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Shion arrived half an hour before the time the committee set to begin setup for the festival. As he approached, though, he saw Torey dragging tables and chairs on his own. Shion shifted into higher gear and pedaled as hard as he could. By the time he reached the truck and dismounted, his legs felt like they'd collapse underneath him. He had to hold onto the outside of the truck and stagger over to Torey.
Torey finished setting up the table he'd been carrying, then wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. He was already getting burned in the early morning sun, pink appearing on the tops of his ears and the tip of his nose.
"Good morning, Chairman!" Torey called out.
"I didn't realize I was late," Shion said apologetically. He shook out his legs until he was able to walk without support.
"You're not!" Torey insisted. "Didn't you get my message? I know you were at the office all night. Ruka and I agreed we could handle set-up. She went to pick up some supplies. You should rest."
Shion had seen the message. He'd ignored it. "I'm happy to help."
"I know you are, we just – oh, there she is!"
A dusty pick-up truck pulled right up to the table Torey had just placed. People hung out the sides and back of the bed, piled on top of boxes and flags. Ruka jumped out of the driver's seat and opened up the tailgate so her passengers could get out. She reached in after them to pull out a huge rainbow flag.
"Look what Amal found!" Ruka announced. The flag was twice her height, so she could only pull half of it off the truck.
Amal climbed out of the passenger seat of the truck. She nodded at the flag. "I forgot we had that. We used to hang it at the shelter, but we must have taken it down for cleaning at some point and never put it back up." She picked up a corner of the flag. "It's good we're doing this. People forget too easily."
Shion smiled. When Yoming had proposed a Pride festival as part of the education and cultural revitalization efforts of the Bureau he led, Shion had worried that devoting resources to a festival would take away concentration from more important efforts. More than that, though, he'd worried that people like Nishata and Amal would think it was frivolous. He'd been surprised that their responses had been immediately enthusiastic. Ason had complained about the venue, but he'd come around quickly enough: he had a stage constructed in the square that West Block community could reuse for future events. Kihou had convinced many market vendors to relocate to the festival for the day, while Nishata had called a friend's band to perform. Everyone had stepped up.
Among the vendors, the Restructural Committee would rotate between information booths. Yoming had created a games for children and adults to educate them on parts of No. 6's history that had been hidden, complete with a prize wheel. Lana , with a focus on Pride celebrations in different regions.
Torey continued his attempts to convince Shion to go home and rest before the festival started, but Shion refused. He assigned the task of engineering a windbreak to himself so he could keep all the pamphlets from flying away until Ason showed up with a better solution.
Nezumi held a crumpled quarter-sheet of paper covered in rainbows. It was poorly designed; Nezumi could barely make out the white text against the bright colors.
First Annual Greater No. 6 Pride Festival, the flyer read, Please join us in Rose Square for the a celebration of our community's diversity.
"What the fuck is Rose Square?" Nezumi asked.
Inukashi shrugged their shoulders. "That's what they're calling that one part of the market. You know."
"Not ringing a bell." Nezumi shoved the paper back into Inukashi's hands.
"Well, the military shot the hell out of it it. If you don't remember that part, you're really screwed." Inukashi laughed, folding the paper unevenly to shove it into one of their pockets. "So when they rebuilt the market, they moved it over 'cause there wasn't time to really clean it up. But then Shion had them rip up the rocks and stuff. Now it's a public square, I guess."
Nezumi arched an eyebrow. "So they're dancing on their graves."
"If that's how you want to put it." Inukashi leaned against the wall, revealing a worn-through sole in their shoes. "They built a memorial, too, though. It's a whole thing."
"Sure." Nezumi brushed dust off his shirt. Every effort to find something to hate about this new version of the city had been a dead end, and he was annoyed with himself for continuing to try. Didn't he want Shion to succeed? "So, what's Greater No. 6?"
Inukashi looked at Nezumi like he'd just asked the most obvious question in the world, but they started explaining when Nezumi didn't flinch. They made walls with their hands, moving them around as they talked. "There's No. 6, and then there's everything around No. 6. The Restructural Committee wants it all to be No. 6, and then we'd call No. 6 the Old City or whatever. I think they're trying to include the forest and stuff, too. So, yeah, the larger area around No. 6."
"That's stupid," Nezumi scoffed, though he found he didn't hate the contrived naming convention as much as he thought he did.
Inukashi shrugged again. "Take it up with Shion."
Nezumi kept his face flat and pointed at the pocket Inukashi had stuffed the paper into. "You got that from him?"
"Nah, Mama Karan gave it to me. She thinks I should take little Shion." Inukashi patted the head of the dog by their side as they said their child's name.
The tenderness made Nezumi uncomfortable. "And you brought it to me because...?"
"Huh?" Inukashi "It's for gay people, so–"
"Excuse me?" Nezumi cut them off.
Inukashi shook their head. "Mama Karan said that's not an insult. Anyway, Shion's been working on this thing for months. It's one of those committee initiatives. Maybe you wanna stop by. I dunno. Just thought you'd wanna know. It's today."
Nezumi stood and crossed the room to open the door. He gestured for Inukashi to leave. "Good talk. Bye."
Karan jumped up from her seat in a standing ovation, clapping her hands and whooping as Lili ran into the bakery, her rainbow tulle skirt trailing behind her. Moments later, Renka trailed in after her, carrying little Getsuyaku. The toddler was asleep, drooling on her rainbow bib.
"Your mommy made this for you, didn't she?" Karan asked, admiring the skirt.
"I made it!" Lili spun around, twirl her skirt to show Karan all of the colors. Her smile was as wide as her face, her hair tied up with sparkly pink knocker ties.
"I'd say it was a team effort." Renka amended. "She doesn't even know what the festival is about," Renka whispered to Karan. "She just saw the rainbows on the poster."
Karan laughed. "She knows! She told me she knew a secret, and then she climbed up on her chair and whispered in my ear: sometimes boys fall in love with other boys."
Renka hiked Getsuyaku up higher on her hip. "What? She's never said anything like that to me!" Renka shook her head in disbelief. "Kids really are like sponges."
"I hope I didn't overstep. I told her that sometimes girls love girls, too, and that some people aren't girls or boys. You should have seen her face!" Karan covered her mouth and laughed. It was beautiful that Lili could experience this at her age. She wished she'd made more of an effort with Shion. The city had flattened everyone's identity down to that of a citizen, but Karan could have explained that there was so much more to life. She should have told him that diversity should be embraced, not erased. But that could have been interpreted as criticism of city policy, and she'd never been brave enough to talk to speak out, not even alone with her own son. She'd always tried to show him that she loved his differences, but she should have said those things out loud instead of just hoping he understood. She'd do better with Lili, and with Getsuyaku and little Shion. She cleared her throat. "And I told her it didn't have to be a secret. That's as much as we got to before she lost interested and asked to help me mix the muffin batter."
Lili stopped spinning and put her hands on her hips. "I know you're talking about me."
"Of course we are! How could we not talk about your mind-blowing creativity?" Renka beamed at her daughter. She handed Getsuyaku off to Karan's waiting arms and – with some effort – lifted Lili onto her shoulders. "The stroller is outside," Renka told Karan as she wobbled through the front door.
"Duck!" Karan shouted to Lili, who wasn't used to being tall enough to smack her head against the door frame.
Amal forced Shion to take a break a few hours in. Despite the collaborative of the nature of the Committee, Shion still harbored some fear of the Security Bureau, and Amal was wearing a badge, flanked by uniformed staff. She was trying to show the community that the reformed Security Bureau could be a resource for everyone, but it made Shion nervous. They weren't even the same uniforms, and Amal definitely wasn't going to order the officers to arrest him for working too hard, but they had a chilling effect on him nonetheless. So, Amal succeeded in scaring him away from the information booths for a while. He caught up with his mom and Inukashi, and they talked and strolled the stalls.
"You missed Lili," Karan scolded. "She waved to you when we passed the booth earlier, but you didn't see her. She was very disappointed. Luckily, we found her one of the prize booths right after that. But I'd be prepared for some pouting next time she comes into the bakery."
Shion laughed.
When they went to watch the band perform, though, Shion had to split off with an excuse about being hungry. Little Shion had been pointing at the stage for ten minutes, and he didn't want to keep the child from enjoying the performance. But Shion just couldn't handle hearing someone sing today. Not here.
Building something beautiful here would be good, in the long run, Shion was sure. But it hurt. It must hurt Ruka even more, yet she was smiling and serving up free snow cones as if she didn't mind it at all. It wasn't like this was the first time the West Block market had been relocated and rebuilt, so she must have been much more used to it than Shion was. She pushed a snow cone into his hands and turned him away when he tried to join her at the health services booth.
Shion sighed to himself. He needed something to do to keep from thinking about Nezumi, and about the Manhunt. But mostly about Nezumi. He licked his snow cone in defeat and pulled out his phone to scroll through his emails.
Nezumi pulled his scarf tight around his head. This was definitely a bad idea. He was probably more likely to be recognized near the market than anywhere else. Yet he wanted to see what Shion had built, and he convinced himself that he'd be fine if he kept his face covered. He heard the festival before he saw it: laughter came in waves over the sound of music. It was as if Shion had brought the life back into this place that Nezumi had imagined as scorched and dead. It was much like the groups he'd come across outside of the cities – people thriving in the most unlikely places. He knew it wasn't just Shion building these spaces. Of course he knew that. But he couldn't help thinking of it as Shion's city.
As Nezumi got closer, he saw the entire square decked out in rainbows and sparkles. The festival was full of people of all ages. Children ran around playing with bubbles. Nezumi wondered how many of them were orphans. They were happy, though. They were allowed to be kids like so few children in the West Block got to be.
He didn't go into the festival, but he watched it from afar. There was something about seeing the celebration that squeezed at his heart. It wasn't just the hope that he'd see Shion in the crowd, that he'd at least be able to see him, even if they couldn't speak or touch yet. He'd never really cared about sexuality or gender. When would he have had the time? But what if he could go? What if he could enjoy it? What if he could walk beside Shion, hand in hand? It felt terrifying to even think it.
Maybe someday, Nezumi thought as he turned to leave.
Lana grabbed Shion off the bench, spilling his melted snow cone onto the ground and almost knocking his phone out of his hand.
"Come on!" she shouted over the music. "We're taking a group picture."
She managed to walk faster than he could even in her tall heels, and even though she seemed to have had a bit to drink. They way she dragged him along reminded him of Safu. Would Safu have enjoyed the festival? He was sure she would have. He wished she could have seen it. He wished it didn't hurt so much to think of her.
One of the tables had been turned into a photo booth, the makeshift backdrop already almost completely covered with committee members and bureau staff. As Lana led him to the table, more hands reached out for him. They maneuvered him into the space in the center of the frame; right in front of Ason, who stood a whole head above Shion. Ason clapped him on the shoulder, and everyone squeezed against everyone else, their boas shedding feathers and glitter rubbing off onto everyone's shirts.
"Go ahead," Kihou told the photographer. "We're all here."
"Everyone say 'Happy Pride!'" the photographer shouted.
"Happy Pride!" the committee shouted as the camera clicked.