CW: Explicit language, drug use/abuse, ableist language.
Jun adjusts his grip on the bag of roasted chicken legs. The heat stings his fingers, but he keeps a firm hold in case the food cools too rapidly.
He glances up at the sky, trying to read the dark clouds that hang there, low and foreboding.
“I believe it may rain after sundown, young master,” Mira comments, following his eyeline. “If we hurry, you will make it back to the junkyard in time.”
Jun makes a noncommittal noise and tightens his grip on the bag.
The maidservant touches his shoulder, trying to rouse her distracted charge. “You did the right thing. To allow that man into the soiree was a security risk. If you had not forced him away, I was prepared to use a more aggressive tactic.”
“I am my father’s son,” Jun murmurs. “The Hwan blood is venom in my veins, and I can do nothing to cleanse myself of it.”
“Your blood does not define you, young master. And you have long overcome your father’s control. You are your own man.”
“I am blueblood nonpareil,” Jun spits, a derisive sneer to his tone.
“Jun.” Mira snatches the lord’s upper arm, wrenching him around to face her. He avoids her fierce glare, choosing instead to stare blindly into the void. “I know the mask you wore to that soiree is as authentic as the Marquis. You needn’t convince me otherwise, nor should you indulge in this useless self-abasement.” She gives his arm a warning squeeze before removing her hand. “You should reconsider the target of your ire.”
“The man is a fool, but not worthy of hate.” Jun continues walking, though he seems to be in a more pensive mood. “I was irrational. My emotions bested me. I cannot afford another blunder, not when we have made such progress.”
“I suspect the Marquis is more than just a fool. He has eradicated all competitors for his territory – which is no easy feat in itself. I believe him a dangerous man, young master. You must not underestimate him.”
“Dangerous does not necessarily mean bad.”
“I cannot judge him on the basis of ethics,” Mira says, kicking off her geta slippers. Even if she were walking in mud, she would much rather suffer the discomfort than restrict her movement again. “But I can confirm without doubt that he wears altruism like a flattering garment.”
Jun recalls how brightly Rin clung onto the Marquis. The way he looked up at him, as if he were the moon and stars alike. Was it not Rin who had tried to convince him of the Marquis’ villainy? If not for Jun’s encouragement to exercise in trust, perhaps Rin would never have come to regard Korain with such affections. His love’s expressions of ardour for another curdles his stomach.
This is his doing. He may lose Rin to the Marquis – and all because he encouraged it.
He is the fool, and the last to realise that he is so.
The little lord smiles darkly into the night, scrunching up the bag in his hands. The heat of the chicken scalds his palms. The pain brings a brief clarity.
“I have been foolishly treading the fine line between faith and wilful ignorance,” he mutters, finding new purpose in his stride. “But no longer, Mira. I will heed your words.”
“Very good, young master,” the maidservant suppresses a smile of her own, and quickens her pace. “I was wondering how long it was going to take.”
“Apologies, Mira. As a wise woman often tells me, I am often prone to over-confidence.”
“Now that is something of your father’s you will never shed.”
As they manoeuvre through the stalls packing up for the evening, they happen across a familiar face manning a ramshackle vegetable stall. The produce is small in number and covered in muck, bruised to inedibility. Yet Kang Dae desperately hawks what little he has to sell, tears streaking down his dirt covered face.
“You won’t ever find cheaper onions in all three districts! A silver for a bag of onions! Sir, sir, won’t you buy a bag? I’ll give it to you for anything, don’t have to be a silver! I’ll take a few coppers, really, just–ackk!!”
The child goes crashing into the stall as the harried passerby shoves him aside, irritated curses gifted in tandem. Kang Dae shouts after the man, cursing him out in far superior colours, before hastily righting the upturned basket of onions.
He sniffs hard, trying to hold back his tears as he huffs on a withered onion, ‘polishes’ it on his filthy shirt, and places it carefully into the basket. His work is meticulous and mindful, stacking the vegetables in aesthetically pleasing rows – although the presentation does little to offset the poor quality of the product.
Jun rouses himself from his shocked stupor and hastens to the stall. “Kang Dae? What is–” And as he nears, he can finally see the bedraggled figures huddling behind the stall, covered in a tattered blanket.
Ga Ram, as bruised and broken as her produce, drowses with a stupid smile plastered across her withered face. She has the sickly visage of the addict, pale, trembling, and sweating profusely. Her pupils are blown to extremes. She is clearly not cognisant.
Worst of all are the young children curled into her side, a boy and a girl, barely above the age of five. They share a stale loaf of bread as they watch their older brother work the stall, innocent eyes heavy as they fight sleep.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“Mira, please assist Kang Dae with the stall.” Jun snaps into keen focus.
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“She won’t talk to you,” Kang Dae mutters, coming to squat beside Jun. He ruffles his younger sister’s head and tucks the blanket tightly around her small form. “Not when she’s like this.”
Jun glances over to him and notices the clear exhaustion on Kang Dae’s face. Pity fills his heart. “Sit for a while, Kang Dae, and share this chicken with the young ones. Mira will fix the stall for you. She is rather good like that.”
Kang Dae accepts the bag and sets about feeding his siblings first, before working on a chicken leg himself. “Not bad,” he muffles through a mouthful, grease dripping from his lips. “Haven’t had anything hot for ages.”
“Save some for your mother,” Jun chides, smiling worriedly. “When was she released?”
“This morning. Weren’t long before she was fiending for the Tea.”
“The Tea?” Jun leans back on his haunches. “What is this Tea?”
“Oh, sorry. Mercy’s Tea, or whatever it is you call it,” Kang Dae scoffs, sucking the marrow out of the chicken bone. “Everyone’s hooked on it. Especially since Blossom ain’t around and the Crow’s dead. There’s nothing but the Tea now.” He pauses, frowning deeply. “I prefer the other stuff. The Tea is worse. Way worse.”
“What does it do?”
“You know what it does. It makes you forget who you are. Makes you stupid. Like a dumb dog or something.” Kang Dae wipes the snot from his nose, leaving a shiny streak across his cheek. Tears well in his big eyes. “It makes you forget your family. Makes you forget how much you love ‘em.”
Jun scrubs a hand through his hair, frustration clashing with rising anxieties. “Do you have any now that I can look at?”
“She drank it all,” Kang Dae grumbles. He tears pieces from another chicken leg and distributes it evenly between the young ones. They accept the food and shove it into their mouths, staring dazedly at the golden-eyed stranger.
Kang Dae attempts to feed his mother, but the morsels fall out of her slack mouth, along with a fresh trickle of drool. It is a pitiable sight indeed.
“Could you tell me what it looks like? I am trying to ascertain what plant it may have derived from.”
“Stop acting stupid,” Kang Dae scowls.
Jun freezes, blood running cold. “…Excuse me?”
“I dunno what game you’re playing at, Hound, but I ain’t falling for it.” He shoves the bag into his mother’s slack arms and leaps to his feet. “Go away. I have a stall to run!”
“Kang Dae, forgive me, but I do not understand–”
“Forgive you? Hah! So you do know that this is your fault?” The young boy shoves past the baffled lord and takes station behind the stall. He yells at Mira to keep her hands off his produce and the maidservant stiffly moves away.
Jun casts a final worried glance at Ga Ram and her now slumbering children, before stretching upright. “Explain to me how this is my fault, so that I may attempt to rectify the problem.”
“If you really don’t know, then you can’t do anything about it.” Kang Dae obstinately turns his back on the little lord, straightening out the baskets on display.
“Mind your manners–” Mira starts, tersely.
“Mira. Please.” Jun shakes his head at her and she leans back on her heels, exasperated. He sighs and pulls out his coin purse, setting it down upon the stall. “This may not be much, but it should be enough for a room at the Sweet Brier for several nights. If you ever need more coin or a friendly ear, know that you are always welcome at the Temple.”
“If you really wanna help, you’d stay away from us. From all of us. You and your stupid gang.” Kang Dae utters his request with the resignation of one much older than his years. He takes the coin purse and slips it into his pocket, but he doesn’t seem anymore relieved by this gift. In fact, the exhaustion in his face deepens.
As they walk away, Jun asks his maidservant with no small amount of hesitation, “Mira…is this all I can do?”
Mira claps a hand to Jun’s back. “For now, young master. For now.”
***
The evening drizzle steams in the bonfire, flames soaring high enough to scorch the belly of the sky. Hounds, deep into their revelry, are in a manic mood, tensile with the grief that refuses to slough from their psyche. There’s no spitroast today, but a cornucopia of substances to mire cognition. Tonight, they seek oblivion.
A freshly bruised Rat counts himself among the inebriated, though he does practice a modicum of restraint lest Korain calls upon him. He broods on the events of that day as he nurses his drink, staring into the core of the fire.
In one second, in that tiny insignificant sliver of time, the entire foundation of his belief, his hopes, his hard-won optimism, had collapsed into a ruin of nothing. Naivety he thought himself shed of, when in truth it had endured after all these years like a stubborn disease, clinging to his insides.
His mind ticks.
“–don’t see why we have to give ‘em shit.”
Happy’s grousing interrupts his thoughts, dragging him to the present. He narrows his eyes at the Hound in irritation.
“Not like they did anything for us to begin with,” Happy continues, taking a hard swig of his drink. A satisfied smack of the lips. “The boss seems very different lately, no? All this change, it doesn’t seem right to me. Feels like he doesn’t care about us anymore.”
His neighbour pipes up, drunkenly knocking shoulders. “Aye, we fight for him, die for him, and he’s yet to say one fucking word! When’s the last time he’s had a drink with us?”
Princess huffs unhappily, swaying where he sits. But he doesn’t say much beyond the odd grunt or two. Even the Marquis’ favourite Hound is unable to speak against his brethren’s discontent.
“He doesn’t need us anymore, not when we’ve won him the Slums.”
“Thinks he can placate us with drink and coin but we’re still stuck in this godsdamned shithole sitting on our asses.”
Happy snorts derisively. “If he has it his way, we’ll be here forever while he lives it up in the High District. You think he’s calling himself the Marquis because it sounds pretty?”
“Seems like he cares more about making himself look good.”
“How much do you think he’s got squirrelled away?”
“More than what he’s giving us, that’s for sure–”
“There’s no point bitching to each other,” Rin interjects, dryly. “If you’re so discontent, go say it to his face.”
“What do you think, Rat?” Happy raises as he peers at the raven. “You’re the Marchioness. You must know what he’s got planned?”
“I know about as much as you,” Rin snorts into his cup before taking a tasteless sip. “Did someone piss in the wine? What is this shit?”
“Oh, let me–” A baby-faced Hound (Dezard? Dallard?) jumps to their feet and replaces Rin’s cup with another, this time filled with a recognisable blue wine. The sickly sweet fragrance is like home.
The raven raises a brow at the eager Hound, mutters his thanks, and loses himself in the River wine for a time. Much better.
“Come on, Rat. You gotta know something. Doesn’t the boss talk to you?” Happy pushes, wrinkling his brow.
“I don’t think they do much talking, Happy!” a Hound yips.
Bawdy laughter erupts in a wave and the Southerner raises his upper lip in irritation.
“Sure, sure,” he says, flapping an impatient hand. “Between the fucking, then. Come on, Rat. We don’t know what this all means for us. What if the Marquis tosses us aside? What do we do then?”
“Do you need him so badly?” Rin retorts, sharply. He sends a piercing glare at the startled Hound over the rim of his cup.
“…He’s the boss, isn’t he?”
“Sure. He’s the boss. But he’s also not your mamá, Happy. As long as you don’t piss him off, you can do whatever the fuck you want.”
“What do you mean by that?” Princess gruffs, giving Rin a perplexed look.
In fact, as he scans his eye around the courtyard, he realises that every Hound is staring at him, awaiting his answer.
His heart skips a beat.
Oh, I see.
Rin lowers his cup and crosses his legs. The crate he’s sitting upon doesn’t afford him much space, but he’ll make it work. “Don’t you have anything you wanna do outside of the Marquis?” he asks the Pack in a more amicable tone. “You always gotta have a side hustle. So if he ever does fuck off, you won’t be left in the lurch, see?”
“Wait – the boss is gonna toss us?”
“The fuck am I supposed to do? I can’t get regular work with one hand!”
“You ain’t gonna make coin as good as this anywhere else.”
“Should we go South? I heard there were some big groups moving down there.”
“The boss ain’t gonna to toss us,” Princess barks, glaring beadily at the drunken louts. The panicked shouts dim to a discontented murmur. Princess huffs and turns back to Rin. “I ain’t gonna go against the boss. When he ain’t around, I’m the one in charge. And I say, we keep doing what we’ve been doing.”
“And what’s that, Princess?” Happy scoffs, tossing his cup into the bonfire. The flames billow and leap in a frenzy before returning to its usual jolly state. “Giving handouts to the assholes who tried to drive us out? I thought we were a gang. The underbelly. Now we’re…charity. I don’t see a future with us in it anymore.”
Rin sighs, resting his chin in his hand. “Why not make a name for yourselves? Do something you’ve always wanted to do, instead of pissing away the time here like a pack of morons? You have the money and means, so do it.”
“…I’ve always wanted to make dolls.”
Every head snaps towards Princess, who rubs his powerful jaw in thought. “Not the cheap wooden kind. Like…the clay dolls they sell in the People’s District.”
A smattering of laughter is at once cut short by Rin’s hum of approval. Confusion reigns as Hounds exchange glances, and then, slowly, uncertainly, their derision turns to an uncertain assent.
Princess blushes and he continues, suddenly bolstered. “And,” he says, grinning, “maybe I’ll make other things too. Fun things. Like spike-covered bats that you can use on yourself or a bear-trap for your di–”
“And what about you, Happy?” Rin cuts in quickly. “You’re a greedy bastard for coin.”
The Southerner blinks at Rin for a solid minute, before cautiously replying, “…Ma–my old lady was a farmer. So I know about growing things.”
The raven lazily sweeps his hand through the air. “So grow your shit here. As long as it’s not Slowane.”
Happy nods, brows furrowed as he considers his words. “I know of a good spot – a clearing in the middle of the yard. Not even the Last Cycle nuts can find it.”
“I’ve always wanted to make swords!” Dellard pipes up, eyes shimmering in excitement.
“You can barely lift a sword! Why the fuck you wanna make ‘em?”
“Don’t get so cocky, you cock!”
Scattered laughter draws a heated glare from the lad, but it only seems to encourage the derision further.
“If he knows how to make swords, won’t that be better for us?” Rin muses, raising a brow. “Considering the rusty pieces of shit you all carry. It’s a wonder we survived the Flock.”
A short silence follows.
“…Yeah. I suppose that’s right.”
“I’ve been asking the boss to get us better weapons for years!”
“My blade snapped in half during training.”
“If we’re attacked now, we’ll be fucked.”
“Reckon you can make my sword, Dellard? I want one as big as me!” Happy asks, eagerly.
“So a dagger?”
“Fuck you.”
Very soon, he’s got the entire Pack spilling their dreams and desires, and offering them various ways of fulfilling them. In truth, it’s not very difficult. Many of the Hounds lack common sense, and relatively speaking, Rin’s been smacked in the head far less than they. So he does his best, and his best turns out to be rather admired.
As the night deepens, their grief turns to hope, and, however disingenuous Rin is being, the Hounds are none the wiser and come to favour him greatly.
And there, sitting hooded and hidden, lost in the drunken crowd, his little lord watches and listens with a smile upon his face.
Later, laden with drink and all his hurts, Rin slips into Jun’s cot, rousing him from his slumber. The raven nuzzles his nape and wraps his arms around his little lord, easing him back to sleep with a murmured promise that’s lost to the night.
… korain you bastard i knew that was slowane he was going to distribute all over the slums
Not fcking human
I knew he was gonna do something like that. I hope that fake marquis trips and dies
Thank you for the chapter!! <3