Work Text:
"I didn't know you could cook," Nezha said curiously.
"I used to all the time. No one else was going to feed Kesegi."
"Kesegi?"
"My little brother." The memory of his face rose up in Rin's mind. She forced it back down. She hadn't seen him in four years. She didn't know if he was still alive, and she didn't want to wonder.
"I didn't know you had a little brother," Nezha said.
"Not a real brother. I was adopted."
— The Dragon Republic, p. 329
"Tell me what you know about Rin."
Kesegi glances up from where he's sat, criss-cross, on the floor of his cell. There's a man, about his sister's age, standing at the door, light illuminating him from behind. He can see the glint of scars pressed into his cheek, mottled red and angry. As he steps further into view, Kesegi can see his beauty, and knows that this is one of the famed (and evil) Yin family.
"I don't talk to strangers," Kesegi tells him, partly because it's true (Mother had barely let him talk to the customers until age ten, when Rin had left), and partly because he wants to be difficult. He's been locked away for nearly a week now, so he can tell that they're not planning on hurting or killing him yet. That gives him a bit of leverage.
The man raises his eyebrows. "I'm not a stranger," he says, face impassive. "Rin's my friend. We went to school together."
Kesegi notes the slight hitch in voice when he says friend. He's good at reading people. Living with his parents, he had to be, to avoid a scolding or a beating when he could. Another thing Rin had left him with when she'd flounced off to school, where she had apparently been friends with one of the people currently holding him captive.
"What's your name?" Kesegi asks, heart racing. "To prove yourself. Rin told me all about her friends at Sinegard in her letters. So prove it."
He's lying out of his ass. Rin had never written him a letter, not once in her four years there. The man must know this too, because he laughs, a touch of derision in the sound.
"Rin didn't write to you," he says, a smirk tugging at his lips. Kesegi suddenly feels very cold, and very angry all at once. "None of us even knew she'd had a foster brother until she found you in the refugee camps."
Kesegi hates him. Hates his stance, his mean laughter, his scars, his face, so much. But most of all, he hates the way the man places emphasis on foster brother.
"I'm her brother," he says, voice hard. In his mind, there's no difference, blood-related or not. He's her brother, and she's his sister. That's all he's ever known, and that makes her absence sting in a way it hasn't for years, having slowly made peace with the fact that she'd left him alone. It stings worse, with this new knowledge, that she'd never mentioned him to anyone, not even once, in all the time she's been gone.
He doesn't want to show any of this weakness to this man. Not when he's already backed into a corner.
"Mm." The man strides into the room fully, shutting the door behind him. There is barely any light left to illuminate the cell. "Well. To answer your question, I'm Yin Nezha. I really am friends with your sister. And I'd like you to tell me about her."
Again, that word friends, stands out, like a liar's tell. Kesegi doesn't know anything about this man, but he knows that if nothing else, he and Rin aren't friends. But that can only leave him in the enemy category.
"If you're such good friends with her," he sneers, "then why would you need me to tell you about her?"
Nezha doesn't answer, just looks at him, expectant. Kesegi feels his frustration swell because, despite growing up poorer than dirt and barely going to school, he's not stupid. He knows Nezha wants information, real shit, on Rin, because of her mission to liberate the south, to raise an army against the Yins and the Republic.
But Kesegi doesn't have any. And having no information is worse than having even a little, because that makes one useless. And useless people get their heads hacked off in the town square.
Kesegi has no useful information. But he's played dumb enough so far. And the way Nezha is looking at him now—sitting sad and defensive on a dirt floor—with something grossly close to pity, he can tell that Nezha's got a higher level of empathy for poor, abandoned little southern boys than other rich northerners do. Might as well capitalize on it.
Besides—if the way Nezha's mouth had twisted around the word friends earlier, there's history there, between him and Rin. Good or bad, Kesegi doesn't know, but it's something he can use, sooner or later.
"She makes good tangyuan," he whispers, scuffling his feet on the ground, trying his hardest to sound like the miserable abandoned brother he is. He doesn't look at Nezha's face, eyes downturned, glued to the dirt.
Nezha is silent. Then, voice just a bit softer: "Does she?"
Kesegi nods, though internally, he's confused. Any other interrogator would have been frustrated by Kesegi's pathetic answer, but as he glances up at Nezha, the man only looks carefully neutral. "Yes," Kesegi replies. "She used to cook for me. No one else would."
Nezha hums. "Was she a good big sister?" he asks. "Did she take care of you well?"
Kesegi is even more confused. He's wondering if this is even an interrogation at all, or if it's something more personal, on Nezha's end. It must be for him to be humoring him like this.
Kesegi takes a minute to reply. Eventually, he shrugs, lifting his head to meet Nezha's eyes.
"She was," he tells him, "until she left."
Nezha doesn't return for a few days. Kesegi spends those days bored out of his mind, mindlessly drawing and writing inane little doodles into the dirt around him. When he does return, he holds a small plate of food.
"Tangyuan," Nezha tells him, closing the cell door behind him. Kesegi's lip curls, reminded of their last conversation. "Hopefully they're as good as your sister makes them."
Kesegi snatches one off of the plate, because despite his disdain for Nezha, he's fucking hungry. And the bun is good, fresh and warm and chewy in his mouth. He's not had something this delicious in weeks, months, years.
"Slow down," Nezha tells him as he reaches for another one, something strange in his voice. Brotherly, Kesegi would call it, despite not having one. It makes him feel weird, to have Nezha speak to him the way Rin once had. "You'll make yourself sick, eating so quickly."
Kesegi shoves another bun in his mouth, just to spite him. Then, mouth full, he asks: "Why are you here?"
Nezha wrinkles his nose, probably at his lack of manners. "The same reason I came last time," he says. "I want you to tell me about Rin."
"There's nothing to tell."
"I think that there is."
Kesegi shoots him a glare. "I haven't seen her since before the Militia turned up at Arlong. And when I did, she barely told me shit, so you're talking to the wrong person if you want actual information on her."
"Maybe I don't," Nezha replies. "Maybe I just want you to tell me about her as you knew her."
What a ridiculous request. Kesegi can't see this guy's angle, doesn't understand why he's still bothering. Still, the urge to talk about Rin, to remember her before she'd left, tugs at his mind, overpowering his confusion and anger.
"I don't know what you want me to say." He stalls.
Nezha shrugs, sitting down next to him, in the dirt. Kesegi eyes him suspiciously. "Anything will do," Nezha says. "How about your favorite memory of her?"
This is stupid. It's the stupidest situation Kesegi's ever gotten himself into, and yet, he can't help but acquiesce, words tumbling out of his mouth at a pace he can't keep up with, much less Nezha, who can probably barely understand his southern dialect.
"It was years ago," Kesegi starts. "I don't remember it very well. But there was some sort of festival in town, the center of Tikany. Mother had shut down the shop for the day, and Rin had taken me to go watch the dancers in the square. She bought me a fruit stick at a stand, and wiped the sticky juice off of my face when I was done. She held my hand the entire time."
He doesn't understand why Nezha is still listening. None of this information is useful to him, or to his Republic. But Nezha's gaze is soft, thoughtful. When he speaks, he sounds reflective, almost fond.
"That sounds fun. You know, my older siblings never took me anywhere."
"I imagine you never wanted for much anyway," Kesegi sneers. Nezha flinches, just a little bit, and something inside Kesegi crows with victory, a jab well-landed.
"No, I didn't," he admits. "But it sounds like Rin took good care of you. It sounds like she loves you."
It's Kesegi's turn to flinch. "If you're thinking of using me as bait," he says, slowly, warningly, "then you're just plain stupid. Rin won't come for me, no matter what you say to her."
"Are you sure?" Nezha sounds curious. "I think she would. And I think we've established that I know her far better than you."
Kesegi hisses, scooting away from him. "She's left me too many times to come for me now," he spits, trying hard to prevent his voice from trembling. Then, something occurs to him.
"She's left you too, hasn't she?" he asks, tauntingly, and relishes in the way Nezha's face spasms. "I can't believe I didn't put it together before. You're not here because you want information on her. You're here because you miss her."
It's astonishingly pathetic. Kesegi knows he doesn't exactly have room to speak, considering all he ever does is get left behind by Rin, but now there's someone he can take it out on.
"That's so sad," Kesegi barrels on, back straight against the wall now, sneering over at Nezha. "She left you after Arlong, turned against you, and what? Now you're chatting up her stupid little brother, trying to rebuild her presence in your mind."
"Do yourself a favor, and stop talking," Nezha says through gritted teeth. Kesegi shakes his head.
"But you still don't know her as well as you think you do. She won't come for me, she won't come for you. Not until it's all over. You should get that through your head, I think—"
Nezha slams a palm into the dirt, a surprisingly loud smack that startles Kesegi from finishing his taunt. He hates unexpected noise, and for a moment, he thinks Nezha might hit him, backhand him, kick him, something, like how Mother used to do, first to Rin and then to him.
"Let's test that, shall we?" Nezha says. He's breathing hard through his nose, barely looking at Kesegi. "Tomorrow. I'll bring you some supplies, and you can write her a letter yourself. See if she comes."
"And I suppose you'll be reading this letter after I write it?" Kesegi snarks. Nezha smiles meanly, standing to leave.
"Someone has to make sure that it's legible."
The dig at his education stings, but Kesegi just glares, leaning back against the wall, watching as Nezha shuts and locks the cell behind him, striding out into the hallway. He leaves the tangyuan behind.
Kesegi picks one up, crams it into his mouth, and stares at the wall, thinking of tomorrow and all the things he'll be able to say to Rin.
Nezha makes good on his promise. The next day, he's dragging a writing desk into Kesegi's cell, a scroll and writing brush tucked haphazardly under his arm.
"Alright, here," he says, shoving the desk against the wall, before going back into the hallway briefly to grab a chair. He places the scroll and brush down, along with a pot of ink. Kesegi scowls as Nezha ushers him into the chair, standing above him at the desk. He doesn't like the inherent power play here, him sitting while Nezha towers above him. But what else did he expect?
"I don't know what to write," Kesegi says, once again stalling for time. He knows exactly what he wants to say to Rin. "I don't know where to start."
"Hello is usually a good place," Nezha says, dryly. Kesegi picks up the brush, dips it into the ink, and writes Hello, Rin, the characters familiar from hours spent trying to write letters to her at school, only to realize he had no way to send them to her, no address. He pauses after the greeting, overly aware of Nezha hovering over his shoulder, watching his every move.
"Damn," Nezha mutters, likely to himself. "Your handwriting really is awful."
Kesegi bristles. "Could you move, please?" he snaps. "Letter-writing is a private business."
He expects Nezha to snap back at his blatant disrespect, but he only raises an eyebrow. "You're not writing a personal missive. You're writing a hostage plea and a negotiation. Don't forget your place in all of this, kid."
Kesegi grits his teeth. He knows it's futile, but he really would rather write this letter without someone watching. Something about writing to Rin, knowing she'll read it, knowing she'll think of him, makes something in his chest twist and writhe, an old pain begging to be acknowledged. So he pulls the card he's been falling back on this whole time, and slips into the mask of the abandoned little brother, smarting and aching from the absence of his sister.
Nevermind the fact that the mask isn't really a facade.
"Please," Kesegi asks. He allows his voice to tremble. He meets Nezha's eyes, sticks out his bottom lip just so. Kesegi can see how it affects Nezha in real time, watches as Nezha's face spasms and twitches, as his eyes go reluctantly soft, as his mouth purses in relent.
"Fine," Nezha says. "I'll wait outside. But I'm still reading it before it's sent."
Kesegi can cope with that. He nods, and Nezha gives him one last look before leaving.
"Remember the terms I gave you," he says, right before he shuts the door. And then, Kesegi is alone.
With a sigh, he turns back to the scroll, gnawing at his lip. There's so much he wants to say. He picks up the brush, swipes it through the ink pot.
They told me to write this in my own hand, but I don't see how it could have made a difference seeing as I could barely write when you left, so you wouldn't have recognized it anyway.
This is Kesegi, if you hadn't pieced that together. He writes. I've been in the New City prisons for a while and it was my fault, I got stupid and bragged to some people that you were my sister and I knew you, and then the talk trickled up to the guards so now here I am.
I'm sorry I did this to you. I really am. He pauses after this, mind blank. There's more he should say here, but he can't bring himself to write it down, and besides, Nezha is right. This isn't a personal missive. But that doesn't mean he can't turn it into one anyway.
Your friend says to tell you that this doesn't have to be difficult. He said to tell you I walk free if you'll come to the New City yourself, but if you bring an army then they'll behead me above the city gates. He said that this doesn't have to end in bloodshed, and that he only wants to speak. He says he doesn't want a war. He's prepared to grant clemency to every one of your allies. He only wants you.
The terms are so idiotic, even a peasant idiot like Kesegi can see that Rin is never going to give into them. He's not sure where Rin is or how many followers she's amassed, but he figures she must be a credible threat to the Republic if Nezha is using him as a bargaining chip. And Rin will never sacrifice her advantage for one life, even if it's her younger brother's.
Kesegi taps the brush a bit, flicking ink droplets across the top of the scroll. He can't just leave it at that. Not if these are likely going to be his last words to his sister.
Although to be honest— I think it's more than that for him. I think he wants more than your surrender. I think he wants you back at his side. The way he speaks of you—it's almost as though he thinks you're going to come back willingly, back into his arms. The difference between him and me is that I know you won't. You're too smart for that. Once you see a way out, you take it. You've showed me that better than anyone.
I'd never presume to offer you advice, he writes, swiping the brush across the scroll delicately. Family dynamics and all that. You're the older sibling, blah blah blah. But I want you to know that you have my support no matter what course of action you choose to take. If that means leaving me to rot, then so be it. If that means leaving me here to be beheaded, then so be it. You've come too far to let me get in the way of your destiny.
A droplet of water lands on the characters he's painting, and that's when Kesegi realizes he's crying—silent, shuddering huffs of breath escape him, as though they're being wrenched out of him.
Please don't worry about me. I know you will, when you receive this letter. I'll be fine. I always am, eventually.
I love you.
~ Fang Kesegi
He places the brush back into the ink pot, blows on the scroll to set the ink and hopefully dry the marks left by his tears. The sound of him rolling the scroll back up must alert Nezha that he's finished writing, and Kesegi watches as the man strides back in, hand held out to take it from him.
He holds his breath as he watches Nezha read, eyes scanning slowly across the page, likely trying to decipher his messy calligraphy. He watches as Nezha's brows furrow the further he reads, winces as Nezha raises his eyes to his, jaw clenched in anger.
"What is this?" he demands, shaking the scroll. "I told you exactly what to write. You went off on a useless, and, to be quite frank, treasonous tangent. Why can't you just do what you're told?"
Kesegi tilts his chin up. He won't bow down, not on this. "She's my sister," he says, like it'll do anything. Nezha's eyes only narrow further. He grabs for the writing brush.
"No!" Kesegi shouts, watching as Nezha smears dark, inky lines across the last few paragraphs he'd written, the ones bearing his heart to Rin. He stares in dismay as the characters become illegible stains on the scroll. Horrifyingly, he feels tears well up in his eyes yet again.
"Why would you do that?" he asks in a whisper, all former bravado gone in an instant. Nezha just blows on the ink blots, nostrils flaring.
"Because you forget your place, once again, you insipid little beast."
Kesegi feels a flare of rage. "Fuck you!" he howls, sinking to his knees onto the dirt floor. "You fucking asshole!"
"Watch how you speak to me," Nezha snaps, rolling up the scroll deftly. He sneers down at Kesegi. "You're just as stubborn and as obstinate as your damn sister."
Kesegi bares his teeth up at him, though the effect is likely diminished by the fat tears rolling down his skinny cheeks. "I guess she taught me well," he hisses, fists clenched. Nezha just stares right back, a tick in his jaw.
"This would all have been so much easier if you'd cooperated. If you'd listened to what you were told to do." Nezha's voice is shaking. Kesegi can't tell what the emotion is behind it: anger, concern, despair. All he knows is that something about his disobedience and his tears have struck a nerve with Nezha. "Why can't you just fucking listen to me?"
"You know why," Kesegi mutters in defeat. Nezha looks away, visibly fuming. For a moment, Kesegi thinks he might lean down and shake him. But Nezha just shakes his head and tucks the scroll under his arm, turning to leave.
"It's been a pleasure, Kesegi," he says stiffly, just before he shuts the door. "Maybe if you survive this, it’ll teach you to listen to your elders better in the future." Nezha looks back, lip curled, eyes sharp. “Let's hope Rin comes for you. Until then, goodbye."
He leaves. Kesegi leans back on his haunches, finally releasing the tortured sobs he's been holding in ever since he watched Nezha ruin his message to Rin. He crawls backward, curling up against the wall, knees to his chest, crying harder than he ever has in his life. He knows it's over.
He knows Rin isn't coming.
“She'd worked through the possibilities in the minutes it had taken Kitay to arrive. She'd weighed the cost of her foster brother's life, and she'd decided she could afford to lose him.”
— The Burning God, p. 100