Archive of Our Own ^beta

Leonardo had won the tickets in a game of poker. He and his traveling buddy, Hueso, conned a sorry fellow named Jack out of them. He didn’t feel too bad. Jack was a young and attractive guy— he surely could catch the next ride on the beautiful beast of a ship just on his looks alone. Leonardo and Hueso, however, would get to experience the once-in≈2,229-lifetimes¹ maiden voyage of the great unsinkable RMS Titanic . 

   They were going back to America; Leo was going home. His brothers. He couldn’t wait to see his brothers. And his sister, April— god, he missed her stupid, bossy face. Hueso had cursed him out a little when he’d bet so much for the tickets, but Leo had won it all back and then some, and that shut him up. Think: him, Hamato Leonardo, a passenger on the greatest engineering achievement of the human race— third class, of course.

   Celebration with Hueso was cut short when someone in the bar pointed out that if they didn’t hurry, the Titanic was going to America without them. Hueso and Leo pushed through crowds on the pier with their meager packs slung over their shoulders, hooting, hollering, slipping in between English and Spanish. 

   They made it to the passenger dock just in time, if a little late. They were retracting the lanes and closing the doors when Leo and Hueso stumbled up, out of breath.

   “Wait! Wait! We’re passengers,” Leo shoved his crumpled third class tickets into the hands of the man who was closing the door. 

   “Have you been through the inspection queue?” the man asked incredulously after glancing over the third class tickets Leo gave him.

   “Of course! Anyway, we don’t have any lice, we’re Americans, both of us,” Leo said, a little out of breath and harnessing his best 1912 New Yorker accent (it was a little rusty). Hueso only peeked out from behind Leo’s shoulder and gave the security man a grin. His accent was a little too thick for this kind of con.

   “Right,” the man said after a pause. “Let's get you aboard. Hurry,” the man reopened the door and Leo and Hueso needed no more instruction.

   The Titanic pulled off the dock, and Leo raced to the deck, leaning over the railing with the rest of the waving passengers and started shouting farewells. 

   “ ¿Conoces a alguien? ”² Hueso was out of breath, so his words came out quick and jumbled.

   “Of course I don’t know anybody, that’s not the point,” Leo only turned to him briefly before he continued shouting at the dock. “Goodbye! I’ll miss you!”

   Hueso grinned and joined his pointless waving.

Leonardo and Hueso ran through the corridors of the Titanic— pranced, more like— ecstatic about their good fortune. They nudged their way through hallways packed with passengers accommodating themselves, all the while never losing their excited momentum (both figuratively, and literally as they ran).

   “Aren’t we the luckiest hijos de putas in the world, ey, Tío ?” Leo shouted to Hueso, who was trailing him. The honorific wasn’t literal, but he and the man had spent so much time traveling with one another, and Hueso, being older by about a decade, sort of made their bond feel “uncle-nephew,” if not brotherly.

   “Ah, you can say that again, my friend,” Hueso said, slapping Leo on the shoulder. 

   Leonardo slowed at an intersection, pulling out his and Hueso’s passenger tickets. He read out the room number and led Hueso to a narrow door in a narrow hallway. The narrow door led to a narrow room with two bunks, four beds, and two other occupants. Hueso pushed past Leo’s shoulder and slung his bag on the top bunk, following it up and getting comfy. 

   “Hey, who says you get top bunk?” Leo asked Hueso and hit the railing, but he was grinning. He set his stuff on the bottom bunk and turned to his new roommates, shaking the nearest one’s hand enthusiastically. “Hey, I’m Hamato Leonardo, but you can call me Leo. Nice to meet you.” The young man shook his hand and nodded, but seemed put off by Leo’s ebullience and didn’t answer him.

Usagi Yuichi was a passenger on the Titanic— first class, of course. His family, being one of the most prominent in twentieth century Japan, had traversed to Britain only to take a massive ocean liner all the way to America. Powerful people from all over the world wanted very badly to be the firsts to experience this monumental accomplishment of mankind. And he guessed he counted as “powerful people.” Standing outside on the dock, the Titanic did not look as titanic as he imagined it previously. 

   Yuichi was, of course, making the trip with his new fiancée, Rose. He gave her his hand to step out of the car that brought them to the dock, but she didn’t even meet his eyes when she took it. Yuichi understood Rose didn’t want this marriage, but it wasn’t his choice, either. Both of their families coerced Rose and Yuichi to marry for, of course, the financial benefit, but Yuichi could not care less about that. Rose was an attractive young woman, but he looked at her and he felt nothing. No love. What was a marriage without love? No matter how hard he tried to envision his life with her, he only could see a future of mutual disinterest and frustration. He knew she wanted more than this life. He was powerless to help her, because “this life” had its claws in him, too. 

Leo and Hueso leaned over the bow³ of the ship, teasing gravity and velocity. They watched the bulbous bow⁴ cut through the water, and stood on the first bar of the rails. 

   “Look!” Leonardo said suddenly. He was pointing.

   Hueso followed his gesture down to the water, where underneath the waves they both could make out the graceful gray bodies of a pod of dolphins. In and out of the water they bobbed while Leo and Hueso marveled.

   “I can see the Statue of Liberty already,” Hueso said, looking up. “Very small, of course.” He squinted and pinched the horizon line and Leo laughed.

Rose and Yuichi sat through another grueling dinner conversation. It was always the same. It wouldn’t change just because they were on the Titanic . Rose was quiet, but Yuichi sat quieter. He heard the words being said by those self-important people, but he did not listen. 

   He looked around the table. Himself, his aunt, Rose, Rose’s mother, Mr. Ismay (in charge of the media distribution of this maiden voyage), Mr. Draxum (the head naval architect), and a woman new to wealth who went by Big Mama. Yuichi excused himself, and stepped out onto a higher deck to get some fresh air. The sun was low in the sky, like a great big blood orange in a bath of strawberry milk. Out in front of the ship’s bow was only a wide expanse of the bluest ocean water— until, of course, it hit the horizon line and the cloudless pink milk. 

   He looked down, leaning on the silver rail and scanning the passengers milling about on the tan deck. Yuichi enjoyed quietly people watching far more than listening to ill-intentioned business propositions that he didn’t even fully understand. 

Leonardo sat on the main deck, his back to a rail, discreetly sketching a man and his young daughter who held hands and looked down at the water a few feet away from where Leo sat.

   Leo wouldn’t call himself a master at art and the like, but he was pretty good. Mikey taught him. He and his brother had been drawing together longer than Leo could dredge up memories for. Hueso lounged next to him, mindlessly chattering to fill silence (that wasn’t very silent, on account of the bustle of all the other passengers on the deck). One of their bunkmates lingered nearby, a woman with a buzzed head, an intense face, and an Asian look about her; Leo had never gotten her name. She smoked a hand-rolled cigarette and watched passengers from a higher class stroll a few dogs down the deck.

   “Figures,” she said suddenly, “first-class dogs come down here to take a shit.” Leo assumed she was talking to him.

   “Just in case we forgot where we stand in the scheme of things,” he said with a smile, hardly looking up from his sketch.

   “Like we could?” The woman scoffed. She leaned forward and offered a handshake to Leo. “I’m Cassandra Jones,” she said. “Y’can call me Casey.”

   “Hamato Leonardo,” Leo said, setting his charcoal down and shaking Casey’s hand. “You can call me Leo.”

   “Hueso,” Hueso said, shaking Cassandra’s hand next.

   “Pleasure,” Cassandra said, leaning back and pulling her cigarette off her lips. She gestured to the leather-bound pages Leo held in his lap. “You make any money off your drawings?”

   Leo, however, did not respond because he was no longer paying attention to the conversation at all. His eyes had wandered up to the deck above the one he and his bunkmates were on. A person was standing at the railing, leaning over and watching the people go about whatever you go about doing on the largest ocean liner in the world. This person, Leo thought, was the most beautiful person he had ever laid his eyes on (and he had laid eyes on many, many people). Dramatic? No, not to Leo. This person’s hair was stark white— whiter than the clouds that were not in the sky this afternoon— and fell down their shoulders, tied back only halfway. Their skin was light, their eyes were bright, and they wore a blue kimono that was fancier than traditional robes, but still distinctly Japanese. Their face was masculine, but softly so. It was hard to distinguish their gender from where Leo sat (he was okay with that). They looked regal, more like they belonged in a castle or a temple than a ship in the middle of the ocean. 

   Cassandra followed Leo’s gaze when she was left unanswered and turned back to him, slightly confused. “What are you staring at him for? You a homosexual or something?” The question was obviously aggressive, but again, Casey seemed like the aggressive type, and possibly could just only want to know. 

   Nevertheless, Hueso was immediately on the defensive. “If you have a problem, I suggest you find another place to smoke, calva .”⁵ He almost spat the last word at her (not that she would know what it meant, but all the same).

   Cassandra was almost taken aback (almost). But she only took a long draw of her cigarette and said, “No problem. It was just a question. Kiss guys, I don’t give a rat’s ass,” she paused, examining her smoke. “Anyway, forget it, kid. You’d sooner be accepted for being queer than get next to the likes of that guy. First class and all. He definitely doesn’t like you , if you know what I mean.”

   Leo was only half-listening. Hueso smiled and waved his hand in front of Leo’s face, but Leo’s eyes were shamelessly trained on the person standing at the rail. He strained to make out every detail of his face. He longed to learn his name. Leo thought he and the person made eye contact for the briefest of seconds— hoped it— but then a woman walked up to the person in blue and Leo forced his eyes away, and awkwardly rejoined the conversation.

Yuichi was standing at the rail when Rose approached him. She must have also wanted to be free of the dredges of the dinner party. Rose did not lean on the rail next to Yuichi, and instead stood behind him, so he had no choice but to leave his spot and face her.

   “Hello, Rose,” he regarded her, trying his hardest to not seem indifferent to her comings and goings. Instead he just sounded stifled and stiff. But he was— indifferent, that is. 

   “I do not love you,” she said without warning. Not even a hello. 

   Yuichi was not surprised, but felt like this was a “revelation” of sorts that he should try to form a response to. While he was fumbling, she continued, because apparently she wasn’t done. This surprised Yuichi more than her initial statement; after all, it was not a new development. 

   “But I can learn to love you,” she said. Rose reached out and touched Yuichi’s arm. Gently, perhaps even invitingly.

   No. This wasn’t what he wanted. He was much more content when Rose and he mutually did not have the feelings their families wished them to have. He was sure his face reflected his anguish, because Rose drew her hand away, and almost looked offended. 

   “I am sorry, Rose.” Yuichi walked past her, leaving her to think about their relationship, or lack thereof. He was sorry. Sorry that he wasn’t in love with her, sorry that he couldn’t love her, sorry that he couldn’t marry her without loving her. Sorry that he was going to let his family down. This marriage was supposed to be an olive branch in between two families of power, but surely they could manage without it. Because Yuichi didn’t know how much more pretending he could take.

Yuichi saw his whole life as if he’d already lived it. An endless parade of parties and cotillions,⁶ yachts and polo matches. Always the same narrow people, the same mindless chatter. He felt like he was standing at a great precipice, with no one to pull him back. No one who cared, or even noticed. In this way he’d thought he and Rose were the same, but it seemed she had other thoughts, so he was truly alone.

   As soon as he could, Yuichi slipped away from the perfectly manicured clutches of the next first class social gathering. It was dark out now, and Yuichi was wearing a much more casual robe, but its blue color was very similar to the one he’d been wearing earlier in the afternoon. His hair was no longer tied back, and fell limply over his shoulders. He didn’t run, but he walked with a firm purpose. He shoved through the stragglers from the latest party, not stopping to excuse himself. He let himself past the gate and down onto the main deck. If you were to ask him, he couldn’t tell you when, but at some point he had started crying. Yuichi’s pace picked up and he was near running by the time he made it to the stern⁷ of the Titanic . The railing caught his momentum. He clung to the bar and looked over at the choppy, dark water. The ocean was much more sinister at night. 

   There was no one around; most all the passengers on the lower decks were already sleeping. Yuichi cried freely and desperately now, his entire body wracked and shaking with stifled sobs. Before he could very much think about what he was doing, he stepped up onto the first rung of the railing, and then used a light post to climb all the way over. Yuichi turned and now stood on the narrow ledge outside of the rail. Looking down, he nearly lost his resolve. 

   No. He’d lived his whole life like this. Parties, niceties, and now this godforsaken forced engagement. He wasn’t an idiot. He knew he could not love Rose. He knew he could not force himself to love Rose. He knew himself. And how his family would never accept that— him . He could not do it anymore. Lie to himself, to his family, to Rose. She didn’t deserve this marriage, wherein her fiancé did not love her. So as he took a sharp breath in and prepared to let go, he let his final thoughts be apologies.

Leonardo wasn’t much of a smoker, but Cassandra always had a smoke on her and had offered him one. He’d come up to the deck to smoke it and watch the stars, so he didn’t stink up their room with cigarette smoke anymore than it already was. Anyway, it was something to do. He liked the crackling noise it made, but otherwise found it to be rather unpleasant. He was lying on a bench, and strained to find the Big Dipper, though he wasn’t even sure it would be astrologically visible that night. He didn’t know a lot about the sky, just that the little specks of light were quite scenic. 

   Leo took another draw of the cigarette, listened to its crackle, and then remembered why he disliked smoking as he ungracefully coughed out a nasty gray cloud of the stuff. Just then, someone passed him quite quickly. Leo was never the greatest at reading emotions, but they seemed to him very upset and very liable to do something idiotic.

“Don’t do it,” Leo said. 

   Yuichi startled so thoroughly that he nearly let go of the rail by accident. He turned his head around so fast to find the source of the voice that he felt a little dizzy. A stranger with drab clothes, but a bright face. A beautiful face. Dark skin and vitiligo around his eyes. It almost made the shape of two crescent moons, imperfectly symmetric. His hair was done in locs that were nearly black, except for that they faded suddenly into a bleached blonde at the ends. His hair was in a loose bun, which reminded Yuichi of how wildly his own hair whipped around his face now, undone and beginning to tangle. How embarrassing to meet someone so fascinatingly perfect in such a state Yuichi was currently in.

   “Stay back,” Yuichi said, beginning to panic. He didn’t want this stranger to be here when he jumped. Why did he have to ruin this? “Don’t come any closer.” With every passing second, Yuichi wished more that he was on the safer side of the railing. 

   All the same, the stranger stepped forward. “Come on,” he said tentatively. He was still several feet away. “Just give me your hand. I’ll pull you back over.”

   “No! Stay where you are,” Yuichi said, even though this stranger’s voice was very convincing. He wanted to listen to him. But he did not leave and Yuichi continued. “I mean it. I’ll let go.”

   Thinking fast, Leo took a quick draw from his cigarette and showed it to the person hanging from the railing. He showed he only meant to throw it off the side. So he stepped forward, once, twice, and he did, quickly tossing it over the railing. Then he relaxed, pushing his hands into his pockets. 

   “No you won’t,” he said simply.

   “What do you mean, ‘No I won’t?’” Yuichi asked. His voice held a certain edge. “Do not tell me what I will and will not do, you do not know me!” Usually Yuichi was not so offstandish, but tonight Yuichi was a lot of things.

   “Well, you woulda done it already.”

   Yuichi selectively ignored this and turned away from the stranger. “Go away.”

   “I can’t.” This made Yuichi turn again. “I’m involved now. You let go, and I’m gonna havta jump in there after you,” he said. The stranger removed his jacket, as if to say he was completely serious. Yuichi didn’t doubt that he was, which scared him.

   “You are insane. You’ll be killed,” Yuichi said, nervous.

   “I'm a good swimmer.” The stranger was now unlacing and removing his shoes. 

   “The fall alone will kill you.”

   “It would hurt. Not saying it wouldn’t. Tell you the truth though, I’m a lot more concerned about that water being so cold.”

   Like clockwork. “…How cold?” Yuichi couldn’t stop himself from asking. 

   “Freezing. Maybe a couple degrees over.” He finished removing his shoes. “You, uh… you ever been to New York?”

   The question was so left field, Yuichi was momentarily stunned. “What?”

   “Well, super cold winters, up in New York. I grew up there. I remember when I was younger I used to ice skate a lot with my brothers. Anyway, once I fell through some thin ice. And I’m telling you. Water that cold— like right down there— it hits you like a thousand knives stabbing you all over. You can't breathe. You can’t think. Least not about anything but the pain.” Silence for a moment. Then the stranger straightened. “Which is why I’m not looking forward to jumping in there after you. But like I said, I don’t have a choice. I guess I’m kinda hoping you’ll come back over the rail and… and get me off the hook here.”

   “You are crazy,” Yuichi said halfheartedly. In truth, part of him was already ready to listen to this man and come back over the rail. 

   “That’s what everybody says, but. With all due respect, I’m not the one hanging off the back of a ship, here,” the stranger said. He offered his hand to Yuichi. “Come on. C’mon, give me your hand. You don’t want to do this.” 

   His voice was gentle. He reached his hand out in front of Yuichi. Yuichi gave in. He grasped the stranger’s hand, tight, and held firmly to the rail with the other. Carefully, he turned around on the narrow ledge.

   “Whew,” the stranger breathed, steadying Yuichi on the ledge, holding his hand in a death grip. His face was prettier up close. “I’m Hamato Leonardo,” he said, “but you can call me Leo.” No longer a stranger.

   “Usagi Yuichi,” his heart was pounding fast. He could feel it, a rising pressure against his sternum. Being on this side of the rail was suddenly terrifying.

   “I’ll have to get you to write that one down,” Leo said, smiling at him. In spite of himself and his tear-stained face, Yuichi laughed. “C’mon,” Leo told him, and he started to climb back up the railing.

   Yuichi was so close to being back on the safe side of the ship— he stood on the second to top rung of the rails— when he slipped on the hem of his kimono and dropped toward the water. He screamed. If his adrenaline had vanished before and his mind had cleared, it filled now with panic. He hung above the waters of the Atlantic only from Leo’s hand. He grasped for the ledge he was just previously standing on, wide-eyed and breathing heavily, but his fingers slipped off, leaving painful, nasty bloody streaks where the pads of his fingers caught on ragged steel.

   “I got you! Come on!” Leo yelled, but he didn’t sound very confident that he did have him. “Come on!” He said again through his teeth, struggling to pull Yuichi up. 

   Yuichi managed to grab the first rail, but reached for the second and slipped back down. The sudden drop, if only a few inches, made his stomach feel like it had dropped all the way into the ocean and sunk to the bottom like an anchor. His hair whipped around his face, lashing at his eyes, impairing his recovery ability. He yelled for Leo. “Please, help me!” He was aware that Leo was already helping him, but he was afraid for his life, so his processing and logical thinking abilities were also impaired.

   “Listen! Listen to me! I’ve got you. I’ve got you. I won’t let go,” Leo said over the sound of the ocean and the silence of the ship, both of which seemed to have gotten much louder. “Now pull yourself up! C’mon!”

   Yuichi looked up into Leo’s eyes for a moment, terrified. Then he used Leo’s strength to slowly, and painfully ungracefully climb back up the rail. When his waist was above the top rail, Leo wrapped both arms around him and started to help him over the rest of the way. 

   “I’ve got you,” Leo said, an exhausted whisper, more to himself than anything. 

   Yuichi’s feet slipped over the top of the railing as Leo pulled him over, and they both ended up a heap on the deck. Chest heaving, Yuichi still clung to Leo like he'd just saved his life (because he had). 

   When the adrenaline in his blood slowed (it had not yet gone), Leo pushed himself up off Yuichi, stood and offered his hand to him to help him off the ground. Yuichi took it and stood unsteadily, leaning on Leonardo for support. None of this was stifled by the air of awkwardness, because when you pull someone away from the precipice, you’ve already skipped past the first few steps in a relationship and there is no room for awkwardness in the margins of your bond. 

   After a few beats of silence, Yuichi said, “Thank you,” very quietly. He looked into Leo’s eyes— brown, but so light they were nearly yellow. Yuichi stood only a little taller than him. Maybe it was because Leo’s shoes still laid off to the side, discarded in the case he did have to jump. “…Leo.”

   “It’s not a problem, Usagi-san. Like I said. No choice.” Leo was aware of how close they stood to one another. But Yuichi did not pull away, so neither did he.

   “Call me Yuichi.”

   “Okay. Yuichi,” Leo said. Yuichi smiled at him. He even laughed, despite the fact he had been hanging off the back of the ship a few minutes ago.

   It was then that three men on security detail ran up to the stern where Leo and Yuichi stood. They had been drawn by the sound of the screaming, but had evidently taken their time. If Leo had not gotten there, these three men surely would have been too late to save Yuichi. 

   “What’s all this?” One of the men asked. Clearly, with Leo’s and Yuichi’s disheveled states, he was ready to handcuff Leo just because he had a third class admittance ticket and because he was bored, being a security guard on an ocean liner.

   Leo stepped away from Yuichi, suddenly afraid of the consequences of their closeness. 

   “It is nothing. I… nearly slipped. I was leaning far over to see the…propellers,” Yuichi lied through his teeth, glancing from Leo to the security men. “and I would have gone overboard if not for Hamato-san. That was the way of it, so, you may go.”

   The first of the men looked at Yuichi, then at Leo, then at Leo’s unlaced boots and discarded coat on the deck. He was obviously incredulous, but the security detail listened well to the first class passengers, and were not paid to think. 

   The man nodded. “All right, sir. I’m glad you’re alright.” He bowed his head briefly at Yuichi, and then turned and left, the other two guards following without a pause. 

   When the men were out of sight and earshot, Yuichi turned back to Leonardo. Leo looked at him with something Yuichi could only place as gratitude. Yuichi stored that away with the “things to puzzle out later.” After all, Leo was the one who had just saved Yuichi’s life, not the other way around. 

   “I do not know how to thank you, Hamato-san.”

   “Leo,” corrected Leo.

   “Perhaps you could join us for dinner tomorrow evening?” Yuichi had only just met this man and he already felt more of a connection with him than anyone else in the entirety of the first class. “I am not saying I think you will enjoy it, but. I think I will enjoy having you there.”

   “Sure,” Leo said, grinning something lopsided, “count me in.”

Yuichi was alone in his private room, standing in the center of the floor. He looked around him. Pointless luxuries. He’d give it all up if he could only be himself. He did not love Rose. He could not. He knew.

   A knock on the door yanked him from his thoughts. He turned to a book on his vanity so that it seemed he was doing something more than receding into his mind.

   “Come in.”

   His aunt stepped through the door. He loved his aunt, but their relationship was a lot better when she loved him more than she loved money. It was different now. Colder. More material. Plastic and fake. Yuichi thought that maybe he didn’t love her anymore if she didn’t love him. But he was all she had left, which is why she wanted him to marry so soon; for this Yuichi held a certain stewing resentment. 

   “Yuichi, I know you have been despondent lately.”

   Yuichi did not answer.

   His aunt produced a box from behind her. “I intended to wait to pass this on to you, but I figured it would be a lovely gift for your fiancée for the engagement gala.”

   She lifted the lid to show off a magnificent blue diamond cut into a heart, on a chain of smaller white diamonds. The heart of the ocean. Even if Yuichi was upset and unwilling to marry, he couldn’t help but marvel at the jewelry. It was overwhelming, like it was meant for royalty. Yuichi did not feel like royalty.

The next morning, Leonardo and Yuichi walked side by side down one of the upper class decks. It was early, the sun fresh and awake, the white reflection off the water white and blinding.

   “My padre raised me and my three brothers all alone,” Leo said. Yuichi had asked about where he was from. “It was just the five of us for a long time, until he died and left us to pick up the pieces. We sorta fell apart and I lit on out of there. I haven’t been back since. Not exactly proud of it, but I haven’t gotten the chance to make it back to America to see my brothers until now. But between then and now, guess you could just call me a tumbleweed blowing in the wind.

   Well, Yuichi, we’ve walked about a mile around this boat deck and… chewed over how great the weather’s been and how I grew up, but that’s not why you came to talk to me, is it?” Leo asked.

   “Hamato-san, I—“

   “Leo.”

   “Leo. I want to thank you for what you did. Not just for pulling me back, but for your discretion.”

   “You’re welcome.” Leo didn’t mention how Yuichi had already thanked him before. 

   “Look,” Yuichi started. He sounded almost irritated. “I know what you must be thinking. ‘Poor little rich boy. What does he know about misery?’”

   “No,” Leo stopped their walk and leaned backward against the nearest railing. “No, that’s not what I was thinking. What I was thinking was, ‘What could have happened to you to make you think there was no way out?’”

   “Well I…” Yuichi found himself suddenly wanting to spill to this not-strange stranger everything he had said nothing about for his entire life. He walked over to lean against the railing with Leo. “It was everything, it was my whole world and all of the people in it. And the inertia of it all. I am powerless to stop it.” Yuichi showed Leo his engagement ring. A simple silver band at first glance, but at second, you’d see it was embedded with precious, expensive stones. Yuichi hadn’t wanted something like that.

   “God, look at that thing!” Leo said, gently taking Yuichi’s hand and examining the ring. “You woulda gone straight to the bottom.”

   “Five hundred invitations have gone out. All of Philadelphia society⁸ will be there. I will be the groom. And all the while. It is like I am standing in the middle of a crowded room, screaming, but no one even looks up.”

   Leo was quiet for a second. “Do you love her?”

   “I am sorry?”

   “Do you love her?”

   “That is very rude. You should not ask me that.”

   “Well, it’s a simple question, do you love her or not?”

   Yuichi scoffed, feeling offended in an odd way. “This is not a suitable conversation.”

   “Why can’t you just answer the question?” Leo’s tone remained calm, even if he knew he was prying.

   “You do not know me, I do not know you. We are not having this conversation at all!” Yuichi almost laughed. If he did, it was humorless. “You are rude and presumptuous and I am leaving now, Leo— Hamato-san—“ Yuichi took Leo’s hand in a parting shake. “It's been a pleasure. I sought you out to thank you and now I have thanked you—“

   “And you’ve insulted me,” Leo interjected.

   “Well, you deserved it.”

   “Right.”

   “Right!” Yuichi continued to shake Leonardo’s hand.

   “…I thought you were leaving,” Leo said, smug. 

   “I am.” Yuichi bristled and dropped his hand. He turned to leave, but made it hardly two paces before he turned back around. “You are so annoying!” This made Leo laugh, so Yuichi turned around to leave again. And then, he turned right back around on his heel, like he couldn’t make up his mind. “Wait, I don’t have to leave, this is my part of the ship. You leave.”

   “Well, well, well. Now who’s being rude?”

   Yuichi scoffed, but he was embarrassed that he didn’t have the leverage in the conversation. He grasped at straws. Or, more accurately, he grasped at a leather bound sketching pad that Leo held under his arm. 

   “What is this stupid thing you are carrying around?” Yuichi flipped through a few pages. “So, you are an artist? Well,” he said, stepping away and sitting down in a nearby lounging chair, “these are rather good. They are, uh. They are very good, actually.”

   Yuichi paged through various photorealistic charcoal sketches of different people, some nude. They were the best he’d seen. “Leo, this is exquisite work,” he said. 

   “Yeah? My brother taught me. They didn’t think too much of them in ol’ ‘Paree,’” Leo said, sitting down next to Yuichi.

   “Paris? You do get around for a p— well. A person of limited means.”

   “Go on, Yuichi, ‘a poor guy,’ you can say it,” Leo laughed.

   Yuichi smiled at him sideways. He flipped to a detailed drawing of a nude woman. “Well, well. These are drawn from life?”

   “One of the good things about Paris. Lots of people willing to take their clothes off.”

   Yuichi laughed, turned the page. He recognized the face from another drawing. “You liked this woman. You used her several times.”

   “Well,” Leo said, pointing to a spot on the paper, “she had beautiful hands, y’see?”

   “I think you must have had a love affair with her,” Yuichi said, proud he finally had the upper hand.

   “No, no, no, no. Just her hands. I don’t really…” Leo cleared his throat, as if he just remembered the end of his sentence was something better left unsaid. Yuichi looked at him strangely, but otherwise said nothing. “She had a good sense of humor, though,” Leo added uncomfortably.

   “Well, you have a gift, Leo. You do. You see people.”

   “I see you .”

   Yuichi grinned, he couldn’t stop it. “And?”

   “You wouldn’t ‘a jumped.”

Somewhere, someplace else, in a fancy dining room in a fancy first class dining hall, someone powerful convinced someone in charge to do something very stupid in the interest of politics and publicity. As is how it goes. As is how we die.⁹

It was sunset and Yuichi and Leo still stood at a railing and talked about nothing, doing little else but being in each other’s presence, learning about one another. 

   “Well, after that, I worked on a squid boat¹⁰ in Monterey. Then I went down to Los Angeles to the pier in Santa Monica and did portraits for ten cents apiece,” Leo said. For the past few minutes he’d been talking about the sprawling gap in his life between leaving home and boarding the Titanic .

   “Why can I not be like you, Leo? Just head out for the horizon whenever I feel like doing so?” asked Yuichi suddenly. Leo was silent. “Say we will go there sometime. To that pier. Even if we only ever talk about it.”

   “No, we’ll do it. We’ll drink cheap beer. Ride on the roller coaster ‘til we throw up!” Leo said, completely convincingly, which made Yuichi laugh. “Then we’ll ride horses on the beach, right in the surf. Now, you have to do it like a real cowboy, none of that sidesaddle stuff.”

   “You mean, with one leg on each side?”

   “Yeah.”

   “…Can you show me?”

   “Sure. If you like.”

   “Teach me to ride like a man,” Yuichi said, giggling.

   “‘N chew tobacco like a man,” Leo added, with the worst western accent Yuichi had possibly ever heard. It only made him laugh harder.

   “And spit like a man,” Yuichi said, hardly getting the words out through coughs of laughter.

   “What,” Leo said sarcastically, “they didn’t teach you that in finishing school?”

   “What!” 

   “C’mon, I’ll show you! Let’s do it.” Leo walked around toward a part of the rail that faced the ocean rather than a lower deck. 

   “Wha-?”

   “C’mon, I’ll show you how!” Nearly by second nature, Leo turned and grabbed Yuichi by the hand when he didn’t follow.

   “N- Leo! No, wait, Leo!” He struggled to pull his hand back from Leo’s grip (and failed).

   “C’mon,” was all Leo said back to him.

   “No, I could not possibly, Leo,” Yuichi said. But Leo thought Yuichi was actually eager to try and really just liked to argue with him (he wasn’t wrong). 

   “C’mon!” Leo said, nudging Yuichi into an opening that faced the water, standing close up next to him. “Watch closely.” Leo hawked back phlegm in his throat with the most awful noise Yuichi thought he’d ever heard, and then spat it out at the water. 

   Yuichi grimaced, but he was laughing. “That’s disgusting!”

   Leo smiled at his revulsion. “Alright, your turn.”

   Yuichi glanced around, making sure there weren’t any too familiar faces nearby (after all, they were on the first class deck). He drew the moisture in his mouth back with an impotent sniff and spit it out over the side of the boat.

   “That was pitiful!” Leo said disdainfully. “C’mon. You really gotta hawk it back. Get some leverage to it. Use your arms, arc your neck.” He snorted again and spat out a gross glob of mucus. “You see the range on that thing?”

   “Mm-hm,” Yuichi said, he cleared his throat and was doing his best to imitate Leo’s instructions.

   “Okay, go!”

   Yuichi tried to make the grossest sound he could, and this time he thought it went a little farther. He looked to Leo for approval.

   “Okay! That was better; you have to work on it. Really try to hawk it up, y’know, get some body to it. Y’know, you gotta—“ Leo began to hawk phlegm back again, but that is when Yuichi turned and noticed the last people he would want to find him here. He tapped Leo on the shoulder and he abandoned his spit and turned around from the rail.

   Big Mama, Rose’s mother, and Yuichi’s very own aunt. 

   “Auntie!” Yuichi said in surprise and fake enthusiasm. “and, Mrs. DeWitt Bukater!” Yuichi forced a smile and stepped forward, making a manual switch from the casual way he’d been with Leo to his usual formality. “May I introduce Hamato Leonardo? He will be joining us for dinner tonight under my own invitation.”

   Leo gave a weak smile and Big Mama— Yuichi really did not like to refer to her as that, but still did not know her real name— cringed at the spit that still stuck to his chin. Following the lady’s look, Yuichi saw this and mentally smacked himself in the face with his palm so hard he was sure his subconscious had a concussion.

   Yuichi’s aunt and Rose’s mother stayed stone faced, but Yuichi could read the look— disgust.

   “Charmed, I’m sure,” Rose’s mother said. Both she and Yuichi’s aunt stared Yuichi down (money had made his aunt a cold woman).

   Big Mama took this opportunity to gesture to Leo to get the unsightly throat gunk off his face. Hurriedly, he swatted it off and wiped it on his pants. What a first impression. She, at least, seemed gracious and curious to meet Leonardo, the stranger Yuichi invited into this upper-class inner circle out of the blue. The stranger that had saved his life (this, of course, they did not know). Yuichi’s aunt, however, stared him down as if he were a bug she couldn’t wait to crush.

   Yuichi fed the women the lie about Leonardo pulling him from the rail when he had leaned over to watch the propellers. They seemed to believe in this lie well enough, as they were not there to see Leo’s discarded shoes and jacket, evidence obviously contradictory to the story.

   “Well, Hamato-san, it seems like you are a fantasmic man to have nearby in a trying time!” Big Mama said cheerily. 

   Leonardo grinned and nodded to her awkwardly. What a strange woman. He didn’t know if it was on purpose, or if she just didn’t know how to pronounce “fantastic.”

   Somewhere close by, a fanfare played, and it sounded like live musicians. Leo was confused for a moment until Big Mama said, “Why must they always insist on announcing dinner as if it were some silly cavalry charge?”

   Yuichi forced an awkward laugh as he started to usher his aunt and Rose’s mother away, presumably to get ready for dinner. Yuichi’s aunt let her scornful gaze linger on Leo a moment longer, then finally turned to catch up with Mrs. DeWitt Bukater. 

   “I’ll see you at dinner, Leo,” Yuichi said as he left.

   Leo awkwardly raised a hand to wave, but Yuichi had already turned away. He watched Yuichi leave, and hardly noticed that the woman Yuichi had introduced as “Big Mama” had stayed behind.

   “Hello? Sweetie?” She asked, trying to get his attention. He finally looked at her, somewhat startled. “Yes, there we are. Right, do you have any clue what you’re doing, darling-poo?”

   “Not really,” Leonardo laughed.

   Suddenly, the woman became very serious, and a little scary. “You are about to enter the snake pit, sweetie. What are you going to wear?”

   Leonardo looked down at his clothes and gestured cluelessly against himself. This?

   “That is what I feared,” she scoffed. “Come on.”

“Wondiferous!” Big Mama said. “I knew you would be just about his size.” She had led Leonardo up to her room to try on a suit she had for unexplained reasons (a son, a nephew?).

   “Pretty close,” Leo said, shifting his shoulders around in circles and admiring himself in the mirror. He’d never worn anything this…fancy.

   “Isn’t this just so serendipitous?” Big Mama asked him. Leo thought that one might have actually been a real word.

   Leo mumbled thoughtfully in response, pulling on the front of his overcoat like he’d seen the rich guys do in movies. Big Mama laughed triumphantly. Leo thought maybe she’d taken a shine to him. 

Evening time rolled around and Leonardo confidently strode up to the first class deck, finding the grand dining hall Yuichi had told him about. He walked up to an ornate glass door, which was opened immediately for him by a tall man in a suit much like his own. 

   “Good evening, sir,” the attendant said. Leo didn’t think he’d ever been called “sir” in his entire life, and realized the man was talking to him and nodded a little too late.

   The dining hall was flooring. A high glass dome ceiling held up by polished hardwood pillars. A huge staircase that led off the canopy toward the seating. Somewhere, an orchestra played “The Blue Danube.” Leo guessed it was live. Leonardo stepped down the first short flight of stairs, marveling at the sublimity of everything around him. What a place. What a ship. He stepped down the larger staircase that fanned off the two others. He wandered off the steps and leaned against a bold column, crossing his arms and observing the people so different from him. He didn’t see Yuichi, or any of the women who’d approached him at the rail. 

   Leo watched an old, sophisticated looking man who was leading a woman by her arm. He had his other arm tucked neatly behind his back. Slowly, Leo copied his actions and folded his left arm behind him. As the man passed Leo by, he nodded his head in passive greeting. Leo raised his chin in what he hoped was a sign of acknowledgment (he was finding out that the best he could do with these things was guess). Leo stood straighter, leaning away from the column, observing the people around him closer. He started to get more nervous that he hadn’t spotted Yuichi yet. He was fairly sure this was the only grand dining hall on the ship. 

   Finally, Leo watched two women he recognized as Yuichi’s fiancée and Yuichi’s aunt walk down the staircase gingerly. They took no heed of Leo, having idle conversation about where Yuichi could possibly be. Leo was wondering, too. Yuichi’s aunt stepped off the staircase and immediately went to greet a powerful looking woman, whom she addressed as the Countess. Yuichi’s fiancée followed. Leo attempted to get their attention, but he knew they still viewed him as a third-class nothing, and that was if they were even aware of his presence just a few feet behind them. 

Yuichi trailed his fingers along the bannister as he came down the second flight of stairs to the grand dining hall lobby. Immediately, he spotted Leonardo, and his chest constricted in a weird, wonderful way. He watched from the top of the staircase as Leo, turned away, mimed a greeting to himself. Yuichi was grinning ear to ear like an idiot. Leonardo really cleaned up nicely. Yuichi thought he recognized that suit? Suddenly, Leo took notice of Yuichi at the top of the staircase, so Yuichi quickly cleared his throat, gained his composure, and pretended like he was not just laughing at him.

Leo watched as Yuichi came towards him from the staircase landing. Yuichi wore another kimono. Leo guessed he had a different one for every occasion, because this one seemed like the most formal he’d seen. A navy so dark it was nearly black, with a lighter hakama and obi.¹¹ His hair was tied all the way back, save for two looser strands that fell out in the front. On the breast of his haori¹² was the symbol of the Geishu clan. It seemed like Yuichi was the only guy at the dinner party not dressed in a black and white tux. Leo smiled at him. Then he made a bold move. 

   Yuichi stood on the lowest step, right in front of Leonardo, and slowly, tentatively, Leonardo took Yuichi’s hand and lifted it towards his lips as he’d seen several other gentlemen do to their plus ones. 

   Yuichi immediately knew what was happening, but he refused to stop it. He’d done this countless times indifferently to women on this ship he’d forgotten the names of, but this was so much different. He’d never been the recipient. Red embarrassment doused his skin, but perhaps it was something closer to forbidden excitement. Giddiness at the taboo of it all. His eyes darted off to the side, where he saw his aunt’s and Rose’s backs turned, chatting with the Countess. So he allowed this. He allowed himself this. 

   Leo pressed Yuichi’s knuckles gently against his lips, and since he hadn’t been stopped, he chose to maintain fragile, delicate, cognizant eye contact with him. Yuichi hid his red face and his growing smile under his free hand. Leo slowly relaxed and smiled back, but his was more of a smirk, really. 

   “I saw that in a Nickelodeon once and I always wanted to do it.” Leo said. Yuichi had to cover his entire face with his palm to stop himself from laughing (He tried to stay dignified). 

   Leo offered Yuichi his arm, as he had seen the fine gentleman from earlier do. Yuichi looked down at him for a moment and hesitated. 

   “Leonardo…”

   “Leo.”

   “Leo. I am sorry. This sort of thing, it is for you to do with… well, a woman,” Yuichi said dejectedly. Leo didn’t move his arm.

   “But I’m offering my arm to you .”

   Yuichi worried his lip between his teeth for a moment, glanced again towards his occupied aunt, and leaned in close to Leo, setting both his hands on his offered arm. “Leo, if we were to be alone, I would take this offer in a heartbeat. But we are in the middle of a dinner party in the grand dining hall, so we will have to wait.” Yuichi gently pressed Leo’s arm back toward him.

   Leo grinned stupidly. “Alright.”

   Yuichi and Leonardo walked over to join Rose and Yuichi’s aunt.

   “Auntie, surely you remember Hamato Leonardo?” Yuichi said, gesturing to Leo. 

   “Hamato-san? Well, you might almost pass for a gentleman.”

   “Almost,” Leo said coolly.

   “Quite… extraordinary,” Yuichi’s aunt said so sarcastically, Leo could almost hear the scoff. She turned her back on Yuichi and Leo and turned to leave towards the main hall with Rose and the Countess.

   Leo was surprised at how different Yuichi was from his aunt, even though she raised him (Leo was fairly sure Yuichi didn’t even know what sarcasm was). 

   Having no other choice, Leo and Yuichi walked together (but not too together) and followed suit of Rose and Usagi’s aunt.

While Rose, Yuichi’s aunt, Mrs. DeWitt Bukater, and Big Mama socialized with other well-dressed, high-status snobs, Yuichi and Leo stood near a wall and talked privately about the people they observed. 

   “There is the Countess of Rothes,” Yuichi said. Yuichi was not familiar with the Countess before this ocean liner cruise, because she was Scottish, but you learn names and faces quickly when you’re of a status such as Yuichi.

    Leo, in turn, had no clue who that was, and was not going to ask.

   Yuichi pointed discreetly across the deck at a man in his later years. “And, that’s John Jacob Astor. He is the richest man on the ship. His wife is younger than I am,” Yuichi paused to look back at Leo for dramatic effect. “Quite the scandal.”

   Leo stifled a laugh, and Yuichi smiled.

   “Over there is Benjamin Guggenheim, and his mistress , Madame Aubert. Mrs. Guggenheim is at home with the children, of course. I find their names are hard to say.” Yuichi found it entertaining that Leo found this entertaining.

   “That is John Bishop, or just Bishop. He is very upset that I am engaged to Rose. I think he tried for her affection a few years ago but she turned him away. That was before Mrs. DeWitt Bukater became eager to marry her off…”

   Leo looked at Yuichi’s face, suddenly downcast. 

   “Yeah? Well, who are those guys?” He asked Yuichi, gesturing to a balding man and a woman with frizzy hair and eyes far too big for her eyelids.

   “Ah!” Yuichi’s face lit up again, as if he remembered what they were talking about. “They are Sir Cosmo and Lucile, Lady Duff-Gordon. She, ah… she designs,” he cleared his throat, “… risqué… lingerie. Among her many talents.” 

   “You’re kidding!” Leo said, forcing away a smile when Lady Duff-Gordon waved and he and Yuichi were forced to awkwardly wave back.

   “No, very popular with the royals,” Yuichi laughed quietly.

   Just then, Big Mama approached Yuichi and Leo. Yuichi hadn’t noticed that she’d left the conversation he and Leo had been watching.

   “Darling-poo!” Big Mama said to Leonardo. “How splendid it is I see you here! I was afraid you were not going to show! Would you care to escort a gentlewoman to dimbly-dinner?” She held out her arm, so really, Leo could not say no.

   “Certainly,” he said, after glancing at Yuichi. Yuichi just gave an encouraging smile.

   “There’s nothing to it, no, sweetie?” Big Mama laughed. “Just remember! They love money. So just pretend like you own a gold mine of Brobdingnagian¹³ proportions, and you are in the club!

   Leo thought this Big Mama lady’s inflection, lilting voice, and made up words were strange, but he had to admit that she’d been his closest ally in this strange first class world (after Yuichi, of course).

   “Well, hello, Astor,” Big Mama said as she and Leo approached him and his terrifyingly young wife.

   Yuichi, who’d been trailing behind them, introduced Leo. “Astor, Madeleine, I would like you to meet Hamato Leonardo.”

   “Pleasure to meet you,” Astor said. “Hamato… where have I heard that? Where are you from?”

   “Ah, Hamatos of Gardena. Lots of Japanese descent.” Leo said effortlessly.

   “Oh, yes.” Astor said, feigning familiarity.

Later, during dinner, is when the real test would start. Mrs. DeWitt Bukater and Yuichi’s aunt could always be counted upon to place their doubt on Leonardo.

   “Tell us of the accommodations in steerage,¹⁴ Hamato, I hear they’re quite good on this ship,” Mrs. DeWitt Bukater said to him while they were all settling into their seats and waiting on a meal Leo couldn’t pronounce. 

   “The best I’ve seen, ma’am. Hardly any rats.” Leo had no clue what she was talking about, but he must have said something right because half the table of powerful people laughed good-naturedly.

   “Hamato-san is joining us from the third class,” Yuichi’s aunt said. “He was of some assistance to my nephew last night.”

   “It turns out that Hamato-san is quite a fine artist,” Yuichi said, changing the subject. “I was fortunate enough to see some of his work today.”

   “Yuichi and I differ in our definition of fine art,” Rose said. “Not to impugn your work, sir.”

   Leonardo waved off the remark and Yuichi cleared his throat awkwardly. Leo looked down at his plates and the array of cutlery set out for him. He leaned towards Big Mama.

   “Are these all for me?” he whispered to her.

   “Start from the outside and work inward, darling,” Big Mama whispered back.

   Leonardo nodded and drifted back toward the conversation. 

   “Your ship is a wonder, Mr. Draxum,” Yuichi said to a man he sat next to. Perhaps the head architect or engineer. Leonardo didn’t know the actual owners of the ship would be on the first class deck, too, but he figured it made sense.

   “Thank you, Usagi-san,” Mr. Draxum said.

A waiter dished an odd looking paste onto Leonardo’s plate. 

   “And how do you like your caviar, sir?” the waiter asked.

   “No caviar for me, thanks. I never did like it much.”

   Subtly, from a few seats away, Yuichi hid a smile behind his napkin.

   “And where exactly do you live, Hamato-san?” Yuichi’s aunt asked suddenly.

   “Well, right now my address happens to be the RMS Titanic . After that, I guess it’s up to the wind.” Leo said confidently.

   “And how is it you have means to travel?” Mrs. DeWitt Bukater asked. It felt like they were tag-teaming to trap him in a corner. He started to get nervous.

   “I work my way from place to place. Tramp steamers¹⁵ and such. But I won my ticket to the Titanic here at a lucky hand of poker,” he looked at Yuichi and added, “a very lucky hand.” 

   “All life is a game of luck,” said a rich fat man that Leo had already forgotten the name of.

   “A real man makes his own luck. Right, Hamato?” John Bishop spoke up for the first time. Leonardo forgot he was at the table. Leo gave him an agreeable hum and a nod while he polished off his champagne.

   “And you find that sort of… rootless life appealing, do you?” Another scowling, borderline accusation from Mrs. DeWitt Bukater. 

   “Well, yes, ma’am, I do,” Leo said. He was being honest as long as he could be without raising suspicion. “I mean, I got everything I need right here with me— Air in my lungs, a few blank sheets of paper. I mean, I love waking up in the morning, not knowing what’s gonna happen or,” a pause and another secret glance, “who I’m gonna meet. Where I’m gonna wind up. 

   “Just the other night I was sleeping under a bridge and now here I am on the grandest ship in the world having champagne with you fine people!” Leo held his glass up to the waiter and got a refill on said champagne while the table laughed politely at his words. At this point, Leo had given up on lying. He was good at improvisation, but he was better at the truth. He took a sip before he continued. 

   “I figure life’s a gift. And I don’t intend on wasting it. Y’never know what hand you’re gonna be dealt next. You gotta take life as it comes at you.” He watched Bishop put a cigarette between his lips, but pat his pockets for matches and come up empty handed. “Speaking of, here you go, Bishop.” Leo tossed a box of matches across the table at him and Bishop just barely caught it.

   “To make each day count,” Leo said.

   “Wonderfully said, Hamato-san,” Big Mama looked almost proud.

   “To making it count,” Yuichi raised his glass, unobtrusively, maybe fondly, staring at Leo. The rest of the table followed his lead, raised their glasses, and repeated after him. Leonardo guessed he just participated in an official toast. Not the bread kind.

Leonardo had never known how much champagne was involved in first class ordeals. He’d never drunk something that tasted this expensive before. He must’ve been at this dinner party for hours, and he had no clue how late it was. Boring story after boring story started to run together, and not because of the weak alcohol. He started to see Yuichi’s lament, and this was only his first glimpse. Big Mama was telling a story that Leo wasn’t paying attention to, but it was setting the entire table aloud with laughter. He smiled politely, and looked over at Yuichi, wondering if he had been following along or not.

   “Next, it will be brandy in the smoking room,” Yuichi said quietly, locking eyes with Leo while the table was preoccupied with laughter. “I do not go, because I do not smoke. They figure it is just because I am not British or American.”

   Like clockwork, John Jacob Astor stood from his seat and straightened his button-up down as much as he could around his rotund figure. “Well. Join me for a brandy, gentlemen?” Polite agreement rose around the table as the rest of the men stood up. 

   Yuichi looked at his plate nervously, but still quietly addressed Leo without looking at him. “Now they will retreat into a cloud of smoke and congratulate each other on their immense wealth and prosperity.” He whispered.

   “Ladies, thank you for the pleasure of your company,” a man whom Leo thought was named Mr. Ismay said.

   Leonardo stood. “Joining us, Hamato?” Astor asked. “Well, I suppose you don’t want to stay here with the women, do you? No offense, of course, Usagi.” He added, laughing heartily.

   “No, thanks, I have to head back,” Leo said.

   “Probably best. It’ll be all business and politics. Wouldn’t interest you,” Bishop said, walking past him. He turned and threw Leo’s pack of matches back at him. “Oh but, Hamato, good of you to come.” Leo caught the matches with less trouble than Bishop did before and smiled humorlessly at him.

   As the men left, Leo walked over towards where Yuichi sat. “Leo, must you go?” Yuichi asked him.

   “‘Fraid so.” Leo said, smiling. “Goodnight, Yuichi.” He held out his hand for Yuichi to place his own in. Yuichi looked nervously behind him at the table where the women sat gossiping and paying no heed to him and Leo. 

   “Trust me,” Leo said. And Yuichi did, so he gingerly placed his hand in Leo’s. Leo watched the oblivious women and made sure they stayed that way while he quickly kissed Yuichi’s knuckles. 

   “Goodnight, Leo,” Yuichi said, mystified as Leo sauntered off. His dazed smile dropped and turned into confusion when he realized Leo had left a small folded paper in his fingers.

   Discreetly, Yuichi unfolded the paper in his lap, away from the eyes of the women at the table. 

   It read, “make it count. meet me at the clock.” in sprawling cursive. An artist’s print. Yuichi forced the grin off his face so as to not raise suspicion. He promptly excused himself.

Leo stood at the middle landing of the staircase, leaning against a newel¹⁶ and watching the ornate clock that was mounted into the wall. The wood around it was carved into arcs, cherubs, and paisleys, and polished and stained to perfection. He absently wondered exactly how much money went into the ship. He wondered why so much money was invested into such a large and impractical ocean liner. It didn’t really matter to him. He got to meet Yuichi. Yuichi. He wondered if he had gotten his note. The clock rang out nine times clearly and with finality, as old fashioned timepieces have the tendency to do. Leo heard footfalls coming up behind him. Quiet, careful. 

   He turned and grinned at Yuichi. “So. You wanna go to a real party?”

The barren dining hall of the third class lodging had been set aflame with life. People from all (poorer) walks of life dancing together, any dance they knew. They danced to a loud, traditional Irish song (with a few improvisations) that was played by a band of self taught musicians who had brought their instruments onboard with them. It was a jaunty, uplifting tune with several violins, Ullieann pipes, and even the bodhrán.¹⁷

   Leo danced around ungracefully with a little girl no older than seven. Yuichi sat at a rickety table with a cup filled with suspicious-looking beer. He was beaming and clapping a steady beat to the rhythm, his eyes not knowing where to look. There was so much life in this one room, so many reasons to be happy. 

   A man tried speaking to Yuichi in what he thought was French. Yuichi was only fluent in Japanese and English. Still, he said “What?” loudly over the music and the man repeated himself. Yuichi laughed good-naturedly and said “I cannot understand you!” after about the third repeat. He took a drink from the… beverage? It tasted better than champagne. Yuichi never did like champagne much. Yuichi watched Leo twirl the little girl around and laughed.

   Somewhere off to the side, a very drunk man fell, taking out two tables. A few other men helped him up, and he reached for another cup of beer. Yuichi continued clapping to the music and laughed. Wasn’t this wonderful! Nobody here was judging anybody else for their clothes, or their money, or their wife. Nobody here cared. It was about love and enjoying yourself here. Being who you were.

   The song ended and the dancers and drinkers erupted into various praises and cheers. The musicians chatted while they prepared for the next song. Yuichi clapped. He wore the biggest, most genuine smile he thought he’d ever worn. Leo strolled over to Yuichi’s table and bent down to the little girl’s height. 

   “Hey, I’m gonna dance with him now. Alright?” He asked her. The little girl nodded, but looked sour about it. 

   Leo turned towards Yuichi. He straightened, tucked his left arm behind his back, and offered his elbow to him with a little bow. “What do you say, sir?”

   Yuichi giggled. “What?”

   “We aren’t with your high class buddies anymore. I’m offering you my arm. And asking you for a dance.” 

   “Leo, I don’t know…“ but Yuichi stood and took Leo’s outstretched arm. 

   Leo grinned and led him out to the designated dance floor. The music had not yet started, but Yuichi and Leo stood hand in hand, facing one another.

   “I cannot do this.” Yuichi said. He looked at Leo nervously, but Leo knew something in him was giving way and giving in.

   Leo laughed. “It’ll be alright. We’re gonna have to get a little bit closer.” Leo reached around Yuichi’s waist and pulled him in. Yuichi’s eyes widened. “Like this. Is that okay?” 

   Yuichi locked eyes with Leo. Slowly, almost unnoticeably, he nodded. But his furtive grin gave him away. Leo smiled.

   The band started to pick up again and slowly Leo and Yuichi started to sway, picking up the beat, with Leo’s right hand around Yuichi’s waist, Yuichi’s left hand on Leo’s shoulder, and their free opposite hands clasped at their sides. The little girl Leo was dancing with earlier now had no partner and seemed quite bitter about it.

   “Don’t worry, Angel, you’re still my favorite,” Leo said as they passed by where she stood. Angel smiled at him and ran off.

   The band started playing faster as they settled into a song and Leo coaxed Yuichi into the dance. 

   “I do not know the steps!” Yuichi said, nervous. Any dance he had participated in before had been very traditional or very practiced. He always knew the steps. But this was new territory.

   “Me neither! Just go with it!” Leo said, laughing as Yuichi mumbled a little while he tripped over a beat. “Don’t think!” Leo said. The music got faster, the dance got faster. Yuichi looked into Leo’s grinning face and something clicked. So he let go. Yuichi didn’t think, he just laughed and danced. At some point, their hands went from clasped to intertwined. 

   Yuichi and Leo danced in circles over and over until they were dizzy. And then Leo decided to take another step. He took Yuichi by the hand and led him up to a raised platform that was likely just a few tables pushed together. 

   “Wait, Leo!” Yuichi said, laughing, but he didn’t put up much of a fight. Together they danced with another couple up on the table while people tapped, stomped, and clapped to the beat, cheering them on. They spun around, yelling and laughing and forgetting everything but the here and now.

A man named Baxter Stockman stood at the bottom of the stairs. He observed a loud scene he would rather not be observing. But he was being paid well, and he had much to report.

Sweaty and tired, Leo and Yuichi left the dance floor to find some refreshments. Leo snagged two beers and brought them back to Yuichi. When he’d come back, Yuichi had undone his hair and redone it in a bun. His curtain bangs were sticking to his forehead with sweat.

   Leo handed a beer off to Yuichi and took a sip of his own. Then watched bemused as Yuichi downed more than half of his. 

   “What? First class cannot drink?” Yuichi laughed, and Leo did as well, surprised at the playful bite in the remark. 

   Without warning, some drunk slammed into Leo from behind and subsequently dumped the contents of Leo’s cup directly onto Yuichi’s face. It stung his eyes, and drenched his hair and the front of his kimono.

   Leo grabbed the drunk by the shoulder and shoved him away “Hey, get outta here,” he said. He wasn’t gonna start a fight with a guy who couldn’t see straight. He turned back to Yuichi. “Are you alright?” But Yuichi was laughing! 

   “I’m fine!” He said, still giggling. He took a sip of what was left of his beer and watched a man lose an arm wrestle at a nearby table amusedly. 

   The band started the final song of the night and everyone joined in clapping and dancing. Leo whisked Yuichi off to join the line of joyful dancing bodies. Yuichi must not have enjoyed himself this much in years. Maybe forever. The most sober thought he had that night was that meeting Leo had to have been the best thing that had ever happened to him.

The next morning Yuichi sat in the private, screened cabana attached to his cabin. Sunlight filtered into the room, catching the leaves of potted ferns. Yuichi sipped gently on dark coffee from a fragile china. Usually, he preferred tea, but that didn’t do a lot for his headache. A maid offered Yuichi a pastry, and he thanked her graciously. He sat across from Rose, who stared at him through her brow. Maybe she meant to make it seem like she was focusing on her tea, but she was not doing a good job.

   “I had hoped you would come to me last night,” Rose said suddenly, a change in the atmosphere of quiet, clinking cutlery.

   “I was tired,” Yuichi lied and sipped his coffee casually.

   Rose leaned back in her wicker chair. “Yes. Well, I can see why your endeavors below deck may have been… taxing.”

   Yuichi’s heart dropped. He considered lying again. If Rose let out about him and Leo… How much did she know? “I see you had out that undertaker of a manservant follow me.” Stockman.

   “You are engaged to me. ” Rose said. The maid left the room, sensing she did not need to be here for this. “I don’t think I need to remind you, because you were throwing a little pity party for the first half of the engagement! I will not have my fiancé call off the wedding because he is, what, a… a homosexual? Do you know what Stockman told Bishop? He said he saw you dancing with that… that street rat . The one you invited to dinner? It makes sense now. I thought I was missing some pieces and I was. It makes sense now, Yuichi.” Rose set down her tea. She was staring very pointedly at Yuichi, who would not make eye contact.

   “Rose, I—“

   “I don’t want to hear you speak. You will stop seeing this homosexual. You will marry me. Do you know the humiliation my family will be put through if you call our wedding off for him? No, both our families! Honestly, what are you thinking? I have made John promise he will keep your secret. For both of our best interests. But I cannot promise he will stay quiet if he… gathers more evidence.”

   In one swift movement, Yuichi placed his cup and saucer on the table so heavily he swore he heard a crack and stood up so fast his chair nearly fell over. He was done listening to this. What was this, blackmail? Blackmail behind a manicured curtain, but blackmail nonetheless. It was near criminal.

   “Good day, Rose,” Yuichi said, and walked out, slamming the door (tactfully) behind him.

Yuichi sat alone on the bed in his cabin. He thought about what to do. And he thought about Leo. There was a knock at his door.

   “No,” Yuichi said loudly.

   Yuichi’s aunt came in anyway. She locked the door behind her. 

   “Hello, Yuichi.”

   “Mm.”

   “Have you given Rose the Heart of the Ocean yet?”

   “The gala is not until the day before we dock.”

   “Yes.”

   Yuichi sighed and braced himself. “That is not why you are in here, is it?”

   “What are you thinking!” she yelled at him. There it was.

   “What?”

   “That boy!” Yuichi’s aunt started to raise her voice, and Yuichi shifted uncomfortably. “I knew something was wrong. You will never see him again.”

   “Do not give yourself a nosebleed, Auntie,” Yuichi attempted to lighten the mood, something he might have picked up from Leo, but maybe it was the wrong move.

   Yuichi’s aunt swiped a book off of Yuichi’s dresser and he flinched, immediately straightening. “This is not a game! You know our situation is precarious. I will not have some delinquent turn my nephew into a…” his aunt glanced towards the door before seeming to  remember she had locked it. Still, she spat out the next word in a harsh whisper as if it wasn’t worthy of her voice. “ homosexual .”

   Yuichi stared at her. He honestly didn’t know what to say. It felt like a rug pulled out underneath him, a complete betrayal that he was being absolutely forced to marry this woman he didn’t love. He just stared at his aunt in furious silence because there was no possible way he would be able to voice all of the shock and anger that wracked his ribs, constricted in his throat, and sunk low in his stomach.

   “Your parents left us nothing but a legacy of large debts hiding behind a good name. That name is the only card we can play. If you tarnish that name, so help me. This is all we have. Your marriage with Ms. DeWitt Bukater will ensure our survival. She’s a beautiful woman. I’ll never understand you.”

   “How… how could you put this on my shoulders?!” Yuichi almost yelled, standing up. He stood several feet taller than his aunt, but she stood her ground.

   “Why are you being so selfish!”

   “ I’m being selfish?!” Yuichi almost laughed. His aunt paused.

   “Do you wish to see me working as a seamstress? Yes? That is what you want? To see all of our fine things sold at auction? Our memories scattered to the winds?” Yuichi’s aunt put her hand over her mouth and turned away as if the thought was too much to bear.

   Yuichi didn’t want that. He just didn’t want to marry Rose. He just wanted to be himself. He never meant to hurt anyone else. He shouldn’t have to be hurting anyone by being free.

   “It’s so unfair,” Yuichi said quietly.

   “Of course it’s unfair,” she snapped suddenly. His aunt offered no further solace than that. She picked up the book she had thrown, placed it in Yuichi’s hands, and then left the room.

Leonardo casually made his way down both flights of stairs in the grand dining hall lobby. He was dressed in his own clothes now, the button up and brown work pants he’d arrived in— but he’d washed them this time! It felt fitting for the setting. 

   “Hello, Mr. Draxum,” Leo said to a man he recognized as he passed by.

   “Hello, Leonardo.”

   Leonardo wandered off to the left to find the chapel. He was fairly sure that’s where Yuichi was at this time of day, which was strange, because he thought Yuichi was not Christian. He was almost sure that he and his aunt only attended the sermons to fit in. 

   Leo walked up to the doors, but a man with a thick French accent put a firm hand on his chest and stopped him in his tracks. “Sir, you’re not supposed to be in here.”

   Leo struggled against him for a moment. “I— I just need to talk to somebody for a second. I was just here last night, you don’t remember me?”

   “No, I’m afraid not. Now you’re going to have to turn around.”

   A man stepped out whom Leo recognized as Mr… Stockboy? Something like that. In any case, Leo knew he’d talked to him at the dinner party last night.

   “Here, he’ll tell you,” Leo said to the attendant, then turned to Mr. Stockman. “I just, I just need to talk to—“

   Stockman spoke over him loudly. “Usagi Yuichi and Mrs. DeWitt Bukater continue to be appreciative of your assistance. They asked me to give you this in gratitude,” he said, very matter-of-fact, producing a twenty dollar bill from his pocket.

   “I don’t want your money, please, I just—“

   “ Also to remind you that you hold a third class ticket and your presence here is no longer appropriate.”

   “I would just like to speak to Yuichi for one second—“

   “Gentlemen, would you please see that Mr. Hamato is returned to where he belongs and that he stays there?” Stockman said, passing the twenty to one of the attendants instead.

   “Yes, sir,” the attendant said. “Come along.”

   Leo scowled over his shoulder at Stockman for as long as he could while he was being led away. It turned out to not be for very long, but he thought he got the point across anyway.

Later in the afternoon, Yuichi, his aunt, Rose, and Mrs. DeWitt Bukater were taking a tour of the bridge of the ship that Mr. Draxum had invited them to go on. It was quite possibly the most boring thing that Yuichi had ever endured, and he had endured a lot of boring things. Maybe now that he’d had a taste of what actual life felt like, his sad excuse for one had left him with more to be desired. Still, he nodded politely at everything Captain Honeycutt said.

    “And why do you have two steering wheels?” asked Mrs. DeWitt Bukater. Yuichi could care no less. 

   “We only use this second wheel near shore, miss,” Mr. Draxum said.

   A bridge attendant came up to the captain with a sheet of brittle paper. “Excuse me sir,” he said. “Another ice warning. From the Noordam.”¹⁸

   “Thank you,” Captain Honeycutt said and dismissed the attendant. He caught Yuichi’s curious glance. “Do not worry! Very normal this time of year. Actually, we’re speeding up— I have just ordered to have the last boilers lit!”

Since all the “security” staff posted at the stairwells learned Leonardo’s face and blocked him from entry at any higher level of the ship, he decided to climb up to first class. He scaled the railings and balusters¹⁹ surprisingly easily and ended up on the first class deck with no trouble. He landed haphazardly but quickly recovered and slid into a nonchalant stroll, pretending like he belonged there. Somehow he managed to remain undetected by the little boy and his father who were standing only a few feet away and playing with a spinning top. He walked behind their line of sight and gave them a wide berth.

   Sitting on a lounging chair, unattended, was an overcoat and a bowler hat. He guessed it was the father’s. Leo would return them later. But for now, he put the bowler hat over his head, pulled the rim down low, and tucked his locs behind the collar of the overcoat. Silently, he thanked the unknowing man for the temporary disguise.

“Mr. Draxum,” Yuichi said. “I did the sum in my head, and with the number of lifeboats times the capacity you mentioned… forgive me, but it seems that there are not enough for everyone aboard.”

   “About half, actually,” said Mr. Draxum, stopping by one of the lifeboats and looking at it passively. He turned to Yuichi. “You miss nothing, do you? In fact, I put in these new davits²⁰ which can take another row of boats—“ he gestured to where he and Yuichi were now standing, “ inside the existing row. But… it was thought, by some, the deck would look too cluttered. So, I was overruled.”

   “Waste of deck space as it is, on an unsinkable ship,” Rose said.

   Mr. Draxum ignored her comment. “Do not fret, young Usagi-san, I have built you a good ship. Strong and true. She’s all the lifeboat you need.” Yuichi smiled halfheartedly at him. Mr. Draxum walked faster to catch up with Rose and the two other women. “Just keep heading aft,²¹ the next stop is the engine room!”

   Yuichi started to follow him, but someone caught his shoulder. He almost panicked, but then he saw his face.

   “L—?!” 

   Leonardo gestured wildly for Yuichi to be quiet. Yuichi shut up and nodded his head, and Leo pulled him away from the tour. They entered a room off the deck that was empty of people.

   “Leo… this… I cannot be seeing you,” Yuichi said quietly. He started to leave.

   Leo put a hand on his shoulder. “I need to talk to you, I’ve been trying to get to you all day.”

   “Leo…” Yuichi stood against the wall next to the door. Leonardo stood in front of him and took off his (borrowed) hat. Yuichi continued. “Leo, I’m engaged. I’m marrying Rose. I love Rose.” 

   To Leo, it sounded like Yuichi was reading off a script. “Yuichi, you’re no picnic, alright? You’re stuck up and spoiled, even,” Leo was smiling. “But under that? You’re the most amazing, astounding, wonderful guy that I’ve ever known. And—“

   “Leo, I—“ Yuichi turned again to leave.

   “No, no wait, let me try and get this out. You’re ama—“ Leo took a few deep breaths. “I’m not an idiot. I know how the world works. I’ve got ten bucks in my pocket. I have nothing to offer you, and I know that! And I understand that whatever we are, people don’t like it. Because it’s different. I understand. But I’m too involved now. You jump, I jump, remember? I can’t turn away without knowing you’ll be alright.” Leo swallowed and his voice dropped to a near whisper. “That’s all that I want.”

   “Well. Well I am fine. I’ll be fine. Really,” but Yuichi was fighting tears.

   “Really? I don’t think so. They’ve got you trapped, Yuichi. You’re gonna die if you don’t break free. Maybe not right away because you’re strong, but…” Leo slowly cupped his hand around Yuichi’s face and stroked his cheek, “that fire that I love about you, Yuichi, that fire is gonna burn out.”

   Yuichi swallowed and blinked tears away. “It is not up to you to save me, Leo.”

   “You’re right. Only you can do that.”

   Yuichi put his hand on top of Leo’s. He looked into his eyes for a moment. “I am going back. Leave me alone, please.”

   Yuichi left and closed the door with a soft click. 

Yuichi sat with his aunt, Mrs. DeWitt Bukater, Rose, and a few other women around a small round table. They chattered and gossiped mindlessly over tea.

   Yuichi was silent and stone faced. He looked to his left and watched a woman teaching a little girl table etiquette, sitting her up straight and having her place a napkin in her tiny lap. She couldn’t have been more than four, but she was sitting at an expensive table, wearing an expensive gown, in an expensive ocean liner. Yuichi thought that girl ought to be elsewhere, enjoying her young freedom. Perhaps coloring with crayons or… dancing. Yes, that sounded right.

Leonardo leaned against the rails of the bow, listening to the powerful sound of the ship cutting through the water below. He thought about Yuichi. He wondered where he was right now, if he was dragging through another dinner party. Leonardo looked up at the sky, a cloudy purple-pink afternoon.

   “Hello, Leo.”

   Leonardo whipped his head around and faced Yuichi, catching vertigo. His baffled expression must’ve asked his question for him.

   “I changed my mind,” Yuichi said, walking towards him. “They said you might be up h—“ Leo shushed him with a smile.

   “Give me your hand,” Leo said, reaching out. “Now close your eyes. Go on,” he said when Yuichi hesitated.

   Yuichi closed his eyes and Leo led him up the steps toward the railing of the bow, guiding him verbally, holding one of his hands and being his eyes.

   “Hold onto the railing. Keep your eyes closed— don’t peek!” Leo said. 

   Yuichi laughed. “I’m not.”

   “Step up onto the rail,” Leo carefully guided Yuichi up, holding a steady hand on his back. “Keep your eyes closed!” 

   Yuichi couldn’t reach the top rail without losing his balance, so he just held onto Leo.

   “Do you trust me?”

   “I trust you.”

   Leo slowly unclasped their hands and extended Yuichi’s arms out both ways. The sleeves of his kimono rippled backwards in the immense wind. Leo held onto Yuichi’s waist and kept him steady. “Okay, you can open your eyes now,” he said, grinning.

   Yuichi gasped. The water seemed so far down. His stomach felt like it was so high up. The sky reflected off the waves and painted a mosaic of beautiful blues and oranges and purples and pinks. Honestly, he’d never felt a more exhilarating feeling. With the wind hitting his face, his arms out, so high up over the vast water, Yuichi felt like he was flying. 

   Leo moved his hands up Yuichi’s chest and down his arms, clasping their hands. He leaned his face into Yuichi’s neck.

   “Come, Josephine, in my flying machine,” Leo sang quietly into Yuichi’s ear, “going up she goes, up she goes.” Yuichi laughed.

   Leo intertwined his and Yuichi’s fingers and led their arms back down. He held Yuichi’s hands at his waist. Yuichi turned his head to face Leonardo, eyes half-lidded, smiling contentedly. Leonardo leaned in, pulling Yuichi towards his chest, locking their lips together. Yuichi grabbed the back of Leo’s neck. He didn’t think they could be closer, but he tried. It was the middle of the afternoon and they were on the top deck. Anyone could have seen them. But this ship of dreams brought out a sense of adventure, freedom, unabashedness. The safe, unshakeable security of being tight in each other's arms, battered only by the wind, inflated this prerogative tenfold. 

   That was the last time the Titanic saw daylight.

“I can assure you, it is quite proper,” Yuichi laughed, leading Leonardo into his cabin in the first class lodging. “This is the sitting room.” Yuichi removed his haori, straightening out his yukata²² underneath. He slung the haori over the back of a nearby chair. Yuichi started to run his fingers through his hair, but gave up. It was too tangled from the earlier wind. “Is this light sufficient?”

   “What?” Leo asked, turning to face Yuichi, having been admiring a painting on the wall.

   “Don’t artists need good light?”

   Leo dragged a finger along the mantel he stood next to and threw on a thick French accent. “Zat is true, but I am not used to working in such… ‘ourrible’ conditions.” Yuichi laughed, taking off his shoes. Leo spotted a painting and crossed the room to it. “Monet!”

   “Do you know his work?”

   “Of course! Look at his use of color here,” Leo said, pointing. He hadn’t been an art fanatic before his brother had gotten him into it. “Isn’t he great?”

   “I know! It’s extraordinary.”

Yuichi turned the locks on a safe his aunt had him store the necklace in.

   “My aunt insists on carting this hideous thing everywhere.”

   “Should we be expecting her anytime soon? Or Rose?” Leo asked, looking around the room. It really was an architectural marvel. 

   “Not as long as the gossip and champagne hold out,” Yuichi said, bringing out the Heart of the Ocean and closing the safe.

   Yuichi showed the necklace to Leo, who huffed in surprise. “That’s nice,” he said, amazed. “What is it, a sapphire?”

   “A very rare diamond.”

   Leo held up the gem and let it refract the light, admiring it.

   “Leo,” Yuichi inhaled, nervous. “I want you to draw me. Wearing this.”

   Leonardo nodded, still studying the necklace. “Alright.”

   “Wearing… only this.”

   Immediately, Leo’s attention snapped to Yuichi’s face, maybe to gauge if he was serious. But he was.

Leonardo pushed a loveseat into the center of the room. He stood back, thought for a moment, then moved one pillow to the opposite side, fluffed it, stood back again, and nodded. He sat at a seat directly in front of the couch. His leatherbound sketchbook laid open in his lap, turned to a fresh page. He unfolded his supplies and sharpened his charcoal with a small, thin knife. The quiet scraping filled the room.

   Yuichi pushed open the door to the sitting room, wearing a thin robe. His hair was fully down, the first time Leo had seen it that way, and recently brushed.  He wore the Heart of the Ocean around his neck. He’d never much cared for necklaces, but this one in particular was the heaviest he’d ever worn. Yuichi leaned against the doorframe and swung the tassel of his robe around in a circle. Leo laughed.

   “The last thing I need,” Yuichi said, walking into the room, “is another picture of me looking like a porcelain doll. I need you to draw me as you see me, Leonardo.”

   “Leo,” Leo corrected.

   Yuichi smiled. “As a paying customer,” he tossed a dime at Leo, “I expect to get what I want.” 

   Leo fumbled for a second, catching the dime in his hands. He grinned up at Yuichi. Such a small thing for him to have remembered, that Leo had done portraits for ten cents apiece in Santa Monica. Yuichi stood back and Leo gently set the dime down on the side table with his sketching utensils.

   Leo braced in his seat as Yuichi dropped his robe. He had to remind himself where a person’s eyes were located.

   Leonardo motioned to the loveseat and cleared his throat, his eyes darting practically everywhere. “Over on the bed— uh— the couch.” Yuichi walked over to and lay down on the loveseat. “Cool, lie down,” Leo said nervously, rubbing his neck and wiping off his canvas with the back of his hand.

   Yuichi put his arms above his head experimentally. “Tell me when it looks right,” he said.

   “Yeah, like that, put your arm back the way it was,” Leo said, motioning with his charcoal. Yuichi followed instruction and put his left arm over his head, lightly grasping the pillow behind him. “Put that other arm up, your hand right by your face, here,” Leo said, mimicking what he meant with his own hand. “Right. Now, head down. Eyes to me, keep them on me.” Leo flipped his sketchbook horizontally. “And try to… stay still.” Yuichi smiled at Leo’s hesitance, but stopped himself from laughing for fear of messing with the pose.

   Leonardo took a deep breath and started scratching away with the charcoal. Slowly, shapes formed. He glanced at the paper, and then at Yuichi, and then at the paper, and then made adjustments accordingly.

   “So serious…” Yuichi said. Leonardo might almost think he was being playful. He just shook his head good-naturedly and continued working. After all, Yuichi was a paying customer.

   “You have very beautiful hands, Yuichi.”

   “Is that so?”

   “It is.”

   The face was the most important part of any drawing Leo did. The face captures a person’s essence, their emotion. But a lot of things can be said about the body and body language. So, naturally, the body is what Leo considered the second most important part of any drawing.

   Yuichi smiled while he watched Leonardo work. His face seemed to change as he moved to a different part of the canvas.

   “I believe you are blushing, Mr. Big Artiste. ” Yuichi said, smirking. Leo just smiled up at him. “I cannot imagine Monsieur Monet blushing.” Yuichi poked.

   “He does landscapes!”

   Yuichi laughed.

   “Just relax your face.”

   “Sorry.”

   “No laughing,” but Leo himself was.

   Leonardo blended some details with his finger, carefully and painstakingly, but then he was done. Yuichi stood behind Leo, holding his robe shut as he watched him sign the piece. Leo closed it into the leather book, and handed it up to Yuichi. 

   “Thank you,” Yuichi said softly. He gave Leonardo a kiss of gratitude before he took the sketchbook from his hands. He tried pulling it away but Leo held it tight for the sole purpose of lengthening the kiss. Yuichi laughed into Leo's lips while they played a tiny tug-of-war.

Mr. Stockman approached John Bishop’s table in the smoking room. 

   “Excuse me, gentlemen,” Bishop said, pushing himself out of his seat to walk to a secluded corner of the room with Stockman.

   “None of the stewards have seen him,” Stockman said.

   “That’s absurd! It’s a ship! How hard could it possibly be? Stockman, find him,” Bishop said through clenched teeth. “He and I need to have a few words.”

Up in the bridge,²³ a horribly misguided conversation took place. 

   “Clear,” Captain Honeycutt said.

   “Yes,” replied a navigation attendant. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a flat calm.”

   “Like a mill pond,” said Captain Honeycutt with a chuckle, looking out at the dark sky and the darker water. “Not a bit of wind.”

   “It will… make the bergs harder to see, of course,” said the attendant. “with no breaking water at the base.”

   “Mm,” hummed Captain Honeycutt. He stirred the lemon slice in his tea. “Well, I’m off. Maintain speed and heading.”

   “Yes, sir.”

Leonardo looked out of a port side²⁴ window, rubbing his hands up and down his arms. He went to find Yuichi.

   “It’s getting cold,” Leo said, huffing hot air into his cupped hands. It didn’t help much. Frigid sea air translated quickly through an iron and steel beast. Leo took a double take at Yuichi, who was still busy tying his light yukata closed and covering up the dark v-neck and shorts underneath. It was probably the most casual thing Yuichi had worn during his entirety on the ship (except for when he was naked on the couch). Leo smiled. “You look nice.”

   Yuichi smiled, but before he could respond, there was a knock at the door. “Usagi-san?” A voice that seemed bored and impatient. 

   Yuichi heard the lock being turned, panicked, and grabbed Leo’s hand, pulling him into another room. “My drawings!” Leo whispered. 

   Mr. Stockman entered an empty room. He had the key on account of Rose giving the copy to Bishop, who’d given the copy to him, because Rose wanted for Yuichi to be caught as badly as Bishop did. 

   A soft click of a door down a corridor led Stockman’s manhunt in the right direction. Stockman swung open the door to a tea room, but found it empty. He stood in directionless confusion.

   Leonardo and Yuichi exited into a hallway from a side door and had done their best to fall into a normal, inconspicuous walking speed, laughing quietly to each other at the absurdity of it all. But they heard the side door open behind them and couldn’t help but steal a glance over their shoulders, making brief eye contact with Stockman. They fell into a long-strided walk, which broke out into a full run when they realized Stockman was going to pursue them. 

   “Come on!” Yuichi yelled aloud, laughing, grabbing Leo’s hand and sprinting. He acted as if he was running away from a schoolteacher and not actively damaging his social career. Honestly, about that last part, he found he didn’t care! And it felt amazing!

   Yuichi and Leo slid sideways on polished floors from their momentum. They rounded a corner and found an easy escape— the elevator. Yuichi called out to the liftman²⁵ to stop the elevator. They squeezed onto the cart, shut the gate, and pleaded with the liftman to take them down, Stockman not far behind. Mr. Stockman made it to the elevator as they started their descent, and slammed the front of the gate angrily with the side of his fists. Yuichi and Leo just stared at him wide-eyed as they started going down. 

   Yuichi held up his middle finger at the man, giggling uncontrollably. “Bye!” He said, waving with his other hand. Leonardo burst out laughing.

   Yuichi and Leonardo stumbled out of the lift together, bumping into a man passing by. Leonardo apologized to him, taking Yuichi’s hand and leading him down a corridor the opposite direction. Their smiles were so big it hurt their faces, they giggled in an almost childish way, but it was freeing. 

   Mr. Stockman took the long way, racing down several stairs and pushing past several attendants and guests. He was motivated by anger, prejudice, and the money John Bishop put in his pockets.

   Leonardo nearly fell face first down a flight of stairs he and Yuichi took a little too quickly. He recovered ungracefully, colliding with a maid and her pastry cart. He apologized through laughter and she assured him it was alright. Yuichi put his hand on Leo’s back for support, because he was nearly doubling over, almost incapacitated by the hilarity of it all. They were on a lower floor now, somewhere near the boiler room, if Leo had half the mind to guess by the barred lights on the ceiling and the fire hoses.

   He ushered Yuichi back up, still laughing, and they pushed open a couple of swinging doors and turned the corner, keeping their lead ahead of Mr. Stockman. They stopped at the doors, since they had made distance from the elevator, and they caught their breath. Yuichi leaned against the wall, smiling hard. He looked at Leo. He would have never done anything like this if not for him. Yuichi had so many things to be grateful to Leo for. Leo broke him out of the cycle. He could never thank him enough for that.

   “Pretty tough for a valet, this guy!” Leo said, bracing himself against the doorframe next to Yuichi and swiping the sweat off of his face. “Seems more like a cop.”

   “I think he was!” said Yuichi amusedly.

   It was then that Stockman moved into the frame of view of the window in the swinging door. He turned around, drawn by the voices, and made direct eye contact with Leonardo through the window.

   “Oh, shit!”

   “Go!”

   Leonardo and Yuichi took off running down the hallway full tilt, unhindered by their breathlessness. Yuichi strained to look behind him while he was running to see if Stockman was close behind, and nearly barreled into a third-class passenger he hadn’t seen. Leonardo and Yuichi ran into a dead-end, and Yuichi yelled in adrenaline and surprise at the sudden stop. 

   “No, over here!” Leo laughed, taking Yuichi’s arm and guiding him through a narrow doorway.

   “Quick!”

   Leonardo slammed the door shut and locked it. Stockman, right behind them, could not follow. But Leo and Yuichi were definitely not supposed to be in this room. The sound was deafening, a hissing of pressure that likely had to do with the ship’s heating systems. Yuichi’s hands flew to his ears to shield them from the loud complaints of the pressure valves. There was a low and claustrophobic ceiling, because it was a maintenance room that had to be tucked away between passenger lodgings like a little linen closet. Leonardo nearly hit his head on a pipe with a big red wheel sticking out. It was unbearably hot, and the two were already sweaty from their chase. There seemed to be only one entry and/or exit, and it was currently guarded by the one and only Baxter Stockman. Leo peered down what might be an exit… if they were brave enough— an uncovered hole in the floor that an iron ladder extended downwards from. The fiery glow of the boiler room bled up through the opening and illuminated the maintenance room. Leo could feel the heat irradiating from below.

   “Now what?!” Yuichi yelled over the noise.

   “What?!” Leo was covering his ears too by now; he couldn’t hear shit.

   They were brave enough. After all, adventure had become their adopted and shared code of conduct. Leo climbed down the ladder, helping Yuichi down the rungs after. 

   They were officially in the fire room.²⁶ Stokers²⁷ with faces streaked with sweat and grime shoveled coal into blazing furnaces all around them. This is where the beast of a ship got all of its steam power, so the fire room was quite large (though, the two suspected they were now under passenger lodging). It was even hotter down in the actual fire room than it was in the maintenance room. The stokers chattered back and forth, belting out instructions. Yuichi wondered how they could handle the heat. Obviously, Yuichi and Leo had no clearance to be there.

   “Hold up, what are you two doing here?” A stoker with a face full of soot and a gravelly voice asked Yuichi and Leo. “You shouldn’t be down here, it could be dangerous!” Yuichi and Leo smiled at each other, turned the opposite direction, and ran. “Hey!” the stoker called, but they had already taken off.

   “Don’t mind us, you’re doing a great job,” Leonardo shouted at the men as he and Yuichi ran past, turning heads. “Keep up the great work!” 

   Steam hissed and billowed around them and sweat dripped off their brows, but Yuichi and Leo ran all the way to the nearest unlocked door, not even aware of the fact that the stoker they had first come in contact with had never even pursued them.

Leonardo pushed open the heavy iron door to the cargo bay.²⁸ He and Yuichi were immediately hit with a blast of cold air that stuck to their sweat-slick skin. Yuichi rubbed his arms. Dim bar lights dotted the ceiling, which was higher than one would expect of a lower deck, but this was the Titanic . Countless boxes and trolleys towered in tall stacks all the way to the ceiling, fastened to the floor by thick lattice-tied jute. Yuichi grabbed Leo’s hand while he craned his neck up to look around him. A sign somewhere in the dim light read to Yuichi that he and Leo stood now on the E deck.

   “Ah, look what we have here!” Leo laughed. He led Yuichi to what he saw— a shiny, untouched 1912 Renault.²⁹ Likely not yet driven. Some rich passenger must have attachment issues.

   Leo looked around the front of the car, admiring it. Yuichi stood by the backseat door and cleared his throat. Leo smiled and walked back towards Yuichi. He made a big show of opening the door for him, and offering him his arm, bowing slightly.

   “Thank you,” Yuichi said, grinning and taking Leo’s arm gingerly for support and sliding into the seat. It was comfortable. He noticed a small vase accent built into the high corner of the cabin which held two roses. He smiled.

   Leo climbed into the driver’s seat, pretending to move the wheel. He honked the horn, which echoed between the curved iron walls of the cargo bay and startled Yuichi, who laughed in surprise. Leo craned his neck back to see his “passenger,” who had leaned up into the partition window³⁰ to be close to Leo.

   “Where to, sir?” Leo asked. Yuichi giggled and pretended to think about his answer.

   “To the stars,” he said.

   Yuichi laughed and grabbed Leo’s arms, dragging him over the partition. Leo laughed, surprised at his strength. He kicked off the rim of the wheel and made it into the backseat cabin with Yuichi.

   Yuichi grabbed Leo’s coat and Leo wrapped his arm around Yuichi’s shoulders. Their free hands intertwined.

   “You nervous?” Leo asked. He was asking about Yuichi’s aunt, his (ex?)fiancée, and the havoc this relationship would wreak on Yuichi’s social world. But Yuichi was ready to leave that world behind, because it wasn’t much of one. He’d had a taste of the real world, the one full of heart and love and compassion, and he found he liked it much better.

   “No,” Yuichi said quietly. He laid his head on Leo’s shoulder and looked up at his face. “You know, the light parts of your skin, they remind me… they remind me of a butterfly. Right there on your face. And I like that, because when I think of freedom, I think of flight, I think of butterflies on the wind… and I think of you. And it is so serendipitous. It is so beautiful,” he said, nearly whispering. 

   He silently put his fingers up to Leo’s face and traced the perfect, uneven lines around his eyes. Yuichi put his thumb on the light spot that Leo’s vitiligo placed right on the edge of his upper lip and dragged it down. Leo was left in a stunned trance. Yuichi brought his head back up and gently grabbed Leo’s hand again, pressing a kiss to his palm.

   “Leo,” Yuichi whispered, taking Leo’s hand and slowly pressing it to his own chest, using Leo’s fingers to loosen the folds of his yukata. “I want you to touch me.”

Up in the crow’s nest,³¹ two barrelmen³² named Huginn and Muninn bickered back and forth about their short straw. It was a tough job, risking frostbite to look out for hypothetical icebergs in the pitch blackness of the night and the sea.

   “It’s fucking cold!” Muninn yelled, shivering and rubbing his arms to no avail.

   “I’m right here, I know how cold it is.” Huginn said, sniffing through a nose numbed by the frigid wind.

   “You know, I can smell ice when it’s near, you know.” Muninn said, ignoring Huginn.

   “What?” Huginn stopped shivering just to give Muninn a confused look. “No you can’t.”

   “Yes I can!”

In the bridge, Draxum conversed with a navigation agent. 

   “Did you ever find those binoculars for the lookouts?” Draxum asked the navigation agent he walked with. 

   “No, sir. I haven’t seen them since we set off.”

   “Hm.”

   “Well, I’ll be on my rounds,” the agent said, turning to go the opposite direction.

   Draxum stood at a rail and looked out over the dark water. He couldn’t shake a bad feeling. 

The windows of the 1912 Renault were fogged from the interior, because it was cold in the cargo bay, but inside the passenger cabin of the car Leo and Yuichi were sweating. They would soon have to sort their clothes out, because both Yuichi’s and Leo’s clothes lay in mixed piles under the seats and slung over the partition.

   Leo leaned over Yuichi, and Yuichi’s hands traced the marks on his face lovingly. 

   “You’re trembling,” Yuichi said. It was true, Leo was. They both were, really, and breathing hard. This was something foreign to them both, but not unwelcome.

   “Don’t worry,” Leo said. “I’ll be alright.” Yuichi pushed his hair out of his face and kissed him. Gently, he laid Leo’s head down on his chest. 

Two men that Stockman had paid well to find Yuichi were sweating in the fire room, following a vague trail. 

   “They ran out this way,” a stoker told them, but he didn’t seem all too interested. 

   The men, one holding a bulky flashlight, wandered into the cargo bay.

John Bishop had the key to Usagi Yuichi’s room. Another thing he had, that maybe he should not have, was the code to the big green safe in his closet. Why? Because Yuichi’s aunt had given it to Rose. Who had given it to him. Rose told him everything. She seemed to trust him more now that her new fiancé was a homosexual. God forbid something horrible happens to Yuichi, maybe Rose would come running back to him. 

   “Anything missing?” Stockman asked as Bishop opened the safe. 

   There was, in fact, nothing missing. But there was a leatherbound sketchbook that was not there before. And a drawing of Yuichi that Bishop recoiled at the sight of. A faint memory came to Bishop of Yuichi speaking about that mudsill’s³³ talent in art.

   “I’ve got an idea,” Bishop said, eyeing a small velvet box.

The man with the flashlight rounded the 1912 Renault with the suspiciously fogged windows. There was a handprint on one side that dragged a path through the condensation. He drew his lips back in disgust. Snapping his fingers, the man drew the attention of his search partner.

   “Gotcha!” he said, yanking open the car door on an empty backseat.

“Hey, look,” Muninn said to Huginn, pointing down at the deck at two people who exited loudly from a door near the bridge. They were laughing and hanging off of one another. 

   “Aren’t we supposed to be watching the water?” Huginn asked.

   “Yeah, but look, they’re in love!” Muninn said. His teeth chattered, but he rested his chin on his hands and batted his eyelashes. 

   “I think those are two guys, Muninn.”

   “Jesus, Huginn, it’s 1912. Love is love, what’s wrong with you, honestly.”

“Did you see those guys’ faces?” Leo asked, laughing and clinging onto Yuichi. Yuichi mirrored his smile. “Did you see them?”

   Their laughter slowed as Yuichi put a hand on Leo’s face.

   “When the ship docks, I am going to get off with you.” Yuichi said.

   “This is crazy,” Leo grinned.

   “I know!” Yuichi laughed. “It does not make any sense! That is why I trust it.”

   Yuichi pulled Leonardo in for a deep kiss.

“Would you look at that,” Muninn said, smiling and leaning over the railing to watch Leo and Yuichi. 

   “At least they’re warmer than we are.” Huginn said, looking passively over Muninn’s shoulder.

   “Well, if that’s what it takes for us to get warm…”

   “I’d rather not, if you don’t mind,” Huginn deadpanned.

   Muninn laughed, rubbing his hands together, a futile attempt at creating thermal energy. Then he looked in front of him, which really was his only job. And, of course, he and Huginn had failed at it. 

   All tragedies are more often than not an even mix of bad luck and good old reliable human error. This one happened to involve a massive 400 ft long iceberg.

   “Fuck me!” Muninn cursed, reaching behind Huginn and ringing the bell that warned the rest of the navigation crew. He grabbed the crow’s nest phone, but it took far too long for someone to answer in the bridge. “Pick up, you bastards!” Muninn yelled. Huginn was in shock.

   “Is there anyone there?!” Muninn yelled into the receiver.

   “What do you see?” an attendant picked up and asked on the other side of the line.

   “An iceberg, you idiot, straight ahead!”

   Muninn could only listen to the impotent click of the receiver on the other end being slammed down. The bridge attendant was no doubt on his way to do his job and make sure the Titanic didn’t make friends with the ocean floor. Muninn’s own job was over with now, albeit quite botched, so all he could do now was stand with Huginn in the crow’s nest and stare at the iceberg as it got steadily closer.

Draxum, who had overheard the conversation, ran alongside the attendant who’d picked up the phone, losing no time. 

   “Iceberg, right ahead!” yelled the attendant.

   “Hard starboard!”³⁴ Draxum commanded the helmsman.³⁵

   Draxum pushed past a man and unintentionally knocked his tea to the ground. He paid him no mind. Draxum used all his force to turn the levers on a large telegraph³⁶ wheel which communicated to the engine workers to slow the steam and direct all efforts astern.³⁷

   In the engine room, the telegraph rang, alerting the men that something was very wrong.

   “Hey!” the man in charge of the engine room bellowed, abandoning his tea for the sake of more important things. “Full astern!”

   Back in the bridge, the helmsman turned the wheel starboard as far as the rudder³⁸ would allow, which was quite a feat, considering the size of the ship. “Hard over!”³⁹ he shouted out.

   “Helm’s hard over, sir!” an attendant relayed.

   Draxum looked at the berg sternly, as if he believed he could melt it with only his stare. It was still dead ahead. The Titanic was much too large a ship to maneuver in time. The iceberg sat there indifferently. It wasn’t enough. None of this was enough.

   The engine telegraph rang. So much was happening. So little time.

   In the engine room, a man urgently telegraphed the fire room. A stoker in the fire room read the telegraph and dropped his shovel. It was loud in the fire room, the hissing sound of coals and steam and the effort of several men. But this stoker’s adrenaline filled him with the voice to yell over all the din.

   “Shut the dampers!”⁴⁰ He screamed. He’d worked as a stoker for 18 years and did not feel like dying on this ship, which was supposedly unsinkable. “Shut them!”

   There was a massive coalescence of clanging sounds as his fellow stokers used all their upper arm strength on pulley systems above their heads that shut the dampers on their respective furnaces. This would slow the steam output to the engine, and ultimately slow the ship, hopefully allowing it time to turn. Hopefully.

   The man in the engine room watched the pressure gauge go down. It signaled to him that the steam and the propeller were slowing.

   “Hold it…” he called out. “Hold it!” The gauge dialed slowly backwards from 150 to 100. “Now! Engage the reversing engine!” He yelled.

   As the attendants in the engine room followed his orders, the giant reciprocating engines⁴¹ slowed, slowed, and then reversed their up and down movement, going down and up, down and up. An attendant prepared himself for the blast of heat in the reciprocating engine room as he opened the heavy door to check that all was working well. He nodded in satisfaction when he’d seen that they had reversed, and then ran off. These reciprocating engines had, in turn, forced the propeller, deep in the water, to churn the opposite direction. This was a valiant attempt at slowing the great metal beast’s momentum by canceling it out with backwards movement.

Muninn bounced nervously in the crow’s nest. He would pretend it was from the cold. It wasn’t. The iceberg seemed impossibly close. 

   “Come on! Why aren’t they turning?” Muninn said. 

   Huginn cast him a scared, sidelong glance. He was already clenching his teeth and bracing himself for the collision.

“Is it hard over?!” Draxum shouted back at an attendant, even though he knew he’d heard someone yell it out a few minutes ago. He needed to be sure, because it did not look like they were going to make it. And every effort would count. They needed the helm to be hard over starboard. 

   Even as he told himself this, and even as he heard shaky confirmation from the same bridge attendant who’d yelled it out earlier, Draxum knew they were too late. There was not enough that could be done for a metal giant like the Titanic . Because it was that. Titanic. Why in God’s name had he come on this ship? He should have stayed off when they made him take out the second row of lifeboats. He knew it was a bad omen.

   His glare bore into the iceberg. Or, he’d like to think it did. “Come on. Turn,” he muttered. He had so many things he still wanted to do. He really, really didn’t want an overgrown icecube to be the reason his genius was ripped from this world.

   The reciprocating engines, the propeller— they worked double time. More power was being fed into the engines to go backwards now than had been fed to them to go forwards at any other point during the journey. And an amazing thing happened. The Titanic started to turn starboard at an amazing rate for a 52,310 ton ship. It actually seemed as if the ship would avoid the berg completely.

   “Yes. Yes!” Something in Draxum’s chest lifted. Hope? Maybe it was just the absence of dread.

   Yes, they would have to course-correct, but Draxum would take that over sleeping with the fish any day. And for a blissful moment he thought they would make it. Until the bow of the ship neared the very edge of the iceberg, and he heard a faint yell from a man who stood at the bow’s rail.

   “It’s gonna hit!” the man screamed, running away from the bow and the berg. Whatever had lifted in Draxum’s chest before immediately settled back down.

Yuichi and Leo’s kiss was broken off by an immense shaking. 

   “What the hell?” Leo said, grabbing onto Yuichi for support, but also for comfort. He’d never been on any ship for so long before. The shaking sent his heart into his throat and panic into his brain. 

“Oh, no,” Huginn mumbled, grabbing onto the railing of the crow’s nest as he watched the ice of the berg crumble into the water where it collided with metal.

   Muninn had some colorful choice words for the world as he backed away, grabbing anything he could to steady himself as the ship rode out the turbulence, which included Huginn. Huginn, dumbstruck, didn’t even protest.

Hueso was asleep when the berg hit. He was awoken by the terrible trembling of his cabin. He shot up in his cot and looked around wildly. Cassandra was already out of her own bed, as was her traveling partner, a young boy who looked almost identical to her. Hueso had never learned his name.

   “Something’s up,” she told Hueso. He slid out of his bed. The ship still shook.

   “Really, no?” Hueso asked. It was a try at sarcasm. He raised his brow for effect, but just when he thought Casey might get the joke, a rough shudder flung all three of them across the room.

Despite the biting cold of the air that rolled off the sea, sweat dripped down Draxum’s brow. He refused to take his hand off the railing which thrashed, almost vibrated, with the motion of the Titanic. The ship had just skimmed the berg. Still, soon, they would flood. The ice tore into the lowest decks, ripping up the iron and steel.  Draxum guessed that right about now, water was already rushing into the E deck. People would die. The Titanic was going to sink.

   “HARD TO PORT!” Draxum shouted out, a weak attempt at saving these souls.

   A navigation attendant relayed his message twice as loud and the helmsman put all his weight on the quivering wheel, turning port.

In the cargo bay, the two men who were searching for Yuichi and Leo for Stockman with their bulky flashlights were confused by the sudden disturbance. They were less confused, however, when a giant wall of powerful, freezing seawater broke through the steel of the Titanic and tossed them like ragdolls against boxes and crates and a 1912 Renault. The men were of the first to be dead.

“Get back!” Leo said, throwing his arm over Yuichi’s chest as they stumbled backwards, away from the starboard-side stern’s railing and the chunks of ice that shattered and scattered on the deck. The berg had hit near the bow, and scraped a gash deep into the hull⁴² all the way to where Leo and Yuichi stood dumbfounded. 

   Now, finally, all of the efforts of the men in the navigation bridge and the engine room surfaced as the ship veered left, away from the iceberg. Leo and Yuichi stood in each others’ arms in the middle of the astern deck, staring at the iceberg as the ship slowly left it behind. What had just happened? Something bad. Leo could feel it in his chest. He squeezed Yuichi tight.

Seawater flooded the boiler room on the E deck. Stokers scrambled, screaming, abandoning their posts in the knee-high water which rose rapidly. It was a strange sensation to tread in the water in the fire room. The water of the Atlantic Ocean was below freezing, yet it pooled into the fiery furnaces and washed back out and was scorching hot against the skin at the exact same time. 

   Men clambered over one another trying to get to the exits, knowing that the reason this ship was “unsinkable” was because of the mechanical water-tight seals that were set at the E deck and below. If a collision were to happen under the waterline, the sealing mechanism would cut off the water before it flooded the rest of the ship. It would also drown the men working in the fire room. So the men clambered.

Draxum personally turned the lever that shut the fire room off from the rest of the ship permanently. The stokers working on the ship had signed an agreement. They knew they would likely die if it came to this. Draxum had few qualms. Few, but not none. It only meant that many less would perish. Hopefully. All he could hold onto was the hope.

“COME ON! LET’S GO!” yelled a stoker over the rushing water to the men around him. “GET OUT THE DOORS! THEY’RE CLOSING, GET OUT!” he beckoned and pushed men out of the doorway and watched to make sure he got as many out as he could. 

   But the water was now chest high, and the men were struggling to wade through. It felt like the doors were closing faster and faster. The stoker was grabbing men by their shirts and practically throwing them through the doorway, all the while yelling nearly incoherently. When there was hardly space for a man to fit through, he took a last glance behind him. He made eye contact with a stoker he didn’t know the name of. Then he slipped through the gap in the door, which shut right behind him. The man he made eye contact with did not come out.

   Getting out of the fire room was only the first hurdle. The watertight doors closed in two tiers, because of the inevitability of water escaping the first tier of doors that close slower to let the stokers out. 

   The stoker watched as men he’d worked with for the past four days ran ahead of him and ducked under a quickly closing door. The man directly ahead of him slid under the door, and it then shut with an air of finality. He knew suddenly and violently what the man he’d left behind had felt as he hit the metal door, stuck on the wrong side. He knew it wouldn’t change anything, because once these doors closed, they didn’t open. Cold water rose around his ankles. He wondered how watertight a few iron doors could really be when the pressure of the entire ocean’s surface was seeping in through a hole in the hull. The stoker started to pray.

Draxum watched a control board in the bridge that lit up and told him the last of the watertight doors had closed in the E deck. He had hoped he wouldn’t have to look at this board. 

Across the first class deck, passengers were stirring from either slumber or dinner parties, and surfacing to the outer passageways to look over the railing and scrutinize the iceberg that had dare cause such a clamor. They whispered among themselves in a way only the first class can.

In the crow’s nest, Muninn clung to Huginn, though the ship had ceased contact with the berg and the shaking had since stopped. 

   “Oh man,” Muninn said. “Close one, huh?”

   Huginn just half laughed without humor and muttered something panicky about Muninn’s lack of ability to “smell ice.” Muninn thought maybe he was in shock.

“Note the time,” Draxum said to an attendant. “Enter it in the log.” The attendant left to enter the information in the ship’s log.

   Captain Honeycutt strode in. Where in the hell had he been? 

   “What was that, Draxum?” he asked, but it sounded more like a statement.

   “An iceberg, sir,” Draxum said, near disbelief. “I put her hard to starboard, and manned the engines full astern, but it was too close. I tried to port around it, but she hit. And—“

   “Close the watertight doors,” Captain Honeycutt ordered, and began to walk out of the room.

   “Doors are closed, sir.” Draxum followed.

   “All stop,” Honeycutt called behind him.

   “Yes, sir,” an attendant called, telegraphing the engine room.

   Captain Honeycutt looked out over a davit to survey the damage to the hull, but most of it was concealed by the deceptively serene depths. He walked over to a bannister on the bridge overlooking the astern top deck. Draxum took the place next to him.

   “Find the carpenter. Get him to sound the ship,”⁴³ he told Draxum.

   “Yes sir!” Draxum said, already leaving.

   Captain Honeycutt stared disdainfully at the glacial ice that was strewn about his deck. As if he could ask it nicely to mend the hole in his ship and go away. Right about now, he was feeling like that would be much easier.

In the third class lodging, passengers were up to their ankles in seawater. Clothes and papers and anything left floor level was drenched and floating.

   Cassandra had her pants hiked to her knees and she jogged down the hallway with her son and Hueso in tow. 

   “Come on! Let’s get the hell out of here!” she was yelling at other passengers as she passed by. Hueso was stopping only to knock on doors and make sure everyone got up and out. “Hey, hurry up!” she called back impatiently.

Less knowledgeable first class passengers were just stirring from their rooms.

   “Excuse me,” a woman asked a butler. “Why have the engines stopped? I felt a shudder.”

   “I wouldn’t worry, madam.” The butler said, quick to respond. “We’ve likely thrown a propeller blade. That’s the shudder you felt. May I bring you anything?”

   “No, thank you.”

Cassandra led a group of third class passengers who wanted the hell out of there. They stayed ahead of the slowly rising water, but behind a pack of waterlogged rats that scurried a ways ahead of them.

   “If this direction’s good enough for the rats, it’s good enough for me,” Cassandra joked, pushing Casey Jr. along. It earned a weak laugh from Hueso, but he was more focused on how the water seemed to pick up speed.

“You there,” John Bishop said, pointing at a first class attendant.

   “Sir, there is no emergency,” the man said, sounding like he had been through this spiel before.

   “Yes there is. I have been robbed,” Bishop said loudly, because whatever was Yuichi’s was Rose’s, no? Which, for the way things have been going, might have well been Bishop’s. It was morally gray, and a stretch. But it was a plan.

   “Get the Master at Arms,”⁵⁰ Stockman said from behind Bishop.

   “Now, you moron!” Bishop ordered.

   “Yes, sir,” the attendant said, baffled that he was chasing a thief while the ship was sinking.

Men from the second and third class kicked around pieces of melting ice that were laying on the deck like footballs. Yuichi and Leo discreetly climbed the stairs up to the bridge, in hopes of getting an idea of what was going on.

   “Boiler room six is flooded eight feet above the plate and the mail hold is worse,” Leo overheard an attendant telling the captain as he passed by. They were too worried and busy to notice him and Yuichi. “She’s all buckled in in the forward hold.”

   “Can you shore up?” The captain asked.

   “Not unless the pumps get ahead.”

   “Have you seen the damage in the mail hold?”

   “No, she’s already underwater.”

   Leo had little idea what most of those words meant, but he knew one thing. “This is bad,” he said to Yuichi.

   Yuichi looked at him nervously. “We should tell Rose and my aunt.”

“Well,” the Master at Arms said, flipping between drawings taken from Leo’s sketchbook. “I think they’re very good, sir.”

   Rose sat on the loveseat next to Bishop, and her mother sat in a corner of the room. Yuichi’s aunt was pacing nervously. 

   Bishop snuffed his cigarette into a nearby ashtray and tore the drawings out of the hands of the Master at Arms. “Don’t touch anything!” he ordered a security guard, who was moving a chair. “I want this entire room photographed.”

Yuichi and Leonardo walked nonchalantly down the corridor past the great dining hall. They were holding hands. Their heads were high and their strides were confident. Because, under Leo’s reasoning, if they looked like they knew what they were doing and they belonged there then nobody would stop and question them. Under Yuichi’s reasoning, they were totally screwed (he found he didn’t quite care).

   Inevitably, of course, their faces were recognized. They got to the hall that Yuichi’s and Rose’s rooms were at the end of and they ran into Baxter Stockman.

   “We’ve been looking for you, sir,” he said politely to Yuichi, ignoring Leonardo.

   Like they didn’t know. Leo and Yuichi had been chased by Stockman himself across several decks less than an hour ago. But of course, it was all about appearances. They ignored him entirely and tried to shoulder past, but he kept up their pace and started to follow just behind Leo.

   “Everyone is in your suite, Usagi-san, waiting for you. They have been very anxious about your return. No one knows where you’ve been.” Again, Stockman was not graced with a response.

   Unseen, Stockman slipped a very important, very expensive piece of jewelry into Leonardo’s borrowed coat pocket.

   Yuichi sighed and steeled himself, squeezing Leo’s hand as they approached his room. “Here we go.”

   Yuichi and Leo walked into the room together. Stockman followed close and shut the door behind them. Yuichi stood in front of the faces that he knew could ruin his life, looked at them one by one. Why was Bishop following him around everywhere? Yuichi took Leo’s hand in front of him and pushed himself into Leo’s side for comfort, and Leo leaned back into him. 

   “Something serious has happened,” Yuichi said. He was ready to leave these people behind, but he didn’t want them to die. He knew there weren't enough lifeboats and he wanted them to know about the iceberg.

   Bishop eyed Leo’s and Yuichi’s clasped hands. “Yes, it has.”

   “Something dear to me has disappeared this evening,” Rose said, but Yuichi thought there was a hint of something malicious in her voice.

   “Indeed…” Bishop said. “And something else, no? Ms. Usagi?”

   Yuichi’s aunt glared something horrible at Leo and Yuichi. “Yes, something dear to me has gone missing, too.”

   “Well, now that the first has returned, I have a pretty good idea where to find the other,” Bishop said. “Search him.”

   The Master at Arms and security guard suddenly advanced on Leonardo. “Take your coat off, sir,” the guard said without any sympathy.

   “Now what?” Leo complained, but he complied and extended his arms so the coat could be removed and the Master at Arms could pat him down. He glared at Bishop, knowing this was his idea. He had it out for him for… whatever reason. 

   “Bishop,” Yuichi said, striding up to Bishop angrily, “what are you doing? We are in the middle of an emergency. Surely your personal vendetta against Leo can wait until we are on solid ground.”

   “Is this it?” the Master at Arms asked, producing the Heart of the Ocean from Leonardo’s coat pocket.

   “That’s it,” Bishop said, contently reaching for the necklace.

   Yuichi and Leo both looked wide-eyed and slack-jawed at the shimmering jewelry.

   Leonardo’s shock quickly turned to anger. “This is horseshit!” Yuichi just stared at him in disbelief. “You don’t believe that, right, Yuichi? You don’t!”

   “He could not have,” Yuichi’s voice was very small.

   “Of course he could,” Bishop said. “It’s easy enough for a professional.” 

   The Master at Arms pulled Leonardo’s hands behind his back and cuffed them. “Come on,” he told Leo, who didn’t budge, and instead stared into Yuichi’s eyes pleadingly.

   “But I was with him the whole time,” Yuichi said, “this is ridiculous.”

   “Perhaps,” chimed Rose, “he did it while you were putting your clothes back on, dear.”

   “Yeah right,” Leo seethed. “They put it in my pocket, Yuichi!”

   “Shut up!” Bishop told him.

   “It isn’t even your pocket, is it?” Stockman asked. Leo’s stomach dropped. “‘Property of Darius Dun,’” he read off the tag on the collar.

   Yuichi looked from the coat, to Bishop, to the Master at Arms, to Leonardo. His eyes begged Leo to say something to convince him against all the evidence in front of him. He couldn’t believe this. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to, he couldn’t. Not after… all of it.

   “That was reported stolen today,” the Master at Arms said.

   Leonardo sighed, “No, I was just borrowing it! I was gonna return it!” He would have reached out to hold Yuichi until he understood, but his hands were bound behind his back.

   “Oh, an honest thief, are you?” Bishop said, smiling with neither courtesy nor humor.

   “Come on, you know I didn’t do this, Yui. You know it.” Leo leaned as close as he could to Yuichi with the security guard restraining him. Something bad was happening. And he wanted to be by Yuichi’s side when it all went down.

   Yuichi faltered at the nickname.

   “Don’t you believe them, Yuichi. Don’t.”

   “Come on,” the Master at Arms said, pulling him away, out of the room by his arms.

   “You know I didn’t do it! Yuichi! You know me !”

   Leonardo was still fighting for Yuichi’s eye contact as he was shoved out of the suite and far away.

Draxum spread blueprints of the Titanic out on a desk in the bridge. He was breathing heavily, from nerves, and from the effort of having brought these from the other side of the ship as quickly as possible. 

   “Water,” he told Captain Honeycutt, “fourteen feet above the keel⁴⁴ in ten minutes. ” He tapped the lower front of the ship on the diagram. “In the forepeak,⁴⁵ in all three holds and boiler room six.”

   “Damnit, when can we get underway?!” asked Mr. Ismay impatiently. He was the man who did more for the media of the ship than the construction. He was not very bright.

   “That’s five compartments!” Draxum yelled at Mr. Ismay. He pointed at the sectors that the watertight doors sealed off. “She can stay atop water with the first four compartments breached. But not five. Not. Five.” He tapped the page nervously to punctuate his point. “As she goes down by the head, the water will spill over the tops of the bulkheads⁴⁶ at E deck, from one to the next like a fountain. Back and back. There is no stopping it.”

   “The pumps,” Captain Honeycutt tried. “We open the door—“

   “The pumps buy you time. But only minutes. Captain, if you want my unofficial opinion, it’s better to not prolong her suffering,” Draxum said solemnly. “From this moment, no matter what we do, the Titanic will founder.”⁴⁷

   Mr. Ismay’s eyes darted wildly between the captain and the architect. “But this ship can’t sink!”

   “She’s made of iron!” Draxum yelled, exasperated. “I assure you, she can. And she will. It is a mathematical certainty.”

   “How much time?” Honeycutt asked.

   Draxum was quiet for a few seconds. “An hour. Two, at most.”

   “And how many aboard, Drako?”

   “Two thousand, two hundred souls, sir,” said the first officer.

   Honeycutt soberly stared off into the aether. “Well, I believe you’ll get your headlines, Mr. Ismay.”

Yuichi and his aunt were left alone in Yuichi’s room. His aunt stood at the door and watched Bishop, Rose, and Mrs. DeWitt Bukater leave. She closed the door with a soft click. 

   Yuichi stood shaking, but he did not cower. He had accepted already the “consequences” his actions would bring. Even if he felt they weren’t justified. 

   His aunt strode up to him. She couldn’t look him in the eyes without him looking down on her, so she grabbed a fistful of his yukata and yanked him down to her level. Then she looked him in the eyes. Her lip twitched with anger, almost as if it was too much for her to find the words for.

   She raised her hand to smack Yuichi and he flinched away. Before she could strike him, there was a knock on the door and it was opened before anyone could respond.

   An attendant walked in. “Mr. Usagi?”

   “Not now. We are busy,” Yuichi’s aunt said.

   “Sir, ma’am, I’ve been told to ask you to please put on life belts and go to the boat deck.”

   “I said, not now,” Yuichi’s aunt said, releasing him.

   “I’m sorry to inconvenience you, Ms. Usagi, but it’s Captain’s orders,” the attendant said. He left to retrieve life vests. “Please, dress warm, it’s quite cold out tonight,” he called.

   “This is ridiculous,” muttered Yuichi’s aunt, storming away.

   The attendant returned with a life vest and handed it to Yuichi. “Not to worry, sir,” he said, misreading Yuichi’s shaken look. “I’m sure it’s just a precaution.”

In the second class lodging, and the unflooded third class lodging, attendants threw open doors as loud as possible and turned on lights to wake up sleeping passengers. “Everybody up! Life belts on!” They opened overhead compartments which stored the life jackets and threw them to the floor. Passengers either stirred in a panic, or didn’t stir at all. 

Captain Honeycutt feverishly wrote coordinates on a note, and handed it off to the telegraphist.

   “CQD?”⁴⁸ the telegraphist read nervously. “Sir?”

   “That’s right. CQD. The distress call. That,” Honeycutt said, pointing to the note, “is our position.” Captain Honeycutt took off his hat and took a deep breath. “Tell whoever responds that we are going down by the head and we need immediate assistance.”

   The telegraphist looked at him dumbly.

   “Well, we certainly do not have all day,” Honeycutt said, replacing his hat and leaving the room.

   “Aw, fuck,” the telegraphist said under his breath. He placed the headphones over his ears and tapped out the distress signal as quickly as he could.

Crew on the deck were already releasing lifeboats from davits. It would be easier to start before the panic and the flooding. There was yelling of orders over the waves and the metallic clinking of the pulley systems of the davits.

   Draxum strode out onto the deck. He watched men scramble to uncover boats but otherwise there was a severe lack of people outside.

   “Hey!” He called an officer over the din. “Where are all the passengers?”

   “They went inside,” he explained as if it were not life-or-death. “Too damn cold and noisy for them.”

   Draxum pulled out his pocket watch and stared disdainfully at the hands on the clock. He had to do something.

Rose, her mother, Yuichi, his aunt, and Bishop were all on the A deck, cramped in with the other first class passengers which were forced out of their rooms. Almost all the first class passengers wore life belts over their expensive garb, except for some who’d rather run the risk of this entire debacle not being a drill than defacing their gowns with the indignity of a flotation device. The live orchestra played calming music, just in case anyone had any thoughts of panicking. 

   Mrs. DeWitt Bukater still ordered around her maids like she was going to return to her suite once this was over. Bishop was fuming at the idiocy of being forced out onto the deck, because really, he had other things to do. Yuichi’s aunt was much the same way, but she hid it better. At this point, Yuichi himself would rather the ship just sink and take him with it.

   Draxum walked onto the A deck and took  a few steps up to the higher canopy, the cogs in his brain furiously turning, trying to work out a way to get all these self-important people on the outside deck to the lifeboats. Then, he was spotted and stopped by Yuichi.

   “Mr. Draxum,” Yuichi said. Draxum turned, half surprised to find Yuichi still with this crowd. “I saw the iceberg. And I see it in your eyes. Tell me the truth— what is going on?” asked Yuichi. 

   Draxum stepped down from the staircase and led Yuichi to the side by his shoulder. He nodded solemnly, and lowered his voice. 

   “The ship,” he said, “will sink.”

   “You are certain?” asked Yuichi after a pause. He hadn’t noticed Bishop lingering a few feet away and listening to their words.

   “In an hour or so, all of this,” Draxum paused and looked around them. “Will be at the bottom of the Atlantic.”

   Yuichi was stunned into silence.

   “What…” said Bishop, and he was not a man easily baffled.

   “Please, keep this to only a select few. I do not want to be the cause of a panic. And get to a boat. Quickly,” Draxum said. “Do not wait. You remember? What I told you about the boats?”

   Yuichi covered his mouth with his hand. Half. Half the souls. Leo. All at once he gathered his bearings. Because there had to be something he could have control over.

   “Yes. I understand,” he said.

   Draxum gave Yuichi a long, sad look. Maybe, silently, it was a wish of good luck. Then he turned and left up the stairs.

In the E deck, the Master at Arms handcuffed Leonardo around a thick pipe in his office. It was a higher floor of the E deck, above the boiler room and where the berg had hit the hull, so it was all shut off and nothing here had flooded yet. And the Master at Arms was still under the impression that it would not for quite a while. Leo, however, grew anxious as he was fastened to the pipe, already brewing ideas on how to… not drown.

   A security guard strode in the room. “Sir, they need you up in the second-class purser’s office,” he said. “There’s a big mob up there.”

   Baxter Stockman, whom Leo hadn’t even noticed until now, spoke up. “Go on,” he told the Master at Arms. “I’ll take over from here.” He produced a silver gun from his belt and held the barrel to the sky, as if to say he was totally qualified for this job.

   If Leo’s vote mattered, which it didn’t, he’d say Stockman was absolutely not qualified. And also he would like a restraining order, but those wouldn’t come around for another 58 years.

   “Right,” the Master at Arms said, tugging on Leo’s cuffs to test their security and leaving the room with the guard. He passed the keys to the handcuffs to Stockman as he exited.

   Stockman lowered his gun and slowly sat down in a chair directly in front of Leonardo. He didn’t say a word. If he was trying to be threatening, he was sort of failing and coming off as just creepy.

In the bridge, Captain Honeycutt paced nervously. An attendant ran up towards him, carrying news from the telegraphist.

   “Sir!” he said. “ Carpathia says they’re making seventeen knots.⁴⁹ Full steam toward us, sir!”

   Honeycutt turned to face him. “She’s the only one responding?” His question unintentionally killed the young man’s hope.

   “The… the only one close, sir. She says they can be here in four hours.”

   Honeycutt’s eyes widened. His chest tightened and his stomach fell. “Four hours?!” 

   The attendant didn’t know what to say to that.

   Honeycutt cleared his throat, realizing his outburst. Nobody else on the ship knew how fast they were going down. “Thank you,” he dismissed him. When the attendant was out of sight and earshot he cursed to himself.

Captain Honeycutt stood on the topmost outside deck with several officers and the entirety of the first class. Navigation and engine workers alike scrambled to untie the lifeboats from the davits. Any helping hand was another chance at survival.

   An officer marched up to Captain Honeycutt. “We are swung out and ready, sir!” he yelled over the white noise of the waves, the organized yelling of the crew, and the hushed, panicked bustle of the first class passengers. 

   To Honeycutt, the man’s words sounded the same as the washing of the waves. He had already begun grieving the loss of the many lives that would be lost within the next two hours.

   The officer cupped a hand around his mouth, mistakenly attributing Honeycutt’s lack of response to the noise around them. “Hadn't we better get the women and children onto the boats, sir?!”

   Honeycutt vaguely processed this. “Yes,” he mumbled.

   The officer didn’t hear him over the din. “Sir?!”

   Captain Honeycutt looked the officer directly in the eyes. “Women and children first, yes.”

   “Yes, sir,” the officer said, leaving to go save lives.

   The officer stood in front of an amassing of scared first class passengers. He projected his voice out as far as he could. “Ladies and gentlemen! Step this way, please! That’s right. Around me. Thank you.” He cleared his throat as the chatter from the crowd fizzled out. “For the time being, I require only women and children.”

   The four-man live orchestra had moved to the top deck with the rest of the first class passengers. They played cheery tunes that banished the thought of panic.

In the slightly further astern sector of the third class lodging, where nothing had flooded yet, attendants walked down the claustrophobic hallways and passed out life jackets. They unenthusiastically repeated “Here! Put your life belts on!” over the angry, anxious chatter of the passengers.

   Cassandra snatched a vest from an attendant as her, her son, and Hueso hurried down the hall, shouldering past the passengers idling on either side of them.

   Cassandra led the way up the stairs where they found an amassing of people from the third class, all erupted in an angry, confused ruckus. She shouldered her way up to the top of the stairs, where the gates were pulled shut, caging them in like dogs at the pound. 

   A man from the crew of the Titanic was yelling exasperatedly over the tumult from the other side of the gate. He didn't look happy to be there. “ Please, stay calm! It is NOT time to go up to the boats yet!” He enunciated his words like he was talking to children and not angry adults. “Make sure you’ve all got your life belts on. Allow women and children through to the front! Pushing won’t get you out any faster!” Because they all knew first class had the right away off the sinking ship.

The first lifeboat was being lowered off the davits. It was filled with first class passengers.

   “Lower it!” yelled an officer. “Left and right together, steady!” 

   He continued to shout orders as the boat lowered. The boat jerked side to side when the pulley systems of the davits and the men operating them didn’t quite agree. The people on the boat muttered to each other every time there was a sudden movement. 

   Suddenly, the weight of the passengers strained the left rope system and dragged it down a few too many feet. The officer yelled for the man operating the pulley to stop and hold it, but at this point, the only human error there was was overpacking the boat. The passengers of the lifeboat all screamed and the ones on the deck silently thanked that they hadn’t taken the first boat. If the lifeboat dropped all the way down to the water and capsized, leaving the passengers to freeze and drown, it would be almost as unfortunate as drowning with the Titanic itself . 

   The davits shook with the weight of the lifeboat, but kept it in the air.

   One of the crew lit off a flare, in the vain hope a closer ship would see it and come to their aid. All of the first class on the deck jumped at the sound of the firework and craned their necks up to watch it spark.

   The flare reflected off Yuichi’s eyes. Why was he standing here? The ship was at an angle now, Yuichi could feel it under his feet. The bow was almost underwater. And once that happened, well. 

Leonardo looked out the window of the Master at Arms’ office. His view was halfway obstructed by the creeping waters of the Atlantic. This window had never been submerged before. He stared at it in concern.

   Stockman placed a live bullet in the middle of the Master at Arms’ desk. The bullet rolled back towards him. Because the ship was at an incline. Baxter caught it before it fell to the ground and placed it in the same spot, watching it roll. He caught the bullet again and looked pointedly at Leo, who had been watching him, as he reloaded it into his gun.

   “You know,” he said, “I think the ship might sink.” Stockman stood up, and walked toward Leonardo with his gun in his hand, which made him nervous. “I’ve been asked to give you this… small token of our appreciation,” Stockman said. 

   Before Leo could say anything. Stockman rammed the butt of the gun into Leo’s gut so hard that he felt immediately nauseous (and he didn’t think it was sea-related this time). He doubled over and rested his forehead against the pipe he was shackled to, biting his lip, clenching his fists, and using all his will to not make a noise, to not give this bastard that satisfaction.

   “Compliments of all of the lives you have actively ruined.” Stockman would have probably called Leo a less than favorable name if it wasn’t 1912 (such words had not come around yet).

   Bullshit. He didn’t ruin things, he thought as he gathered his bearings on the floor, still reeling from the pain. If anything, he did all he could to make it better. How could he ruin so much just by being himself? He wouldn’t let his thoughts go down that path.

   While Leonardo was still facing the pipe and the ground, Baxter Stockman picked up the key to his handcuffs, put it in his breast pocket, and left the room to go get on a lifeboat. 

    Let the rat drown , Stockman thought as he walked away and left Leo chained up. The world could use less men like him, anyway.

On the deck, more first class passengers packed onto boats once the first was lowered successfully. Yuichi stood in front of a boat with his aunt, Rose, her mother, Big Mama, and Bishop. Big Mama ushered a woman onto the lifeboat and then followed suit.

   “Will the lifeboats be seated according to class?” asked Yuichi’s aunt. “I do hope they are not too crowded.”

   Yuichi looked at her in disgust. They were going to allow Yuichi on the boat, even though he was neither a woman nor a child, because of his aunt’s status in Japan, and their irrational fear of foreigners. Now, though, it was painfully clear to Yuichi that he would rather sink and die with the ship than get on a boat with his aunt.

   “Auntie,” he said, “shut up!” He grabbed her by the shoulders, and she gave him a look of actual, pure shock. “The water is freezing and there are not enough boats! Not enough by half!” He lowered his voice, but it kept its edge. “Half the people on this ship are going to die.”

   “Not the better half,” said Bishop.

   Yuichi looked at him. And then at Rose, who showed no indication of disagreement. She was ready to get on the boat. Her mother was already on. 

   “Come, now!” said Big Mama to Yuichi’s aunt, reaching out her hand. “It is time to get in the boat, dear.” And Yuichi’s aunt took her hand and climbed into the boat. Rose followed. 

   “You know,” Bishop said, “it’s a pity I didn’t keep that… vulgar drawing. It’ll be worth a lot more by morning.”

   Realization struck Yuichi like a bullet. “You bastard,” he said in disbelief. Big Mama and his aunt beckoned to Yuichi to get on the boat, but he wasn’t really listening. A million thoughts flooded his head, a bombardment of guilt over not having trusted Leo. Leo.

   “Come into the boat, Yuichi,” his aunt said. He stared.

   When he took his first step backward, his aunt panicked. “Yuichi!” she said, unsettled. He took another tentative step back. “Get into the boat! Yuichi.”

   “Goodbye, Auntie,” Yuichi said, his breathing uneven and anxious. He turned and started to leave. Quickly, because he didn’t know if he would be pursued.

   “Where are you going?!” Bishop yelled, grabbing Yuichi’s shoulder. Because for as much as it seemed like it, Bishop did not want Yuichi dead (and he also wanted to be in Rose's good graces. Letting Yuichi die would not earn him brownie points). Yuichi was startled.

   “I’m-?”

   “You’re off to be a whore to a gutter rat?! Are you crazy? Look at the life you have, Usagi! A soon-to-be wife, wealth, commodities, first class , dammit. You’re engaged to Rose DeWitt Bukater, for Chrissake!” Bishop shook him as he spoke, like he could jar the craziness out.

   “I would rather be his whore than her husband.”

   “You’re making a mistake.” Bishop’s fingers dug into Yuichi’s arms. He wouldn’t let go, and it started to hurt.

   “Didn’t you want this?” Yuichi asked as he struggled.

   “Not… No, Yuichi!” He said exasperatedly, like he hadn’t sent someone to chase him and Leo throughout the entire ship. “You can’t do this, it’s suicide!”

   Yuichi pretended like he was leaning over the rail of the ship with Leo again, practicing how to spit. He hawked back the phlegm in his throat and spit it in Bishop’s face. Bishop was so startled that he released Yuichi’s arms. Leo would be proud.

   As Yuichi ran off, he could faintly hear his aunt calling his name while her boat was lowered down onto the water.

Leonardo looked through the window. It was about all he could see of the Master at Arm’s office from where he was chained up to the pipe against the wall. He was alone now, and he could no longer see the night sky outside the window, because the dark, hungry Atlantic waters had pulled the curtains over the circular pane. Leo knew the ship was going down, and he felt a growing fear in his stomach, his chest, his head. 

   He banged his handcuffs back and forth against the metal pipe repeatedly. It made a loud, sharp ringing sound that did no wonders for his headache, but he had little other hope of getting the attention of anyone close by. 

   “HEY!” he called out, with all the breath in his lungs. “CAN ANYBODY HEAR ME?!” He tried banging the handcuffs faster, harder, getting desperate, scared. “HELLO?! ANYONE? HELP ME!”

   The halls were abandoned, desolate. Leo’s voice fell upon empty corridors. Everyone had evacuated to get to the higher decks, especially if they were unfortunate enough to be on a deck as low as Leo was.

   Leo was right, of course. The ship was going down, and quickly. Water was spilling up onto the same floor he was chained up on from a narrow staircase, one that led down to the lower E deck.

Yuichi had escaped the packed outside deck and made his way back into the first class lodging. He was searching frantically for Mr. Draxum, calling his name as he ran down corridors. 

   Yuichi turned a corner to find Draxum in his life belt, ordering the remaining passengers still milling about the lodging to do the same. 

   “Mr. Draxum! Thank goodness!” Yuichi exclaimed, running up to him. “Where would the Master at Arms take someone under arrest?”

   “What?” asked Draxum, confused. “Usagi-san, you have to get to a boat, now .”

   “No!” Yuichi yelled, impatient. “I am doing this with or without your help! Without, it will take longer.”

   Draxum hesitated, then sighed. “Take the elevator to the very bottom. Go left, down the crewman’s passage. Then go right, then left again at the stairs. You’ll see a long corridor. All the way down, it’s on the right.” Yuichi closed his eyes, committing the directions to memory. He turned to hurry off. “And Yuichi,” Draxum said, gently taking Yuichi’s shoulder and turning him back, “ do be quick.” 

   Yuichi nodded solemnly.

Leo sighed, letting his arms rest from the tireless tugging he’d done on the cuffs. His wrists burned. This could be bad, stuck down here. No, this was bad.

   Leo heard the telltale rush of water. His head snapped to the entrance of the room, where seawater pooled right under the door. It advanced quickly. 

   “Shit,” Leo said quietly. Then, remembering he was handcuffed to a metal pipe, he cursed louder. 

   He struggled his way up the bend on the pipe, sticking his foot in the groove and forcing his head uncomfortably between the ceiling and his shoulder. He wrapped his arm around the thinnest part of the pipe nearest to the top and used all his weight to try to loosen it or tear it down so he could slip the handcuffs out, but it wasn’t any use against a solid steel pipe. Not in so little time, anyway. 

Yuichi shoved through the first class stragglers of the dining hall. He was making his way to the lift on this deck, but he was having marginally less fun than the last time he ran there. The liftman was arguing with some other passengers.

   Yuichi approached him and he put his hand out in front of the open gate of the elevator. “Sir, the lift is closed ,” the liftman said with an amount of exasperation in his voice.

   Yuichi, who was anxious, terrified, and had a singular goal in mind, had finally had enough. 

   He grabbed the liftman, who stood at least a foot taller than him, by both sides of his stupid overcoat and shoved him into the back of the lift. “I’m through being polite, goddamnit!” He yelled at the man. “Now take me down! E deck!”

   The liftman complied.

Cold water soaked through Leo’s shoes. It was nearly at his ankles. He tried to force his cuffs off, considered breaking a thumb. Hell, he tried to break his thumb. But anything he did just led to more pain and no progress. He watched the water, panicking as it rose.

Yuichi rode silently down in the elevator with the liftman. The only sounds were the quiet mechanical whirring of the lift and Yuichi’s troubled breathing. They neared the E deck. Both Yuichi’s and the liftman’s eyes snapped down as they realized E deck was flooded and they were plunging the elevator into freezing water. Before they could react, water rushed in through the gate. The liftman regretted listening to this man with a death wish. Cold water lapped at their knees as they both exclaimed in surprise and fear.

   “I’m going back up!” The liftman said, reaching for the lever.

   “No!” Yuichi yelled, reaching for his hand and pushing it away. He threw open the gates and waded out into the water, which was not as high as he thought, but really was freezing . 

   “Come back!” The liftman said desperately, not wanting to leave him. “I’m going back up! I’m going back up!” 

   The liftman’s fear for his life overrode his sense of honor and the elevator started to ascend, spilling out a waterfall from its bars when it rose. Yuichi was fine with that. Yuichi had no intention of going back up without Leo.

   “Crew passage,” Yuichi mumbled to himself. It was exceedingly difficult to trudge through calf-high water in loose clothing like his yukata and shorts. 

   He looked up at a plate above a doorway that said “CREW ONLY,” and took that as a good sign. The seawater was getting higher, he thought as he waded as fast as he could down the corridor against the drag of the water. Had it always been to his knees? 

   Yuichi tossed and shoved floating furniture that drifted into his way. He used the walls to push himself forward. Anything to make his forward progress faster. He had to get there in time. He made it to a corridor that split down two ways. Was it right, left? He racked his brain, but his memory was fuzzy with panic and he couldn’t pull it up.

   “LEO?!” He yelled out, on the edge of tears. No answer came and he started down the left. The lights started to dim and brighten sporadically, the E deck emergency lights failing. “LEO?!” He yelled again, more frantic, his voice crackling. Yuichi looked through the doors, calling out his name again and again.

“YUICHI!” Leonardo yelled as loud as he was capable of. The sounds of Yuichi’s yells were fading, going in the opposite direction. When he’d first heard them, his heart lifted, and the second one was further, so he feared he wouldn’t even hear him call back at all.

Yuichi immediately spun around in the opposite direction when he heard the faint voice. Leo’s voice. 

   “Leo,” he said. 

   “Yuichi, I’m in here!” Leonardo yelled, and Yuichi could just make out his words. He started off in his direction quicker than before.

They were shouting each others’ names, like a game of Marco Polo, until their voices got closer and closer. 

   Yuichi swung open the door of the Master at Arms’ office. 

   “Yuichi!” Leonardo said. He didn’t think he’d ever been so relieved. 

   “Leo! I’m sorry,” the first words out of Yuichi’s mouth when they were finally face to face again were apologies. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he said, pleadingly, pushing through the water to get to Leo, who he embraced, wrapping his arms around his neck and burying his face into his shoulder. Then he pulled back and kissed him hard, just to make his apology clear.

   “Forgiven,” Leo said with a smile that quickly vanished. “That bastard Stockman put it in my pocket,” he told him.

   “I know, I know!” Yuichi said, hugging Leo again. Leo wanted nothing more than to hug him back, which reminded him that he was still handcuffed.

   “Yui, you gotta find the spare key, okay?” Leo said, gesturing to his cuffs. “Stockman took the other one.” He pointed to a cabinet across the room that he had had a lot of time to study. It was filled with hanging keys. “It’s a little silver one, Yuichi.”

   “Okay,” Yuichi said, breathless, hiking his knees up through the water that was now nearly thigh high. 

   He crossed the room for the cabinet and searched frantically for a silver key, but most were brass. He told this to Leo, who told him to check in the drawer of the Master at Arms’ desk.

   “Yuichi,” Leo said while Yuichi was searching through the drawer. “How did you find out I didn’t do it?”

   “I didn’t,” Yuichi said, a ghost of a smile on his face. “I just realized that I already knew.”

   Leo smiled. “Keep looking!” he said, gesturing with his cuffed hands.

   “Oh!” Yuichi muttered, going back to his search.

The bow of the Titanic was underwater.

“No key,” Yuichi said anxiously. “There is no key!”

   “Alright, Yuichi, listen. You’re gonna have to go find some help. It’ll be alright,” Leo said, amazingly calm.

   Yuichi sloshed through the impossibly cold water towards Leo. “I’ll be right back,” he said reluctantly, grabbing Leo’s face and giving him a kiss to seal the promise. Leo nodded and Yuichi ungracefully left the Master at Arms’ office. 

   The corridors were dark now, the lights had shut off. Furniture had drifted out of rooms and made for ominous floating accents to the cold, dark seawater. The farther out Yuichi ventured, the further up the water hit him. It reached his chest when he got to the stairwell. He climbed the stairs to the unflooded D deck, and his seawater soaked shorts clung to his legs. 

   “Hello, is there anyone here?!” He ran through the corridors shouting out different pleas of help, but it seemed useless. The D deck was absolutely silent, unless you accounted for the faint sloshing of the flooding of the E deck. “Dammit!” Yuichi cursed, his voice breaking. But he didn’t know how else to unbind Leo from the Master at Arms’ room, so he kept calling out into the silence.

   Then he turned, and by pure happenstance, noticed a man stumble down the corridor. “Oh thank god,” Yuichi said, “wait, please, sir, I need your help!” The man shook his head, already shoving past Yuichi, but he pushed his words out quickly. “There’s a man back here and he’s… he’s…” The man had gone already halfway down the corridor, and he had no intention of stopping.

   “Hello?!” Yuichi called out into the corridors futilely. 

   The D deck lights started to fail. Panic built in Yuichi’s chest. He closed his eyes against the darkness, trying to slow his breathing and his pounding heart. When the lights brightened once more, an attendant turned the corner carrying several life vests under one arm.

   “Sir, you should not be down here!” he said.

   “Wait! I need your help,” Yuichi said firmly, but the man continued to talk over him, grabbing Yuichi’s arm and dragging him towards the nearest staircase.

   “This way, quickly.”

   “There is a man down there and he is trapped!”

   “This way, yes, all right.”

   “Please!”

   “There’s no need to panic.”

   “No, I am not panicking! You are going the wrong way!” Yuichi started to struggle, trying to twist his way out of the man’s grip. 

   The man said comforting words in the wrong tone, the wrong volume, saying them over and over, over Yuichi’s own voice, and Yuichi had had enough of this bullshit.

   “Let go of me! LISTEN!” Yuichi yelled. He yanked his hand away from the man and balled up his fist, rearing back and striking the attendant hard and fast in the nose before logical thinking could tell him not to. He’d never hit anyone like that before, and he pulled his hand back, startled, and stared at his raw knuckles where they’d made contact with hard cartilage. Yuichi looked up at the man he’d struck nervously, apologetically, afraid of retaliation. He didn’t have time to get into a fight.

   The attendant staggered backwards and clutched his bleeding nose. He pulled his fingers away, saw the blood, and said, “To hell with you.” He ran off, abandoning the life belts he’d dropped.

   Yuichi closed his eyes against the bright and uninviting lights of the D deck and put his back against the wall. He was breathing hard. What had he done? He’d blown his only chance of getting Leo help. 

   Feeling helpless, Yuichi sank down to the floor. He was cold, his limbs were numb and tired. His head was pounding with stress and way too much adrenaline. Yuichi pulled on his hair anxiously, staring at the wall. He almost got lost at a fixed point and gave into defeat, but his peripherals caught on red metal and suddenly Yuichi had a last-ditch idea. 

   He stood quickly, catching a second wind along with mild vertigo. With his elbow he shattered the thin glass that read “BREAK IN CASE OF EMERGENCY” and freed the fire ax that was mounted on the wall. Shards of the glass stuck to his yukata and dug into his skin, but Yuichi figured he had better things to worry about.

Captain Honeycutt watched water spill over the forward deck with glossy eyes. It made a tremendous noise, but all he could hear was the pounding of his heart.

Yuichi came to the stairs down to the E deck with the fire ax in tow and he skidded to a stop. The railing and the steps were halfway submerged. He didn’t know if he could even wade through. 

   “Holy shit,” he whispered, trembling as he went down the steps. 

   There was a loud, guttural creaking from deep in the ship’s core. Yuichi grabbed a bar over the frame of the landing of the stairs and looked out down the flooded corridor. There was about five feet of breathable air to the ceiling. He would have to swim. He flinched as a light crackled over the water and made a sharp, dangerous sound. It wouldn’t be long before this water was no longer safe.

   Yuichi shed his soaked yukata, discarding it in the water behind him, and gripped the fire ax tight. He gasped at the temperature of the water when he waded out into it. Yuichi grabbed onto the pipes running along the ceiling to move faster through the seawater, his mind filled with thoughts of panic, panic, panic. The horrible creaking shook the walls and filled him with dread.

Yuichi shoved open the door of the Master at Arms’ office, holding the fire ax above his head and breathing hard. He was standing on the balls of his feet and his chest was just above the water. Leo was crouching on the Master at Arms’ floating desk.

   “Leo!” Yuichi said, struggling towards him and holding out the fire ax. “Will this work?”

   “I guess we’ll find out!” Leo said. “Come on.”

   He shifted his shoulder uncomfortably to brush hair out of his face and he slid off the desk, wincing at the freezing water. Leo pulled his cuffs against either side of the pipe until the chain between them was taut, making tinny, metal-on-metal noises as he trembled.

   Yuichi hefted the ax above his head. Leo only just now realized this was probably the only time Yuichi had ever handled an ax in his life. He pulled as hard as he could on the wrist pieces of the cuffs in opposite directions, in fear of getting his fingers nicked, but mostly they just dug into his skin and didn’t pull any tighter, because cold steel is only so malleable. Leo looked away, readying for the ax.

   When Yuichi hesitated, and the sound of rushing water prodded at Leo’s brain, Leo figured something was wrong. He opened his eyes to see Yuichi frozen, and not just because of the temperature. 

   “Listen, Yuichi, I trust you!” He said over the creaking of the ship and the motion of the water. “Go, you’ve got this!” Leo closed his eyes and screwed up his face in apprehension, unable to watch. Yuichi looked away too, but what Leo didn’t know couldn’t hurt him. 

   Yuichi brought down the ax straight on the chain, hard and fast, and with surprising accuracy. He yelled with determination and probably a sizable amount of fear at the potent ringing that shot throughout the cabin. Watery iron graves are quite echoey, it turns out. 

   Leo brought his hands apart and leaned away from the pipe, farther than he was able to in the last hour or so. He and Yuichi laughed triumphantly and with awe that their stupid plan actually pulled through. 

   He grabbed Yuichi into a hug. “You did it!” he yelled. “C’mon, Let’s go!”

   While they waded into the corridor, Leo yelled complaints about the very, very low temperature of the water. That’s two verys. 

   Yuichi looked down the left hall, where he’d come down from the D deck. It was nearly entirely flooded, high over both of their heads, and water churned like river rapids near the stairwell he had used not long ago. 

   “That’s the way out!” Yuichi cried over the noise, grabbing Leo’s arm.

   “We have to find another way, come on.” They would drown before making it against the current.

Back on the top deck, first class passengers were leaving in droves on lifeboats. Not fast enough. Only about seven hundred and six souls would get off the ship safely. The Titanic was at a horrifying angle with the sea. Impotent flares left guns off the deck, orange sparks fizzling out before they hit the water. Luggage was thrown from davits by attendants freeing material-centric first class passengers from their possessions. 

“Stockman!” Bishop said, spotting him and shoving a few passengers to get to him. He expected an update.

   “He’s not on the starboard side, either,” said Stockman, out of breath from searching all the ship that was still above water.

   “We’re running out of time. These attendants won’t let any men on at all.” Bishop gestured to a guard who argued with a man trying to get on a lifeboat in front of them.

   “There’s one on the other side letting men on.”

   “Well, then that’s our play. We need some insurance first. Come on.”

An attendant a few decks lower was leading straggling passengers up to the top deck to board on lifeboats. The group stopped in the middle of the hallway, startled into silence by an enormous, steady banging coming from behind a fastly locked fire door, and what sounded like two voices strained taut by distress and effort. The sharp sound of splintering wood crackled across the air as Leonardo and Yuichi broke through the door and their momentum carried them to slam into the opposite side of the hall.

   “What do you think you’re doing!?” yelled the attendant in surprise and a little bit of fear. He looked from the splinters of the door on the floor to the two disheveled men who had just broke it down. Leo and Yuichi looked around wildly, trying to get a grasp of their location. They figured it was best to go in the opposite direction of the attendant and started down the hall. “Hey!” started the attendant again. “You’ll have to pay for that, you know. That’s White Star Line property!”

   In unison, Yuichi and Leonardo whipped their heads around to face the man. “Shut up!” they both yelled. He shut up.

“She’s the last. Prepare to lower!” Drako yelled over a bustle of voices, signaling the men working the pulleys on the davits. He didn’t normally do this sort of work, but now it was all hands on deck.

   “Drako!” shouted Draxum, striding up to him and grasping his shoulder, hard. He was afraid they had two different motives. “ Why are the boats being launched half full?”

   “Not now, Mr. Draxum,” said Drako, shrugging him off.

   “There, look, 20 or so in a boat built for 65?” He gestured behind Drako. “And I saw one boat with only twelve. Twelve!” 

   “Well, we weren’t sure of the weight, Mr. Draxum. These boats may buckle.” 

   “Damn you! They were tested with the weight of 70 men. Now fill these boats, Drako. For God’s sake!”

   Drako looked at the rope coiled around the pulley on the davit, then out at the dark and forbidding Atlantic waters, then back at Draxum. “Right,” he said. “Please, I need more women and children here!”

“You can’t keep us locked in here like animals! The ship is sinking!” Cassandra shook the gate that locked the third class passengers behind the top of the stairs. An attendant tried calming her and others who spat demands, pleas, and profanities in his general direction. 

   “Bring forward the women and children, please!” He shouted over the voices with a tone of annoyance and a lack of grace.

   Cassandra stood near the front but pushed and shoved to keep Hueso and Junior by her side. Gender roles be damned, she was not going anywhere without them. 

   “Unlock the gates,” the attendant said to another. The second produced a key, and the first shouted, “Women only! No men! No! Men!” But of course, the second the gates opened, it was total shoving, shouting calamity as attendants pushed back against a flood of absolutely everyone who’d been standing there, because absolutely everyone fought to get out. It meant their lives. Common courtesy was thrown out the porthole.⁵¹

   Cassandra elbowed Hueso and Junior towards the back of the bedlam when she saw the attendants resort to beating back the clambering men with the butt of fire axes. At what length would they stop? 

   “Get back!” Bellowed the very first attendant, as every third class passenger heard the unmistakable sound of a handgun being loaded. The clamor did not stop. If they didn’t get through, it would mean death anyway. “Lock the gates! Get them back and lock the damn gates! Don’t touch the gates!”

Leo and Yuichi had found the main exit staircase thanks to all the havoc. They were led there by the shouting alone. Yuichi reached for Leo’s hand, and Leo took it up without a second thought. They walked up towards the edge of the crowd to get a better glimpse of the situation. Just then, Leo spotted Hueso lingering near the back with Cassandra and their other bunkmate.

   “Hueso!” Leo called, and Hueso’s head immediately swiveled to meet the familiar voice. 

   “Pepino!” He shoved through passengers, and Casey followed with Junior. “Leo, I’m glad you are okay,” Hueso said, grabbing him and hugging him a little too hard. 

   “You too, Tío,” Leo smiled, pulling away.

   “That is-?” Hueso asked, noticing Yuichi.

   “…Nevermind it. Can we get out?”

   “It’s hopeless that way. They threaten anyone who tries to get through,” Cassandra said.

   “Whatever we do, we gotta do it fast,” said Leo.

   “This wasn’t our first stop,” Casey said, pointing behind her shoulder. “No luck on the aft staircase either.”

   “Okay,” Leo said, picking up Yuichi’s hand and heading in the opposite direction. “Let’s go this way, alright? Come on!”

Bishop shuffled through a garish green safe that he should not have had the combination to. He plucked out an unassuming velvet box and removed the heart of the ocean, putting it in his coat pocket and discarding the box. He’d wanted the heart from the beginning, but with all the uproar and with the foundering of the ship, he figured he would get away with a small bit of upper class larceny. On a second thought, he also displaced a few thick rolls of cash into his side pockets.

   “I make my own luck,” Bishop muttered to himself, patting the jewelry in his pocket as he remembered what that rat Hamato had to say at dinner a few nights past. Didn’t matter anymore now that he would drown with the ship. 

   “So do I,” Stockman said, lifting the edge of his coat to show Bishop the gun holstered on his abdomen. Bishop almost laughed.

“Come on!” Leo called to the others he led down the hallway. He turned down a corner, following a sign that said E DECK BERTHING . He didn’t know what it meant, and he hadn’t been down this hall before, but the stragglers weren’t thinning yet. 

   “Hey, this way,” said Leo, out of breath. 

   Yuichi, Hueso, Casey, and Junior followed him up a spare side stairwell where only a handful of people had gathered. The chain link gate was down and two attendants were trying to convince them to relocate towards the main stairwell to wait for release.

   Leonardo gently shoved his way through the thin group of people standing there. “Open the gate.”

   “Go back down to the main stairwell,” said the attendant. His voice was grating.

   “Open the gate right now!”

   “Go back down the main stairwell, like I told you!”

   Leo would punch the man if there wasn’t a wall of spidery metal in between them. He turned to Yuichi in exasperation. Yuichi looked at him, worried. Neither knew what to do. Usually Leo was all for going with the flow, but when the flow was the deadly Atlantic current, things were a little different. He had Yuichi to live for. They were going to go to Santa Monica. Drink cheap beer.

   Leonardo whirled back around to the gate and shook it furiously, relishing how the attendants took one, two steps back. “Goddamnit! Son of a bitch!” He cursed through his teeth. He white knuckled the bars and shook with all his weight, but all he managed to do was make the hinges creak pitifully.

    “Abre la puta reja gordo cabron!”⁵² yelled Hueso at the attendants from behind Leo.

   Leo cursed again and weaved through the crowd, standing for a moment once he was out, simmering in directionless anger. His eyes caught on a vacant bench fastened to the wall and suddenly he grabbed a tight hold of the sides and began to work on tearing it off its bolts.

   “Tío, Yui, give me a hand!” Leo called behind him.

   Casey shouted for the crowd to move aside as the two pushed through and started to help tear it up off the ground. 

   The bench was released from its purchase on the floor with an unpleasant splintering of wood and ripping of carpet. The three men hoisted it up in their arms and Casey shoved people aside to create a clear path to the gate. 

   “Put that down,” one attendant said shakily. “Put it down!” 

   “One! Two!” Leo yelled above the excited chatter. It was clear what they meant to do. 

   “Stop that!” They were going to barrel down the attendant if he didn’t move away. 

   “Three!” Leo shouted, and they rammed the gate. It rattled fiercely.

   The attendant ran, figuring it ultimately was not worth it. And if the passengers got out, who knows what they would do to the men who caged them up.

   The gate bent but didn’t give. “Again!”

   With a second ram of full force, one of the panels of metal tore off its top hinges. Leo, Yuichi, and Hueso dropped the bench down on the metal to give the others easier passage. Leo stepped through and took Yuichi’s hand as he did the same. Hueso, Casey, Junior, and the rest of the passengers followed.

   “You can’t go up there! You can't do this!” said the attendant, who had apparently stuck around. Cassandra clocked him in the jaw and he dropped to the floor.

The top deck was in chaos. People knew the ship was going down and reason left them. People as a whole tend to be more dangerous when they panic. And panic they did. Attendants struggled to keep first class passengers from flooding the lifeboats. Passengers shoved at the sides of the boats or tried to climb on from windows on the lower deck. Some jumped. Whether they made it onto a boat or not, they didn’t seem to care. 

   “Get back!” Roared a security guard, panicked and pushed to the edge by all the shoving and screaming. “Or I’ll shoot you all like dogs!” He drew his gun and aimed it eye level at the people in front of him. It quieted as people backed away, some throwing their arms out to protect others. “Keep order here!” screamed the man, “Keep order.”

   He turned his back on the crowd and loaded his previously empty gun away from their eyes, instructing an attendant to man the boat. The attendant looked at him for a moment, fearful and shocked, then obediently started ushering on women and children only.

“We’re too late,” Bishop said, watching people try to climb onto an already crowded lifeboat from lower decks.

   “There are more boats down the front,” Stockman said. 

   Bishop listened to the relentless screaming, the not very distant crack of a gun firing. He watched desperate men try to saw off the ropes hanging off the pulleys. “It’s starting to fall apart. We don’t have much time.”

   Stockman left to survey the availability of the other boats. Bishop stepped away from the rail and spotted the man he was looking for. A practical man. He took up stride next to him, shoving and shouldering away the crowd when he needed to. 

   “Mr. Drako!” He said, loud enough to be heard over all the frantic pandemonium around them.

   “Mr. Bishop,” Drako said, eyeing him sideways as they walked. Their acquaintance was tenuous, built on money and insincere propositions.

   “I’m a businessman, as you know, and I have a business proposal for you.”

Leonardo, Yuichi, Casey, Junior, and Hueso all spilled onto the top deck. It was more apparent now than ever the massive slant of the ship under their feet.

   “The boats are gone!” Yuichi said, looking out at all the people clambering over the davits.

   Leo and Yuichi paced across the deck, trying to get a higher view to find anything, anything that could help them get off this sinking hunk of metal. 

   Yuichi approached an old man on the deck. “Colonel,” he pleaded over the din, “are there any boats on the other side?”

   “No, Usagi-san, but there are a couple boats still all the way forward,” the man said, gesturing toward the bow. 

   Yuichi and Leo glanced at each other briefly, and then took off in the direction of the bow, followed by Hueso and both Caseys.

“What’s the use?” asked a violinist to the rest of his four man orchestra after the resolution of the song they were playing. “Nobody’s listening to us, anyway.”

   “Well, they don’t listen to us at dinner, either,” said the violist. “Come on, let’s play. Keeps us warm.”

   “Orpheus,” the second violinist suggested, and the four began. They didn’t even have to count off.

   “Music to drown by,” Cassandra said to Hueso as they ran past the orchestra. “Now I know I’m in first class.”

Near the vacant lifeboats at the bow, Drako looked around nervously. “Where is everyone?” he asked an attendant.

   “They’re all still aft, sir.”

   “We… have an understanding , then, Mr. Drako,” said Bishop, stuffing Drako’s coat pocket with a fat bundle of money which he’d stolen from Yuichi’s aunt’s safe.

   Drako just looked at him in a curious way. He looked at the cash in his pocket and back at him. It was money that wouldn’t matter if they all died, but it was money all the same. 

Leo, Yuichi, and the others stood near the front of a bustling, shouting, pushing crowd near the bow in front of the davits. 

   “Women and children only!” shouted a security guard. He fired a gun into the air and a few people backed off, but most didn’t. “Let the women through!”

   “You better check the other side,” Leo turned and said to Hueso and Casey. 

“I found him,” Stockman said to Bishop. “On the other side, waiting for a boat. With him.”

   Bishop thought, maybe he could just let them go, hope that they would miss the boats and drown with the ship. Another part of him wanted to bring Yuichi back alive for Rose, because he knew it was what would make her happy. Another part of him attributed everything that had gone wrong to Leo and to Yuichi and wanted to see them both dead. He was a very conflicted man.

“They’re all aboard, Mr. Drako,” an attendant said. “Anyone else?”

   Drako turned and looked at Bishop. Pointedly. This was possibly his last chance.

   “God damn it all to hell.” Bishop left in the direction of Leo and Yuichi.

   “Shit,” said Stockman. 

“You could get on the boat,” Leo whispered to Yuichi. Discreetly, he pushed the tangles of Yuichi’s pale hair into his face. 

   “No,” said Yuichi firmly, turning to grasp Leo’s arm. “Even if that worked, I am not going without you.”

   “No, you have to go. Now.”

   “No, Leo.”

   “Get in the boat, Yui.”

   “ No, Leo .” Yuichi’s voice was more panicked this time, desperate.

   “Yes. Get on the boat,” Leo said, louder, hoping an attendant would hear.

   “Yes,” said Bishop. “Get on the boat, Yuichi.” 

   Both of them were startled at his sudden appearance, and pulled away slightly.

   “Oh my god, look at you, Yuichi, you look afright!” Bishop said, clicking his tongue. He’d decided to go with the ‘keep Yuichi alive’ plan. “Here, put this on, come on,” he said, ripping Leo’s seawater-soaked coat from Yuichi’s shoulders and placing his own there instead.

   Yuichi gave him a look of disgust. Leo just ushered Yuichi toward the lifeboats, figuring it was useless to even interact with someone like Bishop.

   “Go on,” Leo told Yuichi. “I’ll get the next one.” Even though they both knew there would more than likely not be a next one.

   “No. Not without you,” Yuichi insisted.

   “I’ll be alright. Don’t worry about me.”

   Bishop watched them interact. Yuichi held onto Leo like it would stop them both from drowning. Bishop suddenly wasn’t too sure if saving Yuichi would please Rose at all. Still. “I have an arrangement with an officer on the other side of the ship,” he told them. “Leonardo and I can get off safely… both of us.”

   Leo only looked at him skeptically for a moment before taking the offer for what it was— an opening. “See? I got my own boat to catch.”

   “Hurry. They’re almost full,” said Bishop.

   “Step aboard, miss!” An attendant said, grabbing Yuichi by the shoulder. 

   “Go,” Leo mouthed to him.

   Yuichi bowed his head so his long bangs would hang in his eyes. The attendant had seen him from behind. It was 1912, so generally, Europeans and Americans assumed long hair was a woman thing. He stayed that way, hair in his face, as he stepped onto the wavering lifeboat. 

   “Clear the rail, please!” the attendant called. “And, lower away!”

   The boat trembled and shook as it lowered. The women and children seated around Yuichi mumbled in fear. Yuichi locked eyes with Leo, who was standing at the rail and leaning over, watching Yuichi descend. Leo gave him a reassuring smile, but Yuichi could see through it. He wasn’t sure of this. Neither was Yuichi. If not for Leo, Yuichi would have died without ever having lived. Yuichi owed Leo that life. They didn’t get on this ship together, but they promised to get off together, and here they were, breaking their promise. What was this? What was he doing? Leo had told him that if Yuichi jumped, he would jump. Naturally, Yuichi had assumed he would do the same. There was no way in hell Yuichi was going to allow himself to get safely off this death trap without his hand in Leonardo’s own. Next to Leo stood Bishop. What if he was lying? What if he was going to do something to him? He certainly hadn’t had any qualms about leaving him chained up at the bottom of the ocean. So Yuichi made up his mind.

   “You’re a good liar,” Bishop told Leonardo.

   “Almost as good as you,” Leo said flatly. “There’s no arrangement. Is there?” 

   “No, there is. Not that you’ll benefit much from it.” Bishop looked at him coldly. This man that he irrationally blamed for all that had gone wrong in the past 24 hours. “I always win, Hamato. One way or another.”

   Leo accepted that. He wasn’t really eager to die, because he’d really like to see his siblings again, because he was going to go to Santa Monica with Yuichi, but he watched Yuichi on that boat, safe, and he was weirdly okay with it. Because Yuichi would get to keep living and maybe he would go on and experience the world like he hadn’t before, and maybe that was enough for both of them.

   Yuichi looked up at the straining pulleys, the shouting attendants, the flares brightening the dark sky. He looked at Leo. And then he stood up on the lifeboat, making it sway, and he jumped off. His stomach slammed into the metal bannister of the open balcony-esque window of the lower first class deck. It was a deck he’d walked down before with Leo. People on the boat gasped and yelled at the shaking he’d caused. Yuichi faintly heard Leo calling his name anxiously. A few attendants on the second deck scrambled to help him lift himself over the bannister. Once Yuichi was over the rail, he clawed past the attendants and started down the halls, breathlessly making his way back up to the top deck and Leo.

   Leonardo realized what Yuichi was doing too late. His heart skipped a beat when he stood up on the boat, but he was sure it stopped completely after Yuichi had abandoned it. He’d jumped onto the second deck. What was he thinking? Leo ran to find him.

They met in the middle. At the landing of the giant staircase in the dining hall. 

   “Yuichi!” Leo gasped, grabbing him and pulling him in tight. “You’re so stupid! Why’d you do that?!” he cried, pulling Yuichi away just to kiss him hard and bring him back to his chest. He wanted to be upset that Yuichi was here, that he just threw his chance of survival away. But he was here , and he was in Leo’s arms, and he thought that even if they died now at least they were together. And then he cursed himself for even thinking that. “You’re so stupid,” Leo said into Yuichi’s hair, quieter. “Why did you do that? Why?”

   Yuichi leaned away so he could see Leo’s face, touch it. “You jump, I jump. Right?”

   Leo thought he might cry. He smiled instead. “Right.”

   Yuichi hugged him again. “Oh god. I couldn’t go. I couldn’t go.”

   “It’s alright. We’ll think of something. We will.”

Bishop stared down at Yuichi and Leonardo from the top bannister that overlooked the staircase landing. His blood boiled. Watching Yuichi so close to Leonardo, Bishop was finally forced to abandon any hope that Yuichi might actually still love Rose. That his little plan to get the Dewitt-Bukater and Usagi families to both like him was fruitless. He didn’t care about marrying Rose, or about Yuichi marrying Rose, he cared about his financial stability. And maybe making it out with the heart of the ocean, but that was a bonus. But Yuichi was like Hamato. Fine. He just sealed his own fate. Yuichi and his little manwhore have made Bishop’s life a lot harder than it has had to be. He could have been off this goddamn boat already. 

   Bishop seethed. Apparently it was noticeable, because Stockman tried to pull him away from the railing, saying something about needing to find a boat to catch.

   “Stockman,” Bishop warned through his teeth, shoving Stockman off. As he did, he took Stockman’s gun from its concealed holster inside his jacket and whipped back around toward the railing. 

One second, Leo was smiling at Yuichi, and the next, he saw Bishop standing over the rail and pointing a pistol at the back of Yuichi’s head.

   “Shit, Yuichi! Move!” shouted Leo, yanking him down by the shoulders so that they were both momentarily sheltered by the staircase’s railing. 

   The first bullet cracked against the marble flooring. Leo doesn’t want to think about where it would have struck if he hadn’t been looking at the right place, at the right time. Yuichi looked at Leonardo fearfully, only half aware of what was going on. 

   “Bishop. We gotta move,” Leo said, helping Yuichi to his feet as they both scrambled away from the staircase. 

   Yuichi looked behind them at the top landing as they ran and saw that Bishop gave chase. He fired again, so Leo and Yuichi ran wherever they had the opening. In this case, it was down.

   Bishop grunted, failing to get a clear view of the two from anywhere he stood. It wasn’t the easiest to shoot somebody from on top of a staircase, and the first class decks had no scarcity of them. In fact, these staircases happened to wind. And through the vacant drop down the middle, Bishop could see the seawater in the lower levels that was surging higher every minute. It didn’t even occur to him that he had been chasing them downwards. He fired a shot that was more out of anger than anything, and it hit nothing but the water below.

   Leo and Yuichi got to water, but really, they had no other choice. 

   “Come on, Yuichi,” Leo said, squeezing Yuichi’s hand and leading him into the icy cold that they had just managed to escape. But it was this or a potential bullet in the head. And that seemed very plausible when Bishop fired another round that splashed into the water right next to Yuichi’s chest.

   Leo cursed loudly and shoved Yuichi to the front, but they both struggled to trudge through the chest-high water. It was especially hard with Bishop generously firing at them. The only thing giving them forward momentum was genuine fear and adrenaline.

   Bishop was waist deep in the water. He fired one last time and cursed when his shot splintered a wooden frame instead of Leonardo’s skull. He looked around and realized where he was. A deep, ominous creaking from the metal innards of the ship broke him out of his angry stupor and reminded him that maybe he should try to survive this.

   Bishop stepped onto the unflooded part of the staircase, hating the feel of his drenched suit. Then it hit him. He stood there, absolutely dumbstruck for a moment. He actually laughed.

   Stockman stood at the top landing, looking at Bishop with a sort of pity. “What could possibly be so funny?”

   “I put the diamond in the coat.” Bishop suddenly hurled the empty gun at the nearest wall in rage. “And I put the coat on him!” 

Leonardo and Yuichi found a staircase that led out of the water. They ran through first class dining rooms and storage rooms with cabinets full of fine china. 

   They came to a short staircase down, and the walls turned from lavish wallpaper to bleak white steel. If Leonardo had the room to think, he’d guess this was the worker’s quarters. They took the staircase down, and the water was only up to their ankles. Leo signaled for Yuichi to slow his heavy breathing and together they quieted so they could listen to the massive creaking of the ship and the worrying rushing of water. 

   Leo looked to a closed firedoor that was currently working as a waterdoor. Seawater spilled in from every part of the frame. The door groaned and clicked. He went further up the hall and saw a shut door on top of a staircase off the side of the hall, spilling water under the door. None of this was good. The firedoor all the way at the other end of the hall seemed like it was their best chance, but Leo wasn’t sure. He ran with Yuichi to what he assumed would be the opposite fire door, but there was no possible way through. It was nothing but a torrent of horrible water. Leo thought he’d never want to see water again once this was over. 

   “Go back!” Leo yelled, hoping the first firedoor had an accessible mechanism.

   They backtracked, but when the firedoor was in sight, a terrible metallic shuddering told them it was already too late. A white wall of rushing water slammed down the door at the frame and filled the hall. Leo shouted for Yuichi to run. They hooked a left down a hallway they had previously neglected to notice, but the water flowed faster than they could run. The current swept away their footing and both were at the merciless devices of seawater.

   Leo and Yuichi were slammed against a fence link security gate. The water rushed past them and slipped through the gate, chest high and rising. Emergency lights that studded the halls were desperately trying to stay on and failing, flickering on and off. It did not help the stress of the situation.

   The water rose faster than it had before. Leo fought the current and used the pipes above them to get to a ladder behind them. He helped Yuichi climb it and then got up himself just to see another chain link fence. He was tired of these. The water rose so fast now, that once they were at the gate, it was only a few seconds before it had flooded up the ladder and to their feet.

   They shook the gate and screamed for help. Someone, an attendant maybe, passed by right in that moment and began going up the stairs directly in front of the gate Leo and Yuichi were trapped behind. They called out for him to wait and he stood there, obviously torn in a moral dilemma. The man paused for a quiet moment while Leo and Yuichi pleaded helplessly over the sound of flowing water. The attendant cursed and took out his key ring, beginning to try them all. It would have been methodical if not for his trembling hands and the steady rumbling of the ship. He’d hardly tried three keys before the water was at everyone’s thighs. A bar light on the ceiling behind him sparked. He was already high strung and he jumped at the flash, dropping the keys in the water. He looked down at his hands.

   “I’m so sorry,” he said, and he left them for dead.

   “Asshole,” Yuichi gasped as he watched the attendant leave up the stairs. He was tired of screaming for help.

   Leo took a deep breath and dropped under the water, using the gate to keep himself steady in the thrashing. He stuck his hand through the gate. The water was cloudy and the seawater stung, so he blindly felt around for the keys before they could be swept away by the current. His fingertips brushed against the metal chain, but it was just out of his grasp. He shoved his shoulder against the gate so he could reach them. Only when the keys were in his hand did he come up for air.

   “I got the keys!” Leo coughed, spitting out a little seawater. “Which one is it?”

   “Try the short one!” Yuichi yelled. It was the only key on the ring he had not seen the attendant try. The water was at their shoulders.

   Leo stuck his arms back through the gate and felt around for the lock. The water reached their necks and Yuichi was pleading with Leo to hurry. Unlocking a door underwater was a lot easier said than done. He finally found the right angle to slip the key in and the lock gave with a very satisfying click. Leo took a breath and ducked his head under the water, guiding Yuichi through the gate. Yuichi swam out to the staircase; almost all of it was submerged. He stood on about the fourth step to the top and got his shoulders just above water. He turned around and yelled for Leo, whom he didn’t see yet. For a brief moment dark panic settled in his chest, but Leo surfaced just underneath the hallway ceiling, gasping for air. It was a wonder they’d both survived this far. Yuichi helped Leo up the steps and they sought out higher ground.

The main deck, as it had been for the past hour and a half, was in complete pandemonium. Some people, at this point, were figuring they’d best get it over with, and jumped off into the freezing waters in droves. 

   Drako waved a loaded gun at an angry crowd of third and first class passengers alike. Most were men that wanted onto the very few remaining lifeboats. But Drako was not looking to get trampled, and his orders were women and children only, since the boats were short by half. 

   “I’ll shoot any man who tries to get past me!” Drako yelled. 

   Casey, Junior, and Hueso stood near the front of the crowd. Casey Jr. had been old enough to be considered a man, so they wouldn’t let him on the boats. And goddamnit, Cassandra wasn’t going without him. No attendant would let them on, so she stood at the front of every crowd, yelling in outrage and fear.

   “Give us a chance to live, you asshole!” she screamed.

   “Get back!”

   “Bastard!”

   Bishop, who had found his way back to the top deck, wormed his way to the front of the crowd, just so he could personally see Drako.

   “We had a deal, damnit!” Bishop ground out. If Drako wouldn’t let him on a boat, he didn’t know how he would make it off of this ship alive. 

   Bishop physically recoiled when Drako took his money out of his pocket and threw it in Bishop’s face. “Your money won’t save you any more than it’ll save me,” he told him. “Get back! Women and children only!”

   A man climbed a rope on the right davit and Drako shot in the air just past him. He fell off the side, startled. The rest of the crowd’s fearful chattering increased. Drako’s shot had made them more unruly. Someone shoved Cassandra, making her lurch forward at Drako. On reflex, he turned and fired at her.

   “Casey!” Hueso yelled, reaching for Casey and catching her as she collapsed. Casey Jr. stood behind them wide-eyed and silent, his face suddenly a little too pale. 

   Hueso mumbled incoherently, trying to staunch the flow of blood from the bullet wound in Casey’s gut with his own hand. He patted her face, ignoring the haze in her eyes and the blood trickling from her mouth. He encouraged her to stay alive, even if she didn’t understand, because he spoke in Spanish, and she was dead. Hueso’s voice cracked as he cursed at Drako. 

   Drako watched blood slide down the deck. It looked almost black in the night. It ran fast, like water. Maybe because the ship was at such a diagonal. Or maybe it was just Drako’s imagination. Who had he shot? A woman, maybe. A mother, by the look of the gaunt boy who stared through him in disbelief. Why hadn’t those two gotten on a boat already? Was the boy too much a man? He didn’t look it, having his mother shot and killed by a stranger in front of his eyes. He looked quite like a child to Drako. Distantly, he heard the man with the accent crying over the woman’s body. Distantly, he wondered if anyone would do that to him.

   Drako stood tall and saluted the nearest crew member. Then, he put his gun’s barrel to his temple and fired a round into his skull. Better than hypothermia. His body fell backwards. It rolled off the deck and hit the water. The gathered passengers screamed or otherwise chattered uneasily. All was in disrepair.

Bishop shoved away from the crowd, the murder, and the suicide. He needed to find a boat, and his life depended on how fast he could manage that. 

   Bishop was making his way to the opposite side of the deck when he heard the wailing of a child. Fast, a horrible idea formed. He followed the crying to where a young girl sat in a corner, maybe lost. Maybe her parents had been killed. Bishop didn’t really care. He picked her up. She continued to cry, but he pushed through a crowd that he knew led to a lifeboat. 

   “I have a child!” Bishop yelled, weaving through angry passengers to get to the crewman in charge. 

He stepped up to a stern looking man and put on his best puppy-eyes face. “Please,” he said, “I’m all she has in the world.”

   “Go on,” the attendant said.

   Bishop got on the boat with the child he’d met minutes ago. Just like that, he was going to survive.

Yuichi and Leonardo ran through the great dining hall, making their way back up to the top deck. It was an uphill journey.

   “Wait, wait!” Yuichi said, grabbing Leo’s sleeve as he caught sight of someone familiar. “Mr. Draxum!”

   He was standing still, staring at something on the decorative mantle with fascination. “Oh, Usagi-san.”

   “Won’t you even try?” asked Yuichi. 

   “I’m sorry that I didn’t build you a stronger ship.”

   “It’s going fast,” said Leo. “We gotta move.”

   “Wait,” Draxum said. He pushed a life vest into Yuichi’s hands. “Good luck.”

   “And to you,” Yuichi said solemnly.

Captain Honeycutt’s socks were wet. He stood in the middle of the bridge on the top deck, and watched generous, terrible amounts of seawater spill over the railing on the right side. Where was he when the iceberg was approaching? He was telling the engine room to go faster, no doubt. Make the headlines read his ship as the largest, the fastest. He ignored an attendant warning him about the calm of the ocean night. The visibility of the bergs. Bad luck, human error, human loss. His error, his loss. A good captain takes responsibility and goes down with his ship. 

   A woman with a child in her hands came up to him. She was pleading with him, desperate. Asking him where to go. It felt to Honeycutt he was wrapped in the atmosphere around him. He didn’t answer her; he hardly even heard what she was saying.

   Captain Honeycutt began to walk towards the helm. He was stopped by a crewman who shouted his name and tried to shove a life jacket into his arms. Captain Honeycutt looked at the man blankly, almost curiously. The crewman looked at Honeycutt, then the helm, and reluctantly backed off. 

   The water in the helm room was to Honeycutt’s waist. He had been here just the day before touring a group of first class passengers, and now the cabin was at an angle with the sea floor. He took a last look at the dimming lights of the telegraphs and the wide wheels, and then locked himself in the captain’s cabin just to the right.

The orchestra began to play “Nearer My God To Thee” as half the ship drowned. The captain in his cabin, the naval architect in the grand dining hall, first and third passengers alike.

Hueso untied and removed the life jacket off of Cassandra’s body and put it on Junior, who just stared. People had started to accept that the boats were gone. Everyone began to scramble to the end of the boat that was not in the water. People that were still trying to get into the last lifeboat, which was upturned on the flooded deck, had begun to try to cut the falls off the davit. It did not work very well. Most abandoned this and ran up the deck or jumped off the side.

Leonardo and Yuichi made it to the top deck. Yuichi watched someone jump off the rail with no hesitation. He would feel sick if he wasn’t so scared. He stayed as close to Leo as possible.

   “We have to stay on the ship as long as we can,” Leo said to him. “Come on!”

   They made their way up to the bow.

Hueso and Casey were struggling to stay above water. The pressure had caved in several windows in lower decks and currents had them being tossed in every direction. It was all they could do to stay together. 

   The Titanic was already a very heavy ship, and the water didn’t help. What it did as well was pull and strain very important cords that secured the four smokestacks.⁵³ One by one, the cords on the fourth smokestack snapped, pulled raw by the current. 

   A shadow loomed over Hueso and Casey. As if drowning or hypothermia weren’t enough to worry about, they and several others were crushed by a giant decorative smokestack.

Leo and Yuichi waded through the dense cluster of panicking people who were all swarming towards the back of the ship. Leo tried to keep Yuichi in front of him so they wouldn’t be separated by the crowd. People were rushing up a staircase off the middle deck in a tight line and Yuichi and Leo were caught in the current, so they followed suit. A man ahead of them was praying out loud.

   They reached the top of the staircase. The Titanic was approaching a ninety degree angle with the sea. Over the tops of peoples’ heads, Yuichi could see people hopping over the sternmost railing and dropping into the Atlantic. He shuddered. They would likely be in the same position in a few minutes. 

   Yuichi and Leo struggled against the steep slant of the ship, every step getting harder. They needed the highest ground. They worked their way up to the rail through the pushing bodies and the screaming and the praying and the jumping. The rudder was completely out of the water, suspended in air.

   Leo reached the railing just in time, and pulled Yuichi against him with one arm, clinging to the metal with the other. He didn’t think he would be able to make it up the incline of slippery hardwood anymore. He saw people start to lose their purchases. The propellers of the ship were now out of the water.

   Yuichi looked around at the people who had made it to the railing. He saw people scared, just like him, people about to die. There were women, children, men. Most were second class and below, but Yuichi was first class and was sure it wasn’t just him. Death stripped away all titles.

   As the incline increased, even people with places at the rail started to lose their grip. Leo and Yuichi watched dumbstruck as people left and right slid from the railing, hitting furniture and other people on their way down to the water. Some people tried to climb over the rail and stand on the edge for security, but it was too early. The slant of the ship was in between spots and it was unsafe. Leo watched two men attempt this, and both fell to their deaths, one man hitting a propeller blade on the way down with a sickening, audible clank. Yuichi did not see this, because he has not seen so much death his entire life, and was burying his face in Leo’s shoulder.

   The lights on the Titanic finally shut off. It was pitch dark, save for the glint of the moonlight against the white water that was thrashed up by the people who’d already dropped into the sea. 

   The weight of the ocean on the front half of the boat had become too much, and in the middle of the ship the wood began to splinter, the iron began to rend. The Titanic split in half. It seemed to happen in slow-motion, but the stern dropped back towards the water with a thunderous crash, killing hundreds in the water, and dislodging a few more from the rail. The two remained smokestacks sloughed off into the water and the bow, which was not fully detached from the stern, started now to drag the stern down with it.  Again it rose up, faster now that the pressure was relieved. The propellers were out of the water almost immediately.  

   Leo stared back at the bow as far as he could. This was not good. “We have to move!” he shouted. The ship was a few degrees off from ninety with the sea. Leo clambered over the same light post that Yuichi had not too long ago. He used its leverage to stand against the small outside ledge and the rail. “Give me your hand! I’ll pull you over!”

   Yuichi panicked. “I can’t!” he said.

   “You have to! You’ll fall!” 

   Yuichi hesitated for only a second and then hoisted himself up with the rail to meet Leo’s hand. 

   “I’ve got you,” Leo assured him. He pulled Yuichi off the deck and over the rail, which was ironically the opposite of what he’d done a few days ago. Leo sandwiched Yuichi between his own body and the thin metal.

   “What is happening, Leo?” Yuichi asked frantically. The stern was practically straight up in the air, and the incline had nearly stopped. 

   Leo looked around, but avoided looking straight down into the dark nothing of the water. “I don’t know,” he admitted. 

   The ship creaked. It was horribly still except for the screams and splashes of the other passengers. After a few seconds, there was a shift, and the ship jolted downwards just a few feet. It was enough for all the people hanging on the deck side of the rail to fall to their deaths. Leo closed his eyes so he didn’t have to watch, but his ears provided him with enough information.

   Slowly, the stern started to creep towards the water, staying upright.

   “This is it!” Leo said, shifting uneasily. “The ship will suck us down. Take a deep breath when I say. Get to the surface and don’t stop.”

   Yuichi just nodded, watching the Atlantic grow nearer.

   “We’re going to make it, Yuichi. Trust me.”

   “I trust you.” 

   The churning waters were just in front of their faces. 

   “Ready?!” called Leo over the sound of the water. “NOW!”

   They both filled their lungs with the salty sea air, and then the ship dragged them under the surface.

   Yuichi’s ears popped under the pressure of the water, and he couldn’t open his eyes for the salt. He struggled to keep a grip on Leo’s hand, because the swirling water fought to tear them apart, but Leo felt around in the water for him and grabbed him by the life vest. In only a few seconds, however, the contact was ripped away from Yuichi, replaced only by the freezing cold water and a searing need for new air in his chest. He didn’t know where Leo was. The water was trying to throw him around. He struggled against it and tore towards the surface.

   When Yuichi reached the air his lungs clawed for breath, but immediately he used it to scream for Leo. He was in the middle of a pool of panicking, screaming, bodies. Some dead. Leo was not to be seen and he had no idea how to find him in the calamity. 

   Then, someone tried to use his head as a buoy. This stranger pushed him under the water to float himself up higher and get a better breath. It was a shock to Yuichi and he choked on seawater. He bobbed back up, ready to clock someone in the face, when he found that Leo had done it for him. 

   “Leo!”

   “Yuichi! I need you to swim! Come on!” Leo swam away from the crowd; they were a danger.

   The water really was freezing. They swam away from the crowd as best as they could. As luck and plot would have it, there was a splintered part of a door from the first class wreckage floating atop the water a ways away. 

   “Here! Yuichi, climb on.” 

   Yuichi did so with some struggle, but the buoyancy of the door decreased exponentially. Leo tried climbing on himself, but the second he put his weight on it , the door flipped over, sending both of them back into the water. 

   Leo asked Yuichi to try again and helped him back up. Visibly cold air puffed out of both of their mouths. 

   Yuichi lay on the piece of wood and put his face down close to Leo, who was leaning on it, but still in the water.

   “What about you?” Yuichi asked feverishly.

   “It’ll be alright.” Leo assured. They put their foreheads together. 

   Nearby, there was a man leaning on a piece of wreckage who had a loud whistle. He was blowing it with all of his strength and bellowing at the lifeboats to return. 

   “D’ya hear that, Yui?” Leo shivered. “The boats are coming back for us. Just hang in a little bit longer. They, they had to row away because of the suction, but they’ll be coming back.”

   A cacophony of pitiful pleas rose up around them from desperate people in the water. Screams for the boats to come back. Screams for help.

A few minutes passed. Most of the stragglers are dead of hypothermia. The man with the whistle is no longer moving, much less blowing the whistle. Not everyone is gone, there is still horrified chatter and scattered screams. 

   “It’s getting quiet,” Yuichi said weakly.

   “It’s just going… to take a couple of minutes… for them to get the… the boats over here. Don’t worry.” Leo paused every few words for his teeth to chatter. “I don’t know about you but… I intend to, to write… write a strongly worded letter… to the White Star Line about all, all this.”

   A silence stretched between them, because neither had the energy to laugh. 

   Yuichi looked Leo in the eyes. “I love you, Leo,” he said.

   Leo paused for a moment. Their silence was only broken by the screams of others and the cold-induced hitching of their breaths. 

   “No, don’t, don’t do… do that. Don’t you do that. We are not saying goodbye. This isn’t the end. Under… understand?” Leo said firmly. Ice was starting to crystallize in the water stuck in his hair, and his lips and nose were a deoxygenated blue. “You’re, you’re gonna get out of here,” he said. “You’re gonna, gonna go on, and you’re gonna… live, live your life. You’re gonna go to Santa Monica Pier. You’re gonna ride the, the… rollercoasters. You’ll learn to ride a horse the right, the right way, and you’re going to… live. You’re going to die old, and warm, warm in your bed. Not here… Not right now. Underst… and?” 

   Leo wasn’t speaking of himself. This wasn’t lost on Yuichi. He would be crying his guts out if the tears weren’t going to freeze on his face on the way out. He didn’t want to survive if it meant Leo wouldn’t. 

   “I love you… Leo,” Yuichi said again.

   “Winning that ticket, Yuichi, was the best thing that ever happened to me.” 

   Yuichi smiled with as much strength as he could. Leo brought his hand out of the water and clasped Yuichi’s. 

   “You, you gotta do this for me,” he said. “You have to promise… promise me you’ll survive. You won’t, give up. No matter what.”

   Yuichi stared into Leo’s weak, but steely gaze. “I promise.”

   “I love you, Yuichi.” Leo kissed the back of Yuichi’s hand.

   “I love you, Leo.”

Minutes passed. A single lifeboat came rowing in, with three attendants with flashlights. It was deathly quiet. There were countless bodies bobbing in the water.

   “Do you see any moving?” asked one.

   “None, sir.”

   “Check them!”

   The third attendant used the spare oar to turn over the bodies and check some of their faces. A woman stared up at him with dead, frozen over eyes. Her lifeless pallor was accentuated by the flashlight. 

   “They’re… dead, sir.”

   “Ahead easy…” 

   They tried their best to move the bodies as they rowed, but they ended up pushing through most of them. A sea of the unfortunate.

   “Careful with your oars. Don’t hit them,” the first said. “Is there anyone alive out there?!” he called out into the dark. 

   He continued to call, but there was no response. “We waited too long,” he said remorsefully. “Keep looking!”

Yuichi laid on his back on the half of the door. He was so cold. He couldn’t feel his body, much less his limbs. He could hardly feel his brain. He hardly knew where he was, or what was happening. Everything was so foggy. So cold. He had to stay awake. Leo was at his side somewhere. 

   “ Come, Josephine,” he sang shakily, trying to focus on the words, “ in my flying… machine. Going up, she goes… Up… she goes.” He remembered when Leo sang it to him on the bow of the ship. When it was still above water. He wished they could go back to that. He stared at the stars. They were beautiful. He wondered if Leo could see them. “ Come, Josephine…” 

   Yuichi’s hair was beginning to frost. He could feel himself getting weaker. Suddenly, from the dark, there was a strange white light which lit up the side of Yuichi’s face. Slowly, he turned towards it. It was a flashlight. From a boat. Leo did say that they would come. He said to hang on.

   Yuichi shook Leo’s hand, which was still in his own. “Leo,” he said weakly. “Leo,“ he said again, pushing himself up and shaking him harder, but he didn’t wake up. 

   “There’s, there’s a boat, Leo. Leo.” Yuichi looked at him, and noticed the frost on his eyelids and the droop of his head, and his hopeful smile dropped immediately. 

   He shook him harder, saying his name, his voice catching. No, this wasn’t right, this wasn’t supposed to happen. When did it happen? How could he have not know it’d happened? The boat was right there and it had happened. They were going to drink beer. They were going to go to Santa Monica. They were going to live. No. Leo. The boat was beginning to pass him by. 

   “There’s a boat, Leo,” he cried.

   An immense, chest crushing feeling of hopelessness overcame Yuichi. Leo had gotten him this far. He didn’t know what he would do without him. He didn’t know what to do. The boat was leaving. Leo was dead. He laid his head on his arm, waiting for his turn.

   Yuichi laid still for a moment. 

   Then he remembered the promise he made to Leo. He was going to live. He promised. He promised. 

   He pushed himself back up weakly. “Come back!” he said with all of his might, but it came out as no more than a whisper. His voice was more than hoarse from the cold.

   He repeated it over and over, but the boat was out of earshot. 

   He released Leo’s cold hand. It was a great effort to do this, because his blood had all but frozen. 

   “I promised,” Yuchi said to him. “I love you, Leo.”

   He let go of his hand and watched him sink.

   Yuichi slid off the door, and was surprised all over again at how cold he could really be. With a great deal of struggle, he swam to the dead man with the whistle. The first few tries were shaky and hardly audible, but he found his adrenaline, and his strength. The boat turned around and a flashlight shone on him.

Yuichi was yanked onto a boat with only five other survivors. He was freed of his freezing life vest and given a blanket. And then he waited. He watched the stars.

   In the morning, the survivors were hauled up by the Carpathia. The seven hundred or so unplanned visitors milled about on Carpathia’s deck. Yuichi was one of them. He sat wrapped up in a blanket on the steerage deck, with his hair in his face, hoping to god he didn’t run into Rose, or her mother, or Bishop, or Big Mama, or even his own aunt.

It was raining when they arrived in New York. Yuichi stared up at the Statue of Liberty. He’d never seen it before. He was supposed to see it with Leo. They had made plans.

   A man came up to him with a clipboard. “Can I take your name, please, sir?”

   “Hamato,” Yuichi said. “Hamato Yuichi.”

   “Thank you,” the man said, walking off.

An alley side doorway in New York. That is where Usagi Yuichi stood now, several months later, wavering on the great precipice between knocking on the door and fleeing. He didn’t know if he could do this. But a few more seconds of listening to his heart beat, knowing he was alive, really alive , he knew he owed it to him. To his memory. Leo said he was going to make it home to his family, so Yuichi had to do it for him before he could get along with his own life. It was only the way of things.

   He knocked.

   He was surprised at how quickly someone answered. He was met with an incredulous, half-lidded eye mostly shrouded by the shadow from inside and the safety of the door’s locking chain. 

   A woman, he thought. Her eyes gleamed. Like Leo’s. This must be his sister. Younger or older, he didn’t know. Her name, he didn’t know. He didn’t know a lot of anything, and it would be his life’s biggest regret that he didn’t meet Leo sooner. But that he met him at all was also what he felt was his greatest blessing. 

   Yuichi heard a faint voice. “Woah, who is that?” It didn’t seem like hers. Someone else must be watching from inside.

   “What are you doing here?” Leo’s sister said. It sounded more like a demand than a question. 

   “Hello,” said Yuichi calmly. “My name is Usagi Yuichi. I am a friend of Hamato Leonardo. And I understand he lived here?”

   When the door slammed shut, Yuichi’s stomach dropped and he was afraid he had gotten the wrong place. But then he heard the hasty click of the chain lock and the door swung wide again.

   Yuichi could see the woman in full now, and there was no mistaking her or her likeness to Leo. Three boys near Leonardo’s age hovered behind her and the more he looked, the more he was sure. Looking at them like this made everything harder to bear.

   “Leo?” she asked, her tone changed in an instant. “Do you know where he is?”

   Yuichi looked at the girl somberly, and then past her at the other boys. He saw Leo in all of them. The proud way they held themselves and their bright, fearless eyes. 

“Do you know where he is?”

He looked at his feet. What a journey it had been. He would not be alive if not for Leo, he was sure. Not in the same way. Yuichi pushed back a sudden swell of emotion and caught the girl’s eyes again.

   “I think maybe it’s better I come inside,” he said. “I have a story to tell you all.”

-

okapijon’s homemade glossary of The Ship of Dreams vocabulary

(this is just like for the nautical terms + other things like the spanish. just an extra thing I felt like doing! reminder that I am definitely not a naval Anything and mostly i don’t know what I’m talking about. I just did a lot of this and that research colon three)

1: 2,229 - The amount of people aboard the Titanic’s maiden voyage.

2: “¿Conoces a alguien?” - Spanish for “do you know someone?” Special thanks to my Venezuelan buddy who speaks better Spanish than I do.

3: bow - “forward part of the hull of a ship or boat, the point that is usually most forward when the vessel is underway” (Wikipedia).

4: bulbous bow - “protruding bulb at the bow (or front) of a ship just below the waterline” (Wikipedia).

5: calva - Spanish for bald (feminine)

6: cotillion - a formal ball, also a word used for several types of dances, most French.

7: stern - the rear of a boat

8: Philadelphia Society (for Promoting Agriculture) - basically, a bunch of rich people that practically founded Philadelphia (the city in Pennsylvania) around 1787 and it’s the oldest agricultural society in the US. (Summarized from Wikipedia and other sources). I just took this line from the movie because I didn’t want to change it to fit Yuichi since it already fits Rose and it’s just the one line.

9: I’m too lazy to rewrite this paragraph but it’s out of place and vague. It’s referencing how Mr. Ismay convinces the captain to max out the engines so that the ship makes it to the destination before the previous estimated time in the interest of having headlines read the Titanic as the biggest AND fastest ship. This action makes it harder to avoid the iceberg.

10: squid boat - common name for a commercial fishing boat designed specifically for catching squid. Also called “seiners” (for the use of seines).

11: Hakama/obi - “An obi is a belt of varying size and shape worn with traditional Japanese clothing and uniforms . . . Hakama are a type of traditional Japanese clothing. . . . Hakama are tied at the waist and fall approximately to the ankles. They are worn over a kimono specially adapted for wearing hakama, known as a hakamashita” (Wikipedia).

12: haori - “The haori is a traditional Japanese hip- or thigh-length jacket worn over a kimono” (Wikipedia).

13: Brobdingnagian - (braab•dig•nag/ee•uhn). Really big. Comes from like the 18th century and is a reference to an island where everything was giant. It’s something Big Mama would say trust.

14: steerage - the cheapest ticket accommodations, third class or lower

15: tramp steamers - “A boat or ship engaged in the tramp trade is one which does not have a fixed schedule, itinerary nor published ports of call, and trades on the spot market as opposed to freight liners” (Wikipedia).

16: newel - central pillar of a winding staircase, supports the handrail/bannister

17: Ullieann pipes/bodhrán - Traditional Irish instruments. Ullieann pipes are the national bagpipe of Ireland. The bodhrán is a big Irish frame drum.

18: SS Noordam - the name of a passenger cruise ship

19: baluster - “a short pillar or column, typically decorative in design, in a series supporting a rail or coping” (Oxford dictionary).

20: davit - a small crane on the side of the ship that holds the mechanism which lowers a lifeboat.

21: aft - toward the stern

22: yukata - “unlined cotton summer kimono, worn in casual settings” (Wikipedia).

23: the bridge - “a room or platform of a ship from which the ship can be commanded” (Wikipedia).

24: port side - left side of a ship (when facing the bow)

25: liftman - the attendant who operates really old or fancy elevators for guests

26: fire room - “referred to the space, or spaces, of a vessel where water was brought to a boil. The steam was then transmitted to a separate engine room, often (but not always) located immediately aft, where it was utilized to power the vessel” (Wikipedia).

27: stoker - A worker in the fire room that feeds the furnaces and keeps the ship moving. Called so because they stoke the fires.

28: cargo bay/hold - space for carrying goods in the ship’s compartment. In the case of a commercial liner, it would carry luggage, like the Renault.

29: 1912 Renault - A really old car, but in 1912, it was really new. 

30: partition - The window between the passenger carriage and the driver compartment in old cars. Also the name for the same in things like limos and police cars.

31: crow’s nest - “a shelter or platform fixed near the top of the mast of a vessel as a place for a lookout to stand” (Oxford dictionary).

32: barrelman - Someone working in the crow’s nest (the barrel) as a lookout.

33: mudsill - a person of the lowest social level. 

34: starboard - opposite of port, the right side of a ship (when facing the bow)

35: helmsman - steers the ship

36: telegraph - “a system for transmitting messages from a distance along a wire, especially one creating signals by making and breaking an electrical connection” (Oxford Dictionary).

37: astern - relating to the stern (back) of a ship

38: rudder - “a flat piece hinged vertically near the stern of a boat or ship for steering” (Oxford Dictionary).

39: hard over - all the way. (the rudder was turned as far starboard as possible, hard over.)

40: dampers - a vent that slows/stops the steam flow to the engine when shut.

41: reciprocating engine - “an engine in which one or more pistons move up and down in cylinders; a piston engine” (Oxford Dictionary).

42: hull - watertight body for passenger accommodation and cargo enclosure.

43: sound the ship - “the process of determining the depth of water in a tank or under a ship” (Wikipedia). For checking if the ship has been holed & more.

44: keel - “a structural beam that runs in the middle of the boat from bow to stern. The purpose of the keel is to help give the boat greater stability and control while moving forward” 

45: forepeak - “the extreme forward part of the interior of a hull” (dictionary.com).

46: bulkhead - upright wall. In this case, the bulkheads are used for the mechanism that makes the Titanic “unsinkable.”

47: founder - (of a ship) sink.

48: CQD - a distress signal. “All stations, distress.” General call (CQ) Followed by (D)istress.

49: knots - nautical mile per hour

50: Master at Arms - runs the security of a ship

51: Porthole - nautical window

52: “Abre la puta reja gordo cabron” - “Open the fucking gate, you fat bastard”

53: smokestacks: emits excess smoke. The fourth smokestack on the Titanic was actually purely for show, and wasn’t functional. It was added to make it look more symmetrical.