quickly. She hopes they didn’t hit any major arteries; Himeko’s white dress would be done for. But then-
“I didn’t even know you knew that,” Dan Heng whispers, with a small laugh. His voice shakes just a little. “Tell me something about yourself.”
Kafka listens closely, strains herself to hear, until-
“About me?”
Her jaw drops. It’s Blade, talking normally. Talking normally to Dan Heng after being mara-struck. Kafka wonders if she’s dreaming.
“Yes. About yourself.”
“I’m in love with you,” says Blade.
“Oh,” Dan Heng breathes.
“I probably shouldn’t have started with that. Okay. I know that I don’t like artichokes. And that I draw. And that my hands shake. And that I hate reading mysteries because I get impatient and read the last page. And that I like making crepes. And that I wake up early-”
“Blade,” interrupts Dan Heng. “I’m in love with you too.”
Blade falls silent.
“I hope that’s okay.”
“It’s fine,” Blade says. “It’s fine. I. Well. Yeah.”
Dan Heng laughs. Kafka smiles to herself and sneaks out of the train car feeling better than she has in ages.
“You sorted it out?” Silver Wolf asks urgently. As much as she pretends not to care about Blade, Kafka saw through her long ago. She knows about the joystick games downloaded on her laptop, the ones even a person with fucked-up hands can play. She knows that every time Blade falls to the mara, Silver Wolf tears her own hair out until he’s better again.
Kafka pats her on the shoulder with a smile. “It’s dealt with. Don’t worry.”
***
Four days later, when the mission is finished and the Express doors open again, Dan Heng makes good on his promise and wraps his arms around Blade’s shoulders to kiss him properly. Blade stands there in shock for a moment before his hands settle in Dan Heng’s short hair, kissing him back with near-suffocating fervor.
“Ew,” says Silver Wolf.
“Ew,” says March.
They lock eyes. Kafka watches them gravitate towards each other and sighs wistfully. She can almost feel their trio dwindling down to one already.
***
“Kafka,” Blade says hesitantly, two months later. He sits down on the floor in front of her.
It’s already unusual. He never says her name like that. He only says it in dire emergencies. That, combined with the fact that he’s been gone more often than not these days, and still hasn’t taken off that train’s armband, make her pretty certain she knows what this is about.
“You want to join the Astral Express.”
“I won’t leave the Stellaron Hunters,” he says quickly, like that’s the problem. “I can just be an unofficial train member. I talked to Welt. He said I could travel with them and still be a Hunter. Without being part of the Nameless. Just. You know. As myself.”
In response, Kafka silently slides a piece of paper to him. A line torn from the script. Blade’s eyes fly open as he reads it.
“You knew? Elio knew?”
“We’ll miss you,” says Kafka in response.
Silver Wolf scoffs. “Well, I won't miss you.”
Blade’s mouth quirks up into a small smile. “Fuck you, Bronie.”
“Fuck you too, Yingxing,” Silver Wolf grumbles, but when Blade hugs her tight, she cries into his jacket and makes him promise to text her every single day.
***
SH Script, Line 68868:
17:29 ST: Stellaron Hunter BLADE finds what he has been looking for.