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Pete takes one bite from his lunch, closes his eyes, and groans in blissful satisfaction. “Ahh, these noodles are so damn good!” He digs his chopsticks back into the bowl and eats with the ferocity of someone who hasn’t done so in a while.
“Why haven’t I gone to this place before I met you?” Pete mumbles around a mouthful of food. “You just know the best spots in Chinatown, huh?”
Pete chews and listens. When he is met with silence, he continues.
“I think they put something in this that makes it so freaking delicious,” Pete says as he stirs the noodles into the pool of broth at the bottom of the bowl. “Some kind of magic stronger than MSG. I wonder if there’s power like that that exists in the world. I guess you would know.”
Pete stabs his chopsticks into a dumpling and rips it in half. He picks up one of the halves, raising it in the air as proof. “Here’s yours so you don’t whine about not getting the last piece.”
Nothing but a steady, mechanical beeping answers. The sound seeps into the periphery of Pete’s attention until it steadily pervades the entirety of his mind. Now, it’s all Pete can hear.
“Your food’s getting cold, you know.”
A takeaway bowl of noodles sits on the bedside table, the steam that once wafts in silvery ribbons into the air long gone. It remains untouched. Pete stands from his chair and stirs the noodles back to life.
“I got your favorite, so wake up.”
Pete swallows the heavy ache that makes a home in his throat.
“Wake up and eat with me, Niran.”
Ploy, on her last night in the hospital, finds herself peeking silently into the hospital room of her apparent savior.
Sleep has not been easy since she woke up from what her nurses call a comatose state, unexplainable by medicine. It’s as if she front-loaded all of her restful nights and is cursed to suffer insomnia for the same number of days. She’s been slinking through the hallways, trying to find ways to entertain herself, when she spots a familiar name on the electronic patient board on the wall.
“Ah,” she mutters. “That’s him.”
So, she decides to meet this stranger.
Her P’Pete claims this man pulled her from the depths of a battlefield demon’s stomach. He explains that this man lost his spirit as a result of his mutinous actions. He says this man released a great evil back into the universe just to save her life.
Ploy nods when her P’Pete tells her all this. She doesn’t fully believe the fantastical elements of his stories, but it seems to matter a lot to her brother, so she acquiesces. But in the back of her mind, she knows something is amiss. She is level-headed and logical, as most law students have to be in their practice, and there’s simply no sense in a shamanic master choosing the lives of a few people over the fate of millions. Who is she to tip the scales of right and wrong in her favour? She is of no importance to this powerful being that executes the tenets of heaven, and not a sliver of consequence for him to bend the will of whoever god he serves. If this man truly did what her brother claims he did, it is surely not for her sake.
Ploy steps into the foyer of the room and snicks the door closed behind her. She finds her saviour, as still as the moon in the sky, on the hospital bed. What she doesn’t expect, however, is the figure that is curled over the railing. He sleeps with his forehead pillowed against his arm, and a hand dangling over the metal divider. She finds her brother’s fingers in the spaces between her saviour’s own.
Ploy hugs her sweater around her body, an unexpected exhale passing through her lips: it’s surprisingly easy to understand the picture she sees.
There may be chunks of missing paragraphs, but the entirety of the story unfurls before her eyes like pages of a book. There are redacted sentences and spaces reserved for words that are still unrealized, but the plot unfolds alongside its characters’ motivations. The latest page, the one she is currently witnessing, brims with such tenderness that she feels like an intruder.
She hurriedly takes a blanket from the recliner by the wall and drapes it over her brother’s back. She walks towards the door as silently as she can, but before leaving, casts one last glance at the stranger on the bed. It’s odd to know someone’s most intimate secret despite knowing nothing about him beyond his name.
“I know you didn’t save me because of me,” Ploy whispers, “But thank you, still.” She pauses. “Now find your way back to my brother. I look forward to meeting you in this lifetime, not the next.”
With that, Ploy steps out of the room and disappears into the hall.
Pete closes his eyes. He imagines a face.
The eyes come first. He conjures black pupils with downturned corners, just slightly visible through a mop of thick, black hair. The hair grows into a shape comparable to that of a button mushroom.
Pete presses his lips together. He almost laughs.
Then, he materializes the steep slope of a nose, interrupted only by a small bump on its bridge. Slightly cracked, dry lips pull into a fond smile in his mind. Two ‘c’s curve into ears, that morph into sharp jawlines, that intersect into a strong, shadowed chin. He thinks of an Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. He envisions the low rumbling of the voice that accompanies it.
You will get through this safe and sound. Trust me.
A longing ache pierces through the picture in Pete’s mind and straight to his heart. He twirls around his finger the gold, wispy thread that hangs from his wrist and tugs: the tension never comes, only a slack emptiness taking its place.
“It won’t work if you’re in different realms,” says a disembodied voice.
Pete lets his eyes flutter open. The walls of Niran’s hospital room corporealize around him.
Fei stands by the door, seemingly having watched Pete for the past few minutes. Her structured blazer and perfectly tailored skirt antagonize the disorganized amalgam of emotions on her face. She holds a plastic bag of guavas in one hand.
Fei walks in and places the fruit onto Niran’s bedside table. She says quietly, “He’s too far away.”
“I wanted to try,” Pete says under his breath. He gazes down at his wrist, the golden thread twinkling out of existence.
Fei takes a seat on one of the empty chairs by Niran’s bedside. There’s a lilt of bitterness when she says, “I guess not everything goes your way.”
“Are you mad at me, P’Fei?” Pete asks. He settles in the other empty chair across from her.
Fei pins Pete with a sharp yet curious gaze. “Don’t you feel the same towards me?” she asks. “You are surrounded by traitors. We all knew about the souls.”
“I was,” Pete admits. “I was as angry as the wind.”
Fei raises a brow. “What do you mean?”
“As angry as the wind,” Pete repeats gently. “When a force of nature rages your way, it’s going to knock the air out of you and sweep you off your feet. It could pin you to the ground until fury is the only thing that exists in the world.”
Fei’s expression softens. The words have a familiar ring to them, as if Pete is the mouthpiece to words spoken from the great beyond.
Pete could smile at Fei’s recognition. “But to grasp the wind and wrestle with it is impossible. All you can do is let it pass through.” He leads forward. “I let it pass through. For him.”
Fei follows Pete’s eyes to Niran’s sleeping form on the bed.
“You all are my way of getting him back. And if I have to put my trust in every single one of you again to do that, I will.”
To trust someone who's proven to be untruthful and traitorous: Fei doesn’t know what to say to something so objectively foolish. It’s foolish and selfless. It’s symptomatic of love.
“I’m mad at you for making Niran betray me,” Fei quietly admits. She sets free her truth before she has the chance to trap it behind her teeth. “We’ve always had our differences, he and I. But we’ve never turned our backs on each other.” A manicured finger flutters over the corner of Fei’s eye, brushing wetness from it. “The moment he put his fist through that seal, I lost him. I realized there is indeed a lie that he could make against me.”
Pete gazes at Fei with understanding. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Fei takes a deep breath. “Don’t apologize. It was an illogical thought.” She lets her gaze linger over the motionless face of her brother. “Niran has never seen things in black and white like most of us in our profession do. He has always existed in shades of gray. His decisions are his, and he knows the consequences of every action he takes.” She shakes her head. “I’ve never seen motivation like this, though.”
Pete tilts his head curiously. “Niran’s motivation is to help.”
“Niran’s motivation is Niran’s motivation,” Fei corrects Pete. “It is unpredictable, and always depends on the whims of his heart.”
“Is that.. bad?”
Fei leans forward, elbows propped onto her knees. “Have you ever wondered why Niran was cast out from our organization?” she asks. “A Wu who operates free of the will of heaven will always be a liability. With you, Niran operates not only free of heaven, but free of reason.”
Another ache pierces through Pete’s chest, unnamed this time. It is something more profound than longing. Its newness frightens Pete.
“There is only one thing that could deprive human beings of logic and reason.” Fei leans back onto her chair, fingers threaded intimately across her lap. “Care to take a guess?”
Pete doesn’t want to take a guess. It's too important a matter with which to play games. “What’s Niran’s motivation for helping me?” he croaks, throat dry with fear or anticipation, he does not know.
Fei takes a guava and starts peeling it with a small fruit knife.
“You can ask him when he wakes up.”
Pete groans as he spills onto the chair next to Niran’s bed.
In the darkness of two AM in the morning, he stubs his toe on a table leg and almost topples a vase of flowers onto the floor. The maze from the door to Niran’s bedside is almost impossible to traverse through the haze of alcohol that makes Pete’s vision swim.
Pete huffs a tired exhale. He takes Ji Hao’s flask and squints at it.
“Focus.”
“I’m trying, phi.”
“Not good enough.”
“I have a lot on my mind -”
“Then, empty it. Empty it now before this ritual because if you don’t go in with one hundred percent certainty, neither you nor Niran will ever come back out.”
Pete takes a long swig from the flask. He winces at the strength of it; he can’t believe this is Ji Hao’s form of hydration on most days. He imagines Niran’s disgusted scowl at the sight of him emulating a drunkard’s drinking habits. He wishes Niran would scold him to the ends of the earth. He would take anything over this dismal silence.
He lets the same silence permeate the space between him and Niran’s sleeping form before cracking it with the tip of his pointed words.
“Hey, Niran,” Pete mutters. “Do you love me?”
He is met with nothing, of course. He takes another swig of liquor and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “I love my sister. Fei loves you. Is that the way you love me?”
Pete leans over the railing, chin perched on his forearm as his head lolls from side to side. He pins a drunken, fearless gaze on Niran’s peaceful face. “How much do you love me?” he challenges. “Enough to befriend a gambler and a delinquent? Enough to buy his house and live with him? Enough to bind your soul to his so you can save him from being lost forever?”
Pete grits his teeth and grasps the fabric of Niran’s shirt. “Answer me, asshole..” He presses his forehead against the cold metal of the railing. “Wake up and answer me..” Pete’s grip on Niran’s clothing haltingly loosens until it becomes a palm resting over Niran’s chest.
“This is how you always are,” Pete accuses under his breath. “You never tell me anything.”
“Not your memories, not your plans. Neither your thoughts nor feelings.” Pete sniffs, vision blurring behind the wet glassiness of his eyes. “What kind of a soulmate is that?”
Niran’s chest rises and falls under Pete's palm. Pete blinks blearily, lulled by the steady rhythm. Niran’s heart thumps against the tips of Pete’s fingers.
“I’m sorry I lost my trust in you so easily,” Pete whispers. “I’m sorry I screamed, and I’m sorry I shoved you on the ground. I’m sorry I made you betray your friends and family for the sake of mine. And I’m sorry if I made you feel like you were alone again.”
Pete pats Niran’s chest soothingly. “You’re not alone. Whether I’m happy with you or sad, or unbelievably angry that I can’t see straight.. You will always find me at the other end of this thread.”
Pete starts to lose the battle against liquor-addled slumber. His eyelids grow as heavy as the heart he carries in his chest.
“Come back to me, asshole,” he murmurs sleepily. He keeps his hand against Niran’s heart. “Come back to me and tell me what you should tell me yourself.”
Pete’s eyelids flutter weakly, lashes inching closer and closer to each other until the darkness of sleep finally swallows Pete’s mind whole.
Two nurses dressed in bright white scrubs stand by the door of a patient room. They find a man at the patient’s bedside and a wooden flask lying askew on the linoleum floor.
“He’s drunk, right?” One nurse whispers. “Should we call security?”
The other nurse cocks her head to the side as if to view the scene from a different perspective. “He was drunk last night. He’s probably mostly sober now. Plus, he’s not really disturbing anybody.”
“Is he on the visitor’s list?” The first nurse asks.
The second nurse nods. “Yeah. A friend, I think.”
“Looks a bit more than that.”
“Probably, judging by the amount of time he’s spent watching over the patient.”
The second nurse’s gaze flickers over the picture before her eyes. She presses her lips together in thought before moving towards the patient’s bed with intention. Carefully, she reaches between the sleeping visitor and the bed, pushes a lever, and tentatively brings the railing down. All he gets from the semi-sober visitor is a sleepy grunt as he finally settles closer to the patient and on the empty edge of the mattress.
The first nurse smiles. “That’s nice of you to do.”
The visitor shifts in his sleep in an attempt to find the most comfortable spot on his side of the bed, his face now bracketed by the patient’s open hand. If the patient isn’t in such a mysterious, comatose state, one flicker of his fingers would find his visitor’s cheek. The visitor’s hand remains over the patient’s heart.
“Let’s give them a moment,” The second nurse says. “I’ll come back later.”
“Okay.”
Both nurses step out of the sunlight-bathed room and close the door behind them with a quiet snick.
Pete holds the incense to the flame. He takes it out, inhales, and blows its burning to extinction. Thin ribbons of silver smoke curl upward in the air.
White ash falls on the floor. Pete ignores it and kneels on the ground’s wooden surface, holding the incense before him. He closes his eyes.
“Pete,” Fei’s disembodied voice says. “Are you ready?” She holds her golden bell in her shaking hands. Pete knows this because he could hear the ever-so-slight tinkling of the minuscule clapper against the metal bow.
Pete lets Niran find him in his mind. The picture is there in his head, a perfect recreation from Niran’s head down to his toes. The Niran in Pete’s imagination raises his wrist and shows his end of their golden thread; Pete twirls his fingers firmly around his.
Come back to me, asshole. Just come back to me.
“I’m ready,” Pete mutters.
Pete hears Fei take a long, deep breath.
“Okay. Let’s start.”